Commentary on John 1 part 31/94

'This is the true God, and the eternal life.' Then who, tell me, will henceforth endure the trickery of those who think otherwise? Or who will not justly cry out against their impiety, when they dare to say that the Son is a partaker of a life that comes from another—although the holy and God-inspired Scripture says no such thing about him, but rather cries aloud plainly that he is both God by nature, and true, and the fountain of life, and again eternal life? For how could he be conceived to be true God who has need of a life from another, and who is not rather himself life by nature? Or how could he still be called the fountain of life, if he is helped by supplies from another so as to be able to live? 'But indeed,' says our opponent, 'in this sense we shall grant the Son to be life—inasmuch as he too is able to give life, seeing that he has within himself the living Father.'

But these things will not suffice you as a defence, O most excellent ones, for your blasphemy against the Only-begotten.

Uninstructed and everywhere failing, your argument will be caught out in this too again.

To give life to things capable of receiving life, because he has the Father within himself—how does this not labour with some immeasurable ignorance? For you do not indeed rightly know, as is likely, what that is which is according to nature, and what that is which comes from what is according to nature, as being itself something composite—which is that which is by position.

For example, fire is hot by nature, but other things too are hot—iron, say, or wood—having partaken of the activity that comes from it.

But not because it has been heated could it therefore be said to be fire as well.

For it has within itself an activity that is alien and not natural.

The argument from these examples will come to bear on us ourselves as well.

Grammar, say, or geometry, are believed to be forms of rational science; but when someone becomes skilled in grammar or in the other, he will not perhaps be conceived to be grammar itself, or geometry, but from the grammatical skill that has come to be in him he is named a grammarian, and likewise again for the other.

So too life according to nature is altogether something other than the things in which it comes to be, transforming into itself that which is not naturally such.

Therefore, when you say that the Father exists in the Son as, say, in matter, so that, since he is life according to nature, the Son too may be able to give life, you will still be senselessly granting him to be life—and not rather a partaker of a life that is from another, one recalled to the dignity of the giver by relation and not essentially.

And just as no one would reasonably call heated iron 'fire,' even though it has the activity of fire, because it has been heated by it;

or again, no one in his right mind would name a grammarian 'grammar,' because he is able to lead others by the hand into the science;

so too, I think, no one who holds sound views would name the Son 'life' because he too is able to give life, if he does not, as they suppose, possess by nature the being of life, but has it sown into him from the activity of the Father, that is, on account of the Father indwelling him.

For what, tell me, would then prevent the Son from being conceived as one of us, of a corruptible nature evidently, if he lives on account of the Father—that is, being supplied with the life from him that begot—as they conceive? For he would have been corrupted, according to the analogy of these notions, had he not had within himself the living Father.

And if we concede that he speaks truly when he says, 'I am in the Father and the Father in me,' then he himself has the Father within himself, who is life by nature;

but he himself is in the Father, and yet is not life according to nature;

and I pass over the blasphemy in silence, even though one ought to state it for the refutation of the impiety of those who fight against God;

for the Father will be caught having within himself that which is destitute of life—that is, corruption, or a nature that undergoes decay.

But that the nature of the matter compels us to think thus concerning the Son, we must inquire again hereafter, and we must proceed through varied considerations, since our aim is to sift the question in fine detail with the appropriate exactness.

You say that God and Father is life according to nature.

Well said, for so it is; but he is also in the Son.

For this too your own argument grants.

But I would now reasonably ask, desiring to learn this: what will he effect concerning the Son, existing in him? Will he impart of his own life to his own offspring, as to one that has need and does not have life from himself? And how is it not utterly necessary to conceive the Son to be destitute of life? And what else, then, would that which is destitute of life be, but corruptible? But he will not impart of his own life to the offspring;

for he is life, even if he does not receive it from him.

How then do certain men still slander with unbridled and unguarded tongues, and on this account say that the Son lives because he has the Father within himself, who is life according to nature? For if he lives even apart from the Father, as existing essentially and being himself self-life, then he no longer lives on account of the Father—that is, on account of a reception from the Father.

But if he has the Father as the supplier of his own life, he will be shown to be one who does not himself have his own life;

for he borrows what is from another, and, as we said from the beginning, he is a living thing rather than life, and of a nature already corruptible.

How then did he call himself life? For either it will be permitted to us also to say without danger, 'I am the life,' or else the saying is precarious;

for it will not be permitted to a creature to leap up to the dignities that befit God alone.

The Son therefore knows himself to be life according to nature.

For no one could ever see that which gives life within that which is given life, the self-sufficient within that which is in need.

Therefore in yet another way too he would speak falsely, when he said, 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.' But see again, somewhere, how many absurdities the lover of the pious doctrines of the Church perceives will follow upon their idle chatter.

Let him therefore turn aside from them and pass on, according to that which is written;

and let him make straight paths, and let him direct his own ways aright, and let him look toward the simple beauty of the truth, believing that God and Father is life according to nature, and that likewise again the Son begotten of him is life.

For as he is said to be light of light, so also life of life;

and just as God and Father illumines the things that need light, as through his own light, the Son, and makes wise the things capable of wisdom, as through his own wisdom, and empowers the things that need power, as through his own power again, so also he gives life to all things that need the life that is from him, as through his own life which pours forth from him—that is, through the Son.

When therefore he says, 'I live because of the Father,' do not suppose that he confesses himself to live because of receiving life from the Father, but rather, since he was begotten of a living Father, on this account he affirmed himself to live.

For it was not possible that he who is from a living Father should not live;

and just as if one of us should say, 'I am a rational man because of my father, for I have become the child of a rational man;'

so too you will understand in the case of the Only-begotten himself.

For since the Father who begot me is life according to nature, and I am a well-endowed and genuine offspring, I bring with me that which is his own according to nature—that is, to be life; for this is also what the Father is.

But since one is conceived and is from one;

for the Son is from the Father, even though he coexisted eternally with him;

he reasonably takes pride, as in things that are his own, in the natural dignities of the one who begot him.

'This is the bread that came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat the manna, and died;'

'he that eateth this my bread shall live for ever.'

'Great,' he says, 'must be the outcomes that proceed from great things, and the things supplied through the grace from above ought to be seen as befitting God and worthy of the divine bounty.'

For if you have altogether made it acceptable in faith that the bread comes down from heaven, let it produce in those who desire it a continuous life, and let it hold the operation of immortality unceasing.

For this would be a clear demonstration that the bread is from heaven—that is, from God;

since we shall say that it befits the Eternal to bestow eternal things, and not the enjoyment of a temporary delight, able scarcely and only for a very brief moment to hold out.

For someone will reason, no longer wisely, that that is not bread from God and from above which the forefathers ate and yet were vanquished by death, and did not repel the harm that comes from corruption; and this is no wonder,

for that was not a bread able to make immortal.

Therefore neither could it justly be conceived or called by anyone as being 'from heaven.'

For there would surely be a work befitting that which arrives from thence, namely, to render those who partake of it superior to death and corruption.

And again it will be confirmed by an incontrovertible demonstration that this is bread from heaven—the bread, that is, which is through Christ, that is, his body;

for it makes the one who tastes of it live for ever.

And the great trustworthiness of the divine nature is seen in such things too, for it deems it right to bestow nothing small, but rather all things surpassing nature—even things that transcend our understanding, so that, on account of the very greatness of the grace, they are even disbelieved by the simpler sort.

But the Law shadowed forth the great things by small examples, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the realities, as it is written;

so that in the food of the manna there might be seen the blessing that is through Christ;

for those things were previously written for the men of old as a shadow of things to come.

'These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.'

The most wise Evangelist, having brought forward an exposition of wondrous mysteries, fittingly ascribes to the Saviour Christ the beginning of the teaching about them, putting the adversary to shame by the eminence of the person, and forestalling in dread those who were going to arrive as objectors;

for the illustriousness of teachers sometimes more readily works the hearer toward faith, and demands a quicker assent from those being instructed.

And very well indeed does he add, 'In the synagogue;'

for the saying all but declares this: 'It was not merely one or two, perchance, who heard Christ saying these things, but he is seen to have taught them plainly before all in the synagogue,' just as he himself also says through the prophet Isaiah, 'I have not spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth;' for he made his discourses about these things with all boldness, rendering the judgement of the Jews without excuse, and making the charges against those who disbelieved—arising from their not believing in him—the more grievous to bear.

For had they not yet been taught so august a mystery, they would reasonably have made an excuse for not being punished, and by putting forward that they did not know it at all, they would have undergone a more moderate movement on the part of the one who judges.

But those who have come to knowledge and have often been initiated into the mysteries, and then behave insolently through their disobedience—how would they not with good reason be punished, all mercy being henceforth removed, and pay a most bitter penalty to the One whom they have dishonoured? Something of this kind the Saviour himself also said concerning them: 'For if I had not come and spoken to them,' he says, 'they would not have had sin;'

'but now they have no excuse for their sin.' We must therefore be on our guard against—rather, must utterly renounce—a disobedient disposition as the procurer of death, and let us reckon as the giver of life that faith which we place in whatever Christ teaches.

For in this way we shall escape being punished together with those men.

He adds also that Christ spoke these things in Capernaum, so that he may be seen to remember accurately.

For one who knows both the place and the village—how could he go wrong in his exposition of the things that were taught? 'Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying;'

'who can hear it? But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured concerning this, said to them:'

This is the habit of the foolish;

for they are always fault-finding with the more subtle points of teaching, and in their ignorance they disparage a contemplation too lofty for them, since they themselves do not understand it;

although rather they ought to be eager to learn, and to love to grow refined together with the things spoken, and not, from the opposite disposition, to rise up against words so wise, and to call 'hard' that which it were fitting rather to marvel at.

For they suffer something of the sort

as one might see those who have lost their teeth endure.

For those persons, resorting to the softer foods, often despise the more wholesome of the eatables, and at times malign what is better, not confessing the disease by which they are compelled to refuse it.

But those nurtured in ignorance, and overcome in the lack of a sound mind, shudder at the knowledge which they ought to hunt after even with very many labours, and to attain rather through intense diligence.

The spiritual man, then, will delight in the words of our Saviour, and will cry out rather, and rightly: 'How sweet are your oracles to my throat,'

'sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth.' But the natural Jew, senselessly reckoning the spiritual mystery to be folly, and being invited through the Saviour's words to ascend to the understanding befitting a man, ever falls back into his familiar folly, calling the evil good and the good evil, according to the prophet's voice.

And in imitating this, he too shall be caught out;

for those who were supplied the manna by God, and who partook of the blessing from above, sank down to their accustomed vulgarity, and sought the stenches of Egypt, longing to see onions and leeks and pots of flesh;

so also those who are invited to receive the life-giving grace of the Spirit, and who are taught to be nourished by the true bread, which comes from God the Father, turn aside to their own error, being lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; and just as those men's forefathers even accused the very nourishment through the manna, daring to say, 'But our soul is dried up over this manna;'

so these men in turn send away the true bread, not blushing to say, 'This is a hard saying.'

For it befits one who runs toward uprightness of faith in Christ to journey by the royal road.

'Does this offend you? What then if you should behold the Son of Man ascending where he was before?' Out of very great ignorance, some of those being discipled under the Saviour Christ were offended at the words that came from him.

For since they heard him saying, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves,' they supposed that they were being summoned to some savagery befitting wild beasts, as though they were being enjoined to eat flesh inhumanly and to gulp down blood, and to do all those things which are dreadful even merely to hear.

For they did not somehow perceive the beauty of the mystery, and the most excellent dispensation devised for it;

and besides this, they surely reasoned within themselves in some such way: How could the human body implant eternal life in us? And what will that which is of the same nature as us profit toward immortality? Christ, therefore, perceiving the deliberations within them—

for all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes—he heals them again unto comprehension, leading them by the hand in manifold ways concerning things still unknown.

For 'most senselessly, O you men,' he says, 'are you offended at the words that come from me.'

'For if you have not yet come to believe, although often initiated into the mysteries, that our body will infuse life into you, in what way,' he says, 'will you be disposed when you behold it flying up even into heaven? For I do not merely promise that I will ascend even into heaven itself'—lest again you say the 'How?'—

'but the sight will be set before your eyes, putting to shame everyone who contradicts.'

'If then you behold,' he says, 'the Son of Man ascending into heaven, what will you say again? For you will be convicted of no moderate folly.'

'For if you reckon that my flesh is not able to instil life into you, how will it, like a winged creature, ascend into heaven? For if it cannot give life, because it is not by nature life-giving, how will it tread the air, and how will it ascend into the heavens? For this too is likewise impossible for flesh.'

But if it ascends contrary to nature, what still hinders it from also giving life, even if it is not by nature life-giving, so far as its own nature is concerned? For the One who has shown that which is from the earth to be heavenly, will also render it life-giving, even if by its own principle it is subject to corruption.

We must observe how he again does not tolerate being divided into two Christs, according to the ill counsel of certain persons.

For he keeps himself everywhere undivided after the incarnation.

For he says that the Son of Man ascends where he was before, although the body which is from the earth was not above before this, but only the Word still existing by himself, prior to the concurrence into flesh;

well then did Paul place 'one Lord Jesus Christ' in his own epistles.

For on this account he also calls the Word, who came down from above out of heaven, the Son of Man;

for he became flesh, according to the blessed Evangelist, and not by turning aside changed into flesh;

for he is by nature immutable and unchangeable, as God;

but as having dwelt in his own temple—I mean that which is from the Virgin—and having become man in truth, according to the true account.

And in saying that he will ascend where he was also before, he somehow gives his hearers to understand that he came down from heaven;

for it was thus fitting that those who grasped the power of the saying should not attend to him merely as to a man, but should henceforth know also God the Word in flesh, and believe that his body too will be life-giving.

'It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing.'

'Not very senselessly,' he says, 'have you attributed to the flesh the inability to give life;'

'for whenever the nature of the flesh is somehow considered alone and by itself, it will plainly not be life-giving;'

for it will in no way give life to any of the things that are, but rather it itself has need of that which is strong to give life.

But whenever the mystery concerning the incarnation is diligently inquired into, and then you learn who it is that dwells in this flesh, you will assuredly be disposed—unless you also accuse the divine Spirit himself—to grant that it is able to give life, even though the flesh of itself profits nothing at all.

For since it has been united to the life-giving Word, it has become wholly life-giving, having run back up to the power of the better One, and not having forced itself toward its own nature—that One who is nowhere overcome.

Therefore, even if the nature of the flesh is weak, so far as itself is concerned, with regard to being able to give life, yet nevertheless it will accomplish this, since it possesses the life-giving Word, and travails with the whole of his energy.

For it is the body of life according to nature, and not of any one of the things from the earth, concerning which the saying, 'The flesh profits nothing,' might justly hold good.

For it is not, perhaps, the flesh of Paul, nor yet of Peter, or of some other, that will work this in us;

but only and pre-eminently that of our Saviour Christ, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily. For indeed it would be among the most absurd of things that honey should implant its own quality of sweetness into things not sweet by nature, and be able to transform into itself that with which it is mingled, while yet one should suppose that the life-giving nature of God the Word does not bring up to its own good the body in which it has dwelt.

Accordingly, in the case of all other flesh the saying will be true, that 'the flesh profits nothing;'

but it will lose its force in the case of Christ alone, because Life has dwelt in it—that is, the Only-begotten.

'For God is Spirit;' and according to the blessed Paul, 'For the Lord is the Spirit.' And it is not by abolishing the fact that the Holy Spirit subsists in his own proper hypostasis that we say such things; but just as he calls himself the Son of Man, since he became man, so again from his own Spirit he names himself.

For his Spirit is not alien to him.

'The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.'

He now fills his own body wholly with the life-giving energy of the Spirit;

for henceforth he calls the flesh 'spirit,' yet not overturning its being flesh;

but because it has been supremely united to him, and has put on the whole of his life-generating power, it ought henceforth to be called even 'spirit' too.

And it is nothing to marvel at—so do not be offended at this either.

For if he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit, how much more shall his own body not be named one with respect to him? He therefore signifies through what has been set forth something of this sort again: 'From the reasonings that are within you,' he says, 'I perceive that, lacking understanding, you reason that my discourse to you was to the effect that the body which is from the earth is by nature life-giving;'

'but this is not the aim in my words;'

'for my whole exposition to you was concerning the divine Spirit and concerning eternal life.'

For it is not the nature of the flesh that makes the spirit life-giving, but the power of the Spirit that makes the body life-giving.

And he says such things not by setting aside his own flesh, but by teaching us that which is true;

for what we said just now, this we will say again, taking it up afresh because of its usefulness:

the nature of the flesh, itself by itself, would not be able to give life;

for then what would be the superiority in the God who is such by nature? But it will not be considered alone and by itself, but in Christ;

for it has the Word united to it, who is by nature Life.

When therefore Christ names it life-giving, he testifies that the power to give life belongs not so much to it as to himself, that is, to his own Spirit.

For on His account His own body also is life-giving, since He has raised it up again into His own power.

But as to the manner, it is neither comprehensible by the mind nor utterable by the tongue, but is to be honoured in silence and by the faith that transcends understanding.

That in the God-inspired Scriptures the Son too is often called by the name of the Spirit, we shall learn from the passages set forth below.

The blessed John, then, writes concerning Him: 'This is He that came by water and Spirit, Jesus Christ; not in the water only, but in the water and in the Spirit; and it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth.' Behold, then, he names the Spirit 'the truth,' although Christ cries out plainly, 'I am the truth.' And Paul again, writing to us, says: 'They that are in the flesh cannot please God.'

'But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.'

'And if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.'

'And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.' Behold, then, once more in these words, having declared that the Spirit of God dwells in us, he has said that Christ Himself is in us.

For the Spirit of the Son is undivided from Him, according at least to the principle of identity of nature, even though He be conceived of as existing in His own subsistence.

For this reason He often makes no distinction, sometimes naming the Spirit, sometimes naming Himself.

'But there are some of you that believe not.'

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray Him.

In this, again, one may plainly see fulfilled that which was foretold through one of the holy prophets: 'By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive.'

For they were wicked, and already liable for the many transgressions of the past.

Wherefore also the wise Paul testified to us that a hardening in part had come upon Israel.

And since it was no work of ordinary understanding to recognize the God hidden in human form, He says that one cannot come to Him who has not yet received—understanding, that is, plainly from God the Father—and quite reasonably so.

For if every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, how should not the recognition of Christ, rather, be a gift of the Father's right hand? And the apprehension of the truth—how should it not be conceived as beyond all grace? For the more it appears to be the procurer of the highest goods, the more fitting it is that it should depend on the divine munificence.

The Father, however, does not give to the impure the recognition of Christ, nor does He impart the most profitable grace of the Spirit to those who have practised straying into monstrous acts of disobedience.

For it was not right that the precious ointment should be poured upon mire.

The prophet Jeremiah enjoins that those who wish to draw near to Christ through faith must first purify themselves by desires directed toward every good work, crying: 'Seek God, and when ye find Him, call upon Him.'

'And when He draws near to you, let the ungodly forsake his way, and the lawless man his counsel, and let him turn to the Lord, and he shall obtain mercy; for He will abundantly pardon your sins.' You see how he says one must rise up out of the old way, and depart from lawless counsels, that we may receive the forgiveness of sins—through faith, that is, clearly the faith in Christ.

For we have been justified not by works of the law, but according to the grace that is from Him, and the forgetfulness of wrongs that was freely granted to us from above.

But perhaps someone will say: What then was it that hindered Him from also forgetting the wrongs of the Jews, and from lavishing forgiveness upon Israel along with us? For thus too it would have befitted the perfectly Good One.

And how, one says, will He be truthful, when He says to us: 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance'? What then shall we say to this? To those of Israel, and to them first, the grace through the Saviour was designed.

For He was sent, as He Himself affirmed, only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And so it was possible for those who were willing to believe, even to run back up to eternal life.

But those who lived by a more noble manner, and were searchers after the truth, having received the grace of God the Father as fellow-worker unto salvation, were being saved through faith.

But the boastful Pharisee and, along with them, the hard-hearted chief priests and elders of the people, were unwilling to believe, even though they had been previously instructed through Moses and the prophets.

And since through their own evil counsel they thereafter showed themselves unworthy of eternal life, they did not receive the illumination that is from God the Father.

You have the type of this also in the more ancient writings.

For just as to those who in the wilderness disbelieved God, entry into the land of promise was not granted, so also to those who through disobedience dishonour the Lord, entry into the kingdom of heaven was not given—of which promise the land was the type.

'And God is not unrighteous who visits wrath upon each man'; for being righteous by nature, He will altogether determine what is right, and will direct His own judgement in a manner befitting His own nature, even though we ourselves do not comprehend the way of the dispensation that is above us.

Usefully, moreover, the blessed Evangelist says that Jesus knew all things, and again was not ignorant who they were that would disbelieve, and who was the agent of the impiety against Him—so that once more He might be understood to be God, as knowing all things before their coming to be. 'From this, many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.'

Hard, somehow, to the unintelligent are ever the things of wisdom, and that which someone may suppose will profit them not a little, this is often seen even to be to their hurt.