Quaestiones Christianorum ad gentiles

T Y G Y YS T N Y PH L S PH Y K M R T Y R S R O T S S CH R ST N K P R S T YS L L N S. First question of the Christians to the Greeks. If the greatest good among men has the greatest evil set against it, and the greatest good among men is to know the God who truly is, then the greatest evil is to be ignorant of him. But since this evil is present in some men, which is more fitting for God the creator of the world: to change the present condition of this life and free men from the greatest evil, as the account of the Christians wishes, or to allow the world to remain in the same condition and men to be forever held fast by the greatest evil? Greek answer to the Christians. First, in reply to the first difficulty, it must be said that there is no greatest evil. For if God is the greatest of goods, it is clear that, if anyone supposed a greatest evil, another principle opposed to God would be found, which is what the Manichaeans say when they speak wrongly. For it is absurd that God should not encompass all things, should not shine his goodness upon all. Therefore there is no greatest evil. For ignorance is often given to men for their good; we observe in many cases that it more often happens that people despise things known than things unknown. Besides, the soul suffers ignorance of the God who truly is, not from any other cause but from its own forgetfulness. And knowledge of God comes also to souls here below; just as we see here men who know God. And if one wishes to speak the truth, there is not ignorance concerning God at all.

For all confess by common notion that God exists. And that humans, even while here, can know God, the faith of the orthodox also clearly shows, saying that God himself came down and was known to humans. If, then, it is possible for humans, even while here, to know God, no great evil befalls them from being here. For to those who are ignorant, as has been said, ignorance of God comes from an unbelieving nature. But if someone should also concede—which is absurd—that the things here are the greatest evil, and that not being is better than being in these things: if he says that the creator made the things here evil through weakness, he is foolish, claiming that God's power does not grasp all things. But if, being able to make the things here good, he allowed others to do evil, this too will be a charge against God; for he who is able to stop it but overlooks it, more truly does it himself. But if it is God himself who made the things here, it is clear that, the same God remaining, both afterward and always the same things will be. For what he was able to do long ago, he is able to do now. But if he is now able to do something more than before, such a thing will be temporal to him

Power, which is absurd; for what is in time is corruptible. But if, being able long ago to prevent the greatest evil, he did not prevent it, he would be envious—which it is impious even to imagine. It is necessary, then, that the same one, remaining in the same conditions, do the same things. Refutation of the answer that has been given incorrectly. The account itself, when understood, was sufficient for the refutation of the incoherent argument. For by saying at the beginning of the argument that the greatest evil does not exist, but at the end of the argument that it is impious and that it is from mere imagination to think unworthy things about God—how is the greatest evil not introduced as having been decided, when it was cast out without judgment by the one who answered? But if to such impiety from mere imagination there is also added the act of speaking, the impiety becomes greater; and if along with speaking there is also writing, the impiety necessarily possesses every excess of wickedness. But if these things are so, and there is in all things said and written unworthily about God, or even merely imagined, an impiety that destroys the glory of God, then the greatest evil among humans comes from ignorance of God. But since it seemed good to your piety that the incoherence of the argument be refuted by us also in writing, for this reason I write briefly the things set out below. For to refute an obvious falsehood at greater length is narcotic both to the writer and to the reader. The one who answered set down two kinds of the greatest evil in his own answer, and three kinds of ignorance of God—the former according to the Manichaeans, the latter according to the one who answered himself.

And of the two forms of the greatest evil, he said one was according to essence and the other according to activity of that which is according to essence; and of the three forms of ignorance of God, he said one was according to forgetfulness, another according to the unbelieving nature, and another according to the good gift. Making the refutation brief of both the views of the Manichaeans and of his own, he spoke sometimes refuting the opinion of the Manichaeans, when he says: There is no greatest evil; but if anyone should suppose a greatest evil, another principle will be found opposed to God, which the Manichaeans, speaking falsely, do say; and sometimes, when he says: The soul suffers ignorance of the truly existing God not from anything else but from its own forgetfulness; in those passages refuting the greatest evil according to essence, but in these the one according to activity. And refuting also the forms of ignorance of God which he himself posited, he says: There is not at all any ignorance concerning God; for all confess by common notion that God exists. If, then, there is not at all any ignorance concerning God, it is clear that the statement is false that ignorance of God befalls humans either according to forgetfulness or according to the unbelieving nature or according to the good gift. But if he calls the common notion of all the one according to the specific notion of each of the evil-opining heresies, being refuted, not even so will there be knowledge of God in all. But we have placed in the question neither the greatest evil according to the Manichaeans nor the ignorance of God according to the one who answered himself, but we spoke of the greatest evil according to notion, the one against God, falsely

...and ignorance of God is that which has spoken the lie; which is the third form of the greatest evil, arising for humans from their voluntary disobedience and unbelief. The respondent, intending to refute this, refuted the two forms of the greatest evil according to the Manichaeans, but did not refute the one according to us. Therefore we must say one of two things about the respondent: either that he did not understand the third form of the greatest evil according to us, or that he lacked a just counter-argument capable of refuting it. But that the greatest evil according to us is that which arises for humans from ignorance of God is shown as follows. The greatest evil, which does not exist according to essence, humans in their own doctrines supposed to exist because of ignorance of God. And the respondent himself bears witness to this in what he said: "There is no greatest evil; and if anyone should suppose a greatest evil, another principle opposed to God will be found, which is what the Manichaeans, speaking badly, say." For it is absurd that God does not comprehend all things, that he does not shine his goodness upon all. Therefore there is no greatest evil. In these words the greatest evil according to essence has been refuted, but there has been left remaining the one according to supposition in doctrine, which we set down in the question. But since the respondent, directing his argument toward the refutation of the greatest evil according to us, said, "There is no greatest evil," for this reason the respondent is clearly either one who did not understand, as has been said, the greatest evil according to us, or one who lacked a just counter-argument. But if this is so, it is clear that there is a greatest evil among humans according to supposition in doctrine.

For, he says, if God is the greatest of goods, then the statement saying that God is the greatest of goods is true and pious. But since some humans, from ignorance of God, deprive the truly existing God of His just appellations and honors, and attach them to things that do not exist, does it not seem to the respondent that this is a double impiety, greater than which there is none—to be ignorant of the truly existing God, and to honor what does not exist with His appellations and honors? And how is it possible, according to his declaration saying that there is no greatest evil among humans, when the greatest impiety exists among humans—unless perhaps he does not consider the greatest impiety to be the greatest evil? If someone, he says, were to suppose a greatest evil, another principle opposed to God will be found, which is what the Manichaeans say when they speak wrongly. For it is absurd that God does not comprehend all things, that He does not shine His goodness upon all. Therefore there is no greatest evil. If there is no greatest evil among humans, how did you accuse the Manichaeans of speaking wrongly in what they say? For if the Manichaeans speak wrongly in what they say, it is clear that what is said by them is evil; for everyone who speaks wrongly speaks evil wrongly; and the evil according to the Manichaeans is such that nothing is greater than it. But if this is true, then there truly is a great evil among humans, even if not in substance, yet in supposition and doctrine.

For, he says, ignorance is often given to humans for their good; at any rate, we observe in many cases that it often happens that people despise things known rather than things unknown. And besides, the soul suffers ignorance of the truly existing God from nothing other than its own forgetfulness. But knowledge of God also comes to souls here below; just as we see humans here below knowing God. And if anyone wishes to speak the truth, there is not ignorance concerning God at all; for all confess by a common notion that God exists. That humans, even being here below, can know God, the faith of the orthodox also clearly shows, saying that God Himself came down and was known to humans. He said that ignorance is often given to humans for their good. But if he means ignorance of God, about which our argument is concerned, it is plainly absurd to say that ignorance of God is given for the good of those who are ignorant; for by this account all religions that are ignorant of God will be ignorant of God for their own good, while the religion that knows God will not be for its own good. But if he means another ignorance, about which our discussion was set before us, the comparison is untimely, since it offers the ignorance not under inquiry in place of the ignorance under inquiry. He said that the soul suffers ignorance of God from its own forgetfulness. He said that knowledge of God also comes to souls here below; he said that we also see people here below knowing God. He said that there is not ignorance concerning God at all; for all confess by a common notion that God exists.

He said that even here humans are able to know God; and as proof of this he cited the faith of the orthodox, which says that God himself came down and was known to humans. But if it is true that the soul suffers ignorance of God through its own forgetfulness, it is clear that the claim that there is no ignorance of God at all is false; for all confess that God exists by common notion. But what need was there for knowledge of God to come to souls here, if all know God and confess him by common notion? And as for the statement "And here we see humans knowing God," about which humans is he speaking? If he means those who have known God as having come down and been made known to them according to the faith of the orthodox, the statement is true; for we see them. But how is it that he who used the presence of God among humans as proof that it is possible for humans to know God even here himself disbelieves what was said by him about the restoration of the world? For an untrustworthy proof does not show the thing proposed for demonstration to be trustworthy. But if he does not mean here the humans who know God through the teaching of the God who came down, the statement that says "We see humans here who have known God" is false. For I do not see these people. And if there was no ignorance of God at all—for all confess him by common notion—what knowledge of God has come to humans here, if not the specific knowledge according to which all the

Are the religions of the earth—the one that champions the true word being simply a religion of falsehood, while they differ from one another by their differences in falsehood? But if this is so, then it is not according to the argument of the one who answered that knowledge of God comes to souls here below, but rather ignorance—if indeed the religions do not differ from one another by the universal knowledge of God that is in them, but rather by the specific knowledge that has come to them here below. If, then, it is possible even here, while humans are in this life, to know God, no very great evil befalls them from being here. For, as has been said, ignorance of God comes to the ignorant from their own unbelieving nature. The one who answered, having woven together two statements that destroy each other, set down in his own answer both that it is possible for humans, while here, to know God, and that no very great evil befalls them; and also that for the ignorant, ignorance of God comes from their own unbelieving nature. And the very great evil, which he cast out by the first statement, this he brought in by the second statement—if it is the very greatest evil to commit impiety by a twofold impiety against the God who truly is: to deprive him of the glory that belongs to his essence, and falsely to honor the gods that are not with the glory that belongs to him—a thing that has left behind it not even a single excess of wickedness.

But the claim that, because it is possible for humans here below to know God, no very great evil befalls them—this is not a removal of the greatest evil but an intensification of it, since humans fail even in what is possible because of their own voluntary unbelief, and, though they are able by simple piety to worship in a way that saves humans, they prefer to this the twofold impiety; and not to call this the greatest evil is among the most absurd things. But if someone should also concede—which is absurd—that the things here below are the greatest evil, and that not to exist is better than to exist in these conditions: if he says that the craftsman made the things here below evil through weakness, he is foolish, claiming that God's power does not grasp all things. But if, being able to make the things here below good, he allowed others to make them evil, this too is a charge against God; for one who is able to stop it but overlooks it is more truly the one doing it. According to what was said above, it follows that those who do not know God fail to know God because of their own unbelieving nature, which is acknowledged to be the greatest evil—how then does the one who answers now concede this according to the absurd concession? But if it is not this but another greatest evil that he concedes according to the absurd concession, that greatest evil is not according to us but according to the Manichaeans.

For in our view all things here below are good, since they have the greatest of goods as their creator, and there is no evil in them that is greatest by nature, nor by the activity of what is by nature, but by the voluntary choice of humans, which prefers falsehood to truth according to the aforementioned twofold impiety. Correcting this, the creator and god of the world appointed the day on which he makes the removal of all the evils in the world that come from unbelief and disobedience toward God, according to the faith of the orthodox, of those who have come to know God here below, and according to the testimony of the one who answered. It was not necessary, then, for the one who answered to direct his argument to what is in our view the greatest evil, but to the greatest evil according to the Manichaeans; for this is a sign of ignorance and a proof of perplexity, as has been said. But he allows us to do the evils that we voluntarily choose, not because of any weakness in his power, but so that our free will and his long-suffering may be shown, without which neither we could be humans nor he could be good in the present state of affairs.

But if it is God himself who made the things here below, it is clear that, since the same God remains, the same things will be both afterward and always. For what he was able to do long ago, he is also able to do now. But if he is now able to do something more than before, such a power of his will be temporal, which is absurd; for what is temporal is corruptible. In the case of those things of which "having made" is said, "he has made" and "he will make" are also said of them, and since they are equivalent to one another, their interchange is unhindered; but "having made" precedes "he will make" by natural necessity, and these are significant of the two limits of time. But one who has the two limits of time, that is, the past and the future, must necessarily also have what is between the limits of time, that is, the present. And since "having made" has a temporal implication, of necessity God too, having made the things here below according to the voice of the one who answered, made them in time. But God, having made the things here below, made both the incorruptible and the corruptible; for these are parts of the things here below. Therefore it is clear that the one who answered reasonably applied "having made" to God, but unreasonably distinguished the corruptible from the incorruptible by what is temporal, since these are not distinguished from one another by the word "having made," if indeed he made both the corruptible and the incorruptible. If, then, the one who says concerning God "he will make" the restoration speaks by way of assuming a temporal power, then the one who says concerning him "having made" will also be speaking by way of assuming a temporal power, if indeed "having made" everywhere precedes "he will make"; but if, having made, he made not by way of assuming a temporal power, then neither will he make by way of assuming a temporal power.

But if, being able long ago to prevent this greatest evil, he did not prevent it, he would be envious—which it is impious even to imagine. It is necessary, therefore, that the same one, remaining over the same things, do the same things. That humans are impious in many ways on account of ignorance of God—if they are ignorant of the God who truly is—we have shown in the passages above. For either they reject God, depriving him of his own glory, and falsely honor those who are not gods with his names and works; or they suppose the creation and providence of the world to belong to creators at war with one another; or with the name of the unbegotten, which alone befits the God who is the creator of the world, they name the parts of the world, and apart from creating they falsely ascribe to God the name of creator—to pass over the other forms among humans of the greatest evils, which have impiety equal to or even greater than the impiety of those who imagine God to be envious. But if these and such things are the greatest evils among humans, and the one who answers disbelieves the restoration proclaimed by Christians, in which comes the removal of all evils among humans, both in soul and in body, how is God not, according to him, envious—he who, being able to prevent the greatest evils among humans, does not prevent them, but always, while remaining over the same things, deals with those who are impious toward him and toward one another? And for what reason does the one who answers disbelieve the restoration of the world? Because of the inability of the one who makes it, or because of the unfittingness of the work? But if indeed because of the inability of the one who makes it, God will not even be a maker.

For the things of which God does not have the power of transformation, of these he does not have the power of creation either; for these things follow one another, being posited or abolished together. But if, on account of the unseemliness of the work, the better work will therefore not be fitting for him—which is absurd—then to say that it is fitting for him to make corruptible men, but not fitting for him to make incorruptible men. Second Christian question to the Greeks. If it is impossible for God to be one who has made nothing, how is he God, if the world is ungenerated, as some think? Greek answer to the Christians. To say that it is impossible for God to be one who has made nothing is absurd. For again here too the same argument applies, that nothing is temporal with God. But if nothing is temporal with God, it is clear that neither is it fitting to attribute the past of time to God. But if this is not fitting, then neither is it fitting to say that God has made anything at all. What then? Would you say that we err in calling God inactive? But we do not say this, but that God has not made, nor does he make, nor will he make in time; for he has made nothing more than he makes, nor again does he make more than he will make; but the past with God is in the present, and the future in the already-having-happened, since God has nothing fluent, but always does the same things through his perfect and unchanging power and activity. He makes the world, therefore, in this very thing which it is, providing it with ceaseless motion, by illuminating it through eternity. So that he has made nothing, nor will he make anything. But he always does the same thing, the same one, not having a beginning of his making, lest he also have an end.

as, if his activities have a beginning and an end, God will be corruptible in his activity—which is absurd. For his power too will be changeable, as employing different activities at different times; and his essence will be shaken, generating different powers at different times and not remaining in the same ones. So that, if these things are so through and through, it is clear that God will be changeable in essence, in power, and in activity—which is absurd. He, then, remaining the same, has nothing that is in time. He therefore makes the world, ordering it always, and the world comes to be by being always guarded, but by being always the same it is unbegotten. Refutation of the answer that was not correctly given. To say that it is impossible for God to have made nothing is absurd. For here again the same argument applies, that nothing is in time with God. For because nothing is in time with God, it is absurd to say of him "he has made," and it belongs to the same absurdity also to make, as being in time, like "he has made." How then does the respondent say that "he has made" is unsuitable to God, but "he makes" is suitable? And if "having made" has the same force as "to make," and likewise "to make" as "to have made," and the interchange of things of equal force is unimpeded, how is it that in the first answer the respondent posited both "having made" and "to make" of God, but now removes both from him? And he posited "having made" of God thus: "The same," he says, "is God who made the things here"; and "to make" he posited thus: "It is necessary, then," he says, "that the same one, remaining over the same things, make the same things." But in the second answer, abolishing what was laid down in the first answer, he says thus:

It is absurd to say that God is unable to be one who has made nothing. And again: neither has God made nor does he make nor will he make anything in time. But perhaps he has submitted to contradicting himself through his own forgetfulness, according to which, as he said, it happens that humans are ignorant. But let us examine what follows from these things. Nothing, he says, is in time with God; it is clear that neither does the past of time fit to be ascribed to God. And if this does not fit, then neither does it fit to say that God has made anything whatsoever. In these matters the respondent, having assumed the absurdity—that nothing is in time with God—brings forward as reasonable the consequences that necessarily follow from the absurdity: that nothing is in time with God, and it is clear that neither does the past of time fit to be ascribed to God. And if this does not fit, then neither does it fit to say that God has made anything whatsoever. But that he absurdly assumed that nothing is in time with God, which he used for the demonstration of the things brought forward next, the respondent himself refutes himself in what he said in the first answer: But if, he says, God himself who made the things here, it is clear that with the same God remaining both afterward and always the same things will be. For the things he was able to do long ago he is also able to do now. If, therefore, nothing is in time with God, it is clear that neither "having made" nor "makes" nor "before and after" nor "long ago and now" nor "he was able and is able" applies.

For the expressions "having made," "before," "long ago," and "was able" are indicative of past time, while "makes," "later," "now," and "is able" are significant of present and future time. But when these expressions are applied to God, they become significant and affirmative of the fact that all God's works are in time with respect to him—it is clear that he absurdly supposed that nothing is in time with respect to him. But when this absurd supposition is refuted, there is necessarily refuted along with it also the claim that "has made" does not befit God. For when this too is refuted, its opposite is necessarily posited, namely that "has made" does befit God. For in every case either the affirmation must be true or the negation. And when it is established that "has made" befits God, it is impossible to say that God is one who has made nothing; for this follows from that. What then? Would you say that we err when we call God inactive? But we do not say this, but rather that God has not made, does not make, and will not make anything in time; for he has made nothing more than he makes, nor again does he make more than he will make; but the past is present with God, and the future is in the already-having-happened, since God has nothing fluid, but always does the same things through his perfect and unchanging power and activity. But to avoid the sin of saying that God is inactive, while saying of him that he has not made, does not make, and will not make in time, is to fall into the same sin.

For if you had wished to sin and to say that God is inactive, what more did you have to say than what you have now said, not wishing to sin and to say that God is inactive, than that God neither has made nor makes nor will make? For if the expressions that indicate and contain a temporal significance are removed from the activity of God, God will be found inactive, and therefore not even a maker. And if nothing temporal is with God, it is clear that neither the past of time nor the present nor the future is with him. How then does the one who answers, removing temporal things from God, place temporal things upon God and say: "But both the past is with God in the present, and the future in the already-having-happened"? This has the significance of one of two things: either this thing that is not with God is in that which is not, or this thing that is not with God is in that which is. But if the first, it is impossible; for to be in something or not to be is [a property] of that which is. And if the second, then that which is not is with God in that which is, that is, the past of time in the present of time. But this being posited, it becomes a refutation of the statement, incorrectly made, that "nothing temporal is with God"—[namely, the claim that] the past is in the present and the future in the already-having-happened, which things are temporal. And even if he has changed the manner of how the parts of time are with God, nevertheless he has granted that the past and the present and the future of time are with him; and [he has granted] that he has not made more than he makes, nor again that he makes more than he will make.

For what need was there of the removal of the "more" from the acts of making that differ from one another according to "he has made" and "he makes" and "he will make," when the acts of making do not differ from one another according to "more" and "less"? For it is not a removal of having made that he has not made rather than makes, but rather a positing of "he has made." But plainly all the temporal things that he removed from God in the preamble of the second answer, these he left to him here: as though God has nothing fluid, but always does the same things through his perfect and unchangeable power and activity. He who removes temporal things does not posit temporal things. How then, if according to the one who answered nothing temporal is with God, does God do the same things? For "he does" cannot be understood apart from the present time. And how does God have perfect power and activity, if indeed he ceaselessly does the same things? For motion is called an imperfect activity for this reason, because it is always being moved; and if God were to act in imitation of it, his activity would be imperfect and not perfect; for perfect activity is contemplated in the work already completed and not in the incomplete. But if the one who answered says that God has made nothing because of the imperfection of the activity and because of the most imperfect state of the matter, he will not speak the truth, while saying that the activity of God is perfect—the activity that has completed nothing either in the whole or in the part. But if, when the work is not completed, it is impossible for the activity of the one who makes to be perfect, it is clear that God too does not have perfect activity, always making what is made.

He makes the world, then, in this very thing that it is, providing it with unceasing motion, by illuminating it throughout eternity. In the supplying of motion God makes the world—clearly he makes the world in time; for motion is not without time, that motion which is supplied to the world by God for its own movement. If, then, "makes" belongs to the present tense and motion is in time, how is it not false that "nothing is in time with God"? And how is it possible for the world to be moved when it has not yet come to be, but exists only in the process of being made—since God makes without time, while the world is made in time? For it is necessary that, just as the one who makes makes, so the thing being made is made without time. But if God makes the world by the supplying of motion, then it is not fitting that "he has made the world" be said of him, nor consequently does "it was moved" fit the world. The thing moved is one thing, and the motion another—for example, let the thing moved be the sun, and its motion a change of place by locomotion from one place to another; and the motion does not give the sun its substance, but gives it to move by locomotion. Clearly the sun has two makings, one of its substance and another of its motion—such as the sun is a compacted mass, ethereal in substance, bright in form, spherical in shape, none of which the sun has through motion. But if the sun has none of these through motion, it is clear that it has them not through the making that comes from God either.

If God makes the sun, which is a part of the world, by supplying unceasing motion, just as he makes the whole world, then the movable thing must exist first and the motion afterward; or else the sun is uncreated in its essence, or God made its essence by one kind of making and its motion by another kind of making, making its essence first and afterward supplying it with motion. But if he makes it always to be moved, yet does not always make its essence, it is clear that after the making of its essence he supplies it with unceasing motion, and the end of the making of its essence is the beginning of its motion. And if these things are so, it is clear that nothing is timeless with God; for a making succeeding a making is not timeless. So then he has made nothing, nor will he make anything. But the same one always makes the same thing, having no beginning of making, that he may have no end either. Since it has been shown that the making of the sun's essence is one thing and the making through motion another, which the one who answered called unceasing, and that the making of its essence precedes the making through motion, how is it not absurd to say that the sun's making through motion is without beginning, when the sun, before the unceasing making through motion, had the making of its essence, which has ceased? Either, then, God is not the maker of the sun's essence, or the sun's making through motion is not without beginning. But if the first, if God is not the maker of the sun's essence, then he is not its maker through motion either.

For from that source from which it has its being, from that same source it must necessarily have its motion as well. But if the second alternative holds, God will be perishable in his activity, if indeed, according to the one who answered, when God's activity ceases, God is destroyed in his activity. But if God is the maker of the sun's substance and does not always make this, it is clear that he made it before it moved, and no created thing is timeless with God. So, if his activities have a beginning and an end, God will be perishable in his activity—which is absurd. And his power will also be changeable, producing different activities at different times. But if his power is changeable, employing different activities at different times, then his substance too will be shaken, begetting different powers at different times and not remaining in the same ones. So that, if these things hold in every respect, it is clear that God will be changeable in substance, in power, and in activity—which is absurd. Just as God himself has no beginning and no end, so neither does his activity nor his works; for his activities are in his works. Therefore, just as he himself has no need of a maker, so neither do the things called his works; and the statement that God is the maker of the things that are according to him, being without beginning and without end, will also be false. But if everywhere the maker is distinguished from the thing made by the difference of prior existence and subsequent existence, it is clear that the one who removes this difference from God and from his works deprives both—God and the created things—God of the title of maker, and the created things of that of things made.

And if the power of God is infinite, as indeed it is, but his works are finite, how is God not, in respect of the powers he has but does not exercise according to them, perishable according to the judgment of the one who answered? But if, in respect of the powers he has and does not exercise according to them, he is not perishable, then neither, when the activity of God that produced the world has ceased, is God destroyed in his activity. For he acts as much as he wills, and not as much as he can; and the contraction of his activity does not make God perishable. Nor, when he contracts his activity, does he contract it by a change of his power; but the power of God is always unchangeable, and he uses his activities insofar as he wills. For God does not act as do those who have their being in acting, and when their activity ceases they too will cease to be, such as fire and snow. For God does not act in this way, for the sake of the things that come to be rather than for the sake of his own being, so that, if he should cease to act, he would also cease to be. But if this is absurd, then it is absurd also to say that the power of God is changeable by the contraction of his activity, or that his substance is shaken by his varied activities as he projects different things at different times.

And just as God, when he makes us, first infants, then young men, then old men, does not make us by a change of his power, nor by a corruption of his activity, nor by any disturbance of his substance, changing our ages at different times, which differ from one another as first and later, but by the projection and contraction of his activity, so his activity has a beginning and an end not by a change of his power, but by projection and contraction. For if, when his activity was contracted, God could no longer use the activity that had ceased, it would justly be called a corruption of activity; but if he is always able to project the same activity whenever he wishes, then the activity of God is not corrupted when it is contracted. For if the power is not corrupted, it is impossible for the activity to be corrupted. For one thing is the corruption of activity, and another is the contraction of activity, so that, if the activity that makes the world were not contracted, infinite worlds would have come into being in number by its ceaseless activity. But as it is, since only one world has come into being, by the finitude of the work the activity that made the world is shown to be finite.

The same one, therefore, remaining [unchanged], has nothing temporal. He makes the world, then, ordering it always, and the world comes to be by being always guarded, but by being always the same it exists as unbegotten. If God has nothing temporal, then neither does he have the act of making; for the act of making is temporal. And if God makes the world without bringing forth its substance, he does not make the world; for the world without substance is not a world. But if the world has an uncreated substance, it is of necessity also unguarded; for that which does not need [anything] for its coming to be according to substance does not need it either for being guarded; for the unbegotten nature is not receptive of any of the things outside itself. And if in the case of everything either the affirmation or the negation must be true, how did the one who answered set down both on the generation of the world, both the affirmation and the negation, saying that it is both generated and unbegotten? Further, if, as he said in the third answer, God, being unbegotten, makes all things unbegottenly, not things that come to be but things that subsist together with him—but since everything that subsists together with that with which it subsists is saved by the salvation of that [other], needing no other guard than that one's salvation (for when that one is saved, it too is saved)—for this reason, if there is need of a guard for salvation, that one needs a guard whose subsistence is the condition of the things that subsist together with it, not the things that subsist together with it. But if these things are so, then the world that subsists together with God does not need a guard, but God himself does, with whom the world subsists together. But if this is absurd, then it is absurd also to say that the world subsists together with God.

It must be said, then, that the world subsists by the will of God, and by the will of God it remains the same, even if not forever. Likewise, things that co-subsist with the subsistence of something remain by that thing's persistence, not by their own; for example, angles co-subsist with the composition of lines, and while the composition remains, the angles also remain, and when the composition is destroyed, the angles are also destroyed; and if there is need for the angles to remain, it is necessary to provide a guard for the composition of the lines, not for the angles in themselves, but incidentally for the angles, and in itself for the composition of the lines. In accordance with these things one must think of the world, if it co-subsists with God unbegottenly, as the one who answers says. Third question, Christian, against the Greeks. If God makes by being and not by willing—for example, fire heats by being—how is he himself one and simple and uniform, yet the maker of different essences? Greek answer against the Christians. One must not suppose that, just as in us being is one thing and willing another, so also in God; but being and willing exist in God as the very same thing outright. For what he is, he also wills, and what he wills, he is; and there is no division in God, because God is self-determining. So even the division of being from willing must be cast away in the case of God. But neither must one suppose that God makes by being in the way that fire heats; for fire, even if essentially, nevertheless has heat as an accident, whereas in God nothing is either essential as an accident nor accidental.

Since, then, nothing has happened to him, and being and willing are the same for God, he is simple and uniform, producing existing things without generation. For just as we see that generated things—for example, a particular man, who came to be in a generated way and is himself generative—produce generated things, and in general generated things, having come to be in a generated way, produce generated things and produce them from themselves, in the same way God also, being ungenerated, produces all things without generation, not things that come to be but things that co-subsist, and by the infinity of his power he produces things that differ. But let us not think of God in human terms. For we are said to produce when, having first been in one state and later changing into another, we act; but God does not produce in this way. Rather, through an ineffable and surpassing power, producing all things without time, he perfects all things, and at the same time as he himself is, he also produces the things that exist, not needing, as we do, to first come to be and be perfected, and then produce what comes later, because there is nothing in him that is earlier and later. We see, then, that nature too produces by the very fact of being and always brings about change all at once, just as in the curdling of milk we observe the curdling coming upon the milk all at once. Much more, then, must one suppose that God produces all things all at once and without time, being himself one, yet by the infinity of his power bringing forth things that differ, and these things are altogether self-produced.

Refutation of the answer that has been given incorrectly. One must not suppose, he says, that just as in us being is one thing and willing is another, so also in God; but being and willing are directly the same in God. For what he is, he also wills, and what he wills, he is; and there is no division in God, because God is self-moved. So the division of being from willing in God must be rejected. Since God has substance for existence and will for creation, the one who rejects the difference between substance and will rejects both the existence of God and his creation—his existence, and the creation of things that are not. That the substance of God is one thing and the will another is shown also from the argument of the one who answered, who said: "What he is, he also wills, and what he wills, he is." He converted will with substance, and substance with will. But conversion can in no way occur where the things converted are not one thing and another either in definition or in number. What is one in number is in no way prevented from being one thing and another in definition; for example, a straight line is one in number as to its subsistence, but in definition it is one thing as a straight line and another as a line. In this way, is not the nature of God divided by the definition of substance and will? If existing and inhering are different, and the substance of God exists while the will inheres in the substance, then the substance of God is one thing and the will another. If the will of God is from the substance, but the substance is not from the will, then the substance of God is one thing and the will another.

The essence of God does not admit of not being essence, but the will of God admits of not willing; for example, God willed to make one sun, he did not will to make a second sun, because just as it was advantageous for existing things that the sun be one, so it was not advantageous for existing things that a second sun come to be; and he willed what was advantageous, but what was not advantageous he did not will. But if this is so, then the essence of God is one thing and the will another. That which God is, this he also wills; it is clear that it is an object of will and not will. How then is the will the same as the essence, when the object of will and the will are one thing and another, just as the perceptible object and perception? God is without beginning and eternal, and he is neither self-caused nor caused by another; for what is simply self-caused is in no way eternal and without beginning. He who answered in one set of words abolishes the distinction between the essence of God and the will, but in another set of words he posits it. In abolishing the distinction between the essence of God and the will he said: One must not suppose that, just as in us being is one thing and willing another, so also in God. But in positing the distinction he says: But the same exists directly. And again: Being and willing are the same in God. For just as one other is other than another other, so also the same is directly the same as another; and likewise what is directly is directly one thing in relation to another. But if the essence of God and the will are the same, there will be directly one thing and another.

If this is not so, then when the one and the other are abolished, the sameness of the essence of God and of the will, and the direct opposition, will necessarily be abolished. Just as being moved is the activity of motion, so also willing is the activity of will; and whatever difference power has in relation to activity, this same difference will has in relation to willing. But it is impossible for willing to have the difference in relation to will, while not having it in relation to the one who wills. And if by no account is it possible for willing and will and the one who wills to be the same, it is clear that the one who rejects the other and other of God and of willing rejects the difference of the one who acts and of the activity; which is absurd. And one thing is the subsistent, and another the non-subsistent, and God is the former, while willing is the latter; it is clear that the one who rejects the other and other of God and of willing either rejects the subsistent or the non-subsistent. And according to the account of the opponent—that what God is, he also wills, and what he wills, he is—it is clear that, if God did not will that his activity not be destroyed, when it has ceased it is destroyed without his having willed it. Therefore God is not what he wills. And the doing is of the will of God; it is clear that, just as doing simply differs from doing of what sort and how many and when, so being differs from willing.

But neither must one suppose that God does "to be" in the way that fire heats; for fire, even if essentially, nevertheless has heat as an accident, whereas in God nothing is either essentially accidental or accidentally so. Since, then, nothing is accidental to him, but to be and to will are the same in God, he is simple and uniform, productive of things that exist without being generated. Let the one who answers say how heat is accidental to fire. For the question now is not how heat is accidental to it, but about the involuntary activity by which he acts by his being. To will is either a substance or is present to a substance. But if it is a substance, then there is no one who wills; and if it is present to a substance, then of necessity one thing and another thing exist; for the being and the thing present are not the same. If God wills many things, but many things do not exist, then in God to be is not the same as to will. If God can do as many things as he wills to do, but does not will to do as many things as he can do, then in him to be is not the same as to will. If God is one and simple and uniform, but wills many things and does not will many things—for example, he wills that existing things be many in their variety, but does not will that they be infinite in number—then in him to be is not the same as to will. If God does not do what he is, but does what he wills, and wills to make the world, then in him to be is not the same as to will. If ungenerated things are not generated without generation, then God does not make ungenerated things without generation; for it is impossible for a generated thing to be ungenerated.

Just as teaching is the activity of the teacher in the one who learns, so making is the activity of the maker in the thing made. Therefore, whoever removes generation from the thing made also removes the activity from the making of the maker. In vain does God exercise the activity of making if the thing that comes to be does not exist. God does not make without making, nor therefore does he make without generation. "God makes" is an affirmation of making, while "he makes without making" is in potency a denial of the affirmation. "Unbegotten" and "made" are conflicting terms. That which is unbegotten through making is not therefore unbegotten; that which is not through making is not unbegotten. There is no difference between saying "The one who made made, but the thing made did not come to be" and saying "God makes unbegotten things." It is reasonable to say "God makes unbegotten things unbegottenly"; therefore it is also reasonable to say "Unbegotten things come to be unbegottenly." For "comes to be" follows "makes" by natural necessity. But if the second is absurd, then the first is also absurd. If coming to be is in time, then being made is also in time; for they are equivalent. For it is impossible that, while the maker makes, the thing made does not come to be. If nothing comes to be unbegottenly, then nothing is made unbegottenly either; for "to come to be" and "to be made" are not the same in wording but are the same in fact. If God makes by his being, he makes what he makes by necessity; but if he makes by his will, he makes with authority; and making with authority, he makes as many things as he wills, of what sort he wills, and when he wills. If God makes by his being, his will serves no purpose, since he cannot use it at all. The one who answers posits two incompatible things concerning God.

He calls him maker of existing things, and attributes to him making without generation. For if he himself makes without generation, but the thing made in no way comes to be—neither generately nor ungenerately, neither made nor unmade—then just as the thing made does not come to be, so neither does the maker make. As, he says, we see that generated things—for example, a man who came to be generately and is generative—produce generated things, and in general generated things that came to be generately produce generated things from themselves, in the same way God also, being ungenerated, makes all things ungenerately, not coming into being but subsisting together, and by the boundlessness of his power he makes the different things. Who, then, is the one who made man, who according to the voice of the respondent came to be generately, and being himself generated produces generated things generately? But if it is God, how did the respondent not lie when he said: God, being ungenerated, makes ungenerated things ungenerately? But if it is not God, how does God not provide for things belonging to others, providing for men of whom he is not the maker? But if it is absurd not to say that God is the maker of man, then it is absurd also to say that God makes ungenerated things ungenerately; for behold, he has made man, who is generately generated. If the part of a thing is generated, of necessity the whole of it is also generated, and man is a part of the world—the man who according to the voice of the respondent came to be generately; therefore the world is also generated. If God is ungenerated and makes ungenerated things, how does he not apply the name of the ungenerated in common, since it distinguishes him from nothing?

If God does not make what he is (for that is impossible), but makes things that are not, then he makes things that have come to be, while he himself is unbegotten. But we do not first seek how God makes, but what he makes; for once what he makes has been found, how he makes has also been found. Existing as unbegotten, God makes unbegotten things in an unbegotten way, and existing as without master, he makes things without master in a way without master. But if the second is absurd, then the first is absurd as well. Things that subsist together with one another inseparably—none of them can be the maker of any of them; otherwise they will be makers of one another. But if this is absurd, then it is also absurd to say that God is the maker of things that subsist together with him inseparably. God can make infinitely many things, but by willing; yet God cannot be different things (for he is one and simple and uniform in form), but he wills different things. Therefore he does not make by being, but by willing. Just as the angles subsist together with the composition of the lines, so too the world subsists together with God; therefore God makes the world by necessity and not by will, incidentally and not in itself; for the angles subsist together by necessity and incidentally with the position of the lines. He who makes makes what is not; for what is does not need a maker. But if this is so, then God is not the maker of things that subsist together with him, as the respondent says. God did not make a house, but he made man, and gave him the power to make a house. Nothing, then, of these things is in God in an unbegotten way, neither the making of man nor the giving of the power. The respondent laid down two rules.

One kind [of making applies] in the case of the making of unbegotten beings, which also make in an unbegotten way; and one kind in the case of the making of begotten beings, which also make in a begotten way. And some things, he says, the works of the unbegotten, subsist together with their own makers in an unbegotten way, while the works of the begotten are within time. Since, then, none of the unbegotten make in a temporal way, it is clear that begotten things have neither come to be by the unbegotten nor can come to be. But let us not attribute making to God in a human way. For we are said to make not in the way that we, being first in one state and later changing into another, do; nor does God make in this way. But by an ineffable and exceedingly surpassing power, making all things without time, he perfects all things, and at the same time as he himself is, he also makes the things that are, not needing, as we do, first to come to be and be perfected, and then to make, because there is nothing in him that is earlier and later. We change from the earlier into the later by the discovery of something better; but God does not do so, but, as is fitting, makes what he makes from the beginning, not changing earlier things into later. For if he had first purposed from the beginning to change earlier things into later and does not change them, either weakness of power would be thought [to be in him], or that he found something better than what was proposed; neither of which is present in God—neither weakness of power nor the later discovery of something better than the earlier. If God makes all things—things that do not come to be but subsist together—it was superfluous to make the things that are at the same time as he is.

For just as it would be superfluous, when the composition of the lines exists, to make the angles, so it would be superfluous, when God exists together with the world, to make the world, if indeed it coexists with God, as the one who answers says. At the same time as God exists, the world also exists; and the world is always in motion, and motion is in time; therefore God is in time together with the world. Since God is unbegotten and makes unbegotten things in an unbegotten way—not things that come to be but things that coexist with him—then man also is unbegotten, being a part of the world. How then does the one who answers call him begotten? And if God, being unbegotten, makes unbegotten things in an unbegotten way, it is clear that, being simple, he makes all things simple that coexist with him. But if this is so, then the world does not coexist with God, since it is composite both as a whole and in part. God is one, and that which coexists with him is not one; therefore begotten things do not coexist with him who is unbegotten. If God is beyond both intelligible and sensible things, and does not make works beyond intelligible and sensible things, then neither, being unbegotten, does he make unbegotten things. It is impossible for things to coexist with that which is beyond themselves; how then did the world come to coexist with God, who is beyond it? It is impossible for composite things to be unbegotten; how then are heaven and sun and world unbegotten, being composite, having their matter from one source and their form from another?

We see that nature too creates by the very fact of existing and always brings about change all at once, just as in the curdling of milk we observe the curdling coming to the milk all at once. Much more, then, must one suppose that God makes all things all at once and without time, being himself one, yet by the boundlessness of his power bringing forth things that differ, and these things being altogether self-produced. Nature brings about change all at once, not for the production of substance but for the production of an affection; for the curdling in the milk is an affection of the milk, but nature in no way produces substance all at once. How, then, is he not to be answered, who has used an inappropriate example, the working of nature, to demonstrate the timeless working of God, who is the maker of many and different substances—which, even if God makes them all at once, are not even so without time? For the all-at-once belongs to time, the indivisible instant. The will of God does not have mastery over self-produced things, but the will of God has mastery over those things which it itself brings forth. But if the will of God has mastery over all things, then nothing is self-produced. He who answers calls both God and the world self-produced. But if the world is self-produced, subsisting together with the cause of its own subsistence, then necessarily God too, being self-produced, subsists together with the cause of his own subsistence. But if this is absurd, then it is absurd also to say that both God and the world are self-produced, and that they subsist together with one another inseparably.

If God exists in himself as self-activating, but the world subsists together with him as an accident, how is it not false that nothing happens to God, if indeed, while God is produced self-activatingly, the world has subsisted together with him as self-activating? If things that will happen by some natural necessity happen to him unwillingly, how, if the world subsists together with God by natural necessity, does it not subsist together with him unwillingly as an accident? If being is the same as willing in God, it is clear that in those things which God does not will, he is not present either. How, then, when he is not present, does the world subsist together with him? For the world subsists together with him unwillingly. The unbegotten makes unbegotten things unbegottenly, it is clear that the incomposite also makes incomposite things incompositely. If the second is not so, then neither is the first. For the world is composite. If God does not make gods divinely, how does the unbegotten make unbegotten things unbegottenly? For he does not subsist together with himself, but with another. God is one thing, the unbegotten another; the latter belongs to him, but by the former he is separated from generated things. And God exists while making, and while making he is not separated. But if he also makes that by which he is separated, yet accidentally and not in himself, how does nothing happen to God accidentally when he makes? If, just as the concave and the convex subsist together with the sphere, so the world subsists together with God, then they are mutually causative—God of the world, and the world of God—just as those are also. If no one makes by will the things which he was also making without willing, how then did God make the world by will, which he was also making by necessity without willing to make it?

God is one in substance, but infinite in power; the things that subsist together with him are neither one according to his substance nor infinite according to his power, and therefore they do not subsist together with him. God is always perfect, always powerful; and in him there is no before and after, but in his works both are present. His works are composite, and every composite is composed of simples, and it is impossible for the simples to exist at the same time as the composites; for the simples are first, and the composites afterward. Just as God is beyond reproach regarding the weakness of his power, because he did not make more worlds, but having made one world he ceased from making, so God is beyond reproach regarding the imperfection of his power, because he did not make the world at the same time as he himself existed, but when he willed. There is no difference between the self-produced and the self-generated; but if God is self-produced and the world is self-produced, then both God and the world will be self-generated. Just as we see the curdling of milk come about all at once, so being comes to the world all at once; therefore the world is generated and changeable, from non-being into being; for "it comes about" signifies "it came to be." If God is self-produced and the world is self-produced, the self-production of each will be the principle of the existence of each. How then are God and the world unbegun and eternal, if they have their own self-productions as the principles of their own existence? The self-produced has the meaning of a derivation of that which is derived from itself.

But since everything that is produced is produced either by presence, through a change from place to place, or by substance, through a making that leads from non-existence into existence, and neither of these belongs to God, it is clear that the one who answered did not correctly call him self-produced; for the self-produced differs in no way from the other-produced by being wholly self-produced. It is impossible for the unbegotten to be made, impossible for the world to be unbegotten and for God to be its maker. But if the world differs from God by being made, it necessarily also differs by being generated; for the world is made, but God is unmade. If that which subsists together with the unbegotten by natural necessity is unmade, how then is it not false that God made the made world, when it is unmade and unbegotten according to him? If the world is self-produced and not made, it is necessarily also self-made. The self-generated and self-made differ in no way from the self-produced. But if both God and the world are self-produced, they will be self-generated and self-made. And if this is absurd, then it is also absurd to say that God, who is without beginning and eternal, is self-produced, but that the made world is unbegotten and self-produced. If the world is self-produced, it is not God-produced; and if it is not God-produced, then God did not produce it either. How then is the one who answered not speaking falsely and inconsistently when he says that God is pre-existent but the world is self-produced?

Therefore, he says, one must suppose that God produces all things much more in a sudden and timeless manner, being himself one, but bringing forth the diverse things by the boundlessness of his power, and these things themselves being altogether self-acted. And if doing is equivalent to will-do, how does he who removes from God the will-do, as having the appearance of future time, now attribute to him the doing, which has the same appearance of time? But if doing has the appearance both of future time and of past time, how is it not the case that all the parts of time exist in God's working? Fourth Christian question to the Greeks. If it is impossible for that which formerly was not and later is to be coeternal with that which always is, how, if the world is generated, is it coeternal with God? Greek answer to the Christians. That it is impossible for that which is in time (for this is what "formerly not being, later being" signifies) to be eternal and coeternal with that which always is, is clear. And that from this argument the world is shown to be ungenerated, this too is surely clear to everyone. But if anyone should wish to say, as some of the ancients call the world generated, if they examine the arguments superficially, they would justly blame those who say this; but if they understand accurately the depth of what has been said, they will find that these men accurately and clearly declare the world to be ungenerated. For they themselves, in saying that both the paradigmatic and the productive cause are ungenerated, clearly declare that the world also, being the product of these, is plainly ungenerated.

For it has been demonstrated to the ancients that the so-called relatives exist simultaneously by nature. Since, therefore, the image is relative to the paradigm and the paradigm to the image, and the product to the maker and the maker to the product, it will exist simultaneously by nature. If, then, the maker is unbegotten and the paradigm unbegotten, the world also is unbegotten, being an image of the paradigm and a product of the maker. That relatives exist simultaneously by nature has been clearly demonstrated to all and agreed, and it is easy to know from this very fact. For right and left are among relatives. Just as, therefore, it is not possible for the right to exist without the left existing, nor the left apart from the right, so it is not possible for the maker to exist without the product or the product without the maker. If, then, the maker is unbegotten, the product is also unbegotten. But if someone wishes to say that the maker existed first and the product came to be later, he will fall into another absurdity. For he will be found to be saying that the maker exists in potentiality and not in actuality (which is nothing other than saying that God is imperfect), and besides this, the product no less coexists with the maker, since this too is in potentiality just as the maker is, since in all cases relatives subsist equally. If, then, the maker is in potentiality, the product is also in potentiality; but if the maker is in actuality and perfect, the product is likewise. Clearly, then, it is evident to everyone that the product coexists with the maker insofar as he is a maker.

Refutation of the answer, which has not been given correctly. As he showed in his other answers, when he declared the world ungenerated, so also in the present answer he promises to show that the world is ungenerated; and yet in his other answers he neither established its ungeneratedness from the manifest and knowable things of the world, nor set it forth through demonstration, but only by his own authority declared what seemed right to him. But coming to this present answer, in which he attempts to show that the world is ungenerated, he first mentions the ancients who said that the world is generated; whom he said were worthy of just censure for saying that the world is generated, unless by their other statements they overturned their own statements, which say that the world is generated. But this is not a release from just censure, but rather productive of the great and just censure—the fact of setting both the affirmation and the denial upon the generation of the world, and of their fighting against themselves with their own arguments. And let these things be said for the refutation of the fact that the one who answered did not justly employ statements that fight against one another, for a demonstrative proof establishing that the world is ungenerated. But let us examine the statements of those ancients, in which they demonstratively declare the world to be ungenerated, as the one who answered says.

For he says that from this argument too it is shown that the world is ungenerated, and this is surely clear to everyone. But even if someone should wish to say that certain of the ancients call the world generated, if they attend to the words superficially, they would justly censure those who say this; but if they understand accurately the depth of what has been said, they will find that these men accurately and clearly declare the world to be ungenerated. For they themselves, in saying that the paradigmatic and productive cause is ungenerated, clearly declare that the world too, being the product of these, is plainly ungenerated. It is laid down by the ancients that the world is generated, and the statement, understood superficially, remains unchanged, but understood deeply it falls over into its opposite. Why is it that the paradigmatic and productive cause, which is laid down by the ancients, when changed into its opposite by similar attentions—of one who has used the superficial in place of the deep—the one who answered did not, using such attentions, change the generated world, which is laid down by the ancients, into the ungenerated, in order to free those who have said this from just censure? But if doing this is absurd, one must understand the words of the ancients by the natures of things, and not by the various attentions that change what is laid down into its opposite.

If the paradigm is one thing and the thing according to the paradigm is another (for the paradigm is simple, but the thing according to the paradigm is composite), and the one that is thus other and other is necessarily at one time one thing and at another time another, and the "at one time and at another time" involves prior and posterior and cannot by nature be simultaneous, then the paradigm and the thing according to the paradigm are not by nature simultaneous. He who answered says at one time that the world is a common product of both the paradigmatic cause and the productive cause, and says: It is clear that the world also, being a product of these; but at another time that it is a product of the productive cause, but an image of the paradigmatic. And it is clear from this that the world is neither relative to the creator insofar as it is an image, nor to the paradigm insofar as it is a product. But if this is so, then it is not true that the world is a product of these. If the creator creates the world by the paradigm, wishing to create it, but if he creates it by its being, the paradigm is superfluous, since God's being is sufficient for the making of what is made, and it brings in the will; for things are not willed which would have come to be even without the maker willing them. For such is the work of those who make by their being. God himself is ungenerated, but he generated the paradigm from his own thought, and he fashioned the world from matter according to the paradigm. But if, according to the one who answered, since the world is a product of the ungenerated creator, for this reason it too is ungenerated, then the paradigm will also be ungenerated, since it is an offspring of the ungenerated.

But if it is absurd to say that the offspring is unbegotten, then it is absurd also to say that the thing made is unbegotten. And if, because the craftsman is unbegotten, it is necessary that the thing crafted also be unbegotten, it is clear that in this way it is necessary that the thing crafted be also uncreated; for the craftsman is uncreated. But if this is absurd, then it is absurd also to say that the world is unbegotten. The craftable differs from the begotten in word only, and does not differ in reality; therefore they convert universally with one another because they are on equal footing; for if anything is begotten, this is necessarily also craftable, and if anything is craftable, this is necessarily also begotten. But since it is impossible for the world to be both unbegotten and begotten (for in every case either the affirmation must be true or the negation), how then is it possible for the world to be craftable and unbegotten? For the same thing to be twice in another is necessarily at one time and another time; for example, the paradigm is in God and in matter, and in God it is unmade, but in matter it is makeable, and in God it is not the world but the paradigm of the world, but in matter it is the world. But if at one time and another time, then also in one way and another way, and necessarily also prior and posterior. And if prior and posterior, it is clear that it is not coeternal. It has been demonstrated by the ancients that the so-called relatives exist simultaneously by nature. Since, then, the image is relative to the paradigm and the paradigm to the image, and the thing crafted to the craftsman and the craftsman to the thing crafted, such things will exist simultaneously by nature.

If, then, the craftsman is unbegotten and the pattern is unbegotten, the world is also unbegotten, being an image of the pattern and a thing made by the craftsman. It has been demonstrated by the ancients that relative things exist simultaneously by nature, and to them the account of the image has been granted. An image, he says, is that whose generation comes about through imitation. But if, according to the one who answered, the world is unbegotten, it is clear that the world has lost the name of image—both the name and the thing; for in unbegottenness it is impossible for the world to preserve the account of the image. He who says that the thing made is unbegotten, because its craftsman is unbegotten, must also say that the thing made is unmade, because its craftsman is unmade; for these follow one another of necessity—the unmade with the unbegotten, and the unbegotten with the unmade. But if this is absurd, then it is absurd also to say that the thing made is unbegotten. Relative things exist simultaneously by nature, and for this reason it is necessary that the thing made be co-begotten with the craftsman, as seems right to the one who answered; it is necessary, then, in the same way to say that the begotten is co-begotten with the unbegotten. For these too are relative: the unbegotten is relative to the begotten, and the begotten to the unbegotten. But if, when the begotten does not exist in potentiality, the unbegotten is unbegotten, and when the begotten exists in actuality the unbegotten is unbegotten, it is necessary then to understand this in the same way also in the case of the craftsman and the thing made, and of the pattern and the image; and nothing absurd results. For the nature that relative things have in respect of the craftsman and the thing made, the same they have also in respect of the begotten and the unbegotten.

And the first and the later belong to things relative to something; for the later is relative to the first and the first to the later, and they exist together by nature, either potentially or actually. But if, according to the one who answered, the product is co-eternal with the unbegotten craftsman, since it is relative to something and together by nature, then in this way the generated will also be co-eternal with the unbegotten God. For God is first, and the generated is later; and as relative to something, the prior and the later are together by nature. But if, apart from being sometimes potential and sometimes actual, it is impossible for the first and the later to be together by nature, then neither is the product co-eternal with the craftsman, nor the image with the pattern. That things relative to something exist together by nature has been clearly demonstrated to all and agreed, and it is easy to know from this very fact. For the right and the left are among things relative to something. Just as, then, it is not possible for the right to be without the left existing, nor the left apart from the right, so it is not possible for the craftsman to be without the product or the product without the craftsman. If, then, the craftsman is unbegotten, the product is also unbegotten. For if, just as the right and the left subsisted in relation to each other in the same substance in the whole part, so the craftsman and the product subsisted in relation to each other in the same substance in the whole part, the example would have a place, which the one who answered used in trying to show that the product is co-eternal with the craftsman.

But if the right and the left are in the same substance, in the whole part, relative to one another, while the craftsman and the thing crafted are not such, it is clear that the one who gave the answer used an inappropriate example, having no analogy at all to the nature of the matter in relation to what is being illustrated. Of things relative to something, some are said to be what they are of one another, as the father is said to be father of the son and the son is said to be son of the father; but others are not said to be what they are of one another, as the straight and the circular, of which it is common that the one is sometimes said to be what it is potentially, and sometimes actually; and some are always both either potentially or actually, as the concave and the convex; and some are always actually, as the upper and the lower. Such being the divisions of things relative to something, whenever we wish to resolve the difficulty of some question through the relative, one must first understand of which division of things relative to something the question is, and then in accordance with the nature of the division to establish the analogy which the example has to what is being illustrated; otherwise the example will be found inappropriate and the difficulty unresolved.

If the craftsman and the thing crafted are among the things said relative to one another (for the thing crafted is of the craftsman, and the craftsman of the thing crafted), but the one who answered, wishing to show by an example that the created is co-eternal with the uncreated, took for the demonstration of this the relative class of things not said relative to one another (for the right is not said of the left, nor the left of the right), it is clear that he used an inappropriate example, one that does not have, in accordance with the nature of what is demonstrated, an analogy capable of resolving the difficulty of the question at hand in relation to what is being demonstrated. But if someone wishes to say that the craftsman existed first and the thing crafted came to be later, he will fall into another absurdity. For he will be found to say that the craftsman exists in potentiality and not in actuality (which is nothing other than to call God imperfect), and besides this, that the thing crafted no less co-exists with the craftsman, being itself also in potentiality just as the craftsman, since in every case things that subsist relative to one another do so equally. If, then, the craftsman is in potentiality, the thing crafted is also in potentiality; but if the craftsman is in actuality and perfect, the thing crafted is likewise. Clearly, then, it is evident to everyone that the thing crafted co-exists with the craftsman insofar as he is a craftsman.

Just as God has, in relation to the thing crafted, the relation of the relative as a craftsman, so he has the same relation of the relative also toward the generated as ungenerated, and toward things posterior as first, and he has nothing incomplete either in his ungenerateness or in his primacy (for by no account is it possible to call God an incomplete ungenerated being or an incomplete first, on the ground that he was once potentially both, both ungenerated and first), so he does not admit of being incomplete, since he was previously potentially a craftsman. But if, because he was first potentially a craftsman and later in actuality, he is reproached with incompleteness, then necessarily, because he was first potentially both ungenerated and first, and later in actuality, he will likewise be reproached with incompleteness. But if it is absurd to reproach God for the incompleteness of his ungenerateness and primacy, then it is absurd also to reproach him for the incompleteness of his creative power, on the ground that he did not make the world at the same time as he existed, but later, when he wished. For it is not possible that one who is incomplete in respect of some one relative relation should not be similarly incomplete in respect of all the remaining relative relations.

Fifth question of a Christian to the Greeks. If heaven is ungenerated and God is ungenerated, and God dwells in heaven, how is God not insulted when he dwells in things that are not his own? For the heaven that he did not make is not his. Answer of a Greek to the Christians. That God is ungenerated and that heaven is ungenerated is clear both from what has now been said superficially and from what has been nobly demonstrated by many. But that it is not reasonable to say that God dwells in heaven, let us consider in this way. First, the dwelling-place has come to be for the salvation of the dweller; so that, if the world is a dwelling-place and God is the one who dwells, it is clear that the world saves God, and God is saved by the world, which is the most absurd thing of all. Besides, the superior is the container of the inferior, and the inferior is contained by the superior. But the dweller is contained by the dwelling, and therefore the dwelling-place will contain God; and from this argument God will be in the worse rank, and the created thing in the better. Besides, what is contained is in a place, and everything that is in a place is a body; and therefore God, if he is in a place, will be a body. How then will a body, being lesser insofar as it is contained, contain the greater body? It is absurd to say so. But that the dweller in a place is contained by the house is clear to everyone, even to one blind from birth. What then? you might say. How does Homer say that heaven is the dwelling of the craftsman?

Because, having seen the illumination of God everywhere throughout the world, he called the world the dwelling-place of God, as being a receptacle of all God's making and creating. But they call heaven especially so, because it is agreed by all that heaven is the highest part of the whole world. Refutation of the answer, which was not given correctly. To say that God is a creator but the world is uncreated: for "uncreated" has the same force as "unbegotten," and the interchange of terms equal in force is unrestricted. And to say "the uncreated God makes uncreated things," which is equal to "the unbegotten God begets unbegotten things unbegottenly." And to say that God is eternal but the world is co-eternal, and that God and the world are produced self-caused from non-existence into existence: for "self-caused," said of God and of the world, has the same meaning. And to say that the world is self-caused and guarded by another: for "guarded by God" means "guarded by another" (for the world is one thing and God, who guards the world, is another, whom, being self-caused, it was necessarily also to be self-guarded). And to say that God and the world are unbegotten and self-begotten: for "self-caused," said of God and of the world, means "self-begotten." And to say "God made the things here below," and again "he did not make them": for "he made" is in time, just as

And the phrase "having made"; and the claim that the world coexists eternally and inseparably with God, though it received its existence from the Creator in a generated way, from matter and form, through composition; and the claim that the world is both incorruptible and corruptible—incorruptible in respect of its being, corruptible in respect of its being guarded; and the claim "the world comes to be," and that what is generated is in time, and that what is in time is corruptible; and the claim that the world is a receptacle of all God's making and creating, and that God is not the creator of corruptible things. For God, according to him who answered, makes nothing that is in time, and all generated and temporal things are, according to him, always corruptible. These things and the like are not the work of men who demonstrate the things concerning God and the world by a noble proof, in accordance with the knowledge of the nature of things, but of rash men who, in their shamelessness, declare their own opinion concerning God and the world. But to censure the expression "the dwelling of God in heaven," as being unfitting for God, is the mark of men who do not perceive what is said absurdly; for the ill-sounding expression has an ill-sounding meaning as well. But we did not put in the question the manner of God's dwelling in heaven, which the one who answered misrepresented, but rather that if heaven is ungenerated, it is not God's, and those who say that God dwells in it say so to the insult of God—since God does not dwell in a heaven that is not his own.

We call heaven the house and throne of God, not because God needs this for dwelling or for a seat, since he is entirely uncircumscribed and in need of nothing; but so that, looking to the greatness of his own substance and the incorruptibility of his essence, we should not suppose this to be God or equal in honor to God—for this reason we call it the house and throne of God, by these names separating it from all communion with God in essence and in the designations of his essence. For just as the house and the throne are later than the one who made them, so too heaven is later than God, as the generated is later than the ungenerated. And if we now call heaven incorruptible, we do not name it incorruptible synonymously with God; for God has incorruptibility uncreatedly from his own essence and eternally, whereas heaven has incorruptibility createdly from the will of God for the need of things here, and when the need is fulfilled it is transferred to another mode of incorruptibility. For God, who gave it the magnitude of a body, as much as he willed and not as much as he was able (for he was able to make it much greater in magnitude than it is), now himself has appointed it to remain in incorruptibility within its own limit, until the time of the transformation of existing things into something better, according to the faith of the orthodox, who have come to know God from the teaching of the God who was made known to them and according to the testimony of him who answered.