Refutation of Certain Doctrines of Aristotle

… of the [offerings made] by men for the [service] of God, nothing is so acceptable to God as to strive, as far as one is able, to make men better. Since this zeal, then, is very ardent in you, most honored presbyter Paul, [I have been] ready to make a selection of the Greek doctrines about God and creation: not that you may learn anything true from them (for how could you, who have from above the teaching about these things through the prophets, from God himself who made creation?), but that you may know that the Greeks have not done this according to demonstrative science, by which they profess to make their arguments about God and creation, but have defined what seemed good to them by conjecture. Of the men who have made arguments about God and creation, some received the teaching about God and creation from God himself, who made creation, through the prophets who served God for this; whom he first showed to be worthy of belief by the divine works done through them, and then in this way provided the teaching of things unclear to those taught. Others, disbelieving the words spoken through the prophets, entrusted the discovery of the knowledge of God to their own reasonings. According to those who have learned by teaching the difference between God and creation, God is one, being unoriginated in both senses of being unoriginated, having had neither God nor gods before him nor after him, having nothing co-eternal with him, neither underlying nor opposed, having an incorruptible essence and an unhindered activity, being the maker of the whole world, whose beginning of being, of being what it is, and of how it continues is his will. For the parts of the world continue either in incorruption, like the heaven and the heavenly bodies and the invisible powers, or in coming to be and passing away, like the animals and plants on earth. And as what came to be would not have come to be had he not commanded, “Let it be,” so neither would it have continued had he not laid down the command: for the incorruptible things, to stand for ever and ever; for those in generation and corruption, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth.” And to show his divine power, and that he is not a slave to a law of nature but works what he pleases by the authority of his will, at the beginning he made the things of the nature subject to generation and corruption from the earth and the waters, commanding: “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind, and plants having their seed in themselves, and trees bearing fruit”; and again: “Let the waters bring forth the living creature according to its kind”; but he determined that those born of the first parents should come to be by the casting of seed. And about these things all the prophets sent from God to all men continued to think the same, and there was no disagreement among them. But among those who disbelieved the words of the prophets and defined what seemed good about God and creation by their own conjecture, there is much disagreement, both with one another and with themselves, about the things that exist and their principle, in respect of essence, number, motion, and end; as is shown from the first book of Aristotle's Physics, together with the fact that he says nothing true about the matters he undertook to define.

From the first book of Aristotle's Physics: “For there is always something that underlies, from which what comes to be comes to be, as plants and animals from seed. Things that come to be without qualification come to be some by change of shape, as a statue; some by addition, as things that grow; some by subtraction, as the Hermes from the stone; some by composition, as a house; some by alteration, as things that change in respect of their matter. It is clear that all things that come to be in this way come to be from underlying things. And this is twofold: either the underlying or the opposite. I mean that the unmusical is opposed and the man underlies.” If the one who sows the seed is first, and what comes to be from seed is later, and both are generated, … then in the generation of what lies before us, which comes to be from seed, the seed underlies; but in the generation of the sower it is impossible for seed to underlie. Therefore animals and plants do not always come to be from seed. Further, if each is a generated animal, both the sower and what comes from seed, and each does not come from the same underlying thing, but the one from seed and the other not from seed, how is it not false that animals always come to be from seed? And the same argument holds for plants. Further, if the principle of what comes to be from seed is the sower, and this is unknown and undefined in the treatise of Aristotle's Physics, why was this treatise written, when the principle of the first animal and plant is unknown? For ignorance of what comes from the principle follows from ignorance of the principle. If the animal that comes from seed comes to be according to nature, it is clear that when the same animal comes to be, but not from seed, it does not come to be according to nature. Let the Aristotelians then say according to what the animal comes to be that does not come to be according to nature. Further, if, once a difference is granted in the generation of animals, between the one from seed and according to nature, and the one neither from seed nor according to nature, generation must be limited, how then do the Greeks say that animals and plants, which came to be according to nature, are co-eternal with God, when they cannot even be contemporary with the first animal and plant? Further, if everything that comes to be is always composite, how did you distinguish the mode of things that come to be by composition from the other modes of generation by its own difference? For if every generated thing is composite, it must come to be by composition. But if the mode of generation by composition fits every generation, it is superfluously distinguished from the other modes of generation by its own difference. If the things that underlie the generations mentioned are substances, and in them the twofold character of the underlying is seen, that is, the underlying and the opposite, while matter is not a substance, how does the mode of generation of things that come from substances fit the mode of generation of things that do not come from substance? Necessarily, then, either matter is a substance, or the things that come from matter come to be in another mode besides the stated modes of generation. But since in the treatise of the Physics matter is defined not to be a substance, and the mode of generation of the things that come from it is not handed down, how is this treatise not superfluous, when in it what should be clear is left in perplexity? Further, if, as nature and art must make not chance things from chance things but definite things from definite things, so God too must make definite things from definite things, who is it that set this limit for God? That God set this limit for nature and art is evident. But if God is not under the limit, but makes chance things from chance things, not being hindered by the necessity of the limit from making what he wishes, how is he not also freed from the limit of making from underlying things by necessity? …

Of the same Aristotle, from the same book: “The underlying thing is one in number but two in form. For the man and the gold, and in general the matter, is countable; for it is more a ‘this,’ and what comes to be comes from it not accidentally; but the privation and the contrariety are accidental. The form is one, for instance the order, or the music, or any other of the things predicated in this way. Hence in one sense the principles must be said to be two, in another three; in one sense the contraries, as if one were to speak of the musical and the unmusical, or the hot and the cold, or the harmonized and the unharmonized; in another sense not, for it is impossible for contraries to be acted on by one another. This too is solved by the underlying thing being something else; for this is not a contrary. So the principles are, in a way, not more than the contraries, but two, so to speak, in number; nor again wholly two, because their being is different, but three.” If the underlying thing is one in number but two in form, of which one must underlie the other, how is the underlying thing not underlying itself? And if this is impossible, how is it not false that the underlying thing is two in form? Further, if something must always underlie the things that come to be, and this is matter, how is matter not always generated? For it always underlies one of the contraries: either the privation, or the form, which is contrary to the privation; and by the form it becomes well-shaped, by the privation shapeless. How then is matter not a generated substance, since it always has its being in a generated way? Further, if privation is nothing other than the removal of everything that is, and matter has this, how is its very being matter not removed? Further, if, when form is absent from matter, its being a substance, its being a “this,” and its being are absent from it, then matter is nowhere when form is absent from it. Further, if matter is countable, but the contraries that are accidents of it are not countable, how are there three principles, matter and its accidents? If nothing of what is seen in the constitution of the natures that come to be comes from matter, neither quality nor quantity, how do the things that come to be come to be from it of themselves? If it is impossible for something to be and not to be a “this,” how does matter, not being a “this” because of privation, have being? If privation and form are accidents of matter, but matter is not a substance, how do the contraries happen to it? For accidents happen to a substance. If, as order is in things ordered, so form is in matter, how do disordered things have their being a “this” before the order, while matter, not having being before the form, … the analogy of order to form is preserved in matter? If in the composition of things that come to be only two principles are seen, matter and form, but without composition there are three principles, matter, privation, and form, it is clear then that … of what comes to be the principles are not three but two. How then is what comes to be not the principle of the destruction of one principle, if what comes to be would not have come to be had it not perished? If, as the man is acted on by the musical and the unmusical, and the body by cold and hot, and the voice by harmony and disharmony, so matter is acted on by form and privation, let matter be a substance, like the man and the body, or an accident, like the voice, so that the consistency of the analogy may be kept. But if matter is neither substance nor accident, then it is not acted on by the contraries either.

Of the same, from the same book: “How many, then, are the principles of natural things concerned with generation, and in what way, has been said. And it is clear that something must underlie the contraries, and that the contraries are two; but in another way it is not necessary, for one of the contraries suffices to produce the change by its presence and absence. The underlying nature is knowable by analogy. For as bronze is to a statue, or wood to a bed, or matter and the formless to any of the other things that have form, before it takes the form, so this is to substance, to the ‘this,’ and to being. This, then, is one principle, though not one as the ‘this’ is one; one also is the formula; and contrary to this is the privation. Whether the form or the underlying thing is substance is not yet clear.” If form by its presence gives form to matter, and by its absence makes it formless, and the principles are two, form and the formless, and privation too makes these same things by its presence and absence, then the principles will come to be and be destroyed by one another, and are not eternal. For the eternal does not need any presence and absence in order to be. If the change of the principles comes about by the presence and absence of the contraries, it is clear that the change is from their being principles. How then can those remain principles that have lost their being principles? If a principle that has a principle is not a principle, how can matter, which has form as the principle of its being and privation as the principle of its not being, be a principle? To call “nature” what underlies privation, which is neither substance, nor a “this,” nor being — how is that not superfluous? If principles are neither from others nor from one another, but privation is from the absence of form, and form from the absence of privation, how are form and privation not principles from one another? For by their absence they produce one another. If the relation that bronze has to the statue that is to come from it, matter has to substance, to the “this,” and to being, how is it that bronze, unless it is a substance, a “this,” and a being, cannot have a relation to the statue, but matter, being neither substance nor “this” nor being, can have an analogy to bronze? If all things seen in the constitutions of natural things are knowable by sense, how is matter, from which sensible things come, knowable by analogy and not by sense? Or how at all is it possible for sensible things to come to be from what is not sensible? If being one principle is also a “this,” how does matter have being one principle but not have being a “this”? And if being a “this” and not being a “this” is substance, how is matter not being a “this,” yet not a substance? And how can one exclude matter from being one, when he has divided it into two forms, the underlying for what comes to be and the opposite? If it is not yet clear from what has been said whether form or the underlying thing is substance, how did he make a declarative statement about matter, that it is neither substance nor “this” nor being? For he said that the underlying thing is matter. Sometimes [he says] that it is neither substance nor “this” nor being; sometimes that it is unclear whether it is substance; how is this not among the things that … ?

From the same book: “The first who sought the truth and the nature of things by philosophy turned aside, as it were, into another road, pushed off by inexperience, and say that none of the things that exist either comes to be or perishes, because what comes to be must come to be either from what is or from what is not, and from both of these it is impossible: for what is does not come to be (for it already is), and from what is not nothing could come to be (for something must underlie). And so, magnifying the consequence, they say that there are not even many things, but only being itself.” These words too suffice to bear witness to the truth of what we said about the philosophers among the Greeks: that they did not make their arguments about the things that exist according to demonstrative science, but [defined] what seemed good by conjecture …

From the same book: “We say that coming to be from what is or from what is not, or what is not or what is doing or suffering something, or becoming this or that, is in one way no different from a doctor's doing or suffering something, or something's being or coming to be from a doctor. So, since this is said in two or more ways, it is clear that ‘from what is’ and ‘what is’ doing or suffering [are said so too]. The doctor builds a house, then, not as a doctor but as a builder, and becomes white not as a doctor but as dark. But he heals … and becomes a non-doctor as a doctor. Since we most properly say that the doctor does or suffers something, or that something comes to be from a doctor, if he does or suffers these things as a doctor, clearly ‘to come to be from what is not’ also means this: as what is not. This they failed to distinguish and gave up; and through this ignorance they were so far further ignorant as to think that nothing else comes to be or exists, but abolished all coming to be. We ourselves too say that nothing comes to be without qualification from what is not, but that things do come to be from what is not in a certain way, namely accidentally. For from the privation, which in itself is not-being, something comes to be, it not being present in it. This is wondered at, and it seems impossible that something should come to be thus from what is not. Likewise, neither does what is come to be from what is, except accidentally. And this too comes to be in the same way, as if animal were to come to be from animal, and some animal from some animal, as if a dog were to come to be from a horse; for the dog would come to be not only from some animal but also from animal, but not as animal, for that is already present. If anything is to become an animal not accidentally, it will not be from animal; and if something is to become a being, not from being, nor from not-being. For we have said what ‘from what is not’ means: as not-being. Further, we do not abolish that everything either is or is not.” If neither from what is simply, nor … of those who through inexperience and ignorance abolished generation, and of the one who corrected those who erred, how is generation not abolished by the one who corrected them, as it was abolished by those who erred? If it is impossible for anything to come to be accidentally from what is and from what is not, unless the coming to be of what comes to be in itself is conceived beforehand (for example, it is impossible for the doctor to become white unless the dark becomes white, and impossible for the doctor to build unless the builder builds, if the doctor is dark and a builder), how does anything come to be accidentally from what is and from what is not, when nothing comes to be in itself beforehand? If first there is animal, and later animal from animal, and some animal from some animal, and … the seed is potentially animal but not actually animal, while in the generation of animal simply the underlying thing was not seed, how is animal from animal not a coming to be contrary to nature? If before what comes to be came to be the matter existed, but what comes from it did not, what was the matter? For instance, if there was matter of the horse before the horse came to be, if everything seen in the substance of the horse is generated, how was the matter from which the horse came ungenerated? If neither privation nor matter is [something] in itself, and the accidental happens to what is in itself, how is it possible for something to come to be accidentally from privation, neither in itself nor … ? … it is possible for something to come to be from none of them, neither is it possible for something to come to be from them combined; for example, from what is simply nothing can come to be, and likewise from what is not simply, to use Aristotle's words. How then have both become possible, to come to be from what is and to come to be from what is not? If the underlying thing from which what comes to be comes to be must underlie the contraries, then nothing comes to be from privation accidentally when the contraries do not underlie. He who abolishes neither all being nor not-being, but grants that everything is and is not, how can he speak truly when he says that matter is neither substance nor “this” nor being? If what comes to be comes to be not from what is not simply nor from what is simply, but from both, then it comes to be from matter as from what is and from what is not, and as from what is a “this” and is not a “this.” But if this is so, what was said of matter is false, that it is neither substance nor “this” nor being. As matter is formless, so form is matterless. But if matter and its formlessness are two principles, then form and its matterlessness will also be two principles. How then, when the principles are four, were only three posited?

From the same: “For we say that matter and privation are different, and that of these the one, matter, is not-being accidentally, but privation in itself; and that the one is near to substance and in a way substance, the other not at all. But they say that not-being is the great and the small alike, either both together or each separately. So this mode of the triad is wholly different from that one.” If not-being belongs to matter accidentally, clearly, accidentally, matter is neither matter nor principle. For being matter and being a principle belong to what is. And if not-being belongs to matter accidentally, through … the form. Matter, then, will never be [being] in itself, but accidentally always, sometimes not-being and sometimes being. How then is it not absurd to say that what never is in itself is near to substance and in a way substance? If being matter is one thing and being the matter of something is another, and matter is deprived of being the matter of something but not deprived of being matter, then matter will be both being and not-being: being because it is matter, not-being because it is not the matter of something. But if matter is of nothing, then matter is not of formlessness either. But if matter is of formlessness, … sometimes of formlessness, sometimes of form. That formlessness exists is clear from its having been posited as a principle of things that come to be. But if this is so, then matter is never not-being, but, if it is being, it is sometimes formless and sometimes formed, and therefore always generated. If matter can cast off the formlessness co-eternal with it, it can also cast off its co-eternal ungeneratedness. But if not the second, then not the first either. How then does what comes to be come to be from matter, when matter does not cast off its co-eternal formlessness? If, as the mode of the triad according to Aristotle is different from the mode of the triad according to Plato, so the triad too is different … the principle of things that come to be is the hexad, but the triad … ?

From the same: “For the [nature] that remains is a joint cause with the form of the things that come to be, like a mother; but the other part of the contrariety might often seem, to one who fixes his mind on its evil-working character, not to exist at all. For since there is something divine and good and desirable, we say that the one is contrary to it, and the other is of a nature to desire and yearn for it according to its own nature. But for them it follows that the contrary desires its own destruction; and yet neither can the form desire itself, because it is not deficient, nor can the contrary, for contraries are destructive of one another. But this is matter, as if the female should desire the male, and the ugly the beautiful; only not ugly in itself but accidentally, nor female, but accidentally. It perishes and comes to be in one sense, and in another not. For as that in which [the privation is], it perishes in itself, for what perishes in it is the privation; but as potentiality, not in itself, but it must be imperishable and ungenerated. For if it came to be, something must first underlie, that from which [it comes], present in it; but this is the very nature [of matter], so that it will be before it comes to be. For I call matter the first underlying thing for each, from which something comes to be, present in it, not accidentally. And if it perishes, it will come to this last; so that it will have perished before perishing.” If, as matter and form are a principle of things that come to be, so is privation, how is matter a joint cause with the form of the things that come to be, but privation not a joint cause? If form is a principle for this reason, that from it being belongs to what comes to be, clearly privation too is a principle for this reason, that because of it not-being belongs to what comes to be. How then is privation called a principle of things that come to be? If, when form is present, privation does not remain, it is clear that when form is not present, privation remains. How then is it not absurd to say that what remains does not exist? For remaining belongs to what exists. If privation is the other part of the contrariety, and form is what works evil on it, how is form not both good and evil? Good for matter, since through it matter has being a substance; evil for privation, since it is abolished by it. If there is something divine and good and desirable, and it has a contrary, which is neither good nor desirable, then the divine will be good and not good, desirable and not desirable, and therefore divine and not divine. But if this is absurd, then the divine, the good and desirable, has no contrary. For the simply good is good for all, not for some only. If the contrary of the good does not desire the good (for it desires the destruction of its own nature, if it desires the good), and form does not desire itself (for form is without need), and the divine is desirable and yearned for, for what is it desirable and yearned for, if not for matter? Matter, then, is ensouled; for to desire and yearn belongs to what is ensouled. But if matter is ensouled, how is it not false that matter is not-being accidentally? For soul is being, and what has soul is being. If, as the female desires the male, and as the ugly the beautiful, matter desires the good, and matter is not female and ugly in itself but accidentally, clearly it does not desire the good in itself either, but accidentally. The divine, too, then, will be good and desirable and yearned for not in itself but accidentally, which is absurd to say. If matter is generated because of the form, perishable because of the privation, but ungenerated and imperishable through itself, then matter will always be perishable or generated, and never imperishable and ungenerated. For it always underlies either the privation that perishes in it or the form that comes to be in it. “Ungenerated” in the case of generated things signifies the privation of a generation that can come to be; in the case of eternal things, the negation of all generation, both past and future. For example, bronze that is to become a statue is called ungenerated, before it becomes a statue, by privation, because it can become a statue; but in the case of God “ungenerated” signifies the negation of all generation in essence, past and future. Since there are, then, two modes of ungeneratedness, in which mode is matter ungenerated? If by privation, then matter is ungenerated as the bronze is; but if matter is ungenerated by negation, then matter becomes nothing; nor can matter have to substance the relation that bronze has to the statue, as Aristotle said. If matter is ungenerated as God is, and God can make something from the ungenerated, it is clear that God can also make something from what simply is not. For the unsuitability that what is not has for something's coming to be from it by nature and by art is the same that the eternally ungenerated has for something's coming to be from it by nature and by art. How then could God make something from the eternally ungenerated, but could not from what simply is not? But disbelief that God can make something from what is not drove the first philosophers to deny all generation of beings from matter, and Aristotle, who corrected this, to abolish the generation of matter. If there is what comes to be, and there is something that this becomes, as he said above, then matter is none of these, since it is ungenerated and imperishable. If it is ungenerated and imperishable, it is necessarily ungenerated in both modes of ungeneratedness; so nothing comes to be from it, nor does anything perish in it. How then does privation perish in what is imperishable? If matter is one, but the things that come to be from it are many and different, how can matter remain ungenerated, when what is always being divided in it cannot remain undivided? If matter is one in number but two in form, and is ungenerated and imperishable, then either matter is ungenerated and imperishable, or half of it. But if matter is ungenerated and imperishable, clearly half of it is such too; and if half of it is ungenerated and imperishable and half is not, then contradictory statements about the same thing are true, which is impossible. If what receives the form either becomes that or comes to be from that, how is matter, which receives the form, ungenerated? If being ungenerated and imperishable belongs to things that exist, how is matter both not existent and ungenerated and imperishable? If what exists ungeneratedly in the ungenerated is itself ungenerated, how does privation, which is ungenerated in matter, come to be and perish? If, as was said, one of the contraries suffices to produce change by its presence and absence, what is it that changes, if matter is ungenerated and imperishable? If ungenerated and imperishable are considered with regard to substance, since what is ungenerated and imperishable is [a substance], where is the ungenerated and imperishable of matter, since matter is not a substance? If the bronze had not been generated by its prior generation, the statue would not have come to be either. How then does matter come to be, or anything from matter, if matter has not previously come to be? If the bronze did not perish, neither … , matter being imperishable? If body is not produced from incorporeal things, how has body come to be from matter and form, which are incorporeal in themselves? If indivisibility and unchangeability follow by natural necessity on the ungenerated and imperishable, how is ungenerated and imperishable matter in the species divided according to genera, and how do things that change in respect of matter come to be by alteration, as he defined above in setting out the modes of generation?

“In one way, then, nature is so called: the first underlying matter for each of the things that have in themselves a principle of motion and change; in another way, the shape and the form according to the formula. For as ‘art’ is said of what is according to art and the artistic, so ‘nature’ is said of what is according to nature and the natural.” What then would we call what is according to matter and the material, if not matter? Tell me, what else? But if we call this matter, then matter will be matter when there is what is according to matter and the material. For nature, too, is nature when there is what is according to nature and the natural; and likewise art. For things expressed in the same way have the same relation to one another. But if matter exists when what is according to matter and the material exists, then matter is not ungenerated.

Of the same, from the same book: “So that in another way nature would be, of the things that have in themselves a principle of motion, the shape and the form, which is not separable except in formula. What is from these is not nature, but by nature, as a man.” If the man is according to nature and a natural animal, how is the man not nature? For having defined it, he said, “Nature is said of what is according to nature and the …”

From the same book: “In things according to art we make the matter for the sake of the work, but in natural things it is present.” Since there is another work which is neither according to nature nor according to art, where is the matter of this work to be put? For animal comes to be from animal; and if the animal had not been first, there would not be animal from animal either. And animal from animal comes to be according to nature, but animal simply not according to nature. But if in things according to art the matter is from outside, and in things according to nature the matter is in the natural things, clearly in works that are neither according to art nor according to nature matter exists in another way; and if the one who writes the treatise on natural things makes no definition of this, he makes even what has already been defined incoherent. For if we think we know each thing when we know the first causes and the first principles, how could anyone know animal from animal, who does not know the animal that is not from animal? For that is the principle and cause of this.

From the same: “Since spontaneity and chance are causes of things of which mind or nature might be the cause, when something becomes the cause of these same things accidentally, and nothing accidental is prior to what is in itself, it is clear that the accidental cause is not prior to the cause in itself. Spontaneity and chance are therefore posterior to mind and nature. So that, if spontaneity were in the highest degree the cause of the heaven, mind and nature must be prior causes, both of many other things and of this universe.” In these words he not only failed to keep the order of first and second causes that he stated, but the heaven too, which he himself, above, in the second book of the Physics, excepted from spontaneous generation, he here subjected to generation, not only spontaneous, but also through mind and nature; which is plainly absurd, that what received its generation in essence through mind and nature, through the first causes, should again receive the same generation through the second causes. Further, how is it not among the most absurd things that the same man should sometimes … this, and sometimes call [the heaven] ungenerated, sometimes generated by nature? I will set out the passages in which he does this, so that the falsehood they contain may be known by comparing them side by side.

From the same book: “There are some who make spontaneity the cause even of this heaven and of all the things in the cosmos; for they say that from spontaneity arose the vortex and the motion that separated and set the universe in this order. And this very thing is well worth wondering at, that they say that animals and plants neither are nor come to be by chance, but that either nature … or some other such thing is the cause (for it is not any chance thing that comes to be from the seed of each, but from this kind an olive, from that kind a man), yet that the more divine of visible things come to be from spontaneity, and that there is no such cause for them as there is for animals or plants. And yet, if this is so, this very thing would be a cause for inquiry, and it is well that something be said about it. For besides being unreasonable in other respects, it is still more absurd to say these things when they see that in the heaven nothing comes to be from spontaneity, while among the things that do not come from chance many things happen by chance; and surely the contrary would have been likely.” That [he says] the heaven came to be from spontaneity, and again not from spontaneity, is shown by the passages we have set out from the second book of the Physics in the two chapters, the eleventh and the twelfth. That he says it is ungenerated and again generated by nature, I will show by setting out these words too, in which he has done this.

From Aristotle: “That the whole heaven neither came to be nor can perish, as some say, but is one and eternal, having neither beginning nor end of its whole age, but having and containing in itself infinite time, one may [gather] both from what has been said …” Having said this about the ungeneratedness of the heaven, see what Aristotle says again about its generation in the first book On the Heaven.

From the first book On the Heaven: “And nature seems rightly to have exempted from the contraries what is to be ungenerated and imperishable; for generation and perishing are in contraries.” If, of impossible things, none either is or will be possible, and it is among impossible things that what is going to be should be ungenerated, without beginning or end, having and containing in itself infinite time, then the one who says these things is ignorant of the difference between a possible and an impossible thing.

From the first book of Aristotle On the Heaven: “For nothing [that comes] from spontaneity can be either imperishable or ungenerated.” How then could anyone believe the one who says both things about the heaven? In the eleventh chapter he says that spontaneity is the cause of the heaven, but in the thirteenth that the heaven is without beginning and ungenerated.

From the second book of the Physics: “The principles that move naturally are twofold, of which one is not natural; for it does not have a principle of motion in itself. Such is anything that moves without being moved, as that which is wholly unmoved and the first of all.” How then would a principle move naturally that is neither natural nor moves according to nature? For moving naturally follows only on a natural principle that moves according to nature. If the principle that is not natural does not have in itself a principle of motion, it is clear that the natural principle has in itself a principle of motion. But a principle that has a principle is not a principle. If among things eternally unge[nerated] … [From the second book On the Heaven] … [unoriginated] nothing can be prior or posterior to anything, how is the principle that is unmoved, or that moves without being moved, the first of all, or a principle at all?

From the third book of the same treatise: “They derive their belief that there is something infinite from time (for this is infinite), and further from the fact that only so would generation and perishing not give out, if that from which what comes to be is taken were infinite.” If time always has its being in coming to be, and what comes to be did not exist before it came to be, how is it infinite, as Aristotle says? … for what is not yet is going to be present, and what is going to be is going to pass, and what has passed was going to come to be. If, because generation and perishing do not give out, generation and perishing must be infinite, then generation and perishing will also be without beginning, like the ungenerated and the imperishable. But if this is impossible, generation and perishing are not infinite.

From the same: “But neither is number, as separate, also infinite; for number is the numerable or what has number. If, then, the numerable can be numbered, it would also be possible to traverse the infinite.” If number, of what is numerable and has number, is not infinite, and past time is numerable, then past time would be finite.

From the same book: “That, if there is no infinite at all, many impossibilities follow, is clear: for there will be a beginning and an end of time, and magnitudes will not be divisible into magnitudes, and number will not be infinite.” If of the infinite one part is in actuality and another in potentiality, and it is impossible that what is now in actuality of the infinite was not first in potentiality, then it is impossible for the infinite always to be partly in actuality and partly in potentiality; rather, it is first in potentiality and later in actuality. If, as time is endless with respect to the future, so it is without beginning with respect to the past, then time will be ungenerated with respect to the past as well as with respect to the future. But if this is impossible — that time should be ungenerated with respect to the future, in which it has not yet come to be, but generated with respect to the past — then time is not without beginning. For of what is without beginning there is no generation, but of time there is. If nothing can be infinite in actuality, then the bisections of a magnitude already made are not infinite, nor is the number already reckoned; for both are in actuality. But if they are not infinite, they are finite; and if finite, they have a beginning, the one of being bisected, the other of being numbered.

From the same book: “The infinite is by addition, and also by subtraction; that magnitude is not infinite in actuality has been said, but it is by division. It remains, then, that the infinite is in potentiality. But one must not take ‘in potentiality’ as when, if it is possible for this to be a statue, this will also be a statue, as though there were an infinite that will be in actuality. But since ‘being’ is said in many ways, as the day is and the contest is by one thing after another always coming to be, so too the infinite. For in these there is both potentiality and actuality. For in general … the infinite is in potentiality by one thing after another always being taken, and what is taken is always finite, but always other and other.” If nothing is infinite in actuality, clearly everything that is in actuality is always finite; and being finite, it necessarily has a beginning; and having a beginning, it is necessarily generated; and being generated, there was a time when it was not. This holds for every infinite that is spoken of by addition and subtraction, by potentiality and by division.

“Nor is it infinite if there is something outside; but what receives what is outside becomes greater than it was before receiving what is outside. What becomes greater than itself by the addition of what is outside is always finite.” If the infinite is always in addition and subtraction, the infinite is always in generation. How then is what always has its being in coming to be without beginning? For a generated thing is not without beginning.

From the same book: “The bisections of a magnitude are infinite; so that it is in potentiality but not in actuality; but what is taken always exceeds every determinate quantity; yet this number is not determinate, nor does the infinity remain, but it comes to be, as also time and the number …” If the infinity does not remain, but comes to be, as also time and the number of time, then nothing infinite is ungenerated. And if every infinite is generated, then all the other things in which the infinite is said to be are also generated. If what happens to the infinite necessarily happens also to the things in which infinity is, and it happens to the infinite to come to be and to have a beginning, then time is generated and has a beginning; and likewise motion, of which time is the number.

From the fourth book of the same treatise: “For what is not is nowhere.” How then [is] matter [anywhere], being nothing, neither substance, nor one, nor a “this”?

From the same book: “Hesiod too would seem to speak rightly in making chaos first; at any rate he says, ‘First of all came Chaos, and then …,’ as if there had to be first a space for the things that are, because he thought, as most people do, that everything is somewhere and in a place. If it is such, the power of place would be something wonderful, and prior to all things. For that without which nothing else is must be prior to the others.” … [If all things are] in place by natural necessity, as Hesiod said, and Aristotle also bore witness to the rightness of the saying, how is it not impossible to say that the heaven, which is in place, is ungenerated? For this is the same as saying that the generated is prior to the ungenerated.

From the same book: “First, then, one must observe that place would not have been sought if there were no motion with respect to place. For this is why we think the heaven above all is in place, because it is always in motion.” If it is impossible for the ungenerated to need the generated in order to be and in order to be moved, then it is impossible for the heaven to be ungenerated. For it needs place in order to be and in order to be moved.

From the same: “For place has magnitude, but no body.” If place has finite dimensions and magnitude, then place is generated; if infinite, then either in potentiality or in actuality. But if in potentiality, place is generated, like time and the number of time; if in actuality, then the argument that says nothing can be infinite in actuality is false. If place is what it is, and has what it has, by someone's providence, then place is generated and second to providence; but if place is what it is, and has what it has, ungeneratedly and without beginning, then place is ungenerated and first of all things in place, among which are the heaven and the things that appear in the heaven. For that without which nothing else is must be first of the others.

From the same: “For as, if something alters, there is this which is now white but formerly black, for which reason we say that matter is something, so place too seems to be something through some such appearance; except that the former is because what was air is now water, but place because where air was, there now is water.” If the relation that place has to the things in it, matter has to the things in it, through a similar appearance, and place is ungraspable, and so is matter, then matter is none of the things that are altered and come to be in it, and it is not a substance. How then was matter posited as a substance …

From the same: “Every body that is movable by locomotion or by growth is in itself somewhere; but the heaven, as has been said, is not somewhere as a whole, nor in any place, since no body contains it.” If what is movable by locomotion is somewhere in itself, and the heaven is movable by locomotion, then the heaven too must be somewhere in itself. But if not the second, then not the first either; for they are inseparable from one another … If the heaven is not in place in itself, how, as it moves in a circle, do some of its parts that are above come to be below, and those below come to be above? And if it is above and below in its own parts, how is it not false to say that the heaven is not in place?

From the same book: “Of a point there is no place.” So the point is not anywhere, like what is not. But if this is false, the point is a being, and somewhere. And if it is somewhere, it must also have a place.

From the same book: “And place is somewhere, not as in a place, … but as the limit is in the limited. For not [every] being is in place, but the movable body.” If everything in place is somewhere, but not everything somewhere is in place, then “somewhere” is wider than “in place.” How then are “somewhere” and “in place” said to belong to one category, when they differ so much from each other that he says that place is somewhere but not in place? And if the limit of the limited is the place of one limited thing and the limit of another, how is it not necessary that place always be both place and limit? And if place is prior to the things in place, how is the necessity not removed that place always be the place of one thing and the limit of another? And if what in no way is is not in place (for it would be somewhere, as he said), how is “somewhere” not the same as “in place”? And if not every being is in place, how will some beings not be the same as what is not, since not being in place is common to both? And if only the movable body is in place, how is the heaven, being a movable body, not in place?

From the same book, On time: “That it either does not exist at all, or barely and obscurely, one might suspect from the following. Part of it has been and is not, part is going to be and is not yet; and of these both infinite time and time as it is taken at any moment are composed. What is composed of things that are not would seem impossible to share in substance. Further, of every divisible thing, if it exists, it is necessary that, when it exists, either some or all of its parts exist. But of time some parts have been, some are going to be, and none is, though it is divisible. The now is not a part; for a part measures, and the whole must be composed of the parts; but time does not seem to be composed of nows.” If everything that comes to be did not exist before it came to be, then time is not eternal and without beginning; and therefore neither is motion eternal and without beginning, of which time is the number. For if the future part of time is not yet … before it came to be it was future; there was, then, a time when the past part of time was not. And if the infinite must be without beginning, then time is not infinite, since it has as the beginning of its being the change from what is future. And if the past part of time is time in actuality, and the future in potentiality, and actuality and potentiality are among the things that are, then time, composed of the past and the future, is not composed of things that are not. And if time does not share in substance, yet it does share in being attached to substances; so that from this too it is evident that time is among the things that are. And if the past part of time is seen in the past parts of what is divisible, how is no part of time [present], though it is divisible? And if the now is not … what is called the indivisible and the point of time? How is it possible for the change to come about from the future into the now, and from the now into the past, if the now is not a part of time? For all are parts of time: the first, the future, the later, the now, …

From the same fourth book of the same treatise: “That time, then, is neither motion nor without motion, is evident.” But it is evident too that time is generated and not eternal, has a beginning and is not without beginning, is finite and not infinite. And if time is such, so necessarily is motion, of which time is the number.

From the same book: “For as much as the motion is, so much time always seems to have passed.” From the things to which being generated and having come to be belong, being eternal, being without beginning, and being infinite are necessarily absent.

“We say that time has passed when we perceive the before and after in motion. We distinguish them by taking them to be one thing and another, and something between them different from them. For when we think of the extremes as different from the middle, and the soul says that the nows are two, one before and the other after, then we say this … seems to be [time]. For time is the number of motion with respect to before and after. Time, then, is not motion, but that by which motion has number. A sign of this: we judge more and less by number, and more and less motion by time.” He who defines the coming to be of time by the before and after in motion calls neither time nor motion eternal, without beginning, and infinite. For if it has come to be, it is neither eternal nor without beginning; and if it is bounded by its own extremes, it is not infinite.

From the same: “The now measures time as before and after; and motion follows magnitude, and time follows motion.” If the now is not a part of time, as he said in the thirty-third chapter, how does it measure time? Either the now does not measure time, or it must itself be a part of time. And if motion follows magnitude, and time follows motion, then magnitude is generated, like motion and time, which follow it.

“The least number in multitude is two or one, but in magnitude there is no least; for the least in number is one or two, but in magnitude there is none.” If the point in the line and the now in time are not least parts, what else is the point in the line and the now in time? And if it is not a least part but a limit, how is it that the limit cannot be without the limited, but the point can be without the line? And if where there is no least there is no greatest either, in what does the remaining difference of the parts consist, when the difference of greatest and least is abolished?

From the same: “So it is evident that the things that always are, or always are not, are not in time; for they are not contained by time, nor is their being measured by time.” How then have you said that motion is eternal, and time its number? For the things from which time is inseparable cannot fail to be in time.

From the same: “Whatever neither moves nor rests is not in time; for being in time is being measured by time, and time is the measure of motion and rest.” If what is in time moves and rests, and the heaven moves, according to the speaker, and the earth rests, then the heaven and the earth, and their motion and rest, are in time. And if time is generated, necessarily [so are they].

From the fifth book of the same treatise: “So that necessarily, from what has been said, there are three changes … the one from a subject to a non-subject, and the one from a non-subject to a subject. For the change from non-subject to non-subject is not a change, because it is not by opposition; for there are neither contraries nor contradiction. The change from non-subject to subject, by contradiction, is generation; that from subject to non-subject is perishing.” Matter, then, is nowhere — the matter you said above underlies the things that come to be and perish, for the one as that from which, for the other as that into which.

From the same book: “For what is not white or not good can nevertheless be moved accidentally, for the not-white might be a man; but what is simply not a ‘this’ in no way; for it is impossible for what is not to be moved.” If substance cannot come to be from what is not moved, and what is simply not a “this” is in no way moved (for it is impossible for what is not to be moved), how has substance, simply, come to be from matter, which is not a “this”?

From the ninth book of the same treatise: “If it is impossible for time to be or to be thought without the now, and the now is a kind of middle, having both a beginning and an end, a beginning of time to come and an end of time past, then there must always be time. For the extremity of the last time taken is a now; for there is nothing to take in time besides the now; so that, since it is a beginning and an end, there must be time on both sides of it. But if there is time, there must also be motion, since time is an affection of motion.” In these words Aristotle builds his case that the heaven is eternal. For if [the now] is a kind of middle, and a beginning and an end, and always has time on either side, once this is posited it necessarily follows that time is eternal; and if time is eternal, the motion of which time is the number is necessarily eternal; and if motion is eternal, the moved body too is necessarily eternal. He posited this co-eternity absurdly, and it will be refuted as follows. As the time that is to come will come to be, so the past time too came to be. But the time that is to come, as it has the [now] that is going to come to be, so it also has its beginning; and as nothing of the past is in the future, so nothing of the future is in the present. But if the now is, and is present, and the future is not yet, neither being nor present, then the present now is not the beginning of the time to come; rather, the now that is going to be, that is the beginning of the future, which is neither a kind of middle having time on both sides, but only on one side, nor beginning and end, the same now, of one time and another (that is, beginning of the future and end of the past); but one now is the beginning, and another the end, of the same time. Again, if it is impossible for the now to be now unless it was first future and not being, then it is impossible for the now to be co-eternal. For if everything that first is not, but later is, is generated, and the now is such, then the now is generated. And if the now, then necessarily also the whole of time, whose beginning and end is the now; and if time, then necessarily motion too, of which time is the number; and if motion, then necessarily the moved body too is generated.

From the same: “In general, to think that this is a sufficient principle, that something always is or comes to be so, is not a right supposition. To this Democritus reduces the causes of nature, that it came to be so before as well; but he does not think it right to seek a principle of the ‘always,’ speaking rightly in some cases, but not rightly in that he says it of all. For the triangle always has its angles equal to two right angles; yet there is some other, eternal cause of this eternity; but of the principles there is no other cause, since they are eternal.” If, then, as things come to be now, so they came to be before, it is not right to suppose that there is a principle of the things that always come to be according to nature; it is necessarily right, then, to suppose that the principle of the things that come to be according to nature is what did not come to be as things come to be now, but otherwise; and therefore it is right to seek the principle of what always comes to be too. Animal comes to be from animal in one way, and animal came to be from what was not animal in another. And animal from non-animal neither came to be according to nature nor always comes to be; but animal from animal comes to be always and according to nature, from the time when what was not from an animal received the beginning of coming to be from animal. And this holds for all things that always come to be according to nature, not for some only; for it is impossible for what comes from generated principles to have the same generation that the principles had. Eternity in generated things cannot be without beginning. For the triangle always has its three angles equal to two right angles, having as its principle a generated thing, the straight line, whose definition is a line evenly extended. For this is the cause of the triangle's having its three angles equal to two right angles; and if this does not exist, a triangle cannot exist; but if a triangle does not exist, a straight line can exist. The principles of the things that always come to be according to nature cannot be eternal. For the nature they have, they impart to the things that come from them; but this is generated; generated, then, is the nature of the principles too, even if the mode of their generation is changed and differs from that of the things that come from the principles. There is some eternity …

From the same: “There must be something that is and is eternal, the first mover; for it has been shown that there must always be motion; and if always, it must also be continuous; for what always is is continuous, but what is successive is not continuous. And the continuous is one; and it is one if it is by one mover and of one moved. For if one thing and another move it, the whole motion is not continuous but successive.” If the first mover [moves] the motion of locomotion, and the motion of locomotion belongs to the heaven, and the heaven is a natural body, and a natural body has in itself, naturally, the principle of its natural motion, then the heaven is superfluously moved by the first mover with the motion of locomotion; for even if the first mover did not move it, it would be moved by itself, because it is a fifth element, having neither heaviness that moves it downward nor lightness that moves it upward, but another, nameless power that moves it around the center. If the first mover moves the heaven with the motion of locomotion neither according to nature (for to move it so is superfluous) nor contrary to nature (for motion contrary to nature is secondary to motion according to nature), then nothing moves the heaven. If every motion came to be before as it comes to be now, and it comes to be now by the change of what is going to be, and what is going to be did not yet exist before it came to be, and everything that first is not but later is is generated, and the generated cannot be without beginning and eternal, then motion is not eternal and without beginning.

From the same book: “It is evident that locomotion is first; for ‘first,’ as in other things, may be said in many ways in the case of motion too. That is called prior without which the others will not be, but which is without the others; and what is prior in time, and in substance. … that locomotion must be first. For it is not necessary that what is moved locally should grow or alter, nor indeed come to be or perish; but none of these is possible if the continuous motion, which the first mover moves, does not exist. Further, it is first in time; for to eternal things alone is it possible to be moved with this motion; but in any one body … locomotion must be the last of motions. For after coming to be come first growth and alteration; locomotion is the motion of things already perfected. But there must be something else moved by locomotion before, which will also be the cause of generation for the things that come to be, not itself coming to be, as the begetter of the begotten; since generation might seem to be the first of motions for this reason, that the thing must first come to be. In the case of any one of the things that come to be this is so; but something else must be moved before the things that come to be, itself being and not coming to be, and before this another.” If what grows is generated, and locomotion grows by the quantity of motion, locomotion is not eternal. For the body that is carried has different places, in which, extending the change of its measures as it is carried, it produces growth of motion by locomotion. If locomotion has in itself growth by the quantity of motion, how is locomotion said to be prior to the motion of growth? If it is impossible for what has no beginning and limit to receive growth by addition, then locomotion is not without beginning, since it always becomes greater by the quantity of motion. If locomotion has its being in coming to be and ceasing to be, locomotion is not eternal, since its not being always precedes its being. For every motion comes about by the change of what is not yet but is going to be. If every locomotion is finite with respect to the past, and everything finite necessarily has a beginning, and everything that has a beginning is generated, then locomotion is generated. And if locomotion is not prior to the body that is carried, the body that is carried is generated too. If among eternal things one only moves and the other is only moved, eternally, with the motion of locomotion, how is it not impossible for what is without beginning to be moved with a motion that has a beginning? If that without which nothing else is is first of the others both in substance and in time, how is it not ungenerated? For the first mover was posited to be first of all and ungenerated; and further the heaven and the things that appear and move in the heaven to be all ungenerated; which is absurd, to say that something ungenerated is prior to something eternal among eternal things. If the first mover [moves] the continuous motion, but moves neither the motion according to nature nor that contrary to nature (the former as superfluous, as was said, the latter as being secondary to the motion according to nature), then nothing moves the continuous motion. If, among things eternally moved, neither is the motion prior to the things moved nor the things moved prior to the motion, and every motion is by change of what is not yet but is going to be, then all the things moved will be from the change of what is not yet but … and later; there will then be a time when the ungenerated was not ungenera[ted] … locomotion is the last of motions, but there must be something else, moved by locomotion, prior, which is also the cause of generation, being ungenerated. How is it possible for the same thing to be the cause of generation according to nature and of generation beyond nature? For the one first begotten … was begotten. Yet the prior moved thing was moved for the generation of what first came to be in the same way as it was later moved for the generation of the things that come from that. Either, then, what is thus moved ungeneratedly is not the cause of all generation, or the first mover does not move the continuous motion, since a difference of generation is seen in the things that come to be, by which some came to be beyond nature and others according to nature. If what is prior and later is ungenerated, there will be a time when the ungenerated …

From the same: “In the continuous there are infinitely many halves, but not in actuality, only in potentiality.” If nothing is infinite in actuality, clearly neither motion nor time is infinite. Since motion and time are finite with respect to the past, they necessarily have a beginning; and having a beginning, they are necessarily generated. And if motion and time are generated, necessarily the moved body too. … [nor if,] of a time taken, its halves can be taken from the future and added to the past; not even so can time with respect to the past ever be infinite in actuality.

From Aristotle, from the first book On the Heaven: “There must be some simple body which is of a nature to move with circular motion according to its own nature.” What need, then, is there of the first mover to move such a body, which according to its own nature [moves] with circular motion …

From the same book: “It is evident that there is by nature some other substance of body besides those constituted here, more divine than and prior to all of these.” If this body moves eternally and without beginning around the earth, the substance that is here, how can it be prior to the earth, without which it would not move in its circular motion? And if being eternal and ungenerated, and useful for the constitution of the things that come to be here, belongs to the earth just as it belongs to such a body, how is that body more honorable than the earth and prior to it?

From the same book: “The body that moves in a circle cannot have heaviness or lightness.” If what has no heaviness and lightness cannot be tangible (for the tangible is among the things that have heaviness and lightness), how does it have what cannot be without those, and yet not have those? And how by its motion does it produce a heating power in the air, like the bodies here that have heaviness and lightness, which by their motions [produce] heating …

From the same: “The contrarieties of locomotion correspond to the contrarieties of places. For if they were equal, there would be no motion of them; and if one motion prevailed, the other would not be. So if both existed, one body would be in vain, not moving with its own motion. For we call a sandal in vain when it is not worn. But God and nature do nothing in vain.” If in the locomotion of bodies there were contrary motions, either equal, hindering one another's motions by counter-pressure, or unequal, so that through the prevailing of one the other became motionless, the overpowered one being forced by the prevailing one and not completing its own natural motion, then the things so hindered in their own natural motions would have come to be in vain, and these would not be works of God, nor clearly of nature. If God is not the maker of the things that come to be in vain, nor is nature, then God and nature are the maker of the things that come to be not in vain but complete their natural motions unhindered. How then is it not most absurd to call these ungenerated, eternal, and without beginning, when God and nature are their maker? And if we call sandals that are worn works of a craftsman, why do we not also call the bodies that complete their own natural motions thoughts of God and nature?

From the same book: “That the formula without matter is different from the formula of the shape in matter is well said, and let this be true; but nonetheless there is no necessity on this account that there should be more worlds, nor is it possible that more should come to be, since this world is made from all the matter, as indeed it is.” If the difference of formula from formula is that one is without matter and the other in matter, clearly the formula in matter is later than the formula without matter. How then is the world ungenerated, when it has its constitution from the later formula? If matter is formless and without substance, and deprived of being a “this,” before it receives the form and becomes a substance and a “this,” how is the world ungenerated, when it has come to be from such matter? If the one who had the formula of one world also had the formulas of more worlds, … the making according to his own will, but by the abundance of matter was able to make one world and by its lack was not able to make more worlds, how does he not seem to have had the formulas of more worlds in vain, when he could not make them because of the lack of matter? If it is impossible for the ungenerated to come to be from the ungenerated, how, if matter is ungenerated and the world is ungenerated too, does the world come to be from matter? If God did not make matter as he made the things that come from matter, then God does not make whatever he wishes, but whatever he is able. But if he has power equal to his will in all things, then God is the maker of matter, as also of the things that come from matter. If matter, lying under God for the making of the things that come from it, formless and without substance, without quality and without quantity, was changed by God's power into all these things and became substance with quality and quantity, how was it not increased by the same power of God, which wrought such great changes in it, so far that more worlds too should come to be from it, but, being spread out for the generation of one world, prevented God against his will from making more worlds?

From the same: “The heaven is among the particular things and those that come from matter; but if it is constituted not from a part of matter but from all of it, then being heaven and being this heaven are different; yet there would not be another, nor could more come to be, because this one has embraced all the matter.” [If the heaven is] composed of matter and formula, so that being heaven is different from the immaterial formula, how is it not generated, when it has as the beginning of its own substance the composition of matter and formula from which it is? If matter by itself has neither heaviness nor lightness (for these are affections of the bodies that come to be from it), and if the heaven, which has neither heaviness nor lightness, came to be from all such matter, from where did all the other things come to be, when all the matter was used up in making the heaven? If, before matter was formed by the form of the heaven, it had no heaviness and lightness, just as now, after it has been formed, it has none, how was it not moved before the forming, as it is moved now after the forming? If being moved belongs to substance, and not having heaviness and lightness belongs to matter and not to substance, and the heaven moves with circular motion because it has no heaviness and lightness, clearly the heaven has its moving in this way because of the matter and not because of the form. How then was matter unmoved with circular motion before the form, having neither heaviness nor [lightness]?

From the second book On the Heaven: “Each thing that has a work exists for the sake of its work. The activity of God is immortality, that is, eternal life; so that eternal motion must belong to God. … this the circular body has, which by nature always moves in a circle.” If nothing is the cause of the being of what is ungenerated and eternal, and the things that have a work exist for the sake of the work, then things whose works are the cause of their being are not eternal. If it belongs to inanimate things to perform their natural activities by their mere presence, but to rational beings to do so by will, how is the heaven God, when it does not perform immortality by will but by the motion and change of position of its parts? If the ungenerated needs the cooperation of nothing outside, either in order to be or in order to act, how is the heaven ungenerated, when it needs the earth, around which it moves, in order to be movable, and the sun, the moon, and the other stars in order to act? If there is no formula of the ungenerated in a maker, how, if the heaven is ungenerated, does it have an immaterial formula in the maker and a material formula in matter, because of which being heaven differs from being this heaven? If the heaven cannot do by will what it does by motion, how is it an eternal God, performing eternal life without willing it? If the heaven does not produce eternal life in eternal things (for they have this from their own nature), and generated and perishable things do not live eternally, where is the eternal life that the heaven performs? If the motion of the heaven is useful not only for the generation of the things that come to be, but also for [the perishing] of the things that perish, how is the heaven God, and its activity eternal life, when through it perishable things perish? If what comes from matter cannot be ungenerated together with matter, how is the heaven ungenerated, when it comes from matter? If what comes from two things is later than both, how is the heaven, which comes from matter and form, co-eternal with both? If the form comes not from the matter but from the maker, how is the heaven ungenerated, when it has its matter from one source and its form from another? If the heaven is a material body, and has a spherical shape, and is ungenerated, how does it not have both from matter, both its being what it is and its having what it has? If matter is what first underlies and is present in the things that come to be from it of themselves, how is the heaven ungenerated, when, like generated things, it has matter underlying it and present in it?

From the same book: “Since the heaven is a divine body, for this reason it has the circular body, which by nature always moves in a circle. Why then is not the whole body of the heaven such? Because something of the body that moves in a circle must remain, namely that at the middle; but of this body no part can remain, either at all or at the middle. For then its natural motion would be toward the middle (but by nature it moves in a circle); for the motion would not be eternal. Nothing … than what is according to nature, and what is contrary to nature is a departure, in generation, from what is according to nature. There must then be earth; for this rests at the middle. But if there is earth, there must also be fire. For of contraries, if one is by nature, the other too must be by nature, if it is indeed a contrary and has some nature. For the same matter belongs to the contraries, and [the positive] is prior to the privation; I mean, for instance, the hot to the cold. But if there are fire and earth, there must also be the bodies between them; for each of the elements has a contrariety to each. These existing, it is evident that there must be generation, because none of them can be eternal; for contraries act on and are acted on by one another, and are destructive of one another … it is not possible for motion to be eternal according to nature; and of these there is motion. That there must therefore be generation is clear from these things; and if generation, there must also be other locomotion, either one or more. For according to that of the whole, the elements of bodies too must be so related to one another. For now this much is clear, for what cause there are more circular bodies: that there must be generation; and generation, if there is fire; and fire and the others, if there is earth; and earth, because something must always remain, if something is always moved.” [If] … the body of the heaven is a body always movable around the middle, then the whole body of the heaven must move around the middle; but if the heaven has such a body but does not have such motion, clearly it moves contrary to nature. If the body of the heaven moves around the middle, but not as a whole, according to the locomotion of the element of which its body is said to be, but spherically, by the exchange of positions of its parts, how is not the sphe[rical shape] … in no way does motion belong to the bodies made of the elements according to their form, but according to the elements from which they are; how then has the necessity of motion been altered in the body of the heaven? For a body that has neither heaviness nor lightness, it is necessary to have motionless rest rather than restless motion. If … [remain]. For if it is neither borne downward by heaviness nor upward by lightness, it must remain motionless. If a stone were shaped in the form of a sphere and placed in the air, to be carried down to its own place, it would not be carried down rolling because of its shape, but would be carried in a straight line according to its own heaviness. How does the fifth element, … because it has no heaviness or lightness, not move as a whole with its parts around the middle according to its own nature, but move spherically by the exchange of its parts, a motion that belongs not to the nature of the element but to the spherical shape? If in eternal things there is nothing contrary to nature, nothing superfluous, nothing in vain, how is the heaven not moved contrary to nature, and does it not have the nature of its element in vain, since it does not move according to it, and is it not superfluously moved by the first unmoved mover with a motion with which it could have been moved even without him? If the resting thing did not always rest at the middle, the moving thing would not always move around the middle; how is it not false that the heaven always moves by its own nature? If the earth had not had the nature and position it has, and likewise the heaven had not had the nature and position it has, the moving thing would not move nor the resting thing rest. How then are these eternal and ungenerated, when the what and the how of each is through the other, which is proper to generated things? If in eternal things nothing is by providence or by spontaneity (for things that are by providence are secondary to providence; and the spontaneous, being either contrary to nature or accidental, is found among the things that come to be by choice; but what is contrary to nature is secondary to what is according to nature, for the contrary to nature comes to be by a turning aside from what is according to nature; and what happens accidentally in the things that come to be by choice is secondary to the choice), how does it belong to eternal things that this is because that other is? For example: since the heaven is, the earth too must be; and if the earth, the heaven too is. This is the work of providence, which made this universe from parts differing in substance and use. Either, then, the heaven and the earth and all that is in them, which contribute to one another's being, acting, and being acted on, are not eternal; or, if they are eternal, it is not necessary that this be because that is. Aristotle, having supposed one eternal necessity, hung many other eternal necessities from the one he supposed. There must, he says, be eternal motion; and if motion, there must also be eternal time, for time is the number of motion. And if motion is eternal, it must be continuous. And if motion is continuous, there must be a simple body besides the bodies here, having neither heaviness nor lightness; for heavy and light bodies, since they move in a straight line, cannot move continuously. And if it moves continuously, it must have a spherical shape; for only with this shape can continuous motion take place. And if it moves spherically, the earth must be in the middle, always at rest, so that the motion of the sphere may take place around it. And if the earth, there must also be the bodies between earth and fire; and if these, there must be generation; and since these cannot be eternal, nor generation, there must also be other circular bodies. But if “since this is this, that must be that” has no place among ungenerated and eternal things, then the things mentioned are not eternal and ungenerated. And if these are eternal and ungenerated, then neither is this because of that, nor that because of this. Since, if earth is, there must also be fire and the bodies between them, how, if the earth is ungenerated and eternal, is fire not eternal, which is light and moves upward? For if, as he says, of contraries, if one is by nature, the other must also be by nature, how is it not absurd that the earth should be eternal and ungenerated, but fire not eternal; or fire not eternal, but the earth eternal, when they exist through one another? If because of generation there must be other circular bodies, how is generation not the cause of eternal things? For the circular bodies are eternal, and generation takes place according to their motion. But if this is absurd, then the circular bodies are not ungenerated. For things whose being is because other things come to be are generated and not eternal. If what belongs to generated things, that this must be because that is, can belong to eternal things, then the ungenerated differ in nothing from the generated. For in eternal things, he says, the possible differs in nothing from being.

From the same book: “Since it is possible to move on the circle in two directions, and these are not contrary, but if nothing can be among eternal things by chance or from spontaneity, and the heaven and its circular locomotion are eternal, for what cause does it move in one direction and not in the other? For this too must either be a principle or have a principle. For if nature always does the best of the things possible, and as, of the motions in a straight line, that toward the upper place is more honorable (for the upper place is more divine than the lower), in the same way the forward motion stands to the backward, if indeed there are right and left; and the difficulty mentioned bears witness that there is prior and posterior; for this cause solves the difficulty. For if it is as well as it can be, this would be the cause of what was said too. For it is best to move with a simple and unceasing motion, and this toward the more honorable.” If nature, which always does the best of the things possible, made the heaven move forward and not backward, how is the heaven and its locomotion eternal, when it has been brought to be by nature and has its moving with the best motion? If the difference that the upper place has from the lower, the forward motion has from the backward in being more honorable, more divine, and best, how are these motions not contrary, when they differ so much from each other? If the motion of simple bodies is simple not by possibility but by necessity, how can the heaven, having a simple body, move in two ways, and move contingently? If the heaven is everywhere equal to itself, and has its parts equal to its parts, and preserves its spherical and circular motion however it is moved, then it can also be moved from south to north and from north to south, as it can be moved from east to west and from west to east. How then did nature not place in vain in the body of the heaven the powers of so many motions, if it has the powers four ways but moves in one …

From the same: “About the so-called stars it would follow to say of what they are composed and what their motions are. Most reasonable and consistent with what has been said is to make each of the stars of that body in which it has its locomotion, since we said that there is something that is of a nature to move in a circle. For as those who say the stars are fiery say so because they say the upper body is fire, it being reasonable that each thing be composed of the things in which each is, so do we too say. Heat and light come from them as the air is rubbed by their locomotion. For motion is of a nature to set on fire even stones, and wood, and iron. More reasonable, then, is it that what is nearer to fire [is set on fire], and the air is nearer; as also with missiles in flight, for these are so set on fire that their leaden balls melt; and since they themselves are set on fire, the air around them must also suffer the same. These, then, are heated because they are carried in air, which becomes fire through the blow of the motion. But each of the upper bodies is carried in its sphere, so that they themselves are not set on fire; but since the air lies under the sphere of the circular body, it must be heated as that sphere is carried round, and most of all where the sun happens to be fastened; therefore, when the sun approaches and rises and is above us, heat comes about. That they are neither fiery nor carried in fire, let this be said by us about them.” If the stars are from the same matter as the heaven, how is it not false to say, “The heaven came to be from all the matter,” and, “It has embraced all the matter”? If what is moved, and by its motion becomes a heater of another, cannot become a heater of another unless it is first heated itself by its own motion, how do the sphere and the stars in it heat the air by their motion without being heated themselves? If … necessarily this has either heaviness or lightness, how do the heaven and the stars in it, having neither heaviness nor lightness, perform heating activities? If things that have the same movable substance must move with the same motion of themselves and not accidentally, how is the sun not moved accidentally, if it is fastened to the sphere? And the same argument holds for the other stars, if they do not move their natural motions through themselves but through the spheres to which they are fastened. If the sun is of the same matter as the heaven, which has neither heaviness nor lightness, and has a spherical shape, as the heaven also has, why do they not both move in the same way, or [both] by the exchange of their parts, as the sun moves? If there is nothing contrary to nature in eternal things, how is it not contrary to nature for a thing not to move through itself with the motion it has by nature, but through another? For the sun and the stars move not through themselves but through the spheres in which they are fastened. If, as generated things are what they have come to be according to a formula, generated things are later than the formula, [then ungenerated things according to a formula would be later than it]. But if this is impossible, ungenerated things are not according to a formula. And if they are not according to a formula, how is each of them usefully what it is, and has what it has, and does what it does? For things that exist usefully are works of formula and providence. If being from formula and matter follows on generated things, then ungenerated things are not from formula and matter. How then are the heaven and all things in it ungenerated, and yet from formula and matter? If, as Aristotle said, there is nothing in vain or contrary to nature in eternal things, how, from what he said about the motion of the sun, do both befall the sun, the in-vain and the contrary to nature? For if the sun, not fastened to the sphere that moves it, would move by nature with the same motion with which it now moves, how was it not fastened to the sphere in vain? But if it would not move with this motion by nature, but with another besides this, either in quantity or in quality, how does it not now move contrary to nature?

From the same book: “That the circles move, but the stars rest and are carried fastened to the circles.” If the stars rest in the circles according to nature, they are fastened to the circles in vain; but if they rest contrary to nature, clearly they rest by force. But among eternal things nothing is in vain or contrary to nature. Aristotle, then, did not find the account of the motion of the stars; for he calls the stars eternal, and in what he said about their motion both appear, the in-vain and the contrary to nature. If the stars are eternal, and the heaven in which the stars are bound is eternal too, and each of them is called a god, how are they not gods dragged along by gods? For things fastened to what moves are moved by being dragged. If the composition of a substance (from matter and form) is one thing, and the composition from parts that have substance is another, how are these things called eternal, which have both compositions? For the heaven, having the sun and the stars fastened in it as parts, is composed of them; for the heaven is the heaven by having these in itself.

From the same book: “Besides, it is unreasonable that nature should have given them no organ for motion. For nature does nothing at random, nor would it take thought for animals but overlook things so honorable; rather, it seems to have purposely removed everything by which they might move forward of themselves.” If there is no maker of eternal and ungenerated things, and they neither are what they are nor have what they have by nature through anyone's care, how, if the heaven is ungenerated and the things that appear in the heaven exist ungenerated together with it, does it have nature as the maker and provider of the things done for their constitution? If it fitted one who gave an account of the motion of eternal things to say that nature does nothing at random, how is it not clear that the heaven and the things that appear in the heaven are works of nature, which removed their organs of motion?

From the same: “Since, then, the heaven must move with its own motion, but the other stars must not move forward of themselves, it is reasonable that each should be spherical. For so the one would most of all be moved, and the other …” If that is said to rest which can be moved with the motion from which it rests, how do the stars rest, having no proper motion according to which they ought to be moved? But if they have the power of moving, but are hindered by being fastened to the sphere, how is their always being moved not contrary to nature? If the spherical shape was given as fitting to things that are always moved, how, of the things that have the spherical shape, does one always move, as the heaven does, and another always rest, as the stars do?

From the same book: “So that, since this does not appear to happen always, none of them would move with an animate or a forced motion, as if nature were providing for what was going to be, that, if [the motion] did not have this manner, [nothing in the region here would remain] … would be in the same state.” How then are those things eternal and ungenerated which have received their being such and their moving thus according to the providence of nature? For things according to providence are secondary to providence, and eternal things are secondary to nothing. If what is going to be did not exist before it is, how is it possible for both to be true about the heaven and the stars and their motion: that it is going to be, and that they are eternal and ungenerated? For what is going to be is not yet, but the eternal and ungenerated is present. If nature provided that the motion of the heaven should be of the stated kind for the sake of the things around the region here remaining as they were, how are these things eternal and ungenerated, which are as they are and move as they move for the sake of generated things?

From the same: “Since it has been shown that they are not of a nature to move of themselves, and nature does nothing without reason or in vain, clearly it has also given the unmoved things such a shape as is least fit for motion. And the sphere is least fit for motion, because it has no organ for motion. So that clearly they would be spherical in bulk.” If nature has given to the things that always move the spherical shape, which is suitable for easy motion, how have the stars not received such a shape in vain, when they are fastened to the circles and unable to perform their natural motion? If the stars are not of a nature to move of themselves, then they do not have eternal motion by nature. How then are they from the same element as the heaven, which has neither heaviness nor lightness? If the heaven, because it is of such an element and has a spherical shape, is of a nature always to move around the middle of itself, while the stars, though of the same element and having the same shape, are not of a nature to move of themselves, then nature, it seems, gave them in vain a substance and a shape suitable for perpetual motion, if they have motionless rest. That the stars have a substance and shape always in motion and yet motionless rest — how is this not proof of the irrational … that the stars rest? If the substances of ungenerated and eternal things are above all making, both that by reason and that contrary to reason, how, if the heaven and the stars are ungenerated, are they what they are and have what they have by the providence of nature, which does nothing irrationally or in vain? If the stars ought not to be moved, why are they moved at all through others? But if they ought to be moved, why are they not moved through themselves but through others, when nature could have made them move through themselves with the motion with which they are now moved through others, she who made them unmoved in themselves in a most easily movable substance? If in eternal things nothing is contrary to nature, and it is contrary to nature to have a substance and shape always in motion but motionless rest, then either the things in which the contrary to nature is found are not eternal, or it is false that in eternal things nothing is contrary to nature. If none of the ungenerated has, or does not have, what it has or does not have by anyone's providence, how, if the heaven and the stars are ungenerated, do they, by the providence of nature, have no organ of motion, but have instead of the organ a spherical shape, which is better suited to continuous motion …

From the same: “The first [motion], being one, moves many of the divine bodies, but the others, being many, each move only one. For any one of the planets is carried with several motions. In this way, then, nature equalizes and produces a certain order, assigning to the one motion many bodies, and to the one body many motions. For the one sphere is carried fastened in many spheres; and each sphere happens to be a body.” If there is no maker of ungenerated and eternal substances, how are these eternal and ungenerated, of whose order nature is the maker, assigning to the one [motion] many bodies and to the one body many motions, and equalizing the number of the motions of one body with the number of the bodies? If these things are ungenerated and unmade, how can there be a natural order made among the ungenerated? [If] a sphere fastened to a sphere has the same substance as the sphere to which it is fastened, how does it not appear to have both absurdities that are not found among eternal things: to have in vain the movable substance by which it is not moved, and to be moved contrary to nature?

From the third book On the Heaven: “Of the things that come to be by nature, some are substances, others are works and affections of these. I call substances the simple bodies, such as fire and earth and the things of the same series as these, and the things that come from these, such as the whole heaven and its parts, and again the animals and the plants and their parts.” He who said that the heaven is from a simple element different from the elements here, and that it is not possible for another heaven to come to be, because this one has embraced all the matter, how does he now say that the heaven is from the same elements as the animals and the plants? But if he says that another heaven came to be from other elements, how does he not lie when he says, “It is not possible for there to be another heaven besides one”? … sometimes from an element other than those here, sometimes from the same elements; how is not one or the other [false]?

From the same book: “About the first of the elements, then, it has been said both what it is like in nature and that it is imperishable and ungenerated.” If an element is that from which what comes to be comes to be, being present in it, how can the same thing be both an element and ungenerated? If the element is first and what is from the element later, how is the element from which the heaven is ungenerated, and the heaven ungenerated together with it? If the element is ungenerated for this reason, that it is not from an element, how is the heaven ungenerated, when it is from an element?

From the same: “That they are eternal is impossible; for we see fire and water and each of the simple bodies being dissolved, so that the elements of bodies must be generated and perishable.” If earth too is an element of bodies, how have you said that the earth is co-eternal and co-ungenerated with the heaven, but the other elements generated and perishable?

From the same book: “The generation of the elements is from one another.” How do the elements come to be from one another … first … coming to be according to the generation from one another? … of generation. For they exist, and change into one another, and come to be from one another.