3. All things came into being through him; and without
him not a single thing came into being. Virtually all pre-Nicene quotations
of this passage, whether made by orthodox or heretical writers (including the
Valentinians Ptolemaeus and Theodotus, Tatian, Ireaneus, Clement of Alexandria,
Origen, and Tertullian) end with not a single thing came into being (εγενετο ουδε εν), and usually make this quite explicit by
not quoting any further. This means that the following relative clause, which
is in being, must be construed as part of the following sentence. It was
appended to the previous clause so as to add a qualification to not a single
thing—‘without him was not anything made that was made’—in order to prevent
verse 3 being interpreted in such a way as to include the Holy Spirit among the
things which came into being through the Logos.
John asserts as emphatically as possible the sole agency
of the Logos in creation. This recalls not only what is said in the Old Testament
and Apocrypha about Logos and Sophia, but, more directly, what is said elsewhere
in the New Testament about the part of Christ in creation, cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6, ‘For
us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and through whom we
exist’, Col. i. 16, ‘In him all things were created’, and Heb. i. 2, ‘Through
whom also he created the world’. The Hebrews passage comes very near to calling
Christ the Logos, for it beings ‘God . . .has in these last days spoken to us
by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he
created the world.” (J. N.
Sanders, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St John, ed. B. A.
Mastin [London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968], 70-71)
