The Gospel According to John (American Standard Version, 1901) · 2 of 37 · tr. American Standard Version (1901)
1:30-2:1
[1:30] This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man who is become before me: for he was before me.
[1:31] And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, for this cause came I baptizing in water.
[1:32] And John bare witness, saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon him.
[1:33] And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon him, the same is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit.
[1:34] And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.
[1:35] Again on the morrow John was standing, and two of his disciples;
[1:36] and he looked upon Jesus as he walked, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God!
[1:37] And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
[1:38] And Jesus turned, and beheld them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? And they said unto him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Teacher), where abidest thou?
[1:39] He saith unto them, Come, and ye shall see. They came therefore and saw where he abode; and they abode with him that day: it was about the tenth hour.
[1:40] One of the two that heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
[1:41] He findeth first his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah (which is, being interpreted, Christ).
[1:42] He brought him unto Jesus. Jesus looked upon him, and said, Thou art Simon the son of John: thou shalt be called Cephas (which is by interpretation, Peter).
[1:43] On the morrow he was minded to go forth into Galilee, and he findeth Philip: and Jesus saith unto him, Follow me.
[1:44] Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter.
[1:45] Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
[1:46] And Nathanael said unto him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.
[1:47] Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
[1:48] Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
[1:49] Nathanael answered him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art King of Israel.
[1:50] Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee underneath the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.
[1:51] And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
[2:1] And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
The doctrine that the one Godhead or first principle subsists as three co-equal aspects or persons rather than a bare unity — the Christian Father/Son/Holy Ghost invoked in the recurring liturgical formula 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but structurally the same pattern as the Egyptian Amen/Ptah/Osiris, the Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Siva, and the Kabbalistic Chochmah/Binah/Kether triads that esoteric writers explicitly map onto it as instances of one universal law. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about internal plurality) and divine_simplicity (God as having no parts or divisions at all) in asserting a definite three-aspected differentiation within a single divine essence.
The passage implicitly presents three divine aspects in relation: the Father who sends, the Son who is sent and identified as 'the Son of God,' and the Holy Spirit who descends and abides — a three-aspected differentiation within the divine.
A vertical structure connecting cosmic levels — a tree, pillar, mountain, or ladder linking heaven, earth, and underworld around which the cosmos is organised. Yggdrasil binding the Nine Worlds in Norse cosmology, the Kalevala's Sampo as world-pillar, the Mayan ceiba, the Vedic Aśvattha, the shamanic central tree of Eliade's analyses. Cosmic-structural in character: distinct from sefirot_tree (a kabbalistic emanation diagram) and emanation_hierarchy (an ontological cascade); world_tree_axis is the cosmos's spine rather than the divine's outflow.
The promise in 1:51 of seeing 'the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man' directly evokes the Jacob's ladder axis (Gen 28:12), a vertical structure connecting heaven and earth through which divine beings travel.