Homilies on the Gospel of John

“He that comes from above is above all. And what He has heard He speaks, and what He has seen He testifies; and no man receives His testimony.”

Having uttered something great and sublime concerning Him, he again brings down his discourse to a humbler strain. For the expression, “what He has heard and seen,” is suited rather to a mere man. What He knew He knew not from having learned it by sight, or from having heard it, but He included the whole in His Nature, having come forth perfect from the Bosom of His Father, and needing none to teach Him. For, “As the Father,” He says, “knows Me, even so know I the Father.” What then means, “He speaks that He has heard, and testifies that He has seen”? Since by these senses we gain correct knowledge of everything, and are deemed worthy of credit when we teach on matters which our eyes have embraced and our ears have taken in, as not in such cases inventing or speaking falsehoods, John desiring here to establish this point, said, “What He has heard and seen”: that is, “nothing that comes from Him is false, but all is true.” Thus we when we are making curious enquiry into anything, often ask, “Did you hear it?” “Did you see it?” And if this be proved, the testimony is indubitable, and so when Christ Himself says, “As I hear, I judge”; and, “What I have heard from My Father, that I speak”; and, “We speak that We have seen”; and whatsoever other sayings He utters of the kind, are uttered not that we might imagine that He says what He does being taught of any, (it were extreme folly to think this,) but in order that nothing of what is said may be suspected by the shameless Jews. For because they had not yet a right opinion concerning Him, He continually betakes Himself to His Father, and hence makes His sayings credible.

2. And why do you wonder if He betake Himself to the Father, when He often resorts to the Prophets and the Scriptures? As when He says, “They are they that testify of Me.” Shall we then say that He is inferior to the Prophets, because He draws testimonies from them? Away with the thought. It is because of the infirmity of His hearers that He so orders His discourse, and says that He spoke what He spoke having heard it from the Father, not because He needed a teacher, but that they might believe that nothing that He said was false. John's meaning is of this kind: “I desire to hear what He says, for He comes from above, bringing thence those tidings which none but life knows rightly; for 'what He has seen and heard,' is the expression of one who declares this.”

“And no man receives His testimony.” Yet He had disciples, and many besides gave heed to His words. How then says John, “No man”? He says “no man,” instead of “few men,” for had he meant “no man at all,” how could he have added,