Catena Aurea

27. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

28. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

29. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.

30. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

31. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

32. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

33. This he said, signifying what death he should die.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvi) To our Lord’s exhortation to His disciples to endurance, they might have replied that it was easy for Him, Who was out of the reach of human pain, to talk philosophically about death, and to recommend others to bear what He is in no danger of having to bear Himself. So He lets them see that He is Himself in an agony, but that He does not intend to decline death, merely for the sake of relieving Himself: Now is My soul troubled.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 2) I hear Him say, He that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal; and I am ravished, I despise the world; the whole of this life, however long, is but a vapour in My sight; all temporal things are vile, in comparison with eternal. And again I hear Him say, Now is My soul troubled. Thou biddest my soul follow Thee; but I see Thy soul troubled. What foundation shall I seek, if the Rock gives way? Lord, I acknowledge Thy mercy. Thou of Thy love wast of Thine own will troubled, to console those who are troubled through the infirmity of nature; that the members of Thy body perish not in despair. The Head took upon Himself the affections of His members. He was not troubled by any thing, but, as was said above, He troubled Himself. (c. 11:33)

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvii) As He draws near to the Cross, His human nature appears, a nature that did not wish to die, but cleaved to this present life. He shews that He is not quite without human feelings. For the desire of this present life is not necessarily wrong, any more than hunger. Christ had a body free from sin, but not from natural infirmities. But these attach solely to the dispensation of His humanity, not to His divinity.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii) Lastly, let the man who would follow Him, hear at what hour he should follow. A fearful hour has perhaps come: a choice is offered, either to do wrong, or suffer: the weak soul is troubled. Hear our Lord. What shall I say?

BEDE. i. e. What but something to confirm My followers? Father, save Me from this hour.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 3) He teaches thee Whom thou shouldest call on, whose will prefer to thine own. Let Him not seem to fall from His greatness, because He wishes thee to rise from thy meanness. He took upon Him man’s infirmity, that He might teach the afflicted to say, Not what I will, but what Thou wilt. Wherefore He adds, But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name: i. e. in My passion and resurrection.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvii. 2) As if He said, I cannot say why I should ask to be saved from it; For for this cause came I unto this hour. However ye may be troubled and dejected at the thought of dying, do not run away from death. I am troubled, yet I ask not to be spared. I do not say, Save Me from this hour, but the contrary, Glorify Thy name. To die for the truth was to glorify God, as the event shewed; for after His crucifixion the whole world was to be converted to the knowledge and worship of God, both the Father and the Son. But this He is silent about.

Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

GREGORY. (Moral. xxviii.) When God speaks audibly, as He does here, but no visible appearance is seen, He speaks through the medium of a rational creature: i. e. by the voice of an Angel.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 4) I have glorified it, i. e. before I made the world; and will glorify it again, i. e. when Thou shalt rise from the dead. Or, I have glorified it, when Thou wast born of a Virgin, didst work miracles, wast made manifest by the Holy Ghost descending in the shape of a dove; and will glorify it again, when Thou shalt rise from the dead, and, as God, be exalted above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth.

The people therefore that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvii. 2) The voice though loud and distinct, soon passed off from their gross, carnal, and sluggish minds; only the sound remaining. Others perceived an articulate voice, but did not catch what it said: Others said, An Angel spake to Him.

Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 5) i. e. It did not come to tell Him what He knew already, but them what they ought to know. And as that voice did not come for His sake, but for theirs, so His soul was not troubled for His sake, but for theirs.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvii. 2) The voice of the Father proved what they were so fond of denying, that He was from God. For He must be from God, if He was glorified by God. It was not that He needed encouragement of such a voice Himself, but He condescended to receive it for the sake of those who were by. Now is the judgment of this world: this fits on to the preceding, as shewing the mode of His being glorified.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 6) The judgment at the end of the world will be of eternal rewards and punishments. But there is another judgment, not of condemnation, but of selection, which is the one meant here; the selection of His own redeemed, and their deliverance from the power of the devil: Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. The devil is not called the prince of this world, in the sense of being lord over heaven and earth; God forbid. The world here stands for the wicked dispersed over all the world. In this sense the devil is the prince of the world, i. e. of all the wicked men who live in the world. The world also sometimes stands for the good dispersed throughout the world: God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. (2 Cor. 5:19) These are they from whose hearts the prince of this world shall be cast out. Our Lord foresaw that after His passion and glorifying, great nations all over the world would be converted, in whom the devil was then, but from whose hearts, on their truly renouncing him1, he would be cast out. But was he not cast out of the hearts of righteous men of old? Why is it, Now shall be cast out? Because that which once took place in a very few persons, was now to take place in whole nations. What then, does the devil not tempt at all the minds of believers? Yea, he never ceases to tempt them. But it is one thing to reign within, another to lay siege from without.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvii. 2) What kind of judgment it is by which the devil is cast out, I will explain by an example. A man demands payment from his debtors, beats them, and sends them to prison. He treats with the same insolence one who owes him nothing. The latter will take vengeance both for himself and the others too. This Christ does. He revenges what He has suffered at the devil’s hands, and with Himself He revenges us too. But that none may say, How will he be cast out, if he overcome thee? He adds, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. How can He be overcome, who draws others unto Him? This is more than saying, I shall rise again. Had He said this, it would not have proved that He would draw all things unto Him; but, I shall draw, includes the resurrection, and this besides.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 11) What is this all that He draweth, but that from which the devil is cast out? He does not say, All men, but, All things; for all men have not faith. He does not mean then all mankind, but the whole of a man, i. e. spirit, soul, and body; by which respectively we understand, and live, and are visible. Or, if all means all men, it means those who are predestined to salvation: or all kinds of men, all varieties of character, excepting in the article of sin.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvii. 3.) Why then did He say above, that the Father drew men? (c. 6:46.) Because the Father draws, by the Son who draws. I shall draw, He says, as if men were in the grasp of some tyrant, from which they could not extricate themselves.

AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 11) If I be lifted up from the earth, He says, i. e. when I shall be lifted up. He does not doubt that the work will be accomplished which He came to do. By His being lifted up, He means His passion on the cross, as the Evangelist adds: This He said, signifying by what death He should die.