Skotia is for him a reality which is found on the plane where one cannot put the question of origin, where there is no possibility of objective consideration, where our only option is to reckon with the realities that arise there and to deal with them either in war or in peace. On the same plane there stands on the other side the Word of God in which the self-revealing life is contained. In this case, too, there is no question of origin, of why or whence. In this case, too, there is only the question de fait, not de droit, for theos ēn ho logos (v. 1). Naturally darkness is not for John a second god as it is for Marcion. We are not in fact to restrict the panta di’ autou (v. 3). At the same time we are not to excuse or explain the fact of darkness with the help of the panta di’ autou. Incomprehensible in its origin, it confronts the light. It is not just an isolated phenomenon but the atmosphere, the characteristic constitution of humanity to which revelation turns. It is the dark riddle for the sake of which revelation is necessary and on account of which it can be understood only as a miracle. One might say that we confront the same incomprehensibility in face of darkness and in face of the light that streams from the life of the Word, positive on the one side, negative on the other. The revelation of v. 4 is a new thing compared to v. 3. It is unforeseen. It does not arise out of the plan or reality of creation. If in fact panta di’ autou, what need is there of the special life that comes, or of its revelation? Revelation has no basis or origin, or it is not revelation. Similarly, the darkness is simply there. It is an incident. It is not part of any program. Opposed to every program, it is simply an event. This incident on the one side and the Word of the revelation of life on the other are what the Evangelist finds to be the determinations of human existence, i.e., of his own existence. Hence he cannot “reflect” on them. Both of them, if in different ways, are incomprehensible. Hence in different ways he can only take up an attitude to both as to facts of an existence that is determined by both. He cannot possibly contemplate them or ask the reasons for them. He can only set them alongside himself. The ugly formula “dualism” does not fit the Johannine antithesis of light and darkness. As the silence shows, there can be no question here of any worldview, of any “ism,” of any system. We simply have a conflict in which the Evangelist finds himself engaged and in which—perhaps this explains the urgent phainei—he wants to engage his readers. Or rather, he wants to teach his readers that he is engaged in this conflict. He does not philosophize about two world principles. Like a watchman on a tower he signals the approach of armies from the east and from the west. He proclaims imminent decision.
But all this is only incidental and implicit in the verse. The true point of v. 5 is to make a further statement about the role and significance of the Logos. The light shines in the darkness. Its revelation means antithesis, conflict, strife. To be the light of men is to stand against a world of enemies. If we have interpreted v. 4 correctly, and if we are right about the special connection between v. 4 and v. 5, then the only point of v. 5 is to stress the isolation in which the light shines for men, in which the light concealed in the Word manifests itself. As life is in the Word alone, and the life concealed in the Word alone is light, so (v. 5) the light is alone among men, for men are in darkness. The world and history are hostile to the light as a whole. It is not at all true that in and from them there is goodwill, an ability and readiness to receive, that receptivity corresponds to the light and runs to meet it. Note already here what will be said later in vv. 12–13 about the possibility of such receptivity. Those who receive him are born of God. Apart from this possibility what meets the light in men is darkness. Men are trapped in darkness, in revolt and rejection. A No stubbornly confronts the Yes. This is the actual situation between the Word and those to whom it is directed. V. 5b confirms from the other side, from the human side, that the darkness has not comprehended the light. It had no power to appropriate it, to make it its own, to cease to be darkness and itself to become light. This is how we must translate and understand the statement. The meaning “to overtake,” which katalambanein perhaps has in 12:35, is not possible here. The meaning “to restrict,” “to overpower,” “to conquer,” which Zahn especially among more recent commentators espouses,54 seems to be too uncertain and yields a sense which, excellent though it is in itself—the darkness does not master the light—disrupts the context in most unheard-of fashion. We read in Rom. 9:30 of a katalambanein of righteousness and in 1 Cor. 9:24 and Phil. 3:12 of a katalambanein of the heavenly prize, and it is along these lines that we are to seek the meaning of the striking term. John is trying to say that the light stands in conflict with an opponent which by nature could not become its friend even if it wanted to do so. It is in a conflict that cannot end with a compromise. Darkness has never appropriated the light and never will. The light, when it shines, can expect nothing from the darkness except that it was and is and will be darkness. Its conflict can only be one of decision and destruction. H. Holtzmann and W. Bauer refer in this regard to a “tragic note,” to the “pessimism” of the passage.55 This is wrong. We shall see that such terms are out of place in vv. 10f. too. They certainly do not fit here. What is here said about the light is in keeping with what was said about it before (very objectively, without the evaluation or elucidation inherent in the terms): The Word was God by nature. All things have their origin in him. In him is redemption. This redemption is revelation. And now, filling out the last point, the statement is made that revelation takes place in the darkness, that it is isolated, that it involves a decisive conflict. This is not tragedy. If we are to use an aesthetic figure, it is an epic. It is a final hymn to the unique dignity and significance of the Word. This hymn is, of course, austere and exclusive. It humbles all flesh. Yet it is also bright and proud. It crowns all that has gone before. In no sense is it pessimistic. This, I think, is how we are to take the whole passage 1:1–5, which is now behind us. Perhaps, if we have spoken aright about the rhythm of the verse, this is also its best explanation from a literary standpoint. Materially I regard it as the only possible one.
6. Egeneto anthrōpos apestalmenos para theou, onoma autou lōannēs. This verse seems to transport us at a stroke into another world. Here is the break in the prologue of which we spoke in the Introduction. I shall not return to that. A literary question perhaps arises here. In this and the next verses the author has perhaps worked over a non-Christian original that may go back in some way to the Mandean world and corrected its statements about John the Baptist. However that may be, there can be no doubt that he is speaking about what is for him a pressing issue. We thus have the right and the duty, in respect of these verses, to relate our own concern to their form and place in John’s Gospel. If they disturb us—and in some way this reaction is certainly justified—then we have to ascertain the significance of the disruption which the author himself effects either with his own or with alien materials. Or rather, we have to ascertain the sense in which these statements are obviously intended to alert his readers and suddenly to steer their thoughts in a new direction.
Our thoughts do in fact have to make a leap from v. 5 to v. 6 after moving step by step, if very vigorously, from v. 1 to v. 5. The surprising element in v. 6 is that it plunges us into the inside of the history that has as it were been illumined from outside in vv. 4–5. All at once it leads us factually to a specific point in the history, and not, as the sharp contrast of v. 5 would lead us to expect, immediately to the epiphany of the Logos, but to one of the points in the history which according to v. 5 undoubtedly must lie in the sphere of skotia. What is the point? This is the question that v. 6 obviously poses for us in drastic fashion as we move on from v. 5. Egeneto means “there appeared,” “there came,” “there once was,” according to Zahn.56 In any case a historical appearance is at issue, a personal coming, a coming within the world, the appearance of one of those existent things, of one of those factors which according to v. 3 (the use of egeneto here and in v. 14 as well as in v. 3 is no accident!) comes under the common denominator of di’ autou, belonging to the plane of creatureliness or relativity in contrast to the Word. Certainly it is not the Word itself, nor anything equal to it, that appears at this point. The egeneto unquestionably declares this. That egeneto will also be used of the Word in v. 14 represents a further and steep step on the way which we must not presuppose as already apparent if we are to evaluate the text aright. What we see in v. 6, in the light of what precedes, is
