Moralia in Job 1332

16. All things were created together as to their substance, not as to their form. — Whom does He signify under the name of Behemoth but the ancient enemy, which, interpreted from the Hebrew word, in the Latin tongue means 'animal'? Whose person is plainly shown when, further on, his malice is subjoined. But since it is written of God that 'he made all things together' (Ecclesiasticus 18:1), why does He declare that He made this animal together with man, when it is established that He made all things at once? Again it must be asked how God created all things together, when Moses describes them as distinctly created through the variation of a succession of six days (Genesis 1).

Yet this we understand more readily if we subtly search out the very causes of origins. For the substance of things was created together, but their form was not fashioned together; and what existed together in the substance of matter did not appear together in the form of species. For when heaven and earth are described as made together, together are made things spiritual and corporeal, together whatever arises from heaven, together whatever is produced from earth. The sun, indeed, the moon, and the stars are said to have been made in heaven on the fourth day; yet what came forth in its form on the fourth day existed on the first day in the substance of heaven by its creation. On the first day the earth is said to be created, and on the third the shrubs were established, and all the green things of the earth are described;

but that which on the third day brought itself forth in form was assuredly established on the first day in that very substance of earth from which it arose. Hence it is that Moses recounted all things distinctly established through single days, and yet subjoined that all were created together, saying: 'These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord made heaven and earth, and every shrub of the field before it sprang up in the earth, and all the herb of the region' (Genesis 2:4-5). For he who had narrated heaven and earth, shrub and herb created on diverse days, now makes manifest that they were made in one day, so as clearly to show that every creature existed together as to substance, although it did not proceed together as to form. Hence there also it is written:

'God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female made he them' (Genesis 1:27). For Eve is not yet described as made, and yet the human being is already declared male and female. But because from Adam's side the woman was without doubt to proceed, in him she is already reckoned as to substance, from whom she was to be produced as to form. Yet we can consider these things even in the smallest matters, so that from the least we may weigh the greater. For when the herb is created, its fruit is not yet shown in it, nor is the seed of its fruit. Yet the fruit and the seed are present in it even when they do not appear, because assuredly they are together in the substance of the root, though they do not come forth together through the increments of time. 17. In what sense the angel and man were created together.

The deserter angel by sinning lost the gifts of grace, not of nature. Two principles of the Manichees are rejected. — But since we say that those things were created together as to substance which we find to arise one from another, in what manner is Behemoth asserted to be created together with blessed Job, when neither is the substance of angel and of man one, nor is man brought forth from angel, nor angel from man? But if Behemoth is said to be made together with blessed Job for this reason, that no doubt is entertained that every creature was established together by its Author — who in His action is by no means drawn out by any prolongation of time — why is it said specially of Behemoth that which is held generally in common with all creatures?

But if we weigh the causes of things by subtle discussion, we recognize that the angel and man were made together — together, that is, not by unity of time, but by cognition of reason; together by the received image of wisdom, and not together by the conjoined substance of form. For it is written of man: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness' (Genesis 1:26). And by Ezekiel it is said to Satan: 'Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty; thou wast in the delights of the paradise of God' (Ezekiel 28:12-13). In the whole of creation, therefore, man and the angel existed as created together, because each came forth distinct from every irrational creature.

Since, then, in the whole creation of things there is no rational animal save the angel and man, whatever cannot subsist by reason was not made together with man. Let it therefore be said to man, let it be said of the angel, who, though he lost the power of loftiness, did not lose the subtlety of a rational nature: 'Behold Behemoth, which I made with thee.' So that while man considers that he who was made together with him by reason has perished, he may dread the fall of pride, so near to himself, from the very perdition of his kinsman. But in these words it is to be shrewdly observed that by the Lord's own voice the wicked dogma of Manichaeus is openly reproved, who, while he speaks of two principles, endeavours to assert that the nation of darkness was not made.

For how is the most wicked nation said to be unmade, when the Lord testifies that He made this Behemoth — namely, the author of wickedness — well-created as to nature? But since we have heard with whom this Behemoth was made, let us hear what, being ruined, he does. There follows: