Concerning the obscure things of nature, which we perceive to have been made by God the almighty Maker, we must treat not by affirming but by inquiring, chiefly in those books which divine authority commends to us, in which the rashness of asserting an uncertain and doubtful opinion hardly escapes the charge of sacrilege; yet this doubt of inquiry ought not to exceed the bounds of the catholic faith. And since many heretics have been accustomed to draw the exposition of the divine Scriptures toward their own opinion, which is beside the faith of catholic teaching, before treating of this book the catholic faith must be briefly set forth. And it is this:
that God the almighty Father made and established the whole creation through his only-begotten Son, that is, his Wisdom and Power, consubstantial and coeternal with himself, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, who is likewise consubstantial and coeternal. This Trinity, therefore, catholic teaching bids us believe to be called one God, and to have made and created all things that are, insofar as they are; so that every creature, whether intellectual or corporeal — or, as may be said more briefly according to the words of the divine Scriptures, whether invisible or visible — is not born of God, but was made by God out of nothing: and that there is nothing in it which pertains to the Trinity, save that the Trinity founded it and it was founded.
Wherefore it is not lawful to say or believe that the whole creation is either consubstantial with God or coeternal. And that all things which God made are 'very good'; but that evils are not natural; rather, that everything which is called evil is either sin or the penalty of sin. And that there is no sin save the perverse assent of the free will, when we are inclined toward those things which righteousness forbids and from which it is free to abstain; that is, not in the things themselves, but in the unlawful use of them. But the use of things is lawful when the soul abides in the law of God and is subject to the one God in fullest love, and administers the other things subject to it without cupidity or lust — that is, according to the commandment of God.
For thus, without difficulty and misery, and with the highest ease and blessedness, it will administer them. But the penalty of sin is when the soul is tormented by those very creatures which do not serve it, because it does not itself serve God: which creatures obeyed it, so long as it itself obeyed God. And so fire is not evil, because it is a creature of God; but nevertheless that we are burned by it belongs to our weakness, by the desert of sin. And those are called natural sins which must needs be committed before the mercy of God, after we have fallen into this life through the sin of free will.
And that man is renewed through the law of Christ our Lord, when the very ineffable and immutable Wisdom of God deigned to take upon himself full and whole manhood, and to be born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, to be crucified, buried, and to rise again, and to ascend into heaven — which has already been done — and to come to judge the living and the dead at the end of the age, with the resurrection of the dead in the flesh, which is proclaimed as yet to come. That the Holy Spirit has been given to those who believe in him. That there has been established by him the mother Church, which is called catholic, from the fact that it is universally perfect and halts in nothing and is diffused throughout the whole world. That former sins have been remitted to the penitent, and eternal life and the kingdom of heaven promised.
According to this faith, we must consider what things may be inquired into and disputed in this book. 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth.' Four modes of expounding the law are handed down by certain expositors of the Scriptures, whose names can be uttered in Greek but defined and explained in Latin: according to history, according to allegory, according to analogy, according to aetiology. History is when a deed done is recounted, whether divinely or humanly; allegory, when things said figuratively are understood; analogy, when the agreement of the Old and New Testaments is demonstrated; aetiology, when the causes of things said and done are rendered. This, therefore, which is written:
'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' — it may be inquired whether it is to be taken only according to history, or whether it also signifies something figuratively, and how it agrees with the Gospel, and for what cause this book was thus begun. But according to history it is inquired what 'in the beginning' is — that is, whether in the beginning of time, or in the beginning, in the very Wisdom of God, since the Son of God also called himself the beginning, when it was said to him, 'Who are you?' and he said, 'The beginning, who also speak to you.' For there is a beginning without beginning, and there is a beginning with another beginning. The beginning without beginning is the Father alone; therefore we believe all things to be from one beginning. But the Son is a beginning in such a way as to be from the Father.
The very first intellectual creature also may be called the beginning to those things of which it is the head, which God made. For since the head may rightly be called the beginning, in that gradation the apostle did not say that the woman alone is the head of anyone. For he said that the man is the head of the woman, and Christ the head of the man, and God the head of Christ; thus the creature is subjoined to the Creator. Or was it therefore said 'in the beginning' because heaven and earth were made first? Or could not heaven and earth have been made first among the creatures, if the angels and all the intellectual powers were made first, since we must needs believe that the angels also are a creature of God and were made by him? For the prophet enumerated the angels also in the hundred and forty-eighth psalm, when he said: 'He commanded, and they were made';
'He commanded, and they were created.' But if the angels were made first, it may be inquired whether they were made in time, or before all time, or at the outset of time. If in time, then time already existed before the angels came to be; and since time itself is also a creature, it necessarily begins that we must accept something as having been made before the angels. But if we say they were made at the outset of time, so that time began with them, then it must be said to be false, as some hold, that time began with heaven and earth. But if the angels were made before time, it must be inquired how it was said in what follows: 'And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, that they may shine upon the earth and divide between the day and the night;'
'and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.' For here it may seem that times then began, when heaven and the lights of heaven began to run their ordered courses. But if this is true, how could there have been days before there was time, if time took its origin from the course of the lights, which are said to have been made on the fourth day? Or was this arrangement of days ordered according to the custom of human frailty, by the law of narrating and of insinuating sublime things humbly to the humble, whereby the very speech of the narrator cannot but have some parts first, some in the middle, and some last? Or was it said 'that there be lights' in the sense of these times which men measure by intervals of delays in the motion of a body?
For these times, if there were no motion of bodies, would not exist at all; and they themselves are more manifest to men. But if we admit this, it must be inquired whether, besides the motion of bodies, there can be time in the motion of an incorporeal creature — such as is the soul, or the mind itself, which is certainly moved in its thoughts, and in that very motion has one thing prior and another posterior, which cannot be understood without an interval of time. And if we accept this, time can be understood to have existed even before heaven and earth, if the angels were made before heaven and earth. For there was already a creature which by incorporeal motions passed time; and rightly is time understood to be together with it, as in a soul which through the bodily senses has become accustomed to bodily motions.
But perhaps it is not so among the princes and the supereminent creatures. But however this may be — for it is a most secret matter and impenetrable to human conjectures — this at least must be accepted in faith, even though it exceeds the measure of our thought: that every creature has a beginning, and that time itself is a creature, and by this that it too has a beginning and is not coeternal with the Creator. Heaven and earth may also seem to have been put for the whole creation, so that both this visible ethereal firmament is called heaven, and that invisible creature of the supereminent powers; and again, earth is all the lower part of the world with the animals by which it is inhabited.
Or is heaven called all the sublime and invisible creation, and earth all the visible, so that in this way too that which is said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' may be understood as the whole creation? For perhaps not incongruously, in comparison with the invisible creature, all that is visible is called earth, so that the former is designated by the name of heaven; since the soul also, which is invisible, when it swelled with the love of visible things and was exalted by the attainment of them, was called earth, as it is written: 'Why is earth and ashes proud?' But it may be inquired whether he called heaven and earth all things already distinguished and composed, or the first formless matter of the universe, which was arranged into these formed and
beautiful natures, arranged, when God ineffably commanded, into these formed and shapely natures — did he designate this by the name of heaven and earth? For although we have read it written, 'who made the world of formless matter,' yet we cannot say that this matter itself, of whatever kind it be, was not made by him, from whom we confess and believe all things to be; so that even the arrangement and ordering of each several thing, formed and distinguished, may be called the world, but the matter itself heaven and earth, being called as it were the seed of heaven and earth — and heaven and earth as it were confused and mingled, fit to receive from God the Maker the forms to be taken on. Thus far let this be inquired concerning what was said: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth'; for none of these things could be rashly affirmed.
'And the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss; and the Spirit of God was borne over the water.' By the heretics who oppose the Old Testament, a calumny is wont to be raised against this passage, when they say: How did God make heaven and earth in the beginning, if the earth already existed? not understanding that this was subjoined in order that it might be explained what kind of earth it was, concerning which it had already been said, 'God made heaven and earth.' Thus, then, it must be taken: In the beginning God made heaven and earth; but this earth, which God made, was invisible and unformed, until by the same God it was separated and, out of confusion, constituted in a fixed order of things.
Or is it better understood thus: that in this further account the same matter of things is again commended, which above was designated by the name of heaven and earth, so that this be the sense: In the beginning God made heaven and earth; but this which was called heaven and earth was earth invisible and unformed, and darkness over the abyss; that is, that which was called heaven and earth was a certain confused matter, out of which the world — which consists of two greatest parts, namely heaven and earth — might be fashioned, the elements being arranged and form received? Which confusion of matter could thus be conveyed to popular understanding, if the earth were said to be invisible and unformed, or disordered, or unprepared, and darkness over the abyss, that is,
over the vastest depth: which depth is perhaps so named from this, that on account of its very formlessness it can be penetrated by no one's understanding. 'And darkness was over the face of the abyss.' Was the abyss beneath and the darkness above, as though places were already distinct? Or, since the confusion of matter is still being set forth, which in Greek is also called 'chaos,' was it therefore said, 'Darkness was over the abyss,' because there was no light? which, if it existed, would surely be above, because it would be more eminent and would illuminate those things which were subject to it. And in truth, whoever diligently considers what darkness is, finds it to be nothing other than the absence of light. Thus, therefore, it was said, 'Darkness was over the abyss,' as if it had been said:
there was no light over the abyss. Wherefore this matter, which by the subsequent operation of God is ordered and distinguished into the forms of things, was called earth invisible and unformed and a depth lacking light: which was called above by the name of heaven and earth, as it were the seed, as has been said, of heaven and earth — unless indeed by saying 'heaven and earth' he wished first to set forth the totality, so that afterwards, the matter of the world being intimated, he might set out its parts. 'And the Spirit of God was borne over the water.' Nowhere had he said, 'God made water'; nor yet is it in any way to be believed that God did not make water and that it already existed before he had established anything.
For he it is of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things, as the apostle says. Therefore God made water also, and to believe otherwise is a great error. Why then was it not said that God made water? Or did he again wish to call by the name of water that same matter which he had designated by the name of heaven and earth, or of the invisible and unformed earth and the abyss? For why should it not also be called water, if it could be called earth, when as yet there was neither water distinguished and formed, nor earth, nor anything else? But perhaps first it was called heaven and earth, second unformed earth and an abyss lacking light, third — not incongruously — water:
so that by the first name, that of the very universe on account of which the matter was made out of absolutely nothing, it should be called the matter of heaven and earth; by the second, that of the unformed earth and the abyss, its formlessness should be intimated, because among all the elements earth is the most formless and shines less than the rest; by the third, that of water, should be signified the matter subjected to the work of the Artificer; for water is more mobile than earth. And therefore, on account of the ease of working and the readier motion, the matter subjected to the Artificer was rather to be called water than earth. And air indeed is more mobile than water; and the ether is not absurdly believed or perceived to be more mobile than air itself; but by the name of air or ether the matter would be less fittingly called.
For these elements are rather believed to have the power of acting, but earth and water of being acted upon. But if that is obscure, this at least I think is most manifest, that the wind moves water and some earthly things; but wind is air in motion, and as it were fluctuating. Therefore, since air manifestly moves water, but whence air itself is moved so as to become wind is obscure, who would doubt that it is more fitting to call by the name of water the matter which is moved than by the name of air, which moves? But to be moved is to be acted upon; to move is to act. To this is added that those things which the earth brings forth are watered by water, that they may be able to be born and to grow, so that this same water seems almost to be converted into these very things being born.
Wherefore the matter would more fittingly be called by the name of water, since it was intimated as subjected to the work of the Artificer on account of its mobility and its conversion into whatever bodies are being born, than by the name of air, in which mobility alone could be observed, but the other qualities, by which the matter would be more expressly signified, would have been lacking. So that this be the whole sense: In the beginning God made heaven and earth, that is, the matter which could receive the form of heaven and earth. Which matter was earth invisible and unformed, that is, a formless depth lacking light: which nevertheless, since it was subjected to the moving and working Artificer, was for this very reason — that it yields to the worker — also named water.
In this signification of the matter, then, its end was first intimated — that is, for what it was made; second, its very formlessness; third, its servitude under the Artificer and its subjection. And so, first, heaven and earth — for it was for this that the matter was made; second, earth invisible and unformed, and darkness over the abyss, that is, that very formlessness without light — whence also it was called earth invisible; third, water subjected to the Spirit for receiving disposition and forms. Therefore the Spirit of God was borne over the water, that we might understand the Spirit as working, but the water as that whence it worked, that is, the fabricable matter.
For when we say these three names of one thing — the matter of the world, formless matter, fabricable matter — to the first of these names 'heaven and earth' is well joined; to the second, obscurity, confusion, depth, darkness; to the third, ease of yielding, over which the Spirit of the Artificer is now borne for working. 'And the Spirit of God was borne over the water.' It was not borne over it as oil over water, or water over earth — that is, as though it were contained; but, if examples are to be taken for this from visible things, as this light of the sun or moon is borne over those bodies which it illuminates on the earth; for it is not contained by them, but, though contained together with the heaven, is borne over these.
Likewise we must beware of supposing that the Spirit of God was borne over matter as though across intervals of space, but rather by a certain efficient and fashioning power, so that what it is borne over is made and fashioned—just as the will of a craftsman is borne over the wood or over whatever thing is subjected to it for working upon, or even over the very members of his own body which he moves for working. And this comparison, though it is already more excellent than any bodily thing, is yet slight and next to nothing for understanding the superior bearing of the Spirit of God over the matter of the world subjected to it for working. But among those things which can in any way at all be grasped by men, we find no clearer or nearer comparison to the reality of which we are speaking.
Wherefore in reflection of this kind that precept will best be held which is written: Blessing the Lord, exalt him as much as ever you can, for he will still surpass. But let this be said if in this place 'the Spirit of God' is taken as the Holy Spirit, whom we venerate in that ineffable and unchangeable Trinity itself. Yet it can also be understood otherwise, so that by 'the Spirit of God' we understand a vital creature by which this whole visible world and all corporeal things are held together and moved, to which God almighty granted a certain power of serving him in working upon the things that are begotten.
Since this spirit is better than any ethereal body—because every invisible creature precedes every visible creature—it is not absurdly called the Spirit of God. For what among the things he founded is not God's, seeing that even concerning the earth itself it is said: The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and that which is written with a universal embrace: For all things are yours, O Lord, who love souls? But this spirit can then be so understood, if what has been said—
In the beginning God made heaven and earth—we understand to have been said only of the visible creation, so that over the matter of visible things, at the outset of their fashioning, there was borne an invisible spirit, which nevertheless was itself also a creature, that is, not God, but a nature made and established by God. But if the matter of the whole creation—that is, of the intellectual, the animal, and the corporeal—is believed to be signified by that word 'water,' then in no way can 'the Spirit of God' in this place be understood except as that unchangeable and holy Spirit, who was borne over the matter of all things which God made and founded.
A third opinion about this spirit can arise, namely that it be believed that by the name 'spirit' the element of air is meant, so that thus the four elements are intimated, out of which this visible world arises: namely heaven and earth and water and air—not because they were already distinguished and adorned, but because in the though formless confusion of that matter they were nonetheless prefigured as about to emerge; which formless confusion was designated by the name of darkness and the deep.
But whichever of these opinions be true, it must be believed that of all things which have come into being, both those which are seen and those which are not seen—not with respect to defects, which are contrary to nature, but with respect to the natures themselves—God is the author and founder, and that there is absolutely no creature which does not have from him the beginning and perfection of its kind and substance. And God said: Let there be light. And light was made. That God said 'Let there be light' we ought not to take as a voice sent forth from lungs, nor by tongue and teeth. These are the thoughts of carnal men; but to be wise according to the flesh is death. Rather, ineffably was it said: Let there be light.
But whether this which was said was said to the only-begotten Son, or whether that very thing which was said is the only-begotten Son who is called the Word of God, through whom all things were made—this can be asked, provided only that impiety be absent, namely that we believe the Word of God, the only-begotten Son, to be as it were a voice uttered such as is done by us. But the Word of God, through whom all things were made, neither began to be nor will cease to be; but being born without a beginning it is coeternal with the Father. Wherefore this which was said, 'Let there be light,' if it both began and ceased to be said, was rather a word spoken to the Son than the very Son himself.
And yet even this must be taken ineffably, lest a carnal image creep into the soul and disturb the pious spiritual understanding; for that anything should begin and cease in the nature of God, if it be taken properly, is a rash and headlong opinion—yet one to be very humanely conceded to the carnal and to little ones, not as to those who will remain in it, but as to those who are to rise up from it. For whatever God is said to begin and to cease must in no way be understood in his own nature, but in his creature, which obeys him in wondrous ways. And God said: Let there be light. Was it that light which lies open to these fleshly eyes, or some hidden light which we are not granted to see through this body?
And if hidden, whether corporeal—which stretches through intervals of space, perhaps in the higher parts of the world—or incorporeal, such as is in the soul, to which is referred the judgment of avoiding and seeking things from the senses of the body, a judgment which even the souls of beasts do not lack; or that higher light which appears through reasoning, from which begins everything that has been created? For whatever light it signifies, we must nevertheless take it to have been made and created, not that light by which the very Wisdom of God shines, which is not created but born—lest God be thought to have been without light before he founded this light of which we now treat. For of this, as the very words sufficiently teach, this is affirmed, that it was made. And he said, it says, Let there be light. And light was made.
One is the light born of God, and another the light which God made. The light born of God is the very Wisdom of God, but the light that was made is any changeable thing, whether incorporeal or corporeal. Now it is wont to trouble people how corporeal light could have existed before there was a heaven and the luminaries of heaven, which are set forth after this one—as though indeed it could easily be perceived by man, or in any way at all be perceived, whether there is any light beyond the heaven which is nevertheless distinguished and diffused through intervals of space and embraces the world. But since here it is permitted also to understand incorporeal light, if we say that not only the visible creation but the whole creation is set forth in this book, what need is there to linger in this controversy?
And perhaps that which men inquire—when the angels were made—is signified by this light itself, most briefly indeed, yet most fittingly and most becomingly. And God saw the light, that it was good. This sentence ought to be understood as signifying not, as it were, the gladness of some unwonted good, but the approval of the work. For what is more fittingly said of God, so far as it can be said among men, than when it is thus put: 'he said,' 'it was made,' 'it pleased'—so that in that which he said his command may be understood, in that which was made his power, in that which pleased his kindness; even as ineffable things had to be told through a man to men, so that they might be able to profit all? And God divided between the light and the darkness.
From this it may be understood with how great ease of the divine work these things are said to have been effected. For there is no one who would so suppose the light to have been made as though it were confounded with the darkness and on that account afterwards needed a separation; but by that very fact by which the light was made, there also ensued the division between light and darkness. For what fellowship has light with darkness? God therefore divided between light and darkness, because he made the light, whose absence is called darkness. Now there is a difference between light and darkness, just as there is between clothing and nakedness, or the full and the empty, and the like. Now in how many ways light can be understood has been said above, to which the contrary privations can be named darkness.
For one is the light which is seen by these bodily eyes, being itself also corporeal, such as that of the sun and moon and stars and anything of this kind, to which darkness is contrary when some place lacks that light. Another light is the sentient life, able to discern the things that are referred through the body to the soul's judgment, that is: white and black, sonorous and hoarse, sweet-smelling and foul-smelling, sweet and bitter, hot and cold, and the rest of this kind. For one is the light which is perceived by the eyes, and another is that which is done through the eyes so that it may be perceived. For the former is in the body, but the latter, although it receives through the body the things which it perceives, is nevertheless in the soul.
Contrary to this are darknesses, a certain insensibility, or if it is better called insensuality, that is, not to perceive, although things be brought forward which could be perceived, if in that life there were this light whereby perception occurs. And this is not when the ministrations of the body are lacking, as in the blind or deaf—for in the souls of these there is this light of which we now treat, but the instruments of the body are lacking—nor in that way in which in silence the voice is not heard, when both this light is in the soul and the instruments of the body are present, but nothing that could be perceived is brought forward. Therefore he who does not perceive for these causes does not lack this light;