Desiderius Erasmus: COLLECTED WORKS OF ERASMUS - PARAPHRASE ON JOHN,
translated and annotated by Jane E. Phillips, 1991

伊拉斯謨 Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1469-1536)

JOHN 1:1-4, pp.15-18

So then, as I started to say, in order to give some knowledge of things that are neither intelligible to anyone nor explicable by anyone, it is necessary to make use of words for things familiar to our perception, although there is nothing anywhere in the created universe from which a comparison could be drawn that would square exactly with the reality of the divine nature. And so, just as the mysteries of Scripture call the highest mind, than which nothing greater or better can be conceived, God, likewise they call God's only Son the word of that mind. For though a son is not the same as his father, yet in his likeness he reflects as it were his father, so that it is possible to see each one in the other, the father in a son and the son in a father. But the likeness of begetter and begotten, which in human begetting is imperfect in many ways, is utterly perfect in God the Father and his Son. And there is no other object that more fully and clearly expresses the invisible form of the mind than speech that does not lie.

Speech is truly the mirror of the heart, which cannot be seen with the body's eyes. But if we want the will of our heart to be known to someone, our wish is accomplished by nothing more surely or swiftly than by speech, which, delivered from the innermost secret parts of the mind by way of the hearer's ears, carries the heart of the speaker by an invisible energy into the heart of the hearer. And there is no other thing among mortals more effective for stirring up every movement of our hearts than speech. And if authority is also present, it is speech by which what we want done is summarily ordered. So the term 'Son' is used because, equal in all other respects to the one from whom he is born, he is distinguished by the particularity of his person alone. The term 'word'(sermo/verbum) is used because through him God, who in his own nature cannot be understood by any reasoning, chose to become known to us; and he chose to become known for no other reason than that from knowledge of him we might attain eternal bliss. This is no birth in time, or word like a human word. There is nothing corporeal in God, nothing that is transient in the flow of time or fixed by the boundaries of space, nothing at all dependent on beginning, development, ageing, or any alteration. He exists entire and eternal in himself, and as he himself is, so is his Son, forever coming to birth from him, everlasting from everlasting, almighty from almighty, all-good from all-good; in short, God from God, neither secondary nor subordinate to his begetter, eternal word of the eternal mind, whereby the Father forever speaks with himself as in mystic thought, even before the creation of this world, the Father known to no one except himself alone and the Son. There was never a time when he had not begotten for himself the Son, there was never a time when he had not brought forth for himself the all-powerful word. He had no need of the created universe, since nothing can be added to his bliss, but from his innate goodness he created all of this machinery of the world, and in it the minds of angels, and the human race, midway, as it were, between the angels and the beasts, so that from the wonders of creation and even from itself it might deduce the power, the holiness, and the goodness of its maker. Further, just as, if there were an almighty king, whatever he ordered done would be done instantly, so the Father, truly almighty, created all things by means of his Son and word. And for this reason chiefly he first delivered his word, so that through it he might become known to us in speaking, as it were, and so that through it, having become known by means of our wonder at the beauty of the workings of the universe, he might wind his way into our affections.

Hence those who think that the word of God is secondary to him who produces it, as with us intention is prior to utterance, stray far from the truth, as do those who count the word of God, by which God the Father created all things, among created objects. But even more stupid is the mistake of those who think that the Son and word of God came into existence only at the time when he was physically born of the Virgin Mary. Every created thing has a beginning in time, but the Son of God was born twice, once from his Father before all time, or rather without time, true God from true God, and again in time marked off from eternity, of the Virgin Mary, true human from a human. For it seemed best to God to bring forth his word to us a second time in this way, so that he could be known more nearly and dearly. Hence anyone who argues that Jesus Christ was nothing but a man is sinful, as is anyone who argues that he was created along with the rest of creation. The Father begot the one Son in two ways; he brought forth the one word in two ways: once in time, but forever outside all time.

For before this entirety of the earthly and heavenly universe was created, the everlasting word already existed with the everlasting Father, and this word came continually forth from the Father without ever departing from the Father. He was of a nature undivided from the Father in such a way that he was with the Father in the particularity of his own person; and he was not attached to the Father as accident is attached to substance, but he was God from God, God in God, God with God, because of the nature of the divinity common to both. The two, equal in all things, were distinguished by nothing except the particularity of begetter and begotten, of utterer and utterance delivered. As he was the only-begotten Son of the only Father, so he was the one word from the one speaker. And although this word was God almighty from the almighty, nonetheless, distinguished by the particularity of his person, not by a difference in nature, he was with God the Father, not an emission in time? but before all time forever proceeding from his Father's mind without ever departing from it. And he was not created by the Father; but through this word of his, coeternal with himself, the Father created all things that were created, visible and invisible; through it he governs all things, through it he has renewed all things, not as using a tool or a servant, but as using a son of the same nature and the same power, so that everything that exists comes from the Father as the ultimate source but through the Son, whom he had eternally begotten equal to himself in all things and whom he begets without end.

And not only was there in this word of God the power of creating at his nod the entirety of things visible and invisible, but the life and vigour of all created things was also in him, so that through him every single thing would live by its own innate vigour and would protect itself, once the force of life was implanted, by continual procreation. For there is nothing idle or inactive in the great throng of creatures. Every grass and tree has its own life force implanted in it; every breathing thing has its own quality of mind. But just as in his providence he equipped everything he created with an implanted life force for the activity particular to each and for the perpetuation of its kind, so also he did not leave the lovely workmanship of this world without light. In fact, as he is for all things the source of life so is he also the source of light, inasmuch as the Father through his eternal begetting pours into him the fullness of the divine nature, so that he alone restores life even to the dead, and with his light scatters the darkness of souls no matter how thick it may be. So what the sun is to physical things, the divine word, which is Christ Jesus, is to the minds of mortals, to whom in indescribable love he longed to bring aid when by sin they had fallen into deepest darkness and death.