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16. For it is one thing to make and administer the creature from the
innermost and highest turning-point of causation, which He alone does
who is God the Creator; but quite another thing to apply some
operation from without in proportion to the strength and faculties
assigned to each by Him, so that what is created may come forth into
being at this time or at that, and in this or that way. For all these
things in the way of original and beginning have already been created in
a kind of texture of the elements, but they come forth when they get
the opportunity. For as mothers are pregnant with young, so the world
itself is pregnant with the causes of things that are born; which are
not created in it, except from that highest essence, where nothing
either springs up or dies, either begins to be or ceases. But the
applying from without of adventitious causes,which, although they are
not natural, yet are to be applied according to nature, in order that
those things which are contained and hidden in the secret bosom of
nature may break forth and be outwardly created in some way by the
unfolding of the proper measures and numbers and weights which they have
received in secret from Him "who has ordered all things in measure and
number and weight:" this is not only in the power of bad angels, but
also of bad men, as I have shown above by the example of agriculture.
17. But lest the somewhat different condition of animals should
trouble any one, in that they have the breath of life with the sense of
desiring those things that are according to nature, and of avoiding
those things that are contrary to it; we must consider also, how many
men there are who know from what herbs or flesh, or from what juices or
liquids you please, of whatever sort, whether so placed or so buried,
or so bruised or so mixed, this or that animal is commonly born; yet
who can be so foolish as to dare to call himself the creator of these
animals? Is it, therefore, to be wondered at, if just as any, the
most worthless of men, can know whence such or such worms and flies are
produced; so the evil angels in proportion to the subtlety of their
perceptions discern in the more hidden seeds of the elements whence
frogs and serpents are produced, and so through certain and known
opportune combinations applying these seeds by secret movements, cause
them to be created, but do not create them? Only men do not marvel at
those things that are usually done by men. But if any one chance to
wonder at the quickness of those growths, in that those living beings
were so quickly made, let him consider how even this may be brought
about by men in proportion to the measure of human capability. For
whence is it that the same bodies generate worms more quickly in summer
than in winter, or in hotter than in colder places? Only these things
are applied by men with so much the more difficulty, in proportion as
their earthly and sluggish members are wanting in subtlety of
perception, and in rapidity of bodily motion. And hence it arises
that in the case of any kind of angels, in proportion as it is easier
for them to draw out the proximate causes from the elements, so much
the more marvellous is their rapidity in works of this kind.
18. But He only is the creator who is the chief former of these
things. Neither can any one be this, unless He with whom primarily
rests the measure, number, and weight of all things existing; and He
is God the one Creator, by whose unspeakable power it comes to pass,
also, that what these angels were able to do if they were permitted,
they are therefore not able to do because they are not permitted. For
there is no other reason why they who made frogs and serpents were not
able to make the most minute flies, unless because the greater power of
God was present prohibiting them, through the Holy Spirit; which
even the magicians themselves confessed, saying, "This is the finger
of God." But what they are able to do by nature, yet cannot do,
because they are prohibited; and what the very condition of their
nature itself does not suffer them to do; it is difficult, nay,
impossible, for man to search out, unless through that gift of God
which the apostle mentions when he says, "To another the discerning
of spirits." For we know that a man can walk, yet that he cannot do
so if he is not permitted; but that he cannot fly, even if he be
permitted. So those angels, also, are able to do certain things if
they are permitted by more powerful angels, according to the supreme
commandment of God; but cannot do certain other things, not even if
they are permitted by them; because He does not permit from whom they
have received such and such a measure of natural powers: who, even by
His angels, does not usually permit what He has given them power to
be able to do.
19. Excepting, therefore, those corporeal things which are done in
the order of nature in a perfectly usual series of times, as e.g.,
the rising and setting of the stars, the generations and deaths of
animals, the innumerable diversities of seeds and buds, the vapors and
the clouds, the snow and the rain, the lightnings and the thunder,
the thunderbolts and the hail, the winds and the fire, cold and heat,
and all like things; excepting also those which in the same order of
nature occur rarely, such as eclipses, unusual appearances of stars,
and monsters, and earthquakes. and such like; all these, I say,
are to be excepted, of which indeed the first and chief cause is only
the will of God; whence also in the Psalm, when some things of this
kind had been mentioned, "Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy
wind," lest any one should think those to be brought about either by
chance or only from corporeal causes, or even from such as are
spiritual, but exist apart from the will of God, it is added
immediately, "fulfilling His word."
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