Annotation CLXVII

”In the beginning was the Word.” — John 1:1

Whether God is the form of things.

Augustine, in the sermon On the Words of the Lord 38, narrating this clause, has certain words which those are wont to use who, for the sake of disputation in the schools, argue that God comes into the composition of things after the manner of a form. They are: “The Word of God is a certain form — a form not formed, but the form of all formed [things].” St. Thomas, in the first volume of the Summa, says that this saying is to be taken of the exemplary form — that is, that the Word of God is the exemplary form, but not the form which is a part of a composite.