While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light.
These things spoke Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.
All Commentaries on John 12:36 Go To John 12
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
While ye have the light, walk as children of the light. Believe in Me, who am the light of the world; believe that I am the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world; believe in Me and my Gospel (so S. Cyril and Theophylact), that ye may be my children, and consequently the children of grace, charity, virtue, and sanctity in this life, and the children of the Resurrection, of happiness, and glory in the next life (see notes on 1 John 1:5, John 1:4., Ephesians 5:8).
Tropologically. When thou feelest the enlightenment, the emotions, the breath of the Holy Spirit, act on them at once, for they come and go like lightning. As S. Francis, when he heard the voice of God, stopped short even on a journey, that he might listen to it, and at once put it into practice.
These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them. Because He knew that they wished to take Him before the time appointed of the Father. So S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others. He hid Himself, probably at night, for by day He taught in the temple, and at night He withdrew to Mount Olivet, and thence to Bethany (see Luke 21:37).
"He withdrew Himself not," says S. Augustine and Bede, "from those who began to believe in Him and to love Him. Not from those who came out with palm branches and praises to meet Him. But from those who saw Him indeed, but with an evil eye; because in truth they saw Him not, but in their blindness stumbled at that stone of offence."
Symbolically. Rupertus says, "He hid Himself from them not in place but in grace; because He left them in their unbelief, He blinded and hardened them."
