| John 1:1
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
| In the beginning was the word:{ Ver. 1. Et Deus erat Verbum, kai theos en o logos. Logos was a word very proper to give all that should believe a right notion of the Messias, and of the true Son of God. Logos, according to St. Jerome, (Ep. ad Paulinum. tom. iv. part 2, p. 570. Ed. Ben.) signifies divers things; as, the wisdom of the Father, his internal word or conception; and, as it were, the express image of the invisible God. Here it is not taken for any absolute divine attribute or perfection; but for the divine Son, or the second Person, as really distinct from the other two divine Persons. And that by logos, was to be understood him that was truly God, the Maker and Creator of all things; the Jews might easily understand, by what they read and frequently heard in the Chaldaic Paraphrase, or Targum of Jonathan, which was read to them in the time of our Saviour, Christ, and at the time when St. John wrote his gospel. In this Paraphrase they were accustomed to hear that the Hebrew word Memreth, to which corresponded in Greek, logos, was put for him that was God: as Isaias xlv. 12, I made the earth; in this Targum, I, by my word, made the earth: Isaias xlviii. 13, My hand also hath founded the earth; in this Paraphrase, in my word I founded the earth: Genesis 3:8., They heard the voice of the Lord God; in the Paraphrase, the voice of the word of God. See Walton, prolog. xii, num. 18, p. 86.; Maldonatus on this place; Petavius, lib. vi. de Trin. John 1.; Dr. Pearson on the Creed, p. 11.; Dr. Hammond's note on St. Luke, ch. I, p. 203, etc. However, St. John shews us that he meant him who was the true God, by telling us that the world, and every thing that was made, was made by this word, or logos; that in this word was life; that he was in the world, and was the light of the world; that he had glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, etc.|} or rather, the word was in the beginning. The eternal word, the increated[uncreated?] wisdom, the second Person of the blessed Trinity, the only begotten Son of the Father, as he is here called (ver. 14.) of the same nature and substance, and the same God, with the Father and Holy Ghost. This word was always; so that it was never true to say, he was not, as the Arians blasphemed. This word was in the beginning. Some, by the beginning, expound the Father himself, in whom he was always. Others give this plain and obvious sense, that the word, or the Son of God, was, when all other things began to have a being; he never began, but was from all eternity. --- And the word was with God; that is was with the Father; and as it is said, (ver. 18) in the bosom of the Father; which implies, that he is indeed a distinct person, but the same in nature and substance with the Father and the Holy Ghost. This is repeated again in the second verse, as repetitions are very frequent in St. John. --- And the word was God. This without question is the construction; where, according to the letter we read, and God was the word. (Witham) --- The Greek for the word is Logos, which signifies not only the exterior word, but also the interior word, or thought; and in this latter sense it is taken here. (Bible de Vence) --- Philo Judaeus, in the apostolic age, uses the word Logos, p. 823, to personify the wisdom and the power of God. Logos estin eikon Theou di ou sumpas o Kosmos edemiourgeito. By a similar metonymy, Jesus Christ is called the way, the truth, the life, the resurrection. --- And the word was God. Here the eternity and the divinity of the second Person are incontrovertibly established; or, we must say that language has no longer a fixed meaning, and that it is impossible to establish any point whatever from the words of Scripture. (Haydock)
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