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| This function of the Word described at length.
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§42. This function of the
Word described at length.
The holy Word of the Father, then, almighty and
all-perfect, uniting with the universe and having everywhere unfolded
His own powers, and having illumined all, both things seen and things
invisible, holds them together and binds them to Himself, having left
nothing void of His own power, but on the contrary quickening and
sustaining all things everywhere, each severally and all collectively;
while He mingles in one the principles of all sensible existence, heat
namely and cold and wet and dry, and causes them not to conflict, but
to make up one concordant harmony. 2. By reason of Him and His power,
fire does not fight with cold nor wet with dry, but principles mutually
opposed, as if friendly and brotherly combine together, and give life
to the things we see, and form the principles by which bodies exist.
Obeying Him, even God the Word, things on earth have life and things in
the heaven have their order. By reason of Him all the sea, and the
great ocean, move within their proper bounds, while, as we said above,
the dry land grows grasses and is clothed with all manner of diverse
plants. And, not to spend time in the enumeration of particulars, where
the truth is obvious, there is nothing that is and takes place but has
been made and stands by Him and through Him, as also the Divine171
says, “In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; all things were made
by Him, and without Him was not anything made.” 3. For just as
though some musician, having tuned a lyre, and by his art adjusted the
high notes to the low, and the intermediate notes to the rest, were to
produce a single tune as the result, so also the Wisdom of God,
handling the Universe as a lyre, and adjusting things in the air to
things on the earth, and things in
the heaven to things in the air, and combining parts into wholes and
moving them all by His beck and will, produces well and fittingly, as
the result, the unity of the universe and of its order, Himself
remaining unmoved with the Father while He moves all things by His
organising action, as seems good for each to His own Father. 4. For
what is surprising in His godhead is this, that by one and the same act
of will He moves all things simultaneously, and not at intervals, but
all collectively, both straight and curved, things above and beneath
and intermediate, wet, cold, warm, seen and invisible, and orders them
according to their several nature. For simultaneously at His single nod
what is straight moves as straight, what is curved also, and what is
intermediate, follows its own movement; what is warm receives warmth,
what is dry dryness, and all things according to their several nature
are quickened and organised by Him, and He produces as the result a
marvellous and truly divine harmony.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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