Other Speculations of Hermogenes, About Matter and Some of Its Adjuncts, Shown to Be Absurd. For Instance, Its Alleged Infinity.

Chapter XXXIII.—Other Speculations of Hermogenes, About Matter and Some of Its Adjuncts, Shown to Be Absurd. For Instance, Its Alleged Infinity.

My observations touching the site ⁶⁵³⁶ of Matter, as also concerning its mode ⁶⁵³⁷ 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. ⁶⁵³⁸ Now, if it is local, it is within locality; if within locality, it is bounded ⁶⁵³⁹ by the place within which it is; if it is bounded, it has an outline, ⁶⁵⁴⁰ 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, ⁶⁵⁴¹ 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.” ⁶⁵⁴² In bulk, therefore, is it infinite, not in time. And you contradict yourself ⁶⁵⁴³ 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, ⁶⁵⁴⁴ 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, ⁶⁵⁴⁵ to set off the glory of His work.

Footnotes

499:6536

De situ.

499:6537

Oehler here restores the reading “quod et de modo,” instead of “de motu,” for which Pamelius contends. Oehler has the mss. on his side, and Fr. Junius, who interprets “modo” here to mean “mass or quantity.” Pamelius wishes to suit the passage to the preceding context (see ch. xxxvi.); Junius thinks it is meant rather to refer to what follows, by which it is confirmed.

499:6538

In loco.

499:6539

Determinatur.

499:6540

Lineam extremam.

499:6541

Modo corporis: or “bulk.”

499:6542

Nec tota fabricatur, sed partes ejus. This perhaps means: “It is not its entirety, but its parts, which are used in creation.”

499:6543

Obduceris: here a verb of the middle voice.

499:6544

In reference to the opinion above mentioned, “Matter is not fabricated as whole, but in parts.”

499:6545

Ut exemplarium antiquitatis.