Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Where I go, you cannot come; so now I say to you.
Read Chapter 13
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
1. It becomes us, dearly beloved, to keep in view the orderly connection of our Lord's words. For after having previously said, but subsequently to Judas' departure, and his separation from even the outward communion of the saints, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him;— whether He said so as pointing to His future kingdom, when the wicked shall be separated from the good, or that His resurrection was then to take place, that is, was not to be delayed, like ours, till the end of the world—and having then added, If God is glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him, whereby without any ambiguity He testified to the immediate fulfillment of His own resurrection; He proceeded to say, Little children, yet a little while I am with you. To keep them, therefore, from thinking that God was to glorify Him in such a way that He would never again be joined with them in earthly intercourse, He said, Yet a little while I am with ...
After He had said, And shall straightway glorify Him, that they might not think that God was going to glorify Him in such a way, as that He would no longer have any converse with them on earth, He says, Little children, yet a little while I am with you: as if He said, I shall indeed straightway be glorified by My resurrection, but I shall not straightway ascend to heaven. For we read in the Acts of the Apostles, that He was with them forty days after His resurrection. These forty days are what He means by, A little while I am with you.
It may be understood too thus: I am as yet in this frail flesh, even as you are, until I die and rise again. He was with them after His resurrection, by bodily presence, not by participation of human frailty. These are the words which I spoke to you, while I was yet with you (Luke24:44). He says to His disciples after His resurrection; meaning, while I was in mortal flesh, as you are. He was in the same flesh then with them, but not subject to the same m...
In this way the Lord in the Gospels spurs on His disciples, urging them to attend to Him, hastening as He was to the Father; rendering His hearers more eager by the intimation that after a little He was to depart, and showing them that it was requisite that they should take more unsparing advantage of the truth than ever before, as the Word was to ascend to heaven. Again, therefore, He calls them children; for He says, "Children, a little while I am with you.".
Lignum hic prius erat aridum; si autem Logo obedierit, et sabbata custodieri, per abstinent am a peccatis, et fecerit mandata erit honorabilior iis, qui absque recta vitae institutione solo sermone erudiuntur. "Filioli, modicure "adhuc sum vobiscum".
It is He Himself who says, "Little children, a little while I am still with you."
My little children. Notice the tenderness of Christ"s feeling of love towards His apostles and the faithful. He says not "my sons," but "my little children," showing in our regard the heart, as it were, of a mother towards her newly born infants. Again, little children, because the apostles were as yet little in the faith and love of Christ, for they received its fulness and, as it were, their manhood from the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. Symbolically Cyril says that all the Saints are little ones in relation to Christ.
Yet a little (a little time) I am with you—because an hour hence I shall be betrayed by Judas and given up to the Jews. Christ is here taking His last farewell of His own. Farewell, He says, My well-beloved children, for I am going away from you to death, and after that I shall not converse with you as we have been wont, but shall return to heaven.
Ye shall seek Me, and, as I said to the Jews, whither I go ye cannot come. I by My death return to heaven; you, 0 apostles, b...
Ye shall seek Me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say unto you.
Not altogether without pain to His own disciples will the departure be, He says; it will be the departure of Himself. In the first place they will languish in grief on account of it, and will find the weight of bitterness produced by it to be intolerable. For beyond all question they will thirst once more to be with Him, and long to live with Him for ever; just as also the inspired Paul, preferring the being with Christ to life itself here, said it was better to depart and be with Christ. Perceiving this, and well knowing the hearts of those who love Him, Christ said that His Ascension would not be without grief to His disciples. But there was also, besides this feeling, another just cause that forced the holy disciples to seek to be with Christ. They were destined within a brief while to be compassed about with grievous dangers, and to be exposed on all sides to the ungovernable fren...
Little children, yet a little while I am with you.
He places the disciples in the position of little children and accounts them as new-born babes, although they had advanced to so high a stage in virtue, and were possessed of wisdom such as is fully vouchsafed to few; showing us hereby, and that very plainly, that even he who is accounted very perfect in the eyes of man is an infant in the sight of God, and feeble in mental faculties. For what is the understanding of man in comparison with the wisdom that fashioned the universe? Therefore it is that a Psalmist said to God: I was as a beast before Thee. And no one whatever will say, if he has any perception at all, that the Psalmist compares himself to a beast because of his having cleaved closely unto God; for such an idea would be a bitter disparagement of the Divine nature, and would be seen to involve a great impropriety. For he that cleaves to a wise man and "is" ever "before" him, (for I suppose I must adapt the words of the Ps...
And therefore He said, little children; for He did not mean to speak to them, as Hehad to the Jews. you cannot follow Me now, He says, in order to rouse the love of His disciples. For the departure of loved friends kindles all our affection, and especially if they are going to a place where we cannot follow them. He purposely too speaks of His death, as akind of translation, a happy removal to a place, where here mortal bodies do not enter.
Or, as I have loved you: forMy love has not been the payment of something owing to you, but had its beginning on Myside. And you ought in like manner to do one another good, though you may not owe it.
Passing over the miracles, which they were to perform, He makes love: the distinguishing mark of His followers; By this stall all men know that you are My disciples’ if you have love one to another. This it is that evidences the saint or the disciple, as He calls him.
