Chapter XXX.—Another Passage in the Sacred History of the Creation, Released from the Mishandling of Hermogenes.

The following words will in like manner apparently corroborate the conjecture of Hermogenes, “And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water;”^64266426    Gen. i. 2. as if these blended^64276427    Confusæ. substances, presented us with arguments for his massive pile of Matter.^64286428    Massalis illius molis. Now, so discriminating an enumeration of certain and distinct elements (as we have in this passage), which severally designates “darkness,” “the deep,” “the Spirit of God,” “the waters,” forbids the inference that anything confused or (from such confusion) uncertain is meant. Still more, when He ascribed to them their own places,^64296429    Situs. “darkness on the face of the deep,” “the Spirit upon the face of the waters,” He repudiated all confusion in the substances; and by demonstrating their separate position,^64306430    Dispositionem. He demonstrated also their distinction.  Most absurd, indeed, would it be that Matter, which is introduced to our view as “without form,” should have its “formless” condition maintained by so many words indicative of form,^64316431    Tot formarum vocabulis. without any intimation of what that confused body^64326432    Corpus confusionis. is, which must of course be supposed to be unique,^64336433    Unicum. since it is without form.^64346434    Informe. For that which is without form is uniform; but even^64356435    Autem. that which is without form, when it is blended together^64366436    Confusum. from various component parts,^64376437    Ex varietate. must necessarily have one outward appearance;^64386438    Unam speciem. and it has not any appearance, until it has the one appearance (which comes) from many parts combined.^64396439    Unam ex multis speciem. Now Matter either had those specific parts^64406440    Istas species. within itself, from the words indicative of which it had to be understood—I mean “darkness,” and “the deep,” and “the Spirit,” and “the waters”—or it had them not. If it had them, how is it introduced as being “without form?”^64416441    Non habens formas. If it had them not, how does it become known?^64426442    Agnoscitur.