John 1:3

all things were created in him, and by him, or, as it is in the Greek, unto him, and for him; to shew that the Son was not only the efficient cause, the Maker and Creator of all things, but also the last end of all. Which is also confirmed by the following words: And he is before all, and all things subsist in him, or consist in him; as in the Rheims and Protestant translations. I have, therefore, in this third verse, translated, all things were made by him, with all English translations and paraphrases, whether made by Catholics or Protestants; and not all things were made through him, lest through should seem to carry with it a different and a diminishing signification; or as if, in the creation of the world, the eternal word, or the Son of God, produced things only ministerially, and, in a manner, inferior to the Father, as the Arians and Eunomians pretended; against whom, on this very account, wrote St. Basil, lib. de spiritu Sto. St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyril, on this very verse; where they expressly undertake to shew that the Greek text in this verse no ways favours these heretics. The Arians, and now the Socinians, who deny the Son to be true God, or that the word God applies as properly to him as to the Father, but would have him called God, that is, a nominal god, in an inferior and improper sense; as when Moses called the god of Pharao; (Exodus vii. 1.) or as men in authority are called gods; (Psalm lxxxi. 6.) pretend, after Origen, to find another difference in the Greek text; as if, when mention is made of the Father, he is styled the God; but that the Son is only called God, or a God. This objection St. Chrysostom, St. Cyril, and others, have shewn to be groundless: that pretended significant Greek article being several times omitted, when the word God is applied to God the Father; and being found in other places, when the Son of God is called God. See this objection fully and clearly answered by the author of a short book, published in the year 1729, against Dr. Clark and Mr. Whiston, p. 64, and seq. (Witham)

Were made, &c. Mauduit here represents the word:

"1. As a cause, or principle, acting extraneously from himself upon the void space, in order to give a being to all creatures:" whereas there was no void space before the creation. Ante omnia Deus erat solus, ipse sibi et mundus et locus, et omnia. (Tertullian, lib. cont. Prax. chap. v.) And St. Augustine in Psalm cxxii. says: antequam faceret Deus Sanctos, ubi habitabat? In se habitabat, apud se habitabat.

The creation of all things, visible and invisible, was the work of the whole blessed Trinity; but the Scriptures generally attribute it to the word; because wisdom, reason, and intelligence, which are the attributes of the Son, are displayed most in it. (Calmet)

What wonderful tergiversations the Arians used to avoid the evidence of this text, we see in St. Augustine, lib. iii. de doct. Christ. chap. 2; even such as modern dissenters do, to avoid the evidence of This is my Body, concerning the blessed Eucharist. (Bristow)

² Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: panta di autou egeneto: all things were made by him. Let not any one pretend that di autou, in this verse signifies no more than, that all creatures were made by the Word, or Son of God, ministerially, as if he was only the instrument of the eternal Father, and in a manner inferior to that by which they were created by the Father, the chief and principal cause of all things; of whom the apostle says, ex ou ta panta, ex ipso omnia., Origen, unless perhaps his writings were corrupted by the Arians, seems to have given occasion to this leptologia, as St. Basil calls it, to groundless quibbling and squabbling about the sense of the prepositions; when he tells us, (tom. ii, in Joan. p. 55. Ed. Huetii.) the di ou never has the first place, but always the second place, meaning as to dignity: oudepote ten proten choran echei to di ou, deuteran de aei. It is like many other false and unwarrantable assertions in Origen; as when we find in the same commentary on St. John, that he says only God the Father is called o Theos. Origen may perhaps be excused as to what he writes about di ou and ex ou, as if he spoke only with a regard to the divine processions in God, in which the Father is the first person, from whom proceeds even the eternal Son, the second person. But whatever Origen thought, or meant, whom St. Epiphanius calls the father of Arius, whose works, as then extant, were condemned in the fifth General Council; it appears that the Arians, in particular Aetius, of the Eunomian sect, pretended that ex ou had always a more eminent signification, and was only applied to the Father; the Father, said he, being the true God, the only principal efficient cause of all things; and di ou was applied to the word, or Son of God, who was not the same true God, to signify his interior and ministerial production, as he was the instrument of the Father. Aetius, without regard to other places in the Scripture, as we read in St. Basil, (lib. de Sp. S. chap. ii. p. 293. Ed. Morelli. an. 1637) produced these words of the apostle: (1 Corinthians viii. 6.) eis Theos, pater, ex ou ta panta ... kai eis kurios, Iesous Christos; di ou panta: unus Deus, Pater, ex quo omnia, ... et unus Dominus Jesus Christus; per quem omnia. He concluded from hence, that as the prepositions were different, so were the natures and substance of the Father and of the Son., But that no settled and certain rule can be built on these prepositions, and that di ou, in this third verse of the first chapter of St. John, has no diminishing signification, so that the Son was equally the proper and principal efficient cause of all things that were made and created, we have the authority of the greatest doctors, and the most learned and exact writers of the Greek Church, who knew both the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and the rules and use of the Greek tongue., St. Basil (lib. de Spir. S. chap. iii. et seq.) ridicules this leptologian, which, he says, had its origin from the vain and profane philosophy of the heathen writers, about the difference of causes. He denies that there is any fixed rule; and brings examples, in which di ou is applied to the Father, and ex ou to the Son., St. Gregory of Nazianzus denies this difference, (Orat. xxxvii, p. 604. Ed. Morelli. Parisiis, ann. 1630) and affirms that ex ou, and di ou, in the Scripture, are said of all the three divine Persons., St. Chrysostom says the same; and brings examples, to shew it on this verse of St. John; and tells us expressly that di ou, in this verse, has no diminishing nor inferior signification: ei de to di ou nomizeis elattoseos einai, &c., St. Cyril of Alexandria, (lib. i. in Joan. p. 48.) makes the very same remark, and with the like examples. His words are: Quod si existiment (Ariani) per quem, di ou, substantiam ejus (Filii) de æqualitate cum Patre dejicere, ita ut minister sit potius quam Creator, ad se redeant insani, &c., St. Ambrose, a doctor of the Latin Church, (lib. ii. de Sp. S. 10. p. 212. 213. Ed. Par. an. 1586.) confutes, with St. Basil, the groundless and pretended differences of ex quo and per quem., I shall only here produce that one passage in Romans, (Chap. xi. 36.) which St. Basil and St. Ambrose make use of, where we read: ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia, (ex autou, kai di autou, kai eis auton ta panta) et in ipsum omnia. Now either we expound all the three parts of this sentence, as spoken of the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, (as both St. Basil and St. Ambrose understand them) and then ex ou is applied to the Son; or we understand them of the Father, and di ou is applied to the first Person: or, in fine, as St. Augustine observes, (lib. i. de Trin. chap. 6.) we interpret them in such a manner, that the first part be understood of the Father, the second of the Son, the third of the Holy Ghost; and then the words that immediately follow in the singular number, to him be glory for ever, shew that all the three Persons are but one in nature, one God; and to all, and to each of the three Persons, the whole sentence belongs., Had I not already said more than may seem necessary on these words, I might add all the Greek bishops in the council of Florence, when they came to an union with the Latin bishops about the procession of the Holy Ghost. After many passages had been quoted out of the ancient Fathers, some of which had said that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, ek tou patros, kai ek tou uiou, many others had asserted that he proceeded ek tou Patros dia tou uiou; Bessarion, the learned Grecian bishop, in a long oration, (Sess. 25.) shewed that di uiou was the same as ek tou uiou. The Fathers, said he, shew, deiknusin isodunamousan te ek ten dia. See tom. xiii. Conc. Lab. p. 435. All the others allowed this to be true, as the emperor John Paleologus observed. (p. 487.) And the patriarch of Constantinople, when he was about to subscribe, declared the same: esti to dia tou uiou, tauton to ek tou uiou. Can any one imagine that none of these learned Grecians should know the force and use of these two prepositions, in their own language?