Homilies on John 3.1–3.5

“In the beginning was the Word.” As for attention in listening, there is no longer any need to exhort you, so quickly have you shown my exhortation in your deeds. For your thronging together, your intent way of standing, your pushing one another in your haste to reach the inner part of the church, where our voice might be clearer to you, your unwillingness to leave even when crushed until this spiritual theater is dismissed, your applause and your cries, and in short everything of that kind, would be proof of the warmth in your soul and of your love of hearing. So it is superfluous to urge this. But this we must say and urge: that you continue to keep this eagerness and show it not here only, but also when you are at home, husband speaking with wife and father with child about these things; that each tell what he has to contribute and ask for theirs, and that all of you bring in this fine common contribution.

Let no one tell me that our children must not be occupied with these things. They ought not only to be occupied with them, but to have their zeal in these alone. Yet because of your weakness I do not say this, nor do I draw them away from their outside schooling, just as I do not drag you away from public affairs. But of these seven days I ask you to dedicate one to the common Master of us all. For is it not absurd that we order our servants to serve us all the time, yet do not assign even the smaller part of our leisure to God, especially when all such service adds nothing to him (for the divine has no need) but turns to our own profit? When you take your children to the theaters, you plead neither lessons nor anything else of that kind; but if some spiritual gain is to be made and gathered, you call it a waste of time. How will you not provoke God, if you have leisure and time for everything else, but think it a burden, and out of season for children, to handle the things that are his? Not so, brothers, not so. This age above all needs these teachings. For being tender, it quickly stores up what is said, the hearing being stamped on their mind like a seal on wax. Besides, it is then that their life begins to incline toward vice or virtue. If, then, from the very beginning and the doorway one leads them away from wickedness and guides them by the hand onto the best road, he will settle them in it as in a habit and a second nature, and they will not easily change to the worse even if they wish, since this custom draws them to the doing of good. So they will become more venerable to us than the aged and more useful in public affairs, displaying in youth the qualities of their elders. For it is impossible, as I said before, for those who enjoy such hearing and spend time with such an apostle to go away without receiving some great and noble good, whether it be a man, a woman, or a youth who shares this table.

For if we tame the beasts among us by training them with speech, how much more shall we do this to men by this spiritual teaching, when the difference between the remedy and the patient is so great? For the wildness in us is not as great as that in them, since theirs belongs to nature and ours to choice; nor is the strength of the words the same, for the one comes from the human mind, the other from the power and grace of the Spirit. Whoever despairs of himself, then, let him think of the tame beasts, and he will never feel so. Let him come continually to this hospital, let him hear the laws of the Spirit at all times, and when he goes home let him write what he has heard on his mind; and so he will be in good hope and great security, perceiving his progress by experience. For when the devil sees the law of God written in the soul and the heart become its tablets, he will no longer approach. For where royal letters are found, not carved on a pillar but stamped by the Holy Spirit on a God-loving mind and shining with much grace, he will not even be able to look at them, but will turn his back on us from afar. Nothing is so fearful to him and to the thoughts he suggests as a mind meditating on divine things and a soul continually bent over this spring. Nothing in the present can grieve such a soul, even if it is unpleasant, nor puff it up and exalt it, even if it is prosperous; but in the midst of such storm and tempest it will enjoy a great calm.

For turmoil arises in us not from the nature of things but from the weakness of our own mind. If we suffered it because of what happens to us, all men would have to be troubled; for we all sail the same sea, and it is impossible to be clear of waves and brine. But if there are some who stand outside the storm and the raging sea, it is plain that it is not events that make the storm, but the state of our mind. If, then, we prepare our mind to bear everything easily, there will be no storm or surge for us, but always a bright calm.

But somehow, though I had proposed to say nothing about these things, I have been carried so far into this exhortation. Forgive me, then, for my length. For I fear, I fear greatly, that this eagerness of yours may grow weaker; if I were confident about it, I would have said none of this to you now, for that eagerness is enough to make everything easy for you. But it is time now to come to the subject set before us today, so that you may not come to the contests already tired. For contests lie before us against the enemies of the truth, against those who contrive everything to pull down the glory of the Son of God, or rather their own. For his glory remains always as it is, diminished in nothing by the blasphemous tongue; but they, in striving to pull down him whom they say they worship, fill their faces with dishonor and their souls with punishment. What, then, do they say when we say these things? That “In the beginning was the Word” does not simply show eternity; for this was said also of heaven and of earth. What great shamelessness and irreverence! I am talking to you about God, and you bring the earth into the midst, and men who are from the earth? Then, since Christ is called Son of God and God, and man too is called son of God and god (“For I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High”), will you contend with the Only-begotten over sonship and say that he has nothing more than you in this respect? “By no means,” he says. And yet you do it, even if you do not say it in words. How? Because you say that you have received adoption by grace, and that he has it in the same way; for by saying that he is not Son by nature, you establish nothing else than that he is Son by grace.

But let us look at the testimonies they bring forward against us: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unformed.” And, “There was a man of Armathaim Sipha.” These are what they think are strong. And they are strong, but for showing the correctness of the doctrines we teach; for supporting their blasphemy they are somehow the weakest of all. For tell me, what has “was” in common with “made”? What has God in common with man? Why do you mix what cannot be mixed, confuse what is distinct, and turn things above into things below? For here it is not only “was” that shows eternity, but also “In the beginning was” and “the Word was.” For as “being,” when said of a man, shows only the present time, but when said of God shows eternity, so too “was,” said of our nature, signifies to us past time, and that limited; but when said of God, it indicates eternity. It was enough, on hearing “earth” and on hearing “man,” to suspect nothing more of them than it is fitting to think of a created nature. For whatever has come into being has come into being in time or in an age; but the Son of God is above not only times but all ages. For he is their creator and maker: “Through whom,” it says, “he also made the ages”; and the maker is certainly before the things made. But since some are so senseless as to suspect, even after this, something greater of these things than their worth, by the word “made” and by “there was a man” Scripture forestalls the hearer’s mind and cuts off all shamelessness. For everything that has been made, both heaven and earth, was made in time and has a beginning in time, and none of these is without beginning, since it came into being. So when you hear that “He made the earth” and that “There was a man,” you are babbling to no purpose, spinning useless nonsense.

And I could add another point that goes even further. What is it? That even if it had been said of the earth, “In the beginning was the earth,” and of the man, “In the beginning was the man,” not even so ought we to suspect anything greater of them than what we now know. For the very name “earth” or “man,” once it has come first, whatever may be said of them, does not let the mind imagine anything greater of them than we now know; just as “the Word,” even if something small is said of him, does not let one think anything lowly or mean. For indeed, as he goes on, Moses says of the earth, “And the earth was invisible and unformed.” For having said that God made it and having set its proper limit, he then says what follows without fear, knowing that no one is so foolish as to suspect it to be without beginning and unbegotten. For the name “earth” and the word “made” are enough to persuade even the very simple that it is not eternal or unbegotten, but among the things that came into being in time.

Apart from this, “was,” in the case of the earth and of the man, does not signify simply being: in the case of the man it signifies being from such and such a place, and in the case of the earth, how it was. For he did not say simply, “And the earth was,” and stop; he taught how it was even after it had come into being: that it was “invisible and unformed,” still hidden by the waters and mixed with them. And of Elkanah he did not say only, “There was a man,” but added, to show where he was from, “of Armathaim Sipha.” But in the case of the Word it is not so.

And I am ashamed to compare these things with that. For if we rebuke those who make such comparisons between men when the difference in virtue between those compared is great, though their essence is one, then when the difference in nature and in everything else is so infinite, is it not the height of madness to raise such questions? But may he who is blasphemed by them be gracious to us. For it was not we who invented the need for such arguments; those who make war on their own salvation have supplied it to us.

What, then, do I say? That this “was,” in the case of the Word, signifies only that he is eternally: for “In the beginning,” it says, “was the Word.” And the second “was” signifies being with someone. For since being eternal and without beginning is above all proper to God, he set this first. Then, lest anyone hearing “was in the beginning” should call him unbegotten too, he at once corrected this, before saying what he was, by saying that “He was with God.” And lest anyone should think him simply a word, either spoken or internal, he removed this, as I said before, both by adding the article and by this second phrase. For he did not say, “He was in God,” but, “He was with God,” showing us his eternity as a distinct hypostasis. Then as he goes on he revealed it still more clearly, adding that this Word was also God.

“But he was made,” someone says. What, then, prevented John from saying, “In the beginning God made the Word”? Moses, at any rate, speaking of the earth, did not say, “In the beginning was the earth,” but that “He made” it, and then it was. What then prevented John too from speaking in this way and saying, “In the beginning God made the Word”? For if Moses feared this about the earth, lest anyone call it unbegotten, much more ought John to have feared it about the Son, if he was created. For the world, being visible, proclaims its maker of itself (“For the heavens,” it says, “declare the glory of God”); but the Son is invisible and has risen above creation immeasurably and infinitely. If, then, where we needed no word or teaching to learn that the world came into being, the prophet nevertheless sets it down clearly and before everything else, much more ought John to have said this about the Son, if he had been created.

“Yes,” he says, “but Peter said this clearly and expressly.” Where and when? When, speaking to the Jews, he said that “God made him Lord and Christ.” Why, then, did you not add what follows, “this Jesus whom you crucified”? Or do you not know that of the things said, some belong to the pure nature and some to the economy? If not, and you take everything simply of the Godhead, you will bring in a Godhead that suffers; and if it does not suffer, then it is not made either. For if blood had flowed from the divine and ineffable nature itself, and if that nature, instead of the flesh, had been pierced and torn by the nails of the cross, your sophism would have some reason in it. But if not even the devil himself would utter such a blasphemy, why do you pretend so inexcusable an ignorance, one that not even the demons would feign? Besides, “Lord” and “Christ” are names not of essence but of dignity: the one belongs to authority, the other to being anointed. What, then, would you say of the Son of God? For even if he were created, as you say, this would have no place. For he did not first come into being and then God appoint him; nor does he have a rule that can be cast off, but one that is his by nature and essence. For when he was asked whether he was a king, he says, “For this I was born.” But Peter speaks as of one appointed, for his whole discourse concerns the economy.

And why are you surprised if Peter says this? Paul, speaking to the Athenians, calls him only a man, saying, “by a man whom he appointed, having given assurance to all by raising him from the dead”; and he says nothing about the form of God, nor that he is equal to him, nor that he is the radiance of his glory. Naturally, for it was not yet the time for those words; it was enough if they accepted for the present that he was a man and that he rose. So Christ himself did, and Paul, having learned from him, managed things in the same way. For he did not reveal his Godhead to us at once; at first he was thought to be a prophet, and the Christ, simply a man, and later he was shown by his works and words to be what he was. That is why Peter too uses this approach at the beginning; for this was the first speech he delivered to the Jews. [“Lord” and “Christ”] do not denote essence. For since they could not yet learn anything clear about the Godhead, he dwells on the words about [the humanity], so that their hearing, exercised by these, might prepare the way for the rest of the teaching. And if one cares to go through the whole speech from the beginning, [he will find] what I say shining out clearly. For he too calls him a man, and dwells on the [account] of the passion, [the resurrection,] and the birth according to the flesh. And Paul, when he says, “who was born of David according to the flesh,” teaches us nothing else than that “made” is said of the economy, as we too confess. But the son of thunder [speaks] to us now of his ineffable existence before the ages. That is why he left aside “made” and [put] “was.”

Yet if he had been created, John ought above all to have [said] this. For if Paul feared that someone might suspect that the Son would be greater than the Father and would subject to himself the one who begot him (for this is why he said to the Corinthians, “But when it says that all things have been subjected, it is plain that he is excepted who subjected all things to him”), and yet who would suspect that the Father would be subjected to the Son together with all things? Nevertheless Paul feared even these absurd suspicions and says, “he is excepted who subjected all things to him”; much more ought John, if the Son of God had been created, [to have feared] lest anyone think him uncreated, and to have taught [the contrary]. But as it is, since he was begotten, neither John nor anyone else, no apostle [and no prophet], has said that he is created. And the Son himself would not have passed it over if it were so. He who says humble things about himself out of condescension would not have kept silent about this. For I think it more reasonable that one who has a lofty dignity should keep silent about it than that one who lacks it should not say so and teach that he does not have it. In the first case there was a reasonable pretext for silence, to teach men humility by keeping silent about the great things that belong to him; but in the second you could not name any just pretext for silence. For why would he keep silent, if he had been created, about his having come into being, when he declines many of the things that do belong to him? So he who for the teaching of humility often said humble things of himself would much less have omitted this, if it had been so. Or do you not see that, lest anyone suppose him unbegotten, he does and says everything, even things unworthy of his dignity and essence, such as “[I can do nothing of myself; as I hear,] I judge,” and “He has told me what to say and what to speak,” and the like, which befit only prophets? Wishing to remove this suspicion, he did not disdain to utter such words. Much more, if he had been created, would he have said many things of this kind, lest anyone think him uncreated; for example, “Do not think that I was begotten of the Father; I was made, I was created, I am not of his essence.” But as it is, he does the opposite; for he utters the words that compel even the unwilling and reluctant to accept the [right] understanding, such as, “I am in the Father and the Father in me”; and, “Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father”; and, “That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father”; “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will”; “My Father is working until now, and I am working”; “As the Father knows me, so I know the Father”; “I and the Father are one.” And everywhere, by putting “as” and “so,” and by saying that he is one with the Father, he shows that he does not differ from him in anything. His own authority he shows both by these and by many others, as when he says, “Be still, be muzzled”; “I will; be clean”; “I command you, you deaf and dumb spirit, come out of him”; and, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder; but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment.” And all the other laws he lays down and miracles he works of this kind are enough to show his authority; or rather, the smallest part of them is enough to persuade those who are not utterly insensible.

But vainglory is terrible at blinding the minds of those it captures even to what is quite plain, and persuading them to dispute what is acknowledged; and others, who know the truth perfectly well and are convinced of it, it anoints for hypocrisy and resistance. This happened with the Jews too. For it was not out of ignorance that they denied the Son of God, but in order to obtain honor from the many. For “they believed in him,” it says, “but they were afraid of being put out of the synagogue”; and so they handed over their own salvation to others. For it is not possible, it is not possible, for one who is so abjectly a slave to present glory to obtain the glory that comes from God. That is why he rebuked them, saying, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from men and do not seek the glory that comes from God?” For it is a deep drunkenness; that is why this passion makes the one it has conquered hard to bring back. It cuts off the souls of its captives from heaven and nails them to the earth, and does not let them look up to the true light, but persuades them to wallow forever in the mire, making for them masters so powerful that they rule even without giving orders. For the man sick with this disease, though no one commands him, does of his own accord everything he thinks will please his masters. For their sake he puts on fine clothes and beautifies his face, practicing this not for himself but for others; he leads attendants around the marketplace, so as to be admired by others; and everything he does, he endures only to please others. Could there be a worse passion than this? That others may admire him, he throws himself over the precipice again and again.

What Christ said is enough to show its whole tyranny; but one can also see it from this. If you will ask one of those engaged in public life who lavish costly expenditure why he pours out so much gold, and what he wants from such expense, you will hear nothing else from them than the pleasing of the people. And if you ask again what the people is, they will say: a thing full of uproar and turbulence, composed mostly of folly, carried about at random like the waves of the sea, often made up of varied and conflicting opinions. When anyone has such a master, who would not be more pitiable than he? Yet for worldly men to be excited about these things is not so terrible, though it is terrible; but that those who say they have leapt away from the world should be sick with the same diseases, or rather worse ones, this is most terrible of all. For in their case the loss goes as far as money, but here the danger reaches the soul. For when for glory’s sake they exchange the right faith, and in order to [be honored by men dishonor God], what would the thing lack of stupidity and madness? Tell me.

The other passions, though they bring great harm, do at least bring some pleasure, however temporary and brief. The lover of money, the lover of wine, the lover of women have some pleasure along with the harm, even if brief; but the captives of this passion live a life always bitter and deprived of pleasure. For they do not obtain what they passionately love, I mean glory from the many; they seem to enjoy it but do not, because the thing is not glory. That is why the passion is called not glory but a thing empty of glory; and all the ancients rightly named it vainglory. For it is empty, having nothing brilliant or glorious within. As masks seem brilliant and lovely but are empty within, and so, though more comely than bodily faces, have never yet won anyone’s love, so, or rather more wretchedly, has glory from the many shaped for us this passion, so hard to defeat and so tyrannical. It has only a brilliant outside; but within it is not merely empty but full of dishonor and of savage tyranny.

“Where, then,” someone says, “is this passion born, so irrational and without pleasure?” Where? From nowhere else than a low and mean soul. For a man captured by glory cannot readily conceive anything great; he must be shameful, mean, dishonorable, and small. For one who does nothing for virtue’s sake, but only to please men of no account, and who everywhere makes their erring and wandering vote his rule, how could he be worth anything? Consider: if someone asked him, “What do you think the many are?”, he would plainly say they are careless and neglected. “What then? Would you choose to become like them?” If one asked him this again, I do not think he would wish to. Is it not the height of absurdity, then, to hunt the glory of those whom you would never choose to resemble?