"We are only men like yourselves, and we have come with the Good News that you should turn away from these follies to a living God, 'who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them.'
As Scripture says-'I have made thee the Father of many nations.') And this they do in the sight of that God in whom Abraham had faith, and who gives life to the dead, and speaks of what does not yet exist as if it did.
No, it is a divine philosophy that we teach, one concerned with the hidden purpose of God-that long-hidden philosophy which God, before time began, destined for our glory.
For they wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that long ago the heavens existed; and the earth, also--formed out of water and by the action of water, by the fiat of God;
'Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive all praise, and honour, and power, for thou didst create all things, and at thy bidding they came into being and were created.'