we ought to uphold the opinion that there is no creature which
3 40 ON FATTII AND THE CREED. [CIIAP. III.
in Him is the fairest figure^ of all things, unchangeable ; and therefore He Himself is One, who communicates to everything its possibilities, not only that it be beautiful actually, but also that it be capable of being beautiful. For which reason we do most rijrht to believe that God made all thiu^s of nothini:.
For, even although the world was made of some sort of material, this self-same material itself was made of nothin^r ; so tliat, in accordance with the most orderly gift of God, there was to enter first the capacity of taking forms, and then that all things should be formed which have been formed. This, however, we have said, in order that no one might suppose that the utterances of the divine Scriptures are contrary the one to the other, in. so far as it is written at once that God made all things of nothing, and that the world was made of matter without form.
3. As we believe, therefore, in God the Father Almighty, we ought to uphold the opinion that there is no creature which has not been created by the Almighty. And since He created all tilings by the Word,^ which Word is also designated the
Truth, and the Power, and the Wisdom of God,^—as also under many other appellations the Lord Jesus Christ, who* is commended to our faith, is presented likewise to our mental apprehensions, to wit, our Deliverer and Ruler,^ the Son of God ; for that Word, by whose means all things were founded, could not have been begotten by any other than by Him who founded all things by His instrumentality ;
CiiAr. III. Of the Son of God, and His peculiar designation as the Word. —Since this is the case, I repeat, we believe also IN Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten of the Father, that is to say, His only Son, our Lord. This AVord, however, we ought not to apprehend merely in the sense in which we tliink of our own words, which are given forth by the voice and the mouth, and strike the air and pass on, and subsist no
Speciosissima species = tlie seemliest semblance. ' John i. 3.
' John xiv. 6 ; 1 Cor. i. 24.
For 7?/j sovoral mss. give f/uifiu.^ here = under many othor appellations is the Lord J«'sus Christ introduced to our mental apprehensions, by which He is commended to our faith.
For Hector we also find Creator = Creator.