for the opinion that God the Father is not almighty : not
344 ON FAITH AND THE CREED. [CHAP. U.
necessary belief which were subsequently to be explained to them in many words, as they made progress and rose to [the height of] divine doctrine, on the assured and stedfast basis of humility and charity. It is underneath these few words, therefore, which are thus set in order in the Creed, that most heretics have endeavoured to conceal their poisons whom divine mercy has withstood, and still withstands, by the instrumentality of spiritual men, who have been counted worthy not only to accept and believe the catholic faith as expounded in those terms, but also thoroughly to understand and apprehend it by the enlightenment imparted by the Lord. Tor it is written, " Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand." ^ But the handling of the faith is of service for the protection of the Creed ; not, however, to the intent that this should itself be given instead of the Creed, to be committed to memory and repeated by those who are receiving the grace of God, but that it may guard the matters which are retained in the Creed against tlie insidious assaults of the heretics, by means of catholic authority and a more entrenched defence.
Chap. ii.—Of God and His exclusive eternity.
2. For certain parties • have attempted to gain acceptance for the opinion that God the Father is not almighty : not that they have been bold enough expressly to aflirm this, but in their traditions they are convicted of entertaining and crediting such a notion. For when they affirm that there is a nature ^ wliich God Almighty did not create, but of which at the same time lie fashioned this world, which they admit to have been disposed in beauty,^ they thereby deny tliat God is almighty, to tlie effect of not believing that lie could have created the world witliout employing, for the purpose of its construction, another nature, which had been in existence previously, and which lie Himself liad not made. Thus, forsooth, [they reason] from tlieir carnal familiarity with the sight of craftsmen and liouse-builders, and artiifaus of all dc-
' Isa. vii, 9, according to the rendering of the Scptungint.
' Naturam.
3 Reading pxilchre 07-dinalum. Some editions give puldirc ornatuni = beautifully adorned.
CHAP. II.] god's creative OMNIPOTENCE. 345 scriptions, who have no power to make good the effect of their own art unless they get the help of materials already prepared. And so these parties in like manner understand the Maker of the world not to be almighty, if ^ thus He could not fashion the said world without the help of some other nature, not framed by Himself, which He had to use as His materials. Or if indeed they do allow God, the Maker of the world, to be almighty, it becomes matter of course that they must also acknowledge that He made out of nothing the things which He did make. For, granting that He is almighty, there cannot exist anything of which He should not be the Creator. For although He made something out of something, as man out of clay,^ nevertheless He certainly did not make any object out of aught which He Himself had not made ; for the earth from which the clay comes He had made out of nothing. And even if He had made out of some material the heavens and the earth themselves, that is to say, the universe and all things which are in it, accordin^j as it is written, "Thou who didst make the world out of matter unseen," ^ or also " without form," as some copies give it ; yet we are under no manner of necessity to believe that this very material of which the universe was made, although it might be " without form," although it might be '' unseen," whatever might be the mode of its subsistence, could possibly have subsisted of itself, as if it were coeternal and coeval with
God. But whatsoever that mode was which it possessed to the effect of subsisting in some manner, whatever that manner might be, and of being capable of taking on the forms of distinct things, this it did not possess except by the hand of Almighty God, by whose goodness it is that everything exists, —not only every object which is already formed, but also every object which is formable. This, moreover, is the difference between the formed and the formable, that the formed has already taken on form, while the formable is capable of taking the same. But the same Being who imparts form to objects, also imparts the capability of being formed. For of Him and
1 Si mundiim fabricare non posset. For si some mss, give qui = inasmuch as He could not, etc.
2 Be limo = of mud. ^ Wisd. xi. 17.