Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Assumption that There are Two Earths Mentioned in the History of the Creation, Refuted.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XXV.—The Assumption that There are Two Earths Mentioned in the
History of the Creation, Refuted.
He accordingly maintains that there are two earths
set before us in the passage in question: one, which God made in the
beginning; the other being the Matter of which God made the world, and
concerning which it is said, “And the earth was without form, and
void.”6360
Of course, if I
were to ask, to which of the two earths the name earth is best
suited,6361
| 6361 Quæ cui nomen
terræ accommodare debeat. This is literally a double question,
asking about the fitness of the name, and to which earth it is best
adapted. | I shall be told
that the earth which was made derived the appellation from that of
which it was made, on the ground that it is more likely that the
offspring should get its name from the original, than the original from
the offspring. This being the case, another question presents itself to
us, whether it is right and proper that this earth which God made
should have derived its name from that out of which He made it? For I
find from Hermogenes and the rest of the Materialist
heretics,6362
| 6362 He means those
who have gone wrong on the eternity of matter. | that while the one
earth was indeed “without form, and void,” this one of ours
obtained from God in an equal degree6363
both form, and
beauty, and symmetry; and therefore that the earth which was created
was a different thing from that out of which it was created. Now,
having become a different thing, it could not possibly have shared with
the other in its name, after it had declined from its condition. If
earth was the proper name of the (original) Matter, this world
of ours, which is not Matter, because it has become another thing, is
unfit to bear the name of earth, seeing that that name belongs to
something else, and is a stranger to its nature. But (you will tell me)
Matter which has undergone creation, that is, our earth, had with its
original a community of name no less than of kind. By no means. For
although the pitcher is formed out of the clay, I shall no longer call
it clay, but a pitcher; so likewise, although electrum6364
| 6364 A mixed metal,
of the colour of amber. | is compounded of gold and silver, I shall
yet not call it either gold or silver, but electrum. When there
is a departure from the nature of any thing, there is likewise a
relinquishment of its name—with a propriety which is alike
demanded by the designation and the condition. How great a change
indeed from the condition of that earth, which is Matter, has come over
this earth of ours, is plain even from the fact that the latter has
received this testimony to its goodness in Genesis, “And God saw
that it was good;”6365
while the former,
according to Hermogenes, is regarded as the origin and cause of all
evils. Lastly, if the one is Earth because the other is, why also is
the one not Matter as the other is? Indeed, by this rule both the
heaven and all creatures ought to have had the names of Earth
and Matter, since they all consist of Matter. I have said enough
touching the designation Earth, by which he will have it that Matter is
understood. This, as everybody knows, is the name of one of the
elements; for so we are taught by nature first, and afterwards by
Scripture, except it be that credence must be given to that Silenus who
talked so confidently in the presence of king Midas of another world,
according to the account of Theopompus. But the same author informs us
that there are also several gods.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
