John 15:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

In the same way, I think, this must be understood in relation to the Only-begotten and to Him who begot Him. It is in no way possible for those who condemn the offspring of something to praise that from which it comes.

For this reason Christ said to the Jews: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a corrupt tree bear good fruit” (Mt 7:18). And when He commanded them to make a careful and exact distinction concerning this, He said: “Either make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt” (Mt 12:33).

For what is clearly shown to be true of one of these, sound reason must, I think, compel us to extend to both. Since there is one nature, how will there not be common to them both what appears as a defect, and, on the other hand, what clearly serves for their dignity?

Whatever anyone does to what proceeds from some source, he will certainly do the same to the source itself. Therefore Christ says, “He who hates Me hates My Father also.”

He most profitably transfers to the person of the Father everything that may be directed by some against Himself. Through these words, no less than through others, He assures us that He is not someone other than Him, according to the identity contemplated in all things.

At the same time He frightens His hearers, showing that it is dangerous to bear the sin of hatred toward Him. He affirms that the one who resolves not to worship Him will easily be caught and left defenseless, as one who rises up against the very person of the Father.

For the Father, as one who suffers together with Him, will undoubtedly be indignant together with His Son. Is it not entirely clear that by this He implanted boldness in the saints, precisely with regard to faith?

Yet at the same time, I think, Christ accomplished something else necessary and wise. I will speak of this also. Some, through incomparable derangement of mind and excessive madness, thought that by sinning against the Son and opposing the Savior’s words they were pleasing God, the giver of the Law.

By always striving to give precedence to the commandments of Moses, they imagined that they would appear to be genuine guardians of love for God. Therefore it was necessary to show the vanity of their arrogance and to teach the universe that those who oppose the Savior’s laws rise up against the whole divine Nature.

The divine Nature is insulted in the Son through disobedience and through such prolonged, baseless unbelief. He affirms that this unbelief is committed not only specifically against His own person, but also against those who preach the teaching for Him and for His sake.

Thus the one who resolves to oppose even the holy Apostles proves to be a fighter against God and an insulter of the whole ineffable and inexpressible Nature. For they do not preach themselves, but God and the Lord of all, that is, Christ.

And since they hate the Truth, nothing else remains for them but to hate also Him from whom He is begotten.

Not knowing that the Truth which judges them is begotten of God the Father, they not only do not know the Father, but also hate Him.

Here, perhaps, someone may ask us, "Who can hate someone whom he does not know?"

For before He said, "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin," He said to His disciples, "All these things they will do to you, because they do not know Him who sent Me" (Jn 15:22, 21).

How, then, do they not know and yet hate? For if they understand by Him not what He manifests Himself to be, but imagine something else, then it follows that they hate not Him Himself, but what they have imagined or falsely conceived.

And yet, if people could not hate what they do not know, the Truth would not have affirmed both things: that they do not know and at the same time hate His Father.

How this is possible, if by the Lord's help we can show it at all, cannot now be disclosed, because this discourse must already be brought to an end.

You have heard the Lord's words: "He who hates Me hates My Father also."

Above He said, "All these things they will do to you, because they do not know Him who sent Me" (cf. Jn 15:21).

Therefore a question arises which cannot be left aside. How can they hate Him whom they do not know?

If they believe in God and perceive Him not as He is, but as something else, and hate this, they certainly do not hate Him Himself. They hate what they have fashioned in their false imagination and empty credulity.

But if they understand Him as He is, why is it said that they do not know Him?

With regard to human beings, it often happens that we love those whom we have never seen. Therefore, conversely, it cannot be excluded that we may hate those whom we have never seen.

Report, which tells us good or evil about some person, naturally leads us to love or hate someone unknown to us.

But if the report is true, how can we call unknown the person about whom we have learned the truth? Is it because we have not seen his face?

Yet although he himself does not see his own face, he can be known to no one better than to himself.

Therefore knowledge of anyone is not given to us through the bodily face. A person is opened to our knowledge when his character and life are disclosed.

Otherwise, no one could know himself, since he cannot see his own face. Yet of course a person knows himself better than he is known to others.

He knows himself better insofar as he can see with the inner eye what he thinks, what he wills, and for what he lives.

When this is opened to us, then we truly know ourselves.

Since these things come to us either through report or through writings, even concerning the absent and even the dead, it happens that we often hate or love people whose faces we have never seen, though we do know them.

Yet often our credulity in such matters leads us into error. Sometimes history, and still more rumor, proves false.

But in order not to fall into false prejudice, we must take care that, since we cannot penetrate people's conscience, we have true and exact knowledge concerning the things themselves.

That is, if we do not know whether this or that person is licentious or chaste, we must still hate licentiousness and love chastity.

If we do not know whether this or that person is unrighteous or righteous, we must still love righteousness and abhor unrighteousness.

We must have firm knowledge not about things we have falsely imagined for ourselves, but about those we rightly perceive in the truth of God. We must know that some of them are to be desired, and others avoided.

Thus, when by this we desire what should be desired and avoid what should be avoided, it will be forgiven us if at times, or rather constantly, we judge wrongly about people's hidden depths.

For this, I think, belongs to human temptation, without which this life cannot be passed. Thus the apostle said, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is human" (1 Cor 10:13).

For what is so human as the inability to see into a human heart? Because of this, unable to penetrate its secrets, we often imagine something different from what is taking place in it.

In these obscurities of human affairs, that is, in the darkness of others' thoughts, we cannot clarify our suspicions, because we are human.

Nevertheless, we must refrain from judgments, that is, from strict and fixed opinions. We must judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes.

He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and disclose the counsels of hearts. Then each one's praise will come from God (cf. 1 Cor 4:5).

Therefore, when we are not mistaken about the things themselves, so that we reject vices and approve virtues, our human temptation is certainly pardonable if we err about people.

But because of these obscurities of human hearts, something happens that should greatly astonish and grieve us.

Sometimes we avoid someone whom we consider unrighteous, though he is righteous and, without knowing him, we love righteousness in him. We turn away from him, refuse to approach him, and do not wish to share roof or table with him.

More than this, if it is necessary for strengthening discipline, we persecute him with saving severity, either so that he may not harm others or so that he himself may be corrected.

Thus we grieve a good man as though he were evil, though, without knowing it, we love him. That is, we love righteousness itself and the virtues hidden in him and unknown to us.

This happens, for example, when a chaste person is perceived by us as debauched.

For without doubt, if I love a chaste person, then he is what I love. Therefore I love him without knowing him as chaste.

And if I hate a debauched man, I will not feel hatred toward that person, because he is not what I hate.

Yet in relation to the one whom I love, and with whom my soul constantly abides in chaste love, I act unjustly through ignorance. I err not in discerning virtues and vices, but because of the obscurities of human hearts.

Therefore it can happen that a good man hates a good man without knowing him. Or rather, he loves him without knowing him, for when he loves a good man, he loves him because he loves the very good that abides in him.

He does not hate him without knowing him. Rather, he hates what he sees in him.

Therefore it can also happen that an unrighteous man hates a righteous man, and unknowingly loves a righteous man, thinking that he loves one like himself, that is, an unrighteous man.

Yet while he thinks he loves an unrighteous man, he loves not the man himself, but what he sees in him.

This happens in relation both to man and to God.

Finally, if the Jews were asked whether they love God, what else would they answer except that they do? They would answer this not with deceit, but rather through a mistaken conception of Him.

For how do they love the Father of Truth if they hated the Truth Himself? They do not want their deeds to be condemned, but it belongs to the Truth to condemn such deeds.

Therefore they hate the Truth insofar as they hate their own torments, to which the Truth condemns them.

But they do not know that this is the Truth who condemns them for being what they are. Therefore they hate Him whom they do not know.

And when they hate Him, they certainly cannot fail to show hatred toward Him from whom He proceeded.

Therefore, since they do not know that the Truth, by whose judgment they are condemned, is begotten of God the Father, they certainly both do not know the Father and hate Him.

O wretched people! Desiring to be evil, they do not want there to be the Truth who condemns them for their evil.

They do not want Him to be what He is, whereas they ought to cease being what they are. Then, while He remains near, they might be changed, so as not to be condemned by His judgment.

In His death and in the ascent to heaven that followed it, His holiness was fully revealed. Finally, He will prove to the world that its prince is judged, weakened, and cast down from his throne. In place of his kingdom, the kingdom of God will be established. In this lies the whole essence of Christianity: consciousness of sin, recognition of the Lord Christ as Redeemer from sin, and triumph over the enemy, the source of all evil.

Christ came to earth and did everything on His part for the salvation of men. If men hated Him, they hated Him without cause. It is their own fault that they did not recognize in Him the Messiah, the Savior of the world. This did not take place against the will of the saving God. God foresaw it, foretold it through the mouth of the prophet, and thereby gave men a warning.

When they were subjected to seemingly lawful persecution by established authorities, they would be perplexed about the justice of those authorities and their own innocence. On the other hand, He exposed the Jewish self-assurance that, in hating Christ and His disciples, they were offering service to God. In reality, they were committing the greatest sin against Him and against His Envoy.

On the other hand, were not order, prosperity, mutual trust, calm, and such happiness as is possible on earth restored when certain societies again acknowledged those eternal principles of good which Christ brought into the world? Were they not restored when they acknowledged Him alone as their spiritual King? Let history answer. One cannot remain a deist without sliding along the path that leads to atheism. “He who hates Me hates My Father also,” says the Lord. The whole Gospel according to John reveals with special brightness the unity of the Father and the Son. It also reveals the impossibility of knowing God otherwise than in the Son. Therefore he who rejects the Son remains in darkness (Jn 8:12, 46, and many other places). Though he may confess God, if he does not acknowledge the Lord Jesus as Lord, he is an opponent of the Lord. As such, he is also an opponent of God Almighty, whom he acknowledges in words. Yet for the deist, God is only an abstract idea, almost a mere sound, a Buddhist necessity, or the indifferent Zurvan Akarana of the declining period of Zoroastrianism. He is not that merciful Father in whom we believe, who “spoke to us in the Son” (Heb 1:2). One cannot love God while hating the truth, or while refusing to acknowledge it. Our Lord Jesus Christ “spoke the words of the Father” (Jn 12:49). He said of Himself, “I am the beginning, as I also speak to you,” that is, “before all else, I am what I tell you” (Jn 8:25). I am the Word. I am the Truth. The Incarnation of God the Word brought absolute truth into the world. This was the Light that illumined the world. The evil fled from the light and hated it, because it exposed that their deeds were evil (Jn 3:19). The Pharisees also insisted that they loved God and honored Him. Yet they hated Him who manifested God in His words, in His works, and in His infinite love. The Jews never loved the true God, the God of righteousness, love, and goodness. The prophets constantly convicted them of this. They made for themselves their own god, one who indulged their vanity, greed, and ritual righteousness. So the pagans made gods in their own image. Sadly, some philosophical schools also made, and still make, a god after their own likeness, preaching that the very idea of God arose in human thought in the image of the highest ideal man. Even the germ of this thought is found in deep antiquity, in Brahmanic teachings before Buddhism, and partly in the image of Adam Kadmon brought by the Kabbalists from Babylonia.