Homilies on John, Homily 5

“All things were made by Him; and without Him nothing was made that was made.” [1.] At the beginning of the history and writings of the Old Testament, Moses speaks to us about things we can perceive with our senses and lists them at length. For he says, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” and then adds that light was created, and a second heaven and the stars, the various kinds of living creatures, and, to avoid taking time to go through every detail, everything else. But this Evangelist cuts all this short and includes both these things and the things above them in a single sentence. He has good reason: his hearers already knew about them, he is hurrying on to a greater subject, and he has framed his entire work to speak about the Creator who produced them all, rather than about His works. And so Moses, although he has chosen the smaller part of creation (for he has told us nothing about the invisible powers), spends time on these things. John, meanwhile, eager to rise to the Creator Himself, passes quickly over both these things and those Moses left unmentioned, gathering them into one short statement: “All things were made by Him.” And so that you will not think he is speaking only about everything Moses mentioned, he adds that “without Him nothing was made that was made.” In other words, not one created thing, whether visible or intelligible, was brought into being without the power of the Son. For we will not put the period after “nothing,” as the heretics do. Because they want to make the Spirit a created being, they say, “What was made, in Him was Life.” But this makes the statement unintelligible. First, this was not the place to mention the Spirit, and if he wanted to do so, why did he express it so unclearly? How is it clear that this statement refers to the Spirit? Besides, by this argument we will find that it is the Son Himself, rather than the Spirit, who is created by Himself. But pay close attention so that you do not miss what is being said. Come, let us read it their way for a while, so that its absurdity will become clearer to us. “What was made, in Him was Life.” They say that the Spirit is called “Life.” But this “Life” turns out also to be “Light,” for he adds, “And the Life was the Light of men.” ( Ver. 4.) Therefore, according to them, the “Light of men” here means the Spirit. Well, when he goes on to say that “There was a man sent from God, to bear witness to that Light” ( vers. 6, 7 ), they must insist that this too is said about the Spirit. For the One he called “Word” above, he goes on to call “God,” “Life,” and “Light.” This “Word,” he says, was “Life,” and this “Life” was “Light.” Now if this Word was Life, and if this Word and this Life became flesh, then the Life, that is, the Word, “became flesh, and we saw” Its “glory, the glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father.” If, then, they say that the Spirit is called “Life” here, consider the strange consequences that will follow. It will be the Spirit, rather than the Son, who became flesh; the Spirit will be the Only-Begotten Son. And those who read the passage this way will fall, if not into this conclusion, then, in avoiding it, into another very strange one. If they admit that these words are said about the Son, but do not put the period where we do or read as we do, then they will be asserting that the Son is created by Himself. For if “the Word was Life,” and “what was made in Him was Life,” then according to this reading He is created in Himself and through Himself. Then, after some intervening words, he adds, “And we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father.” ( Ver. 14.) Look: according to the reading of those who make these claims, the Holy Spirit turns out also to be an only-begotten Son, for it is about Him that the Evangelist makes this whole declaration. See where speech is twisted once it strays from the truth, and what strange consequences it produces! “What then,” someone says, “isn't the Spirit ‘Light’?” It is Light, but there is no mention of the Spirit here. For even God (the Father) is called “Spirit,” meaning incorporeal, yet God (the Father) is not necessarily meant wherever “Spirit” is mentioned. And why should you be surprised that we say this about the Father? We could not even say that wherever “Spirit” (is mentioned), the Comforter is necessarily meant, although this is His most distinctive name. Still, the Comforter is not always (meant) wherever Spirit (is mentioned). In the same way, Christ is called “the power of God” ( 1 Cor. i. 24 ) and “the wisdom of God,” yet Christ is not always meant wherever “the power” and “the wisdom of God” are mentioned. So in this passage, although the Spirit does give “Light,” the Evangelist is not speaking about the Spirit now. When we have blocked their way to these strange opinions, those who go to every length to resist the truth say (still clinging to the same reading), “Whatever came into existence by him was life, because,” one of them says, “whatever came into existence was life.” What, then, do you say about the punishment of the men of Sodom, the flood, hell fire, and ten thousand things like these? “But,” someone says, “we are talking about the material creation.” Well, these too belong entirely to the material creation. But to refute their argument with more than enough evidence, we will ask them, “Tell me, is wood life? Is stone life?” These things are lifeless and motionless. Indeed, is man life itself? Who would say so? He is not pure life, but is capable of receiving life. [2.] Here again, see the absurdity. By following the same chain of consequences, we will bring the argument to a point where you can learn their foolishness from this too. In this way they make claims entirely unworthy of the Spirit. Driven from their other position, they apply to human beings the things they previously thought could worthily be said about the Spirit. Still, let us examine the reading this way too. The creature is now called “life”; therefore, it is also “light,” and John came to bear witness about it. Why, then, is he not also “light”? He says that “he was not that light” ( ver. 8 ), and yet he was one of the things created. How, then, is he not “light”? How was he “in the world, and the world was made by him”? ( Ver. 10.) Was the creature in the creature, and was the creature made by the creature? But how did “the world not know him”? How did the creature not know the creature? “But to all who received him, he gave power to become the sons of God.” ( Ver. 12.) But enough laughter. I leave you to attack the rest of these monstrous arguments, so that we do not seem to have chosen to raise a laugh for its own sake and waste time for no reason. For if these things are said neither about the Spirit (and it has been shown that they are not) nor about anything created, and they still cling to the same reading, that conclusion stranger than any we mentioned before will follow: the Son was made by Himself. For if the Son is the true Light, and this Light was Life, and this Life was made in Him, this must be the result according to their own reading. Let us therefore abandon this reading and turn to the accepted reading and explanation. And what is that? To end the sentence at “was made” and begin the next sentence with “In Him was Life.” What (the Evangelist) says is this: “Without Him nothing was made that was made.” Whatever created thing was made, he says, was not made without Him. Do you see how this brief addition has resolved all the surrounding difficulties? For saying “without Him nothing was made,” and then adding “that was made,” includes things grasped by the intellect, but excludes the Spirit. After saying that “all things were made by Him,” and “without Him nothing was made,” he needed this addition so that no one would say, “If all things were made by Him, then the Spirit too was made.” “I,” he replies, “said that whatever was made was made by Him, even if it is invisible, incorporeal, or in the heavens. This is why I did not simply say ‘all things,’ but ‘whatever was made,’ meaning ‘created things’; but the Spirit is uncreated.” Do you see how precise his teaching is? He has referred to the creation of material things (for Moses had taught about these before him), and after leading us from there to higher things, I mean the immaterial and invisible, he excludes the Holy Spirit from all creation. In the same way Paul, inspired by the same grace, said, “For by Him all things were created.” ( Col. i. 16.) Notice the same precision here again. For the same Spirit moved this soul too. To keep anyone from excluding any created things from God's works because they are invisible, or from confusing the Comforter with them, after going through the things everyone knows through the senses, he also lists things in the heavens, saying, “Whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers.” For the expression “whether,” applied to each, shows us precisely this: “By Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” But if you think the expression “by” is a sign of inferiority (as though it makes Christ an instrument), listen to him say, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.” ( Ps. cii. 25.) He says about the Son what is said about the Father as Creator. He would not have said this unless he regarded Him as a Creator who is subordinate to no one. And if the expression “by Him” is used here, its only purpose is to keep anyone from supposing that the Son is Unbegotten. For listen to Him Himself explain that, as Creator, He is in no way inferior to the Father: “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomever He wills.” ( c. v. 21.) Now if the Old Testament says about the Son, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,” His status as Creator is clear. But if you say that the Prophet said this about the Father, and that Paul applied to the Son what was said about the Father, the conclusion is still the same. For Paul would not have decided that the same expression suited the Son unless he had been completely confident that Father and Son are equal in honor. It would have been extremely reckless to apply what suited an incomparable Nature to a nature inferior to it and falling short of it. But the Son is neither inferior to nor falls short of the Essence of the Father. That is why Paul has dared to use not only these expressions about Him, but others like them as well. For the expression “from Whom,” which you judge to belong properly to the Father alone, he also uses about the Son when he says, “from which the whole body, supplied with nourishment and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth of God.” ( Col. ii. 19.) [3.] And he is not content with this alone. He also silences you another way, by applying to the Father the expression “by whom,” which you say is a sign of inferiority. For he says, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son” ( 1 Cor. i. 9 ); and again, “By His will” ( 1 Cor. i. 1 , &c.); and elsewhere, “For from Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.” ( Rom. xi. 36.) Nor is the expression “from whom” applied only to the Son, but also to the Spirit. For the angel said to Joseph, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” ( Matt. i. 20.) Likewise, the Prophet does not think it improper to apply to the Father the expression “in whom,” which belongs to the Spirit, when he says, “In God we will act bravely.” ( Ps. lx. 12.) And Paul says, “Asking whether somehow, at last, I might succeed, in the will of God, in making the journey to you.” ( Rom. i. 10.) And again he uses it of Christ, saying, “In Christ Jesus.” ( Rom. vi. 11, 23 , &c.) In short, we can find these expressions used interchangeably again and again. This would not have happened unless the same Essence were their subject in every instance. And so that you will not imagine that the words “All things were made by Him” are used here about His miracles (for the other Evangelists have discussed these), he goes on to say, “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him”; (but not the Spirit, for This is not among created things, but among those above all creation.) Let us now pay attention to what follows. After speaking about the work of creation, saying, “All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made,” John goes on to speak about His Providence when he says, “In Him was Life.” So that no one will doubt how so many things, and such great things, were “made by Him,” he adds that “In Him was Life.” For just as the fountain that is the mother of the great depths is not diminished, however much you take from it, so the energy of the Only-Begotten has not become any less, however much you believe has been produced and made by it. Or, to use a more familiar example, I will take light, which the Apostle himself immediately added, saying, “And the Life was the Light.” Just as light loses none of its own brightness, however many tens of thousands it illuminates, so God, before beginning His work and after completing it, remains equally unfailing, neither diminished nor exhausted by the greatness of creation. Indeed, if ten thousand, or even an infinite number of such worlds needed to be created, He would remain the same, fully able both to produce them all and to govern them after their creation. For the word “Life” here refers not only to the act of creation, but also to the providence (engaged) in keeping created things in existence. It also establishes in advance the doctrine of the resurrection and introduces this marvelous good news. For when “life” has come to be with us, the power of death is broken; and when “light” has shone on us, there is no longer darkness, but life remains within us forever, and death cannot overcome it. Thus, what is said about the Father could also be said without qualification about Him (Christ): “In Him we live and move and have our being.” ( Acts xvii. 28.) Paul has shown this when he says, “By Him all things were created,” and “by Him all things hold together.” ( Col. i. 16, 17.) For this reason He has also been called “Root” and “Foundation.” But when you hear that “In Him was Life,” do not imagine that He is a composite Being, since later he also says about the Father, “As the Father has Life in Himself, so He has also given the Son to have Life” ( John v. 26 ). Just as you would not say on the basis of this expression that the Father is composite, neither can you say this about the Son. In the same way, elsewhere he says that “God is Light” ( 1 John i. 5 ), and in another place (it is said) that He “dwells in unapproachable light” ( 1 Tim. vi. 16 ). These expressions are used to lead us little by little to the highest doctrines, not to make us suppose a composite nature. For since an ordinary person could not easily have understood how His life was Life existing in a Person, he first used that humbler expression, and afterward leads those (thus) trained to the higher doctrine. For He who said that “He has given Him (the Son) to have life” ( c. v. 26 ) also says elsewhere, “I am the Life” ( c. xiv. 6 ); and elsewhere, “I am the Light.” ( c. viii. 12.) And tell me, what is the nature of this “light”? This kind (of light) is perceived by the intellect rather than the senses, illuminating the soul herself. And since Christ would later say that “No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him” ( c. vi. 44 ), the Apostle has anticipated an objection here and declared that it is He (the Son) who “gives light” ( ver. 9 ). Thus, although you hear such a statement about the Father, you will not say that it belongs to the Father alone, but also to the Son. For He says, “All things that the Father has are Mine.” ( c. xvi. 15.) First, then, the Evangelist has taught us about creation. After that, he tells us about the good things for the soul that He supplied to us by His coming. He has described these indirectly in one sentence when he says, “And the Life was the Light of men.” ( Ver. 4.) He does not say “was the light of the Jews,” but “of men” universally. It was not only the Jews who came to this knowledge, but the Greeks too, and this light was an offer made to everyone. “Why did he not add ‘Angels,’ but say ‘of men’?” Because at present he is speaking about human nature, and it was to human beings that he came bringing good news of good things. “And the light shines in darkness.” ( ver. 5.) He calls death and error “darkness.” For the light we perceive with our senses does not shine in darkness, but apart from it. Yet the preaching of Christ has shone out amid prevailing error and made it disappear. And by enduring death, He has so overcome death that He has reclaimed those it already held. Since neither death nor error overcame it, and since it is bright everywhere and shines by its own strength, he therefore says, “And the darkness did not overcome it.” For it cannot be overcome, and it will not dwell in souls that do not wish to be enlightened. [4.] But do not be troubled that It did not win everyone, for God brings us to Himself through our willingness and consent, rather than through compulsion and force. So do not close your doors against this light, and you will enjoy great happiness. This light comes through faith, and when it comes, it abundantly illuminates the person who has received it. And if you live a pure life suitable (meet) for it, it continues to dwell within you. For He says, “Whoever loves Me will keep My commandments; and I and My Father will come to him and make Our home with him.” ( John xiv. 23 ; slightly varied.) Just as someone cannot properly enjoy sunlight without opening his eyes, so no one can share fully in this splendor without opening the eye of the soul wide and making its sight sharp in every way. But how does this happen? When we have cleansed the soul of all the passions. For sin is darkness, and deep darkness, as is clear from the fact that people commit it without awareness and in secret. For “everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light.” ( c. iii. 20.) And “It is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret.” ( Eph. v. 12.) For just as someone in darkness knows neither friend nor enemy and cannot perceive any of the qualities of objects, so it is in sin. Someone who wants more profit makes no distinction between friend and enemy; an envious person looks with hostility at someone very close to him; and a schemer is in deadly conflict with everyone alike. In short, when it comes to distinguishing the nature of things, someone who commits sin is no better than people who are drunk or mad. And just as wood, lead, iron, silver, gold, and precious stones all look alike to us at night because there is no light to show their differences, so someone who leads an impure life knows neither the excellence of self-control nor the beauty of disciplined living. For in darkness, as I said before, even precious stones put on display do not show their brilliance, because of the viewers' inability to distinguish them, rather than because of the stones' own nature. Nor is this the only evil that happens to us when we are in sin. We also live in constant fear. Just as people walking on a moonless night tremble even when no one is there to frighten them, so those who do evil cannot feel confident even when no one accuses them. They fear everything and are suspicious, their consciences stinging them. Everything is full of fear and distress for them; they look around at everything and are terrified of everything. Let us therefore flee such a painful life, especially since this pain will be followed by death—a deathless death, for the punishment in that place will have no end. And in this life they (who sin) are no better than madmen, since they dream of things that do not exist. They think they are rich when they are not rich, and that they are enjoying themselves when they are not. They do not properly recognize the deception until they are freed from their madness and have shaken off their sleep. That is why Paul urges everyone to be sober and stay awake, and Christ commands the same. For someone who is sober and awake, even if captured by sin, quickly fights it off, while someone who is asleep and out of his mind does not realize how sin holds him prisoner. Let us therefore not sleep. This is the time of day, not night. Let us therefore “walk decently as in the day” ( Rom. xiii. 13 ); and nothing is more indecent than sin. In terms of indecency, going around naked is not as bad as living in sin and wrongdoing. Nakedness does not deserve as much blame, since it might even result from poverty; but nothing is more shameful and less honorable than the sinner. Let us think of those who come to court on a charge of extortion or fraud: how low and ridiculous they appear to everyone through their utter shamelessness, lies, and audacity. Yet we are such pitiful, wretched creatures that we cannot bear to wear a garment awkwardly or crookedly. Indeed, if we see someone else in that state, we straighten it for him. Yet although we and all our neighbors are walking on our heads, we do not even notice it. For tell me, what can be more shameful than a man who goes to a prostitute? What is more contemptible than an insolent, foul-mouthed, or envious person? Why, then, do these things not seem as disgraceful as walking naked? Simply because of habit. No one has ever willingly accepted going naked, but everyone continually dares to do the other things without any fear. Yet if someone entered an assembly of angels, among whom nothing of the kind has ever happened, he would clearly see how ridiculous (such conduct) is. And why do I speak of an assembly of angels? Even in our own palaces, if someone brought in a prostitute and enjoyed her, or was overcome by too much wine, or committed any other similar indecency, he would be severely punished. But if it is intolerable for people to dare such things in palaces, we will receive far more severe punishment if we dare to do them when the King is present everywhere and observes what happens. Therefore, I urge you, let us show great gentleness and purity in our lives, for we have a King who continually sees all our actions. So, for this light to keep illuminating us richly, let us gladly welcome these bright rays. In this way we will enjoy both the good things of the present and those to come, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom, and with whom, to the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen.