For there is one form which is given from outside to every bodily substance, — such as the form which is constructed by potters and smiths, and that class of artists who paint and fashion forms like the body of animals — but another and internal form which is not itself constructed, but, as the efficient cause, produces not only the natural bodily forms, but even the life itself of the living creatures, and which proceeds from the secret and hidden choice of an intelligent and living nature, — let that first-mentioned form be attributed to every craftsman, but this latter to one only, God, the Creator and Originator who made the world itself and the angels, without the help of world or angels. For the same divine and, so to speak, creative energy, which cannot be made, but makes, and which gave to the earth and sky their roundness — this same divine, effective, and creative energy gave their roundness to the eye and to the apple; and the other natural objects which we anywhere see, received also their form, not from outside, but from the secret and profound might of the Creator, who said, “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” Jeremiah 23:24 and whose wisdom it is that “reaches from one end to another mightily; and she orders all things sweetly.”⁠a Therefore I do not know what kind of aid the angels, themselves created first, gave to the Creator in making other things. I cannot ascribe to them what perhaps they cannot do, nor ought I to deny them the ability they have. But, by their leave, I attribute the creating and originating work which gave being to all natures to God, to whom they themselves thankfully ascribe their existence. We do not call gardeners the creators of their fruits, for we read, “Neither the one who plants is anything, nor the one who waters, but God who gives the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3:7 We do not call even the earth itself a creator, though she seems to be the prolific mother of all things which she aids in germinating and bursting forth from the seed, and which she keeps rooted in her own breast; for we likewise read, “God gives it a body, as it has pleased Him, and to every seed its own body.” 1 Corinthians 15:38 We ought not even to call a woman the creator of her own offspring; for its creator is rather He who said to His servant, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” Jeremiah 1:5 And although the various mental emotions of a pregnant woman produce in the fruit of her womb similar qualities, — as Jacob with his peeled wands caused piebald sheep to be produced — the mother no more creates her offspring than she created herself. Whatever bodily or seminal causes, then, may be used for the production of things, either by the cooperation of angels, men, or the lower animals, or by sexual generation; and whatever power the desires and mental emotions of the mother have to produce in the tender and plastic fœtus corresponding features and colors; the natures themselves, which are affected in these various ways, are still the work of no one but the most high God. It is His hidden power which pervades all things, and is present in all without being contaminated, which gives being to all that is, and modifies and limits its existence; so that without Him it would not be thus, or thus, nor would have any being at all. If, then, in regard to that outward form which the workman's hand imposes on his work, we do not say that Rome and Alexandria were built by masons and architects, but by the kings by whose will, plan, and resources they were built, so that the one has Romulus, the other Alexander, for its founder; with how much greater reason ought we to say that God alone is the Author of all natures, since He neither uses for His work any material which was not made by Him, nor any workmen who were not also made by Him, and since, if He were, so to speak, to withdraw from created things His creative power, they would at once fall back into the nothingness in which they were before they were created? “Before,” I mean, with respect to eternity, not of time. For what other creator could there be of time, than He who created those things whose movements make time?