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| The Presence of the Word in nature necessary, not only for its original Creation, but also for its permanence.
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§41. The Presence of the Word in
nature necessary, not only for its original Creation, but also for its
permanence.
But though He is Word, He is not, as we said,
after the likeness of human words, composed of syllables; but He is the
unchanging Image of His own Father. For men, composed of parts and made
out of nothing, have their discourse composite and divisible. But God
possesses true existence and is not composite, wherefore His Word also
has true Existence and is not composite, but is the one and
only-begotten God166
, Who proceeds in His
goodness from the Father as from a good Fountain, and orders all things
and holds them together. 2. But the reason why the Word, the Word of
God, has united Himself167
| 167 ἐπιβέβηκεν, see for the sense Incarn. 43. 4,
&c. | with created things
is truly wonderful, and teaches us that the present order of things is
none otherwise than is fitting. For the nature of created things,
inasmuch as it is brought into being out of nothing, is of a fleeting
sort, and weak and mortal, if composed of itself only. But the God of
all is good and exceeding noble by nature,—and therefore is kind.
For one that is good can grudge nothing168
| 168 Plato
Timæus 29 E, quoted also de Incarn. 3. 3. This
explanation of Divine Creation is also adopted by Philo de
Migratione Abrah. 32 (and see Drummond’s Philo, vol.
2, pp. 56, sqq.). | : for
which reason he does not grudge even existence, but desires all to
exist, as objects for His loving-kindness. 3. Seeing then all created
nature, as far as its own laws were concerned, to be fleeting and
subject to dissolution, lest it should come to this and lest the
Universe should be broken up again into nothingness, for this cause He
made all things by His own eternal Word, and gave substantive existence
to Creation, and moreover did not leave it to be tossed in a tempest in
the course of its own nature, lest it should run the risk of once more
dropping out of existence169
| 169 Plato
Politic. (see de Incarn. 43. 7, note). | ; but, because He is
good He guides and settles the whole Creation by His own Word, Who is
Himself also God, that by the governance and providence and ordering
action of the Word, Creation may have light, and be enabled to abide
alway securely. For it partakes of the Word Who derives true existence
from the Father, and is helped by Him so as to exist, lest that should
come to it which would have come but for the maintenance of it by the
Word,—namely, dissolution,—“for He is the Image of
the invisible God, the first-born of all Creation, for through Him and
in Him all things consist, things visible and things invisible, and He
is the Head of the Church,” as the ministers of truth teach in
their holy writings170
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