Homily on “In the Beginning Was the Word”

1Every utterance of the Gospels is more sublime than the rest of the Spirit’s teachings, because in those the Lord spoke to us through his servants the prophets, but in the Gospels he conversed with us in his own person. Yet even within the gospel proclamation itself, the one who spoke with the loudest voice—with words greater than any hearing and higher than any mind—is John, the son of thunder. We have just heard the opening of his gospel writing read aloud: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

I know that many of those outside the word of the truth, who think highly of themselves for their worldly wisdom, have admired these words and even dared to mix them into their own writings. For the devil is a thief, and he steals our stories and retails them to his own spokesmen. If fleshly wisdom marveled so much at the power of these sayings, what will we do—we who are disciples of the Spirit—if we listen carelessly and reckon that the power dwelling in them is something small? Who is so sick with insensibility that he would not be struck with amazement at such beauty of thought and such unattainable depth of doctrine, and long for their true comprehension?

But admiring what is beautiful is not the hard thing. The hard and difficult thing is to arrive at an exact understanding of what one has admired. No one fails to praise this visible sun: everyone embraces its size and beauty, the symmetry of its rays, and the light that flashes from it. Yet if someone stubbornly insists on directing the glances of his eyes against its orb, he will not only fail to see what he longs for, but he will also ruin the sharpness of his sight and go away. I think the mind that insists on making an exact examination of the words before us suffers something like this.

“In the beginning was the Word.” Who can think worthily about the beginning? What power of words can be found that is able to present the thought with equal worth? When John was about to hand down to us the teaching about the divinity of the Son of God, he gave the Word no other beginning than the beginning of all things. The Holy Spirit knew those who would spring up against the glory of the only Son. He foreknew those who would bring forward against us their sophisms, contrived for the ruin of their hearers: “If he was begotten, he was not”; “Before he was begotten, he was not”; “From things that are not he received his subsistence.” Such things are uttered by tongues sharpened through persuasive speech beyond any two-edged sword.

So that no one may be permitted to say such things, the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand through the Gospel: “In the beginning,” he says, “was the Word.” If you hold fast to this saying, you will suffer no harm from the evil craftsmen. For if he says, “If he was begotten, he was not,” you say, “In the beginning he was.” “But,” he says, “how was he before he was begotten?” Do not let go of the “was.” Do not abandon the “in the beginning.” The summit of the beginning is not grasped; the outside of the beginning is not found.

2Do not let anyone deceive you by the many meanings of the word. For in this life there are many beginnings of many things, but there is one beginning over all things, the one beyond. “The beginning of a good way,” Proverbs said. But the beginning of a way is the first movement, from which we start our journey, and what lies behind it can be found. And again, “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” This beginning also has something else set before it, for the beginning of taking up the arts is elementary instruction. The fear of the Lord, then, is the element of wisdom. But there is something older than this beginning: the settled state of the soul, when one has not yet been made wise and has not yet taken up the fear of God. Political powers are also called beginnings, the preeminences of offices. But these beginnings are beginnings of certain things, and each is relative to something. For the beginning of a line is the point, and the beginning of a surface is the line, and the beginning of a body is the surface, and the beginnings of a composed word are the letters. But that beginning is not like these. It is bound to nothing; it serves nothing; it is not considered together with anything. It is free, without a master, released from relation to another, not to be passed beyond by thought—a beginning that reasonings cannot pass beyond, whose beyond cannot be found. For if you strive with the imagination of your mind to run past the beginning, you will find it running ahead of you and meeting your reasonings first. Let your mind run as far as it wishes and stretch itself toward the things above; then you will find it wandering in countless ways and stepping much on emptiness, and returning again to itself because it cannot make the beginning lower than itself. For the beginning is always found to be outside and greater than what is thought. “In the beginning,” then, “was the Word.” O the wonder! How all the words have been joined together with equal honor! The “was” has equal power with “in the beginning.” Where is the blasphemer? Where is the Christ-fighting tongue that says, “There was once when he was not”? Hear the Gospel: “In the beginning he was.” But if he was in the beginning, when was he not? Shall I groan at their impiety, or loathe their ignorance? “But before he was begotten,” they say, “he was not.” Do you know when he was begotten, so that you can attach the “before” to a time? For “before” is a temporal word, setting one thing before another in antiquity. But how is it reasonable that the generation of the Maker of time should be subject to temporal names? “In the beginning,” then, “he was.” If you do not let go of the “was,” you will give no entrance to wicked blasphemy. For just as sailors, when they ride on two anchors, despise the swell, so you too will laugh at this wicked disturbance that comes into life from the spirits of wickedness and shakes the faith of many, if you keep your soul anchored in the safety of these words. But our mind asks, “Who was in the beginning?” “The Word,” it says. What kind of word? The human word? Or the word of angels? For the Apostle hinted to us that angels also have their own tongue, when he said, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

3But the word “word” carries a double meaning. One kind is the word spoken aloud, which perishes in the air as soon as it is uttered. The other is the inward word, dwelling in our hearts—the conceptual word. And there is yet another, the word of skill. Take care that the homonymy of the sound never deceives you. For how could the human word have been in the beginning, when the human being received the beginning of his generation somewhere far below? Before the human being came the wild beasts; before the human being came the cattle, all the creeping things, everything that walks on land and everything that lives in water, the birds of heaven, the stars, the sun, the moon, the plants, the seeds, the earth, the sea, the sky. So the human word was not in the beginning—and neither was the word of angels. For every creature is lower than the ages, having received the beginning of its being from the Creator. And the word in the heart is itself younger than each of the things thought. But hear the word in a manner worthy of God. For when he speaks to you about the only Son, he called him Word. Just as he will shortly say “light” and “life” and “resurrection,” and when you hear “light” you do not sink down to this light perceived by the senses and visible to the eyes, and when you hear “life” you do not think of this common life that even the irrational animals live—so too, when you hear “Word,” guard yourself lest through the weakness of your understanding you be dragged down to lowly and humble thoughts. Search out the meaning of the saying. Why “Word”? So that it might be shown that he came forth from the mind. Why “Word”? Because without passion he was begotten. Why “Word”? Because he is the image of the one who begot him, showing the whole begetter in himself, dividing off nothing from there, and existing complete in himself—just as our own word images forth our whole thought. For what we have conceived in the heart, that we bring forth in speech, and what is spoken is a representation of the thought in the heart. For out of the abundance of the heart the word is brought forth. Our heart is like a spring, and the word brought forth is like a channel flowing from that spring. What flows away is as much as what first rises up; and what is hidden is as much as what appears. He said “Word,” then, to present to you the generation of the Father without passion, to proclaim to you the complete existence of the Son, and through these things to indicate the timeless union of the Son with the Father. For our own word is the offspring of the mind, begotten without passion: it is not cut, it is not divided, it does not flow away. Rather, the mind remains whole in its own constitution and brings forth the whole word, complete and finished; and the word, having come forth, contains in itself all the power of the mind that begot it. Take from the sound of the word “word,” then, as much as is reverent for the theology of the only Son; whatever you find incongruous and appearing out of place, reject it and pass beyond it by every means. “In the beginning was the Word.” If he had said, “In the beginning was the Son,” the thought of passion would have entered with the title “Son.”

4Since among us the things that beget do so in time and with passion, John anticipated this and said “Word,” correcting beforehand the unseemly suppositions, so that he might keep your soul unwounded. “And the Word was with God.” Again the “was,” against those who blaspheme that he was not. Where was the Word? Not in a place; for the uncircumscribed things are not contained by place. But where was he? With God. Neither the Father is in a place, nor is the Son held in any enclosure or acknowledged circumscribed boundary; but the Father is unbounded, and the Son is unbounded. Whatever you conceive, and wherever you go in your spirit, you will find it filled with God; everywhere you will find the subsistence of the Son co-extending with him everywhere. “And the Word was with God.” Marvel at the precision of each phrase. He did not say, “The Word was in God,” but “with God,” so that he might present the distinctive character of the person. He did not say, “In God,” so that he might not give an occasion for the confusion of the persons. For that blasphemy is also wicked—the blasphemy of those who attempt to mix everything together and say that Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one subject, and that differing names are attached to the one reality. Wicked is the impiety, and no less to be fled than those who blaspheme that the Son of God is unlike in essence to God the Father. “And the Word was with God.” Then, having used the term “Word” to present the passionlessness of the generation, he quickly also consoled us for the harm that comes to us from the word “Word.” And as if snatching him away from the slander of the blasphemers, he says, “What is the Word? The Word was God.” Do not devise for me distinctions among words, and do not attach any blasphemy from your own cunning to the teaching of the Spirit. You have the declaration; submit to the Lord. “The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Again he recapitulates in a few words all his theology, which the evangelist handed down to us concerning the only Son. Who is “this one”? This one, the Word who is God. For since he has articulated for you the thought about him, as if imprinting on your soul through the teaching the things that were unknown, and making the Word Christ dwell in your heart, he says, “This one.” Which “this one”? Do not look outside, searching around with the demonstrative word for the one being pointed out to you; but enter into the hidden places of your own soul, and recognize the one you were taught is God, the one who was in the beginning, the one who came forth as Word, the one who was with God. Recognize him, and be astonished, and worship your own Master, the one established in you through the teaching. Know that this one was in the beginning—that is, always with God his own Father. Preserve for me these few phrases, as if sealing them as a signet upon your memories. They will be an unbreakable little wall against the assaults of those who plot against you; they are a saving safeguard for the souls of those who put them forward. If someone comes to you and says, “He was begotten when he was not; for if he was, how was he begotten?”—turn away the blasphemy against the glory of the only Son as you would the voice of demons. But you yourself return and come to the phrases of the Gospels: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1–2). Say the fourth “was,” and you will abolish their “he was not.” Let these foundations of the faith remain unshaken. On them we will build, God granting, what remains as well. For it is not possible to discuss everything with you all at once, lest by the excess of the word we make useless for you what has been gathered with labor. For the mind that grows weak when it tries to grasp everything at once suffers something like a stomach that, because of an excess of satiety, cannot bring what has been sent into it to digestion. I pray, then, that you may be sweetened by the taste and benefited by the digestion. I myself stand ready for you for the service of what remains, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.