Christ is Risen! «In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word Was With God, and the Word Was God» (Jn. 1:1)

“«In the beginning»”—in what beginning? In the beginning of all beginnings. Whatever beginning you might imagine, the Word already existed before it; therefore do not trouble yourself imagining a beginning for the Word. It is beginningless, as the Father and the Holy Spirit are beginningless. One cannot say that first there was the Father, then the Son was born and the Holy Spirit proceeded: rather, as soon as the Father exists, the Son exists, and the Holy Spirit exists. As the Father is beginningless, so are they with the Father—beginningless both the birth and the procession. The Son is begotten beginninglessly—the Holy Spirit proceeds beginninglessly. Such is the manner of being of true God: in him beginninglessly is the Father unbegotten and unproceeding, the Son begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeding. Unbegettenness, begetting, and procession—these are the personal characteristics of the persons of the holy Trinity—express their eternal, incomprehensible relations to one another; but they do not suggest the thought that there was a moment when the Son and the Holy Spirit began to exist. Perhaps you think that this denies the very birth of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit? It denies them if you understand by them acts that had a beginning. If you allow this, then you must allow as well that God is not beginninglessly as he is—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but entered into the fullness of his being through separate acts of self-manifestation. And if you allow this, you will thus distort the very concept of God. A God who is manifesting is not God. The true God beginninglessly is trinitarian in persons, with unity of nature—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without confusion and without division. Birth and procession, of course, are the best terms for expressing the relationship of the persons of the holy Trinity in human language and for mankind; true, they better than any other words answer to the essence of those relationships when the Holy Spirit chose them and not others. But one cannot think that they express them completely, as they are—much less can they be applied to divinity in exactly the sense in which they are used in expressing created relationships. We cannot even say definitively how the birth of the Son differs from the procession of the Holy Spirit. Best of all, recognizing our impotence and ignorance in this respect, to always limit ourselves to the precise confession transmitted to us by God’s word and interpreted by the holy Church, that birth and unbegettenness are only the finest distinctive marks of the persons within the unity of divinity, fine enough, however, to bar any attempt to merge these persons.

So the holy John, in the words: “«in the beginning was the Word»”—said that the Word is beginningless «cobeginningless with the Father and the Spirit.» But that you, hearing of the beginninglessness, not think that the beginningless, and therefore, by itself existing particularly—a separate, distinct God from God the Father—and that you thus not fall into ditheism, and if that same reasoning is applied to the Holy Spirit—into tritheism—the holy John added: “«and the Word was with God»”, or was with God. The Son does not exist separately, but exists with God. As among men we say: the son does not live in a separate house but lives with his father, and everything is common to them; so of the Word John says: it “«was with»” the Father, to give to understand that they are undivided and that everything is common to them: not only creation and the rule of the world, which came to be, but before the beginning of any creature, everything was common—common, that is, the divine nature; for besides divinity there was nothing then. Thus: “«the Word was with God»”—means it was in communion in one and the same divine nature with the Father. For the divine nature, speaking numerically, is one, one and the same in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit; therefore they are consubstantial. In the words: “«the Word was»” from “God»”—the same is said that is said below in other words: “«the Only-begotten Son, …in the bosom of the Father»” (Jn. 1:18); or what the Lord himself said: “«I and the Father are one»” (Jn. 10:30); and again: “«I am in the Father, and the Father is in me»” (Jn. 14:10); or what the Apostle shows about the Holy Spirit, that he is the Spirit living in God and knowing all things of God (1 Cor. 2:11). By the proposition: “«the Word was with God»”—the holy John affirms the undividedness of the nature of the Son with the nature of the Father, while by the manner of expression he suggests the non-confusion of the hypostases, for in saying: “«the Word was with God»”—he gives to understand that it relates to the Father as a person to a person, that it is a hypostatic Word, not some force or attribute of divinity.

Not satisfied, however, with this indication, from which you could yourself have made the inference about the distinctness of the hypostasis of the Son from the face of the Father, and fearing that you might make this and yet might not, he thought it necessary to say directly: “«the Word was God»”. It is not some attribute of divinity, wisdom, for example, or creative and providential force, but God, the Word is God. All that you confess about God applies to him as well. In him all is—what enters into the concept of God. God is living and self-existing; so is the Word, or the Son (so is the Holy Spirit). God is beginningless, immutable, immeasurable; so is the Son (so is the Holy Spirit). God is omnipresent, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, all-just; so is the Son (so is the Holy Spirit). God is Creator and Providence; so is the Son (so is the Holy Spirit). With such understanding of the Son and Spirit, who would dare to merge them into a single hypostasis of the Father? Their nature is common to them; it is one and the same for all, but hypostatic distinctness is separate. The holy John seemed to foresee Paul of Samosata and Sabellius, who did not understand the distinctness of the persons in one God. The first said: as in our soul are mind, will, and heart, so in divinity are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; these are, as it were, different powers of God’s single-person nature. The second taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not persons of the holy Trinity but different manifestations and revelations of one and the same single-hypostatic God. Such teachings, far from the truth, the holy John forestalled with one utterance: “«the Word was God»” (we infer: and the Holy Spirit). If the Word is God and the Holy Spirit is God, then they are already not impersonal forces of divinity but separate persons in one divinity; not manifestations or revelations of one God but separate hypostases, separately manifesting while maintaining unity of nature or with preservation of the consubstantiality of divinity.

On account of such understandings the persons of the holy Trinity might again appear too distinct—and from the distinctness of the persons, someone might pass to the thought of distinctness of nature as well. Therefore the holy John added: “«This was in the beginning with God»” (Jn. 1:2)—giving thereby to understand that the Word, with personal distinctness from the Father as God, beginninglessly remained in communion of one with the Father in nature. Here the holy evangelist gently combines in one proposition all the preceding truths—about beginninglessness, hypostasis, and consubstantiality—to impress these understandings more deeply in the minds and hearts of believers. One can, moreover, think that by this proposition the holy John wished to forestall yet another misunderstanding. Hearing that “«the Word was God,»” someone might think: God he may be, but not beginningless, not self-existent God, but God by his force and significance in creatures. Thus reasoned Arius, and even more after him the Arians. In their view the Son was God, but not uncreated. For them he was the first created being, from which all else then came forth and by which all is ruled. Everything in creatures is produced through him; but he himself is not consubstantial with the Father, not one with him, but was produced by God the Father out of nothing. Against this the holy John set, or more precisely, the Holy Spirit who guided him, his final word: “«This was in the beginning with God.»” The Arian Son received a beginning from God the Father, even though before any other creature; but the true Son of God, God the Word, beginninglessly was with the Father, in communion of one with the Father in divine nature,—or beginninglessly was and is consubstantial with the Father. Therefore it is impious to think that he received a beginning and exists out of nothing. Then he is not God, and he who bows to him will bow not to God but to a creature and will not thereby be a true worshipper of the true God.

Thus in a few words the holy John combined all theology about the mystery of the holy Trinity. All his concern, as you see, was to prevent occasions for dividing nature and merging hypostases. For this purpose he selected word after word, with both restraint from confusing prolixity and with sufficient fullness, to make all understand that God must be confessed as triune, «neither confusing the hypostases nor dividing the substance.»

Behold, that is what our Lord Savior is in the mystery of the holy Trinity! The Only-begotten Son of God, beginningless, a hypostatic Word, consubstantial with the Father, and God.