Light, the Baptist sent, and the Word made flesh (John 1:5–16)

—wandering heresy I have refuted, and I have overcome all the passions that are adventitious, not those that are natural and necessary—which he willingly underwent, to show the truth of the incarnation, and that the natural and necessary are not base. For this reason it approached the flesh of the Word of God, not that it might be strengthened, but that in him it might be destroyed; for the shameful passions he did not undergo even in imagination. Darkness and the world are now to be understood by comparison with the inexpressible and unapproachable light.

John is sent as one who has passed from the desert into the inhabited land, that he might proclaim Christ to the peoples. The Lord also was called sent, not as having moved from places to places—for the divine is unmoved—but as somehow moved from the Father’s bosom and having come to our poverty, for which he is also said to have humbled himself. So when Scripture speaks words fitting the economy, if it says that “he emptied himself” (Philippians 2:7), it signifies the self-ruling and royal—that he was incarnate willingly; but if it says that he was sent, it teaches that he was not incarnate apart from the Father. We say these things as human beings; for the will of Father and Son is one, even if we conceive the difference of the hypostases of the one Godhead and essence; thus we say that the Son alone was incarnate, not the Father, not the Spirit.

For this reason John is greater than the other prophets: those proclaimed the one awaited, but this one, having seen him and been persuaded by signs that this is he, came bearing witness from what he heard and saw.

Even if John and the saints are light, they are not so as the Christ who is theologized, who is light by nature; for the saints received illumination by grace. Therefore concerning Christ he says: “He was the true light” (John 1:9).

The Lord enlightens his rational creatures from natural notions unto believing that he is God, as they infer from the beauty and good order of his creatures the excellence of his power.

As God he was in the world not according to essence, but according to providence. Again he pulls up the heresy of those who say that human beings and the rest are not creatures of God. Here he calls “world” only human beings, naming the world from a part—that is, those who mind the things of the world and are nailed to it, who through attachment to earthly things did not know him at all: idolaters and slaves of the passions.

He is said to have come to his own inasmuch as, having been incarnate, he was made known to those who saw him with their eyes, or that he came to his own, who seemed to be his according to “from whom is the Christ according to the flesh” (Romans 9:5).

There is no longer need of cattle-sacrifice as pleasing to God according to the type of the law, since the blood of Christ is sufficient for justification.

When the Word became flesh, he was not changed in essence, but having become visible through the flesh he remained having his own glory as only-begotten Son of God and Father; for the one pitching tent is other in essence from the tent. He did not say “body,” lest some say he wore a heavenly body; nor “he became man,” lest others say he took not the outer but the inner man; nor “from the Word flesh came to be,” lest others say he was changed from this into that. Flesh is also called body, but body is not in every way flesh. Therefore the Lord also said: “he who eats my flesh” (John 6:54), and elsewhere: “Handle me and see, that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me having” (Luke 24:39).

How did we behold? Through the star of the magi, the angels, the shepherds, Anna, Simeon, Gabriel, the ineffable birth from the virgin, the Father’s voice bearing witness to him, the Spirit’s descent upon him, and countless divine signs and healings.

As root of all goods and spring, giving his own goods to many, he is not diminished; yet from what he supplies and creation receives, it is clear that Christ is God. In place of the grace in Adam, from which we fell, Christ through the