Homilies on the Hexaemeron 2.1–2.8

Having spent the morning on a few words, we found the depth of their meaning so hidden that we altogether despair of what follows. For if the forecourts of the sanctuary are such, and the porch of the temple so majestic and magnificent, dazzling the eyes of our mind with the surpassing greatness of its beauty, what must the Holy of Holies be like? Who is competent to venture into the inner shrine? Or who will look upon its secrets? For the very sight of them is unapproachable, and the account of what is understood is altogether hard to put into words. Nevertheless, since with the just Judge the rewards set apart even for merely choosing what is right are not to be despised, let us not shrink from the inquiry. For even if we fall short of what is worthy, yet if with the help of the Spirit we do not fall away from the intent of Scripture, we too shall not be judged altogether rejected, and with the cooperation of grace we shall provide some building up for the church of God. "And the earth," he says, "was invisible and unformed." How is it that, though both heaven and earth came into being with equal honor, heaven was completed, while the earth is still imperfect and unfinished? Or, in general, what is the unformed state of the earth, and for what reason was it invisible? The perfect furnishing of the earth is the abundance that comes from it: the sprouting of plants of every kind, the shooting up of very tall trees, fruitful and unfruitful, the fair colors and fragrances of flowers, and all that a little later, at God's command, was to spring up from the earth and adorn her who bore them. Since none of these yet existed, Scripture fittingly called it unformed. We might say the same about heaven too: that it was not yet finished either, nor had received its proper adornment, since it was not yet shining with moon and sun, nor crowned with the choirs of the stars; for these had not yet come into being. So you will not miss the truth if you call heaven too unformed. He called the earth invisible for two reasons: either because man, its beholder, did not yet exist, or because, being under water, it could not be seen because of the water lying over its surface. For the waters had not yet been gathered into their proper reservoirs, which God later gathered and called seas. What, then, is invisible? On the one hand, what by nature cannot be seen by eyes of flesh, like our mind; on the other, what is visible by nature but is hidden by the interposition of a body lying over it, like iron in the depths. In this sense we think the earth is now called invisible, being covered by the water. Then too, since light had not yet come into being, it was no wonder that the earth, lying in darkness because the air above it was unlit, should for this reason too be called invisible by Scripture.

But the counterfeiters of the truth, who teach not that their own mind should follow Scripture, but twist the meaning of the Scriptures to their own purpose, say that matter is indicated by these words. For this, they say, is both invisible by nature and unformed, being without quality by its own definition and separated from every form and shape; the Craftsman took it, gave it form by his wisdom, and brought it into order, and so through it gave being to the things that are seen. Now if this matter is unbegotten, then first of all it is of equal honor with God, deemed worthy of the same prerogatives. And what could be more impious than that the qualityless, the formless, the uttermost shapelessness, the unfashioned ugliness (I am using the very terms they use) should be deemed worthy of the same seat of honor as the wise and powerful and all-beautiful Fashioner and Creator of all things? Then, if it is so great as to receive the whole knowledge of God, they set its subsistence in a manner side by side with the unsearchable power of God, if it is able by itself to measure out the whole understanding of God. And if matter is less than God's activity, then too their argument will turn round into a still more absurd blasphemy, since for lack of matter they keep God idle and unable to carry out his own works. But the poverty of human nature has deceived them. Since among us each art is occupied with some definite matter, as metalworking with iron and carpentry with wood, and in these one thing is the substrate, another the form, and another what is completed from the form, and the matter is received from outside, the form is fitted to it by the art, and the finished work is what is composed of both, form and matter: so they think it is in the divine creation too, that the shape of the world was imposed by the wisdom of the Maker of all, while the matter was supplied to the Creator from outside, and the world came into being as a composite, having its substrate and substance from elsewhere and receiving its shape and form from God. From this it follows for them that they deny that the great God presided over the constitution of the things that are, and make him contribute from himself only some small share toward the coming into being of things, like one who fills up a share in a common fund. Through the lowliness of their reasonings they were unable to look up to the height of the truth: that here below the arts come after their materials, introduced into life by the necessity of need. The wool existed beforehand, and weaving came after it, filling up from itself what nature lacked. The wood existed, and carpentry took it and, shaping the material for whatever need was sought at the time, showed us the usefulness of wood: an oar for sailors, a winnowing shovel for farmers, a spear for soldiers. But God, before any of the things now seen came to be, having resolved in his mind and set out to bring into being things that were not, conceived at one and the same time what kind of thing the world should be and brought forth together with its form the matter suited to it. To heaven he assigned the nature befitting heaven; to the shape of the earth he supplied the substance proper and due to it. Fire and water and air he shaped as he willed, and brought each into being as the principle of each thing that came to be required. And the whole world, made up of unlike parts, he bound together into one fellowship and harmony by an unbreakable bond of love, so that even the things most widely separated from one another in position seem to be united through sympathy. Let them cease, then, from mythical fictions, who measure by the weakness of their own reasonings the power that is incomprehensible to understanding and altogether unutterable by human voice.

God made the heaven and the earth, not each by halves, but the whole heaven and the whole earth, its very substance taken together with its form. For he is not an inventor of shapes, but the Fashioner of the very nature of the things that are. Otherwise let them answer us how the active power of God and the passive nature of matter happened to meet: the one supplying the substrate without form, the other having the knowledge of shapes without the matter, so that each might obtain from the other what it lacked: the Fashioner a place to display his art, and matter a way to put off its shapelessness and its privation of form. But enough about these things; let us return to where we began. "And the earth was invisible and unformed." Having said, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth," he passed over many things in silence: water, air, fire, and the properties produced from them. All of these clearly came into existence together with the universe, as completing the world; but the narrative left them out, training our mind to quickness by giving it a few starting points from which to infer the rest. Since, then, it is not said of water that God made it, but it is said that the earth was invisible, consider for yourself by what veil it was covered so that it did not appear. Fire could not cover it, for fire is illuminating and gives clearness, rather than darkness, to whatever it comes near. Nor was air then a covering of the earth; for the nature of air is thin and transparent, receiving all the forms of visible things and conveying them to the eyes of those who see. It remains, then, for us to understand that water lay on the surface of the earth, since the moist substance had not yet been separated off to its proper station. Because of this the earth was not only invisible but also unformed. For excess of moisture is even now an obstacle to the earth's bearing fruit. So the same cause accounts both for its not being seen and for its being unformed, if indeed the furnishing of the earth is its proper and natural adornment: cornfields swelling in the hollows, meadows green and teeming with flowers of every color, flourishing glens, and mountain peaks shaded with forests. Of these it had nothing as yet: it was in labor with the birth of them all, through the power deposited in it by the Creator, but it was waiting for the appointed times, so that at the divine command it might bring its offspring into the open.

"And darkness," he says, "was over the abyss." Again, other starting points for myths, and beginnings of still more impious fictions, from those who twist the words to their own notions. For they do not explain darkness as what it is by nature, some unlit air, or a place shadowed by the interposition of a body, or in general a place deprived of light for whatever cause; but they explain the darkness as an evil power, or rather as evil itself, having its beginning from itself, opposed and contrary to the goodness of God. For if God is light, then clearly, they say, following the logic of the thought, the power warring against him would be darkness: darkness that does not have its being from another, but is self-begotten evil; darkness, the enemy of souls, the producer of death, the opposite of virtue. They are deceived into thinking that the prophet's words indicate that it subsists and was not made by God. From this, what wicked and godless doctrine was not fabricated? What grievous wolves, tearing the flock of God, did not take their start from this small phrase and overrun souls? Did not the Marcionites? Did not the Valentinians come from here? Did not the loathsome heresy of the Manichees, which one would not miss the mark in calling the rot of the churches? Why do you run so far from the truth, O man, devising for yourself occasions of destruction? The word is simple and easily grasped by all. "The earth was invisible," he says. What is the reason? Because it had the abyss lying over it. And what is meant by abyss? A great water whose bottom is hard to reach. But we know that many bodies are often seen through water when it is shallower and clear. How then was no part of the earth shown through the waters? Because the air poured over it was still unlit and darkened. A ray of the sun, passing through the waters, often shows the pebbles at the bottom; but in deep night no one could by any means see what is under the water. So what follows is meant to establish that the earth was invisible: the abyss lay over it, and the abyss itself was darkened. So the abyss is not a multitude of hostile powers, as some have imagined, nor is darkness some sovereign and wicked power set up against the good. For two things equal to each other in opposition will certainly destroy each other's existence, and will continually have trouble and give it without ceasing, locked with one another in war. And if one of the opposites surpasses in power, it becomes the utter destroyer of the one overcome. So if they say that the opposition of evil to good is evenly balanced, they introduce unceasing war and continual destruction, each side conquering and being conquered in turn; and if the good surpasses in power, what is the reason that the nature of evil has not been utterly destroyed? And if the other, which it is not right even to say, I wonder how they do not flee from themselves, carried away into such lawless blasphemies. Nor, on the other hand, is it pious to say that evil has its origin from God, because no contrary comes into being from its contrary. Life does not beget death, nor is darkness the beginning of light, nor is sickness the maker of health; but in the changes of conditions the transitions are from contraries to contraries, while in comings-to-be each thing that comes to be proceeds not from contraries but from things of the same kind. If, then, he says, evil is neither unbegotten nor made by God, whence does it have its nature? For that evils exist, no one who shares in life will deny. What do we say, then? That evil is not a living and animate substance, but a condition in the soul opposed to virtue, arising in the careless through their falling away from the good.

Do not, then, look for evil outside, nor imagine some primordial nature of wickedness, but let each one recognize himself as the author of the vice within him. For of the things that happen, some come upon us by nature, like old age and weakness; others by chance, like unexpected occurrences arising from causes outside us, sometimes gloomy and sometimes more cheerful, as the finding of a treasure by one digging a well, or meeting a mad dog by one who has set out for the marketplace; and others are in our power, such as mastering desires or not curbing pleasures, holding back anger or laying hands on one who has provoked us, telling the truth or lying, being reasonable and moderate in character or overbearing and puffed up with boasting. Do not, then, seek elsewhere the beginnings of the things of which you yourself are master, but recognize that evil in the proper sense took its beginning from voluntary lapses. For if it were involuntary and not in our power, such fear of the laws would not hang over wrongdoers, nor would the punishments of the courts be so inexorable, measuring out to evildoers what they deserve. Let this be said by me about evil in the proper sense. For sickness, poverty, obscurity, death, and whatever is painful to men are not yet worthy to be counted in the class of evils, since we do not count their opposites among the greatest goods either; some of them come by nature, and others are seen to have turned out to the advantage of many. So, keeping silence for the present about figurative and allegorical interpretation, let us take the notion of the darkness simply and without elaboration, following the intent of Scripture. Reason asks whether darkness was created along with the world, and whether it is older than light, and why the worse is the elder. We say, then, that this darkness too does not subsist as a substance, but is a condition of the air arising through the privation of light. Of what light, then, was the place in the world suddenly found deprived, so that the darkness was over the water? We reason as follows: if anything existed before the constitution of this perceptible and perishable world, it was clearly in light. For neither the ranks of angels, nor all the heavenly hosts, nor at all any of the rational natures and ministering spirits, named or unnamed, lived in darkness; they had the condition befitting them in light and all spiritual joy. And no one will contradict this, at least no one who expects the light beyond the heavens among the promised good things, about which Solomon says, "Light is always for the righteous," and the apostle: "Giving thanks to God the Father, who has made us fit for the share of the inheritance of the saints in the light." For if the condemned are sent into the outer darkness, clearly those who have done what is worthy of acceptance have their rest in the light beyond the world. When, then, heaven came into being at the command of God, stretched all at once around what was enclosed within its circumference, having a continuous body able to separate what is within from what is outside, it necessarily left the space cut off within it without light, having cut off the brightness from outside. For three things must come together for a shadow: the light, the body, and the unlit place. So the darkness within the world arose from the shadow of the heavenly body. Understand what I mean from a clear example: think of someone who at steady noon sets up around himself a tent of thick and close material and shuts himself up in an improvised darkness. Suppose that darkness too to have been of this kind: not subsisting in its own right, but following upon other things. And this darkness is said to lie upon the abyss, since the outermost parts of the air naturally adjoin the surfaces of bodies; and at that time water lay over everything. Therefore it is necessarily said that the darkness was over the abyss.

"And the Spirit of God," he says, "was borne above the water." If by this spirit he means the diffusion of the air, take it that the writer is enumerating for you the parts of the world: that God made heaven, earth, water, and air, and this last already diffused and flowing. Or else, which is truer and has been approved by those before us, the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God, because Scripture has observed that he in particular, and above all, is deemed worthy of such mention, and that no other is named Spirit of God except the Holy Spirit, who completes the divine and blessed Trinity. And if you accept this understanding, you will find greater benefit from it. How, then, was he borne above the water? I will tell you an account that is not my own, but that of a Syrian man, as far removed from worldly wisdom as he was near to the knowledge of the truth. He said that the language of the Syrians is more expressive and, through its nearness to Hebrew, comes somehow closer to the meaning of the Scriptures. The sense of the saying, then, is this. "Was borne," he says, they interpret as "warmed and gave life to the nature of the waters," after the image of a bird brooding on its eggs and imparting some vital power to what is being warmed. Something of this kind, they say, is the meaning indicated by this word: the Spirit was borne, that is, he was preparing the nature of water for the bringing forth of life. So from this it is sufficiently shown, in answer to the question some raise, that the Holy Spirit too is not absent from the work of creation.

"And God said, Let there be light." The first word of God created the nature of light, made the darkness vanish, dispelled the gloom, brightened the world, and brought upon all things at once a graceful and pleasant appearance. For heaven appeared, hidden until then by the darkness, and its beauty was as great as eyes still testify even now. The air was lit all around, or rather it held the light mixed with itself wholly through and through, swiftly sending the spreading of the radiance everywhere to its own boundaries. Upward it reached as far as the ether itself and heaven; and in breadth it lit up in a moment all the parts of the world, north and south, east and west. For such is its nature, fine and transparent, that the light passing through it needs no stretch of time. For as it conveys our sight to the things seen without lapse of time, so too it receives the rays of light at once, in a moment smaller than anyone could conceive, to all its limits. After the light the ether became more delightful and the waters brighter, not only receiving the radiance but also sending it back from themselves by the reflection of the light, with sparkles leaping off from the water on every side. The divine word transformed everything to what is most pleasing and most precious. For as those who pour oil into the deep make the place clear, so the Maker of all, by speaking, placed in the world at once the grace of light: "Let there be light." And the command was a work, and a nature came into being than which human reasonings cannot even conceive anything more delightful to enjoy. And when we speak of a voice, a word, and a command in the case of God, we do not mean by the divine word a sound sent out through vocal organs, nor air struck by a tongue; we think that the inclination of his will is given the shape of a command for the sake of those being taught, so that it may be easily grasped. "And God saw the light, that it was good." What praise worthy of light could we give, which has already received from its Creator the testimony that it is good? Among us too, reason refers the judgment to the eyes, unable to say as much as the senses have already testified. And if beauty in a body has its being from the proportion of the parts to one another and from the fair color that appears on it, how is the notion of beauty preserved in the case of light, which is simple in nature and uniform? Is it not because the proportion of light is attested not in its own parts but in its being painless and pleasant to the sight? So too gold is beautiful, possessing its attractiveness and delight to the sight not from the proportion of its parts but from its fair color alone. And the evening star is the most beautiful of the stars, not because the parts of which it is composed are proportioned, but because its radiance falls upon the eyes painless and sweet. Then too, God's judgment about the good was made at this point not looking simply to what is pleasant to the eye, but also foreseeing the benefit that would come from it later; for there were not yet eyes to judge the beauty of light. "And God divided between the light and between the darkness." That is, God made their natures unmixed and set opposite each other in contrariety; for he separated and divided them by the widest interval between them.

"And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night." Now, since the sun came into being, day is the air lit by the sun as it shines in the hemisphere above the earth, and night is the shadow of the earth that comes about when the sun is hidden. But then it was not by the motion of the sun, but by the pouring out of that firstborn light and its drawing in again according to the measure fixed by God, that day came about and night followed in its turn. "And there was evening and there was morning, one day." Evening is the common boundary of day and night, and morning likewise the borderland of night toward day. So, to give the day the precedence in coming into being, he spoke first of the end of the day and then of that of the night, since night follows day. For the condition of the world before the coming into being of light was not night but darkness; what was set in contrast to the day was named night; this is why it received its name later, after the day. "There was evening, then, and there was morning": he means the day-and-night. And he no longer called them "day and night," but assigned the whole name to the more important. You would find this usage throughout Scripture: in the measuring of time days are counted, but not nights along with the days. "The days of our years," says the Psalmist; and again Jacob: "The days of my life are few … of my life." And what is now handed down in the form of history is legislation for what follows. "And there was evening and there was morning, one day." Why did he not say "first" but "one"? Yet it would have been more consistent, for one about to introduce a second, a third, and a fourth day, to call "first" the day that begins the series. But he said "one," either defining the measure of day and night, and joining together the time of the day-and-night, since the twenty-four hours fill up the span of one day, the night clearly being understood together with the day, so that even if at the solstices one of them happens to exceed the other, the spans of both are still certainly contained within the fixed time; as if he said: the measure of twenty-four hours is the span of one day; or that the return of the heaven from the same point to the same point again takes place in one day, so that as often as evening and morning overtake the world through the sun's revolution, the circuit is completed not in a longer time but in the span of one day. Or the more authoritative account is the one handed down in the mysteries: that God, who made the nature of time, laid on it the intervals of days as its measures and marks, and, measuring it out by a week, commands the week always to come round upon itself, numbering the movement of time, and the week in turn to complete one day, returning seven times upon itself. And this is the figure of a circle: to begin from itself and to end in itself. And this is also proper to the age: to turn back upon itself and never come to an end. Therefore he named the head of time not "first day" but "one," so that from its very name it might have kinship with the age. For the day that shows the character of singleness and of having nothing in common with another was properly and fittingly called "one." And if Scripture presents many ages to us, saying in many places "age of age" and "ages of ages," yet even there no first or second or third age is enumerated for us, so that what is shown by this is rather differences of conditions and of various affairs, not limits and ends and successions of ages. "The day of the Lord," it says, "is great and manifest"; and again: "Why do you seek the day of the Lord? And it is darkness, and not light." Darkness, clearly, for those worthy of darkness. For Scripture knows that day as without evening, without succession, and without end, the day which the Psalmist also called the eighth, because it lies outside this time of weeks. So whether you say day or age, you will express the same notion. Whether, then, that state is called a day, it is one and not many; or whether it is called an age, it would be single and not one of many. In order, then, to lead our thought toward the future life, he named "one" the image of the age, the firstfruits of days, the coeval of light, the holy Lord's day, honored by the resurrection of the Lord. "There was evening, then," he says, "and there was morning, one day." But our words about that evening, overtaken by the present evening, here set a limit to our discourse. May the Father of the true light, who adorned the day with the heavenly light, who brightened the night with the rays of fire, who prepared the rest of the age to come with spiritual and unceasing light, enlighten your hearts in the knowledge of the truth and keep your life without stumbling, granting you to walk decently as in the day, so that you may shine as the …