Chapter 6.—The Simile Reformed in Accordance with Truth.

Well, now, you ought to have thought of all this when you were writing, and not to have brought God before our eyes in that favourite simile of yours, of inflated and inflateable bags, breathing forth souls out of some other nature which was already in existence, just as we ourselves make our breath from the air which surrounds us; or certainly you should not, in a manner which is really as diverse from your similitude as it is abundant in impiety, have represented God as either producing some changeable thing without injury, indeed, to Himself, but yet out of His own substance; or what is worse, creating it in such wise as to be Himself the material of His own work. If, however, we are to employ a similitude drawn from our breathing which shall suitably illustrate this subject, the following one is more credible: Just as we, whenever we breathe, make a breath, not out of our own nature, but, because we are not omnipotent, out of that air that surrounds us, which we inhale and discharge whenever we breathe and respire; and the said breath is neither living nor sentient, although we are ourselves living and sentient; so God can—not, indeed, out of His own nature, but (as being so omnipotent as to be able to create whatever He wills) even out of that which has no existence at all, that is to say, out of nothing—make a breath that is living and sentient, but evidently mutable, though He be Himself immutable.

6. Haec debuisti considerare, cum scriberes; et non ista similitudine utrium inflatorum vel inflandorum introducere nobis Deum, aut ex alia natura quae jam erat, sicut nos ex isto circumfuso aere flatum facimus, animas flare: aut certe, quod et abhorret ab ista similitudine, et abundat impietate, Deum sine ullo quidem sui detrimento, sed tamen de sua natura mutabile aliquid vel proferre, vel, quod est pejus, tanquam sui operis materies ipse sit, facere. Ut ergo aliquam de nostro flatu ad hanc rem adhibeamus similitudinem, id potius est credendum: quod sicut nos non de natura nostra, sed quia omnipotentes non sumus, de isto aere circumfuso quem trahimus et reddimus, cum spiramus et respiramus, flatum facimus quando sufflamus, nec viventem nec sentientem, quamvis nos vivamus atque sentiamus; ita Deum non de sua natura, sed quia sic omnipotens est, ut possit creare quod vult, etiam ex eo quod omnino non est, id est, de nihilo flatum facere posse viventem atque sentientem; sed plane cum sit immutabilis ipse mutabilem .