John 12:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Since the mind of idolaters is far more capable of changing for the better, because their false religion is very easily exposed as wholly useless, they readily changed their faith. Yet they had not fully appropriated the worship of the one true God. They wavered and were divided in their thoughts, following the opinions of their teachers, I mean Plato and those like him who are called wise men. Some of them say that there is one creator of all things. The remaining gods, they say, are in the world and are appointed by that creator as rulers for the administration of human affairs. Therefore certain Palestinians, especially Greeks, having the Jews as neighbors and sharing adjacent territory with them, often borrowed certain customs from them. They honored the Jewish faith in one God, along with the opinion of those Greek sages whom we have just mentioned, although they do not teach as we do. Others had neither a complete attraction to the Jews nor a departure from the customs dear to the Greeks. They adopted some middle opinion, inclining in both directions, and were called “worshipers of God.” These, seeing that their customs differed not greatly from those of the Jews in forms of sacrifice and in the idea of one God, gathered with them for worship. The Israelites had not yet learned the doctrine of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, nor the meaning of spiritual worship. They gathered especially at public assemblies, not as denying their own pagan worship, but as honoring the one God of us all.

In the New Testament writings such people are called not Greeks, but Hellenists. These Greeks were pagans who had accepted the Jewish faith. There were many such persons at that time, and they were called proselytes of various classes. They were probably the so-called proselytes of the gate, as may be concluded from certain further features of the narrative. They sometimes came from afar, cf. Acts 8:27 and following, to Jerusalem for the feasts. They took part in the lawful sacrifices and ceremonies, but were not admitted everywhere. True Jews, and especially the Pharisees, looked on them unfavorably.

They came to worship Him in the Jerusalem temple, but did not accept circumcision or the other Jewish rites. Did they express their desire to Philip because, living on the border near Galilee, they knew him? The respectful address to Philip, “Sir,” points to this. Or was it because they noticed in him a knowledge of the Greek language? This is unknown and unimportant. What matters is that they desire to see Jesus. This is a wondrous event. It is not said that they wished to learn who Jesus was. That would have resembled idle curiosity. They desired “to see Jesus.” While in Jerusalem they had already heard much about Him. The fame of His works, the raising of Lazarus, His entry into Jerusalem, both royal and humble, and His teaching, which enchanted many, stirred in their hearts a desire to enter into communion with Jesus. They wished to hear His teaching and see His works. This is like the journey of the Magi from the East, who came to worship the infant King. There were pagans of the East, filled with higher thoughts concerning the path of salvation. Here are pagans of the West, with the same dispositions of heart. In humility Philip did not undertake alone to report to the Lord about these wondrous disciples. He told Andrew, who had been called by Jesus before him, and both told the Lord about them.

Henceforth, religious development was being handed over to the peoples of Japheth's race by the people of Shem's race. It was given to them "to be enlarged and to dwell in the tents of Shem." Some, relying on the account of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, concerning Abgar of Edessa and his sending a letter to the Lord Jesus, have thought that the Greeks who wished to see the Lord were precisely envoys from the king of Osrhoene. But this is based only on the supposition that, since Greek civilization after Alexander the Great took possession of all Asia, Abgar of Edessa could have sent Greeks from his court to the Lord. Yet from Eusebius of Caesarea himself we learn that King Abgar's letter was written not in Greek, but in Syriac. Eusebius himself, having found the letter in the archives of Edessa, translated it into Greek. We leave aside the examination of this event. We wish only to point out that there are no sufficient grounds for recognizing the Greeks who came to the feast in Jerusalem as envoys of the king of Edessa. On the contrary, we regard them as representatives solely of Greek civilization. We do not enter into the insoluble question of precisely whence they came to Jerusalem. We pose another question: Why would Gentile Greeks go to Jerusalem to worship at the feast? We think that, despite certain malicious opinions expressed in the ancient world, chiefly the Roman world, about the cult of the Jews, the temple of Jerusalem had enjoyed worldwide respect and the renown of great sanctity from the time of Alexander the Great. This is not even to mention the respect shown by Cyrus and Darius toward the worship of the God of Israel (1 Esd 1:1-9; 6:1-12). Let us also recall that Solomon, at the construction of the first temple in Jerusalem, prayed at its consecration (1 Kgs 8:41-43). He prayed that God would grant the fulfillment of the prayer of the foreigner who prayed in this temple. Therefore in Solomon's temple, as in the later temples, there was a special court or porch of the Gentiles. Dom Calmet calls it Le parvis des gentils. This court was called the hel. It was outside the enclosure that embraced all the inner courts into which Jews could enter. Those courts were grouped around the sanctuary and the inner sacrificial court. Probably the Greeks prayed in this outer court of the Gentiles. So too did the eunuch of Queen Candace, who was baptized by Philip (Acts 8:27-40). But we also think that the Greeks who came to Jerusalem to worship, and who also honored the Jehovah of Israel like the Samaritan colonists of Shalmaneser's time, did not abandon the cult of their own gods (2 Kgs 17:25-33). They were probably drawn to Jerusalem chiefly by the fame of the miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ. For "His fame went throughout all Syria" (Mt 4:24). We see from Acts 17:4 that in the West also, for example in Thessalonica of Macedonia, there were "Greeks who worshiped God." Likewise Cornelius, the Roman centurion who lived in Caesarea of Palestine, a Roman and a pagan by birth and upbringing. Is called in Acts 10:1-2 "devout, fearing God, and praying to Him." There is no doubt that when the books of the New Testament speak of Gentiles who worship God, they mean worship of the one God, the Creator of heaven and earth. He is, of course, the one God of Israel and of the Gentiles. To such people from among the Gentiles, "who have the law of God written in their hearts" (Rom 2:15), belonged, probably, the Greeks who came to worship at the Jewish feast in Jerusalem. They were "sheep not of this fold" (Jn 10:16), yet they were ready to listen to the Shepherd's voice. They were not satisfied by the religion of their fathers. They hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and found it neither in Greek fables nor in their philosophical teachings. Thus we understand those Greeks who tried to see the Lord. They were drawn to Him by the fame of His miracles and by the glory of His word, which brings joy and rest to the human soul.