BOOK ONE. All divine Scripture is twofold, according to that which the Lord signifies when He says that a scribe instructed in the kingdom of God is like the father of a household bringing forth from his treasure things new and old — which two are also called the Testaments. Now in all the holy books one must consider what eternal realities are there intimated, what deeds are narrated, what future things are foretold, what actions are enjoined or admonished. In the narration therefore of things done, the question is asked whether all things are to be taken only according to a figurative understanding, or whether they are also to be asserted and defended according to the reality of the events. For no Christian will dare to say that they are not to be taken figuratively, heeding the Apostle who says:
'Now all these things happened to them in figure,' and that which is written in Genesis, 'And the two shall be in one flesh,' which the Apostle commends as a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church. If therefore that Scripture is to be examined in both ways, in what sense was it said, apart from any allegorical signification: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth'? Whether in the beginning of time, or because it was first of all, or in the Beginning which is the Word of God, the only-begotten Son? And how can it be shown that God works changeable and temporal things without any change of Himself? And what is signified by the name of heaven and earth?
Whether the spiritual and the corporeal creation received the appellation of heaven and earth, or only the corporeal — so that in this book he is understood to have been silent about the spiritual, and to have said 'heaven and earth' in such a way that he meant to signify every corporeal creature, both higher and lower? Or was the formless matter of each called heaven and earth — namely the spiritual life, such as it can be in itself, not turned toward the Creator (for by such a turning it is formed and perfected;
but if it is not turned, it is formless) — while the corporeal matter, if it can be understood through the privation of every corporeal quality which appears in formed matter, when there are already kinds of bodies perceptible either by sight or by any other bodily sense? Or is heaven to be understood as the spiritual creature, perfect and ever blessed from the very outset in which it was made, but earth as corporeal matter as yet imperfect? For 'the earth,' it says, 'was invisible and unarranged, and darkness was over the deep': by which words the formlessness of corporeal substance seems to be signified. Or is the formlessness of both signified by these later words as well? The corporeal indeed by that which was said:
'the earth was invisible and unarranged'; but the spiritual by that which was said: 'and darkness was over the deep' — so that by a transferred expression we may understand the dark deep to be the formless nature of life, unless it be turned toward the Creator, by which alone it can be formed so that it is not a deep, and be illumined so that it is not dark. And how was it said, 'darkness was over the deep'? Was it because there was no light? For if there were light, it would surely be above and, as it were, would overflow from above: which then comes to pass in the spiritual creature when it is turned toward the unchangeable and incorporeal Light, which is God. And how did God say, 'Let there be light'? Whether temporally, or in the eternity of the Word? And if temporally, then surely changeably.
How then can it be understood that God says this except through some creature? For He Himself is unchangeable. And if it was through a creature that God said, 'Let there be light,' how is light the first creature, if there was already a creature through which God might say, 'Let there be light'? Or is light not the first creature, because it had already been said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth'? And could a voice be produced temporally and changeably through a heavenly creature, by which it might be said, 'Let there be light'? And if that is so, this corporeal light which we perceive with bodily eyes was made when God said, through the spiritual creature which God had already made when in the beginning He made heaven and earth, 'Let there be light,' in that manner in which through the inner and hidden motion of such a creature it could divinely be said:
'Let there be light.' Or did the voice of God saying, 'Let there be light,' even sound corporeally, just as the voice of God saying, 'Thou art my beloved Son,' sounded corporeally? And this through a corporeal creature which God had made when in the beginning He made heaven and earth, before the light came to be which was made in this sounding voice? And if that is so, in what tongue did that voice sound when God said, 'Let there be light,' since there was not yet the diversity of tongues, which was afterward brought about in the building of the tower after the flood? What one and only tongue was there, in which God spoke, 'Let there be light'? And who was there who ought to hear and understand, to whom a voice of this kind might be uttered? Or is this an absurd and carnal thought and suspicion? What then shall we say?
Is it that what is understood in the sound of the voice when it is said, 'Let there be light' — and not the corporeal sound itself — this is rightly understood to be the voice of God? And does this very thing pertain to the nature of His Word, of which it is said, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'? For when it is said of Him, 'All things were made through Him,' it is sufficiently shown that light too was made through Him, when God said, 'Let there be light.' And if that is so, then what God says, 'Let there be light,' is eternal, because the Word of God, God with God, the only Son of God, is co-eternal with the Father — although by God's saying this in the eternal Word a temporal creature was made. For since words belong to time when we say 'when' and 'at some time,'
nevertheless it is eternal to the Word of God when anything ought to come to be, and it comes to be then, when it exists in that Word that it ought to have come to be — in which Word there is no 'when' and 'at some time,' since that whole Word is eternal. And what is that light itself which was made? Is it something spiritual or something corporeal? For if spiritual, it can itself be that first creature, already perfected by this very saying, which was first called heaven when it was said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' — so that what God said, 'Let there be light. And light was made,' may be understood as its own conversion, made and illumined when the Creator called it back to Himself. And why was it said thus, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' and not said, 'In the beginning God said: Let heaven and earth be made,'
'and heaven and earth were made,' just as it is narrated of the light: 'God said: Let there be light. And light was made'? Was it because first, under the name of heaven and earth, that which God made had to be comprehended and set forth universally, and then afterward carried out part by part, in what manner He made it, when it is said of each, 'God said' — that is, because He made through His Word whatever He made? Or, when the formlessness of matter, whether spiritual or corporeal, was first coming to be, was it not to be said, 'God said:
Let it be made'? Because the imperfection — when, being unlike that which supremely and primordially is, by a certain formlessness it tends toward nothingness — does not imitate the form of the Word ever cleaving to the Father, by which God eternally utters all things (neither with the sound of a voice nor with a thought unrolling the times of sounds, but by a light co-eternal with itself, of the Wisdom begotten from Himself). But it then imitates the form of the Word, ever and unchangeably cleaving to the Father, when it too, by the conversion proper to its kind toward that which truly and ever is — that is, toward the Creator of its own substance — takes on form and becomes a perfect creature. So that in what Scripture narrates, 'God said:
Let it be made,' we may understand God's incorporeal utterance in the nature of His co-eternal Word, calling back to Himself the imperfection of the creature, so that it may not be formless but be formed according to the several things which He carries out in order. In which conversion and forming, because after its own manner it imitates God the Word — that is, the Son of God ever cleaving to the Father in full likeness and equal essence, whereby He and the Father are one — but does not imitate this form of the Word if, turned away from the Creator, it remains formless and imperfect: for this reason the commemoration of the Son is made not in that He is the Word, but only in that He is the Beginning, when it is said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth'; for the origin of the creature is intimated while it is still in the formlessness of imperfection.
But the commemoration of the Son, that He is also the Word, is made in that which is written, 'God said: Let it be made,' so that through that which is the Beginning, He may intimate the origin of the creature existing from Him but still imperfect, while through that which is the Word, He may intimate the perfecting of the creature called back to Him, that it might be formed by cleaving to the Creator and, after its own kind, imitating the form eternally and unchangeably cleaving to the Father, from whom it is at once that which He is. For the Word, the Son, does not have a formless life, to whom not only is being the same as living, but even this living is for Him the same as living wisely and blessedly.
But a creature, although spiritual and intellectual or rational — which seems to be nearer to that Word — can have a formless life, because it is not the case that, as being is for it the same as living, so this living is the same as living wisely and blessedly. For turned away from the unchangeable Wisdom, it lives foolishly and wretchedly, which is formlessness. But it is formed when turned toward the unchangeable Light of Wisdom, the Word of God; for from Him from whom it came into being, so as to exist in some fashion and to live, toward Him it is turned, that it may live wisely and blessedly. For the beginning of the intellectual creature is the eternal Wisdom:
which Beginning, abiding unchangeably in itself, would in no way cease by a hidden inspiration of calling to speak to that creature to which it is the Beginning, that it might be turned toward that from which it existed, since otherwise it could not be formed and made perfect. And therefore, when asked who He was, He answered: 'The Beginning, for I also speak to you.' But what the Son speaks, the Father speaks, because by the Father's speaking the Word is uttered, which is the Son, in an eternal manner — if 'manner' is to be said — while God utters the co-eternal Word. For in God there is supreme and holy and just goodness, and a certain love coming forth into His works, not from need but from beneficence. Therefore, before it was written, 'God said: Let there be light,' Scripture went before, saying:
'And the Spirit of God was borne above the water.' For whether by the name of water He wished to call the whole corporeal matter, so as thereby to intimate that from which were made and formed all the things which we can now distinguish in their several kinds — calling it water because we see all things upon the earth formed and grow together into various species out of the moist nature — or whether by it He meant a certain spiritual life, as it were fluctuating before the form of conversion: in any case the Spirit of God was borne above, because whatever it was that He had begun to form and perfect lay beneath the good will of the Creator, so that, when God said in His Word, 'Let there be light,' it might abide in the good will, that is, in the good pleasure of Him, according to the measure of its kind — that which was made.
And therefore it is right that what pleased God, Scripture saying, 'And light was made. And God saw the light, that it is good' — so that, just as at the very outset of the creature begun (which was commemorated under the name of heaven and earth on account of that which was to be perfected in it) the Trinity of the Creator is intimated — for when Scripture says, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' we understand the Father in the name of God, and the Son in the name of the Beginning, who is the Beginning not to the Father, but through Himself first to the spiritual creature created primordially and chiefly, and consequently also to the whole creation. But when Scripture says:
'And the Spirit of God was borne above the water,' we recognize the complete commemoration of the Trinity — so also in the conversion and perfecting of the creature, that the species of things may be set in order, the same Trinity is intimated: namely the Word of God, when it is said, 'God said,' and the Begetter of the Word, and the holy Goodness in which whatever is perfect according to the measure of its nature pleases God, when it is said, 'God saw that it is good.' But why is the creature, though imperfect, commemorated first, and afterward the Spirit of God commemorated, Scripture first saying, 'But the earth was invisible and unarranged, and darkness was over the deep,' and then adding, 'And the Spirit of God was borne above the water'?
Is it because a needy and indigent love loves in such a way that it subjects itself to the things it loves, and therefore, when the Spirit of God was being commemorated — in whom His holy benevolence and love is understood — He was said to be borne above, lest God should be thought to love the works He must make out of the necessity of need rather than out of the abundance of beneficence? Mindful of which the Apostle, about to speak of charity, says that he will show a way that surpasses; and in another place he says, 'the charity of Christ, surpassing knowledge.'
Since therefore the Spirit of God had thus to be intimated as being borne above, it was more fittingly done that first something begun should be intimated, above which He might be said to be borne — not by place, but by a power surpassing and excelling all things. So too, when things had been perfected and formed out of that beginning, God saw that it is good; for what was made pleased Him in that same goodness in which it pleased Him that it should be made. For there are two reasons on account of which God loves His creature: that it may be, and that it may abide. That there might be, then, something to abide, the Spirit of God was borne above the water; but that it might abide, God saw that it is good. And what was said of the light, this is said of all things.
For certain things abide, having surmounted all temporal mutability, in the most ample holiness under God; but certain other things abide according to the measures of their own time, while the beauty of the ages is woven together through the passing away and succession of things. That, then, which God said, 'Let there be light. And light was made' — did He say it on some day, or before every day? For if He said it by a Word co-eternal with Himself, He surely said it timelessly; but if He said it temporally, then not by a Word co-eternal with Himself but through some temporal creature. And on this account light will not be the first creature, because there already existed that through which it might be said temporally, 'Let there be light.' And that is understood to have been made before every day, which was said:
'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' so that by the name of heaven is understood the spiritual creature now made and formed, as it were the heaven of this heaven, which is the highest among bodies. For on the second day the firmament was made, which He again called heaven. But by the name of earth, invisible and unarranged and with a dark deep, the imperfection of corporeal substance was signified, out of which those temporal things might come to be, of which the first would be light. But how it could be said temporally, 'Let there be light,' through a creature which He made before the times, is difficult to find. For we do not understand it to have been said by the sound of a voice; for whatever is of that sort is corporeal.
Or did He make out of that imperfection of corporeal substance some corporeal voice, through which might sound, 'Let there be light'? Then some vocal body was created and formed before the light. But if that is so, then time already existed, through which the voice might run and the intervals of succeeding sounds pass by. But if time already existed before light was made — the time in which the voice might come to be by which 'Let there be light' should sound — to what day did that time belong? For it is one and the same day, and that the first, which begins to be numbered as the day on which light was made. Or does the whole span of time belong to that same day: both that in which the vocal body was made through which 'Let there be light' should sound, and that in which the light itself was made? But every such voice is uttered by a speaker for the sake of the bodily sense of a hearer;
for it is so made that it perceives when the air is struck. Did then that invisible and unarranged thing, whatever it was, have such a sense of hearing, that God should thus resound to it and say, 'Let there be light'? Let this absurdity therefore depart from the mind of one who thinks. Was it then a spiritual, yet nevertheless temporal, motion by which we understand it said, 'Let there be light,' expressed by the eternal God through the co-eternal Word in the spiritual creature which He had already made when it was said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' — that is, in that heaven of heaven?
Or is this utterance to be understood as fixed and, as it were, impressed by the Word co-eternal with the Father in the mind and reason of the spiritual creature, not only without any sound, but even without any temporal motion of the spiritual creature — according to which that lower dark imperfection of corporeal nature might be moved and turned toward form, and light might come to be?
But it is a great and most difficult thing to grasp how it is that, while God does not command temporally, nor does the creature — which by contemplation of Truth transcends all times — hear it temporally, but rather transmits into things which are below the reasons impressed upon it by the unchangeable Wisdom of God, as it were intelligible utterances, temporal motions come to be in temporal things, whether in their being formed or in their being administered. But if the light which was first said 'to be made,' and was made, is to be understood also to hold the primacy of the creature, this same is the intellectual life, which, unless it were turned toward the Creator to be illumined, would fluctuate formlessly.
But when it was turned and illumined, there came to pass that which was said in the Word of God, 'Let there be light.' Yet just as it was said without time — because time does not fall upon the Word co-eternal with the Father — someone might perhaps ask whether it was thus also made without time. But how can this be understood, when, after the light was made and divided from the darkness and the names of day and night were assigned, Scripture says, 'And there was made evening, and there was made morning, one day'? Whence that work of God seems to have been done through the span of a day, which being completed, evening was reached, which is the beginning of night. And likewise, the nocturnal span being completed, the whole day was fulfilled, so that morning came into a second day, on which day God might work something else consequently.
Nay rather, this very thing is exceedingly marvelous: since God, with no span of syllables, by the eternal reason of His Word said, 'Let there be light,' why the light was made with so great a delay, until the span of a day should pass and evening come to be. Or was the light perhaps quickly made, but the delay of the diurnal time could be consumed in this, that it was being separated from the darkness, and each thing, being distinguished, was marked by its own names? It would be strange if even this could be done by God with so great a delay as is described by us. For the distinction of light and darkness followed indeed in the very work itself, when the light came to be; for light could not exist unless it were distinguished from darkness.
But as for the fact that God called the light Day and the darkness Night — with how great a delay could that be done, even if He had done this syllable by syllable through the sound of a voice, save with as great a delay as is used by us in saying, 'let light be called day and darkness be called night'? Unless perhaps someone were so foolish as to think that, because God is great above all things, the very few syllables uttered by the mouth of God could have been stretched out through the whole span of a day. To this is added that it was by a Word co-eternal with Himself — that is, by the inward and eternal reasons of His unchangeable Wisdom, not by a corporeal sound of voice — that God called the light Day and the darkness Night.
For again the question is asked: if He called by the words which we use, in what tongue did He call, and what need was there of transient sounds, where there was no bodily hearing of anyone? And no answer is found. Or must it be said that, when this work of God had been quickly accomplished, the light stood so long, with no night succeeding, until the diurnal span should be completed, and the night succeeding the light remained so long, until the span of nocturnal time should pass by, and morning come to be of the following day, the first one being finished and passed?
But if I say this, I fear I may be laughed at both by those who have most certainly come to know, and by those who can most easily observe, that at the very time when it is night with us, the presence of light illumines those parts of the world through which the sun returns from setting to rising, and on this account, in all the twenty-four hours, day is not lacking, but through the circuit of the whole revolution there is day in one place, night in another. Shall we then place God in some region, where evening might come to be for Him, when the light withdrew from that region into another? For in the book which is called Ecclesiastes it is thus written: 'And the sun rises, and the sun sets, and leads to its own place' — that is, into that place from which it rose. For it follows and says:
The rising sun goes thither toward the south and circles round to the north. Therefore when the southern region has the sun, it is day for us; but when, circling round, the sun reaches the region of the north, it is night for us. Yet it is not the case that it is not day in that other region where the sun is present. Unless perhaps one's heart is to be swayed by poetic fictions, so that we believe the sun plunges itself into the sea, and thence, after being bathed, rises again in the morning on the other side. And yet, if it were so, the very abyss would be illumined by the presence of the sun, and there it would be day; for the sun could indeed illuminate the waters, seeing that it could not be extinguished by them. But it is monstrous to suspect this. And what of the fact that the sun did not yet even exist? Wherefore, if a spiritual light was made on the first day, did it perhaps set, so that night might succeed it?
But if it was a bodily light, what light is that which we cannot see after the setting of the sun, since neither the moon nor any stars yet existed? Or if it is always in that part of the heaven in which the sun is, so as to be not the sun's own light but as it were its companion, so joined to it that it cannot be distinguished or discerned, we come back to the same difficulty in resolving this question; for this light too, in the same manner as the sun, circling as its companion from setting to rising, returns and is in another part of the world at the very time when this part in which we are grows dark into night. From this it forces us — far be the thought — to believe that God was in one part only, which part this light would forsake, so that evening might come upon it.
Or does it perhaps bring light to that part in which He was about to make man, so that when the light had departed from that very part, evening is said to have come, even while that light which had departed thence was in another part, destined to rise as morning when its circuit was completed? Why then was the sun made to have power over the day, to give light upon the earth, if that light of day had already sufficed to make the day, which had even been called day? Or did that earlier light illumine the upper regions far distant from the earth, so that it could not be perceived on earth, and thus it was fitting that the sun be made, through which day might appear to the lower parts of the world? It may also be said that the brightness of day was increased by the addition of the sun, so that by that earlier light the day is to be believed to have shone less brightly than it now does.
I know too that this was said by a certain man: that at first the nature of light was introduced into the work of the Creator, when it was said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light; but afterward — in what is said concerning the luminaries — it was recorded what was made from that very light, in the order of days in which it seemed good to the Creator that all things should be made. But to where the nature of that light passed when evening came, so that night in turn might run its course, neither did he say, nor do I think it can easily be found out. For we must not believe that it was extinguished so that the darkness of night might succeed, and again kindled so that morning might come, before this was accomplished by the office of the sun, which the same Scripture testifies began to be done from the fourth day.
Before this was done, by what circuit three days and nights of the light which was first made could succeed one another, its nature remaining permanent — if a bodily light is to be understood as then made — is difficult both to find and to explain. Unless perhaps someone should say that God called 'darkness' the earthy and watery mass before either was separated from the other, which is written to have been done on the third day: either on account of its grosser corporeality, which the light could not penetrate, or on account of the most obscure shadow of so great a mass, which necessarily arises so that on one side there is body and on the other side there was light.
For to whatever place the mass of any body does not permit light to reach, in that place there is shadow, since a place lacking that light by which it would be illumined — were not the opposing body an obstacle — this whole is what is called shadow. And if this shadow, in proportion to the mass of the body, should be so great as to occupy a space of the earth as large as on the other side day occupies, it is called night; for not all darkness is night. For even in vast caves, into whose recesses light is not allowed to break in because of the opposing mass, there is certainly darkness, because light is not there, and that whole space is a place lacking light; and yet such darkness has not received the name of night, but only that which succeeds in that part of the earth from which day is withdrawn.
Just as not every light is called day — for there is the light of the moon and of the stars and of lamps and of lightning-flashes and of any things that so shine — but that light is called day to which night succeeds, both preceding and receding. But if that primary light, poured around everywhere, had enveloped the mass of the earth, whether it stood still or circled about, there was no part from which it might admit night to succeed it, since nowhere did it depart so as to make room for night. Or was it made on one side only, so that, circling itself, it might consequently allow night also to circle on the other side?
For while water still covered the whole earth, nothing prevented the watery and globular mass from making, on one side, day by the presence of light, and on the other side, night by the absence of light — a night which would succeed in that part from the time of evening, from which the light would decline toward the other side. Whither, then, were the waters gathered together, if they had previously occupied the whole earth? Those, namely, which were drawn off so that dry land might be given — into what part were they gathered together? For if there was any bare part of the earth into which they might be gathered, then dry land was already appearing and the abyss did not occupy the whole; but if they had covered the whole, what place was there into which they might be collected, so that the dryness of the earth might appear?