3. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: 3. All things were made by et sine ipso factum est nihil, him: and without him was made quod factum est, nothing that was made. 4. in ipso vita erat, et vita 4. In him was life, and the erat lux hominum: life was the light of men. 3. St. John passes on to the relations of the Word with creatures. *All things* (πάντα = τὰ πάντα, 1 Cor. viii. 6, Col. i. 16). The passages indicated, as well as verse 10 of this chapter: _the world was made by Him_, make it clear that the Son of God created all things. Nor could this doctrine be more plainly stated than in the words before us: _All things were made by Him_, &c. How absurd, then, is the Socinian view, according to which St. John merely tells us here that all Christian virtues were introduced, and the whole _moral_ world established by Christ! *Were made* ἐγένετο, _i.e._, got their whole _being_ from Him, and not merely were fashioned by Him from pre‐existing matter. The Cerinthian theory, that the world was made by an inferior being, is here rejected. *By Him* (δι᾽ αὐτοῦ). We are not to suppose that the Word was an instrument in the hands of the Father, or inferior to the Father, as the Arians held. The preposition διά (per) is often used in reference to a principal efficient cause. Thus, St. Paul says of the Father: God is faithful, _by whom_ (δι᾽ οὗ) you are called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord (1 Cor. i. 9. See also 1 Cor. i. 1, 2 Cor. i. 1, Gal. iv. 27, Heb. ii. 10.) And since our Evangelist has just declared in verse 1 the Word’s divinity, and knew Him to be one with the Father (x. 30), it cannot be implied here that the Word is inferior to the Father. Some commentators hold that there is no special significance in the use here of the preposition διά, while others see in it an allusion to the fact that the Son proceeds from the Father, and derives from Him His creative power. According to these, creation is _from_ the Father, but _through_ the Son, because the Son has received His creative power, together with His essence, from the Father and is not, therefore, like the Father, “principium sine principio.” Others think that since all things were created according to the Divine idea, _i.e._, according to the Divine and eternal wisdom, and since the Word is that wisdom, therefore all things are rightly said to have been created through the Word. So St. Thomas on this verse:—“Sic ergo Deus nihil facit nisi per conceptum sui intellectus, qui est sapientia ab aeterno concepta, scilicet Dei Verbum, et Dei Filius; et ideo impossibile est quod aliquid faciat nisi per Filium.” In this view, which seems to us the most probable, though like all the Divine works that are “ad extra,” _i.e._ do not terminate in God Himself, creation is common to the Three Divine Persons, yet, for the reason indicated, it is rightly said to be through the Son.