And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.
All Commentaries on John 1:16 Go To John 1
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
The Evangelist in these words accepts the true testimony of the Baptist, and makes clear the proof of the superiority of our Saviour, and of His possessing essentially the surpassing every thing originate, both in respect of glory itself (whereof he is now more especially speaking) and of the bright catalogue of all the other good things.
For most excellently, says he, and most truly does the Baptist appear to me to say of the Only-Begotten, For He was before me, that is far surpassing and superior. For all we too, who have been enrolled in the choir of the saints, enjoy the riches of His proper good, and the nature of man is ennobled with His rather than its own excellences, when it is found to have ought that is noble. For from the fulness of the Son, as from a perennial fountain, the gift of the Divine graces springing forth comes to each soul that is found worthy to receive it. But if the Son supplies as of His Natural fulness, the creature is supplied:----how will He not be conceived of as having glory not similar to the rest, but such as will beseem the Only-Begotten of God, having the superiority over all as the fruit of His own Nature, and the pre-eminence as the Dignity of His Father's Being? And I think that the most wise Paul too when defining as to the nature of all things, was moved thereby to true ideas, so as hence at length to address the creature, For what hast thou that thou didst not receive? For together with being, the well-being after such and such wise, is God's gift to the creature, and it has nothing of its own, but becomes rich only with the munificence of Him Who gives to it. But we must note again that he says that the Son is full, that is, All-perfect in all things, and so greatly removed from being lacking in anything whatever, that He can bestow even on all, refusing diminution, and preserving the greatness of His own excellence always the same.
