He states three things about the Word. First, the manifestation of his glory; hence he says, we have seen his glory. Secondly, the uniqueness of his glory, when he adds, as of the Only Begotten. Thirdly, the precise nature of this glory, because full of grace and truth.
180 And we have seen his glory, can be connected in three ways with what went before. First, it can be taken as an argument for his having said, the Word was made flesh. As if to say: I hold and know that the Word of God was incarnate because I and the other apostles have seen his glory. “We know of what we speak, and we bear witness of what we see” (below 3:11). “We tell you... what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes” (1 Jn 1:1).
181 Secondly, according to Chrysostom, the connection is made by taking this statement as expressing many benefits. As if to say: The incarnation of the Word not only conferred on us the benefit of becoming sons of God, but also the good of seeing his glory. For dull and feeble eyes cannot see the light of the sun; but they can see it when it shines in a cloud or on some opaque body. Now before the incarnation of the Word, human minds were incapable of seeing the divine light in itself, the light which enlightens every rational nature. And so, in order that it might be more easily seen and contemplated by us, he covered it with the cloud of our flesh: “They looked towards the desert, and saw the glory of the Lord in a cloud” (Ex 16:10), i.e., the Word of God in the flesh.
182 According to Augustine, however, the connection refers to the gift of grace. For the failure of the spiritual eyes of men to contemplate the divine light is due not only to their natural limitations but also to the defects incurred by sin: “Fire,” that is, of concupiscence, “fell on them, and they did not see the sun,” of justice (Ps 57:9). Hence in order that the divine light might be seen by us, he healed our eyes, making an eye salve of his flesh, so that with the salve of his flesh the Word might heal our eyes, weakened by the concupiscence of the flesh. And this is why just after saying, the Word was made flesh, he says, we have seen his glory. To indicate this the Lord made clay from his saliva and spread the clay upon the eyes of the man born blind (below 9:6). For clay is from the earth, but saliva comes from the head. Similarly, in the person of Christ, his human nature was assumed from the earth; but the incarnate Word is from the head, i.e., from God the Father. So, when this clay was spread on the eyes of men, we saw his glory.
183 This is the glory of the Word Moses longed to see, saying, “Show me your glory” (Ex 32:18). But he did not deserve to see it; indeed, he was answered by the Lord: “You shall see my back” (Ex 33:23), i.e., shadows and figures. But the apostles saw his brightness: “All of us, gazing on the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image” (2 Cor 3:18). For Moses and the other prophets saw in an obscure manner and in figures the glory of the Word that was to be manifested to the world at the end of their times; hence the Apostle says: “Now we see through a mirror, in an obscure manner, but then face to face” in 1 Corinthians (13:12); and below (12:41), “Isaiah said this when he saw his glory.” But the apostles saw the very brilliance of the Word through his bodily presence: “All of us, gazing on the Lord’s glory,” and so forth (2 Cor 3:18); “Blessed are the eyes which see what you see. For many kings and prophets desired to see what you see, and did not see it” (Lk 10:23).
184 Then when he says, the glory as of the Only Begotten, he shows the uniqueness of his glory. For since it is written of certain men that they were in glory, as of Moses it says that “his face shone” (Ex 34:29), or was “horned,” according to another text, someone might say that from the fact that they saw him [Jesus] in glory, it should not be said that the Word of God was made flesh. But the Evangelist excludes this when he says, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father. As if to say: His glory is not like the glory of an angel, or of Moses, or Elijah, or Elisha, or anything like that. but the glory as of the Only Begotten; for as it is said, “He [Jesus] was counted worthy of more glory than Moses” (Heb 3:3); “Who among the sons of God is like God?” (Ps 88:7).
185 The word as, according to Gregory, is used to express the fact. But according to Chrysostom, it expresses the manner of the fact: as if someone were to see a king approaching in great glory and being asked by another to describe the king he saw, he could, if he wanted to be brief, express the grandeur of his glory in one word, and say that he approached “as” a king, i.e., as became a king. So too, here, the Evangelist, as though asked by someone to describe the glory of the Word which he had seen, and being unable to fully express it, said that it was “as” of the Only Begotten of the Father, i.e., such as became the Only Begotten of God.
186 The uniqueness of the glory of the Word is brought out in four ways. First, in the testimony which the Father gave to the Son. For John was one of the three who had seen Christ transfigured on the mountain and heard the voice of the Father saying: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 17:5). Of this glory it is said, “He received honor and glory from God the Father... ‘This is my beloved Son’” (2 Pt 1:17)
Secondly, it is brought out by the service of the angels. For prior to the incarnation of Christ, men were subject to the angels. But after it, angels ministered, as subjects, to Christ. “Angels came and ministered to him” (Mt 4:11).
Thirdly, it is brought out by the submission of nature. For all nature obeyed Christ and heeded his slightest command, as something established by him, because “All things were made through him” (above 1:3). This is something granted neither to angels nor to any creature, but to the incarnate Word alone. And this is what we read, “What kind of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt 8:27).
Fourthly, we see it in the way he taught and acted. For Moses and the other prophets gave commands to men and taught them not on their own authority, but on the authority of God. So they said: “The Lord says this”; and “The Lord spoke to Moses.” But Christ speaks as the Lord, and as one having power, i.e., by reason of his own power. Hence he says, “I say to you” (Mt 5:22). This is the reason why, at the end of the Sermon on the Mountain, it is said that he taught as one “having authority” (Mt 7:29). Furthermore, other holy men worked miracles, but not by their own power. But Christ worked them by his own power. In these ways, then, the glory of the Word is unique.
187 Note that sometimes in Scripture we call Christ the Only Begotten, as here, and below (1:18): “it is the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, who has made him known.” At other times we call him the First-born: “When he brings the Firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all the angels of God adore him’ “ (Heb 1:6). The reason for this is that just as it belongs to the whole Blessed Trinity to be God, so it belongs to the Word of God to be God Begotten. Sometimes, too, he is called God according to what he is in himself; and in this way he alone is uniquely God by his own essence. It is in this way that we say there is but one God: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one” (Dt 6:4). At times, we even apply the name of deity to others, insofar as a certain likeness of the divinity is given to men; in this sense we speak of many gods: “Indeed, there are many gods and many lords” (1 Cor 8:5).
Along these lines, if we consider what is proper to the Son as Begotten, and consider the way in which this sonship is attributed to him, that is, through nature, we say that he is the Only Begotten of God: because, since he alone is naturally begotten by the Father, the Begotten of the Father is one only. But if we consider the Son, insofar as sonship is conferred on others through a likeness to him, then there are many sons of God through participation. And because they are called sons of God by a likeness to him, he is called the First-born of all. “Those whom he foreknew, he predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the First-born of many brothers” (Rom 8:29).
So, Christ is called the Only Begotten of God by nature; but he is called the First-born insofar as from his natural sonship, by means of a certain likeness and participation, a sonship is granted to many.
188 Then when he says, full of grace and truth, he determines the glory of the Word. As if to say: His glory is such that he is full of grace and divinity. Now these words can be applied to Christ in three ways.
First, from the point of view of union. For grace is given to someone so that he might be united to God through it. So he who is most perfectly united to God is full of grace. Now some are joined to God by participating in a natural likeness: “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (Gn 1:26). Some are joined by faith: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph 3:17). And others are united by charity, because “He who abides in love abides in God” (1 Jn 4:16). But all these ways are partial: because one is not perfectly united to God by participating a natural likeness; nor is God seen as he is by faith; nor is he loved to the extent that he is lovable by charity—for since he is the infinite Good, his lovableness is infinite, and the love of no creature is able to love this infinitely. And so these unions are not full.
But in Christ, in whom human nature is united to the divinity in the unity of a suppositum , we find a full and perfect union with God. The reason for this is that this union was such that all the acts not only of his divine but also of his human nature were acts of the suppositum [or person]. So he was full of grace insofar he did not receive any special gratuitous gift from God, but that he should be God himself. “He gave him,” i.e., God the Father gave to the Son, “a name which is above every name” (Phil 2:9). “He was foreordained to be the Son of God in power” (Rom 1:4). He was also full of truth, because the human nature in Christ attained to the divine truth itself, that is, that this man should be the divine Truth itself. In other men we find many participated truths, insofar as the First Truth gleams back into their minds through many likenesses; but Christ is Truth itself. Thus it is said: “In whom all the treasures of wisdom are hidden” (Col 2:3).
189 Secondly, these words can be applied in relation to the perfection of his soul. Then he is said to be full of grace and truth inasmuch as in his soul there was the fulness of all graces without measure: “God does not bestow the Spirit in fractions,” as we read below (3:34). Yet it was given in fractions to all rational creatures, both angels and men. For according to Augustine, just as there is one sense common to all the parts of the body, namely, the sense of touch, while all the senses are found in the head, so in Christ, who is the head of every rational creature (and in a special way of the saints who are united to him by faith and charity), all virtues and graces and gifts are found superabundantly; but in others, i.e., the saints, we find participations of the graces and gifts, although there is a gift common to all the saints, and that is charity. We read about this fulness of Christ’s grace: “There shall come forth a shoot out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall spring up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of piety” (Is 11:1).
Further, Christ was also full of truth because his precious and blessed soul knew every truth, human and divine, from the instant of his conception. And so Peter said to him, “You know all things” (below 21:17). And the Psalm (88:25) says: “My truth,” i.e., the knowledge of every truth, “and my mercy,” i.e., the fulness of all graces, “shall be with him.”
190 In a third way these words can be explained in relation to his dignity as head, i.e., inasmuch as Christ is the head of the Church. In this way it is his prerogative to communicate grace to others, both by producing virtue in the minds of men through the inpouring of grace and by meriting, through his teaching and works and the sufferings of his death, superabundant grace for an infinite number of worlds, if there were such. Therefore, he is full of grace insofar as he conferred perfect justice upon us. We could not acquire this perfect justice through the law, which was infirm and could make no one just or bring anyone to perfection. As we read: “The law was powerless because it was weakened by the flesh. God, sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and in reparation for sin, condemned sin in his flesh” (Rom 8:3).
Again, he was full of truth insofar as he fulfilled the figures of the Old Law and the promises made to the fathers. “Christ was a minister to the circumcised to confirm the promises made to the fathers” (Rom 15:8); “All the promises of God are fulfilled in him” (2 Cor 1:20).
Further, he is said to be full of grace because his teaching and manner of life were most gracious. “Grace is poured out upon your lips” (Ps 44:3). And so it is said, “All the people came to him early in the morning,” i.e., in the morning they were eager to come (Lk 21:38). He was full of truth, because he did not teach in enigmas and figures, nor gloss over the vices of men, but preached the truth to all, openly and without deception. As it says below: “Now you are speaking plainly” (16:29).
LECTURE 9
15 John bore witness to him, and he cried out saying:
“This is the one of whom I said: