Tractates on the Gospel of John 34.1–34.10

What we have just heard and attentively received, when the holy Gospel was read, I do not doubt that we have all tried to understand too; and each of us, according to his measure, has taken what he could of so great a matter that was read; and with the bread of the word set before us, there is no one who complains that he has tasted nothing. But again I do not doubt that there is hardly anyone who has understood the whole. Yet even if there is someone who sufficiently understands all the words of our Lord Jesus Christ just recited from the Gospel, let him bear with our ministry, until, if we can, with his help, by our treatment we bring it about that either all or many understand what a few rejoice to have understood.

When the Lord says, “I am the light of the world,” I think it is clear to those who have eyes by which they become partakers of this light. But those who have eyes only in the flesh wonder at what was said by the Lord Jesus Christ, “I am the light of the world.” And perhaps there may be someone who says to himself, “Is the Lord Christ perhaps this sun, which by its rising and setting makes the day?” For there have not been lacking heretics who thought this. The Manichees thought that this sun, visible to the eyes of the flesh, set out and public for seeing not only by men but also by cattle, was the Lord Christ. But the right faith of the Catholic Church rejects such an invention and recognizes it as a doctrine of the devil; and not only recognizes it by believing, but, in those it can, refutes it also by argument. Let us therefore reject an error of this kind, which the holy Church anathematized from the beginning. Let us not think that the Lord Jesus Christ is this sun which we see rise in the east and set in the west, on whose course night follows, whose rays are overshadowed by cloud, which moves from place to place by a fixed motion: the Lord Christ is not this. The Lord Christ is not the sun that was made, but he through whom the sun was made. For “all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.”

There is, then, a light which made this light: let us love it, let us desire to understand it, let us thirst for it, so that with it as our guide we may one day come to it, and live in it in such a way that we may never die at all. For this is the light of which prophecy long ago, sent before, sang thus in the Psalm: “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord, as your mercy has been multiplied, O God.” These are the words of the holy Psalm: notice what the ancient speech of holy men of God sent ahead about such a light. “Men,” he says, “and beasts you will save, O Lord, as your mercy has been multiplied, O God.” For because you are God and have manifold mercy, that same manifoldness of your mercy reaches not only to men, whom you created in your image, but also to the cattle which you made subject to men. For from whom is the health of man, from him is the health of the beast too. Do not blush to think this of the Lord your God: rather, presume and trust, and beware of thinking otherwise. He who makes you healthy makes your horse healthy, he your sheep; let us come to the very least things: he your hen. “Salvation is the Lord's,” and God saves these things. It troubles you; you ask; I wonder that you doubt. Will he disdain to save who deigned to create? The salvation of angels, men, cattle is the Lord's; “salvation is the Lord's.” As no one is from himself, so no one is saved by himself. Therefore the Psalm says most truly and most excellently, “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord.” Why? “As your mercy has been multiplied, O God.” For you are God: you created, you save; you gave being, you give being in health.

If, then, men and beasts are saved by him as the mercy of God has been multiplied, do men not have something else which God the creator provides for them and does not provide for beasts? Is there no distinction between the living being made in the image of God and the living being made subject to the image of God? There certainly is: besides this health that we share with dumb animals, there is something that God provides for us and does not provide for them. What is this? Follow on in the same psalm: “But the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings.” Having now health in common with their cattle, “the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings.” They have one health in fact, another in hope. That health which is in the present is common to men and cattle; but there is another which men hope for; and those who hope receive it, those who despair do not receive it. “For the sons of men,” he says, “will hope under the shelter of your wings.” Those who hope perseveringly are protected by you, so that they are not cast down from hope by the devil: “under the shelter of your wings they will hope.” If, then, they will hope, what will they hope for, if not what cattle will not have? “They will be drunk with the abundance of your house, and you will give them drink from the torrent of your delight.” What kind of wine is it with which it is praiseworthy to be drunk? What kind of wine is it that does not disturb the mind but directs it? What kind of wine is it that makes one healthy forever, and does not by intoxicating make one unhealthy? “They will be drunk.” With what? “With the abundance of your house; and you will give them drink from the torrent of your delight.” From where? “For with you is the fountain of life.” The fountain of life himself was walking on the earth; he himself said, “Whoever thirsts, let him come to me.” See the fountain. But we had begun to speak about light, and were treating the question about light set before us from the Gospel. For it was read to us, with the Lord saying, “I am the light of the world.” From this came the question, lest anyone with carnal wisdom think this sun was to be understood. From there we came to the Psalm, and considering it we found meanwhile that the Lord is the fountain of life. Drink and live. “With you,” he says, “is the fountain of life”: therefore the sons of men hope under the shade of your wings, seeking to be made drunk from that fountain. But we were speaking about light. Follow on, then: for the prophet, having said, “For with you is the fountain of life,” went on to add, “In your light we shall see light”: God from God, light from light. Through this light the light of the sun was made; and the light that made the sun, under which he made us too, was made under the sun for our sakes. The light that made the sun was made, I say, under the sun for our sakes. Do not despise the cloud of the flesh: he is covered by a cloud, not so as to be darkened, but so as to be tempered.

So the unfailing light, the light of wisdom, speaking through the cloud of the flesh, says to men, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” How he has taken you away from the eyes of the flesh and called you back to the eyes of the heart! For it is not enough to say, “He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light”; he added “of life,” as it is said there, “For with you is the fountain of life.” See, then, my brothers, how the words of the Lord agree with the truth of that psalm: there too light is placed with the fountain of life, and the Lord spoke of the light of life. But in these bodily uses, light is one thing, a fountain another: the throat seeks a fountain, the eyes light. When we are thirsty we seek a fountain; when we are in darkness we seek light; and if perhaps we are thirsty at night, we light a light so as to come to the fountain. Not so with God: what is light, that is a fountain; he who shines on you that you may see, himself flows for you that you may drink.

You see, then, my brothers, you see, if you see inwardly, what kind of light this is of which the Lord says, “He who follows me will not walk in darkness.” Follow this sun: let us see whether you will not walk in darkness. See, by rising it comes out to you; it goes on its course toward the west; your journey perhaps is toward the east. Unless you go in the opposite direction, not where it is heading, by following it you will certainly go astray, and you will hold to the west instead of the east. If you follow it on land, you will go astray; if a sailor follows it at sea, he will go astray. Finally, suppose it seems to you that you should follow the sun, and you yourself head toward the west, where it too is heading: let us see, when it has set, whether you will not walk in darkness. See how, even if you do not wish to desert it, it will desert you, completing the day by the necessity of its servitude. But our Lord Jesus Christ, even when through the cloud of the flesh he did not appear to all, held all things by the power of wisdom. Your God is whole everywhere: if you do not fall away from him, he will never set for you.

“He who follows me,” then, he says, “will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” What he promised he put in the future tense; for he does not say “has,” but “will have,” he says, “the light of life.” Yet he does not say, “he who will follow me,” but “he who follows me.” For what we ought to do he used the present tense; but what he promised to those who do it he signified by a verb in the future tense. He who follows will have: now he follows, afterward he will have; now he follows by faith, afterward he will have by sight. “For as long as we are in the body,” says the apostle, “we are away from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight.” When by sight? When we have the light of life, when we have come to that vision, when this night has passed. For of that day which is to dawn it was said, “In the morning I will stand before you and will contemplate.” What is “in the morning”? When the night of this world has passed, when the terrors of temptations have passed, when that lion has been overcome which goes about roaring in the night, seeking whom he may devour: “In the morning I will stand before you and will contemplate.” But now, brothers, what do we think befits this time, if not what again is said in the Psalm, “Every night I will wash my bed, I will water my couch with my tears”? Every night, he says, I will weep; I will burn with desire for the light. The Lord sees my desire, since another psalm says to him, “All my desire is before you, and my groaning is not hidden from you.” Do you desire gold? You can be seen; for seeking gold you will be plain to men. Do you desire grain? You ask who has it; to him, desiring to come to what you desire, you make it known. Do you desire God? Who sees it but God? For from whom do you ask for God, as you ask for bread, for water, for gold, for silver, for grain? From whom do you ask for God, if not from God? He himself is asked of himself, who promises himself. Let the soul stretch out its longing, and with a more capacious bosom seek to grasp what “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man.” It can be desired, it can be longed for, it can be sighed for; it cannot be worthily thought, nor explained in words.

So, my brothers, since the Lord said briefly, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,” in which words what he commanded is one thing and what he promised another, let us do what he commanded, so that we may not with shameless face desire what he promised; lest he say to us in his judgment, “Have you done what I commanded, that you should ask for what I promised?” What, then, have you commanded, O Lord our God? He says to you: that you follow me. You asked for counsel about life. About what life, if not that of which it was said, “For with you is the fountain of life”? A certain man heard, “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” He went away sad; he did not follow. He sought a good master, he questioned the teacher, and despised him as he taught; he went away sad, bound by his desires; he went away sad, carrying the great burden of avarice on his shoulders. He was laboring, he was sweltering; and the one who wanted to take the burden off him he did not think he should follow, but abandon. But after the Lord cried out through the Gospel, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you; take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart,” how many, having heard the Gospel, have done what that rich man did not do when he heard it from his own mouth? So let us do it now; let us follow the Lord; let us loose the fetters by which we are hindered from following. And who is able to loose such knots, unless he helps to whom it was said, “You have broken my bonds”? Of whom another psalm says, “The Lord looses the fettered, the Lord raises up the crushed.”

And what do the loosed and the raised up follow, if not the light from which they hear, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness”? For “the Lord gives light to the blind.” We are enlightened now, then, brothers, having the eye-salve of faith. For his spittle with earth came first, with which the man born blind was to be anointed. We too were born blind from Adam, and need him to enlighten us. He mixed spittle with earth: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He mixed spittle with earth; therefore it was foretold, “Truth has sprung from the earth”; and he himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” We shall enjoy the truth when we see face to face; for this too is promised us. For who would dare to hope for what God had not deigned to promise or to give? We shall see face to face. The apostle says, “Now I know in part, now in an enigma through a mirror, but then face to face.” And the apostle John in his Epistle: “Beloved, now we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” This is a great promise; if you love, follow. I love, you say; but by what way do I follow? If the Lord your God had said to you, “I am the truth and the life,” desiring truth, longing for life, you would surely seek the way by which you could come to these, and you would say to yourself, “Truth is a great thing, life is a great thing; if only there were a way for my soul to get there!” Do you ask by what way? Hear him saying first, “I am the way.” Before he told you whither, he said first by what way: “I am,” he says, “the way.” The way whither? “And the truth and the life.” First he said by what way you should come, afterward he said whither you should come. “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.” Remaining with the Father, the truth and the life; clothing himself with flesh, he became the way. It is not said to you, “Labor in seeking the way, so as to come to the truth and the life”; this is not said to you. Sluggard, get up: the way itself has come to you, and has roused you from sleep as you slept, if indeed it has roused you: get up and walk. Perhaps you try to walk and cannot, because your feet hurt. Why do your feet hurt? Have they run over rough places at the bidding of avarice? But the Word of God has healed the lame too. Look, you say, I have healthy feet, but I do not see the way itself. He has enlightened the blind too.

All this is by faith, as long as we are away from the Lord, remaining in the body; but when we have walked the way and come to the homeland itself, what will be more joyful for us? What will be more blessed for us? For nothing will be more peaceful: for nothing will rebel against man. But now, brothers, we are hardly without strife. We have been called to concord indeed; we are commanded to have peace among ourselves; we must strive for this and labor with all our strength, so that we may one day come to the most perfect peace. But now we often quarrel with those whose good we want to serve. One goes astray, you want to lead him to the way; he resists you, you quarrel. A pagan resists: you argue against the errors of idols and demons. A heretic resists: you argue against other doctrines of demons. A bad Catholic does not want to live well: you rebuke even your brother within; he stays with you in the house and seeks lost ways; you are anxious how to correct him, so as to give a good account of him to the Lord of you both. How many necessities of strife on every side! Often a man, overcome by weariness, says to himself, “What business is it of mine to suffer those who contradict, to suffer those who return evil for good? I want to help, they want to perish; I spend my life in quarreling; I have no peace; and besides I make enemies of those whom I ought to have as friends, if they paid attention to the good will of the one advising them. Why should I put up with this? Let me go back to myself; I will be with myself; I will call upon my God.” Go back to yourself: there you find strife. If you have begun to follow God, there you find strife. What strife, you say, do I find? “The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” See, you are yourself; see, you are alone; see, you are with yourself; see, you suffer no other man; but “you see another law in your members, warring against the law of your mind, and making you captive in the law of sin which is in your members.” Cry out, then, and from the inner strife cry to God, that he may set you at peace with yourself: “Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” For “he who follows me,” he says, “will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” When all strife is ended, immortality will follow, because “the last enemy, death, will be destroyed.” And what kind of peace will there be? “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality.” That we may come to this, because then it will be in reality, let us now follow in hope him who said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”