If, then, it was external to God, something else surely existed besides God, conceived, in respect of eternity, together with Him Who exists ungenerately; so that the argument supposes two eternal and unbegotten existences, having their being concurrently with each other -that of Him Who operates as an artificer, and that of the thing which admits this skilled operation; and if any one under pressure of this argument should assume a material substratum for the Creator of all things, what a support will the Manichaean find for his special doctrine, who opposes by virtue of ungenerateness a material existence to a Good Being. Yet we do believe that all things are of God, as we hear the Scripture say so; and as to the question how they were in God, a question beyond our reason, we do not seek to pry into it, believing that all things are within the capacity of God's power-both to give existence to what is not, and to implant qualities at His pleasure in what is.

Consequently, as we suppose the power of the Divine will to be a sufficient cause to the things that are, for their coming into existence out of nothing, so too we shall not repose our belief on anything beyond probability in referring the World-Reformation to the same power. Moreover, it might perhaps be possible, by some skill in the use of words, to persuade those who raise frivolous objections on the subject of matter not to think that they can make an unanswerable attack on our statement.
 

Καὶ εἴ τις ἐκ τῆς ἀνάγκης ταύτης ἀΐδιον ὑποτίθοιτο τῷ Δημιουργῷ τῶν ἁπάντων ὑποκεῖσθαι τὴν ὕλην͵ ὅσην ὁ Μανιχαῖος εὑρήσει τῶν ἰδίων δογμάτων τὴν συνηγορίαν͵ ὃς τὴν ὑλικὴν αἰτίαν κατὰ τὸ ἀγέννητον ἀντιπαρεξάγει τῇ ἀγαθῇ φύσει Ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ τὰ πάντα, τῆς Γραφῆς λεγούσης ἀκούοντες͵ πεπιστεύκαμεν, καὶ τὸ ὅπως ἦν ἐν τῷ Θεῷ͵ τὸ ὑπὲρ τὸν ἡμέτερον λόγον οὐκ ἀξιοῦμεν περιεργάζεσθαι͵ πάντα τῇ θείᾳ δυνάμει χωρητὰ πεπιστευκότες, καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν ὑποστήσασθαι καὶ τῷ ὄντι πρὸς τὸ δοκοῦν ἐπιβαλεῖν τὰς ποιότητας.

Οὐκοῦν ἀκολούθως͵ ὡς ἀρκεῖν ἡγούμεθα τοῖς οὖσι πρὸς τὴν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ὑπόστασιν͵ τὴν τοῦ θείου θελήματος δύναμιν, οὕτω καὶ τὴν ἀναστοιχείωσιν τῶν συνεστώτων εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν ἀνάγοντες δύναμιν͵ εἰς οὐδὲν ἔξω τοῦ εἰκότος τὴν πίστιν παραληψόμεθα. Καίτοι γε δυνατὸν ἴσως ἦν͵ εὑρεσιλογίᾳ τινὶ τοὺς περὶ τῆς ὕλης ἐρεσχελοῦντας πεῖσαι͵ μὴ δοκεῖν ἐρήμην κατατρέχειν τοῦ λόγου.