Chapter XXVII.—Some Hair-Splitting Use of Words in Which His Opponent Had Indulged.

But you next praise your eyebrows, and toss back your head, and beckon with your finger, in characteristic disdain,257    Implied in the emphatic tu. and say: There is the was, looking as if it pointed to an eternal existence,—making its subject, of course, unbegotten and unmade, and on that account worthy of being supposed to be Matter. Well now, for my own part, I shall resort to no affected protestation,258    Sine u lo lenocinio pronunciationis. but simply reply that “was” may be predicated of everything—even of a thing which has been created, which was born, which once was not, and which is not your Matter. For of everything which has being, from whatever source it has it, whether it has it by a beginning or without a beginning, the word “was” will be predicated from the very fact that it exists. To whatever thing the first tense259    Prima positio: the first inflection perhaps, i.e. the present tense. of the verb is applicable for definition, to the same will be suitable the later form260    Declinatio: the past tense. of the verb, when it has to descend to relation. “Est” (it is) forms the essential part261    Caput. of a definition, “erat” (it was) of a relation.  Such are the trifles and subtleties of heretics, who wrest and bring into question the simple meaning of the commonest words. A grand question it is, to be sure,262    Scilicet. whether “the earth was,” which was made! The real point of discussion is, whether “being without form, and void,” is a state which is more suitable to that which was created, or to that of which it was created, so that the predicate (was) may appertain to the same thing to which the subject (that which was) also belongs.263    This seems to be the meaning of the obscure passage, “Ut ejusdem sit Erat cujus et quod erat.”

CAPUT XXVII.

0221C Sed tu supercilia capitis, nutu digiti accommodato, altius tollens, et quasi retro jactans: Erat, inquis , quasi semper fuerit, scilicet innata et infecta, et idcirco materia credenda. At ego sine ullo lenocinio pronuntiationis simpliciter respondebo, de omni re posse dici erat, etiam de ea quae facta, quae nata sit, quae aliquando non fuerit, et quae materia non sit. Omne enim quod habet esse, unde habeat , sive per initium, sive sine initio , 0222A hoc ipso quod est, etiam erat dicetur. Cui competit prima verbi positio in definitionem, ejusdem etiam declinatio verbi decurret in relationem. Est, definitionis caput; erat, relationi facit . Hae sunt argutiae et subtilitates haereticorum, simplicitatem communium verborum torquentes in quaestionem . Magna scilicet quaestio est, si erat terra, quae facta est. Sane discutiendum an ei competat invisibilem et rudem fuisse quae facta est, an ei ex qua facta est, ut ejusdem sit erat, cujus et quod erat .