Jacques Rancière takes the Evangelist John at his word in a collection of essays and examines the fate of the word released into the world, which is precarious, as it may not return from its excursions - it does not wish to return to itself. The tendency of the word towards something it is not - reality, actuality, flesh - is also inscribed in those texts of the Christian-humanist or modernist tradition that emulate the example of the book par excellence, the book of the incarnate word, which eternally folds back into itself, word at the end as at the beginning. With Plato, albeit with reversed signs, Rancière seeks behind the words and similarities the power through which a text gives itself the body of its incarnation, sets itself in motion, takes possession of souls and bodies, and becomes action.