Cosmas Indicopleustes

In his own words on John

• John 1:16

  For out of his fulness do we all receive, nor does he, in giving liberally, suffer any diminution of his fulness.

  The Christian Topography, Book 5

• John 1:29

  He proclaimed the presence of the Lord, saying: Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, calling him a lamb as being a sacrificial victim, and taking away the sin of the world—as delivering the world from sin, rendering men incorrupt, and immortal and immutable through the resurrection. This great John was privileged to be the herald of such a ministry and of such great things.

  The Christian Topography, Book 5

• John 2:15-16

  What is alleged is false, for it was not at all to the human being he applied the scourge, but he adopted an admirable and becoming and appropriate course, for he scourged the brute beasts only, as it is written: And having made a scourge of small cords he drove all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen, as much as to say: He scourged animals, but only the irrational, driving also out of the temple even those that were brought for sacrifice according to the law, showing by this means that the Judaic dispensation was coming to an end. Things, again, that had neither life nor sensation he pushed away and overthrew, as it is written: And he poured out the money-changers' money and overthrew their tables. The rational beings, however, he neither scourged nor drove away, but he chastised the irrational, as it is written: And to those that sold doves he said: Take these things hence, and make not my Father's house a house of merchandise—showing by all these words and acts that the things offered for sacrifice in the first tabernacle according to the law were to cease, and that another dispensation would be introduced in its place, harmonising with the inner tabernacle, which was a type of the things in heaven—that is, of the future dispensation.

  The Christian Topography, Book 3

• John 2:18-19

  But the Jews having perceived how he was shadowing forth to them the cessation of the Jewish dispensation, questioned him, saying: What sign showest thou that thou dost these things? But taking appropriate advantage of the question, he promised them that he would do something darkly to foreshadow the answer. I refer to the destruction of the temple and to its renovation, because the destruction of the temple—that is, of his body—is the destruction of this world, while the renovation and change made upon the temple—that is, upon his body—is a manifestation of the future state.

  The Christian Topography, Book 3

• John 3:13

  And no one hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven —thus very clearly showing that no one at all had ascended into the upper place except the Lord Christ Himself.

  The Christian Topography, Book 7

• John 3:17

  My argument, accordingly, good reader, holds sure that he never wrought for the punishment of man but for his benefit, and he himself elsewhere exclaims: For the Father hath not sent the Son to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

  The Christian Topography, Book 3

• John 4:6

  Since therefore He is at once both God and man He is proved to be both by His works, and this cannot escape the notice of the spectators. For, that He is by nature God, is shown both by His works and His signs, cleansing the lepers, giving sight to the blind, strength to the paralytic, and life to the dead—and what is greatest of all (for the Prophets also equally succeeded in doing these things) He expressly and unreservedly said: I and my Father are one. But, by the things mentioned, the might of His divinity is fully proved—and that He is also truly man, this He does not wish to go unobserved; thus in anticipation refuting those who erroneously think He assumed a body in appearance only, for He showed clearly that He submitted to sufferings—and to what kind of sufferings? to those, forsooth, which are assigned to flesh by reason of its infirmity and not by reason of sin—I mean, for instance, hunger and thirst and the need of sleep, and fatigue. For as these things happen to us by nature and not by our choice, they do not affect with sin those who have to endure them. By these sufferings then which were not incurred by sin the Lord declared that His flesh obeyed, showing clearly that He had become man in nature and in truth, and not in seeming.

  The Christian Topography, Book 10

• John 6:68-69

  But John the Evangelist thus speaks: Many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Jesus said, therefore, unto the twelve: Would ye also go away? But Peter immediately answering on behalf of all said: Lord, to whom shall we go away? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we have believed that thou art the Holy One of God; meaning this: What thou teachest us we see even by the works which are done by thee, for thou promisest us life and a heavenly kingdom, and we see all things that are done by thee to have regard to the life of men. How then can we leave thee and attach ourselves to another? Our portion is therefore with thee, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

  The Christian Topography, Book 3

• John 8:56

  This is Isaac the co-heir of the promises and the blessings of God given to Abraham his father—who was a type of the sacrifice of the Lord Christ, since for three days he travelled on to death, and afterwards returned alive—who on his own shoulders carried the wood for his own sacrifice, as also the Lord Christ carried his own cross on his shoulder—who died in intention and was given his life by God; he in exchange for whom a ram was slain, and whose father heard these words from God: Because thou hast not spared the son whom thou lovest, so in like manner it has been said with reference to Christ the son of God: Who spared not his own son but has given him up for us all; although the flesh alone is that which has been given for the life of the world, since it is impossible for deity to die; but since the flesh has thus been given, scripture saith that his own son hath been given, because the flesh is a substitute for and a counterpart of the son, after the example of the blessed Isaac. For thus saith the Lord: Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.

  The Christian Topography, Book 5

• John 10:30

  Since therefore He is at once both God and man He is proved to be both by His works, and this cannot escape the notice of the spectators. For, that He is by nature God, is shown both by His works and His signs, cleansing the lepers, giving sight to the blind, strength to the paralytic, and life to the dead—and what is greatest of all (for the Prophets also equally succeeded in doing these things) He expressly and unreservedly said: I and my Father are one. But, by the things mentioned, the might of His divinity is fully proved—and that He is also truly man, this He does not wish to go unobserved; thus in anticipation refuting those who erroneously think He assumed a body in appearance only, for He showed clearly that He submitted to sufferings—and to what kind of sufferings? to those, forsooth, which are assigned to flesh by reason of its infirmity and not by reason of sin—I mean, for instance, hunger and thirst and the need of sleep, and fatigue. For as these things happen to us by nature and not by our choice, they do not affect with sin those who have to endure them. By these sufferings then which were not incurred by sin the Lord declared that His flesh obeyed, showing clearly that He had become man in nature and in truth, and not in seeming.

  The Christian Topography, Book 10

• John 12:24

  Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone, but if it die, it beareth much fruit; as if he said: Why do they wish to see me now, when I am despicable in appearance and alone, like a grain of wheat; for except I die like a grain, and rise up like the wheat in ear and in the fulness of its bloom, having become incorruptible and immortal and immutable, and except mighty deeds and wonders shall be wrought in My name, they will not know My power and glory.

  The Christian Topography, Book 7

• John 12:34

  The blessed Hezekiah then, who was King of the Jews, and a very pious and virtuous man and an object of God's especial care, entertained the idea that the blessed David had spoken of him prophetically in many of the Psalms, such as the nineteenth, the twentieth, and many others besides, and having moreover applied to himself the prophecy which had once been made in his father's time by Isaiah: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, he was uplifted in mind by the workings of human passion, and imagined himself to be the Christ who had been predicted. He was in consequence at first unwilling to take a part in the common offices of life, through the existence of another opinion among the Jews, that Christ when He comes, never dies, but abides for ever, as they also said in the Gospel: We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever. So Hezekiah being of this opinion abstained from taking a wife and providing for the succession of his line by having children, being under the belief that he would live always

  The Christian Topography, Book 8

• John 14:2

  In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. He calls the habitation which is in the heavens, His Father's house. In this then, He says, is your habitation, which has been prepared for you by my Father.

  The Christian Topography, Book 7

• John 14:3

  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you unto myself that where I am there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. And again to the mother of James and John, who asked that the one of them should sit at His right hand and the other on the left in His kingdom, He answered, saying: It is not mine to give, but for whom it has been prepared by my Father. Those that are worthy, therefore, shall obtain these things before I bestow them whether on your sons or on others that are worthy. But the expression that where I am there ye may be also, shows very remarkably that that place is indissoluble, and has been aforetime prepared, and not that another place is substituted (as those wise men imagine), in which we are to dwell after the resurrection, when this place of the heavens shall have been dissolved. And to speak briefly, the passages in divine scripture are almost innumerable which show that the heaven, into which Christ has entered and into which we also shall enter, is indissoluble.

  The Christian Topography, Book 7

• John 16:7

  But let us consider the words now spoken by Him to His illustrious disciples—namely: It is expedient for you that I go away. For your salvation have I come down to the earth, for your benefit it is well that I go up into heaven. For your sakes did I, hitherto bodiless, come down—it is expedient for Me to be there with the body; your race did I resolve to draw up to heaven; it behoves Me in the flesh to take My seat on the right hand of the Father. It behoves Me to open up a way that before was strange, as a new way, and to show that heaven is accessible to man. I take my way first through the air, in order that you also afterwards may be caught up into the air in clouds to meet Me. And I fancied I heard him, as he was reading, expressly proclaim how that this man shrinks from departure from life, and how that He through suffering and the resurrection received incorruption and renovation of His nature and vivification—how that through prevailing infirmity He was formerly subject to sufferings and fatigue—how that moreover He was drawn to heaven and deemed worthy of the seat on the right hand, and was the first to traverse the strange way, and the first to make heaven accessible to men.

  The Christian Topography, Book 10

• John 16:33

  Wherefore the Lord exclaimed to the disciples: Let not your hearts be troubled. I have overcome the world. And again: Lo! I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy—as much as to say: Man of old having sinned when the serpent in Paradise assailed him, it was said to him: He shall lie in wait for thy heel, but thou for his head; that is, Ye shall be divided and at enmity against each other, that man may not be under obedience to him. So the warfare was then waged on equal terms, each having the power to hurt the other; for the serpent watching for the heel of man, that is, besetting his path in order to hurt him on finding him out of the path, as he could do by creeping about his heel; while man being of upward stature and on his guard, and not straying from his path, was able to bruise the head of the serpent. And now having conquered the serpent and brought him finally to shame, and having through his agency unjustly endured death for the whole race, and nailed the bond against it to the cross and blotted it out, I rose again on the third day victorious over death, and became the champion who has achieved victory for all the human race, for through me the victory has been extended to all humanity. Be ye therefore of good courage. Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and on all the power of the enemy. He says in effect the serpent is no longer able to hurt your heel, being himself trampled down under your feet

  The Christian Topography, Book 2

• John 20:17

  as often as He wished, He at once vanished from them, how by way of instructing her He said to Mary: Touch me not, teaching her by these words that intercourse between immortals and mortals is not fitting, but rather intercourse with immortals must be in heaven. Wherefore also He directed her to go away and tell the disciples: I ascend into heaven into which ye also are to ascend.

  The Christian Topography, Book 5