14. How the Natures of Men are Not So Fixed from the First, But that They May Pass from Darkness to Light.
We have been discussing certain things which are opposite, and what has been said of them may serve to suggest what has been omitted. We are speaking of life and the light of men, and the opposite to life is death; the opposite to the light of men, the darkness of men. It is therefore plain that he who is in the darkness of men is in death, and that he who works the works of death is nowhere but in darkness. But he who is mindful of God, if we consider what it is to be mindful of Him, is not in death, according to the saying, “In death there is no one who remembers Thee.” Are the darkness of men, and death, such as they are by nature? On this point we have another passage, “We were once darkness, but now light in the Lord,” even if we be now in the fullest sense saints and spiritual persons. Thus he who was once darkness has become, like Paul, capable of being light in the Lord. Some consider that some natures are spiritual from the first, such as those of Paul and the holy Apostles; but I scarcely see how to reconcile with such a view, what the above text tells us, that the spiritual person was once darkness and afterwards became light. For if the spiritual was once darkness what can the earthy have been? But if it is true that darkness became light, as in the text, how is it unreasonable to suppose that all darkness is capable of becoming light? Had not Paul said, “We were once in darkness, but now are we light in the Lord,” and thus implied of those whom they consider to be naturally lost, that they were darkness, or are darkness still, the hypothesis about the different natures might have been admissible. But Paul distinctly says that he had once been darkness but was now light in the Lord, which implies the possibility that darkness should turn into light. But he who perceives the possibility of a change on each side for the better or for the worse, will not find it hard to gain an insight into every darkness of men, or into that death which consists in the darkness of men.
Heracleon's View that the Lord Brought Life Only to the Spiritual. Refutation of This
15. Heracleon’s View that the Lord Brought Life Only to the Spiritual. Refutation of This.
Heracleon adopts a somewhat violent course when he arrives at this passage, “What was made in Him was life.” Instead of the “In Him” of the text he understands “to those men who are spiritual,” as if he considered the Logos and the spiritual to be identical, though this he does not plainly say; and then he proceeds to give, as it were, an account of the origin of the matter and says, “He (the Logos) provided them with their first form at their birth, carrying further and making manifest what had been sown by another, into form and into illumination and into an outline of its own.” He did not observe how Paul speaks of the spiritual, and how he refrains from saying that they are men. “A natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; but the spiritual judgeth all things.” We maintain that it was not without a meaning that he did not add the word men to the word spiritual. Spiritual is something better than man, for man receives his form either in soul, or in body, or in both together, not in what is more divine than these, namely, in spirit; and it is after he has come to have a prevailing share of this that he is called “spiritual.” Moreover, in bringing forward such a hypothesis as this, he furnishes not even the pretence of a proof, and shows himself unable to reach even a moderate degree of plausibility for his argument on the subject. So much, then, for him.
The Life May Be the Light of Others Besides
16. The Life May Be the Light of Others Besides.
Let us suggest another question, namely, whether the life was the light of men only, and not of every being as well that is in blessedness. For if the life were the same thing as the light of men, and if the light of Christ were for men alone, then the life also would be only for men. But such a view is both foolish and impious, since the other Scriptures testify against this interpretation and declare that, when we are somewhat more advanced, we shall be equal to the angels. The question is to be solved on the principle that when a predicate is applied to certain persons, it is not to be at once taken to apply to them alone. Thus, when the light of men is spoken of, it is not the light of men only; had that been the meaning, a word would have been added to express it; the life, it would have read, was the light of men only. For it is possible for the light of men to be the light of others besides men, just as it is possible that certain animals and certain plants may form the food of men, and that the same animals and plants should be the food of other creatures too. That is an example from common life; it is fitting that another analogy should be adduced from the inspired books. Now the question here before us, is why the light of men should not be the light of other creatures also, and we have seen that to speak of the light of men by no means excludes the possibility that the light may be that of other beings besides man, whether inferior to him or like him. Now a name is given to God; He is said to be the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. He, then, who infers from the saying, “The life was the light of men,” that the light is for no other than for men, ought also to conclude that the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob is the God of no one else but these three patriarchs. But He is also the God of Elijah, and, as Judith says, of her father Simeon, and the God of the Hebrews. By analogy of reasoning, then, if nothing prevents Him from being the God of others, nothing prevents the light of men from being the light of others besides men.
The Higher Powers are Men; And Christ is Their Light Also
17. The Higher Powers are Men; And Christ is Their Light Also.
Another, again, appeals to the text, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” and maintains that whatever is made according to God’s image and likeness is man. To support this, numberless instances are adduced to show that in Scripture “man” and “angel” are used indifferently, and that the same subject is entitled both angel and man. This is true of the three who were entertained by Abraham, and of the two who came to Sodom; in the whole course of Scripture, persons are styled sometimes men, sometimes angels. Those who hold this view will say that since persons are styled angels who are manifestly men, as when Zechariah says, “The messenger of the Lord, I am with you, saith the Lord Almighty,” and as it is written of John the Baptist, “Behold I send My messenger before thy face,” the angels (messengers) of God are so called on account of their office, and are not here called men on account of their nature. It confirms this view that the names applied to the higher powers are not those of species of living beings, but those of the orders, assigned by God to this and to that reasonable being. “Throne” is not a species of living being, nor “dominion,” nor “principality,” nor “power”; these are names of the businesses to which those clothed with the names have been appointed; the subjects themselves are nothing but men, but the subject has come to be a throne, or a dominion, or a principality, or a power. In Joshua, the son of Nun, we read that in Jericho there appeared to Joshua a man who said, “I am captain of the Lord’s host, now am I come.” The outcome of this is that the light of men must be held to be the same as the light of every being endowed with reason; for every reasonable being is man, since it is according to the image and likeness of God. It is spoken of in three different ways, “the light of men,” and simply “the light,” and “the true light.” It is the light of men either, as we showed before, because there is nothing to prevent us from regarding it as the light of other beings besides men, or because all beings endowed with reason are called men because they are made in the image of God.
How God Also is Light, But in a Different Way; And How Life Came Before Light
18. How God Also is Light, But in a Different Way; And How Life Came Before Light.
The Saviour is here called simply light. But in the Catholic Epistle of this same John we read that God is light. This, it has been maintained, furnishes a proof that the Son is not in substance different from the Father. Another student, however, looking into the matter more closely and with a sounder judgment, will say that the light which shines in darkness and is not overtaken by it, is not the same as the light in which there is no darkness at all. The light which shines in darkness comes upon this darkness, as it were, and is pursued by it, and, in spite of attempts made upon it, is not overtaken. But the light in which there is no darkness at all neither shines on darkness, nor is at first pursued by it, so as to prove victor and to have it recorded that it was not overtaken by its pursuer. The third designation was “the true light.” But in proportion as God, since He is the Father of truth, is more and greater than truth, and since He is the Father of wisdom is greater and more excellent than wisdom, in the same proportion He is more than the true light. We may learn, perhaps, in a more suggestive manner, how the Father and the Son are two lights, from David, who says in the thirty-fifth Psalm, “In Thy light we shall see light.” This same light of men which shines in darkness, the true light, is called, further on in the Gospel, the light of the world; Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” Nor must we omit to notice that whereas the passage might very well have run, “That which was made was in Him the light of men, and the light of men was life,” he chose the opposite order. He puts life before the light of men, even if life and the light of men are the same thing; in thinking of those who have part in life, though that life is also the light of men, we are to come first to the fact that they are living the divine life spoken of before; then we come to their enlightenment. For life must come first if the living person is to be enlightened; it would not be a good arrangement to speak of the illumination of one not yet conceived as living, and to make life come after the illumination. For though “life” and “the light” of men are the same thing, the notions are taken separately. This light of men is also called, by Isaiah, “the light of the Gentiles,” where he says, “Behold I have set Thee for a covenant of the generation, for a light of the Gentiles;” and David, placing his confidence in this light, says in the twenty-sixth Psalm, “The Lord is my illumination and my Saviour; whom shall I fear?”
The Life Here Spoken of is the Higher Life, that of Reason
19. The Life Here Spoken of is the Higher Life, that of Reason.
As for those who make up a mythology about the æons and arrange them in syzygies (yokes or pairs), and who consider the Logos and Life to have been emitted by Intellect and Truth, it may not be beside the point to state the following difficulties. How can life, in their system, the yokefellow of the Word, derive his origin from his yokefellow? For “what was made in Him,” he says, evidently referring to the Word, mentioned immediately before, “was life.” Will they tell us how life, the yokefellow, as they say, of the Word, came into being in the Word, and how life rather than the Word is the light of men. It would be quite natural if men of reasonable minds, who are perplexed with such questions and find the point we have raised hard to dispose of, should turn round upon us and invite us to discuss the reason why it is not the Word that is said to be the light of men, but life which originated in the Word. To such an enquiry we shall reply that the life here spoken of is not that which is common to rational beings and to beings without reason, but that life which is added to us upon the completion of reason in us, our share in that life, being derived from the first reason (Logos). It is when we turn away from the life which is life in appearance only, not in truth, and when we yearn to be filled with the true life, that we are made partakers of it, and when it has arisen in us it becomes the foundation of the light of the higher knowledge (gnosis). With some it may be that this life is only potentially and not actually light, with those who do not strive to search out the things of the higher knowledge, while with others it is actually light. With these it clearly is so who act on Paul’s injunction, “Seek earnestly the best gifts;” and among the greatest gifts is that which all are enjoined to seek, namely, the word of wisdom, and it is followed by the word of knowledge. This wisdom and this knowledge lie side by side; into the difference between them this is not a fitting occasion to enquire.
Different Kinds of Light; And of Darkness
20. Different Kinds of Light; And of Darkness.
“And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness hath not overtaken it.” We are still enquiring about the light of men, since it is what was spoken of in the preceding verse, and also, I consider, about darkness, which is named as its adversary, the darkness also being, if the definition of it is correct, that of men. The light of men is a generic notion covering two special things; and with the darkness of men it is the same. He who has gained the light of men and shares its beams will do the work of light and know in the higher sense, being illuminated by the light of the higher knowledge. And we must recognize the analogous case of those on the other side, and of their evil actions, and of that which is thought to be but is not really knowledge, since those who exercise it have the reason (Logos) not of light but of darkness. And because the sacred word knows the things which produce light, Isaiah says: “Because Thy commandments are a light upon the earth,” and David says in the Psalm, “The precept of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes.” But since in addition to the commandments and the precepts there is a light of higher knowledge, we read in one of the twelve (prophets), “Sow to yourselves for righteousness, reap to yourselves for the fruit of life, make light for yourselves the light of knowledge.” There is a further light of knowledge in addition to the commandments, and so we read, “Make light for yourselves,” not simply light, but what light?—the light of knowledge. For if any light that a man kindles for himself were a light of knowledge, then the added words, “Make light for yourselves, the light of knowledge,” would have no meaning. And again that darkness is brought upon men by their evil deeds, we learn from John himself, when he says in his epistle, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth,” and again, “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now,” and again, “He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because darkness hath blinded his eyes.” Walking in darkness signifies evil conduct, and to hate one’s brother, is not that to fall away from that which is properly called knowledge? But he also who is ignorant of divine things walks in darkness, just because of that ignorance; as David says, “They knew not, they understood not, they walk in darkness.” Consider, however, this passage, “God is light and in Him is no darkness,” and see if the reason for this saying is not that darkness is not one, being either two, because there are two kinds of it, or many, because it is taken distributively, individually with reference to the many evil actions and the many false doctrines; so that there are many darknesses, not one of which is in God. The saying of the Saviour could not be spoken of the Holy One, “Ye are the light of the world;” for the Holy One is light of the world (absolute, not particular), and there is not in Him any darkness.
Christ is Not, Like God, Quite Free from Darkness: Since He Bore Our Sins
21. Christ is Not, Like God, Quite Free from Darkness: Since He Bore Our Sins.
Now some one will ask how this statement that there is no darkness in Him can be regarded as a thing peculiar to Him, when we consider that the Saviour also was quite without sin. Could it not be said of Him also that “He is light, and that there is no darkness in Him”? The difference between the two cases has been partly set forth above. We will now, however, go a step further than we did before, and add, that if God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us, then it could not be said of Him that there was no darkness in Him. For if Jesus was in the likeness of the flesh of sin and for sin, and condemned sin by taking upon Him the likeness of the flesh of sin, then it cannot be said of Him, absolutely and directly, that there was no darkness in Him. We may add that “He took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses,” both infirmities of the soul and sicknesses of the hidden man of our heart. On account of these infirmities and sicknesses which He bore away from us, He declares His soul to be sorrowful and sore troubled, and He is said in Zechariah to have put on filthy garments, which, when He was about to take them off, are said to be sins. “Behold, it is said, I have taken away thy sins.” Because He had taken on Himself the sins of the people of those who believed in Him, he uses many such expressions as these: “Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions,” and “Thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins were not hid from Thee.” And let no one suppose that we say this from any lack of piety towards the Christ of God; for as the Father alone has immortality and our Lord took upon Himself, for His love to men, the death He died for us, so to the Father alone the words apply, “In Him is no darkness,” since Christ took upon Himself, for His goodwill towards men, our darknesses. This He did, that by His power He might destroy our death and remove the darkness which is in our soul, so that the saying in Isaiah might be fulfilled, “The people that sat in darkness saw a great light.” This light, which came into being in the Logos, and is also life, shines in the darkness of our souls, and it has come where the rulers of this darkness carry on their struggle with the race of men and strive to subdue to darkness those who do not stand firm with all their power; that they might be enlightened the light has come so far, and that they might be called sons of light. And shining in darkness this light is pursued by the darkness, but not overtaken.