Theophylact of Ohrid

God the Word never was separated from God the Father. Since he had said that the Word was God, he wanted to quell any devilish suspicion that might disturb us, that perhaps, because the Word was God, He may have risen up against the Father, and separated Himself from Him, and become the enemy of the Father, as the gods behave in Greek mythology. This is why John says that, while the Word indeed is God [and equal in power to the Father], yet He is always together with the Father, and never separated from Him. We should also address the Arians. Listen, you deaf men who say that the Son is the work and creation of God the Father: understand what name the Evangelist has given to the Son of God. He called Him Word. But you name Him work and creation. He is Word, not work or creation. "Word" is twofold. There is the inner word [diathetos logos] which we possess even when we are not speaking, namely, the faculty of speech. When a man is not talking, and even when he sleeps, the power of word and speech is still within him. There is also the outward word [prophorikos logos], when we articulate with our lips the inner power of speech, bringing it forth into activity and deed. Therefore, "word" is twofold, yet neither aspect fittingly describes the Son of God. For the Word of God is neither the spoken word nor the inner power of speech. These things pertain to the physical world and to us. The Word of the Father is above nature and is not subject to any analysis of the things of this world. Therefore the sophistry of Porphyrius the Greek was rendered useless and vain when he tried to refute the Gospel by using such distinctions. If the Son of God is Word, he said, He is so either as spoken word or as the inner power of speech. But since He is neither one nor the other, He cannot be Word at all. But the Evangelist foresaw this argument and disarmed it by saying that the distinction between inner and outer speech is used in reference to us and the physical world. But to that which is beyond nature, there is no such thing. It should also be said that if the name Word was truly worthy of God, and if He were called this in a literal and essential sense, then the doubt of the Greek would be justified. But this is not the case. Not only does this name, Word, not apply literally and essentially to God, but no other name can be found that would do so. It merely indicates the passionless begetting of the Son from the Father, as a word springs forth from the mind, and it shows that the Son is an Angel of the Father’s will. Therefore, why do you lay hold of the name with your sophistry, wretched Porphyrius? And how is it that when you hear Father, Son, and Spirit, you descend to material things, and imagine in your mind carnal fathers and sons, and an aerial spirit, such as the North Wind or the South Wind, or something else which whips up storms? But if you wish to learn what kind of Word is the Word of God, listen to what follows.

Do not think, the Evangelist is saying, that the Word is like a spoken word which is uttered and then dies away in the air. The Word is the Maker of everything, both that which is perceived by the mind and that perceived by the senses. Again the Arians leap to the attack, saying, "We may also say that a door was made by a saw, that is, by a tool, yet the craftsman who moves the tool differs greatly from the tool itself. Therefore, where it is written that all things were made by the Son, it does not mean that the Son is the Maker, but that he is an instrument, just like the saw. God the Father is the Maker Who uses the Son as His tool. Therefore the Son is something which was created for the very purpose of making all other things, just as a saw is made as the tool by which crafted items are produced." This is how the wicked band of Arians speaks. How do we answer? Simply and directly, that if, as they claim, the Father created the Son to be the instrument whereby He fashioned the world, then the Son would be held in less honor than the created world. The things made by a saw are more precious than the saw itself, which is only a tool. The saw was made for the sake of the things which it will produce; the crafted objects were not made for the sake of the saw. In the same vein, creation would be honored more highly than the Only-begotten Son, since the Father made the Son, they say, for the sake of creation, and if He had not intended to make the universe, neither would He have formed the Only-begotten Son. What could be more foolish than these words? "But," protests the Arian, "why did the Evangelist not say directly, ’The Word Himself made all things,’ but instead that the Father made all things by [dia] the Son?" Why? So that you would not think that the Word, because He was uncreated and without beginning, was also an enemy and rival of God. Imagine a king intending to build a new city, who entrusts the work to his son. If one said, The city was founded by the son of the king, this would not mean that the son of the king is a servant. It would show, instead, that the son has a father and that he is not acting alone. So it is here, that when the Evangelist says that all things were made by the Son, he shows that the Father used Him, as it were, as an intermediary in the creating, not as someone inferior to Himself, but, on the contrary, as One of equal power, able to carry out such a great command. I will add this: if you are still troubled by the preposition by, and want to find in Scripture some expression that says that the Word Himself made all things, listen to the words of David. In the beginning, O Lord, Thou didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands. [Ps. 101:25] You see that he did not say, "By Thee were the heavens made and the foundation of the earth was laid," but, Thou didst lay the foundation, and "these things are the work of Thy hands." That David said this concerning the Only-begotten Son and not the Father, you may learn from the Apostle Paul himself, who used these lines in his Letter to the Hebrews. [Heb. 1:8-10] It is also clear in the very same Psalm. For when it says that the Lord hath looked upon the earth, to hear the groaning of them that be in fetters, to loose the sons of the slain, to declare in Sion the name of the Lord [Ps. 101:20-21], to whom else can it refer except the Son of God? For it is He who looked upon the earth, meaning either this earth on which we move, or our nature which became earthly, or our flesh of which it was said, Earth thou art. [Gen. 3:20] This earthly flesh He took upon Himself and loosed us who were bound by the bonds of our own sins, and freed us, the sons of the slain, Adam and Eve, and declared in Sion the name of the Lord. For He stood in the temple and taught concerning His Father, as He Himself says, I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me. [Jn. 17:6] To Whom do these things apply, to the Father or to the Son? Certainly, they apply to the Son. For the Son declared the name of the Father as He taught. After saying these things, the blessed David then adds the words, In the beginning, O Lord, Thou didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands. Does not David clearly present the Son as the Maker, and not as an instrument? But if the preposition dia still seems to you to indicate something lesser and inferior, what will you say when Paul uses this same preposition to refer to the Father? For he writes, God is faithful, by [dia] Whom ye were called into the communion of His Son. [I Cor. 1:9] Surely Paul here does not suggest that the Father is an instrument. And again, Paul, …an apostle …by [dia] the will of God. [I Cor. 1:1] But enough said: let us return to where we began. All things were made by Him. Moses described the visible creation and revealed nothing to us concerning the creation of the noetic world. But the Evangelist with one word includes all. All things were made by Him, both the visible and the noetic. And without Him was not any thing made that was made. The Evangelist first says that all things were made by the Son. Then, to dispel any idea that the Son also created the Holy Spirit, he carefully defines the words, all things. Every thing which is by its nature created was made by the Word. But the Spirit is not part of created nature, and therefore It was not made by the Son. Without the power of the Word was not any thing made that was of a created nature.

The Pneumatomachoi read this verse and the previous as follows: "And without Him was not anything made." Here they punctuate, and read the next words as the beginning of a new sentence: "[That] which was made was life in Him." They interpret the passage according to their own understanding, claiming that here the Evangelist is describing the Holy Spirit and saying that the Holy Spirit was life. The followers of Macedonius give this interpretation in their eagerness to show that the Holy Spirit is a created thing and to categorize Him among the things that have been made. We do not give the text such an interpretation, but place a period after the words, which were made, and read the words, In Him was life, as the beginning of a new sentence. Because he had spoken of the creating of things, that all things were made by Him, now he speaks of the providence and care which the Word has for His creation. He says that the Word did not simply create the world and then withdraw from it, but that it is He Himself Who sustains the life of all that has been created. For he says, In Him was life. I know that one of the saints has read this passage as follows, And without Him was not anything made that was made in Him. Here he punctuates and begins again, "He was life." I consider that this reading is not in error, and that it contains the same Orthodox understanding. This saint thought in Orthodox manner that without the Word there was not anything made that was made in Him. For I say that every thing that was made and created in Him, the Word, was not made without Him. Then in the new sentence, He was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. (3) The Evangelist names the Lord Life, because it is He Who sustains the life of every living thing, and Who gives spiritual life to all reason endowedcreatures. He is Light, not light perceivable by the senses, but noetic light which enlightens the soul itself. He does not say that the Lord is the light of the Jews only, but of all men. For we can say that all men have been enlightened by Him, inasmuch as we all have received mind and reason [logos] from the Word [Logos] Who created us. For the reason bestowed upon us, by which we are called rational [logikoi] creatures, is a light to guide us into what we ought, and ought not, to do.

After the Evangelist has declared to us the existence of God the Word from before the ages, and because he is about to speak of the Word becoming flesh, he inserts here an account of the Forerunner. Since John is the Forerunner of the Lord, is it not fitting that an account of the Forerunner's nativity should precede that of the Lord's nativity in the flesh? The Evangelist says of the Forerunner that there was a man sent from God. False prophets are not from God. When you hear that he was sent from God, do not think that the Evangelist is speaking of anything individual or human. Here all is divine. This is why John is also called an "angel," for the virtue of an angel is that he speaks nothing of himself. But when you hear him called an "angel," do not think that he was an angel by nature, or that he came down from heaven. Rather, he is called an angel because of his work and ministry: to be a servant of the preaching and to announce the Lord. Therefore the Evangelist himself refutes the opinion of many who suspected that John was an angel by nature, when he says, There was a man sent from God.

The Evangelist is about to speak of the divine economy of the Incarnation of the Only-begotten, Who came unto His own and became flesh. So that no one would think that the Word did not exist before He took flesh, the Evangelist leads our mind upwards to that existence which is beyond every beginning, and says, "He was, even before He took flesh, the true Light." By this means he refutes the heresy of Photinus and Paul of Samosata, who taught that the Word began to exist when He was born of Mary, and before this, was not. And you also, O Arian, who say that the Son of God is not true God, listen to what the Evangelist calls Him: the true Light. And you, O Manichee, who say that we are the creations of an evil demiurge, listen: the true Light …enlighteneth every man. If the evil demiurge is darkness, how could he enlighten anyone? Therefore, we are the creations of the true Light. How, you might ask, can He enlighten every man, when we see some who are in darkness? As far as it is His part to do, He enlightens all. Tell me, are we not all endowed with reason? Do we not all by nature know right from wrong? Do we not all have the power to comprehend the Creator from His creation? Therefore, the logos which has been given to us, which teaches us by nature and which is also called the natural law, may be called "light" which is given to us by God. If some make poor use of this logos, they darken themselves. But some have answered the question in this manner: the Lord enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. That is to say, He enlightens those who have come to a better condition, and who strive to put in order and adorn their own soul and not to leave it disordered and ugly.

He was in the world, being God, Who is everywhere present. It may also be said that He is in the world, because of His providence, care, and sustenance of the world. "But I should not stop at saying that He was in the world," declares the Evangelist, "when the world would not even exist if He Himself had not made it." At every point the Evangelist shows the Word to be the Creator. Thus he dispels the ravings of the Manichee, who claims that an evil demiurge produced the universe; he refutes the Arian, who says that the Son of God is Himself a created thing; and at the same time he leads all men to confess the Maker, and to worship the Creator, not created things. The Evangelist says, And the world knew Him not, meaning, the spiritually coarse people who are attached to the things of this world. World means, first of all, the whole universe, as in the line above, the world was made by Him. It also means those who think in a worldly manner, as it does here when he says, And the world knew Him not, that is to say, earthly men knew Him not, for all the saints and the prophets perceived who He was.