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Translated by Frederick Crombie.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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This Part: 66 Pages
Page 61
33. And, in the first place, it is to be noted that we have nowhere found in the canonical Scriptures, [2993] up to the present time, the word "matter" used for that substance which is said to underlie bodies. For in the expression of Isaiah, "And he shall devour hule," i.e., matter, "like hay," [2994] when speaking of those who were appointed to undergo their punishments, the word "matter" was used instead of "sins." And if this word "matter" should happen to occur in any other passage, it will never be found, in my opinion, to have the signification of which we are now in quest, unless perhaps in the book which is called the Wisdom of Solomon, a work which is certainly not esteemed authoritative by all. In that book, however, we find written as follows: "For thy almighty hand, that made the world out of shapeless matter, wanted not means to send among them a multitude of bears and fierce lions." [2996] Very many, indeed, are of opinion that the matter of which things are made is itself signified in the language used by Moses in the beginning of Genesis: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth; and the earth was invisible, and not arranged:" [2997] for by the words "invisible and not arranged" Moses would seem to mean nothing else than shapeless matter. But if this be truly matter, it is clear then that the original elements of bodies [2998] are not incapable of change. For those who posited "atoms"--either those particles which are incapable of subdivision, or those which are subdivided into equal parts--or any one element, as the principles of bodily things, could not posit the word "matter" in the proper sense of the term among the first principles of things. For if they will have it that matter underlies every body--a substance convertible or changeable, or divisible in all its parts--they will not, as is proper, assert that it exists without qualities. And with them we agree, for we altogether deny that matter ought to be spoken of as "unbegotten" or "uncreated," agreeably to our former statements, when we pointed out that from water, and earth, and air or heat, different kinds of fruits were produced by different kinds of trees; or when we showed that fire, and air, and water, and earth were alternately converted into each other, and that one element was resolved into another by a kind of mutual consanguinity; and also when we proved that from the food either of men or animals the substance of the flesh was derived, or that the moisture of the natural seed was converted into solid flesh and bones;--all which go to prove that the substance of the body is changeable, and may pass from one quality into all others.
[2993] In Scripturis canonicis.
[2994] Isa. x. 17, kai phagetai osei chorton ten hulen, Sept. The Vulgate follows the Masoretic text.
[2996] Wisd. xi. 17.
[2997] Gen. i. 2, "invisibilis et incomposita;" "inanis et vacua," Vulg.
[2998] Initia corporum.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/principles.asp?pg=61
