Literal Commentary on Genesis 5.3–5.13

It will also not be beside the point to observe that he could have said, “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when God made heaven and earth,” so that we might understand by heaven and earth whatever is in them, as divine Scripture is accustomed to speak, very often making known the whole creation by the name of heaven and earth, sometimes with “and the sea” added, sometimes adding and saying “and all that is in them,” so that, whichever of these it said, we would understand there also the day, whether the one he first established or this one which the presence of the sun makes. But he did not speak thus; he inserted the day, saying, “when the day was made.” Nor did he speak so as to say, “This is the book of the creation of day and heaven and earth,” as in the order in which they are narrated as made; nor thus, “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made and heaven and earth, 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 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 day and heaven and earth and every green thing of the field” (for ordinary usage would rather have called for these ways of speaking). But he 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 making known 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 day was made first and counts it as one day; after which it numbers a second, on which the firmament was made, and a third, on which the forms of land and sea were set apart and the earth brought forth tree and grass. Is this perhaps what we were trying to show in the previous book, that God made all things at once, since that sequence of narration, after recording that all things were created and finished in the order of six days, now brings all things back to one day under the name of heaven and earth, with the kind of shrubs also added? Surely for the reason I gave above: so that, if the day were perhaps understood after our familiar usage, the reader would be corrected when he recalled that God said that the earth should bring forth the green thing of the field before this solar day. So testimony that God created all things at once is no longer brought from another book of Holy Scripture; the near testimony of the following page reminds us of it, saying, “When the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field.” Thus you may understand this day as repeated seven times, so that there were seven days; and, when you hear that all things were made then, when the day was made, you may grasp, if you can, that the sixfold or sevenfold repetition was made without intervals of delay and spans of time. But if you cannot yet, leave these things to be contemplated by those who are able, and make progress yourself with Scripture, which does not desert your weakness but walks more slowly with you at a mother's pace; for it speaks in such a way that by its height it mocks the proud, by its depth it awes the attentive, by its truth it feeds the great, by its kindness it nourishes the little ones.

What, then, does what follows mean? For the passage runs thus: “When the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up.” What is this? Must we not ask where he made them before they were upon the earth and before they sprang up? For who would not more readily believe that God made them when they sprang up, not before they sprang up, unless he were told by this divine utterance that God made them before they sprang up? So, even if he cannot find where they were made, whoever believes this Scripture piously still believes that they were made before they sprang up; for it is impious not to believe it.

What, then, shall we say? That, as some have thought, all things were made in the Word of God himself before they sprang up on the earth? But if they were made in this way, they were made not when the day was made but before the day was made; and 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 all the grass before it sprang up.” If, then, it was when the day was made, certainly not before the day was made, and therefore not in the Word, who is coeternal with the Father, before the day, before anything at all was made, but when the day was made. For the things that are in the Word of God before all creation were certainly not made; but these were made when the day was made, as the words of Scripture declare, yet before they were upon the earth and before they sprang up, as is said of the green things and the grass of the field.

Where, then? In the earth itself, causally and in their reasons, as all things already are in seeds before they unfold, so to speak, and display their growth and forms through the numbers of time? But these seeds that we see are already upon the earth, have already sprung up. Or were they not upon the earth but beneath it, and were they therefore made before they sprang up, because they sprang up when the seeds germinated and by the addition of growth broke out into the air, as we now see happening over the delays of time apportioned to each kind? Were seeds, then, made when the day was made, and was every green thing of the field and all the grass in them, not yet in the form in which they are when they have already sprung up upon the earth, but in that power by which they are in the reasons of seeds? Did the earth, then, first bring forth seeds? But Scripture did not speak so when it said, “And the earth brought forth the herb of pasture, or the herb of grass, seeding seed according to its kind and according to its likeness, and the fruitful tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in it according to its kind upon the earth.” For by these words it appears rather that seeds arose from the herbs and trees, and that these came not from seeds but from the earth; especially since the very words of God are so. For he does not say, “Let the seeds in the earth sprout the herb of grass and the fruitful tree,” but he says, “Let the earth sprout the herb of grass seeding seed,” to make known that the seed comes from the herb, not the herb from the seed. “And so it was done. And the earth brought forth”: that is, first it was so done in the knowledge of that day, and then the earth brought forth, so that this might be done also in the very creature that was established.

How, then, “before they were upon the earth and before they sprang up”? As if it were one thing for them to be made with heaven and earth, when that day was made, unusual and unknown to us, which God made first; and another to spring up upon the earth, which happens only through these days which the circuit of the sun makes, through delays of time suited to each kind? If this is so, and that day is the society and unity of the supercelestial angels and powers, then without doubt God's creation is known in a far different way to the angels than to us. Apart from the fact that they know it in the Word of God, through whom all things were made, I say that even in itself it is known to them far differently than to us: to them primordially, so to speak, or originally, as God first established it and after that establishing rested from his works, establishing nothing more; to us, however, according to the governing of things previously established, now through the orders of time, by which God, those things having already been finished in the perfection of six, is working until now.

So it was then said causally that the earth brought forth herb and tree, that is, that it received the power of bringing them forth. For in it, as in the roots of time, so to speak, the things that were to be through time had already been made. For certainly afterward God planted paradise toward the east, and brought forth there from the earth every tree beautiful to the sight and good for food. Yet it must not be said that he then added to creation something he had not made before, which had to be added afterward, as it were, to that perfection by which he finished all things very good on the sixth day. Rather, since all the natures of shrubs and trees had already been made in the first establishing, from which establishing God rested, moving and governing thereafter through temporal courses those very things which he established and from which, once established, he rested, he not only planted paradise then but also plants now all things that are born. For who else creates these things even now except he who is working until now? But he creates these now from things that already exist; then, however, they were created by him when nothing at all existed, when that day too was made, which itself did not exist at all, namely the spiritual and intellectual creation.

Times, then, began to run with the motions of creatures once they were made; hence it is vain to seek times before creation, as if times could be found before times. For if there were no motion of spiritual or bodily creation, by which future things succeed past ones through the present, there would be no time at all. But creation could certainly not be moved if it did not exist. So time began from creation rather than creation from time, but both are from God; “for from him and through him and in him are all things.” Nor let the statement that time began from creation be taken as if time were not a creature, since it is the motion of creation from one thing to another as things follow one another according to the ordering of God, who governs all that he created. Therefore, when we think of the first establishing of creatures, from which works God rested on the seventh day, we ought not to think of those days as of these solar days, nor of that working as God now works something in time, but as he worked so that times might begin from it, as he worked all things at once, giving them an order, not by intervals of time but by the connection of causes, so that the things made at once were also perfected by the sixfold presentation of that day.

So it was not in temporal but in causal order that formless and formable matter, both spiritual and bodily, was made first, from which what was to be made would be made, since it too did not exist before it was set up; nor was it set up except by that supreme and true God from whom are all things. Whether it is signified by the name of heaven and earth, which God made in the beginning before that one day which he established, called so already because heaven and earth were made from it, or by the name of the invisible and unformed earth and the dark abyss, has already been treated in the first book.

Among the things that were now formed from formlessness and are more evidently called created, made, or established, day was made first. For it was fitting that the first place in creation should be held by that nature which could know the creature through the Creator, not the Creator through the creature. Second, the firmament, where the bodily world begins. Third, the forms of sea and land, and in the land, potentially, so to speak, the nature of herbs and trees. For thus the earth at God's word brought them forth before they had sprung up, receiving all their numbers, which it would put forth through times according to their kind. Then, after this dwelling place of things, as it were, was established, on the fourth day the lights and stars were created, so that the upper part of the world might first be furnished with visible things that move within the world. On the fifth, the nature of the waters, because it is joined to heaven and air, brought forth at God's word its native creatures, namely all that swim and fly; and these too potentially, in numbers that would be put forth through the fitting motions of time. On the sixth, likewise the land animals, as the last things from the last element of the world, again potentially, whose numbers time would afterward unfold visibly.

That day knew this whole order of ordered creation; and, being presented six times, as it were, through this knowledge, it displayed as it were six days. Though it is one day, knowing the things that were made first in the Creator and then in themselves, and not remaining in them but referring even its later knowledge of them to the love of God, it presented evening, morning, and midday in all of them, not through delays of time but because of the order of the things established. Finally, presenting the knowledge of the rest of its Creator, because he rests in himself from all his works, in which it has no evening, it was found worthy for this reason to be blessed and sanctified. Hence Scripture commends, and the church knows, the number seven itself as in some way dedicated to the Holy Spirit.

This, then, is the book of the creation of heaven and earth: because in the beginning God made heaven and earth according to a certain formability, so to speak, of matter, which was then to be formed by his Word, preceding its own formation not in time but in origin. For certainly, when it was being formed, day was made first; when the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up, as we have discussed, or as anything clearer and more fitting could or can be seen and said.

What follows, however, “For God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth,” is difficult to search out: what it refers to and what it makes known to us. It is as if God made the grass of the field before it sprang up because it had not yet rained upon the earth; for if he had made the grass after rain, it would seem to have sprung up through the rain rather than to have been made by him. But what? Is what springs up after rain made by anyone other than the same God? And why was there no man to work the earth? Had he not already made man on the sixth day, and rested on the seventh from all his works? Or does he mention this by way of recapitulation, since, when God made every green thing of the field and all the grass, it had not yet rained upon the earth and there was not yet a man? For he made these on the third day, but man on the sixth. But when God made every green thing and all the grass of the field before it sprang up upon the earth, not only was there no man to work the earth, but not even the grass itself was upon the earth, which it says was made before it sprang up. Or did God make these on the third day because there was not yet a man to make them by working the earth? As though so many trees and so many kinds of herbs were not born from the earth without any work of men!

Or were both put down, that it had not yet rained upon the earth and that there was not yet a man to work the earth, for this reason: where there is no human work, these things are born through rain; but there are some that are not born even through rain unless human work is added? So now both helps are necessary for all things to be born; but then both were lacking. So God made these by the power of his word without rain and without human work. For even now he himself makes them, but now through rain and through men's hands; although “neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.”

What, then, is meant by what he adds: “But a spring went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth”? Such a spring, flowing with as much abundance as the Nile does for Egypt, could serve the whole earth in place of rain. Why then is it made much of that God made those growing things before it rained, when a spring watering the earth could help as much as rain? Or even if it helped somewhat less, those things would perhaps be born smaller, but not not at all. Or does Scripture here too, in its manner, speak weakly as to the weak, and yet hint at something for one who is able to understand? Surely, just as by that day mentioned a little earlier it signified that one day was made by God and that God made heaven and earth when the day was made, so that, as far as we could, we should think that God made all things at once, even though the preceding enumeration of six days seemed to show intervals of time; so, having said that with heaven and earth God made every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth and all the grass of the field before it sprang up, it added, “For God had not yet rained upon the earth, nor was there a man to work the earth,” as if to say: God did not make them in the way he now makes such things, when it rains and when men work. For these things now come about through delays of time, which did not exist then, when he made all things at once, from which times too would begin.

As for what follows, then, “But a spring went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth,” from here on, I think, we are told of the things that come about over intervals of time from that first establishing of creatures, in which all things were made at once. And it rightly began with that element from which all kinds of animals, herbs, and trees are born, so that they carry out their temporal numbers apportioned to their own natures. For all the first beginnings of seeds, whether those from which all flesh or those from which all plants are produced, are moist and grow from moisture. And there are in them most effective numbers, drawing with them powers that follow from those perfected works of God from which he rested on the seventh day.

But it is rightly asked what this spring was, sufficient to water the face of the whole earth. For if it existed and was blocked or dried up, the cause must be sought. For now we see that there is no spring by which the whole face of the earth is watered. Perhaps, then, the sin of men also earned this penalty, that the great abundance of that spring was held back and took away from the lands their easy fruitfulness, so that the labor of their inhabitants might be increased. Human conjecture might affirm this, though no Scripture has narrated it, were it not for the objection that the sin of men, on which the penalty of labor was imposed, arose after the delights of paradise; and paradise had its own very great spring, of which we must speak more carefully later in its place, from whose single source four great rivers known to the nations are said to flow. Where, then, was that spring, or those rivers, when that one very great spring went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth? For certainly Geon, which is called the Nile, one of those four, was not then watering Egypt, when a spring went up from the earth and saturated not Egypt only but the whole face of the earth.

Or must we believe that God first willed to water the whole earth with one very great spring, so that the things he had established in it in their first causes, receiving the help of moisture, might be produced also through spans of time, according to the diversity of their kinds, even in different numbers of days; and that afterward, when paradise was planted, he held back that spring and filled the earth with many springs, as we see it now, but divided four great rivers from the one spring of paradise, so that the rest of the earth, full of the kinds of its creatures carrying out the fitting numbers of their times, might also have its springs and rivers, and paradise, planted in a choicer place, might send out those four rivers from the source of its spring? Or that from that one spring of paradise, overflowing much more abundantly, he first watered the whole earth and made it fruitful to bring forth, through the numbers of time, the kinds which he had created in it without intervals of time; and afterward held back in that place the vast eruption of waters, so that they now flowed from various sources of rivers and springs throughout the earth; and then, in the region of that spring, which no longer watered the whole earth but sent out only those four memorable rivers, planted paradise, where he would place the man he had made?

For since not everything has been written down about how, after that first establishing of things, the times ran their course and the governing of the creatures that were first made and finished on that sixth day followed, but only as much as the Spirit who was in the writer judged sufficient, things that would serve not only for knowledge of what was done but also for prefiguring what was to come, we, not knowing, conjecture what could have happened that he, not in ignorance, passed over. We attempt only this, according to our small measure and as far as we are helped: that no absurdity or contradiction be thought to exist in the holy Scriptures that would offend the reader's opinion, so that, thinking that the things Scripture records as done could not have been done, he would either recoil from the faith or not come to the faith.

Accordingly, when we ask about this spring, how what is said, “It went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth,” may not seem impossible: if what we have said seems impossible to anyone, let him seek something else by which this Scripture may be shown to be truthful, which without doubt is truthful even if it is not shown to be. For if he wishes to argue so as to prove it false, either he will say nothing true about the establishing and governing of creatures, or, if he says true things, he will think this Scripture false by not understanding it. For example, he might contend that the whole face of the earth could not be watered by one spring, however great, because if it did not water the mountains it did not water the whole face of the earth; but if it watered the mountains too, it was no longer a sharing out of nourishment but the inundation of a flood; and if the earth was like that then, it was all sea, and the dry land had not yet been separated.

The answer to him is that this could happen by alternations of time, as at a certain season the Nile floods the plains of Egypt and at another returns to its banks. Or if the Nile is believed to gather its yearly increase from the waters and winter frosts of some unknown and distant part of the world, what can be said of the alternating tides of the Ocean, and of certain shores that are laid bare far and wide by the waves and covered again in turn? To say nothing of what is reported of the wonderful alternation of certain springs, that at a fixed interval of years they overflow so as to water that whole region, to which at other times they supply enough water for drinking only from deep wells. Why, then, should it be incredible if the whole earth was then watered from one source of the abyss, flowing and ebbing in alternating flood? But suppose that, leaving aside that part of the abyss itself which is called the sea, which surrounds the lands with its evident breadth and bitter waves, Scripture wished to call the part that the earth holds in its hidden recesses, from which all springs and rivers distribute themselves through various tracts and veins and break out each in its own place, a “spring,” not “springs,” because of the unity of its nature; and that it went up from the earth through countless paths of caves and fissures, and, divided everywhere like hair, watered the whole face of the earth, not in a continuous form like that of a sea or a pool, but as we see waters go through the beds of rivers and the windings of streams and by their overflow soak the neighboring land. Who would not accept this, except one who labors with a contentious spirit? For the whole face of the earth can be understood to have been watered in the way the whole face of a garment is said to be colored even if it is done not continuously but in spots; especially since then, in the newness of the lands, it is credible that, if not all, yet most of them were plains, over which the streams that broke out could be spread and extended more widely.

Therefore, concerning the size or the number of this spring, whether it had one outflow from somewhere, or was called one spring because of some unity in the hidden recesses of the earth from which all the waters of all springs, great and small, gush out upon the earth, going up from the earth through all its divisions and watering the whole face of the earth; or else, which is more credible, since it does not say “one spring went up from the earth” but “a spring went up from the earth,” it put the singular for the plural, so that we may understand many springs throughout the whole earth watering their own places or regions, as one says “the soldier” and many are understood, and as “the locust” and “the frog” were said in the plagues with which the Egyptians were struck, when the number of locusts and frogs was countless: let us labor no longer.

But let us consider again and again whether the view we were stating can hold good for us in every respect: that God worked all creatures in one way in the first establishing, from which works he rested on the seventh day, and in another way in this governing of them, by which he is working until now; that is, then all at once, without any intervals of temporal delay, but now through the delays of time, by which we see the stars move from rising to setting, the sky change from summer to winter, plants at fixed moments of days sprout, grow, turn green, and wither, and animals too, at appointed bounds and courses of time, be conceived, completed, and born, and run through the ages of life to old age and death, and other temporal things of this kind. For who works these things except God, even without any such motion of his own? For time does not befall him either. Between those works of God, then, from which he rested on the seventh day, and these which he is working until now, Scripture, inserting a kind of joint in its narrative, has made known that it has finished setting forth the former and has now begun to set out the latter. The notice that the former were finished was given thus: “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 all the grass of the field before it sprang up. For God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth.” The account of the latter began thus: “But a spring went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth.” From this mention of this spring onward, the things narrated were done through the delays of time, not all at once.

Since, then, the unchangeable reasons of all creatures in the Word of God are one thing, those works of his from which he rested on the seventh day another, and these which he is working from them until now another, of these three the last I mentioned is known to us in some fashion through the senses of the body and the familiar experience of this life. The other two, remote from our senses and from the habits of human thought, must first be believed on divine authority, and then come to be known in some fashion through the things that are known, each one more or less as he can, according to the measure of his capacity, helped by God that he may be able.

Concerning, then, those first divine, unchangeable, and eternal reasons: since the very Wisdom of God, through whom all things were made, knew them before they were made, as Scripture testifies, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made”: who, then, would be so mad as to say that God did not make the things he knew? Moreover, if he knew them, where, except with himself, with whom was the Word through whom all things were made? For if he knew them outside himself, who had taught him? “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid him? For from him and through him and in him are all things.” And what follows in the Gospel also asserts this view sufficiently; for the evangelist adds and says, “What was made, in him is life, and the life was the light of men”; since, namely, rational minds, in which kind man was made to the image of God, have no true light of their own except the Word of God himself, through whom all things were made, in whom they will be able to share when cleansed from all iniquity and error.