Again, then, O Centaur, let us argue from the beginning. Do you say that existing things came to be by divine knowledge, or not? — 'O nonsense!' they will say, 'by no means.' — But from the elements, or matter, or supports, or however you wish to name these (for it makes no difference): these subsisting beforehand uncreated and moving disorderly, God, distinguishing all things, like a good painter fashioning a single image out of many colours...
Not this either. For they will assuredly shun confessing against themselves, lest, by conceding that matter—being subject to distinction and transformation—had a beginning, they be compelled by the argument to say that in all respects God was sufficient for ordering and adorning the matter that was formerly without form.