The answer
St. Clement of Alexandria says, “For just as, had the sun not been in existence, night would have brooded over the universe notwithstanding the other luminaries of heaven; so, had we not known the Word, and been illuminated by Him; we should have been nowise different from fowls that are being fed, fattened in darkness, and nourished for death. Let us then admit the light, that we may admit God; let us admit the light and become disciples to the Lord. This, too, He has been promised to the Father: “I will declare Your name to my brethren; in the midst of the Church, I will praise You” (Ps. 22:22).”764
St. Jacob of Sarug says, “Our Lord is light to those who love Him; but He is fire to those who come near Him to test Him.”
St. Augustine says, “Is the Son less because He is said to have been sent? I hear of a sending, not a separation. But yet, says he, among men we see that he who sends is greater than he who is sent. Be it so; but human affairs deceive a man; divine things purge him. Do not regard things human, in which the sender appears greater, the sent less; notwithstanding, things human themselves bear testimony against you … And there are many cases in which the greater is chosen to be sent by the less … The sun sends out a ray, but does not separate it … a lamp sheds light, but does not separate it … A man that sends remains himself behind, while only the man that is sent goes forward. Does the man who sends go with him whom he sends? Yet the Father who sent the Son, has not departed from the Son … The Father sending has not departed from the Son sent, because the sent and the sender are one.”765
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
764 St. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen 11 (ANF 2:203).
765 St. Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 21.17 (NPNF I/7:144) amended.