Chapter VI. That the Names and Notions of Being and Beginning belong most properly TO god

Ascend now in thought above this world of created spirits, if perchance to thee also it may be given to say with the Spouse of the Canticle, " When I had passed a little beyond them I found Him Whom my soul loveth " (Canticle iii. 4). But Who is He ? I cannot better answer this question than by saying that He is Who is. For this is the name which He desired should be given Him ; this is the name which He Himself revealed, what time He commanded Moses to announce to the Hebrew people, " He Who is hath sent me to you " (Exod. iii. 14). And a most appropriate name it is. What other could express so aptly the eternity which is God ? Thou mayest speak of God as good, or as great, or as blissful, or as wise ; thou mayest predicate of Him whatever other perfections thou pleasest : yet in this one word thou summest up all when thou say est that He is. For to Him to be is to be all perfect. Therefore, though thou shouldst assign Him a thousand such properties, thou hast not got beyond what His existence implies. Thou dost not add anything to it by expressing them, nor detract from it anything by omitting them. Now if thou considerest well this unique and sovereign Being, must it not seem to thee that whatever is distinct from It is in comparison rather not-being than being ?

Again, what is God ? That without Which nothing is. It is as impossible that anything else should exist without Him as that He should exist without Himself. For He exists not alone for Himself, but also for everything else that is. And therefore we may say, at least in a certain sense, that He alone exists Who is both His own existence and the existence of all beside.

What is God ? He is the Beginning. This name also He has given Himself (John viii. 25). The name of beginning is applied to many things in the universe, and always with respect to what proceeds from them in some manner. But when we discover or consider something else from which such beginnings have themselves proceeded, it is now that and no longer these to which we give the name of the beginning. Wherefore if thou seekest for the true and absolute beginning, thou shalt of necessity find it to be something which itself had no beginning. Now it is evident that that Being had no beginning Which is the beginning of all the rest. For if It had a beginning, It must manifestly have begun from some antecedent being ; because nothing ever begins from itself. Unless some one perchance will contend that what had as yet no existence could have caused itself to begin, or that it existed before it was. But since neither of these hypotheses approves itself to right reason, it follows that nothing can be to itself a beginning of existence. Besides, that which had its beginning from an antecedent being is plainly not the first being. Consequently the true and absolute Beginning can Itself have had no beginning, and all things else had their beginning from It. What is God ? A Being for Whom time has neither i ON CONSIDERATION future nor past, and is nevertheless not with Him co-eternal.

What is God ? He " from Whom, and by Whom, and in Whom are all things " (Rom. xi. 36) : from Whom are all things, but by creation out of nothing, not by emanation, or by production from something pre-existing ; by Whom are all things because we must believe that He Who is the First Author is likewise the Fashioner of all ; * in Whom are all things, yet not as in place, but as in virtue or power : from Whom are all things, as from one common Principle and Source of all ; by Whom are all things, lest we should suppose that the matter created by one Principle received form and shape from another ; in Whom are all things, because space f must not be conceived as a third reality, distinct from God and the universe. Observe that all things are said to be from (ex) Him, not of (de) Him because He is not matter but spirit : He is the efficient, not the material Cause of things. Vainly have the philosophers sought for the elements out of which God constructed the universe. For God had no need of such elements ; neither had He need of a workshop or of an artisan. He by Himself made all things. Out of what ? Out of nothing. For if He made them out of something pre-existing, then that something He did not make, and consequently He could not be truly f Space is denned as "a capacity for receiving and containing bodies " 5 but it does not really differ from the bodies - it is conceived as containing. Cf. Hickey, Sum. Schol. Phil., vol. ii. n. 67-72 ; also Rickaby, General Metaphysics, pp. 369- 371.— (Translator.)

said to have made all things. It would be absurd and impious to imagine that so great a multitude of things, good no doubt, yet subject to corruption, have been made by Him from His own incorrupt and incorruptible Substance. But thou mayest ask : if all things else are in Him, where is He ? There is no question I should find it more difficult to answer. What place is sufficient to contain His immensity ? Perhaps thou wilt ask me now where He is not ? Even so much information I am unable to give thee. For what place can be found where God is not present ? God is incomprehensible to the finite understanding. Nevertheless, thou hast attained to no little knowledge concerning Him, if thou canst understand this : that He is nowhere in the sense that He is not circumscribed by any place, and is everywhere in the sense of being excluded from no place. But in that sublime and incomprehensible manner proper to Him, as all things are in Him, so is He in all things. For, as says the Evangelist, " He was in the world " (John i. 10). But on the other hand, we know that where He was before the creation of the world there He has ever remained. There is no need to inquire where He was then. For nothing then existed save Himself. Consequently He was Himself the place of His existence.