The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] The very first words of the Gospel of John indeed touch upon the deepest mysteries of the world. This becomes clear when we allow the spiritual-scientific truths underlying them to come to the forefront of our souls; and we will have to delve deeply into spiritual knowledge if these first words of the Gospel are to appear to us in their proper light. We will need to briefly recall some things that are quite familiar to those of you who have been engaged with the anthroposophical worldview for some time. Today, however, we will need to delve into certain fundamental truths of the anthroposophical worldview, gaining further insights into various significant cosmic mysteries.

[ 2 ] We need only briefly consider the nature of the human being—as this nature presents itself to us in the perspective of spiritual science—beginning with the period from morning, when a person wakes up, until evening, when a person once again falls asleep. We know that the human being consists of the physical body, the etheric or life body, the astral body, and the I. However, these four members of the human being are connected in the way we normally attribute to them during the waking state only during that waking state. In particular, we must bear in mind that during the state of sleep at night, a person is, in essence, an entirely different being; for their four members are then united in a completely different way than during the waking hours of the day. When a person sleeps, the physical body and the etheric body remain in bed; the astral body and the I are, in a certain sense, detached from their connection with the physical body and the etheric body; they are thus—if we understand the word not in a purely spatial sense but in a spiritual sense—outside the physical body and the etheric body. Thus, during the night, a human being is an entity that actually consists of two parts: that which has remained in bed, and that which has separated itself from the physical body and the etheric body. Now, above all, we must realize that during the night—from the moment a person falls asleep until the moment they wake up again in the morning — what remains in bed—the physical and etheric bodies—if they were to be abandoned by what fills them throughout the day—by what lives in the astral body and the “I”—they could not exist as such. And this is where we must delve a little deeper into the mysteries of the world.

[ 3 ] When we look at the human physical body, we must realize that this physical human body—which we see with our eyes and touch with our hands—has undergone a long process of development. It has gone through this process of development over the course of the entire evolution of our planet Earth. It is already known to those who have studied this subject even a little that our Earth has gone through earlier states. Just as the human being passes from one incarnation to the next, experiencing repeated Earth lives, so too has our Earth, before reaching the state it is in today, gone through other states. Just as there are past incarnations of a human being, so too are there past incarnations of a planet. Everything in the macrocosm and the microcosm is subject to the law of reincarnation. And before it became our present-day Earth, our planet had passed through a state we call the “old Moon,” because today’s Moon is a fragment that broke off from that ancient planet. So when we speak of the “old Moon,” we do not mean today’s Moon, but rather a planet similar to what Earth is today. — Just as there is a period of time between one incarnation and a new birth in human beings, so too is there a period of time between the incarnation of our planet, which we call Earth, and that which we call the old Moon. And the same is true of the state of our planet that we call the “Sun.” A state known as the Sun preceded the lunar state of our planet, and the solar state was in turn preceded by a Saturn state. Thus, we can look back on three earlier incarnations of our planet.

[ 4 ] Our physical human body received its very first rudimentary form on ancient Saturn. Back then, on that ancient Saturn, a first rudimentary form of the physical human body—admittedly quite different from today’s human body—took shape. Everything that exists in human beings today, apart from the physical human body, did not yet exist on that ancient Saturn. It was not until Saturn transformed into the Sun—that is, during the second incarnation of our Earth—that the etheric body was added to this physical body, permeating and imbuing it. And what was the result? The result was that the physical human body underwent a transformation: it was reshaped and acquired a different mode of existence. Thus, during the solar incarnation of our Earth, the physical body stands at the second stage of its existence. How did it attain this second stage? By the fact that—while on Saturn it was still machine-like and automatic—on the Sun it became an inwardly living body. The etheric body, which had slipped into this structure, reshaped the physical body. On the Moon, the astral body slipped into this relationship between the physical body and the etheric body. There, the physical body was reshaped once more—for the third time—while the etheric body was reshaped only for the second time. Finally, on Earth, the “I” was added to the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, and the “I,” which now entered into this threefold relationship, reshaped the physical body once more, so that it finally became the complex entity it is today. What you see before you today as the human physical body is, therefore, a being that has been transformed many times, and it has become as complex as it appears today solely because it has undergone four stages of development.

[ 5 ] When we speak of our present physical body and say that it consists of the same physical and chemical substances and forces as the minerals out there in the cosmos, we must also realize that there is still a vast difference between this physical human body and a mineral. To put it in very basic terms, we emphasize the difference between the physical human body and the physical body of a mineral—or, let’s say, a rock crystal—by stating: The rock crystal retains its shape unless it is destroyed from the outside. The human physical body cannot retain its form by itself; it has it only because, and only as long as, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I” are present within it. The moment the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I” separate from it, the physical body begins to become something entirely different from what it is between birth and death: it follows the laws of physical and chemical substances and forces and decays, whereas the physical body of the mineral remains intact.

[ 6 ] Something similar occurs with the etheric body. Immediately after death, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I have separated from the physical body; after some time, the etheric body, too, breaks away from its connection with the astral body and the I and dissolves into the world ether, just as the physical body dissolves into the earth. All that remains of the etheric body is that essence we have often spoken of; it remains united with the human being. Thus we can say that, in a certain sense, the human physical body is indeed of the same value as the mineral kingdom that surrounds us. But we must nevertheless bear in mind the great difference that exists between the mineral kingdom and the human physical body.

[ 7 ] One might say: Yes, it has just been stated that on Saturn our physical body was not yet permeated by an etheric body, nor by an astral body, nor by an “I,” for these were added only on the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth; so one could say that the human physical body at that time was—in essence—no more than a mineral. —But we have now described how three transformations of this physical body followed one another from that ancient state in which it existed during the Saturn era. Even today’s mineral, which you see before you as a dead mineral, cannot possibly consist solely of a physical body. Realize that, while it is true for our physical world—and this must be said—that the mineral has only a physical body, here in the physical world the mineral does indeed have only a physical body, but this is not absolutely correct. Just as the physical body, when it stands before us, contains within itself its etheric body, its astral body, and its “I”—which belong to it—so, too, the mineral does not have merely a physical body, but also an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I”; only these higher aspects of its being are located in higher worlds. The mineral has an etheric body, which exists only in the so-called astral world; the mineral has an astral body, which is found only in the so-called Devachanic or heavenly world, and it has a “I,” though this is in an even higher or spiritual world. Thus, the physical human body differs from the physical body of a mineral in that the physical human body, here in this physical world while awake, contains within itself its etheric body, its astral body, and its “I”; the mineral, however, does not contain its etheric body, its astral body, and its “I” here, for we know, after all, that there are other worlds beyond our own. The world we usually perceive with our senses is permeated by the astral world, and this, in turn, is permeated by the Devachan world, which is divided into a lower and a higher Devachan world.

[ 8 ] Human beings are thus superior to minerals in that, when they are awake during the day, they possess their other three members within themselves. Minerals do not possess these members within themselves; rather, we must imagine that minerals are not at all complete on the physical plane. Imagine a human fingernail. You will agree with me that you cannot find this human fingernail anywhere in nature as an entity existing on its own; for it requires the rest of the human organism in order to grow—it cannot exist without it. Now imagine a tiny being that has only eyes to see your fingernails, but no ability to see the rest of your organism. Such a small being would look right through the rest of space, but see only your fingernails. In the same way, the minerals here are, as it were, merely the fingernails, and you can only view the minerals in their entirety when you ascend to higher worlds. There they have their etheric body, astral body, and so on, whereas here they have only their physical limbs. Let us keep all of this firmly in mind in order to realize that, in higher spiritual reality, there simply cannot be any being that does not possess, in some form, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I.” A physical being cannot exist at all unless it belongs to an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I.”

[ 9 ] But there is actually a certain contradiction between everything that has been said so far today. — It has been said that at night, when a person is asleep, they are a completely different being than during the day, when they are awake. During the day, this human being is quite understandable to us: there he stands before us as a four-part being. But now let us approach the sleeping human being and consider him in terms of his physical nature. There we have the physical body and the etheric body lying in bed, while the astral body and the “I” are outside. This gives rise to the contradiction that we would have before us a being that has been abandoned by the astral body and the “I.” A stone does not sleep; its etheric body, astral body, and I do not permeate it, but they remain in constant connection with it. In the case of human beings, the astral body and the I leave the body every night. At night, the human being pays no attention to his physical body and etheric body and leaves them to their own devices every night. This fact is not always given careful consideration. Every night this transformation takes place within a human being: as a truly spiritual being, he bids farewell to his physical body and etheric body, which he leaves to their own devices. But these cannot exist on their own; for no physical body and no etheric body can exist on its own—even a stone must be permeated by its higher constituents. And so you will easily understand that it is quite impossible for your physical body and your etheric body to remain in bed during the night without an astral body and an “I.” But what happens during the night? Your astral body and your “I” are not in the physical body and the etheric body, but instead, another “I” and another astral body are within them! This is where occultism points you toward divine-spiritual being, toward higher spiritual beings. While at night your “I” and your astral body are outside your physical body and your etheric body, the astral body and the “I” of higher divine-spiritual beings are actually active within the physical and etheric bodies. And this stems from the following:

[ 10 ] If you consider the entire course of human evolution—from the Saturn stage, through the Sun and Moon stages, to Earth—you will say: On Saturn, too, only the physical human body existed; there was no human etheric body, no human astral body, and no human “I” within the physical body. But this physical body could not exist on its own back then any more than a stone can exist on its own today. The physical body could exist back then only because it was permeated by the etheric body, astral body, and “I” of divine-spiritual beings. Divine-spiritual beings dwelt within it, and they continued to dwell there. And when, on the Sun, a distinct etheric body entered this physical body, only the smaller human etheric body, so to speak, mingled with the earlier etheric body of the divine-spiritual beings. And so it was already on Saturn; on Saturn, too, the physical body was permeated by divine-spiritual beings. And now, if we have understood this correctly, we arrive at a deeper understanding of modern human beings, and we are now in a position to reiterate and better understand what has been taught in Christian esotericism from the very beginning.

[ 11 ] This Christian esotericism has, after all, always been practiced alongside the outward, exoteric teachings of Christianity. I have pointed out on several occasions that the great apostle of Christianity, Paul, used his powerful, fiery oratory to teach Christianity to the peoples, but that at the same time he also founded an esoteric school headed by Dionysius the Areopagite, who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (17:34). In this Christian-esoteric school in Athens, which was founded directly by Paul himself, the purest spiritual science was taught. And we will now be able to bring what was taught there before our souls, having gathered the building blocks for this in our previous reflections.

[ 12 ] In this Christian-esoteric school, too, it was said: If you observe a human being standing before you as a waking, diurnal being, he consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and the “I”—even if the words used were not exactly the same as those used today, but that is not the point. But attention was also drawn to where humanity currently stands in its evolution. This human being, as composed of these four members, is not at all as he appears to us. If we wish to view the human being as composed purely of these four members, we must not look at the human being of the present, but rather we must go far back in evolution—all the way to the Lemurian epoch. In the Lemurian epoch, the “I” was added to the human being, who at that time consisted of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. Then one could say in the strictest sense: The human being consisted of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I.” Since then, every human being has passed through many incarnations. What, then, is the purpose of this evolution through incarnations? The purpose of this evolution through incarnations is that, from one incarnation to the next, the “I” works upon itself to transform the three members of its being. It begins, first of all, with the transformation of its astral body. For no average person today is this astral body the same as it was before the “I” worked on it during the first earthly incarnation. In the first earthly incarnation, the “I” transformed from within certain ideas, feelings, and passions that were originally given to the human being; and from incarnation to incarnation, more and more is transformed through the work of the “I.” So we can say: Not only does the human being today possess the four members—the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego—but through the work of the ego within the astral body, he also possesses a part that is the creation of the ego itself. And in every human being today, the astral body is divided into two parts: a part transformed by the ego and a part not transformed by the ego. And this process will continue further and further. A time will come for every human being when their entire astral body will be a creation of their I. In Eastern wisdom, it has become customary to call the part of the astral body that has already been transformed by the I “Manas,” which in German means “spiritual self.” Thus, the human being still consists of his four members; but we can now distinguish five parts: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the “I,” and, as the fifth part, the transformed portion of the astral body, Manas, or “spirit-self.” So we can say: In every human being, the astral body is such that it contains Manas or the spiritual self; this is a work of the “I,” a product of the “I’s” activity. The human being will continue to work on himself. The Earth will undergo further incarnations. The human being will gradually attain the ability that can already be attained today by the initiate: to work on his etheric body as well. Indeed, the average person is already working on this today; and whatever portion of their etheric body has been transformed into a product of the “I,” let us call this the Buddhi or the life spirit. And finally, human beings will come to transform their physical body from the “I” onward; and whatever portion of the physical body they transform from the “I,” let us call this the Atman or the spiritual human being.

[ 13 ] Let us cast our gaze into a distant, distant future, when the Earth will have undergone other planetary forms, other incarnations; when, as we say in occultism, it will have passed through the Jupiter state, the Venus state, and the Vulcan state. Then humanity will stand on a significantly higher level and will have transformed its entire astral body into Manas, or the spiritual self; its entire etheric body into Buddhi, or the life spirit; and its entire physical body into Atman, or the spiritual man.

[ 14 ] Let us compare this human being, as he will stand before us at the end of our Earthly journey, with the human being as he was at the beginning of that journey. In the beginning, only the physical body of this human being existed. This physical body was permeated by the etheric body, the astral body, and the I, but these belonged to divine, higher beings; they merely dwelt within it. At the end of the Earth cycle, the human being is permeated by his or her I; and this I dwells within the astral body itself, once it has permeated the astral body as Manas or the spiritual self. This I has then permeated the etheric body; it is completely permeated by Buddhi or the life spirit; and the physical body is completely permeated by Atman or the spiritual human being—the products of the I. What a tremendous difference there is between the human being at the beginning of his development and the human being at the end of his development! But precisely when we bring this difference clearly before our soul, what I have deliberately presented as a contradiction—the state of sleep—will become understandable. It is precisely through the way Christian esotericism has explained this that everything will become clear to us. We must be clear about this: When the Earth has reached the end of its evolution, what will then appear to us as the physical body? The physical body of today? That is by no means it! — but rather what the “I” will have made of this physical body. This physical body will be completely spiritualized, as will the etheric body and the astral body. But it was already spiritualized—as were the etheric body and the astral body—before the human being spiritualized them from within the “I.” Even the stone today, as we have said, is spiritualized by the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I,” which, living in higher spiritual worlds, belong to the stone. Thus we will understand that Christian esotericism is correct when it says: Yes, what we have before us today as the physical human body, the human being cannot yet master; for the human being has not yet reached the end of his development, where he will be able to work from his “I” into the physical body. Nor can he yet master what he possesses in the etheric body; he will only be able to master that when the Earth is in the Venusian state. Human beings, therefore, cannot yet master the physical body and the etheric body from their “I.” They will be able to master them only when they have developed Buddhi and Atma. But such a physical and etheric body must be mastered in a spiritual way. What human beings themselves will one day be able to give to the physical body and the etheric body must already be present within them now. Even today, the spiritual elements that the “I” will one day be able to impart to the physical and etheric bodies must already be present within them. These were already present within the physical body in the beginning, when humanity was on Saturn; they were within it when humanity was on the Sun, and they have remained within it. Thus Christian esotericism rightly says: Within the physical human body is already present today what will one day be within it when the human being reaches the pinnacle of his development, but it is the divine Atman; it is a divine-spiritual being; and within the etheric body, the Buddhi is already present, but it is the divine life-spirit. And the human astral body, as we have said, consists of two parts: the part that the human being already controls, and the part that he does not yet control. What, then, is contained within the part he does not yet control? A spiritual self as well—but a divine spiritual self! Only in that part of the astral body in which the “I” has been active since the first incarnation does the human being’s true spiritual life reside. This is how we see the human being.

[ 15 ] Let us now consider him in the waking state. What shall we say? The physical body, as it appears to us, is only the outer aspect. Inside, it is what is called the atmic essence. Inside, it consists of a divine-spiritual, higher essence; it is permeated by a divine-spiritual, higher essence. The same is true of the etheric body. Outwardly, it is what holds the physical body together; inwardly, it is divine life spirit. And even the astral body is permeated by the divine spiritual self. Only the transformed part of the astral body is something that the “I” has already appropriated from this entire context.

[ 16 ] Let us now consider the sleeping human being. There, this contradiction disappears immediately. We approach the sleeping human being and see here that the human being—as astral body and “I”—is outside. Every night, the human being peacefully leaves his physical body and his etheric body. If he were to leave the physical body without a divine-spiritual force ensuring its preservation, he would find his physical body destroyed in the morning. A divine-spiritual physical body and a divine-spiritual etheric body are within it, and they remain there when the physical body and etheric body lie in bed and the astral body and ego are outside. The physical body and etheric body are permeated by divine-atmic and divine-Buddhic beings.

[ 17 ] Let us now look back to the beginning of Earth’s evolution, when nothing of the “I” had yet been attained by human beings. Before human beings’ first incarnation, the “I” was not yet connected to the three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. The physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body came from the Moon, and it was only on Earth that the “I” entered them. However, the divine “I” was already present within them; they could not have existed if this divine “I” had not completely permeated them. The astral body was permeated by a divine spiritual self, the etheric body by a divine life spirit, and the physical body was permeated by a divine-atmic being or spiritual human. — And now let us look even further back at the lunar, solar, and Saturnian stages of development. On Saturn, the divine life spirit—which still dwells within a person lying in bed at night—shaped the human body, specifically the physical body, as something mineral; in the solar stage, it shaped it as something plant-like; on the Moon, it was able to shape it as something capable of feeling pleasure and pain, but not yet able to say “I” to itself. It has passed through these lowest stages. And now we move on to the actual embodiment on Earth.

[ 18 ] Through a further transformation that it was to undergo, the physical human body was to become even more perfect than it had been before. What had it been unable to do before? What was completely foreign to it? What had the divine spirit kept to itself? What had it not yet entrusted to the human body at all? It was the ability to let the soul’s essence resound from within! This human body, standing at the “animal level” on the Moon, was mute. The ability to let the inner self resound outwardly was still with God. It had not yet been entrusted to its own being. Even if there are animal beings today that can already make sounds, this is something else entirely; they still exist in entirely different states—though they make sounds, it is the divinity within them that resounds. The ability to express the inner soul through words was first granted to human beings on Earth. Before that, human beings were mute. This ability to speak thus came to the human being with earthly existence.

[ 19 ] If we now consider the whole picture we have set before our souls today, we will say: The entire process of development has been guided in such a way that the ability to speak—the word—originally resided with God, and that God first created the preconditions for the physical apparatus to acquire the ability to let this word resound from within. Everything was guided and directed in this way. Just as the flower is contained within its seed, so too was the sounding, speaking human being—the human being endowed with the word and the Logos—already present in the seed on Saturn. Yet the sound was hidden within the seed; it developed from the seed only later, just as the entire plant is hidden within the seed and develops from it.

[ 20 ] Now let us look back at the physical human body as it already existed on Saturn, and ask ourselves: Where does this physical human body come from? What is its ultimate source? Without what could it never have undergone its entire evolution? It comes from the Logos, or the Word. For even back then on Saturn, this physical human body was already guided in such a way that it would later become a speaking body, a witness to the Logos. The fact that you are formed as you are today—that this human body has its present form—stems from the fact that the “Word” lay at the foundation of the entire plan of our creation. The entire human body is ordered toward the Word, and from the very beginning it has been so constituted that ultimately the Word could spring forth from it. Therefore, when the esoteric Christian looks upon this physical human body and asks, “What is its original archetype, and what is its image?” he says to himself: This physical human body has its archetype in the Word or the Logos; the Logos or the Word was at work in the physical human body from the very beginning. And the Logos is still at work today: When the physical human body lies in bed and is forsaken by the “I,” then the divine Logos works within the members of the being that have been forsaken by the human being. If we ask about the first origin of the physical body, we say: The first is the Logos or the Word.

[ 21 ] And now let us continue with the process of evolution. Saturn transitioned into the solar state; the life body was incorporated into the human physical body. But what had to happen for this progression to occur as it did?

[ 22 ] While on Saturn the physical body was a kind of machine, a kind of automaton—yet entirely permeated and sustained by the Logos—on the Sun the life body was integrated, and within it the divine life spirit was at work. On Saturn, we might say, the human body is an expression of the Logos. Saturn passes away; this human body reincarnates on the Sun; there, the life body, permeated by the life spirit, is integrated into the physical body. The Logos became life on the Sun by raising humanity to a higher level. The Logos became life in the Sun! And now let us continue. — On the Moon, the astral body was incorporated into the human being. What is the astral body? Even today, it appears to the clairvoyant consciousness as an aura surrounding the human being. It is a body of light that simply cannot be seen by ordinary consciousness. But when seen in clairvoyant consciousness, it is light—spiritual light; and our physical light is merely transformed spiritual light. Even physical sunlight is the embodiment of the spiritual-divine auric light of the world. That is its foundation. In today’s world, there is a light that streams toward human beings from the sun. But there is also another light that radiates from their inner light. On the Moon, the human astral body still shone for the beings around them. Thus, on the Moon, the human astral body of light was added to the physical body and the etheric body.

[ 23 ] And now let us consider the entire course of evolution. On Saturn, we have the physical body as the expression of the Logos. On the Sun, the etheric body is added as the expression of the life spirit: The Logos became life. On the Moon, the body of light is added: Life became light! And thus we have the course of the human body’s evolution. — When the human being set foot on Earth, he was a creature of the divine-spiritual beings. At that time, he existed because the Logos—who was Life and who became Light—lived within his physical body, his etheric body, and his astral body. And now, what happened on Earth? The “I” was added for humanity and within humanity. But through the addition of the “I,” humanity became capable not only of living in the light, in life, but also of observing all of this from the outside, of standing face to face with the Logos, with life, with the light. Through this, all of this became material for humanity; it attained a material existence. - And when we have taken this line of thought this far, we have pinpointed roughly the exact point at which we wish to begin next time and show how the human being of today, endowed with an “I,” actually arose from the human being born out of the Divine. For we see that before the human being of today, endowed with an “I,” there existed the divine pre-human. What the human being has conquered through his “I,” he wrests from the physical body and the etheric body every night; whatever was within him remains there and sustains the physical body and the etheric body when the human being faithlessly abandons them and neglects them. There it remains, that original spiritual-divine being.

[ 24 ] Everything we have just attempted to present, using the language of Christian esotericism, as the profound mystery of existence—and which was familiar to those who were “servants of the Logos” in the early days—is stated unambiguously in the Gospel of John in grand, succinct sentences. One need only translate these first words correctly and in a way that does justice to their meaning. When translated truly correctly, these words convey the reality we have just described. Let us bring this reality before our souls once more so that we may understand its significance with complete clarity.

[ 25 ] In the beginning, the Logos existed as the archetype of the physical human body, and it was the foundation of all things. All animals, plants, and minerals came into being later. On Saturn, of all these, only the human being actually existed; on the Sun, the animal kingdom was added; on the Moon, the plant kingdom; and on Earth, the mineral kingdom. On the Sun, the Logos became life, and on the Moon, it became light; and when human beings were endowed with an “I,” it appeared before them. But human beings had to learn to recognize what the Logos was and in what form it ultimately manifests itself. First was the Logos; then it became life; then light; and this light lives in the astral body. The light shone into the human inner being, into the darkness, into ignorance. And the purpose of earthly existence is for human beings to overcome the darkness within, so that they may recognize the light of the Logos.

[ 26 ] Concise—and perhaps, as some would say, difficult to understand—words are thus the first words of the Gospel of John. But should that which is the deepest thing in the world be expressed in trivial words? Is it not a strange notion—downright a mockery of holiness—to say that to understand a pocket watch, one must delve deeply into the essence of the matter with one’s intellect, but that to understand the divine in the world, simple, plain, and even the most naive common sense should suffice!? It is unfortunate that this has come to pass for humanity today: that when attention is drawn to the depths of religious texts, people say, “Oh, why all these complicated discussions? It must all be plain and simple!” - But no one other than those who have the good intention and the good will to delve deeply into the great facts of the world can penetrate the profound meaning of such words as those found at the beginning of the deepest of the Gospels, the Gospel of John. These are a paraphrase of what we have just explained.

[ 27 ] And now let's translate the opening words:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (or divine).
This was with God in the beginning.
All things were made through it, and without it nothing was made that has come into being.
In it was life, and the life was the light of men.

[ 28 ] The Gospel of John goes on to describe how darkness gradually comes to understand this.