The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Hence learn that the doctrine and life of Christ must be imitated by every man who wishes to be truly enlightened, and to be purged from all blindness of mind. S. Thomas à Kempis lays this down as an axiom in his golden book (De imitatione Christi), which contains as many axioms as sentences, which I study daily with much delight and profit. I know many who are striving after perfection, and who strive to conform their several actions to some one action, doctrine, or saying of Christ, ever looking at it as their ideal, and endeavouring to set it forth in all their actions. This is a pious and profitable means of attaining perfect holiness. For Christ was specially given as a mirror of sanctity. For what is more holy than the Saint of saints ? What brighter than the Sun, and Light Itself? what wiser than Wisdom Itself?
Ver. 13. — The Pharisees therefore, &c. That is, it is not worthy of credit. For no one is accepted as a witness in his own case, but must produce other witnesses (see above, v. 31).
These were not the same Pharisees as those who had accused the adulteress, but others, who wished to avenge the disgrace of their fellows, and in their malevolence against Christ, brought this charge against Him, to put Him to shame. “ Being nurtured in ignorance," says S. Cyril, “and not knowing Him to be Emmanuel, they suspected Him of aiming at His own glory, and attack Him, as though one of ourselves.”
Ver. 14 .—Jesus answered, &c. Not only true in itself, but such as ought to be accepted and believed. This testimony of the Light is true, whether it show or hide Itself, says S. Augustine. The light itself needs no other witness. It shows itself clearly by its own light to be bright and shining. And thus is Christ the Light of the world, showing Itself to the world by Its miraculous works. Christ needed not any other witness, and yet He brings forward the highest and most indisputable witness, even God the Father.
For I know whence I came , and whither I go. And therefore My testimony is true, as being confirmed by the testimony of God the Father, says the Gloss. This I know, but ye do not, because ye will not know, though ye ought to know it both from My miracles and My words. But I know that I was sent from heaven, as the Messenger of the Father, being the Son of God, and Very God, from Very God. And when My ministry is over I shall return to Him again. So S. Augustine and Leontius. But He speaks obscurely, lest He should seem to boast, and for fear of kindling the more the anger of the Jews against Him. He might else have spoken more plainly. I am the Son of God, and therefore My testimony is true and legitimate, for the testimony of God, Who is the chief and irrefragable truth, is indisputable. “ He wished the Father to be understood,” says S. Augustine, “from Whom He departed not, when coming to us, as He left not us when He returned to heaven. But as the Sun shines on those that see and those that are blind, though the one sees and the other does not, so the wisdom of God is everywhere present, even to unbelievers, though they have not the eyes to behold Him,” distinguishing thus His friends and enemies.
Ver. 15. — Ye judge after the flesh. (1.) Ye judge of Me, not according to truth and equity, but from the carnal hatred ye have against Me ; as living according to the flesh is to live ill, so judging according to the flesh is to judge unjustly. (2.) From My Body, which ye see, ye count Me a mere man ; because I am in the flesh ye count Me mere flesh, judging wrongly. And thus ye rule that Truth can lie. For I am the Truth (S. Cyril).
(3.) Ye judge by your senses alone, by that which ye see of Me ; that I am a mean, poor, abject man, not the Messiah, not God who hides Himself in My flesh ; and therefore ye condemn Me as a proud blasphemer for asserting Myself to be the Son of God. And this ye would not do, if ye judged of Me by reason and the spirit of truth. For this would declare to you that I am what I assert, Messiah, the Son of God. “They saw the man,” says S. Augustine, “but did not believe Him to be God.” And the Gloss, “they thought Him to be a man, who was not to be believed when praising Himself.” “Moreover,” says S. Cyril, “ He acts like a physician who heeds not the insults of his patients who are mad, but applies to them the fitting remedies ; fighting against disease, but not against the patient, whom he wishes to restore to health of body and mind.”
I judge no man , not as ye do, by outward appearance, but according to reason and the spirit. (4.) S. Chrysostom says, “ Because the Jews might make this objection to Christ, ‘ If we judge wrongly of Thee, why dost not thou convince us ? ’ Christ replies, I judge no one. It is not My business. Were I now to judge you, I should assuredly condemn you. But this is not the time for doing so.” (5.) To judge in this place, means to perform a kind of judicial act, and hence it means to testify, or bear witness, for witnesses force as it were the judge to give sentence in accordance with their testimony . And hence a witness is a kind of judge (see Is. lv. 4). For the whole question between Christ and the Jews was with reference to His testimony, whether it could be lawfully accepted. And He maintains that it can be, as He was not alone, but the Father was with him (see S. Ambrose, Lib . v. Epist. 20). And this is plain from what Christ says, verses 17 and 18, “I am He that bear witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me.” But He uses the word “judge” because He seemed just before to have judged the adulteress, which the Pharisees resented. But He meant thereby that He had not judicially acquitted her, though He might have done so, as the Son of God. For I am not a mere man, as ye suppose, nor am I alone, for God the Father is with Me. And in this sense “I judge” is understood in its own proper sense, “ I pass not a judicial sentence.”
Ver. 16. — And yet if I judge (i.e., bear witness of Myself) My judgment (i.e., witness) is true, i.e., fit to be taken in court, for I am not alone , &c. S. Chrysostom explains, “ If I judge, I should justly condemn you, because I should not judge by Myself, but I and the Father together.” But the true meaning is that given in verse 15.
I and the Father that sent Me. “ For I took the form of a servant, but lost not the form of God,” says S. Augustine ; " Thy Incarnation was Thy mission.” And the Interlinear Gloss, “Though I am a man, yet I left not the Father ; though sent in the flesh, yet I and the Father are ever One by Our Godhead ; the judgment of both and the will of both are alike One.” As He says elsewhere, “I do nothing of Myself,” for I have never proceeded to any punishment, which was not in the mind of the Father. “ For whatever thoughts the nature of the Father entertains, the same are completed in Me also, for I shine forth from His bosom, and am the true offspring of His substance,” says S. Cyril.
Ver. 17. — It is also written in your Law (Deut. xvii. 6, xix. 15), that the testimony of two men is true: that is to be admitted by the judge, who can base on it a legal sentence, though the testimony may as a matter of fact be false. But a judge must go by the evidence ; and so his sentences may be legally right, but in reality wrong. If then the testimony of two men be true, how much more must the sentence of two Divine Persons, the Father and the Son, be accepted as most true, most equitable, and most just ? Christ applies this to His own case. For that the Father is with Him, and witnesses to Him, and that He is the Son of the Father, He had more than sufficiently proved, and therefore assumes it. “It is,” says S. Augustine, “a grand and most mysterious question when God says ‘ in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established ; ’ for Susanna was accused by two false witnesses, and all the people witnessed falsely against Christ. But in this way is the Trinity represented as in mystery; for therein is the ever-enduring firmness of truth. If thou wishest to have a good cause, have three witnesses, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Ver. 18. — I am one that bear witness of Myself &c. But thou wilt say, no one’s testimony is accepted in his own case, and therefore Christ’s testimony to Himself ought not to be accepted. But the answer is, that Christ as God witnesses to Himself as man. But God and man are two beings, and in Christ God was different from man : in nature, I mean, not in person. And from this very passage the Fathers gather against both Nestorians and Eutycheans, that in Christ there was one Person, the Divine, but two natures, the Divine and the human. So Cyril, Chrysostom, and S. Ambrose (de Fide v. a). Besides this, God the Father and God the Son bore witness that Jesus was the Christ by the miracles which they wrought both through Him and for Him (see chap. v. 31, 32). And especially when the Father spake in thunder out of heaven, This is My beloved Son. So Bede.