then the sun, and the moon, and the stars. For having learned this in Egypt, and having been much taken with what Moses had written in the Genesis of the world, he fabled that Vulcan had made in the shield of Achilles a kind of representation of the creation of the world. For he wrote thus:2568
2568Iliad, xviii. 483.
— “There he described the earth, the heaven, the sea,The sun that rests not, and the moon full-orb’d;There also, all the stars which round about,As with a radiant frontlet, bind the skies.”
for, as they maintain, by naming these four,—God, beginning, heaven, and earth,—he set forth their Tetrad. Indicating also its invisible and hidden nature, he said, “Now the earth was invisible and unformed.”2880
not as if He were ignorant of the good until He saw it; but because it was good, He therefore saw it, and honoured it, and set His seal upon it; and consummated2745
2745 Dispungens, i.e., examinans et probans et ita quasi consummans (Oehler).
the goodness of His works by His vouchsafing to them that contemplation. Thus Godblessed what He made good, in order that He might commend Himself to you as whole and perfect, good both in word and act.2746
2746 This twofold virtue is very tersely expressed: “Sic et benedicebat quæ benefaciebat.”
As yet the Word knew no malediction, because He was a stranger to malefaction.2747
2747 This, the translator fears, is only a clumsy way of representing the terseness of our author’s “maledicere” and “malefacere.”
We shall see what reasons required this also of God. Meanwhile the world consisted of all things good, plainly foreshowing how much good was preparing for him for whom all this was provided. Who indeed was so worthy of dwelling amongst the works of God, as he who was His own image and likeness? That image was wrought out by a goodness even more operative than its wont,2748
2748 Bonitas et quidem operantior.
with no imperious word, but with friendly hand preceded by an almost affable2749
2749 Blandiente.
utterance: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”2750
and as long as He continued making, one after the other, those things of which He was to be the Lord, it merely mentions God. “And God said,” “and God made,” “and God saw;”6160
just as it would have said, “At last God made the heaven and the earth,” if God had created these after all the rest. Now, if the beginning is a substance, the end must also be material. No doubt, a substantial thing6320
6320 Substantivum aliquid.
may be the beginning of some other thing which may be formed out of it; thus the clay is the beginning of the vessel, and the seed is the beginning of the plant. But when we employ the word beginning in this sense of origin, and not in that of order, we do not omit to mention also the name of that particular thing which we regard as the origin of the other. On the other hand,6321
6321 De cetero.
if we were to make such a statement as this, for example, “In the beginning the potter made a basin or a water-jug,” the word beginning will not here indicate a material substance (for I have not mentioned the clay, which is the beginning in this sense, but only the order of the work, meaning that the potter made the basin and the jug first, before anything else—intending afterwards to make the rest. It is, then, to the order of the works that the word beginning has reference, not to the origin of their substances. I might also explain this word beginning in another way, which would not, however, be inapposite.6322
6322 Non ab re tamen.
The Greek term for beginning, which is ἀρχή, admits the sense not only of priority of order, but of power as well; whence princes and magistrates are called ἀρχοντες. Therefore in this sense too, beginning may be taken for princely authority and power. It was, indeed, in His transcendent authority and power, that God made the heaven and the earth.
the fulness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and the creation. In the gospel, moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word.6346
The Scripture, which at its very outset proposes to run through the order thereof tells us as its first information that it was created; it next proceeds to set forth what sort of earth it was.6367
6367 Qualitatem ejus: unless this means “how He made it,” like the “qualiter fecerit” below.
In like manner with respect to the heaven, it informs us first of its creation—“In the beginning God made the heaven:”6368
it then goes on to introduce its arrangement; how that God both separated “the water which was below the firmament from that which was above the firmament,”6369
—the very same earth, no doubt, which God made, and of which the Scripture had been speaking at that very moment.6381
6381 Cum maxime edixerat.
For that very “but”6382
6382 The “autem” of the note just before this.
is inserted into the narrative like a clasp,6383
6383 Fibula.
(in its function) of a conjunctive particle, to connect the two sentences indissolubly together: “But the earth.” This word carries back the mind to that earth of which mention had just been made, and binds the sense thereunto.6384
6384 Alligat sensum.
Take away this “but,” and the tie is loosened; so much so that the passage, “But the earth was without form, and void,” may then seem to have been meant for any other earth.
The first thing, O man, which you have to venerate, is the age of the waters in that their substance is ancient; the second, their dignity, in that they were the seat of the Divine Spirit, more pleasing to Him, no doubt, than all the other then existing elements. For the darkness was total thus far, shapeless, without the ornament of stars; and the abyss gloomy; and the earth unfurnished; and the heaven unwrought: water8557
8557 Liquor.
alone—always a perfect, gladsome, simple material substance, pure in itself—supplied a worthy vehicle to God. What of the fact that waters were in some way the regulating powers by which the disposition of the world thenceforward was constituted by God? For the suspension of the celestial firmament in the midst He caused by “dividing the waters;”8558
