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| The Mode of Controversy Changed. The Premisses of Hermogenes Accepted, in Order to Show into What Confusion They Lead Him.
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Chapter XII.—The Mode of
Controversy Changed. The Premisses of Hermogenes Accepted, in Order to
Show into What Confusion They Lead Him.
Come now, let us suppose Matter to be evil, nay,
very evil, by nature of course, just as we believe God to be good, even very
good, in like manner by nature. Now nature must be regarded as
sure and fixed, just as persistently fixed in evil in the case of
Matter, as immoveable and unchangeable in good in the case of
God. Because, as is evident,6247
if nature
admits of change from evil to good in Matter, it can be changed from
good to evil in God. Here some man will say, Then will “children
not be raised up to Abraham from the stones?”6248
Will “generations of vipers not bring
forth the fruit of repentance?”6249
And “children of wrath” fail to become sons of peace, if
nature be unchangeable? Your reference to such examples as these,
my friend,6250
is a
thoughtless6251
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
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
—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
—because, of
course, of their very great goodness; certainly not because they were
evil, or very evil. Change is therefore admissible in Matter; and this
being the case, it has lost its condition of eternity; in
short,6255
its beauty is
decayed in death.6256
| 6256 That is, of course, by
its own natural law. | Eternity, however,
cannot be lost, because it cannot be eternity, except by reason of its
immunity from loss. For the same reason also it is incapable of change,
inasmuch as, since it is eternity, it can by no means be
changed.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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