Homilies on the First Epistle of John 3.1–3.13

"Children, it is the last hour." In this reading he addresses the children, that they may hasten to grow, because it is the last hour. The age of the body is not a matter of will. So no one grows according to the flesh when he wishes, just as no one is born when he wishes; but where birth is a matter of will, growth too is a matter of will. No one is born of water and the Spirit unless he is willing. So if he wills, he grows; if he wills, he dwindles. What is it to grow? To make progress. What is it to dwindle? To fall away. Whoever knows that he has been born, let him hear that he is a child and an infant; let him eagerly crave his mother's breasts, and he will quickly grow. Now the mother is the Church, and her breasts are the two Testaments of the divine Scriptures. From these let him suck the milk of all the sacraments wrought in time for our eternal salvation, so that, nourished and strengthened, he may come to eating solid food, which is: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Our milk is Christ humble; our food is the same Christ, equal to the Father. He nourishes you with milk so as to feed you with bread; for to touch Jesus spiritually with the heart is to know that he is equal to the Father.

That is why he forbade Mary to touch him, and said to her, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father." What is this? He offered himself to the disciples to be handled, and avoided Mary's touch? Is he not the one who said to the doubting disciple, "Put your fingers here, and handle the scars"? Had he already ascended to the Father then? Why, then, does he forbid Mary and say, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father"? Or are we going to say that he did not fear to be touched by men and feared to be touched by women? His touch cleanses all flesh. Did he fear to be handled by those to whom he willed first to be made manifest? Was not his resurrection announced to men by women, so that the serpent might be conquered by the opposite device? For since he announced death to the first man through a woman, life too was announced to men through a woman. Why, then, did he not want to be touched, unless because he wanted that touch to be understood spiritually? Spiritual touch is from a pure heart. He touches Christ from a pure heart who understands him to be coequal with the Father. But whoever does not yet understand the divinity of Christ comes as far as the flesh, but does not come as far as the divinity. And what great thing is it to reach as far as the persecutors who crucified him reached? The great thing is to understand the Word, God with God in the beginning, through whom all things were made; as he wished to be known when he said to Philip, "Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me, Philip? Whoever sees me sees the Father too."

But lest anyone be slow to make progress, let him hear: "Children, it is the last hour." Make progress, run, grow: it is the last hour. This last hour is long; yet it is the last. For he put "hour" for the last time; because in the last times our Lord Jesus Christ will come. But some will say, "How is it the last time? How the last hour? Certainly the Antichrist will come first, and then the day of judgment will come." John saw these thoughts: lest they should become as it were secure, and therefore think it was not the last hour because the Antichrist was yet to come, he said to them, "And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, now many antichrists have come." Could it have many antichrists, if it were not the last hour?

Whom did he call antichrists? He goes on and explains how we know that it is the last hour. How? Because many antichrists have come. "They went out from us": see the antichrists. "They went out from us": so we mourn the loss. Hear the consolation: "But they were not of us." All heretics, all schismatics went out from us, that is, they go out from the Church; but they would not go out if they were of us. Before they went out, then, they were not of us. If before they went out they were not of us, many are inside, have not gone out, and yet are antichrists. We dare to say this: to what end, but that each one, while he is inside, may not be an antichrist? For he is about to describe and mark out the antichrists, and we shall see them now. And each one ought to question his own conscience, whether he is an antichrist. For "Antichrist" in Latin is "one contrary to Christ". Not as some understand it, that he is called Antichrist because he is to come before Christ, that is, that Christ is to come after him: it is not said so, nor written so; but Antichrist, that is, contrary to Christ. Who is contrary to Christ you will now notice as he himself explains it, and you understand that none can go out but antichrists, while those who are not contrary to Christ can in no way go out. For whoever is not contrary to Christ cleaves to his body and is counted a member. Members are never contrary to one another. The soundness of the body consists in all its members. And what does the apostle say of the concord of the members? "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it." If, then, when one member is glorified the other members rejoice with it, and when one suffers all the members suffer, the concord of the members has no antichrist. And there are some who are inside in such a way as to be in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ (since his body is still being cured, and its health will not be perfect except in the resurrection of the dead) as bad humours are in the body. When they are vomited up, then the body is relieved; so too when the wicked go out, then the Church is relieved. And when the body vomits them out and casts them forth, it says, "These humours went out from me, but they were not of me." What does "they were not of me" mean? They were not cut out of my flesh, but they were oppressing my chest while they were inside.

"They went out from us; but" (do not be sad) "they were not of us." How do you prove it? "For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us." From this, then, let your Love see that many who are not of us receive the sacraments with us, receive baptism with us, receive with us what the faithful know they receive, the blessing, the Eucharist, and whatever is in the holy sacraments; they receive with us the communion of the altar itself, and they are not of us. Temptation proves that they are not of us. When temptation comes to them, as with the chance of a wind they fly out, because they were not grain. But all will fly out then (this must often be said) when the Lord's threshing floor begins to be winnowed on the day of judgment. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us." For do you wish to know, beloved, how very certainly this is said, so that those who perhaps went out and come back are not antichrists, are not contrary to Christ? Those who are not antichrists cannot possibly remain outside. But each one is either an antichrist or in Christ by his own will. We are either among the members or among the bad humours. Whoever changes himself for the better is a member in the body; but whoever remains in malice is a bad humour, and when he has gone out, those who were oppressed will be relieved. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us; but that they might be made manifest, that not all are of us." He added "that they might be made manifest" because even when they are inside they are not of us; yet they are not manifest, but are made manifest by going out. "And you have an anointing from the Holy One, that you may be manifest to yourselves." The spiritual anointing is the Holy Spirit himself, whose sacrament is in the visible anointing. He says that all who have this anointing of Christ know the wicked and the good; and that there is no need for them to be taught, because the anointing itself teaches them.

"I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth." See, we are taught how to recognise the Antichrist. What is Christ? The Truth. He himself said, "I am the truth." "But no lie is of the truth": so all who lie are not yet of Christ. He did not say that one lie is of the truth and another lie is not of the truth. Attend to the sentence; do not flatter yourselves, do not fawn on yourselves, do not deceive yourselves, do not mock yourselves: "No lie is of the truth." Let us see, then, how the antichrists lie, for there is not just one kind of lie. "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?" "Jesus" has one meaning, "Christ" another; though Jesus Christ our Saviour is one, yet Jesus is his proper name. As Moses was called by a proper name, as Elijah, as Abraham, so our Lord has Jesus as it were his proper name; but Christ is the name of a sacrament. As if one says "prophet", as if one says "priest", so "Christ" is commended as "the anointed", in whom would be the redemption of the whole people of Israel. This Christ was hoped for by the people of the Jews as one to come; and because he came humble he was not recognised; because the stone was small, they stumbled against it and were broken. But the stone grew and became a great mountain; and what does Scripture say? "Whoever stumbles against this stone will be shattered; and on whomever this stone falls, it will crush him." The words must be distinguished: he said that one who stumbles against it is shattered, but one on whom it falls is crushed. First, because he came humble, men stumbled against him; because he will come exalted to judgment, on whomever he falls he will crush him. But at his coming he will not crush the one whom he did not shatter when he came. Whoever does not stumble against him humble will not dread him exalted. You have heard it briefly, brothers: whoever does not stumble against him humble will not dread him exalted. For to all the wicked Christ is a stone of stumbling; whatever Christ says is bitter to them.

For hear and see. Certainly all who go out of the Church and are cut off from the unity of the Church are antichrists: let no one doubt it; for he himself has marked them out: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us." Whoever, then, does not remain with us, but goes out from us, it is plain that they are antichrists. And how are they proved to be antichrists? By lying. "And who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?" Let us question the heretics: what heretic do you find who denies that Jesus is the Christ? Let your Love see a great mystery. Attend to what the Lord God has inspired in us, and what I want to convey to you. See, they went out from us and became Donatists: we ask them whether Jesus is the Christ; at once they confess that Jesus is the Christ. If, then, he is the antichrist who denies that Jesus is the Christ, neither can they call us antichrists, nor we them; for both we confess it and they do. If, then, neither do they call us so nor we them, then neither did they go out from us nor we from them. If, then, we did not go out from one another, we are in unity: if we are in unity, what are two altars doing in this city? What are divided houses doing, divided marriages? What is a common bed doing, and a divided Christ? He admonishes us; he wants us to confess what is true. Either they went out from us, or we from them. But far be it that we went out from them: for we have the testament of the Lord's inheritance; we read it out, and there we find ourselves: "I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession." We hold the inheritance of Christ; they do not hold it; they are not in communion with the whole world, they are not in communion with the whole company redeemed by the blood of the Lord. We have the Lord himself, rising from the dead, who offered himself to be handled by the hands of his doubting disciples. And while they still doubted, he said to them, "The Christ had to suffer and rise on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins had to be preached in his name." Where? How? To whom? "Throughout all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." We are secure about the unity of the inheritance. Whoever is not in communion with this inheritance has gone out.

But let us not be saddened: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us." If, then, they went out from us, they are antichrists; if they are antichrists, they are liars; if they are liars, they deny that Jesus is the Christ. Again we come back to the difficulty of the question. Question them one by one: they confess that Jesus is the Christ. A narrow understanding hems us in on this Epistle. You certainly see the question: this question troubles both us and them, if it is not understood. Either we are antichrists, or they are antichrists: they call us antichrists and say that we went out from them; we say the same of them. But this Epistle has marked out the antichrists: whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ is the antichrist. Now, then, let us look for who denies it; and let us attend not to the tongue but to deeds. For if all are asked, all confess with one mouth that Jesus is the Christ. Let the tongue be quiet for a little; question the life. If we find this, if Scripture itself tells us that denial is made not only with the tongue but also with deeds, then certainly we find many antichrists who profess Christ with the mouth and differ from Christ in their conduct. Where do we find this in Scripture? Hear the apostle Paul: speaking of such men, he says, "For they confess that they know God, but they deny him by their deeds." We have found these antichrists too: whoever denies Christ by his deeds is an antichrist. I do not listen to what he says, but I see how he lives. Works speak, and do we look for words? For what bad man does not wish to speak well? But what does the Lord say to such men? "Hypocrites, how can you speak good things, when you are evil?" You bring your voices to my ears; I look into your thoughts: I see an evil will there, and you show false fruits. I know where to gather what; I do not gather figs from thistles, I do not gather grapes from thorns. "For each tree is known by its fruit." The antichrist who professes with the mouth that Jesus is the Christ and denies it by his deeds is the more a liar. He is a liar for this reason, that he says one thing and does another.

Now, then, brothers, if deeds are to be questioned, we find not only that many antichrists have gone outside, but that many not yet manifest have not gone outside at all. For all the perjurers, cheats, sorcerers, consulters of fortune-tellers, adulterers, drunkards, usurers, slave-dealers that the Church has, and all the rest that we cannot list, are contrary to the teaching of Christ, contrary to the word of God; and the Word of God is Christ: whatever is contrary to the Word of God is in the Antichrist. For the Antichrist is one contrary to Christ. And do you want to know how openly these men resist Christ? Sometimes it happens that they do something evil and begin to be rebuked; since they do not dare to blaspheme Christ, they blaspheme his ministers, by whom they are rebuked. But if you show them that you are speaking the words of Christ, not your own words, they try as hard as they can to prove that you are speaking your own words, not the words of Christ; and if it becomes plain that you are speaking the words of Christ, they go against Christ too and begin to find fault with Christ: "How," they say, "and why did he make us like this?" Do not men say this every day when convicted of their deeds? Perverted by an evil will, they accuse the maker. The maker cries to them from heaven (for he made us who also remade us): "What did I make you? I made man, not avarice; I made man, not robbery; I made man, not adultery. You have heard that my works praise me." From the mouth of the three young men came that very hymn which protected them from the fire. The works of the Lord praise the Lord; heaven, earth, and sea praise him; all that is in heaven praises him; the angels praise him, the stars praise him, the lights praise him; whatever swims, whatever flies, whatever walks, whatever creeps, all these praise the Lord. Have you heard that avarice praises the Lord? Have you heard that drunkenness praises the Lord, that luxury praises him, that frivolity praises him? Whatever you do not hear there giving praise to the Lord, the Lord did not make. Correct what you have made, so that what God made in you may be set free. But if you will not, and you love and embrace your sins, you are contrary to Christ. Whether you are inside or outside, you are an antichrist; whether you are inside or outside, you are chaff. But why are you not outside? Because you have not found the chance of a wind.

Now these things are plain, brothers. Let no one say, "I do not worship Christ, but I worship God his Father." "Everyone who denies the Son has neither the Son nor the Father; and he who confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father." He is addressing the grain; and let those who were chaff hear and become grain. Let each one, considering his own conscience, if he is a lover of the world, be changed; let him become a lover of Christ, so as not to be an antichrist. If anyone tells him that he is an antichrist, he gets angry, he thinks a wrong has been done to him; perhaps he threatens a lawsuit if he hears from someone quarrelling with him that he is an antichrist. Christ says to him: "Be patient; if you have heard what is false, rejoice with me, because I too hear false things from antichrists; but if you have heard what is true, meet your own conscience; and if you fear to hear it, fear more to be it."

"So let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you too will abide in the Son and the Father. And this is the promise which he himself has promised us." For perhaps you might ask about the reward, and say: "See, I keep in me what I heard from the beginning, I obey; I endure dangers, labours, temptations for the sake of this abiding: with what fruit? With what reward? What will he give me afterwards, since in this world I see myself labouring among temptations? I see no rest here; mortality itself weighs down the soul, and the corruptible body presses it down to lower things. But I bear all things, so that what I heard from the beginning may abide in me; and I will say to my God, Because of the words of your lips I have kept hard ways." To what reward, then? Hear, and do not faint. If you were fainting in your labours, be strong at the reward promised. Who is there who works in a vineyard and lets slip from his heart what he is to receive? Make him forget his wages, and his hands fail. The memory of the promised wages makes him persevere in the work; and it was a man who promised, who can deceive you. How much stronger ought you to be in God's field, when the Truth has promised, who can neither be succeeded nor die nor deceive the one to whom the promise is made? And what is promised? Let us see what he has promised. Is it gold, which men love so much here, or silver? Or possessions, for which men pour out gold, much as they love gold? Or pleasant estates, spacious houses, many slaves, numerous animals? This is not the kind of reward to which he urges us, so that we may endure in labour. What is this reward called? Eternal life. You have heard, and you cried out with joy: love what you have heard, and you are set free from your labours into the rest of eternal life. See what God promises: eternal life. See what God threatens: eternal fire. What does he say to those set at his right hand? "Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." To those on the left, what? "Go into the eternal fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels." If you do not yet love the one, at least fear the other.

Remember, then, my brothers, that Christ has promised us eternal life: "This," he says, "is the promise which he himself has promised us, eternal life. I have written these things to you about those who are leading you astray." Let no one lead you astray to death; desire the promise of eternal life. What can the world promise? Let it promise what it likes; perhaps it is making a promise to one who will die tomorrow. And with what face will you go out to him who abides for ever? "But a powerful man threatens me, to make me do something evil." What does he threaten? Prisons, chains, fires, tortures, wild beasts: does he threaten eternal fire? Shudder at what the Almighty threatens, love what the Almighty promises; and the whole world becomes cheap, whether it promises or terrifies. "I have written these things to you about those who are leading you astray, so that you may know that you have an anointing, and let the anointing which we have received from him abide in us." The anointing has its sacrament, its visible sign; the power itself is invisible; the invisible anointing is the Holy Spirit; the invisible anointing is that love which, in whomever it is, will be like a root to him: however hot the sun burns, it cannot wither. Everything that is rooted is nourished by the heat of the sun, not withered.

"And you have no need that anyone should teach you, because his anointing teaches you about all things." What, then, are we doing, brothers, in teaching you? If his anointing teaches you about all things, it seems we labour without cause. And why do we shout so much? Let us leave you to his anointing, and let his anointing teach you. But now I put a question to myself, and I put it to the apostle himself; let him deign to hear a little one asking him; I say to John himself, "Did those to whom you were speaking have the anointing? You said, His anointing teaches you about all things. Why did you write such an Epistle? What were you teaching them? What were you instructing? What were you building up?" Here now see a great mystery, brothers: the sound of our words strikes the ears; the teacher is within. Do not think that anyone learns anything from a man. We can admonish by the noise of our voice; if there is not one within who teaches, our noise is empty. So true is this, brothers: do you want to know? Have you not all heard this sermon? How many will go out from here untaught? As far as I am concerned, I have spoken to all; but those to whom that anointing does not speak within, whom the Holy Spirit does not teach within, go back untaught. Outward teachings are a kind of help and admonition. He who teaches hearts has his chair in heaven. That is why he himself says in the Gospel: "Do not call anyone on earth your teacher; one is your teacher, Christ." So let him speak to you within, since no man is there; for even if someone is at your side, no one is in your heart. And let there not be no one in your heart: let Christ be in your heart; let his anointing be in your heart, lest the heart be thirsty in the wilderness and have no springs to water it. So it is the inner teacher who teaches; Christ teaches; his inspiration teaches. Where his inspiration and his anointing are not, words make a noise outside in vain. These words, brothers, which we speak outwardly, are like a farmer to a tree: he works outwardly, he applies water and the care of cultivation; whatever he applies outwardly, does he form the fruits? Does he clothe the bareness of the branches with the shade of leaves? Does he do any such thing within? But who does this? Hear the farmer, the apostle, and see what we are, and hear the inner teacher: "I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the growth: so neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth." This, then, we say to you: whether we plant or water by speaking, we are nothing; but he who gives the growth is God, that is, his anointing, which teaches you about all things.