Origen probably began this work in Alexandria around 231, shortly after completing Peri Archon. Book 1, provided in full here, falls into three main parts. Sections 1–89 constitute a preface to the whole intended commentary. It resembles contemporary prefaces to philosophical commentaries. In it Origen examines the relationship of the Gospel of John to the other gospels and to the rest of Scripture and argues that an interpreter must have unmediated access to Jesus Christ, who is the gospel embodied. Aside from a brief conclusion (sections 289–92), the remainder of the book examines the two principal words in the initial phrase of verse 1:1. Sections 90–124 deal with “beginning” (Archê) and sections 125–288 with “Word” (Logos). In the former Origen identifies “beginning” with God’s Wisdom. In the latter Origen criticizes those who make “Word” the sole privileged title for the Son, taking its meaning for granted and neglecting all the other titles in Scripture. Arguing the “Word” can only be understood in relation to the rest of these titles, Origen deals with all the Son’s titles in what amounts to his most sustained statement of Christology. Our selections from later books of the Commentary on John show how he consistently follows through these interpretations of the titles.
The text illustrates Origen’s interest in Christ’s divine and human natures and multiple aspects (the epinoiai designated by various Christological titles) as they relate to human transformation through participation in Christ. He announces a concern for human transformation by addressing his patron Ambrosius as someone “hastening to be spiritual and no longer human” (section 9). The person thus transformed becomes, like John the evangelist, another Jesus (23), not differing from Christ (65) and knowing the Father as the Son does (92). Such a person no longer needs the Son in those aspects that he assumed in becoming man for the sake of the divine oikonomia, but in his original aspects (124). Extending the image of Isaiah 11:1 (as transmitted in the Septuagint), Origen states that such a person no longer encounters Christ as a rod of chastisement, or even as a flower, but as a fruit coming to mature perfection within him (263). Such human transformation derives from and extends the union of the divine and human in Christ (197). The Christ who transforms the individual Christian also transforms Scripture, turning the Old Testament into gospel (36) and, eventually, for those who are spiritually mature enough to comprehend it, turning the New Testament itself into a spiritual gospel (44–5).
The work begins with a complex example of homonymy, in which Origen generalizes from Paul’s notion that some are Jews “in secret” to argue that the church as the new people of God is Israel “in secret.” As such the church contains, in a hidden and spiritual manner, all the divisions of the Jewish people, including priests and levites consecrated entirely to God’s service. Origen goes on to argue that the interpreter of John must be a believer who is, spiritually, like Christ himself, a high priest. Only such a person can, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, “open up the mystery that is hidden as a treasure in the text” (89).
The translation is from Origène, Commentaire sur S. Jean, vol. 1, ed. Cécile Blanc = SC 120 bis, Paris, Cerf, 1996, pp. 52–210.
Text
Preface
IJust as, I think, the people once referred to as “of God” (see Num. 27:17) were divided into twelve tribes in addition to the Levitical order – itself composed, for divine service, of many corps of priests and levites – so I consider that, in accordance with “the secret man of the heart” (see 1 Pet. 3:4), the whole people of Christ, entitled Jewish in secret (see Rom. 2:29) and circumcised in spirit, has, in a very mysterious way, the properties of the tribes. This matter may be learned openly from John’s Revelation, but, for those who know how to listen, the other prophets are scarcely silent about it.
John indeed speaks in this way:
And I saw an angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were responsible for harming the earth and the sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their forehead.” And I heard the number of the sealed: one hundred and forty-four thousand from all the tribes of the sons of Israel, from the tribe of Judah twelve thousand sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand sealed.
(Rev. 7:2–5)
Then after listing the rest of the tribes except Dan, he adds, in addition:
And I looked, and behold the Lamb seated upon Mount Zion, and with him the one hundred and forty four thousand having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of great thunder, and the voice which I heard was like harpers harping on their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four creatures and the elders, and no one could learn the song except the one hundred and forty four thousand, who were gathered from the earth. These are those who have not sullied themselves with women, for they are celibate. These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he leads, these have been gathered from men as first-fruits to God and to the Lamb, and no falsehood is found in their mouths, for they are blameless.
(Rev. 14:1–5)
It can be demonstrated in the following way that these things are said by John about persons who have believed in Christ and who belong in tribes even if their corporeal race seems not to descend from the seed of the patriarchs: “ ‘Do not,’ ” he says,
“harm the earth, the sea, or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their forehead.” And I heard the number of the sealed: one hundred and forty-four thousand from all the tribes of the sons of Israel, from the tribe of Judah twelve thousand sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand sealed.
Note that those from all the tribes of the children of Israel who are sealed on their foreheads are one hundred and forty four thousand in number. Later on these one hundred and forty-four thousand are spoken of by John as those who have the name of the Lamb and of his Father written on their foreheads and who are celibate persons and have not sullied themselves with women.
Since in the two cases the forehead is said to bear either the seal or letters comprising the name of the Lamb and the name of his Father, can the seal on the foreheads be anything but the name of the Lamb and of his Father?
But if, as we have already shown, those from the tribes are the same as the celibate persons, and if a believer from the Israelites according to the flesh (see 1 Cor. 10:18) is rare, so much so that one would dare to say that those who believe from among the Israelites according to the flesh do not make up the number one hundred and forty four thousand, obviously gentiles who have approached the divine Word must comprise the one hundred and forty four thousand who have not sullied themselves with women. Moreover, one would not stray from the truth in saying that, in each tribe, the celibate are the first-fruits
for it adds “these have been gathered from men as first-fruits to God and to the Lamb, and no falsehood is found in their mouths, for they are blameless.”
But it must not be ignored that the discourse concerning the one hundred and forty four thousand celibate persons is open to an elevated sense. At this time it is superfluous and beside the point to cite the prophetic texts teaching us the same thing about those who are from the gentiles.
II “What does all this mean for us?” you say, Ambrosius, on coming across this composition – you, truly a man of God and a man in Christ (see 1 Tim. 6:11 and 2 Cor. 12:2) hastening to be spiritual and no longer human.
The members of the tribes offer to God tithes and first-fruits through the levites and priests, but tithes and first-fruits do not constitute all they have. On the other hand, the levites and priests employ nothing except tithes and first-fruits when they offer tithes to God through the high priest, and I suppose that they offer first-fruits as well.
Among us who follow the teachings of Christ, the majority who, for the most part, have no particular purpose in their lives and offer few activities specifically to God may, indeed, be the members of the tribes who have little in common with the priests and rarely cultivate the worship of God. But those who are really dedicated to the divine word and to the worship of God may, because of the excellence of their activities in this regard, be spoken of without absurdity as levites and priests.
Indeed those who are more excellent than everyone else, occupying, as it were, the first place in their generations, will be high priests in the order of Aaron rather than in the order of Melchizedek (see Heb. 7:11). For if anyone object to this, reckoning that we court blasphemy by ascribing the high-priestly title to men, since Jesus is often prophesied as our great priest – for we have “a great high priest, who has passed across heaven, Jesus, the Son of God” (Heb. 4:14) – he should be told that the Apostle made a distinction when he said that the prophet said about Christ, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 7:17, 5:5; Ps. 109:4 [110:4]) rather than according to the order of Aaron. On this basis we say that that men can be high priests after the order of Aaron but only the Christ of God according to the order of Melchizedek.
When, because we are hastening to better things, all our activity and all our life is dedicated to God and when we want to have it entirely as a first-fruit out of many first-fruits, then, unless I am mistaken, what ought to be the subject of my investigation, while we are bodily separated from one another, but the gospel? For one must dare to say that the gospel is the first-fruits of Scripture as a whole. 13 Then should the first-fruits of my activity, since I have returned to Alexandria, be anything else but the study of the first-fruits of Scripture?
We must know that first-fruits and firsthngs are not the same: the first-fruits are offered after the rest of the fruit, the firsthngs before it.
Among the scriptures actually accepted and believed by all the churches to be divine, one would not be mistaken in saying that the law of Moses is the firsthngs, but the gospel is the first-fruits. For, after all the fruit of the prophets who preceded the Lord Jesus, the perfect Word has come to fruition.
III But if someone should object to the rationale by which we explain first-fruits, saying that, because the acts and epistles of the apostles actually follow the gospels, our previous exposition of first-fruits – according to which the gospel is the first-fruits of the whole Scripture – is untenable, the response is: we possess in the epistles the mind of men who are wise in Christ and assisted by him, requiring, for credibility, the witness of depositions in the legal and prophetic discourses. Thus that we may say that the apostolic writings are wise, credible, and very cogent, but not to be compared with “The Lord Almighty says these things.”
In this regard, ask if, when Paul says that “All scripture is divinely inspired and useful” (2 Tim. 3:16), he included his own writings, or if, on the other hand, “I say, not the Lord” (I Cor. 7:12), “I establish this rule in all the churches” (1 Cor. 7:17), “Such things as I have suffered in Antioch, in Iconium, and in Lystra” (2 Tim. 3:11), and similar things written by him from time to time imply apostolic authority but not the absolute authority of words from divine inspiration.
In addition it must be added that the old Scripture is not gospel, since it does not disclose but herald in advance “the one who is coming.” But all the new Scripture is gospel, not just because it says, near the beginning of the gospel, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29), but also because it consists of varied praises and of the teachings of him on whose account the gospel is the gospel.
Yet if God has established in the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (see 1 Cor. 12:28), when we examine what is the task of an evangelist – that is not just a matter of recounting how the Savior accomplished miracles as curing a man blind from birth (see Jn 9) and resurrecting a dead man who was already stinking (see Jn 11), but the evangelist is also characterized by exhortations intended to produce faith in the things Jesus accomplished – we shall not hesitate to say that the apostles’ writings are in some way gospel.
But, as concerns this second explanation, to someone who retorts that we do not appropriately term the entire New Testament a gospel because the epistles are not entitled “gospel,” we respond: often the Scriptures use the same term for two or more things even though, strictly speaking, the term applies to only one of them. Thus, even though the Savior says “Do not call anyone teacher on earth” (Mt. 23:8), the Apostle says that teachers are instituted in the church. 20 These are not teachers in the strict sense of the term used in the gospel. In the same way each letter in the epistles is not, strictly speaking, gospel in comparison with the account of Jesus’ deeds, sufferings, and words.
Nonetheless, the gospel is the first-fruits of the entire Scripture, and of all things that we intend to accomplish, we shall dedicate the first-fruits to the first-fruits of the Scriptures.
IV For my part I suppose that the evangelists, being four, are, as it were, the elements of the church’s faith, from which elements the whole world is constituted in Christ so as to be reconciled to God, as Paul says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), the world from which Jesus took away the sin, since it is concerning the world of the church that Scripture says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). I also suppose that the first-fruits of the gospel is the one which you have requested us to interpret to the best of our ability, the Gospel according to John, which speaks of the one who is given a genealogy and begins with one who has no genealogy (see Heb. 7:3). 22 For Matthew, writing for the Hebrews awaiting the son of Abraham and David, says, “A book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt. 1:1) and Mark deliberately writes “the beginning of the gospel” (Mk. 1:1) so that doubtless we may discover his purpose in the Word “in the beginning” of John’s gospel, the Word who is God (see Jn 1:1). But Luke also reserves for him who reclined upon Jesus’ breast (see Jn 13:25) the better and more perfect discourses concerning Jesus, for none of them revealed his divinity straightforwardly as John did, who presented him saying “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8:12), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6), “I am the resurrection” (Jn 11:25), and in Revelation, “I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Rev. 22:13). 23 Further, if one must be so bold as to say that the gospels are the first-fruits of the entire Scripture, then the first-fruits of the gospels is [the Gospel] according to John. No one can understand this gospel unless he reclines on Jesus’ breast and unless he accepts Mary from Jesus as one who has become his own mother. And, in order to become another John, he must become such a person that, like John, he has been designated by Jesus as one who is Jesus. For no one but Jesus was a son of Mary according to those who soundly glorify her, but when Jesus says to his mother, “See, your son” (Jn 19:26), rather than, “See, this man is also your son,” it is the equivalent of saying, “See, this man is Jesus whom you bore.” For everyone who is perfected “no longer lives, but Christ lives in him” (see Gal. 2:20), and since Christ lives in him, Christ says to Mary concerning him, “See, your son.”
What also needs to be said about what kind of intelligence we must have to understand fully the discourse stored in the earthen treasure (see 2 Cor. 4:7) of ordinary speech, that is, a letter legible to anyone who chances to read it and audible by the sound of the sensible word to all who attend with their bodily ears? Someone who is going to comprehend it accurately must be able to say with truth, “We have the intelligence of Christ, so that we know the things graciously given to us by God” (1 Cor. 2:16 and 12).
It is possible to cite a saying from Paul to the effect that the entire New Testament is gospel, namely “according to my gospel” (Rom. 2:16), for among Paul’s writings we do not have a book customarily called a gospel, but everything which he proclaimed or said was the gospel. But what he proclaimed and said, he wrote, so that what he wrote was gospel. 26 But if the writings of Paul were gospel, it follows that Peter’s writings were gospel as well as, in a word, all writings which commend Christ’s presence and prepare for his advent by producing it in the souls of those who receive the Word of God waiting at the door and knocking (see Rev. 3:20) and wishing to enter into souls.
V It is time to examine what the word “gospel” means and why these books have it as their title. A gospel is a discourse consisting of an announcement of events that, because of the benefits they procure, please those hearing it when they receive the announcement. Such a discourse is no less a gospel if one examines the attitude of the hearer.
Or a gospel is a discourse that itself makes present something good for the one who believes or a discourse promising that the promised good is present. 28 All of the definitions above are appropriate to the writings we entitle gospels.
For each gospel is a collection of benefits announced to the believer producing benefit for the person who does not chance to misinterpret it. It ordinarily produces joy, since it teaches the presence among men for their salvation of Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation (see Col. 1:15). But it is also apparent to every believer that each gospel is a discourse teaching the presence of the good Father in those who wish to receive the Son. 29 Without doubt the expected good thing is promised through these books. For John the Baptist was perhaps voicing the concerns of the whole people when he said, in his message to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we expecting someone else?” (Mt. 11:3), because the good thing which the people were expecting was the Christ, whom the prophets had announced, so that whoever chanced to be under the law and the prophets had hopes in him, as the Samaritan woman testified saying, “I know that Messiah is coming, the so-called ‘Christ.’ When that one comes, he will announce all things to us” (Jn 4:25). 30 But Simon and Cleopas also, as they were discussing “among themselves concerning all the things that had occurred” (Lk. 24:14) to Jesus, said to the resurrected Christ himself, whom they did not yet know to have risen from the dead, “Are you the only inhabitant of Jerusalem who does not know the things that have occurred there in these days?” But when he asked, “What things?” they answered,
The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, that he was a man who was a prophet powerful in deed and in word before God and all the people, how the high priests and our rulers betrayed him to a condemnation of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he was the one who was going to deliver Israel.
(Lk. 24:18–21)
In addition Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, finding his own brother Simon, said, “We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, Christ” (Jn 1:41). A little later, Philip, finding Nathanael, says to him, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law and the prophets, Jesus the son of Joseph from Nazareth” (Jn 1:45).
VI Someone may deem the first definition above unsatisfactory because writings not entitled gospels fall under it, for the law and the prophets are discourses believed to be “consisting of an announcement of events which, on account of the benefits which they procure, please those hearing it when they receive the announcement.”
One might answer this objection by saying that, because Christ had not yet appeared to clarify their mysteries, before Christ’s presence, the law and the prophets did not possess the promise implied by the definition of gospel. Nonetheless, when the Savior became present, acting so as to embody the gospel, he made them all into gospel by the gospel. 34 It would not be irrelevant to cite as an example “A little leaven leavens the whole loaf” (Gal. 5:9). Because * * * removing the veil (see 2 Cor. 2:15) which, in the law and the prophets, hid his divinity from the children of men, he showed the divine character of all the Scriptures, furnishing to all who wished to become disciples of his wisdom what was true in the law of Moses which the ancients worshipped in a pattern and a shadow (see Heb. 8:5) and what was the truth in the events narrated, which happened figuratively to them, but were written for us, on whom the ends of the ages have come (see 1 Cor. 10:11). 35 For every person in whom Christ is present no longer worships God in Jerusalem or on the mountain of the Samaritans, but, knowing that God is spirit (see Jn 4:24), he no longer worships the father and maker of the universe figuratively.
Therefore before the gospel, which came about through Christ’s presence, none of the old Scriptures were gospel. But the gospel, which is a new covenant, has illuminated with the light of knowledge (see Hos. 10:12) the never-aging newness of the spirit proper to the new covenant, delivering us from the oldness of the letter (see Rom. 7:6).
VII But it must not be ignored that there was a presence of Christ before his fleshly presence, namely an intellectual presence which occurred to those who happened to be more mature – not, that is, infants or still under pedagogues and guardians (see Gal. 4:2) – to whom the intelligible fullness of time (see Gal. 4:4) was present, as it was to the Patriarchs, to Moses the attendant (see Heb. 8:5), and to the prophets who contemplated the glory of Christ.
Just as, before the manifest bodily presence, he was present to the perfect, so also, after his advent has been proclaimed, in the case of those who were still infants – because they were under guardians and stewards and had not arrived at the fullness of time – the forerunners of Christ have been present as discourses, reasonably referred to as pedagogues, adapted to childish souls. But the glorified Son himself, God the Word (see Jn 1:1), was not present to them, but was waiting until they should receive the preparation necessary for men of God to appropriate his divinity.
And this ought to be known: just as there is a law containing a shadow of good things to come (see Heb. 10:1) clarified by the law promulgated according to the truth, so also there is a gospel, considered to be intelligible to anyone who should chance upon it, that actually teaches the shadows of the mysteries of Christ.
But, to those who perceive face to face (see Prov. 8:9) all things concerning the Son of God himself, what John called the “eternal gospel” (see Rev. 14:6), which might appropriately be referred to as the spiritual gospel, reveals clearly both the mysteries concealed in his words and the realities of which his deeds are the enigmatic expression.
From this reasoning it follows that we must conclude that, just as there is someone who is manifestly a Jew and circumcised (see Rom. 2:28), and that there is an obvious circumcision and one which is in secret (see Rom. 2:29), so it is with being a Christian and with baptism. 41 Both Paul and Peter, initially being Jews and circumcised outwardly, later received from Jews the condition of being Jews and circumcised in secret. But for the sake of the salvation of many according to a plan they showed that they were manifestly Jews not only by words but by actions as well. And the same thing must be said concerning their Christianity. 42 And just as it was not possible for Paul to benefit the Jews according to the flesh, unless, when reason persuaded him, he circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3) and, when it was reasonable, shaved his head and made an offering (Acts 21:24) and, all told, became a Jew in order to gain the Jews (see 1 Cor. 9:20), so it is not possible for what is set forth openly for the benefit of the majority to improve, solely through secret Christianity, those who are receiving elementary instruction in open Christianity and lead them to greater and more elevated things. 43 For this very reason it is necessary to act as a Christian both spiritually and bodily, and where it is appropriate to proclaim the bodily gospel, saying that one knows nothing among carnal persons except Jesus Christ and him crucified (see 1 Cor. 2:2), this must be done. But if one finds persons restored in the Spirit (see Gal. 6:1), bearing fruit in him (see Col. 1:10), and asking for the wisdom of heaven, they should participate in the Word who has returned after being incarnate to what he was in the beginning with God (see Jn 1:2).
VIII We deem that it is not vain to have said these things as we scrutinize the meaning of “gospel” and differentiate the sensible aspect of the gospel from its intelligible and spiritual aspect. 45 And now our task is to change the sensible gospel into the spiritual, for what is interpretation of the sensible gospel unless it is transforming it into the spiritual? It is no interpretation at all, or a trivial one, if anyone who chances on the text can be convinced that he comprehends its meaning. 46 But every kind of struggle confronts us when we attempt to reach the depths of the evangelical sense and to discover the naked truth of the things figuratively expressed in it.
If one understands the identity of the good things proclaimed as gospel, the apostles announce Jesus. Even though they are said to have announced the resurrection also as a good thing (see Acts 17:18), the resurrection is, in a way, Jesus as well, for Jesus said, “I am the resurrection” (Jn 11:25). But Jesus himself proclaims as gospel to the saints those things that are set aside for the destitute (see Mt. 11:5), summoning them to the divine promises.
The divine Scriptures testify concerning the apostles’ evangelism and about that of our Savior. David testifies concerning that of the apostles and indeed also of the evangelists, saying, “The Lord will give utterance to those announcing the gospel with great power, the king of the powers of the beloved” (Ps. 67:12–13 LXX [68:11– 12]), teaching at the same time that it is not the arrangement of discourses, manner of delivery, or studied eloquence that carry conviction, but the assistance of a divine power. 49 For this reason Paul says somewhere: “We shall know, not the discourse of those who are puffed up, but power, for the kingdom of God is not in discourse, but in power” (1 Cor. 4:19), and somewhere else: “And my discourse and my proclamation are not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 2:4). 50 Testifying to this power, Simon and Cleopas said: “Were not our hearts burning on the road, as he opened the scriptures to us?” (Lk. 24:32). But the apostles, since there are different degrees of power accorded by God to those who speak, had great power, according to David’s words: “The Lord will give utterance to those proclaiming the gospel with great power.” 51 But Isaiah – saying “How beautiful are the feet of those who announce good things as gospel” (Isa. 52:7) and recognizing the beautiful and opportune proclamation of those who walk on the way of him who said “I am the way” (Jn 14:6) – praises the feet of those who advance through the intelligible way of Jesus Christ and come into God’s presence through the door (see Jn 10:9). For such persons, whose feet are beautiful, announce good things, that is, Jesus, as gospel. IX 52 Do not be astonished at our having understood a plural term as a proclamation of Jesus. When we understand the things to which the terms for the Son correspond, we shall realize that Jesus is, in a way, many “good things” which they whose feet are beautiful announce as gospel.
One good thing is life, and Jesus is life (see Jn 14:6). Another good thing is the “light of the world” (see Jn 8:12), a light which is the “true light” (Jn 1:9) and the “light of men” (Jn 1:4), all of which the Son of God is said to be.
In terms of aspect, “truth” is still another good thing alongside “life” and “light,” and yet a fourth is the “way” which leads to truth, all of which the Savior teaches us that he is by saying “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).
And how is not a good thing when someone who is dead shakes off the dust and rises again, something accomplished by the Lord who is the resurrection, for he says “I am the resurrection” (Jn 11:25)?
And is not the door through which one enters high blessedness also a good thing, and Christ says “I am the door” (Jn 10:9).
What is to be said about wisdom, whom “the Lord created in the beginning of his ways for the purpose of his works” (Prov. 8:22), in whom her Father rejoiced, delighted by her highly variegated intelligible beauty, seen only by intelligible eyes, which summons to heavenly love one who meditates the divine beauty? For the “wisdom of God” (see 1 Cor. 1:24) is a good thing that, along with all the above good things, those whose feet are beautiful announce as gospel.
We must also count the “power of God” (see 1 Cor. 1:24), which is Christ, as an eighth good thing.
But God the Word who is with the Father of the universe must not be passed over in silence, for this good thing is inferior to none.
Therefore blessed are they who receive such good things, obtaining them from those evangelists whose feet are beautiful.
However, if someone is one of those Corinthians among whom Paul chose to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified (see 1 Cor. 2:2), he obtains, when he learns about him, the one who became man for our sakes. This enables such a man to be “in the beginning” of good things, becoming a man of God by virtue of the man Jesus and dying to sin by virtue of his death, for Jesus is the one who “in that he died, died to sin once and for all.” 59 But by virtue of his life – since Jesus “in that he lives, lives to God” (Rom. 6:10) – everyone conformed to his resurrection receives the ability to live to God.
But who will doubt that justice itself is a good thing, along with sanctification itself and redemption itself? These very things those who announce Jesus as gospel announce as gospel, saying that he has become for us justice from God and wisdom, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). X 60 It is possible from these countless Scriptural references to him to demonstrate how Jesus is a multitude of good things and to guess at things not contained in Scripture that subsist in him in whom the fullness of the godhead was well pleased to dwell bodily (see Col. 1:19; 2:9). 61 Why do I say “in Scripture” when John says concerning the whole world: “I do not think that the world itself could contain the books written” (Jn 21:25)?
It is therefore the same thing to say that the apostles announce the Savior as gospel and that they announce good things as gospel. Jesus is indeed the one who receives the ability to be good things from the good Father, so that everyone who receives Jesus or who receives good things through him finds himself in the midst of good things.
The apostles, whose feet are beautiful, and those who emulate them would not be able to announce good things as gospel if Jesus had not first been announced to them as gospel, as Isaiah says:
I, the one speaking, am present with you as a season upon the mountains, as the feet of one who announces peace as gospel, as the one announcing good things as gospel, because I shall make your salvation heard, saying “Zion, your God will reign.”
(Isa. 52:6–7)
What are the mountains on which he avows to be present unless they are those who are inferior to none of the loftiest and greatest things upon earth? Such must be sought by servants adequate to the new covenant (see 2 Cor. 3:6), so that they may keep the commandment that says: “Go up to a lofty mountain, you who announce the gospel to Zion, lift your voice with strength, you who announce the gospel to Jerusalem” (Isa. 40:9).
It is not surprising that Jesus announces good things as gospel to those who are going to announce good things as gospel, because they do not differ from him, for the Son of God announces himself to those who are capable of understanding him without intermediaries. But he who climbs the mountains and announces good things as gospel to them – after being instructed by the good Father who makes the sun rise upon the evil and the good and rain fall on the just and the unjust (Mt. 5:45) – does not despise those whose souls are destitute. 66 For to them he announces the gospel, as he himself testifies when he takes Isaiah and reads, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to announce the gospel to the destitute. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and renewal of sight to the blind.” Closing the book, and handing it back to the assistant, he sat down and, while all were looking intently at him, he said: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears” (Lk. 4:18–21; see Isa. 61:1–2 and 58:6).
XI One must know that every good deed done for Jesus is included in such a great gospel. An example is the action of the woman who had once done evil deeds but had repented. By authentically abandoning vice she was empowered to pour perfume on Jesus (see Lk. 7:37) and to produce throughout the house an odor which all in it could perceive (see Jn 12:3). 68 Therefore it is written: “Wherever, among all nations, this gospel is proclaimed, what she has done shall also be spoken of in memory of her” (see Mt. 26:13).
It is evident that things accomplished for those who are his disciples apply to Jesus, for in referring to cases where persons have received good treatment, he says to those responsible: “What you have done for these, you have done for me” (Mt. 25:40). Thus every good deed we achieve for a neighbor is noted in the gospel, namely the one inscribed on tablets in heaven and read by all who have been made worthy of the knowledge of all things. 69 But, by the same token, the sins committed against Jesus are a part of the gospel in order to denounce those who have committed them. 70 Judas’s betrayal and the cry of the impious people saying “Remove such a one from the earth” (Acts 22:22) and “Crucify, crucify him” (Jn 19:15), the mockery of those who crowned him with thorns (see Mt. 27:29) and similar deeds are included in the gospels. 71 Consequently, we must understand that every betrayal of Jesus’ followers amounts to a betrayal of Jesus. Thus he said to Saul, while still persecuting, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” and “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4–5). 72 Who are those who have thorns, with which they derisively crown Jesus? Those who are stuffed by the cares, the wealth, and the pleasures of life so that, after they have received the word of God, they do not reach maturity (see Lk. 8:14). 73 Therefore we ourselves must be on guard not to be recorded among those who crown Jesus with their own thorns and to be read as such by those rational and holy ones who learn, by and through all things, how Jesus is anointed with myrrh, entertained at dinner and glorified, but also how he is dishonored, derided, and beaten.
This discussion is necessary to show how our good deeds and the sins of those who stumble are included in the gospel, either for life eternal or for eternal infamy and shame (see Dan. 12:2). XII 75 But if there are, among men, some who have been honored with the ministry of evangelists and if Jesus himself announces good things as gospel and announces the gospel to the poor, it is not necessary to exclude from being evangelists those angels who have been made spirits by God and the servants of the Father of the universe who are flames of fire (see Heb. 1:7 and Ps. 103:4 [104:4]). 76 Thus it is actually an angel who stands before the shepherds and, as he makes glory shine about them, says: “Do not be afraid, for see, I announce to you as gospel great joy which shall be to all the people, for a Savior had been born for you today, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David” (Lk. 2:9–11). Since men did not yet understand the mystery of the gospel, greater beings, God’s heavenly host, say in praise of God: “Glory to God in the highest places and on earth peace to men with whom he is well pleased” (Lk. 2:14). 77 And when they had said this, the angels departed from the shepherds into heaven, leaving it for us to understand how the “joy” announced as gospel to us through the birth of Christ is “glory” “to God in the highest places” when those who had been humbled to the ground have turned back to their rest (see Ps. 114:7 [116:7]) since they are going to glorify God through Christ in the highest places. 78 But the angels also marvel at the peace that exists through Christ on the earth, this place of warfare, to which Lucifer, who rises at dawn, fell from heaven (see Isa. 14:12) so as to be crushed by Jesus.
XIII In addition to what I have just said, this must be known about the gospel: it belongs primarily to Jesus Christ, the head of the whole body of the saved, as Mark says: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mk. 1:1), but that it also belongs to the apostles, for Paul says: “According to my gospel” (Rom. 2:16).
But the beginning of the gospel (for it has magnitude, including a beginning, a continuation, a middle and an end) is either the whole Old Testament, of which John is the type, or, by virtue of the connection between the Old and the New, it is the end of the Old represented by John.
Mark himself says:
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it was written in Isaiah the prophet “See, I send my messenger [angel] before my face, who shall prepare my way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ ”
(Mk. 1:1–3)
Therefore it shocks me how the heterodox can attach the two Testaments respectively to two gods, since they are reproved by no less an authority than this text itself.
For how could he be the beginning of the gospel, as they suppose, if John belonged to a different god, a man belonging to the demiurge and ignorant, by their account, of the new divinity?
XIV The angels are entrusted with an evangelizing ministry not limited to just one announcement to shepherds. Thus, at the end-time, an angel flying through the air, having a gospel, will announce the gospel to every nation, because the good Father will not entirely abandon those who have fallen away from him.
Therefore John the Son of Zebedee says in Revelation:
And I saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having an eternal gospel to announce as gospel to those left on the earth, and to every nation, tribe, language and people, saying in a loud voice “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has arrived, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of waters.”
(Rev. 14:6–7)
XV We have posited that that entire Old Testament, symbolized by the name of John, is, according to one explanation, the beginning of the gospel. In order to show that this explanation is not without warrant, we appropriate from Acts the passage concerning Philip and the eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians. It says, “Philip, beginning with the scripture from Isaiah, ‘As a sheep is led to the slaughter, and as a lamb is dumb before its shearers,’ announced the Lord Jesus as gospel to him” (Acts 8:32). How could he have announced Jesus as gospel by beginning with the prophet, if Isaiah did not belong to the beginning of the gospel? 86 We are now in a position to confirm what we have already said about all of divine Scripture’s being a gospel: if anyone who evangelizes “announces good things as gospel,” and if all those who preceded Christ’s bodily presence announce the one who is, as we have shown, “good things,” in one way or another the discourses of all of them are part of the gospel.
Since what is called the gospel has been spoken of in the whole world (see Mk. 16:15), we can infer that it has been announced in the whole world, not, that is, this earthly place alone, but in the entire system of heaven (or heavens) and earth.
But why should we delay any longer discussing the meaning of “gospel”? What we have said suffices and those not lacking in skill can, along the same lines, gather similar passages from the Scripture so as to see the real glory of the good things in Jesus Christ according to the gospel ministered by men and angels, and also, I suppose, by principalities, powers, thrones, dominations, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age to come (see Eph. 1:21), since it is ministered by Christ himself. We shall therefore stop our introduction at this point.
We now ask God to assist us through Christ in the Holy Spirit to open up the mystical sense hidden as a treasure in the text.
In the beginning …
XVI The Greeks are not alone in giving the term “beginning” many meanings. But if one observes how the word is used by taking examples from every side, and if one wishes to understand it by examining carefully for what purpose they are employed in each place in Scripture, one will find that it has multiple meanings even in divine discourse.
One of these meanings refers to a commencement, as in the beginning of a road or distance, which is evident in “The beginning of the good way is to do just things” (Pr. 16:7 LXX). Because the “good way” is very long, it must be understood that the first things involve practical life, the very thing proposed by “do just things.” The remainder is contemplation, whose issue and purpose is, I think, in the so-called “restoration” (see Acts 3:21), when no enemy will remain – if “For he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet, but the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25) is actually true. 92 Then there will be one activity, the apprehension of God, for those who have come to be with God through the Word who is with God. Thus, by being transformed by knowledge of the Father (see Gal. 4:19), just as now only the Son knows the Father, they will all become “sons” in the strict sense of the word. 93 If one should investigate diligently when it will happen that those will actually know the Father to whom the Son, who has known the Father, reveals him (see Mt. 11:17) and when it will happen that he will see who now sees what he sees “through a mirror in a enigma” (1 Cor. 13:12), not yet knowing “as he ought to know” (1 Cor. 8:12), he would not be mistaken in saying that no one, should he even be an apostle or prophet, has seen the Father, except whenever they have become one, as the Son and the Father are One (see Jn 17:21).
If it appears that, in the process of ascertaining one sense of “beginning,” we have digressed from our subject, it must be shown that the digression is necessary and useful for our subject.
If “beginning” is understood as a commencement of a road and of a distance – “The beginning of the good way is doing just things” (Prov. 16:7 LXX) – it is possible to see if every good way somehow has “doing just things” as its beginning, if it has contemplation as a further stage, and, in that case, what sort of contemplation.
XVII There is also a “beginning” in the sense of coming into existence attested in “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). I believe that this sense is indicated even more clearly in Job where it says: “This is the beginning of the Lord’s fashioning, made as a sport for his angels” (Job 17:19 LXX).
Someone might assume that “heaven and earth” were made “in the beginning” of those things that existed when the world came to be, but it is better to say, as in our second citation, that of the many things that came to be in bodies, the first of those in the body was the so-called “dragon,” also named somewhere “great whale,” which the Lord subdued (see Job 3:8; 2 Pet. 2:4).
And we must ask if, since the saints in blessedness live an entirely immaterial and incorporeal life, the so-called “dragon” deserved, by falling away from pure life, to be the first to be attached to matter and a body, so that for this reason the Lord, speaking oracularly through the whirlwind and clouds, said, “This is the beginning of the Lord’s fashioning, made as a sport for his angels.”
Possibly the dragon is not in an absolute sense the beginning of the Lord’s fashioning, but since many beings were created in the body as a sport for the angels, he is the beginning of those things only, leaving open the possibility that some others are in the body for a different purpose. For the soul of the sun is in a body, and so is all of creation, concerning which the Apostle says: “All creation groans and is in birth pangs until now” (Rom. 8:22).
And doubtless it is for this latter purpose that “the creation has been subject to vanity, not willingly, but through the one who subjected it in hope” (Rom. 8:20), since bodies and bodily actions, which are necessary for one in the body, are vain * * * The one who is in the body does not willingly do the things of the body, therefore the creation was unwillingly subjected to vanity.
The one who unwillingly does the deeds of the body does what he does through hope, as if we should say that Paul wished “to remain in the flesh” not willingly but through hope. Even though he preferred, for his own sake, “to be dissolved and to be with Christ,” it was not irrational “to remain in the flesh” (see Phil. 1:23– 4) in order to be of benefit to others and to further, not only his own progress in things hoped for, but the progress of those whom he benefited.
This will enable us to grasp the meaning of a “beginning” of coming into existence and what is said by Wisdom in Proverbs: “God created me in the beginning of his way for his work” (Prov. 8:22). But this passage, “God created me the beginning of his way,” can also refer to our first meaning, “beginning” as of a road.
But it is not absurd to say that the God of the Universe is evidently a beginning [or principle] on the grounds that because the Father is the beginning of the Son, the artisan of the things fashioned, God is also, in an absolute sense, the beginning of existing things. This is proved by “in the beginning was the Word,” understanding the Word as the Son, so that as a result of his being in the Father, he is said to be “in the beginning.”
Third is the sense of “beginning from which,” as in beginning from underlying matter. This is proposed by those who believe that matter is ingenerate, but not by us who believe that God made the things that are from things that are not, as the mother of the seven martyrs in Maccabees (2 Mac. 7:28) and as the angel of repentance in Shepherd taught (Hermas, Mand. 1,1; Vis. 1.1.6).
In addition a principle [beginning] is that in accordance with which something is, that is, in accordance with its form. So, if indeed the first-born of all creation is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), the Father is his principle. But similarly Christ is the form of those who have come to be in accordance with the image of God. 105 Therefore, if men are created “according to the image” (see Gen. 1:26–7), the image itself is “according to the Father.” The principle in accordance with which Christ is is the Father, but the principle in accordance with which human beings are is Christ, because they have come to be not in accordance with the one of whom he is the image, but in accordance with the image. “In the beginning was the Word” is consistent with the same example.
XVIII There is also a “principle” of instruction according to which we say that the letters [ = elements] are the principle of writing. According to this meaning the Apostle says: “Even though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you what are the elementary principles of the oracles of God” (Heb. 5:12). 107 “Principle” of instruction can be regarded in two ways, by nature, and as it relates to us. If we should say that Christ’s principle by nature is divinity, in relation to us – who, because of his grandeur, cannot begin with the truth concerning him – that principle is his humanity. This is why “Jesus Christ,” and he “crucified” (see 1 Cor. 2:2), is proclaimed to infants (see 1 Cor. 3:1). Accordingly it is possible to say that Christ is a principle of instruction by nature, in so far as he is the wisdom and power of God (see 1 Cor. 1:24), but in relation to us, “the Word became flesh” so as to make his dwelling among us (see Jn 1:14), since only thus are we initially capable of receiving him. 108 And indeed for this reason he is not just the first-born of all creation but “Adam,” which is interpreted “man”. That he is Adam, Paul says in “the last Adam is a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45).
There is also a “principle” of an action, in which action there is a certain end which follows from the principle. And consider if wisdom, the beginning of God’s deeds, can be understood to be a principle in this sense.
XIX Since in this discussion there are so many meanings included in “beginning,” we shall investigate in which sense we ought to apprehend “In the beginning was the Word.”
It is obvious that it does not refer to the commencement of a road or of a distance, and it is clear enough that it does not refer to coming into existence. 110 Nonetheless, it may refer to the principle “by which” a thing is as it is, since God “commanded and they were created” (Ps. 148:5). For Christ is in some way the artisan by whom the Father says “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3) and “Let a firmament come into existence” (Gen. 1:6). 111 As “beginning,” Christ is an artisan, in as much as he is Wisdom; because he is Wisdom, he is called “beginning.” For Wisdom says in Solomon: “God created me, the beginning of his ways, for his work” (Prov. 8:22) so that “in the beginning” – that is, “in wisdom” – “was the Word.” This is because “Wisdom” is understood as the structure of a theoretical consideration of the universe and of designs by which it is constituted, and “Word” is understood as the communication to rational beings of things theoretically considered.
And it is not surprising if, as I have already said, the Savior being many conceivable good things, he should have in him some first, some second, and some third. John accordingly bore witness, saying of the Word: “that which came to be in him was life” (Jn 1:4). Life therefore came to be in the Word, and the Word is none other than Christ, God the Word, who is with the Father, through whom all things came to be, nor was life anything other than the Son of God, as it says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). Just as life came to be in the Word, so the Word was in the beginning.
Let us determine if it is possible to interpret “In the beginning was the Word” in terms of this meaning: that all things came to be according to Wisdom and according to the patterns of the system of designs in the Word.
For I think that, just as a house or a ship is built or constructed according to architectural patterns, so that the ship and the house have as a principle the patterns and rational formulas of the builder, so everything came into existence according to rational formulas of future things made plain in advance in wisdom by God “For he made all things in wisdom” (Ps. 103:24 [104:24]).
And it must be said that God, having, so to speak, created a living Wisdom, delegated it to supply to beings and to matter, from the patterns included in it, structure, shape and, I conjecture, even existence.
It is not difficult to say that the Son of God is more or less the principle [ = beginning] of existing things who says, “I am the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the first and the last” (Rev. 22:13). But it is necessary to know that he is not a principle according to all his titles. 117 For how can he be a principle in so far as he is life, the life that came to be in the Word (see Jn 1:4), which is evidently its principle? And it is clearer still that the “first-born from the dead” (Col. 1:18) cannot be a principle.
And if we studiously examine each of his aspects, he is principle only in so far as he is Wisdom, not in so far as he is Word, since the Word was “in the beginning,” so that one may boldly say that “beginning” is the oldest of all the attributes revealed by the titles of the first-born of all creation.
XX God is therefore entirely one and simple, but the Savior, on account of the many –since God “designated” him “in advance as a propitiation” (Rom. 3:25) and first-fruits of all creation – has become many and is doubtless all things that every created being, capable of liberation, has need of from him.
Therefore he became the light of men, because men darkened by evil required the light shining in the darkness and not overcome by the darkness (see Jn 1:5), but, if men had not been in darkness, he would not have become the light of men.
Something similar should be understood concerning his being the first-born from the dead. For if, hypothetically, the woman had not been deceived and Adam had not fallen, the man created for incorruptibility would have grasped that incorruptibility, Christ would not have gone down “to the dust of death” (Ps. 21:16 [22:15]) or died, since that sin on account of which he had to die out of love of humanity would not have existed, and, if Christ had not done those things, he would not have been “the first-born from the dead.”
It should be investigated if he would not have become a shepherd if man were not comparable to “the beasts without understanding nor made similar to them” (Ps. 48:13 [49:12]). For if “God preserves men and beasts” (Ps. 35:7 [36:6]), he preserves the beasts whom he preserves by providing a shepherd to those who cannot receive a king.
Therefore gathering together the Son’s titles, one must investigate which of them came into existence afterwards, since, had the saints remained in their original blessedness, he would not have become so many things. Indeed he would have remained Wisdom alone, or Word, or Life, certainly Truth, but not any of the others that he assumed for our sake.
And blessed are those requiring the Son of God who have become such that they need him no longer as a physician healing the infirm, as a shepherd or as a redeemer, but as Wisdom, Word, and Justice, or something else for those who, by their perfection, are able to receive the best from him.
This will suffice for “In the beginning.”
… was the Word.
XXI Let us look very carefully at what “Word” is.
Reflecting on the things said about Christ by certain persons wishing to believe in him, I have often been astonished at how they rush silently past the greater part of the countless names ascribed to our Savior. But even if one should recall one such name at some point, they imagine that the expression is used not in its proper sense, but figuratively. They do not pause except for the one title, “Word” – as if, as far as they were concerned, the Christ of God were simply “Word” – and they do not think that “Word” requires interpretation as other names do.
What astonishes me with regard to the many – I will make myself clearer – is this. The Son of God says somewhere, “I am the light of the world” (Jn 8:12), and in other places, “I am the resurrection” (Jn 11:25), and again, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6); it is written “I am the door” (Jn 10:9) and he also says, “I am the good shepherd” (Jn 10:11); and when the Samaritans said to him, “We know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ, and when that one comes, he shall announce all things to us,” he answered, “I, the one speaking to you, am he” (Jn 4:25–6).
Besides these, when he washed the disciples’ feet, he confessed himself their teacher and lord when he said: “You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘lord’ and you speak well, for so I am” (Jn 13:13).
But he clearly proclaims himself to be the Son of God when he says, “Do you say concerning him whom the Father has sanctified and sent to the world ‘You blaspheme’ because I said ‘I am the Son of God’?” (Jn 10:36) and “Father, my hour has come, glorify your son, so that your son may glorify you” (Jn 17:1).
We find him also proclaiming himself king, as when, in response to Pilate’s question “Are you the king of the Jews?” he says, “My kingdom is not of this world, if my kingdom were of this world, my followers would put up a struggle, so that I might not be betrayed to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here” (Jn 18:33, 36).
We also read, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser” (Jn 15:1), and again, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn 15:5).
One could add to these, “I am the bread of life,” and again, “I am the living bread, which came down from heaven” (Jn 6:35, 51), and “giving life to the world” (Jn 6:33).
These are citations from the gospel that come to mind at the present time, since the Son of Man says them about himself. XXII
But also in the Revelation to John he says, “I am the first and last and the living one, who was dead and behold I am alive for ever and ever” (Rev. 1:17–18), and again, “I have become the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13).
There are also no few comparable passages in the holy books which the attentive reader could find in the prophets, like “chosen arrow.” And he calls himself “servant of God” and “light of the nations.” 134 For Isaiah says,
He has called me from my mother’s womb and he has made my mouth like a sharp sword, he has hidden me under the shelter of his hand, he has placed me as a chosen arrow and has hidden me in his quiver and he has said to me: “You are my servant, Israel, and in you I shall be glorified.”
(see Isa. 49:1–3)
And shortly later,
And God will be strength for me. And he said to me: “This is a great thing for you, to be called my servant, to establish the gates of Jacob, and to gather again the dispersion of Israel, behold, I have placed you as a light of the nations, so that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth.”
(Isa. 49:5–6)
But also in Jeremiah he is compared to a lamb in these words: “I am like an innocent lamb led to the slaughter” (Jer. 11:19).
He thus says these, and other similar things, about himself, but it is also possible from the gospels, from the apostles and from the prophets to collect thousands of such titles, by which the Son of God is addressed, either by the gospel writers setting forth their own understanding about who he was, or the apostles glorifying him by what they had learned about him, or by the prophets proclaiming in advance his future arrival and announcing things concerning him with diverse terms.
Thus John announced him as “Lamb of God,” saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29) and as “man” in: “This is he about whom I said that after me comes a man who was before me, because he was prior to me, and I did not know him” (Jn 1:30–1).
In the catholic epistle John says that he is an “advocate” for our souls with the Father, saying, “If any one sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn 2:1). 139 He adds, “and he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn 2:2), which Paul takes up in similar terms when he calls him a “propitiatory sacrifice,” saying, “Whom God has foreordained as a propitiatory sacrifice through faith in his blood for the remission of sins already committed during God’s time of forbearance” (Rom. 3:25).
He is also proclaimed, according to Paul, to be wisdom and power, as it says in Corinthians that Christ is the power and the wisdom of God (see 1 Cor. 1:24), and, in addition to these, that he is “sanctification” and “redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30), for it says, “Who became for us from God wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption.”
But he also teaches us that he is the great high priest, writing to the Hebrews: “Having therefore a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us be firm in our confession” (Heb. 4:14).
XXIII Besides these, the prophets also address him by other names. In his blessing of his sons, Jacob called him Judah:
Judah, may your brothers praise you, your hands are on the back of your enemies, Judah, lion’s whelp, you have arisen, my son, from a shoot, falling down you have fallen asleep like a lion, and like a whelp, who shall awaken him?
(Gen. 49:8–9)
* * * It is not possible at this time to explain in detail how the things said to Judah apply to Christ. 143 But an objection that may reasonably be offered to “A ruler shall not be lacking from Judah and a leader from his loins” shall be resolved more appropriately in another context.
Isaiah knows that Christ is called “Jacob” and “Israel” when he says:
Jacob, my servant, I shall assist him, Israel, my chosen, my soul has received him. He shall proclaim judgment to the nations. He shall not contend or cry out, nor shall his voice be heard in the streets. He shall not break a bruised reed nor quench a smoking flax, until he produces judgment from victory, and in his name shall the nations hope.
(Isa. 42, 1–4, LXX)
Matthew shows clearly in the gospel that it is Christ concerning whom these things are prophesied, partially citing the passage, “That the saying might be fulfilled, ‘He shall not contend or cry out,’ ” etc. (Mt. 12:17–19).
Christ is also called “David,” as when Ezekiel, prophesying to the shepherds, offers, in the person of God, “I shall raise up my servant David, who shall shepherd them” (Ez. 34:23), for David the Patriarch will not arise in order to shepherd the saints, but Christ.
Isaiah also calls Christ “branch” and “flower” in
A branch shall arise from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety, and he shall be full of the spirit of the fear of the Lord.
(Isa. 11:1–3 LXX)
And our Lord is thus called “stone” in the Psalms: “The stone which the builders rejected, that one has become the keystone. This was on the Lord’s part, and it was marvelous in our eyes” (Ps. 117:22–3 [118:22–3]).149 Luke shows in his gospel and in Acts that the stone is none other than Christ; in the gospel: “Have you not read, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, that one has become the keystone’? All who fall on that stone shall be crushed, and he on whom that stone falls will be smashed” (Lk. 20:18; Mt. 21:42–4). 150 In Acts Luke writes: “This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the keystone” (Acts 4:11).
In fact one of the names attributed to the Savior – not one of those spoken by him but registered by John – is also “The Word which was in the beginning next to God, God the Word” (see Jn 1:1).
XXIV It is worthwhile to attend to those who dismiss so many of the names and employ this one as their preferred name. They seek explanations for the others, if one mentions them to them, but imagine in this case that it is clear just what “Word” means when applied to the Son of God, especially since they ceaselessly employ “My heart has belched a good word” (Ps. 44:2 [45:1]). They suppose that the Son of God is a fatherly utterance expressed, as it were, in syllables, and so if we examine their position precisely, it does not accord him a distinct existence and does not clearly define his essence. 152 It is indeed impossible, at the outset, to understand how a word proclaimed can be a son. Let them proclaim to us as God the Word a word having its own life; either it is not distinguished from the Father, and for this reason does not have a distinct existence and cannot be a son, or it is so distinguished and is endowed with its own essence.
This must then be said. Just as, with each of the above names, we must disclose the meaning of the term employed in that title and we must also provide a demonstration of how the Son of God can be called by that name, the same procedure is required when “Word” is used as a name. 154 What an absurdity it is not to halt at the term itself in each other case – but to seek, for example, how we must allow him to be a “door” and how he is a “vine” and why he is a “way” – but to abandon his procedure in one case alone, when he is called “Word”!
In order to give better consideration to a very difficult matter – what is to be said about the Son’s being the Word of God – we must start with the names for him that we have already put forward. 156 We are aware that some will consider such an exercise is utterly beyond the scope of our concern. But, for someone paying attention, it will be quite germane to our subject to examine closely the senses according to which the names are given and an understanding of the objects of the names given will in turn be profitable. 157 Moreover, once we have taken up theology about the Savior, we must necessarily understand him fully, as far as an attentive examination makes possible, not just as Word, but as the rest of his titles.
XXV He said that he was “the light of the world” (Jn 8:12, 9:5), and we must examine similar titles, since it seems to us that some are not just similar, but the same. 159 There are “the light of men,” “true light,” and “light of the nations.” He is “light of men” at the beginning of the present gospel, for it says, “That which came into being, in it was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overwhelmed it” (Jn 1:4–5). Farther on in the same passage it is recorded: “He was the true light, who enlightens every man, coming into the world” (Jn 1:9). “Light of the nations” is found in Isaiah, as we have already said in citing, “Behold, I have placed you as a light to the nations, so that you may be for salvation to the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:6).
The sun is the light of the sensible world and, in turn, it is not appropriate for the moon and the stars to be designated by the same term. 161 But even though they are sensible light, they are said to have come into existence, according to Moses, on the fourth day (Gen, 1:14–16). Because they enlighten the things on earth, they are not the true light, but the Savior is the light of the intelligible world, illuminating those beings that are rational and endowed with a guiding principle, so that their minds may see the things proper for them to see – I speak of the rational souls in the sensible world and any others besides these which together fill the world – to which the Savior tells us he belongs, and, indeed because his role is the most commanding and distinguished, he can be said to be the sun that is the maker of the great day of the Lord (Rev. 16:14). 162 With regard to that day he says to those who participate in his light: “Work while it is day, for the night comes when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (Jn 9:4–5).
Yet he said to his disciples: “You are the light of the world” (Mt. 5:14) and “Let your light so shine before men” (Mt. 5:16). 163 We understand the bride, the church, and the disciples to be in a position analogous to the moon and the stars. In each case they possess their own proper light acquired from the true sun in order to enlighten those who cannot construct in themselves a source of light. So we call Paul and Peter “the light of the world,” but ordinary people who are called into discipleship by them, who are enlightened but cannot enlighten others, are the “world” of which the disciples are the “light of the world.”
The Savior, being the “light of the world,” does not enlighten bodies but, by an incorporeal power, he enlightens the incorporeal mind, so that, just as each of us is enlightened by the sun, we are enabled to see other intelligible things. 165 Just as, when the sun is shining, the ability of the moon and stars to shine is dimmed, those illuminated by Christ and receiving his beams do not require the ministrations of any apostles or prophets or – one must dare to tell the truth – angels, or, I add, any of the greater powers, since they are trained as disciples by the first-begotten light himself.
The holy ones ministering to those who do not receive Christ’s solar rays supply an enlightenment much inferior to Christ’s direct enlightenment to those scarcely able to accept even that enlightenment and be filled by it.
XXVI But possibly Christ, as the light of the world, is the true light in contrast to the sensible, since nothing sensible is true. But it does not follow that, because the sensible is not true, the sensible is false, for the sensible can bear an analogy to the intelligible, for it is not reliable to categorize as false everything that is not true. 168 I investigate whether “the light of the world” is the same as “the light of men” and I think that a greater power is presented by the light when it is proclaimed “the light of the world” than when it is “the light of men,” for “world,” on one interpretation, is not just “men.” 169 And Paul presents the world as something greater and other than men in First Corinthians, saying: “We have become a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men” (1 Cor. 4:9).
But do you ask whether, according to one interpretation, “world” is the creation freed “from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21) of which the “earnest expectation waits patiently for the revelation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19)? 171 I have added “do you ask” because “I am the light of the world” can be interpreted alongside what Jesus said to the disciples, “You are the light of the world.”
There are some who presume that those men who are trained as disciples by Jesus, who have become so as a result of rational conduct characterized by a most difficult struggle, are actually better than other created beings so trained, who have become so by nature.
For the toil is great and life is precarious for those in flesh and blood compared with those in an ethereal body. Indeed the luminaries in the heavens, were they to assume earthly bodies, would not pass through the life here without peril and entirely without sin. 174 For “As I and you are one, so may they be one” (Jn 17:21) and “Where I am, there will my servant also be” (Jn 12:26) are clearly recorded concerning men, but concerning the creation it is recorded that it shall be freed “from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” And they add that it does not, if it is liberated, already share in the glory of the children of God. 175 They shall not forbear to mention that the firstborn of all creation became man because of the honor in which he held man above everything else, but he did not become any living thing belonging to heaven. But that which had been fashioned of the second rank, as servant and slave of the knowledge of Jesus, the star appearing in the East (see Mt. 2:2), is either like the rest of the stars, or indeed greater, because it has become the sign of him who is distinguished above all.
And if the saints’ boast is in afflictions, knowing “that affliction produces endurance, and endurance character, and character hope, but hope is not deceived” (Rom. 5:3–5), an unafflicted creation would not have the same endurance, character, and hope as it does, since “the whole creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by him who subjected it in hope” (Rom. 8:20).
He who does not dare to ascribe such dignity to man will say, on coming to terms with the issue, that the creation subjected to futility is afflicted and groans even more than those who groan by virtue of being in this tent (2 Cor. 5:4), since it is enslaved to futility for such a long time that a great many human struggles could occur.
Why does it do this “unwillingly”? No doubt because it is against its nature to be subjected to futility and not to retain its original status, which it will resume when it is liberated at the destruction of the world and released from the futility of bodies.
But since we are speaking about a great issue beyond our subject, let us go back to the beginning: remembering why the Savior is called “the light of the world,” “true light,” and “light of men” We have, in fact, explained that because of the sensible light of the world he is called “true light” and that “light of the world” is the same as “light of men” or an explanation is expected of how they are not the same. 180 But, necessarily, because of those who have not comprehended that the Word is the Savior, these things are investigated. Thus we are determined, on the one hand, not to halt arbitrarily at the concept and title “Word” without providing a possible paraphrase and, on the other hand, to furnish an allegorical interpretation of the term “light of the world” and the many other terms we have cited.
XXVII Thus because of his function of enlightening and illuminating the governing faculties of men and all rational beings in general, he is “light of men,” “true light,” and “light of the world.” By the same token, because he makes possible the expulsion of all death and because he produces growth, he is properly called “life,” and because those who have really received him are raised again, he is called “resurrection” (Jn 1:25). 182 He is not only making this possible in the present for those who can say “We have been buried together with Christ through baptism” and we have been raised together with him, but much more when someone who has completely expelled all death, even that of the Son, walks “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4) – “we bear about the death of Jesus everywhere here below in our bodies,” when we are extraordinarily assisted, “so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies” (see 2 Cor. 4:11).
But the walk in wisdom, also involving practical activity, of those who are saved in him – a walk which they make by following commentaries on the truth in the divine discourse and by acting in accordance with true justice – enables us to understand how he is the “way” (Jn 14:6), on which way one ought not to take anything, either purse or cloak, and on which it is unnecessary to hold a staff or to have sandals tied on one’s feet (see Mt. 10:10). 184 For this way is self-sufficient and requires no provisions, for everyone who journeys on this road needs nothing, since he is dressed in clothing fitting for someone departing for the wedding feast (see Mt. 22:11), and no obstacle can obstruct this way. For, according to Solomon, it is impossible to find the ways of a serpent upon a rock (Prov. 24:54 LXX [30:19]) but I say that no wild beast shall ever be there.
Therefore there is no need for a staff on the road which has no trace of adversaries and is inaccessible on account of its hardness – for which reason it is called rock – to those who are evil.
The only-begotten is called “truth” because he understands everything about the universe according to the will of the Father with a reason of complete clarity, and, in as much as he is truth, transmits it to each according to his worthiness. 187 If someone asks whether our Savior knows absolutely everything that has been known by the Father according to the depth of the wealth of his wisdom and knowledge (Rom. 11:33) and, on the pretext of glorifying the Father, will declare that certain things are known by the Father of which the Son is ignorant, so that he does not have a comprehension equal to that of the ingenerate God, he must reflect on the Savior’s being Truth. It must also be added that, if truth is perfect, nothing true is beyond its knowledge, so that truth may not be handicapped by things that it does not know, which are, according to persons who think this way, only in the Father. Or let such a person demonstrate that there are things known that do not belong to the category of truth, but are superior to it.
It is clear that the pure source of life in the strict sense of the word, unadulterated by anything else, is in the firstborn of all creation. Taking from this source, those who participate in Christ live life truly. As for those who reckon that they live outside him, just as they lack the true light, they lack true life.
And since one cannot come to be in the Father without having first ascended from below to the divinity of the Son, from which one can be led to the paternal blessedness, the Savior is presented as “door” (see Jn 10:7).
Since he is a lover of humanity, accepting the impulses of souls inclined in any way toward improvement – even if they do not hasten toward the Word, but are like cattle, having a nature that is tame and gentle even if incapable of discursive thought – he becomes the “shepherd” (Jn 10:11), “for God preserves men and beasts” (Ps. 35:7 [36:6]) and Israel and Judah are sown not only with the seed of men but of beasts (Jer. 38:27 LXX [31:27]).
XXVIII After this one ought to inspect first of all the title “Christ” along with “king” so as to understand the difference between them by juxtaposing them. It is said in Psalm 44 that he who beyond his companions had loved justice and hated lawlessness (Ps. 44:8 [45:7]) received his anointing because he pursued justice and hated injustice. This means that he did not receive anointing along with existence as an ordinary property of creation. Anointing is, among generate beings, the symbol of royalty or sometimes priesthood. Is then the royalty of the Son of God something acquired or is it innate? 192 And how is it possible that the firstborn of all creation, without being king already, became king later because he loved justice, even though he is justice (see 1. Cor. 1:30)? Have we not forgotten that he is Christ as a man – understanding him in terms of the soul which, on account of humanity, was disturbed and became afflicted – but that he is king in terms of his divinity? 193 I support this from Psalm 71, where it says: “O God, give your judgment to the king and your justice to the king’s son, to judge your people in justice and your poor in judgment” (Ps. 71:1–2 [72:1–2]). Clearly the Psalm, attributed to Solomon, prophesies concerning Christ. 194 It is worthwhile to see how the prophecy prays for judgment to be given by God to a certain king and justice to a certain son of a king. 195 I think therefore that “king” refers to the preeminent nature of the firstborn of all creation, in as much as judgment is given to him on account of his superiority, and “king’s son” to the man, whom that nature assumed, formed in accordance with justice and modeled by that nature. 196 And I am led to admit that this is so because the two are united in a single utterance and the remainder of the passage no longer proclaims two such figures, but one. 197 For the Savior has made “the two one” (Eph. 2:14), having indeed made one the first-fruits of the two that were to become one in him before all things. The “two,” I say, also concerns men, in so far as each one’s soul is blended with the Holy Spirit and each of those who are saved become spiritual.
Just as there are some who are herded by Christ, as we have already said, because they are gentle and tame, even if irrational, so there are some who are reigned over by him because they have dedicated themselves more rationally to piety. 199 And there are differences between those who are reigned over; either they are reigned over in a manner that is more mystical, ineffable and worthy of divinity or in an inferior manner. 200 I would say that those who have contemplated things extracorporeal – called “invisible” and “not seen” by Paul (see Col. 1:18; Rom. 1:20; 2 Cor. 4:18) – having, in reason, got beyond everything sensible, are reigned over by the preeminent nature of the only-begotten. But those who have arrived only so far as reason concerning sensible things, and through those sensible things glorify the one who made them, are also reigned over by Christ as they are reigned over by reason.
Let no one stumble over our distinguishing the aspects of the Savior, thinking that we make such distinctions with regard to his essence.
XXIX Even on a superficial view it is clear how our Lord is the teacher and tutor of those who are exerting themselves in piety and a slavemaster of those who “have the spirit of slavery to fear” (Rom. 8:15). But for those who are making progress, hastening toward wisdom and becoming worthy of it – since “the slave does not know what his master wishes” (Jn 15:15) – he does not remain master but has become a friend. 202 He himself teaches this, even though those listening to him were still slaves. He says: “You refer to me as teacher and master and you do well, for I am” (Jn 13:13), but “I no longer call you slaves, for the slave does not know what is the desire of his master, but I say that you are friends” (Jn 15:15) because you have remained steadfast “with me in all my trials” (Lk. 22:28). 203 Therefore those living by fear – fearing that God takes revenge on those who are not good slaves, as we read in Malachi, “If I am the Lord, where is my fear?” (Mal. 1:6) – are slaves of the master who is called their Savior.
Through all these the nobility of the Son is not clearly presented, but “You are my son, today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7) is said to him by God to whom “today” is eternity. But I consider that there is no evening in God, nor any morning, but time coextensive, so to speak, with his unbegotten and eternal life, in which the Son was begotten, so that there is no identifiable beginning to his generation nor any date for it.
XXX To be discussed in addition to the above is how the Son is the “true vine” (Jn 15:1). This will be clear to those who understand in a way worthy of the prophetic grace the words “wine that gladdens the heart of man” (Ps. 103:15 [104:15]). 206 If the heart is our discursive intellect, what gladdens it is the most palatable Word, withdrawing it from human concerns, making it divinely inspired and drunk with a drunkenness which is not irrational but divine, the one with which Joseph made drunk his brothers (see Gen. 43:34), so that it is reasonable for the vine that produces the wine that gladdens the heart of man to be the “true vine.” It is “true” because it has truth as a fruit and the disciples as branches, imitating him and themselves bearing the truth as fruit. 207 To establish the difference between bread and vine involves toil, since it says not only that he is the vine, but that he is the bread of life (Jn 6:48).208 Bread nourishes and strengthens and is said to support the heart of man, but wine sweetens, gladdens, and relaxes. See if, in the same way, on the one hand, ethical disciplines, which maintain life in the one who learns and practices them, are the bread of life; one would not refer to them as the fruit of the vine. On the other hand, things that gladden and produce enthusiasm, unspeakable and mystical acts of contemplation, arise for those who delight in the Lord and desire not just to be nourished but also to be delighted. These, coming from the true vine, are called “wine.”
XXXI In addition to these, how he is recorded as “the first and the last” (Rev. 22:13) in the Apocalypse must be explained, being first is different from being “alpha” and “beginning,” and being last is not the same as “omega” and “end.”
I therefore believe that rational beings are characterized by many forms, and a certain one is first, another second, another third, and so on to the last. 211 And to say accurately who is the first and who the second, and who is truly the third and so on to reach the final one is not at all humanly possible, but is beyond our nature. But we shall attempt to stay and discuss this topic in so far as we are able.
There are gods of whom God is God, as the prophets say: “Confess the God of gods” (Ps. 135:2 [136:2]) and “The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken, he has summoned the earth” (Ps. 49:1 [50:1]). God, according to the gospel, “is not a god of the dead, but of the living” (Mt. 22:32), and the living are the gods of whom God is God. 213 Even the Apostle, writing in a letter to the Corinthians, “Just as there are many gods and many lords,” has, in accordance with the prophetic writings, understood the term “gods” as referring to existing beings.
There are, besides the gods, of whom God is God, certain others who are called “thrones” and others called “dominions, principalities and powers” (see Col. 1:16) and others besides them.
On account of “above every name which is named not just in this age but in the age to come” (Eph. 1:20), it must be believed that there are other rational beings besides these which we are not at all accustomed to naming, of which one is the race which the Hebrew called “Sabai,” from which “Sabaoth” is formed, which means their ruler, who is none other than God. After all these comes man, a mortal rational being.
Therefore the God of the universe has created a certain rational race first in honor, which, I think, are those called “gods” – the second, let us for the present call “thrones,” and the third doubtless “dominions.” Thus one must descend rationally to the last rational being, which happens, indeed, to be none other than man.
Therefore the Savior, in a more divine manner than Paul, has become “all things to all” so that “he might gain” or perfect “all” (see 1 Cor. 9:22), and clearly he has become a man for men and an angel for angels. 218 No believer doubts his having become a man. We are convinced that he became an angel on observing the appearances and words of angels, when he appears with the power of angels in certain places in Scripture when angels are speaking, as in “An angel of the Lord appeared in the fire of a bush of flame and said ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’” (Ex. 3:2). And also Isaiah said, “His name shall be called ‘Angel of Great Counsel’” (Isa. 9:6 LXX). 219 The Savior is therefore “first and last” not because he is the extremes with nothing in between, but in order to show that he has become all things. It is a question whether man is the “last” or those beings called infernal, to which all or some of the demons belong. 220 It should be investigated in what circumstances the Savior said through the prophet David, “And I have become like a man without assistance, free among the dead” (Ps. 87:5 [88:4– 5]), just as he was superior to men by virtue of his virgin birth and the rest of his life in prodigies, so, among the dead, he was superior by being the only free one there, for his soul was not abandoned in Hades (see Acts 2:27; Ps. 15:10 [16:10]). So therefore he is “the first and the last.”
If there are letters of God, as there are, which the saints read, saying that they are reading in the tablets of heaven, these letters, which exist so that heavenly things may be read through them, are concepts about the Son of God dispersed all the way from alpha through omega (see Rev. 1:8). 222 Again he is both the beginning and end, but he is not the same with respect to various aspects. For he is beginning, as we have learned in Proverbs, in so far as he is Wisdom, as is thus written: “God created me, the beginning of his ways, for his work” (Prov. 8:22). But in so far as he is Word, he is not beginning, for “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1).
His aspects then have a beginning and a second after that, a third and so on to the end, as if he were to say, “I am beginning in so far as I am wisdom,” but second, if such were the case, “in so far as I am invisible”, and third, “in so far as I am life” since “that which came to be in him was life” (Jn 1:4).
If someone has the capacity to see, by investigating the sense of Scripture, he will indeed find much concerning [these titles’] order and purpose, but I do not think he will find everything. But it is most evident “beginning” and “end” seem, by ordinary usage, to refer to a unified whole, as when the beginning of a house is the foundation and the end is the cornice. 225 And because Christ is the “cornerstone” (see Eph. 2:20) this must be reconciled to his being the pattern of the whole unified body of the saved. The only-begotten is indeed “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28) since he is the beginning in the man he assumed, the end in the perfection of the saints and also in every intermediate stage, manifestly being also in those in between, or since the beginning is in Adam and the end in his earthly presence, according to the saying “the last Adam in lifegiving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). This explanation will also serve for the definition of “the first and the last.” 226 Examining what has been said concerning “first and last” and concerning “beginning and end,” wherever we have referred the discourse to forms of rational beings or to various aspects of the Son of God, we have discovered the difference between “first” and “beginning” and between “last” and “end” and we have dealt with “alpha” and “omega.”
Nor is it hard to see how he is “living” and “dead” and, after being dead, he lives for ever and ever (see Rev. 1:18). For when we are in sin and we derived no benefit from his excellent life, he descended to our mortality, so that, when he had died to sin, “carrying about Jesus’ death in the body” (see 2 Cor. 4:10), we might, in due order, be able to partake after death in his life for ever and ever. For those who always carry about Jesus’ death in the body will also have Jesus’ life manifest in their bodies.
XXXII This will suffice for the things that are said about him by himself in the New Testament.
In Isaiah it says that “his mouth” has been made into “a sharp sword” by the Father and that he has been hidden in the shelter of his hand. He is likened to a chosen arrow hidden even in the quiver of the Father, servant of the God of the universe and called by him “Israel” and “light of the nations” (Isa. 49:2, 3, 6). 229 The mouth of the Son of God is indeed a sharp sword, since “the Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the juncture of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, judging the desires and thoughts of the heart” (Heb. 4:12) and he also comes not to bring peace to the earth – that is, to bodily and sensible things – but a sword (see Mt. 10:34). According to the prophetic discourse his mouth is a sword or like a sharp sword cutting off, so to speak, harmful friendship from the soul and body, so that the soul giving itself to the spirit which wars against the flesh (see Gal. 5:17) may become friendly to God. Also seeing so many wounded by divine love – like her who professes to have undergone this in the Song of Songs in the words “because I have been wounded by love” (Song 2:5) – the arrow wounding so many souls in the love of God is discovered to be the same one as “He has placed me as a chosen arrow.”
But still everyone who is conscious how, to those who have become disciples, Jesus has become not “as one who sits at table but as one who serves” (Lk. 22:27) – the Son of God taking the form of a servant for the sake of the liberation of those in bondage to sin (see Phil. 2:7) – will not be ignorant why the Father said to him “You are my servant” and a little farther on “This is a great thing for you, to be called my servant” (Isa. 49:3, 6). 231 Indeed one must dare say that Christ’s goodness appears greater, more divine and truly in the image of the Father, when ‘he humbled himself, becoming subject even to death, death on a cross” than if he had “considered being equal with God a thing to be grasped” (Phil. 2:8, 6) and had not desired to become a servant for the sake of the world’s salvation.
Wishing to teach us that becoming a servant is a great gift he had received from the Father, he therefore says, “And God will be strength for me. And he said to me, ‘This is a great thing for you, to be called my servant’ ” (Isa. 49:5, 6). For if he had not become a servant he would not have reestablished the tribes of Jacob or brought back the dispersed of Israel, nor would he have become a light of the nations in order to be a salvation as far as the ends of the earth (see Isa. 49:5, 6).
And it is a modest thing for him to become the servant, even if the Father calls it a great thing, in comparison with his becoming an “innocent sheep” and a “lamb.” For he has become like an innocent sheep led to the slaughter, so that he might take away “the sin of the world” (see Isa. 53:7; Jn 1:29), he who furnishes everyone with reason is likened to a sheep dumb “before the shearers” because, by his death, he has purified us all, offered, for those who desire to receive the truth, as a sort of drug against the adverse powers and against sin. For the death of Christ has made weak the powers fighting against the human race and, by means of an ineffable power, life has emerged from sin in each of those believing.
Since, until each enemy, the last of which is death (see 1 Cor. 15:26), shall be annihilated, he takes away sin, so that the whole world may be without sin, John said, pointing to him, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He is not “he who will take it away but is not already taking it away,” nor is he “he who has taken away but is not still taking it away.” 235 The taking away is operative in every single being in the world, until the sin of the entire world shall have been taken away and the Savior hands over to the Father a kingdom prepared – ready, because no sin remains – to be reigned over by the Father and again to receive, through its whole extent, all things from God, when the saying is fulfilled, “God shall be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).
But also in addition to these titles he is called the “man coming after John, who is now ahead of him, and was before him” (see Jn 1:30), so that we are taught that the man belonging to the Son of God, the one combined with his deity, existed before the birth from Mary; this is the man about whom the Baptist said, “I did not know him” (Jn 1:31). 237 But how is it that he who started for joy as an infant still in the womb of Elizabeth “did not know” when “Mary’s voice of greeting came to the ears” of Zechariah’s wife (Lk. 1:41, 44)? 238 Ask then if possibly the “I did not know” refers to what was before the body. Because, if he did not know him before he came in the body, but he already knew him when he was in his mother’s womb, he indeed learned something different about him from what he had known, namely that him on whom the Spirit would descend and remain “is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit and in fire” (see Jn 1:33; Mt. 3:11). 239 For if he knew him even when he was in his mother’s womb, he did not know everything about him, and indeed he did not know that this “is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit and in fire” when he beheld “the Spirit descending and remaining on him.” Only, at first, John did not know that he was a man.
XXXIII None of the above titles manifests his advocacy for us before the Father, interceding and making propitiation for human nature as the “intercessor,” “propitiatory victim,” and “mercy-seat”. The “intercessor” is mentioned in the Epistle of John: “If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiatory sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 2:1–2); “propitiatory sacrifice” is mentioned in the same epistle: “and he is the propitiatory sacrifice for our sins”; and “mercy-seat” likewise in Romans: “whom God predestined as a mercy-seat through faith” (Rom. 3:25). There is a shadow of the mercy-seat in the innermost holy of holies, the golden mercy-seat, placed on the two cherubim (see Ex. 25:17–19).
How could he become intercessor, propitiatory sacrifice, and mercy-seat unless the power of God, poured out in the souls of the faithful, eliminated our weakness? A power is ministered to us by Jesus, who is its original, since he is the power of God himself, through whom one can say, “I can do all things in Christ, who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). 242 Therefore we know that Simon Magus, promoting himself as “the power of God which is called great,” went, with his money, to ruin and destruction (Acts 8:10, 20). Truly confessing Christ to be “the power of God,” we are convinced that all who are ever in any way empowered participate in him, in so far as he is “power.”
XXXIV Let us not neglect to say that he actually is “the Wisdom of God” (see 1 Cor. 1:24) and so spoken of for that reason. For his wisdom has its substance not in mere mental images of the God and Father of the universe, on the analogy of mental images in human reflection. 244 But if it were possible to conceive of an incorporeal substance of various objects of contemplation embracing the rational principles of the universe, a substance living and, as it were, ensouled, one would know the Wisdom of God above all creation, as it well describes itself saying: “God created me in the beginning of his ways for his work” (Prov. 8:22). Through this Wisdom creation is made possible and all creation subsists, a creation with the capacity to receive the divine Wisdom by which it has come to be. For, according to David, God made everything in wisdom (see Ps. 103:24 [104:24]). 245 But many things have come into existence by participation in Wisdom without apprehending the Wisdom by which they were created, and few indeed comprehend Wisdom, not just in relation to themselves, but to many other things, it being understood that Christ is all Wisdom.
Each of the wise participates in Christ, because He is Wisdom, to the extent that he receives wisdom, just as each of those possessing superior power has been in relationship with Christ, because He is power, to the extent that he has obtained power.
Something similar must be understood concerning sanctification and redemption, for he is sanctification, by which the saints are sanctified, and Jesus has also become redemption for us; each of us are sanctified by that sanctification and redeemed by that redemption.
Ask if the Apostle did not add “for us” superfluously when he said: “Who became for us from God wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). If it were not the case that in other places Christ, in so far as he is wisdom and power, is referred to without qualification – “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” – we might infer that he is not absolutely the wisdom and power of God but only “for us.” But now, with regard to “wisdom” and “power,” they are recorded both with the addition of “for us” and unqualifiedly, but this is not so with “sanctification” and “redemption.”
Therefore, since “he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one” (Heb. 2:11), see if the Father is not the “sanctification” of our sanctification himself, as the Father is the head of Christ himself, who is our head (see 1 Cor. 11:3).
Christ is our redemption because we have been taken captive and need redemption; I do not seek a redemption for him, since he shared all of our experience except for sin and so was never reduced to slavery by the adverse powers.
Having already established the distinction between “for us” and an absolute statement, we have noted that “sanctification” and “redemption” are “for us” and not absolute, but “wisdom” and “power” are both “for us” and absolute, so we must not neglect to examine what it says about “justice.” That Christ is “justice” “for us” is evident from “Who has become for us from God wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption.” 252 If we do not find him to be “justice” absolutely, as we do in the case of “wisdom” and “power of God,” it must be verified if, just as the Father is “sanctification” for Christ, the Father is also “justice,” for there is no injustice in God, but he is just and holy and his judgments are in justice (see Rev. 16:5, 7), and being just he governs all things justly. XXXV 253 A misconception impels adherents of heresy to say that there is a just god who is not the same as a good god, supposing as they do that the creator is just, but the Father of Christ is good. I think it possible after a rigorous examination to say that the Father and the Son are each both just and good, since the Son who had received authority to execute judgment is Justice, because he is the Son of Man (Jn 5:27) and judges the world in justice (see Acts 17:31), while it is the Father who shows kindness, after the reign of Christ, to those disciplined in the Son’s justice – proving by his deeds that he is “good” – when God will become “all in all” (see 1 Cor. 15:28).
And indeed by his justice the Savior prepares all things to receive for themselves at the end the goodness of the Father. In this he uses favorable opportunities, his word, order, chastisements, and what can be called spiritual healing remedies. Aware of this, when someone addressed the only-begotten saying “good teacher,” he said, “Why do you call me good? There is no one good except God alone?” (Mk. 10:18). 255 We have demonstrated a similar principle elsewhere concerning there being someone greater than the creator, considering Christ as the creator and the Father as the one greater than he.
In his capacity as “intercessor,” “propitiatory sacrifice,” and “mercy-seat” – and as one who empathizes with “our infirmities” by having experienced all things human “without sin,” just as we have (Heb. 4:15) – he, then, is the “great high priest” who, by his oblation of himself “except for God he tasted death on behalf of all” (Heb. 2:9), offers himself as a sacrifice once and for all (see Heb. 9:28), not on behalf of men alone, but of all rational beings. In certain manuscripts of Hebrews, this reads “by God’s grace.”
But, if the reading is “apart from God he tasted death on behalf of all,” it was not just for men but for the rest of rational beings as well. If it is “by God’s grace he tasted death on behalf of all,” he still died apart from God on behalf of all, “for by God’s grace he tasted death on behalf of all.” 257 It would indeed be outlandish to say that he tasted death on behalf of men because of their sins, but not on behalf of any being that had become involved in sins other than man, not, for example, on behalf of the stars, since the stars are not entirely pure in God’s sight, as we read in Job: “but the stars are not pure in his sight” (Job 25:5), if this is not said hyperbolically. 258 He is therefore a “great high priest,” since he has restored all things to the Father’s kingdom, arranging to fill up the defects in each generate being so that they can receive the paternal glory.
This high priest, according to another aspect already discussed, is named “Judah,” so that those who are Jews in secret (see Rom. 2:29) – who do not derive their name from Judah the son of Jacob, but from him – are his brothers and praise him, receiving in turn the freedom with which they have been freed by him, having been rescued from enemies, since he has placed his hands on their back and brought them into submission (see Gen. 49:8).
But because he has supplanted the adverse power, because he alone has seen the Father and because he became a man, he is “Jacob” and “Israel.” So that, just as we have become light, because he is the light of the world, so we are “Jacob,” because he was called Jacob, and “Israel,” because he was called Israel.
XXXVI Yet again he is doubtless addressed as “David” because he takes over the kingdom from a king whom the children of Israel had caused to reign over them – since they had established him in power without God’s involvement and without paying attention to God (see Hos. 8:4) – fighting the Lord’s battles (see 1 Sam. 25:28), he prepared peace for his son, a people. After this he is addressed as “rod” for the benefit of those who need harsh and stern direction and have not offered themselves to the Father’s love and gentleness. 262 Therefore, if he is called “rod,” he will come forth (Isa. 11:1), because he does not remain in himself, but seems to come forth from his previous situation. 263 Coming forth and having become a “rod,” he does not remain a rod, but after being a rod becomes a “flower” springing up, and the purpose of his being a rod is so that he may reveal himself a flower to those prepared by his visitation as one who had become a rod. For God will visit “with a rod,” that is, with Christ, “the lawless deeds” of those whom he will visit. But he will not withdraw his mercy from him (see Ps. 88:33–4 [89:33– 4]), for he has mercy on him, since the Father has mercy on those whom the Son wishes to have mercy. It is also possible to understand that he does not become “rod” and “flower” for the same persons, but that he is “rod” for those who need punishment and “flower” for those who are being saved. Of these alternatives I think the first is better. 264 Besides it must be added in relation to this topic, that doubtless at the end, if he has become “rod” for someone, he will be completely “flower” for that person; in the case of someone for whom he has been “flower,” it does not follow that he will become completely “rod” for that person, unless – since one flower is more perfect than another flower, and since those plants that never bear mature fruit are still said to flower – the perfect receive from Christ what comes beyond the flower, but those who are prepared by his rod do not partake of his perfection along with the rod but rather of the flower that precedes the fruit.
Finally, before discussing “Word,” Christ was a “stone” rejected by the builders that has been established as the “cornerstone” (Ps. 117:22 [118:22]; Mt. 21:42). Indeed since the living stones (1 Pet. 2:5) are built upon the foundation of other stones, “the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ” our Lord “himself being the chief cornerstone” (see Eph. 2:22) – because he forms a part of the building of living stones in the “land of the living” (Ps. 141:6 [142:5]) – he is entitled “Stone.”
We have said all these things out of a desire to prove the arbitrariness and lack of consideration of the many who, when so many names are attributed to him, pay attention only to the title “Word,” without examining why the Son of God was ever recorded to be the Word of God in the beginning with the Father, through whom all things came into being (see Jn 1:1–3).
XXXVII Moreover, just as by the activity of illuminating the world, of which he is the light, he is entitled “light of the world” (Jn 9:5), and because he enables those who genuinely belong to him to discard death, rising again to life, he is called “resurrection” (Jn 11:25) – and “shepherd,” “teacher,” “king,” “chosen arrow,” and “servant” in accordance with other activities, and in addition “intercessor,” “propitiation,” and “mercy-seat” – so also he is called “word [logos],” because he rescues us from all irrationality [alogon] and confirms in truth rational creatures [logikoi] who do everything, even eating and drinking (see 1 Cor. 10:31), to the glory of God, accomplishing by means of reason [logos] life’s ordinary activities as well as its more perfect ones.
If by means of participation in him (see Heb. 3:14) we are raised again and illuminated – but indeed we are shepherded or reigned over – it is clear that we become rational beings in a divinely inspired manner, when he destroys what is irrational and dead in us, in so far as he is “word” and “resurrection.”
Consider if all men somehow participate in him, in so far as he is reason. Therefore the Apostle teaches us that, by those who have chosen to find him, he is not to be sought outside those seeking, saying,
Do not say in your heart, “Who shall ascend into heaven?” that is to bring Christ down, or “Who shall descend into the abyss?” that is to bring Christ up from the dead, but what does the scripture say? “The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart,”
(Rom. 10:6–8)
since Christ himself is both the word and the one sought.
But when the Lord himself says: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin, but now they have no excuse concerning their sin” (Jn 15:22) one can only understand one thing: the Word says that in those whom he has not yet fully filled there is no sin, but that those are responsible for sin who, while they already participate in him, act contrary to the conceptions by which he fully fills us, and only in this sense is it true that “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin.”
Try to interpret this text as referring to the visible Jesus, as the many suppose. How is it true that they to whom he had come do not have sin? In that case all who lived before the advent of the Savior will be excused from every sin, since the Jesus who is seen in a fleshly manner had not yet arrived. 272 But in addition all those who have never received the news about him will not have sin, and it is clear that, since they do not have sin, they will not be subject to judgment.
But the reason in men, in which the human race has been said to participate, is spoken of in a twofold manner, either to the fullness of conceptions, which occurs in all who have passed out of childhood, once marvels have been set aside, or to the summit, which is reached among perfect men alone. 274 In the first sense one must receive the words, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin, but now they have no excuse concerning their sin,” but according to the second, “All who came before me are thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not listen to them” (Jn 10:8). 275 In fact, before the maturation of reason everything in men is reprehensible because of deficiencies and omissions, and because the irrational faculties in us do not obey perfectly, they are spoken of symbolically as “sheep.” And doubtless according to the first meaning “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14) and according to the second “the Word was God.” 276 Following this we must investigate if any intermediate state is evident in human affairs between “the Word became flesh” and “the Word was God.” In such a state the Word would be reconstituted after becoming flesh and gradually lightened, so to speak, until he becomes again what he was in the beginning, God the Word, the one next to the Father. This is the Word whose glory John saw truly as that of the only-begotten of the Father (see Jn 1:14). XXXVIII 277 The Word can be Son because of his announcing the secrets of his Father, who, on the analogy of the Son’s being word, is mind. For just as among us the word is the messenger of the things seen by the mind, so the Word of God, knowing the Father, when no generate being can approach him without a guide, has revealed the Father whom he knows. 278 “For no one knows the Father except the Son and he to whomsoever the Son should reveal him” (Mt. 11:27), and, in so far as he is Word, he is the “angel [messenger] of great counsel” and “the government” has come to be “on his shoulder” (Isa. 9:6 LXX), for he reigns because of having suffered the cross (see Phil. 2:9).
In the Revelation the faithful and true Word is said to sit on a white horse (Rev. 19:11), showing, I think, the clarity of the voice that was possessed by the Word of truth coming to us. 279 It is inopportune at this time to demonstrate that the term “horse” is often used to designate “voice” in Scripture, including the passage just cited, through which we hear divine teachings for our benefit. Only one or two must be mentioned, “A horse is false for salvation” (Ps. 32:17 [33:17]) and “Some in chariots and some in horses, but we magnify ourselves in the Lord our God” (Ps. 19:8 [20:7]).
We must not leave unexamined, “My heart has belched a good word, I say, ‘my works are for the king’ ” (Ps. 44:2 [45:1]), recorded in the forty-fourth Psalm and continually cited by the many as if they understood it. Let it be the Father who says this.
What then is his heart, so that it may appear consistent with “good word”? If indeed, as they understand, “word” does not require explanation, neither does “heart,” which is absurd, for it is clear that God does not, like us, have a heart as a part of his body.
But they must be reminded that just as in references to God’s hand, arm, or finger, we do not let our understanding be based on the mere letter, but we examine how these things ought to be understood sanely and in a manner worthy of God, so also God’s heart must be understood to be the intellective and planning power of his mind concerning the universe, and his “Word” as the messenger of the things in it. 283 Who announces the will of the Father to those who have become worthy, having become present to them, if it is not the Savior?
But indeed “belched” is intentional, for their are many other things that might have been said instead of “belched” – “my heart set forth a good word,” “my heart spoke a good word” – but perhaps just as the belch is the outlet into the open of some hidden breath of the person belching, as if he were breathing, so the Father, not withholding intuitions of truth, belches and makes their representation in the Word, and therefore he is called “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15).
And we have demonstrated these things concerning the Father’s saying “My heart has belched a good word” in order to accommodate ourselves to the interpretation of the many.
XXXIX But it should not at all be conceded to them that, by common consent, these words are pronounced by God. Why is it not possible that the prophet is speaking, filled with the Spirit and putting forth a good word concerning prophecy about Christ, unable to withhold “My heart has belched a good word, I say, ‘my works are for the king’. My mouth is the plume of an accomplished scribe. He is handsome with a beauty beyond that of the sons of men” and then addressing Christ, “Grace is spread out over your lips” (Ps. 44:2–3 [45:1–2])? 285 How, if the Father were speaking, did he add to “Grace is spread out over your lips” the words “therefore God has blessed you forever” (Ps. 44:3 [45:2]) and a little later “therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your peers” (Ps. 44:8 [45:7])?
Someone wishing the word in the Psalm to be pronounced by the Father might bring up in turn, “Listen, daughter, see, and incline your ear, forget your people and your house and your father” (Ps. 44:11 [45:10]) for it is not the prophet who thus speaks to the church.
It is not difficult to demonstrate from other Psalms that changes of person speaking often occur, so that it is possible that, beginning with “Listen, daughter,” it is the Father speaking.
It must be added with reference to the interpretation of “Word” that also “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm and by his spirit all their host” (Ps. 32:6 [33:6]). Some consider this to refer to the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that this text proves that the Word of God made firm the heavens, as if we should speak of the heavens’ coming to be by the Word of God as a house comes to be by the architect’s word or a ship by the shipwright’s word. So therefore the heavens came to be by the Word of God – having a more divine body called “firmament” because it lacks the fluid and unstable constitution of the inferior remainder of creation – it was made firm and because of its excellence was the foremost product of the divine Word.
Conclusion
Our proposal was to see clearly “In the beginning was the Word.” As for “beginning,” it has been demonstrated according to the testimonies of Proverbs (see Prov. 8:22) that Wisdom is spoken of and that the notion of wisdom precedes the word that announces it. So it must be understood that the Word always exists in the beginning, that is, in Wisdom. Since he is in Wisdom, which is called “beginning,” he is not hindered from being “with God” and he is God, and he is not simply “with God,” but, being “in the beginning” in Wisdom, he is “with God.” 290 John adds and says, “This one was in the beginning with God”; he could have said, “This one was with God,” but just as he was “in the beginning,” so he also was with God in the beginning. And “all things came into being through him” since he was “in the beginning,” for, according to David, God created all things “in wisdom” (see Ps. 103:24 [104:24]). 291 In addition, to demonstrate that the Word has its own individuality, in so far as it lives on its own, one must also speak about powers – not just about a power for “thus says the Lord of powers” often occurs, certain rational beings being termed divine living powers – of whom the highest and best was Christ, addressed just as God’s wisdom but also his power (1 Cor. 1:24). 292 Just as there are many powers of God, of which each has an individuality which differs from the Savior, so also Christ is understood through our previous argument to be the Word – even if for us a word has no individuality apart from us – who had his own individual existence in the beginning, in Wisdom.
This will suffice for now concerning “In the beginning was the Word.”
