John 6:71Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

And see with what wisdom Christ acted. He neither fully revealed the traitor nor left him wholly unknown.

He did not reveal him fully, lest he become more shameless and hardened. He did not leave him wholly unknown, lest, thinking himself undetected, he dare the crime without fear.

For this reason, as He continues His discourse, He exposes him more clearly.

At first He included him with the others, saying, “There are some of you who do not believe.”

That He meant the traitor also is shown by the Evangelist’s words: “For He knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.”

But because Judas remained with Him, He exposes him more strongly, saying, “One of you is a devil.” Thus He brings fear upon all in general, while wishing to conceal him.

Here a fair question may arise. Why do the disciples say nothing now, while later they are afraid, look at one another in perplexity, and ask, “Is it I, Lord?” (Mt 26:22).

And why does Peter signal to John to learn about the traitor and ask the Teacher who it is (Jn 13:24)?

What is the reason? Peter had not yet heard, “Get behind Me, Satan” (Mk 8:33), and therefore had no fear.

But after he was rebuked, though he had spoken from great affection, he not only failed to receive approval, but also heard the name Satan.

Therefore, when the words came, “One of you will betray Me” (Jn 13:21), he rightly became afraid.

On the other hand, Christ does not now say, “One of you will betray Me,” but “One of you is a devil.”

Therefore they did not even understand these words, but thought that He was only reproving wickedness.

Why then did He say, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And one of you is a devil”?

To show that His teaching is free from flattery. At the time when all had left Him, they alone remained with Him and confessed Him as Christ through Peter.

So that they should not think He would flatter them for this, He removes such a thought from them.

It is as though He says: Nothing can turn Me away from rebuking evil men. Do not think that I will flatter you because you remained with Me.

Nor should you think that I will fail to rebuke the corrupt because you have followed Me.

Even what might much more strongly incline a teacher will not incline Me to this.

One who remains with a teacher of his own accord thereby gives testimony of his love for him. But one chosen by the teacher is regarded by the senseless as foolish and rejected by them.

Yet even this will not restrain Me from rebukes.

Meanwhile the pagans accuse Christ of this even now, but vainly and foolishly. God never makes people good by force and compulsion.

His choosing of those who are called is not coercive, but takes place through exhortation. To be assured that He does not compel when He calls, see how many of those called have perished.

From this it is clear that both salvation and perdition lie within our will.

Hearing this, let us learn always to be sober and watchful. Judas was numbered among that holy company. He was counted worthy of so great a gift.

He performed miracles, for he too was sent with the others to raise the dead and cleanse lepers.

Despite this, as soon as he was enslaved to a grievous disease, the passion of avarice, he betrayed even his Master.

Nothing profited him: neither benefits, nor gifts, nor dwelling with Christ, nor ministry, nor the washing of feet, nor sharing the table, nor keeping the money box.

All this even became an occasion for his punishment.

Let us therefore fear, lest through avarice we also become imitators of Judas. You do not betray Christ.

Yet when you despise a poor man wasting away from hunger or perishing from cold, you bring the same condemnation upon yourself.

Likewise, when we partake of the Mysteries unworthily, we perish together with the Christ-slayers.

When we seize by force and oppress the poor, we bring upon ourselves the greatest punishment, and very justly.

How long will love for present things possess us so completely, things superfluous and useless? Wealth belongs to superfluous things from which there is no profit.

How long shall we fail to look to heaven? How long shall we fail to be sober? How long shall we be insatiable in enjoyment of these earthly and passing goods?

Do we not know from experience how worthless they are? Let us call to mind the rich who lived before us.

Were not all their goods a dream? Were they not shadow and flower, a passing stream? Were they not a tale and a fable?

Such a man was rich. Where is his wealth now? It has vanished and decayed.

But the sins committed because of it remain, and so does the punishment for the sins.

Even if there were no punishment and no kingdom awaited us, we ought still to respect in the poor man our common tribe and common nature.

We ought to be ashamed that he shares the same passions as we do.

Yet we feed dogs, and many even feed wild asses, bears, and various kinds of beasts. But we despise a man wasting away from hunger.

Thus for us what is foreign is dearer than what is our own. What is ours is worse than what is not ours and not akin to us.

But is it not pleasant, you say, to build magnificent houses, to have many slaves, and to recline on a couch while gazing at a golden ceiling?

Yes, but this is superfluous and useless. There are other structures far more magnificent and better than these.

You should gladden your eyes with them, and no one will hinder you. Do you wish to see the most beautiful ceiling?

When evening comes, look at the heaven sown with stars. But, you say, this is not my ceiling.

On the contrary, it is more yours than that one. It was created for you and belongs to you equally with your brothers.

But the other is not yours, but your heirs’ after your death.

Moreover, this heavenly vault can bring the greatest profit, because by its beauty it raises you to the Creator.

But that one will cause you the greatest harm, becoming your dread accuser on the day of judgment.

For it was clothed with gold while Christ did not have even necessary clothing.

Let us not fall into such great madness. Let us not pursue what is fleeting and flee from salvation.

Let us hold fast to the hope of future goods. Let the old do so, knowing surely that they have little time left to live.

Let the young do so, being fully persuaded that little time remains for them as well. For the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

Knowing this, let wives implore their husbands, and let husbands persuade their wives. Let us teach young men and maidens.

Let us all instruct one another to despise present goods and seek those to come, so that we may be counted worthy of them.

May this be by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom and with Whom glory be to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

But Satan has stolen one of you away by the shamelessness of greed. My judgment in choosing all the Apostles, including Judas, was certainly not false.

For men have free willing disposition to choose either course, to go to the right or to the left, by which I mean good and evil.

Therefore, through a strong accusation of them in the person of one of them, He at once urges them toward proper watchfulness and makes each one more careful concerning himself.

For He does not yet say who it is that betrays Him. By placing this grave impiety upon one person generally and indefinitely, He thereby stirred all to struggle and called them to more attentive watchfulness.

Each one feared harm for his own soul. At the same time, He also provided something else useful for strengthening the disciples’ faith.

Since they had confessed that they knew and firmly believed that He is the “Son of God,” He shows Himself as foreknowing the future. Through this He also shows their confession concerning Him to be trustworthy.

For it belongs to none of existing beings to know the future except to God alone by nature. Of Him it is written, “You who know all things before they come to be” (Dan 13:42).

He called the servant of diabolical desires a devil, and this is not false. For just as “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6:17), so obviously the opposite is also true.

What was worse than Judas? Among all who cleaved to the Teacher, among the twelve, the money box was given to him, and the distribution of alms to the poor was entrusted to him.

Yet he felt no gratitude for so great a benefit and so great an honor. He accepted money, trampled righteousness, and betrayed Life, being himself dead.

He persecuted as an enemy the One Whom he had followed as a disciple.

All this was the evil of Judas, but the Lord used his evil for good. He permitted Himself to be betrayed in order to redeem us.

Therefore, if God uses the deeds of the devil himself for good, the wicked man, using them for evil, harms himself and does not contradict the goodness of God.

Perhaps, then, He ought to have said, “I chose eleven”? Or was the devil also chosen, and was the devil among the chosen?

Usually those who are worthy of praise are called chosen. Or was that man chosen because through him, without his knowledge and against his will, a certain great benefit was accomplished?

To do such a thing belongs to God and is impossible for the wicked.

For as the wicked make evil use of the benefits of God, so God, conversely, makes good use of the evil deeds of bad men.

How good it is that the members of the body are such that they can be ordered only by God the Creator. Yet how badly does boldness use the eyes.

How badly does falsehood use the tongue. Does not the false witness first kill his own soul with his tongue?

After destroying himself, he then attempts to harm another. He uses the tongue badly, but the tongue is not bad for that reason.

The tongue is a creation of God, but impiety makes bad use of this good creation of God.

How do those who hasten to crimes use their feet? How do murderers use their hands?

And how badly do bad men use the good creations of God that are outside their bodies. They corrupt judgment by gold and trample down the innocent.

Bad men make bad use even of light. Living badly, they use the light they see for their crimes.

For a criminal who wishes to do something evil wants light to shine for him, so that he may not stumble, although inwardly he has already stumbled and fallen.

What he fears for his body has already happened in his heart.

Therefore, so that I may not spend time examining each case, I say this: a bad man uses all God’s benefits badly.

By contrast, the Good One uses the bad deeds of bad men well. And what is so good as the one God?

For the Lord Himself said, “No one is good except God alone” (Mk 10:18).

And as He is better than all that exists, so He also uses even our wicked deeds better than all.

What was worse than Judas? Among all who joined themselves to the Teacher, among the twelve, money was entrusted to him and aid for the poor was committed to him.

Ungrateful for such mercy and such honor, he accepted money and lost righteousness. Becoming dead, he lost life.

The One Whom he had followed as a disciple he persecuted as an enemy.

All this was Judas’s evil, but the Lord used his evil for good. He allowed that man to betray Him for our redemption.

See how the evil of Judas was turned to good. How many martyrs did Satan persecute?

If Satan had refused to persecute, we would not today be honoring the glorious crown of Saint Lawrence.

If God uses for good even the wicked deeds of the devil himself, then the wicked man, acting badly, does not know that what he does does not contradict God’s goodness.

The Master uses him, and He is a great Master. If He had not wished to use him, He would not have allowed him to exist.

Therefore He said, “One of you is a devil, while I chose you, the twelve.”

The saying “I chose the twelve” may also be understood as referring to a sacred number.

For when one fell away from this number, the number itself was not deprived of its honor, because another was chosen in place of the fallen one (cf. Acts 1:26).

The number remained sacred, the number twelve. For they were to proclaim the Trinity throughout the whole world, that is, to the four quarters of the earth.

Hence four times three. Thus Judas cast himself out, but he did not defile the number twelve.

He left the Teacher, but God appointed him a successor.

All these things are for our benefit, beloved: what the Lord said about His Flesh and Blood; that in the grace of this distribution He promised us eternal life.

He wanted those who eat His Flesh and drink His Blood to understand this, so as to be in Him and He in them.

Those who did not believe did not understand, and they were offended, understanding spiritually spoken things in a bodily way.

While they were offended and perished, the Lord remained for consolation with the disciples who were left.

To test them He asked, “Do you also want to go away?” He did this so that the answer confirming their steadfastness might become known to us, for He Himself knew that they would remain.

Therefore let all this help us, beloved, so that we may eat the Flesh of Christ and drink the Blood of Christ not only in the Mystery.

Many wicked people do this also. Rather, let us eat and drink unto participation in the Spirit.

Let us abide in the Body of the Lord as members. Let us be vivified by His Spirit.

Let us not be offended, even if many now eat and drink the Mystery in a passing manner. These are the ones who at the end of time will obtain eternal torments.

For now the Body of Christ is mixed with chaff, as on a threshing floor. Yet “the Lord knows those who are His” (cf. 2 Tim 2:19).

If you know what you are threshing, you know that grain is hidden there among the chaff.

And if you know that threshing will not destroy what winnowing must cleanse, then we, brethren, must live in this world among wicked men until the very end.

We live in the Body of the Lord and abide in Him, so that He also may abide in us.

I do not mean among those wicked people who blaspheme Christ. One now finds few who blaspheme Him with the tongue.

But there are many who blaspheme Him by their life. Therefore we must live among such people until the end.

But what does His saying mean: “He who abides in Me, and I in him” (cf. Jn 6:56; 15:5)?

What is this, except what the martyrs heard: “He who endures to the end shall be saved” (Mt 24:13)?

How did Saint Lawrence, whose day we celebrate today, abide in Him?

He abided until temptation, abided until the tyrannical interrogation, abided until dreadful threats, and abided until death.

More than that, he abided in Him until the most terrible torture. For he was not quickly executed, but was tormented by fire.

He was given to live long. Or rather, he was not given to live long, but was forced to die slowly.

In the course of that long death and those torments, because he rightly ate the Flesh of Christ and drank His Blood, he was strengthened by that food and given drink from that cup.

Therefore he did not feel the tortures. For He Who had said, “The Spirit gives life” (Jn 6:63), was present there.

Indeed, the flesh burned, but the Spirit vivified the soul. He did not fall away, and he entered the Kingdom.

The holy martyr Sixtus, whose day we celebrated five days ago, said to him, “Do not grieve, my son!”

For Sixtus was a bishop, and Lawrence was a deacon. “Do not grieve,” he said, “you will follow me in three days.”

He spoke of the three days between the suffering of Saint Sixtus and the day of the suffering of Saint Lawrence, which is celebrated today.

A space of three days. O consolation! He did not say, “Do not grieve, my son, the persecution will cease, and you will be safe.”

Rather, he said, “Do not grieve. Where I go, you will follow me, and you will follow without delay. Three days will pass, and you will be with me.”

Lawrence received the prophecy, conquered the devil, and attained triumph.

Whether the betrayer was already concealing his design of deicide, or whether the Lord saw only its seed in Judas’s soul, this remark was in any case a warning for him. He could have used it to change his disposition, as a thief, seeing the danger of being discovered, throws away what he has stolen.

It is also noteworthy that the first still-hidden exposure of the betrayer coincides with the falling away of many other disciples from the Lord on account of this discourse.

The proposed choice concerned Judas especially. He wished to appear as one of the best. It would surely have been better for him to leave Jesus then than to be brought by vainglory and greed to the role of betrayer.

“Simon Peter answered: Lord, to whom shall we go? We have believed and known that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

The disciples did not yet understand much in the words of the heavenly Teacher. Yet the foundations of faith were already in them.

They already believed that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. Later, under the light and moisture of the Holy Spirit, this seed would unfold into a beautiful tree.

St. Cyril remarks: “They had to believe and to know. For if faith already receives the divine, it does not thereby refuse all inquiry.

“On the contrary, it must strive to raise itself to a certain knowledge, a knowledge, according to Paul, in a mirror and in an enigma.

“They also speak well by not putting knowledge first and faith afterward. They set faith first and leave knowledge to follow it. For knowledge comes after faith, not before faith” (In Ioh. lib. VI, c. 29).

Instead of “the Son of the living God,” the best Greek manuscripts read “the Holy One of God.” The origin of the first reading is clear. It was taken from Simon’s confession spoken at another time, Mt 16:16.

In Daniel’s prophecy, Dan 9:24, the Holy One of God is the Messiah, who elsewhere is called the Righteous One, Is 53:11.

“Jesus answered them: Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.”

Jesus not only adds no approval to Peter’s confession, but even gives an admonition. Why is this so?

“Otherwise the disciples who remained with Him, while others had left Him, might have imagined that He would flatter them” (Chrysostom).

At that moment there was need not for encouragement, but for admonition. The Lord’s love had distinguished the twelve disciples with special attention and a special honor, the name of messengers.

Therefore it had every right to expect that the confession uttered by Peter was the inward and inalienable possession of all twelve.

To the sorrow of love, it turned out that one of them was very far from the desired perfection. For the benefit of those beloved, love declares: “One of you is a devil.”

There is no doubt that Judas, of whom, as the Evangelist notes in verse 71, Christ was now speaking, was at first a good and pious man.

In many respects he did not yield to the other chosen ones. Otherwise he would not have been numbered among the twelve chosen.

The leader of the apostate spirits, at the beginning of his existence, belonged to the higher and better creations of God. But afterward, by his own will, he became leader of spirits disobedient to God, who abandoned their appointed service, Jude 6.

In exactly the same way Judas did not retain his high dignity, being carried away by pride and love of money.

He is called a devil in the sense of an enemy and adversary of Jesus. Thoughts wholly opposed to Peter’s confession lay hidden in his soul.

Judas the betrayer is also called Iscariot in the other Gospels, Mt 10:4; Mt 26:14; Lk 22:3. What is this name?

One may think that Iscariot is the same as ish Kerioth, a man from the town of Kerioth, a native of Kerioth. Some manuscripts read: ἀπὸ τοῦ Καριώτου.

Kerioth was a city of the tribe of Judah, Josh 15:25. But then one would have to see in Greek ἀνὴρ Καριώτης.

Otherwise it is impossible to point to an example where ish, joined with the name of a place, is used without translation.

Therefore it is considered more probable that Iscariot is a nickname given from Judas’s occupation. It means bearer of the box, steward. In the Syriac translation, skariuta means steward.

This occupation of Judas is indicated in the Gospel, Jn 13:29.

We think that Judas, who alone among the Apostles was not a Galilean, was by origin a Judean. He was infected with the teaching, malice, expectations, and pride of his countrymen. Perhaps he even fell under the secret influence of the Pharisees. After bringing this contemptible madman to ruin, they thrust him away, saying, Matt 27:4: “What is that to us, that thou hast betrayed innocent blood? See thou to it.”

It is very notable that the thought of betrayal arose in Judas’s mind even before the Feast of Tabernacles, after the second Passover. This is clear from comparing John 6 with John 7:1-2 and with verse 70 of this chapter. That is, the thought of betraying the Lord ripened in his soul for nearly a whole year before the design was carried out. There is almost no doubt that, during that last year, he was in constant secret relations with the embittered Judean party in Jerusalem.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem makes a very important observation about Judas. Its meaning is that Judas would not have been chosen if at the beginning there had not been good qualities in him. Yet this makes his fall all the more terrible.

“Some,” says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “interpret wrongly, as though some men were by nature saved and others by nature lost. We enter into holy adoption as sons not by necessity, but by free choice; see Jn 1:12. Judas was not by nature a son of the devil and of perdition. Otherwise, at the beginning, he would not have cast out demons in the name of Christ, for Satan does not cast out Satan.”

But “How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, rising in the morning?” Isa 14:12. The prophet answers: by pride. There is no doubt that the Lord’s gifts to the Apostles, to raise the dead and cast out demons, in which Judas also shared, made him forget his personal nothingness. He imagined himself equal to the Teacher.

Moreover, he was a thief, as John 12:6 clearly states. It is also remarkable that the name Judas is identical with the name of the chosen people and of its royal tribe. Like Judas the betrayer, that tribe likewise perished through pride and love of silver. Even to this day the boastful tribe of Judah imagines itself above all nations. It sells itself and its national honor for every profit.

One may even say that the eleven faithful Apostles represent all the tribes of the earth. Judas the betrayer represents the Jews who rejected the Lord. Yet Judas the Apostle, counted among the other eleven, represents the faithful sons of the Lord from the tribe of Judah.