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THE second blasphemous slander or slanderous blasphemy of your heresy
is when you say that the one who is born must be of one substance with the
one who bears. It is not very different from the previous one, for it
differs from it in terms rather than in fact and reality. For when we are
treating of the birth of God, you maintain that one of greater power could
not be born of Mary just as above you maintain than one older could not be
begotten. And so you may take it that the same answer may be given to this
as to what you said before: or you may conceive that the answer given to
this assertion, which you are now making, applies to that also. You say
then that the one who is born must be of one substance with the one who
bears. If this refers to earthly creatures, it is most certainly the case.
But if it refers to the birth of God, why in the case of His birth do you
regard precedents from nature? for appointments are subject to Him who
appointed them, and not the appointer to His appointments. But would you
like to know more fully how these slanders of yours are not only wicked but
foolish, and the idle talk of one who does not in the least see the
omnipotence of God? Tell me, I pray, you who think that like things can
only be produced from like things, whence was the origin of that
unaccountable host of quails in the wilderness of old time to feed the
children of Israel, for nowhere do we read that they had been previously
born of mother birds, but that they were brought up and came suddenly.
Again whence came that heavenly food which for forty years fell on the camp
of the Hebrews? Did manna produce manna? But these refer to ancient
miracles. And what of more recent ones? With a few loaves and small fishes
the Lord Jesus Christ fed countless hosts of the people that followed Him,
and not once only. The reason that they were satisfied lay not in the food:
for a secret and unseen cause satisfied the hungry folk, especially as
there was much more left when they were filled than there had been set
before them when they were hungry. And how was all this brought about that
when those who ate were satisfied, the food itself was multiplied by an
extraordinary increase? We read that in Galilee wine was produced from
water. Tell me how what was of one nature produced something of an
altogether different substance from its own quality? Especially when (which
exactly applies to the birth of the Lord) it was the production of a nobler
substance from what was inferior to it? Tell me then how from mere water
there could be produced rich and splendid wine? How was it that one thing
was drawn out, another poured in? Was the cistern a well of such a nature
as to change the water drawn from it into the best wine? Or did the
character of the vessels or the diligence of the servants effect this? Most
certainly neither of these. And how is it that the manner of the fact is
not understood by the thoughts of the heart, though the truth of the fact
is firmly held by the conscience? In the gospel clay was placed on the eyes
of a blind man and when it was washed off eyes were produced. Had water
the power of giving birth to eyes, or clay of creating light? Certainly
not, especially as water could be of no use to a blind man, and clay would
actually hinder the sight of those who could see. And how was it that a
thing that itself in its own nature was injurious, became the means of
restoring health; and that what was ordinarily hurtful to sound people, was
then made the instrument of healing? You say that the power of God brought
it about, and the remedy of God caused it, and that all these things of
which we have been speaking were simply brought about by Divine
Omnipotence; which is able to fashion new things from unwonted material,
and to make serviceable things out of their opposites, and to change what
belongs to the realm of things impossible and impracticable into
possibilities and actual performances.
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