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Creation

Against Hermogenes

Tertullian · c. 200–206 AD

1h 33m read
Ante-Nicene

A refutation of Hermogenes's doctrine that God created the world from pre-existent matter, defending creation ex nihilo.

Table of Contents

1The Opinions of Hermogenes, by the Prescriptive Rule of Antiquity Shown to Be Heretical. Not Derived from Christianity, But from Heathen Philosophy. Some of the Tenets Mentioned2Hermogenes, After a Perverse Induction from Mere Heretical Assumptions, Concludes that God Created All Things Out of Pre-Existing Matter3An Argument of Hermogenes. The Answer: While God is a Title Eternally Applicable to the Divine Being, Lord and Father are Only Relative Appellations, Not Eternally Applicable. An Inconsistency in the Argument of Hermogenes Pointed Out4Hermogenes Gives Divine Attributes to Matter, and So Makes Two Gods5Hermogenes Coquets with His Own Argument, as If Rather Afraid of It. After Investing Matter with Divine Qualities, He Tries to Make It Somehow Inferior to God6The Shifts to Which Hermogenes is Reduced, Who Deifies Matter, and Yet is Unwilling to Hold Him Equal with the Divine Creator7Hermogenes Held to His Theory in Order that Its Absurdity May Be Exposed on His Own Principles8On His Own Principles, Hermogenes Makes Matter, on the Whole, Superior to God9Sundry Inevitable But Intolerable Conclusions from the Principles of Hermogenes10To What Straits Hermogenes Absurdly Reduces the Divine Being. He Does Nothing Short of Making Him the Author of Evil11Hermogenes Makes Great Efforts to Remove Evil from God to Matter. How He Fails to Do This Consistently with His Own Argument12The Mode of Controversy Changed. The Premisses of Hermogenes Accepted, in Order to Show into What Confusion They Lead Him13Another Ground of Hermogenes that Matter Has Some Good in It. Its Absurdity14Tertullian Pushes His Opponent into a Dilemma15The Truth, that God Made All Things from Nothing, Rescued from the Opponent's Flounderings16A Series of Dilemmas. They Show that Hermogenes Cannot Escape from the Orthodox Conclusion17The Truth of God's Work in Creation. You Cannot Depart in the Least from It, Without Landing Yourself in an Absurdity18An Eulogy on the Wisdom and Word of God, by Which God Made All Things of Nothing19An Appeal to the History of Creation. True Meaning of the Term Beginning, Which the Heretic Curiously Wrests to an Absurd Sense20Meaning of the Phrase--In the Beginning. Tertullian Connects It with the Wisdom of God, and Elicits from It the Truth that the Creation Was Not Out of Pre-Existent Matter21A Retort of Heresy Answered. That Scripture Should in So Many Words Tell Us that the World Was Made of Nothing is Superfluous22This Conclusion Confirmed by the Usage of Holy Scripture in Its History of the Creation. Hermogenes in Danger of the Woe Pronounced Against Adding to Scripture23Hermogenes Pursued to Another Passage of Scripture. The Absurdity of His Interpretation Exposed24Earth Does Not Mean Matter as Hermogenes Would Have It25The Assumption that There are Two Earths Mentioned in the History of the Creation, Refuted26The Method Observed in the History of the Creation, in Reply to the Perverse Interpretation of Hermogenes27Some Hair-Splitting Use of Words in Which His Opponent Had Indulged28A Curious Inconsistency in Hermogenes Exposed. Certain Expressions in The History of Creation Vindicated in The True Sense29The Gradual Development of Cosmical Order Out of Chaos in the Creation, Beautifully Stated30Another Passage in the Sacred History of the Creation, Released from the Mishandling of Hermogenes31A Further Vindication of the Scripture Narrative of the Creation, Against a Futile View of Hermogenes32The Account of the Creation in Genesis a General One, Corroborated, However, by Many Other Passages of the Old Testament, Which Give Account of Specific Creations. Further Cavillings Confuted33Statement of the True Doctrine Concerning Matter. Its Relation to God's Creation of the World34A Presumption that All Things Were Created by God Out of Nothing Afforded by the Ultimate Reduction of All Things to Nothing. Scriptures Proving This Reduction Vindicated from Hermogenes' Charge of Being Merely Figurative35Contradictory Propositions Advanced by Hermogenes Respecting Matter and Its Qualities36Other Absurd Theories Respecting Matter and Its Incidents Exposed in an Ironical Strain. Motion in Matter. Hermogenes' Conceits Respecting It37Ironical Dilemmas Respecting Matter, and Sundry Moral Qualities Fancifully Attributed to It38Other Speculations of Hermogenes, About Matter and Some of Its Adjuncts, Shown to Be Absurd. For Instance, Its Alleged Infinity39These Latter Speculations Shown to Be Contradictory to the First Principles Respecting Matter, Formerly Laid Down by Hermogenes40Shapeless Matter an Incongruous Origin for God's Beautiful Cosmos. Hermogenes Does Not Mend His Argument by Supposing that Only a Portion of Matter Was Used in the Creation41Sundry Quotations from Hermogenes. Now Uncertain and Vague are His Speculations Respecting Motion in Matter, and the Material Qualities of Good and Evil42Further Exposure of Inconsistencies in the Opinions of Hermogenes Respecting the Divine Qualities of Matter43Other Discrepancies Exposed and Refuted Respecting the Evil in Matter Being Changed to Good44Curious Views Respecting God's Method of Working with Matter Exposed. Discrepancies in the Heretic's Opinion About God's Local Relation to Matter45Conclusion. Contrast Between the Statements of Hermogenes and the Testimony of Holy Scripture Respecting the Creation. Creation Out of Nothing, Not Out of Matter