Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying,
I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
All Commentaries on John 8:12 Go To John 8
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Then said Jesus again unto them, I am the Light of the world. The Gloss connects these words with what had immediately preceded, in this way:—"He adds what His Divinity could effect, in order that no one should doubt His power of forgiving sin." Marvel not that I set free the adulteress from the darkness of sin, for I am the uncreated Light of the world, i.e, God. And He adds below (ver15), "Judge no one;" I neither sentence nor acquit the woman in a human court, but in the court of heaven. But others refer back His words to verse2 , where His discourse had been broken off by the Scribes. Having put them to shame, He resumes His teaching. So S. Chrysostom and others. S. Chrysostom adds, "The Jews objected to Christ that He was a Galilean; He shows that He was not merely one of the Prophets, but the Lord of heaven and earth."
I am the Light of the world; and hence the Manicheans thought that He was the sun. And S. Augustine, being a Platonist, at one time had his doubts about it (see Euchir. lviii.) But commenting on this passage he mentions and confutes their folly. "Christ the Lord was not the sun which was made, He was its Maker, "For all things were made by Him," &c. He therefore is the Light, which made this light of ours. Let us love It, let us long to understand It, let us thirst for It, that so at length we may attain to the Light Itself, and so live therein that we may never die. For He is the Light, of whom the Psalmist foretold, "Thou shalt save both man and beast, so multifold is Thy mercy."" And further on, "By this Light was the light of the sun made, and the Light which made the sun (beneath which He made us also) was made beneath the sun for our sakes. Hebrews , I say who made the sun. Despise not the veil (nubem) of His flesh. The sun is covered by a cloud, not to obscure, but to temper its rays. Speaking then through the veil of His flesh, the Light which never fails, the Light of knowledge, the Light of wisdom says to men, I am the Light of the world." But how Christ as God is the boundless and uncreated Light and as man the created "light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," I have shown at length on chap. i4 , and also on Is. xlv1 , that Christ is the Sun of His Kingdom.
Of this world. And not, like the Prophets, merely the light of Israel and Judah. He tacitly here foretells the conversion of the Gentiles. So S. Cyril, who adds that He here alludes to the pillar of the cloud in the wilderness. For Christ as a brilliant light shines before us in the darkness and sin of the world, and guides us to heaven. He that followeth Me, by believing in Me as the Christ, and obeying My commands, walketh not in darkness, in which the wise men of this world walked, but liveth without error and sin, in the light of true faith and virtue.
But shall have the light of life. "Now by faith, hereafter by sight," says S. Augustine, who adds "These words agree with those of the Psalmist, "In Thy Light shall we see light, for with Thee is the fount of life."" In things of the body the light is one thing, the fountain another. But with God the Light and the Fount are one and the same. It shines for thee, that thou mayest see; It flows for thee, that thou mayest drink. If thou followest this sun which thou seest, it leaves thee when it sets; but if thou fallest not away from God, He will never set to thee.
The light of life, therefore, according to Augustine and Bede, the light of glory, giving blessing to the faithful and saints which they themselves will obtain from Him in heaven. Others understand by it the light of faith, leading us to glory and very blessedness. For faith is a torch, guiding the faithful through the darkness of the world, showing them the true way of life, by which they can without stumbling attain to eternal blessedness. So S. Cyril, "He will attain to that revelation of the mysteries in Me, which will bring him to eternal life." But (3) the light of life can be explained as the quickening life, for faith, conjoined with the grace of God and charity, is the Divine and supernatural light, which quickens the soul, breathing into it the life of grace here, and the life of glory hereafter.
Hence learn that the doctrine and life of Christ must be imitated by every man who wishes to be truly enlightened, and to be purged from all blindness of mind. S. Thomas Kempis lays this down as an axiom in his golden book (De imitatione Christi), which contains as many axioms as sentences, which I study daily with much delight and profit. I know many who are striving after perfection, and who strive to conform their several actions to some one action, doctrine, or saying of Christ, ever looking at it as their ideal, and endeavouring to set it forth in all their actions. This is a pious and profitable means of attaining perfect holiness. For Christ was specially given as a mirror of sanctity. For what is more holy than the Saint of saints? What brighter than the Sun, and Light Itself? what wiser than Wisdom Itself?
