Against Hermogenes 38
38 Other Speculations of Hermogenes, About Matter and Some of Its Adjuncts, Shown to Be Absurd. For Instance, Its Alleged Infinity PL 2, 232
My observations touching the site of Matter, as also concerning its mode have one and the same object in view—to meet and refute your perverse positions. You put Matter below God, and thus, of course, you assign a place to it below God. Therefore Matter is local. Now, if it is local, it is within locality; if within locality, it is bounded by the place within which it is; if it is bounded, it has an outline, which (painter as you are in your special vocation) you know is the boundary to every object susceptible of outline. Matter, therefore, cannot be infinite, which, since it is in space, is bounded by space; and being thus determinable by space, it is susceptible of an outline. You, however, make it infinite, when you say: “It is on this account infinite, because it is always existent.” And if any of your disciples should choose to meet us by declaring your meaning to be that Matter is infinite in time, not in its corporeal mass, still what follows will show that (you mean) corporeal infinity to be an attribute of Matter, that it is in respect of bulk immense and uncircumscribed. “Wherefore,” say you, “it is not fabricated as a whole, but in its parts.” In bulk, therefore, is it infinite, not in time. And you contradict yourself when you make Matter infinite in bulk, and at the same time ascribe place to it, including it within space and local outline. But yet at the same time I cannot tell why God should not have entirely formed it, unless it be because He was either impotent or envious. I want therefore to know the moiety of that which was not wholly formed (by God), in order that I may understand what kind of thing the entirety was. It was only right that God should have made it known as a model of antiquity, to set off the glory of His work.
De situ materiae id tracto, quod et de motu, ut perversitatem tuam traducat. Subjacentem facis Deo materiam, et utique locum illi qui sit infra Deum. In loco ergo materia. Si in loco, ergo intra locum: si intra locum, ergo determinatur a loco, intra quem est: si determinatur, habet lineam extremam, quam, quantum proprie pictor, agnoscis finem esse omni rei, cujus linea extrema est. Non ergo erit infinita materia, quae dum in loco est, a loco determinatur, et dum determinatur ab illo, extrema eum linea patitur. At tu infinitam facis, dicens: Infinita est autem, eo quod semper est. Et si quis discipulorum tuorum voluerit argumentari, quasi infinitatem aevo, non modo corporis intelligi velis: atquin corporaliter infinitam, corporaliter immensam et incircumscriptam, sequentia ostendunt. Unde, inquis, nec tota fabricatur, sed partes ejus. Adeo corpore infinita, non tempore est. Et obduceris, corpore eam infinitam faciens, cum locum ei adscribens, intra locum et extremam loci lineam includis. Sed tamen, cur non totam eam formaverit Deus, non scio nisi qua aut invalidus, aut invidus. Itaque dimidium ejus quae non tota formata sit quaero, ut qualis tota fuerit agnoscam. Debuerat enim Deus ut exemplarium antiquitatis ad gloriam operis palam fecisse.