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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter XIX.--He Enumerates the Things Concerning Which All Agree.

28. For it is true, O Lord, that Thou hast made heaven and earth; it is also true, that the Beginning is Thy Wisdom, in Which Thou hast made all things. ¹ It is likewise true, that this visible world hath its own great parts, the heaven and the earth, which in a short compass comprehends all made and created natures. It is also true, that everything mutable sets before our minds a certain want of form, whereof it taketh a form, or is changed and turned. It is true, that that is subject to no times which so cleaveth to the changeless form as that, though it be mutable, it is not changed. It is true, that the formlessness, which is almost nothing, cannot have changes, of times. It is true, that that of which anything is made may by a certain mode of speech be called by the name of that thing which is made of it; whence that formlessness of which heaven and earth were made might it be called "heaven and earth." It is true, that of all things having form, nothing is nearer to the formless than the earth and the deep. It is true, that not only every created, and formed thing, but also whatever is capable of creation and of form, Thou hast made, "by whom are all things." ² It is true, that everything that is formed from that which is formless was formless before it was formed.

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Confessiones

Caput 19

Verum est enim, domine, fecisse te caelum et terram. verum est esse principium sapientiam tuam, in qua fecisti omnia. item verum est, quod mundus iste visibilis habet magnas partes suas caelum et terram, brevi conplexione factarum omnium conditiarumque naturarum. et verum est, quod omne mutabile insinuat notitiae nostrae quandam informitatem, qua formam capit vel qua mutatur et vertitur. verum est nulla tempora perpeti quod ita cohaeret formae incommutabili, ut, quamvis sit mutabile, non mutetur. verum est informitatem, quae prope nihil est, vices temporum habere non posse. verum est, quod, unde fit aliquid, potest quodam genere locutionis habere iam nomen eius rei, quae inde fit: unde potuit vocari caelum et terra quaelibet informitas, unde factum est caelum et terra. verum est omnium formatorum nihil esse informi vicinius quam terram et abyssum. verum est, quod non solum creatum atque formabile est, tu fecisti, ex quo sunt omnia. verum est omne, quod ex informi formatur, prius esse informe, deinde formatum.