I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believes on me should not abide in darkness.
All Commentaries on John 12:46 Go To John 12
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
I am come a Light into the world, &c. Christ calls Himself again and again the Light of the world, which sets forth the true faith in God, His worship, devotion towards Him, virtue, and all things which tend to our salvation, and also dispels the darkness of unbelief, idolatry, and all errors and vices, so that what the sun is in the material world, is He in the spiritual. "The word light," says S. Cyril, "indicates Godhead, for it is the property of God to be the Light of the world. For God in His Essence is spiritual, uncreate, boundless Light, from which every created light, whether spiritual or material, whether of angels or men, whether of the sun or stars or of the elements, is derived as a ray from the Sun." But it is the peculiar property of the Son that He proceeds from God the Father after the manner of a ray, and of light, according to the Nicene Creed: "Light of Light, Very God of Very God." For He proceedeth from the Father by understanding and knowledge, as the verbal expression of the mind, which, like the brightest mirror, represents all things. As the Book of Wisdom says ( Wisdom of Solomon 7: 26), "It is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness." And Hebrews 1:3, "Who being the brightness of His glory, and the image of His substance." And Sirach 24:6 (Vulg.), "I made the never-failing Light to arise in the heavens." These things are spoken of Christ as God. But as man He was sent by God the Father into the world, to enlighten it as the sun in the heavens, when overwhelmed with the darkness of ignorance, unbelief, and sin. See S. John 1:6-7.
Symbolically, S. Gregory (Moral. xxv4) says that eternal Light, which is God, the more changelessly it shines the more piercingly does it see. Even things which are hid it knows well, for it penetrates through all things, and keeps them in memory, because it changelessly abides. And consequently, whenever we conceive in our minds an unworthy thought, we sin in the light. Because It is present to us, even when we are not present to It. And when we walk in crooked ways we stumble against that, from which we are in our deserts far away. But when we believe that we are not seen, we keep our eyes closed in the sunlight. That Isaiah , we hide Him from ourselves, but not ourselves from Him.
The same S. Gregory (Epist. vii32 , ad Dom.) says, "The warmth of the shepherd is the light of the flock. For the priest of the Lord should shine forth in his conduct and life, in order that the people committed to his charge may be able in the mirror of his life to choose what to follow, and see what to correct."
