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8. But how didst Thou speak? Was it in that manner in which the
voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my beloved Son"? For
that voice was uttered and passed away, began and ended. The
syllables sounded and passed by, the second after the first, the third
after the second, and thence in order, until the last after the rest,
and silence after the last. Hence it is clear and plain that the
motion of a creature expressed it, itself temporal, obeying Thy
Eternal will. And these thy words formed at the time, the outer ear
conveyed to the intel ligent mind, whose inner ear lay attentive to
Thy eternal word. But it compared these words sounding in time with
Thy eternal word in silence, and said, "It is different, very
different. These words are far beneath me, nor are they, since they
flee and pass away; but the Word of my Lord remaineth above me for
ever." If, then, in sounding and fleeting words Thou didst say
that heaven and earth should be made, and didst thus make heaven and
earth, there was already a corporeal creature before heaven and earth
by whose temporal motions that voice might take its course in time.
But there was nothing corporeal before heaven and earth; or if there
were, certainly Thou without a transitory voice hadst created that
whence Thou wouldest make the passing voice, by which to say that the
heaven and the earth should be made. For whatsoever that were of which
such a voice was made, unless it were made by Thee, it could not be
at all. By what word of Thine was it decreed that a body might be
made, whereby these words might be made?
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