Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
58 ST. AUGUSTINE lightened because cattle do not have rational minds capable of seeing wisdom. But man, made in the image of God, has a rational mind through which he is capable of recognizing wisdom. Therefore that hfe through which all things were made, that very life is light, and not the light of every living being but of men. Wherefore, a little later, [Scripture] says, "It was the true light which enlightens every man who comes into this world. "^'^ (2) By that light was enlightened John the Baptist; by the very same light, John the Evangelist himself was also enlightened. He was filled with that very light who said, 'T am not the Christ; but he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal
I am not worthy to unfasten. "^^ By that light he had been enlightened who said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thus that life is the light of men.
19. But, perhaps, there are slow-witted hearts that cannot yet receive this light because they are weighed down by their sins so that they cannot see it. Let them not think therefore, that the light is absent, as it were, because they cannot see it; for they themselves, because of their sins, are darkness. "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." Thus, my brothers, just as when a blind man is placed in the sun, the sun is present to him, but he is absent to the sun, so every slow-witted person, every evil person, every ungodly person is blind in his heart. Wisdom is present; but it is present with a blind man. It is absent to his eyes, not because it is absent to him but because he is absent from it. What then is he to do? Let him cleanse that^^ by which God can be seen. Just as if he could not see because he had dirty and sore eyes, with dust or mucus or smoke irritating them, the doctor would say to him, "Cleanse from your eye whatever foul thing is there that you may be able to see the light of your eyes."
42. Jn 1 .9. NAB has a different phrasing based on the Greek text since the Greek erchomenon can modify phos as well as anthropon; but in the Latin text venientem can modify only hominem and not at all lumen.
43. Cf. Jn 1.20 and 27. 44. i.e., his heart.