51. Verily, verily, I say to you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.
GREG. As the perversity of the wicked increases, preaching so far from giving way, ought even to become more active. Thus our Lord, after He had been accused of having a devil, imparts the treasures of preaching in a still larger degree: Verily, verily, I say to you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death.
AUG. See is put for experience. But since, about to die Himself, He spoke with those about to die, what means this, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death? What, but that He saw another death from which He came to free us, death eternal, the death of the damned, which is shared with the devil and his angels! That is the true death: the other is a passage only.
ORIGEN. We must understand Him, as it were, to say, If a man keep My light, he shall not see darkness forever; forever being taken as common to both clauses, as if the sentence were, If a man keep My saying for ever, He shall not see death for ever: meaning that a man does not see death, so long as he keeps Christ's word. But when a man, by becoming sluggish in the observance of His words, and negligent in the keeping of his own heart, ceases to keep them, he then sees death; he brings it upon himself. Thus taught then by our Savior, to the prophet who asks, What man is he that lives, and shall not see death? we are able to answer, He who keeps Christ's word.
CHRYS. He says, keep, i.e. not by faith, but by purity of life. And at the same time too He means it as a tacit intimation that they can do nothing to Him. For if whoever keeps His word, shall never die, much less is it possible that He Himself should die.
52. Then said the Jews to him, Now we know that you have a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and you say, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
53. Are you greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead; whom make you yourself?
54. Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing; it is my Father that honors me; of whom you say, that he is your God:
55. Yet you have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like to you: but I know him, and keep his saying.
56. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
GREG. As it is necessary that the good should grow better by contumely, so are the reprobate made worse by kindness On hearing our Lord's words, the Jews again blaspheme: Then said the Jews to Him, Now we know you have a devil.
ORIGEN. Those who believe the Holy Scriptures, understand that what men do contrary to right reason, is not done without the operation of devils. Thus the Jews thought that Jesus had spoken by the influence of the devil, when He said, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death. And this idea they labored under, because they did not know the power of God. For here He was speaking of that death of enmity to reason, by which sinners perish: whereas they understand Him of that death which is common to all; and therefore blame Him for so speaking, when it was certain that Abraham and the Prophets were dead: Abraham is dead, and the Prophets; and you say, If man keep My saying, be shall never taste of death. Shall never taste of death, they say, instead of, shall not see death; though between tasting and seeing death there is a difference. Like careless hearers, they mistake what our Lord said. For as our Lord, in that He is the true bread, is good to taste; in that He is wisdom, is beautiful to behold; in like manner His adversary death is both to be tasted and seen. When then a man stands by Christ's help in the spiritual place pointed out to him, he shall not taste of death if he preserves that state: according to Matthew, There those standing here, which shall not taste of death. But when a man hears Christ's words and keeps them, he shall not see death.
CHRYS. Again, they have recourse to the vainglorious argument of their descent: Are you greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? They might have said, Are you greater than God, whose words they are dead who heard? But they do not say this, because they thought Him inferior even to Abraham.
ORIGEN. For they do not see that not Abraham only, but every one born of women, is less than He who was born of a Virgin. Now were the Jews right in saying that Abraham was dead? for he heard the word of Christ, and kept it, as did also the Prophets, who, they say, were dead. For they kept the word of the Son of God, when the word of the Lord came to Hosea, Isaiah, or Jeremiah; if any one else kept the word, surely those Prophets did. They utter a lie then when they say, We know that you have a devil; and when they say, Abraham is dead, and the Prophets.
GREG. For being given over to eternal death, which death they saw not, and thinking only, as they did, of the death of the body, their minds were darkened, even while the Truth Himself was speaking. They add: Whom makes you Yourself?
THEOPHYL. As if to say, you a person of no account, a carpenter's son of Galilee, to take glory to Yourself!
BEDE. Whom make you Yourself? i.e. Of what merit, of what dignity would you be accounted? Nevertheless, Abraham only died in the body; his soul lived. And the death of the soul which is to live for ever, is greater than the death of the body that must die some time.
ORIGEN. This was the speech of persons spiritually blind. For Jesus did not make Himself what He was, but received it from the Father: Jesus answered and said, If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing.
CHRYS. This is to answer their suspicions as above, If I bear witness of Myself My witness is not true.
BEDE. He shows in these words that the glory of this present life is nothing.
AUG. This is to answer those who said, Whom make you Yourself? He refers His glory to the Father, from Whom He is: It is My Father that honors Me. The Arians take occasion from those words to calumniate our faith, and say, Lo, the Father is greater, for He glorifies the Son. Heretics, have you not read that the Son also glorifies the Father?
ALCUIN. The Father glorified the Son, at His baptism, on the mount, at the time of His passion, when a voice came to Him, in the midst of the crowd, when He raised Him up again after His passion, and placed Him at the right hand of His Majesty.
CHRYS. He adds, Of whom you say that He is your God; meaning to tell them that they were not only ignorant of the Father, but even of God.
THEOPHYL. For had they known the Father really, they would have reverenced the Son. But they even despise God, who in the Law forbade murder, by their clamors against Christ. Wherefore He says, You have not known Him.
ALCUIN. As if to say, you call Him your God, after a carnal manner, serving Him for temporal rewards. You have not known Him, as He should be known; you are not able to serve Him spiritually.
AUG. Some heretics say that the God proclaimed in the Old Testament is not the Father of Christ, but a kind of prince of bad angels. These He contradicts when He calls Him His Father, whom the Jews called their God, and knew not. For had they known Him, they would have received His Son. Of Himself however He adds, But I know Him. And here too, to men judging after the flesh, He might appear arrogant. But let not arrogance be so guarded against, as that truth be deserted. Therefore our Lord says, And if I should say I know Him not, I should be a liar like to you.
CHRYS. As if to say, As you, saying that you know Him, lie; so were I a liar, did I say I knew Him not. It follows, however, (which is the greatest proof of all that He was sent from God,) But I know Him.
THEOPHYL. Having that knowledge by nature; for as I am, so is the Father also; I know Myself, and therefore I know Him. And He gives the proof that He knows Him: And I keep His saying, i.e. His commandments. Some understand, I keep His saying, to mean, I keep the nature of His substance unchanged; for the substance of the Father and the Son is the same, as their nature is the same; and therefore I know the Father. And here has the force of because: I know Him because I keep His saying.
AUG. He spoke the saying of the Father too, as being the Son; and He was Himself that Word of the Father, which He spoke to men.
CHRYS. In answer then to their question, Are you greater than our father Abraham, He shows them that He is greater than Abraham; Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day: he saw it, and was glad; he must have rejoiced, because My day would benefit him, which is to acknowledge Me greater than himself.
THEOPHYL. As if to say, He regarded My day, as a day to be desired, and full of joy; not as if I was an unimportant or common person.
AUG. He did not fear, but rejoiced to see: he rejoiced in hope, believing, and so by faith saw. It admits of doubt whether He is speaking here of the temporal day of the Lord, that, viz. of His coming in the flesh, or of that day which knows s neither rising or setting. I doubt not however that our father Abraham knew the whole: as he says to his servant whom he sent, Put your hand under my thigh, and swear to me by the God of heaven. What did that oath signify, but that the God of heaven was to come in the flesh, out of the stock of Abraham.
GREG. Abraham saw the day of the Lord even then, when he entertained the three Angels, a figure of the Trinity.
CHRYS. They are aliens from Abraham if they grieve over what he rejoiced in. By this day perhaps He means the day of the cross, which Abraham prefigured by the offering up of Isaac and the ram: intimating hereby that He did not come to His passion unwillingly.
AUG. If they rejoiced to whom the Word appeared in the flesh, what was his joy, who beheld in spiritual vision the light ineffable, the abiding Word, the bright illumination of pious souls, the indefectible wisdom, still abiding with God the Father, and sometime to come in the flesh, but not to leave the Father's bosom.
57. Then said the Jews to him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?
58. Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am.
59. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
GREG. The carnal minds of the Jews are intent on the flesh only; they think only of His age in the flesh: Then said the Jews to Him, you are not fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? that is to say, Many ages have passed since Abraham died; and how then could he see your day? For they took His words in a carnal sense.
THEOPHYL. Christ was then thirty-three years old. Why then do they not say, You are not yet forty years old, instead of fifty? A needless question this: they simply spoke as chance led them at the time. Some however say that they mentioned the fiftieth year on account of its sacred character, as being the year of jubilee, in which they redeemed their captives, and gave up the possessions they had bought.
GREG. Our Savior mildly draws them away from their carnal view, to the contemplation of His Divinity; Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am. Before is a particle of past time, am, of present. Divinity has no past or future, but always the present; and therefore He does not say, Before Abraham was, I was: but, Before Abraham was, I am: as it is in Exodus, I am that I am. Before and after might be said of Abraham with reference to different periods of his life; to be, in the present, is said of the truth only.
AUG. Abraham being a creature, He did not say before Abraham was, but, before Abraham was made. Nor does He say, I am made; because that, in the beginning WAS the Word.
GREG. Their unbelieving minds, however, were unable to support these indications of eternity; and not understanding Him, sought to destroy Him: Then they took up stones to cast at Him.
AUG. Such hardness of heart, whither was it to run, but to its truest likeness, even the stones? But now that He had done all that He could do as a teacher, and they in return wished to stone Him, since they could not bear correction, He leaves them: Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple. He did not hide Himself in a corner of the temple, as if He was afraid, or take refuge in a house, or run behind a wall, or a pillar; but by His heavenly power, making Himself invisible to His enemies, went through the midst of them: Jesus hid Himself, and, went out of the temple.
GREG. Who, had He chosen to exert the power of His Divinity, could, without a word, by His mere nod, have seized them, with the very stones in their hands, and delivered them to immediate death. But He who came to suffer, was slow to execute judgment.
AUG. For His part was more to exhibit patience than exercise power.
ALCUIN. He fled, because His hour was not yet come; and because He had not chosen this kind of death.
AUG. So then, as a man, He flies from the stones; but woe to them, from whose stony hearts God flies.
BEDE. Mystically, a man throws a stone at Jesus, as often as he harbors an evil thought, and if he follows it up, so far as lies in him, he kills Jesus.
GREG. What does our Lord mean by hiding Himself, but that the truth is hidden to them, who despise His words. The truth flies the company of an unhumbled soul. His example shows us, that we should in all humility rather retreat from the wrath of the proud, when it rises, than resist it, even though we might be able.
Catena Aurea John 8