18. (3) of
Substance.
In the third place a beginning may be that out of which
a thing comes, the underlying matter from which things are
formed. This, however, is the view of those who hold matter
itself to be uncreated, a view which we believers cannot share, since
we believe God to have made the things that are out of the things which
are not, as the
mother of the seven
martyrs in the Maccabees teaches,
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and as the
angel of repentance in the Shepherd inculcated.
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2 Macc. vii. 28
.
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Herm. Sim. viii.