Abstract
The first words of the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel – “In the beginning” – are a literary allusion to the first words of Genesis. The Evangelist continues in this manner a long tradition of wisdom literature, which interpreted and developed creation theology, in particular in the texts where Wisdom was personified (Prov 8,22–23 and Sir 24). In fact, the first word of the Prologue (ἐν ἀρχῇ) refers its readers not just to the creation narrative, but to biblical wisdom literature and indeed to the whole corpus of Scripture, i.e. Old Testament, as the interpretative key to the Fourth Gospel.