Homilies on the Gospel of John 3

As for attentiveness in hearing, it is henceforth superfluous to exhort you;

so quickly did you display the exhortation in your deeds.

For your gathering together, and the intentness of your standing, and your pressing one another as you strive to seize the inner place, and wherever the voice from us might reach you more distinctly, and your unwillingness to withdraw though hard-pressed, until this spiritual theatre be dissolved, and the applause, and the acclamations, and, in a word, all such things, would be a proof of the warmth in your soul and of your love of listening.

Wherefore it is even superfluous to give charge about this;

yet that other thing it is necessary for us to say and to urge, namely, that you continue to hold this zeal;

and not to display it here only, but also when you are at home, the husband to converse with the wife, the father with the child, concerning these matters;

and to speak the things from himself, and to require the things from them, and let all bring in this good contribution.

For let no one say to me that our children ought not to be occupied with these things;

for they ought not only to be occupied with them, but even to have their zeal in these things alone.

Nevertheless, because of your weakness I do not say this, nor do I lead them away from outward learning, just as neither do I draw you away from your civic affairs.

But out of these seven days I ask that one be dedicated to the Master who is common to us all.

For how is it not absurd that we should require our servants to serve us all their time, while we do not assign even the lesser leisure to God, and that too when all that service adds nothing to Him (for the Divine is without need), but redounds to our own profit? But when you lead them to the theatres, you put forward neither lessons nor any other such excuse;

but if it be needful to gain and gather in something of spiritual things, you call the matter an untimely occupation.

And how will you not provoke God, while you have leisure for and assign time to all other things, yet think that to handle the things of God is troublesome and inopportune for your children? Not so, brethren, not so.

For it is precisely this age that has most need of these instructions.

For being tender, it quickly stores up the things spoken, the hearing being stamped upon their minds as though by a seal upon wax.

Besides, their life then has its beginning to incline either toward wickedness or toward virtue.

If, then, one should lead them away from the very beginnings and forecourts of wickedness, and take them by the hand toward the noblest way, he will thereafter establish them, as it were, in a certain habit and second nature;

and they will not readily, even of their own will, change back for the worse, since this habit draws them toward the working of what is good.

In this way they will become more venerable to us than the aged, and more useful in civic affairs, displaying in youth the qualities of the elders.

For it is not possible, as I said before, for those who enjoy such teaching and keep company with so great an apostle to depart without having received some great and noble good—whether it be a man, a woman, or a youth who partakes of this table.

For if we tame the wild beasts among us by ordering them with reason, how much more shall we accomplish this with men by means of this spiritual teaching, when the distance between the remedy and the one being treated is so great? For the savagery in us is not so great as that in them;

for the one belongs to nature, but the other to deliberate choice;

nor is the strength of the words the same.

For that is of human understanding, but this is of the power of the Spirit and of grace.

Let him, therefore, who despairs of himself consider the tamed beasts, and never let him despair of this.

Let him come continually to this place of healing, let him listen to the laws of the Spirit through all the season, and when he goes home let him inscribe upon his mind the things he has heard;

and thus he will be in good hope and great security, perceiving by experience his own progress. For when the devil sees the law of God inscribed upon the soul, and the heart become tablets of it, he will no longer approach.

For where there are royal writings—not engraved on a bronze pillar, but stamped by the Holy Spirit upon a God-loving mind and shining with much grace—there he will not even be able to look them in the face, but from afar off will turn his back upon us.

For nothing is so terrible to him and to the reasonings he suggests as a mind meditating on divine things, and a soul that dwells continually at this fountain.

For such a soul nothing of present things will be able to grieve, however unpleasant it may be, nor to puff up and exalt, however favorable it may be;

but even in so great a storm and tempest it will enjoy much calm.

For the tumult arises in us not from the nature of things, but from the weakness of our own mind.

Since, if we suffered this because of what befalls us, all men would necessarily be thrown into confusion.

For we all sail the same sea, and it is impossible to be outside the waves and the salt spray.

But if there are some who stand outside the storm and the raging sea, it is quite clear that it is not circumstances that make the storm, but the condition of our own mind.

If, then, we so prepare it as to bear all things easily, there will be no storm for us, nor surge, since the calm is ever bright.

But indeed I know not how, though I had purposed to say nothing on these matters, I have been carried away so far into this exhortation.

Forgive us, therefore, for this length of speech.

For indeed I fear, and greatly fear, lest this zeal of ours become too feeble;

for if I were confident concerning it, I would have discoursed to you now of none of these things;

for it is sufficient to make all things easy for you.

But it is now time at last to proceed to the matters set before us today, that you may not fall wearied upon the contests.

For contests lie before us against the enemies of the truth, against those who contrive all things to overthrow the glory of the Son of God—or rather, their own glory.

For that glory abides forever, just as it is, in no way diminished by the blasphemous tongue;

but they, while striving to overthrow the very one they claim to worship, fill their own faces with dishonor and their soul with punishment.

What, then, are the things they say, when we affirm this? They say that the phrase 'In the beginning was the Word' does not simply prove eternity;

for this was said also concerning heaven and concerning earth.

O the shamelessness and the great irreverence!

I discourse to you concerning God, and you bring the earth into the midst for me, and the men who are of the earth? Then, since Christ is called Son of God and God, and man too is called son of God and god (for 'I said, You are gods,' He says, 'and all of you sons of the Most High'), will you contend with the Only-begotten over sonship, and say that in this respect He has nothing more than you? By no means, he says.

And yet you do this very thing, even if you do not say it in words.

How? Because you too say that He shares in the adoption by grace, just as you do;

for by not calling Him Son by nature, you establish nothing other than that He is such by grace.

But nevertheless let us also examine the testimonies which they bring forward to us.

'In the beginning,' it says, 'He made the heaven and the earth.'

'And the earth was invisible and unformed.'

And, 'There was a man of Armathaim Sipha.'

These are the things which they suppose to be strong;

but as for demonstrating the rightness of the doctrines proclaimed by us,

and as for establishing their blasphemy, these are somehow the feeblest of all.

For what, tell me, has 'He made' in common with 'was'? And what has God to do with man? Why do you mingle things that will not mix, and confound things that are distinct, and make the things above to be below? For here the word 'was' does not indicate eternity only, but also 'In the beginning was,' and 'The Word was.'

For just as the word 'being,' when it is spoken of a man, denotes the present time only,

but when it is spoken of God, indicates eternity;

so also the word 'was,' when spoken concerning

our nature, signifies for us past time, and that itself limited;

but when it is spoken concerning God, it manifests eternity.

It would have sufficed, then, on hearing 'earth' and on hearing 'man,' to suspect nothing more concerning them than what it befits us to conceive of their created nature.

For whatever has come to be, whatever it may be, has come to be in time or in an age;

but the Son of God is higher not only than all times, but also than all ages.

For He is their Creator and Maker;

for 'through whom,' it says, 'He also made the ages.'

And the maker is altogether prior to the things made.

But since some are so insensible as even after these things to imagine something greater than their worth concerning them, by the word 'He made' and the word 'a man was,' he forestalls the mind of the hearer and cuts off all shamelessness.

For everything that has been made, both heaven and earth, has been made in time, and has a temporal beginning, and none of these is without beginning, since it has come to be.

So that, since it says 'He made the earth' and that 'a man was,' you thereafter babble superfluously, winding out some useless nonsense.

For I might state yet another, an extreme case.

What, then, is this? That even if it had been said concerning the earth, 'In the beginning was the earth,' and concerning man, that 'In the beginning was the man,' not even so ought we to suspect anything greater concerning them than what is now known.

For the appellation 'earth' and 'man,' coming first, does not permit the mind, whatever may be said concerning them, to imagine anything greater about them than what we now know;

just as neither does the Word, even if some small thing be said concerning Him, permit us to conceive anything lowly and mean;

since further on too he says concerning the earth:

'And the earth was invisible and unformed.'

For having said that He made it, and having set for it its proper limit, he thereafter utters without fear what follows, knowing that no one is so senseless as to suspect it to be without beginning and uncreated.

For the name 'earth' and the word 'He made' are sufficient to persuade even the exceedingly foolish that it is not eternal nor uncreated, but belongs to the things that have come to be in time.

But apart from these things, the word 'was,' in the case of the earth and of man, is not simply indicative of existence;

but in the case of the man, of his being from this particular place;

and in the case of the earth, of how it was.

For it did not say, 'And the earth was,' simply, and then fall silent;

But how, even after it had come to be, did he teach concerning it — namely, that it was invisible and unformed, still hidden and mingled beneath the waters?

And in the case of Elkanah, he did not merely say, 'There was a man,' but he added also whence he was, indicating that he was from Ramathaim-Zophim.

But concerning the Word it is not so.

And I am indeed ashamed to be weighing these things against those.

For if we rebuke those who do this in the case of men, when there is a great gulf between the virtue of those being compared — and that though their substance is one —

how, when both in nature and in all else the gulf between them is thus infinite, is it not the utmost madness to raise such questions? But may He who is blasphemed by them be gracious to us.

For the necessity of such arguments we ourselves did not devise, but those who war against their own salvation have furnished it to us.

What then do I say? That this word 'was,' in the case of the Word, signifies only that He exists eternally.

For 'In the beginning was the Word,' he says.

And the second 'was' signifies His being toward Someone.

For since this above all is proper to God — to be eternal and without beginning — he set this down first.

Then, lest anyone hearing 'was in the beginning' should also call Him unbegotten, he at once forestalled it: before saying what He was, he said that He was toward God.

And lest anyone should suppose Him to be simply a spoken or an inward word, by the addition of the article — as I said before — and through this second clause he did away with that notion.

For he did not say 'was in God,' but 'was toward God,' thereby revealing to us His eternity according to His hypostasis.

Then, as he proceeded, he revealed it yet more plainly, adding that this Word also was God.

What then hindered him from saying this, that 'in the beginning God made the Word'? Indeed, when Moses discourses about the earth, he did not say, 'In the beginning was the earth,' but that God 'made it,' and then it was.

What then hindered John also from speaking thus, that 'in the beginning God made the Word'? For if,

concerning the earth, Moses feared this, lest anyone should call it uncreated,

much more ought John to have been afraid concerning the Son, if indeed He were created.

For the world, being visible, of itself proclaims its Maker (for 'the heavens,' he says, 'declare the glory of God');

but the Son is invisible, and has surpassed the whole creation exceedingly and infinitely.

If therefore, where we needed neither word nor teaching to learn that the world is created, the Prophet nevertheless set this down clearly and before all else,

much more ought John to have said this concerning the Son, if indeed He were created;

but Peter said this plainly and expressly.

Where and when? When, discoursing to the Jews, he said that 'God made Him both Lord and Christ.'

Why then did you not add what follows, that 'this Jesus whom you crucified'? Or are you ignorant that of the things spoken, some belong to the undefiled nature, and others to the dispensation? But if this is not so, and you take everything simply as referring to the Godhead, you will introduce a passible Deity too;

and if not passible, then neither made.

For if the blood flowed out of that divine and ineffable nature itself, and if it, instead of flesh, was divided and cut by the nails at the cross, your sophistry might have some ground on this point.

But if not even the devil himself would blaspheme this, why do you pretend to be ignorant of an ignorance so unpardonable — one which not even the demons would feign? Besides, 'Lord' and 'Christ' are terms not of substance, but of dignity.

For the one belongs to authority, and the other to being anointed.

What then would you say concerning the Son of God? For even if He were created, according to you, this would have no place;

for surely He did not first come into being, and then God appointed Him;

nor does He hold His sovereignty as something cast off from without, but by nature and essentially.

For when He was asked whether He were a king, He says, 'For this I have been born.'

But Peter discourses as concerning one who had been appointed.

For his whole discourse is concerning the dispensation.

And why do you marvel if Peter says this? For Paul, when discoursing to the Athenians, calls Him only a man, speaking thus:

'By a man whom He appointed, having given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead';

and he says nothing about the form of God, nor that He is equal to Him, nor that He is the radiance of His glory;

for it was not yet the time for these words, but it was to be welcomed if they would meanwhile accept that He is a man, and that He rose again.

So also Christ Himself did.

From Him Paul also, having learned, thus ordered his affairs.

For He did not at once reveal to us His Godhead, but at first was thought to be a prophet, and Christ, and simply a man;

but later, through His works and His words, He was manifested to be that which He was.

For this reason Peter also, in the beginning, used this manner of speech;

for indeed this was the first public address he delivered to the Jews.

For since they were not yet able to learn anything clear concerning His Godhead, on this account he dwells upon the words concerning the dispensation, so that their hearing, being exercised by these, might prepare the way for the rest of the teaching.

And if anyone should be willing to go through the whole address from the beginning, he will find this which I say shining forth exceedingly.

For he too calls Him a man, and dwells upon the words concerning His passion, and His resurrection, and His birth according to the flesh.

And Paul too, when he says:

'Who came of the seed of David according to the flesh,' teaches us nothing else than that the word 'made' is to be taken with reference to the dispensation — which we also confess.

But the son of thunder now discourses to us concerning His ineffable and pre-eternal existence.

For this reason, leaving aside the word 'made,' he set down the word 'was.'

But if He were created, he ought above all to have defined this.

For if Paul feared lest any of the foolish should suspect that the Son would be greater than the Father, and would have His Begetter subject to Him —

for on this account, writing to the Corinthians, he said:

'But when He says that all things are put in subjection, it is manifest that He is excepted who put all things in subjection under Him';

and yet who would suppose that the Father would ever be made subject to the Son, together with all things? But nevertheless, though he feared even these unreasonable surmises, he says, 'except

Him who put all things in subjection under Him';

much more ought John, if the Son of God were created, to have been afraid lest anyone should think Him uncreated, and to have taught this before all else.

But as it is, since He was begotten, fittingly neither he himself nor anyone else — no apostle, no prophet — said that He was created.

And the Only-begotten Himself would not have passed over it, if this had been the case.

For He who uttered things so lowly by way of condescension, much more would not have kept silent about this.

For I think it not unlikely that one who possessed the exalted state should be silent about it, rather than that one not possessing it should pass this over, and not teach that he does not possess it.

For in the former case there was a reasonable ground for silence — the wish to teach men to be humble-minded, and on this account to keep silent about the great things belonging to Him;

but here you could allege no just ground for the silence.

For on what account would He have been silent, if He were created, about His having come into being — He who declined even many of the things that belonged to Him? So that He who, for the sake of teaching humility, often spoke lowly things that did not even belong to Him, much more, if He were created, would not have passed this over.

Or do you not see Him, in order that no one might suppose Him unbegotten, doing and saying all things for this end, and uttering things unworthy of His dignity and His substance, and descending to the lowliness of a prophet? For the saying, 'As I hear, I judge,'

and the saying, 'He told me what I should say and what I should speak,' and all such sayings, belong to prophets only.

If then, desiring to remove this suspicion, He did not disdain to utter words so lowly;

Much more, if He were created, would He have said many such things, lest anyone should suspect Him to be uncreated;

such as, 'Do not think that I was begotten of the Father;

I have been made, not begotten, nor am I of His essence.'

But now He does the very opposite;

for He utters those words which compel even the unwilling and reluctant to receive the contrary understanding, such as, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me;'

and, 'Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father;'

and, 'That all should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.'

'As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will.'

'My Father works until now, and I work.'

'As the Father knows Me, so I also know the Father.'

And everywhere by setting down the 'as' and the 'so,' and by being one with the Father, He declares His exact likeness to Him;

while His own authority He shows both through these sayings and through many others besides;

'I say to you, dumb and deaf spirit, come out of him.'

And the saying, 'You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not kill;'

but I say to you, that whoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable.'

And all the other such things which He enacts as law and works as miracles are sufficient to display His authority;

or rather, the least fraction of them is enough to win over and persuade those who are not exceedingly senseless.

But indeed vainglory is a terrible thing, able to blind the mind of those captured by it even to things exceedingly manifest, and to persuade them to contend against what is confessed;

and others, though they know the truth full well and are convinced of it, it anoints for hypocrisy and resistance.

These things happened also in the case of the Jews;

for it was not through ignorance that they denied the Son of God, but that they might obtain honour from the many.

For 'they believed on Him,' it says, 'but they feared lest they should be put out of the synagogue,' and they set their own salvation before that of others.

For it is not possible, it is not possible, for one who is so vehemently a slave to present glory to attain the glory that comes from God.

Wherefore also He rebuked them, saying,

'How can you believe, who receive glory from men, and seek not the glory that comes from God?' For it is a kind of deep drunkenness;

and this is why this passion makes the one it masters hard to recover.

This, having torn the soul of those it captures away from the heavens, nails it to the earth, and does not permit it to look up to the true light, but persuades it to wallow perpetually in the mire, thus fashioning for them masters

so powerful that they rule over them without any commands.

For he who is sick with this disease, even with no one commanding, does of his own accord everything that he supposes will please his lords.

For he puts on fine garments for their sake, and beautifies his appearance, pursuing this not for himself but for others, and leads attendants about the marketplace, that he may be admired by others;

and everything that he does he endures for the sake of pleasing others alone.

Could there be any passion more grievous than this? That others may admire him, he is continually flung down headlong.

Now the things spoken by Christ are indeed sufficient to display all its tyranny;

but nevertheless it is possible to perceive it from this also.

For if you should be willing to ask one of those engaged in public life who spend lavish expenditures, why they pour out so much gold, and what all this outlay means to them, you will hear nothing else from them but the pleasing of the populace.

And if again you should ask what in the world the populace is, they will say, A thing full of tumult and confusion, composed for the most part of folly, borne along at random like the waves of the sea, often made up of varied and conflicting opinion.

When, therefore, someone has such a master, who would not be more pitiable than he? But that worldly men should be enraptured about these things is not so terrible;

but that those who say they have leaped free of the world should be sick with the same disease, or rather with a worse one, this is what is especially terrible.

For with those the loss goes only as far as money;

but here the danger reaches as far as the soul.

For when for the sake of glory they exchange right faith, and, that they themselves may be glorified, dishonour God, what excess of stupidity and madness would this deed not surpass? Tell me.

The other passions, then, even if they bring much harm, yet bring at least some pleasure, even if temporary and brief.

For the lover of money, and the lover of wine, and the lover of women, have along with the harm also some pleasure, even if brief;

but the captives of this passion live a life throughout embittered and deprived of pleasure.

For they do not attain that which they so vehemently love, namely the glory that comes from the many;

but they seem indeed to enjoy it, yet do not enjoy it, because the thing is not even glory at all.

For this reason too the passion is called not glory, but a thing empty of glory;

and all the ancients too fittingly named it vainglory.

For it is hollow, having nothing within it splendid or worthy of glory.

But just as masks seem indeed to be splendid and lovely, yet within are empty;

wherefore, though they are fairer than the bodily countenances, they have never drawn anyone to the love of them;

so, or rather more wretchedly, has the glory that comes from the many fashioned in us this passion, hard to overcome and tyrannical.

For it has a splendid appearance only, but its inward parts are no longer merely empty, but are full of dishonour and teem with savage tyranny.

Whence, then, is this passion born, being thus irrational and having no pleasure, one asks? Whence? From nowhere else than from a lowly and worthless soul.

For it is not possible for one who is captured by glory to conceive quickly anything great and noble;

but he must be base, and worthless, and dishonourable, and small.

For he who does nothing for the sake of virtue, but in order to please men who are worthy of no account, and everywhere casts in their erring and wandering vote, how could he be worth anything? But consider.

But you, what do you think the many are? Clearly he will say they are careless and negligent.

And what then? Would you choose to become like them? If one should ask him again, he does not seem to me to wish to become so.

How then is it not the utmost absurdity to hunt after the glory of those to whom you would never choose to be made like?

And if you should say that they are many and banded together, for this very reason especially one ought to despise them.

For if, being by themselves, they are contemptible, when they become many, this will come to pass all the more.

For the folly of each one, when they are gathered together, becomes greater, being magnified by the multitude.

Wherefore, if one should take them singly, one might sometimes even set them right;

but one would not be able to do so easily, because the folly is intensified, and they are led like cattle, and everywhere follow one another's opinions.

Will you then, tell me, contend for this glory that comes from the many? Do not, I beg and entreat you.

For this has turned all things upside down;

this has given birth to greed, envy, accusation, plots;

this arms and makes savage those who have suffered no wrong against those who have done no wrong.

And he who has fallen into this disease knows neither friendship, nor remembers acquaintance, nor knows at all how to respect anyone;

But having cast away from his soul all that is good, he is set at war with all men, being unstable and without natural affection.

And as for the passion of anger, even though it too is something tyrannical and unbearable, yet it is not wont to trouble us continually, but only when it has those who provoke it.

But that of vainglory is present at all times, and there is no season, so to speak, in which it can cease, unless reason restrains and represses it; rather it is ever at hand, not only persuading us to sin, but even, if we chance to achieve some good, snatching this too out of our hands, and there are times when it does not even permit us to accomplish it at the outset.

And if Paul calls covetousness idolatry,

then what would it be just to name the mother and root and fountain of covetousness — I mean vainglory? For it is not possible to find an appellation worthy of such a vice.

Let us therefore be sober, beloved, and let us strip off this wicked garment, and rend it and cut it away, and let us at last become free with the true freedom, and let us take perception of the nobility given to us by God;

let us despise the glory of the many.

For nothing is so ridiculous and dishonorable as this passion;

nothing is so full of shame and great disrepute.

And this one may see from many considerations, that to love glory is dishonor, but true glory is to despise it and to make no account of it, but to say and do all things with a view to what seems good to God.

For thus shall we be able to receive a reward also from Him who beholds our affairs exactly, when we are content with Him alone as our spectator.

For what need have we of other eyes, when He who is to honor us always beholds the things done by us? And how is it not absurd that a servant should do all whatever he does to please his master, and seek nothing more than his master's regard, nor draw other eyes to his action, however great the beholders may be, but look to this one thing only, how his master may behold it;

yet that we, having such a Lord, should seek other spectators — those who can profit us nothing, but from their beholding can only harm us and empty out all our labor? Let it not be, I beseech you;

but let us call Him the praiser of our deeds from whom we are to receive our rewards; let us make Him our spectator.

Let us have nothing to do with the eyes of men.

For if we should wish to obtain this glory also, then shall we obtain it, when we seek that which comes from God alone.

For 'Those who glorify Me,' He says, 'I will glorify.'

And just as we are then most abundant in wealth, when we despise it and seek only the riches that come from God (for 'Seek,' He says, 'the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you');

so also in the matter of glory: when henceforth the gift, both of wealth and of glory, is without danger to us, then will God lavish it upon us.

And it is then without danger, when it does not master us, nor get the better of us, nor lord it over us as over slaves, but comes to us as to masters and free men.

For this reason He does not even wish us to love these things, that we may not be mastered by them.

And if we accomplish this, He gives them to us with great abundance.

For what is more illustrious than Paul, tell me, who said:

'We seek not glory from men, neither from you nor from others'? And what is more abounding than one who has nothing, yet possesses all things? For when, as I said, we are not mastered by them, then shall we master them, then shall we receive them.

If therefore we desire to attain glory, let us flee from glory;

for thus, having fulfilled the laws of God, we shall be able to obtain

both the good things here and those that are promised, by the grace of Christ, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.