{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/009/0090262.htm","path":"chr/ecf/009/0090262.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/009/0090262.htm","text":"23. There is a Divine Darkness Which is Not Evil, and Which Ultimately Becomes Light.\nIn connection with this subject it is necessary for us to point out that darkness is not to be understood, every time it is mentioned, in a bad sense; Scripture speaks of it sometimes in a good sense. The heterodox have failed to observe this distinction, and have accordingly adopted most shameful doctrines about the Maker of the world, and have indeed revolted from Him, and addicted themselves to fictions and myths. We must, therefore, show how and when the name of darkness is taken in a good sense. Darkness and clouds and tempest are said in Exodus 4744 to be round about God, and in the seventeenth Psalm, 4745 \u201cHe made darkness His secret place, His tent round about Him, dark water in clouds of the air.\u201d Indeed, if one considers the multitude of speculation and knowledge about God, beyond the power of human nature to take in, beyond the power, perhaps, of all originated beings except Christ and the Holy Spirit, then one may know how God is surrounded with darkness, because the discourse is hid in ignorance which would be required to tell in what darkness He has made His hiding-place when He arranged that the things concerning Him should be unknown and beyond the grasp of knowledge. Should any one be staggered by these expositions, he may be reconciled to them both by the \u201cdark sayings\u201d and by the \u201ctreasures of darkness,\u201d hidden, invisible, which are given to Christ by God. In nowise different, I consider, are the treasures of darkness which are hid in Christ, from what is spoken of in the text, \u201cGod made darkness His secret place,\u201d and (the saint) \u201cshall understand parable and dark saying.\u201d 4746 And consider if we have here the reason of the Saviour\u2019s saying to His disciples, \u201cWhat ye have heard in darkness, speak ye in the light.\u201d The mysteries committed to them in secret and where few could hear, hard to be known and obscure, He bids them, when enlightened and therefore said to be in the light, to make known to every one who is made light. I might add a still stranger feature of this darkness which is praised, namely, that it hastens to the light and overtakes it, and so at last, after having been unknown as darkness, undergoes for him who does not see its power such a change that he comes to know it and to declare that what was formerly known to him as darkness has now become light.\nExod. 19:9, 16.\n339:4745 339:4746","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IX: Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John.: Chapter XXIII","type":"page"}