Augustine of Hippo, on Ps 148:5

“Praise the name of the Lord. For he spoke, and they were made: he commanded, and they were created.”

“All things that God did not beget of himself but made through his Word, he made not out of things that already existed but out of what did not exist at all, that is, out of nothing. Thus the apostle says, "Who calls those things that are not as though they were." But it is written more clearly in the book of the Maccabees. "I beseech you, my child, lift your eyes to the heaven and the earth and all that are therein. See and know that God did not make those things out of anything that already existed." There is also what is written in the Psalms. "He spoke, and they were made." Clearly he did not beget these things of himself but made them by his Word and command. What he did not beget he made of nothing; for there was nothing else out of which he might have made them. Of him the apostle says most openly, "Since of him and through him and in him are all things."”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.