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Anti-Marcion
God, indeed, consummated all His works in a due order; at first He paled them out,[6399] as it were, in their unformed elements, and then He arranged them[6400] in their finished beauty. For He did not all at once inundate light with the splendour of the sun, nor all at once temper darkness with the moon’s assuaging ray.[6401] The heaven He did not all at once bedeck[6402] with constellations and stars, nor did He at once fill the seas with their teeming monsters.[6403] The earth itself He did not endow with its varied fruitfulness all at once; but at first He bestowed upon it being, and then He filled it, that it might not be made in vain.[6404] For thus says Isaiah: “He created it not in vain; He formed it to be inhabited.”[6405] Therefore after it was made, and while awaiting its perfect state,[6406] it was “without form, and void:” “void” indeed, from the very fact that it was without form (as being not yet perfect to the sight, and at the same time unfurnished as yet with its other qualities);[6407] and “without form,” because it was still covered with waters, as if with the rampart of its fecundating moisture,[6408] by which is produced our flesh, in a form allied with its own. For to this purport does David say:[6409] “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all that dwell therein: He hath founded it upon the seas, and on the streams hath He established it.”[6410] It was when the waters were withdrawn into their hollow abysses that the dry land became conspicuous,[6411] which was hitherto covered with its watery envelope. Then it forthwith becomes “visible,”[6412] God saying, “Let the water be gathered together into one mass,[6413] and let the dry land appear.”[6414] “Appear,” says He, not “be made.” It had been already made, only in its invisible condition it was then waiting[6415] to appear. “Dry,” because it was about to become such by its severance from the moisture, but yet “land.” “And God called the dry land Earth,”[6416] not Matter. And so, when it afterwards attains its perfection, it ceases to be accounted void, when God declares, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and according to its likeness, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after its kind.”[6417] Again: “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, after their kind.”[6418] Thus the divine Scripture accomplished its full order. For to that, which it had at first described as “without form (invisible) and void,” it gave both visibility and completion. Now no other Matter was “without form (invisible) and void.” Henceforth, then, Matter will have to be visible and complete. So that I must[6419] see Matter, since it has become visible. I must likewise recognize it as a completed thing, so as to be able to gather from it the herb bearing seed, and the tree yielding fruit, and that living creatures, made out of it, may minister to my need. Matter, however, is nowhere,[6420] but the Earth is here, confessed to my view. I see it, I enjoy it, ever since it ceased to be “without form (invisible), and void.” Concerning it most certainly did Isaiah speak when he said, “Thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, He was the God that formed the earth, and made it.”[6421] The same earth for certain did He form, which He also made. Now how did He form[6422] it? Of course by saying, “Let the dry land appear.”[6423] Why does He command it to appear, if it were not previously invisible? His purpose was also, that He might thus prevent His having made it in vain, by rendering it visible, and so fit for use. And thus, throughout, proofs arise to us that this earth which we inhabit is the very same which was both created and formed[6424] by God, and that none other was “Without form, and void,” than that which had been created and formed. It therefore follows that the sentence, “Now the earth was without form, and void,” applies to that same earth which God mentioned separately along with the heaven.[6425]
The following words will in like manner apparently corroborate the conjecture of Hermogenes, “And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water;”[6426] as if these blended[6427] substances, presented us with arguments for his massive pile of Matter.[6428] Now, so discriminating an enumeration of certain and distinct elements (as we have in this passage), which severally designates “darkness,” “the deep,” “the Spirit of God,” “the waters,” forbids the inference that anything confused or (from such confusion) uncertain is meant. Still more, when He ascribed to them their own places,[6429] “darkness on the face of the deep,” “the Spirit upon the face of the waters,” He repudiated all confusion in the substances; and by demonstrating their separate position,[6430] He demonstrated also their distinction. Most absurd, indeed, would it be that Matter, which is introduced to our view as “without form,” should have its “formless” condition maintained by so many words indicative of form,[6431] without any intimation of what that confused body[6432] is, which must of course be supposed to be unique,[6433] since it is without form.[6434] For that which is without form is uniform; but even[6435] that which is without form, when it is blended together[6436] from various component parts,[6437] must necessarily have one outward appearance;[6438] and it has not any appearance, until it has the one appearance (which comes) from many parts combined.[6439] Now Matter either had those specific parts[6440] within itself, from the words indicative of which it had to be understood—I mean “darkness,” and “the deep,” and “the Spirit,” and “the waters”—or it had them not. If it had them, how is it introduced as being “without form?”[6441] If it had them not, how does it become known?[6442]
But this circumstance, too, will be caught at, that Scripture meant to indicate of the heaven only, and this earth of yours,[6443] that God made it in the beginning, while nothing of the kind is said of the above-mentioned specific parts;[6444] and therefore that these, which are not described as having been made, appertain to unformed Matter. To this point[6445] also we must give an answer. Holy Scripture would be sufficiently explicit, if it had declared that the heaven and the earth, as the very highest works of creation, were made by God, possessing of course their own special appurtenances,[6446] which might be understood to be implied in these highest works themselves. Now the appurtenances of the heaven and the earth, made then in the beginning, were the darkness and the deep, and the spirit, and the waters. For the depth and the darkness underlay the earth. Sincethe deep was under the earth, and the darkness was over the deep, undoubtedly both the darkness and the deep were under the earth. Below the heaven, too, lay the spirit[6447] and the waters. For since the waters were over the earth, which they covered, whilst the spirit was over the waters, both the spirit and the waters were alike over the earth. Now that which is over the earth, is of course under the heaven. And even as the earth brooded over the deep and the darkness, so also did the heaven brood over the spirit and the waters, and embrace them. Nor, indeed, is there any novelty in mentioning only that which contains, as pertaining to the whole,[6448] and understanding that which is contained as included in it, in its character of a portion.[6449] Suppose now I should say the city built a theatre and a circus, but the stage[6450] was of such and such a kind, and the statues were on the canal, and the obelisk was reared above them all, would it follow that, because I did not distinctly state that these specific things[6451] were made by the city, they were therefore not made by it along with the circus and the theatre? Did I not, indeed, refrain from specially mentioning the formation of these particular things because they were implied in the things which I had already said were made, and might be understood to be inherent in the things in which they were contained? But this example may be an idle one as being derived from a human circumstance; I will take another, which has the authority of Scripture itself. It says that “God made man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”[6452] Now, although it here mentions the nostrils,[6453] it does not say that they were made by God; so again it speaks of skin[6454] and bones, and flesh and eyes, and sweat and blood, in subsequent passages,[6455] and yet it never intimated that they had been created by God. What will Hermogenes have to answer? That the human limbs must belong to Matter, because they are not specially mentioned as objects of creation? Or are they included in the formation of man? In like manner, the deep and the darkness, and the spirit and the waters, were as members of the heaven and the earth. For in the bodies the limbs were made, in the bodies the limbs too were mentioned. No element but what is a member of that element in which it is contained. But all elements are contained in the heaven and the earth.
This is the answer I should give in defence of the Scripture before us, for seeming here to set forth[6456] the formation of the heaven and the earth, as if (they were) the sole bodies made. It could not but know that there were those who would at once in the bodies understand their several members also, and therefore it employed this concise mode of speech. But, at the same time, it foresaw that there would be stupid and crafty men, who, after paltering with the virtual meaning,[6457] would require for the several members a word descriptive of their formation too. It is therefore because of such persons, that Scripture in other passages teaches us of the creation of the individual parts. You have Wisdom saying, “But before the depths was I brought forth,”[6458] in order that you may believe that the depths were also “brought forth”—that is, created—just as we create sons also, though we “bring them forth.” It matters not whether the depth was made or born, so that a beginning be accorded to it, which however would not be, if it were subjoined[6459] to matter. Of darkness, indeed, the Lord Himself by Isaiah says, “I formed the light, and I created darkness.”[6460] Of the wind[6461] also Amos says, “He that strengtheneth the thunder[6462], and createth the wind, and declareth His Christ[6463] unto men;”[6464] thus showing that that wind was created which was reckoned with the formation of the earth, which was wafted over the waters, balancing and refreshing and animating all things: not (as some suppose) meaning God Himself by the spirit,[6465] on the ground that “God is a Spirit,”[6466] because the waters would not be able to bear up their Lord; but He speaks of that spirit of which the winds consist, as He says by Isaiah, “Because my spirit went forth from me, and I made every blast.”[6467] In like manner the same Wisdom says of the waters, “Also when He made the fountains strong, things which[6468] are under the sky, I was fashioning[6469] them along with Him.”[6470] Now, when we prove that these particular things were created by God, although they are only mentioned in Genesis, without any intimation of their having been made, we shall perhaps receive from the other side the reply, that these were made, it is true,[6471] but out of Matter, since the very statement of Moses, “And darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters,”[6472] refers to Matter, as indeed do all those other Scriptures here and there,[6473] which demonstrate that the separate parts were made out of Matter. It must follow, then,[6474] that as earth consisted of earth, so also depth consisted of depth, and darkness of darkness, and the wind and waters of wind and waters. And, as we said above,[6475] Matter could not have been without form, since it had specific parts, which were formed out of it—although as separate things[6476]—unless, indeed, they were not separate, but were the very same with those out of which they came. For it is really impossible that those specific things, which are set forth under the same names, should have been diverse; because in that case[6477] the operation of God might seem to be useless,[6478] if it made things which existed already; since that alone would be a creation,[6479] when things came into being, which had not been (previously) made. Therefore, to conclude, either Moses then pointed to Matter when he wrote the words: “And darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters;” or else, inasmuch as these specific parts of creation are afterwards shown in other passages to have been made by God, they ought to have been with equal explicitness[6480] shown to have been made out of the Matter which, according to you, Moses had previously mentioned;[6481] or else, finally, if Moses pointed to those specific parts, and not to Matter, I want to know where Matter has been pointed out at all.
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