ACC ~ John 15 v15

FRIENDS FREELY SERVE

IRENAEUS: Inasmuch as all natural commandments are common to both Christians and Jews, the Jews indeed had the beginning and origin of the commandments, but [those commandments] received their growth and completion in us. For to yield assent to God, and to follow his Word, and to love him above all and one’s neighbor as one’s self (now people are neighbors to one another), and to abstain from every evil deed, and all other things of a similar nature that are common to both [covenants]—all of this reveals one and the same God. But this is our Lord, the Word of God, who in the first instance certainly drew slaves to God, but afterward he set those free who were subject to him, as he himself declares to his disciples, “I will not now call you servants, for the servant does not know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known.” For when he says, “I will not now call you servants,” he indicates in the most marked manner that it was he who originally appointed for men and women that bondage with respect to God through the law and then afterward conferred on them freedom. And, in that he says, “For the servant does not know what his lord does,” he points out, by means of his own advent, the ignorance of a people in a servile condition. But when he terms his disciples “the friends of God,” he plainly declares himself to be the Word of God whom Abraham also followed voluntarily and under no compulsion [1] because of the noble nature of his faith—and who thus became “the friend of God.” [2] AGAINST HERESIES 4.13.4. [3]

[1] Lat sine vinculis.

[2] Jas 2:23.

[3] ANF 1:478**; SC 100:534-36.

TWO KINDS OF SERVANTS

AUGUSTINE: Just as there are two kinds of fear that produce two classes of fearers, so there are two kinds of servitude that produce two classes of servants. There is a fear that perfect love casts out, [1] and there is another fear, which is virtuous [2] and endures forever. [3] … In that fear that love casts out, servitude also needs to be cast out along with it. For both were joined together by the apostle, that is, the servitude and the fear, when he said, “For you have not received the spirit of servitude again to fear.” [4] … Since, therefore, he has given us power to become the children of God, [5] let us not be servants but children, so that, in some wonderful and indescribable but real way, we may as servants have the power not to be servants. Let us be servants, indeed, with that virtuous fear that distinguishes the servant that enters into the joy of his lord, [6] but not servants with the fear that has to be cast out and that characterizes one who does not abide in the house forever. [7] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 85.3. [8]

[1] See 1 Jn 4:18.

[2] Lat castus, which might also be translated as “pure.”

[3] See Ps 19:9 (18:10 LXX, Vg).

[4] Rom 8:15.

[5] See Jn 1:12.

[6] See Mt 25:21.

[7] See Jn 8:35.

[8] NPNF 1 7:351-52*; CCL 36:539-40.

WISDOM BURSTS BONDS OF FEAR

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and, so to say, its first swathing band. But, when wisdom bursts the bonds of fear and rises up to love, it makes us friends of God and children instead of slaves. ON THE GREAT ATHANASIUS, ORATION 21.6. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 7:271.

HE MADE YOU INTO HIS FRIENDS

AUGUSTINE: He made human beings into his friends. Won’t he be making them angels? “I no longer call you slaves, but friends.” It was to people still carrying flesh, still subject to death, still living this poor fragile life that he said that. “I no longer call you slaves, but friends.” And what is he going to give friends? What he manifested in himself as he rose again. They shall be crowned and transfigured into heavenly glory and shall be equal to the angels of God. SERMON 45.10. [1]

[1] WSA 3 2:259; CCL 41:526.

GREAT DIGNITY, GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

GREGORY THE GREAT: How great is our Creator’s mercy! We were unworthy servants, and he calls us friends. How great is our human value, that we should be friends of God! You have heard your glorious dignity—now listen to what the struggle costs: “If you do whatever I command you.” FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 27. [1]

[1] CS 123:214*; PL 76:1206.

HOW FRIENDS ACT TOWARD ONE ANOTHER

AMBROSE: God himself made us friends instead of servants. … He gave us a pattern of friendship to follow. We are to fulfill the wish of a friend, to unfold to him our secrets that we hold in our own hearts, and are not to disregard his confidences. Let us show him our heart, and he will open his to us. … A friend, then, if he is a true one, hides nothing. He pours forth his soul as the Lord Jesus poured forth the mysteries of his Father. DUTIES OF THE CLERGY 3.22.135. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 10:89**.

PAST PERFECT

AUGUSTINE: How are we to understand that [Jesus] made known to the disciples all that he had heard from the Father when there are many things that he did not say because he knows that they cannot bear them now? Doubtless, what he is yet to do, he says that he has done as the same Being who has made those things which are yet to be. [1] For he says by the prophet, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” [2] and not, “They will yet pierce.” He speaks as though it were in the past and yet predicting what was still in the future. So also in the passage before us he declares that he has made known to the disciples all that he knows he will yet make known in that fullness of knowledge about which the apostle says, “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” [3] For in the same place he adds, “Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now as through a glass in a mystery, but then face to face.” [4] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 86.1. [5]

[1] See Is 45:11.

[2] Ps 22:16 (21:17 LXX, Vg).

[3] 1 Cor 13:10.

[4] 1 Cor 13:12.

[5] NPNF 1 7:352-53*; CCL 36:541. See also Sermon 27.5 (WSA 3 2:106).

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