Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
50 ST. AUGUSTINE only thing made; for all these things are seen because they affect the physical senses. By that Word also the Angels were made; by that Word the Archangels were made, too, and the Powers, the Thrones, the Dominions, and the Principalities. By the Word were made all things. From this consider what the nature of the Word is.
10. Perhaps someone or other now comes back at me, "And who thinks of this Word?" As for yourself, when you hear "the Word," do not therefore fashion it into some cheap image, so to speak, and do not imagine words that you hear every day: that man said such words; he spoke such words; you tell me such words. For by constantly using the names of words, they have, as it were, lost their value. And when you hear "In the beginning was the Word," lest you think it something common as you have become accustomed to think when you usually hear human words, hearken to what you should think: "And the Word was God."
1 1. Let some one of the unbelieving Arians^'^ come forward now and say that the Word of God was made. How can it happen that the Word of God was made when God made all things through the Word? If even the Word of God itself was made, through what other Word was it made? If you say that there is a Word of the Word, through which that [Word] was made, I say that this itself is the only Son of God. If you deny there is a Word of the Word, grant that that through which all things were made was itself not made. For that through which all things were made could not be made through itself.
(2) Therefore believe the Evangelist. For he could have said, "In the beginning God made the Word," just as Moses said, "In
27. The Arians, adherents of a major fourth-century Trinitarian heresy, created by, and named for, Arius, a priest from Alexandria (c. 250 A.D.— 336 A.D.). Their major tenet was that divine being was uncreated, unbegotten, and unique, and since the Logos was begotten, Christ was not true God but a creature who had a beginning, albeit a perfect creature surpassing all other creatures. The Holy Spirit was also a creature produced by the Son, inferior to, and different from, both Son and Father. This heresy was condemned by the First Nicaean Council in 325 A.D. For a brief account and bibliography cf. H. DeClercq, "Arianism," NCE 1.791-794. 28. Cf. note 25.