*Was* (ἦν), _i.e._, was _already_ in existence. Had St. John meant to declare that at the dawn of creation the Word began to exist, he would have used ἐγένετο as he does in verse 3 regarding the beginning of the world, and again in verse 6 regarding the coming of the Baptist. This cannot fail to be clear to anyone who contrasts verses 1, 2, 4, and 9 of this chapter with verses 3, 6, and 14. In the former ἦν is used throughout in reference to the eternal existence of the Word;(17) in the latter ἐγένετο, when there is question of the beginning of created things (3), or of the coming of the Baptist (6), or of the assumption by the Word of human nature at the incarnation (14). At the beginning of creation, then, the Word was already in existence; and hence it follows that He must be uncreated, and therefore eternal. St. John’s statement here that the Word was already in existence in the beginning, is, accordingly, equivalent to our Lord’s claim to have existed _before_ the world was (xvii. 5), and in both instances the Word’s eternity, though not directly stated, follows immediately. Hence we find that the Council of Nice and the fathers generally inferred, against the Arians, the eternity of the Son of God from this first clause of verse 1. “If He was in the beginning,” says St. Basil (_De Div._, _Hom._ xvi. 82), “when was He not?” *The Word* (ὁ λόγος). St. John here, as well as in his First Epistle (i. 1), and in the Apocalypse (xix. 13), designates by this term the Second Divine Person. That he speaks of no mere abstraction, or attribute of God, but of a Being who is a distinct Divine Person, is clear. For this “Word was with God, was God, was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us,” and in the person of Jesus Christ was witnessed to by the Baptist (i. 1, 14, 15, 29, 30). Outside the writings of St. John there is no _clear_(18) instance in either Old or New Testament of this use of the term λόγος. Throughout the rest of the Scriptures its usual meaning is _speech_ or _word_. What, then, we may ask, led our Evangelist, in the beginning of his Gospel, to apply this term rather than Son, or Son of God, to the Second Divine Person? Why did he not say: In the beginning was the Son?