[480] 2 Cor. iii. 15.
[481] Isa. xl. 6.
[482] John xx. 29.
[483] Acts vii. 37.
[484] John iv. 44.
[485] Isa. ix. 6, LXX.
[486] Isa. xxxv. 4.
Tractate XXV.
Chapter VI. 15-44
1. Following upon yesterday's lesson from the Gospel is that of to-day, upon which this day's discourse is due to you. When that miracle was wrought, in which Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves, and the multitudes marveled and said that He was a great prophet that came into the world, then follows this: "When Jesus therefore knew that they came to seize Him, and to make Him king, He escaped again unto the mountain alone." It is therefore given to be understood that the Lord, when He sat on the mountain with His disciples, and saw the multitudes coming to Him, had descended from the mountain, and fed the multitudes on its lower parts. For how can it be that He should escape thither again, if He had not before descended from the mountain? There is something meant by the Lord's descending from on high to feed the multitudes. He fed them, and ascended.
2. But why did He ascend after He knew that they wished to seize Him and make Him a king? How then; was He not a king, that He was afraid to be made a king? He was certainly not such a king as would be made by men, but such as would bestow a kingdom on men. May it not be that Jesus, whose deeds are words, does here, too, signify some thing to us? Therefore in this, that they wished to seize Him and make Him a king, and that for this He escapes to the mountain alone, is this action in His case silent; does it speak nothing, does it mean nothing? Or was this seizing of Him perhaps an intention to anticipate the time of His kingdom? For He had come now, not to reign immediately, as He is to reign in the sense in which we pray, Thy kingdom come. He ever reigns, indeed, with the Father, in that He is the Son of God, the Word of God, the Word by which all things were made. But the prophets foretold His kingdom according to that wherein He is Christ made man, and has made His faithful ones Christians. There will consequently be a kingdom of Christians, which at present is being gathered together, being prepared and purchased by the blood of Christ. His kingdom will at length be made manifest, when the glory of His saints shall be revealed, after the judgment is executed by Him, which judgment He Himself has said above is that which the Son of man shall execute. Of which kingdom also the apostle has said: "When He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father." [487] In reference to which also Himself says: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world." [488] But the disciples and the multitudes that believed on Him thought that He had thus come immediately to reign; hence, they wished to seize Him and to make Him a king; they wished to anticipate the time which He hid with Himself, to make it known in due time, and in due time to declare it in the end of the world.
3. That ye may know that they wished to make Him a king,--that is, to anticipate, and at once to have manifest the kingdom of Christ, whom it behoved first to be judged and then to judge,--when He was crucified, and they who hoped in Him had lost hope of His resurrection, having risen from the dead, He found two of them despairingly conversing together, and, with groaning, talking with one another of what had been done; and appearing to them as a stranger, while their eyes were held that He should not be recognized by them, He mixed with them as they held discourse: but they, narrating to Him the matter of their conversation, said that He was a prophet, mighty in deeds and in words, that had been slain by the chief priests; "And we," say they, "did hope that it was He that should have redeemed Israel." [489] Rightly you hoped: a true thing you hoped for: in Him is the redemption of Israel. But why are ye in haste? Ye wish to seize it. The following, too, shows us that this was their feeling, that, when the disciples inquired of Him concerning the end, they said to Him, "Wilt Thou at this time be made manifest, and when will be the kingdom of Israel?" For they longed for it now, they wished it now; that is, they wished to seize Him, and to make Him king. But saith He to the disciples (for He had yet to ascend alone), "It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father hath put in His own power: but ye shall receive virtue from on high, the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth." [490] You wish that I should manifest the kingdom now; let me first gather what I may manifest; you love elevation, and you shall obtain elevation, but follow me through humility. Thus it was also foretold of Him, "And the gathering of the peoples will surround Thee, and for this cause return Thou on high;" [491] that is, that the gatherings of the peoples may surround Thee, that Thou mayest gather many together, return Thou on high. Thus He did; He fed men, and ascended.
4. But why is it said, He escaped? For He could not be held against His will, nor seized against His will, since He could not be recognized against His will. But that you may know that this was done mystically, not of necessity, but of express purpose, you will presently see in the following: that He appeared to the same multitudes that sought Him, said many things in speaking with them, and discoursed much about the bread of heaven; when discoursing about bread, was He not with the same people from whom He had escaped lest He should be held of them? Then, could He not have so acted at that time that He should not be seized by them, just as afterwards when He was speaking with them? Something, therefore, was meant by His escaping. What means, He escaped? His loftiness could not be understood. For of anything which thou hast not understood thou sayest, "It has escaped me." Wherefore, "He escaped again unto the mountain alone,--the first-begotten from the dead, ascending above all heavens, and interceding for us." [492]
5. Meanwhile, He, the one great High Priest being above (He who has entered into that within the veil, the people standing without; for Him that priest under the old law, who did this once a year, did signify): He then be ing above, what were the disciples enduring in the ship? For that ship prefigured the Church while He is on high. For if we do not, in the first place, understand this thing which that ship suffered respecting the Church, those incidents were not significant, but simply transient; but if we see the real meaning of those signs expressed in the Church, it is manifest that the actions of Christ are a kind of speeches. "But when it was late, saith he, His disciples went down to the sea; and when they had entered into a ship, they came over the sea to Capernaum." He declared that as finished quickly, which was done afterwards,--"They came over the sea to Capernaum." He returns to explain how they came; that they passed over by sailing across the lake. And whilst they were sailing to that place to which He has already said they had come, He explains by recapitulation what befell them. "It was now dark, and Jesus had not come to them." Rightly he said "dark," for the light had not come to them. "It was now dark, and Jesus had not come to them." As the end of the world approaches, errors increase, terrors multiply, iniquity increases, infidelity increases; the light, in short, which, by the Evangelist John himself, is fully and clearly shown to be charity, so much so that he says, "Whoso hateth his brother is in darkness;" [493] that light, I say, is very often extinguished; this darkness of enmity between brethren increases, daily increases, and Jesus is not yet come. How does it appear to increase? "Because iniquity will abound, and the love of many will begin to wax cold." Darkness increases, and Jesus is not yet come. Darkness increasing, love waxing cold, iniquity abounding,--these are the waves that agitate the ship; the storms and the winds are the clamors of revilers. Thence love waxes cold; thence the waves do swell, and the ship is tossed.
6. "And a great wind blowing, the sea rose." Darkness was increasing, discernment was diminishing, iniquity was growing. "When, therefore, they had rowed about twenty-five or thirty furlongs." Meanwhile they struggled onward, kept advancing; nor did those winds and storms, and waves and darkness effect either that the ship should not make way, or that it should break in pieces and founder; but amid all these evils it went on. For, notwithstanding iniquity abounds, and the love of many waxes cold, and the waves do swell, the darkness grows and the wind rages, yet the ship is moving forward; "for he that perseveres to the end, the same shall be saved." [494] Nor is that number of furlongs to be lightly regarded. For it cannot really be that nothing is meant, when it is said that, "when they had rowed twenty-five or thirty furlongs, Jesus came to them." It were enough to say, "twenty-five," so likewise "thirty;" especially as it was an estimate, not an assertion of the narrator. Could the truth be aught endangered by a mere estimate, if he had said nearly thirty furlongs, or nearly twenty-five furlongs? But from twenty-five he made thirty. Let us examine the number twenty-five. Of what does it consist? of what is it made up? Of the quinary, or number five. That number five pertains to the law. The same are the five books of Moses, the same are those five porches containing the sick folk, the same are the five loaves feeding the five thousand men. Accordingly the number twenty-five signifies the law, because five by five--that is, five times five--make twenty-five, or the number five squared. But this law lacked perfection before the gospel came. Moreover, perfection is comprised in the number six. Therefore in six days God finished, or perfected, the world, and the same five are multiplied by six, that the law may be completed by the gospel, that six times five become thirty. To them that fulfill the law, therefore, Jesus comes. And how does He come? Walking upon the waves, keeping all the swellings of the world under His feet, pressing down all its heights. Thus it goes on, so long as time endures, so long as the ages roll. Tribulations increase, calamities increase, sorrows increase, all these swell and mount up: Jesus passeth on treading upon the waves.
7. And yet so great are the tribulations, that even they who have trusted in Jesus, and who strive to persevere unto the end, greatly fear lest they fail; while Christ is treading the waves, and trampling down the world's ambitions and heights, the Christian is sorely afraid. Were not these things foretold him? Justly "they were afraid," too, at seeing Jesus walking on the waves; like as Christians, though having hope in the world to come, are frequently disquieted at the crash of human affairs, when they see the loftiness of this world trampled down. They open the Gospel, they open the Scriptures, and they find all these things there foretold; that this is the Lord's doing. He tramples down the heights of the world, that He may be glorified by the humble. Concerning whose loftiness it is foretold: "Thou shalt destroy strongest cities," and "the spears of the enemy have come to an end, and Thou hast destroyed cities." [495] Why then are ye afraid, O Christians? Christ speaks: "It is I; be not afraid." Why are ye alarmed at these things? Why are ye afraid? I have foretold these things, I do them, they must necessarily be done. "It is I; be not afraid. Therefore they would receive Him into the ship." Recognizing Him and rejoicing, they are freed from their fears. "And immediately the ship was at the land to which they went." There is an end made at the land; from the watery to the solid, from the agitated to the firm, from the way to the goal.
8. "On the next day the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea," whence the disciples had come, "saw that there was none other boat there, save that one whereinto His disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with His disciples into the boat, but that His disciples were gone away alone; but there came other boats from Tiberias, nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, giving thanks to the Lord: when, therefore, the multitudes saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus." Yet they got some knowledge of so great a miracle. For they saw that the disciples had gone into the ship alone, and that there was not another ship there. But there came boats also from near to that place where they did eat bread; in these the multitudes followed Him. He had not then embarked with His disciples, and there was not another ship there. How, then, was Jesus on a sudden beyond the sea, unless that He walked upon the sea to show a miracle?