Hermogenes, After a Perverse Induction from Mere Heretical Assumptions, Concludes that God Created All Things Out of Pre-Existing Matter

Our very bad painter has coloured this his primary shade absolutely without any light, with such arguments as these: He begins with laying down the premiss,⁶¹⁴³ that the Lord made all things either out of Himself, or out of nothing, or out of something; in order that, after he has shown that it was impossible for Him to have made them either out of Himself or out of nothing, he might thence affirm the residuary proposition that He made them out of something, and therefore that that something was Matter. He could not have made all things, he says, of Himself; because whatever things the Lord made of Himself would have been parts of Himself; but⁶¹⁴⁴ He is not dissoluble into parts,⁶¹⁴⁵ because, being the Lord, He is indivisible, and unchangeable, and always the same. Besides, if He had made anything out of Himself, it would have been something of Himself. Everything, however, both which was made and which He made must be accounted imperfect, because it was made of a part, and He made it of a part; or if, again, it was a whole which He made, who is a whole Himself, He must in that case have been at once both a whole, and yet not a whole; because it behoved Him to be a whole, that He might produce Himself,⁶¹⁴⁶ and yet not a whole, that He might be produced out of Himself.⁶¹⁴⁷ But this is a most difficult position. For if He were in existence, He could not be made, for He was in existence already; if, however, he were not in existence He could not make, because He was a nonentity. He maintains, moreover, that He who always exists, does not come into existence,⁶¹⁴⁸ but exists for ever and ever. He accordingly concludes that He made nothing out of Himself, since He never passed into such a condition⁶¹⁴⁹ as made it possible for Him to make anything out of Himself. In like manner, he contends that He could not have made all things out of nothing—thus: He defines the Lord as a being who is good, nay, very good, who must will to make things as good and excellent as He is Himself; indeed it were impossible for Him either to will or to make anything which was not good, nay, very good itself. Therefore all things ought to have been made good and excellent by Him, after His own condition. Experience shows,⁶¹⁵⁰ however, that things which are even evil were made by Him: not, of course, of His own will and pleasure; because, if it had been of His own will and pleasure, He would be sure to have made nothing unfitting or unworthy of Himself. That, therefore, which He made not of His own will must be understood to have been made from the fault of something, and that is from Matter, without a doubt.

Chapter III.—An Argument of Hermogenes. The Answer: While God is a Title Eternally Applicable to the Divine Being, Lord and Father are Only Relative Appellations, Not Eternally Applicable. An Inconsistency in the Argument of Hermogenes Pointed Out.

He adds also another point: that as God was always God, there was never a time when God was not also Lord. But⁶¹⁵¹ it was in no way possible for Him to be regarded as always Lord, in the same manner as He had been always God, if there had not been always, in the previous eternity,⁶¹⁵² a something of which He could be regarded as evermore the Lord. So he concludes⁶¹⁵³ that God always had Matter co-existent with Himself as the Lord thereof. Now, this tissue⁶¹⁵⁴ of his I shall at once hasten to pull abroad. I have been willing to set it out in form to this length, for the information of those who are unacquainted with the subject, that they may know that his other arguments likewise need only be⁶¹⁵⁵ understood to be refuted. We affirm, then, that the name of God always existed with Himself and in Himself—but not eternally so the Lord. Because the condition of the one is not the same as that of the other. God is the designation of the substance itself, that is, of the Divinity; but Lord is (the name) not of substance, but of power. I maintain that the substance existed always with its own name, which is God; the title Lord was afterwards added, as the indication indeed⁶¹⁵⁶ of something accruing. For from the moment when those things began to exist, over which the power of a Lord was to act, God, by the accession of that power, both became Lord and received the name thereof. Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a Judge; but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father. In this way He was not Lord previous to those things of which He was to be the Lord. But He was only to become Lord at some future time: just as He became the Father by the Son, and a Judge by sin, so also did He become Lord by means of those things which He had made, in order that they might serve Him. Do I seem to you to be weaving arguments,⁶¹⁵⁷ Hermogenes? How neatly does Scripture lend us its aid,⁶¹⁵⁸ when it applies the two titles to Him with a distinction, and reveals them each at its proper time! For (the title) God, indeed, which always belonged to Him, it names at the very first: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;"⁶¹⁵⁹ and as long as He continued making, one after the other, those things of which He was to be the Lord, it merely mentions God. "And God said," "and God made," "and God saw;"⁶¹⁶⁰ but nowhere do we yet find the Lord. But when He completed the whole creation, and especially man himself, who was destined to understand His sovereignty in a way of special propriety, He then is designated⁶¹⁶¹ Lord. Then also the Scripture added the name Lord: "And the Lord God, Deus Dominus, took the man, whom He had formed;"⁶¹⁶² "And the Lord God commanded Adam."⁶¹⁶³ Thenceforth He, who was previously God only, is the Lord, from the time of His having something of which He might be the Lord. For to Himself He was always God, but to all things was He only then God, when He became also Lord. Therefore, in as far as (Hermogenes) shall suppose that Matter was eternal, on the ground that the Lord was eternal, in so far will it be evident that nothing existed, because it is plain that the Lord as such did not always exist. Now I mean also, on my own part,⁶¹⁶⁴ to add a remark for the sake of ignorant persons, of whom Hermogenes is an extreme instance,⁶¹⁶⁵ and actually to retort against him his own arguments.⁶¹⁶⁶ For when he denies that Matter was born or made, I find that, even on these terms, the title Lord is unsuitable to God in respect of Matter, because it must have been free,⁶¹⁶⁷ when by not having a beginning it had not an author. The fact of its past existence it owed to no one, so that it could be a subject to no one. Therefore ever since God exercised His power over it, by creating (all things) out of Matter, although it had all along experienced God as its Lord, yet Matter does, after all, demonstrate that God did not exist in the relation of Lord to it,⁶¹⁶⁸ although all the while He was really so.⁶¹⁶⁹