Literal Commentary on Genesis

All divine Scripture is twofold, in keeping with what the Lord indicates when he says that a scribe instructed in the kingdom of God is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old; these two are also called testaments. In all the holy books one must observe what eternal things are made known there, what deeds are narrated, what future things are foretold, and what things to be done are commanded or urged. So in the narration of things done, the question is whether everything is to be taken only in a figurative sense, or whether it is also to be asserted and defended as a faithful record of events. For no Christian will dare to say that these things are not to be taken figuratively, if he pays attention to the apostle when he says, “Now all these things happened to them in a figure,” and when he commends what is written in Genesis, “And the two shall be in one flesh,” as a great sacrament in Christ and in the church. If, then, that Scripture is to be examined in both ways, how, apart from its allegorical meaning, is it said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”? Is it “in the beginning of time,” or “because first of all,” or “in the Beginning” who is the Word of God, the only-begotten Son? And how can it be shown that God works things changeable and temporal without any change in himself? And what is meant by the name “heaven and earth”? Did spiritual and bodily creation receive the name “heaven and earth,” or only bodily creation, so that in this book he is understood to have said nothing of the spiritual creation and to have said “heaven and earth” meaning to signify all bodily creation, higher and lower? Or is the formless matter of both called heaven and earth: spiritual life, namely, as it can exist in itself, not turned to the Creator (for it is formed and perfected by such a turning, and if it is not turned, it is formless), and bodily matter, if it can be understood by the removal of every bodily quality that appears in formed matter, when there are already forms of bodies perceptible by sight or by any other bodily sense? Or is “heaven” to be understood as spiritual creation, from the first moment in which it was made perfect and forever blessed, and “earth” as bodily matter still imperfect? For “the earth,” it says, “was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss”: by these words it seems to signify the formlessness of bodily substance. Or is the formlessness of both also signified by these later words? That of bodily substance by the words, “the earth was invisible and unformed,” and that of spiritual substance by the words, “and darkness was over the abyss,” so that by a figurative use of the word we understand the dark abyss as the nature of life that is formless unless it is turned to the Creator: only in this way can it be formed, so as not to be an abyss, and enlightened, so as not to be dark. And how was it said, “darkness was over the abyss”? Was it because there was no light? If there had been light, it would surely have been over it and, as it were, poured over it; and this happens in spiritual creation when it is turned to the unchangeable and incorporeal light, which is God.

And how did God say, “Let there be light”? In time, or in the eternity of the Word? And if in time, then surely with change. How then could God be understood to say this except through a creature? For he himself is unchangeable. And if God said “Let there be light” through a creature, how is light the first creature, if there was already a creature through which God might say, “Let there be light”? Or is light not the first creature, because it had already been said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” and a voice could have come about in time and with change through a heavenly creature, by which it was said, “Let there be light”? If so, the light that was made is this bodily light that we see with bodily eyes, God saying through the spiritual creation that he had already made when in the beginning he made heaven and earth, “Let there be light,” in the way in which “Let there be light” could be said by divine power through the inner and hidden movement of such a creature. Or did the voice of God saying “Let there be light” also sound bodily, as the voice of God sounded bodily saying, “You are my beloved Son”? And was this through a bodily creature that God had made when in the beginning he made heaven and earth, before the light was made that was made at the sound of this voice? And if so, in what language did this voice sound when God said, “Let there be light,” since there was not yet the diversity of languages that came about later at the building of the tower after the flood? What was that one and only language in which God spoke, “Let there be light”? And who was there who needed to hear and understand, to whom a voice of this kind would be uttered? Or is this an absurd and carnal thought and conjecture? What then shall we say? Is it what is understood in the sound of the voice when “Let there be light” is said, and not the bodily sound itself, that is rightly understood to be the voice of God? And does this itself belong to the nature of his Word, of whom it is said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”? For when it is said of him, “All things were made through him,” it is shown clearly enough that light too was made through him when God said, “Let there be light.” If so, what God said, “Let there be light,” is eternal, because the Word of God, God with God, the only Son of God, is coeternal with the Father, although when God spoke these things in the eternal Word a temporal creature was made. For although “when” and “at some time” are words of time when we say them, yet in the Word of God it is eternal when something should be made; and it is made at the time when it is in that Word that it should have been made, in which there is no “when” or “at some time,” since that whole Word is eternal.

And what is the light itself that was made? Something spiritual or something bodily? If it is spiritual, it may itself be the first creature, now made perfect by this saying, which was first called heaven when it was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”; so that when God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, we would understand that its turning took place and it was enlightened as the Creator called it back to himself. And why was it said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” and not, “In the beginning God said, ‘Let there be heaven and earth,’ and heaven and earth were made,” as it is narrated of the light, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light”? Was it that what God made had first to be comprehended and presented as a whole under the name of heaven and earth, and then how he made it had to be set out part by part, as it is said for each thing, “God said,” that is, because whatever he made, he made through his Word?

Or, when the formlessness of matter, whether spiritual or bodily, was first being made, was it not right to say, “God said, ‘Let there be,’” because imperfection does not imitate the form of the Word, who always cleaves to the Father, by whom God eternally says all things, neither by the sound of a voice nor by a thought that runs through the times of sounds, but by the light of the wisdom begotten from himself and coeternal with himself; imperfection does not imitate it when, unlike that which is supremely and originally, it tends by a kind of formlessness toward nothing; but it imitates the form of the Word, which always and unchangeably cleaves to the Father, when it too, by the turning proper to its kind toward that which truly and always is, that is, toward the Creator of its substance, takes on form and becomes a perfect creature? So that in what Scripture narrates, “God said, ‘Let there be,’” we may understand the incorporeal saying of God in the nature of his coeternal Word, calling back to himself the imperfection of the creature, so that it may not be formless but be formed according to each of the things that it sets out in order. In this turning and forming, it imitates in its own measure God the Word, that is, the Son of God who always cleaves to the Father in full likeness and equal essence, by which he and the Father are one; but it does not imitate this form of the Word if, turned away from the Creator, it remains formless and imperfect. That is why mention of the Son is made, not as the Word, but only as the Beginning, when it is said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”; for the first beginning of creation, still in the formlessness of imperfection, is suggested there. But mention of the Son as also the Word is made in what is written, “God said, ‘Let there be’”: so that by his being the Beginning it suggests the first beginning of creation, existing from him while still imperfect, and by his being the Word it suggests the perfection of creation called back to him, so that it might be formed by cleaving to the Creator and by imitating, according to its kind, the form that cleaves eternally and unchangeably to the Father, from whom he immediately is what the Father is.

For the Word, the Son, does not have a formless life: for him, not only is to be the same as to live, but also to live is the same as to live wisely and blessedly. But creation, even spiritual and intellectual or rational creation, which seems to be nearer to that Word, can have a formless life, because, although for it to be is the same as to live, to live is not the same as to live wisely and blessedly. For when it is turned away from unchangeable Wisdom it lives foolishly and wretchedly, and this is formlessness. But it is formed when it is turned to the unchangeable light of Wisdom, the Word of God; for it turns to him by whom it came to be, so that it exists in some way and lives, in order to live wisely and blessedly. For the beginning of intellectual creation is eternal Wisdom; and this Beginning, remaining unchangeably in himself, would never cease to speak by the hidden inspiration of his call to the creature of which he is the beginning, so that it might turn to him from whom it came to be, because otherwise it could not be formed and perfected. And so, when he was asked who he was, he answered, “The Beginning, because I also speak to you.”

And what the Son speaks, the Father speaks, because when the Father speaks, the Word who is the Son is spoken, in an eternal manner (if “manner” may be said), God speaking the coeternal Word. For there is in God a supreme goodness, holy and just, and a kind of love for his works that comes not from need but from beneficence. That is why, before it was written, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’” Scripture first said, “And the Spirit of God was borne over the water.” Whether by the name of water he meant to call all bodily matter, so as to suggest in this way that from which all the things were made and formed that we can now distinguish in their kinds (calling it water because we see all things on earth formed and growing together in various forms from a moist nature), or whether he meant a kind of spiritual life, as it were in flux before the form given by its turning, in either case the Spirit of God was borne over it, because whatever it was that he had begun, to be formed and perfected, was subject to the good will of the Creator. So when God said in his Word, “Let there be light,” what was made would remain, in the measure of its kind, in his good will, that is, in his good pleasure. And so it is right that it pleased God, as Scripture says, “And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.” Thus, just as at the very first beginning of creation, which was mentioned under the name of heaven and earth because of what was to be perfected from it, the Trinity of the Creator is suggested (for when Scripture says, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” we understand the Father in the name “God” and the Son in the name “Beginning,” who is the Beginning, not to the Father, but first and chiefly to the spiritual creation created through himself, and consequently to the whole of creation too; and when Scripture says, “And the Spirit of God was borne over the water,” we recognize the complete mention of the Trinity), so also in the turning and perfecting of creation, by which the forms of things are set in order, the same Trinity is suggested: the Word of God and the begetter of the Word, when it is said, “God said,” and the holy goodness in which whatever pleases God, perfected according to the small measure of its nature, pleases him, when it is said, “God saw that it was good.”

But why is creation, though imperfect, mentioned first, and the Spirit of God afterward, Scripture first saying, “But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss,” and then adding, “and the Spirit of God was borne over the water”? Is it because a needy and wanting love loves in such a way that it is subject to the things it loves, and therefore, when the Spirit of God was mentioned, in whom his holy benevolence and love are understood, he was said to be borne over, so that God would not be thought to love the works he was to make out of the necessity of need rather than out of the abundance of beneficence? Mindful of this, the apostle, when about to speak of love, says that he will show a way that surpasses all, and in another place he speaks of “the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” Since, then, the Spirit of God had to be suggested in such a way that he was said to be borne over, it was more fitting that something begun should be suggested first, over which he could be said to be borne, not in place, but by a power that surpasses and excels all things.

So also, when things had been perfected and formed out of that beginning, “God saw that it was good”; for what was made pleased him in that goodness by which it pleased him that it should be made. There are two reasons for which God loves his creation: that it may be, and that it may abide. So, that there might be something to abide, the Spirit of God was borne over the water; and that it might abide, God saw that it was good. And what was said of the light is said of all things. For some things abide, having passed beyond all temporal change, in the fullest holiness under God; and others abide according to the measures of their own time, while the beauty of the ages is woven together by the passing away and succession of things.

So when God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, did he say it on some day or before every day? For if he said it by the Word coeternal with himself, he certainly said it outside time; but if he said it in time, he said it not by the Word coeternal with himself but through some temporal creature. And in that case light will not be the first creature, because there was already one through which “Let there be light” might be said in time. And what was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” is understood to have been made before every day, so that by the name of heaven is understood the spiritual creation already made and formed, as it were the heaven of this heaven, which is the highest among bodies. For on the second day the firmament was made, which again he called heaven. And by the name of earth, invisible and unformed, and by the dark abyss, the imperfection of bodily substance is signified, from which those temporal things were to be made, of which light would be the first. But how “Let there be light” could be said in time through a creature that he made before times is hard to discover. For we do not understand it to have been said by the sound of a voice; whatever is of that kind is bodily. Did he make from that imperfection of bodily substance some bodily voice through which “Let there be light” might sound? Then some vocal body was created and formed before light. But if so, there was already time, through which the voice might run and the spans of sounds following one another might pass. And if there was already time before light was made, in which the voice might come to be by which “Let there be light” sounded, to what day did that time belong? For one day, the same day as the first, begins to be counted from the moment light was made. Or does the whole span of time belong to that day, both that in which the vocal body was made through which “Let there be light” sounded and that in which light itself was made? But every such voice is uttered by a speaker for the bodily sense of a hearer, which is made to perceive when the air is struck. Did that invisible and unformed thing, whatever it was, have such hearing, so that God sounded to it and said, “Let there be light”? Let this absurdity depart, then, from the mind of one who thinks about it. Was it, then, a spiritual movement, yet a temporal one, by which we understand “Let there be light” to have been said, produced by the eternal God through the coeternal Word in the spiritual creation that he had already made when it was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” that is, in that heaven of heaven? Or is this utterance understood to be not only without any sound, but also without any temporal movement of the spiritual creation, fixed in some manner in its mind and reason and in some manner imprinted by the Word coeternal with the Father, according to which that lower dark imperfection of bodily nature would be moved and turned to form, and light would come to be? But it is a great thing, and most difficult, to grasp how it may be said that, while God does not command in time and the creature does not hear in time (for by the contemplation of truth it goes beyond all times), but transmits to the things below it the reasons imprinted on it intellectually by the unchangeable Wisdom of God, as intelligible utterances, temporal movements come about in temporal things, whether they are being formed or governed. But if the light that was first told to come into being, and came into being, is also to be understood as holding the first place in creation, it is intellectual life itself, which would be in flux without form if it were not turned to the Creator to be enlightened. But when it was turned and enlightened, there came about what was said in the Word of God, “Let there be light.”

Yet, just as it was said without time, because time does not touch the Word coeternal with the Father, someone might perhaps ask whether it was also made without time. But how can this be understood, when, after light was made and separated from the darkness and the names of day and night were given, Scripture says, “And evening came, and morning came, one day”? From this it seems that that work of God was done over the span of a day, at whose completion evening came, which is the beginning of night; and again, when the span of night was completed, the whole day was finished, so that morning came for the next day, on which God would go on to do another work. Indeed, this itself is most remarkable: when God said, “Let there be light,” by the eternal reason of his Word without any span of syllables, why did light take so long to be made, until the span of a day passed and evening came? Or perhaps light was made quickly, but the delay of daytime could be spent in its being separated from the darkness and in each being marked, once separated, with its own name? It would be strange if even this could take God as long as it takes us to say it. For the separation of light and darkness followed in the very act by which light was made; there could be no light unless it were separated from darkness. And as for God’s calling the light day and the darkness night, how long could that take, even if he had done it syllable by syllable with the sound of a voice, except as long as it takes us to say, “Let the light be called day and the darkness night”? Unless someone is so foolish as to think that, because God is great above all things, even very few syllables uttered by the mouth of God could have been stretched over the whole span of a day. Besides, God called the light day and the darkness night by the Word coeternal with himself, that is, by the inner and eternal reasons of unchangeable Wisdom, not by the bodily sound of a voice. For again it is asked, if he called them with words such as we use, in what language did he call them, and what need was there of passing sounds where there was no bodily hearing of anyone? And no answer is found. Or is it to be said that, when this work of God was quickly completed, the light remained, with no night following, until the span of a day was finished, and the night that followed the light remained until the span of night-time passed and the morning of the next day came, the one and first day having been completed? But if I say this, I fear I shall be laughed at both by those who know with full certainty, and by those who can very easily observe, that at the time when it is night with us the presence of light illuminates those parts of the world through which the sun returns from its setting to its rising, and that for this reason, throughout all twenty-four hours, as it goes round the whole circuit, there is always day in one place and night in another. Are we then going to place God in some region where evening would come for him, when the light departed from that region to another? For in the book called Ecclesiastes it is written thus: “And the sun rises, and the sun sets, and it leads to its place,” that is, to the place from which it rose. For it goes on to say, “Rising, it goes there to the south and circles round to the north.” So when the southern part has the sun, it is day for us; and when, circling round, it reaches the northern part, it is night for us. Yet it is not that there is no day in another part, where the sun is present: unless perhaps the heart is to be inclined to the fictions of poets, so that we believe the sun plunges into the sea and, washed there, rises in the morning on the other side. And yet, even if it were so, the abyss itself would be illuminated by the presence of the sun, and it would be day there; for the sun could light up the waters too, since it could not be extinguished by them. But it is monstrous to suspect this. And what of this, that the sun did not yet exist? Therefore, if it was a spiritual light that was made on the first day, did it set, so that night might follow it? And if it was bodily, what is that light which we cannot see after the sun has set, since there was not yet a moon or any stars? Or if it is always in the part of the sky where the sun is, so that it is not the light of the sun but, as it were, its companion, joined to it in such a way that it cannot be distinguished and told apart, we return to the same difficulty in solving this question: for this light too, like the sun as its companion, goes round and returns from setting to rising and is in the other part of the world at the time when this part, in which we are, grows dark into night. From this one is forced (God forbid) to believe that God was in one part of the world, which this light left, so that evening could come for him. Or perhaps he brought the light into the part in which he was going to make man, and so, when the light had departed from that part, evening is said to have come, even though that light which had departed from there was in another part, to rise again in the morning when its circuit was completed?

To what end, then, was the sun made to rule the day and to shine over the earth, if that light, which had even been called day, was enough to make the day? Did that earlier light illuminate the higher regions far from the earth, so that it could not be perceived on earth, and so the sun had to be made, through which day would appear to the lower parts of the world? This too can be said: that the brightness of day was increased by the addition of the sun, so that the day may be believed to have been less bright by that light than it is now. I know that someone has also said this: that the nature of light was first introduced in the work of the Creator when it was said, “Let there be light,” and there was light; but that afterward (in what is said of the lights in the sky) it was recorded what was made from that light, in the order of days in which it seemed good to the Creator that all things should be made. But where that nature of light went when evening came, so that night might pass in its turn, he did not say, nor do I think it can easily be found. For we must not believe that it was extinguished so that the darkness of night might follow, and kindled again so that morning might come, before this was done by the office of the sun, which the same Scripture testifies began on the fourth day.

Before that was done, it is hard both to discover and to explain by what circuit three days and nights could have followed one another while the nature of the light that was made first remained, if it is a bodily light that is to be understood as made then. Unless perhaps someone were to say that God called the mass of earth and water darkness, before each was separated from the other (which is written to have been done on the third day), because of its denser bulk, which light could not penetrate, or because of the very dark shadow of so great a mass, which must exist on one side of it if light was on the other side. For in whatever place the mass of any body prevents the light from reaching, there is shadow; since a place lacking the light by which it would be illuminated if the body placed in the way did not hinder it, this is all that is called shadow. And if, because of the bulk of the body, this shadow is so great as to occupy as much space on the earth as the day occupies on the other side, it is called night. For not all darkness is night. In large caves, too, into whose recesses light is not allowed to break because of the mass in the way, there is certainly darkness, because there is no light there, and that whole space is a place lacking light; yet such darkness has not received the name of night, but only that which follows in that part of the earth from which the day is removed. So too not every light is called day, for there is the light of the moon and of the stars and of lamps and of lightning flashes and of all things that shine in that way; but that light is called day which night precedes and which, as it withdraws, night follows. But if that first light had surrounded the mass of the earth on every side and covered it, whether it stood still or went round, there was no side from which it would let night follow it, since it never departed anywhere to make room for night. Or was it made on one side, so that by going round it allowed night also to go round on the other side, following it? For since water still covered the whole earth, nothing prevented the watery and globe-shaped mass from making day on one side by the presence of light, and on the other night by the absence of light, night following, from evening on, into the part from which the light was moving away to another. Where, then, were the waters gathered, if they had previously occupied the whole earth? Those namely which were drawn off so that earth might be given, into what part were they gathered? For if there was some bare part of the earth into which they might be gathered, dry land was already visible and the abyss did not occupy everything; but if they had covered everything, what place was there into which they might be collected, so that the dryness of the earth might appear? Were they gathered upward, as happens when the threshed harvest is raised up on the threshing floor for winnowing and, heaped into a pile, lays bare the place that it covered when spread out? Who would say this, when he sees the plains of the sea spread out evenly everywhere, since even when certain mountains, as it were, of rolling water are raised up, they are levelled again when the storms are calmed? And if some shores are laid bare more widely, it cannot be said that there are no other stretches of land to which what withdraws from one place may come, so as to return from there again to the place from which it had withdrawn. But when the whole earth was entirely covered by watery nature, where could it withdraw so as to lay bare some parts? Or perhaps a thinner water like a mist covered the lands, which was thickened by being gathered, so as to lay bare the lands in many of those parts in which dry land could appear? And yet the earth too, sinking far and wide, could have offered other hollow parts, in which the waters flowing together and rushing down might be received, and dry land might appear in those parts from which the moisture withdrew. But matter is not formless in every way where even a misty form has appeared.

And so it can still be asked when God created these visible forms and qualities of waters and lands; for this is found on none of the six days. So if he did this before every day, as it is written before these first days are mentioned, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” so that by the word “earth” we understand the earthly form already shaped, with waters poured over it, these already declared in the visible form of their kind, then in what Scripture says next, “But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water,” we would think of no formlessness of matter, but of earth and water without light (which had not yet been made), already established with their now well-known qualities. So the earth would be understood to be called invisible because, covered by the waters, it could not be seen, even if there were someone who could see; and unformed because it was not yet separated from the sea and bounded by shores and adorned with its offspring and animals. If, then, this is so, why were these forms, which are without doubt bodily, made before every day? Why is it not written, “God said, ‘Let there be earth,’ and earth was made,” and likewise, “God said, ‘Let there be water,’ and water was made”; or both together, if they are held under one law, as it were, of the lowest place, “God said, ‘Let there be earth,’ and so it was done”?

Why was it not said, when this had been done, “God saw that it was good”? This consideration, then, has persuaded me. It is clear that everything changeable is formed from some formlessness; and at the same time the catholic faith prescribes and the most certain reason teaches that there could be no matter of any natures except from God, the originator and Creator not only of all things formed but also of all things that can be formed (of this matter a certain scripture also says to him, “You who made the world out of formless matter”). Hence this matter was mentioned in those words which, by spiritual prudence, would suit even slower readers or hearers, the words said before the counting of the days, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” and so on, until it was said, “And God said,” so that the order of formed things might then follow.

Not that formless matter is prior in time to formed things, since both were created together, that from which a thing was made and what was made. For just as the voice is the matter of words, and words signify formed voice, yet the speaker does not first emit a formless voice that he can afterward gather and form into words, so too God the Creator did not make formless matter at an earlier time and afterward form it in order, as by a second consideration, into the various natures; for he created matter already formed. But because that from which something is made, though not prior in time, is still prior in a kind of origin to that which is made from it, Scripture could divide in the times of speaking what God did not divide in the times of making. For if it is asked whether we make the voice from words or words from the voice, hardly anyone is found so slow-witted as not to answer that words are made from the voice. So, although the speaker makes both at once, what he makes from what is clear enough to natural attention. Therefore, since God made both at once, both the matter that he formed and the things into which he formed it, and Scripture had to speak of both but could not speak of both at once, who would doubt that it had to speak first of that from which something was made, and then of what was made from it? For even when we say “matter and form,” we understand both to exist at once, and yet we cannot utter both at once. And just as, in a short time, when we pronounce these two words, it happens that we pronounce one before the other, so in the length of a narrative one thing had to be narrated before the other, although God made both at once, as has been said; so that what is prior only in origin in the making is also prior in time in the narrating. For two things, of which one is in no way prior, cannot be named at once; how much less can they be narrated at once! So there is no doubt that this formless matter, however close to nothing, is such that it was made only by God and was created together with the things that were formed from it.

But if it is said credibly that this matter is signified by the words, “But the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water” (so that, except for what is said there of the Spirit of God, we understand the rest as names indeed of visible things, but used to suggest that formlessness as it could be suggested to slower minds; because these two elements, earth and water, are more easily handled than the others by the hands of workers in making something, and so that formlessness was more fittingly suggested by these names); if, then, this is said with probability, there was no formed mass which the light, illuminating it on one side, might make dark on the other, so that night could follow when the day departed. And if we wish to understand day and night as the sending out and drawing in of that light, we neither see any cause why this should happen (for there were not yet living creatures for whom this alternation might be provided for their health, and for whom, after they came into being, we see it provided by the circuit of the sun), nor does any example occur to us by which we could prove such a sending out and drawing in of light to produce the alternations of day and night. The casting of rays from our eyes is indeed a casting of a certain light, and it can be drawn in when we look at the air nearest our eyes, and sent out when we attend to things far off in the same line. And certainly when it is drawn in it does not altogether cease to see what is far off, but sees it more dimly than when the gaze is sent out toward it. Yet the light that is in the sense of one who sees is shown to be so slight that unless it is helped by outside light we can see nothing; and because it cannot be told apart from that light, it is hard, as I said, to find an example by which the sending out of light for day and its drawing in for night could be demonstrated.

But if it was a spiritual light that was made when God said, “Let there be light,” it is not to be understood as that true light, coeternal with the Father, through whom all things were made and who enlightens every man, but as that of which it could be said, “Wisdom was created before all things.” For when that eternal and unchangeable Wisdom, which was not made but begotten, passes into spiritual and rational creatures, as into holy souls, so that, enlightened, they can shine, there comes about in them a certain disposition of shining reason, which can be taken as the light made when God said, “Let there be light”; if there was already a spiritual creature signified by the name of heaven in what is written, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”: not the bodily heaven, but the incorporeal heaven of the bodily heaven, that is, set above every body, not by degrees of place but by the loftiness of its nature. How both what was to be enlightened and the enlightening itself could be made at once, and yet had to be narrated at different times, we said a little earlier when we were treating of matter. But how are we to understand a night following this light, so that evening came? And from what kind of darkness could such a light be divided, when Scripture says, “And God divided between the light and the darkness”? Were there already sinners and fools falling away from the light of truth, between whom and those remaining in that light God divided, as between light and darkness, and by calling the light day and the darkness night showed that he is not the maker of sins but the one who orders them by the distribution of deserts? Or is this day the name of all time, which includes all the ages under this word, and is it therefore called not the first day but one day? For “evening came,” it says, “and morning came, one day,” so that by the coming of evening the sin of the rational creature seems to be signified, and by the coming of morning its renewal. But this is a discussion of prophetic allegory, which we have not undertaken in this work. For we have set out now to speak of the Scriptures according to the proper sense of things done, not according to the riddles of things to come. So, in terms of the natures made and established, how do we find evening and morning in a spiritual light? Is the dividing of the light from the darkness the distinction of a thing already formed from what is formless, while the naming of day and night suggests the ordering by which it is signified that God leaves nothing disordered; that formlessness itself, through which things change by passing in some way from form to form, is not unarranged; and that the failings and advances of creation, by which all temporal things succeed one another, are not without their contribution to the beauty of the universe? For night is ordered darkness. And the reason why it was said, as soon as light was made, “God saw the light, that it was good,” although he could have said this after everything of that same day (that is, when he had set out, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light; and God divided between the light and the darkness, and God called the light day and the darkness he called night,” he could then have said, “And God saw that it was good,” and then added, “And evening came, and morning came,” as he does in the other works to which he gives names), the reason he did not do so here is that that formlessness was distinguished from the formed thing in such a way that it was not an end in itself but still remained to be formed through the other creatures, now bodily ones. So if, after they had been distinguished by that division and by names, it had then been said, “God saw that it was good,” we would take these to be signified as made things to which nothing more was to be added in their kind. But because he had perfected only the light in this way, “God saw,” it says, “the light, that it was good,” and he separated it from the darkness by division and names; and he did not then say, “God saw that it was good,” for that formlessness had been separated so that other things might still be formed from it. For this night that we know so well (the circuit of the sun over the lands makes it), when it is divided from the day by the arrangement of the lights, “God saw that it was good” is said after that division of day and night itself. For this night was not some formless substance from which other things would still be formed, but a space full of air lacking the light of day; and to this night certainly nothing more was to be added in its kind to make it more beautiful or more distinct. But evening, throughout those three days before the lights were made, may perhaps not unreasonably be understood as the end of a finished work, and morning as the signifying of a work to come.

But above all let us remember, as we have already said many times, that God does not work by temporal movements, as it were, of his mind or body, as a man or an angel works, but by the eternal, unchangeable and stable reasons of his Word, coeternal with himself, and by a kind of brooding, if I may put it so, of his Holy Spirit, equally coeternal. For what was said in the Greek and Latin languages of the Spirit of God, that he “was borne over the waters,” according to the sense of the Syriac language, which is close to Hebrew (this is reported to have been explained by a certain learned Syrian Christian), is said to be better understood not as “was borne over” but as “brooded over”; not as swellings or wounds in the body are treated with waters either cold or warmed to a suitable heat, but as eggs are brooded by birds, where the warmth of the mother’s body in some way also helps the chicks to be formed, through a kind of affection of love in its kind. So let us not think in a carnal way of temporal words of God on each of the days of these divine works. For the very Wisdom of God, having taken on our weakness, did not come to gather the children of Jerusalem under his wings, as a hen gathers her chicks, so that we might always be little ones, but so that, while being infants in malice, we might cease to be children in mind. And in obscure matters, very far removed from our eyes, if we read anything about them, even in the divine writings, that can give rise to different opinions without harm to the faith in which we are instructed, let us not throw ourselves into any one of them with headlong assertion, so that, if perhaps the truth, examined more carefully, rightly overturns it, we fall; fighting not for the meaning of the divine Scriptures but for our own, so that we would want our meaning to be that of the Scriptures, when we ought rather to want the meaning of the Scriptures to be ours.

For suppose that in what is written, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light,” one person thought it was bodily light that was made and another spiritual light. That there is spiritual light in spiritual creation our faith does not doubt; but that there is a bodily light, heavenly or even above the heaven or before the heaven, which night could follow, is not contrary to the faith so long as it is not refuted by most certain truth. And if that should happen, it was not what divine Scripture contained but what human ignorance had thought. But if certain reason demonstrates that this is true, it will still be uncertain whether the writer of the holy books meant this to be understood by those words, or something else no less true. And if the rest of the context of the passage proves that he did not mean this, the other thing that he did mean to be understood will not for that reason be false, but both true and more useful to know. But if the context of Scripture does not oppose the writer’s having meant this to be understood, it will still remain to ask whether he could not also have meant something else. And if we find that he could also have meant something else, it will be uncertain which of them he meant; and it is not unfitting to believe that he meant both to be understood, if the rest of the surrounding text supports both meanings. For it often happens that even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heaven, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and revolution or even the size and distances of the stars, about the definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the cycles of years and seasons, about the natures of animals, shrubs, stones, and other such things, and holds it by most certain reason or experience. Now it is exceedingly disgraceful and harmful, and greatly to be avoided, that he should hear a Christian talking such nonsense about these things, as if according to the Christian writings, that, seeing him wrong by the whole sky, as the saying goes, he can scarcely keep from laughing. And the trouble is not so much that an erring man is laughed at, but that our authors are believed by those outside to have held such views, and, to the great ruin of those whose salvation we are concerned for, they are criticized and rejected as unlearned. For when they catch someone from the number of Christians in error on a subject they know very well, and hear him asserting his foolish opinion from our books, how are they going to believe those books on the resurrection of the dead and the hope of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, when they think they were written falsely about things that they could already learn by experience or grasp by unquestionable calculation? What trouble and sorrow rash and presumptuous people bring on prudent brothers cannot be told enough: when they begin to be rebuked and refuted for their wrong and false opinion by those who are not bound by the authority of our books, then, to defend what they said with the lightest rashness and the plainest falsehood, they try to bring forward those same holy books to prove it, or even recite from memory many words from them that they think serve as evidence, “understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions.”

With this in view, to be considered and observed, I have explained the book of Genesis in many ways, as far as I could, and have put forward opinions on words placed obscurely for our exercise, not rashly affirming any one with prejudice to another explanation that is perhaps better, so that each may choose according to his small measure what he can grasp; and where he cannot understand Scripture, let him give God the honour and keep fear for himself. But since the words of Scripture that we have treated can be explained in so many ways, let those finally restrain themselves who, puffed up with worldly learning, attack as something unskilled and unpolished these words, which are set down so as to nourish all devout hearts; they crawl on the ground without wings and mock the nests of birds that are going to fly. But some weak brothers err more dangerously: when they hear these ungodly men discoursing subtly and at length on the numbers of the heavenly bodies or on any questions about the elements of this world, they lose heart, and with a sigh they put those men above themselves and think them great; they go back with distaste to the books of most wholesome piety and can scarcely bear to touch what they ought to drink in with delight, shrinking from the roughness of the crop and gaping at the flowers of thorns. For they have no leisure to see how sweet the Lord is, and they do not hunger on the sabbath; and so they are too lazy, with the authority received from the Lord, to pluck the ears and keep turning them in their hands and rub and clean them until they come to food.

Someone will say: “With all your threshing in this discussion, what grain have you husked? What have you winnowed? Why does almost everything still lie hidden in questions? Affirm one of the many things you have argued can be understood.” I answer him that I have come sweetly to this very food: I have learned that a man should not be at a loss in answering, according to the faith, what must be answered to people who try to slander the books of our salvation. Whatever they can demonstrate about the nature of things by true evidence, we should show is not contrary to our writings; but whatever they bring forward from any of their books that is contrary to these writings of ours, that is, to the catholic faith, we should either show by some means, or believe without any doubt, to be utterly false. And so let us hold fast to our Mediator, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” so that we are neither led astray by the talkativeness of false philosophy nor frightened by the superstition of false religion. And when we read the divine books, amid such a great number of true meanings drawn from a few words and safeguarded by the soundness of the catholic faith, let us choose above all the one that clearly appears to be what the author we are reading meant; but if this is hidden, then certainly one that the context of Scripture does not hinder and that agrees with sound faith; and if the context of Scripture too cannot be examined and discussed, then at least only what sound faith prescribes. For it is one thing not to discern what the writer chiefly meant, and another to stray from the rule of piety. If both are avoided, the reader’s fruit is complete; but if both cannot be avoided, even if the writer’s intention is uncertain, it is not without use to have drawn out a meaning that agrees with sound faith.

“And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between water and water.’ And so it was done. And God made the firmament, and God divided between the water that was below the firmament and the water that was above the firmament. And God called the firmament heaven. And God saw that it was good. And evening came, and morning came, the second day.” About the word of God, in that God said, “Let there be a firmament,” and so on, and about his good pleasure, in that he saw that it was good, and about evening and morning, there is no need to discuss again here in the same way; and so from now on, whenever these things are repeated, we advise that they be considered meanwhile according to the earlier inquiry. But whether that heaven is now being made which goes beyond all the spaces of the air and all its height, where the lights and stars are also set on the fourth day, or whether the air itself is called the firmament, may rightly be asked. For many assert that the nature of these waters cannot be above the starry heaven, because they have their weight so ordered that they either flow over the earth or are carried as vapour in the air nearest the earth. And no one should refute these people by saying that, according to the omnipotence of God, to whom all things are possible, we must believe that waters even as heavy as those we know and perceive are spread over the heavenly body in which the stars are. For now it is fitting for us to inquire, according to his Scriptures, how God established the natures of things, not what he may wish to work in them or from them as a miracle of his power. For if God ever wished oil to remain under water, it would happen; yet the nature of oil would not on that account be unknown to us, namely that it is so made that, seeking its own place, even if it has been poured underneath, it breaks through the waters and sets itself on top of them. So now we are asking whether the Creator of things, who “arranged all things in measure and number and weight,” assigned to the weight of the waters not one proper place around the earth, but also one above the heaven, which is spread around and made solid beyond the boundary of the air. Those who deny that this is to be believed argue from the weights of the elements. They deny that the heaven is in any way made solid above like a kind of pavement, so that it could bear the weights of waters, because such solidity can belong only to earth, and whatever is such is not heaven but earth. For the elements, they say, are distinguished not only by places but also by qualities, so that according to their own qualities they are also allotted their own places: water, for instance, over earth; and even if it stands or glides under the earth, as in hidden grottoes and caves, it is held up not by the part of the earth that it has above it, but by the part that it has below it. For if any part of the earth slips down from the upper part, it does not remain on the water, but breaks through it, sinks, and makes its way to the earth; and when it comes there it rests as in its own place, so that the water is above and the earth beneath. From this it is known that, even when it was above the waters, it was not carried by the waters themselves but held by the structure of the earth, as the vaults of caves are. Here we must warn against an error that I warned against in the first book: that no one of us, because it is written in the Psalms, “He founded the earth upon the water,” should think that we must rely on this testimony of Scripture against those who discuss the weights of the elements with subtlety. For they, not held by the authority of our writings and not knowing in what sense it was said, will more readily laugh at the holy books than give up what they have grasped by certain reasoning or proved by the plainest experiments. For that verse in the Psalms can rightly be taken figuratively: since spiritual and carnal people are often signified in the church by the names of heaven and earth, it showed that the heavens belong to the serene understanding of truth, saying, “who made the heavens in understanding,” and the earth to the simple faith of little ones, not uncertain and deceptive with fabulous opinions, but most firm in the preaching of prophets and gospel, which is made solid through baptism; and so it added, “He founded the earth upon the water.” Or, if anyone insists that it be understood literally, it can quite fittingly be taken either of the high parts of the lands, whether continents or islands, which are higher than the waters, or of the very roofs of caves, which are held firm by a solidity hanging over the waters. Therefore no one can understand literally what was said, “He founded the earth upon the water,” in such a way as to think that the weight of the waters is by natural order placed beneath the weight of earth to support it.

That air is higher than water, although because of its greater extent it also covers the dry land, is understood from this: no vessel pressed down mouth first can be filled with water. This shows clearly enough that the nature of air seeks a higher place. For a vessel seems empty, but it is proved to be full of air when it is pressed into water mouth downward; because the air finds no place to escape through the upper part, and its nature does not allow it to go downward and under the waters by breaking through them, it pushes them back by its fullness and does not let them enter the vessel. But when the vessel is placed so that its mouth is not downward but tilted to the side, the water enters below as the air goes out above. Likewise, if the mouth of an upright vessel is open to the sky, when you pour in water the air escapes upward from the other parts, where you are not pouring, and room is made for the water to enter downward. And if the vessel is pressed down with greater force, so that the waters suddenly flow in from the side or from above and cover the mouth of the vessel all round, the air, striving upward, breaks through them to make room for them below; and that very breaking through is the gurgling of vessels, while the air escapes in parts, since it cannot all go so quickly because of the narrowness of the mouth. So if air is forced to go above waters, it even scatters them as they flow together, when, driven by its force, they bubble up and leap out and release it with bursting bubbles as it hastens to its own place and gives them access to fall to the bottom. But if it is forced to go under the waters out of a vessel, as when you want a vessel pressed mouth downward to the bottom to be filled as the air gives way, the vessel is more easily covered by the waves on every side than a tiny drop finds room to enter through its mouth from below.

Now who does not perceive that fire, leaping upward, wants to pass beyond even the nature of air? For if anyone holds a burning torch head downward, the tresses of the flame nevertheless strive upward. But since fire is soon extinguished by the overpowering pressure of the air poured around and over it, and, overcome by its abundance, is soon changed and turned into its quality, it cannot last long enough to leap through its whole height. So it is said that pure fire above the air is the heaven, from which they conjecture that the stars and lights too were made, the nature of that fiery light being gathered into globes and arranged into the forms that we see in the heaven. And so, just as both air and water give way to the weights of earth so that it reaches the earth, so the air itself gives way to the weight of the waters so that they reach earth or water. From this they wish it to be understood that in the same way air too, if someone could release a particle of it in those lofty spaces of the heaven, would necessarily fall by its own weight until it reached the airy spaces beneath. Therefore they conclude that there can be much less room for waters above that fiery heaven, since air, which is much lighter than waters, cannot remain there.

Yielding to such arguments of theirs, a certain man made a praiseworthy attempt to demonstrate waters above the heavens, so as to support the trustworthiness of Scripture from visible and observable natures themselves. First, which was easiest, he showed that this air too is called heaven, not only in common speech, by which we say the sky is clear or cloudy, but also in the usage of our own Scriptures, when they speak of “the birds of heaven,” since it is obvious that birds fly in this air; and the Lord, speaking of clouds, said, “You can judge the face of the heaven.” And we often see clouds gathered even in the air nearest the earth, when they rest on the slopes of ridges in such a way that they are often topped even by the peaks of the mountains. So having proved that this air too is called heaven, he wished it to be thought that it was called the firmament for no other reason than that its interval divides between certain vapours of water and these waters that flow with greater bulk on the earth. For clouds too, as those have found who have walked among them in the mountains, take on such an appearance by the gathering and massing of very tiny drops; and if they are thickened further, so that many very small drops are joined into one large one, the air does not allow it to be held within it but gives way to its weight downward, and this is rain. So from the air that is between the moist vapours, from which clouds are gathered above, and the seas spread below, he wished to show that there is a heaven between water and water. I judge this diligence and consideration most worthy of praise. For what he said is not against the faith and can be believed on the basis of evidence ready to hand. And yet it might seem that the proper weights of the elements do not prevent waters from being even above that highest heaven, in those tiny particles in which they could also be above this space of air. For although the air is heavier than the highest heaven and lies lower beneath it, it is without doubt lighter than waters; and yet those vapours are not prevented by any weight from being above it. So too above that heaven a lighter exhalation of moisture in still tinier drops can be spread out, which would not be forced by weight to fall. For these same people persuade us by the subtlest reasoning that there is no particle of body, however small, in which division comes to an end, but all things are divided without limit, because every part of a body is a body, and every body must have half of its quantity. And therefore, if water can come, as we see, to such tiny drops that it is carried as vapour above this air, which is by nature lighter than waters, why can it not also remain above that lighter heaven in tinier drops and lighter vapours?

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.

Many also inquire very talkatively what the moon was like when it was made; and would that they spoke as inquirers and not rather as people trying to teach! For they say it was made full, because it was not fitting that God should make anything imperfect among the stars on the day on which it is written that the stars were made. But those who oppose them say, “Then it should have been called the first-day moon, not the fourteenth; for who begins counting in that way?” I stand between them, so as to assert neither, but I will say plainly that whether God made the moon new or full, he made it perfect. For God is the author and founder of natures themselves. And whatever any thing brings forth and unfolds by natural progress through fitting times, it contained hidden beforehand too, if not in form or bulk of body, yet in the power and reason of its nature. Unless perhaps a tree that is empty of fruit and stripped of leaves through the winter is then to be called imperfect, or that nature was imperfect in its first beginnings too, when it had not yet given any fruit. This could not rightly be said, not only of the tree, but not even of its seed, where all the things that come forth in some way with the progress of time lie hidden in invisible ways. And yet, if God were said to have made something imperfect which he himself then perfected, what would be blameworthy in that opinion? It would rightly displease if what had been begun by him were said to have been perfected by another. So those who do not complain about the earth, which God made when in the beginning he made heaven and earth, because it was invisible and unformed and afterward, on the third day, is made visible and formed, why do they make clouds of questions for themselves about the moon? Or if they understand what was said of the earth to have been said not by an interval of time, since God created matter together with things, but by the arrangement of the narrative, why do they not see in this matter, which can be seen even with the eyes, that the moon has a whole body and is perfect in its full roundness, even when it shines with a horned light, whether beginning to shine upon the earth or ceasing? So if the light in it grows, or is completed, or diminishes, it is not the light-bearer itself but what is lit in it that varies. And if it always shines on one side of its little sphere, but seems to grow while it turns that side toward the earth until it turns all of it (which happens from the first day to the fourteenth), it is always full, but does not always appear so to the inhabitants of the earth. The same reasoning holds if it is illuminated by the rays of the sun. For in that case too, when it is nearest the sun, it can appear only with bright horns, because the rest of it, which is wholly illuminated in a circle, is not turned toward the earth so as to be seen, except when it is opposite the sun, so that all of it that the sun lights appears to the earth. There are some, however, who say they think the moon was first made on the fourteenth day, not because it should be believed to have been made full, but because the words of God in the Scriptures say that the moon was made “for the beginning of night”; and it is seen at the beginning of night when it is full, whereas at other times it begins to be seen even during the day before it is full, and further on into the night the more it wanes. But one who understands by “beginning of night” nothing but rule (for the Greek word indicates this more when it is said, archas, and in the Psalms it is written more plainly, “the sun for the rule of the day, the moon and stars for the rule of the night”) is not forced to count from the fourteenth day and to believe that the moon was not first made at the first day of its cycle.

It is also often asked whether these visible lights of heaven, that is, the sun, moon and stars, shine equally, but appear to our eyes with different brightness, more or less, because they are at different distances from the earth. As for the moon, those who say this do not doubt that it shines less than the sun, by which they also maintain it is illuminated. But they dare to say that many stars are equal to the sun or even greater, but appear small because they are farther away. For us it may perhaps be enough that, however the matter stands, the stars were established by God as their maker. And yet we hold what was said by apostolic authority: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.” But since they can still say, even without resisting the apostle, “They differ in glory, yes, but to the eyes of earthly beings”; or, since the apostle said this in comparison with those who rise again, who will certainly not be one thing to the eyes and another in themselves, “The stars do differ in glory in themselves too, but nevertheless some are even greater than the sun,” let them see how they can give the sun so great a primacy that they say it holds back certain stars with its rays and drives them back from their proper course, and these the principal stars at that, to which these people make supplication more than to the others. For it is not likely that greater or even equal stars could be overcome by the violence of its rays. Or if they assert that the higher stars of the zodiac signs or the northern stars are greater, which suffer nothing of this kind from the sun, why do they venerate more these that go round through the signs? Why do they declare them lords of the signs? For even if someone contends that those retrogradations of the stars, or perhaps slowings, come about not from the sun but from other more hidden causes, yet it is certainly clear from their books that in their ravings, by which, straying from the truth, they suppose a power of the fates, these people attribute special power to the sun. But let those who are strangers to the Father who is in heaven say what they like about the heaven; for us it is neither expedient nor fitting to inquire more subtly into the distances and size of the stars and to spend on such inquiry the time needed for weightier and better things. And we do better to believe that those lights are greater than the others which holy Scripture presents thus: “And God made two great lights,” which, however, are not equal. For, having set them above the others, it goes on to say that they differ from each other; for it says, “the greater light for the beginning of day and the lesser light for the beginning of night.” Certainly they will at least grant this to our eyes: that it is evident that these shine more than the others upon the earth, that the day is bright only by the light of the sun, and that the night, even with so many stars appearing, is not lit, if the moon is absent, as it is illuminated by its presence.

As for fate, let us utterly reject, from the soundness of our faith, all their subtleties of whatever kind and the so-called experimental proofs of their astrology, which they call apotelesmata. For by such arguments they try to take away from us even the reasons for praying, and with impious perversity, in evil deeds which are most rightly blamed, they urge that God, the author of the stars, is to be accused rather than man, the author of the crimes. But that our souls are not by nature subject to bodies, not even heavenly ones, let them hear even from their own philosophers. And that those higher bodies are not more powerful than earthly bodies with respect to the things these people deal with, let them learn at last from this: when many bodies of different kinds, whether of animals or of plants and shrubs, are sown at one and the same point of time, and innumerably many are born at one point of time, not only in different places on earth but also in the same places, there are such great differences in their development, actions and experiences that these people would truly, as the saying goes, lose their stars if they considered these things. And what is more foolish and dull than, when they are refuted by these facts, to say that the fateful reckoning of the stars applies only to human beings, as subject to them? Yet in human beings too they are refuted by twins, who live differently, are differently happy or unhappy, and die differently, though they mostly receive the same constellations; for even if there was some interval when they came out of the womb, in some cases the interval is so small that it cannot be grasped by their calculation. The hand of Jacob, who came second, was found, as they were being born, holding the foot of his brother who came first; they were born so closely together that it seemed like one infant twice as long being born. Certainly their “constellations,” as they call them, could in no way have been different. What then is emptier than that an astrologer, looking at those constellations, at the same horoscope and the same moon, should say that one of them was loved by his mother and the other not loved? For if he said otherwise, he would certainly say what is false; and if he said this, he would say what is true, but not according to the silly little songs of his books. And if they will not believe this history, because it is brought forward from our books, can they also abolish the nature of things? So since they say they are not deceived at all if they find the hour of conception, let them at least not disdain, as human beings, to consider the conception of twins. And so it must be admitted that, when true things are said by these people, they are said by a kind of very hidden prompting, which human minds undergo without knowing it. When this is done to deceive people, it is the work of seducing spirits, who are permitted to know some true things about temporal matters: partly by the keenness of a subtler sense, because they are strong in subtler bodies; partly by more cunning experience, because of such great length of life; and partly because the holy angels reveal to them, even by the command of God, what they themselves learn from almighty God, who distributes to human beings according to their deserts with the purity of a most hidden justice. Sometimes, too, these same wicked spirits foretell, as if by divination, what they themselves are going to do. Therefore a good Christian must beware of astrologers or any impious diviners, especially when they say true things, lest they ensnare the deceived soul in fellowship with demons by some pact of partnership.

It is also often asked whether these visible lights of heaven are only bodies or whether they have certain spirits of their own as rulers, and, if they have, whether they are also given life by them, as flesh is animated by the souls of living creatures, or are only present to them without any mingling. Although this cannot easily be grasped, I think that, as we go on treating the Scriptures, more suitable places may occur where we may be allowed, according to the rules of holy authority, if not to show something certain about this matter, at least to believe it. But now, always keeping the moderation of devout seriousness, we ought to believe nothing rashly about an obscure matter, lest perhaps, out of love for our own error, we should hate what the truth later reveals, even though it can in no way be contrary to the holy books, whether of the Old Testament or the New. Now let us pass on to the third book of our work.

“And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and flying things above the earth along the firmament of heaven.’ And it was so done. And God made great sea monsters and every creature of creeping things, which the waters brought forth according to their kind, and every winged flying thing according to its kind. And God saw that they were good. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Increase and multiply and fill the waters in the sea, and let the flying things multiply upon the earth.’ And evening came, and morning came, the fifth day.” Now, in the lower part of the world, the things that are moved by the spirit of life are made, and first those of the waters, which is the element nearest to the quality of air; because air is so near to this heaven in which the lights are that it too has received the name of heaven, though I do not know whether it can also be called firmament. And “heavens” are spoken of in the plural for one and the same thing that is called one heaven. For although in this book “heaven” is said in the singular for what divides between the waters that are above and those that are below, yet in that psalm it says, “And let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord.” And if we rightly understand the heavens of heavens to be the starry heavens above the airy ones, as higher above lower, and we take these also in the same psalm where it is said, “Praise him, heavens of heavens,” it is clear enough that this air is called not only heaven but also heavens; just as “lands” is said, and nothing else is meant than what is called in the singular “land,” when we say “the circle of the lands” and “the circle of the land.”

We read in one of the letters called canonical that these airy heavens once perished in the flood. For that watery nature, which rose so high that it passed the tops of the highest mountains by fifteen cubits, could not reach the stars. But because it had filled all or nearly all the spaces of this moister air in which birds fly, that letter writes that the heavens that had been perished. I do not know how this can be understood except by the quality of this denser air being turned into the nature of waters; otherwise these heavens did not perish then, but were raised higher when water occupied their place. So we more easily believe, according to the authority of that letter, that they perished and that others, as is written there, were put in their place, namely by exhalations spread out, than that they were raised so that the nature of the higher heaven gave up its place to them. So it was fitting that, in creating the inhabitants of this lower part of the world, which is often mentioned as a whole by the name of earth, living creatures should be brought forth first from the waters and afterward from the earth, because water is so similar to air that air is proved to grow thick with its exhalations, so as to produce the spirit of storm, that is, wind, and to draw clouds together, and to be able to support the flight of birds. Therefore, even if one of the secular poets spoke truly, “Olympus rises above the clouds,” and “the heights hold peace,” because the air on the summit of Olympus is said to be so thin that it is neither overshadowed by clouds nor disturbed by wind, and cannot support birds or nourish with the breath of thicker air any men who may have climbed there, as they are used to being nourished in this air of ours, yet that too is air, from which it spreads down with a quality near to waters; and therefore it too is believed to have been turned into a moist nature at the time of the flood. For we must not think that the flood took over anything of the spaces of the starry heaven, though the water had passed even all the highest mountains.

And yet about the conversion of the elements there is no small question even among those who have investigated these things most subtly with idle care. For some say that all can be changed and turned into all; but others maintain that there is something entirely proper to each element that is in no way turned into the quality of another element. Perhaps, if the Lord wills, we shall discuss this more carefully in its place; but now, as far as the present discussion is concerned, I thought these things should be mentioned so that we may understand that the order of things was kept, by which it was right to narrate the creation of the creatures of the waters before those of the lands. And we must by no means think that any element of this world has been passed over in this Scripture, since it is commonly held that the world consists of four well-known elements, on the ground that here heaven and water and earth seem to be mentioned, but nothing is said of air. For it is the custom of our Scriptures to name the world either as heaven and earth or sometimes to add the sea as well. So air is understood to belong either to heaven, if there are any very calm and peaceful spaces in its upper parts, or to earth, because of this turbulent and murky region which grows thick with moist exhalation, although this too is quite often called by the name of heaven. And so it is not written, “Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and let the air bring forth flying things flying over the earth,” but both kinds of living creatures are narrated as brought forth from the waters. So whatever of the waters is either slipping, wavy and fluid, or made thin and suspended as vapour, the former appearing allotted to the creeping things of living souls and the latter to the flying things, both are nevertheless reckoned as moist nature.

And so there are also those who, by very subtle consideration, distinguish these five most obvious senses of the body according to the four common elements: they say the eyes belong to fire and the ears to air, and they assign the senses of smelling and tasting to moist nature; smell to those moist exhalations by which this space where the birds fly is thickened, and taste to those flowing and bodily liquids. For whatever has savour in the mouth is mixed with the moisture of the mouth itself in order to have savour, even if it seemed dry when it was taken in. But fire penetrates all things, to produce movement in them. For moisture freezes by the privation of heat, and while the other elements can grow hot, fire cannot grow cold; it is more easily extinguished, so that it is no longer fire, than it remains cold or becomes cooler by contact with something cold. And touch, which is the fifth among the senses, fits better with the earthy element; accordingly, things touched are felt through the whole body of a living creature, which is chiefly from earth. They also say that nothing can be seen without fire or touched without earth, and that therefore all the elements are present in all, but each has received its name from what it has more of; and that when the body grows very cold through the privation of heat, sense is dulled because the movement that is present in the body from heat becomes sluggish, as fire acts on air, air on moisture, and moisture on earthy things, the subtler penetrating the denser. And the subtler anything is in bodily nature, the nearer it is to spiritual nature, although very distant in kind, since the one is body and the other is not.

And so, since sensing belongs not to the body but to the soul through the body, although it is argued acutely that the body’s senses are distributed according to the diversity of the bodily elements, yet the soul, in which the power of sensing resides, since it is not bodily, exercises the vigour of sensing through the subtler body. So it begins the movement in all the senses from the subtlety of fire, but does not reach the same point in all. For in sight, with the heat held back, it reaches as far as its light; in hearing, it penetrates with the heat of fire as far as the clearer air; in smell, it passes through pure air and reaches the moist exhalation from which this thicker air is formed; in taste, it passes through this too and reaches the more bodily moisture; and when this too has been penetrated and passed through, when it reaches earthy heaviness, it exercises the last sense, touch.

So he was not ignorant of the natures of the elements and their order who, when introducing the establishing of the visible things that move by nature within the world in the elements, narrated first the heavenly lights, then the living creatures of the waters, and last those of the lands. It is not that he passed over air, but that the spaces of the purest and calmest air, where birds are said to be unable to fly, if there are any, are joined to the higher heaven and are understood in the Scriptures, under the name of heaven, to belong to the higher part of the world; so that by the name of earth is signified in general this whole region, from which there begins, going downward, “fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of storm,” and all the abysses, until one comes to the dry land, which is called earth by its proper name. So that higher air, whether because it belongs to the heavenly part of the world or because it has no visible inhabitant of the kind the narrator is now speaking of, is neither passed over, since heaven is named, nor counted among the living creatures to be created. But this lower air, which receives the moist exhalations of sea and land and is in a way thickened to support birds, receives living creatures only from the waters. For what is moist in it carries the bodies of birds, which in flying lean on their wings just as fish swim with certain wings of their own.

So he speaks knowingly, as the Spirit of God who was present to the writer, when he says that the flying things were brought forth from the waters. Their nature has been allotted a twofold place: the lower in the slipping wave, the higher in the blowing air, the former assigned to swimmers, the latter to fliers. Just so we see that two senses suited to this element have been given to living creatures: smell for exploring vapours, taste for exploring liquids. For that we also perceive waters and winds by touch is because the solidity of earth is mixed into all the elements; but it is felt more in these denser ones, so that they can even be handled by touching. And so these too are included, of the two greatest parts of the world, under the general name of earth, as that psalm shows, which lists all the higher things from one beginning, “Praise the Lord from the heavens,” and all the lower things from another beginning, “Praise the Lord from the earth,” where the spirit of storm is named, and all the abysses, and this fire that burns whoever touches it, because it arises from earthy and moist movements in such a way that it is soon turned into another element. And although by striving upward it shows the desire of its nature, yet it cannot escape into the calm of the higher heaven, because, overcome by much air and turned into it, it is extinguished. And so in this more corruptible and sluggish part of things it is driven by turbulent movements, to temper its harshness and for the use and fear of mortals. Since, then, the waves of the waters and the blasts of the winds can be felt by touch too, which belongs properly to the earth, the bodies of aquatic creatures too feed on earthy things, and birds especially also rest on the earth and propagate their young; for the part of moisture that is exhaled as vapour is spread over the lands too. And so, when Scripture said, “Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and flying things,” it says, “above the earth,” it wisely added, “along the firmament of heaven,” in which what seemed obscure before can appear somewhat more clearly. For it does not say “in the firmament of heaven,” as of the lights, but “flying things,” it says, “above the earth along the firmament of heaven,” that is, next to the firmament of heaven; because this murky and moist space in which birds fly is adjacent to that space where they cannot fly, which by reason of its calm and quiet rightly belongs to the firmament of heaven. So birds fly in the heaven, but in that heaven which that psalm also includes under the name of earth; and for this reason they are called in many places “the birds of heaven,” yet not in the firmament but along the firmament.

Some think that they are called, not “living soul,” but “creeping things of living souls,” because of the slowness of their senses. But if they were called so for that reason, the name “living soul” would be given to the birds. But since the flying things too are so named, like the creeping things, so that “of living souls” is understood, it must be admitted, I think, that it was said as if it were said, “those among living souls that are creeping or flying things,” just as one could say “the lowly of men,” so that we would understand “whoever among men are lowly.” For although there are also land animals that creep on the earth, yet by far the greater number move on feet, and perhaps as few creep on land as walk in the waters. And some have thought that fish are called, not “living soul,” but “creeping things of living souls,” because they have no memory nor any life nearer, as it were, to reason; but too little experience deceives them. For some have written many marvellous things they were able to observe in fishponds. But even if perhaps they wrote what is false, it is quite certain that fish have memory. I have experienced it myself, and let those who can and will experience it too. For a certain large spring in the district of Bulla is almost full of fish. People looking down from above are accustomed to throw them something, which they either snatch, crowding together, or tear from one another, competing. Accustomed to this feeding, when people walk along the edge of the spring, the fish too swim in shoals with them, going back and forth, waiting for those whose presence they perceive to throw them something. So it seems to me not without reason that the creatures of the waters are called creeping things, just as birds are called flying things; for if either the lack of memory or a slower sense had kept the name “living soul” away from fish, it would certainly have been applied to the flying things, whose life is before our eyes, mindful and chattering and most skilful in building nests and rearing their young.

Nor am I unaware that certain philosophers distributed living creatures to each element in such a way that they called earthly not only those that creep and walk on the earth but birds too, because they too rest on the earth when tired from flying; the creatures of the air, they said, are demons, and the heavenly ones gods, of which we call some lights and some angels. Yet the same people assign fish and sea beasts of their kind to the waters, so that no element is without its own living creatures: as if there were no earth under the waters, or as if they could prove that fish do not rest on it and restore their strength for swimming, as birds do for flying, even if perhaps fish do so more rarely, because water is stronger than air for carrying bodies, so that it even carries land animals that swim, whether taught by practice, like men, or by nature, like four-footed animals or serpents. Or if they do not think so because fish have no feet, then seals are not creatures of the waters, nor snakes and snails of the lands; for the former have feet, and these kinds, without any feet, not only rest on the earth but hardly ever, or never, leave it. And dragons without feet are said both to rest in caves and to be lifted into the air; and although they are not easily known, yet not only our writings but those of the gentiles too have by no means been silent about this kind of creature.

Therefore, even if demons are creatures of the air, because they are strong in the nature of airy bodies, and are not dissolved by death for this reason, because there prevails in them an element that is more fit for acting than for being acted on, with two placed beneath it, water and earth, and one above it, the starry fire (for the elements are divided into two for being acted on, moisture and earth, and two others for acting, air and fire); if, then, these things are so, this distinction does not hinder our Scripture, which indicates that the flying things were brought forth not from the air but from the waters, because the place given to the flying things is that of moisture, subtler indeed and exhaled and spread into the air, but still moisture. Now air reaches from the boundary of the luminous heaven to the flowing waters and the bare lands. Yet moist exhalations do not darken all its space, but only as far as that limit from which it begins to be called earth, according to that psalm where it is said, “Praise the Lord from the earth.” But the upper part of the air, because of its pure calm, is joined in a common peace to the heaven with which it borders and is called by its name along with it. If perhaps the transgressing angels were in that part before their transgression, with their prince, now the devil, then an archangel (for some of our writers do not think they were heavenly or super-heavenly angels), it is not surprising if after their sin they were thrust down into this murk, where nevertheless there is air, and it is woven with thin moisture; which, when stirred, makes winds; when stirred more violently, also fire and thunder; when drawn together, clouds; when thickened, rain; when the clouds freeze, snow; when the denser clouds freeze more turbulently, hail; and when spread out, clear weather, by the hidden commands and the work of God, who governs all that he created, from the highest to the lowest. That is why in that psalm, when “fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of storm” had been mentioned, so that such things might not be thought to come about and be moved without divine providence, it immediately added, “which do his word.” But if those transgressors, before they transgressed, had heavenly bodies, neither is it surprising if these were changed as a punishment into the quality of air, so that they can now suffer something from fire, that is, from an element of a higher nature; and they have been permitted to occupy not even the higher and purer spaces of the air, but this murky region, which is for them, according to their kind, a kind of prison until the time of judgment. And if anything about these transgressing angels needs to be investigated more carefully, there will be a more suitable place in Scripture. So for now this is enough: if these turbid and stormy spaces, because of the nature of air extending as far as the waves and the lands, can support airy bodies, they can also support the bodies of birds, which were brought forth from the waters, because of the thin exhalations of the waters, which are mixed as vapour into that same air spread around next to the waves and lands, and for that reason assigned to the lowest and earthly part, and are woven into the breezes, which, weighed down by the chill of night, drip even in clear weather as dew, and, if the cold is sharper, turn whiter still as frost.

“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living soul according to its kind: four-footed animals and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kind, and cattle according to their kind.’ And it was so done. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kind and the cattle according to their kind and all the creeping things of the earth according to their kind. And God saw that they were good.” Now it followed that he should adorn with its living creatures the other part of this lowest region, which is properly called earth; the whole region, with all the abysses and the cloudy air, Scripture elsewhere includes under the general name of earth. The kinds of living creatures that the earth brought forth at the word of God are clear. But since all the animals without reason are often understood by the name of cattle or by the name of beasts, it is rightly asked which he now calls beasts in the proper sense and which cattle. As for creeping or crawling things of the earth, there is no doubt that he meant all serpents to be understood, although they could also be called beasts; but the name of cattle does not usually fit serpents. Again, the word “beasts” usually fits lions and leopards and tigers and wolves and foxes, dogs too and apes and others of that kind. But the name of cattle is usually applied more fittingly to those animals that are in human use, either to help with labour, like oxen and horses and the like, or for wool or for food, like sheep and pigs. What, then, are “four-footed animals”? For although all these, except certain serpents, walk on four feet, yet unless he had wished certain animals to be understood by this name in the proper sense, he would surely not have named four-footed animals here too, although he was silent about them in the repetition. Or are deer and fallow deer and wild asses and boars (because they cannot be joined to those beasts among which are lions, for they are like those cattle, yet they are not under human care) called four-footed animals in the proper sense, as though these were the remaining animals, to which this name, general indeed and shared with many because of the number of feet, was given nevertheless with a special meaning? Or, because he said “according to its kind” three times, does he invite us to attend to three kinds? First, “according to their kind, four-footed animals and creeping things”: where I think it is indicated which four-footed animals he meant, namely those that are in the kind of creeping things, such as lizards, geckos and anything of that sort. And so in the repetition he did not repeat the name of four-footed animals, because perhaps he included them under the word “creeping things”: that is why there he does not say simply “creeping things” but adds “all the creeping things of the earth”: “of the earth,” because there are also creeping things of the waters; and “all,” so that those are understood there which also rest on four feet, which were properly signified above by the name of four-footed animals. And the beasts, of which he likewise says “according to their kind,” are whatever is savage with mouth or claws, except serpents. And the cattle, of which he says “according to their kind” the third time, are those that tear with neither, but either with horns or not even with them. For I said before both that the wide extent of the name “four-footed animals” is easily recognized from the number of feet itself, and that by the name of cattle or beasts every irrational animal is sometimes included. And the word ferae (“wild animals”) usually has just as wide a meaning in the Latin language. Yet that was no reason to neglect the question how these names, which are not set in this place of Scripture without purpose, can also be distinguished by a special distinction, which can easily be noticed in the usage of everyday speech.

It also moves the reader, not without reason, whether “according to its kind” is said at random and as if by chance, or for some reason, as though they had existed before, though they are narrated as being created for the first time. Or is their kind to be understood in the higher reasons, spiritual ones surely, according to which they are created below? But if that were so, it would be said of the light, of the heaven, of the waters and lands, of the lights of heaven. For which of them is there whose eternal and unchangeable reason is not alive in the very Wisdom of God, which “reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly”? But it begins to be said with the plants and trees and continues up to these land animals. For in those created from the waters too, although it is not said in the first mention, it is said in the repetition: “And God made great sea monsters and every soul of creeping creatures, which the waters brought forth according to their kind, and every winged flying thing according to its kind.” Or, because these came into being in such a way that others would be born from them and preserve the form of their origin by succession, are they said to be “according to their kind” because of the propagation of offspring by which they were created to endure? But why is it said of trees and plants not only “according to its kind” but also “according to its likeness,” since living creatures too, of the waters or of the lands, beget according to their likeness? Or, because likeness follows kind, did he not wish to repeat it everywhere? For he did not repeat “seed” everywhere either, although it is present in animals as well as in plants and trees, though not in all. For it has been observed that some are born from waters or earth in such a way that they have no sex, and so their seed is not in them but in the elements from which they arise. So this is “according to its kind”: where both the power of seeds and the likeness of those succeeding to those passing away is understood, because none of them was created to exist once, either to remain forever or to pass away with no one succeeding. Why, then, was it not said of man too, “Let us make man in our image and likeness according to his kind,” since the propagation of man is also obvious? Is it because God had not made man so that he would die, if he had been willing to keep the commandment, and so a successor was not needed for one passing away? But after sin he was compared to senseless cattle and became like them, so that now the children of this age beget and are begotten, in order that the mortal race may endure by keeping up succession. What then does that blessing mean after man was made, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth,” which certainly could be done by begetting? Or should nothing be said rashly about this until we come to that place of Scripture where these things must be investigated and treated more carefully? For it may perhaps be enough for now that it was not said of man “according to his kind” because one was being made, from whom the woman too was made. For there are not many kinds of men, as there are of plants, trees, fish, birds, serpents, cattle and beasts, so that we should take “according to its kind” to be said as if it meant “kind by kind,” so that those that are similar among themselves and belong to one origin of seed might be distinguished from the others.

It is also asked what the creatures of the waters deserved so much of the Creator that they alone were blessed, as human beings were. For God blessed them too, saying, “Increase and multiply and fill the waters of the sea, and let the flying things multiply upon the earth.” Was it that it had to be said in one kind of creature, so that it would be understood as a consequence in the others that increase by generation? Then it would have been said first in the first thing of that kind to be created, namely the plant and the tree. Or perhaps he judged those that would have no affection for propagating offspring and would generate without any sense unworthy of those words of blessing, “Increase and multiply,” and where such affection was present, there he said it first, so that it would be understood in the land animals too, even though it was not said? But it was necessary to repeat it in the case of man, so that no one would say that there is any sin in the duty of begetting children, as there is in lust, whether in sexual immorality or in using marriage itself without moderation.

There is also some question about certain very tiny animals, whether they were created in the first establishing of things or from the later decay of mortal things. For most of them are born either from the diseases, the waste, or the exhalations of living bodies, or from the rotting of corpses; some also from the decay of wood and plants, and some from the decay of fruits. Of all of these we cannot rightly say that God is not the creator. For in all of them there is a certain beauty of nature proper to their kind, so that in them the wonder of one who considers them well is greater, and the praise of the almighty Craftsman richer, who “made all things in wisdom.” This Wisdom, “reaching from end to end and ordering all things sweetly,” does not leave without form even those last of things which are dissolved according to the order of their kind, and whose dissolution we dread because of the punishment of our mortality; but it creates living creatures tiny in body and keen in sense, so that we are amazed with greater attention at the nimbleness of a flying fly than at the size of a walking beast of burden, and admire the works of little ants more than the loads of camels. But whether, as I said, we are to believe that these smallest creatures too were established in the first establishing of things, which is narrated as created in this order of six days, or afterward from the later dissolution of corruptible bodies, this is the question. It can indeed be said that the tiniest creatures that arise from waters or lands were created then. Among these may reasonably be understood also those that are born from the things that arose when the earth brought forth plants, both because these had preceded the establishing not only of the animals but also of the lights, and because they are joined to the earth by the connection of their roots, from which they arose on the day when the dry land appeared, so that they would be understood to belong to the furnishing of the dwelling rather than to the number of the inhabitants. But as for the others, which are born from the bodies of animals, and especially of dead ones, it is most absurd to say that they were created then, when the animals themselves were created; unless it be that there was already present in all animate bodies a certain natural power and, as it were, the pre-sown and in some way interwoven first beginnings of future animals, which were to arise from the decay of such bodies, each according to its kind and differences, by the ineffable governance of the Creator, who moves all things while remaining unchangeable.

It is also often asked about the poisonous and harmful kinds of animals, whether they were created after man’s sin for punishment, or rather were created harmless and only afterward began to harm sinners. Nor is this surprising, since even in the times of this toilsome and wretched life (when no one is so righteous that he dares to call himself perfect, as the apostle faithfully testifies when he says, “Not that I have already received or am already perfect”; and when temptations and bodily troubles are still necessary for exercising virtue and perfecting it in weakness, as the same apostle again makes clear when he says that, lest he be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given him, an angel of Satan to buffet him, and that when he asked the Lord three times that it might depart from him, the Lord answered him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for virtue is made perfect in weakness”), holy Daniel nevertheless lived safe and unafraid among lions, though he certainly did not lie to God when in his prayer he confessed not only the sins of his people but also his own; and a deadly viper fastened on the hand of the apostle himself and did not harm him. So these creatures too, though created, could have done no harm, if there had not arisen the cause either of frightening and punishing vices or of testing and perfecting virtue; because examples of patience must be shown for the progress of others, and man comes to know himself more surely in temptations, and that everlasting salvation which was shamefully lost by the will is justly recovered bravely through pain.

Someone will say: “Why then do beasts harm one another, when they have no sins, so that this could be called punishment, and they gain no virtue by such exercise?” Clearly because some are food for others. And we cannot rightly say, “There should not be some on which others feed.” For all things, as long as they exist, have their measures, numbers and orders; all of these, rightly considered, are praised, and even when they change, passing from one into another, it is not without a hidden governance of temporal beauty proper to their kind. If this is hidden from fools, it glimmers for those who are making progress and is clear to the perfect. And certainly in all such movements of lower creation wholesome warnings are offered to man, that he may see how much he must strive for his spiritual and everlasting salvation, by which he surpasses all irrational living creatures, when he sees them, from the largest elephants to the smallest worms, doing whatever they can, whether by resisting or by taking care, for the bodily and temporal safety allotted to them in the lower ordering of their kind. This appears only when some seek to restore their own bodies from the bodies of others, while others protect themselves by the strength to fight back, or by the help of flight, or by the protection of hiding places. For even bodily pain in any living creature is a great and wonderful power of the soul, which holds that structure together in life by an ineffable mingling and brings it into a kind of unity according to its measure, since it suffers it to be corrupted and dissolved, not with indifference, but, so to speak, with indignation.

This too may perhaps move someone: if harmful animals either injure living human beings as punishment, or exercise them for their good, or test them usefully, or teach them without knowing it, why do they also tear apart the bodies of dead human beings for their food? As if it made any difference to our advantage through what passages this flesh, now lifeless, goes into the deep secret places of nature, from which it will be brought out again to be re-formed by the wonderful omnipotence of the Creator. And yet from this too there comes a warning to the prudent, that they should so entrust themselves to the faithful Creator, who governs all things, the greatest and the least, by his hidden will, and by whom even our hairs are numbered, that they should not dread any kind of death because of empty cares for their lifeless bodies, but should not hesitate to prepare the sinews of devout courage for anything.

A similar question often arises about thorns and thistles and certain fruitless trees, why or when they were created, since God said, “Let the earth bring forth the plant of pasture sowing seed, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit.” But those who are moved in this way do not understand, at least from the usual formulas of human law, what is called usufruct; for a certain benefit to those who enjoy it is considered under the name of fruit. And how great the benefits, whether evident or hidden, of all that the earth brings forth and nourishes by roots, let them both observe some for themselves and inquire about the rest from those who have experience. And about thorns and thistles a more complete answer can be given, because after sin it was said to man about the earth, “It will bring forth thorns and thistles for you.” Yet it is not to be said lightly that these began to grow from the earth only then. For perhaps, since many benefits are found in these kinds of seeds too, they could have had their place without any punishment of man. But that they should grow also in the fields in which he was now labouring as a punishment may be believed to serve to heap up the punishment, since they could grow elsewhere, either as pasture for birds and cattle or for some uses of men themselves. And yet that other sense too is not out of keeping with these words, by which “It will bring forth thorns and thistles for you” is understood to mean that the earth brought these forth before too, yet not for man to labour over, but as suitable food for animals of every kind (for there are animals that feed conveniently and pleasantly on these kinds, both the softer and the drier); but that it began to bring them forth for man as a wretched business when after sin he began to labour on the earth. Not that these grew in other places before and afterward in the fields that man cultivated to gain crops, but both before and after in the same places, yet before not for man, and afterward for man; so that this is signified by the added “for you,” because it is not said, “It will bring forth thorns and thistles,” but, “It will bring them forth for you,” that is, so that these things now begin to grow for you, for labour, which previously grew only as food for other animals.

“And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth.’ And God made man; in the image of God he made him; male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it, and rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you all seed-bearing pasture sowing seed, which is upon all the earth, and every tree that has in it the fruit of seed-bearing seed; it will be food for you and for all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of heaven and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, which has in it the spirit of life; and all green pasture for food.’ And it was so done. And God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good. And evening came, and morning came, the sixth day.” There will be a fuller place later for considering again and again the nature of man and discussing it more carefully. Now, however, so that our inquiry and treatment may conclude the works of the six days, we say this first briefly: it is not to be taken as indifferent that in the other works it is said, “God said, ‘Let there be,’” but here, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’”: namely, to suggest, if I may put it so, a plurality of persons, because of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Yet immediately it warns that the unity of the Godhead is to be understood, saying, “And God made man in the image of God”; not as though the Father made him in the image of the Son, or the Son in the image of the Father (otherwise “in our image” would not be truly said, if man was made in the image of the Father alone or of the Son alone); but it is said, “God made him in the image of God,” as if it were said, “God made him in his own image.” And when it now says, “in the image of God,” after it said above, “in our image,” it is signified that that plurality of persons does not lead us to say or believe or understand many gods, but that we should take the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (because of which Trinity it is said, “in our image”) as one God, because of which it is said, “in the image of God.”

Here too this must not be passed over: that after saying, “in our image,” he immediately added, “and let him have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven” and the other animals without reason, so that we may understand that man was made in the image of God in that by which he surpasses the irrational living creatures. And this is reason itself, or mind, or understanding, or whatever other word it may more fittingly be called by. That is why the apostle too says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who is being renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him,” showing clearly enough where man was created in the image of God: not in the lineaments of the body, but in a certain intelligible form of the enlightened mind. And so, just as in that first light (if by that name is rightly understood the making of an intellectual light sharing in the eternal and unchangeable Wisdom of God) it was not said, “And so it was done,” so that it might then be repeated, “And God made,” because, as we have already discussed as far as we could, there was not first some knowledge of the Word of God in the first creature, so that after that knowledge there might be created below what was being created in that Word; but the light itself was first created, in which the knowledge of the Word of God, through whom it was being created, might come about, and that knowledge itself was for it to be turned from its formlessness to God who forms it, and to be created and formed; whereas afterward, in the other creatures, it is said, “And so it was done,” where it is signified that the knowledge of the Word came about first in that light, that is, in the intellectual creation, and then, when it is said, “And God made,” it is shown that the kind of creature itself comes into being which had been spoken in the Word of God that it should be made: this is kept in the establishing of man too. For God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” and so on. And then it is not said, “And so it was done,” but next is added, “And God made man in the image of God,” because this nature too is intellectual, like that light, and therefore for it to be made is the same as to know the Word of God through whom it is made. For if it were said, “And so it was done,” and afterward it were added, “And God made,” it would be understood as though it were made first in the knowledge of the rational creature and then in some creature that was not rational; but because this too is a rational creature, it too was perfected by that same knowledge. For just as after the fall into sin man is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him, so he was created in that very knowledge before he grew old in sin, from which he might be renewed again in the same knowledge. But the things that were not created in that knowledge, because they were created either as bodies or as irrational souls, their knowledge came about first in the intellectual creation from the Word by whom it was said that they should be made; and because of this knowledge it was first said, “And so it was done,” to show that the knowledge itself came about in that nature which could know this beforehand in the Word of God; and then the bodily and irrational creatures themselves came into being, because of which there was added next, “And God made.”

But how man was made immortal and yet received for food, with the other animals, the plant of pasture bearing seed and the fruit-bearing tree and the green plant, is hard to say. For if he was made mortal by sin, then before sin he certainly did not need such food; for that body could not be corrupted by hunger. As for what was said, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth,” although it seems that this could not be done except through the union of male and female (from which there also arises an indication of mortal bodies), it can nevertheless be said that there could have been another way in immortal bodies, so that children would be born by the affection of devotion alone, with no lust belonging to corruption; they would neither succeed parents who had died nor die themselves, until the earth was filled with immortal human beings; and so, when a just and holy people had been established, such as we believe there will be after the resurrection, there would also be an end to being born. This can indeed be said, and how it could be said is another consideration; but no one will dare to say this too: that a need for food by which to be restored could exist except in mortal bodies.

Some have also supposed that the inner man was made then, but the body of man afterward, when Scripture says, “And God formed man from the slime of the earth,” so that “made” refers to the spirit and “formed” to the body; and they did not notice that male and female could have been made only according to the body. For although it may be argued very subtly that the very mind of man, in which he was made in the image of God, a kind of rational life, is divided into the truth of eternal contemplation and the administration of temporal things, and thus becomes as it were male and female, one part counselling and the other obeying, yet in this division it is not rightly called the image of God except for that which cleaves to the contemplation of the unchangeable truth. In figure of this, the apostle Paul says that only the man is the image and glory of God; “but the woman,” he says, “is the glory of the man.” So although what is understood inwardly in the one mind of a human being is figured outwardly in two human beings of different sex according to the body, yet the woman too, who is a woman in body, is herself also renewed in the spirit of her mind in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created, where there is no male and female. For just as women are not separated from this grace of renewal and re-forming of the image of God, although in the sex of their body something else is figured, according to which the man alone is said to be the image and glory of God, so also in the first establishing of man, in that the woman too was a human being, she certainly had her mind, and the same rational mind, according to which she too was made in the image of God. But because of the unity of the union, “God made,” it says, “man in the image of God.” And so that no one would think that only the spirit of man was made, although he was made in the image of God according to the spirit alone, it says, “He made him male and female; he made them,” so that the body too is now understood to have been made. Again, so that no one would think that he was made in such a way that both sexes were expressed in a single human being, as sometimes those are born whom they call androgynes, it shows that it used the singular number because of the unity of the union, and because the woman was made from the man, as will be made clear later when what is said briefly here begins to be explained more carefully; and so it immediately added the plural number, saying, “He made them, and he blessed them.” But, as I have already said, we shall inquire more carefully into the creation of man in the Scripture that follows.

Now we must notice that after saying, “And so it was done,” he immediately added, “And God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good.” Here is understood the power and ability itself given to human nature to take for food the pasture of the field and the fruit of the tree. For he brought in “And so it was done” with reference to what he had begun from the place where he said, “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you seed-bearing pasture,’” and so on. For if we refer “And so it was done” to everything said above, it will follow that we must admit that they had already increased and multiplied and filled the earth on the same sixth day, which, by the testimony of the same Scripture, we find happened after many years. So since this ability to eat had been given, and man had come to know it as God spoke, it is said, “And so it was done,” certainly in that man came to know it as God spoke. For if he had also done it then, that is, had also taken by eating the things that were given for food, the custom of Scripture would be kept, so that after it was said, “And so it was done,” which serves to express the preceding knowledge, the act itself would then be brought in, and it would be said, “And they took and ate.” For it could have been said so even if God were not named again, as in that place where, after it was said, “Let the water that is under heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear,” there is added, “And so it was done,” and then it is not said, “And God made,” but it is nevertheless repeated thus, “And the water was gathered into its gathering,” and so on.

But it may rightly be asked why he did not say of the human creature individually, as in the other cases, “And God saw that it was good,” but after man was made and given power both to rule and to eat, he added of all things, “And God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good.” For it could first have been rendered to man individually, as it had been rendered individually to the other things made before, and then finally said of all the things God made, “Behold, they were very good.” Or perhaps, because all things are completed on the sixth day, it had to be said of all things, “God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good,” and not individually of the things made on that day? Why then was it said of the cattle and beasts and creeping things of the earth, which belong to the same sixth day? Unless perhaps they deserved to be called good both individually in their kind and generally with the others, while man, made in the image of God, deserved to be called so only with the others. Or was it because he was not yet perfect, because he had not yet been placed in paradise? As if, after he was placed there, what was omitted here were said! What then shall we say? Was it that, because God foreknew that man would sin and would not remain in the perfection of his image, he wished to call him good, not individually but with the others, as if hinting at what was to come? For when the things that have been made remain in what they were made, so far as they have received it, like those that have not sinned or those that cannot sin, they are both good individually and all very good in the whole. For “very” is not added without purpose: because the members of the body too, even if each is beautiful, are nevertheless all much more beautiful in the structure of the whole body. An eye, for instance, is pleasing and praised; yet if we saw it separated from the body we would not call it as beautiful as in that connection of the members, when it is seen set in its place in the whole body. But the things that lose their proper beauty by sinning in no way bring it about that they too, rightly ordered with the whole and the universe, are not good. So man before sin was certainly good in his own kind too; but Scripture left out saying this, so that it might rather say what would foretell something to come. For what was said of him is not false. For whoever is good individually is all the more good with all; but when he is good with all, it does not follow that he is also good individually. So it was measured to say what was both true in the present and signified foreknowledge of the future. For God is the best founder of natures and the most just orderer of sinners, so that even if some things become deformed individually by doing wrong, the universe with them is always beautiful. But let us now treat what follows in the next book.

“And heaven and earth were finished, and all their adornment. And on the sixth day God finished his works which he had made; and on the seventh day God rested from all his works which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it he rested from all his works which God began to make.” It is indeed arduous and most difficult for the powers of our attention to penetrate with keenness of mind the intention of the writer in these six days. Did those days pass away, so that, with a seventh added, they are now repeated through the cycles of time not in reality but in name? For in the whole of time many days come that are like past ones, but none returns as the same. Did those days, then, pass away, or, while these days that are reckoned by their names and number run by daily in the order of time, do those days remain in the very establishing of things? In that case we would understand the name “day,” not only in those three days before the lights were made but also in the remaining three, as the form of the thing that was created, and its “night” as the privation or failing of it, or whatever better name signifies the loss of some form through a change that declines and tends from form toward formlessness. Such change is present in every creature, either as a possibility even if it is not actually realized, as in the higher heavenly things, or it is carried out through ordered alternations, by the yielding and succession of changeable things, to complete a temporal beauty in the lowest things, as is plain in earthly and mortal things. “Evening,” then, would be in all things as it were the limit of the completed establishing, and “morning” the starting point of one beginning; for every created nature is bounded by its own fixed beginnings and ends. This is difficult to search out. But whether this or that, or some third thing more probable, can be found to say about how night, evening, and morning are to be understood in those days (which will perhaps appear as the discussion proceeds), it is not beside the point that we should consider the perfection of the number six in the inner nature of numbers itself. Contemplating it with the mind, we count, and arrange in number, even the things that lie open to the senses of the body.

We find, then, that six is the first perfect number, for the reason that it is completed by its parts; for other numbers too are perfect for other causes and reasons. So we have said that this number six is perfect for the reason that it is completed by its parts, but only by such parts as, when multiplied, can make up the number whose parts they are; for such a part of a number can be said to be a definite fraction of it. Three can be called a part not only of six, of which it is the half, but of all numbers greater than three. For three is the larger part of four and of five; for four can be divided into three and one, and five into three and two. And of seven, eight, nine, and whatever numbers lie beyond, three is a part, not a larger part or a half, but a smaller one. For seven too can be divided into three and four, eight into three and five, and nine into three and six; but of none of these can three be said to be a definite fraction except of nine, of which it is a third, as it is a half of six. So of all these numbers I have mentioned, none is made up of a certain number of threes except six and nine; the first consists of two threes, the second of three.

The number six, then, as I had begun to say, is itself completed when its parts are counted together and added into a sum. For there are other numbers whose parts taken together make a smaller sum, and others whose parts make a larger one; but at fixed ratios of interval fewer numbers are found that are completed by their parts, whose sum neither stops short nor overgrows, but comes exactly to the size of the number whose parts they are. Of these the first is six. For one has no parts among numbers. One among the numbers with which we count is so called because it has no half or any part, but is truly, purely, and simply one. Of two, one is a part, and that the half, and there is no other. Three has two parts: one that can be said to be a definite fraction, namely one, for it is its third; and another, larger, that cannot be called a definite fraction, namely two. So these parts of three cannot be counted among those we are dealing with, that is, those that can be called definite fractions. Four has two such parts: one is its fourth, two its half; but both added together, that is, one and two, make three, not four. So its parts do not complete it, because they stop at a smaller sum. Five has only one such part, namely one itself, which is its fifth; for although two is a smaller part of it and three a larger, neither can be called a definite fraction of it. But six has three such parts: a sixth, a third, and a half. Its sixth is one, its third two, its half three. And these parts added together, that is, one and two and three, together make up and complete the same six.

Next, seven has no such part except its seventh, which is one; eight has three: an eighth, a fourth, a half, that is, one, two, and four. But these, added in the same way, make seven, which stops short, so they do not fill out eight. Nine has two: its ninth, which is one, and its third, which is three; and these together make four, far less than nine. Ten has three such parts: one, its tenth; two, its fifth; five, its half; and these numbers added together come to eight, not to ten. Eleven has only its eleventh, as seven has only its seventh, five only its fifth, three only its third, and two only its half, which in all of them is one. Twelve, however, is not completed by such parts added together but exceeded; for they make a number greater than twelve, reaching sixteen. For it has five of them: its twelfth, sixth, fourth, third, and half. Its twelfth is one, its sixth two, its fourth three, its third four, its half six; and one, two, three, four, and six added into a sum make sixteen.

Not to dwell on it longer: in the infinite series of numbers more numbers are found that either have only one such part, like three and five and others of that kind, or have several such parts so that, when added together and brought to a sum, they either stop short, like eight and nine and very many others, or exceed, like twelve and eighteen and many such. More numbers of either of these kinds are found, then, than of those that are called perfect because they are completed by such parts added together. For after six comes twenty-eight, which likewise consists of such parts; for it has five of them: its twenty-eighth, fourteenth, seventh, fourth, and half, that is, one, two, four, seven, and fourteen, which added together complete the same twenty-eight; for they make twenty-eight. And the further the order of numbers proceeds, the longer, in proportion, are the intervals at which these numbers are found which, when such parts are brought to a sum, come back to themselves and are called perfect. For numbers whose such parts taken together do not fill out the numbers whose parts they are are called imperfect; those whose parts even exceed them are called more than perfect.

So it was in a perfect number of days, that is, six, that God perfected his works which he made. For thus it is written: “And on the sixth day God finished his works which he had made.” And I become more intent on this number when I consider also the order of the works themselves. For as this same number rises step by step through its parts into a triangle (for one, two, three follow one another so that no other can be inserted, and these are each parts of six of which it consists: one the sixth, two the third, three the half), so in one day light was made, and in the two following days the structure of this world: in one the upper part, that is, the firmament, in the other the lower part, that is, sea and land. But he did not fill the upper part with any kinds of bodily food, because he was not going to place there bodies that need such nourishment. The lower part, however, which he was going to adorn with animals suited to it, he first enriched with the food necessary for their need. So in the remaining three days were created those visible things within the world, that is, within this visible universe made of all the elements, which would be moved by their own appropriate motions: first the lights in the firmament, because the firmament had been made first; then living creatures in the lower part, as the order itself required, on one day those of the waters, on another those of the land. Nor is anyone so mad as to dare to say that God could not have made everything in one day if he had wished, or, if he had wished, in two: spiritual creation on one day and bodily creation on another, or heaven with all that belongs to it on one day and earth with all that is in it on another; and altogether when he wished, for as long as he wished, and in whatever way he wished. Who is there who would say that anything could have resisted his will?

Therefore, when we read that he perfected all things in six days, and, considering the number six, find that it is perfect, and that the order of creatures runs in such a way that a graded distinction appears even among the parts by which this number is perfected, let there also come to mind what is said to him in another place of the Scriptures: “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight.” And let the soul that is able, calling God to its aid, with him granting and breathing in strength, consider whether these three, measure, number, and weight, in which it is written that God arranged all things, existed somewhere before the whole of nature was created, or were themselves also created; and, if they existed before, where they were. For before creation there was nothing except the Creator. So they were in him. But how? For we read that the things that were created are also in him. Were the former in him as being himself, and the latter as being in him by whom they are ruled and governed? And how were the former himself? For God is not measure, or number, or weight, or all of these. Is it that, in the sense in which we know measure in the things we measure, number in the things we count, and weight in the things we weigh, God is not these; but in the sense in which measure fixes a limit for every thing, number supplies every thing with its form, and weight draws every thing to rest and stability, he is these, primarily, truly, and uniquely, he who bounds all things, forms all things, and orders all things? And is nothing else meant, so far as it could be said by a human heart and tongue, by “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight,” than “You have arranged all things in yourself”? It is a great thing, granted to few, to go beyond all things that can be measured, so as to see measure without measure; to go beyond all things that can be counted, so as to see number without number; to go beyond all things that can be weighed, so as to see weight without weight.

For measure, number, and weight can be noticed and thought of not only in stones and wood and masses of that kind, and in bodies of any size, earthly or heavenly. There is also a measure in acting, so that it may not be an unchecked and immoderate advance; there is a number both of the affections of the mind and of the virtues, by which the mind is gathered from the deformity of folly to the form and beauty of wisdom; and there is a weight of the will and of love, in which it appears how much each thing is weighed in desiring, fleeing, preferring, and putting after. But this measure of souls and minds is restrained by another measure, this number is formed by another number, and this weight is carried along by another weight. But there is a measure without measure, to which what comes from it is made equal, and which is not itself from anywhere; there is a number without number, by which all things are formed, and which is not itself formed; there is a weight without weight, to which those things are brought back to rest whose rest is pure joy, and which is no longer itself brought back to anything else.

But whoever knows the names of measure, number, and weight only in a visible way knows them in a servile way. Let him therefore go beyond everything he knows in that way; or, if he cannot yet, let him not cling to the names themselves, of which he cannot think except in a base way. For the more these things are dear to each person in higher things, the less he himself is flesh in lower things. But if someone does not wish to transfer the words he learned in weak and most lowly things to those sublime things, in contemplating which he tries to make his mind serene, he is not to be pressed to do it. For so long as what is to be understood is understood, there need be no great concern about what it is called. Yet one ought to know what kind of likeness the lower things bear to the higher; for in no other way does reason rightly reach and strive from here to there.

Now if anyone says that the measure, number, and weight in which Scripture testifies that God arranged all things were created: if he arranged all things in them, where did he arrange these themselves? If in others, how then did he arrange all things in these, when these were in others? So there is no doubt that those things in which all things were arranged are outside the things that were arranged.

Or shall we perhaps think that “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight” was said as if it said, “You arranged all things so that they had measure and number and weight”? For if it were said, “You arranged all bodies in colors,” it would not follow that the Wisdom of God itself, through which all things were made, should be understood to have had colors in itself first, in which it might make bodies; rather it would be taken thus: “You arranged all bodies in colors,” as if it said, “You arranged all bodies so that they had colors.” As though bodies arranged in colors by God the Creator, that is, arranged so that they were colored, could be understood in any other way than that some reason of the colors to be distributed to each kind of body was not lacking in the very Wisdom of the one who arranged them, even if it is not called color there. This is what I said: when the thing is granted, there is no need to labor over words.

Let us suppose, then, that “You have arranged all things in measure and number and weight” was said as if it said that they were arranged so as to have their own proper measures and proper numbers and proper weight, which change in them according to the changeableness of each one's kind, by increase and diminution, by multitude and fewness, by lightness and heaviness, according to God's arrangement. Do we then say that, as these things change, so the very counsel of God in which he arranged them is changeable? May he himself avert such madness!

When, then, these things were being arranged so as to have their measures, numbers, and weights, where did he who arranged them see them? Not outside himself, as we see bodies with our eyes, for they did not yet exist when they were being arranged so as to come into being. Nor did he see them within himself in the way we see with the mind the images of bodies that are not present to our eyes, when we think by imagination of the things we have seen or of things drawn from what we have seen. In what way, then, did he see them so as to arrange them? In what way except that in which he alone can?

Yet we, mortals and sinners, whose souls are weighed down by corruptible bodies and whose sense, which thinks many things, is pressed down by its earthly dwelling (although, even if we bore the purest hearts and the simplest minds and were already equal to the holy angels, the divine substance would certainly not be known to us as it is known to itself),

nevertheless do not see this perfection of the number six outside ourselves, as we see bodies with our eyes, nor within ourselves in the way we see the images of bodies and the likenesses of visible things, but in another, far different way. For although certain likenesses, as it were, of little bodies present themselves to the mind's gaze when the composition, order, or division of the number six is thought of, yet a stronger and more powerful reason from above does not assent to them, and contemplates the power of number more inwardly. Through this contemplation it says confidently that what is called one among numbers cannot be divided into any parts, while no body can be divided except into innumerable parts; and that heaven and earth, which were built according to the number six, would pass away more easily than it could be brought about that six is not completed by its parts. So let the human mind always give thanks to the Creator, by whom it was so created that it can see this, which none of the birds and none of the beasts can see, though they see with us the heaven and the earth and the lights and the sea and the dry land and all that is in them.

Therefore we cannot say that the number six is perfect because God perfected all his works in six days, but that God perfected his works in six days because the number six is perfect. So even if these works did not exist, that number would be perfect; but unless it were perfect, these works would not have been made perfect according to it.

Now as for what is written, that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made, and therefore blessed and sanctified that day, because on it he rested from all his works: in order that we may try to reach it with our understanding, as far as we can and as far as we are helped by him, let us first drive the carnal suspicions of men about it from our minds. Is it right to say or believe that God labored in working when he established the things written above, since he spoke and they came to be? Not even a man labors if something that is to be done comes to be as soon as he has spoken. For although human words, carried by sounds, are uttered in such a way that long speech tires, yet when they are as few as the few we read in what is written when God said, “Let there be light,” “Let there be a firmament,” and so on to the end of the works which he finished on the sixth day, it is the raving of utter absurdity to think this a labor even for a man, much less for God. Or will someone perhaps say that God did not labor in saying that the things should come to be which at once were made, but perhaps in thinking what ought to be made; and that, freed as it were from this care by the completion of things, he rested, and for that reason wished to bless and sanctify the day on which he was first free of this effort of mind? But if to think such things is to be very foolish (for with God both the power and the ease of establishing things are incomparable and ineffable), what remains for us to understand, except perhaps that he granted to the rational creature, in which he also created man, rest in himself after its perfection, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom love is poured out in our hearts, so that we may be borne there by the appetite of desire, and when we arrive there we may rest, that is, seek nothing further? For as God is rightly said to do whatever we do with him working in us, so God is rightly said to rest when by his gift we rest.

This indeed we understand rightly, since it is true and needs no great effort of attention for us to see that God is said to rest when he makes us rest, as he is said to know when he brings it about that we know. For God does not know in time what he did not know before, and yet he says to Abraham, “Now I know that you fear God”; where what else do we take it to mean than “Now I have made you know”? By these modes of speech, when we speak of things that do not happen to God as if they happened to him, we recognize that he makes them happen to us, but only things that are praiseworthy, and these only so far as the usage of the Scriptures permits. For we ought not rashly to say anything of God of this kind that we do not read in his Scripture.

From this mode of speaking, I think, the apostle said, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” For the very substance of the Holy Spirit, by which he is whatever he is, cannot be grieved, since it has eternal and unchangeable blessedness, or rather is itself eternal, unchangeable blessedness. But because he so dwells in the saints that he fills them with love, by which men necessarily rejoice in time at the progress and good works of the faithful, and therefore necessarily also grieve at the fall or sins of those in whose faith and piety they used to rejoice (and this grief is praiseworthy, since it comes from the love that the Holy Spirit pours in), the Spirit himself is said to be grieved by those who act in such a way that the saints are grieved at their deeds, for no other reason than that they have the Holy Spirit. By this gift they are so good that the wicked sadden them, above all those whom they knew or believed to have been good. This grief is certainly not only not to be blamed but especially to be praised and proclaimed.

The same apostle again used this kind of speech admirably when he says, “But now that you know God, or rather are known by God.” For God did not know them only then, since they were foreknown before the foundation of the world; but because they had then come to know him by his gift, not by their own merit or ability, he preferred to speak figuratively, saying that they were then known by him when he granted himself to be known by them, and to correct his word as though he had said less rightly what he had said properly, rather than allow them to claim for themselves that they had been able to do what he had given them the ability to do.

This understanding, then, of the statement that God rested from all his works which he made very good, namely that he makes us rest when we have done good works, may perhaps satisfy some. But we, having undertaken the study of this statement of the Scriptures, are pressed to ask in what way he himself could rest, even though by making his rest known to us he has prompted us to hope that our rest will be in him. For he himself made heaven and earth and the things that are in them, and finished all things on the sixth day, and it cannot be said that we created anything among them by his gift enabling us to create, so that it was said, “God finished on the sixth day his works which he made,” because he granted that they should be finished by us. In the same way, in what is said, “God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made,” we ought to understand first not our rest, which by his granting we shall attain, but his own, by which he rested on the seventh day when his works were finished. Thus it is first shown that all that is written was done, and then, if need be, it is taught that it also signified something. It is indeed rightly said that, as God rested after his good works, so we shall rest after our good works; but for that very reason it is also rightly required that, as the works of God, which plainly appear to be his, have been discussed, so his rest, which is shown to be properly his own, be adequately discussed.

For this reason we are compelled by the most just reasoning to search out, if we can, and to state how both are true: what is written here, that on the seventh day God rested from all his works which he made, and what he himself, through whom all things were made, says in the Gospel: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” He gave this answer to those who complained that he did not keep the Sabbath, which had been commended of old by the authority of this Scripture because of God's rest. And it can indeed plausibly be said that the keeping of the Sabbath was commanded to the Jews as a shadow of what was to come, which would figure the spiritual rest that God, by the example of this rest of his, promised by a hidden signification to the faithful who do good works. The Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered only when he willed, confirmed the mystery of this rest even by his burial. For on the very day of the Sabbath he rested in the tomb and had that whole day as a kind of holy leisure, after he had finished all his works on the sixth day, that is, the day of preparation, which they call the sixth day of the week, when the things written of him were fulfilled on the very gibbet of the cross. For he used this very word when he said, “It is finished,” and, bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. What wonder, then, if God, wishing in this way also to foretell this day on which Christ was to rest in the tomb, rested from his works on one day, being thereafter to work out the order of the ages, so that this too might be called true: “My Father is working until now”?

It can also be understood that God rested from establishing kinds of creature, because he no longer established any new kinds, but thereafter, until now and beyond, works the governing of those same kinds which were then set up; not that his power ceased, even on that seventh day, from governing heaven and earth and all the things he had established, otherwise they would at once have fallen apart. For the power of the Creator, and the might of the Almighty who holds all things together, is the cause of every creature's subsisting. If this might ever ceased from ruling the things that were created, their form too would at the same time cease, and all nature would collapse. For it is not as with a builder of houses, who, when he has built, goes away, and though he stops and goes away his work stands; the world could not stand even for the twinkling of an eye if God withdrew his rule from it.

Accordingly, what the Lord says, “My Father is working until now,” shows a certain continuation of his work, by which he holds together and governs the whole creation. It could be understood otherwise if he said, “And he is working now,” where we would not have to take it as a continuation of work; but it compels another understanding when he says “until now,” that is, from the time when he worked in establishing all things. And from what is written of his Wisdom, “She reaches mightily from end to end and arranges all things sweetly,” of which it is also written that her movement is more agile and swifter than all movements, it is clear enough to those who look rightly that she supplies this incomparable and ineffable movement of hers, and, if it can be understood, a stable movement, to the things that are sweetly arranged; and that if it were withdrawn, if she ceased from this working, they would at once perish. And what the apostle says when he preached God to the Athenians, “In him we live and move and are,” if it is thought through clearly, as far as the human mind can, supports this view by which we believe and say that God works unceasingly in the things he has created. For we are not in him as his substance, in the way it is said that he “has life in himself”; but since we are something other than he, we are in him for no other reason than that he works this, and this is his work by which he holds all things together and by which his Wisdom reaches mightily from end to end and arranges all things sweetly; and through this arrangement “in him we live and move and are.” From this it is gathered that if he withdraws this work of his from things, we shall neither live nor move nor be. It is clear, then, that God has not ceased for even one day from the work of ruling what he created, lest they immediately lose their natural motions, by which they are moved and quickened so that they are natures at all and remain, each according to its kind, in what they are, and lest they cease altogether to be anything, if that movement of the Wisdom of God by which she arranges all things sweetly were withdrawn from them. Therefore we take it that God rested from all his works which he made in such a way that he no longer established any new nature, not that he ceased to hold together and govern what he had established. Hence both are true: that on the seventh day God rested, and that he is working until now.

His works, indeed, we see to be good; his rest we shall see after our good works. To signify it, he commanded the Hebrew people to keep one day; and they kept it so carnally that, seeing our Lord and Savior working on that day, they accused him, and so he answered them most rightly concerning the work of the Father, with whom he himself worked equally, not only in governing the whole creation but also in our very salvation. Now, in the time of grace revealed, that keeping of the Sabbath, which was figured by the leisure of one day, has been removed from the observance of the faithful. For in this grace he keeps a perpetual Sabbath who, in the hope of future rest, works whatever good he works, and does not boast in his good works as though he had a good that he had not received. For thus, receiving and understanding the sacrament of baptism as a kind of Sabbath day, that is, of the Lord's resting in the tomb, he rests from his former works, so that, walking now in newness of life, he recognizes that God works in him, God who at once works and rests, both providing fitting government to creation and having eternal tranquillity in himself.

Finally, he was neither wearied when he created nor refreshed when he ceased, but he wished, through his Scripture, to stir us to the desire of rest by making known to us that he sanctified that day on which he rested from all his works. For nowhere in all the six days in which all things were created do we read that he sanctified anything. Nor before those six days, where it is written, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” is “and he sanctified” added; but he willed to sanctify this day on which he rested from all his works which he made, as if even with him, who labors not at all in his work, rest counted for more than working. Among men the Gospel makes this known to us, where our Savior says that Mary had the better part, because, sitting at his feet, she rested in his word, than Martha, though she was busy about many things in the service with which she ministered to him and was doing a good work. But how this is in God, or how it is to be understood, is hard to say, even if one can reach some little way by thought toward why God sanctified the day of his rest, when he sanctified no day of his work, not even the sixth, on which he made man and perfected all things. And first, what is God's resting itself? Whose human mind's gaze can attain it? Yet if it were not so, this Scripture would not state it at all. I will say what I think, stating first these two indubitable points: that God did not delight in some temporal rest as if after labor or after a desired end of his task; and that these writings, rightly preeminent with such great authority, did not say vainly or falsely that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made and for that reason sanctified that day.

Surely, then, since it is a fault and weakness of the soul to delight in its works in such a way that it rests in them rather than resting from them in itself (for without doubt there is something better in it, by which they were made, than the things that were made), God is made known to us through this Scripture, which says that he rested from all his works which he made, as not having delighted in any work of his as though he needed to make it, or as though he would be less had he not made it, or more blessed once he had made it. For whatever is from him is from him in such a way that it owes him what it is; but he owes to nothing that is from him his being blessed. So he set himself above the things he made, in loving, sanctifying not the day on which he began to make them, nor that on which he perfected them, lest his joy seem to have been increased by their being made or by their having been made, but that on which he rested from them in himself. He himself, indeed, was never without this rest, but he showed it to us through the seventh day. By this he also signified that his rest is attained only by the perfect, since to make it known he assigned no day except the one that followed the perfection of all things. For he who is always at rest rested for us then, when he showed that he had rested.

This also is to be noted: that God's rest, by which he is blessed in himself, had to be made known to us so that we might understand how he is said also to rest in us; which is said only when he grants rest in himself to us too. God's rest, then, for those who understand rightly, is that by which he needs no one's good; and so it is sure for us also in him, because we too are made blessed by the good which he is, not he by the good which we are. For we too are some good from him who made all things very good, among which he made us also. Moreover, there is no other good thing besides himself that he did not make; and therefore he needs no good other than himself, since he does not need the good he made. This is his rest from all his works which he made. But in what praiseworthy sense would he not need goods if he had made none? For even so he could be said to need no goods, not by resting in himself from things made, but by making nothing at all. But if he could not make good things, there would be no power; and if he could and did not, there would be great envy. Since, then, he is almighty and good, he made all things very good; and since he is perfectly blessed in himself as the good, he rested in himself from all the things he made, that is, with the rest from which he never departed. But if it were said that he rested from things to be made, it would be understood only that he had not made them; and unless it were said that he rested from things made, it would be less clearly set forth that he does not need the things he made.

On what day, then, ought this to have been set forth if not on the seventh? Anyone understands this who recalls the perfection of the number six, of which we spoke above, fittingly applied to the perfection of creation. For if creation was to be perfected in the number six, as it was perfected, and God's rest was to be set forth to us, by which it would be shown that he is not made blessed even by creatures that are perfect, then without doubt the day to be sanctified in this setting forth was the one that follows the sixth, so that we might be raised to long for this rest, that we too may rest in him.

For it is not a godly likeness if we wish to be like God in such a way that we too rest from our works in ourselves, as he rested in himself from his works. We ought to rest in some unchangeable good, which for us is he who made us. This, then, will be our highest rest, not at all proud and truly godly: that, as he rested from all his works, because not his works but he himself is to himself the good by which he is blessed, so we too may hope to rest from all works, not only ours but even his, in none but him; and that we may desire this after our good works, which we recognize in us to be his rather than ours; so that thus too he rests after his good works, when, after the good works which we have done having been justified by him, he grants us rest in himself. For it is a great thing for us to have come into being from him, but it will be greater to have rested in him; just as he is blessed not because he made these things, but because, not needing even the things made, he rested in himself rather than in them. Hence he sanctified the day not of work but of rest, because he made known that he is blessed not by making these things but by not needing the things he made.

What, then, is so lowly and easy to say, and what so sublime and difficult to think, as God resting from all his works which he made? And resting where, if not in himself, since he is blessed only in himself? When, if not always? But in the days in which the completion of the things he established is narrated, and the order of God's rest is distinguished from them, when, if not on the seventh day, which follows their perfection? For he rests from things made perfect who does not need even things made perfect in order to be more blessed.

And with him, indeed, his rest has neither morning nor evening, because it neither opens with a beginning nor closes with an end; but for his perfected works it has a morning and has no evening. For perfected creation has a certain beginning of its turning toward the rest of its Creator, but that rest has no end, as a limit of its perfection, as the things that were made have. And so God's rest begins not for God himself but for the perfection of the things established by him, so that what is perfected by him begins to rest in him and has a morning in this (for in its own kind it is bounded as by an evening); but in God it can no longer have an evening, because there will be nothing more perfect than that perfection.

In those days in which all things were being created we took evening as the limit of the creature established, and morning as the beginning of another to be established. And so the evening of the fifth day is the limit of the creature established on the fifth day, and the morning which came after that evening is the beginning of the creature to be established on the sixth day; and when it was established, an evening came as its limit. And because nothing else remained to be established, after that evening morning came in such a way that it was not the beginning of another creature to be established but the beginning of the rest of the whole creation in the rest of the Creator. For heaven and earth and all that is in them, that is, the whole of spiritual and bodily creation, do not abide in themselves but in him of whom it is said, “For in him we live and move and are”; because, although each part can be in the whole of which it is a part, the whole itself is only in him by whom it was established. And so it is not absurd to understand that, when the sixth day was completed, morning came after its evening, not to signify the beginning of another creature to be established, as in the other days, but to signify the beginning of the abiding and resting of the whole that was established in the rest of him who established it. This rest has for God neither beginning nor end, but for creation it has a beginning but no end. And so the seventh day began for that creation with a morning but is ended by no evening.

For if in the other days evening and morning signify alternations of times such as now pass through these daily spans, I do not see what would have prevented the seventh day too from being closed by an evening, and its night by a morning, so that it would likewise be said, “And there was evening, and there was morning, the seventh day,” since it too is one of the days, all seven, by whose repetition months and years and ages are completed; so that the morning placed after the evening of the seventh would be the beginning of the eighth day, of which nothing further needed to be said, because it is the same as the first, to which there is a return, from which the series of the week begins again. Hence it is more probable that these seven days, with the names and number of those days, succeeding one another in turn, run through temporal spans, but that those first six days unfolded in a form unknown and unfamiliar to us in the very establishing of things, in which evening and morning, like light and darkness themselves, that is, day and night, did not provide the alternation that these days provide through the circuit of the sun. This we are certainly compelled to admit of those three days which were mentioned and numbered before the lights were established.

And so, whatever evening and morning were in them, we must by no means suppose that God's rest took its beginning from that morning which came after the evening of the sixth day, lest with rash vanity we suspect that some temporal good befell that eternity and unchangeableness. Rather, that rest of God, by which he rests in himself and is blessed in the good which he is to himself, has neither beginning nor end for him; but for completed creation that same rest of God has a beginning. For the perfection of each thing is established, according to the measure of its kind, not so much in the universe of which it is a part as in him from whom it is and in whom the universe itself is, so that it may rest, that is, keep the order of its own weight. And so the whole of creation, which was completed in six days, has one thing in its own nature and another in the order by which it is in God, not as God is, yet in such a way that it has no rest of its own stability except in the rest of him who desires nothing besides himself, on attaining which he might rest. And so, while he remains in himself, he turns back to himself whatever is from him, so that every creature has in itself the limit of its nature, by which it is not what he is, but in him the place of rest, by which it keeps what it is. I know that I have not said “place” properly; for it is properly said of spaces occupied by bodies. But since bodies themselves do not remain in a place except the one they reach as by the desire of their weight, so that, having found it, they rest, the word is not unfittingly transferred from bodily to spiritual things, so that one says “place,” though the thing itself is very different.

I think, then, that the beginning of creation in the rest of the Creator is signified by that morning which came after the evening of the sixth day; for it could not rest in him unless it were perfect. Accordingly, when all things were completed on the sixth day and evening came, there came also a morning, in which completed creation would begin to rest in him by whom it was made. In that beginning it found him resting in himself, where it too could rest, the more stably and firmly as it needed him, not he it, for its rest. But since whatever the whole creation will be through any of its changes, it will certainly not be nothing, the whole creation will always remain in its Creator; and therefore after that morning there was no evening. We have said this about why the seventh day, on which God rested from all his works, had a morning after the evening of the sixth, but had no evening.

There is another way in which this matter can, I think, be understood more properly and better, though it is somewhat more difficult to explain: that God's rest on the seventh day had a morning without an evening, that is, a beginning without an end, not only for creation but also for himself. For if it were said only, “God rested on the seventh day,” and “from all his works which he made” were not added, we would seek the beginning of this rest in vain. For God does not begin to rest, whose rest is everlasting, without beginning and without end. But since he rested from all his works which he made by not needing them, it is understood that God's rest indeed neither began nor ended, but his rest from all his works which he made began from the time when he perfected them. For he could not have rested by not needing his works before there existed the works which he would not have needed even when they were perfected. And since he never needed them at all, and this blessedness by which he does not need them will not be perfected as if by making progress, no evening was added to the seventh day.

But it can plainly be asked, and it prompts a question worth considering, how God is to be understood to have rested in himself from all his works which he made, when it is written, “And God rested on the seventh day.” For it is not said “in himself” but “on the seventh day.” What, then, is the seventh day? Is it some creature, or only a span of time? But even a span of time was created together with temporal creation, and so it too is without doubt a creature. For there are not, nor could there have been, nor will there be, any times of which God is not the Creator. And so, if this seventh day is time, who created it, if not the Creator of all times? But with what creatures, or in what creatures, those six days were created, the preceding words of Holy Scripture indicate. Therefore, among these seven days whose form is known to us, which indeed pass away in reality but in some way hand on their names to the others that follow, so that they are named after those six days, we know when the first of those days were created; but when God created the seventh day, which is called by the name of Sabbath, we do not see. For on that day he made nothing; rather, on that same seventh day he rested from the things he had made in six days. How, then, did he rest on a day which he did not create? Or how did he create it immediately after the six days, when he finished all that he created on the sixth day and created nothing on the seventh day, but rather rested on it from all that he had created? Or did God create only one day, so that by its repetition the many that are called days would pass and run by, and there was no need for him to create a seventh day, since the seventh repetition of the day he had created made it? For the light, of which it is written, “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,” he separated from the darkness, and called it day, and called the darkness night. Then, therefore, God made the day, whose repetition Scripture calls the second day, then the third, and so on to the sixth, on which God finished his works; and from then on the seventh repetition of that day first created received the name of the seventh day, on which God rested. And so the seventh day is no creature except that same one returning seven times, which was established when God called the light day and the darkness night.

So we slip back again into the question from which we seemed to have come out in the first book, and ask again how light could circle round to produce the alternation of day and night, not only before the lights of heaven were made, but before heaven itself, which was called the firmament, was made, and finally before there was any form of earth or sea that would allow a circuit of light, with night following where it had passed. Compelled by the difficulty of this question, we ventured to bring our discussion to something like this conclusion: that the light which was first made is the forming of spiritual creation, and the night the matter, still to be formed in the remaining works of things, which had been set up when in the beginning God made heaven and earth, before he made day by his word. But now, prompted by the consideration of the seventh day, it is easier for us to admit that we do not know what is remote from our senses, namely how that light which was called day carried out the alternations of day and night, whether by its circuit or by contraction and emission, if it is bodily; or, if it is spiritual, how it was present to all the creatures to be established and made day by its presence, night by its absence, evening by the beginning of its absence, morning by the beginning of its presence; than for us to try, in a plain matter, against the words of divine Scripture, by saying that the seventh day is something other than the seventh repetition of that day which God made. Otherwise either God did not create the seventh day, or he created something after those six days, namely the seventh day itself; and what is written will be false, that on the sixth day he finished all his works and on the seventh rested from all his works. Since this certainly cannot be false, it remains that the presence of that light which God made day was repeated through all his works, as often as “day” is named, and on the seventh day itself, on which he rested from his works.

But since we do not find by what circuit, or by what advance and retreat, bodily light could have produced the alternations of day and night before heaven was made, which is called the firmament, in which the lights were also made, we must not leave this question without putting forward some view of ours. It is this: if that light which was first created is not bodily but spiritual, then, just as it was made after darkness, where it is understood to have been turned from a certain formlessness of its own toward the Creator and formed, so too morning comes after evening, when, after knowing its own nature, by which it is not what God is, it turns back to praise the light which God himself is, by contemplation of whom it is formed. And since the other creatures that are made below it are not made without its knowledge, the same day is surely repeated everywhere, so that by its repetition there are as many days as there are distinct kinds of created things, to be bounded by the perfection of the number six. Thus the evening of the first day would be also its knowledge of itself, that it is not what God is; and the morning after this evening, by which one day is concluded and the second begun, would be its turning by which it refers what it was created to be to the praise of the Creator, and receives from the Word of God the knowledge of the creature that is made after it, that is, the firmament. This is made first in its knowledge, when it is said, “And so it was done,” then in the nature of the firmament itself, which is established when, after “and so it was done” has been said, there is added, “And God made the firmament.” Then comes the evening of that light, when it knows the firmament itself, not in the Word of God as before, but in its own nature; and since this knowledge is lesser, it is rightly signified by the name of evening. After this comes the morning by which the second day is concluded and the third begins. In this morning there is likewise the turning of this light, that is, of this day, to praise God for having worked the firmament, and to receive from his Word the knowledge of the creature to be established after the firmament. And so, when God says, “Let the water that is under heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear,” that light knows it in the Word of God by which it is said; and so there follows, “And so it was done,” that is, in its knowledge from the Word of God. Then, when “and the water was gathered” and so on is added, after “and so it was done” had already been said, the creature itself is made in its own kind; and when, having been made in its own kind, it is known by that light which had already known in the Word of God that it was to be made, evening comes for the third time; and thence in this way the rest follow, up to the morning after the evening of the sixth day.

For there is a great difference between the knowledge of each thing in the Word of God and the knowledge of it in its own nature, so that the former rightly belongs to day, the latter to evening. For in comparison with that light which is seen in the Word of God, all knowledge by which we know any creature in itself may not unjustly be called night; and this in turn differs so much from the error or ignorance of those who do not know even the creature itself that in comparison with it it may not unfittingly be called day. In the same way the very life of the faithful, which is led in this flesh and in this world, is not unreasonably called light and day in comparison with an unbelieving and ungodly life, as the apostle says, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord,” and, “Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, so that we may walk honorably as in the day.” Yet unless this day were in turn itself night in comparison with that day on which, made equal to the angels, we shall see God as he is, we would not need here the lamp of prophecy. Hence the apostle Peter says, “We have the more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to attend as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

Therefore, since the holy angels, to whom we shall be made equal after the resurrection if we hold to the end to the way which Christ became for us, always see the face of God and enjoy his Word, the only-begotten Son, as he is equal to the Father, and since wisdom was created first of all in them, they without doubt knew the whole creation, in which they themselves were established first, first in the very Word of God, in whom are the eternal reasons of all things, even of those made in time, as in him through whom all things were made; and then in the creature itself, which they thus knew, as if looking down below and referring it to the praise of him in whose unchangeable truth they see first the reasons according to which it was made. There, then, it is as by day; hence their most harmonious unity, by sharing in the same truth, is the day that was first created. Here, however, it is as by evening. But at once morning comes (which can be observed in all six days), because angelic knowledge does not remain in what has been created without at once referring it to the praise and love of him in whom it is known, not as made but as to be made; and by standing in this truth it is day. For if the angelic nature turned even toward itself and delighted in itself more than in him by sharing in whom it is blessed, it would swell with pride and fall, like the devil. Of him we must speak in his place, when the discussion owed to the serpent, the seducer of man, will require it.

Since, then, the angels know the creature in the creature itself in such a way that, by choice and love, they prefer to that knowledge the fact that they know it in the Truth through which all things were made, having been made sharers in it, for that reason through all six days night is not named; but after evening and morning, one day; again after evening and morning, the second day; then after evening and morning, the third day; and so on to the morning of the sixth day, from which begins the seventh, of God's rest. Though they have their nights, it is days, not nights, that are recounted. For night then belongs to day, not day to night, when the lofty and holy angels refer what they know of the creature in the creature itself to the honor and love of him in whom they contemplate the eternal reasons by which it was created; and by that most harmonious contemplation they are the one day which the Lord has made, to which the church too will be joined when freed from this pilgrimage, so that we also may rejoice and be glad in it.

By the sixth repetition of this day, then, whose evening and morning can be taken according to the account given above, the whole creation was completed, and the morning came by which the sixth day was ended and from which the seventh began, which was to have no evening, because God's rest is not a creature. Creation, when it was being established through the other days, was known as made in itself otherwise than in him in whose Truth it was seen as to be made, and the somewhat faded appearance of this knowledge made the evening. So in this narrative of the establishing of things we must no longer understand “day” as the form of the work itself, “evening” as its limit, and “morning” as the beginning of another work, lest we be forced, against Scripture, to say that the creature of the seventh day was established beyond the six days, or that the seventh day itself is no creature. Rather, that day which God made is itself repeated through his works, not by a bodily circuit but by spiritual knowledge, when that blessed society of angels first contemplates in the Word of God that by which God says, “Let it be,” and so it is first made in their knowledge, when it is said, “And so it was done”; and afterward knows the thing itself as made in itself, which is signified by “evening came”; and then refers that knowledge of the thing made to the praise of that Truth where it had seen the reason of the thing to be made, which is signified by “morning came.” And so through all those days there is one day, not to be understood after the manner of these days which we see marked out and counted by the circuit of the sun, but in some other way, from which those three days too, which are mentioned before the establishing of these lights, cannot be excluded. For that manner was carried on not just to the fourth day, so that from then on we might think of these ordinary days, but to the sixth and seventh; so that the day and night between which God divided are to be taken in a far different sense from this day and night between which he said that the lights he created should divide, when he said, “And let them divide between day and night.” For he established this day when he established the sun, whose presence produces it; but that day first established had already gone through three days when these lights were created at the fourth repetition of that day.

Therefore, since we cannot experience or perceive that day, or those days numbered by its repetition, in this earthly mortality of ours, and since, if we can make some attempt to understand them, we ought not to rush into a rash judgment, as if nothing more fitting and more probable could be thought about them, let us believe that these seven days, which in place of those make up the week, by whose course and return the times are swept along, and in which one day is the circuit of the sun from rising to rising, present a kind of counterpart to those days, in such a way that we do not doubt at all that they are not like them but very unequal to them.

Nor let anyone think that what I said about spiritual light, about the day established in spiritual and angelic creation, about the contemplation it has in the Word of God and the knowledge by which creation is known in itself, and about its referring to the praise of unchangeable Truth, where the reason of the thing to be made, which was then known as made, was first seen, fits our understanding of day, evening, and morning not properly but only figuratively and allegorically. It fits otherwise, indeed, than in our familiar experience of this daily, bodily light; yet not as if here properly and there figuratively. For where the light is better and more certain, there the day too is truer. Why, then, not also a truer evening and a truer morning? For if in these days light has a certain declining toward its setting, which we call by the name of evening, and a return again toward its rising, which we call morning, why should we not speak there too of evening, when creation is looked down upon from the contemplation of the Creator, and of morning, when one rises from the knowledge of creation to the praise of the Creator? For Christ too is not called light in the same way as he is called a stone; the former is said properly, the latter certainly figuratively. Whoever, then, seeks not the view that we have been able to search out or suppose according to our small measure, but another in the enumeration of those days, which could be understood not figuratively in prophecy but properly and better in this establishing of creatures, let him seek, and with God's help find it. For it may be that I too shall perhaps find another more fitting to these words of divine Scripture. For I do not affirm this one in such a way as to maintain that no other can be found that should be preferred; as I do affirm that Holy Scripture did not wish to suggest to us God's rest as if after weariness or the trouble of care.

Someone may perhaps argue with me, saying that the angels of the highest heavens do not, in alternation, contemplate first the reasons of creatures, unchangeably, in the unchangeable Truth of the Word of God, then the creatures themselves, and thirdly refer to the praise of the Creator their knowledge of them in themselves, but that their mind can do all these at once with wonderful ease. Yet will he say, or if anyone says it, should he be heeded, that that heavenly city among the thousands of angels either does not contemplate the eternity of the Creator, or is ignorant of the changeableness of creation, or does not praise the Creator even from some lower knowledge of it? Let them be able to do all this at once, let them do all this at once; still they can and they do. So they have day and evening and morning at once.

Nor need we fear that one who is already fit to perceive those things will therefore think this cannot happen there, because it cannot happen in these days that are completed by the circuit of this sun. And this indeed cannot happen in the same parts of the earth; but who does not see, if he will pay attention, that the whole world has at once day where the sun is, night where it is not, evening where it is leaving, and morning where it is approaching? But we plainly cannot have all these at once on earth; nor should we for that reason make this earthly condition, and the temporal and spatial circuit of bodily light, equal to that spiritual homeland where there is always day in the contemplation of unchangeable Truth, always evening in the knowledge of creation in itself, always morning also from this knowledge in the praise of the Creator. For there evening comes not by the departure of the higher light but by the distinction of a lower knowledge; nor does morning come as if morning knowledge succeeded a night of ignorance, but because it lifts even the evening knowledge to the glory of the Founder. Finally, that man too, without naming night, says, “Evening and morning and noon I will tell, I will proclaim, and you will hear my voice”; here perhaps through alternations of time, yet, as I think, signifying what is done without alternations of time in the homeland for which his pilgrimage sighed.

But if that angelic society and unity of the day which God first established now does and has all these things at once, did it also have them at once then, when these things were being established? Through all six days, when the things that it pleased God to establish on each day were being established, did it not first receive them in the Word of God, so that they were first made in its knowledge, when it was said, “And so it was done”; then, when they had been made in their own proper nature, in which they exist, and had pleased God because they are good, did it not then likewise know them by another, lower knowledge, signified by the name of evening; and then, after evening came, did not morning come, when God was praised for his work, and knowledge of the next creature to be made was received from the Word of God before it was made? Then, therefore, not all at once, day and evening and morning, but one by one in the order that Scripture records.

Or was it all at once even then, since it was not according to the delays of time, as these days come about when the sun rises and sets and returns to its place to rise again, but according to the spiritual power of the angelic mind, which grasps whatever it wishes all at once with the easiest knowledge? Yet not, for that reason, without order, in which the connection of preceding and following causes appears. For knowledge cannot come about unless the things to be known come first; and these again are prior in the Word, through whom all things were made, to what they are in all the things that were made. So the human mind first experiences through the senses of the body these things that have been made, and takes knowledge of them according to the small measure of human weakness, and then seeks their causes, if in some way it can reach them, abiding primarily and unchangeably in the Word of God, and so behold his invisible things, understood through the things that were made. With what slowness and difficulty it does this, and with what delay of time, because of the corruptible body that weighs down the soul, even a soul carried away by the most fervent zeal to do this urgently and perseveringly, who does not know?

But the angelic mind, clinging with pure love to the Word of God, after it was created in that order so as to precede the rest, first saw in the Word of God the things to be made before they were made; and so they were made first in its knowledge, when God was saying that they should be made, before they were made in their own proper nature. And when they had been made it also knew them in themselves, with a lesser knowledge certainly, which was called evening. The things that were being made did indeed precede that knowledge, since whatever can be known precedes the knowing of it; for unless what is to be known first exists, it cannot be known. After this, if it had pleased itself in such a way as to delight more in itself than in its Creator, morning would not have come, that is, it would not have risen from its knowledge to the praise of the Creator. But when morning came, another thing was to be made and known, as God said, “Let it be,” so that it might likewise be made first in the knowledge of the angelic mind, and it could again be said, “And so it was done,” and then in its own nature, where, with the following evening, it would be known.

And so, even if there are no intervals of temporal delay here, yet the reason of the creature to be established preceded in the Word of God, when he said, “Let there be light,” and that light followed by which the angelic mind was formed and made in its own nature; but it did not follow elsewhere, so as to come to be. And so it was not first said, “And so it was done,” and afterward, “And God made light,” but immediately after the word of God light was made, and the created light clung to the creating Light, seeing it and itself in it, that is, the reason by which it was made. It saw itself also in itself, that is, what was made as distinct from him who made it. And so, when it had pleased God, seeing what was made, because it is good, and the light had been divided from the darkness and the light called day and the darkness night, evening also came, because this knowledge too was necessary, by which the creature, known otherwise in itself than in him, would be distinguished from the Creator. And then came morning, and another thing to be foreknown, which was to be made by the Word of God, first in the knowledge of the angelic mind, then in the nature of the firmament itself. And so God said, “Let there be a firmament,” and so it was done, in the knowledge of the spiritual creature, which foreknew it before it was made in itself. Then God made the firmament, now indeed the very nature of the firmament, whose knowledge would be lesser, as of evening. And so on to the end of all the works and up to the rest of God, which has no evening, because it was not made as a creature, so that its knowledge too could be doubled, as prior and greater in the Word of God, as by day, and later and lesser in itself, as by evening.

But if the angelic mind can grasp all at once the things that the narrative distinguishes one by one in the order of connected causes, were the things that were being made, such as the firmament itself, the gathering of the waters and the laying bare of the face of the land, the sprouting of shrubs and trees, the forming of the lights and stars, the creatures of the water and the land, also all made at once, and not rather at intervals of time according to the appointed days? Or perhaps we ought not to think of them, when they were first set up, as we now experience them according to their natural motions, but according to the wonderful and ineffable power of the Wisdom of God, which “reaches mightily from end to end and arranges all things sweetly”? For she does not reach by stages or arrive as if by steps. Therefore, as easy as her most effective movement is to her, so easily did God establish all things, since they were established through her; so that what we now see, that they are moved over intervals of time to accomplish what befits each kind, comes from those implanted reasons which God scattered as seeds, so to speak, in the instant of establishing, when “he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.”

So it was not slowly set up that slow things should be slow, nor were the ages established with the delay with which they run by. For the times carry out those numbers which things received, not in time, when they were created. Otherwise, if we think of the natural motions of things and the familiar spans of these days we know, when these things were first made by the Word of God, there would have been need not of one day but of several, so that the things that spring from roots and clothe the earth should first germinate underground, and then, in a fixed number of days according to each one's kind, break out into the air, even if this were all done that Scripture narrates was done on the one day, the third, concerning the creation of their nature. Then, how many days would have been needed for birds to fly, if, arising from their first beginnings, they reached feathers and wings through the numbers of their nature? Or were only eggs created, when it was said on the fifth day that the waters brought forth every winged flying thing according to its kind? Or if this could rightly be said because in that fluid of the eggs there already were all the things that grow together and unfold in a certain number of days, since the numerical reasons themselves were already present, woven incorporeally into bodily things, why could the same not rightly have been said even before the eggs, when those same reasons were already coming to be in the watery element, by which birds could arise and be perfected through the temporal delays proper to each kind? For of the same Creator of whom this Scripture has narrated that he finished his works in six days, it is written elsewhere, certainly without contradiction, that he created all things at once. And so he who made all things at once also made at once these six or seven days, or rather the one day repeated six or seven times. What need was there, then, for six days to be narrated so distinctly and in order? Plainly because those who cannot see what is said, “He created all things at once,” cannot reach the point to which the narrative leads them unless it proceeds more slowly with them.

How, then, do we say that the presence of that light was repeated seven times through angelic knowledge, from evening to morning, when it was enough for it to have those three, day and evening and morning, at once and once for all? For it contemplated the whole creation at once, as it was made at once, both in the first and unchangeable reasons through which it was established, which makes the day, and knew it in its own nature, which makes the evening, and praised the Creator even from this lower knowledge, which makes the morning. Or how did morning precede, so that it might know in the Word what God was to make afterward, and then know the same thing in the evening, if nothing was made earlier and later, since all things were made at once? Rather, the things recorded through six days were made both earlier and later, and all were made at once; because both this Scripture, which narrates the works of God through the days mentioned, and that one, which says he made all things at once, are truthful. And both are one, because they were written by the inspiration of the one Spirit of truth.

But in things in which intervals of time do not show what is earlier or later, although both can be said, that is, both “at once” and “earlier and later,” yet what is said “at once” is understood more easily than what is said “earlier and later.” For example, when we look at the rising sun, it is certainly plain that our gaze could not reach it unless it passed through the whole space of air and sky that lies between us and it; and who could estimate how great that distance is? And that gaze, or ray of our eyes, would certainly not come to pass through the air that is over the sea unless it had first passed through the air that is over the land, from the place where we are to the shore of the sea, in whatever inland region we may be. Then, if beyond the sea there still lie lands on the same line of our sight, our gaze cannot pass through the air over those lands across the sea either unless it has first traversed the space of the air that stretches over the sea it meets first. Let us now suppose that beyond those lands across the sea only the Ocean remains. Can our gaze pass through the air that spreads over the Ocean unless it has first passed through all the air on this side of the Ocean, above the land? The size of the Ocean is said to be beyond comparison; but however great it is, the rays of our eyes must first pass through the air that is above it, and afterward whatever lies beyond, and only then reach the sun that we see. Does our gaze, then, not pass through all of it at once in one instant, just because we have said “first” and “afterward” so many times here? For if, with our eyes closed, we set our face toward the sun in order to see it, shall we not think, as soon as we open them, that we have found our gaze there rather than brought it there, so that our eyes do not even seem to have been opened before it reached where it was directed? And certainly this is a ray of bodily light, flashing from our eyes and touching things placed so far away with such speed that it cannot be estimated or compared. Clearly, all those vast and immense spaces are passed through at once in one instant, and it is nonetheless certain what is passed through earlier and what later.

Rightly, when the apostle wished to express the speed of our resurrection, he said that it happens “in the twinkling of an eye.” For nothing swifter can be found in the motions or strokes of bodily things. But if the gaze of fleshly eyes can do so much by its speed, what can the gaze of the mind, even human? How much more that of the angelic mind? What, then, is to be said of the speed of the supreme Wisdom of God itself, which “reaches everywhere because of its purity, and nothing defiled enters into it”? In these things, then, which were made at once, no one sees what had to be made earlier or later except in that Wisdom through which all things were made in order and at once.

That day, then, which God first made, if it is the spiritual and rational creation, that is, of the supercelestial angels and powers, was present to all the works of God in this order of presence, which is the order of knowledge, by which it both foreknew in the Word of God the things to be made and knew them made in creation, not through delays of temporal intervals, but having earlier and later in the connection of creatures, and all at once in the efficacy of the Creator. For he made the things that were to be in such a way that he did not make temporal things in time, but the times, made by him, ran their course. And so these seven days, which the light of the heavenly body unfolds and folds up again in its circuit, by a kind of shadow of signification prompt us to seek those days in which the created spiritual light could be present to all the works of God through the perfection of the number six, and thence have a morning in the seventh, the rest of God, and no evening. Thus God's resting on the seventh day does not mean that he needed that seventh day for his rest, but that in the sight of his angels he rested from all his works which he made, certainly in none but himself, who was not made; that is, that his angelic creation, which was present to know all his works in him and in themselves, as day with evening, should know nothing better, after all his very good works, than that he rests from them all in himself, needing none of them to be more blessed.

“This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth: when the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and 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. But a spring went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth.” Now indeed that view becomes firmer by which it is understood that God made one day, from which those six or seven days could be numbered by the repetition of this one; since Holy Scripture now says it more openly, in a way summing up all that it had said from the beginning to this place, and adds, “This is the book of the creation (or of the making) of heaven and earth, when the day was made.” For no one will say that heaven and earth are mentioned here in the same way as was said, before the establishing of day was made known, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth.” For if that is understood to mean that God made something without day, before he made day, I said in its place what I thought should be said about how it can be taken, closing to no one the freedom of understanding it better. But now it says, “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made,” showing clearly enough, I think, that it has not mentioned heaven and earth here in the way it did “in the beginning,” before day was made, when darkness was upon the abyss, but in the way heaven and earth were made when day was made, that is, when the parts and kinds of things had already been formed and distinguished, by which the whole creation, arranged and composed, presents this appearance that is called the world.

So the heaven mentioned here is the one which God, when he had created it, called the firmament, with all that is in it, and the earth is the one which, with the abyss, held the lowest place, with all that is in it. For it continues and adds, “God made heaven and earth,” so that, by setting the name of heaven and earth both before mentioning that day was made and again after mentioning it, it does not allow us to suspect that it now named heaven and earth as it did “in the beginning,” before day was created. For it joined the words thus: “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made, God made heaven and earth.” So if anyone wishes to understand what is put first, “the book of the creation of heaven and earth,” in the sense in which it was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” before he established day, on the ground that here too heaven and earth are mentioned first and afterward day is made, let him be corrected by the following words, since after the mention of the making of day the name of heaven and earth is again added.

And even the fact that “when” is put in and joined thus, “when the day was made,” would wrest from any quarrelsome person the admission that no other understanding is possible. For if it had been inserted so as to say, “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth. The day was made. God made heaven and earth,” someone might perhaps think that “the book of the creation of heaven and earth” was so called in the sense in which it was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” before day was established, and that “the day was made” was then added, as it was narrated there afterward that God made the day; and that then it was said again at once, “God made heaven and earth,” as if now in the way these were made after day was established. But since it was inserted so as to say “when the day was made,” whether you connect this with the preceding words, so that the sentence is, “This is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made,” or with the following words, so that the sentence is complete in this way, “When the day was made, God made heaven and earth,” it without doubt compels us to understand that it mentioned heaven and earth as they were made when day was made. Then, after it was said, “God made heaven and earth,” there is added, “and every green thing of the field,” which certainly were made on the third day. Hence it appears more clearly that it is that same one day which God made, by whose repetition the second and the third and the others up to the seventh day were made.

But since he wished the whole creation to be understood now by the name of heaven and earth, in the usual manner of the Scriptures, one may ask why he added, “and every green thing of the field.” It seems to me that he put it in order to make known more significantly which day he meant when he said, “when the day was made.” For someone might quickly think that the day meant was the day of bodily light, by whose circuit the alternation of daytime and nighttime is presented to us. But when we recall the order of the creatures established and find that every green thing of the field was created on the third day, before the sun was made, which was made on the fourth day and by whose presence this daily, familiar day is carried out, then when we hear, “When the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field,” we are prompted to think of that day which we try to trace by understanding, whether as bodily, in some light unknown to us, or as spiritual, in the society of angelic unity, but in any case not such as the day we know here.

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.

So it should not be read, “What was made in him is life,” with a pause after “What was made in him,” and then adding “is life.” For what was not made in him, when, after many earthly creatures have been mentioned, it is said in the psalm, “You have made all things in wisdom,” and the apostle says, “For in him all things were established in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible”? It would follow, then, if we punctuated it that way, that the earth itself and whatever is in it would be life. And since it is absurd to say that all things live, how much more absurd to say that they are even life? Especially since he specifies what sort of life he is speaking of when he adds, “and the life was the light of men.” So it should be punctuated thus: when we have said “What was made,” we then add “in him is life”; not in itself, that is, in its own nature, by which it was made so as to be a thing established and a creature, but in him it is life, because he knew all things that were made through him before they were made, and therefore they were in him not as the creature that he made but as life and the light of men, which is Wisdom itself and the Word himself, the only-begotten Son of God. What was made, then, is life in him in the way in which it is said, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself.”

Nor should we pass over the fact that more correct manuscripts have “What was made, in him was life,” so that it is understood thus: “was life,” as “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” What was made, then, was already life in him; and not life of any kind (for even cattle are said to live, which cannot enjoy a share in wisdom), but the life was the light of men. For rational minds, cleansed by his grace, can come to that kind of vision than which nothing is higher or more blessed.

But even if we read and understand “What was made, in him is life,” this view stands: that what was made through him is understood to be life in him, in which life he saw all things when he made them, and as he saw, so he made; not seeing outside himself, but in himself he numbered all the things he made. Nor is his vision one and the Father's another, but one, as the substance is one. For in the book of Job too that Wisdom through which all things were made is proclaimed thus: “But Wisdom,” it says, “where is it found? Or what is the place of knowledge? A mortal does not know its way, nor will it be found among men.” And a little later: “We have heard,” it says, “of its glory. The Lord has commended its way, and he knows its place. For he looks upon everything that is under heaven and knows all things that are on the earth which he made: the weights of the winds, the measures of the water; when he made them, as he saw, he numbered them.” By these and similar testimonies it is proved that all these things, before they were made, were in the knowledge of their Maker, and certainly better there, where they were truer, where they were eternal and unchangeable. Although it should be enough for anyone to know, or firmly to believe, that God made all these things, I do not think anyone is so senseless as to suppose that God made things he did not know. Moreover, if he knew them before he made them, then surely before they were made they were known with him in the way in which they live everlastingly and unchangeably and are life, but made in the way in which each creature is in its own kind.

Although, then, that eternal and unchangeable nature which is God has in itself its being, as was said to Moses, “I am who am,” in a way far different, certainly, from the being of the things that were made (for that truly and primarily is which always is in the same way, and not only is not changed but cannot be changed at all), being none of the things he made and having all of them primarily, as he himself is (for he would not make them unless he knew them before he made them, nor know them unless he saw them, nor see them unless he had them, nor have the things not yet made except in the way in which he himself is not made); although, I say, that substance is ineffable and cannot be spoken of in any fashion to a man by a man except by using certain words of place and time, since it is before all times and before all places, yet he who made us is nearer to us than many things that were made. For “in him we live and move and are”; whereas most of these things are remote from our mind because of the unlikeness of their kind, since they are bodily; nor is our mind itself fit to see them with God in the very reasons by which they were made, so as to know thereby how many, how great, and of what kind they are, even if we do not see them through the senses of the body. For they are remote from the senses of our body, since they are far away, or are separated from our sight and action by other things placed between or in front. Hence there is greater labor in finding them than in finding him by whom they were made; though it is better, with incomparable happiness, to perceive him with a devout mind in however small a portion than to comprehend them all. Hence the inquirers of this world are rightly blamed in the book of Wisdom: “For if they were able to know so much,” it says, “that they could estimate the world, how did they not more easily find its Lord?” For the foundations of the earth are unknown to our eyes, and he who founded the earth draws near to our minds.

Now let us consider the things that God made all at once, from which, when they were finished on the sixth day, he rested on the seventh, intending afterward to consider his works in which he is working until now. For he himself is before the ages; but we say that those things are from the age which began with the age, such as the world itself, and those things are in the age which are born in the world. So when Scripture had said, “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made,” a little later it says, “He was in this world, and the world was made through him.” Of this work of God it is written in another place, “You who made the world from formless matter.” This world is usually called by the name of heaven and earth, as we have already mentioned, which Scripture says God made when the day was made. About these words we have already discussed, as far as seemed good, how it fits the establishing of this world both that it was finished in six days with all that is in it and that it was made then, when the day was made, so that this too fits: that he created all things at once.

Of this whole creation of God there are many things we do not know, whether things in the heavens higher than our senses can reach, or things in regions of the earth that are perhaps uninhabitable, or things hidden below, in the depth of the abyss or in the hidden recesses of the earth. These things, then, before they were made, certainly did not exist. How, then, were things that did not exist known to God? And again, how would he make things that were not known to him? For he made nothing in ignorance. So he made things known, he did not come to know things made. Accordingly, before they were made, they both were and were not: they were in God's knowledge; they were not in their own nature. And so that day was made to which they became known in both ways, both in God and in themselves, in the former as by morning or daytime knowledge, in the latter as by evening knowledge. But I do not dare to say that they became known to God himself, when he had made them, in any other way than that in which he knew them in order to make them, “with whom there is no change nor shadow of turning.”

Certainly he does not need messengers for knowledge of lower things, as if he became more knowing through them; but in that simple and wonderful way he knows all things stably and unchangeably. He has messengers, however, for our sake and for theirs, because to obey and attend upon God in that way, so as to consult him about lower things and comply with his heavenly precepts and commands, is good for them in the order of their own nature and substance. Messengers in Greek are called angels; by this general name that whole heavenly city is called, which we think was established as the first day.

For not even that mystery of the kingdom of heaven was hidden from them which was revealed at the fitting time for our salvation, by which, freed from this pilgrimage, we are joined to their company. For they could not be ignorant of it, since the very seed which came at the fitting time was ordained through them in the hand of the mediator, that is, in the power of him who is their Lord, both in the form of God and in the form of a servant. The apostle likewise says, “To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given, to proclaim among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all as to what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages in God, who created all things, so that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the church, according to the purpose of the ages which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So this was hidden from the ages in God in such a way that the manifold wisdom of God was nevertheless made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the church; because there is the church first, where after the resurrection this church too is to be gathered, so that we may be equal to the angels of God. It was made known to them, then, from the ages, because the whole creation is not before the ages but from the ages. For the ages arose from it and it is from the ages, since its beginning is the beginning of the ages; but the Only-begotten is before the ages, through whom the ages were made. And so, in the person of Wisdom, it says, “Before the ages he founded me,” that in her he might make all things, to whom it is said, “You have made all things in wisdom.”

That what is hidden is made known to the angels not only in God, but also appears to them here when it is accomplished and brought to light, the same apostle testifies thus: “And without doubt,” he says, “great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, appeared to angels, was preached among the Gentiles, believed in the world, taken up in glory.” And, unless I am mistaken, it would be strange if all the things that God is said to know as if at a present time were not said for the reason that he causes them to be known, whether by angels or by men. For this mode of speaking, when what is effected is signified through what effects it, is frequent in the holy Scriptures, especially when something is said of God which Truth itself, presiding over our minds, cries out does not befit him in the proper sense of the words.

Now, then, let us distinguish the works of God which he is working until now from those works from which he rested on the seventh day. For there are some who think that only the world itself was made by God, and that the other things are now made by the world itself, as he ordained and commanded, while God himself works nothing. Against them is brought that saying of the Lord: “My Father is working until now.” And lest anyone think that he works something in his own presence and not in this world, he says, “The Father abiding in me does his works”; and, “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” Then, because he works not only great and chief things but also these earthly and lowest ones, the apostle says thus: “Fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies; and what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of some other kind; but God gives it a body as he wills, and to each of the seeds its own body.” So let us believe, or if we can, also understand, that God is working until now in such a way that, if his working were withdrawn from the things established by him, they would perish.

But plainly, if we should think that he now sets up some creature in such a way that he did not insert its kind in that first establishing of his, we openly contradict Scripture, which says that he finished all his works on the sixth day. For it is plain that, according to those kinds of things which he first established, he makes many new things which he did not make then. But he cannot rightly be believed to set up a new kind, since he then finished all things. So by a hidden power he moves his whole creation; and, turned by that motion, while angels carry out commands, while the stars go round, while the winds alternate, while the abyss of waters is stirred by falls and by various gatherings even through the air, while green things sprout and unfold their seeds, while animals are born and lead their own lives with various appetites, while the wicked are permitted to exercise the just, creation unfolds the ages which he had placed in it, folded up as it were, when it was first established. Yet they would not be unfolded into their courses if he who established them ceased to govern them by his provident motion.

We ought to be instructed by the things that are formed and born in time how we should consider them. For it is not written in vain of Wisdom that she shows herself joyfully to her lovers in the ways and meets them in all providence. And those are not to be heeded at all who have thought that the higher parts of the world, that is, from the boundary of this denser air upward, are governed by divine providence, but that this lowest part, earthly and moist, and of this nearer air, which is made moist by the exhalations of land and water, and in which winds and clouds rise, is driven rather by chance and random motions. Against them the psalm speaks, which, having set out the praise of heavenly things, turns also to these lower things, saying, “Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all depths; fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy wind, which do his word.” For nothing seems so much tossed about by chance as all these stormy and turbulent conditions by which the face of this lower sky, which not without reason is also counted under the name of earth, is varied and changed. But when it added, “which do his word,” it showed clearly enough that the order of these things too, subject to divine command, is hidden from us rather than lacking to the nature of the universe. What, then? When the Savior says with his own mouth that not one sparrow falls to the ground without the will of God, and that he himself clothes the grass of the field which shortly is to be thrown into the oven, does he not confirm that not only this whole part of the world assigned to mortal and corruptible things, but even its most worthless and lowly particles, are ruled by divine providence?

And certainly those who deny this and do not acquiesce in the holy utterances of such great authority, in this part of the world which they think is disturbed by random motions rather than ruled by the Wisdom of the divine height (and to prove this, as it were, they misuse a twofold argument: either what I mentioned above about the inconstancy of the weather, or the good and bad fortunes of men, which do not befall them according to the merits of their lives): if they saw the great order that appears in the members of the flesh of any living creature, not, I say, to physicians, who for the needs of their art have examined these things carefully, laid open and enumerated, but to any man of ordinary mind and reflection, would they not cry out that God, from whom is every limit of measures, every equality of numbers, every order of weights, does not cease from governing it even for a moment of time? What, then, can be thought more absurd, more foolish, than that the whole of that part is empty of the nod and rule of providence, when you see its last and smallest things formed with such arrangement that, considered somewhat more attentively, they strike one with an ineffable awe of wonder? And since the nature of the soul surpasses the nature of the body, what is madder than to think that there is no judgment of divine providence about the conduct of men, when such signs of its skill shine out and are shown in their flesh? But because these smallest things lie ready to our senses and we easily trace them, the order of things shines out in them; while those things whose order we cannot see are thought disordered by those who think nothing exists except what they can see, or, if they think so, think it something like what they are accustomed to see.

But let us, whose steps the same divine providence guides through Holy Scripture so that we do not fall into that perversity, try, with the same help, to trace from the very works of God where he created at once these things whose forms he is working until now through the order of times, when he rested from his finished works. Let us consider, then, the beauty of any tree in its trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit. This form certainly did not spring up suddenly in such size and quality, but in the order that we know. For it rose from a root, which the sprout first fixed in the earth, and from there all those parts grew, formed and distinct. Moreover, that sprout came from a seed; so in the seed all those things were at first, not in the bulk of bodily size but in causal force and power. For that size was built up by an abundance of earth and moisture. But that force in the tiny grain is more wonderful and excellent, by which the neighboring moisture, mixed with earth as matter, could be turned into the quality of that wood, the spreading of branches, the greenness and shape of the leaves, the forms and richness of the fruit, and the most orderly distinction of them all. For what rises or hangs from that tree that has not been drawn out and brought forth from a kind of hidden treasure of that seed? But that seed comes from a tree, though not that one but another, and that tree again from another seed; and sometimes a tree comes from a tree, when a cutting is taken and planted. So seed comes from tree, and tree from seed, and tree from tree; but seed from seed in no way unless a tree comes in between first; whereas tree comes from tree even if no seed comes in between. So by alternating successions one comes from the other, but both from the earth, and not the earth from them; so their first parent is the earth. So too with animals: it may be uncertain whether seeds come from them or they from seeds; but whichever of these is first, it is most certain that it is from the earth.

And as in the grain itself there were invisibly at once all the things that would rise through time into a tree, so the world itself must be thought to have had at once, when God created all things at once, all the things that were made in it and with it when the day was made: not only heaven with the sun and moon and stars, whose form remains with rotating motion, and the earth and the depths, which undergo as it were inconstant motions and, joined below, contribute the other part to the world, but also those things which water and earth produced potentially and causally, before they arose through the delays of time in the way they are now known to us in the works which God is working until now.

This being so, “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”: not in the way he makes them by the work by which he is working until now, through rain and the farming of men (for this is why it was added, “For God had not rained upon the earth, nor was there a man to work the earth”), but in the way in which he created all things at once and finished them in the number of six days, when he presented the day that he made six times to the things that he made, not by an alternating span in time, but causally by an ordered knowledge. From these works he rested on the seventh day, deigning to give even his rest to the knowledge and joy of that same day. And so he blessed and sanctified it not in any work of his but in his rest. Hence, setting up no further creature, but governing and ruling by his administering action the things which he made all at once, he works without ceasing, at once resting and working, as has already been discussed. Taking, as it were, the beginning of the narration of these works of his which he is working until now, to be unfolded through the cycles of time, Scripture says, “But a spring went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth.” Since we have said about this spring what we thought should be said, let us consider what follows from another beginning.

“And God formed man, dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Here we must first see whether this is a recapitulation, so that it is now said how man was made whom we read was made on that sixth day; or whether, when he made all things at once, he made man too among them in a hidden way, like the grass of the earth before it had sprung up, so that he too, having already been made in another way in a certain secret of nature, like the things he created at once when the day was made, should with the passing of time be made also in this way, in which he lives his life in this visible form, whether badly or well; as the grass, which was made before it sprang up upon the earth, sprang up with the passing of time and the watering of that spring, so as to be upon the earth.

Let us first try, then, to take it as a recapitulation. For perhaps man was made on the sixth day in the same way as the day itself was first made, as the firmament, as the land and the sea. For it must not be said that these were first made and lay hidden in certain first beginnings and then, with the passing of time, sprang up, as it were, and became manifest in this appearance in which the world has been built; rather, the world was established from the beginning of the age, when the day was made, and in its elements were established at once the things that would arise afterward with the passing of time, whether plants or animals, each according to its kind. For neither must we believe that the stars themselves were first made and stored away in the elements of the world, and afterward, with the passing of time, came forth and shone in these forms which gleam from heaven; but all things were created at once in that number of perfection, six, when the day was made. Was man, then, also made thus, already in this appearance in which he lives in his own nature and does good or evil? Or was he too made in a hidden way, like the grass of the field before it sprang up, so that his being made from dust was to come forth afterward with the passing of time?

Let us take it, then, that he was formed from clay on the sixth day itself in this manifest and visible form, but that what is now made known by recapitulation was not mentioned then, and let us see whether Scripture itself agrees with us. It is certainly written thus, while the works of the sixth day were still being narrated: “And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth. And God made man; to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it, and have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth.” So he had then already been formed from clay, and the woman had already been made from his side while he slept; but this had not been mentioned, and is now mentioned by recapitulation. For the male was not made on the sixth day and the female made afterward with the passing of time; but it says, “he made him; male and female he made them, and blessed them.” How, then, was the woman made for him when the man had already been placed in paradise? Or did Scripture go back to this too, having passed it over? For on that sixth day paradise too was planted, and the man was placed there, and was put to sleep so that Eve might be formed; and when she was formed he awoke and gave her a name. But these things could not happen except through delays of time. So they were not made in the way in which all things were created at once.

However great the ease one imagines with which God made these things too at once with the rest, we certainly know that a man's words cannot be uttered by the voice except through little delays of time. When, then, we hear the words of the man, whether when he gave names to the animals or to the woman, or when he went on to say, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will be in one flesh,” whatever syllables these sounded in, not even any two syllables in these words could sound at once; how much less could all these things be done at once with the things that were created at once! And therefore either all those things too were made not at once from the very beginning of the ages but through delays and intervals of time, and that day, first established not of spiritual but of bodily substance, made morning and evening in some way, by a circuit of light or by emission and contraction; or, if, all that was discussed in the previous books having been considered, a probable reason has persuaded us that that day, established sublimely and first as spiritual, a certain wise light, was called day, whose presence was provided through ordered knowledge to the establishing of things in the number six; and if the words of Scripture agree with this view when it says afterward, “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,” and if what is written elsewhere also testifies, “He who lives forever created all things at once”: then there is no doubt that man's being formed from the clay of the earth and his wife's being formed from his side no longer belong to the establishing in which all things were made at once, which having been perfected God rested, but to that working which now takes place through the cycles of the ages, by which he is working until now.

To this is added that the very words by which it is narrated how God planted paradise and placed in it the man he had made, and brought to him the animals for him to give them names, and, when no help like him was found among them, then formed the woman for him by taking out his rib, sufficiently remind us that these things belong not to that working of God from which he rested on the seventh day but rather to this, by which he is working until now through the courses of time. For when paradise was planted, it narrates thus: “And God planted paradise in Eden toward the east and placed there the man whom he had formed. And God brought forth further from the earth every tree beautiful to the sight and good for food.”

When, then, it says, “He brought forth further from the earth every tree beautiful to the sight,” it certainly makes plain that he brought forth trees from the earth in one way now and in another way then, when on the third day the earth brought forth the herb of pasture seeding seed according to its kind and the fruitful tree according to its kind. For this is what “he brought forth further” means, namely beyond what he had already brought forth: then, certainly, potentially and causally, in the work belonging to the creating of all things at once, from which, when finished, he rested on the seventh day; but now visibly, in the work belonging to the course of time, as he is working until now.

Unless perhaps someone says that not every kind of tree was created on the third day, but something was put off to be created on the sixth, when man was made and placed in paradise. But Scripture declares most plainly what was created on the sixth day: the living soul, namely, according to each kind of four-footed animals and creeping things and beasts, and man himself, to the image of God, male and female. Accordingly, it could pass over how man was made, whom it nevertheless narrated was made on that day, so as to make known afterward by recapitulation how he was made, that is, from the dust of the earth, and the woman for him from his side; but it could not pass over any kind of creature, either in what God said, “Let it be,” or “Let us make,” or in what is said, “So it was done,” or “God made.” Otherwise all things were distinguished so carefully day by day in vain, if any suspicion could remain of a mixing of the days, so that, though herb and tree were assigned to the third day, we should believe that some trees were also created on the sixth day, about which Scripture was silent on that sixth day.

Finally, what shall we answer about the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, which God brought to Adam to see what he would call them? For it is written thus: “And the Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make for him a help according to himself. And God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called each living soul, that is its name. And Adam called names for all cattle and all the birds of the sky and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. And God cast an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs and filled up flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman.” If, then, consequently, when no help like the man was found among the cattle and the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, God made a help like him from the rib of his side, and this happened when he had further formed those same beasts of the field and birds of the sky from the earth and brought them to him: how can this be understood to have happened on the sixth day, since on that day the earth brought forth the living soul at the word of God, while the waters brought forth the birds on the fifth day, likewise at the word of God? So it would not be said here, “And God formed further from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky,” unless the earth had already brought forth all the beasts of the field on the sixth day and the water all the birds of the sky on the fifth day. So it was in one way then, that is, potentially and causally, as befitted that work by which he created all things at once, from which he rested on the seventh day; but in another way now, as we see the things which he creates through spans of time, as he is working until now. And so Eve was made from the side of her husband already in these well-known days of bodily light, which come about by the circuit of the sun. For then God further formed from the earth the beasts and birds, among which, when no help like Adam was found, she was formed. In such days, then, God formed him too from the clay.

For it must not be said that the male was made on the sixth day and the female on later days, since on that sixth day itself it is said most plainly, “Male and female he made them, and blessed them,” and the other things that are said of both and to both. So both were made in one way then and both in another way now: then, namely, according to the power placed in the world by the Word of God, as it were seminally, when he created all things at once, from which he rested on the seventh day, from which all things would come to be, each in its own time, through the order of the ages; but now according to the working that is to be supplied to times, by which he is working until now; and it was fitting that Adam should now be made in his own time from the clay of the earth and his wife from the man's side.

In this distribution of the works of God, partly belonging to those invisible days in which he created all things at once, partly to these days in which he works daily whatever unfolds in time from those things, as from primordial wrappings, if we have not followed the words of Scripture, which led us to make these distinctions, inappropriately or absurdly, we must take care lest, because of the somewhat difficult perception of the things themselves, which slower minds are not able to attain, we be thought to hold and say something which we know we neither hold nor say. For although in the preceding books I have prepared the reader as much as I could, I think many are still in the dark in these places, and suppose that man was first in that work of God in which all things were created at once in such a way that he led some kind of life, so that he could discern, believe, and understand the speech of God directed to him when God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing food.” Let him who thinks this know, then, that I have neither held nor said it.

But again, if I say that man was not in that first establishing of things, in which God created all things at once, in the way that a man of full age is, nor even an infant, and not only not an infant but not even an embryo in the mother's womb, and not only that but not even the visible seed of a man, he will think that he did not exist at all. Let him return, then, to Scripture: he will find that man was made on the sixth day to the image of God, and made male and female. Let him likewise ask when the woman was made: he will find it outside those six days; for she was made then, when God further formed from the earth the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky, not when the waters brought forth the birds and the earth brought forth the living soul, among which are also the beasts. But man, both male and female, was made then: so both then and afterward. For it is not then and not afterward, or afterward and not then; nor were others made afterward, but the very same ones in one way then and in another way afterward. He will ask me: How afterward? I will answer: visibly, in the form of the human constitution known to us, yet not by parents begetting, but he from the clay, she from his rib. He will ask: How then? I will answer: invisibly, potentially, causally, as things to come are made, not yet made.

Here perhaps he will not understand. For everything he knows is taken away from him, even down to the bodily substance of seeds. For man was not even anything like that when he had been made in that first establishing of the six days. Some likeness to this matter is indeed given from seeds, because of the future things bound up in them; but those causes are prior to all visible seeds. But he does not understand. What, then, shall I do, except, as far as I can, warn him for his good to believe the Scripture of God: that man was made both then, when God, when the day was made, made heaven and earth (of which Scripture says elsewhere, “He who lives forever created all things at once”), and then, when, no longer creating at once but each thing in its own time, he formed him from the clay of the earth and the woman from his bone? For Scripture does not allow us to understand either that they were made in this way on that sixth day, or yet that they were not made on that sixth day.

Were their souls, then, perhaps made on that sixth day, in which the image of God itself is rightly understood to be in the spirit of their mind, so that their bodies were formed afterward? But the same Scripture does not allow us to believe this either. First, because of that completion of the works (and I do not see how it can be understood if something was then lacking that was not established causally, to be established afterward visibly); second, because the sex itself of male and female cannot exist except in bodies. And if anyone thinks that both sexes, as it were, are to be understood in one soul, according to understanding and action, what will he do with the food that God gave on that same day from the fruits of the trees, which is certainly fitting only for a man who has a body? For if anyone wishes to take this food too figuratively, he will depart from the proper sense of the events, which in narratives of this kind must first of all be established with all care.

“How, then,” he says, “did he speak to those who did not yet hear or understand, since there was no one yet to receive the words?” I could answer that God addressed them in the way Christ addressed us, not yet born and to come so long afterward, and not only us but also all those who will come after us. For he said to all whom he saw would be his, “Behold, I am with you to the end of the age”; as the prophet was known to God, to whom he said, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”; as Levi paid tithes when he was in the loins of Abraham. Why, then, not Abraham himself likewise in Adam, and Adam himself in the first works of the world, which God created all at once? But the words of the Lord through the mouth of his flesh, and the words of God through the mouths of the prophets, are uttered by the temporal voice of a body and take up and use up delays of time fitting to all their syllables. But when God said, “Let us make man to our image and likeness, and let him have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth,” and, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it, and have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth,” and, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing food seeding seed which is upon all the earth, and every fruit-bearing tree which has in itself the fruit of seed that will be, for food for you”: his speech itself, before any sound of air, before any voice of flesh or cloud, in that supreme Wisdom of his through which all things were made, did not resound as if to human ears; rather, it inserted in things made the causes of things to be made, and by almighty power made future things, and established man, to be formed in his own time, as in the seed or the root of times, when he established that from which the ages would begin, established by him who is before the ages. For some creatures precede others, some in time, some in causes; but he precedes all that he made not only by excellence, by which he is also the maker of causes, but also by eternity. But perhaps this should be discussed more fully later at more suitable places in the Scriptures.

Now let us finish what we began about man, keeping this moderation: that in the deep sense of Scripture we show the diligence of inquiring rather than the rashness of affirming. That God knew Jeremiah before he formed him in the womb, it is not right to doubt; for he says most plainly, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” But where he knew him before he formed him thus, even if it is difficult or impossible for our weakness to attain (whether in some nearer causes, as Levi paid tithes in the loins of Abraham; or in Adam himself, in whom the human race was established as at its root; and in Adam himself, whether when he had already been formed from clay, or when he was made causally in those works which God created all at once; or rather before all creation, as he chose and predestined his saints before the foundation of the world; or rather in all the preceding causes, whether those I have mentioned or those I have not, before he was formed in the womb): I do not think we need inquire more scrupulously, provided it is established that Jeremiah, from the time he was brought forth by his parents into this light, led his own life, by which, growing with the increase of age, he could live either badly or well; but before that in no way, not only before he was formed in the womb, but not even when already formed there, before he was born. For that apostolic statement about the twins in Rebecca's womb, not yet doing anything good or evil, admits no hesitation.

Yet it is not written in vain that not even an infant whose life on earth is of one day is clean from sin, and that in the psalm, “I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother nourished me in the womb,” and that in Adam all die, in whom all sinned. But now let us hold clearly that, whatever merits of parents are passed on to offspring, whatever grace of God sanctifies anyone before he is born, there is no iniquity with God, and no one does good or evil, as regards his own person, before he is born; and that the view by which some think that souls sinned more or less elsewhere and were thrust into different bodies according to the merits of their different sins does not agree with the apostle's statement, since it is said most plainly that those not yet born had done nothing, either good or evil.

And therefore it is another question, to be treated again in its place, what the whole lump of the human race contracted from the sin of the first parents, who were only two; but there is no question that man could have had no merits of this kind before he was formed from the dust of the earth, before he lived in his own time. For just as we could not say that Esau and Jacob, whom the apostle said had done nothing good or evil before they were born, contracted any merit from their parents if the parents themselves had done nothing good or evil, nor that the human race sinned in Adam if Adam himself had not sinned (and Adam would not have sinned unless he were already living in his own time, in which he could live either well or badly): so it is vain to look for his sin or his right action when, still established causally among the things created at once, he was neither yet living a life of his own nor was in parents so living. For in that first establishing of the world, when God created all things at once, man was made who was to be: the reason for creating man, not the action of a man created.

But these things are in one way in the Word of God, where they are not made but eternal; in another way in the elements of the world, where all things that are to be were made at once; in another way in the things which, according to the causes created at once, are created no longer at once but each in its own time, among which is Adam, already formed from clay and animated by the breath of God, like the grass that has sprung up; and in another way in seeds, in which there are again, as it were, primordial causes, drawn from the things that came into being according to the causes which he first established, as the herb from the earth, the seed from the herb. In all these, things already made have received the modes and actions of their own time, which have come forth into manifest forms and natures from the hidden and invisible reasons that lie causally in creation, like the herb that has sprung up upon the earth and man made into a living soul, and other things of this kind, whether plants or animals, belonging to that working of God by which he is working until now. But these too carry with them, as it were, themselves again, invisibly, in a certain hidden power of generating, which they drew from those primordial beginnings of their causes, in which they were inserted into the created world, when the day was made, before they arose into the manifest form of their kind.

For if those first works of God, when he created all things at once, were not perfect in their own way, then without doubt whatever was lacking for their perfection would have been added afterward, so that a certain perfection of the universe would consist of the two, each as it were a half, as if they were parts of some whole, by whose joining the whole of which they were parts would be completed. Again, if they had been perfect in the way things are perfected when each is brought forth in its own time into manifest forms and actions, then surely either nothing would be made from them after those times, or only what God does not cease to work from these things that now arise, each in its own time. But as it is, the very things which God first created all at once, when he made the world, to be unfolded in following times, are in one way completed and in one way begun: completed, because they have nothing in their own natures, by which they run the courses of their times, that was not made causally in those first works; begun, because they were as it were seeds of future things, to be brought forth through the course of the age from hidden to manifest in fitting places. And the words of Scripture itself are strikingly forceful in reminding us of this, if anyone will wake up to them. For it says both that they were completed and that they were begun. For if they had not been completed, it would not have been written, “And heaven and earth were completed, and all their arrangement. And on the sixth day God completed his works which he made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it”; and again, if they had not been begun, there would not follow, “because on that day he rested from all his works which God began to make.”

If anyone asks here how he completed and how he began (for he did not complete some things and begin others, but certainly the same things from which he rested on the seventh day), it is clear from what we said above. For we understand that God completed these things when he created all things at once so perfectly that there was nothing further for him to create in the order of times that had not already been created by him here in the order of causes; and that he began them, so that what he had here fixed beforehand in causes he would afterward fulfill in effects. Accordingly, God formed man, dust of the earth, or clay of the earth (that is, from the dust or clay of the earth), and breathed or blew into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul: not then predestined (for this was before the age, in the foreknowledge of the Creator), nor then begun causally, either completely begun or incompletely completed (for this was from the age, in the primordial reasons, when all things were created at once), but created in his own time, visibly in the body, invisibly in the soul, consisting of soul and body.

Now, then, let us see how God made him: first his body from the earth; afterward we shall see about the soul too, if we are able. For to think that God formed man from clay with bodily hands is an excessively childish thought; so much so that, if Scripture had said this, we ought rather to believe that the writer used a figurative word than that God is bounded by such outlines of limbs as we see in our bodies. For it is said, “Your hand destroyed the nations,” and, “You led out your people with a strong hand and an uplifted arm.” But who is so foolish as not to understand that the name of this member is put for the power and might of God?

Nor should we heed what some think, that man is God's chief work because he spoke the other things and they were made, but made this one himself; rather it is because he made him to his own image. For of the things he spoke and they were made, it is written thus because they were made through his Word, as it could be said by a man to men in words that are thought in time and uttered by the voice. But God does not speak thus except when he speaks through a bodily creature, as to Abraham, as to Moses, as through the cloud about his Son. Before all creation, however, so that creation itself might exist, it was spoken by that Word who in the beginning was God with God; and since all things were made through him and without him nothing was made, certainly man too was made through him. Certainly he made heaven by the Word, since he spoke and it was made; yet it is written, “And the heavens are the works of your hands.” And of this lowest part, the floor as it were, of the world it is written, “For the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” So let it not be counted to man's honor as if God spoke the other things and they were made but made this one himself, or made the others by word but this one by hands. Rather, man excels in this, that God made man to his own image, because he gave him an intellectual mind, by which he surpasses the cattle, as we have already discussed in an earlier place. Placed in this honor, if he does not understand so as to act well, he will be compared to those very cattle over which he was set. For so it is written: “Man, placed in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless cattle and became like them.” For God made the cattle too, but not to his own image.

Nor should it be said, “He made man himself, but commanded the cattle, and they were made”; for he made both this one and those through his Word, through whom all things were made. But since that same Word is also his Wisdom and Power, it is also called his hand, not a visible member but the power of effecting. For this same Scripture, which says that God formed man from the clay of the earth, says also that he formed the beasts of the field from the earth, when he brought them with the birds of the sky to Adam to see what he would call them. For it is written thus: “And God formed further from the earth all the beasts.” If, then, he formed both man from the earth and the beasts from the earth, what does man have more excellent in this matter except that he was created to the image of God? Yet this is not according to the body but according to the understanding of the mind, of which we shall speak later. Although even in the body itself he has a certain property that indicates this, in that he was made with upright stature, so that by this very fact he might be reminded not to pursue earthly things like the cattle, whose whole pleasure is from the earth, which is why they are all bent and prone toward the belly. His body too, then, befits a rational soul, not according to the outlines and shapes of its limbs but rather in that it is raised toward heaven to look upon the things that are on high in the body of the world itself; just as the rational soul ought to be raised toward the things that most excel in nature among spiritual things, so as to set its mind on the things above, not on the things on earth.

But how did God make him from the clay of the earth? Suddenly, at full age, that is, as a grown young man, or as he now forms men in their mothers' wombs? For no other made these than he who said, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”; so that Adam's only peculiarity would be that he was not born of parents but made from the earth, yet in such a way that, in perfecting him and increasing him through the ages of life, those numbers of times were fulfilled which we see assigned to the nature of the human race. Or rather, should this not be asked? For whichever he did, he did what it befitted God, both almighty and wise, to be able to do and to do. For he assigned fixed laws of time to the kinds and qualities of things to be brought forth from hiding into the open in such a way that his will is above all. By his power he gave numbers to creation; he did not bind his power itself to those numbers. For his Spirit was borne above the world in making it in such a way that he is also borne above it when made, not in bodily places but by the excellence of his power.

For who does not know that water mixed with earth, when it comes to the roots of a vine, is drawn into the nourishment of that wood and takes on in it the quality by which it goes into the grape that gradually bursts forth, and, as the grape grows, becomes wine and grows sweet as it ripens; which, when pressed, still ferments, and, made firm by some aging, comes to be more useful and pleasant for drinking? Did the Lord, then, look for wood or earth or these delays of time when by a wonderful shortcut he turned water into wine, and such wine that even a drunken guest would praise it? Did the Founder of time need the help of time? Does not every kind of serpent grow together, take form, be born, and gain strength in fixed numbers of days suited to its kind? Were these days waited for, so that the rod from the hand of Moses and Aaron might be turned into a serpent? Nor, when these things happen, do they happen against nature, except for us, to whom the course of nature has become known otherwise, but not for God, for whom nature is what he has made.

But it may rightly be asked how those causal reasons which he placed in the world when he first created all things at once were set up: whether so that, as we see all things that are born, whether plants or animals, they would pass through different spans of time in their forming and growth according to the diversity of their kinds; or so that, as Adam is believed to have been made, they would be formed at once at full age without any progress of growth. But why do we not believe that they had both, so that from them would come whatever pleased him who was to make it? For if we say it was the former way, not only that wine from water but all the miracles that happen against the usual course of nature begin to seem to have been done against them; but if the latter way, it will be much more absurd that these daily forms and kinds of nature pass through the spans of their times against those primary causal reasons of all things that are born. It remains, then, that they were created fit for both ways, whether for this one, by which temporal things most usually run their course, or for that one, by which rare and wonderful things happen, as it pleases God to do what befits the time.

Nevertheless, man was made in the way those first causes held, so that the first man would be made, who had to be formed not by being born of parents, since none had preceded, but from clay, according to the causal reason in which he had first been made. For if he was made otherwise, God had not made him in the works of those six days. When he is said to have been made in them, God certainly made the very cause by which man was to be in his own time and according to which he was to be made by him who at once both completed things begun, because of the perfection of the causal reasons, and began things to be completed, because of the order of times. If, then, in those first causes of things which the Creator first inserted in the world, he placed not only that he would form man from clay but also how he would form him, whether as in a mother's womb or in youthful form, without doubt he made him as he had fixed beforehand there; for he would not act against his own arrangement. But if he placed there only the power of possibility, that man should be made, in whatever way he should be made, so that he could be made either way, that is, so that this too was there, that he could be made either way, while he kept the one way in which he would make him in his own will and did not weave it into the constitution of the world, it is plain that even so man was not made contrary to what was in that first establishing of causes, since it was there that he could also be made thus, although it was not there that he must necessarily be made thus. For this was not in the establishing of creation but in the good pleasure of the Creator, whose will is the necessity of things.

For we too, according to the capacity of human weakness, can know, in things that have already arisen in time, what is in the nature of each, which we have perceived by experience; but whether it will also come about, we do not know. For it is in the nature of this young man, for example, that he will grow old; but whether this is also in God's will, we do not know. But it would not be in his nature either unless it had first been in the will of God, who established all things. And certainly there is a hidden reason of old age in a youthful body, or of youth in a boy's body; for it is not seen with the eyes, as boyhood itself is in a boy and youth in a young man, but by some other knowledge it is gathered that there is something latent in nature by which the hidden numbers, of youth from boyhood or of old age from youth, are brought out into the open. This reason, then, by which it comes about that this can be, is hidden, but from the eyes; it is not hidden from the mind. But whether this is also necessary, we do not know at all. And the reason by which it comes about that it can be, we know to be in the nature of the body itself; but the reason by which it comes about that it must be is plainly not there.

But perhaps it is in the world that this man must necessarily grow old; and if it is not in the world, it is in God. For what he wills will necessarily come about, and those things will truly come about which he foreknew; for many things are to come according to lower causes. But if they are so in God's foreknowledge too, they will truly come about; if they are otherwise there, they will rather come about as they are there, where he who foreknows cannot be deceived. For old age is said to be in the future for a young man, yet it is not in the future if he is going to die first. And this will be as the other causes stand, whether woven into the world or reserved in God's foreknowledge. For according to certain causes of future things Hezekiah was going to die, to whom God added fifteen years of life, doing what he foreknew before the foundation of the world that he would do and kept in his will. So he did not do what was not going to be; rather, what he foreknew he would do was what was going to be. Yet those years would not rightly be called added unless they were added to something that had stood otherwise in other causes. According to certain lower causes, then, he had already ended his life; but according to those causes which are in the will and foreknowledge of God, who knew from eternity what he would do at that time (and this was truly what was going to be), he was to end his life when he did end it. For although it was granted to him when he prayed, he whose foreknowledge could not be deceived certainly foreknew that he would pray in such a way that such a prayer ought to be granted. And so what he foreknew was necessarily going to be.

Therefore, if the causes of all future things were implanted in the world when that day was made, when God created all things at once, Adam was made, when he was formed from clay, most probably already of full manhood, in no other way than he was in those causes where God made man in the works of the six days. For there it was not only that he could be made thus, but also that he must necessarily be made thus. For God no more acts against the cause which he without doubt willingly fixed beforehand than he acts against his own will. But if he did not fix all causes beforehand in creation as first established, but kept some in his own will, those which he kept in his will do not indeed depend on the necessity of those which he created; yet those which he kept in his will cannot be contrary to those which he established by his will, because God's will cannot be contrary to itself. So he established these in such a way that from them the thing of which they are the causes can come to be, but need not; while he hid those in such a way that from them must come to be what he made possible from these.

It is likewise often asked whether the body first formed for man from clay was an animal body, such as we have now, or a spiritual one, such as we shall have when we rise. For although the one will be changed into the other (“it is sown an animal body, it rises a spiritual body”), it is disputed what was made first for man, because, if an animal body was made, we shall not receive back what we lost in him, but something as much better as the spiritual is to be preferred to the animal, when we shall be equal to the angels of God. But angels can be surpassed by others even in righteousness; can they by the Lord too? Yet of him it is said, “You made him a little less than the angels.” Why, unless because of the weakness of flesh which he took from the virgin, receiving the form of a servant, in which by dying he might redeem us from servitude? But why discuss this at length? For the apostle's view on this matter is not obscure. Wishing to bring a testimony to prove that there is an animal body, he recalled and cited not so much his own body or that of any man, which was visible at present, as this very place of this Scripture, saying: “If there is an animal body, there is also a spiritual one. Thus it is also written: The first man Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. But not first what is spiritual, but what is animal, afterward the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As was the earthly, so are the earthly; and as is the heavenly, so are the heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of him who is from heaven.” What can be said to this? We now bear the image of the heavenly man by faith, to have in the resurrection what we believe; but the image of the earthly man we have borne from the very beginning of human generation.

Here another question arises: how are we renewed, if we are not called back through Christ to what we were before in Adam? For although many things are renewed not to their former state but to a better one, yet they are renewed from a state lower than that in which they were before. Why, then, was that son dead and came to life again, was lost and is found; why is the first robe brought out for him, if he does not receive back the immortality which Adam lost? But how did Adam lose immortality if he had an animal body? For it will be not an animal but a spiritual body when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality. Some, pressed by these difficulties, so that both the statement holds in which an example of the animal body is given from this place, where it is said, “The first man Adam became a living soul,” and this renewal and recovery of immortality may not absurdly be said to be a return to the former state, namely to what Adam lost, have thought that man was indeed at first of an animal body, but that when he was placed in paradise he was changed, as we too shall be changed in the resurrection. The book of Genesis does not mention this; but so that both testimonies of the Scriptures might agree with each other, both what is said about the animal body and the very many things found in the holy writings about our renewal, they believed this followed as if necessarily.

But if this is so, we try in vain to take paradise and those trees and their fruits first in the proper sense of events, apart from figurative signification. For who would believe that foods of that kind from the fruit of trees could have been necessary for immortal and spiritual bodies? Yet, if nothing else can be found, we would rather choose to understand paradise spiritually than either to think that man is not renewed, when Scripture mentions this so often, or to suppose that he receives back what he is not shown to have lost. Add to this that man's death itself, which many divine testimonies say he earned by sin, indicates that he would have been without death had he not sinned. How, then, was he mortal without death? Or how was he not mortal if he had an animal body?

Hence some think that he earned by sin not the death of the body but the death of the soul, which iniquity caused. For they believe that because of his animal body he would have departed from this body to rest, namely the rest which the saints who have already fallen asleep now have, and at the end of the age would have received the same members back immortally; so that the death of the body would seem to have befallen not from sin but naturally, as with the other animals. But the apostle meets them in turn and says, “The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you.” And therefore the death of the body too is from sin. If, then, Adam had not sinned, he would not have died in body, and therefore he would have had an immortal body too. How, then, immortal, if animal?

But again, those who think his body was changed in paradise, so as to become spiritual from animal, do not see that nothing prevented him, had he not sinned, from receiving after the life of paradise, which he would have lived righteously and obediently, the same change of the body into eternal life, where he would no longer need bodily food. Why, then, must we be forced for this reason to understand paradise figuratively, not properly, because the body could not die except through sin? It is true indeed that he would not have died even in body had he not sinned; for the apostle says plainly, “The body is dead because of sin.” Yet it could be animal before sin and, after a life of righteousness, when God willed, become spiritual.

“How, then,” they say, “are we said to be renewed, if we do not receive back what the first man lost, in whom all die?” Plainly we receive it back in one way, and do not receive it back in another. We do not receive back the immortality of a spiritual body, which man did not yet have; but we receive back the righteousness from which man fell through sin. We shall be renewed, then, from the oldness of sin, not into the former animal body in which Adam was, but into something better, that is, into a spiritual body, when we are made equal to the angels of God, fit for the heavenly dwelling, where we shall not need food that perishes. We shall be renewed, then, in the spirit of our mind according to the image of him who created us, which Adam lost by sinning. And we shall be renewed also in the flesh, when this corruptible puts on incorruption, so that it may be a spiritual body, into which Adam had not yet been changed but was to be changed, had he not earned by sinning the death even of the animal body. Finally, the apostle does not say, “The body indeed is mortal because of sin,” but, “The body is dead because of sin.”

For before sin that body could be called both mortal for one reason and immortal for another; that is, mortal because it could die, immortal because it could not die. For it is one thing not to be able to die, as God created certain natures immortal; it is another to be able not to die, in which way the first man was created immortal. This was granted him from the tree of life, not from the constitution of his nature; and he was separated from that tree when he sinned, so that he who, had he not sinned, could not die, could die. He was mortal, then, by the condition of an animal body, but immortal by the gift of the Founder. For if the body was animal, it was certainly mortal, because it could die, though also immortal because it could not die. For there will be no body immortal in such a way that it cannot die at all except the spiritual one, which is promised to us in the resurrection. And therefore that animal and therefore mortal body, which through righteousness would have become spiritual and therefore immortal in every way, was made through sin not mortal, which it was before, but dead, which it need not have become had man not sinned.

For how does the apostle call our body dead, when he was speaking of the living, unless because the very condition of dying, from the sin of the parents, has clung to the offspring? For this body too is animal, as the first man's was; but this one, within the very kind of animal body, is much worse; for it has the necessity of dying, which that one did not have. For although it still remained for that body to be changed and, made spiritual, to receive full immortality, where it would not need corruptible food, yet if man lived righteously his body would be changed into a spiritual condition, it would not go into death. But in us, even when we live righteously, the body is going to die. Because of this necessity coming from that first man's sin, the apostle called our body not mortal but dead, because we all die in Adam. He likewise says, “As the truth is in Jesus, put off, according to your former way of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the lusts of deceit,” that is, what Adam became through sin. See, then, what follows: “But be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth.” See what Adam lost through sin!

In this, then, we are renewed according to what Adam lost, that is, according to the spirit of our mind; but according to the body, which is sown animal and will rise spiritual, we shall be renewed into something better, which Adam not yet was. The apostle likewise says, “Stripping off the old man with his deeds, put on the new, who is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.” This image, impressed in the spirit of the mind, Adam lost through sin, and we receive it back through the grace of righteousness; not the spiritual and immortal body, in which he not yet was, and in which all the saints will be when they rise from the dead; for this is the reward of that merit which he lost. Accordingly, that first robe is either righteousness itself, from which he fell, or, if it signifies the garment of bodily immortality, he lost this too in this sense, that because of sin he could not attain it. For a man is said to have lost a wife or to have lost an honor who did not receive what he hoped for because he offended the one from whom he hoped for it.

According to this view, then, Adam had an animal body not only before paradise but also when placed in paradise, although in the inner man he was spiritual according to the image of him who created him. This he lost by sinning, and earned also the death of the body, he who by not sinning would have earned the change into a spiritual body as well. For if he lived in an animal way inwardly too, we cannot be said to be renewed to what he was. For to those to whom it is said, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” it is said so that they may become spiritual; and if he was not so even in his mind, how are we renewed to what man never was? The apostles and all the righteous certainly still had an animal body, yet they lived spiritually within, renewed, that is, in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created them; but they were not therefore no longer able to sin, if they consented to iniquity. For the apostle shows that even spiritual men can fall in the temptation of sin, when he says, “Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted.” This is said so that it may not seem impossible to anyone that Adam sinned if he was spiritual in mind though animal in body. This being so, we still affirm nothing prematurely, but wait rather to see whether the rest of Scripture also does not hinder this understanding.

There follows a very difficult question about the soul, on which many have labored and left us something to labor on. Whether because I have not been able to read everything by all those who, on this matter, have been able to reach something clear and not at all doubtful in accordance with the truth of our Scriptures, or because the question is so great that even those who truly solve it are not easily understood by such as I am, I confess that no one has yet persuaded me so that I hold a view about the soul such that I think nothing more needs to be sought. Whether I shall now find and define anything certain, I do not know. But what I can, if the Lord helps my effort, I shall take care to set out in the following book.

“And God formed man as dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” We had set these words of Scripture before us for consideration at the beginning of the previous book too, and we discussed the making of man himself, and above all his body, as far as we thought sufficient, according to what seemed right in the light of the Scriptures. But because the question of the human soul is no small one, we thought it should be put off to this book, not knowing how far the Lord would help us, who desire to speak rightly, yet knowing this: that unless he helped us, we would not speak rightly. To speak rightly is to speak truthfully and fittingly: refuting nothing boldly and affirming nothing rashly while it is still doubtful whether a thing is true or false, whether for Christian faith or for Christian knowledge, but asserting without hesitation what can be taught either by the plainest reasoning about things or by the surest authority of the Scriptures. And first let us look at what is written: “He blew” or “he breathed upon his face the breath of life.” For some manuscripts have “he breathed” or “he breathed into his face.” But since the Greek manuscripts have ἐνεφύσησεν, there is no doubt that “he blew” or “he breathed upon” is the right rendering. Now in the previous discussion we were asking about the hands of God when man was thought of as formed from mud. What, then, is to be said now about what is written, “God breathed upon,” except that, just as he did not form him with bodily hands, so he did not breathe with throat or lips? And yet with this word, I think, Scripture has helped us very much in a most difficult question.

For since some have believed, on the basis of this word, that the soul is something of the very substance of God, that is, of the same nature as he is, thinking so because when a man breathes out he puts forth something of himself in the breath, we ought rather to be warned by this to reject this opinion, which is hostile to the catholic faith. For we believe that the nature and substance of God, which is believed in the Trinity by many and understood by few, is altogether unchangeable. But who doubts that the nature of the soul can be changed either for the worse or for the better? And therefore it is a sacrilegious opinion to believe that it and God are of one substance. For what else is this but to believe that he too is changeable? So it is to be believed and understood, and in no way doubted, as the right faith holds, that the soul is from God as a thing which he made, not as of the nature which he himself is, whether by begetting it or by putting it forth in any way whatever.

“And how,” they say, “is it written, ‘He breathed upon his face, and man became a living soul,’ if the soul is not a part of God or wholly God's substance?” On the contrary, from this very word it is clear enough that it is not so. For when a man breathes out, the soul itself moves the nature of the body that lies under it and makes the breath from that, not from itself; unless perhaps these people are so slow that they do not know that, by this alternating breath which we draw in and give back from the surrounding air, breath is also produced when we breathe out at will. And even if we were to put out something by breathing, not from this air that lies around us outside, taken in and given back, but from the nature of which our body itself consists, the nature of the body and of the soul is not the same: and this they themselves certainly agree. So even thus the substance of the soul, by which it rules and moves the body, is one thing, and the breath, which by ruling and moving it makes from the body subject to it, not from itself, to which the body is subject, is another. Since, then, the soul rules the body subject to it, and God the creation subject to him, in a far incomparable way but still alike, why not rather understand that God made the soul from the creation subject to him, in that he is said to have breathed, since the soul itself, though it does not rule its body as God rules the universe he founded, still makes breath by moving the body, not from its own substance? We could indeed say that the breath of God is not itself the soul of man, but that God by breathing made the soul in man; but lest the things he made by a word be thought better than what he made by breath, because in us too a word is better than breath, there is for the present no reason, according to the reasoning given above, why we should hesitate to call the soul itself the breath of God, provided it is understood not to be God's nature and substance, but that to breathe is the same as to make breath, and to make breath is to make a soul. With this view agrees what God says through Isaiah: “For a spirit shall go forth from me, and every breath I have made.” For what follows shows that he does not mean just any bodily breath. For when he had said, “every breath I have made,” he says, “because of sin I grieved him a little and struck him.” What then does he call breath but the soul, which was struck and grieved because of sin? What then is “every breath I have made” but “every soul I have made”?

If, then, we called God, as it were, the soul of this bodily world, so that the world itself was to him like the body of one living being, we would rightly say that he made the soul of man by breathing only as something bodily, from this air lying under him, out of his body; yet we ought not to think that what he gave by breathing he gave from himself, but from the air of his body subject to him, just as the soul makes breath from a thing similarly lying near it, that is, from the body, not from itself. But as it is, since we say not only that the body of the world is subject to God but that he is above every creature, whether bodily or spiritual, he is not to be believed to have made the soul by breathing either from himself or from the bodily elements.

But whether he made it from what did not exist at all, that is, from nothing, or from some thing that had already been made by him spiritually, though the soul did not yet exist, may rightly be asked. For if we do not believe that God still creates anything from nothing after he created all things together, and believe for that reason that he rested from all the works he had begun to make, once they were completed, so that whatever he made afterwards he made from these, I do not see how we are to understand that he still makes souls from nothing. Or are we to say that in those works of the first six days he made that hidden day, or, if this is rather to be believed, the spiritual and intellectual nature, namely of the angelic unity, and the world, that is, heaven and earth, and that in those natures which already existed he created the reasons of other natures to come, not the natures themselves? Otherwise, if they had already been created there as they were going to be, they would not still be going to be. If this is so, there was not yet any nature of the human soul in the things founded, and it began to exist when God made it by breathing and put it into man. But the question is not thereby removed; for it is still asked whether he created that nature which is called the soul, and which did not exist before, from nothing, as though his breath itself was not made from any underlying substance (as we said of the breath which the soul makes from its body), but the breath was made wholly from nothing when God willed to breathe, and the same became the soul of man; or whether there was already something spiritual, although this, whatever it was, was not yet the nature of a soul, and from it the breath of God was made which was to be the nature of the soul, just as the nature of the human body did not yet exist before God formed it from the mud or dust of the earth. For human flesh was not dust or mud, yet there was something from which it might be made, though it did not yet exist.

Is it credible, then, that in those first works of the six days God founded not only the causal reason of the human body to come but also the material from which it would be made, that is, the earth, from whose mud or dust it would be formed, but for the soul founded there only the reason according to which it would be made, and not also some material of its own kind from which it would be made? For if the soul were something unchangeable, we ought in no way to look for its material, so to speak; but as it is, its changeableness shows clearly enough that it is at times made ugly by vices and errors and formed by virtues and the teaching of truth, but in its own nature, by which it already is a soul; just as the flesh too, in its own nature, by which it is already flesh, is both adorned by health and disfigured by diseases and wounds. But just as the flesh, apart from the fact that it is already flesh, a nature in which it either advances so as to be beautiful or declines so as to be ugly, also had material, that is, earth, from which it was made so as to be flesh at all: so perhaps the soul too, before it was made that very nature which is called the soul, whose beauty is virtue and whose ugliness is vice, could have had some material of its own kind, spiritual, which was not yet a soul, just as the earth from which flesh was made was already something, though it was not flesh. But the earth filled the lowest part of the world before the body of man was made from it, contributing its whole being to the universe, so that, even if no flesh of any living thing were made from it, it would still by its form complete the structure and mass of the world, according to which the world is called heaven and earth.

But that spiritual material, if there was any, from which the soul was made, or if there is any from which souls are made, what is it? What name, what form, what function does it hold among things founded? Does it live or not? If it lives, what does it do? What does it contribute to the workings of the universe? Does it lead a happy life, or a wretched one, or neither? Does it give life to anything? Or is it idle even from this work, and does it rest unoccupied in some recess of the universe, without wakeful sensation and living motion? For if there was as yet no life at all, how could there be a bodiless and lifeless material of life to come? Either it is false or it is very hidden. But if it already lived, neither happily nor wretchedly, how was it rational? And if it became rational when the nature of the human soul was made from that material, then was irrational life the material of the rational, that is, the human, soul? What then would distinguish it from that of a beast? Or was it already rational in possibility but not yet in capacity? For if we see that an infant's soul, which is certainly already the soul of a man, has not yet begun to use reason, and yet we already call it rational, why not believe that in that material from which it was made even the motion of sensation was at rest, just as in this infant's soul, which is certainly already the soul of a man, the motion of reasoning is still at rest?

For if the life from which the soul of man was made was already happy, then it was made worse, and so that life is not the material of this soul, but this soul is an outflowing of that life. For when any material is formed, especially by God, it is without doubt formed for the better. But even if the human soul could be understood as an outflowing of some life made by God in some happiness, not even so should it be believed to have begun to exist in any activity of its own merits except from the time it began to lead its own life, when it was made a soul animating flesh and using its senses as messengers, and perceiving itself living in itself by its will, understanding, and memory. For if there is something from which God breathed this outflowing into the formed flesh, as if making a soul by breathing, and that something is happy, it is in no way moved or changed or loses anything when this flows out of it from which the soul is made. For it is not a body, so as to be diminished as though by exhaling.

But if an irrational soul is in some way the material from which the rational, that is, the human, soul is made, it is asked again from what the irrational soul itself is made, since it too is made only by the creator of all natures. Is it from bodily material? Why not this one too, then? Unless perhaps someone will deny that God can do by a short way what is granted can be done by stages, as it were. So whatever intermediate step is introduced, if body is the material of the irrational soul and the irrational soul is the material of the rational soul, without doubt body is the material of the rational soul. I know of no one who has ever dared to think this, except one who places the soul itself only in the class of some kind of body. Next we must beware lest it be believed that some passing of the soul from beast into man can take place, which is wholly contrary to truth and to the catholic faith, if we grant that an irrational soul underlies as material from which a rational soul is made. For it will follow that, if this soul is changed for the better and becomes a man's, that other is changed for the worse and becomes a beast's. Even the successors of certain philosophers were ashamed of this absurdity of theirs, and said that they had not held it but had not been rightly understood. And I believe it is so. It is as if someone were to take this view even from our Scriptures, where it is said, “Man, being placed in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts and became like them,” or again where it is read, “Do not hand over to beasts the soul that confesses to you.” For not all heretics fail to read the catholic Scriptures, and they are heretics for no other reason than that, not understanding them well, they stubbornly assert their false opinions against their truth. But however the opinion of the philosophers about the cycles of souls stands or does not stand, it does not agree with the catholic faith to believe that the souls of beasts pass into men or those of men into beasts.

That men become like beasts by their way of life, human affairs themselves proclaim and Scripture bears witness. Hence the verse I mentioned: “Man, being placed in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless cattle and became like them”: but in this life, certainly, not after death. So he who said, “Do not hand over to beasts the soul that confesses to you,” did not wish his soul to be given into the power either of such beasts, the kind the Lord means we should beware of when he says that they are clothed in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves, or of the devil himself and his angels; for he too is called both lion and dragon. For what argument do the philosophers bring who think that the souls of men can be transferred after death into beasts, or those of beasts into men? This, certainly: that likeness of character draws them to it, the greedy into ants, the rapacious into kites, the cruel and proud into lions, the followers of unclean pleasure into swine, and the like. This is what they assert, and they do not notice that by this reasoning it can in no way happen that the soul of a beast is transferred into a man after death. For a pig will in no way be more like a man than like a pig; and when lions are tamed, they become more like dogs or even sheep than men. Since, then, beasts do not depart from the character of beasts, and those that become a little unlike the rest are still more like their own kind than the human, and differ far more from men than from beasts, these souls will never be the souls of men, if it is likeness that draws them. But if this argument is false, how will that opinion be true, since they bring nothing else by which it might be held, if not true, at least probable? So I myself would more readily believe, as even their later followers did, that those men who first put these things in their books wished it to be understood that in this life men become like beasts by a certain perversity and foulness of character, and so in a way are changed into beasts, so that by setting this disgrace before them they might call them back from depraved desires.

As for the stories told of things that happened, that some people seemed to remember in the bodies of which animals they had been, either they are false or this was produced in their minds by the deceptions of demons. For if it happens in sleep that a man, by a false memory, seems to remember that he was what he was not, or did what he did not do, what wonder if, by some just and hidden judgment of God, demons are allowed to be able to do something of the kind even in the hearts of those who are awake? The Manichees, however, who either think themselves Christians or wish to be thought so, are in this opinion of the transfer or cycle of souls worse and more detestable than those pagan philosophers, or any other vain men who think so, in that those philosophers distinguish the nature of the soul from the nature of God, whereas these, though they say that the soul is nothing other than the very substance of God and wholly what God is, do not shrink from calling it so shamefully changeable that, in their amazing madness, they think there is no kind of plant or little worm with which it is not mixed or into which it cannot be turned. Yet if they put out of their minds questions about the most obscure things, which, turned over by a carnal heart, must slip and tumble into false, harmful, and monstrous opinions, and held most firmly this one thing, which is naturally and truly implanted in every rational soul without the windings of any argument, that God is wholly unchangeable and incorruptible, their whole thousand-shaped fable would collapse at once, which in their vain and sacrilegious minds they have painted only out of a most shameful changeableness of God. Therefore the material of the human soul is not an irrational soul either.

What, then, is it from which the soul was made by the breath of God? Was it some body, earthy and moist? By no means; for from this rather the flesh was made. For what else is mud but moist earth? Nor is the soul to be believed made from moisture alone, as though the flesh were made from earth and the soul from water. For it is too absurd to think that the soul of man was made from that from which the flesh of fish and bird was made. Perhaps, then, from air? For breath belongs to this element; but ours, not God's. So we said above that this could fittingly be thought if we believed God to be the soul of the world as of one very great living being, so that he breathed it from the air of his body, as our soul breathes from that of its own. But since it is certain that God is above the whole body of the world and above every spirit he created, at an altogether incomparable distance, how can this rightly be said? Or perhaps, the more God is present to his whole creation by his unique omnipotence, the more he could make from air a breath that would be the soul of man? But since the soul is not bodily, and whatever is made from the bodily elements of the world must be bodily, and this air too is counted among the elements of the world, it ought not to be believed even if the soul were said to be made from the element of that pure and heavenly fire. For there have been some who asserted that every body can be changed into every body; but that any body, whether earthly or heavenly, is turned into a soul and becomes a bodiless nature, I know of no one who has held, nor does the faith hold it.

Next, if what physicians not only say but claim to prove is not to be despised: although all flesh plainly bears an earthy solidity, it also has in it something of air, which is held in the lungs and spread from the heart through the veins they call arteries; and of fire, not only the hot quality, whose seat is in the liver, but also the bright quality, which they show to be refined and to rise up to the high region of the brain, as into the heaven of our body. From there the rays of the eyes flash out, and from its middle, as from a kind of center, fine tubes lead not only to the eyes but to the other senses also, namely to the ears, the nostrils, and the palate, for hearing, smelling, and tasting; and the sense of touch itself, which is throughout the whole body, is directed from the same brain through the marrow of the neck and the marrow enclosed in the bones of which the spine of the back is composed, so that from there certain very fine little streams, which produce the sense of touch, spread through all the limbs.

Since, then, the soul receives through these messengers, as it were, whatever of bodily things is not hidden from it, while it itself is something so different that, when it wishes to understand either divine things or God or even itself altogether and to consider its own powers, so as to grasp something true and certain, it turns away even from this light of the eyes and, perceiving that for this task it is not only no help but even something of a hindrance, raises itself to the gaze of the mind: how is it something of that kind, when the highest of that kind is nothing but the light that flashes from the eyes, by which the soul is not helped except to perceive bodily forms and colors, while the soul itself holds countless things far unlike the whole class of bodies, which it sees only by understanding and reason, to which no sense of the flesh aspires?

Therefore the nature of the human soul is not from earth, nor water, nor air, nor any kind of fire; yet it governs the material of its grosser body, that is, a certain moist earth turned into the quality of flesh, through the finer nature of body, that is, through light and air. For without these two there is neither any sensation in the body nor any spontaneous movement of the body by the soul. And just as knowing must come before doing, so sensing comes before moving. The soul, then, since it is a bodiless thing, acts first on the body that is close to the bodiless, such as fire, or rather light, and air, and through these on the other, grosser parts of the body, such as moisture and earth (from which the bulk of the flesh is made solid), which are more subject to being acted upon than endowed for acting.

So it does not seem to me that “man became a living soul” was said for any reason except that he began to have sensation in the body, which is the surest sign of animated and living flesh. For trees too are moved, not only by a force pushing from outside, as when they are shaken by the winds, but by the motion by which everything belonging to the growth and form of a tree is worked from within, by which sap is drawn into the root and turned into the things of which the nature of plant or wood consists; for none of these happens without inner motion. But this motion is not spontaneous, like the motion joined to sensation for governing the body, as in every kind of animal, which Scripture calls a living soul. For if that other motion were not also in us, our bodies would not grow, nor put forth nails and hair. But if this alone were in us, without sensation and that spontaneous motion, it would not be said that man became a living soul.

Accordingly, since the front part of the brain, from which all the senses are distributed, is placed toward the forehead, and the organs of sensation themselves are, as it were, in the face (except the sense of touch, which is spread through the whole body; yet even this is shown to have its path from the same front part of the brain, a path which leads backward through the crown and the neck to the marrow of the spine, of which we spoke a little before, so that the face too has the sense of touch, like the whole body, besides the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste, which are placed in the face alone): for this reason, I think, it is written that God breathed the breath of life into man's face when he became a living soul. For the front part is rightly put before the back, because the one leads and the other follows, and from the one comes sensation, from the other movement, just as deliberation goes before action.

And since no bodily movement that follows sensation takes place without intervals of time, and we cannot manage intervals of time by spontaneous movement except with the help of memory, three ventricles, as it were, of the brain are pointed out: one in front, toward the face, from which all sensation comes; another behind, toward the neck, from which all movement comes; and a third between the two, in which they show that memory is active, so that, when movement follows sensation, a man may not fail to connect what is to be done through having forgotten what he has done. They say these things are proved by sure signs, since when these parts themselves have been affected by some disease or defect, and the functions of sensing, or of moving the limbs, or of remembering bodily movement have failed, it has become clear enough what each of them does, and when treatment was applied it was found which function it served to restore. But the soul acts in these as in organs; it is none of them itself; but it gives life to and rules them all, and through them provides for the body and for this life in which man became a living soul.

So when it is asked where the soul itself comes from, that is, from what material, as it were, God made this breath which is called the soul, nothing bodily ought to come to mind. For just as God surpasses every creature, so the soul surpasses every bodily creature in the dignity of its nature. Yet it governs the body through light and air, which in the world too are the superior bodies and have more of the excellence of acting than of the bulk of being acted upon, as moisture and earth have; it governs it, as it were, through the things more like spirit. For bodily light reports something; but that to which it reports is not what it is; and the soul is that to which it reports, not the light that reports. And when the soul feels the afflictions of the body with distress, it is offended that its action, by which it is present to the body to rule it, is hindered when the body's balance is disturbed, and this offense is called pain. And the air poured into the nerves obeys the will, to move the limbs, but is not itself the will. And that middle part reports the movement of the limbs so that it may be held in memory; it is not itself memory. Finally, when these, its servants as it were, fail completely through some defect or disturbance, the messengers of sensation and the servants of movement ceasing, the soul departs, as having no reason to be present. But if they do not fail in the way that usually happens in death, the soul's attention is disturbed, as of one trying to restore what is slipping and unable to do so. And from the things in which it is disturbed one learns which part of its servants is the cause, so that, if possible, medicine may help.

For that the soul itself is one thing, and these bodily servants of it, or vessels, or organs, or whatever they may more aptly be called, another, is evidently clear from this: that often, by an intense effort of thought, it turns itself away from everything, so that it does not know many things set before eyes that are open and perfectly healthy; and if the effort is greater, it suddenly stops while walking, turning away its signal of command from the service of motion by which the feet were moved. But if the effort of thought is not so great as to fix the walker to the spot, but is still so great that the soul is not free to attend to that middle part of the brain which reports the movements of the body, it sometimes forgets both where it is coming from and where it is going, and unawares passes the farm it was heading for, the nature of its body being sound, but its own nature called away to something else. Therefore, as to these bodily particles of the bodily heaven, that is, of light and air, which first receive the signals of the life-giving soul, because they are nearer to the bodiless nature than moisture and earth, so that the whole mass is governed through their immediate service: whether God mixed them into or joined them to the body of the living being from this heaven poured around and above us, or made them too from the mud, like the flesh, is a question not to the point. For it is credible that every body can be changed into every body; but to believe that any body can be changed into a soul is absurd.

For this reason we must not listen either to what some have thought, that there is a certain fifth body from which souls come, which is neither earth nor water nor air nor fire (whether this more turbulent, earthly fire or that pure and bright heavenly one), but something else, lacking a customary name, yet still a body. For if those who think so mean by body what we mean, that is, any nature that occupies a space in place by length, breadth, and height, the soul is neither this nor is it to be believed made from it. For whatever is of that kind, not to say more, can be divided or bounded by lines in any part of it: and if the soul were subject to this, it could in no way know lines of the kind that cannot be cut lengthwise, which it nevertheless knows cannot be found in a body. Nor does the soul meet anything of this kind in itself, since it cannot fail to know itself, even when it inquires so as to know itself. For when it seeks itself, it knows that it is seeking itself; which it could not know if it did not know itself. For it seeks itself from nowhere else than from itself. Since, then, it knows itself seeking, it certainly knows itself, and whatever it knows, it knows as a whole. So when it knows itself seeking, it knows itself as a whole, and therefore it knows the whole of itself; for it knows nothing else but itself, as a whole. Why then does it still seek itself, if it knows itself seeking? For if it did not know itself, it could not know that it is seeking itself; but this is in the present; what it seeks about itself is what it was before or what it will be. Let it stop, then, for the present, suspecting that it is a body, because if it were something of that kind, it would know itself as such, since it knows itself better than it knows heaven and earth, which it knows through the eyes of its body. I pass over saying that that power of the soul which even beasts and the birds of the sky are understood to have when they return to their lairs or nests, in which the images of all bodily things are grasped, is in no way like any body; and surely that power ought rather to be like a body in which the likenesses of bodily things are contained. But if this is not a body, since it is certain that these likenesses of bodies are not only held there in memory but countless ones are also formed at will, how much less can the soul be like a body in any other power of its own! But if they call everything that is, that is, every nature and substance, a body in some other sense, this way of speaking is indeed not to be admitted, lest we find no way of speaking by which to distinguish the things that are not bodies from bodies; yet we need not labor too much over a name. For we too say that whatever the soul is, it is not of these four best known elements, which are plainly bodies, but neither is it what God is. But what it is, is not better said than “soul” or “spirit of life.” “Of life” is added because this air too is often called spirit. Although they have also called this same air soul, so that a name can no longer be found by which this nature can be properly distinguished, which is neither body nor God, nor life without sensation, such as can be believed to be in trees, nor life without a rational mind, such as is in beasts, but a life now lower than that of the angels, and one that will be what the angels are, if it lives here according to its creator's command. But where it comes from, that is, from what material, as it were, it was made, or from what perfect and happy nature it flowed out, or whether it was made wholly from nothing: even though this is doubted and inquired into, this at least is in no way to be doubted, that, if something existed before, what existed was made by God, and that the soul has now been made by God so as to be a living soul; for either nothing existed, or what exists now did not exist. But the part in which we were inquiring into its material, so to speak, from which it was made, we have now treated enough.

Now, if the soul did not exist at all, we must ask how we can understand the statement that its causal reason existed in the first works of the six days of God, when God made man to his image, which is not rightly understood except of the soul. We must beware, though, lest, when we say that God did not then create the very natures and substances that were to be, when he created all things together, but certain causal reasons of those that were to be, we be thought to be saying something empty. For what are these causal reasons according to which God could already be said to have made man to his image, when he had not yet formed his body from the mud nor made his soul by breathing? And of the human body, even if there was some hidden reason by which it was to be formed, there was also the material from which it would be formed, that is, earth, in which that reason can be seen to have lain hidden as in a seed; but what causal reason for making the soul, that is, for making the breath that would be man's soul, was first founded there when God said, “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (which cannot rightly be understood except of the soul), if there was no nature in which it might be founded? For if this reason was in God, not in a creature, then it had not yet been founded. How then was it said, “God made man to the image of God”? But if it was already in a creature, that is, in the things God had created all together, in what creature was it? Spiritual or bodily? If spiritual, did that creature do anything in the bodies of the world, whether heavenly or earthly? And was this reason lying idle in it before man was founded in his own proper nature, just as in man himself, once he leads his own life, the reason of begetting lies hidden and idle and does not work except through intercourse and conception? Or did that spiritual creature, in which this reason lay hidden, do no work of its own? And for what purpose had it been created? Was it to contain the reason of the human soul to come, or of the souls to come, as though these could not exist in themselves, but only in some creature already living its own life, just as the reason of begetting cannot exist except in natures already existing and complete? Then some spiritual creature was set up as the parent of the soul, in which the reason of the soul to come would be, a soul which does not come into being from it except when God makes it to be breathed into man. For even from man God alone creates and forms the offspring, whether as seed or as the child itself, through Wisdom, which reaches everywhere because of its purity, so that nothing defiled falls into it, while it reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly. But I do not know how it can be understood that some spiritual creature was created only for this purpose, a creature which would not be mentioned among the works of God made in those six days, when God is said to have made man on the sixth day, whom he had not yet made in his own nature, but still only by a causal reason in that creature which is not mentioned. For that creature ought rather to have been mentioned, which had been so completed that it was not still to be made according to a reason going before it.

Or perhaps, in the nature of that day which he founded first, if that day is rightly taken as intellectual spirit, God placed this causal reason for making the soul when on the sixth day he made man to his image, fixing beforehand, that is, the cause and reason according to which he would make him after those seven days, so that he may be believed to have created the causal reason of man's body in the nature of the earth, and that of his soul in the nature of that day? But what else is said, when this is said, than that the angelic spirit is a kind of parent of the human soul, if the reason for creating the human soul is founded beforehand in it in the way that the reason of his future offspring is in a man, so that men are the parents of human bodies and angels the parents of souls, while God is the creator of both bodies and souls, but of bodies from men and of souls from angels; or of the first body from earth and of the first soul from the angelic nature, where he had fixed their causal reasons beforehand when he first made man among the things he created all together, but thereafter men from men, body from body, soul from soul! It is hard to say that the soul is the daughter of an angel or of angels, but much harder to say it is the daughter of the bodily heaven; how much more, then, of sea and earth! Much less, therefore, was the causal reason of the soul founded beforehand in any bodily creature when God made man to his image, before in its own time he animated him, formed from the mud, by his breath, if it is absurd to believe that he founded the soul causally in the angelic nature.

Let us see, then, whether this may perhaps be true, which certainly seems to me more acceptable to human opinion: that God, in those first works which he created all together, created the human soul too, which in its own time he would breathe into the limbs of the body formed from mud, while of that body he created, among the things founded together, the reason causally, according to which the human body would be made when it was to be made. For we rightly understand “to his image” only of the soul, and “male and female” only of the body. Let it be believed, then, if no authority of the Scriptures or reasoning of truth contradicts it, that man was made on the sixth day in such a way that the causal reason of the human body was created in the elements of the world, but the soul itself was created, just as the day was first founded, and, once created, lay hidden in the works of God until in its own time he put it, by breathing, that is, by breathing into, into the body formed from mud.

But here again a question arises which is not to be despised. For if the soul had already been made and lay hidden, where could it be better off than there? What reason was there, then, for the soul, living innocently, to be put into the life of this flesh, in which by sinning it would offend him who created it, so that the hardship of toil and the torment of condemnation would rightly follow it? Or must it be said that it was inclined by its own will to govern a body, so that in this life of the body, since one can live in it both justly and unjustly, it would have what it chose, either a reward for justice or a punishment for injustice, so that this would not be contrary to the apostle's statement that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil? For that inclination of the will toward the body is not yet an act either of justice or of injustice, for which account is to be given at the judgment of God, when each will receive according to what he did through the body, whether good or evil. Why, then, should we not believe this too, that it came to the body at God's bidding, where, if it chose to act according to his command, it would receive the reward of eternal life and the company of the angels, but if it despised it, it would pay the most just penalties, either of long toil or of eternal fire? Or, because this very thing, having obeyed God when he willed it, is certainly already a good act, will it be contrary to the statement that those not yet born had done nothing either good or evil?

If this is so, we shall also admit that the soul was not first created in such a class of things as to foreknow its future work, whether just or unjust. For it is quite incredible that it could have been inclined by its own will to the life of the body if it foreknew that it would sin in certain things in such a way as to be justly punished with everlasting punishment. The Creator is rightly praised in all things, who made all things very good. For he is not to be praised only for those to which he gave foreknowledge, since he is rightly praised also because he created beasts, to which human nature is superior even in those who sin. For the nature of man is from God, not the injustice in which he has entangled himself by misusing free choice; yet if he did not have free choice, he would be less excellent in the nature of things. For we must think of a man living justly even without foreknowledge of the future, and there we must see how little the excellence of a good will is hindered from living rightly and pleasing God by the fact that, not knowing the future, it lives by faith. Whoever, then, would not want such a creature to exist among things contradicts the goodness of God; and whoever does not want it to pay penalties for its sins is an enemy of justice.

But if the soul is made in order to be sent into a body, it may be asked whether it is compelled if it does not wish it. But it is better believed that it wills this naturally, that is, that it is created in such a nature as to will it, just as it is natural for us to will to live; but to live badly is no longer a matter of nature but of a perverse will, which punishment justly follows. It is useless, then, to ask any longer from what material, as it were, the soul was made, if it can rightly be understood to have been made in those first works, when the day was made; for just as those things which did not exist were made, so was this among them. But if there was also some formable material, both bodily and spiritual (yet not itself set up except by God, from whom are all things), which preceded its own forming not in time but in origin, as sound precedes song, what is more fittingly believed than that the soul was made from spiritual material?

But if anyone does not want to think that the soul was made except when it was breathed into the formed body, let him see what he will answer when asked from what it was made. For either he will say that God made or makes something from nothing after that completion of his works, and he must consider how he will explain that man was made on the sixth day to the image of God (which cannot rightly be understood except of the soul), that is, in what nature the causal reason was made of a thing that did not yet exist; or he will say that the soul was made not from nothing but from something already existing, and he will labor in inquiring what that nature is, whether bodily or spiritual, according to the questions we turned over above, while that difficulty also remains, that it is still asked in which substance of the creatures first founded in the six days God made that causal reason of the soul, which he had not yet made either from nothing or from something. And if he wishes to avoid this by saying that man was also made from the mud on the sixth day, but that this was mentioned afterwards by way of recapitulation, let him see what he will say about the woman, because it says, “Male and female he made them, and he blessed them.” And if he answers that she too was made on that day from the man's bone, let him consider how he will assert that the birds that were brought to Adam were made on the sixth day, when Scripture indicates that every kind of bird was created from the waters on the fifth day; and likewise that the trees which were planted in paradise were made on the sixth day, when the same Scripture assigned this kind of creature to the third day. Let him also consider the words themselves, what is meant by “He made to spring up besides from the earth every tree beautiful to look at and good for food,” as though those which the earth had brought forth on the third day were not beautiful to look at and good for food, when they were among the works all of which God made very good; and what is meant by “God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky,” as though those first produced were not all, or rather none had been produced before. For it does not say, “And God formed besides from the earth the rest of the beasts of the field and the rest of the birds of the sky,” as if supplying those which the earth on the sixth day or the water on the fifth day had produced less, but “all the beasts,” it says, “and all the birds.” Let him also think how God both made all things in six days (first the day itself, on the second the firmament, on the third the form of sea and land and from the land plants and trees, on the fourth the lights and stars, on the fifth the creatures of the waters, on the sixth those of the land) and it is afterwards said, “When the day was made, God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field,” since, when the day was made, he made nothing but the day itself; how, too, he made every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and every plant before it sprang up; for who would not say it was made when it sprang up, not before it sprang up, unless the words of Scripture called him back? Let him remember too that it is written, “He who lives for ever created all things together,” and see how things can be said to have been created together whose creation is separated by intervals of time, not only of hours but of days. Let him take care also to show how both are true, though they may seem contrary: that God rested on the seventh day from all his works, as the book of Genesis says, and that he is working until now, as the Lord says. Let him consider too how the things said to have been completed are said also to have been begun. For by all these testimonies of divine Scripture, which no one doubts to be truthful except an unbeliever or an ungodly man, we were led to the view that we said God from the beginning of the age first created all things together, some with their natures already founded, some with their causes founded beforehand; just as the Almighty made not only present things but also future ones, and rested from making them, so that afterwards, by governing and ruling them, he might also create the orders of times and of temporal things; for he had both completed them, because of the boundaries of all kinds, and begun them, because of the unfolding of the ages, so that because of the completed things he rested, and because of the begun things he is working until now. But if these things can be better understood, I not only do not resist but welcome it. For now, however, about the soul which God breathed into man by breathing into his face, I affirm nothing except that it is from God in such a way that it is not the substance of God, and that it is bodiless, that is, not a body but a spirit; not begotten from the substance of God nor proceeding from the substance of God, but made by God; and not made in such a way that any nature of body or of irrational soul was turned into its nature, and therefore made from nothing; and that it is immortal according to a certain mode of life which it can in no way lose; but according to a certain changeableness, by which it can become worse or better, it may not unfittingly be understood to be also mortal, since true immortality belongs only to him of whom it is properly said, “who alone has immortality.” The other things I have said in this book by way of discussion should serve the reader for this: either to know how the things which Scripture does not say openly are to be inquired into without rashness in affirming, or, if this way of inquiring does not please him, to let me know how he himself has inquired, so that, if he can teach me, I may not refuse; but if he cannot, let him seek with me the one from whom we may both learn.

“And God planted paradise in Eden toward the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed.” I am not unaware that many people have said many things about paradise; yet there are, so to speak, three general views on the matter. One is of those who want paradise to be understood only bodily; another of those who want it understood only spiritually; the third of those who take paradise in both ways, sometimes bodily and sometimes spiritually. To put it briefly, then, I confess that the third view pleases me. According to it I have undertaken now to speak about paradise, as the Lord will deign to grant, so that the man made from mud (which is certainly a human body) may be understood as placed in a bodily paradise. Just as Adam himself, even if he signifies something else, according to the apostle's saying that he was a type of the one to come, is still taken as a man expressed in his own nature, who lived a certain number of years and, having produced numerous offspring, died, just as other men die, even if he was not born from parents like the rest but was made from the earth, as had to be at the first; so too paradise, in which God placed him, is to be understood as nothing other than a certain place, namely of the earth, where an earthly man might live. For the narrative in these books is not in the kind of speech used for figurative things, as in the Song of Songs, but is wholly of things done, as in the books of Kingdoms and others of that kind. But because in those books things are said which the most familiar experience of human life contains, they are taken first, not with difficulty but very readily, in the literal sense, so that afterwards one may draw out from them what the very events also signified of things to come; here, however, because things are said which do not occur to those who look at the usual course of nature, some do not want them understood as said properly but figuratively, and they want the history, that is, the narrative of things properly done, to begin from the point where Adam and Eve, sent out of paradise, came together and had children. As though it were usual for us that they lived so many years, or that Enoch was taken away, or that a woman both very old and barren gave birth, and the like. “But,” they say, “a narrative of wonderful deeds is one thing, a narrative of the founding of creatures another; for there the very unusualness of the events shows that there are some modes of things that are natural, so to speak, and others that are miracles (which are called mighty works), whereas here the founding of natures itself is being presented.” To them the answer is: but these too are unusual because they are the first. For what is so without example and without equal in the establishment of worldly things as the world? Is it therefore not to be believed that God made the world, because he no longer makes worlds, or that he made the sun, because he no longer makes suns? And this answer should indeed have been given to those disturbed not about paradise but about man himself; but as it is, since they believe that man was made by God in a way that no one else was made, why are they unwilling to believe that paradise was made in the way they now see woods come to be? I am speaking, of course, to those who follow the authority of these writings; for some of them want paradise understood not properly but figuratively. With those who are wholly opposed to these writings we have dealt elsewhere and in another way, although in this very work too we defend these things in the literal sense as far as we can, so that those who refuse to believe them, moved not by reason but by a stubborn or dull mind, may still find no reason by which to prove them false. But as for these people of ours, who have faith in these divine books and do not want paradise understood according to the proper sense of the letter, namely as a most pleasant place, shaded by fruitful groves, and also large and made fertile by a great spring, though they see so many and such great green places grow into woods with no human work, by the hidden work of God: I wonder how they believe that man himself was made in a way they have never seen. Or if he too is to be understood figuratively, who begot Cain and Abel and Seth? Or were they too only figurative, and not also men born of men? Let them consider, then, from close at hand where this presumption leads, and let them try with us to take all the things that are narrated as done first as the expression of their proper sense. For who would not afterwards support them when they understand what these things also suggest by figurative meaning, whether about spiritual natures or affections themselves, or about things to come? Certainly, if the things which are named here bodily could in no way be taken bodily without harm to the faith of truth, what would remain but to understand them as said figuratively, rather than ungodly to find fault with holy Scripture? But if, understood bodily, these things not only do not hinder but even more firmly support the narrative of the divine word, there will be no one, I think, so unbelievingly stubborn that, when he sees them expounded in their proper sense according to the rule of faith, he would prefer to remain in his former opinion, if perhaps it had seemed to him that they could only be taken figuratively.

For I too, against the Manichees, who err not by taking these writings of the Old Testament otherwise than they should, but blaspheme by not accepting them at all and detesting them, wrote two books soon after my conversion, wishing quickly either to refute their ravings or to direct their attention to seeking the Christian and gospel faith in the writings which they hate. And because at that time it did not occur to me how all things could be taken in their proper sense, and it seemed rather that they could not, or could only barely and with difficulty, I explained, so as not to be held up, what the things which I could not find in the literal sense signified figuratively, as briefly and clearly as I could, so that they might not be deterred by much reading or by obscure argument from taking them in hand. Yet, remembering what I chiefly wanted and could not achieve, that all things should be understood first not figuratively but properly, and not wholly despairing that they could be understood so, I put it this way in the first part of the second book: “Certainly,” I said, “whoever wishes to take all that has been said according to the letter, that is, to understand it no otherwise than the letter sounds, and can avoid blasphemies and declare everything in agreement with the catholic faith, should not only not be begrudged, but should be held an outstanding and highly praiseworthy interpreter. But if no way out is given for understanding what is written in a manner pious and worthy of God except by believing these things to be set forth figuratively and in riddles, having the authority of the apostles, by whom so many riddles of the books of the Old Testament are solved, let us keep to the method we intend, with the help of him who urges us to ask, seek, and knock, so as to explain all these figures of things according to the catholic faith, whether they belong to history or to prophecy, without prejudice to a better and more careful treatment, either by us or by others to whom the Lord deigns to reveal it.” That is what I said then. But now, since the Lord has willed that, looking at and considering these things more carefully, I should think, not in vain I believe, that I too could show that these things were written according to their proper and not according to an allegorical manner of speech, let us examine what follows about paradise in the same way as we wished to show the earlier things.

So “God planted paradise in delights” (for this is what Eden means) “toward the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed.” It is written so because it was done so. Then he recapitulates, so as to show how this very thing which he set down briefly was done, that is, how God planted paradise and established there the man whom he had formed. For it goes on: “And God made to spring up besides from the earth every tree beautiful to look at and good for food.” He did not say, “And God made to spring up from the earth another tree” or “the rest of the trees,” but “he made to spring up besides from the earth,” it says, “every tree beautiful to look at and good for food.” So the earth had already then brought forth every tree both beautiful to look at and good for food, that is, on the third day; for on the sixth day he had said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant yielding seed, which is upon all the earth, and every fruit-bearing tree that has in it the fruit of seed-bearing seed, which shall be food for you.” Did he then give them one thing, and wish to give another now? I think not. But since these trees set up in paradise were of the kinds which the earth had already brought forth on the third day, the earth brought them forth besides in their own time, because then, of course, what is written, that the earth brought them forth, was done causally in the earth; that is, because then it had received in hidden form the power of bringing them forth, by which power it comes about that even now the earth produces such things openly and in their own time. So the words of God saying on the sixth day, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant yielding seed, which is upon all the earth,” and the rest, are not words uttered by a sounding or temporal voice, but are as the power of creating is in his Word; but what God said without temporal sounds could be told to men only through temporal sounds. For it was to come about that man, once formed from mud and animated by his breath, and whatever of the human race came from him, would use for food the things that were to spring up on the earth from that power of generating which the earth had already received. Founding the causal reasons of this future in creation, he spoke as though it already existed, by an inner and inmost truth, which eye has not seen nor ear heard, but which his Spirit certainly revealed to the writer.

But what follows, “and the tree of life in the middle of paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of discerning good and evil,” must be considered more carefully, lest it force us into allegory, so that these were not trees but signify something else under the name of tree. For it is said of Wisdom, “She is a tree of life to all who embrace her.” But although there is an eternal Jerusalem in the heavens, a city by which it might be signified was also founded on earth; and although Sarah and Hagar signified the two covenants, they were nevertheless also two real women; and although Christ waters us with a spiritual stream through the suffering on the wood, there was nevertheless also the rock which, struck with wood, poured out water for the thirsty people, of which it could be said, “And the rock was Christ.” All those things signified something other than what they were, but they also existed bodily themselves. And when they were mentioned by the narrator, that was not figurative speech, but the express narrative of things which were a figurative foreshadowing. So there was also a tree of life, as the rock was Christ; and God did not wish man to live in paradise without the mysteries of spiritual things presented bodily. So in the other trees he had nourishment, but in that one a sacrament; signifying what but Wisdom, of whom it was said, “She is a tree of life to those who embrace her,” just as it might be said of Christ, “He is a flowing rock to those who thirst for him”? For what went before to signify him is rightly called by his name. He is the lamb that is sacrificed at the Passover; yet that was prefigured not only by saying but also by doing. For that lamb was certainly a lamb; it was plainly a lamb and was killed and eaten. And yet by that real deed something else was also prefigured; not like that fatted calf which was killed for the feast when the younger son returned. For there the narrative itself is of figures, not of things done with a figurative meaning. For it was not the evangelist but the Lord himself who narrated this; the evangelist narrated that the Lord narrated it. So what the evangelist narrated also happened, namely that the Lord said such things; but the Lord's own narrative was a parable, of which it is never required that the things told in words be shown to have happened literally. Christ is both the stone anointed by Jacob and the stone rejected by the builders which has become the head of the corner; but the first also happened in actual events, while the second was only foretold in figures. For the first was written by a narrator of past events, the second by one who only foretold future ones.

So too Wisdom, who is Christ himself, is the tree of life in the spiritual paradise, into which he sent the thief from the cross; but there was also created, to signify her, a tree of life in the bodily paradise, because that Scripture said so which, narrating things done in their own times, narrated both that man was made bodily and that, living in the body, he was established there. Or if anyone thinks that souls, when they have left the body, are held in bodily visible places, though they are without a body, let him maintain his view; there will be no lack of people to support it, so that they contend that even that rich man who thirsted was in a bodily place, and do not hesitate to declare that the soul itself is wholly bodily because of the parched tongue and the drop of water desired from Lazarus's finger; with them I do not rashly do battle about so great a question. For it is better to doubt about hidden things than to quarrel about uncertain ones. I do not doubt that that rich man is to be understood as in the burning of punishment, and that poor man in the refreshment of joys. But how that flame of hell is to be understood, that bosom of Abraham, that tongue of the rich man, that finger of the poor man, that thirst of torment, that drop of refreshment, is perhaps hardly found by those who seek gently, and never by those who fight contentiously. I must answer briefly, lest this deep question, which needs much discussion, hold us up. If souls are held in bodily places, even when stripped of their bodies, that thief could have been brought into the paradise where the body of the first man had been; so that in a more suitable place in the Scriptures, if any need demands it, we may set out in some fashion what we either ask or think on this matter too. But for now, that Wisdom is not a body and therefore not a tree, I do not doubt, nor do I think anyone doubts; but that Wisdom could have been signified in the bodily paradise through a tree, that is, through a bodily creature, as by a kind of sacrament, he alone thinks unbelievable who either does not see so many bodily sacraments of spiritual things in the Scriptures, or contends that the first man ought not to have lived with any sacrament of that kind, although the apostle says that even this, which was said about the woman who was certainly made for him from his side, “Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will be in one flesh,” is a great sacrament in Christ and in the church. But it is strange and hardly bearable how people want paradise to have been spoken of figuratively but do not want it to have been made figuratively too. And if they grant that, as with Hagar and Sarah, as with Ishmael and Isaac, these things too were both done and also figurative, I do not see why they do not admit that the tree of life too was truly a tree and yet prefigured Wisdom. I add this too: that although that tree gave bodily food, it was such as to strengthen the body of man in lasting health, not as from other food, but by some hidden inbreathing of wholeness. For certainly the ordinary bread had something more about it, by one cake of which God protected a man from the want of hunger for forty days. Or shall we hesitate to believe that through the food of some tree, for the sake of some higher signification, God granted to man that his body should not be changed for the worse by weakness or age, or even slip into death, when he gave to human food itself so wonderful a state that, in clay jars, flour and oil, as they ran out, were restored and did not run out? Now let someone of the contentious kind arise and say that God ought to have done such miracles in our lands, but not in paradise: as if he did not do a greater miracle there in making man from dust or woman from the man's side than when here he raised the dead.

Next we are to look at the tree of the knowledge of discerning good and evil. This tree too was certainly visible and bodily like the other trees. That it was a tree, then, is not to be doubted; but why it received this name must be asked. Now when I consider it again and again, I cannot say how much I am pleased by the view that that tree was not harmful as food (for he who had made all things very good would not have set up anything evil in paradise), but that the evil for man was the transgression of the command. For it was fitting that man, placed under the Lord God, should be forbidden something, so that obedience itself should be his virtue for deserving well of his Lord; obedience, I can say most truly, is the only virtue of every rational creature acting under God's power, and the first and greatest vice of swelling pride, leading to ruin, is to want to use one's own power; and the name of this vice is disobedience. So there would be nothing by which man might think and feel that he had a Lord unless something were commanded him. That tree, then, was not evil, but it was called the tree of the knowledge of discerning good and evil because, if man ate from it after the prohibition, the future transgression of the command would be in it, in which man would learn by experience of punishment what difference there is between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience. So this too is not said figuratively, but is to be taken as truly a tree, to which the name was given not from the fruit or apple that would grow on it, but from the very thing that was to follow when it was touched against the prohibition.

“And a river went out from Eden which watered paradise, and from there it divided into four parts. The name of one of them is Phison: it is the one that goes around the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good, and there is the carbuncle and the green stone. And the name of the second river is Geon: it is the one that goes around the whole land of Ethiopia. And the third river is the Tigris: it is the one that flows over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” Why should I take further pains to confirm about these rivers that they are real rivers and not spoken of figuratively, as if they did not exist and only their names signified something, when they are very well known in the regions through which they flow and spread abroad among almost all nations? Rather, since it is certain that they altogether exist (for antiquity has changed the names of two of them, as the river now called Tiber was formerly called Albula; for Geon is the one now called the Nile, and the one now called the Ganges was called Phison; but the other two, Tigris and Euphrates, have kept their ancient names), we ought to be reminded by them to take the other things too first in the proper sense of the letter, not to think there is figurative speech in them, but that the very things narrated so both exist and also prefigure something; not because a parable in speech could not take something from a thing which was certainly not also real in the proper sense, as when the Lord speaks of the man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers. Who does not perceive and plainly see that it is a parable and that the whole of that speech is figurative? Yet the two cities named there are shown in their own places even today. But we would take these four rivers too in that way if any necessity compelled us to take the other things narrated about paradise not properly but figuratively; but as it is, since no reason forbids us first to understand the things themselves properly, why do we not rather follow simply the authority of Scripture in the narrative of things done, understanding first that they were really done, and only then examining whatever else they signify? Or shall we be disturbed by the fact that the sources of some of these rivers are said to be known and those of others wholly unknown, and that therefore it cannot be taken literally that they are divided from one river of paradise? But rather it is to be believed that, since the place of paradise itself is very far removed from human knowledge, four branches of water are divided from there, as most faithful Scripture testifies, but that those rivers whose sources are said to be known went somewhere under the earth and, after passing through long tracts of country, broke out in other places, where they are said to be known as if at their sources. For who does not know that some waters are accustomed to do this? But it is known there, where they do not run long under the earth. So a river went out from Eden, that is, from the place of delights, and watered paradise, that is, all the beautiful and fruitful trees which shaded the whole land of that region.

“And the Lord God took the man whom he had made and placed him in paradise to work and to keep. And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: From every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it. On the day you eat of it, you shall die by death.” Having said briefly above that God planted paradise and established there the man whom he had formed, he recapitulated so as to narrate how paradise was established. Now, then, he has also mentioned by recapitulation how God placed there the man whom he had made. Let us see, then, what is meant by “to work and to keep.” What was he to work, or what to keep? Did the Lord perhaps want the first man to work at farming? Or is it not credible that he condemned him to toil before sin? So indeed we would think, unless we saw some people farm with such delight of mind that it is a great punishment for them to be called away from it to something else. Whatever delights farming has, then, there were surely far more then, when nothing adverse happened either to land or sky. For there was not the affliction of toil but the gladness of will, when the things God had created came forth more joyfully and abundantly with the help of human work; so that the Creator himself would be praised more richly, who had given to a soul established in an animal body the reason and the ability to work, as much as was enough for a willing mind, not as much as bodily need would force upon an unwilling one. For what greater and more wonderful spectacle is there, or where can human reason in a way talk more with the nature of things, than when, with seeds sown, cuttings planted, saplings transplanted, and slips grafted, the power of each root and bud is questioned, so to speak, as to what it can and cannot do, why it can and why it cannot, what the invisible inner power of numbers can do in it, what the care applied from outside; and in this very consideration to see that neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth, since even the work which comes from outside comes through one whom God has nevertheless created and whom he invisibly rules and orders?

From here the eye of thought is raised to the world itself, as to a great tree of things, and in it too a twofold working of providence is found, partly natural, partly voluntary: natural, through God's hidden governance, by which he gives growth even to trees and plants; voluntary, through the works of angels and of men. According to the first, the heavenly things are ordered above and the earthly below, the lights and stars shine, the alternation of day and night goes on, the earth founded on the waters is flowed through and around by them, the air is poured out higher above, trees and animals are conceived and born, grow, grow old, and die, and whatever else is done in things by an inner and natural motion. In the second, signs are given, things are taught and learned, fields are tilled, societies are governed, arts are practised, and whatever else is done either in the society above or in this earthly and mortal one, so that the good are provided for even through the wicked who do not know it. And in man himself the same twofold power of providence is active: toward the body, first, the natural power, namely by the motion by which it comes into being, grows, and grows old; and the voluntary, by which it is provided with food, clothing, and care. Similarly, toward the soul it acts naturally, so that it lives and senses, and voluntarily, so that it learns and consents. And just as in a tree farming does from outside what helps that which is done from within to advance, so in man, as to the body, medicine serves from outside what nature does within; and likewise as to the soul, teaching is supplied from outside so that nature may be made happy within. What neglect of cultivation is to the tree, neglect of healing is to the body, and laziness in learning to the soul; and what useless moisture is to the tree, deadly food is to the body, and persuasion to wickedness to the soul. God therefore, above all things, who founded all things and rules all things, creates all natures as good and orders all wills as just. What, then, is far from the truth if we believe that man was so placed in paradise as to work at farming, not with servile toil but with honorable pleasure of mind? For what is more innocent than this work for those at leisure, and what fuller of great reflection for the wise?

But “to keep” what? Paradise itself? Against whom? Certainly no neighboring invader was feared, no disturber of boundaries, no thief, no attacker. How, then, are we to understand that a bodily paradise could be kept bodily by man? But Scripture did not say “to work and to keep paradise”; it said “to work and to keep.” Although, if it is rendered word for word more carefully from the Greek, it is written thus: “And the Lord God took the man whom he made and placed him in paradise to work it and to keep it.” But whether he placed the man himself to work (for so the one who translated “to work” understood it) or to work paradise, that is, so that man would work paradise, sounds ambiguous, and the expression seems rather to require that it be said not “to work paradise” but “in paradise.” Yet in case it was said “to work paradise” in the same way as it was said above, “and there was no man to work the earth” (for “to work the earth” is the same expression as “to work paradise”), let us treat the ambiguous sentence in both ways. For if we need not take it as “to keep paradise” but as “in paradise,” what then was he to keep in paradise? For what he was to work in paradise we have already discussed, as it seemed right. Was it that what he worked in the earth by farming he should keep in himself by discipline, that is, that as the field obeyed him when he tilled it, so he too should obey his Lord when he commanded, so that, having received the command, he would yield the fruit of obedience and not the thorns of disobedience? In the end, since he would not, as a subject, keep in himself the likeness of the paradise he tilled, he received, when condemned, a field like himself: “It shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you,” it says. But if we understand it as working paradise and keeping paradise, he could work paradise, as we said above, by farming, but keep it not against wicked men or enemies, of whom there were none, but perhaps against beasts. How so? Or why? For were beasts already raging against man, which would not happen except through sin? For he himself gave names to all the beasts when they were brought to him, as is mentioned afterwards; and on the sixth day, by the law of God's word, he received food in common with all of them. Or if there was already something to be feared in beasts, how could one man fortify that paradise? For it was no small place that so great a spring watered. He ought to have kept it, if he could fortify paradise with a wall of such a kind and size that the serpent could not get in; but it would be strange if, before fortifying it, he could shut out all serpents from it. Why then do we pass over the meaning before our eyes? Man was placed in paradise to work that paradise, as was argued above, by farming that was not toilsome but delightful and that suggested great and useful things to the mind of the wise, and to keep that paradise for himself, so as not to commit anything for which he would deserve to be expelled from it. In short, he also received a command, so that there would be something by which to keep paradise for himself, that is, by observing which he would not be thrown out of it. For anyone is rightly said not to have kept his property who acted in such a way as to lose it, even if it is safe for someone else who either found it or deserved to receive it. There is another sense in these words which I think may rightly be preferred: that God was to work man himself and to keep him. For just as man works the earth, not to make it be earth but to make it tilled and fruitful, so, much more, God works man, whom he himself created so that he is man, so that he may be just, if man does not depart from him through pride; for this is to apostatize from God, which Scripture calls the beginning of pride. “The beginning of man's pride,” it says, “is to apostatize from God.” Since, then, God is the unchangeable good, while man, both in soul and in body, is a changeable thing, he cannot be formed so as to be just and happy unless he remains turned toward the unchangeable good, which is God. And therefore the same God who creates man so that he is man himself works man and keeps him so that he may also be good and happy. Therefore, in the way of speaking in which man is said to work the earth, which was already earth, so that it may be adorned and fruitful, God is said to work man, who was already man, so that he may be godly and wise, and to keep him, because man, delighting in his own power over himself rather than in God's over him, and despising his dominion, cannot be safe.

So I think it is in no way idle, but reminds us of something, and something great, that from the very beginning of this divine book, which begins thus, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” up to this place, “Lord God” is nowhere set down, but only “God.” But now, when it came to God's establishing man in paradise and working and keeping him through a command, Scripture spoke thus: “And the Lord God took the man whom he had made and placed him in paradise to work him and to keep him.” Not that God was not Lord of the creatures mentioned above; but because this was written not for the sake of the angels or of the other things that were created, but for the sake of man, to remind him how much it profits him to have God as Lord, that is, to live obediently under his dominion rather than licentiously to abuse his own power, Scripture chose not to set this down anywhere earlier than where it came to his being placed in paradise, worked, and kept: so that it would not say, as of all the other things above, “And God took the man whom he had made,” but would say, “And the Lord God took the man whom he had made and placed him in paradise to work him,” so that he might be just, “and to keep him,” so that he might be safe; by his very dominion, that is, which is useful not to him but to us. For he does not need our service, but we need his dominion, so that he may work and keep us. And therefore he alone is truly Lord, because we serve him not for his benefit but for our benefit and salvation; for if he needed us, by that very fact he would not be truly Lord, since his need would be helped through us, a need under which he too would be a servant. Rightly does the one in the psalm say, “I said to the Lord, You are my God, because you have no need of my goods.” Nor is what we said, that we serve him for our benefit and salvation, to be taken as though we expected anything from him other than himself, who is our highest benefit and salvation; for so we love him freely, according to that saying, “But for me to cleave to God is good.”

For man is not such a thing that, once made, he can do anything well as if from himself when he who made him abandons him; but his whole good action is to turn to him by whom he was made, and to be made always just, godly, wise, and happy by him, not to be made so and then depart, as one is healed by a physician of the body and goes away; for the physician of the body was a worker serving from outside the nature that works from within under God, who works all health by that twofold work of providence of which we spoke above. So man ought not to turn to God in such a way that, when he has been made just by him, he goes away, but in such a way that he is always being made so by him. For by this very fact, that he does not depart from him, he is justified, enlightened, and made happy by his presence, while God works and keeps him as he rules over him obedient and subject. For, as we were saying, it is not as when man works the earth so that it may be tilled and fruitful: when he has worked it he goes away, leaving it ploughed or sown or watered or whatever else, the work that was done remaining when the worker has gone away. God does not work man just in that way, that is, by justifying him, so that if he goes away what he did remains in the one he leaves; but rather, just as the air, when light is present, has not been made bright but is being made bright (for if it had been made bright and were not being made so, it would remain bright even when the light was absent), so man is enlightened when God is present to him, but when God is absent he is at once darkened, God from whom one departs not by distances of place but by turning away of the will. Let him, then, work man good and keep him, who is unchangeably good. We ought always to be made by him and always perfected, cleaving to him and remaining in that turning which is toward him, of whom it is said, “But for me to cleave to God is good,” and to whom it is said, “I will keep my strength toward you.” For we are his handiwork, created not only to be men but also to be good. For the apostle too, when he was commending to the faithful who had turned from ungodliness the grace by which we have been saved, says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone be lifted up. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them.” And elsewhere, when he had said, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” lest they think it should be credited to themselves, as though they made themselves just and good, he at once added, “For it is God who works in you.” So “the Lord God took the man whom he had made and placed him in paradise to work him,” that is, “to work in him,” “and to keep him.”

“And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: From every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it. On the day you eat of it, you shall die by death.” If that tree from which God forbade man had been something evil, he would seem to have been poisoned unto death by the nature of that evil itself. But since he who made all things very good had planted all the trees in paradise good, and there was no nature of evil there, because there is no nature of evil anywhere (which we will discuss more carefully, if the Lord wills, when we begin to speak about that serpent), he was forbidden that tree, which was not evil, so that keeping the command would itself be good for him and transgressing it evil. Nor could it have been shown better or more carefully how great an evil disobedience alone is, since man became guilty of wickedness because he touched against the prohibition a thing which, if he had touched it without being forbidden, he would certainly not have sinned. For if someone says, for example, “Do not touch this plant,” if perhaps it is poisonous and threatens death if he touches it, death will indeed follow for the one who despises the command; but even if no one had forbidden it and he had touched it, he would die just the same. For that thing would not be suited to his health and life, whether he was forbidden it or not. Likewise, when someone forbids a thing to be touched which would harm not the one touching it but the one who forbade it, as if someone put his hand on another's money when forbidden by the owner of the money, it would be a sin for the one forbidden because it could be harmful to the one forbidding. But when a thing is touched which would neither harm the one touching it if it were not forbidden, nor anyone else whenever it was touched, why was it forbidden, except to show the good of obedience in itself and the evil of disobedience in itself? In short, the sinner sought nothing else than not to be under God's dominion, when he committed that in which, to keep from committing it, he ought to have paid attention to the command of his Lord alone. And if that alone had been attended to, what else would have been attended to than the will of God? What else would have been loved than the will of God? What else would have been put before the human will than the will of God? Why the Lord commanded it is his concern; what he commanded is to be done by the servant, and then perhaps the one who deserves it may see why he commanded it. But, so as not to seek longer for the reason of this command: if this very thing is a great benefit to man, that he serves God, then by commanding God makes beneficial whatever he wills to command, and there is no fear that he could command what is not beneficial.

Nor can it be that one's own will does not fall upon a man with the weight of a great ruin if he proudly puts it before the will of one higher. This man experienced when he despised the command of God, and by this experience he learned what difference there is between good and evil, namely the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience, that is, of pride and defiance, of perverse imitation of God and harmful freedom. And the tree in which this could happen took its name from the thing itself, as was said above. For we would not perceive evil except by experience, because there would be none if we had not done it. For no nature is evil, but the loss of good has received this name. For the unchangeable good is God; man, as far as concerns the nature in which God founded him, is indeed good, but not unchangeable like God. And a changeable good, which comes after the unchangeable good, becomes a better good when it cleaves to the unchangeable good by loving and serving it with a rational and its own will. For this too is why this is the nature of a great good: because it has received this too, that it can cleave to the nature of the highest good. But if it will not, it deprives itself of good, and this is evil for it, from which, by the justice of God, torment also follows. For what is so unjust as that it should go well with a deserter of the good? Nor can it in any way be so. But sometimes the evil of having lost the higher good is not felt, when the lower good that was loved is possessed. But it is divine justice that he who by his will lost what he ought to have loved should lose with pain what he loved, while the Creator of natures is praised everywhere. For it is still a good that grieves at the good that has been lost; for unless some good had remained in the nature, there would be no grief for lost good in the punishment. But he who is pleased by the good without experience of evil, that is, who, before he feels the loss of good, chooses to hold it so as not to lose it, is to be praised above all men. But if this were not a matter of singular praise, it would not be attributed to that child who, made of the race of Israel, Emmanuel, God with us, reconciled us to God, the mediator of God and men, a man, the Word with God, flesh with us, the Word made flesh between God and us. For of him the prophet says, “Before the child knows good or evil, he will despise wickedness, to choose the good.” How does he either despise or choose what he does not know, except that these two are known in one way by the wisdom of good and in another by the experience of evil? By the wisdom of good, evil is known even if it is not felt; for the good is held so that its loss may not be felt as evil. Likewise, by the experience of evil the good is known, since he who has fared ill from losing the good feels what he has lost. So before the child knew by experience either the good he would lack or the evil he would feel through losing the good, he despised the evil so as to choose the good, that is, he did not want to lose what he had, lest by losing it he feel what he ought not to lose. A singular example of obedience! For he came not to do his own will but the will of him by whom he was sent; not like that man who chose to do his own will, not that of him by whom he was made. Rightly, just as through one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so through one man's obedience many will be made righteous; because, as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Some people, though sharp, have been dulled in vain when they ask how it could be called the tree of discerning good and evil before man had transgressed the command in it and discerned by experience itself what difference there was between the good he lost and the evil he committed. For the tree received such a name so that, by not touching it in keeping with the prohibition, man would beware of what would be felt if it were touched against the prohibition. For it was not because they ate from it against the command that that tree became the tree of discerning good and evil; but surely, even if they had been obedient and had taken nothing from it against the command, it would rightly be called by what would happen to them there if they had taken from it. Just as, if it were called the tree of fullness because men could be filled from it, would that name be unfitting if no one had come to it? For when they came and were filled, they would then prove how rightly that tree was so called.

“And how,” they say, “would man understand what he was told, the tree of discerning good and evil, when he did not know at all what evil itself was?” Those who think this pay too little attention to how most unknown things are understood from known opposites, so that even when words for things that do not exist are put into speech, no hearer is in the dark. For what does not exist at all is called “nothing”; and everyone who hears and speaks Latin understands these two syllables. How, unless the mind looks at what is and, by its absence, recognizes also what is not? So too when “empty” is said, by looking at the fullness of a body we understand, by its absence as by its opposite, what is meant by empty. Just as with the sense of hearing we judge not only of sounds but also of silence, so from the life that was in man he could beware of its opposite, that is, the absence of life, which is called death. And the very cause by which he would lose what he loved, that is, any act of his by which it would come about that he lost life, by whatever syllables it was named (as when in Latin it is called “sin” or “evil”), he would understand as a sign of what he distinguished in his mind. For how do we understand when resurrection is spoken of, which we have never experienced? Is it not because we feel what it is to live, and call the absence of this death, and call the return from it to what we feel resurrection? And if the same thing is called by any other name in any language, a sign is certainly conveyed to the mind in the speaker's voice, at whose sound it recognizes what it would think even without a sign. For it is wonderful how nature avoids the loss of the things it has, even without experience of it. For who taught beasts to avoid death but the sense of life? Who taught a little child to cling to the one carrying him if he threatens to throw him from a height? This begins at a certain age, but still before he has experienced anything of the kind. So for those first human beings life was already sweet, and they certainly avoided losing it, and they could understand God when he signified this by whatever means or sounds. Nor could sin have been urged on them except by first persuading them that they would not die from that deed, that is, that they would not lose what they had and rejoiced to have: of which we must speak in its place. So let those who are disturbed about how they could understand God naming or threatening things they had not experienced take note, and see that we recognize the names of all things we have not experienced, without any turmoil of doubt, only from their opposites, which we already know, if they are absences, or from similar things, if they are kinds. Unless perhaps someone is disturbed about how they could speak or understand one speaking when they had not learned either by growing up among speakers or by any teaching; as though it were a great thing for God to teach to speak those whom he had made such that they could learn it even from men, if there had been any to learn from.

It is rightly asked whether God gave this command to the man only or also to the woman. But it has not yet been narrated how the woman was made. Or perhaps she had already been made, but how what had been done earlier was done is narrated afterwards by recapitulation? For the words of Scripture are these: “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying”; it did not say “commanded them.” Then follows: “From every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food”; it did not say “you (plural) shall eat.” Then it adds: “but of the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it.” Here now it speaks in the plural as to both, and ends the command in the plural, saying: “On the day you eat of it, you shall die by death.” Or, knowing that he was going to make the woman for him, did he command in this most orderly way, so that the Lord's command would reach the woman through the man? This discipline the apostle keeps in the church, saying, “If they want to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home.”

Again it may be asked how God now spoke to the man whom he had made, now certainly endowed with sense and mind, so that he could hear and understand one speaking. For he could not otherwise receive a command, so as to be a transgressor of it, unless he understood it when received. How then did God speak to him? Inwardly in the mind, by understanding, that is, so that he would wisely understand God's will and command without any bodily sounds or likenesses of bodily things? But I do not think God spoke so to the first man. For Scripture narrates such things that we should rather believe God spoke to man in paradise as he also spoke later to the fathers, as to Abraham, as to Moses, that is, in some bodily form. Hence it is that they heard his voice as he walked in paradise toward evening, and hid themselves.

A great subject, then, not to be passed over, is set before us: that we should consider, as far as we can and as far as he deigns to help and grant, the twofold work of divine providence, which we touched on above in passing when we were speaking of farming, so that the reader's mind might begin from there to grow used to contemplating this, which helps very much to keep us from thinking anything unworthy of the very substance of God. We say, then, that the supreme, true, one and only God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, that is, God and his Word and the Spirit of both, the Trinity itself, neither confused nor separated, God, who alone has immortality and dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man has seen or can see, is neither contained in a space of places, whether finite or infinite, nor varied by a course of times, whether finite or infinite. For there is nothing in his substance, by which he is God, that is less in the part than in the whole, as must be the case with things that are in places; nor was there anything in his substance that no longer is, or will there be anything that is not yet, as in natures that can undergo the changeableness of time.

He, then, living in unchangeable eternity, created all things together, from which times would run and places be filled and ages roll on by the temporal and local movements of things. Among these things he founded some spiritual and some bodily, forming the material which no other, nor anyone, but he himself altogether set up unformed and formable, so that it would precede its forming not in time but in origin. And he put the spiritual creation above the bodily, because the spiritual can be changed only through times, the bodily through times and places. For example, the mind is moved through time by remembering what it had forgotten, or learning what it did not know, or willing what it did not will; but the body is moved through places, from earth to heaven, or from heaven to earth, or from east to west, or in any other similar way. Now everything that is moved through place cannot but be moved through time as well; but not everything that is moved through time must also be moved through place. So, just as the substance that is moved through time only precedes the substance that is moved through time and place, so that substance which is moved neither through place nor through time precedes it. And therefore, just as the created spirit, itself moved only through time, moves the body through time and place, so the creating Spirit, moved neither through time nor through place, moves the created spirit through time. The created spirit moves itself through time and moves the body through time and place; but the creating Spirit moves itself without time and place, moves the created spirit through time without place, and moves the body through time and place.

Therefore whoever tries to understand how the eternal God, truly eternal and truly immortal and unchangeable, himself moved neither through place nor through time, moves his creation in time and place, cannot, I think, attain it unless he first understands how the soul, that is, a created spirit moved not through place but only through time, moves the body through time and place. For if it cannot yet grasp what goes on in itself, how much less what is above it! For the soul, affected by the habit of the fleshly senses, thinks that it too is moved through place with the body, while it moves the body through place. But if it could carefully inspect, as it were, the hinges of the limbs of its body, how they are arranged joint by joint, and from which the beginnings of movements take their support, it would find that the things moved through spaces of place are not moved except from those which are fixed in place. For a finger alone is not moved unless the hand is fixed, from whose joint, as from an unmoved hinge, it is moved. So the whole hand is moved from the joint of the elbow, so the forearm from the joint of the shoulder, and the upper arm from the shoulder blade: when it is moved, the hinges on which the movement relies standing still, what is moved goes through a space of place. So the foot has its joint in the ankle, by whose standing still it is moved; so the leg has its joint in the knee, and the whole leg in the hip. And there is no movement at all of a limb which the will moves, except from some hinge of a joint which the signal of the same will first fixes, so that what is moved can be moved from what is not moved in space of place. Finally, in walking too a foot is not raised unless the other, fixed, bears the whole body, until the one that was moved, carried from the place where it is to the place where it is going, rests on the unmoved joint of its hinge. Further, if in the body the will moves no limb through place except from the joint of the limb which it does not move, although both the part of the body that is moved and the part fixed so that it may be moved have their bodily quantities by which they occupy the spaces of their places, how much more is the very signal of the soul, which the limbs serve so that what it pleases is fixed and what is to be moved relies on it (since the soul is not a bodily nature, nor does it fill the body by local space, as water fills a skin or a sponge, but is mingled in wonderful ways with the body by giving it life, by that very bodiless signal by which it also commands the body by a kind of intention, not by bulk): how much more, I say, is the very signal of its will not moved through place in order to move the body through place, since it moves the whole by parts, and moves no parts in place except through those which it does not move in place!

But if this is hard to understand, let both be believed: that the spiritual creation, not moved through place, moves the body through place, and that God, not moved through time, moves the spiritual creation through time. But if anyone does not want to believe this of the soul (which he would doubtless not only believe but also understand, if he could think of it as bodiless, as it is; for to whom would it not readily occur that what is not extended through spaces of place is not moved through place? Whatever is extended through spaces of place is a body; and therefore it follows that the soul is not to be thought to be moved through place, if it is believed not to be a body): but, as I had begun to say, if anyone does not want to believe this of the soul, he need not be pressed too hard; but unless he believes that the substance of God is moved neither through time nor through place, he does not yet believe it to be perfectly unchangeable.

But because that nature of the Trinity is altogether unchangeable, and therefore so eternal that nothing can be coeternal with it, itself with itself and in itself without any time or place, it nevertheless moves through time and place the creation subject to it, creating natures by its goodness and ordering wills by its power, so that among natures there is none that is not from him, and among wills none good that he does not help, none evil that he cannot use well. But because he did not give choice of will to all natures, and those to which he gave it are more powerful and higher, the natures which do not have will must be subject to those which have it, and this by the ordering of the Creator, who never punishes an evil will in such a way as to destroy the dignity of its nature. Since, then, every body and every irrational soul lacks choice of will, these are subject to the natures endowed with choice of will; not all to all, but as the justice of the Creator distributes. So the providence of God, ruling and governing the whole creation, both natures and wills (natures so that they exist, wills so that the good are not fruitless nor the evil unpunished), first subjects all things to himself, then the bodily creation to the spiritual, the irrational to the rational, the earthly to the heavenly, the female to the male, the less strong to the stronger, the needier to the richer; and among wills, the good to himself, and the rest to those who serve him, so that the evil will suffers what the good will has done at God's command, whether by itself or through an evil will, in those things at least which are by nature subject even to evil wills, that is, in bodies. For in themselves evil wills have their inner punishment, which is their very wickedness itself.

And therefore to the exalted angels, who enjoy God in subjection and serve God in happiness, is subject every bodily nature, every irrational life, every will either weak or depraved, so that they do with or concerning their subjects what the order of nature requires in all things, at the command of him to whom all things are subject. So they see in him the unchangeable truth and direct their wills according to it. They become, then, partakers of his eternity, truth, and will, always, without time and place; but by his command they are moved also in time, he not being moved in time; and not so as to spring back or flow away from contemplating him, but they both contemplate him without place and time and carry out his commands among lower things, moving themselves through time and bodies through time and place, as far as befits their action. And therefore God presides over his whole creation by the twofold work of his providence: over natures, so that they come to be; over wills, so that they do nothing without his command or permission.

The nature of the bodily universe, then, is not helped bodily from outside. For there is no body outside it; otherwise it is not the universe. But it is helped from within in a bodiless way, God bringing it about that it is a nature at all, since from him and through him and in him are all things. But the parts of that universe are both helped from within in a bodiless way, or rather made, so that they are natures, and helped from outside bodily, so that they may be in better condition, as by food, farming, medicine, and whatever is done also for adornment, so that they may be not only sound and more fruitful but also more beautiful. But created spiritual nature, if it is perfect and happy, like that of the holy angels, is helped, as far as concerns itself, so that it exists and is wise, only from within in a bodiless way. For God speaks to it inwardly in a wonderful and ineffable manner, not through writing fixed on bodily materials, nor through voices sounding in bodily ears, nor through likenesses of bodies such as are formed in the spirit in images, as in dreams or in some going out of the spirit (which in Greek is called ecstasis, and we now use that word for the Latin). For this kind of vision too, although it takes place more inwardly than the things reported to the mind through the bodily senses, is nevertheless, because it is like them, so that when it happens it either cannot be distinguished from them at all or certainly only with difficulty and very rarely, and because it is more outward than what the rational and intellectual mind beholds in the unchangeable truth itself and by whose light it judges all these things, to be counted, I think, among the things which happen from outside. So the perfect and happy spiritual and intellectual creation, such as the angels' is, as I said, is helped, as far as concerns itself, so that it exists and is wise and happy, only from within, by the eternity, truth, and love of the Creator; and if it is to be said to be helped from outside, it is perhaps helped only by this, that they see one another and rejoice in their fellowship in God, and that, beholding all creatures, themselves included, it gives thanks on every side and praises the Creator. But as for the action of the angelic creation, by which God's providence watches over the kinds of all things and above all the human kind, it helps from outside both through those visions which are like bodily things and through bodies themselves, which are subject to angelic power.

Since this is so, since God almighty and all-holding, always the same in unchangeable eternity, truth, and will, not moved through time or through place, moves the spiritual creation through time and moves also the bodily creation through time and place, so that by that movement he governs also from outside the natures which he established from within, both through wills subject to him, which he moves through time, and through bodies subject to him and to those wills, which he moves through time and place, at that time and place whose reason is life in God himself without time and place: when, then, God does something of this kind, we ought not to suppose that his substance, by which he is God, is changeable in times and places or movable through times and places, but to recognize these things in the work of divine providence; not in that work by which he creates natures, but in that by which he governs from outside also the natures created from within; since he himself, by no interval or space of places, by his unchangeable and surpassing power, is both more inward than every thing, because in him are all things, and more outward than every thing, because he himself is above all things. Likewise, by no interval or space of times, by his unchangeable eternity, he is both older than all things, because he is before all things, and newer than all things, because the same he is after all things.

Therefore, when we hear Scripture saying, “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: From every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it. On the day you eat of it, you shall die by death,” if we ask the manner in which God spoke these things, the manner itself cannot properly be grasped by us. Yet we ought to hold most certainly that God speaks either through his own substance or through a creature subject to him; but that he does not speak through his substance except to create all natures, and, for spiritual and intellectual natures, not only to create but also to enlighten them, when they can already grasp his speech as it is in his Word, which in the beginning was with God, and the Word was God, through whom all things were made. But to those who cannot grasp it, when God speaks, he speaks only through a creature: either only a spiritual one, whether in dreams or in ecstasy, in the likeness of bodily things, or else through the bodily creation itself, when some form appears to the bodily senses or voices sound. If, then, Adam was such that he could grasp that speech of God which he offers to angelic minds through his substance, there is no doubt that God moved his mind through time in a wonderful and ineffable way, not himself moved through time, and impressed on him the useful and wholesome command of truth, and by that same ineffable truth showed him what punishment was owed to the transgressor; just as all good commands are heard or seen in the unchangeable Wisdom itself, which passes into holy souls from a certain time, though there is no movement of it in time. But if Adam was just in such a way that he still needed the authority of another, holier and wiser creature, through which he might know God's will and command, as we need prophets and they need angels, why should we doubt that God spoke to him through some such creature with signs of voices that he could understand? For what is written afterwards, that when they had sinned they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise, was done not through the very substance of God but through a creature subject to him; no one who understands the catholic faith doubts this. For I wished to discuss this matter somewhat more at length for this reason, that some heretics think that the substance of the Son of God, without taking on any body, is visible in itself, and so suppose that before he received a body from the virgin he himself was seen by the fathers, as though it were said of God the Father alone, “whom no man has seen or can see,” because the Son was seen even through his own substance before he took the form of a servant: an ungodliness to be driven far from catholic minds. But of this we will speak more fully elsewhere, if it pleases the Lord; now, with this volume ended, what follows, how the woman was created from her husband's side, is to be looked for in the next.

“And the Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make for him a helper corresponding to him. And God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living soul, that is its name. And Adam called names for all the cattle and for all the birds of the sky and for all the beasts of the field. But for Adam himself no helper like him was found. And God sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and filled up flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from her husband. And for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be glued to his wife; and the two will be in one flesh.” If what was considered and written in the previous books helps the reader at all, we ought not to dwell longer on this, that God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky; for why “besides” was said, namely because of the first founding of creatures completed in six days, in which all things were causally completed and begun together, so that afterwards the causes might be brought to their effects, we have already shown in the preceding books as far as we could. And if anyone thinks this should be untied otherwise, let him only attend carefully to all those things which we attended to so as to hold this view; and if from them he can draw out a more probable view, we ought not only not to resist but even to rejoice. But if anyone is disturbed because it did not say, “God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and from the waters all the birds of the sky,” but says, as though he formed both kinds from the earth, “And God formed besides from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky,” let him see that it can be understood in two ways: either that it was silent here about what he formed the birds of the sky from, because this could occur to the reader even unsaid, so that it is not taken that God formed both from the earth, but only the beasts of the field, and we understand, even with Scripture silent, from what he formed the birds of the sky, as people who know that in the first founding of the causal reasons they were produced from the waters; or that “earth” is used universally together with the waters, as it is used in that psalm where, the praises of the heavenly things ended, the speech turns to the earth and it is said, “Praise the Lord from the earth, dragons and all deeps,” and so on, and it is not afterwards said, “Praise the Lord from the waters.” For where are all the deeps, which nevertheless praise the Lord from the earth? Where too are the creeping things and the winged birds, which nonetheless praise the Lord from the earth? According to this universal use of “earth,” in which it is also said of the whole world, “God who made heaven and earth,” whatever was created, whether from the earth or from the waters, is truly understood as created from the earth.

Now let us see how we are to take what God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make for him a helper corresponding to him”: whether God said this in time, with voices and syllables uttered, or whether the reason itself is recalled which was in the Word of God as in its source, that the woman should be made so; a reason which Scripture was also taking up when it said, “And God said: Let there be” this or that, when all things were first being founded. Or perhaps God said this in the mind of the man himself, as he speaks to some of his servants within those very servants? Of this kind of his servants was also the one who said in the psalm, “I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me.” Or was some revelation about this made to the man himself within himself through an angel, in likenesses of bodily voices, though Scripture is silent as to whether it was in dreams or in ecstasy? For this is how such things usually happen. Or in some other way, as revelation is made to the prophets? Hence the saying, “And the angel who spoke in me said to me.” Or did the voice itself sound through a bodily creature, as from the cloud: “This is my Son”? Which of all these happened, we cannot grasp clearly; yet let us hold most certainly both that God said this, and that, if he said it with a bodily voice or with a likeness of a body expressed in time, he said it not through his own substance but through some creature subject to his command, as we treated in the previous book. For God was seen later too by holy men, sometimes with a head white as wool, sometimes with the lower part of the body like brass, sometimes in one way and sometimes in another; yet it is most certain, to those who either faithfully believe or even excellently understand that the substance of the Trinity, unchangeably eternal, is moved neither through time nor through place and moves things through time and place, that he did not present those visions to men through the substance by which he is, but through things subject to him which he created, and showed and said what he willed through likenesses of bodily forms and voices. Let us not then ask further how God said this, but rather understand what he said. That a helper corresponding to man had to be made, the eternal Truth itself contains, through which all things were created; and he hears this in it who can recognize in it what was created and why.

But if it is asked for what purpose this helper had to be made, nothing else occurs as probable than the procreation of children, just as the earth is a helper to the seed, so that a plant may be born from both; for this had also been said in the first founding of things: “Male and female he made them, and God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it.” This reason for the founding and joining of male and female, and this blessing, did not fail even after man's sin and punishment. For it is that by which the earth is now full of men having dominion over it. For although they are recorded as having come together and had children only after they had been sent out of paradise, I still do not see what could have prevented their having, even in paradise, honorable marriage and an undefiled bed, God granting this to them as they lived faithfully and justly and served him obediently and holily, so that without any restless heat of lust, without any labor and pain of childbirth, offspring would be born from their seed; not so that children would succeed parents who died, but so that, those who had begotten remaining in some state of form and taking bodily vigor from the tree of life which was planted there, those who were begotten would also be brought to the same state, until, a certain number having been filled up, if all lived justly and obediently, then that change would take place, so that without death animal bodies would be turned into another quality, because they would obey at every signal the spirit ruling them and, living by the life-giving spirit alone, without any bodily supports of food, would be called spiritual. This could have happened, if the transgression of the command had not deserved the punishment of death. Those who do not believe this could have happened pay attention to nothing but the customary course of nature, which now runs so after sin and human punishment; but we ought not to be among those who believe nothing except what they are used to seeing. For who would doubt that what we have said could have been granted to man living obediently and piously, if he does not doubt that the clothes of the Israelites were given a certain state of their own kind, so that for forty years they suffered no damage from age?

Why then did they not come together until they had left paradise? It can be answered quickly: because soon after the woman was created, before they came together, that transgression took place, by whose desert, destined for death, they also went out of the place of that happiness. For Scripture did not state the time, how long there was between their being made and Cain's being born of them. It can also be said that God had not yet commanded them to come together. For why should divine authority not be awaited for this, where no concupiscence, as the goad of disobedient flesh, was pressing? And God had not commanded this because he was arranging all things according to his foreknowledge, in which he without doubt also foreknew their fall, from which the human race, now mortal, was to be propagated.

Or if the woman was not made for the man as a helper for begetting children, for what help then was she made? If it was to work the earth together with him, there was not yet toil, so as to need help; and if there were need, a male would be a better helper. The same can be said of companionship, if perhaps he grew weary of solitude. For how much more fittingly would two friends live together, on equal terms, for living and talking together, than a man and a woman? And if it was necessary for one to command and the other to obey as they lived together, so that opposed wills would not disturb the peace of those living together, an order to keep this would not have been lacking, by which one would be first and the other second, especially if the second were created from the first, as the woman was created. Or will anyone say that from the man's rib God could have made only a woman, and not a man too, if he wished? Therefore I do not find for what help the woman was made for the man, if the reason of childbearing is taken away.

For if parents had to give way to their children from this life, so that the whole human race would be filled up to a certain number by departures and successions, human beings could also, having begotten children and completed the justice of human duty, be transferred from here to better things, not by death but by some change: either that highest change by which, their bodies received back, the saints will become like the angels in heaven, or, if that is not to be given except to all together at the end of the age, some lower one than that; which would nevertheless have a better state than either this body has, or even those bodies have which were first made, the man's from the mud of the earth, the woman's from the man's flesh. For we are not to think that Elijah is either already as the saints will be when, the day of work done, they will receive the denarius together, or as men are who have not yet departed from this life, from which he departed nevertheless not by death but by being taken away. So he already has something better than he could in this life, although he does not yet have what he will have at the end because of a life well lived; for they foresaw better things for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us. Or if anyone thinks that Elijah could not have deserved this if he had taken a wife and had children (for he is believed not to have had them, because Scripture did not say so, although it said nothing about his celibacy either), what will he answer about Enoch, who, having begotten children and pleasing God, did not die but was taken away? Why then could not Adam and Eve too, if, living justly, they had chastely procreated children, give way to them as successors by being taken away, not by death? For if Enoch and Elijah, dead in Adam and bearing in their flesh the offspring of death (to pay which debt they are believed also to be going to return to this life and to die, what has been so long put off), are nevertheless now in another life, where, before the resurrection of the flesh, before the animal body is changed into a spiritual one, they do not fail by disease or old age: how much more justly and probably would it have been granted to those first human beings, living without any sin of their own or of their parents, that, having begotten children, they should give way into some better state, from which, at the end of the age, with all the posterity of the saints, they would be changed into angelic form, not through the death of the flesh but through the power of God, much more happily!

So I do not see for what other help the woman was made for the man, if the reason of begetting is taken away; nor do I know why it should be taken away. For why does faithful and devout virginity have a great merit, and one of great honor, with God, except that in this present time of abstaining from embrace, when from all nations a most abundant supply is at hand for filling up the number of the saints, the desire for enjoying sordid pleasure does not claim for itself what the need of providing offspring no longer demands? Finally, the weakness of both sexes, inclining toward the ruin of shamefulness, is rightly caught by the honorableness of marriage, so that what could be a duty for the healthy is a remedy for the sick. For it is not because incontinence is an evil that marriage, even that by which the incontinent are joined, is not a good; on the contrary, this good is not blameworthy because of that evil, but that evil is pardonable because of this good, since that which is good in marriage, and by which marriage is good, can never be sin. And this is threefold: fidelity, offspring, sacrament. In fidelity, care is taken that there be no lying with another man or woman outside the marriage bond; in offspring, that it be lovingly received, kindly nourished, and religiously brought up; in the sacrament, that the marriage not be separated, and that a man or woman sent away not be joined to another, not even for the sake of offspring. This is, as it were, the rule of marriage, by which either the fruitfulness of nature is adorned or the depravity of incontinence is governed. And since we have discussed this sufficiently in the book we recently published on the good of marriage, where we also distinguished the continence of widows and the excellence of virgins according to the dignity of their ranks, our pen need not be occupied with it longer here.

For we are now asking for what help the woman was made for the man, if they were not allowed to unite with each other in paradise to beget children. For those who hold this perhaps think that all intercourse is sin. For it is difficult for men, while perversely avoiding vices, not to run headlong into their opposites. For just as one who shudders at avarice becomes prodigal, or one who shudders at luxury becomes avaricious, or one whose laziness you rebuke becomes restless, or one whose restlessness you rebuke becomes lazy, or one who, rebuked, has begun to hate his rashness flees to timidity, or one who tries not to be timid becomes reckless as if a chain were broken, while they measure faults not by reason but by opinion: so, while men do not know what is condemned by divine law in adulteries and acts of sexual immorality, they detest even marital intercourse for the sake of procreation.

Others do not do this, but still think that the fruitfulness of the flesh was given by God for the succession of mortals, and they too think that those first human beings could not have lain together unless, because of the sin they had committed, they were going to die and so sought successors by begetting; and they do not notice that, if successors could rightly be sought for those who would die, companions could much more rightly have been sought for those who would live. For once the earth was filled with the human race, offspring would rightly be sought only to succeed those dying; but for the earth to be filled through two human beings, how could they fulfil the duty of society except by begetting? Or is anyone so blind in mind as not to see how great an adornment the human race is to the earth, even when only a few live rightly and praiseworthily, and how much the order of the commonwealth avails, holding even sinners in check in the bond of a certain earthly peace? For men are not so depraved that even such do not surpass beasts and birds; yet who would not delight to consider this lowest part of the world adorned, according to its place, with all their kinds? And who would be so senseless as to think that it could have been adorned less if it were filled with the just who do not die? For it is because the heavenly city of angels is most numerous that they would not rightly be joined in marriage unless they died. For the Lord, foreknowing that this number would be completed even in the resurrection of the saints, who are to be joined to the angels, says, “In the resurrection they will neither marry nor take wives; for they will not begin to die, but will be equal to the angels of God.” But here, since the earth was to be filled with human beings, and it was fitting that it be filled from one, for the sake of a closer bond of kinship and to commend most strongly the bond of unity, for what other purpose was the female sex sought as a helper corresponding to him than that woman's nature, like the fruitfulness of the earth, might help him as he sowed the human race?

Although it may be believed more honorably and better that the body of those human beings, then established as animal bodies in paradise, not yet condemned by the law of death, was such that they did not have the appetite for carnal pleasure which these bodies now have, which are now derived from the stock of death. For something did happen in them when they ate from the forbidden tree, since God had not said, “If you eat, you shall die by death,” but “On the day you eat of it, you shall die by death,” so that that day would bring about in them the very thing the apostle groans over when he says, “I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and making me captive in the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” For it would not be enough for him to say, “Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” but he says, “from the body of this death.” Just as he also says, “The body indeed is dead because of sin”; nor does he say there “mortal” but “dead,” although of course also mortal, because it will die. Those bodies are not to be believed to have been like this, but, though animal and not yet spiritual, still not dead, that is, not such that they had to die: which happened on the day they touched the tree against the prohibition. Just as in our own bodies a certain health according to their measure is spoken of, and if this is so disturbed that a lethal disease is already consuming the inner organs, and physicians, seeing it, declare that death is near, the body is certainly called mortal even then, but in a different sense than when it was healthy, though without doubt going to die at some time: so those human beings bore animal bodies, but not going to die if they had not sinned, and going to receive an angelic form and heavenly quality; but as soon as they transgressed the command, death itself was conceived in their members like some lethal illness, and changed that quality by which they ruled the body in such a way that they did not say, “I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind,” because, although the body was not yet spiritual but animal, it was not yet of this death, of which and with which we are born. For what else have we begun, I do not say by being born, but by being conceived at all, but a kind of illness by which we must necessarily die? For one who has become dropsical or consumptive or elephantiac is not so necessarily going to die of that disease as one who has begun to have this body, in which all men are by nature children of wrath; because nothing but the punishment of sin brought this about. Since this is so, why should we not believe that those human beings before sin could have commanded their genital members for procreating children as they commanded the others, which the soul moves in any work without any trouble and, so to speak, itch of pleasure? For if the almighty Creator, ineffably to be praised, who is great even in his least works, has granted to bees that they produce the generation of their young as they produce the form of wax and the liquid of honey, why should it seem incredible that he made such bodies for the first human beings that, if they had not sinned and at once conceived a kind of disease by which they would die, they would command the members from which offspring arises by the same signal as the feet when walking, so that there would be neither sowing with heat nor bearing with pain? But as it is, by transgressing the command, they deserved to have in their members, in which death was conceived, the motion of that law which fights against the law of the mind, a motion which marriage orders and continence restrains and reins in, so that, just as punishment came from sin, so merit may come from punishment.

So whoever doubts that the woman was made for the man from the man, in that sex and in that form and distinction of members by which women are known, the woman who bore Cain and Abel and all their brothers, from whom all human beings would be born, among whom she also bore Seth, through whom the line came to Abraham and to the people of Israel, a nation now very well known to all nations, and through the sons of Noah to all nations: whoever doubts this makes everything we believe totter, and is to be driven far from the minds of the faithful. When, then, it is asked for what help that sex was made for the man, to me, considering everything carefully as far as I can, nothing occurs but the reason of offspring, so that the earth would be filled through their stock; and offspring not procreated in the way human beings are now procreated, when the law of sin is in the members fighting against the law of the mind, even if by God's grace it is overcome by virtue; for it must be believed that this could not have been except in the body of this death, which body is dead because of sin. And what is more just than this punishment, that the body, its own servant, does not serve the soul at every signal, as the soul itself refused to serve its Lord; whether God creates both from the parents, body from body and soul from soul, or makes souls in some other way, certainly not for an impossible task nor for a small reward; so that when the soul, subject to God by piety, has itself conquered by grace this law of sin which is in the members of the body of this death, which the first man received as punishment, it may receive a heavenly reward with greater glory, showing how great is the praise of obedience, which by virtue could overcome the punishment of another's disobedience?

But since, as I think, we have inquired enough for what help the woman was made for the man, let us now see why it happened that all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky were brought to Adam for him to give them names, and so a need, as it were, arose for creating a woman for him from his side, since among those animals no helper like him had been found. For it seems to me that this was done for the sake of some prophetic signification, but done nevertheless, so that, the event being confirmed as having happened, the interpretation of the figure is left free. For what is the meaning of this very fact, that Adam gave names to the birds and land animals, but not also to the fishes and all swimming creatures? For if human languages are consulted, all these things are called as men have named them by speaking. Not only these things in the waters and on the land, but also the earth itself and water and sky, and the things seen in the sky and those not seen but believed, are called by different names according to the diversity of the languages of nations. We have indeed learned that there was one language at first, before the pride of that tower built after the flood divided human society into different sounds of signs; but whatever that language was, what does it matter to inquire? Certainly Adam spoke it then, and in that language, if it still survives, are those articulate words with which the first man gave names to the land animals and birds. Is it at all credible, then, that in the same language the names of fishes were established not by man but by God, for man to learn afterwards by God's teaching? Even if this had been done, the reason why it was done would without doubt echo some mystical signification. But it is to be believed that names were given to the kinds of fishes as they came gradually to be known; but when the cattle and beasts and birds were brought to man, so that he might give them names when they were gathered to him and distinguished by kinds, to which too he could have given names gradually, and much sooner than to the fishes, if this had not been done, what reason was there but the purpose of signifying something which would serve to foretell things to come? To this the order of this narrative is especially attentive. Then, did God not know that he had created nothing of the kind among the natures of animals that could be a helper like man? Or was it necessary that man himself should know this too, and hold his wife the more dear because in all flesh created under heaven and living from this air as he did, he found nothing like her? It would be strange if he could not know this except by having all of them brought to him and inspected. For if he believed God, God could tell him this in the way he gave the command, and in the way he questioned and judged him when he sinned; but if he did not believe, he certainly could not know this either, whether he whom he did not believe had brought all things to him, or perhaps had hidden in some parts of the earth more remote from him some creatures like him which he had not shown him. So I think it is not to be doubted that this was done for the sake of some prophetic signification, but done nevertheless. Nor have we undertaken in this work to examine prophetic riddles, but to commend the trustworthiness of things done according to the proper sense of history; so that what may seem impossible to the vain and unbelieving, or to contradict the very authority of holy Scripture as though by contrary testimony, I may show, according to my strength and as far as God helps, by discussion, to be neither impossible nor contrary; and what appears indeed possible and has no appearance of contradiction, yet may seem to some superfluous or even foolish, I may show by argument to have been done, not according to the natural or usual order of events, so that, the most trustworthy authority of the holy Scriptures being set before our hearts, it may be believed to be mystical because it cannot be foolish, although we have either already presented its exposition or inquiry elsewhere or put it off to another time.

What, then, is meant also by the fact that the woman was made for the man from his side? Granted that we may believe it had to be done so in order to commend the force of their very union: did the same reason or necessity also require that it be done while he slept, and finally that a bone be taken out and flesh supplied in its place? Could not flesh itself have been taken out, so that from it the woman, being the weaker sex, might be more fittingly formed? Or could God, adding so many things, build a rib into a woman, and not flesh or soft tissue, he who made man himself from dust? Or if a rib had to be taken out, why was another rib not put back in its place? Why too was it not said “formed” or “made,” as in all the works above, but “the Lord God built,” it says, “that rib,” not as a human body but as a house? There is, then, no doubt that, since these things were done and cannot be foolish, they were done to signify something, God in his foreknowledge mercifully proclaiming in his very works, from the very beginning of the human race, the fruit of the age to come; so that at a fixed time, revealed to his servants and written down, whether through the succession of men or through his Spirit or the ministry of angels, they would bear witness both to future things to be promised and to fulfilled things to be recognized; which will appear more and more in what follows.

Let us see, then, as we undertook in this work, how these things can be taken, not according to the prefiguring of things to come, but according to the proper, not allegorical, meaning of things done. “And God formed besides from the earth,” it says, “all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky”: on which we have already said what seemed right and as much as seemed right. “And he brought them all to Adam, to see what he would call them.” As to how God brought them to Adam, so that we may not think carnally, what we treated in the previous book about the twofold work of divine providence should help us. For it is not to be believed that this was done as hunters or fowlers track and drive into nets whatever animals they catch, or that some voice of command came from a cloud with words which rational souls are accustomed to hear, understand, and obey. For beasts and birds have not received the ability to do this; yet in their own way they obey God, not by the rational choice of will, but as he moves all things at fitting times, not himself moved in time, through the ministries of angels, which grasp in his Word what is to be done at what time, and, he not being moved in time, they themselves are moved in time so as to carry out his commands in the things subject to them. For every living soul, not only rational as in men, but also irrational, as in cattle and birds and fishes, is moved by things seen. But the rational soul, by the choice of will, either consents or does not consent to what is seen; the irrational has not this judgment, yet according to its kind and nature, touched by something seen, it is driven along. Nor is it in the power of any soul what sights come to it, whether into the senses of the body or into the spirit itself within, by which the appetite of any living being is moved. And so, when these sights are supplied from above through the obedience of angels, God's command reaches not only men, nor only birds and cattle, but also the things hidden under the waters, as the whale that swallowed Jonah, and not only these larger creatures but even the little worm; for we read that it too was commanded by God to gnaw the root of the gourd under whose shade the prophet had rested. For if God granted to man, establishing him so, that even bearing the flesh of sin he can not only subject cattle and beasts of burden to his uses, and not only domestic birds, but can also capture and tame any birds that fly freely, even fierce wild beasts, and wonderfully command them by the power of reason, not of body, as he catches their appetites and pains and, gradually enticing, pressing, and loosening, controls them, strips them of their wild habit and, as it were, clothes them with human manners: how much more can angels do this, who, at the command of God, beholding it in his unchangeable truth itself, which they look upon eternally, moving themselves through time and the bodies subject to them through time and place with wonderful swiftness, are able to produce in every living soul both the sights by which it is moved and the appetite of bodily need, so that it is brought, without knowing it, where it must come!

Now let us see how the forming of the woman itself, which is also called, mystically, a building, was done. For the nature of the woman was created, though from the man's, which already existed, not by any motion of natures already existing. Angels, however, can create no nature at all; for the one and only creator of any nature, great or least, is God, that is, the Trinity itself, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. It is a different question, then, how Adam was put to sleep and his rib taken out of the frame of his body without any sense of pain. For this might perhaps be said to have been possible through angels; but to form or build the rib so that it would be a woman, none but God could do, from whom all nature has its being, so much so that I would not believe even that filling up of flesh in the man's body, which took the place of the rib, to have been made by angels, any more than man himself from the dust of the earth: not that there is no work of angels in something being created, but they are not therefore creators, just as we do not call farmers the creators of crops and trees. For neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth. To this growth belongs also the fact that in the human body, when the bone was taken out, the place was filled up with flesh, namely by that work of God by which he establishes natures so that they exist, by which he also created the angels themselves. The farmer's work, then, is to lead the water when he irrigates; but it is not his work that the water flows down slopes, but his who has arranged all things in measure and number and weight. Likewise it is the farmer's work that a cutting is torn from a tree and committed to the earth; but it is not his work that it drinks in sap and puts forth a shoot, fixing one part in the soil to establish its root and sending another up into the air to nourish its strength and spread its branches, but his who gives the growth. A physician too applies food to a sick body and medicine to a wounded one: first, not from things he created, but from things he found created by the Creator's work; next, he could prepare and serve food or drink, shape a plaster and apply it smeared with medicine. Can he also, from the things he applies, work and create strength or flesh? Nature does that by an inner motion most hidden from us. Yet if God withdraws from it the inmost working by which he establishes and makes it, it will at once be extinguished, as it were, and nothing will remain. Therefore, since God governs his whole creation by a kind of twofold work of providence, of which we spoke in the previous book, both in natural and in voluntary motions, no angel can create a nature, any more than he can create himself. But the angelic will, obediently subject to God and carrying out his command, can, by natural motions, supply things subject to it as material, so to speak, so that something may be created in time according to those principal reasons uncreated in the Word of God, or according to those reasons created causally in the first works of the six days, in the manner of farming or healing. What kind of service, then, the angels rendered to God in that forming of the woman, who would dare to affirm? Yet I would say most certainly that that filling up of flesh in the place of the rib, and the body and soul of the woman herself, and the shaping of her members, all her inner organs, all her senses, and whatever there was by which she was a creature, a human being, and a woman, was made only by that work of God which God works not through angels but through himself; and he did not work and then let go, but works so continuously that neither the nature of any other things nor of the angels themselves would subsist if he did not work.

But since, as far as we have been able to experience the nature of things according to human capacity, we do not know of animated and sensing flesh being born except either from these material elements, as it were, that is, water and earth, or from shrubs or the fruits of trees or even from the flesh of animals, as countless kinds of worms or creeping things, or certainly from the intercourse of parents, and we know of no flesh born from the flesh of any living being which was so like it as to be distinguished only by sex, we seek in the things of this creation a likeness to the way the woman was made from the man's side, and cannot find it, for no other reason than that we know how men work on this earth, but we certainly do not know how angels in a way farm in this world. For surely, if the course of nature produced the kinds of plants without human industry, we would know nothing else than that trees and plants are born from the earth and from their seeds falling likewise from them into the earth; would we ever have learned what grafting can do, so that a tree of one kind bears on its own root the fruits of another, which grow into a unity now its own? These things we learned through the work of farmers, though they were in no way creators of trees, but offered to God, who creates the course of nature, a certain duty and service of their own. For nothing at all would come into being through their work if the inmost reason of nature did not contain it in God's work. What wonder, then, if we have not known of a woman made from a man's bone, when we do not know how angels serve God as creator? We could not have known a tree made from a cutting of a tree in another's trunk either, if we likewise did not know how farmers serve God as creator. Yet in no way do we doubt that God alone is the creator both of human beings and of trees, and we faithfully believe that the woman was made from the man without any intercourse intervening, even if perhaps the man's rib was supplied through angels in the Creator's work: just as we faithfully believe also that a man was made from a woman without any intercourse intervening, when the seed of Abraham was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator. Both are incredible to unbelievers; but why should what was done concerning Christ seem credible to the faithful in the proper sense of a thing done, and what is written about Eve credible only as a figurative signification? Or could a man be made from a woman without intercourse with anyone, and a woman not from a man? And did the virgin's womb have that from which a man might be made, and the man's side not have that from which a woman might be made, when here the Lord was born of his handmaid, and there a handmaid was formed from a servant? The Lord could also have created his flesh from a rib or from some member of the virgin; but he who could have shown in his own body that he had done again what had been done, showed more usefully in his mother's body that nothing that is chaste is shameful.

But if it is asked how matters stand with that causal founding in which God first made man to his image and likeness (for there it was also said, “Male and female he made them”): whether that reason which God created together with the first works of the world, and with which he grew them together, already contained this, that according to it the woman had necessarily to be made from the man's side, or contained only this, that it could be done so, while that it should necessarily be done so was not founded there but hidden in God: if this is asked, I will say what seems to me without rashness in affirming; and when I have said it, perhaps those who consider these things wisely, whom the Christian faith has already instructed, will judge that it is not to be doubted, even if they now learn these things for the first time. This whole most customary course of nature has certain natural laws of its own, according to which the spirit of life, which is a creature, has certain appetites of its own, in a way determined, which even an evil will cannot exceed, and the elements of this bodily world have their defined force and quality, what each can or cannot do, what can or cannot be made from what. From these, as from the first beginnings of things, all things that are generated take, each in its own time, their rise and progress and the ends and departures of each kind. Hence it is that a bean is not born from a grain of wheat, nor wheat from a bean, nor man from beast, nor beast from man. But above this natural motion and course of things, the Creator's power has in itself the ability to make from all these something other than what their seminal reasons, so to speak, contain; yet not that which he did not place in them, so that it could be made from them even by him. For he is almighty not by rash power but by the strength of wisdom; and he does with each thing in its own time what he earlier made in it to be possible. There is, then, one mode of things, by which this plant sprouts in this way and that in that, this age bears children and that does not, man can speak and a beast cannot. The reasons of these and such modes are not only in God, but have also been placed by him in created things and grown together with them. But that a piece of wood cut from the earth, dry, polished, without any root, without earth and water, should suddenly flower and bear fruit; that a woman barren in youth should give birth in old age; that a donkey should speak, and anything of that kind: he indeed gave to the natures he created that these things too could be made from them (for he would not make from them even himself what he had fixed beforehand could not be made from them, since he is not more powerful than himself); but he gave it in another way, so that they would not have these things in their natural motion, but in that by which they were so created that their nature would be further subject to a more powerful will.

God, then, has hidden in himself the causes of certain deeds, which he did not insert in founded things, and he fulfils them not by that work of providence by which he establishes natures so that they exist, but by that by which he governs as he wills those natures which he founded as he willed. There too is grace, through which sinners are saved. For as regards a nature depraved by its own wicked will, it has no return through itself, but through the grace of God, by which it is helped and restored. Nor are men to be despaired of on account of that sentence in which it is written, “All who walk in it will not return.” For it was said according to the weight of their wickedness, so that he who returns may not attribute it to himself, but to the grace of God, “not from works, lest he be lifted up.” For this reason the apostle called the mystery of this grace hidden, not in the world, in which the causal reasons of all things that will arise naturally are hidden, as Levi was hidden in the loins of Abraham when he too was tithed, but in God, who created all things. Therefore all things which were done to signify this grace, not by the natural motion of things but wonderfully, had their causes also hidden in God; and if one of them was that the woman was made in this way from the man's side, and that while he slept, she who was made strong through him, strengthened as it were by his bone, and he made weak for her sake, because in place of the rib not a rib but flesh was supplied, then the first founding of things, when it was said on the sixth day, “Male and female he made them,” did not contain that the woman should certainly be made thus, but only this, that she could also be made thus, so that God would not do anything by a changeable will contrary to the causes which he established by his will. But what was to be done, so that nothing else would be, was hidden in God, who created all things. But since he said it was hidden in such a way that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the church, it is probably believed that, just as that seed to whom the promise was made was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator, so all the things that were done wonderfully in the nature of things, beyond the usual course of nature, to foretell or announce the coming of that seed, were done through the ministry of angels; yet so that nowhere is anyone the creator or restorer of creatures but God alone, who, whoever plants and waters, gives the growth.

And therefore that ecstasy too which God sent upon Adam, so that, put to sleep, he slept, is rightly understood to have been sent for this purpose, that his mind also might, through ecstasy, become a partaker, as it were, of the angelic court, and, entering into the sanctuary of God, understand the last things. Finally, waking up as if full of prophecy, when he saw his wife brought to him, he at once poured forth what the apostle commends as a great sacrament: “This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from her husband. And for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will be in one flesh.” Though Scripture itself testifies that these were the words of the first man, the Lord nevertheless declared in the gospel that God said them; for he says, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female? And he said: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will be in one flesh”; so that from this we might understand that, through the ecstasy which had come upon Adam, he could say this by divine inspiration as a prophet. But now this end of the book pleases me, so that what follows may renew the readers' attention from another beginning.

Now indeed the order itself seems to demand that we discuss the sin of the first man; but because Scripture narrated how the woman's flesh was made but was silent about her soul, it has made us much more intent on inquiring more carefully into this: in what way those can or cannot be refuted who believe that soul is made from the soul of a human being as flesh from flesh, the seeds of both being transmitted from parents to children. For this is what first moves them to say that God made one soul, which he breathed into the face of the man he had formed from dust, so that from it the other souls of human beings would be created, as all human flesh too came from his flesh, since Adam was formed first, then Eve. And of him it is said where he got his body and where his soul: his body, namely, from the dust of the earth, and his soul from the breath of God; but of her, though she is said to have been made from his side, it is not said that God animated her by breathing in the same way, as though both were drawn from him who had already been animated. “For either Scripture ought to have been silent,” they say, “about the man's soul too, so that we might understand, or at least believe, as best we could, that it was given by God; or, if Scripture did not keep silent about this so that we would not think that the soul too was made from the earth like man's flesh, it ought not to have been silent about the woman's soul either, so that it would not be thought to come by transmission, if this is not true. Therefore,” they say, “it was left unsaid that God breathed into her face, because it is true that the soul too was propagated from the man.” This suspicion is easily met. For if they think that the woman's soul was made from the man's soul because it is not written that God breathed into the woman's face, why do they believe that the woman was animated from the man, when this is not written either? Hence, if God makes all the souls of human beings who are born as he made the first, Scripture was silent about the others because what is recorded as done in one case could also be wisely understood of the rest. So if we were to be told anything about this matter through this Scripture, it would be rather if something else was being done in the woman that had not been done in the man, so that her soul was drawn from his animated flesh, and not, as with her husband, the body from one source and the soul from another; this very thing, which was being done in another way, Scripture ought rather not to have kept silent, lest we think it was done in the same way as we had already learned about him. Therefore, since it did not say that the woman's soul was made from the man's soul, it is more fittingly believed that by this very fact it wished to warn us to think nothing here other than what we had known about the man's soul, that is, that it was given to the woman in the same way; especially since there was a place of most evident opportunity, so that, if not then, when she was formed, it would certainly have been said afterwards, where Adam says, “This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh.” How much more dearly and lovingly would he have said, “and soul from my soul”! Yet this does not already solve so great a question, so that we may hold one of these views as plain and certain.

Therefore we must first see whether the holy Scripture of this book, treated from its beginning, allows us to doubt about this; then perhaps we shall rightly ask either which view is to be preferred or what measure we ought to keep in the uncertainty of this matter. Certainly on the sixth day God made man to his image; where it was also said, “Male and female he made them.” Of these, we took the first, where the image of God is mentioned, as referring to the soul, and the second, where the difference of sex is mentioned, as referring to the flesh. And since so many and such weighty testimonies, which were considered and treated there, did not allow us to take it that on that same sixth day man was also formed from mud and the woman from his side, but that this was done afterwards, after those first works of God in which he created all things together, we asked what we should believe about man's soul; and after all the parts of our discussion had been examined, it seemed more credible or more acceptable to say that man's soul itself was made in those works, but the reason of his body was made in the bodily world as in a seed; so that we would not be compelled, against the words of Scripture, either to say that the whole was made on the sixth day, that is, both the man from mud and the woman from his side, or that man was in no way made in those works of the six days, or that only the causal reason of the human body was made and none of the soul, when it is rather according to the soul that man is to the image of God; or certainly, even if not against the plain words of Scripture, yet harshly and unacceptably, to say either that the reason of the human soul was made in that spiritual creature which had been created only for this purpose, when that very creature in which this reason was said to be made is not mentioned among the works of God, or that the reason of the soul was made in some creature mentioned in those works (as in men who already exist the reason of begetting children lies hidden, already made), and so believe the soul to be the daughter either of angels or, what is more unacceptable, of some bodily element.

But now, if the woman is asserted to have received a soul not from the man but, like him, made by God, because God makes souls one by one for each person, then the woman's soul had not been made in those first works; or if a general reason of all souls had been made, as the reason of begetting is in men, we return to that hard and troublesome view that we should say that human souls are the daughters either of angels or, what is most unworthy, of the bodily heaven, or even of some lower element. And therefore we must see, though the truth is hidden, what at least can be said more acceptably: whether what I have just said, or that in those first works of God one soul of the first man was made, from whose stock all the souls of human beings would be created, or that new souls are made from time to time, of which not even a reason was made beforehand in those first works of God's six days. Of these three, the first two do not conflict with those first foundings, where all things were created together. For whether the reason of the soul was made in some creature as in a parent, so that all souls are generated from it but created by God when they are given to individual human beings, as bodies are from human parents; or whether not the reason of the soul, as the reason of offspring is in a parent, but the soul itself was wholly made when the day was made, like the day itself, like heaven and earth and the lights of heaven, it is fittingly said, “God made man to his image.” But how this third view does not conflict with the statement by which man is taken to have been made on the sixth day to the image of God and created visibly after the seventh day cannot be seen so easily. For if we say that new souls are made, neither they nor their reason having been made on that sixth day, as offspring is in a parent, along with those works, completed and begun, from which God rested on the seventh day, we must beware lest Scripture commend so carefully in vain that God completed in six days all his works, which he made very good, if he was still going to create some natures of which he did not make there either the natures themselves or their reasons causally; unless it is understood that he has in himself the reason for making souls one by one and giving them to each person as they are born, and did not found it in any creature; but that, since the soul is not a creature of another kind than that according to which man was made on the sixth day to the image of God, it is not rightly said that God now makes things which he did not complete then. For he had already then made the soul, such as he now makes souls; and therefore he does not now make some new kind of creature which he did not create then among his completed works; nor is this working of his contrary to those causal reasons of future things which he then placed in the universe, but rather according to them, since it is fitting that such souls as he now makes and puts in should be put into human bodies, whose propagation from those first works extends in continuous succession. Therefore, no longer fearing that we may seem to think against the words of this book written about that first founding of the six days, whichever of these three views prevails by probability, let us undertake a more careful treatment of this question, as far as God helps, to see whether perhaps it may be possible, if not to arrive at a clear view on this matter, about which there should be no further doubt, at least at one so acceptable that it is not absurd to hold it until something certain becomes clear. But if we cannot do even this, the weights of evidence on every side swaying equally, at least our doubt will not seem to have avoided the labor of inquiring, but the rashness of affirming; so that if anyone is already rightly certain, he may deign to teach me, but if anyone has been made certain not by the authority of divine speech or of clear reason but by his own presumption, he may not disdain to doubt with me.

And first let us hold most firmly that the nature of the soul is not turned into the nature of body, so that what was a soul becomes a body; nor into the nature of an irrational soul, so that what was the soul of a man becomes that of a beast; nor into the nature of God, so that what was a soul becomes what God is; and so, conversely, that neither body nor irrational soul nor the substance by which God is God is turned into and becomes a human soul. This too should be no less certain, that the soul is nothing but a creature of God. Therefore, if God made man's soul neither from body nor from irrational soul nor from himself, it remains that he makes it either from nothing or from some spiritual, yet rational, creature. But to try to show that something is made from nothing after the completion of the works in which he created all things together is forced, and whether it can be established by clear evidence I do not know. Nor is it to be demanded of us what man either cannot grasp or, if he can, it would be strange if he could persuade anyone of it, except someone who could understand such a thing himself even with no man trying to teach him. It is safer, then, not to deal with such matters by human conjectures, but to search the divine testimonies.

That God creates souls from angels as from parents, then, no authority from the canonical books occurs to me. Much less, then, from the bodily elements of the world; unless perhaps one is moved by the fact that in the prophet Ezekiel, when the resurrection of the dead is shown, after the bodies have been restored, the spirit is called from the four winds of heaven, by whose breathing they are brought to life so as to rise. For it is written thus: “And the Lord said to me: Prophesy over the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord: Come from the four quarters of the winds of heaven and breathe into these dead, and let them live. And I prophesied as the Lord commanded me, and the spirit of life entered into them, and they lived again and stood upon their feet, a very great assembly.” Here, it seems to me, it is prophetically signified that men will rise not only from that plain where the thing itself was shown, but from the whole world, and that this was prefigured by the breath of the four quarters of the world. For neither was that breath from the Lord's body the substance of the Holy Spirit when he breathed and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; but it was certainly signified that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him in the way that the breath itself proceeded from his body. But since the world is not joined to God into unity of person as that flesh was joined to his Word, his only-begotten Son, we cannot say that the soul is from the substance of God in the way that that breath from the four winds was made from the nature of the world; but still I think that that breath was one thing and signified another, which can rightly be understood from the example of the breath proceeding from the Lord's body; even if the prophet Ezekiel in that place foresaw in figurative revelation not the resurrection of the flesh as it will properly be, but the unexpected restoration of a despairing people through the Spirit of the Lord, who has filled the whole world.

Let us see now, then, which view the divine testimonies rather support: the one by which it is said that God made one soul and gave it to the first man, from which he would make the others, as the other human bodies from his body; or the one by which it is said that he makes souls one by one for each person, as he made one for him, not the others from it. For what he says through Isaiah, “Every breath I have made,” since what follows shows clearly enough that he says this of the soul, can be taken either way. For whether from the one soul of the first man or from some secret source of his own, he himself without doubt makes all souls. And what is written, “who formed their hearts one by one,” if we wish to understand souls by the word hearts, does not conflict with either of the two views we are now in doubt about. For whether from that one which he breathed into the face of the first man he himself certainly forms them one by one, as he does bodies too, or whether he forms them one by one and sends them, or forms them in the very persons to whom he has sent them; although this does not seem to me to have been said except from the fact that through grace our souls are formed by renewal to the image of God. Hence the apostle says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone be lifted up. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” For we cannot understand that our bodies were created or formed through this grace of faith; but it is as was said in the psalm, “Create a clean heart in me, O God.” From this too, I think, comes the saying, “who formed the spirit of man within him,” as though it is one thing to send a soul already made, and another to make it within the man himself, that is, to remake and renew it. But even if we understand this not of the grace in which we are renewed but of the nature in which we are born, it can be applied to either view, because either he himself forms in the man, so that it may give life to the body, the seed, as it were, of the soul drawn from that one soul of the first man, or he likewise forms, through the mortal senses of the flesh, the spirit of life poured into the body not from that stock but from elsewhere, so that man becomes a living soul.

But that passage of the book of Wisdom, where it says, “I received by lot a good soul, and, being rather good, I came into an undefiled body,” calls for more careful consideration. For it seems rather to support the opinion by which souls are believed not to be propagated from one, but to come to bodies from above. But what is meant by “I received by lot a good soul”? As though either in that fountain of souls, if there is one, some souls are good and others not good, which go out by a kind of lot as to which is given to which person; or God makes some good and others not good at the hour of conception or birth, and each has by lot whichever fell to him. It would be strange if this helped even those who believe that souls made elsewhere are sent by God one by one into each human body, and not rather those who say that souls are sent into bodies according to the merits of works they did before the body. For according to what can some be thought good and others not good when they come to bodies, except according to their works? For it is not according to nature, in which they are made by him who makes all natures good. But far be it from us to contradict the apostle, who says that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil, from which he confirms that “The elder will serve the younger” could not be said from works but from him who calls, when he was dealing with the twins still in Rebecca's womb. Let us set aside a little, then, this testimony from the book of Wisdom; for those are not to be neglected, whether they err or are right, who think this was said specially and uniquely of the soul of the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. What this means we will consider afterwards, if necessary, so that, if it cannot fit Christ, we may ask how we ought to take it, so as not to go against the apostolic faith by thinking that souls have some merits of their own works before they begin to live in bodies.

Now let us see how it was said, “You will take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created; and you will renew the face of the earth.” For this seems to sound in favor of those who think that souls are created from parents like bodies, when it is understood thus: that he said “their spirit” because men received it from men; and when they have died, it cannot be given back to them by men so that they may rise, because it is not drawn from parents again as when they were born, but God will give it back, who raises the dead. And therefore he called the same spirit theirs when they die, but God's when they rise. But those who assert that souls come not from parents but by God's sending can understand this in favor of their own opinion, thus: that he called the spirit theirs when they die, because it was in them and goes out from them, but God's when they rise, because it is sent by him and given back by him. So this testimony too opposes neither of them. But I think this is better understood of the grace of God, by which we are renewed inwardly. For from all the proud, who live according to the earthly man and presume on their own vanity, their own spirit is in a way taken away when they strip off the old man and are weakened, so that, pride driven out, they may be made perfect, saying to the Lord in humble confession, “Remember that we are dust,” those to whom it had been said, “Why is earth and ashes proud?” For, beholding with the eye of faith the righteousness of God, so that they do not wish to establish their own, they despise themselves, as Job says, and waste away and regard themselves as earth and ashes; for this is “and they will return to their dust.” But having received the Spirit of God, they say, “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” So the face of the earth is renewed through the grace of the new covenant, by the great number of the saints.

That passage too which is written in Ecclesiastes, “And let the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return to God who gave it,” supports neither view against the other, but stands between them. For when these say that it is proved by this that the soul is given not by parents but by God, because, when the dust has returned to its earth, that is, the flesh which was made from dust, the spirit returns to God who gave it, the others answer: “Certainly it is so. For the spirit returns to God, who gave it to the first man when he breathed into his face, when the dust, that is, the human body, has returned to its earth, from which it was first made. For the spirit was not going to return to the parents, although it was created from there, from that one which was given to the first man, just as the flesh itself does not return after death to the parents from whom it was certainly propagated. Just as, then, the flesh does not return to the human beings from whom it was created, but to the earth from which it was formed for the first man, so the spirit too does not return to the human beings from whom it was transmitted, but to God, by whom it was given to that first flesh.” By this testimony we are indeed sufficiently reminded that God made from nothing the soul which he gave to the first man, not from some creature already made as the body was from earth; and therefore, when it returns, it has nowhere to return to except to its author, who gave it, not to the creature from which it was made, as the body returns to the earth. For there is no creature from which it was made, because it was made from nothing, and therefore the soul that returns returns to its maker, by whom it was made from nothing. For not all return, since there are those of whom it is said, “a spirit that goes and does not return.”

Therefore it is indeed difficult to gather all the testimonies of the holy Scriptures on this matter; and even if it could be done, so that they were not only cited but also treated, they would run to a great length of discourse; but still, unless something is brought forward as certain as the things brought forward which show that God made the soul or that he gave it to the first man, I do not know how this question may be solved by the testimony of divine speech. For if it were written that God breathed likewise into the face of the woman when she was formed and she became a living soul, much light would indeed be added, by which we would believe that a soul is given to each formed human flesh not from the parents; yet it would still be awaited what properly holds in offspring, which is the usual way for us of man from man. For the first woman was made in another way, and so it could still be said that the soul was given by God to Eve not from Adam because she did not arise from him as offspring. But if Scripture recorded of the human being who was first born of them that his soul was not drawn from his parents but given from above, that would then have to be understood of the rest too, even with Scripture silent.

Now, then, let us consider also whether this passage confirms neither view but can be fitted to both: “Through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned”; and a little later: “As through the trespass of one, to all men unto condemnation, so also through the justification of one, to all men unto justification of life. For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous.” From these words of the apostle, those who defend the propagation of souls try to build up their view thus: “If sin or sinner can be understood according to the flesh alone,” they say, “we are not forced by these words to believe that the soul is from the parents; but if, though through the allurement of the flesh, it is still only the soul that sins, how is the saying ‘in whom all sinned’ to be taken, if the soul too was not propagated from Adam like the flesh? Or how were they made sinners through his disobedience, if they were in him only according to the flesh and not also according to the soul? For we must beware lest either God seem to be the author of sin, if he gives a soul to flesh in which it must necessarily sin, or there could be a soul, apart from that of Christ himself, for whose deliverance from sin Christian grace is not necessary, because it did not sin in Adam, if it was said that all sinned in him only according to the flesh which was created from him, and not also according to the soul: which is so contrary to the church's faith that parents run even with little children and infants to receive the grace of holy baptism; and if in them the bond of sin that is loosed is only that of the flesh and not also that of the soul, it is rightly asked what harm it would do them if at that age they left the body without baptism. For if by this sacrament their body is provided for and not their soul, the dead too ought to be baptized; but since we see that the church universally holds to this, that people run with the living and help the living, lest, when they have died, nothing can be done that would benefit them, we do not see what else can be understood but that each little child is nothing but Adam in both body and soul, and therefore Christ's grace is necessary for him. For that age in itself has done nothing either good or evil; so there the soul is most innocent, if it was not propagated from Adam. Hence whoever holds this view of the soul and can show how it can justly go into condemnation if it has left the body without baptism is to be wondered at.”

Most truly indeed and most truthfully is it written, “The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh”; yet I think that every learned and unlearned person would not doubt that the flesh can desire nothing without the soul. And therefore the cause of carnal desire itself is not in the soul alone, but much less is it in the flesh alone. For it arises from both: from the soul, because without it no delight is felt; from the flesh, because without it carnal delight is not felt. So by the flesh desiring against the spirit the apostle means without doubt the carnal delight which the spirit has from the flesh and with the flesh against the delight which it has alone. For it alone has, if I am not mistaken, that longing not mixed with the pleasure of the flesh or the craving for carnal things, by which the soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord; it alone has also that of which it is told, “You have desired wisdom: keep the commandment, and the Lord will provide it for you.” For when the spirit commands the members of the body to serve this longing by which it alone is kindled, as when a book is taken up, when something is written, read, discussed, heard, when, finally, bread is broken for the hungry and the other duties of humanity and mercy are performed, the flesh shows obedience, it does not stir up desire. When something which delights the same soul according to the flesh opposes these and similar good desires, by which the soul alone desires, then the flesh is said to desire against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. For it is called flesh in that which the soul does according to it when he says, “The flesh desires,” in the same way as it is said, “The ear hears and the eye sees”; for who does not know that it is rather the soul that hears through the ear and sees through the eye? So too we speak when we say, “Your hand helped a man,” when something is given with outstretched hand to help someone. And if of the very eye of faith, to which it belongs to believe what is not seen through the flesh, it is said, “All flesh will see the salvation of God,” certainly only of the soul, by which the flesh lives (since even to see Christ piously through our flesh itself, that is, the form with which he was clothed for us, belongs not to the desire but to the service of the flesh, lest anyone should want to take “All flesh will see the salvation of God” in that way): how much more fittingly is the flesh said to desire, when the soul not only gives animal life to the flesh, but also desires something according to the flesh itself, which it is not in its power not to desire as long as sin is in the members, that is, a certain violent allurement of the flesh in the body of this death, coming from the punishment of that sin from which we draw our descent, according to which all before grace are children of wrath. Against this sin those established under grace fight, not so that it may not be in their body as long as it is so mortal that it is rightly called even dead, but so that it may not reign. And it does not reign when its desires, that is, the things desired according to the flesh against the spirit, are not obeyed. So does the apostle say, “Let there be no sin in your mortal body”? For he knew that the delight of sin was in it, which he calls sin, nature having been depraved, that is, by the first transgression; but he says, “Let not sin reign in your mortal body so as to obey its desires, and do not present your members as weapons of wickedness to sin.”

According to this view we neither say the utterly absurd thing that the flesh desires without the soul, nor agree with the Manichees, who, seeing that the flesh cannot desire without a soul, thought that the flesh has some other soul of its own from another nature opposed to God, from which it desires against the spirit. Nor are we forced to say that Christ's grace is not necessary for some soul, when it is said to us: “What has the soul of an infant deserved, that it should be harmful to it to leave the body without having received the sacrament of Christian baptism, if it has neither committed any sin of its own nor comes from that soul which first sinned in Adam?” For we are not dealing with older boys, to whom some indeed are unwilling to attribute sin of their own except from the point of the fourteenth year, when they begin to reach puberty. We would rightly believe this if there were no sins except those committed with the genital members. But who would dare to affirm that thefts, lies, and perjuries are not sins, except one who wants to commit such things with impunity? Yet boyhood is full of them, although in them they do not seem to be punished as in older people, because it is hoped that as years come on, in which reason grows strong, they can better understand wholesome precepts and more willingly obey them. But we are not dealing now with boys, who, if truth and justice oppose their carnal and childish will, whether of body or of mind, resist with what strength of words and deeds they can; for what? Only for falsehood and wickedness, which will seem to them to support either the getting of what entices or the avoiding of what offends. We are speaking of infants; not because they are often born of adulterers; for the gifts of nature are not to be blamed in depraved morals, nor ought grain not to have sprouted because a thief's hand sowed it. Or will their wickedness harm the parents themselves, if they amend by turning to God? How much less the children, if they live rightly!

But that age raises a weighty question: since the soul of an infant has no sin from its own choice of will, it is asked how it can be justified through the obedience of that one man, if it is not guilty through the disobedience of the other one. This is the voice of those who hold that human souls are created from human parents, not indeed except by God the Creator, but in the way bodies are too. For parents do not create these either, but he who says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” To them it is answered that God gives new souls one by one to human bodies for this purpose: that in the flesh of sin, coming from original sin, by living rightly and subduing carnal desires under God's grace, they may acquire merit, by which, together with the body itself, they may be transferred to a better state at the time of the resurrection and live in Christ for ever with the angels; but that it is necessary that, when they are wonderfully fitted to earthly and mortal members, and above all members propagated from the flesh of sin, so that they may first give them life and later, as age comes on, also rule them, they are weighed down, as it were, by forgetfulness. If this forgetfulness were in some way beyond digesting, it would be attributed to the Creator; but since the soul, gradually recovering from the torpor of this forgetfulness, can turn to its God and deserve his mercy and truth, first by the very piety of its turning and then by perseverance in keeping his command, what harm is it to it to be plunged for a little while in that sleep, as it were, from which, gradually waking into the light of understanding, for which the rational soul was made, it can choose a good life by a good will? This indeed it will not be able to do unless God's grace helps it through the mediator. If a man neglects this, he will be Adam not only according to the flesh but also according to the spirit; but if he takes care of it, he will be Adam only according to the flesh; and, living rightly according to the spirit, he will deserve to receive back, cleansed from the stain of sin, even what was guiltily drawn from Adam, by that change which the resurrection promises to the saints. But before, by reason of age, it can live according to the spirit, it needs the sacrament of the mediator, so that what it cannot yet do through its own faith may be done through the faith of those who love it. For by his sacrament the penalty of original sin is loosed even in infancy; and unless helped by him, even a young man will not tame carnal desire, nor, having subdued it, lay hold of the merit of eternal life except by the gift of him whom he strives to deserve. Therefore even an infant ought to be baptized while living, so that fellowship with the flesh of sin may not harm the soul, a fellowship by sharing in which it comes about that the infant's soul can think nothing according to the spirit. For this very condition weighs it down even when stripped of the body, unless, while it is in the body, it is expiated by the one sacrifice of the true priest.

“What then,” someone says, “if their own people have not seen to this, through unbelief or neglect?” This indeed can be said of older people too. For they may either die suddenly or fall ill among people where no one helps them to be baptized. “But they,” he says, “also have sins of their own, which need remission, and if these have not been forgiven, no one will rightly say that they are punished undeservedly for what they committed in their own life by their own will; but that soul, to which a certain contagion has been drawn from the flesh of sin, if it was not created from that first sinful soul, can in no way be held guilty (for it was given to the flesh not by any sin, but by the nature in which it was so made, and by God's giving); why will it be estranged from eternal life if no one has helped by baptizing the infant? Or perhaps it will do no harm? What good is it, then, to the one who is helped, if it does no harm to the one who is not helped?” What those can answer here for their cause who try to assert, according to the holy Scriptures, either from what is found in them or from what is not contrary to them, that new souls not drawn from parents are given to bodies, I confess I have not yet heard or read anywhere. Yet the case of the absent is not to be abandoned for that reason, if anything occurs to me by which it may seem to be helped. For they can still say that God, foreknowing how each soul would live if it lived longer in the body, provides the administration of the saving washing for the one whose future piety he foresees, had it come to the years capable of faith, if now, for some hidden reason, it had to be overtaken by death. It is hidden, then, and very far from human understanding, or certainly from mine, why an infant is born either to die at once or soon; but this is so hidden that it helps neither of those whose views we are now discussing. For, the opinion having been exploded by which souls are thought to be thrust into bodies according to the merits of a previous life, so that a soul that had not sinned much would seem to have deserved to be released sooner (lest we contradict the apostle, who testifies that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil), neither those who affirm the transmission of the soul can show in their favor why the death of some is hastened and that of others delayed, nor those who hold that new souls are given one by one to each. This cause, then, is hidden, and, as far as I can judge, neither supports nor opposes either side.

So those who were pressed about the deaths of infants, as to why the sacrament of baptism is necessary for all whose souls were not drawn from that one through whose disobedience many were made sinners, answer that all are indeed made sinners according to the flesh, but according to the soul only those who lived badly at a time when they could also have lived well; but that all souls, including those of infants, need the sacrament of baptism, without which it is not good to depart from this life even at that age, because the contagion of sin from the flesh of sin, by which the soul is overwhelmed when it is put into these members, will harm it after death unless, while it is still in that flesh, it is expiated by the sacrament of the mediator; and that this help is provided by God for the soul which God foreknew would have lived piously if it had lived here to the years suited to faith, a soul which for some reason known to him he both willed to be born in a body and soon took out of the body: when they answer this, what can be said against them, except that we would become uncertain of the salvation of those who, after a life well lived, have died in the peace of the church, if each is to be judged not only according to how he lived but also according to how he would have lived if he could have lived longer? For then the evil merits not only of past but also of future sins would count with God, from whose guilt not even death would free a man if it came before they were committed; and nothing would have been granted to him who was taken away lest wickedness change his understanding. For why would God, foreknowing his future wickedness, not rather judge him according to it, if he judged that the soul of an infant about to die should be helped by baptism, lest the filth shared from the body of sin harm it, because he foreknew that, if it lived, it would have lived piously and faithfully? Or can this invention be refuted the more readily because it is mine, while those who affirm that they are certain of this view perhaps bring forward other testimonies of the Scriptures or proofs of reason, by which they may remove this ambiguity, or at least show that what the apostle says does not contradict their view, when, commending with great earnestness the grace by which we are saved, he says, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive,” and, “As through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous,” and, wishing these same many sinners to be understood as all, with no exceptions, he says above of Adam, “in whom all sinned”? Hence those who hold that souls come by transmission from one believe, not absurdly, that the souls of infants cannot be set apart, both because it was said “all” and because they are helped by baptism, unless they are refuted by some manifest and clear reason which does not conflict with the holy Scriptures, or by the authority of those Scriptures themselves.

Now, then, let us see, as far as the needs of this work we have undertaken allow, what that passage is which we put off a little earlier. For it is written in the book of Wisdom: “Now I was a gifted child and received by lot a good soul; and, being rather good, I came into an undefiled body.” For while this testimony seems to help those who say that souls are not created from parents but come or descend into the body at God's sending, it again hinders their view in saying, “I received by lot a good soul,” since they doubtless believe that the souls which God sends into bodies either flow in a way like streams from one fountain or are made of equal nature, not some good or better and others not good or less good. For from where would souls be good or better, or not good or less good, except either from their conduct according to free choice of will or from the difference in the constitution of bodies, some being more and others less weighed down by the body, which is corrupted and weighs down the soul? But neither was there any action of individual souls by which their conduct might be distinguished before they came to bodies, nor could he call his soul good on account of a less burdensome body, who says, “I received by lot a good soul, and, being rather good, I came into an undefiled body.” For he said that, to the goodness by which he was good, having received by lot a good soul, there was added that he also came into an undefiled body. So he was good from some other source before he came to the body; but certainly not by difference of conduct, because there was no merit of a life lived beforehand, nor by difference of body, because he was good before he came to the body. From where, then? But for those who assert that souls are created by transmission from the soul of that transgressor, although the saying “I came into a body” does not seem to sound in their favor, the rest fits not unsuitably: having said, “Now I was a gifted child,” and explaining by what causes he was gifted, he at once added, “and I received by lot a good soul,” namely from his father's gifts or bodily constitution. Then, “being rather good,” he says, “I came into an undefiled body”: and if this is understood as the mother's body, not even the saying “I came into a body” will go against this opinion, since it is taken that he came from the father's soul and body into the mother's undefiled body, undefiled, that is, either by menstrual blood (for it is said that natural gifts are weighed down by this) or by the contamination of adultery. So these words of this book too either favor rather those who speak of the transmission of souls, or, if the others too can interpret them in their favor, they waver between both.

If we wish to take these words of the Lord according to the human creature which was taken up by the Word, there are indeed things in the same context of the reading which do not befit that excellence; above all this, that the same person who speaks these words in the same book, somewhat earlier than when he said the words we are now discussing, confessed that he was curdled in blood from the seed of a man: a manner of birth from which the virgin's childbearing is certainly foreign, since no Christian doubts that she conceived the flesh of Christ not from the seed of a man. But since in the Psalms too, where it says, “They pierced my hands and feet, they numbered all my bones; they looked and stared at me. They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots,” things which properly fit him alone, it also said there, “God, my God, look upon me; why have you forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins,” which again do not befit him, except as one who transfigures into himself the body of our lowliness, since we are members of his body; and since in the gospel itself “the child advanced in age and wisdom”; if these things too which are read around this sentence in the book of Wisdom can be fitted to the same Lord, because of the lowly form of a servant and the unity of the body of the church with its head, what is more gifted than that child, whose wisdom his elders marveled at in his twelfth year? And what is better than that soul, which, even if those who affirm the transmission of souls should win, not by contending but by proving, it will not follow that it too must be believed to have come by transmission from that transgressor, lest he too be made a sinner through that man's disobedience, he through whose one obedience many, freed from that guilt, are made righteous? And what is more undefiled than that virgin's womb, whose flesh, even if it came from the propagation of sin, nevertheless did not conceive from the propagation of sin, so that not even the body of Christ was sown in Mary's womb by that law which, set in the members of the body of death, fights against the law of the mind? This law the holy fathers who were married reined in, relaxing it only as far as was allowed for intercourse, and yet did not merely suffer its impulse as far as was allowed. So the body of Christ, though it was taken from the flesh of a woman who had been conceived from that stock of the flesh of sin, nevertheless, because it was not conceived in her in the way she had been conceived, was not itself flesh of sin, but the likeness of the flesh of sin. For he did not receive from there the guilt of dying, which appears in the involuntary motion of the flesh, though overcome by the will, against which the spirit desires; but he received from there not what would suffice for the contagion of the transgression, but what would suffice for paying an undue death and showing the promised resurrection: of which the one would avail for us not to fear, the other to hope. Finally, if I am asked from where Jesus Christ received his soul, I would rather hear better and more learned men on this; but still, according to my capacity, I would more willingly answer, “from where Adam did, rather than from Adam.” For if the dust taken from the earth, in which no man had worked, deserved to be animated by God, how much more did the body taken from flesh in which likewise no man had worked receive by lot a good soul, since there one was raised up who was going to fall, here one descended who was going to lift up! And perhaps it says, “I received by lot a good soul” (if indeed it ought to be understood of him) because things given by lot are usually given by God. Or, what may be said confidently, lest even that soul be thought to have been raised to so high a summit by some preceding works, so that with it the Word might become flesh and dwell among us, the word “lot” was added to remove any suspicion of preceding merits.

There is in the letter entitled To the Hebrews a passage most worthy of careful consideration. For when, through Melchizedek, in whom a figure of this future reality had gone before, he was distinguishing the priesthood of Christ from the priesthood of Levi, he says: “See, then, how great this man is, to whom even Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the first fruits. And those of the sons of Levi who receive the priesthood have a command to take tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brothers, though these too came out of the loins of Abraham. But he who is not of their descent tithed Abraham and blessed him who had the promise. And without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater. And here mortal men receive tithes, but there one of whom it is testified that he lives. And, as one may say, through Abraham even Levi, who receives tithes, was tithed; for he was still in the loins of his father.” If, then, this too serves to show how far the priesthood of Christ surpasses the Levitical priesthood, that Christ the priest was prefigured by him who tithed Abraham, in whom Levi himself was also tithed, surely Christ was not tithed by him. But if Levi was tithed because he was in the loins of Abraham, Christ was not tithed because he was not in the loins of Abraham. Further, if we take it that Levi was in Abraham not according to the soul but only according to the flesh, Christ too was there, because Christ too according to the flesh is of the seed of Abraham; and so he too was tithed. What then is the meaning of what is brought forward as a great difference between the priesthood of Christ and the priesthood of Levi, that Levi was tithed by Melchizedek when he was in the loins of Abraham, where Christ also was, so that they were tithed equally, unless we must understand that in some way Christ was not there? But who would deny that he was there according to the flesh? Therefore he was not there according to the soul. So the soul of Christ is not from the transmission of Adam's transgression; otherwise it too would have been there.

Here those who defend the transmission of souls come forward and say that their view is confirmed, if it is clear that Levi was in the loins of Abraham also according to the soul, in whom Melchizedek tithed him, so that Christ can be distinguished from him in this tithing: since Christ was not tithed and yet was in the loins of Abraham according to the flesh, it remains that he was not there according to the soul, and so it follows that Levi was there according to the soul. This does not concern me much, since I am still more ready to hear both sides compared than to confirm the view of either. Meanwhile I wished to set apart Christ's soul from the origin of this transmission by this testimony. The others will perhaps find what to answer them on the rest, and they will say, what moves me too not a little, that although no man's soul is in the loins of his father, still Levi, set in the loins of Abraham according to the flesh, was tithed, and Christ, set there according to the flesh, was not tithed. For Levi was there according to that seminal reason by which he was to come into his mother through intercourse, a reason according to which Christ's flesh was not there, although according to it Mary's flesh was there. Therefore neither Levi nor Christ was in the loins of Abraham according to the soul, but according to the flesh both Levi and Christ; but Levi according to carnal concupiscence, Christ according to bodily substance alone. For since in seed there is both visible bulk and invisible reason, both ran from Abraham, or even from Adam himself, to the body of Mary, because it too was conceived and came forth in that way. But Christ took the visible substance of flesh from the flesh of the virgin; but the reason of his conception came not from a man's seed but in a far different way and from above. So according to what he received from his mother he too was in the loins of Abraham. He, then, was tithed in Abraham who, though only according to the flesh, was in his loins in the way that Abraham himself was in his father's, that is, who was born of his father Abraham in the way that Abraham was born of his own father, namely through the law in the members fighting against the law of the mind and the invisible concupiscence, although the chaste and good laws of marriage do not allow it to prevail except as far as they can provide from it for continuing the race. But he was not tithed there whose flesh drew from there not the fever of the wound but the material of the medicine. For since the tithing itself served to prefigure the medicine, what was tithed in Abraham's flesh was what was being healed, not that by which it was healed. For the same flesh, not only of Abraham but of the first and earthly man himself, had at once both the wound of the transgression and the medicine of the wound: the wound of the transgression in the law of the members fighting against the law of the mind, which is transcribed, as it were, by the seminal reason through all the flesh propagated from there; and the medicine of the wound in that which was taken from there from the virgin, without the work of concupiscence, in bodily material alone, by the divine reason of conception and formation, for the sake of sharing death without iniquity and of an example of resurrection without falsehood. Therefore I think that even those who defend the transmission of souls agree that the soul of Christ is not from the transmission of that first transgressing soul (for they hold that the seed of the soul too is transmitted through the seed of the father in intercourse, a kind of conception from which Christ is foreign), and that if he had been in Abraham according to the soul, he too would have been tithed; but Scripture testifies that he was not tithed, and by this too distinguishes his priesthood from the Levitical priesthood.

Or will they perhaps say: “As he could be there according to the flesh and not be tithed, why could he not be there according to the soul without tithing?” Here the answer is: because surely not even those who think the soul is a body, among whom are chiefly those who think it is created from the parents, have supposed that the simple substance of the soul is increased by bodily growth. So in the seed of the body there can be an invisible force which works numbers in a bodiless way, to be distinguished not by the eyes but by the understanding from that bulk which is perceived by sight and touch. And the very size of the human body, which certainly exceeds incomparably the measure of the seed, shows clearly enough that something can be taken from there which does not have that seminal force but only bodily substance, which was taken up and formed by God into the flesh of Christ, not from the propagation of those who have intercourse. But who could affirm this of the soul, that it has both, the manifest material of the seed and the hidden reason of the seed? But why should I labor over a matter which perhaps cannot be put across in words to anyone, unless his mind is so great and such that it can fly ahead of the speaker's effort and not wait for everything from speech? So I will sum up briefly: if it could happen with the soul too (as perhaps was understood when we spoke of the flesh), the soul of Christ is from transmission in such a way that it did not draw with it the stain of the transgression; but if it could not come from there without that guilt, it does not come from there. As to the coming of the other souls, whether they are from the parents or from above, let those prevail who can. I still waver between both, and am moved sometimes this way and sometimes that; holding fast only to this, that I do not believe the soul to be a body or any bodily quality or arrangement, if it is to be so called, which the Greeks call harmonia, nor, with God helping my mind, am I confident that I will believe it, whoever chatters about such things.

There is another testimony not to be neglected, which those who believe that souls come from above can bring forward in their favor, the Lord himself saying, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” “What could state more definitely than this,” they say, “that the soul cannot be born of the flesh? For what else is the soul but a spirit of life, created, of course, not creator?” Against them the others say: “What else do we hold, who say flesh from flesh, soul from soul? For man consists of both, and we hold that both come from man: flesh from the flesh of the one who acts, spirit from the spirit of the one who desires”; to say nothing for now of the fact that the Lord was speaking not of carnal generation but of spiritual regeneration.

Having treated these things, then, as far as we could for the present, I would declare all the weights of reasons and testimonies on either side equal or almost equal, were it not that the view of those who think souls are created from the parents outweighs the other on the baptism of little children. What can be answered to them about this has not yet occurred to me for the present; if God perhaps grants something later, and if he grants the ability of writing to those devoted to such matters, I will not be reluctant. Now, however, I declare beforehand that the testimony of little children is not to be despised, so as to be neglected as if refuted, if the truth is against it. For either nothing is to be asked about this matter, so that it is enough for our faith to know where we are going by living piously, even if we do not know where we have come from; or, if the rational soul is not shamelessly eager to know this too about itself, let there be no stubbornness in contending, but diligence in seeking, humility in asking, perseverance in knocking; so that, if he knows this is good for us, who certainly knows better than we what is good for us, he who gives good gifts to his children may give this too. Yet the custom of mother church in baptizing little children is by no means to be despised, nor in any way to be thought superfluous, nor would it be believed at all unless it were an apostolic tradition. For that little age too has great weight of testimony, which was the first to deserve to shed its blood for Christ.

I do indeed warn, as far as I can, any who have been taken up by this opinion, so as to believe that souls are propagated from parents, to consider themselves as much as they can and meanwhile to understand that their souls are not bodies. For there is no nearer nature, by careful inspection of which even God, who remains unchangeable above all his creation, can be thought of in a bodiless way, than that which was made to his image; and nothing is closer, or perhaps nothing follows so readily, than that, if the soul is believed to be a body, God too should be believed to be a body. For this is why those accustomed to and affected by the bodily senses are unwilling to believe that the soul is anything other than a body, lest, if it were not a body, it would be nothing; and therefore they fear all the more to believe that God is not a body, the more they fear to believe that God is nothing. For they are so carried away into fancies or phantoms of images, which thought about bodies turns over, that, when these are taken away, they dread perishing as though through emptiness. So they must paint, as it were, even justice and wisdom in their hearts with forms and colors, since they cannot think of them as bodiless; and yet, when they are moved by justice or wisdom, so as either to praise them or to do something according to them, they do not say what color, what height, what features they have seen. But of these things we have already said much elsewhere and, if God wills, we will speak where the matter seems to require it. Now, as we had begun to say, if some either do not doubt that souls come by transmission from parents, or doubt whether it is so, let them not dare to believe or say that the soul is a body, above all for the reason I gave, lest they think that God himself too is nothing other than a body, even if a most excellent one, even if of a nature of its own surpassing the rest, but still a body.

Finally Tertullian, because he believed the soul to be a body for no other reason than that he could not think of it as bodiless, and so feared that it would be nothing if it were not a body, could not think otherwise of God either; yet, being sharp, he is sometimes overcome by the truth he sees, against his own opinion. For what truer thing could he have said than what he says in one place: “Everything bodily is passible”? He ought, then, to have changed the view he had stated a little earlier, that God too is a body. For I do not think he was so foolish as to believe that even God's nature is passible, so that Christ would be believed passible and changeable no longer in the flesh only, nor in flesh and soul, but in the very Word through whom all things were made: which be far from a Christian heart. Likewise, when he gave the soul even an airy and bright color, he came to the senses, with which he tried to furnish it limb by limb like a body, and he says: “This will be the inner man, the other the outer, one person twofold; the inner too having its own eyes and ears, by which the people ought to have heard and seen the Lord, having also the other limbs, which it uses in thoughts and employs in dreams.” See with what ears and what eyes the people ought to have heard and seen God: those which the soul employs in dreams; though if anyone saw Tertullian himself in dreams, he would never say that he had been seen by him and had spoken with him, whom he himself had not seen in return. Finally, if the soul sees itself in dreams, when, the limbs of its body lying in one place, it wanders through the various images which it sees, who has ever seen it in dreams of an airy and bright color, unless perhaps as he sees the other things which he similarly sees falsely? For he can see this too. But far be it from him to believe, when he wakes up, that it is such; otherwise, when he sees himself otherwise, which is more frequent, either his soul will have been changed, or then too it is not the substance of the soul that is seen, but a bodiless image of a body, which is formed in a wonderful way as in thought. For what Ethiopian has not almost always seen himself black in dreams, or, if he saw himself in another color, did not rather wonder, if memory was with him? But whether he would ever have seen himself in an airy and bright color, I do not know, if he had never read or heard this. What of the fact that men are led by such visions and want to lay down for us from the Scriptures that such a thing is not the soul but God himself, as he was shown figuratively to the spirits of the saints, as he is also set forth in allegorical speech? For those visions are like such sayings. And so they err, setting up in their hearts idols of a vain opinion and not understanding that the saints judged of such visions of theirs as they would judge if they read or heard such things said by God in figures: as the seven ears of grain and the seven cows are seven years, as the sheet tied by four corners, like a dish full of various animals, is the whole world with all the nations; so all the rest, and much more, which are signified of bodiless things not by things but by images.

Yet Tertullian did not want the soul to grow in substance like the body, stating also the reason for his fear: “lest it be said also to decrease in substance,” he says, “and so be believed also to be going to fail.” And yet, because he stretches it locally through the body, he finds no way out concerning its growth, since he wants it to become equal from a tiny seed to the size of the body, and he says: “But its force, in which the natural endowments sown in it are kept, is gradually drawn out with the flesh, the measure of the substance with which it was breathed in from the beginning being preserved.” This we would perhaps not understand if he did not make plain what he was saying by using a comparison. “Take,” he says, “a certain weight of gold or silver, a mass still rough: its shape is compact and for the time smaller than it will be, yet containing within the line of its measure all that is by nature gold or silver. Then, when the mass is beaten out into a sheet, it is made greater than at its beginning by the spreading of the fixed weight, not by addition, while it is extended, not while it is increased. Although in this way too it is increased while it is extended; for it may be increased in shape, though not in state. Then too the very brightness of the gold or silver is brought out, which was indeed there before in the mass, but dimmer, yet not absent. Then too other and other shapes come, according to the ease of the material, as the worker has drawn it out, contributing nothing to its measure but form. So too the growths of the soul are to be reckoned not substantial but drawn forth.” Who would believe that, with such a mind, he could be so eloquent? But these things are to be trembled at, not laughed at. For would he be forced into this if he could think of something which both exists and is not a body? And what is more absurd than to think that a mass of any metal can grow in one part, while it is beaten, unless it decreases in another, or be increased in breadth unless it is lessened in thickness? Or that there is any body which, the quantity of its nature remaining, grows on every side without becoming thinner? How, then, will the soul fill from that drop of seed the size of the body it animates, if it too is a body, whose substance grows by no addition? How, I say, will it fill the flesh it gives life to, unless it becomes thinner in proportion as what it animates is larger? He feared, evidently, that it would fail by lessening if it grew, and did not fear that it would fail by thinning when it grew. But why should I dwell longer, when my discourse is running on at greater length than the need of finishing requires, and my view is now well enough known, both what I hold as certain and on what point I still doubt, and why I doubt? So let this volume too now be concluded, so that we may then see what follows.

“And they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Now the serpent was the most prudent of all the beasts that are upon the earth, which the Lord God had made. And the serpent said to the woman, ‘Why is it that God said, You shall not eat from every tree of paradise?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we shall eat; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of paradise God said, You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You shall not die the death; for God knew that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.’ And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes to look upon, and beautiful to know. And taking of its fruit she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and they ate. And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves girdles. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise toward evening, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam and said to him, ‘Adam, where are you?’ And he said to him, ‘I heard your voice as you walked in paradise, and I was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself.’ And he said to him, ‘Who told you that you were naked, unless you have eaten of the tree of which alone I had commanded you not to eat?’ And Adam said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ And the Lord God said to the woman, ‘Why have you done this?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ And the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle and above all the beasts that are upon the earth. Upon your breast and your belly you shall go, and earth you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. She will watch for your head, and you will watch for her heel.’ And to the woman he said, ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your groaning. In sorrows you shall bear children, and your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.’ But to Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate of the tree of which alone I had commanded you not to eat, cursed is the earth in your works; in sorrows you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the grass of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for earth you are, and to earth you shall go.’ And Adam called the name of his wife ‘Life,’ because she is the mother of all the living. And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them. And the Lord God said, ‘Behold, Adam has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. And now, lest at some time he stretch out his hand and take of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever’— and the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of delight to till the earth from which he was taken. And he cast Adam out and placed him opposite the paradise of delight; and he stationed the Cherubim and the flaming sword which turns, to guard the way to the tree of life.” Before we treat the text of this passage of Scripture in order, I think I should give a reminder of what I remember having said already elsewhere in this work: what we must strive for is that what the writer himself narrates as having been done be defended according to the proper sense of the letter. But if, in the words of God or of any person taken up into the prophetic office, something is said that cannot be understood literally except absurdly, then without doubt it must be taken as said figuratively for the sake of some meaning; yet that it was said, we may not doubt. For this is required by the trustworthiness of the narrator and by the undertaking of the expositor. “So they were both naked”: it is true; the bodies of the two human beings living in paradise were entirely naked. “And they were not ashamed”: for what should they be ashamed of, when they had not yet felt any law in their members warring against the law of their mind? That penalty of sin followed them after they had committed the transgression, when disobedience usurped what was forbidden and justice punished what was committed. Before this happened, they were naked, as was said, and were not abashed; there was no movement in the body that called for modesty; they thought nothing needed to be veiled, because they had felt nothing that needed to be reined in. How they would have propagated children has already been discussed earlier; yet it must not be believed that it would have been in the way in which they did propagate after the foretold punishment followed the committing of the crime, when, before they died, death, already conceived in the body of disobedient human beings, stirred up the tumult of disobedient members by a most just requital. Adam and Eve were not yet such when they were both naked and were not abashed.

Now the serpent there was indeed the most prudent, but of all the beasts that were upon the earth, which the Lord God had made. For “most prudent,” or, as more Latin manuscripts have it, “most wise,” is said by a transferred use of the word, not in its proper sense, in which wisdom is usually taken in a good sense, whether of God or of angels or of the rational soul; just as if we were to call bees and ants “wise” because of works that seem to imitate wisdom. And yet this serpent can be called the wisest of all the beasts not by its own irrational soul but by a spirit not its own, namely the devil's. For however much the transgressing angels have been cast down from the heavenly seats in consequence of their perversity and pride, they are still by nature more excellent than all the beasts because of the eminence of reason. What wonder, then, if the devil, by his own prompting, filling the serpent and mingling his spirit with it in the way in which the soothsayers of demons are usually filled, had made it the wisest of all the beasts that live according to a living and irrational soul? For by a misuse of the name, wisdom is spoken of in a bad sense, just as cunning is spoken of in a good sense, although properly and more commonly, at least in the Latin language, people are called wise in praise, while the cunning are understood to be ill-minded. Hence some, as we find in very many manuscripts, rendering not the word but rather the sense for the sake of Latin usage, preferred to call this serpent “more cunning” than all the beasts rather than “wiser.” What the idiom of Hebrew has, whether there people can properly and not by misuse be called and understood to be wise in a bad sense, let those who know it well see to that. We, however, clearly read in another passage of the holy Scriptures of people who are wise for evil, not for good; and the Lord says that the children of this world are wiser than the children of light in providing for themselves for the future, though by fraud, not by right.

Nor indeed should we suppose that the devil chose the serpent for himself as the one through which to tempt and persuade to sin; but since there was in him, because of his perverse and envious will, the desire to deceive, he could do it only through that animal through which he was permitted to be able to do it. For the will to harm can come from a person's own depraved mind; but the power comes only from God, and this by a hidden and profound justice, since there is no iniquity with God.

If, then, it is asked why God permitted the man to be tempted whom he foreknew would consent to the tempter, I cannot penetrate the depth of his counsel, and I confess that this is far beyond my powers. There may be some more hidden reason, reserved for those who are better and holier, by his grace rather than by their merits. Yet, so far as he grants me to understand or permits me to say, it does not seem to me that it would have been greatly to the man's praise if he could live well only because no one persuaded him to live badly; since he had it both in his nature to be able and in his power to will not to consent to the persuader, with the help, however, of him who resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Why, then, should God not permit him to be tempted whom he foreknew would consent, since he was going to do it by his own will through fault and was to be set in order by God's equity through punishment, so that in this way too he might show to the proud soul, for the instruction of the saints to come, how rightly he himself uses the wills of souls, even evil ones, when they use good natures perversely?

Nor should it be thought that this tempter would have overthrown the man had there not first been in the man's soul a certain exaltation that needed to be checked, so that through the humiliation of sin he might learn how falsely he had presumed about himself. For it is most truly said, “Before a fall the heart is exalted, and before glory it is humbled.” And perhaps it is this man's voice in the psalm: “I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved for ever.” Then, having learned by experience what evil there is in proud presumption on one's own power and what good in the help of God's grace, he says, “Lord, in your will you gave strength to my beauty; but you turned away your face, and I became troubled.” But whether that was said of this man or of another, still the soul that exalts itself and trusts too much in its own strength, as it were, had to be shown, even by the experience of punishment, how badly a created nature fares if it departs from the one who made it. For hereby above all is it commended what a good God is, since it is well with no one who departs from him; because those who rejoice in deadly pleasures cannot be without fear of pain, and those who, in a greater stupor of pride, do not feel the evil of their desertion at all appear plainly more wretched to others who know how to discern these things; so that, if they will not accept the medicine for avoiding such things, they may serve as an example by which such things can be avoided. For as the apostle James says, “Each one is tempted by his own desire, being drawn away and enticed. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is completed, brings forth death.” Hence, once the swelling of pride is healed, one rises again, if the will that was lacking before the experience, so as to remain with God, is at least present after the experience, so as to return to God.

Some are troubled about this temptation of the first man, that God permitted it to happen, as though they did not now see the whole human race tempted without ceasing by the snares of the devil. Why does God permit this also? Is it not because virtue is proved and exercised, and the palm is more glorious for having been tempted and not consented than for having been unable to be tempted? For even those who forsake the Creator and go after the tempter tempt more and more those who remain in the word of God, and they offer them an example of what to avoid against desire and strike into them a godly fear against pride. Hence the apostle says, “Considering yourself, lest you too be tempted.” For it is remarkable how constantly, through all the divine Scriptures, that humility is commended by which we are subject to the Creator, lest we presume on our own strength as though we did not need his help. Since, then, the just make progress even through the unjust and the godly through the ungodly, it is idle to say, “God should not create those whom he foreknew would be evil.” For why should he not create those whom he foreknew would benefit the good, so that they may be born useful for exercising and admonishing the good wills of others, and be justly punished for their own evil will?

“He should have made man such,” they say, “that he would not will to sin at all.” Look, we grant that the nature that does not will to sin at all is better; let them grant too that the nature is not evil that was made such that it could not sin if it did not will to, and that the sentence was just by which it was punished, since it sinned by will, not by necessity. Just as true reason teaches that the creature that no unlawful thing delights at all is better, so true reason teaches no less that the creature is also good that has it in its power to restrain unlawful delight, if it arises, in such a way that it rejoices not only in other lawful and rightly done deeds but also in the very restraint of the wicked delight. Since, then, this nature is good and that one better, why should God make only that one and not rather both? And so those who were ready to praise God for that one alone ought to praise him more richly for both; for that one is in the holy angels, this one in holy human beings. But those who chose for themselves the part of iniquity and depraved a praiseworthy nature by a culpable will ought not, simply because they were foreknown, to have been left uncreated. For they too have their place, which they fill in the order of things for the benefit of the saints. For God does not need the righteousness of any upright man; how much less the iniquity of the perverse!

But who, considering soberly, would say, “It would have been better not to create the one whom he foreknew could be corrected by another's iniquity than to create also the one whom he foreknew must be condemned for his own iniquity”? For this is to say, “It would be better that there not exist one who would be mercifully crowned by making good use of another's evil than that there should also exist an evil one who would be justly punished according to his desert.” For when sure reason demonstrates two goods that are not equal, but one higher and the other lower, the slow of heart, when they say, “Let both be like that,” do not understand that they are saying nothing else than, “Let only that one exist.” And so, wishing to make the kinds of good equal, they reduce their number, and by immoderately increasing one kind they remove the other. Who would listen to them if they said, “Since the sense of sight is more excellent than that of hearing, there should be four eyes and no ears”? So, if that rational creature is more excellent which is subject to God without comparison with anyone's punishment and without any pride, while another, among human beings, was created such that it cannot recognize God's benefit in itself except by seeing another's punishment, so that it may not be high-minded but fear, that is, not presume on itself but trust in God—who, understanding rightly, would say, “Let this one be like that one,” and not see that he is saying nothing else than, “Let this one not exist, but only that one”? But if this is said ignorantly and foolishly, why then should God not create even those whom he foreknew would be evil, wishing to show his wrath and to make known his power, and for this reason enduring with much patience the vessels of wrath that are fitted for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory toward the vessels of mercy, which he prepared for glory? For thus “let him who boasts boast only in the Lord,” when he recognizes that it is not his own doing but God's, not only that he exists but also that it is well with him only from the one from whom he has his existence. So it is quite out of place to say, “Those to whom God would grant such great kindness of his mercy should not exist, if they could not exist otherwise than if those also existed in whom he would display the justice of his vengeance.”

For why should both kinds not exist instead, since in both God's goodness and his equity are rightly proclaimed? “But if God willed it, these too would be good.” How much better did God will this: that they should be what they willed, but that the good should not be fruitless nor the evil unpunished, and that in this very thing they should be useful to others! “But he foreknew that their will would be evil.” He did foreknow it, indeed; and because his foreknowledge cannot be deceived, the evil will is therefore not his but theirs. Why, then, did he create those whom he foreknew would be such? Because, just as he foresaw what evil they would do, so also he foresaw what good he himself would do from their evil deeds. For he made them in such a way as to leave them something they themselves might do, so that whatever they chose, even culpably, they would find him working praiseworthily in their regard. For from themselves they have the evil will; but from him both their good nature and their just punishment, their due place, a help in exercise for others, and an example to make them fear.

“But,” someone says, “he could have turned even their will to good, since he is almighty.” He could indeed. Why, then, did he not do it? Because he did not will to. Why he did not will to rests with him. For we ought not to think more highly than we ought to think. Yet I think I showed sufficiently a little earlier that a rational creature is no small good, even that one which avoids evil by comparison with evil people. That kind of good creature would certainly not exist if almighty God had turned the evil wills of all to good and inflicted on no iniquity its due punishment; and so there would be only that kind which makes progress without any comparison with sin or with the punishment of the wicked. Thus, as though by increasing the number of the more excellent kind, the number of kinds of good itself would be lessened.

“So,” they say, “there is something in God's works that needs another's evil in order to advance to good?” Have people become so deaf and blind through some zeal for contention, I know not what, that they do not hear or see how very many are corrected when certain people are punished? For what pagan, what Jew, what heretic does not prove this daily in his own household? But when it comes to the discussion and investigation of truth, people will not attend with their minds to the work of divine providence from which there comes upon them the impulse to impose discipline, so that, even if those who are punished are not corrected, others may fear their example and the just ruin of some may serve the salvation of others. Is God, then, the author of the malice or wickedness of those by whose just punishment he provides for those for whom he has decided that provision must be made in this way? Certainly not. But though he foreknew that they would be evil by their own vices, he still did not refrain from creating them, assigning them to the benefit of those whom he created in such a kind that they could not advance to good except by comparison with the evil. For if they did not exist, they would certainly benefit nothing. Is it a small good that has been done, that there should exist those who are certainly useful to that kind? Whoever does not want that kind to exist is doing nothing else than seeing to it that he himself is not in it. “Great are the works of the Lord, sought out in all his wills!” He foresees that some will be good and creates them; he foresees that some will be evil and creates them; offering himself to the good to be enjoyed, bestowing many of his gifts also on the evil; mercifully pardoning, justly punishing, and likewise mercifully punishing, justly pardoning; fearing nothing from anyone's malice, needing nothing from anyone's righteousness; providing nothing for himself even from the works of the good, and providing for the good even by the punishments of the evil. Why, then, should he not permit the man to be tempted by that temptation by which he was to be exposed, convicted, and punished, when proud desire for its own power would give birth to what it had conceived and be confounded by its own offspring, and by a just punishment deter from the evil of pride and disobedience his descendants, for whom these things were being prepared to be written and proclaimed?

But if it is asked why the devil was permitted to tempt through a serpent in particular, whom does Scripture not remind that this was done for the sake of signifying something, Scripture of such great authority, acting in its prophesying with proofs of divinity as great as the fulfilments with which the world is now filled? Not that the devil wished to signify anything for our instruction; but since he could not approach to tempt unless he was permitted, could he do it through anything other than that through which he was permitted to approach? Whatever, then, that serpent signified must be attributed to the providence under which the devil himself has his own desire to harm, but no power except what is given him, either to overthrow and destroy the vessels of wrath or to humble or test the vessels of mercy. So we know where the nature of the serpent comes from: for the earth brought forth at the word of God all cattle, both serpents and beasts; and this whole creation, having in itself a living, irrational soul, is subject by the law of the divine order to every rational creature, whether of good or of evil will. What wonder, then, if the devil was permitted to do something through a serpent, when Christ himself permitted demons to enter swine?

A more scrupulous question is usually raised about the very nature of the devil, which certain heretics, offended by the trouble his evil will causes, try to remove entirely from the creation of the supreme and true God, giving him another principle that is opposed to God. For they are not able to understand that everything that exists, in so far as it is some substance, is both good and cannot exist except from that true God from whom every good comes; and that an evil will is moved in a disordered way, by preferring lower goods to higher ones; and that so it came about that the spirit of a rational creature, delighted with its own power because of its excellence, swelled with pride, through which it fell from the happiness of the spiritual paradise, and wasted away with envy. Yet in it this very thing is good, that it lives and gives life to a body, whether an airy body, like the spirit of the devil himself or of the demons, or an earthly one, like the soul of any human being, even a malicious and perverse one. Thus, while they will not have anything that God made sin by its own will, they say that the substance of God himself was corrupted and perverted, first by necessity and afterwards, beyond expiation, by will. But we have already said much elsewhere about the utterly insane error of these people.

In this work, however, we must ask what is to be said about the devil according to holy Scripture. First, whether from the very beginning of the world, delighted with his own power, he held aloof from that fellowship and love by which the angels who enjoy God are happy, or whether for some time he too was in the holy company of the angels, equally righteous and equally happy. For some say that his fall from the heavenly seats came about because he envied man, made in the image of God. But envy follows pride; it does not precede it. For envy is not the cause of being proud; pride is the cause of envying. Since, then, pride is the love of one's own excellence, while envy is hatred of another's happiness, it is plain enough which springs from which. For in loving his own excellence a person envies either his equals, because they are made equal with him, or his inferiors, lest they be made equal with him, or his superiors, because he is not made equal with them. So it is by being proud that someone is envious, not by being envious that he is proud.

Rightly has Scripture defined pride as the beginning of all sin, saying, “The beginning of all sin is pride.” To this testimony that saying of the apostle is also fittingly applied: “The root of all evils is avarice,” if we understand avarice in a general sense, by which anyone seeks something more than is fitting because of his own excellence and a certain love of what is his own. To this the Latin language has wisely given a name when it called it “private,” a word that plainly is derived from loss rather than from increase; for every privation diminishes. So the very place from which pride wants to stand out is the place where it is thrust into straits and want, when by a ruinous love of itself it is reduced from what is common to what is its own. But there is a particular avarice, more usually called the love of money. By its name the apostle, signifying the genus by the species, meant universal avarice to be understood when he said, “The root of all evils is avarice.” For it was by this that the devil too fell, who certainly did not love money but his own power. Hence perverse love of self deprives the swollen spirit of holy fellowship and confines it in misery, though it longs to be sated through iniquity. Hence in another place, when he had said, “For men will be lovers of themselves,” he at once added, “lovers of money,” descending from that general avarice, of which pride is the head, to this particular one, which is proper to human beings. For people would not be lovers of money either unless they thought themselves the more excellent the richer they are. Opposed to this disease is love, which “does not seek its own,” that is, does not rejoice in private excellence; rightly, then, it is also “not puffed up.” These two loves—of which one is holy, the other unclean; one social, the other private; one taking thought for the common good for the sake of the heavenly fellowship, the other reducing even the common good to its own power for the sake of arrogant domination; one subject to God, the other a rival of God; one tranquil, the other turbulent; one peaceable, the other seditious; one preferring the truth to the praises of those who err, the other greedy for praise by any means; one friendly, the other envious; one wishing for its neighbour what it wishes for itself, the other wishing to subject its neighbour to itself; one ruling its neighbour for the neighbour's benefit, the other for its own—these two loves appeared first in the angels, the one in the good, the other in the evil, and they have distinguished the two cities founded in the human race under the wonderful and ineffable providence of God, who administers and orders all that he creates: the one city of the just, the other of the wicked. With a certain temporal intermingling of these two the age runs its course, until they are separated at the last judgment, and the one, joined to the good angels, attains eternal life in its king, while the other, joined to the evil angels, is sent with its king into eternal fire. About these two cities we shall perhaps discourse more fully in another place, if the Lord wills.

When, then, pride cast the devil down, so that he perverted his good nature by a depraved will, Scripture does not say; but plain reason declares that it happened before, and that it was from this that he envied man. For it is evident to all who consider these things that pride does not spring from envy, but rather envy from pride. And it can be thought, not without reason, that the devil fell through pride from the beginning of time, and that there was no previous time in which he lived at peace and happy with the holy angels, but that from the very first moment of his creation he apostatized from his Creator; so that we understand both parts of what the Lord said—“He was a murderer from the beginning, and he did not stand in the truth”—as being “from the beginning”: not only that he was a murderer, but also that he did not stand in the truth. He was a murderer, indeed, from that beginning from which man could be killed; and man could not be killed before there existed someone to be killed. So the devil was a murderer from the beginning, because he killed the first man, before whom there was no human being. But he did not stand in the truth, and this too from the beginning, from the time when he himself was created, he who would have stood had he willed to stand.

For how can he be believed to have led a happy life among the happy angels, who did not foreknow his future sin and punishment, that is, his desertion and the eternal fire? If he did not foreknow them, it is rightly asked why he did not. For the holy angels are not uncertain of their eternal life and happiness; for how would they be happy if uncertain? Or shall we say that God was unwilling to reveal to the devil, while he was still a good angel, either what he would do or what he would suffer, but revealed to the others that they would remain for ever in his truth? If so, then he was no longer equally happy, indeed not even fully happy, since those who are fully happy are certain of their happiness, so that no fear disturbs it. But by what evil desert was he so distinguished from the others that God would not reveal to him even the future things that concerned himself? Was God an avenger before the devil was a sinner? Far from it. For God does not condemn the innocent. Or was he perhaps of another kind of angels, to whom God did not give foreknowledge of the future even concerning themselves? How they could be happy, when their very happiness is uncertain to them, I do not see. For some have also held this view: that the devil was not in that sublime nature of the angels that is above the heavens, but among those who were made somewhat lower, in the world, and assigned to their offices. Such beings, perhaps, might be delighted even by something unlawful; yet, if they did not will to sin, they would restrain that delight by free choice, as a man does, especially that first man, who did not yet have the penalty of sin in his members; since even that penalty is overcome by holy men subject to God, through godliness, by his grace.

Moreover, this question about the happy life—whether anyone should be said to have it already who is uncertain whether it will remain with him or whether misery will at some time succeed it—can arise also about the first man himself. For if he was aware of his future sin and of divine punishment, how could he be happy? So he was in paradise and not happy. But in fact he did not foreknow his future sin. So through this ignorance either he was uncertain of that happiness, and then how was he truly happy? Or he was certain by false hope, not by knowledge, and then how was he not foolish? Yet in the case of a man still established in an animal body, to whom, if he lived obediently, the fellowship of the angels was still to be given and the change of the body from animal to spiritual, we can understand a happy life in a certain manner, even though he did not foreknow his future sin. For neither did those foreknow theirs to whom the apostle says, “You who are spiritual, instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you too be tempted”; and yet we say, neither absurdly nor wrongly, that they were already happy by the very fact that they were spiritual, not in body but in the righteousness of faith, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.” How much more, then, and in a fuller way, was the man in paradise happy before sin, though uncertain of his future fall, who so rejoiced in hope because of the reward of the change to come that there was no tribulation for patience to fight in enduring! For although he was not certain of what was uncertain by vain presumption, like a fool, yet in hope, not without faith, before he laid hold of that life where he would be most certain of his eternal life, he could exult, as it is written, “with trembling”; and by this exultation he could be happy in paradise far more abundantly than the saints on this earth, in a manner lower than in that eternal life of the saints and of the angels above the heavens, yet not in none.

But to say of certain angels that they can be happy in their own kind while uncertain of their future iniquity and damnation, or of their perpetual salvation, with no hope beneath them that they too would some day become certain of this by some change for the better, is a scarcely tolerable presumption; unless perhaps it is also said that these angels were created assigned to ministries in the world under other, more sublime and happier angels, so that for rightly fulfilling their charges they might receive that happy and more sublime life of which they could be most certain, and rejoicing in the hope of it they could, not unfittingly, be called already happy. If the devil fell from their number with the companions of his iniquity, this is like the way in which people also fall from the righteousness of faith, transgressing through a similar pride, either deceiving themselves or consenting to that deceiver. But let those who can assert these two kinds of good angels: one of those above the heavens, among whom he who by falling became the devil never was, and another of those in the world, among whom he was. For my part, I confess, nothing occurs to me for the present from which I could assert this according to the Scriptures. But pressed by that question in which it is asked whether he foreknew his fall before he fell, so as not to say that angels are, or ever were, uncertain of their happiness, I said that it can be thought, not without reason, that the devil fell from the very beginning of creation, that is, from the very beginning either of time or of his own making, and never stood in the truth.

Hence some think that he was not turned aside into this malice by the free choice of his will, but was created in it altogether, though by the Lord God, the supreme and true creator of all natures; and they bring forward a testimony from the book of Job, since there it is written, when he was being spoken of, “This is the beginning of the Lord's fashioning, which he made to be mocked by his angels.” With this opinion agrees what is written in the psalm: “This dragon, which you fashioned to mock it,” except that here it says “which you fashioned,” and not, as there, “This is the beginning of the Lord's fashioning”; as though at the beginning he had so fashioned him that he was evil, envious, a seducer, altogether a devil, not depraved by will but created so.

How could this opinion not be contrary to what is written: “God made all things, and behold, they were very good”? Here the devil would be found not depraved by his own will but made very evil by the Lord God himself. They try to show—and it is not foolishly or ignorantly asserted—that not only in the first creation but even now, though so many wills have been depraved, all things that were created, that is, the whole creation altogether, are on the whole very good: not that the evil in it are good, but that they do not by their malice bring it about that the beauty and order of the universe, under the rule, power, and wisdom of God who administers it, is in any part defiled or disturbed, since to each of their wills, even the evil ones, are assigned fixed and fitting limits of power and weights of desert, so that even with them fittingly and justly ordered the universe is beautiful. Nevertheless, since it occurs to anyone, and is true and plain, that it is contrary to justice itself that God should condemn in anyone, with no preceding desert, the very thing he himself created in him; and since the certain and evident condemnation of the devil and his angels is read from the Gospel, where the Lord foretold that he would say to those on the left, “Depart into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels”; we must believe that it is by no means the nature God created in him, but his own evil will, that is to be punished with the penalty of eternal fire.

Nor is it his nature that is signified by the words, “This is the beginning of the Lord's fashioning, which he made to be mocked by his angels,” but either the airy body that he suitably fitted to such a will; or the very ordering in which he made him useful to the good even against his will; or the fact that, foreknowing that he would be evil by his own will, he nevertheless made him, not withholding his goodness in granting life and substance even to a will that would be harmful, foreseeing at the same time how many goods he himself would bring about from him by his wonderful goodness and power. He is called “the beginning of the Lord's fashioning, which he made to be mocked by his angels,” not because God created him first or created him evil at the beginning, but because, knowing that he would become evil by his own will so as to harm the good, he created him in order that through him he himself might benefit the good. For this is the meaning of “to be mocked by his angels”: he is mocked in this way when his temptations, by which he tries to deprave the saints, benefit them, so that the malice in which he chose to be is, against his will, useful to the servants of God, who foresaw this when he fashioned him. He is called the beginning of what is to be mocked because evil men also, the devil's vessels and, as it were, the body of that head—whom God, foreseeing that they would be evil, nevertheless created for the benefit of the saints—are mocked in the same way, when, even while they wish to harm, the saints are given through comparison with them caution, godly humility under God, understanding of grace, exercise in bearing with the wicked, and proof in loving their enemies. But he is the beginning of the fashioning that is mocked in this way, because he precedes these men both in antiquity of time and in primacy of malice. God does this to him through the holy angels, by that work of providence by which he administers created natures, subjecting the evil angels to the good angels, so that the wickedness of the evil can do not as much as it strives to but as much as it is permitted; and not only of evil angels, but of men too, until this righteousness by which one lives from faith, which is now patiently exercised among men, is turned into judgment, so that they too may judge not only the twelve tribes of Israel but also angels.

When, then, it is thought that the devil never stood in the truth and never led a happy life with the angels, but fell from the very beginning of his making, this is not to be taken as meaning that he was not depraved by his own will but was created evil by the good God; otherwise he would not be said to have fallen from the beginning; for he did not fall if he was made such. Rather, as soon as he was made, he turned himself away from the light of truth, swollen with pride and corrupted by delight in his own power. Hence he did not taste the sweetness of the happy, angelic life; it is not that he received it and disdained it, but by being unwilling to receive it he forsook and lost it. Accordingly he could not foreknow his fall either, since wisdom is the fruit of godliness. But he, ungodly from the first and consequently blind in mind, fell not from what he had received but from what he would have received if he had been willing to be subject to God. Because he was not willing, he both fell from what he was to receive and did not escape the power of him under whom he refused to be; and it came about in him by the weight of his deserts that he can neither delight in the light of righteousness nor be freed from its sentence.

As for what is said against him through the prophet Isaiah: “How has Lucifer, who rose in the morning, fallen from heaven? He who sent to all the nations has been crushed to the earth. But you said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, above the stars of heaven I will set my throne, I will sit on a lofty mountain above the lofty mountains which are to the north, I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. But now you will go down to the underworld,” and the rest, which are understood as said against the devil under the figure of the king of Babylon: most of it fits his body, which he gathers even from the human race, and above all those who cleave to him through pride by apostatizing from the commandments of God. For just as he who was the devil is called a man, as in the Gospel, “An enemy, a man, has done this,” so he who was a man is called the devil, as again in the Gospel: “Did I not choose you twelve? And one of you is a devil.” And just as the body of Christ, which is the church, is called Christ—as in the words, “You are the seed of Abraham,” when shortly before he had said, “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say ‘and to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘and to your seed,’ which is Christ”; and again, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ”—in the same way the body of the devil, whose head is the devil, that is, the very multitude of the ungodly, and above all of those who fall from Christ or from the church as from heaven, is called the devil, and many things are said figuratively about that body which fit not so much the head as the body and its members. So Lucifer, who rose in the morning and fell, can be understood as the race of apostates either from Christ or from the church; which turns to darkness when it has lost the light it bore, just as those who turn to God pass from darkness to light, that is, those who were darkness become light.

Likewise, what is said through the prophet Ezekiel under the figure of the prince of Tyre is understood as said against the devil: “You are the seal of likeness and a crown of beauty; you were in the delights of the paradise of God; you were adorned with every precious stone,” and the rest, which fit not so much the prince himself, the spirit of wickedness, as his body. For the church is called paradise, as we read in the Song of Songs: “A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, a well of living water, a paradise with the fruit of apples.” From it have fallen, either by open and bodily separation, all heretics, or by hidden and spiritual separation, though they seem to be in it bodily, all who have returned to their vomit after walking a little while in the way of righteousness following the remission of all their sins; in whom the last state has become worse than the first, and for whom it would have been better not to know the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. This most wicked generation the Lord describes when he says that an unclean spirit goes out of a man and returns with seven others and enters the house it had found cleaned, so that the last state of that man is worse than the first. To such a kind of people, which has already become the body of the devil, these words can fit: “From the day on which you were created with the cherub”—that is, with the seat of God, which is interpreted “multiplied knowledge”—“and I set you on the holy mountain of God”—that is, in the church, whence comes, “And he heard me from his holy mountain”—“you were in the midst of fiery stones”—that is, of the saints fervent in spirit, living stones—“you walked without fault in your days, from the day on which you were created, until your offences were found in you.” These things can be treated more carefully, so as perhaps to show not only that this sense can be in these words, but that no other at all can be.

But since this is a long matter and calls for another treatise devoted to that question alone, for now let this summary suffice. Either the devil fell by ungodly pride from the very beginning of his making, from the happiness he would have received had he willed to; or there are other angels of a lower ministry in this world, among whom he had lived in a certain happiness of theirs that does not foreknow, and from whose fellowship he fell, as an archangel with the angels subject to him, through proud ungodliness—if this can in any way be asserted, and it would be surprising if it can; or else we must seek a reason how all the holy angels, if the devil once lived among them equally happy with his angels, did not yet themselves have sure foreknowledge of their perpetual happiness but received it after his fall; or by what desert the devil with his companions was distinguished from the other angels before his sin, so that he was ignorant of his future fall while they were certain of their abiding. Meanwhile, let us by no means doubt that the sinning angels have been thrust down, as into a prison, into the gloom of this air around the earth, and are kept, according to the apostolic faith, to be punished at the judgment; and that in that heavenly happiness of the holy angels eternal life is not uncertain, nor will it be uncertain for us, according to God's mercy and grace and his most faithful promise, when we have been joined to them after the resurrection and the change of these bodies. For we live for this hope, and are refreshed by the grace of this promise. And whatever can be said also about the devil—why God created him when he foreknew he would be such, and why the Almighty does not turn his will to good—may be understood or believed according to what we discussed when we were asking similar questions about evil men, or, if something better can be found, let it be found.

So by him whose power over all that he created is supreme, acting through the holy angels by whom the devil is mocked when even his ill will is turned to the good of the church of God, the devil was not permitted to tempt the woman except through the serpent, nor the man except through the woman. In the serpent, he himself spoke, using it as an instrument and moving its nature in the way in which he could move it and it could be moved, to produce the sounds of words and bodily signs through which the woman would understand the will of the persuader. But in the woman herself, since she was a rational creature who could use her own movement to form words, it was not he who spoke but his working and persuasion, although by a hidden prompting he assisted inwardly what he had done outwardly through the serpent. Indeed, if he had acted by hidden prompting alone, as he did in Judas so that he would betray Christ, he could have accomplished it in a soul clothed with proud love of its own power. But, as I have already said, the devil has the will to tempt, but it is not in his power either that he does it or how he does it. Because he was permitted, then, he tempted; and as he was permitted, so he tempted. But for what kind of people what he was doing would be a benefit, he neither knew nor wished; and by this very fact he was mocked by the angels.

So the serpent did not understand the sounds of the words that came from it to the woman. For we must not believe that its soul was changed into a rational nature, since not even human beings, whose nature is rational, know what they are saying when a demon speaks in them in that affliction for which an exorcist is required. How much less would the serpent understand the sounds of words that the devil produced through it and out of it in that way, when it would not understand a man speaking if it heard him while free from diabolical affliction! For even in the fact that serpents are thought to hear and understand the words of the Marsi, so that at their incantations they often leap out of their hiding places, there too a diabolical power is at work; so that providence may everywhere be recognized, which subjects one thing to another in the order of nature, and what it permits even to evil wills by its most wise power; so that it is more customary for serpents to be moved by the spells of men than any other kind of animal. For this too is no small testimony that human nature was first seduced by the speech of a serpent. For demons rejoice that this power is given them, to move serpents at the incantation of men, so as to deceive whom they can in any way. And this is permitted them so as to keep alive the memory of the first deed, by which they have a certain familiarity with this kind of animal. Further, that first deed itself was permitted so that through the nature of the serpent there might be signified to the human race, for whose instruction these deeds had to be written down, the likeness of every diabolical temptation; this will appear when the divine sentence begins to be pronounced against the serpent.

Accordingly, the serpent was called the most prudent of all the beasts, that is, the most cunning, because of the cunning of the devil, which practised deceit in it and by means of it; just as a tongue is called prudent or cunning which a prudent or cunning person moves to persuade someone prudently and cunningly. For this power or faculty does not belong to the bodily member called the tongue, but certainly to the mind that uses it. So too the pen of the scribes has been called lying; for being a liar belongs only to one who lives and perceives. But the pen is called lying because through it a liar works lyingly; just as if this serpent too were called lying, because the devil used it lyingly, like a pen. I have thought it necessary to stress this so that no one, supposing that animals without reason have human understanding or are suddenly changed into a rational animal, should be led astray into that ridiculous and harmful opinion of the transmigration of souls, whether of human beings into beasts or of beasts into human beings. So, then, the serpent spoke to the human being as the ass on which Balaam sat spoke to a human being, except that that was a diabolical work and this an angelic one. For good and evil angels have some similar works, as did Moses and Pharaoh's magicians. But even in these the good angels are more powerful, and the evil angels can do nothing even of such works except what God has permitted through the good angels, so that it may be rendered to each according to his heart or according to the grace of God, both justly and kindly, through the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

So the serpent said to the woman, “Why is it that God said, You shall not eat from every tree of paradise?” And the woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we shall eat; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of paradise God said, You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.” The serpent asked first, and the woman answered this, so that the transgression might be inexcusable and it could in no way be said that the woman had forgotten what God had commanded; although forgetting the commandment, especially a single one and so necessary, would have amounted to the very great guilt of damnable negligence. Still, the transgression is more evident when the commandment is kept in memory and God is despised as though standing by and present in it. Hence, when the psalm said, “And to those who keep his commandments in memory,” it was necessary to add, “to do them.” For many keep them in memory only to despise them, by the greater sin of transgression, where there is no excuse of forgetfulness. So the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not die the death. For God knew that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” When would the woman have believed from these words that they had been forbidden by God from a good and useful thing, unless there was already in her mind that love of her own power and a certain proud presumption about herself, which had to be exposed and humbled through that temptation? Finally, not content with the serpent's words, she considered the tree and saw that it was good for food and beautiful to look upon; and not believing that she could die from it, she thought, I suppose, that God had said, “If you eat, you shall die the death,” for the sake of some figurative meaning. And so she took of its fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband with her, perhaps also with a persuasive word, which Scripture passes over in silence and leaves to be understood. Or perhaps the man no longer needed to be persuaded, when he saw that she had not died from that food?

So they ate, “and the eyes of both were opened.” To what, if not to desiring each other—the penalty of sin conceived by the death of the flesh itself—so that the body was now not only animal, which could have been changed without death into a better and spiritual condition if they had kept obedience, but now a body of death, in which the law in the members would fight against the law of the mind? For they had not been made with their eyes closed, nor were they wandering blind and groping in the paradise of delights, so that they touched the forbidden tree without knowing it and groped at the forbidden fruit in ignorance. How were the animals and birds brought to Adam to see what he would call them, if he did not see? And how was the woman herself brought to the man when she was made, so that he said of her, whom he did not see, “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” and the rest? Finally, how did the woman see that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasing to the eyes to look at and beautiful to know, if their eyes were closed? Yet the whole is not to be taken figuratively because of the transferred use of one word. Let the serpent see in what sense he said, “Your eyes will be opened”; for the writer of the book narrated that he said this, but in what meaning or sense he said it, he left to the reader to consider. But what is written, “And their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked,” is written in the same way as all the things that are narrated as done, and yet it should not on that account lead us to an allegorical narrative. For the evangelist, as narrator, was not inserting someone's figurative words in that person's character, but was narrating in his own character what had been done, when he said of those two, one of whom was Cleopas, that when the Lord had broken bread for them their eyes were opened and they recognized him whom they had not recognized on the way—not because they were walking with closed eyes, but because they were unable to recognize him. As there, so in this place the narrative is not figurative, though Scripture used a transferred word in saying that eyes were opened that had been open before: opened, that is, to look at and think about something they had never noticed before. For when bold curiosity was stirred to transgress the commandment, eager to try hidden things, to see what would follow on touching what was forbidden, delighted to break the reins of prohibition by a harmful freedom, thinking it more probable that the death they had feared would not follow—for we must believe that the fruit on that tree was of a kind they had already found harmless on other trees—they believed more readily that God could easily forgive sinners than they patiently bore not knowing what it was, or why he had forbidden them to take food from it. As soon, then, as they had transgressed the commandment, they were stripped bare inwardly, the grace deserting them which they had offended by a certain vanity and proud love of their own power; they cast their eyes on their own members and desired them with a movement they had not known. To this, then, their eyes were opened, to which they had not been open before, though they were open to other things.

This death befell them on the day on which what God forbade was done. For when they lost their wonderful condition—a condition provided even for the body by the tree of life through a mystical power, by which they could neither be assailed by disease nor changed by age, so that this was already signified in their flesh, though still animal and later to be changed for the better, through the food of the tree of life; which happens in the angels from the spiritual nourishment of wisdom itself, of which that tree was a sacrament, through participation in eternity, so that they are not changed for the worse—when, then, this condition was lost, their body took on a diseased and death-bearing quality, which is present also in the flesh of cattle, and therefore also the same movement by which in cattle the appetite for mating arises, so that those being born may succeed those who die. Yet even in that punishment the rational soul, showing its noble birth, blushed at the bestial movement in the members of its flesh and struck shame into it, not only because it felt this there where it had never before felt anything of the kind, but also because that shameful movement came from the transgression of the commandment. For there it felt with what grace it had been clothed before, when in its nakedness it suffered nothing unseemly. There was fulfilled: “Lord, in your will you gave strength to my beauty; but you turned away your face, and I became troubled.” Finally, in that trouble they ran to the fig leaves, sewed girdles, and, because they had deserted what was to be gloried in, covered what was to be ashamed of. Nor do I think they had in mind anything in those leaves that made them fit for covering members that now itched; but by a hidden prompting they were driven to this in that trouble, so that even such a signification of their punishment might be made by people who did not know it, which as an act would convict the sinner and as a writing would teach the reader.

“And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise toward evening.” That hour was now fitting for visiting such people, who had fallen away from the light of truth. Perhaps before this God used to speak with them inwardly in other ways, whether expressible or inexpressible, as he also speaks with the angels, illuminating their minds by the unchangeable truth itself, where there is understanding to know at once all things, even those that do not happen at once in time. Perhaps, I say, he spoke with them in this way, even if not with as great a participation in divine wisdom as the angels receive, yet in human measure, however much less, but in the very same kind of visitation and speech. Perhaps also in that kind which happens through a creature, whether in ecstasy of the spirit through bodily images or to the bodily senses themselves, some appearance being presented to be seen or heard, as God is often seen in his angels or makes his voice sound through a cloud. Now, however, their hearing the voice of God walking in paradise toward evening was done visibly only through a creature, lest it be believed that the invisible substance, everywhere whole, which is of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, appeared to their bodily senses by movement in place and time. “And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord in the midst of the trees that are in paradise.” When God turns away his face inwardly and a man becomes troubled, let us not wonder that these things happen, which are like madness, through excessive shame and fear—that hidden prompting also not being at rest—so that without knowing it they did things that would signify something to descendants who would one day know, for whose sake these things were written.

“And the Lord God called Adam and said to him, Adam, where are you?” It is the voice of one rebuking, not of one ignorant. And this certainly bears on some meaning: that just as the commandment was given to the man, through whom it was to reach the woman, so the man is questioned first. For the commandment came from the Lord through the man to the woman, but sin from the devil through the woman to the man. These things are full of mystical meanings, not because those in whom they happened intended them, but because the most powerful wisdom of God was at work concerning them. Now, however, we are not unlocking the meanings but defending the events. So Adam answered, “I heard your voice in paradise and was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself.” It is quite probable that God was accustomed to appear to those first human beings in human form through a creature suited to such an action; yet he never allowed them to notice their nakedness, raising their attention to things above, until after their sin they had felt the shameful movement in their members by the penal law of the members. So they were affected as people usually are under the eyes of other people; and such an affection, coming from the penalty of sin, was to want to hide from him from whom nothing can be hidden, and to conceal their flesh from him who is the inspector of the heart. But what wonder if, proudly wishing to be like gods, they became futile in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened? For they said they were wise in their abundance, and when he turned away his face they became fools. For what they were already ashamed of before each other, for which they had also made themselves girdles, they feared much more vehemently to be seen by him, even girdled as they were, who, with a kind of familiar adaptation, brought something like human eyes through a visible creature to look upon them. For if he appeared in such a way that human beings spoke as with a man, as Abraham did at the oak of Mamre, that very nearness of friendship which gave them confidence before sin weighed them down with shame after sin; and they no longer dared to show to such eyes that nakedness which displeased even their own.

So the Lord, wishing now to punish the sinners, questioned in the manner of justice, more than by that penalty at which they were already compelled to blush, said, “Who told you that you were naked, unless you have eaten of the tree of which alone I had commanded you not to eat?” For from this, death conceived because of the sentence of God, who had so threatened, caused them to notice their members with concupiscence, where their eyes are said to have been opened, and there followed what made them ashamed. “And Adam said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” Pride! Did he say, “I have sinned”? He has the deformity of confusion and not the humility of confession. These things were written down for this purpose—since the questions themselves were surely asked so that they might be written both truly and usefully, for if falsely, then certainly not usefully—that we may notice with what disease of pride people labour today, trying to refer to the Creator whatever evil they have done, while they want whatever good they have done credited to themselves. “The woman,” he says, “whom you gave to be with me,” that is, whom you gave so that she might be with me, “she gave me of the tree, and I ate”: as though she had been given for this, and not rather that she should obey her husband and both obey God. “And the Lord God said to the woman, Why have you done this? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Neither does she confess her sin, but refers it to another: of unequal sex, of equal arrogance. Yet from them was born, though he did not imitate them, but was plainly exercised by many evils, he who said and will say to the end of the age, “I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” How much better if these two had spoken so! But the Lord had not yet cut off the necks of sinners. There still remained toils, griefs, deaths, and all the crushing of the age, and the grace of God, by which at the fitting time he comes to the help of human beings, whom by affliction he taught not to presume on themselves. “The serpent,” she says, “deceived me, and I ate”: as though anyone's persuasion ought to have been put before the commandment of God.

“And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle and above all the beasts that are upon the earth. Upon your breast and your belly you shall go, and earth you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. She will watch for your head, and you will watch for her heel.” This whole sentence is figurative, and the writer's trustworthiness and the truth of the narrative require nothing of it except that we not doubt that it was spoken. For the words “And the Lord God said to the serpent” are the writer's words; these must be taken in their proper sense. This, then, is true: that it was said to the serpent. The rest are now God's words, which are left to the free understanding of the reader, whether they should be taken properly or figuratively, as we said at the beginning of this volume. Accordingly, the fact that the serpent was not asked why it did this may be seen as indicating that it had not done this in its own nature and will, but that the devil had worked by it, through it, and in it, the devil who was already destined for everlasting fire because of the sin of his ungodliness and pride. Now, then, what is said to the serpent, and is certainly referred to him who worked through the serpent, is beyond doubt figurative; for by these words that tempter is described, such as he would be to the human race, which began to be propagated only when this sentence was pronounced against the devil as against the serpent. How these words are to be taken, with their figures explained, we have discussed as far as we could in those two books on Genesis published against the Manichaeans, and if we can do so more carefully and fittingly elsewhere, God will be present to help us accomplish it; but now our purpose must not be turned aside to something other than what we have undertaken, when nothing requires it.

“And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your groaning; in sorrows you shall bear children, and your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.” These words of God against the woman too are much more suitably understood figuratively and prophetically. Nevertheless, since the woman had not yet given birth, and the pain and groaning of one giving birth come only from the body of death, which was conceived through that transgression of the commandment—members that were animal even then, but which, if man had not sinned, would certainly not have died and would have lived in another, happier condition, until after a well-spent life they deserved to be changed for the better, as we have already suggested above in several places—this punishment is referred also to the proper sense of the letter. Only the words “and your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you” must be examined, as to how they can be taken in the proper sense. For it is not fitting to believe that even before sin the woman was made otherwise than that the man should rule her and she should turn to him in service. But it can rightly be taken that the servitude signified here is one of a certain condition rather than of love, so that even that servitude by which human beings later began to be slaves to human beings is found to have arisen from the punishment of sin. The apostle did indeed say, “Through love serve one another”; but he would by no means say, “Rule one another.” So spouses can serve one another through love; but the apostle does not permit the woman to rule over the man. For God's sentence conferred this rather on the man, and it was not by nature but by fault that the woman deserved to have her husband as lord; yet unless this is kept, nature will be depraved further and the fault increased.

So he said also to her husband, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate of the tree of which alone I had commanded you not to eat, cursed is the earth in your works; in sorrows you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the grass of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for earth you are, and to earth you shall go.” Who does not know that these are the toils of the human race on earth? And that they would not exist if the happiness that had been in paradise had been kept, there is certainly no doubt; and so let us not be reluctant to take these words first in their proper sense. Yet the prophetic meaning must be kept in mind and looked for, which the intention of God as he speaks has chiefly in view here. For it was not for nothing that Adam himself then, by some wonderful prompting, called the name of his wife “Life,” adding also, “because she is the mother of all the living.” For these too are to be understood as the words not of the writer narrating or affirming, but of the first man himself, so that he said, “because she is the mother of all the living,” as if giving the reason for the name he had given her, why he called her “Life.”

“And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them.” This too was done for the sake of a meaning, but nevertheless done; just as those things which were said for the sake of a meaning were nevertheless said. For this, which I have often said and do not mind saying more often, must be required of a narrator of things done in the proper sense: that he narrate as done what was done and as said what was said. And just as with deeds one asks both what was done and what it signifies, so with words one asks both what was said and what it signifies. For whether what is narrated as said was said figuratively or properly, that it was said must not be thought figurative. “And God said, Behold, Adam has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.” Since this, through whatever means and in whatever way it was said, was nevertheless said by God, the words “one of us” are to be understood in no other way than that the plural number is taken because of the Trinity, as it had been said, “Let us make man,” and as the Lord also said of himself and the Father, “We will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” So there was turned back upon the head of the proud man the outcome of his desire for what the serpent had suggested, “And you will be like gods”: “Behold,” he says, “Adam has become like one of us.” For these are words of God not so much mocking him as deterring others, for whose sake these things were written, from being proud in the same way. “He has become,” he says, “like one of us in knowing good and evil.” What else is to be understood but that an example was set forth to strike fear, because not only did he not become what he wanted to become, but he did not even keep what he had been made?

“And now,” God said, “lest at some time he stretch out his hand and take of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.” “And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of delight to till the earth from which he was taken.” The first are words of God; this deed followed because of those words. For, estranged from life—not only from the life that he would have received with the angels had he kept the commandment, but also from that which he was leading in paradise in a certain happy condition of the body—he certainly had to be separated from the tree of life; whether because that very happy condition of the body was sustained for him by it, from a visible thing by an invisible power, or because there was in it also a visible sacrament of invisible wisdom; he certainly had to be estranged from it, either as one now going to die or also as one excommunicated, just as also in this paradise, that is, the church, people are customarily removed by church discipline from the visible sacraments of the altar. “And he cast Adam out and placed him opposite the paradise of delight.” This too was done for the sake of signifying, but nevertheless done: that the sinner should dwell in misery opposite the paradise by which the happy life was also signified spiritually. “And he stationed the Cherubim and the flaming sword which turns, to guard the way to the tree of life.” We must believe that this was done through heavenly powers in the visible paradise as well, so that through the ministry of angels there was a kind of fiery guard there; yet we must certainly not doubt that it was not done in vain, but because it signifies something also about the spiritual paradise.

I am not unaware that some have thought that those human beings anticipated in haste their desire for the knowledge of good and evil and wished to receive at an unripe time what was being kept for them, postponed, for a more suitable time; and that the tempter brought this about so that, by plucking prematurely what did not yet suit such as they were, they would offend God and, excluded and condemned, be estranged from the benefit of that thing, which, had they approached it in its own time as God willed, they could have enjoyed to their salvation. If such people choose to take that tree not literally, as a real tree with real fruit, but figuratively, this view may have some outcome that is probable and consistent with right faith and truth. It has also seemed to some that those first two human beings stole their marriage and came together in intercourse before he who had created them joined them; and that this was signified by the name of the tree from which they had been forbidden, until they should be joined at the fitting time. As though they are to be believed to have been made at an age when the maturity of puberty had to be awaited; or as though it would not have been lawful then, as soon as it could first be done, whereas when it could not be done it certainly would not be done! Unless perhaps the bride had to be given away by her father, and the solemnity of vows and the celebration of a banquet, the valuation of the dowry and the drawing up of the marriage contract had to be awaited. That is ridiculous; besides which it departs from the proper sense of the events, which we undertook to assert and have asserted as far as God was pleased to grant.

This is more troubling: if Adam was already spiritual, in mind though not in body, how could he have believed what was said through the serpent, that God had forbidden them to eat the fruit of that tree because he knew that if they did they would be like gods through discerning good and evil, as though the Creator begrudged his creature so great a good? It would be a wonder if a man endowed with a spiritual mind could have believed this. Or was it because he could not believe it himself that the woman was added, who was of small understanding and perhaps still lived according to the sense of the flesh, not according to the spirit of the mind; and is this why the apostle does not attribute the image of God to her? For he says, “A man ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man.” This is not because a woman's mind cannot receive the same image, since he says that in that grace there is neither male nor female, but because perhaps she had not yet received what comes about in the knowledge of God, and was to receive it gradually under the man's guidance and direction. For not in vain is that too which the apostle says: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and came to be in transgression,” that is, so that through her the man also transgressed. For he calls him too a transgressor, where he says, “in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one to come”; yet he denies that he was deceived. For when questioned, Adam did not say, “The woman whom you gave to be with me deceived me, and I ate,” but, “She gave me of the tree, and I ate”; whereas she said, “The serpent deceived me.” So, Solomon, a man of such great wisdom—are we to believe that he believed there was any use in the worship of idols? But he could not resist his love for women, which drew him to this evil, doing what he knew should not be done, lest he grieve the deadly delights for which he was pining away and wasting. So too Adam, after the deceived woman had eaten from the forbidden tree and given it to him so that they might eat together, did not want to grieve her, whom he believed might waste away without his comfort if she were estranged from his affection, and perish altogether in that discord; not indeed overcome by the concupiscence of the flesh, which he had not yet felt in the law of the members resisting the law of his mind, but by a certain friendly goodwill, by which it very often happens that God is offended lest a friend be made an enemy. That he ought not to have done this the just outcome of the divine sentence showed. So he too was deceived in some other way; but by that serpent's guile by which the woman was deceived I think he could by no means have been deceived. The apostle properly called it deception when what was being urged, though false, was thought true: namely, that God had forbidden them to touch that tree because he knew that if they touched it they would be like gods, as though he who had made them human begrudged them divinity. But even if some desire to try it stirred the man, because of some exaltation of mind that could not be hidden from God, the searcher of inward things, when he saw that the woman had not died after taking that food, according to what we discussed above, still I do not think that, if he was already endowed with a spiritual mind, he could in any way have believed that God had forbidden them the food of that tree out of envy. But why say more? That sin was urged as it could be urged on such as they were; and it was written down as it ought to be read by all, even if these things would be understood by few as they ought to be.

From the beginning of the holy Scripture entitled Genesis until the first man was sent out of paradise, we have discussed and written down in eleven books what we could and as we could, either asserting and defending what is certain to us, or inquiring, conjecturing, and hesitating about what is uncertain; not so much prescribing to each person what he should think about obscure matters as showing that we ourselves need to be taught where we have been in doubt, and keeping the reader from rashness in affirming where we could not provide the firmness of knowledge. This twelfth book, however, now freed from the care that occupied us in treating the text of the sacred writings, will deal more freely and at greater length with the question of paradise, lest we be thought to have avoided the fact that the apostle seems to suggest that paradise is in the third heaven, where he says, “I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one caught up to the third heaven. And I know that such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—was caught up into paradise and heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak.” In these words the first question usually asked is what he means by the third heaven; and next, whether he meant paradise to be understood as there, or whether, after he was caught up into the third heaven, he was also caught up into paradise, wherever paradise may be—so that being caught up into the third heaven was not the same as being caught up into paradise, but first into the third heaven and afterwards from there into paradise. And this is so ambiguous that it does not seem to me it can be resolved, unless someone finds something, not from the apostle's words in this passage but perhaps from other places in the Scriptures or by clear reason, by which to show either that paradise is in the third heaven or that it is not; since even what the third heaven itself is does not clearly appear, whether it is to be understood among bodily things or perhaps among spiritual ones. It could indeed be said that a man could not have been caught up with his body except to some bodily place; but since he put this too in such a way as to say that he did not know whether he was caught up in the body or out of the body, who would dare to say that he knows what the apostle said he did not know? Nevertheless, if a spirit without a body cannot be caught up to bodily places, nor a body to spiritual ones, his very doubt seems to compel us to understand—since no one doubts that he wrote these things about himself—that what he was caught up to was such that it could not be distinguished and discerned whether it was bodily or spiritual.

For when images of bodies are formed, whether in sleep or in ecstasy, they are not distinguished at all from bodies, except when the person, restored to the senses of the body, recognizes that he has been among images which he was not taking in through the senses of the body. For who, when he wakes from sleep, does not at once perceive that what he was seeing was imaginary, although while seeing it asleep he could not distinguish it from the bodily things seen by those awake? Yet I know that it has happened to me—and so I do not doubt that it could have happened, or can happen, to others too—that while seeing in sleep I perceived that I was seeing in sleep, and even while asleep I held and perceived most firmly that those images which are accustomed to mock our very assent were not true bodies but were being presented in sleep. Yet in this I was sometimes deceived: that I tried to persuade a friend of mine, whom I was likewise seeing in sleep, of this very thing, that those were not bodies which we were seeing, but images of dreamers; when he himself, of course, appeared to me among them in the same way as they did. To him I also said that it was not true that we were speaking together, but that he too was then seeing something else in his sleep and did not know at all whether I was seeing these things. But while I was striving to persuade him that he did not exist, I was led in part also to think that it was he, to whom I would certainly not have been speaking if I had been entirely convinced that he did not exist. So the soul of the sleeper, though wonderfully awake, could not but be led by the images of bodies as if they were bodies themselves. In ecstasy I have been able to hear only one person, and he a countryman scarcely able to express what he perceived, who knew both that he was awake and that he was seeing something not with the eyes of the body. For, to use his words as far as I can recall them, “My soul,” he said, “saw him, not my eyes; yet I did not know whether it was a body or the image of a body.” For he was not such as to distinguish these things, but he was so simply faithful that I listened to him as if I myself had seen what he said he had seen. And therefore, if Paul saw paradise in the way in which that sheet let down from heaven appeared to Peter, or as John saw whatever he wrote in the Apocalypse that he had seen, or as Ezekiel saw that plain with the bones of the dead and their resurrection, or as Isaiah saw God seated and the Seraphim in his sight and the altar from which a coal was taken to cleanse the prophet's lips, it is plain that he could have been ignorant whether he saw these things in the body or out of the body.

But if they were seen out of the body and were not bodies, it can still be asked whether they were images of bodies or that substance which bears no likeness to a body, like God, like the human mind itself or understanding or reason, like the virtues—prudence, justice, chastity, love, godliness—and whatever others there are, which we enumerate, distinguish, and define by understanding and thinking; not, of course, by looking at their outlines or colours, or how they sound or smell or taste in the mouth, or what they report to those who touch them of heat or cold, softness or hardness, smoothness or roughness, but by another kind of vision, another light, another evidence of things, and one far more excellent and certain than the others. Let us, then, return again to those very words of the apostle and examine them more carefully, having first established without doubt that the apostle knew much more, and incomparably more fully, what we are trying in some way to know about incorporeal and corporeal nature. If, then, he knew that spiritual things cannot be seen through the body at all, nor bodily things outside the body, why did he not distinguish, through the very things he saw, how he could also have seen them? For if he was certain that they were spiritual, why was he not consequently certain, just the same, that he had seen them out of the body? And if he knew they were bodily, why did he not also know that they could be seen only through the body? Why, then, does he doubt whether he saw them in the body or out of the body, unless perhaps he also doubts in the same way whether they were bodies or likenesses of bodies? So let us first see what there is in the sequence of these words about which he has no doubt; and then, when what he doubts remains, perhaps from the things he does not doubt it will appear how he also doubts that. “I know,” he says, “a man in Christ fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one caught up to the third heaven.” So he knows that fourteen years ago a man in Christ was caught up to the third heaven. This he does not doubt at all; nor, then, should we. But whether in the body or out of the body he doubts; and since he doubts, which of us would dare to be certain? Does it perhaps also follow from this that we should doubt that it was the third heaven to which he said the man was caught up? For if the thing itself was shown, the third heaven was shown; but if some image resembling bodily things was formed, that was not the third heaven, but the showing was so arranged that he seemed to himself to ascend the first heaven, above which he saw a second, to which ascending again he saw yet another higher, and when he had reached it he could say he had been caught up into the third heaven. But that it was the third heaven to which he was caught up he neither doubted nor wished us to doubt. For this reason he put “I know” first and began from there, so that only one who does not believe the apostle would not believe to be true what the apostle says he knows.

He knows, then, that the man was caught up to the third heaven. Accordingly, that to which he was caught up is truly the third heaven; not some bodily sign, like that shown to Moses, who perceived so clearly that the very substance of God was one thing and the visible creature in which God presented himself to human and bodily senses another, that he said, “Show me yourself”; nor some image of a bodily thing, like those John saw in the spirit and asked what they were, and was answered, “It is a city,” or “They are peoples,” or something else, when he saw a beast or a woman or waters or something of the kind. But “I know,” he says, “that a man was caught up to the third heaven.” If he had wished to call a spiritual image resembling a bodily one “heaven,” then in the same way the image of his body too, in which he had been caught up and ascended there, would have been such. So he would have called it his body, though it was an image of his body, just as he called that heaven, though it was an image of heaven, and he would not have taken care to distinguish what he knew and what he did not know—namely that he knew that the man was caught up to the third heaven, but did not know whether in the body or out of the body—but would simply have narrated the vision, calling the things he saw by the names of those things they resembled. For we too say, when we tell our dreams or some revelation in them, “I saw a mountain, I saw a river, I saw three men,” and so on, giving to those images the names that the things themselves have which they resembled; but the apostle says, “This I know, that I do not know.” But if both appeared as images, both are equally known or equally not known; and if it was properly heaven—and therefore known—how could that man's body appear as an image? For if a bodily heaven was being seen, why was it hidden whether it was seen with bodily eyes? And if it was uncertain whether it was seen with the eyes of the body or by the spirit—and therefore it is said, “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know”—how was it not also uncertain whether a heaven was truly seen as a body or was shown as an image? Again, if an incorporeal substance was seen, not in some image of a body but as justice, wisdom, and the like are seen, and this was the heaven, it is also plain that such a thing cannot be seen with the eyes of this body. And therefore, if he knew he had seen something of this kind, he could not doubt that he had not seen it through the body. “I know,” he says, “a man in Christ fourteen years ago.” Let no one who believes me doubt this “I know”; “but whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.”

What, then, do you know, which you distinguish from what you do not know, so that believers may not be deceived? “That the same man,” he says, “was caught up to the third heaven.” But that heaven was either a body or a spirit. If it was a body and was seen with bodily eyes, why is it known to be heaven and not known to have been seen in the body? But if it was a spirit, either it presented the image of a body, and then it is as uncertain whether it was a body as it is uncertain whether it was seen in the body; or it was seen as wisdom is seen by the mind without any images of bodies, and then it is certain all the same that it could not have been seen through the body. So either both are certain, or both uncertain; or how is what was seen certain, but that through which it was seen uncertain? For it is plain that an incorporeal nature could not have been seen by him through the body. Bodies, even if they could not be seen without a body, are certainly not seen through the body in that way; rather, that mode is very different, if there is any such. Hence it would be a wonder if, being so very similar, it could deceive the apostle or force him into doubt, so that, if he saw a bodily heaven with eyes not bodily, he would say that it was uncertain to him whether he saw it in the body or out of the body. It remains, then, perhaps, that—since the apostle could not lie, who took such care to distinguish what he knew from what he did not know—we should understand that he was ignorant of just this: whether, when he was caught up to the third heaven, he was in the body as the soul is in the body when the body is said to be alive, whether of one awake or asleep or in ecstasy estranged from the senses of the body; or whether he went out of the body altogether, so that the body lay dead until, that showing completed, the soul was restored to the dead members, and he did not wake as from sleep or return to his senses as one estranged in ecstasy, but came back to life altogether, having been dead. Accordingly, what he saw when caught up to the third heaven—which he also affirms that he knows—he saw properly, not as an image. But because it was uncertain whether that estrangement from the body left the body altogether dead, or whether the soul was there in the manner of a living body while his mind was snatched away to see or hear the ineffable things of that vision, perhaps for that reason he said, “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.”

What is seen not as an image but properly, and not through the body, is seen by that vision which surpasses all the others. I shall try to explain the kinds and differences of these visions as far as the Lord helps me. Look: when this one commandment is read, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” three kinds of vision occur. One is through the eyes, by which the letters themselves are seen; another through the spirit of man, by which the neighbour is thought of even when absent; the third through the intuition of the mind, by which love itself is understood and beheld. Of these three kinds, the first is plain to all; for by it are seen heaven and earth and all things in them that are visible to our eyes. Nor is it hard to point out the second, by which absent bodily things are thought of; for we think of heaven and earth themselves and the things we can see in them even when we are in darkness, where, seeing nothing with the eyes of the body, we still behold bodily images in the mind, whether true ones, as we have seen the bodies themselves and keep them in memory, or invented ones, as thought has been able to form them. For we think of Carthage, which we know, in one way, and of Alexandria, which we do not know, in another. But the third, by which love is understood and beheld, contains those things which have no images resembling them that are not what they themselves are. For a man or a tree or the sun, and any other bodies, whether heavenly or earthly, are both seen when present in their own forms and thought of when absent in images impressed on the mind, and they produce two kinds of things seen: one through the senses of the body, the other through the spirit in which those images are held. But is love seen in one way when present, in the form in which it exists, and in another when absent, in some image resembling it? Certainly not. Rather, so far as it can be discerned by the mind, it is discerned more by one, less by another; but if something of a bodily image is thought of, it is not love itself that is discerned.

These are the three kinds of vision, about which we said something in the earlier books too, as the matter seemed to require, though we did not mention their number. And now that we have briefly pointed them out, since the question undertaken demands that we discuss them somewhat more fully, we must mark them with fixed and fitting names, so as not to cause delay by constant circumlocution. Let us call the first, then, bodily, because it is perceived through the body and presented to the senses of the body; the second spiritual, for whatever is not a body and yet is something is already rightly called spirit; and certainly the image of an absent body, though it resembles a body, is not a body, nor is the very gaze by which it is discerned; and the third intellectual, from intellect, since to say “mental,” from mind, would be too absurd because of the novelty of the word. If I were to give a more subtle account of these terms, the discussion would be longer and more involved, when there is no necessity requiring it, or certainly not so great a one. It is enough, then, to know that something is called bodily either properly, when bodies are in question, or by a transferred use of the word, as it is said, “For in him dwells the whole fullness of divinity bodily.” For divinity is not a body; but because he calls the sacraments of the old covenant shadows of what was to come, he said, in comparison with the shadows, that the fullness of divinity dwells bodily in Christ, because in him are fulfilled all the things prefigured by those shadows, and so in a certain way he is himself the body of those shadows, that is, he is the truth of those figures and significations. Just as the figures themselves, which signify, are called shadows by a transferred use of the word and not properly, so in saying that the fullness of divinity dwells bodily he used a transferred word. “Spiritual,” however, is said in several ways. For the apostle calls even the body that will be in the resurrection of the saints spiritual, where he says, “It is sown an animal body, it will rise a spiritual body,” because in wonderful ways it will be subject to the spirit with complete ease and incorruption, and, without any need of bodily nourishment, will be given life by the spirit alone; not because it will have an incorporeal substance; for neither does this body, such as we have now, have the substance of the soul and is what the soul is, because it is called animal. Again, “spirit” is said either of this air or of its blowing, that is, its movement, as it is said, “Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of the storm.” “Spirit” is also said of the soul, whether of a beast or of a man, as it is written, “And who knows whether the spirit of the sons of men goes upward, and whether the spirit of the beast goes downward into the earth?” The rational mind itself is also called spirit, in which there is a kind of eye of the soul, to which the image and knowledge of God belong. Hence the apostle says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, who is created according to God,” while elsewhere he says of the inner man, “who is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him.” Again, when he had said, “So then I myself serve the law of God with the mind, but with the flesh the law of sin,” recalling the same thought in another place he says, “The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do what you will”; what he called mind, this he also called spirit. God too is called spirit, as the Lord says in the Gospel, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

From all these ways that we have mentioned in which “spirit” is used, we did not take this word by which we have called this kind of vision, which we are now treating, “spiritual,” but from that one way which we found in the letter to the Corinthians, in which spirit is distinguished from mind by a most evident testimony. “For if I pray,” he says, “in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.” Since “tongue” in this place is understood to mean obscure and mystical significations, from which, if you remove the understanding of the mind, no one is edified by hearing what he does not understand—hence he also says, “For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one hears, but the spirit speaks mysteries”—he shows clearly enough that he calls “tongue” in this place that in which there are significations like images and likenesses of things, which need the gaze of the mind to be understood. But when they are not understood, he says they are in the spirit, not in the mind; hence he says more plainly, “If you bless with the spirit, how will one who fills the place of the uninstructed say ‘Amen’ to your blessing, since he does not know what you are saying?” Since, then, it is also with the tongue, that is, with the bodily member that we move in the mouth when we speak, that signs of things are given, and not the things themselves brought forth, he therefore called by a transferred word any utterance of signs before they are understood a “tongue”; and when understanding is added to it, which is proper to the mind, there comes revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching. Accordingly he says, “If I come to you speaking in tongues, how shall I benefit you, unless I speak to you in revelation or in knowledge or in prophecy or in teaching?”—that is, when understanding is added to the signs, that is, to the tongue, so that what is done is done not only with the spirit but also with the mind.

Accordingly, for those to whom signs were shown in the spirit through likenesses of bodily things, unless the work of the mind was added so that they were also understood, there was not yet prophecy; and he who interpreted what another had seen was more a prophet than he who had seen it. Hence it appears that prophecy belongs more to the mind than to this spirit, which in a certain proper sense is called spirit: a power of the soul lower than the mind, where likenesses of bodily things are formed. So Joseph, who understood what the seven ears of grain and the seven cows signified, was more a prophet than Pharaoh, who saw them in dreams; for the spirit of the one was formed so that he saw, the mind of the other illuminated so that he understood. And therefore in the one there was tongue, in the other prophecy, because in the one there was imagination of things, in the other interpretation of the imaginings. He, then, is less a prophet who sees in the spirit only the signs of the things signified, through images of bodily things; and he is more a prophet who is endowed only with the understanding of them; but he is most a prophet who excels in both, so that he both sees in the spirit the signifying likenesses of bodily things and understands them by the liveliness of the mind; as the excellence of Daniel was tested and proved, who both told the king the dream he had seen and disclosed what it signified. For the bodily images themselves were formed in his spirit, and the understanding of them was revealed in his mind. From this way, then, in which spirit is spoken of in this distinction—according to which the apostle said, “I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also,” so that the signs of things are formed in the spirit and their understanding shines out in the mind—according to this distinction, I say, we have now called “spiritual” that kind of things seen by which we also think of the images of absent bodies.

The intellectual kind, however, is more excellent, being proper to the mind. Nor does it occur to me at all that “intellect” can be used in as many ways as we have found “spirit” to be used; and whether we say “intellectual” or “intelligible,” we mean the same thing. Some, however, have wanted there to be some difference, so that the intelligible is the thing itself that can be perceived by the intellect alone, while the intellectual is the mind that understands. But whether there is anything that can be discerned by the intellect alone and does not also understand is a great and difficult question. That there is a thing which perceives by the intellect and cannot also be perceived by the intellect, I do not think anyone either thinks or says; for the mind is seen only by the mind. Because, then, it can be seen, it is intelligible; because it can also see, it is intellectual, according to that distinction. Therefore, setting aside that most difficult question, whether there is anything that is only understood and does not understand, we now use “intellectual” and “intelligible” with the same meaning.

These three kinds of things seen, then—bodily, spiritual, intellectual—must be considered one by one, so that reason may ascend from the lower to the higher. We have already given an example above in which all three kinds are seen in one sentence. For when one reads, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” the letters are seen bodily, the neighbour is thought of spiritually, love is beheld intellectually. But the letters, when absent, can also be thought of spiritually, and the neighbour, when present, can be seen bodily; love, however, can neither be discerned by the eyes of the body in its own substance nor thought of by the spirit through an image resembling a body, but is known and perceived by the mind alone, that is, by the intellect. Bodily vision certainly presides over neither of these kinds; rather, what is perceived through it is reported to the spiritual as to one presiding. For when something is discerned by the eyes, its image is at once formed in the spirit; but it is not recognized as formed until, having taken our eyes off what we were seeing through the eyes, we find its image in the soul. And if the spirit is irrational, as in a beast, the eyes' report goes only that far; but if the soul is rational, it is reported also to the intellect, which presides over the spirit too; so that, if what the eyes have taken in and reported to the spirit, so that its image is formed there, is the sign of something, either what it signifies is understood at once or it is sought; since it can be neither understood nor sought except by the work of the mind. King Belshazzar saw the fingers of a hand writing on the wall, and at once, through the sense of the body, the image of the thing done bodily was impressed on his spirit; and when the sight itself was done and past, that image remained in his thought. It was seen in the spirit and not understood; nor was this sign understood when it happened bodily and appeared to the bodily eyes; yet it was already understood to be a sign, and this he had from the work of the mind. And because it was sought what it signified, the mind was certainly conducting the inquiry itself too. When this was not found, Daniel came forward, and with his mind illuminated by the prophetic spirit he disclosed to the troubled king what was portended by that sign; he himself being more a prophet through this kind of vision, which is proper to the mind, than the king, who had seen bodily the sign done bodily, and discerned its image in the spirit by thinking of it after it had passed, and could do nothing with his intellect except know that it was a sign and ask what it signified. Peter, in a rapture of mind, saw a vessel tied by four cords let down from heaven, full of various animals, when he also heard the voice: “Kill and eat.” When, restored to his senses, he was pondering the vision, behold, the Spirit announced to him those whom Cornelius had sent, saying, “Behold, men are seeking you; but rise, go down and go with them, for I have sent them.” When he came to Cornelius, he himself showed what he had understood in that vision, where he had heard, “What God has cleansed, do not call common,” saying, “And God has shown me that I should call no man common or unclean.” So when he saw that sheet, estranged from the senses of the body, he heard those words, “Kill and eat” and “What God has cleansed, do not call common,” in the spirit. But when restored to the senses of the body, he discerned in the same spirit, by thinking, the very thing that he had kept in memory as seen and heard. All these were not bodily things but images of bodily things, both when they were first seen in the rapture itself and when they were afterwards recalled and thought of. But when he was pondering and seeking to understand those signs, it was the action of the mind striving, but the result was lacking, until those who came from Cornelius were announced; and when this bodily vision was also added, and the Holy Spirit again said to him in the spirit, “Go with them,” where he had also shown that sign and impressed the words, the mind, divinely helped, understood what was being done in all those signs. When these and similar things are carefully considered, it is clear enough that bodily vision is referred to spiritual, and spiritual to intellectual.

But when we are awake and not estranged in mind from the senses of the body, and are in bodily vision, we distinguish from that vision the spiritual one, by which we think of absent bodies through images: whether recalling from memory those we know, or forming in some way, in the spirit's very thinking, those we do not know but which exist, or inventing at will or by opinion those that exist nowhere at all. From all these we distinguish those bodily things which we see and in whose presence the senses of our body are, in such a way that we do not doubt that these are bodies and those images of bodies. But when, either through excessive intensity of thought, or through some force of disease, as usually happens to those delirious with fever, or through the intermingling of some other spirit, whether evil or good, images of bodily things are so formed in the spirit as if bodies were presented to the very senses of the body, while the attention still remains in the senses of the body, then the images of bodies formed in the spirit are seen just as bodies themselves are seen through the body; so that at the same time one man who is present is discerned by the eyes and another who is absent by the spirit as if by the eyes. For we have known people so affected, and they spoke both with those who were truly present and with others who were not present, as if they were present. When they come to themselves, some report what they saw, some cannot; just as some forget their dreams and some remember them. But when the attention of the soul is wholly turned away and snatched from the senses of the body, then it is more usually called ecstasy. Then whatever bodies are present are not seen at all, even with the eyes open, and no voices whatever are heard: the whole gaze of the soul is either on the images of bodies through spiritual vision or on incorporeal things, figured by no image of a body, through intellectual vision. But when spiritual vision, with the soul wholly estranged from the senses of the body, is held by images of bodily things, whether in sleep or in ecstasy, then if what is seen signifies nothing, these are the soul's own imaginings; just as people who are awake and healthy and moved by no estrangement turn over in thought images of many bodies which are not present to the senses of the body. But there is this difference, that these people distinguish them from present and true bodies by a steady disposition. If, however, they signify something—whether they are presented to people asleep, or to people awake, when they both see present bodies with their eyes and discern images of absent ones by the spirit as though they were before their eyes, or in what is called ecstasy, with the soul wholly estranged from the senses of the body—it is a wonderful thing if it can happen through the intermingling of another spirit, that it shows what it itself knows, through images of this kind, to the one with whom it is mingled, whether he understands them or so that they may be disclosed to him as understood by another. For if these things are shown, and they certainly cannot be shown by a body, what remains but that they are shown by some spirit?

Some indeed hold that the human soul has in itself a certain power of divination. But if so, why can it not always do it, since it always wants to? Or is it because it is not always helped so as to be able? When, then, it is helped, can it be helped by no one, or by a body? It remains, therefore, that it is helped by a spirit. Then, how is it helped? Does something happen in the body by which its attention is, as it were, released and darts forth, so that it comes to the point where it sees in itself the signifying likenesses that were already there but were not seen, as we have many things in memory too that we do not always look at? Or are things formed there that were not there before? Or are they in some spirit, into which the soul, breaking out and emerging, sees them there? But if they were already in it as its own, why does it not also understand them consequently? For sometimes, indeed usually, it does not understand them. Or, just as its spirit was helped to see them in itself, so too the mind cannot understand what the spirit has unless it is helped? Or perhaps it is not that bodily hindrances are removed or, as it were, loosened, so that the soul by its own impulse is thrust out toward what is to be seen, but that it is itself wholly taken up into these things, whether they are only to be discerned spiritually or also to be known intellectually? Or does it sometimes see these things in itself, sometimes through the intermingling of another spirit? Whichever of these it is, it should not be rashly affirmed. But this should not be doubtful: that the bodily images discerned by the spirit are not always signs of other things, whether in people awake or asleep or ill; but it would be a wonder if there can ever be an ecstasy in which those likenesses of bodily things do not signify something. It is certainly no wonder if even those who have a demon sometimes tell true things that are absent from the senses of those present: this certainly happens by some hidden mixture, I know not what, of the same spirit, so that the spirit of the sufferer and of the tormentor is as though one. But when a good spirit takes up or snatches the human spirit into these visions, there is no doubt at all that those images are signs of other things, and of things it is useful to know; for it is a gift of God. Discernment is indeed most difficult when the malign spirit acts more quietly, as it were, and, without any torment of the body, having taken up the human spirit, says what it can; when it even says true things and foretells useful ones, transforming itself, as it is written, as if into an angel of light, so that, once it has been believed in things plainly good, it may seduce people to its own. I do not think this spirit is discerned except by that gift of which the apostle speaks, when he was speaking of the various gifts of God: “to another, the discernment of spirits.”

For it is no great thing to recognize him when he has arrived at, or led people to, things that are contrary to good morals or to the rule of faith; for then he is discerned by many. But by that gift he is judged at once, at the very beginning, when to many he still appears good, whether he is evil. Yet both through bodily vision and through the images of bodily things shown in the spirit, good spirits instruct and evil ones deceive. But intellectual vision is not deceived; for either one who thinks something other than what is does not understand, or, if he understands, it is at once true. For the eyes have nothing they can do when they have seen a similar body which they cannot distinguish from another; nor has the attention of the soul anything it can do when a likeness of a body has been formed in the spirit which it cannot distinguish from a body. But the intellect is applied, asking what these things signify or what useful thing they teach, and either it finds it and reaches its fruit, or, not finding it, it keeps itself in suspense, lest by some ruinous rashness it slip into deadly error. And a sober intellect, divinely helped, judges what and how great are the things in which even to think something other than what is is not harmful to the soul. For when someone is thought good by good people even though he is secretly evil, it is not to the peril of those who think so, but rather to his own ruin, if there is no error about the things themselves, that is, about the very good by which anyone becomes good. Nor does it harm all human beings that, when they sleep, they suppose to be true bodies those whose likenesses they see in dreams. Nor did it harm Peter that, when he had been freed from his chains and was being led by an angel, it happened by a sudden miracle that he thought he was seeing a vision; or when in that ecstasy he answered, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean,” thinking that the things shown in the sheet were real animals. When these things are found to be other than they were thought when they were seen, we do not regret that they so appeared to us, and no hard unbelief or vain or sacrilegious opinion is charged against us. Therefore, even when the devil deceives with bodily sights, it does no harm that the eyes are mocked, if there is no error in the truth of faith and in the soundness of understanding which God teaches those subject to him. Or if he mocks the soul in spiritual vision with images of bodies, so that it thinks to be a body what is not, does it harm the soul at all, if it does not consent to a ruinous persuasion?

Hence a question sometimes arises about the consent of dreamers, when they seem to themselves even to lie with someone, either against their resolve or even against lawful morals. This happens only when things that we also think of while awake—not with the approval of consent, but as we also speak of such things for some reason—are recalled in dreams and so vividly formed that the flesh is naturally moved by them and emits through the genital passages what it has naturally collected; just as I certainly could not say this very thing unless I also thought of it. Further, if the images of bodily things that I necessarily thought of in order to say this were presented in dreams as vividly as bodies are presented to those awake, there would happen what could not happen without sin to one awake. For who, when he speaks and, as the needs of discourse require, says something about his own intercourse, could not think of what he is saying? Further, when that very fantasy which occurs in the thought of the speaker is so vividly formed in the vision of the dreamer that it is not distinguished from a true union of bodies, the flesh is at once moved and there follows what usually follows that movement; though this happens as much without sin as what is said by one awake without sin, which in order to be said was undoubtedly thought of. Nevertheless, because of the good disposition of the soul, which, cleansed by a better desire, kills many desires that do not pertain to the natural movement of the flesh—which the chaste restrain and rein in while awake, but cannot while asleep, because they do not have in their power what vivid bodily image, indistinguishable from a body, is presented to them—because of that good disposition of the soul, then, some of its merits shine out even in dreams. For even when asleep Solomon preferred wisdom to all things and, neglecting the rest, asked the Lord for it; and, as Scripture testifies, this pleased the Lord, and he did not delay a good reward for a good desire.

This being so, the sense of the body pertains to bodily things seen; it is distributed through five channels, as it were, of differing strength, since that which is subtlest in the body and therefore nearer to the soul than the rest, namely light, is first diffused alone through the eyes and darts out in the rays of the eyes to behold visible things; then, by a certain mixture, first with pure air, second with misty and cloudy air, third with a more corporeal moisture, fourth with earthy grossness, it produces the five senses together with the sense of the eyes itself, where it excels alone—as I remember having discussed in the fourth and again in the seventh book. Now this heaven visible to the eyes, from which the luminaries and stars shine, is certainly more excellent than all the bodily elements, just as the sense of the eyes excels in the body. But since every spirit is without doubt more excellent than every body, it follows that, not by position in place but by dignity of nature, the spiritual nature is more excellent than this bodily heaven, even that spiritual nature in which images of bodily things are formed. Here something wonderful arises: although spirit is prior to body, and the image of a body is posterior to the body, yet because what is later in time comes about in what is prior by nature, the image of a body in the spirit is more excellent than the body itself in its own substance. Nor indeed should it be thought that the body produces anything in the spirit, as though the spirit were subject to the body as its maker in the manner of matter. For in every way the maker is more excellent than the thing from which he makes something; and in no way is body more excellent than spirit; on the contrary, plainly spirit is more excellent than body. So although we first see some body that we had not seen before, and from then its image begins to be in our spirit, by which we remember it when it is absent, yet it is not the body that makes this image of it in the spirit, but the spirit itself in itself, with a wonderful speed which is ineffably far from the slowness of the body; the image of which, as soon as it has been seen by the eyes, is formed in the spirit of the one seeing without the interval of any point of time. Likewise in hearing, unless the spirit at once formed in itself the image of the sound perceived by the ears and kept it in memory, one would not know whether the second syllable was the second, since the first would certainly no longer exist, having passed away after striking the ear. And so all use of speech, all the sweetness of singing, finally every bodily movement in our actions would fall apart and perish and achieve no progress, if the spirit did not hold in memory the past movements of the body, to which to connect the following ones in acting; and it certainly holds them only as images made by itself in itself. Even images of future movements go before the completion of our actions. For what do we do through the body that the spirit has not anticipated by thinking, first seeing in itself and in a way arranging the likenesses of all visible works?

How these spiritual likenesses of bodily things in our soul become known even to unclean spirits, or what hindrance our soul suffers from this earthly body so that we cannot see them in one another's spirit, is difficult to find out and explain. Yet it has been established among us by the most certain evidence that people's thoughts have been declared by demons; yet if they could discern the inner beauty of the virtues in people, they would not tempt them; just as the devil, if he could have discerned that noble and wonderful patience in Job, would certainly not have wished to be overcome by the one he tempted. As for their announcing things that have already happened somewhere far away, which are confirmed as true after some days, this is no wonder. For they can do this not only by a keenness in discerning even bodily things incomparably superior to ours, but also by the wonderful speed of their own bodies, which are certainly far subtler. We have also learned that a man who was suffering from an unclean spirit, while he was at home, used to say when a presbyter had set out to come to him from twelve miles away, and through all the places on the journey where he was, and how near he was coming, and when he was entering the estate and the house and the bedroom, until he stood in his sight. All this, even though the sufferer did not discern it with his eyes, he would nonetheless not have declared so truly unless he discerned it in some way. He was feverish and said these things as if in delirium. And perhaps he really was delirious, but because of these things he was thought to be suffering from a demon. He took no nourishing food from his own family, but only from that presbyter. He even resisted his own family violently, as far as he was able; only when that presbyter came was he quiet; to him alone he was submissive and answered submissively. Yet that estrangement of mind, or demon, did not yield even to that presbyter until he was healed of the fever, as the delirious usually are healed; nor did he ever suffer anything of the kind afterwards. We also know without doubt that a delirious man foretold the future death of a certain woman, not indeed in the manner of divining, but as though recalling something done and past. For when she was mentioned in his presence, he said, “She is dead; I saw her carried out; they passed this way with her body,” when she was alive and well; but a few days later she died suddenly and was carried out by the place he had foretold. There was also with us a boy who at the beginning of puberty suffered most acute pain in the genitals, the physicians being quite unable to recognize what it was, except that the member itself was drawn back inward, so that it could not appear even when the foreskin, which hung down to an immoderate length, was cut off, and afterwards was found only with difficulty. A sticky, acrid fluid oozing out burned the testicles and groin. But he did not suffer the sharp pain continuously; when he did suffer it, he wailed vehemently, tossing his limbs, with his mind perfectly sound, as usually happens in the torments of bodily pain. Then, in the midst of his cries, he would be snatched away from all his senses and would lie with eyes open, seeing none of those standing around, not moving at any pinching. After a while, as if waking and no longer in pain, he would tell what he had seen. Then, after a few days, he would suffer the same things. In all, or nearly all, his visions he said he saw two persons, one older, the other a boy, by whom were said or shown to him the things he reported having heard and seen. One day he saw the joy of the godly singing psalms in a wonderful light, and the various and most terrible punishments of the ungodly in darkness, those two leading him and showing him and suggesting the desert of the happiness of the one and the unhappiness of the other. He saw this on the Lord's day of Easter, after he had felt no pain throughout Lent, when before he had scarcely been spared for an interval of three days. At the very beginning of Lent he had seen those two promising him that for forty days he would feel no pain; afterwards they themselves gave him, as it were, medical advice, that the excessive length of his foreskin should be cut off; when this was done he was free from pain for a long time. When he again suffered pain in the same way and began to see similar things, he received advice from them again, that he should go into the sea up to his groin and after some delay come out; and they promised that from then on he would not suffer that violent pain, but only the trouble of that sticky fluid; and so it followed. Nor did he ever afterwards suffer any such turning of the mind from the senses, or see any such thing, as before, when in the midst of his pains and dreadful cries he would suddenly fall silent and be snatched away. Afterwards, however, when the physicians treated and healed the rest, he did not persevere in his resolve to holy life.

If anyone can track down the causes and modes of these visions and divinations and grasp them with certainty, I would rather listen to him than be expected to discourse on them myself. Yet what I think I will not hide—so that the learned may not laugh at me as if I were asserting, nor the unlearned receive me as if I were teaching, but both may take me as discussing and inquiring rather than knowing. I compare all these visions with the visions of dreamers. For just as these are sometimes false and sometimes true, sometimes disturbed and sometimes calm, and the true ones themselves sometimes entirely like the future events or plainly stated, sometimes foretold by obscure significations and figurative expressions, as it were, so too are all those. But people love to marvel at what they have not experienced and to seek the causes of unusual things, while they mostly do not care to know everyday things of the same kind, often of even more hidden origin. For just as with words, that is, the signs we use in speaking, when they hear an unusual word they first ask what it is, that is, what it means; and when they know this, they then ask where it comes from, though they are ignorant, without concern, of so many words they have in daily use, as to where they come from; so when something unusual happens in things, whether bodily or spiritual, they anxiously inquire into its causes and reason and demand that teachers render them an account. When someone asks me, for example, what catus means, and I answer “prudent” or “sharp,” and that does not satisfy him but he goes on to ask where catus comes from, I usually ask in turn where acutus comes from. Of this he was nonetheless ignorant, but because it was a familiar word he was content not to know its origin; but because the other sounded new in his ears, he thinks he hardly knows what it means unless he also finds out where it comes from. So whoever asks me where the things seen in ecstasy, resembling bodily things, come from—which rarely happens to the soul—I ask in turn where the things seen by those asleep come from, which the soul experiences daily, and no one cares, or cares much, to inquire into that. As if the nature of such visions were less wonderful because it is daily, or less worth caring about because it belongs to everyone! Or if those who do not inquire into these do right, they would do more rightly not to be curious about those either. For my part, I marvel far more, and am most of all amazed, at the speed and ease with which the soul fabricates in itself images of bodies it has seen through the eyes of the body, than at the visions of dreamers or even of those in ecstasy. But whatever the nature of these things seen, it is beyond doubt not a body. Whoever is not satisfied to know this, let him ask others where they come from; I confess I do not know.

This much, at least, can be gathered from the experience of examples. Just as pallor, blushing, trembling, or even disease in bodies sometimes has its causes from the body and sometimes from the soul—from the body when some fluid spreads or food or something else is introduced into the body from outside; from the soul when it is disturbed by fear or confused by shame or angry or in love or something of the kind; and not without reason, if what animates and rules the body also agitates it more vehemently when it is itself moved more vehemently—so too it happens to the soul itself, that it passes into visions which are not reported to it through the senses of the body but through an incorporeal substance, and passes so that it does not distinguish whether they are bodies or likenesses of bodies, sometimes from the body and sometimes from the spirit. From the body, either by natural alternation, as are the visions of dreamers—for sleeping comes to a man from the body—or through some bad health, when the senses are disturbed, as when the delirious see at once both bodies and things like bodies as if they too were present before their eyes; or when the senses are entirely shut off, as people who have fallen gravely ill, when some disease grows worse, being long absent though the body is present, and then restored to human company, have said that they saw many things. From the spirit, when with a body entirely sound and whole people are snatched into rapture, either in such a way that they see bodies through the senses of the body and in the spirit certain likenesses which they do not distinguish from bodies, or in such a way that they are wholly turned away from the senses of the flesh and, perceiving nothing at all through them, dwell by that spiritual vision among likenesses of bodies. But when an evil spirit seizes people into these things, it makes them demoniacs, or the possessed, or false prophets; when a good spirit does so, it makes believers speaking mysteries, or, when understanding is also added, true prophets, or people who see and tell for a time what must be shown through them.

But when the cause of seeing such things is from the body, it is not the body that presents them; for it does not have the power to form anything spiritual. Rather, when the path of attention from the brain, by which the manner of perceiving is directed, is lulled or disturbed or even shut off, the soul itself, which cannot by its own movement cease from this work, since through the body it is not allowed, or not fully allowed, to perceive bodily things or to direct the force of its attention to bodily things, produces likenesses of bodily things in the spirit or beholds them presented to it. And if it produces them itself, they are only fantasies; but if it beholds them presented, they are showings. Finally, when the eyes are diseased or destroyed, since the cause is not in the seat of the brain, from which the attention of perceiving is directed, visions of this kind do not occur, though an obstacle to discerning bodily things arises from the body. For the blind see something more when asleep than when awake; for in those asleep the path of perceiving in the brain, which leads the attention to the eyes, is lulled, and so the attention itself, turned to something else, discerns the sights of dreams as though bodily forms were present, so that the sleeper seems to himself to be awake and thinks he is beholding not things like bodies but bodies themselves. But when the blind are awake, the attention of seeing is led along those paths, and when it has come to the place of the eyes it is not thrust out but remains there, so that they perceive that they are awake and are rather in darkness when awake, even by day, than when asleep, whether by day or by night. For many who are not blind also sleep with their eyes open, seeing nothing through them, yet not on that account seeing nothing, since they discern the sights of dreams by the spirit; but if they are awake with their eyes closed, they are present neither to the visions of sleepers nor to those of the waking. Yet it makes so much difference that the path of perceiving, neither lulled nor disturbed nor shut off, reaches from the brain to their eyes and leads the soul's attention right up to the doors of the body, though closed, that images of bodies are indeed thought of, but are in no way taken for the bodies that are perceived through the eyes. So much does it matter where the hindrance to perceiving bodily things occurs, when it occurs in the body. For if it occurs only at the entrances and, as it were, doors of the senses, as in the eyes, the ears, and the other senses of the body, only the perception of bodily things is hindered; but the soul's attention is not turned to something else in such a way that it takes images of bodies for bodies. But if the cause is within, in the brain, from which the paths are directed to perceive what is outside, then the very vessels of attention are lulled or disturbed or shut off, by which the soul strives to look at or perceive what is outside. And since it does not lose this striving, it forms likenesses so vividly that, unable to distinguish images of bodily things from bodily things, it does not know whether it is among the former or the latter; and when it does know, it knows in a very different way than when likenesses of bodies are turned over in thought or occur to it; a way that cannot be grasped at all except by those who have experienced it. Hence it was that, while asleep, I knew that I was seeing in dreams, and yet I did not distinguish the likenesses of bodily things that I saw from bodily things themselves in the way we usually distinguish them when thinking of them, even with eyes closed or in darkness. So much does it matter whether the soul's attention is led right up to the senses, though closed, or, some cause arising in the brain itself from which it strives toward them, is turned to something else; so that, although the soul sometimes knows that it is discerning not bodies but likenesses of bodies, or, less instructed, thinking them to be bodies themselves, perceives that it sees them not with the body but with the spirit, it is still far from the vividness with which things are presented to its body. By this the blind too know that they are awake, when they distinguish with sure knowledge the likenesses of bodies they think of from the bodies they cannot see.

But when, with the body sound and the senses not lulled by sleep, the soul is snatched by some hidden spiritual work into those sights that are like bodily things, the nature of the things seen is not different just because the mode is different; since even among those causes which arise from the body there is certainly a difference, and sometimes an opposite one. For the delirious, rather than by sleeping, have the paths of perceiving in the head disturbed so as to see such things as dreamers see, whose attention is turned away in sleep from the waking sense and turned to seeing these things. Although, then, the one happens not by sleeping and the other by sleeping, the things seen are not of any other kind than of the nature of the spirit, of which or in which the likenesses of bodies are formed. So, although the cause of the estranged attention is different when, with the body of a waking person sound, the soul is snatched by some hidden spiritual power so as to see in the spirit likenesses of bodily things formed in place of bodies, the nature of the things seen is still the same. For it cannot be said that when the cause is in the body, then the soul turns over images of bodies from itself without any foreknowledge of the future, as it usually does in thinking, but that when it is taken up by a spirit to see them, these are shown divinely; since Scripture plainly says, “I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and young men shall see visions, and old men shall dream dreams,” attributing both to divine operation; and, “An angel of the Lord appeared to a man in sleep, saying, Do not fear to take Mary your wife”; and again, “Take the child and go into Egypt.”

So I do not think that the spirit of a man is taken up by a good spirit to see these images unless they signify something. But when the cause is in the body, so that the human spirit is directed to beholding them more vividly, we must not believe that they always signify something; they signify, however, when they are inspired by a showing spirit, whether to one asleep or to one suffering something else from the body so as to be estranged from the senses of the flesh. We know also that to people who are awake and afflicted by no disease nor stirred by frenzy, thoughts have been introduced by some hidden prompting, by uttering which they divined; not only when they were doing something else, as the high priest Caiaphas prophesied though his intention had no will to prophesy, but even when they undertook to say something in the manner of divining. For certain young men, travelling as strangers, in fun and to deceive, pretended to be astrologers, though entirely ignorant even whether the signs were said to be twelve. When they saw their host marvelling at what they said and testifying that it was most true, they went on more boldly to more. And he, testifying to everything, marvelled. Finally he asked them about the safety of his son, whom he had long missed in his absence and about whom he was anxious that something might have happened to him, because he was unexpectedly delayed. They, not caring what truth would be known after their departure, so long as they made the man happy for the present, being about to set out, answered that he was safe and approaching and would come that very day on which they were speaking. For they did not fear that, when the whole day had passed, he would follow them the next day to refute them. In short: while they were already preparing to leave, behold, suddenly, while they were still there, he came. Again, another man was dancing before a musician, where there were many idols, during some festival of the pagans; he was not seized by any spirit, but in playful imitation was mimicking the possessed, as those standing around and watching knew. For it was the custom that, when the sacrifices had been completed before the meal and the frenzied devotees had been worked up, if any young men wished to play in that manner after the meal, no one was prevented. So while dancing, when silence had been made for him, joking and surrounded by the laughing crowd, he foretold that in the coming night a man would be killed by a lion in the wood that was nearby, and that at daybreak the crowd would flock to see his corpse and desert the place of that festival. And it happened, though it had been clear enough to all who were present, in all his movements, that he had said this playing and joking, with his mind nowhere disturbed or estranged; he himself marvelling at what happened all the more, the better he knew with what intention and in what tone he had uttered it. In what way these visions come into a man's spirit—whether they are first formed there, or are introduced already formed and discerned by some kind of conjunction, so that angels show to human beings their own thoughts and the likenesses of bodily things which they preform in their spirit by knowledge of the future; just as they themselves see our thoughts, not with eyes, since they see not by a body but by the spirit; yet with this difference, that they know ours even if we do not wish it, while we cannot know theirs unless they are shown, because, I think, they have it in their power to hide them by spiritual means, just as we hide our bodies by interposing obstacles so that they are not seen by others' eyes—and what happens in our spirit, so that sometimes signifying images alone are discerned but it is not known whether they signify anything, sometimes they are perceived to signify something but what they signify is not known, and sometimes, by a fuller showing as it were, the human soul sees both the images themselves with the spirit and what they signify with the mind: all this is most difficult to know and, even if we already knew it, most laborious to discuss and explain.

What I think it enough to point out now is this: it is certain that there is in us a certain spiritual nature in which likenesses of bodily things are formed: whether when we touch some body with a sense of the body and its likeness is at once formed in the spirit and stored in memory; or when we think of absent bodies already known, so that from them a certain spiritual sight is formed, which were already in the spirit even before we thought of them; or when we behold likenesses of bodies we do not know but do not doubt exist, not as they are but as they occur to us; or when we think at will or by opinion of other things that either do not exist or are not known to exist; or when, from wherever, without our doing or willing it, various forms of likenesses of bodies turn over in the soul; or when, about to do something bodily, we arrange the very things that will be in that action and go ahead of them all in thought; or when, already in the act itself, whether we are speaking or doing, all bodily movements, so that they can be carried out, are anticipated by their likenesses within in the spirit—for not even the shortest syllable would have sounded in its order unless it had been foreseen; or when dreams are seen by sleepers, signifying nothing or something; or when, the inner paths of perceiving disturbed by bodily ill health, the spirit so mingles images of bodies with true bodies that they can scarcely or not at all be told apart, and either signify something or arise without any signification; or when some disease or bodily pain grows heavier and shuts off within the paths by which the soul's attention was thrust out and strove to perceive through the flesh, and, the spirit being withdrawn more deeply than in sleep, images of bodily things arise or are shown, either signifying something or appearing without any signification; or when, with no cause arising from the body, but some spirit taking up and snatching it, the soul is lifted to see likenesses of bodies of this kind, mingling bodily sights with them, when it is also using the senses of the body at the same time; or when, a spirit so taking it up, it is estranged and turned away from every sense of the body, so that it is held by likenesses of bodies alone in spiritual vision, where I do not know whether any things can be seen that signify nothing.

This spiritual nature, then, in which not bodies but likenesses of bodies are formed, has visions of a lower kind than that light of the mind and intelligence by which both these lower things are judged and those things are discerned which neither are bodies nor bear any forms resembling bodies: such as the mind itself and every good disposition of the soul, to which are opposed its vices, which are rightly blamed and condemned in human beings. For in what other way is the intellect itself beheld except by understanding? So too love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control, and the rest of this kind, by which one draws near to God; and God himself, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. Although, then, the visions happen in the same soul—whether those perceived through the body, like this bodily heaven and earth and whatever in them can be known, so far as they can; or those seen by the spirit, likenesses of bodies, about which we have already said much; or those understood by the mind, which are neither bodies nor likenesses of bodies—they certainly have their order, and one is more excellent than another. For spiritual vision is more excellent than bodily, and again intellectual more excellent than spiritual. For bodily vision cannot exist without spiritual, since at the same moment at which a body is touched by a sense of the body, something of the same kind happens in the soul, not that it is this but that it is like it; and if this did not happen, there would be no sense by which things lying outside are perceived. For it is not the body that perceives, but the soul through the body, which it uses as a messenger to form in itself what is reported from outside. So bodily vision cannot happen unless spiritual vision happens at the same time; but it is not distinguished until the sense has been withdrawn from the body, so that what was seen through the body is found in the spirit. But spiritual vision can happen even without bodily vision, when likenesses of absent bodies appear in the spirit, and many are invented at will or shown beyond the will. Again, spiritual vision needs intellectual vision in order to be judged, but intellectual vision does not need this lower, spiritual vision. And therefore bodily vision is subject to spiritual, and both to intellectual. When, then, we read, “The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one,” we must take it not according to the spirit from which the mind is distinguished, as in the saying, “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind,” but in that sense in which it is said, “But be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” For we have already shown above that in another way the mind itself is called spirit, and it is according to this that the spiritual man judges all things. Therefore I think it neither absurd nor unfitting to say that spiritual vision holds a kind of middle place between intellectual and bodily. For I think it not unfitting to call that middle which is not a body but is like a body, between that which is truly a body and that which is neither a body nor like a body.

The soul is mocked by likenesses of things not through their fault but through its own opinion, when, failing in understanding, it approves things that are like as if they were the things they are like. It is deceived, then, in bodily vision, when it thinks that what happens in the senses of the body happens in the bodies themselves—as to those sailing, things on land that stand still seem to move, and to those looking at the sky the stars, which move, seem to stand still; and when the rays of the eyes are spread apart, two images of a lamp appear; and an oar seems broken in water; and many things of this kind—or when it thinks a thing to be what is similarly coloured, or sounds or smells or tastes or feels similar. Hence a waxy medicine cooked in a pot is thought to be a vegetable; the sound of a passing cart is thought to come from thunder; if it is explored by no other senses but left to smell alone, the citron is thought to be the herb called balm; food flavoured with some sweetish juice is thought to be preserved in honey; and an unknown ring handled in the dark is thought to be gold when it is bronze or silver. Or when the soul, disturbed by sudden and unexpected bodily sights, thinks it is seeing in dreams or affected by some spiritual sight of that kind. Hence in all bodily sights the testimony of the other senses too is applied, and above all that of the mind itself and of reason, so that what is true in this kind of things may be found as far as it can be found. But in spiritual vision, that is, in likenesses of bodies seen by the spirit, the soul is deceived when it supposes that what it sees in this way are bodies themselves, or when it thinks that what it has invented for itself by suspicion and false conjecture exists also in the bodies it conjectures without seeing them. But in those intellectual sights it is not deceived. For either it understands, and it is true; or, if it is not true, it does not understand; hence it is one thing to err about what one sees, another to err because one does not see.

Therefore, when the soul is snatched into those sights which are discerned by the spirit as like bodily things, so that it is turned away from the senses of the body more fully than usually happens in sleep, but less than in death, it is now a matter of divine admonition and help that it should know that it is discerning spiritually not bodies but sights like bodies; just as those who know they are seeing in dreams, even before they wake. There, if future things are also seen, so that the future things whose images are seen as present are fully known, whether the man's mind itself is divinely helped or someone among the sights themselves explains what they signify, as was explained to John in the Apocalypse, it is a great revelation, even if perhaps the one to whom these things are shown does not know whether he has gone out of the body or is still in the body but sees them with the spirit estranged from the senses of the body; for one so snatched away can be ignorant of this, if this too is not shown to him. Further, if, just as he was snatched from the senses of the body so as to be among these likenesses of bodies seen by the spirit, he is also snatched from these so as to be carried up into that region, as it were, of intellectual or intelligible things, where the clear truth is discerned without any likeness of a body and is darkened by no mists of false opinions, there the virtues of the soul are not toilsome and laborious. For there lust is not reined in by the work of temperance, nor adversities borne by the work of fortitude, nor wrongs punished by the work of justice, nor evils avoided by the work of prudence. There the one and whole virtue is to love what you see, and the highest happiness is to have what you love. For there the happy life is drunk at its source, from which something is sprinkled on this human life, so that amid the temptations of this world one may live temperately, bravely, justly, and prudently. For it is in order to attain that—where there will be secure rest and the ineffable vision of truth—that the labour is undertaken of refraining from pleasure, of enduring adversities, of helping the needy, and of resisting deceivers. There the glory of the Lord is seen, not through a signifying vision, whether bodily, as it was seen on Mount Sinai, or spiritual, as Isaiah or John in the Apocalypse saw it, but by sight, not through enigmas, so far as the human mind can grasp it, according to the grace of God who takes it up, so that God speaks mouth to mouth with him whom he has made worthy of such converse—not the mouth of the body but of the mind, as I think is to be understood what is written of Moses.

For he had desired, as we read in Exodus, to see God, not as he had seen him on the mountain nor as he saw him in the tabernacle, but in that substance by which God is God, with no bodily creature taken up to be presented to the senses of mortal flesh, nor in likenesses of bodies figured in the spirit, but in his own form, so far as a rational and intellectual creature can grasp it, called away from every sense of the body and from every signifying enigma of the spirit. For so it is written: “If, then, I have found favour in your sight, show me yourself, that I may see you plainly”; whereas a little earlier we read, “And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as one speaks to his friend.” So he perceived what he was seeing, and desired what he was not seeing. For a little later, when God had said to him, “For you have found favour in my sight, and I know you above all,” he answered him, “Show me your glory.” And then indeed he received a figurative answer from the Lord, which it would take long to discuss now, when he said to him, “You cannot see my face and live; for man shall not see my face and live.” Then he added and said to him, “Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand upon the rock; as soon as my majesty passes, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I pass; and I will take away my hand, and then you will see my back; for my face will not appear to you.” Yet the Scripture that follows did not narrate that this also happened bodily, and by this it is shown clearly enough that it was said figuratively, signifying the church. For the church is the place by the Lord, since it is his temple and is itself built upon the rock; and the other things said there fit the same understanding. Yet unless Moses had been found worthy to see the glory of God which he had longed and desired for, God would not have said in the book of Numbers to Aaron and Miriam, his brother and sister, “Hear my words: if there is a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision and will speak to him in sleep. Not so with my servant Moses: he is faithful in all my house; I will speak to him mouth to mouth, by sight and not through enigmas, and he has seen the glory of the Lord.” For this is not to be understood according to the substance of a body, which is presented to the senses of the flesh; for in that way, certainly, he was speaking to Moses face to face, opposite to opposite, at the very time when Moses said to him, “Show me yourself”; and now too, to those very people whom he was rebuking and to whom he was so preferring the merit of Moses, he was speaking in that way, through a bodily creature presented to the senses of the flesh. In that other way, then, in that form by which God is God, he speaks far more ineffably, more secretly and more presently, by an ineffable speech, where no one living sees him with this life that is lived mortally in these senses of the body, unless he in some way dies to this life, whether going out of the body altogether or so turned away and estranged from the fleshly senses that he rightly does not know, as the apostle says, whether he is in the body or out of the body, when he is snatched and carried up into that vision.

Therefore, if the apostle called the third heaven this third kind of vision, which is higher not only than all bodily vision, by which bodies are perceived through the senses of the body, but also than all that spiritual vision by which likenesses of bodies are discerned by the spirit, not the mind, then in this the glory of God is seen, for the seeing of which hearts are cleansed. Hence it is said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”; not through some signification figured bodily or spiritually, as through a mirror in an enigma, but face to face—what was said of Moses, “mouth to mouth”—that is, by that form by which God is whatever he is, however little of him the mind, which is not what he is, can grasp, even when cleansed from every earthly stain, estranged and snatched away from every body and likeness of a body. From him we are absent on pilgrimage, weighed down by a mortal and corruptible burden, as long as we walk by faith, not by sight, even when we live righteously here. But why should we not believe that God willed to show to so great an apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, snatched up to that most excellent vision, the life in which, after this life, we are to live for ever? And why should this not be called paradise, apart from that one in which Adam lived bodily among shady and fruitful trees? Since the church too, which gathers us into the bosom of love, has been called a paradise with the fruit of apples. But this was said figuratively, as if by that paradise, where Adam properly was, the church was signified in the manner of a type of what was to come. Although to those who consider more carefully it may perhaps occur that by that bodily paradise, in which Adam was bodily, there was signified both this life of the saints which is now led in the church and that which will be after this for ever: just as Jerusalem, which is interpreted “vision of peace,” and yet is shown to be an earthly city, signifies Jerusalem our eternal mother in the heavens, whether in those who have been saved in hope and, hoping for what they do not see, wait for it with patience—according to whom “many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband”—or in the holy angels themselves, to whom the manifold wisdom of God is made known through the church, with whom, after this pilgrimage, we are to live without toil and without end.

But if we take the third heaven, to which the apostle was caught up, in such a way as to believe that there are also a fourth and several more heavens above, below which this third heaven is—as some maintain there are seven, others eight, others nine or even ten, and assert that within that one called the firmament there are many in degrees, and therefore reason or opine that they are bodily; it would take long to discuss their reasoning and opinion now; and it may be that someone contends, or if he can shows, that even among spiritual or intellectual things there are many degrees, distinguished according to some advance of more or less illuminated revelations—however these things stand, and let them be taken as one pleases, by one this way and by another that way, I for my part cannot, up to now, either know or teach any kinds of things seen or of visions besides these three: by body, by spirit, or by mind. But how many and how great are the differences within each kind, so that in each one thing is raised above another by degrees, I confess I do not know.

Just as, in this bodily light, there is the heaven that we look up to above the earth, from which the luminaries and stars shine, bodies far better than earthly ones, so in that spiritual kind, in which likenesses of bodies are seen by a certain incorporeal light of its own, there are certain excellent things, rightly called divine. These the angels show in wonderful ways: whether by making their own sights ours too through some easy and very powerful union or intermingling, or by knowing, in some way I know not, how to form our vision in our spirit, is a thing hard to perceive and harder to say. But there are other, ordinary and human sights, which either arise in many ways from our spirit itself or are in some way suggested to the spirit from the body, according as we have been affected in flesh or in mind. For not only do people who are awake turn over their cares in thought in likenesses of bodies, but even when asleep they often dream of what they need; for they carry on their business out of the soul's desire, and greedily press upon feasts and cups if they happen to have gone to sleep hungry and thirsty. All these, I think, compared with those angelic showings, are to be regarded as earthly things are compared with heavenly ones in the nature of bodies.

So too in that kind of intellectual things seen, some are seen in the soul itself, such as the virtues, to which the vices are opposed: whether those that will remain, like godliness, or those useful for this life and not to exist afterwards, like faith, by which we believe what we do not yet see; and hope, by which we wait with patience for what is to come; and patience itself, by which we bear all adversities until we come where we wish. These and similar virtues, which are now very necessary for completing this pilgrimage, will not exist in that life for the attaining of which they are necessary; and yet they too are seen intellectually; for they neither are bodies nor have forms resembling bodies. But the light itself by which the soul is illuminated, so that it beholds all things truly understood either in itself or in that light, is something else. For that light is God himself, whereas the soul is a creature, though rational and intellectual, made in his image; when it tries to gaze on that light, it trembles with weakness and is less able. Yet from there comes whatever it understands, as it is able. When, then, it is snatched there and, withdrawn from the fleshly senses, is presented more vividly to that vision—not by spaces of place but in a certain way of its own—it sees even above itself that by whose help it sees whatever it also sees in itself by understanding.

But if it is asked, when the soul has gone out of the body, whether it is carried to some bodily places, or to incorporeal places like bodily ones, or indeed to neither, but to that which is more excellent than both bodies and likenesses of bodies, I would readily answer that it is not carried to bodily places except with some body, or else is not carried locally. Whether it has some body when it has gone out of this body, let him show who can; I do not think so. But it is carried, according to its deserts, to spiritual places: either to places of punishment resembling bodies, such as have often been shown to those who have been snatched from the senses of the body and lain like the dead and seen the punishments of the underworld, since they too bore in themselves a certain likeness of their own body, through which they could be carried to those places and experience such things in likenesses; for I do not see why the soul should have a likeness of its body when, the body itself lying without sense but not yet entirely dead, it sees such things as many have related who were restored to the living from that withdrawal, and should not have it when, death being complete, it has gone out of the body entirely. So it is carried either to those places of punishment or to places likewise resembling bodily ones, yet not of punishment but of rest and joys. For it cannot rightly be said either that those punishments are false or that that rest and gladness are false; for things are false when, through error of opinion, some are thought to be others. For Peter was certainly deceived not only when he saw that sheet and thought there were in it not likenesses of bodies but bodies; but also at another time, when, freed from his chains by an angel, he was going along walking in the body and presented to bodily forms and thought he was seeing a vision, he was nonetheless deceived. For those forms in the sheet were spiritual forms resembling bodily ones, and this bodily appearance of one freed from his chains was, because of the miracle, like a spiritual one. The soul was deceived in both cases only because it approved some things for others. So, although the things by which souls stripped of their bodies are affected, well or ill, are not bodily but resemble bodily things, while the souls themselves appear to themselves like their own bodies, yet they exist; and the gladness is true and the distress is true, made of spiritual substance. For even in dreams it makes a great difference whether we are in joyful or sad circumstances. Hence some, placed among things they had desired, have grieved that they woke up; and others, agitated and vexed by grievous terrors and torments, when they woke up feared to sleep lest they be called back into the same evils. And certainly there is no doubt that those things called infernal are more vivid, and therefore felt more vehemently. For those too who have been withdrawn from the senses of the body—less, indeed, than if they had died altogether, but more than if they were asleep—have related that they saw things more vivid than if they had been relating dreams. So the underworld is real; but I think its substance is spiritual, not bodily.

Nor should we listen to those who assert that the underworld is worked out in this life and does not exist after death; let them see how they interpret the fictions of the poets. We must not depart from the authority of the divine Scriptures, which alone are to be believed on this matter. Yet we could show that the wise men among them too did not at all doubt the reality of the underworld, which receives the souls of the dead after this life. But why the underworld is said to be under the earth, if it is not a bodily place, or why it is called the underworld if it is not under the earth, is rightly asked. That the soul is not bodily I dare to profess, not as my opinion but as plain knowledge; yet whoever denies that it can have a likeness of a body and of bodily members altogether can deny that it is the soul that in dreams sees itself walking or sitting or carried here and there, going and returning on foot or even in flight, which does not happen without some likeness of a body. Accordingly, if it bears this likeness also in the underworld, not bodily but like a body, so too it seems to be in places that are not bodily but like bodily ones, whether in rest or in pains. I confess, however, that I have not yet found the place where the souls of the righteous rest called the underworld. And it is not without reason believed that the soul of Christ came even to those places where sinners are tormented, in order to free from torments those whom, by his justice hidden from us, he judged should be freed. For how else is to be understood what is said, “whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the pains of the underworld, because he could not be held by them,” I do not see, unless we take it that he loosed the pains of certain people in the underworld, by that power by which he is Lord, to whom every knee bows of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; by which power he also could not be held by those pains which he loosed. For neither Abraham, nor that poor man in his bosom, that is, in the secret place of his rest, was in pains; between their rest and those infernal torments we read that a great chasm is fixed; nor are they said to be in the underworld. For it says, “It happened that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. And when he was in torments in the underworld,” and so on. So we see that the underworld is not mentioned in connection with the poor man's rest, but in connection with the rich man's punishment. As for what Jacob says to his sons, “You will bring down my old age with sorrow to the underworld,” he seems rather to have feared this: that he would be so disturbed by excessive sorrow that he would go not to the rest of the blessed but to the underworld of sinners. For sorrow is no small evil for the soul, since the apostle too feared so anxiously for someone, lest he be swallowed up by excessive sorrow. Accordingly, as I said, I have not yet found, and I am still seeking, nor does it occur to me, that Scripture—the canonical Scripture, at least—has anywhere used “the underworld” in a good sense. But I do not know whether anyone could bear to hear that Abraham's bosom and that rest to which the godly poor man was carried by angels is not to be taken in a good sense. And therefore I do not see how we can believe it to be in the underworld.

But while we are seeking this, and either finding or not finding, the length of this book urges us at last to conclude it. Therefore, since we began our discussion of paradise because of what the apostle says—that he knows that a man was caught up to the third heaven, but does not know whether in the body or out of the body, and that he was caught up into paradise and heard ineffable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak—we do not rashly affirm whether paradise is in the third heaven, or whether he was caught up both into the third heaven and from there again into paradise. For if paradise properly means a wooded place, but by a transferred use of the word any spiritual region, as it were, where it is well with souls can rightly be called paradise, then not only the third heaven, whatever it is—and surely it is something great and sublimely glorious—but even within man himself a certain gladness of a good conscience is a paradise. Hence the church too is rightly called a paradise for the saints who live temperately, justly, and godly, rich in the abundance of graces and chaste delights; since even in tribulations it glories, rejoicing greatly in patience itself, because according to the multitude of sorrows in its heart God's consolations gladden its soul. How much more, then, after this life can that bosom of Abraham also be called paradise, where there is no longer any temptation, where there is such great rest after all the sorrows of this life! For there is a light there too, of its own and of its own kind, and surely a great one, which that rich man, from the torments and darkness of the underworld, so far away, with a great chasm in between, yet saw in such a way that he recognized there that once despised poor man. If these things are so, the underworld is said or believed to be under the earth because it is fittingly shown in the spirit through those likenesses of bodily things in such a way that, since the souls of the dead who deserve the underworld sinned through love of the flesh, there is shown to them through those likenesses of bodies what usually happens to the dead flesh itself, that it is buried under the earth. Finally, inferi is the Latin name because they are below (infra); and just as with respect to body, if they keep the order of their weight, all heavier things are lower, so with respect to spirit all sadder things are lower. Hence in the Greek language too the origin of the name by which the underworld is called is said to echo the fact that it has nothing sweet. Yet our Saviour, having died for us, did not disdain to visit even that part of things, in order to free from there those whom, according to divine and secret justice, he could not fail to know were to be freed. Therefore to the soul of that thief to whom he said, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” he did not grant the underworld, where the punishments of sinners are, but either that rest of Abraham's bosom—for there is nowhere that Christ is not, since he is the Wisdom of God reaching everywhere because of his purity—or that paradise, whether in the third heaven or wherever else it is, to which the apostle was caught up after the third heaven, if indeed it is not one thing called by different names, where the souls of the blessed are. If, then, we rightly understand the first heaven to be, by a general name, all this bodily world, whatever is above the waters and the earth; the second, what is discerned by the spirit in bodily likeness, like that from which the sheet full of animals was let down to Peter in ecstasy; and the third, what is beheld by the mind so secluded and removed and wholly snatched from the senses of the flesh and cleansed that it can, ineffably, see and hear the things that are in that heaven, and the very substance of God, and God the Word through whom all things were made, through the love of the Holy Spirit; then we think, not unfittingly, both that the apostle was caught up there and that perhaps there is the paradise better than all others and, if it may be said, the paradise of paradises. For if the gladness of a good soul in good things is found in every creature, what is more excellent than that gladness which is in the Word of God, through whom all things were made?

But if anyone is troubled about what need there is for the spirits of the dead to receive their bodies in the resurrection, if that highest happiness can be given them even without bodies, the question is indeed too difficult to be settled perfectly in this discussion. Yet there should be no doubt at all that the mind of a man, whether snatched from the senses of the flesh, or after death, when the flesh itself has been laid aside and even the likenesses of bodily things have been transcended, cannot see the unchangeable substance as the holy angels see it; whether for some other more hidden reason, or because there is in it a certain natural appetite for governing a body. By this appetite it is in a way held back, so that it does not go with its whole attention into that highest heaven, so long as the body is not there, in whose governance that appetite may rest. Further, if the body is such that its governance is difficult and heavy, like this flesh, which is corrupted and weighs down the soul, coming from the stock of the transgression, the mind is much more turned away from that vision of the highest heaven; hence it had necessarily to be snatched from the senses of that flesh so that that vision might be shown to it as it could grasp it. Accordingly, when it has received this body, no longer animal but, through the change to come, spiritual, it will be made equal to the angels and will have the perfect measure of its nature, obeying and commanding, given life and giving life, with such ineffable ease that what was its burden will be its glory.

For then too, surely, there will be these three kinds of vision, but by no falsity will one thing be approved for another, neither in bodily sights nor in spiritual ones, much less in intellectual ones, which the soul will enjoy so present and clear that, compared with them, these bodily forms which we touch with the sense of the flesh lie before us now with far less evidence; yet many are so given over to them that they suppose they alone exist and think that whatever is not of that kind does not exist at all. The wise, however, are so placed among these bodily sights that, although these seem more present, they are nevertheless more certain about the things which, apart from bodily form and apart from the likeness of a body, they foresee in some way by understanding, though they cannot behold them with the mind as they look at these with the sense of the body. But the holy angels both preside over judging and governing these bodily things and are not bent toward them as toward more present and familiar things; and they discern their signifying likenesses in the spirit and handle them, in a way, with such power that they can even mingle them with the spirits of human beings by revealing; and they so behold that unchangeable substance of the Creator that by vision and love they prefer it to all things, judge all things according to it, and are directed toward it to be moved, and from it direct whatever they do. Finally, even though the apostle was snatched from the senses of the flesh into the third heaven and paradise, this certainly was lacking to him for that full and perfect knowledge of things which is in the angels: that he did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. This will certainly not be lacking when, the bodies received back in the resurrection of the dead, this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality. For all things will be evident, without any falsity, without any ignorance, arranged in their orders, the bodily and the spiritual and the intellectual, in a nature made whole and a happiness made perfect.

I know, indeed, that some of those who are praised for having treated the holy Scriptures before us in the catholic faith have also explained what the apostle calls the third heaven in such a way that they took it to mean the differences between the bodily, the animal, and the spiritual man, and held that the apostle was caught up to contemplate with excellent evidence that kind of incorporeal things which even in this life spiritual people love above all other things and long to enjoy. Why I preferred to say “spiritual” and “intellectual” where they perhaps said “animal” and “spiritual,” so that I would only be giving other names to the same things, it will suffice that I have discussed in the first parts of this book. If we have argued these things rightly, according to our small measure, either the spiritual reader will approve them, or, so that he may become spiritual, he will make some progress from this reading with the help of the Holy Spirit. But now at last we conclude with this ending this whole work, which is contained in twelve volumes.