Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
78 ST. AUGUSTINE deigned to die a temporal death. And did he die, or was it that death died in him?^ What kind of death [was] it that killed death?
4. And yet is it our Lord Jesus Christ, himself, the whole of him, who was seen and held and crucified? This isn't his whole self, is it? He himself it certainly is, but the whole is not that which the Jews saw. This is not the whole Christ. And what is?
"In the beginning was the Word." In what beginning? "And the Word was with God." And what sort of Word? "And the Word was God."'^ Was this Word perchance made by God?
No. For, "He was in the beginning with God." What then? Are the other things which God made not like the Word? No, because "all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing."" How were all things made through him? Because "what was made, in him was life,"'^ and before it was made, there was life. What was made is not life; but in his creative knowledge,'^ that is, in the wisdom of God, before it was made, there was life. What was made passed away; what is in wisdom cannot pass away. What was made, therefore, was life in him. And what sort of life? For the soul, too, is the life of the body; our body has its own life, and when it has lost it, there is the death of the body.
(2) Was that life, then, of this sort? No, but "the life was the light of men."'^ Was it the light of cattle? For this light is the light of both men and cattle. There is a certain light of men. Let us see how men differ from cattle, and then we shall understand what the light of men is. You do not differ from an animal, except in intellect; don't boast about anything else. Do you have confidence in your strength? You are surpassed by wild animals. Do you have confidence in your speed? You are surpassed by flies. Do you have confidence in your beauty?
How great beauty is there in the feathers of the peacock? How then are you better? From the image of God! Where is the image of God? In the mind, in the intellect.
(3) If therefore you are better than an animal precisely be-
9. Cf. Hos 13.14. 11. Cf. Jn 1.3. 13. Cf. Tractate 1.17 and note 40.
10. Jn 1.1. 12. Cf.Jn 1.3-4. 14. Cf.Jn 1.4.