Chapter XXXIII.—The World Was
Created by God Out of Nothing.
48. Let Thy works praise Thee, that we may
love Thee; and let us love Thee, that Thy works may praise Thee,
the which have beginning and end from time,—rising and setting,
growth and decay, form and privation. They have therefore their
successions of morning and evening, partly hidden, partly apparent;
for they were made from nothing by Thee, not of Thee, nor of any
matter not Thine, or which was created before, but of concreted
matter (that is, matter at the same time created by Thee), because
without any interval of time Thou didst form its formlessness.
1427
For since
the matter of heaven and earth is one thing, and the form of heaven
and earth another, Thou hast made the matter indeed of almost
nothing, but the form of the world Thou hast formed of formless
matter; both, however, at the same time, so that the form should
follow the matter with no interval of delay.
1427
See p. 165, note 4, above.