Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Argumentum
St. John the Apostle, son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of St. James the Greater, wrote this Gospel in Greek in Asia, near the end of his life, after his return from exile on Patmos, where he had written the Apocalypse, as I showed in the proem to the Apocalypse. The reason for writing was twofold: The first, to refute the heretics Ebion and Cerinthus, who were then already springing up, who denied the divinity of Christ and taught that He was a mere man. The second, to supply what Matthew, Mark, and Luke had omitted about Christ. Hence John fully pursues the acts of Christ in the first year of His preaching, which the other three had mostly passed over.
Hear St. Jerome, in his proem to Matthew: "Last of all, John the Apostle and Evangelist, whom Jesus loved most; who reclining upon the breast of the Lord, drank the purest streams of doctrine, and who alone deserved to hear from the cross: Behold your mother. When he was in Asia, and already the seeds of heretics were sprouting — Cerinthus, Ebion, and the rest, who deny that Christ came in the flesh, whom he himself in his epistle calls Antichrists, and whom the Apostle Paul frequently strikes down — he was compelled by nearly all the bishops of Asia at that time, and by delegations from many churches, to write more profoundly about the divinity of the Savior; and to rush forth, so to speak, to the very Word of God itself, with a boldness that was not so much audacious as fortunate. Whence also Ecclesiastical history relates that when he was urged by the brethren to write, he replied that he would do so if, with a fast proclaimed, all would together entreat God: which being completed, saturated with revelation, he poured forth that proem coming from heaven: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: this was in the beginning with God."
Therefore St. John wrote the Gospel, preceded by a communal fast of the Church. Others add that it was preceded by thunders and lightnings, as if he were another Moses, who received the law from God with thunder, lightning, and earthquake, Exodus XIX. For he himself had been designated by Christ as Boanerges, that is, son of thunder, and as such he thundered forth the new beginning of the new law: "In the beginning was the Word." So from Metaphrastes and others, Baronius, tome I, at the beginning of the year of Christ 99, where he likewise teaches that John wrote this Gospel in the year of Christ 99, 66 years after His ascension, which was 27 years after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the first year of the Emperor Nerva, when already the faith of Christ and the Church were growing everywhere throughout the provinces, and were becoming illustrious with a great number of the faithful, and with the greater virtue and strength of the Martyrs.
Therefore just as Isaiah surpasses the other Prophets, so John surpasses the other Evangelists in sublimity: wherefore, although he is last in time among the others, in dignity and perfection he is first. Hence he is also compared to the eagle soaring above the other birds, Ezekiel I, Apocalypse IV. This dignity, sublimity, and excellence of his, and consequently his obscurity, can be assessed from three principal sources.
The first is the subject matter and argument: for St. John alone treats expressly of the divinity of Christ, of the origin of the Word, His eternity, generation, and the spiration of the Holy Spirit, of the Most Holy Trinity, the unity of the Godhead, the relations, the divine attributes, etc. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, on the other hand, recount the mysteries and deeds of Christ's humanity. Hence from St. John the Fathers drew nearly all their arguments against the Arians, Servetians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and similar heretics; and the Scholastic Doctors drew their entire treatment of the Holy Trinity and of the triune and one God.
The second is the order of time. We know that the Church, like the dawn and the sun, gradually grew with the succession of ages to the perfect day of knowledge of the mysteries of faith. Hence the inspired writers of the New Testament, namely the Apostles and Evangelists, write far more clearly and brilliantly about these matters than Moses and the Prophets of the Old Testament. But among them the last of all is St. John; his last work is the Gospel, as the Fathers and commentators teach. Therefore St. John put the finishing touch and the crowning achievement on the Gospels and the entire Bible with this Gospel.
The third is the author; for St. John alone among all the Saints merited and obtained every crown. He is called and truly is a Theologian, indeed the summit of Theologians; he is a Prophet, he is an Apostle, he is an Evangelist, he is a Priest, he is a Pontiff, he is a Hierarch, he is a Virgin, he is a Martyr; but because he was a virgin, death did not overcome him, and plunged into boiling oil, he could neither be burned nor harmed by it. That John is a Theologian is clear from the Apocalypse, which in Greek is inscribed "Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian." That he is a Prophet in the Apocalypse no one is unaware; he is an Evangelist in the Gospel; an Apostle in the three Canonical Epistles which he composed. That he was and remains perpetually a virgin, all the ancients attest, and specifically the most ancient Tertullian, in his book On Monogamy, and St. Jerome, book I Against Jovinian. Wherefore he, both by the merit of other virtues and especially of virginity, became that disciple whom Jesus loved, the Benjamin of Christ, who at the Last Supper of the Lord reclined upon His breast, to whom as He was dying He commended His virgin Mother to a virgin. Indeed, "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God," says Truth Himself, Matthew V. They shall see, I say, in this life through faith and contemplation, in the future through direct vision.
Therefore the Only-Begotten, who is in the bosom of God the Father, to St. John, as to one most chaste and most dear to Him, reclining in His bosom, narrated the secrets and mysteries of the divinity, hidden from the foundation of the world. John narrated these same things to us, and as a son of thunder, thunderous and lightning-like, he illuminated the whole world with the divinity of the Word, as with a flashing lightning bolt, and set it ablaze with His fiery charity. Let that one longest and last discourse of Christ from the Supper, chapter XIII and following, serve as witness, which breathes and pours forth nothing but the ardors of divine love. "John," says St. Epiphanius, Heresy 73, "truly a son of thunder, through his own grand eloquence, as if from certain clouds of the enigmas of wisdom, persuaded us of a pious understanding of the Son." St. Jerome, epistle 85 to Evagrius: "The trumpet sounds," he says, "the son of thunder, whom Jesus loved most, who drank the streams of doctrine from the breast of the Savior."
See more about him here in St. Cyril, St. Augustine, and St. Chrysostom, in the proem to John. Indeed, St. Chrysostom dares to say that John through his Gospel taught the angels the secrets of the incarnate Word, which they previously did not know, and that he was therefore a teacher of the Cherubim and the Seraphim, and he proves this from that passage of Paul, Ephesians III: "That the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, through the Church." "If therefore," says Chrysostom, "the principalities and powers, and the Cherubim and Seraphim learned these things through the Church, it is plainly evident that the angels themselves present themselves as his hearers with the greatest attention. And for this reason we gain no small honor, that the angels learn together with us what they did not know."
Thirdly. St. Gregory of Nyssa, brother of St. Basil, narrates in his Life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus that when the latter, having been a disciple of Origen in his youth, had already been made Bishop of Neocaesarea, while the Origenists were already spreading their errors and sowing the seeds of Arianism, he began to waver concerning doctrine and the manner of doctrine: wherefore he humbly invoked God and His Mother for help and light: and not in vain. For in a dream the Blessed Virgin appeared to him with St. John, and she gave him St. John himself as a teacher: wherefore St. John handed down to Thaumaturgus a Creed, which the Fifth Ecumenical Council and the entire Eastern Church celebrates: in which Creed he most limpidly explains and treats the most divine mysteries of his Gospel, especially concerning the Word consubstantial with the Father. This Creed is found in Baronius and others in the Life of Thaumaturgus. Let us also humbly and repeatedly beseech the same from both of them. I have said more about St. John in the proem to the Apocalypse, and in epistle I of St. John.
Finally, to St. John Chrysostom, dwelling in a monastery, St. Peter appeared, offering him the keys, and St. John handing him the book of the Gospel; and thus St. Peter made him a Pontiff, and St. John made and authorized him as a heavenly teacher and preacher; whence he deserved to be surnamed Chrysostom, that is, golden mouth. So his Life relates.
Canons Bringing Light and Bearing the Torch for the Gospel of St. John
First
John has a style that is his own and peculiar, plainly different from the other Evangelists and sacred writers. For like an eagle he now raises himself above all; now as if toward prey he descends to earth, and accommodates himself to the capacity and simplicity of the unlearned, and is simple, virginal, plain, and candid. Now he has the wisdom of a Cherub, now he burns and kindles like a Seraph. The reason is that he was plainly most similar to Christ and most beloved, and in turn loved Him supremely; hence at Christ's Last Supper he reclined upon His breast. From Him therefore he drew Christ's character, wisdom, candor, as well as ardor. Therefore when you behold John, read him, hear him, consider that you are beholding, reading, and hearing Christ; for Christ poured His own spirit, His own ways and loves into John.
Second
John, although by universal agreement he wrote the Gospel in Greece, for Greeks, in Greek, nevertheless, because he himself was Hebrew in birth and nation, and by love of his original native language, as well as in elegance; hence he abounds in Hebrew rather than Greek phrases and idioms more than the others: whence a bilingual, indeed trilingual knowledge is needed here; namely, that you know Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Thus he Hebraizes when he often uses "and" for "as" or "like," as Solomon does throughout the Proverbs, where he compares like to like by the conjunction "and," which is therefore a mark of similitude and means the same as "as." He Graecizes, however, when he uses "perhaps" for "certainly"; for the Greek word ἄν denotes assertion, not doubt, John VIII, 19. Thus he uses "cannot" for "will not," John VIII, 43. Thus he always doubles and duplicates the Hebrew "amen," saying "Amen, amen," while the other Evangelists put only a single amen. I will trace the causes of this diversity in chapter III, 2.
Third
John devotes himself more to the disputations of Christ with the Jews and to His discourses than to recounting the deeds He performed. Not that he narrates all of Christ's disputations and discourses; but that he reduces into a compendium the more celebrated and more important ones, especially those by which Christ was proving that He was God as well as man.
Fourth
In John, Christ speaks now as man, now as God; and this must be carefully distinguished and discerned from the context and circumstances.
Fifth
When Christ in John says repeatedly that He does nothing or speaks nothing of Himself, or that He does not do or say this or that, but the Father, this must be understood in terms of origin and in an exclusive sense, as if to say: I alone neither as man fabricate these things, nor as God am the first author of them; but God the Father, who by communicating His divine essence to Me communicates to Me the omniscience and omnipotence of doing anything whatsoever, however arduous, sublime, paradoxical, and divine.
Sixth
Although the Apostles and other Saints also worked miracles, Christ nevertheless in John often proves from the miracles done by Him that He is the Messiah and God; and this rightly and efficaciously: first, because He Himself directly employed them to prove this. For a miracle, as a work of God and a real voice of the First Truth, is a certain testimony of that thing to which it is applied and introduced. Second, because Christ did them by His own power and authority and command, which He could not have done unless He Himself were God from God. For He did them in such a way that they seemed to flow from Him as from God, and as from the first source of miracles. But the Saints work miracles not by their own authority, but by the invocation of the name of God or of Christ. Third, because Christ did more and more varied miracles than all other Saints before or after Him. Add that those things were done by Christ which were predicted by Isaiah and the other Prophets as being signs and marks of the Messiah, or Christ, as will be clear in chapter XI, verse 4.
Seventh
Matthew, Mark, and Luke chiefly write about the deeds of the last and the penultimate year of Christ's preaching, namely those things which He did after the imprisonment of St. John the Baptist: John, however, in his Gospel, chiefly weaves together the history of the two preceding years of Christ's preaching; and through this many apparent contradictions are resolved, by which John seems to contradict the other three. So St. Augustine here in the Proem.
Eighth
In John there is often great force and obscurity in the adverbs and causal, illative, continuative, and other similar conjunctions, so that sometimes a single one of these particles contains and reveals the entire meaning of a sentence. Therefore they must be very carefully examined and weighed, as I shall demonstrate in their respective places.
Ninth
The little words "so that," "therefore," "on account of which," and similar expressions do not always signify a cause or intended purpose, but often merely a consequence and outcome, that is, what actually followed; especially if the outcome was certainly foreseen, and therefore could not have happened otherwise. This is clear from John XII, 38 and 39, where he says: "They did not believe in Him, so that the word of Isaiah might be fulfilled." And shortly after: "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah again said: He has blinded their eyes." For the cause why the Jews refused to believe in Christ was not the prediction of Isaiah, by which he foretold that they would not believe, but the hardness and malice of the Jews, which preceded Isaiah's prediction as both its object and its cause. For Isaiah predicted that the Jews would not believe precisely because they truly were not going to believe in Christ, out of their own malice and obstinacy. So say St. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylactus, and Euthymius in the same place.
Tenth
John by "the Jews" sometimes means only the leaders, sometimes only the people; and therefore he presents the Jews now as hostile to Christ, now as favorable to Him, because the people favored Christ, but the leaders opposed Him. This is evident from chapter VII, verses 11 and 13; chapter VIII, verse 31; chapter IX, verse 23.
Eleventh
Through a Hebraism, the present tense often signifies not an act actually producing its effect, but the power of the nature, or the act of the agent, even if its effect is hindered by the recipient or from some other cause. So in chapter I, verse 9, he says that Christ by His coming illuminated the world, namely as far as it depended on Him. For many, like the Jews, refused to receive this light, as he immediately adds, but remained in the darkness of their unbelief.
Twelfth
The little words "as if," "just as," and similar expressions, because they correspond to the Hebrew kaph, do not always denote mere likeness, but sometimes denote the very truth itself, as in chapter I, verse 14: "We saw His glory, as it were of the Only-Begotten," that is, truly of the Only-Begotten, as if to say: We saw a glory so great and of such a kind as befitted Him who truly was the Only-Begotten Son of God the Father. So say St. Chrysostom, Theophylactus, and Euthymius in the same place.
Thirteenth
John, after the Hebrew manner, takes verbs now in an inchoative sense, to signify beginning a work; now in a continuative sense, to signify proceeding in a work and growing; now in a perfective sense, to signify that the work is completed. Hence it is not surprising if sometimes what is growing or being perfected is described as if it were just then beginning, and vice versa. An example of an inchoative act is chapter XIII, verse 6, where Peter, resisting Christ who wished to wash his feet, says: "Lord, do You wash my feet?" You wash, that is, You wish to wash, You prepare and begin to wash! An example of a continuative act is chapter II, verse 11, where, after the miracle of changing water into wine at Cana of Galilee, it is added: "And His disciples believed in Him" — believed, that is, they continued to believe, they grew in faith and were confirmed; for they had already believed in Christ before; for if they had not believed, they would not have followed Him, nor entrusted themselves to His teaching. And chapter IV, verse 33, where the royal official, having seen the miracle by which Christ had restored his dying son to life, is said to have believed in Him, that is, to have advanced in faith in Christ and been strengthened. For if he had not already believed in Him before, he certainly would not have approached Him, nor asked Him for the healing of his son. An example of a perfected act is chapter XI, verse 15, where Christ near the end of His life, about to raise Lazarus, says: "I rejoice for your sake, that you may believe," that is, that through this miracle of Mine, the greatest of all, you may be fully perfected in faith in Me. And chapter XX, verse 17, Jesus after the resurrection, appearing to Magdalene who had fallen at His feet, says: "Do not touch Me," that is, do not cling to and linger at the touch of My feet, but go quickly and announce to the Apostles, who are most grieved by My death, that I have risen.
Fourteenth
John, after the manner of the Hebrews, what he has stated by an affirmation, he again asserts by the negation of its contrary, repeating and confirming it, especially where the matter is weighty and doubtful to many, so as to need strong confirmation. So in John I, 20, John the Baptist, asked by the Jews whether he himself was the Christ, "confessed and did not deny; and he confessed: I am not the Christ;" and verse 3: "All things were made through Him (the Word), and without Him was made nothing that was made."
Fifteenth
John delights in calling Christ the life and the light, for reasons I shall present at chapter I, verse 4 and following. Besides these, he has similar and other peculiar phrases. For he often calls "judgment" the condemnation that takes place in a judgment, by metalepsis; elsewhere he calls "judgment" the hidden judgments and decrees of God, because they are just. "He shows" he takes for "He presents, gives, bestows." He calls sins "darkness"; he calls the saints "children of light"; he calls "truth" what is true, just, and right; "Work for food," chapter VI, verse 27, means "procure food." He frequently uses the verb "to remain": hence he says that through love we remain in God, and God in us. In chapter VI, he asserts that His flesh is the bread which came down from heaven and gives life to the world. Chapter VII, verse 37: "If anyone thirsts," He says, "let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me," etc., "rivers of living water shall flow from his belly." Chapter VIII, asked by the Jews: "Who are You?" He answered: "The Beginning, who also speak to you." Chapter X, He compares Himself to the good shepherd, and the faithful to sheep. Chapter XI, raising Lazarus, He says He is the resurrection and the life. In the same place, John declares that Caiaphas prophesied about the death of Christ. Chapter XIII, he asserts that Jesus, having loved His own to the end, and being about to go to His death, washed their feet. Chapter XIV: "I," He says, "am the way, the truth, and the life. The Father is in Me, and I am in the Father." In the same place, promising the Holy Spirit, He calls Him the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. Chapter XV: "I," He says, "am the true vine, you are the branches, because without Me you can do nothing." Chapter XVI and following, He wills that we be one with God and with our neighbors. So the Translator takes "He sealed" for "He confirmed by affixing a seal": for this is the Greek ἐσφραγίσεν, chapter VI, 27.
Sixteenth
St. John states that Christ had previously said certain things, yet he has not previously narrated where and when He said them: for aiming at brevity, he considered it sufficient to narrate them once, lest, if he had narrated them earlier, he would be forced to repeat the same things afterward. So in chapter XI, he says that Martha said to Magdalene: "The Master is here and calls for you"; and yet he had not previously narrated that Christ had commanded Martha to call Magdalene, because when he records that Martha at Christ's command called Magdalene, by that very fact he sufficiently indicates that Christ had previously commanded her to call her sister. In the same place, Christ says to Martha: "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" and yet he had not previously narrated that Christ said this. So in chapter VI, verse 36, Christ says: "But I told you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe," and yet he had nowhere previously recorded that Christ said this very thing.
Seventeenth
The miracles of Christ which John alone records are these: The changing of water into wine at Cana of Galilee, chapter II; The first expulsion of the sellers from the temple, in the same chapter, verse 15; The healing of the royal official's sick son, chapter IV, 47; The cure of the paralytic at the Sheep Pool, chapter V, verse 1 and following; The giving of sight to the man born blind, chapter IX, verse 1 and following; The raising of Lazarus from the dead, chapter XI, verse 1 and following; The prostration of Judas and the soldiers to the ground when they came to seize Jesus, chapter XVIII, verse 6; The flowing of blood and water from the side of Christ already dead and pierced by a lance, chapter XIX, verse 34; The power of remitting sins given to the Apostles by the breathing of the Holy Spirit after the resurrection, XX, 22; The multiplication of fish for the Apostles who were fishing, XXI, 6.
Commentators
Very many have written commentaries on the Gospel of St. John, and the principal ones among both the Greek and Latin Fathers. Among the Greeks, after Origen, who composed 32 volumes or books on John, St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, wrote brilliantly and learnedly. He is indeed more instructive than others, skillful, acute, and genuine in establishing the literal sense. Now, St. Cyril treated John's Gospel in twelve books; but the four middle ones, namely the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, were lost through the ravages of time. Judocus Clictovaeus, a Doctor of Paris, supplied them. Therefore, when you hear the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth book of Cyril cited here, know that they are not Cyril's but Clictovaeus's, which has deceived even many learned men. Furthermore, the fifth and sixth books of Cyril, written in Greek, were recently found on the island of Chios by the Rector of the Jesuit College there, who transferred them to Palermo in Sicily, whence Rev. Fr. Joannes Baptista Jattinus, professor of Mathematics at the same college, brought them with him to Rome, to our Roman College, and also translated them into Latin; the remaining two, the seventh and eighth, are being sought by him, so that he may publish them all in Latin translation. I used the fifth and sixth at Rome, and I shall cite them from time to time; for they are thoroughly redolent of the doctrine, style, and genius of St. Cyril.
Second is St. Chrysostom, who, as I said shortly before, receiving the book of the Gospels from St. John, and at his instigation as it seems, wrote 87 homilies on it. They are found in volume III of his works.
Third is Theophylactus, fourth Euthymius, who in their usual manner are followers and, as it were, disciples of St. Chrysostom; but Theophylactus is more expansive and more lucid; Euthymius is briefer, and he expressly acknowledges that he gathered his material from St. Chrysostom, Origen, St. Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzus.
Fifth is Nonnus of Panopolis, a most eloquent Egyptian, who interpreted "the virgin Theologian," that is, John the Evangelist, in heroic verse, says Suidas. Sixtus Senensis counts him among the foremost Greek Christians, of whom (he says) are also attributed the Dionysiaca in 48 books, composed in heroic verse: he proceeds in the lofty buskin after the manner of Homer. But although Nonnus's interpretation is properly only a paraphrase, nevertheless in many places it indicates and illuminates the sense of the Gospel through its epithets. Fr. Nicolaus Abramus of the Society of Jesus published Nonnus's Greek-Latin paraphrase and illustrated it with notes, although Aldus Manutius was the first to publish it, and after him Franciscus Nansius.
Among the Latins, the first and foremost commentator on the Gospel of St. John is St. Augustine, who treats it in order through 124 treatises. They are found in volume IX of his works.
Second is the Venerable Bede, who everywhere and repeatedly follows St. Augustine almost word for word.
Third is the author of the Gloss. Here note that in the common Gloss three Glosses are contained. The first is the interlinear, which is inserted between the lines of the text of Sacred Scripture, and therefore briefly but splendidly touches on many things learnedly and usefully. The second is the marginal, which is placed at the margin of the text of Sacred Scripture, and is called the Ordinary Gloss. The third, which is appended to it, is the Gloss of Nicholas of Lyra.
Sixtus Senensis, Franciscus Ribera, and others consider Anselm of Laon, surnamed the Scholastic, to be the author of the first Interlinear Gloss. This Anselm flourished in the year of our Lord 1110.
The same Sixtus, Ribera, and others make Strabo, a monk of Fulda, a pupil of Rabanus Maurus, around the year of our Lord 820, the author of the second Gloss, namely the Ordinary, which he compiled from Rabanus, St. Gregory, and other Fathers.
The third bears the name of its author, Nicholas of Lyra, so called from Lyra, a village in Normandy, who, a Jew by birth and race, was converted to Christ and entered the Order of St. Francis. He taught Scholastic Theology in the year of our Lord 1320, a learned man and skilled in the Hebrew language. He wrote a Gloss that was famous in that time, in which he explains John and the other sacred writers according to the literal sense, to such a degree that it was once a common saying: "If Lyra had not played his lyre, our Theologians would not have danced." But this must be noted and guarded against in Lyra: that he too readily indulges and agrees with his own people and the Rabbis, especially Rabbi Solomon, who is a great fabulist, even in Jewish trifles and fables.
In later centuries, and especially in our own, the most learned of all, many have written commentaries on St. John. Among them, the following especially excel: Joannes Maldonatus of the Society of Jesus, who is expansive, acute, elegant, and learned; Cornelius Jansenius, who is exact, solid, and genuine; Franciscus Toletus, who with keen judgment is tasteful and beautiful, especially in applying metaphors and similitudes and their analogies — for example, why Christ is called the vine, the bread, the life, the light, the door, the shepherd; why the Holy Spirit is called living water, a dove, fire, etc. Sebastianus Barradius, treating the letter correctly and mingling moral applications, provides preachers with material and spirit for speaking. Franciscus Lucas is entirely literal, but draws the letter toward pious sentiments. Franciscus Ribera is brief, but in his manner rare and erudite: his work is posthumous, published after Ribera's death.
Among the heretics, the following wrote on St. John: Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Musculus, Bullinger, Brentius, Calvin, and Theodore Beza; from all of whom Augustinus Marloratus stitched together a Catena, which I read through and refuted in Belgium.