John 13:27Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"Then Jesus said to him, 'What you do, do quickly.' But no one at the table knew." O what insensibility! How could he fail to be softened and ashamed? Yet he went out, having become still more shameless.

The words "do quickly" signify neither a command nor counsel. On the contrary, by them Christ reproaches him and shows that He wished the betrayer to be corrected. He leaves him only because he was beyond correction.

It says that "no one at the table knew." Although He said clearly, "What you do, do quickly," the Apostles still did not understand.

By these words He showed that everything He had said to the Jews about His death was true. He had said to the Jews, "No one takes it from Me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (Jn 10:18).

Indeed, so long as He did not permit them to take Him, no one was able. But when He permitted it, the matter became easy. Indicating all this, He said, "What you do, do quickly."

Therefore let no one be treacherous, filled with malice, or keep poison in his soul, lest he become a partaker of condemnation. For even then, after receiving that offering, the devil entered Judas.

He did not despise the Master's body, but despised Judas for his shamelessness. Thus you may know that in those who partake unworthily of the divine mysteries, the devil continually dwells and enters, just as he then entered Judas.

These gifts profit the worthy. But those who receive them contrary to worthiness are subjected to great punishment.

Before this, Satan had attacked Judas from without through the passion of avarice. Now he completely possessed him by suggesting the betrayal.

Jesus says to Judas, "What you are doing, do quickly." By this the Lord does not urge Judas to betrayal. Rather, He reproaches him, as it were, for going toward betrayal.

By the word "do," the Lord seems to say this: "Behold, I leave you. Do what you wish. I do not hinder your intention. I no longer restrain you."

Before this the Lord had curbed the malice of Judas, preserving for Himself the time of death. Therefore He said, "No one takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself" (Jn 10:18).

He did not correct his evil design by repentance. He did not draw his heart away from the lawless desire. He did not lament with tears what he had dared even to think.

Worse still, seized by evil audacity, he thirsted to accomplish his impious purpose. Then at last Satan “entered” him.

Satan found his heart like a door flung wide open, deprived of watchful protection. He saw his mind opened and already quite ready to perform willingly what it desired and pondered.

If we turn to the God-inspired Scripture, we shall find everywhere in it that this is the devil’s constant and habitual manner of acting.

First he approaches God-fearing people by testing their heart. First of all he sows wicked thoughts, and by impure desires he incites us to every kind of fall into sin.

With particular force he attacks the point to which he sees we are already inclined and prepared.

He almost always takes our weakness, and the passion to which our soul is already subject, as helpers in his wicked schemes.

Thus, to one person, let us say by way of example, he suggests and implants strong sensuality and the filthy stirring of carnal desire.

Another thinks it better to be subject to evil profits and greatly values the acquisition of impious money.

So when Satan approaches in order to take possession of us, he makes his ally the passion that has already conquered and taken possession of us. With its help he contrives our destruction.

A very experienced commander may surround a city and strive in every way to enter it. He orders siege engines to be brought against the weakest parts of the wall, gaining from there the opportunity to take it in due time.

In the same way, I think, when Satan wants to seize a human soul, he rushes against its weakest part. He hopes in this way to conquer it easily.

This is especially so when he sees that the soul gains no benefit from the very things that ought to bridle passion, such as good counsels and the mystical Eucharist.

For the Eucharist especially powerfully opposes the man-slaying poison of the devil.

Therefore the betrayer was not ashamed, not only before the preliminary rebukes made secretly and veiledly, but even before the necessary power of love, honor, glory, and grace.

He was not ashamed even before the Eucharist received from Christ.

Without looking back, and with unrestrained force, he rushed toward the one thing by which he had already been seized. I mean the sickness of love of gain.

At last he came fully under its power and fell. He no longer has Satan as counselor, but makes him complete master of his whole heart and ruler of his whole soul.

The one who at the beginning had been his whisperer is now made ruler, for “he entered” him, according to the Gospel word.

Therefore we must guard with all our strength and beware of the harmfulness of every prior attachment. We must remember the words: “If the spirit of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for healing will put an end to great sins,” Eccl 10:4.

It is necessary to strengthen the spirit of the ruler, as it were, by the power of thoughts in our hearts.

For if it is not in our power to prevent evil thoughts from entering our hearts, we can at least immediately tear out what has entered.

We must not permit it, through our negligence, to put down many roots. Rather, we should hasten from the beginning to pull them up like weeds, and make our soul free from them.

Otherwise we must clearly know that Satan will soon conquer us by his deception. We shall be subject to what the Psalmist says: “Before I was humbled, I sinned,” Ps 118:67.

For before the final commission of sin, we first sin by approving it in our thoughts, honoring and accepting it. Through this we give place for Satan to enter.

Let the passion of the betrayer be an image and example of this matter, the passion of love of gain.

Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” This passage may perhaps seem to someone contradictory and not very consistent with what has already been said.

One may ask, not without reason: why does the Lord, after exposing the one trying to betray Him and gently and secretly turning him away from his death-bearing design, now seem to urge him on?

Why does He command him to proceed immediately to the fulfillment of so vile and impious an intention?

And why, one may say, did the Lord need to encourage one who was already inwardly inclined and disposed toward this? Why not instead direct him by admonitions to what is better and draw him away from the intention he had conceived?

Someone might accuse Christ in this way, erring against the proper manner of reasoning.

But if we fix our mind more attentively on the meaning contained in these words, we shall find nothing strange in them.

On the contrary, they have a deep meaning, which I shall try to express briefly, as far as I can.

The wise Evangelist very prudently said beforehand that Satan himself had invaded and entered the heart of the betrayer.

Thus our Lord Jesus Christ appears to speak now more to Satan than to the one who truly and actually had fallen under his power through his negligence.

“What you do, do quickly.” It is as though He had clearly said this: “Your work, which alone you know how to do, and which is always dear to you to do, O Satan, do quickly.

“You killed the prophets. You led the Jews into impiety. You also then contrived the stoning of those who proclaimed to the Jews the saving teaching.

“You spared none of those sent by God. You displayed against them every unspeakable cruelty and excessive frenzy.

“Behold, now after them I have come. I give those who have gone astray the possibility of no longer wandering.

“I order for those who are in darkness an abiding in the divine light. I free from snares those who have already fallen into your net and become the prey of your cruelty.

“I have come to destroy the dominion of sin, which rules through you, and to show every man Who is God by nature.

“But now I know your utterly untamable character. Therefore what you do with your usual audacity against those who wish to accomplish this, do now also.

“For you will not leave off your violent and repeated assaults until My impending suffering is first accomplished.”

In this way, I think, the meaning of the Savior’s saying should be interpreted.

Why He commands this plot to be hastened is something we also intend to consider.

The audacity of the godless, who resolved to rage unrestrainedly against Him, was indeed terrible. Reproaches awaited Him, an unbearable crowd of revilers, blows, spitting, and finally a shameful death on the tree.

Nails and crucifixion awaited Him, vinegar, gall, and the wound from the spear.

Why, then, one says, does He hasten and desire the immediate fulfillment of the suffering from the devil?

The Jews were also servants and helpers in the wicked deed. Yet He ascribes everything to that leader of murder and originator of the ancient evils.

Although the crimes of the impious Jews against Christ were very terrible, and the audacity of the crucifiers was unbearable, He knew the outcome of the sufferings and their consequences.

For through the precious Cross the tyranny of the devil was to fall definitively. Death was to be abolished, and the power of corruption was to disappear.

The human race was to be freed from that original curse. At last, by the love for mankind and grace of our Savior Christ, the punishment given in God’s words was to be abolished: “You are earth, and to earth you shall return,” Gen 3:19.

According to the word of the prophet, “all iniquity” was to “shut its mouth,” Ps 106:42, and so was the accusation of those subject to it.

Those throughout the whole world who do not know the true and only God by nature were to disappear, while those justified by faith in Christ were to remain.

At last the opening of the gates of paradise was expected.

The lower realm was to be joined to the upper, and the heavens were to be opened, according to the word of the Savior, Jn 1:51.

The ranks of angels were to ascend and descend upon the Son of Man.

Tell me, then, in view of so many expected blessings and of the rebirth for us of such radiant hope through the saving Cross, should He not have desired the longed-for time to be already present?

He thirsted for our salvation and for this purpose became like us, apart from sin.

Was it not fitting that He Who knew no evil should despise the contrivances of the devil’s wickedness? Was it not fitting that He should hasten instead to come to the longed-for time of so glorious a feast?

Therefore the Savior said to Satan, who did not know that he was warring against his own head and was wholly ignorant that he was being cast into the abyss: “What you do, do quickly.”

By nailing death to the Cross, He cast him down.

These are words more of threat than of command.

A very young and excellent man, possessing flourishing bodily strength, may see someone rushing swiftly upon him, armed with a sharp axe in his right hand.

Knowing that the attacker will certainly suffer death at his hands, he may cry out to him: “What you do, do quickly, for you will see the strength of my right hand.”

Certainly no one will say that this is the word of one who seeks to die. On the contrary, it is the word of one who foresees that he will conquer and overcome the one wishing to do him evil.

So our Lord Jesus Christ commands, as it were, a swift run toward the crime against Him.

For He intends to show the evildoer already subjected to mockery, and to reveal the whole world as free from the one who once conquered it.

That one had cruelly seized the world through deception, so that he drew it away from faith in God.

They are disturbed that after the Lord gave His betrayer a morsel of bread, Satan entered into him.

For it is written thus: “And when He had dipped the morsel, He gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. And after the morsel, Satan entered into him,” Jn 13:26-27.

At this they say, “Did the bread of Christ, taken from Christ’s table, cause Satan afterward to enter into His disciple?”

We shall answer them that in this way we are taught to beware of receiving what is good in an evil manner.

For what matters greatly is not what is received, but who receives it. It is not what the offered thing is, but what the person is like to whom it is given.

For even good things are harmful, and bad things useful, depending on those to whom they are given.

“Sin,” says the Apostle, “that it might appear as sin, worked death in me through what is good,” see Rom 7:13.

Behold, through the good, evil occurred when the good was received in an evil manner.

He also says: “Lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me.

“Therefore I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. But the Lord said to me: My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness,” 2 Cor 12:7-9.

Behold, see how through evil, good is accomplished when evil is received righteously.

Why then are you surprised that the bread of Christ was given to Judas so that through it he was seized by the devil?

On the other hand, you see that an angel of Satan was given to Paul, so that through it he might make progress in Christ.

Thus the good harmed the evil man, and the evil assisted the good man.

Remember what is written about this: “Whoever eats this bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord,” 1 Cor 11:27.

The Apostle said this about those who received the Body of the Lord as though it were any other food, indifferently and carelessly.

If the one who does not discern, that is, who does not distinguish the Body of Christ from other food, is accused, then how should that enemy be punished who came to His table under the guise of a friend?

If disrespect toward a fellow guest is rebuked, how much more does the betrayer of a fellow guest deserve punishment?

What else did the bread handed to the betrayer signify, if not testimony to the grace he had despised?

Therefore, after that morsel of bread, Satan entered into the betrayer of the Lord. He entered in order to possess more fully the one who had been handed over to his power and into whom he had already penetrated in order to deceive.

For Satan was already in him when he went to the Jews and negotiated with them about the price for betraying the Lord.

The Evangelist Luke bears very clear witness to this, saying: “Then Satan entered into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve. And he went and spoke with the chief priests,” Lk 22:3-4.

You see that here it is shown that Satan had already entered Judas.

That is, he had entered before, when he placed in his heart the thought of betraying Christ. With such an intention Judas had already come to the supper.

But now, after the bread, Satan entered into him not to entice him as someone alien to himself, but to take possession of him as his own.

Yet Judas did not then receive the Body of Christ, as some inattentive readers think.

Certainly one must understand that the Lord distributed among all of them the Mystery of His Body and Blood while Judas was still present, as St. Luke relates quite clearly, see Lk 22:19-21.

Then the account comes to the moment when, according to John’s narration, the Lord most definitely pointed out His betrayer by dipping the morsel and handing it to him.

Perhaps He indicated the falsity of that disciple through the moistening of the bread.

For not everything that is moistened is washed. Some things are moistened in order to be dyed.

But if this moistening signifies something good, then the subsequent punishment of the one who despised this good is just.

Yet it was still necessary that the evil of Judas, who no longer belonged to the Lord but to the devil, should enter into full force.

The bread had entered the belly of the ungrateful man, and the enemy had entered his soul.

I say, it was still necessary that so great an evil, already rooted in the heart, should enter into full force, even though his existing desire already deserved punishment.

And so, when the Lord, the Living Bread, gave bread to the dead man, and by giving bread revealed the betrayer of the Bread, He said: “What you do, do quickly.”

He was not pushing him toward the crime. He foretold evil for Judas and good for us.

For what could be worse for Judas, and what can be better for us, than Christ being betrayed by him to his own destruction, but for our good and not his?

“What you do, do quickly.” O word more of One hastening to accept suffering than of One angered!

O word that does not so much threaten punishment to the betrayer as express the price that the Redeemer will pay!

For He said, “What you do, do quickly,” not so much in indignation over the destruction of the unbelieving man, as in haste toward the salvation of believers.

For He “was delivered up for our offenses,” Rom 4:25. He “loved the Church and gave Himself for her,” Eph 5:25.

Therefore the Apostle says of himself: “He loved me and gave Himself for me,” see Gal 2:20.

If Christ had not given Himself up, no one would have betrayed Christ.

What does Judas have except sin? For in betraying Christ, he did not think of our salvation, for which Christ was betrayed.

He thought of monetary profit, but acquired the destruction of his soul.

He received the payment he wanted, but against his will he was given what he deserved.

Judas betrayed Christ. Christ gave Himself up. The former carried out the work of selling, while He carried out the work of our redemption.

“What you do, do quickly,” not because you can do this, but because He Who can do all things wills it.

So the holy Apostle Paul says to Christians who had passed from paganism to Christianity: "And you, who were dead through your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Among them we all once lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest" (Eph 2:1-3). In this state, more or less according to the degree of sinfulness, are those baptized into Christ who have become estranged from Him by sins.

Through the passion of love of money, Satan penetrated the disciple's soul (Jn 12:6), then took fuller possession of his heart (Jn 13:2), and finally entered into him decisively (v. 27; cf. Theophylact). The Lord saw what was taking place in Judas's heart and gave him a plausible occasion, or more precisely a command, to depart from the supper. Yet He did not wish to declare plainly and decisively to the disciples that Judas was now going to accomplish his betrayal. He knew that it had to be fulfilled according to the will of God. He did not wish the disciples to undertake any violent measures against Judas, or conceive the vain thought of preventing the divine predetermination. He only told Judas, in such a way that the other disciples did not understand His speech, to carry out more quickly what he had planned and had already half done, having made terms with His enemies concerning the betrayal. Do quickly: this is an authoritative command, and at the same time a plausible occasion for Judas to leave the holy company and, without delay, carry out the crime he had conceived.

Judas's obstinacy in his chosen intention, rejecting all the exhortations of heavenly love, made him into a vessel of Satan. And now Judas appears with satanic resolve to betray his Lord. How terrible our passions are. No exhortations of love and no threats of righteousness restrain a passionate will from sin. It freely becomes a vessel of Satan. Jesus therefore said to him, "What you do, do quickly." This is still a plea of tender love, though love sees that its cares are in vain. Then comes the handing over of the obstinate will to a debased mind, to do what is dishonorable (Rom 1:28). Since Judas was told, "what you do," it is clear that "do" does not properly signify a command, but only permission for malice to go toward its aim. It is the same as when the Lord said to the Jews, "Destroy this temple" (Jn 2:19), or when He said to them, "Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers" (Mt 23:32). Yet the majesty of the Lord, who of His own will delivered Himself to death, also required obedience from Judas. Only the Lord determined not Judas's deed, but the time of the deed. "What you do, do quickly." You have ripened for evil. I no longer restrain you. Rather, I command you to fulfill your deed more quickly than you would wish. Why, then, was Judas told, "Do quickly"? Because the appointed time had come. The hour assigned by the will of the Father for the sufferings of the Redeemer was arriving. On the other hand, the wretched betrayer, having ripened in impiety, could no longer be endured in the company of the holy disciples, and is cast out from it (1 Cor 5:13).

But when Christ exposed him and separated him, then he entered him without fear." From that moment a demonic power takes possession of Judas. His human will, which Judas had used for evil, ceases to belong to him. He had rejected to the end the merciful hand and became the contemptible instrument of the enemy. Even the Lord's last words to Judas, as Chrysostom observes, were words of love. They could have stopped the betrayer, had he not been beyond correction. "What you do, do quickly," the Lord says with deep sorrow, reminding Judas that the night is passing. If he will not abandon his criminal design and persists in malice, then the time has come for him to set about carrying it out.