32. Ecce venit hora, et iam venit, ut dispergamini unusquisque in propria, et me solum relinquatis: et non sum solus, quia Pater mecum est.32. Behold the hour cometh, and it is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.

32. Hour is again a Hebraism for time. This same prediction, or a similar one, is recorded by St. Matt. (xxvi. 31), and St. Mark (xiv. 27), and according to both it was made after Christ and the Apostles had left the supper room to go towards the Mount of Olives. As we observed above on [xiv. 31], we think it highly improbable that this long discourse after the Last Supper was spoken in the crowded streets of Jerusalem; and if the words of SS. Matthew or Mark obliged us to hold that the prediction, recorded by those Evangelists was spoken whilst Christ and the Apostles passed along the streets, we would hold that this prediction, recorded by St. John, is a different one, and that Christ referred twice on this night to the desertion of His Apostles. In reality, however, SS. Matthew and Mark can be satisfactorily explained on the supposition that the prediction which they record was spoken outside the house where Christ and the Apostles had supped, or at some quiet spot on the way to Mount Olivet.

33. Haec locutus sum vobis, ut in me pacem habeatis. In mundo pressuram habebitis: sed confidite, ego vici mundum.33. These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.

33. These last discourses He had spoken to confirm their faith and afford them consolation, that so they might have peace of heart, despite the hatred of the world. Then He closes this beautiful discourse with the consoling and encouraging assurance that He was just about to conquer the world (by prolepsis He speaks of His victory as already gained). The context shows that this assurance implied that they too, through Him, should triumph over the world. For it is because His victory implied theirs that He tells them to have confidence. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is [pg 293] the victory which overcometh the world, our faith” (1 John v. 4).

Thus in His last words to His Apostles before His passion, at the very moment when He knew that His enemies were approaching (xv. 30), Christ confidently claims the glory of a conqueror.

Chapter XVII.

1-5. As man, Christ prays to the Father for Himself.

6-19. He prays for the Apostles.