By Water & Blood

On matter

On matter.

Those people, then, as I said, claim that all things were created from preexisting matter, and while calling it co-eternal with God, they name God its cause; yet they do not define it as evil according to the impiety of Marcion and Manes. For they regard it as the greatest blasphemy to say that God is a maker of evils. And those perhaps have some excuse, having neither heard prophetic words nor had the divine apostles as guides, but having entrusted the knowledge of beings to reasonings alone.

But what penalties worthy of their impiety would these pay, who have enjoyed the divine Gospels yet fled their light and embraced the darkness like bats? They ought at least to have held fast the opinion of these philosophers, since they stopped their ears and were unwilling to hear the oracles of the divine Spirit, and to introduce matter, yet not to call it wicked. And this too is a proof of the weakness of human reasonings.

For since every art among human beings needs preexisting matter—pottery needs clay, building needs stones and bricks, carpentry and shipbuilding need wood, weaving needs wool, leatherworking needs skins, painting and plastering need colors, and in short each art needs suitable materials—the foolish supposed that God too is unable to create without matter, and they did not understand how great is the difference between a human being and God, and that it is not possible for the image to have all that the archetype has, and that a human being, as an image, creates from things that are, but God creates both from things that are and from things that are not.

And divine Scripture taught us this clearly. For the Apostle says: “By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not come to be from things that appear.” And again: “He who calls the things that are not as things that are.” And the one who wrote the account of the world’s origin taught clearly which things the Creator made from things that are not, and which from things that are; and that he made heaven and earth and the other elements from things that are not. For “In the beginning,” it says, “God made heaven and earth.” And light likewise he created from things that are not. For “God said,” it says, “‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

But the firmament he brought forth from things already made. For “Let there be,” he said, “a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it be separating between water and water.” And he commanded the seeds and plants to sprout from the earth. For “Let the earth,” he said, “bring forth herb of grass, sowing seed according to kind and according to likeness, and fruit-bearing tree making fruit, whose seed is in it according to likeness according to kind upon the earth.”

Thus he also brought forth the kinds of irrational living creatures: from the waters those that travel in the air, and those that dwell in the waters, and those called amphibious. For “Let the waters,” he said, “bring forth creeping things of living souls, and birds flying across the firmament of heaven.” And from the earth the four-footed creatures and creeping things. For “Let the earth,” he says, “bring forth a living soul, four-footed creatures, creeping things and cattle.”

But the human being he made from things that are and from things that are not. For the body he fashioned by taking dust from the earth, but the soul he created from things that are not. For the soul is not consubstantial with the God who made it, according to the impious discourse of Marcion, but was created from things that are not; for he creates with the greatest ease whatever he wills. For it is not fitting to measure the Maker’s power by what has already been made. For it is easy for him to bring forth many times more than these. And the divine David indicated this. For “All that the Lord willed,” he says, “he did.” He did not say “All that he was able,” but “All that he willed.” For he has power equal in measure to his will. Whence he creates not only from things that are, but also from things that are not.

Fittingly, then, the discourse about matter has been driven out from the doctrines of the truth. But let those who disparage creation and attempt to slander the all-harmonious workmanship, and for this reason introduce the discourse about matter, hear the divine oracles proclaiming: “God saw all that he made, and behold, it was very good.” For nothing that has come to be from God is evil by nature. But we shall unfold the discourse about this later. For the present let us go through a few things concerning the mythology of the Aeons.