Wednesday, March 1, 2023

James Noel Hubler on 2 Maccabees 7:28

  

Sometimes 2 Maccabees 7.28, dated between 78 and 63 B.C.E. by Jonathan Goldstein, is cited as an example, but a close reading does not support the assertion:

 

I pray you, son, look to heaven and earth and seeing everything in them, know that God made them from non-being, and the human race began in the same way. (2 Maccabees 7.28)

 

Non-being refers to the non-existence of the heavens and earth before God’s creative act. It does not express absolute non-existence, only the prior non-existence of the heavens and earth. They were made to exist after not existing. The use of εκ ουκ οντος in this relative sense can be found in Aristotle who refers to the generation of a new substance εκ ουκ οντος (de Generatione Animalium 741 b 22 f.), although he denies that something can come from absolutely nothing (Physics 187 b 26 ff., for discussion see below, chapter 4). (James Noel Hubler, “Creatio ex Nihilo: Matter, Creation, and the Body in Classical and Christian Philosophy Through Aquinas” [University of Pennsylvania, PhD diss., 1995], 90)

 

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