While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. I have kept those whom you have given me. None of them is lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 12. While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. [5] He still speaks, says Saint John Chrysostom as man, and after a human manner, by mentioning the advantage they seemed to enjoy, as long as he conversed visibly with them on earth, not that his invisible presence should be less beneficial to them.—And none of them hath perished, except the son of perdition, the wretched Judas, whose fall was foretold in the Scriptures. Psal. 108. He hath perished, that is, now is about being lost, by his own fault, says Saint John Chrysostom on this place. And Saint Augustine on Psal. cxxxviii. How did the devil enter into the heart of Judas? he could not have entered, had not he given him place. Witham.—That the Scripture may be fulfilled: this does not any ways shew, that it was the will of God that Judas should be lost; but only that what happened to Judas was conformable to the prophecies, and not occasioned by them. Who will doubt, says Saint Augustine (lib. de Unit. Eccl. c. ix.) but that Judas might, if he pleased, have abstained from betraying Christ. But God foretold it, because he foresaw clearly the future perversity of his disposition. Calmet.—See above, (13:18) one of the principal passages of Scripture relative to the treachery of Judas, in which the traitor’s crime had been predicted.