New commandment; Peter’s denial; way, truth, life (John 13:33–14:11)

saw him and ate with him.

New is the form of this commandment, and beyond the law is loving the neighbor more than oneself. I do not want you to love those to whom you owe, but those to whom you do not owe; for I too die for you, to whom I owe nothing.

Not from the signs you do will you be known as my disciples—for that belongs wholly to grace from above—but from loving one another and having concord and giving yourselves.

Christ is a son of love, who is love according to nature, being love itself by nature and fruit of love, not having the good of love as something acquired.

Because of weakness he forbids Peter to follow him, yet later promises because of boldness. Since he too was going to be crucified as Christ was, he foretells what will happen to him alone.

Peter has become a type for us of asking teachers what we do not know.

Disbelieving somewhat what was said, Peter inquires, and so also promises to die for him.

Since you do not want to be persuaded that what I say cannot fail to happen, you will know it in the denial. And he underwent this not because Christ led him into it, but because he left him bare, so that he might not be lifted into arrogance.

Let no one say that Peter denied because Christ said so; for he did not lay necessity on him so that he should come to denial, but as God he foretells to the disciple what was altogether going to be. And the denial did not come from an unbelieving soul, but from weakness.

Not all of you are going to deny, he says; Peter’s denial will be wiped out through repentance and confession.

If the place in which you are going to be with me had not long ago been prepared for you, I would have gone away and prepared a place for you.

There is no need to ascend for the sake of preparing a place for you, but so that I may make you a pasture of ascent where the angels’ dwelling is, which was impassable to all flesh. When therefore I do this, coming “in the regeneration” (Matthew 19:28) I take you with myself, that you may be where I am.

He is way because through him they were coming and he himself was Lord of leading up to the Father. Truth because of truthfulness, that these things will altogether be. And life, because not even death itself, he says, will be able to hinder you from coming.

He is way through the practical, truth as true definition of the faith, life as raising us and leading into incorruption and freeing from the ancient curse.

Here he calls sight the knowledge according to mind. Therefore the one who contemplates the Son not in bare essence but clothed in flesh knows his equal Father in all things. Knowledge shows contemplation through notions; vision shows assurance through God-befitting works.

As knowing the Son exactly he said this, thinking perhaps he could see God with the eyes.

Nothing else, he says, is the Son except what the Father is while remaining Son; for even if you happen to say, Philip, that I know you, that you are Son, yet you have not recognized me, that having the whole Father in myself I remain again being Son.

From what the Son has done both before incarnation and after incarnation, his infinite strength appears to the mind as “in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

The wording signifies the extreme resemblance and equality. Therefore, lest someone fall into Sabellius’s heresy by dividing the hypostases, he adds saying: the one who has seen me has seen the Father. And this he makes clear through knowledge. He says these things about the invisible essence of himself and of the Father; for it is not possible to see the divine with fleshly eyes. Therefore he said: the one who has seen me has seen the Father—not that he himself is the Father, but that through the extreme resemblance the one who sees the Son sees the Father; for each is self-subsistent.

Having by nature in his own nature the Father’s own things through the consubstantial; for the Son essentially encompasses the Father and is in him through the consubstantial. He says this, that he does not