Catena Aurea

21. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.

22. Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come.

23. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world, I am not of this world.

24. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxxviii. 2) In accordance with what was just, He said that no man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come; He now speaks to the Jews of His passion, as a free, and not a compulsory sacrifice on His part: Then said Jesus again unto them, I go My way. Death to our Lord was a return to the place whence He had come.

BEDE. The connexion of these words is such, that they might have been spoken at one place and one time, or at another place and another time: as either nothing at all, or some things, or many may have intervened.

ORIGEN. (tom. xix. in Joan. s. 3.) But some one will object: If this was spoken to men who persisted in unbelief, how is it He says, Ye shall seek Me? For to seek Jesus is to seek truth and wisdom. You will answer that it was said of His persecutors, that they sought to take Him. There are different ways of seeking Jesus. All do not seek Him for their health and profit: and only they who seek Him aright, find peace. And they are said to seek Him aright, who seek the Word which was in the beginning with God, in order that He may lead them to the Father.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxxviii. 2) Ye shall seek Me, then, He says, not from compassionate regret, but from hatred: for after He had departed from the eyes of men, He was sought for both by those who hated, and those who loved Him: the one wanting to persecute, the other to have His presence. And that ye may not think that ye shall seek Me in a good sense, I tell you, Ye shall die in your sin. (ἁμαρτίᾳ plural in our Transl.) This is to seek Christ amiss, to die in one’s sin: this is to hate Him, from Whom alone cometh salvation. He pronounces sentence on them prophetically, that they shall die in their sins.

BEDE. Note: sin is in the singular number, your in the plural; to express one and the same wickedness in all.

ORIGEN. (tom. xix. in Joan. s. 3.) But I ask, as it is said below that many believed on Him, whether He speaks to all present, when He says, Ye shall die in your sins? No: He speaks to those only, whom He knew would not believe, and would therefore die in their sins, not being able to follow Him. Whither I go, He says, ye cannot come; i. e. there where truth and wisdom are, for with them Jesus dwells. They cannot, He says, because they will not: for had they wished, He could not reasonably have said, Ye shall die in your sin.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxviii. s. 2) This He tells His disciples in another place; without saying to them, however, Ye shall die in your sin, He only says, Whither I go, ye cannot follow Me now; not preventing, but only delaying their coming.

ORIGEN. (tom. xix. 3.) The Word, while still present, yet threatens to depart. So long as we preserve the seeds of truth implanted in our minds, the Word of God does not depart from us. But if we fall into wickedness, then He says to us, I go away; and when we seek Him, we shall not find Him, but shall die in our sin, die caught in our sin. But we should not pass over without notice the expression itself: Ye shall die in your sins. If ye shall die be understood in the ordinary sense, it is manifest that sinners die in their sins, the righteous in their righteousness. But if we understand it of death in the sense of sin; then the meaning is, that not their bodies, but their souls were sick unto death. The Physician seeing them thus grievously sick, says, Ye shall die in your sins. And this is evidently the meaning of the words, Whither I go ye cannot come. For when a man dies in his sin, he cannot go where Jesus goes: no dead man can follow Jesus: The dead praise not Thee, O Lord. (Ps. 113)

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxviii) They take these words, as they generally do, in a carnal sense, and ask, Will He kill Himself, because He saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come? A foolish question. For why? Could they not go where He went, if He killed Himself? Were they never to die themselves? Whither I go, then, He says; meaning not His departure at death, but where He went after death.

THEOPHYLACT. He shews here that He will rise again in glory, and sit at the right hand of God.

ORIGEN. (tom. xix. in Joan. s. 4.) May they not however have a higher meaning in saying this? For they had opportunities of knowing many things from their apocryphal books or from tradition. As then there was a prophetical tradition, that Christ was to be born at Bethlehem, so there may have been a tradition also respecting His death, viz. that He would depart from this life in the way which He declares, No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. (c. 10:18) So then the question, Will He kill Himself, is not to be taken in its obvious sense, but as referring to some Jewish tradition about Christ. For His saying, I go My way, shews that He had power over His own death, and departure from the body; so that these were voluntary on His part. But I think that they bring forward this tradition which had come down to them, on the death of Christ, contemptuously, and not with any view to give Him glory. Will He kill Himself? say they: whereas, they ought to have used a loftier way of speaking, and have said, Will His soul wait His pleasure, to depart from His body? Our Lord answers, Ye are from beneath, i. e. ye love earth; your hearts are not raised upwards. He speaks to them as earthly men, for their thoughts were earthly.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. liii. 1) As if to say, No wonder that ye think as ye do, seeing ye are carnal, and understand nothing spiritually. I am from above.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxxviii. 4) From whom above? From the Father Himself, Who is above all. Ye are of this world, I am not of this world. How could He be of the world, by Whom the world was made?

BEDE. And Who was before the world, whereas they were of the world, having been created after the world had begun to exist.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. liii. 1) Or He says, I am not of this world, with reference to worldly and vain thoughts.

THEOPHYLACT. I affect nothing worldly, nothing earthly: I could never come to such madness as to kill Myself. Apollinarius, however, falsely infers from these words, that our Lord’s body was not of this world, but came down from heaven. did the Apostles then, to whom our Lord says below, Ye are not of this world, (c. 15:19) derive all of them their bodies from heaven? In saying then, I am not of this world, He must be understood to mean, I am not of the number of you, who mind earthly things.

ORIGEN. (tom. xix. in Joan. s. 5.) Beneath, and, of this world, are different things. Beneath, refers to a particular place; this material world embraces different tractsd, which all are beneath, as compared with things immaterial and invisible, but, as compared with one another, some beneath, some above. Where the treasure of each is, there is his heart also. If a man then lay up treasure upon earth, he is beneath: if any man lay up treasure in heaven, he is above; yea, ascends above all hearers, attains to a most blissful end. And again, the love of this world makes a man of this world: whereas he who loveth not the world, neither the things that are in the world, is not of the world. Yet is there beyond this world of sense, another world, in which are things invisible, the beauty of which shall the pure in heart behold, yea, the First-born of every creature may be called the world, insomuch as He is absolute wisdom, and in wisdom all things were made. In Him therefore was the whole world, differing from the material world, in so far as the1 scheme divested of the matter, differs from the subject matter itself. The soul of Christ then says, I am not of this world; i. e. because it has not its conversation in this world.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xxxviii. 6) Our Lord expresses His meaning in the words, Ye are of this world, i. e. ye are sinners. All of us are born in sin; all have added by our actions to the sin in which we were born. The misery of the Jews then was, not that they had sin, but that they would die in their sin: I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sin. Amongst the multitude, however, who heard our Lord, there were some who were about to believe; whereas this most severe sentence had gone forth against all: Ye shall die in your sin; to the destruction of all hope even in those who should hereafter believe. So His next words recall the latter to hope: For if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sin: therefore if ye believe that I am He, ye shall not die in your sin.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. liii. 1) For if He came in order to take away sin, and a man cannot put that off, except by washing, and cannot be baptized except he believe; it follows, that he who believes not must pass out of this life, with the old man, i. e. sin, within him: not only because he believes not, but because he departs hence, with his former sins upon him.