Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XIX/Chapter 14

by Anonymous

Chapter XIV.—Is Matter Eternal?

And Simon said:  “But what if matter, being coeval with Him, and possessing equal power, produces as His foe leaders who hinder His wishes?”  And Peter said:  “If matter is eternal, then it is the foe of no one:  for that which exists for ever is impassible, and what is impassible is blessed; but what is blessed cannot be receptive of hatred, since, on account of its eternal creation,^[1] it does not fear that it will be deprived of anything.  But how does not matter rather love the Creator, when^[2] it evidently sends forth its fruits to nourish all who are made by Him?  And how does it not fear Him as superior, as trembling through earthquakes it confesses, and as, though its billows ran high, yet, when the Teacher was sailing on it and commanded a calm, it immediately obeyed and became still?^[3]  What! did not the demons go out through fear and respect for Him, and others of them desired to enter into swine; but they first entreated Him before going, plainly because they had no power to enter even into swine without His permission?”^[4]

Footnotes

1. Probably “eternity” should be read, instead of “eternal creation.”
2. At this word thems. of Cotelerius breaks off; and we have the rest only in the Ottobonian ms., first edited by Dressel.
3. Matt. xxvii. 51, viii. 24–26.
4. Matt. viii. 31.