The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Moreover, the analogy of the Divine compared with human
generation is so entirely different as to refute the Arians. For in things human the father is greater than his son. 1st. Because he is prior, and senior to the son. 2d. Because he is greater in stature and bulk, for a grown-up man generates a little infant. 3d. Because he produces a nature numerically different from himself, which he communicates to his son. Wherefore he is greater than that
nature as being its author. 4th. Because of his own free will he begets a son. For it was possible to him not to have begotten. But in things Divine the manner is altogether different. For the Father is greater than the Son neither in age nor size : neither does He beget a Deity different from His Own, but communicates to the Son the same Deity which He Himself has. Neither does He beget of His own will, so to say, but of the natural fruitfulness of the Divine Nature He produces a Son the equal of Himself, nor can
He produce another. Lastly, S. Cyril, in the Council of Ephesus, proves that the Father is greater than Christ in so far as Christ is man, but not in that He is God, after this manner : — “ We acknowledge Him (the Son) to be in all respects as the Father, to be incapable either of turning, or of change, and to have need of nothing, a perfect Son, like unto the Father, and differing from Him only in this respect that the Father is unbegotten. For He is the perfect and express Image of the Father. And it is certain that the Image ought fully to include all those things in which the Pattern itself, which is greater, is perfectly expressed, even as the Lord Himself hath taught, saying, the Father is greater than I.”
Ver. 29. — And now I have told you, &c. That is, and now I foretell to you My departure and death, My resurrection and return to you, not that ye should condole with Me, and look after your own safety, but that, when ye see those things fulfilled, ye may believe that I foreknew and foreordained them all, and therefore that I submitted to death, not of necessity, but of My own free-will, for your salvation and that of the world, and therefore that ye may believe that I am the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour.
Ver. 30. — I will not henceforth talk much with you , &c. For this is not the time to speak much, but to conclude, for the prince of this world , to whom worldly men are subject, by sinning after their own will, cometh . That is, he cometh to take and kill Me. For Christ said this when Judas was approaching with the officers, who were sent by the chief priests to take Him.
But he hath nothing in Me , i.e. he cometh to take Me, but he hath no power over Me, because he will find nothing of sin in Me, nothing of that which caused Adam and his posterity to die. Wherefore he must unjustly bring death upon Me being innocent. And this I am ready to suffer, that by means of My unjust death I may despoil him of his power, and deliver men from his jurisdiction and tyranny. So Cyril and Chrysostom. The innocence therefore of Christ, and the death of that innocent One, hath delivered all of us, the guilty ones, from harm. And this was that supreme consolation of Christ, which He here brings home to the Apostles. Or, as Maldonatus puts it, “ The devil cometh, to take and kill Me by means of the Jews, but in Me he hath nothing, i.e. he will not be able to overcome or destroy Me, as he hopes ; for although I am about to die, I shall not do so through his power or strength, but of My own free choice, that I may fulfil My Father’s will.”
Ver. 31. — But that the world may know , &c. That is, “ I will die, not compelled by the devil’s servants, the Jews, but freely, out of love and obedience to the Father. For He hath given Me commandment to undergo death for the redemption of men. Wherefore so I do, submitting myself to death.” So SS. Chrysostom, Cyril, &c.
You may say, Christ received commandment from the Father to suffer, to die, and to do the things which He did. Therefore He could not will the contrary, neither was He free, for had He done otherwise He would have sinned. But Christ is impeccable by a twofold title, — 1st, on account of His hypostatic union with the Word; 2d, on account of the light of glory, in that He seeth God. For Christ and the Blessed, because they clearly perceive that God is infinite Good, are so wholly ravished with His love that they cannot either love or will anything which is contrary or displeasing to Him. I reply : the hypostatic union with the Word made Christ impeccable in such manner that the office of the Word was to keep and preserve that humanity which was hypostatically united to
Itself altogether sinless, lest the Word, or God, which upheld the humanity, should be said to sin. But the Word kept the humanity
from sin, not by physically predetermining, so to say, the will of Christ, to obey the Father’s commandment, but only by Its congruous grace, so continually preventing It, and sweetly directing and urging It, as It foreknew future conditional events, that Itself was
(ever) consenting to this grace, and therefore was always freely subjecting Itself to the will of God, and never, even by venial offences, displeasing Him. Moreover, the light of glory constrained indeed Christ, forasmuch as He was blessed to subject Himself in beatific act to the will of God and the decree of death as perceived by this light to be His will. Yet it did not force Him, in so far as He was a wayfarer (viator). For as a wayfarer He had infused knowledge, as we have faith, according to which He was able freely to elicit acts of love and obedience, or not to elicit them, at His pleasure, as we of our free will are able to elicit similar acts. He therefore freely elicited that act by which, in obedience to the Father’s commandment , He accepted the death of the cross, saying, “ Lo ! I come to do Thy will, O God” (Ps. xlvii.) Neither did the prior act determine ex necessitate the subsequent act, because they were altogether incommensurable, and of a different order. For the former is the act of one of the (already) Blessed, the latter act an act of one travelling to the country. See the Schoolmen.
Arise , &c. These words depend upon what went before, and are thus connected, “ That the world may know that I love the Father, and am obedient to His commandment to suffer death, arise, and let us go to the garden of Gethsemane where the Jews await Me to take and kill Me.”
You will ask whether Christ actually rose from the table, and went out of the house towards Gethsemane, and in the way proceeded to utter the things which John records in the three following chapters : and that then, when they were ended, He passed over the brook Cedron, and entered the garden, where he was betrayed by Judas, and taken by the Jews, as John narrates, ch. xviii. 1, &c. Cyril and Augustine answer in the affirmative, and this is probable. Maldonatus and others, more probably, answer in the negative. They think that Christ did not go out of the house. They are of this opinion, 1st, Because John does not say so. 2d, Because Christ could not conveniently, with the apostles following Him, say all things in the way which are related in the three following chapters, so that they could hear and understand them. Christ saith therefore , Arise , because He did actually rise up from the table, and stood upon His feet, and bade the apostles do the same, that they might go away with Him to the mount of Olives. But, as dear friends are wont to do when they are saying farewell, and are hardly tearing themselves away from those they so tenderly love, so did Christ, as they were standing, resume a fresh and longer discourse, prolonging it until the 18th chapter. Then bringing it to a close, He went across the brook Cedron to the mount of Olives. For such is the wont of those who love when they are bidding their mutual good-byes. As Ovid says, when he is going away into exile:
Thrice did I turn my steps,
And thrice the threshold gain :
To linger near with fond regret
My footsteps were full fain.
Farewell, farewell, I cried :
Words full of love I said :
Then, with a last fond kiss,
For ever from it fled.
Tropologically : when any arduous duty is decreed by God, or ordained by our superiors, such as a dangerous journey, death, or martyrdom, let us generously and with alacrity offer ourselves to God as victims of charity and obedience, and freely meet the danger, saying with Christ, Arise, let us go hence . For he who breaks the first onset of fear, by boldly meeting it, has overcome half the difficulty , and will easily vanquish the remainder. Daily experience proves that “He has accomplished the half of a deed who has well begun.”