Homilies on John, Homily 4

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. When children first begin learning, their teachers do not give them many lessons in succession or set them a lesson once and leave it there. They often repeat the same short lessons, so that the words can settle easily in their minds. This keeps the children from being overwhelmed at the start by the quantity and the difficulty of remembering it, and from becoming slower to learn what they are given, growing sluggish because it is hard. I want to do the same for you and make your work easy. So I take the food on this Divine table little by little and instill it in your souls. For this reason I will return to the same words, not to repeat the same things, but to set before you only what remains. Come, then, let us return in our discussion to the introduction. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. All the other Evangelists began with the Dispensation. (For Matthew says, The Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David; Luke too begins his Gospel by telling us the events concerning Mary; and Mark likewise dwells on the same narratives, starting from that point to tell us the Baptist's history.) Why, when they began with these matters, did John mention them briefly and later, saying, The Word became flesh, and pass over everything else—His conception, birth, upbringing, and growth—to speak to us at once about His Eternal Generation? I will now tell you why. Since the other Evangelists had dwelt chiefly on His coming in the flesh, there was a danger that some people with earthbound minds would rest in these teachings alone, as Paul of Samosata actually did. To lead those likely to fall into this attachment to earth away from it, and draw them up toward heaven, John rightly begins his narrative from above, from eternal existence. Matthew begins his account with King Herod, Luke with Tiberius Caesar, Mark with John's Baptism; but this Apostle leaves all that aside and rises beyond all time or age. He sends his hearers' minds soaring to Was in the beginning, allowing them to stop at no point and setting no limit, as the others did in Herod, Tiberius, and John. Something else especially deserves our admiration: although John devoted himself to the higher teaching, he did not neglect the Dispensation; nor were the others, though intent on telling that story, silent about His existence before the ages. Rightly so: one Spirit moved all their souls, and therefore they showed great agreement in their narratives. But you, beloved, when you hear of The Word, must not tolerate those who say He is a work, or even those who think He is merely a word. There are many words of God that angels carry out, but none of those words is God. They are all prophecies or commands. (For Scripture commonly calls God's laws His commands, and calls prophecies words; so when speaking of the angels, he says, Mighty in strength, fulfilling His word.) But this Word is a Being with real personal existence, proceeding without passion from the Father Himself. This, as I said before, is what he has shown by the term Word. Just as In the beginning was the Word shows His Eternity, so Was in the beginning with God declares His Co-eternity. On hearing In the beginning was the Word, you might suppose Him Eternal, yet imagine that the Father's life exceeds His by some interval and longer duration, and so assign the Only-Begotten a beginning. To prevent this he adds, Was in the beginning with God: just as eternally as the Father Himself. The Father was never without the Word; He was always God with God, yet Each in His own Person. How, someone asks, does John say that He was in the world if He was with God? Because He was both with God and in the world. Neither Father nor Son is limited in any way. If His greatness has no end, and His wisdom is beyond counting, clearly His Essence can have no beginning in time. You have heard, In the beginning God made heaven and earth. What do you understand by this beginning? Clearly, that they were created before all visible things. So when you hear that the Only-Begotten was in the beginning, think of Him as before all things perceived by the mind and before the ages. But someone may say, How can He be a Son and yet not younger than the Father? Surely what proceeds from something else must be later than its source. We will answer that these are, strictly speaking, human arguments; that someone who questions this will question other things still more improperly; and that we ought not even listen to such people. We are speaking about God, not human nature, which is subject to the sequence and necessary conclusions of these arguments. Still, to reassure the weaker people, we will speak even about these points. Tell me, then: does the sun's radiance proceed from the sun's own substance or from some other source? Anyone who has not lost his senses must admit that it comes from the sun's own substance. Yet although the radiance comes from the sun itself, we cannot say it is later in time than that body's substance, since the sun has never appeared without its rays. If, then, in these visible bodies perceived by the senses, something has been shown to proceed from something else without coming after its source, why do you disbelieve it in the case of the invisible Nature beyond words? The same thing happens there, but in a way appropriate to That Substance. This is also why Paul calls Him Brightness, expressing both His being from Him and His Co-eternity. Tell me again: were not all the ages and every interval created by Him? Anyone who has not lost his senses must admit this. There is therefore no interval between the Son and the Father; if none, He is not later, but Co-eternal with Him. Before and after imply time: without age or time, no one could even conceive these words. But God is above times and ages. If you say that you have found a beginning for the Son, see whether the same reasoning does not force you to give the Father a beginning too—earlier, certainly, but still a beginning. Once you assign the Son a boundary and beginning of existence, do you not go back from that point and say that the Father existed before it? Clearly you do. Tell me, then, how long did the Father exist before that? Whether you call the interval short or long, you have equally given the Father a beginning. For clearly you are measuring the interval when you call it short or long, yet you could not measure it unless it had a beginning on either side. So, as far as you are concerned, you have given the Father a beginning, and according to your argument not even the Father will now be without beginning. Do you see that the Savior's word is true, and how the saying shows its force everywhere? What saying? Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. I know that many people cannot understand what has just been said. That is why we often avoid raising questions based on human reasoning: the rest of the people cannot follow such arguments, and even if they could, the arguments contain nothing firm or certain. For the thoughts of mortals are feeble, and our plans uncertain.⁠a Still, I would like to ask our opponents what the Prophet's words mean: Before Me no God was formed, and there is none after Me. If the Son is younger than the Father, how can He say, There is none after Me? Will you take away the Only-Begotten's very existence? You must either dare to do that or acknowledge one Godhead with the distinct Persons of Father and Son. Finally, how could All things were made by Him be true? If an age is older than He is, how could what existed before Him have been made by Him? Do you see the lengths to which their argument has carried them, once the truth is unsettled? Why did the Evangelist not say that He was made from things that did not exist, as Paul says of everything when he speaks of Him who calls things that do not exist as though they did? Instead he says, Was in the beginning. This is the opposite of that, and rightly so. God neither comes into being nor has anything older than Himself; to say otherwise is pagan. Tell me this too: would you not say that the Creator surpasses His works beyond all comparison? Yet since what comes from things that did not exist is similar to them, where is that incomparable superiority? And what do I am the first and I am the last, and Before Me no other God was formed mean? If the Son is not of the same Essence, there is another God; if He is not Co-eternal, He comes after Him; if He did not proceed from His Essence, clearly He was made. But if they claim that these words distinguish Him from idols, why will they not allow that The Only True God also distinguishes Him from idols? Besides, if this was said to distinguish Him from idols, how would you interpret the whole sentence? After Me, He says, there is no other God. In saying this He does not exclude the Son; He means that After Me there is no idol god, not that there is no Son. Granted, someone says; what then? And will you understand Before Me no other God was formed to mean that no idol god was formed before Him, but a Son was formed before Him? What evil spirit would say that? I do not think even Satan himself would. Moreover, if He is not Co-eternal with the Father, how can you say His Life is infinite? If it has a beginning in the past, then even if it never ends, it is not infinite: the infinite must be infinite in both directions. Paul too declared this when he said, Having neither beginning of days nor end of life, showing by these words that He is both without beginning and without end. Just as the one has no limit, neither does the other. In one direction there is no end; in the other, no beginning. And again, since He is Life, how could there ever have been a time when He was not? Everyone must admit that Life always exists, without beginning or end, if It truly is Life—as indeed It is. If there is a time when It does not exist, how can It be the life of others when It does not even exist Itself? How, then, someone says, does John set a beginning by saying, In the beginning was? Tell me, have you paid attention to In the beginning and Was, yet failed to understand The Word was? What! When the Prophet says, From everlasting and to everlasting You are, is he setting limits for Him? No: he is declaring His Eternity. Understand that it is the same here. John did not use the expression to set limits: he did not say, Had a beginning, but, Was in the beginning. With Was he leads you onward to the thought that the Son has no beginning. But notice, someone says, the Father is named with the definite article, and the Son without it. What, then, when the Apostle says, The Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; and again, Who is above all, God? Here, it is true, he names the Son without the article, but he does the same with the Father. At least in his Epistle to the Philippians he says, Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; and again to the Romans, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Besides, the article was unnecessary in that place, when just above it had repeatedly been attached to The Word. When speaking of the Father he says, God is a Spirit, and we do not deny God's Spiritual Nature because the article is not attached to Spirit. So here too, although the article is not attached to the Son, the Son is no less God for that reason. Why? Because by saying God and again God, he reveals no difference in this Godhead, but the opposite. Having first said, And the Word was God, he immediately adds the marks of genuine Godhead, so that no one will suppose the Son's Godhead inferior. These include Eternity (for He was, he says, in the beginning with God), and the role of Creator. For all things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. His Father too declares everywhere through the Prophets that this is a special characteristic of His own Essence. The Prophets constantly use this proof, not only on its own, but when opposing the honor given to idols. Let the gods perish, says one, who have not made heaven and earth; and again, I have stretched out heaven with My hand. He puts it forward everywhere as a sign of Divinity. The Evangelist himself was not satisfied with these words, but also calls Him Life and Light. If He was always with the Father, if He Himself created everything, if He brought everything into existence and holds everything together (for this is what he meant by Life), if He enlightens everything, who could be so senseless as to say that the Evangelist wanted to teach an inferior Divinity through the very words that best express its equality and lack of difference? Let us not confuse the creation with the Creator, or we too may hear it said of us that They served the creature rather than the Creator. Even if someone claims this is said about the heavens, in speaking about the heavens he still states positively that we must not serve the creature, for that is pagan. Let us not bring this curse upon ourselves. The Son of God came to free us from this service; He took the form of a slave to free us from this slavery. For this He was spat on, for this He was struck, for this He endured a shameful death. I beg you, let us not make all this useless. Let us not return to our former unrighteousness—or rather, to something much worse. Serving the creature is not the same as reducing the Creator, as far as it lies in our power, to the lowliness of the creature. For He remains what He is, as the Psalmist says: You are the same, and Your years will not fail. Let us glorify Him as we have received from our fathers, both by our faith and by our deeds. Sound teaching does nothing to save us if our life is corrupt. Let us arrange our life to please God, keeping far from all filth, unrighteousness, and greed, as strangers, foreigners, and aliens to earthly things. Anyone with great wealth and property should use them as a temporary resident who, willing or not, will soon leave them. Anyone wronged by another should not stay angry forever—indeed, not even for a time. The Apostle has allowed us no more than a single day to give vent to anger. Do not, he says, let the sun go down on your anger. Rightly so: we should be content if nothing unpleasant happens even in so short a time. If night overtakes us too, what happened becomes more serious, because memory increases the fire of our anger ten thousand times, and in our leisure we examine the matter more bitterly. So before we gain this harmful leisure and kindle a hotter fire, he tells us to stop the evil in advance and put it out. The passion of anger is fierce, fiercer than any flame. We must act quickly to head off the flame and not let it blaze high, for this disease causes many evils. It has overturned whole households, broken up old friendships, and in a brief moment brought about tragedies that cannot be repaired. For, someone says, The surge of his fury will be his destruction. Let us not leave such a wild beast unrestrained, but put a strong muzzle on it: fear of the coming judgment. Whenever a friend hurts you or a member of your household irritates you, think of your sins against God and how kindness toward that person makes the judgment more lenient for you. (Forgive, He says, and you will be forgiven.) Your passion will quickly slink away. Consider this too: recall a time when you were being carried away into fury but controlled yourself, and another when the passion dragged you along. Compare the two occasions, and you will gain great improvement from them. Tell me, when did you praise yourself: when you were defeated or when you were in control? In the first case, do we not blame ourselves bitterly and feel ashamed even when no one rebukes us? Do we not feel much regret for what we said and did? But when we gain control, are we not proud and triumphant as conquerors? Victory over anger means not returning evil for evil (that is utter defeat,), but gently bearing mistreatment and insults. Winning means suffering evil rather than inflicting it. So when you are angry, do not say, I will certainly retaliate; I will certainly take revenge. Do not keep telling those who urge you toward victory, I will not let the man mock me and get away with it. He will never mock you except when you take revenge; or if he does mock you, he will do so as a fool. When you conquer, do not seek honor from fools: consider the honor of understanding people enough. But why do I offer you so small and lowly an audience by making it human? Look straight up to God. He will praise you, and someone He approves must not seek honor from mortals. Human honor often comes from flattery or hatred of others and brings no benefit. God's decision is free from this unfairness and brings great benefit to the person He approves. Let us pursue this praise. Do you want to learn how evil anger is? Stand nearby while others quarrel in the public square. You cannot easily see its disgrace in yourself, because your reason is darkened and drunk. But when you are free from the passion and your judgment is sound, see your own case in others. Notice, I ask you, the crowds gathering around and the angry men acting shamefully in their midst like madmen. When the passion boils up in the chest and becomes excited and savage, the mouth breathes fire, the eyes send out fire, the whole face swells, the hands fling about wildly, the feet dance ridiculously, and they spring at those trying to restrain them. In their unawareness of all this, they are no different from madmen; indeed, no different from wild donkeys, kicking and biting. Truly, a hot-tempered man is not dignified. Then, after this utterly ridiculous behavior, they return home and recover their senses, and their pain is greater, with much fear as they think about who was present during their anger. Like raving men, they did not recognize the bystanders then; but once back in their right minds, they wonder, Were friends watching? Were opponents and enemies? They fear both alike: the former because they will condemn them and increase their shame, the latter because they will rejoice. If they even exchanged blows, the fear is more urgent: perhaps something very serious will happen to the person injured, a fever leading to death, or a dangerous swelling that puts him at risk of the worst. What need (say they) did I have of fighting, violence, and quarreling? Away with such things! Then they curse the ill-fated business that started it, and the more foolish blame wicked spirits and an evil hour. But these things do not come from an evil hour (for there is no such thing as an evil hour,) or from a wicked spirit, but from the wickedness of those captured by the passion. They draw the spirits to themselves and bring every terrible thing upon themselves. But the heart swells, someone says, and insults sting it. I know; that is why I admire those who master this dreadful wild beast. Yet if we are willing, we can beat the passion back. Why do we not feel it when our rulers insult us? Because fear counterbalances the passion, frightens us away from it, and does not let it arise at all. And why do our servants, though we insult them in ten thousand ways, bear it all silently? Because they too have the same restraint imposed on them. Do not think only of the fear of God: think that it is God Himself who then insults you and tells you to be silent. Then you will bear everything gently and say to your attacker, How can I be angry with you? Someone else restrains both my hand and my tongue. That saying will suggest sound wisdom to both you and him. Even now we bear unbearable things for the sake of human beings, often saying to people who have insulted us, That person insulted me, not you. Shall we not exercise the same caution in God's case? How else can we hope for pardon? Let us tell our soul, It is God who holds our hands, who now insults us. Let us not resist; let us not honor God less than human beings. Did the words make you shudder? I wish you would shudder at the deed as well as the words. God has commanded us, when struck, not only to endure it but even to offer ourselves to suffer something worse. Yet we resist Him so fiercely that we not only refuse to offer ourselves to suffer evil, but even take revenge; indeed, we often attack first and think ourselves disgraced if we do not repay in kind. Yes, and the trouble is that when utterly defeated, we think ourselves conquerors; when underneath and receiving ten thousand blows from the devil, we imagine we are mastering him. I urge you, then, let us understand the nature of this victory and pursue that kind of victory. Suffering evil wins the crown. If we want God to proclaim us victors, let us follow God's laws in these contests, rather than the rules of pagan games, and learn to bear everything with patience. Then we can defeat our opponents and obtain both present and promised good things, through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, power, and honor, now and always, forever and ever. Amen.