ACC ~ John 1 v2

NO CONTRADICTION WITH BELIEF IN ONE GOD

HILARY OF POITIERS: But I tremble to say it; the audacity staggers me. I hear, “And the Word was God”—I, who have been taught by the prophets that God is one. To save me from further apprehension, my friend, the fisherman, needs to provide a fuller understanding of this great mystery. Show me that these assertions are consistent with the unity of God; that there is no blasphemy in them, no explaining away, no denial of eternity. And so he continues, “He was in the beginning with God.” This “He was in the beginning” removes the limit of time; the word God shows that he is more than a voice; that “he is with God” proves that he neither encroaches nor is encroached on, for his identity is not swallowed up in that of Another, and he—that is, his one and only begotten Son—is clearly stated to be present with the one unbegotten God as God. ON THE TRINITY 2.16. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 9:56-57**.

THE WORD’S COETERNITY WITH THE FATHER

CHRYSOSTOM: As therefore the expression “in the beginning was the Word” shows his eternity, so “was in the beginning with God” has declared to us his coeternity. For, so that you may not think the Word is eternal when you hear “in the beginning was the Word,” but yet imagine the life of the Father to differ from his by some interval and longer duration and thus assign a beginning to the Only Begotten—this is why John adds, “was in the beginning with God.” He exists eternally even as the Father himself does, for the Father was never without the Word, but he was always God with God, yet each in his proper person…. So that no one might suppose the Godhead of the Son to be inferior, he immediately added the characteristics of genuine Godhead, including eternity (for “He was,” says he, “in the beginning with God,”) and attributed to him the office of Creator. For “by him were all things made.” HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 4.1, 3. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:16-18**.

THE WORD’S ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE AND ETERNITY AS GOD

HILARY OF POITIERS: The backward straining of our thoughts can never grasp anything prior to God’s property of absolute existence since nothing presents itself to enable us to understand the nature of God, even though we might go on seeking it forever—nothing, that is, except the fact that God always is. That then which has both been declared about God by Moses, that of which our human intelligence can give no further explanation, that [is] the very quality the Gospels testify to be a property of God the only begotten since in the beginning was the Word, and since the Word was with God, and since he was the true Light, and since God the only begotten is in the bosom of the Father, [1] and since Jesus Christ is God over all. [2]

Therefore he was and he is, since he is from him who always is what he is. But to be from him, that is to say, to be from the Father, is birth. Moreover, to be always from him, who always is, is eternity; but this eternity is derived not from himself but from the Eternal. And from the Eternal nothing can spring but what is eternal: for if the offspring is not eternal, then neither is the Father, who is the source of generation, eternal. ON THE TRINITY 12.24-25. [3]

[1] Jn 1:1, 9, 18.

[2] Rom 9:5.

[3] NPNF 2 9:224**.

THE “WORD” IS ALWAYS COEXISTENT WITH HIS BEGINNING

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: John wanted to persuade by using the name “Word,” as if by an analogy, that it was possible for something to be from something else without having to be separated from it by length of time…. Also, because he said “he was in the beginning,” he showed not that he was without a beginning but rather that he was coexistent from eternity with his beginning. COMMENTARY ON JOHN 1.1.1. [1]

[1] CSCO 4 3:23-24.

SUMMING UP

ORIGEN: After the Evangelist has taught us the three orders through the three propositions that were previously mentioned, he sums up the three under one head, saying, “The same was in the beginning with God.”

Now we have learned from the three propositions first, in what the Word was, namely, “in the beginning,” and with whom he was, namely, “God,” and who the Word was, namely, “God.” It is as if, therefore, he indicates the previously mentioned God the Word by the expression “the same” and gathers the three, “in the beginning was the Word” and “The Word was with God, and the Word was God,” into a fourth proposition and says, “The same was in the beginning with God.” COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 2.34-35. [1]

“THIS” IS AN IMPORTANT ADDITION

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: The Evangelist here makes a sort of recapitulation of what had already been said. But when he adds the word this, he is all but crying aloud, “He who is in the beginning, the Word with the Father, he who is God of God, he it is and no one else who is the subject of this august book.” But he seems again not idly to add to what has been said, “This was in the beginning with God.” For he, enlightened by the divine Spirit about the future, was not ignorant … that certain people would appear,… who would rise up and strive against their own leader, saying that one is the word that is conceived in God the Father, and that the other, who is very similar and like the conceived one, is the Son and Word through whom God works all things. In this way he might be [falsely] conceived of as word of word and image of image and radiance of radiance.

The blessed Evangelist, then, as though he had already heard them blaspheming, and having already defined and shown by many words that the Word is one and only and truly of God and in God and with God—with flashing eye adds, “This was in the beginning with God,” as Son, that is, with the Father, as inborn, as of his [the Father’s] essence, as only begotten—this one, there being no second. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1.4. [2]

[1] FC 80:103; SC 120:230.

[2] LF 43:34-35*.

WHY DID NOT JOHN SAY “WORD OF GOD”?

ORIGEN: Someone perhaps may ask with good reason why it was not said, “In the beginning was the Word of God, and the Word of God was with God, and the Word of God was God.” But one who asks this… is proposing that there are many words, and perhaps different kinds of words of which one is the word of God, and another, let us say, is the word of angels, and another the word of people….

For every person imaginable would admit that the truth is one. No one would dare say, in the case of [truth] too, that the truth of God is one thing, and that of the angels is another, and that of people still another. For it belongs to the nature of beings that the truth concerning each is one…. And if truth is one and wisdom is one, the Word also, who announces the truth and wisdom simply and openly to those capable of apprehending it, would be one. And we say these things, not to deny that the truth and wisdom and the Word are of God but to show the advantage of the omission of the phrase “of God.” COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 2.37, 39-41. [1]

[1] FC 80:104-5; SC 120:232.

Jn