13. Cf. Tractate 1.17 and note 40. 14. Cf.Jn 1.4. (continued)
TRACTATE 3 79 cause you have a mind with which you may understand what the animal cannot understand, and, in fact, therein a man because you are better than a cow, the light of men is the light of minds. The light of minds is above minds and transcends all minds. This was that life through which all things were made.
5. Where was it? It was here.*^ Or was it with the Father and not here? Or (what is truer) was it both with the Father and here? If, then, it was here, why was it not seen? Because "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." Oh men, don't be darkness, don't be unbelievers, unjust, wicked, grasping, greedy, lovers of the world; for these are the darkness. The light is not absent, but you are absent from the light. A blind man in the sun has the sun present, but he is himself absent from the sun.'" Do not, then, be darkness.
(2) For perhaps this is the grace about which I am going to speak, that we may no longer be darkness and the Apostle may say to us, "For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord."'^ Therefore, because the light of men, that is, the light of minds, was not seen, there was need that a man give witness about the light, not indeed a man of darkness, but one already enlightened. Yet he himself, because he was enlightened, was not the light, but "to give witness concerning the light." For "he was not himself the light."
(3) And what was the light? "It was the true light which enlightens every man who comes into this world." And where was this [light]? "He was in the world." And how "was he in the world"? Is this light also in the world in the same way as this light of the sun, of the moon, of lamps? No, for "the world was made through him, and the world knew him not."'^ That is, "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not."
(4) For the world is darkness because the lovers of the
15. Some editors take this to be a question: "Was it here?" 16. Cf. Jn 1.5. • 17. Cf. Tractate 1.19. 18. Cf. Eph 5.8. 19. Cf. Jn 1.7-10. 20. The translation of the various words for "love," amor, dilectio, and caritas, and their cognates, presents a difficult problem since the English Ian-