Homilies on the Gospel of John

“A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from above.”

Marvel not, if he speak of Christ in a lowly strain; it was impossible to teach all at once, and from the very beginning, men so pre-occupied by passion. But he desires to strike them for a while with awe and terror, and to show them that they warred against none other than God Himself, when they warred against Christ. And here he secretly establishes that truth, which Gamaliel asserted, “You cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” For to say, “None can receive anything, except it be given him from heaven,” was nothing else than declaring that they were attempting impossibilities, and so would be found to fight against God. “Well, but did not Theudas and his followers 'receive' from themselves?” They did, but they straightway were scattered and destroyed, not so what belonged to Christ.

By this also he gently consoles them, showing them that it was not a man, but God, who surpassed them in honor; and that therefore they must not wonder if what belonged to Him was glorious, and if “all men came unto Him”: for that this was the nature of divine things, and that it was God who brought them to pass, because no man ever yet had power to do such deeds. All human things are easily seen through, and rotten, and quickly melt away and perish; these were not such, therefore not human. Observe too how when they said, “to whom you bore witness,” he turned against themselves that which they thought they had put forward to lower Christ, and silences them after showing that Jesus' glory came not from his testimony; “A man cannot,” he says, “receive anything of himself, except it be given him from heaven.” “If you hold at all to my testimony, and believe it to be true, know that by that testimony you ought to prefer not me to Him, but Him to me. For what was it that I testified? I call you yourselves to witness.”