εν. οι; xi. δι αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ xwpis αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓν, ὃ γέγονεν.ὶ 25. a N a f xii. 36. 13 4. ἐν αὐτῷ "ζωὴ Fy,” καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, 5. καὶ τὸ
times in ohn. lsewhere :
only in Mt. x. 27. Lk. xii. 3.
~ ο , a , φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ Φφαίνει, καὶ ἡ ‘oKotia αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.
1 Almost all ante-Nicene Fathers join ο γεγονεν to ver. 4 with AC*DG*L. Chry-
sostom declares this reading heretical and argues against it.
CEG?HK vet. Lat. Brixianus.
2 mv in ABCL, vulg.; εστιν in QD vet.
the term σπερματικὸς Adyos to express the generative principle or creative force in nature. The term was familiar to Greek philosophy. In Hebrew thought there was felt the need for some term to express God, not in His absolute being, but in His manifestation and active con- nection with the world. In the O. T. “the Angel of the Lord” and “the wisdom of God” are used for this pur- pose. In the Apocryphal books and the Targums ‘‘the word of Jehovah’’ is similarly used. These two streams of thought were combined by Philo, who has a fairly full and explicit doctrine of the Logos as the expression of God or God in expression (see Drummond’s Philo; Siegfried’s Philo; Reville, Doctrine du Logos; Bigg’s Bampton Lec. ; Hatch’s Hibbert Lec.). The word being thus already in use and aiding thoughtful men in their efforts to con- ceive God’s connection with the world, John takes it and uses it to denote the Revealer of the incomprehensible and invisible God. Irrespective of all specu- lations which had gathered around the term, John now proceeds to make known the true nature of the Logos. (Cf. The Primal Will, or Universal Reason of the Babis ; Sell’s Faith of Islam, 146.)
(2) If the Word was thus in the beginning, what relation did He hold to God? Was He identical or opposed ? ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν. πρός implies not merely existence ‘alongside of but personal intercourse. It means more than µετά or παρά, and is regularly employed in expressing the presence of one person with another. Thus in classical Greek, τὴν πρὸς Σωκράτην συνουσίαν, and in N. Τ. Mk. vi. 3, Mt. xiii. 56, Mk. ix. το, Gal. i. 18, 2 John 12. This preposition implies intercourse and therefore separate personality. As Chrysostom says: ‘Not in God but with God, as person with person, eternally’.
(3) The Word is distinguishable from God and yet Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, the Word
Τ.Ε. is found in
Lat., arising out of above punctuation.
was God, of Divine nature; not ‘‘a God,” which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable; nor yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the article would have been inserted (cf. 1 John iii. 4). ‘‘ The Christian doctrine of the Trinity was perhaps before any- thing else an effort to express how Jesus Christ was God (Θεός) and yet in another sense was not God (6 θεός), that is to say, was not the whole Godhead.” Con- sult Du Bose’s Ecumenical Councils, p. 70-73. Luther says ‘“‘the Word was God” is against Arius: ‘‘ the Word was with God ” against Sabellius.
Ver. 2. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. Not a mere repetition of what has been said in νετ. 1. There John has said that the Word was in the beginning and also that He was with God: here he indicates that these two characteristics existed contemporaneously. ‘He was in the beginning with God.” He wishes also to emphasise this in view of what he is about to tell. dn the beginning He was with God, afterwards, in time, He came to be with man. His pristine con- dition must first be grasped, if the grace of what succeeds is to be understood.
Ver. 3. Πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο. The connection is obvious: the Word was with God in the beginning, but not as an idle, inefficacious existence, who only then for the first time put forth energy when He came into the world. On the contrary, He was the source of all activity and life. ‘All things were made by Him, and without Him was not even one thing made which was made.”