Works (CSEL) 17

That men should have taken up so great an opinion, that some of them established three first principles of all things - God, and the exemplar, and matter, as Plato and his disciples did - and asserted that these are incorrupt and uncreated and without beginning, and that God made the world out of matter not as the creator of matter but as a craftsman looking to the exemplar, that is, the idea, which matter they call ὕλην, which is asserted to have given to all things the causes of generation; and that they reckoned the world itself also to be incorrupt and neither created nor made; while others too, as Aristotle with his followers thought fit to argue, posited two principles, matter and form, and a third along with these, which is called the operative, to which it might competently belong to effect what it had judged should be undertaken.

What then is so unfitting as that they should join the eternity of the work with the eternity of the omnipotent God, or should say that the work itself is God, so that they pursued heaven and earth and sea with divine honors? From which it came to pass that they believed the parts of the world to be gods, although concerning the world itself there is no slight question among them. For Pythagoras asserts one world, others say there are innumerable worlds, as Democritus writes, to whom antiquity granted very great authority concerning natural philosophy; and Aristotle ventures to say that the world itself always was and shall be; whereas Plato, on the contrary, presumes to assert that it was not always but shall always be; while very many testify in their writings that it neither always was nor always shall be.

Amid these dissensions of theirs, what estimate of the truth can there be, when some say that the world itself is God, because a divine mind seems, as they think, to be in it; others, that its parts are gods; others, both? In which neither what is the shape of the gods, nor what their number, nor what their place, nor what their life or care can be comprehended - since, by the reckoning of the world, it would have to be understood that god is something rolling, round, burning, driven by certain motions without sense, who is borne along by an alien, not his own, motion. Whence holy Moses, foreseeing by the divine Spirit that these errors of men would come to pass, and had perhaps already begun, at the opening of his discourse thus says:

'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' comprehending the origin of things, the author of the world, the creation of matter, that you might know that God is before the beginning of the world, or is himself the beginning of all things - just as in the Gospel the Son of God, to those saying 'Who are you?' answered, 'The Beginning, who also speak to you' - and that he himself gave to things the beginning of generation, and that he himself is the creator of the world, not an imitator of matter guided by some idea, out of which he might conform his works not to his own will but to a proposed model. He says beautifully also, 'In the beginning he made,' that he might express the incomprehensible swiftness of the work, since he had set forth the completion of the finished operation sooner than the indication of its beginning. Who said this we ought to consider.

It was assuredly that Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, whom, taken up from the river, Pharaoh's daughter loved as a son, and, supported by royal resources, desired to have formed and instructed in all the disciplines of secular prudence. He, although he received his name from water, yet did not think it should be said that all things consist of water, as Thales says; and though he was reared in the royal court, yet for love of righteousness he chose to undergo voluntary exile rather than, at the height of tyranny, to acquire the full enjoyment of sin by its delights.

Finally, before he was called to the office of liberating the people, moved by a natural zeal for equity, having avenged on one of his own people the man who was receiving injury, he gave himself over to ill-will and snatched himself from pleasure, and, shunning all the tumults of the royal house, betook himself into the secret place of Ethiopia; and there, removed from all other affairs, he bent his whole mind to the divine knowledge, that he might see the glory of God face to face. To him Scripture testifies that 'no prophet arose any more in Israel like Moses,' who knew the Lord face to face, not in a vision nor in a dream, but speaking mouth to mouth with God most high, neither in an appearance nor through riddles, but graced with the gift of the clear and manifest presence of the Divine.

And so he opened his mouth and poured forth the things which the Lord spoke in him, according to what he had said to him, when he sent him to Pharaoh the king: 'Go, and I will open your mouth and instruct you what you ought to speak.' For if he had received from God what he should say concerning the dismissing of the people, how much more what he should speak concerning heaven? In short, not in the persuasion of human wisdom nor in the simulating disputations of philosophy, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, as a witness of the divine work, he dared to say: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth.'

He did not, as though the world were to come together by a concourse of atoms, await a late and idle business, nor some disciple of matter, by contemplating which he might fashion the world, but he thought that God the author must be set forth. For the man full of prudence perceived that the divine mind alone contains the substance of things visible and invisible and the causes of things - not, as the philosophers dispute, that a stronger interlocking of atoms supplies the cause of continual perseverance; he judged that they were weaving a spider's web who gave such minute and insubstantial first principles to heaven and earth, which, as they were joined together by chance, so by chance and at random would be dissolved, unless they stood firm in the divine power of their governor.

And not without reason do they not know a governor who have not known God, through whom all things are ruled and governed. Let us therefore follow him who knows both the author and the governor, and let us not be led away by vain opinions. 'In the beginning,' he says. How good the order, that he should first assert that which they were wont to deny, and that they might recognize the beginning to be the beginning of the world, lest men should suppose the world to be without a beginning. Whence David too, when he was speaking of heaven and earth and sea, says: 'You have made all things in wisdom.' He gave therefore a beginning to the world, he gave also to the creature its infirmity, lest we should believe it to be ἄναρχον, that is, without beginning, and uncreated, and a partaker of the divine substance.

And beautifully Scripture added the word 'made,' lest any delay should be thought to have occurred in the making, so that even thus men might understand how incomparable a Worker He was, who completed so great a work in the brief and tiny instant of His operation, so that the effect of His will outran the very perception of time. No one saw Him working, yet recognized the work done. Where then is delay, when you read: 'For He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created'? Therefore He needs neither the practice of an art nor the exertion of power, who in a moment of His will fulfilled the majesty of so great an operation, making the things that were not to be so swiftly that neither did His will run ahead of His working, nor His working ahead of His will.

You marvel at the work, you seek the Worker—who gave the beginning to so great a work, who made it so swiftly: Scripture at once subjoins, saying 'because God made heaven and earth.' You have heard the Author; you ought not to doubt. This is He in whom Melchizedek blessed Abraham, the father of many nations, saying: 'Blessed be Abraham of the most high God, who made heaven and earth.' And Abraham believed and said: 'I stretch out my hand to the most high God, who made heaven and earth.' You see that no man discovered this, but God announced it. For Melchizedek is God, who is in truth the King of peace and of righteousness, having neither beginning of days nor end. It is no wonder, then, if God, who is without beginning, gave a beginning to all things, so that the things which were not might begin to be.

It is no wonder if God, who contains all things by His power and embraces the universe in His incomprehensible majesty, made these things which are seen, since He also made those which are not seen. And who would deny that the invisible things are more excellent than those which are seen, since the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal? Who would doubt that God made these things—He who, speaking through the prophet, said: 'Who has measured the waters with His hand, and the heaven with His palm, and all the earth with His closed fist? Who set the mountains in a balance and the rocks in a scale and the woods on a yoke? Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor, or who has instructed Him?' Of whom also we read elsewhere that 'He holds the circuit of the earth, and made the earth as nothing.'

And Jeremiah says: 'The gods that have not made heaven and earth shall perish from the earth and from under this heaven. The Lord who made the earth by His power, and established and ordered it by His wisdom, and by His prudence stretched out the heaven and the multitude of waters in the sky.' And he added: 'Every man has become foolish by his own knowledge.' For he who follows the corruptible things of the world, and from these supposes that he can grasp the truth of the divine nature, how is he not made foolish by the craft of his subtle disputing? Therefore, since you hear so many oracles by which God testifies that He made the world, do not believe Him to be without beginning, because the world is said to be like a sphere, so that no beginning of it appears to exist.

And when it thunders, all things seem to be set in motion as it were in a circle, so that you cannot easily grasp where it begins and where it ends, because it is held impossible to gather by the senses the beginning of a circuit. For you cannot find the beginning of a sphere, nor where the orb of the moon began, nor where it ends in the monthly waning of the moon. Yet even if you yourself cannot grasp it, it does not therefore follow that it did not begin or will never end. If you yourself draw a circle with ink or stylus, or describe it from a center, you will not easily either gather with your eyes or recall with your mind where you began or ended, once an interval has been interposed; and yet you are your own witness that you both began and ended. For though it escapes the senses, it does not undermine the truth.

But the things which have a beginning also have an end, and to those things to which an end is given it is established that a beginning was given. That the world will have an end the Saviour Himself teaches in His Gospel, saying: 'For the fashion of this world passes away,' and 'heaven and earth shall pass away,' and below: 'Behold, I am with you always, even to the consummation of the world.'

How then do they assert that the world is coeternal with God, and associate the creature with the Creator of all, and dispute that it is equal to Him, and think that the material body of the world is to be joined to that invisible and inaccessible divine nature? especially since, according to their own opinion, they cannot deny that, of that whose parts are subject to corruption and mutability, the whole must necessarily be subject to those same passions to which its own portions are liable. Therefore he teaches that there is a beginning, who says: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth.' Now 'beginning' is referred either to time, or to number, or to foundation, just as in the building of a house the beginning is the foundation.

We learn from the authority of the Scriptures that 'beginning' can also be spoken of as of conversion and of depravity. There is also the beginning of an art, namely the art itself, from which thereafter the work of the various craftsmen began. There is also the beginning of good works, namely the best end; as the beginning of mercy is to please God by what you do, for we are chiefly called forth to confer assistance upon men. There is also a divine virtue which is expressed by this appellation. It is referred to time, if you wish to say at what time God made heaven and earth—that is, at the world's outset, when it began to be made, as Wisdom says: 'When He prepared the heavens, I was with Him.' But if we refer it to number, then it fits that you understand:

First He made heaven and earth, then the hills, regions, and uninhabitable bounds; or thus: before the rest of the visible creatures—day, night, fruit-bearing trees, and the diverse kinds of living things—He made heaven and earth. But if you refer it to foundation, you have read that the beginning of the earth is its foundation, when Wisdom says: 'When He was making the strong foundations of the earth, I was beside Him, arranging all things.' There is also the beginning of good discipline, as is that saying: 'The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord,' since he who fears the Lord turns away from error and directs his ways to the path of virtue. For unless a man fears God, he cannot renounce sin. This we can likewise take of that other saying:

'This month shall be to you the beginning of months,' although this too may be taken of time, since he was speaking of the Lord's Passover, which is celebrated at the beginning of spring. In this beginning of months, then, He made heaven and earth, since the world's outset ought thence to be taken—where there was a springtime temperate climate suitable for all. Hence the year too expressed the image of the world's birth, so that after the wintry frosts and the mists of winter the brighter-than-usual splendor of springtime might shine forth. The world's first rising therefore gave a form to the future courses of the years, so that by that law the alternations of the years should arise, and at the beginning of each year the earth should bring forth the new seedlings of the seeds, where first the Lord God had said:

'Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass yielding seed after its kind and after its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit.' And immediately the earth brought forth the herb of grass and the fruit-bearing tree; in which the divine providence both of perpetual moderation and the swiftness of the earth bringing forth supports for us the estimation of springtime's season. For although at any time it was both ready for God to command and for earthly nature to obey, so that amid wintry frosts and the hoarfrosts of winter the earth, warmed by the heavenly command, might bring forth its sprouting offspring, yet it was not in keeping with the eternal arrangement that ground stiffened by rigid ice should suddenly relax into green fruits and mingle blossoms with bristling frosts.

Therefore, that Scripture might show the season of spring at the world's constitution, it says: 'This month is to you the beginning of months, it is the first to you among the months of the year,' calling the springtime season the first month. For it was fitting that the beginning of the year should be the beginning of generation, and that generation itself should be cherished by softer breezes. For the tender beginnings of things could not endure the labor of harsher cold nor sustain the injury of scorching heat.

At the same time it is permissible to add this, since it rightly concurs, that He seems to have entered upon this generation and into these uses at the very season at which from this generation there is a lawful passage into regeneration; since indeed in the spring season the children of Israel left Egypt and passed through the sea, baptized in the cloud and in the sea, as the Apostle said, and at that season the Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ is each year celebrated—that is, the passage of souls from vices to virtue, from the passions of the flesh to the grace and sobriety of the mind, from the leaven of malice and wickedness to truth and sincerity. To the regenerate, therefore, it is said: 'This month is to you the beginning of months, it is the first to you among the months of the year.'

For he who is washed forsakes and abandons that intelligible Pharaoh, the prince of this world, saying: 'I renounce you, devil, and your works and your dominions.' Nor will he henceforth serve him either in the earthly passions of this body or in the errors of a depraved mind—he who, having sunk all his malice in the manner of lead, and being fortified on right and left by good works, strives to pass over the straits of this present age with unhindered footstep. In the book also which is written of Numbers, Scripture says: 'The beginning of the nations is Amalek, and his seed shall perish.'

And certainly Amalek is not the first of all nations, but because by interpretation 'Amalek' is taken to mean 'a people of the wicked'—and the wicked are the nations—see whether we ought to understand the prince of this world, who rules over the nations that do his will, whose seed shall perish. Now his seed are the impious and the unbelieving, to whom the Lord says: 'You are of your father the devil.' There is also a mystical beginning, as is that saying: 'I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end,' and that one especially in the Gospel, where the Lord, being asked who He was, answered: 'The beginning, which also I speak to you.' He is truly and supremely the beginning of all things, because no one is before Him, and the end, because no one is beyond Him.

According to the Gospel, the beginning is of the ways of the Lord in His works, so that through Him the race of men might learn to follow the ways of the Lord and to work the works of God. In this beginning, then—that is, in Christ—God made heaven and earth, because through Him all things were made, and without Him was made nothing that was made; in Him, because in Him all things consist, and He is the firstborn of all creation: whether because He is before all creation, or because He is holy—for the firstborn are holy, as 'Israel is the firstborn,' not because before all, but because holier than the rest. Now the Lord is holy above all creation, even according to His assumption of a body, because He alone is without sin, He alone without vanity, while every creature is subject to vanity.

We can also understand: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' that is, before time, just as the beginning of a road is not yet the road, and the beginning of a house is not yet the house. Finally, others have rendered it 'en kephalaiō,' as it were 'in the head'; by which is signified that the sum of the operation was fulfilled in a brief and tiny instant. There are therefore also those who take 'beginning' not for time but before time, and as 'kephalaion,' or 'head,' so that we may say it is assigned as it were the sum of the work, since the sum of visible things is heaven and earth, which seem to have regard not only to this world but also to the indication of invisible things and as a kind of argument for those things that are not seen, as is that prophetic saying:

'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament announces the works of His hands.' Following this, the Apostle concluded in the same sense with other words, saying: 'For the invisible things of Him are understood by the things that are made.' For we easily understand Him to be the Author of angels and dominions and powers, who in a moment of His command made this so great beauty of the world to exist out of nothing—that which was not—and granted that things or causes which did not exist should have substance. For this world is a specimen of the divine operation, since while the work is seen, the Worker is preferred.

For just as of those arts some are active, which consist in bodily motion or in the sound of the voice—when the motion or sound has ceased, nothing remains over nor abides for the spectators or hearers—; others more contemplative, which exercise the vigor of the mind; others of such a kind that, even when the function of operation has ceased, the gift of the work appears, as building and weaving, which even when the craftsman is silent display his skill, so that the work bears witness to its maker: similarly this world too is a badge of the divine majesty, so that through it the wisdom of God may be made manifest. Beholding which, the prophet, lifting at the same time the eyes of his mind to the invisible things, said: 'How magnified are Your works, O Lord! You have made all things in wisdom.'

Nor indeed do we read in vain that it was 'made,' since very many of the Gentiles, who would have the world to be coeternal with God as a kind of shadow of the divine power, also assert that it subsists of its own accord. And although they confess that God is its cause, yet they would have it made a cause not out of His will and arrangement, but in such a way that, as the body is the cause of its shadow, the shadow clings to the body and the lightning-flash to its natural light by association rather than by deliberate will. Beautifully, then, does Moses say that 'God made heaven and earth.' He did not say that He caused it to underlie, nor that He furnished a cause to the world that it might be, but 'made'—as one good making what would be useful, as one wise making what He judged best, as one almighty making what He foresaw to be most ample.

But how could it be as it were a shadow, where there was no body, since there cannot be a bodily shadow of the incorporeal God? And how also could the splendor of the incorporeal light be bodily? But if you seek the splendor of God, the Son is the image of the invisible God. As is God, therefore, such also is the image. God is invisible, the image too is invisible; for He is the splendor of the Father's glory and the image of His substance. 'In the beginning,' it says, 'God made heaven and earth.' The world therefore was made and began to be, which was not; but the Word of God was in the beginning and was always. But the angels, dominions, and powers, even though they began at some time, yet already existed when this world was made.

For all things were created and founded, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; 'all things,' it says, 'were created through Him and unto Him.' What is 'created unto Him'? Because He is the heir of the Father, in that from the Father the inheritance has passed unto Him, as the Father says: 'Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance.' Yet this inheritance passed from the Father unto the Son, and returns from the Son unto the Father. Excellently, therefore, the Apostle in this passage too called the Son the Author of all things and the One who contains all things by His majesty; and to the Romans he says of the Father: 'For of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things.'

'Of Him' is the beginning and origin of the substance of all things, that is, of His will and power—for all things took their beginning from His will, since there is one God the Father, of whom are all things; for He made them as it were of His own, He who made them whence He willed—'through Him' is the continuation, 'unto Him' the end. Of Him, therefore, is the matter; through Him the operation, which bound and held together the universe; unto Him, because both, as long as He wills, all things abide and consist by His power, and their end returns into the will of God, and by His decision they are dissolved. In the beginning of time, therefore, God made heaven and earth. For time is from this world, not before the world; and a day is a portion of time, not a beginning.

And although by the sequence of the reading we could establish that on the first day the Lord made day and night, which are the alternations of times, and on the second day made the firmament, by which He divided the water which is under heaven and the water which is above heaven, yet it suffices well enough for the present assertion that 'in the beginning' He made heaven—whence comes the prerogative and cause of generation—and made earth, in which the substance of generation might be. For in these were created those four elements, out of which are generated all these things that belong to the world.

Now there are four elements—fire of heaven, air, water, and earth—which in all things are mingled with one another; since indeed even in earth you may find fire, which is frequently struck out from stones and iron, and in heaven, since the sky is fiery and gleaming with shining stars, water can be understood to be present, which is either above the heaven or is frequently sent down to the earth from that higher place in abundant rain. These things we could gather at greater length, if we saw that they profited anything toward the edification of the Church. But because to be occupied with these things is a fruitless business, let us rather bend our mind to those things in which there is the advancement of eternal life.

Concerning the quality and substance of heaven, then, it is enough to bring forth those things which we have found in the writings of Isaiah, who in modest and ordinary words expressed the quality of the heavenly nature, saying that 'He established the heaven like smoke,' wishing to declare its nature to be subtle and not solid. As to its appearance too, it abundantly suffices that he himself spoke of the firmament of heaven, that 'God made the heaven like a vault,' since within the circuit of heaven are enclosed all things that are carried on whether in the sea or on the lands. This is likewise signified when it is read that 'God stretched out the heaven.'

For it is stretched out either like a skin for tabernacles, the dwellings of the saints, or like a book, that the names of many may be written therein, who have merited the grace of Christ by faith and devotion, to whom it is said: 'Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.' Concerning the quality or position of the earth, too, it profits nothing to treat, with a view to the appearance of what is to come, since it is enough for knowledge that the series of the divine Scriptures comprehends that 'He suspends the earth upon nothing.' What does it profit us to dispute whether it hangs in the air or upon the water, so that thence a controversy might arise—how the nature of air, thin and rather soft, could sustain the earthly mass, or how, if upon the waters, the heavy collapse of the lands is not submerged in the water?

Or how does the wave of the sea not yield to it and, moved from its place, spread itself out upon its sides? Many also have said that the earth is in the midst of the air and remains immovable by its own mass, because it extends here and there with equal motion on every side. Concerning which we think enough has been said by the Lord to His servant Job, when, speaking through the cloud, He said: 'Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell Me, if you have knowledge. Who set its measures, if you know? Or who is it that drew a measuring-line over it? Or upon what are its circles fastened?' And below: 'I shut up the sea with gates, and said: Thus far shall you come and shall not pass over, but in you shall your waves be broken.'

Does not God evidently show that all things subsist by His majesty, not by number, weight, and measure? For the creature does not give the law, but receives it, or keeps what it has received. It is not, then, that because the earth is in the middle it is suspended as if by an equal balance, but because the majesty of God constrains it by the law of His will, so that above what is unstable and void it should remain stable; as David too the prophet bears witness, saying: 'He founded the earth upon its firmness: it shall not be moved for ever and ever.' Here truly God is proclaimed not merely as a craftsman, but as almighty, who suspended the earth not by some center, but by the firmament of His command, nor suffers it to be inclined.

We ought, therefore, to understand not the measure of a center, but of the divine judgment; for it is not a measure of art, but of power—a measure of righteousness, a measure of knowledge—since all things do not pass by His knowledge as though immeasurable, but lie subject to His knowledge as though measured out. For when we read: 'I have made firm its pillars,' we cannot suppose the earth to be truly propped up by pillars, but by that power which underprops and sustains the substance of the earth. Finally, gather even from this how much the constitution of the earth is in the power of God, since it is written: 'Who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble,' and elsewhere: 'Yet once more I shake the earth.'

It does not, therefore, remain immovable by its own balancing, but is frequently moved by the nod and decision of God, as Job too says that 'the Lord moves it from its foundations, and its pillars are shaken'; and elsewhere: 'Hell is naked in His sight, and there is no covering for death. He stretches out the north over the void, hanging the earth upon nothing, binding up the water in His clouds. The pillars of heaven flew away and trembled at His rebuke. By His power He calmed the sea, by His discipline He laid low the monster, and the bars of heaven fear Him.' By the will of God, therefore, the earth remains immovable and stands for ever, according to the sentence of Ecclesiastes; and by the will of God it is moved and totters.

It does not, then, subsist resting upon its own foundations, nor does it remain stable by its own props, but the Lord set it up and holds it together by the firmament of His will, because in His hand are all the ends of the earth. And this simplicity of faith excels all arguments. Let others praise the fact that the earth therefore never falls anywhere, because according to nature it possesses its own region in the middle, since it must necessarily remain in its region and not be inclined to one side, seeing that it is not moved contrary to nature, but according to nature; let them proclaim the excellence of the divine Craftsman and eternal Worker—for what craftsman has not received from Him, or who gave to women the wisdom of weaving or the discipline of variety?

—Yet I, who cannot comprehend the depth of His majesty and the excellence of His art, do not commit myself to balancings of joints and to measures, but esteem all things to be deposited in His will, since His will is the foundation of all things, and on account of Him this world still endures. This too it is permissible to establish by the example of apostolic authority. For it is written that 'the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected it in hope. But the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption,' when the grace of the divine recompense shall come.

But concerning the nature and quality of the substance of heaven, why should I enumerate those things which the philosophers in their disputations have set forth—since some assert that heaven is composed of the four elements, while others bring in a certain fifth nature of a novel body for its constitution, and feign that it is an ethereal body, with which is mingled neither fire nor air nor water nor earth?

For the elements of this world have, each of them, a certain course and use and motion of nature, so that the heavier sink down and are borne downward, while the empty and light raise themselves upward—for there is a motion proper to each—but in the circuit of a sphere these are confounded and lose the force of their own course, since the sphere is rolled in its own orbit, and the upper things are changed into the lower, the lower also into the upper. But of those things whose motions according to nature have been changed, they necessarily bear that the qualities of their substances are wont to be changed. Why, then, do we defend that there is an ethereal body, lest it seem subject to corruption? For that which is composed of corruptible elements must necessarily be dissolved.

For by the very fact that things of diverse nature are the same elements, they cannot have a simple and inviolable motion, since the diverse motion of the elements wars against itself. For it will be sung that one motion cannot be fit for all things, nor agree with elements that are distant from one another; for that which is suited to the light is rendered unsuited to the heavier elements. And so, when motion toward the upper parts is necessary for heaven, it is weighed down by the earthly elements; when a downward course is sought for the lower parts, that fiery vigor is violently drawn down; for it is forced downward contrary to the use of its own nature. But everything that is forced into its contrary is not its nature.

But it is quickly dissolved by necessity and is rent into those things of which it seems to be composed, each part recurring to its own region. Considering these things, therefore, others, judging that the ethereal body of heaven and of the stars could not be stable, introduced a certain fifth nature of body, by which they thought the substance of heaven would remain lasting. But this opinion could not withstand the prophetic sentence, which the divine majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, also confirmed in the Gospel. For David said: 'In the beginning You, Lord, founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands. They shall perish, but You remain.'

'And they all shall grow old as a garment, and as a vesture You shall change them, and they shall be changed; but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail.' Which the Lord so confirmed in the Gospel that He said: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' Those, therefore, accomplish nothing who, for the sake of asserting the perpetuity of heaven, thought a fifth ethereal body must be introduced, since they equally see that a portion of a single member, unlike the rest, when adjoined, is wont rather to bring decay to the body. At the same time note this, that the prophet David, when he named the earth in the prior place and afterward the heaven, believed it must be declared to be the work of the Lord.

For when He said 'and they were made,' it makes no difference which you express first, since both were made at the same time—at the same time, lest by this even the least prerogative should seem to be adjudged to heaven, as of a more divine substance, so that it should be esteemed superior by the privilege of being a firstborn creature. Therefore let us leave those men to their own contentions, who refute themselves by mutual disputations; but for us it is enough unto salvation, not the controversy of disputations, but the truth of the precepts; not the cunning of argumentation, but the faith of the mind, that we may serve the Creator rather than the creature, who is God blessed for ever. 'But the earth was invisible and unformed.'

A good craftsman first lays the foundation; afterward, the foundation being laid, he distinguishes the members of the building and adds the adornment. The foundation of the earth being laid, therefore, and the substance of heaven being confirmed—for these two are as it were the hinges of things—he subjoined: 'But the earth was invisible and unformed.' What is 'was'? Lest perchance, framing their opinion into infinity and without beginning, they should say: Behold, that matter—that is, hylē, as the philosophers say—even according to divine Scripture had no beginning. But to those saying this you will answer that it is written: 'Now Cain was a worker of the earth,' and of him who was called Jubal Scripture has it:

This was the father who pointed out the psaltery and the harp; and there was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. Let them therefore cease to raise a question about the word, especially since Moses had set down beforehand that God made the earth. It was, therefore, from the moment it was made. For if they say that it exists without a beginning, then, saying that not only the Lord but also matter (ὕλη) is without beginning, let them define where it was. If it was in a place, then it is also asserted that the place itself existed without a beginning, in which was the matter of things, which had no beginning. But if it seems absurd to believe this concerning a place, see whether perhaps we ought to imagine a flying earth, which, having no foundation, was suspended by the oarage of wings.

From where, then, shall we get wings for it—unless perhaps we divert here the interpretation of the prophetic saying: 「We have heard wonders from the wings of the earth,」 and that other: 「Woe to the wings of the ships of the earth.」 But even granting that we take it so, in what air did the earth fly? For without air it could not fly; yet air could not as yet exist, because the distinction of the elements had not been made apart from the matter of things, since the very elements themselves had not yet been made. Where, then, was this matter, upheld by the oarage of wings? It was not in the air, because air is a body of the world; and that air is a body, the reading teaches us, since when an arrow is shot toward the spot at which the archer aims, the cleft air at once resolves itself back into itself.

Where, then, was matter (ὕλη), unless perhaps it be said—by some demented presumption—that it was in God? Then God, who is of invisible and inviolable nature, who dwells in light unapproachable, incomprehensible and most pure Spirit, would be the place of the world's matter, and there would be in God a portion of the world—although the mind of His servants is not of this world, as we have it written: 「They are not of this world, even as I also am not of the world.」 How then could invisible things be joined to visible things, and things uncomposed to Him who gave order and beauty to all things? Unless perhaps because He said:

「But the earth was invisible」—let them believe it invisible by its substance, and not for this reason, that, being covered with waters, it could not be visible to bodily eyes, just as very many things set in the depths of the waters escape the sight and keen edge of the eyes. For nothing is invisible to God; but a created thing of the world is reckoned so only by the estimation of a creature. The earth was invisible also because there was not yet light to illumine the world, not yet the sun; for the lights of heaven were made afterward. But if the sun's ray very often illumines even covered things and, by the splendor of its light, brings forth what is sunk in the deep, who can doubt that things which are in the deep cannot be invisible to God?

Unless perhaps we should so understand the earth to be invisible, because it was not yet visited by the word of God and His protection, since it had no man for whose sake the Lord might look upon the earth—as it is written: 「The Lord looked upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand or seek after God.」 And elsewhere He says: 「From heaven He hurled forth judgment: the earth trembled and was still.」 And rightly invisible, because uncomposed, since it had not yet received a fitting form and appearance from its own Maker. And perhaps they may say: Why then did not God—since He spoke and they were made—at once grant to the rising elements their fitting adornment, as though heaven could not, marked with stars, shine forth suddenly as soon as it was created, and the earth be clothed with flowers and fruits?

He could indeed; but for this reason they are declared first to have been made and afterward composed, lest they be believed truly uncreated and without beginning, if the appearance of things had seemed, as it were, unbegotten from the start, and not added afterward. The earth is read of as uncomposed even by those philosophers by whom God is honored with the prerogatives of eternity: what would they say if from the beginning it had flourished in its own preservation? It is described as sunk in waters, as though consigned to a kind of shipwreck of its own first principles, and even now is by some not believed to have been made: what if it had laid claim to a firstborn beauty? There is also this, that God willed us to be imitators of Himself, that we should first make some things and afterward beautify them, lest, while we attempt both at once, we be able to complete neither.

Now our faith grows by a certain gradation. Therefore God first made, afterward beautified, that we may believe the same One to have adorned who made, and to have made who adorned, lest we suppose one to have adorned and another to have created, but that the same One wrought both—first to make, afterward to compose—so that the one might be believed through the other. You have in the Gospel a clear testimony of this matter. When the Lord was about to raise Lazarus, He commanded that the Jews should remove the stone from the tomb, so that, seeing the dead man, they might afterward believe him raised. Then He called Lazarus, and he rose, and came forth with hands and feet bound. Could He not have removed the stone, who could—they contend—raise the dead?

And He who could restore life to the dead, could He not loose the knots of the bindings? To him whose feet were bound He gave a stride; could He not, with the bonds broken, restore him a free gait? But assuredly we observe that He willed first to show the dead man, that they might believe with their own eyes; then to raise him; thirdly, to command that they themselves should loose the bonds of burial—so that amid these stages faith might be poured into the unbelieving, and belief might be born through certain degrees. God therefore first made heaven and earth, yet willed them to be subject—not as everlasting, but as corruptible creation—to a consummation. Hence in the book of Isaiah He says:

「Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heaven was made firm like smoke, but the earth shall grow old like a garment.」 This is the earth which before was uncomposed. For there were not yet seas bounded by their own limit, and therefore the earth was flooded with wandering flood and deep abyss. Consider that even now the earth is wont to bristle with marshy dampness, and is not patient of the plowshare, where the moisture poured upon the land overflows. It was therefore uncomposed, as it were unplowed by the tillage of a skillful farmer, because as yet the tiller was lacking. It was uncomposed, because bare of growing things, neither grassy with the mounds of its banks, nor shaded with groves, nor glad with crops, nor shadowy with the brows of mountains, nor fragrant with flowers, nor pleasing with vineyards.

Rightly uncomposed, since it lacked adornments, since it was without the garlands of gleaming vines. For God willed to show that not even the world itself would have grace, unless the Worker should transform it with varied cultivation. Heaven itself, woven over with clouds, is wont to stir up dread in the eyes and gloom in the soul; the earth drenched with rains is a thing of loathing; the seas troubled by storms—whom do they not strike with fears? Most beautiful is the appearance of things: but what would it be without light, what without temperateness, what without the gathering of the waters, by which before this the very beginnings of this firmament were held submerged? Take the sun from the lands, take from heaven the orbs of the stars: all things bristle with darkness. So was it, before the Lord poured light into this world.

And therefore Scripture says that 「darkness was upon the deep.」 There was darkness, because the brightness of light was wanting; there was darkness, because the air itself is dark. The water itself under the cloud is dark, because the water of the clouds of the air is dark. There were therefore darknesses upon the abysses of the waters. For I do not think that evil powers are to be understood, as though the Lord had created their malice; since malice is certainly not substantial but accidental, having turned aside from the goodness of nature. And so in the constitution of the world let the notion of malice be set aside for the moment, lest we seem to mingle things discolored with the divine working and the most beautiful creature—especially since there follows:

「And the Spirit of God was borne above the waters.」 Even though some take this for the air, and some for the spirit which we breathe and draw in—the breath of this vital air—we nevertheless, in agreement with the opinion of the saints and the faithful, take it to be the Holy Spirit, so that in the constitution of the world the working of the Trinity may shine forth. For when it had been set down beforehand that 「in the beginning God made heaven and earth」—that is, God made it in Christ, or the Son of God who is God made it, or God made it through the Son, since 「all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made」—there remained the fullness of the working in the Spirit, as it is written: 「By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host.」

Therefore, just as in the psalm we are taught the working of the Word, which is the Word of God, and the power which the Holy Spirit gave, so here the prophetic oracle echoed back that God spoke and God made; 「the Spirit of God also was borne above the waters.」 For in adorning the vault of heaven and the earth that was to bring forth, the Spirit was beautifully borne above, because through Him the seeds of new births were to germinate—according to what the prophet said: 「Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.」 Finally, the Syriac, which is close to the Hebrew and in very many things agrees and harmonizes in expression, has thus: 「And the Spirit of God cherished the waters」—that is, gave them life, so as to gather them into new creatures and by its cherishing quicken them to life.

For we also read that the Holy Spirit is the Creator, when it is said: 「Thou shalt turn me back: the divine Spirit, who made me.」 Whether, then, the Holy Spirit was borne above the waters, the darkness of the contrary powers could not be upon them, where so great a grace claimed a place for itself; or—if some will have it that air is meant—let them answer for what reason He called it 「the Spirit of God,」 when it would have been enough to name it 「spirit」 (breath). These, then, would have it that four elements were first generated by the Lord our God—heaven, earth, sea, air—because fire and air, earth and water, are the causes of things, of which the form and shape of the world consists. Where, then, could the darkness of spiritual wickednesses have a place, when the world was putting on the comeliness of this august form?

Did God create malice at the same time? But it, arising from us, not founded by God the Creator, is generated by the levity of our morals, having no prerogative of a created thing nor authority of a natural substance, but is a vice of mutability and an error of falling away. God wills this to be uprooted from the souls of each one: how should He Himself generate it? The prophet cries out: 「Cease from your malice」; and especially holy David: 「Cease from evil and do good.」 How then do we assign to the Lord its beginning? But this deadly opinion belongs to those who have thought to throw the Church into confusion. Hence the Marcionites, hence the Valentinians, hence that pestilence of the Manichaeans have attempted to bring deadly contagions upon the minds of the saints.

Why do we ourselves seek out the darkness of death in the light of life? Divine Scripture supplies salvation, breathes forth the fragrance of life, that as you read you may take in its sweetness, and not headlong rush into danger. Read simply, O man; do not, as a perverse interpreter, dig a pit for yourself. The saying is simple: that God made heaven and earth—He made what was not, not what was; and 「the earth was invisible」—from the moment it was made, it was, and it was invisible, because the water overflowed and covered it, and 「darkness was poured out upon it,」 because there was not yet the light of day, not yet the sun's ray, which is wont to reveal even things hidden beneath the waters.

What, then, do they mean by saying that God created evil, since from things contrary and adverse nothing adverse to itself is in any way generated? For neither does life generate death, nor light darkness. For the progressions of generations are not like the changes of affections. The latter are turned from contraries into contraries by the deflection of the will; the former are not turned from contraries into adverse things, but, created from things of the same kind—whether their authors or their causes—are referred back into the likeness of their author. What, then, shall we say? For if malice is neither without a beginning, as though uncreated, nor made by God, whence has nature its malice? For no wise man has denied that there are evils in this world, since there is so frequent a falling into death in this age.

But from what we have already said we can gather that it is not a living substance, but a depravity of the mind and soul, straying aside from the path of virtue, which frequently creeps in upon careless souls. The greater peril, then, is not from things external to us, but from ourselves. Within is the adversary, within the author of error, within—I say—shut up in our very selves. Survey your own purpose, examine the state of your mind, set a watch against the thoughts of your mind and the desires of your soul. You yourself are the cause of your own wickedness, you yourself the leader of your own disgraceful deeds and the kindler of your crimes. Why do you summon an alien nature to excuse your own falls?

Would that you did not push yourself on, would that you did not hurl yourself down, would that you did not entangle yourself, either by pursuits run headlong, or by indignation, or by desires which hold us ensnared as in certain nets! And surely it is in our power to moderate our pursuits, to restrain anger, to curb desires; in our power also to indulge luxury, to fan the flames of lust, to inflame anger, or to lend an ear to one who inflames it; to be lifted up rather by pride, to be poured out into savagery rather than to be checked into humility, to love gentleness. Why do you accuse nature, O man? It has, as it were, certain hindrances—old age and weakness.

But old age itself in us is sweeter in character, more useful in counsel, more ready for the constancy of undergoing death, stronger for restraining lusts. Weakness of body, too, is sobriety of mind. Hence the Apostle says: 「When I am weak, then am I strong.」 And so he gloried not in his strengths, but in his weaknesses. The divine answer too shone forth in a saving oracle, that 「strength is made perfect in weakness.」 Those things are to be guarded against which proceed from our own will—the sins of youth and the irrational passions of the body. Of those things, then, of which we are the masters, let us not seek their beginnings from outside, nor divert them onto others, but acknowledge those things which are properly our own.

For what we can refrain from doing if we will not, the choice of that evil we ought to ascribe rather to ourselves than to others. Therefore even in the judgments of this world, guilt binds and punishment condemns those who are voluntary offenders, not those compelled by necessity. For if someone in a fit of madness slays an innocent person, he is not liable to death. Nay more, by the oracle of the divine law itself, if anyone through imprudence has inflicted death, he receives hope of impunity, a means of refuge, that he may be able to escape. Let this, then, be said concerning that which properly seems to be evil; for those things alone are evils which implicate the mind in crime and bind the conscience.

For the rest, no wise man would call poverty, lowliness of birth, sickness, or death evils, nor reckon them in the lot of evils, since their contraries are not held among the greatest goods either—of which some seem to befall us from nature, others from convenience. This digression of ours has not proceeded idly, that we might prove that darkness and the deep are to be taken simply. For there was darkness from the overshadowing of heaven, since every body casts a shadow, by which it overshadows things either neighboring or beneath it, and especially those things which it seems to cover and enclose. Now the vault of heaven encloses, because heaven is stretched out like a vaulted chamber, as we have shown above.

Therefore the dark substance was not primordial, but, as it were a shadow, the murk of darkness followed the body of the world. And so, at the moment of the divine command, the world, rising up, enclosed a shadow within itself—just as if someone in the middle of a field which the noonday sun illumines should suddenly fence off some spot and cover it with the dense foliage of branches: does not the dwelling within become darker, the more splendid the appearance of that place shines outside, by the dreadful canopy overhead? Or whence did men call a cave 「a place shut in on every side」 of this kind, except that it bristles with a black situation and the suffusion of darkness? These darknesses, then, were upon the abysses of the waters.

For that 「the deep」 means a multitude and depth of waters, the reading of the Gospel teaches us, where the demons begged the Savior not to command them to go into the deep. But He who taught that the wills of demons are not to be done commanded them to go into the swine; and the swine hurled themselves into a pool of water, so that what the demons refused they did not escape, but were plunged down by a worthy precipitation. Such, then, was the uncomposed appearance and form of the world. 「And the Spirit of God,」 it says, 「was borne above the waters, and God said: Let there be light.」 Rightly, then, was the Spirit of God sent ahead, where the divine working was to begin. 「Let there be light,」 He says.

From where ought the voice of God in divine Scripture to have begun, except from light? Whence ought the adornment of the world to take its beginning, except from light? For it would be in vain, if it were not seen. God Himself indeed was in light, because He dwells in light unapproachable, and was the true Light, which enlightens every man coming into this world; but He willed that light to come into being which could be apprehended by bodily eyes. He who desires to build some edifice worthy of the dwelling of the head of a household, before he lays the foundation, explores from where he may pour light into it. And that is the first grace, which, if it be lacking, the whole house bristles with deformed neglect. It is light that commends the remaining adornments of the house. 「Let there be light,」 He says.

The full utterance of light signifies not the apparatus of an arrangement, but shines forth in the effect of the working. The Maker of nature spoke light and created it. The word of God is His will, the work of God is nature: He created light, He illumined the darkness. 「And God said: Let there be light. And there was light.」 He did not say it so that the working might follow, but with the word He completed the business. Hence beautifully did David say: 「He spoke, and they were made,」 because the effect fulfilled the word. God, then, is the author of light, but the world is the place and cause of darkness. Yet the good author so spoke 「light」 that, by the light poured in, He might open up the world itself and beautify its appearance.

Suddenly, therefore, the air shone forth, and the darkness took fright at the brightness of the new light; the inpoured radiance of light at once repressed it and as it were plunged it down into the abysses throughout the whole world. Beautifully, then, and properly did He say: 「There was light.」 For just as light swiftly illumines the heaven, the lands, the whole expanse, and in a moment of time, without any apprehension, with the splendor of the rising day spread over the regions, pours itself around our sight, so the rising of that light ought swiftly to have been unfolded. Why do we wonder if God spoke light and a glow flashed out upon the murky world, when, if anyone submerged among the waters should let oil out of his mouth, he makes clearer those things which were covered by the hidden depth?

God said—not that some sound of speech should issue through the organs of the voice, nor that the motion of a tongue should form a heavenly address and a certain din of words should beat upon this air, but that He should make known the cognition of His will by the effect of His working. 「And He divided between the light and the darkness, and God saw the light, that it was good.」 He spoke, and no one heard the sound of a voice; He divided, and no one perceived the efforts of the working; He saw, and no one beheld the intention of His eyes. 「And God saw,」 it says, 「the light, that it was good.」 He neither saw what He was ignorant of, nor approved what He had not known or seen before; but it is proper to good works that they do not need to be blazoned by anything external, but that, when they are seen, they themselves attest their own grace.

That which is approved by sight is more than that which is praised by speech. For it uses its own testimony, not the support of another. But if among us judgment is sent forth by the eyes, by which at once both the grace of beauty and the nature of things is apprehended, how much more does God see all that He approves, and approve all that He sees—according to what is written, that 「the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous.」 The nature of light is of this kind: that its grace lies not in number, not in measure, not in weight, as other things, but wholly in the seeing of it. And so He expressed in fitting words the nature of light, which pleases by being seen, since it itself furnishes the office of seeing. And not undeservedly could it find for itself so great a herald.

By what right is it first praised? Because it itself brought it about that the other members of the world also are worthy of praises. 「God therefore saw the light」 and illumined it with His own countenance, 「and saw that it was good.」 It is not a partial judgment on God's part, but a general one. And so the grace of light is approved not only in its splendor, but in all its usefulness. Hence too a division is made between light and darkness, so that the nature of light and of darkness, being separated, may seem to have nothing confused within itself. 「And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night,」 so that by the very name He might distinguish day and night. We observe, therefore, that the rising of the light is seen to open the day before the sun;

for the beginnings of day shut off the going-out of night, and the limit of time and the boundary of its state seems to be prescribed for night and for day. The sun makes the day bright, light makes it. Frequently the heaven is covered with clouds, so that the sun is veiled and no ray of it appears; yet light shows the day, and hides the darkness. 「And there was evening and there was morning, one day.」 Some ask why Scripture mentioned evening first, then morning—lest perhaps it seem to signify night before day. And they do not observe, first, that it had set the day before by saying: 「And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night」; and then, that evening is the end of the day and morning the end of the night.

Therefore, in order to give the prerogative and primacy of birth to the day, He first signified the end of the day, after which night was to follow, and then afterward added the end of the night. But Scripture could not prefer night to day to such a degree that it both included the times of day and of night under the appellation of 「day」 and, as it were, claimed them by the authority of the chief name. And that this is a custom of Scripture, that it assigns the appellation to the more excellent, we prove by frequent examples; since both Jacob said: 「The days of my life are few and evil,」 and again: 「All the days of my life」; and David set down: 「the days of my years,」 he did not say 「and nights」—whence we observe that those things which are now delivered in the guise of history have established the force of a law for the future.

The beginning of the day, then, is the voice of God: 「Let there be light. And there was light.」 The end of the day is evening. Now the following day succeeds from the end of the night. But the sentence of God is evident, since He called the light 「day」 first and called the darkness 「night」 second. Admirably too He said 「one,」 not 「first,」 day; for, with a second and third day and thereafter the rest to follow, He could have said 「first」—and this seemed to be of order—but He established a law, that twenty-four hours of day and night should be defined by the name of 「day」 alone, as though He said: the measure of twenty-four hours is the time of one day. For just as the generation of men is reckoned and understood to include also that of women, because the latter are joined to the former as the more excellent, so too the days are numbered and the nights reckoned as joined to them.

As, therefore, one circuit, so one day. For very many even call one week 「one day,」 because it returns into itself as into one day, and as it were recurs sevenfold into itself. Now this is the figure of a circuit: to begin from itself and to return into itself. Hence too Scripture sometimes says 「one age」—for although in other places it calls them 「ages,」 it seems rather to signify the diversities of public states or affairs than to define any successions of ages—since 「the day of the Lord is great and most glorious」; and elsewhere: 「Wherefore do you seek the day of the Lord? And it is darkness and not light.」 For it is manifest that to the evil-conscienced and unworthy that day will be dark, on which innocence shall shine and the guilty mind shall be tormented.