HOMILY IV. ON THE SECOND DAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT.
JOHN. I. At that time John bore witness concerning the Lord and cried out, saying: This was he of whom I spoke, he who is coming after me was made before me, because he existed before me.
The forerunner of our Redeemer, bearing witness about him, proclaims with a clear voice the certainty of his humanity and the eternity of his divinity. For he cries out, saying, as your fraternity heard when the Gospel was read: This was he of whom I spoke, he who is coming after me was made before me, because he existed before me. For in saying, he who is coming after me, he alludes to the order of human dispensation in which he was born after him, was to preach after him, baptize, perform signs, and suffer death. But in what he adds, He was made before me, he designates the sublimity of that same humanity, which deservedly was to be preferred to all other creatures. For when he says, Before me, it pertains not to the order of time, but to a distance in dignity, just as it is written concerning Joseph's sons when Jacob was blessing them: And he put Ephraim before Manasseh (Gen. XLVIII), where it could rightly be said: Manasseh, who came after me, was made before me. That is, who was born after me surpassed me in the power of the kingdom. Therefore John says of the Lord, He who is coming after me was made before me: that is, who was coming after me to preach, excelled me in the summit of the eternal kingdom and priesthood. And why he who was to come after him would surpass him in dignity, he revealed when he added, because he existed before me, that is, because as the eternal God before the ages, he surpasses me in the glory of majesty even in assumed humanity, although born later. But with the testimony that the forerunner of the Lord gave about him having been explained, the evangelist immediately provides the testimony of his own assertion which he began to give to him.
And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For he had said above, because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John I). When He had confirmed it with the testimony of His forerunner, who said: This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me has surpassed me, because He was before me (Ibid.); He again follows through what He had begun, saying: And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace (Ibid.). The Lord was indeed full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace and truth, because, as the Apostle says, In Him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily (Col.II); from whose fullness we have all received according to the measure of our capacity, because grace has been given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. For it could truly be said only of the mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety, and He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord (Is. XI). But all the saints receive from His fullness not the fullness of His Spirit, but as much as He grants. For through the Spirit, to some is given the word of wisdom; to others, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another, faith by the same Spirit; to another, the gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the discernment of spirits; to another, various kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each one individually as He wills (1 Cor. XII). Because, therefore, from the fullness of our Creator we have received everything good that we have, it must be carefully guarded that no one presumptuously exalts himself because of a good deed or thought; lest, remaining ungrateful to the Giver, he loses the good he has received, and is justly reproved by this apostolic reprimand: What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? (1 Cor. IV). Therefore, the Apostle himself, since he could know or do nothing worthy if he did not receive from the fullness of Christ, elsewhere clearly testifies, saying: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God (II Cor. III). And in another place: And His grace towards me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me (1 Cor. XV). This very thought he diligently inculcates in his hearers to consider humbly; hence it is said: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. II).
But when the evangelist said that we all have received from the fullness of Christ, he immediately added and said: Grace for grace. Therefore, he testifies that we have received a double grace, one namely in the present, the other in the future: in the present indeed faith which works through love, in the future however eternal life. For the faith which works through the love of God is a grace of God; because as we believe, as we love, as we work good which we know, not through any preceding merits of ours, but we receive from Him, who says: You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide (John XV). And that we may receive eternal life because of faith, love, and good works is a grace of God, because we always need Him as the guide lest we depart from the good way, who says: Lead me in your way, and I will walk in your truth (Psalm LXXXVI); as if it were clearly said: Unless you, guiding, I enter the way of truth which I have begun, I am by no means sufficient to hold. That we may not fail in good works, we ought always to lean on His help, who says: Because without me you can do nothing; whence well the Psalmist, to indicate that both the beginning of faith and good action is given to us by the Lord, says: My God, His mercy will go before me (Psalm LIX). And to teach that the good things we do are to be completed with His help, he again says: And your mercy will follow me all the days of my life (Psalm XXIII). To show that the reward of eternal life, which is given for good works, is generously bestowed to us, he says: Who crowns you with mercy and compassion (Psalm CIII). By mercy and compassion indeed He crowns us, when for good works which He Himself mercifully granted us to perform, He gives the rewards of heavenly blessedness. And this is what is meant by receiving grace for grace, for surely for the grace of good conduct which He gave, and lest it might fail, He Himself preserving helps, He will give the grace of blessed remuneration, in which we may sing His mercies forever. Finally, the Apostle did not doubt to call the very reception of eternal life, which certainly is given for preceding merits, a grace: who when he had first said that the wages of sin is death, he did not want to say on the contrary the wages of justice is eternal life; but said: The grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. VI). Not because it is not justly given for good merits by a just judge, but because those merits by which they are given are first freely granted by a gracious Savior.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The law was indeed given through Moses, in which it is divinely ordained what must be done and avoided; but what it commands is only fulfilled through the grace of Christ. It could indeed show sin, teach righteousness, and point out its transgressors as guilty; moreover, the grace of Christ, poured out by the Spirit of love in the hearts of the faithful, enables what the law commands to be fulfilled; hence what is written: You shall not covet (Deut. 5), through Moses it is law because it is commanded, but through Christ it becomes grace when what is commanded is fulfilled. But truth came through Christ, for the law had a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of things. And as the Apostle says elsewhere: All these things happened to them as a figure (1 Cor. 10); but instead of a shadow, Christ has shown the light of truth, instead of the figure of the law, the very image of the things foreshadowed, when he gave the grace of the Spirit, and opened the minds of his disciples to understand the Scriptures. The law was given through Moses when the people were commanded to be purified by the sprinkling of the blood of a lamb; grace and truth, prefigured in the law, came through Jesus Christ, when he himself suffered on the cross and washed us from our sins in his blood. The law was given through Moses, who instructed the people with salutary precepts, declaring that if they observed them, they would enter the promised land and live there perpetually; otherwise, they would be overthrown by enemies. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, for he gave the gift of his Spirit, enabling both the spiritual understanding and observance of the law, and introducing those who keep it into the true blessedness of heavenly life, signified by the promised land. But the evangelist manifests the sum of the grace and truth which came through Jesus Christ by adding:
No one has ever seen God. The only begotten, who is at the bosom of the Father, he has told us. For no greater grace can be given to men, no higher truth can be known by men, than that of which the only begotten Son of God narrates to his faithful: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt. V); and of which he prays to the Father, saying: "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John XVII). Indeed, this most blessed perception of grace and truth, since it cannot occur in the life of this world, is rightly stated: "No one has ever seen God" (1 John IV), that is, no one still surrounded by corruptible and mortal flesh can behold the inexpressible light of divinity; whence the Apostle more clearly says: "Whom no one has seen or can see" (1 Tim. VI). For it is said that no man, no one yet burdened with human condition, fleeting in human conversation. Consequently, Moses, who saw God in the angel, desiring to see him in his very nature, prayed: "If I have found grace in your sight, show me your glory" (Ex. XXXIII), and he heard: "You cannot see my face, for no man shall see me and live" (Ibid.). Nor should it be thought contrary to this assertion that sometimes the patriarchs or prophets are reported to have seen God. For the Lord appeared to Abraham in the valley of Mamre. And Jacob said: "I have seen the Lord face to face" (Gen. XXXII). Similarly, Isaiah: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up" (Isa. VI). But it is rightly understood in all such visions that holy men saw God not through the very aspect of his nature, but through certain images. Hence, the saints saw God through the created subjects, for instance, fire, angel, cloud, electrum; yet John truly testifies that "No one has ever seen God" (1 John IV). It is truthfully said to Moses: "For no man shall see me and live" (Ex. XXXIII); for enclosed in the fragile vessel of flesh, they can see him through defined images of things, but by no means are they able to see him through the indeterminate light of his eternity.
By what reason the evangelist must reach the vision of the unchangeable and eternal light, he explained as follows, saying: "The Only Begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him" (John XIV). Which is similar to what the Lord himself said: "No one comes to the Father except through me" (Mt. XI). And elsewhere: "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." Certainly, by his guidance we must come to the Father, by his teaching we must know the Father and the Son, as well as the Holy Spirit, one God and Lord; because indeed he, made man for us, speaking in human form, clearly revealed to us by the bright light what should be rightly thought about the unity of the Holy Trinity, how to be appropriated towards its contemplation by the faithful, and by which acts to reach this. He, clothing us with the sacraments of his incarnation, sanctifying us with the gifts of his Spirit, so that we may be able to come to this, he assists. He, completing the final judgment in human form, will sublimely introduce us to the vision of the divine majesty, and will wonderfully explain to us the secrets of the heavenly kingdom.
Indeed, what He says: "He who is in the bosom of the Father," signifies the secret of the Father. For the bosom of the Father is not to be thought of childishly, in the likeness of our own bosom which we have in our garments; nor is God, who is not bound together in the form of human members, to be thought of as sitting in the same manner as we do; but because our bosom is within, speaking in our manner, Scripture says that "He is in the bosom of the Father" to signify He who always remains in the secret of the Father, where the human gaze cannot reach. The only begotten Son will not only reveal God then, that is, the glory of the holy and undivided Trinity, which is one God, to men when He will introduce all the elect to the vision of His brightness after the universal judgment. But He also narrates daily, when He begins to fulfill what He promised to each of the faithful freed from the corruption of the flesh: "Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him" (John XIV). “I will manifest myself,” he says, “to my lovers, so that they who know me in my mortal state can already see me in my nature equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit.” But it must be believed that this happens with apostles, martyrs, confessors, and others of a more austere and perfect life; among whom one, conscious of his struggles, did not hesitate to testify about himself: "I desire to depart and be with Christ" (Phil. I). Moreover, there are many righteous in the Church who, after the dissolution of their flesh, are immediately received into the blessed rest of paradise, waiting in great joy, in the choirs of the rejoicing, when they will return with their bodies and appear before the face of God. But indeed some, although preordained to the lot of the elect because of good works, are severely punished by purifying flames after death because of certain evils with which they were stained when they departed from the body. And either until the day of judgment, they are cleansed from the filth of their vices by this prolonged testing; or certainly, sooner, through the prayers of the faithful friends, alms, fasts, tears, and offerings of the saving sacrifice, freed from their punishments, they too reach the rest of the blessed: to all of whom, however, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, will reveal God according to their capacity when He grants them the blessing at the time of the resurrection, that, following the law given to them, they who walk from the virtue of faith and hope to the virtue of contemplation may see the God of gods in Zion, that is, in unchangeable contemplation, whose benefits and eternal gifts merit praise and thanksgiving for all ages upon ages. Amen.