Augustine: Earlier Writings
FAITH AND THE CREED 355 form of all. He is one, who has given to everything not only its beauty but also its power to be beautiful. Most correctly, therefore, do we believe that God has made all things of nothing; for if the world was made out of matter, matter itself was made of nothing, to be, by God's gift and appointment, the primal "formable" substance from which all that has form should be formed. We have said this in order that no one should suppose that Scripture contradicts itself when it says, in one place, that God made all things of nothing, and in another, that the world was made of formless matter.
3. Accordingly, believing in God the Father Almighty we ought to believe that there is no creature which has not been created by his omnipotence. Moreover, because he created all things through his Word which is also called the Power and Wisdom of God, and is hinted at by many other titles which commend the Lord Jesus Christ to our faith as the Son of God, our Saviour and ruler; and because none could generate the Word by whom all things are made save he who made all things through him; iii. we also believe in Jesus Christ our Lord the Only Son of God, Only-begotten of the Father. We must not think that the Word is like our words which proceed from our mouths and are passed on by vibrations in the air and abide no longer than the sound of them remains. That Word abides unchangeable. For of him
Scripture says, speaking of wisdom: "Remaining in herself she reneweth all things" (Wisdom 7:27). He is called the Word also because through him the Father is made known. For as by our words, when we speak truly, our mind lets him who hears them know something, and by signs of that kind brings to the knowledge of another what we hold secretly in our heart, so wisdom whom God the Father begat is most appropriately called his Word, because through him the Father who dwells in utmost secrecy becomes known to worthy minds.
4. But there is a vast difference between our minds and the words with which we try to show what is in our minds. We do not beget verbal sounds but make them; and in making them we make use of the body as material. Now there is a great difference between mind and body. When God begat the Word, the Begetter was "he who is." He did not make the Word out of nothing nor out of any ready-made material but from his eternal nature. This is what we, too, try to do when we speak the truth, though not when we lie, if we closely consider the purpose we have in mind in speaking. What else arc we trying to do but to bring our mind, as far as it can be done, into contact