The Gospel of St. John. Joseph MacRory
est, in the end of verse 3, with the preceding. And, as a matter of fact, all the writers of the first three centuries seem to have connected these words with verse 4,22 and it appears to us very likely, that it was because of the Macedonian heresy they began to be connected with verse 3. St. Chrysostom certainly is very strong in connecting them with verse 3, but the reason is because the heretics of the time were abusing the other connection to support their errors. “For neither will we,” he says, “put a full stop after that ‘nothing,’ as the heretics do” (Chrysostom on John, Hom. v). We must not, however, conclude, from this remark of St. Chrysostom that it was the heretics alone who did so; for, as we have said already, such was the ordinary way of connecting the clauses during the first three centuries; and it is supported not only by the Fathers, but by the oldest Latin MSS., and by some of the oldest Greek MSS. And even after the Macedonian heretics had abused this passage to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, the old pointing, or to speak more correctly the old method of connecting the clauses, remained the more common.23 Not only did Cyril of Alexandria, and Augustine, and Venerable Bede, and St. Thomas, and a host of others read in this way, but Maldonatus, who himself prefers the connection in our English version: “Without Him was made nothing that was made,” admits that the usage of his time was [pg 021] against him, and that it was then the practice to put a full stop after “nothing”: “Without Him was made nothing.” Nor can the Sixtine or Clementine edition of the Vulgate be appealed to in favour of our present pointing. As a matter of fact, the Sixtine edition rejected it, printing thus: “Et sine ipso factum est nihil: quod factum est in ipso vita erat;” while the Clementine Bible left the matter undecided by printing thus: “Et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est, in ipso vita erat,” &c. We cannot, therefore, understand to what Roman Bibles A Lapide refers when he says that the Bibles corrected at Rome connect thus: “And without Him was made nothing that was made.”
We think it extremely probable, then, that the words: Quod factum est (that was made, or, as we shall render in our interpretation; what was made), standing at present in the end of verse 3, are to be connected with verse 4. Some may be inclined to blame us for departing from what is at present the received connection of the words in such a well-known passage as this. Let us, therefore, sum up briefly the evidence that has forced us, we may say reluctantly, to connect the words with verse 4.
1. Though Maldonatus tries to throw doubt upon the fact, this is the connection adopted by practically all, if not all, the Fathers and other writers of the first three centuries, and by the majority of writers afterwards down to the sixteenth century.
2. It is supported by the oldest MSS. of the Vulgate, and, what is more remarkable, by some of the oldest Greek MSS., notwithstanding the fact that St. Chrysostom was against it.
3. The parallelism in the verse is better brought out: All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.
4. If Quod factum est were intended to be connected with the preceding, the clause would be certainly unnecessary, and apparently useless, because it is plain without it that the Evangelist is speaking of what was made, and not including any uncreated Being, like the Father or the Holy Ghost.
We prefer, then, to connect: Quod factum est, with what follows. But it still remains for us to inquire in what way precisely the connection is to be made, for various views have been held upon the subject.
A. Some connect thus: What was made in (i.e. by) Him, was life, and the life was the light of men. B. Others thus: What was made was life in Him, and the life was the light of men. C. Others again, [pg 022] adopting the same punctuation as in the preceding, but understanding differently: What was made in it was the Life, and the Life was the Light of men.
The last seems to us the correct view. For A is improbable, inasmuch as it either declares all things to have life, or implies that though what was made by the Word had life, yet there were other things wanting life, which proceeded, as the Manichaeans held, from the evil principle.
Nor can we accept B, even as explained by St. Augustine in the sense that all created things are in the mind of God, as the house before building is in the mind of the architect; and that being in the mind of God they are God Himself, and “life in Him.” For though this is in a certain sense true, yet it seems to us unnatural to suppose that St. John here, in this sublime exordium, thinks it necessary or useful to tell us that the archetypes of created things lived in the Divine Mind. C then appears to us to be the more probable view regarding the passage: “What was made, in it was the Life;” or, more plainly: “In that which was made was the Life;” for here, as elsewhere, St. John begins with the relative (see i. 45, 1 John i. 1); so that, in this view, the Evangelist after telling us the relations of the Word to all things at their beginning: “All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing,” now goes on to point out His relations to them after their creation: first, His relations with things generally: “In that which was made was the Life,” then his relations with man in the supernatural order: “And the Life was the Light of men.”
5. Adopting this view as to the connection between verses 3 and 4, St. Cyril of Alexandria thus explains: “The Life (ἡ ζωή), that is to say, the Only-begotten Son of God, was in all things that were made. For He, being by nature life itself, imparts being, and life, and motion to the things that are ... In all things that were made was the Life, that is, the Word which was in the beginning. The Word, being essential life, was mingling Himself by participation with all existing things.”
If it be objected to this interpretation that the first ζωή of verse 4, not having the article, cannot mean the Eternal Life, i.e. the Divine Word, we reply that St. Cyril, one of the greatest of the Greek Fathers, thought differently; and moreover, that very many of the commentators who are against us in the interpretation of this passage, are yet with us in referring ζωή here to the uncreated life of the Divine Word.
But if we follow what is at present the common punctuation, and read: “In Him was [pg 023] life,” this is commonly interpreted to mean that the Word is the source of supernatural life to man. S. Amb., S. Ath., Tol., Mald., A Lap., Patr., Beel.
But this view is not without difficulty. For, first, if it be merely meant that life comes to man through the Word, we might rather expect that the preposition διά of the preceding verse would have been retained.
Secondly, if there be question here of the Word as the life of man, how is it that it is only in the next clause that man is first mentioned? Surely, if the opinion we are considering were correct, we should rather expect St. John to have written: “In Him was the life of man, and the life was the light.” For these reasons, and because of what we have stated already in favour of connecting “Quod factum est” with what follows, we prefer to understand this passage, with St. Cyril, as a statement that the Word, the Essential Life, was present in all things, conserving them in existence.
And the Life was the Light of men. In our view the meaning is that the Word, the Life, who conserved all things in existence, was, moreover, in the case of men, their Light—the source and author of their faith. Hence, we suppose St. John, after referring to the creation of all things, in verse 3, and the conservation of all things, in the beginning of verse 4, to pass on now in the end of verse 4 to speak of that new creation that is effected in man by means of a spiritual illumination: “All things were made by (or through) Him, and without Him was made nothing. In that which was made was the Life, and the Life was the Light of men.”
Those who interpret the beginning of the verse to mean that the spiritual life of man comes through the Word, take the present clause as explaining how that was so, how the Word was the Life; namely, inasmuch as He was the Light. He was the source of our life of grace here and glory hereafter, inasmuch as He was the source of our light, that is to say, our faith. And some of them, as Patrizzi, hold that the order of the terms in this clause is inverted, and that we should read: “the light of men was the life,” “light of men” being the subject.
Maldonatus tells us that almost all writers before his time understood “light of men” in reference to the light of reason. However, this view is now generally abandoned, and rightly, for that man owed his reason to the Word has been already