All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
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Alcuin of York
AD 804
After speaking of the nature of the Son, he proceeds to His operations, saying, Allthings were made by him, i.e. every thing whether substance, or property.
Since all things were made by him, it is evident that light was as also, when God said, Let there be light. And in like manner the rest. But if so, that which God said, viz.Let there be light, is eternal. For the Word of God, God with God, is coeternal with the Father, though the world created by Him be temporal. For whereas our when and sometimes are words of time, in the Word of God, on the contrary, when a thing ought to be made, is eternal; and the thing is then made, when in that Word it is that it ought to be made, which Word has in It neither when, or at sometime, since It is all eternal.
How then can the Word of God be made, when God by the Word made all things? For if the Word Itself were made, by what other Word was It made? If you say it was the Word of the Word by Which That was made, that Word I call the Only-Begotten Son of God. But if thou cost not call It the Word of the Word, then grant that that Word was not made, by which all things were made.
And if It is not made, ...
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The divine Instructor is trustworthy, adorned as He is with three of the fairest ornament"-knowledge, benevolence, and authority of utterance;-with knowledge, for He is the paternal wisdom: "All Wisdom is from the Lord, and with Him for evermore; "-with authority of utterance, for He is God and Creator: "For all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made; ".
He that is illuminated is therefore awake towards God; and such an one lives. "For what was made in Him was life.".
At home, therefore, they ought to regard with modesty parents and domestics; in the ways, those they meet; in the baths, women; in solitude, themselves; and everywhere the Word, who is everywhere, "and without Him was not anything.".
But a rational work is accomplished through God. "And nothing "it is said, "was made without Him"-the Word of God.
And since the unoriginated Being is one, the Omnipotent God; one, too, is the First-begotten, "by whom all things were made, and without whom not one th...
"For in the Gospel he thus speaks: "And what was made, in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.".
He does not express the divine essence, but wishing to declare the majesty of God, he has applied to the Divinity what is best and most excellent in the view of men. Thus also Patti, when he speaks of "light inaccessible."
CHAPTER V. That the Son is by Nature Creator with the Father, as being of His Essence, and not taken to Him as a minister.
All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made.
The blessed Evangelist, having overthrown the intricate objections of the unholy heretics, and having completed his subtil and most exact utterance respecting the Only-Begotten, comes to another snare of the devil compounded of the ancient deceit, and putting forth to us the sting of the polytheic error, which has wounded and cast down many, and widening the way of perdition, and throwing open the broad and spacious gate of death, heaped up souls of men in herds unto hell and set rich food as it were before the devil and brought before him choice meat. For since the children of the Greeks applying themselves to the wisdom of the world, and having plenteously in their mind the spirit of the ruler of this world, were carried away unto polytheic error, and perverted the beauty of the truth and, ...
All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing that was made. These words teach us, that all created being, visible, or invisible on earth, every thing that ever was made, or began to be, were made, produced, and created by this eternal word, or by the Son of God. The same is truly said of the Holy Spirit; all creatures being equally produced, created, and preserved by the three divine Persons as, by their proper, principal, and efficient cause, in the same manner, and by the same action: not by the Son, in any manner inferior to the Father; nor as if the Son produced things only ministerially, and acted only as the minister, and instrument of the Father, as the Arians pretended. In this sublime mystery of one God and three distinct Persons, if we consider the eternal processions, and personal proprieties, the Father is the first Person, but not by any priority of time, or of dignity; all the three divine Persons being eternal, or co-eternal, equal in all perfections, be...
Or thus:, the Word indeed was in the beginning, but it may be that He was not before the beginning. But what says he; All things were made by him. He is infinite by Whom everything, which is, was made: and since all things were made by Him, time is likewise.
Or thus; That all things were made by him, is pronouncing too much, it maybe said. There is an Unbegotten Who is made of none, and there is the Son Himself begotten from Him Who is Unbegotten. The Evangelist however again implies the Author, when he speaks of Him as Associated; saying, without Him was not any thing made. This, that nothing was made without Him, I understand to mean the Son’s not being alone, for ‘by whom’ is one thing, ‘not without whom another.
"For all things "he says, "were made by him, and not even one thing was made without him, and what was made in him is life.".
"In this way, he says, the Phrygians call him "Amygdalus "from which proceeded and was born the Invisible (One), "by whom all things were made, and nothing was made without Him."
"The same was in the beginning with God"-this clause discloses the order of production. "All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made; ".
for the Word was the author of form and beginning to all the Aeons that came into existence after Him. But "what was made in Him "says John, "is life.".
And again, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.".
His own Word is both suitable and sufficient for the formation of all things, even as John, the disciple of the Lord, declares regarding Him: "All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.".
For when he had spoken of the Word of God as having been in the Father, he added, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made.".
), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for "all things were made by Him".
and as we read in the Gospel, "All things were made by Him; and without Him was nothing made; "
1. Moses in the beginning of the history and writings of the Old Testament speaks to us of the objects of sense, and enumerates them to us at length. For, In the beginning, he says, God made the heaven and the earth, and then he adds, that light was created, and a second heaven and the stars, the various kinds of living creatures, and, that we may not delay by going through particulars, everything else. But this Evangelist, cutting all short, includes both these things and the things which are above these in a single sentence; with reason, because they were known to his hearers, and because he is hastening to a greater subject, and has instituted all his treatise, that he might speak not of the works but of the Creator, and Him who produced them all. And therefore Moses, though he has selected the smaller portion of the creation, (for he has spoken nothing to us concerning the invisible powers,) dwells on these things; while John, as hastening to ascend to the Creator Himself, runs by...
Moses indeed, in the beginning of the Old Testament, speaks to us in much detail of the natural world, saying, In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth; and then relates how that the light, and the firmament, and the stars, and the various kinds of animals were created. But the Evangelist sums up the whole of this in a word, as familiar to his hearers; and hastens to loftier matter, making the whole of his book to bear not on the works, but on the Maker.
If the preposition by perplex you, and you would learn from Scripture that the Word Itself made all thin as, hear David, You, Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. That he spoke this of the Only-Begotten, you learn from the Apostle, who in the Epistle to the Hebrews applies these words to the Son.
But if you say that the prophet spoke this of the Father, and that Paul applied it to the Son, itcomes to the same thing. For he would not have mentioned that as app...
As that "Word of God by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made; ".
the fulness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and the creation. In the gospel, moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word.
Then that the Word was produced, "through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.".
For if indeed Wisdom in this passage seems to say that She was created by the Lord with a view to His works, and to accomplish His ways, yet proof is given in another Scripture that "all things were made by the Word, and without Him was there nothing made; ".
"by which all things were made".
"and without which nothing was made.".
But all the rest of the created things did He in like manner make, who made the former ones-I mean the Word of God. "through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.".
gives effect and form to what He sees. Thus all things were made by tile Son, and without Him was not...
The Arians are wont to say, that all things are spoken of as made by the Son, in the sense in which we say a door is made by a saw, viz. as an instrument; not that He was Himself the Maker. And so they talk of the Son as a thing made, as if Hewere made for this purpose, that all things might be made by Him. Now we to the inventors of this lie reply simply: If, as you say, the Father had created the Son, in order to make use of Him as an instrument, it would appear that the Son were less honorable than the things made, just as things made by a saw are more noble than the saw itself; the saw having been made for their sake. In like way do they speak of the Father creating the Son for the sake of the things made, as it; had He thought good to create the universe, neither would He have produced the Son. What can be more insane than such language? They argue, however, why was it not said that the Word made all things, instead of the preposition by being used. For this reason, that you might...
Do not think, the Evangelist is saying, that the Word is like a spoken word which is uttered and then dies away in the air. The Word is the Maker of everything, both that which is perceived by the mind and that perceived by the senses. Again the Arians leap to the attack, saying, "We may also say that a door was made by a saw, that is, by a tool, yet the craftsman who moves the tool differs greatly from the tool itself. Therefore, where it is written that all things were made by the Son, it does not mean that the Son is the Maker, but that he is an instrument, just like the saw. God the Father is the Maker Who uses the Son as His tool. Therefore the Son is something which was created for the very purpose of making all other things, just as a saw is made as the tool by which crafted items are produced." This is how the wicked band of Arians speaks. How do we answer? Simply and directly, that if, as they claim, the Father created the Son to be the instrument whereby He fashioned the worl...
