Chapter XXXIII.—Statement of the True Doctrine Concerning Matter. Its Relation to God’s Creation of the World.

But although Hermogenes finds it amongst his own colourable pretences354    Colores. See our “Anti-Marcion,” p. 217, Edin., where the word pretension should stand instead of precedent. (for it was not in his power to discover it in the Scriptures of God), it is enough for us, both that it is certain that all things were made by God, and that there is no certainty whatever that they were made out of Matter. And even if Matter had previously existed, we must have believed that it had been really made by God, since we maintained (no less) when we held the rule of faith to be,355    Præscribentes. that nothing except God was uncreated.356    Innatum: see above, note 12. Up to this point there is room for controversy, until Matter is brought to the test of the Scriptures, and fails to make good its case.357    Donec ad Scripturas provocata deficiat exibitio materiæ. The conclusion of the whole is this: I find that there was nothing made, except out of nothing; because that which I find was made, I know did not once exist. Whatever358    Etiamsi quid. was made out of something, has its origin in something made: for instance, out of the ground was made the grass, and the fruit, and the cattle, and the form of man himself; so from the waters were produced the animals which swim and fly. The original fabrics359    Origines. out of which such creatures were produced I may call their materials,360    Materias. There is a point in this use of the plural of the controverted term materia. but then even these were created by God.

CAPUT XXXIII.

Sed dum illam Hermogenes inter colores suos invenit (inter Scripturas enim Dei invenire non potuit , satis est quod omnia et facta a Deo constat, et ex materia non constat: quae etiam si fuisset, ipsam quoque a Deo factam credidissemus, quia nihil 0228B innatum praeter Deum praescribentes, obtineremus. In hunc usque articulum locus est retractatui, donec ad Scripturas provocata deficiat, exhibitio materiae. Expedita summa est: nihil invenio factum nihil ex nihilo, quia quod factum invenio, non fuisse cognosco. Etiamsi quid ex aliquo factum est, ex facto habet censum, ut ex terra herba, et fructus, et pecudes, et figuratio hominis ipsius, ut ex aquis natatiles et volatiles animae. Hujusmodi origines rerum ex his prolatarum, potero materias appellare; sed factas a Deo et ipsas.