Book V - Snyder Bible

244
Chapter XVI: The World Made of that which we cannot see by
a Creator
at, in the conjunction of the elements,
if one be deficient or in excess, the others are loosened and
fall, is shown that they took their beginning from that which is
invisible. If for example, moisture be wanting in any body, neither
will the dry stand, for dry is fed by moisture, as also cold
by heat; in which, as we have said, if one be defective, the
whole is dissolved. And in this they give indications of their
origin, that they were made out of the invisible. Now if matter
itself is proved to have been made, how shall its parts and its
species, of which the world consists, be thought to be unmade?
But about matter and its qualities this is not the time to
speak: only let it suffice to have taught this, that Yahweh is the
Creator of all things, because neither, if the body of which the
world consists was solid and united, could it be separated and
distinguished without a Creator; nor, if it was collected into
one from diverse and separate parts, could it be collected and
mixed without a Maker. Therefore, if Yahweh is so clearly
shown to be the Creator of the world, what room is there for
Epicurus to introduce atoms, and to assert that not only sensible
bodies, but even intellectual and rational minds are made
of insensible corpuscles?
Chapter XVII: Doctrine of Atoms Untenable
successions of atoms coming in a ceaseless course and mixing
with one another, and conglomerating through unlimited and
endless periods of time, are made solid bodies. I do not treat
this opinion as a pure fiction, and that, too, a badly contrived
one; but let us examine it, whatever be its character, and see if
what is said can stand. For they say that those corpuscles,
which they call atoms, are of different qualities: that some are
moist, and therefore heavy, and tending downwards; others
dry and earthy, and therefore still heavy; but others fiery, and
therefore always pushing upwards; others cold and inert, and