St John Chapter xvii : Verses 1-5
Contents
- St John Chapter xvii : Verses 1-5
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) text, Greek (SBLG) & Latin text (Vulgate); - Annotations based on the Great Commentary of Cornelius A Lapide (1567-1637)
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) text, Greek (SBLG) & Latin text (Vulgate);
St John Chapter xvii : Verses 1-5
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| Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. J-J Tissot. Brooklyn Museum. |
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him.
3 Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
4 I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
5 And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee.
1 Ταῦτα ⸀ἐλάλησεν Ἰησοῦς, καὶ ⸂ἐπάρας τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν εἶπεν⸃· Πάτερ, ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα· δόξασόν σου τὸν υἱόν, ⸀ἵνα ὁ ⸀υἱὸς δοξάσῃ σέ,
1 Haec locutus est Jesus : et sublevatis oculis in caelum, dixit : Pater, venit hora : clarifica Filium tuum, ut Filius tuus clarificet te 2 καθὼς ἔδωκας αὐτῷ ἐξουσίαν πάσης σαρκός, ἵνα πᾶν ὃ δέδωκας αὐτῷ ⸀δώσῃ αὐτοῖς ζωὴν αἰώνιον.
2 sicut dedisti ei potestatem omnis carnis, ut omne, quod dedisti ei, det eis vitam aeternam.
3 αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ αἰώνιος ζωὴ ἵνα γινώσκωσι σὲ τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεὸν καὶ ὃν ἀπέστειλας Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν.
3 Haec est autem vita aeterna : ut cognoscant te, solum Deum verum, et quem misisti Jesum Christum.
4 ἐγώ σε ἐδόξασα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, τὸ ἔργον ⸀τελειώσας ὃ δέδωκάς μοι ἵνα ποιήσω·
4 Ego te clarificavi super terram : opus consummavi, quod dedisti mihi ut faciam :
5 καὶ νῦν δόξασόν με σύ, πάτερ, παρὰ σεαυτῷ τῇ δόξῃ ᾗ εἶχον πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοί.
5 et nunc clarifica me tu, Pater, apud temetipsum, claritate quam habui, prius quam mundus esset, apud te.
Annotations
1. These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said: Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. These are the last words of Christ, when going to His Passion, and like the dying notes of the swan, are full of sweetness, love, and warmth. He teaches us (1.), when trouble is pressing on, to have recourse to prayer, and to ask God for strength to overcome it. (2.) That fathers both earthly and spiritual should, when going away or dying, commend their children to God in prayer. (3.) That preachers should study their discourses, so as to obtain both such power of speech as to move the hearts of their hearers, and so as to gain acceptance with them, that they may understand what they hear, and lovingly carry it out in their lives. “But no vain waste of words may have a place,” says S. Cyril, xi. 14.
and lifting up his eyes to heaven—To teach us, by using the same gesture, to lift up our heart to God.
Each word has its force. “Father” Christ prays as man, but as God-man: hypostatically united to God. He therefore calls God His Father, because He begat the Son as God, and hypostatically united to Him man’s nature (hominem) which He assumed. The Name of Father invites to confidence and love; for what can a father deny his son? It also indicates majesty and power; for as S. Cyril says (Thesaur i. 6), “It is in God a greater thing to be the Father than to he Lord. Because as the Father He begat His consubstantial Son, but as Lord He made the creatures, who are infinitely inferior to Him.”
the hour is come—In the Greek it is in the past tense. It is, that is, the fitting time, almost the last hour of my liberty and life. My seizure, My passion, My cup and death are at hand, when I shall specially need, O Father, Thy grace and help. For then will My Godhead be especially hid, when I shall be nailed to the Cross, as a seditious person, and as aiming at being King of the Jews. I therefore pray Thee to wipe away this infamy, to manifest My Godhead and glorify Me. S. Augustine says (in loc.), “This denotes that all time, and that what He would do at any time, or allow to be done, were all ordered by Him, who is not subject to time. The hour is come, not by the force of destiny, but by God’s ordering. Be it far from our thought that the stars should compel the Maker of the stars to die.”
glorify thy Son—But what glory and glorification does Christ here ask for? (1.) Some understand His Passion and death; this indeed was great glory to Christ. For by it He reconciled men to God, He abolished sin, He overcame the devil, He destroyed death, He procured for us life and glory. So Origen, Hom. 6 in Exod.; S. Ambrose, Hexam. iv. 2; S. Hilary, Lib. iii. de Trinit., who says, “He was to be spit upon, to be scourged, to be crucified. But the Father glorifies Him by the sun withdrawing its light, by the earth trembling, by the witness of the Centurion.” The cross therefore was in itself a dishonour to Christ, but in its fruits it was glorious.
(2.) S. Augustine (in loc.) and Ribera consider that this glorifying of Christ was in His resurrection, ascension, His being seated at the Right Hand of the Father, and His sending the Holy Spirit. I offer Myself (He would say) to an ignominious death for Thy glory, and for the salvation of men, whom Thou hast chosen from all eternity. Do Thou glorify Me, that in My Passion I may appear as thy true Son; and afterwards rise again and ascend into heaven; that men, for whom I die, may thus believe in Me, that Thy Godhead, power, and goodness may be acknowledged, and that Thou mayest be adored by all. Hear S. Augustine: “If He is glorified in His Passion, how much more in His Resurrection? He says therefore, the hour is come for sowing in humility, delay not Thou the fruit thereof in glory.” (3.) More correctly, and to the point. This glory was the manifestation of Christ, to be the Son of God. This was the end and scope of His Incarnation, as He explains in the next verse, and so its meaning is, “Thou hast sent Thy Son into the world to redeem it. My Passion, whereby many will be offended and fall from Me, is at hand. I pray Thee, O Father, to glorify Me, that men may not contemn and despise Me for My death on the cross, but may acknowledge Me as Thy Son, and Very God, and thereby obtain grace, righteousness, and salvation.” Christ asks that this purpose of God may be manifested to the world, to the end that this His mighty work may attain its end and object. Glorify Me then by miracles, the earthquake, the rending of the veil, the opening of the tombs, &c., by My speedy Resurrection, by My Ascension, the conversion of the whole world, that all may recognise Me as God, and the Saviour of the world.
It is clear then that all these three interpretations come to the same point. Glory and distinction mean the same thing, as is shown by many heathen authorities. It is also plain that this glorification properly relates to Christ’s manhood, and that it should be acknowledged as united to the Godhead. Consequently it is an acknowledgment of His Godhead. For by its being made known to the world that Christ’s manhood was united to the Godhead, it was made known also that God of His boundless mercy humbled Himself to be born, and to die for us from His supreme love for man.
Arius used to object. The Son seeks to be glorified by the Father, therefore the Father is greater than the Son. S. Basil retorts by quoting the words which follow, “That Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” The Son therefore glorifies the Father quite as much as the Father glorifies the Son. Morally, Christ teaches us here, that God turns into glory any ignominy which has been incurred for His name, and that the greater the ignominy, so much greater is the glory. And that ignominy is the true way to glory, according to the Apostle’s words (Phil. ii.7, seq.)
And in like manner, SS. Peter and Paul, having been evilly entreated and put to death by Nero, attained to the highest glory, so as to be lords not only of Rome but also of the whole world, and to have had their statues placed on the columns of Trajan and Antonine, in the place of these two Emperors.
The Gentiles had some faint notion of this. As Agesilaus said that the way to obtain undying glory was to despise death. And so also Alexander, Julius Cæsar, and many others, gained their renown in war by despising death (see Horatius, Carm. i. 12).
Hence the Spaniards have an axiom to the same effect.
Apostolic men should be more ready to say the same, for what is earthly glory to heavenly, human to divine, temporal to eternal? See Rom. viii. 18. And the Apostle speaks elsewhere of the eternal weight of glory: For the Holy Trinity, all the countless angels, all the hosts of the blessed prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors will glorify through all eternity the champions of virtue.
that thy Son may glorify thee.—By showing that I am not a mere man, but the God-man, sent by Thee for the salvation of man. And I ask this, not for Myself, as being greedy of glory, but that it may come back to Thee, as the Fount and Author of all My glory, that so I may in turn glorify Thee by making Thee known to the whole world. Christ did this (1.) “Because when the Son is glorified the Father is glorified also,” says S. Cyril; and so also S. Hilary (Lib. iii. de Trinit.) says, “He shows that the virtue of the Godhead is the same in Both; for the glory of the Son is the glory of the Father.” (2.) Because when this great mystery of godliness, viz., the Incarnation of the Word and by it the salvation and redemption of men, was made known, all who heard and believed it praised the boundless compassion, wisdom, and omnipotence of God the Father, which He manifested in this His work. (3.) Christ especially glorified His Father by the living voice of His doctrine and preaching. For Christ preached the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and in many places of St. John He magnifies God the Father, saying that He was sent by Him, and ascribing to Him everything He had received. Hear S. Augustine (in loc.), “God was known in Judea only, but it was by the Gospel of Christ that the Father was made known to the Gentiles. He saith therefore, Glorify Thou Me, raise Thou Me up, that through Me Thou mayest be made known to all the world.”
Note the word “Thy Son;” for, as S. Hilary says (Lib. iii. de Trinit.), “There are many sons, but He was the proper, the Very Son, by origin, and not by adoption, in truth and not in name, by nativity and not by creation.”
2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh. Because Thou, O Father, hast given Me power over all men, give Me also the glory which is necessary for its exercise and proportionate to it, that, as My Power is more ample over all men, so may My glory be most ample and be spread over all nations. Just as a viceroy says to a king, As thou hast given me this delegated power, give me also the agents and means which are necessary to sustain it. But the power of Christ is over all men, not merely as He is God, but as He is man. For the Father hath subjected all men to Christ as man, as their Prince and Saviour, and has committed them all to His care and guidance in order that He may, as far as possible, labour to save them all. He has therefore put the salvation of all men into His hands. “All flesh” then means that the preaching of the gospel should extend to the whole world, says S. Chrysostom.
that he may give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. That is, that I should rightly exercise the power entrusted to me, viz., that I should bring all men, as far as lies in me, to eternal life; for this knowledge of My glory, which is faith in Me, is necessary for their attaining salvation. But thou wilt say, Christ gives not eternal life to all men; few are saved, the many are lost. S. Chrysostom and Toletus reply, that Christ, for His part, gives eternal life to all, in giving His merits, His doctrine, His sacraments, His peace, and other means of salvation to all. And if they use them aright they will attain to eternal life. But because the many refuse to use them, it is by their own fault that more are lost than saved. Jansen adds that Christ more especially speaks of the predestinate only: for those did the Father give more especially to Christ (see below, ver. 16). Christ therefore gives His elect eternal life in an effectual manner, but to the reprobate merely sufficiently so that these may be saved possibly, but they only will be saved actually.
3. Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. This saying agrees exactly with what precedes. Christ gives the reason for seeking to be glorified. Because this glorification is the knowledge of God and of Christ, which is the only way to eternal life. His argument is this, “Glorify Me, that I may glorify Thee, so that by this glorifying or manifestation they may attain eternal life.” For life eternal consists in knowing Thee, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent, in order that they who believe in Him may be saved. For no one can be saved, except by Faith in Christ.
this is eternal life. (1.) S. Thomas (Par. i. Quæst. xii. 4 and 6, and par. iii. Quæst. iii. art. 4, and Contra Gentes iii. cap. 61, and elsewhere), understands these words in their formal sense, and hence proves that the essence of beatitude consists in an act of the intellect, not of the will. And he thus explains it, “Glorify Me, that thus the faithful may obtain eternal life, which consists in knowledge, i.e. in the vision of the Father and the Son.” (2.) Cajetan and Jansen think that “knowledge” in this place, is the knowledge both of the way and of the country. It therefore does not mean to “see Thee,” which is the portion of the Blessed, but to know Thee, which belongs to those who are but on the way. For eternal life begins here by faith, and will afterwards be consummated in sight. (3.) These words must be explained literally in a causal sense. “This is life eternal, i.e. this is the cause of, the way to life eternal, to believe in Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” See John iii.16, vi. 47. The effect here is put for the cause, as in John xi. 25: I am the Resurrection and the Life, i.e. I am the causes or the author of life, and also xii. 50; I know that His commandment is eternal life, i.e. the cause of it, and 1 John v. :4 and S. Cyril (xi. 16) affirm that faith and the practice of true piety are the root and origin of eternal life. Faith is in truth the beginning of the Beatific Vision. For it produces hope, hope charity, charity good works, by which we obtain eternal life.
Lastly, S. Augustine thus combines these three meanings, “If the knowledge of God is life eternal, the more we advance in this knowledge, the more do we advance in eternal life. But this will be perfect, when there is no more death. There will then be the highest glorifying of God, because there will be the highest glory. But glory is defined thus, as the frequent speaking of a man with praise. But if a man is praised, when credit is given to what is commonly said of him, how shall not God be praised, when He is beheld? ‘Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord: they shall praise thee for ever and ever.’ ” (Ps.LXXXIII. 5).
That they may know thee, the only true God. Hence the Arians infer that Christ is not true God. In reply, (1.) S. Augustine (in loc.), Bede, and others, connect together Jesus Christ and the Father under the one term “Deity,” and interpret thus, As the Father is true God, so is the Son also true God. (See S. Hil. lib. ix. de Isaiah.) The statement would otherwise be imperfect, for if we believed that the Father alone was true God, we could not have anything else to say about Jesus Christ, unless we understood that He was true God also. The Fathers, in fact, infer from this Christ’s Godhead. (2.) S. Chrysostom, Cyril, and others reply that the word “only” does not exclude the Son and the Holy Spirit, but merely idols and false gods. And the meaning is that they may believe in Thee, who art that God, who only is the true God, as is also the Son and the Holy Spirit. That the Son is true God is sufficiently indicated, when it is said that eternal life consists in the knowledge of Him and of the Father alike. For eternal life necessarily consists in (the knowledge of) the one supreme and true God. (See S. Ambrose de Fide, v. 2.) Christ therefore through modesty does not call Himself God, but one sent by the Father, as the Redeemer of the world. For such He was when Incarnate, and made man. And hence we infer that faith in the Incarnation and the Trinity is required in order to salvation. For the Father cannot be fully believed in, apart from the Son and the Holy Spirit, for the Paternity of the Father requires also the breathing forth of the Holy Spirit.
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Thou wilt say the Holy Spirit is here omitted, and accordingly He is not God. But the word “only” merely excludes the gods of the heathen, who have another nature, and not the Holy Spirit, Who has the same nature as the Father.
But why is the Son alone mentioned, and not the Holy Spirit? (1.) Euthymius replies, Because the time for speaking about Him had not arrived. But Christ had already promised the Holy Spirit to His disciples, and said a great deal about Him. (2.) Ribera thinks that it was in order to maintain the greatness of His origin, and just as the Son attributes everything to the Father, as proceeding from Him, so likewise eternal life is ascribed to our knowing the Father and the Son. And though the Holy Spirit is understood, yet He is not named, because the Father and the Son are the source of His being, whereas He is not the source of any Divine Person, but derived everything from the Father and the Son. See above, chap. xv. 26. (3.) Christ does not mention the Holy Spirit, because He was wholly engaged in enforcing faith in Himself, as God and man. And this specially needed to be inculcated, both because it was a new doctrine, and difficult of belief, and also because it was the basis of all other articles of belief, and moreover because in that belief was involved belief in the Holy Spirit, of whom Christ had already spoken. The Holy Spirit is therefore here understood, because, as S. Augustine says, “He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son,” being the consubstantial Love of them Both.
4. I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.The work of preaching and redemption, for which Thou didst send Me into the world, I shall in a few hours consummate after the brief period of My Passion and Death. And I am about to commit the teaching thereof to the Apostles. S. Augustine says, “I have glorified Thee by making Thee known to those whom Thou hast given Me. God is glorified when He is made known to men, and is preached to those who believe by faith.” For, as S. Chrysostom says, “He had been already glorified and adored by angels in heaven. He speaks therefore of that glory, which concerns the worship of men.”
5. And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee. S. Augustine, and after him S. Thomas, understand it of the glory which Christ had as man from all eternity, not indeed in act, but in the decree and predestination of God. He asks “that the glory which He had in predestination, he might have in the complete restoration of it to Him at the right hand of the Father; for He saw that the time for His predestined glorification had arrived.” And so Suarez, “Glorify Thou Me with the glory of the Resurrection, to which Thou didst predestinate Me before the world was.”
Others understand it more simply, of the glory which, as Son, He had from the Father, in sitting at His right hand, as equal to Him in dignity and glory. That is, Grant, O Father, that I may, after My death, ascend into heaven, and sit at Thy right hand as Thy Son, and so be glorified, and acknowledged by men not only to be man but also God. And that by the union of My divine nature to My manhood, that manhood also may be exalted in great glory to Thy right hand. That thus My Godhead may communicate to My manhood which is conjoined with it the glory which It had from all eternity. He asks therefore that the Godhead which was latent in His humanity might be acknowledged, and that both might be glorified together. So S. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius, S. Thomas. Place Me at Thy right hand, that all may understand that I have that glory which in truth I had with Thee from all eternity, and that I am Thy very Son by nature, and equal to Thee. So Cyril (Hil. Lib. iii. de Trin.), S. Augustine, Leontius, Toletus, and many others.
A threefold glory of Christ is here signified. First: The uncreate and uncreated glory of His Godhead and divine Sonship. Secondly, the created and finite glory of His manhood, which it obtained by the Resurrection and all its glorious gifts, and afterwards by His Ascension. For He sitteth at the right hand of God, not as God only, but as man. And His prayer is, Grant that I, who have sat from all eternity at Thy right hand as God, may sit there also as man. The third glory is that by which both these former glories were manifested to the Apostles and the rest of the faithful, for when they saw Him gloriously ascending into heaven, the angels welcoming Him, and the Holy Spirit sent down by Him with the working of so many signs and miracles, by which they converted the whole world to Christ, from all this they acknowledged that Christ was no mere man, but the Son of God, seated as such at the right hand of the Father in supreme majesty and glory, and they preached this through all the world. Christ therefore asks that His first glory may be made manifest by His second, i.e. by the ascension of His manhood into heaven; and that His second glory may be manifested by His third glory, that is, to the Apostles and the rest of the faithful. He asks, in short, that His Godhead, like a heart concealed by the mire and shell of His manhood, may shine forth (when death has broken that shell) and diffuse on every side the rays of its glory. Just as the sun disperses by its warmth the clouds which envelop it, and scatters its shining rays in every direction. And when that comes to pass, the glory of Christ will shine forth over the whole world, by His resurrection, His ascension, His sending the Holy Spirit, and the conversion of the Gentiles.
S. Chrysostom by His glorification understands His Passion, and thus addresses Him, “What sayest Thou? When Thou art about to be led to the Cross with robbers and malefactors, and to undergo the death of the accursed, to be spit upon, to be beaten with rods and blows; callest Thou that glory? Indeed I do, for I shall suffer all this for those I love, &c. If then He counts it not glory to be on His Father’s throne, but to suffer contumely, how much more must I reckon that to be glory?” And a little before, “If Christ counted it not so great a thing to be in glory, as to endure the Cross for my sake, what, I ask, ought I not to endure for His Name?”
Here note that “with Thee” is the same as “from Thee.” For the Son derives His Godhead and all His glory from the Father. Or it may mean “In Thy presence,” for though no angel or man were to glorify Christ, yet would He have infinite praise and glory in the Father’s presence. For with such honours the Father lauds and glorifies the Son, and the Son in turn glorifies the Father. And so also with regard to the Holy Spirit. Hence we sing the Gloria Patri at the end of every Psalm. Indicating the glory with which Each Divine Person glorifies the other two, and is in turn glorified by Them. 3. With Thee indicates the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. See John i.1, and notes.
Therefore some heretics, as S. Augustine testifies, wrongly suppose that this glorifying was caused by the manhood in heaven being converted into the Godhead. This is impossible, for in this case the manhood of Christ which suffered would not be glorified. For it would no longer exist, when changed into the Godhead. There would be Godhead only. The manhood therefore participates in the glory of the Godhead (far above all angels and men), as being hypostatically united to it. Just as the air participates in the light of the sun, and the blessed participate in the glory of God. So SS. Chrysostom, Hillary, Ambrose, and Athanasius, writing against the Arians.
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SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
The Vladimirskaya Icon. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
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