The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Symbolically , S. Gregory (Moral, xxv. 4) says that eternal Light, which is God, the more changelessly it shines the more piercingly does it see. Even things which are hid it knows well, for it penetrates through all things, and keeps them in memory, because it changelessly abides. And consequently, whenever we conceive in our minds an unworthy thought, we sin in the light. Because It is present to us, even when we are not present to It. And when we walk in crooked ways we stumble against that, from which we are in our deserts far away. But when we believe that we are not seen, we keep our eyes closed in the sunlight. That is, we hide Him from ourselves, but not ourselves from Him.
The same S. Gregory (Epist. vii. 32, ad Dom.) says, “The warmth of the shepherd is the light of the flock. For the priest of the Lord should shine forth in his conduct and life, in order that the people committed to his charge may be able in the mirror of his life to choose what to follow, and see what to correct.”
Ver. 47. — And if any hear My words , and keep them not , I judge him not. That is, does not retain them in his mind, “ believes them not,” as in the Greek, though the Vulgate, agreeing with the Syriac and Arabic, reads “ Keep them not ; ” as Christ explains in the next verse. By the words “ I judge him not,” Christ means, I came not into the world to judge it but to save it. But a man who believes not on Me, is at once condemned and judged by his own wickedness and unbelief, and also by the eternal decree of the Father.
This is plain from what follows. So S. Cyril, Theophylact, Leontius, and others. See notes on chap. iii. 18. This decree of the Father I will execute at the day of judgment, when I shall return to judge the world, as I have now come to redeem it. S. Chrysostom says, “ I judge not,” that is, I am not the cause of his ruin, but he is himself its cause in despising My words.
For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. That is, the inhabitants of the world. “Now,” says S. Augustine, “is the time of mercy, hereafter the time of judgment.”
Ver. 48. — He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him. He that believeth not My words will have God as his Judge, who will judge him by Me at the judgment day. For, as S. Augustine says (de Trinit i. 28), Christ will not judge by His human power, but by the power of the Word of God.
The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day. S. Augustine (in loc.) understands by the “Word” Christ Himself, for He will be the Judge. “He has sufficiently set forth that He will be the Judge at the last day, for He spake of Himself. He announced Himself, He placed Himself as the Door by which He as Shepherd came in to the sheep.” Others more clearly, and with greater force, say, My word heard and not believed in by the Jews will accuse them at the day of judgment, and with mute voice will proclaim them worthy of hell. “ That word,” says Rupertus, “which they heard, which they could not but know to be true, as approved by the wondrous testimony of His miracles, that word will judge, will reprove, will convict. But where will that Judge be seated ? What sentences of judgment will He give from His throne? He will be close at hand. He will hold His court within. He will proclaim full terribly in the conscience of each one His just sentence.” There is a prosopopoeia. The word of Christ is here introduced as a person, and as a witness against unbelievers before Christ as Judge in the day of judgment.
Ver. 49. — For I have not spoken of Myself, &c. This gives the reason why the word of Christ would condemn the Jews, because He spake at the command of the Father, and therefore he who believed not in Him believed not in God. He who despised Him despised God, and would therefore experience Him as his Judge. So the Syriac version. Rupertus somewhat differently says, “ The word which I spake has the force of a judgment, for I speak not of Myself.” SS. Augustine, Ambrose, and Bede think that Christ is here speaking of Himself as God. I, as God, speak not from Myself, but from the Father who gave Me My Divine Nature, and with It omniscience, and My full power of saying and speaking. Hear S. Augustine, “In the Wisdom of the Father, which is the Word, are all the commands of the Father. But the command is said to be given, since He to whom it is given, is not of Himself. But to give to the Son is the same as begetting the Son.” “All these things were said,” says S. Chrysostom, “ for their sakes that they might have no excuse.” And the Gloss, “ The Father gave the command to the Son, by begetting Him, as His Very Word and Wisdom, as He gave Him life by begetting Him who is life.”
More simply S. Cyril and Chrysostom think that Christ is here speaking of Himself as man. For thus did He properly receive a command from the Father to say or speak this or that, and nothing else. Christ speaks of Himself in an humble manner, in order to move the haughty Jews, who believed Him not to be God. As if He said, “ Granting that I am a mere man, as ye think, yet ye ought to believe Me, for I speak nothing of Myself, but all things which I speak I have heard of the Father.” Hence theologians infer (though some deny it) that Christ received a command from God for saying everything He said, and for doing everything He did. For if the Father commanded Him in these lesser matters, He did so in greater matters, as the working of miracles and mighty deeds. What Rupertus says is an adaptation to circumstances. “ I have received a commandment from the Father what to say now forbearingly to those who gainsay Me, and what I shall pronounce terribly in the last judgment, when no one will dare to gainsay Me.”
What I shall say , and what I shall speak. Between saying and
speaking there is this difference. To say ( dicere ) is solemnly to assert anything, to teach, to preach. To speak (loqui) is to say anything in a more familiar manner, colloquially. (See Varro, de Lingua Latina , lib. v., Cicero, de Oratore , and Quintilian, lib. x. chap. 7.)
Ver. 50. — And I know that His commandment is life everlasting. The way which leads to eternal life. “ If thou wouldest enter into life, keep the commandments.” It is also formally eternal life because the commandment of God is that eternal Law which lives in the eternal reason of things, in the living mind of God. But Christ is not speaking of this. And therefore He asserts that the command is eternal life, causally, because it causes, merits, and brings about eternal life. Christ says this, says S. Chrysostom, “ to induce the Jews to believe Him in those things which He spake by the command of the Father, to induce them by the hope of the highest reward, and consequently by the fear of the heaviest punishment if they do not believe in Him. He tacitly threatens them with this by way of antithesis. And to keep them from doubting this He boldly asserts it. I maintain, says Christ, and assert of My own sure knowledge , that the command of God is the cause of eternal life. I have heard it from God Himself, and I therefore know fully and surely that it has been decreed by Him as an inviolable law. In like manner Christ says, “ This is life eternal ” (that is, the way to life eternal), “ to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John xvii. 3).
Christ alludes to Ecclus. i. 5, “ The Word of God Most High is a fountain of wisdom, and the entrance thereto everlasting commandments ; ” and to Baruch iii. 9. “ If then,” says S. Augustine (Serm. clxxxvi. (nunc cclxvii.) De Temp.), “ye wish to have the
Holy Spirit, hold fast to charity, love the truth, long for unity, and ye will attain to eternity.”
Christ therefore summed up all His teaching to the people in this saying, “ His commandment is eternal life,” in order, when he was now going to death, to impress on the Jews and on all who should come after the perpetual memory of eternity, and a longing for life everlasting; to stimulate them to follow His faith and examples. For nothing so stimulates the mind for good, as a serious and frequent meditation on eternity. As the Psalmist says (Ps. cxix. 96), “ I have seen an end of all perfection, but Thy commandment is exceeding broad.” This means, all sublunary things have an end, but the commandment of God has no end. It endures for ever, and leads those who keep it to a blessed eternity, but those who despise it to eternal punishments. Sufferings are momentary, but delights are eternal. But momentary are our delights, our sufferings eternal.
Symbolically , S. Augustine says, “If the Son Himself is eternal life, and the commandment of God is eternal life, what else is meant, but that I am the commandment of the Father? ”
Whatsoever I speak therefore (“ in announcing Myself to be the Word,” says the Interlinear Gloss), even as the Father said unto Me , so I speak. That is, “ As He who is True begat Me who am Truth, so I the Truth proclaim Myself as Truth.” And S. Augustine, “Just as the Father spake as being True, so does the Son speak as being the Truth; the True begat the Truth.”
The genuine printed commentary of S. Cyril here begins again.