Cornelius a Lapide

They said therefore to Him, Who art Thou t Because they did not understand, or pretended they did not, they appositely ask, Who art Thou f Jesus said to them, the Beginning (Vulg.), I who am speaking to you . S. Augustine, Bede, Rupertus, and S. Ambrose (De Fide, iil 4), consider the word, the Beginning, to be in the nominative case, explaining it, I am the Beginning, the First and the Last, or the Beginning of all things, for all things were made by the Word of God. In the Greek the word is not o^xh, but in the beginning. S. Augustine and S. Ambrose explain it (2.) by supplying the word “ credits,” which is not in the text We must therefore consider it to be a Greek form of expression, a^ii* for x&r hgxpi, in the beginning. I am from the beginning, *>., from eternity {before Abraham, as He said Himself, verse 58), Very God of Very God. And therefore I am the beginning of time, and age, and of all things. And yet I am speaking to you ; that is, it is I who announce this to you, for I assumed flesh, and was made man in order to announce it, and save those who believe in it. I am from the beginning, which very thing I solemnly declare to you. Or rather, since I am the Word, which the Father spake from all eternity, I having been made man to announce to you the same truth. For the Son is the Word by whom the Father speaks, and the Son is also the Word which speaks to us. The word “ beginning,” therefore, is more appropriate to the Son than to the Holy Spirit, for the Son is together with the Father the source {principium ) of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not the source of any other Divine Person, but only of creatures; and further, because He is the beginning ( principium ) proceeding from the beginning, that is to say, from the Father. And accordingly this word signifies His origin, as being begotten of the Father. This is clear from what is said below. Digitized by V^rOOQie 312 S. JOHN, C VIII. verse 27. The Vulgate does not translate it literally from the beginnings but the beginning, , signifying thereby the Eternal Word, which was from the beginning, and begotten of the Father, to be with the Father, the beginning both of the Holy Spirit and of all creatures. From the beginning signifies two things ; first from all eternity, and next as begotten of God the Father. It is the same thing to say I am from the beginning, or I am the beginning. (See John L 1 ; Rev. L 8, iil 14; and also Col i. 18.) And this is what SS. Augustine, Ambrose, and others above mentioned consider it to meaa So says the Gloss, “The Father is the Beginning, but not from the beginning : the Son is the Beginning, from the Beginning, that is, from the Father, who worketh all things by the Son, for He is the Right Hand, Strength, Wisdom, and Word of the Father.” But the Greek hggfi means also the Chief Rule {principatus meaning that to Christ belongs the dominion and rule over all things. (See Ps. cx. 3, Vulg., and Prov. viii. 22, sec lxx. See also S. Augustine, contra Max . cap. xviii., and S. Thomas, part 1, Quest xxxvi., art 4, who show that the Father and Son are not two , but the one principle of the Holy Spirit .) Morally : learn that Christ, as God and man, must be regarded as the beginning and the end of all our doings ; after the example of S. Paul and the other Apostles both in the beginning and end of their Epistles. S. Gregory Nazianzen begins his acrostics in this way, and Paulinus, “ In Thee my only hopes of life depend, Thou my beginning, Thou my goal and end.” As all numbers start from unity, and all lines run from the centre to the circumference, so should all the actions of a Christian begin and end in Christ (see CoL iii. 17). Nonnus and others explain, I am the same as I said to you at first ; that is, that I am the Messiah, the Light and the Salvation of the world, but ye believe Me not But this is a strange interpretation. Some others refer to what comes afterwards, Because ye do not believe Me, I have more to say to you, and to judge of you. But Digitized by V^rOOQie CHRIST THE SON OF TRUTH. 313 this is a mere evading of the question. As if Christ said, Ye are unworthy of an answer, but yet deserve My condemnation