Commentary on John 1 part 80/94

For one of the holy disciples said somewhere, 'You believe that God is one; you do well: the demons also believe, and shudder.' What then shall we say to these things? How will Christ speak truly, saying that eternal life is to know the one and true Father and God, and with Him the Son? But I think it is necessary to say to this that the word of the Savior will assuredly be true;

for knowledge is life, as travailing with the whole power of the mystery, and bringing in the participation of the mystical blessing, through which we are made proper to the living and life-giving Word.

For it is for this cause, I think, that Paul also says the Gentiles became fellow-members of one body and partakers with Christ, inasmuch indeed as they too have partaken of His holy flesh and blood.

And in this way our members might also be understood to be members of Christ.

Knowledge therefore is life, bringing in besides this the blessing that comes through the Spirit.

For He dwells in our hearts, transforming into adoption those who receive Him, and refashioning them unto incorruption and godliness through an evangelical manner of life.

being causes leading also unto it.

And I think it necessary to observe studiously in what manner Christ has said that the most perfect knowledge of Him who alone and in truth is God is fulfilled in us.

For behold how it does not come to pass apart from the contemplation concerning the Son, and clearly also concerning the Holy Spirit;

for the Monad is thus conceived of and believed in the Triad, according to the Scriptures.

For the Jews, being led by the commandments given through Moses to depart from the many and falsely named gods, drew near and were persuaded to serve the only and true God.

For 'You shall worship the Lord your God,' the law says, 'and Him only shall you serve.' But those who have already served and are devoted to the only and true God, as not yet having the perfect knowledge of Him who is worshiped, are now, through the words of our Savior, called to that very knowledge—not learning that the Maker of all is alone, one, and true, but that He is also Father, and whom He has begotten; or rather, now beholding Him accurately in the unaltered image, that is, in the Son.

For through the impress one might come, and that very easily, to the pure contemplation of the archetypes.

Most necessarily therefore our Lord Jesus Christ said that those called through faith unto adoption and eternal life must learn not only that God is one and true, but that He is also Father, and of whom He is Father—namely of Him who for our sake became flesh, and was sent for the restoration of the corrupted rational nature, that is, of humanity.

That the Son was not stripped of the God-befitting glory, even though He is found saying to the Father, 'And now glorify Me with the glory which I had,' and what follows.

I glorified You on the earth;

I finished the work which You gave Me to do.

And now glorify Me, You Father, with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

He again interweaves the human with the God-befitting, and the discourse is somehow blended, looking to both—neither too greatly exalting the person of the speaker unto entire God-befitting authority and glory, nor yet allowing it to settle wholly within the measures of humanity, but blending some one thing out of both, released from none of the things mentioned.

For our Lord Jesus Christ deemed it necessary to instruct those who had believed, not only that He is God, the Only-begotten, but that He also became man for our sake, that He might win all for God the Father, and refashion them unto newness of life, having purchased humanity with His own blood, and having risked Himself before all on behalf of the life of all—one who alone is worthier than all.

He says therefore that He glorified the Father on the earth, having completed the work which He gave Him.

And come now again, conceiving as it were a twofold path in the contemplations concerning these things, let us say that this too was spoken both humanly and in a manner befitting God.

If, then, He should speak such things as man, you will accept it thus: Christ became for us a type and beginning and image of the godly manner of life, and He plainly showed both how and in what manner we ought to live our lives;

for on this account the craftsmen of the divine writings make the most subtle exposition concerning Him.

He instructs us therefore also through what He here says, that each of us, fulfilling the ministry appointed to him and carrying through to the end the things commanded by God, then indeed altogether glorifies Him through his own good achievements—not adding to Him as to one who lacks;

For the divine and ineffable Nature is full of glory;

yet He causes Himself to be glorified by those who behold and are benefited by Him.

And so the Saviour says: 「Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.」 For when we act manfully and desire to do good for God's sake, we do not procure the good repute that comes of it for our own heads, but rather secure the praise for the honour and glory of Him who rules over all.

Having therefore fulfilled the work given us by God, then most justly ascending to that boldness which best befits true sons, we shall in turn ask an equal glory from the God who has been glorified by us. For 「As I live, says the Lord, those who glorify Me I will glorify, and he who despises Me shall be despised.」 So that Christ might show that it is fitting for us then to ask glory from the One alone — I mean glory unto the age to come — when we shall have displayed to Him a blameless and complete submission and be found the most vigilant keepers of what He has commanded, He says that He Himself has glorified the Father, having accomplished on the earth the work which He gave Him.

But He too seeks to receive back in return — not a glory foreign or imported, as ours is, but rather His own good repute and glory.

For that glory we indeed must ask, but He need do so no longer.

But behold how He once more, in Himself and through Himself, renews for our nature the boldness toward both.

For in Him first and through Him we have been enriched both with the power to fulfil the things entrusted to us by God for our right-doing, and further with the right to ask henceforth, out of boldness, the honour owed to those who have proved worthy.

For of old, because of the sin that reigned over us and the apostasy that took place in Adam, we possessed neither the power to accomplish anything of the things that pertain to virtue, but were also as far as possible from boldness toward God.

And so, God, bringing us back to this out of exceedingly great gentleness, comforted us through the prophet's voice, saying: 「Fear not, for you were put to shame; neither be abashed, for you were reproached.」 Just as, therefore, in all other good things, our Lord Jesus Christ became for us firstfruits and door and way, so also here.

But if the Saviour seeks His own pre-mundane glory, and if, transferring the force of the contemplation to our own case, we affirm that we too must with great zeal work out what seems good to God, and thus ask from on high, out of boldness, glory —

let no one suppose that we mean this: that it befits man, in imitation of Christ, to seek some pre-mundane and ancient glory as owed to himself as well.

Rather let him consider that what is fitting for each is also most suitable for that one to say.

For if only the human element, such as ours, is conceived in Christ, then let Him speak only the things befitting those born of earth, and let Him not go beyond the human measure.

But if, being God, the Word became flesh, then whenever He says something in a manner befitting God, it will suit Him alone, and no longer those who are not as He is.

Therefore, understanding in a more human way according to the sense just now assigned by us, we shall take the force of the words set before us;

but reckoning again the God-befitting dignity of Christ, we naturally conceive something greater from that point on than accords with human nature.

We say, then, that He glorified His own Father and God, having fulfilled the work which He received from Him — not as a servant or as one placed in a ministering rank, and that of necessity, lest even the Lord of all should appear to be within the measure that belongs to us and to the creation that serves;

for it belongs to men or angels to be subjected in servile fashion and to minister in a slave-like manner to the divine nods.

The Son, then, is entrusted with — or rather receives from His own Father — the work concerning us.

But in what manner, or how, God commands His own Power, it is necessary to examine and to state, in so far as it is possible to interpret in a human way things that surpass the mind.

Let there then be supposed some man among us, and let us believe him to be skilled in the craft of the smith;

then let him have turned to the fashioning of a statue — or rather to the repair of one already damaged and marred — for its restoration.

How, then, will he work, and how will he accomplish what seems good? Evidently by committing the fulfilment of whatever he might choose to do to the power of his own hands and to the wisdom that belongs to his craft.

But even if, in our conceptions, his wisdom and his power somehow appear to be something other than himself, yet they would not be other than himself.

For in the account of his essence he will possess these also.

And you will indeed conceive something of this kind concerning God, yet you will not by any means receive the force of the illustration as wholly corresponding.

For God is above all things, and He will be conceived as above this also.

The same account would hold if the illustration were taken in the form and manner of the sun and of fire.

For the sun, as it were, commands the light poured forth from it to make all things bright;

and it gives, as it were, by the operation of its rays, the work of casting the power of heat into those that receive it;

and in like manner fire too commands and, in a certain manner, permits the property of its own nature to fulfil the things that befit it;

yet we do not on this account say that the ray and the light came to belong to the sun, and the burning operation to the fire, in the rank of a slave-like ministry.

For each of the two operates through what it possesses by nature as its own.

But even if they somehow appear not to be self-acting, yet they are not other than the things that proceed from them by nature.

You will conceive something of this kind concerning God the Father and the Word who was begotten of Him by nature, whenever He is said to be entrusted with any of the things concerning us.

His wisdom, then, and His power — that is, Christ — glorified the Father and God upon the earth, having accomplished the work which He gave Him.

And since the work befitting Him is now brought to its consummation, He asks the glory that ever belongs to Him, and seeks, as the season now calls, the resumption of His most ancient renown.

And what work, then, has He fulfilled, through which He says He glorified the Father? For, being true God, by the good pleasure and will of the Father He became man, eagerly desiring to save the whole inhabited world and to renew unto endless life and unto true knowledge of God the race that had slipped away upon the earth;

which indeed was brought to completion by the God-befitting power and authority of Christ, who abolished death, overthrew the greed of the devil, cast down sin, and displayed His incomparable love toward us, by remitting to all their charges and enlightening the wandering, who now understood the one and true God.

Christ, then, having by His own power accomplished such things, the Father has been glorified by all, since all in the world evidently understood His wisdom and power and the serenity and love for mankind that reside in Him.

For henceforth He shone forth and was made manifest in the Son as in an image and impress of His own nature, and from the fruit the tree was known, according to what is written.

And, the works being now accomplished and the dispensation concerning us having reached its fitting end, and having been beautifully administered, He returns to His own glory and takes hold again of His ancient renown.

But inasmuch as He still bears about the form of man, He fashions the shape of a petition and asks as though He did not possess it;

for all things come to man from God.

It was so; but since in the time of the dispensation concerning us He somehow contracted it, taking this most inglorious body, He reasonably seeks it as though it were truly absent, and this He says as man.

And understanding something of this kind, the wise Paul too writes to us concerning Him: 「For let this mind be in each of you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, coming to be in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross;」

「therefore also God has highly exalted Him and granted Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, unto the glory of God the Father.」 For though the Son is exalted, inasmuch as from Him has manifestly shone forth God and Lord, none the less He is recorded as being exalted as man, to whom the lowliness of His own nature secures the being in every way exalted.

It is, therefore, the resumption of His own glory that He asks, even with the flesh;

and it is not at all as being bereft of His own glory that He says such things, even if He should perchance not receive them;

for the Word, being true God, was never outside His own dignities;

but rather, as raising up to the glory that ever belongs to Him even His own temple, or rather as bringing back Himself together with His own flesh — on account of which the intervening lack of glory ensued.

For lest He should seem to some to be asking a glory unfamiliar and strange and not long since accustomed to Him, He declares it to be pre-mundane and existing with the Father Himself.

For the Son was never outside the renown of the Father, ever reigning together with Him and being hymned together and worshipped together by us and by the holy angels, as God from God and in God and with God.

For teaching this, I think, the divine Evangelist John also adds: 「In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;」

「the same was in the beginning with God.」 CHAPTER VII

That the saying that something has been given to the Son by the Father does not alienate Him from His God-befitting dignity, but, being consubstantial and from Him, He is shown to be so even if He is said to receive anything.

「I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world;」

「they were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word;」

「now they have known that all things, whatsoever You have given Me, are from You, for the words which You gave Me I have given to them, and they received them, and knew truly that I came forth from You, and believed that You sent Me.」

I have already said beforehand in what we lately examined — not, as it seems to me, without close scrutiny — that Christ carried on His discourse with the Father in heaven in a manner at once God-befitting and human.

For He steers His discourse toward both, neither placing it wholly within the bounds of humanity, nor yet making it wholly touch the God-befitting glory;

but none the less here again the same character has been preserved for us.

For as God by nature, and as the impress of the ineffable Nature, He says to His own Father: 「I have manifested Your name to the men,」 putting 'name' in place of saying 'glory'.

For our common usage too has somehow been accustomed to speak in this way.

And so the most wise Solomon wrote: 「A good name is more to be chosen than great riches,」 that is, a good repute and glory is better than the splendour and conspicuousness that lie in wealth.

And God Himself somewhere says, through the voice of Isaiah, to those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven: 「Let not the eunuch say, I am a dry tree;」

surely no one, if he be of sound mind, will suppose, as is reasonable, that the recompense of God's munificence will be apportioned in mere appellations of names to those who, from a good and virtue-loving mind, have struggled against all the pleasure that is in the world, and have mortified their members that are upon the earth, and have honoured only the things not out of tune with the divine laws.

Rather, He says 'name' again in place of 'glory';

for they shall be objects of emulation and of admiring regard, reigning together with Christ.

The Saviour therefore very firmly affirms that He has made manifest the name of God the Father; that is, that He has rendered His glory most conspicuous to those throughout the whole inhabited world.

In what manner, or by what means? Namely, by setting Himself forth as a proof through those achievements that surpass reason.

For the Father is glorified in the Son, as in an image and stamp of His own form; for from the impress the beauty of the archetypes ever shines forth.

For from the impress the beauty of the archetypes ever shines forth.

The Only-Begotten therefore has been made manifest, being essentially Wisdom and Life, the Craftsman and Maker of all things, mightier than death and corruption, holy, guileless, compassionate, sanctified, and good.

And He who begat Him was likewise known to be all these things; for He could not be otherwise in nature than the One who proceeds naturally from Him.

For He could not be otherwise according to nature than the One who is naturally from Him.

He shone forth therefore, as in an image and stamp of His own form, in the glory of the Offspring.

For among the men of old there was indeed some such account concerning Him;

but now He has been made manifest to us through sight itself.

And that which is beheld is always somehow greater for producing faith than the things conveyed in words.

I think, then, that our discourse on these matters has not been made to no purpose;

yet we must also proceed by another path, that is, by a road of contemplations.

For the Son has made manifest the name of the Father, plainly bringing us to understanding and to a pure contemplation, not only that He is God;

for this was proclaimed even before His sojourn among us through the God-inspired Scripture;

but that, besides being truly God, He is also Father, not falsely so named, having in Himself and from Himself His own Offspring, coeval and coeternal with His own nature;

for He begat not in time the Maker of the ages.

And 'Father' is somehow a more proper name for God than 'God';

for the one is indicative of dignity, while the other conveys the declaration of the essential property.

For whoever says 'God' has pointed to the Lord of all;

but whoever names Him 'Father' touches the language of His distinctive property, for he has made manifest that He has begotten.

And the Son Himself, assigning to God the more intimate and more truthful name of 'Father,' at one time said, not 'I and God,' but 'I and the Father are one'; and at another time again, concerning Himself, 'For this One did the Father, even God, seal'; and moreover, when commanding His own disciples to baptize all the nations, He expressly ordained that they should do this not into the name of God, but into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For the divinely-inspired Moses, when expounding the making of this world, did not attribute the work of creation to a single person, writing: 'And God said, Let us make man according to our image and after our likeness'; and by saying 'Let us make' and 'according to our likeness,' the Holy Trinity is signified;

for the Father has created and called all things into being through the Son in the Spirit.

But such things were somehow not readily discernible to the men of old; rather, the doctrine was unclear;

for He was not named 'Father' in a particular sense, nor yet was the person of the Son plainly brought forward.

But our Lord Jesus Christ, without any concealment and with great boldness, called God His own Father, and, naming Himself Son and showing Himself to be truly the genuine fruit of the nature that rules over all, made manifest the name of the Father, and brought us up to perfect knowledge.

For the fullest knowledge concerning God and the Origin of all things consists not only in knowing that He is God, but that He is also Father, and whose Father He is, the Holy Spirit plainly entering in together with them.

For to know only that God is God would befit not us so much as those under the Law;

for the measure of it does not rise above Jewish understanding.

It brings in a lesson fit for schoolboys and insufficient for the attainment of the virtue that accords with true religion; thus it implanted even an imperfect knowledge concerning God, only holding one back from love toward the falsely-named gods and persuading one to worship the one true God: 'For there shall be to thee,' He says, 'no other gods besides Me';

'The Lord thy God shalt thou worship, and Him only shalt thou serve.' But our Lord Jesus Christ, adding what was better to the things enjoined through Moses, and setting alongside the legal commandment a more brilliant instruction, bestowed upon that ancient knowledge one that was better and more luminous.

For He made clear to us not only that the Author and Lord of all things is God, but that He is also Father;

and the demonstration was in deeds;

for He set Himself forth as an image, saying: 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,' 'I and the Father are one.' And these things He fittingly says, inasmuch as He is God from God by nature, speaking of His own Father in a lofty and God-befitting manner.

But He immediately adds, speaking in a more human fashion: 'Those whom Thou hast given Me out of the world, they were Thine, and Thou hast given them to Me.'

We shall by no means suppose that the Lord said these things as though something had been apportioned privately and severally, or belonged distinctively to the sovereignty of God the Father, which is not also perhaps the Son's own;

for He is King before the ages, according to the voice of the Psalmist, and the eternal partaker of the Father's sovereignty;

and indeed the most wise Evangelist John, teaching that all things belong to Him and are subjected under Him—clearly with the Father reigning together with Him—wrote: 'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not,' calling His own even those who did not yet understand Him, but who shook off, as it were, the yoke of the kingdom under Him.

And He said such things at this point, making that matter plain to His hearers, namely, that there were some in this world who had not received the one true God even so far as into their mind, but who served the creation and the demons and the diabolical inventions;

yet even if they did not know the Maker of all things, wandering somewhere outside the truth, they nonetheless belonged to God, inasmuch as He is Lord of all as Creator.

For all things are God's own, and there is nothing at all among created things which does not have the one Lord, even if the thing made does not perhaps know this.

For surely no one would say that the fact that some have gone astray takes away the sovereignty over all from the Maker of all things; rather, the fact that they have been made and brought into being through Him subjects and places all things under Him.

Since, then, the truth stands thus, even those who were held fast in the deceptions of the devil and entangled in the disorders of the world belonged to the God who is such by nature.

But they have been given to the Son. How, or in what manner? For God the Father was well pleased that Emmanuel should reign over them, not as though He were only now beginning His kingship over them;

for He was ever Lord and King, inasmuch as He is God by nature;

but because, having become man and having faced peril before all on behalf of the life of all, He purchased all for Himself, and through Himself presented them to God the Father.

He therefore who of old and from the beginning reigned as God together with His own Begetter has been appointed King as man, to whom, along with other things, the act of reigning is also given, according to the measure of human nature.

For man is not king in the same way as he is a rational animal, receptive of mind and knowledge, possessing such things among his natural endowments; but kingship is otherwise;

for those things are comprised within the definition of his essence, while kingship is something external and superadded, and does not appear among the things that grow inseparably to him;

for it comes and goes without in any way whatsoever, so far as concerns the account of essence, doing injustice to the subject.

Given, therefore, and from without, the dignity of kingship is introduced to man from God;

He says: 'For all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are from Thee.'

For properly and in a special sense all things belong to God;

but they are given to us who have come into being through Him.

And to possess all things and to have rule over the whole is most fitting for the divine nature;

but for us, on the other hand, to receive is most proper.

And He bore witness to the genuineness unto servitude and the readiness unto obedience of those who believe in Him without any wavering.

For He says: 'Because the words which Thou gavest Me I have given unto them, and they have received them, and have known truly that I came forth from Thee, and have believed that Thou didst send Me.'

He expressly names His own utterances 'words of God and the Father,' because of the identity in essence, and inasmuch as He is God the Word, revelatory of the Father's wills, just as, of course, the word that issues from our own mouths, which by its outward expression strikes the hearing of one's neighbour, interprets the mystery in the depth of the heart.

Wherefore the prophetic word also said concerning Him, that His name is called 'Messenger of great counsel.' For the truly extraordinary and supernatural and great counsel of the Begetter is conveyed by the Word who is in Him and from Him—by the utterance of words, as man, when He became like us; and by knowledge and spiritual illumination, after His ascension into the heavens.

For He reveals His own mysteries to those who are worthy, and Paul will bear witness, saying: 'Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me.' He has therefore borne witness to those who love Him, that they received and kept the words given to Him from the Father;

and in addition to this, they have been fully assured that He came forth from Him and has been sent, unlike those who are sick with the contrary supposition.

For those who neither received the words that come from Him, nor kept a free faith, were neither so disposed nor believed that He came forth from God and has been sent.

And indeed the Jews used to say, at one time: 'If this man were from God, He would not have broken the Sabbath'; and again: 'We are disciples of Moses;'

'we know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this man, we know not whence He is.' Dost thou see how they denied His mission, so as to declare shamelessly that they knew not even whence He is? And that they also would not receive His ineffable and pre-eternal generation—I mean that from God the Father—being sick with much wretchedness of reasonings, and stumbling as against some stone on account of the Incarnation alone, thou wilt easily be fully assured, whenever thou hearest the Evangelist saying: 'And therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal with God.' And there is recorded also the voice of the unholy Jews against Him: 'For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy, because Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God.' Thou understandest therefore, and very plainly, that the genuine keepers of the words that came from Him both confessed and believed that He shone forth from the Father;

for this, I think, is what 'I came forth' declares;