For these benefits they certainly ought to have repaid Him with love, not hatred.
The impious hate the Lord. The righteous love Him gratis, freely, because they expect no gifts apart from Him. For He will be all in all.
No one did the works that He did. For if any human being did anything of this kind, here He was acting who does all things.
The Lord said: "He who hates Me hates My Father also" (Jn 15:23). This is certainly because whoever hates the Truth inevitably hates the source of Truth, of which we have already spoken as far as we were permitted.
After this He added what we must now discuss: "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin."
Of course, He speaks of that great sin of which He said above: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin" (Jn 15:22).
This sin consisted in their not believing in Him when He spoke and did works.
Certainly they were not such as to have no sin at all before He spoke among them and did works among them. But this sin, their not believing in Him, is mentioned especially because all the others are contained in it.
For if they had not had it, and had believed in Him, their other sins would also have been forgiven them.
But what does it mean that, after saying, "If I had not done among them the works," He added, "which no one else did"?
Certainly, among Christ's works there seem to be none greater than raising the dead. Yet we know that prophets also did this in antiquity.
Elijah did this (see 3 Kgs 17:21-22). Elisha also did it, both while he was alive in the flesh (see 4 Kgs 4:32-35) and when he lay buried in his tomb.
Once, when certain men carrying a dead man fled to hide from enemies and placed the dead body there, the dead man immediately came back to life (see 4 Kgs 13:21).
Yet Christ also did other works which no one except Him did. He fed five thousand men with five loaves, and four thousand with seven loaves (see Mt 14:17-21; 15:32-38).
He walked upon the waters and gave Peter the power to do this (see Mt 14:25, 29). He turned water into wine (see Jn 2:9). He opened the eyes of the man born blind (see Jn 9:7), and did many other things that would take long to enumerate.
But we shall be answered that others did what He did not do, and what no one else did.
For who except Moses struck the Egyptians with so many and such great plagues (see Ex 7-12)? Who led the people through the divided sea (see Ex 14:21-29)?
Who obtained manna from heaven for the hungry (see Ex 16), or water from the rock for the thirsty (see Ex 17:6)?
Who except Joshua divided the waters of the Jordan so the people might cross (see Josh 3)? Who, after praying to God, held back and stopped the moving sun (see Josh 10:12-14)?
Who except Samson, when thirsty, drank after opening a spring with the jawbone of a dead donkey (see Judg 15:19)?
Who except Elijah ascended on high in a fiery chariot (4 Kgs 2:11)?
Who except Elisha, as I recalled a little earlier, restored another dead body to life when his own body was buried?
Who except Daniel remained unharmed among the teeth of hungry lions surrounding him (Dan 6:22)?
Who except the three men, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, walked unharmed amid tongues of fire and were not burned (see Dan 3:93)?
I pass over other cases, since I think these are enough to make clear that other saints also did some wondrous deeds which no one else did.
But one cannot read of the ancients that any of them ever healed, by his great authority, so many defects, illnesses, and sufferings of mortals.
Not to speak of those individual people whom He healed as soon as they appealed to Him, by a single command, I recall what the evangelist Mark says in one place.
"When evening came, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were sick and possessed by demons. And the whole city was gathered at the door. And He healed many who suffered from various diseases, and cast out many demons" (Mk 1:32-34).
Matthew, when he recalled this, also added the prophetic testimony, saying: "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, 'He took our infirmities and bore our diseases'" (Mt 8:17).
Mark says the same thing elsewhere: "Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might touch even the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were healed" (Mk 6:56).
No one else did this in them. For this is how we should understand what He said, "in them" (in eis), not as "among them" (inter eos) or "before them" (coram eis), but precisely as "in them," for He healed them inwardly.
Certainly He wanted these works to be perceived not only as causing amazement, but also as bringing evident healing. For these benefits love, not hatred, should be repaid.
Of course, surpassing all miracles performed by others is the fact that He was born of a Virgin and alone could leave the Mother's purity unbroken, both when He was conceived and when He was born.
Yet this was done neither before them nor in them. The apostles came to understand the truth of this miracle not through a view shared with the Jews, but by a discipleship separate from them.
Likewise, that on the third day, in the same flesh in which He had been killed, He rose living from the tomb and ascended with that flesh into heaven, never to die thereafter, surpasses even what He did before.
But this was done neither in the Jews nor before them. Moreover, He had not yet done this when He said: "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did."
Therefore, without doubt, these were the works He manifested as great miracles of healing diseases, which no one had previously performed among them.
Indeed, they saw them. And now, with rebuke, He adds and says: "But now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word written in their law might be fulfilled: 'They hated Me without a cause'" (Jn 15:24-25).
THEOSIS