Homily 3 — John 1, verse 1, continued

“In the beginning was the Word.” [a]

There is no need to urge you any more to pay attention as you listen; you have been so quick to show by what you do that my advice has taken effect. The way you run together, the way you hold yourselves straining to listen, the way you push one another in your eagerness to get the inner places, where my voice can be heard more clearly; your unwillingness to leave the crowd until this spiritual gathering breaks up; the clapping, the murmurs of approval — in a word, everything of this kind can be taken as proof of the fervor of your souls and of your desire to hear. So on this point there is no need to urge you. One thing, however, we must ask and beg of you: that you keep the same zeal, and show it not only here, but at home as well, husband talking with wife and father with son about these things. Say something of your own about them, and ask something of them in return; and so let everyone contribute to this splendid banquet.

Let no one tell me that our children should not be occupied with these things. They should not only be occupied with them; they should be zealous for them alone. Because of your weakness I do not insist on this, and I do not take them away from their worldly education, just as I do not pull you away from your business in the city either. But of these seven days I claim one: that you give it to the Lord we all share. Isn’t it a strange thing that we tell our household servants to toil for us all their time, while we ourselves do not set aside even a little of our leisure for God? And that, when all our service adds nothing to him — for the divine nature cannot be in need of anything — but turns out to our own advantage? And yet when you take your children to the theaters, you do not plead their school lessons or anything of the kind; but if they are asked to gain or gather anything spiritual, you call it a waste of time. How will you not anger God, if you find leisure and set a time for everything else, and yet think it a troublesome and untimely thing for your children to take up what concerns him?

Do not do this, brothers and sisters; do not do this. It is this very age that most needs to hear these things. Because it is so tender, it readily stores up what is said, and what children hear is pressed like a seal into the wax of their minds. Besides, it is then that their life begins to lean toward vice or virtue. If someone leads them away from wickedness at the very gate and doorway, and guides them by the hand onto the best road, he will fix them for the time to come in a settled habit, a kind of nature. Even if they wanted to, they would not easily change for the worse, since the force of custom draws them to do good. So we will see them become more worthy of respect than those who have grown old, and more useful in public life, showing in their youth the qualities of the aged.

For, as I said before, it cannot be that those who enjoy hearing such things as these, and who keep company with such an apostle, should go away without some great and remarkable benefit — whether it is a man, a woman, or a young person who shares in this table. If we train the animals we own by words, and so tame them, how much more will we accomplish this with human beings by this spiritual teaching, when there is a wide difference both in the remedy and in the one being healed? For there is not as much fierceness in us as in animals without reason, since theirs comes from nature and ours from choice. Nor is the power of the words the same: the power of the first is that of the human mind, while the power of the second is the might and grace of the Spirit.

So let the man who despairs of himself think of the tame animals, and he will no longer feel this way. Let him come constantly to this house of healing; let him always hear the laws of the Spirit; and when he goes home, let him write down in his mind what he has heard. Then his hopes will be good and his confidence great, as he feels his progress by experience. For when the devil sees the law of God written in the soul, and the heart made into tablets to write it on, he will not come near any more. Wherever the king’s writing is — not engraved on a pillar of bronze, but stamped by the Holy Spirit on a mind that loves God and shines with abundant grace — that evil one will not be able even to look at it, but will turn his back on us from far off. For nothing is so terrible to him, and to the thoughts he suggests, as a mind careful about divine things, and a soul that always bends over this spring. Nothing present can trouble such a soul, even if it is unpleasant; nothing can puff it up or make it proud, even if it is favorable; in the middle of all this storm and surf it will even enjoy a great calm.

For the confusion within us does not come from the nature of our circumstances, but from the weakness of our minds. If it were what happens to us that affected us so, then all people would have to be troubled, since we all sail the same sea, and no one can escape the waves and the spray. But if there are some who stand beyond the reach of the storm and the raging sea, then it is clear that it is not circumstances that make the storm, but the condition of our own mind. So if we set our mind in order, so that it can bear everything calmly, we will have no storm, not even a ripple, but always a clear calm. [c]

I had declared that I would say nothing on these points, and I do not know how I have been carried away into so long an exhortation. Forgive me for going on so long. I am afraid — yes, very much afraid — that this zeal of ours may some day grow weaker. If I felt sure of it, I would not have said anything to you now about these matters, since that zeal is enough to make everything easy for you. But it is time to go on to the subjects set for consideration today, so that you do not come to the contest already tired. For we have contests against the enemies of the truth, against those who use every trick to destroy the honor of the Son of God — or rather, their own. His honor stays forever just as it is now, not lessened at all by the blaspheming tongue. But they, in their eagerness to pull down the one they say they worship, fill their faces with shame and their souls with punishment.

What, then, do they say, when we assert what we have asserted? “That the words ‘In the beginning was the Word’ do not point to eternity in the absolute sense, because this same expression was used also of heaven and earth.” What enormous shamelessness and irreverence! I am speaking to you about God, and you bring the earth into the argument, and men who are made of earth? At this rate, since Christ is called Son of God, and God, a man who is called a son of God must be God too! For it says, “I have said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High” (Psalm 82, verse 6). Will you contend with the only Son over sonship, and claim that in this respect he has nothing more than you? “By no means!” That is the reply. And yet you do this, even if you do not say so in words. “How?” Because you say that you share in adoption as a son by grace, and that he does in the same way. For by saying that he is not Son by nature, you are simply making him Son by grace.

However, let us look at the proofs they bring forward. “In the beginning,” it says, “God made the heaven and the earth, and the earth was invisible and unformed” (Genesis 1, verse 2). And, “There was a man of Ramathaim-zophim” (First Samuel 1, verse 1). These are what they take to be strong arguments. And they are strong — but for proving the correctness of the teaching we assert, while they are utterly powerless to establish their blasphemy. For tell me, what does the word “was” have in common with the word “made”? What does God have in common with man? Why do you mix what cannot be mixed? Why confuse things that are distinct? Why drag down what is above?

In that passage it is not the word “was” alone that points to eternity, but that he “was in the beginning,” and again, “the Word was.” For the word “being,” when it is used of a man, marks only the present time, but when it is used of God, it points to eternity. In the same way “was,” used of our nature, signifies past time to us, and limited time at that; but used of God, it declares eternity.

So when you heard the words “earth” and “man,” it would have been enough to imagine nothing more about them than what is fitting to think of a nature that came into being. For whatever came to be, whatever it may be, came to be either in time or in the age before time. But the Son of God is above not only times but all the ages that were before, for he is their Creator and Maker, as the apostle says: “through whom also he made the ages.” And the maker necessarily exists before the thing made. Yet since some are so senseless as to think more highly of created things than they deserve, even after this, the writer, by the expression “he made,” and by that other one, “there was a man,” takes hold of the hearer’s mind in advance and cuts out all shamelessness at the root. For everything that has been made, both heaven and earth, was made in time and has its beginning in time, and none of them is without beginning, since they were made. So when you hear that “he made the earth” and that “there was a man,” you are trifling to no purpose and spinning a web of useless folly.

I can go even further and say something more. What is it? That even if it had been said of the earth, “In the beginning was the earth,” and of man, “In the beginning was the man,” we still should not have imagined anything greater about them than what we have now settled. For once the words “earth” and “man” have been laid down, whatever may be said about them, they do not let the mind imagine anything greater about them than what we know now — just as “the Word,” even if little is said about him, does not let us think anything low or poor about him. So, going on, the writer says of the earth, “The earth was invisible and unformed.” Having said that God “made” it, and having fixed its proper limit, he afterward states what follows without fear, knowing that no one is so foolish as to suppose that it is without beginning and uncreated. For the word “earth” and the word “made” are enough to convince even a very simple person that it is not eternal or uncreated, but one of the things created in time.

Besides, the word “was,” applied to the earth and to man, does not indicate existence in the absolute sense. In the case of a man it points to his being from a certain place; in the case of the earth, to its being in a certain condition. For the writer did not say simply “the earth was” and then fall silent, but taught how it was even after its creation: that it was “invisible and unformed,” still covered by the waters and in confusion. So in the case of Elkanah, he does not merely say “there was a man,” but adds where he came from: “of Ramathaim-zophim.” But in the case of “the Word,” it is not so. [g]

I am ashamed to set these cases against each other for trial. We find fault with those who do this with human beings, when there is a great difference in virtue between the people being compared, even though in truth their substance is one. Then where the difference in nature and in everything else is infinite, is it not the height of madness to raise such questions? But may the one they blaspheme be merciful to us. For it was not we who invented the need for such discussions; those who make war on their own salvation laid it on us.

What, then, do I say? That this first “was,” applied to “the Word,” indicates only his eternal being — for “In the beginning,” he says, “was the Word” — and that the second “was” — “and the Word was with God” — points to his being in relation to another. Since to be eternal and without beginning belongs most properly to God, he puts this first. Then, so that no one hearing that he was “in the beginning” would claim that he was “unbegotten” as well, he immediately remedies this by saying, before he declares what he was, that he was “with God.” And he has kept anyone from supposing that this “Word” is simply a word of the kind that is either spoken aloud or thought within, both by adding the article, as I said before, and by this second expression. For he does not say he was “in God,” but that he was “with God,” showing us that he is eternal in his own person. Then, as he goes on, he has revealed it more clearly by adding that this “Word” also “was God.”

“But still created,” someone may say. Then what kept him from saying, “In the beginning God made the Word”? Moses, at least, speaking of the earth, does not say “in the beginning was the earth,” but that God “made it,” and then it was. What kept John from saying in the same way, “In the beginning God made the Word”? For if Moses was afraid that someone would say the earth was uncreated, John ought to have been far more afraid of this about the Son, if he was indeed created. The world, being visible, proclaims its Maker by that very fact — “the heavens,” says the psalmist, “declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19, verse 1) — but the Son is invisible, and is greatly, infinitely higher than all creation. If, then, in the one case, where we needed neither argument nor teaching to know that the world is created, the prophet still set this fact down clearly and before everything else, all the more should John have declared the same about the Son, if he had really been created.

“Yes,” someone may say, “but Peter has stated this clearly and openly.” Where, and when? “When he was speaking to the Jews, he said that ‘God has made him both Lord and Christ’ (Acts 2, verse 36).” Why do you not add what follows: “this same Jesus whom you crucified”? Or do you not know that some of the words refer to his unmixed nature, and some to his becoming man? If this is not so, and you insist on taking all of it as referring to the divine nature, then you will make the divine nature capable of suffering. But if it cannot suffer, then it was not made either. If blood had flowed from that divine nature beyond all words, and if that nature, and not the flesh, had been torn and pierced by the nails on the cross, then on that supposition your quibbling would have had some reason. But if not even the devil himself could utter such a blasphemy, why do you pretend an ignorance so inexcusable, such as not even the evil spirits could pretend?

Besides, the titles “Lord” and “Christ” belong not to his essence but to his rank: the one refers to his power, the other to his having been anointed. What, then, would you say about the Son of God? Even if he were created, as you claim, this argument would have no place. For he was not first created and afterward chosen by God, nor does he hold a kingdom that could be laid aside, but one that belongs to his essence by nature. That is why, when he was asked whether he was a king, he answered, “For this I was born” (John 18, verse 37). But Peter speaks as of one who was chosen, because his whole argument concerns the plan of salvation.

And why are you surprised that Peter says this? Paul, reasoning with the Athenians, calls him only a “man,” saying, “by that man whom he has appointed, of which he has given assurance to all people by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17, verse 31). He says nothing about “the form of God” (Philippians 2, verse 6), or that he was “equal” to him, or that he was “the brightness of his glory” (Hebrews 1, verse 3). And with good reason. The time for words like these had not yet come; it was enough for him that they should, for the time being, admit that he was a man and that he rose from the dead. Christ himself did the same, and Paul, having learned it from him, used this restraint. For he did not reveal his divinity to us at once; at first he was taken for a prophet and a good man, and only afterward did what he truly was become clear from his works and words. [k]

That is why Peter too used this method at first — for this was the first sermon he preached to the Jews. Because they were not yet able to understand anything clearly about his divinity, he dwelt on the arguments about his becoming man, so that their ears, trained on these, might open the way for the rest of his teaching. And if anyone goes through the whole sermon from the beginning, he will find what I say quite plain to see. For Peter calls him “a man,” and dwells on the account of his suffering, his resurrection, and his birth according to the flesh. Paul too, when he says, “who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1, verse 3), only teaches us that the word “made” is used with a view to his becoming man, as we ourselves allow. But the son of thunder is now speaking to us about his existence, eternal and beyond words. That is why he leaves aside the word “made” and puts “was.” Yet if he were created, this is the point he would most of all have had to settle.

For Paul was afraid that some foolish people might suppose that the Son would be greater than the Father, and would have the one who begot him made subject to him. That is why the apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says, “But when he says, All things are put under him, it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him.” Yet who could possibly imagine that the Father, along with all things, will be subject to the Son? If, I say, Paul nevertheless feared these foolish imaginings, and says, “he is excepted who put all things under him,” then all the more, if the Son of God were indeed created, ought John to have feared that someone would suppose him uncreated, and to have taught on this point before any other.

But as it is, since he was begotten, it is with good reason that neither John nor anyone else, whether apostle or prophet, has stated that he was created. And if it had been so, the only Son himself would not have left it unmentioned. He who spoke of himself so humbly, stooping down to meet us, would certainly not have kept silent on this matter. And I think it not unreasonable to suppose that he would be more likely to have the higher nature and say nothing of it, than to lack it and leave this out, failing to make known that he did not have it. In the first case there was a good reason for silence: his desire to teach people humility by keeping quiet about the greatness of what was his. But in the second case you can find no just reason for silence. Why would he, who passed over many things that were truly his, have kept silent about his having been made, if he were created? He who often used lowly expressions that did not properly belong to him, in order to teach humility, would far less have failed to speak of this, if he had indeed been created.

Do you not see him — so that no one would imagine he had not been begotten — doing and saying everything to show that he was, speaking words unworthy of both his rank and his essence, and coming down to the humble role of a prophet? For the words “As I hear, I judge” (John 5, verse 30), and “He has told me what I should say and what I should speak” (John 12, verse 49), and others like them, belong simply to a prophet. If, then, in his desire to remove this suspicion, he did not disdain to speak such lowly words, far more, if he were created, would he have said many words like these, so that no one would suppose him to be uncreated. He would have said, for instance: “Do not think that I am begotten of the Father. I am created, not begotten, and I do not share his essence.”

But as it is, he does the very opposite, and speaks words that force people, even against their will and wish, to accept the opposite view. For example: “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (John 14, verse 11); and, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14, verse 9); and, “that all should honor the Son, just as they honor the Father” (John 5, verse 23); “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will” (John 5, verse 21); “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5, verse 17); “As the Father knows me, so I know the Father” (John 10, verse 15); “I and my Father are one” (John 10, verse 30). And everywhere, by putting the “as” and the “so,” and the “being with the Father,” he declares his unvarying likeness to him.

He shows his own power by these words, as well as by many others; as when he says, “Peace! Be still!” (Mark 4, verse 39); “I am willing; be clean” (Matthew 8, verse 3); “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him” (Mark 9, verse 25); and again, “You have heard that it was said by those of old, You shall not kill; but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause will be in danger” (Matthew 5, verses 21 and 22). And all the other laws he gave and the wonders he worked are enough to show his power — or rather, I should say, a very small part of them is enough to win over and convince anyone, except those utterly without sense.

But empty glory is powerful enough to blind the minds of those it has snared, even to truths that are perfectly plain, and to persuade them to argue against what everyone else admits. More than that, it drives some who know the truth and are convinced of it to pretend ignorance and to oppose it. That is what happened with the Jews. It was not out of ignorance that they denied the Son of God, but so that they might have honor from the crowd. “They believed,” the evangelist says, but they were afraid, “lest they should be put out of the synagogue” (John 12, verse 42). And so they gave up their own salvation for the sake of others. For it cannot be that someone who is so eager a slave to the glory of this present world should obtain the glory that comes from God. That is why Christ rebuked them, saying, “How can you believe, who receive honor from men, and do not seek the honor that comes from God?” (John 5, verse 44). [q]

This passion is a kind of deep drunkenness, and it makes the one it has overpowered hard to bring back to his senses. It tears the souls of its captives away from heavenly things and nails them to the earth. It does not let them look up to the true light, but persuades them to wallow forever in the mud. And it gives them masters so powerful that they rule them without even needing to give orders. For the man sick with this disease does of his own accord, without being told, whatever he thinks will please his masters. For their sake he dresses in rich clothing and makes his face beautiful, taking these pains not for himself but for others. He leads a train of followers about through the marketplace so that others may admire him, and everything he does, he does only to fawn on the rest of the world. Can any state of mind be more wretched than this? So that others may admire him, he is forever being flung headlong to ruin.

Would you learn how tyrannically it rules? The words of Christ, surely, are enough to show it all. But listen to these further remarks as well. If you ask any of the men who take part in public affairs and spend great sums why they lavish so much gold, and what all this vast outlay means, you will hear from them that it is for nothing else than to please the people. If you ask them again what the people are, they will say it is a thing full of confusion and uproar, made up for the most part of folly, tossed blindly to and fro like the waves of the sea, and often made up of shifting and conflicting opinions. Must not the man who has such a master be more pitiable than anyone?

And yet, strange as it is, it is not so strange that people of the world should be eager for these things. But that those who say they have fled from the world should be sick with this same disease, or rather with one still more serious — this is the strangest thing of all. For with the first the loss reaches only as far as money, but with the second the danger reaches the soul. When men change the right faith for the sake of their reputation, and dishonor God so that they themselves may be well thought of, tell me, what an excess of stupidity and madness must there be in what they do!

Other passions, even when they do great harm, at least bring some pleasure with them, though only for a time, and fleeting. Those who love money, or wine, or women have a pleasure along with their harm, though a brief one. But those who are taken captive by this passion live a life that is always bitter and stripped of enjoyment, for they do not obtain what they so eagerly desire — glory, I mean, from the many. They think they enjoy it, but they do not really, because what they aim at is not glory at all. That is why their state of mind is not called glory, but something empty of glory: empty glory. So all the ancients named it, and with good reason, since it is completely empty and has nothing bright or glorious within it.

Actors’ masks look bright and lovely, but they are hollow inside; and that is why, though they are more beautiful than natural faces, they never make anyone fall in love with them. In the same way — or rather, still more wretchedly — the applause of the crowd has dressed up this passion for us, a dangerous opponent and a cruel master. Only its face is bright. Inside, it is not merely empty, like the mask, but crammed with dishonor and full of savage tyranny.

Where, then, you may ask, does this passion come from, so unreasonable and so empty of pleasure? Where else but from a low and mean soul? A man captivated by the love of applause cannot readily think of anything great or noble; he is bound to be base, mean, dishonorable, small. A man who does nothing for the sake of virtue, but only to please people who deserve no regard, and who always takes account of their mistaken and wandering opinions — how can he be worth anything?

Consider this. If someone asked him, “What do you think of the crowd?” he would plainly say that they are thoughtless and not worth regarding. Then if someone asked him again, “Would you choose to be like them?” I do not suppose he could possibly wish to be like them. Is it not utterly ridiculous, then, to seek the good opinion of people you would never choose to resemble?

Do you say that they are many, a body gathered together? That is the very reason you ought most to despise them. If one by one they deserve contempt, much more will they when they are many. For when they are gathered together, the folly of each is increased by their numbers and grows greater. So a man might perhaps take one of them by himself and set him right, but he could not do it with them all together, because then their folly becomes intense, and they are led like sheep, following one another’s opinions wherever they go. [t]

Tell me, will you seek to win this glory the crowd hands out? Do not, I beg and implore you. It turns everything upside down. It is the mother of greed, of slander, of false witness, of treachery. It arms and enrages people who have suffered no wrong against people who have done none. The man who has fallen into this disease knows no friendship, does not remember old companionship, and does not know how to respect anyone at all. He has thrown every good thing out of his soul, and he is at war with everyone, unstable, without natural affection.

Again, the passion of anger, tyrannical though it is and hard to bear, does not usually trouble us all the time, but only when it has people who provoke it. But the passion for empty glory is always at work. There is no time, one might say, when it can stop, since reason neither hinders nor restrains it. It is always with us, not only persuading us to sin, but snatching out of our hands whatever good we may happen to do, or sometimes not letting us do good at all. If Paul calls greed idolatry, what should we call what is its mother, its root and its source — I mean empty glory? We cannot possibly find any name its wickedness deserves.

Beloved, let us now come to our senses. Let us put off this filthy garment; let us tear it and cut it away from us. Let us at long last become free with a true freedom, and recognize the noble rank God has given us. Let us despise the applause of the crowd. For nothing is so ridiculous and disgraceful as this passion, nothing so full of shame and dishonor. One can see in many ways that to love honor is dishonor, and that true honor lies in disregarding honor, in taking no account of it, and in saying and doing everything as seems good to God. In this way we will be able to receive a reward from him who sees all our doings exactly, if we are content to have him alone as our spectator. What need do we have of other eyes, when he who will award the prize is always watching what we do?

Is it not a strange thing? Whatever a servant does, he does to please his master. He looks for nothing more than his master’s notice. He has no wish to draw other eyes to what he does, even if great men are looking on; he aims at one thing only, that his master may see him. And we, who have so great a Lord, look for other spectators, who can do us no good, but rather harm us by their watching and make all our labor useless! Not so, I beg you. Let us call on him to watch and applaud our actions from whom we will receive our rewards. Let us have nothing to do with human eyes.

For even if we do want to attain this honor, we will attain it only when we seek the honor that comes from God alone. For he says, “Those who honor me, I will honor” (First Samuel 2, verse 30). And just as we are best supplied with riches when we despise them and seek only the wealth that comes from God — “Seek,” he says, “the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6, verse 33) — so it is with honor. When the gift of riches or of honor no longer brings us any danger, God gives them freely. And they bring no danger when they do not rule us or have power over us, and do not command us as if we were slaves, but belong to us as to masters and free men. For the reason he does not want us to love them is so that we may not be ruled by them; and if we succeed in this, he gives them to us with great generosity.

Tell me, who shines brighter than Paul, when he says, “We do not seek honor from men, neither from you nor from others” (First Thessalonians 2, verse 6)? And who is richer than the one who “has nothing, and yet possesses all things”? For as I said, when we are not mastered by them, then we will master them; then we will receive them. If, then, we want to obtain honor, let us shun honor. In this way, having kept the laws of God, we will be able to obtain both the good things here and those that are promised, by the grace of Christ, with whom be glory to the Father and to the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.