198  THE  JOHANNINE  TEACHING   OF  JESUS

a  Yoluntaiy  affair.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  temp-
tations inciting  to  sin  from  without,  it  is  considered  as
caused  by  him  who  commits  it.  There  is  a  dualism  of
light  and  darkness  in  the  world,  but  the  darkness  is  chosen
by  those  who  walk  in  it  (iii.  19).  God  is  the  source  of
the  light  only,  not  of  the  darkness.  Men  would  possess
and  enjoy  the  light  if  they  loved  and  followed  it.  It  is
light  and  not  darkness  which  is  primary  and  fundamental
in  the  universe.  Sin  is  never  represented  as  an  essential
or  eternal  principle.  Sin  is  a  perversion  due  to  free  per-
sonal  action.  No  duality  of  good  and  evil  as  coetemal
powers  is  recognized  in  our  Svources.  The  dualism  of  these
discourses,  as  of  John's  own  teaching,  is  ethical,  not  meta-
physical. It  is  a  conflict  of  opposing  moral  principles  and
powers.  The  sons  of  light  are  those  who  choose  and  pur-
sue love,  truth,  and  goodness ;  those  who  walk  in  darkness
do  so  freely  and  with  full  responsibility.  The  world  is  a
realm  of  freedom;  its  good  is  praiseworthy;  its  evil  is
equally  blameworthy.  Sin  is  not  viewed  in  the  teaching
of  Jesus  as  due  to  the  action  of  an  evil  deity  as  original
and  powerful  as  God  himself,  or  as  consisting  in  a  meta-
physical imperfection  inhering  in  the  very  constitution  of
the  universe,  but  as  a  wilful  and  guilty  disobedience  of  the
supreme  law  of  righteousness,  a  violation  of  man's  true
nature,  and  a  forfeiture  of  his  divine  destiny.
