For the changeableness of
changeable things, is itself capable of all those forms, into which
these changeable things are changed. And this changeableness, what
is it? Is it soul? Is it body? Is it that which constituteth soul or
body? Might one say, "a nothing something", an "is, is not," I would
say, this were it: and yet in some way was it even then, as being
capable of receiving these visible and compound figures.
But whence had it this degree of being, but from Thee, from Whom are
all things, so far forth as they are? But so much the further from
Thee, as the unliker Thee; for it is not farness of place. Thou
therefore, Lord, Who art not one in one place, and otherwise in
another, but the Self-same, and the Self-same, and the Self-same,
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, didst in the Beginning, which
is of Thee, in Thy Wisdom, which was born of Thine own Substance,
create something, and that out of nothing. For Thou createdst heaven
and earth; not out of Thyself, for so should they have been equal to
Thine Only Begotten Son, and thereby to Thee also; whereas no way were
it right that aught should be equal to Thee, which was not of Thee.
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