St Cyril of Alexandria Commentary on John (Second Part)

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Page 63

He saith then unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread? We must needs see, why to Philip, although the rest of the disciples were standing by and cleaving to Him: Philip then was a questioner and apt to learn, but not over quick in ready power of understanding the more Divine. This you will learn, if you consider with yourself that he, after having followed the Saviour for a long time and gathered manifold lessons concerning His Godhead and gotten to himself apprehension through both deeds and words, as though he had learnt nothing yet, in the last times of the economy says to Jesus, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us; but as saying it in his simplicity he was fitly re-instructed, So long time am I with you, and hast thou not known Me, Philip? saith Christ. Therefore as to one duller of understanding, and advancing more slowly than he ought to the apprehension of things more Divine, He puts forth the question, exercising the disciple in faith. For this is one meaning of, To prove him, in this passage, although as the blessed Evangelist affirmed, He Himself knew what He would do.

But His saying Whence shall we buy proves the uncare for money of them that were with Him, and their voluntary poverty for God's sake, in that they had not even wherewithal to buy necessary food. Together with this He works something, and orders it skillfully. For He says Whence, not emptily, as to those who had taken no trouble to provide anything at all, but as to those who were accustomed to entire uncare for money. Excluding then, and cutting short most skilfully expectation arising from money, He well nigh persuades them to go on to entreat the Lord, that He would, if He willeth them when they have nothing to feed those that come to Him, by His unspeakable Power and God-befitting Might create food. For this was what yet remained, and He was calling them at length to see that their only remaining hopes were thence, according to the Greek poets,

---------- the iron wound of necessity.

Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

Feebly again does Philip advance, not to the power of Jesus to do all things, and that easily, but on hearing Whence shall we buy said to prove him, forthwith he catches at it, and looks at the means by money alone, not conceiving that the nature of the thing may be accomplished otherwise than by the common law, and that practised by all, to wit, prodigality of expenditure. Therefore as far as regards the disciples' uncare for money and their possessing nothing, and Philip's own apprehension, which did not as yet with perfect clearness view the exceeding dignity of our Saviour, liberality towards the multitudes is turned into an impossibility. But it was not so, the will of the Saviour conducts it to its completion. The impossible with men is possible with God, and the Divine Power proves on all sides superior to the natural order of things with us, strong to accomplish all things wondrously, even what overleap our understanding.

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