{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/107/1070064.htm","path":"chr/ecf/107/1070064.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/107/1070064.htm","text":"1. This short section of the Gospel, brethren, we have in this lesson brought forward for exposition, as thinking that we ought also to say something of the Lord\u2019s betrayer, as now plainly enough disclosed by the dipping and holding out to him of the piece of bread. Of that indeed which precedes, (namely), that Jesus, when about to point him out, was troubled in spirit, we have treated in our last discourse; but what I perhaps omitted to mention there, the Lord, by His own perturbation of spirit, thought proper to indicate this also, that it is necessary to bear with false brethren, and those tares that are among the wheat in the Lord\u2019s field until harvest-time, because that when we are compelled by p. 311 urgent reasons to separate some of them even before the harvest, it cannot be done without disturbance to the Church. Such disturbance to His saints in the future, through schismatics and heretics, the Lord in a way foretold and prefigured in Himself, when, at the moment of that wicked man Judas\u2019 departure, and of his thereby bringing to an end, in a very open and decided way, his past intermingling with the wheat, in which he had long been tolerated, He was troubled, not in body, but in spirit. For it is not spitefulness, but charity, that troubles His spiritual members in scandals of this kind; lest perchance, in separating some of the tares, any of the wheat should also be uprooted therewith.\n2. \u201cJesus,\u201d therefore, \u201cwas troubled in spirit, and testified, and said: Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.\u201d \u201cOne of you,\u201d in number, not in merit; in appearance, not in reality; in bodily commingling, not by any spiritual tie; a companion by fleshly juxtaposition, not in any unity of the heart; and therefore not one who is of you, but one who is to go forth from you. For how else can this \u201cone of you\u201d be true, of which the Lord so testified, and said, if that is true which the writer of this very Gospel says in his Epistle, \u201cThey went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us\u201d? 1202 Judas, therefore was not of them; for, had he been of them, he would have continued with them. What, then, do the words \u201cOne of you shall betray me\u201d mean, but that one is going out from you who shall betray me? Just as he also, who said, \u201cIf they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us,\u201d had said before, \u201cThey went out from us.\u201d And thus it is true in both senses, \u201cof us,\u201d and \u201cnot of us;\u201d in one respect \u201cof us,\u201d and in another \u201cnot of us;\u201d \u201cof us\u201d in respect to sacramental communion, but \u201cnot of us\u201d in respect to the criminal conduct that belongs exclusively to themselves.\n3. \u201cThen the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake.\u201d For while they were imbued with a reverential love to their Master, they were none the less affected by human infirmity in their feelings towards each other. Each one\u2019s own conscience was known to himself; but as he was ignorant of his neighbor\u2019s, each one\u2019s self-assurance was such that each was uncertain of all the others, and all the others were uncertain of that one.\n4. \u201cNow there was leaning on Jesus\u2019 bosom, one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.\u201d What he meant by saying \u201cin His bosom,\u201d he tells us a little further on, where he says, \u201con the breast of Jesus.\u201d It was that very John whose Gospel is before us, as he afterwards expressly declares. 1203 For it was a custom with those who have supplied us with the sacred writings, that when any of them was relating the divine history, and came to something affecting himself, he spoke as if it were about another; and gave himself a place in the line of his narrative becoming one who was the recorder of public events, and not as one who made himself the subject of his preaching. Saint Matthew acted also in this way, when, in coming in the course of his narrative to himself, he says, \u201cHe saw a publican named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, and saith unto him, Follow me.\u201d 1204 He does not say, He saw me, and said to me. So also acted the blessed Moses, writing all the history about himself as if it concerned another, and saying, \u201cThe Lord said unto Moses.\u201d 1205 Less habitually was this done by the Apostle Paul, not however in any history which undertakes to explain the course of public events, but in his own epistles. At all events, he speaks thus of himself: \u201cI knew a man in Christ fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up into the third heaven.\u201d 1206 And so, when the blessed evangelist also says here, not, I was leaning on Jesus\u2019 bosom, but, \u201cThere was leaning one of the disciples,\u201d let us recognize a custom of our author\u2019s, rather than fall into any wonder on the subject. For what loss is there to the truth, when the facts themselves are told us, and all boastfulness of language is in a measure avoided? For thus at least did he relate that which most signally pertained to his praise.\n5. But what mean the words, \u201cwhom Jesus loved\u201d? As if He did not love the others, of whom this same John has said above, \u201cHe loved them to the end\u201d (John 13.1); and as the Lord Himself, \u201cGreater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.\u201d And who could enumerate all the testimonies of the sacred pages, in which the Lord Jesus is exhibited as the lover, not only of this one, or of those who were then around Him, but of such also as were to be His members in the distant future, and of His universal Church? But there is some truth, doubtless, underlying these words, and having reference to the bosom on which the narrator was leaning. For what else can be in p. 312 dicated by the bosom but some hidden truth? But there is another more suitable passage, where the Lord may enable us to say something about this secret that may prove sufficient.\n6. \u201cSimon Peter therefore beckons, and says to him.\u201d 1207 The expression is noteworthy, as indicating that something was said not by any sound of words, but by merely beckoning with the head. \u201cHe beckons, and says;\u201d that is, his beckoning is his speech. For if one is said to speak in his thoughts, as Scripture saith, \u201cThey said [reasoned] with themselves;\u201d 1208 how much more may he do so by beckoning, which expresses outwardly by some sort of signs what had previously been conceived within! What, then, did his beckoning mean? What else but that which follows? \u201cWho is it of whom He speaks?\u201d Such was the language of Peter\u2019s beckoning; for it was by no vocal sounds, but by bodily gestures, that he spake. \u201cHe then, having leaned back on Jesus\u2019 breast,\u201d\u2014surely the very bosom 1209 of His breast this, the secret place of wisdom!\u2014\u201csaith unto Him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a piece of bread, when I have dipped it. And when He had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the bread, Satan entered into him.\u201d The traitor was disclosed, the coverts of darkness were revealed. What he got was good, but to his own hurt he received it, because, evil himself, in an evil spirit he received what was good. But we have much to say about that dipped bread which was presented to the false-hearted disciple, and about that which follows; and for these we shall require more time than remains to us now at the close of this discourse.\nThe original mss. give different readings of this verse. That followed by our English version is supported by the Codd. Alex. and Cantabr., which read, \u039d\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf\u1f56\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u1ff3 \u03a3\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u03a0\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c5\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03af\u03c2 \u1f02\u03bd \u03b5\u1f34\u03b7 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03bf\u1f57 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9. The Latin version used by Augustin reads, Innuit ergo Simon Petrus, et dicit ei, Quis est de quo dicit, and approaches nearly to that found in the Codd. Vat. and Ephr., which read, \u039d\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf\u1f57\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u1ff3 \u03a3. \u03a0., \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff7, \u0395\u1f30\u03c0\u1f72 \u03c4\u03af\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03bf\u1f57 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u2014\u201cSimon Peter therefore beckons to this one, and says to him, Say [ask], who is it of whom He speaks?\u201d Of the early versions, the Syriac adopts the former, while the Vulgate resembles the latter. The Sinaitic gives a fuller reading, compounded of both the others. There is thus some doubt as to the original text; but the latter has some special arguments of an internal kind in its favor: such as the consideration that, from its peculiar and somewhat redundant form, it could hardly have been substituted in place of the former, which is smoother and more elegant, while the converse is perfectly supposable; and also the weighty fact that John nowhere else makes use of the optative mood, as he would here (\u03c4\u03af\u03c2 \u1f02\u03bd \u03b5\u1f34\u03b7), if the former reading\u2014that followed by our English version\u2014were the true one.\u2014Tr.\n312:1208 312:1209\nPectoris sinus; the hollow, the inmost part of the breast.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII: Lectures or Tra...","type":"page"}