Adversus Hermogenem

For the sake of brevity, against heretics we are accustomed to make a prescription from the lateness of their teaching. For inasmuch as the rule of truth is the earlier — which even foretold the heresies to come — to that same degree all later doctrines will be prejudged as heresies, since they are the very things which the earlier rule of truth announced beforehand as future. Now the teaching of Hermogenes is so very new. To this day, indeed, he is a man of the world, and a heretic by nature as well, and a turbulent one besides, who reckons loquacity to be eloquence, and counts impudence as steadfastness, and judges it the duty of a good conscience to slander everyone. Moreover, he paints unlawfully, marries continually, defends the law of God in the service of lust, and despises it in the service of his craft — a double forger, both with the branding-iron and with the pen, an adulterer through and through, both of his preaching and of the flesh; for he reeks with the contagion of those who marry, nor has this Hermogenes, this apostolic man, persevered in the rule. But let his person be its own concern; my dispute is with his doctrine. He seems not to acknowledge Christ the Lord as any other; yet he makes him another, in that he acknowledges him otherwise — nay, he takes away the whole of what God is, by refusing to let him have made the universe out of nothing. For, turned from the Christians to the philosophers, from the Church to the Academy and the Porch, he took from there, from the Stoics, the notion of setting Matter alongside the Lord — Matter which, on his view, has itself always existed, neither born nor made, having no beginning at all nor end, out of which the Lord afterwards made all things.

This first shadow, plainly without light, the worst of painters has coloured with these arguments. He lays the groundwork by saying that the Lord must have made all things either out of himself, or out of nothing, or out of something; so that, when he has shown that he could not have made them out of himself, nor out of nothing, he may thereupon confirm what remains — that he made them out of something — and so that this something was Matter. He denies that the Lord could have made anything out of himself, because whatever the Lord made out of himself would have been parts of himself; but he does not come into parts, being indivisible and unchangeable and always the same, as the Lord is. Otherwise, if he had made anything out of himself, it would have been something of himself. But everything — both what was made and what made it — must be held imperfect, because it would be made in part and would make in part. Or, if the whole had made the whole, he would have had to be at once both whole and not whole: because he would have had to be whole in order to make himself, and not whole in order to be made out of himself. This, however, is most difficult. For if he existed, he would not be made, for he would exist; but if he did not exist, he would not make, because he would be nothing. And he who always is, is not made, but exists for ever and ever. Therefore he did not make out of himself, since he was not of such a condition that he could make out of himself. Then he contends that he could not have made out of nothing, thus defining the Lord as good and best, who would wish to make things good and best, just as he himself is — nay, who would wish nothing and make nothing that was not good and best. Therefore all things ought to have been made by him good and best, according to his own condition. But evil things too are found to have been made by him — and surely not by his choice nor by his will; for if by his choice and will, he would make nothing unbecoming and unworthy of himself. What therefore he did not make by his own choice, must be understood to have been made from the flaw of some thing, namely out of Matter, beyond doubt.

He adds something else too: that God was always God, and was likewise always Lord, never not-God. But in no way, he says, could he be held always Lord, just as he was always God, unless there had always been something, before all time, of which he was always held to be Lord. And so Matter had always existed for the God who is Lord. This conjecture of his I shall hasten to demolish at once, which I have thus far thought it well to bring forward for the sake of those who do not understand, so that they may know that the rest of the arguments too can be both understood and refuted. We say that the name of God always existed with himself and in himself, but the name of Lord not always. For the condition of each is different. God is the name of the substance itself, that is, of divinity; but Lord is the name not of substance, but of power. The substance always existed with its own name, which is God; the name Lord came afterwards, being, namely, the mention of an additional thing. For from the time that those things began to exist upon which the power of a Lord might act, from that time, through the accession of power, he both became and was called Lord. For God is also Father, and God is also Judge; yet he is not therefore always Father and Judge merely because he is always God. For he could not have been Father before the Son, nor Judge before the offence. But there was a time when neither offence nor Son existed for him, which would have made him Judge and Father. So too he was not Lord before those things existed of which he could be Lord, but was destined to be Lord only at some time: just as he became Father through the Son, and Judge through the offence, so too Lord through those things which he had made to serve him. Do I seem to you to be reasoning, Hermogenes? Diligently does Scripture support us, which has distinguished both names for him and shown each in its own time. For it names God indeed, which he always was, at once: In the beginning God made heaven and earth; and thereafter, as long as he was making the things of which he was to be Lord, it sets down God only. And God said, and God made, and God saw, and nowhere yet Lord. But when he had completed the universe, and above all man himself, who was properly to understand the name of Lord, then too he is surnamed Lord. Then too the name Lord is added: And the Lord God took the man whom he had formed; And the Lord God commanded Adam. Thenceforward he is Lord, who before was only God, from the time when he had something of which he might be Lord. For he was God to himself, but God to things only when he was also Lord. Therefore, in so far as he will suppose that Matter always existed because the Lord always existed, in that same measure it will be established that nothing existed, because it is established that the Lord did not always exist. I too will add something for the sake of those who do not understand, of whom Hermogenes is the furthest line, and indeed I will turn his own experiments back against him. For since he denies that Matter was born or made, in this way too I find that the name of Lord did not belong to God in respect of Matter; because Matter must necessarily have been free, which, having no origin, had no author; and what it was, it owes to no one, and therefore serves no one. And so, from the time when God exercised his power over it, by making out of Matter, from that time Matter, having undergone a Lord God, shows that he was not this Lord for so long as Matter was — at all events — this Matter.

From this, then, I will begin to deal with Matter — namely, that God on his view sets it up as his own peer, not born, not made, eternal, set forth without beginning, without end. For what else is the property of God but eternity? What other state is there of eternity than always to have been and always to be, by the prerogative of having no beginning and no end? If this is proper to God, it will be God's alone, whose property it is; namely, because if it is ascribed to another too, then it will no longer be the property of God, but common with him to whom it is also ascribed. For although there are some that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, in name, yet for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things; and the more, with us, ought that which is proper to God to belong to God alone; and, as I said, it would no longer be proper, because it would be another's. But if he is God, he must necessarily be unique, so as to belong to one alone. Or what will be unique and singular, except that to which nothing shall be made equal? what principal, except that which is above all things, which is before all things, and from which are all things? These things God alone has, and by having them alone he is one. If another too has them, there will now be as many gods as there are who have the things which are God's. Thus Hermogenes brings in two gods. He brings in Matter as the peer of God. But God ought to be one, because that which is supreme is God; and it will not be supreme unless it be unique; and it cannot be unique if anything be made equal to it; but Matter is made equal to God when it is reckoned eternal. But God is God, he says, and Matter is Matter — as though the diversity of names resisted comparison, when the same state is claimed. Let the nature be diverse too, let the form be not the same, provided only that the rationale of their state be one. God is unborn; and is not Matter also unborn? God always exists; and does not Matter also always exist? Both without beginning, both without end, both even authors of the universe — both he who made and that of which he made. For Matter too cannot but be reckoned the authoress of all things, out of which the universe consists. How will he answer? That Matter is not at once made comparable to God if it has anything of God's, because by not having the whole it does not coincide in the fulness of comparison? What more did he leave to God, so that he should not seem to have given the whole of God's to Matter? Or by what means, he says, even though Matter be such, is there preserved to God both his authority and his substance, by which he is the sole and first author, and is reckoned Lord of all? But the truth requires one God in this way: by defending the position that whatever is his belongs to him alone. For thus it will be his, if it be his alone; and from this no other god can be admitted, since it is permitted to no one to have anything of God. Therefore, you say, neither do we have anything of God. On the contrary, we have it and shall have it — but from him, not from ourselves. For we shall even be gods, if we deserve to be among those of whom he proclaimed: I have said, You are gods; and, God stood in the assembly of gods — but by his grace, not by our own property, because he alone it is who makes gods. But Hermogenes makes proper to Matter what it has in common with God; or, if it received from God what is God's — I mean the order of eternity — then it can be both believed and held that Matter has something with God, and that Matter is not God. But what kind of thing is it, when he confesses that Matter has something with God, and yet wishes that to be God's alone which he does not deny Matter to have? He says it is preserved to God that he be both alone and first and author of all and Lord of all and comparable to none — which presently he ascribes to Matter also. That one indeed is God. God will testify; and he has sometimes sworn by himself that there is no other such as he is. But Hermogenes will make him a liar. For Matter too will be such as God — uncreated, unborn, having neither beginning nor end. God will say: I am first. And how first, when Matter is coeval with him? But among things coeval and contemporary there is no order. Or is Matter also first? I alone, he says, stretched out heaven. Yet not alone, since he stretched it out together with that out of which he stretched it. When he proposes that Matter existed with the state of God preserved, let him beware lest he be laughed at by us, as though God existed with the state of Matter preserved — yet with a common state of both. It will be preserved to Matter, then, that it too existed — but together with God, since God too is alone, but together with it. And it too is first, together with God, since God too is first, together with it; but it too incomparable, together with God, since God too is incomparable, together with it; both authoress together with God and mistress together with God. Thus Matter has something, and not the whole. So Hermogenes left him nothing which he had not also conferred upon Matter, so that not Matter is compared to God, but rather God to Matter. And to such a degree, since the very things which we claim as proper to God — always to have existed, without beginning, without end, and to have been first, and sole, and author of all — belong to Matter too, I ask what diverse and foreign thing, and through this what private thing, distinct from God, Matter possessed, by which it might not be compared to God. In which thing, since all the properties of God are reckoned up, they sufficiently prejudge the rest of the comparison.

If he contends that Matter is lesser and inferior to God, and therefore diverse from him, and therefore incomparable to him as the greater, as the superior, I lay it down as a rule that what is eternal and unborn admits of no diminution and abasement, because this very thing makes God too as great as he is — lesser than none and subject to none, nay, greater and loftier than all. For just as other things which are born or come to an end, and therefore are not eternal, once set against an end (as they were against a beginning), admit those things which God does not admit — I mean for the time being diminution and subjection, because they are born and made — so too God does not admit them, precisely because he was neither born at all nor made. And such too is the state of Matter. Therefore, of two eternal things — as unborn, as uncreated — God and Matter, by the same rationale of a common state, holding equally that which admits of being neither diminished nor subjected, that is, eternity, we say that neither is lesser than the other or greater, neither lower than the other or higher, but that both stand equally great, equally lofty, equally of solid and perfect felicity — which is reckoned eternity. For neither shall we draw near to the opinions of the nations, which, if ever they are forced to confess a god, nevertheless wish for others beneath him too. But divinity has no gradation, being unique; which, if it shall exist in Matter too — as being likewise unborn and uncreated and eternal — will be present in both, because it can nowhere be less than itself. How, then, will Hermogenes dare to make a distinction, and so to subject Matter to God — the eternal to the eternal, the unborn to the unborn, the authoress to the author? — when Matter dares to say: I too am first, I too before all things, I too am that from which are all things; we were equals, we existed together, both without beginning, without end, both without author, without a god. What god subjects me to my contemporary, to my coeval? If it is because he is called God, I too have my own name. Either I am God, or he is Matter, since both of us are what each of us is. Do you suppose, then, that he has not compared Matter to God, when he in fact subjects it to him?

Nay, he even puts it before God, and rather subjects God to Matter, when he wishes him to have made all things out of Matter. For if he used it for the works of the world, then Matter is found the superior, which supplied him the means of working, and God seems subject to Matter, whose substance he needed. For no one does not need that of which he makes use; no one is not subject to that which he needs in order to be able to use it. So too no one, in using what is another's, is not lesser than him whose he uses; and no one who grants the use of his own is not in this superior to him to whom he grants the use. And so Matter indeed did not need God, but offered itself to God in his need — rich and wealthy and liberal — to one lesser, I suppose, and weak and less competent, to make out of nothing the things he wishes. A great benefit indeed Matter conferred on God, that he might have today the means by which God might be known and called almighty — except that he is now not almighty, if he is not also able to bring forth all things out of nothing. To be sure, Matter conferred something on itself too, that it might be acknowledged together with God — coequal with God, nay, even his helper — except that Hermogenes alone has acknowledged it, and the philosophers, those patriarchs of the heretics. For from the prophets and apostles it has lain hidden even until now, and, I suppose, from Christ as well.

He cannot say that God used Matter as its Lord for the works of the world, for he could not be Lord of a substance coequal with himself. But perhaps he used it on sufferance, and therefore on sufferance, not by lordship; so that, though it was evil, he yet endured to use it, though evil — namely, from the necessity of his own mediocrity, by which he was unable to use nothing as material — not from power; for had he had power at all, as God, over Matter, which he knew to be evil, he would first have converted it to good, as Lord and good, so as thus to use what was good, not what was evil. But because he was indeed good, but not Lord, therefore, using such Matter as he had, he shows that his own necessity yielded to the condition of Matter, which, had he been its Lord, he would have amended. For thus must Hermogenes be answered, when from lordship he defends God's using Matter, and a thing not his own — namely, not made by himself. Now therefore evil is from him who is concerned with evil — if not its author, because not its effector, certainly its permitter, because its master. But if Matter is not also his, in that it is evil, then evil will not be God's; therefore he used what was another's — either he used it on sufferance, as needing it, or with injury, as prevailing over it. For in these three ways the things of another are taken: by right, by favour, by force — that is, by lordship, on sufferance, by violence. Lordship not being available, let Hermogenes choose what befits God: that he made all things out of Matter on sufferance or by force. Would not God therefore have judged it better to make nothing at all than to make on sufferance or by force, and that out of evil?

Even if Matter had been the best, would he not equally have thought it unbecoming to himself to use what was another's, though good? Foolishly enough, then, did he construct the world for the sake of his own glory, so as to show himself a debtor to another's substance, and that not a good one. Therefore, he says, would he make out of nothing, so that evil things too should be imputed to his choice? Great, in good faith, is the blindness of the heretics in such argumentation, when on this account they either wish another god to be believed good and best — because they suppose the creator to be the author of evil — or set up Matter alongside the creator, so as to derive evil from Matter, not from the creator; whereas no god at all is freed by this question from possibly seeming to be the author of evil — whoever he is that, though he did not himself make evil, yet endured it to be made by whomsoever and from wheresoever. Let Hermogenes therefore hear — while elsewhere we distinguish concerning the rationale of evil — that meanwhile he too has accomplished nothing by this objection of his. For behold, even if God is found not the author but the abettor of evil, who endured the evil of Matter, so long good, before the constitution of the world — which, as good and the rival of evil, he ought to have amended. For either he could amend it but would not, or he indeed would but, a weak god, could not. If he could and would not, then he too is evil, because he favoured evil; and so now he is held guilty, in that, although he did not institute it, yet, since, had he willed it not to be, it would not have been, he himself now made to be what he willed not to be. Than which what is more shameful? If he willed that to be which he himself willed not to have made, he acted against himself, since he both willed that to be which he willed not to make, and willed not to make that which he willed to be. As though good, he willed it to be; and as though evil, he willed not to make it. What, by not making, he judged evil, that, by enduring, he foretold to be good. By enduring evil for good, and not rather rooting it out, he is found its champion — wickedly, if through will; shamefully, if through necessity. Either God will be the slave of evil or its friend, since he kept company with the evil of Matter — nay, even worked out of its evil.

And yet from where does Hermogenes persuade us that Matter is evil? For he cannot but call that thing evil to which he ascribes evil. For we define that what is eternal cannot admit of diminution and subjection, so as to be reckoned inferior to another coeternal. So now too we say that evil does not belong to it, because it cannot on this account be subjected — that which can in no way be subjected, because it is eternal. But since, on the other hand, it is established that the supreme good is that which is eternal, as God is — through which alone he is God, in that he is eternal, and so good, in that he is God — how shall evil be in Matter, which, as eternal, must necessarily be believed the supreme good? Or if what is eternal could be capable of evil too, this could be believed of God too, and without cause did he desire to transfer evil from God, if it belongs to the eternal too, by belonging to Matter. But now, if what is eternal can be believed evil, evil will be unconquerable and insuperable, as eternal; and then we labour in vain to remove evil from our own selves; then too God in vain commands and enjoins it; nay, in vain too has God established judgement, since he will surely punish injustice. But if, on the contrary, there will be an end of evil, when its president the devil shall have departed into the fire which God prepared for him and his angels — being first relegated to the pit of the abyss, when the revelation of the sons of God shall have redeemed the creation from evil (which, of course, was made subject to vanity), when, innocence and the integrity of the creation being restored, the cattle shall agree with the beasts, and little children shall play with serpents, when the Father shall have set the enemies under the feet of the Son — namely, the workers of evil — therefore, if an end befits evil, of necessity a beginning befitted it; and Matter will have a beginning, in that it has also an end of evil. For the things that are reckoned to evil belong to it according to the state of evil.

Come now, let us believe Matter to be evil and worst — and that, of course, by nature, just as we believe God to be good and best, likewise by nature. Further, nature must be held fixed and certain, as persevering in evil with Matter, just as it is unchangeable and unalterable in good with God. Namely, because if nature shall be altered in Matter from evil to good, it could be altered in God too from good to evil. At this point someone will say: Therefore the sons of Abraham shall not be raised up from stones, and the brood of vipers shall not bring forth the fruit of repentance, and the sons of wrath shall not become the sons of peace, if nature shall not be changeable? Rashly will you look to these examples, O man. For they do not apply to the case of Matter, which is unborn — those things which are born: stones and vipers and men. For their nature, having an institution, can have a cessation too. But hold Matter to be once for all determined as eternal — as uncreated, as unborn — and therefore to be believed of an unalterable and incorruptible nature, even by the very judgement of Hermogenes, which he urges when he denies that God could have made out of himself, because what is eternal is not altered — losing, namely, what it was, while there comes about by alteration what was not, if it were not eternal — and that the eternal Lord cannot be anything other than what he is always. By this definition too I shall rightly strike him back. I likewise reprehend Matter, since out of it, evil — nay, worst — good and best things are made by God: And God saw that they were good, and God blessed them — surely because they were best, certainly not as though evil and worst. Therefore Matter admitted alteration; and if so, it lost the state of eternity; in short, its own form is dead. But eternity cannot be lost, because unless it could not be lost, it would not be eternity. Therefore neither could it have admitted alteration; for if it is eternity, it can in no way be altered.

And it will be asked how good things were made out of it, which by no means were made by alteration. From where, in things evil and worst, the seed of things good and best? Surely a good tree does not bring forth evil fruits, since God too is nothing but good; nor an evil tree good fruits, since Matter too is nothing but worst. Or, if we shall grant it some seed of good too, then it will no longer be of a uniform nature, that is, wholly evil, but already twofold, that is, of a good and evil nature; and it will again be asked whether in good and evil light could agree with darkness, sweet with bitter. Or, if the diversity of both, good and evil, could meet, and the nature of Matter were twofold, fruitful of both fruits — then neither will the good things themselves be reckoned to God, so that neither the evil things be imputed to him, but each kind, taken from the property of Matter, will pertain to Matter. By which arrangement we shall owe to God neither gratitude for the good things nor reproach for the evil, since he worked nothing by his own genius — by which it will be manifestly proved that he was the servant of Matter.

For even if it be said that, though from the occasion of Matter, yet by his own choice he brought forth good things, as though he had found the good of Matter — although this too is shameful — certainly, since out of the same Matter he brings forth evil things as well, in bringing forth these too, surely not by his own choice, he serves Matter, having nothing else to do than to bring forth out of evil — unwilling, of course, in that he is good; out of necessity, in that he is unwilling; and out of servitude, in that out of necessity. What therefore is the more worthy: that he founded evil things out of necessity, or out of will? For he founded them out of necessity, if out of Matter; out of will, if out of nothing. Now you labour in vain, lest God be set up as the author of evils, because, even if he made them out of Matter, they will be reckoned to him who made them, in so far as he made them. Plainly it makes a difference from what he made them, just as if he had made them out of nothing; and it makes no difference from what he made them, except that he should have made them from that from which it more befitted him. But it more befitted him to have made them out of will than out of necessity, that is, out of nothing rather than out of Matter. It is more worthy to believe God free, even as the author of evils, than enslaved. Whatever power belongs to him, weakness befits him. If even thus we grant that Matter indeed had nothing of good, but the Lord, if he produced any good, produced it by his own power, other questions will likewise arise. First, if good was wholly not in Matter, good was not made out of Matter — which, namely, Matter did not have. Next, if not out of Matter, then it was made out of God. If neither out of God, then it was made out of nothing. For this remains, according to the disposition of Hermogenes.

Further, if good was made neither out of Matter — because it was not in it, as in something evil — nor out of God, because nothing could be made out of God, as Hermogenes defines, then good is found to have been made out of nothing — as made out of no thing, as neither out of Matter nor out of God. And if good out of nothing, why not evil too? nay, why not all things out of nothing, if something out of nothing? Unless perhaps the divine power was insufficient for producing all things, having produced something out of nothing. Or, if good proceeded out of evil Matter — since neither out of nothing nor out of God — it will follow that it proceeded out of a conversion of Matter, contrary to the conversion of the eternal which is denied. Thus the very source from which good came to be, Hermogenes will now deny that it could have come to be. But of necessity it proceeded out of one of those from which he denied it could proceed. Besides, if evil is therefore not out of nothing, lest it become God's — by whose choice it would seem to have been made — but out of Matter, so that it may belong to that of whose substance it shall have been made: here too, as I said, God will be held the author of evil; who, when by the same power and will he ought to have produced all good things out of Matter, or at least good things, nevertheless produced not all good things, but evil ones too — surely either willing the evil things to be, if he could have brought it about that they should not be, or not able to bring it about that all should be good, if he willed and did not do it — since it makes no difference whether the Lord stood forth the author of evil through weakness or through will. Or what was the reason that, when he had made good things as good, he produced evil things too as not good — when he brought forth things not consistent with himself alone? What need was there, his own work being brought forth, to attend also to the business of Matter — by bringing forth evil too — so that he alone should be known good from good, but Matter should not be known evil from evil? Good would have flourished the more without the blast of evil. For Hermogenes too overthrows the arguments of certain men who say that evils were necessary for the illumination of goods, which are to be understood from their contraries. Therefore either there was for this reason no room for bringing forth evil, or, if some other reason required it to be brought in, why could it not have been brought in out of nothing too — the very reason being about to excuse the Lord, lest he be thought the author of evil — which now, when he works out of Matter, excuses the evils? If it excuses them, then everywhere and from every side the question is driven there where they do not wish it to go — they who, by not examining the very rationale of evil, nor discerning how to attribute it either to God or to separate it from God, expose God to more and unworthier overthrows.

Therefore, in the laying of the groundwork of this article — and perhaps to be reconsidered elsewhere — I for my part lay it down that either both good and evil, which he made out of Matter, must be ascribed to God; or to Matter itself, out of which he made; or both to both, because the two are bound to each other, he who made and that of which he made; or the one to the other. For there is no third besides Matter and God. Further, if both shall be God's, God will seem the author of evil too; but God, as good, will not be the author of evil. If both shall be Matter's, Matter will seem the mother of good too; but Matter, being wholly evil, will not be the mother of good. If both shall be both's, in this too Matter will be compared to God, and both will be equals, equally akin to evil and good; but Matter ought not to be equated to God, lest it make two gods. If the one shall be the other's — namely, the good God's and the evil Matter's — neither will evil be ascribed to God nor good to Matter; and yet God, in making both good and evil things out of Matter, makes them together with it. If these things are so, I do not know by what verdict Hermogenes can escape, who supposes that God, in whatever way he founded evil out of Matter — whether by will, or by necessity, or by rationale — is not the author of evil. Further, if he himself who made is the author of evil — with Matter, plainly, his associate through the suggestion of its substance — you now do away with the cause for introducing Matter. For none the less is God shown the author of evil even through Matter, if Matter was assumed precisely so that God should not seem the author of evil. Matter therefore being excluded, while the cause for it is excluded, it remains that it be established that God made all things out of nothing. We shall see whether evil things too — when it shall have appeared which things are evil, and whether the things you suppose evil are even, for the moment, evil. For more worthily did he produce these too by his own choice, by producing them out of nothing, than from another's prejudgement, if he had produced them out of Matter. Liberty, not necessity, befits God. I would rather he had willed to found evils out of himself than that he could not but found them.

The state of the one God vindicates this rule: that he is not otherwise one except in that he is alone; and not otherwise alone except in that there is nothing with him. So too he will be first, because all things are after him; so all things are after him, because all things are from him; so from him, because out of nothing — that the rationale of that Scripture too may hold good: Who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counsellor? or whom has he consulted? or who has shown him the way of understanding and knowledge? who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid him? No one, surely; because no force, no Matter, no nature of another substance was present with him. Further, if he worked out of something, of necessity he received from that very thing both counsel and the method of disposition, as the way of understanding and knowledge. For he had to work according to the quality of the thing, and according to the genius of Matter, not according to his own choice — to such a degree that he made even evil things according to a nature not his own, but the substance's.

If Matter is necessary to God for the works of the world, as Hermogenes supposed, God had a Matter far worthier and more suitable — not to be estimated among the philosophers, but understood among the prophets: his own Wisdom, namely. This, in short, alone knew the mind of the Lord. For who knows the things that are God's, and the things that are in him, except the Spirit, who is in him? But Wisdom is the Spirit; she was his counsellor, she herself is the way of understanding and knowledge; out of her he made, making through her, and making with her. When he prepared the heaven, she says, I was present with him, and when he was making strong above the winds the clouds on high, and when he was setting firm the fountains of that which is under heaven, I was joining together with him. I was the one in whom he rejoiced; and daily I delighted in his person, when he delighted, after he had perfected the world, and he delighted in the sons of men. Who would not rather commend this as the fountain and origin of all things? — and as the Matter of matters, not subject to an end, not diverse in state, not restless in motion, not formless in habit, but inborn and proper and composed and comely, such as God could have needed — needing his own rather than another's. In short, as soon as he perceived her necessary for the works of the world, he at once founds and generates her in himself. The Lord, she says, founded me as the beginning of his ways unto his works: before the ages he established me, before he made the earth, before the mountains were set in place; but before all the hills he generated me; and I was born before the abyss. Let Hermogenes therefore acknowledge that for this reason too the Wisdom of God is proclaimed born and founded — lest we should believe anything unborn and unfounded except God alone. For if within the Lord that which was out of him and in him was not without beginning — namely his own Wisdom, born and founded thence, from the time when it began to be stirred in the mind of God for the disposing of the works of the world — much more is it impossible that anything which was outside the Lord was without beginning. But if the same Wisdom is the Word of God — in the sense of Wisdom, and without which nothing was made, as also nothing was disposed without Wisdom — what kind of thing is it that, for the Son of God, the only-begotten and first-begotten Word, anything should have been more ancient than the Father, and in this way surely more nobly born? — not to say that the unborn is stronger than the born, and the uncreated mightier than the made? Because that which needed no author in order to be will be far loftier than that which had some author in order to be. Likewise, if evil indeed is unborn, but the Word of God is born — For my heart, it says, has uttered forth a good word — I do not know whether evil can be drawn from good, the mightier from the weak, as the unborn from the born. Thus on this score too Hermogenes prefers Matter to God, by preferring it to the Son. For the Son is the Word, and the Word is God, and, I and the Father are one. Unless perhaps the Son will bear with an even mind that she be preferred to him who is equated to the Father.

But I will appeal also to the original document of Moses, from which the opposite party too tries thanklessly to prop up its suspicions — lest, namely, it should seem not to be instructed from the source from which it ought. And so it took for itself occasions from certain words, as is generally the custom of heretics to wrest whatever is simple. For the very word "beginning," in which God made both heaven and earth, they will have to have been something substantive and corporeal, which can be interpreted as Matter. But we vindicate for each word its own property: that "beginning" is a starting-point, and that it was fitting it should be so set down of things beginning to come to be. For nothing that is to come to be is without a beginning — but its beginning is the very moment when it begins to come to be. Thus "beginning," or starting-point, is a word of inception, not the name of any substance. Now then, if the principal works of God are heaven and earth, which God made before all things, it is fitting that they should properly be the beginning of his works, being the first made; and so Scripture rightly prefaces thus: In the beginning God made heaven and earth — just as it would have said, In the end God made heaven and earth, if he had made them after the whole universe. Or, if "beginning" is some substance, then "end" too will be some Matter. Plainly it will be permitted that something substantive too be the beginning of another thing which is to be out of it — as clay is the beginning of a pot, as seed the beginning of grass. But when we so use the word "beginning," as the name of origin, not of order, we add the mention also of that very thing which we specifically wish to be the beginning of another thing. Otherwise, if we put it thus, for example, In the beginning the potter made a basin or an urn, "beginning" will now not signify Matter — for I have not named clay as the beginning, but the order of the work, because the potter before the rest first made a basin and an urn, being about thereafter to make the rest as well. The word "beginning" will pertain to the ordering of the works, not to the origin of substances. I can also interpret "beginning" otherwise, yet not unfittingly; for in Greek too the word for beginning, which is ARCHE, admits not only an ordinal but also a power-conferring principality, whence too they call princes and magistrates archons. Therefore according to this signification too "beginning" will be taken for principality and power. For in principality and in power God made heaven and earth.

But even if the Greek word signifies nothing other than beginning, and beginning admits nothing other than a starting-point, we have also that one which knows it as a starting-point, which says, The Lord founded me in his works. For if through the Wisdom of God all things were made, then God, in making heaven and earth in the beginning — that is, the starting-point — made them in his Wisdom. In short, if "beginning" signified Matter, Scripture would not have instructed us thus: In the beginning God made, but Out of the beginning; for he would have made not in Matter, but out of Matter. But of Wisdom it could be said In the beginning. For in Wisdom he made first, in which, by thinking and disposing, he had already made — since even if he had been about to make out of Matter, he had already made beforehand in Wisdom, by thinking and disposing, because she was the beginning of his ways; for thought and disposition is the first operation of Wisdom, instituting from a design a way for the works. This authority of Scripture too I vindicate for myself from thence — that God, both he who made and the things which he made, in showing whom he made them, does not also testify from what he made them. For since in every operation there are three principal things — he who makes, and that which is made, and that out of which it is made — three names must be set forth in the lawful narration of the work: the person of the maker, the kind of the thing made, the form of the Matter. If the Matter is not set forth, where both the work and the worker of the work are set forth, it appears that he worked out of nothing. For the "out of which" would likewise be set forth, if he had worked out of something. In short, I will adduce the Gospel as a supplement to the old document — in which God ought all the more to have been shown to have made all things out of some Matter, in that there too is revealed the one through whom he made all things. In the beginning was the Word — in which beginning, namely, God made heaven and earth. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing. Since therefore here too there is made manifest both the maker, that is, God, and the things made, that is, all things, and the one through whom, that is, the Word — would not order have demanded that it should also profess from what all things were made by God through the Word, if they had been made out of something? Thus what was not, Scripture could not profess; and by not professing it, it sufficiently proved that it was not, because it would profess it, if it had been.

Therefore, you say, if you for this reason prejudge that all things were made out of nothing — because it is not manifestly related that anything was made out of pre-existing Matter — beware lest the opposite party for this reason contend that all things were made out of Matter, because it is likewise not openly signified that anything was made out of nothing. Plainly some things can easily be turned back, but cannot at once and equally be admitted, where there is a diversity of case. For I say that, even though Scripture has not openly declared that all things were made out of nothing — as neither out of Matter — there was not so great a necessity of openly signifying that all things were made out of nothing as there would be, if they had been made out of Matter. Because that which comes to be out of nothing, by this very fact — that it is not shown to have been made out of something — is made manifest to have been made out of nothing, and is in no danger of being thought to have been made out of something, when it is not demonstrated out of what it was made. But that which comes to be out of something — unless this very thing is openly declared, that it was made out of something — that thing, while it is shown out of what it was made, will be in danger, first, of seeming to have been made out of nothing, because it is not set forth out of what it was made; then, even if it is of such a condition that it can be seen at all to be out of something, it will likewise be in danger of seeming to have been made out of something far other than that out of which it was made, while it is not proposed from what it was made. Thus, if God could not have made all things out of nothing, Scripture would not have added that he made them out of nothing. That he made them out of Matter, it ought by all means to have declared, if he had even made them out of Matter; because the former could be understood as a whole even if it were not signified, whereas the latter would be in doubt, unless it were signified.

And indeed the Holy Spirit so constituted this rationale of his own Scripture, that, when anything comes to be out of something, he relates both what comes to be and from what it comes to be. Let the earth, he says, bring forth the herb of hay, sowing seed according to its kind and according to its likeness, and the fruitful tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself after its likeness. And it was so done. And the earth produced the herb of hay sowing seed according to its kind, and the fruitful tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself after its likeness. And again: And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and flying creatures flying over the earth through the firmament of heaven. And it was so done. And God made the great whales, and every soul of creeping animals, which the waters brought forth according to their kind. Likewise after these things: And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living soul according to its kind, the four-footed beasts and creeping things and the beasts of the earth according to their kind. If therefore, in producing other things out of things already made, God shows through the prophet and says from what he produced them — although we could suppose those things to have been produced from wheresoever, only not out of nothing, for certain things were already made out of which they could seem to have been produced — if the Holy Spirit took such care for our instruction, that we might know what proceeded from what, would he not have likewise made us informed concerning both heaven and earth, by signifying from what he had worked them, if their origin were established to be out of some Matter — so that the more they would seem to have been worked out of nothing, in that nothing as yet had been made out of which they could seem to have been worked? And so, just as he shows of the things that were produced out of something from what they were produced, so the things of which he does not show from what they were produced he confirms to have been produced out of nothing. Therefore in the beginning God made heaven and earth. I adore the fulness of Scripture, by which it makes manifest to me both the maker and the things made. But in the Gospel I find moreover the minister and arbiter of the maker — the Word. But whether all things were made out of some underlying Matter, I have nowhere yet read. Let the workshop of Hermogenes teach that it is written. If it is not written, let it fear that "Woe" appointed for those who add or take away.

But from what follows he argues, because it is written, And the earth was invisible and unformed. For he reduces the very name of earth to Matter, because the earth is what was made out of it. And the word "was" he directs to this, as of that which had always before existed unborn and uncreated. And "invisible and rough," because he wishes Matter to have been formless and confused and unfounded. These opinions of his I will refute one by one; but meanwhile I wish to answer him thus. We suppose that by these clauses Matter is being demonstrated. Yet does Scripture signify that, because it existed before all things, anything such was made out of it? On the contrary, it signifies nothing such. Let Matter have existed — as far as is permitted to it, or rather to Hermogenes: it could both have existed, and yet God have made nothing out of it — either because it did not befit God to have needed anything, or certainly because it is not shown that he made anything out of Matter. It would then exist without cause, you say. Plainly not so altogether without cause. For even though the world was not made out of it, yet heresy was made — and this the more shameless, in that heresy was not made out of Matter, but rather heresy itself made Matter.

I return now to the individual clauses, by which he supposed Matter to be signified; and first about the names I will make my demand. For of these we read the one, which is "earth"; the other we do not find, which is "Matter." I ask therefore, since the naming of Matter does not appear in Scripture, how the title of "earth" too is accommodated to it — a title already known in another kind of substance. The more, then, ought the naming of Matter too to have appeared, having obtained also the title of earth — so that I might know that "earth" is a name common to it and to Matter, lest I should vindicate that name to that substance alone whose proper name it also is, in which it is the better known; or lest I should be able to communicate it to any other kind whatsoever — and surely not to all Matter — if I wished. For when the proper name of that thing to which the common name is ascribed does not appear, the more it is unclear to what it is ascribed, the more it can be ascribed to any other thing whatsoever. Thus Hermogenes, even if he should show that Matter was named, ought to prove that the same was also surnamed "earth," so that thus he might vindicate to it each title.

He wishes, then, that two earths be proposed in this Scripture: one which God made in the beginning, the other the Matter out of which he made — concerning which it was said, And the earth was invisible and rough. Surely, if I should ask of the two which ought to accommodate to which the name of earth, it will be said that this one, which was made, derived its title from that out of which it was made — because it is more likely that the offspring should be named from the origin rather than the origin from the offspring. If this is so, another question is wrapped up for us: whether it is fitting that this earth, which God made out of that out of which he made it, should derive its surname therefrom. For I hear from Hermogenes and the rest of the materialist heretics that that earth was formless and invisible and rough, but that this our earth has likewise obtained from God both form and aspect and adornment — therefore made other than was that out of which it was made. Further, being made other, it could not be associated by name with that from whose condition it had departed. If the proper name of that Matter was "earth," this earth, which is not Matter — being, namely, made other — likewise does not take a name foreign to it and extraneous to its state. But Matter being made — that is, earth — had with its origin a fellowship of name, as also of kind. Not so. For a potsherd too, though made out of clay, I will now call not clay, but a potsherd; and amber, though made of gold and silver compounded, I will call neither silver nor gold, but amber. From whose habit a thing diverges, equally does it withdraw from its appellation too, by the property of its name as of its condition. But how far this earth has passed over from the state of that earth, that is, of Matter, is plain even from this — that this earth received in Genesis the testimony of good: And God saw that it was good; but that other earth, in Hermogenes, is reckoned into the origin and cause of evils. Finally, if this earth is so called because that one was, why not Matter too because that one was? Nay, then both heaven and all things, if they consist of Matter, ought to have been called both "earths" and "matters." Enough of this concerning the name of earth, in which he wished Matter to be understood — a name which all know to be of one element: nature teaching first, then Scripture. Unless indeed we are to believe also that Silenus, asserting to king Midas concerning another world (on the authority of Theopompus); but the same Theopompus reports many gods too.

But for us there is one God and one earth, which God made in the beginning. Beginning to run through its order, Scripture first declares it made, then sets forth its quality. Just as also, having professed heaven first made — In the beginning God made heaven — it then superinduces its disposition; and he separated between the water which was below the firmament and that which was above the firmament, and God called the firmament heaven — the very thing which he had made in the first beginning. Likewise too of man: And God made man, after the image of God he made him. Then it renders how he made him: And God formed man from the clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul. And surely thus it befits a narration to begin: first to preface, afterwards to proceed; to name, then to describe. Otherwise it were vain, if of that thing of which it had premised no mention — that is, Matter, not even its very name — it suddenly published the form and habit, narrating what sort of thing it was before whether it was, showing the figure of the thing formed, hiding its name. But how much more credibly, according to us, did Scripture subjoin the disposition of that thing of which it had premised the institution and at the same time the naming! In short, how complete is the sense: In the beginning God made heaven and earth — but the earth was invisible and rough — which earth, namely, God made, and of which Scripture had just now most especially declared? For even the "but" itself, like the clasp of a connective particle, is set there to bind the narration into a connection: But the earth. For by this word it returns to that of which it had spoken above, and ties the sense together. Indeed, take away "but" from here, and the joining is loosed, so that then it could seem to have been said of another earth: The earth was invisible and rough.

But you, raising the brows of your head, with your finger fitted to a nod, lifting them higher and as it were throwing them back, say: "Was" — as though it had always existed, namely unborn and uncreated, and therefore to be believed Matter. But I, without any allurement of pronunciation, will simply answer that "was" can be said of every thing, even of that which was made, which was born, which once was not, and which is not Matter. For everything that has being — from wheresoever it has it, whether through a beginning or without a beginning — by this very fact that it is, will also be said to have "been." That to which belongs the first positing of the verb in a definition, of the same the declension of the same verb will run on into a relation. "Is" is the head of the definition; "was" makes the relation. These are the subtleties and refinements of the heretics, wresting the simplicity of common words into a question. A great question indeed, whether the earth, which was made, "was." To be sure it must be discussed whether being invisible and rough befits that earth which was made, or that out of which it was made — so that the "was" may belong to the same as that which "was."

But we shall prove not only that this habit befitted this earth, but also that it did not befit that other. For if Matter lay thus bare beneath God, with no element, namely, obstructing — since as yet there was nothing besides Matter itself and God — surely it could not have been invisible; because, even though he will have it that darkness was in the substance of Matter (a clause to which we shall have to answer in its own order), even to man darkness is visible (for this very thing, that there is darkness, is seen), still more to God. And surely, if it were invisible, in no way could its quality be known. From where, then, did Hermogenes ascertain that it was formless and confused and restless — that which, as invisible, lay hidden? Or if this was revealed by God, he ought to prove it. So too I demand whether it could be called rough. For surely that is rough which is imperfect; surely a thing cannot be imperfect except that which was made; for that which was less made is imperfect. To be sure, you say. Therefore Matter, which was not made at all, could not be imperfect; and that which was not imperfect was not rough either. Having no beginning, because it was not made, it lacked rudiment too. For rudiment is an accident of a beginning. But the earth, which was made, deserved even to be called rough. For as soon as it was made, it had the place of the imperfect, before its perfection.

Since indeed God consummated all his works in order — first marking out the world, as it were, with its uncultivated elements, then dedicating it, as it were, with those elements adorned. For he did not at once fill the light with the splendour of the sun, nor at once temper the darkness with the solace of the moon, nor at once mark heaven with constellations and stars, nor at once frequent the seas with their monsters, nor at once endow the earth itself with its varied fecundity; but first he conferred on it being, then he supplied that it should not be in vain. For thus also Isaiah: Not in vain, he says, did he make it, but that it should be inhabited. After it was made, then, being destined also to be perfect, it was meanwhile invisible and rough — rough indeed by this very fact, that it was invisible, as being not perfect even for sight, and as not yet furnished for the rest; but invisible, as being still covered with waters, as it were with the protection of generative moisture, by which form even our kindred flesh too is produced. For David too sings thus: The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein; he himself founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the rivers. For when the waters were segregated into the hollows of the gulfs, the dry land was made more conspicuous, which before this was covered with waters. From then, therefore, it is also made visible, God saying: Let the water be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear. Let it appear, he says — not Let it be made. For it had already been made, but, invisible until then, it endured to be seen. And dry land, because it was destined to be such from the divorce of moisture — yet earth. And God called the dry land earth, not Matter. So too, having afterwards obtained perfection, it ceases to be held rough, when God pronounces: Let the earth bring forth the herb of hay sowing seed according to its kind and according to its likeness, and the fruitful tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself after its likeness. Likewise: Let the earth bring forth the living soul according to its kind, both the four-footed beasts and creeping things and the beasts of the earth according to their kind. The divine Scripture therefore fulfilled its own order. For that which it had foretold invisible and rough, to that same thing it both restored sight and gave perfection. But it was no other Matter that was invisible and rough. Therefore Matter will afterwards be visible and perfect. I wish therefore to see Matter; for it has been made visible. I wish also to recognize it perfected, so that out of it too I may pluck the herb of hay, and out of it the fruitful tree, and out of it the animals may serve my use. But Matter is nowhere, while this earth — that is, the one before our eyes — I see, I enjoy, from the time it ceased to be invisible and rough. Of which most manifestly Isaiah: Thus says the Lord, who made heaven, this God, who displayed the earth and made it. Surely he displayed the same which he also made. How did he display it? Namely, by saying, Let the dry land appear. Why does he bid it appear, except that before it was not seen? — so that in this way too he might not have made it in vain, by making it visible, and so serviceable. And so through all this it is proved to us that this earth, which we inhabit, is the same that was both made by God and shown forth; and that no other was rough and invisible than that which was both made and shown forth. And so, "But the earth was invisible and rough" pertains to that earth which God separated together with heaven.

So too the following will seem to build up the conjecture of Hermogenes: And darkness over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters — as though these too, being confused substances, portended arguments of that massy lump. Yet by separately defining darkness, abyss, Spirit of God, waters, the relation, so distinct, of certain and distinguished elements, makes us reckon nothing confused, nor uncertain in confusion. Yes, and even more so, when he ascribes to them their proper positions — darkness over the abyss, the Spirit over the waters — he denied a confusion of substances, of which, by demonstrating the disposition, he demonstrated also the distinction. It is most vain, in short, that Matter, which is introduced as formless, should be asserted formless out of so many names of forms, when it is not declared what that body of confusion is, which surely must be believed unique, if it is formless. For that which is formless is uniform; but that which is confused out of variety must necessarily have one form — that which has no form, while out of many it has one form. Besides, either Matter had in itself those forms, from whose names it ought to be understood — I mean darkness and abyss and Spirit and waters — or it had them not. For if it had them, how is it introduced as not having forms? If it had them not, how is it recognized?

But this too will be seized upon: that Scripture signified concerning heaven alone and concerning this earth that God made them in the beginning, but concerning the aforesaid kinds nothing such; and that therefore those things which are not signified as made pertain to uncreated Matter. We will answer this scruple too. The divine Scripture would have discoursed sufficiently, had it commended that the very sums of things were made by God — heaven and earth — having, of course, their own proper appurtenances, which could be understood within the sums themselves. But the appurtenances of heaven and earth would then first have been darkness and abyss and Spirit and waters. For under the earth lay abyss and darkness. For if abyss is below the earth, but darkness over the abyss, then without doubt both darkness and abyss are below the earth. But under heaven lay Spirit and waters. For if the waters are over the earth, which had covered it, but the Spirit over the waters, then equally both the Spirit and the waters are over the earth. But the things over the earth are surely beneath heaven. And just as earth lay over abyss and darkness, so too heaven lay over and embraced Spirit and waters. And so it is nothing new that only that which contains should be named, as the sum, but in it should be understood also that which is contained, as a portion. Behold, if I should say, the city built a theatre and a circus, but the stage was of such and such a kind, and statues over the channel, and an obelisk towered above all — because I have not also declared these kinds to have been made by the city, will they not be of it, together with the circus and the theatre? Or did I therefore not add that these kinds too were made, because they were in those things which I had foretold made, and could be understood to be in those things in which they were? But let this example be void, as human; another I will snatch from the authority of Scripture itself. God made, it says, man out of earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul. His face indeed it here names, but it did not say that the face itself was made by God; but of skin and bones and flesh and eyes and sweat and blood it speaks afterwards — which neither did it signify as made by God at that time. What will Hermogenes answer? Will the members of man too pertain to Matter, because they are not related as made by name? Or are these too reckoned in the making of man? Likewise the members of heaven and earth were abyss and darkness, Spirit and waters. For in the bodies the members were made, in the bodies the members were named. No element is not a member of that element by which it is contained. But all elements are contained by heaven or earth.

Thus would I have answered for the present Scripture, in so far as here it seems to commend the making of the bodies alone of heaven and earth. Let him know that there were those who of their own accord recognized the members too in the bodies, and therefore it used brevity. Yet it provided also for the dull and the captious, who, dissimulating the silent understanding, would demand a word significatory of making for the very members too. And so on account of these too it teaches in other places that the individual kinds were made. You have Wisdom, saying, But I was born before the abyss — that you may believe the abyss too was born, that is, made; for we make sons too, although we generate them. It makes no difference whether the abyss was made or born, so long as a beginning is given it, which would not be given if it were subject to Matter. But of darkness the Lord himself through Isaiah: I, who framed the light and made the darkness. Of the Spirit likewise Amos: He who makes firm the thunder and founds the Spirit, and announces to men his Christ — showing that Spirit to have been founded which was reckoned among the things founded on earth, which was borne over the waters, the poiser and inbreather and animator of the universe — not, as some suppose, signifying God himself as that Spirit, because God is Spirit; for neither would the waters be sufficient to sustain the Lord; but he means that Spirit out of which the winds too consist, as he says through Isaiah: Because a spirit went forth from me, and I made all breath. Likewise of the waters the same Wisdom: And when he was setting firm the fountains which are under heaven, I was modulating with him. Since therefore we prove that these kinds too were made by God — even though in Genesis they are only named, without mention of making — it will perhaps be answered from the opposite side that they were plainly made, but out of Matter; so that the pen of Moses indeed, And darkness over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters, may sound of Matter, but the other Scriptures may demonstrate, scattered here and there, the kinds that were made out of Matter. Therefore, just as earth out of earth, so abyss out of abyss, and darkness out of darkness, and Spirit and waters consisted out of Spirit and waters. And as we said above, Matter could not have been formless, if it had forms, so that others might be made out of it; unless it be that not others, but they themselves out of themselves. Since it cannot be that those things were diverse which are set forth under the same names — for now the divine operation could seem idle, if it made the things which already were, when generation alone would be that whereby the things which were not should be made, if they came to be. Therefore, that I may conclude: either Moses then signified Matter, in writing, And darkness over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters; or, since these kinds are afterwards elsewhere demonstrated as made by God, they ought likewise to have been demonstrated as made out of the Matter which Moses had premised; or, if Moses signified these kinds, and not Matter, I ask where Matter has been demonstrated.

But while Hermogenes found that Matter among his colours (for among the Scriptures of God he could not have found it), it is enough that it is established both that all things were made by God, and that they are not established to have been made out of Matter — which, even if it had existed, we should have believed to have been itself too made by God, because, prescribing that nothing is unborn except God, we should prevail. Up to this article there is room for reconsideration, until, when appeal is made to the Scriptures, the production of Matter fails. The sum is plain: I find nothing made except out of nothing, because what I find made, I recognize not to have existed. Even if anything was made out of something, it has its reckoning from a thing made — as out of earth, the herb and fruit and cattle and the formation of man himself; as out of the waters, the swimming and flying souls. Origins of this sort, of things produced out of them, I shall be able to call matters; but they too were made by God.

But that all things consisted out of nothing, that last divine disposition will finally persuade us, which is to reduce all things into nothing. Since indeed the heaven too shall be rolled up like a book — nay, shall be nowhere, together with the earth itself, with which it was made in the beginning. Heaven and earth shall pass away, he says; the first heaven and the first earth have gone away, and place was not found for them — because, namely, that which comes to an end loses its place too. So too David: The works of your hands, the heavens, shall themselves perish. For even if he shall change them like a garment, and they shall be changed — yet to be changed is to perish as to the former state, which, while they are changed, they lose. And the stars indeed shall fall from heaven, as a fig tree, shaken by a strong wind, lets fall its unripe figs; but the mountains shall melt like wax from the face of the Lord, when, namely, he shall arise to shatter the earth. But also the marshes, he says, I will dry up, and they shall seek water and not find it; the sea too thus far. All which things — even if another shall suppose them to be interpreted spiritually — yet he will not be able to take away the truth of things to come as they are written. For if there are any figures, they must of necessity be made out of things subsisting, not out of empty things; because nothing can furnish anything from itself for a likeness, unless it be the very thing which furnishes by such a likeness. I return therefore to the point, which determines that all things, brought forth out of nothing, will come to nothing. For out of the eternal — that is, out of Matter — God would have made nothing perishable; nor out of greater things would he have founded lesser, to whom it rather befits to produce greater things out of lesser, that is, the eternal out of the perishable. Which he promises to our flesh too, of whose power and authority he willed to lodge in us already this pledge, that we might believe that he too raised up the universe out of nothing — as it were dead, namely, that which was not — into this, that it should be.

But concerning the rest of the state of Matter — even though there is no need to reconsider it (for first it should have been established that it exists) — yet as if it were established, the order must be pursued, so that the more it may be established not to exist, of which not even the remaining state holds good — and at the same time that Hermogenes may recognize his own contradictions. At first sight, he says, Matter seems to us incorporeal; but by exact and right reasoning it is found neither corporeal nor incorporeal. What is this right reasoning, which announces nothing right, that is, nothing certain? For, unless I am mistaken, every thing must necessarily be either corporeal or incorporeal (granting for the moment that there is something incorporeal — at least among substances, since substance itself is the body of anything whatsoever); certainly after corporeal and incorporeal there is no third. Come now, let there be even a third, which that right Hermogenian reasoning has discovered, which makes Matter neither corporeal nor incorporeal — where is it? what kind of thing is it? what is it called? how is it described? how is it understood? Only this has reasoning announced — that Matter is neither corporeal nor incorporeal.

But behold, he subjoins the contrary; or perhaps another reasoning has occurred to him, announcing Matter partly corporeal and partly incorporeal. Now then, lest it be neither, must Matter be reckoned both? For it will be corporeal and incorporeal, against the announcement of that reciprocation of his — plainly rendering no rationale of his own sentence, just as he renders none of the other. For he will have the corporeal of Matter to be that out of which bodies are produced, but the incorporeal its unfounded motion. For if, he says, it were only body, nothing incorporeal would appear in it, that is, motion; but if it were wholly incorporeal, no body would come to be out of it. How much righter is this reasoning! — except that, if you draw lines as right as you reason, Hermogenes, no painter is duller than you. For who grants you to reckon motion as the second part of substance, when it is not a substantive thing, since not even corporeal, but an accident, if anything, of substance and body — as act and impulse, as gliding, as falling, so also motion. For even if a thing is moved by itself, motion is its act, certainly it is not a part of substance, as you make motion the incorporeal substance of Matter. In short, all things are moved either by themselves, as animals, or by others, as inanimate things; yet we shall call neither man nor stone both corporeal and incorporeal, because each has both body and motion; but for all there is one form, of mere corporeality, which is a thing of substance; if any incorporeal things attend them — whether acts, or passions, or offices, or appetites — we do not reckon them as their portions. To what end, then, does it serve to dispose a portion of Matter into motion, which does not pertain to substance, but to the habit of substance? For what, if it had pleased you to introduce Matter as immovable — would immovability seem the second part of its form? Neither, then, motion. But concerning motion it will be permitted elsewhere too.

For now I see you returning again to that reasoning which is wont to announce to you nothing certain. For just as you bring in Matter as neither corporeal nor incorporeal, so you allege it as neither good nor evil; and so, arguing further, For if, you say, it were good, having always been so, it would not desire the composition of God; if it were of an evil nature, it would not have admitted translation into the better, nor would God have applied anything of his own composition to it, being of such a nature; for he would have laboured in vain. These are your own words, of which you ought to have been mindful elsewhere too, lest you should bring in anything contrary to them. But since concerning the ambiguity of evil and good about Matter we have reconsidered something in what precedes, now I will answer to your present and sole proposition and argument. Nor will I say here too that you ought to have pronounced something certain — either good or evil or some third thing — but that you have not even kept here what you were pleased to pronounce. For you rescind what you pronounced — neither good nor evil; because, when you say, If it were good, it would not desire to be composed by God, you portend it evil; and when you add, If it were of an evil nature, it would not admit translation into the better, you slyly show it good. And so you have constituted it akin both to good and to evil, which you pronounced neither good nor evil. But that I may blunt the argument by which you supposed you would confirm your proposition, I oppose this too: If Matter had always been good, why would it not have desired to be reformed into the better? What good does not desire, or wish, or admit of progress, so that out of good there may be made the better? Equally, if it had been of an evil nature, why could it not have been converted by God, as by the mightier, as by him who is able to convert even the nature of stones into sons of Abraham? Surely then you not only compare the Lord to Matter, but even subject him, by whom the nature of Matter could not have been overcome and tamed into the better. But that nature which here you will not have to be evil, elsewhere you will deny you confessed.

Concerning the position of Matter I treat what I treated concerning its mode, so as to expose your perversity. You make Matter lie beneath God, and surely a place beneath God for it. Therefore Matter is in place. If in place, then within a place; if within a place, then it is determined by the place within which it is; if it is determined, it has an outermost line, which — as far as you are properly a painter — you acknowledge to be the end of every thing whose outermost line it is. Therefore Matter will not be infinite, which, while it is in place, is determined by place, and while it is determined by it, suffers an outermost line. But you make it infinite, saying, It is infinite for this reason, that it always is. And if any of your disciples should wish to argue, as though you would have it understood infinite in age, not in body — yet that it is bodily infinite, as bodily immense and uncircumscribed, the sequel shows. Whence, you say, not the whole is fabricated, but parts of it. So far is it infinite in body, not in time. And you are caught making it infinite in body, when, by ascribing a place to it, you enclose it within a place and within the outermost line of the place. But yet why God did not form the whole of it, I do not know — unless because he was either powerless or grudging. And so I ask for the half of it which was not wholly formed, that I may recognize what the whole was like. For God ought, as it were, to have made openly an exemplar of antiquity, to the glory of the work.

Let Matter now be definite, as it seems to you the righter, through its alterations and translations; let it be comprehensible too, as that which is fabricated, you say, by God, since it is both convertible and alterable and divisible. For its alterations, you say, show it divisible. And here you have fallen from your own lines, which you used about the person of God, prescribing that he did not make Matter out of himself, because he could not come into parts, being eternal and abiding for ever, and through this immutable and indivisible. If Matter too is reckoned of the same eternity, having neither beginning nor end, by the same reasoning it cannot suffer division and alteration, as neither can God. Set in the consortium of eternity, it must of necessity share with him both the powers and the laws and the conditions of eternity. Likewise, when you say, Its parts have all things together out of all things, so that the whole may be discerned from the parts, you surely wish those parts to be understood which were produced out of it, which today are seen by us. How then have all things out of all — namely out of the former things — when the things seen today are otherwise than the former things were?

You say Matter was reformed into the better — surely from worse things — and you wish the better things to bear the likeness of the worse exemplars? The thing was confused, but now it is composed; and you wish the uncomposed to be furnished from the composed? No thing is the mirror of another thing, that is, of one not coequal. No one at the barber's has looked at a mule in place of a man — unless someone supposes that in this construction of the world, now disposed and adorned, formless and uncultivated Matter answers to it. What is formless in the world today, what was once shaped in Matter, so that the world should be the mirror of Matter? Since among the Greeks the world bears the name of "adornment," how does it present the image of unadorned Matter, so that you may say its whole is recognized from its parts? Certainly out of that whole will be also this which does not come into deformation. And above you declared that the whole of it was not fabricated. Therefore even this rough and confused and unformed thing cannot be recognized in things polished and distinct and composed — which it is not fitting even to call parts of Matter, since by alteration they have departed, divided from its form.

I return to motion, that everywhere I may show you slippery. Unfounded and unconfused and turbulent was the motion of Matter. For thus you set before us the likeness of a pot bubbling on every side. And how is another motion elsewhere affirmed by you? For when you wish to introduce Matter as neither good nor evil, Therefore, you say, the underlying Matter, having a motion of equal momentum, inclines greatly neither to good nor to evil. If of equal momentum, then it is no longer turbulent, nor pot-like, but composed and tempered — namely, that which, agitated of its own choice between good and evil, yet inclined and headlong to neither part, was borne with an even-balanced impulse, as they say, of a middle yoke. This you will say is not unevenness; this is not turbulence and passibility, but moderation and modesty and justice of a motion inclining to neither part. Plainly, if it inclined this way and that, or more to one side, then it would deserve to be marked for inconcinnity and inequality and turbulence. Further, if the motion was inclined neither to good nor to evil, surely it was carried on between good and evil — so that from this too Matter appears determinable, whose motion, inclined to neither evil nor good, in that it inclined to neither, hung within both and from both, and on this score was determined by both. But you also place good and evil in place, when you say the motion of Matter was inclined to neither of them. For Matter, which was in place, inclining neither this way nor that, did not incline into the places in which good and evil were. But by giving place to good and evil, you make them corporeal, by making them local; for things which have place must first be corporeal. In short, incorporeal things would not have a proper place except in a body, when they accede to a body. But Matter, not inclining to good and evil, did not incline to them as corporeal or local. You err, then, if you will have good and evil to be substances. For you make them substances to which you assign places; and you assign places when you suspend the motion of Matter from both regions.

You have scattered all things, lest, set side by side, they should shine out as contrary to each other. But I will gather the individual points and confer them. You assert the motion of Matter to be unfounded, and you add that it followed formlessness; then elsewhere, that it desired to be composed by God. Does that which follows formlessness desire formation? Or does that which desires formation follow formlessness? You will not have God seem equated to Matter, and yet you make it have communion with God. For it is impossible, you say, that it, not having something in common with God, should be adorned by him. But if it had something in common with God, it would not desire to be adorned by him, being, namely, a part of God through communion. Or God too could be adorned by Matter, having himself too something in common with it; and now in this you subject God to necessity, if there was something in Matter on account of which he should form it. But you make this common between them, that they are moved by themselves and are always moved. What less do you ascribe to Matter than to God? The whole consortium of divinity will be this: liberty and eternity of motion. But God is moved orderly, Matter unfoundedly. Yet it is likewise divine, by a motion likewise free and eternal. Nay, you give the more to Matter, to which it was permitted to be moved in a way in which it was not permitted to God.

Concerning motion I would have noted this too. For according to the likeness of the pot, you say, such was the motion of Matter before it was disposed — concrete, restless, ungraspable through the excess of its conflict. Then you subjoin, But it stood still for the composition of God, and the unfounded motion was ungraspable through the slowness of the unfounded motion. Above you ascribe conflict to the motion, here slowness. For take note how often you fall concerning the nature of Matter. Above you say, But if Matter were of an evil nature, it would not have admitted translation into the better, nor would God have accommodated anything of composition to it; for he would have laboured in vain. You have therefore concluded two sentences — that Matter is not of an evil nature, and that its nature could not be converted by God — forgetful of which you afterwards bring in: But when it received composition from God and was adorned, it ceased from its nature. If it was reformed into good, surely it was reformed from evil; and if through the composition of God it ceased from the nature of evil, then it ceased from its nature, and its nature was evil before composition, and it could cease from its nature after reformation.

But it follows that I should show in what manner you make God to have worked. Plainly you depart from the philosophers; but yet from the prophets too. For the Stoics will have it that God ran through Matter as honey through honeycombs. But you say, Not by passing through it does he make the world, but only by appearing and approaching it, as a beautiful thing acts by only appearing, and the magnet stone by only approaching. What likeness is there between God fabricating the world and beauty wounding the mind, or a magnet attracting iron? For even if God appeared to Matter, yet he did not wound it, as beauty the mind; and if he approached, yet he did not cleave to it, as the magnet to iron. Suppose now your examples were fitting. Certainly, if by appearing and approaching Matter God made the world out of it, then he made it from the time he appeared, and from the time he approached. Therefore, when he had not yet made it, he had neither appeared to it nor approached it. And to whom is it credible that God did not appear to Matter — even as consubstantial to his own through eternity? — that he was far from it whom we believe to be everywhere and everywhere to appear, to whom even inanimate and incorporeal things sing praises in Daniel? How great is this place in which God was so far distant from Matter that he neither appeared nor approached before the constructing of the world? I believe he made a pilgrimage to it from afar, when first he wished to appear and approach it.

But the prophets and apostles do not so hand down that the world was made by God, by his only appearing and approaching Matter; because they named no Matter at all, but first Wisdom founded, the beginning of the ways unto his works; then the Word brought forth, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. In short, by his word the heavens were established, and by his Spirit all their powers. This is the right hand of God and both his hands, through which he worked and constructed. For the works of your hands, he says, are the heavens — by which he both measured heaven and the earth with his span. Do not so flatter God as to wish that he brought forth so many and so great substances by mere seeing and mere approach, and did not establish them by his own powers. For thus too Jeremiah commends him: God making the earth in his strength, preparing the world in his understanding, and by his own sense he stretched out the heavens. These are his powers, by which, straining, he founded all this. His glory is the greater if he laboured. In short, on the seventh day he rested from his works. Each in its own manner. Or, if by only appearing and approaching he made this world — did he, when he ceased to make, again cease to appear and approach? On the contrary, God began the more to appear and to be met everywhere from the time the world was made. You see therefore how all things subsist by the operation of God — by the strength of him who makes the earth, by the understanding of him who prepares the world, and by the sense of him who stretches out heaven — not of one only appearing, nor approaching, but bringing to bear so great efforts of his mind: Wisdom, strength, sense, Word, Spirit, power. Which were not necessary to him if, by only appearing and approaching, he had been perfect. But these are his invisible things, which, according to the apostle, from the foundation of the world are perceived through the things he made — not some Matter or other, but his own sensible attributes. For who has known the mind of the Lord, of which he exclaims, O the depth of the riches and of the wisdom, how unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out! What do these things more savour of than that all things were made out of nothing? — which could neither be found nor searched out except by God alone; otherwise they would be searchable, if they were searched out and found out of Matter. Therefore, in so far as it is established that there was no Matter — from this too, that it does not even fit that there was such a Matter as is introduced — to that same degree it is proved that all things were made by God out of nothing. Except that Hermogenes, by describing the same state for Matter in which he himself is — unfounded, confused, turbulent, of a doubtful and headlong and seething motion — while he shows a document of his art, has painted himself.