particular reason for him to bring in the reference to life here; it has nothing really to do with the
Book 11 197 made as meaning that it was made by the Father, it is not now the Father saying and the Son making, and it means that the Father can make something without the Son, so that the Son then makes, not this thing, but something like it, which is against the Catholic faith.
If however the thing about which it says And thus it was made is the same as what is being made when it goes on to say, And God made, what is to stop us understanding that the same one who said that it should be made is making what he said? Or is it even that they wish to pass over the text And thus it was made, and understand the persons of the Father and the Son only in the words, And God said, Let it be made, and then later in the words, And God made'1.
1 2. But we can still ask whether we ought to take it as the Father giving a kind of order to the Son in the text, And God said, Let it be made. But why did scrip ture not bother also to indicate the person of the Holy Spirit? Or is the Trinity to be understood like this: And God said, Let it be made; And God made; And God saw that it was good? But it is hardly consistent with the unity of the Trinity, that the Son should be understood to have made something as if under orders, while the Holy Spirit freely saw that what had been made was good, without anyone giving him orders."
With what words, in any case, would the Son be given orders by the Father to make something, seeing that he is himself the Father's original Word, through which all things were made (Jn 1 :3)? Or is it the case that as regards the text Let a solidstructure be made (Gn 1 :6) this very utterance is the Word of the Father, his only-begotten Son, in whom are all created things even before they are created? And anything that there is in him is life, because whatever was made through him is in him life (Jn 1 :3-412), and of course creative life, while under him life is a creature. So then, the things that have been made through him, because he governs them and holds them together, are in him in one way, while the things which he himself is are in him in another. He, after all, is life, which is in him in such a way that it is he himself, since he, the life, is the light of men.13 So then, nothing could be created, whether before time (which does not mean co-eternal with the creator), or from the start of time, or in any particular time, of which the
11. 1t is surely the equality of the divine persons that this view would compromise, rather than their unity.
1 2. See Jn 1 :3-4. Where most versions that most people are familiar with read these verses like this: "All things were made through him, and without him was not made anything that was made. 1n him was life" (so RSV), Augustine read them as follows: "All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing. What was made in him was life." The most modern editions of John's text follow this reading, as also the Jerusalem Bible. 13. See Jn 1:4. The thought here does seem very confused. There appears to have been no particular reason for him to bring in the reference to life here; it has nothing really to do with the main line of his thought, that all things made through the Word pre-exist in the Word in their rationes, their ideas. 1t was probably the case that as he was dictating, he got carried on to quote Jn 1 :3-4; a little piece of "stream of consciousness" thinking.