Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.1–9.10

Your Love remembers that the last part of the Epistle of the apostle John remains for us to treat and expound to you, as far as the Lord grants. We are mindful, then, of this debt; and you ought to be mindful of exacting it. For the same love which is commended above all, and almost alone, in this Epistle makes us most faithful debtors and you most sweet exactors. I said "most sweet exactors" because where there is no love the exactor is bitter; but where there is love, both the one who exacts is sweet, and the one from whom it is exacted, even if he undertakes some labour, finds that love itself makes that labour almost nothing and light. Do we not see even in dumb and irrational animals, where there is no spiritual love but a carnal and natural one, that the little ones demand milk from their mother's teats with great eagerness? And though the suckling makes a rush at the teats, it is better for the mother than if it did not suck and did not demand what is owed by love. We often see the udders of cows struck with the head even by fairly big calves, and the mothers' bodies almost lifted by the very force, and yet they are not driven off with a kick; and if the young one that sucks is missing, it is called to the udder by lowing. If, then, there is in us that spiritual love of which the apostle says, "I became a little one among you, as a nurse cherishes her children", then we love you when you exact. We do not love the slothful, because we fear for the sluggish. Now certain solemn readings for the feast days came in between, so that we interrupted the text of this Epistle; they could only be read, and themselves expounded. Now, then, let us return to the order we left off, and let your Holiness receive attentively what remains. I do not know whether love could be commended to us more magnificently than by saying, "God is love." Short praise, and great praise: short in speech, and great in understanding. How quickly it is said, "God is love"! And this is short: if you count, it is one; if you weigh, how much it is! "God is love. And whoever abides," he says, "in love abides in God, and God abides in him." Let God be your house, and be you God's house; abide in God, and let God abide in you. God abides in you to contain you; you abide in God lest you fall; for so the apostle says of love itself, "Love never falls." How does he fall whom God contains?

"In this is love perfected in us, that we may have confidence on the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we too in this world." He tells how each may test himself, how far love has advanced in him, or rather how far he has advanced in love. For if love is God, God neither advances nor declines: love is said to advance in you because you advance in it. So ask how far you have advanced in love, and what your heart answers you, so that you may know the measure of your advance. For he promised to show us by what we may know it, and said, "In this is love perfected in us." Ask: in what? "That we may have confidence on the day of judgment." Whoever has confidence on the day of judgment, love is perfect in him. What is it to have confidence on the day of judgment? Not to fear that the day of judgment may come. There are men who do not believe in the day of judgment; these cannot have confidence in a day which they do not believe will come. Let us pass them by: may God rouse them, that they may live; why speak of the dead? They do not believe that the day of judgment will come; they neither fear nor desire what they do not believe. Someone has begun to believe in the day of judgment: if he has begun to believe, he has begun to fear too. But because he still fears, he does not yet have confidence on the day of judgment; love is not yet perfect in him. Yet is he to despair? In one in whom you see the beginning, why do you despair of the end? "What beginning do I see?" you say. Fear itself. Hear Scripture: "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." So he has begun to fear the day of judgment: by fearing let him correct himself; let him keep watch against his enemies, that is, against his sins; let him begin to come to life inwardly, and to put to death his members which are on the earth, as the apostle says, "Put to death your members which are on the earth." He calls spiritual wickedness members on the earth; for he goes on and explains: "greed, impurity", and the rest that he lists there. And as much as this man, who has begun to fear the day of judgment, puts to death his members on the earth, so much do the heavenly members rise and grow strong. And the heavenly members are all good works. As the heavenly members rise, he begins to desire what he used to fear. For he used to fear that Christ might come and find him ungodly and condemn him; he desires that he may come, because he will find him godly and crown him. Now when the chaste soul has begun to desire the coming of Christ, desiring the embraces of the bridegroom, she renounces the adulterer; she becomes a virgin inwardly by faith, hope, and love. Now she has confidence on the day of judgment; she does not fight against herself when she prays and says, "Your kingdom come." For whoever fears that the kingdom of God may come fears that he may be heard. How does he pray who fears that he may be heard? But whoever prays with the confidence of love already wishes it to come. Of this very desire someone said in the Psalm, "And you, Lord, how long? Turn, Lord, and rescue my soul." He was groaning at being put off. For there are men who die with patience; but there are some perfect men who live with patience. What did I say? One who still desires this life, when the day of death comes to him, bears death patiently; he struggles against himself so as to follow God's will, and sets his mind rather on what God chooses, not on what human will chooses; and from the desire for the present life there comes a struggle with death; and he applies patience and fortitude so as to die with an even mind: this man dies patiently. But one who desires, as the apostle says, "to depart and be with Christ", does not die patiently, but lives patiently and dies with delight. See the apostle living patiently, that is, with patience not loving this life here but enduring it: "To depart," he says, "and be with Christ is far better; but to remain in the flesh is necessary for your sake." So, brothers, take pains, work within yourselves, that you may desire the day of judgment. Perfect love is proved in no other way than when that day has begun to be desired. And he desires it who has confidence in it; and he has confidence in it whose conscience does not tremble, being in perfect and sincere love.

"In this is his love perfected in us, that we may have confidence on the day of judgment." Why shall we have confidence? "Because as he is, so are we too in this world." You have heard the reason for your confidence: "Because as he is," he says, "so are we too in this world." Does he not seem to have said something impossible? For can a man be as God is? I have already explained to you that "as" is not always said of equality, but is said of a certain likeness. For how do you say, "As I have ears, so the image has them too"? Is it altogether so? Yet you say "as". If, then, we have been made in the image of God, why are we not as God is? Not to equality, but in our own measure. How, then, is confidence given us on the day of judgment? "Because as he is, so are we too in this world." We ought to refer this to love itself and understand what has been said. The Lord says in the Gospel, "If you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do this?" What, then, does he want of us? "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." If, then, he commands us to love our enemies, from where does he give us an example? From God himself; for he says, "So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." How does God do it? He loves his enemies, he "who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." If, then, God invites us to this perfection, that we love our enemies as he too has loved his, this is our confidence on the day of judgment, "because as he is, so are we too in this world": because, as he loves his enemies by making his sun rise on the good and the evil and sending rain on the just and the unjust, so we, since we cannot give our enemies sun and rain, give them tears when we pray for them.

Now see what he says of this confidence. How is perfect love understood? "There is no fear in love." What, then, do we say of him who has begun to fear the day of judgment? If love were perfect in him, he would not fear. For perfect love would produce perfect righteousness, and he would have no reason to fear; rather he would have reason to desire that iniquity may pass away and the kingdom of God come. So "there is no fear in love." But in what love? Not in love that has only begun. In what, then? "But perfect love," he says, "casts out fear." So let fear begin; for "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." Fear prepares a place, as it were, for love. But when love has begun to dwell there, the fear which prepared the place for it is driven out. For as much as love grows, fear declines; and as much as love comes further in, fear is driven out. Greater love, less fear; less love, greater fear. But if there is no fear at all, there is no way for love to enter. As we see thread drawn in by a bristle when something is sewn: the bristle goes in first, but unless it goes out, the thread does not follow; so fear first takes hold of the mind, but fear does not remain there, because it entered in order to bring in love. Now, when security has been established in the mind, what joy we have, whether in this age or in the age to come! And in this age, who will harm us when we are full of love? See how the apostle exults over this very love: "Who," he says, "will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?" And Peter says, "And who can harm you, if you are zealous for what is good?" "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment." The conscience of sins torments the heart; justification has not yet taken place. There is something there that tickles, that pricks. That is why in the Psalm, of this very perfection of righteousness, what does it say? "You have turned my mourning into joy for me; you have torn off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my glory may sing to you and I may not be pricked." What does "that I may not be pricked" mean? That there may be nothing to goad my conscience. Fear goads: but do not fear; love enters, which heals what fear wounds. The fear of God wounds as a physician's knife does: it removes the rot and seems, as it were, to enlarge the wound. See, when the rot was in the body, the wound was smaller, but dangerous; the physician's knife comes: that wound hurt less than it hurts now when it is being cut. It hurts more when it is being cured than if it were not cured; but it hurts more when the medicine is applied, so that it may never hurt when health follows. So let fear take hold of your heart, to bring in love; let the scar follow the physician's knife. Such is the physician that not even the scars show: only submit yourself to his right hand. For if you are without fear, you cannot be justified. The sentence has been spoken from the Scriptures: "For he who is without fear cannot be justified." So fear must enter first, through which love may come. Fear is the medicine, love is health. "But whoever fears is not perfected in love." Why? "Because fear has torment", as the physician's cutting has torment.

But there is another sentence which seems contrary to this, if it does not find one who understands it; for it is said in a certain place in the Psalm, "The fear of the Lord is chaste, enduring for ever and ever." It shows us a kind of eternal fear, but chaste. But if that shows us an eternal fear, does this Epistle perhaps contradict it, which says, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear"? Let us question both utterances of God. The Spirit is one, though the books are two, though the mouths are two, though the tongues are two. For this was said through John, that through David; but do not think the Spirit is different. If one breath fills two pipes, can one Spirit not fill two hearts and move two tongues? But if two pipes filled with one breath, that is, one blowing, sound in harmony, can two tongues filled with the Spirit of God be out of tune? So there is a certain harmony there, a certain concord; but it wants a listener. See, the Spirit of God has breathed into and filled two hearts, two mouths, moved two tongues; and we have heard from one tongue, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear"; we have heard from the other, "The fear of the Lord is chaste, enduring for ever and ever." What is this? Are they, as it were, out of tune? No: shake out your ears, attend to the melody. Not without reason did he add "chaste" there and not add it here; unless because there is one fear which is called chaste and another which is not called chaste. Let us distinguish these two fears, and understand the harmony of the pipes. How do we understand, or how do we distinguish them? Let your Love attend. There are men who fear God for this reason, lest they be sent into Gehenna, lest perhaps they burn with the devil in the eternal fire. This is the fear that brings in love; but it comes in so as to go out. For if you still fear God because of punishments, you do not yet love him whom you so fear. You do not desire good things, but avoid evil ones. But from avoiding evil things you correct yourself and begin to desire good things. When you have begun to desire good things, there will be chaste fear in you. What is chaste fear? Fear of losing those very goods. Attend. It is one thing to fear God lest he send you into Gehenna with the devil; it is another to fear God lest he depart from you. The fear by which you fear lest you be sent into Gehenna with the devil is not yet chaste; for it comes not from the love of God but from fear of punishment. But when you fear God lest his presence desert you, you embrace him; you desire to enjoy him himself.

The difference between these two fears, the one which love casts out and the other, chaste, which endures for ever and ever, cannot be better explained than if you set before you two married women, one of whom you picture as wanting to commit adultery, delighting in wickedness, but fearing to be condemned by her husband. She fears her husband, but she fears him because she still loves wickedness: to her the husband's presence is not welcome but burdensome; and if perhaps she lives wickedly, she fears that her husband may come. Such are those who fear that the day of judgment may come. Picture the other as loving her husband, owing him chaste embraces, staining herself with no impurity of adultery; she longs for her husband's presence. And how are these two fears distinguished? The one fears, the other fears too. Ask them; they answer you, as it were, the same: ask the one, "Do you fear your husband?" she answers, "I fear him." Ask the other too whether she fears her husband; she answers, "I fear him." The word is one, but the mind is different. Now let them be asked, "Why?" The one says, "I fear my husband lest he come"; the other says, "I fear my husband lest he go away." The one says, "I fear lest I be condemned"; the other says, "I fear lest I be deserted." Put this into the mind of Christians, and you find the fear which love casts out, and the other, chaste fear, enduring for ever and ever.

Let us speak first, then, to those who fear God as that woman fears whom wickedness delights; for she fears her husband lest he condemn her: let us speak first to such. O soul that fears God in this way, lest God condemn you, as the woman fears whom wickedness delights, who fears her husband lest she be condemned by her husband: as that woman displeases you, so displease yourself too. If perhaps you have a wife, do you want your wife to fear you in this way, lest she be condemned by you; that wickedness should delight her, but that she be held back by the weight of fear of you, not by the condemnation of iniquity? You want her chaste, so as to love you, not to fear you. Show yourself to God such as you want to have a wife. And if you do not yet have one and want to have one, you want to have such a one. And what do we say, brothers? That woman who fears her husband lest she be condemned by him perhaps does not commit adultery for fear that it may somehow reach her husband and he take from her this temporal light. But that husband can be deceived too; for he is a man, as she too is, who can deceive. She fears him, out of whose sight she can be: do you not fear the face of your husband who is always above you? "The face of the Lord is against those who do evil." She watches for her husband's absence, and is perhaps spurred on by the delight of adultery; and yet she says to herself, "I will not do it: he is absent, but it is hard for it not to reach him somehow." She restrains herself lest it reach a man who may not know, who may be deceived, who may think good even a bad woman, who may think chaste one who is an adulteress: do you not fear the eyes of him whom no one can deceive? Do you not fear the presence of him who cannot be turned away from you? Ask God to look upon you and turn his face away from your sins: "Turn your face away from my sins." But how do you deserve that he should turn his face away from your sins? If you do not turn your face away from your sins. For the same voice says in the Psalm, "For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always before me." Do you acknowledge it, and he forgives it.

We have spoken to her who still has the fear which does not endure for ever and ever, but which love excludes and casts out; let us speak also to her who already has chaste fear, enduring for ever and ever. Do we think we will find her, so as to speak to her? Do you think she is among this people? Do you think she is in this apse? Do you think she is in this land? She cannot but be, but she is hidden. It is winter; the greenness is within, in the root. Perhaps we have found her ears. But wherever that soul is, would that I might find her, and that she would not lend her ears to me, but I mine to her! She would rather teach me something than learn from me. A certain holy soul, fiery, and longing for the kingdom of God: it is not I who speak to her, but God himself, and he consoles her, living patiently on this earth, thus: "Now you want me to come, and I know that you want me to come; I know what you are, so that you await my coming without care; I know that it is wearisome to you: but wait yet, endure; I am coming, and coming quickly." But to one who loves it is slow. Hear her singing like a lily among thorns; hear her sighing and saying, "I will sing and understand in the blameless way: when will you come to me?" But in the blameless way she rightly does not fear, because "perfect love casts out fear." And when she has come to his embrace, she fears, but securely. What does she fear? She will be on her guard and keep herself from her iniquity, lest she sin again: not lest she be sent into the fire, but lest she be deserted by him. And what will be in her? "Chaste fear, enduring for ever and ever." We have heard the two pipes in harmony. The one speaks of fear and the other of fear: but the one of the fear by which the soul fears lest it be condemned, the other of the fear by which the soul fears lest it be deserted. The one is the fear which love excludes; the other is the fear enduring for ever and ever.

"Let us love, because he first loved us." For how could we love, unless he had first loved us? By loving we have become friends; but he loved enemies, so that we might be made friends. He loved us first, and gave us the gift of loving him. We did not yet love him; by loving we are made beautiful. What does a man ugly and with a distorted face do if he loves a beautiful woman? Or what does a woman do, ugly and distorted and dark, if she loves a handsome man? Can she become beautiful by loving? Can he too become handsome by loving? He loves a beautiful woman; and when he sees himself in a mirror, he is ashamed to lift his face toward that beauty of his whom he loves. What will he do to become beautiful? Does he wait for beauty to come? Rather, by waiting, old age is added and makes him uglier. So there is nothing to be done, no advice to give him, except that he restrain himself and not dare to love, unequal, one unequal to him; or, if perhaps he loves and wishes to marry, let him love chastity in her, not the face of the flesh. But our soul, my brothers, is foul through iniquity: by loving God it is made beautiful. What kind of love is it that makes the one who loves beautiful? But God is always beautiful, never ugly, never changeable. He who is always beautiful loved us first; and what kind of people did he love, but foul and ugly? Yet not so as to leave them foul, but to change them and make them beautiful from ugly. How shall we be beautiful? By loving him who is always beautiful. As love grows in you, so beauty grows; for love itself is the beauty of the soul. "Let us love, because he first loved us." Hear the apostle Paul: "But God shows his love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us": the righteous for the unrighteous, the beautiful for the foul. How do we find Jesus beautiful? "Fair in form beyond the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips." From where? See again from where he is beautiful: "Fair in form beyond the sons of men", because "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But because he took flesh, he took, as it were, your foulness, that is, your mortality, so as to fit himself to you and match himself to you, and rouse you to love the beauty within. From where, then, do we find that Jesus is foul and ugly, as we find that he is beautiful and "fair in form beyond the sons of men"? From where do we find that he is also ugly? Ask Isaiah: "And we saw him, and he had no form nor comeliness." These are the two pipes, sounding, as it were, differently; but one Spirit breathes into both. By the one it is said, "Fair in form beyond the sons of men"; by the other it is said in Isaiah, "We saw him, and he had no form nor comeliness." Both pipes are filled by one Spirit; they are not out of tune. Do not turn your ears away; apply your understanding. Let us ask the apostle Paul, and let him explain to us the harmony of the two pipes. Let "Fair in form beyond the sons of men" sound for us: "Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped." See, fair in form beyond the sons of men. Let "We saw him, and he had no form nor comeliness" sound for us too: "He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man." He had no form nor comeliness, so as to give you form and comeliness. What form? What comeliness? The love of charity; so that loving you may run, and running you may love. You are beautiful now; but do not look at yourself, lest you lose what you have received; look at him by whom you were made beautiful. Be beautiful for this, that he may love you. But direct your whole attention to him, run to him, seek his embraces, fear to depart from him; so that there may be in you chaste fear, enduring for ever and ever. "Let us love, because he first loved us."

"If anyone says, I love God." What God? Why do we love? "Because he first loved us" and gave us the gift of loving. He loved the ungodly to make them godly; he loved the unrighteous to make them righteous; he loved the sick to make them whole. So let us too love, "because he first loved us." Ask anyone, let him tell you whether he loves God. He cries out, he professes, "I love him"; he knows it himself. There is another thing by which he may be questioned. "If anyone says," he says, "I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar." How do you prove that he is a liar? Hear: "For whoever does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see?" What then? Does whoever loves his brother love God too? He must love God; he must love love itself. Can he love his brother and not love love? He must love love. What then? Does whoever loves love therefore love God? Certainly, therefore. By loving love he loves God. Or have you forgotten what you said a little earlier, "God is love"? If God is love, whoever loves love loves God. So love your brother, and be secure. You cannot say, "I love my brother, but I do not love God." Just as you lie if you say, "I love God", when you do not love your brother, so you deceive yourself when you say, "I love my brother", if you think you do not love God. You who love your brother must love love itself; but love is God: so whoever loves his brother must love God. "But if you do not love your brother whom you see, how can you love God whom you do not see?" Why does he not see God? Because he does not have love itself. He does not see God because he does not have love; he does not have love because he does not love his brother: so he does not see God because he does not have love. For if he has love, he sees God, because God is love; and that eye is cleansed more and more by love, so that it may see that unchangeable substance, in whose presence it may always rejoice, which it may enjoy for ever, joined to the angels. But let it run now, so that it may one day rejoice in the homeland. Let it not love the pilgrimage, not love the road: let everything be bitter except him who calls, until we cleave to him and say what was said in the Psalm: "You have destroyed all who commit fornication away from you." And who are those who commit fornication? Those who depart and love the world. But you, what? It goes on and says: "But for me it is good to cleave to God." My whole good is to cleave to God freely. For if you ask and say, "Why do you cleave to God?", and he says, "So that he may give to me", what will he give you? He made heaven, he made earth: what is he going to give you? You already cleave to him: find something better, and he gives it to you.