Tractates on the Gospel of John

¹ While the disciples thus question, and Jesus their Master replies to them, we also, as it were, are learning along with them, when we either read or listen to the holy Gospel. Accordingly, because the Lord had said, “Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you shall see me,” Judas— not indeed His betrayer, who was surnamed Iscariot, but he whose epistle is read among the canonical Scriptures— asked Him of this very matter: “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself unto us, and not unto the world?” Let us, too, be as it were questioning disciples with them, and listen to our common Master. For Judas the holy, not the impure, the follower, but not the persecutor of the Lord, has inquired the reason why Jesus was to manifest Himself to His own, and not to the world; why it was that yet a little while, and the world should not see Him, but they should see Him.