God, who is eternal and operates through all matter, and produces all things.  So Antoninus (v. 32) speaks of the reason ([Greek:  logos])which pervades all substance ([Greek:  ousia]), and through all time by fixed periods (revolutions) administers the universe ([Greek:  to pan]).  God is eternal, and Matter is eternal.  It is God who gives form to matter, but he is not said to have created matter.  According to this view, which is as old as Anaxagoras, God and matter exist independently, but God governs matter.  This doctrine is simply the expression of the fact of the existence both of matter and of God.  The Stoics did not perplex themselves with the in-soluble question of the origin and nature of matter.[C] Antoninus also assumes a beginning of things, as we now know them; but his language is sometimes very obscure.  I have endeavored to explain the meaning of one difficult passage (vii. 75, and the note).

[A] As to the word [Greek:  ousia], the reader may see the Index.  I add here a few examples of the use of the word; Antoninus has (v. 24), [Greek:  he sumpasa ousia], “the universal substance.”  He says (xii. 30 and iv. 40), “there is one common substance” ([Greek:  ousia]), distributed among countless bodies.  In Stobaeus (tom. 1, lib. 1, tit. 14) there is this definition, [Greek:  ousian de phasin ton onton hapanton ten proten hylen].  In viii.  II, Antoninus speaks of [Greek:  to ousiodes kai hyulikon], “the substantial and the material;” and (vii. 10) he says that “everything material” ([Greek:  enulon]) disappears in the substance of the whole ([Greek:  te ton holon ousia]).  The [Greek:  ousia] is the generic name of that existence which we assume as the highest or ultimate, because we conceive no existence which can be coordinated with it and none above it.  It is the philosopher’s “substance:”  it is the ultimate expression for that which we conceive or suppose to be the basis, the being of a thing.  “From the Divine, which is substance in itself, or the only and sole substance, all and everything that is created exists” (Swedenborg, Angelic Wisdom, 198).

[B] I remark, in order to anticipate any misapprehension, that all these general terms involve a contradiction.  The “one and all,” and the like, and “the whole,” imply limitation.  “One” is limited; “all” is limited; the “whole” is limited.  We cannot help it.  We cannot find words to express that which we cannot fully conceive.  The addition of “absolute” or any other such word does not mend the matter.  Even the word God is used by most people, often unconsciously, in such a way that limitation is implied, and yet at the same time words are added which are intended to deny limitation.  A Christian martyr, when he was asked what God was, is said to have answered that God has no name like a man; and Justin says the same (Apol. ii. 6), “the names Father, God, Creator, Lord, and Master are not names, but appellations derived from benefactions and acts.”