On Genesis against the Manichaeans

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.13 · 1.14–1.22 · 1.23–2.4 · 2.5–2.14 · 2.15–2.25 · 2.26–2.29

1. 1.1Augustine explains that he writes in plain language so that even the unlearned can answer the Manichees' attacks on the Old Testament, and that God permits heresies to rouse believers to study Scripture.
2. 1.2Augustine answers the Manichaean question about what God did before creation: the beginning is Christ, time itself was created, and God's will, the cause of all things, has no prior cause.
3. 1.3Augustine explains that the earth God made was at first invisible and unformed, and that the light in which God dwells is not the sun the Manichees worship but the true light that enlightens every person.
4. 1.4Augustine argues that darkness, like silence or nakedness, is not a thing but an absence, and so the Manichaean myth of a race of darkness is empty.
5. 1.5Augustine explains that the Spirit was borne over the waters by power, not by place, and that “heaven and earth” and “water” name the formless matter God first created.
6. 1.6Augustine teaches that God made even formless matter from nothing, since an almighty God needs no material he did not make himself.
7. 1.7Augustine explains that formless matter is called “heaven and earth,” “invisible earth,” “abyss” and “water” because of what would be made from it, as a seed is named by the tree it will become.
8. 1.8Augustine answers the objection that “God saw that it was good” implies ignorance: like a craftsman approving a finished work, God's approval shows the work pleased him, and Scripture speaks to our weakness.
9. 1.9Augustine explains that God did not make darkness but distinguished light from it, and that “God called” means he ordered things so that they could receive names, not that he spoke a human language.
10. 1.10Augustine explains that each day of creation runs from morning to morning, the work belonging to the day and the evening closing it.
11. 1.11Augustine tentatively suggests that the waters above and below the firmament signify invisible and visible matter, while warning against rash assertion.
12. 1.12Augustine explains that the gathering of the waters and the appearing of dry land mean the forming of visible water and earth out of formless matter.
13. 1.13Augustine explains that thorny, poisonous and unfruitful plants appeared because of human sin, as warnings and punishments, and that barren trees rebuke those without good works in the church.
14. 1.14Augustine answers objections to the creation of sun, moon and stars on the fourth day: the evenings and mornings before them mark the completion and beginning of works, and the lights were made to mark times and to rule day and night.
15. 1.15Augustine explains why birds are said to come from the waters: the moist lower air in which they fly is counted with water, as the reports about the summit of Mount Olympus illustrate.
16. 1.16Augustine answers the objection that many animals are useless or harmful: like tools in a workshop, all have their place in the beauty of the universe, which shows measure, number and order from God.
17. 1.17Against the Manichaean mockery of God's image as bodily, Augustine argues that Scripture's bodily language about God is figurative and that man is God's image in his inner self, reason and understanding, shown also by his upright posture.
18. 1.18Augustine answers that man's present weakness before wild animals belongs to his fallen state, yet even now he tames nearly all beasts, which hints at the dominion promised to him when renewed.
19. 1.19Augustine proposes that the blessing “Increase and multiply” may be taken spiritually before the fall, as a chaste union bearing spiritual offspring, which turned into carnal fruitfulness after sin.
20. 1.20Augustine reads man's dominion over animals also spiritually, as reason ruling the soul's animal-like impulses, and notes that plants given as food to carnivores show the passage is not meant only literally.
21. 1.21Augustine explains why creation as a whole is called “very good”: the beauty of the parts is far greater in the ordered whole, as in a body or a well-composed speech.
22. 1.22Augustine answers the mockery of God's rest on the seventh day: by a common figure of speech God is said to rest because he will give rest to us after our good works, which are themselves his gift.
23. 1.23Augustine compares the six days of creation with six ages of world history, from Adam to Noah, Abraham, David, the exile, Christ, and the present age, each with its morning and evening, to be followed by the seventh day of rest without evening.
24. 1.24Augustine explains the numbers of generations in the ages (ten, fourteen, and none for the last) by the five senses, the addition of knowledge and action, and the two sexes, and says the last age is unnumbered so the last day stays hidden.
25. 1.25Augustine applies the six days to the spiritual growth of each believer, from the light of faith to the ordering of the soul under reason, after which comes the rest God gives.
26. 2.1Augustine introduces the second account of man, which he says is told figuratively, and quotes Genesis 2:4–3:24 in full.
27. 2.2Augustine states his method: a literal reading is welcome if it is consistent with the faith, but where that is impossible the passage must be read figuratively, as the apostles read the Old Testament.
28. 2.3Augustine interprets the “day” of Gen 2:4 as all time, and “the green thing of the field” as the invisible creation, the soul, before it sinned and became earthly.
29. 2.4Augustine reads the rain from the clouds as the teaching of Scripture needed by fallen man, whereas before sin God watered the soul from within like an inner spring.
30. 2.5Augustine interprets the spring that watered the earth as God's inner truth satisfying the soul before pride drove it outward; now it needs Scripture's rain, until Christ restores the inner spring and we see face to face.
31. 2.6Augustine sums up: the verses signify all visible and invisible creation and all time, and show that even the soul is subject to time because it is changeable, while God alone is unchangeable.
32. 2.7Against the Manichees' mockery that man was made from slime, Augustine answers that God could make even such a body free from corruption, and suggests that 'slime', a mixture of water and earth, may signify man as a union of soul and body.
33. 2.8God's breathing into Adam does not mean that part of God became the human soul, as the Manichees hold; Scripture shows the soul and spirit of man were made, and their changeableness proves they are not divine.
34. 2.9Paradise signifies the happy life: its trees are spiritual joys, the tree of life is the wisdom by which the soul keeps its middle place under God and over bodies, and eating from the forbidden tree is the proud turning to self that is learned by its punishment.
35. 2.10The four rivers of paradise signify the four virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice, which orders the other three.
36. 2.11Work in paradise was the effortless guarding of happiness; the woman, made as man's helper and subject to him, is a figure of the soul's appetite, which reason must rule, and the naming of the animals shows reason's superiority.
37. 2.12Adam's sleep signifies the inward contemplation by which one sees that reason must rule the lower part of the soul; the making of Eve from his rib, whether only said or also done figuratively, is a mystery to be read according to sound faith.
38. 2.13Adam's words over Eve signify fortitude and temperance, the Hebrew wordplay on 'woman' is lost in Latin, and Gen 2:24 is wholly a prophecy of Christ and the Church, as Paul shows against the Manichees.
39. 2.14The serpent is the devil, who approaches not bodily but through suggestions; every sin follows the same pattern as the first, suggestion (serpent), delight (woman), and the consent of reason (man).
40. 2.15The serpent persuaded the first couple through pride to want to rule themselves without God; the eyes then opened were the eyes of cunning, and the fig-leaf aprons signify the itch of lying that hides simplicity.
41. 2.16God's walking in the evening signifies the withdrawal of the inner light of truth; Adam and Eve hide in themselves, and Adam's shame at his nakedness shows that, turned from God's light, he has nothing of his own.
42. 2.17Adam and Eve shift the blame, Adam even onto God; the serpent, who cannot confess, is sentenced to a present punishment, power over those who despise God's commands, and crawling on breast and belly signifies pride and carnal desire.
43. 2.18The serpent's eating earth signifies his hold on earthly sinners or the temptation of curiosity; enmity is set with the woman because the devil tempts only through the soul's lower part, and the two seeds are evil suggestion and good work.
44. 2.19The woman's pains in childbirth figure the pain of breaking a bad habit, from which a good habit is born, and her turning to her husband figures the lower soul's readier obedience to reason; the apparent curses are commandments.
45. 2.20No one, not even the rich, escapes the sentence on Adam: the labor and thorns are the toil of seeking truth in a corruptible body; the one who tills his inner field suffers it only in this life, while others face purifying fire or eternal punishment after it.
46. 2.21Eve is called 'Life' and 'mother of the living' because the soul's lower part, obeying reason, gives birth to right actions; the garments of skin signify the mortal flesh in which lying hearts now hide.
47. 2.22God's words 'Adam has become like one of us' are mockery or a reminder of what Adam might have been; he was 'sent out', not 'shut out', of paradise, and the warning about the tree of life may even mean God hoped he would one day reach it through the cross.
48. 2.23The Cherubim ('fullness of knowledge') and the flaming sword (temporal tribulations) guard the tree of life: all reach it through enduring trials, and through the fullness of knowledge, which is love.
49. 2.24Read as prophecy, Adam signifies Christ, who 'left' his Father by becoming man and his mother the Synagogue, and cleaved to his wife the Church, formed from his side as he slept in his passion; the spring watering the earth is the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.
50. 2.25Every Christian bears the person of Christ and receives his commandment; the serpent prophetically signifies the heretics, above all the Manichees, who promise knowledge, say the soul is God, and worship the sun.
51. 2.26The Manichees, who despise bodies and hold that the serpent was Christ and the commandment the work of a god of darkness, are prefigured by the serpent; their error deceives the proud, the lustful, and the curious, while Paul shows that both the ruling and the ruled parts of man are from God.
52. 2.27Read as prophecy, Adam's labor, the forbidden food (heretical deceit), and the garments of skin (carnal phantasms) describe the Christian led into heresy, who can still reach the tree of life through tribulation and love.
53. 2.28Augustine answers the Manichaean objections: why God made man and woman knowing they would sin, who made the devil, and whether the devil is good because God uses him.
54. 2.29Augustine closes by setting the Manichaean doctrine that God's own nature suffers, sins, and is changed against the catholic doctrine that a nature made from nothing fell by its own will, that no nature is evil, and that God is unchangeably good.