Commentary on the Johannine prologue

Man is the signature work of God and a light that comes from him, but his life has a beginning and in his flesh he will eventually die. For this reason, John bears witness that God himself is not like this. He was the true light that is never darkened by any shadow, that knows no time of serving or ruling, waning or waxing, but shines of its own accord, the ordering of all order and the light of all light. For God never arose in any morn or any dawn: Before time he eternally was.

The true light illumines every man coming into this world. For this light suffuses with the breath of life every human being who has flesh and bones and enters into the present world of change, growth, and decay through the gate of birth, so that, when the sun with its luminaries has welcomed him, he may see and recognize creatures. For God awakened the first man that he formed from clay with the living spark of the soul, so that, by that spark, he might be changed from clay into flesh and blood. So in Adam's posterity, when the foam of semen has been pressed out by nature, it is completely transformed into flesh and blood by the fiery spark of the soul. If it were not quickened in this way by the warmth of the soul, it would not be completely transformed into flesh and blood, even as the matter of the first man would have remained clay if it had not been changed by the soul. For just as bread is made from flour by the action of fire and water, flesh and blood are produced by the fire of the soul.

Man is, so to speak, the light of the other creatures dwelling on earth, who frequently run up to him and fawn on him with great love. And, in return, a person often lovingly seeks to fulfill the wishes of a creature he ardently loves. But a creature that does not love human beings flees from them and tramples and destroys everything that belongs to them, because, terrified by the fear of humans, it is angered by their very existence. Therefore, it frequently attacks people and tries to kill them.

The Word was in the world when he put on the royal garment taken from the Virgin's flesh, when the holy divinity lay down in her womb. For he became man in an alien nature, unlike any other man, because his flesh was inflamed by holy divinity. Therefore, after the last day, when all human beings have been transfigured, the souls of the elect by faith will lift their bodies into heaven, the same bodies that once existed in the world. This is what God himself will do by his own power, to which no creature can set any limits, for then man will be clothed with flesh and his bones filled with marrow. He will never again become weak for want of food or drink or life, for then he will come forth in the strength of divinity with no taint of mutability, because in goodness he is a member of Christ-who in the world endured many sufferings and humiliations, even though he was the Son of God. The devil, the inventor of all falsehood, could not know this and hastened to deny Christ, together with all his members who reject God. Yet he could not prevent humankind from being raised up to unending life.