{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020104.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020104.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020104.htm","text":"And in a certain way he indeed admits matter [as self-existent] and the creation of the world [without a creator], saying: 556 \u2014\n \u201cFirst of all things was chaos made, and next\nBroad-bosom\u2019d earth\u2019s foundations firm were fixed,\nWhere safely the immortals dwell for aye,\nWho in the snowy-peak\u2019d Olympus stay.\nAfterwards gloomy Tartarus had birth\nIn the recesses of broad-pathwayed earth,\nAnd Love, ev\u2019n among gods most beauteous still,\nWho comes all-conquering, bending mind and will,\nDelivering from care, and giving then\nWise counsel in the breasts of gods and men.\nFrom chaos Erebus and night were born,\nFrom night and Erebus sprung air and morn.\nEarth in her likeness made the starry heaven,\nThat unto all things shelter might be given,\nAnd that the blessed gods might there repose.\nThe lofty mountains by her power arose,\nFor the wood-nymphs she made the pleasant caves,\nBegot the sterile sea with all his waves,\nLoveless; but when by heaven her love was sought,\nThen the deep-eddying ocean forth she brought.\u201d\nAnd saying this, he has not yet explained by whom all this was made. For if chaos existed in the beginning, and matter of some sort, being uncreated, was previously existing, who was it that effected the change on its condition, and gave it a different order and shape? Did matter itself alter its own form and arrange itself into a world (for Jupiter was born, not only long after matter, but long after the world and many men; and so, too, was his father Saturn), or was there some ruling power which made it; I mean, of course, God, who also fashioned it into a world? Besides, he is found in every way to talk nonsense, and to contradict himself. For when he mentions earth, and sky, and sea, he gives us to understand that from these the gods were produced; and from these again [the gods] he declares that certain very dreadful men were sprung,\u2014the race of the Titans and the Cyclopes, and a crowd of giants, and of the Egyptian gods,\u2014or, rather, vain men, as Apollonides, surnamed Horapius, mentions in the book entitled Semenouthi, and in his other histories concerning the worship of the Egyptians and their kings, and the vain labours in which they engaged. 557\nThe Benedictine editor proposes to read these words after the first clause of c. 7. We follow the reading of Wolf and Fell, who understand the pyramids to be referred to.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: THEOPHILUS: Chapter VI.\u2014Hesiod on the Origin of the World.","type":"page"}