«And the Light Shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness Has Not Overcome it» (Jn. 1:5)

By this brief position the holy John outlines the state of mankind before the manifestation of the Lord Savior in the world. There came darkness from the Fall, but it did not extinguish the light: it shone in the darkness and shines. There remained still the natural light, but no longer in the brightness that it had before, and it could not retain the same character that it had in the original arrangement. Consciousness and conscience suggested that the former manner of mankind’s spiritual relations could not be now; new orders and institutions were required. What exactly was needed, mankind could not have invented. God himself appeared and arranged all. The external order of life was changed, in correspondence with the internal condition, into a sorrowful one and became, as it were, a penance for the repenting. For the regulation of spiritual disturbance and the dispersion of internal darkness there was given to consciousness and conscience the promise of salvation in the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), with corresponding institutions. With the word of this promise light shone in the darkness of the Fall, which did not go out then but continued to spread wider and wider and became brighter and brighter through continuous inflows of new rays of God’s revelation.

At first the whole of mankind was equally a partaker of this light. Until the dispersion of mankind over the face of the earth, God’s revelations and guiding rules were communicated to all undividedly. With their dispersion the universality of revelations ceased. But the dispersed peoples took with them all that had been revealed by God up to that point and lived by the light of it until the manifestation of the Lord, and many live by it even now. This light did not remain in them in full and pure form; but was obscured by clouds of superstitious additions invented subsequently by the peoples themselves to the original revelation. However, even darkened, it did not completely go out. Its glimmers are visible in the fundamental beliefs common to all peoples.

That the light kindled on earth by the promise of salvation not go completely out, the Lord was pleased to choose a special people in whom he continued to preserve this promise in power and to multiply the light of it by detailed revelations about all that concerns its fulfillment. Filled with such indications are the prophetic writings, which the holy Peter rightly called a lamp shining in a dark place. “«We have the prophetic word more certain,»” he says, “«to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts»” (2 Pet. 1:19). These words give the best interpretation of what is meant by the light shining in darkness according to John and how it shone. Light shone in the darkness of the Fall, and the lamp glowed in the dark place of exile of the fallen in the people of Israel through the prophetic word, and among other peoples by means of the natural light and those revelations which they took with them upon the dispersion over the earth—and which, toward the end, began to pass from Israel to them. This light was concentrated in the person of the Savior and emanated from him, illuminating all. He is and always has been light for those fallen in spiritual darkness and held by it.

That the light shone in darkness is God’s work. In what, then, does the work of mankind consist? In receiving the light and using its illumination. Was this so? The darkened in understanding did not understand it; dark strivings opposed it; dark opposing forces opposed it and sought in every way to extinguish it. But this evil attitude of the darkened toward the light did not take away the power of the shining of light and the possibility of its illuminating those who sought light and were ready to receive it and use it for salvation. Darkness did not overcome the light…. There were those, both among Israel and among other peoples, who thirsted for light and sought it from on high. They immediately became manifest as soon as the marks of the approach of the Lord’s coming showed themselves, and especially when the Forerunner proclaimed that soon the sun of righteousness—Christ the Lord—would appear. Later, the preaching of the holy Apostles gathered them all, scattered throughout the face of the earth, and formed from them the Church of the saints, which, in its turn, became a lamp, shining in the dark place of this world, not of itself but by the power of the Lord, who became the head of all.