Chapter III.
Its beginning to have the world from God: and therefore it, although it is a spherical figure, is not eternal.
8. In the beginning, he said. What a good order, that it asserted first what they were accustomed to deny, that they might know that the world has a beginning, so that people would not think the world to be without a beginning. Hence, when David spoke about the heavens, the earth, and the sea, he said, 'You have made all things in wisdom' (Psalm 103:25). Therefore, he gave a beginning to the world, and he also gave weakness to the creature, so that we would not believe it to be anarchic, uncreated, and a companion of divine substance. And he beautifully added, 'He did not want it to be thought that there was any delay in his doing; but so that people might understand how incomparable of an operator he was, who completed such a work in a short and brief moment of his work, that the effect of his will surpassed the sense of time. No one saw the one working, but they recognized the one who had worked. So where is the delay when you read, 'For he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created' (Psalm 148:5)?' Therefore, he who fulfilled the majesty of such a great work in an instant of his will, did not consider the use of skill or the expenditure of virtue, so swiftly did he make things that were not, to be, that neither did his will precede his action, nor did his action precede his will.
9. You marvel at the work, you seek the operator, who has given the beginning to such a work, who has made it so quickly? He immediately added, saying that God created the heavens and the earth. You have heard the author, you should not doubt. This is the one in whom Melchizedek blessed Abraham, the father of many nations, saying: Blessed is Abraham by the highest God, who created the heavens and the earth (Gen. XIV, 19 and 22). And Abraham believed in God and said: I will stretch out my hand to the highest God, who created the heavens and the earth. You see that this was not found by man, but God has announced it. For God is indeed Melchizedek, who is the king of peace and justice, with no beginning or end. Therefore, it is not surprising that God, who has no beginning, gave a beginning to all things, so that things that did not exist could begin to exist. It is not surprising that God, who contains everything by His power and encompasses all things with His incomprehensible majesty, has made the visible things, even as He has also made the invisible things. Who would deny that the things which are seen are inferior to the things which are not seen? Since the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Who would doubt that God has made these things, who spoke through the Prophet, saying: 'Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or who has been his counselor or instructed Him?' (Isaiah 40:12). We also read elsewhere: Because it holds the circuit of the earth and has made the earth as nothing. And Jeremiah says: The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. The Lord who made the earth in His power, and established it in His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens, and caused a multitude of waters to be in the heaven (Jeremiah 10:11). And he added: Man is made foolish by his knowledge (ibid., 14). For anyone who follows the corruptible things of the world, and from these things believes that they can grasp the truth of divine nature, how can they not be bewitched by the cunning craftiness of disputation?
10. So when you hear so many oracles by which God testifies that he created the world, do not believe that it has no beginning; for it is said that the world is like a sphere, so that no beginning seems to exist; and when it thunders, as if everything is moved around in a circle, it is not easy to comprehend where they begin and where they end; for it is considered impossible to infer the beginning of a circuit by the senses. For you cannot find the beginning of a sphere, or from where the globe of the moon began, or where the monthly eclipse of the moon ends. And indeed, even if you yourself do not comprehend, therefore you do not begin, or by no means cease. If you yourself draw a circle or a line with ink or pen or compass, you do not easily gather visually or mentally where you began or where you ended, with an interval in between; and yet you are witness to both beginning and ending. For even if the sense escapes you, it does not destroy the truth. Those things which have a beginning, also have an end; and to those to whom an end is given, it is evident that a beginning was given. But the Savior himself teaches in his Gospel that the end of the world will come, saying: Heaven and earth will pass away (Matthew XXIV, 55). And further: Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the world (Matthew XXVIII, 20). And the Apostle: For the form of this world is passing away (1 Corinthians VII, 31).
11. Therefore, how do they assert that the world is coeternal with God, and associate it with the creator of all, and argue that the created being is equal to him, and think that the material body of the world should be joined to that invisible and inaccessible divine nature, especially since according to their opinion, they cannot deny that as the parts of the world are subject to corruption and changeability, it is necessary for the whole universe to be subject to the same passions to which its own portions are liable?