This commentary by Noël Alexandre (1639-1724), a French Dominican theologian, reflects traditional Catholic exegesis of John 14, emphasizing Christ's divinity, the Trinitarian mystery, the necessity of faith, and the promise of eternal life. Citations to Church Fathers (Augustine, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Tertullian) are integrated throughout. The following was translated by Qwen.
Father Noel Alexandre: Literal and Moral Commentary on John 14:1-14
LITERAL COMMENTARY
John 14:1 "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me."
"Let not your heart be troubled by what I have said to you: concerning my betrayal by one of you, my denial by another, my death, and the dangers you are about to undergo. Do not be afraid, but let your faith be firmly established in God and in me, His only Son, who for your sake became man. 'You believe in God; believe also in me.' Just as you believe that God is truthful and faithful in His promises—and therefore have learned to place your hope in Him, trusting that, though you do not see Him, He as Father will deliver you from dangers by His aid—so also place your trust in me, as the Son of God, your Redeemer, the author and head of the Church, truthful and faithful in His promises; being certain that I will never abandon you. Though, as St. Augustine says (Tractate 67 on John), 'though absent in the scourge of the body, I shall be with you in all dangers.'
From this passage, a twofold truth is confirmed:
The Divinity of Christ: "You believe in God; believe also in me."
The necessity of explicit faith in Christ as God and man, and Redeemer of humanity through His death and resurrection.
John 14:2-3 "In my Father's house are many mansions... I go to prepare a place for you... I will come again and receive you to myself."
"Because He had said to the disciples, 'Where I go, you cannot come,' and to Peter, 'You cannot follow me now, but you shall follow afterward,' they feared lest they might be excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven (as Tertullian notes). Therefore, He consoles them with these words: 'In my Father's house'—that is, in the Kingdom of Heaven—'are many mansions': various degrees of glory according to the variety of merits, destined for my servants. 'If it were not so, I would have told you': if there were no place prepared for you, I would have openly told you; but so far am I from telling you this, that on the contrary, 'I go to prepare a place for you.' 'And if I go and prepare a place for you'—opening heaven, hitherto inaccessible to men—'I will come again' on the last day, and at the death of each one of you, 'and receive you to myself,' not only in soul but also in body, glorified and destined to live eternally, 'that where I am, there you may be also': that in heaven, where I am according to my divinity, and where I shall soon be also as man at the right hand of the Father, you also may be, partakers (Romans 8:17) of my happiness. 'And where I go, you know, and the way you know.' For I have often told you that I am going to the Father, and indeed through death. This, I say, you can easily understand from my words" (St. Augustine, Tractate 60 on John).
John 14:5-6 Thomas says to him: "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus says to him: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me."
"Thomas says: 'Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?' That is: 'We do not know the place to which you depart, and how can we know the way to this unknown place?' Christ had said that they knew both; Thomas asserts that both he and his fellow disciples do not know either the place to which He goes or the way by which He goes. Christ cannot lie; therefore they both knew and did not know that they knew. We know something habitually, but we ignore it in act, because we do not recall it, or do not apply our minds to it, or do not sufficiently grasp it. The Apostles knew Christ, who is the way by which access to heaven is opened; but they did not yet know that He Himself is the way. They knew the Kingdom of Heaven, but they did not understand that this is the place to which Christ was going. Finally, they did not grasp the Mystery of His Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, and that by this way He was to go to the Father.
Jesus says to him: 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.' I am that way concerning which you inquire, by which one goes to the Father; I am the truth and the life to which one arrives. By my teaching, I show the one way of salvation; by my example, I lead the way; by my merit, I open the way that was closed to others; by the power of my grace, I enable them to walk and through faith I lead them to the Father. I am the truth and the life to which one arrives, in whose knowledge and enjoyment eternal life consists. Or: I am the teacher of truth, whom you ought to believe; the author of life, whom you ought to hope for and toward whom you ought to strive. I am the truth, fulfilling the promises and ceremonies of the Law, teaching the knowledge of salvation, promising and bestowing eternal goods. I give eternal life; through my death and resurrection, I introduce [you] to it. 'No one comes to the Father except through me': insofar as I am Mediator and Redeemer, no one can come to the knowledge and enjoyment of the Father unless he believes in me and in me, unless he is taught, led, and enabled by me."
John 14:7 "If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; and from now on you know him and have seen him."
"'If you had known me fully and perfectly, you would certainly have known my Father also,' since I am one with Him: one God, one nature of the eternal Father and the Son; and the Son, known by faith—who is begotten of the Father and is toward the Father—the Father is also known. 'And from now on you will know him': hereafter, having received the Holy Spirit, you will know Him with a faith more perfect, more explicit, more illuminated, more firm. 'And you have seen him' through the works of miracles, which He works with me and through me inseparably.
According to the force of the Greek text, this may be translated: 'Even now you know and have seen him'—namely, in me, who am His only Son—as if one were to say to someone who has seen an image of a person: 'Now you have come to know him from his features.' That is to say: Christians explicitly know and believe, by the revelation and teaching of Christ Jesus, the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which the Jews believed more obscurely and with a faith more involved and implicit. For the Mosaic Law inclined the children of Israel [to believe]: 'The Lord your God is one' (Deuteronomy 6:4), and it made no open mention of the Son, but only called them away from the worship of many gods to the adoration of the One. But our Lord Jesus Christ, having become man, manifested the Father to us through many signs and works through Himself, and showed that there is one nature of the Godhead truly subsisting in the Holy Trinity. Therefore, He says 'from now on' on account of the imperfection of the knowledge of those who were under the Law" (St. Cyril, Book 9, p. 771).
John 14:8-11 Philip says to him: "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus says to him: "Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?"
"Philip says: 'Lord, show us the Father; make us see the Father present, just as we see you, and it is enough for us; we seek nothing further; nothing will be lacking for our solace and beatitude if we are granted the vision of Him.' Philip wished to see the Father in the same manner in which he saw Christ—at least in the manner in which Scripture commemorates that the Prophets saw God.
The excellent Master instructs the disciple, still rude and unskilled, and in him, all [disciples]. Jesus says to him: 'Have I been with you for so long a time, and you have not known me?' Since for so long a time I have associated familiarly with you, do you still not know what I am by nature and whence I come? Do you not yet understand that I am the true Son of God, who came forth from the Father and came into the world to save men? 'Philip, he who sees me sees the Father also.' He who knows me rightly and fully by perfect faith, by that same faith knows also the Father, of whom I am the living and perfect subsistent image. 'How then can you say, "Show us the Father,"' since the Father cannot be unknown to anyone who knows me perfectly? 'Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?' According to the Greek Text: 'Do you not believe that we are one by nature?'
By these words:
The personal distinction of the Father and the Son is explained, since nothing is properly in itself [alone].
The unity of essence, or consubstantiality; otherwise, if one were seen, the other would not be seen.
The ineffable mutual indwelling of the persons, which theologians call 'Immanence' and 'Circuminsession.'
'The words that I speak to you, I do not speak from myself': they are not so much mine that I speak them independently. For He attributes to Him from whom He was begotten that which He does; for He attributes to Him from whom He Himself who acts, exists. 'But the Father, remaining in me, Himself does the works.' For from Him I am inseparable by unity of power and essence. 'Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?' (St. Augustine, Tractate 71 on John). 'Otherwise, believe on account of the works themselves.' The works, which can belong to God alone, testify to and demonstrate the communion of nature. Inseparable works prove inseparable power; inseparable power proves inseparable nature, because in God, to be able and to be are the same. Therefore, the works prove that I am in the Father and the Father in me. For if we were separate, we could in no way work inseparably."
John 14:12-14 "Amen, amen, I say to you: He who believes in me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater works than these shall he do... And whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, that I will do."
"'Amen, amen, I say to you: He who believes in me'—who believes that I am the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father—'the works that I do, he also shall do': by the merit of his faith, through me, he will obtain the power to perform miracles similar to those which I have wrought; namely, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead. 'And greater works than these shall he do': he will perform works greater both in magnitude and in a certain manner of performance. For it was a greater work that the disciples did by the passing of His shadow than what the Lord Himself did by the touch of His garment in healing the sick; and more believed through the preaching and miracles of the Apostles than through the Lord Himself preaching and working miracles with His own mouth. For through their preaching and miracles, entire nations believed (St. Augustine, Tractate 72 on John).
This is the sense of this statement: 'The works that I do, he also shall do; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father.' Since I am assumed into heaven, more miracles must necessarily be performed for the propagation of the faith and the growth of the nascent Church. Therefore, sitting at the right hand of the Father, I will give power to my disciples and faithful ones, through the Holy Spirit whom I will send to them, to perform similar, indeed greater, miracles.
Although, however, certain works of the Apostles and other Saints were in a certain manner greater than the miracles of Christ, nevertheless the disciples are not greater than the Master, nor servants greater than the Lord, nor adopted sons greater than the Only-Begotten, nor men greater than God; but He who said, 'Without me you can do nothing' (John 15:5), deigned to perform those greater works through them. To perform greater works through them than apart from them is not a diminution but a condescension. For what return can servants make to the Lord for all that He has bestowed upon them? Since, among other good things, He has deigned to grant them this also: that He might do greater things through them than apart from them.
'And whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.' If you ask the Father, invoking my name, for what pertains to the glory of God and the manifestation of His Divinity, to the confirmation of the faith, 'this I will do.' He does not say: 'This the Father will give you,' or 'This I will obtain for you from the Father,' but 'This I will do,' so that He may show that He hears the prayers of the faithful equally with the Father, that He is one God with the Father, one operation, one omnipotence, one essence.
'If you shall ask me in my name, this I will do': if you ask from me, with faith and confidence in my merits—not only miracles when there is need of them, but spiritual gifts and heavenly graces, all things worthy of divine munificence and necessary for your salvation—these I will bestow (St. Cyril, Book 9 on John, p. 809). Nor does He promise this as a minister of another's goodness and munificence, but as one who has all things in His power together with the Father, and who Himself exists as the One through whom all things [come], both from us to God and from Him [to us]. Therefore, St. Paul always joins together the bestowals of good things, saying: 'Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ' (cf. Romans 1:7)."
MORAL COMMENTARY
John 14:1 "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me."
"'Let not your heart be troubled': 'You believe in God; believe also in me.' We cannot always prevent the disturbance of the sensitive appetite in our power; but we can prevent the disturbance of the heart, with the grace of God, if our faith is firm, if our trust in the grace of Christ Jesus is pious (St. Cyril of Alexandria, p. 761). Therefore, in all temptations and adversities, let us exercise more frequent and fervent acts of faith and hope; through Christ, let us approach the Father, so that our heart may enjoy perpetual peace.
'Let not your heart be troubled': For an unshaken mind is a great aid to virtue; but this is a gift of Christ's grace. For a mind not yet strengthened by heavenly grace is timid and easily accustomed to be disturbed and shaken. Whence St. Augustine prays well for the Philippians with these words: 'May the peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts' (Philippians 4:7). But faith strengthens, fortifies, and serenes the heart, so that one may say with the Lord: 'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?' (Psalm 26:1-2). Faith, therefore, is an unbroken and broad armor, which turns away cowardice and terror, and renders the darts of wickedness completely harmless and useless (Psalm 26:3).
John 14:2-3 "In my Father's house are many mansions... I go to prepare a place for you... I will come again and receive you to myself..."
"Our Savior excites, lifts up, and consoles the minds of the Apostles and all the faithful with the hope of eternal life and beatitude. For those whom He predestined from eternity out of gratuitous mercy, for whom He merited glory by His death, for them He opened heaven by His Ascension. Moreover, He prepared for His elect diverse degrees of glory according to the inequality of merits, which He created in them by His grace. Therefore, take confidence and strive to make your calling and election sure by good works (2 Peter 1:10). Nor should you lose heart, even though you are imperfect. For although one is stronger than another, one wiser than another, one more just than another, one holier than another, 'in the Father's house are many mansions.' None of those who keep God's commandments and persevere faithfully in their observance shall be alienated from that house, where each shall receive a mansion according to his merit.
Indeed, that denarius is equal for all, which the householder orders to be given to all who have worked in the vineyard, not distinguishing therein who labored less and who more; by which denarius eternal life is signified, in which no one lives more than another, since there is not a diverse measure of living in eternity. But the 'many mansions' signify diverse dignities of merits within one eternal life. 'There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory' (1 Corinthians 15:41). So also is the resurrection of the dead. As stars, the saints obtain diverse mansions of diverse clarity, as it were in heaven, in the Kingdom; but on account of the one denarius, no one is separated from the Kingdom. And thus God will be 'all in all' (1 Corinthians 15:28), so that, since God is charity (1 John 4:8), through charity it comes about that what each one has may be common to all. For thus each one also possesses in another what he himself does not have. Therefore, there will be no envy of unequal clarity, since the unity of charity will reign in all (St. Augustine, Tractate 67 on John).
'In my Father's house are many mansions': He who made the things that are to be, both prepared and prepares the mansions. He prepared them by predestining; He prepares them by working. Whence He says: 'I go to prepare a place for you.' This house of God, the Kingdom of God, is still being built, still being prepared, still being gathered together (St. Augustine, Tractate 68 on John). In it, the mansions will be as the Lord still prepares them; in it, they already are as the Lord predestined them. Moreover, a place in heaven is prepared for us by faith—faith, I say, working through love (Galatians 5:6). Therefore, the Lord goes to the Father so that, though unseen, He may be believed; that, being believed, He may be desired; that, being desired, He may be possessed (St. Cyril, Book 9 on Ephesians 2:6). The desire of love is the preparation of the mansion.
'Because I go to prepare a place for you': In a certain manner, He prepares mansions by preparing the dwellers for the mansions. 'Lord Jesus, prepare a place for yourself in us, and for us in yourself, You who said: "Abide in me, and I in you"' (John 15:4).
'And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself' (John, p. 764): Therefore, Christ Jesus appeared as man for us to the Father, so that He might set us again before the Father, from whose countenance we had been repelled on account of ancient transgression. He sat at His right hand as Son, so that He might grant us the adoption of sons of God. Whence St. Augustine says: 'And He raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus' (Ephesians 2:6-7). But this will not be perfected and completed in us in every respect until Christ comes again to us at the end of the age, and we, raised by Him to immortal, glorious, blessed life, are caught up to meet Him in the air, 'that so we may always be with the Lord' (1 Thessalonians 4:17). 'I will come again to receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also' (Sermon 141, otherwise 15, De Verbis Domini).
John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me."
"The Son of God, who is always in the Father truth and life, having assumed man, became the way (St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, Book 1, Ch. 11). 'Walk through the man, and you will arrive at God.' Through Him you go to Him; you go to Him through Himself. Do not seek a way to come to Him apart from Himself. For if He had not willed to be the way, we would always wander. Therefore, He became the way by which you may come. I do not say to you: 'Seek the way.' The way itself has come to you: arise and walk (Sermon 123, otherwise 50, De Diversis).
To hold the middle way, the true way, the straight way—as it were between the left hand of despair and the right hand of presumption—would be most difficult for us, unless Christ were to say: 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life.' As if He were saying: 'Where do you wish to go? I am the way. What do you wish to reach? I am the truth. Where do you wish to remain? I am the life' (St. Augustine, Sermon 141, otherwise 15, De Verbis Domini). Therefore, let us walk securely in the way, but let us fear the ambushes beside the way. The enemy does not dare to ambush on the way, because Christ is the way; but beside the way, indeed, he does not cease. Whence it is said in the Psalm: 'Beside the way they have set a scandal for me' (Psalm 139:6). What do you fear if you walk in the way? Then fear if you abandon the way. For this reason also the enemy is permitted to place snares beside the way, lest, exulting in security, one abandon the way and fall into ambushes.
The way is Christ humble; the truth and the life is Christ exalted, God. If you walk in the humble One, you will arrive at the exalted One. If you are weak, do not disdain the humble One; in the exalted One, you will remain most strong (St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, Book 1, Ch. 34).
'I am the way, and the truth, and the life': In Christ as man, we ought by no means to stop, because in our way we ought to tend toward Him as God. From which it is understood that nothing ought to hold us in the way, when not even the Lord Himself, insofar as He deigned to be our way, wished to hold us, but to pass through, lest we cling weakly to temporal things—even though they were undertaken and accomplished by Him for our salvation—but rather that we might run eagerly through them to Him Himself, who liberated our nature from temporal things and placed it at the right hand of the Father, so that we may deserve to be advanced and carried through to Him.
'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me' (St. Augustine, De Cantico Novo, Ch. 4): Christ Jesus alone is our way, as Mediator through His blood; truth, of the promises which are fulfilled in Him alone as head of the elect and in us as His members; our life, as the principle of life and of all Christian actions through His grace. He is the way by example, the truth by word, the life by the gift of His grace. The way itself demonstrates itself; those walking on this way, it seeks. There are three kinds of men which it hates: the one remaining behind, the one returning, the one straying. From these three evil kinds, with the Lord helping as vindicator, let our steps be delivered and defended.
Now indeed, when we are walking, one walks more slowly, another more quickly. Therefore, those remaining behind must be encouraged; those returning must be recalled; those straying must be led back to the way; the slow must be exhorted; the swift must be imitated. He who does not progress has remained on the way. He who perhaps declines from a better purpose to that which is worse, which he had left, has returned backward. He who abandons the faith has strayed from the way. Who is he who does not progress? He who thinks himself to be wise; who says, 'It is enough for me what I am'; who does not say with the Apostle: 'One thing I do: forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth myself to that which is before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 3:13-14).
Who are those returning? Those who from continence return to uncleanness; who from a holy and singular good purpose of virginity turn aside into the turpitudes of pleasure, and with a corrupted mind corrupt also the flesh. The Apostle Peter rebukes these, saying: 'It had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than, after they have known it, to turn back' (2 Peter 2:21). O evil thing, to look back! For the wife of Lot, who, liberated from the Sodomites, looked back against the command, lost what she had escaped. And not without merit was she suddenly turned into a statue of salt, so that she might season the foolish by her example also.
Who are those straying? All heretics, who, having abandoned the way of truth, wandering through the desert, commit robbery and capture souls, entangling them in sins, and hindering lest anyone be able to arrive at the homeland; having become wolves of the wilderness, clothed in sheep's clothing, though within they are rapacious wolves, preaching Christ the way, yet leading those who follow them to death.
John 14:8 Philip says to him: "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."
"God is the entire [fulfillment] of man, who fills our desire with good things. Apart from Him, who alone is the true and supreme good, nothing ought to be desired. Why then do we seek created, temporal, perishable things? Whatever is less than God will not fill a soul capable of God. The eye of the heart must be healed and purified through faith and charity, so that we may be able to see God as He is, having been made like to Him by consummated grace.
John 14:9 Jesus says to them: "Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me?"
"For so long a time God is with us: through His creatures, demonstrating to us His power, wisdom, providence, goodness; loading us with His benefits; teaching us through His Law and Gospel; urging us through the inspirations of His grace; admonishing us through His scourges, that we may know Him as our God and Lord, that we may obey Him as our Father—and yet we do not know Him as we ought, with a knowledge conjoined with love and good works (Isaiah 1:2-3). 'The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib; but Israel does not know me, and my people does not understand. I have nourished and brought up children, but they have despised me.'"
John 14:13 "And whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
In order that miracles may be obtained, they must be asked of the Father with firm faith and filial trust, through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, through His mysteries and merits, in view of His love for the Father, His zeal for the Father’s glory, and the sacrifice offered by Him for His Church.
It must by no means be believed that the Saints work miracles, but that God works them through the intercession of the Saints (cf. James 4:3). "And whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, that I will do."
The sole glory of God, not our temporal utility, must be sought. For the omnipotence of God does not serve human cupidity, but operates solely for His own glory, who is the beginning and end of all things. That the Father may be glorified in the Son.
John 14:14 "If you ask me anything in my name, that I will do."
Why are we not always heard when we pray to God? Unless we ask amiss. "You ask and do not receive," says the holy Apostle, "because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your concupiscences" (James 4:3). Therefore, he who would use badly what he wishes to receive, by God’s mercy rather does not receive it. Hence, as St. Augustine says (Tractate 73 on John), if something is asked of Him from which a man would be harmed, it is more to be feared that, being heard, He might in anger grant what He could in mercy refuse. Thus, to the Israelites, who loathed the heavenly manna and demanded flesh with culpable concupiscence, God granted what they asked to their great harm (Numbers 11:32).
"If you ask me anything in my name"—who am your Savior—"for what is necessary or useful for your salvation..." Whatever we ask against the utility of salvation, we ask in the name of the Savior. And yet He is [the Savior] not only when He does what we ask, but also when He does not do it; since, when He sees that something is asked contrary to salvation, by not doing it He rather shows Himself to be the Savior. For the Physician knows what the sick man asks for his health and what against it, and therefore He does the opposite of the petitioner’s will in order to bring about healing.
Therefore, He is not only Savior but also a good Master, so that in the very prayer which He gave us, He taught us what we should ask, that we may also understand thus: that we do not ask in the name of the Master anything contrary to the rule of His teaching. But whatever we ask in His name, even if He does not grant it at the moment we ask, nevertheless He will grant it. For it is not because we ask for the Kingdom of God that He therefore refuses what we ask; rather, we do not immediately reign with Him in eternity. Yet what we ask is not denied. Nevertheless, as those who sow, let us not grow weary; in due time we shall reap (cf. Galatians 6:9).
CONTINUE
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