Homilies on the Gospel of John 2

If it were John who was about to discourse to us and to speak to us his own words, it would be necessary to tell both of his family and his country and his upbringing.

But since it is God who through him speaks to the nature of men, it seems to me superfluous and needless to inquire into these things;

or rather, not even so is it superfluous, but on the contrary exceedingly necessary.

For when thou learnest who he was, and whence, and of what parents, and of what sort, and then hearest his voice and all his philosophy,

then thou shalt know well that these things were not his own, but of the divine power that moved his soul.

Of what country, then, was he? Of no country at all, but of a mean village and of a rather worthless region, one that produces nothing good.

For the scribes disparage Galilee, saying:

'Search and see, that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.'

And the true Israelite also disparages it, saying:

'Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?' And being of this land, he was not even from any notable district.

But neither was he from thence by any illustrious appellation, but the son of a poor fisherman;

so poor that he even brought his children to the same trade.

And ye all know that no craftsman would choose to make his son the heir of his own craft, unless poverty greatly compelled him;

and especially when the craft is a mean one.

And than fishermen nothing could be poorer, nor meaner, nor indeed more unlearned;

yet nevertheless even among these very men some are greater and some are lesser.

And this apostle of ours here too held the lower rank;

for he did not fish from the sea, but spent his time on a certain small lake, and it was while he was busy about it with his father and James his brother, mending their torn nets (which very thing itself was a mark of the utmost poverty), that Christ so called him.

As for outward education, it is possible even from these things to learn that he had no share whatever in it.

And besides, Luke also testifies, writing that he was not only unlettered but also unlearned;

for one so poor, who neither frequented the market-places, nor consorted with men of credit, but was nailed to his fishing—and if ever he did associate with anyone, it was with hucksters of fish and with cooks that he conversed—how was he likely to be any better disposed than the beasts and the brute animals? How could he but imitate the very speechlessness of the fishes themselves? This fisherman, then, who busied himself about lakes and nets and fishes, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, the son of a poor fisherman, and poor with the uttermost poverty, a private and unlettered man, and that with the uttermost lack of learning, who had learned letters neither before nor afterward, even after his coming to be with Christ—let us see what he utters, and concerning what things he discourses to us.

Is it, perhaps, about things in the fields? Or about things in the rivers? Or about contracts concerning fish? For these, perhaps, are the sort of things one expects to hear from a fisherman.

Yet of these things we shall hear nothing at all;

but rather the things that are in the heavens, and such as no one had ever learned before this man.

For he comes bringing to us doctrines so lofty, a way of life so excellent, and a wisdom such as befits one who speaks from the very treasures of the Spirit, [as though he had just now arrived from the heavens themselves;

or rather, it was not likely that even all those in heaven knew it, as I have already said before.]

Are these things, tell me, the words of a fisherman? Of an orator at all? Of a sophist or a philosopher? Of anyone trained in the wisdom that is from without? By no means.

For it does not belong to a merely human soul to philosophize thus concerning that incorruptible and blessed nature, concerning the powers that are after it, concerning immortality and boundless life, concerning the nature of bodies both mortal and of those that shall hereafter be immortal, concerning punishment, concerning the judgment to come, concerning the accountings that shall be—those in words, those in deeds, those in reasonings and in thought;

and to know what man is, and what the world is;

and what he is who is truly a man, and what he is who seems to be a man but is not.

For some of these things the followers of Plato and Pythagoras did indeed inquire into;

for as for the rest of the philosophers, we need make no mention of them at all;

so exceedingly ridiculous have they all thereby become.

But those who were more admired than the rest among them, and were believed to be the very leaders of that science—these most of all are so.

For which reason, having composed certain things concerning laws also, they wrote them down;

yet in all of it they were laughed to scorn more shamefully than children.

For by making the women common to all, and overturning life itself, and destroying the dignity of marriage, and legislating other such ridiculous things, they thus wasted their whole life.

And as for their doctrines concerning the soul, they left henceforth no excess of shame untried, saying that the souls of men become flies, and gnats, and shrubs, and asserting that God Himself is a soul, and behaving indecently in various other such ways.

And this is not the only thing worthy of accusation;

but also the great ebb and flow of their very words, like a strait.

For just as men carried this way and that in a strait, so they never stood upon the same ground, since they uttered everything from uncertain and precarious reasonings.

But not so this fisherman;

rather, he utters all things with certainty, and, as one standing upon a rock, is nowhere overturned.

For having been counted worthy to enter into the very sanctuaries, and having the Lord of all speaking within him, he suffered nothing human;

but those others were like men who had not been deemed worthy even in a dream to set foot within the royal palace, but spent their time outside in the marketplace with the rest of men, and, conjecturing about invisible things from their own thoughts, wandered in great error, wishing to discourse concerning things unspeakable; and like blind and drunken men, even in that very wandering they dashed against one another;

and not against one another only, but also against themselves, in many places continually changing their opinions even about the same matters.

But this unlettered man, this common person, this man from Bethsaida, this son of Zebedee—

even though the Greeks should mock ten thousand times at the rusticity of the names, none the less I will speak them with all the greater boldness;

for by so much as the nation appears to them barbarous and remote from Greek learning, by so much the more brilliant will our things appear.

For when the barbarous and unlearned man utters such things as no one of all the men upon earth ever comprehended, and not only utters them but also persuades—

and yet, even if this alone had been so, great would the wonder have been;

but now, in addition to this, he furnishes also another proof greater than this—that the things spoken are God-inspired—namely, that he persuades all his hearers throughout all time. Who will not marvel at the power dwelling within him? For this too is a very great proof, as I said, that he legislates nothing from himself.

This barbarian, then, by the writing of the Gospel took possession of the whole inhabited world; and with his body he occupied the midst of Asia, where of old all the members of the Greek confederacy pursued philosophy; and from there he is terrible to the demons, shining in the midst of his enemies, quenching their gloom, and pulling down the citadel of the demons;

and in soul he departed to that region which befits one who had accomplished such things.

And the things of the Greeks have all been quenched and made to vanish, but the things of this man become more brilliant with each passing day.

For from the time when both this man and the rest of the fishermen appeared, from that time the things of Pythagoras and those of Plato, which formerly seemed to prevail, have been silenced, and the multitude do not know them even by name;

and yet Plato even consorted with tyrants, being summoned, as they say, and had many companions, and sailed to Sicily;

while Pythagoras took possession of Greater Greece, and set in motion ten thousand kinds of sorcery.

For his conversing with oxen—for they say that he did even this—was nothing else but sorcery.

And this is most evident from the following:

for he who thus conversed with the brute beasts benefited the race of men in nothing, but rather did it the greatest harm.

And yet the nature of men was more fitted for the discourse of philosophy;

but nevertheless that man conversed, as they say, with eagles and with oxen, working sorcery.

For he did not make the irrational nature rational—for this is not possible for a man—but by his conjurings he deceived the foolish;

and, neglecting to teach men anything useful, he taught them that it was the same thing to eat beans and to eat the heads of one's own parents;

and he persuaded his associates that the soul of the teacher

at one time became a shrub, at another a maiden, at another a fish.

Were not all those things, then, quenched with good reason, and utterly made to vanish? With good reason, and according to reason.

But not so the things of the common and unlettered man;

rather, Syrians also, and Egyptians, and Indians, and Persians, and Ethiopians, and ten thousand other nations, translating into their own tongue the doctrines introduced by this man, learned—barbarous men though they were—to philosophize.

Not in vain, then, did I say that the whole inhabited world had become his theatre;

for he did not, neglecting his own kinsmen, toil vainly over the natures of the irrational beasts;

which would have been a mark of superfluous ambition and of the utmost folly;

but, being pure of this passion along with the others, he was zealous for one thing only—that the whole inhabited world might learn something useful and able to remove it from the earth to heaven.

For this reason he did not hide his teaching in any gloom and darkness, as those others did, casting the obscurity of their speech, like a kind of curtain, before the evils stored up within;

but the doctrines of this man are clearer than the rays of the sun;

wherefore they have also been spread out to all men throughout the inhabited world.

For he did not teach, as that man did, bidding those who came to him keep silence for five years, nor to sit beside him like senseless stones; nor did he fabricate myths, laying it down that the universe consists in numbers;

but, casting away all this satanic distastefulness and corruption, he mingled into his words such great facility that not only to men and to the intelligent, but also to women and to the young, all the things spoken are plain.

For he believed that these things were both true and useful to all who should hear them;

and all the time that has followed after him bears witness.

For he both drew to himself the whole inhabited world, and delivered our life from every strange and grotesque fable, after the hearing of these words.

Wherefore we who hear these things would sooner choose to depart from our very soul than from the doctrines which have been handed down to us by him.

And hence, then, and from every side, it is plain that nothing of this man's is human, but that the teachings which have come to us through this divine soul are both divine and heavenly.

For we shall behold in him no clatter of words, nor pomp of diction, nor a superfluous and useless ornamentation and arrangement of nouns and verbs—for these things are far removed from all true philosophy—but an invincible and divine strength, an irresistible power of right doctrines, and a supply of ten thousand good things.

For the elaborate care bestowed upon delivery was so superfluous, and worthy of sophists—or rather not even of sophists, but of foolish striplings—that even their own philosopher brought forward his teacher as being exceedingly ashamed of this art, and saying to the judges that they would hear from him words spoken simply and just as they chanced to come, not indeed dressed up with fine phrases, nor adorned with verbs and nouns.

'For surely it would not be seemly,' he says, 'O men, at this age of mine, like some stripling fashioning fine speeches, that I should come in before you.'

And behold the great absurdity.

For that very thing which he represented as shameful and unworthy of philosophy and a work of striplings, and which he made him flee from, this above all things he himself practised.

So everywhere they were bent on ambition alone;

and of Plato there is nothing to admire except this alone.

And just as with tombs that are whitewashed on the outside, if you strip off their covering you will see them full of gore and stench and rotting bones,

so too the doctrines of the philosopher, if you strip away the beauty of their diction, you will see them filled with much abomination—and most of all when he philosophizes about the soul, at one moment honoring it beyond measure and at another blaspheming it.

For this is the devil's snare: nowhere to keep due measure, but by excesses on either side to lead those caught by it into impiety.

For at one time he says that it is of the very substance of God;

but at another, having thus exalted it beyond measure and impiously, he again insults it with an opposite excess, bringing it down into swine and asses and animals yet more dishonorable than these.

Or rather, even these things were said beyond due measure.

If it were a matter of learning from them, one would need to dwell on it at greater length;

but if it be only to survey their unseemliness and absurdity, then even what we have said has been spoken by us more than was needful.

For this reason, leaving aside their fables, let us lay hold of our own doctrines, which have been brought down to us from above through the tongue of this fisherman—doctrines that have in them nothing human.

Come then, let us bring forward the very words, and let us also now remind you of what we urged at the outset—namely, to attend with exactness to the things that are said.

What, then, does this evangelist immediately say at the beginning? 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.'

Do you see the boldness and great authority of his words? How he speaks nothing doubtingly, nor by conjecture, but declares everything with assurance? For this is the mark of a teacher: not to be carried about in whatever he says.

For if one who is to guide others should himself need another able to establish him securely, he would rightly hold the rank not of teachers but of disciples.

But if someone should say, 'Why ever, having left the first cause, has he immediately discoursed to us about the second?'—we shall decline to speak of 'first' and 'second';

for the Divine is above number and above sequence of times.

Wherefore we have declined these expressions as well;

but we confess a Father who is from none, and a Son begotten of the Father.

Why ever, then, leaving the Father, does he discourse concerning the Son? Because the former was manifest to all, if not as Father, yet as God;

wherefore he fittingly hastened at once, from the very preface, to implant the knowledge concerning the latter in those who did not know Him;

and moreover neither did he pass over the Father in silence in his words concerning these matters.

And consider with me his spiritual understanding.

He knew that men most of all honor and account as God that which is more ancient and prior to all things.

For this reason he makes his beginning from here first, and as he proceeds he says that He is also God;

and not as Plato does, calling the one Mind and the other Soul;

for these things are far removed from the divine and undefiled nature.

For it has nothing in common with us, but has withdrawn from all communion with the creation—I mean communion according to substance, though not that according to relation.

It was for this very reason that he also called Him 'Word.'

For since he is about to teach that this Word is the only-begotten Son of God, in order that no one might suppose the generation to be subject to passion, by anticipating this with the appellation of 'Word' he removes every wicked suspicion, showing both that the Son is from Him and that this is without passion.

Do you see that, as I said, neither did he pass over the Father in silence in his words concerning the Son? But if these examples do not suffice to present the whole matter, do not marvel;

for our discourse is concerning God, whom it is possible neither to speak of nor to conceive of according to His worth.

Wherefore this man too nowhere sets down a name of His substance;

for neither is it possible to say what in His very substance God is;

but everywhere he makes Him known to us from His operations.

And this Word one may see, a little later, also called Light, and the Light again named Life.

Yet it was not for this cause alone that he thus named Him;

but for a second cause also, since He was about to announce to us the things of the Father.

'For all things,' He says, 'whatsoever I have heard from the Father, I have declared unto you.'

And he calls Him both Life and Light;

for He has bestowed on us the light that comes from knowledge, and the life that springs therefrom.

And in short, there is no single name sufficient, nor two nor three, nor yet more, to teach the things concerning God;

but we must be content if through many names we are able, even dimly, to grasp the attributes that belong to Him.

And he did not simply call Him 'Word,' but with the addition of the article, distinguishing Him from the rest by this means also.

Do you see how not in vain did I say that this evangelist speaks to us from the heavens? See then, at once from the very preface, whither he has borne up the soul, having given it wings, and lifted up the mind of his hearers.

For having set it above all sensible things—before earth, before sea, before heaven—he leads it by the hand above the angels, and above the Cherubim and the Seraphim, and above the Thrones, and above the Principalities, and above the Powers, and simply beyond all

creation he persuades it to journey.

What then? Having led us up to so great a height, was he able there at least to make us stand? By no means;

but just as if one were to take a man standing by the shore, gazing at cities and headlands and harbors, and, when he has brought him into the midst of the open sea, he removes him from the former sights but does not fix his eye upon anything, but leads it into boundless contemplation;

so too the evangelist, having led us up above all creation, and sent us on to the ages that are above it, leaves the eye suspended aloft, not granting it to lay hold of any end in the upward direction, since there is none.

For the discourse, having gone up to a beginning, seeks what kind of beginning;

then finding the 'was,' ever outstripping its own thought, it has nowhere to set the reasoning to rest, but gazing intently and being nowhere able to stop, it grows weary and turns back again to the things below.

For the phrase 'In the beginning was' is nothing else than indicative of His being always and being without end.

Do you see true philosophy and divine doctrines—not such as those of the Greeks, who set up times, and say that some of their gods are elder and some younger? But among us there is nothing of the kind.

For if He is God, as indeed He is, there is nothing before Him;

if He is the Maker of all things, He Himself is first;

if He is Master and Lord of all, then all things are after Him, both creatures and ages.

I could wish to enter also into other contests;

but perhaps our understanding has grown weary.

Wherefore, having exhorted you to those things which are profitable to you both for the hearing of what has been said and for the hearing of what shall be said, I will again keep silence.

What then are these things? I know that many have grown dizzy at the length of what has been said.

And this happens whenever the soul is weighed down with many burdens of life.

For just as the eye, when it is clean and clear, is keen-sighted and would not easily grow weary in discerning even the finest of bodies, but when some evil humor flows down from the head, or a smoky vapor is sent up from below, and a dense cloud arises before the pupil, it can no longer clearly make out even the coarser objects;

so also it is wont to happen in the case of the soul.

For when it happens to be purified and has no passion troubling it, it gazes intently upon the things it ought to behold;

but when, being clouded by many passions, it loses its own virtue, it cannot easily suffice for any of the lofty things, but quickly grows weary and sinks down, and inclining to sleep and sloth, it neglects the things pertaining to virtue and to the life that comes therefrom, and does not admit them with much eagerness.

That you too may not suffer this (for I will not cease ever exhorting these things), strengthen your minds, lest you hear the same words which the believers among the Hebrews heard from Paul.

For to them also he said that the discourse had become long and hard to explain—not because it was such by nature, but because, he says, 'you have become dull in your hearing.'

For he who is weak and sickly is wont to be troubled by brevity as by prolixity, and thinks that things clear and easily resolved are hard to grasp.

But let no one here be such;

rather, having driven away every care of this life, let him thus hearken to these doctrines.

For when the desire of riches possesses the hearer, he could not likewise be possessed also by a desire of listening, since one soul does not suffice for many desires, but the one damages the other, and being divided it becomes weaker, as the one prevails and consumes the whole into itself.

This is wont to happen even in the case of children.

For when a man has but one child, he loves that one to excess;

but when he has become the father of many children, his affection, being divided, grows weaker.

Now if this happens where there is a natural bond and force, and where the objects of love are kin,

what shall we say concerning a desire and disposition that follows deliberate choice, and especially when these loves stand opposed to one another? For the love of money is contrary to the love of such instruction as this.

We enter into heaven when we come in hither.

I speak not of the place, but of the disposition;

for it is possible, even while on earth, to stand in heaven, and to have visions of the things there, and to hear the things from thence.

Let no one, then, bring the things of earth into heaven;

let no one, while standing here, be anxious about the affairs of his household.

For the house and the market-place ought to carry about and possess the gains from hence, not that this place should be weighed down by the burdens from the house and the market-place.

For this reason we come to the throne of teaching, that we may here wash off the filth from without.

But if we are going to defile even this brief leisure by the things said or done without, it were better not to have entered at all.

Let no one, therefore, while in church, ponder the affairs of his household; but rather, while in his household, let him stir up the affairs of the church.

Let these things be more precious to us than all else.

For these things belong to the soul, but those to the body;

or rather, the things spoken here concern both body and soul.

For this reason, let these be our principal works, and all the rest but secondary matters.

For these things belong both to the life to come and to the present life;

but those belong to neither, unless they are ordered according to the law laid down concerning them.

For it is not only what we shall be hereafter, and how we shall then live, that it is possible to learn from hence, but also how we shall order our present life.

For this house stands as a spiritual hospital, that whatever wounds we receive from without, we may here have them healed;

not that, having gathered other wounds even from hence, we should so depart.

For if, when the Holy Spirit is discoursing to us, we give no heed, not only shall we not wash away our former sins, but we shall also take on others besides.

Let us, then, attend with great diligence to the book which is being unfolded to us.

For we shall no longer need much labour, if we learn its beginnings and foundations with exactness;

but having toiled a little at the outset, we shall be able for the rest, like Paul, to admonish others also.

For this Apostle is exceedingly lofty, and full of many doctrines, and he dwells upon these more than upon other things.

For this reason we too expound little by little, that everything may become easy for you to grasp and may not escape your memory.

Let us fear, then, lest we ever become liable to that voice which says:

'If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin.'

For what advantage shall we have over those who have not heard, when even after the hearing we go home holding nothing, but only marvelling at the things spoken? Grant us, then, to sow upon good ground;

grant it, that you may draw us on the more.

And if anyone has thorns, let him apply the fire of the Spirit;

if anyone has a hard and stubborn heart, let him make it soft and tender by using that same fire.

If anyone lies along the wayside, trodden by all manner of thoughts, let him withdraw to the inner parts, and not lie exposed to those who wish to come and plunder him, that we may see your crops in full head of grain.

For if we thus take care of ourselves, and with diligent effort cleave to this spiritual hearing, then, even if not all at once, yet little by little we shall be delivered from all worldly cares.

Wherefore let us attend, that it may not be said even of us that:

'Their ears are like those of a deaf asp.'

In what does such a hearer differ from a wild beast? Tell me.

And how would he not be more irrational than any irrational creature, who gives no heed when God is discoursing? For if to be well-pleasing to God is what it means to be a man,

then he who is not even willing to hear how he might accomplish this is nothing other than a wild beast.

Consider, then, how great an evil it would be, when Christ wills to make us from men into equals of the angels, for us to change ourselves from men into wild beasts.

For to be a slave to the belly, and to be held fast by the desire for money, and to be angry and to bite and to kick, is the mark not of men but of beasts.

And yet the beasts, each one, so to speak, has but a single passion, and that according to nature;

but the man who has cast out the rule of reason and has broken away from the manner of life that is according to God, gives himself over to all the passions;

and he becomes no longer merely a beast, but some many-formed and manifold monster, and does not even have the excuse that comes from nature.

For all wickedness is a matter of deliberate choice and purpose.

But God forbid that we should ever suspect such things concerning the Church of Christ;

for we are persuaded better things of you, and things that pertain to salvation.

But the more we are persuaded of this, the less shall we hold back from words of forewarning;

that, having ascended to the very summit of the virtues, we may attain the good things that have been promised;

which may it be for us all to attain, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.