Literal Commentary on Genesis 2.5–2.14

Some of our people also try to refute those who deny, because of the weights of the elements, that waters can be above the starry heaven, from the qualities and courses of the stars themselves. For these same people assert that the star they call Saturn’s is very cold, and that it takes thirty years to complete the circle of the zodiac because it moves in a higher and therefore wider orbit. For the sun completes the same circle in a year, and the moon in a month, so much more quickly, they say, as it is lower, so that the span of time matches the span of place. So they are asked why that star is cold, which ought to be the hotter the loftier the heaven by which it is carried. For without doubt, when a round mass is driven in circular motion, its inner parts go more slowly and its outer parts more quickly, so that the greater distances and the shorter come round together to the same turns; and what goes more quickly is surely hotter. Accordingly that star ought to be hot rather than cold. For although by its own motion, since the distance is great, it travels its whole orbit in thirty years, yet, whirled more swiftly in the opposite direction by the motion of the heaven, which it must undergo daily (since, as they say, each revolution of the heaven produces one day), it ought to have taken on greater heat from the heaven moving so swiftly. Surely, then, what makes it cold is the nearness of the waters set above the heaven, which those who argue as I have briefly described about the motion of the heaven and the stars refuse to believe. With these conjectures some of our people act against those who refuse to believe there are waters above the heaven, and they want the star that circles next to the highest heaven to be cold, so that the latter are forced to conclude that the nature of the waters is suspended there no longer in the thinness of vapour but in the solidity of ice. But however and of whatever kind the waters there may be, let us by no means doubt that they are there; for the authority of this Scripture is greater than all the capacity of human intelligence.

But some have observed, and I do not think it should be passed over, that it is not without purpose that, after God had said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let there be a division between water and water,” it did not seem enough to add, “And so it was done,” unless there were also added, “And God made the firmament; and God divided between the water that was above the firmament and the water that was below the firmament.” They understand this to mean that the person of the Father is declared in what is written, “And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let there be a division between water and water.’ And so it was done”; and then, so that the Son may be understood to have made what the Father said should be made, they think there was added, “And God made the firmament, and God divided,” and so on. But when we read before, “And so it was done,” by whom do we understand it to have been done? If by the Son, what need was there to say next, “And God made,” and what follows? But if we understand what is written, “And so it was done,” to have been done by the Father, then it is no longer the Father who speaks and the Son who makes, and the Father can make something without the Son, so that the Son then makes, not this, but something else in like manner; and this is against the catholic faith. But if that of which it is said, “And so it was done,” is the same thing that is done when it is said likewise, “And God made,” what prevents us from understanding that the same one who said it should be made makes what he said? Or, setting aside what is written, “And so it was done,” do they want the persons of the Father and the Son to be understood only in the words, “And God said, ‘Let there be,’” and afterward, “And God made”? But it can still be asked whether we should take it that the Father, as it were, commanded the Son in what is written, “And God said, ‘Let there be.’” But why did Scripture not take care to show the person of the Holy Spirit as well? Or is the Trinity understood thus: “And God said, ‘Let there be.’ And God made. And God saw that it was good”? But it does not suit the unity of the Trinity that the Son should be understood to have made as one commanded, while the Holy Spirit, with no one commanding him, freely saw that what was made was good. For with what words would the Father command the Son to make, since he himself is the original Word of the Father, through whom all things were made? Or is it that in the very fact that it is written, “Let there be a firmament,” this saying itself is the Word of the Father, the only-begotten Son, in whom are all things that are created, even before they are created; and whatever is in him is life, because whatever was made through him is life in him, and certainly creative life? But creation is under him. So the things made through him are in him in one way, because he rules and contains them; and in another way what he himself is is in him. For he himself is the life that is in him in such a way that it is he himself, since he himself is the life, the light of men. Because nothing could be created, whether before times (which is still not coeternal with the Creator), or from the beginning of times, or at any time, unless the reason for its creation (if “reason” is the right word) lived as coeternal life in the Word of God coeternal with the Father, Scripture, before it presents each creature in the order in which it says it was established, looks back to the Word of God, first putting, “And God said, ‘Let there be this.’” For it finds no cause for a thing to be created other than its finding in the Word of God that it should be created. So God did not say “Let there be this or that creature” as many times as “And God said” is repeated in this book. He begot one Word, in whom he said all things before each was made; but the language of Scripture, coming down to the capacity of little ones, while it presents the kinds of creatures one by one, looks back in each case to the eternal reason of each kind in the Word of God. And yet he does not repeat these things when he repeats, “And God said.” For if it had wished to say first, “A firmament was made in the midst of the waters, so that there might be a division between water and water,” and someone asked it how it was made, it would rightly answer, “God said, ‘Let there be,’” that is, it was in the eternal Word of God that it should be made. So it begins the narration of each thing made from what, even after narrating the thing made, it would have to answer in giving the reason to someone asking how it was made. So when we hear, “And God said, ‘Let there be,’” we understand that it was in the Word of God that it should be made. When we hear, “And so it was done,” we understand that the creature made did not go beyond the bounds of its kind prescribed in the Word of God. And when we hear, “And God saw that it was good,” we understand that in the kindness of his Spirit it pleased him, not as though known after it was made, but rather that it pleased him in that goodness, so that what was made might remain where it pleased him that it should be made.

And so there still remains a reason to ask why, after saying, “And so it was done,” where the completion of the work is already indicated, it added, “And God made,” since by the very words, “And God said, ‘Let there be this,’ and so it was done,” it is already understood that God said it in his Word and that it was done through his Word, and there the person not only of the Father but also of the Son can already appear. For if “And God made” is repeated and said in order to show the person of the Son, did he then not gather the water on the third day through the Son, so that dry land appeared, because there it is not said, “And God made the water be gathered,” or, “God gathered the water”? And yet there too, after saying, “And so it was done,” it then repeated, saying, “And the water that is under heaven was gathered.” Was light, too, not made through the Son, where there is no repetition at all? For there too it could have said, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And so it was done. And God made the light. And he saw that it was good”; or at least, as in the gathering of the waters, not saying “And God made,” but still repeating, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And so it was done. And light was made. And God saw the light, that it was good.” But with no repetition at all, after setting down, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’” it added nothing but, “And there was light,” and then narrated without any repetition the light’s pleasing God, its division from the darkness, and the naming of each.

What, then, does that repetition mean in the other cases? Is it shown in this way that on the first day, when light was made, the establishing of the spiritual and intellectual creation is made known by the name of light (in this nature are understood all the holy angels and powers); and that therefore it did not repeat that it was made after saying, “There was light,” because the rational creature did not first know its formation and then become formed, but knew it in its very formation, that is, in the illumination by the truth to which it turned and was formed; while the other things below it are created in such a way that they come about first in the knowledge of the rational creature and then in their own kind? Therefore the establishing of light is first in the Word of God according to the reason by which it was established, that is, in the Wisdom coeternal with the Father, and then in the establishing of light itself according to the nature that was established: there not made but begotten, here made, because formed from formlessness. And so God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, so that what was there in the Word might be here in the work. But the establishing of heaven was first in the Word of God according to the begotten Wisdom; then it was made in the spiritual creation, that is, in the knowledge of the angels according to the wisdom created in them; then heaven was made, so that the creature of heaven itself might exist in its own kind. So also the separation or form of waters and lands, so the natures of trees and plants, so the lights of heaven, so the living creatures arising from waters and earth. For angels do not see these sensible things with bodily sense alone, as cattle do; but if they use any such sense, they rather recognize things that they know better within, in the very Word of God, by whom they are enlightened so as to live wisely, since there is in them the light that was made first, if we understand that a spiritual light was made on that day. So just as the reason by which a creature is established is prior in the Word of God to the creature itself that is established, so too the knowledge of that same reason comes first in the intellectual creation that has not been darkened by sin, and then the establishing of the creature itself. For the angels did not advance toward grasping wisdom as we do, so as to behold the invisible things of God understood through the things that have been made. From the moment they were created they enjoy the very eternity of the Word in holy and devout contemplation, and, looking from there on these things according to what they see within, they either approve what is done rightly or disapprove sins. Nor is it surprising that God first showed his holy angels, formed in the first establishing of light, what he was going to create next. For they would not know the mind of God except so far as he himself showed it. “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid him? For from him and through him and in him are all things.” So the angels learned from him, when there came about in them the knowledge of the creature to be made next, and then it came about in its own kind. Therefore, once light had been made, in which we understand the rational creation formed by the eternal light, when in the creation of the other things we hear, “And God said, ‘Let there be,’” let us understand that the intention of Scripture goes back to the eternity of the Word of God. And when we hear, “And so it was done,” let us understand that there came about in the intellectual creation the knowledge of the reason, which is in the Word of God, of the creature to be established, so that it was first made in some way in that nature which, by a kind of prior movement, first knew in the very Word of God that it was to be made; so that finally, when we hear it repeated and said that God made it, we understand that the creature itself now comes about in its own kind. Further, when we hear, “And God saw that it was good,” let us understand that what was made pleased the goodness of God, so that it might remain in the measure of its kind, as it pleased him that it should be made when the Spirit of God was borne over the water.

It is also often asked what form and shape of the heaven is to be believed according to our Scriptures. For many argue much about these matters, which our authors with greater prudence left out, since they would not help learners toward the blessed life and, what is worse, would take up much precious time that should be spent on things that lead to salvation. For what does it matter to me whether the heaven, like a sphere, encloses the earth on every side, balanced in the middle of the mass of the world, or covers it from above on one side like a disc? But since the trustworthiness of the Scriptures is at stake, for the reason I have mentioned more than once (that no one who does not understand the divine words, when he finds something of this kind about these matters in our books or hears it from them which seems to contradict the reasons he has grasped, should refuse to believe them in any way when they give other useful warnings or narratives or predictions), it must be said briefly that, concerning the shape of the heaven, our authors knew what the truth is; but the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men these things, which would profit no one for salvation. “But,” someone says, “how is what is written in our writings, ‘who stretches out the heaven like a skin,’ not contrary to those who give the heaven the shape of a sphere?” Let it be contrary, certainly, if what they say is false; for what divine authority says is true, rather than what human weakness conjectures. But if perhaps they can prove it by such evidence that it ought not to be doubted, it must be shown that what is said among us about the skin is not contrary to those true reasons; otherwise it will also be contrary to our Scriptures themselves in another place, where the heaven is said to be hung like a vault. For what is so different and so opposed to itself as the flat stretching of a skin and the curved convexity of a vault? But if we must (as we must) understand these two in such a way that both are found to agree and not to conflict with each other, so also we must understand either of them as not opposed to those arguments, if certain reason should show them to be true, by which it is taught that the heaven is convex on every side in the shape of a sphere, if indeed it is proved. And that likeness of a vault among us, even taken literally, does not hinder those who say it is a sphere. For it is well believed that Scripture wished to speak of the shape of the heaven according to the part that is above us. So if it is not a sphere, it is a vault on one side, the side on which the heaven covers the earth; but if it is a sphere, it is a vault on every side. But what is said of the skin presses harder, lest it be opposed, not to the sphere, which is perhaps a human invention, but to our own vault. What I have thought of its allegorical meaning is in the thirteenth book of my Confessions. So whether the heaven stretched out like a skin is to be understood as I set it out there or in some other way, I say this, because of tiresome and excessive demanders of a literal explanation, which I think is plain to everyone’s senses: perhaps both, that is, both skin and vault, can be understood figuratively; but how both can be understood literally must be seen. For if a vault is rightly said to be not only curved but also flat, then surely a skin too is stretched not only flat but also into a round hollow. For a wineskin and a bladder too are skin.

Some brothers also raise the question of the motion of the heaven, whether it stands still or moves. “Because,” they say, “if it moves, how is it a firmament? But if it stands still, how do the stars, which are believed to be fixed in it, go round from east to west, the northern stars making shorter circuits near the pole, so that the heaven seems to turn like a sphere, if there is another pole hidden from us at the other end, or like a disc, if there is no other pole?” I answer them that these things are investigated by very subtle and laborious reasonings, so as truly to grasp whether it is this way or that; and to undertake and treat these I no longer have time, nor should they, whom we desire to be instructed for their own salvation and for the necessary benefit of the holy church. Let them know this much: the name “firmament” does not compel us to think that the heaven stands still (one may understand it to be called firmament not because it stands still but because of its firmness, or because of the boundary between the upper and lower waters that cannot be crossed); nor, if the truth should persuade us that the heaven stands still, are we prevented by the circuit of the stars from being able to understand this. For it has been found even by those who have investigated these things most curiously and with most leisure that, even if the heaven did not move and only the stars moved, everything that has been observed and grasped in the very revolutions of the stars could have happened.

“And God said, ‘Let the water that is under heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so done. And the water that is under heaven was gathered into its gathering, and the dry land appeared. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the water he called sea. And God saw that it was good.” We have already discussed this work of God enough in our first book, because another question had to be investigated. So here we advise briefly: whoever is perhaps not moved to ask when the forms of waters and lands were created should accept that nothing was done on this day except that these two lower elements were separated. But whoever is moved to ask why light and heaven were made within the days, but water and earth outside the days or before all days, and why the former were made at the word of God, God saying, “Let there be,” whereas the latter are found to have been separated, indeed, at God’s saying, but not made at God’s saying, has something he may understand without harm to the faith. That is, what was said before the counting of the days, “The earth was invisible and unformed,” when Scripture was setting out what kind of earth God had made (for it had said before, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”), meant by these words to suggest nothing other than the formlessness of bodily matter, choosing to name it in a more familiar rather than a more obscure way; provided it does not creep up on a slow understanding that, because Scripture separates matter and form in words, he should try to separate these two in time as well, as though matter existed first and form was added to it later after an interval of time had passed, whereas God created them together and established matter already formed, whose formlessness Scripture first mentioned, as I said, with the familiar word either of earth or of water. For earth and water, even though by their qualities they are what we see, are nevertheless, because they easily decay, nearer to that formlessness than the heavenly bodies. And since in the counting of the days each thing is numbered as already formed from the formless, and it had already narrated the heaven made from this bodily matter, whose form is far different from earthly things, it did not wish to insert what remained to be formed from it in the lowest part of things into the order of created things under the words “Let there be,” since this remaining formlessness was not to receive such a form as heaven had received, but one lower and weaker and nearest to formlessness; so that rather by these words, when it is said, “Let the waters be gathered,” and “Let the dry land appear,” these two received these proper forms, well known to us and easy to handle, water a mobile form, earth an immobile one. That is why it is said of the one, “Let it be gathered,” and of the other, “Let it appear”: for water flows and slips, earth is fixed and stable.

“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the plant of pasture bearing seed according to its kind and according to its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit, whose seed is in it according to its likeness, upon the earth.’ And it was so done. And the earth brought forth the plant of pasture having seed according to its kind and according to its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit, whose seed is in it according to its kind, upon the earth. And God saw that it was good. And evening came, and morning came, the third day.” Here we should note the restraint of the one who arranges it. Since the creation of plants and trees is something distinct from the form of lands and waters, so that they cannot be counted among the elements, it is said of them separately that they should come out of the earth, and the usual formulas are given to them separately, so that it is said, “And it was so done,” and then what was done is repeated, and it is also indicated separately that God saw that it was good; yet, because they are joined and connected to the earth, fixed by their roots, he wished them also to belong to the same day.

“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, so as to shine upon the earth, for the beginning of day and of night, and to divide between day and night; and let them be for signs and for times and for days and for years; and let them be for brightness in the firmament of heaven, so as to shine upon the earth.’ And it was so done. And God made two great lights, the greater light for the beginning of day and the lesser light for the beginning of night, and the stars; and God set them in the firmament of heaven, so as to shine upon the earth, and to be for the beginning of day and of night, and to divide between light and darkness. And God saw that it was good. And evening came, and morning came, the fourth day.” On this fourth day we must ask what this order means: that water and earth were made or separated first, and the earth brought forth plants first, before the stars were made in the heaven. For we cannot say that the better things were chosen, by which the series of days would be so distinguished that the end and the middle would stand out with special ornament, since of seven days the fourth is the middle; for the objection arises that no creature was made on the seventh day. Or perhaps the light of the first day corresponds rather to the rest of the seventh, so that in this way this order of things is woven together with the ends in harmony and the lights of heaven standing out in the middle? But if the first day harmonizes with the seventh, then the second ought to harmonize with the sixth. But what likeness has the firmament of heaven to man made in the image of God? Is it because the heaven occupies the whole upper part of the world, and to man was given power to rule over the whole lower part? But what do we do with the cattle and beasts, which the earth brought forth according to their kinds on that same sixth day? What comparison can they have with heaven? Or rather, since what is understood to have been made first under the name of light is the formation of the spiritual creation, it followed that the bodily creation too should be made, that is, this visible world, which was made in two days because of its two greatest parts, of which the universe consists, namely heaven and earth? According to this reasoning (by which the whole of creation, spiritual and bodily, is also often named heaven and earth, so that this globe of more turbulent air is assigned to the earthly part, for it becomes bodily by moist exhalations, while whatever calm air there is, where windy and stormy movements cannot arise, belongs to the heavenly part), after this whole mass of bodily things had been built, which is entire in one place, where the world is set, it followed that it should be filled with parts within the universe that would be moved from place to place by fitting movements. Plants and trees are not of this kind. For they are fixed in the earth by their roots and, although they have the movements of their growth, they do not move from their own places by their own effort but are nourished and grow where they are fixed; therefore they belong more to the earth than to the kinds of things that move in waters and on earth. So since two days were assigned to establishing the visible world, that is, heaven and earth, it remains that the three remaining days be assigned to these mobile and visible parts that are created within it. And since, as heaven was made first, so it is first to be furnished with parts of this kind, the stars are made on the fourth day, so that by their shining upon the earth the lower dwelling too might be lit, and its inhabitants might not be led into a dark dwelling. And since the weak bodies of the lower inhabitants are restored by rest following their movements, it was arranged that, as the sun goes round, they should have the alternation of day and night for the alternation of sleeping and waking; yet the night should not remain without beauty, but by the light of the moon and stars should comfort both men, who often have to work at night too, and be tempered sufficiently for some animals that cannot bear the light of the sun.

And as for what was said, “And let them be for signs and for times and for days and for years,” who does not see how obscurely it is put that times began on the fourth day, as though the earlier three days could have passed without time? Who then penetrates with his mind how those three days passed before the times began which are said to begin on the fourth day, or whether those days passed at all? Or was “day” said with reference to the form of the thing made, and “night” with reference to its privation? So that matter not yet formed was called night, from which the rest was to be formed, just as, even in formed things, the formlessness of matter can be understood from their very changeability (for it cannot be distinguished either by spaces of place, as though more remote, or of time, as though earlier). Or rather, in the thing itself made and formed, was that same changeability, that is, the possibility, so to speak, of failing, called night, because it is present in made things even if they do not change: the capacity to change? And evening and morning, not as by the passing and coming of time, but by a kind of boundary, by which is understood how far the measure of a proper nature goes and where the beginning of another nature follows? Or is there some other meaning of these words to be traced more carefully? Who can easily break into so great a secret, and what signs does it mean when it says of the stars, “And let them be for signs”? For it does not mean those which it is vanity to observe, but certainly signs useful and necessary for the purposes of this life, which sailors observe in steering, or all men for foreseeing the qualities of the weather through summer and winter and the temperate seasons of autumn and spring. And no doubt it calls “times” those that come about through the stars, not spans of duration but alternations in the conditions of this sky. For if some movement, bodily or spiritual, preceded the establishing of these lights, such that it carried something from future expectation through the present into the past, it could not have been without time. And who could maintain that there was no time except from the beginning of the stars’ creation? But the definite hours and days and years that we commonly know would not come about except by the movements of the stars. So if we understand times, days and years in this way: as certain points that we calculate by clocks, or that are well known in the sky, when the sun rises from the east to its midday height and from there declines again to the west, so that one can then notice the moon or some star rising in the east immediately after sunset, which, when it in turn comes to the midday height of the sky, indicates the middle of the night, and will set at the time when the sun returns and it is morning; whole days as the circuits of the sun from east to east; and years either as these usual turnings of the sun, not when it returns to the east, as it does daily, but when it returns to the same positions among the stars (which it does only after three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours, that is, a quarter of a whole day, which part, taken four times, requires one day to be inserted, which the Romans call bissextus, so that it may return to the same circuit), or also greater and more hidden years (for greater years are said to come about when the courses of other stars are completed): if, then, we understand times, days and years in this way, no one doubts that these come about by the stars and lights. For it is so put that it is uncertain whether what was said, “Let them be for signs and for times and for days and for years,” applies to all the stars, or whether signs and times apply to the others and days and years only to the sun.