約翰福音註釋 第 1 章 第 7/94 段

The nature of men will therefore more properly and more fittingly admit the meaning that it is enlightened from the very first moments, and that it receives understanding from the light that is in the world—that is, from the Only-Begotten—as something concurrent with and constituted together with its very being; who indeed by the ineffable power of his Godhead fills all things, and is present together with the angels in heaven, and is with those upon earth, and does not leave even Hades itself empty of his own Godhead, and, dwelling everywhere among all things, departs from none; so that concerning this the most wise psalmist, marvelling greatly and with very good reason, says: 'Whither shall I go from your Spirit, and whither shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there;'

'if I go down to Hades, you are present;'

'if I take up my wings at dawn and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.' For the divine hand grasps every place and all creation, holding the things that are made together in being, and gripping fast unto life the things that need life, and sowing in those capable of understanding the intelligible light.

But he is not in place, as we have already said before, nor does he undergo motion from one place to another;

for this is proper to bodies;

rather he fills all things as God.

But someone will perhaps say to this: What then do we say, my noble friend, when someone brings forward before us Christ saying, 'I am come a light into the world'? And what, when the psalmist cries out, 'Send forth your light and your truth'? For behold, here he plainly says that he himself has come into the world, as though clearly not being in it;

and the singer, on the other hand, earnestly besought that one who was not yet present be sent, at least according to the figure in the passage and the impression of a being sent to us.

But he is absent from nothing;

yet he affirmed that he had come into the world, although present in it, according to the manner of the incarnation.

For 'he was seen upon the earth and conversed with men' in the flesh, thereby making his presence in the world more manifest; and he who was of old apprehensible only by the mind became now visible even to the very eyes of the body, and, so to speak, instilled in us a more palpable perception of the knowledge of God, being recognized through miracles and mighty works.

And that the Word of God is sent to us to enlighten the world, the psalmist entreats him not in any other manner, as it seems to me, but precisely in this one.

But I think that the lover of learning ought, in addition to this, to consider also this: that the mind is keener than any speech, and the movement of thought is swifter than the tongue.

Therefore, as far as pertains to the subtlety of the mind and its swift movement, let us behold the manifold beauty of the divine nature;

but we speak of what concerns it in too human a fashion and with our own kind of language, since the tongue does not have the power to stretch out to the measure of the truth.

Wherefore Paul also, the steward of the mysteries of the Saviour, asked of God for utterance in the opening of his mouth.

Nothing, then, will impair the natural dignities of the Only-Begotten by reason of the poverty of the words that are with us; but the things concerning him shall be conceived in a manner befitting God, though they be spoken, because of necessity, in a more human way—both by himself for our sake, and by the saints concerning him, according to the measure of their nature.

It would seem, then, to be well to rest content with what has been said for the exposition of the matters before us;

but since I think it fitting that the pen which serves the divine doctrines should show itself superior to any sloth, come, let us once more set the reading before us and examine it more accurately: how the phrase 'coming into the world' might, according to the fitting sense, be understood as predicated of the man.

For the light was in him, even as the Evangelist himself testified to us, and we affirm not so much that the light comes into the world, as that it is the man being enlightened who comes into the world.

Certain persons, then, belching forth the things from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord, as it is written, assert that before the fashioning of bodies the souls of men pre-existed in heaven, spending a long time in incorporeal blessedness and more purely enjoying that which is truly good;

and, as a proof of this most ridiculous myth of theirs, they seize upon this very first passage now in our hands: 'It was the true light which lightens every man that comes into the world;'

and, in addition to this, certain other passages from the divine Scripture also, such as: 'Before I was brought low, I transgressed;' and indeed, not being ashamed to talk nonsense, they say: Behold, before its being brought low—that is, before its embodiment—the soul, he says, had transgressed, and for this reason was justly brought low by being bound to death and corruption; even as Paul too so names the body, saying, 'Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' But if, he says, the soul transgresses before its being brought low, and comes into the world as pre-existing, of course—

for how could that which does not yet subsist sin at all? And it comes into the world, evidently, being moved from certain places.

'Instruct a righteous man, and he will receive yet more.' These are notions—or rather theorems—of an interwoven and syllogistic form.

If the soul of man pre-existed the fashioning of bodies, and, having declined towards evil, has—according to the suppositions of some—as a punishment for its transgression its descent into flesh, tell me, how does the Evangelist say that it is enlightened as it comes into the world? For the thing is, I think, an honour and an addition of splendid graces;

But a man is punished when he is not honoured, and he is chastised who is not shown forth as a partaker of divine goods, but who has to do with those things that proceed from the wrath of the one who punishes.

But since man does not come into the world in such conditions, but on the contrary is even enlightened, it is thereupon quite evident that the incarnation is no punishment for him who is honoured together with the flesh.

Another. If before the body the soul was still a pure mind, continuing in blessedness, but having inclined towards evil sank down, and on this account came to be in the flesh, how then, coming into the world, is it enlightened? For one must necessarily say that it was bereft of light before it came;

and if this be so, how was it still a pure mind, which then only barely possessed the beginning of being enlightened, at the very time when it also comes into the world, and not apart from flesh?

Another. If the soul of man pre-existed the body, and on this account was still a pure mind, more properly disposed to the desire of good things, but on account of a turning-aside towards the worse is sent into an earthy body, and having come to be in it is required no longer to be willing to transgress—how is it not wronged, in that it was not then especially enjoined to do this, when indeed it was more ready for virtue, not yet bound by the evils that come from the body, but when it has come to be in the murkiness of sin, then it is unseasonably compelled to do this? Yet the Divine would not err as to the fitting occasion, nor would that which by nature does no wrong ever act unjustly.

Seasonably then and justly are we required not to sin while in the flesh, having only this as the time of our being, according to which we come with the body into the world—our not existing before, as though leaving behind a certain place, and being transferred out of it to the beginning of existence.

Another. What reason has it—I would gladly ask them—that the soul, having sinned before bodies, is sent into a body, in order forsooth that by experience it may learn the shamefulness of its own lusts? For they do not even blush to expound such things, though rather it would have been fitting to draw it away even from the very imagination of evils, and not to thrust it down into the very bottom of unnatural pleasures;

for that would have been a mode of healing rather than this.

If then it be in order that it may revel in the pleasures of the body that it has the incarnation as an addition of maladies, no one could praise the corrector, by means of which he supposed he was benefiting that which was ailing while in fact wronging it;

but if it be in order that it may cease from the passions, how, having fallen into the very depth of desire, could it emerge, and not rather, having spat out even the very beginning of the malady, at a time when it appeared naked of that which drags down into sin?

manner? But we see that so far are believers from wishing to be delivered from bodies, that in their confessions concerning Christ they join in proclaiming aloud the resurrection of the flesh.

It will not then be a mode of punishment, that which is honoured even by the confession of faith, as bearing witness that all things are easily possible to the divine power of the Saviour, through its running back again unto life.

Another. If the soul, according to them, pre-existing sinned, and on this account was intertwined with flesh, for what cause does the law appoint that the graver of crimes be punished with death, while it permits him who has done no wrong to live on? For surely it would rather have been fitting that those caught in the most shameful evils be permitted to linger in bodies, that they might indeed be the more punished, while those who have done no wrong be released from bodies, if indeed embodiment ranks as chastisement.

But on the contrary, the murderer is condemned to death, while the righteous man suffers nothing as regards the body;

the incarnation is not then a mode of punishment.

Another. If out of former sins souls were made flesh, and the nature of the body was devised for them as a mode of punishment, how did the Saviour benefit us by abolishing death? How rather did not corruption show us mercy, in that it does away with that which punishes us, and sets an end to the wrath against us? Wherefore indeed one might more consistently say that we ought to give thanks to corruption than, on the contrary, to Him who through the resurrection from the dead imposes upon us the instrument of punishment perpetually;

yet surely we do give thanks, as being delivered from death and corruption through Christ;

the incarnation is not then a mode of punishment to the soul of man.

Another, as from the same consideration. If the souls of men, being required to pay penalties for former sins, were intertwined with bodies from the earth, tell me, what thanks shall we confess to God who promises us the resurrection? For the matter appears as a renewal of punishment and a reconstruction of that which grieves; and if it seem bitter to everyone to be punished for a long time,

then it is a grievous thing that bodies rise again, holding the rank of punishment for the wretched souls.

But surely nature holds the resurrection from Christ as a gift, renewing us unto good cheer.

The embodiment is not then a mode of punishment.

Another. A prophetic word somewhere appears as glad tidings, proclaiming to us a great and thrice-longed-for feast;

for it says, 'The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised.'

But if it were truly a mode of punishment that the wretched souls of men be embodied, how did not the prophet rather grieve them, crying out such things as from God? And how at all shall the proclamation be good, bringing in the continuance of the things that grieve us? For he ought rather to have said, if indeed he wished to gladden those embodied out of sin: 'The dead shall not rise, and the nature of the flesh shall perish.'

But on the contrary he gladdens us, saying that the resurrection of bodies shall be according to the will of God;

and how then could the body still be in the rank of punishment, according to the ill-counsel of certain ones, in which we rejoice and God takes good pleasure?

Another. God somewhere promised, blessing the blessed Abraham, that his seed should be according to the innumerable multitude of the stars.

But if the saying be true, that the soul, having transgressed before the body, is sent to be punished into earth and into flesh, then God promised to the righteous man a crowd of condemned, ignoble ones, fugitives from the good, and not rather a seed sharing in blessing.

But surely God says this in order to bless Abraham;

the generation of bodies is then freed from all accusation.

Another. Into a great and innumerable multitude the race of the Israelites was extended;

and indeed, rightly marvelling exceedingly at this, the hierophant Moses prays over them, saying, 'And behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude;

may the Lord God of your fathers add to you a thousand times as many as ye are.' But if it were a punishment to the souls of men to be with bodies in the world, and they ought rather to be, and not naked, then rather might Moses' word be found to be truly a curse, and not a prayer of blessing.

The incarnation does not then hold the account of punishment.

Another. God does not endure to assent to those who attempt to ask amiss.

And a witness of this to us shall be the unlying disciple of the Saviour, saying, 'Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss.' If then it be a punishment for a soul to be embodied, Hannah the wife of Elkanah—how shall not one say with good reason that she erred far from what was fitting, thus stretching up her prayer to God, and asking for the seed of a man? For she was asking for the downfall of a soul and its descent into a body;

and how at all did God give her a son, the holy Samuel, if indeed a soul must by all means sin, in order that, being intertwined with a body, it might fulfil the request for the woman? But surely God did give him, He whose nature it is to give only good things, and readily assenting to her He freed the request from all reproach.

The incarnation is not then out of sin, nor yet a mode of punishment, according to certain ones.

Another. If the body has been given to the soul of man in the rank of punishment, what was it that persuaded Hezekiah the king of Jerusalem—though he was wise and good—not without bitter tears to beg off the death of the flesh, and to shrink from putting off that which punishes him, and to entreat that he might be honoured with an addition of years? Yet it would have been very fitting, if indeed he were truly good, not rather to beg off dying, but to consider it burdensome to be intertwined with a body, and over this to confess thanks rather than over the contrary.

And how did God promise as in part of grace, saying to him, 'Behold, I add to thy time fifteen years,' though the promise was an addition of punishment and no mode of beneficence, if indeed those men champion the truth? But surely the promise was a gift from above, and the addition a grace;

the embodiment is not then a punishment to souls.

Another. If the body has been given to the soul of man in the rank of punishment, what grace did God bestow in return upon the eunuch who brought up Jeremiah out of the pit, saying, 'And I will give thy soul for a spoil, and I will save thee out of the Chaldeans'?

For rather he ought to have suffered him to die, in order that He might honour him, releasing him from bond and punishment.

The dwelling in the flesh is not then a mode of punishment, lest with God honour and punishment be the same thing.

Another. That there shall be an examination of each one's deeds in due time at the divine tribunal, Paul teaching says, 'For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done through the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.' But if it be for the things done through the body alone that one is either punished by the Judge or deemed worthy of the due honour, and there is no remembrance of former sins, nor yet shall any charge older than birth be sought after,

how then did the soul pre-exist, or how was it humbled out of sin according to certain ones, for which only the time after the flesh is determined, through the fact that only the things done through it are sought after?

Another. If out of former sins souls were embodied, how does Paul enjoin us, saying, 'Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God'? For if they have been given to the wretched souls in the rank of punishment, how shall we present them to God for a sweet-smelling savour? And in what manner shall that be well-pleasing through which we have been condemned? Or what manner of virtue at all shall that admit which is by nature punitive, and has sin for its root?

Another. Showing that corruption is extended over the whole nature of man on account of the transgression in Adam, Paul says—

to come to be with a body—does it have the charge springing up beforehand? The problem of the adversaries is therefore an ignorant one.

Another. The disciples once brought a question to the Saviour concerning one of those blind from birth, and indeed they said, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?' For since it is written in prophetic words concerning God, that He is one who requites the sins of fathers upon children, the disciples supposed that the man had suffered this.

What then does Christ say to this? 'Verily I say unto you, neither did this man sin nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.' How then does He set them outside of sin, though they were not blameless in life? For being men, they were doubtless liable also to faults in some respect.

But it is plain and evident that the saying goes up to the time before birth, according to which, not yet being, they did not sin either, in order that Christ may speak truth.

Another. The blessed prophet Isaiah, expounding the cause of the earth's having been made, says, 'He made it not in vain, but to be inhabited'; and the earth must by all means be inhabited, filled not with bare spirits, nor yet with fleshless and unclothed souls, but with those making use of bodies suited to it.

Was it then a divine will that worked upon souls unto sinning, in order that the nature of bodies might also come to be, and thus henceforth the earth might not appear to have come to be in vain? But this is absurd; the other therefore is the better.

'And day by day I rejoiced in his presence at every time, when he rejoiced having completed the world, and delighted himself among the sons of men.' When therefore God, having completed the world with the fashioning of man, greatly delights Himself, how shall he not lie utterly outside of all sound reason who subjects the soul to former sins, and on this account says that it has been embodied, and after this manner punished? For God shall be the maker rather of a prison than of a world;

and shall He rejoice unreasonably over those paying penalties? And how then could He be good who thus takes glee over absurd things? But surely He is good, and on this very account a maker of good things;

the incarnation shall not then be a mode of punishment.

And since, being just, He punishes the lawless with the death of the flesh, but again gladdens the righteous with life that is with a body,

bodies are not then a punishment to the souls of men, lest God appear unjust, punishing the ungodly by grace, but again honouring the righteous by punishment.

Another. If the soul, in order to pay penalties for former faults, has come down into flesh and body, how did the Saviour love Lazarus, having raised him up, and having compelled him who was once loosed from bonds to run back again into them? But He was acting so as to benefit, and Christ honoured the dead man as a friend, raising him up from the dead.

The problem of the adversaries is therefore vain.

Another. If, just as those triflers say, the body has been given to the soul in the rank of punishment, being devised on account of its former sin, then sin has introduced the nature of human bodies;

it appears to be arming itself, undoing by the later things the things at the beginning, and on this account Satan is divided against himself;

how then shall his kingdom stand, according to the word of the Saviour? But surely to think thus is unpersuasive;

the contrary therefore is true.

Another. God created all things in incorruption;

and death He Himself did not make, but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world. But if it be true that the body has been given to the soul of man in the rank of punishment, for what cause, O ye men, shall we blame the envy of the devil, which brings in for us the end of grievous things, and does away with the body that punishes us? And for what shall we at all render up our thank-offerings to the Saviour, who binds us again to the flesh through the resurrection? But surely we do give thanks, and the envy of the devil has grieved nature, having procured corruption for bodies.

The body is not then a mode of punishment, nor yet the wages of our ancient sin.

'And the world was made through him.'

That the world was made by the Only-begotten is what the Evangelist here necessarily marks out.

For even though, having at the outset called Him the Word, he had firmly affirmed that all things came into being through Him, and that apart from Him nothing was brought forth into being, and by these words had shown Him to be Maker and Creator;

yet it was necessary now most especially to take this up again and to say it once more, lest it be left as a matter of error and ruin for those accustomed to pervert the rectitude of the divine doctrines.

For since he had said concerning the light that it was in the world, then—lest anyone, dragging what was said into strange notions, should reckon the light among the parts of the world according to its several kinds, just as, no doubt, the sun and moon and stars perhaps are in the world, yet only as parts of the world and as members, so to speak, of one body—the Evangelist usefully and necessarily at once brings forward the Only-begotten as the author of being and the craftsman of the whole world, and through this again securing us and leading us by the hand into an unerring and straight apprehension of the truth.

Otherwise the creation would henceforth be its own maker, and the Evangelist would be attaching a bare dignity to the Only-begotten when he says that He was in the world and that the world came into being through Him.

So then, at least among those who know how to believe rightly, a thing made and its maker, God and creation, would never be thought the same; rather, the one shall be subject in servile fashion, recognizing the limit of its own nature;

but the Son shall reign over it, alone with the Father possessing the power both to call the things that are not as though they were, and by ineffable power to bring into being that which does not yet exist.

But that the Son, being God by nature, is surely altogether other than the creation, we have already sufficiently treated in our discourse on the Holy Trinity, and shall here say nothing superfluous;

yet this we shall usefully add: that in saying the world was made through Him, he lifts us up to the thought concerning the Father, and along with the 'through whom' he brings in also the 'from whom.'

For all things are from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

'And the world knew Him not.'

Again the Spirit-bearer is vigilant, and hastens to forestall the sophistries devised by certain men;

he had called the Son the true Light, and had firmly affirmed that He enlightens every man coming into the world;

and besides this he says that He was in the world and the world came into being through Him. But one of the adversaries might at once say to us: 'If the Word was light, sirs, and if He enlightens the heart of every man—that is, unto the knowledge of God and unto understanding befitting man—and if He was ever in the world and Himself was its worker, how was He unknown, and that for such long ages?

Therefore He did not enlighten; nay, He was not the light at all.'

Against such objections the theologian meets them the more warmly, saying: 'The world knew Him not';

'It was not He who through Himself was unknown,' he says;

let the world rather blame its own weakness.

For the Son enlightens, but the creation blunts the grace.

It borrowed the power of sight that it might apprehend Him who is God by nature, yet it squandered prodigally what was given, and set the measure of its contemplation no higher than the things that were made;

it grew numb in the course that lies beyond, buried its illumination under sloth, neglected the gift—the very thing which, that his own disciple might not suffer it, Paul bids him to be watchful.

The worthlessness of those enlightened, then, is nothing against the light;

for just as the light of the sun rises upon all, yet the blind man is in no way profited—though not on that account would we reasonably accuse the sun's radiance, but rather blame the affliction of the sight—

for the one gave light, but the other did not receive the illumination;

so too, I think, must one understand in the case of the Only-begotten, that He is indeed the true Light, but 'the god of this age,' as Paul also says, 'has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the illumination of the knowledge of God should not dawn upon them.'

But we say that man underwent this blinding without coming into an utter destitution of the light;

for the God-given understanding is by all means preserved in his nature;

but rather it is quenched into a more ignorant condition, and by the turnings toward the worse it somehow withers and melts away the measure of grace.

For this reason too the most wise psalmist, when he takes on for us the role of such a man, then indeed and justly prays to be illumined, saying as to God: 'Open my eyes, and I shall behold the wondrous things of Thy law.' For He gave the Law as a help, kindling anew the divine light within us, and like some rheum cleansing away from the eyes of the heart the darkness that had settled upon us from ancient ignorance.

The world, then, incurs in this a charge both of ingratitude and of insensibility, and, having failed to know its own author of being and having displayed no good fruit from being enlightened, so that henceforth that other word too is shown true of it, which through the prophetic voice is sung concerning the sons of Israel: 'I waited that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth thorns.' For truly the fruit of being enlightened was the true conception concerning the Only-begotten, a cluster as it were hanging from a tendril—I mean from the mind of man—and not the contrary: the folly that drags into the error of polytheism, which, like a sharp thorn, springs up within us and by its deceptions wounds the mind unto death.

'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.'

The Evangelist extends the defense on behalf of the world's not having known Him who enlightens it—that is, the Only-begotten—and, beginning from the graver sin of those of Israel, he hastens to establish also the charges against the Gentiles, and displays the disease of unteachableness together with disobedience that had come upon the whole world.

And very aptly he drives on into the discourse concerning the Incarnation, and now descends from pure theology into the exposition of the economy in the flesh which the Son wrought for our sake.

Though He had sojourned among all, they were unwilling to receive Him who was giving the kingdom of heaven in exchange for faith.

But mark how carefully secured the discourse concerning these things has been made.

For of the world he accuses it of not having known at all Him who enlightens it, thereby procuring as it were a just pardon for it, and beforehand arranging reasonable grounds derived from the grace given to it;

but concerning those of Israel, who had been ranked also among those specially belonging to Him, he puts down the 'They received not';

for it was not possible to say with truth 'They knew not,' since the more ancient Law proclaimed, and the prophets after it were leading them as tutors toward the apprehension of the truth.

Just, therefore, is the sentence of severity also upon them, just as, no doubt, is the kindness upon the Gentiles.

For the world—that is, the Gentiles—having lost its intimacy with God through its plunge into worthlessness, was mulcted also of knowing Him who enlightens it;