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| Sundry Inevitable But Intolerable Conclusions from the Principles of Hermogenes.
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Chapter IX.—Sundry
Inevitable But Intolerable Conclusions from the Principles of
Hermogenes.
He cannot say that it was as its Lord that God
employed Matter for His creative works, for He could not have been the
Lord of a substance which was co-equal with Himself. Well, but perhaps
it was a title derived from the will of another,6208
| 6208 We have rather
paraphrased the word “precario”—“obtained by
prayer.” [See p. 456.] | which he enjoyed—a precarious holding,
and not a lordship,6209
| 6209 Domino: opposed to
“precario.” | and that to
such a degree, that6210
although Matter was
evil, He yet endured to make use of an evil substance, owing, of
course, to the restraint of His own limited power,6211
which made Him impotent to create out of
nothing, not in consequence of His power; for if, as God, He had at all
possessed power over Matter which He knew to be evil, He would first
have converted it into good—as its Lord and the good
God—that so He might have a good thing to make use of, instead of
a bad one. But being undoubtedly good, only not the Lord withal, He, by
using such power6212
| 6212 Tali: i.e.
potestate. | as He possessed,
showed the necessity He was under of yielding to the condition of
Matter, which He would have amended if He had been its Lord. Now this
is the answer which must be given to Hermogenes when he maintains that
it was by virtue of His Lordship that God used Matter—even of His
non-possession of any right to it, on the ground, of course, of His not
having Himself made it. Evil then, on your terms,6213
| 6213 Jam ergo: introducing
an argumentum ad hominem against Hermogenes. | must proceed from God Himself, since
He is—I will not say the Author of evil, because He did not form
it, but—the permitter thereof, as having dominion over
it.6214
If indeed Matter shall prove not even to
belong to God at all, as being evil, it follows,6215
that when He made use of what belonged to
another, He used it either on a precarious title6216
| 6216 Aut precario:
“as having begged for it.” | because He was in need of it, or else by
violent possession because He was stronger than it. For by three
methods is the property of others obtained,—by right, by
permission, by violence; in other words, by lordship, by a title
derived from the will of another,6217
| 6217 Precario: See above,
note 2, p. 482. | by force. Now,
as lordship is out of the question, Hermogenes must choose which (of
the other methods) is suitable to God. Did He, then, make all things
out of Matter, by permission, or by force? But, in truth, would
not God have more wisely determined that nothing at all should be
created, than that it should be created by the mere sufferance of
another, or by violence, and that, too, with6218
| 6218 De is often in
Tertullian the sign of an instrumental noun. | a
substance which was evil?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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