Verse 25... And these know, that Thou hast sent Me. [994] And My disciples learned this from My teaching and Divine works.

Verse 26. And I told them Thy name... [995] the name of the Father. Jesus Christ said this before, and now he repeats it.

Verse 26... And I will say... more through the Holy Ghost. You see that just as the Father speaks through the Holy Spirit, so the Son reveals through Him to the disciples what He wants. From this, again, the equality of honesty and unanimity of the Most Holy Trinity is revealed.

Verse 26... That they love, which Thou hast loved Me, shall be in them. [996] I, says Jesus Christ, will reveal to them Thy name still more, so that after this name has been fully revealed to them, and they know that I am Thy true Son and beloved by nature, that after that the same true and natural love may be manifested among them.

Verse 26... And I am in them... and that I may dwell more in them, because of their greater faith, because they know Me more perfectly. And so Jesus Christ ends His discourse with a speech about love, which is the fulfillment of all virtues.

CHAPTER XVIII

Verse 1. (And) these rivers Jesus went out with His disciples to the floor of the brook of Cedar, where there was a vineyard, in which He Himself and His disciples came in. [997] Find in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew the passage where it says: "And he sang and went out into the Mount of Olives" (Matt. 26:30), and read his explanation; there you will find an explanation of this verse as well. The same, however, must be said about the following verses, which we have explained more extensively and thoroughly in our interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew.

Verse 2. And Judas betrayed His place... [998] The Evangelist goes on to say how Judas knew this.

Verse 2... As Jesus gathered together with His disciples in multiplicity... [999] often spent nights there.

Verse 3. Wherefore, O Judas, receive the spira and the servants of the bishops and Pharisees, and come there with the luminaries, and the lights, and the weapons. [1000] They resorted to arms for fear of the followers of Jesus Christ. For the same reason, they came late at night. This is said in the explanation of the words of the twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew (v. 47): And again I say to Him, Behold, Judas, one of the Two, has come. Everything that had happened before that, John omitted as told by other evangelists, which he does very often.

Verses 4–6. And Jesus, knowing all that was coming to Nan, went out and said to them, "Whom are you seeking? And he answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I am. And Judas, who had betrayed Him, stood with them. And when he said unto them, I am, I have gone backwards, and have fallen to the ground. [1001] Knowing as God all that would happen to Him, Jesus Christ went out and calmly asked them as a Man. The traitor also stood there with those who came, but he could not recognize Jesus Christ either by appearance or by voice. In this way, Jesus Christ showed that against His will not only could they not take Him, but even see Him. The above-mentioned chapter speaks of this as well.

Verses 7–8. Wherefore ask them (Jesus), Whom are ye seeking? And they decided: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, "I am unto you, for I am..." [1002] Jesus Christ reveals Himself, thereby teaching His disciples not to resort to lying in times of danger, and convincing them that He voluntarily gives Himself to murderers.

Verses 8–9... If ye seek Me, leave these things to come: that the word may be fulfilled, as Thou hast given Me them, and destroy none by them. [1003] Let the word be fulfilled — this is what the evangelist speaks for himself. Turning to God the Father, Jesus Christ said before this: "Whom thou hast given me, keep them, and none shall perish by them, but the son of perdition" (John 17:12). Consequently, "To destroy no one by them" means the same as: "No one will perish by them." None of them, says Jesus Christ, perished through My fault, or none of them I lost through My own fault.

Verse 10. And Simon Peter, having a knife, took it out, and struck the bishop's servant, and cut off his right ear: and the servant's name was Malchus. [1004] This is also spoken of in the above-mentioned chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: "And behold, one of them that are with Jesus, he stretched forth his hand, and drew out his knife" (26:51). (And John indicated both the name of the servant whom Peter struck and the part of the body on which he struck, for greater clarity of the matter, not only because Jesus Christ immediately healed the servant, as we know from the Gospel of Luke (22:51), but also because this servant struck Jesus Christ a little later, as Chrysostom explained).