Collected Works 5

I. We are accustomed, for the sake of brevity, to prescribe against heretics on the ground of their lateness. For inasmuch as the rule of truth is prior, which even foretold that there would be heresies, in so much shall all later doctrines be prejudged as heresies, because they are the very things that were foretold by the older rule of the truth that was to come. But the doctrine of Hermogenes is so recent; in short, to this very day he is a man in the world, and by nature also a heretic, indeed a turbulent one, who reckons loquacity to be eloquence and counts impudence as constancy and judges reviling of every man to be the duty of a good conscience.

Moreover, he paints unlawfully, marries incessantly, defends the law of God as a pretext for lust, despises it as a matter of art, a double forger both with the branding-iron and with the pen, wholly an adulterer both of preaching and of the flesh; inasmuch as he stinks even of the contagion of those who marry, nor has Hermogenes himself, the would-be apostolic man, persevered in the rule. But let his person be; my dispute is with his doctrine. He does not seem to acknowledge another Lord, yet he makes another the one whom he acknowledges otherwise; nay, he takes away the whole of what God is, in that he refuses to have him make the universe out of nothing.

For having turned from Christians to the philosophers, from the Church to the Academy and the Porch, he took thence from the Stoics the notion of positing matter together with the Lord, matter which itself always was, neither born nor made, having no beginning at all nor end, out of which the Lord afterwards made all things. II. This first shadow, plainly devoid of light, that worst of painters colored over with these argumentations, laying it down beforehand that the Lord made all things either out of himself, or out of nothing, or out of something; so that, when he shall have shown that he could make them neither out of himself nor out of nothing, he may thence confirm what remains, that he made them out of something, and that this something was matter.

He denies that God could make them out of himself, because whatever the Lord had made out of himself would have been parts of himself; but he does not come into parts, being indivisible and immutable and ever the same, insofar as he is Lord. But if he had made something out of himself, something would have been of himself; and everything, both that which was made and that which made, must be held imperfect, because it would be made in part and would make in part. Or if being whole he had made the whole, he must needs be at once both whole and not whole, because it would be needful both that he be whole, so as to make himself, and that he be not whole, so as to be made out of himself. Furthermore, most difficult of all: for if he existed, he would not be made, since he would exist; but if he did not exist, he would not make, since he would be nothing.

But he who ever is, is not made, but is, unto ages of ages. Therefore he did not make them out of himself, being one who was not of such a condition as to be able to make out of himself. Likewise he contends that God could not make them out of nothing, thus defining the Lord as good and best, who would will to make things good and best as much as he himself is; nay, that he would both will and make nothing that is not good and best. Therefore all things ought to have been made by him good and best, according to his own condition. But evils too are found to have been made by him, and surely not of his choice nor of his will, because, if of his choice and will, he would make nothing incongruous and unworthy of himself.

Therefore what he did not make of his own choice, it must be understood to have been made without doubt out of matter, from the defect of some thing. III. He adds yet another point: that God was always God, always also Lord, never not Lord. But by no means could he be held always Lord, just as always God, if there had not been something always in the past over which he might always be held Lord; and so matter was always with God the Lord. This conjecture of his I shall now hasten to demolish—which thus far I judged fit to append for the sake of those who do not understand, that they may know that the other arguments too are as much understood as refuted. We say that the name of God always was with himself and in himself, but the name of Lord not always. For the condition of each is different:

for 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 was, with its own name, which is God; afterwards came Lord, as the mention, that is, of an accruing thing. For from the time when those things began to be over which the Lord's power should act, from that time, by the accession of power, he both became and was called Lord; because both the Father is God and the Judge is God, yet not therefore Father and Judge always, though God always; for neither could he be Father before the Son, nor Judge before the transgression. But there was a time when there was to him neither transgression nor Son, which should make him Judge and Father, Lord.

So too he was not Lord before those things over which he might exist as Lord, but only destined to be Lord at some time, just as Father through the Son, just as Judge through the transgression, so too Lord through those things which he had made to serve him. Do I seem to you, Hermogenes, to be merely arguing? Scripture stoutly champions us, which has distinguished each name for him and shown it in its own time. For "God" indeed, that which he always was, it names at once: In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth; and thereafter, so long as he was making the things over 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 perfected all things, and man himself especially, who, properly, was both to be lord and to understand the Lord—

And when He was about to give Him a further name, then also He added the name 'Lord': 'And the Lord God took the man whom He had formed'; and 'the Lord God gave command to Adam.' From that point He is Lord, who before was only God, from the moment He had one whose Lord He was. For to Himself He was God, but to His creatures He was then God when He was also Lord. Therefore, in so far as one will suppose that matter has always existed on the ground that God was always Lord, to that same extent it will be established that matter did not exist at all, since it is established that God was not always Lord. I too shall add something for the sake of those who do not understand, of whom Hermogenes is the outermost limit; and indeed from his very own inmost knowledge I shall turn the argument 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 relation to matter, which must needs have been free, since, by not having an origin, it had no author, and thus owed nothing to anyone and therefore served no one. And so, from the moment God exercised His power over it by making things out of matter, from that moment matter, by suffering God as Lord, shows that He was not this for just so long as matter itself was this. IV. From here at last I shall begin to treat of matter, namely, that God likens it to Himself as being alike unborn, alike unmade, alike eternal, set forth without beginning and without end. For what other census of God is there than eternity?

What other condition of eternity is there than always to have been and to be about to be, by virtue of having no beginning and no end? If this is proper to God, it will belong to God alone, whose property it is—precisely because, even if it be ascribed to another, it will then no longer be God's property, but shared with him to whom it is also ascribed. For even though there are those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, yet to us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things; so much the more ought that which is proper to God to belong among us to God alone, and, as I have said, it would then no longer be proper, because it would be another's. But if He is God, He must needs be unique, so that He may be the property of one. Or what will be unique and singular except that to which nothing shall be made equal?

What is chief save that which is above all things, save that which is before all things and from which are all things? God alone is such by possessing these, and by possessing them alone He is one. If another too shall possess them, there will now be as many gods as there are those who possess the things that are God's. Thus Hermogenes brings in two gods: he brings in matter as equal to God. But God must needs be one, because that which is supreme is God; and the supreme will not be except that which is unique; and it cannot be unique to which anything shall be made equal; but matter is made equal to God when it is reckoned eternal. V. 'But God is God and matter is matter.' As if diversity of names could resist comparison, when the same condition is claimed for both! Let their nature also be diverse, let their form also not be the same, provided only that the account of their condition be one. God is unborn:

is not matter too unborn? God is always: is not matter too always? Both without beginning, both without end, both moreover authors of the universe—as much He who made it as that out of which He made it. For neither can matter fail to be counted as authoress of all things, out of which the universe subsists. How will he answer? That matter is not straightway compared to God if it has anything of God's, because, by not having the whole, it does not converge into the fullness of comparison? What more has he left to God, so as not to seem to have given the whole of God's to matter?

'Or in that way,' he says, 'even though matter has these things, there is safeguarded for God both His authority and His substance, whereby He is reckoned the sole and first author and Lord of all.' But truth demands one God in such a way as to defend that whatever is His should be His alone. For thus it will be His if it be His alone, and from this no other god can be admitted, since it is lawful for no one to have anything of God's. 'Therefore,' you say, 'we too have nothing of God's.' Nay, we have and we shall have, but from Him, not from ourselves. For we too shall be gods, if we deserve to be among those of whom He declared, 'I said, ye are gods,' and 'God stood in the congregation of the gods'—but by His grace, not by any property of our own, because it is He alone who makes gods.

But Hermogenes makes proper to matter that which it has in common with God; or, if it received from God that which is God's—I mean the rank of eternity—then it can both be believed to have something in common with God and yet not to be God. But what sort of thing is it, when he confesses that matter has something in common with God and yet wishes that to be God's alone which he does not deny that matter possesses? VI. He says it is safeguarded to God that He should be both sole and first and author of all and Lord of all and comparable to none—things which presently he ascribes to matter as well. That One indeed is God. God has borne witness and has sometimes sworn by Himself that there is no other such as Himself; but Hermogenes will make Him a liar. For matter too will be such as God: unmade, unborn, having neither beginning nor end. God will say, 'I am the first.'

And how is He first, whose matter is coeval with Him? But among things coeval and contemporaneous there is no order of precedence. Or is matter also first? 'I alone stretched out the heaven,' He says. And yet not alone, since He stretched it out together with that out of which He also stretched it. When he proposes that matter existed while God's condition remained safe, let him beware lest he be laughed at by us on the ground that God likewise existed while matter's condition remained safe—yet in a condition common to both. Therefore it will also be safeguarded to matter that it too existed, but together with God, because God too was alone, yet together with it. Matter too was first together with God, because God too was first together with it; matter too was incomparable together with God, because God too was incomparable together with it; and authoress together with God, and mistress together with God—thus matter has something and not the whole.

Thus Hermogenes has left God nothing which he had not also bestowed upon matter, so that matter is not compared to God, but rather God to matter. And indeed, since those things which we claim as proper to God—to have always existed without beginning, without end, and to have been the first and the sole and the author of all—belong also to matter, I ask what different and alien thing, and by this deprivation peculiar, matter has possessed, whereby it should not be compared to God. In matter, all the properties of God are enumerated; they sufficiently prejudge the rest of the comparison. VII.

If he contends that matter is lesser and inferior to God, and for that reason diverse from Him, and for that reason incomparable to Him, as to a greater, as to a superior, I lay down that whatever is eternal and unborn admits no diminution or humiliation, because this very thing makes even God only as great as He is—lesser than none, nor subject to any; nay, greater and loftier than all. For just as the other things which are born, or come to an end, and for that reason are not eternal, once set over against an end—which they have from a beginning as well—admit those things which God does not admit (I mean, meanwhile, diminution and subjection, because they were born and made), so also God does not admit these, precisely because He is neither born at all nor made. And such too is the condition of matter.

Therefore, of the two eternals—as unborn, as unmade, namely God and matter—which by the same account hold in equal measure a common condition, that is, the very thing which admits neither to be diminished nor subjected, namely eternity: we say that neither is lesser or greater than the other, that neither is lowlier or higher than the other, but that both stand equally great, equally sublime, equally of that solid and perfect felicity which is reckoned to be eternity. For neither shall we be close to the opinions of the nations, who, if ever they are compelled to confess God, yet also wish there to be others beneath Him. But divinity has no degrees, inasmuch as it is unique; and if it shall be also in matter, so that matter be likewise unborn and unmade and eternal, it will be present on both sides, because it can nowhere be less than itself.

How then will Hermogenes dare to distinguish, and thus 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 am 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 God. Who subjects me to a god that is my contemporary and coeval? If He is called God, I too have my own name. Either I am God and He is matter, since we are both that which each of us is'? Do you think, then, that he has not compared matter to God—matter which, forsooth, he subjects to Him? VIII. Nay, he even sets it before God and rather subjects God to matter, when he will have Him to have made all things out of matter.

For if He used it for the works of the world, then matter is found to be the superior, since it supplied Him with the means of working, and God appears subject to matter, whose substance He needed. For no one fails to need that whose use he enjoys; no one fails to be subject to that of which he has need in order to be able to use it: so too no one, in using what belongs to another, fails to be lesser than him whose thing he uses; and no one who grants of his own the use of it fails to be, in this, superior to him to whom he grants the use. And so matter itself indeed did not need God, but bestowed upon a needy God riches and wealth and generosity—being lesser, I suppose, and weak and less fit to make out of nothing whatever it wished.

A great benefit indeed did matter confer upon God, that He might have today the means whereby He is known and called Almighty—except that He is now no longer Almighty, if He is not also powerful in this: to bring forth all things out of nothing. Doubtless matter also bestowed something upon itself, that it too might be recognized together with God, coequal with God, nay even His helper—except that Hermogenes alone has come to know it, and the patriarchs of the heretics, the philosophers; for it lay hidden until now from the prophets and the apostles, and, I suppose, from Christ Himself. IX. He cannot say that God used matter as a Lord for the works of the world, for He could not be Lord of a substance coequal with Himself.

But perhaps He used it by sufferance, and therefore by sufferance and not by lordship, so that, since matter was evil, He nevertheless endured to use it though it was evil—namely, out of the necessity of His own mediocrity, whereby He was not able to make use of nothing (that is, to create from nothing), and not out of power; for had He possessed power over the matter which He knew to be evil, altogether as a God, He would first have turned it to good, as a Lord and a good one, so that thus He might use it as good and not as evil. But because He was indeed good, yet not Lord, He therefore used it such as He had it, and so showed His own necessity yielding to the condition of matter—which, had He been Lord, He would have amended. For thus must Hermogenes be answered, when he defends God's use of matter as arising from lordship, and of a thing not His own, that is, not made by Him.

Now therefore evil comes from Him who is of evil—if not its author, because not its maker, at least its permitter, because its ruler. But if in truth matter is not His own—whereby the evil will not be God's—then He used another's thing, either by sufferance, since He was in need of it, or even by wrong, since He prevailed over it. For in these three ways things belonging to another are taken: by right, by favor, by force—that is, by lordship, by sufferance, by force. Since lordship is not available, let Hermogenes choose which befits God: to have made all things out of matter by sufferance or by force. Would not God, then, have judged it better to make nothing at all than to make it by sufferance or by force—and that too out of evil? Nay, even if matter had been of the best, would He not equally have deemed it unseemly for Himself to make out of another's thing, though a good one?

And so, for the sake of His own glory, He toiled to build the world in such a way as to show Himself a debtor to another's substance—and indeed to one not good! X. 'Therefore,' you say, 'let Him make out of nothing, so that evils too might be imputed to His will?' Great, in good faith, is the blindness of the heretics in an argument of this sort, when they wish, on this ground, either that another god be believed good and best because they reckon the Creator to be the author of evil, or they propose matter alongside the Creator, in order to derive evil from matter and not from the Creator—whereas no god at all is freed from this question, so that whoever he be may seem not to be the author of evil, seeing that whoever it is who, even if he did not make evil himself, yet suffered it to be made by anyone from any source whatever.

Let Hermogenes, then, also hear—while elsewhere we make our distinctions concerning the rationale of evil—that meanwhile he too has accomplished nothing by this suggestion of his. For behold, even though not the author, God is found to be an abettor of evil, who endured the evil of matter, so good, for so long before the constitution of the world, when, as good and a rival of evil, He ought to have amended it. For either He could amend it but would not, or He indeed would but could not—a weak god. If He could and would not, He too is evil, because He favored evil; and thus that thing is now held to be His which, although He did not establish it, yet—since, had He not wished it to exist, it would not have existed—He Himself has now made to exist what He did not wish not to exist. And what is more disgraceful than this?

If He willed that to exist which He Himself did not will to make, He acted against Himself, since He both willed to exist that which He did not will to make, and did not will to make that which He willed to exist. As it were, He willed it to exist as good, and did not will to make it as evil; that which, by not making, He judged evil, that same thing, by enduring, He pronounced good. By enduring evil in place of good, and by not rather rooting it out, He was found to be its upholder—wickedly, if by will; disgracefully, if by necessity. Either God will be the servant of evil or its friend, since He kept company with the evil of matter, not to say also wrought out of its evil. XI. And yet, from what source does Hermogenes persuade us that matter is evil? For he will not be able not to call that evil to which he ascribes evil.

For we lay it down that whatever is eternal cannot admit diminution and subjection, so as to be reckoned inferior to another coeternal thing. So too now we do not say that evil befits it, because not even on this ground could it be subjected—it which can in no way be subjected, since it is eternal. But since, on the other hand, it is established that the supreme good is that which is eternal, as God is—by which alone He is God, in that He is eternal, and so is good, in that He is God—how shall evil be inherent in matter, which, as eternal, must needs be believed to be the supreme good? Or if that which is eternal shall be able to be capable of evil, this too can be believed of God, and Hermogenes has exulted without cause in transferring evil away from God, if it befits even the eternal by befitting matter.

But now, if that which is eternal can be believed to be evil, then evil, as eternal, will be invincible and insuperable; and then we labor in vain to remove evil from our very selves, and then God too commands and enjoins this in vain—nay, God has also established His judgment in vain, since He will surely be punishing with injustice.

But if, on the contrary, there shall be an end of evil—when its chief, the devil, shall have gone away into the fire which God prepared for him and his angels, being first relegated into the pit of the abyss; when the revelation of the sons of God shall have redeemed the creation, which was subjected to vanity by evil; when, with innocence and integrity of the creation restored, the cattle shall consort with the beasts and little children shall play with serpents; when the Father shall have put the enemies under the feet of the Son, namely the workers of evil—therefore, if an end befits evil, of necessity a beginning too has befitted it, and matter will have a beginning, in that it has also an end of evil; for those things which are reckoned to evil are computed according to the evil condition of matter. XII.

Come now, let us believe that matter is evil and most evil—by nature, of course—just as we believe God to be good and best, likewise by nature. Further, its nature will have to be held certain and fixed, persevering as much in evil in the case of matter as in good in the case of God—unconvertible and immutable, that is; because, if the nature in matter shall be changed from evil into good, it will also be able to be changed in God from good into evil. At this point someone will say: 'Therefore the sons of Abraham shall not be raised up from the stones, and the brood of vipers shall not bring forth the fruit of repentance, and the children of wrath shall not become children of peace, if nature shall not be changeable?' Rashly, O man, will you look to these examples.

For those things which are born—stones and vipers and men—do not fit the case of matter, which is unborn; for their nature, by having an origination, will be able to have a cessation as well. But hold matter, once for all, to be eternal, determined as unmade, as unborn, and therefore to be believed of an immutable and incorruptible nature—even from the very opinion of Hermogenes which he sets forth, when he denies that God could make out of Himself, because that which is eternal is not changed, since forsooth it would lose what it had been, while it comes into being through change what it was not, if it were not eternal; and that an eternal Lord cannot be other than what He always is. With this definition too I shall justly beat him back.

I likewise reproach matter, since out of it, evil and even most evil, things good and even best are made by God: 'And God saw that they were good, and God blessed them'—as being the best, surely, not certainly as being evil and most evil. Matter, therefore, admitted a change; and if that is so, it lost the condition of eternity; its own form, in short, died. But eternity cannot be lost, because unless it could not be lost, it would not be eternity. Therefore neither could matter have admitted a change, because, if it is eternity, it can in no way be changed. XIII. And it will be asked how out of it good things were made, which by change were in no way made. Whence, in the evil and most evil, is the seed of the good and the best?

Surely a good tree does not bring forth evil fruits, since neither is God other than good; nor an evil tree good fruits, since neither is matter other than most evil. Or, if we shall grant to it something of good seed as well, then it will no longer be of a uniform nature—that is, wholly evil—but now twofold, that is, of an evil and a good nature; and it will be asked again whether in the same thing good and evil could have come together, light and darkness, sweet and bitter. Or, if the diversity of both, of good and evil, could have concurred, and the nature of matter could have been twofold, fruitful of both fruits, then neither will the good things themselves be reckoned to God, just as neither will the evil be imputed to Him, but both kinds, being drawn from the property of matter, will pertain to matter.

In which case we shall owe God neither gratitude for the good things nor blame for the evil, because He wrought nothing out of His own genius; whereby it will be manifestly proved that He was a slave to matter. XIV. For even if it be said that, though on the occasion offered by matter, He nevertheless by His own choice brought forth good things, as having obtained the good of matter—although even this would be disgraceful—yet certainly, since out of the same matter He brings forth evil things also, in bringing forth these at any rate not of 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 unwilling; and out of servitude, in that out of necessity. Which then is the worthier—that He founded evils out of necessity or out of will? Since, if He founded them out of necessity, it was out of matter; out of will, if out of nothing.

For now you labor without cause, lest God be constituted the author of evils; because, even if He made them out of matter, they will be imputed to Him who made them, precisely in so far as He made them. Plainly it makes as much difference from what He made them as if He had made them out of nothing; nor does it matter from what He made them, but that He should have made them from that from which it more befitted Him; and it more befitted Him to have made out of will than out of necessity, that is, out of nothing rather than out of matter. It is worthier to believe God the author even of evils to be free rather than a slave; for whatever power befits Him rather than paltriness. Thus too, if we grant that matter indeed had nothing of good, but that the Lord, if He produced anything of good, produced it by His own virtue, other questions will likewise arise.

First, if there was no good at all in matter, the good was not made out of matter, since matter forsooth did not possess it; next, if not out of matter, then it was made out of God; if not out of God either, then it was made out of nothing—for this remains according to Hermogenes' arrangement. XV. Further, if the good was made neither out of matter, because it was not in it, as being evil, nor out of God, because nothing could be made out of God, as Hermogenes defines, the good is found to have been made now out of nothing, as out of nothing—that is, neither out of matter nor out of God. And if the good is out of nothing, why not the evil too? Nay, why not all things out of nothing, if anything is out of nothing? Unless indeed the divine power was insufficient for producing all things—the power which brought forth something out of nothing.

Or, if the good proceeded out of evil matter, since it was neither out of nothing nor out of God, it will follow that it proceeded out of a conversion of matter, against the conversion of the eternal which he has denied. Thus, whence the good came to be, Hermogenes will now deny that it could have come to be therefrom; yet of necessity it proceeded out of some one of those things out of which he denied that it could have proceeded.

But if, on this ground, evil is not out of nothing—lest it become God's, since it will seem to have been made of His choice—but out of matter, so that it may be matter's own, of whose substance it will have been made; here too, as I have said, God will be held the author of evil, who, when He ought with the same power and will to have brought forth all things good out of matter, or good things only, yet brought forth not all good things but evil ones too—either, at any rate, willing evils to exist, if He was able to effect that they should not exist; or unable to effect all things good, if He willed it and did not do it—whereas it makes no difference whether through weakness or through will the Lord stood forth as author of evil. Or what was the reason that, when He had made good things as a good one, He also brought forth evil things as not good, since He produced things not consistent with Himself alone?

What need was there, once His own work had been brought forth, also to attend to the business of matter, by likewise bringing forth evil, so that He alone might be known as good out of good, but matter might not be known as evil out of evil? The good would have flourished more without the blast of evil. For Hermogenes too assails the arguments of certain persons who say that evils were necessary for the illumination of goods, which are to be understood from their contraries. Therefore either there was no place for bringing forth evil on that account; or, if some other reason demanded that it be introduced, why could it not have been introduced out of nothing as well—the very reason being about to excuse the Lord, lest He be reckoned the author of evil, which reason now, when He works out of matter, excuses the evils?

If it excuses, then everywhere and from every side the question is driven to that very point to which those men are unwilling it should come—those who, by not examining nor discerning the very rationale of evil, how they may either attribute it to God or separate it from God, cast God down by more and unworthier demolitions. XVI. Therefore, in the fore-structuring of this article—perhaps to be treated again elsewhere—I for my part define 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 them; or both to both, since both are bound together, He who made and that out of which He made; or the one to the other; for there is no third besides matter and God. Now if both shall be God's, God will seem to be the author of evil too; but God, as good, will not be the author of evil.

If both are matter's, matter will seem to be the mother of good too; but matter, being wholly evil, will not be the mother of good. If both shall be of both, in this too matter will be compared to God, and both will be equals, alike akin to evil and to good; but matter ought not to be made equal to God, lest it produce two gods. If the one belongs to the other—namely, the good to God and the evil to matter—then 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 see by what verdict Hermogenes can escape, who thinks that God—in whatever way He founded evil out of matter, whether by will or by necessity or by reason—is not the author of evil.

Further, if the author of evil is the very one who made it, though matter be its associate by the contribution of its substance, you have now excused away the reason for introducing matter. For no less is God shown to be the author of evil even through matter, if matter was assumed for this very purpose—lest God should seem the author of evil. Matter, therefore, being excluded, since its reason is excluded, it remains established that God made all things out of nothing. We shall see whether He made evils too, when it shall have appeared which things are evil, and whether meanwhile those things are evil which you suppose. For He more worthily produced these things also of His own choice by producing them out of nothing, than by another's prejudgment, had He produced them out of matter. Liberty, not necessity, befits God. I would rather He willed to have founded evils of Himself than that He could not have failed to found them. XVII.

The condition of the one God vindicates this rule: that He is not otherwise one save because He is sole, nor otherwise sole save because there is nothing with Him. Thus too He will be first, because all things are after Him; thus all things are after Him, because all things are from Him; thus they are from Him, because out of nothing—so that the reasoning of that Scripture too may hold good: 'Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or whom did He consult? Or who showed Him the way of understanding and knowledge? Who first gave to Him, and it shall be repaid to him?' No one at all, because no force, no matter, no nature of any other substance was present with Him. But if He wrought out of some substance, of necessity He received from that very thing both counsel and the handling of the arrangement, as the way of understanding and knowledge.

For according to the quality of the thing He would have had to work, and according to the nature of matter, not according to His own choice—so much so that He would have made even the evils according to a nature not His own but that of the substance. XVIII. 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 to be understood among the prophets—namely His own Wisdom. This alone, in short, has known the mind of the Lord. For who knows the things that are God's, and the things that are in Him, save the Spirit who is in Him? But Wisdom is the Spirit: she was His counselor, she is herself the way of understanding and knowledge; out of her He made, by making through her, and by making with her.

'When He was preparing the heaven,' she says, 'I was present with Him; and when He was making strong above the winds the clouds that are on high, and how He was setting firm the fountains of that which is under heaven, I was there, framing together with Him. I was He in whom He rejoiced; and daily I took delight in His presence, when He rejoiced, having perfected the world, and He took delight in the sons of men.' Who would not rather commend this as the fountain and origin of all things—the very matter of matters, not subject to an end, not diverse in condition, not restless in motion, not formless in aspect, but inborn and proper and composed and comely—of which God could have had need, His own rather than another's, being needy?

In short, as He perceived her to be necessary for the works of the world, He straightway founds and begets her within Himself. 'The Lord,' she says, 'founded me, 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; and before all the hills He begot me; before the abyss too I was brought forth.' Let Hermogenes, then, acknowledge that for this very reason the Wisdom of God too is proclaimed to be born and founded, lest we should believe anything to be unborn and unfounded save God alone.

For if within the Lord that which was out of Him and in Him did not exist without a beginning—namely His own Wisdom, which was born and founded thenceforth, from the moment it began to be stirred in the mind of God for the arranging of the works of the world—much more does it not admit that anything existed without a beginning which was outside the Lord. But if this same Wisdom is the Word of God, without whom nothing was made, just as also nothing was arranged without Wisdom, how is it that to the Son of God, the Word only-begotten and first-begotten, anything should have been more ancient than the Father, and in this way at any rate more nobly born—nay, that the unborn should be stronger than the born, and the unmade mightier than the made, because that which, in order to exist, needed no author, will be far loftier than that which, in order to exist, had some author?

Accordingly, if evil is indeed unborn, whereas the Word of God is begotten -- for 'my heart hath belched forth a good Word,' he says -- I do not know whether evil can be produced by good, the stronger by the weaker, the unborn by the born. 4. So on this ground too Hermogenes sets matter before God, by setting it before the Son -- for the Son is the Word, and God is the Word, and 'I and the Father are one' -- unless indeed the Son will endure with equanimity that she be set before Him who is made equal to the Father. XIX. But I shall also appeal to the original document of Moses, from which the opposing party too tries, whether one will or not, to prop up its own conjectures, lest it should appear not to be instructed from the very source from which it ought to be. And so it has seized on the occasions offered by certain words, as is generally the custom of heretics, twisting whatever is simple.

For they insist that the very 'beginning' in which God made both heaven and earth was something substantival and corporeal, which could be interpreted as matter. But we assign to each word its own proper sense: that 'beginning' means a commencement, and that it was fittingly so used of things beginning to come into being; for nothing that is destined to come into being exists without a commencement, since indeed its very starting to come into being is a commencement to it; thus 'beginning,' or the commencement of an inception, is a term, not the name of any substance. Now then, if the principal works of God are heaven and earth, which God made before all things, being properly the beginning of His works, seeing that they were made first, rightly does Scripture thus preface itself:

'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth' -- just as He would have said, 'In the end God made the heaven and the earth,' had He made them after all other things. Or if 'beginning' is some substance, then 'end' too will be some kind of matter. Plainly it will indeed be permissible for something substantival to be the beginning of another thing which is to come from it, as clay is the beginning of a pot, as seed is the beginning of a plant; but when we use the word 'beginning' in this way, as a name of origin and not of sequence, we also add express mention of the very thing which we wish to be the beginning of another thing. For the rest, if we should put it thus, for example:

'In the beginning the potter made a basin or an urn,' then 'beginning' will no longer signify matter, for I did not name clay as the beginning, but the order of the work, because the potter first, before the rest, made the basin and the urn, being about thereafter to make the remaining things as well; the word 'beginning' will pertain to the ordering of works, not to the origin of substances. I can also interpret 'beginning' in another way, and not indeed out of place; for in Greek too the word for 'beginning,' which is arche, takes on a principate that is not only of order but also of authority, whence they call rulers and magistrates 'archons' too. Therefore according to this signification also 'beginning' will be taken for principate and power: for in His principate and power did God make the heaven and the earth.

XX. But even granting that the Greek word signifies nothing other than 'beginning,' and that 'beginning' means nothing other than 'commencement,' we still have that one who acknowledges herself to be a commencement, she who says: 'The Lord created me at the commencement of His works.' For if all things were made through the Wisdom of God, then God, in making heaven and earth in the beginning -- that is, at the commencement -- made them in His Wisdom. In short, if 'beginning' signified matter, Scripture would not have framed it 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 first made, since by thinking and disposing He had already made in her; because -- even if He had been about to make out of matter -- He had beforehand already made in Wisdom by thinking and disposing, seeing that she was 'the beginning of His ways,' inasmuch as thought and disposition are the first operation of Wisdom, establishing by way of forethought a road for the works. This authority also I claim for myself from Scripture, in that, when it shows both the God who made and the things which He made, it does not likewise attest the source from which He made. For since in every operation there are three principals -- 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 account of a work: the person of the maker, the kind of thing made, the form of the matter.

If matter is not set forth, in the place where both the works and the worker of the works are set forth, it is evident that He wrought out of nothing; for the source from which would likewise have been set forth, had He wrought out of something. In short, I shall bring in the Gospel as a supplement to the ancient document, in which all the more ought God to have been shown to have made all things out of some matter, in that there is revealed even Him 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 the proper order have required it to be declared out of what all things were made by God through the Word, if they had been made out of something? Thus what did not exist Scripture could not declare, and by not declaring it, it sufficiently proved that it did not exist, for it would have declared it, had it existed. XXI. 'Therefore,' you say, 'if you for this reason prejudge that all things were made out of nothing, because nothing is manifestly reported to have been made out of preexisting matter, take heed lest the opposing party for the same 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 not therefore at once and on equal terms admitted, where there is a difference in the case.

For I say that, even though Scripture did not openly declare that all things were made out of nothing, just 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 have been, had they been made out of matter; because that which is made out of nothing, by the very fact that it is not shown to have been made out of anything, is manifested to have been made out of nothing, and runs no risk of being supposed to have been made out of something, since it is not demonstrated out of what it was made.

But that which is made out of something -- unless this very thing be openly declared, that it was made out of something, when the source out of which it was made is shown -- will run a risk: first, of seeming to have been made out of nothing, because the source out of which it was made is not set forth; then, even if its condition is such that it cannot but seem to have been made out of something, it will likewise run the risk of seeming to have been made out of a source far other than that out of which it actually was made, so long as the source from which it was made is not stated. Thus, if God could have made all things out of nothing, Scripture could have refrained from adding that He made them out of nothing; but it ought by all means to have declared that He made them out of matter, if indeed He had made them out of matter, because the former would have been understood in its entirety even if it were not signified, whereas the latter would remain in doubt unless it were signified. XXII.

And so much indeed has the Holy Spirit established this rule of His own Scripture, that whenever something is made out of something, it reports both what is made and whence it is made. 'Let the earth,' He says, 'bring forth the herb of grass sowing seed after its kind and after its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit whose seed is in itself after its likeness. And it was so. And the earth brought forth the herb of grass sowing seed after its kind, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit whose seed is in itself after its likeness.' And again: 'And God said, Let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls, and the flying fowl flying above the earth through the firmament of heaven. And it was so.'

'And God made the great sea-monsters and every soul of creeping living creatures, which the waters brought forth after their kind.' Likewise after these things: 'And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living soul after its kind, quadrupeds and creeping things and the beasts of the earth after their kind.' If therefore, when God brings forth other things out of things already made, He shows through the prophet and states both what He brought forth and from what -- although we could reckon whence those things were brought forth, provided only it be not out of nothing;

for certain things had already been made, out of which those could be seen to have been brought forth -- if the Holy Spirit expended so great a care for our instruction, that we might know what came forth from what, would He not likewise have made us informed also concerning heaven and earth, by signifying whence He had wrought them, if their origin consisted out of some matter, lest they should so much the more seem to have been wrought out of nothing, in that as yet nothing had been made out of which they could seem to have been wrought? And so, just as He shows, with regard to those things which were brought forth out of something, whence they were brought forth, so with regard to those things whose source He does not show, He confirms that they were brought forth out of nothing. Therefore, 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.' I adore the fullness of Scripture, which reveals to me both the maker and the things made.

But in the Gospel I find, moreover, the Word to be also the minister and agent of the maker. But whether all things were made out of some underlying matter, I have nowhere yet read: let Hermogenes' workshop teach that it is written; if it is not written, let it fear that 'woe' appointed for those who add or take away. XXIII. But he argues from what follows, because it is written: 'And the earth was invisible and unformed.' For he reduces the very name of 'earth' to matter, on the ground that earth is that which was made out of it; and he directs the word 'was' to this, as of something that had always existed before, unborn and unmade -- invisible, moreover, and 'raw,' because he wishes matter to have been formless and confused and unarranged.

These opinions of his I shall refute one by one; but meanwhile I wish to answer him thus: Let us suppose that by these clauses matter is indicated; yet does Scripture, on the ground that it existed before all things, signify that any such thing was made out of it? On the contrary, it signifies nothing of the kind. Let matter have existed, as far as it is permitted to itself, 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 had need of anything, or certainly because it is nowhere shown that He made anything out of matter. 'It would then be without cause,' you say. Not altogether so without cause. For even if the world was not made out of it, yet heresy has been made -- and that the more shameless in that heresy was not made out of matter, but rather heresy itself made matter.

XXIV. I now return to the individual clauses through which he supposed matter to be signified, and first I shall press the point concerning the names. For of these we read the one, that of 'earth,' but the other we do not find, that of 'matter.' I ask therefore: since the naming of 'matter' does not occur in Scripture, how is even the appellation 'earthy' fitted to it, when 'earth' is already known in another genus of substance? -- all the more since the naming of 'matter' too ought to have appeared, following upon the appellation of 'earth' as well, so that I might know that 'earth' is a name common to matter, lest I should claim it for that substance alone whose proper name it also is, in which it is the more known; or lest I should be able to share it with any other kind whatsoever -- and certainly not with all matter -- were I so minded.

For when there does not exist a proper name for that thing to which a common name is ascribed, the less it appears to whom it is to be ascribed, the more it can be ascribed to any other thing whatever. Thus Hermogenes, even if he could show matter to be named, ought to prove that the same was also surnamed 'earth,' so as thus to claim both words for it. XXV. He wishes, then, that two 'earths' be set forth in that passage of Scripture: one which in the beginning God made, another the matter out of which He made it, concerning which it is said: 'And the earth was invisible and raw.'

Now if I should ask, of these two, which ought to lend the name 'earth' to which, it will be said that this one, which was made out of that, derived the word from that out of which it was made, because it is more probable that the offspring should be named from the origin than the origin from the offspring. If this is so, another question envelops us: whether it is fitting that this earth, which God made out of that out of which He made it, derived its surname. For I hear from Hermogenes and the rest of the materialist heretics that that earth was indeed formless and invisible and raw, but that this earth of ours accordingly obtained both form and appearance and adornment from God, and thus was made a different thing from what that was out of which it was made. Moreover, being made a different thing, it could not be associated in name with that from whose condition it had departed.

If 'earth' was the proper name of that matter, then this one, which is not matter -- being made, forsooth, a different thing -- does not take on the name of 'earth' which is foreign to it and alien to its own state. 'But the made matter, that is, this earth, had a fellowship of name with its origin, just as also of kind.' Not so at all. For even a potsherd, though made out of clay, I shall no longer call clay but a potsherd; and electrum, though compounded out of gold and silver, I shall nevertheless call neither silver nor gold, but electrum. From whatever's condition a thing diverges, it withdraws equally also from the appellation of that thing, as it does from the property of its state. But how far this earth has passed over from the state of that earth, that is, of matter, is plain even from this, that in Genesis it receives the testimony of being good:

'And God saw that it was good'; whereas that other one, according to Hermogenes, is reckoned as the origin and cause of evils. Finally, if this earth is called earth because that one too is, why is not this matter also called matter because that one is? Nay, even heaven and all things, if they consist of matter, ought to have been called both earths and matters. Enough of this about the name of 'earth,' in which he wished matter to be understood -- a name which everyone knows to belong first to one single element by nature, then by Scripture's teaching, unless indeed we ought also to believe that Silenus who, before King Midas, asserted concerning another world, on the authority of Theopompus; but the same man also reports many gods. XXVI. For us, however, there is one God and one earth, which in the beginning God made.

Beginning to run through its order, Scripture first declares it to have been made, then expounds its quality -- just as, having professed that heaven too was first made: 'In the beginning God made heaven,' it thereafter superadds its arrangement: 'And He separated between the water which was below the firmament and that which was above the firmament, and God called the firmament heaven,' that very thing which He had made in the beginning. Likewise also concerning man: 'And God made man, in the image of God He made him,' and thereafter it renders how He made him: 'And God fashioned man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.' And it is indeed fitting thus to enter upon a narration: first to preface, afterwards to proceed; first to name, then to describe.

Otherwise it would be idle, if of a thing of which He had premised no mention -- that is, matter, not even its very name -- Scripture had suddenly promulgated the form and appearance, narrating beforehand what sort it was before it had shown whether it was, deforming its shape while hiding its name. But how much more credibly, according to us, has Scripture subjoined the arrangement of that thing whose institution and at the same time naming it had premised! How coherent, in fine, is the sense: 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and the earth was invisible and raw' -- which earth God had of course made, and concerning which Scripture had just now most emphatically declared! For the very word 'but' (autem) is placed, like a clasp of a conjoining particle, to link up the narration: 'but the earth';

for by this word it reverts to that earth of which it had spoken above, and binds the sense together. Remove the 'but' from here, and the joint is loosened, so that it might then seem to have been said of another earth: 'The earth was invisible and raw.' XXVII. But you, raising your eyebrow higher with a nod of the head, a finger applied, and as it were casting it back, say 'was,' as though it had always been -- unborn, forsooth, and unmade, and therefore to be believed matter. But I, without any allurement of pronouncement, will simply reply that 'was' can be said of any thing whatever, even of that which has been made, which has been born, which at some time was not, and which is not matter. For everything that has being, from whatever source 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.'

To whatever the first positing of the verb belongs, in a definition, of that same thing the inflection of the verb will also run on into a relation of past time; 'is' makes the head of a definition, 'was' makes that of a relation. These are the subtleties and quibbles of the heretics, twisting the simplicity of common words into a controverted question: a great question, forsooth, whether the earth, which was made, 'was'! To be sure, it is to be discussed whether it fits her that she was invisible and raw who was made, or her out of whom she was made, so that the 'was' may belong to the same one as that which was. XXVIII. And yet we shall prove not only that this state was fitting to this earth, but also that it was not fitting to the other.

For if bare matter thus lay subject to God, with no element, of course, obstructing -- seeing that as yet there was nothing besides itself and God -- it certainly could not be invisible; for even though he should wish darkness to have existed in the substance of matter -- to which point we shall have to reply in its own place -- even to man darkness is visible, for this very fact that they are darkness is seen; much more to God. And certainly, if it were invisible, its quality could in no way be known. Whence then did Hermogenes ascertain that it was formless and confused and unquiet, that which lay hidden as invisible? Or, if this was revealed by God, he ought to prove it. Likewise I also demand whether it could be called 'raw.' For surely that is raw which is imperfect.

Certainly the imperfect cannot exist except in that which has been made; for that which has been less made is imperfect. 'Certainly,' you say. Therefore matter, which had not been made at all, could not have been imperfect; that which was not imperfect was also not raw. Having no beginning, because it had not been made, it lacked also its rudimentary stage; for the rudimentary stage is an accident of a beginning. But the earth, which was made, deserved also to be called raw; for as soon as it was made, it had the place of the imperfect before perfection. XXIX. Inasmuch as God consummated all His works in order, first marking out the world, as it were, with uncultivated elements, then dedicating it as it were with them adorned.

For He did not at once fill the light with the splendor of the sun, nor at once temper the darkness with the solace of the moon, nor at once mark the heaven with constellations and stars, nor at once throng the sea with monsters, nor at once endow the earth itself with its varied fecundity; but first He conferred existence upon it, then supplied that it should not be in vain. For thus also Isaiah says: 'He made it not in vain, but to be inhabited.'

Therefore, after it had been made, and was to be perfect as well, in the meantime it was invisible and raw -- raw indeed by this very fact too that it was invisible, so as not to be perfected even for sight, and likewise so as not yet to be furnished as regards the rest; but invisible, inasmuch as it was still covered over by the waters, as if by a protective wall of generative moisture, in which shape our own flesh, akin to it, is also brought forth. For David too sings thus: 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world, and all who dwell in it; He hath founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the rivers.' For when the waters were separated off into the hollow of the gulfs, the dry land, which before this was covered by the waters, was made more prominent. Thenceforth, accordingly, it is also made visible, when God says:

'Let the water be gathered together 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 until then, though invisible, it was enduring to be seen; and 'dry,' because it was to be so as a result of the parting off of the moisture, yet still earth: 'and God called the dry land earth,' not matter. Thus also, having afterwards attained perfection, it ceases to be held raw, when God pronounces: 'Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass sowing seed after its kind and after its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit whose seed is in itself after its likeness'; likewise: 'Let the earth bring forth the living soul after its kind, both quadrupeds and creeping things and the beasts of the earth after their kind.'