But the angelic mind, cleaving to the Word of God with pure charity, after it had been created in that order by which it precedes the rest, first saw in the Word of God the things to be made, before they were made; and thus they came to be first in its knowledge, when God said that they should be, than in their own proper nature. And these same things, once made, it also knew in themselves by a lesser knowledge indeed, which is called 'evening.' This knowledge the things that were coming to be certainly preceded, because whatever can be known precedes the knowledge of it; for unless first there be that which is to be known, it cannot be known. After this, if it should so please itself as to delight in itself more than in its Creator, there would be no morning — that is, it would not rise up from its self-knowledge to the praise of the Creator.
But when it was made, there was yet another thing to be made and to be known, as God said 'Let it be,' so that likewise it might first come to be in the knowledge of the angelic mind — and again it could be said 'and so it was made' — and then in its own nature, where, with evening following, it would be known. And through this, even if here there be no intervals of temporal delays, nevertheless the reason for founding the creature preceded in the Word of God when He said 'Let there be light,' and the light itself followed, by which the angelic mind was formed and made in its own nature; but it did not follow elsewhere in order to come to be. And therefore it was not first said 'and so it was made,' and afterward said:
'and God made the light'; but immediately after the Word of God the light was made, and the created light cleaved to the creating Light, seeing that Light and seeing itself in it — that is, the reason by which it was made. It also saw itself in itself — that is, seeing that what was made stands distinct from Him who made it. And therefore, when it had pleased God who saw the work, because it is good, and the light had been divided from the darkness, and the light called day and the darkness night, evening also came to be, because that knowledge too was necessary, by which the creature might be distinguished from the Creator, being known otherwise in itself than in Him. And thence came morning and another thing to be foreknown, which had been by the Word of God to be made — first in the knowledge of the angelic mind, then in the nature of the firmament itself. And therefore God said: 'Let there be a firmament.'
'And so it was made' — in the knowledge of the spiritual creature which foreknew this before it came to be in the thing itself. Then God made the firmament — now indeed the very nature of the firmament, of which there would be a lesser, as it were evening, knowledge. And so on, right up to the end of all the works and up to the rest of God, which has no evening, because it was not made like a creature, so that its knowledge too might be doubled — as prior and greater in the Word of God as in the day, and as later and lesser in itself as in the evening. But if the angelic mind can grasp all things at once, which the discourse distinguishes one by one through the order of connected causes, could it be that even the things which were coming to be — such as the firmament itself, such as the gathering of the waters and the bared appearance of the lands,
such as the sprouting of shrubs and trees, the fashioning of luminaries and stars, the creatures of the waters and of the land — were all made at once, and not rather through intervals of time according to the days appointed beforehand? Or are we perhaps to think that, just as we now experience these things according to their natural motions, so also when they were first established, but rather according to the wonderful and ineffable power of the wisdom of God, which reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly? For neither does that wisdom itself reach by degrees or arrive as though by steps.
Wherefore, as easy and most effective as is that wisdom's motion, so easily did God found all things, since through her they were founded; so that the fact that we now see them moved through temporal intervals to accomplish what befits each in its own kind comes from those reasons implanted in them, which God scattered as it were seed-wise in the instant of founding, when 'He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created.' Therefore it was not slowly instituted that the things which are slow should be slow, nor were the ages founded by that delay in which they run their course. For times work out those numbers which, when they were created, they did not receive in a temporal manner.
Otherwise, if we consider the natural motions of things and the customary spans of these days which we know, when these things were first made by the Word of God, there would have been need not of one day but of many — so that the things which sprout from roots and clothe the earth might first germinate beneath, and then by a fixed number of days each according to its kind burst forth into the air, even if only that were done which Scripture narrated was made concerning the created nature of these things on one day, that is, the third. Then how many days would be needed for the birds to fly, if, coming to be from their beginnings, they arrived at feathers and wings through the numbers of their own nature? Or had perhaps only eggs been created, when on the fifth day it was said that the waters brought forth every winged fowl according to its kind?
Or if it could rightly be said so for this reason — that in that moisture of the eggs there already were all the things which through fixed numbers of days coalesce and are in a manner unfolded, because there were already present those numerical reasons interwoven incorporeally into corporeal things — why could not the same thing rightly have been said even before the eggs, when those same reasons were already coming to be in the moist element, by which winged creatures could arise and be perfected through the temporal delays of each one's kind? For of that Creator this Scripture narrated that He completed His works in six days; concerning Him it is written elsewhere, not at all discordantly, that He created all things together. And through this, these six or seven days too,
or rather one day repeated six or seven times, He made all at once who made all things together. What need then was there for the six days to be narrated so distinctly and in such orderly fashion? Because, namely, those who cannot see what was said — 'He created all things together' — cannot arrive at that to which He leads them unless the discourse proceeds toward them more slowly.
How then do we say that the presence of that light was repeated seven times through the angelic knowledge from evening to morning, when it would have sufficed for it to have those three at once — namely day and evening and morning — but once, since it would at once contemplate the whole creation (just as it was made at once) both in the first and unchangeable reasons through which it was founded (on account of the day), and would know it in its own nature (on account of the evening), and would praise the Creator from that very lower knowledge also (on account of the morning)? Or how did morning precede, so that it might know in the Word what was afterward to be made by God, being about consequently to know that same thing also at evening, if there was nothing prior and posterior, because all things were made at once?
Nay rather, both prior and posterior — the things which are recorded through the six days were made — and all things were made at once; because both this Scripture, which narrates the works of God through the said days, and that Scripture, which says that He made all things together, are true; and both are one, because they were written down by the inspiration of the one Spirit of truth. But in these matters, in which the intervals of times do not demonstrate which is prior or posterior — although either may be said, that is, both 'at once' and 'prior and posterior' — what is said 'at once' is nevertheless more easily understood than what is said 'prior and posterior':
as when we gaze upon the rising sun, it is certainly manifest that our sight could not reach it unless it passed through the whole space of air and sky which lies between us and it. But of what vast distance this is, who is able to estimate? Nor indeed would that same sight, or ray of our eyes, arrive at crossing the air which is over the sea, unless it had first crossed the air which is over the land — in whatever inland region we may be — from the place where we are, all the way to the shore of the sea.
Then, if along the same line of our gaze there still lie lands beyond the sea, our sight cannot cross even that air which is above those lands beyond the sea, unless the space of that air which is above the sea — which it first meets — has first been traversed. Let us now suppose that beyond those lands across the sea nothing remains but the ocean. Can our sight cross even the air which is spread over the ocean, unless it has first crossed whatever air lies on this side of the ocean above the land? But the magnitude of the ocean is reported to be incomparable; yet however great it may be, first the rays of our eyes must cross the air which is above it, and afterward whatever lies beyond, and then at last arrive at the sun which we see.
Is it then the case that, because we have here so often said 'first' and 'afterward,' our gaze does not pass over all things at once in a single stroke? For if with closed eyes we set our face opposite, about to look at the sun, do we not, the moment we open them, rather suppose that we have found our sight there than that we have conducted it thither — so that the eyes themselves do not seem to have been opened before our gaze arrived at that upon which it was fixed? And surely this is a ray of bodily light, flashing forth from our eyes and touching things set so far off with such swiftness that it can neither be estimated nor compared. Indeed, it is manifest that here too all those spaces, so ample and immense, are traversed at once in a single stroke; and yet what is traversed prior and posterior is nonetheless certain.
Rightly did the Apostle, when he wished to express the swiftness of our resurrection, say it would take place 'in the twinkling of an eye.' For nothing swifter can be found in the motions or strokes of bodily things. But if the gaze of the eyes of the flesh has such power by its swiftness, what of the gaze of the mind, even the human mind? How much more of the angelic? What then shall be said of the swiftness of the supreme wisdom of God itself, which 'reaches everywhere by reason of its purity, and nothing defiled falls into it'? In these things, therefore, which were made at once, no one sees what ought to have been made prior or posterior, except in that Wisdom through which all things were made in order, all at once. That day, then, which God first made —
if it is the spiritual and rational creature — that is, of the supercelestial angels and powers — was made present to all the works of God in this order of presence, in which order of knowledge it both foreknew in the Word of God the things to be made and knew them in the creature once made, not through the delays of temporal intervals, but having prior and posterior in the connection of the creatures, while in the effectual working of the Creator all things are at once. For He so made the things that were to be, that He did not make temporal things in a temporal manner, but times ran their course from what was made by Him.
And through this, these seven days, which the light of the heavenly body unfolds and folds back by its circling, according to a certain shadow of signification admonish us to seek those days in which the created spiritual light could be made present to all the works of God through the perfection of the number six, and thence to have morning into the seventh rest of God, but no evening — so that this does not mean that God rested on the seventh day as though He Himself needed the seventh day for His rest, but that in the sight of His angels He rested from all His works which He made, resting assuredly in none but Himself, who was not made;
that is, so that His angelic creature, which was made present in Him and in those works — as it were a day with evening — for the knowing of all His works, might, after all His works exceedingly good, know nothing better than that He rests from all things in Himself, needing none of them by which He might be more blessed. This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made; God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and every herb of the field before it sprang up. For God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to till the earth; but a spring rose up out of the earth and watered the whole face of the earth.
Now certainly that opinion becomes firmer by which it is understood that God made one day, whence those six or seven days could be numbered by the repetition of this one, since holy Scripture now says more openly, concluding in a manner all the things it had said from the beginning up to this place, and adds: 'This is the book of the creation, or making, of heaven and earth, when the day was made.' For no one will say that heaven and earth are here recorded in the same way as it had been said, before the founded day was introduced: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth.'
For if that former statement is so understood, that God made something without a day before He made the day — in what sense that can be taken, I have said in its own place what I judged should be said, shutting off from no one the liberty of understanding it better. But now it says: 'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made,' showing sufficiently, as I think, that it has not here recorded heaven and earth as in the beginning, before the day came to be, when 'darkness was over the abyss,' but rather how heaven and earth were made when the day was made — that is, with the parts and kinds of things now formed and distinguished, by which the whole creation, arranged and composed, renders this appearance which is called the world.
That heaven, therefore, is here recorded which, when God had created the firmament, He called heaven, together with all the things that are in it; and that earth, which together with the abyss held the lowest place, together with all the things that are in it. For it follows and adds: 'God made heaven and earth' — so that by the name of heaven and earth, both set down before, before it recorded the made day, and repeated when it had recorded it, it does not allow one to suspect that it now named heaven and earth in the same way as in the beginning, before the day was created. For thus it wove the words together: 'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made, God made heaven and earth' — so that, if anyone should wish to understand thus what was set above:
'the book of the creation of heaven and earth,' in the same way as it was said 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' before He founded the day — because here too heaven and earth are recorded first, and afterward the day was made — he is corrected by the following words, because even after the recorded made day, the name of heaven and earth is again added. And yet this also — that 'when' is set down, and thus is added 'the day was made' — wrings from any contentious person the admission that no other meaning can be. For if it had been so interposed that it were said: 'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth. The day was made. God made heaven and earth' — someone might perhaps suppose that the book of the creation of heaven and earth was so named in the way that it was named:
'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' before the day was founded, and then it was subjoined: 'the day was made,' just as it was afterward there narrated that God made the day; and thence immediately it was said again: 'God made heaven and earth,' as though now, in the manner in which these things were made after the day was founded. But because it was so interposed that it says: 'when the day was made' — whether you connect this with the preceding words, so that it is one sentence: 'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made'; or with the following, so that likewise in this way it is a complete sentence: 'When the day was made, God made heaven and earth' — it undoubtedly compels one to understand that it recorded heaven and earth in the manner in which they were made when the day was made.
Then, when it had been said 'God made heaven and earth,' there was added: 'and every green thing of the field,' which is certainly manifestly made on the third day. Whence it appears more clearly that it is the same one day which God made, by whose repetition the second also was made, and the third, and the rest, up to the seventh day. But since by the name of heaven and earth, according to the customary usage of the Scriptures, it now wished the whole creation to be understood, one may ask why it added: 'and every green thing of the field.' This it seems to me to have set down for this reason: that it might more significantly intimate which day it commended, when it says: 'when the day was made.' For someone might quickly suppose that this day of bodily light was commended, by whose circling the alternation of daily and nightly time is exhibited to us.
But when we recall the order of the created things founded, and find that every green thing of the field was created on the third day, before the sun was made — which was made on the fourth day, by whose presence this daily and customary day is carried out — when we hear 'when the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field,' we are admonished to think about that day itself, which, whether corporeal in some light unknown to us, or spiritual in the fellowship of angelic unity, we should nonetheless try to trace out by the understanding as not being such as we know here. This too it would not be beside the point to observe: that whereas it could have said:
'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when God made heaven and earth' — so that in heaven and earth we might understand whatever is in them, as divine Scripture is wont to speak, so that by the name of heaven and earth (most often, sometimes with 'and sea' added) it intimates the whole creation, at times adjoining and saying: 'and the things which are in them' — so that, whatever of these it said, we might there understand also the day, whether the one it first founded, or this one which the presence of the sun makes: it did not say so, but interposed the day, saying: 'when the day was made.' Nor did it so speak as to say: 'This is the book of the creation of the day and of heaven and earth,' as though in this order in which the things made are narrated; nor thus:
'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day and heaven and earth were made, when God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field'; nor thus: 'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when God made the day and heaven and earth and every green thing of the field'; nor thus: 'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth. God made the day and heaven and earth and every green thing of the field' — for the habit of speech rather demanded these modes of expression — but it says: 'This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field,' as if intimating that when the day was made, then God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field.
Moreover, the earlier narrative indicates that the day was first made, and reckons it as one day; after which it numbers a second, on which the firmament was made, and a third, on which the appearances of land and sea were set in order, and the earth brought forth tree and herb. Is it perhaps that very thing which in the earlier book we were striving to show — that God made all things at once — since that connected sequence of the narrative, when it had recorded all things created and completed in the order of six days, now reduces all things to one day, with the name of heaven and earth, and the kind of shrubs also adjoined? Doubtless on account of what I said above, so that,
if perchance from this our customary usage the day were understood, the reader might be corrected when he recalls that God said the green thing of the field was, before that solar day, that the earth should bring it forth. Thus now the testimony that God created all things at once is not brought forth from another book of holy Scripture, but the neighboring attestation of the following page admonishes us from this very matter, saying:
'when the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field' — so that you may understand this day repeated seven times, that seven days might come to be; and, when you hear that all things were made then, when the day was made, you may grasp — if you can — that senary or septenary repetition as made without intervals of delays or spans of times; but if you cannot yet, you may leave these things to be beheld by those who are able, while you yourself may make progress, with Scripture not deserting your weakness and walking along with you at a slower, motherly pace — Scripture which so speaks as to mock the proud by its loftiness, to terrify the attentive by its depth, to feed the great by its truth, to nourish the little ones by its affability. What then does even that which follows intend? For thus the discourse is woven together:
'when the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field, before it was upon the earth, and every herb of the field, before it sprang up.' What is this? Ought we not to ask where He made these things, before they were upon the earth and before they sprang up? For who would not rather readily believe that God then made them, when they sprang up, and not before they sprang up — unless one were admonished by this divine utterance that God made these things before they should spring up, so that, if one cannot find where they were made, whoever piously believes this Scripture may nevertheless believe that they were made before they sprang up; for impiously indeed he does not believe. What then shall we say? Or was it, as some have supposed, that all things were made in the Word of God itself before they sprang up on the earth? But if
they were made in this manner, they were made not when the day was made, but before the day came to be; yet Scripture plainly says: 'when the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and every herb before it sprang up.' If therefore 'when the day was made,' then certainly not before the day came to be, and through this not in the Word which is co-eternal with the Father — before the day, before anything at all came to be — but 'when the day was made.' For those things which are in the Word of God before every creature were assuredly not made; but these were made, when the day was made, as the words of Scripture declare, yet nevertheless before they were upon the earth and before they sprang up: which was said of the green things and herb of the field.
Where then? Was it in the earth itself, causally and rationally — as in seeds all things already are, before they in a manner unfold and unroll their increases and their kinds through the numbers of times? But these seeds which we see are already upon the earth, already sprung up. Or were they not upon the earth, but beneath the earth, and therefore made before they sprang up, because they sprang up then, when the seeds germinated and, by the accession of increases, burst forth into the air — which we now see happening through the delays of times, distributed to each according to its kind?
Were the seeds then made when the day was made, and in them was every green thing of the field and every herb, not yet in that appearance in which they have already sprung up upon the earth, but in that power by which they are in the reasons of the seeds? Did the earth then first produce the seeds? But Scripture did not speak so, when it said: 'And the earth brought forth the herb of pasture, or the herb of hay, sowing seed according to its kind and according to its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind upon the earth.' For by these words it appears rather that the seeds arose from the herbs and trees, and not the latter from the seeds, but from the earth — especially since the very words of God are so. For it does not say:
'Let the seeds in the earth sprout the herb of hay and the fruit-bearing tree,' but it says: 'Let the earth put forth the herb of hay sowing seed,' so as to intimate seed from herb, not herb from seed. 'And so it was made. And the earth brought forth' — that is: first it was so made in the knowledge of that day, 'and the earth brought forth' — now, that this might come to be also in the creature itself, which was founded. How then, 'before they were upon the earth and before they sprang up'? As though it were one thing for them to come to be together with heaven and earth, when that unaccustomed day, unknown to us, which God first made, was made, but another thing to spring up now upon the earth, which does not happen except through these days which the sun's circuit makes through the delays of times fitted to each according to its kind?
But if this is so, and if that 'day' is the fellowship and unity of the supercelestial angels and powers, then beyond doubt God's creature is known to the angels in one way, and to us in quite another. Setting aside the fact that they know it in the Word of God, through whom all things were made, I say that even in the thing itself it is known to them far otherwise than to us. For to them it is known primordially, so to speak, or originally, just as God first founded it and then, after that founding, rested from His works, adding nothing further; but to us it is known according to the administration of things previously founded, now through the successive orders of time, according to which God, having now brought those things to completion in a sixfold perfection, works even until now.
It was therefore said causally at that time that the earth brought forth grass and tree—that is, that it received the power of bringing them forth. For in the earth, as it were in the roots of time, so to speak, those things had already been made which were to come to be through the course of time; for indeed afterward God planted a paradise toward the east and brought forth there from the earth every tree fair to behold and good for food. Yet it must not be said that He then added anything to creation which He had not made before, as if something were to be added to that perfection by which He completed all things very good on the sixth day.
But because all the natures of shrubs and trees had already been made in the first founding, from which founding God rested, He then, moving and administering through the courses of time those very things which He had founded and from which, once founded, He rested, not only then planted the paradise but even now plants all things that are born. For who else even now creates these things, save He who works until now? But He now creates them from things that already are; whereas then they were created by Him when they were altogether nothing—when that day too was made, which itself likewise did not at all exist before, namely the spiritual and intellectual creature. And so, once creatures had been made, times began to run through their motions.
Hence before the creature times are sought in vain, as if times could be found before times. For if there were no motion whatever, whether of spiritual or of corporeal creature, by which the future might succeed the past through the present, there would be no time at all. But a creature could by no means be moved unless it existed. Rather, then, time began from the creature than the creature from time; yet both are from God, for from Him and through Him and in Him are all things. Nor is what was said to be taken thus—that time began from the creature—as though time were not a creature, since it is the motion of the creature from one thing to another as things follow in succession according to the ordinance of God who administers all that He has created.