56. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” S. John i. 1 f. St. Ambrose notices especially the quadruple “was” as unmistakably signifying the Son’s eternity. We may also notice the climax “The Word was in the beginning.…was with God.…was God.” “Was,” mark you, “with God.” “Was”—see, we have “was” four times over. Where did the blasphemer find it written that He “was not.” Again, John, in another passage—in his Epistle—speaketh of “That which was in the beginning.” 1 John i. 1. The extension of the “was” is infinite. Conceive any length of time you will, yet still the Son “was.” Hurter cites similar passages from the Fathers of the Church, proving the Son’s pre-existence and eternity. “What is the force of those words ‘In the beginning’? Centuries are o’erleaped, ages are swallowed up. Take any beginning you will, yet you cannot include it in time, for that, whence time is reckoned, already was.”—Hilary. “Although the word ‘was’ contains the notion of time past, frequently with a beginning, here it must be understood without the thought of a beginning, inasmuch as the text runs ‘was in the beginning.’”—Victorinus. If we render the Greek ἐν ἀρχῇ and the Latin in principio by “at the beginning,” in place of the phrase used in the A.V. “in the beginning,” we shall perhaps better apprehend its full force and understand these Patristic interpretations. Other passages cited by Hurter are: “Thought cannot escape the dominion of the word ‘was,’ nor can the imagination pass beyond the ‘beginning,’ for however far back you press in thought, you find no point where the ‘was’ ceases to hold sway, and however diligently you set yourself to see what is beyond the Son, you will not any the more be able to get to aught above the beginning.”—Basil. “For this which was, without any beginning of existence, was truly at the beginning, for if it had begun to be, it would not have been ‘at the beginning,’ whereas that in which absolute existence without beginning is essential, is truly spoken of as existing ‘at the beginning.’ And so the Evangelist in saying ‘In the beginning was the Word’ said much the same as if he had said ‘The Word was in eternity.’”—Fulgentius. “If the Word was, the Word was not made: if the Word was made, He was not” [absolutely existent]. “But since He ‘was’ He was not made: for whatsoever already is and subsists and so is ‘in the beginning’ cannot be said to become or to have been made.”—Cyril. “Nothing before a beginning, so the beginning be one really and truly, for of a beginning there can in no way be any beginning, and if anything else before it is supposed or arises, it ceases to be a true beginning.… “If the Word was ‘in the beginning,’ what mind, I would ask, can prevail against the power of that verb ‘was’? When, indeed, will that verb find its limit, and there, as it were, come to a halt, seeing that it even eludes the pursuit of thought and outstrips the fleetness of the mind.”—Cyril.