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JOHN 1:10 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
John 1:9John 1:11
“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him — the tragic irony reaches crescendo: the world's creator, present in the world, is unknown to it. The term "world" (kosmos) in John typically means the created order opposed to God or the human realm in rebellion against its creator. The play on "made through him" and "did not recognize him" dramatizes human blindness to God's presence. This irony intensifies because John insists on the Word's genuine presence in creation, making ignorance inexcusable.

Church Fathers on John 1:10

The Light which lightens every man that comes into the world, came here in the flesh; because while He was here in His Divinity alone, the foolish, blind, and unrighteous could not discern Him; those of whom it is said above, The darkness comprehended it not. Hence the text; He was in the world.

Augustine · 4th century

For as, when a person leaves off speaking, his voice ceases to be, and vanishes; so if the Heavenly Father should cease to speak His Word, the effect of that Word, i.e. the universe which is created in the Word, shall cease to exist.

Origen · 3rd century

And again, because He was in the world, but not coeval with the world, for this cause he introduced the words, and the world was made by Him: thus taking you back again to the eternal existence of the Only-Begotten. For when we are told that the whole of creation was made by Him, we must be very dull not to acknowledge that the Maker existed before the work.

Chrysostom · 4th century
Read all 7 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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