John 1:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore, lest anyone think the same about John, the Evangelist immediately destroys this thought from the very beginning. Tearing it up by the roots, he shows who the witness is, who He is concerning Whom he testifies, and what difference lies between them.

Having done this and shown the incomparable superiority of the latter over the former, the Evangelist proceeds to the following narrative without danger.

If anything absurd existed in the thoughts of foolish men, he has carefully removed it all. Then he proceeds to the continuation of his discourse without any difficulty or hindrance.

Therefore let us pray that, while such lofty truths are revealed and right doctrine is taught, our life may also be pure and our conduct blameless. Teaching brings us no benefit when we do not have good works.

Even if we had complete faith and understanding of the Scriptures, nothing would save us from the fire of Gehenna and the unquenchable flame in eternity if we lacked a good direction in life.

As those who do good works will rise to eternal life, so those who dare to do evil works will rise to eternal and endless punishment.

Therefore let us devote all care to this: that we not destroy the fruits of right faith by evil deeds. Rather, through a good life, let us behold Christ with boldness.

There can be no blessedness higher than this. May we be able to attain it, doing all things to the glory of God, to Whom be glory, with the Only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Indeed, is he not greatly exalted and altogether wondrous, who was so distinguished by righteousness that he reflected Christ Himself? Because of the remarkable beauty of his reverence, he was even considered to be the Light itself.

Therefore, he says, he was not the Light, but was sent for testimony concerning the Light. By saying "the Light," to phos, with the article, he clearly indicates the one true Light.

We shall not deny that the blessed Baptist, or even each of the saints, may rightly be called light, because of what our Savior said about them: "You are the light of the world" (Mt 5:14).

It is also said of the holy Baptist, "I have prepared a lamp for My Christ" (Ps 131:17). And again: "He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light" (Jn 5:35).

But although the saints are light and the Baptist is a lamp, we must not overlook the grace and gift given to them from the Light. The light in the lamp is not its own, and the illumination in the saints is not their own.

Rather, by the radiance of truth they are made bright and shining. They are lights in the world, "holding fast the word of life" (Phil 2:15-16).

What life is this, whose word they held, and by which they were called lights, except the Only-begotten Himself, Who says, "I am the Life" (Jn 14:6)?

Therefore there is in reality one true Light, Who illumines and is not illumined. If, through participation in this one Light, something else is also called light, it must be understood as such by imitation of Him.

Listen to what follows: "That was the true Light, which illumines every man coming into the world" (Jn 1:9). John does not illumine every man. Christ illumines every man.

John acknowledged that he was a lamp, so as not to be extinguished by the wind of pride. A lamp can be both kindled and extinguished. The Word of God cannot be extinguished. A lamp always can.

For if you think that the mountain is the light, you will suffer shipwreck on the mountain and find no consolation in the harbor. But at what should you marvel? At the mountain as a mountain.

Therefore strive upward to Him Who illumines the mountain. The mountain was set there to receive the rays first and communicate them to your eyes. For this reason he is not the Light.

Otherwise they will be forced to speak of two worlds, one created by the Son and the other by the Word. Or, if the world is one and creation is one, it follows that the same One is Son and Word, before all creation, because creation came to be through Him.

He did not confine himself to general exhortations and rebukes. He denounced with truly prophetic sharpness and directness. "You brood of vipers!" he cried to the crowd of Pharisees and Sadducees who had come to hear his preaching, more to criticize than to confess and repent. "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

According to the Evangelist, "the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by John" (Lk 7:30). Thus they did not accept his mission, even declaring him to be possessed (Lk 7:33).

He exposed all the emptiness and uselessness of their petty ritual disputes and casuistry. For this they in turn hated him. But since John had his authority not from them, but from above, he did not flatter them.

He addressed them with the same prophetic severity as he addressed the crowds they despised, demanding that they "bear worthy fruit of repentance."

In their narrow, pedantic arrogance, they considered their share in the kingdom of the Messiah already secure, simply because they were descendants of Abraham. They supposed that his righteousness would be imputed to them.

In their view, only Israel could find favor with God, precisely by virtue of its ancestral character. They thought and taught that the Kingdom of Heaven would be a purely Jewish kingdom, and that all other nations would be excluded from it.

But John mercilessly overthrew this false casuistic construction. "Do not think to say within yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham," and to exclude you, his supposed sons, from the Kingdom if you do not repent.

Such preaching could not fail to strike the scribes and Pharisees. They enjoyed universal honor among all, yet this man addressed them with threatening rebuke.

They imagined that he would be before them like a reed shaken by the wind. In reality, he proved to be an unshakable oak. Flattery and fear were as foreign to his great soul as his rough mantle would have been among the soft garments of a king in a palace.

The sharp contrast between John's teaching and the teaching of the rabbis appeared with special force in the answers he gave to his various questioners.

If fire threatened the rabbis themselves, what fate, in their opinion, must have awaited ordinary people? Yet from the prophet's mouth thundered words that not only aroused fear, but also directed men toward a higher morality in outward deeds.

When the people heard John's terrible preaching, that "even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire," they asked him in trembling, "What then shall we do?"

He answered them: "He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise" (Lk 3:9-11).

If they would help the hungry and the naked, and see in this their duty of love for mankind, they would thereby prove the sincerity of their repentance.

John embraced all classes with his human sympathy. Like Christ Himself, he rejected none of them. The publicans, despised by all, from whom the Pharisees withdrew as from the accursed, found consolation and assurance that they too could receive a share in the Kingdom of Heaven.

When the publicans asked him, "Teacher, what shall we do?" he answered them: "Collect no more than what is appointed for you."

Soldiers also asked him, "And what shall we do?" He said to them: "Do violence to no one, accuse no one falsely, and be content with your wages."

If the publicans honestly fulfilled their duty, and if the soldiers did not use their strength to insult others, but remained faithful to their standard and content with their modest position, this would be a sign of their good repentance.

It would be a sign of their fidelity to conscience, which would bring down upon them the blessing of God.

Yet while demanding practical fruits of repentance, John also pointed out that all who repented would receive special help from above in their moral efforts. He declared that the help of the Spirit of God was necessary for complete inner transformation.

"I baptize with water, but One mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

The hardened would undergo baptism by fire. To the contrite would be given the heavenly gift of a higher will, higher power, and higher knowledge of God, as well as higher communion with Him.

Knowing the needs of the time and filled with the spirit of the prophets, he could not forget how the Old Testament prophets proclaimed, as a sign of the Messiah's coming, that Jehovah would "pour out His Spirit on all flesh" (Joel 2:28).

They also proclaimed that He would "pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground," and that "His Spirit would be on the house of Israel" (Isa 44:3; Ezek 39:29).

Therefore he could not doubt that the One toward Whom he was only the heralding voice, the One whose sandals he would have counted it too great an honor even to loosen, would come not only with vengeance, but also with blessing.

For this He would bring with Him the highest life-giving power, namely the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thus, under the influence of John's preaching and the extraordinary rite of baptism performed by him, the expectation of the Messiah proclaimed by the new prophet grew and strengthened more and more in the soul of the people.

And this Messiah finally came. He appeared openly before the people after His long, unknown stay in distant Nazareth.

The souls thirsting for light were like brides. He, as the friend of the Bridegroom, escorted them to this Bridegroom. It pleased God to establish such an order for the manifestation of the true Light, that there should be a Forerunner to point Him out.

In this order there is a testimony to the truth. In this there is testimony that John is from God. Since he is from God, He to Whom he bore witness is also from God.

Falsehood could not have such an order. No false messiah could have endured a forerunner without suspicion and disturbance. Nor could a false forerunner have stood firm in his false forerunnership without claiming a higher title for himself.

The truth lies precisely here: the Forerunner, so exalted, humbly turns away the higher title from himself. He says that the One Whom all await is not he, but One coming after him, Whom he will indicate and truly did indicate.

Such is the meaning of John in the economy of arranging the saving path for us, the poor. But this order, once begun, does not cease.

John, sent from God for testimony, has not left the scene and will not leave it until the end of the age. The true Light is in the Lord.

Yet no one comes to Him without witnesses. The Apostles succeeded John, and after them pastors and teachers. In the Church there is always testimony pointing to the unfailing Light in the Lord.

If a soul is troubled by conscience and seeks a reconciler, the pastor points Him out on the Cross. In the Mystery of Repentance he reconciles that soul with God and gives it peace within itself.

If a soul grows weak in struggle and seeks strengthening, the pastor points it to the source of life-giving powers in the Mystery of the Body and Blood of the Lord. He gives it to drink from them, uniting it with the Lord through Communion.

How many need the indication and interpretation of the truth! The pastor points out this truth in the voice of the Church, which is the echo of the voice of her Head Himself.

Thus he calms doubts that are agitated and that agitate. The pastor is the escort of souls to the Bridegroom. Therefore woe to the pastors who make the souls that turn to them stop at themselves.

The instrument of the pastoral word is the prophetic and apostolic sayings. Therefore woe to pastors who invent their own forms of speech.

And woe to souls that, instead of these divinely granted guides, are content either with their own unreliable perceptions or with the directions of self-appointed guides.