Tractates on the Gospel of John
TRACTATE 1 55 proud people of Pharaoh with bears, with lions, or with snakes; he sent flies and frogs upon them " that their pride might be tamed by the most ignoble of things.
16. "All things" then, my brothers, "all things" — each and every one — "were made though him and without him was made nothing." But how were all things made through him? "That which was made, in him is life."^^ Now this can be taken as follows: "That which was made in him, is life." And if we express the sentence in this way, everything is life. For what was not made in him? For he himself is the wisdom of
God and in the Psalm it is said, "You have made all things in wisdom. "'^^ If, then, Christ is the wisdom of God and the Psalm says, "You have made all things in wisdom," as all things were made through him, so they were made in him.
(2) If, therefore, dearest brothers, both all things were made in him and that which was made in him, is life, then earth, too, is life, and wood, too, is life. We do, indeed, say that wood is life, but in the sense of the wood of the cross from which we have received life. Then stone, too, is life. It is shameful to understand the sentence like this, lest that same most foul sect of Manichaeans should again steal upon us and say that a stone has life and a wall has a soul, and a rope has a soul, and wool and clothes. For in their mad ravings they are accustomed to say [this]; and, when they have been repulsed and rejected, as if speaking from Scripture, they declare,
"Why was^'it said, 'That which was made in him, is life?' For if
37. Cf. Ex 7-8. 38. The lack of any sort of systematic punctuation in ancient manuscripts could and did, as here, create difficult problems in interpretation. Augustine himself in DDC 3.2.2-5 (CCL 32.77-79; and FOTC 5.117-120) says that when such ambiguities occur, one ought to consult first the rule of faith established in clearer passages or by the authority of the Church; and if that is lacking, then to use the context; and if both fail to provide a solution, to exercise judgment from one's knowledge or careful analysis. See also, Berrouard, Homelies I— XVI, 843—844, and M. Comeau, Saint Augustine exegete du quatrieme evangile (Paris, 1930), 74-76. With this particular sentence from John's Gospel the problem persists as a comparison of various translations illustrates; a good brief summary of the problem can be found in R. Brown, The Gospel According to John, i-xii in The Anchor Bible (New York, 1966), 29.6-7.