offacere, "to make," we may concede that it is absurd. But taking them in the weaker sense the
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30. Though as a matter of fact, what comes next in the gospel gives sufficient support to this judgment. The evangelist, you see, goes on to say: What was made in him is life, and the life was the light of humanity (Jn 1:3-4); because rational minds, that is to say, which is the genus in which the man was made to the image of God, do not have any other true light of their own except the very Word of God, through whom all things were made, and it is only by sharing in him that they will be able to be purified from all iniquity and error.
Parenthetical note on the proper phrasing of this sentence
14, 31. This sentence then should not be spoken like this: What was made in him, is life, so that we first pause after what was made in him, and then add is life. ls there anything, after all, that was not made in him, seeing that it says in the psalm, after mentioning many creatures, even earthly ones. ln wisdom you have made them all (Ps 104:24); and the apostle says, since in him werefashioned all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible (Col 1:16). So the conse quence, if we phrase the sentence like that, will be that even the earth and what ever is in it is life; and if it is absurd to say that all this is alive, how much more so to say that it is life?20 Especially as he distinguishes what sort of life he is talking about, when he adds, and the life was the light ofhumanity.
So this is how we must phrase it: after saying, what was made, we must then go on to say in him is life; not in itself, that is to say, not in its own nature in which it was made in order to be a work and a creature, but in him it is life, because he knew all things that were made through him before they were made; and thus they were in him, not as the creature which he made, but as life and the light of mankind, which is Wisdom herselfand the Word himself, the only-begotten Son of God. So then, what was made is life in him in the same way as it says: Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son to have life in himself(in 5:26). 32. Nor should we overlook what some of the better corrected manuscripts have: What was made, in him was life, so that we should understand "was life" in the same way as ln the beginning was the Word, and the Wordwas with God, and God is what the Word was. So then, what was made, already was life in him, and not any kind of life—after all, cattle too are said to be alive, which are incapable of the joy of sharing in Wisdom—but "the life was the light of humanity."
20. With the strong sense that Augustine gives throughout tofactum est and tofieri as the passive offacere, "to make," we may concede that it is absurd. But taking them in the weaker sense the Greek word John uses really has, of "coming to be," then the phrasing he rejects makes very good sense: "All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be in him, was life"; for what came to be in the Word was that the Word became flesh, and it was this, the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, that was life, the life which was the light of humanity.