ACC ~ John 15 v1 - 3

OVERVIEW:

Christ rises quickly from the table where he has sat with his disciples for the Last Supper in order to perform the sacrament of his final passion in the mystery of his flesh (HILARY). Like a grapevine hung on the wood of the cross for us (AMBROSE), the true vine (AUGUSTINE) of David is put through the winepress of the cross (GAUDENTIUS). He lets the juice from his veins flow in support of its branches (CLEMENT) in the Eucharist as an antidote to our grief (THEOPHILUS OF ALEXANDRIA). As the vine, he joins himself to our nature that we might become partakers in his nature through the Holy Spirit as branches attached to and supported by him (CYRIL).

The vine nourishes the fruit while the vinedresser tends the soil (CYRIL) as he cultivates the field of the church (AUGUSTINE). As we praise God, he cultivates us (AUGUSTINE). Jerusalem was pruned because of its lack of fruit (IRENAEUS), teaching us that spiritual fruit will be realized in concrete action (CYRIL). Some natural pruning takes place too as the wind on the vines tests the grapes of the church (EPHREM). The Word prunes our impulses (CLEMENT) as spiritual circumcision prunes the bodily passions (CYRIL). Persecution too prunes the church, getting rid of dead wood in order to bring about growth both in the Christian and in the church (JUSTIN, CHRYSOSTOM). There is a cleansing power in the Word of Jesus (BASIL), which as a double-edged sword prunes our souls (CYRIL) and cleanses us through its connection with the water in the sacrament of baptism (AUGUSTINE).

15:1a | I Am the True Vine

THE VINE AS CHRIST’S ASSUMPTION OF FLESH

HILARY OF POITIERS: Jesus rises and hurries to complete the mystery of his bodily passion. But the next moment, he unfolds the mystery of his assumption of flesh. Through this assumption we are in him, as the branches are in the vine. And unless he had become the vine, we could have borne no good fruit. He encourages us to abide in him through faith in his assumed body, that, since the Word has been made flesh, we may be in the nature of his flesh, as the branches are in the vine. He separates the form of the Father’s majesty from the humiliation of the assumed flesh by calling himself the vine, the course of unity for all the branches. He calls the Father the careful husbandman who prunes away its useless and barren branches to be burned in the fire. ON THE TRINITY 9.55. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 9:174-75*; CCL 62A:434.

THE GRAPEVINE HANGING ON THE CROSS. AMBROSE: Jacob spoke of [our Lord as] a grape, [1] because Christ hung on the wood like a grape. He is the vine; he is the grape. He is the vine because he cleaves to the wood and the grape because, when his side was opened by the soldier’s lance, he sent forth water and blood [2] … water for baptism, blood for redemption. The water washed us; the blood redeemed us. [3] ON THE PATRIARCHS 4.24. [4]

[1] ESUS IS INFORMED THAT LAZARUS IS SICK | JOHN 11:1-5

[2] Jn 19:34.

[3] See also Ambrose On the Sacraments 5.14.

[4] FC 65:255-56; CSEL 32 2:138. See also Eusebius Proof of the Gospel 8.1.379.

THE TRUE VINE BEARS FRUIT

AUGUSTINE: When he says, “I am the true vine,” it is no doubt to distinguish himself from that [vine] to which the words are addressed, “How are you turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me?” [1] For how could that be a true vine that was expected to bring forth grapes and brought forth thorns? [2] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 80.1. [3]

[1] Jer 2:21.

[2] Is 5:4.

[3] NPNF 1 7:344**.

THE HOLY VINE OF DAVID

DIDACHE: Now, concerning the Eucharist, give thanks as follows.

First, concerning the cup:

We give you thanks, our Father,

for the holy vine of David your servant,

which you have made known to us

through Jesus, your servant;

to you be the glory forever.

DIDACHE 9.1-2. [1]

[1] AF 259-61.

THE WINEPRESS OF THE CROSS

GAUDENTIUS OF BRESCIA: The wine of his blood, gathered from the many grapes of the vine planted by him, is pressed out in the winepress of the cross, and of its own power it begins to ferment in the capacious vessels of those who receive it with faithful heart. TWO TRACTATES ON EXODUS. [1]

[1] MFC 7:93; CSEL 68:32.

WINE OF THE VINE, BLOOD OF THE WORD

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The vine produces wine as the Word produces blood, and both are drunk for the health of men and women—wine for the body, blood for the spirit. CHRIST THE EDUCATOR 1.5. [1]

[1] ANF 2:213.

THE VINE AS ANTIDOTE TO GRIEF

THEOPHILUS OF ALEXANDRIA: I am the true vine. Drink my joy, the wine I have mixed for you. For my cup is intoxicating for me, [1] intoxicating like the most powerful antidote—like joy against the grief that sprouted in Adam. … I have given you a table, life-giving and joy-creating, that offers in exchange for distress unspeakable joy before those who have envied you. Eat the bread that renews your nature. Drink the wine, the exultation of immortality. Eat the bread that purges away the old bitterness, and drink the wine that eases the pain of the wound. This is the healing of your nature; this is the punishment of the one who did the injury. … I became the true vine in your race, that in me you might bear sweet-smelling fruit. SERMON ON THE MYSTICAL SUPPER. [2]

[1] Ps 23:5 (22:5 LXX).

[2] MFC 7:152. See also Origen Commentary on John 1.205-6 (FC 80:74-75).

ATTACHED TO THE VINE THROUGH THE SPIRIT

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: He wants to show us how important it is to love, to hold fast to our love toward him and how much we gain from our union with him. This is why he says that he is the vine, by way of illustration. Those united, anchored and rooted in him, who are already partakers in his nature through their participation in the Holy Spirit, are branches. For it is his Holy Spirit who has united us with the Savior Christ since connection with the vine produces a choice of those things that belong to it. And our connection [1] with the vine holds us fast. From a firm resolve in goodness we proceed onward by faith and we become his people, obtaining from him the dignity of sonship. … He says that he is a vine, the mother and nourisher, as it were, of its branches. For we are begotten of him and in him, in the Spirit, to produce the fruits of life. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.2. [2]

[1] Achieved through the Spirit.

[2] LF 48:363**.

15:1b | The Father Is the Vinedresser

THE VINE NOURISHES, THE VINEDRESSER TENDS THE SOIL

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: For it is the function of the vine to nourish the branches, and of the tiller of the soil to tend them. And if we think about this in the right way, we will see that neither the one function if performed apart from the Father, nor the other function if performed apart from the Son or Holy Spirit, could sustain the whole. For everything proceeds from the Father by the Son in the Spirit. And so it is only appropriate now that the Savior called the Father a vinedresser so that no one might think that the Only Begotten is the only one who exercised care over us. [1] This is why he represents God the Father as cooperating with him, calling himself the vine that enlivens his own branches with life and the power to produce, and the Father as the vinedresser, thereby teaching us that providential care over us is a sort of distinct activity of the divine substance. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.2. [2]

[1] In Athanasius’s account of the vine and the vinedresser, he records Dionysius of Alexandria’s distinction between vine and vinedresser as akin to the distinction between Father and Son (NPNF 2 4:180-81). This passage occasioned much discussion in Cyril concerning how the analogy cannot be pressed too far, however, in equating the relationship among the vine, vinedresser and branches with the relationship between Father, Son and us, especially in an ontological sense.

[2] LF 48:365**.

GOD IS THE TILLER OF THE FIELD, THE CHURCH

AUGUSTINE: Not only is the church a field, but God is the tiller of the field. Listen to the Lord himself: “I am the vine, you the twigs, and my Father is the vinedresser.” Toiling in this field as a laborer and hoping for an eternal reward, the apostle claims no credit for himself, except a laborer’s due. “I planted,” he says, “Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. And so neither the one who plants is anything, nor the one who waters, but God who gives the increase.” [1] SERMON 4.26. [2]

[1] 1 Cor 3:6-7.

[2] WSA 3 1:199; CCL 41:39.

GOD CULTIVATES US

AUGUSTINE: For we [through praise] cultivate God, and God cultivates us. But our cultivating of God does not make him better: our cultivating is that of adoration, not of plowing. … His cultivating of us makes us better. … His cultivating consists in getting rid of all the seeds of wickedness from our hearts, in opening our heart to the plow, as it were, of his word, in sowing in us the seeds of his commandments, and in waiting for the fruits of godliness. SERMON 87.1. [1]

[1] PL 38:530-31.

15:2a | Dead Branches Are Taken Away

JERUSALEM FORSAKEN FOR LACK OF FRUIT

IRENAEUS: Concerning Jerusalem and the Lord, they [1] venture to assert that if it had been “the city of the great King,” [2] it would not have been deserted. This is like someone saying that if the stalk were a creation of God, it would never part company with the wheat. And that the vine twigs, if made by God, never would be lopped away and deprived of the clusters. But these [vine twigs] were not originally made for their own sake but for that of the fruit growing on them. When that fruit comes to maturity and is taken away, the twigs are left behind, and those that are not fruitful are lopped off altogether. It was the same way with Jerusalem, which had in itself borne the yoke of bondage … when the fruit of liberty had come, and reached maturity, and been reaped and stored in the barn, and when those which had the power to produce fruit had been carried away from it [i.e., from Jerusalem] and scattered throughout all the world. … Once the fruit, therefore, had been sown throughout all the world, it [Jerusalem] was deservedly forsaken, and those things that had formerly brought forth fruit abundantly were taken away. For from these, according to the flesh, were Christ and the apostles enabled to bring forth fruit. AGAINST HERESIES 4.4.1. [3]

[1] i.e., the Gnostics.

[2] Mt 5:35.

[3] ANF 1:465-66; SC 100:416-18.

SPIRITUAL FRUIT REALIZED IN CONCRETE ACTION

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: If we demonstrate what kind of union we have by only a mere barren confession of faith—without sealing the bond of our union by the good works that proceed from love—we will be branches indeed, but still dead and without fruit. Faith without works is dead, as the saint says. [1] Accordingly, if the branch hangs fruitlessly, so to speak, from the trunk of the vine, know that such a person will encounter the pruning knife of the husbandman. He will entirely cut it off and burn it as worthless rubbish. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.2. [2]

WIND TESTS THE GRAPES OF THE CHURCH

EPHREM THE SYRIAN:

The sons of truth grow large on this Branch of Truth; [3] they have been perfected and have become fruits fit for the kingdom.

But, although the Branch is living, on it are also dead fruits that only seem to blossom.

The wind [4] tested them and shook down the wild grapes. Blessed is he who crowned by [the Spirit] those who held fast in him! …

Jesus, bend down to us your love that we may grasp this Branch that bent down her fruits for the ungrateful;

they ate and were satisfied, yet they demeaned her who had bent down as far as Adam in Sheol.

She ascended and lifted him up and with him returned to Eden.

Blessed is he who bent her down toward us that we might seize her and ascend on her.

Who indeed will not weep that although the Branch is great, the weakness of one unwilling to seize her greatness maintains that she is a feeble branch—

she who has conquered all kings and cast a shadow upon the entire world! By suffering her power has increased.

Blessed is he who made her greater than that vine from Egypt! [5]

Who will not hold fast to this Branch of Truth.

She bore the true ones; she shed the false.

Not because they were too heavy for her did she shed them.

For our sake she tested them in the breeze;

it shook down the shriveled; it ripened the firm.

HYMN AGAINST JULIAN: ON THE CHURCH 5, 8-10. [6]

[1] See Jas 2:20.

[2] LF 48:375**.

[3] McVey notes that the Branch of Truth is grammatically feminine, representing the church but also Christ in this passage.

[4] Or “spirit.”

[5] Ps 80:8 (79:9 LXX).

[6] ESH 222-23.

15:2 | Pruning That Produces More Fruit

THE WORD PRUNES OUR IMPULSES

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The Lord clearly reveals himself when describing figuratively his many and various ways of service. … For the vine that is not pruned grows to wood. It is the same way with humankind. The Word—the knife—clears away the wanton shoots, compelling the impulses of the soul to become fruitful, not to indulge in lust. Now, reproof addressed to sinners has their salvation for its aim, the word being harmoniously adjusted to each one’s conduct, now with tightened, now with relaxed cords. CHRIST THE EDUCATOR 1.8. [1]

[1] ANF 2:226.

SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION PRUNES BODILY PASSIONS

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: God works with those who have chosen to live the best and most perfect life and to do good works as far as they are able, having elected to seek perfection as citizens of God. God uses the working power of the Spirit as a pruning hook, sometimes circumcising in them the pleasures that are always calling us to fleshly lusts and bodily passions. Other times, God circumcises all those temptations that are likely to assail the souls of people, defiling the mind by diverse kinds of evils. We say that this circumcision is not the work of hands but is truly that of the Spirit. [1] … If the branches of the vine suffer any purging, that purging cannot take place, I suppose, without suffering. For it is painful insofar as wood can suffer pain. … For our God who loves virtue instructs us by pain and tribulation. … But while divine wrath will bring about the complete severance of the barren branches that are consigned to punishment, a [less severe] judgment—one that is out of consideration and mercy—will purge those who bear fruit, bringing only a little pain while accelerating their fertility and occasioning a greater number of blossoms springing up. … Therefore let the fervor that shows itself in works be combined with the confession of the faith, and let it unite action with the doctrines concerning God. For then we shall be with Christ and experience the secure and safe power of fellowship with him, escaping the peril that results from being cut off from him. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.2. [2]

[1] See Rom 2:28-29.

[2] LF 48:377-79**.

PERSECUTION AS PRUNING FOR GROWTH

JUSTIN MARTYR: It is evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have believed in Jesus over all the world. For it is plain that, though beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession. But the more such things happen, the more do others—and in larger numbers—become faithful and worshipers of God through the name of Jesus. For just as if one should cut away the fruit-bearing parts of a vine, it grows up again, and yields other branches flourishing and fruitful. Even so the same thing happens with us. For the vine planted by God and Christ the Savior is his people. DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO 110. [1]

[1] ANF 1:254*.

PURGING IS A TYPE OF PRUNING

CHRYSOSTOM: “And every branch that bears fruit, he purges,” that is, “causes it to enjoy great care.” Yet the root requires even more care than the branches. It needs to be dug around and cleared. And yet everything here is spoken about the branches. Jesus is saying then that he is sufficient unto himself but that the disciples need considerable help from the husbandman even though they are quite excellent already. Therefore he says, “that which bears fruit, he purges.” The one branch, because it is fruitless, cannot even remain in the vine, but the other, because it bears fruit, he makes even more fruitful. This, some might assert, was said concerning the persecutions then coming upon them. For the purging is a type of pruning that makes the branch bear better. This implies that persecutions rather make people stronger. Then, in case they might ask about whom he said these things and become anxious again, he says, “Now you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you.” HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 76.1. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:279**; PG 59:411.

15:3 | Cleansed by Jesus’ Word

THE SANCTIFYING POWER OF JESUS’ TEACHING

BASIL THE GREAT: The world, that is, life enslaved by the affections of the flesh, can no more receive the grace of the Spirit than a weak eye the light of a sunbeam. But the Lord, who by his teaching bore witness to purity of life, gives to his disciples the power of now both beholding and contemplating the Spirit. For “now,” he says, “you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you,” wherefore “the world cannot receive him, because it does not see him … but you know him. For he dwells with you.” And this is what Isaiah says, “He who spread forth the earth and that which comes out of it; he who gives breath to the people on it, and Spirit to them that trample on it.” [1] For those who trample down earthly things and rise above them are shown to be as worthy of the gift of the Holy Spirit. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 22.53. [2]

[1] Is 42:5.

[2] NPNF 2 8:34.

THE PURIFYING POWER OF THE GOSPEL WORD

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: He makes his disciples a palpable and convincing demonstration of the art of the purifier of their souls. For already, he says, they are purged not by participating in anything else but merely by the word spoken to them, that is, the divine guidance of the gospel. And this word proceeds from Christ. What man or woman of sense, then, can any longer call into question that the Father has, as it were, a pruning knife and hand through whose instrumentality everything exists, that is, the Son, fulfilling the activity of that husbandry in us which he attributes to the person of the Father, teaching us that all things proceed from the Father by the instrumentality of the Son? For it is the Word of the Savior that purges us; the husbandry of our souls is attributed to God the Father. For this is his living Word, sharp as a sword, “piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.” [1] For, reaching into the depths of each person’s inmost soul and having every person’s hidden purpose revealed before it as God, it brings its keen edge to bear on our vain pursuits by the working of the Spirit. For this is what our purification consists in, I suppose. And all things that are for our profit in the attainment of virtue it increases and multiplies to bear the fruit that is conceived in righteousness. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.2 [2]

[1] Heb 4:12.

[2] LF 48:381-82*.

THE POWER OF THE WORD IN THE SACRAMENT

AUGUSTINE: “Now you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you.” Why doesn’t he say, You are clean through the baptism with which you have been washed, rather than “through the word that I have spoken to you,” except for the fact that in the water also it is the word that cleanses? Take away the word, and the water is neither more nor less than water. The word is added to the element, and there results the sacrament, as if it itself is also a kind of visible word. For he had said also the same thing when washing the disciples’ feet: “He who is washed needs not to wash, except for his feet, but is altogether clean.” [1] And how does water have so great an efficacy, as in touching the body to cleanse the soul, if not by the operation of the word—and that not because it is uttered but because it is believed? For even in the word itself, the passing sound is one thing, the abiding efficacy another. [2] … For Christ, who is the vine with us, and the husbandman with the Father, “loved the church and gave himself for it.” [3] But read the apostle and see what he adds: “That he might sanctify it, cleansing it with the washing of water by the word.” [4] The cleansing, therefore, would on no account be attributed to the fleeting and perishable element were it not for what is added: “by the word.” This word of faith possesses such power in the church of God that through the medium of him who in faith presents and blesses and sprinkles it, he cleanses even the tiny infant, although itself unable as yet with the heart to believe unto righteousness and to make confession with the mouth unto salvation. All this is done by means of the word about which the Lord says, Now you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you.” TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 80.3. [5]

[1] Jn 13:10.

[2] Augustine cites Rom 10:10; Acts 15:9; 1 Pet 3:21; Rom 10:8.

[3] Eph 5:25.

[4] Eph 5:26.

[5] NPNF 1 7:344-45*; CCL 36:529.