XCV.

Eccl. 7, 21.

890 The righteousness of which the world is reproved, HOMIL. rightly reproved, is only because, as it is written, There is not the righteous man upon earth who will do good, and will not sin. Wherefore even when the righteous is reproved, it is of sin that he is reproved, not of righteousness. ib. 17. Since even in that which we read to be said of God, Be not righteous overmuch, not the righteousness of the wise is marked, but the overweening of the presumptuous. Therefore to be righteous overmuch is by that very excess to be unrighteous. Namely, that person makes himself righteous overmuch, who saith that he has no sin; or who thinks that he is made righteous not by the grace of God, but by his own will sufficing thereto: nor is he righteous by living aright, but rather puffed up by thinking himself to be what Serm. he is not. Then how is the world to be reproved of righte143, 4. 144,3-6. ousness, except of the righteousness of the believing?

Therefore it is reproved of sin, in that it believes not on Christ; and reproved of the righteousness of them that believe. For even to put the faithful beside the unfaithful, is to put the unfaithful to shame. This the very exposition sufficiently shews. For wishing to open what He meant, He saith, Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye shall see Me no more. He saith not, And they shall see Me no more; meaning them of whom He had said, Because they have not believed on Me. But, expounding what He called sin, He spake of them, saying, Because they have not believed on Me; on the other hand, expounding what He meant by the righteousness of which the world is reproved, He turns to the very persons with whom He spake, and saith, Because I go unto the Father, and ye shall see Me no more.

So St. Cyril Alex. in loc., taking, as does Aug., the word dikaιoσúvη in St. Paul's sense, i. e. the justifying righteousness of faith. St. Chrysostom agreeably with his usual historical manner of exposition refers it to the Person of Christ. "Convince the world of righteousness: i. e. that My life was irreproachable. And the proof of this, is the going to the Father......For since they were ever alleging against Him that He was not of God, and consequently affirmed that He was a sinner and transgressor of the Law, the Holy Spirit (saith He) shall do away with this allegation." So Theo

phylact. in l. and more fully, Euthymius.

For the proof that He was righteous was, His going to God and being with Him...... Were I not righteous, I should not go to the Father. For how should one that is a sinner and an impostor, a transgressor of the Law and adversary of God, go to Him that is righteous and true, the Law-giver and God?"...." Of sin, then; that they sin, not believing yet: of righteousness; that I am righteous and not a sinner, as they say; of judgment, i. e. condemnation; that the prince of the devils is condemned, as My enemy and not My friend."

891

XVI.

is the righteousness of faith in Christ not seen. Wherefore the world is reproved indeed of its own sin, but of JOHN a righteousness not its own, just as darkness is reproved of 9-11. light. For all things that are reproved, saith the Apostle, Eph. 5, are made manifest by the light. For how great is the evil of 15. them that believe not, may be seen not only of itself, but also from the good of them that believe. And since this is wont to be the cry of the infidels, How should we believe what we do not see? therefore it was necessary that the righteousness of the believing should be thus defined: Because I go unto the Father, and ye shall see Me no more. ch. 20, For blessed are they that see not, yet believe. Thus even the faith of them that saw Christ is not praised for this, that they believed what they saw, that is, the Son of Man; but that they believed what they saw not, that is, the Son of God. When, however, the very form of a servant was withdrawn from their sight, then indeed was it in every part fulfilled, The just liveth by faith. For Faith, as it is defined in the Hab. 2, Epistle to the Hebrews, is the substance of them that hope, the conviction of things that are not seen.

29.

4. Rom. 1, 17.

Heb 11,

1.(supra

3. But what is this, Ye shall see Me no more? For He p. 822, saith not, I go unto the Father, and ye shall not see Me; so note.) that He might be understood to have meant an interval of time, during which He will not be seen, an interval whether short or long, yet in any wise one that hath an end: but in saying, Ye shall see Me no more, it is as if He, the Truth, foretold to them, that they should thenceforth never again see Christ. Is this righteousness, never to see Christ, and yet to believe on Him, when the very praise of the faith by which the righteous liveth is this, that he believes he shall one day see that Christ Whom now he seeth not? In short, are we to say that, as touching this righteousness, Paul the Apostle was not righteous, seeing he confesses to have seen Christ after His ascension into heaven, which was clearly the time of which He had said, Ye shall see me no more? Was that most glorious martyr Stephen, as touching this righteousness, not righteous, because, while they were stoning him, he said, Behold, I see Acts 7, heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at the right 55. hand of God? Then what is this, I go unto the Father, and ye shall see Me no more, but, In what manner I am, while I am with you? For at that time He was still mortal in the Rom. 8,

892 The unbelieving world reproved of judgment,

HOMIL. likeness of sinful flesh, such that it was possible for Him to XCV. hunger and thirst, to be wearied and to sleep: this Christ

16.

then, i. e. such a Christ as this, when He should have passed from this world unto the Father, they should see no more; and this same is the righteousness of faith, of which 2 Cor. 5, the Apostle saith, Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we Him no more. It shall be therefore, saith He, your righteousness, by which the world shall be reproved, that I go unto the Father, and ye shall see Me no more: because believing on Me ye will believe on one whom ye will not see: and when ye shall see Mc, as I shall then be, ye will not see Me as I am with you now: not see Me lowly, but lofty; not see Me mortal, but eternal; not see Me as one to be judged, but as Him that shall judge: and of this your faith, i. e. your righteousness, shall the Holy Spirit reprove the unbelieving world.

4. He shall reprove also of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. Who is this, but he of whom in John 14, another place He saith, Behold, the prince of this world

30.

cometh, and will find nothing in Me: i. e. nothing that he has a right to, nothing that belongs to him, to wit, no sin at all? For by this is the devil the prince of the world. For it is not of the heaven and earth and all that is therein, that the devil is the prince, in which signification we understand 'the ch. 1,10. world,' where it is said, And the world was made by Him: but the world of which the devil is prince, is that world of which the Evangelist there goes on to say, And the world knew Him not, i. e. unbelieving men, of whom throughout the earth the world is full: in the midst of whom groans the faithful world, which He, by Whom the world was made, elected out of the ch.3,17. world: of which world Himself saith, The Son of Man is not come to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him. The world by Him as Judge is condemned, the world by Him as Helper saved: since, even as a tree is full of leaves and fruit, as the threshing-floor of chaff and grain, so is the world full of unbelievers and believers. The prince, then, of this world, namely, the prince of this darkness, i. e. of unbelievers; from among whom is rescued the world of them to Eph. 5, whom it is said, Ye were once darkness, but now light in the Lord: the prince of this world, of whom He saith elsewhere,

8.

XVI.

34.

4.

by being apprised of the doom of its prince, the devil. 893 Now is the prince of this world cast out, is assuredly judged, JOHN since to the judgment of eternal fire he is irrevocably doomed. 9-11. Therefore of this judgment also, by which the prince of the ch. 12, world is judged, is the world reproved by the Holy Spirit; seeing it is judged with its prince, whom in its pride and ungodliness it imitates. For if God, as saith the Apostle 2 Pet. 2, Peter, spared not the angels that fell, but thrusting them down delivered them over to prisons of infernal darkness, to be kept for punishment in the Judgment; how is the world but reproved of this judgment by the Holy Spirit, seeing it is in the Holy Spirit that the Apostle speaketh these things? Then let men believe in Christ, that they be not reproved of the sin of their unbelief, by which all sins are held fast: let them pass into the number of the faithful, that they be not reproved of the righteousness of them, the justified whom they do not imitate: let them beware of the future judgment, that they be not judged with him, the doomed prince of the world, whom they do imitate. For that the obdurate pride of mortal men may not think to be spared, by the doom of proud angels it must be scared.

HOMILY XCVI.

15.

JOHN xvi. 12, 13.

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when that Spirit of Truth is come, He will teach you all truth.

1. In this portion of the Holy Gospel, where the Lord saith to His disciples, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now, first, this question comes ch. 15, in our way; namely, how it is that He said above, All things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you; yet here He saith, I have yet many things to say unto but you, cannot bear them now. ye But in what sense He said the former, speaking of that which He had not yet done, as if He had done it, just as the Prophet testifieth of those things which are future, that God hath done them, Isa. 45, where he saith, Who hath done the things that are to be: 11. vet. this, when we were handling those same words, we have LXX. already expounded as we were enabled. Now therefore ye

Lat.

wish, perhaps, to know what these things are which the Apostles could not bear at that time. But who of us shall dare to affirm himself already able to receive what they were not able? And therefore you must neither expect me to say, what perchance I myself could not receive were the things told me by another; nor would ye be able to bear them, even though I were so great, that by me ye could be told things which are higher than you. And it is possible indeed that