“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God.” (John 1:1-2) Today, these verses are considered by many Christians to be the proof-text par excellence for the deity of Christ. After all, the author goes on to say that “the Word became flesh” in Jesus (1:14). This is supposed to prove not only that Jesus pre-existed his birth as a divine being, but that this divine being was both a different person and the same god as the Father, demonstrating the existence of at least two persons (the Father and the Son) in the one God.
I’ve challenged this interpretation elsewhere on exegetical grounds. [1] But has this binitarian view of John’s prologue always been the interpretation of most Christians? If so, this would greatly boost the credibility of the modern binitarian and trinitarian interpretation of John 1. In this short series of posts, we’ll be looking back through church history to find out how the earliest Christians, closest in time and culture to the milieu of John’s gospel, interpreted this passage.
Interpretation #1: Wisdom Christology
The earliest surviving interpretation of John’s prologue can be found in the early Christian Odes of Solomon. These odes are widely recognized to have a very close relationship with the gospel of John; in the early 20th century, when the Odes were wrongly believed to be pre-Christian, it was thought that they had influenced John’s gospel. Charlesworth, one of the foremost authorities on the Odes, argues that they were written by members of the same community that produced John’s gospel and epistles. [2] For an overview of scholarly views of the relationship between the Odes and John, see footnote 3. [3] Whatever their exact relationship, even if there’s no direct literary dependence between the Odes and John, they’re still very closely related and are an invaluable resource for determining what John meant. The Odes of Solomon date to the late 1st or early 2nd century AD. [4]
Charlesworth identifies at least four odes which parallel John’s prologue. [5] The first one is Ode 7, which clearly has the incarnation in view, as it states,
the Lord... became like me, that I might receive Him. In form He was considered like me, that I might put Him on... Like my nature He became, that I might understand Him. And like my form, that I might not turn away from Him. (7:3-6)
The author immediately goes on to identify the Word with God, but not with a separate person in the one God. He says, “The Father of knowledge is the Word [logos] of knowledge. He who created wisdom is wiser than his works” (7:7-8). Thus, the logos is God the Father, namely his attribute of word/wisdom. The Father “appear[ed] to them that are His own” (7:11-12; cf. John 1:11). The author states that “He was resting in the Son” (7:17), which indicates that the logos became like us by being embodied in Jesus; ultimately, “the Most High shall be known in His Saints” as well (7:18).
The next ode that Charlesworth identifies as related to John 1 is Ode 12, which repeatedly mentions the logos. However, the Word here isn’t a separate person from the Father, but is the literal word from the mouth of God which brings knowledge to humans (12:3-4, 11-12). The Word is personified as a swiftly moving being, but in context is clearly the literal word/wisdom of God (12:5; cf. Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-16). Humans “were stimulated by the Word, and knew Him who made them” (12:10; cf. John 1:9-10). Ultimately, “the dwelling-place of the Word is man” (12:12; cf. John 1:14).
The third ode which parallels John’s prologue is Ode 16. Once again, the logos in this ode doesn’t refer to a personal being, but to God’s literal word. The author says, “the worlds are by His Word, and by the thought of His heart” (16:19; cf. John 1:3), equating the logos with God’s thoughts by parallelism. The logos reveals God’s inner thoughts to humankind (16:8). All things continue to stand in existence by his word (16:12-14).
The final ode that Charlesworth identifies as paralleling John’s prologue is Ode 41, an explicitly Christological hymn. This ode refers to the Messiah as “His Word [which] is with us in all our way, the Savior who gives life and does not reject ourselves... light dawned from the Word that was before time in Him” (41:11-14; cf. John 1:1-2, 4-5, 9). However, the author also refers to the Messiah as “the man who humbled himself, but was exalted because of his own righteousness” (41:12), suggesting a human Christology. The author says that the Messiah “was known before the foundations of the world” (41:15; cf. John 17:5), but also says of himself that the Father “possessed me from the beginning” (41:9). This reflects the author’s belief that God set all things in order from the beginning (4:14-15).
Odes 7, 12, 16, and 41 together imply that the Word (logos) refers to the literal word/wisdom of the Father, rather than a separate personal being. The word was both in the beginning with God and was God the Father (cf. John 1:1-2); all things were created and stand in existence by God’s word (cf. John 1:3); light and life come to humans via God’s word (cf. John 1:4-5, 9); this word came to those that were God’s own (cf. John 1:10-11); it was embodied in God’s Messiah (cf. John 1:14); ultimately, it will be possessed by all God’s people (cf. John 5:37-38; 14:23-24; 15:7; 17:8, 14). The other odes share this non-personal conception of the Word. For example, “the Word of truth” is equated with “the knowledge of the Most High” (Ode 8:8). In another ode, “the Word of the Lord” is equated with “the holy thought which He has thought concerning His Messiah” (Ode 9:3).
What about the Christology of the Odes? The author makes some statements which appear modalistic, such as, “I believed in the Lord’s Messiah, and considered that He is the Lord” (29:6). However, he also makes a distinction between the Son and the Father (Ode 19). This apparent contradiction makes more sense in light of Ode 36:
I rested on the Spirit of the Lord, and She lifted me up to heaven; and caused me to stand on my feet in the Lord’s high place, before His perfection and His glory, where I continued glorifying Him by the composition of His Odes. The Spirit brought me forth before the Lord’s face, and because I was the Son of Man, I was named the Light, the Son of God; because I was the most glorified among the glorious ones, and the greatest among the great ones. For according to the greatness of the Most High, so She made me; and according to His newness He renewed me. And He anointed me with His perfection; and I became one of those who are near Him. (36:1-6)
This ode is Christological, even though it’s written from a first-person perspective. It’s also explicitly adoptionist, stating that Jesus was named “the Son of God” when he rested on the Spirit and was brought before God. Jesus was remade “according to the greatness of the Most High... according to His newness... with His perfection” (36:5-6). This explains how the author of the Odes can say that “the Lord’s Messiah... is the Lord” (29:6) and yet also distinguish him from the Lord. It also squares well with John’s gospel, which says that John testified about the Word becoming flesh, and yet a few verses later tells us that what John testified about was Jesus’ baptism, when the Spirit rested upon him (John 1:14-15, 32-34).
In conclusion, the Odes of Solomon strongly imply a Wisdom Christology reading of John’s prologue, in which “the Word” refers to the literal word/wisdom of the Father. These odes also have an adoptionist or exaltational Christology, in which Jesus is a man who embodies God’s word, and was exalted because of his humility and obedience to God, being remade according to God’s perfection (cf. Phil. 2:6-11). Unlike some other adoptionist groups in early Christianity (e.g., the Ebionites), the author of the Odes of Solomon believed in the virgin birth (Ode 19:6-10). As the earliest commentary on John’s prologue, written in the same temporal and cultural milieu as John’s gospel (perhaps even the same community), the Odes strongly support an exaltational, Wisdom Christology reading of John 1 itself.
In the next post, we’ll consider another early interpretation of John’s prologue, which is first attested in the second century AD.
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[1] See my blog post “The low Christology of John (part 1 of 2).”
[2] J. H. Charlesworth and R. A. Culpepper, “The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 35, no. 3 (1973), 298-322; J. H. Charlesworth, Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 232-259.
[3] Jacob J. Prahlow, “Odes and John: Perspectives on Relationship,” Pursuing Veritas (blog), 17 December 2019, https://pursuingveritas.com/2019/12/17/odes-and-john-perspectives-on-relationship/.
[4] Michael Lattke, “Dating the Odes of Solomon,” Antichthon 27 (1993), 45-59.
[5] J. H. Charlesworth and R. A. Culpepper, “The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John,” 303-311.
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