‘He who comes after me, ranks ahead of me,
because he existed before me.’”
191 Having given the evidence by which the Word was made known to the apostles by sight, the Evangelist then presents the evidence by which the Word was made known to persons other than the apostles by their hearing the testimony of John. He does three things about this. First, the witness is presented. Secondly, his manner of testifying is indicated. Thirdly, his testimony is given.
192 So he says: We indeed have seen his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father. But we are not believed, perhaps because we are held in suspicion. So let his witness come forth, that is, John the Baptist, who bears witness to Christ. He is a faithful witness who will not lie: “A faithful witness will not lie” (Prv 14:5), “You sent [messengers] to John, and he bore witness to the truth” (below 5:33). John gives his testimony here and fulfills his office with perseverance because he came as a witness. As Proverbs (12:19) says, “Truthful lips endure forever.”
193 Then when he says, John bore witness to him, and he cried out, he describes the way he bore witness, that is, it was with a cry. So he says, he cried out, i.e., freely without fear. “Cry out in a loud voice.... Say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God” (Is 40:9). He cried out ardently and with great fervor, because it is said, “His word burned like a torch” (Si 48:1); “Seraphim cried one to another” (Is 6:3), which is expressive of a more interior eagerness of spirit. The use of a cry shows that the statements of the witness are not made to a few in figurative language or secretly, but that a truth is being declared openly and publicly, and told not to a few but to many. “Cry out, and do not stop” (Is 58:1).
194 Then he adds his testimony. And he does two things. First, he shows that his testimony was continuous. Secondly, he describes the person to whom he bore witness.
195 The testimony of the Baptist was continuous because he bore witness to him not only once but many times, and even before Christ had come to him. And so he says, This is the one of whom I said, i.e., before I saw him in the flesh I bore witness to him. “And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High” (Lk 1:76). He pointed him out both as present and when about to come. And his testimony is certain because he not only predicted that he would come, but pointed him out when he was present, saying, Look! There is the Lamb of God. This implies that Christ was physically present to John; for he had often come to John before being baptized.
196 Then he describes the one to whom he bore witness, saying, He who comes after me, ranks ahead of me. Here we should note that John does not at once preach to his disciples that Christ is the Son of God, but he draws them little by little to higher things: first, by preferring Christ to himself, even though John had such a great reputation and authority as to be considered the Christ or one of the great prophets. Now he compares Christ to himself: first, with regard to the order of their preaching; secondly, as to the order of dignity; and thirdly, as to the time of their existence.
197 With respect to the order of their preaching, John preceded Christ as a servant precedes his master, and as a soldier his king, or as the morning star the sun: “See, I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me” (Mal 3:1). So, He comes after me, in being known to men, through my preaching. Observe that comes is in the present tense, became in Greek the present participle is used.
Now John preceded Christ for two reasons. First, according to Chrysostom, because John was a blood relation of Christ according to the flesh: “your relative, Elizabeth” (Lk 1.36). Therefore, had he borne witness to Christ after knowing him, his testimony might have been open to question; accordingly, John came preaching before he was acquainted with Christ, in order that his testimony might have more force. Hence he says, “And I did not know him! And yet it was to reveal him to Israel that I came baptizing with water” (below 1:31).
Secondly, John preceded Christ because in things that pass into act from potency, the imperfect is naturally prior to the perfect; hence it is said in 1 Corinthians (15:46): “The spiritual is not first, but the animal.” Accordingly, the perfect doctrine of Christ should have been preceded by the less perfect teaching of John, which was in a certain manner midway between the doctrine of the law and the prophets (which announced the coming of Christ from afar), and the doctrine of Christ, which was clear and plainly made Christ known.
198 He [John] compares him to himself with respect to dignity when he says, he ranks ahead of me [ ante me factus est, literally, he “was made before me”]. It should be noted that it is from this text that the Arians took occasion for their error. For they said that “He who comes after me,” is to be understood of Christ as to the flesh he assumed, but what follows, “was made before me,” can only be understood of the Word of God, who existed before the flesh; and for this reason Christ as the Word was made, and was not coeternal with the Father.
According to Chrysostom, however, this exposition is stupid, because if it were true, the Baptist would not have said, he “was made before me, because he existed before me,” since no one is unaware that if he was before him, he was made before him. He rather would have said the opposite: “He was before me, because he was made before me.” And so, according to Chrysostom, these words should be taken as referring to his [Christ’s] dignity, that is, he was preferred to me and placed ahead of me. It is as though he said: Although Jesus came to preach after me, he was made more worthy than I both in eminence of authority and in the repute of men: “Gold will not be equal to it” (Jb 28:17). Or alternatively: he is preferred ahead of me, that is, before my eyes, as the Gloss says and as the Greek text reads. As if to say: Before my eyes, i.e., in my sight, because he came into my view and was recognized.
199 He compares him to himself with respect to their duration, saying, because he existed before me. As if to say: He was God from all eternity, I am a frail man of time. And therefore, even though I came to preach ahead of him, yet it was fitting that he rank before me in the reputation and opinion of men, because he preceded all things by his eternity: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). “Before Abraham came to be, I am,” as we read below (8:58).
If we understand this passage as saying that he “was made before me,” it can be explained as referring to the order of time according to the flesh. For in the instant of his conception Christ was perfect God and perfect man, having a rational soul perfected by the virtues, and a body possessed of all its distinctive features, except that it lacked perfect size: “A woman shall enclose a man,” i.e., a perfect man (Jer 31:22). Now it is evident that Christ was conceived as a perfect man before John was born; consequently he says that he “was made before me,” because he was a perfect man before I came forth from the womb.
LECTURE10
16 Of his fullness we have all received—indeed, grace upon grace;
17 because, while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
200 He follows with, Of his fullness we have all received words and those that follow to (v 19), “This is the testimony of John,” are taken in two ways. According to Origen, these are the words of John the Baptist and are added by him to support what he had said previously. It is as though he said: Truly, he existed before me, because of his fullness, i.e., of his grace, not only I but all, including the prophets and patriarchs, have received, because all had the grace they possessed by faith in the incarnate Word. According to this explanation, John the Baptist began weaving the story of the incarnation at, “John bore witness to him” (v 15).
But according to Augustine and Chrysostom, the words from “John bore witness to him” (v 15), are those of John the Evangelist. And they are connected with the previous words, “full of grace and truth,” as though he were saying: Above, the Evangelist gave the evidence for the Word which was learned through sight and by hearing, but here he explains each. First, how he was made known to the apostles through sight, which was tantamount to receiving the evidence from Christ. Secondly, how John bore witness to him, at “This is the testimony of John” (v 19). As to the first he does two things. First, he shows that Christ is the origin, as a fountain, of every spiritual grace. Secondly, he shows that grace is dispensed to us through him and from him.
201 He says first of all: We know from our own experience that we have seen him full of grace and truth, because of his fullness we have all received. Now one fullness is that of sufficiency, by which one is able to perform acts that are meritorious and excellent, as in the case of Stephen. Again, there is a fullness of superabundance, by which the Blessed Virgin excels all the saints because of the eminence and abundance of her merits. Further, there is a fullness of efficiency and overflow, which belongs only to the man Christ as the author of grace. For although the Blessed Virgin superabounds her grace into us, it is never as authoress of grace. But grace flowed over from her soul into her body: for through the grace of the Holy Spirit, not only was the mind of the Virgin perfectly united to God by love, but her womb was supernaturally impregnated by the Holy Spirit. And so after Gabriel said, “Hail, full of grace,” he refers at once to the fullness of her womb, adding, “the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). And so the Evangelist, in order to show this unique fullness of efficiency and overflow in Christ, said, Of his fullness we have all received, i.e., all the apostles and patriarchs and prophets and just men who have existed, do now exist, and will exist, and even all the angels.
202 Note that the preposition de [of, from] sometimes signifies efficiency, i.e., an originative cause, as when it is said that a ray is or proceeds “from” the sun. In this way it signifies the efficiency of grace in Christ, i.e., authorship, because the fullness of grace in Christ is the cause of all graces that are in intellectual creatures. “Come to me, all you who desire me, and be filled with my fruits,” that is to say, share in the fullness of those fruits which come from me (Si 24:26).
But sometimes this preposition de signifies consubstantiality, as when it is said that the Son is “of” the Father [ de Patre ] . In this usage, the fullness of Christ is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from him, consubstantial with him in nature, in power and in majesty. For although the habitual gifts in the soul of Christ are other than those in us, nevertheless it is one and the same Holy Spirit who is in him and who fills all those to be sanctified. “One and the same Spirit produces all these” (1 Cor 12:11); “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Jl 2:28); “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him” (Rom 8:9). For the unity of the Holy Spirit produces unity in the Church: “The Spirit of the Lord filled the whole world” (Wis 1:7).
In a third way, the preposition de [of, from] can signify a portion, as when we say “take ‘from’ this bread or wine [ de hoc pane, vel vino ],” i.e., take a portion and not the whole. Taken in this way it signifies that those who take a part derive it from the fullness. For he [Christ] received all the gifts of the Holy Spirit without measure, according to a perfect fullness; but we participate through him some portion of his fullness; and this is according to the measure which God grants to each. “Grace has been given to each of us according to the degree to which Christ gives it” (Eph 4:7).