The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle of S. John
Chapter 1
Ver. 1. — That which was from the beginning, &c. The beginning of this Epistle corresponds with the beginning of St. John’s Gospel. Both here and there he sets forth the eternity and the Godhead of Christ, and next His Incarnation, these being the two chief Mysteries, and the cardinal points, of the whole Christian faith.
The word ‘was’ points, says St. Basil, “to eternity,” “that thus we might understand,” says Bede, “that the Word which was coeternal with the Father was before all time,” for whatever time you may assign, or imagine beforehand, it is true to say that the Word then was ; thousands, or millions of years, or ever the world was, for He was before any imaginable number of years, even from all eternity. Nor does it mean merely that He was before the beginning of the world, and of time, but that even then He was from all past eternity. And we speak of the Word in the imperfect, and not in the past time, to signify that He still exists. So St. Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others, on John i. 1. And St. John wrote thus against the Arians who would afterwards arise, and say that there was a time when He was not, denying that He was eternal. This also was condemned by the Nicene Council, and therefore St. John repeats the word ‘was’ to show that whatever time you may think of, or imagine, the Word at that very time ‘was.’ “Carry your thoughts back (says St. Basil, Contr . Eunom.) as far as you can, and you will not be able to rise beyond that time.”
Ver. 2. — But the word signifies not only His eternity, but His eternal generation, and (3.) His Godhead, for ‘Being’ or existence, as Elias Cretensis says, is peculiar (proprium) to God. For He is the fulness and boundlessness of being, a very boundless ocean of being. Whence Didymus (in loc.), S. Cyril (in John i.), and S. Ambrose (de Fide I. 5) acutely observe that the several creatures are said to be this or that, but that God alone is said absolutely to be. (4.) The word ‘was’ signifies that the ‘Word’ still exists and abides. Thus St. Thomas says on John i., ‘Was’ signifies past, present, and future time. The Word then ever was, ever is, and ever will be. As St. Basil says (de Sp . Sancto , cap. vi.) “When John said ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ he confines our thoughts within fixed limits. For the word ‘was’ allows our thoughts no outlet; and the word ‘beginning’ keeps our thoughts also from soaring beyond it, for however thou mayest strive to see ought beyond the Son, yet wilt thou never be able to pass beyond ‘the beginning.’” But if we speak correctly of God, His eternity cannot be bounded by any time whatsoever. For, as St Gregory Nazianzen says, ‘God both ever was, and is, and will be. Or, to speak more correctly, He ever is . But our expressions designate only the flow and lapse of time. As St. Augustine says, “I separate in my mind every mutable thing from eternity, and in eternity itself I discern no spaces of time, for they consist in past and future motions, but in eternity there is nothing past or future, for the past has ceased to be, and future has not come into being ; while eternity only is : it has not passed away as ceasing to be, nor is it future as not yet existing.” Plato says the same. Why then does the Vulgate use the perfect and not the imperfect tense? 1. Because St. John in what follows uses the perfect tense. 2. Because ‘first’ signifies more clearly that the Word was from the beginning. 3. Both these tenses are used indiscriminately, as St. Ambrose uses the imperfect tense; and lastly, Holy Scripture uses both past, present, and future tenses in speaking of God, for His eternity includes them all. As S. Augustine says ( Tract xcix. in John), “Although the immutable and ineffable nature of God admits not of past or future time, but simply Is as incapable of change, yet because time is ever changing with us (in this our mortal and changeable state) we say not falsely, He hath been, He shall be, He is : hath been, because He has never ceased to be ; shall be, because He will never cease to be ; is, because He ever exists.”
From the beginning, referring to Genesis i. 1. But here there is a distinction between ‘ created ’ and ‘ was.’ God created the world in the beginning of time : but He begat the Son in the beginning of eternity, which is signified by ‘ was.’ Tertullian rightly says that the Gospel was the supplement of the Old Testament. For John supplements Moses, by putting the beginning of the Word before the beginning of the world, which was created ages afterwards. But what then was this ‘ Beginning ’ ? 1. S. Cyril and Origen, in John i., understand by it God the Father, for the Son was ever in the bosom of the Father. 2. S. Augustine, Bede, and S. Hilary ( de Trin. lib . ii.) understand by it the beginning of the world, or of time. For even before this the Word ‘ was ’ from all eternity. See Ps. cix. 3 (Vulg.) ; Prov. viii. 25. As S. Hilary says : " Conceive any beginning you please, you cannot bound Him by time, for He then was ; ” and again, “ He is not so limited by any time, as to make that to begin which existed, rather than was made, in the beginning.” 3. S. Augustine, Chrysostom, Theophylact explain it that the Word was before all created beings. See Prov. viii. 22. Nonnus in his Paraphrase says that it means, He was before all time, coeval with the Father, of the same nature as the Father, incomprehensible, ineffable. ‘ In the beginning,’ then, is from all eternity (Micah v. 2). For eternity is a beginning without beginning. So S. Athanasius ( Contr , Ar.) and others. S. Ambrose (de Fide I. 5) says that the word ‘was’ reaches indefinitely. That which was in the beginning is not included in time, is not preceded by any beginning.” (Pseudo)-Augustine, Serm. vi. de temp., (ccxxxiv. in App.) : “ He who was in the beginning includes within Himself all beginning.” And Nazianzen ( Orat. de Fide): “Whatever beginning you choose to assign, will be objected to, for He was in the beginning.” But S. Cyril (in John i.) speaks more expressly : “ Nothing is more ancient than the beginning, if the word retains its proper meaning. In the beginning of a beginning cannot be thought of. For if it be conceived, this first beginning will be done away with, and then there will be really no beginning. And besides, we should then be obliged to go through an infinite series, and not be able to rest simply in any beginning whatsoever.” 4. But it may be explained thus. The Word was the beginning of the breathing forth of the Holy Spirit, and thus of the creation of all things (Prov. viii 22). The Word being regarded as the pattern or idea according to which God created all things. By this expression John approves the Divinity of the Son of God against Cerinthus and the heretics of the day, who said that Christ was a mere man; as Paul of Samosata, and Photinus afterwards. The Arians partly held this opinion, for though they allowed that He existed before His birth in the flesh, yet they denied His eternal generation, and regarded Him as the first of all God’s creatures.
This one expression ‘which was from the beginning,’ implicitly includes the threefold statement in the gospel : (1) In the beginning was the Word. (2.) The Word was with God. (3.) The Word was God. And without quoting this passage S. John refers here to it, for that which was from all eternity must necessarily be God : for nothing is eternal but God.
The first member of the sentence properly and explicitly sets forth when the Word was : then where He was, and then what was His essence, and its identity with that of the Father. These three blessings did the Word confer on us in His Incarnation, wherein He betrothed His humanity (as it were) to the Eternal Word, and thus joined and betrothed to Itself the whole human race, that we who are temporal might become eternal, from being earthly might become heavenly, that we men might become Gods, in order that our being in time or place, our very essence, might be firmly fixed in the Divine and eternal Word. S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxxvii. on the Nativity) beautifully says, “ The Son of God, who was before all worlds, invisible, incomprehensible, incorporeal, that Beginning, coming from the Beginning, that Light of Light, that Fount of Light and immortality, that stamp of the Archetype, that firmly impressed Seal, betakes Himself to His own image, takes upon Him flesh for the sake of flesh, and is united to an intellectual soul for my soul’s sake, in order that He might cleanse like by like.” And again, “God united with manhood made one Person of two contrary natures, body and spirit, one of them being deified by the other.”