書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 37 章

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?

Were they perhaps gathered together on high, as happens when the threshed harvest is heaped up on the threshing-floor for winnowing, and, piled into a mound, lays bare the place which it had spread over and covered? Who would say this, when he sees the plains of the sea everywhere evenly spread out, since even when certain as it were mountains of the surging water are raised up, they are again levelled flat when the storms are calmed? And if any shores are laid bare more widely, it cannot be said that there are no other spaces of the lands to which that may go which recedes from elsewhere, whence it may again come to that place from which it had withdrawn. But when absolutely the whole earth was covered by the watery nature, whither could it withdraw so as to lay bare any parts?

Or was the water perhaps thinner, covering the lands like a mist, which was thickened by being gathered together, so that from many parts, in which dry land could appear, it might lay them bare? And yet the earth too, subsiding far and wide, could have provided other hollow parts in which the confluent and rushing waters might be received, and dry land appear from those parts from which the moisture withdrew. Now matter is not in every way formless where even a misty appearance has become visible. And therefore it can still be asked when God created these conspicuous appearances and qualities of the waters and the lands; for this is found in none of the six days. And so, if He did this before every day, as it is written before the mention of the first of those days:

'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' — so that in the word 'earth' we may understand an already formed earthy appearance, its waters poured over it, these having already been declared in this visible appearance of their own kind; so that in what Scripture says next: 'But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water,' we may suppose no formlessness of matter, but earth and water without light, which had not yet been made, already established with their own most familiar qualities — so that the earth is understood to be called 'invisible' because, being covered with waters, it could not be seen, even if there were someone who could see, and 'unformed' indeed,

because it was not yet distinguished from the sea and girded with shores and adorned with its own offspring and living creatures. If, then, it is so, why were these appearances, which are beyond doubt bodily, made before every day? Why is it not written: 'God said, Let there be earth, and earth was made,' likewise: 'God said, Let there be water, and water was made'? Or both together, if they are contained under one as it were law of the lowest place: 'God said, Let there be earth, and so it was done'? Why was it not said, when this had been made, 'God saw that it was good'?

For this consideration prompted the inquiry, since it is manifest that everything mutable is formed out of some formlessness; and at the same time both the Catholic faith prescribes and the most certain reason teaches that the matter of no natures could have existed except from God, the originator and creator of all things not only formed but also formable — of which a certain Scripture also says to Him: 'Thou who madest the world out of formless matter.' This matter, in those words which might be suited, for the sake of spiritual prudence, even to slower readers or hearers, was, we hold, mentioned in those things which, before the enumeration of the days, were said: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' and the rest, until it was said:

'And God said,' so that thereafter the order of formed things might follow. Not because formless matter is prior in time to formed things, since both were created together — both that from which a thing was made, and that which was made. For just as the voice is the matter of words, while words indicate a formed voice, and yet the one who speaks does not first emit a formless voice which he might afterward gather up and form into words: so also God the Creator did not at a prior time make formless matter and afterward form it, by an as it were second consideration, into the natures of various things;

for He created matter already formed. But because that from which something is made, even if not in time, yet by a certain origin is prior to that which is made from it, Scripture could divide by the times of speaking what God did not divide by the times of making. For if it be asked whether we make the voice out of words or words out of the voice, no one will easily be found of so slow a wit as not rather to answer that words are made out of the voice: thus, although the speaker makes both at once, what he makes from what is sufficiently apparent to natural attention.

Wherefore, since God made both at once — both the matter which He formed and the things into which He formed it — and since both had to be spoken of by Scripture, and both could not be spoken of at once, who could doubt that that from which something was made ought to have been spoken of before that which was made from it? For even when we say 'matter and form,' we understand that both exist at once, and yet we cannot utter both at once.

But just as it happens in the brevity of time, when we utter these two words, that we utter one before the other, so in the length of a narrative one had to be narrated before the other, although both, as has been said, God made at once — so that what is prior only by origin in the making, is also prior in time in the narrating, because two things, of which even the one is in no way prior to the other, cannot be named at once, much less narrated at once! Therefore it is not to be doubted that this formless matter, next to nothing, is in some way such that it was not made except by God, and was created together at once with the things which were formed out of it. But if it is credibly said that it is signified by those words:

'But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water,' so that — except for what is there placed concerning the Spirit of God — we understand the rest indeed as names of visible things, yet spoken to convey that formlessness, as far as could be conveyed to the slower; because these two elements, that is, earth and water, are more tractable than the rest to the hands of those working to make something, and therefore that formlessness was more fittingly conveyed by these names: if, then, this is probably said, there was no formed mass which light, illumining it on one side, might on the other side make darkness, whence night might succeed when day departed.

But if we should wish to understand the emission and contraction of that light as day and night, we neither see a cause why it should so happen — for there were not yet living creatures to whom this alternation might be salubriously afforded, and to whom, once they had later arisen, we see it afforded through the circuit of the sun — nor does any example occur by which we might prove that emission and contraction of light, so that the alternations of day and night might come about. For the casting-out of rays from our eyes is indeed a casting-out of a certain light, and it can be contracted, when we look at the air which is nearest to our eyes, and emitted, when we attend to things placed far off along the same straight line.

Nor indeed, when it is contracted, does it altogether cease to discern things that are far off, but certainly more obscurely than when the gaze is emitted upon them. Yet that light which is in the sense of the one seeing is taught to be so slight that, unless it be aided by external light, we can see nothing; and because it cannot be distinguished from that external light, by what example the emission of light into day and the contraction of light into night might be demonstrated is, as I said, difficult to find. But if a spiritual light was made when God said, 'Let there be light,' that true light co-eternal with the Father, through whom all things were made and which enlightens every man, is not to be understood; but that of which it could be said: 'Wisdom was created before all things.'

For when that eternal and unchangeable Wisdom, which was not made but begotten, transfers itself into spiritual and rational creatures, as into holy souls, so that, being illumined, they may be able to shine, there comes to be in them a certain disposition of luminous reason, which can be taken as the light that was made when God said, 'Let there be light' — if there already was a spiritual creature, which was signified by the name 'heaven' in what is written, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth': not a bodily heaven, but the incorporeal heaven of the bodily heaven, that is, set above every body, not by degrees of place, but by the sublimity of its nature.

But in what manner both that which was illumined and the illumination itself could come to be at once, and yet had to be narrated at different times, we said a little before, when we were treating of matter. But the night succeeding to this light, so that evening might come — in what way are we to understand it? And from what kind of darkness could such a light be divided, when Scripture says: 'And God divided between the light and the darkness'? Were there already sinners and fools falling away from the light of truth, between whom, and those remaining in that same light, God divided, as it were between light and darkness — and, calling the light day and the darkness night, showed Himself to be not the author of sins, but the orderer, by the distribution of merits?

Or is this 'day' the name of all time, and does it include all the volumes of the ages under this term, and therefore was it not called the first, but 'one day'? 'For evening came,' it says, 'and morning came, one day' — so that by this, that evening came, the sin of the rational creature, and by that, that morning came, its renewal, may seem to be signified. But this is the discussion of prophetic allegory, which we have not undertaken in this discourse. For we have set out to speak now, concerning the Scriptures, according to the proper meaning of the deeds done, not according to the enigmas of things to come. Therefore, with respect to the account of the natures made and established, in what way do we find evening and morning in the spiritual light?

Is the division of the light from the darkness the distinction of the thing already formed from the formless, while the naming of day and night is the intimation of a distribution, by which it is signified that God leaves nothing without order, and that that very formlessness — through which things are changed by passing in a certain manner from appearance to appearance — is not disordered, nor are the defects and advances of the creature, by which temporal things succeed one another in it, without a contribution to the beauty of the universe? For night is ordered darkness. But therefore, when light had been made, it was said, 'God saw the light, that it is good,' though He could have said this after all the works of the same day — that is, so that when He had unfolded: 'God said, Let there be light, and there was light,'

'and God divided between the light and the darkness, and God called the light day and the darkness He called night,' then He might say: 'And God saw that it is good,' and thereafter append: 'And evening came, and morning came,' as He does in the other works, on which He bestows names. Here, therefore, He did not do so for this reason: because that formlessness was distinguished from the formed thing in such a way that its end was not in it, but there still remained something to be formed through the other creatures, now bodily. And so, if, after those things had been distinguished by that division and by names, it were then said, 'God saw that it is good,' we should take these to be signified as things made, to which now, in their own kind, nothing was to be added;

but because He had thus perfected the light alone, 'God saw,' it says, 'the light, that it is good,' and by division and by names distinguished it from the darkness. Nor then did He say, 'God saw that it is good'; for that formlessness had been distinguished for this purpose, that still from it other things might be formed. For indeed this night, which is most familiar to us — for the circuit of the sun over the lands makes it — when it is divided from day through the distribution of the luminaries, after that very division of day and night it is said: 'God saw that it is good.' For this night was not some formless substance from which still other things might be formed, but a space of place full of air, lacking the daily light: to which night certainly nothing was now to be added in its own kind, whereby it might be more comely or more distinct.

But evening, in that whole three-day period before the luminaries were made, is perhaps not absurdly understood as the terminus of the completed work; while morning is understood as the signification of a work to come. But before all things let us remember — a matter of which we have already said much — that God does not work by temporal motions as it were of His own mind or body, as man or angel works, but by the eternal and unchangeable and stable reasons of His Word co-eternal with Him, and by a certain, so to speak, fostering warmth of His Holy Spirit, equally co-eternal.

For that too which was said, through the Greek and Latin tongues, concerning the Spirit of God, that it 'was borne over the waters,' according to the understanding of the Syriac tongue, which is close to the Hebrew — for this is reported to have been expounded by a certain learned Christian Syrian — is said to be understood not as 'was borne over' but rather 'was cherishing'; and not as tumors or wounds in the body are fomented with waters either cold or tempered with suitable warmth, but as eggs are cherished by birds, where that warmth of the mother's body somehow also assists the forming of the chicks through a certain disposition of love in its own kind. Let us not, therefore, through the several days of these divine works, think carnally of temporal utterances of God.

For not to this end did the Wisdom of God itself, taken up in our weakness, come to gather together the children of Jerusalem under its wings, as a hen gathers her chicks, that we should always be little ones; but that we should be infants in malice, and cease to be children in mind.

And in matters obscure and most remote from our eyes, if we should read any writings concerning them, even divine ones, which are able — the faith with which we are imbued being safe — to give rise to various and diverse opinions, let us not cast ourselves headlong into any one of them by rash affirmation, so that, if perchance the truth, more diligently examined, should rightly overturn it, we fall together with it — fighting not for the opinion of the divine Scriptures, but for our own, in such a way that we wish that to be the Scriptures' which is our own, whereas we ought rather to wish that which is the Scriptures' to be our own. For let us suppose that in what is written, 'And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,' one man understood a bodily light to have been made, and another a spiritual one.

That there is a spiritual light in the spiritual creature, our faith does not doubt; but that there is a bodily heavenly light, or even one above heaven or before heaven, to which night could succeed, is not against the faith so long as it is not refuted by most certain truth. And if this should come to pass, divine Scripture did not hold this, but human ignorance had thought it. But if certain reason should demonstrate this to be true, it will still be uncertain whether the writer of the sacred books wished this to be understood in those words, or something else no less true. But if the rest of the context of the discourse should prove that he did not wish this, that other thing which he himself wished to be understood will not therefore be false, but both true and more usefully known.

But if the context of Scripture should not oppose that the writer wished this to be understood, it will still remain to inquire whether he could not also have meant another thing. And if we should find that he could also have meant another thing, it will be uncertain which of them he meant; and that he wished both to be understood is not incongruously believed, if the rest of the surrounding context supports both opinions.

For it very often happens that even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, about the heaven, about the other elements of this world, about the motion and revolution or even the magnitude and intervals of the stars, about the fixed eclipses of the sun and moon, about the cycles of years and seasons, about the natures of animals, shrubs, stones, and other such things, in such a way that he holds it by most certain reason or experience. Now it is a very disgraceful and pernicious thing, and greatly to be guarded against, that any unbeliever should hear a Christian, speaking as it were according to Christian writings, so rave about these matters that, as the saying goes, seeing him err by a whole heaven, he can scarcely restrain his laughter.

And the trouble is not so much that an erring man is derided, but that our authors are believed by those who are without to have held such things, and, to the great destruction of those for whose salvation we labor, are reproved and rejected as unlearned. For when they have caught someone of the number of Christians erring in a matter which they know most excellently, and asserting his vain opinion out of our books, by what means will they believe those books concerning the resurrection of the dead and the hope of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, when they have thought them to be written deceitfully concerning those things which they were already able to experience or to perceive by indubitable calculations?

For how much annoyance and sorrow rash presumers bring upon their prudent brethren cannot be sufficiently told: when, if ever they begin to be reproved and convicted of their depraved and false opinion by those who are not held by the authority of our books, in order to defend that which they have said with the most trifling rashness and most manifest falsity, they attempt to bring forward those same holy books, from which to prove it, or even recite from memory many words from them which they judge to avail for testimony, understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they affirm.

For to this end — that it might be considered and observed — I have, as far as I could, in many ways unfolded and brought forth from the words of the book of Genesis, which are obscurely set down for our exercise, various opinions, not rashly affirming any one thing to the prejudice of another exposition perhaps better, so that each may choose, according to his own measure, what he is able to grasp: but where he cannot understand the Scripture, let him give honor to God and fear to himself. But since the words of Scripture which we have treated may be expounded with so many outcomes, let those at last restrain themselves who, puffed up with secular letters, deride these things, set down so as to nourish all pious hearts, as something crude and unpolished — crawling on the earth without wings, and mocking the nests of birds about to fly.

But more dangerously do certain weak brethren err, who, when they hear those impious men discourse subtly and copiously about the numbers of the heavenly bodies or about any questions of the elements of this world, faint away, and, preferring those men to themselves with a sigh and thinking them great, return with disdain to the books of most salutary piety, and scarcely with patience touch those which they ought sweetly to drink in — shrinking from the roughness of the harvest-field and gaping after the flowers of thorns. For they have no leisure to see how sweet the Lord is, nor do they hunger on the Sabbath; and therefore they are slothful in using the power received from the Lord to pluck the ears of grain and to turn them over in their hands and to cleanse the rubbed ears, until they arrive at the food. Someone will say:

'What have you, with all this threshing of this dissertation, stripped out of the grains? What have you winnowed? Why does almost everything still lie hidden in questions? Affirm some one of those things which you have argued can be understood in many ways.'

To whom I reply that I have come sweetly to that very food, in that I have learned that a man does not stick fast in answering, according to the faith, what is to be answered to men who strive to calumniate the books of our salvation: so that whatever they may be able to demonstrate by truthful documents about the nature of things, we may show is not contrary to our writings; but whatever from any of their volumes they may bring forth contrary to these our writings, that is, to the Catholic faith, we may either by some means show it to be false, or without any doubt believe it to be most false — and so hold fast our Mediator, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, that we may neither be seduced by the loquacity of false philosophy, nor terrified by the superstition of false religion.

And when we read the divine books amid so great a multitude of true meanings, which are drawn out from a few words and fortified by the soundness of the Catholic faith, let us choose above all that which shall appear certain to have been the meaning of him whom we read; but if this lies hidden, then certainly that which the context of Scripture does not impede and which agrees with sound faith; but if even the context of Scripture cannot be thoroughly examined and discussed, then at least that alone which sound faith prescribes. For it is one thing not to discern what the writer chiefly meant, and another thing to stray from the rule of piety. If both be avoided, the fruit of the reader is perfectly attained.

But if neither meaning can be avoided, then even if the writer's intention is uncertain, it is not without profit to have drawn out an interpretation in accord with sound faith. 'And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And it was so done. And God made the firmament, and God divided the water that was below the firmament from the water that was above the firmament. And God called the firmament heaven. And God saw that it was good. And the evening was made, and the morning was made, the second day.' Concerning the word of God, in which God said:

'Let there be a firmament,' and the rest; and concerning His good pleasure, whereby He saw that it was good; and concerning the evening and the morning — there is no need here to discourse again in like manner. And thus henceforward, as often as these phrases are repeated, we advise that they be considered for the time being according to our earlier inquiry. But whether the heaven that is now made is that which surpasses all the spaces of the air and its whole height — where also on the fourth day the luminaries and the stars are set — or whether the air itself is called the firmament, may with good reason be asked. For many assert that the nature of these waters cannot be above the starry heaven, because they have their own weight so ordered that they either float upon the earth or are borne as vapour in the air nearest to the earth.

Nor should anyone refute these men by saying that, according to the omnipotence of God, to whom all things are possible, we ought to believe that even waters as heavy as those we know and perceive have been poured over the heavenly body in which the stars are. For now it befits us to inquire, according to His Scriptures, how God established the natures of things — not what He may will to work in them or from them for a miracle of His power. For indeed, if God willed that oil should at some time remain beneath water, it would not fail to happen; yet the nature of oil would not thereby be unknown to us — namely, that it is so made that, seeking its own place, even if it were poured underneath, it breaks through the waters and settles itself above them.

Now therefore we ask whether the Founder of things, who has disposed all things in measure and number and weight, has assigned to the weight of the waters not one proper place around the earth, but also a place above the heaven that is spread out and made solid beyond the boundary of the air. Those who deny that this is to be believed argue from the weights of the elements, denying that in any way the heaven has been made solid above, as it were like some pavement, so that it could sustain the weights of the waters; for such solidity could belong to nothing but earth, and whatever is of that kind is not heaven but earth. For the elements are distinguished not only by their places but also by their qualities, so that according to their proper qualities they should also be allotted their proper places.

Water, namely, is above earth; and even if it stands or slips beneath the earth, as in hidden caves and caverns, it is nevertheless contained not by that part of the earth which it has above it, but by that which it has below it. For if any part of the earth should fall from the upper part, it does not remain upon the water, but, that water being broken through, it sinks and makes its way to the earth; and coming thither it comes to rest as in its own place, so that above is the water and beneath the earth. From this it is recognized that even when earth was above the waters it was not borne up by the waters themselves, but was held by the structure of the earth, as the vaults of caverns hold together. Here it occurs to me to give warning that we must beware of an error, which in the first book I warned must be avoided — lest perhaps, because it is written in the Psalms:

'He founded the earth upon the water,' should think that we ought to rely on this testimony of Scripture against those who argue subtly about the weights of the elements. For those men, not being restrained by the authority of our letters and not knowing in what sense it was said, will more easily mock the holy books than repudiate that which they have either perceived by sure reasonings or proved by most manifest experiments. For that saying in the Psalms may rightly be taken either as spoken figuratively — so that, since by the name of heaven and earth the spiritual and the carnal are often signified in the Church, He may show the heavens to pertain to the serene understanding of truth, saying:

'He who made the heavens in understanding,' but the earth as pertaining to the simple faith of the little ones — a faith not uncertain and deceptive with fabulous opinions, but most firm through prophetic and evangelical preaching, which is made solid through baptism; and therefore He subjoined, saying: 'He founded the earth upon the water.' Or, if anyone insists that it be understood literally, then not incongruously either the higher parts of the lands — whether of continents or of islands — are taken, which are above the waters, or the very roofs of caverns, which are held firm above the waters by a suspended solidity. Wherefore no one can understand literally in such a way what is said:

'He founded the earth upon the water,' so as to suppose that the weight of the waters is set, as it were subject, to bearing up the weight of the earth in the natural order. But that the air is above the waters — although, on account of its ample spaces, it also covers the dry land — is understood from this: that no vessel pressed down mouth-first can be filled with water; whence it sufficiently indicates that the nature of the air seeks the higher place. For the vessel seems empty, but is proved to be full of air, when it is pressed mouth-downward into the water; because, since through its upper part it finds no place to escape, nor is its nature suffered to go downward beneath the waters once they are broken through, by its own fullness it repels them and does not permit them to enter the vessel.

But when the vessel is so placed that its mouth is not downward but tilted to the side, the water enters below while the air goes out above. Likewise, if the mouth of an upright vessel lies open toward the sky, when you pour in water the air escapes upward through the other parts where you are not pouring, and there comes to be a place for the water to enter downward. But if the vessel is pressed down with greater force, so that the waters suddenly flow in from the side or from above and cover the mouth of the vessel on every side, the air, striving upward, bursts them apart so as to make room for itself toward the bottom; and this very bursting is the gurgling of the vessels, while it escapes in parts, because it cannot all escape so quickly on account of the narrowness of that mouth.

So too, if the air is forced to pass over the waters, it scatters even those that flow together, when, driven by its impulse, they leap out and bubble up and send it forth with crackling bubbles as it hastens to its own place and gives them an opening to fall to the bottom. But if it is forced to go beneath the waters out of a vessel — so that, as it yields, you want the vessel pressed mouth-first into the depths to be filled — the vessel is more easily covered by the waves on every side than a tiny drop finds a place to enter through its mouth from the lower part. But who does not perceive that fire too, darting toward the heights, wills by its very nature to transcend the air itself? Since indeed, if anyone hold a burning torch head-downward, the tress of flame nonetheless strives toward the higher parts.

But since, by the overpowering density of the air that surrounds and overlies it, fire is presently extinguished and, overcome by its abundance, is presently changed and turned into its quality, it cannot endure to leap across the whole height of it. And so above the air pure fire is said to be heaven; whence they conjecture that even the stars and luminaries were made — that fiery light being, of course, gathered together and arranged into those forms which we behold in heaven. And through this, just as both air and water yield to the weights of the lands, so that they reach the earth, so to the weight of the waters the air itself yields, so that they reach either earth or water.

Whence they will it to be understood that in this manner it was necessary that even the air too — if anyone could release a particle of it in those lofty spaces of heaven — would fall by its own weight until it reached the airy spaces below. Wherefore they conclude that there can be far less place for waters above that fiery heaven, since there the air, far lighter than the waters, cannot remain. Yielding to such disputations of theirs, a certain man laudably attempted to demonstrate the waters above the heavens, so that from the very visible and conspicuous natures he might uphold the faith of Scripture.

And first indeed — which was easiest — he showed that this air too is called heaven, not only in common speech, according to which we say the sky is clear or cloudy, but also by the usage of our very own Scriptures, when the birds are called 'the birds of heaven,' since it is manifest that birds fly in this air; and the Lord, when He was speaking of the clouds, said: 'You can discern the face of the sky.' But clouds too we often see gathered together in the air near the earth, when they lie along the slopes of ridges, so that they are for the most part overtopped even by the summits of mountains.