Chapter XVIII.—An Eulogy on the Wisdom and Word of God, by Which God Made All Things of Nothing.

If any material was necessary to God in the creation of the world, as Hermogenes supposed, God had a far nobler and more suitable one in His own wisdom163    Sophiam suam scilicet.—one which was not to be gauged by the writings of164    Apud. philosophers, but to be learnt from the words or prophets. This alone, indeed, knew the mind of the Lord. For “who knoweth the things of God, and the things in God, but the Spirit, which is in Him?”165    1 Cor. ii. 11. Now His wisdom is that Spirit. This was His counsellor, the very way of His wisdom and knowledge.166    Isa. xl. 14. Of this He made all things, making them through It, and making them with It.  “When He prepared the heavens,” so says (the Scripture167    Or the “inquit” may indicate the very words of “Wisdom.”), “I was present with Him; and when He strengthened above the winds the lofty clouds, and when He secured the fountains168    Fontes. Although Oehler prefers Junius’ reading “montes,” he yet retains “fontes,” because Tertullian (in ch. xxxii. below) has the unmistakable reading “fontes” in a like connection. which are under the heaven, I was present, compacting these things169    Compingens. along with Him. I was He170    Ad quem: the expression is masculine. in whom He took delight; moreover, I daily rejoiced in His presence: for He rejoiced when He had finished the world, and amongst the sons of men did He show forth His pleasure.”171    Prov. viii. 27–31. Now, who would not rather approve of172    Commendet. this as the fountain and origin of all things—of this as, in very deed, the Matter of all Matter, not liable to any end,173    “Non fini subditam” is Oehler’s better reading than the old “sibi subditam.” not diverse in condition, not restless in motion, not ungraceful in form, but natural, and proper, and duly proportioned, and beautiful, such truly as even God might well have required, who requires His own and not another’s? Indeed, as soon as He perceived It to be necessary for His creation of the world, He immediately creates It, and generates It in Himself. “The Lord,” says the Scripture, “possessed174    Condidit: created. me, the beginning of His ways for the creation of His works. Before the worlds He founded me; before He made the earth, before the mountains were settled in their places; moreover, before the hills He generated me, and prior to the depths was I begotten.”175    See Prov. viii. Let Hermogenes then confess that the very Wisdom of God is declared to be born and created, for the especial reason that we should not suppose that there is any other being than God alone who is unbegotten and uncreated. For if that, which from its being inherent in the Lord176    Intra Dominum. was of Him and in Him, was yet not without a beginning,—I mean177    Scilicet. His wisdom, which was then born and created, when in the thought of God It began to assume motion178    Cœpti agitari. for the arrangement of His creative works,—how much more impossible179    Multo magis non capit. is it that anything should have been without a beginning which was extrinsic to the Lord!180    Extra Dominum. But if this same Wisdom is the Word of God, in the capacity181    Sensu. of Wisdom, and (as being He) without whom nothing was made, just as also (nothing) was set in order without Wisdom, how can it be that anything, except the Father, should be older, and on this account indeed nobler, than the Son of God, the only-begotten and first-begotten Word?  Not to say that182    Nedum. what is unbegotten is stronger than that which is born, and what is not made more powerful than that which is made.  Because that which did not require a Maker to give it existence, will be much more elevated in rank than that which had an author to bring it into being. On this principle, then,183    Proinde. if evil is indeed unbegotten, whilst the Son of God is begotten (“for,” says God, “my heart hath emitted my most excellent Word”184    On this version of Ps. xlv. 1., and its application by Tertullian, see our Anti-Marcion (p. 299, note 5).), I am not quite sure that evil may not be introduced by good, the stronger by the weak, in the same way as the unbegotten is by the begotten. Therefore on this ground Hermogenes puts Matter even before God, by putting it before the Son. Because the Son is the Word, and “the Word is God,”185    John i. 1. and “I and my Father are one.”186    John x. 30. But after all, perhaps,187    Nisi quod. the Son will patiently enough submit to having that preferred before Him which (by Hermogenes), is made equal to the Father!

CAPUT XVIII.

Si necessaria est Deo materia ad opera mundi, ut Hermogenes existimavit, habuit Deus materiam longe digniorem et idoneiorem, non apud philosophos aestimandam, sed apud prophetas intelligendam, Sophiam 0212C suam scilicet: haec denique sola cognovit sensum Domini. Quis enim scit quae sunt Dei, et quae in ipso, nisi spiritus qui in ipso (I Cor. II, 11)? Sophia autem spiritus, haec illi consiliarius fuit, via intelligentiae et scientiae ipsa est (Prov. VIII). Ex hac fecit, faciendo per illam, et faciendo cum illa. Cum pararet coelum, inquit, aderam illi; et cum fortia faciebat (super ventos) quae sursum nubila, et cum firmos ponebat fontes ejus quae sub coelo est, ego eram compingens cum ipso. Ego eram ad quam gaudebat, quotidie autem 0213A oblectabar in persona ejus (Ibid.): quando oblectabatur cum perfecisset orbem, et inoblectabatur in filiis hominum. Quis non hanc potius omnium fontem et originem commendet, materiam vero materiarum , non sibi subditam, non statu diversam, non motu inquietam, non habitu informem, sed insitam et propriam et compositam et decoram, quali Deus potuit eguisse, sui magis quam alieni egens? Denique, ut necessariam sensit ad opera mundi, statim eam condit et generat in semetipso: Dominus, inquit, condidit me initium viarum suarum in opera sua: ante saecula fundavit me, prius quam faceret terram, prius quam montes collocarentur; ante omnes autem colles generavit me; prior autem abysso genita sum (Ibid.) . Agnoscat ergo Hermogenes 0213B idcirco etiam Sophiam Dei natam et conditam praedicari, ne quid innatum et inconditum praeter solum Deum crederemus. Si enim intra Dominum quod ex ipso et in ipso fuit, sine initio non fuit: Sophia scilicet ipsius ex indenata et condita, ex quo in sensu Dei ad opera mundi disponenda coepit agitari: multo magis non capit sine initio quicquam fuisse quod extra Dominum fuerit. Si vero Sophia eadem Dei sermo est sensu sophia , et sine quod factum est nihil (Joan. I, 3), sicut et dispositum sine sophia, quale est ut filio Dei sermone unigenito et primogenito aliquid fuerit praeter Patrem antiquius: et hoc modo utique generosius, nedum quod innatum nato fortius, et quod infectum facto validius? quia quod ut esset nullius 0213C eguit auctoris, multo sublimius erit eo quod, ut esset, aliquem habuit auctorem: proinde, si malum quidem innatum est, natus autem sermo Dei: Eructavit enim, inquit, sermonem optimum (Ps. XLIV, 1), non scio an bono malum possit adduci, validius ab infirmo, ut innatum a nato. Ita et hoc nomine materiam Deo praeponit Hermogenes, praeponendo eam Filio. Filius enim sermo, et Deus sermo (Joan., I, 1); et: Ego et Pater unum sumus (Joan., X, 0214A 10): nisi quod sustinebit aequo animo filius eam praeponi sibi, quae Patri adaequatur.