These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
All Commentaries on John 16:33 Go To John 16
John Chrysostom
AD 407
That is, that you should not cast Me from your thoughts, but receive Me. Let no one, then, drag these words into a doctrine; they are spoken for our comfort and love. For not even when we suffer such things as I have mentioned shall your troubles stop there, but as long as you are in the world you shall have sorrow, not only now when I am betrayed, but also afterwards. But rouse your minds, for you shall suffer nothing terrible. When the master has gotten the better of his enemies, the disciples must not despond. And how, tell me, have You 'conquered the world'? I have told you already, that I have cast down its ruler, but you shall know hereafter, when all things yield and give place to you.
3. But it is permitted to us also to conquer, looking to the Author of our faith, and walking on that road which He cut for us. So neither shall death get the mastery of us. What then, shall we not die? says some one. Why, from this very thing it is clear that he shall not gain the mastery over us. The champion truly will then be glorious, not when he has not closed with his opponent, but when having closed he is not holden by him. We therefore are not mortal, because of our struggle with death, but immortal, because of our victory; then should we have been mortal, had we remained with him always. As then I should not call the longest-lived animals immortal, although they long remain free from death, so neither him who shall rise after death mortal, because he is dissolved by death. For, tell me, if a man blush a little, should we say that he was continually ruddy? Not so, for the action is not a habit. If one become pale, should we call him jaundiced? No, for the affection is but temporary. And so you would not call him mortal, who has been for but a short time in the hands of death. Since in this way we may speak of those who sleep, for they are dead, so to say, and without action. But does death corrupt our bodies? What of that? It is not that they may remain in corruption, but that they be made better. Let us then conquer the world, let us run to immortality, let us follow our King, let us too set up a trophy, let us despise the world's pleasures. We need no toil to do so; let us transfer our souls to heaven, and all the world is conquered. If you desire it not, it is conquered; if you deride it, it is worsted. Strangers are we and sojourners, let us then not grieve at any of its painful things. For if, being sprung from a renowned country, and from illustrious ancestors, you had gone into some distant land, being known to no one, having with you neither servants nor wealth, and then some one had insulted you, you would not grieve as though you had suffered these things at home. For the knowing clearly that you were in a strange and foreign land, would persuade you to bear all easily, and to despise hunger, and thirst, and any suffering whatever. Consider this also now, that you are a stranger and a sojourner, and let nothing disturb you in this foreign land; for you have a City whose Artificer and Creator is God, and the sojourning itself is but for a short and little time. Let whoever will strike, insult, revile; we are in a strange land, and live but meanly; the dreadful thing would be, to suffer so in our own country, before our fellow citizens, then is the greatest unseemliness and loss. For if a man be where he had none that knows him, he endures all easily, because insult becomes more grievous from the intention of those who offer it. For instance, if a man insult the governor, knowing that he is governor, then the insult is bitter; but if he insult, supposing him to be a private man, he cannot even touch him who undergoes the insult. So let us reason also. For neither do our revilers know what we are, as, that we are citizens of heaven, registered for the country which is above, fellow-choristers of the Cherubim. Let us not then grieve nor deem their insult to be insult; had they known, they would not have insulted us. Do they deem us poor and mean? Neither let us count this an insult. For tell me, if a traveler having got before his servants, were sitting a little space in the inn waiting for them, and then the innkeeper, or some travelers, should behave rudely to him, and revile him, would he not laugh at the other's ignorance? Would not their mistake rather give him pleasure? Would he not feel a satisfaction as though not he but some one else were insulted? Let us too behave thus. We too sit in an inn, waiting for our friends who travel the same road; when we are all collected, then they shall know whom they insult. These men then shall hang their heads; then they shall say, This is he whom we fools had in derision. Wisdom 5:3
4. With these two things then let us comfort ourselves, that we are not insulted, for they know not who we are, and that, if we wish to obtain satisfaction, they shall hereafter give us a most bitter one. But God forbid that any should have a soul so cruel and inhuman. What then if we be insulted by our kinsmen? For this is the burdensome thing. Nay, this is the light thing. Why, pray? Because we do not bear those whom we love when they insult us, in the same way as we bear those whom we do not know. For instance, in consoling those who have been injured, we often say, It is a brother who has injured you, bear it nobly; it is a father; it is an uncle. But if the name of father and brother puts you to shame, much more if I name to you a relationship more intimate than these; for we are not only brethren one to another, but also members, and one body. Now if the name of brother shame you, much more that of member. Have you not heard that Gentile proverb, which says, that it behooves to keep friends with their defects? Have you not heard Paul say, Bear ye one another's burdens? Do you see not lovers? For I am compelled, since I cannot draw an instance from you, to bring my discourse to that ground of argument. This also Paul does, thus saying, Furthermore we have had fathers in our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Hebrews 12:9 Or rather, that is more apt which he says to the Romans, As you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness. For this reason let us confidently keep hold of the illustration. Now do you not observe lovers, what miseries these suffer when inflamed with desire for harlots, cuffed, beaten, and laughed at, enduring a harlot, who turns away from and insults them in ten thousand ways; yet if they see but once anything sweet or gentle, all is well to do with them, all former things are gone, all goes on with a fair wind, be it poverty, be it sickness, be it anything else besides these. For they count their own life as miserable or blessed, according as they may have her whom they love disposed towards them. They know nothing of mortal honor or disgrace, but even if one insult, they bear all easily through the great pleasure and delight which they receive from her; and though she revile, though she spit in their face, they think, when they are enduring this, that they are being pelted with roses. And what wonder, if such are their feelings as to her person? For her very house they think to be more splendid than any, though it be but of mud, though it be falling down. But why speak I of walls? When they even see the places which they frequent in the evening, they are excited. Allow me now for what follows to speak the word of the Apostle. As he says, As you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, so yield your members servants unto righteousness; so in like manner now I say, as we have loved these women, let us love one another, and we shall not think that we suffer anything terrible. And why say I, one another? Let us so love God. Do ye shudder, when you hear that I require as much love in the case of God, as we have shown towards a harlot? But I shudder that we do not show even thus much. And, if you will, let us go on with the argument, though what is said be very painful. The woman beloved promises her lovers nothing good, but dishonor, shame, and insolence. For this is what the waiting upon a harlot makes a man, ridiculous, shameful, dishonored. But God promises us heaven, and the good things which are in heaven; He has made us sons, and brethren of the Only-begotten, and has given you ten thousand things while living, and when you die, resurrection, and promises that He will give us such good things as it is not possible even to imagine, and makes us honored and revered. Again, that woman compels her lovers to spend all their substance for the pit and for destruction; but God bids us sow the heaven, and gives us an hundred-fold, and eternal life. Again, she uses her lover like a slave, giving commands more hardly than any tyrant; but God says, I no longer call you servants, but friends. John 15:15
5. Have ye seen the excess both of the evils here and the blessings there ? What then comes next? For this woman's sake, many lie awake, and whatever she commands, readily obey; give up house, and father, and mother, and friends, and money, and patronage, and leave all that belongs to them in want and desolation; but for the sake of God, or rather for the sake of ourselves, we often do not choose to expend even the third portion of our substance, but we look on the hungry, we overlook him, and run past the naked, and do not even bestow a word upon him. But the lovers, if they see but a little servant girl of their mistress, and her a barbarian, they stand in the middle of the market-place, and talk with her, as if they were proud and glad to do so, unrolling an interminable round of words; and for her sake they count all their living as nothing, deem rulers and rule nothing, (they know it, all who have had experience of the malady,) and thank her more when she commands, than others when they serve. Is there not with good reason a hell? Are there not with good reason ten thousand punishments? Let us then become sober, let us apply to the service of God as much, or half, or even the third part of what others supply to the harlot. Perhaps again ye shudder; for so do I myself. But I would not that you should shudder at words only, but at the actions; as it is, here indeed our hearts are made orderly, but we go forth and cast all away. What then is the gain? For there, if it be required to spend money, no one laments his poverty, but even borrows it to give, perchance, when smitten. But here, if we do but mention almsgiving, they pretend to us children, and wife, and house, and patronage, and ten thousand excuses. But, says some one, the pleasure is great there. This it is that I lament and mourn. What if I show that the pleasure here is greater? For there shame, and insult, and expense, cut away no little of the pleasure, and after these the quarreling and enmity; but here there is nothing of the kind. What is there, tell me, equal to this pleasure, to sit expecting heaven and the kingdom there, and the glory of the saints, and the life that is endless? But these things, says some one, are in expectation, the others in experience. What kind of experience? Will you that I tell you the pleasures which are here also by experience? Consider what freedom you enjoy, and how you fear and tremblest at no man when you live in company with virtue, neither enemy, nor plotter, nor informer, nor rival in credit or in love, nor envious person, nor poverty, nor sickness, nor any other human thing. But there, although ten thousand things be according to your mind, though riches flow in as from a fountain, yet the war with rivals, and the plots, and ambuscades, will make more miserable than any the life of him who wallows with those women. For when that abominable one is haughty, and insolent, you needs must kindle quarrel to flatter her. This therefore is more grievous than ten thousand deaths, more intolerable than any punishment. But here there is nothing of the kind. For the fruit, it says, of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. Galatians 5:22 Here is no quarreling, nor unseasonable pecuniary expense, nor disgrace and expense too; and if you give but a farthing, or a loaf, or a cup of cold water, He will be much beholden to you, and He does nothing to pain or grieve you, but all so as to make you glorious, and free you from all shame. What defense therefore shall we have, what pardon shall we gain, if, leaving these things, we give ourselves up to the contrary, and voluntarily cast ourselves into the furnace that burns with fire? Wherefore I exhort those who are sick of this malady, to recover themselves, and return to health, and not allow themselves to fall into despair. Since that son also was in a far more grievous state than this, yet when he returned to his father's house, he came to his former honor, and appeared more glorious than him who had ever been well-pleasing. Let us also imitate him, and returning to our Father, even though it be late, let us depart from that captivity, and transfer ourselves to freedom, that we may enjoy the Kingdom of heaven, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
