CHAPTER XXX

45. And I heard this, O Lord my God, and drank up a drop of sweetness from thy truth, and understood that there are some men to whom thy works are displeasing, who say that many of them thou didst make under the compulsion of necessity - such as the pattern of the heavens and the courses of the stars - and that thou didst not make them out of what was thine, but that they were already created elsewhere and from other sources. It was thus [they say] that thou didst collect and fashion and weave them together, as if from thy conquered enemies thou didst raise up the walls of the universe; so that, built into the ramparts of the building, they might not be able a second time to rebel against thee. And, even of other things, they say that thou didst neither make them nor arrange them - for example, all flesh and all the very small living creatures, and all things fastened to the earth by their roots. But [they say] a hostile mind and an alien nature - not created by thee and in every way contrary to thee - begot and framed all these things in the nether parts of the world.⁶⁴⁷ They who speak thus are mad [insani], since they do not see thy works through thy Spirit, nor recognize thee in them.