Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Second Sunday of Easter

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:21–23)


To the extent that light is more appealing after darkness, that serenity is more appealing after a gloomy storm, to the same extent is joy more welcome after grief. He said to them again: “Peace be with you” (v. 21). What does this repetition in bestowing peace mean, except that He wants the tranquillity that He had announced to their minds individually also to be kept collectively among them by granting peace repeatedly? He knew, at any rate, that they were going to have far from insignificant struggles in the future stemming from his delay, with one boasting that he had persevered in faith, and another in grief because he had doubted.… Peter denies, John flees, Thomas doubts, all forsake him: unless Christ had granted forgiveness for these transgressions by his peace, even Peter, who was the first in rank of all of them, would be considered inferior, and would perhaps be undeserving of His subsequent elevation to the primacy.

The mention of His having been sent does not diminish Him as Son, but declares that what He wants to be understood here is not the power of the One who sends, but the charity of the One who has been sent, since He says: Just as the Father, not the Lord, has sent me, so I send you no longer with the authority of a Master, but with all the affection of a Lover. I send you to endure hunger, to suffer the burden of being in chains, to the squalor of prison, to bear all kinds of punishments, and to undergo bitter death for all: all of which certainly charity, and not power, enjoins on human minds.

Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 84.5–6

What truly wonderful gifts! Indeed, it does not only give the power over the elements and the faculty to make signs and wonders but also concedes that God may name them [judges], and therefore the servants receive from Him the authority that is proper to Him. The prerogative to absolve and retain sins only belongs to God, and the Jews sometimes raised this objection with the Savior, saying, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” The Lord generously gave this authority to those who honored Him.

Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on John