I have given them your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
All Commentaries on John 17:14 Go To John 17
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
He points out to us the most needful increase of favour from above and from the Father, which, He says, is almost owed by Him to those who incur danger for His sake, as a just and well-deserved return. For the world hateth on God's account those who worship Him, and who are obedient to the laws that He has laid down, and who lightly esteem worldly pleasure, and who also, as is most right, will receive succour and grace from Him, and continuance in well-being. For surely they who after a manner rely upon Him, and are of good courage and engage in warfare on His account, will receive a recompense in harmony with the aim they have in view. Therefore the Saviour says: I have given them Thy Word; and the world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. For they received with great gladness, He says, Thy Word given unto them by Me, that is, the Gospel message, which easily extricates from a worldly life and thoughts of earth, those who welcome it. Therefore also are they hated of the world, that is, of those who choose to have at heart the things of this world, and who love this pleasure-loving and most impure life. For the conversation of Saints is displeasing to worldlings; ever making light as it does of the hardships of this life, and pointing out how abominable is a worldly career, and accusing its vileness, and assailing with bitter rebukes those who think that pleasure consists in succumbing to temptation, and in having continual intercourse with the evil of this world, and triumphing over all selfish desire, and contemning ambition, and teaching men to abhor covetousness the mother of all evils, and to cast it far from them, and furthermore bidding those who are ensnared in the net of the devil to escape from old deceits, and to betake themselves to the God of the universe.
For this cause, therefore, O Father, He says, are they hated. For they are in ill odour with the world, not because they have been convicted of any crime or impiety, but because I have given unto them Thy Word, so that they are also out of the world even as I am. For the life and conduct that is in Christ is wholly dissevered from earthly thoughts and worldly conversation; that life, by following after which we shall ourselves also, so far as possible, escape being reckoned among the men of this world. Therefore the inspired Paul enjoins us to follow His steps; and we shall then best follow Him, when we love only the things that are not of this world, and, lifting our minds above fleshly thoughts, gaze only on heavenly things. He ranks Himself, too, with His disciples because of His Manhood, by imitating which, in the conception of Him as Man, we attain every kind of virtue, as we just now said; passing unscathed through all the wickedness of the world, and showing ourselves strangers and aliens to its wickedness. Just so, then, the Divine Paul indeed himself exhorts us; and, with reference to himself and Christ, through Which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world, bids us, speaking in another place, Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ. Paul did not indeed imitate Christ in so far as our Lord is Creator of the world; for he did not establish a new firmament, nor did he ever reveal to us new seas, or a new earth. How, then, did he imitate Him? Surely it was by moulding in his own character and conduct an admirable pattern of the life of which Christ was Himself the exemplar, so far at least as Paul could attain to it; for who can be equal to Christ?
Putting Himself, then, on a level with us, because of His Human Nature, or, to speak more accurately, as first presenting us with the blessing of taking ourselves out of the world by the life which transcends worldly things, for the life and teaching of the Gospel is above the world, He says that He Himself is not of the world, and that we are even as He is, since His Divine Word has taken up its abode in our hearts. Furthermore, He declares that as the world hated Him so will it also hate them. The world indeed hateth Christ, because it is in conflict with His words, and accepts not His teaching, men's minds being wholly yielded up to base desires; and even as the world hates our Saviour Christ, it hath hated also the disciples who carry through Him His message, as Paul also did, who said: We are ambassadors, therefore, on behalf of Christ, as though God were intreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God.
