Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 5–12

‘And God said: Let there be light. And light was made.’ We must not take it that God said, ‘Let there be light,’ by a voice sent out from lungs, or with tongue and teeth. Such thoughts belong to carnal people; and to be minded according to the flesh is death. But ‘Let there be light’ was said ineffably. Whether what was said was said to the only-begotten Son, or whether what was said is itself the only-begotten Son, who is called the Word of God, through whom all things were made, can be asked, provided that impiety is absent by which we would believe that the Word of God, the only-begotten Son, is like a voice uttered as happens with us. But the Word of God, through whom all things were made, neither began to be nor will cease; but, born without beginning, he is coeternal with the Father. Therefore, if this saying ‘Let there be light’ both began and ceased to be said, this word was said to the Son rather than being itself the Son. And yet even this was said ineffably, lest a carnal image creep into the soul and disturb pious spiritual understanding; for to think that anything begins and ceases in the nature of God, if taken properly, is a rash and headlong opinion, though it is to be granted most humanely to carnal people and little ones, not as though they would remain in it, but as though they would rise from it. For whatever God is said to begin and cease must be understood in no way in his own nature, but in his creature, which obeys him in wonderful ways. ‘And God said: Let there be light.’ Is it the light that is open to these fleshly eyes, or some hidden light that it is not given us to see through this body? And if hidden, is it bodily, extended through spaces of place, perhaps in the highest parts of the world; or incorporeal, such as is in the soul, to which the senses of the body refer the judgment of what to avoid and what to seek, which even the souls of beasts do not lack; or that higher light which appears in reasoning, from which everything created begins? For whatever light it signifies, we must take it as made and created, not that light by which the Wisdom of God herself shines, who was not created but born; lest God be thought to have been without light before he founded this light of which we are now treating. For of this light, as the words themselves sufficiently show, this is presented: that it was made. ‘And God said,’ it says, ‘Let there be light. And light was made.’ The light born of God is one thing, and the light which God made is another. The light born of God is the Wisdom of God herself; but the light made is any changeable light, whether incorporeal or bodily. It commonly troubles people how there could be bodily light before there was heaven and the lights of heaven, which are set out after this light — as if it could easily be perceived by man, or could be at all, whether there is some light besides heaven which is nevertheless distributed and spread through spaces of place and embraces the world. But since it is permissible to understand incorporeal light here too, if we say that not only the visible creation but every creature is set forth in this book, what need is there to linger in this controversy? And perhaps what people ask — when the angels were made — they themselves are signified by this light, very briefly indeed, but most fittingly and becomingly. ‘And God saw the light, that it was good.’ This sentence should be understood to signify not joy at an unaccustomed good, but approval of the work. For what is said more fittingly of God, as far as it can be said among men, than when it is put thus, ‘he said,’ ‘it was made,’ ‘it pleased him’ — so that in ‘he said’ his command is understood, in ‘it was made’ his power, in ‘it pleased him’ his kindness — just as ineffable things had to be spoken by man to men in such a way that they could benefit all? ‘And God divided between the light and the darkness.’ From this we may understand with how great ease of divine working these things are said to have been brought about. For there is no one who would think that light was made in such a way as to be mixed with darkness and therefore afterward to need separating; but by the very fact that light was made, the division between light and darkness also followed. For what fellowship has light with darkness? God, then, divided between the light and the darkness because he made light, whose absence is called darkness. And the difference between light and darkness is like that between clothing and nakedness, or full and empty, and the like. In how many ways light can be understood has been said above; the privations contrary to them can be called darkness. For one light is the one seen by these bodily eyes, itself bodily, such as that of the sun, moon, and stars and anything of this kind; contrary to it is darkness, when some place lacks that light. Another light, again, is life that senses and is able to discern what is referred through the body to the judgment of the soul: white and black, melodious and harsh, fragrant and foul-smelling, sweet and bitter, hot and cold, and other things of this kind. For the light that is sensed by the eyes is one thing, and the thing that acts through the eyes so that it may be sensed is another. The former is in the body; the latter, although it receives through the body what it senses, is nevertheless in the soul. Contrary to this is darkness: a kind of insensibility, or, if it is better called so, insensuality, that is, not sensing, although things are presented that could be sensed if this light by which one senses were in that life. And this is not when the services of the body are lacking, as in the blind or deaf — for in their souls there is this light of which we are now treating, but the instruments of the body are lacking; nor in the way that in silence no voice is heard, when this light is in the soul and the instruments of the body are present, but nothing is presented to be sensed. So whoever does not sense for these reasons does not lack this light; but it is lacking when such a power is not in the soul, which then is no longer usually called a soul but only life, such as is said to be in the vine and the tree and all kinds of plants — if indeed they can in any way be believed to have even this; though some heretics, erring greatly, think that they not only sense through the body, that is, see and hear and distinguish heat and fire, but also understand reason and know our thoughts. But that is another question. Insensibility, then, is the darkness of this light by which anything is sensed, when some life does not have the very power of sensing. And whoever grants that that by which each thing is made manifest is rightly called light grants that this is fittingly called light. For when we say, ‘It is manifest that this is melodious, it is manifest that this is sweet, it is manifest that this is cold,’ and whatever of this kind we perhaps reach through the bodily senses, this light by which these things are manifest is surely within, in the soul, although the things so sensed are presented through the body. A third kind of light can be understood among creatures, that by which we reason. Contrary to it is the darkness of irrationality, as are the souls of beasts. So whether this sentence wishes us to understand that ethereal light, or the light of sense, which animals share, or rational light, which both angels and men have, was first made by God in the nature of things, we must take it that God divided between the light and the darkness by the very fact that light was made, because light is one thing and those privations of light are another, which God ordered in the contrary darknesses. For it is not said that God made darkness, since God made the forms themselves, not the privations, which belong to the nothing from which all things were made by God the craftsman. Yet we understand that they were ordered by him when it is said, ‘And God divided between the light and the darkness,’ so that not even the privations would lack their order, God ruling and governing all things — just as in singing, the intervals of silence, at fixed and measured intervals, although they are privations of sound, are nevertheless well ordered by those who know how to sing, and contribute something to the sweetness of the whole song; and shadows in paintings set off each of the more prominent features and please not by their form but by their order. For God is not the author of our vices either; yet he is their orderer, when he places sinners in their place and compels them to suffer what they deserve. To this point applies the placing of the sheep on the right and the goats on the left. So some things God both makes and orders, but some he only orders. The righteous he both makes and orders; but sinners, insofar as they are sinners, he does not make but only orders, inasmuch as he sets some on the right and some on the left, and his commanding them to go into eternal fire serves the order of deserts. So he both makes and orders forms and natures themselves; but the privations of forms and the defects of natures he does not make, but only orders. And so he said, ‘Let there be light. And light was made’; he did not say, ‘Let there be darkness. And darkness was made.’ Of these, then, he made the one and did not make the other; yet he ordered both, when God divided between the light and the darkness. So by his making each thing is beautiful, and by his ordering all things are beautiful.

‘And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.’ Since ‘light’ is the name of a thing, and ‘day’ in turn, and ‘darkness’ and ‘night’ are both names, ought it to be said that names were imposed on things in such a way that the thing on which a name was imposed was expressed by some other name too — for it could not be otherwise — and that ‘God called the light day’ was said so that it could indifferently be said the other way round too, ‘God called the day light, and called the night darkness’? What shall we answer if someone asks us thus: was the name ‘day’ imposed on light, or was the name ‘light’ imposed on day? For both of these, insofar as they are uttered by articulate voice to signify things, are names. In the same way it can be asked about the other two: was the name ‘night’ imposed on darkness, or was the name ‘darkness’ imposed on night? And indeed, as scripture lays down, it is plain that ‘day’ was spoken as the name of light and ‘night’ as the name of darkness. For when it said, ‘God made light and divided between the light and the darkness,’ it was not yet dealing with words; afterward the words day and night were applied, although light and darkness too are without doubt words signifying certain things, as day and night are. Must this be taken, then, as meaning that the thing which received a name could not be expressed otherwise than by some name? Or is this calling rather to be taken as the distinction itself? For not every light is day, nor all darkness night; but light and darkness, ordered and distinguished from each other in fixed alternations, are called by the names of day and night. For every word serves to distinguish; whence also a name (nomen), which marks a thing, is so called as being a mark (notamen); and to mark is to distinguish and to help the learner to discern. Perhaps, then, to have divided between light and darkness is the same as to have called the light day and the darkness night, so that to have ordered them is the same as to have called them. Or do these words wish to signify to us which light he meant and which darkness? As though it said: God made light and divided between the light and the darkness; but by light I mean day, and by darkness I mean night, lest you understand some other light which is not day, and lest you understand some other darkness which is not night. For if every light could be understood as day, and all darkness were reckoned by the name of night, perhaps there would be no need to say, ‘And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.’ Again it can be asked what day he means and what night. If he wants us to take the day which the rising of the sun begins and its setting closes, and the night which stretches from the setting of the sun to its rising, I do not find how these could have existed before the lights of heaven had been made. Or could the very spans of hours and times already be so called even without the distinction of brightness and shadow? And how does this alternation, signified by the names day and night, apply to that rational light, if this is what is signified, or to the light of sense? Or were these things presented not according to what happens but according to what can happen, since error can follow upon reason and a certain dullness upon sense?

‘And evening came and morning came, one day.’ Day is not now called day in the same way as when it was said, ‘And God called the light day,’ but in the way in which we say, for example, that a month has thirty days; for here by the name day we include the nights as well, whereas above day was so called as to be separated from night. So, when that working of God accomplished through light had been presented, it is said next that evening came and morning came, one day, so that one day is evidently from the beginning of day to the beginning of day, that is, from morning to morning, the kind of days we call days, as I said, with the nights counted in. But how did evening come and morning come? Did God make light and divide between light and darkness in as long a span of time as the bright day lasts, that is, not counting the night? And where then is what is written: ‘For power is at your disposal whenever you will’ — if God needs a stretch of time to accomplish something? Or were all things indeed accomplished by God as in an art and a plan, not in a stretch of time, but in that very power which brings about in a stable way even those things which we see not standing but passing away? For in our speech too, although some words pass and others follow, it is not credible that the same happens in the art itself by whose working a skilful speech is stably produced. So, although God, with whom power lies whenever he wills, makes things without a stretch of time, nevertheless temporal natures themselves carry out their motions temporally. So perhaps it was said, ‘And evening came and morning came, one day,’ as it is foreseen in the plan that things should or could be done in that way, not as they are done in the stretches of time. For he who said, ‘He who abides for ever created all things at once,’ was contemplating in the Holy Spirit the very plan of the works; but in this book the narrative of the things made by God has been arranged most suitably as if through intervals of time, so that the arrangement itself, which weaker minds could not see by stable contemplation, might be set forth by this kind of order in speech and be seen, as it were, with these eyes.

‘And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water. And so it was done. And God made the firmament and divided between the water that was under the firmament and the water that was above the firmament.’ Are the waters above the firmament like these visible waters under the firmament? Or, since it seems to signify that water over which the Spirit was borne, and which we understood to be the very matter of the world, must this too be believed to be separated in this place by the interposed firmament, so that the lower is bodily matter and the upper animate? For he here calls firmament what he later calls heaven. And among bodies nothing is better than a heavenly body; for there are heavenly bodies and earthly ones, and the heavenly are surely better. Whatever surpasses their nature I do not know how it can still be called a body; but perhaps it is a certain power subject to reason, the reason by which God and truth are known. Since this nature can be formed by virtue and prudence, by whose vigor its fluidity is checked and restrained, and for this reason appears as if material, it was rightly called water by God — surpassing the circuit of the bodily heaven not by spaces of place but by the worth of its incorporeal nature. And since he called heaven the firmament, it is not absurdly understood that whatever is below the ethereal heaven, in which all things are calm and firm, is more changeable and more easily dissolved. Of this kind of bodily matter, before it received the appearance and distinction of forms by which it was named the water under the firmament, there were some who believed that these visible and cold waters encompass the surface of the heaven from above. And they tried to bring as proof the slowness of one star of the seven wanderers, which is higher than the rest and is called by the Greeks Phainon, and completes the circle of the zodiac in thirty years — that it is slow for this reason, because it is nearer to the cold waters which are above the heaven. I do not know how this opinion can be defended among those who have investigated these things most minutely. But none of these things should be rashly affirmed; all should be treated cautiously and modestly. ‘And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water. And so it was done.’ After he said, ‘So it was done,’ what need was there to add again, ‘And God made the firmament and divided between the water that was under the firmament and the water that was above the firmament’? For when he had said above, ‘And God said: Let there be light. And light was made,’ he did not add again, ‘And God made light’; but here, after God said, ‘Let there be,’ and ‘So it was done,’ there was added, ‘And God made.’ Does it appear from this that that light should not be understood as bodily, lest God seem to have made it with some creature interposed — and by God I mean the Trinity — whereas this firmament of heaven, because it is bodily, may be believed to have received its appearance and form through an incorporeal creature? So that what was to be impressed bodily, that the firmament of heaven might come to be, was first impressed rationally by the truth on an incorporeal nature; and therefore what is set down, ‘And God said: Let there be. And so it was done,’ was perhaps first done in the rational nature itself, from which the form would be impressed on the body?

But when it is added, ‘And God made the firmament and divided between the water that was under the firmament and the water that was above the firmament,’ is the very working in that matter signified, so that the body of heaven came to be? Or perhaps, for variety's sake, so that the texture of the narrative should not become tedious, what is set down below was not set down above, and we should not scrupulously probe everything? Let each choose what he can, only let him not rashly put forward something unknown as known, and let him remember that he is a man inquiring into divine works as far as is permitted. ‘And God called the firmament heaven.’ What was discussed above about calling can be considered here too; for not every firmament is heaven. ‘And God saw that it was good.’ Let what was discussed above about this also be taken up again, except that I do not see the same order. For above it says, ‘And God saw the light, that it was good,’ and after that is added, ‘God divided between the light and the darkness; and God called the light day and the darkness he called night’; but here, after it has been narrated as done what was said to be done, and after the firmament has been called heaven, then it is said, ‘And God saw that it was good.’ If this has not been varied for the sake of avoiding tedium, we are surely compelled to understand what was said: ‘And God made all things at once.’ For why did he there first see that it was good and afterward impose the name, but here first impose the name and afterward see that it was good, unless this indifference signifies that there are no intervals of time in God's working, although they are found in the works themselves? But according to an interval of time something is brought about earlier and later, and without these there can be no narrative of things done, although God could have brought these things about without them. ‘And evening came and morning came, a second day.’ This has already been discussed above, and I think the same reasons hold here too.

‘And God said: Let the waters that are under heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear. And so it was done.’ From this it can more probably be believed that the very matter of the world was called water above, as we supposed. For if the universe was filled with water, from where or to where could it be gathered? But if he had called a certain material confusion by the name of water, this gathering must be taken as its very formation, so that the appearance of water would be such as we now see it to be. And the very phrase that is set down, ‘let the dry land appear,’ can be understood as the formation of the earth, so that the earth would have this appearance which we see. For it had been called invisible and unformed while the appearance of matter was still lacking. So God said, ‘Let the water that is under heaven be gathered,’ that is, let bodily matter be brought into form, so that it may be this water which we perceive. ‘Into one gathering’: the very power of form is presented by the name of unity. For to be truly formed is this: to be brought into some one thing, since every principle of form is supremely one. ‘And let the dry land appear’: that is, let it receive a visible appearance, distinct from confusion. And the water is well gathered so that the dry land may appear; that is, the fluidity of matter is checked so that what is obscure may be brought to light. ‘And so it was done’: this too was perhaps done first in the reasons of the intellectual nature, so that what is said afterward, ‘And the water was gathered into one gathering and the dry land appeared,’ may not seem superfluously added, since it had already been said, ‘And so it was done,’ but so that we may understand that after the rational and incorporeal working the bodily one also followed. ‘And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the water he called sea.’ That reason for the words still works in our favor; for not all water is sea, nor all dry ground earth. So it had to be marked off by words which water and which dry ground was meant. But it can still be understood, not absurdly, that God's calling was the very distinction and formation. ‘And God saw that it was good.’ Here the same order is kept; so let what has already been discussed be compared with this too.

‘And God said: Let the earth sprout fodder-grass bearing seed according to its kind and likeness, and the fruitful tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its likeness.’ After the earth and the sea had been made and named and approved — which, as we have often said, must not be taken in intervals of time, lest some slowness attach to the ineffable ability of God at work — it is not at once added, as on the two previous days, ‘Evening came and morning came, a third day’; but another work is joined, that the earth should sprout fodder-grass bearing seed according to its kind and likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its likeness. This was not said of that light and the firmament and the waters and the dry land; for that light has no propagation by succession, nor is another heaven born of heaven, nor do earth or sea bring forth other seas and other earths to succeed them. Here, then, it had to be said, ‘bearing seed according to its kind and likeness’ and ‘whose seed is in itself according to its likeness,’ where the likeness of the things born preserves the likeness of what passes away. All these things are above the earth in such a way that they cleave to the earth itself by their roots and are continuous with it, and again are in some way separate from it. For this reason I think the signification of this nature has been preserved in this narrative: that they were made on the same day on which the earth appeared, and yet God spoke again that the earth should sprout, and again it was said, ‘And so it was done.’ Then, according to the earlier rule, after it was said, ‘And so it was done,’ the execution itself is added: ‘And the earth brought forth fodder-grass bearing seed according to its kind, and the fruit-bearing tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its likeness’; and again he says, ‘God saw that it was good.’ So these things are both joined in one day and distinguished from each other by the repetition of God's words; and I think this was not done for the earth and the sea because the nature of these things is more to be distinguished, which, while they rise and perish, are propagated by the succession of seed. Or, since the earth and the sea could be made at the same time not only in the reasons of the spiritual creature, where all things were made at once, but also in bodily motion itself, while trees and all kinds of plants could not be born unless the earth in which they would sprout had come first — was God's command therefore to be repeated, so that they would be signified as made distinct, yet not to be made on another day, because they are fixed by their roots in the earth and continuous with it? But it can be asked why God did not impose names on these. Was it passed over because their multitude did not allow it? But this question will be better considered later, when we notice other things that God did not name as he named the light and heaven and earth and sea. ‘And evening came and morning came, a third day.’

‘And God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth and to divide between day and night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years; and let them be for splendor in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth.’ The lights were made on the fourth day, and of them it is said, ‘And let them be for days.’ What, then, do the three days that passed without lights mean? Or why will these be for days, if days could exist even without them? Is it because that stretch of time and the interval of duration can be more clearly marked off by men through the motion of these lights? Or does this counting of days and nights serve to distinguish between that nature which was not made and the natures which were made, so that morning would be named on account of the form of the things made, and evening on account of privation? For as far as concerns him by whom they were made, they are beautiful and well formed; but as far as lies in themselves, they can fail, because they were made from nothing; and insofar as they do not fail, this is not from their matter, which is from nothing, but from him who supremely is and makes them be in their own kind and order. ‘And God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to shine.’ Was this said only of the fixed stars, or of the wandering ones too? But the two lights, the greater and the lesser, are numbered among the wandering stars. How, then, were all made in the firmament, when each of the wandering stars possesses its own globe or circle? Or, since in the scriptures we read both of many heavens and of heaven — as in this place, where heaven and firmament are spoken of — must we understand that this whole ethereal structure is meant, which contains all the stars, beneath which flourishes the serenity of pure and tranquil air, beneath which again this turbulent and stormy air is tossed? ‘To shine upon the earth and to divide between day and night.’ Had not God already divided between light and darkness, and called the light day and the darkness night? From this it appears that he had divided between day and night. What does it mean now, that it is said of the lights, ‘and let them divide between day and night’? Is this division now made through the lights in such a way that it is known to men, even to those who use only fleshly eyes in contemplating these things, whereas God made it before the circuit of the lights in such a way that now it can be seen only by a few, by the Holy Spirit and serene reason? Or did God divide between another day and another night, that is, between the form which he was impressing on that formlessness and the formlessness which still remained to be formed? But this day and this night are different, whose alternation is noticed as heaven revolves, which could not happen except by the rising and setting of the sun.