One must observe the two occurrences of 'in' and examine their difference: the first is in 'the Word was in the beginning,' the second in 'life was in the Word.' But the Word did not come to be in the beginning; for there was never a time when the beginning was without the Word, which is why it is said, 'In the beginning was the Word.' But life was not [already] in the Word — rather life came to be, since life is the light of men. For when man did not yet exist, neither was there the light of men, the light of men being conceived in relation to men.
Let no one press us with the objection that we are reporting these things in a temporal sense, on the ground that the order demands a first, a second, and what follows in sequence — even if no time can be found when the third and fourth things placed under the Word did not exist at all. Just as, then, all things came to be through him, yet not all things were him, and apart from him not even one thing came to be, yet it is not the case that apart from him not even one thing existed — so too that which came to be in him, not that which was in him, was life. And again, it was not that which came to be that was the Word in the beginning, but that which was in the beginning was the Word.
Some of the copies, however, have it — and perhaps not implausibly — 'That which came to be in him is life.' But if life is the same as the light of men, then no one who is in darkness lives, and none of the living is in darkness; rather everyone who lives also exists in light, and everyone who exists in light lives. So that only the one who lives is, altogether, a son of light; and a son of light is he whose works shine before men.
Again, since it is possible to understand what has been omitted concerning opposites from what has been said concerning their opposites, and since Scripture has spoken concerning life and the light of men, and death is opposite to life, and the darkness of men is opposite to the light of men, one can see that he who is found in the darkness of men is in death, and he who does the deeds of death is nowhere else than in darkness. But he who remembers God — if indeed we understand what it is to remember him — is not in death, according to what is said: 'There is none who remembers you in death.'
Whether it be the darkness of men or death, such things are not so by nature — [from another discourse]: 'We ourselves were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord,' even though we are already accounted holy and spiritual. And just as Paul, being receptive, though he was darkness, became light in the Lord, so it is with whoever may be darkness. But according to those who suppose there are spiritual natures — as with Paul and the holy apostles — I do not know whether the claim can be maintained that the spiritual person was once darkness and later became light.
For if the spiritual person was once darkness, what then is the earthly (choic) person? And if it is true that darkness became light, what is the special allotment [reason] that not every darkness can become light? For if it were not said with reference to Paul that 'we were once in darkness, but now are luminous in the Lord,' but rather with reference to those natures they suppose to be perishing — that they were, or are, darkness — then the hypothesis concerning [fixed] natures might have some standing.
But as it is, Paul says that he had once become darkness, but is now light in the Lord, as though it were possible for darkness to change into light. And it is not difficult, once one carefully examines what has been said concerning all the darkness of men and concerning death — which is the same thing as the darkness of men — to see that each one admits of change for the worse and for the better.
21. Now Heracleon, forcing the passage quite violently, has taken 'That which came to be in him was life' to mean, instead of 'in him,' 'unto the spiritual men' — as though supposing the Word and the spiritual men to be the same, even though he has not said this clearly. And, as though giving a reason, he says: 'For he himself furnished them their first formation according to their generation, bringing to form and to illumination and to their own proper delineation the things sown by another.'
But he did not observe also what is said by Paul concerning spiritual persons — that Paul passed over in silence whether they are 'men': 'The soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; but the spiritual man judges/examines all things.' For we do not say without reason that Paul, in speaking of the spiritual, has not added the word 'man'; for the spiritual is something greater than 'man,' since 'man' is characterized either by soul, or by body, or by both together, but not also by that more divine element among these, the spirit, by predominant participation in which the spiritual person is so named.
At the same time, he also asserts the points of such a hypothesis without even any apparent proof, his argument concerning these matters not being able to reach even ordinary plausibility. So much, then, concerning him.
Come, then, let us too inquire into this: whether life was the light of men alone, and not of every being whatsoever that attains to blessedness. For if life and the light of men are the same, and the light of Christ belongs to men alone, then life too belongs to men alone. But to suppose this is both foolish and impious, since the other Scriptures testify against this interpretation — if indeed, when we advance, we shall be equal to angels.
But the difficulty must be resolved thus: it is not the case that, if something is said of certain things, what is said belongs to those alone. Thus it is not the case that, if it is said 'light of men,' it is the light of men alone; for the phrase could have been understood as an addition: 'the life was the light — [namely, the light] of men.' For it is possible that the light of men should also be the light of others besides men, just as it is possible that these animals and these plants, though they are food for men, should also be food for others besides men.
This example, then, is drawn from ordinary usage; but it is worth setting beside it a similar example from the divinely-inspired words. Here, accordingly, we inquire whether nothing prevents the light of men from being also the light of others, maintaining that it is not the case that, because it is called 'the light of men,' it has thereby already been excluded from being the light also of others besides men — beings either superior to men or like men.
For indeed it is written that God is 'the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.' Now the one who, because it has been said 'the life was the light of men,' wishes to hold that the light belongs to no others than men, will, by parity of reasoning, suppose that 'the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob' is the God of none other than these three fathers alone. But he is also the God of Elijah, and, as Judith says, of her father Simeon, and the God of the Hebrews. By the same parity, if nothing prevents him from also being the God of others, nothing prevents the light of men from being also, besides men, [the light] of others.
But someone else, making use of the text 'Let us make man according to our image and likeness,' will assert that everything that has come to be according to the image and likeness of God is 'man,' employing countless examples for this, namely that it makes no difference to Scripture to say 'man' or 'angel'; for the same subject bears both the appellation 'angel' and 'man' — as with the three who were entertained as guests by Abraham and the two who came to be in Sodom; and throughout the whole sequence of Scripture they are called at one time 'men' and at another 'angels.'
Nevertheless, the one who holds this will say that, just as among those acknowledged to be men there are ones called 'angels/messengers' — as Zechariah, [called] 'messenger of God,' saying, 'I am with you, says the Lord Almighty' — and John, of whom it is written, 'Behold, I send my messenger before your face' — so also the angels of God are so named on account of this function, and have been called 'men,' not according to their nature.
And he will further support his view by pointing out that, in the case of the superior powers, the names are not names of kinds/natures of living beings but of ranks, of which this or that rational nature has obtained one from God. For 'throne' is not a kind of living being, nor is 'lordship,' nor 'authority,' but these are names of offices, over which those so designated have been appointed — whose underlying subject is nothing other than 'man,' and it is to the subject that being a 'throne' or a 'lordship' or a 'principality' or an 'authority' accrues [as an accident].
And also in [the book of] Joshua the son of Nun it is written: 'There appeared to Joshua a man in Jericho,' who says, 'I am now come as commander-in-chief of the host of the Lord.'
According to this, then, one will take 'the light of men' and 'the light of every rational being' as having equal force, since every rational being, in being according to the image and likeness of God, is [in that sense] 'man.' The same thing, indeed, is named in three ways: 'the light of men,' 'light' simply and without qualification, and 'true light.' It is, then, called 'the light of men' either, as has been shown above, because nothing prevents one from understanding the light to belong also to others besides man, or because all rational beings, on account of having come to be according to the image of God, are called 'men.'
Now since here the Savior is called 'light' without qualification, while in the catholic epistle of the same John it is said that God is light, one person supposes that from this too it is established that the Father is not separated in substance from the Son; but another, who has observed more precisely, and who speaks more soundly, will say that the light that shines in the darkness and is not overtaken by it is not the same as the light in which there is no darkness at all.
For the light that shines in the darkness, as it were, comes upon the darkness, and, being pursued by it and, so to speak, plotted against, is not overtaken; whereas the light in which there is no darkness at all neither shines in the darkness nor is pursued by it in the first place, so that it should even be recorded as victorious by not being overtaken by it as it pursues.
The third [sense in] which this light is spoken of is 'true light.' Now by the same reasoning by which God the Father of truth is greater and more than truth, and by which the Father, being [Father] of wisdom, is superior to and different from wisdom, by this same reasoning does he surpass being 'true light.'
But we shall know more clearly that the Father and the Son are two lights from David, through these words, since he says in the thirty-fifth psalm: 'In your light we shall see light.' This very light of men, the light that shines in the darkness, the true light, is in what follows in the Gospel proclaimed 'the light of the world,' Jesus saying:
'I am the light of the world.' Let us not leave even this unremarked: that although it was possible to have written, 'That which came to be in him was the light of men, and the light of men was life,' the evangelist has done the reverse; for he places 'life' before 'the light of men,' even though life and the light of men are the same thing, because, in the case of those who partake of life — which is also the light of men — their living [with] that aforementioned divine life comes to meet us before their having been illuminated. For living must underlie [as prior], in order that the one living may come to be illuminated; but it would not follow for one not yet conceived of as living to have been illuminated, and for living to accede afterward to having been illuminated.
For even though life and the light of men are the same thing, still the conceptions [under which they are considered] are taken according to different aspects. This same light of men is called also 'the light of the nations' by the prophet Isaiah, according to [the text]: 'Behold, I have set you as a covenant of the race, for a light of the nations.' And, trusting in this light, David says in the twenty-sixth psalm: 'The Lord is my light and my savior; whom shall I fear?'
But against those who have fabricated the mythology concerning the Aeons arranged in [paired] syzygies, and who suppose that the Logos and Life (Zoe) were put forth by Mind and Truth, it would not be implausible to raise this difficulty as well. For how, according to them, does Life, the consort of the Logos, receive [the description of] having come to be in her consort? For it is said, 'That which came to be' — namely in him, that is, in the aforementioned Logos — 'was life.' Let them, then, tell us how Life, the consort of the Logos, came to be in the Logos, and how, rather than the Logos, Life is the light of men.
It is likely that the more reasonable among them, being refuted in their inquiries and struck by this further difficulty, will in turn question us, being themselves also distressed, unless we find the reason why it is not the Logos that is called the light of men, but rather the life that came to be in the Logos. To these we shall answer as follows: that 'life' here is not spoken of as that common life shared by rational and irrational beings, but rather that [life] which accedes to the reason (logos) being completed within us, the participation being received from the primary Logos; and it is by turning away from the seeming life — which is not truly life — and by desiring to make room for the truly-existing life, that we first come into communion with it; and this life, having come to be in us, becomes also the substance of the light of knowledge.
And perhaps this life is, in some, light in potency and not in actuality — namely in those who do not make it their ambition to examine the things of knowledge — while in others it becomes light also in actuality: namely, in those who accomplish what was enjoined by Paul, 'Be zealous for the greater gifts.' And greater than the [other] gifts, indeed set before all of them, is that which is the word of wisdom, and that which follows it, the word of knowledge. Concerning the difference between them, since the meanings of 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' lie close to one another, it is not for the present occasion to speak. 'And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.'
Further, concerning [the light] of men, since it has been placed first, we inquire about the light — and I think also concerning its opposite, called darkness. But if, being examined in this way — I mean the phrase 'of men' — [we find] that perhaps the light of men is a general term comprising two particular things, and likewise also their darkness [is a general term for two particular things]. For it is possible for the one who has acquired the light of men and who shares in its rays both to accomplish works of light and, being illuminated, to know the light of knowledge; and the corresponding opposite must be understood also from the contraries — [namely] wicked deeds and the so-called knowledge that is not [knowledge] in truth — both having the character of darkness.
And that the sacred word/Scripture knows the commandments as 'light,' [is clear], for Isaiah says: 'For your precepts are a light upon the earth'; and David in the eighteenth psalm: 'The commandment of the Lord is radiant, enlightening the eyes.' And that, besides the precepts and commandments, there is also a light that belongs to knowledge, we find in one of the Twelve [Minor Prophets]: 'Sow for yourselves unto righteousness, reap unto the fruit of life, light for yourselves the light of knowledge.'
For it is because there is also another light, distinct from the commandments, [namely that] of knowledge, that it is said, 'Light for yourselves a light' — not simply 'light,' but a particular kind of light, namely that of knowledge; for if every light with which a man lights [a lamp] for himself were 'the light of knowledge,' it would have been superfluous to add, 'light for yourselves the light of knowledge.' Again, that darkness is applied to wicked deeds, the same John teaches in his epistle, saying, 'If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not do the truth'; and again, 'He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now'; and, 'He who hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he goes, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.'
For 'walking in darkness' signifies blameworthy conduct; and 'hating one's brother' is likewise a falling-away from what is properly called 'knowledge.' And that also the one who is ignorant of divine things, by that very ignorance, walks about in darkness, David says: 'They did not know, nor did they understand; they walk about in darkness.'
Now attend to [the text], 'God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all' — [consider] whether it is said in this way because there is not [merely] one darkness, but either because, in respect of the general [category], there are two [kinds of darkness], or also because, with respect to each of the particular [instances], there are many wicked deeds and many false doctrines, [so that] there are many darknesses, none of which is in God; whereas it could not be said in the case of the holy [one], to whom the Savior says, 'You are the light of the world,' that — [in that] the holy one is light of the world — 'there is no darkness in him at all.'
But someone will ask: if the statement 'There is no darkness at all in him' is set down concerning the Father, how shall we say this distinctive [attribute] to be in him [the Son] also, seeing that we also understand the Savior to be wholly without sin, so that it could also be said of him, 'He is light, and there is no darkness at all in him'? In the foregoing, then, we have set forth the distinction only in part; but we shall now add to those remarks something still bolder: that if [God] made him who knew no sin — [namely] Christ — to be sin on our behalf [if indeed God made him sin on our behalf], it could not be said of him, 'There is no darkness at all in him.' For even if Jesus, having condemned sin in the likeness of sinful flesh, does so by having taken up the likeness of the flesh of sin, it will no longer be possible for it to be said of him, in every respect soundly, that 'there is no darkness at all in him.'
We will add, moreover, that he himself took our weaknesses and bore our diseases -- both the weaknesses of the soul and the diseases of the hidden man of our heart. On account of these weaknesses and diseases, having borne them away from us, he confesses that his soul is deeply grieved and troubled; and it is recorded in Zechariah that he was clothed in filthy garments, which, when they were about to be stripped off him, are said to be sins. Indeed he adds there: 'Behold, I have taken away your sins.'
For because he took up the sins of the people who believe in him, he says in many places: 'Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions,' and 'You know my folly, and my faults are not hidden from you.'
But let no one suppose that in saying this we are being impious toward the Christ of God. For by the same reasoning by which the Father alone has immortality -- since the Lord, out of love for mankind, took upon himself the death that was on our behalf -- by that same reasoning the Father alone possesses this too: 'in him is no darkness at all,' since the Christ, out of his benefaction toward mankind, took upon himself our darknesses, in order that by his power he might destroy our death and make to vanish the darkness in our soul, so that what is written in Isaiah might be fulfilled: 'The people who sat in darkness saw a great light.'
This light, then, which came to be in the Word, being also life, shines in the darkness of our souls, and has sojourned where the world-rulers of this darkness are -- who, by wrestling to bring the race of men into subjection to darkness, [...], contend against those who do not stand firm in every way, so as to prevent them, once illumined, from being styled sons of light. And this light, shining in the darkness, is indeed pursued by it, but is not overtaken.
But if anyone thinks that we are adding what is not written -- namely, that the light is pursued by the darkness -- let him hear that the words 'the darkness did not overtake it' would be said in vain if the darkness had nowhere pursued the light. But as those able to grasp with understanding, in accordance with what is written, the things thought to have been omitted will know: John wrote 'the darkness did not overtake it'; for if it did not overtake it, it did not overtake it only after having pursued it.
And that the darkness pursued the light is clear both from what the Savior suffered and from what his own children, those who received his teachings, suffered -- the darkness working against the sons of light and wishing to drive the light away from men. But since, 'if God is for us,' no one, even should he wish it, will be able to prevail against us: the more they humbled themselves, the more they multiplied and grew exceedingly, exceedingly strong.
But in two ways has the darkness not overtaken the light: either it is left far behind, and, on account of its own slowness, cannot even keep proportional pace with the swiftness of the light's course; or, if the light has ever wished to lie in wait for the darkness, and by dispensation waited for it as it approached, then the darkness, as it drew near to the light, was made to vanish. In either case, then, the darkness did not overtake the light.
But having come to this point, it is necessary for us to note that it is not always the case that, wherever 'darkness' is named, it is taken in the worse sense; sometimes it is also recorded in the better sense -- a distinction the heterodox, failing to make, fell away from the Demiurge by accepting most blasphemous teachings about him, having given themselves up to fabrications of myths. How, then, and when the term 'darkness' is used in the better sense must now be shown.
'Darkness, thick cloud, storm' is said to be around God in Exodus, and in Psalm 16: 'God made darkness his hiding place, round about him is his tabernacle, dark water in clouds of the air.' For if anyone considers the multitude of contemplations concerning God, and that his knowledge is incomprehensible to human nature -- and perhaps also to other begotten beings besides Christ and the Holy Spirit -- he will understand how there is darkness around God, in that the rich account concerning him, worthy of him, remains unknown; in which darkness he made his hiding place, having made this because the things concerning him, being uncontainable, are unknown.
But if anyone stumbles at such interpretations, let him be led forward both by the dark sayings and by the treasures given by God to Christ that are dark, hidden, invisible; for I think the dark treasures revealed in Christ are nothing other than what is meant by 'God made darkness his hiding place,' or rather by 'The holy one will understand a parable and a dark saying.' And perhaps it is for this reason that the Savior says to the disciples: 'What you have heard in the darkness, speak in the light.'
For the mysteries handed down to them in secret, not heard by many, hard to know and unclear, he commands them -- once illumined and therefore said to be in the light -- to proclaim to everyone who is becoming light. But more paradoxically I would say of the darkness that is praised, that it hastens toward the light and overtakes it, and it comes to pass at times that, because of being unknown, darkness so changes for the one who does not perceive its power, that the one who has learned declares that what was once known to him as darkness has become light. 'There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.'
One who hears the word 'Sent' more precisely, since the one sent is sent from somewhere, will inquire from where John was sent, and to where. The 'to where' being clear -- according to the historical sense, that he was sent to Israel and to those willing to hear him, while he dwelt in the desert of Judea and baptized by the Jordan river; but according to a deeper sense, that he was sent 'into the world' -- 'world' being taken as the earthly place where men are -- our inquirer will examine how one ought to understand the 'from where.' And pressing the wording further, perhaps he will also declare that, just as it is written concerning Adam:
'And the Lord God sent him out from the paradise of delight, to work the earth from which he was taken' -- so also John was sent, either from heaven, or from paradise, or from wherever else besides this place on earth; and he was sent that he might bear witness concerning the light.
But the argument has an objection not to be despised, since it is also written in Isaiah: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?' -- when the prophet, answering, says: 'Behold, here am I; send me.'
For the one who opposes the deeper suggestion here implied will say that, just as Isaiah was sent, not from another place besides this world, but after he had seen the Lord sitting upon a high and lofty throne, facing the people, so as to say: 'By hearing you shall hear and shall not understand,' and so forth -- so also John, the beginning of whose mission is passed over in silence, his mission bearing an analogy to the mission of Isaiah, is sent to baptize, and to prepare for the Lord a people made ready, and to bear witness concerning the light.
These things having thus been said in reply to the first argument, such resolutions are brought forward as draw agreement toward the deeper suggestion held concerning John. Straightway Scripture adds: 'This one came for a witness, that he might bear witness concerning the light' -- for if he came, he came from somewhere. And it must be said, to one who has difficulty accepting what John subsequently says about having seen the Holy Spirit descending as a dove upon the Savior -- for he says: 'He who sent me to baptize in water, that one said to me: Upon whomever you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is he who baptizes in Holy Spirit' -- and one may ask, when? for when did he who sent him give this command? But it is reasonable to answer this question by saying that, whenever he sent him to begin baptizing, then he who was instructing him spoke this word to him.
Yet still more forcefully in support of John's having been sent from elsewhere, having become embodied for no other purpose in his sojourn into life than the witness concerning the light, is the fact that he was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb -- as was said by Gabriel, announcing good news to Zachariah of John's birth and to Mary of our Savior's sojourn among men -- and the fact that: 'Behold, as the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the infant leaped for joy in the
womb.' For to the one who maintains that God does nothing unjustly, nor by mere coincidence or chance allotment, it is necessary to accept that John's soul, being older than the body and having previously subsisted, was sent for the service of the witness concerning the light. In addition to this, one must not despise the saying: 'This is Elijah who is to come.'
But if the general doctrine concerning the soul prevails -- that it is not sown together with the body, but exists prior to it, and for various reasons is clothed with flesh and blood -- then the phrase 'sent by God' will no longer seem to be something exceptional when said of John. For indeed the worst of all, the man of sin, the son of destruction, is said by Paul to be sent by God: 'For this reason,' he says, 'God sends them a working of error, so that they should believe the lie, in order that all might be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.'
But see whether we can resolve the question thus: that just as, more simply, every man, by being created by God, is a man of God -- yet not every man is properly styled a man of God, but only the one devoted to God, in the way that Elijah and those recorded in the Scriptures are called 'men of God' -- so likewise, in the more general sense, every man can be said to have been sent from God, but properly it is said to have been sent by God of none other than the one who, for divine service and the ministry of the salvation of the human race, sojourns in life.
We have not found, then, the phrase 'sent from God' set down concerning anyone but the saints: in the case of Isaiah, as we set forth before; in the case of Jeremiah: 'To all to whom I send you, you shall go'; and in the case of Ezekiel: 'Behold, I send you to the nations that have revolted and rebelled against me.'
But it will seem that these examples are not properly relevant to what is proposed -- the mission into life that is under inquiry -- since I speak of a mission that is not simply one from outside of life into life. Nevertheless, even so, it is not implausible to transfer the argument to what is being sought, by saying that just as God is said to send only the saints, upon whom we have drawn, so likewise it must be understood also in the case of those sent into life.
And since we are altogether occupied with the account concerning John, seeking his mission, it will not be untimely to add our own conjecture, which we hold concerning him. For since we have read a prophecy concerning him: 'Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you,' we consider whether he might be one of the holy angels who, being in service, is sent down as forerunner of our Savior.