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| This Conclusion Confirmed by the Usage of Holy Scripture in Its History of the Creation. Hermogenes in Danger of the Woe Pronounced Against Adding to Scripture.
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Chapter
XXII.—This Conclusion Confirmed by the Usage of Holy Scripture in
Its History of the Creation. Hermogenes in Danger of the Woe
Pronounced Against Adding to Scripture.
And to such a degree has the Holy Ghost made this the rule of His Scripture, that
whenever anything is made out of anything, He mentions both the thing
that is made and the thing of which it is made. “Let the
earth,” says He, “bring forth grass, the herb yielding
seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is
in itself, after its kind. And it was so. And the earth brought forth
grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding
fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind.”6338
And again: “And God said, Let
the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life,
and fowl that may fly above the earth through the firmament of heaven.
And it was so. And God created great whales, and every living creature
that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their
kind.”6339
Again afterwards:
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature
after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beasts of the earth
after their kind.”6340
If therefore God,
when producing other things out of things which had been already made,
indicates them by the prophet, and tells us what He has produced from
such and such a source6341
| 6341 Quid unde protulerit:
properly a double question ="what was produced, and whence?” | (although we might
ourselves suppose them to be derived from some source or other, short
of nothing;6342
since there had
already been created certain things, from which they might easily seem
to have been made); if the Holy Ghost took upon Himself so great a
concern for our instruction, that we might know from what everything
was produced,6343
| 6343 Quid unde processerit:
properly a double question ="what was produced, and whence?” | would He not in
like manner have kept us well informed about both the heaven and the
earth, by indicating to us what it was that He made them of, if their
original consisted of any material substance, so that the more He
seemed to have made them of nothing, the less in fact was there as yet
made, from which He could appear to have made them? Therefore,
just as He shows us the original out of which He drew such things as
were derived from a given source, so also with regard to those things
of which He does not point out whence He produced them, He confirms (by
that silence our assertion) that they were produced out of nothing.
“In the beginning,” then, “God made the heaven and
the earth.”6344
I revere6345
| 6345 Adoro: reverently
admire. | the fulness of His Scripture, in which He
manifests to me both the Creator and the creation. In the gospel,
moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His
Word.6346
But whether all things were made out of any
underlying Matter, I have as yet failed anywhere to find. Where such a
statement is written, Hermogenes’ shop6347
must tell us. If it is nowhere written, then let it fear the woe
which impends on all who add to or take away from the written
word.6348
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