whatever its nature or form._
For whereas there is one form which is given from without to every
bodily substance,--such as the form which is constructed by potters
and smiths, and that class of artists who paint and fashion forms
like the body of animals,--but another and internal form which is not
itself constructed, but, as the efficient cause, produces not only
the natural bodily forms, but even the life itself of the living
creatures, and which proceeds from the secret and hidden choice of
an intelligent and living nature,--let that first-mentioned form be
attributed to every artificer, but this latter to one only, God, the
Creator and Originator who made the world itself and the angels,
without the help of world or angels. For the same divine and, so
to speak, creative energy, which cannot be made, but makes, and
which gave to the earth and sky their roundness,--this same divine,
effective, and creative energy gave their roundness to the eye and
to the apple; and the other natural objects which we anywhere see,
received also their form, not from without, but from the secret and
profound might of the Creator, who said, "Do not I fill heaven and
earth?"[563] and whose wisdom it is that "reacheth from one end
to another mightily; and sweetly doth she order all things."[564]
Wherefore I know not what kind of aid the angels, themselves created
first, afforded to the Creator in making other things. I cannot
ascribe to them what perhaps they cannot do, neither ought I to deny
them such faculty as they have. But, by their leave, I attribute the
creating and originating work which gave being to all natures to God,
to whom they themselves thankfully ascribe their existence. We do not
call gardeners the creators of their fruits, for we read, "Neither
is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that
giveth the increase."[565] Nay, not even the earth itself do we call
a creator, though she seems to be the prolific mother of all things
which she aids in germinating and bursting forth from the seed, and
which she keeps rooted in her own breast; for we likewise read,
"God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed
his own body."[566] We ought not even to call a woman the creatress
of her own offspring; for He rather is its creator who said to His
servant, "Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee."[567] And
although the various mental emotions of a pregnant woman do produce
in the fruit of her womb similar qualities,--as Jacob with his
peeled wands caused piebald sheep to be produced,--yet the mother
as little creates her offspring, as she created herself. Whatever
bodily or seminal causes, then, may be used for the production of
things, either by the co-operation of angels, men, or the lower
animals, or by sexual generation; and whatever power the desires
and mental emotions of the mother have to produce in the tender and
plastic fœtus, corresponding lineaments and colours; yet the natures
themselves, which are thus variously affected, are the production of
none but the most high God. It is His occult power which pervades
all things, and is present in all without being contaminated, which
gives being to all that is, and modifies and limits its existence;
so that without Him it would not be thus or thus, nor would have any
being at all.[568] If, then, in regard to that outward form which
the workman's hand imposes on his work, we do not say that Rome and
Alexandria were built by masons and architects, but by the kings by
whose will, plan, and resources they were built, so that the one has
Romulus, the other Alexander, for its founder; with how much greater
reason ought we to say that God alone is the Author of all natures,
since He neither uses for His work any material which was not made
by Him, nor any workmen who were not also made by Him, and since, if
He were, so to speak, to withdraw from created things His creative
power, they would straightway relapse into the nothingness in which
they were before they were created? "Before," I mean, in respect of
eternity, not of time. For what other creator could there be of time,
than He who created those things whose movements make time?[569]