In the beginning God was alone--though all things were with Him potentially.
By the mere act of volition He gave birth to the Logos, who was the real originative cause of things.

Yet the existence of the Logos was not such as to involve a separation of identity in the Godhead; it involved no diminution in Him from whom the Logos issued.

Having been thus first begotten, the Logos in turn begat our creation, &c.

The Logos is thus represented as being at once prior to creation (the Johannean [Greek: en archae]) and the efficient cause of it--which is precisely the doctrine of the Prologue.
The other two passages are however quite unequivocal.
_Orat.

ad Graecos_, c.