John 17:1-11
At that time, raising His eyes to heaven, Jesus said, Father, the hour has come! Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, in order that to all Thou hast given Him He may give everlasting life. Now this is everlasting life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou have sent, Jesus Christ. I have glorified Thee on earth; I have accomplished the work that Thou hast given Me to do. And now Thee, Father, glorify Me with Thyself, with the glory that I had with Thee before the world existed. I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world. They were Thine, and Thou hast given them to Me, and they have kept Thy word. Now they have learnt that whatever Thou hast given Me is from Thee; because the words that Thou hast given Me I have given to them. And they have received them, and have known of a truth that I came forth from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them; not for the world do I pray, but for those whom Thou hast given Me, because they are Thine; and all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to Thee.
Haydock
Verse 1. Glorify thy Son, by signs and miracles, lest dying so disgraceful a death, I seem to be no more than another man: that thy Son may glorify thee, that my death may make thee praised and glorified. Wi.
Verse 2. Power over all flesh, that he may give life everlasting to all whom thou hast given him. He speaks of himself, as made man, and the Redeemer of mankind. If we ask, who are they, who in this sense are said to be given to Christ: it is true, only the elect, or predestined, are given by a special and uncommon mercy. In this sense S. Aug. says, (tract. 111. p. 779.) They are not said to be given, to whom he shall not give life everlasting. Yet not only the elect, but all believers, nay, all men whatsoever, may be said to be given to him, inasmuch as by his coming to redeem all, sufficient helps and means are offered to all men, whereby they may be saved: and inasmuch as Christ came, suffered, died, and offered up his death for all men. See 2 Cor. v. 15. Wi. — Thou hast given him power over all flesh: by this our Saviour shewed, that his preaching was directed, not to the Jews only, but to every nation of the earth. Are then all saved? Christ has done sufficient for the salvation of all, and if they are not saved, it is the fault, not of him that speaketh, but of those that receive not his word. S. Chrys. hom. lxxix. in Joan.
Verse 3. This is life everlasting; that is, the way to life everlasting, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. The Arians, from these words, pretended that the Father only is the true God. S. Aug. and divers others answer, that the sense and construction is, that they may know thee, and also Jesus Christ thy Son, whom thou hast sent to be the only true God. We may also expound them with S. Chrys. and others, so that the Father is here called the only true God, not to exclude the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are the same one true God with the Father; but only to exclude the false gods of the Gentiles. Let the Socinians take notice, that (1 Jo. v. 20.) the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is expressly called the true God, even with the Greek article, upon which they commonly lay so much stress. Wi. — Life everlasting. Both the life of glory in heaven, and of grace here, consisteth in the knowledge of God; the former in perfect vision, the latter in faith working by charity. For knowledge of God, without keeping his commandments, is not true knowledge, but unprofitable knowledge. 1 Jo. xi.
Verse 5. And now, glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had with thee, before the world was. Glorify me, is the same as make me known to men; so that the sense may be, make men know, that I had the same glory with thee, before the world was created, and from all eternity. Others understand, that Christ as man, here prays that his eternal Father would make known to men, that glory, which it was decreed from eternity should be given him: that is, that all creatures should be made subject to him, even as he was man, and appointed to be judge of the living and the dead. See 1 Cor. xv. 26. Ephes. i. 22. Wi.
Verse 6. To the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. By whom we may understand his apostles and disciples. They were thine, and also mine, as I am God. See v. 10. — And to me thou gavest them, inasmuch as I am become man, their Saviour, their Redeemer, &c. Wi. — Had then the Father any thing which the Son had not? By no means. But Christ, as Son of God, had from eternity what he had not as Son of man; because he had not yet taken flesh of his virgin mother. All that he had as God, he attributes to his Father. S. Aug. tract. 106. in Joan.
Verse 7-8. Now they have known that all things which thou gavest me, are from thee. That is, says S. Aug. they now know, and will know more perfectly hereafter, that I myself am from thee, or proceed from thee, and am sent by thee to redeem the world. Wi.
Verse 9. I pray for them, I pray not for the world. That is, now in this prayer, when I desire special graces and assistances for them, to discharge their duty, as my apostles; yet we must take notice, that (v. 20.) Christ prays for all those, who should believe in him. He also prayed (Luke xxiii. 34.) for all, even for those that crucified him, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Wi. — The prayer I now offer up to thee, O my Father, is all in behalf of my disciples, it is not for the world. I pray not now for the incredulous Jews, nor for such of the Gentiles as shall afterwards believe in me; for them I will pray at another time. At present I speak to thee for my apostles only: they call for my first care, because they are thine, and thou has given them to me.—Calmet. — Jesus Christ prayed with an absolute and an efficacious prayer, for all those, for whom his prayer was to be heard: he begged for them, whatever his Father had predestined to give them; but he asked for nothing, that his Father had predestined not to give them.
Verse 10. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine. They must needs be equal, says S. Aug. to whom equally belong all things, and all persons; on which words S. Chrys. also says, (hom. lxxxi.) Do you see the equality? Wi. — And all mine are thine, and thine are mine: as if he said: whatever thou hast given to me, remains still thine, for mine are thine; and whatever is thine, is likewise mine, for thine are all mine. S. Chrys. hom. lxxx. in Joan.
Verse 11. And now I am no more in the world: that is, I am now leaving the world, as to a corporeal and visible presence: yet S. Aug. takes notice, that Christ saith afterwards, (v. 13.) these things I speak in the world: therefore he was still for some short time in the world. And as to his true invisible presence with his Church, he gave us this promise, (Matt. xxviii. 20.) Behold I am with you all days, even to the end of the world. — Keep them in thy name, whom thou hast given me. Christ, as man, says S. Aug. asks of his Father, to preserve those disciples whom he had given him, who were to preach the gospel to the world. — That they may be one, as we also are. These words cannot signify an equality, nor to be one in nature and substance, as the divine persons are one, but only that they may imitate, as much as they are able, that union of love and affection. See S. Chrys. S. Cyril, and S. Aug. on these words. Wi. — Here Jesus Christ prays especially, that the apostles and his Church may be kept in unity of religion, and free from schism.
Catena Aurea
1. These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3. And this is life eternal, that they might 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, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxx) After having said, In the world ye shall have tribulation, our Lord turns from admonition to prayer; thus teaching us in our tribulations to abandon all other things, and flee to God.
BEDE. These things spake Jesus, those things that He had said at the supper, partly sitting as far as the words, Arise, let us go hence; (c. 14:31.) and thence standing, up to the end of the hymn which now commences, And lifted up His eyes and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxx. 1) He lifted up His eyes to heaven to teach us intentness in our prayers: that we should stand with uplifted eyes, not of the body only, but of the mind.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. civ) Our Lord, in the form of a servant, could have prayed in silence had He pleased; but He remembered that He had not only to pray, but to teach. For not only His discourse, but His prayer also, was for His disciples’ edification, yea and for ours who read the same. Father, the hour is come, shews that all time, and every thing that He did or suffered to be done, was at His disposing, Who is not subject to time. Not that we must suppose that this hour came by any fatal necessity, but rather by God’s ordering. Away with the notion, that the stars could doom to death the Creator of the stars.
HILARY. (iii. Tr. c. 10) He doth not say that the day, or the time, but that the hour is come. An hour contains a portion of a day. What was this hour? He was now to be spit upon, scourged, crucified. But the Father glorifies the Son. The sun failed in his course, and with him all the other elements felt that death. The earth trembled under the weight of our Lord hanging on the Cross, and testified that it had not power to hold within it Him who was dying. The Centurion proclaimed, Truly this was the Son of God. (Matt. 27:54) The event answered the prediction. Our Lord had said, Glorify Thy Son, testifying that He was not the Son in name only, but properly the Son. Thy Son, He saith. Many of us are sons of God; but not such is the Son. For He is the proper, true Son by nature, not by adoption, in truth, not in name, by birth, not by creation. Therefore after His glorifying, to the manifestation of the truth there succeeded confession. The Centurion confesses Him to be the true Son of God, that so none of His believers might doubt what one of His persecutors could not deny.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. civ) But if He was glorified by His Passion, how much more by His Resurrection? For His Passion rather shewed His humility than His glory. So we must understand, Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, to mean, the hour is come for sowing the seed, humility; defer not the fruit, glory.
HILARY. (iii. de. Trin) But perhaps this proves weakness in the Son; His waiting to be glorified by one superior to Himself. And who does not confess that the Father is superior, seeing that He Himself saith, The Father is greater than I? But beware lest the honour of the Father impair the glory of the Son. It follows: That Thy Son also may glorify Thee. So then the Son is not weak, inasmuch as He gives back in His turn glory for the glory which He receives. This petition for glory to be given and repaid, shews the same divinity to be in both.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv) But it is justly asked, how the Son can glorify the Father, when the eternal glory of the Father never experienced abasement in the form of man, and in respect of its own Divine perfection, does not admit of being added to. But among men this glory was less when God was only known in Judæa; and therefore the Son glorified the Father, when the Gospel of Christ spread the knowledge of the Father among the Gentiles. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee; i. e. Raise Me from the dead, that by Me Thou mayest be known to the whole world. Then He unfolds further the manner in which the Son glorifies the Father; As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. All flesh signifies all mankind, the part being put for the whole. And this power which is given to Christ by the Father over all flesh, must be understood with reference to His human nature.
HILARY. (iii. de Trin) For being made flesh Himself, He was about to restore eternal life to frail, corporeal, and mortal man.
HILARY. (ix. de Trin. 31) If Christ be God, not begotten, but unbegotten, then let this receiving be thought weakness. But not if His receiving of power signifies His begetting, in which He received what He is. This gift cannot be counted for weakness. For the Father is such in that He gives; the Son remains God in that He hath received the power of giving eternal life.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxx) He saith, Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, to shew that His preaching extended not to the Jews only, but to the whole world. But what is all flesh? For all did not believe? So far as lay with Him, all did. If they did not attend to His words, it was not His fault who spoke, but theirs who did not receive.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv. 2) He saith, As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, so the Son may glorify Thee, i. e. make Thee known to all flesh which Thou hast given Him; for Thou hast so given it to Him, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.
HILARY. (iii. de Tr. c. 14) And in what eternal life is, He then shews: And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God. To know the only true God is life, but this alone does not constitute life. What else then is added? And Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
HILARY. (iv. de Tr. c. 9) The Arians hold, that as the Father is the only true, only just, only wise God, the Son hath no communion of these attributes; for that which is proper to one, cannot be partaken of by another. And as these are as they think in the Father alone, and not in the Son, they necessarily consider the Son a false and vain God.
HILARY. (v. de Tr. 3) But it must be clear to every one that the reality of any thing is evidenced by its power. For that is true wheat, which when rising with grain and fenced with ears, and shaken out by the winnowing machine, and ground into corn, and baked into bread, and taken for food, fulfils the nature and function of bread. I ask then wherein the truth of Divinity is wanting to the Son, Who hath the nature and virtue of Divinity. For He so made use of the virtue of His nature, as to cause to be things which were not, and to do every thing which seemed good to Him.
HILARY. (ix. de Trin) Because He says, Thee the only, does He separate Himself from communion and unity with God? He doth separate Himself, but that He adds immediately, And Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent. For the Catholic faith confesses Christ to be true God, in that it confesses the Father to be the only true God; for natural birth did not introduce any change of nature into the Only-Begotten God.
AUGUSTINE. (vi. de Tr. c. 9) Dismissing then the Arians, let us see if we are forced to confess, that by the words, That they may know Thee to be the only true God, He means us to understand that the Father only is the true God, in such sense as that only the Three together, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are to be called God? Does our Lord’s testimony authorize us to say that the Father is the only true God, the Son the only true God, and the Holy Ghost the only true God, and at the same time, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost together, i. e. the Trinity, are not three Gods, but onea true God?
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. c. 5) Or is not the order of the words, That they may know Thee and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent, to be the only true God? the Holy Spirit being necessarily understood, because the Spirit is only the love of the Father and the Son, consubstantial with both. If then the Son so glorifies Thee as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, and Thou hast given Him the power, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him, and, This is life eternal, to know Thee, it follows that He glorifies Thee by making Thee known to all whom Thou hast given Him. Moreover, if the knowledge of God is life eternal, the more advance we make in this knowledge, the more we make in life eternal. But in life eternal we shall never die. Where then there is no death, there will then be perfect knowledge of God; there will God be most glorified1, because His glory will be greatest. Glory was defined among the ancients to be fame accompanied with praise. But if man is praised in dependence on what is said of him, how will God be praised when He shall be seen? as in the Psalm, Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house: they will be alway praising Thee. (Ps. 83:4) There will be praise of God without end, where will be full knowledge of God. There then shall be heard the everlasting praise of God, for there will there be full knowledge of God, and therefore full glorifying of Him.
AUGUSTINE. (i. de Trin. c. viii) What He said to His servant Moses, I am that I am; (Exod. 3) this we shall contemplate in the life eternal.
AUGUSTINE. (iv. de Trin. c. xviii) For when sight has made our faith truth, then eternity shall take possession of and displace our mortality.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv) But God is first glorified here, when He is proclaimed, made known to, and believed in, by men: I have glorified Thee on the earth.
HILARY. (iii. de Trin) This new glory with which our Lord had glorified the Father, does not imply any advancement2 in Godhead, but refers to the honour received from those who are converted from ignorance to knowledge.
CHRYSOSTOM. He says, on the earth; for He had been glorified in heaven, both in respect of the glory of His own nature, and of the adoration of the Angels. The glory therefore here spoken of is not that which belongeth to His substance, but that which pertaineth to the worship of man: wherefore it follows, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv) Not Thou commandest Me, but, Thou gavest Me, implying evidently grace. For what hath human nature, even in the Only-Begotten, what it hath not received? But how had He finished the work which had been given Him to do, when there yet remained His passion to undergo? He says He has finished it, i. e. He knows for certain that He will.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxx) Or, I have finished, i. e. He had done all His own part, or had done the chief of it, that standing for the whole; (for the root of good was planted:) or He connects Himself with the future, as if it were already present.
HILARY. (ix. de Trin) After which, that we may understand the reward of His obedience, and the mystery of the whole dispensation, He adds, And now glorify Me with the glory with Thine own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cv. 5) He had said above, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee: the order of which words shews that the Son was first to be glorified by the Father, that the Father might be glorified by the Son. But now He says, I have glorified Thee; and now glorify Me; as if He had first glorified the Father, and then asked to be glorified by Him. We must understand that the first is the order in which one was to succeed the other, but that He afterwards uses a past tense, to express a thing future; the meaning being, I will glorify Thee on the earth, by finishing the work Thou hast given Me to do: and now, Father, glorify Me, which is quite the same sentence with the first one, except that He adds here the mode in which He is to be glorified; with the glory which I had before the world was, with Thee. The order of the words is, The glory which I had with Thee before the world was. This has been taken by some to mean, that the human nature which was assumed by the Word, would be changed into the Word, that man would be changed into God, or, to speak more correctly, be lost in God. For no one would say that the Word of God would by that change be doubled, or even made at all greater. But we avoid this error, if we take the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, to be the glory which He predestined for Him on earth: (for if we believe Him to be the Son of man, we need not be afraid to say that He was predestinated.) This predestined time of His being glorified, He now saw was arrived, that He might now receive what had been aforetime predestined, He prayed accordingly: And now, Father, glorify Me, &c. i. e. that glory which I had with Thee by Thy predestination, it is now time that I should have at Thy right hand.
HILARY. (iii. de Trin) Or He prayed that that which was mortal, might receive the glory immortal, that the corruption of the flesh might be transformed and absorbed into the incorruption of the Spirit.
6. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. 7. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. 8. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me: and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) Having said, I have finished My work, He shews what kind of work it was, viz. that He should make known the name of God: I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvi) If He speaks of the disciples only with whom He supped, this has nothing to do with that glorifying of which He spoke above, wherewith the Son glorified the Father; for what glory is it to be known to twelve or eleven men? But if by the men which were given to Him out of the world, He means all those who should believe in Him afterwards, this is without doubt the glory wherewith the Son glorifies the Father; and, I have manifested Thy name, is the same as what He said before, I have glorified Thee; the past being put for the future both there and here. But what follows shews that He is speaking here of those who were already His disciples, not of all who should afterwards believe on Him. At the beginning of His prayer then our Lord is speaking of all believers, all to whom He should make known the Father, thereby glorifying Him: for after saying, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee, in shewing how that was to be done, He says, As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh. Now let us hear what He says to the disciples: I have manifested Thy name to the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world. Had they not known the name of God then, when they were Jews? We read in the Psalms, In Jewry is God known; His name is great in Israel. (Ps. 76:1) I have manifested Thy name, then, must be understood not of the name of God, but of the Father’s name, which name could not be manifested without the manifestation of the Son. For God’s name, as the God of the whole creation, could not have been entirely unknown to any nation. As the Maker then of the world, He was known among all nations, even before the spread of the Gospel. In Jewry He was known as a God, Who was not to be worshipped with the false gods: but as the Father of that Christ, by whom He took away the sins of the world, His name was unknown; which name Christ now manifesteth to those whom the Father had given Him out of the world. But how did He manifest it, when the hour had not come of which He said above, The hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs. We must understand the past to be put for the future.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) That He was the Son of the Father, Christ had already manifested to them by words and deeds.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvi) Which Thou hast given Me out of the world: i. e. who were not of the world. But this they were by regeneration, not by nature. What is meant by, Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me? Had ever the Father any thing without the Son? God forbid. But the Son of God had that sometimes, which He had not as Son of man; for He had the universe with His Father, while He was still in His mother’s womb. Wherefore by saying, They were Thine, the Son of God does not separate Himself from the Father; but only attributes all His power to Him, from whom He is, and hath the same. And Thou gavest them Me, then, means that He had received as man the power to have them; nay, that He Himself had given them to Himself, i. e. Christ as God with the Father, to Christ as man not with the Father. His purpose here is to shew His unanimity with the Father, and how that it was the Father’s pleasure that they should believe in Him.
BEDE. And they have kept Thy word. He calls Himself the Word of the Father, because the Father by Him created all things, and because He contains in Himself all words: as if to say, They have committed Me to memory so well, that they never will forget Me. Or, They have kept Thy word, i. e. in that they have believed in Me: as it follows, Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me, are of Thee. Some read, Now I have known, &c. But this cannot be correct. For how could the Son be ignorant of what was the Father’s? It is the disciples He is speaking of; as if to say, They have learnt that there is nothing in Me alien from Thee, and that whatever I teach cometh from Thee.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvi) The Father gave Him all things, when having all things He begat Him.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) And whence have they learned? From My words, wherein I taught them that I came forth from Thee. For this was what He has been labouring to shew throughout the whole of the Gospel: For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me, and they have received them.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvi. c. 6) i. e. have understood and remembered them. For then is a word received, when the mind apprehends it; as it follows, And have known surely that I came out from Thee. And that none might imagine that that knowledge was one of sight, not of faith, He adds, And they hare believed (surely, is understood) that Thou didst send Me. What they believed surely, was what they knew surely; for, I came out from Thee, is the same with, Thou didst send Me. They believed surely, i. e. not as He said above they believed1, but surely, i. e. as they were about to believe firmly, steadily, unwaveringly: never any more to be scattered to their own, and leave Christ. The disciples as yet were not such as He describes them to be in the past tense, meaning such as they were to be when they had received the Holy Ghost. The question how the Father gave those words to the Son, is easier to solve, if we suppose Him to have received them from the Father as Son of man. But if we understand it to be as the Begotten of the Father, let there be no time supposed previous to His having them, as if He once existed without them: for whatever God the Father gave God the Son, He gave in begetting.
9. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 11. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 12. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) As the disciples were still sad in spite of all our Lord’s consolations, henceforth He addresses Himself to the Father to shew the love which He had for them; I pray for them; He not only gives them what He has of His own, but entreats another for them, as a still further proof of His love.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvi) When He adds, I pray not for the world, by the world He means those who live according to the lust of the world, and have not the lot to be chosen by grace out of the world, as those had for whom He prayed: But for them which Thou hast given Me. It was because the Father had given Him them, that they did not belong to the world. Nor yet had the Father, in giving them to the Son, lost what He had given: For they are Thine.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi. 1) He often repeats, Thou hast given Me, to impress on them that it was all according to the Father’s will, and that He did not come to rob another, but to take unto Him His own. Then to shew them that this power1 had not been lately received from the Father, He adds, And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine: as if to say, Let no one, hearing Me say, Them which Thou hast given Me, suppose that they are separated from the Father; for Mine are His: nor because I said, They are Thine, suppose that they are separate from Me: for whatever is His is Mine.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvi. 6) It is sufficiently apparent from hence, that all things which the Father hath, the Only-Begotten Son hath; hath in that He is God, born from the Father, and equal with the Father; not in the sense in which the elder son is told, All that I have is thine. (Luke 15:31) For all there means all creatures below the holy rational creature, but here it means the very rational creature itself, which is only subjected to God. Since this is God the Father’s, it could not at the same time be God the Son’s, unless the Son were equal to the Father. For it is impossible that saints, of whom this is said, should be the property of any one, except Him who created and sanctified them. When He says above in speaking of the Holy Spirit, All things that the Father hath are Mine, (c. 16:15) He means all things which pertain to the divinity of the Father; for He adds, He (the Holy Ghost) shall receive of Mine; and the Holy Ghost would not receive from a creature which was subject to the Father and the Son.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) Then He gives proof of this, I am glorified in them. If they glorify Me, believing in Me and Thee, it is certain that I have power over them: for no one is glorified by those amongst whom he has no power.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvii. 3) He speaks of this as already done, meaning that it was predestined, and sure to be. But is this the glorifying of which He speaks above, And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self? If then with Thyself, what meaneth here, In them? Perhaps that this very thing, i. e. His glory with the Father, was made known to them, and through them to all that believe.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) And now I am no more in the world: i. e. though I no longer appear in the flesh, I am glorified by those who die for Me, as for the Father, and preach Me as the Father.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvii. 4) At the time at which He was speaking, both were still in the world. Yet we must not understand, I am no more in the world, metaphorically of the heart and life; for could there ever have been a time when He loved the things of the world? It remains then that He means that He was not in the world, as He had been before; i. e. that He was soon going away. Do we not say every day, when any one is going to leave us, or going to die, such an one is gone? This is shewn to be the sense by what follows; for He adds, And now I come to Thee. And then He commends to His Father those whom He was about to leave: Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me. As man He prays God for His disciples, whom He received from God. But mark what follows: That they may be one, as We are: He does not say, That they may be one with Us, as We are one; but, that they may be one: that they may be one in their nature, as We are one in Ours. For, in that He was God and man in one person, as man He prayed, as God He was one with Him to Whom He prayed.
AUGUSTINE. (iv. de Trin. c. ix) He does not say, That I and they maybe one, though He might have said so in the sense, that He was the head of the Church, and the Church His body; not one thing, but one person: the head and the body being one Christ. But shewing something else, viz. that His divinity is consubstantial with the Father, He prays that His people may in like manner be one; but one in Christ, not only by the same nature, in which mortal man is made equal to the Angels, but also by the same will, agreeing most entirely in the same mind, and melted into one Spirit by the fire of love. This is the meaning of, That they may be one as We are: viz. that as the Father and the Son are one not only by equality of substance, but also in will, so they, between whom and God the Son is Mediator, may be one not only by the union of nature, but by the union of love.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) Again He speaks as man: While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name; i. e. by Thy help. He speaks in condescension to the minds of His disciples, who thought they were more safe in His presence.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvii. 6) The Son as man kept His disciples in the Father’s name, being placed among them in human form: the Father again kept them in the Son’s name, in that He heard those who asked in the Son’s name. But we must not take this carnally, as if the Father and Son kept us in turns, for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost guard us at the same time: but Scripture does not raise us, except it stoop to us. Let us understand then that when our Lord says this, He is distinguishing the persons, not dividing the nature, so that when the Son was keeping His disciples by His bodily presence, the Father was waiting to succeed Him on His departure; but both kept them by spiritual power, and when the Son withdrew His bodily presence, He still held with the Father the spiritual keeping. For when the Son as man received them into His keeping, He did not take them from the Father’s keeping, and when the Father gave them into the Son’s keeping, it was to the Son as man, who at the same time was God. Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition; i. e. the betrayer of Christ, predestined to perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, especially the prophecy in Psalm 108.
CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) He was the only one indeed who perished then, but there were many after. None of them is lost, i. e. as far as I am concerned; as He says above more clearly; I will in no wise cast out. But when they cast themselves out, I will not draw them to Myself by dint of compulsion. It follows: And now I come to Thee. But some one might ask, Canst Thou not keep them? I can. Then why sayest Thou this? That they may have My joy fulfilled in them, i. e. that they may not be alarmed in their as yet imperfect state.
AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvii) Or thus: That they might have the joy spoken of above: That they may be one, as We are one. This His joy, i. e. bestowed by Him, He says, is to be fulfilled in them: on which account He spoke thus in the world. This joy is the peace and happiness of the life to come. He says He spoke in the world, though He had just now said, I am no more in the world. For, inasmuch as He had not yet departed, He was still here; and inasmuch as He was going to depart, He was in a certain sense not here.