Homilies on the Gospel of John

“As You have given Him power over all flesh,” “that nothing which You have given Him should perish.”

For to be always doing good, is glory to God. But what is, “As You have given Him power over all flesh”? He now shows, that what belongs to the preaching is not confined to the Jews alone, but is extended to all the world, and lays down beforehand the first invitations to the Gentiles. And since He had said, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles”, and after this time is about to say, “Go, and make disciples of all nations”, He shows that the Father also wills this. For this greatly offended the Jews, and the disciples too; nor indeed after this did they easily endure to lay hold on the Gentiles, until they received the teaching of the Spirit; because hence arose no small stumblingblock for the Jews. Therefore, when Peter after such a manifestation of the Spirit came to Jerusalem, he could scarcely, by relating the vision of the sheet, escape the charges brought against him. But what is, “You have given Him power over all flesh”? I will ask the heretics, “When did He receive this power? Was it before He formed them, or after?” He himself says, that it was after that He had been crucified, and had risen again; at least then He said, “All power is given unto Me”, and, “Go ye and make disciples of all nations.” What then, had He not authority over His own works? Did He make them, and had He not authority over them after having made them? Yet He is seen doing all in times of old, punishing some as sinners, (for, “Surely I will not hide,” it says, “from My servant Abraham, that which I am about to do”) and honoring others as righteous. Had He then the power at that time, and now had He lost it, and did He again receive it? What devil could assert this? But if His power was the same both then and now, (for, says He, “as the Father raises up the dead and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will”) what is the meaning of the words? He was about to send them to the Gentiles; in order therefore that they might not think that this was an innovation, because He had said, “I am not sent, save unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, He shows that this seems good to the Father also. And if He says this with great meanness of circumstance, it is not wonderful. For so He edified both those at that time, and those who came afterwards; and as I have before said, He always by the excess of meanness firmly persuaded them that the words were those of condescension.

2. But what is, “Of all flesh”? For certainly not all believed. Yet, for His part, all believed; and if men gave no heed to His words, the fault was not in the teacher, but in those who received them not.

“That He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.”

If here also He speaks in a more human manner, wonder not. For He does so both on account of the reasons I have given, and to avoid the saying anything great concerning Himself; since this was a stumblingblock to the hearers because as yet they imagined nothing great concerning Him. John, for example, when He speaks in his own person, does not so, but leads up his language to greater sublimity, saying, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made”; and that He was “Life”; and that He was “Light”; and that “He came to His own”: he says not, that He would not have had power, had He not received it, but that He gave to others also “power to become sons of God.” And Paul in like manner calls Him equal with God. But He Himself asks in a more human way, saying thus, “That He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.”