The Gospel of St. John. Joseph MacRory
Father, detracting nothing from Him who begot Him, being the image of the Father, “the figure of His substance.” (Heb. i. 3.) “Verbum proprie dictum,” says St. Thomas, “in Divinis personaliter accipitur, et est proprium nomen personae filii, significat enim quamdam emanationem intellectus. Persona autem quae procedit in Divinis secundum emanationem intellectus, dicitur filius, et hujusmodi processio dicitur generatio” (St. Thom., 1 Qu. 34, a. 2 c.)
And the Word was with God (πρὸς τὸν Θεόν). Πρός here [pg 017] signifies not motion towards, but a living union with, God.20 God refers not to the Divine Nature, but to the Divine Person of the Father (see 1 John i. 2); otherwise the Verbum would be unnecessarily and absurdly said here to be with Himself, since He is the Divine Nature terminated in the Second Person. Many commentators are of opinion that the use of πρός (with), and not ἐν (in), proves that the Verbum is not a mere attribute of the Father, but a distinct Person. So Chrys., Cyril, Theophy., A Lap., Patrizzi, M'Evilly.
And the Word was God. As our English version indicates, Word is the subject of this clause, God the predicate, for in the Greek λόγος has the article, Θεός wants it; and besides, as appears from the whole context, St. John is declaring what the Word is, not what God is. A desire to begin this clause with the last word of the clause preceding—a favourite construction with St. John (see verses 4 and 5)—may have led to the inversion in the original. Or the inversion may have been intended to throw the Divinity of the Word into greater prominence by placing the predicate before the verb.
Some, like Corluy, refer God, in this third clause, to the Divine Nature, which is common to the three Divine Persons; others, as Patrizzi, to the Divine Nature as terminated in the Second Divine Person. We prefer the latter view, but in either interpretation we have in this clause a declaration of the Divinity of the Word, a proof that cannot be gainsaid of His essential unity with the Father. Nor does the absence of the Greek article before “God” in this third clause, when taken in conjunction with its presence in the second, imply, as the Arians held, that the Word is inferior to the Father. For our Evangelist certainly refers sometimes to the supreme Deity without using the article (i. 6, 12, 18); and the absence of the article is sufficiently accounted for in the present case by the fact that Θεός is a predicate standing before the copula.21
| 2. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. | 2. The same was in the beginning with God. |
2. The same was in the beginning with God. To [pg 018] emphasize the three great truths contained in verse 1: namely, the Word's eternity, His distinct personality, and essential unity with the Father, they are repeated in verse 2. The same, that is, this Word who is God, was in the beginning, and was with God.
Various attempts have been made by the Unitarians to escape the invincible argument for a Second Divine Person which these opening verses of our Gospel contain. Thus, they put a full stop after the last “erat” of verse 1; and, taking the words in the order in which they occur in the Greek and Latin, make the sense of the third clause: And God was. Then they join “verbum,” the last word of verse 1, with verse 2: This Word was in the beginning with God. But even if we granted to the Unitarians this punctuation of the verses, the sense of the third clause would still be that the Word was God, and not that God existed. For “Deus” (Θεός without the article), in the beginning of the third clause ought still to be regarded as the predicate, with “verbum” of the preceding clauses as the subject. This follows not merely from the absence of the Greek article already alluded to, but also from the absurdity of the Unitarian view, which supposes that St. John thought it necessary, after telling us that the Word was with God, to tell us that God existed!
Others have tried to explain away the text thus: At the beginning of the Christian dispensation the Word existed, and the Word was most intimately united to God by love. But, primum, they have still to explain how this Word is declared Creator in verses 3 and 10; secundum, the statement in verse 14: “And the Word was made flesh,” implies transition of the Word to a state different from that in which He existed “in the beginning;” but the time of the transition is just the commencement of the Christian dispensation, which cannot, therefore, be the time referred to in verse 1 as “the beginning.”
| 3. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est, | 3. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. |
| 4. in ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum: | 4. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. |
3. St. John passes on to the relations of the Word with creatures. All things (πάντα = τὰ πάντα, 1 Cor. viii. 6, Col. i. 16). The passages indicated, as well as verse 10 of this chapter: the world was made by Him, make it clear that the Son of God created all things. Nor could this doctrine be more plainly stated than in the words before us: All things were made by Him, &c. How absurd, then, is the Socinian view, according to which St. John merely tells us here that all Christian virtues were introduced, and the whole moral world established by Christ!
Were made ἐγένετο, i.e., got their whole being from [pg 019] Him, and not merely were fashioned by Him from pre-existing matter. The Cerinthian theory, that the world was made by an inferior being, is here rejected. By Him (δι᾽ αὐτοῦ). We are not to suppose that the Word was an instrument in the hands of the Father, or inferior to the Father, as the Arians held. The preposition διά (per) is often used in reference to a principal efficient cause. Thus, St. Paul says of the Father: God is faithful, by whom (δι᾽ οὗ) you are called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord (1 Cor. i. 9. See also 1 Cor. i. 1, 2 Cor. i. 1, Gal. iv. 27, Heb. ii. 10.) And since our Evangelist has just declared in verse 1 the Word's divinity, and knew Him to be one with the Father (x. 30), it cannot be implied here that the Word is inferior to the Father. Some commentators hold that there is no special significance in the use here of the preposition διά, while others see in it an allusion to the fact that the Son proceeds from the Father, and derives from Him His creative power. According to these, creation is from the Father, but through the Son, because the Son has received His creative power, together with His essence, from the Father and is not, therefore, like the Father, “principium sine principio.”
Others think that since all things were created according to the Divine idea, i.e., according to the Divine and eternal wisdom, and since the Word is that wisdom, therefore all things are rightly said to have been created through the Word. So St. Thomas on this verse:—“Sic ergo Deus nihil facit nisi per conceptum sui intellectus, qui est sapientia ab aeterno concepta, scilicet Dei Verbum, et Dei Filius; et ideo impossibile est quod aliquid faciat nisi per Filium.” In this view, which seems to us the most probable, though like all the Divine works that are “ad extra,” i.e. do not terminate in God Himself, creation is common to the Three Divine Persons, yet, for the reason indicated, it is rightly said to be through the Son.
And without him was made nothing (οὐδὲ ἕν = not anything, emphatic for οὐδέν nothing) that was made (Gr.: hath been made). By a Hebrew parallelism the same truth is repeated negatively: all things were made by Him, and nothing was made without Him. To this negative statement, however, there is added, according to the method of pointing the passage common at present, an additional clause which gives us the meaning: nothing was made without Him, of all the things that have been made. This restrictive clause may then [pg 020] be understood to imply that, together with the Word, there was something else uncreated, that is to say (besides the Father, whose uncreated existence would be admitted by all) the Holy Ghost also.
In this way after the Macedonian heresy arose in the middle of the fourth century, and blasphemously held that the Word had made the Holy Ghost, because without Him was made nothing, many of the Fathers replied: Nothing was made without the Word, of the things that were made; but the Holy Ghost was not made at all, and is therefore not included among the things made by the Word. However, this restriction is not necessary to defend the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. Even though we understand it to be stated absolutely that nothing was made without the Son, no difficulty can follow; for the Holy Ghost was not made (ἐγένετο), but was (ἦν) from all eternity, as is clearly implied elsewhere. John xvi. 13, 14.
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