The Word Was God
John 1:1-14, as the early church read it
The opening of John's Gospel is the church's great statement of who Christ is: the eternal Word, God from God, by whom all things were made, who became flesh and lived among us. It is also the passage that, more than any other, answered the Arians (who said the Son was a creature, that "there was a time when He was not") and the Gnostics (who split the Creator from the Redeemer). Below is the prologue passage by passage, with the early Fathers in their own words, and then, set apart, a plain-language restatement so the older translations are easy to follow. This is not one writer's opinion; it is the reading the church held from the beginning, East and West together.
How to read this: each Father's words are given verbatim and attributed (from the Catena Aurea, public domain, transcription lightly corrected for scan errors). The box marked "In plain terms" is our own plain-language restatement, never the Father's words. Full source texts are linked at the foot.
John 1:1-2 · KJVIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
"Whereas he had said, the Word was God, the fearfulness, and strangeness of the speech disturbed me; the prophets having declared that God was One. But, to quiet my apprehensions, the fisherman reveals the scheme of this so great mystery, and refers all to one, without dishonor, without obliterating [the Person], without reference to time, saying, The Same was in the beginning with God; with One Unbegotten God, from whom He is, the One Only-begotten God."
St. Hilary of Poitiers"To stop any diabolical suspicion, that the Word, because He was God, might have rebelled against His Father, or, being separate, have become the antagonist of the Father Himself, he says, The Same was in the beginning with God; that is to say, this Word of God never existed separate from God."
Theophylact"Lest hearing that In the beginning was the Word, you should yet understand the Father's Life to have some degree of priority, he has introduced the words, The Same was in the beginning with God. For God was never solitary, apart from Him, but always God with God. And forasmuch as he said, the Word was God, that no one might think the Divinity of the Son inferior, he immediately subjoins the marks of proper Divinity, mentioning Eternity, and adding His attribute of Creator, All things were made by Him."
St. John ChrysostomJohn's claim that "the Word was God" unsettled even the Fathers, since Scripture says God is one. Their answer: the Word is not a second or rival God, and not a creature that began in time. He was eternally "with God," God from God, the one and only-begotten, and (Chrysostom presses) in no way later or lesser than the Father, since by Him all things were made. This is the verse that later sank Arius and his slogan that "there was a time when the Son was not."
John 1:3-5 · KJVAll things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
"That life is the light of men, but foolish hearts cannot receive that light, being so encumbered with sins that they cannot see it… For suppose a blind man standing in the sun, the sun is present to him, but he is absent from the sun. In like manner every fool is blind, and wisdom is present to him; but, though present, absent from his sight… the truth being, not that she is absent from him, but that he is absent from her."
St. Augustine"Human nature, even though it sinned not, could not shine by its own strength simply; for it is not naturally light, but only a recipient of it; it is capable of containing wisdom, but is not wisdom itself. As the air, of itself, shines not… even so is our nature, considered in itself; a dark substance, which however admits of and is made partaker of the light of wisdom."
OrigenThe Word is the very life and light of everyone. When a person cannot see that light, the fault is his own blindness, not the light's absence, like a blind man standing in full sun. Origen adds that we are not light in ourselves; we can only receive His light, the way dark air only borrows the brightness of the sun.
John 1:6-8 · KJVThere was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
"What is said above refers to the Divinity of Christ. He came to us in the form of man, but man in such sense that the Godhead was concealed within Him. And therefore there was sent before a great man, to declare by his witness that He was more than man. And who was this? He was a man."
St. Augustine"Not an Angel, as many have held. The Evangelist here refutes such a notion."
TheophylactJohn the Baptist was a man, deliberately not an angel (the Evangelist rules that out), sent by God to point past himself to One who was far more than a man.
John 1:9 · KJVThat was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
"Having said above that John had come, and was sent, to bear witness of the Light, lest any from the recent coming of the witness should infer the same of Him who is witnessed to, the Evangelist takes us back to that existence which is beyond all beginning, saying, That was the true Light."
St. John Chrysostom"Wherefore is there added, true? Because man enlightened is called light, but the true Light is that which lightens. For our eyes are called lights, and yet, without a lamp at night, or the sun by day, these lights are open to no purpose. Wherefore he adds: which lightens every man."
St. AugustineThere is a difference between a light and the Light. We are "lights" only the way a lit lamp is, borrowed, and useless without a source. He is the true Light, the one that does the lighting, and He gives light to everyone, even to John who announced Him. Chrysostom notes the move: the witness came recently, but the One witnessed to is "beyond all beginning."
John 1:10 · KJVHe was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
"You must not suppose that He was in the world in the same sense in which the earth, cattle, men, are in the world; but in the sense in which an artificer controls his own work… for whereas an artificer is external to what he fabricates, God pervades the world, carrying on the work of creation in every part, and never absent from any part: by the presence of His Majesty He both makes and controls what is made. Thus He was in the world, as He by Whom the world was made."
St. Augustine"For as, when a person leaves off speaking, his voice ceases to be, and vanishes; so if the Heavenly Father should cease to speak His Word, the effect of that Word, i.e. the universe which is created in the Word, shall cease to exist."
OrigenHe was in the world He had made, not as one more object inside it, but as its Maker, present in and holding together every part, the way no human craftsman can ever be inside his own work. Origen's image: creation lasts only as long as God keeps "speaking" His Word. And still the world did not recognize Him.
John 1:11-13 · KJVHe came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
"When he said that the world knew Him not, he referred to the times of the old dispensation; but what follows has reference to the time of his preaching: He came to his own."
St. John Chrysostom"By his own, understand either the world, or Judea, which He had chosen for His inheritance."
TheophylactHe came to His own, the world He made, and Israel He had chosen, and was turned away. But to everyone who did receive Him He gave the right to become children of God, born not of human blood or human will but of God Himself.
John 1:14 · KJVAnd the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
"He gives definitely the forerunner's own testimony, which plainly declared the excellence of His Human Nature and the Eternity of His Godhead."
AlcuinThe witness John gives declares both sides of the one Christ at once: the reality of His human nature and the eternity of His Godhead. The Word made flesh is God, without ceasing to be God, taking our nature and living among us. (The Fathers' fuller treatment of "made flesh" against those who denied a real incarnation belongs to the deep dive still to be gathered from Athanasius and Irenaeus.)
Where this stands among the traditions
This is ecumenical ground. The reading above, the Word eternally and fully God, the Creator, the true Light made flesh, is held in common by the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant traditions alike, because it is the reading of the early church East and West and the substance of the Nicene Creed. The prologue is not where the later divisions lie; it is the bedrock they all stand on. The drift it warns against is the old one of Arius, treating the Son as a high creature, which the church rejected here first of all.
Patristic text from the Catena Aurea (Thomas Aquinas's chain of the Fathers on the Gospels), public domain, transcription lightly corrected for scan errors; gathered via CCEL. Scripture in the King James Version. The plain-language lines are our own restatement, not the Fathers' words. See the same passage in the Study Bible, and John 1 at BibleHub. Full-text Father sources will be hosted in our own library as it is built. (Proof-of-format page.)