Among the four Gospels, or rather among the four books of the one Gospel, the holy Apostle John was not without reason spiritually likened to an eagle. He raised his preaching higher than the others and made it more exalted than the other three. Through this height he wished our hearts also to be lifted up.
The other three Evangelists, as it were, walked with the Lord upon the earth, as with a man, and said little concerning His Godhead. But John seemed almost ashamed to walk upon the earth. From the very beginning of his discourse, he soared not only above the earth and every region of air and heaven. He also rose above the whole host of angels and every order of invisible Powers, and reached Him through Whom all things were made, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made" (Jn 1:1, 3).
In the spirit of so lofty a beginning, he continued to preach and spoke of the Lord's divinity as no other did. What he himself had drunk, he gave to us. For it is not without reason that this very Gospel tells how, at the supper, he reclined on the Lord's breast (cf. Jn 13:23). He drank secretly from that breast. What he drank secretly, he openly expressed, so that all nations might understand not only the Incarnation of the Son of God, His Passion, and Resurrection, but also Who He was before the Incarnation: the Only-begotten of the Father. The Word of the Father, coeternal with Him Who begot Him, equal to Him by Whom He was sent, yet in that mission made less, so that the Father might be greater.
Therefore, whatever you hear about the Lord Jesus Christ in His humility, receive it with the divine economy in mind, by which flesh was assumed. In such passages He is as He became for our sake, not as He was in order to create us.
But when you hear or read in the Gospel something said of Him as exalted above every creature, as Divine, equal and coeternal with the Father, understand that what you have read belongs to the form of God, not to the form of a servant (cf. Phil 2:6-7).
If you hold fast to this rule, at least those of you who are able to understand it, you will be walking toward the Light. Not all of you are able to understand it, but all must believe. If you hold this rule, you will contend calmly against the assaults of heretical darkness.
There have been many who, reading the Gospel, followed only those testimonies that concern Christ's humility, while remaining deaf to those that speak of His divinity. They are deaf because they are blasphemous.
There are also many who pay attention only to the passages where the Lord's exaltation is spoken of. Though they read of His mercy, by which He became man for our sake, they did not believe it. They decided it was a lie and a human invention. They asserted that our Lord Christ was only God and was not man.
Some spoke in one way, others in another, and both remained in error. The Catholic faith, however, receives what is true in both understandings and proclaims what it believes. It understands that Christ is God, and it believes that He is man. For both are written, and both are true.
If you call Christ only God, you reject the healing by which you were healed. If you call Christ only man, you reject the power by which you were created. Therefore receive both, faithful soul and Catholic heart. Receive both, believe both, and steadfastly confess both. Christ is God, and Christ is man.
What Christ is God? He is equal to the Father, one with the Father. What Christ is man? He was born of the Virgin, received mortality from man, but did not receive unrighteousness (cf. 1 Pet 2:22).
Thus those Jews saw the man, but neither understood nor believed that He is God. You have already heard what they said to Him among other things: "You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true" (Jn 8:13). You also heard, when this was read yesterday and explained according to our strength, what He answered.
These words of His were also read today: "You judge according to the flesh." "And therefore," He says to them, "you say to Me, 'You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true,' because you judge according to the flesh. You do not see God, but see a man. While persecuting the man, you insult God hidden in the man.
"Therefore you judge according to the flesh. For this reason I seem presumptuous to you, because I bear witness of Myself." For every man, if he wishes to give praiseworthy testimony about himself, seems presumptuous and proud. Therefore it is written: "Let not your own mouth praise you, but the mouth of your neighbor" (cf. Prov 27:2).
But this was said to man, because we are weak and speak with the weak. We can speak both truth and falsehood. Even when we ought to speak the truth, we can lie if we choose. The Light cannot lie. No darkness of falsehood can be thought to appear in the radiance of the Divine Light.
He spoke as Light, and He spoke as Truth. Yet the Light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend Him, because it judged according to the flesh. "You," He said, "judge according to the flesh. I judge no one."
What then? Will the Lord Jesus Christ judge no one? Is He not the One Whom we confess as having risen on the third day, ascended into heaven, and sitting at the right hand of the Father, from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead?
Is this not our faith, of which the Apostle says, "With the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom 10:10)? Then when we confess this, do we speak against the Lord? We say that He will come as Judge of the living and the dead, while He Himself says, "I judge no one."
This question may be resolved in two ways. Either we may understand, "I judge no one," as He says elsewhere, "I came not to judge the world, but to save the world" (Jn 12:47). He does not deny His judgment, but postpones it.
Or, since He said, "You judge according to the flesh," He added, "I judge no one," so that you should understand: "I judge no one according to the flesh." Therefore let none of us leave in his heart the slightest doubt concerning the faith which we hold and proclaim regarding Christ as Judge.
Christ came, first to save, and then to judge. He will sentence to punishment those who refused to be saved, and bring to life those who, having believed, did not reject salvation.
Thus the first divine economy of our Lord Jesus Christ is healing, not judging. For if He had first come to judge, He would have found no one to whom He could give the reward of righteousness. Since He saw that all were sinners, and that no man was free from the death of sin, His mercy first had to be desired, and His judgment sought afterward.
For of this the Psalm sings: "Mercy and judgment I will sing to Thee, O Lord" (Ps 100:1). It does not say, "judgment and mercy." If judgment came first, there would be no mercy. But first comes mercy, and afterward judgment.
What is the mercy that comes first? The Creator of man deigned to become man. He became what He Himself had made, so that the one whom He made might not perish. What can be added to this mercy? Yet He added still more.
It was not enough for Him to become man; He arranged to be rejected by men. It was not enough to be rejected by men; He arranged to be dishonored. It was not enough to be dishonored; He arranged to be killed. Yet even this was not enough: He accepted death on the cross.
When the Apostle spoke to us of His obedience even unto death, it was not enough for him to say, "being obedient unto death." Because it was not merely any death, he added: "even the death of the cross" (Phil 2:8).
Among all kinds of death, nothing was worse than this death. When the sharpest pains are inflicted, people speak of cruciatus, a torment whose name is derived from crux, the cross. Those hanging upon a wooden cross, with hands and feet nailed to the wood, died a slow death.
To be crucified is not simply to be killed. The one condemned to death on a cross remained alive on the cross for a long time. This was not because they wished to prolong his life, but because they prolonged the dying itself, so that the pain would not quickly end.
He wished to die for us, but this, as we have said, was not enough. He chose to be crucified, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross (Phil 2:8).
He Who intended to destroy every death chose an exceptional and the worst kind of death. By the worst death He slew every death. It was worst from the viewpoint of the Jews, who did not understand its mystery.
For it was not by chance that the Lord chose it. He intended to have this very cross as His sign. He intended to place this very cross, like a trophy over the conquered devil, upon the forehead of believers. Thus the Apostle would say: "But God forbid that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal 6:14).
At that time nothing was more unbearable to the flesh than the cross. Now nothing is more glorious upon the forehead. What does He leave to the one who believes in Him, if He has given such honor to the instrument of His execution?
Among the Romans the cross is no longer used for the execution of criminals. Where the Lord's cross is venerated, it has come to be thought that if a criminal were crucified, he would be honored.
Therefore He Who came for such a purpose judged no one, and endured even evil men. He endured an unjust judgment, so that later He might carry out a righteous one. But the unjust judgment He endured belonged to His mercy.
He humbled Himself so greatly that He ascended the cross. In doing so, He laid aside His power, yet revealed His mercy. Where is it seen that He laid aside His power? In this: He refused to come down from the cross, though He was able to rise from the tomb.
Where is it seen that He revealed His mercy? In this: while hanging on the cross, He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34).
Therefore He said, "I judge no one," either because He came not to judge the world, but to save the world, or, as I have already mentioned, because He had said. "You judge according to the flesh." He then added, "I judge no one," so that we might understand that Christ does not judge according to the flesh, as He was judged by men.
THEOSIS