[30] The emphatic position of en to chrono touto as well as the answer of Jesus shows that the disciples' earnest hope and expectation were that their Lord should, during their life-time, personally organize a kingdom on the basis of the Jewish theocracy. Chrys. is explicit in pointing out their incorrect conception of the kingdom of Christ, but does not here explain the specifically Jewish character of that conception. In the early disciples we behold the constant struggle of the Christian spirit to break away from the forms of Jewish nationalism.--G.B.S.
[31] Cod. C. omits this sentence here, and inserts it below (p. 12), where it is evidently out of place. The passage referred to seems to be Ecclus. 51, 8.
[32] The connection must be supplied: e.g. It was not that this point of knowledge was too high for them; for, as has been shown, they knew already, or were soon to know, things much higher than this, and which their hearers would find much harder to believe. For tell me, etc.
[33] Here C. has the sentence: "Also the wise Solomon saith, etc." p. ii, note 1.
[34] Kai deiknunton hemon, C. the modern text has me.
[35] These illustrations, which seem to admit a half deceptive element in our Lord's conversations, are as little justified by the passage in hand as by the character of Jesus. What Jesus promises, viz.: the Holy Spirit, is not promised in order to "divert" the disciples from their desire, but to assure to them a greater blessing than they then knew how to anticipate. The disciples wish a temporal kingdom with personal prerogatives; Jesus promises them the Spirit of Truth and opens before them the life of spiritual growth and usefulness. The illustration would have been more appropriate, had Chrys. said: "The child persists in his crying, but Jesus quiets him by giving him something far better than he had asked."--G.B.S.
[36] 'Alla meta to deixai (as above, kai deiknunton hemon, sc. gumnas tas cheiras), touto pepoieken, sc. phobei. The mss. except C and A, and the Edd. have ho before pepoieken, which gives no sense.
[37] Chrys. therefore explains these sayings of our Lord (polemically against the Arians) as oikonomia: i.e. the thing said is not objectively true, but the morality of all actions depends on the subjective condition of the proairesis or purpose (para ten ton chromenon proairesin gignetai phaulon e kalon, de Sacerdot. 1. 8.), so that where this is right and good, a deception is lawful. This lax view of the morality of Truth was very general in the Greek Church: not so in the early Latin Church. See the two Treatises of St. Augustine, De Mendacio ("Lib. of Fathers," Seventeen Short Treatises of St. Aug.) The stricter doctrine however is maintained by St. Basil, who in his shorter Monastic Rule peremptorily condemns all oikonomia, and pious fraud (officiosium mendacium) of every description, on. the ground that all falsehood is from Satan, John v. 44. and that our Lord has made no distinction between one sort of lying and another. Again, the monk Johannes of Lycopolis in Egypt: "All falsehood is foreign from Christ and Christian men, be it in a small or in a great matter: yea, though a good end be served by it, it is never to be allowed, for the Saviour hath declared, that all lying is from the Wicked One." Pallad, Hist. Lausiac in Bibl. Patr. t. xiii. p. 965.
[38] Porrothen gar ouk enen idontas gnonai; i.e. had they but seen the Ascension from a distance, and not been conversing with the Lord at the moment of His Assumption. Cod. E. transposes the clause to the end of the sentence; meaning that they could not by mere sight have been cognizant of the fact of His ascension into heaven.
[39] Ps. civ. 3. ho titheis nephei ten epibasin autou: "Who maketh on a cloud His stepping," or, "going."
[40] At first sight it looks as if this sentence were out of place here. But the connection may be thus explained: this circumstance, of the cloud, is not idle, but very significant; and the minds of the disciples were alive to its import, as betokening His Godhead. True, might it not also be said of Moses on the mount Sinai, that a cloud received him out of their sight? For "Moses entered into the darkness," Exod. xx. 21. But the cloud there was because of Him, "where God was," not because of Moses.
[41] i.e. the Angels had before used the phrase of assumption: but this does not express the whole matter; therefore, to show that it is the act of His own Divine power, they now say, going and afterwards express it that He will come, not that He will be sent. He ascended, as He descended, by His own Divine power. So again it is said, "A cloud received Him:" but in this He was not passive; as God He stepped upon the cloud: epebe alluding to the expression in the Psalm above cited, titheis ten epibasin.
[42] All the Editions and the Latin Versions connect with this the following sentence: "Much more would they have said now, Dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" But it is evident, that at this point begins the recapitulation, or renewed exposition. It is in fact a peculiarity of these Discourses, that Chrys. having gone through the exposition of the text, often, as here, goes over the same ground again, usually with some such formula as, "But let us look through what has been said from the beginning."
[43] The reference here must be to such parables as: "The Sower," "The Leaven," "The Grain of Mustard Seed." (Matt. xiii. 1-43), and the parable of the Growing Seed (Mark iv. 26-29), all of which seem to represent the progress of his truth as a long and slow development. To these might be added such expressions as heos tes sunteleias tou ai& 242;nos (Matt. xxviii. 20) and heos eschatou tes ges (Acts i. 8).--G.B.S.
[44] This sentence is from the later recension.
[45] The text of these Homilies is often greatly confused by the omission, especially in the recapitulations, of the words on which Chrys. is commenting.
[46] Here Erasmus has followed another reading (of E.), the very reverse in sense; "And if indeed the Prophets did not foretell this, be not astonished, for it was superfluous to say any thing individually about this, being necessarily involved in the idea of the resurrection, (te anastasei sunnooumenes)."
[47] In the later recension it is added: "but is declaratory of His love towards them, and of their election, and that He will not leave those whom He has chosen."
[48] John ii. 19; ego egero auton, Chrys. adding the pronoun for emphasis.
[49] The emphasis of the houtos and hon tropon is better preserved if we interpret them to mean visibly, or with the accompaniment of a cloud, in reference to the nephele (9), rather than merely (as Chrys.) "with a body." They had not raised the question as to his coming with or without a body. What they wanted to know was whether he was coming in such a way that they could recognize him.--G.B.S.
[50] The text in both classes of manuscripts, and in the Edd., needs reformation. The argument is, If good and evil be, as the Manichæans say, both self-subsistent, then evil must subsist for ever. For if, as they affirm, God cannot create out of nothing, neither can He change a thing into its opposite; nay, much less, for this is harder than that. In E. (the text of the Edd.) the reading is, to phusei kakon kalon kalon poisai (ei ge ti esti kathhu uma¨ gar lego: phusei gar ouden espi poisai kakon kalou sunergon) to ex ouk onton: which as usual in this ms. is an attempt to explain the meaning, but is not what the context requires. in C. A. (the original text) to phusei kakon poiesai (ei ge ti esti; kath' humas gar lego; phusei gar ouden esti poiesai kakon e kalon kai kalou sunergon) e to [ouk. A.` ex ouk onton. Read, to phusei kakon (ei ge ti esti; kath' humas gar lego; phusei gar ouden esti kakon) poiesai e kalon e kai kalou sunergon.
[51] ^Oste ananke e meden tou Theou einai ei me tauta; & 217; kai Theon einai. For so it seems the passage should be read, for which the mss. have e ei me tauta, and then in the older text, e kai Theon einai, for which the modern recension, D. E. F. and Edd. have e kai Theon me einai.
[52] ten ensomatosin tou Theou. Edd. metensomatosin. But the Manichees affirmed a metensomatosin of the particle of the Divine Substance, the human soul; viz. the more polluted soul transmigrates into other men, and animals (Archelai et Manet. Disput. §. ix. Routh, Rell. Sacc. iv. 161.), but in the last stage of the process of its purgation, into vegetable substances less attached to the earth by roots, such as gourds, etc. in which the Divine particle is self-conscious and intelligent (see the following note), whereas in animal substances it is brutified. In this sense it is said above, he metens. ekbainei eis sikuous k. t. l. What they denied was, an ensomatosis Theou by Incarnation.
[53] 'All' ouk aischron; pos gar; hoper (om. A.) an eis hemas genetai; to de son ontos aischron. Edd. all' ouk aischron; pos; hoper gar an eis hemas genetai ontos aischron. Erasmus; An non hoc turpe est? Quomodo non turpe sit in Deum, quod, si nobis contingat, revera turpe futurum sit? Ben. Quandoquidem si in nobis fiat, vere turpe est. i.e. For, that same which, if it take place in us, is indeed shocking [how should it not be so in God?]. The exclamation, Eidete surpheton asebeias! seems to imply either that ontos aischron is part of the Manichæan's reply, or that something is omitted. Perhaps the reporter wrote, to de s. hontos aischron, meaning soma: "But the body, etc." An eis hemas genetai can hardly be, as taken by Erasm., quod si nobis contingat, i.e. that our substance should migrate into plants, etc. but rather, if it be into us that this (embodying of the Divine Substance) takes place. For illustration of the Manichæan tenets here alluded to, comp. Euod. de Fid. adv. Manich. §35. (Opp. St. Augustin., Append. t. viii. Ben.) Non Deus Manichæi luctum pateretur de partis suæ abscissione vel amissione; quam partem dicunt quum in fructibus vel in herbis fuerit, id est, in melone, vel beta, vel talibus rebus, et principium suum et medietatem et finem nosse, cum autem ad carnem venerit omnem intelligentiam amittere; ut propterea magister hominibus missus sit, quia stulta in illis facta est pars Dei, etc "Then the God of the Manichæan would not suffer grief in consequence of the cutting off or loss of part of his substance; which part, they say, if it be in fruits or in herbs, as in the melon or beet or such-like, knows its beginning and middle and end; but when it comes to flesh, loses all intelligence: so that the reason why the Teacher was sent to men was, because in them the particle of God was stultified, etc." And Commonitor, de recip. Manich. Art. 3. (ibid.) ut credatur pars Dei polluta teneri in cucumeribus et melonibus et radiculis et porris et quibusque vilissimis herbulis, etc.
[54] to xulon entha prosedethe kai emastigothe. The Pillar of Flagellation' is exhibited in the Latin Choir of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.