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| Chapter X.—The World Created by God Through the Word.
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Chapter X.—The World Created by God Through the Word.
And first, they taught us with one consent that
God made all things out of
nothing; for nothing was coeval with God: but He being His own place,
and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make
man by whom He might be known; for him, therefore, He prepared the
world. For he that is created is also needy; but he that is uncreated
stands in need of nothing. God, then, having His own Word internal566
| 566 ἐνδιάθτον.
[Here the Logos is spoken of in the entire spirit of the Nicene
Council. Ps. xlv. 1 is a favourite text against Arius; and
(Advs. Judæos. b. ii. 3) Cyprian presses it against
the Jews, which shows that they accepted the Hebrew
and the LXX. in a mystical sense.] | within
His own bowels, begat Him, emitting567
| 567 Literally, belching or vomiting. [The reference
is to Ps. xlv. where the LXX. read ἐξηρεύξατο
ἡ καρδία
μου λόγον
ἀγαθὸν, and the Latin
eructavit cor meum bonum
Verbum; i.e., “My heart hath breathed forth a glorious
Word.” The well-chosen language of the translator (emitted)
is degraded by his note.] | Him along with His own wisdom
before all things. He had this Word as a helper in the things that
were created by Him, and by Him He made all things. He is called
“governing principle” [ἁρκή],
because He rules, and is Lord of all things fashioned by Him. He,
then, being Spirit of God, and governing principle, and wisdom, and
power of the highest, came down upon the prophets, and through them
spoke of the creation of the world and of all other things. For the
prophets were not when the world came into existence, but the wisdom of
God which was in Him, and His holy Word which was always present with
Him. Wherefore He speaks thus by the prophet Solomon: “When He
prepared the heavens I was there, and when He appointed the foundations
of the earth I was by Him as one brought up with Him.”568
| 568 Prov. viii. 27. Theophilus
reads with the Septuagint, “I was with Him, putting things
into order,” instead of “I was by Him as one brought up
with Him.” [Here the Logos is the σοφία as with the
Fathers generally; e.g. Cyprian, Advs. Judæos, book ii.
2. But see cap. xv. p. 101, infra.] | And Moses, who
lived many years before Solomon, or, rather, the Word of God by him as
by an instrument, says, “In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth.” First he named the “beginning,”569
| 569 That is, the first
principle, whom he has just shown to be the Word. | and
“creation,”570
then he thus introduced God; for
not lightly and on slight occasion is it right to name God. For the
divine wisdom foreknew that some would trifle and name a multitude of
gods that do not exist. In order, therefore, that the living God might
be known by His works, and that [it might be known that] by His Word God
created the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, he said,
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Then having spoken of their creation, he explains to us: “And
the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face
of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the water.” This,
sacred Scripture teaches at the outset, to show that matter, from
which God made and fashioned the world, was in some manner created,
being produced by God.571
| 571
Theophilus, therefore, understands that when in the first verse it is
said that God created the earth, it is meant that he created the matter
of which the earth is formed. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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