In fairness this is what I found that Justin wrote:
Chapter 10. How God is to be served
But we have received by tradition that God does not need the material offerings which men can give, seeing, indeed, that He Himself is the provider of all things. And we have been taught, and are convinced, and do believe, that He accepts those only who imitate the excellences which reside in Him, temperance, and justice, and philanthropy, and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called by no proper name. And we have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man's sake, create all things out of unformed matter; and if men by their works show themselves worthy of this His design, they are deemed worthy, and so we have received — of reigning in company with Him, being delivered from corruption and suffering. For as in the beginning He created us when we were not, so do we consider that, in like manner, those who choose what is pleasing to Him are, on account of their choice, deemed worthy of incorruption and of fellowship with Him
Chapter 59. Plato's obligation to Moses
And that you may learn that it was from our teachers — we mean the account given through the prophets— that Plato borrowed his statement that God, having
altered matter which was shapeless, made the world, hear the very words spoken through Moses, who, as above shown, was the first prophet, and of greater antiquity than the
Greek writers; and through whom the Spirit of prophecy, signifying how and from what materials God at first formed the world, spoke thus: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unfurnished, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and it was so. So that
both Plato and they who agree with him, and we ourselves, have learned, and you also can be convinced, that by the word of God the whole world was made out of the substance spoken of before by Moses. And that which the
poets call Erebus, we know was spoken of formerly by Moses. Deuteronomy 32:22
CHURCH FATHERS: The First Apology (St. Justin Martyr)
2 Maccabees 7:28 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
28 I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that
God made them out of nothing, and mankind also:
"2
That the material of which the universe is composed was created out of nothing is the implicit, rather than specifically explicit, statement of the Bible. The Scriptural teaching on God and the relation of the universe to Him unmistakably affirms creation. God alone is declared to be underived, self-existent (Exodus 3:14), and in comparison with Him all things else are as nothing (Wisdom 11:23; Isaiah 40:17). God is said to be the beginning and end of all things (Isaiah 48:12; Revelation 1:8); all things else are from Him, and by Him, and in Him (Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16). God is the absolute and independent sovereign (Psalm 49:12 and Isaiah 44:24; Hebrews 1:10). That these texts equivalently assert that God is the Creator of all things finite is too obvious to call for further comment. The most explicit Scriptural statement respecting the created origin of the universe is found in the first verse of Genesis: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth". The objects here designated evidently comprise the material universe; whether the originative act is to be understood as specifically creative, depends upon the meaning of the
Hebrew verb bara. On this point the following interpretations by unimpeachable authority may be adduced. Gesenius says: "The use of this verb [bara] in Kal, the conjugation here employed, is entirely different from its primary signification (to cut, shape, fashion); it signifies rather the new production of a thing than the shaping or elaborating of the pre-existing material.
That the first verse of Genesis teaches that the original creation of the world in its rude and chaotic state was from nothing while the remaining part of the chapter teaches the elaboration and distribution of the matter thus created, the connection of the whole section shows sufficiently clearly" (Thesaurus, p. 357 b). Mühlan and Volck in the new edition of Gesenius' "Handwörterbuch" say: "Bara is used only of Divine creation and never with an accusative of the material". Dillmann (Genesis 1) notes: "The Hebrews use only the conjugation Piel (intensative) in speaking of human 'forming' or 'shaping', while on the other hand they use only Kal in speaking of creation of God". Delitzsch says: (Gen., p. 91) "The word bara in its etymology does not exclude a previous material. lilt has, as the use of Kal shows, the fundamental idea of cutting or hewing. But as In other languages words which define creation by God have the same etymological idea at their root, so bara has acquired the idiomatic meaning of a divine creating, which, whether in the kingdom of nature, or of history, or of the spirit, calls into being that which hitherto had no existence. Bara never appears as the word for human creation, differing in this from the synonyms asah, yatzar, yalad, which are used both of men and of God; it is never used with an accusative of the material, and even from this it follows that it defines the divine creative act as one without any limitations, and its result, as to its proper material, as entirely new; and, as to its first cause, entirely the creation of divine power." Again Kalisch observes (Gen., p. 1): "God called the universe into being out of nothing; not out of formless matter coeval with Himself" (Geikie, Hours with the Bible, I, 16)."
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Creation
2 Maccabees 7:28 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
28 I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that
God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being.
Thus says the Lord, the God that created the heavens, and made them fast, that established the earth, and that which is in it; and gave breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them who walk therein: I the Lord God have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand, and will strengthen You; and I have given You for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out them that are bound from the chains, and those who sit in darkness from the prison-house. I am the Lord God; this is my name: my glory will I not give to another, nor my virtues to graven images. "
CHURCH FATHERS: Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 55-68 (Justin Martyr)
"Justin: Is what you say, then,
of a like nature with that which Plato in Timæus hints about the world, when he says that it is indeed
subject to decay, inasmuch as it has been created, but that it will neither be dissolved nor meet with the fate of death on account of the will of God? Does it seem to you the very same can be said of the soul, and generally of all things? For those things which exist after God, or shall at any time exist,
these have the nature of decay, and are such as may be blotted out and cease to exist; for
God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and therefore He is God, but all other things after Him are created and corruptible."
CHURCH FATHERS: Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 1-9 (Justin Martyr)
Justin: But that you may not have a pretext for saying that Christ must have been crucified, and that those who transgressed must have been among your nation, and that the matter could not have been otherwise, I said briefly by anticipation, that God, wishing men and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they may know
by whom they are created, and through whom they, not existing formerly, do now exist; and with a law that they should be judged by Him, if they do anything contrary to right reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels, shall be convicted of having acted sinfully, unless we repent beforehand. But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: and the Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying, 'Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes not sin;' that is, having repented of his sins, that he may receive remission of them from God; and not as you deceive yourselves, and some others who resemble you in this, who say, that even though they be sinners, but know God, the Lord will not impute sin to them. We have as proof of this the one fall of David, which happened through his boasting, which was forgiven then when he so mourned and wept, as it is written. But if even to such a man no remission was granted before repentance, and only when this great king, and anointed one, and prophet, mourned and conducted himself so, how can the impure and utterly abandoned, if they weep not, and mourn not, and repent not, entertain the hope that the Lord will not impute to them sin?
CHURCH FATHERS: Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 125-142 (Justin Martyr)
