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Confessiones

Caput 30

Et audivi, domine deus meus, et elinxi stillam dulcedinis ex tua veritate, et intellexi, quoniam sunt quidam, quibus displicent opera tua, et multa eorum dicunt te fecisse necessitate conpulsum, sicut fabricas caelorum et conpositiones siderum, et hoc non de tuo, sed iam fuisse alibi creata et aliunde, quae tu contraheres et conpaginares atque contexeres, cum de hostibus victis mundana moenia molireris, ut ea constructione devincti adversus te iterum rebellare non possent; alia vero nec fecisse te nec omnino conpegisse, sicut omnis carnes et minutissima quaeque animantia et quidquid radicibus terram tenet, sed hostilem mentem naturamque aliam non abs te conditam tibique contrariam in inferioribus mundi locis ista gignere atque formare. insani dicunt haec quoniam non per spiritum tuum vident opera tua nec te cognoscunt in eis.

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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter XXX.--He Refutes the Opinions of the Manichaeans and the Gnostics Concerning the Origin of the World.

45. And I heard, O Lord my God, and drank up a drop of sweetness from Thy truth, and understood that there are certain men to whom Thy works are displeasing, who say that many of them Thou madest being compelled by necessity;--such as the fabric of the heavens and the courses of the stars, and that Thou madest them not of what was Thine, but, that they were elsewhere and from other sources created; that Thou mightest bring together and compact and interweave, when from Thy conquered enemies Thou raisedst up the walls of the universe, that they, bound down by this structure, might not be able a second time to rebel against Thee. But, as to other things, they say Thou neither madest them nor compactedst them,--such as all flesh and all very minute creatures, and whatsoever holdeth the earth by its roots; but that a mind hostile unto Thee and another nature not created by Thee, and in everywise contrary unto Thee, did, in these lower places of the world, beget and frame these things. ¹ Infatuated are they who speak thus, since they see not Thy works through Thy Spirit, nor recognise Thee in them.