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| The Gospel According to Luke. An Interpretation.
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II.—The Gospel According
to Luke.
An
Interpretation.—Chap. XXII.
42–48
————————————
Ver. 42. “Father, if Thou be
willing to remove967
this cup from
me: nevertheless not my will, but Thine, be
done.”
But let these things be enough to say on the
subject of the will. This word, however, “Let the cup
pass,” does not mean, Let it not come near me, or approach
me.968
| 968
οὐκ
ἔστι. Migne suggests οὐκέτι: “Let
it no more come near me.” | For what
can “pass from Him,” certainly must first come nigh Him;
and what does pass thus from Him, must be by Him. For if it does
not reach Him, it cannot pass from Him. For He takes to Himself
the person of man, as having been made man. Wherefore also on
this occasion He deprecates the doing of the inferior, which is His
own, and begs that the superior should be done, which is His
Father’s, to wit, the divine will; which again, however, in
respect of the divinity, is one and the same will in Himself and in the
Father. For it was the Father’s will that He should pass
through every trial (temptation); and the Father Himself in a
marvellous manner brought Him on this course, not indeed with the trial
itself as His goal, nor in order simply that He might enter into that,
but in order that He might prove Himself to be above the trial, and
also beyond it.969
| 969
μετ᾽
αὐτόν. May it be, “and
next to Himself” (the Father)? | And surely
it is the fact, that the Saviour asks neither what is impossible, nor
what is impracticable,
nor what is contrary to the will of the Father. It is something
possible; for Mark makes mention of His saying, “Abba, Father,
all things are possible unto Thee.”970
And they are possible if He wills
them; for Luke tells us that He said, “Father, if Thou be
willing, remove971
this cup from
me.” The Holy Spirit, therefore, apportioned among the
evangelists, makes up the full account of our Saviour’s whole
disposition by the expressions of these several narrators
together. He does not, then, ask of the Father what the Father
wills not. For the words, “If Thou be willing,” were
demonstrative of subjection and docility,972
not of ignorance or hesitancy. For
this reason, the other scripture says, “All things are possible
unto Thee.” And Matthew again admirably describes the
submission and humility973
| 973 The
text gives κἂν
τοῦτο πάλιν
τὸ
εἰκτικόν, etc.
Migne proposes, κἂν
τούτῳ πάλιν
τὸ εὐκτικόν
= and Matthew again describes the supplicatory and docile in Him. |
when he says, “If it be possible.” For unless I adapt
the sense in this way,974
| 974 Reading
οὕτως for
οὔτε. |
some will perhaps assign an impious signification to this expression,
“If it be possible;” as if there were anything impossible
for God to do, except that only which He does not will to do.
But…being straightway strengthened in His humanity by His
ancestral975
divinity, he urges
the safer petition, and desires no longer that should be the case, but
that it might be accomplished in accordance with the Father’s
good pleasure, in glory, in constancy, and in fulness. For John,
who has given us the record of the sublimest and divinest of the
Saviour’s words and deeds, heard Him speak thus: “And
the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink
it?”976
Now, to
drink the cup was to discharge the ministry and the whole economy of
trial with fortitude, to follow and fulfil the Father’s
determination, and to surmount all apprehensions. And the
exclamation, “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” was in due
accordance with the requests He had previously made: Why is it
that death has been in conjunction with me all along up till now, and
that I bear not yet the cup? This I judge to have been the
Saviour’s meaning in this concise utterance.
And He certainly spake truth then.
Nevertheless He was not forsaken. But He drank out the cup at
once, as His plea had implied, and then passed away.977
And the vinegar which was handed
to Him seems to me to have been a symbolical thing. For the
turned wine978
indicated very
well the quick turning979
and change which He sustained, when He passed from His passion to
impassibility, and from death to deathlessness, and from the position
of one judged to that of one judging, and from subjection under the
despot’s power to the exercise of kingly dominion. And the
sponge, as I think, signified the complete transfusion980
of the Holy Spirit that was realized in
Him. And the reed symbolized the royal sceptre and the divine
law. And the hyssop expressed that quickening and saving
resurrection of His, by which He has also brought health to
us.981
| 981 The
text is, ἡμᾶς ὕγια
ἔδειξεν. Migne
proposes ὑγίασεν. |
43. “And there appeared an
angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.
44. And being in an agony, He prayed
more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground.”
The phrase, “a sweat of blood,” is a
current parabolic expression used of persons in intense pain and
distress; as also of one in bitter grief people say that the man
“weeps tears of blood.” For in using the expression,
“as it were great drops of blood,” he does not declare the
drops of sweat to have been actually drops of blood.982
| 982
[Note this somewhat modern “explaining
away.” It proves the freedom of our author from any
predisposition to exegetical exaggeration, if nothing more. | For he would not then have said
that these drops of sweat were like blood. For such is the force
of the expression, “as it were great drops.” But
rather with the object of making it plain that the Lord’s body
was not bedewed with any kind of subtle moisture which had only the
show and appearance of actuality, but that it was really suffused all
over with sweat in the shape of large thick drops, he has taken the
great drops of blood as an illustration of what was the case with
Him. And accordingly, as by the intensity of the supplication and
the severe agony, so also by the dense and excessive sweat, he made the
facts patent, that the Saviour was man by nature and in reality, and
not in mere semblance and appearance, and that He was subject to all
the innocent sensibilities natural to men. Nevertheless the
words, “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to
take it again,”983
show that His passion was a voluntary thing; and besides that, they
indicate that the life which is laid down and taken again is one thing,
and the divinity which lays that down and takes it again is
another.
He says, “one thing and another,” not
as making a partition into two persons, but as showing the distinction
between the two natures.984
| 984 This
sentence is supposed to be an interpolation by the constructor of the
Catena. |
And as, by voluntarily enduring the death in the flesh,
He implanted incorruptibility in it; so also, by taking to Himself of His own
free-will the passion of our servitude,985
| 985 The
text is, τῆς
δουλείας. Migne
suggests, τῆς
δειλίας ="the feeling of our
fear.” | He set in it the seeds of constancy and
courage, whereby He has nerved those who believe on Him for the mighty
conflicts belonging to their witness-bearing. Thus, also, those
drops of sweat flowed from Him in a marvellous way like great drops of
blood, in order that He might, as it were, drain off986
and empty the fountain of the fear which
is proper to our nature. For unless this had been done with a
mystical import, He certainly would not, even had He been987
| 987 The
text is, οὐδὲ ἡ
σφόδρα
δειλότατος,
etc. We read, with Migne, εἱ instead of ἡ. | the most timorous and ignoble of men,
have been bedewed in this unnatural way with drops of sweat like drops
of blood under the mere force of His agony.
Of like import is also the sentence in the
narrative which tells us that an angel stood by the Saviour and
strengthened Him. For this, too, bore also on the economy entered
into on our behalf. For those who are appointed to engage in the
sacred exertions of conflicts on account of piety, have the angels from
heaven to assist them. And the prayer, “Father, remove the
cup,” He uttered probably not as if He feared the death itself,
but with the view of challenging the devil by these words to erect the
cross for Him. With words of deceit that personality deluded
Adam; with the words of divinity, then, let the deceiver himself now be
deluded. Howbeit assuredly the will of the Son is not one thing,
and the will of the Father another.988
| 988
[Note the following sentence, without which, as explanatory, this might
be quoted as a Monothelite statement. Garbling is a
convenient resource for those who claim the Fathers for other false
systems.] | For He who wills what the Father
wills, is found to have the Father’s will. It is in a
figure, therefore, that He says, “not my will, but
Thine.” For it is not that He wishes the cup to be removed,
but that He refers to the Father’s will the right issue of His
passion, and honours thereby the Father as the First.989
For if the fathers990
| 990
[This seems to be a quotation from the Alexandrian Fathers
showing how early such questions began to be agitated. Settled in
the Sixth Council, a.d. 681, the last
“General Council.”] | style one’s disposition
gnomè,991
and if such
disposition relates also to what is in consideration hidden as if by
settled purpose, how say some that the Lord, who is above all these
things, bears a gnomic will?992
Manifestly that can be only by
defect of reason.
45. “And when He rose from
prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for
sorrow;
46. And said unto them, Why sleep
ye? Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”
For in the most general sense it holds good that
it is apparently not possible for any man993
| 993
μάλιστα
ἴσως παντι
ἀνθρώπῳ. | to remain altogether without experience
of ill. For, as one says, the whole world lieth in
wickedness;”994
and again,
“The most of the days of man are labour and
trouble.”995
But you will
perhaps say, What difference is there between being tempted, and
falling or entering into temptation? Well, if one is overcome of
evil—and he will be overcome unless he struggles against it
himself, and unless God protects him with His shield—that man has
entered into temptation, and is in it, and is brought under it like one
that is led captive. But if one withstands and endures, that man
is indeed tempted; but he has not entered into temptation, or fallen
into it. Thus Jesus was led up of the Spirit, not indeed to enter
into temptation, but to be tempted of the devil.996
And Abraham, again, did not enter
into temptation, neither did God lead him into temptation, but He
tempted (tried) him; yet He did not drive him into temptation.
The Lord Himself, moreover, tempted (tried) the disciples. Thus
the wicked one, when he tempts us, draws us into the temptations, as
dealing himself with the temptations of evil. But God, when He
tempts (tries), adduces the temptations (trials) as one untempted of
evil. For God, it is said, “cannot be tempted of
evil.”997
The devil,
therefore, drives us on by violence, drawing us to destruction; but God
leads us by hand, training us for our salvation.
47. “And while He yet spake,
behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve,
went before them, and drew near unto Jesus, and kissed Him.
48. But Jesus said unto him, Judas,
betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?
How wonderful this endurance of evil by the Lord, who
even kissed the traitor, and spake words softer even than the
kiss! For He did not say, O thou abominable, yea, utterly
abominable traitor, is this the return you make to us for so great
kindness? But, somehow, He says simply “Judas,” using
the proper name, which was the address that would be used by one who
commiserated a person, or who wished to call him back, rather than of
one in anger. And He did not say, “thy Master, the Lord,
thy benefactor;” but He said simply, “the Son of
man,” that is, the tender and meek one: as if He meant to
say, Even supposing that I was not your Master, or Lord, or benefactor,
dost thou still betray one so guilelessly and so tenderly affected
towards thee, as even to kiss thee in the hour of thy treachery, and
that, too, when the kiss was the
signal for thy treachery? Blessed art Thou, O Lord! How
great is this example of the endurance of evil that Thou hast shown us
in Thine own person! how great, too, the pattern of lowliness!
Howbeit, the Lord has given us this example, to show us that we ought
not to give up offering our good counsel to our brethren, even should
nothing remarkable be effected by our words.
For as incurable wounds are wounds which cannot be
remedied either by severe applications, or by those which may act more
pleasantly upon them;998
| 998 Some
such clause as ιαθῆναι
δύναται requires to be
supplied here. |
so999
| 999 Reading
οὕτω for
οὔτε. | the soul, when it
is once carried captive, and gives itself up to any kind of1000
| 1000 Reading
ᾡτινιοῦν for
ὁτιοῦν. | wickedness, and
refuses to consider what is really profitable for it, although a myriad
counsels should echo in it, takes no good to itself. But just as
if the sense of hearing were dead within it, it receives no benefit
from exhortations addressed to it; not because it cannot, but only
because it will not. This was what happened in the case of
Judas. And yet Christ, although He knew all these things
beforehand, did not at any time, from the beginning on to the end, omit
to do all in the way of counsel that depended on Him. And
inasmuch as we know that such was His practice, we ought also
unceasingly to endeavour to set those right1001
who prove careless, even although no actual
good may seem to be effected by that counsel.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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