As to your objection: if he wills, he does it: it must be said that absolutely he does not will to enlighten except those who are willing; but by a conditional will he wills all to be enlightened, just as he wills all men to be saved.
31. Question II. It is asked concerning what he says: He came unto his own.
1. For if coming belongs to him to whom being absent belongs: and God is nowhere absent: therefore he did not come.
2. Likewise, if God can do all things everywhere, then he does not need to come for any reason: therefore if he had not come, he could have done the same.
To this Bede responds: "He was in the world through his Divinity, he came into the world through the incarnation. To come or to go away indeed belongs to humanity: but to remain belongs to Divinity"; whence the meaning is: He came, that is, he appeared visibly.
As to what you ask: what was the necessity of coming? I respond: Not for his own sake, but for ours; and this the Evangelist well suggests: because the world did not know his sublimity, he appeared in humility and humanity.
32. Question III. Likewise it is asked concerning what he says: He gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe etc.
Against this: 1. Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints: "The ability to believe belongs to nature": therefore they have this power from nature, not therefore given by Christ.
2. Likewise, why does he speak of those who believe rather than of those who love, or of others?
I respond: It must be said that there is a perfect and active power, and this is called the power of authority; and there is an imperfect and passive power, and this is called possibility. The first power exists only through grace, and he speaks of that one here; therefore he says: He gave them power. Augustine speaks of the other.
2. As to what he asks: why especially to faith? The response is: because faith is the first of the virtues and their foundation, therefore he attributes it to faith as to a door.
33. Question IV. Likewise, there is a question about what he says: The Word was made flesh. Here three words are spoken, and the question is: why did he say Word rather than Light, since the Word has been described both under the notion of word and under the notion of light?
If you say that Light is common to the three persons, while Word belongs to the Son alone, who alone became incarnate, then the question arises: why did he not say Son? And why was the Son alone incarnate, since the divine goodness is supremely communicative in each of the hypostases?
I respond to this: the reason why the Son alone became incarnate is taken from the standpoint of nativity, of work, and of effect. By reason of nativity: because he is the son of the Virgin, and "son" ought not to be attributed to another person. By reason of work: because it is re-creation, and re-creation is through him through whom creation came. From the standpoint of effect: because he made us sons and co-heirs, through the natural Son we ought to be brought into the inheritance and into sonship.
Moreover, he said Word rather than Son in order to exclude a carnal understanding and to manifest a spiritual one. For Son is generated carnally among creatures, but Word has a spiritual generation. He manifests the spiritual sense, because, as Augustine says, a word clothes itself in sound and does not pass into sound; so the eternal Word clothed himself in flesh.
34. Question V. Likewise, there is a question about what he says: Was made flesh; for either the meaning is: was made flesh, that is, changed into flesh; or made flesh, that is, made so as to be flesh. Neither understanding is sound. If you say that the construction is synecdochic, and flesh there has the same force as man; whence made flesh, that is, man; then the question arises: why did he prefer humanity to be understood through flesh rather than through soul, since the soul is the nobler part? And why did he use this figurative expression, when he could have used the proper one?
I respond: It must be said that that union was for our instruction and our salvation: and it was instruction, because visible; and liberation, because passible; and "flesh" denotes the visible and most passible part; therefore, etc.
Second, concerning the incarnation itself with respect to its manifestation in two ways.
35. And we saw his glory. Above, the incarnation of the Word was treated; in this part, the knowledge or manifestation of the incarnate Word is treated. This part has two sections, because first it treats of his manifestation in general; second, in particular, at: And this is the testimony of John, etc.
First, concerning the manifestation of the incarnate Word in general.
The first part has two sections, because first the knowledge of the incarnate Word itself is touched upon; second, the reason for the knowledge, at: John bears witness, etc.
Now the knowledge of the incarnate Word, which the Apostles and believers possessed, pertained to both natures; in whose person the Evangelist says: And we saw his glory, that is, we knew; glory, namely with respect to the Divinity. Therefore he says: Glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father; concerning which glory, Second Peter chapter one: "He received from God the Father honor and glory, when a voice came down to him from the magnificent glory: This is my beloved Son." With respect to the humanity, however, he is said to be full of grace and truth, that is, we saw, supply: him, full of grace and truth, truly full, because in him, as is said in Colossians chapter two, "all the fullness of the Divinity dwells bodily"; full of grace, for draining away sins; full of truth, for fulfilling promises; Sirach chapter twenty-four: "In me is all grace of life and truth." And it should be noted that what he says, as of the Only-begotten, is not a mark of comparison or similitude, but of expression.
36. John bears witness. After the knowledge has been set forth, here the reason for knowing is set forth. For there was in them a threefold reason for knowing: the first, through testimony; the second, through a singular effect; the third, through a singular teaching.
(Verse 15). The first reason for knowing, therefore, was through authoritative testimony, namely of an authoritative person, that is, of John, who was holy from his mother's womb. Therefore he says: John bears witness concerning him; Proverbs chapter fourteen: "A faithful witness does not lie." And he cries out, John openly and boldly, according to that passage of Isaiah chapter fifty-eight: "Cry out, do not cease, lift up your voice like a trumpet"; saying: He who comes after me was made before me; therefore made more worthy than I according to his human nature; Ephesians chapter one: "He subjected all things under his feet and gave him as head over the whole Church." And the reason for this is: because he was before me, namely according to his Divinity; below in chapter eight: "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am"; and thus before John.
37. (Vers. 16.). And of his fullness. Here the second reason for knowing that Christ was the Son of God is touched upon, namely on account of a singular effect, and this was the bestowal of grace. Therefore he says: And of his fullness, as if to say: truly we knew him to be full; because of his fullness we have all received grace for grace, namely the grace of recompense for the grace of justification, or conversely we have received the grace of justification for the sake of obtaining the grace of recompense, which is rightly called grace, because, as Augustine says, "God crowns nothing in us except his own gifts"; Romans 6: "The wages of sin is death: but the grace of God is life everlasting"; and Zechariah 4: "He shall bring forth the grace of grace." And that this effect is singularly Christ's, he shows: