John 1:1–5

John 1:1 — "In the beginning was the Word" The opening three words, En archē, are a deliberate and unmistakable echo of Genesis 1:1 ("In the beginning, God created…"). Where Genesis marks the start of created time, John reaches behind that beginning: the Word (Logos) was not created at the beginning — he already was (ēn, imperfect tense, indicating continuous, pre-existing existence). This is not a narrative of origin but of eternal being. The threefold structure of verse 1 is architecturally precise: (1) the Word existed before creation; (2) the Word was in personal relationship with God (pros ton Theon — literally "toward God," implying face-to-face communion, not mere proximity); (3) the Word was God (Theos ēn ho Logos). The absence of the definite article before Theos in the third clause does not diminish the Word's divinity, as some have argued — Greek grammar here indicates the qualitative nature of the Word's being: he fully shares the divine nature, while the syntax simultaneously preserves the personal distinction from the Father. This is the scriptural foundation of Trinitarian theology.

John 1:2 — "The same was in the beginning with God" This verse recapitulates verse 1 before the argument advances. It is not mere repetition; it anchors the personal existence and eternal communion of the Word before proceeding to his activity. John will not allow the reader to forget: everything that follows about creation, life, and light flows from this eternal relational being.

John 1:3 — "All things were made through him" The Word is the mediating agent of all creation (panta di' autou egeneto). The contrast of verb tenses is critical: while the Word was (ēn), all things came to be (egeneto, aorist, a completed event). The Word belongs to a different ontological order than creation. "Without him, nothing was made that has been made" — the negative formulation hammers the point: there is no corner of reality, no atom of existence, that came into being apart from the Logos. This demolishes any dualism (Gnostic or otherwise) that would set creation against God.

John 1:4 — "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" Life (zōē) here is not merely biological existence (bios) but divine, self-subsisting life. The Word does not merely convey life — life dwells in him as a source. This life becomes light (phōs) for humanity — not a metaphor for intellectual enlightenment alone, but the revelation of God himself breaking into the human condition. The genitive tōn anthrōpōn ("of men/humanity") signals the universal scope: this light is for all people, not an elect few.

John 1:5 — "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn't overcome it" The present tense shines (phainei) is striking — not "shone" but shines, a continuous, ongoing action. The light is not a past event but a present reality. The Greek verb katelaben (translated "overcome" or "comprehended") is richly ambiguous: it means both to seize/overpower (as in physically overpowering an enemy) and to comprehend/grasp intellectually. Both senses are likely intentional. Darkness has neither defeated the light nor understood it. The passage anticipates the entire drama of the Gospel: the Word will enter the world of darkness (the Passion), and darkness — in the form of sin, death, and the powers of this age — will fail to extinguish him. This is the Prologue's first whisper of the Resurrection.

Catholic tradition reads John 1:1–5 as the supreme scriptural warrant for the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son and for the consubstantiality (homoousios) of the Son with the Father, defined at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and reiterated at Constantinople I (381 AD). The Nicene Creed's confession — "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made" — is essentially an expansion of these five verses.

St. Augustine (In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus, Tractate I) marvels that while philosophers had glimpsed some truths about the Logos, none had ever written "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (v.14). The Prologue's genius is that it begins in the philosophical idiom accessible to Greek thought (Logos was a concept in Stoic and Platonic philosophy) and then subverts it utterly with Incarnation.

St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I, Q.34) identifies the Word as the eternal "concept" of the Father's mind — the perfect self-expression of divine intellect — grounding the procession of the Son in the inner life of the Trinity. This Word is not a secondary or created wisdom but the very ratio of all created things.

The Catechism (CCC 291) directly cites verse 3: "In the beginning was the Word… all things were made through him." It teaches that creation is the work of the whole Trinity, but the Son is its mediating principle — creation is, in a sense, an outward expression of the eternal Word. The lux vera ("true light") of verse 9 and the zōē of verse 4 are identified in Catholic tradition with sanctifying grace — the participation of the human person in divine life (CCC 1997–1999), the very goal of redemption.

For a Catholic today, John 1:1–5 is not an abstract philosophical prologue — it is a personal declaration about whose child you are and what world you inhabit. In an age of pervasive nihilism and despair, verse 5 carries enormous pastoral weight: the light is still shining. It has not been overcome. Every morning prayer, every Mass, every act of charity is an act of defiance against the darkness — a participation in the light that darkness cannot seize.

Practically, Catholics are invited to read these verses slowly at dawn or before the Divine Office, letting the present tense of "the light shines" reorient the day. In a culture that often reduces the human person to biology or economics, verse 4 insists that in the Word is life — a life infinitely deeper than productivity, health, or success. The Catholic who has received baptism has received the very zōē of the Word; suffering, failure, and death cannot ultimately extinguish that light. This passage is also a powerful antidote to any form of Gnostic dualism — the tendency to treat the material world, the body, or everyday life as unspiritual. Because all things were made through him, all of creation is charged with the presence of the Word.