1 John 1:2

2. For St. John interrupts himself with this parenthesis to guard us against supposing, for a moment, that his material phrases overlook the true eternal spiritual nature of Christ. He holds that the apostles handled that eternal Word, existing even from the beginning, when they touched his bodily person. Word of life, I say, for that essential life which he originally was became corporeally realized in him to whom we bear witness.

That eternal life A life which has neither beginning of existence nor end. And this light was so manifested that we saw it and touched it as a human person.

With the Father Just as in John 1:1, the “Word” was “with God.”