He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
All Commentaries on John 1:11 Go To John 1
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
The Evangelist pursues his plea that the world knew not its Illuminer, that is the Only-Begotten, and from the worse sin of the children of Israel, he hastens to clench the charges against the Gentiles and shews the disease of ignorance alike and unbelief which lay upon the whole world. Very appositely does he drive forward to discourse of the Incarnation, and from speaking of the Godhead 8, he comes down by degrees to the exposition of the Dispensation with Flesh, which the Son made for our sakes.
For it were no marvel if the world knew not, says he, the Only-Begotten, seeing that it had left the understanding that befits man, and was ignorant that it is and was made in honour, and compared to the beasts that perish, as the Divine Psalmist also said; when the very people who were supposed above all to belong to Him shook Him off when present with the Flesh and would not receive Him when He came among them for salvation to all, recompensing to faith the kingdom of Heaven. But observe how exact is his language about these things. For the world he accuses of not at all knowing Him Who lighteth it, elaborating for it a pardon so to speak just on this account, and preparing beforehand reasonable causes for the grace given to it: but of those of Israel who were reckoned among those specially belonging to Him, he says, Received Him not. For it would not have been true to say, Knew Him not, when the older law preached Him, the Prophets who came after led them by the hand to the apprehension of the truth. The sentence therefore of severity upon them was just, even as the goodness too upon the Gentiles. For the world, or the Gentiles, having lost their relation with God through their downfall into evil, lost besides the knowledge of Him Who enlighteneth them: but the others, who were rich in knowledge through the law and called to a polity pleasing to God, were at length voluntarily falling away from it, not receiving the Word of God Who was already known to them and Who came among them as to His own. For the whole world is God's own, in regard of its creation, and its being brought into being from Him and through Him: but Israel will more fitly be called His own 11, and will gain the glory hereof, both on account of the election of the holy fathers and for that he was named the beginning and the first-born of the children of God. For Israelis My son, My first-born, says God somewhere to Moses: whom also setting apart for Himself as one and picked out, He was wont to call His own people, saying to Pharaoh king of Egypt Let My people go. Proof from the books of Moses also shews that Israel specially pertains unto God. For when, it says, the Most High was dividing the nations, when he was separating the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the member of the angels of God, and his people Jacob became the Lord's portion, Israel the lot of his inheritance. Among whom He also walked, as in His own lot and special portion, saying, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
But when He was not received, He transfers the grace to the Gentiles, and the world which knew Him not at the beginning is lighted through repentance and faith, and Israel returns to the darkness whence he had come forth. Wherefore the Saviour too saith, For judgement I am come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.
