and that it was then the practice to put a full stop after “nothing”: “Without Him was made nothing.” Nor can the Sixtine or Clementine edition of the Vulgate be appealed to in favour of our present pointing. As a matter of fact, the Sixtine edition _rejected_ it, printing thus: “Et sine ipso factum est nihil: quod factum est in ipso vita erat;” while the Clementine Bible left the matter undecided by printing thus: “Et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est, in ipso vita erat,” &c. We cannot, therefore, understand to what Roman Bibles A Lapide refers when he says that the Bibles corrected at Rome connect thus: “And without Him was made nothing that was made.” We think it extremely probable, then, that the words: Quod factum est (_that was made_, or, as we shall render in our interpretation; _what was made_), standing at present in the end of verse 3, are to be connected with verse 4. Some may be inclined to blame us for departing from what is at present the received connection of the words in such a well‐known passage as this. Let us, therefore, sum up briefly the evidence that has forced us, we may say reluctantly, to connect the words with verse 4. 1. Though Maldonatus tries to throw doubt upon the fact, this is the connection adopted by practically all, if not all, the Fathers and other writers of the first three centuries, and by the majority of writers afterwards down to the sixteenth century. 2. It is supported by the oldest MSS. of the Vulgate, and, what is more remarkable, by some of the oldest Greek MSS., notwithstanding the fact that St. Chrysostom was against it. 3. The parallelism in the verse is better brought out: _All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing._ 4. If _Quod factum est_ were intended to be connected with the preceding, the clause would be certainly unnecessary, and apparently useless, because it is plain without it that the Evangelist is speaking of what was _made_, and not including any uncreated Being, like the Father or the Holy Ghost. We prefer, then, to connect: _Quod factum est_, with what follows. But it still remains for us to inquire in what way precisely the connection is to be made, for various views have been held upon the subject. *A.* Some connect thus: What was made in (_i.e._ by) Him, was life, and the life was the light of men. *B.* Others thus: What was made was life in Him, and the life was the light of men. *C.* Others again, adopting the same punctuation as in the preceding, but understanding differently: What was made in it was the Life, and the Life was the Light of men. The last seems to us the correct view. For *A* is improbable, inasmuch as it either declares all things to have life, or implies that though what was made by the Word had life, yet there were other things wanting life, which proceeded, as the Manichaeans held, from the evil principle.