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Joh_1:3. Πάντα ] “grande verbum, quo mundus, i.e. universitas rerum factarum denotatur, Joh_1:10,” Bengel. Comp. Genesis 1; Col_1:16; Heb_1:2. Quite opposed to the context is the view of the Socinians: “the moral creation is meant.” Comp. rather Philo, de Cherub. I. 162, where the λόγος appears as the ὄργανον διʼ οὗ (comp. 1Co_8:6) κατεσκευάσθη ( ὁκόσμος ). The further speculations of Philo concerning the relation of the λόγος to the creation, which however are not to be imputed to John, see in Hoelemann, l.c. p. 36 ff. John might have written τὰ πάντα (with the article), as in 1Co_8:6 and Col_1:16, but he was not obliged to do so. Comp. Col_1:17, Joh_3:35. For his thought is “all” (unlimited), whereas τὰ πάντα would express “the whole of what actually exists.”
καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ , κ . τ . λ .] an emphatic parallelismus antitheticus, often occurring in the classics (Dissen, ad Dem, de Cor. p. 228; Maetzner, ad Antiph. p. 157), in the N. T. throughout, and especially in John (Joh_1:20; Joh_10:28; 1Jn_2:4; 1Jn_2:27, al.). We are not to suppose that by this negative reference John meant to exclude (so Lücke, Olshausen, De Wette, Frommann, Maier, Baeumlein) the doctrine of a ὕλη having an extra-temporal existence (Philo, l.c.), because ἐγένετο and γέγονεν describe that which exists only since the creation, as having come into existence, and therefore ὕλη would not be included in the conception. John neither held nor desired to oppose the idea of the ὕλη ; the antithesis has no polemical design—not even of an anti-gnostic kind—to point out that the Logos is raised above the series of Aeons (Tholuck); for though the world of spirits is certainly included in the πάντα and the οὐδὲ ἕν , it is not specially designated (comp. Col_1:16). How the Valentinians had already referred it to the Aeons, see in Iren. Haer. i. 8. 5; Hilgenfeld, d. Ev. u. d. Briefe Joh. p. 32 ff.
οὐδὲ ἕν ] ne unum quidem, i.e. prorsus nihil, more strongly emphatic than οὐδέν . Comp. 1Co_6:5; see Stallbaum, ad Plat. Sympos. p. 214 D; Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6. 2. As to the thing itself, comp. Philo, II. p. 225: διʼ οὗ σύμπας ὁ κόσμος ἐδημιουργεῖτο .
ὃ γέγονεν ] Perfect: what has come into being, and now is. Comp. ἔκτισται , Col_1:16. This belongs to the emphatic fulness of the statement (Bornemann, Schol. in Luc. p. xxxvii.), and connects itself with what precedes. The very ancient connection of it with what follows (C. D. L. Verss., Clem. Al., Origen, and other Greeks, Heracleon, Ptolemaeus, Philos. Orig. v. 8, Latin Fathers, also Augustine, Wetst., Lachm., Weisse), by putting the comma after either γέγ . or αὐτῷ (so already the Valentinians),[76] is to be rejected, although it would harmonize with John’s manner of carrying forward the members of his sentences, whereby “ex proximo membro sumitur gradus sequentis” (Erasmus); but in other respects it would only be Johannean if the comma were placed after γέγ . (so also Lachm.). The ground of rejection lies not in the ambiguity of ζωή , which cannot surprise us in John, but in this, that the perfect γέγονεν , as implying continuance, would have logically required ἐστί instead of ἦν after ζωή ; to ἦν not γέγονεν but ἐγένετο would have been appropriate, so that the sense would have been: “what came into existence had in Him its ground or source of life.”
[76] “Whatever originated in Him (self) is life.” The latter is said to be the Zoë, which with the Logos formed one Syzygy. Hilgenfeld regards this view as correct, in connection with the assumption of the later Gnostic origin of the Gospel. But the construction is false as regards the words, because neither ἐστί nor ἐγένετο stands in the passage; and false also as regards the thought, because, according to vv. 1–3, a principle of life cannot have first originated in the Logos, but must have existed from the very beginning. Even Bunsen (Hypol. II. 291, 357) erroneously preferred the punctuation of the Alexandrines and Gnostics.