Was (ἦν), i.e., was already in existence. Had St. John meant to declare that at the dawn of creation the Word began to exist, he would have used ἐγένετο as he does in verse 3 regarding the beginning of the world, and again in verse 6 regarding the coming of the Baptist. This cannot fail to be clear to anyone who contrasts verses 1, 2, 4, and 9 of this chapter with verses 3, 6, and 14. In the former ἦν is used throughout in reference to the eternal existence of the Word;[17] in the latter ἐγένετο, when there is question of the beginning of created things (3), or of the coming of the Baptist (6), or of the assumption by the Word of human nature at the incarnation (14). At the beginning of creation, then, the Word was already in existence; and hence it follows that He must be uncreated, and therefore eternal. St. John's statement here that the Word was already in existence in the beginning, is, accordingly, equivalent to our Lord's claim [pg 015] to have existed before the world was (xvii. 5), and in both instances the Word's eternity, though not directly stated, follows immediately. Hence we find that the Council of Nice and the fathers generally inferred, against the Arians, the eternity of the Son of God from this first clause of verse 1. “If He was in the beginning,” says St. Basil (De Div., Hom. xvi. 82), “when was He not?”
The Word (ὁ λόγος). St. John here, as well as in his First Epistle (i. 1), and in the Apocalypse (xix. 13), designates by this term the Second Divine Person. That he speaks of no mere abstraction, or attribute of God, but of a Being who is a distinct Divine Person, is clear. For this “Word was with God, was God, was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us,” and in the person of Jesus Christ was witnessed to by the Baptist (i. 1, 14, 15, 29, 30). Outside the writings of St. John there is no clear[18] instance in either Old or New Testament of this use of the term λόγος. Throughout the rest of the Scriptures its usual meaning is speech or word.
What, then, we may ask, led our Evangelist, in the beginning of his Gospel, to apply this term rather than Son, or Son of God, to the Second Divine Person? Why did he not say: In the beginning was the Son?
Apart from inspiration, which, of course, may have extended to the suggestion of an important word like the present, apart also from the appropriateness of the term, of which we shall speak in a moment, it seems very probable that St. John was impelled to use the term λόγος because it had been already used by the heretics of the time in the expression of their errors.[19] Endowed, too, as St. John was, like the other Apostles, with a special power of understanding the Sacred Scriptures (Luke xxiv. 46), and privileged as he had been on many an occasion to listen to the commentaries of Christ Himself on the Old Testament, he may have been able, where we are not, to see clearly in the Old Testament instances in which λόγος refers to the Son of God; e.g., “Verbo (τῷ λόγῳ) Domini coeli firmati sunt” (Psalm xxxii. 6).
One thing, at all events, is quite plain, that, whatever may be said regarding his reason for the application of this term to the Son of God, St. John did not borrow his doctrine regarding the λόγος from Plato or Philo or the Alexandrian School. For though the term (λόγος) is frequently met with in the writings of both Plato and Philo, yet Plato never speaks of it as a person, but only as an attribute of God; and Philo, though in our opinion, he held the distinct personality of the Word, yet denied that he was God, or the creator of matter, which latter Philo held to be eternal. As to the Alexandrian School, to which Philo belonged, and of whose doctrines he is the earliest witness, there is not a shadow of foundation for saying that any of its doctors held the same doctrine as St. John regarding the Divine Word.
From the teaching of Christ, then, or by inspiration, or in both ways, our Evangelist received the sublime doctrine regarding the λόγος with which his Gospel opens.
Having now inquired into the origin of the term λόγος as applied to the Son of God, and having learned the source whence St. John derived his doctrine regarding this Divine Word, let us try to understand how it is that the Son of God could be appropriately referred to as the Word (ὁ λόγος). Many answers have been given, but we will confine ourselves to the one that seems to us most satisfactory.
We believe, and profess in the Athanasian Creed (Filius a Patre solo est non factus, nec creatus, sed genitus), that the Son is begotten by the Father; and it is the common teaching that He is begotten through the Divine intellect. Now, this mysterious procession of the Son from the Father through the intellect, is implied here in His being called the Word. For, as our word follows, without passion or carnal feeling, from our thought, as it is the reflex of our thought, from which it detracts nothing, and which it faithfully represents; so, only in an infinitely more perfect way, the Son of God proceeded, without passion or any carnal imperfection, through the intellect of the 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.