But the Word. In the simplicity and strictness, and precisely thus in the fulness of the Word, God reveals himself and has revealed himself. From the very first line John starts out from the fact that the Word is and has been given. This need not be proved. We can count on it with the certainty of an axiom. Hence no stress is laid on the threefold ho logos in v. 1. As an ideogram it can stand there like the inscription on the diadem of the white rider of Rev. 19, which can be read but not understood,