right mind, inasmuch as they undertake to describe things which are indescribable. For that
a word is uttered at the bidding of thought and mind, all men indeed well understand. Those,
therefore, who have excogitated [the theory of] emissions have not discovered anything
great, or revealed any abstruse mystery, when they have simply transferred what all under-
stand to the only-begotten Word of God; and while they style Him unspeakable and unname-
able, they nevertheless set forth the production and formation of His first generation, as if
they themselves had assisted at His birth, thus assimilating Him to the word of mankind
formed by emissions.
7. But we shall not be wrong if we affirm the same thing also concerning the substance
of matter, that God produced it. For we have learned from the Scriptures that God holds
the supremacy over all things. But whence or in what way He produced it, neither has
Scripture anywhere declared; nor does it become us to conjecture, so as, in accordance with
our own opinions, to form endless conjectures concerning God, but we should leave such
knowledge in the hands of God Himself. In like manner, also, we must leave the cause why,
while all things were made by God, certain of His creatures sinned and revolted from a state
of submission to God, and others, indeed the great majority, persevered, and do still per-
severe, in [willing] subjection to Him who formed them, and also of what nature those are
who sinned, and of what nature those who persevere,—[we must, I say, leave the cause of
these things] to God and His Word, to whom alone He said, “Sit at my right hand, until I
make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”579 But as for us, we still dwell upon the earth, and have
not yet sat down upon His throne. For although the Spirit of the Saviour that is in Him
“searcheth all things, even the deep things of God,”580 yet as to us “there are diversities of
gifts, differences of administrations, and diversities of operations;”581 and we, while upon
the earth, as Paul also declares, “know in part, and prophesy in part.”582 Since, therefore,
we know but in part, we ought to leave all sorts of [difficult] questions in the hands of Him
who in some measure, [and that only,] bestows grace on us. That eternal fire, [for instance,]
is prepared for sinners, both the Lord has plainly declared, and the rest of the Scriptures
demonstrate. And that God foreknew that this would happen, the Scriptures do in like
manner demonstrate, since He prepared eternal fire from the beginning for those who were
[afterwards] to transgress [His commandments]; but the cause itself of the nature of such
transgressors neither has any Scripture informed us, nor has an apostle told us, nor has the
Lord taught us. It becomes us, therefore, to leave the knowledge of this matter to God, even
as the Lord does of the day and hour [of judgment], and not to rush to such an extreme of
579 Ps. cx. 1.
580 1 Cor. ii. 10.
581 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5, 6.
582 1 Cor. xiii. 9.
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Chapter XXVIII.—Perfect knowledge cannot be attained in the present life:…