Questions on the Old and New Testament 106.1–107.8

“In the beginning God made heaven and earth.” If he made heaven and earth in the beginning, and heaven is the firmament, as appears in what follows, then it is not true that light was made first and the firmament afterward; for it could not signify another heaven, since it is describing the making of the world completed by God’s working. Because people were deceived by different opinions about the world, Moses, with God inspiring him, showed what the nature of the world was. For to some it seemed to have no beginning; to others to have a beginning, but to have been fashioned by certain angels; to some, likewise made, but by a certain Sacla, who was the god of the adverse power; but a few, following the line of descent from the origin of truth, held that God was its maker. Because of the diversity of those who were led by false opinion, then, Moses was compelled to show what its true cause was, so that the sons of Israel, rescued from the power of the Egyptians, would not remain unfreed from their false understanding. For the Egyptians more than all others pursued the study of error; from antiquity they gave themselves above others to vain philosophy. Indeed Moses, because he was regarded as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

What, then, does he mean when he says, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”? If it does not mean the firmament, as we showed above, let us see what it says. We think that Moses, to remove every error about the lower creation and about the materials of which the world was made, indicated that in the beginning the very substances of which the world consists were made; for if he had been silent about this, the substances might perhaps have been thought eternal and reckoned as coupled with God. So whoever accepts this testimony cannot doubt that the world was made, since he confesses that the substances which went into the material of the world were brought into being at the beginning. So “in the beginning God made heaven and earth,” that is, the upper and the lower substance. The upper is that of which heaven consists; the lower is a kind of muddy concretion, which went to form the dry land, which is called earth, and the darkness. Hence he says in the prophet Isaiah: “I am God, who made light and created darkness,” that is, water, darkness, and earth.

These substances, then, were created together before the times (for the times are under the firmament; the firmament, as some think, is ice formed from the waters, and it is called firmament because it was made firm when the waters were congealed by God; it is called caelum from hiding, occulere or celare. And because water is the greater element, it is mentioned first, and because part of it went to form the vault of the world, while the earth is the floor. David too confesses through the Holy Spirit that these were created, for he says: “And let the water that is above the heavens praise the name of the Lord, because he spoke and it was made, he commanded and it was created”). After these elements, then, before the world was joined together, God made light, so that his works might proceed in the light; and this light, in a set measure, completed the course of the day. And night came, according to the measure of the day, and likewise, when its measure of time was completed, it was lit by the coming of the morning light; and so the first day was completed when the second began. For the night was assigned to the day, so that together they are called one day. Because darkness was made subject to light, it lacks authority, so that it cannot make a number. For thirty days are called one month, though they include the nights with them. So the ministry of light, by which it completes the span decreed for it, is called day; but the substance of darkness, before it is lit, is called night. The span between setting and rising is night. For darkness does not make night in the way that light makes day, because darkness remains in its own nature; but the coming of light makes day, and its departure night. Not without reason, then, is night made subject to day.

When light had been made, then, and the course of twelve hours completed, and as many hours of night had passed, there was an equinox on the first day. From then the day began to grow longer than the night for three months, which are the season of spring. Then from that increase the day shortens over another three months, which are the season of summer. And again there is an equinox, so that from it the night grows longer than the day for another three months, which are the season of autumn. And again the night begins to shrink from the length by which it exceeds the day, until the end of the fourth season, which is winter. And then comes the equinox of the first season, when God created the world; that day is understood to be the eleventh day before the Kalends of April, when the first day of Pascha is, that is, the first day of the first month. For it is commanded in the law that on the tenth day of the first month, in the evening, they should prepare themselves for keeping the Pascha on the fourteenth day of the month, that is, from the eleventh. For the evening of the tenth day already shines into the eleventh, so that the first month would begin from the eleventh day before the Kalends of April. In the beginning the moon, when it was made, was in its fourteenth day, because all things were made full; add the three days from the evening of the tenth, and these are the three days that were before the lights, so that the world was made on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April, because the count of the moon goes from the eleventh to the fourteenth, to which the first month of the Pascha is assigned whole; so that on the solemn day of Pascha it is neither outside the eleventh before the Kalends of April nor outside the fourteenth moon, because the world was made on the eleventh. And on the fourteenth moon it was made brighter with greater light.

Between the beginning, then, and the brightness by which the world was lit, our Savior both suffered and rose again: for he suffered on the fourteenth moon and rose on the first day, which is called “the Lord’s” because he made it, and which, multiplied, makes months and seasons and years. That Easter is not celebrated always on one and the same date is caused by the course of the moon in its waning and waxing.

“But the earth was invisible and unformed.” It is plain that the earth, after it had been made, was invisible and unformed. It was covered by waters, and therefore it was invisible; and it was unformed because, being fluid, it was not fit for cultivation.

“And darkness was over the abyss.” He says that darkness was over the abyss, that is, over water boundless on every side.

“And the spirit of God was borne over the water.” He indicates this water as the surface, as it were, over which he shows that the spirit of God was borne, so as to indicate that the darkness was over the infinite depth, but the spirit of God over the waters, because where the spirit of God was there was no darkness. As far as it could, it lit up the water, but it could not light up the abyss, that is, the boundless depth; that is, it lit up the upper waters, while below there was still darkness over the abyss.

He calls this “the spirit of God” not because he wants it understood as the Holy Spirit, but because he wants spiritual things understood as set over the material creation; and to indicate that the whole belongs to God, he calls this spirit, which was borne over the waters, the spirit of God, so as to overthrow the perverse assertion some make when they say that there is something that is not God’s. It is not in keeping with order or reason that the Holy Spirit should be said to have been over the waters, because he is above all creation. What is from God is above all powers and principalities, and above all spiritual powers as well. Let no one be disturbed that it is called the spirit of God, since it is certain that all things are God’s. For God says among other things, when he was about to send the flood, “My spirit will not remain in these men, because they are flesh”; and in Ezekiel, among other things: “Thus says the Lord to these bones: I will stretch skin over you and put my spirit into you, and you will live.” Do these things belong to the office of the Holy Spirit and not to the soul? This spirit, then, is indeed God’s, as the other things are, yet it is the governor of the material substances; its appointed place is to preside over them.

When light, then, had been made and the course of the day regulated and completed, on the second day he made the firmament, that is, heaven, so that the light within the firmament might regulate the day, like a lamp in a house. This firmament was made from the substance of water mentioned above. For now the world is put together in its form, so that, the substances being separated out of the confusion of things, the individual parts that went to form the members of the world might be fitted together. The substances that we said were made first are the materials of the world; and it is called “world” (mundus) because things separated from one another, which had been confused, and brought into form, caused it to be called the world, into whose construction they went. The firmament, then, that is, heaven, was made in the midst of the waters, to divide between the water that was above the firmament and the water that was under the firmament, so that by God’s power the firmament stood in the midst of the waters, having water beneath it, within it, above it, and around it; concave from the outside and fortified within, so that the waters, whether outer or inner, should not penetrate its hollow, and so that it would be like a fortified and strengthened house, in which those who dwell may be secure.

On the third day he commanded the water that was under heaven, that is, within the space of the firmament, to be gathered into one gathering, so that the dry land, which is the earth, might appear; and it was so. The breadth of the earth was hollowed out, and a kind of basin was made, into which all the water within the firmament might sink, and then the dry land appeared. As the water receded, the earth necessarily appeared, made visible, which before had been invisible. Then the dry land was called earth and the gatherings of the waters seas. And he commanded the earth to bring forth grass for pasture and fruit-bearing trees with their seed upon the earth.

Again, on the fourth day God commanded lights to be made in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth: the greater light for the beginning of the day and the lesser light for the beginning of the night, and the stars. These serve the conception, birth, and nourishment of the things that are begotten in the world, and are needed as signs of the times under fixed headings, and also for the adornment of the whole world. As it belongs to the adornment of a house that its vault has paneled ceilings picked out in gold, so the stars shining with varied light give adornment to the world. To the light that was made first, then, the splendor of the sun was added, so that the two are joined and inseparable; but to the night, which was dark, a light was given. And because the moon was in its fourteenth day when it was made, he says, “the lesser light for the beginning of the night”; for once made it shone the whole night. So it is said from the part for the whole, “for the beginning of the night,” because it does not always shine in the evening. But the greater light, which we call the sun, remains at the beginnings of the day, because it was joined together with the earlier light.

For three days, then, the world was without these lights, for there were not yet things for whose sake their functions would be needed. But when the earth had brought forth grass for pasture and fruit-bearing trees, there was need of things that would nourish or preserve what had been brought forth. Since, then, all the generation of these things is completed through the action of the lights, the lights ought not to have been made first, lest the things brought forth from the earth be thought to have arisen by their effect; rather he made the plants first and then the lights, so that there would be no doubt that the plants were made without them.

Then on the fifth day he commanded the waters to bring forth creeping things with living souls, and birds flying over the earth along the firmament of heaven; and it was so. And among other things: “And God saw,” it says, “that they were good, and said: Increase and multiply.” He added “And God saw that they were good” because some say these creatures are evil, so that they may at least blush at this. When they please God their maker, they ought surely to displease no one. For fools are wont to say: “He saw, and they pleased him, because he did not know before.” O dullards, how did he not know, when what he willed was brought forth? Does anyone will what he does not know? And can one who is able to make something be said not to know what he makes? What is more, he did not make it himself but commanded it to be made; and was the thing he commanded not given the power to make it? Because all things are possible to him, at his command the waters began to be able to do what they could not, so as to serve his praise; for the power is twofold, in that he commanded the insensible to bring forth sensible beings.

On the sixth day he commanded the earth to bring forth living soul, four-footed animals and beasts of the earth; and it was so, and they were brought forth. And God saw that they were good, and very good, because all are necessary.

On that same day God said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let him have,” he says, “power over all things that have been made on the earth.” First God made the substances out of which to put the world together; when it had been put together, adorned with all its ornaments and furnished with what is needed, he then made man, to enjoy it and all things in it. For while he commanded all things on the earth to be brought forth from the waters and the earth, yet to make man he is described as having taken mud from the earth in his hands, to teach that man differs greatly from the other things he had made. He wishes it to belong to man’s honor when he describes him as made by God’s hands and made in the image and likeness of God, that is, of the Father and the Son.

Although we have said elsewhere what “in the image and likeness” means, this place and subject require us to say it again. These are the words of the Father to the Son: “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” although in every work the person of both is understood, of the one who speaks and of the one who obeys. This, then, is God’s image in man: that one man was made as a kind of lord, from whom the others would arise, having God’s rule as his vicar, since every king has the image of God. And therefore woman was not made in God’s image. For so it says: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him.” Hence the apostle says: “A man ought not to veil his head, because he is the image and glory of God”; but woman veils herself for this reason, that she is not the glory or image of God. And God’s likeness in man is this: that as the Son is from the Father, so woman is from man; yet plainly unlike in this, that she was made, while he was born.

Some, however, think that the Lord made all things at once. “For if he made them by a word,” they say, “why should he not be said to have made all things at once? Making in parts is the way of human beings.” So they say it does more honor to God’s power if all things are believed to have been made by him in one day. But we see great providence in this work and its order. He certainly could have made all things at once, but manifold reason forbade it; and, setting all these considerations aside, faith must be given to the divine Scripture, which says, and says often: “For in six days the Lord your God made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” In the first place, things ought to have been made so that they would perceive and know that they were made. For when they saw that they were not all made together, but one today and another tomorrow, they knew that they were bounded by a beginning and could not suppose themselves eternal, since they recognize that they came in parts, one after another. If all things had come into being at once, they would have no sense of their weakness, but would think they had not begun. Things that by God’s word suddenly exist together do not perceive that they are being made, except by seeing one thing before them and another after. And lest what was made first should think itself unmade, it sees greater things made after it and believes of itself what it sees in another that is superior. Light, which is called day, has heaven and earth before it, that is, water and dry land. But since water itself, the dry land, and darkness had been made in confusion, they could not claim eternity for themselves, for none of them dared to claim a settled state and distinct property for itself. Sun and moon, again, though they are most bright, have many things before them. So it came about that, since later things see themselves superior and earlier things inferior, none of them claims eternity for itself.

Moreover, because the work completed in six days contains within itself the age of the whole world, the works of the six days bear the figure of six thousand years, since what was to happen in each age is contained in order in the works of the six days. So the earlier days were seen without splendor, I think because in the earlier ages there was not to be so great a knowledge of God on earth; the cattle were made before man, because our forebears were to live uncultivated and rustic, like cattle; and man was made on the sixth day because in the six thousandth year the coming of Christ made man anew, so that he would not be subject to death. And man was made the image of God because by God’s gift he would be conformed to the image of the Son of God, as the apostle John says: “But we know,” he says, “that when he appears we shall be like him”; and the vessel of election: “conformed,” he says, “to the Son of God.” The tree of life, which was placed in paradise, was an image of God’s future grace, which is the body of the Lord, and whoever eats it will live for ever. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the law given through Moses, which, when it had made known sin that before had lain hidden, gave knowledge of good and evil; for it showed what was good and what was evil. And God’s rest on the seventh day from his works signified that, when the six thousandth year is completed, in the seven thousandth he would rest, the world then ceasing from every worldly work. We have said these few things out of many, to open a way of understanding along the lines we have shown above.

As far as the making of the world is concerned, we read of darkness before light. The things that went into the construction of the world and appear to have been made together, that is, water, earth, and darkness, out of which the world was put together, are considered to have been without light, as is contained in the Wisdom called Solomon’s: “from unseen matter,” that is, dark matter. The sacred volumes testify by the Lord’s own voice, through the prophet Isaiah, that darkness and water were made: “For I am God,” he says, “who made light and created darkness.” Likewise through David the Holy Spirit shows that the waters were made and the earth established upon the waters. This agrees with the authority of the gospel and the apostolic tradition, in which we read that all things were made, and, so as to except nothing, “whether things in heaven,” he says, “or things on earth.”

In this part, then, which concerns the earth, we read of darkness before light. This concerns the order of the reading, not dignity; for light is certainly much better than darkness. In the scheme of the world, however, light received a name, so that it was called day and darkness night, but for this reason: when the darkness is lit and the light then passes, that time, until the light returns, is called night, and the time in which the darkness is lit is called day. So when night is spoken of, a day to come is hoped for, and when day is spoken of, night is expected. But when these functions cease as the world passes away, there will be only darkness and light. It cannot be called night when the darkness is perpetual, nor day when the light has ceased to set. Where there is eternity these names cease, because they began with the world. Indeed, before light was made, which was called day, we read not that there was night but darkness; and after the darkness had been lit and the light had passed, it was called evening and night.

So, as appears, night is subject to day. Nor, because darkness is read of before light, should darkness be thought superior; for heaven too comes before the sun, and yet the sun is greater in brightness, and the earth comes before man, and cattle and the other animals, and yet they are subject to man. Night, then, ought not to be preferred to day because darkness is read of first, since it is plain that light is set before darkness in dignity and day before night in time. For, as was shown above, when there was darkness, light was made.

“And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night; and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” For unless there had been day, there would be no night either; there was darkness, and when it had been lit and the day had passed, its course run, evening came. And when after the evening it had dawned, the first day was made, the night having passed, so that night followed day. This is both fitting and commended by reason, that the inferior nature be in all things subject to the superior.

How, then, will night be said to come before day, when you read its name after the day? It would not have been called night or evening unless the light, once made, had made the day, after which came evening, which is night. The day became evening, so that you may know that night is part of the day. For the day is completed only when it has passed, night included. Indeed we say, “The year has 365 days,” certainly not without the nights. When we say days, we count the nights in at the same time; under the authority of the day we signify the night too. If night preceded day, the day too would be counted under the name of night. Who would say, “I will see you after five nights,” and not “after five days”? Nor do we remember reading anywhere that night is named before day. “Moses was,” it says, “on the mountain forty days and forty nights”; and in the psalm: “The sun will not burn you by day, nor the moon by night”; and, to give an example from the very beginning: “Let there be lights,” it says, “in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth; the greater light for the beginning of the day and the lesser light for the beginning of the night.” If the moon can be put before the sun, so can night before day; but as the moon is under the sun, so night is under the day. And in the gospel we find nights included under the authority and number of days. For the Lord says among other things: “There are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man in his kingdom.” And it adds: “And it came to pass after eight days,” and so on. Are not the nights contained in this number? And in another place: “These things,” it says, “were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. On the next day he saw Jesus coming.” Did he say, “on the next night”? Again it follows: “On the following day he wished to set out for Galilee,” and further on: “And on the third day a wedding took place at Cana of Galilee.”

See, everywhere the day is shown to hold authority, having the night subject to it. If the count were made under the name of night, night would precede day. Because the Romans hold the rule, the Spaniards, Gauls, Africans, and the others subject to them are called Romans under their name; so too night, because it is subject to day, is included under its name. Some are misled here because the Jews are commanded to enter the Sabbath in the evening, not considering why it was so commanded. On the day before they must buy their food, prepare for the Sabbath, and go to wash. Could they do these things at night, so as to enter the Sabbath when day broke? The Lord certainly rose in the evening, and it is assigned to the day. The resurrection is celebrated on the day that is called the Lord’s day (for so you read, “This is the day which the Lord made”), yet not the Lord’s night, because the day has the primacy. Whether to the past day or to the coming one, night is always subject, because it is inferior both in order and in nature, as the apostle says: “You are sons of the day and of light, not of night and darkness.” And if we draw an inference from the consuls, we shall see that the one elected first is named first. Indeed people say, “Who will be consul with him?” If, then, night came before day, it would be named first. The count begins from the day to such an extent that if we say, for example, “Tomorrow is the sixth day before the Kalends,” it is reckoned from morning until the next morning comes, so that it is counted when a day and a night have passed. The moon too was made in the morning at the beginning, in its fourteenth day; for once made it had to shine the whole night, and at the next morning its fifteenth day began. Why, then, is it doubted that the beginning is to be taken from the day?

Because of some people’s contentiousness about a plain matter we have been compelled to speak at greater length, though the reading explains itself, since it plainly sets day before night. All the things mentioned above we have said according to the origin of the world. But if we wish to speak more deeply, raising our understanding with spiritual vigor, we shall find it incongruous to assert that darkness was created before light. If the nature of light is heavenly and that of darkness earthly, it is surely absurd to think that light was made after darkness. Moses says that light was made in the part where the world now is, not that it was created then, because all spiritual things were created before carnal ones, so that the light that was in the heights came to be in the things below, like a lamp in a house. And for what reason is darkness said to come before light, when it is always seen after light? Indeed heavenly and spiritual things are believed to be by nature light, earthly and carnal things darkness, so that the nature of darkness seems to subsist by the power of light, because everything lowest belongs to what is highest. If we inquire, we find darkness in the sun itself: if you were near it, it would seem so bright that it could not be looked at; at some distance, very bright, but such that it can be looked at; far off, less bright; and the farther off, a kind of failing appears, which announces darkness; and so one arrives at the point where darkness seems to take its origin from light. So he who made light created darkness in the same way as, in making water, he at the same time created earth; so that, as earth is the solid part of water, darkness is the failing of light.

God alone suffers no failing; since he is everywhere, or rather holds all things within himself, he is so bright that he is seen by no one unless he wishes to temper himself. Indeed the Savior, when he was in the body and yet not enclosed, was not seen unless he wished. For what was transfigured on the mountain and appeared in great brightness was, as it were, hidden in the body, and when he wished he manifested it. How then was he hidden who was not enclosed? If with a body he came in to the disciples through closed doors, how does his divinity not penetrate all things? That is, it cannot be enclosed, because it suffers no failing. Since, then, God is absent nowhere, he is nevertheless said to be there where he appears and wishes to be seen. Since all things are in God, because he exceeds all things, as the apostle says, “For in him we live and move and are,” yet he himself is in nothing except in whom he wishes. For by a certain mystery he is in all things, and by a certain providence he appears in whom he wishes.