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Translated by Frederick Crombie.
Origen Resources OnLine & in Print
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This Part: 66 Pages
Page 62
34. Nevertheless we must not forget that a substance never exists without a quality, and that it is by an act of the understanding alone that this (substance) which underlies bodies, and which is capable of quality, is discovered to be matter. Some indeed, in their desire to investigate these subjects more profoundly, have ventured to assert that bodily nature [2999] is nothing else than qualities. For if hardness and softness, heat and cold, moisture and aridity, be qualities; and if, when these or other (qualities) of this sort be cut away, nothing else is understood to remain, then all things will appear to be "qualities." And therefore also those persons who make these assertions have endeavoured to maintain, that since all who say that matter was uncreated will admit that qualities were created by God, it may be in this way shown that even according to them matter was not uncreated; since qualities constitute everything, and these are declared by all without contradiction to have been made by God. Those, again, who would make out that qualities are superimposed from without upon a certain underlying matter, make use of illustrations of this kind: e.g., Paul undoubtedly is either silent, or speaks, or watches, or sleeps, or maintains a certain attitude of body; for he is either in a sitting, or standing, or recumbent position. For these are "accidents" belonging to men, without which they are almost never found. And yet our conception of man does not lay down any of these things as a definition of him; but we so understand and regard him by their means, that we do not at all take into account the reason of his (particular) condition either in watching, or in sleeping, or in speaking, or in keeping silence, or in any other action that must necessarily happen to men. [3000] If any one, then, can regard Paul as being without all these things which are capable of happening, he will in the same way also be able to understand this underlying (substance) without qualities. When, then, our mind puts away all qualities from its conception, and gazes, so to speak, upon the underlying element alone, and keeps its attention closely upon it, without any reference to the softness or hardness, or heat or cold, or humidity or aridity of the substance, then by means of this somewhat simulated process of thought [3001] it will appear to behold matter clear from qualities of every kind.
[2999] Naturam corpoream.
[3000] Nec tamen sensus noster manifeste de eo aliquid horum definit, sed ita eum per haec intelligimus, vel consideramus, ut non omnino rationem status ejus comprehendamus, vel in eo, quod vigilat, vel in eo, quod dormit, aut in quo loquitur, vel tacet, et si qua alia sunt, quae accidere necesse est hominibus.
[3001] Tunc simulata quodammodo cogitatione.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/fathers/origen/principles.asp?pg=62
