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NONE of the faithful question the fact that before the formation of
this visible creation God made spiritual and celestial powers, in order
that owing to the very fact that they knew that they had been formed out of
nothing by the goodness of the Creator for such glory and bliss, they might
render to Him continual thanks and ceaselessly continue to praise Him, For
neither should we imagine that God for the first time began to originate
His creation and work with the formation of this world, as if in those
countless ages beforehand He had taken no thought of Providence and the
divine ordering of things, and as if we could believe that having none
towards whom to show the blessings of His goodness, He had been solitary,
and a stranger to all bountifulness; a thing which is too poor and
unsuitable to fancy of that boundless and eternal and incomprehensible
Majesty; as the Lord Himself says of these powers: "When the stars were
made together, all my angels praised Me with a loud voice." Those then
who were present at the creation of the stars, are most clearly proved to
have been created before that "beginning" in which it is said that heaven
and earth were made, inasmuch as they are said with loud voices and
admiration to have praised the Creator because of all those visible
creatures which, as they saw, proceeded forth from nothing. Before then
that beginning in time which is spoken of by Moses, and which according to
the historic and Jewish interpretation denotes the age of this world
(without prejudice to our interpretation, according to which we explain
that the "beginning," of all things is Christ, in whom the Father created
all things, as it is said "All things were made by him, and without Him was
not anything made,") before, I say, that beginning of Genesis in time
there is no question that God had already created all those powers and
heavenly virtues; which the Apostle enumerates in order and thus describes:
"For in Christ were created all things both in heaven and on earth, visible
and invisible, whether they be angels or archangels, whether they be
thrones or dominions, whether they be principalities or powers. All things
were made by Him and in Him."
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