The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle of S. John
But it will be asked, was this Divine Word like our Word, or unlike ? Partly like, and partly unlike. It was like in these respects : 1. As being immaterial. 2. As being in either case the vehicle of our thoughts; and 3, of our conceptions. 4. As being within. 5. As being the idea according to which nations are moulded. Hence Tinneus calls the Word of God his pattern world, the model of all created things. 6. As the thoughts of our mind are uttered outwardly in word, so was it when the Word of God spake in the Flesh He assumed. 7. As our word is the image of our understanding, so is the Word the image of God the Father. 8. As our word or conception lasts as long as we understand any matter, so is it with the Divine Word. The Divine mind ever abides, so does His Word. And as the mind of the Father is ever active, so is it with the generation of the Word. It is ever going on. As the Ephesian fathers say, “ Let the splendour of light set forth that the Son of God has ever been coeternal with the Father, let the ‘ Word ’ declare that His generation was without suffering, and let the Name of Son reveal His consubstantiality.” See, too, S. Basil (Horn, i. on S. John). 9. As the conceptions of our mind precede our action. As S. Augustine says (de Trinit . lib. xv. 11), “There are no acts of ours which are not previously suggested in the mind. There may be words of ours which are not followed by action, but the contrary cannot be : and in like manner the Word of God could be when as yet no creature existed, but no creature could exist except by Him by Whom all things were made.”
II. It is unlike : (1.) Because our word is merely an accident of our mind : but the Word of God exists as a Substance and a Person. See S. Athanasius, Serm. i. contr. Arianos ; and S. Chrysostom, Horn. i. on John ix. 2. (2.) Our word is a thing of time, subsequent to its conception in the mind, whereas the Word of God is from all eternity, and coequal with the Father. And again our ‘ word ’ results from our being unable otherwise to understand others. But the Word of God arises from the infinite perfection and productiveness of the Father’s mind. (3.) Our speech is imperfect, ever changing, and complex. Whereas the Word of God is perfect, ever constant, unchangeable, one and the same, as S. Augustine says (on Ps. xliv.), “ All things exist in One,” and S. Athanasius, Serm. iii. contr. Arian. (4.) Our word or speech is distinct from our mind, whereas the Word of God is consubstantial with the Father. (5.) Our speech (or word) is part of our nature, but the Word of God is a Person distinct from the Father. (6.) Our word is not our son, whereas the Word of God is the Son of God, as S. Augustine says (de Trinit. vi. 1): “The Father is Very Wisdom, but the Son is Wisdom and Power from the Wisdom and Power of the Father. The Father is not wise by engendered Wisdom, but is in Himself unbegotten Wisdom.” (7.) Our words are feeble and ineffectual; the Word of God is all-powerful. (8.) Our words soon pass away and come to naught. The Word of God is eternal, for eternal is the understanding and the generation of the Father. S. Hilary says (de Trinit ii.), “The sound of the voice ceases, and the expression of our thought. But this Word is a reality, not a mere sound.” (See Suarez ut supra.)
And therefore, though we may in some measure ascend from the word of our mind to (the knowledge of) the Word of God, yet this ascent by the light of nature is only to (the knowledge of) His essential Word. For this God conceives, understands, and brings forth all things. But that He brought forth and begat His Personal Word, that is as Son, surpasses the understanding both of angels and men. It must therefore be wondered at and adored in mute and holy silence, rather than be pried into and set forth by our too curious and yet feeble understanding , so that we may wonder and cry aloud with the Seraphim, ‘ Holy, Holy, Holy,’ &c. This was not known to Plato, or to Demosthenes with all his eloquence. “ I will bring to nought the understanding of the prudent,” says S. Jerome to Paulinus. “ My heart hath uttered a good word. I will speak of thy works to the King,” says the Psalmist (Ps. xlv. 1.) “Thou seest that this Word is the Son of God, and we believe that He came forth from the Father's breast ; from the womb of His heart, so to speak.” (Nazianzen , Orat. de Fide.) See Ps. cx., on which S. Jerome says, “He brought Him forth from His own Nature, from His own substance, from the very inmost being ( medullis ) of His Godhead. Whatever the Father is Himself in His Godhead He gave wholly to His Son.”
Tropologically . S. Augustine ( Confess . xi. 9) explains how the Word preaches to the heart of man, and S. Bernard says (Serm. xlv. in Cant) : “ His beauty is His love, and it is the greater because it takes the lead. But then it is, that from the very depths of His heart, and from His inmost affections, He cries more ardently for our love in return, in proportion as He feels that He was more ready to love us than we were to be loved by Him. And hence arose His speaking to us, His pouring forth His gift, and the response of the soul, its wonder and its thankfulness. And it therefore loves the more, because it sees that it is mastered in love, and wonders the more, and feels that it was not the first to love.” And S. Ambrose, ( de Virg. iii.) says, “ the Word of God wounds, but leaves not a sore (ulcerat).” There is a wound of gracious love, there are wounds of charity, as the Spouse says ( Cant. ii.), “She who is perfect is wounded, with charity. Good then are the wounds of the Word — the wounds of Him who loveth us.”
The word of life. “ For as the Father hath life in Himself, &c.” (John v. 26.) Being is here attributed to the Father, life to the Word, love to the Holy Spirit.
Life is threefold, divine, angelic, human. Of these the Divine is most perfect, boundless, eternal, uncreated, the origin and source of angelic and human life. Angelic life is created, but spiritual. Human life is partly spiritual, partly corporeal. It is also natural and supernatural. The natural consists in life, sense, and reason. The supernatural also is two-fold, begun by grace and consummated in glory. Further than this the Divine Life is formal and causal. Formal is that life with which God Himself exists, causal that by which He gives life (whether natural or spiritual) to others. The Word then is called the Word of Life, as having life in Himself and as being the cause of life to others. As S. John says, “in Him was life,” being in Himself essential life. See S. Thomas, par. i. Quæst. 28, where he alludes to the words (Ps. xxxvi.), “ With Thee is the Fount of Life;” as Theodoret says, “With Thee is the Eternal Word, the Fount of Life, and in the Light of the Holy Spirit we shall see the light of the only Begotten One.”
But secondly, it may mean, that in the Word there exist, as in archetype, the eternal reasons of all things. “ The Wisdom of God, (says S. Augustine in John i. 1) in art (or theory) contains all things. Thou beholdest the heaven, sun, moon, they exist in the theory ; outwardly they are bodies, in theory they are life.” And again, “ All things which are made, and have not life, have life in the Word of God, though they are not life in themselves.” The same statement occurs in the Homilies ascribed to Origen. As Philo says, “ When He resolved to create this world, He formed a conception of it, and from that fashioned the world we now see.” See note in translation of S. Augustine (on John i. 3) in Library of the Fathers.
But again, in Him is that which sustains and supports everything in life. See S. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius in John i. 4, and Clement Alex. Adhort. ad gentes.
Thirdly, But it is best to understand it to mean that in the Word is our true life, both of grace and glory. He became man in order to communicate this life and light to men : that, just as the world at large was created by Him, so might man (this existence of the world) be re-created, and brought back from sin to the life of grace and glory. See below, verse 2, and chapter v. 11. See S. Chrysostom, Augustine, S. Ambrose, de Fide, cap . iii. and others. See too the many passages in this Gospel where life is spoken of as coming from the Word. See also Lactantius i. 11, on the meaning of ζωή.