Anf-03 v.v.xii Pg 5
Verses 7, 8.
And “children of wrath” fail to become sons of peace, if nature be unchangeable? Your reference to such examples as these, my friend,6250 6250 O homo.
is a thoughtless6251 6251 Temere.
one. For things which owe their existence to birth such as stones and vipers and human beings—are not apposite to the case of Matter, which is unborn; since their nature, by possessing a beginning, may have also a termination. But bear in mind6252 6252 Tene.
that Matter has once for all been determined to be eternal, as being unmade, unborn, and therefore supposably of an unchangeable and incorruptible nature; and this from the very opinion of Hermogenes himself, which he alleges against us when he denies that God was able to make (anything) of Himself, on the ground that what is eternal is incapable of change, because it would lose—so the opinion runs6253 6253 Scilicet.
—what it once was, in becoming by the change that which it was not, if it were not eternal. But as for the Lord, who is also eternal, (he maintained) that He could not be anything else than what He always is. Well, then, I will adopt this definite opinion of his, and by means thereof refute him. I blame Matter with a like censure, because out of it, evil though it be—nay, very evil—good things have been created, nay, “very good” ones: “And God saw that they were good, and God blessed them”6254 6254
Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge, Chapter 3
VERSE (8) - Mt 21:28-30,32 Isa 1:16,17 Lu 3:8,10-14 Ac 26:20 Ro 2:4-7
