There are also two answers to this. First, because “son” means something begotten, and when we hear of the generation of the Son, someone might suppose that this generation is the kind he can comprehend, that is, a material and changeable generation. Thus he did not say “Son,” but Word, which signifies an intelligible proceeding, so that it would not be understood as a material and changeable generation. And so in showing that the Son is born of the Father in an unchangeable way, he eliminates a faulty conjecture by using the name Word.
The second answer is this. The Evangelist was about to consider the Word as having come to manifest the Father. But since the idea of manifesting is implied better in the name “Word” than in the name “Son,” he preferred to use the name Word.
32 The third question is raised by Augustine in his book Eighty-three Questions; and it is this. In Greek, where we have “Word,” they have “Logos”; now since “Logos” signifies in Latin both “notion” and “word” [i.e., ratio et verbum ], why did the translators render it as “word” and not “notion,” since a notion is something interior just as a word is?
I answer that “notion” [ratio], properly speaking, names a conception of the mind precisely as in the mind, even if through it nothing exterior comes to be; but “word” signifies a reference to something exterior. And so because the Evangelist, when he said “Logos,” intended to signify not only a reference to the Son’s existence in the Father, but also the operative power of the Son, by which, through him, all things were made, our predecessors preferred to translate it “Word,” which implies a reference to something exterior, rather than “notion “ which implies merely a concept of the mind.
33 The fourth question is from Origen, and is this. In many passages, Scripture, when speaking of the Word of God, does not simply call him the Word, but adds “of God,” saying, “the Word of God,” or “of the Lord”: “The Word of God on high is the foundation of wisdom” (Sir 1:5); “His name is the Word of God” (Rv 19:13). Why then did the Evangelist, when speaking here of the Word of God, not say, “In the beginning was the Word of God,” but said In the beginning was the Word?
I answer that although there are many participated truths, there is just one absolute Truth, which is Truth by its very essence, that is, the divine act of being ( esse ); and by this Truth all words are words. Similarly, there is one absolute Wisdom elevated above all things, that is, the divine Wisdom, by participating in which all wise persons are wise. Further, there is one absolute Word, by participating in which all persons having a word are called speakers. Now this is the divine Word which of itself is the Word elevated above all words. So in order that the Evangelist might signify this supereminence of the divine Word, he pointed out this Word to us absolutely without any addition.
And because the Greeks, when they wished to signify something separate and elevated above everything else, did this by affixing the article to the name (as the Platonists, wishing to signify the separated substances, such as the separated good or the separated man, called them the good per se, or man per se ), so the Evangelist, wishing to signify the separation and elevation of that Word above all things, affixed an article to the name “Logos,” so that if it were stated in Latin we would say “the Word.”
34 Secondly, we must consider the meaning of the phrase, In the beginning. We must note that according to Origen, the word principium has many meanings [such as “principle,” “source,” or “beginning”]. Since the word principium implies a certain order of one thing to another, one can find a principium in all those things which have an order. First of all, order is found in quantified things; and so there is a principle of number and lengths, as for example, a line. Second, order is found in time; and so we speak of a “beginning” of time, or of duration. Third, order is found in learning; and this in two ways: as to nature, and as to ourselves, and in both cases we can speak of a “beginning”: “By this time you ought to be teachers” (Heb 5:12). As to nature, in Christian doctrine the beginning and principle of our wisdom is Christ, inasmuch as he is the Wisdom and Word of God, i.e., in his divinity. But as to ourselves, the beginning is Christ himself inasmuch as the Word has become flesh, i.e., by his incarnation. Fourth, in order is found in the production of a thing. In this perspective there can be a principium on the part of the thing generated, that is, the first part of the thing generated or made; as we say that the foundation is the beginning of a house. Another principium is on the part of the generator, and in this perspective there are three “principles”: of intention, which is the purpose, which motivates the agent; of reason, which is the idea in the mind of the maker; and of execution, which is the operative faculty. Considering these various ways of using the term, we now ask how principium is used here when it says, In the beginning was the Word.
35 We should note that this word can be taken in three ways. In one way so that principium is understood as the Person of the Son, who is the principle of creatures by reason of his active power acting with wisdom, which is the conception of the things that are brought into existence. Hence we read: “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). And so the Lord said about himself: “I am the principium who also speaks to you” (below 8:25). Taking principium in this way, we should understand the statement, In the beginning was the Word, as though he were saying, “The Word was in the Son,” so that the sense would be: The Word himself is the principium, principle, in the sense in which life is said to be “in” God, when this life is not something other than God.
And this is the explanation of Origen. And so the Evangelist says In the beginning here in order, as Chrysostom says, to show at the very outset the divinity of the Word by asserting that he is a principle because, as determining all, a principle is most honored.
36 In a second way principium can be understood as the Person of the Father, who is the principle not only of creatures, but of every divine process. It is taken this way in, “Yours is princely power ( principium ) in the day of your birth” (Ps 110:3). In this second way one reads In the beginning was the Word as though it means, “The Son was in the Father.” This is Augustine’s understanding of it, as well as Origen’s. The Son, however, is said to be in the Father because both have the same essence. Since the Son is his own essence, then the Son is in whomsoever the Son’s essence is. Since, therefore, the essence of the Son is in the Father by consubstantiality, it is fitting that the Son be in the Father. Hence it says below (14:10): “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
37 In a third way, principium can be taken for the beginning of duration, so that the sense of In the beginning was the Word is that the Word was before all things, as Augustine explains it. According to Basil and Hilary, this phrase shows the eternity of the Word.
The phrase In the beginning was the Word shows that no matter which beginning of duration is taken, whether of temporal things which is time, or of aeviternal things which is the aeon, or of the whole world or any imagined span of time reaching back for many ages, at that beginning the Word already was. Hence Hilary says ( On the Trinity VII): “Go back season by season, skip over the centuries, take away ages. Set down whatever you want as the beginning in your opinion: the Word already was.” And this is what Proverbs (8:23) says: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made anything.” But what is prior to the beginning of duration is eternal.
38 And thus the first explanation asserts the causality of the Word; the second explanation affirms the consubstantiality of the Word with the Father, who utters the Word; and the third explanation affirms the co-eternity of the Word.
39 Now we should consider that it says that the Word was ( erat ), which is stated in the past imperfect tense. This tense is most appropriate for designating eternal things if we consider the nature of time and of the things that exist in time. For what is future is not yet in act; but what is at present is in act, and by the fact that it is in act what is present is not described as having been. Now the past perfect tense indicates that something has existed, has already come to an end, and has now ceased to be. The past imperfect tense, on the other hand, indicates that something has been, has not yet come to an end, nor has ceased to be, but still endures. Thus, whenever John mentions eternal things he expressly says “was” ( erat, past imperfect tense), but when he refers to anything temporal he says “has been” ( fuit, past perfect tense), as will be clear later.
But so far as concerns the notion of the present, the best way to designate eternity is the present tense, which indicates that some thing is in act, and this is always the characteristic of eternal things. And so it says in Exodus (3:14): “I am who am.” And Augustine says: “He alone truly is whose being does not know a past and a future.
40 We should also note that this verb was, according to the Gloss, is not understood here as indicating temporal changes, as other verbs do, but as signifying the existence of a thing. Thus it is also called a substantive verb.
41 Someone may ask how the Word can be co-eternal with the Father since he is begotten by the Father: for a human son, born from a human father, is subsequent to his father.
I answer that there are three reasons why an originative principle is prior in duration to that which derives from that principle. First of all, if the originative principle of anything precedes in time the action by which it produces the thing of which it is the principle; thus a man does not begin to write as soon as he exists, and so he precedes his writing in time. Secondly, if an action is successive; consequently, even if the action should happen to begin at the same time as the agent, the termination of the action is nevertheless subsequent to the agent. Thus, as soon as fire has been generated in a lower region, it begins to ascend; but the fire exists before it has ascended, because the motion by which it tends upward requires some time. Thirdly, by the fact that sometimes the beginning of a thing depends on the will of its principle, just as the beginning of a creature’s coming-to-be depends on the will of God, such that God existed before any creature.
Yet none of these three is found in the generation of the divine Word. God did not first exist and then begin to generate the Word: for since the generation of the Word is nothing other than an intelligible conception, it would follow that God would be understanding in potency before understanding in act, which is impossible. Again, it is impossible that the generation of the Word involve succession: for then the divine Word would be unformed before it was formed (as happens in us who form words by “cogitating”), which is false, as was said. Again, we cannot say that the Father pre-established a beginning of duration for his Son by his own will, because God the Father does not generate the Son by his will, as the Arians held, but naturally: for God the Father, understanding himself, conceives the Word; and so God the Father did not exist prior to the Son.
An example of this, to a limited degree, appears in fire and in the brightness issuing from it: for this brightness issues naturally and without succession from the fire. Again, if the fire were eternal, its brightness would be coeternal with it. This is why the Son is called the brightness of the Father: “the brightness of his glory” (Heb 1:3). But this example lacks an illustration of the identity of nature. And so we call him Son, although in human sonship we do not find coeternity: for we must attain our knowledge of divine things from many likenesses in material things, for one likeness is not enough.
The Council of Ephesus says that the Son always coexists with the Father: for “brightness” indicates his unchangeability, “birth” points to the Word himself, but the name “Son” suggests his consubstantiality.
42 And so we give the Son various names to express his perfection, which cannot be expressed by one name. We call him “Son” to show that he is of the same nature as the Father; we call him “image” to show that he is not unlike the Father in any way; we call him “brightness” to show that he is coeternal; and he is called the “Word” to show that he is begotten in an immaterial manner.
43 Then the Evangelist says, and the Word was with God, which is the second clause in his account. The first thing to consider is the meaning of the two words which did not appear in the first clause, that is, God , and with; for we have already explained the meanings of “Word,” and “beginning. “Let us continue carefully by examining these two new words, and to better understand the explanation of this second clause, we must say something about the meaning of each so far as it is relevant to our purpose.
44 At the outset, we should note that the name “God” signifies the divinity concretely and as inherent in a subject, while the name “deity” signifies the divinity in the abstract and absolutely. Thus the name “deity” cannot naturally and by its mode of signifying stand for a [divine] person, but only for the [divine] nature. But the name “God” can, by its natural mode of signifying, stand for any one of the [divine] persons, just as the name “man” stands for any individual ( suppositum ) possessing humanity. Therefore, whenever the truth of a statement or its predicate requires that the name “God” stand for the person, then it stands for the person, as when we say, “God begets God.” Thus, when it says here that the Word was with God, it is necessary that God stand for the person of the Father, because the preposition with signifies the distinction of the Word, which is said to be with God. And although this preposition signifies a distinction in person, it does not signify a distinction in nature, since the nature of the Father and of the Son is the same. Consequently, the Evangelist wished to signify the person of the Father when he said God.