Commentary on John 1 part 69/94

but when you yourselves also, though you are of a corruptible nature, shall behold yourselves living according to the likeness that is unto Me;

then indeed you shall know, and that most clearly, that being Life by nature, I have through Myself joined you to God the Father, who is Himself likewise Life by nature, making you partakers and sharers of His incorruption.

For I indeed am naturally in the Father, since I am the fruit of His essence and His genuine offspring, existing in it and having shone forth from it, Life from Life; but you are in Me and I in you, inasmuch as I have appeared as man, and have shown you to be partakers of the divine nature by making My own Spirit to dwell in you.

For Christ is in us through the Spirit, transforming into incorruption that which by nature is subject to corruption, and translating us from dying to that which is no longer so.

Wherefore Paul also says that He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you. For even though the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, yet He comes through the Son and is His own;

for all things are from the Father through the Son.

For that we were refashioned unto eternal life through the Spirit, the divine psalmist will bear us witness, crying out as to the God of all: When Thou openest Thy hand, all things shall be filled with goodness;

but when Thou turnest away Thy face, they shall be troubled;

Thou shalt take away their spirit and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust.

the turning away, and made them to sink back into their own earth? But when God sent forth His Spirit, and showed us to be partakers of His own nature, and through Him the face of the earth was renewed, we were transfigured into newness of life, casting off the corruption that comes from sin, and once again laying hold of eternal life, through the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to God the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen.

That the Son is in no respect less than God the Father, but is rather equal and like unto Him according to nature; the text being set forth: If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

That the Son is consubstantial with God the Father, and is not of another nature nor alien, as some of the perverse maintain; the text being set forth: I am the vine, ye are the branches, and My Father is the husbandman.

He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me;

and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.

That the revelation of the mystery would then most of all be clearer among us, He says, when we shall behold ourselves living according to His likeness;

for I live, He says, and ye also shall live;

the mind of each one being, as it were, fully assured, not merely from the things which he has heard and believed, but rather from the things which he now possesses, having already received the fulfilment of the promise.

For experience is more powerful than words in being able to persuade and to give full assurance.

Lest we should suppose that it is simply set before all men to enjoy such a venerable gift as it may chance, and even if some be not good and illumined with the divine fear, by immediately joining to His word the person of those who love Him, He showed plainly that it will not be possible for others to obtain so incomparable a grace, except for those who have chosen to live most excellently;

for these would be they that love Him.

For even though Christ may perchance raise up the bodies of all, since both the wicked and the good shall rise, yet it will not be granted to all indiscriminately to come back to life unto glory or delight.

For it is manifest that those who receive the resurrection only unto punishment shall have a life harsher than any death, while those who pass long ages in blessedness shall truly live that most desirable and holy life in Christ.

For that those who are destined to carry off from Christ the sentence unto punishment at the time of judgment shall remain without a taste of the blessed life, even though they have obtained resurrection in common with the saints, He intimates when He says: He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life;

but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. For consider how, although all, both the wicked and the good, are expected to rise, He says that those who are liable to the charges of disobedience shall not even so much as behold life; meaning by life not merely the rising again at all, but rather that life, I think, and very reasonably, which is in rest and glory and delights — spiritual, that is to say, and no other.

And the manner of spiritual delight is the perfect knowledge concerning God and the accurate revelation of the mysteries in Christ, not again as in a mirror and in riddles, as even now showing us but dim outlines of the things we seek, but wholly and purely shining through within us and giving light, and producing the most perfect understanding;

for that which is in part shall be done away, according to the voice of Paul.

And one has the commandments who, having received the faith and having settled into his own mind by good remembrance the pure and clear instruction of the evangelical precepts,

and fulfils them by acting practically, and by being eager to be seen conspicuous in the splendour of his deeds.

He therefore is perfect and completely furnished unto godliness, who is conspicuous both in faith and in practice, as being borne witness to on account of his holiness which is according to Christ;

For at the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established, according to that which is written.

And such a one God the Father will reasonably love, and the Son will love him none the less.

For just as He is consubstantial, so also is He of one will with His own Begetter;

for of one essence there is surely one will, and one purpose in all things, and nothing discordant, or dividing into this will and that.

And to those deemed worthy of the divine love He promises to bestow a splendid reward, and that He will crown them with gifts beyond words.

For I will manifest, He says, Myself to him.

For pure among the pure shall be the words concerning the vision of God;

and Christ shines forth in them, through His own Spirit of course enlightening them in each of the things needful, and by certain ineffable illuminations in the mind unveiling Himself and making Himself manifest;

and those who have once laid hold of Him are blessed and enviable.

For on this account also, having accurately understood these things, they at one time say that God revealed them to us through the Spirit, and at another time again, But we have the mind of Christ, calling His Spirit the mind.

Judas saith unto Him, not Iscariot: Lord, what is come to pass that Thou art about to manifest Thyself unto us and not unto the world? Out of love the disciple comes forward to enquire, yet he is plainly not seen to have understood the Saviour's word accurately.

For our Lord Jesus Christ was promising to the saints a certain exceptional knowledge, and one not to be compared with that of others;

for finer and by far clearer do the characters of the divine mysteries shine forth in men that are godly;

but in those who have not yet attained to purity of mind in this respect, so as to be able to grasp splendidly the knowledge of things beyond reason through the gift of the Spirit, knowledge is seen in simple reasonings, and consists merely in knowing perhaps that Christ is God and truly Son of Him who is God by nature.

Since therefore so great a difference intervenes, and greatly separates the knowledge of the common herd from that beheld in the saints, the disciple, making no such distinction, approaches asking: For what reason is it that He promises to reveal Himself not to all who are in the world, but only to the saints?

And in crying out What is come to pass, he seems to wish to hint at some such thing as this;

if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Myself; but Thou hast also said to the Jews themselves that I have other sheep also, which are not of this fold, and them also I must bring, and they shall become one flock, one shepherd. Since then the grace through Thee is expected to come upon all, and all are to be netted unto the knowledge of God, both because Thou hast plainly promised it to us and because the voice of the holy prophets testifies to it — what has come to pass? Whither, He says, has the aim of the promise been removed and transferred? And why dost Thou not manifest Thyself to all who are in the world, but only to us? This then, and no other, is, I think, the sense of the disciple's words.

And what then was it that carried him away from a true apprehension? It is well to point out.

For our Lord Jesus Christ said: A little while, and the world beholdeth Me no more, but ye behold Me; yet it was surely quite plain that by the world in these words He by no means means all who are in this life, that is, those who live upon the earth;

for all are in this world, both the wicked and the good;

but rather by the world He named those who are persuaded to mind the things of earth, and who have subjected their own mind to the vanity of the world.

This then the disciple not very well understanding, supposed Him to be saying that He would escape the eye — I mean the inner and hidden eye — of all other men whatsoever, who inhabit this earthly region, and would be wholly invisible, known to none of them save only to His own disciples;

this became for him the cause of his ignorance.

For if he had understood at the outset, he would not at all have come forward asking: What is come to pass that Thou art about to manifest Thyself unto us and not unto the world? He was therefore carried away into thinking of it in this manner, taking the meaning of the word commonly and in the customary way of others.

For it is our custom to name as world, according to the well-worn sense set before all others, those who happen to be in the whole world, just as if one should say a city, meaning those who inhabit the whole city.

Nevertheless the disciple is worthy of emulation even in saying these things.

For consider how, like the sun, he desires that the glory of the Saviour should shine forth upon all who are throughout the whole earth; and yet, if he had taken thought only for himself, it was possible for him, having the promise of the knowledge, to delight only in his own good things.

But the good that was, as it were, to be given to him individually did not suffice for his gladness of soul;

and since he was at once both a lover of God and a lover of the brethren, he desires that the glory of the Saviour should be widened, and that the grace should be set forth as common to the brethren.

For to be called unto the accurate knowledge of God — what could there be to equal it? Jesus answered and said unto him: If a man love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him.

Perceiving that the disciple had not very well understood, He returns again to what was said at the outset, and teaches plainly that not according to the mere recognition understood as in knowledge will He manifest Himself to the genuine ones, but the manner of the illumination that shall be theirs will be exceptional and not familiar to the others.

For the common sort perhaps, and those who have but just departed from the deceit of idols, and are called unto the knowledge of Him who is God by nature, have their faith in bare and unexamined reasonings, having learned this very thing to hold, that no idol whatever is anything in the world, but that there is one only who is God by nature;

but those who make their own mind resplendent through every virtue, and who are already fittingly disposed to learn the divine and hidden mysteries, shall receive the illumination through the Spirit, and shall behold with the eyes of the understanding the Lord Himself abiding within them.

The knowledge of the saints, therefore, is not common with that of the others, but is exceptional and distinct and having much difference.

Christ therefore profits us continually, in every word and manner.

a boast through the keeping of the commandments.

Then in what manner He will shine upon them, and how He will take up His dwelling in them, He tells;

For My Father will love him, He says.

For one who has honoured through obedience the Son together with the Begetter from whom He is, shall have as the fruit of the matter the being loved.

Then making plain what shall thence arise, and what gain shall accrue to him, He says: We will come unto him, I and the Father, and will make Our abode with him.

For since our Saviour Christ has taken up His dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit, He who begot Him will surely be present with Him also in every way;

for the Spirit of Christ is also the very Spirit of the Father.

And indeed the inspired Paul in one place calls the Spirit the Father's own, and in another the Son's own, not setting his own words at variance with one another, but rather speaking truly in each case.

He therefore says to certain people: 'He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you'; and again: 'And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' Do you see how the very same Spirit is both the Father's and the Son's? Therefore, since the Only-begotten dwells in our hearts, the Father is not absent;

for the Son has in Himself the One who begot Him, being of one substance with Him, and He Himself too is naturally in the Father.

This then would be the definition of the faith, and a statement free from blame.

But upon this point I would very gladly ask those who out of great ignorance have chosen to hold heterodox opinions, and who arm their own tongue against the glory of the Spirit:

what indeed would they say, when we ask them: 'If the Spirit, according to you, is created and alien to the substance of God, how could God dwell in us through Him? And how is one who has received the Spirit a partaker of God? For if it is among the possible things that we should share in the divine and ineffable nature through some created substance at all, what would then be seen to prevent God the Father from thrusting the Spirit aside, and through some other creature, whichever He might wish, coming to be in us and sanctifying us? But this is impossible;

for no one could become a partaker of God who is such by nature through another, save through the Spirit.

The Spirit therefore is God and from God, and is not to be numbered among created things, as it has seemed to some.

And besides this, that other point too must be considered.

That which partakes of something, as of that which is greater in substance and of a different nature than what it itself is, must of necessity be by nature other than that which is partaken of.

If, then, the Spirit is created or made, of what will the creation henceforth be a partaker? Will it not surely be of itself? For that which has been created appears thereafter to be common to both.

But we, being by nature created and made, have partaken of the Spirit as of something which is by nature other than what we are;

the Spirit therefore is not created.

And if this is true, as indeed it is true, then the Spirit is God and from God, as we have said.

For none of existing things will escape the reputation of having been made, save only He who is God by nature, from whom—as is evident—the Holy Spirit proceeding ineffably, as being from Him whose He is, dwells in us.

For He is proper to His substance, and is, as it were, a quality of His holiness.

And this much has now been said against these.

But against the Anomoeans, who have determined to wage war against the Son—men who are sick with a madness sister and neighbour to that of those just now mentioned by us—I shall say something of what is necessary.

'If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.'

What then, O noble sirs, will you say, if someone wishes to inquire and thinks it fit to learn from you, whether we shall have two gods dwelling within us, the Father and the Son,

according at least to your derangement of mind? For it is necessary either to say that Christ has spoken falsely to us, and that the Father alone dwells in us through the Spirit,

or else that He Himself dwells in us, but the Father is absent.

But there is one God in us, when we receive both.

The Only-begotten therefore will no longer appear to be of a different substance from His own Father, but from Him and in Him, just as in the light is the radiance which comes from it.

For only thus, and in no other way, would the power of the mystery be true.

And indeed the inspired Paul named us temples, not of two gods, but clearly of one and the same;

'Know ye not,' he says, 'that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?' Do you see that, gathering together the Father and the Son into identity of substance, he declares that we have been shown to be temples—not of gods rather, but of God?

Why then do you with vain reasonings do violence to the power of the truth, and sow abroad the poison of your own impiety among those who are wont, more irrationally, to assail the sacred and divine Scriptures? 'He that loveth me not keepeth not my words.'

Having very well demonstrated beforehand and rightly defined who they would be that love Him, and of what good things they would partake, He immediately passes on to others, those who have not yet chosen to love Him.

'For they will not be keepers,' He says, 'of my words';

for this is what is meant by 'He will not keep my word,' as spoken concerning one man or of one man, even though it has somewhat a broad and general signification.

And very consistently He says this also.

For if the clear proof of love toward Him will be the keeping of the commandments, that is, the word which comes from Him, then surely the contrary too would altogether be true.

For it will be a token of not having chosen to love, when a man makes no account of the commandment, but thrusts aside what has been enjoined, like one of those accustomed to do wrong.

But just as He promised to those who guard the law that He would dwell in them together with God the Father,

so, I think, according to the same reasoning, He will withdraw from those who are not such, and will depart from them altogether.

For Solomon will speak truly when he says: 'Because into a soul that deviseth evil wisdom will not enter, nor dwell in a body held in pledge to sin.' And indeed you will find the nature of the matter to be thus even among ourselves;

for is not the living together with those of like mind and those who have chosen to be of like ways more esteemed by everyone than living with those of a different sort? And indeed 'every living creature loves that which is like to itself,' according to what is written, 'and a man will cleave to his like'; and if even among ourselves to be together in the same place with those of like character seems to be to all men an object of the greatest zeal, how shall we not reckon that it is much more so with God? For being good by nature, and the beginning and source of all virtue, He takes up His abode not among the lovers of vice, but among the workers of virtue, and He declines the unclean man, and very rightly so.

Just as, no doubt, we ourselves too are eager to have our own houses rid of filth and stench, if indeed they have anything of the kind at all, declining to lodge in them;

will not then our pure and all-holy God much more decline the defiled soul, and abhor a heart darkened by the filth of sin? Nay, this is not in doubt.

For that he who has not kept the commandment will be among these and not among others—

for he is unclean and a lover of filth—

the very force of the consideration will again teach you.

For in the not keeping of the divine commandments the origin of sin is found.

For just as the privation of light introduces its contrary—I mean darkness—so the unwillingness to practise virtue introduces the origin of vice;

for when the subject is conceived of as one single thing, I do not think that the qualities distinguished from one another could ever coincide in the same thing, at least according to the principle of their being contrary.

Vice and virtue are distinguished and stand far apart in the contrariety of their mutual quality—or however one might put it without perhaps erring; but both could not appear to belong at the same time to any of the beings such as we are, and to be fulfilled in actual operation.

Therefore, when the one is strong in us, the other will altogether be enfeebled, that is, the one which is in a contrary state.

And if the form of virtue consists in keeping the commandments, how is it not most evident that in the not keeping of them is the origin of vice? And, just as it is laid up for him who has kept them to have in himself the Father and the Son, which is the beginning and ground of all gladness and glory,

so also for him who has not kept them there is laid up the not at all partaking of the divine and ineffable nature, which is the total non-enjoyment of any good.

Therefore, if to anyone it seems good and worthy to be desired to share in the divine nature, and, dwelling and abiding in it, to have the Father and God of all things through the Son in the Spirit inhabiting the chambers of his heart, let him thoroughly cleanse his own soul, and let him rub off the stain that comes from wickedness by whatever means he can, or rather by every kind of well-doing.

For then he will be called in truth a temple of God;

and God will rest in him and take up His lodging, according to what is written.

For this is what it is to lay down His head.

Let us therefore cleanse our own hearts from all defilement;

for thus, only thus, will God also dwell in us, and will make us superior to every diabolical assault, and will render us blessed and enviable, and will show us to be partakers of His divine and ineffable nature.

'And the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me.'

Again He dispenses something of the necessary things, things which call to rectitude of reasoning, and through which they were to have a mind more apt for learning so as to understand well the depth of the mystery; He again brings it forward into their midst.

And He steadies the mind of His hearers, lest, being dragged down together with the ignorance of the Jews, and having grown fond of thinking the same things as those men's suspicions, some should dishonour the holy and evangelical instruction;

and what I wish to say is plainly of this sort.

For the law, having a shadow and a type imposed until the time of reformation, according to the voice of Paul, became our tutor unto Christ, and brought in, as it were, a kind of preliminary training in the virtue that accords with piety.

Therefore one who should call the things given through Moses a preliminary exercise of the true worship in spirit would not miss what is fitting.

For on account of this the law made nothing perfect;

but our Lord Jesus Christ showed us openly no longer the images of things, but the very truth itself, no longer inscribing the form of virtue in types and figure, as Moses did, but setting it forth as it were bare and manifest, and rendering man full in respect of piety.

There was therefore a transition and remoulding of the types into truth—the instruction which comes through the words of Christ.

And since, now that the truth was already shining forth, it was superfluous that the shadow should still be strengthened, Christ no longer legislated that those who came to Him through faith should conduct their life by the legal types.

This greatly grieved the Jews, and they supposed that Christ had come to dissolve the ancient law, even though they heard Him expressly crying out: 'I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it';

brought in, as we were just now saying.

For since, having slipped through unreasoning passion into disobedience, and being moved to a zeal for the Law that was not according to knowledge, they seemed to be pleading the cause of the Law while thrusting aside the things that came through Christ, therefore, usefully, that it might not seem to any that He was appointing new or private laws contrary to the will inherent in God the Father, He of necessity added that 'the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.'

For let none of those who come to Me through faith, He says, suppose that I have uttered any word discordant with God the Father;

for again the Gospel proclamation is His and no other's—not that He blushed at the more ancient ordinances, nor yet as though the better commandment had only now been discovered, but as though at the fitting time the type had been transformed into truth.

For He who spoke those former things through me to the ancients then, is the same who now speaks these things to you;

For I am the living Word, the interpreter of the ineffable will of God the Father; wherefore also I am called 'the Angel of Great Counsel.' Either, then, we shall understand what is said in this way—I mean the saying, 'The word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me'—or else we shall understand it otherwise.

For He calls it the word of God the Father Himself, that those who keep it might know that they have honored God by obeying the words that came from Him;

while those, on the contrary, who fall away from this, and do not refuse by their disobedience to outrage the given commandment, sin against that very nature which is queen over all.

And again it was possible in two ways to secure the mind of the hearers;

for either the desire to honor God will altogether urge them toward obedience, or else the fear of offending Him will accomplish this same thing.

For through both of these there travels the reasoning concerning what is useful and profitable.

But in saying that 'the word is not Mine,' He does not by any means put us out of His own Person, insofar as He is Word and God;

but since, having the form of a servant and still appearing in human shape and being truly one like us, He says such things, He does not wish His word to be thought of as human, but as truly divine and royal, of necessity referring it to the Person of the Father, lest, by dividing Himself, He should cause two sons to be thought of henceforth, being one Son both before the incarnation and after the incarnation;

for Christ is one, and not two, as some maintain.

For being God the Word, He came forth from the Father and became flesh, according to the voice of John, not being changed into flesh, but having made His own the temple from the holy Virgin.

Therefore, that we might not suppose His word to be human, nor remove the Gospel teaching from the divine nature, but might believe it to be of God who is over all, in a manner both economical and exceedingly good—inasmuch as He appears also in human shape—He again assigns the word to the divine nature, as in the Person of God the Father, from whom and in whom He is by nature, as His radiance and Word and the express image of His substance.

'These things have I spoken to you while abiding with you;

but the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send to you in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said.'

Again the saying has its human aspect, and is not very far removed from our measures, so far as concerns the sense fitting to the matters set before us.

For when, someone might reasonably ask, is Christ not with us according to the power of His Godhead—seeing that He fills all things, and is absent from nothing in the universe, but rather encompasses by ineffable power both earth and heaven, and is not lacking even from the recesses of the abyss? For where is God not present? When, therefore, He says, 'These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you,' we shall take it according to the human aspect;

and since He was about to pass from our eyes, according to the flesh I mean, setting out on His departure to the heavens, He says such things;