Chapter XLII.—Further Exposure of Inconsistencies in the Opinions of Hermogenes Respecting the Divine Qualities of Matter.

You have thrown out all your views loosely and at random,447    Dispersisti omnia. in order that it might not be apparent, by too close a proximity, how contrary they are to one another. I, however, mean to gather them together and compare them.  You allege that motion in Matter is without regularity,448    Inconditum. and you go on to say that Matter aims at a shapeless condition, and then, in another passage, that it desires to be set in order by God. Does that, then, which affects to be without form, want to be put into shape? Or does that which wants to be put into shape, affect to be without form? You are unwilling that God should seem to be equal to Matter; and then again you say that it has a common condition449    “Communionem.” with God. “For it is impossible,” you say, “if it has nothing in common with God, that it can be set in order by Him.” But if it had anything in common with God, it did not want to be set in order,450    Ornari: “to be adorned.” being, forsooth, a part of the Deity through a community of condition; or else even God was susceptible of being set in order451    Ornari: “to be adorned.” by Matter, by His having Himself something in common with it. And now you herein subject God to necessity, since there was in Matter something on account of which He gave it form. You make it, however, a common attribute of both of them, that they set themselves in motion by themselves, and that they are ever in motion. What less do you ascribe to Matter than to God? There will be found all through a fellowship of divinity in this freedom and perpetuity of motion.

Only in God motion is regular,452    Composite. in Matter irregular.453    Incondite. In both, however, there is equally the attribute of Deity—both alike having free and eternal motion. At the same time, you assign more to Matter, to which belonged the privilege of thus moving itself in a way not allowed to God.

CAPUT XLII.

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Dispersisti omnia, ne de proximo quam contraria sibi sint relucerent. At ego colligam singula, et conferam. Inconditum adseveras motum materiae, eamque adjicis sectari informitatem: dehinc alibi, desiderare componi a Deo. Desiderat formationem quae sectatur informitatem, aut sectatur informitatem quae desiderat formationem? Non vis videri Deum aequari materiae, et subjicis habere illam cum Deo communionem. Impossibile enim, inquis, non habentem illam commune aliquid cum Deo, ornari eam ab ipso. Atquin, si commune aliquid habebat cum Deo, non desiderabat exornari ab ipso, pars scilicet Dei per communionem. Aut et Deus poterat ornari a materia, habendo cum illa aliquid et ipse 0235C commune; et jam in hoc necessitati subjicis Deum, si fuit aliquid in materia propter quod eam formaret. Commune autem inter illos facis, quod a semetipsis et semper moventur. Quid minus materiae quam Deo adscribis? Totum consortium divinitatis hoc erit, libertas et aeternitas motus. Sed Deus composite, materia incondite moventur. Tamen divinum proinde, motu proinde libero et aeterno. Atquin plus materiae das, cui licuit sic moveri quomodo Deo non licuit.