"Woman, behold your son."

[Jacob4707]

I found this question posed by a non-denominational "out of church" Protestant on a forum that I used to visit long ago:

Maybe you guys can help me understand a popular teaching about a rather strange incident at the cross...it's a teaching that has never made any sense to me whatsoever; it's the part where Jesus, dying on the cross, somehow seemingly decides it's really important to remind his brother John to take care of their mother since He (quite obviously) won't be able to anymore.... ​

John 19: 25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" 27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. ​

Here's an excerpt from a typical Christian commentary/teaching about it.... ​

Quote: http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commenta...lete/mhc-com.cgi?book=joh&chapter=19#Joh19_26​

...He tenderly provides for his mother at his death. It is probable that Joseph, her husband, was long since dead, and that her son Jesus had supported her, and her relation to him had been her maintenance; and now that he was dying what would become of her? He saw her standing by, and knew her cares and griefs; and he saw John standing not far off, and so he settled a new relation between his beloved mother and his beloved disciple; for he said to her, "Woman, behold thy son, for whom henceforward thou must have a motherly affection;’’ and to him, "Behold thy mother, to whom thou must pay a filial duty.’’ And so from that hour, that hour never to be forgotten, that disciple took her to his own home. See here, (1.) The care Christ took of his dear mother. He was not so much taken up with a sense of his sufferings as to forget his friends, all whose concerns he bore upon his heart. His mother, perhaps, was so taken up with his sufferings that she thought not of what would become of her; but he admitted that thought. Silver and gold he had none to leave, no estate, real or personal; his clothes the soldiers had seized, and we hear no more of the bag since Judas, who had carried it, hanged himself. He had therefore no other way to provide for his mother than by his interest in a friend, which he does here.​

I can't agree with the above kind of conclusions and here's why: ~Why in heaven's name would Jesus, a seriously suffering man and dying Lamb of God, suddenly waste one of his last precious breathes to simply remind his younger brother to take care of their mother when He's gone?---an established family obligation that was so blatantly obvious to anyone (Jewish culture or otherwise) that it most certainly needed no universal nudge from anyone at that sensational moment in time....especially from a seriously suffering man who was in the process of dying for ALL mankind. ​

I admit that I don't know exactly WHY those unusual words made it into the scriptural records at that moment and forevermore, but my spirit senses it had far more spiritual importance and universal substance than just reminding someone about their family responsibilities to mom. I think we've missed something. ​

Any other grand ideas?​

Besides some false assumptions the poster has made (e.g., that "John," or whoever is the Beloved Disciple, is Jesus's brother), I would have a response for the person, but I'm not going to register and post a response because they do NOT favorably look upon anything Catholic or from church "Tradition" or from an "organized church" view, and I don't need to take a beating like the Catholic person who tried posting there a few months ago and was asked to leave, IIRC.

I'd ask that person also to ponder why the name of Jesus's mother and the name of the disciple whom Jesus loved are never mentioned in John's gospel either. Then I'd suggest that maybe something larger than these two unnamed personages is going on here. E.g., perhaps Jesus's mother represents something, and perhaps the disciple whom Jesus loved represents something. Perhaps Jesus is giving His mother the care of the Church, and giving any disciple who loves Him into the care of His mother.

 

[Protoevangel]

I'd ask that person also to ponder why the name of Jesus's mother and the name of the disciple whom Jesus loved are never mentioned in John's gospel either. Then I'd suggest that maybe something larger than these two unnamed personages is going on here. E.g., perhaps Jesus's mother represents something, and perhaps the disciple whom Jesus loved represents something. Perhaps Jesus is giving His mother the care of the Church, and giving any disciple who loves Him into the care of His mother.

I don't think I've actually heard this line of reasoning before... It is beautiful.

 

[Jacob4707]

Interestingly, though, St. John Chrysostom keeps it on an earthly level, too:

[3.] And He, having committed His mother to John, said, “Behold thy Son.” ( Ver. 26.) O the honor! with what honor did He honor the disciple! when He Himself was now departing, He committed her to the disciple to take care of. For since it was likely that, being His mother, she would grieve, and require protection, He with reason entrusted her to the beloved. To him He saith, “Behold thy mother.” ( Ver. 27.) This He said, knitting them together in charity; which the disciple understanding, took her to his own home. “But why made He no mention of any other woman, although another stood there?” To teach us to pay more than ordinary respect to our mothers. For as when parents oppose us on spiritual matters, we must not even own them, so when they do not hinder us, we ought to pay them all becoming respect, and to prefer them before others, because they begat us, because they bred us up, because they bare for us ten thousand terrible things. And by these words He silenceth the shamelessness of Marcion; for if He were not born according to the flesh, nor had a mother, wherefore taketh He such forethought for her alone?​

And so does St./Blessed Augustine:

2. A passage, therefore, of a moral character is here inserted. The good Teacher does what He thereby reminds us ought to be done, and by His own example instructed His disciples that care for their parents ought to be a matter of concern to pious children: as if that tree to which the members of the 433dying One were affixed were the very chair of office from which the Master was imparting instruction. From this wholesome doctrine it was that the Apostle Paul had learned what he taught in turn, when he said, “But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”18971897 1 Tim. v. 8. And what are so much home concerns to any one, as parents to children, or children to parents? Of this most wholesome precept, therefore, the very Master of the saints set the example from Himself, when, not as God for the hand-maid whom He had created and governed, but as a man for the mother, of whom He had been created, and whom He was now leaving behind, He provided in some measure another son in place of Himself. And why He did so, He indicates in the words that follow: for the evangelist says, “And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own,” speaking of himself. In this way, indeed, he usually refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved: who certainly loved them all, but him beyond the others, and with a closer familiarity, so that He even made him lean upon His bosom at supper;18981898 Chap. xiii. 23. in order, I believe, in this way to commend the more highly the divine excellence of this very gospel, which He was thereafter to preach through his instrumentality.​

3. But what was this “his own,” unto which John took the mother of the Lord? For he was not outside the circle of those who said unto Him, “Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee.” No, but on that same occasion he had also heard the words, Every one that hath forsaken these things for my sake, shall receive an hundred times as much in this world.18991899 Matt. xix. 27, 29. That disciple, therefore, had an hundredfold more than he had cast away, whereunto to receive the mother of Him who had graciously bestowed it all. But it was in that society that the blessed John had received an hundredfold, where no one called anything his own, but they had all things in common; even as it is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. For the apostles were as if having nothing, and yet possessing all things.19001900 2 Cor. vi. 10. How was it, then, that the disciple and servant received unto his own the mother of his Lord and Master, where no one called anything his own? Or, seeing we read a little further on in the same book, “For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of them, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need,”19011901 Acts iv. 32–35. are we not to understand that such distribution was made to this disciple of what was needful, that there was also added to it the portion of the blessed Mary, as if she were his mother; and ought we not the rather so to take the words, “From that hour the disciple took her unto his own,” that everything necessary for her was entrusted to his care? He received her, therefore, not unto his own lands, for he had none of his own; but to his own dutiful services, the discharge of which, by a special dispensation, was entrusted to himself.​

So maybe I'm full of hummus.

 

[Protoevangel]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, hummus.

 

[cobweb]

I'd rather be full of feta than hummus.

 

[choirfiend]

No, I ve heard it taught that in so doing, Christ gave the whole Church a "mother" to care for us, and to care for.

Reconciling the erroneous assumption that the beloved disciple was the actual BROTHER of Christ is probably the most important step, however. One can do so biblically by talking about translation, the Hebraic concepts of "brethren and brothers" etc etc etc. Thinking that He has a brother IS the error that makes no sense, and correcting that is the largest part of fixing the interpretation of the passage.

 

[Jacob4707]

No, I ve heard it taught that in so doing, Christ gave the whole Church a "mother" to care for us, and to care for.

Reconciling the erroneous assumption that the beloved disciple was the actual BROTHER of Christ is probably the most important step, however. One can do so biblically by talking about translation, the Hebraic concepts of "brethren and brothers" etc etc etc. Thinking that He has a brother IS the error that makes no sense, and correcting that is the largest part of fixing the interpretation of the passage.

Some Orthodox and Catholic apologists point out that Jesus's giving His mother to the care of someone other than a son/child of hers supports the belief in her perpetual virginity. I.e., if she had had other children, her care after Jesus's death would have by default fallen to them, and the fact that Jesus gives her to someone who is never said to be her child means that she had no other children.

Does tradition teach that this "John" (i.e., the beloved disciple) was one of Joseph's children?

 

[choirfiend]

No, it doesnt, afaik. But I believe that He had disciples that were in fact counted among His extended family--cousins and brethren and such.

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Whose commentary is that? Matthew Henry's?

 

[Protoevangel]

Whose commentary is that? Matthew Henry's?

Yes.

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Links are pretty slow here, didn't click, but from the language that is what I figured. Thanks ...

 

[Jacob4707]

Origen:

6. The Fourfold Gospel. John’s the First Fruits of the Four. Qualifications Necessary for Interpreting It.​

Now the Gospels are four. These four are, as it were, the elements of the faith of the Church, out of which elements the whole world which is reconciled to God in Christ is put together; as Paul says,23 “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself; ”of which world Jesus bore the sin; for it is of the world of the Church that the word is written,24 “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” The Gospels then being four, I deem the first fruits of the Gospels to be that which you25 have enjoined me to search into according to my powers, the Gospel of John, that which speaks of him whose genealogy had already been set forth, but which begins to speak of him at a point before he had any genealogy. For Matthew, writing for the Hebrews who looked for Him who was to come of the line of Abraham and of David, says:26 “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” And Mark, knowing what he writes, narrates the beginning of the Gospel; we may perhaps find what he aims at in John; in the beginning the Word, God the Word. But Luke, though he says at the beginning of Acts, “The former treatise did I make about all that Jesus began to do and to teach,” yet leaves to him who lay on Jesus’ breast the greatest and completest discourses about Jesus. For none of these plainly declared His Godhead, as John does when he makes Him say, “I am the light of the world,” “I am the way and the truth and the life,” “I am the resurrection, “I am the door,” “I am the good shepherd; ”and in the Apocalypse, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” We may therefore make bold to say that the Gospels are the first fruits of all the Scriptures, but that of the Gospels that of John is the first fruits. No one can apprehend the meaning of it except he have lain on Jesus’ breast and received from Jesus Mary to be his mother also. Such an one must he become who is to be another John, and to have shown to him, like John, by Jesus Himself Jesus as He is. For if Mary, as those declare who with sound mind extol her, had no other son but Jesus, and yet Jesus says to His mother, “Woman, behold thy son,”27 and not “Behold you have this son also,” then He virtually said to her, “Lo, this is Jesus, whom thou didst bear.” Is it not the case that every one who is perfect lives himself no longer,28 but Christ lives in him; and if Christ lives in him, then it is said of him to Mary, “Behold thy son Christ.” What a mind, then, must we have to enable us to interpret in a worthy manner this work, though it be committed to the earthly treasure-house of common speech, of writing which any passer-by can read, and which can be heard when read aloud by any one who lends to it his bodily ears? What shall we say of this work? He who is accurately to apprehend what it contains should be able to say with truth,29 “We have the mind of Christ, that we may know those things which are bestowed on us by God.” It is possible to quote one of Paul’s sayings in support of the contention that the whole of the New Testament is Gospel. He writes in a certain place:30 “According to my Gospel.” Now we have no written work of Paul which is commonly called a Gospel. But all that he preached and said was the Gospel; and what he preached and said he was also in the habit of writing, and what he wrote was therefore Gospel. But if what Paul wrote was Gospel, it follows that what Peter wrote was also Gospel, and in a word all that was said or written to perpetuate the knowledge of Christ’s sojourn on earth, and to prepare for His second coming, or to bring it about as a present reality in those souls which were willing to receive the Word of God as He stood at the door and knocked and sought to come into them.​

http://foru.ms/#_ftn9
Roberts, A., Donaldson, J., & Coxe, A. C. (1997). The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. X : Translations of the writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325. The Gospel of Peter by Professor J. Armitage Robinson, Introduction and Synoptical Table by Andrew Rutherfurd, B.D. (299). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.



Jerome:

But John like an eagle soars aloft, and reaches the Father Himself, and says,175 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God,” and so on. The virgin writer expounded mysteries which the married could not, and to briefly sum up all and show how great was the privilege of John, or rather of virginity in John, the Virgin Mother176 was entrusted by the Virgin Lord to the Virgin disciple.​

http://foru.ms/#_ftnref3Schaff, P. (1997). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. VI. Jerome: Letters and Select Works. (366). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Excuse my ignorance, Origen became a heretic later on in his life, am I correct? But could we use his works prior to this?

 

[buzuxi02]

Excuse my ignorance, Origen became a heretic later on in his life, am I correct? But could we use his works prior to this?

Origen was pronounced a heretic post-humously, centuries after he died.
The reason for this is that the heresy took a very long time to take root. When it all came down to it, the heretics always cited Origen's writings. Another words he was the catalyst and the inspiration for the heresies.There may have been others before and after him (even saints) which believed the same but he was the catalyst, the roots of the false belief lead to him.

 

[buzuxi02]

The care of a widowed mother to someone other than a biologial sibling was condemned by the Mosaic Tradition. It was considered immoral.

Christ was Her only Son. John was the youngest apostle possibly around 20 years of age. He may have been a teenager at the start of Christ's ministry. The Son's of Zebedee were probably raised by their father. Perhaps he was a widower, regardless, John most likely never knew his mother.

This is the historical reasoning behind the events.

A more spiritual understanding is that the Church is our Mother. Christ said, "I will not leave you orphans." JN 14.18. The Church may have been what Christ had in mind when a few verses later (v23) says, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and we wil come to him and make our Home with him.

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Buzuxi, and Apostle John happened to be the only one at the foot of the Cross among 'em all.

About Origen, I want to learn more, now he was canonized as a saint but that was overturned later on, becayse of his teachings? And, was he aware of his wrong teachings, was rebuked about it, though he chose not to stop? Believing in something and teaching it falsely without knowledge seems innocent to me. Unless there is purposeful distortion of knowledge...

I don't know all the early fathers by name and era, however, like you said, during a discussion about John 8:58, a muslim brought it up saying that Christ was referring to His pre-existence as Jews believed. I inquired more about this to him and asked him to provide a statement from fathers, he brought up Origen as he was teaching pre-existence...

 

[ConanTheLibrarian]

To be a heretic, someone has to know that their views are against Church teaching, and refuse correction (CCC 2089). I'm sure that many poorly-instructed people have wrong ideas about the Trinity, for example, but they would not be heretics because they don't know any better.

As far as I know, there is doubt whether Origen himself held some of the views attributed to him. These may have come from his later followers, and may have involved areas of doctine that had not been clearly developed in his time.

He was highly revered at the time of his death, and his tomb was even a place of pilgrimage. Even if he had been declared a saint, however, that only means that a given individual is in Heaven. It does not necessarily endorse everything they said.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11306b.htm

Saints make mistakes like the rest of us. They're not perfect, just forgiven. Indeed, they provide inspiration no less as reminders that someone with any kind of past can be redeemed.

 

[buzuxi02]

Buzuxi, and Apostle John happened to be the only one at the foot of the Cross among 'em all.

About Origen, I want to learn more, now he was canonized as a saint but that was overturned later on, becayse of his teachings? And, was he aware of his wrong teachings, was rebuked about it, though he chose not to stop? Believing in something and teaching it falsely without knowledge seems innocent to me. Unless there is purposeful distortion of knowledge...

I don't know all the early fathers by name and era, however, like you said, during a discussion about John 8:58, a muslim brought it up saying that Christ was referring to His pre-existence as Jews believed. I inquired more about this to him and asked him to provide a statement from fathers, he brought up Origen as he was teaching pre-existence...

Origen is not a saint in the Orthodox church he is considered a heretic.

Origen's belief in the pre-existence of souls was condemned as heresy. Jews do not believe in the pre-existence of souls.

Origen also held to a subordinationist view of the Trinity. That the three hypostasis were divine but not equal in essence.

He also held to the restoration of all things. That even the evil will one day be restored to heaven but perhaps they will have darker skin to distinguish them from those that have always been holy.


Origen has some great thoughts, but he also had some heretical ones. Unfortunately some of those heretical thoughts took root and disrupted the life of the Church.

 

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Thank you both, very interesting for me...