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| Earth Does Not Mean Matter as Hermogenes Would Have It.
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Chapter XXIV.—Earth Does
Not Mean Matter as Hermogenes Would Have It.
I now return to the several points6354
by means of which he thought that Matter was
signified. And first I will inquire about the terms. For we read only of one of them,
Earth; the other, namely Matter, we do not meet with. I
ask, then, since Matter is not mentioned in Scripture, how the term
earth can be applied to it, which marks a substance of another kind?
There is all the greater need why mention should also have been made of
Matter, if this has acquired the further sense of Earth, in order that
I may be sure that Earth is one and the same name as Matter, and so not
claim the designation for merely one substance, as the proper name
thereof, and by which it is better known; or else be unable (if I
should feel the inclination), to apply it to some particular species of
Matter, instead, indeed,6355
of making it the
common term6356
of all Matter. For
when a proper name does not exist for that thing to which a common term
is ascribed, the less apparent6357
| 6357 We have construed
Oehler’s reading: “Quanto non comparet”
(i.e., by a frequent ellipse of Tertullian,
“quanto magis non comparet”).
Fr. Junius, however, suspects that instead of “quanto” we
should read “quando”: this would produce the sense,
“since it is not apparent to what object it may be
ascribed,” etc. | is the object to
which it may be ascribed, the more capable will it be of being
applied to any other object whatever. Therefore, even supposing that
Hermogenes could show us the name6358
Matter, he is bound to prove to us further, that the same object has
the surname6359
Earth, in order
that he may claim for it both designations alike.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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