17. Again, how weighty are the things which this evangelist reports Jesus to have spoken,
when He came back to the temple from Mount Olivet, and after the forgiveness which He
extended to the adulteress, who had been brought before Him by His tempters, as one de-
serving to be stoned: on which occasion He wrote with His finger upon the ground, as if He
would indicate that people of the character of these men would be written on earth, and not
in heaven, as He also admonished His disciples to rejoice that their names were written in
heaven!1648 Or, it may be that He meant to convey the idea that it was by humbling Himself
(which He expressed by bending down His head) that He wrought signs upon the earth; or,
that the time was now come when His law should be written, not, as formerly, on the sterile
stone, but on a soil which would yield fruit. Accordingly, after these incidents, He affirmed
Himself to be the light of the world, and declared that he who followed Him would not walk
in darkness, but would have the light of life. He said, also, that He was “the beginning which
also discoursed to them.”1649 By which designation He clearly distinguished Himself from
the light which He made, and presented Himself as the Light by which all things have been
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made. Consequently, when He said that He was the light of the world, we are not to take
the words to bear simply the sense intended when He addressed the disciples in similar
terms, saying, “Ye are the light of the world.” For they are compared only to the kindled
light, which is not to be put beneath a bushel, but to be set upon a candlestick;1650 as He
also says of John the Baptist, that “he was a burning and shining light.”1651 But He is Himself
the beginning, of whom it is likewise declared, that “of His fulness have all we received.”1652
On the occasion presently under review, He asserted further that He, the Son, is the Truth,
which will make us free, and without which no man will be free.1653
18. Next, after telling the story of the giving of sight to the man who was blind from his
birth, John tarries for a space over the copious discourse to which that incident gave occasion,
on the subject of the sheep, and the shepherd, and the door, and the power of laying down
His life and taking it again, wherein He gave token of the supreme might of His divinity.
Thereafter, he relates how, at the time when the feast of the dedication was being celebrated
in Jerusalem, the Jews said to Him, “How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the
Christ, tell us plainly.”1654 And then he reports the sublime words which the Lord uttered
1648 Luke x. 20.
1649 Se esse principium quod et loqueretur eis, as the rendering of the τὴν ἀρχὴν ὁ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν in John
viii. 25.
1650 Matt. v. 14, 15.
1651 John v. 35.
1652 John i. 16.
1653 John viii. 36.
1654 John x. 24.
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Of the Evangelist John, and the Distinction Between Him and the Other T…