The Beginning of the World: Creation as Production out of Nothing — The Dogma

Part I: Creation Considered as a Divine Act

Chapter I: The Beginning of the World — Creation as a Production out of Nothing

§1: The Dogma

hat the universe was created out of nothing is one of the fundamental articles of the Catholic faith. Dogmatic theology demonstrates it from Holy Scripture, defends it against the opposing heresies of and Pantheism, clears up certain supplementary and explanatory notions that centre about the dogma, e. g., the liberty of the divine act of Creation, the simultaneous beginning of the world and of time, the incommunicability of creative power, etc.

Article 1: Demonstration from Sacred Scripture and Tradition

i. The Concept of Creation Explained. — Catholic Philosophy, in accord with ecclesiastical Tradition, defines Creation as the production of 4 a thing from, or out of, nothing.’ 9 8 In this definition, production” expresses the proximate genus, while “out of nothing” 4 gives the specific difference by which Creation is marked off from all other modes of production as a singular operation peculiar to God. a) There are two other well-known modes of production, which, however, have nothing in common with Creation except the genus. We mean generation and formation.8 Generation differs from Creation in that Creation is a production out of nothing, while generation signifies the origin of one living being from another. This definition applies to the divine Generation of the Son from the Father as well as to organic generation in the physical universe. In the Blessed Trinity, Generation is the Procession of the Logos ” from the substance of the Father.” 6 The immanent production of by Spiration cannot be called Creation.7 As regards the so-called formative processes, both of nature and art, whether divine or creatural in their origin, all postulate a substratum, or raw material,8 from which the artificer evolves his product. Even second 8 * Creatio simpliciter est product™ ret ex nihilo. Cfr. J. T. Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: God, pp. 202 sqq., 2nd ed., New York 1904. 4 Ex nihilo, in the sense of ex nihilo sui et subjecti. ” Since that which already is, is not being made, but that is being made which was not; so the nothingness, or the not being, of the thing which is being made, is presupposed to the effecting of it. This is what is called the nothingness of itself, as distinguished from the nothingness of its subject/ (W. Humphrey, S. J., “His Divine Majesty” or The Living God, p. 206, London 1897.) 5 Generatio — plasmatio s, formatio. « ejc rijs oMas rov irarpSs. (Nicene Creed). Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Trinity, pp. 162 sqq. 7 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Trinity, pp. 209 sqq. 8 Materia praeiacens s. ex qua. 6 THE DOGMA creation, i. e., the formation of the universe by God, was not creation in the strict sense, except in so far as in process thereof God actually produced new essences out of nothing.9 b) The phrase ex nihilo was misunderstood by Abbot Fredegis of Tours,10 who took nihilum in the sense of real being, as some sort of invisible “protyle,” from which the universe was formed.11 This is an altogether erroneous notion. The nothingness that preceded the Creation of the universe was no hyle, as conceived by Plato and Philo under the name of firj 6v. The term ex nihilo is designed merely to negative the existence of any substratum or materia praeiacens. It means non ex aliquo (c£ ovk ovtwv).12 It would be equally erroneous to take Creation as signifying a conversion (conversio) of nothing into something. Every conversion must have a terminus a quo, i. e., some sort of being convertible into being of another kind.13 Those of the Greek Fathers who defined Creation as Ik tov firj elvai eis to elvai irapaymyri — (adductio ex non esse ad esse), merely wished to emphasize that a thing which previously was merely possible had become real or actual. A transition from potentiality to actuality is no conversion, nor even, in the proper sense of the term, a mutation, but merely succession, i. e., 9 Hence the current distinction between creatio prima {ex nihilo) and creatio secunda {ex materia praeiacente). 10 De Nihilo et Tenebris. Fredegis flourished about the beginning of the ninth century. Cfr. Hurter, Nomenclator Literarius Theologiae Catholicae, Vol. I, col. 714 n., 3rd ed., Oeniponte 1903. 11 Cfr. A. M. Clerke, Modern Cosmogonies, pp. 150 sqq., London 1905. 12 Cfr. St. Thorn., S. Theol., ia, qu. 45, art. 1, ad 3: ” Haec praepositio ’ ex * non designat causam materialem, sed ordinem tantum, sicut cum dicitur: Ex mane fit meridies, i. e.t post mane fit mendies.” is We shall treat of this subject more in detail in a later volume, on the Blessed Eucharist. there suddenly appears a thing which did not previously exist. Consequently, Creation is an act whereby God produces a substance which ex parte termini was preceded by pure nothingness (to ovk 6V). Hence the periphrastic definition given by St. Thomas: ” Creatio est productio alicuius rei secundum totam suam substantiam, nullo praesupposito — Creation is the production of the whole substance of a thing, with nothing presupposed.” 14 To mark off the concept of Creation still more clearly from all those other kinds of purely formative production which merely effect accidental changes in an already existing substance,15 the Angelic Doctor defines it as ” the production of being, as being.” 16 Being, as such, is opposed not only to this or that concrete being, but to pure nothingness. Accident, on the other hand, is not properly being (ens), but ens entis, or ens in alio, — that is to say, it has its being only by inherence in a subject.17 Hence creation invariably results in substances, while accidents, as such, are not, strictly speaking, created, but simply inhere in created substances (accidentia non tarn creantur, quam concreantur) . 18 14 5”. Theol., ia, qu. 65, art. 3. — 0 The last three words [of this definition] are merely declarative. The sense of them is contained in the words which precede them… . The formal object of creation is being… . Creation makes that to be, which was not. Hence, another definition — Creation is the production of being, as being.” — (Humphrey, ” His Divine Majesty,’ p. 207.) 15 Such as a sculptor, e. g., works in marble. 16 * Creatio est productio entis in quantum est ens,* S. Theol., ia, qu. 44, art. 2. 17 Cfr. John Rickaby, S. J., General Metaphysics, p. 253 (Stonyhurst Series). 18 ” To be created is proper to substance. This is so, both because, if substance is to be made, it can be made only by creation; and because other things, even if they are made at the same time, and along with substance, are nevertheless made of that substance, because it is through the reality of the substance that they consist” —

8 c) Though the Scriptural and ecclesiastical concept of Creation was more or less unknown to the most enlightened pagan philosophers of antiquity, as Plato and Aristotle, it is not one at which it was impossible for human reason to arrive without supernatural aid. With the possible exception of the teleological, all the arguments by which we are able to demonstrate the existence of God show that He is the absolute Creator of the universe, and they would be incomplete without this final conclusion. De facto, however, human reason is indebted to Divine Revelation for the true concept of Creation, which philosophy might have found, but in matter of fact did not find. This service which Revelation has rendered to reason is the more important because the concept of Creation clarifies our idea of God. For unless we know God as the Creator of all things, we do not know the true God.19 d) The objections raised against the dogma of Creation by infidel philosophers are futile. The axiom Ex nihilo nihil fit cannot be applied to Creation, because Creation does not suppose a nihilum causae, but merely a nihilum sui et subiecti. God is the exemplary, the efficient, and the final cause of the universe, though, of course, the cosmos was not educed out of a divine substratum, as the Pantheists allege. Consequently it cannot be asserted that the dogma of Creation involves “an overt and direct contradiction of right reason.” 20 On the contrary, since the universe has its raison d’etre not in itself, but in a supra-mundane and intelligent Creator, Humphrey, “His Divine Majesty,” pp. 207 sq. i»Cfr. Kleutgen, Philosophie der Vorseit, Vol. II, p. 839, 2nd ed. Innsbruck 1878; Suarez, Metaph., disp. 20, sect. 1, n. 24; K. Elser, Die Lehre des Aristoteles Uber das Wirken Gottes, Munster 1890. 20 A. Lange, Geschichte des Ma’ terialismus, 4th ed., p. 131, Iserlohn 1882. Creation is not only a possible but a necessary conception. Herbert Spencer objects that to conceive a relation between nothing and something, is as impossible as to conceive of a thing hovering midway betwixt nothingness and existence. But the author of the Synthetic Philosophy has overlooked the fact that in defining Creation we employ the term “nothing” to denote logical, not real opposition. The terminus of active Creation (which takes place in instanti), is Being not in fieri, but in facto esse. Hence it is ludicrous to compare the world to ” metamorphosed nothingness ” and to treat it as a ” delusion.” Another, somewhat more serious objection is that the dogma of Creation postulates the pre-existence of an immeasurable void, and the creation of space by an external agency, — which are impossible assumptions, since * the non-existence of space cannot by any mental effort be imagined.* 21 But a man who allows his imagination to picture empty space as a creatable reality, has no right to hurl stones into the garden of Christian philosophy. If only actual or real space can be concreated with the corporeal universe, we have no more reason to speak of the ” existence ” or * non-existence * of empty or imaginary space than of the ” existence ” of a possible triangle or man.

2. Proof of the Dogma. — All things are created out of nothing. This truth is clearly contained both in Scripture and Tradition. The Socinian and Arminian claim that it cannot be demonstrated from the Bible, is manifestly false. a) Let us consider, in the first place, the £1 Herbert Spencer, First Principles (Burt’s Library, p. 29). deeper meaning of certain names applied to God by Sacred Scripture. a) God’s incommunicable proper name is njn\ 6 &v, primus et novissimus. Inasmuch as this name denotes His proper Essence, it applies to God really and truly; in fact, as a proper name, it applies to Him alone,22 or, to put it otherwise, nothing outside of God is or can be called Yahweh. Now, if the things existing outside of God were, like Himself, necessary, increate, and self-existing (even though only after the manner of an eternal selfexisting hyle), God could no longer claim as exclusively His own that self-existence which is denoted by the name Yahweh. For the things existing outside Him would then likewise be of the nature of ens a se, and therefore njn\ But if God alone is Yahweh, or ens a se, then whatever else exists must be ab alio, that is, created. On this supposition alone is there any sense in calling, as Sacred Scripture does, the things of this world ” nothing ” in comparison with God. Only an uncreated, self-existent Being can be called Being in the full and perfect sense of the term. Is. XL, 17: ” Omnes gentes, quasi non sint, sic sunt coram eo, et quasi nihilum et inane reputatae sunt ei — All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing and vanity.” Wisd. XI, 23: ” Tarnquam momentum staterae, sic est ante te orbis terrarum, et tamquam gutta roris antelucani, quae descendit in terram — For the whole world before thee is as the least grain of the balance, and as a drop of the morning dew, that falleth down upon the earth.” Tertullian develops this idea briefly and beautifully as follows: 22 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowdbility, Essence, and Attributes, pp. 163 sqq. n ” Deus unicus est, nec aliter unicus, nisi quia solus; nec aliter solus, nisi quia nihil cum illo. Sic et primus, quia omnia post ilium; sic omnia post ilium, quia omnia ab illo; sic ab illo, quia ex nihilo — God is unique, and He is unique because He is sole, and He is sole for the reason that nothing co-exists with Him. Thus He is also the first, because all other beings come after Him; and the reason they come after Him is that they are of Him, and they are of Him, because they are created out of nothing.” 23 There is another divine name, viz.: l^KH, 6 mJpios, Dominus coeli et terrae, which describes God as the proprietor and ruler of the universe, precisely because He is its Creator. Cf r. John I, 3: ” All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.” Rom. XI, 36: * For of him, and by him, and in him are all things.* 24 Accordingly, God is the absolute owner and master of ” heaven and earth,” that is, of the whole created universe.25 This could not be if He had not created but merely fashioned the world. For an increate, absolutely independent Being necessarily enjoys unlimited autonomy and the right to repel all extraneous interference and to resist attempts made to modify or shape it. As St. Justin Martyr profoundly observes: ” He who has not created, has no power over that- which is increate and cannot force anything upon it.” 26 It follows as a necessary corollary that God could not even assume the role of a Demiurge27 if He were 23 Contr. Hermog. thenticity of this work is, however, 24 Cf r. also Heb. I, 3; Deut. X, doubtful. Cf r. Bardenhewer-Shahan, 17; Ps. CXXXV, 3; LXXXVIII, Patrology, p. 54, Freiburg and St. 12; 1 Paral. XXIX, 11 sqq. Louis 1908. 25Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His 27 Cf r. J. P. Arendzen in the Knowability, Essence and Attri- Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, pp. butes, pp. 286 sqq. 707 sq. 26 Cohort, ad Gentiles. The au 

not the Creator of the universe. Nor would He be omnipotent, for, as Tertullian rightly says: “lam non omnipotens, si non et hoc potens ex nihUo omnia proferre — He would not be almighty, had He not the power to create all things out of nothing.” 28 According to Holy Scripture, God is the Creator not only of the visible but also of the invisible world, i. e., the Angels. Col. I, 16: ” In ipso condita sunt universa in coelis et in terra, visibilia et invisibUia, sive throni sive dominationes sive principatus sive potestates — For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers.” The Angels were created either from some pre-existent substratum, or out of nothing. They can not have been created from a preexistent substratum, because they are pure spirits. Consequently the Angels were created out of nothing. And since Scripture tells us that the visible things originated in precisely the same fashion as the Angels, ” Heaven and earth,” too, must have been created out of nothing. P) Our thesis can also be demonstrated directly from Scripture. Thus the formula ex nihilo facere occurs literally in the exhortation which the mother of the Machabees addressed to her son: “Peto, nate, ut adspicias ad coelum et terram et ad omnia, quae in eis sunt, et intelligas, quia ex nihilo 29 fecit ilia Deus — I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out 28 Contr. Hermog., c 8. 29 i£ ofc Hvtwp. \ of nothing.” 30 Estimating this passage at its lowest value, it is certainly a convincing testimonial to the belief of the Jews that God created all things out of nothing. But we are justified in attaching to it the authority of an inspired dogmatic text, because the Sacred Writer expressly says that the mother of the Machabees, when uttering the above quoted words, was “filled with wisdom.” 81 The Jews no doubt derived their belief in Creation from Gen. I, 1: In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram — In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Jews and Christians alike regard this text as a direct enunciation of the dogma of Creation. Aside from all other considerations, the circumstance that this account, which is clearly meant to be an ex professo explanation of the origin of the universe, gives no hint of any pre-existing substratum or materia ex qua, permits us to conclude with a very high degree of probability that no such substratum existed, and that, therefore, the universe was literally created out of nothing. We are confirmed in this inference by comparing the sublimely simple Mosaic account with the various cosmogonies of pagan philosophers and poets, such as Plato’s in the Timceus and Ovid’s in the Metamorphoses. A careful analysis of 80 a Mach. VII, 28. 81 2 Mach. VII, 21. Gen. I, i will render our conclusion absolutely certain. fw?1™ is employed without qualification and therefore can have no other meaning than: In the beginning of all things, that is, at a time when nothing yet existed, and from whence all things date their existence. By “heaven and earth” we may understand either the complete heaven and the complete earth,32 or the as yet unformed, shapeless, and chaotic raw material from which God in the course of six days successively formed and fashioned the complete beings that constitute the universe. In view of Gen. I, 2: “The earth was void and empty,” the last-mentioned assumption is decidedly the more probable. After the act of Creation proper, therefore, things were still in a chaotic state, waiting to be fashioned. “Informix ilia materia/’ says St. Augustine, “quarn de nihilo Deus fecit, appellata est primo coelum et terra, non quia iam hoc erat, sed quia hoc esse poterat; nam et coelum scribitur postea factum — This unformed matter, which God made out of nothing, was first called heaven and earth; not because it was already heaven and earth, but because it had the capacity of becoming heaven and earth; for we read of heaven that it was made later.” 88 It must also be remembered that Holy Scrip32 Cfr. Petavius, De Mundi Opif., 83 De Gen. contr. Munich., I, 7, I, 2, 10. zz. ture often employs the terms “coelum et terra” in a more general sense, as denoting the entire cosmos, or all things which exist outside of God. Had the original terminus of God’s creative act merely been matter in a chaotic, unformed state, it could not possibly have been produced from some other materia informis. For to fashion unformed matter from unformed matter involves a contradiction in terms. Consequently, the original production was strictly a creation out of nothing. This interpretation is confirmed by the use of the verb creavit, ^olrjae, *oa. Unlike the verbs (fecit) and w (formavit), the Hebrew in the forms Kal and Niphal (in which it occurs no less than forty-seven times), exclusively signifies a divine and supernatural activity. It is, moreover, never construed with a materia ex qua.S4t We cannot, therefore, reasonably doubt that Moses, by employing the term ?2V6 intended to teach the Creation of the universe out of nothing.36 In further proof of this thesis we quote Rom. IV, 17: * Vocat ea, quae non sunt, tamquam ea, quae sunt — God … calleth those things that are not, as those that are. Or, as the Greek text puts it more pointedly: 34 Cfr. Hummelauer, Comment, in Gen,, pp. 86 sq., Paris 1895. 35 Gen. I, 1. 36 Cfr. Laray, Comment, in Libr. Genes., Malines 1883; V. Zapletal, O.P., Der Schopfungsbericht der Genesis, Freiburg 1902. 16 icakovvTos (0€ov) ret firj ovra ws Svra. — Ta firj Svra here cannot mean an eternal hyle. It can only mean absolute nothingness, since the divine ” call ” signifies an omnipotent fiat, in virtue of which Being (Svra) emerges from the abyss of non-being. Cfr. Ps. CXLVIII, 5: “Ipse dixit et facta sunt, ipse mandavit et creata sunt — He spoke, and they were made: he commanded, and they were created.” In the light of this passage St. Paul’s KaXelv ra firj ivra ov C\r)S means ex materia informu Cfr. on this text C. Gutberlet, Gott und die Schopfung, p. 63, Ratisbon 19 10. 88 Comment, in Heb., XI, x$« 89 aid yes = worlds. refer to the creatio secunda and the ” invisible things ” to mean the formless raw material from which the universe was moulded, and which according to Gen. I, 1 was called into being by the ” creatio prima” 40 Other exegetes take this aptatio to mean creatio prima, and hold that Heb. XI, 3 formally enunciates the dogma of Creation. They translate to fiy ac (fxuvofievw ra fi\e9 7r6fjLeva yeyovivai by: ” The visible things were made from what was not apparent.” A third, somewhat factitious interpretation of the text is that adopted by St. Thomas Aquinas,41 who holds that by ” invisible things ” the Apostle meant creative archetypes in the Divine Intellect. b) The argument from Tradition is based partly on the polemical discussions and partly on the positive teaching of the Fathers. a) Beginning with the Ionians and Eleatians, up to Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoa, the pagan philosophers of antiquity, and in their train the heretics of the first centuries of the Christian era — especially the Gnostics — either ignored or declined to accept the Christian concept of Creation. In defending the faith against both these schools, the Fathers found themselves compelled to employ very strong arguments. In an apologetical treatise formerly attributed to St. Justin Martyr, but which is probably spurious, Plato is charged with ignoring the fact that the universe had a irovq^ as well as a 81/fuoupyos. The writer thus explains the vast difference between the two notions: “Without requiring anything else, the Creator creates by his own might and power that which comes into being. The Demiurge, on the other hand, needs some pre-existing raw material from which to 40 Gen. I, x. 41 S. Th., xa, qu. 65, art 4, ad x.

18 fashion his works.” 42 Similar arguments are advanced by Theophilus of Antioch 43 and Athanasius.44 Irenaeus rightly insists against the Gnostics, that a so-called Demiurge would have been unable to do anything with an uncreated, and therefore immutable, hyle** Tertullian sharply criticizes Hermogenes in these words: ” Totum, quod est Deus, aufert, nolens ilium ex nihilo universa fecisse. A Christianis enim conversus ad philosophos, de ecclesia in Academiam et Porticum, inde sumpsit a Stoicis materiam cum Domino ponere, quae ipsa semper fuerit, neque nata, neque facta, nec initium habens omnino nec finem, ex qua Dominus omnia postea fecit — He [Hermogenes] denies that God is God when he denies that He made all things out of nothing. Having left the Church for the sects of the philosophers, he has adopted the Stoic view, that matter co-exists with God, that it is eternal, neither generated nor made, having neither beginning nor end, and that from it God made all things that subsequently came into being.” 46 P) In their positive teaching, the Fathers declared the doctrine that the world was created out of nothing to be an article of faith, just as it has since been held by the Christians of all ages, and as it is laid down in the Apostles’ Creed. ” Above all things believe,” says the Pastor Hermae?1 * that there is but one God, who created and perfected all things, by drawing them out 42 Cohort ad Gent., 22. Very probably it [the Cohortatio ad Gentes] was composed at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, though at present opinions differ very widely as to its origin. (Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, p. 53.) 43 Ad Autol., II, 4. 44 Serm. de Incarn. Verbi, 2. 45 * Si immutabilis est materia [increata], mundus ex eo non conditur, si quid em materia omnem mutation em respuit, eo quod est ingenita.” (Migne, P.G., VII, 1248.) 46Tertull., Contra Hermog., c x. How the Arians confounded the concept of Creation with that of Generation in regard to the Logos, is explained in Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Trinity, pp. 123, sqq, 47 Mandat. I, 1. \ of non-being into being.” 48 Tertullian 49 denounces the ” materiarii,” who advocated the theory of an uncreated hyle, as heretics and observes: ” Regula est autem fidei, qua creditor, unum omnino Deum esse, nec alium praeter mundi conditorem, qui universa de nihilo produxerit — It is a rule of faith, by which we believe that there is but one God, nor any other beside the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing.” 50 For the sources of their teaching the Fathers point to Apostolic Tradition and the Mosaic narrative. Thus St. Athanasius teaches: ” God created all things, which previously did not exist, through the Logos out of nothing, so that they received being, as He speaks through the mouth of Moses: In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” 51 The Scriptural text just quoted, according to St. Chrysostom, is a powerful bulwark against all heresies: “This man Moses eradicated all heresies which were t later to grow up in the Church, when he laid down the proposition: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. If, therefore, some Manichaean approach thee saying that matter pre-existed, or some other heretic like Marcion or Valentius or any pagan, — reply to him: In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” 52 48 vovfiaas iic rov fify 6vros els solution of certain Patristic difficulto efoai rA ir&rra. ties into which we cannot enter 49 Contr. Hermog., c. 35, here, the student is referred to 50 Praescript., c. 13. Palmieri, De Deo Creante et EletiSerm. de Incarnat. Verbi, 2. vante, pp. 53 sqq., Rome 1878. 52 Horn, in Genes., 2, 3. For the

Article 2:

The Anti-Creationist Heresies. — The dogma that God created the universe out of nothing has two heretical antitheses, to either one of which all unorthodox systems can be logically reduced: Dualism which holds that the universe (matter in particular) is uncreated and on the same plane with God, and Pantheism, which identifies the universe with God as an emanation from His essence. Materialism (which in our day prefers to call itself “mechanical Monism” or ” Positivism ),” 1 though it really denies the existence of God, may nevertheless be regarded as a species of Dualism, because it adopts the chief tenet of that heresy, namely, the existence of an eternal uncreated hyle. Similarly the theory of Emanation and Theosophy may be treated as varieties of Pantheism, because both claim that God is identical with the cosmos. Hylozoism, so-called, is a cross between Dualism and Pantheism, though for our present purpose we may regard it merely as an imperfect form of cosmological Pantheism. We should have to write a complete history of dogmas and heresies, or rather of philosophy, were we to undertake to describe the various Dualistic and Pantheistic systems that have flourished in the course of centuries. l On the various Monistic sys- mus und seine philosophischen terns cfr. the recent admirable work Grundlagen, Freiburg 1911. of Fr. Klimke, S. J., Der MortisCONDEMNATION

Both errors in very deed deserve to be called protean. For our present purpose it will be sufficient to sketch the more important varieties of and Pantheism, against which the Church has been compelled to proceed in order to keep the dogma of Creation from being beclouded and traduced, and to preserve the Christian (i. e., theistic) concept of God in its pristine purity. For every heresy that impugns the dogma of Creation necessarily entails grave errors against the Church’s teaching on the essence and attributes of God. a) Many of the ancient pagan philosophers, including Plato, held that God and the world co-existed eternally, though in opposition to each other and incapable of conciliation by mere Svifiumpyta, which formed a peculiar feature of this system.2 became more and more variegated, and closely approached Pantheism, in the complex and fantastic systems of the Gnostics, who held matter to be the seat of evil and separated the increate hyle from the centre of divinity by a long series of intermediate beings, which they called aeons. Marcion distinguished between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Jewish Covenant as between two essentially different principles. The God of the Old Testament he held responsible for the existence of the material world, which, however, according to him, was not created out of nothing, but fashioned from eternal and uncreated matter. Marcion was a forerunner of Mani,8 who carried the system to 2 See the article ” Demiurge ” in Arendzen’s article ” Manichaeism ” the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV. in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 8 On Mani (the Greek form is IX, pp. 591 sqq. Mdyqs) and Manichaeism, consult its ultimate conclusions by distinguishing between the “good God” and His “evil Anti-God.”4 Priscillianism represents a mitigated revival of the Manichaean heresy.5 It had thousands of adherents as early as the fourth century, especially in Spain, and was not entirely extinct at the time of the so-called Protestant Reformation. Since the publication; by G. Schepss, in 1889, °* Priscillian’s genuine writings, theologians are inclined to judge his teaching less harshly than that of his later followers, though it is impossible to absolve him from the charge of propagating ” Gnostic-Dualistic speculations vividly reminiscent of Manichaeism, and propped up, apparently, by a system or framework of mythological and astrological ideas.” 6 4 ” The preponderance of good or evil is explained by the temporary advantage gained by the one over the other. This teaching profoundly influenced early Christianity. St. Augustine fell under its sway for some years (Confess.), We find it coming out afresh in the doctrines of the Albigensians of the XII century. In our day it has been advanced by John Stuart Mill (Essay on Rel. and Nature, p. 41).” — Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: God, p. 201. 5 On the theological side of cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, Essence and Attributes, pp. 213, 221 sqq. For a brief general account see Michael Maher, S. J., in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, p. 169. To avoid misunderstandings the student should note that in modern philosophy the term is employed in a different sense, signifying, in opposition to Monism, the ordinary common-sense view that the existing universe contains two radically distinct kinds of being or substance — matter and spirit, body and mind. 6 Cfr. Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology, pp. 427 sqq. — Bardenhewer points out that while Priscillian’s writings, as edited by Schepss, ” contradict in various ways the received accounts of the heresy, particularly those of Sulpicius Severus (Chron. ii, 46-51; Dial., ii [iii], 11 sq.), at the same time, by reason of their imperfect manuscript tradition and the obscurity of their diction, these newly found writings contain what are at present insurmountable difficulties.” Cfr. Schepss, Priscillian, ein neuaufgefundener lateinischer SchriftsteU ler des 4ten Jahrhunderts, Wurzburg 1886; also E. Michael, S. J., in the Innsbruck Zeitschrift f&r kath. Theologie, 1892, pp. 692 sqq., and P. J. Healy in the Catholic Encyclopedia, article ” Priscillianism,” Vol. XII, pp. 429 sq., with bibliography. *3 b) at bottom is little less than veiled Atheism.7 Its teaching is tersely condensed in the phrase: “God and the universe are one essence.” 8 is either cosmological or ontological. Cosmological puts God first — “God is all,” — while ontological assigns first place to the universe — “All things are God.” a) These two forms of are related to each other as the two sides of a medal, or as relative and correlative. Cosmological sinks God in the universe; ontological merges the universe in God. This logical distinction forms the basis of important real differences. Ontological Pantheism, in developing its axiom irav fcos, finds itself constrained to ascribe to the universe the reality and substantiality proper to God, together with all His quiescent attributes. Cosmological Pantheism, conversely, immerses the Godhead in the restless process of cosmic motion and subjects it to all the various mutations characteristic of created being. It has rightly been observed that, while cosmological gravitates toward Pancosmism, ontological rather tends towards Acosmism. P) Ontological is characterized by its endeavor to deify the cosmos. It was held by the Eleatic school of Greece,9 and, in more recent times, by Baruch 7 On Atheism see Pohle-Preuss, the various systems see J. T. DrisGod: His Knowability, Essence and coll, Christian Philosophy: God, pp. Attributes, pp. 49 sqq. 180 sqq., New York 1904; W. 8cV Kal irav. That existing Turner, History of Philosophy, pp. things are to be explained by an 17 sqq., 168 sqq., 306 sqq., 470 sq.f emanation out of the original one Boston 1903. divine substance, is a doctrine 9 Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zcno, found in all ancient mythologies. Melissus. For a succinct historical sketch of Spinoza,10 a brilliant sophist, who sought by geometrical arguments to establish the proposition that there is but one infinite, indivisible substance, endowed with two attributes, thought and extension, which, as mere modi or ” affections ” of the one Divine Substance, have no more a distinct reality and substantiality of their own than have the surging waves of the ocean in the great body of water which sustains them.11 Cosmological Pantheism, as we have noted, aims rather at merging God in the universe. It may be divided into three species: Emanatism, Hylozoism, and Evolutionism. The most ancient and the crudest of these systems is Emanatism, which holds that the individual creatures are particles detached from the Divine Substance, though not identical with it. One variety of Emanatism is called realistic, because it holds the world emanating from God to be material. There is another variety which may be described as idealistic, since it dissolves the whole cosmos into a series of intelligible momenta, corresponding to the spirituality of God. Realistic Emanatism is held by the Brahmans, by many Gnostics, and by the Jewish Cabalists. The Emanatism championed by the Neo-Platonists and John Scotus Eriugena is distinctly idealistic.12 10 Born at Amsterdam, of Jewish parents, in 1632. Cfr. Turner, History of Philosophy, pp. 466 sqq. 11 Cfr. B. Boedder, S. J., Natural Theology, pp. 200 sqq., 2nd ed., London 1899. 12 Cfr. Turner, History of Philosophy, pp. 246 sqq.; Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: God, pp. 183 sqq. M. de Wulf calls attention to the curious fact that the philosophy of Eriugena ” contains the germ of subjectivism, since he endows the human mind with the power of attaining, by the unaided effort of consciousness alone (gnosticus intuitus) to a knowledge of the divine evolution-process as an object of representation.” Of course, Eriugena himself did not go so far; nor did any medieval philosopher or theologian push the logic of his system to its legitimate conclusions. (Cfr. M. de Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, translated by P. Coffey, p. 173, London 1909.) Hylozoism was taught by the Ionian philosophers of Asia Minor, who believed that God is the world-soul, controlling and vivifying matter as the human soul controls and animates the body, and thus completely identified the life of the world with the Divine Life. Cosmological achieved its highest form in Evolutionism, so-called, which holds that the Absolute was from the beginning immanent, and undergoes a constant process of development, in the universe.13 According to this theory we cannot say God is, because He is constantly in fieri. Goethe refers to the God of the Pantheists as ” ein ewig verschlingendes, ewig wiederkatiendes Ungeheuer — an eternally devouring, eternally ruminating monster.” This evolutionary was first cast into the shape of a philosophical system by Heraclitus of Ephesus.14 It was developed by Fichte 15 and Schelling,18 and perfected by Hegel,17 who, like all other Pantheists before him, declared the visible universe to be a mere manifestation of the Absolute, whence it would follow that the Divine Substance is a purely abstract, vacuous, substance-less mental phenomenon. In Hegel’s hands this idealistic became 18 The influence of on modern thought has been, and continues to be, very great. The English Agnostic school teaches that God is unknowable and as such does not come within the purview of human thought and action; nevertheless, in all other points it is fashioned in the mould of Spinoza. ” Hence comes the charge — so strange at first sight — that Mr. Spencer is a Pantheist. In the criticism of his system we meet with the same difficulties that we find in Spinoza, i. e., the nature of mind and of matter, the character of their interaction, and the 3 doctrine of determinism. Both Spinoza and Spencer teach a pure Naturalism, with this difference only that the God of the formor becomes to the latter the Unknown and Unknowable behind the phenomena.”— Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: God, 189 sq. 14 His was the famous dictum: Hdirra pet, “All things are flowing.” Cfr. Turner, History of Philosophy, pp. 53 sqq. 15 Cfr. Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: God, pp. 199 sq. 16 Cfr. Turner, History of Philosophy, pp. 355 sqq. 17 Turner, op. cit., pp. 560 sqq. 26 Panlogism, since he asserts the complete identity of our thought with being.18

2. Their by the Church. — Against these various forms of Dualistic and Pantheistic error the Church has rigorously upheld the dogma of Creation as essential to the purity and perfection of the Christian concept of God. a) In the early days she did not deem it necessary to utter a formal dogmatic definition against the Dualistic vagaries of the pagans and the Pantheistic heresies of the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, but merely enforced the true doctrine through the Creed and in her ordinary catechetical instruction. The Nicene definition of the uncreatedness of the Logos 19 may be said to imply the dogma that all other things are created. In the sixth century the Council of Braga condemned Manichaeism in the peculiar form in which it had been revamped by the Priscillianists.20 b) In the Middle Ages the Church found it necessary to condemn the resuscitated Manichaeism of the Albigenses and the Pantheistic errors 18 For a general refutation of see B. Boedder, S. J., Natural Theology, pp. 112 sqq., 200 sqq., and Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: God, pp. 204 sqq. Cfr. also P. Hake, Handbuch der allgetneinen Religionswissenschaft, Vol. I, pp. 71 sqq., Freiburg 1875, and Jos. Hontheim, S. J., Institutions Theodicaeae, pp. 465 sqq., Friburgi 1893. 10 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Trinity, pp. 125 sq. 20 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, nn. 231 sqq. In former editions of the Enchiridion, this was attributed to St. Leo the Great Karl Kunstle has shown (Antipriscilliana, Freiburg 1905, pp. 117 sqq.) that it is a Spanish fabrication, made after the year 563. of Amalric of Bene and David of Dinant.21 The Fourth Council of the Lateran, A. D. 121 5, defined: “Creator omnium visibilium et invisibilium, spiritualium et corporalium, … sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit naturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam, ac deinde humanam quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam. Diabolus enim et alii dcemones a Deo quidem natura creati sunt boni, sed ipsi per se facti sunt mali; homo vero diaboli suggestione peccavit — The Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, by His omnipotent power, simultaneously with the beginning of time, created a twofold nature, spiritual and corporeal, viz.: the nature of the angels and that of material things, and then human nature, which partakes of both, in that it consists of soul and body. For the Devil and other demons were indeed good in their nature as created by God, but they made themselves bad by their own conduct; man sinned at the suggestion of the Devil.” 22< This definition embraces four distinct heads of doctrine: ( 1 ) God created all things without exception, spiritual 21 On the teaching of the school 220 sqq. See also Funk-Cappaof Chartres, of which Amalric (or delta, A Manual of Church History, Amaur) and David were the lead- Vol. I, pp. 355 sq., London 191 o. ing exponents, cfr. De Wulf -Coffey, 22 Caput ” Firmiter.” DenzingerHistory of Medieval Philosophy, pp. Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 428* 28 and corporeal, including man, who is a synthesis of both. (2) God created all things out of nothing. (3) As originally created by God, all things were good. (4) Sin, both in angels and men, is not chargeable to God, but to an abuse of creatural liberty. The same truths were again defined by the Ecumenical Council of Florence,28 which formulated against Manichaean errors as follows: ” [Ecclesia] Urmissime credit, … unum verum Deum, Pa~ trem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, esse omnium visibilium et invisibilium ere at or em: qui, quando voluit, bonitate sua universas tarn spirituales quam corporales condidit creaturas: bonas quidem, quia a summo bono -factae sunt, sed mutabiles, quia de nihilo factae sunt, nullamque mali asserit esse naturam, quia omnis natura, in quantum natura est, bona est… . Praeterea Manichceorum anathematizat insaniam, qui duo prima principia posuerunt, unum visibilium, aliud invisibilium; et alium Novi Testamenti Deum, alium Veteris esse Deum dixerunt — The Church believes most firmly that the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is the Creator of all things visible and invisible, who, when it pleased Him, out of His goodness created all creatures, spiritual and corporeal. These creatures are indeed good, because made by Him who is the Supreme Good, but they are mutable, because made out of nothing. [The Church further] asserts that nothing is evil by nature, because every nature, as such, is good… . And she anathematizes the folly of the Manichaeans who posit two first principles, one the principle of visible, the other 28 A. D. 1439. of invisible things; and who say that the God of the New Testament is different from the God of the Old Testament.,, 24 From this time on Manichaeism with its offshoots gradually disappears from history, and its place is taken by Materialism and Pantheism. c) Materialism and may be called the prevailing heresies of modern times. Both were clearly and resolutely condemned as atheistic by the Council of the Vatican.25 Caput I of the decrees of this Council, under the heading De Deo Rerum Omnium Creatore treats at some length of God’s relation to His creatures. is substantially a restatement of the Caput “Firmiter” of the Fourth Lateran Council, from which it differs merely by laying special emphasis on the doctrine that, in creating the universe out of nothing, God acted “with absolute freedom of counsel.” Because of their great importance, the five canons which accompany Caput I of the Constitutions of the Vatican Council deserve to be reprinted here. The first is directed against Atheism and reads thus: “Si quis unum verutn Deum visibilium et invisibUium Creator em et Dominum negaverit: anathema sit — If any one shall deny the one true God, Creator and Lord of all things visible and invisible; let him be anathema.” The second specifically condemns Materialism: “Si quis praeter materiam nihil esse afhrmare non erubuerit: 24 Decret. pro Iacobitis, cited in 25 A. D. 1870. Denzinger-Bannwart’s Enchiridion, nn. 706 sq. 3o anathema sit — If any one shall not be ashamed to affirm that nothing exists except matter; let him be anathema.” Canon 3 anathematizes the fundamental principle of Pantheism: “Si quis dixerit, unam eandemque esse Dei et rerum omnium substantiam vel essentiam: anathema sit — If any one shall say that the substance or essence of God and of all things is one and the same; let him be anathema.” Canon 4 is aimed at certain particular forms or varieties of Pantheism: “Si quis dixerit, res Anitas turn corporeas turn spirituales aut saltern spirituales e divina substantia emanasse, aut divinam essentiam sui manifestation vel evolutione fieri omnia, aut denique Deum esse ens universale seu indefinitum, quod sese determinando constituat rerum universitatem in genera, species et individua distinctam: anathema sit — If any one shall say -that finite things, both corporeal and spiritual, or at least spiritual, have emanated from the divine substance; or that the divine essence by the manifestation and evolution of itself becomes all things; or, lastly, that God is universal or indefinite being, which by determining itself constitutes the universality of things, distinct according to genera, species, and individuals; let him be anathema.* Canon 5 defines the dogma of Creation in its more important aspects: *Si quis non confiteatur, mundum resque omnes, quae in eo continentur, et spirituales et materiales secundum totam suam substantiam a Deo ex nihilo esse productas; aut Deum dixerit non voluntate ab omni necessitate libera, sed tarn necessario creasse, quam necessario amat seipsum; aut mundum ad Dei gloriam conditum esse negaverit: anathema sit — If any one confess not that the world, and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, have been, in their whole substance, produced by God out of nothing; or shall say that God created, not by His will, free from all necessity, but by a necessity equal to the necessity whereby He loves Himself; or shall deny that the world was made for the glory of God; let him be anathema.” 26 26 These canons can be found in Denzinger-Bann wart’s Enchiridion, nn. 1 80 1 sqq. Also, with an English translation, in the Appendix to Cardinal Manning’s worlc, The Vatican Council, 4th ed., New York reprint, 1902, pp. 19a sqq. For 1 detailed analysis of them see Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. I, pp. 496 sqq. Cfr. also Granderath-Kirch, Geschichte des vatikanischen Konnils, 3 vols., Freiburg 1903-06.