Commentary on Genesis 1 part 3/15

For those who are unable to partake of the unmixed and perfect light are illumined through the light of the saints.

And Moses, teaching this very thing, says:

I too stood between the Lord and you, bearing up your supplications to God, and ministering to you the graces that come from Him.

So also the Saviour, having become man, is the mediator between God and men.

For being God, He joins us to the Father; and having become man, in a certain manner, as one who loves mankind, whatever things He heard from the Father, these He also speaks to us.

Among the lights inferior to the sun would also be the Law, concerning which the psalmist said:

Thy law is a lamp unto my feet, showing that the Law illumines the advances and passages of the soul.

So too Paul, being thus illumined, says:

Let us walk becomingly, as in the day;

for those who are of this kind, being in Christ, belong to Him, each one saying:

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and:

I know a man in Christ. For thus they become light from light, so as through their teaching to illumine others.

But we must understand the word 'appointed' as signifying 'to declare' or 'to demonstrate,' so that when it is said of the Saviour that the Father 'appointed Him heir of all things,' it means 'He declared Him' to be so.

For He did not afterwards make Him heir, but manifested Him as being already such.

And God saw that it was good. For it is good to be illumined by perceptible light, and much more by intelligible light.

and birds flying over the earth across the firmament of heaven.

And God made the great sea-monsters and every living soul of creeping things, which the waters brought forth according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.

And God saw that they were good.

And He blessed them, up to the words 'the fifth day.'

Since the pre-eminent creation of the things upon the earth is that which concerns human beings—who happen to be mortal living creatures—the other living creatures and plants have been fashioned accordingly for man's use.

For some he takes for food, others for his own healing.

And there are others made, some for bearing burdens, others for some need of his.

Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and birds flying over the earth. For these too had to come into being for the need of men.

But when he calls their bodies 'creeping things,' he calls them all 'living souls.'

For even though it be irrational, yet it supplies a vital power to the body, perishing together with it—whereas the soul of man subsists even after the dissolution of the body.

Since of the birds some fly high, while the greater number have a lowly flight—especially those allotted to men for food—the expression is used with reference to the majority:

and birds flying over the earth.

For it is likely that, for this reason, they do not fly aloft like the eagle and similar creatures, so that they may be easily caught by men, for whose sake they also came into being.

And it is said 'across the firmament of heaven,' not because they fly close to it, but because they are beneath it, even if they do not reach up there.

For instance, Scripture also calls the clouds that bear the rain 'heavens,' and says the rain comes 'from heaven,' although the clouds are formed about the air, from which the rain is borne—clouds which are said to be no more than ten stades above the earth, since mountains are often found above the clouds, with the clouds lying below them.

This difficulty, then, is resolved by the fact that the air is often called both 'heaven' and 'firmament.'

And the phrase 'and it was so' is to be understood in the same way as in the passages that preceded.

And why does it say 'God made the great sea-monsters'? It should be noted that it does not say concerning the sea-monsters 'let the waters bring forth sea-monsters,' but that He Himself made them.

And these turn out to be exceedingly huge, just as those who have recorded such things marvel greatly, so as even to say that they are like islands—onto which, they say, men have often disembarked, thinking they were going out onto dry land, only then recognizing that they were sea-monsters, when the creatures, being moved, gave them the perception of it.

Consider further the words 'God made the great sea-monsters and every living soul of creeping things': that the waters bring forth their bodies—I mean the bodies of those that were formed from the waters—while it is God who makes the sea-monsters together with the other creatures, granting them their vital power; not, of course, that the bodies pre-existed and were then ensouled—for the soul of irrational creatures does not possess life apart from the body—but that, at the same instant they came into being by the will of God, Scripture says the bodies came forth out of the waters, while God made the souls, that is, the animating and moving principle, not from the waters but from such a purpose of God.

The phrase 'according to their kinds' is also clear, the term 'species' being understood here in place of 'genus.'

And it says, God saw that they were good. For in the preceding cases it was said that a thing was 'good' because either the thing that came into being was one, or it was constituted in one part of the world;

but since the present creatures have obtained different regions—so that some of them are air-traversing, others water-dwelling—consequently it says, 'God saw that they were good.'

And God blessed them. Why ever is it, that whereas in the other cases before this no blessing was added, here it is said:

And God blessed them? And see whether perhaps this was added because from them a succession is constituted.

For they are not blessed in the same manner as human beings, concerning whom it is said:

with a spiritual [blessing] in the heavenly places;

these are spiritual blessings that touch the mind and the inner man, which do not arise in irrational creatures;

for the word 'spiritual' was added, indicating that there are also bodily blessings, such as health, good bodily condition, and the things indifferent.

The increase, then, which He commanded to come about among the living creatures, and their multitude, He called a blessing.

And the phrase 'in the seas' is used quite simply also of lakes and rivers, since by means of the greater [waters] He willed to signify every kind of water.

And consistently it is said of the birds 'over the earth,' because these keep near to the earth;

for they were not able to have their abode in the aether because of its heat.

And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day—and fittingly so;

for it was fitting that the irrational living creatures, which partake largely of sense-perception, should come into being on the fifth [day], which signifies the [five] senses.

For even though men share in sense-perception, yet they have that which is greater than sense-perception—the mind and reason—whereas the irrational creatures have only sense-perception.

These things, then, are said with regard to the literal sense.

But with a view to the anagogical sense, in the passages that preceded, wickedness was called 'water' by the law of allegory, especially when we cited:

Many waters will not be able to quench love;

this comes about not from the perceptible [water], but from that from which the scarcity of virtue is said to arise, from the saying, 'Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold.'

Is not iniquity, then, the water that attempts to quench the loving disposition? For it, stirring up hatred, shuts out the things of love, which is constituted out of that fellow-feeling and gentleness which belong by nature to men.

God wills, therefore, that out of the waters that have been interpreted there should come forth the creeping things and the birds, which hint at differences of characters: on the one hand those who have plunged into the depths of wickedness and on this account have become contemptuous—for the ungodly man, when he has fallen into a depth of evils, despises—being wrapped, like creeping things, about earthly matters and held fast by the multitude of this water.

Truly, our soul has passed through the water without substance, from which such and so great an evil the Benefactor wills to set [us] free. On the other hand, there are those who hold erroneous notions, called 'birds' because they suppose themselves to be occupied with lofty things and to think more highly than other men; and these too the God who loves mankind wills to come forth from this condition, so that the understanding which they have squandered upon things they ought not, they may fit to what is needful and befitting a rational nature—that thus they may recover the proper flight, the divine flight, from which their deviation also came about.

And the great sea-monsters were, by the laws of allegory, the wicked powers—the devil and his angels—who are called 'dragons' in Scripture; and indeed the devil far more than the rest is called by this appellation.

To the Saviour, then, it is said in the manner of a hymn:

Thou didst crush the heads of the dragon, Thou didst crush the heads of the dragons upon the water. And it is clear that these things came about from God—not insofar as they are evil, but according to their essential substrate.

For God did not make the devil or the demons insofar as they are such, but they themselves drew destruction upon themselves;

for Scripture speaks of them as 'angels who did not keep their own rank.'

And that the devil is called a 'sea-monster,' it is said concerning him in Job:

He who is about to subdue the great sea-monster—by whom the sea-monsters under heaven were bent low.

And the phrase 'God made them' can also signify 'He demonstrated them.'

For often Scripture uses 'to make' in the sense of 'to demonstrate,' as in the passage, 'If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar'—not that we become the makers of God, but that we demonstrate Him, so far as it depends on us, to be a liar.

The same is set forth also by the saying to the Jews, 'Thou, being a man, makest thyself God,' in the sense of 'thou declarest [thyself God].'

[God demonstrates] the wicked powers and makes them manifest, so that they may not, remaining hidden, do harm without measure, and so that those who have the wrestling-match against them may know them;

for thus it comes about that they are also held in contempt.

God wills that these creatures be outside the waters, but for a while only a little way off — as it were in an introduction to virtue — desiring that they withdraw from vice; for one who is in vice, and in vice so great, does not receive all at once the change over to perfection, but rather, by progress and by a certain increase, ever taking on some portion of virtue, so that in this way, from standing upon the earth, they may also become birds of heaven according to those who hear.

'If you sleep in the midst of the lots, the wings of the dove are silvered over, and her back with the greenness of gold' — by 'lots' meaning the channels of the waters, as in the case of Isaac, who longed for the good while resting in the midst of the lots, which would be the old and new covenant, giving wings to the one who takes his rest in the midst of them and joins together the things aforesaid with their outcome, so as to have the wings of a dove, in whose likeness the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus.

These wings are intellectual apprehensions, having an uplift and a heavenly greatness, and for this reason they are also called doves — just as the Bridegroom likewise names the bride, saying:

'My dove, my perfect one.' And concerning the saints it has also been said:

'Who are these that fly like clouds, and like doves with their young?' — calling 'young of doves' those who are being taught under the perfect, such as Paul, who was a dove and had Timothy as his nestling, and Peter, who had the evangelist Mark.

And among the men of old, too, certain ones were recorded as 'sons of the prophets,' whom you would not err in calling 'young of doves,' that is, of the prophets.

These same ones, in one respect and another, are called both 'nestlings' and 'clouds':

for in that they bear a divine and spiritual rain, passing it on to others for their benefit, they are clouds; but in that they are stamped with the likeness according to their participation in the Holy Spirit, they are doves — doves that are 'silvered over,' adorned with the divine word, instructed out of the divine Scriptures.

That silver signifies the word is clear from the saying: 'The tongue of the righteous is silver refined by fire.'

For it is not the silver perceived by the senses, but since the tongue is the instrument of speech, silver has been taken as its symbol.

And this tongue is refined by fire, inasmuch as it deals not with common matters but with the heavenly light, which Jesus came to cast upon the earth, willing that it be already kindled.

But also the tongues as of fire that appeared to the apostles, which sat upon each one of them, signify the divine and instructive word.

And the backs of these — that is, of the doves — are adorned with the greenness of gold, the gold making clear the mind, and the greenness the living and unfading quality.

As many, therefore, as are adorned with wisdom — according to which God wills the things that creep from the waters to be removed — these are doves, having another mind, lifted up on the wings of truth and ever having within themselves the life-giving Spirit.

And these very ones God also blesses, that they may receive increase of multitude and of growth: of multitude, that they may render others imitators of themselves; of growth, that they themselves may ever, by progress toward the perfect good, have a longing for it.

And the words 'and fill the waters' would signify that you are no longer sunk in the deep, choked by the bonds of sin, but rather that you, having mastery over yourselves, continue advancing above yourselves;

these are the workings of the water, as you are given drink from the immortal water and are cleansed, and no longer held fast.

And the words 'And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day' might thus be smoothed out and explained:

the day of the things perceived by the senses came to its limit for them, as they pass over to the things perceived by the mind;

for the end of the day that has passed makes the beginning of the one that succeeds it.

Having therefore let go of the things of the senses, they themselves pass over to the perfect, which is signified by the number six;

for the six is the progress from the five according to what lies next to it.

But these things must be examined not by number, but according to the meanings that lie within the numbers, the five making clear the things of the senses, and the six, in the present case, perfection.

'Let the earth bring forth a living soul according to its kind: quadrupeds, and creeping things, and wild beasts.'

In the same way as in what precedes, the phrase 'God said' is to be understood; and He said in order that the earth might bring forth living souls — which is indicative of the fact that the souls of the irrational animals are sown together with their bodies, inasmuch as they also perish together with them, whereas human souls are not so;

for even after the dissolution these human souls continue to endure.

And on this point even the many, including those outside the faith, hold the same opinion, supposing that there is a Hades, of which they have a dim imagining, the whole matter being confused;

yet they are nonetheless disposed to hold that this is a certain region in which souls pass their time after their departure from here.

Accordingly, the command concerning the irrational animals hints at how the earth might bring forth a living soul according to its kind — quadrupeds, and creeping things, and wild beasts — the command suggesting that the earth has a power over the irrational animals that will come forth from it, there being in it, in a certain manner, a seminal principle (logos), or rather within the seeds of the animals; and this principle lies closer at hand only inasmuch as it is the souls of the irrational animals that furnish to the bodies the imaginative and impulsive movement, being themselves corporeal, or rather being within the body itself and in its constitution;

for it says: 'The soul of every living creature is its blood.' What is common to them is to be nourished, to be awake, to sleep, and to grow weary.

But the command is not about every soul, but only about the irrational ones;

for the soul of man has been created according to the image and likeness of God, as will be known more precisely in what follows.

Then, since the animals brought forth from the earth are not all of one form, but according to their kinds are subject to differing species, He said 'according to kind,' the term 'according to likeness' making clear the species.

Common to them, then, is the genus;

for all animate creatures, being diversified, fall under essential differences;

for the essence of a horse and of an ox is one thing, and likewise of the others.

And the command is given to three: to quadrupeds, and to wild beasts, and to creeping things — not all being quadrupeds and wild beasts.

It would therefore be fitting to call 'quadrupeds' now those that are tame and serviceable to men, 'wild beasts' those quadrupeds that are untamed, and 'creeping things' those that are serpentine; and the differences among these are not unknown to those who have made inquiry.

For the coming into being had to follow upon the command.

One might raise a difficulty as to what now...

...to the words 'and it was so' there is added 'and God made'.

For example, then, since in the succession of the animals it is the offspring that in this manner of generation cast down the seed, but it is God who shapes and molds them, this has been said, the command being first, and then God bringing to completion the bringing-forth of the seed...

...or in an interval of time according to the first creation...

...but consider these things as indicating that it is by the power of God that the casting-down of the seed comes about, and the molding of the...

In the case of man, God says to Jeremiah:

'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.' And the mode of the coming-into-being of the animals is varied: some of them from the beginning had their generation from earth and water, while their succession comes about in another way;

for some of them are egg-laying, from which the eggs come forth, while others are live-bearing, the will of God having furnished the differing mode of the coming-into-being of these.

'God saw that they were good' — it is said 'good' (in the plural), not 'good' (in the singular);

for it was not one work, but different ones.

Against which someone will object, saying that in the case of the light and the firmament and the sun and the like, it is consequently added that it was good, but concerning wild beasts and venomous creeping things, how is it said that they were good?

for the burdensome quality in them is evident.

To this he will say, first, that being a work of God it is good and praiseworthy, even if the exact account concerning it be hidden from us; then, one who searches would find the usefulness of their existence, if he should apprehend what is natural in each animal — of the one, the tameness that contributes to men and puts to shame the savage and passionate person; of another, the diligence and carefulness that rouses up the negligent — even as the divine Scripture of Proverbs, putting to shame the sluggish concerning the acquisition of virtue, points out the exhortation drawn from the irrational animals, saying:

'Go to the ant, O sluggard, and become wiser than it.'

And such a one would find that even the irrational animals contribute toward self-control, and toward honor of parents, and in general toward virtue, so that from the lesser they correct the one made according to the image who is being negligent — provided he engages with the writings composed concerning their nature.

Let the matters of the literal exposition, then, stand thus;

but the matters of the spiritual contemplation must now be spoken of.

The soul that sins is under the flood of earthly passions, bearing the image of the man of dust and being wholly earthly by minding the things of earth;

for it is said concerning the base:

'They shall go into the lowest parts of the earth' — surely not of this earth, but of the earth understood according to a figurative sense, according to which it is said concerning certain ones:

'And you went deep into your dwelling,' and:

'You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them up' — and yet they were not swallowed up by the earth.

These, then, who are under the earth spoken of, the word of repentance — coming about through the command of God — brings forth and puts outside of sin, so that he who casts off the image of the man of dust may receive that of the heavenly man.

Concerning those who are thus disposed, and concerning himself, the blessed Paul says:

'He raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenly places,' so that those who from this present time bear the image of the heavenly man may also be counted worthy of dwelling among these; even as those who conduct their lives in the contrary manner, being congruent with earthly ways, shall also have experience of a congruent region.

He therefore brings forth every living soul according to its kind, we understanding 'according to kind' as meaning 'according to rank.'

For one does not at the same instant both depart from vice and possess the end, but there is need of progress for each order toward the perfect setting-right, from the diverse vice that leads over to virtue — so that those who are horses in their manner, concerning whom it is said:

'They became lustful horses;'

'each one neighed after his neighbor's wife' — casting off the being such, may become goodly horses, deemed worthy to carry the word through participation in virtue, so that in them and on their account it may be said:

'And your riding is salvation.' And the oxen are those concerning whom it is said:

'Is it for the oxen that God is concerned? Or does He surely say it altogether for our sakes, that the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of partaking?' As many, then, as pass over from having their zeal set upon earthly things to the things of God — these would be the oxen aforesaid.

But others, being sluggish and slow, after the manner of asses, and bearing wickedness as a burden, and being for this reason sluggish, according to those who say:

'A lion in the roads, murderers in the streets' — by the Lord's command such sluggishness is set free; and a symbol of them is borne by the ass which, in the village opposite, was loosed by the disciples sent by the Lord, so that the Lord, seated upon it, might free from bonds and irrationality and sluggishness those brutish men signified by it.

They come to be, according to the prophet Isaiah when he says:

'There too are flying serpents, who carried their wealth upon asses and camels' —

for it is clear that an asp or a lion does not possess perceptible wealth, but rather the wicked powers, symbolically named 'asps' and 'lions,' possess that which is indicated figuratively; and this wealth they lay not upon a rational animal, nor upon oxen which are able to bear noble and useful labor, but upon asses and camels, which are humpbacked and unclean.

These, then, are led out from their most base disposition by way of repentance, as has been said, since God commands this;

for He desires not the death of the sinner so much as his repentance.

'And God saw that they were good.'

For good indeed is the transition from wickedness to virtue.

And it must be said that God made these things while re-educating them, so that the once venom-spitting beasts, being delivered from their savagery, might pass over into gentleness.

And just as, if I say that the potter makes the clay, I indicate not that he is eager for the clay to remain as it is, but that it may become an earthen vessel, receiving firmness and being no longer in a dissolved state — so He made the beasts spoken of according to the allegory, not that they should remain beasts, but that they might pass over from the savagery that comes of wickedness into the most gentle virtue.

And since the characters of men are diverse, on this account it is said in the plural, 'And God saw that they were good.' That the characters of men are signified by irrational animals is confirmed from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, when certain men came to the foremost of the apostles, summoning him to preach the gospel to them, who were of another race.

For as he went up onto the roof to pray, there appeared a certain vessel like a sheet, let down by four corners from heaven to the earth, in which were all the four-footed beasts and the reptiles and the wild beasts of the earth; and a voice came from heaven to him, saying:

'Rise, Peter, kill and eat.' But he said:

'By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.'

And again a voice came to him a second time:

'What God has cleansed, do not you call common.' This vision of the animals that appeared in the sheet, Peter himself interpreting when he came to those who called him, says:

'God has shown me that I should call no man common or unclean' — referring to men the four-footed beasts and wild beasts that appeared, now cleansed by having cast off their wickedness.

And this too must be said: that having said 'Let it bring forth,' He was not content with the command, but also acted;

for God not only urges toward virtue, but already also lends His hand;

for to him who chooses the good, God also works together unto good, so that having purposed to accomplish the command, they may be able to bring the endeavored thing to its completion.

For even if one employs his own impulse toward virtue, he stands in need of God, who bestows the outcome and the good end of it.

This very thing the Savior demonstrates also in the case of His miracles, requiring the willingness of those who are healed: in one place saying:

'What do you wish that I should do for you?' and in another place hearing from the leper, who was ready for faith:

'If you are willing, you are able to cleanse me.'

'Let us make man according to our image and after our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and the cattle and all the earth and all the reptiles that creep upon the earth.'

'And God made man; according to the image of God He made him; male and female He made them.'

'And God blessed them, saying:'

'Increase and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all the cattle and all the earth and all the reptiles that creep upon the earth.'

The term 'man' signifies both the composite living being, which consists of soul and body, and above all the soul.

Peter, the foremost of the apostles, calls the soul 'the man of the heart,' and so too the blessed Paul:

'For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man' — that is, according to the mind, according to the soul.

'There was a certain man in the land of Ausis' — and:

'It came to pass, when men began to become many' — this indicates the two together.

If, then, we take it according to the literal sense, it signifies the composite man where it says, 'And God said:'

Yet not only concerning the composite being, but even extending the appellation 'man' as far as the visible and perceptible, that is, the body, does the blessed Paul wish, when he says:

'Even if our outer man is decaying, yet the inner is being renewed day by day.' And according to a first approach, each of us consists of soul and body; but there are those who say that man is composed of three: soul, body, and spirit, which they also establish by making use of the apostolic saying which declares:

'And may the God of peace sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit and soul and body' — reasoning that it is not fitting for the matter concerning the Holy Spirit to be so stated as to be made 'whole,' for that Spirit is not by nature liable even to come into any weakness.

As a demonstration of this, then, they adduce also another saying which runs thus:

'The Spirit itself bears witness together with our spirit' —

for our spirit, they say, is other than the Holy Spirit, being witnessed to by the Holy Spirit when it is in good condition.

'Spirits and souls of the righteous, bless the Lord' — this too they consider indicative of the same thing.

But those who do not wish the spirit to be other than the soul say that by 'spirit' He signifies the disposition, or that by the appellation of 'spirit' He has indicated the soul itself.

But those who reject this say that, having employed the copulative conjunction 'and' in the phrase 'spirits and souls of the righteous,' He makes clear that the soul is other than the spirit.

As an establishment that man consists of soul and body, they adduce what is expressly stated in the gospel:

'Do not fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul;