Chapter XXXI.—A Further Vindication of the Scripture Narrative of the Creation, Against a Futile View of Hermogenes.

But this circumstance, too, will be caught at, that Scripture meant to indicate of the heaven only, and this earth of yours,315    Ista: the earth, which has been the subject of contention. that God made it in the beginning, while nothing of the kind is said of the above-mentioned specific parts;316    Speciebus. and therefore that these, which are not described as having been made, appertain to unformed Matter. To this point317    Scrupulo: doubt or difficulty. also we must give an answer. Holy Scripture would be sufficiently explicit, if it had declared that the heaven and the earth, as the very highest works of creation, were made by God, possessing of course their own special appurtenances,318    Suggestus: “Hoc est, apparatus, ornatus” (Oehler). which might be understood to be implied in these highest works themselves. Now the appurtenances of the heaven and the earth, made then in the beginning, were the darkness and the deep, and the spirit, and the waters. For the depth and the darkness underlay the earth.  Since the deep was under the earth, and the darkness was over the deep, undoubtedly both the darkness and the deep were under the earth. Below the heaven, too, lay the spirit319    It will be observed that Tertullian applies the spiritus to the wind as a creature. and the waters. For since the waters were over the earth, which they covered, whilst the spirit was over the waters, both the spirit and the waters were alike over the earth. Now that which is over the earth, is of course under the heaven. And even as the earth brooded over the deep and the darkness, so also did the heaven brood over the spirit and the waters, and embrace them.  Nor, indeed, is there any novelty in mentioning only that which contains, as pertaining to the whole,320    Qua summale. and understanding that which is contained as included in it, in its character of a portion.321    Qua portionale. Suppose now I should say the city built a theatre and a circus, but the stage322    Scena. was of such and such a kind, and the statues were on the canal, and the obelisk was reared above them all, would it follow that, because I did not distinctly state that these specific things323    Has species. were made by the city, they were therefore not made by it along with the circus and the theatre? Did I not, indeed, refrain from specially mentioning the formation of these particular things because they were implied in the things which I had already said were made, and might be understood to be inherent in the things in which they were contained? But this example may be an idle one as being derived from a human circumstance; I will take another, which has the authority of Scripture itself.  It says that “God made man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”324    Gen. ii. 7. Now, although it here mentions the nostrils,325    Both in the quotation and here, Tertullian read “faciem” where we read “nostrils.” it does not say that they were made by God; so again it speaks of skin326    Cutem: another reading has “costam,” rib. and bones, and flesh and eyes, and sweat and blood, in subsequent passages,327    See Gen. ii. 21, 23; iii. 5, 19; iv. 10. and yet it never intimated that they had been created by God. What will Hermogenes have to answer? That the human limbs must belong to Matter, because they are not specially mentioned as objects of creation? Or are they included in the formation of man? In like manner, the deep and the darkness, and the spirit and the waters, were as members of the heaven and the earth. For in the bodies the limbs were made, in the bodies the limbs too were mentioned. No element but what is a member of that element in which it is contained. But all elements are contained in the heaven and the earth.

CAPUT XXXI.

Sed et illud utique captabitur: de coelo solo et de terra ista Scripturam significasse, quod eam 0225B in principio Deus fecerit, de speciebus autem supradictis nihil tale: et ideo eas quae factae non significentur, ad infectam materiam pertinere. Respondebimus huic quoque scrupulo. Scriptura divina satis dissereret , si summas ipsas rerum a Deo factas commendasset coelum et terram, habentes utique suggestus suos proprios, qui in ipsis summis intelligi possent. Suggestus autem coeli et terrae primo tunc fuerint tenebrae, et abyssus, et spiritus, et aquae. Nam terrae quidem suberat abyssus et tenebrae. Si enim abyssus infra terram, tenebrae autem super abyssum, sine dubio et tenebrae et abyssus infra terram. Coelo vero spiritus et aquae subjacebant: nam si aquae super terram, quae eam texerant, spiritus autem super aquas, pariter et spiritus et aquae 0225C super terram. Quae vero super terram, ea utique infra coelum. Et sicut terra abysso et tenebris, ita et coelum spiritui et aquis incubabat, et complectebantur . Et ita novum non est, ut id solum quod continet nominetur, qua summale: in isto autem intelligatur 0226A et quod continetur, qua portionale. Ecce, si dicam, Civitas exstruxit theatrum et circum: scena autem erat talis et talis, et statuae super Euripum , et obeliscus super omnia ferebatur: quia non et has species edixerim factas a civitate, non erunt ab ea cum circo et theatro? an ideo non adjeci factas has quoque species, quia inerant eis quae facta praedixeram, et inesse quibus inerant, intelligi poterant? Sed vacet hoc exemplum, ut humanum: aliud de auctoritate Scripturae ipsius arripiam. Fecit, inquit, Deus hominem de terra, et adflavit in faciem ejus flatum vitae, et factus est homo in animam vivam. Faciem quidem ejus hic nominat, sed nec ipsam factam a Deo dixit: costam vero et ossa, et carnem, et oculos, et sudorem, et sanguinem (Gen. II, 21, 23; III, 5, 0226B 29; IV, 10) postea loquitur, quae nec tunc facta a Deo significavit. Quid respondebit Hermogenes? Numquid et membra hominis ad materiam pertinebunt, quia non nominatim facta referuntur? An et haec in hominis factitatione censentur? Proinde membra erunt coeli et terrae abyssus et tenebrae, spiritus et aquae. In corporibus enim membra sunt facta: in corporibus et membra sunt nominata. Nullum elementum non membrum est ejus elementi quo continetur: omnia autem elementa coelo aut terra continentur.