Chapter XV.—The Christians Distinguish God from Matter.
But grant that they acknowledge the same. What
then? Because the multitude, who cannot distinguish between matter and
God, or see how great is the interval which lies between them, pray to
idols made of matter, are we therefore, who do distinguish and separate
the uncreated and the created, that which is and that which is not, that
which is apprehended by the understanding and that which is perceived
by the senses, and who give the fitting name to each of them,—are
we to come and worship images? If, indeed, matter and God are the same,
two names for one thing, then certainly, in not regarding stocks and
stones, gold and silver, as gods, we are guilty of impiety. But if they
are at the greatest possible remove from one another—as far asunder
as the artist and the materials of his art—why are we called to
account? For as is the potter and the clay (matter being the clay,
and the artist the potter), so is God, the Framer of the world, and
matter, which is subservient to Him for the purposes of His art.741741 But as the
clay cannot become vessels of itself without art, so neither did matter,
which is capable of taking all forms, receive, apart from God the Framer,
distinction and shape and order. And as we do not hold the pottery of
more worth than him who made it, nor the vessels of glass and gold than
him who wrought them; but if there is anything about them elegant in art
we praise the artificer, and it is he who reaps the glory of the vessels:
even so with matter and God—the glory and honour of the orderly
arrangement of the world belongs of right not to matter, but to God,
the Framer of matter. So that, if we were to regard the various forms
of matter as gods, we should seem to be without any sense of the true
God, because we should be putting the things which are dissoluble and
perishable on a level with that which is eternal.
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