ORTHODOXUS: That it is impossible for two uncreated things to exist together, I do not suppose you are ignorant — even though you do indeed seem, having taken it for granted, to have added this to the argument: that one must by all means and of necessity say one of two things, either that God is separated from matter, or again that He is undivided from it.
If, then, one should wish to say that He is united with it, he will be saying there is one uncreated thing. For each of these will be a part of the other; and being parts of one another, they will not be two uncreated things, but one composed of different parts. For we do not chop a man, who has different members, into many created things; rather, if, as the argument requires, we say that man is one created thing, of many parts, made by God, then likewise it is necessary, if God is not separated from matter, to say that being is one.
But if someone says that He is separated, it is necessary that there be something between the two, which precisely shows their separation. For it is impossible for one thing to be discerned as set apart from another at an interval, if there is not something else by which the interval between each arises.
And this does not stop with this one case only, but extends to as many as you please. For the same argument we stated concerning the two uncreated things must of necessity likewise proceed, if three uncreated things were granted. For concerning these too I would ask: are they separated from one another, or again is each united with its neighbor?
For if someone should wish to say that they are united, he will hear the same argument as in the first case. But if again, on the other hand, that they are separated, he will not escape the necessary subsistence of that which separates them.