Commentary on the Johannine prologue

Thus all things were made by him, for all creatures were made by the Word of God as the Father willed; there is no Creator save God alone. All useful things that possess form and vitality were made by him. In our arms and the fingers that are joined to them, he reveals the strength of the firmament, with the signs that uphold and govern it, just as the arms, with the fingers of the hands, manifest the rule and activity of the whole body. The right hand is like the south wind, the left hand like the north wind, which together support the firmament so that it does not overstep its bounds, as it is written: And in all of these a great chasm has been set between us and you, that is, lest the darkness extinguish the light or the light expel the darkness.

And without him nothing was made, for without the Word of God no creature was fashioned. Through the Word of God there arose every creature, whether visible or invisible, that subsists in any degree of being-with a living spirit or viridity or virtue. Without him nothing was made except evil, which is from the devil-and therefore it was cast away from the sight of God and brought to nothing; for there is only one God and no other. Rational man, to whom God gave the ability to work, committed sin, which comes to nothing because it was not created by God. For this "nothing" God established endless darkness, because it rejected and fled from the light.

But what was made in him was life. For all things that were created appeared in their Creator's reason because they existed in his foreknowledge. They were not coeternal with him, yet they were foreknown, foreseen, and foreordained by him. God is the only life that had no beginning. Therefore all that was made in him was life, because it was foreknown by him and alive to him. God never began to hold creation in his memory, since he had never forgotten it: It already existed in his foreknowledge, even though it did not yet exist temporally in its own forms. For just as it is impossible for God not to be, so it is impossible that those works which had been foreknown and foreordained in his wisdom should not have come forth as creatures. What was made in creation existed in God as unending life, because it was to be created in such a way that the finished creature should lack nothing, and nothing should keep it from attaining full maturity in the course of its growth. In the same way, the works a person does for himself are "life" to him insofar as they sustain his life, because he maintains and perfects himself through them. God, however, is the fullness of life without beginning or end, so even his work is life in him, work that can by no means be mocked. God has sealed this principle in the breast, where a person gathers everything in his thoughts, both good and evil. In the process of desiring, planning, and setting forth to act, he considers what should please and displease him. Whatever pleases him he gladly keeps, so that it may preserve his life, and whatever displeases him he casts away in anger, lest it harm his life.