Passage Search

"He came to His own, and His own received Him not." Whence came He, who filleth all things, and who is everywhere present? What place did He empty of His presence, who holdeth and graspeth all things in His hand? He exchanged not one place for another; how should He? But by His coming down to us He effected this. For since, though being in the world, He did not seem to be there, because He was not yet known, but afterwards manifested Himself by deigning to take upon Him our flesh, he (St. John) calls this manifestation and descent "a coming."

Unspeakable of a truth are the riches of the goodness of God, and passing all excess. Consider; "He came to His own," not for His personal need, (for, as I said, the Divinity is without wants,) but to do good unto His own people. Yet not even so did His own receive Him, when He came to His own for their advantage, but repelled Him, and not this only, but they even cast Him out of the vineyard, and slew Him. Yet not for this even did He shut them out from repentance, but granted them, if they had been willing, after such wickedness as this, to wash off all their transgressions by faith in Him, and to be made equal to those who had done no such thing, but are His especial friends.

One might wonder at the disciple who is not ashamed of the dishonor of his Teacher, but even records the insolence which was used towards Him: yet this is no small proof of his truth-loving disposition. And besides, he who feels shame should feel it for those who have offered an insult, not for the person outraged. Indeed He by this very thing shone the brighter, as taking, even after the insult, so much care for those who had offered it; while they appeared ungrateful and accursed in the eyes of all men, for having rejected Him who came to bring them so great goods, as hateful to them, and an enemy.

He came to His own, and His own received Him not, now calling the Jews "His own," as His peculiar people, or perhaps even all mankind, as created by Him. And as above, when perplexed at the folly of the many, and ashamed of our common nature, he said that "the world by Him was made," and having been made, did not recognize its Maker; so here again, being troubled beyond bearing at the stupidity of the Jews and the many, he sets forth the charge in a yet more striking manner, saying, that "His own received Him not," and that too when "He came to them."

For it is a thing indeed worthy of our amazement, how they who were nurtured in knowledge of the prophetical books, who heard Moses every day telling them ten thousand things concerning the coming of the Christ, and the other prophets afterwards, who moreover themselves beheld Christ Himself daily working miracles among them, giving up His time to them alone, neither as yet allowing His disciples to depart into the way of the Gentiles, or to enter into a city of Samaritans, nor doing so Himself, but everywhere declaring that He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: how, I say, while they saw the signs, and heard the Prophets, and had Christ Himself continually putting them in remembrance, they yet made themselves once for all so blind and dull, as by none of these things to be brought to faith in Christ.

For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Wherefore they have suffered this. And again, explaining the same matter in other terms, he says, What shall we say then? That the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness, have attained unto righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. His meaning is this: These men's unbelief has been the cause of their misfortunes, and their haughtiness was parent of their unbelief. For when having before enjoyed greater privileges than the heathen, through having received the law, through knowing God, and the rest which Paul enumerates, they after the coming of Christ saw the heathen and themselves called on equal terms through faith, and after faith received one of the circumcision in nothing preferred to the Gentile, they came to envy and were stung by their haughtiness, and could not endure the unspeakable and exceeding lovingkindness of the Lord. So this has happened to them from nothing else but pride, and wickedness, and unkindness.

"He came unto His own,"-because all these things were made by Him,-"and His own received Him not." Who are they? The men whom He made. The Jews whom He at the first made to be above all nations. Because other nations worshipped idols and served demons; but that people was born of the seed of Abraham, and in an eminent sense His own, because kindred through that flesh which He deigned to assume. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Did they not receive Him at all? Did no one receive Him? Was there no one saved? For no one shall be saved unless he who shall have received the coming Christ.

The Evangelist pursues his plea that the world did not know its illuminator, that is, the Only Begotten, and from the worse sin of the children of Israel, he hurries to clench the charges against the Gentiles and shows the disease of ignorance alike and unbelief that lay upon the whole world.… For it was not surprising that the world did not know the Only Begotten, he says, seeing that it had left the understanding that befits humanity and was ignorant that it is and was made in honor, being compared with the beasts that perish, as the divine psalmist also said. It also was not surprising that the very people who, above all, were supposed to belong to him rejected him when he was present in the flesh. They would not receive him when he came among them for a salvation that was offered to all, rewarding their faith with the kingdom of heaven. But observe how exact his language is about these things. For he accuses the world of having no idea of the one who enlightens 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 considered among those especially belonging to him, he says they “received him not.” For it would not have been true to say “knew him not,” when the older law had preached about him and the prophets who came after led them by the hand to the apprehension of the truth.…For the world, or the Gentiles, having lost their relation … with God through their downfall into evil, also lost the knowledge of him who enlightens them. But the others, who were rich in knowledge through the law and called to a governance 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 to its creation, and its very existence comes from him and through him. But Israel will more rightly be called his own and will gain the glory both because of the election of the holy patriarchs and because he [i.e., Israel] was named the beginning and the firstborn of the children of God. For “Israel is my son, my firstborn,” says God somewhere to Moses.… But when [Christ] was not received, he transfers the grace to the Gentiles. And the world, which knew him not at the beginning, is enlightened through repentance and faith, whereas Israel returns to the darkness it came from.

But what matters of deep moment are contained in the Lord's prayer! How many and! How great, briefly collected in the words, but spiritually abundant in virtue! so that there is absolutely nothing passed over that is not comprehended in these our prayers and petitions, as in a compendium of heavenly doctrine. "After this manner," says He, "pray ye: Our Father, which art in heaven." The new man, born again and restored to his God by His grace, says "Father," in the first place because he has now begun to be a son. "He came," He says, "to His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name." The man, therefore, who has believed in His name, and has become God's son, ought from this point to begin both to give thanks and to profess himself God's son, by declaring that God is his Father in heaven; and also to bear witness, among the very first words of his new birth, that he has renounced an earthly and carnal father, and that he has begun to know as well as to have as a father Him only who is in heaven, as it is written: "They who say unto their father and their mother, I have not known thee, and who have not acknowledged their own children these have observed Thy precepts and have kept Thy covenant. Also the Lord in His Gospel has bidden us to call "no man our father upon earth, because there is to us one Father, who is in heaven." And to the disciple who had made mention of his dead father, He replied, "Let the dead bury their dead; " for he had said that his father was dead, while the Father of believers is living.

That it was previously foretold that they would neither know the Lord, nor understand, nor receive Him. In Isaiah: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken; I have begotten and brought up children, but they have rejected me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not perceived me. Ah sinful nation, a people filled with sins, a wicked seed, corrupting children: ye have forsaken the Lord, and have sent that Holy One of Israel into anger." In the same also the Lord says: "Go and tell this people, Ye shall hear with the ear, and shall not understand; and seeing, ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people hath waxed gross, and they hardly hear with their ears, and they have shut up their eyes, lest haply they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should return, and I should heal them." Also in Jeremiah the Lord says: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves worn-out cisterns, which could not hold water." Moreover, in the same: "Behold, the word of the Lord has become unto them a reproach, and they do not wish for it." Again in the same the Lord says: "The kite knoweth his time, the turtle, and the swallow; the sparrows of the field keep the time of their coining in; but my people doth not know the judgment of the Lord. How say ye, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? The false measurement has been made vain; the scribes are confounded the wise men have trembled, and been taken, because they have rejected the word of the Lord." In Solomon also: "Evil men seek me, and shall not find me; for they held wisdom in hatred and did not receive the word of the Lord." Also in the twenty-seventh Psalm: "Render to them their deserving, because they have not perceived in the works of the Lord." Also in the eighty-first Psalm: "They have not known, neither have they understood; they shall walk on in darkness." In the Gospel, too, according to John: "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God who believe on His name."

By his own, understand either the world, or Judæa, which He had chosen for His inheritance.

Here the Evangelist is clearly speaking of the Dispensation of salvation in the flesh, and the entire order of thought is as follows: the Light was true, in the world, without flesh, and was not known; then He came to His own with flesh. By "His own" you may understand either the whole world, or Judea, which He chose as a portion of inheritance, as a lot and His own possession (Ps. 113:2). or the Jews, or the rest of the people created by Him. Thus, he laments the madness of men and marvels at the love of the Master for mankind. "Being," he says, "His own, not all received Him, for the Lord does not attract anyone by force, but leaves it to their own judgment and free will."

Having given the necessity for the incarnation of the Word, the Evangelist then shows the advantage men gained from that incarnation. First, he shows the coming of the light (v 11); secondly, its reception by men (v 11b); thirdly, the fruit brought by the coming of the light (v 12). He shows that the light which was present in the world and evident, i.e., disclosed by its effect, was nevertheless not known by the world. Hence, he came unto his own, in order to be known. The Evangelist says, unto his own, i.e., to things that were his own, which he had made. And he says this so that you do not think that when he says, he came, he means a local motion in the sense that he came as though ceasing to be where he previously was and newly beginning to be where he formerly had not been. He came where he already was. "I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world," as said below (16:28). He came, I say, unto his own, i.e., to Judea, according to some, because it was in a special way his own. "In Judea God is known" (Ps 75:1); "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel" (Is 5:7). But it is better to say, unto his own, i.e., into the world created by him. "The earth is the Lord's" (Ps 23:1). But if he was previously in the world, how could he come into the world? I answer that "coming to some place" is understood in two ways. First, that someone comes where he absolutely had not been before. Or, secondly, that someone begins to be in a new way where he was before. For example, a king, who up to a certain time was in a city of his kingdom by his power and later visits it in person, is said to have come where he previously was: for he comes by his substance where previously he was present only by his power. It was in this way that the Son of God came into the world and yet was in the world. For he was there, indeed, by his essence, power and presence, but he came by assuming flesh. He was there invisibly, and he came in order to be visible. Then when he says, and his own did not receive him, we have the reception given him by men, who reacted in different ways. For some did receive him, but these were not his own; hence he says, his own did not receive him. "His own" are men, because they were formed by him. "The Lord God formed man" (Gn 2:7); "Know that the Lord is God: he made us" (Ps 99:3). And he made them to his own image, "Let us make man to our image" (Gn 1:26). But it is better to say, his own, i.e., the Jews, did not receive him, through faith by believing, and by showing honor to him. "I have come in the name of my Father, and you do not receive me" (below 5:43), and "I honor my Father and you have dishonored me" (below 8:49). Now the Jews are his own because they were chosen by him to be his special people. "The Lord chose you to be his special people" (Dt 26:18). They are his own because related according to the flesh, "from whom is Christ, according to the flesh," as said in Romans (9:3). They are also his own because enriched by his kindness, "I have reared and brought up sons" (Is 1:2). But although the Jews were his own, they did not receive him.