Commentary on Genesis 1 part 2/15

for thus say those who have given a natural account of places: that the relation which an island bears with us to the whole sea — for it is surrounded and washed on every side — this same relation, he says, the whole earth and the whole inhabited world bears to the ocean.

And there are, as it were, certain outlets of the ocean that make their way into deep places, and thus the other seas were constituted.

...they are accustomed [to call] 'ocean'; but this, which was gathered into one and, as we said, into the others too, was gathered into the seas taken part by part.

And thus the dry land appeared; and observe that he did not say 'all the dry land.'

For there is earth even beneath the waters;

for it is impossible for water to have subsistence without having earth, or some resistant body lying beneath it.

But note whether it makes a difference to say 'dry land' and 'earth,' from what is said in the prophet:

'Yet once more I will shake the heaven and the earth, the sea and the dry land.' Another, however, will say that the same thing is signified;

yet according to a different conception it is named 'dry land' and 'earth': as being called 'earth' in respect of its lying beneath the heaven, but 'dry land' in respect of the moist substance.

For it has been said that 'this is God's sea, and he himself made it, and his hands formed the dry land'; and concerning Jonah, when he had been swallowed up in the belly of the sea-monster, that the monster was commanded, and it cast Jonah forth onto the dry land out of the moist substance.

And these things we say with regard to the literal sense; but with regard to the meaning that follows upon what has gone before, we say that the waters which remained above the firmament are not perceptible, nor are they parts of these perceptible waters.

For neither plants nor animals, which are subject to this use of water, happen to be there; and the things stated in the earlier passages, demonstrating that there is no perceptible water there, have been sufficiently set forth.

We therefore say that the rational beings which have remained in a worse condition through their own vice are those waters under the firmament, held fast in diverse and varied gatherings.

For it is impossible for those who are in vice ever to be of one mind.

For vice itself is productive of confusion and is foreign to union.

For virtue, on the other hand, is unifying, inasmuch as it possesses mutual interdependence.

For indeed the temperate man is also courageous and prudent and just; and he who has one virtue has the rest as well, just as it is also with the beatitudes in the Gospel.

For he who possesses that which produces one beatitude possesses those of the others as well.

But it often happens that there is a certain inclination toward one and the same virtue, so that one man, from that which abounds in him, is called merciful, another just, and yet another temperate; and thus it may be with the other virtues as well.

He who perfectly possesses one virtue possesses the others also; and I say 'perfectly' because one is often still in the stage of introduction and of progress.

That the virtues are mutually interdependent will be evident from what follows.

The rational animal, having set before itself to live according to virtue, makes use of prudence in order to judge what is to be done and what is not to be done, what is to be chosen and what is to be avoided, and what brings blame and what brings praise—we having altogether need of a knowledge that discerns good and evil, so that we may choose the one and flee the other.

He who thus possesses prudence and has separated evil from good, knowing full well that the good is to be chosen and to be done, chooses it;

and he flees the contrary, knowing that it is both to be avoided and harmful and [...] and injurious.

Such a man therefore has need of justice as well, so that he may render to each its proper due: to the good that which is to be chosen, to the evil that which is to be avoided.

Having then come to know what things are blameworthy and what things are praiseworthy, he has need of courage, so that he may become contemptuous of deceits, not being led away by those who would allure him.

Wherefore such a man is also temperate;

for temperance is proper to the rational animal.

And you see that he who has one virtue has them all, and there is one end of these, as in the case of the beatitudes, even though they be diverse.

For just as, when there are various entrances into some city, he who enters through one of them is nonetheless within the city, so it is also with the virtues.

Virtue therefore is unifying, even as Paul also says to those who so live:

'That you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.' But vice is not so;

for excesses cannot be in harmony with deficiencies.

For he who has rashness does not also have cowardice.

Again, piety lies as a mean between impiety and superstition; piety is that which accepts and reveres what it ought, superstition is to revere all things, even those that are not to be revered, while impiety is in no way to revere anything nor to hold anything as sacred, which belongs to atheists.

Since, then, the rational beings under the firmament were held fast in vice and in an inclination toward evil, and since vice is disordered and confused, it is not possible for them all to be in one judgment or purpose.

For just as those who cast votes, when they speak the truth, bring forward the things of truth in one single vote—whereas those who go astray, whether toward the less or toward the greater, [...]

[...] and these too in diverse ways—so also in the case of vice, everyone who has fallen away from the truth is dragged into various forms of vice.

And in the case of travelers, the wrong ways are exceedingly many, but the straight one is single.

The waters, then, were scattered—those which we supposed to be the rational beings held fast in diverse judgments and characters.

These, then, He who deems it fitting to benefit them wills to become one, since He is also their Creator.

For it was said before that He is the maker of their substance, but of the variety that is according to judgment each is the maker unto himself.

God Himself therefore commands that these be gathered into one gathering, so that they may become such water as is that above the heavens—one, however, not in number but in concord.

So indeed, when the soul and heart of all believers becomes one, it becomes one not in number but in concord and in the reaching out toward the same aim and one single end.

The God of all things, therefore, commands that the divided things be brought into concord;

for this is the purpose of the beneficent God.

Since they were confused and moving irregularly according to their own judgment, they are first brought together into gatherings.

And it is no contradiction to what was commanded to say that they were gathered into their gatherings, when God said:

'Let the water be gathered together into one gathering';

for to those who have not yet come to the goal of the highest virtue, the gathering that precedes it, in a state of progress, is fitting.

And just as if someone, wishing to teach his own child the perfect branches of learning, were to entrust him to a teacher, if the [teacher...]

[...] the characters (letters), doing these things, should first set them before him, and then syllables, he would not be acting contrary to the one who entrusted the child;

for in this way indeed he would arrive from these things at the perfect learning.

And again, if some king should command those under him to build a city, and then, so charging them, should provide beforehand the things by which the construction of the city would come about, he does nothing other than his own command;

for out of these things and by means of these things the building will be completed.

So too the rational beings, being in vice, were not able to come to the utmost, desirable end, unless various stages of progress should come about, which are the systems of the waters;

for the perfection that comes after progress commands that they come into one gathering.

So then what came to pass does not conflict with the command, but, inasmuch as this command is one that leads to the perfect fulfillment of the command, it is a certain dispensation that shapes the rational beings beforehand within the measure of what they were able, so that thus they may also attain the end.

'And it was so, and the water was gathered together into their gatherings.'

The purpose of God is to gather the scattered things into one—for this is what He says—but they, still falling short of the end, were brought together into their own gatherings, which are the stages of progress.

'And God called the dry land Earth, and the systems of the waters He called Seas.'

Just as we said that the earth which came into being in the beginning together with heaven had this very name, and heaven likewise had this very name, whereas that which came into being after the heaven that was in the beginning and after the earth is properly the firmament but is called by the surname 'heaven'—so also the earth which came into being together with the heaven that was in the beginning is called by this very name, but the one now spoken of is designated by the name 'dry land,' with 'earth' as its surname;

'God called the dry land Earth,' as it was said;

'He called the firmament Heaven.' But with regard to the allegory, God calls the dry land not as bestowing upon it a new name, but since He commanded that the waters lying upon it, which were akin to the abyss, be separated, He calls it 'dry'—for it was said:

...that it might be named in accordance with the reality, and, being set free by God for the reception of divine seeds, might bring to perfection fruit a hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold.

For just as in the case of cultivated land, the one part more readily [...]

...bears fruit, but the other more slowly, according to the diligent care of the farmer or the character of the soil—so also in the case of souls: some, having received the seed, choked the seed through cares and anxieties, while others, having employed the best husbandry, so trained it that they both benefited themselves and set themselves forth to others as an aim of benefit.

For the difference of plants is manifold and varied, and the worst is uneven, being of such a kind in accordance with the one who tends it; and this will show forth the dry land as better than the evil earth;

for it loses its very existence so long as it is held fast in evil planting.

'And God saw that it was good.'

That the dry land was stripped bare of the waters lying upon it, so that it might become earth—this God saw to be good;

as with respect to the literal sense again this is clear.

The earth, then, being hidden beneath the waters, was not dry, and it was not able either to nourish animals or to bear fruits.

It was good, then, after the ordering of the world, that there should also be animals, from which come the successions of generations; and in addition to these it was good that there should be plants and trees and edible fruits, of which the animals partook.

Since, then, as was also said before, God, seeing the analogy, accepted and praised it, for this reason it is said:

'God saw that it was good,' the phrase 'saw' being understood in the same way as it is interpreted in the preceding passages, namely that not [...]

As craftsmen behold their handiworks, and much more [...]

[...] with surpassing excess God beholds, not by sense-perception.

'Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass.'

The underlying earth, having been separated from the moist substance, was named 'dry land,' and given the surname 'earth.'

and it has the power to bear fruit.

It should be observed that throughout the whole account of the creation of the world the phrase 'God said' is set forth, and 'God made,' to signify his creative power.

For it is especially by this appellation that the creative power is signified, whereas the name 'Lord' conveys the meaning of a ruler and king.

And so it is said, 'In the beginning God made,' not 'the King' or 'the Lord'—not because he is another, but because the name 'God' presents the Creator more emphatically.

When, therefore, a commandment is given to Adam, it is said:

'The Lord God commanded Adam,' and fittingly so;

for it belongs to a lord and king to give laws and commandments.

'Let the earth put forth vegetation, the herb yielding seed after its kind and after its likeness.'

For of the things that grow from the earth, some are trees, and others are vegetable plants.

And Moses, wishing in Deuteronomy to name the trees that bear fruits with hard shells, calls them simply the woody trees, meaning by 'woody' the vine, the fig, the olive; and it is clear that also as many herbs as are for most people not particularly ···

··· to those who are engaged in the healing of bodies ···

···, according as Solomon also, showing the usefulness of these things, says that he received the knowledge of them from God, saying:

'For he himself gave me an unerring knowledge of the things that are, to know the constitution of the world and the operation of the elements'; and a little after, 'the differences of plants and the powers of roots' and the like—no longer speaking of woody things ···

···, but here he calls 'the herb of grass' all the vegetable things, which are also called 'the grass of the field,' just as in the Gospel also ···

a plant in general; and by the phrase 'after its likeness' he indicates the species.

That Scripture also knows the meaning of 'species,' he says:

'Abstain from every species of evil,' using 'species' in its proper sense; but often he also uses it instead of 'form':

'And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty,' and:

'For we walk by faith, not by sight,' signifying that he who knows not by outward form walks by faith, while he who ··· walks by sight.

'... bearing fruitful fruit';

for in every plant is the nature of its seed, so that some of them are edible, and others ··· or serviceable for other uses—some of these being known also to men, but others to God alone.

These things, then, are according to the literal sense; but the matters of the allegory I consider to be of this manner.

God, having created man upright so that he might bear the fruit of the virtues and set great store by the knowledge of the truth, implanted in him good thoughts; but the earth, according to the anagogical sense, was carried away from its own judgment ···

when man, through transgression, had sown thorns.

Therefore, as many as, having received divine teaching, did not attend to the sowing of the word, hear:

'Sow wheat and reap thorns.' For was it sown for this, that thorns might be reaped? ···

... that they had not tilled well, nor ··· ···

··· of the blessing with which Jacob blessed his son, saying:

'Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed';

but he who tends his own planting well shall hear, even as does the bride:

'A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride.' And the phrase 'and it was so' and what follows was said for the sake of the correspondence.

'And God saw that it was good.'

It is to be noted that, though two things had been commanded and had come to be, it is spoken of as though of one:

'God saw that it was good.' For since the reference is to the end and the purpose, it is said, 'God saw that it was good';

for it was for the sake of men that the vegetation sprang forth, and the rest.

But I have said that what has proportion among sensible things is good; how much more is that good which lies in the virtues and in the harmony of a soul that lives well, and of a rational being that chooses what is choiceworthy and presses on toward the goal of virtue!

'Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth and to divide between the day and between the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven so as to shine upon the earth';

'and it was so,' down to 'and there was the fourth day.'

At the beginning of the book we said that God, being an active essence, at once wills and there exist the things he wishes to be;

for it is not possible in his case that the operations precede the existence, as is the case with human crafts.

For with men the work exists after the working, and the house after the building;

for the house does not exist in the building of it, nor the ship in the shipbuilding;

for these operations are measured out by time.

But God works timelessly, bringing into being what he wills;

his operation, then, will not be one that follows after or ···.

At once, therefore, he willed the lights to be, and they are; and at once he willed the water to be gathered into one gathering, and the command was fulfilled; and in the saying, 'Let there be a firmament,' this came to be.

Wherefore, in accordance with this understanding, it follows ···

concerning the six days one must understand that they were not taken up for the sake of a temporal extension, but for a reason proper to the creative work of God and to the power of the number.

For six is the first of the perfect numbers;

and they call 'perfect numbers' those which are made complete out of their own parts; and there are only four of them from unity up to ten thousand.

The first, then, is six, of which the half is three, the third part is two, and the sixth part is one; and when these are added together, six results.

It is the same way with twenty-eight;

for the half of this is fourteen, the fourth part seven, the seventh part four, the fourteenth part two, and the twenty-eighth part one; which again, when added together, make up twenty-eight.

And besides these there are yet two others;

but if you add together others besides the perfect ones, they fall short or exceed—as is to be observed in the case of eight:

half is four, the fourth part two, the eighth part one; which, again added together, yield a lesser number.

And twelve, when added together, exceeds;

its half is six, the third part four, the fourth part three, the sixth part two, the twelfth part one.

Those, then, who are versed in these matters call the deficient ones 'subperfect,' the excessive ones 'superperfect,' and those which are made complete out of themselves 'perfect.'

... that God, making a perfect creation, brought it into subsistence in the first perfect number—not that we should say at all that, the sun revolving six times, six days elapsed (for the sun had not yet come to be in the first three), but that for the sake of reason and harmony the number six was employed.

And Moses himself sets forth this understanding precisely when he makes the recapitulation of the things that had come to be, saying:

'This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made, in the day that God made the heaven and the earth.' For heaven and earth did not come to be in a day at all, but in the beginning; nor did all things subsist in one day, but it is clear that, all things having come to be together, this number was employed, as has been said, for the sake of order and harmony, and in addition to this because of our weakness and inability to conceive otherwise than in some manner suited to us.

And let what is said be made clear from an example.

Our body, together with its subsistence, has both color and magnitude, and these did not come into being separated from one another at intervals of time; and it is only in thought that the one of them is prior and the other posterior.

So also the world, which came to be in order, was brought to completion not by time but by harmony.

For no one will be able to conceive of a part of the world as not running together with the rest, so long as the remaining parts exist.

And the lights, having come to be on the fourth day as being precious, show that it was because of the account concerning them that they are said to have come to be on this day.

For the number four, being ten in potentiality, ranks among the precious;

for throughout all Scripture the number ten is celebrated.

But that, if some number is signified in the divine writings, it does not by all means indicate a multitude, but a meaning, one may understand from what has been said concerning God:

'I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' For had they been so many, the prophet would not have said,

'I am left utterly alone.' Nor did they possess any admixture toward one another;

The teaching concerning the hebdomad is a precious one—for it is motherless and fatherless—and it suggests the thought that the saints are of one and the same power, even though they be but one, since they are constituted as something divine and superhuman in contemplation and in life.

But also in the Apocalypse John, saying that a hundred forty-four thousand men follow the Lamb—that is, the Saviour—and these being virgins together with women who were not defiled, shows that a certain precious meaning attaches to this number;

for one could hardly say that so great a multitude of virgins had been gathered from among the believers while John was still alive, since perhaps not even the believers themselves were so many.

We say, then, that the world came into being in six days on account of the cause aforementioned, and that on the fourth day the luminaries were made for the reason already stated, namely that the tetrad, being potentially a decad, possesses that which is precious.

For indeed Moses gave ten words, and tithes are rendered;

and one might find yet other prerogatives of the decad.

'Let there be luminaries in the firmament of heaven.' This too teaches us that they are not gods, as seemed to the deceived Egyptians.

And well does it say 'in the firmament' and not 'above the firmament';

And their work, it says, is both to give light upon the earth and to divide between the day and the night;

for the rising makes the day, and the setting makes the night.

And another work of theirs is that they should be for signs;

for the stars signify many things, and the sun itself;

but they signify not as producing but as making manifest.

But those who introduce fate make them producers, saying that if this one converges with that one, it produces such-and-such; but it is not so—rather, that they may signify hours, months, years;

and that which signifies is not thereby productive.

'And let them be,' it says, 'for signs and for seasons and for years,' which signify the annual seasons, the spring, the winter, and the rest;

for the sun, being in this clime or in that, produces these effects.

...argument; not even so would it carry any plausibility for them;

and otherwise it is not even possible for human nature to grasp such signs, since the pole, according to them, moves most swiftly, on account of which it is impossible to seize the hour of one's birth.

And the phrase 'and it was so,' being responsive in force, shows that the Son made this very thing which the Father willed to come into being.

For indeed, though it had not been said how many luminaries should come to be, there was added:

'And God made the two luminaries';

thus the will and the operation of Father and Son are one and the same.

And the rulerships of the luminaries came to be by turns, the sun ruling the day, while the moon and the other stars rule the night.

'Which he set'—the word 'set' not meaning the same as 'made,' nor that having first come into being they were afterward set in place, but that thought suggests, in terms of reason, that their coming-into-being is prior to their being set;

for the one is to bring into existence, the other is to fit them together with the other parts of the cosmos.

And let this also be added to what has been said, that fittingly it said six days and not six hours or months or years;

for to have said months or years would have implied slowness, while to have said hours would have seemed unintelligible;

for he who does not understand what a day is does not know what an hour is either.

Making mention, then, of a perfect number, he has reasonably taken up 'day' as well, and correspondingly so.

And 'again God saw' that they had come to be well—'God saw' being here understood in the same manner as in the preceding passages.

These things, then, we have said in clarifying the literal sense; but the matters pertaining to the anagogical sense would be these.

It was said before these things that the 'let there be light' must be referred up to the Saviour, not as one brought into being out of what did not exist, but as one being fitted to those who are enlightened.

And among those enlightened, some receive the illumination to a lesser, others to a greater degree, but receive it they do;

beside these are those who find themselves in a nocturnal condition.

There come to be, then, even now, luminaries which are the conceptions of the Son, according as it is fitting to see the intent of what is now set before us;

he is fitted to the measure of each, becoming a sun of righteousness to those who have been raised up, but measuring himself to the lesser and bestowing the illumination of the Spirit that corresponds to the moon.

And there might also be those enlightened at night, namely all who, being perfect, necessarily yield to the need of the body;

for the perfect man, even if he is such, nevertheless, since he has a body, is both nourished and endures the other needs of the body—which very needs he performs as one who is perfect, for on this account he also has light, and such a light is nocturnal, since that great tension, in relation to the needs of the body, even if it is not destroyed, yet finds itself in a state of relaxation.

And just as the moon itself, according to some, receives its rays from the sun and becomes a secondary light supplied from the greater, so also the Church is the light of the world.

At any rate the Lord said to his own disciples,

'You are the light of the world'—not the solar light, for he himself was the Sun of righteousness—but a lesser one, supplied by him.

But the Apostle also, saying 'among whom you are as luminaries in the world,' shows that, having partaken of the true light, they are light of the world;

and the relation to that light which is in these might be the moon;

for he did not say 'you are the lights,' but 'the light';

for all, having unity toward one another, are thus one light, being the Church.

And the stars too would be subsumed among these under the Logos, being those who have ascended above the others according to the allegory, whom also they enlighten.

These would be the prophets, sending forth before the rising of the sun the gleam of foreannouncement.

That one, then, having risen, shone upon the whole, and made all things one light, in that those who partake are shown to be perfect light.

For it has been said that 'the righteous shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father'—not the sun, but as the sun—just as it is also said in the Song concerning her who has partaken of the light;

certain persons are indicated through these words;

for first there comes the dawn, then 'as the elect moon,' that is, full and undiminished according to its full-shining phase—for even if it is the same moon, being at times half, at times crescent, at times gibbous, yet its perfect condition is the full-shining one, to which she likens the bride—after which she is also 'as the sun,' an amazement on account of her great progress and union.

Those who thus become light are such not by their own constitution, but by participation in the true light.

These also divide between the day and the darkness, distinguishing vice from virtue, and thus giving light to those upon the earth, who are not yet heavenly through their deeds.

And they signify seasons and days and months and corresponding years, recognizing the measure of each and how a given person stands with respect to instruction—just as we say the physician says there is a right time for nourishment, considering how the one being nourished stands;

for indeed sometimes he who practises medicine nourishes at night.

The sun of righteousness, then, and the moon spoken of together with it, and the stars, signify a season such as a season of learning, a season of progress, a season of introduction; and they signify the very affairs themselves—for when someone is enlightened, the underlying matters themselves become pure—not that the sun of righteousness came into being at the time when he also signifies, but existing eternally, and signifying at the time when those who approach have need of guidance by the hand.

Wherefore they are also said to have come to be on the fourth day, the 'having come to be' indicating, according to the allegory, their relation to rational beings.

For as has been said before, being potentially possessed of virtue, we have need of those who lead us into the actual operation of the virtues, which passes from the tetrad into the decad.

For potentially the tetrad is a decad, as has already been shown;

for by the summation of the tetrad the decad is completed.

And the firmament, in which the luminaries come to be, must be taken as faith and perfect virtue, which the psalmist possessed when he said,

'And the Lord became my support.' And concerning the Church it is said,

'Who is this that comes up, leaning upon her kinsman?' For without the Logos the Church cannot exist;

for he is her support and foundation.

And these same luminaries are for signs, according to the literal sense often signifying either a kingdom, or droughts, or heavy rains, or some other of the great matters as regards their usefulness; but according to the anagogical sense, as has been said, the instances of progress, and often also the desolation of the soul;

for this too the luminaries indicate according to the allegory.

And these also give light to those upon the earth.