Church Fathers Commentary John 15:22-25

"If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But [this cometh to pass], that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." — John 15:22-25 (ASV)

St. John Chrysostom: Then, as another consolation, He declares the injustice of these persecutions, both toward Him and them: If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Christ spoke to the Jews only, not to any other nation. In them, then, was that world which hated Christ and His disciples—and not only in them, but in us also. Were the Jews then without sin before Christ came in the flesh, because Christ had not spoken to them? By "sin" here He means not every sin, but a certain great sin which includes all others and which alone prevents the forgiveness of other sins: namely, unbelief. They did not believe in Christ, who came so that they might believe in Him. This sin, then, they would not have had if Christ had not come, for Christ’s coming was the salvation of believers, just as it was the damnation of unbelievers. But now they have no cloak for their sin.

If those to whom Christ had not come or spoken had an excuse for their sin, why is it said here that these people had no excuse because Christ had come and spoken to them? If the first group had an excuse, did it remove their punishment altogether, or only lessen it? I answer that this excuse did not cover all their sin, but only this one: that they did not believe in Christ. But those to whom Christ came by His disciples are not in this category. They are not to receive a lighter punishment, for they altogether refused to receive Christ’s love and, as far as they were concerned, wished for its destruction.

An excuse may be had by those who died before they heard Christ’s Gospel, but this will not shield them from damnation. For whoever is not saved in the Savior, who came to seek what was lost, will without doubt go to perdition, though some will have lighter and others more severe punishments. A person perishes before God who is punished with exclusion from the happiness given to the saints. But there is as great a diversity of punishments as there is of sins, though how this is settled is a matter known to Divine Wisdom, but too deep for human conjecture to examine or pronounce on.

St. John Chrysostom: Since the Jews persecuted Him out of a professed regard for the Father, He takes away this excuse: He who hates Me, hates My Father also.

Alcuin of York: For as he who loves the Son also loves the Father—the love of the Father being one with that of the Son, just as their nature is one—so he who hates the Son also hates the Father.

St. Augustine of Hippo: But He has just said, Because they know not Him that sent Me. How could they hate someone whom they did not know? For if they hated God while believing Him to be something other than what He is, this was not truly hatred of God. In the case of humans, it often happens that we hate or love people we have never seen, simply because of what we have heard about them. But if a person’s character is known to us, he cannot properly be said to be unknown. A person’s character is shown not by his face, but by his habits and way of life; otherwise, we would not be able to know ourselves, for we cannot see our own faces.

However, history and reputation sometimes lie, and our trust can be misplaced. We cannot penetrate into people’s hearts; we only know that some things are right and others are wrong. If we avoid error in this judgment, being mistaken about particular people is a minor matter. A good person may unknowingly hate another good person—or rather, unknowingly love him, for he loves goodness, even while he hates the individual he mistakenly thinks the other to be. Likewise, a bad person may love a good person, supposing him to be bad like himself, and therefore is not, properly speaking, loving the good person, but the false image he has of him.

It is the same way with respect to God. If the Jews were asked whether they loved God, they would reply that they did, not intending to lie, but only being mistaken in saying so. For how could they who hated the Truth love the Father of the Truth? They did not want their actions to be judged, which is what the Truth did. They hated the Truth, then, because they hated the punishment He would inflict upon people like them. At the same time, they did not know that He who came to condemn them was the Truth. They did not know that the Truth was born of God the Father, and therefore they did not know God the Father Himself. Thus, they both hated and did not know the Father.

St. John Chrysostom: Thus, then, they have no excuse, He says. I gave them doctrine and I added miracles, which, according to the law of Moses, should convince everyone if the doctrine itself is also good: If I had not done among them the works that no other man did, they would not have had sin.

St. Augustine of Hippo: This is the sin of not believing Him, despite His doctrine and His miracles. But why does He add, which no other man did? Christ did no work greater than raising the dead, which we know the ancient prophets also did before Him. Is it that He did some things which no one else did? But others also did things that neither He nor anyone else did. This is true, yet none of the ancient prophets we read of healed so many bodily defects, sicknesses, and infirmities.

To say nothing of individual cases, Mark says that wherever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and begged Him that they might touch even just the border of His garment; and as many as touched Him were healed (Mark 6:56). Works like these no one else had done in them—meaning, not merely among them or before them, but within them. Even when particular works like these had been done before, whoever performed such works did not really do them, for Christ did them through them, whereas He performs these miracles by His own power.

For even if the Father or the Holy Spirit performed them, it was none other than He Himself, for the three Persons are of one substance. For these benefits, then, they should have returned not hatred to Him, but love. And He reproaches them with this: But now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father.

St. John Chrysostom: So that the disciples would not say, “Why then have you brought us into such difficulties? Could you not foresee the resistance and hatred we would meet?” He quotes the prophecy: But this comes to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

St. Augustine of Hippo: Under the name of the Law, the whole of the Old Testament is included. Therefore, our Lord says here, That is written in their law, even though the passage is from the Psalms.

He says, their law, not because they made it, but because it was given to them. A person hates without a cause who seeks no advantage from his hatred. Thus the ungodly hate God. The righteous, however, love Him; that is, they look for no other good but Him, for He is their all in all.

St. Gregory the Great: It is one thing not to do good and another to hate the teacher of goodness, just as there is a difference between sudden and deliberate sins. Generally, our state is that we love what is good but, out of weakness, cannot perform it. But to sin intentionally is to neither do nor love what is good.

Just as it is more wicked to hate justice than to fail to practice it, so there are some in the Church who not only fail to do good but even persecute it, hating in others the very good they neglect to do themselves. The sin of these people is not one of weakness or ignorance, but is a deliberate, willful sin.