(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.

TERTULLIAN.

AGAINST HERMOGENES.

CONTAINING AN ARGUMENT AGAINST HIS OPINION THAT MATTER IS ETERNAL.

[TRANSLATED BY DR. HOLMES.]

CHAP.I.--THE OPINIONS OF HERMOGENES, BY THE PRESCRIPTIVE RULE OF ANTIQUITY
SHOWN TO BE HERETICAL. NOT DERIVED FROM CHRISTIANITY, BUT FROM HEATHEN
PHILOSOPHY. SOME OF THE TENETS MENTIONED.

   WE are accustomed, for the purpose of shortening argument,(1) to lay
down the rule against heretics of the lateness of their date.(2) For in as
far as by our rule, priority is given to the truth, which also foretold
that there would be heresies, in so far must all later opinions be
prejudged as heresies, being such as were, by the more ancient rule of
truth, predicted as (one day) to happen. Now, the doctrine of Hermogenes
has this(3) taint of novelty. He is, in short,(4) a man living in the world
at the present time; by his very nature a heretic, and turbulent withal,
who mistakes loquacity for eloquence, and supposes impudence to be
firmness, and judges it to be the duty of a good conscience to speak ill of
individuals.(5) Moreover, he despises God's law in his painting,(6)
maintaining repeated marriages,(7) alleges the law of God in defence of
lust,(8) and yet despises it in respect of his art.(9) He falsities by a
twofold process--with his cautery and his pen.(10) He is a thorough
adulterer, both doctrinally and carnally, since he is rank indeed with the
contagion of your marriage-hacks,(11) and has also failed in cleaving to
the rule of faith as much as the apostle's own Hermogenes.(12) However,
never mind the man, when it is his doctrine which I question. He does not
appear to acknowledge any other Christ as Lord,(13) though he holds Him in
a different way; but by this difference in his faith he really makes Him
another being,--nay, he takes from Him everything which is God, since he
will not have it that He made all things of nothing. For, turning away from
Christians to the philosophers, from the Church to the Academy and the
Porch, he learned there from the Stoics how to place Matter (on the same
level) with the Lord, just as if it too had existed ever both unborn and
unmade, having no beginning at all nor end, out of which, according to
him,(14) the Lord afterwards created all things.

CHAP. II.--HERMOGENES, AFTER A PERVERSE INDUCTION FROM MERE HERETICAL
ASSUMPTIONS, CONCLUDES THAT GOD CREATED ALL THINGS OUT OF PRE-EXISTING
MATTER.

   Our very bad painter has coloured this his primary shade absolutely
without any light, with such arguments as these: He begins with laying down
the premiss,(15) that the Lord made all things either out of Himself, or
out of nothing, or out of something; in order that, after he has shown that
it was impossible for Him to have made them either out of Himself or out of
nothing, he might thence affirm the residuary proposition that He made them
out of something, and therefore that that something was Matter. He could
not have made all things, he says, of Himself; because whatever things the
Lord made of Himself would have been parts of Himself; but(1) He is not
dissoluble into parts,(2), because, being the Lord, He is indivisible, and
unchangeable, and always the same. Besides, if He had made anything out of
Himself, it would have been something of Himself. Everything, however, both
which was made and which He made must be accounted imperfect, because it
was made of a part, and He made it of a part; or if, again, it was a whole
which He made, who is a whole Himself, He must in that case have been at
once both a whole, and yet not a whole; because it behaved Him to be a
whole, that He might produce Himself,(3) and yet not a whole, that He might
be produced out of Himself.(4) But this is a most difficult position. For
if He were in existence, He could not be made, for He was in existence
already; if, however, he were not in existence He could not make, because
He was a nonentity. He maintains, moreover, that He who always exists, does
not came into existence,(5) but exists for ever and ever. He accordingly
concludes that He made nothing out of Himself, since He never passed into
such a condition(6) as made it possible for Him to make anything out of
Himself. In like manner, he contends that He could not have made all things
out of nothing--thus: He defines the Lord as a being who is good, nay, very
good, who must will to make things as good and excellent as He is Himself;
indeed it were impossible for Him either to will or to make anything which
was not good, nay, very good itself. Therefore all things ought to have
been made good and excellent by Him, after His own condition. Experience
shows,(7) however, that things which are even evil were made by Him: not,
of course, of His own will and pleasure; because, if it had been of His own
will and pleasure, He would be sure to have made nothing unfitting or
unworthy of Himself. That, therefore, which He made not of His own will
must be understood to have been made from the fault of something, and that
is from Matter, without a doubt.

CHAP. III.--AN ARGUMENT OF HERMOGENES. THE ANSWER: WHILE GOD IS A TITLE
ETERNALLY APPLICABLE TO THE DIVINE BEING, LORD AND FATHER ARE ONLY RELATIVE
APPELLATIONS, NOT ETERNALLY APPLICABLE. AN INCONSISTENCY IN THE ARGUMENT OF
HERMOGENES POINTED OUT

   He adds also another point: that as God was always God, there was never
a time when God was not also Lord. But(8) it was in no way possible for Him
to be regarded as always Lord, in the same manner as He had been always
God, if there had not been always, in the previous eternity,(9) a something
of which He could be regarded as evermore the Lord. So he concludes(10)
that God always had Matter co-existent with Himself as the Lord thereof.
Now, this tissue(11) of his I shall at once hasten to pull abroad. I have
been willing to set it out in form to this length, for the information of
those who are unacquainted with the subject, that they may know that his
other arguments likewise need only be(12) understood to be refuted. We
affirm, then, that the name of God always existed with Himself and in
Himself--but not eternally so the Lord. Because the condition of the one is
not the same as that of the other. God is the designation of the substance
itself, that is, of the Divinity; but Lord is (the name) not of substance,
but of power. I maintain that the substance existed always with its own
name, which is God; the title Lord was afterwards added, as the indication
indeed(13) of something accruing. For from the moment when those things
began to exist, over which the power of a Lord was to act, God, by the
accession of that power, both became Lord and received the name thereof.
Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a Judge; but He has
not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always
been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a
Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed
with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a
Judge, and the latter a Father. In this way He was not Lord previous to
those things of which He was to be the Lord. But He was only to become Lord
at some future time: just as He became the Father by the Son, and a Judge
by sin, so also did He become Lord by means of those things which He had
made, in order that they might serve Him. Do I seem to you to be weaving
arguments,(14) Hermogenes? how neatly does Scripture lend us its aid,(13)
when it applies the two titles to Him with a distinction, and reveals them
each at its proper time! For (the title ) God, indeed, which always
belonged to Him, it names at the very first: "In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth;" (1) and as long as He continued making, one
after the other, those things of which He was to be the Lord, it merely
mentions God. "And God said," "and God made," "and Gad saw;" (2) but
nowhere do we yet find the Lord. But when He completed the whole creation,
and especially man himself, who was destined to understand His sovereignty
in a way of special propriety, He then is designated a Lord. Then also the
Scripture added the name Lord: "And the Lord God, Deus Dominus. took the
man, whom He had formed;"(4) "And the Lord God commanded Adam."(5)
Thenceforth He, who was previously God only, is the Lord, from the time of
His having something of which He might be the Lord. For to Himself He was
always God, but to all things was He only then God, when He became also
Lord. Therefore, in as far as (Hermogenes) shall suppose that Matter was
eternal, on the ground that the Lord was eternal, in so far will it be
evident that nothing existed, because it is plain that the Lord as such did
not always exist. Now I mean also, on my own part,(6) to add a remark for
the sake of ignorant persons, of whom Hermogenes is an extreme instance,(7)
and actually to retort against him his own arguments.(8) For when he denies
that Matter was born or made, I find that, even on these terms, the title
Lord is unsuitable to God in respect of Matter, because it must have been
free,(9) when by not having a beginning it had not an author. The fact of
its past existence it owed to no one, so that it could be a subject to no
one. Therefore ever since God exercised His power over it, by creating (all
things) out of Matter, although it had all along experienced God as its
Lord, yet Matter does, after all, demonstrate that God did not exist in the
relation of Lord to it,(10) although all the while He was really so.

CHAP. IV.--HERMOGENES GIVES DIVINE ATTRIBUTES TO MATTER, AND SO MAKES TWO
GODS.

   At this point, then, I shall begin to treat of Matter, how that,
(according to Hermogenes,)(12) God compares it with Himself as equally
unborn, equally unmade, equally eternal, set forth as being without a
beginning, without an end. For what other estimate's of God is there than
eternity? What other  condition has eternity than to have ever existed, and
to exist yet for evermore by virtue of its privilege of having neither
beginning nor end? Now, since this is the property of God, it will belong
to God alone, whose property it is--of course(14) on this ground, that if
it can be ascribed to any other being, it will no longer be the property of
God, but will belong, along with Him, to that being also to which it is
ascribed. For "although there be that are called gods" in name, "whether in
heaven or in earth, yet to us there is but one God the Father, of whom are
all things;"(15) whence the greater reason why, in our view,(16) that which
is the property(17) of God ought to be regarded as pertaining to God alone,
and why (as I have already said) that should cease to be such a property,
when it is shared by another being. Now, since He is God, it must
necessarily be a unique mark of this quality,(18) that it be confined to
One. Else, what will be unique and singular, if that is not which has
nothing equal to it? What will be principal, if that is not which is above
all things, before all things, and from which all things proceed? By
possessing these He is God alone, and by His sole possession of them He is
One. If another also shared in the possession, there would then be as many
gods as there were possessors of these attributes of God. Hermogenes,
therefore, introduces two gods: he introduces Matter as God's equal. God,
however, must be One, because that is God which is supreme; but nothing
else can be supreme than that which is unique; and that cannot possibly be
unique which has anything equal to it; and Matter will be equal with God
when it is held to be(19) eternal.

CHAP. V.--HERMOGENES COQUETS WITH HIS OWN  ARGUMENT, AS IF RATHER AFRAID OF
IT. AFTER INVESTING MATTER WITH DIVINE QUALITIES, HE TRIES TO MAKE IT
SOMEHOW INFERIOR TO GOD.

   But God is God, and Matter is Matter. As if a mere difference in their
names prevented equality,(20) when an identity of condition is claimed for
them! Grant that their nature is different; assume, too, that their form is
not identical,--what matters it so long as their absolute state have but
one mode?(1) God is unborn; is not Matter also unborn? God ever exists; is
not Matter, too, ever existent? Both are without beginning; both are
without end; both are the authors of the universe--both He who created it,
and the Matter of which He made it. For it is impossible that Matter should
not be regarded as the author(2) of all things, when the universe is
composed of it. What answer will he give? Will he say that Matter is not
then comparable with God as soon as(3) it has something belonging to God;
since, by not having total (divinity), it cannot correspond to the whole
extent of the comparison? But what more has he reserved for God, that he
should not seem to have accorded to Matter the full amount of the Deity?(4)
He says in reply, that even though this is the prerogative of Matter, both
the authority and the substance of God must remain intact, by virtue of
which He is regarded as the sole and prime Author, as well as the Lord of
all things. Truth, however, maintains the unity of God in such a way as to
insist that whatever belongs to God Himself belongs to Him alone. For so
will it belong to Himself if it belong to Him alone; and therefore it will
be impossible that another god should be admitted, when it is permitted to
no other being to possess anything of God. Well, then, you say, we
ourselves at that rate possess nothing of God. But indeed we do, and shall
continue to do--only it is from Him that we receive it, and not from
ourselves. For we shall be even gods, if we, shall deserve to be among
those of whom He declared, "I have said, Ye are gods,"(5) and, "God
standeth in the congregation of the gods."(6) But this comes of His own
grace, not from any property in us, because it is He alone who can make
gods. The property of Matter, however, he(7) makes to be that which it has
in common with God. Otherwise, if it received from God the property which
belongs to God,--I mean its attribute(8) of eternity -one might then even
suppose that it both possesses an attribute in common with God, and yet at
the same time is not God. But what inconsistency is it for him(9) to allow
that there is a conjoint possession of an attribute with God, and also to
wish that what he does not refuse to Matter should be, after all, the
exclusive privilege of God!

CHAP. VI.--THE SHIFTS TO WHICH HERMOGENES IS REDUCED, WHO DEIFIES MATTER,
AND YET IS UNWILLING TO HOLD HIM EQUAL WITH THE DIVINE CREATOR.

   He declares that God's attribute is still safe to Him, of being the
only God, and the First, and the Author of all things, and the  Lord of all
things, and being incomparable to any--qualities which he straightway
ascribes to Matter also. He is God, to be sure. God shall also attest the
same; but He has also sworn sometimes by Himself, that there is no other
God like Him.(10) Hermogenes, however, will make Him a liar. For Matter
will be such a God as He--being unmade, unborn, without beginning, and
without end. God will say, "I am the first!"(11) Yet how is He the first,
when Matter is co-eternal with Him? Between co-eternals and contemporaries
there is no sequence of rank.(12) Is then, Matter also the first? "I," says
the Lord, "have stretched out the heavens alone."(13) But indeed He was not
alone, when that likewise stretched them out, of which He made the expanse.
When he asserts the position that Matter was eternal, without any
encroachment on the condition of God, let him see to it that we do not in
ridicule turn the tables on him, that God similarly was eternal without any
encroachment on the condition of Matter--the condition of Both being still
common to Them. The position, therefore, remains unimpugned(14) both in the
case of Matter, that it did itself exist, only along with God; and that God
existed alone, but with Matter. It also was first with God, as God, too,
was first with it; it, however, is not comparable with God, as God, too, is
not to be compared with it; with God also it was the Author (of all
things), and with God their Sovereign. In this way he proposes that God has
something, and yet not the whole, of Matter. For Him, accordingly,
Hermogenes has reserved nothing which he had not equally conferred on
Matter, so that it is not Matter which is compared with God, but rather God
who is compared with Matter. Now, inasmuch as those qualities which we
claim as peculiar to God--to have always existed, without a beginning,
without an end, and to have been the First, and Alone, and the Author of
all things--are also compatible to Matter, I want to know what property
Matter possesses different and alien from God, and hereby special to
itself, by reason of which it is incapable of being compared with God? That
Being, in which occur(1) all the properties of God, is sufficiently
predetermined without any further comparison.

CHAP. VII.--HERMOGENES HELD TO HIS THEORY IN ORDER THAT ITS ABSURDITY MAY
BE EXPOSED ON HIS OWN PRINCIPLES.

   When he contends that matter is less than God, and inferior to Him, and
therefore diverse from Him, and for the same reason not a fit subject of
comparison with Him, who is a greater and superior Being, I meet him with
this prescription, that what is eternal and unborn is incapable of any
diminution and inferiority, because it is simply this which makes even God
to be as great as He is, inferior and subject to none--nay, greater and
higher than all. For, just as all things which are born, or which come to
an end, and are therefore not eternal, do, by reason of their exposure at
once to an end and a beginning, admit of qualities which are repugnant to
God--I mean diminution and inferiority, because they are born and made--so
likewise God, for this very reason, is unsusceptible of these accidents,
because He is absolutely unborn,(2) and also unmade. And yet such also is
the condition of Matter.(3) Therefore, of the two Beings which are eternal,
as being unborn and unmade--God and Matter--by reason of the identical mode
of their common condition (both of them equally possessing that which
admits neither of diminution nor subjection--that is, the attribute of
eternity), we affirm that neither of them is less or greater than the
other, neither of them is inferior or superior to the other; but that they
both stand on a par in greatness, on a par in sublimity, and on the same
level of that complete and perfect felicity of which eternity is reckoned
to consist. Now we must not resemble the heathen in our opinions; for they,
when constrained to acknowledge God, insist on having other deities below
Him. The Divinity, however, has no degrees, because it is unique; and if it
shall be found in Matter--as being equally unborn and unmade and eternal--
it must be resident in both alike,(4) because in no case can it be inferior
to itself. In what way, then, will Hermogenes have the courage to draw
distinctions; and thus to subject matter to God, an eternal to the Eternal,
an unborn to the Unborn, an author to the Author? seeing that it dares to
say, I also am the first; I too am before all things; and I am that from
which all things proceed; equal we have been, together we have been--both
alike without beginning, without end; both alike without an Author, without
a God.(5) What God, then, is He who subjects me to a contemporaneous, co-
eternal power? If it be He who is called God, then I myself, too, have my
own (divine) name. Either I am God, or He is Matter, because we both are
that which neither of us is. Do you suppose, therefore, that he(6) has not
made Matter equal with God, although, for-sooth, he pretends it to be
inferior to Him?

CHAP. VIII.--ON HIS OWN PRINCIPLES, HERMOGENES MAKES MATTER, ON THE WHOLE,
SUPERIOR TO GOD.

   Nay more,(7) he even prefers Matter to God, and rather subjects God to
it, when he will have it that God made all things out of Matter. For if He
drew His resources from it for the creation of the world, Matter is already
found to be the superior, inasmuch as it furnished Him with the means of
effecting His works; and God is thereby clearly subjected to Matter, of
which the substance was indispensable to Him. For there is no one but
requires that which he makes use of;(9) no one but is subject to the thing
which he requires, for the very purpose of being able to make use of it.
So, again, there is no one who, from using what belongs to another, is not
inferior to him of whose property he makes use; and there is no one who
imparts(10) of his own for another's use, who is not in this respect
superior to him to whose use he lends his property. On this principle,(11)
Matter self, no doubt,(12) was not in want of God, but rather lent itself
to God, who was in want of it--rich and abundant and liberal as it was--to
one who was, I suppose, too small, and too weak, and  too unskilful, to
form what   He willed out of nothing. A grand service, verily,(13) did it
confer on God in giving Him means at the present time whereby He might be
known to be God, and be called Almighty --only that He is no longer
Almighty, since He is not powerful enough for this, to produce all things
out of nothing. To be sure,(14) Matter bestowed somewhat on itself also--
even to get its own self acknowledged with God as God's co-equal, nay more,
as His helper; only there is this drawback, that Hermogenes is the only man
that  has found out this fact, besides the philosophers--those patriarchs
of all heresy.(1) For the prophets knew nothing about it, nor the apostles
thus far, nor, I suppose, even Christ.

CHAP, IX.--SUNDRY INEVITABLE BUT INTOLERABLE CONCLUSIONS FROM THE
PRINCIPLES OF HERMOGENES.

   He cannot say that it was as its Lord that God employed Matter for His
creative works, for He could not have been the Lord of a substance which
was co-equal with Himself. Well, but perhaps it was a title derived from
the will of another,(2) which he enjoyed--a precarious holding, and not a
lordship,(3) and that to such a degree, that(4) although Matter was evil,
He yet endured to make use of an evil substance, owing, of course, to the
restraint of His own limited power,(5) which made  Him impotent to create
out of nothing, not in consequence of His power; for if, as God, He had at
all possessed power over Matter which He knew to be evil, He would first
have converted it into good--as its Lord and the good God-- that so He
might have a good thing to make use of, instead of a bad one. But being
undoubtedly good, only not the Lord withal, He, by using such power(6) as
He possessed, showed the necessity He was under of yielding to the
condition of Matter, which He would have amended if He had been its Lord.
Now this is the answer which must be given to Hermogenes when he maintains
that it was by virtue of His Lordship that God used Matter--even of His
non-possession of  any right to it, on the ground, of course, of His not
having Himself made it. Evil then, on your terms,(7) must proceed from God
Himself, since He is--I will not say the Author of evil, because He did not
form it, but--the permitter thereof, as having dominion over it.(8) If
indeed Matter shall prove not even to belong to God at all, as being evil,
it follows,(9) that when He made use of what belonged to another, He used
it either on a precarious title(10) because He was in need of it, or else
by violent possession because He was stronger than it. For by three methods
is the property of others obtained,--by right, by permission, by violence;
in other words, by lordship, by a title derived from the will of
another,(11) by force. Now, as lordship is out of the question, Hermogenes
must choose which (of the other methods) is suitable to God. Did He, then,
make all things out of Matter, by permission, or by force? But, in truth,
would not God have more wisely determined that nothing at all should be
created, than that it should be created by the mere sufferance of another,
or by violence, and that, too, with(12) a substance which was evil?

CHAP. X.--TO WHAT STRAITS HERMOGENES ABSURDLY REDUCES THE DIVINE BEING.
HE DOES NOTHING SHORT OF MAKING HIM THE AUTHOR OF EVIL.

   Even if Matter had been the perfection of good,(13) would it not have
been equally indecorous in Him to have thought of the property of another,
however good, (to effect His purpose by the help of it)? It was, therefore,
absurd enough for Him, in the interest of His own glory, to have created
the world in such a way as to betray His own obligation to a substance
which belonged to another--and that even not good. Was He then, asks
(Hermogenes), to make all things out of nothing,that so evil things
themselves might be attributed to His will? Great, in all conscience,(14)
must be the blindness of our heretics which leaves them to argue in such a
way that they either insist on the belief of another God supremely good, on
the ground of their thinking the Creator to be the author of evil, or else
they set up Matter with the Creator, in order that they may derive evil
from Matter, not from the Creator. And yet there is absolutely no god at
all that is free from such a doubtful plight, so as to be able to avoid the
appearance even of being the author of evil, whosoever he is that--I will
not say, indeed, has made, but still--has permitted evil to be made by some
author or other, and from some source or other. Hermogenes, therefore,
ought to be told(15) at once, although we postpone to another place our
distinction concerning the mode of evil,(16) that even he has effected no
result by this device of his.(17) For observe how God is found to be, if
not the Author of, yet at any rate the conniver at,(18) evil, inasmuch as
He, with all His extreme goodness, endured evil in Matter before He created
the world, although, as being good, and the enemy of evil, He ought to have
corrected it. For He either was able to correct it, but was unwilling; or
else was willing, but being a weak God, was not able. If He was able and
yet unwilling, He was Himself evil, as having favoured evil; and thus He
now opens Himself to the charge of evil, because even if He did not create
it yet still, since it would not be existing if He had been against its
existence, He must Himself have then caused it to exist, when He refused to
will its non-existence. And what is more shameful than this? When He willed
that to be which He was Himself unwilling to create, He acted in fact
against His very self,(1) inasmuch as He was both willing that that should
exist which He was unwilling to make, and unwilling to make that which He
was willing should exist. As if what He willed was good, and at the same
time what he refused to be the Maker of was evil. What He judged to be evil
by not creating it, He also proclaimed to be good by permitting it to
exist. By bearing with evil as a good instead of rather extirpating it, He
proved Himself to be the promoter thereof; criminally,(2) if through His
own will--disgracefully, if through necessity. God must either be the
servant of evil or the friend thereof, since  He held converse with evil in
Matter--nay, more, effected His works out of the evil  thereof.

CHAP. XI.--HERMOGENES MAKES GREAT EFFORTS TO REMOVE EVIL FROM GOD TO
MATTER. HOW HE FAILS TO DO THIS CONSISTENTLY WITH HIS OWN ARGUMENT.

   But, after all,(3) by what proofs does Hermogenes persuade us that
Matter is evil? For it will be impossible for him not to call that evil to
which he imputes evil. Now we lay down this principle,(4) that what is
eternal cannot possibly admit of diminution and subjection, so as to be
considered inferior to another co-eternal Being. So that we now affirm that
evil is not even compatible with it,(5) since it is incapable of
subjection, from the fact that it cannot in any wise be subject to any,
because it is eternal. But inasmuch as, on other grounds,(6) it is evident
what is eternal as God is the highest good, whereby also He alone is good--
as being eternal, and therefore good--as being God, how can evil be
inherent in Matter, which (since it is eternal) must needs be believed to
be the highest good? Else if that which is eternal prove to be also capable
of evil, this (evil) will be able to be also believed of God to His
prejudice;(7) so that it is without adequate reason that he has been so
anxious(8) to remove evil from God; since evil must be compatible with l an
eternal Being, even by being made compatible with Matter, as Hermogenes
makes it. But, as the argument now stands,(9) since what is eternal can be
deemed evil, the evil must prove to be invincible and insuperable, as being
eternal; and in that case(10) it will be in vain that we labour "to put
away evil from the midst of us;"(11) in that case, moreover, God vainly
gives us such a command and precept; nay more, in vain has God appointed
any judgment at all, when He means, indeed,(12) to inflict punishment with
injustice. But if, on the other hand, there is to be an end of evil, when
the chief thereof, the devil, shall "go away into the fire which God hath
prepared for him and his angels" (13)--having been first "cast into the
bottomless pit;"(14) when likewise "the manifestation of the children of
God"(15) shall have "delivered the creature"(16) from evil, which had been
"made subject to vanity;"(17) when the cattle restored in the innocence and
integrity of their nature(18) shall be at peace(19) with the beasts of the
field, when also little children shall play with serpents;(20) when the
Father shall have put beneath the feet of His Son His enemies,(21) as being
the workers of evil,--if in this way an end is compatible with evil, it
must follow of necessary that a beginning is also compatible with it; and
Matter will turn out to have a beginning, by virtue of its having also an
end. For whatever things are set to the account of evil,(22) have a
compatibility with the condition of evil.

CHAP. XII.--THE MODE OF CONTROVERSY CHANGED. THE PREMISSES OF HERMOGENES
ACCEPTED, IN ORDER TO SHOW INTO WHAT CONFUSION THEY LEAD HIM.

   Come now, let us suppose Matter to be evil, nay, very evil, by nature
of course, just as we believe God to be good, even very good, in like
manner by nature. Now nature must be regarded as sure and fixed, just as
persistently fixed in evil in the case of Matter, as immoveable and
unchangeable in good in the case of God. Because, as is evident,(1) if
nature admits of change from evil to good in Matter, it can be changed from
good to evil in God. Here some man will say, Then will "children not be
raised up to Abraham from the stones?"(2) Will "generations of vipers not
bring forth the fruit of repentance?"(3) And "children of wrath" fail to
become sons of peace, if nature be unchangeable? Your reference to such
examples as these, my friend,(4) is a thoughtless(5) one. For things which
owe their existence to birth such as stones and vipers and human beings--
are not apposite to the case of Matter, which is unborn; since their
nature, by possessing a beginning, may have also a termination. But bear in
mind(6) that Matter has once for all been determined to be eternal, as
being unmade, unborn, and therefore supposably of an unchangeable and
incorruptible nature; and this from the very opinion of Hermogenes himself,
which he alleges against us when he denies that God was able to make
(anything) of Himself, on the ground that what is eternal is incapable of
change, because it would lose--so the opinion runs(7)--what it once was, in
becoming by the change that which it was not, if it were not eternal. But
as for the Lord, who is also eternal, (he maintained) that He could not be
anything else than what He always is. Well, then, I will adopt this
definite opinion of his, and by means thereof refute him. I blame Matter
with a like censure, because out of it, evil though it be--nay, very evil -
-good things have been created, nay, "very good" ones: "And God saw that
they were good, and God blessed them"(8)--because, of course, of their very
great goodness; certainly not because they were evil, or very evil. Change
is therefore admissible in Matter; and this being the case, it has lost its
condition of eternity; in short,(9) its beauty is decayed in death.(10)
Eternity, however, cannot be lost, because it cannot be eternity, except by
reason of its immunity from loss. For the same reason also it is incapable
of change, inasmuch as, since it is eternity, it can by no means be
changed.

CHAP. XIII.--ANOTHER GROUND OF HERMOGENES THAT MATTER HAS SOME GOOD IN IT.
ITS ABSURDITY.

   Here the question will arise How creatures were made good out of it,"
which were formed without any change at all?(12) How occurs the seed of
what is good, nay, very good, in that which is evil, nay, very evil? Surely
a good tree does not produce evil fruit,(13) since there is no God who is
not good; nor does an evil tree yield good fruit, since there is not Matter
except what is very evil. Or if we were to grant him that there is some
germ of good in it, then there will be no longer a uniform nature
(pervading it), that is to say, one which is evil throughout; but instead
thereof (we now encounter) a double nature, partly good and partly evil;
and again the question will arise, whether, in a subject which is good and
evil, there could possibly have been found a harmony for light and
darkness, for sweet and bitter? So again, if qualities so utterly diverse
as good and evil have been able to unite together,(14) and have imparted to
Matter a double nature, productive of both kinds of fruit, then no longer
will absolutely(15) good things be imputable to God, just as evil things
are not ascribed to Him, but both qualities will appertain to Matter, since
they are derived from the property of Matter. At this rate, we shall owe to
God neither gratitude for good things, nor grudge(16) for evil ones,
because He has produced no work of His own proper character.(17) From which
circumstance will arise the clear proof that He has been subservient to
Matter.

  CHAP. XIV.--TERTULLIAN PUSHES HIS OPPONENT INTO A DILEMMA.

   Now, if it be also argued, that although Matter may have afforded Him
the opportunity, it was still His own will which led Him to the creation of
good creatures, as having detected(18) what was good in matter--although
this, too, be a discreditable supposition(19)--yet, at any rate, when He
produces evil likewise out of the same (Matter), He is a servant to Matter,
since, of course,(20) it is not of His own accord that He produces this
too, having nothing else that He can do than to effect creation out of an
evil stock(21)--unwillingly, no doubt, as being good; of necessity, too, as
being unwilling; and as an act of servitude, because from necessity. Which,
then, is the worthier thought, that He created evil things of necessity, or
of His own accord? Because it was indeed of necessity that He created them,
if out of Matter; of His own accord, if out of nothing. For you are now
labouring in vain when you try to avoid making God the Author of evil
things; because, since He made all things of Matter, they will have to be
ascribed to Himself, who made them, just because(1) He made them. Plainly
the interest of the question, whence He made all things, identifies itself
with (the question), whether He made all things out of nothing; and it
matters not whence He made all things, so that He made all things thence,
whence most glory accrued to Him.(2) Now, more glory accrued to Him from a
creation of His own will than from one of necessity; in other words, from a
creation out of nothing, than from one out of Matter. It is more worthy to
believe that God is free, even as the Author of evil, than that He is a
slave. Power, whatever it be, is more suited to Him than infirmity.(3) If
we thus even admit that matter had nothing good in it, but that the Lord
produced whatever good He did produce of His own power, then some other
questions will with equal reason arise. First, since there was no good at
all in Matter, it is clear that good was not made of Matter, on the express
ground indeed that Matter did not possess it. Next, if good was not made of
Matter, it must then have been made of God; if not of God, then it must
have been made of nothing.--For this is the alternative, on Hermogenes' own
showing.(4)

CHAP. XV.--THE TRUTH, THAT GOD MADE ALL THINGS FROM NOTHING, RESCUED FROM
THE OPPONENT'S FLOUNDERINGS.

   Now, if good was neither produced out of matter, since it was not in
it, evil as it was, nor out of God, since, according to the position of
Hermogenes, nothing could have been produced out of god, it will be found
that  good was created out of nothing, inasmuch as it was formed of none --
neither of Matter nor of God. And if good was formed out of nothing, why
not evil too? Nay, if anything was formed out of nothing, why not all
things? Unless indeed it be that the divine might was insufficient for the
production of all things, though it produced a something out of nothing. Or
else if good proceeded from evil matter, since it issued neither from
nothing nor from God, it will follow that it must have proceeded from the
conversion of Matter contrary to that unchangeable attribute which has been
claimed for it, as an eternal being.(5) Thus, in regard to the source
whence good derived its existence, Hermogenes will now have to deny the
possibility of such. But still it is necessary that (good) should proceed
from some one of those sources from which he has denied the very
possibility of its having been derived. Now if evil be denied to be of
nothing for the purpose of denying it to be the work of God, from whose
will there would be too much appearance of its being derived, and be
alleged to proceed from Matter, that it may be the property of that very
thing of whose substance it is assumed to be made, even here also, as I
have said, God will have to be regarded as the Author of evil; because,
whereas it had been His duty(6) to produce all good things out of Matter,
or rather good things simply, by His identical attribute of power and will,
He did yet not only not produce all good things, but even (some) evil
things--of course, either willing that the evil should exist if He was able
to cause their non-existence, or not being strong enough to effect that all
things should be good, if being desirous of that result, He failed in the
accomplishment thereof; since there can be no difference whether it were by
weakness or by will, that the Lord proved to be the Author of evil. Else
what was the reason that, after creating good things, as if Himself good,
He should have also produced evil things, as if He failed in His goodness,
since He did not confine Himself to the production of things which were
simply consistent with Himself? What necessity was there, after the
production of His proper work, for His troubling Himself about Matter also
by producing evil likewise, in order to secure His being alone acknowledged
as good from His good, and at the same time(7) to prevent Matter being
regarded as evil from (created) evil? Good would have flourished much
better if evil had not blown upon it. For Hermogenes himself explodes the
arguments of sundry persons who contend that evil things were necessary to
impart lustre to the good, which must be understood from their contrasts.
This, therefore, was not the ground for the production of evil; but if some
other reason must be sought for the introduction thereof, why could it not
have been introduced even from nothing,(1) since the very same reason would
exculpate the Lord from the reproach of being thought the author of evil,
which now excuses the existence of evil things, when He produces them out
of Matter? And if there is this excuse, then the question is completely(2)
shut up in a corner, where they are unwilling to find it, who, without
examining into the reason itself of evil, or distinguishing how they should
either attribute it to God or separate it from God, do in fact expose God
to many most unworthy calumnies.(3)

CHAP. XVI.--A SERIES OF DILEMMAS. THEY SHOW THAT HERMOGENES CANNOT ESCAPE
FROM THE ORTHODOX CONCLUSION.

   On the very threshoId,(4) then, of this doctrine,(5) which I shall
probably have to treat of elsewhere, I distinctly lay it down as my
position, that both good and evil must be ascribed either to God, who made
them out of Matter; or to Matter itself, out of which He made them; or both
one and the other to both of them together,(6) because they are bound
together--both He who created, and that out of which He created; or
(lastly) one to One and the other to the Other,(7) because after Matter and
God there is not a third. Now if both should prove to belong to God, God
evidently will be the author of evil; but God, as being good, cannot be the
author of evil. Again, if both are ascribed to Matter, Matter will
evidently be the very mother of good,(8) but inasmuch as Matter is wholly
evil, it cannot be the mother of good. But if both one and the other should
be thought to belong to Both together, then in this case also Matter will
be comparable with God; and both will be equal, being on equal terms allied
to evil  as well as to good. Matter, however, ought not to be compared with
God, in order that it may not make two gods. If, (lastly,) one be ascribed
to One, and the other to the Other--that is to say, let the good be God's,
and the evil belong to Matter--then, on the one hand, evil must not be
ascribed to God, nor, on the other hand, good to Matter. And God, moreover,
by making both good things and evil things out of Matter, creates them
along with it. This being the case, I cannot tell how Hermogenes(9) is to
escape from my conclusion; for he supposes that God cannot be the author of
evil, in what way soever He created evil out of Matter, whether it was of
His own will, or of necessity, or from the reason (of the case). If,
however, He is the author of evil, who was the actual Creator, Matter being
simply associated with Him by reason of its furnishing Him with
substance,(10) you now do away with the cause(11) of your introducing
Matter. For it is not the less true, that it is by means of Matter that God
shows Himself the author of evil, although Matter has been assumed by you
expressly to prevent God's seeming to be the author of evil. Matter being
therefore excluded, since the cause of it is excluded, it remains that God
without doubt, must have made all things out of nothing. Whether evil
things were amongst them we shall see, when it shall be made clear what are
evil things, and whether those things are evil which you at present deem to
be so. For it is more worthy of God that He produced even these of His own
will, by producing them out of nothing, than from the predetermination of
another,(12) (which must have been the case) if He had produced them out of
Matter. It is liberty, not necessity, which suits the character of God. I
would much rather that He should have even willed to create evil of
Himself, than that He should have lacked ability to hinder its creation.

CHAP. XVII.--THE TRUTH OF GOD'S WORK IN CREATION. YOU CANNOT DEPART IN THE
LEAST FROM IT, WITHOUT LANDING YOURSELF IN AN ABSURDITY.

   This rule is required by the nature of the One-only God,(13) who is
One-only in no other way than as the sole God; and in no other way sole,
than as having nothing else (co-existent) with Him. So also He will be
first, because all things are after Him; and all things are after Him,
because all things are by Him; and all things are by Him, because they are
of nothing: so that reason coincides with the Scripture, which says: "Who
hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? or with
whom took He counsel? or who hath shown to Him the way of wisdom and
knowledge? Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him
again?"(1) Surely none! Because there was present with Him no power, no
material, no nature which belonged to any other than Himself. But if it was
with some (portion of Matter)(2) that He effected His creation, He must
have received from that (Matter) itself both the design and the treatment
of its order as being "the way of wisdom and knowledge." For He had to
operate conformably with the quality of the thing, and according to the
nature of Matter, not according to His own will in consequence of which He
must have made(3) even evil things suitably to the nature not of Himself,
but of Matter.

CHAP. XVIII.--AN EULOGY ON THE WISDOM AND WORD OF GOD, BY WHICH GOD MADE
ALL THINGS OF NOTHING.

   If any material was necessary to God in the creation of the world, as
Hermogenes supposed, God had a far nobler and more suitable one in His own
wisdom(4)--one which was not to be gauged by the writings of(5)
philosophers, but to be learnt from the words or prophets. This alone,
indeed, knew the mind of the Lord. For "who knoweth the things of God, and
the things in God, but the Spirit, which is in Him?"(6) Now His wisdom is
that Spirit. This was His counsellor, the very way of His wisdom and
knowledge.(7) Of this He made all things, making them through It, and
making them with It. "When He prepared the heavens," so says (the
Scripture(8)), "I was present with Him; and when He strengthened above the
winds the lofty clouds, and when He secured the fountains(9) which are
under the heaven, I was present, compacting these things(10) along with
Him. I  was He(11) in whom He took delight; moreover, I daily rejoiced in
His presence: for   He rejoiced when He had finished the world,  and
amongst the sons of men did He show forth His pleasure."(12) Now, who would
not rather approve of(13) this as the fountain and origin of all things--of
this as, in very deed, the Matter of all Matter, not liable to any end,(14)
not diverse in condition, not restless in motion, not ungraceful in form,
but natural, and proper, and duly proportioned, and beautiful, such truly
as even God might well have required, who requires His own and not
another's? Indeed, as soon as He perceived It to be necessary for His
creation of the world,  He immediately creates It, and generates It in
Himself. "The Lord," says the Scripture, "possessed(15) me, the beginning
of His ways for the creation of His works. Before the worlds He rounded me;
before He made the earth, before the mountains were settled in their
places; moreover, before the hills He generated me, and prior to the depths
was I begotten."(16) Let Hermogenes then confess that the very Wisdom of
God is declared to be born and created, for the especial reason that we
should not suppose that there is any other being than God alone who is
unbegotten and uncreated. For if that, which from its being inherent in the
Lord(17) was of Him and in Him, was yet not without a beginning,--I
mean(18) His wisdom, which was then born and created, when in the thought
of God It began to assume motion(19) for the arrangement of His creative
works,--how much more impossible(20) is it that anything should have been
without a beginning which was extrinsic to the Lord!(21)  But if this same
Wisdom is the Word of God, in the capacity(22) of Wisdom, and (as being He)
without whom nothing was made, just as also (nothing) was set in order
without Wisdom, how can it be that anything, except the Father, should be
older, and on this account indeed nobler, than the Son of God, the only-
begotten and first-begotten Word? Not to say that(23) what is unbegotten is
stronger than that which is born, and what is not made more powerful than
that which is made. Because that which did not require a Maker to give it
existence, will be much more elevated in rank than that which had an author
to bring it into being. On this principle, then,(24) if evil is indeed
unbegotten, whilst the Son of God is begotten ("for," says God, "my heart
hath emitted my most excellent Word"(25)), I am not quite sure that evil
may not be introduced by good, the stronger by the weak, in the same way as
the unbegotten is by the begotten. Therefore on this ground Hermogenes puts
Matter even before God, by putting it before the Son. Because the Son is
the Word, and "the Word is God,"(1) and "I and my Father are one."(2) But
after all, perhaps,(3) the Son will patiently enough submit to having that
preferred before Him which (by Hermogenes), is made equal to the Father !

CHAP. XIX.--AN APPEAL TO THE HISTORY OF CREATION. TRUE MEANING OF THE TERM
BEGINNING, WHICH THE HERETIC CURIOUSLY WRESTS TO AN ABSURD SENSE.

   But I shall appeal to the original document(4) of Moses, by help of
which they on the other side vainly endeavour to prop up their conjectures,
with the view, of course, of appearing to have the support of that
authority which is indispensable in such an inquiry. They have found their
opportunity, as is usual with heretics, in wresting the plain meaning of
certain words. For instance the very beginning,(5) when God made the heaven
and the earth, they will construe as if it meant something substantial and
embodied,(6) to be regarded as Matter. We, however, insist on the proper
signification of every word, and say that principium means beginning,--
being a term which is suitable to represent things which begin to exist.
For nothing which has come into being is without a beginning, nor can this
its commencement be at any other moment than when it begins to have
existence. Thus principium or beginning, is simply a term of inception, not
the name of a substance. Now, inasmuch as the heaven and the earth are the
principal works of God, and since, by His making them first, He constituted
them in an especial manner the beginning of His creation, before all things
else, with good reason does the Scripture preface (its record of creation)
with the words," In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth;"(7)
just as it would have said, "At last God made the heaven and the earth," if
God had created these after all the rest. Now, if the beginning is a
substance, the end must also be material. No doubt, a substantial thing(8)
may be the beginning of some other thing which may be formed out of it thus
the clay is the beginning of the vessel. and the seed is the beginning of
the plant. But when we employ the word beginning in this sense of origin,
and not in that of order, we do not omit to mention also the name of that
particular thing which we regard as the origin of the other. On the other
hand,(9) if we were to make such a statement as this, for example, "In the
beginning the potter made a basin or a water-jug," the word beginning will
not here indicate a material substance (for I have not mentioned the clay,
which is the beginning in this sense, but only the order of the work,
meaning that the potter made the basin and the jug first, before anything
else--intending afterwards to make the rest. It is, then, to the order of
the works that the word beginning has reference, not to the origin of their
substances. I might also explain this word beginning in another way, which
would not, however, be inapposite.(10) The Greek term for beginning, which
is arkh', admits the sense not only of priority of order, but of power as
well; whence princes and magistrates are called archontes.Therefore in this
sense too, beginning may be taken for princely authority and power. It was,
indeed, in His transcendent authority and power, that God made the heaven
and the earth.

CHAP. XX.--MEANING OF THE PHRASE--IN THE BEGINNING. TERTULLIAN CONNECTS IT
WITH THE WISDOM OF GOD, AND ELICITS FROM IT THE TRUTH THAT THE CREATION WAS
NOT OUT OF PRE-EXISTENT MATTER.

   But in proof that the Greek word means nothing else than beginning, and
that beginning admits of no other sense than the initial one, we have that
(Being)(11) even acknowledging such a beginning, who says: "The Lord
possessed(12) me, the beginning of His ways for the creation of His
works."(13) For since all things were made by the Wisdom of God, it follows
that, when God made both the heaven and the earth in principio--that is to
say, in the beginning--He made them in His Wisdom. If, indeed, beginning
had a material signification, the Scripture would not have informed us that
God made so and so in principio, at the beginning, but rather ex principio,
of the beginning; for He would not have created in, but of, matter. When
Wisdom, however, was referred to, it was quite right to say, in the
beginning. For it was in Wisdom that He made all things at first, because
by meditating and arranging His plans therein,(14) He had in fact already
done (the work of creation); and if He had even intended to create out of
matter, He would yet have effected His creation when He previously
meditated on it and arranged it in His Wisdom, since It(1) was in fact the
beginning of His ways: this meditation and arrangement being the primal
operation of Wisdom, opening as it does the way to the works by the act of
meditation and thought.(2) This authority of Scripture I claim for myself
even from this circumstance, that whilst it shows me the God who created,
and the works He created, it does not in like manner reveal to me the
source from which He created. For since in every operation there are three
principal things, He who makes, and that which is made, and that of which
it is made, there must be three names mentioned in a correct narrative of
the operation -- the person of the maker the sort of thing which is
made,(3) and the material of which it is formed. If the material is not
mentioned, while the work and the maker of the work are both mentioned, it
is manifest that He made the work out of nothing.  For if He had had
anything to operate upon, it would have been mentioned as well as (the
other two particulars).(4) In conclusion, I will apply the Gospel as a
supplementary testimony to the Old Testament. Now in this there is all the
greater reason why there  should be shown the material (if there were any)
out of which God made all things, inasmuch as it is therein plainly
revealed by whom He made all things. "In the beginning was the Word"(5) --
that is, the same beginning, of course, in which God made the heaven and
the earth(6) -- "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All
things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made."(7) Now, since
we have here clearly told us who the Maker was, that is, God, and what He
made, even all things, and through whom He made them, even His Word, would
not the order of the narrative have required that the source out of which
all things were made by God through the Word should likewise be declared,
if they had been in fact made out of anything? What, therefore, did not
exist, the Scripture was unable to mention; and by not mentioning it, it
has given us a clear proof that there was no such thing: for if there had
been, the Scripture would have mentioned it.

CHAP. XXI. -- A RETORT OF HERESY ANSWERED. THAT SCRIPTURE SHOULD IN SO MANY
WORDS TELL US THAT THE WORLD WAS MADE OF NOTHING IS SUPERFLUOUS.

   But, you will say to me, if you determine that all things were made of
nothing, on the ground that it is not told us that anything was made out of
pre-existent Matter, take care that it be not contended on the opposite
side, that on the same ground all things were made out of Matter, because
it is not likewise expressly said that anything was made out of nothing.
Some arguments may, of coursed be thus retorted easily enough; but it does
not follow that they are on that account fairly admissible, where there is
a diversity in the cause. For I maintain that, even if the Scripture has
not expressly declared that all things were made out of nothing -- just as
it abstains (from saying that they were formed)out of Matter -- there was
no such pressing need for expressly indicating the creation of all things
out of nothing, as there was of their creation out of Matter, if that had
been their origin. Because, in the case of what is made out of nothing, the
very fact of its not being indicated that it was made of any particular
thing shows that it was made of nothing; and there is no danger of its
being supposed that it was made of anything, when there is no indication at
all of what it was made of. In the case, however, of that which is made out
of something, unless the very fact be plainly declared, that it was made
out of something, there will be danger, until(9) it is shown of what it was
made, first of its appearing to be made of nothing, because it is not said
of what it was made; and then, should it be of such a nature(10) as to have
the appearance of having certainly been made of something, there will be a
similar risk of its seeming to have been made of afar different material
from the proper one, so long as there is an absence of statement of what it
was made of. Then, if God had been unable to make all things of nothing,
the Scripture could not possibly have added that He had made all things of
nothing: (there could have been no room for such a statement,) but it must
by all means have informed us that He had made all things out of Matter,
since Matter must have been the source; because the one case was quite to
be understood,(11) if it were not actually stated, whereas the other case
would be left in doubt unless it were stated.

CHAP. XXII. -- THIS CONCLUSION CONFIRMED BY THE USAGE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE IN
ITS HISTORY OF THE CREATION. HERMOGENES IN DANGER OF THE WOE PRONOUNCED
AGAINST ADDING TO SCRIPTURE.

   And to such a degree has the Holy Ghost made this the rule of His
Scripture, that whenever anything is made out of anything, He mentions both
the thing that is made and the thing of which it is made. "Let the earth,"
says He, "bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree
yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, after its kind. And
it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after
its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its
kind."(1) And again: "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly
the moving creatures that have life, and fowl that may fly above the earth
through the firmament of heaven. And it was so. And God created great
whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth abundantly, after their kind."(2) Again afterwards: "And God said,
Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and
creeping thing, and beasts of the earth after their kind."(3) If therefore
God, when producing other things out of things which had been already made,
indicates them by the prophet, and tells us what He has produced from such
and such a source(4) (although we might ourselves suppose them to be
derived from some source or other, short of nothing;(5) since there had
already been created certain things, from which they might easily seem to
have been made); if the Holy Ghost took upon Himself so great a concern for
our instruction, that we might know from what everything was produced,(6)
would He not in like manner have kept us well informed about both the
heaven and the earth, by indicating to us what it was that He made them of,
if their original consisted of any material substance, so that the more He
seemed to have made them of nothing, the less in fact was there as yet
made, from which He could appear to have made them? Therefore, just as He
shows us the original out of which He drew such things as were derived from
a given source, so also with regard to those things of which He does not
point out whence He produced them, He confirms (by that silence our
assertion) that they were produced out of nothing. "In the beginning,"
then, "God made the heaven and the earth."(7) I revere(8) 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.(9) But whether all things were made out of any
underlying Matter, I have as yet failed anywhere to find. Where such a
statement is written, Hermogenes' shop(10) must tell us. If it is nowhere
written, then let it fear the woe which impends on all who add to or take
away from the written word.(11)

CHAP. XXIII. -- HERMOGENES PURSUED TO ANOTHER PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE. THE
ABSURDITY OF HIS INTERPRETATION EXPOSED.

   But he draws an argument from the following words, where it is written:
"And the earth was without form, and void."(12) For he resolves(13) the
word earth into Matter, because that which is made out of it is the earth.
And to the word was he gives the same direction, as if it pointed to what
had always existed unbegotten and unmade. It was without form, moreover,
and void, because he will have Matter to have existed shapeless and
confused, and without the finish of a maker's hand.(14) Now these opinions
of his I will refute singly; but first I wish to say to him, by way of
general answer: We are of opinion that Matter is pointed at in these terms.
But yet does the Scripture intimate that, because Matter was in existence
before all, anything of like condition(15) was even formed out of it?
Nothing of the kind. Matter might have had existence, if it so pleased --
or rather if Hermogenes so pleased. It might, I say, have existed, and yet
God might not have made anything out of it, either as it was unsuitable to
Him to have required the aid of anything, or at least because He is not
shown to have made anything out of Matter.   Its existence must therefore
be without a cause,  you will say. Oh, no! certainly(16) not without cause.
For even if the world were not   made out of it, yet a heresy has been
hatched  therefrom; and a specially impudent one too, because it is not
Matter which has produced the heresy, but the heresy has rather made Matter
itself.

CHAP. XXIV. -- EARTH DOES NOT MEAN MATTER AS HERMOGENES WOULD HAVE IT.

   I now return to the several points(17) by means of which he thought
that Matter was signified. And first I will inquire about the terms. For we
read only of one of them Earth; the other, namely Matter, we do not meet
with. I ask, then, since Matter is not mentioned in Scripture, how the term
earth can be applied to it, which marks a substance of another kind? There
is all the greater need why mention should also have been made of Matter,
if this has acquired the further sense of Earth, in order that I may be
sure that Earth is one and the same name as Matter, and so not claim the
designation for merely one substance, as the proper name thereof, and by
which it is better known; or else be unable (if I should feel the
inclination), to apply it to some particular species of Mater, instead,
indeed,(1) of making it the common term(2) of all Matter. For when a proper
name does not exist for that thing to which a common term is ascribed, the
less apparent(3) is the object to which it may be ascribed, the more
capable will it be of being applied to any other object whatever.
Therefore, even supposing that Hermogenes could show us the name(4) Matter,
he is bound to prove to us further, that the same object has the surname(5)
Earth, in order that he may claim for it both designations alike.

CHAP. XXV.--THE ASSUMPTION THAT THERE ARE TWO EARTHS MENTIONED IN THE
HISTORY OF THE CREATION, REFUTED.

   He accordingly maintains that there are two earths set before us in the
passage in question: one, which God made in the beginning; the other being
the Matter of which God made the world, and concerning which it is said,
"And the earth was without form, and void."(6) Of course, if I were to ask,
to which of the two earths the name earth is  best suited,(7) I shall be
told that the earth which was made derived the appellation from that of
which it was made, on the ground that it is more likely that the offspring
should get its name from the original, than the original from the
offspring. This being the case, another question presents itself to us,
whether it is right and proper that this earth which God made should have
derived its name from that out of which He made it? For I find from
Hermogenes and the rest of the Materialist heretics,(8) that while the one
earth was indeed "without form, and void," this one of ours obtained from
God in an equal degree(9) both form, and beauty, and symmetry; and
therefore that the earth which was created was a different thing from that
out of which it was created. Now, having become a different thing, it could
not possibly have shared with the other in its name, after it had declined
from its condition. If earth was the proper name of the (original) Matter,
this world of ours, which is not Matter, because it has become another
thing, is unfit to bear the name of earth, seeing that that name belongs to
something else, and is a stranger to its nature. But (you will tell me)
Matter which has undergone creation, that is, our earth, had with its
original a community of name no less than of kind. By no means. For
although the pitcher is formed out of the clay, I shall no longer call it
clay, but a pitcher; so likewise, although electrum(10) is compounded of
gold and silver, I shall yet not call it either gold or silver, but
electrum. When there is a departure from the nature of any thing, there is
likewise a relinquishment of its name--with a propriety which is alike
demanded by the designation and the condition. How great a change indeed
from the condition of that earth, which is Matter, has come over this earth
of ours, is plain even from the fact that the latter has received this
testimony to its goodness in Genesis, "And God saw that it was good;"(11)
while the former, according to Hermogenes, is regarded as the origin and
cause of all evils. Lastly, if the one is Earth because the other is, why
also is the one not Matter as the other is? Indeed, by this rule both the
heaven and all creatures ought to have had the names of Earth and Matter,
since they all consist of Matter. I have said enough touching the
designation Earth, by which he will have it that Matter is understood.
This, as everybody knows, is the name of one of the elements; for so we are
taught by nature first, and afterwards by Scripture, except it be that
credence must be given to that Silenus who talked so confidently in the
presence of king Midas of another world, according to the account of
Theopompus. But the same author informs us that there are also several
gods.

CHAP. XXVI.--THE METHOD OBSERVED IN THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION, IN REPLY
TO THE PERVERSE INTERPRETATION OF HERMOGENES.

   We, however, have but one God, and but one earth too, which in the
beginning God made.(1) The Scripture, which at its very outset proposes to
run through the order thereof tells us as its first information that it was
created; it next proceeds to set forth what sort of earth it was.(2) In
like manner with respect to the heaven, it informs us first of its
creation--"In the beginning God made the heaven:"(3) it then goes on to
introduce its arrangement; how that God both separated "the water which was
below the firmament from that which was above the firmament,"(4) and called
the firmament heaven,(5)--the very thing He had created in the beginning.
Similarly it (afterwards) treats of man: "And God created man, in the image
of God made He him."(6) It next reveals how He made him: "And (the Lord)
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and man became a living soul."(7) Now this is
undoubtedly(8) the correct and fitting mode for the narrative. First comes
a prefatory statement, then follow the details in full;(9) first the
subject is named, then it is described.(10) How absurd is the other view of
the account,(11) when even before he(12) had premised any mention of his
subject, i.e. Matter, without even giving us its name, he all on a sudden
promulged its form and condition, describing to us its quality before
mentioning its existence,--pointing out the figure of the thing formed, but
concealing its name! But how much more credible is our opinion, which holds
that Scripture has only subjoined the arrangement of the subject after it
has first duly described its formation and mentioned its name! Indeed, how
full and complete(13) is the meaning of these words: "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth; but(14) the earth was without form, and
void,"(15)--the very same earth, no doubt, which God made, and of which the
Scripture had been speaking at that very moment.(16) For that very
"but"(17) is inserted into the narrative like a clasp,(18) (in its
function) of a conjunctive particle, to connect the two sentences
indissolubly together: "But the earth." This word carries back the mind to
that earth of which mention had just been made, and binds the sense
thereunto.(19) Take away this "but," and the tie is loosened; so much so
that the passage,   "But the earth was without form, and void," may then
seem to have been meant for any other earth.

CHAP. XXVII.--SOME HAIR-SPLITTING USE OF WORDS IN WHICH HIS OPPONENT HAD
INDULGED.

 But you next praise your eyebrows, and toss back your head, and beckon
with your finger, in characteristic disdain,(20) and say: There is the was,
looking as if it pointed to an eternal existence,--making its subject, of
course, unbegotten and unmade, and on that account worthy of being supposed
to be Matter. Well now, for my own part, I shall resort to no affected
protestation,(21) but simply reply that "was" may be predicated of
everything--even of a thing which has been created, which was born, which
once was not, and which is not your Matter. For of everything which has
being, from whatever source it has it, whether it has it by a beginning or
without a beginning, the word "was" will be predicated from the very fact
that it exists. To whatever thing the first tense(22) of the verb is
applicable for definition, to the same will be suitable the later form(23)
of the verb, when it has to descend to relation. "Est" (it is) forms the
essential part(24) of a definition, "erat" (it was) of a relation. Such are
the trifles and subtleties of heretics, who wrest and bring into question
the simple meaning of the commonest words. A grand question it is, to be
sure,(25) whether "the earth was," which was made! The real point of
discussion is, whether "being without form, and void," is a state which is
more suitable to that which was created, or to that of which it was
created, so that the predicate (was) may appertain to the same thing to
which the subject (that which was) also belongs.(26)

CHAP, XXVIII.--A CURIOUS INCONSISTENCY IN HERMOGENES EXPOSED. CERTAIN
EXPRESSIONS IN THE HISTORY OF CREATION VINDICATED IN THE TRUE SENSE.

   But we shall show not only that this condition(27) agreed with this
earth of ours, but that it did not agree with that other (insisted on by
Hermogenes). For, inasmuch as pure Matter was thus subsistent with God,(1)
without the interposition indeed of any element at all (because as yet
there existed nothing but itself and God), it could not of course have been
invisible. Because, although Hermogenes contends that darkness was inherent
in the substance of Matter, a position which we shall have to meet in its
proper place,(2) yet darkness is visible even to a human being (for the
very fact that there is the darkness is an evident one), much more is it so
to God. If indeed it(3) had been invisible, its quality would not have been
by any means discoverable. How, then, did Hermogenes find out(4) that that
substance was "without form," and confused and disordered, which, as being
invisible, was not palpable to his senses? If this mystery was revealed to
him by God, he ought to give us his proof. I want to know also, whether
(the substance in question) could have been described as "void." That
certainly is "void" which is imperfect. Equally certain is it, that nothing
can be imperfect but that which is made; it is imperfect when it is not
fully made.(5) Certainly, you admit. Matter, therefore, which was not made
at all, could not have been imperfect; and what was not imperfect was not
"void." Having no beginning, because it was not made, it was also
unsusceptible of any void-condition.(6) For this void-condition is an
accident of beginning. The earth, on the contrary, which was made, was
deservedly called "void." For as soon as it was made, it had the condition
of being imperfect, previous to its completion.

CHAP. XXIX.--THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF COSMICAL ORDER OUT OF CHAOS IN THE
CREATION, BEAUTIFULLY STATED.

   God, indeed, consummated all His works in a due order; at first He
paled them out,(7) as it were, in their unformed elements, and then He
arranged them(8) in their finished beauty. For He did not all at once
inundate light with the splendour of the sun, nor all at once temper
darkness with the moon's assuaging ray.(9) The heaven He did not all at
once bedeck(10) with constellations and stars, nor did He at once fill the
seas with their teeming monsters.(11) The earth itself He did not endow
with its varied fruitfulness all at once;  but at first He bestowed upon it
being, and then He filled it, that it might not be made in vain.(12) For
thus says Isaiah: "He created it not in vain; He formed it to be
inhabited."(13) Therefore after it was made, and while awaiting its perfect
state,(14) it was "without form, and void:" "void" indeed, from the very
fact that it was without form (as being not yet perfect to the sight, and
at the same time unfurnished as yet with its other qualities);(15) and
"without form," because it was still covered with waters, as if with the
rampart of its fecundating moisture,(16) by which is produced our flesh, in
a form allied with its own. For to this purport does David say:(17) "The
earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all that dwell
therein: He hath rounded it upon the seas, and on the streams hath He
established it." It was when the waters were withdrawn into their hollow
abysses that the dry land became conspicuous,(19) which was hitherto
covered with its watery envelope. Then it forthwith becomes "visible," (20)
God saying, "Let the water be gathered together into one mass,(21) and let
the dry land appear."(22) "Appear," says He, not "be made." It had been
already made, only in its invisible condition it was then waiting(23) to
appear. "Dry," because it was about to become such by its severance from
the moisture, but yet "land." "And God called the dry land Earth,"(24) not
Matter. And so, when it afterwards attains its perfection, it ceases to be
accounted void, when God declares, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the
herb yielding seed after its kind, and cording to its likeness, and the
fruit-tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after its kind."(25)
Again: "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,
cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, after their
kind."(26) Thus the divine Scripture accomplished its full order. For to
that, which it had at first described as "without form (invisible) and
void," it gave both visibility and completion. Now no other Matter was
"without form (invisible) and void." Henceforth, then, Matter will have to
be visible and complete. So that I must(1) see Matter, since it has become
visible. I must likewise recognize it as a completed thing, so as to be
able to gather from it the herb bearing seed, and the tree yielding fruit,
and that living creatures, made out of it, may minister to my need. Matter,
however, is nowhere,(2) but the Earth is here, confessed to my view. I see
it, I enjoy it, ever since it ceased to be "without form (invisible), and
void." Concerning it most certainly did Isaiah speak when he said, "Thus
saith the Lord that created the heavens, He was the God that formed the
earth, and made it."(3) The same earth for certain did He form, which He
also made. Now how did He form(4) it? Of course by saying, "Let the dry
land appear."(5) Why does He command it to appear, if it were not
previously invisible? firs purpose was also, that He might thus prevent His
having made it in vain, by rendering it visible, and so fit for use. And
thus, throughout, proofs arise to us that this earth which we inhabit is
the very same which was both created and formed(6) by God, and that none
other was "Without form, and void," than that which had been created and
formed. It therefore follows that the sentence, "Now the earth was without
form, and void," applies to that same earth which God mentioned separately
along with the heaven.(7)

CHAP. XXX.--ANOTHER PASSAGE IN THE SACRED HISTORY OF THE CREATION, RELEASED
FROM THE MISHANDLING OF HERMOGENES.

   The following words will in like manner apparently corroborate the
conjecture of Hermogenes, "And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water;(8) as if these
blended(9) substances, presented us with arguments for his massive pile of
Matter.(10) Now, so discriminating an enumeration of certain and distinct
elements (as we have in this passage), which severally designates"
darkness," "the deep" "the Spirit of God," "the waters," forbids the
inference that anything confused or (from such confusion) uncertain is
meant. Still more, when He ascribed to them their own places,(11) "darkness
on the face of the deep," "the Spirit upon the face of the waters," He
repudiated all confusion in the substances; and by demonstrating their
separate position,(12)   He demonstrated also their distinction. Most
absurd, indeed, would it be that Matter, which is introduced to our view as
"without form," should have its "formless" condition maintained by so many
words indicative of form,(13) without any intimation of what that confused
body(14) is, which must of course be supposed to be unique,(15) since it is
without form.(16) For that which is without form is uniform; but even(17)
that which is without form, when it is blended together(18) from various
component parts,(19) must necessarily have one outward appearance;(20) and
it has not any appearance, until it has the one appearance (which comes)
from many parts combined.(21) Now Matter either had those specific
parts(22) within itself, from the words indicative of which it had to be
understood--I mean "darkness," and "the deep," and "the Spirit," and "the
waters"--or it had them not. If it had them, how is it introduced as being
"without form?"(23) If it had them not, how does it become known?(24)

CHAP. XXXI.--A FURTHER VINDICATION OF THE SCRIPTURE NARRATIVE OF THE
CREATION, AGAINST A FUTILE VIEW OF HERMOGENES.

   But this circumstance, too, will be caught at, that Scripture meant to
indicate of the heaven only, and this earth of yours,(25) that God made it
in the beginning, while nothing of the kind is said of the above-mentioned
specific parts;(26) and therefore that these, which are not described as
having been made, appertain to unformed Matter. To this   point(27) also we
must give an answer. Holy I Scripture would be sufficiently explicit, if it
had declared that the heaven and the earth, as the very highest works of
creation, were made by God, possessing of course their own special
appurtenances,(28) which might be understood to be implied in these highest
works themselves. Now the appurtenances of the heaven and the earth, made
then in the beginning, were the darkness and the deep, and the spirit, and
the waters. For the depth and the darkness underlay the earth. Since the
deep was under the earth, and the darkness was over the deep, undoubtedly
both the darkness and the deep were under the earth. Below the heaven, too,
lay the spirit(1) and the waters. For since the waters were over the earth,
which they covered, whilst the spirit was over the waters, both the spirit
and the waters were alike over the earth. Now that which is over the earth,
is of course under the heaven. And even as the earth brooded over the deep
and the darkness, so also did the heaven brood over the spirit and the
waters, and embrace them.  Nor, indeed, is there any novelty in mentioning
only that which contains, as pertaining to the whole,(2) and understanding
that which is contained as included in it, in its character of a
portion.(3) Suppose now I should say the city built a theatre and a circus,
but the stage(4) was of such and such a kind, and the statues were on the
canal, and the obelisk was reared above them all, would it follow that,
because I did not distinctly state that these specific things (5) were made
by the city, they were therefore not made by it along with the circus and
the theatre? Did I not, indeed, refrain from specially mentioning the
formation of these particular things because they were implied in the
things which I had already said were made, and might be understood to be
inherent in the things in which they were contained? But this example may
be an idle one as being derived from a human circumstance; I will take
another, which has the authority of Scripture itself. It says that "God
made man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living soul."(6) Now, although it here
mentions the nostrils,(7) it does not say that they were made by God; so
again it speaks of skin(8) and bones, and flesh and eyes, and sweat and
blood, in subsequent passages,(9) and yet it never intimated that they had
been created by God. What will Hermogenes have to answer? That the human
limbs must belong to Matter, because they are not specially mentioned as
objects of creation? Or are they included in the formation of man? In like
manner, the deep and the darkness, and the spirit and the waters, were as
members of the heaven and the earth. For in the bodies the limbs were made,
in the bodies the limbs too were mentioned. No element but what is a member
of that element in which it is contained. But all elements are contained in
the heaven and the earth.

CHAP.XXXII.--THE ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION IN GENESIS A GENERAL ONE.
CORROBORATED, HOWEVER, BY MANY OTHER PASSAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, WHICH
GIVE ACCOUNT OF SPECIFIC CREATIONS. FURTHER CAVILLINGS CONFUTED.

   This is the answer I should give in defence of the Scripture before us,
for seeming here to set forth(10) the formation of the heaven and the
earth, as if (they were) the sole bodies made. It could not but know that
there were those who would at once in the bodies understand their several
members also, and therefore it employed this concise mode of speech. But,
at the same time, it foresaw that there would be stupid and crafty men,
who, after paltering with the virtual meaning,(11) would require for the
several members a word descriptive of their formation too. It is therefore
because of such persons, that Scripture in other passages teaches us of the
creation of the individual parts. You have Wisdom saying, "But before the
depths was I brought forth,"(12) in order that you may believe that the
depths were also "brought forth"--that is, created--just as we create sons
also, though we "bring them forth." It matters not whether the depth was
made or born, so that a beginning be accorded to it, which however would
not be, if it were subjoined(13) to matter. Of darkness, indeed, the Lord
Himself by Isaiah says, "I formed the light, and I created darkness."(14)
Of the wind(15) also Amos says, "He that strengtheneth the thunder,(16) and
createth the wind, and declareth His Christ(16) unto men;"(17) thus showing
that that wind was created which was reckoned with the formation of the
earth, which was wafted over the waters, balancing and refreshing and
animating all things: not (as some suppose) meaning God Himself by the
spirit,(18) on the ground that "God is a Spirit,"(19) because the waters
would not be able to bear up their Lord; but He speaks of that spirit of
which the winds consist, as He says by Isaiah, "Because my spirit went
forth from me, and I made every blast."(20) In like manner the same Wisdom
says of the waters, "Also when He made the fountains strong, things
which(1) are under the sky, I was fashioning(2) them along with Him."(3)
Now, when we prove that these particular things were created by God,
although they are only mentioned in Genesis, without any intimation of
their having been made, we shall perhaps receive from the other side the
reply, that these were made, it is true,(4) but out of Matter, since the
very statement of Moses, "And darkness was on the face of the deep, and the
spirit of God moved on the face of the waters,"(5) refers to Matter, as
indeed do all those other Scriptures here and there,(6) which demonstrate
that the separate parts were made out of Matter. It must follow, then,(7)
that as earth  consisted of earth, so also depth consisted of depth, and
darkness of darkness, and the wind and waters of wind and waters. And, as
we said above,(8) Matter could not have been without form, since it had
specific parts, which were formed out of it--although as separate
things(9)--unless, indeed, they were not separate, but were the very same
with those out of which they came. For it is really impossible that those
specific things, which are set forth under the same names, should have been
diverse; because in that case(10) the operation of God might seem to be
useless,(11) if it made things which existed already; since that alone
would be a creation,(12) when things came into being, which had not been
(previously) made. Therefore, to conclude, either Moses then pointed to
Matter when he wrote the words: "And darkness was on the face of the deep,
and the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters;" or else, inasmuch
as these specific parts of creation are afterwards shown in other passages
to have been made by God, they ought to have been with equal
explicitness(13) shown to have been made out of the Matter which, according
to you, Moses had previously mentioned;(14) or else, finally, if Moses
pointed to those specific parts, and not to Matter, I want to know where
Matter has been pointed out at all.

CHAP. XXXIII.--STATEMENT OF THE TRUE DOCTRINE CONCERNING MATTER. ITS
RELATION TO GOD'S CREATION OF THE WORLD.

   But although Hermogenes finds it amongst his own colourable
pretences(15) (for it was not in his power to discover it in the Scriptures
of God), it is enough for us, both that it is certain that all things were
made by God, and that there is no certainty whatever that they were made
out of Matter. And even if Matter had previously existed, we must have
believed that it had been really made by God, since we maintained (no less)
when we held the rule of faith to be,(16) that nothing except God was
uncreated.(17) Up to this point there is room for controversy, until Matter
is brought to the test of the Scriptures, and fails to make good its
case.(18) The conclusion of the whole is this: I find that there was
nothing made, except out of nothing; because that which I find was made, I
know did not once exist. Whatever(19) was made out of something, has its
origin in something made: for instance, out of the ground was made the
grass, and the fruit, and the cattle, and the form of man himself; so from
the waters were produced the animals which swim and fly. The original
fabrics(20) out of which such creatures were produced I may call their
materials,(21) but then even these were created by God.

CHAP. XXXIV.--A PRESUMPTION THAT ALL THINGS WERE CREATED BY GOD OUT OF
NOTHING AFFORDED BY THE ULTIMATE REDUCTION OF ALL THINGS TO NOTHING.
SCRIPTURES PROVING THIS REDUCTION VINDICATED FROM HERMOGENES' CHARGE OF
BEING MERELY FIGURATIVE.

   Besides,(22) the belief that everything was made from nothing will be
impressed upon us by that ultimate dispensation of God which will bring
back all things to nothing. For "the very heaven shall be rolled together
as a scroll;'"(23) nay, it shall come to nothing along with the earth
itself, with which it was made in the beginning. "Heaven and earth shall
pass away,"(24) says He. "The first heaven and the first earth passed
away,"(25) "and there was found no place for them,"(26) because, of course,
that which comes to an end loses locality. In like manner David says, "The
heavens, the works of Thine hands, shall themselves perish. For even as a
vesture shall He change them, and they shall be changed."(1) Now to be
changed is to fall from that primitive state which they lose whilst
undergoing the change. "And  the stars too shall fall from heaven, even as
a  fig-tree casteth her green figs when she is i shaken of a mighty
wind."(3) "The mountains shall melt like wax at the presence of the
Lord;"(4) that is, "when He riseth to shake terribly the earth."(5) "But I
will dry up the pools;"(6) and "they shall seek water, and they shall find
none."(7) Even" the sea shall be no more."(8) Now if any person should go
so far as to suppose that all these passages ought to be spiritually
interpreted, he will yet be unable to deprive them of the true
accomplishment of those issues which must come to pass just as they have
been written For all figures of speech necessarily arise out of real
things, not out of chimerical ones; t because nothing is capable of
imparting anything of its own for a similitude, except it actually be that
very thing which it imparts in  the similitude. I return therefore to the
principle(9) which defines that all things which have come from nothing
shall return at last to nothing. For God would not have made any perishable
thing out of what was eternal, that is to say, out of Matter; neither out
of greater things would He have created inferior ones, to whose character
it would be more agreeable to produce greater things out of inferior ones,-
-in other words, what is eternal out of what is perishable. This is the
promise He makes even to our flesh, and it has been His will to deposit
within us this pledge of His own virtue and power, in order that we may
believe o that He has actually(10) awakened the universe out of nothing, as
if it had been steeped  in death,(11) in the sense, of course, of its
previous non-existence for the purpose of its e coming into existence.(12)

CHAP. XXXV.--CONTRADICTORY PROPOSITIONS ADVANCED BY HERMOGENES RESPECTING
MATTER AND ITS QUALITIES,

  As regards all other points touching Matter, although there is no
necessity why we should treat of them (for our first point was the manifest
proof of its existence), we must for all that pursue our discussion just as
if it did exist, in order that its non-existence may be the more apparent,
when these other points concerning it prove inconsistent with each other,
and in order at the same time that Hermogenes may acknowledge his own
contradictory positions. Matter, says he, at first sight seems to us to be
incorporeal; but when examined by the light of right reason, it is found to
be neither corporeal nor incorporeal. What is this right reason of
yours,(13) which declares nothing right, that is, nothing certain? For, if
I mistake not, everything must of necessity be either corporeal or
incorporeal (although I may for the moment(14) allow that there is a
certain incorporeality in even substantial things,(15) although their very
substance is the body of particular things); at all events, after the
corporeal and the incorporeal there is no third state. But if it be
contended(16) that there is a third state discovered by this right reason
of Hermogenes, which makes Matter neither corporeal nor incorporeal, (I
ask,) Where is it? what sort of thing is it? what is it called? what is its
description? what is it understood to be? This only has his reason
declared, that Matter is neither corporeal nor incorporeal.

CHAP. XXXVI.--OTHER ABSURD THEORIES RESPECTING MATTER AND ITS INCIDENTS
EXPOSED IN AN IRONICAL STRAIN, MOTION IN MATTER. HERMOGENES' CONCEITS
RESPECTING IT.

   But see what a contradiction he next advances(17) (or perhaps some
other  reason(18) occurs to him), when he declares that Matter(18) partly
corporeal and partly incorporeal. Then must Matter be considered (to
embrace) both conditions, in order that it may not have either? For it will
be corporeal, and incorporeal in spite of(19) the declaration of that
antithesis,(20) which is plainly above giving any reason for its opinion,
just as that "other reason" also was. Now, by the corporeal part of Matter,
he means that of which bodies are created; but by the incorporeal part of
Matter, he means its uncreated(1) motion. If, says he, Matter  were simply
a body, there would appear to be in it nothing incorporeal, that is, (no)
motion; if, on the other hand, it had been wholly incorporeal no body could
be formed out of it. What a peculiarly right(2) reason have we here! Only
if you make your sketches as right as you make your reason, Hermogenes, no
painter would be more stupid(3) than yourself. For who is going to allow
you to reckon motion as a moiety of Matter, seeing that it is not a
substantial thing, because it is not corporeal, but an accident (if indeed
it be even that) of a substance and a body? Just as action is, and
impulsion, just as a slip is, or a fall, so is motion. When anything moves
even of itself, its motion is the result of impulse;(5) but certainly it is
no part of its substance in your sense,(6) when you make motion the
incorporeal part of matter. All things, indeed,(7) have motion--either of
themselves as animals, or of others as inanimate things; but yet we should
not say that either a man or a stone was both corporeal and incorporeal
because they had both a body and motion: we should say rather that all
things have one form of simple(8) corporeality, which is the essential
quality(9) of substance. If any incorporeal incidents accrue to them, as
actions, or passions, or functions,(10) or desires, we do not reckon these
parts as of the things. How then does he contrive to assign an integral
portion of Matter to motion, which does not pertain to substance, but to a
certain condition(11) of substance? Is not this incontrovertible?(12)
Suppose you had taken it into your head(13) to represent matter as
immoveable, would then the immobility seem to you to be a moiety of its
form? Certainly not. Neither, in like manner, could motion. But I shall be
at liberty to speak of motion elsewhere.(14)

CHAP. XXXVII.--IRONICAL DILEMMAS RESPECTING MATTER, AND SUNDRY MORAL
QUALITIES FANCIFULLY ATTRIBUTED TO IT.

   I see now that you are coming back again to that reason, which has been
in the habit of declaring to you nothing in the way of certainty. For just
as you introduce to our notice Matter as being neither corporeal nor
incorporeal, so you allege of it that it is neither good nor evil; and you
say, whilst arguing further on it in the same strain: "If it were good,
seeing that it had ever been so, it would not require the arrangement of
itself by God;(15) if it were naturally evil, it would not have admitted of
a change(16) for the better, nor would God have ever applied to such a
nature any attempt at arrangement of it, for His labour would have been in
vain." Such are your words, which it would have been well if you had
remembered in other passages also, so as to have avoided any contradiction
of them. As, however, we have already treated to some extent of this
ambiguity of good and evil touching Matter, I will now reply to the only
proposition and argument of yours which we have before us. I shall not stop
to repeat my opinion, that it was your bounden duty to have said for
certain that Matter was either good or bad, or in some third condition; but
(I must observe)that you have not here even kept to the statement which you
chose to make before. Indeed, you retract what you declared--that Matter is
neither good nor evil; because you imply that it is evil when you say, "If
it were good, it would not require to be set in order by God;" so again,
when you add, "If it were naturally evil, it would not admit of any change
for the better," you seem to intimate(17) that it is good. And so you
attribute to it a close relation(18) to good and evil, although you
declared it neither good nor evil. With a view, however, to re lute the
argument whereby you thought you were going to clinch your proposition, I
here contend: If Matter had always been good, why should it not have still
wanted a change for the better? Does that which is good never desire, never
wish, never feel able to advance, so as to change its good for a better?
And in like manner, if Matter had been by nature evil, why might it not
have been changed by God as the more powerful Being, as able to convert the
nature of stones into children of Abraham?(19) Surely by such means you not
only compare the Lord with Matter, but you even put Him below(20) it, since
you affirm that(21) the nature of Matter could not possibly be brought
under control by Him, and trained to something better. But although you are
here disinclined to allow that Matter is by nature evil, yet in another
passage you will deny having made such an admission.(1)

CHAP. XXXlII.--OTHER SPECULATIONS OF HERMOGENES, ABOUT MATTER AND SOME OF
ITS ADJUNCTS, SHOWN TO BE ABSURD. FOR INSTANCE, ITS ALLEGED INFINITY.

   My observations touching the site(2) of Matter, as also concerning its
mode(3) have one and the same object in view--to meet and refute your
perverse positions. You put Matter below God, and thus, of course, you
assign a place to it below God. Therefore Matter is local.(4) Now, if it is
local, it is within locality; if within locality, it is bounded(5) by the
place within which it is; if it is bounded, it has an outline,(6) which
(painter as you are in your special vocation) you know is the boundary to
every object susceptible of outline. Matter, therefore, cannot be infinite,
which, since it is in space, is bounded by space; and being thus
determinable by space, it is susceptible of an outline. You, however, make
it infinite, when you say: "It is on this account infinite, because it is
always existent." And if any of your disciples should choose to meet us by
declaring your meaning to be that Matter is infinite in time, not in its
corporeal mass,(7) still what follows will show that (you mean) corporeal
infinity to be an attribute of Matter, that it is in respect of bulk
immense and un-circumscribed. "Wherefore," say you, "it is not fabricated
as a whole, but in its parts."(8) In bulk, therefore, is it infinite, not
in time. And you contradict yourself(9) when you make Matter  infinite in
bulk, and at the same time ascribe place to it, including it within space
and local outline. But yet at the same time I cannot tell why God should
not have entirely formed it,(10) unless it be because He was either
impotent or envious. I want therefore to know the moiety of that which was
not wholly formed (by God), in order that I may understand what kind of
thing the entirety was. It was only right that God should have made it
known as a model of antiquity,(11) to set off the glory of His work.

CHAP.  XXXIX.--THESE LATTER SPECULATIONS SHOWN TO BE CONTRADICTORY TO THE
FIRST PRINCIPLES RESPECTING MATTER, FORMERLY LAID DOWN BY HERMOGENES.

   Well, now, since it seems to you to be the correcter thing,(12) let
Matter be circumscribed(13) by means of changes and displacements; let it
also be capable of comprehension, since (as you say)it is used as material
by God,(14) on the ground of its being convertible, mutable, and separable.
For its changes, you say, show it to be inseparable. And here you have
swerved from your own lines(15) which you prescribed respecting the person
of God when you laid down the rule that God made it not out of His own
self, because it was not possible for Him to become divided(16) seeing that
He is eternal and abiding for ever, and therefore unchangeable and
indivisible. Since Matter too is estimated by the same eternity, having
neither beginning nor end, it will be unsusceptible of division, of change,
for the same reason that God also is. Since it is associated with Him in
the joint possession of eternity, it must needs share with Him also the
powers, the laws, and the conditions of eternity. In like manner, when you
say, "All things simultaneously throughout the universe(17) possess
portions of it,(18) that so the whole may be ascertained from(19) its
parts," you of course mean to indicate those parts which were produced out
of it, and which are now visible to us. How then is this possession (of
Matter)by all things throughout the universe effected--that is, of course,
from the very beginning(20)--when the things which are now visible to us
are different in their condition(21) from what they were in the beginning?

CHAP. XL.--SHAPELESS MATTER AN INCONGRUOUS ORIGIN FOR GOD'S BEAUTIFUL
COSMOS. HERMOGENES DOES NOT MEND HIS ARGUMENT BY SUPPOSING THAT ONLY A
PORTION OF MATTER WAS USED IN THE CREATION.

   You say that Matter was reformed for the betters(22)--from a worse
condition, of course; and thus you would make the better a copy of the
worse. Everything was in confusion, but now it is reduced to order; and
would you also say, that out of order, disorder is produced? No one thing
is the exact mirror(1) of another thing; that is to say, it is not its co-
equal. Nobody ever found himself in a barber's looking-glass look like an
ass(2) instead of a man; unless it be he who supposes that unformed and
shapeless Matter answers to Matter which is now arranged and beautified in
the fabric of the world. What is there now that is without form in the
world, what was there once that was formed(3) in Matter, that the world is
the mirror of Matter? Since the world is known among the Greeks by a term
denoting ornament,(4) how can it present the image of unadorned(5) Matter,
in such a way that you can say the whole is known by its parts? To that
whole will certainly belong even the portion which has not yet become
formed; and you have already declared that the whole of Matter was not used
as material in the creation.(6)  It follows, then, that this rude, and
confused, and unarranged portion cannot be recognized in the polished, and
distinct and well-arranged parts of creation, which indeed can hardly with
propriety be called parts of Matter, since they have quit-ted(7) its
condition, by being separated from it in the transformation they have
undergone.

CHAP. XLI.--SUNDRY QUOTATIONS FROM HERMOGENES. NOW UNCERTAIN AND VAGUE ARE
HIS SPECULATIONS RESPECTING MOTION IN MATTER, AND THE MATERIAL QUALITIES OF
GOOD AND EVIL.

   I come back to the point of motion,(8) that I may show how slippery you
are at every step. Motion in Matter was disordered, and confused, and
turbulent. This is why you apply to it the comparison of a boiler of hot
water surging over. Now how is it, that in another passage another sort of
motion is affirmed by you? For when you want to represent Matter as neither
good nor evil, you say: "Matter, which is the substratum (of creation)(9)
possessing as it does motion in an equable impulse,(10) tends in no very
great degree either to good or to evil." Now if it had this equable
impulse, it could not be turbulent, nor be like the boiling water of the
caldron; it would rather be even and regular, oscillating indeed of its own
accord between good and evil, but yet not prone or tending to either side.
It would swing, as the phrase is, in a just and exact balance. Now this is
not unrest; this is not turbulence or inconstancy;" but rather the
regularity, and evenness, and exactitude of a motion, inclining to neither
side. If it oscillated this way and that way, and inclined rather to one
particular side, it would plainly in that case merit the reproach of
unevenness, and inequality, and turbulence. Moreover, although the motion
of Matter was not prone either to good or to evil, it would still, of
course, oscillate between good and evil; so that from this circumstance too
it is obvious that Matter is contained within certain limits,(12) because
its motion, while prone to neither good nor evil, since it had no natural
bent either way, oscillated from either between both, and therefore was
contained within the limits of the two. But you, in fact, place both good
and evil in a local habitation,(13) when you assert that motion in Matter
inclined to neither of them. For Matter which was local,(14) when inclining
neither hither nor thither, inclined not to the places in which good and
evil were. But when you assign locality to good and evil, you make them
corporeal by making them local, since those things which have local space
must needs first have bodily substance. In fact,(15) incorporeal things
could not have any locality of their own except in a body, when they have
access to a body.(16) But when Matter inclined not to good and evil, it was
as corporeal or local essences that it did not incline to them. You err,
therefore, when you will have it that good and evil are substances. For you
make substances of the things to which you assign locality;(17) but you
assign locality when you keep motion in Matter poised equally distant from
both sides.(18)

CHAP. XLII.--FURTHER EXPOSURE OF INCONSISTENCIES IN THE OPINIONS OF
HERMOGENES RESPECTING THE DIVINE QUALITIES OF MATTER.

   You have thrown out all your views loosely and at random,(19) in order
that it might not be apparent, by too close a proximity, how contrary they
are to one another. I, however, mean to gather them together and compare
them. You allege that motion in Matter is without regularity,(1) and you go
on to say that Matter aims at a shapeless condition, and I then, in another
passage, that it desires to be set in order by God. Does that, then, which
affects to be without form, want to be put into shape? Or does that which
wants to be put into shape, affect to be without form? You are unwilling
that God should seem to be equal to Matter; and then again you say that it
has a common condition   with God. "For [t is impossible," you say, "if it
has nothing in common with God, that it can be set in order by Him." But if
it had anything in common with God, it did not want to be set in order for
being, forsooth, a part of the Deity through a community of condition; or
else even God was susceptible of being set in order(3) by Matter, by His
having Himself something in common with it. And now you herein subject God
to necessity, since there was in Matter something on account of which He
gave it form. You make it, however, a common attribute of both of them,
that they set themselves in motion by themselves, and that they are ever in
motion. What less do you ascribe to Matter than to God? There will be found
all through a fellowship of divinity in this freedom and perpetuity of
motion.

   Only in God motion is regular, in Matter irregular.(5) In both,
however, there is equally the attribute of Deity--both alike having free
and eternal motion. At the same time, you assign more to Matter, to which
belonged the privilege of thus moving itself in a way not allowed to God.

CHAP. XLIII.--OTHER DISCREPANCIES EXPOSED AND REFUTED RESPECTING THE EVIL
IN MATTER BEING CHANGED TO GOOD.

   On the subject of motion I would make this further remark. Following
the simile of the boiling caldron, you say that motion in Matter, before it
was regulated, was confused,(6) restless, incomprehensible by reason of
excess in the commotion.(7) Then again you go on to say, "But it waited for
the regulation(8) of God, and kept its irregular motion incomprehensible,
owing to the tardiness of its irregular motion." Just before you ascribe
commotion, here tardiness, to motion. Now observe how many slips you make
respecting the nature of Matter. In a former passage(9) you say, "If Matter
were naturally evil, it would not have admitted of a change for the better;
nor would God have ever applied to it any attempt at arrangement, for His
labour would have been in vain." You therefore concluded your two opinions,
that Matter was not by nature evil, and that its nature was incapable of
being changed by God; and then, forgetting them, you afterwards drew this
inference: "But when it received adjustment from God, and was reduced to
order,(10) it relinquished its nature." Now, inasmuch as it was transformed
to good, it was of course transformed from evil; and if by God's setting it
in order it relinquished(11) the nature of evil, it follows that its nature
came to an end;(12) now its nature was evil before the adjustment, but
after the transformation it might have relinquished that nature.

CHAP. XLIV.--CURIOUS VIEWS RESPECTING GOD'S METHOD OF WORKING WITH MATTER
EXPOSED. DISCREPANCIES IN THE HERETIC'S OPINION ABOUT GOD'S LOCAL RELATION
TO MATTER.

   But it remains that I should show also how you make God work. You are
plainly enough at variance with the philosophers; but neither are you in
accord with the prophets. The Stoics maintain that God pervaded Matter,
just as honey the honeycomb. You, however, affirm that it is not by
pervading Matter that God makes the world, but simply by appearing, and
approaching it, just as beauty affects(13) a thing by simply appearing, and
a loadstone by approaching it. Now what similarity is there in God forming
the world, and beauty wounding a soul, or a magnet attracting iron? For
even if God appeared to Matter, He yet did not wound it, as beauty does the
soul; if, again, He approached it, He yet did not cohere to it, as the
magnet does to the iron. Suppose, however, that your examples are suitable
ones. Then, of course,(14) it was by appearing and approaching to Matter
that God made the world, and He made it when He appeared and when He
approached to it. Therefore, since He had not made it before then? He had
neither appeared nor approached to it. Now, by whom can it be believed that
God had not appeared to Matter--of the same nature as it even was owing to
its eternity? Or that He had been at a distance from it--even He whom we
believe to be existent everywhere, and everywhere apparent; whose praises
all things chant, even inanimate things and things incorporeal, according
to (the prophet) Daniel?(1) How immense the place, where God kept Himself
so far aloof from Matter as to have neither appeared nor approached to it
before the creation of the world! I suppose He journeyed to it from a long
distance, as soon as He washed to appear and approach to it.

CHAP. XLV.--CONCLUSION. CONTRAST BETWEEN THE STATEMENTS OF HERMOGENES
AND THE TESTIMONY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE RESPECTING THE CREATION, CREATION OUT
OF NOTHING, NOT OUT OF MATTER.

   But it is not thus that the prophets and the apostles have told us that
the world was made by God merely appearing and approaching Matter. They did
not even mention any Matter, but (said) that Wisdom was first set up, the
beginning of His ways, for His works.(2) Then that the Word was produced,
"through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made."(3)
Indeed, "by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their hosts
by the breath of His mouth."(4) He is the Lord's right hand,(5) indeed His
two bands, by which He worked and constructed the universe. " For," says
He, "the heavens are the works of Thine hands,"(6) wherewith "He hath meted
out the heaven, and the earth with a span."(7) Do not be willing so to
cover God with flattery, as to contend that He produced by His mere
appearance and simple approach so many vast substances, instead of rather
forming them by His own energies. For this is proved by Jeremiah when he
says, "God hath made the earth by His power, He hath established the world
by His wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by His understanding."(8)
These are the energies by the stress of which He made this universe.(9) His
glory is greater if He laboured. At length on the seventh day He rested
from His works. Both one and the other were after His manner. If, on the
contrary,(10) He made this world simply by appearing and approaching it,
did He, on the completion of His work, cease to appear and approach it any
more. Nay rather,(11) God began to appear more conspicuously and to be
everywhere accessible(12) from the time when the world was made. You see,
therefore, how all things consist by the operation of that God who "made
the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and
stretched out the heaven by His understanding;" not appearing merely, nor
approaching, but applying the almighty efforts of His mind, His wisdom, His
power, His understanding, His word, His Spirit, His might. Now these things
were not necessary to Him, if He had been perfect by simply appearing and
approaching. They are, however, His "invisible things," which, according to
the apostle, "are from the creation of the world clearly seen by the things
that are made;(13) they are no parts  of a nondescript(14) Matter, but they
are the sensible(15) evidences of Himself. "For who hath known the mind of
the Lord,"(16) of which (the apostle) exclaims: "O the depth of the riches
both of His wisdom and knowledge! how unsearchable are His judgments, and
His ways past finding out! "(17) Now what clearer truth do these words
indicate, than that all things were made out of nothing? They are incapable
of being found out or investigated, except by God alone. Otherwise, if they
were traceable or discoverable in Matter, they would be capable of
investigation. Therefore, in as far as it has become evident that Matter
had no prior existence (even from this circumstance, that it is
impossible(18) for it to have had such an existence as is assigned to it),
in so far is it proved that all things were made  by God out of nothing. It
must be admitted,  however,(19) that Hermogenes, by describing  for Matter
a condition like his own--irregular, confused, turbulent, of a doubtful and
precipate and fervid impulse--has displayed a specimen of his own art, and
painted his own portrait.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 3, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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