I. 1. "Ἐν ἀρχῇ qv 6 λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεὺν, καὶ α Gen. ἱ, τ,
«Θεὸς ἦν 6 λόγος.
Ό 1 ]ο. 1. 2. Prov. viii. 30.
2. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. c xx. 28; x. 8ο. Phil. ii. 6.
1 Jo.i.1,2. 3- ἁΓάντα Ch. xvii.
ἄν. τ7. Οοἱ, 1.16. ‘Heb. ia.
1 κατα ωανγην in Ν abeq; κατα Ἰωανην in B; ευαγγελιον κατα ἱωαννην in
ACEFG;; Τ.Ε. in minusc.
CHAPTER I.—Vv. 1-18. The prologue. The first eighteen verses contain a preface, or as it is usually called, the prologue to the Gospel. In this prologue the writer identifies the person, Jesus Christ, whom he is about to introduce on the field of history, with the Logos. He first describes the Logos in His relation to God and to the world, and then presents in abstract the history of His reception among men, which he is about to give in detail. That the Eternal Divine Word, in whom was the life of all things, became flesh and was manifested among men; that some ignored while others recognised Him; that some received while others rejected Him—that is what John means to ex- hibit in detail in his Gospel, and this is what he summarily states in this pro- logue.
The prologue may be divided thus: Vv. 1-5, The Logos described ; wv. 6-13, The historic manifestation of the Logos and its results in evoking faith and un- belief; vv. 14-18, This manifestation more precisely defined as incarnation, with another aspect of its results. Cf, Westcott’s suggestive division; and especially Falconer in Expositor, 1897.
Vv. 1-5. The Logos described. The first five verses describe the pre-existence, the nature, the creative power of the Logos, who in the succeeding verses is spoken of as entering the world, becom- ing man, and revealing the Father; and this derription is given in order that we may at Pnce grasp a continuous history
which runs out of an unmeasured past, and the identity of the person who is the subject of that history.
Ver. 1. In the first verse three things are stated regarding the Logos, the subject 6 λόγος being repeated for im- pressiveness. Westcott remarks that these three clauses answer to the three great moments of the Incarnation de- clared in νετ. 14. He who was (ἣν) in the beginning, became (ἐγένετο) in time; He who was with God, tabernacled among men; He who was God, became flesh.
(1) ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος. ἐν ἀρχῇ is here used relatively to creation, as in Gen. i. 1 and Prov. viii. 23, ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸ τοῦ τὴν γῆν ποιῆσαι; cf. 1 John i. 1. Consequently even in the time of Theophylact it was argued that this clause only asserts that the Logos was older than Adam. But this is to over- look the ἦν. The Logos did not then begin to be, but at that point at which all else began to be He already was. In the beginning, place it where you may, the Word already existed. In other words, the Logos is before time, eternal. Cf. Col. i. 18 (the article is absent because ἐν ἀρχῇ is virtually an adverbial expression).—6 λόγος. The term Logos appears as early as Heraclitus to denote the principle which maintains order in the world (see passages in Ritter and Preller). Among the Stoics the word was similarly used, as the equivalent of the anima mundi (cf. Virgil, Zn., vi., 724). Marcus Aurelius (iv. 14-21) uses
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