Tractates on the Gospel of John

³ “You call me,” He says, “Master and Lord: and you say well; for so I am.” “You say well,” for you only say the truth; I am indeed what ye say. There is a precept laid on man: “Let not your own mouth praise you, but the mouth of your neighbor.” For self-pleasing is a perilous thing for one who has to be on his guard against falling into pride. But He who is over all things, however much He commend Himself, cannot exalt Himself above His actual dignity: nor can God be rightly termed arrogant.

For it is to our advantage to know Him, not to His; nor can any one know Him, unless that self-knowing One make Himself known. If He, then, by abstaining from self-commendation, wish, as it were, to avoid arrogance, He will deny us the power of knowing Him. And no one surely would blame Him for calling Himself Master, even though believing Him to be nothing more than a man; seeing He only makes profession of what even men themselves in the various arts profess to such an extent, without any charge of arrogance, that they are termed professors.

But to call Himself also the Lord of His disciples—of men who, in an earthly sense, were themselves also free-born—who would tolerate it in a man? But it is God that speaks. Here no elation is possible to loftiness so great, no lie to the truth: the profit is ours to be the subjects of such loftiness, the servants of the truth. That He calls Himself Lord is no imperfection on His side, but a benefit on ours. The words of a certain profane author are commended, when he says, “All arrogance is hateful, and specially disagreeable is that of talent and eloquence;” and yet, when the same person was speaking of his own eloquence, he said, “I would call it perfect, were I to pronounce judgment; nor, in truth, would I greatly fear the charge of arrogance.” If, then, that most eloquent man had in truth no fear of being charged with arrogance, how can the truth itself have such a fear?

Let Him call Himself Lord who is the Lord, let Him say what is true who is the Truth; so that I may not fail to learn that which is profitable, by His being silent about that which is. The most blessed Paul— certainly not himself the only-begotten Son of God, but the servant and apostle of that Son; not the Truth, but a partaker of the truth— declares with freedom and consistency, “And though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I say the truth.” For it would not be in himself, but in the truth, which is superior to himself, that he was glorying both humbly and truly: for it is he also who has given the charge, that he that glories should glory in the Lord. Could thus the lover of wisdom have no fear of being chargeable with foolishness, though he desired to glory, and would wisdom itself, in its glorying, have any fear of such a charge?

He had no fear of arrogance who said, “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord;” and could the power of the Lord have any such fear in commending itself, in which His servant's soul is making her boast? “You call me,” He says, “Master and Lord: and you say well; for so I am.” Therefore ye say well, that I am so: for if I were not what ye say, you would be wrong to say so, even with the purpose of praising me. How, then,could the Truth deny what the disciples of the Truth affirm? How could that which was said by the learners be denied by the very Truth that gave them their learning? How can the fountain deny what the drinker asserts? How can the light hide what the beholder declares?