Secondly, if there be question here of the Word as the life of _man_, how is it that it is only in the next clause that man is first mentioned? Surely, if the opinion we are considering were correct, we should rather expect St. John to have written: “In Him was the life of man, and the life was the light.” For these reasons, and because of what we have stated already in favour of connecting “Quod factum est” with what follows, we prefer to understand this passage, with St. Cyril, as a statement that the Word, the Essential Life, was present in all things, conserving them in existence. *And the Life was the Light of men.* In our view the meaning is that the Word, the Life, who conserved all things in existence, was, moreover, in the case of men, their Light—the source and author of their faith. Hence, we suppose St. John, after referring to the creation of all things, in verse 3, and the conservation of all things, in the beginning of verse 4, to pass on now in the end of verse 4 to speak of that new creation that is effected in man by means of a spiritual illumination: “All things were made by (or through) Him, and without Him was made nothing. In that which was made was the Life, and the Life was the Light of men.” Those who interpret the beginning of the verse to mean that the spiritual life of man comes through the Word, take the present clause as explaining how that was so, how the Word was the Life; namely, inasmuch as He was the Light. He was the source of our life of grace here and glory hereafter, inasmuch as He was the source of our light, that is to say, our faith. And some of them, as Patrizzi, hold that the order of the terms in this clause is inverted, and that we should read: “the light of men was the life,” “light of men” being the subject. Maldonatus tells us that almost all writers before his time understood “light of men” in reference to the light of reason. However, this view is now generally abandoned, and rightly, for that man owed his reason to the Word has been already implied in verse 3: “All things were made by Him.” Besides, the “light” of this fourth verse is doubtless the same as that of verse 5, which _men did not receive_, and of verse 7, to which the Baptist was to bear witness. But in neither of the latter verses can there be question of the light of reason; hence, neither is there in verse 4. The meaning, then, is that He who was the preserver of all things was moreover the source of the _spiritual_ light of men. 5. Et lux in tenebris lucet, 5. And the light shineth in et tenebrae eam non darkness, and the darkness did comprehenderunt. not comprehend it. 6. Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui 6. There was a man sent from nomen erat Johannes. God, whose name was John.