Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 34/87

Moreover, if the sacred and most truthful writings say that in the beginning God made heaven and earth in such a way that He is understood to have made nothing before — because this would rather have been said to have been made 'in the beginning' if He had made anything before all the other things which He made — then without doubt the world was not made in time, but together with time. For what is made in time is made both after some time and before some time: after that which is past, before that which is future; but there could be no past, since there was no creature by whose changeable movements it might be carried on.

But the world was made together with time, if in its making a changeable movement was made, as even that order of the first six or seven days seems to have it, in which both morning and evening are named, until all the things which God made in those days are completed on the sixth day, and on the seventh, in a great mystery of God, His rest is commended. Of what kind those days are, it is either exceedingly difficult for us, or even impossible, to think — how much more to tell. CHAPTER VII. Of the nature of the first days, which are recorded to have had evening and morning even before the sun was made. For we see that those days we know have no evening except from the setting of the sun, nor morning except from the rising of the sun;

but the former three of those days were passed without the sun, which is recorded to have been made on the fourth day. And first indeed light was made by the word of God, and God is narrated to have separated between it and the darkness, and to have called that same light Day, and the darkness Night; but of what kind that light was, and by what alternating motion, and what sort of evening and morning it made, is remote from our senses, nor can it be understood by us as it is — which nevertheless is to be believed without any hesitation. For either it is some bodily light, whether in the upper parts of the world far from our sight, or whence the sun was afterward kindled; or by the name of light is signified the holy City in the holy angels and blessed spirits, of which the apostle says:

The Jerusalem which is above is our mother, eternal in the heavens; and indeed he says also in another place: For ye are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness; if only we are able to understand the evening also of this day, and the morning, in some fittingly congruent way. Since the knowledge of the creature, in comparison with the knowledge of the Creator, in a manner grows toward evening; and likewise it grows light and morning comes, when it too is referred to the praise and love of the Creator; nor is it turned into night, where the Creator is not forsaken by the love of the creature. Finally, when Scripture enumerated those days in order, it nowhere interposed the word 'night.' For it nowhere says: Night was made; but: Evening was made and morning was made, one day.

So the second day, and the rest. For the cognition of the creature in itself is, so to speak, more faded than when it is known in the Wisdom of God, as in the art by which it was made. Therefore it can more fittingly be called evening than night; which, however, as I said, when it is referred to praising and loving the Creator, recurs into morning. And when it does this in the cognition of itself, it is one day; when in the cognition of the firmament, which between the lower and upper waters was called heaven, the second day; when in the cognition of the earth and sea and of all things that spring forth, which are bound together by roots to the earth, the third day; when in the cognition of the greater and lesser luminaries and of all the stars, the fourth day;

when in the cognition of all the swimming and flying animals from the waters, the fifth day; when in the cognition of all the land animals and of man himself, the sixth day. CHAPTER VIII. What, and of what kind, the rest of God is to be understood to be, by which after the works of six days He rested on the seventh. But when God rests on the seventh day from all His works and sanctifies it, it is by no means to be taken childishly, as though God had labored in working — He who said, and they were made, by an intelligible and everlasting word, not a sounding and temporal one.

But the rest of God signifies the rest of those who rest in God, just as the gladness of a house signifies the gladness of those who rejoice in the house, even if it is not the house itself but some other thing that makes them glad. How much more, if the same house by its own beauty makes its inhabitants glad, so that it is called glad not only in that mode of speaking by which we signify, through that which contains, that which is contained (as theaters applaud, meadows low, when in the one men applaud, in the other oxen low); but also in that by which is signified, through the effecting thing, that which is effected; as a letter is called glad, signifying the gladness of those whom, in reading it, it makes glad.

Most fittingly, therefore, when the prophetic authority relates that God rested, there is signified the rest of those who rest in Him and whom He Himself makes to rest; this also the prophecy promises to the men to whom it speaks and on whose account it was certainly written — that they too, after the good works which God works in them and through them, if they have first in this life in a manner come to Him by faith, shall have in Him everlasting rest. For this also was prefigured by the rest of the Sabbath, by the precept of the law in the ancient people of God, of which I think it ought to be discussed more diligently in its proper place. CHAPTER IX. What is to be thought concerning the creation of the angels according to the divine testimonies.

Now, since I have undertaken to speak of the rise of the holy City, and have thought that first what pertains to the holy angels should be said — which are both a great part of this City and the more blessed in that they have never gone into pilgrimage — I shall, with God's bounty, take care to set forth, so far as shall seem sufficient, what divine testimonies are at hand for this. Where the sacred writings speak of the constitution of the world, it is not clearly said whether, or in what order, the angels were created; but if they were not passed over, they are signified either by the name of heaven, where it is said: In the beginning God made heaven and earth, or rather by that of this light of which I speak.

But that they were not passed over I judge from this, that it is written that God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He made, whereas the book itself thus begins: In the beginning God made heaven and earth, so that before heaven and earth He seems to have made nothing else. Since therefore it began from heaven and earth, and the earth itself, which He first made — as the Scripture consequently states — being invisible and unformed, and light not yet made, darkness was assuredly upon the deep, that is, upon a certain indistinct confusion of earth and water (for where there is no light, there must needs be darkness); then, if all things were set in order by creating, which are narrated to have been completed through six days:

how would the angels be passed over, as though they were not among the works of God from which He rested on the seventh day? But that the angels are a work of God is here, even though not passed over, yet not clearly expressed; but elsewhere holy Scripture testifies this with a most clear voice. For in the hymn of the three men in the furnace, when it had been said beforehand: Bless the Lord, all ye works of the Lord, in the carrying out of those same works the angels too were named: and in the psalm it is sung: Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights; praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts; praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all ye stars and light;

Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord; for He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created. Here too it is said by divine authority, most plainly, that the angels were made by God. For when they are mentioned among the other heavenly things, the words are added concerning them all: He spoke, and they were made. Who, moreover, will dare to suppose that the angels were made after all those things which were enumerated over the six days? Yet even if anyone is so foolish, that other Scripture of equal authority refutes such empty notion, where God says: When the stars were made, all my angels praised me with a loud voice. The angels therefore already existed when the stars were made; but the stars were made on the fourth day.

Shall we then say that they were made on the third day? By no means. For it is plain what was made on that day. The earth was assuredly separated from the waters, and these two elements took on the distinct kinds of their own nature, and the earth brought forth whatever clings to it by its roots. Were they made on the second day, then? Not even this. For then was made the firmament between the upper and the lower waters, and it was called heaven; in which firmament the stars were made on the fourth day. Without doubt, therefore, if the angels belong to the works of God of these days, they are that light which received the name of day. That its oneness might be commended, it was not called the first day, but one day. Nor is there a second day, or a third, or the rest distinct from it;

but it is the same one day repeated to fill up the number six or seven, on account of the sixfold or sevenfold knowledge: namely the sixfold knowledge of the works which God made, and the sevenfold knowledge of God's rest. For when God said: Let there be light, and there was light, if in this light the creation of the angels is rightly understood, then surely they were made partakers of the eternal Light, which is the very unchangeable Wisdom of God, through whom all things were made, whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that, illumined by that Light by which they were created, they might become light and be called day by participation in the unchangeable Light and Day, which is the Word of God, through whom both they themselves and all things were made.

For the true Light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world, this also enlightens every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; and if an angel turns away from Him, he becomes unclean, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and they are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, deprived of participation in the eternal Light. For of evil there is no nature; rather the loss of good has received the name of evil. CHAPTER X. On the simple and unchangeable Trinity of God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, one God, in whom quality is not one thing and substance another. There is therefore one good alone that is simple, and for this reason alone unchangeable, which is God.

From this good all good things were created, but not simple, and therefore changeable. Created, I say, that is, made, not begotten. For that which is begotten of the simple Good is likewise simple, and is the very same as that from which it is begotten; these two we call Father and Son; and both these together with their Spirit are one God; which Spirit of the Father and of the Son is called the Holy Spirit by a certain proper meaning of this name in the sacred Scriptures. He is, however, other than the Father and the Son, because He is neither the Father nor the Son; yet I have said 'other' (alius), not 'another thing' (aliud), because He too is equally a simple and equally an unchangeable and co-eternal good. And this Trinity is one God; nor on that account is He not simple, because He is a Trinity.

For we do not call this good nature simple because the Father alone is in it, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone, or because there is merely this trinity of names without the subsistence of persons, as the Sabellian heretics supposed; rather it is called simple because what it has, that it is, except for what is said of each person in relation to another. For certainly the Father has a Son, and yet He Himself is not the Son [and the Son has a Father, and yet He Himself is not the Father]. In that, therefore, in which He is spoken of in relation to Himself, not to another, this is what He has; just as He is called living in relation to Himself by having life, and that very life He Himself is.

On this account assuredly that nature is called simple to which it does not belong to have anything which it might also be able to lose; or in which the one having is one thing, and what it has another; as a vessel has some liquid, or a body has color, or the air has light or heat, or the soul has wisdom. For none of these is the very thing which it has; for neither is the vessel the liquid, nor the body the color, nor the air the light or heat, nor the soul the wisdom. Hence it is that they can also be deprived of the things they have, and be turned and changed into other states or qualities, so that the vessel may be emptied of the moisture with which it was filled, and the body be discolored, and the air grow dark or cold, and the soul become foolish.

But even if a body be incorruptible, such as is promised to the saints in the resurrection, it has indeed the inseparable quality of that incorruption, yet, while the corporeal substance remains, it is not the very same as the incorruption itself. For that incorruption is wholly present in each several part of the body, and is not greater here and less there; for no part is more incorruptible than another; whereas the body itself is greater in the whole than in a part; and although some part of it is larger and another smaller, the part that is larger is not more incorruptible than the one that is smaller. The body, then, which is not everywhere whole within itself, is one thing; the incorruption, which is everywhere wholly present within it, is another; for every part of the incorruptible body, though unequal to the rest, is equally incorrupt.

For not, by way of example, because the finger is smaller than the whole hand, is the hand therefore more incorruptible than the finger. Thus, though the hand and the finger be unequal, yet the incorruptibility of the hand and of the finger is equal. And by this, although incorruptibility is inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the substance by which it is called a body is one thing, and the quality of it by which it is named incorruptible is another. And therefore even thus it is not the very thing which it has. The soul too itself, even if it be always wise, as it shall be when it is set free for eternity, will yet be wise by participation in the unchangeable Wisdom, which is not what the soul itself is. For neither, if the air infused with light be never abandoned by it, is the air on that account not one thing and the light by which it is illumined another.

Nor would I so speak as though the air were the soul, as certain men thought who could not conceive of an incorporeal nature. But these things bear, even amid great dissimilarity, a certain likeness to those, so that it may not unfittingly be said that the incorporeal soul is illumined by the incorporeal light of God's simple Wisdom, just as the body of the air is illumined by corporeal light; and just as the air grows dark when deserted by that light (for the darkness of any corporeal places whatsoever, as it is called, is nothing else than air lacking light), so the soul grows dark when deprived of the light of Wisdom.

According to this, then, those things are called simple which are principally and truly divine, because in them quality is not one thing and substance another, nor are they divine, or wise, or blessed by participation in others. But in the holy Scriptures the Spirit of wisdom is called manifold, in that He has many things in Himself; yet the things He has, these He also is, and all of them are one. For there is not many wisdom, but one, in which are certain infinite and yet, to Him, finite treasures of intelligible things, in which are all the invisible and unchangeable reasons of things even visible and changeable, which were made through Him. For God made nothing in ignorance, which cannot rightly be said even of any human craftsman;

moreover, if He made all things knowingly, then assuredly He made those things which He knew. From which there comes to the mind something marvelous, yet nonetheless true: that this world could not be known to us unless it existed; but unless it were known to God, it could not exist. CHAPTER XI. Whether it is to be believed that those spirits who did not stand in the truth also shared in that blessedness which the holy angels have always had from their beginning. Since these things are so, in no way indeed were those spirits whom we call angels darkness prior, according to any interval of time; but as soon as they were made, they were made light; yet they were not so created merely that they should somehow exist and somehow live, but they were also illumined, that they might live wisely and blessedly.

From this illumination certain angels turned away and did not retain the excellence of a wise and blessed life. Such a life, beyond all doubt, is none other than eternal, and is sure and secure of its own eternity; but they have rational life, albeit foolish, in such a way that they cannot lose it, not even if they would. But to what extent, before they sinned, they were partakers of that Wisdom, who can determine? Yet that these were equal in its participation to those who, on that account, are truly and fully blessed—because they are in no way deceived concerning the eternity of their blessedness—how shall we say it? Seeing that, if they had been equal in it, these too would have remained equally blessed in its eternity, because equally certain.

For just as life, however long it last, cannot truly be called eternal life if it is going to have an end—since life is named merely from living, but eternal life from having no end—so too: although not everything that is eternal is forthwith blessed (for even penal fire is called eternal), nevertheless, if a truly and perfectly blessed life is none other than eternal, then such was not the life of those who were one day to cease and on that account not eternal, whether they knew it or, not knowing, supposed otherwise; because, for those who knew, fear, and for those who did not know, error, would not in any case permit them to be blessed.

But if they so did not know this that they put no trust in things false or uncertain, yet were carried with no firm assent to either side—whether their good was everlasting or would one day have an end—then this very wavering about so great a felicity did not possess that fullness of the blessed life which we believe to be in the holy angels. For we do not so contract the term 'blessed life' to certain narrows of meaning as to call God alone blessed; who nevertheless is so truly blessed that no greater blessedness can exist, in comparison with whom, what or how great is it that the angels are blessed with that highest blessedness of their own, as great as can be in angels? CHAPTER XII.

On the comparison of the blessedness of the just, who have not yet obtained the reward of the divine promise, and of the first men in paradise before sin. Nor do we think that these alone—so far as pertains to the rational or intellectual creature—are to be called blessed. For who would dare to deny that those first men in paradise were blessed before sin, although they were uncertain how lasting their blessedness was, or whether it was eternal (and it would have been eternal, had they not sinned)—when even today we not shamelessly call those blessed whom we see leading this life justly and piously, with the hope of future immortality, without crime laying waste the conscience, readily obtaining the divine mercy for the sins of this infirmity?

These, although they be certain of the reward of their perseverance, are nevertheless found uncertain about their perseverance itself. For what man knows that he will persevere to the end in the practice and progress of righteousness, unless by some revelation he be made certain by Him who, concerning this matter, by a just and hidden judgment, does not instruct all, yet deceives no one? As far, therefore, as pertains to the delight of present good, the first man in paradise was more blessed than any just man in this mortal infirmity;

but as far as pertains to the hope of the future, anyone in whatever torments of the body is more blessed, to whom it is manifest, not by opinion but by certain truth, that without end he shall have, free from all trouble, the fellowship of the angels in participation in the most high God, than was that man, uncertain of his own fall, in that great felicity of paradise. CHAPTER XIII. Whether all the angels were so created in one and the same felicity, that neither could those who fell know that they would fall, and after the ruin of the falling ones, those who stood received foreknowledge of their own perseverance.

Wherefore it now readily occurs to anyone that, with both joined together, that blessedness is brought about which the intellectual nature desires with right purpose: that is, both that it should enjoy without any trouble the unchangeable good which is God, and that it should hesitate by no doubt nor be deceived by any error that it will abide therein for eternity. This, by pious faith, we believe the angels of light to have; this, by consequent reasoning, we conclude the sinful angels not to have had even before they fell, who by their own depravity were deprived of that light; yet that they had some blessedness, even if not foreknowing, if they led a life before sin, they are assuredly to be believed to have had.

Or if it seems harsh to believe that, when the angels were made, some were so made that they did not receive foreknowledge either of their perseverance or of their fall, while others were so made that by most certain truth they knew the eternity of their blessedness—but rather that all were created from the beginning in equal felicity, and so they remained until those who are now evil fell by their own will from that light of goodness—then beyond doubt it is far harsher now to suppose the holy angels to be uncertain of their eternal blessedness, and to be ignorant concerning themselves of that which we were able to know about them through the holy Scriptures.

For what catholic Christian is ignorant that no new devil will ever come to be from among the good angels, just as neither will this one ever return into the fellowship of the good angels? For the Truth in the Gospel promises to the holy and faithful that they shall be equal to the angels of God; to whom it is also promised that they shall go into eternal life. Moreover, if we are certain that we shall never fall from that immortal felicity, while they are not certain, then we shall already be superior to them, not equal. But because in no way does the Truth deceive, and we shall be equal to them, then assuredly they too are certain of their eternal felicity.

Of which felicity, because those others were not certain (for theirs was not an eternal felicity of which they could be certain, since it was destined to have an end), it remains that either they were unequal, or, if they were equal, after the ruin of those others a certain knowledge of their everlasting felicity accrued to them. Unless perhaps someone should say that what the Lord says of the devil in the Gospel:

He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth—is to be understood thus: that he was not only a murderer from the beginning, that is, from the beginning of the human race, from the time when man was made whom by deceiving he could kill, but also that from the beginning of his own condition he did not stand in the truth, and therefore was never blessed with the holy angels, refusing to be subject to his Creator and rejoicing in his own as it were private power through pride, and on this account false and deceitful, because no one escapes the power of the Omnipotent, and he who through pious subjection refused to hold fast what truly is, affects through proud elation to simulate what is not; so that thus may be understood also what the blessed Apostle John says:

From the beginning the devil sins—that is, from the time he was created he refused righteousness, which a will could not have unless it were pious and subject to God. Whoever acquiesces in this opinion does not hold with those heretics, that is, the Manichaeans, and whatever other pests think likewise, that the devil has a certain nature of evil proper to himself, as if derived from some opposing principle; who rave with such great vanity that, although they have these evangelical words on authority along with us, they do not attend that the Lord did not say: 'He was a stranger to the truth,' but: 'He did not stand in the truth,' where He wished it to be understood as a falling away from the truth, in which truth, had he but stood, he would, made partaker of it, have remained blessed with the holy angels. CHAPTER XIV.

By what manner of speech it was said of the devil that he did not stand in the truth, because the truth is not in him. He added an indication, as though we had asked from what it is shown that he did not stand in the truth, and said: Because the truth is not in him. But it would be in him, if he had stood in it. Yet it was said by a manner of speech less usual. For it seems to sound thus: He did not stand in the truth, because the truth is not in him—as though this were the cause why he did not stand in the truth, namely that the truth is not in him; whereas rather this is the cause why the truth is not in him, namely that he did not stand in the truth. This manner of speech is also in the Psalm: I cried, because you heard me, O God; when it would seem to need to be said: You heard me, O God, because I cried.

But when he had said 'I cried,' as though it were asked of him whence he might show that he had cried, he showed the affection of his cry from the effect of God's hearing it; as though he said: 'Hence I show that I cried, because you heard me.' CHAPTER XV. What is to be thought concerning that which was said: From the beginning the devil sins. That also which John says of the devil—From the beginning the devil sins—they do not understand, if his nature is such, that there is by no means any sin. But what is answered to the prophetic testimonies, whether that which Isaiah says, under the figured person of the prince of Babylon, noting the devil: How is Lucifer fallen, who rose in the morning; or that which Ezekiel says: You were in the delights of the paradise of God, adorned with every precious stone?

Where it is understood that he was at some time without sin. For a little later it is expressly said to him: You walked in your days without fault. If these things cannot more fittingly be understood otherwise, it behooves us also to take that which was said—He did not stand in the truth—thus: that he was in the truth, but did not remain there; and that 'from the beginning the devil sins' is to be thought of not as from the beginning, from the time he was created, but from the beginning of sin, in that sin began to be from his own pride. Nor is that which is written in the book of Job, when the discourse was about the devil—This is the beginning of the Lord's molding, which he made to be mocked by his angels (with which the Psalm too seems to harmonize, where it is read: