All things, that exist, are either created or
uncreated. If, then, things are created, it follows that they are
also wholly mutable. For things, whose existence originated in
change, must also be subject to change, whether it be that they perish
or that they become other than they are by act of will Reading
προαίρεσιν;
a variant is τροπήν.. But if things are uncreated they
must in all consistency be also wholly immutable. For things
which are opposed in the nature of their existence must also be opposed
in the mode of their existence, that is to say, must have opposite
properties: who, then, will refuse to grant that all existing
things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but
even the very angels, are subject to change and transformation and
movement of various kinds? For the things appertaining to the
rational world, I mean angels and spirits and demons, are subject to
changes of will, whether it is a progression or a retrogression in
goodness, whether a struggle or a surrender; while the others suffer
changes of generation and destruction, of increase and decrease, of
quality and of movement in space. Things then that are mutable
are also wholly created. But things that are created must be the
work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created. For
if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some
one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The
Creator, then, being uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And
what could this be other than Deity?