Against Praxeas; Against Marcion; On Baptism; Apology

As regards all other points touching Matter, although there is no necessity why we should treat of them (for our first point was the manifest proof of its existence), we must for all that pursue our discussion just as if it did exist, in order that its non-existence may be the more apparent, when these other points concerning it prove inconsistent with each other, and in order at the same time that Hermogenes may acknowledge his own contradictory positions. Matter, says he, at first sight seems to us to be incorporeal; but when examined by the light of right reason, it is found to be neither corporeal nor incorporeal. What is this right reason of yours,¹ which declares nothing right, that is, nothing certain? For, if I mistake not, everything must of necessity be either corporeal or incorporeal (although I may for the moment² allow that there is a certain incorporeality in even substantial things,³ although their very substance is the body of particular things); at all events, after the corporeal and the incorporeal there is no third state. But if it be contended⁴ that there is a third state discovered by this right reason of Hermogenes, which makes Matter neither corporeal nor incorporeal, (I ask,) Where is it? what sort of thing is it? what is it called? what is its description? what is it understood to be? This only has his reason declared, that Matter is neither corporeal nor incorporeal.

But see what a contradiction he next advances⁵ (or perhaps some other reason⁶ occurs to him), when he declares that Matter partly corporeal and partly incorporeal. Then must Matter be considered (to embrace) both conditions, in order that it may not have either? For it will be corporeal, and incorporeal in spite of⁷ the declaration of that antithesis,⁸ which is plainly above giving any reason for its opinion, just as that "other reason" also was. Now, by the corporeal part of Matter, he means that of which bodies are created; but by the incorporeal part of Matter, he means its uncreated⁹ motion. If, says he, Matter were simply a body, there would appear to be in it nothing incorporeal, that is, (no) motion; if, on the other hand, it had been wholly incorporeal no body could be formed out of it. What a peculiarly right¹⁰ reason have we here! Only if you make your sketches as right as you make your reason, Hermogenes, no painter would be more stupid¹¹ than yourself. For who is going to allow you to reckon motion as a moiety of Matter, seeing that it is not a substantial thing, because it is not corporeal, but an accident (if indeed it be even that) of a substance and a body? Just as action¹² is, and impulsion, just as a slip is, or a fall, so is motion. When anything moves even of itself, its motion is the result of impulse;¹³ but certainly it is no part of its substance in your sense,¹⁴ when you make motion the incorporeal part of matter. All things, indeed,¹⁵ have motion—either of themselves as animals, or of others as inanimate things; but yet we should not say that either a man or a stone was both corporeal and incorporeal because they had both a body and motion: we should say rather that all things have one form of simple¹⁶ corporeality, which is the essential quality¹⁷ of substance. If any incorporeal incidents accrue to them, as actions, or passions, or functions,¹⁸ or desires, we do not reckon these parts as of the things. How then does he contrive to assign an integral portion of Matter to motion, which does not pertain to substance, but to a certain condition¹⁹ of substance? Is not this incontrovertible?²⁰ Suppose you had taken it into your head²¹ to represent matter as immoveable, would then the immobility seem to you to be a moiety of its form? Certainly not. Neither, in like manner, could motion. But I shall be at liberty to speak of motion elsewhere.²²

I see now that you are coming back again to that reason, which has been in the habit of declaring to you nothing in the way of certainty. For just as you introduce to our notice Matter as being neither corporeal nor incorporeal, so you allege of it that it is neither good nor evil; and you say, whilst arguing further on it in the same strain: "If it were good, seeing that it had ever been so, it would not require the arrangement of itself by God;²³ if it were naturally evil, it would not have admitted of a change²⁴ for the better, nor would God have ever applied to such a nature any attempt at arrangement of it, for His labour would have been in vain." Such are your words, which it would have been well if you had remembered in other passages also, so as to have avoided any contradiction of them. As, however, we have already treated to some extent of this ambiguity of good and evil touching Matter, I will now reply to the only proposition and argument of yours which we have before us. I shall not stop to repeat my opinion, that it was your bounden duty to have said for certain that Matter was either good or bad, or in some third condition; but (I must observe) that you have not here even kept to the statement which you chose to make before. Indeed, you retract what you declared—that Matter is neither good nor evil; because you imply that it is evil when you say, "If it were good, it would not require to be set in order by God;" so again, when you add, "If it were naturally evil, it would not admit of any change for the better," you seem to intimate²⁵ that it is good. And so you attribute to it a close relation²⁶ to good and evil, although you declared it neither good nor evil. With a view, however, to refute the argument whereby you thought you were going to clinch your proposition, I here contend: If Matter had always been good, why should it not have still wanted a change for the better? Does that which is good never desire, never wish, never feel able to advance, so as to change its good for a better? And in like manner, if Matter had been by nature evil, why might it not have been changed by God as the more powerful Being, as able to convert the nature of stones into children of Abraham?²⁷ Surely by such means you not only compare the Lord with Matter, but you even put Him below²⁸ it, since you affirm that²⁹ the nature of Matter could not possibly be brought under control by Him, and trained to something better. But although you are here disinclined to allow that Matter is by nature evil, yet in another passage you will deny having made such an admission.³⁰

My observations touching the site³¹ of Matter, as also concerning its mode³² have one and the same object in view—to meet and refute your perverse positions. You put Matter below God, and thus, of course, you assign a place to it below God. Therefore Matter is local.³³ Now, if it is local, it is within locality; if within locality, it is bounded³⁴ by the place within which it is; if it is bounded, it has an outline,³⁵ which (painter as you are in your special vocation) you know is the boundary to every object susceptible of outline. Matter, therefore, cannot be infinite, which, since it is in space, is bounded by space; and being thus determinable by space, it is susceptible of an outline. You, however, make it infinite, when you say: "It is on this account infinite, because it is always existent." And if any of your disciples should choose to meet us by declaring your meaning to be that Matter is infinite in time, not in its corporeal mass,³⁶ still what follows will show that (you mean) corporeal infinity to be an attribute of Matter, that it is in respect of bulk immense and uncircumscribed. "Wherefore," say you, "it is not fabricated as a whole, but in its parts."³⁷ In bulk, therefore, is it infinite, not in time. And you contradict yourself³⁸ when you make Matter infinite in bulk, and at the same time ascribe place to it, including it within space and local outline. But yet at the same time I cannot tell why God should not have entirely formed it,³⁹ unless it be because He was either impotent or envious. I want therefore to know the moiety of that which was not wholly formed (by God), in order that I may understand what kind of thing the entirety was. It was only right that God should have made it known as a model of antiquity,⁴⁰ to set off the glory of His work.

Well, now, since it seems to you to be the correcter thing,⁴¹ let Matter be circumscribed⁴² by means of changes and displacements; let it also be capable of comprehension, since (as you say) it is used as material by God,⁴³ on the ground of its being convertible, mutable, and separable. For its changes, you say, show it to be inseparable. And here you have swerved from your own lines⁴⁴ which you prescribed respecting the person of God when you laid down the rule that God made it not out of His own self, because it was not possible for Him to become divided⁴⁵ seeing that He is eternal and abiding for ever, and therefore unchangeable and indivisible. Since Matter too is estimated by the same eternity, having neither beginning nor end, it will be unsusceptible of division, of change, for the same reason that God also is. Since it is associated with Him in the joint possession of eternity, it must needs share with Him also the powers, the laws, and the conditions of eternity. In like manner, when you say, "All things simultaneously throughout the universe⁴⁶ possess portions of it,⁴⁷ that so the whole may be ascertained from⁴⁸ its parts," you of course mean to indicate those parts which were produced out of it, and which are now visible to us. How then is this possession (of Matter) by all things throughout the universe effected—that is, of course, from the very beginning⁴⁹ —when the things which are now visible to us are different in their condition⁵⁰ from what they were in the beginning?

You say that Matter was reformed for the better⁵¹ —from a worse condition, of course; and thus you would make the better a copy of the worse. Everything was in confusion, but now it is reduced to order; and would you also say, that out of order, disorder is produced? No one thing is the exact mirror⁵² of another thing; that is to say, it is not its co-equal. Nobody ever found himself in a barber's looking-glass look like an ass⁵³ instead of a man; unless it be he who supposes that unformed and shapeless Matter answers to Matter which is now arranged and beautified in the fabric of the world. What is there now that is without form in the world, what was there once that was formed⁵⁴ in Matter, that the world is the mirror of Matter? Since the world is known among the Greeks by a term denoting ornament,⁵⁵ how can it present the image of unadorned⁵⁶ Matter, in such a way that you can say the whole is known by its parts? To that whole will certainly belong even the portion which has not yet become formed; and you have already declared that the whole of Matter was not used as material in the creation.⁵⁷ It follows, then, that this rude, and confused, and unarranged portion cannot be recognized in the polished, and distinct and well-arranged parts of creation, which indeed can hardly with propriety be called parts of Matter, since they have quitted⁵⁸ its condition, by being separated from it in the transformation they have undergone.

I come back to the point of motion,⁵⁹ that I may show how slippery you are at every step. Motion in Matter was disordered, and confused, and turbulent. This is why you apply to it the comparison of a boiler of hot water surging over. Now how is it, that in another passage another sort of motion is affirmed by you? For when you want to represent Matter as neither good nor evil, you say: "Matter, which is the substratum (of creation)⁶⁰ possessing as it does motion in an equable impulse,⁶¹ tends in no very great degree either to good or to evil." Now if it had this equable impulse, it could not be turbulent, nor be like the boiling water of the caldron; it would rather be even and regular, oscillating indeed of its own accord between good and evil, but yet not prone or tending to either side. It would swing, as the phrase is, in a just and exact balance. Now this is not unrest; this is not turbulence or inconstancy;⁶² but rather the regularity, and evenness, and exactitude of a motion, inclining to neither side. If it oscillated this way and that way, and inclined rather to one particular side, it would plainly in that case merit the reproach of unevenness, and inequality, and turbulence. Moreover, although the motion of Matter was not prone either to good or to evil, it would still, of course, oscillate between good and evil; so that from this circumstance too it is obvious that Matter is contained within certain limits,⁶³ because its motion, while prone to neither good nor evil, since it had no natural bent either way, oscillated from either between both, and therefore was contained within the limits of the two. But you, in fact, place both good and evil in a local habitation,⁶⁴ when you assert that motion in Matter inclined to neither of them. For Matter which was local,⁶⁵ when inclining neither hither nor thither, inclined not to the places in which good and evil were. But when you assign locality to good and evil, you make them corporeal by making them local, since those things which have local space must needs first have bodily substance. In fact,⁶⁶ incorporeal things could not have any locality of their own except in a body, when they have access to a body.⁶⁷ But when Matter inclined not to good and evil, it was as corporeal or local essences that it did not incline to them. You err, therefore, when you will have it that good and evil are substances. For you make substances of the things to which you assign locality;⁶⁸ but you assign locality when you keep motion in Matter poised equally distant from both sides.⁶⁹

You have thrown out all your views loosely and at random,⁷⁰ in order that it might not be apparent, by too close a proximity, how contrary they are to one another. I, however, mean to gather them together and compare them. You allege that motion in Matter is without regularity,⁷¹ and you go on to say that Matter aims at a shapeless condition, and then, in another passage, that it desires to be set in order by God. Does that, then, which affects to be without form, want to be put into shape? Or does that which wants to be put into shape, affect to be without form? You are unwilling that God should seem to be equal to Matter; and then again you say that it has a common condition⁷² with God. "For it is impossible," you say, "if it has nothing in common with God, that it can be set in order by Him." But if it had anything in common with God, it did not want to be set in order,⁷³ being, forsooth, a part of the Deity through a community of condition; or else even God was susceptible of being set in order⁷⁴ by Matter, by His having Himself something in common with it. And now you herein subject God to necessity, since there was in Matter something on account of which He gave it form. You make it, however, a common attribute of both of them, that they set themselves in motion by themselves, and that they are ever in motion. What less do you ascribe to Matter than to God? There will be found all through a fellowship of divinity in this freedom and perpetuity of motion.

Only in God motion is regular,⁷⁵ in Matter irregular.⁷⁶ In both, however, there is equally the attribute of Deity—both alike having free and eternal motion. At the same time, you assign more to Matter, to which belonged the privilege of thus moving itself in a way not allowed to God.

On the subject of motion I would make this further remark. Following the simile of the boiling caldron, you say that motion in Matter, before it was regulated, was confused,⁷⁷ restless, incomprehensible by reason of excess in the commotion.⁷⁸ Then again you go on to say, "But it waited for the regulation⁷⁹ of God, and kept its irregular motion incomprehensible, owing to the tardiness of its irregular motion." Just before you ascribe commotion, here tardiness, to motion. Now observe how many slips you make respecting the nature of Matter. In a former passage⁸⁰ you say, "If Matter were naturally evil, it would not have admitted of a change for the better; nor would God have ever applied to it any attempt at arrangement, for His labour would have been in vain." You therefore concluded your two opinions, that Matter was not by nature evil, and that its nature was incapable of being changed by God; and then, forgetting them, you afterwards drew this inference: "But when it received adjustment from God, and was reduced to order,⁸¹ it relinquished its nature." Now, inasmuch as it was transformed to good, it was of course transformed from evil; and if by God's setting it in order it relinquished⁸² the nature of evil, it follows that its nature came to an end;⁸³ now its nature was evil before the adjustment, but after the transformation it might have relinquished that nature.

But it remains that I should show also how you make God work. You are plainly enough at variance with the philosophers; but neither are you in accord with the prophets. The Stoics maintain that God pervaded Matter, just as honey the honeycomb. You, however, affirm that it is not by pervading Matter that God makes the world, but simply by appearing, and approaching it, just as beauty affects⁸⁴ a thing by simply appearing, and a loadstone by approaching it. Now what similarity is there in God forming the world, and beauty wounding a soul, or a magnet attracting iron? For even if God appeared to Matter, He yet did not wound it, as beauty does the soul; if, again, He approached it, He yet did not cohere to it, as the magnet does to the iron. Suppose, however, that your examples are suitable ones. Then, of course,⁸⁵ it was by appearing and approaching to Matter that God made the world, and He made it when He appeared and when He approached to it. Therefore, since He had not made it before then,⁸⁶ He had neither appeared nor approached to it. Now, by whom can it be believed that God had not appeared to Matter—of the same nature as it even was owing to its eternity? Or that He had been at a distance from it—even He whom we believe to be existent everywhere, and everywhere apparent; whose praises all things chant, even inanimate things and things incorporeal, according to (the prophet) Daniel?⁸⁷ How immense the place, where God kept Himself so far aloof from Matter as to have neither appeared nor approached to it before the creation of the world! I suppose He journeyed to it from a long distance, as soon as He wished to appear and approach to it.

But it is not thus that the prophets and the apostles have told us that the world was made by God merely appearing and approaching Matter. They did not even mention any Matter, but (said) that Wisdom was first set up, the beginning of His ways, for His works.⁸⁸ Then that the Word was produced, "through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made."⁸⁹ Indeed, "by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their hosts by the breath of His mouth."⁹⁰ He is the Lord's right hand,⁹¹ indeed His two hands, by which He worked and constructed the universe. "For," says He, "the heavens are the works of Thine hands,"⁹² wherewith "He hath meted out the heaven, and the earth with a span."⁹³ Do not be willing so to cover God with flattery, as to contend that He produced by His mere appearance and simple approach so many vast substances, instead of rather forming them by His own energies. For this is proved by Jeremiah when he says, "God hath made the earth by His power, He hath established the world by His wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by His understanding."⁹⁴ These are the energies by the stress of which He made this universe.⁹⁵ His glory is greater if He laboured. At length on the seventh day He rested from His works. Both one and the other were after His manner. If, on the contrary,⁹⁶ He made this world simply by appearing and approaching it, did He, on the completion of His work, cease to appear and approach it any more. Nay rather,⁹⁷ God began to appear more conspicuously and to be everywhere accessible⁹⁸ from the time when the world was made. You see, therefore, how all things consist by the operation of that God who "made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and stretched out the heaven by His understanding;" not appearing merely, nor approaching, but applying the almighty efforts of His mind, His wisdom, His power, His understanding, His word, His Spirit, His might. Now these things were not necessary to Him, if He had been perfect by simply appearing and approaching. They are, however, His "invisible things," which, according to the apostle, "are from the creation of the world clearly seen by the things that are made;"⁹⁹ they are no parts of a nondescript¹⁰⁰ Matter, but they are the sensible¹⁰¹ evidences of Himself. "For who hath known the mind of the Lord,"¹⁰² of which (the apostle) exclaims: "O the depth of the riches both of His wisdom and knowledge! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"¹⁰³ Now what clearer truth do these words indicate, than that all things were made out of nothing? They are incapable of being found out or investigated, except by God alone. Otherwise, if they were traceable or discoverable in Matter, they would be capable of investigation. Therefore, in as far as it has become evident that Matter had no prior existence (even from this circumstance, that it is impossible¹⁰⁴ for it to have had such an existence as is assigned to it), in so far is it proved that all things were made by God out of nothing. It must be admitted, however,¹⁰⁵ that Hermogenes, by describing for Matter a condition like his own—irregular, confused, turbulent, of a doubtful and precipate and fervid impulse—has displayed a specimen of his own art, and painted his own portrait.