Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–111

Tractate 78

TRACTATE 78 On John 4.27–28 e have received, brothers, the words of the Lord, saying to his disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled , nor let it be afraid. You have heard that I said to you, ‘I go away and I come to you.’ If you loved me, you would indeed be glad because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.” For this reason, then, their hearts could be troubled and afraid, because he was going away from them (although he was going to come to them), for fear that perhaps, during the intervening time, a wolf would assail the flock in the Shepherd’s absence.1 But God was not abandoning those from whom the man was withdrawing— and the same Christ himself [is] man and God. Therefore, he was going, due to the fact that he was a man, and he was remaining, due to the fact that he was God; he was going, due to the fact that he was in one place, he was remaining, due to the fact that he was everywhere. Why then would the heart be troubled and afraid when he was departing from the eyes in such a way that he did not depart from the heart? Although even God, who is confined in no place, goes apart from the hearts of those who leave him, by habits, not by feet, and comes to those who are turned to him, not with the face but with faith, and approach him, in mind, not in flesh. (2) However, in order that they might understand that he had said, “I go away and come to you,” in accordance with the fact that he was a man, he added and said, “If you loved me, you would indeed be glad because I go to the Father; for 1. Cf. Jn 10.10–12. 106 TRACTATE 78 107 the Father is greater than I.” Insofar as, therefore, the Son is not equal to the Father, he was going to the Father, from whom he will come to judge the living and the dead; but insofar as the Only-Begotten is equal to the Begetter, he never withdraws from the Father, but is with him everywhere, wholly, with equal divinity, which no place confines. For “although he was in the form of God,” as the Apostle says, “he thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”2 For how could a nature not arbitrarily appropriated but born spontaneously be robbery? “But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,”3 not therefore losing the former, but taking this one, emptying himself in such a way that he appeared lesser here than he remained with the Father. For indeed the form of a servant was attached, the form of God was not detached; this one was taken on, that one was not taken away. Because of this one he says, “The Father is greater than I”; but because of that one, “I and the Father, we are one thing.”4 2. Let the Arian5 give attention to this, and by attention let him be sane; let him not by contention be vain or, what is worse, insane. For such as this is the form of the servant, namely, one in which the Son of God is lesser, not than the Father alone, but also than the Holy Spirit, and not only that, but also than himself, because likewise he himself in the form of God is greater than himself [in the form of the servant]. Nor is it the case that the man Christ is not called the Son of God, that which even his flesh alone in the tomb had the right to be called. For what else do we profess when we say that we believe in the only-begotten Son of God, who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried? And what of him was buried except the flesh without the soul? And for this reason when we believe in the Son of God who was buried, assuredly we call Son of God even the flesh, which alone was buried. (2) Therefore he himself, Christ, the Son of God, equal 2. Phil 2.6. 3. Phil 2.7. 4. Jn 10.30. 5. See Tractate 1.11, note 27. 108 to the Father in the form of God, because he emptied himself , not...