Chapter VI.—He Confesses that at
One Time He Himself Thought Erroneously of Matter.
6. But were I, O Lord, by my mouth and by my
pen to confess unto Thee the whole, whatever Thou hast taught me
concerning that matter, the name of which hearing beforehand, and
not understanding (they who could not understand it telling me of
it), I conceived it as having innumerable and
varied forms. And therefore did I not conceive it; my mind revolved
in disturbed order foul and horrible “forms,” but yet
“forms;” and I called it formless, not that it lacked form, but
because it had such as, did it appear, my mind would turn from, as
unwonted and incongruous, and at which human weakness would be
disturbed. But even that which I did conceive was formless, not by
the privation of all form, but in comparison of more beautiful
forms; and true reason persuaded me that I ought altogether to
remove from it all remnants of any form whatever, if I wished to
conceive matter wholly without form; and I could not. For sooner
could I imagine that that which should be deprived of all form was
not at all, than conceive anything between form and
nothing,—neither formed, nor nothing, formless, nearly nothing. And my mind hence ceased to question my spirit, filled (as it was) with the images of formed bodies, and changing and varying them according to its will; and I applied myself to the bodies themselves, and looked more deeply into their mutability, by which they cease to be what they had been, and begin to be what they were not; and this same transit from form unto form I have looked upon to be through some formless condition, not through a very nothing; but I desired to know, not to guess. And if my voice and my pen should confess the whole unto Thee, whatsoever knots Thou hast untied for me concerning this question, who of my readers would endure to take in the whole? Nor yet, therefore, shall my heart cease to give Thee honour, and a song of praise, for those things which it is not able to express. For the mutability of mutable things is itself capable of all those forms into which mutable things are changed. And this mutability, what is it? Is it soul? Is it body? Is it the outer appearance of soul or body? Could it be said, “Nothing were something,” and “That which is, is not,” I would say that this were it; and yet in some manner was it already, since it could receive these visible and compound shapes.