much rather did the blessed Peter, who had beforetimes been a fisherman, do what he was already acquainted with, if at that present time he found no other means of gaining a livelihood?
4. But some one will reply, And why did he not find them, when the Lord had promised, saying, " Seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God, and aH these things shall be added unto you "? s Precisely also in this very way did the Lord fulfill His promise. For who else placed there the fishes that were to be caught, but He, who, we are bound to believe, threw them into the penury that compelled them to go a fishing, for no other reason than that He wished to show them the miracle He had prepared, that so He might both feed the preachers of His gospel, and at the same time enhance that gospel itself, by the great mystery which He was about to impress on their minds by the number of the fishes? And on this subject we also ought now to be telling you what He Himself has set before us, 5. " Simon Peter," therefore, " saith, I go 3 Sicui a proviiicialibiis Christ i.
5 Matt. vi.
Tractate CXXII.]
a fishing." Those who were with him "say unto him, We also go with thee. And they went forth, and entered into a ship; and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered Him, No. He saith unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his coat unto him, for he was naked, and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship (for they were not far from the land, but as it were two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals laid, and a fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken."
6. This is a great mystery in the great Gospel of John; and to commend it the more forcibly to our attention, the last chapter has been made its place of record. Accordingly, inasmuch as there were seven disciples taking part in that fishing, Peter, and Thomas, and Nathaneal, and the two sons of Zebedee, and two others whose names are withheld, they point, by their septenary number, to the end of time. For there is a revolution of all time in seven days. To this also pertains the statement, that when the morning was come, Jesus stood on the shore; for the shore likewise is the limit of the sea, and signifies therefore the end of the world. The same end of the world is shown also by the act of Peter, in drawing the net to land, that is, to the shore. Which the Lord has Himself elucidated, when in a certain other place He drew His similitude from a fishing net let down into tlie sea: "And they drew it," He said, "to the shore." And in explanation of what that shore was, He added, " So will it be in the end of the world.'' ' 7. That, however, is a parable in word, not one embodied in outward action; and just as in the passage before us the Lord indicated by an outward action the kind of character the Church would have in the end of the world, so in the same way, by that other fishing. He indicated its present character. In doing the one at the commencement of His preaching and this latter after His resurrection. He showed thereby in the former case that the capture of fishes signified the good and bad presently existing in the Church; but in the latter, the good only, whom it will contain everlastingly, when the resurrection of the dead shall have been completed in the end of this world. Furthermore, on that previous occasion Jesus stood not, as here, on the shore, when He gave orders for the taking of the fish, but " entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land; and He sat down therein, and taught the crowds. And when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught." There also they put the fishes that were caught into the ship, and did not, as here, draw the net to the shore. By these signs, and any others that may be found, on the former occasion the Church was prefigured as it exists in this world, and on the other, as it shall be in the end of the world: the one accordingly took place before, and the other subsequently to the resurrection of the Lord; because there we were signified by Christ as called, and here as raised from the dead. On that occasion the nets are not let down on the right side, that the good alone might not be signified, nor on the left, lest the application should be limited to the bad; but without any reference to either side, He says, " Let down your nets for a draught," that we may understand the good and bad as mingled together: while on this He says, " Cast the net on the right side of the ship," to signify those who stood on the right hand, the good alone. There the net was broken on account of the schisms that were meant to be signified; but here, as then there will be no more scnisms in that supreme peace of the saints, the evangelist was entitled to say, "And for all they were so great," that is, so large, "yet was not the net liroken;" as if with reference to the previous time when it was broken, and a commendation of the good that was here in comparison with the evil that preceded. There tlie multitude of fishes caught was so great, that the two vessels were tilled and began to sink,- that is, were weighed down to the point of sinking; for they did not actually sink, but were in extreme jeopardy. For whence exist in the Church the great evils under which we groan, save from the impossibility of withstanding the enormous ■' Luke V. 3-7.
[Tkactatk CXXIL multitude that, almost to the entire subversion of discipline, gain an entrance, with their morals so utterly at variance with the pathway of the saints? Here, however, they cast the net on the right side, "and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes." What is meant by the words, " Now they were not able to draw it," but this, that those who belong to the resurrection of life, that is to say, to the right hand, and depart this life within the nets of the Christian name, will be made manifest only on the shore, in other words, when they shall rise from the dead at the end of the world? Accordingly, they were not able to draw the nets so as to discharge into the vessel the fishes they had caught, as was done with all of those wherewith the net was broken, and the boats laden to sinking. But the Church possesses those right-hand ones after the close of this life in the sleep of peace, lying hid as it were in the deep, till the net reach the shore whither it is being drawn, as it were two hundred cubits. And as on that first occasion it was done by two vessels, with reference to the circumcision and the uncircumcision; so in this place^ by the two hundred cubits, I am of opinion that there is symbolized, with reference to the elect of both classes, the circumcision and the uncircumcision, as it were two separate hundreds; because the number that passes to the right hand is represented summarily by hundreds. And last of all, in that former fishing the number of fishes is not expressed, as if the words were there acted on that were uttered by the prophet, " I have declared and spoken; they are multiplied beyond number: " ' while here there are none beyond calculation, but the definite number of a hundred and fifty and three; and of the reason of this number we must now, with the Lord's help, give some account.
8. For if we determine on the number that should indicate the law, what else can it be but ten? For we have absolute certainty that the Decalogue of the law, that is, those ten well-known precepts, were first written by the finger of God on two tables of stone. ^ But the law, when it is not aided by grace, maketh transgressors, and is only in the letter, on account of which the apostle specially declared, ' ' The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. ' '^ Let the spirit then be added to the letter, lest the letter kill him whom the spirit maketh not alive, and let us work out the precepts of the law, not in our own strength, but by the grace of the Saviour. But when grace is added to the law, that is, the spirit to the let- ' Ps. xl. 5.
2 Deut. ix. lo.
3 2 Cor. iii. 6.
ter, there is, in a kind of way, added to ten the number of seven. For this number, namely seven, is testified by the documents of holy writ given us for perusal, to signify the Holy Spirit. For example, sanctity or sanctification properly pertains to the Holy Spirit, whence, as the Father is a spirit, and the Son a spirit, because God is a spirit,'* so the Father is holy and the Son holy, yet the Spirit of both is called peculiarly by the name of the Holy Spirit. VVhere, then, was there the first distinct mention of sanctification in the law but on the seventh day? For God sanctified not the first day, when He made the light; nor the second, when He made the firmament; nor the third, when He separated the sea from the land, and the land brought forth grass and timber; nor the fourth, wherein the stars were created; nor the fifth, wherein were created the animals that live in the waters or flj' in the air; nor the sixth, when the terrestrial living soul and man himself were created; but He sanctified the seventh day, wherein He rested from all His works. s The Holy Spirit, therefore, is aptly represented by the septenary number. The prophet Isaiah likewise says, " The Spirit of God shall rest on Him;" and thereafter calls our attention to that Spirit in His septenary work or grace, by saying, "The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety; and He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of God." ^ And what of the Revelation? Are they not tliere called the seven Spirits of God,'' while there is only one and the same Spirit dividing to every one severally as He will?^ But the septenary operation of the one Spirit was so called by the Spirit Himself, whose own presence in the writer led to their being spoken of as the seven Spirits. Accordingly, when to the number of /en, representing the law, we add the Holy Spirit as represented by seven, we have seventeen; and when this number is used for the adding together of every several number it contains, from I up to itself, the sum amounts to one hundred and fifty-three. For if you add 2 to I, you have 3 of course; if to these you add 3 and 4, the whole makes 10; and then if you add all the numbers that follow up to 17, the whole amounts to the foresaid number; that is, if to 10, which you had reached by adding all together from i to 4, you add 5, you have 15; to these add 6, and the result is 21; then add 7, and you have 28; to this add 8, and 9, and 10, and you get 55; to this add ii^and 12, and 13, and you have 91; and 4 Chap. iv. 24. 7 Rev. iii. i.
6 Isa.
XI. 2, 3.
Tractate CXXII.]
to this again add 14, 15, and 16, and it comes to 136; and then add to this the remaining number of which we have been speaking, namely, 17, and it will make up the number of fishes. But it is not on that account merely a hundred and fifty-three saints that are meant as hereafter to rise from the dead unto life eternal, but thousands of saints who have shared in the grace of the Spirit, by which grace harmony is established with the law of God, as with an adversary; so that through the lifegiving Spirit the letter no longer kills, but what is commanded by the letter is fulfilled l)y the help of the Spirit, and if there is any deficiency it is pardoned. All therefore who are sharers in such grace are symbolized by this number, that is, are symbolically represented. This number has, besides, three times over, the number of fifty, and three in addition, with reference to the mystery of the Trinity; while, again, the number of fifty is made up by multiplying 7 by 7, with the addition of I, for 7 times 7 make 49, And the I is added to show that there is one who is expressed by seven on account of His sevenfold operation; and we know that it was on the fiftieth day after our Lord's ascension that the Holy Spirit was sent, for wliom the disciples were commanded to wait according to the promise.'
9. It was not, then, without a purpose that these fishes were described as so many in number, and so large in size, that is, as both an hundred and fifty-three, and large. For so it is written, "And He drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three." For when the Lord said, " I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill,'' because about to give the Spirit, through whom the law might be fulfilled, and to add thereby, as it were, seven to ten; after interposing a few other words He proceeded, " Whosoever therefore shall break one of tiiese least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." The latter, therefore, may possibly belong to the number of great fishes. But he that is the least, who undoes in deed what he teaches in word, may be in such a church as is signified by that first capture of fishes, which contains both good and bad, for it also is called the kingdom of heaven, as He says, " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of ever kind;"- where He wishes the good as well as the bad to be understood, and of whom He declares that they are yet to be separated on the shore, to wit, at the end of the world. And lastly, to show that those least ones are reprobates who teach tey word of mouth the good which they undo by their evil lives, and that they will not be even the least, as it were, in the life that is eternal, but will have no place there at all; after saying, " He shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven," He immediately added, " For I say unto you. That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." ^ Such, doubtless— these scribes and Pharisees — are those who sit in Moses' seat, and of whom He says, " Do ye what they say, but do not what they do; for they say, and do not." * They teach in sermons what they undo by their morals.
It therefore follows that he who is least in the kingdom of heaven, as the Church now exists, shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, as the Church shall be hereafter; for by teaching what he himself is in the habit of j breaking, he can have no place in the com-I pany of those who do what they teach, and, therefore will not be in the number of sreat I fishes, seeing it is he "who shall do and teach that shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." And because he will be great here, therefore shall he be there, where he that is least shall not be. Yea, so great will they certainly be there, that he who is less there is greater than the greatest here.^^ And yet those who are great here, that is, who do the good that they teach in that kingdom of heaven into which the net gathereth good and bad, shall be greater still in that I eternal state of the heavenly kingdom, — those, I mean, who are indicated by tlie fishes here as belonging to the right haiul and to the resurrection of life. We have still to discourse, as God shall grant us abilit)', on the meal that the Lord took with those seven disciples, and on the words He spake after the meal, as well as on the close of the Gospel itself; but these are topics that cannot be included in the present lecture.
' Actsi.
4; "• 2-4.
^1 Matt. V. 17-20. 5 Matt. xi. II.
LTKACTAlh. CXXIII.
TRACTATE CXXIII.
Chapter XXI. 12-19.
T. With this third manifestation of Him- ■self by*the Lord to His disciples after His resurrection, the Gospel of the blessed Apostle John is brought to a close, of which we have already lectured through the earlier part as we were able, on to the place where it is related that an hundred and tifty-three fishes were taken by the disciples to whom He showed Himself, and for all they were so large, yet were not the nets broken. What follows we have now to take into consideration, and to discuss as the Lord enables us, and as the various points may appear to demand. When the fishing was over, " Jesus saith unto them, Come [and] dine. And none of those who sat down dared to ask Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it was the Lord." If, then, they knew, what need was there to ask? and if there was no need, wherefore is it said, "they dared not," as if there were need, but, from some fear or other, they dared not? The meaning here, therefore, is: so great was the evidence of the truth that Jesus Himself had appeared to these disciples, that not one of them dared not merely to deny, but even to doubt it; for had any of them doubted it, he ought certainly to have asked. In this sense, therefore, it was said, " No one dared to ask Him, Who art Thou? " as if it were. No one dared to doubt that it was He Himself.
2. ""And Jesus cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise." We are likewise told here, you see, on what they dined; and of this dinner we also will say something that is sweet and salutary, if we, too, are made by Him to partake of the food. It is related above that these disciples, when they came to the land, " saw a fire of coals laid, and a fish laid thereon, and bread." Here we are not to understand that the bread also was laid upon the coals, but only to supply. They saw. And if we repeat this verb in the place where it ought to be supplied, the whole may read thus: They saw coals laid, and fish laid thereon, and they saw bread. Or rather in this way: They saw coals laid, and fish laid tliereon; they saw also bread. At the Lord's command they likewise brought •of the fishes which they themselves had caught; and although their doing so might not be actually stated by the historian, yet there has been no silence in regard to the Lord's command. For He says, " Bring of the fishes which ye have now caught." And when we have such certainty that He gave the order, will any suppose that they failed to obey it? Of this, therefore, the Lord prepared the dinner for these His seven disciples, namely, of the fish which they had seen laid upon the coals, with an addition thereto from those which they had caught, and of the bread which we are told with equal distinctness that they had seen. The fish roasted is Christ having suffered; He Himself also is the bread that cometh down from heaven.' With Him is incorporated the Church, in order to the participation in everlasting blessedness. For this reason is it said, " Bring of the fish which ye have now caught," that all of us who cherish this hope may know that we ourselves, through that septenary number of disciples whereby our universal community may in this passage be understood as symbolized, partake in this great sacrament, and are associated in the same blessedness. This is the Lord's dinner with His own disciples, and herewith John, although having much besides that he might say of Christ, brings his Gospel, with profound thought and an eye to important lessons, to a close. For here the Church, such as it will be hereafter among the good alone, is signified by the draught of an hundred and fifty-three fishes; and to those who so believe, and hope, and love, there is demonstrated by this dinner their participation in such super-eminent blessedness. / 3. "This was now," he says, "the third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after that He was risen from the dead." And this we are to refer not to the manifestations themselves, but to the days (that is to say, taking the first day when He rose again, and the [second] eight days after, when the disciple Thomas saw and believed, and [the third] on this day when He so acted in connection with the fishes, although how many days afterwards it was that He did so we are not told); for on that first day He was seen more than once, as is shown by the collated testimonies of all the evangelists: but, as we have said, it is in accordance with the days that His manifestations are to be calculated, ' Chap. vi. 41.
Tractate CXXIII.]
making this the third; for taat [manifestation] is to be reckoned the first, and all one and the same, as included in one day, however often and to however many He showed Himself on the day of His resurrection; the second eight days afterwards, and this the third, and thereafter as often as He pleased on to the fortieth day, when He ascended into heaven, although all of them have not been recorded in Scripture.
4. "So when they had dined. He saith to Simon Peter, Simon, [son] of John, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again, Simon, [son] of John, lovest thou me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto Him, Feed my lambs. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, [son] of Jonn, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him. Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee. When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou vvouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wilt not. And this spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God." Such was the end reached by that denier and lover; elated by his presumption, prostrated by his denial, cleansed by his weeping, approved by his confession, crowned by his suffering, this was the end he reached, to die with a perfected love for the name of Him with whom, by a perverted forwardness, he had promised to die. He would do, when strengthened by His resurrection, what in his weakness he promised prematurely. For the needful order was that Christ should first die for Peter's salvation, and then tliat Peter should die for the preacliing of Christ. The boldness thus begun by human temerity was an utter inversion of the order that had been instituted by the Truth. I'eter thought to lay down his life for Christ,' the one to be delivered in behalf of the Deliverer, seeing that ('hrist had come to lay down His life for all His own, including Peter also, which, you see, was now done. Now and henceforth a true, because graciously bestowed, strength of heart may be assumed for incurring death itself for the name of the Lord, and not a false one presumptuously usurped through an erroneous estimate of ourselves. Now there is no need that we should any more fear the passage out of the present life, because in the Lord's resurrection we have a foregoing illustration of the life to come. Now thou hast cause, Peter, to be no longer afraid of death, because He liveth whom thou didst mourn when dead, and whom in thy carnal love thou didst try to hinder from dying in our behalf.-Thou didst dare to step in before the Leader, and thou didst tremble before His persecutor; now that the price has been paid for thee, it is thy duty to follow the Buyer, and follow Him even to the death of the cross. Thou hast heard the words of Him whom thou hast already proved to be truthful; He Himself hach foretold thy suffering, who formerly foretold thy denial.
5. But first the Lord asks what He knew, and that not once, but a second and a third time, whether Peter loved Him; and just as often He has the same answer, that He is loved, while just as often He gives Peter the same charge to feed His sheep. To the threefold denial there is now ai)pended a threefold confession, that his tongue may not yield a feebler service to love than to fear, and imminent death may not appear to have elicited more from the lips than present life. Let it be the office of love to feed the Lord's flock, if it was the signal of fear to deny the Shepherd. Tuose who have this purpose in feeding the flock of Christ, that they may have them as their own, and not as Christ's, are convicted of loving themselves, and not Christ, from the desire either of boasting, or wielding power, or acquiring gain, and not from the love of obeying, serving, and pleasing God. Against such, therefore, tliere stands as a wakeful sentinel this thrice inculcated utterance of Christ, of whom the apostle complains that they seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's. ^ For what else mean the words, "Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep," than if it were said, If thou lovest me, think not of feetling thyself, but feed my sheep as mine, and not as thine own; seek my glory in them, and not thine own; my dominion, and not thine; my gain, and not thine; lest thou be found in the fellowship of those who belong to the perilous times, lovers of their own selves, and all else that is joined on to this beginning of evils? For the apostle, after saying, " For men shall be lovers of their own selves," proceeded to add, " Lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, wicked, irreligious, without alTection, fal#e accusers, incontinent, implacable, with- ' C!ia;).,\iii. 37.
riiii [Tractate CXXIII.
out kindness, traitors, heady, blinded;' lovers of pleasures more than of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. "= All these evils flow from that as their fountain which he stated first, " lovers of their own selves." With great propriety, therefore, is Peter addressed, " Lovest thou me?" and found replying, "I love Thee;" and the command applied to him, " Feed my lambs," and this a second and a third time. We have it also demonstrated here that love and liking are one and the same thing; for the Lord also in the last question said not, Dillgis vie? but, Avias me? Let us, then, love not ourselves, but Him; and in feeding His sheep, let us be seeking the things which are His, not the things which are our own. For in some inexplicable way, I know not what, every one that loveth himself, and not God, loveth not himself; and whoever loveth God, and not himself, he it is that loveth himself. For he that cannot live by himself will certainly die by loving himself; he therefore loveth not himself who loves himself to his own loss of life. But when He is loved by whom life is preserved, a man by not loving himself only loveth the more, when it is for this reason that he loveth not himself, [namely] that he may love Him by whom he lives. Let not those, then, who feed Christ's sheep be "lovers of their own selves," lest they feed them as if they were their own, and not His, and wish to make their own gain of them, as " lovers of money; " or to domineer over them, as "boastful; "' or to glory in the honors which they receive at their hands, as " proud; " or to go the length even of originating heresies, as "blasphemers;" and not to give place to the holy fathers, as those who are "disobedient to parents;" and to render evil for good to those who wish to correct them, because unwilling to let them perish, as "unthankful;" to slay their own souls and those of others, as " wicked; " to outrage the motherly bowels of the Church, as " irreligious; " to have no sympathy with the weak, as those who are " without affection;" to attempt to traduce the" character of the saints, as "false accusers;" to give loose reins to the basest lusts, as "incontinent;" to make lawsuits their practice, as " implacable;" to know nothing of loving service, as those who are " without kindness; " to make known to the enemies of the godly what they are well aware ought to be kept secret, as "traitors;" to disturb human modesty by shameless discussions, as "heady;" to understand neither what they say nor whereof