John 1:1–18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.
The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”) And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
Catholic Exegesis:
The Second Vatican Council teaches that if we are to derive the true meaning from the sacred texts, attention must be devoted “not only to their content but to the unity of the whole of Scripture, the living tradition of the entire Church, and the analogy of faith. […] Everything to do with the interpretation of Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church, which exercises the divinely conferred communion and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God” (Dei Verbum, 12).
St. John Paul II, when he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum).
Cited in the Catechism:
Commentary:
1:1–18. These verses form the introduction to the Fourth Gospel; they are a poem prefacing the account of Jesus Christ’s life on earth, proclaiming and praising his divinity and eternity. Jesus is the uncreated Word, God the Only-begotten, who takes on our human condition and offers us the chance to become sons and daughters of God, that is, to share in God’s own life in a real and supernatural way.
Right through his Gospel St John lays special emphasis on our Lord’s divinity; his existence did not begin when he became man in Mary’s virginal womb: before that he existed in divine eternity as the Word, one in substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This luminous truth helps us understand all that Jesus says and does as reported in this Gospel.
St John’s personal experience with Jesus’ public ministry and his appearances after the Resurrection were the material he drew on to contemplate God’s divinity and express it as “the Word of God”. By placing this poem as a prologue to his Gospel, the apostle is giving us a key to understand all that follows, in the same sort of way as the first chapters of the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke initiate us into the contemplation of the life of Christ by telling us about the virgin birth and other episodes to do with his infancy; in structure and content, however, this passage is akin to the opening passages of other New Testament books, such as Col 1:15–20, Eph 1:13–14 and 1 Jn 1–4.
The prologue is a magnificent hymn in praise of Christ. We do not know whether St John composed it when writing his Gospel, or whether he based it on some existing liturgical hymn; but there is no trace of any such text in other early Christian documents.
The prologue is very reminiscent of the first chapter of Genesis, on a number of scores: 1) the opening words are the same: “In the beginning …”; in the Gospel they refer to absolute beginning, that is, eternity, whereas in Genesis they mean the beginning of creation and time; 2) there is a parallelism in the role of the Word: in Genesis, God creates things by his word (“And God said …”); in the Gospel, we are told that they were made through the Word of God; 3) in Genesis, God’s work of creation reaches its peak when he creates man in his own image and likeness; in the Gospel, the work of the Incarnate Word culminates when man is raised (by a new creation, as it were) to the dignity of being a son of God.
The main teachings in the prologue are: 1) the divinity and eternity of the Word; 2) his incarnation and manifestation as man; 3) the part played by him in creation and in the salvation of mankind; 4) the ways in which people react to his coming—some accepting him with faith, others rejecting him; 5) finally, John the Baptist bears witness to the presence of the Word in the world.
The Church has always given special importance to this prologue; many Fathers and ancient Christian writers wrote commentaries on it, and for centuries it was always read at the end of Mass for instruction and meditation.
The prologue is poetic in style. Its teaching is given in verses, which combine to make up stanzas (vv. 1–5; 6–8; 9–13; 14–18). Just as a stone dropped in a pool produces ever widening ripples, so the idea expressed in each stanza tends to be expanded in later verses. This kind of exposition was much favoured in olden times because it makes it easier to get the meaning across—and God used it to help us go deeper into the central mysteries of our faith.
