Commentary on John 1 part 8/94

but those who through the Law had grown rich in knowledge, and had been called back to a manner of life pleasing to God, thereafter willingly went astray, not receiving the Word of God, who was already known and had sojourned as among His own.

For the whole world indeed is God's own, according to the sense of its having been made, and of its having been brought forth into being from Him and through Him;

but more fittingly, in a way, will Israel be called by the title of special belonging, and will be allotted the glory thereupon, both on account of the election of the holy fathers, and because it was named the beginning and firstborn of God's children;

for 'Israel is My firstborn son,' God says somewhere to Moses, whom indeed He again dedicated to Himself as one and choice, calling him His own people: 'Send forth My people,' He said to Pharaoh the tyrant of Egypt.

Moreover, a true word also from the books of Moses shows that Israel belongs specially to God.

'For when,' it says, 'the Most High divided the nations, when He scattered abroad the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and the Lord's portion became His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance Israel'—upon whom too He looked, as upon His own lot and His proper portion, saying: 'I was not sent save unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' But since he was not received, He transfers the grace unto the Gentiles; and the world, which had known Him not in the beginning, is enlightened through repentance and faith, while Israel runs back into the darkness whence he had been cast out;

wherefore also the Saviour said: 'For judgment I came into this world, that they which see not might see, and they which see might become blind.' 'But as many as received Him, to them gave He authority to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name.'

A judgment truly just and befitting God!

The firstborn Israel is cast out;

for he was unwilling to abide in his intimacy with God, nor did he receive the Son as one sojourning among His own; he rejected the bestower of nobility, thrust away the giver of grace, but received the Gentiles through faith.

Therefore Israel shall fittingly receive the wages of his madness;

he shall bewail the loss of good things, shall reap the bitter fruit of his own ill counsel, being stripped bare of the adoption;

but the Gentiles shall luxuriate in the good things that come of faith, shall find the splendid rewards of obedience, and shall be transplanted into that other's place;

for the one shall be cut off from the wild olive according to nature, and shall be grafted, contrary to nature, into the cultivated olive; and Israel shall hear: 'Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless sons;

ye have forsaken the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel'; but one shall say to the Gentiles among the disciples of Christ: 'But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that ye may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.' For since they received the Son through faith, they receive the authority to be ranked among the children of God;

for He acts thus because there is in Him also the love toward the world.

For there was no other way to escape corruption for us who had borne the image of the earthy, unless the beauty of the image of the heavenly were stamped upon us through our being called unto adoption.

For having become partakers of Him through the Spirit, we were sealed unto likeness to Him, and we ascend to the archetypal form of the image, according to which the divine Scripture says we were also made.

For hardly thus, having recovered the ancient beauty of our nature, and being transformed unto that divine nature, shall we be stronger than the evils that have befallen us through the transgression.

We ascend, then, unto the dignity that is above nature on account of Christ; yet we too shall not be sons of God in the very same way as He, without difference, but as compared with Him, through the grace that is by imitation;

for He is Son as being truly from the Father, but we are adopted as of His loving-kindness, receiving as in the portion of grace the word: 'I said, Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.' For the created and servile creation is called to the things above nature by the bare nod and will of the Father;

but the Son, being both God and Lord, does not possess being God and Son within the wills of God and the Father, nor merely in so far as it was willed; rather, having shone forth from the very essence of the Father, He brings with Him by nature the good that is proper to it;

and He is seen again to be Son, a true Son, being proved so by the comparison with us.

For since that which is by nature holds another relation to that which is by adoption, and that which is according to truth to that which is according to imitation, and we are called sons by adoption and by imitation;

then by nature and according to truth is He, to whom we, having become such, are set in comparison, gaining the good that is of grace in place of natural dignities.

'Who were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'

'Those,' he says, 'who through faith in Christ have been called unto adoption as sons of God, have put off the meanness of their own nature, and, arrayed as with a splendid garment by the grace of Him who honours them, ascend unto the dignity that is above nature;

for they are no longer styled children of the flesh, but rather offspring of God by adoption.'

But observe how great a security the blessed Evangelist made in his own words.

For since he was about to say that those who had believed were begotten of God, then—lest anyone should suppose that they had truly sprung from the essence of God and the Father, and that they run into an unvarying likeness with the Only-begotten, or that the words 'From the womb before the morning star I begat Thee' should be said of Him too in a more abusive sense, and thus He also should be brought down into the nature of things made, if He be said to have been begotten of God—he necessarily devises for us the security.

For having said that authority was given to them by the Son who is such by nature, that they might become children of God, and having thereby first introduced the notion of adoption and grace, he then safely adds the words, 'They were begotten of God';

so that he might also display the greatness of the grace bestowed upon them, since God the Father, as it were, gathers into a natural kinship that which was alien to Him, and raises up the servant into a lordly nobility, on account of His fervent love toward it.

What then, someone might perhaps ask, is the advantage, or what is the distinction, in those who believe in Christ over Israel, since Israel too is said to have been begotten of God, according to the words, 'I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have rejected Me'? To such questions I think we must reply, first, that the Law, having only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the realities, did not grant this to those of Israel in truth either, but rather as something written in them in type and figure until a time of correction, as it is written; a time in which those were destined thereafter to be shown forth who more fittingly and more truly call God Father, because the Spirit of the Only-begotten dwelt in them.

as in shadows this was prefigured in that people; just as indeed we understand that circumcision in the spirit was of old foreshadowed in their flesh.

and, to speak in sum, all that is ours was in them typically.

But in addition to what has been said, we say this also: that Israel was called typically unto adoption through the mediator Moses;

wherefore they were also baptized into him, as Paul says, in the cloud and in the sea, and were furnished for a law of bondage out of idolatry, the commandment in written letters being administered to them through angels;

but those who through faith in Christ ascend unto the adoption of God are baptized not into any one of created things, but into the holy Trinity itself, through the mediation of the Word, who joins to Himself things human by means of the flesh that was united to Him, and is Himself naturally joined to the One who begot Him, inasmuch as He is God by nature;

for thus the servant is brought back unto sonship, through participation in the true Son, being called and as it were raised up toward the dignity that belongs to Him by nature.

For this very reason we are called, and are, begotten of God, we who have received the regeneration through the Spirit by faith.

But since some rashly dare, just as against the Only-begotten, so also to speak falsely against the Holy Spirit, asserting that He is created and made, and altogether dragging Him out of the consubstantiality with God the Father, come then, let us once more set the word of the right faith against their loose-tongued babblings, and beget occasions of benefit both for ourselves and for those who will read.

For if the Spirit is neither God by nature, O ye men, nor indeed proper to Him from God, and for this reason essentially existing in Him;

but is something other than He, and not removed from being of the same nature as things made, how are we, who were begotten through Him, said to have been begotten of God? For either we shall say that the Evangelist is altogether lying, or, if he is truthful, and it is so and not otherwise, then the Spirit will be God and of God by nature; and being counted worthy to partake of Him through faith in Christ, we are made partakers of the divine nature, and are said to have been begotten of God, and for this reason are designated gods—not merely by grace, soaring up to the glory that is above us, but as already having God dwelling and lodging within us, according to that which is written in the prophet, 'For I will dwell in them and walk about among them.' For in what manner, let those tell us who are full of such great ignorance, are we temples of God, according to Paul, having the Spirit dwelling in us, unless He is God by nature? For if He is a creature and made, for what cause does God destroy us as those who destroy the temple of God, whenever we defile the body in which the Spirit dwells—the Spirit that has the whole natural property of God the Father, and likewise of the Only-begotten? Or how shall the Savior speak truly when He says, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him, and dwell in him'?

And yet it is the Spirit that dwells in us, and through Him we believe that we have at the same time both the Father and the Son, just as John also said somewhere again in his epistles, 'By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.' But how shall He be called the Spirit of God at all, unless He is of Him and in Him by nature, and for this reason God? For if, being, as those men say, created, He is the Spirit of God, there is nothing to prevent the other made things also from being called spirits of God;

for the argument will by its own force reach even to them, if indeed it is at all admissible that a created essence should be the Spirit of God.

And indeed it would truly be consistent to unfold a lengthy discourse upon these matters, and to expatiate at greater length, overturning the follies of the impious heretics;

but having already treated sufficiently concerning the Holy Spirit in our book on the holy Trinity, we shall for this very reason pass over saying much more.

By this he has now clearly entered upon the discourse concerning the Incarnation.

That the Only-begotten became and was designated Son of man, he clearly sets forth;

for this, and nothing else, is what it means to say that the Word became flesh;

for it is as though, in more naked terms, he had said, 'The Word became man.'

And in speaking thus he introduces nothing strange or unfamiliar to us, since divine Scripture often designates the whole living being even from the flesh alone, according to that which is written in the prophet Joel, 'I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh'; and surely we shall not suppose the prophet to mean that the divine Spirit was to be supplied to the human flesh alone, lifeless and by itself.

for thus what is signified will by no means escape absurdity; rather, comprehending the whole from a part, he names the man from the flesh. And it was fitting that it should be so, and not otherwise;

and for what cause, it is necessary, as it seems, to state.

Man, then, is a living being that is rational, yet composite, consisting namely of soul and of this perishable and earthly flesh.

But since he had been made by God and brought forth into existence, not having from his own nature incorruptibility and imperishability;

for these belong essentially to God alone;

he was sealed by the spirit of life, gaining the good that is above nature by his relation to the Divine. 'For He breathed,' it says, 'into his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul.' But when, on account of the transgression, he was punished with the words, 'Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return,' then, justly hearing this, he was stripped bare of the grace;

and the breath of life departed from the earthly flesh, that is, the Spirit of Him who says, 'I am the life,' and the living being falls into death through the flesh alone, while the soul is preserved in immortality, since it was to the flesh alone that it was said, 'Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return.' It was needful, therefore, that what was most in peril within us should be the more swiftly rescued, and by a renewed union with the life should be recalled, according to its nature, unto incorruption.

It was needful that what had suffered should find a loosing of the evil.

It was needful then that the words 'Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return' should be rendered powerless, the fallen body being ineffably united to the Word who gives life to all things.

For it was needful that His flesh, once it had come into being, should partake of the immortality that is from Him;

for it would indeed be among the most absurd things that fire should be able to implant in materials the sensible quality of the energy that naturally belongs to it, and all but transform into itself the things in which it comes to be by participation;

yet that the Word of God, who is above all things, should by no means be thought able to work His own good, that is, life, into the flesh.

For this cause especially, I think, the holy Evangelist, signifying the whole living being chiefly from that which suffered, said that the Word of God became flesh;

that one might behold at once both the wound and the remedy, the sick one and the physician, that which was bent down unto death and the One who raised it up unto life, that which was overcome by corruption and the One who drives away corruption, that which was mastered by death and the One who is mightier than death, that which was deprived of life and the Supplier of life.

And he says not that the Word came into flesh, but that He became flesh, lest you should suppose Him to have visited it merely by relation, as perchance in the prophets or in certain others of the saints, but rather that He truly became flesh, that is, man;

for this is what we were just now saying.

For this reason He is also God by nature in flesh, and with flesh, having it as His own, and being conceived as something other than it, and being worshipped in it and together with it, according to that which is written in the prophet Isaiah: 'Men of stature shall come over unto thee, and shall be thy servants, and shall follow after thee bound with fetters, and shall do obeisance to thee, and shall pray in thee, for God is in thee, and there is no God besides thee.' Behold, they say that God is in Him also, not separating the flesh from the Word;

and again they affirmed that there is no God besides Him, uniting to the Word that which is borne, as His own, that is, the temple from the Virgin;

for Christ is one out of both.

The Evangelist usefully works out further what has been said, and brings the force of the contemplation into a clearer understanding;

[he says] Word of God, lest anyone out of much ignorance should suppose Him to have run out of His own nature, and to have been truly changed into flesh and to have suffered, which was impossible;

for the Divine is far removed from all alteration and change into anything else, in respect to the mode of His being;

very rightly indeed did the theologian straightway add that 'He also dwelt among us,' so that, understanding two things signified—both the One who tabernacles and that in which the tabernacling takes place—you might not suppose Him to have been turned aside into flesh, but rather to have tabernacled in flesh, using as His own body the temple from the holy Virgin.

For 'in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,' as Paul says;

and he usefully asserts that the Word tabernacled among us, thereby unveiling to us this deeply profound mystery;

for we were all in Christ, and the common element of humanity ascends unto His person, since for this reason He was also named the last Adam, being rich, by the commonalty of nature, in all things that make for good cheer and glory, just as also the first Adam was rich in all that makes for corruption and dejection.

The Word therefore tabernacled in all through one, so that, the one being declared Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness, the dignity might come unto the whole of humanity, and thus through one of us the saying might reach even unto us: 'I said, ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.' Accordingly, in Christ the servant is truly set free, ascending unto the mystical unity with Him who bore the form of the servant, but in us by imitation of the One, on account of the kinship according to the flesh.

For, for what cause does He not take hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham, whence He was bound in all things to be made like unto His brethren, and to become in truth man? Is it not manifest to all that He descended unto the servant's estate, procuring this thereby not for Himself, but bestowing Himself upon us, that we by His poverty might be made rich, ascending, through the likeness to Him, unto His own and peculiar good, and being manifested as gods and children of God through faith? For the Son who is by nature God tabernacled among us;

wherefore also in His Spirit we cry, 'Abba, Father'; and the Word tabernacles, as in all, in one temple which was taken for us and from us, so that, having all in Himself, He might reconcile all in one body to the Father, just as Paul says.

'And we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.'

Having said that the Word became flesh, that is, man, and having brought Him down into brotherhood with things servile and made, he thus also preserves for Him unimpaired the dignity befitting God, and shows Him to be once more full of the paternal property that is in Him.

For the divine nature is truly fixed upon itself, not enduring to suffer any turning aside unto anything else, but rather remaining ever the same, and standing firm in its own excellences.

Therefore, even though the Evangelist says that the Word became flesh, yet he affirms that He was not overcome by the weaknesses of the flesh, nor did He fall away from His most ancient strength and glory, seeing that He clothed Himself with our weak and most inglorious body.

'For we saw His glory,' he says, beyond the peculiar glory of others, and such as one would confess to befit the Only-begotten Son from God the Father;

for He was full of grace and truth.

For if one looks upon the choir of the saints, and reckons up the things wondrously wrought through each of them, he will indeed marvel, as is fitting, and will rejoice over the good things belonging to each, and will say that they were altogether filled with glory from God;

[that glory] naturally passing over unto the Son who comes forth from Him.

But if it seem good to anyone to examine what has been said by broader contemplations, let him consider by himself both the things wondrously wrought through each of the saints and the things wrought through our Savior Christ, and he will find the difference to be as great as we have already said before;

and in addition to this, consider also that:

for they are about the house as genuine household servants, but He is over His house as a son; and concerning the Only-begotten the divine Scripture says, 'Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord'; but concerning the saints God the Father says, 'And I sent unto you all My servants the prophets.' And they borrowed their power from above, but He, as Lord of the powers, says, 'If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not;'

but if I do, even though ye believe not Me, believe the works.' If, therefore, the Only-begotten is as great in power as the Father Himself would be, He is seen by these very works, and He will be magnified with glories in equal proportion, inasmuch as He is the worker of equal deeds;

and He will altogether surpass, even having come to be in flesh, those who were called unto brotherhood, by as much as God who is such by nature transcends men, and He who is truly the Son transcends those who are sons by adoption.

But since it is written in the blessed Luke, 'And Jesus advanced in wisdom and grace,' it is to be noted in these matters that the Spirit-bearing one said that the Son had glory full of grace;

then, to what point should the full advance, or what addition should that receive beyond which there is nothing? Accordingly, it is not said that He advances in so far as He is Word and God, but that, being ever the more admired, He was shown to those who beheld to be more full of grace through His accomplished works—the disposition of those who marveled advancing rather (as it is more truly to be said) than the perfect One Himself, as God, advancing toward grace.

And let these things be said usefully, even if the discourse is somewhat digressive.

'John bears witness concerning Him, and cries out.'

The most wise Evangelist again follows his own train of thought, and gracefully makes the ensuing discourse as something owed to what preceded.

For since he had said concerning the Son of God, 'We beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father,' lest he should appear to say this alone—the word 'We beheld' not befitting a single person—he joins to himself the witness of the same name, who has toward Him one and the same piety.

'I therefore bear witness,' He says;

and the Baptist likewise bears witness as well.

A most worthy pair of Spirit-bearing men, a couple truly deserving of trust, nurtured together in truth and knowing not how to lie.

But observe how vividly he has framed the exposition for us;

for he does not merely say that John bears witness concerning Him, but usefully adds that he also cried out, taking the proof of his statement from the words 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness.'

For it was open to some of the adversaries to ask: When did the Baptist bear witness to the Only-Begotten, and to whom did he communicate these things? He cried out, therefore, he says — that is, he does not speak in a corner, nor does he testify quietly and in a whisper; you shall hear him crying out more clearly than a trumpet.

'I am not the only one who heard such things,' I say; broad and open to all is the word, brilliant the herald, conspicuous the voice, great and by no means unknown the forerunner.

'This was He of whom I said: He who comes after me has been placed before me, for He was before me.'

Having named the witness, one of the same mind and the same name as himself, and having shown that he employed a great voice for the ministry of proclamation, he usefully adds also the manner of the testimony;

for in this above all lay the whole matter under inquiry.

What then, indeed, shall we find such a John as this crying out concerning the Only-Begotten? 'He who comes after me has been placed before me, for He was before me.' Deep is the saying, and one that demands much scrutiny upon itself;

for the ready and worn-out understanding held by the many happens to be something like this:

Emmanuel, as the blessed Luke has recorded,

some suppose John to be saying this, so that it may be understood thus: 'He who comes after me' in respect of the time of age 'has been placed before me.'

But it is possible to see, for one who gazes more keenly into the divine contemplations, first, how the word is carried off by us into evanescent notions, and journeys far away from what must necessarily be sought.

For the holy Baptist was brought in as a witness, not that he might point to Christ as being now later, now again earlier by the time of birth, but as one who had beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. What sort of account, then, could anyone fit to narratives that have intruded so unseasonably? Or how could anyone clearly interpret for us, taking the thing sought as a quantity of time — that is, 'He who comes after me has been placed before me'? For let it be granted, and confessedly so, that the Lord comes after the Baptist, inasmuch as He was born second in respect of the time according to the flesh;

in what manner will He also come to be before him — before him in time, that is? For the order and sequence rightly owed in proportion to what preceded summons us to this consideration.

But I think this becomes clear to everyone, that it would not be among things possible;

for that which is later than something in time could never overtake that which precedes it.

Therefore it is utterly ignorant and altogether implausible to suppose that the holy Baptist spoke concerning time according to the flesh when he said, 'He who comes after me has been placed before me';

but rather, understanding it in accordance with the aim we have set before us, we shall believe it to have been spoken somewhat as follows.

Gracefully the blessed Baptist raises his discourse from the customary figure to a spiritual quality of things, and, as it were from some image drawn from our own affairs, proceeds to the exposition of finer conceptions.

For that which is by nature fitted to lead is somehow always wont to be more esteemed than those things said to follow, and to those that lead the things that follow give place;

as one who has perfected the craft of the smith, or perhaps of the carpenter, or of the weaver, somehow leads and holds the better place over the one conceived as following him as an apprentice and advancing toward perfect knowledge;

but when such a one surpasses the craft of his teacher, and, leaving it behind, works the better, I suppose the one who has been surpassed will not inelegantly say concerning the disciple who has prevailed: 'He who comes after me has been placed before me.'

Transferring, therefore, according to this the force of the contemplation from the figure to our Saviour Christ and to the holy Baptist, you will understand rightly;

and receive the particulars from the beginning.

The Baptist was admired by all, he made many disciples, a great crowd of those being baptized surrounded him, while Christ, though greater, was not recognized, and it escaped notice that He was truly God;

and since He was unrecognized, while the Baptist was admired, He seemed somehow even to come after him;

He walked a little behind, while that other still held the greater place in respect of the honour and glory that is among men;

but He who came after was placed before, shown to be greater and better than John.

For the one, being already God, was revealed through His works, while the other, not rising above the measure of humanity, is found henceforth to have come after.

Therefore the blessed Baptist said in riddling fashion, 'He who comes after me has been placed before me,' instead of 'He who was once behind my honour has appeared more glorious, and by incomparable pre-eminences outruns the measure that befits and belongs to me.'

Understanding what was said in this way, we shall find him a witness to the glory of the Only-Begotten, and not an unseasonable expositor of idle matters.