Light reveals both other things and itself. You light a lamp, for example, to look for a tunic. Then the burning lamp is before you so that you may find the tunic.
Do you light a lamp in order to see the lamp already burning? For a burning lamp is able both to uncover what was hidden in darkness and to show itself to your eyes.
Thus the testimony of light is true, whether it points to itself or to others. Without light you cannot see light, and without light you cannot see anything else that is not light.
If light can reveal what is not light, is it not sufficient to show itself? Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ is able to bear witness concerning Himself.
A burning lamp is able to uncover what else lies hidden in darkness and to show itself to your eyes. So also the Lord Christ separated His faithful from His enemies, the Jews, as light from darkness.
He separated those whom He pierced with the ray of faith from those whose closed eyes He passed by. For this sun also illumines the face of the seeing man and of the blind man.
Both stand alike, and by turning their faces to the sun they are bodily illumined. Yet not both are enlightened by its ray. One sees; the other does not see.
The sun is present beside both. But while the sun is near, one of them is absent from it. So also the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is present everywhere.
For truth is present everywhere, and Wisdom is present everywhere.
Thus the Light bears witness to Himself. He opens sound eyes and is Himself His own witness, that the Light may be known.
But what shall we say about unbelievers? Is He not present for them? He is present for them too. But they have no eyes of the heart with which to see Him.
Light reveals both other things and itself. You light a lamp, for example, to find a tunic. The burning lamp gives you light so that you may find the tunic.
Do you light a lamp in order to see the lamp already burning? A burning lamp can certainly uncover both other things that darkness concealed and itself to your eyes.
So also the Lord Christ made a division between those who believed in Him and His enemies, as between light and darkness. He divided those whom He pierced with the ray of faith from those whose unseeing eyes He illumined.
For the sun also lights the faces both of the seeing man and of the blind man. Each stands and turns his face to the sun. Both are illumined in the flesh, but not both receive light in the eyes.
One sees; the other does not see. The sun shines on both, but for one the sun exists, and for the other it does not.
So also the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is present everywhere, because truth is everywhere and wisdom is everywhere.
One man in the east understands justice. Another understands justice in the west. Is the justice understood by one different from the justice understood by the other?
These men are bodily far from one another, yet they are one in the vision of their mind. The justice that I see while here, if it is justice, is the same justice that a righteous man sees elsewhere.
He may be separated from me in bodily place, yet he is bound to me in the light of that justice.
Thus the Light bears witness to Himself. He opens healthy eyes and acts as witness for Himself, that the Light may be comprehended.
But what of unbelievers? Is He not also for them? He is for them too. But they did not have eyes to see Him.
Hear from the Gospel itself the judgment pronounced upon them: “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (Jn 1:5).
Behold, the Lord says, and says truly: “Even if I bear witness about Myself, My testimony is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going.”
He wished the Father to be understood. The Son was bringing glory to the Father. If One equal to Him glorifies Him who sent Him, how much more should man, whom He created, glorify Him?
“I know where I came from and where I am going.” He who speaks with you, Jews, standing near you, remains in the heavens, which He did not leave, and yet He came here.
For in coming, He did not depart from there. In returning there, He did not leave us. Why do you wonder? He is God.
This cannot be accomplished by a man. It cannot be accomplished even by the sun. When the sun goes to the west, it leaves the east.
Until it returns to the east in order to rise, it is not in the east. But our Lord Jesus Christ came here while remaining there, and went back while remaining here.
Hear the Evangelist himself speaking elsewhere, and, if you can, understand. If you cannot, believe: “No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (Jn 1:18).
He did not say, “who was in the bosom of the Father,” as though, by coming here, He had left the bosom of the Father.
He said this here, and at the same time declared that He is present there. And when He was about to depart, what did He say?
“And behold, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). Therefore the testimony of the Light is true. It illumines both Himself and other things.
Without light you cannot see light. Without light you cannot see anything that is not light. If light can show what is not light, is it unable to show itself?
Does not the light, without which other things cannot be seen, show itself? The prophet spoke truth, but whence did he have it, if he did not receive it from the source of truth?
John spoke truth, but by what power did he speak? Ask him himself: “Of His fullness we have all received” (Jn 1:16). Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ can fully bear witness about Himself.
Yet, my brethren, let us listen in the night of this age and receive prophecy. For now our Lord wished to come to our weakness and to the deep darkness of our hearts in humility.
He came as man, to receive contempt and honor. He came to be rejected and acknowledged. He came to receive contempt from the Jews and to be rejected by them.
He came to receive honor among us and to be acknowledged by us. He came to be judged and to judge: to be judged unjustly and to judge justly.
Therefore He came in such a way that He needed a lamp to bear witness to Him. Why would John, as a lamp, need to bear witness to the Day, if the Day Himself could have been detected by our weakness?
But we could not see Him. He became weak for the weak. Through weakness He healed weakness. Through mortal flesh He removed the death of the flesh.
From His body He prepared ointment for our lamps.
And since the Lord came to us while we were still in the night of this age, it was fitting that we should also hear the prophecies.
It is precisely from the prophecies that we convict the slanderous pagans. “Who is Christ?” asks the pagan. We answer him: “He whom the prophets foretold.”
And he says, “What prophets?” We read him Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, and the other holy prophets. We say how much earlier they came than He did, and how long they preceded His coming.
We answer that the prophets came before Him and foretold that He would come. Someone among them may reply, “What prophets?”
We read to him those whom we read daily. And he says, “Who are these prophets?” We answer, “Those who foretold what is happening before our eyes.”
Then he says, “You invented them for yourselves. You saw what was happening and wrote it in books according to your own judgment, as if it had been predicted.”
Here, against our pagan enemies, rises the testimony of our other enemies. Let us open the codices of the Jews and answer:
“Certainly, both you and they are enemies of our faith. Therefore the Jews have been scattered among the pagans, so that we may convict one set of enemies by means of another.
“Let us take from the Jews the book of Isaiah. Do I not read there: ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He did not open His mouth.
“‘In His humiliation His judgment was taken away. By His wounds we were healed. We all went astray like sheep, and He was delivered up for our sins’” (cf. Is 53:5-8).
Behold, this is one lamp. Let us look at another. Let us open the psalm, where one may also read a prediction concerning the Passion of Christ:
“They pierced My hands and My feet. They counted all My bones. They looked upon Me and watched Me. They divided My garments among themselves, and for My clothing they cast lots.
“With You is My praise; in the great Church I will praise You. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord.
“All the families of every part of it shall worship before You, for the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations” (cf. Ps 21:17-19, 26, 28-29).
Let one enemy be ashamed, since another enemy serves us by giving the book. See, by means of the book given by one enemy, I have overcome the other.
And the one who gave me the book will not be left in peace. He will be overthrown by the same book that he supplied to me.
I read another prophet and find the Lord addressing the Jews: “I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands.
“For from the rising of the sun to its setting, a pure sacrifice will be offered to My name” (cf. Mal 1:10-11). You, Jew, have not attained the pure sacrifice. I convict you of impurity.
See, the lamps bear witness to the Day because of our weakness, since we cannot endure and behold the splendor of the Day.
We Christians, compared with pagans, are certainly light. Therefore the Apostle says, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Eph 5:8).
And elsewhere he said, “The night has passed, and the day has drawn near. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
“Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day” (Rom 13:12-13).
Yet, compared with that Light to which we strive to come, even the day in which we dwell is night. Hear the Apostle Peter.
He says that a voice came to the Lord Christ from the Higher Majesty: “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
“This voice,” he says, “which came from heaven, we heard when we were with Him on the holy mountain” (2 Pet 1:17-19).
But since we were not there and did not then hear this voice from heaven, Peter himself says to us: “We have the prophetic word made more sure” (2 Pet 1:19).
“You did not hear the voice sent down from heaven, but you have the prophetic word made more sure. For the Lord Jesus Christ foresaw that certain ungodly men would slander His miracles.
“They would ascribe them to magical arts, and therefore He sent the prophets before Him.” For even if He had been a magician and had used magical arts to make Himself honored after death, was He a magician before His birth?
Hear the prophets, O dead man, O man worthy to become food for worms. Hear the prophets. I read them; hear those who came before the Lord.
“We have,” says the Apostle Peter, “the prophetic word made more sure. You do well to attend to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns.
“And until the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet 1:19).
And when our Lord Jesus Christ comes and, as the Apostle Paul also says, illumines what is hidden in darkness and reveals the intentions of the heart, then each shall have praise from God (1 Cor 4:5).
When such a day comes, lamps will not be needed. Then the prophet will not be read by us. There will be no need to open the Apostle’s codex.
We shall not seek John’s testimony, nor will we need even the Gospel itself. All the Scriptures will then be removed, which have been kindled for us in the night of this age like lamps.
They were lit so that we might not remain in darkness now. When all this is removed, it will no longer shine for us as though we needed additional lamps.
Then the very men of God through whom these Scriptures served their ministry will see with us that true and clear Light.
Therefore, when these helps have been removed, what shall we see? From where will our mind be satisfied? From where will this sight be filled with joy?
THEOSIS