Walking through St Andrews the other day, this Latin motto above a doorway caught my eye. In English it reads: "In the beginning was the word", which are of course the opening words of St John's gospel.
Doing a little research I find that this is the entrance to St Andrews University's St Mary's College, which was founded in 1538 by Archbishop James Beaton as the New College of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. St Mary's adopted these words as its motto, because it was founded on the site of the former St John's College, which had itself been founded early in the fifteenth century. To find out more about St Mary's College visit Wikipedia.
The first five verses of St John's gospel read: "In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum
et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est
nihil quod factum est. In ipso vita erat et vita erat lux hominum. Et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non
conprehenderunt."
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