ACC ~ John 17 v11 - 13

OVERVIEW:

Jesus was not speaking metaphorically when he said, “I am no more in the world,” but rather he was already anticipating his departure from it (AUGUSTINE). As the soul dwells in the body but is not of the body, Christians dwell in the world but are not of the world (LETTER TO DIOGNETUS). And so, Jesus asks the Father to keep them in the Father’s name, which he has also caused to dwell in our hearts through the Eucharist. It is a prayer Jesus is so certain will be answered that he allows the disciples to sleep in the Garden of Gethsemane in the face of the approaching danger (HILARY).

Jesus prays that in the face of this danger his disciples may be one, a word that can be taken in a number of ways, including likeness of nature and harmony of will (ORIGEN) such as is found in the bond of Christian unity expressed through love (CYRIL). One becomes many through harmony (CHRYSOSTOM). The Arians, however, misunderstand Jesus’ words as implying that Jesus is one with the Father in the same way that we are one with him (ATHANASIUS). However, it is as “sons” that we become one with God, not as the Son; we become as gods, but we do not become God himself (ATHANASIUS).

Judas fulfills the prophecy of Psalm 109 (AUGUSTINE) as he is bent on his own destruction (LEO). And so, even as he was numbered among the disciples as a child of God, he did not persevere unto the end (AUGUSTINE). Why some persevere and others do not, however, is a divine mystery (AUGUSTINE). But God will not compel his children to stay in him (CHRYSOSTOM). Christ also prays for his disciples’ joy—a joy that will be fulfilled in the unity shown now and in the peace and blessedness that will be theirs in the world to come (AUGUSTINE). He also wants them to know that even as he had kept them in his care while physically present, he would still be present with them and care for them when away, because he is God (CYRIL).

17:11a | No More in the World

JESUS ALREADY ANTICIPATING HIS DEPARTURE

AUGUSTINE: “And now,” he adds, “I am no more in the world, and these are in the world.” If your thoughts turn to the very hour in which he was speaking, both [he and his disciples] were still in the world. And yet, we must not understand “I am no more in the world” metaphorically of the heart and life. … For there is one word used here that makes any such understanding altogether inadmissible, because he does not say, “And I am not in the world” but “I am no more in the world.” In this way he shows that he himself had been in the world but was no more so. And so are we then at liberty to believe that he at one time savored the world, but, delivered from such a mistake, no longer retained such a disposition? Who would venture to shut himself up in so profane a meaning? It remains, therefore, that in the same sense in which he himself also was previously in the world, he declared that he was no longer in the world, that is to say, in his bodily presence. In other words, he was showing that his own absence from the world was now in the immediate future, and his disciples’ absence would be later when he said that he was no longer here but they were—although both he and they were still present. He was using the prevailing custom of human speech. Do we not say every day, “he is no longer here,” about someone who is on the very point of departure? And we talk this way especially about those who are at the point of death. And besides all else, the Lord himself, as if foreseeing the thoughts that might possibly be excited in those who were afterward to read these words, added, “And I come to you,” explaining at least in some measure why he said, “I am no more in the world.” TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 107.4. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:403**; CCL 36:614.

17:11b | They Are in the World

CHRISTIANS ARE TO THE WORLD WHAT THE SOUL IS TO THE BODY

LETTER TO DIGONETUS: In a word, what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians throughout the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body but is not of the body. Likewise, Christians dwell in the world but are not of the world. The soul, which is invisible, is confined in the body, which is visible. In the same way, Christians are recognized as being in the world, and yet their religion remains invisible. The flesh hates the soul and wages war against it, even though it has suffered no wrong, because it is hindered from indulging in its pleasures. Similarly, the world also hates the Christians, even though it has suffered no wrong, because they set themselves against its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it and its members, and Christians love those who hate them. The soul is enclosed in the body, but it holds the body together. And though Christians are detained in the world as if in a prison, they in fact hold the world together. The soul, which is immortal, lives in a mortal dwelling. In a similar way, Christians live as strangers amid perishable things, while waiting for the imperishable in heaven. The soul, when poorly treated with respect to food and drink, becomes all the better. And so Christians when punished daily increase more and more. Such is the important position to which God has appointed them, and it is not right for them to decline it. LETTER TO DIOGNETUS 6. [1]

[1] AF 541-43.

17:11c | Holy Father, Keep Them in Your Name

A PRAYER OF THANKS FOR THE HOLY NAME

DIDACHE:

We give you thanks, Holy Father,

For your holy name which you

have caused to dwell in our hearts,

And for the knowledge and faith and immortality

Which you have made known to us

Through Jesus your servant;

To you be the glory forever. …

Remember your church, Lord,

To deliver it from all evil

And to make it perfect in your love;

And gather it, the one that has been sanctified,

From the four winds into your kingdom,

Which you have prepared for it;

For yours is the power and the glory forever.

DIDACHE 10.2-5.

JESUS IS CERTAIN HIS PRAYER WILL BE ANSWERED

HILARY OF POITIERS: John, who especially brings out the working of spiritual causes in the Gospel, preserves this prayer of the Lord for the apostles that all the others passed over. Notice how he prayed, namely, “Holy Father, keep them in your name. … While I was with them, I kept them in your name: those whom you gave me I have kept.” That prayer was not for himself but for his apostles. He was not in sorrow for himself [1] since he asks them to pray that they won’t be tempted. … And when he prays, he prays for those whom he preserved, so long as he was with them, whom he now hands over to the Father to preserve. Now that he is about to accomplish the mystery of death, he begs the Father to guard them. The presence of the angel who was sent to him (if this explanation is true) is no doubt significant. Jesus showed his certainty that the prayer was answered when, at its close, he commands the disciples to sleep. [2] The effect of this prayer and the security that prompted the command, “sleep,” is noticed by the Evangelist in the course of the passion, when he says of the apostles just before they escaped from the hands of the pursuers, “That the word might be fulfilled which he had spoken, ‘Of those whom you have given me, I lost not one of them .’” He himself fulfills the petition of his prayer, and they are all safe. But he asks that those whom he has preserved the Father will now preserve in his own name. And they are preserved; the faith of Peter does not fail: it cowered, but repentance followed immediately. ON THE TRINITY 10.42. [3]

[1] Hilary here speaking of the cup Jesus asked to pass from him.

[2] Hilary may be reflecting a variant in Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts of Jesus’ prayer.

[3] NPNF 2 9:193*; CCL 62A:495-96.

17:11d | That They May Be One7

THE MEANINGS OF “ONE

” ORIGEN: “One” has many meanings, including that of likeness. It is used both of harmony [1] and likeness. [2] “All the believers were of one heart and mind,” [3] and in the same way, “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” [4] According to likeness of nature and having Adam as the natural origin and head of our birth, we are all said to have one body. So also we are inscribed as having Christ as head through our new birth, which has become to us a figure of the death and resurrection of him who rose as the firstborn from the dead. We inscribe him as head according to the prefiguring of his resurrection, of whom we are individually members and a body, through the Spirit, begotten unto incorruption. [5] FRAGMENT 140 ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. [6]

[1] Gk symphōnian; see 1 Cor 7:5; 2 Cor 6:15; Lk 5:36.

[2] Gk homoiotēta; see Heb 4:15; 7:15.

[3] Acts 4:32.

[4] 1 Cor 12:13.

[5] See 1 Cor 15:49-54.

[6] AEG 5:315**; GCS 10(4):574.

THE BOND OF CHRISTIAN UNITY IN LOVE

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Christ wishes the disciples to be kept in a state of unity by maintaining a like-mindedness and an identity of will, being mingled together as it were in soul and spirit and in the law of peace and love for one another. He wishes them to be bound together tightly with an unbreakable bond of love, that they may advance to such a degree of unity that their freely chosen association might even become an image of the natural unity that is conceived to exist between the Father and the Son. That is to say, he wishes them to enjoy a unity that is inseparable and indestructible, which may not be enticed away into a dissimilarity of wills by anything at all that exists in the world or any pursuit of pleasure, but rather reserves the power of love in the unity of devotion and holiness. And this is what happened. For as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, “the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul,” [1] that is, in the unity of the Spirit. This is also what Paul himself meant when he said “one body and one Spirit.” [2] “We who are many are one body in Christ for we all partake of the one bread,” [3] and we have all been anointed in the one Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. [4] COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 11.9. [5]

[1] Acts 4:32.

[2] Eph 4:4.

[3] 1 Cor 10:17; see Rom 12:5.

[4] See 1 Cor 12:13.

[5] COA 128.

LOVE IS A MULTIPLIER

CHRYSOSTOM: “For the will of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one.” This is what he wants us to be as well when he says, “That they may be one, as you and I are one.” There is nothing that can equal unanimity and concord, for this is how one becomes many. If two or ten are of one mind, the one is no longer one, but each one is multiplied tenfold, and you will find the one in the ten and the ten in the one. And if they have an enemy, he who attacks the one (as having attacked the ten) is defeated, for he is the target of ten opponents instead of one. Is someone in need? No, he is not in need, for he is wealthy in his greater part, that is, in the nine. And the needy part, the lesser, is concealed by the wealthy part, the greater. Each of these has twenty hands, twenty eyes and as many feet. For he does not see with his own eyes alone but with those of the others as well. He does not walk with his own feet alone but with those of the others. He does not work with his own hands alone but with theirs. He has ten souls, for not only does he think about himself, but those souls also think about him. And if they are made into a hundred, it will still be the same, and their power will be extended even more. Don’t you see how the excess of love makes the one both irresistible and multiplied? See how one can even be in many places, the same both in Persia and in Rome? Don’t you see that what nature cannot do, love can? … See what a multiplier love is when it can even make one a thousand. Why then do we not acquire this power and place ourselves in safety? This is better than all power or riches. This is more than health, than light itself. It is the groundwork for courage. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 78.3-4. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:289-90**.

ARIAN MISUNDERSTANDING OF “ONE

” ATHANASIUS: The Arians, however, reply … the Son and the Father are one as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father—just as we too may become one in him. For this is written in the Gospel according to John. [1] … Then, as having found an evasion, these crafty ones add [to John’s Gospel], “If, as we become one in the Father, so also the Son and the Father are one, and thus the Son too is in the Father, how do you pretend that ‘I and the Father are One,’ and ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me,’ mean that the Son is proper and like the Father’s essence? For it follows either that we too are proper to the Father’s essence or the Son is foreign to it as we are foreign.” This is how they idly babble. But they are, in fact, devilishly reckless. … For what is given to humankind by grace is what they would make equal to the Godhead of the giver. And so, hearing that human beings are called sons, they considered themselves equal to the true Son who is by nature [a Son of God]. And now again hearing from the Savior, “that they may be one as we are,” they deceive themselves and are arrogant enough to think that they may be such as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son—not considering the fall of their father the devil who thought the same thing. DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS 3.25.17. [2]

[1] Athanasius quotes the Arian usage of Jn 17:11, 20-23.

[2] NPNF 2 4:403**.

A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF “ONE

” ATHANASIUS: For it is as “sons” [that we become one with God], not as the Son. We become as “gods”—we do not become God himself. We are not as the Father but “merciful as the Father.” And, as has been said, by becoming one in this way, that is, as the Father and the Son are one, we shall be one. We shall be so, however, not as the Father is by nature in the Son and the Son in the Father, but according to our own nature. And in this way it is possible for us then to be molded and to learn how we ought to be one, just as we learned also to be merciful. For similar things are naturally one with other similar things. And so, all flesh is ranked together in kind. [1] But the Word is unlike us, although it is like the Father. And therefore, while the Son is in nature and truth one with his own Father, we—as being of one kind with each other (for from one were all made, and one is the nature of all men and women)—become one in our good disposition toward each other. [2] We have as our copy the Son’s natural unity with the Father. For he taught us meekness from himself, saying, “Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.” [3] He taught us this not so that we may become equal to him (which is impossible) but so that when we look toward his [example], we may continually remain meek. So also here he desires that our good disposition toward each other should be true and firm and indissoluble, taking himself as the pattern. And so he says, “that they may be one as we are,” whose oneness is indivisible. And so, when they learn from us of that indivisible nature, they may preserve agreement with each other in a similar way. DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS 3.25.20. [4]

[1] See Against the Arians 2.23, 42.

[2] Gk diathesei. See also Hippolytus Against Noetus 7 on this point.

[3] Mt 11:29.

[4] NPNF 2 4:405**.

17:12 | None of Them Was Lost but the Son of Perdition

PROPHECY OF PSALM 109 FULFILLED

AUGUSTINE: The betrayer of Christ was called the son of perdition, as foreordained to perdition, according to the Scripture, where it is specially prophesied of him in Psalm 109. [1] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 107.7. [2]

[1] Ps 108 Vg.

[2] NPNF 1 7:404; CCL 36:615.

JUDAS BENT ON HIS OWN DESTRUCTION

LEO THE GREAT: But O ungodliest of people, “seed of Canaan and not of Judah,” [1] and no longer “a vessel of election” but “a son of perdition” and death! You thought the devil’s instigations would profit you better so that, inflamed with the torch of greed, you were ablaze to gain thirty pieces of silver without seeing the riches you would lose. For even if you did not think the Lord’s promises were to be believed, what reason was there for preferring so small a sum of money to what you had already received? You were allowed to command the evil spirits, to heal the sick, to receive honor with the rest of the apostles. And that you might satisfy your thirst for gain, you had the opportunity to steal from the box that was in your charge. But your mind, which lusted after forbidden things, was more strongly stimulated by what was less allowed. It was not the amount of the price that pleased you so much as the enormity of the sin. And so your wicked bargain is not so detestable merely because you valued the Lord so cheaply but because you sold him who was the redeemer, yes, even yours, and yet you asked for no pity for yourself. [2] And justly was your punishment put into your own hands because none could be found more cruelly bent on your destruction than yourself. SERMON 67.4. [3]

[1] Sus 56, said by Daniel to one of the two elders; see also Acts 9:15.

[2] Redemptorem etiam tuum ne tibi parceres, vendidisti. See also Sermon 58.3, 4; Sermon 62.4.

[3] NPNF 2 12:179**; CCL 138A:410-11.

WHY GOD GRANTS PERSEVERANCE TO SOME AND NOT OTHERS IS A MYSTERY

AUGUSTINE: Here, if I am asked why God should not have given them perseverance to whom he gave that love by which they might live in a Christian way, I answer that I do not know. I am not speaking arrogantly but rather with an acknowledgment of my own small capabilities when I hear the apostle saying, “O man, who are you that makes a reply against God?” [1] … Insofar as he condescends to make his judgments known to us, let us give thanks. However, insofar as he thinks it is fitting to conceal them, let us not murmur against his counsel. Rather, let us believe that this also is the most wholesome for us. But whoever of you are in opposition to his grace and ask [concerning this question of perseverance], what do you yourself say? It is well that you do not deny yourself to be a Christian and boast of being a catholic. If, therefore, you confess that to persevere to the end in good is God’s gift, I think that equally with me you are ignorant why one person should receive this gift and another should not receive it. And in this case we are both unable to penetrate the unsearchable judgments of God. ON REBUKE AND GRACE 17. [2]

[1] Rom 9:20; he also cites Rom 11:33.

[2] PL 44:925-26; NPNF 1 5:478**.

A SON OF PROMISE DOES NOT PERISH

AUGUSTINE: When, therefore, God’s children say of those who did not have perseverance, “They went out from us, but they were not of us,” and add, “Because if they had been of us, they would assuredly have continued with us,” [1] what else are they saying than that they were not children, even when they were called and professed to be children? It is not because they simulated righteousness but because they did not continue in it. For he does not say, “If they had been of us, they would assuredly have maintained a real and not a feigned righteousness with us.” Rather, he says, “If they had been of us, they would assuredly have continued with us.” Beyond a doubt, he wanted them to continue in goodness. Therefore they were in goodness. However, because they did not remain in it—that is, they did not persevere to the end—he says, “They were not of us, even when they were with us.” In other words, they were not of the number of children even when they were in the faith as children because those who are truly children are foreknown and predestined as conformed to the image of his Son. They are called according to his purpose so as to be elected, as is evident in the fact that the son of promise does not perish, but the son of perdition does. ON REBUKE AND GRACE 20. [2]

[1] 1 Jn 2:19.

[2] PL 44:928; NPNF 1 5:480**. See also Letter 159.4.

NO COMPULSION TO STAY

CHRYSOSTOM: In another place he says, “Of all that you gave me, I will surely lose nothing.” [1] Yet not only was [Judas] lost, but also many afterward were lost too. So how then can he say, “I will not lose any?” [He means], “At least for my part, I will not lose them.” So in another place, declaring the matter more clearly, he said, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me.” [2] In other words, [Jesus is saying], it is not through any fault on my part. They will not be lost at my instigation or because I abandon them. But if they start going away on their own, I will not force them back. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 81.2. [3]

[1] Jn 6:39.

[2] Jn 6:37.

[3] NPNF 1 14:301**.

17:13 | Christ Does Not Leave Them Without Joy

THEIR JOY IS THEIR UNITY

AUGUSTINE: But he tells what this joy is when he says, “That they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” This has already been elucidated above where he says, “That they may be one, even as we are.” This joy of his that is bestowed on them by him was to be fulfilled, he says, in them. And for that very end he declared that he had spoken in the world. This is that peace and blessedness in the world to come. If we want to attain it, we must live temperately and righteously and godly in the present. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 107.8. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:404**; CCL 36:616.

CHRIST WORKS IN THEM

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Showing himself to them simultaneously as God and man, Christ induces his disciples to reflect that he would work to accomplish their salvation in God whether present or absent. And that as he had them in his keeping while he was with them on the earth in the form of man, so also would he keep them while absent from them as God. … For that which is divine is not bounded by space and is not far from anything that exists but fills and pervades the universe. And though it is present in all things, it is contained by none. When addressing his own Father, Christ says, “Holy Father, keep them,” referring … to the universal working of the power of the Father. And at the same time showing that he does not stand apart from the nature of the Father but being in it and proceeding from it, Christ is indivisibly united with it, though he is conceived of as independently existing. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 11.9. [1]

[1] LF 48:521*.