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7. But how didst Thou make the heaven and the earth, and what was
the instrument of Thy so mighty work? For it was not as a human
worker fashioning body from body, according to the fancy of his mind,
in somewise able to assign a form which it perceives in itself by its
inner eye. And whence should he be able to do this, hadst not Thou
made that mind? And he assigns to it already existing, and as it were
having a being, a form, as clay, or stone, or wood, or gold, or
such like. And whence should these things be, hadst not Thou
appointed them? Thou didst make for the workman his body, Thou
the mind commanding the limbs, Thou the matter whereof he makes
anything, Thou the capacity whereby he may apprehend his art,
and see within what he may do without, Thou the sense of his
body, by which, as by an interpreter, he may from mind unto matter
convey that which he doeth, and report to his mind what may have been
done, that it within may consult the truth, presiding over itself,
whether it be well done. All these things praise Thee, the Creator
of all. But how dost Thou make them? How, O God, didst Thou
make heaven and earth? Truly, neither in the heaven nor in the earth
didst Thou make heaven and earth; nor in the air, nor in the waters,
since these also belong to the heaven and the earth; nor in the whole
world didst Thou make the whole world; because there was no place
wherein it could be made before it was made, that it might be; nor
didst Thou hold anything in Thy hand wherewith to make heaven and
earth. For whence couldest Thou have what Thou hadst not made,
whereof to make anything? For what is, save because Thou art?
Therefore Thou didst speak and they were made, and in Thy Word
Thou madest these things.
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