CHAPTER XX. Answer to the objection based on S. John xii. 31.

[Note that there are two readings : "cast out," and "cast down," and that the words which follow are: "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself."

"World" does not mean all creation (which is subject to God), but men, who can subject themselves to some one else. And "ruler" does not mean the Creator, but an arch-demon that by guile rules man (who may be termed "the world within the world" ¹⁰³).

The verse means that Christ came to free them from his tyranny, casting him out and down from it. His rule was only recent, and not universal. He is said to rule "the world," although only "man" is meant, and there is more in the world than man.

For this identification of whole and part, we may compare the saying that a man is ill when one limb is so, or that all a cloak is poor because a tassel is lost. If |48 it means everything that exists, we must remember that there are things invisible as well, thrones and powers, etc. Inspired language similarly uses whole for part, as when S. Paul says, "I am crucified to the world." He does not mean all the world, but the evil and fleshly part of it. If then S. Paul calls the fleshly side, which he painfully crucified, "the world," it was natural that the Saviour, when His cross was set up, should speak similarly of the weak and wavering human race.

Such was Christ's judgment in dividing men from their deceiver. Their former ruler was cast down, but they themselves were to be drawn upwards, as is suggested in v. 32. For He took a human body as the cord with which to judge His kin, and, binding it to His Godhead, He drew men up to heavenly abodes (for the race is bound to that body of His as by a rope, and drawn upward).

The "casting down" of the world's tyrant is not literal, but metaphorical. Supposing an earthly king passes judgment on one in authority, his fall is not from a hill or a housetop, but from his own power. He may still remain in the palace, but his authority is gone. So is it with the "strongman" whom Christ, as the "stronger man," cast down from his earthly power.]