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| Chapter X.—Perverse interpretations of Scripture by the heretics: God created all things out of nothing, and not from pre-existent matter. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter X.—Perverse interpretations
of Scripture by the heretics: God created all things out of nothing, and not
from pre-existent matter.
1. It is therefore in
the highest degree irrational, that we should take no account of Him who
is truly God, and who receives testimony from all, while we inquire
whether there is above Him that [other being] who really has no
existence, and has never been proclaimed by any one. For that nothing has
been clearly spoken regarding Him, they themselves furnish testimony; for
since they, with wretched success, transfer to that being who has been
conceived of by them, those parables [of Scripture] which, whatever the
form in which they have been spoken, are sought after [for this purpose],
it is manifest that they now generate another [god], who was
never previously sought after. For by the fact that they thus
endeavour to explain ambiguous passages of Scripture (ambiguous, however,
not as if referring to another god, but as regards the dispensations of
[the true] God), they have constructed another god, weaving, as I said
before, ropes of sand, and affixing a more important to a less important
question. For no question can be solved by means of another which itself
awaits solution; nor, in the opinion of those possessed of sense, can an
ambiguity be explained by means of another ambiguity, or enigmas by means
of another greater enigma, but things of such character receive their
solution from those which are manifest, and consistent and clear.
2. But these [heretics], while striving to explain
passages of Scripture and parables, bring forward another more important,
and indeed impious question, to this effect, “Whether there be
really another god above that God who was the Creator of the
world?” They are not in the way of solving the questions [which
they propose]; for how could they find means of doing so? But they append
an important question to one of less consequence, and thus insert [in
their speculations] a difficulty incapable of solution. For in order that
they may3033
3033 This clause is
unintelligible in the Latin text: by a conjectural restoration of the
Greek we have given the above translation. | know
“knowledge” itself (yet not learning this fact, that the
Lord, when thirty years old, came to the baptism of truth), they do
impiously despise that God who was the Creator, and who sent Him for the
salvation of men. And that they may be deemed capable of informing us
whence is the substance of matter, while they believe not that God,
according to His pleasure, in the exercise of His own will and power,
formed all things (so that those things which now are should have an
existence) out of what did not previously exist, they have collected [a
multitude of] vain discourses. They thus truly reveal their infidelity;
they do not believe in that which really exists, and they have fallen
away into [the belief of] that which has, in fact, no existence.
3. For, when they tell us that all moist substance
proceeded from the tears of Achamoth, all lucid substance from her smile,
all solid substance from her sadness, all mobile substance from her
terror, and that thus they have sublime knowledge on account of which
they are superior to others,—how can these things fail to be
regarded as worthy of contempt, and truly ridiculous? They do not believe
that God (being powerful, and rich in all resources) created matter
itself, inasmuch as they know not how much a spiritual and divine essence
can accomplish. But they do believe that their Mother, whom they style a
female from a female, produced from her passions aforesaid the so vast
material substance of creation. They inquire, too, whence the substance
of creation was supplied to the Creator; but they do not inquire whence
[were supplied] to their Mother (whom they call the Enthymesis and
impulse of the Æon that went astray) so great an amount of tears, or
perspiration, or sadness, or that which produced the remainder of
matter.
4. For, to attribute the substance of created things to
the power and will of Him who is God of all, is worthy both of credit and
acceptance. It is also agreeable [to reason], and there may be well said
regarding such a belief, that “the things which are impossible with
men are possible with God.”3034 While men,
indeed, cannot make anything out of nothing, but only out of matter
already existing, yet God is in this point pre-eminently superior to men,
that He Himself called into being the substance of His creation, when
previously it had no existence. But the assertion that matter was
produced from the Enthymesis of an Æon going astray, and that the Æon
[referred to] was far separated from her Enthymesis, and that, again, her
passion and feeling, apart from herself, became matter—is
incredible, infatuated, impossible, and untenable.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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