Chapter 2.—Of God and His Exclusive Eternity.

2. For certain parties have attempted to gain acceptance for the opinion that God the Father is not Almighty: not that they have been bold enough expressly to affirm this, but in their traditions they are convicted of entertaining and crediting such a notion. For when they affirm that there is a nature4    Naturam which God Almighty did not create, but of which at the same time He fashioned this world, which they admit to have been disposed in beauty,5    Reading pulchre ordinatum. Some editions give pulchre ornatum = beautifully adorned. they thereby deny that God is almighty, to the effect of not believing that He could have created the world without employing, for the purpose of its construction, another nature, which had been in existence previously, and which He Himself had not made. Thus, forsooth, [they reason] from their carnal familiarity with the sight of craftsmen and house-builders, and artisans of all descriptions, who have no power to make good the effect of their own art unless they get the help of materials already prepared. And so these parties in like manner understand the Maker of the world not to be almighty, if6    Si mundum fabricare non posset. For si some mss. give qui = inasmuch as He could not, etc. thus He could not fashion the said world without the help of some other nature, not framed by Himself, which He had to use as His materials. Or if indeed they do allow God, the Maker of the world, to be almighty, it becomes matter of course that they must also acknowledge that He made out of nothing the things which He did make. For, granting that He is almighty, there cannot exist anything of which He should not be the Creator. For although He made something out of something, as man out of clay,7    De limo = of mud. nevertheless He certainly did not make any object out of aught which He Himself had not made; for the earth from which the clay comes He had made out of nothing. And even if He had made out of some material the heavens and the earth themselves, that is to say, the universe and all things which are in it, according as it is written, “Thou who didst make the world out of matter unseen,”8    Wisd. xi. 17 or also “without form,” as some copies give it; yet we are under no manner of necessity to believe that this very material of which the universe was made, although it might be “without form,” although it might be “unseen,” whatever might be the mode of its subsistence, could possibly have subsisted of itself, as if it were co-eternal and co-eval with God. But whatsoever that mode was which it possessed to the effect of subsisting in some manner, whatever that manner might be, and of being capable of taking on the forms of distinct things, this it did not possess except by the hand of Almighty God, by whose goodness it is that everything exists,—not only every object which is already formed, but also every object which is formable. This, moreover, is the difference between the formed and the formable, that the formed has already taken on form, while the formable is capable of taking the same. But the same Being who imparts form to objects, also imparts the capability of being formed. For of Him and in Him is the fairest figure9    Speciosissima species = the seemliest semblance. of all things, unchangeable; and therefore He Himself is One, who communicates to everything its possibilities, not only that it be beautiful actually, but also that it be capable of being beautiful. For which reason we do most right to believe that God made all things of nothing. For, even although the world was made of some sort of material, this self-same material itself was made of nothing; so that, in accordance with the most orderly gift of God, there was to enter first the capacity of taking forms, and then that all things should be formed which have been formed. This, however, we have said, in order that no one might suppose that the utterances of the divine Scriptures are contrary the one to the other, in so far as it is written at once that God made all things of nothing, and that the world was made of matter without form.

3. As we believe, therefore, in God the Father Almighty, we ought to uphold the opinion that there is no creature which has not been created by the Almighty. And since He created all things by the Word,10    John i. 3 which Word is also designated the Truth, and the Power, and the Wisdom of God,11    John xiv. 6; 1 Cor. i. 24—as also under many other appellations the Lord Jesus Christ, who12    For qui several mss. give quibus here = "under" many other appellations is the Lord Jesus Christ introduced to our mental apprehensions, by which He is commended to our faith. is commended to our faith, is presented likewise to our mental apprehensions, to wit, our Deliverer and Ruler,13    For Rector we also find Creator = Creator. the Son of God; for that Word, by whose means all things were founded, could not have been begotten by any other than by Him who founded all things by His instrumentality;—

CAPUT II.

2. Quod nulla fuerit natura coaeterna Deo, ex qua mundum fecerit. Quomodo mundus ex nihilo, si ex materia informi factus. Conati sunt enim quidam persuadere Deum Patrem non esse omnipotentem: 0182 non quia hoc dicere ausi sunt, sed in suis traditionibus hoc sentire et credere convincuntur. Cum enim dicunt esse naturam quam Deus omnipotens non creaverit, de qua tamen istum mundum fabricaverit, quem pulchre ordinatum esse concedunt; ita omnipotentem Deum negant, ut non eum credant mundum potuisse facere, nisi ad eum fabricandum alia natura, quae jam fuerat, et quam ipse non fecerat, uteretur: carnali scilicet consuetudine videndi fabros et domorum structores et quoslibet opifices, qui nisi adjuventur parata materia, ad effectum suae artis pervenire non possunt. Ita etiam intelligunt fabricatorem mundi non esse omnipotentem, si mundum fabricare non posset, nisi eum aliqua non ab illo fabricata natura, tanquam materies, adjuvaret. Aut si omnipotentem Deum fabricatorem mundi esse concedunt, fateantur necesse est ex nihilo eum fecisse quae fecit. Non enim aliquid esse potest, cujus creator non esset, cum esset omnipotens. Quia etsi aliquid fecit ex aliquo, sicut hominem de limo, non utique fecit ex eo quod ipse non fecerat; quia terram unde limus est, ex nihilo fecerat. Et si ipsum coelum et terram, id est, mundum et omnia quae in eo sunt, ex aliqua materia fecerat, sicut scriptum est, Qui fecisti mundum ex materia invisa (Sap. XI, 18), vel etiam informi, sicut nonnulla exemplaria tenent; nullo modo credendum est illam ipsam materiam de qua factus est mundus, quamvis informem, quamvis invisam, quocumque modo esset, per se ipsam esse potuisse, tanquam coaeternam et coaevam Deo: sed quemlibet modum suum, quem habebat, ut quoquomodo esset, et distinctarum rerum formas posset accipere, non habebat nisi ab omnipotente Deo, cujus beneficio est res non solum quaecumque formata, sed etiam quaecumque formabilis. Inter formatum autem et formabile hoc interest, quod formatum jam accepit formam, formabile autem potest accipere. Sed qui praestat rebus formam, ipse praestat etiam posse formari: quoniam de illo et in illo est omnium speciosissima species incommutabilis; et ideo ipse unus est qui cuilibet rei, non solum ut pulchra sit, 0183 sed etiam ut pulchra esse possit attribuit. Quapropter rectissime credimus omnia Deum fecisse de nihilo: quia etiam si de aliqua materia factus est mundus, eadem ipsa materia de nihilo facta est, ut ordinatissimo Dei munere prima capacitas formarum fieret, ac deinde formarentur quaecumque formata sunt. Hoc autem diximus, ne quis existimet contrarias sibi esse divinarum Scripturarum sententias, quoniam et omnia Deum fecisse de nihilo scriptum est, et mundum esse factum de informi materia.

3. Credentes itaque in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, nullam creaturam esse quae ab omnipotente non creata sit, existimare debemus. Et quia omnia per Verbum creavit, quod Verbum et Veritas dicitur (Joan. XIV, 6), et Virtus et Sapientia Dei (I Cor. I, 24), multisque aliis insinuatur vocabulis qui nostrae fidei Jesus Christus Dominus commendatur, liberator scilicet noster et rector Filius Dei; non enim Verbum illud per quod sunt omnia condita, generare potuit nisi ille qui per ipsum condidit omnia.