1. 1. All Divine Scripture is twofold, according to what the Lord signifies 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 (See Mt 13:52), which two are also called Testaments. In all the Holy Books one must look for what eternal things are intimated there, what deeds are narrated, what future things are foretold, what things to be done are enjoined or counseled. In the narration of things done, then, the question is whether all of it is to be received only according to a figurative understanding, or is also to be asserted and defended according to the truth of the events as they happened. For that it is not to be received figuratively, no Christian will dare to say, mindful of the Apostle who says, now all these things happened to them in figure (1 Cor 10:11), and of what is written in Genesis, and the two shall be in one flesh (Gen 2:24), which commends a great mystery in Christ and in the Church (See Eph 5:32).

1. 2. If, then, that Scripture is to be examined in both ways, in what sense was it said, apart from any allegorical signification, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1): whether in the beginning of time, or because it was first of all, or in the beginning that is the Word of God, the only-begotten Son? And how can it be shown that God, without any change in himself, made changeable and temporal things? And what is signified by the name heaven and earth: whether both spiritual and corporeal creation received the name of heaven and earth, or only the corporeal, so that in this book he is understood to have said nothing of the spiritual, and to have said heaven and earth in such a way as to mean the whole corporeal creation, higher and lower?

Or is the unformed matter of both called heaven and earth: spiritual life, that is, such as it can be in itself, not yet turned toward the Creator, for by such a turning it is formed and perfected, but if it is not turned it is unformed; and corporeal matter, if it can be understood through the privation of every corporeal quality that appears in formed matter, when there are now forms of bodies perceptible whether by sight or by any other bodily sense?

1. 3. Or is heaven to be understood as the spiritual creation, perfect and ever blessed from the beginning in which it was made, but earth as corporeal matter still imperfect? For the earth, it says, was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss (Gen 1:2), by which words it seems to signify the formlessness of corporeal substance. Or is the formlessness of both also signified by these later words: the corporeal by what was said, the earth was invisible and unformed, and the spiritual by what was said, darkness was over the abyss; so that by a transferred sense we understand the dark abyss to be the unformed nature of life, unless it be turned toward the Creator, by which alone it can be formed so as not to be an abyss, and illumined so as not to be dark? And in what sense was it said, darkness was over the abyss? Was it because there was no light? For if there were light, it would surely be above and as it were poured over it, which happens in the spiritual creation when it is turned toward the unchangeable and incorporeal light that is God.

2. 4. And in what sense did God say, let there be light (Gen 1:3)? Was it in time, or in the eternity of the Word? And if in time, then surely changeably; how then can it be understood that God says this, except through a creature, since he himself is unchangeable? And if it was through a creature that God said, let there be light, 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 (Gen 1:1), and a voice could have come to be in time and changeably through the heavenly creation, by which it might be said, let there be light?

And if this is so, the light that was made is this corporeal light which we discern with our bodily eyes, God saying, through the spiritual creation that God had already made when in the beginning God made heaven and earth, let there be light; in the manner in which, through the inner and hidden motion of such a creature, it could be said by God, let there be light.

2. 5. Or did the voice of God saying let there be light also sound corporeally, just as the voice of God saying you are my beloved Son (Mt 3:17) sounded corporeally, and this through the corporeal creation that God had made when in the beginning he made heaven and earth, before the light was made which came to be in this sounding voice? And if this is so, in what tongue did this voice sound when God said, let there be light, since there was not yet that diversity of tongues which was afterward made at the building of the tower after the flood (See Gen 11:7)? What was the one and only tongue in which God spoke, let there be light? And who was it that had to hear and understand, to whom a voice of this kind was directed? Or is this an absurd and carnal thought and suspicion?

2. 6. What then shall we say? Is it that what is understood in the sound of the voice when it is said let there be light, and not the corporeal sound itself, is rightly understood to be the voice of God? And does this very thing belong to the nature of his Word, of which it is said, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1)? For when it is said of him, all things were made through him (Jn 1:3), it is sufficiently shown that the light too was made through him, when God said, let there be light.

And if this is 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 by God speaking this in the eternal Word a temporal creature was made. For while the words are words of time, when we say "when" and "at some time," yet it is eternal in the Word of God when anything is to come to be; and it then comes to be when its having-to-come-to-be is in that Word in which there is no "when" and "at some time," since that whole Word is eternal.

3. 7. And what is the light itself that was made? Is it something spiritual or something corporeal? For if spiritual, it can itself be the first creature, perfected by this very utterance, which was first called heaven when it was said, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1): so that the words God said, 'let there be light'; and light was made (Gen 1:4), may be understood as the Creator calling it back to himself, its conversion thus accomplished and illumined.

3. 8. And why was it said thus, in the beginning God made heaven and earth, and not said, "in the beginning God said, 'let there be heaven and earth'; and heaven and earth were made," as is narrated of the light, God said, 'let there be light'; and light was made? Was it that what God made had first to be comprehended and commended universally under the name of heaven and earth, and then to be set out part by part, how he made it, when it is said of each thing, God said; that is, because he made through his Word whatever he made?

4. 9. Or, when the formlessness of matter, whether spiritual or corporeal, was first coming to be, was it not to be said, God said, 'let it be', because the form of the Word, ever cleaving to the Father, by which God eternally utters all things—not by the sound of a voice nor by a thought unrolling the times of sounds, but by the light, coeternal with himself, of the Wisdom begotten of himself—is not imitated by imperfection, when, unlike that which supremely and primally is, it tends by a certain formlessness toward nothing?

But it then imitates the form of the Word, ever and unchangeably cleaving to the Father, when it too, by a turning proper to its own kind toward that which truly and always is—that is, toward the Creator of its substance—takes on form and becomes a perfected creature: so that in what Scripture narrates, God said, 'let it be,' we may understand the incorporeal utterance 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 may be formed according to each thing that he sets out in order.

In which turning and formation, because in its own way it imitates God the Word, that is, the Son of God ever cleaving to the Father in full likeness and equal essence, by which he and the Father are one (See Jn 10:30)—but does not imitate this form of the Word if, turned away from the Creator, it remains formless and imperfect—therefore the Son is not commemorated as Word but only as beginning, when it is said, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1); for the origin of the creature is here suggested while it is still in the formlessness of imperfection; but commemoration is made of the Son as also Word, in that it is written, God said, 'let it be.'

So that by what is the beginning he may suggest the origin of the creature existing from him while still imperfect; and by what is the Word he may suggest the perfection of the creature called back to him, so that it might be formed by cleaving to the Creator, and by imitating after its kind the form that everlastingly and unchangeably cleaves to the Father, from whom it at once becomes what that form is.

5. 10. For the Word, the Son, does not have a formless life, for whom not only is to be the same as to live, but to live is also the same as to live wisely and blessedly. But a creature, although spiritual and intellectual or rational, which seems to be nearer to that Word, can have a formless life; because, just as for it to be is not the same as to live, so to live is not the same as to live wisely and blessedly. For turned away from the unchangeable Wisdom, it lives foolishly and wretchedly, and this is its formlessness. But it is formed when turned toward the unchangeable light of Wisdom, the Word of God. For from him by whom it came to exist so as to be and to live in any way at all, it is turned toward him so as to live wisely and blessedly.

For the beginning of the intellectual creature is the eternal Wisdom; which beginning, remaining unchangeably in itself, would in no way cease, by the hidden inspiration of its call, to speak to that creature to which it is the beginning, that it might be turned toward that from which it is, since it cannot otherwise be formed and perfected. And so, when he was asked who he was, he answered, the beginning, who also speak to you (Jn 8:25).

5. 11. But when the Son speaks, the Father speaks, because by the Father speaking the Word is uttered, which is the Son, after an eternal manner—if "manner" is the word to use—God uttering the coeternal Word. For there is in God the highest goodness, holy and just; and indeed a love coming into his works not from need but from beneficence. Therefore, before it was written, God said, 'let there be light' (Gen 1:3), Scripture went before, saying, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2).

For whether by the name water he meant to call the whole corporeal matter, so as in that way to suggest whence were made and formed all the things that we can already distinguish in their kinds—calling it water because we see that all things are formed and grow together on the earth out of a moist nature through various forms—or whether he meant a certain spiritual life, as it were fluid before the form of conversion: in any case the Spirit of God was borne over it, because whatever that was which he had begun to form and perfect lay subject to the good will of the Creator.

So that, God saying in his Word let there be light, what was made might remain in his good will, that is, in his good pleasure, according to the measure of its own kind; and therefore it is right that it pleased God, as Scripture says, and light was made; and God saw the light, that it was good (Gen 1:3-4).

6. 12. So that, just as in the very beginning of the inchoate creature—which was commemorated under the name of heaven and earth on account of what was to be perfected in it—the Trinity of the Creator is intimated (for when Scripture says, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1), we understand the Father in the name "God," and the Son in the name "beginning," who is the beginning not to the Father but, through himself, primarily and chiefly to the spiritual creature created first, and consequently to the whole creation as well; and when Scripture says, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2), we recognize the complete commemoration of the Trinity): so too, in the conversion and perfecting of the creature, that its forms may be set in order, the same Trinity is intimated: namely the Word of God, and the begetter of the Word, when it is said, God said; and the holy goodness in which whatever is perfect according to the measure of its own nature pleases God, when it is said, God saw that it was good (Gen 1:3).

7. 13. But why, when the creature, though imperfect, was commemorated first, is the Spirit of God commemorated afterward, Scripture first saying, but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss (Gen 1:2), and then adding, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2)? Is it because needy and indigent love loves in such a way that it makes itself subject to the things it loves? And therefore, when the Spirit of God was commemorated, in whom his holy goodwill and love is understood, it was said to be borne over, lest God be thought to love the works he was to make through the necessity of need rather than through the abundance of beneficence. Mindful of this, the Apostle, about to speak of love, says he will show a still more excellent way (1 Cor 12:31); and in another place he says, the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:19). Since, then, the Spirit of God had thus to be intimated as borne over, it was more fitting that something inchoate should first be intimated, over which it might be said to be borne; not over it in place, but in a power that surpasses and excels all things.

8. 14. So too, when things were perfected and formed from that inchoate state, God saw that it was good (Gen 1:10): for what was made pleased him, in that same goodness by which it pleased him that it should come to be. For there are two things on account of which God loves his creature: that it may be, and that it may remain.

So that there might be something that would remain, the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2); and that it might remain, God saw that it was good. And what was said of the light is true of all things. For some things remain, surpassing all temporal mutability, in the fullest holiness under God; but others remain according to the measures of their own time, while the beauty of the ages is woven together through the passing and succession of things.

9. 15. What God said, then—let there be light; and light was made (Gen 1:3)—did he say it on some day, or before any day? For if he said it in the Word coeternal with himself, he certainly said it without time; but if he said it in time, he said it not in the Word coeternal with himself but through some temporal creature; and on this account light will not be the first creature, since there already was a creature through which it might be said in time, let there be light.

And that is understood to have been made before any day which is meant by the words, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1); so that by the name heaven we may understand 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 he again called heaven. But by the name of the earth, invisible and unformed, and of the dark abyss, was signified the imperfection of corporeal substance, out of which those temporal things would come to be, the first of which would be light.

9. 16. But how, through a creature that he made before times, it could be said in time, let there be light (Gen 1:3), is difficult to discover. For we do not understand it to have been said by the sound of a voice, since whatever is of that kind is corporeal. Or did he make, out of that imperfection of corporeal substance, some corporeal voice through which there might sound, let there be light? In that case some vocal body was created and formed before the light. But if this is so, there was already time through which the voice ran and the spaces of the successive sounds passed away.

But if there was already time before the light was made, in which time the voice might come to be that would sound, let there be light, to which day did that time belong? For one day, and that the first, begins to be counted from the time the light was made. Or does the whole span of time belong to that very day—both that in which the vocal body was made through which there might sound, let there be light, and that in which the light itself was made? But every such voice is uttered by the speaker for the bodily sense of the hearer; for it was so made that, the air being struck, the hearer perceives it. Did then that whatever-it-was, invisible and unformed, have such a hearing, that God should so resound to it and say, let there be light? Let this absurdity, then, depart from the mind of one who thinks.

9. 17. Was it, then, a spiritual but nonetheless temporal motion by which we understand it to have been said, let there be light, expressed by the eternal God through the coeternal Word in the spiritual creature that he had already made, when it was said, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1), that is, in that heaven of heaven? Or is even this utterance understood to have been—not only without any sound, but also without any temporal motion of the spiritual creature—in a way fixed in its mind and reason by the Word coeternal with the Father, and in a way impressed upon it, according to which that lower, dark imperfection of corporeal nature might be moved and turned toward form, and become light?

But it is a great and most difficult thing to grasp how, with God not commanding in time, nor the creature hearing it in time—the creature which by the contemplation of Truth exceeds all times, but which transmits to the things below it, as intelligible utterances, the principles impressed intellectually upon itself by the unchangeable Wisdom of God—temporal motions come to be in temporal things, whether to be formed or to be administered.

But if the light which was first bidden to be, and was made, is also to be understood as holding the primacy of creation, it is the intellectual life itself; which, unless it were turned to be illumined toward the Creator, would float formlessly. But when it is turned and illumined, there comes to be what was said in the Word of God, let there be light.

10. 18. Nevertheless, just as it was said without time, because time does not fall upon the Word coeternal with the Father, someone may perhaps ask whether it was also made without time. But how can this be understood, when, the light being made and divided from the darkness, and the names "day" and "night" given, Scripture says, and there was evening, and there was morning, one day (Gen 1:5)? From which it seems that that work of God was done over the span of a day, at the end of which evening was reached, which is the beginning of night. And likewise, the nocturnal span being completed, the whole day was finished, so that morning came on into another day, on which day God did something else in turn.

10. 19. Indeed, this very thing is most astonishing: since God said by the eternal reason of his Word, with no span of syllables, let there be light (Gen 1:3), why the light was made with so great a delay, until the span of a day passed and evening came. Or was the light perhaps made quickly, but the delay of the daytime could be consumed in this, that it was being separated from the darkness, and each, once separated, marked with its own names? It would be strange if even this could be done by God with as great a delay as is taken in our saying it. For the separation of light and darkness certainly followed in the very work, when the light came to be; for light could not be unless it were separated from darkness.

10. 20. But that God called the light day, and the darkness night (Gen 1:5), with how great a delay could this have been done, even if he had done it syllable by syllable through the sound of a voice, except as much as it is said by us: "let light be called day, and let darkness be called night"? unless perhaps someone is so foolish that, because God is great above all things, he thinks that even very few syllables uttered by the mouth of God could have been stretched out through a whole span of a day. Add to this that it was by the Word coeternal with himself—that is, by the inner and eternal reasons of the unchangeable Wisdom, not by a corporeal sound of voice—that God called the light day, and the darkness night. For again it is asked, if he called by the words we use, in what tongue he called; and what need there was of passing sounds, where there was no bodily hearing of anyone: and no answer is found.

10. 21. Or must it be said that, since this work of God was quickly accomplished, the light so stood, with no night succeeding, until the daytime span was completed; and the night so remained, succeeding the light, until the span of nocturnal time passed and the morning of the following day came, the one first day being now over? But if I say this, I fear I shall be laughed at both by those who have learned with the greatest certainty, and by those who can most easily observe, that at the time when it is night with us the presence of light illumines those parts of the world through which the sun returns from setting to rising; and that on this account, in all twenty-four hours, throughout the circuit of the whole sphere, there is never lacking day in one place, night in another.

Are we then going to place God in some region where evening would come to him, when the light withdrew from that region into another? For in the book called Ecclesiastes it is written thus: and the sun rises, and the sun sets, and leads back to its own place (Eccl 1:5); that is, to that place from which it rose. For it follows and says, rising, it goes there toward the south, and circles to the north (Eccl 1:6). When, therefore, the southern region has the sun, it is day for us; but when, circling, it is carried over to the northern region, it is night for us; yet it is not for that reason not day in the other region, where the presence of the sun is—unless perhaps the heart is to be inclined to poetic fictions, so that we believe the sun plunges itself into the sea, and thence, washed, rises in the morning from another quarter. Although, if this were so, the abyss itself would be illumined by the presence of the sun, and there it would be day. For the sun could also illumine the waters, since it could not be quenched by them. But it is monstrous to suspect this. And what of the fact that the sun did not yet exist?

10. 22. Therefore, if a spiritual light was made on the first day, did it ever set, so that night might succeed it? But if a corporeal light, what is that light which after the setting of the sun we cannot see, since neither the moon was yet there, nor any stars? Or if it is always in that part of the heaven in which the sun is, so that it is not the light of the sun but as it were its companion, so joined to it that it cannot be discerned and distinguished, we return to the same difficulty in solving this question: because that light too, in the same way as the sun, as its companion, returns by circling from setting to rising, and is in another part of the world at the time when this part in which we are grows dark into night.

From which it forces us—God forbid—to believe that God was in one region, which that light would desert so that evening might come to him. Or had he perhaps made the light in that region in which he was to make man; and therefore, when the light had withdrawn from that region, evening is said to have been made, even though that light which had withdrawn from there was in another region, about to rise as morning when its circuit was completed?

11. 23. Why, then, was the sun made for the dominion of the day (See Ps 136:8 (135)), to give light upon the earth, if that light, which was also called day, had sufficed for making the day? Or did that earlier light illumine the upper regions far from the earth, so that it could not be perceived on earth, and thus the sun had to be made, through which day might appear to the lower parts of the world? This too can be said: that the brightness was increased by the addition of the sun, so that the day is believed to have been less bright by that earlier light than it now is.

I know that this too has been said by someone: that the nature of light was first introduced into the work of the Creator, when it was said, let there be light, and light was made (Gen 1:3); but afterward, when the luminaries are spoken of, what was made out of that light is recalled, 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 in turn be passed through, he did not say, nor do I think it can easily be found. For we must not believe that it was extinguished, so that nocturnal darkness might succeed, and again kindled, so that morning might come, before this was carried out by the office of the sun; which, that same Scripture testifies, began to be done from the fourth day.

12. 24. Before the sun was made, by what circuit three days and nights could succeed one another, the nature of the light first made remaining, if a corporeal light is then to be understood to have been made, is difficult both to discover and to explain. Unless perhaps someone should say that God called darkness the earthen and watery mass, before each was separated from the other—which is written to have been done on the third day—on account of the grosser corpulence which light could not penetrate, or on account of the deepest shadow of so great a mass, which a body must have on one side if on some side there be light. For at any place to which the mass of any body whatsoever does not allow light to reach, in that place there is shadow; since a place lacking that light by which it would be illumined, were not the opposing body to hinder, is the whole of what is called shadow. And if, in proportion to the mass of the body, this be so great as to occupy a space of the earth as great as the day occupies on the other side, it is called night. For not all darkness is night. For in vast caves too, into whose recesses the light is not allowed to break through the opposing mass, there is certainly darkness, because light is not there, and that whole space is a place lacking light; yet such darkness has not received the name of night, but only that which succeeds into the part of the earth from which day is removed. Just as not all light is called day; for there is also the light of the moon, and of the stars, and of lamps, and of lightning flashes, and of whatever things shine in this way: but that light is called day to which night succeeds, the preceding day withdrawing.

12. 25. But if that primary light, poured around on every side, enveloped the mass of the earth, whether it stood still or circled around, there was no side on which it could admit night to succeed it, because nowhere did it itself withdraw so as to make room for it. Or had it been made on one side, so that, itself circling around, it might consequently allow night also to circle around on the other side? For since water still covered the whole earth, nothing hindered that the watery and globe-shaped mass should make on one side day by the presence of light, on the other night by the absence of light, which would succeed into that part from the evening time, from which the light declined into the other.

12. 26. To where, then, were the waters gathered, if they had first occupied the whole earth? Those, that is, which were drawn off so that the earth might be laid bare—into what part were they gathered?

For if there was any part of the earth bare, into which they might be gathered, the dry land already appeared, and the abyss did not occupy the whole. But if they covered the whole, what place was there into which they might be collected, so that the dryness of the earth might appear?

Were they perhaps gathered up on high, as happens when threshed grain is heaped up for winnowing on the threshing floor, and, gathered into a mound, lays bare the place which, spread out, it had covered?

Who would say this, when he has seen the plains of the sea spread out evenly everywhere, which even when certain mountains, as it were, of the surging water are raised up, are leveled again when the storms have subsided? And if some shores are laid bare more widely, it cannot be said that there are no other spaces of land to which that which recedes from elsewhere may go, so that from there it may again come back to the place from which it had withdrawn. But when the whole earth altogether was covered by the watery nature, where could it give way so as to lay bare some parts?

Or did the water, perhaps rarer like a mist, cover the lands, which by gathering was thickened, so that out of many parts, in which the dry land could appear, it might lay them bare? Although the earth too, settling far and wide, could offer other hollow parts in which the converging and rushing waters might be received, and the dry land appear out of those parts from which the moisture withdrew.

12. 27. But matter is not utterly formless where even a misty appearance has appeared.

13. 27. And therefore it can still be asked when God created these visible appearances and qualities of the waters and the lands; for it is found in none of the six days. And so, if he made this before any day, as it was written, before the mention of these first days, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1)—so that by the name of earth we understand the earthen appearance already formed, with the waters poured over it, these things being now declared in the visible appearance of their own kind—so that in what Scripture follows with, saying, but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters (Gen 1:2), we may suppose no formlessness of matter, but earth and water, without the light that was not yet made, founded already with their best-known qualities: so that the earth may be understood to be called invisible because, covered by waters, it could not be seen, even if there were someone who could see; and unformed because it was not yet distinguished from the sea, and girt with shores, and adorned with its own offspring and animals.

If, then, this is so, why were these appearances, which are beyond doubt corporeal, made before any day? Why was it not written, "God said, 'let there be earth,' and earth was made"; likewise, "God said, 'let there be water'; and water was made"; or both together, if they are contained as it were by one law of the lowest place: "God said, 'let there be earth and water,' and so it was made"?

14. 27. Why was it not said, when this had been made, "God saw that it was good"?

14. 28. For this consideration has urged it (since it is manifest that everything changeable is formed out of some formlessness; and since at once both the catholic faith prescribes and most certain reason teaches that there could be no matter of any natures except from God, the originator and Creator of all things not only formed but also formable—of which a certain Scripture also says to him, you who made the world out of unformed matter (Wis 11:18)): namely, that this matter was commemorated in those words by which, by a spiritual prudence, it might be made suitable even for slower readers or hearers, in which, before the enumeration of the days, it was said, in the beginning God made heaven and earth, and so on, until it was said, and God said, so that thereafter the order of formed things might follow.

15. 29. Not that unformed matter is prior in time to formed things, since both are created together—both that from which a thing is made, and that which is made. For just as the voice is the matter of words, and words indicate a formed voice—yet one who speaks does not first emit an unformed voice which he can afterward collect and form into words—so God the Creator did not make unformed matter at a prior time, and afterward form it, as by a second consideration, through the order of the several natures; rather, he created matter already formed. But because that from which something is made is prior, if not in time, yet by a certain origin, to that which is made from it, Scripture could divide by times of speaking what God did not divide by times of making. For if it be asked whether we make voice out of words or words out of voice, no one is easily found of so slow a wit as not to answer rather that words are made out of voice: so, although one who speaks makes both at once, what he makes out of what is sufficiently clear to natural attention.

For which reason, since God made both at once—both the matter that he formed and the things into which he formed it—and since both had to be spoken of by Scripture, and both could not be spoken of at once, who would doubt that that from which something was made had to be spoken of before that which was made from it? For even when we say "matter" and "form," we understand both to exist together, and yet we cannot utter both at once.

But just as in the brevity of time it happens, when we utter these two words, that we utter one before the other, so in the length of a narration one had to be narrated before the other, although, as has been said, God made both at once; so that what is prior in making by origin alone is also prior in narrating by time: because two things, of which the one is in no way prior, cannot be named at once; how much less narrated at once? Therefore it is not to be doubted that this unformed matter, next to nothing, is in such a way that it was not made except by God, and was created together with the things that were formed out of it.

15. 30. But if it is credibly said that it is signified by those words, but the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2)—so that, apart from what is there said of the Spirit of God, we understand the rest to be names of visible things indeed, but said in order to suggest that formlessness, as far as could be done for slower minds—because these two elements, namely earth and water, are more easily handled than the rest by the hands of those working to make something, and therefore that formlessness was more fittingly suggested by these names.

16. 30. If, then, this is said with probability, there was no formed mass which light, illumining it on one side, would make dark on the other, so that night could succeed when day withdrew.

16. 31. But if we were to understand the emission and contraction of that light as day and night, we do not even see a reason why it should be so. For there were not yet animals to which this alternation might be healthfully presented, and to which, once they arose afterward, we see it presented through the circuit of the sun. Nor does any example occur by which we might prove this emission and contraction of light, such that the alternations of day and night came to be.

For the casting of rays from our eyes is indeed a casting of a certain light; and it can be contracted, when we gaze at the air nearest our eyes, and emitted, when along the same straight line we attend to things placed far off; nor indeed, when it is contracted, does it cease altogether to discern things that are far away, but certainly more dimly than when the gaze is sent out upon them.

But nevertheless that light which is in the sense of the one seeing is shown to be so slight that, unless it is aided by outside light, we can see nothing; and because it cannot be distinguished from it, by what example the emission of light into day and its contraction into night could be demonstrated is, as I said, difficult to find.

17. 32. But if a spiritual light was made when God said, let there be light (Gen 1:3), it is not that true light, coeternal with the Father, through which all things were made, and which illumines every man, that is to be understood; but that of which it could be said, wisdom was created before all things (Sir 1:4).

For when that eternal and unchangeable Wisdom, which was not made but begotten, transfers itself into spiritual and rational creatures, as into holy souls (See Wis 7:27), so that, illumined, they may be able to shine, there comes to be in them a certain affection of luminous reason, which can be taken as the light made when God said, let there be light: if there already was a spiritual creature, which was signified by the name heaven, in what was written, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1).

Not a corporeal heaven, but the incorporeal heaven of the corporeal heaven—that is, above every body, set over it not by degrees of place but by the sublimity of its nature. But in what way both that which was illumined and the illumination itself could come to be at once, and yet had to be narrated at different times, we said a little before, when we were treating of matter.

17. 33. But how are we to understand night succeeding this light, so that evening came? And from what kind of darkness could such a light be divided, Scripture saying, and God divided between the light and the darkness (Gen 1:4)?

Were there now sinners and fools falling away from the light of truth, between whom and those remaining in that same light God might divide, as between light and darkness; and calling the light day and the darkness night, might show himself not the worker of sins but the orderer, by the distribution of merits?

Or is day here the name of all time, and does it include under this word all the volumes of the ages, and therefore it was not called the first day but one day? For there was evening, it says, and there was morning, one day (Gen 1:5): so that by the evening that was made the sin of the rational creature, and by the morning that was made its renewal, may seem to be signified.

17. 34. But this is a discussion of prophetic allegory, which we have not undertaken in this discourse. For we have set out now to speak of the Scriptures according to the proper character of the events that happened, not according to the riddles of things to come. To the account, then, of the natures made and founded: how do we find evening and morning in the spiritual light?

Or is the division of light from darkness the distinction of the already formed thing from the unformed; while the naming of day and night is a suggestion of the distribution by which it is signified that God leaves nothing without order, and that the very formlessness through which things are changed by passing, as it were, from form to form is not disordered; nor that the failings and advances of the creature, by which temporal things succeed one another, are without a supplement to the beauty of the universe? For night is ordered darkness.

17. 35. But it was for this reason that, when the light had been made, it was said, God saw the light, that it was good (Gen 1:4); though he could have said this after all the works of the same day, that is, when he had set forth, God said, 'let there be light'; and light was made; and God divided between the light and the darkness; and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night (Gen 1:3-4); then he would say, and God saw that it was good (Gen 1:3-4); and would thereupon add, and there was evening, and there was morning (Gen 1:5); as he does in the other works to which he gives names.

Here, then, he did not do so, for this reason: that from the formed thing that formlessness was so distinguished that its end was not in it, but it still remained to be formed through the other, now corporeal, creatures.

And so, if it were said, after they had been distinguished by that division and by the names, God saw that it was good (Gen 1:18), we would take these things to be signified to which now, in their own kind, nothing was to be added. But because he had so perfected the light alone, God saw, it says, the light, that it was good, and by the division and by the names he distinguished it from the darkness.

Nor did he then say, God saw that it was good; for that formlessness had been distinguished to this end, that still other things might be formed from it. For this night which is most well known to us (for the circuit of the sun over the lands makes it), when it is divided from day through the distribution of the luminaries, after that very division of day and night it is said, God saw that it was good.

For this night was not some formless substance from which still other things might be formed, but a space of place full of air, lacking the daytime light; to which night, certainly, nothing was now to be added in its own kind, by which it might be more beautiful or more distinct. But the evening in that whole three-day period, before the luminaries were made, is perhaps not absurdly understood as the term of the completed work; and the morning as a signification of the work to come.

18. 36. But before all things let us remember—of which we have already said much—that God works not by temporal motions, as it were of his mind or of a body, as a man or an angel works, but by the eternal and unchangeable and stable reasons of his Word coeternal with himself, and by a certain, so to speak, fostering of his Holy Spirit, likewise coeternal. For that too which was said, through the Greek and Latin tongue, of the Spirit of God, that it was borne over the waters, is reported, according to the understanding of the Syriac tongue, which is close to the Hebrew (for this is said to have been expounded by a certain learned Christian Syrian), to be understood not was borne over, but rather fostered. Not as swellings or wounds in the body are fostered with waters, whether cold or tempered to a fitting warmth, but as eggs are fostered by birds, where that warmth of the mother's body in a way also assists in forming the chicks, through a certain affection of love proper to its kind.

Let us not, therefore, through the several days of these divine works, think carnally of God's voices as though they were temporal. For it was not for this that the very Wisdom of God, taken up in our weakness, came to gather the children of Jerusalem under her wings, as a hen gathers her chicks (See Mt 23:37), that we should always be little ones; but that, infants in malice, we should cease to be children in mind (See 1 Cor 14:20).

18. 37. And in matters obscure and most remote from our eyes, if we read even divine writings about them which can, with the faith in which we are instructed kept safe, bring forth one and another opinion, let us not throw ourselves headlong into any one of them by a precipitate affirmation, in such a way that, if perhaps the truth, more diligently examined, rightly overthrows it, we fall with it: fighting thus not for the opinion of the Divine Scriptures but for our own, in such a way that we want that which is ours to be the Scriptures', when rather we ought to want that which is the Scriptures' to be ours.

19. 38. For let us suppose that, in what was written, God said, 'let there be light'; and light was made (Gen 1:3), one understood a corporeal light to have been made, and another a spiritual.

That there is a spiritual light in the spiritual creature, our faith does not doubt: but that there is a corporeal light, heavenly, or even above the heaven, or before the heaven, which night could succeed, is not against the faith so long as it is not refuted by most certain truth. And if this should happen, the Divine Scripture did not hold this, but human ignorance had thought it.

But if certain reason should demonstrate this to be true, it will still be uncertain whether the writer of those words of the Holy Books meant this to be understood, or something else no less true. And if the rest of the context of the discourse should prove that he did not mean this, the other thing which he himself meant to be understood will not therefore be false, but both true and more useful to know. But if the context of Scripture does not oppose his having meant this to be understood, it will still remain to ask whether he could not also have meant the other. And if we should find that he could also have meant the other, it will be uncertain which of them he meant; and it is not unfittingly believed that he meant both to be understood, if a certain context supports each opinion.

19. 39. For it often happens that even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, the other elements of this world, about the motion and revolution or even the magnitude and intervals of the stars, about certain 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 too disgraceful and ruinous, and greatly to be guarded against, that he should hear a Christian, speaking of these things as though according to the Christian writings, raving so far amiss that, seeing him, as the saying goes, err by a whole heaven, he can scarcely hold back his laughter.

And it is not so much that the erring man is laughed at, but that our authors are believed by those outside to have held such things, and, to the great ruin of those for whose salvation we are striving, are blamed and rejected as unlearned.

For when they have caught anyone of the number of Christians erring in a matter which they themselves know best, and asserting his empty opinion from our Books, by what means are they going to believe those Books concerning the resurrection of the dead, and the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they suppose them to have been written falsely about these things which they have been able already to test, or to grasp by indubitable reckoning?

For how much trouble and sorrow rash presumers bring upon prudent brethren cannot be said sufficiently, when, if ever they begin to be reproved and convicted of their depraved and false opinion by those who are not held by the authority of our Books, then, to defend what they have said with the lightest rashness and the most open falsity, they try to bring forward those same Holy Books as proof of it, or even, from memory, recite many words out of them which they judge to avail as testimony, understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions (1 Tim 1:7).

20. 40. For to consider and observe this, I have unfolded the book of Genesis in manifold ways, as far as I could, and have brought forward opinions about words obscurely set down for our exercise; not rashly affirming any one thing, with prejudice to another exposition perhaps better, so that each may choose, according to his measure, what he can grasp; but where he cannot understand, let him give honor to the Scripture of God, and fear to himself.

But since the words of Scripture which we have treated are expounded with so many outcomes, let those at last restrain themselves who, puffed up with secular letters, harry as something unskilled and unpolished these things set down in such a way as to nourish all pious hearts; creeping on the earth without wings, and mocking the nests of the birds by the flight of frogs.

But certain weak brethren err more dangerously, who, when they hear these impious men discoursing subtly and copiously about "the numbers of the heavenly bodies," or about whatever questions of the elements of this world,

lose heart; and, preferring these men to themselves with a sigh, and thinking them great, they return with disgust to the Books of most healthful piety, and what they ought to drink in sweetly they scarcely touch with patience; shrinking from the roughness of the cornfield, and gaping after the flowers of thorns.

For they have no leisure to see how sweet the Lord is (See Ps 34:8 (33)), nor do they hunger on the Sabbath; and therefore they are slothful, though the power has been received from the Lord of the Sabbath to pluck the ears of grain, and to busy themselves so long with their hands, rubbing and cleaning them, until they come to food (See Mt 12:1).

21. 41. Someone will say: "With such great threshing of this disquisition, how many grains have you stripped out? What have you winnowed? Why does almost everything still lie hidden in questions? Affirm some one of the things which you have argued can be understood in many ways."

To whom I answer that I have come pleasantly to that very food by which I have learned that a man need not be at a loss in answering, according to the faith, what is to be answered to men who are bent on calumniating the Books of our salvation; so that whatever they have been able to demonstrate, by truthful documents, about the nature of things, we may show is not contrary to our Writings. But whatever they have brought forward, from any of their own volumes, contrary to these our Writings, that is, to the catholic faith, let us either show, by some ability, or believe, with no doubt, to be most false; and so let us hold our Mediator, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3), that we may neither be seduced by the loquacity of false philosophy, nor terrified by the superstition of false religion.

And when we read the Divine Books, amid so great a multitude of true understandings which are drawn out of a few words and are fortified by the soundness of the catholic faith, let us choose above all that which it shall appear certain the one we read meant; but if this lies hidden, then certainly that which the context of Scripture does not hinder, and which accords with sound faith; but if even the context of Scripture cannot be thoroughly examined and discussed, then at least that alone which sound faith prescribes. For it is one thing not to discern what the writer above all meant, and another to err from the rule of piety. If both are avoided, the fruit of the reader is perfectly secured; but if both cannot be avoided, then, even if the will of the writer is uncertain, it is not useless to have drawn out an opinion in keeping with sound faith.

1. 1. 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 made. 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 there was evening, and there was morning, the second day (Gen 1:6-8).

Concerning the word of God, in that God said, let there be a firmament, and so on, and concerning his good pleasure, by which he saw that it was good, and concerning the evening and the morning, there is no need here to discuss them again in the same way; and so thereafter, as often as these are repeated, we advise that they be considered for the present according to the earlier inquiry. But whether now that heaven comes to be which exceeds all the spaces of the air and its whole height, where also the luminaries and stars are established on the fourth day, or whether the air itself is called the firmament, can rightly be asked.

1. 2. 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 float above the lands or are borne, as vapor, in the air nearest to the lands. Nor ought anyone to refute these men 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 poured over the heavenly body in which the stars are. For now it is fitting that we inquire, according to his Scriptures, how God established the natures of things, not what he may wish to work in them or out of them as a miracle of his power.

For if God should at some time wish oil to remain under water, it would not fail to be done; 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 placed above them. Now, therefore, we inquire whether the founder of things, who arranged all things in measure and number and weight (Wis 11:21), assigned not one proper place to the weight of the waters around the earth, but also a place above the heaven, which beyond the limit of the air is poured around and made solid.

1. 3. Those who deny that this is to be believed argue from the weights of the elements, denying that the heaven could in any way have been made solid above, as it were like a pavement, so that it could sustain the weights of waters; for such solidity could belong only to earth, and whatever is such is not heaven but earth. For the elements are distinguished not only by places but also by qualities, so that in keeping with their proper qualities they are also allotted their proper places: water, namely, above the earth, which, even if it stands or slides beneath the earth, as in hidden caves and caverns, is yet contained not by that part of the earth which it has above it, but by that which it has below it.

For if from the upper part any portion of earth should fall, it does not remain upon the water, but, the water being broken through, it sinks and proceeds to the earth; arriving there, it comes to rest as in its own place, so that the water is above and the earth below. From which it is recognized that even when it was above the waters it was not carried by the waters themselves, but was held by the framework of earth, as the vaults of caves hold themselves.

1. 4. Here it occurs to warn that the error must be guarded against which I warned must be guarded against in the first book: lest, perhaps because it is written in the Psalms, he founded the earth upon the water (Ps 136:6 (135)), someone of us think that, against those who discuss subtly about the weights of the elements, we must lean upon this testimony of the Scriptures: because they, not held by the authority of our Writings, and not knowing in what sense it was said, will more easily mock the Holy Books than reject that which they have either grasped by certain reasons or proved by the most manifest experiments.

For that passage in the Psalms can rightly be taken either as said figuratively: so that, since by the name of heaven and earth the spiritual and the carnal are often signified in the Church, he showed the heavens to belong to the serene understanding of truth, saying, who made the heavens in understanding (Ps 136:5 (135)); but the earth to the simple faith of little ones, not uncertain and deceptive with fabulous opinions, but most firm with prophetic and Gospel preaching, which is made solid through baptism, and so he added, saying, he founded the earth upon the water.

Or, if anyone insists on its being understood literally, not unfittingly are taken either the heights of the lands, whether of continents or of islands, which are above the waters; or the very coverings of caves, which over the waters are made firm by a hanging solidity. Wherefore not even literally can anyone so understand what was said, he founded the earth upon the water, as to think that the weight of the waters is, as it were, set under to support the earthen weight by a natural order.

2. 5. But that the air is higher than the waters, although, on account of its more ample spaces, it also covers the dry land, is understood from this: that no vessel pressed down by its mouth can be filled with waters; whence it sufficiently indicates that the nature of air seeks a higher place. For the vessel seems empty, but is proved full of air, when it is pressed down by its mouth into the water; because, since through the upper part it finds no place to dart out, nor is its nature allowed, downward, to go beneath the waters once they have broken in, by its own fullness it repels them and does not permit them to enter into the vessel.

But when the vessel is so placed that it does not have its mouth downward, but inclined to the side, the water enters below, the air going out above. And likewise, if the mouth of an upright vessel lies open to the sky, when you pour in water, the air escapes upward, from the other parts where you do not pour, and a place is made for the water to enter downward.

But if the vessel is pressed down by a greater force, so that the waters suddenly flow in either from the side or from above, and cover the mouth of the vessel on all sides, the air, striving upward, bursts through them, to make room for them at the bottom; and that very bursting is the gurgling of vessels, while it flees in parts, because the whole cannot escape so quickly, on account of the narrowness of that mouth.

Thus, if the air is forced to go above the waters, it scatters even those that converge, when, struck by its impulse, they leap forth and bubble up, and send it out with crackling bubbles as it hastens to its own place, and gives them an entry for falling to the bottom.

But if it is forced to go beneath the waters out of a vessel, so that, the air giving way, you wish to fill the vessel pressed from its mouth into the depths, it is more easily covered on every side by the waves than a tiny drop finds a place to enter through its mouth from the lower part.

3. 6. Now indeed, that fire, darting to the heights, wishes to transcend even the nature of the air itself, who would not perceive? Since, if anyone holds a burning torch with its head downward, nonetheless the tress of flame strives toward the upper regions. But because, by the prevailing density of the air poured around and over it, the fire is again and again extinguished, and, overcome by the abundance, is again and again changed and turned into its quality, it cannot endure so as to leap across the whole height of the air.

And so above the air the heaven is said to be pure fire, whence they also conjecture the stars and luminaries to have been made—the nature, namely, of that fiery light being gathered together and arranged into those forms which we discern in the heaven: and on this account, just as both air and water give way to the weights of the lands, so that they reach the earth, so to the weight of the waters the air itself also gives way, so that it reaches either the earth or the water.

From which they would have it understood that in this way it would necessarily follow that the air too, if anyone could release a particle of it in those lofty spaces of heaven, would fall by its own weight until it reached the airy spaces below. Wherefore they conclude that much less can there be any place for waters above that fiery heaven, since there the air, much lighter than waters, cannot remain.

4. 7. Yielding to such disputations of theirs, a certain author has commendably tried to demonstrate the waters above the heavens, so as to assert the faith of Scripture from the very visible and conspicuous natures. And first indeed, which was easiest, he showed that this air too is called heaven, not only in common speech, according to which we say a clear or a clouded sky, but also by the usage of our very own Scriptures, when the birds of the heaven (Mt 6:26; Ps 8:8 (9)) are spoken of, since it is manifest that birds fly in this air: and when the Lord, speaking of the clouds, said, you can read the face of the heaven (Mt 16:3). But we often see clouds gathered even through the air nearest the lands, when they so settle along the slopes of the ridges that for the most part they are even overtopped by the peaks of the mountains.

When, therefore, he had proved that this air too is called heaven, he wished it to be thought called firmament for no other reason than that its expanse divides between certain vapors of waters and these waters which flow more corpulently on the lands. For clouds, as those have experienced who have walked among them on the mountains, render such an appearance by the gathering and conglobation of the tiniest drops; which, if they are thickened further, so that many least drops are joined into one large one, the air does not suffer to be held with it, but gives way at the bottom to their weight; and this is rain.

Therefore he wished to show that the heaven is between water and water, namely out of the air which is between the moist vapors—whence above the clouds are gathered—and the seas poured beneath. This diligence and consideration, then, I judge most worthy of praise. For what he said is neither against the faith, and can be believed on a document set ready at hand.

4. 8. Although it may seem that the proper weights of the elements do not hinder how, even above that lofty heaven, there can be waters, through those minute particles through which they could be even above this space of air: which, although heavier and lower, lies beneath the highest heaven, is beyond doubt lighter than waters, and yet those vapors are prevented by no weight from being above it. So then, above that heaven too, a vapor of moisture, lighter through finer drops, can be extended, which is not forced to fall by weight.

For they, by a most subtle reasoning, persuade us that there is no corpuscle, however small, in which division comes to an end, but that all things are divided infinitely; because every part of a body is a body, and every body must of necessity have a half of its quantity. And on this account, if water can, as we see, reach to such minuteness of drops that it is borne as vapor above this air, which is by nature lighter than waters, why can it not also, with finer drops and lighter vapors, remain above that lighter heaven?

5. 9. Certain of our own people too, against those who deny, on account of the weights of the elements, that there can be waters above the starry heaven, endeavor to convince them from the qualities and courses of the stars themselves. For these same men assert that the star which they call Saturn's is the coldest, and that it traverses the zodiacal circle over thirty years, because it moves in a higher and on that account more ample orbit. For the sun completes the same circle in a year, and the moon in a month; by so much briefer, as they say, as it is lower, so that the span of time may correspond to the span of place.

And so it is asked of them whence that star is cold which ought to be the hotter, the higher the heaven by which it is swept along. For beyond doubt, when a round mass is driven by a circular motion, its inner parts go more slowly, the outer more quickly, so that the greater spaces and the briefer alike arrive at the same revolutions together; and those which go more quickly are surely the hotter.

Accordingly, the aforesaid star ought to have been hot rather than cold; for although by its own motion, since the space is great, it traverses the whole orbit in thirty years, yet, rotated in the opposite direction more swiftly by the motion of the heaven—which it must necessarily undergo daily (for thus, as they say, the single revolutions of the heaven unfold single days)—it ought to have conceived a greater heat from the more rapidly stirred heaven.

No doubt, then, what makes it cold is that nearness of the waters set above the heaven, which those will not believe who discuss these things, which I have briefly stated, about the motion of the heaven and the stars. By these conjectures certain of our own people proceed against those who will not believe that there are waters above the heaven, and who hold that star to be cold which circles next to the highest heaven; so that from this they may be forced to admit that a nature of waters hangs there, no longer in vaporous thinness, but in glacial solidity.

But in whatever way and of whatever kind the waters there may be, let us by no means doubt that they are there: for greater is the authority of this Scripture than the whole capacity of human ingenuity.

6. 10. But it has been observed by some—which I too do not think should be passed over—that not in vain, when God had said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let there be a division between water and water (Gen 1:6), it seemed too little to add, and so it was made, unless it were 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 (Gen 1:7): which indeed they so understand that they say 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 made. And then, that the Son may be understood to have made what was said by the Father to come to be, they think it is subjoined, and God made the firmament, and God divided, and so on.

6. 11. But when we first read, and so it was made, by whom do we understand it to have been made? If by the Son, what need was there to say further, and God made, and what follows? But if we understand what is written, and so it was made, to have been made 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 thereafter the Son makes not this, but something else in like manner; which is against the catholic faith.

But if that of which it is said, and so it was made, is this same thing that comes to be when it is likewise said, and God made, what prevents us from understanding the same one to make what he said, who said that it should come to be? Or do they wish—apart from what is written, and so it was made—only in these words, in which it is said, and God said, 'let there be,' and afterward it is said, and God made, the person of the Father and of the Son to be understood?

6. 12. But it can still be asked whether we ought to 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 also the person of the Holy Spirit? Or is the Trinity thus understood: and God said, 'let there be'; and God made; and God saw that it was good (Gen 1:6,9)? But it does not befit the unity of the Trinity that the Son should be understood to have made as though commanded, while the Holy Spirit, with none commanding it, 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 principal Word of the Father, through whom all things were made (Jn 1:3)? Or is it that, in the very fact that it is written, let there be a firmament (Gen 1:6), this very utterance 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, in him is life, and life indeed creating, but under him a creature?

In one way, then, the things made through him are in him, because he rules and contains them; but in another way the things that he himself is are in him. For he himself is life, which is in him in such a way that it is himself, since he himself, life, is the light of men (See Jn 1:3-4).

Because, therefore, nothing could be created—whether before times, which indeed is not coeternal with the Creator, or from the beginning of times, or at some time—the reason of whose creating, if "reason" is rightly said, did not live, as coeternal life, in the Word of God coeternal with the Father: therefore Scripture, before it introduces each creature, in the order in which it says it was founded, looks to the Word of God, first putting, and God said, 'let that be.' For it finds no cause for the thing to be created which it does not find ought to have been created in the Word of God.

6. 13. Not, then, did God say "let this or that creature be" as many times as and God said is repeated in this book. For he begot one Word, in which he said all things, before they were made one by one; but the speech of Scripture, descending to the capacity of little ones, while it introduces the kinds of creatures one by one, through each looks to the eternal reason of each kind in the Word of God; and though that is not repeated, he nonetheless repeats, and God said.

For if he wished first to say, the firmament was made in the midst of the waters, that there might be a division between water and water (Gen 1:6), if anyone should ask him how it was made, he would rightly answer, God said, 'let there be': that is, in the eternal Word of God it was that it should come to be. From there, then, he begins to narrate each thing made, which even after the narration of the thing made he would have to answer, in giving the reason, to one asking how it was made.

6. 14. When, therefore, we hear, and God said, 'let there be,' we understand that it was in the Word of God that it should come to be. But when we hear, and so it was made, we understand that the creature made did not exceed the bounds of its kind prescribed in the Word of God. But when we hear, and God saw that it was good, we understand that in the goodness of his Spirit it pleased him not as something known after it was made, but rather that it pleased him, in that goodness, that what was made should remain, where it had pleased him that it should come to be.

7. 15. And on this account there still remains cause to inquire why, after he said, and so it was made, where the completion of the work is already indicated, he added, and God made: since by the very fact that he says, and God said, 'let that be'; and so it was made, it is already understood that God said it in his Word, and that it was made through his Word; and there the person not only of the Father but also of the Son can already appear.

For if it is repeated, and it is said, and God made, in order to show the person of the Son, did he then not gather the water on the third day, through the Son, that the dry land might appear, because there it is not said, and God made the water to be gathered, or "God gathered the water"? And yet even there, after he said, and so it was made, then he repeated, saying, and the water that is under the heaven was gathered together (Gen 1:9).

Was the light, too, not made through the Son, where he in no way at all repeated? For he could have said there too: "and God said, 'let there be light,' and so it was made; and God made the light; and he saw that it was good": or at least, as in the gathering of the waters, so as not to say, and God made, but yet to repeat again: "and God said, 'let there be light,' and so it was made (Gen 1:3); and light was made; and God saw the light, that it was good." But in no way repeating, after he had set forth, and God said, 'let there be light'; he brought in nothing else but, and light was made; and thereupon, concerning the light that pleased him and was divided from the darkness, and each called by its own names, he narrated without any repetition.

8. 16. What, then, does that repetition mean in the rest? Is it shown in this way that on the first day, on which the light was made, the founding of the spiritual and intellectual creature is intimated by the name of light; in which nature all the holy angels and powers are understood?

And therefore he did not repeat that it was made, after he said, light was made; because the rational creature did not first know its own conformation, and then was formed; but in its very conformation it knew, that is, by the illumination of the Truth, toward which, turned, it was formed: whereas the rest, which are below, are so created that they first come to be in the knowledge of the rational creature, and then in their own kind?

Wherefore the founding of light is first in the Word of God, according to the reason by which it was founded, that is, in the Wisdom coeternal with the Father; and then in the very founding of light, according to the nature that was founded: there not made but begotten; here indeed made, because formed out of formlessness: and therefore God said, 'let there be light,' and light was made (Gen 1:3); so that what was there in the Word might here be in the work.

But the founding of heaven was first in the Word of God according to the begotten Wisdom; then it was made in the spiritual creature, that is, in the knowledge of the angels according to the wisdom created in them: then heaven was made, so that there might now be the creature of heaven itself in its own kind.

So too the separation or appearance of the waters and the lands, so the natures of trees and herbs, so the luminaries of heaven, so the living things sprung from the waters and the earth.

8. 17. For the angels do not, like cattle, see these sensible things by the bodily sense alone; but if they use any such sense, they rather recognize the things which they have better known inwardly in the very Word of God, by whom they are illumined so that they may live wisely: since there is in them the light that was first made, if we understand a spiritual light to have been made on that day.

As, then, the reason by which a creature is founded is prior in the Word of God to the creature itself which is founded, so too the knowledge of that same reason first comes to be in the intellectual creature, which is not darkened by sin; and then the founding of the creature itself.

For the angels did not, like us, advance toward the perceiving of wisdom, so as to behold the invisible things of God, understood through the things that are made (See Rom 1:20)—they who, from the time they were created, enjoy the very eternity of the Word in holy and pious contemplation; and from there, looking upon these things, according to what they see within, either approve of things rightly done or disapprove of sins.

8. 18. Nor is it strange that to his holy angels, formed in the first founding of the light, God first showed what he was thereafter going to create. For they would not know the mind of God except so far as he himself had shown it. 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 to him? For from him, and through him, and in him are all things (See Rom 11:34-36). From him, then, the angels learned, when there came to be in them the knowledge of the creature thereafter to be made, and then it came to be in its own kind.

8. 19. Wherefore, the light now made—in which we understand the rational creature formed by the eternal light—when, in the other things to be created, we hear, and God said, 'let there be,' let us understand the intention of Scripture as recurring to the eternity of the Word of God.

But when we hear, and so it was made, let us understand that there came to be in the intellectual creature the knowledge of the reason, which is in the Word of God, of the creature to be founded; so that in that nature it was first made, in a way, which by a certain prior motion knew, in the very Word of God, that it was first to be made: so that finally, when we hear it repeated and said that God made, we may understand that the creature itself now comes to be 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, according to the measure of its kind, what it had pleased him should come to be might remain, when the Spirit of God was borne over the water (Gen 1:2).

9. 20. It is also commonly asked what form and shape of the heaven is to be believed according to our Scriptures. For many dispute much about those things which our authors, by a greater prudence, omitted, as not going to profit those who learn for the blessed life; and what is worse, taking up much precious time, which ought to be spent on healthful things. For what does it matter to me whether the heaven, like a sphere, encloses the earth on every side, poised in the midst of the mass of the world, or whether on one side it covers it from above like a disk?

But because it is a question of the faith of the Scriptures, for that reason which I have more than once mentioned, lest anyone, not understanding the divine words, when concerning these things he has either found something of the kind in our Books, or heard it from them, which seems to oppose the reasons grasped by himself, in no way believe them when they admonish, or narrate, or pronounce the other useful things.

It must be said briefly that, concerning the shape of the heaven, our authors knew what the truth holds; but that the Spirit of God, who was speaking through them, did not wish to teach men these things of no profit to salvation.

9. 21. But, someone says, how is it not contrary to those who attribute the shape of a sphere to the heaven, what is written in our Writings, who stretches out the heaven like a skin (Ps 104:2 (103))? Let it indeed be contrary, if what they say is false: for that is true which divine authority says, rather than that which human weakness conjectures.

But if perhaps they should be able to prove that by such documents that it ought not to be doubted, it must be demonstrated that this which was said among us about a skin is not contrary to those true reasons; otherwise it will be contrary even to our own Scriptures in another place, where the heaven is said to be suspended like a vault (See Isa 40:22 (according to the Septuagint)).

For what is so diverse and opposed to itself as the flat stretching-out of a skin and the curved convexity of a vault? But if it is necessary, as it is necessary, so to understand these two that each is found to agree, and not to be in conflict with itself; so it is necessary also that neither of these be opposed to those disputations, if perhaps certain reason should declare them 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.

9. 22. And indeed that likeness of a vault among us, even taken literally, does not hinder those who say it is a sphere. For it is rightly believed that Scripture wished to speak of the shape of the heaven according to that part which is above us. If, then, it is not a sphere, it is a vault on one side, on that side on which the heaven covers the earth; but if it is a sphere, it is a vault on every side. But that which was said about a skin presses harder, lest it be opposed not to the sphere, which is perhaps a human invention, but to our very vault.

But what I have thought of this allegorically, the thirteenth book of our Confessions contains (See Confessions 13.15). Whether, then, it is to be understood as I there set it down, or in some other way, that the heaven is stretched out like a skin—on account of those troublesome and excessive exactors of a literal exposition I say this, which, as I think, is plain to the senses of all: for perhaps each, that is, both "skin" and "vault," can be understood figuratively; but how each can be taken literally must be considered. For if a vault is rightly said to be not only curved but also flat, then surely a skin too is stretched out not only into a flat but also into a round fold. For a wineskin too, like a bladder, is a skin.

10. 23. Concerning the motion of the heaven too, some brethren raise a question, whether it stands still or is moved. For if it is moved, they say, how is it a firmament? But if it stands still, how do the stars, which are believed to be fixed in it, go around from east to west, the northern ones making shorter circles near the pole; so that the heaven, if there is another pole hidden from us at the other summit, seems to be rotated like a sphere, but if there is no other pole, like a disk? To them I answer that these things are inquired into by very subtle and laborious reasons, so that it may truly be grasped whether it is so or not so; but to enter upon and treat these I have now no time, nor ought those to have it whom we desire to be instructed for their own salvation and the necessary advantage of holy Church.

This, indeed, let them know: that neither does the name "firmament" compel us to think that the heaven stands still (for it is allowed to understand it called firmament not on account of standing still, but on account of firmness, or on account of the impassable boundary of the upper and lower waters); nor, if truth should persuade us that the heaven stands still, are we hindered from being able to understand the circuit of the stars.

For by those very men who have inquired into these things most curiously and most idly it has been found that, even with the heaven not moved, if the stars alone were moved, all the things could have come to be which have been observed and grasped in the very revolutions of the stars.

11. 24. And God said, 'let the water that is under the heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear.' And so it was made; and the water that is under the 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 (Gen 1:9-10). Concerning this work of God we have already treated sufficiently, for the sake of inquiring into another matter, in our first volume (See The Literal Meaning of Genesis 1.12.26—1.14.28). Here, then, we briefly advise that anyone whom it perhaps does not move to ask when the appearance of the waters and the lands was created, should take it that on this day nothing was done except that these two lower elements were separated.

But whoever is moved as to why on the days light and heaven were made, but outside the days, or before all the days, water and earth; and why those things were made at the word of God, God saying, let there be, while these are found indeed separated by God speaking, but not made by God speaking:

has something to understand with faith kept safe, namely that which was said before the enumeration of the days, the earth was invisible and unformed (Gen 1:2), when Scripture was commending what sort of earth God had made, because it had foretold, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1): that it wished by these words to suggest nothing else than the formlessness of corporeal matter, choosing to call it in a more usual rather than a more obscure way. If only it does not creep upon a slow understanding to attempt, because Scripture separates matter and form in words, to separate these two also in time, as though matter were first, and to it, an interval of time being interposed, form were afterward added.

Whereas God created these things at once, and established matter formed, whose formlessness Scripture, as I said, foretold by the usual term either of earth or of water. For earth and water, even existing in their own qualities as that which we see, are nevertheless, on account of their easy corruption, nearer to that same formlessness than the heavenly bodies.

And since, through the enumeration of the days, the several things now formed out of the formless are counted, and he had already narrated heaven made out of that corporeal matter, whose appearance differs much from earthen things,

now what remained to be formed out of it in the lowest part of things, he did not wish to insert into the order of created things under these words, so that it should be said, let there be; this remaining formlessness not being about to receive such an appearance as the heaven had received, but one now 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 (Gen 1:9), these two received their own appearances, most well known and manageable by us, the water mobile, the earth immobile: and therefore of the one it was said, let it be gathered; but of the other, let it appear: for water is slippingly fluid, earth stably fixed.

12. 25. And God said, 'let the earth bring forth the herb of fodder, 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 so it was made. And the earth put forth the herb of fodder, 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 there was evening, and there was morning, the third day (Gen 1:11-13). Here the governance of the orderer is to be noticed: that, since the creature of herbs and trees is something distinct from the appearance of the lands and the waters, so that they cannot be numbered among the elements, it was said of them separately that they should come forth from the earth; and separately the usual things were rendered to them, so that it was said, and so it was made; and then what was made was repeated: separately too it was indicated that God saw that it was good; yet because, fixed by their roots, they are continuous with the lands and connected to them, he willed these too to belong to the same day.

13. 26. And God said, 'let there be luminaries in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth, for the beginning of day and night, and to divide between day and night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days, and for years; and let them be for brightness in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth.' And so it was made. And God made two great luminaries: the greater luminary for the beginning of day, and the lesser luminary for the beginning of night; and the stars: and God set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to be for the beginning of day and night, and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day (Gen 1:14-19).

On this fourth day it must be asked what this ordering means, that water and earth should first either be made, or separated, and the earth first put forth its growth, before the stars came to be in the heaven. For we cannot say that whatever was better was chosen, by which the series of days should be so distinguished that the end and the middle should stand out most adorned: for the middle of seven days is the fourth. For it occurs to one that on the seventh day no creature was made. Or does the light of the first day perhaps correspond rather to the rest of the seventh day, so that in this way, with the ends harmonizing, this order of things is woven, the lights of heaven standing out from the middle?

But if the first day harmonizes with the seventh, then the second too ought to harmonize with the sixth. But what has the firmament of heaven similar to man made in the image of God? Is it because the heaven occupies the whole upper part of the world, and to man the power of dominion over the whole lower part was granted? But what do we do about the cattle and the beasts, which on that same sixth day the earth produced in their kinds? What comparison can there be of these with the heaven?

13. 27. Or rather, since by the name of light the formation of the spiritual creature is understood to have been made first, was it consequent that the corporeal creature too, that is, this visible world, should come to be; which was made in two days on account of its two greatest parts, of which the whole consists, namely heaven and earth—according to this comparison of reason by which the whole creation, both spiritual and corporeal, is often named heaven and earth: so that this globe too of the more turbulent air is reckoned to the earthen part (for by moist exhalations it "takes on body"); but whatever there is of tranquil air, where windy and stormy motions cannot exist, belongs to the heavenly part: after this whole of the corporeal mass was fashioned, which is wholly in one place, where the world is set, was it consequent that it should be filled with parts within the whole, which would be driven from place to place by fitting motions?

Of which kind herbs and trees are not. For these are fixed to the earth by their roots; and although they have the motions of their growth, yet they are not moved from their own places by their own efforts; but where they are fixed, there they are nourished and grow: therefore they belong rather to the earth than to the kinds of things that move in the waters and on the lands. Since, then, two days were assigned to establishing the visible world, that is, heaven and earth, it remains that the three remaining days be reckoned to these mobile and visible parts which are created within it.

And because, just as heaven was made first, so it is to be ordered first with parts of this kind; on the fourth day the stars are made, by whose shining over the earth the lower dwelling too may be illumined, lest its dwellers be led into a dark dwelling. And therefore, because the weak bodies of the lower dwellers are restored by rest succeeding their motions, it came to be that, with the sun going around, by the alternation of day and night, they might enjoy, on account of the alternation of sleeping and waking; but that night might not remain unbecoming, but, by the light of the moon and the stars, might both console the very men, who for the most part have a need to work even at night, and be tempered to sufficiency for certain animals which cannot bear the light of the sun.

14. 28. But that which was said, and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days, and for years (Gen 1:14), who does not see how obscurely it is set down, that times began on the fourth day, as though the earlier three days could pass without time? Who, then, penetrates in mind how those three days passed before times began, which are said to begin on the fourth day; or whether those days passed at all?

Or was day named with respect to the appearance of the thing made, and night with respect to its privation: so that matter not yet formed in appearance, out of which the rest were to be formed, was called night; just as, even in formed things, the formlessness of matter can nevertheless be understood from their very mutability—for it cannot be distinguished by spaces, as though more remote in place, or earlier in time?

Or rather was that same mutability in the thing itself, made and formed—that is, the possibility, so to speak, of failing—called night; because there is in things made, even if they are not changed, the ability to be changed?

But evening and morning are to be understood not as if through the passing-away and arrival of time, but through a certain term, by which is understood how far the measure of a thing's own nature extends, and whence consequently is the beginning of another nature: or is some other account of these words to be more diligently investigated?

14. 29. Who can easily break into so great a secret, and say what signs he means, when he says of the stars, and let them be for signs (Gen 1:14)? For he does not mean those which it is a mark of vanity to observe; but certainly useful ones, necessary for the uses of this life, which either sailors observe in steering, or all men for foreseeing the qualities of the air through summer and winter, and the temperateness of autumn and spring. And no doubt he calls these seasons, which come to be through the stars—not spans of delay, but the alternations of the conditions of this sky.

For if any motion, whether corporeal or spiritual, preceded the founding of these luminaries, so as to carry something from future expectation through the present into the past, it could not be without time. And who would maintain that there was none except from the beginning of the founding of the stars? But the fixed hours, and days, and years, which we usually know, would not come to be except by the motions of the stars.

And so, if we understand "seasons, days, and years" in this way—as certain marks which we compute by clocks, or which are most well known in the heaven, when the sun rises from the east to its midday height, and thence again declines to the west; so that thereafter it can be noticed that either the moon or some star emerges from the east immediately after the setting of the sun; which likewise, when it has come to the midday height of the heaven, indicates the middle of the night, being then about to set when, with the sun returning, it becomes morning.

But whole days are the circuits of the sun from east to east: and years are either these usual windings of the sun, not when it returns to the east, which it does daily, but when it returns to the same places of the stars, which it does not do except when three hundred sixty-five days and six hours are completed, that is, a quarter of a whole day, which part, taken four times, compels one day to be interposed, which the Romans call the bissextile, so that it may return to the same circuit; or even greater and more hidden years: for when the spans of other stars are completed, greater years are said to come to be. If, then, we understand "seasons, days, and years" in this way, no one doubts that these come to be by the stars and luminaries.

For it is so set down that it is uncertain whether what was said pertains to all the stars, let them be for signs and seasons, and for days, and for years; or whether the signs and seasons pertain to the rest, but the days and years to the sun alone.

15. 30. Many also inquire most loquaciously of what kind the moon was made; and would that, while inquiring, they spoke, and not rather tried to teach! For they say that it was made full, because it was not fitting that God should make anything imperfect on that day, among the stars, on which it is written that the stars were made.

But those who resist say: "then it ought rather to have been called the first moon, not the fourteenth; for who begins to number in that way?" But I am in the middle between these, so as to assert neither; but I will plainly say that, whether God made the moon first or full, he made it perfect.

For God is the author and founder of the natures themselves. But every thing, whatever by natural progress through fitting times it in a way brings forth and unfolds, it contained beforehand, hidden, even if not in the appearance or bulk of a body, yet in the power and reason of nature. Unless perhaps a tree which through the winter is empty of fruits and stripped of leaves is then to be called imperfect; or indeed in its very beginnings, when it had as yet given no fruit, that nature was imperfect.

Which could be rightly said not only of the tree, but not even of its very seed, in which all the things that by the progress of time in a way come forth lie hidden in invisible modes. Although, if God were said to have made something imperfect, which he himself would afterward perfect, what reproach would that opinion carry? But it would rightly displease, if what had been begun by him were said to be perfected by another.

15. 31. Those, then, 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 ordered—why do they make for themselves the darkness of questions 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 distribution of the narration; why, in this matter which can even be seen with the eyes, do they not behold that the moon has a whole body, and is perfect in its whole roundness, even with a horned light, whether beginning to shine upon the lands, or ceasing to gleam?

If, then, the light in it grows, or is perfected, or is diminished, it is not the luminary itself, but that which is kindled, that is varied: but if it always shines from one part of its little sphere, but while it turns that part toward the earth, until it turns the whole, which happens from the first to the fourteenth, it seems to grow; it is always full, but does not always appear to the dwellers on earth. This same account holds, even if it is illumined by the rays of the sun. For not even thus can it, when it is nearest the sun, appear except with luminous horns; because the rest of the part, which is wholly illumined in its orb, is not toward the lands so that it can be seen, except when it is opposite the sun, so that the whole of what it illumines appears to the lands.

15. 32. Yet there are those who say that they think the moon was first made by God as the fourteenth, not because it is to be believed to have been made full, but because in the Scriptures of God the words have it thus, that the moon was made for the beginning of night (Gen 1:14); but it is seen at the beginning of night when it is full: at other times it begins to be seen even by day before its fullness, and in the progress of the night the more amply the more it is diminished.

But one who by "the beginning of night" understands nothing but the rule over it (for the Greek word too indicates this rather, when it was said [the Greek term is missing in the source], and in the Psalms it is more openly written, the sun for the dominion of the day, the moon and the stars for the dominion of the night (Ps 136:8-9 (135))) is not compelled to number from the fourteenth, and to believe that the moon made first is not the first.

16. 33. It is also commonly asked whether these conspicuous luminaries of heaven, that is, the sun and the moon and the stars, gleam equally, but, because they stand at different intervals from the earth, on that account appear to our eyes with different brightness, more and less. And of the moon indeed those who say these things do not doubt that it shines less than the sun, by which they also report it to be illumined.

But they dare to say that many stars are either equal to the sun, or even greater, but, being placed farther off, seem small. And to us perhaps it can suffice that, in whatever way this matter stands, the stars were founded by God the craftsman. Although let us hold what was said by apostolic authority: there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory (1 Cor 15:41).

But because they can still say, even if they do not resist the Apostle: "they differ indeed in glory, but to the eyes of earthly beings"; or, because the Apostle was saying this on account of the likeness of those who rise again, who certainly will not be otherwise to the eyes and otherwise in themselves, "the stars differ indeed even in themselves in glory, but yet some are even greater than the sun."

Let them see for themselves how they attribute so great a primacy to the sun that they say it both holds certain stars by its rays—and those indeed the principal ones, to which these men make more supplication than to the rest—and drives them back from their own course. For it is not made verisimilar that greater or even equal stars can be overcome by the violence of its rays.

Or if they assert that the higher stars of the signs, or the northern ones, are greater, which suffer nothing of the kind from the sun; why do they venerate more those that go around through the signs? Why do they report them to be the mistresses of the signs? For even if anyone should contend that those retrogressions of the stars, or perhaps their slownesses, do not come to be from the sun, but from other more hidden causes; yet that these men, in their ravings, by which, straying from the truth, they suspect a power of the fates, attribute a special power to the sun, is certainly manifest from their books.

16. 34. But let them say what they will about the heaven, strangers to the Father who is in the heavens: but for us it is neither expedient nor fitting to inquire something more subtle about the intervals and magnitude of the stars, and to spend on such inquiry time necessary for graver and better things. And we better believe those to be the greater luminaries than the rest which holy Scripture so commends: and God made two great luminaries (Gen 1:16): which, however, are not equal. For consequently it says, when it has set them before the rest, that they differ among themselves. For it says, the greater luminary for the beginning of day, and the lesser luminary for the beginning of night (Gen 1:16).

For certainly they will concede at least this to our eyes, that it is manifest that these shine over the earth more than the rest, and that the day is not bright except by the light of the sun, nor does the night, with so many stars appearing, shine, if the moon is absent, in the way that it is illumined by its presence.

17. 35. But as for the fates, whatever subtleties of theirs, and as it were the experiments of the documents of their reckoning, which they call apotelesmata, let us altogether reject them from the soundness of our faith: for by such disputations they try even to take from us the grounds of praying, and with impious perversity, in evil deeds which are most rightly reproved, they bring it about that God the author of the stars is to be accused rather than the man of the crimes. But that our souls are not by nature subject to bodies, not even to heavenly ones, let them hear even their own philosophers.

But that those higher bodies are not, with respect to the things which these men treat, more powerful than earthly bodies, let them sometime recognize even from this: that when many bodies of diverse kinds, whether of living things, or of herbs and shrubs, are sown at one and the same point of time, and at one point of time innumerable many are born, not only in diverse but even in the same places of the lands, there are such great varieties in their growths, in their actions and experiences, that truly these men, as the saying goes, lose the stars, if they consider these things.

17. 36. But what is more tasteless and dull than, when they are refuted by these matters, to say that the fatal account of the stars pertains only to men, to be made subject to them? In which, however, they themselves are refuted even by the case of twins, who, living differently, differently fortunate or unfortunate, and dying differently, for the most part receive the same constellations. For although there was some difference when they were poured from the womb, yet in some there is only as much difference as cannot be grasped by these men's computation.

The hand of Jacob, who followed, was found, as they were being born, holding the foot of his brother who preceded; so much were they born as though one infant, twice as long, seemed to be born (See Gen 25:25). Of these, certainly, the constellations, as they call them, could in no way have been unlike. What, then, is more empty than that the astrologer, gazing at those constellations, with the same horoscope, the same moon, should say that one of them was loved by his mother, the other not loved?

For if he should say otherwise, he would surely say what is false; but if he should say this, he would say what is true, but not according to the inept little incantations of their books. But if they will not believe this history, because it is brought forward from our writings, can they then also abolish the nature of things? Since, then, they say that they are by no means deceived, if they have found the hour of conception, let them at least, like men, not disdain to consider the conception of twins.

17. 37. And therefore it must be confessed that, when true things are said by these men, they are said by a certain most hidden prompting, which human minds undergo without knowing it.

And when this happens for the deceiving of men, it is the working of seducing spirits, to whom it is permitted to know certain true things about temporal matters: partly by the keenness of a subtler sense, because they thrive in subtler bodies; partly by a craftier experience, on account of so great a length of life; partly by the holy angels revealing to them, even at his command, what they themselves learn from the omnipotent God, who distributes human merits with the sincerity of a most hidden justice.

But sometimes those same unspeakable spirits even foretell, as if by divining, the very things which they themselves are going to do. Wherefore, by a good Christian, whether astrologers or any of those who impiously divine, especially when they say true things, are to be guarded against, lest, the soul deceived by fellowship with demons, they ensnare it by a certain pact of partnership.

18. 38. It is also commonly asked whether these conspicuous luminaries of the heaven are bodies alone, or whether they have certain spirits as their rulers; and if they have them, whether they are also vitally "inspired" by them, as flesh is "animated" by the souls of "animals," or only by their presence, without any commingling.

Although this cannot easily be grasped, yet I think that in the course of treating the Scriptures more opportune places can occur, where, concerning this matter, according to the rules of holy authority, even if we may not show anything certain, yet we may believe.

But now, always keeping the moderation of pious gravity, we ought to believe nothing rashly about an obscure matter; lest perhaps what truth shall afterward lay open—although it can in no way be opposed to the Holy Books, whether of the Old Testament or of the New—we should nevertheless hate, out of love of our own error. Now let us pass on to the third book of our work.

1. 1. And God said, 'let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls, and the flying things over the earth, beneath the firmament of heaven.' And so it was made. And God made the great sea-creatures and every animal of the 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 be multiplied over the earth.' And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day (Gen 1:20-23). Now, in the lower part of the world, those things which are moved by the breath of life come to be, and first those of the waters, which is the element nearest to the quality of air; because to this heaven, in which are the luminaries, the air is so near that it too has received the name of heaven; but I do not know whether it can also be called firmament.

But heavens are spoken of in the plural in one and the same thing, which is called one heaven. For although in this book heaven is spoken of in the singular number, which 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 (Ps 148:4-5). And if we rightly understand the heavens of heavens to be the starry ones of the airy ones, as the higher of the lower, we take these too in the same Psalm, where it was said, praise him, you heavens of heavens (Ps 148:4). It sufficiently appears that this air is called not only heaven but also heavens: just as lands too are spoken of, and nothing else is signified than that which in the singular is called earth, when we say the orb of lands and the orb of the earth.

2. 2. That these airy heavens too once perished by the flood we read in a certain one of the Epistles which are called canonical (See 2 Pet 3:5-7). For that moist nature, which had so grown together that it surpassed by fifteen cubits the peaks of the highest mountains (See Gen 7:20), could not reach the stars. But because it had filled either all or nearly all the spaces of this moister air, in which the birds fly, the heavens that had been are written in that Epistle to have perished.

Which I do not know how it can be understood, unless by the quality of this denser air being turned into the nature of waters: otherwise these heavens did not then perish, but were raised higher, when the water occupied their place. And so we more easily believe, according to the authority of that Epistle, that they perished, and others, as is there written, were set in their place (See 2 Pet 3:5-7)—the exhalations, namely, being extended—than that they were so raised that the nature of the higher heaven gave way from its place to them.

2. 3. It was fitting, therefore, that in creating the dwellers of this lower part of the world, which is often commemorated wholly under the name of earth, the animals should first be produced from the waters, but afterward from the earth: because water is so like air that it is proved to grow dense by its exhalations, so that it both makes the breath of the storm, that is, wind, and gathers clouds, and can sustain the flight of birds.

Wherefore, even if a certain one of the secular poets said truly, Olympus rises above the clouds, and, the heights hold peace (Lucan, Pharsalia 2.271, 273)—because it is reported that on the peak of Olympus the air is so thin that it is neither shaded by mists, nor disturbed by wind, nor can sustain birds, nor nourish, by the breath of a denser air, the very men who perhaps have ascended, as they are wont to be nourished in this air—yet it too is air, whence it is spread out with a quality akin to waters, and therefore it too is believed to have been turned into a moist nature at the time of the flood. For it is not to be thought that the water usurped anything of the spaces of the starry heaven, when it had surpassed even all the highest mountains.

3. 4. Although concerning the conversion of the elements, even among those who have scrutinized these things most subtly with this idle care, there is no small question. For some say that all things can be changed and converted into all things; but others report that there is something altogether proper to the several elements, which is in no way turned into the quality of another element.

Whence perhaps, in its own place, if the Lord wills, we shall discuss it more diligently: but now, as far as it pertains to the present discourse, I have judged that these things should be mentioned, so that we may understand that the order of things was preserved by which it was fitting first to narrate the animals of the waters created before those of the lands.

3. 5. And it is in no way to be thought that any element of this world was passed over in this Scripture, since it is held as persuaded that it consists of four most well-known elements, because here heaven, and water, and earth seem to be mentioned, but the air is passed over in silence. For it is the custom of our Scriptures either to call the world by the name of heaven and earth, or sometimes to add also the sea. And so the air is understood either to belong to heaven, if there are in its upper parts most tranquil and most peaceful spaces; or to the earth, on account of this turbulent and dark place, which grows dense with moist exhalation, although it too is more often called by the name of heaven: and on this account it was not written, "let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls, and let the air bring forth the flying things flying over the earth"; but each of these kinds of living things is narrated to have been produced from the waters. Whatever, then, of the waters is either slippingly billowing and fluid, or thinned and suspended as vapor—so that the former appears assigned to the creeping things of living souls, the latter to the flying things—each is yet reckoned to the moist nature.

4. 6. And so there are even those who, by a most subtle consideration, so distinguish these five most manifest senses of the body according to the four usual elements that they say the eyes belong to fire, the ears to air. But the sense of smelling and tasting they attribute to the moist nature: smell indeed to these moist exhalations, by which this space is thickened in which the birds fly; but taste to these flowing and corpulent fluids. For whatever things have flavor in the mouth are mingled with the moisture of the mouth itself in order to have flavor, even if they seemed to have been dry when they were received.

Fire, nevertheless, penetrates all things, so as to make motion in them. For moisture congeals by the privation of heat; and although the other elements can grow hot, fire cannot grow cold: for it is more easily extinguished, so as not to be fire, than that it should remain cold or become lukewarm by the contact of something cold.

But touch, which is the fifth among the senses, agrees rather with the earthen element: accordingly, through the whole body of the living thing, which is most of all from earth, whatever things are touched are perceived.

They say also that nothing can be seen without fire, nor touched without earth. And on this account that all the elements are present in all things; but each of them has received its name from that which it has in greater abundance. And that for this reason, by the privation of heat, when the body grows excessively cold, the sense is dulled, because the motion grows sluggish which is in the body from heat, while fire affects the air, and air the moist things, and moisture the earthen things—the finer, namely, penetrating the coarser.

4. 7. But the finer each thing is in corporeal nature, the nearer it is to the spiritual nature; although by a far different kind, since the one is a body, the other is not.

5. 7. And on this account, since to perceive belongs not to the body but to the soul through the body, although it may be subtly discussed that the senses of the body are distributed according to the diversity of the corporeal elements, yet the soul, in which the power of perceiving is present, since it is not corporeal, drives the vigor of perceiving through the finer body. And so it begins motion in all the senses from the subtlety of fire, but does not in all reach the same point.

For in sight it reaches, the heat being restrained, as far as its light. In hearing the heat of fire penetrates as far as the more liquid air. But in smell it passes through the pure air, and reaches the moist exhalation, whence this coarser breath subsists. In taste it passes through this too, and reaches as far as the more corpulent fluid: which also being penetrated and crossed, when it reaches the earthen heaviness, it performs the last sense, that of touching.

6. 8. He, then, was not ignorant of the natures of the elements and their order, who, when he introduced the founding of the visible things which are moved within the world in the elements by nature, narrated first the heavenly luminaries, then the animals of the waters, but the animals of the lands last.

Not that he passed over the air, but that the spaces, if there are any, of the purest and most quiet air, where birds are said not to be able to fly, are joined to the upper heaven, and are understood, by the naming of heaven in the Scriptures, to belong to the upper part of the world: so that by the name of earth this whole is universally signified, from which it begins downward, fire, hail, snow, ice, the breath of the tempest, and all the abysses (Ps 148:8-9), until one arrives at the dry land, which by its proper name is called earth.

That upper air, then, whether because it belongs to the heavenly part of the world, or because it has no visible dweller, of which kind the narrator's speech now is, was neither passed over when heaven was named, nor numbered among the animals to be created: but this lower one, which receives the moist exhalations of the sea and the earth, and is in a way thickened to sustain the birds, receives its animals only from the waters. For that which is moist in it carries the bodies of the winged ones, which strive thus by flying with their wings, as fish, swimming, with certain wings of their own.

7. 9. Accordingly, knowingly, as the Spirit of God, who was present to the writer, he says that the flying things were produced from the waters. Their nature has been allotted a twofold place: the lower, namely, in the slipping wave, but the upper in the blowing breeze: the former assigned to swimmers, the latter to flyers. Just as we see two senses, fitting for this element, also given to animals: smell for examining vapors, taste for examining liquids. For that we perceive both waters and winds by touch too, this is because the solid of earth is mingled with all the elements; but in these coarser things it is perceived more, so that they can even be handled by touching.

And therefore these too, in the two greatest parts of the world, are embraced under the general name of earth: as that psalm shows, enumerating all the higher things from that beginning, praise the Lord from the heavens (Ps 148:1); and all the lower things from another beginning, praise the Lord from the earth (Ps 148:7); where both the breath of the tempest and all the abysses are named, and this fire which burns the one who touches it, because it so arises from earthen and moist motions that it is again and again turned into another element. And although by striving upward it indicates the appetite of its nature, yet it cannot escape into the heavenly upper tranquillity; because, overcome by much air and turned into it, it is extinguished: and on this account, in this more corruptible and more sluggish part of things, it is stirred by turbulent motions, to temper its rigor, and for the uses and terrors of mortals.

7. 10. Since, then, by touch too, which properly belongs to the earth, both the waves of the waters and the blowings of the breezes can be perceived, therefore the very bodies of the water-animals also feed on earthen things, and most of all the birds; they also rest on the earth, and propagate their offspring there: for the part of the moisture which is exhaled as vapor extends even over the lands. And therefore, when Scripture had said, let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls, and it said, and the flying things over the lands; it certainly added, saying, beneath the firmament of heaven (Gen 1:20), in which that can appear somewhat more manifestly which before seemed obscure.

For it does not say, "in the firmament of heaven," as of the luminaries; but, it says, the flying things over the earth, beneath the firmament of heaven, that is, next to the firmament of heaven: because, namely, this dark and moist space, in which the birds fly, is contiguous to that space where they cannot fly, which already, by the merit of its tranquillity and quiet, belongs to the firmament of heaven. In heaven, then, the birds fly, but in this heaven which that psalm includes also under the name of earth; on account of which they are called in many places the flying things of heaven: yet not in the firmament, but beneath the firmament.

8. 11. Some think that, on account of the slowness of their sense, they were called not "a living soul" but the creeping things of living souls. But if they were called so for this reason, the name "living soul" would be given to the birds. But since the flying things too are called, like those, creeping things, so that "of living souls" is to be understood, it must be confessed, as I think, that it was so said, as if it were said, "those things which among living souls are creeping or flying things": just as it could be said, "the ignoble among men," so that we might understand, "whoever among men are ignoble." For although there are also land animals which creep upon the earth, yet by a much greater number they move on feet, and perhaps as few creep on the lands as few walk in the waters.

8. 12. But some have thought that for this reason fish were called not "a living soul" but the creeping things of living souls, because they have no memory, nor any life that is, as it were, nearer to reason. But too little experience deceives them. For some have written many marvelous things which they were able to observe in fish-ponds. But even if perhaps they wrote false things, yet it is most certain that fish have memory. Which I myself have experienced, and let those experience it who can and will. For a certain great spring of Bulla Regia is nearly full of fish. And men gazing down from above are wont to throw them something, which the converging fish either snatch for themselves, or, contending among themselves, tear apart. Accustomed to this feeding, when men walk along the edge of the spring, they too go and return with them, swimming in a shoal, waiting for them to throw something, whose presence they perceive.

And so it does not seem to me in vain that the animals of the waters were called creeping things, as the birds flying things: for if either no memory, or a slower sense, had repelled the name of "living soul" from the fish, it would certainly be applied to the flying things, whose life is, before our eyes, both mindful and chattering, and most skillful in building nests and rearing offspring.

9. 13. Nor am I ignorant that certain philosophers have so distributed the animals of each element that they say earthen ones are not only those which creep and walk on the earth, but also birds, because these too rest on the earth, wearied by flying: but that the airy animals are demons; the heavenly ones, gods; of which we call some luminaries, some angels. These same men, however, attribute to the waters the fish and the monsters of their kind, so that no element may be empty of its own animals; as though indeed there were not earth beneath the waters, or they could prove that fish do not rest on it and restore their strength for swimming, as birds for flying; and if perhaps fish do this more rarely, because the wave is stronger than the breeze for carrying bodies, so that it also carries earthen animals that swim, whether taught by practice, like men, or by nature, like quadrupeds or serpents.

Or if they think otherwise because feet are not present in fish [nor in seals]: yet neither are the seals of the waters, nor the snakes and snails of the lands; for those have feet, and these kinds, without any feet, do not, I say, rest on the earth, but scarcely or never depart from it. But dragons, without feet, are reported both to rest in caves and to be lifted up into the air: which, although they are not easily known, yet the writings, not only ours but also those of the Gentiles, have by no means kept silent about the kind of these living things.

10. 14. Wherefore, even if demons are airy animals, since they thrive by the nature of airy bodies; and therefore are not dissolved by death; because in them prevails the element which is fitter for acting than for being acted upon; two being set beneath, namely water and earth, but one set above, that is, starry fire: for the elements are distributed two for being acted upon, moisture and soil; but for acting other two, air and fire.

If, then, these things are so, this distinction does not hinder our Scripture, which indicates that the flying things were produced not from the air, but from the waters; because to the flying things was given the place, indeed, of a finer moisture, exhaled and stretched into the breezes, but moisture nonetheless.

But the air reaches from the border of the luminous heaven as far as the fluid of the waters and the bare lands. Yet the moist exhalations do not darken its whole space, but as far as that boundary, whence it begins to be called also earth, according to that Psalm where it is said, praise the Lord from the earth (Ps 148:7). But the upper part of the air, on account of its pure tranquillity, is joined by a common peace to the heaven on which it borders, and is named with its name.

In which part perhaps, if before their transgression the transgressing angels were, with their prince, now the devil, then an archangel (for some of our people do not think them to have been heavenly or supercelestial angels), it is no wonder if after their sin they were thrust down into this darkness; where, nevertheless, there is also air, and it is woven with a thin moisture, which, stirred, makes winds, and more vehemently stirred makes even fires and thunders, and gathered makes clouds, and thickened makes rain, and, the clouds congealing, snow, and, the denser clouds more turbulently congealing, hail, and, stretched out, makes clear weather—by the hidden commands and work of God, administering from the highest to the lowest all things that he created. Whence in that Psalm, when there had been mentioned fire, hail, snow, ice, the breath of the tempest (Ps 148:8); lest such things be thought to come to be and to be moved without divine providence, it immediately added, which do his word (Ps 148:8).

10. 15. But if those transgressors, before they transgressed, bore heavenly bodies, neither is it strange if they were turned, as a punishment, into an airy quality, so that they could now suffer something from fire, that is, from the element of a higher nature: nor were they permitted to hold even the upper and purer spaces of the air, but these dark ones, which is for them, after its kind, a sort of prison, until the time of judgment.

And if anything about these transgressing angels is to be more diligently inquired into, there will be another place more suited to Scripture. Accordingly, what is now enough: if these turbid and stormy spaces, on account of the nature of the air extended as far as the waves and the lands, can sustain airy bodies; they can sustain also the birds, which were produced from the waters, on account of the thin breaths of the waters: which, namely, are inserted as vapor into this same air, poured around next to the waves and the lands, and on this account assigned to the lowest and earthen part, and they weave the breezes, which, weighed down by nocturnal chills, distill in serene dew also; but if the cold is more vehement, they whiten with a whiter frost.

11. 16. And God said, 'let the earth bring forth the living soul according to its kind: quadrupeds, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their kind, and cattle according to their kind.' And so it was made. 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 (Gen 1:24-25). Now it was consequent that he should adorn with its own animals the other part, which is properly called earth, of this lowest place—which whole, with all the abysses and the misty air, Scripture elsewhere universally embraces under the name of earth. And the kinds of animals which the earth produced at the word of God are indeed manifest. But because often by the name of cattle or by the name of beasts all animals devoid of reason are wont to be understood, it is rightly asked which he now properly calls beasts, and which cattle. And as for the things that crawl, or the earthen creeping things, it is not to be doubted that he wished all serpents to be understood; although they can also be called beasts: but the name cattle does not usually befit serpents. Again, to lions, and leopards, and tigers, and wolves, and foxes, dogs too, and apes, and the rest of that kind, the term beasts usually befits. But the name cattle is wont to be more fittingly applied to those animals which are in the use of men: whether for aiding labors, like oxen and horses, and any such; or for wool, or for eating, like sheep and swine.

11. 17. What, then, are the quadrupeds? For although all these, except certain creeping things, walk on four feet, yet unless he wished certain ones to be properly understood by this name, he would certainly not here also name quadrupeds, although in the repetition he kept silent about them. Or were stags, and deer, and wild asses, and boars (because they cannot be joined to those beasts where the lions are, for they are like those cattle, yet are not under human care) properly called quadrupeds; as though these were the remaining animals, to which this appellation, general indeed with many on account of the number of feet, was yet given by a special signification?

Or because he said three times, according to its kind (Gen 1:24), does he invite us to attend to three kinds? First, according to its kind, quadrupeds and creeping things; where I think it is signified which ones he called quadrupeds, namely those which are in the kind of creeping things, such as lizards, geckos, and anything of this sort. And therefore in the repetition he did not repeat the name quadrupeds, because he perhaps embraced them under the term creeping things: whence there he does not simply say, creeping things; but added, all the creeping things of the earth (Gen 1:24). Therefore of the earth, because there are also those of the waters; and therefore all, so that there may be understood those which strive on four feet too, which above were properly signified by the name quadrupeds.

But beasts, of which likewise he says, according to their kind, are whatever rages with mouth or also with claws, except the serpents. But cattle, of which thirdly he says, according to their kind, are those which tear with neither force, but either with horns, or not even with this.

For I have already said that the name of quadrupeds, how widely it extends, is easily recognized by the very number of feet, and that by the name of cattle or beasts every irrational animal is sometimes comprehended. But the term "wild beasts" too is wont in the Latin tongue to be of just as much force: yet not on that account was the consideration to be neglected, how these names, which were not set down in vain in this place of the Scriptures, can be distinguished even by a special distinction, which in everyday speech can easily be noticed.

12. 18. Not in vain too does it move the reader whether according to its kind is said at random and as it were by chance, or by some reason, as though they had existed before, since they are narrated to be created for the first time: or whether "their kind" is to be understood in the higher reasons, spiritual of course, according to which they are created below.

But if it were so, this would be said of the light, of the heaven, of the waters and lands, of the luminaries of heaven. For which of them is there, whose eternal and unchangeable reason does not thrive in the very Wisdom of God, which reaches mightily from end to end, and orders all things sweetly (Wis 8:1)?

But this begins to be said of the herbs and trees, down to these earthen living things. For even in those which were created from the waters, although in the first mention it was not said, yet in that repetition it was said: and God made the great sea-creatures and every soul of the creeping animals, which the waters brought forth according to their kind; and every winged flying thing according to its kind (Gen 1:21).

12. 19. Or is it because these arose in such a way that from them others should be born, and they should preserve the form of their origin by succession, that they are said to be according to their kind, on account of the propagation of offspring, by which they were created to be lasting? But why is it said of the herbs and trees not only according to their kind, but also according to their likeness, when the animals too, whether of the waters or of the lands, generate according to their likeness?

Or, because likeness follows kind, did he not wish to repeat it everywhere? For seed too he did not repeat everywhere; although it is present in herbs and trees as well as in animals, even if not in all. For it has been observed that some things are so born from the waters or earth that they have no sex; and therefore their seed is not in them, but in the elements from which they arise.

This, then, 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 so created as to exist once for all, either to remain, or to pass away with none succeeding.

12. 20. Why, then, was it not said of man too, "let us make man to our image and likeness, according to his kind," since the propagation of man too is manifest? Is it because God had not made man so as to die, if he had wished to keep the commandment, and therefore a successor was not necessary to one passing away: but after sin he was compared to the senseless cattle, and was made like to them (See Ps 49:12 (48)); so that now the sons of this age generate and are generated, by which the race of mortals can subsist with succession preserved? What, then, does that blessing mean, after man was made: increase and multiply, and fill the earth; which surely could come to pass by generating?

Or is nothing to be rashly said here, until we come to that place of Scripture where these things are to be more diligently inquired into and treated? For now it can perhaps suffice that according to its kind was not said of man, because one was being made, from whom the woman too was made. For there are not many kinds of men, as of herbs, trees, fish, flying things, serpents, cattle, beasts: so that we take according to its kind to have been said as if it were said "by kinds," so that things like one another and belonging to one origin of seed might be distinguished from the rest.

13. 21. Likewise it is asked what the animals of the waters so deserved of the Creator that they alone were blessed, as men. For God blessed them too, saying, increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea, and let the flying things be multiplied over the earth (Gen 1:22). Or had it to be said in one kind of creature, so that in the rest it might consequently be understood, namely those which grow by generations? Then it would be said first in that which was first created of such a kind, namely in the herb and tree.

Or did he perhaps judge those which had no affection for propagating offspring, and generated without any sense, unworthy of those words of blessing, increase and multiply: but where such an affection was present, there he first said this, so that in the earthen animals it might be understood even though not said? But it was necessary to repeat this in man, lest anyone should say that there is any sin in the office of begetting children, as there is in lust, whether of fornicating, or of abusing marriage itself immoderately.

14. 22. There is also some question about certain very tiny animals, whether they were created in the first foundings of things, or from the consequent corruptions of mortal things? For very many of them are born either from the defects of living bodies, or from refuse, or from exhalations, or from the rotting of corpses; some too from the corruption of trees and herbs, some from the corruptions of fruits: of all which we cannot rightly say that God is not the Creator.

For there is present in all things a certain beauty of nature proper to their kind, such that in these there is greater wonder in one who considers well, and richer praise of the omnipotent craftsman.

He who made all things in Wisdom (See Ps 104:24 (103)), which, reaching from end to end, and ordering all things sweetly (See Wis 8:1), does not leave even those last things of all, which are dissolved according to the order of their kind, and whose dissolution we dread because of the penalty of our mortality, unformed.

But he creates living things, least in body, keen in sense; so that with greater attention we are astonished at the agility of a flying fly than at the size of a walking beast of burden, and marvel more at the works of little ants than at the burdens of camels.

14. 23. But whether, in the first foundings of things, as I said, which are narrated to have been created in this order of six days, we are to believe that these least things too were established, or afterward by the consequent dissolutions of corruptible bodies, this is asked. And it can indeed be said that those very tiny things which arise from the waters or lands were then created: among which not absurdly are understood also those which are born from the things that arose by the earth sprouting; and because they had preceded the founding not only of animals but also of luminaries; and because they are continuous with the lands through the connection of roots, whence on that day on which the dry land appeared they arose, so that they might be understood to belong rather to the supplement of the dwelling than to the number of the dwellers.

But the others, which are born from the bodies of animals, and most of all of dead ones, it is most absurd to say were then created, when the animals themselves were created: except that there was already present in all animate bodies a certain natural power, and, as it were, fore-sown and in a way threaded beginnings of future animals, which were going to arise from the corruptions of such bodies, each according to its kind and differences, through the ineffable administration of the Creator moving all things unchangeably.

15. 24. Concerning the venomous and harmful kinds of animals too it is commonly asked whether they were created after the sin of man for vengeance; or rather whether, having been already created harmless, they only afterward began to harm sinners.

Nor is this strange, since even in the times of this laborious and toilsome life, when no one is so just that he dares to call himself perfect, the Apostle faithfully attesting and saying, not that I have already received, or am already perfect (Phil 3:12).

And since, for virtue still to be exercised and to be perfected in weakness, temptations and bodily troubles are necessary, the same Apostle again making it manifest, who says that, lest he be exalted by the greatness of the revelations, there was given to him a thorn of the flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet him; and that, having asked the Lord three times that it might depart from him, the answer was made to him, my grace is sufficient for you; for strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:7-9).

Yet holy Daniel too lived safe and unafraid among the lions (See Dan 6:22; 14:38), who, surely not lying to God in prayer, confesses not only the sins of his people but also his own (See Dan 9:4-19); and on the hand of the Apostle himself a deadly viper clung, and did not harm him (See Acts 28:5).

These things, then, could even when created harm nothing, if there had not arisen a cause either for terrifying and punishing vices, or for proving and perfecting virtue: because both examples of patience are to be shown, for the advancement of others; and man himself becomes more certainly known to himself in temptations; and justly that perpetual salvation, which was basely lost through pleasure, is strongly recovered through pain.

16. 25. Someone will say: "Why, then, do the beasts harm one another, for whom there are neither any sins, so that this should be called vengeance, nor do they receive any virtue from such exercise?"

No doubt for this reason, namely because some are the food of others. Nor can we rightly say, "there should not be others on which others might feed." For all things, as long as they exist, have their measures, numbers, and orders; all which, rightly considered, are praised, and are not changed without a hidden moderation, proper to their kind, of temporal beauty, even by passing from one thing into another. Which, even if it lies hidden from the foolish, shines dimly upon those advancing, and is clear to the perfect.

And certainly by all such motions of the lower creation healthful admonitions are offered to man, so that he may see how much he must be busy for his spiritual and everlasting salvation, by which he surpasses all irrational living things; when he sees those things, from the greatest elephants to the smallest little worms, do whatever they can for the bodily and temporal salvation which they have been allotted, according to the lower ordering of their kind, whether by resisting or by avoiding.

Which does not appear except when some seek the refreshment of their own body from the bodies of others; others protect themselves either by the strength of fighting back, or by the safeguard of flight, or by the defense of hiding-places.

For the very pain of the body in any living thing is a great and wonderful power of the soul, which holds that framework together vitally by an ineffable commingling, and reduces it to a certain unity of its own measure, when it suffers it to be corrupted and dissolved not indifferently but, so to speak, with indignation.

17. 26. This too may perhaps move someone: if harmful animals either injure living men as a penalty, or healthfully exercise them, or usefully prove them, or unknowingly teach them, why do they tear apart even the bodies of dead men for their food? As though indeed it mattered anything to our advantage by what passages this now lifeless flesh goes into the deep secret places of nature, whence by the wonderful omnipotence of the Creator it is to be drawn forth again to be reformed.

Although from this too there comes a certain admonition to the prudent, that they so commend themselves to the faithful Creator, administering all things great and small by a hidden nod, to whom even the hairs of our head are numbered (See Lk 12:7), that they do not, on account of empty cares for their lifeless bodies, dread any kinds of death, but do not hesitate to prepare the sinews of pious fortitude for all things.

18. 27. Such a question too is wont to arise about thorns and thistles, and about certain unfruitful trees, why or when they were created, since God said, let the earth bring forth the herb of fodder sowing seed, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit (Gen 1:11). But those who are so moved do not understand, at least from the usual formulas of human law, how a usufruct is named. For a certain usefulness to those enjoying is considered in the name of fruit. But how great are the uses, whether manifest or hidden, of all the things that the earth, generating, nourishes from the root, let them both behold some themselves, and inquire the rest from those who have experience.

18. 28. And concerning thorns and thistles indeed the answer can be more complete, because after sin it was said to man, of the earth, it shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you (Gen 3:18). Yet it is not easily to be said that these then began to arise from the earth. For perhaps, since in those very kinds of seeds many uses are found, they could have had their place without any penalty of man. But that in the fields in which he now labored as a penalty, these too should be born, this can be believed to avail for the heaping up of the penalty, since they could be born elsewhere, either for the pastures of birds and cattle, or for some uses of men themselves.

Although that sense too does not clash with these words, by which it shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you is so understood that the earth, bringing these forth even before, did not yet bring them forth for man unto labor, but as fitting food for animals of every sort; for there are those which feed conveniently and pleasantly on these kinds, both softer and drier: but then it began to bring these forth for man unto toilsome business, when after sin he began to labor on the earth.

Not that these were born before in other places, and afterward in the fields which man cultivated to take crops; but both before and afterward in the same places: before, however, not for man, but afterward for man; so that this may be signified which was added, for you: because it was not said, "it shall bring forth thorns and thistles," but, it shall bring forth for you; that is, "so that these may now begin to be born for you unto labor, which before were born only for the pasture of other animals."

19. 29. And God said, 'let us make man to our image and likeness; and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and the flying things of heaven, and all the cattle, and all the earth, and all the 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 rule the fish of the sea, and the flying things of heaven, and all the cattle, and all the earth, and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth.' And God said, 'behold, I have given you every seed-bearing herb, sowing seed, which is over all the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed-bearing seed; it shall be for you for food, and for all the beasts of the earth, and for all the flying things of heaven, and for every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, which has in itself the breath of life; and every green herb for food.' And so it was made. And God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day (Gen 1:26-31).

Again and again there will later be a richer place for considering and discussing more diligently the nature of man. Now, however, so that our inquiry and treatment of the works of the six days may conclude, we say this first briefly: that it is not to be taken indifferently that in the other works it is said, God said, 'let it be'; but here, God said, 'let us make man to our image and likeness': namely to intimate, so to speak, a plurality of persons on account of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Which unity of deity, however, he at once admonishes us to understand, saying, and God made man to the image of God; not as if the Father to the image of the Son, or the Son to the image of the Father; otherwise it was not truly said, to our image, if man was made to the image of the Father alone, or of the Son alone: but it was so said, God made him to the image of God, as though it were said, "God made him to his own image."

But when it is now said, to the image of God, whereas above it was said, to our image; it is signified that that plurality of persons does not bring it about that we should say, or believe, or understand several gods; but that we should take the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, on account of which Trinity it was said to our image, as one God, on account of which it was said, to the image of God.

20. 30. Here too this is not to be passed over: that when he had said, to our image; he at once subjoined, and let him have power over the fish of the sea and the flying things of heaven (Gen 1:28), and the rest of the animals devoid of reason: so that we may, of course, understand man to have been made to the image of God in that in which he surpasses the irrational living things. And that is reason itself, or mind, or understanding, or whatever else it is more conveniently called. Whence the Apostle too says, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man (Eph 4:23), who is renewed unto the knowledge of God, according to the image of him who created him (Col 3:10); sufficiently showing where man was created to the image of God, namely not in the lineaments of the body, but in a certain intelligible form of the illumined mind.

20. 31. And on this account, just as in that first light—if by that name is rightly understood the intellectual light made, a partaker of the eternal and unchangeable Wisdom of God—it was not said, "and so it was made," so that then it might be repeated, and God made: because, as we have already discussed as far as we could, no knowledge of the Word of God came to be 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 there might come to be the knowledge of the Word of God, through which it was being created, and that very knowledge was for it the turning, from its formlessness, toward the forming God, and being created and formed.

But afterward, in the other creatures, it is said, and so it was made; where it is signified that in that light, that is, in the intellectual creature, the knowledge of the Word was first made; and then, when it is said, and God made, the coming-to-be of the kind of creature itself is shown, which in the Word of God had been said to be made.

This too is preserved in the founding of man. For God said, let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen 1:26), and the rest. And then it is not said, and so it was made; but at once it is brought in, and God made man to the image of God: because that nature too is, namely, intellectual, like that light, and therefore for it to come to be is the same as to know the Word of God through which it comes to be.

20. 32. For if it were said, and so it was made, and afterward brought in, and God made; it would be understood as made, as it were, first in the knowledge of the rational creature, and then in some creature which was not rational: but because this is a rational creature too, and it is itself perfected by that same knowledge. For just as after the fall of sin man is renewed unto the knowledge of God, according to the image of him who created him; so in that very knowledge he was created, before he grew old by his fault, whence again in the same knowledge he might be renewed.

But the things which were not created in that knowledge—because either bodies or irrational souls were being created—the knowledge of them was first made in the intellectual creature, from the Word by which it was said that they should come to be: on account of which knowledge it was first said, and so it was made: so that it might be shown that the knowledge itself was made in that nature which could know this beforehand in the Word of God; and then the corporeal and irrational creatures themselves came to be, on account of which it was thereupon added, and God made.

21. 33. But how man was made immortal, and yet received for food, with the other animals, "the herb of fodder bearing seed, and the fruit-bearing tree, and the green herb," is difficult to say. For if he was made mortal by sin, surely before sin he did not need such foods. For that body could not be corrupted by hunger.

For that which was said, increase and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen 1:22), although it seems unable to come to pass except through the intercourse of male and female—whence here too there arises an indication of mortal bodies: yet it can be said that there could have been another mode in immortal bodies, so that children might be born by the affection of pious love alone, with no desire of corruption, neither to succeed parents who had died, nor themselves to die; until the earth was filled with immortal men, and so, a just and holy people being established, such as we believe will be after the resurrection, a mode of being born would also come to be: it can indeed be said, and how it is to be said is another consideration; but neither will anyone dare to say this, that a need of foods by which they may be refreshed can belong to any but mortal bodies.

22. 34. But some have even suspected that then the inner man was made, but the body of man afterward, when Scripture says, and God formed man of the slime of the earth (Gen 2:7): so that what was said, he made, belongs to the spirit; but what, he formed, to the body. Nor do they attend that male and female could not have been made except according to the body.

For although it may be most subtly discussed that the very mind of man, in which he was made to the image of God, namely a certain rational life, is distributed into the truth of eternal contemplation and into the administration of temporal things; and that thus it is made, as it were, male and female, that part counseling, this one obeying: yet in this distribution it is not rightly called the image of God, except that which cleaves to the unchangeable Truth to be contemplated. As a figure of which the Apostle Paul says that the man only is the image and glory of God: but the woman, he says, is the glory of the man (1 Cor 11:7).

And so, although this was figured outwardly, according to the body, in two human beings of different sex, which is also understood within in the single mind of one man; yet the woman too, because she is a woman in body, is herself also renewed in the spirit of her mind unto the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created her, where there is neither male nor female. For just as women are not separated from this grace of renewal and from the reforming 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 too in the very first founding of man, according to that by which the woman too was "man," she certainly had her own mind, and that rational, according to which she too was made to the image of God.

But on account of the unity of the conjunction: God made, it says, man to the image of God (Gen 1:27). And lest anyone should think that the spirit of man alone was made, although according to the spirit alone he was made to the image of God: he made him, it says, male and female he made them (Gen 1:27), so that now the body too may be understood to have been made. Again, lest anyone should suppose that he was so made that in a single human being each sex was expressed, as sometimes those are born whom they call androgynous; it shows that it set down the singular number on account of the unity of conjunction, and that the woman was made from the man, as is afterward made manifest, when what was here briefly said begins to be more diligently explained: and therefore it immediately subjoined the plural number, saying, he made them, and he blessed them (Gen 1:28). But, as I have already said, we shall inquire more diligently in the following Scripture about the creation of man.

23. 35. Now it is to be noticed that, after he said, and so it was made, he at once subjoined, and God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good (Gen 1:30-31): where is understood the power and faculty itself given to human nature of taking for food the fodder of the field and the fruit of the tree. For to this he referred, and so it was made, which he had begun from that place where he says, and God said, 'behold, I have given you seed-bearing fodder (Gen 1:29),' and the rest. For if we refer to all the things said above what he says, and so it was made; it will follow that we must confess that they had also already increased, and, multiplied, had filled the earth on that same sixth day; which we find, that same Scripture testifying, to have come to pass after many years.

Wherefore, when this faculty of eating had been given, and man had known it, God saying so, it is said, and so it was made; in this, namely, that, God saying so, man knew. For if he had even then done it, that is, had taken those things that were given even by eating them, that custom of Scripture would be preserved, that after it is said, and so it was made, which belongs to expressing the preceding knowledge, then the operation itself too would be brought in, and it would be said, and they took and ate. For it could be so said, even if God were not named again. As in that place, after it is said, let the water that is under the heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear (Gen 1:9); it is brought in, and so it was made: and then it is not said, and God made; but yet it is thus repeated, and the water was gathered into its gatherings, and so on.

24. 36. But that he did not say singly, as in the rest, of the human creature too, and God saw that it was good: but after man was made, and the power either of ruling or of eating given to him, he brought in concerning all things, and God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good, can rightly be asked.

For it could first have been rendered to man singly, what was rendered singly to the rest which were made before; then at last it could be said of all the things that God made, behold, they were very good. Or is it perhaps because on the sixth day all things are completed, that therefore it had to be said of all things, God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good (Gen 1:31); not singly of those which were made on that very 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 those both singly in their kind, and with the rest universally, deserved to be called good; but man made to the image of God deserved to have this said only with the rest. Or is it because he was not yet perfect, since he was not yet established in Paradise? As though indeed, after he was established there, what was here passed over had been said.

24. 37. What then shall we say? Is it because God foreknew that man would sin, and would not remain in the perfection of his image, that he wished to call him good not singly, but with the rest, as it were intimating what was to come? Because, when the things that were made remain, in that they were made, as far as they received, like either those which did not sin, or those which cannot sin, they are both good singly, and in the whole very good. For not in vain was very added; because the members of a body too, even if singly they are beautiful, are yet all far more beautiful in the framework of the whole body. For the eye, for example, pleasing and praised, yet if we saw it separated from the body, we would not call it so beautiful as in that connection of members, when, set in its place, it was discerned in the whole body.

But those things which by sinning lose their proper beauty in no way bring it about that they too, rightly ordered, are not good with the whole and the universe. Man, therefore, before sin was good even in his own kind; but Scripture passed over saying this, so that it might rather say that which would foretell something to come. For nothing false was said of him. For he who is good singly is surely more good with all. But when he is good with all, it does not follow that he is also good singly. It was therefore measured that that should be said which would be true in the present, and would signify the foreknowledge of the future.

For God is the best Founder of natures, but the most just orderer of sinners; so that even if some things become deformed singly by sinning, yet the whole is always beautiful with them. But let us now treat the things that follow in the following volume.

1. 1. And heaven and earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God finished on the sixth day his works which he had made; and God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because in it he rested from all his works which God had begun to make (Gen 2:1-3). It is indeed arduous and most difficult, for the powers of our attention, to penetrate by the liveliness of the mind the will of the writer in these six days: whether those days passed, and, the seventh being added, are now repeated through the volumes of the times, not in reality but in name. For in the whole of time many days come like those past, but no same day returns.

Whether, then, those days passed; or whether, while these days which are reckoned by their names and number run by daily in the order of times, those days remain in the very foundings of things—so that not only in those three before the luminaries were made, but also in the remaining three likewise, we may understand the name of day in the appearance of the thing that was created, and its night in the privation or defect, or by whatever other name it is better signified, when the appearance is lost, some change declining and verging from form toward formlessness.

Which change is present in every creature either in possibility, even if it be lacking in effect, as in the higher heavenly things; or, for filling up temporal beauty in the lowest things, is carried out through the ordered turns of the yieldings and successions of changeable things, as is manifest in earthly and mortal things: but evening in all things is, as it were, a certain term of the completed founding: but morning the beginning of what is beginning; for every created nature is contained by its own fixed beginnings and ends.

It is difficult to track down. But whether this, or that, or even some third thing more probable can be found to be said—which will perhaps appear in the progress of the disputation—as to how in those days both night and evening and morning are understood: it is not, however, beside the point that we consider the perfection of the number six in the very inner nature of numbers; gazing at which with the mind, we number the things that lie also before the senses of the body, and dispose them numerically.

2. 2. We find, then, that the number six is the first perfect number, by this reason: that it is completed by its parts. For there are also other numbers perfect by other causes and reasons. Accordingly we said that this six is perfect by this reason, that it is completed by its parts—by such parts, that is, as, multiplied, can make up the number whose parts they are. For such a part of a number can be said by what fraction it is. For the number three can be called a part not only of six, of which it is the half, but of all numbers larger than three itself. 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 three is a part of seven and of eight and of nine, and of whatever numbers are beyond, not a larger part nor the half, but a smaller. For seven too can be divided into three and four, and eight into three and five, and nine into three and six: but of none of these can three be said by what fraction it is a part, except only of nine, of which it is the third part, as it is the half of six. And so of all these which I have mentioned, none is made up of some number of threes, except six and nine. For the former consists of two threes, but the latter of three.

2. 3. The number six, then, as I had begun to say, with its parts counted together and brought into a sum, is itself completed. For there are some numbers whose parts taken together make a smaller sum, but others a larger: and by fixed reasons of intervals fewer are found which are completed by their parts, whose sum neither stops short nor grows beyond, but meets exactly as much as is the number itself whose parts they are. Of these the first is six. For of one, in numbers, there are no parts. For "one" is so spoken of, among the numbers by which we count, that it has neither a half nor any part, but is truly and purely and simply one. But of two the part is one, and that the half, nor is there any other. But three has two parts: one which can be said by what fraction it is, which is one, for it is the third of it; and another larger which cannot be said by what fraction it is, that is, two: nor, then, can those parts of it be reckoned which we are dealing with, that is, those which can be said by what fraction they are. Further, four has two such: for one is the fourth of it; two, the half; but both brought into a sum, that is, one and two together, make three, not four. Therefore its parts do not complete it, because they stop at a smaller sum. Five has no such part but one, that is, one itself, which is the fifth part of it: for though two be a smaller part of it and three a larger, yet neither of them can be said by what fraction it is a part of it. But six has three such parts: a sixth, a third, a half: its sixth is one; its third, two; its half, three. And these parts brought into a sum, that is, one and two and three, together make up and perfect the same six.

2. 4. Now seven has no such part but a seventh, which is one. Eight has three: an eighth, a fourth, a half, that is, one, two, and four: but these brought together make seven, which stops short, and therefore they do not fill out the same eight. Nine has two: a ninth, which is one; and a third, which is three: but these together make four, far smaller than nine. Ten has three such parts: one a tenth, two a fifth, five a half; which numbers brought together reach eight, not ten. Eleven has only an eleventh, as seven has only a seventh, and five only a fifth, and three only a third, and two only a half, which in all is one.

But twelve, by its such parts brought together, is not itself completed but exceeded; for they make a number larger than twelve: for they reach as far as sixteen. For it has five of them: a twelfth, a sixth, a fourth, a third, a half: for its twelfth is one; its sixth, two; its fourth, three; its third, four; its half, six: but one, and two, and three, and four, and six, brought into a sum, make sixteen.

2. 5. And not to delay with many things, in the infinite series of numbers more numbers are found which either have such parts only singly, like three, and five, and the rest of that kind; or have such parts so many that, brought into one and reduced to a sum, they either stop short, as is the case with eight, and nine, and very many others, or exceed beyond, like twelve and eighteen, and many such. There are found, then, more of any of these than of those which are called perfect, in that they are completed by their such parts brought together. For after six, twenty-eight is found, which similarly consists of its such parts: for it has five of them: a twenty-eighth, a fourteenth, a seventh, a fourth, a half; that is, one, and two, and four, and seven, and fourteen; which brought together complete the same twenty-eight: for they make twenty-eight. And the further the order of numbers proceeds, the more these numbers are found at intervals, proportionally more extended, which, by their such parts reduced to a sum, meet themselves, and are called perfect. For those numbers whose such parts brought together do not fill up the same numbers whose parts they are, are named imperfect: but those whose parts even exceed are called more than perfect.

2. 6. With the number of days, then, being perfect, that is, six, God perfected his works which he had made. For so it is written: and God finished on the sixth day his works which he had made (Gen 2:2 (according to the Septuagint)). But I become more intent upon this number when I consider also the order of the works themselves. For just as that same number rises step by step by its parts into a triangle—for one, two, three so follow that no other can be interposed, which singly are the parts of six of which it consists: one, the sixth; two, the third; three, the half—so in one day the light was made, but in the two following the fabric of this world; in one the upper part, that is, the firmament, in the other the lower, that is, the sea and the earth.

But the upper part he filled with no kinds of corporeal foods, because he was not going to place there bodies needing such refreshment; but the lower, which he was going to adorn with animals suited to it, he first enriched with the foods necessary for their need. In the remaining three days, then, were created the things which, within the world—that is, within this visible whole made of all the elements—would be driven, as visible things, by their own fitting motions: first the luminaries in the firmament, because the firmament had been made first; then the living things in the lower part, as the order itself demanded, on one day those of the waters, on another those of the lands.

Nor is anyone so mad as to dare to say that God could not have made all things in one day, if he had willed; or, if he had willed, in two days, on one day the spiritual creature, and on another the corporeal; or on one day the heaven with all that belongs to it, and on another the earth with all that is in it; and altogether when he willed, and as long as he willed, and how he willed: who is there who would say that anything could have resisted his will?

3. 7. Wherefore, when we read that he perfected all things in six days, and, considering the number six, find it to be perfect, and that the order of creatures so runs that there appears even, as it were, a graded distinction of the very parts by which this number is perfected; let this too come to mind, which is said to him in another place of the Scriptures, you have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight (Wis 11:21); and let the soul thus consider—the one who can, God being invoked to aid, and imparting and inspiring its powers—whether these three, measure, number, weight, in which it is written that God ordered all things, were somewhere before the whole of nature was created, or whether they too were created; and if they were before, where they were.

For before the creature there was nothing but the Creator. In him, then, they were. But how? For we read that even these things which were created are in him (See Rom 11:36): were those things like himself, but these like things in him by whom they are ruled and governed?

And how were those things himself? For God is not measure, or number, or weight, or all these things. Or, according to that by which we know measure in the things we measure, and number in the things we number, and weight in the things we weigh, God is not these things: but according to that by which measure prefixes a limit to every thing, and number affords a form to every thing, and weight draws every thing to rest and stability, he is, primally and truly and singularly, these things, who terminates all things, and forms all things, and orders all things; and nothing else is understood to have been said—in the way it could be, through the human heart and tongue—you have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight, than: "you have ordered all things in yourself"?

3. 8. It is a great thing, and granted to few, to exceed all things that can be measured, so that there is seen measure without measure; to exceed all things that can be weighed, so that there is seen number without number; to exceed all things that can be weighed, so that there is seen weight without weight.

4. 8. For measure and number and weight can be observed and thought of not only in stones and wood and masses of that kind, and in corporeal things of any sort, whether earthly or heavenly. But there is a measure of doing something, lest the progress be unrecallable and immoderate; and there is a number both of the affections of the mind and of the virtues, by which it 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, where it appears at how much each thing is weighed in desiring, fleeing, preferring, and putting after: but these measure, number, and weight of minds are themselves restrained by another measure, and formed by another number, and drawn by another weight.

But measure without measure is that to which is equaled what is from it, nor is it itself from anything else: number without number is that by which all things are formed, nor is it itself formed: weight without weight is that by which things are referred so that they may rest, whose rest is pure joy, nor is it now referred to anything else.

4. 9. But whoever knows the names of measure and number and weight only visibly, knows them slavishly. Let him, then, transcend all that he so knows, or, if he cannot yet, let him not cling to the very names of which he cannot think except basely. For these things are dear to each in the higher realm by as much as he himself is less flesh in the lower.

But if someone does not wish to transfer those terms, which he learned in the lowest and most abject things, to those sublime things, in gazing at which he tries to make the mind serene, he is not to be pressed to do so.

For provided that this be understood which is to be understood, it is not greatly to be cared about what it is called. Yet one must know what sort of likeness there is of the lower to the higher. For not otherwise does reason rightly tend and strive from here to there.

4. 10. But now if anyone says that measure and number and weight were created, in which Scripture testifies that God ordered all things; if he ordered all things in them, where did he order these same things? If in others, how then are all things in them, when they themselves are in others? It is therefore not to be doubted that those are outside the things that are ordered, in which all things are ordered.

5. 11. Or shall we perhaps think it was so said, you have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight (Wis 11:21), as if it were said, "you have so ordered all things that they should have measure, and number, and weight"? Because even if it were said, "you have ordered all bodies in colors," it would not be a consequence that the very Wisdom of God, through which all things were made, should be understood to have had colors first in herself, in which she might make the bodies.

But it would be taken thus, "you have ordered all bodies in colors," as if it were said, "you have so ordered all bodies that they should have colors." As though indeed bodies ordered in colors by God the Creator, that is, so ordered that they should be colored, could be understood otherwise than that some account of distributing colors to the several kinds of bodies was not lacking in the very wisdom of the orderer, even if color is not there called by name. For this is what I said: provided the matter be granted, one need not labor about the terms.

5. 12. Let us grant, then, that it was so said, you have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight (Wis 11:21), as though it had been said, so ordered that they should have their own proper measures, and their own numbers, and their own weight, which in them would be changed according to the mutability of each one's kind, by increases and diminutions, by multitude and fewness, by lightness and heaviness, according to the disposition of God: do we then, just as these things are changed, say that the very counsel of God, in which he ordered them, is changeable? May he himself avert so great madness.

6. 12. When, therefore, these things were so ordered that they should have their own measures, and numbers, and weights, where did the orderer himself discern them? For not outside himself, as we discern bodies with the eyes; which surely did not yet exist, when they were being ordered that they should come to be. Nor did he discern these things within himself in the way we discern in the mind the images of bodies which are not present to the eyes, but think, by imagining, of those which we have seen, or out of those which we have seen. In what way, then, did he discern these things, so as to order them thus? In what, except in that in which he alone can?

6. 13. Nevertheless we mortals and sinners, whose corruptible bodies weigh down the soul, and whose earthly dwelling presses down the sense thinking many things (See Wis 9:15); even if we bore the most pure hearts and the simplest minds, and were already equal to the holy angels, the divine substance would certainly not be so known to us as it is to itself.

7. 13. Yet this perfection of the number six we discern neither outside ourselves, as bodies with the eyes, nor within ourselves, as the images of bodies and the likenesses of visible things, but in a certain other, far different way.

For although certain images, as it were, of little bodies obtrude themselves upon the gaze of the mind, when the composition or order or partition of the number six is thought of: yet reason, stronger and more powerful from above, does not assent to them, but inwardly contemplates the power of number; through which contemplation it confidently says that what is called "one" in numbers can be divided into no parts; but that no bodies can be divided except into innumerable parts; and that heaven and earth, which were fashioned according to the number six, would more easily pass away than it could be brought about that the number six should not be completed by its parts.

Let the human mind, therefore, always give thanks to the Creator, by whom it was so created that it can see this, which no bird, no beast can—which nevertheless see with us both heaven, and earth, and the luminaries, and the sea, and the dry land, and all the things that are in them.

7. 14. Wherefore we cannot say that the number six is perfect because God perfected all his works in six days; but rather that God perfected his works in six days because the number six is perfect. And so, even if these works did not exist, that number would be perfect; but unless that number were perfect, these works would not be made perfect according to it.

8. 15. Now, as for what is written, that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made; and therefore blessed and sanctified that same day, because in it he rested from all his works: so that we may try, as we can, as far as we are aided by him, to attain it by understanding, let us first drive from our minds the carnal suspicions of men about this. For is it lawful to say or to believe that God labored in working, when he founded the things written above, when he spoke, and they came to be? For not even a man labors, if something to be done, as soon as he has spoken, comes to be.

For although human words, supported by sounds, are uttered in such a way that a long discourse wearies: 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 (Gen 1:3, 6), and the rest down to the end of the works which he completed on the sixth day; it is the raving of an exceedingly absurd delirium to think this a labor even of a man, much less of God.

8. 16. Or will someone perhaps say that, in saying that they should come to be, which were at once made, God did not labor, but perhaps in thinking what ought to come to be; from which care, as though freed by the perfection of things, he rested, and for that reason willed to bless and sanctify the day on which he was first made free from this intention of mind? But if to think these things is to be very foolish (for both the capacity and the ease of founding things is, with God, incomparable and ineffable).

9. 16. What remains for us to understand, except perhaps that to the rational creature, in which he also created man, he afforded rest in himself, after its perfection, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom love is poured out in our hearts (See Rom 5:5), so that we may be borne thither by the longing of desire, that, when we have come, we may rest, that is, seek nothing further? For just as God is rightly said to do whatever we do by him working in us; so God is rightly said to rest, when by his gift we shall rest.

9. 17. This indeed we rightly understand; because it is both true, and does not need great attention, to see that God is said to rest, when he makes them rest, just as he is said to know, when he brings it about that we know. For God does not in time know what before he did not know; and yet he says to Abraham, now I know that you fear God (Gen 22:12): where what else do we take it to mean than, "now I have made you to know"?

By these modes of expression, when we speak of things which do not happen to God as though they happened to him, we recognize that he brings it about that they happen to us; those, at least, which are praiseworthy: and these as far as the usage of the Scriptures admits. For we ought not rashly to say any such thing about God which we do not read in his Scripture.

9. 18. By this mode of expression I think that was said by the Apostle, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph 4:30). For the very substance of the Holy Spirit, by which it is whatever it itself is, cannot be grieved; since it has eternal and unchangeable blessedness, and is rather the very eternal and unchangeable blessedness. But because it so dwells in the saints that it fills them with love, by which men must in time rejoice at the advancement of the faithful and at good works; and therefore must also be grieved at the fall or sins of those at whose faith and piety they had rejoiced; which grief is praiseworthy, because it comes from the love which the Holy Spirit pours in: therefore the Spirit itself is said to be grieved by those who so act that the saints are grieved by their deeds, for no other reason than that they have the Holy Spirit; by which gift they are so good that the evil sadden them, especially those whom they have either known or believed to have been good. Which grief, surely, is not only not to be blamed, but even especially to be praised and proclaimed.

9. 19. By this kind of expression the same Apostle again wonderfully made use, where he says, but now, knowing God, or rather being known by God (Gal 4:9). For God had not then come to know them, foreknown, that is, before the foundation of the world (See 1 Pet 1:20); but because they themselves had then come to know him by his gift, not by their own merit or capacity, he preferred to speak figuratively, so as to say that they were then known by him, when he afforded himself to them to be known, and to correct the word, as though he had said less rightly what he had properly said, rather than to allow them to arrogate to themselves that they had been able to do what he had granted them to be able to do.

10. 20. This understanding, then, in that which is set down, that God rested from all his works which he made very good, because he himself makes us rest when we have done good works, will perhaps suffice for some: but we, having undertaken the consideration of this sentence of the Scriptures, are pressed to inquire whether he himself too could in some way rest; although, his rest having been intimated to us, he has admonished us to hope that our rest will be in him.

For just as he himself made heaven and earth, and the things that are in them, and completed all things on the sixth day; nor can it be said that we created anything in them, he granting that we should create, and therefore that it was said, God finished on the sixth day his works which he made (Gen 2:2), because he himself granted that they should be finished by us.

So too that which was said, God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he made (Gen 2:2), we ought to understand not, indeed, of our rest, which we shall attain with his granting, but primarily of his own, by which he rested on the seventh day, the works being completed; so that first all the things that are written may be shown to have been made, and then, if there is need, they may be taught to have signified something as well.

For it is rightly said that, just as God rested after his good works, so we too shall rest after our good works. But for this reason it is also rightly demanded that, just as it was disputed concerning the works of God, which sufficiently appear to be his own; so concerning the rest of God let it be sufficiently discussed, which is shown to be properly his own.

11. 21. For this reason we are compelled by the most just reasoning to investigate, if we are able, and to explain how both are true: both what is written here, that on the seventh day God rested from all his works that he had made, and what he says himself in the Gospel, he through whom all things were made: My Father is working still, and I am working (John 5:17).

For he gave this answer to those who complained that, on account of God's rest commended of old by the authority of this Scripture, the Sabbath was not observed by him. And it can indeed be said with probability that the Sabbath was commanded to be observed by the Jews as a shadow of what was to come, foreshadowing the spiritual rest that God, by the example of this rest of his, promised with a hidden meaning to the faithful who do good works.

And the Lord Christ too, 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 he kept that whole day as a kind of holy repose, after on the sixth day—that is, the Day of Preparation, which they call the sixth day of the week—he had completed all his works, when the things written about him were fulfilled on the gibbet of the cross itself. For he used this very word when he said, It is finished; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:30).

What wonder, then, if God, wishing to foretell in this way too the day on which Christ would rest in burial, rested from his works on one day, thereafter to carry on the order of the ages, so that this too might truly be said: My Father is working still?

12. 22. It can also be understood that God rested from founding the kinds of creation, because he founded no further new kinds; but that thereafter, up to now and beyond, he works at the administration of those same kinds that were then established—not such that, even on the seventh day itself, his power would cease from the governance of heaven and earth and all the things he had founded, for otherwise they would at once dissolve.

For the power of the Creator, and the might of him who is Almighty and All-sustaining, is the cause of subsisting for every creature; and if this might should at any time cease to govern the things that have been created, their form would likewise cease, and all their nature would collapse. For it is not as with the builder of a house, who departs once he has built it, and his work stands while he ceases and departs; the world will not be able to stand even for the blink of an eye if God withdraws his governance from it.

12. 23. Accordingly, what the Lord says, My Father is working still (John 5:17), shows a kind of continuation of his work, by which he holds together and administers the whole of creation. For it could be understood one way if he said, "and now he is working," where there would be no need for us to take it as a continuation of his work; but it compels us to understand it another way when he says still, that is, from the time when he did his work in founding all things.

And what is written about his Wisdom, that she reaches mightily from one end to the other, and orders all things sweetly (Wis 8:1), of whom it is likewise written that her movement is more agile and swifter than all motions (See Wis 7:24), makes it sufficiently clear to those who see rightly that this very incomparable and ineffable, and—if it can be understood—stable, movement of hers is what she affords to things to be ordered sweetly; and that if this were withdrawn, if she ceased from this working, they would at once perish.

And what the Apostle said when he preached God to the Athenians, In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), considered as clearly as the human mind is able, 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 though his substance were our being, in the way it is said that he has life in himself (See John 5:26); rather, since we are something other than he is, we are in him for no other reason than that he does this, and this is his work by which he holds together all things, and by which his Wisdom reaches mightily from one end to the other, and orders all things sweetly; through which ordering in him we live and move and have our being. From which it is gathered that if he withdrew this work of his from things, we would neither live nor move nor be.

It is clear, therefore, that not even for a single day did God cease from the work of governing the things he created, lest they should at once lose those natural movements by which they are driven and quickened, so as to be natures at all and to remain in what they are, each according to its kind, and should altogether cease to be anything, if that movement of the Wisdom of God by which he orders all things sweetly were withdrawn from them. For this reason we understand that God rested from all his works that he had made in such a way that he would found no further new nature, not such that he ceased to hold together and govern the things he had founded. Hence both this is true, that on the seventh day God rested (Gen 2:2), and this, that he is working still (John 5:17).

13. 24. And we see indeed that his works are good; but his rest after our good works we shall see. To signify this he commanded the Hebrew people to observe one day (See Exod 20:8)—which they did so carnally that, seeing our Lord and Savior work on that day, they made it a charge against him; and so he most rightly answered them concerning the work of the Father, with whom he too was working equally, not only the administration of the whole of creation, but also our very salvation.

But now, in the time of revealed grace, that observance of the Sabbath, which was figured by the rest of one day, has been taken away from the observance of the faithful.

For in that grace he already observes a perpetual Sabbath who, in hope of future rest, does whatever good he does, and does not glory in his very good works as though he had a good that he had not received; for thus, receiving and understanding the sacrament of Baptism as the day of the Sabbath—that is, of the Lord's repose in the tomb—he rests from his former works, so that now, walking in newness of life (See Rom 6:4), he may recognize that God works in him, who at once both works and rests, both affording fitting governance to creation and keeping eternal tranquility with himself.

14. 25. Finally, he himself was neither wearied when he created nor refreshed when he ceased; but he willed through his Scripture to exhort us to a desire for rest, intimating to us that he sanctified that day on which he rested from all his works. For nowhere in any of the six days on 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 (Gen 1:1), is it added, And he sanctified it; but this day, on which he rested from all his works that he had made, he willed to sanctify, as though even with him, who toils at nothing in his work, rest is worth more than working.

This indeed the Gospel intimates to us in the case of human beings, where our Savior says that the better part was Mary's, who, sitting at his feet, was resting in his word, than Martha's, although she was occupied about many things on account of the service by which she ministered to him, and although she was doing a good work (See Luke 10:39-42).

But how this is or is to be understood in God is hard to say, even if it can be touched a little by thought—why God sanctified the day of his rest, who sanctified none of the day of his work, not even the sixth itself, on which he both made man and completed all things. And first of all, what is the nature of God's very resting, which the keen edge of the human mind can attain? Yet unless this were so, this Scripture would not set it down at all.

I will say plainly what I think, prefacing these two things as beyond doubt: that God was not delighted by some temporal rest, as though after labor or after the desired end of his business; and that these Writings, deservedly preeminent in such great authority, did not say in vain and falsely that God on the seventh day rested from all his works that he had made, and that for this reason he sanctified that same day.

15. 26. Without doubt, then, because it is a fault and a weakness of the soul to be so delighted by its own works that it rests in them rather than rests from them in itself—since beyond doubt there is something better in the soul, by which they were made, than the very things that were made—God is intimated to us through this Scripture, in which he is said to have rested from all his works that he had made, as delighted by no work of his as though he had needed to make it, or would have been lesser had he not made it, or happier once he had made it.

For since whatever is from him is from him in such a way that it owes to him what it is, while he himself owes to nothing that is from himself the fact that he is blessed, he set himself before the things he made by loving them—not sanctifying the day on which he began to make them, nor the one on which he completed them, lest his joy should seem to be increased by their being made or having been made, but the one on which he rested from them in himself.

And he himself indeed was never without this rest, but he showed it to us through the seventh day; signifying by this too that his rest is not perceived except by the perfect, since to intimate it he assigned no day but the one that followed the perfection of all things. For he who is always at rest then rested for us, when he showed that he had rested.

16. 27. This too must be attended to: that God's rest, by which he is blessed in himself, had to be intimated to us, so that we might understand how he is also said to rest in us—which is not said except when he grants rest in himself to us as well. God's rest, therefore, to those who understand rightly, is that by which he needs the good of no one; and so it is sure for us too in him, because we too are made blessed by the good that he is, not he by the good that we are. For we too are some good thing 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 thus he needs no other good besides himself, who does not need the good that he made. This is his rest from all his works that he had made.

But of what goods would he laudably have no need, if he had made none? For it might be said in this way too that he needs no goods—not by resting in himself from things made, but by making none at all. But if he could not make good things, there would be no power; while if he could and yet did not make them, there would be great grudging.

Because, then, he is almighty and good, he made all things very good; but because he is perfectly blessed by himself as his own good, he rested in himself from all the things he made—with that rest, namely, from which he never departed. But if he were said to have rested from making things, nothing else would be understood than that he had not made them. And unless he were said to have rested from things made, his not needing the things he made would be less commended.

16. 28. On what day, then, was this fitting to be commended, if not the seventh? Anyone understands this who recalls the perfection of the number six, of which we spoke above, as fittingly applied to the perfection of creation. For if creation had to be perfected in the number six, as it was perfected, and that rest of God had to be commended to us, by which it would be shown that he is not made blessed even by perfect creatures, then without doubt the day to be sanctified in this commendation was the one that follows the sixth, so that we might be raised up to long for this rest, that we too might rest in him.

17. 29. For the likeness is not a holy one, if we should 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. For we ought to rest in a certain unchangeable good, which he is to us who made us. This, then, will be our supreme and least proud and truly holy rest: that, just as he rested from all his works—because not his works, but he himself is the good to himself by which he is blessed—so we too may hope that we shall rest from all works, not only our own but also his own, in him alone; and may desire this after our good works, which we acknowledge in ourselves to be his rather than ours, so that even thus he may rest after his good works, when, after the good works that we, justified by him, have done, 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 a greater thing to have rested in him. Just as he is not blessed because he made these things, but because, not needing even the things made, he rested in himself rather than in them. Hence he sanctified not the day of work, but of rest; because he intimated himself blessed not by doing these things, but by not needing the things he had made.

17. 30. What, then, is so humble and easy to utter, and what so sublime and hard to think, as God resting from all his works that he had made? And resting where, if not in himself, since he is blessed by nothing but himself? When, if not always? But in the days in which the completion of the things he founded 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 the perfect, who has no need even of the perfect, by which he might be made happier.

18. 31. And as for the fact that with him indeed his rest has neither morning nor evening—because it is neither opened by a beginning nor closed by an end—yet in relation to his perfected works it has a morning and does not have an evening; for the perfected creature has a certain beginning of its turning toward the rest of its Creator, but that rest has no end as a kind of limit of its perfection, like the things that have been made. And thus God's rest begins not for God himself, but for the perfection of the things founded by him, so that what is perfected by him may begin to rest in him, and to have its morning in him; for in its own kind it was brought to an end as though at evening, but in God it can no longer have an evening, because there will be nothing more perfect than that perfection.

18. 32. For in those days on which all things were being created, we took the evening as the limit of the creature founded, and the morning as the beginning of another to be founded. And thus the evening of the fifth day is the limit of the creature founded on the fifth day; while the morning that was made after that evening is the beginning of the creature to be founded on the sixth day, and once it was founded, the evening was made as its limit.

And because nothing else remained to be founded, the morning was made after that evening in such a way that it was not the beginning of another creature to be founded, but the beginning of the rest of all creation in the repose of the Creator.

For heaven and earth and all the things that are in them—that is, the whole of creation, spiritual and corporeal—does not remain in itself, but assuredly in him of whom it is said, for in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). For although each part can be in the whole of which it is a part, yet the whole itself is only in him by whom it was founded. And therefore it is not absurdly understood that, the sixth day being completed, the morning was made after its evening, not so as to signify the beginning of another creature to be founded, as in the rest, but so as to signify the beginning of the remaining and resting of all that was founded, in the repose of him who founded it. This rest has for God neither beginning nor limit; but for creation it has a beginning, though it does not have a limit; and therefore the seventh day began for that same creation from a morning, but is ended by no evening.

18. 33. For if on the other days evening and morning signify the alternations of such times as are now carried out through these daily spans, I do not see what would have prevented closing the seventh day too with an evening, and its morning with a night, so that it would similarly be said, "and evening came, and morning came, the seventh day"—since indeed it too is one of the days, which are all seven, by whose repetition months and years and ages are carried out; so that the morning that would be set after the evening of the seventh would be the beginning of the eighth day, about which thereafter silence was to be kept, because it is the same as the first, to which there is a return, from which again the series of the week takes its order.

Hence it is more probable that these seven days, by their names and number, succeed one another again and again as they run on, carrying out temporal spans; but that those first six days were unfolded in a kind of form unexperienced and unfamiliar to us, in the very foundings of things, in which both evening and morning, like light and darkness themselves—that is, day and night—did not afford that alternation which these days afford through the circuits of the sun: which we are certainly compelled to admit concerning those three days that were recorded and numbered before the lights were founded.

18. 34. And thus, whatever sort of evening and morning there may have been in them, in no way is it to be supposed that God's rest took its beginning from that morning which was made after the evening of the sixth day, lest with rash vanity we should suspect that some temporal good befell that eternity and unchangeableness; but rather that God's rest, by which he rests in himself, and is blessed by that good which he himself is to himself, has for him neither beginning nor limit; whereas the same rest of God has a beginning for the completed creature.

For the perfection of each thing is established—so that it may rest, that is, may hold the order of its proper measure—not so much in the universe of which it is a part as in him from whom it is, in whom the universe itself also is, according to the measure of its kind.

And thus the very totality of creation, which was completed in six days, has one thing in its own nature, another in the order by which it is in God—not as God is, yet still in such a way that for it there is no rest of its proper stability except in the repose of him who seeks nothing besides himself, and rests when he has attained it.

And therefore, while he himself remains in himself, he turns back to himself whatever is from him, so that every creature has in itself the limit of its own nature, by which it is not what he is, but in him has the place of rest, by which it preserves what it itself is.

I know that I have not said "place" in the proper sense; for it is properly said of the spaces occupied by bodies. But because even bodies themselves do not remain in a place except the one they reach by the appetite, as it were, of their own weight, so that, having found it, they rest there—therefore the word is not unfittingly transferred from corporeal to spiritual things, so that "place" is said, even though the thing itself is very far removed.

18. 35. The beginning of creation in the rest of the Creator, then, I think is signified by that morning which was made after the evening of the sixth day; for it could not rest in him unless it were perfected. Accordingly, on the sixth day, when all things were completed and the evening was made, the morning too was made, on which the completed creature would begin to rest in him by whom it was made.

At this beginning it found God resting in himself, where it too could rest—the more stably and firmly inasmuch as it needed him, not he it, for its rest. But since whatever the whole of creation will be, amid whatever changes of its own, it will certainly not be nothing, therefore the whole of creation will always remain in its Creator; and thus after that morning there was thereafter no evening.

18. 36. We have said this to explain why the seventh day, on which God rested from all his works, had a morning after the evening of the sixth, but did not have an evening.

19. 36. There is another thing on this matter that can, in my estimation, be understood more properly and better, but is somewhat harder to explain: namely, that God's rest on the seventh day had a morning without evening—that is, a beginning without limit—not for creation, but for himself as well. For if it were said merely, "God rested on the seventh day," and there were not added, "from all his works that he had made," we would seek the beginning of this rest in vain. For God does not begin to rest, whose rest is everlasting, without beginning, without limit.

But since he rested "from all his works that he had made," by not needing them, it is understood that God's rest indeed was neither begun nor ended, while his rest from all his works that he had made began from the moment when he perfected them.

For he would not have rested by not needing his works before they existed, the works that he did not need even once they were perfected; and because he never needed them at all, nor will this blessedness by which he does not need them be perfected as though by progress, therefore no evening was added to the seventh day.

20. 37. But plainly it can be asked—and it moves us with a consideration worthy of attention—how it is to be understood that God rested in himself from all his works that he had made, when it is written, and God rested on the seventh day (Gen 2:2). For it was 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 is "co-created" with the temporal creature; and thus it too is without doubt a creature. For there neither are nor could nor will be any times of which God is not the Creator; and thus, who created this seventh day too, if it is time, but the Creator of all times? But with which creatures, or in which creatures, those six days were created, the earlier discourse of Holy Scripture indicates. Therefore, among these seven days, whose form is known to us—which indeed pass away in themselves, but in a manner hand on their names to others that succeed them, so that those six days are named—we know when the first of them was created; but when God created the seventh day, which is called by the name of the Sabbath, we do not see. For on that very day he did not make anything; rather, from the things he had made in six days he rested on that same seventh. How, then, did he rest on a day he did not create? Or how did he create it immediately after the six days, when on the sixth day he completed all the things he created, and created nothing on the seventh day, but rather rested on it from all the things 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 the seventh day, because the seventh repetition of the one he had created assuredly made it? For the light of which it is written, and God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light (Gen 1:3), 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 on to the sixth, on which God completed his works; and from there the seventh repetition of that first-created day received the name of the seventh day, on which God rested. And thus the seventh day is no creature except that same one returning seven times, which was founded when God called the light day and called the darkness night.

21. 38. Again, then, we slip back into that question from which we seemed to have escaped in the first book, so that we again ask how light could have gone round to exhibit the alternation of day and night, not only before the lights of heaven, but before heaven itself, which was called the firmament, was made—before, finally, there was any form of earth or sea that might admit the going round of the light, with the night following, by which it had passed on.

Driven by the difficulty of this question, we ventured to limit our discussion as it were to this view, saying that the light first made was the forming of the spiritual creature, while the night was the matter, still to be formed in the remaining works of things, which had been established when in the beginning God made heaven and earth, before he made the day by his word.

But now, admonished by the consideration of the seventh day, it is easier for us to confess that we do not know—since it is removed from our senses—in what way that light which was called day carried out the alternations of day and night, whether by its going round, or by its contraction and emission if it is corporeal; or, if it is spiritual, whether it was made present at the founding of all creatures, and by its own presence made the day, by its absence the night, by the beginning of its absence the evening, by the beginning of its presence the morning.

—than that, in so plain a matter, we should attempt something 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 it would be false that it is written that on the sixth day he completed all his works, and on the seventh rested from all his works. Since this assuredly cannot be false, it remains that the presence of that light, which God made the day, was repeated through all his works, as often as a day was named, even on the seventh itself, on which he rested from his works.

22. 39. But since we do not find by what going round, or by what advance and withdrawal, corporeal light, before the heaven called the firmament was made—in which the lights too were made—could have exhibited the alternations of day and night, we ought not to leave this question without bringing forward some view of our own: namely, that if that light which was first created is not corporeal but spiritual, then just as it was made after the darkness, where it is understood to have been turned from a certain formlessness of its own toward the Creator and formed, so too after the evening let the morning be made, when, after the knowledge of its own proper nature, by which it is not what God is, it refers itself to praising the light that God himself is, by the contemplation of whom it is formed. And because the other creatures, which are made beneath it, are not made without its knowledge, therefore no doubt the same day is everywhere repeated, so that by its repetition there are made as many days as there are distinct kinds of created things, to be brought to a close by the perfection of the number six.

So that the evening of the first day is also its knowledge that it is not what God is; while the morning after this evening, by which the one day is concluded and the second begun, is its turning, by which it refers what it was created 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, of the firmament: which is made first in its knowledge, when it is said, and so it was made; then in the nature of the firmament itself, which is founded, when it is added afterward, after it was already said, and so it was made: and God made the firmament (Gen 1:7). Then the evening of that light is made, when it comes to know the firmament itself, not in the Word of God as before, but in its own nature: which knowledge, because it is less, is rightly signified by the name of "evening."

After which the morning is made, by which the second day is concluded and the third begins; on which morning there is likewise the turning of this light—that is, of this day—to praising God for having wrought the firmament, and to receiving from his Word the knowledge of the creature that is to be founded after the firmament.

And thus, when God says, let the water which is under heaven be gathered into one collection, and let the dry land appear (Gen 1:9), that light knows this in the Word of God by which it is said; and therefore there follows, and so it was made, that is, in its knowledge from the Word of God; then, when it is added, and the water was gathered together (Gen 1:10), and the rest, after it had already been said, and so it was made, the creature itself is made in its own kind; and when this same creature, made in its own kind, is known by that light which had already known in the Word of God that it was to be made, the evening is made a third time. And thence in this way the rest, up to the morning after the evening of the sixth day.

23. 40. 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 the day, the latter to the evening. For in comparison with that light which is beheld in the Word of God, all knowledge by which we know any creature in itself can not undeservedly be called night; which knowledge again differs so much from the error or ignorance of those who do not even know the creature itself, that in comparison with it, it is not unfittingly called day.

Just as the very life of the faithful, which is led in this flesh and in this age, is not unreasonably called light and day in comparison with the unbelieving and impious life, the Apostle saying, you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8); and this, let us cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light; let us walk becomingly as in the day (Rom 13:12-13): which day, however, would itself again be night unless compared with that day on which, made equal to the angels, we shall see God as he is; here we would not need the lamp of prophecy, of which the Apostle Peter says, we have the prophetic word made more sure, 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 (2 Pet 1:19).

24. 41. Therefore, since the holy angels, to whom we shall be made equal after the resurrection (See Matt 22:30), if we hold to the end the way that Christ has become for us, always see the face of God and enjoy his only-begotten Son, the Word, who is equal to the Father, in whom wisdom was created first of all—without doubt they first knew the whole of creation, in which they themselves are principally founded, 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 knew as it were by looking down upon it from above, and by referring it to the praise of him in whose unchangeable Truth they principally see the reasons according to which it was made.

There, then, it is as it were through day—whence too their most harmonious unity, by the sharing of the same truth, is the day first created; here, however, it is as it were through evening; but the morning immediately comes (which can be observed in all six days), because the angelic knowledge does not remain in what is created without immediately referring it to the praise and love of him in whom it is known not to have been made, but to have been to be made; by standing in which Truth it is day. For if the angelic nature were to turn even to itself, and delight in itself more than in him by sharing in whom it is blessed, swelling up with pride it would fall, like the devil—of whom we must speak in its own place, when the discourse owed concerning the serpent who seduced man is demanded.

25. 42. Because, then, the angels know the creature in that creature itself in such a way that, by choice and love, they set before that knowledge the fact that they know it in the Truth through which all things were made, being made sharers in it—therefore, throughout all six days, night is not named, but "after evening and morning, one day"; likewise "after evening and morning, a second day"; then "after evening and morning, a third day"; and so on up to the morning of the sixth day, whence the seventh, of God's rest, begins—although with their nights, yet days, not nights, are narrated.

For then night belongs to day, not day to night, when the lofty and holy angels refer what they have known 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 one day, which the Lord has made, to which the Church will be joined, freed from this pilgrimage, so that we too may exult and rejoice in it (See Ps 118:24 (117:24)).

26. 43. By the sixth repetition, then, of this day—whose evening and morning can be understood according to the reasoning given above—the whole of creation was completed; and the morning was made by which the sixth day would be finished, and from which the seventh, not destined to have an evening, would begin, because God's rest is not a creature.

And this creation, while it was being founded through the other days, was known otherwise as made in itself than in him in whose Truth it was seen as to be made; and the as it were colorless form of that knowledge made the evening.

And so the form of the work itself ought not now to be understood as the day, and its limit as the evening, and the beginning of another work as the morning, in this narrative of the things founded; lest we be compelled to say, against Scripture, either that the creature of the seventh day was founded besides 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 corporeal going round, but by spiritual knowledge, when that blessed society of angels both first contemplates in the Word of God, by which God says, let it be made; and so it is made first in their knowledge, when it is said, and so it was made; and afterward it knows the thing itself, made, in that same thing, which is signified by the evening being made.

And then it refers that knowledge of the thing made to the praise of that Truth in which it had seen the reason for making it, which is signified by the morning being made. And so through all those days there is one day, to be understood not by the custom of these days, which we see determined and numbered by the going round of the sun, but in some other way, from which not even those three days, recorded before the founding of these lights, can be foreign.

For that mode was carried not only to the fourth day, so that from there we should think of these usual days, but to the sixth and seventh; so that the day and night between which two God divided are to be understood far otherwise than this day and night between which he said the lights he created should divide, when he said, and let them divide the day from the night (Gen 1:14). For then he founded this day, when he founded the sun, by whose presence it exhibits the same day; but that day first founded had already passed through three days when these lights were created on the fourth repetition of that day.

27. 44. For this reason, since we cannot experience and perceive that day, or those days that were numbered by its repetition, in this earthly mortality of ours, and even if we can attempt anything toward understanding them, we ought not to rush headlong into a rash judgment, as though nothing more fitting and more probable could be thought about these matters.

Let us believe that these seven days, which act in place of those as a week—by whose course and recourse times are swept along, in which one day is the going round from the sun's rising to its rising—exhibit a certain likeness of those, in such a way that we in no way doubt that they are not like them, but very unequal.

28. 45. And let no one think that what I have said about the spiritual light, and about the day founded in the spiritual and angelic creature, and about the contemplation it has in the Word of God, and about the knowledge by which the creature is known in itself, and about its referral to the praise of the unchangeable Truth, where the reason for the thing to be made was seen first, which was known once made—let no one think that this applies to the understanding of day and evening and morning not properly now, but as it were figuratively and allegorically; rather it is indeed otherwise than in this custom of this daily and corporeal light, yet not as though here it were proper and there figurative.

For where there is a better and more certain light, there too is a truer day; why then not also a truer evening and a truer morning? For if in these days the light has a certain decline of its own toward setting, which we call by the name of "evening," and again a return toward rising, which we call morning—why should we not also speak there of an evening, when the creature is looked down upon away from the contemplation of the Creator, and of a morning, when from the knowledge of the creature one rises to the praise of the Creator? For Christ is not called light (See John 8:12) in the way he is called a stone (See Acts 4:11); rather the former properly, the latter assuredly figuratively.

Whoever, then, seeks in the enumeration of those days not the view which we, according to our measure, have been able to investigate or suppose, but another, which can be understood not figuratively in prophecy but properly and better in this founding of creatures—let him seek, and with divine help find. For it may be that even I will perhaps find another more fitting to these words of Divine Scripture. For I do not so affirm this view that I would contend that another, to be preferred, cannot be found—as I do affirm that Holy Scripture did not wish to intimate to us the rest of God as though after weariness or the trouble of care.

29. 46. For this reason someone may perhaps contend with me in argument, saying that the angels of the lofty heavens do not behold these things alternately—first the reasons of creatures unchangeably in the unchangeable Truth of the Word of God, and then the creatures themselves, and third their knowledge even in themselves, referring it to the praise of the Creator—but that their mind can do all these things at once with marvelous ease.

Yet will he say—or, if anyone says it, is he to be heeded—that that heavenly city in its thousands of angels either does not contemplate the eternity of the Creator, or is ignorant of the changeableness of the creature, or does not, from a certain lower knowledge of it as well, praise the Creator? Let them be able to do all this at once, let them do all this at once; they can, nonetheless, and they do. At once, therefore, they have both day, and evening, and morning.

30. 47. For there is no need to fear lest perhaps one who is now competent to perceive those things should suppose that this cannot happen there because, in these days that are carried out by the going round of this sun, it cannot happen. And this indeed cannot happen for the same parts of the earth; but who would not see, if he is willing to attend, that the whole world has at once both day, where the sun is, and night, where it is not, and evening, from which it departs, and morning, to which it approaches?

But we plainly cannot have all these things at once on earth; nor for that reason, however, ought we to make this earthly condition and the temporal and local going round of corporeal light equal to that spiritual homeland, where there is always day in the contemplation of the unchangeable Truth, always evening in the knowledge of the creature in itself, always morning in the praise of the Creator even from this knowledge.

Because there the evening is made not by the withdrawal of the higher light, but by the distinction of the lower knowledge; nor does morning knowledge succeed as it were to a night of ignorance, but it is that it lifts up even the evening knowledge into the glory of the Founder. Finally, that other one too, with night not named, says, at evening and morning and noonday I will tell and proclaim; and you will hear my voice (Ps 55:17 (54:18)): here perhaps through the alternations of times, but yet, as I think, signifying what was being done without alternations of times in that homeland for which his pilgrimage sighed.

31. 48. But if that angelic society and unity of the day which God founded first now carries on and has all these things at once, did it also have them at once then, when these things were being founded? Did it not, throughout all six days, when the things that it pleased God to found through each day were being founded, receive them first in the Word of God, so that they were made first in its knowledge, when it was said, and so it was made; then, when they had been made in their own proper nature by which they exist, and had pleased God because they are good, then again know them by a certain other, lower knowledge, which was signified by the name of evening; and then, the evening being made, the morning came, when God was praised for his work, and the knowledge of another creature, which was thereafter to be made, was received from the Word of God before it was made? Not, then, were all things at once then—both day and evening and morning—but one by one, in the order that Scripture records.

32. 49. Or were all things even then at once, since it was not according to delays of time, as these days are made when the sun rises and sets and returns to its place to rise again, but according to the spiritual power of the angelic mind, with its knowledge comprehending most easily at once all the things it willed? Yet not for that reason without the order by which the connection of preceding and following causes appears. For knowledge cannot come to be unless the things to be known precede; which are likewise prior in the Word, through which all things were made, than in all the things that were made.

And so the human mind first experiences these things that have been made through the senses of the body, and grasps their knowledge according to the measure of human weakness; and then it seeks their causes, in case it can in some way arrive at them as abiding principally and unchangeably in the Word of God, and thus perceive his invisible things, understood through the things that have been made (Rom 1:20). With how great slowness and difficulty it does this, and with how great a delay of time on account of the corruptible body that weighs down the soul (Wis 9:15), even the mind that is swept on by the most fervent zeal to do this insistently and perseveringly—who does not know?

But the angelic mind, clinging to the Word of God with pure love, after it was created in that order so as to precede the rest, saw those things first in the Word of God as to be made, before they were made; and thus they were made first in its knowledge, when God said "that they be made," than in their own proper nature: which things, likewise made, it also knew in them themselves, by a lesser knowledge, of course, which was called evening.

Which knowledge, indeed, the things that were being made preceded; because whatever can be known precedes the knowledge of it. For unless what is to be known first exists, it cannot be known.

After this, if it should so please itself as to delight more in itself than in its Creator, the morning would not come—that is, it would not rise up from its knowledge to the praise of the Creator. But when the morning came, another thing was to be made and to be known, with God saying, let it be made; so that likewise it would be made first in the knowledge of the angelic mind, and it could again be said, and so it was made; and then in its proper nature, where, with the evening following, it would be known.

32. 50. And thus, even if there are here no intervals of temporal delays, yet the reason for founding the creature preceded in the Word of God, when he said, let there be light; and there followed the very light by which the angelic mind was formed, and was made in its own nature—but it did not follow elsewhere that it be made: and therefore it was not first said, and so it was made, and afterward said, "and God made the light"; but immediately after the Word of God the 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 also saw itself in itself—that is, with what was made distinct from him who made it.

And therefore, when the thing made had pleased God, who saw that it is good, and the light had been divided from the darkness, and the light called day, and the darkness night, the evening too was made: because that knowledge too was necessary, by which the creature would be distinguished from the Creator, known otherwise in itself than in him; and thence the 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 therefore God said, let there be a firmament; and so it was made (Gen 1:7), in the knowledge of the spiritual creature foreknowing this in itself before it was made. Then God made the firmament; now indeed the very nature of the firmament, of which the knowledge would be lesser, as it were evening: and so on up to the end of all the works, and up to the rest of God, which has no evening, because it was not made like a creature, so that the knowledge of it too could be doubled, as it were prior and greater in the Word of God as in day, and later and lesser in itself as in evening.

33. 51. But if the angelic mind can do at once all the things that the narrative distinguishes one by one through the order of connected causes, were even the things that were being made—such as the firmament itself, such as the gathering of the waters, and the form of the lands laid bare, such as the budding of shrubs and trees, the forming of the lights and stars, the water and land animals—all made at once? Or rather through intervals of times according to the predetermined days? Or perhaps ought we not to think of them as they were when first established in the way we now experience them according to their natural movements, but according to the marvelous and ineffable power of the Wisdom of God, which reaches mightily from one end to the other, and orders all things sweetly (See Wis 8:1)? For neither does she herself reach by steps, or arrive as though by paces.

For this reason, as her most efficacious movement is easy for her, so easily did God found all things; since they were founded through her: so that the fact that we now see them moved through temporal intervals to carry out what befits each in its own kind comes from those implanted reasons which God scattered, as it were seminally, in the stroke of founding, when he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created (Ps 33:9 (32:9)).

33. 52. Things were not, then, established slowly so that the things which are slow might be slow; nor were the ages founded with that delay by which they run their course. For times carry out these numbers, which, when they were created, they did not receive temporally.

Otherwise, if we think of the natural motions of things, and the usual spans of these days that 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 which sprout from roots and clothe the earth might first germinate underneath; then, after a certain number of days, each according to its kind, break out into the open air—even if this were done up to the point that Scripture narrated to have been done concerning their created nature on one day, that is, the third.

Then, how many days would have been needed for the birds to fly, if, existing from their first beginnings, they came to feathers and wings through the numbers of their nature? Or perhaps only eggs had been created, when on the fifth day it was said that the waters brought forth every winged flying thing according to its kind?

Or if this could rightly be said for the reason that in that moisture of the eggs were already all the things that, through certain numbers of days, coalesce and unfold in a manner, because the very numerical reasons were already present, incorporeally woven into corporeal things—why could not the same thing rightly have been said even before the eggs, when those same reasons were already coming to be in the moist element, by which winged creatures, through the temporal delays each of its own kind, could arise and be perfected?

For concerning the Creator about whom this Scripture narrated that he completed his works in six days, it is elsewhere written about him, not at all discordantly, that he created all things at once (See Sir 18:1).

And thus these six or seven days too—or rather the one day repeated six or seven times—he made at once, who made all things at once. Why, then, was there need that the six days be narrated so distinctly and in order? Because, of course, those who cannot see what is said, he created all things at once (See Sir 18:1), except when the discourse proceeds with them more slowly, cannot arrive at that to which it leads them.

34. 53. How, then, do we say that the presence of that light was repeated six times through angelic knowledge from evening to morning, when those three at once—that is, both day and evening and morning—would have sufficed for it to have once: when it would at once contemplate the whole of creation, as it was made at once, both in the primal and unchangeable reasons through which it was founded, on account of the day, and know it in its own nature, on account of the evening, and praise the Creator from that lower knowledge as well, on account of the morning?

Or how did the morning precede, so that in the Word it knew what was afterward to be made by God, and was consequently going to know that same thing in the evening, if nothing was made earlier or later, because all things were made at once? Indeed rather, both "earlier and later" were made through the six days that have been recorded, and all things were made at once: because both this Scripture, which narrates the works of God through the said days, and that which says he made all things at once, is truthful; and both are one, because it was written down by the inspiration of one Spirit of truth.

34. 54. But in these things, in which intervals of times do not show what is earlier or later, although both can be said—that is, "at once" and "earlier and later"—yet what is called "at once" is more easily understood than "earlier and later": as when we behold the rising sun, it is certainly evident that our gaze could not reach it unless it crossed the whole space of air and sky that is between us and it; but of what great distance this is, who is able to estimate? Nor would that same gaze, or ray of our eyes, reach to crossing the air that is over the sea, unless it had first crossed the air that is over the land, in whatever inland region we may be, from the place where we are to the seashore. Then, if along the same line of our gaze lands still lie beyond the sea, our gaze cannot cross the air over those lands beyond the sea either, unless the space of that air which extends over the sea first met is first traversed. Let us now suppose that beyond those lands across the sea nothing remains but the Ocean; can our gaze cross even the air spread over the Ocean, unless it has first crossed all the air there is on this side of the Ocean, above the land? But the magnitude of the Ocean is said to be incomparable; yet however great it is, the rays of our eyes must first cross the air that is above it, and afterward whatever is beyond, and then at last reach the sun, which we see.

Is it, then, because we have so often here said "earlier" and "afterward," that our gaze does not cross all things at once in one stroke? For if, with eyes closed, we set our face opposite to see the sun, will we not, as soon as we open them, think that we have rather found our gaze there than led it thither, so that the eyes themselves do not even seem to have been opened before our gaze had reached that to which it was directed? And surely this is a ray of corporeal light, flashing out from our eyes and touching things set so far off with such great speed that it cannot be estimated or compared. Surely it is here evident both that all those so vast and immense spaces are crossed at once in one stroke, and it is nonetheless certain what is crossed earlier and later.

34. 55. Rightly, when the Apostle wished to express the speed of our resurrection, he said it happens in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor 15:52). For nothing can be found swifter among the movements or strokes of corporeal things. But if the gaze of fleshly eyes is capable of so much by speed, what of the gaze of the mind, even the human mind? How much more of the angelic? What now is to be said of the speed of the supreme Wisdom of God herself, which reaches everywhere on account of her purity, and into which nothing defiled enters (See Wis 7:24)? In these things, then, that were made at once, no one sees what ought to have been made earlier or later, except in that Wisdom through which all things were made, in order, at once.

35. 56. That day, then, which God made first, if it is a spiritual and rational creature—that is, of the angels of the heights of heaven and of the virtues—was made present to all the works of God by this order of presence, which is the order of knowledge by which it both foreknew them in the Word of God as to be made, and knew them in the creature once made, not through the delays of temporal intervals, but having earlier and later in the connection of creatures, while in the efficacy of the Creator all things are at once. For he so made the things that were to be that he did not make temporal things temporally, but times ran from him once they were made.

And thus these seven days, which the light of the heavenly body unfolds and folds up again by its going round, by a certain shadow of meaning admonish us to seek those days in which the created spiritual light could have been made present to all the works of God through the perfection of the number six; and thence have a morning, but not an evening, in the seventh, the rest of God.

So that God's having rested on the seventh day does not mean that he had need of the seventh day itself for his rest; but that in the sight of his angels he rested from all his works that he had made—surely in none but himself, who was not made; that is, so that his angelic creature, which was made present, like a day with its evening, for the knowing of all his works in himself and in them, should know nothing better, after all his very good works, than that he rests from all of them in himself, needing none of them to be more blessed.

1. 1. 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 till the earth. But a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth (Gen 2:4-6).

Now certainly that view becomes firmer by which it is understood that God made one day, from which now those six or seven days could be numbered by the repetition of this one; since Holy Scripture now says more openly, concluding in a manner all the things it had said from the beginning up to this place, and adds, this is the book of the creation or making of heaven and earth, when the day was made. For no one will say that heaven and earth are recorded here as they had been spoken of before the day was intimated to be founded, in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1). For if that is understood in such a way that God made something without a day, before he made the day, in what sense this can be taken I have said in its own place what I thought ought to be said, shutting off from no one the liberty of understanding it better.

But now, this is, he says, the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made: showing sufficiently, as I suppose, that he has not here recorded heaven and earth as in the beginning before the day was made, when there was darkness over the deep; but as heaven and earth were made when the day was made—that is, with the parts and kinds of things now formed and distinguished, by which the whole of creation, arranged and composed, presents this form which is called the world.

1. 2. Here, then, that heaven is recorded which God, when he had created it, called the firmament, with all the things that are in it; and that earth, which together with the deep holds the lowest place, with all the things that are in it. For it follows and adds, God made heaven and earth; so that by the name of heaven and earth, both set down before he recorded the making of the day, and repeated once he had recorded it, he does not allow it to be suspected that he has now named heaven and earth in the way he did in the beginning, before the day was created.

For he so wove the words together, this is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when the day was made, God made heaven and earth (Gen 2:4): that if anyone should wish to understand what was set down above, the book of the creation of heaven and earth, in the way it was said, in the beginning God made heaven and earth, before he founded the day—because here too heaven and earth are recorded first, and afterward the day was made—he is corrected by the words that follow: because even after the recording of the day being made, the name of heaven and earth is again added.

1. 3. Although even the fact that when is set down, and the day was made is so attached, would wrest from any contentious person the admission that there can be no other understanding. For if it were so interposed that it said, "this is the book of the creation of heaven and earth. The day was made, God made heaven and earth," someone might perhaps suppose that "the book of the creation of heaven and earth" was so called in the way it was called, in the beginning God made heaven and earth, before the day was founded; and then there was subjoined, the day was made, as there it was afterward narrated that God made the day: thence immediately again it was said, God made heaven and earth, as though now in the way these things were made after the day was founded.

But because it was so interposed that it said, when the day was made—whether you connect this with the preceding words, so that it is one sentence, this is the book of the creation of heaven and earth when the day was made; or with the following, so that likewise in this way it is a full sentence, when the day was made, God made heaven and earth—it compels us beyond doubt to understand that he recorded heaven and earth in the way they were made, when the day was made. Then, when it had been said, God made heaven and earth, there was added, and every green thing of the field (Gen 2:5): which it is certainly evident were made on the third day. From which it appears more clearly that it is that same one day which God made, by whose repetition the second too was made, and the third, and the rest, up to the seventh day.

2. 4. But since by the name of heaven and earth, by the usual practice of the Scriptures, he wished the whole of creation now to be understood, it can be asked why he added, and every green thing of the field; which it seems to me he set down for this reason, that he might more significantly intimate which day he commended, when he said, when the day was made.

For one might quickly suppose that the day commended here was that of corporeal light, by whose going round the alternation of daytime and nighttime is exhibited to us. But when we recall the order of the things founded, we also 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, by whose presence this daily and usual day is carried out.

When we hear, when the day was made, God made heaven and earth, and every green thing of the field, we are admonished to think of that day which we should try to track down by the understanding, whether as corporeal by some light unknown to us, or as spiritual in the society of angelic unity—yet not such as we know here.

3. 5. It will also be not beside the point to observe this: that, although he could have said, this is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, when God made heaven and earth, so that in heaven and earth we might understand whatever is in them, as Divine Scripture is accustomed to speak.

So that by the name of heaven and earth it very often—sometimes with and the sea added—suggests the whole of creation, occasionally adding and saying, and the things that are in them (Ps 146:6 (145:6)), so that, whichever of these he said, we should understand there the day too, whether the one he first founded, or this one which the presence of the sun makes; he did not speak thus, but interposed the day, saying, when the day was made.

Nor did he speak so as to say, "this is the book of the creation of the day and heaven and earth," as though in the order in which the things made are narrated; 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 the 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 the day and heaven and earth and every green thing of the field."

For the custom of speaking rather called for these manners of expression; but he said, 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 though suggesting this: that when the day was made, then God made heaven and earth and every green thing of the field.

3. 6. Moreover, the earlier narrative indicates the day made first, and reckons it one day; after which it counts the second, on which the firmament was made; and the third, on which the forms of land and sea were arranged, and the earth brought forth tree and herb. Or is this perhaps that which we labored to show in the earlier book—that God made all things at once—since that connection of the narrative, when it had recorded all things created and completed in the order of six days, now reduces all things to one day under the name of heaven and earth, with the kind of shrubs also added? No doubt for the reason I said above: so that if perhaps the day were understood from this custom of ours, the reader might be corrected, when he recalled that God said the green thing of the field was to be brought forth by the earth before that solar day. Thus now the testimony that God created all things at once is not brought forward from another book of Holy Scripture (See Sir 18:1); but the nearby attestation of the following page admonishes us from this very matter, saying, when the day was made, God made heaven and earth, and every green thing of the field.

So that you may understand this day to have been repeated seven times, that there might be seven days; and when you hear that all things were then made, when the day was made, you may grasp, if you can, that sixfold or sevenfold repetition as made without intervals of delays or temporal spans.

If you cannot yet, leave these things to be beheld by those who are able; but you, advance with the Scripture that does not desert your weakness, and with motherly step walks more slowly along with you.

Which so speaks that by its height it mocks the proud, by its depth terrifies the attentive, by its truth feeds the great, by its kindliness nourishes the little ones.

4. 7. What, then, does even what follows mean? For the discourse is woven 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 (Gen 2:5)? What is this? Is it not to be asked where he made these things before they were upon the earth, and before they sprang up?

For who would not more readily believe that God made these things then, when they sprang up, not before they sprang up, unless he were admonished by the divine word that God made them before they sprang up—so that, even if he cannot find where they were made, anyone who piously believes this Scripture may nonetheless believe them made before they sprang up; for it is impious not to believe it.

4. 8. What, then, shall we say? Is it what some have supposed, that all things were made in the Word of God itself, 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; yet Scripture says openly, 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, then certainly not before the day was made; and thus not in the Word, which is coeternal with the Father before the day, before anything at all was made, but when the day was made. For those 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; which was said of the green things and the grass of the field.

4. 9. Where, then? Was it in the earth itself, causally and according to reason—just as in seeds all things already are, before they unfold in a manner, and unfold their growths and forms through the numbers of times? But those seeds that we see are already upon the earth, already sprung up: or were they not upon the earth, but beneath the earth; and therefore, before they sprang up, they were made, because they then sprang up when the seeds germinated, and by the addition of growths broke out into the open air—which we now see done through the delays of times, distributed each to its own kind?

Were the seeds, then, made "when the day was made," and was in them every green thing of the field, and all the grass—not yet in that form in which they are upon the earth, already sprung up, but in that power by which they are in the reasons of the seeds? Did the earth, then, first bring forth the seeds?

But Scripture did not speak thus, when it said, and the earth brought forth the herb of pasture, or the herb of grass, sowing seed according to its kind and according to its likeness; and the fruitful tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind upon the earth (Gen 1:12). For by these words it rather appears that the seeds arose from the herbs and trees, and not those from seeds, but from the earth—especially because the very words of God are thus. For he does not say: let the seeds in the earth bring forth the herb of grass and the fruitful tree; but he says, let the earth bring forth the herb of grass sowing seed; so as to suggest the seed from the herb, not the herb from the seed. And so it was made, and the earth brought forth (Gen 1:11-12); that is, first it was so made in the knowledge of that day, and the earth then brought forth, so that this might also come to be in the creature itself, which was founded.

4. 10. How, then, were they before they were upon the earth, and before they sprang up—as though it was one thing for them to be made with heaven and earth, when that day was made, unusual and unknown to us, which God first made; and another to spring up now upon the earth, which happens only through these days that the going round of the sun makes through the delays of times, adapted each to its own kind?

And if this is so, and that day is the society and unity of the angels and virtues of the heights of heaven, then without doubt God's creation is known far otherwise to the angels than to us: apart from the fact that they have known it in the Word of God, through whom all things were made, I say that even in itself it is known to them far otherwise than to us.

For to them it is known primordially, so to speak, or originally, as God first founded it, and after founding it rested from his works by founding nothing further; but to us according to the administration of things founded before, now through the orders of times, according to which God, now that those things have been completed in the perfection of six, works up to now (See John 5:17).

4. 11. Causally, then, was it said that the earth brought forth herb and tree—that is, that it received the power of bringing them forth. For in it, as though in roots, so to speak, of times, had been made the things that were to be through times. For surely afterward God planted a Paradise toward the east, and brought forth there from the earth every tree beautiful to the sight and good for food (See Gen 2:8-9).

Yet it must not be said that he then added anything to creation which he had not made before, which should as it were be added afterward to that perfection by which he completed all things very good on the sixth day; but because all the natures of shrubs and trees had already been made in the first founding, from which founding God rested—then moving and administering, through their temporal courses, those very things that he had founded, and from which, once founded, he rested—he not only then planted Paradise, but even now makes all the things that are born.

For who else even now creates these things, but he who is working still? But he creates them now from those that already exist; while then they were created by him when they did not exist at all, when that day was made, which itself also did not exist at all—the spiritual and intellectual creature, namely.

5. 12. And so, once creatures were made, times began to run with their movements; whence times are sought in vain before the creature, as though times could be found before times. For if there were no movement, whether of the spiritual or of the corporeal creature, by which the future would succeed the past through the present, there would be no time at all. But the creature certainly could not be moved if it did not exist. Time, therefore, rather began from the creature than the creature from time; but both are from God. For from him, and through him, and in him are all things (See Rom 11:36). Nor is what was said—time began from the creature—to be taken as though time were not a creature; since it is the movement of the creature from one thing to another, as things follow according to the ordering of God, who administers all that he created.

For this reason, when we think of the first founding of the creatures from which works God rested on the seventh day, we ought not to think of those days as like these solar days, nor of that working as in the way God now works something in time; but as he worked so that times might begin, as he worked all things at once, granting them also an order, not by intervals of times, but by the connection of causes, so that the things made at once might also be perfected when the number six of that day was made present.

5. 13. Not, then, in a temporal but in a causal order was the formless and formable matter first made, both spiritual and corporeal, from which would come what was to be made, since it too, before it was established, had not existed; nor was it established except by that supreme and true God, from whom all things are. Whether this was signified by the name of heaven and earth, which God made in the beginning before that one day which he founded—therefore already so called, because from it heaven and earth were made—or by the name of the invisible and unformed earth and the dark deep, has already been treated in the first book.

5. 14. But among the things that are now formed out of formlessness, and are more evidently called created, or made, or founded, the day was made first. For it was fitting that the primacy of creation be held by that nature which could recognize the creature through the Creator, not the Creator through the creature.

Second, the firmament, from which the corporeal 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 brought them forth at God's word before they sprang up, receiving all their numbers, which it would put forth through times according to its kind.

Then, after this as it were dwelling of things was founded, on the fourth day the lights and stars were created, so that the upper part of the world might first be adorned with the visible things that move within the world.

Fifth, the nature of the waters, because it is joined to heaven and air, brought forth at God's word its own native creatures—that is, all swimming and flying things; and these potentially in their numbers, which would be put forth through the fitting movements of times.

Sixth, the land animals likewise, as the last from the last element of the world; nonetheless potentially, whose numbers time would afterward unfold visibly.

5. 15. All this order of ordered creation that day knew; and through this knowledge, made present as it were six times, it exhibited as it were six days, although it is one day—recognizing the things that were made first in the Creator, and consequently in them themselves, not remaining in them, but referring even their later knowledge to the love of God, it afforded evening and morning and noon in all things; not through the delays of times, but on account of the order of the things founded. Finally, representing the knowledge of the rest of its Creator—because he rests in himself from all his works—in which it has no evening, it merited for this reason to be blessed and sanctified. Whence Scripture commends the number seven itself as in a manner dedicated to the Holy Spirit (See Isa 11:2-3), and the Church knows it.

5. 16. This, then, is the book of the creation of heaven and earth, because in the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen 1:1), according to a certain formability of matter, so to speak, which was consequently to be formed by his word, preceding its own formation, not in time, but in origin. For surely when it was being formed, the 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 treated; or if anything more clear and more fitting could be or could have been seen and said.

6. 17. But what follows, for God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to till the earth (Gen 2:5), where it belongs and what it suggests to us, is difficult to track down. As though God made the grass of the field before it sprang up for the reason that he had not yet rained upon the earth: for if he had made the grass after the rain, it would seem to have sprung up by the rain rather than to have been made by him. For what then? What springs up after the rain—is it made by any other than the same God?

But why was there no man to till the earth? Had he not already made man on the sixth day, and rested on the seventh from all his works? Or does he record 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 on the third day he made these things, 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 till the earth, but neither was the grass itself upon the earth, which he certainly says was made before it sprang up. Or did God make these things on the third day for the reason that there was not yet a man who, by tilling the earth, would make them? As if so many trees and so many kinds of herbs were not born from the earth without any labor of men.

6. 18. Or were both set down for this reason—both that it had not yet rained upon the earth, and that there was not yet a man to till the earth? For where human labor is absent, these things are born by means of rain. But there are some that are not born even by means of rain unless human labor is added. Therefore now both aids are necessary, that all things may be born; but then either of them was lacking; and so God made these things by the power of his Word, without rain, without human labor.

For even now he himself makes them, but now by means of rain and the hands of men; although neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7).

6. 19. What, then, is it that he adds, but a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth (Gen 2:6)? For that spring, flowing with such abundance, like the Nile for Egypt, could have served the whole earth in place of rain. Why, then, was it commended as something great that God made those growing things before it rained, when rain could have helped as much as a spring watering the earth? Yet even if somewhat less, those things would perhaps have been born smaller, but not none at all.

Or does Scripture here too, after its manner, speak weakly as to the weak, and yet hint at something that one who is able may understand? For surely, just as by that day recorded a little above it signified that one day was made by God, and that God then made heaven and earth, when the day was made—so that we might think, as best we could, that God made all things at once, although the earlier enumeration of six days seemed to have shown intervals of times, as it were.

So, when he had 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, he added, for God had not yet rained upon the earth, nor was there a man to till the earth (Gen 2:5); as though he said, "God did not make these things in the way he now makes such things, when it rains and when men labor." For these things now happen through the delays of times, which were not then, when he made all things at once, from which times too might begin.

7. 20. But what follows, but a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth (Gen 2:6)—from here, as I judge, it is now suggested what things come to be according to the intervals of times out of that first founding of creatures, where all things were made at once. And rightly did he begin from that element out of which all kinds are born, whether of animals, or of herbs and trees, so that they may carry out their temporal numbers distributed to their proper natures. For all the first beginnings of seeds, whether of all flesh or whence all shrubbery is brought forth, are moist, and grow together from moisture. But in them are the most efficacious numbers, drawing along with them their consequent powers from those perfected works of God from which he rested on the seventh day.

7. 21. Nonetheless, what this spring was, capable of watering the whole face of the earth, is rightly asked. For if it existed, and was blocked up or dried, the cause is to 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 merited this penalty too, that the abundance of that spring, being repressed, took away from the lands their easy fertility, so that the labor of the inhabitants might be increased.

Human conjecture could affirm this, although no Scripture has narrated it, were it not that this occurs: that the sin of men, on which the penalty of labor was imposed, arose after the delights of Paradise; but Paradise had its own very great spring, of which we must speak afterward more carefully in its own place; from whose single source four great rivers, known to the nations, are said to flow. Where, then, was this spring, or these rivers, when that one greatest spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth? For certainly then the Gihon, which is called the Nile, one of those four, was not watering Egypt, when the spring rose up from the earth and satisfied not Egypt only, but the whole face of the earth.

7. 22. Or is it to be believed that God first willed to water the whole earth with one greatest spring, so that the things he had principally founded in it, having received the help of moisture, might now be born through temporal spans as well, with even different numbers of days according to the diversity of their kinds; and that afterward, when Paradise was planted, he repressed that spring, and filled the earth with many springs, as we now see; and from the one spring of Paradise divided four huge rivers—so that the rest of the earth too, full of the kinds of its creatures carrying out the fitting numbers of their times, might also have its own springs and rivers, while Paradise, planted in a more choice place, might send forth 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 for bringing forth, through the numbers of times, the kinds that he had created in it without intervals of times; and afterward repressed in that place the vast eruption of waters, so that they now flowed from the various sources of rivers and springs throughout the whole earth; and then, in the region of that spring—no longer watering the whole earth, but sending forth those four memorable rivers alone—he planted Paradise, where he might place the man he had made?

8. 23. For because not all things have been written—how, after that first founding of things, the times ran on, and there followed one another the administrations of creatures that were first made and completed on that sixth day, but only as much as the Spirit, who was in the one writing these things, judged sufficient, things that would avail not only for the knowledge of the things made, but also for the prefiguring of things to come—we, not knowing, conjecture what could have happened, which he, not unknowing, passed over.

Attempting only this, according to our measure, as far as we are helped: that no absurdity or contradiction be thought to be in the Holy Scriptures, which might offend the reader's opinion, so that, while he supposes that the things Scripture records as having been done could not have been done, he might either recoil from the faith or not approach the faith.

9. 24. Accordingly, when we ask about this spring how what was said, it rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth (Gen 2:6), may not seem impossible—if the things we have said seem impossible to anyone, let him seek something else by which this Scripture may nonetheless be shown true, which without doubt is true, even if it is not shown to be so.

For if he wishes to argue so as to convict it of being false, either he himself will say nothing true about the founding and administration of creatures; or, if he says what is true, he will, by not understanding it, suppose this Scripture false.

As if he should contend that the whole face of the earth could not have been watered by one spring, however great, for this reason: that if it did not water the mountains, it did not water the whole face of the earth; but if it watered the mountains too, then it was no longer a distribution of nourishment, but the inundation of a flood; and if the earth was then like that, it was all sea, and the dry land was not yet distinguished.

10. 25. To him it is answered that this could happen by alternations of times, just as at a certain time the Nile overflows across the plains of Egypt, and at another time returns to its banks; or if it is believed that this spring, I know not of what unknown and distant part of the world, gathers its yearly increase from waters and winter frosts—what can be said of the alternating tides of the Ocean, what of certain shores that are widely laid bare by the waves and in turn covered? to say nothing of what is reported about the marvelous alternation of certain springs, that at a fixed interval of years they so flood as to water that whole region, to which at another time they furnish water sufficient for drinking from deep wells. Why, then, should it be incredible if, from one source of the deep flowing and ebbing in alternating inundation, the whole earth was then watered?

But if, by the "magnitude of the deep" itself—excepting that part which is called sea, and surrounds the lands with evident breadth and bitter waves—in that part alone which the earth holds in hidden recesses, whence all the springs and rivers distribute themselves in various tracts and veins, and each bursts forth in its own places, Scripture wished to call it a spring, not springs, on account of the unity of its nature; and to describe it as rising up from the earth through countless ways of caverns and crevices, and everywhere, with its tresses as it were dispersed, watering the whole face of the earth, not in a continuous form like a sea or pool, but as we see the waters go through the channels of rivers and the windings of streams, and by their overflow drench what lies near—

who would not accept it, except one who toils with a contentious spirit?

For the whole face of the earth being watered can also be understood as said in the way "the whole face of a garment is colored" is said, even if it happens not continuously but in patches: especially because then, in the newness of the lands, even if not all, yet it is credible that more were level, where the bursting streams could be more widely dispersed and spread out.

10. 26. For this reason, concerning the magnitude or the multitude of this spring—which either had one eruption from somewhere, or, on account of some unity in the hidden recesses of the earth, whence all the waters of all springs great and small well up over the earth, was called one spring, rising up from the earth through all its distributions and watering the whole face of the earth.

Or even—what is more credible—because he did not say, "one spring rose up from the earth," but said, but a spring rose up from the earth (Gen 2:6), he set the singular for the plural number; so that we should thus understand many springs watering throughout the whole earth their own places or regions.

Just as "soldier" is said, and many are understood; as the "locust and frog" are spoken of "in the plagues (See Ps 105:34 (104:34))" by which the Egyptians were struck, when there was an innumerable number of locusts and frogs—let us now labor no further.

11. 27. But let us consider again and again whether the view by which we were saying can hold for us throughout: that God worked otherwise on all creatures in the first founding, from which works he rested on the seventh day; and otherwise on the administration of them, by which he is working still—that is, then all things at once without any intervals of temporal delays; but now through the delays of times, by which we see the stars move from rising to setting, the heaven change from summer to winter, the seeds sprout at fixed moments of days, grow large, grow green, grow dry.

And the animals too, by the appointed bounds and courses of times, are both conceived and brought to term and born, and run on through the ages until old age and death, and the rest of temporal things of this sort. For who works these things but God, even without any such movement 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 that he is working still, Scripture, interposing a certain joint of its narrative, indicated that it had unfolded the former, and began now to weave the latter. The commending of those unfolded works was made 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, nor was there a man to till the earth (Gen 2:4-5). But the weaving of the latter began thus: but a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth (Gen 2:6). From this recording of this spring and thereafter, the things that are narrated were made through the delays of times, not "all at once."

12. 28. Since, then, the unchangeable reasons of all creatures stand one way in the Word of God, those works of his from which he rested on the seventh day another way, and these which out of them he is working still another way—of these three, the one I have put last is in some manner known to us through the senses of the body and the custom of this life. But those two, removed from our senses and from the use of human thinking, are first to be believed on divine authority; then, through the things that are known, to be in some manner known, the more or less as each is able according to the measure of his capacity, with divine help that he may be able.

13. 29. As for those first divine, unchangeable, and eternal reasons, then, since the very Wisdom of God, through whom all things were made, knew them before they came to be, as Scripture attests: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (John 1:1-3). Who, then, would be so mad as to say that God did not make the things he knew?

Moreover, if he knew them, where but 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, that he should be repaid? For from him, and through him, and in him are all things (Rom 11:34-36).

13. 30. Yet the things that follow in the Gospel sufficiently assert this view: for the Evangelist adds and says, what was made, in him is life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:4). Because, namely, the rational minds—in which kind man was made to the image of God—do not have their true light except the very Word of God, through whom all things were made, of which they will be able to be partakers, cleansed from all iniquity and error.

14. 31. It ought not, then, to be pronounced thus, what was made in him, is life, so that we should make a subdivision, what was made in him, and then add, is life. For what was not made in him, when, after many earthly creatures too have been recorded, it is said in the Psalm, you made all things in Wisdom (Ps 104:24 (103:24)); and the Apostle too says, for in him all things were founded, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible (Col 1:16)? It will follow, then, if we punctuate it so, that the earth itself, and whatever is in it, are life. And since it is absurd to say that all these things live, how much more absurd that they are even life?—especially because he distinguishes of what sort of life he is speaking, when he adds, and the life was the light of men.

Thus, then, it is to be punctuated, so that 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 founded and a creature, but in him it is life, because all the things that were made through him he knew before they came to be; and thus in him they were, not as the creature that he made, but as the life and light of men, which is Wisdom itself, and the Word itself, the only-begotten Son of God. In that way, then, what was made is life in him, in the way it was said, as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself (John 5:26).

14. 32. Nor must it be passed over that the more correct manuscripts have, what was made, in him was life, so that was life is understood in the way in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1, 4). What, then, was made, already was life in him, and life not of any sort whatever; for beasts too are said to live, which cannot enjoy a sharing in wisdom; but the life was the light of men. For rational minds, purified by his grace, can arrive at that kind of vision, than which there is nothing higher, nothing more blessed.

15. 33. But even if we read and understand it thus, 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 thus "enumerating" all the things he made. Nor is his vision other than the Father's, but one, just as their substance is one.

For in the book of Job too the very Wisdom, through whom all things were made, is thus proclaimed: but wisdom, from where has it been found? Or what is the place of knowledge? Mortal man does not know its way, nor will it be found among men (Job 28:12-13).

And a little after he says, we have heard its glory; the Lord has commended its way, and he knows its place. For he beholds everything that is under heaven, and knows the things that are on the earth, all that he made: the balancings of the winds, the measures of the water—when he made them, as he saw, he enumerated them (Job 28:22-25).

By these and similar testimonies it is proved that all these things, before they came to be, were in the knowledge of their maker. And there indeed they are better, where they are truer, where they are eternal and unchangeable. Although it ought to be enough for anyone to know, or unshakably believe, that God made all these things, I do not think him so witless as to suppose that God made what he did not know. Moreover, if he knew them before he made them, then assuredly, before they came to be, they were "with him," known in the way they live everlastingly and unchangeably, and are life; but they were made in the way each creature exists in its own kind.

16. 34. Although, then, that eternal and unchangeable nature which God is, having in himself that he is, as was said to Moses, I am who am (Exod 3:14), is far otherwise than these things that have been made: since that truly and primarily is, which is always in the same way, and not only is not changed, but cannot at all be changed; being none of the things he made, and yet having all things primarily, as he himself is.

For he would not make them unless he knew them before he made them; nor would he know them unless he saw them; nor would he see them unless he had them; nor would he have the things that were not yet made, except in the way that he himself is not made.

Although, I say, that substance is ineffable, and cannot be uttered to man by man in any way, except by borrowing certain words of places and times, since he is before all times and before all places; nevertheless, he who made us is nearer to us than the many things that have been made. For in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28): but most of these things are removed from our mind on account of the unlikeness of their kind, since they are corporeal; nor is our mind itself capable of seeing them, in the very reasons by which they were made, with God, so that through this we might know how many and how great and of what sort they are, even if we do not see them through the senses of the body. For they are removed from the senses of our body, since they are far off, or are separated from our gaze and reach by other things set between or opposite.

From which it comes about that there is greater labor in finding them than in finding him by whom they were made, since it is, with incomparable felicity, more excellent to perceive him, even from however small a particle, with a devout mind, than to comprehend the whole of them. Whence in the book of Wisdom the searchers of this age are rightly blamed: for if they were able to avail so much that they could estimate the world, it says, how did they not more easily find its Lord (Wis 13:9)? For the foundations of the earth are unknown to our eyes, and he who founded the earth is near to our minds.

17. 35. Let us now consider the things that God made "all at once," from which, completed on the sixth day, he rested on the seventh, and afterward consider his works in which he is working still. For he himself is before the ages; but we say things are "from the age," from the time when the age began, like the world itself; and "in the age," like the things that are born "in the world."

When, then, Scripture had said, all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing; a little after it says, he was in this world, and the world was made through him (John 1:3, 10). Of this work of God it is written in another place, who made the world from formless matter (Wis 11:17).

This world is for the most part called by the name of heaven and earth, as we have already recorded, which Scripture says God made, when the day was made: about which words we have already disputed, as far as seemed good, how it fits the founding of this world, both that it was completed in six days with all that is in it, and that it was then made, when the day was made, so that that too may fit, that he created all things at once (Sir 18:1).

18. 36. Of this whole creation of God we do not know many things, whether those that are in the heavens too high for our sense to reach them, or those in regions of the lands perhaps uninhabitable, or those that lie hidden below, either in the depth of the deep, or in the hidden recesses of the earth. These things, then, before they came to be, certainly did not exist.

How, then, were the things that did not exist known to God? And again, how would he make the things that were not known to him? For he made nothing in ignorance. He made them, then, known; he did not come to know them once made. Accordingly, before they came to be, they both were and were not: they were in God's knowledge, they were not in their own nature.

And thus that day was made, to which they would become known in both ways, both in God and in themselves: to God by a morning or daytime knowledge, as it were, to themselves by an evening one, as it were. But of God himself I do not dare to say that they became known in another way, once he had made them, than in the way he knew them so as to make them, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of a moment (Jas 1:17).

19. 37. He certainly does not need messengers for the knowledge of lower things, as though through them he became more knowing; but in that simple and marvelous way he knows all things stably and unchangeably. Yet he has messengers for our sake and for their own; because in that way to obey and attend upon God—so as to consult him about lower things, and to comply with his supernal precepts and commands—is good for them in the order of their proper nature and substance. Messengers, moreover, are in Greek called angeloi; by which general name that whole supernal city is named, which we suppose to be the first day founded.

19. 38. For neither was that mystery of the kingdom of heaven hidden from them, which was revealed at the opportune time for our salvation, by which, freed from this pilgrimage, we may be joined to their company. For they would not be ignorant of this; since the very seed, which came at the opportune time, was ordained through them in the hand of the Mediator (See Gal 3:19)—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, was this grace given, to announce among the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to enlighten what is the dispensation of the mystery which was hidden from the ages in God, who created all things; that the manifold Wisdom of God might become known, through the Church, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the purpose of the ages, which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:8-11).

So, then, this was hidden from the ages in God, in such a way that nonetheless the manifold Wisdom of God might become known, through the Church, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places; because there is, first, that Church into which this Church too is to be gathered after the resurrection, so that we may be equal to the angels of God (See Matt 22:30). To them, then, it became known from the ages; because every creature is not before the ages, but from the ages.

For from creation itself the ages arose, and creation 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 (See Heb 1:2). And therefore, in the person of Wisdom, it says, before the ages he founded me (Prov 8:23 (LXX)); so that in her he might make all things, she to whom it was said, you made all things in Wisdom (Ps 104:24 (103:24)).

19. 39. But that what is hidden becomes known to the angels not only in God, but also appears to them here, when it is brought about and made public, the same Apostle is thus a witness: and without doubt, he says, great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, preached among the nations, believed in the world, taken up in glory (1 Tim 3:16). And, unless I am mistaken, it is to be wondered at if all the things that God is said to know as though for the present time are not said so for the reason that he makes them to be known, whether by angels or by men. For this manner of speaking, when by the agent that which is effected is signified, is frequent in the Holy Scriptures; especially when something is said of God which Truth herself, presiding over our minds, cries out does not befit him in the propriety of speech.

20. 40. Now, then, let us distinguish the works of God which he is working still from those works from which he rested on the seventh day. For there are some who suppose that only the world itself was made by God, and that the rest are now made by the world itself, as he ordained and commanded; but that God himself works nothing.

Against them is brought forward that saying of the Lord, My Father is working still. And lest anyone should suppose that he works something within himself, 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 the Son too gives life to whom he wills (John 5:17, 20-21).

Then, because he works not only the great and chief things, but even these earthly and lowest things, the Apostle says thus: foolish man, what you sow is not given life 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 of the rest; but God gives it a body as he has willed, and to each of the seeds its own body (1 Cor 15:36-38). So, then, let us believe, or, if we can, even understand, that God is working still, in such a way that if his working were withdrawn from the things founded by him, they would perish.

20. 41. But plainly, if we should suppose that he now establishes some creature in such a way that he did not insert its kind into that first founding of his, we openly contradict Scripture, which says that he completed all his works on the sixth day (See Gen 2:2). For according to those kinds of things which he first founded, it is evident that he makes many new things, which he did not then make. But that he establishes a new kind cannot rightly be believed, since he then completed all things.

And so he moves his whole creation by a hidden power, and by that movement, as it is turned about—while the angels carry out his commands, while the stars go round, while the winds alternate, while the deep is stirred by the fallings of its waters and by various massings even through the air, while the green things sprout and unfold their seeds, while the animals are born and lead their proper lives with their varied appetites, while the wicked are permitted to exercise the just—he unfolds the ages, which he had implanted in creation, as it were folded up, when it was first founded.

Which, however, would not be unfolded into their courses, if he who founded them ceased to administer them by his provident movement.

21. 42. But we ought to be admonished, by the things that are formed and born in time, how we ought to consider these matters. For it is not in vain written of Wisdom that to her lovers she shows herself joyfully in the ways, and in all providence meets them (Wis 6:16). Nor are those at all to be heeded who have supposed that the lofty parts of the world—that is, from the boundary of this denser air and above—are governed by divine providence, but that this lowest, earthly, and moist part, and of this nearer air which grows moist from the exhalations of the lands and waters, in which winds and clouds rise up, is rather driven by chances and fortuitous movements.

For against these speaks the Psalm, which, when it had unfolded the praise of heavenly things, also turned to these lower things, saying, praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all deeps; fire, hail, snow, ice, the storm-wind, which do his word (Ps 148:7-8).

For nothing seems so rolled about by chances as all those stormy and turbulent qualities, by which the face of this lower heaven—which is not undeservedly reckoned also by the name of "earth"—is varied and turned. But when he added, which do his word, he sufficiently showed that the order of these things too is subject to the divine command, and that it is rather hidden from us than lacking to the nature of the universe.

But what of this? When the Savior with his own mouth says that one sparrow does not fall to the earth without the will of God (See Matt 10:29), and that he himself clothes the grass of the field that is to be cast a little later into the oven (See Matt 6:30)—does he not confirm that not only this whole part of the world assigned to mortal and corruptible things, but even its meanest and most abject particles, are ruled by divine providence?

22. 43. And certainly those who deny this, and do not acquiesce in the holy words of such great authority, in this part of the world which they think is disturbed by fortuitous movements rather than ruled by the Wisdom of the divine Highness—and, to as it were "prove" this, abuse a twofold argument: either what I recorded above concerning the inconstancy of storms, or concerning the good and bad fortunes of men, which do not happen according to the merits of their lives.

If only they would see how great an order appears in the members of the flesh of any living thing—I do not say to physicians, who, for the necessity of their art, have examined these things diligently laid open and numbered, but to any man of even moderate heart and consideration—would they not cry out that not even for a moment of time does God, from whom is every measure of measures, every equality of numbers, every order of weights, cease from his governance?

What, then, more absurd, what more insipid, can be thought, than that the whole of that should be empty of the nod and rule of providence, whose lowest and tiniest things you may see formed with such arrangement that, when thought of somewhat more attentively, they strike one with an ineffable shudder of admiration?

And since the nature of the soul surpasses the nature of the body, what is more demented than to suppose that there is no judgment of divine providence concerning the conduct of men, when in their flesh such great signs of his skill shine forth and are demonstrated? But because these least things are at hand to our senses, and we easily investigate them, the order of things shines out in them: yet those things whose order we cannot see, those who think nothing exists except what they can see judge to be without order; or, if they think it exists, they think something of the sort they have been accustomed to see.

23. 44. But we, whose steps the same divine providence rules through Holy Scripture, lest we fall into that perversity, let us try, from the very works of God, with the same one helping, to track down where he created these things at once, when he rested from his completed works, whose forms he is working still through the order of times.

Let us consider, then, the beauty of any tree in its trunk, branches, foliage, fruits: this form certainly did not arise all at once so great and such, but in an order that we too know. For it rose from a root, which the first germination fixed in the earth; and thence all those things grew, formed and distinct. Moreover, that germination was from a seed: in the seed, then, all those things were first, not in the mass of corporeal magnitude, but in causal force and power. For that magnitude was heaped up from the abundance of earth and moisture.

But in the tiny grain there is a more marvelous and more excellent power, by which the adjacent moisture mixed with the earth, as matter, was able to be turned into the quality of that wood, into the spreading of branches, into the greenness and shape of leaves, into the forms and richness of fruits, and into the most ordered distinction of all. For what rises from or hangs on that tree which was not drawn out and brought forth from a certain hidden treasury of that seed?

But that seed is from a tree, though not that one but another, and that one again from another seed. Sometimes, however, a tree comes from a tree, when a shoot is taken and planted. Therefore both seed from tree, and tree from seed, and tree from tree. But seed from seed in no way, unless a tree intervenes first. A tree, however, comes from a tree, even if a seed does not intervene. By alternating successions, then, one comes from the other, but both from the earth, and not the earth from them: the earlier parent of them, therefore, is the earth. So too with animals, it can be uncertain whether the seeds are from them, or they from the seeds: yet whichever of these is earlier, it is most certain that it is from the earth.

23. 45. But just as in the grain itself there were invisibly all at once all the things that through times would rise into a tree, so the world itself is to be thought of as having had, when God created all things at once, all at once the things that were made in it and with it, when the day was made.

Not only heaven with sun and moon and stars, whose form abides in a wheeling motion, and earth and the deeps, which suffer as it were inconstant movements, and, joined below, confer the other part on the world; but also those things that water and earth brought forth potentially and causally, before they sprang up through the delays of times in the way they are now known to us in those works which God is working still.

23. 46. Since this is 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 (Gen 2:4): not in the way he does by the work by which he is working still, through rain and the farming of men (for to this is added, for God had not rained upon the earth, nor was there a man to till the earth (Gen 2:5)); but in that way by which he created all things at once, and completed them in the number six of days, when he made present the day that he made to the things he made six times, not by an alternating span temporally, but by ordered knowledge causally. From which works he rested on the seventh day, deigning to afford his rest too to the knowledge and joy of that same day: and therefore he blessed and sanctified not it in any work of his, but in his rest.

Whence, establishing no further creature, but governing and ruling by an administrative act the things that he made all at once, he works without ceasing, both resting and working at once, as these things have already been treated. Of these works of his that he is working still, through the volumes of times to be unfolded, Scripture, taking as it were a beginning of narration, says, but a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth (Gen 2:6). Since about this spring we have said what we thought ought to be said, let us consider the things that follow from another beginning.

1. 1. And God formed man, dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life; and man was made into a living soul (Gen 2:7). Here first it must be seen whether this is a recapitulation, so that it is now told how the man was made whom we read was made on that sixth day; or whether indeed, when he made all things at once, in these he also made man hiddenly, like the grass of the earth before it had sprung up.

So that in that way he too, when he already existed in a certain secret of nature, made otherwise—like the things he created at once when the day was made—might, with the advance of time, also be made in this way, in which he leads his life in this visible form, whether ill or well; just as the grass that was made before it sprang up over the earth, with time now advancing and with the watering of that spring, sprang up so as to be upon the earth.

1. 2. Let us, then, first try to take it according to recapitulation. For perhaps man was so made on the sixth day as the day itself was first made, as the firmament, as the earth and sea.

For these things must not be said to have lain hidden, already made in certain first beginnings, and then to have shone forth, as it were sprung up, with the advance of time, into this form in which the world was built up; but that from the beginning of the age, when the day was made, the world was founded, in whose elements were founded at once the things that would afterward, with the advance of time, spring up—whether shrubs, or any animals according to their kind.

For not even the stars themselves are to be believed to have been first made and stored away in the elements of the world, and afterward, with the advance of time, to have come forth and shone out into these forms that gleam from heaven; but all things were created at once by that number six of perfection, when the day was made.

Was man, then, so made—already in that visible form in which he lives and acts in his own nature, whether good or evil? Or was he too in hiding, like the grass of the field before it sprang up, so that this would be for him afterward, with the advance of time, to spring up—the fact that he was made from dust?

2. 3. Let us, then, take him as made on that sixth day in this visible form from clay, but at that time not recorded what is now suggested by recapitulation, and let us see whether Scripture itself agrees with us. For it is certainly written thus, when 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 air, and over all cattle, and all the earth, and all the 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 air, and all cattle, and all the earth, and all the reptiles creeping upon the earth (Gen 1:26-28).' Already, then, he had been formed from clay, and to him, now put into a deep sleep, the woman had been made from his side, but this had not been recorded which is now recorded by recapitulation.

For the male was not made on the sixth day, and the female afterward made with the advance of time; but he made him, it says; male and female he made them, and he blessed them. How, then, when the man was already established in paradise, was the woman made for him? Did Scripture recall this too, which had been passed over? For on that sixth day paradise too was planted, and there the man was placed and put into a deep sleep so that Eve might be formed, and she, formed, woke him, and he gave her a name. But these things could not happen except through temporal delays. They were not, then, made in the way all things were created at once.

3. 4. For however great a facility man may think of, by which God made these things too at once with the rest, we certainly know that the words of man cannot be uttered by the voice except through little temporal delays. When, then, we hear the words of the man, either when he gave a name to the living creatures, or to the woman, or when, following, he also said, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife; and the two will be in one flesh (Gen 2:24); in whatever syllables these things sounded, 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 all created at once?

And thus, either those "all things" too were made not at once from the very first beginning of the ages, but through delays and intervals of times, and that day, founded first not in a spiritual but in a corporeal substance, made morning and evening either by some going round of light, I know not how, or by emission and contraction.

Or, if—all the things treated in the foregoing discourses being considered—a probable reasoning persuaded that that day was a certain wise light, sublimely and first founded, called day, by whose presence, through ordered knowledge, the founding of things in the number six was afforded; and that to this view the words of Scripture agree, which 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 (Gen 2:4-5); and that what is written elsewhere also attests it, he who lives forever created all things at once (Sir 18:1).

There is no doubt that this fact—that man was formed from the dust of the earth, and a wife formed for him from his side—now belongs not to the founding by which all things were made at once, on whose completion God rested, but to that working which now happens through the volumes of the ages, by which he is working still.

3. 5. 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 led to him the animals for him to give them names—among which, when a help like himself had not been found, he then formed for him the woman, with a rib drawn out of him—sufficiently admonish 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, through the courses of times, he is working still. For when paradise was planted, it narrates thus: and God planted paradise in Eden toward the east, and put there the man he had formed. And God further brought forth from the earth every tree beautiful to the sight and good for food (Gen 2:8-9).

4. 5. When he says, then, he further brought forth from the earth every tree beautiful to the sight (Gen 2:9), he certainly makes plain that he now brought forth a tree from the earth in one way, and then in another, when on the third day the earth brought forth the herb of pasture, sowing seed according to its kind, and the fruitful tree according to its kind. For this is what he further brought forth means: namely, in addition to what he had already brought forth—then, of course, potentially and causally, in the work pertaining to creating all things at once, from which, completed, he rested on the seventh day; but now visibly, in the work pertaining to the course of times, as he is working still.

4. 6. Unless perhaps someone should say that not every kind of tree was created on the third day, but that something was deferred to be created on the sixth, when man was made and established in paradise. But what was created on the sixth day Scripture declares most openly: namely, "the living soul" according to each kind, of quadrupeds 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 nonetheless narrated to have been made on that very day, so as to suggest afterward, by recapitulation, in what way he had also been made—that is, from the dust of the earth, and the woman from his side; yet it could not pass over any kind of creature, whether in what God said, let it be made, or, let us make, or in what is said, so it was made, or, God made. Otherwise it was in vain that all things were so diligently distinguished through the individual days, if any suspicion of the mingling of days can remain—so that, since the herb and tree were attributed to the third day, we should believe that some trees were created on the sixth day too, which Scripture passed over in silence on that very sixth day.

5. 7. Finally, what shall we answer about the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, which God led to Adam, that he might see what he would call them? Which is written thus: and the Lord God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone; let us make for him a help like himself.' And God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the air, and led them to Adam, that he might see what he would call them: and whatever Adam called any living soul, that is its name. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and all the birds of the air, and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam there was not found a help like himself. And God cast a deep sleep upon Adam, and he slept, and 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 (Gen 2:18-22).

If, then, consequently, when among the cattle and beasts of the field and birds of the air no help like man had been found, God made for him a help like himself from the rib of his side; and this was done when he had further formed those same beasts of the field and birds of the air from the earth, and had led them to him: how can this be understood as done on the sixth day, since on that day the earth brought forth the living soul according to the word of God, while the birds the waters brought forth on the fifth day, likewise according to the word of God?

It would not, then, be said here, and God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the air, except because the earth had already brought forth all the beasts of the field on the sixth day, and the water all the birds of the air on the fifth day. Then, therefore, in one way—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 now in another way, as we see the things he creates through temporal spans, as he is working still.

And thus it was now through these most familiar days of corporeal light, which are made by the going round of the sun, that Eve was made from the side of her husband. For then God further formed from the earth beasts and birds, among which, when a help like Adam himself had not been found, she was formed. In days of this sort, then, God also formed him himself from clay.

5. 8. For it must not be said that the male was made on the sixth day, but the female on later days; since on that very sixth day it was said most openly, male and female he made them, and he blessed them (Gen 1:27-28), and the rest, which are said of both and to both.

In one way, then, both then, and now both in another way: then, namely, according to the power implanted in the world as it were seminally through the word of God, when he created all things at once, from which he rested on the seventh day, out of which all things would come to be, each in their own times, now through the order of the ages; but now according to the working to be afforded to the times, by which he is working still, and it was fitting that Adam now be made in his own time from the dust of the earth, and his woman from the side of the man.

6. 9. In this distribution of the works of God—partly belonging to those invisible days on which he created all things at once, partly to these days, on which he daily works whatever is unfolded in time out of those as out of primordial wrappings—if we have followed the words of Scripture not inopportunely and absurdly, which led us to distinguish these things, care must be taken lest, on account of the somewhat difficult perception of the things themselves, which slower minds are not capable of attaining, we be thought to mean and say something which we know we neither mean nor say.

For although in the preceding discourses I have, as far as I could, prepared the reader beforehand, yet I think that very many are in a fog in these passages, and suppose that man was so present beforehand in that work of God by which all things were created at once, that he led some kind of life, that he discerned, believed, understood God's speech directed to him, when God said, behold, I have given you every seed-bearing food (Gen 1:29). Let him, then, who thinks this know that I have neither meant nor said it.

6. 10. But again, if I say that man was not present in that first founding of things, by which God created all things at once, in the way there is not only a man of complete age, but not even an infant, nor only an infant, but not even a birth in the mother's womb, nor only this, but not even the visible seed of man—he will suppose that he was not there at all. Let him then return to Scripture; he will find that on the sixth day man was made to the image of God, and that male and female were made (See Gen 1:27). Likewise let him ask when the female 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 air; not when the waters brought forth the birds, and the earth brought forth the living soul, in which the beasts too are.

But then man was made, both male and female: therefore both then and afterward. For neither then and not afterward; nor, indeed, afterward and not then: nor were they others afterward, but the same ones, in one way then, in another way afterward. He will ask me "how." I will answer: "afterward visibly, as the form of human constitution is known to us; yet not by parents begetting, but he from clay, she from his rib." He will ask, "then how?" I will answer: "invisibly, potentially, causally, in the way things that are to be, not yet made, come to be."

6. 11. Here perhaps he will not understand. For there are withdrawn from him all the things he knows, down to the very corporeality of seeds. For man was not yet even any such thing, when he had been made in that first founding of the six days. There is given, indeed, from seeds a certain likeness for this matter, on account of the things sown in them as future; nevertheless, prior to all visible seeds are those causes: but he does not understand.

What, then, shall I do, except, as far as I can, admonish him wholesomely to believe the Scripture of God—both that man was made then, when God, when the day was made, made heaven and earth, of which Scripture elsewhere says, he who lives forever created all things at once (Sir 18:1); and then, when, creating now not all at once but each in their own times, he formed him from the dust of the earth, and from his bone the woman? For Scripture allows us to understand neither that they were made on that sixth day in this latter way, nor yet that they were not made on that sixth day.

7. 12. Perhaps, then, their souls had been made on that sixth day, where the image of God too is rightly understood in the spirit of their mind, so that the bodies might afterward be formed? But neither does the same Scripture allow us to believe this.

First, on account of that completion of the works; which I do not see how it can be understood, if something was then lacking, not founded causally, which afterward would be founded visibly.

Then, because the very sex of male and female can only be in bodies.

And if anyone should suppose that, according to understanding and action, both sexes as it were are to be taken in one soul, what will he do about the things that God gave for food on that very day from the fruits of the trees, which is certainly suited only to a man having a body? For if anyone should wish to take this food too figuratively, he will depart from the propriety of the deeds done, which in narratives of this sort must first of all be established with every observance.

8. 13. "How, then," he says, "did he speak to those who did not yet hear, nor understand, since there were not even any who would grasp the words?" I could answer that God addressed them in the way Christ addressed us, not yet born, even to be far in the future—and not only us, but also all those who will be after us. For he was speaking to all whom he saw would be his own: behold, I am with you until the consummation of the age (Matt 28:20): just as the prophet was known to God, to whom he said, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you (Jer 1:5); just as Levi was tithed while he was in the loins of Abraham (See Heb 7:9-10). For why not so Abraham too 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 the body, and take and consume temporal delays fitting to all their syllables; whereas 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 air, and over all cattle, and all the earth, and all the reptiles 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 air, and all cattle, and all the earth, and all the reptiles that creep upon the earth; and, behold, I have given you every seed-bearing food, sowing seed which is over all the earth, and every fruit-bearing tree, which has in itself the fruit of seed-bearing seed, which shall be for you for food (Gen 1:26-29)—his speech, before every sound of air, before every voice of flesh and cloud, in that supreme Wisdom of his, through which all things were made, was not as it were resounding in human ears, but was inserting into the things made the causes of the things to be made.

And by his almighty power he was making future things, and was founding man, to be formed in his own time, in the seed, as it were, or as it were the root, of times, when he was founding that from which the ages might begin, founded by him who is before the ages. For some creatures precede other creatures, some in time, some in their causes: but he precedes all the things he made, not only by the excellence by which he is also the effector of causes, but also by his eternity. But of this we must perhaps treat more fully afterward at more opportune places of the Scriptures.

9. 14. Now let what was begun concerning man be brought to an end, with this moderation preserved: that in the deep sense of Scripture we should exhibit the diligence of inquiry rather than the rashness of affirming. For that God knew Jeremiah before he formed him in the womb, it is not right to doubt: for he says most openly, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you (Jer 1:5). But where he knew him before he had so formed him—even if for our weakness it is difficult or impossible to attain—whether in certain nearer causes, as Levi was tithed in the loins of Abraham; or in Adam himself, in whom the human race was established as it were at the root; and in that very one, whether already when he had been formed from clay, or made causally in those works by which he created all things at once; or rather before all creation, as he chose and predestined his saints before the foundation of the world (See Eph 1:4); or rather in all the preceding causes, whether those I have recorded or those I have not recorded, before he was formed in the womb.

I do not think it ought to be inquired into more scrupulously, provided it is established that Jeremiah, from the time he was brought forth by his parents into this light, from that time led his own life, by which, growing with the advance of age, he could live either ill or well; but before, in no way—not only before he was formed in the womb, but not even already formed there, before he was born. For that Apostolic statement has no hesitation concerning the twins in Rebecca's womb who had not yet done anything good or evil (See Rom 9:11).

9. 15. Yet it is not written in vain that not even an infant is clean from sin, whose life is of one day upon the earth; and that in the Psalm, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother nourish me in the womb (Job 14:4 (LXX); Ps 51:5 (50:7)); and that in Adam all die, in whom all have sinned (See Rom 5:12).

But now let us hold clearly that—whatever merits of the parents are passed into the offspring, by whatever grace of God he may sanctify each before he is born—there is no iniquity with God, and no one does anything of good or evil pertaining to his own person before he is born; and that the view by which some suppose that souls sinned more or less elsewhere, and for the merits of their various sins were thrust down into various bodies, does not agree with the Apostolic statement; since it was said most openly that the not-yet-born did nothing either of good or of evil.

9. 16. And thus there is a certain question to be taken up again in its own place: what the whole mass of the human race has contracted from the sin of the first parents, who were two alone; yet that man could have had no such merits before he had been formed from the dust of the earth, before he lived in his own time, is no question. For just as Esau and Jacob, whom the Apostle said had, not yet born, done nothing of good or evil (See Rom 9:11), we could not say drew any merit from their parents, if the parents themselves had not done anything of good or evil; nor that the human race sinned in Adam, if Adam himself had not sinned; but Adam would not have sinned unless he were already living in his own time, in which he could live either well or ill.

Thus it is in vain that his sin, or his right action, is sought, when, still founded causally among the things created at once, he neither yet lived his own life, nor was in parents living thus. For in that first founding of the world, when God created all things at once, the man who was to be was made—the reason for creating man, not the act of one created.

10. 17. But these things are one way in the Word of God, where they are not made, but eternal; another way in the elements of the world, where all things made at once are future; another way in the things that, according to the causes created at once, are created not now at once but each in its own time, among which is Adam now formed from clay and "ensouled" by the breath of God, like the grass sprung up; another way in the seeds, in which again as it were primordial causes are repeated, drawn from the things that came to exist according to the causes which he first founded, as the herb from the earth, the seed from the herb.

In all of which those things, now made, have received the modes and acts of their own time, which from the hidden and invisible reasons that lie causally in creation have come forth into manifest forms and natures: as the herb sprung up over the earth, and man made into a living soul, and the rest of this kind, whether shrubs or animals, belonging to that working of God by which he is working still. But these too carry with them as it were themselves again invisibly, in a certain hidden power of generating, which they have drawn out of those first beginnings of their causes, in which they were inserted when the world was created when the day was made, before they sprang up into the manifest form of their kind.

11. 18. For if those first works of God, when he created all things at once, were not perfect in their own mode, then without doubt there would be added afterward the things that had been lacking to their perfecting; so that a certain perfection of the universe would consist of the individual halves, as it were, of both, as though they were parts of some whole, by whose joining the whole itself, of which they were parts, would be completed. Again, if those things were so perfect as they are perfected when each is brought forth in its own times into manifest forms and acts, then assuredly either nothing would afterward be made from them through times, or that would be made which, from these things that now arise each in their own time, God does not cease to work.

But now, because the very things "that were to be unfolded in the following" times are both in a manner completed and in a manner begun, God first created all things at once, when he made the world: completed indeed, because those things have nothing in their proper natures, by which they carry out the courses of their own times, which was not made causally in these; but begun, since there were certain things as it were seeds of things to come, to be put forth through the span of the age from the hidden into the manifest in fitting places: the very words of Scripture too are vigorous enough to admonish us of this remarkably, if anyone keep awake in them.

For it says they were both completed and begun: for unless they had been completed, it would not be written, and heaven and earth were completed, and all their array: and God completed on the sixth day his works which he made; and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it (Gen 2:1-3); and again, unless they had been begun, it would not so follow that on that day he rested from all his works which God began to make (Gen 2:3).

11. 19. Here, then, if anyone should inquire how he completed and how he began—for he did not complete some things and begin others, but assuredly the very same things from which he rested on the seventh day—it is clear from the things we have said above. For we understand that God completed these things when he created all things at once so perfectly that nothing was yet to be created by him in the order of times which had not here already been created by him in the order of causes; but that he began them, so that what he had here prefixed in the causes he might afterward fulfill in their 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 he breathed or blew into his face the spirit of life, and man was made into a living soul (Gen 2:7). Not then predestined; for this was before the age in the foreknowledge of the Creator: nor then causally either begun in a completed way or completed in a begun way; 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 body, invisibly in soul, consisting of soul and body.

12. 20. Now, then, let us see how God made him—first his body, from the earth; afterward we will also see about the soul, if we are able at all. For that God formed man from clay with corporeal hands is too childish a thought, so that, if Scripture had said this, we ought rather to believe that the one who wrote it used the word in a transferred sense, than that God was bounded by such outlines of members as we see in our bodies. For it is said, your hand scattered the nations (Ps 44:2 (43:3)); and, you led out your people with a strong hand and a lofty arm (Ps 136:11-12 (135:11-12)); but who is so foolish as not to understand that the name of this member is put for the power and might of God?

12. 21. Nor is that to be heeded which some suppose: that man is for this reason the chief work of God, because he spoke the rest, and they were made, but this one he himself made; but rather for this reason, because he made this one to his own image. For those things that he spoke and they were made—it is written so for the reason that they were made through his Word, just as through a man it was possible to say to men, in words that are thought temporally and uttered by the voice. But God does not so speak, except when he speaks through a corporeal creature, as to Abraham, as to Moses, as through the cloud about his Son. But before all creation, that creation might exist, it was said by that Word which in the beginning was God with God: and because all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (See John 1:3), certainly man too was made through him.

For certainly he made heaven by his word, because he spoke and it was made: yet it is written, and the heavens are the works of your hands (Ps 102:25 (101:26)). And of this lowest as it were floor of the world it is written, for the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands formed the dry land (Ps 95:5 (94:5)). Let it not, then, be reckoned to the honor of man, as though God spoke the rest, and they were made, but this one he himself made; or made the rest by his word, but this one with his hands. But this is excellent in man, that God made man to his own image, for this reason: that he gave him an intellectual mind, by which he excels the beasts; whereof we have already discoursed in an earlier place.

Placed in which honor, if he does not understand, so as to act well, he will be likened to those same beasts over which he was set. For it is so written: man, placed in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts, and was made like them (Ps 49:12 (48:13)). For God made the beasts too, but not to his own image.

12. 22. Nor must it be said, "man he himself made, but the beasts he commanded, and they were made": for he made both this one and those through his Word, through which all things were made. But because the same Word is both his Wisdom and his 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, also says that he formed the beasts of the field from the earth, when he led them, with the birds of the air, to Adam, that he might see what he would call them. For it is so written: and God further formed from the earth all the beasts (Gen 1:25). If, then, he himself formed both man from the earth and the beasts from the earth, what has man more excellent in this matter, except that he himself was created to the image of God? Yet not according to the body, but according to the understanding of the mind, of which we will speak later.

Although even in his very body he has a certain property that indicates this: that he was made of upright stature, so that by this very thing he might be admonished not to pursue earthly things, like the beasts, whose every pleasure is from the earth, whence they are all bent down and prostrate toward the belly. His body too, then, agrees with the rational soul, not according to the outlines and shapes of its members, but rather according to the fact that it is raised toward heaven, to behold the things that are on high in the body of the world itself: just as the rational soul ought to be raised toward those things which most excel in nature among spiritual things, so as to relish the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth (See Col 3:2).

13. 23. But how did God make him from the clay of the earth—suddenly in a perfect age, that is, manly and youthful, or as he now still forms in mothers' wombs? For no other does these things than he who said, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you (Jer 1:5): so that Adam had only this as his own, that he was not born from parents, but made from the earth; yet in such a way that, in the perfecting of him and the increasing through "ages," there were fulfilled those numbers of times which we see assigned to the natures of the human race. Or rather is this not to be inquired into? For whichever of the two he did, he did what it befitted God, both almighty and wise, to be able to do and to do.

For he so assigned fixed laws of times to the kinds and qualities of things to be brought from the hidden into the manifest, that his will is over all. For by his power he gave the numbers to creation; he did not bind that power itself by those same numbers. For his Spirit was borne over the world in making it in such a way that it is borne over it once made too, not by corporeal places, but by the excellence of power.

13. 24. For who does not know that water absorbed by the earth, when it comes to the roots of the vine, is drawn into the nourishment of that wood, and takes in it the quality by which it advances, little by little bursting forth, into a grape; and as that grows large, wine is made, and ripening grows sweet, which as yet ferments when pressed, and, strengthened by a certain age, comes to the use of drinking more usefully and pleasantly? Did the Lord, then, seek wood or earth, or these delays of times, when by a marvelous shortcut he turned water into wine, and such wine that even a drunken guest would praise it (See John 2:9)?

Did the founder of time need the help of time? Is it not by fixed numbers of days adapted each to its own kind that the whole nature of serpents grows together, is formed, is born, is strengthened? Were these days awaited, that the rod might be turned into a dragon from the hand of Moses and Aaron (See Exod 7:10)? 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 this is nature, what he has done.

14. 25. But it can rightly be asked how those causal reasons, which he implanted in the world when he first created all things at once, were established: whether so that, as we see all things being born, whether of shrubs or of animals, in their conformings and increases, carry out their various spans of times according to the diversity of their kinds; or so that, as Adam is believed to have been made without any progress of increases at a manly age, they were formed all at once? But why do we not believe that they had both, so that there would be from them what had pleased their maker?

For if we say it in the former way, not only that water into wine, but also all the miracles that happen against the usual course of nature, will begin to seem done against these very reasons: but if in the latter way, it will be much more absurd that these very daily forms and appearances of nature carry out the spans of their own times against those primary causal reasons of all things being born.

It remains, then, that they were created apt for both modes: whether for this one by which temporal things run their course most usually, or for that one by which rare and marvelous things happen, as it pleased God to do what befits the time.

15. 26. Nonetheless, man was made in the way those first causes had it that the first man should be made—who had to be not born from parents, since none had preceded him, but formed 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: in which, when he is said to have been made, God had certainly made the very cause by which there was to be a man in his own time, and according to which he was to be made by him who had both completed the things begun, on account of the perfection of the causal reasons, and begun the things to be completed, on account of the order of times.

If, then, in those first causes of things, which the Creator first inserted into the world, he placed not only that he would form man from clay, but also in what manner he would form him—whether as in a mother's womb, or in a youthful form—then without doubt he so made him as he had prefixed there; for he would not act against his own arrangement.

But if he placed there only the force of possibility, that man should come to be in whatever way he came to be, so that he could be both this way and that—that is, that this too was there, because he could be both this way and that; but reserved the one mode by which he was going to make him in his own will, not weaving it into the founding of the world—it is manifest that even thus man was not made against what was in that first founding of causes; because there was there also the possibility of his being made thus, although there was not there the necessity of his being made thus: for this was not in the founding of creation, but in the good pleasure of the Creator, whose will is the necessity of things.

16. 27. For we too, according to the grasp of human weakness, can already, in the very things that have arisen in time, know what is in the nature of each, which we have perceived by experience; but whether it also will be, we do not know. For it is in the nature of this youth, for example, that he should grow old; but whether this is also in God's will, we do not know. Yet it would not be in his nature, unless it had first been in the will of God, who founded all things.

And certainly the reason of old age is hidden in the youthful body, or of youth in the boyish body: for it is not discerned by the eyes, as boyhood itself in the boy, as youth in the youth; but by a certain other knowledge it is gathered that there is in the nature something latent, by which the hidden numbers are brought into the open—whether of youth from boyhood, or of old age from youth. Hidden, then, is that reason by which it comes about that this can be—but to the eyes; to the mind it is not hidden: but whether this is also necessary, we in no way know. And that reason by which it comes about that it can be, we know to be in the nature of the body itself: but that reason by which it comes about that it is necessary, it is manifest is not there.

17. 28. But perhaps it is in the world, that it is necessary that this man grow old. But if it is not even in the world, it is in God. For that will necessarily be which he wills, and those things are truly future which he has foreknown.

For many things are future according to lower causes; but if they are so also in the foreknowledge of God, they are truly future: but if they are there otherwise, then they are future rather as they are there, where he who foreknows cannot be deceived.

For old age is said to be future in the youth, but yet it is not future, if he is going to die first: but this will be as the other causes have it, 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 (See Isa 38:5; 2 Kgs 20:6); certainly doing that which before the foundation of the world he foreknew he would do, and reserved in his own will. He did not, then, do what was not future: for this was rather future, which he foreknew he would do.

And yet those years would not rightly be said to be added, unless they were added to something that had stood otherwise in the other causes. According to some lower causes, then, he had already finished his life: but according to those that are in the will and foreknowledge of God, who from eternity knew what he would do at that time (and this was truly future), he was going to finish his life then, when he did finish his life.

Because even though it was granted to him as he prayed, that very thing—that he would pray in such a way that it would be fitting for such a prayer to be granted—he assuredly foreknew, whose foreknowledge could not be deceived: and therefore what he foreknew was necessarily future.

18. 29. For this reason, if the causes of all future things are implanted in the world, when that day was made, when God created all things at once, then Adam was made no otherwise, when he was formed from clay—as is more credible, already of complete manhood—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 so made, but also that it was necessary that he be so made. For God did not act against a cause which he had without doubt willingly preestablished, any more than he acts against his own will.

But if he did not prefix all the causes in the creation first founded, but reserved some in his own will, then those that he reserved in his own will are indeed not dependent on the necessity of those that he created: yet the ones he reserved in his own will cannot be contrary to those he established by his will; because God's will cannot be contrary to itself. He founded the latter, then, in such a way that from them that whose causes they are can be, but need not be: but he hid the former in such a way that from them it is necessary that this be, which from the latter he made so that it could be.

19. 30. It is likewise usually asked whether the body first formed for man from clay was an animal one, such as we now have, or a spiritual one, such as we will have when we rise.

For although this will be changed into that—for an animal body is sown, a spiritual body rises—yet what was first made for man is disputed for this reason: that if an animal one was made, we will not receive what we lost in him, but something as much better as the spiritual is to be set before the animal, when we will be equal to the angels of God (See Matt 22:30).

But the angels can be set before others even in righteousness; can they also be set before the Lord? Yet of him it was said, you made him a little lower than the angels (Ps 8:5 (8:6)). For what reason, except on account of the weakness of the flesh which he took from the Virgin, receiving the form of a servant (See Phil 2:7), in which, dying, he might redeem us from slavery? But why should we discourse on this at greater length?

For the Apostle's view on this matter is not obscure; who, when he wished to bring forward a testimony to prove that there is an animal body, recalled and brought forward not so much from his own or any man's body, which was seen in the present, as from this very passage of this Scripture, saying, if there is an animal body, there is also a spiritual one; for thus it is written, 'the first man Adam was made into a living soul; the last Adam into a life-giving spirit. But not first what is spiritual, but what is animal; afterward, the spiritual. The first man, of the earth, earthy; the second man, from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthy, such are the earthy also; and as is the heavenly, such are the heavenly also. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us bear also the image of him who is from heaven (1 Cor 15:44-49).' What can be said to this?

The image of the heavenly man, then, we now bear by faith, going to have in the resurrection what we believe: but the image of the earthly man we put on from the very beginning of human generation.

20. 31. Here another question occurs: how are we renewed, if we are not recalled through Christ to what we were before in Adam? For although many things are renewed not into their former state but into something better, yet they are renewed from a lower state than the one they were in before. Whence, then, was that son dead, and lived again; had perished, and was found (See Luke 15:32): whence is the first robe brought out to him, if he does not receive the immortality that Adam lost? But how did Adam lose immortality, if he had an animal body? For it will not be an animal body, but a spiritual one, when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality (See 1 Cor 15:53).

Some, hemmed in by these straits—so that both that view may stand by which the example of an animal body was given from here, so that it was said, the first man Adam was made into a living soul (1 Cor 15:45); and that this renewal and reception of immortality may not absurdly be said to be future into the former state, namely into that which Adam lost—have supposed that man was indeed at first of an animal body; but that, while he was established in paradise, he was changed, just as we too will be changed in the resurrection. The book of Genesis does not record this; but, so that both testimonies of the Scriptures may be able to agree with one another—both that which was said of the animal body, and those very many things that are found in the Holy Writings about our renewal—they have believed that this follows as it were necessarily.

21. 32. But if this is so, it is in vain that we try to take paradise and those trees and their fruits, apart from a figurative meaning, first according to the propriety of the deeds done. For who would believe that foods of that kind, from the fruits of the trees, could have been necessary to immortal and spiritual bodies? Nevertheless, if nothing else can be found, we choose rather to understand paradise spiritually than either to suppose that man is not renewed, although Scripture so often records this, or to think that he receives what he is not shown to have lost. To this is added that the very death of man—which many divine testimonies declare he merited by sin—indicates that he would have been without death, unless he had sinned. How, then, mortal without death? Or how not mortal, if an animal body?

22. 33. Hence some suppose that he merited by sin not the death of the body, but the death of the soul, which iniquity wrought. For they believe that, on account of his animal body, he would have gone out of this body—namely to the rest which the saints who have already fallen asleep now have—and at the end of the age would receive the same members immortally; so that, evidently, the death of the body might seem to have happened not from sin, but naturally, as for the other animals.

But the Apostle again meets these and says, the body indeed is dead on account of sin, but the spirit is life on account 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 give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you (Rom 8:10-11). And thus the death even of the body is from sin. If, then, Adam had not sinned, he would not die even in body; and therefore he would have an immortal body too. How, then, immortal, if animal?

23. 34. But again, those who suppose that his body was changed in paradise, so that from animal it became spiritual, do not see that there is nothing to prevent—if he had not sinned—that after the life of paradise, which he would have lived justly and obediently, he should receive that same change of body in eternal life, where he would no longer need corporeal foods.

Why, then, is it necessary on this account to be forced now to understand paradise figuratively, not properly, because the body could not die except by sin? It is indeed true that he would not die even in body, unless he had sinned; for the Apostle says openly, the body dead on account of sin (Rom 8:10): yet it could be animal before sin, and after the life of righteousness, when God willed, become spiritual.

24. 35. "How, then," they say, "are we said to be renewed, if we do not receive what the first man lost, in whom all die?" This we plainly receive in a certain way, and do not receive in a certain way. We do not, then, receive the immortality of the spiritual body, which man did not yet have; but we receive the righteousness from which man fell by sin. We will 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 will be made equal to the angels of God (See Matt 22:30), fit for the heavenly dwelling, where we will not need the food that perishes. We are renewed, then, in the spirit of our mind (See Eph 4:23), according to the image of him who created us, which Adam lost by sinning. But we will be renewed also in the flesh, when this corruptible puts on incorruption (See 1 Cor 15:53-54), so that there is a spiritual body; into which Adam was not yet changed, but was to be changed, unless by sinning he had merited the death even of the animal body.

24. 36. Finally, the Apostle does not say, "the body indeed mortal on account of sin"; but, the body dead on account of sin (Rom 8:10).

25. 36. For before sin he could be called both mortal according to one cause, and immortal according to another: that is, mortal, because he could die; immortal, because he could not die. For it is one thing not to be able to die, as God created certain immortal natures; but another thing to be able not to die, according to which mode the first man was created immortal—which was afforded him from the tree of life, not from the constitution of his nature: from which tree he was separated when he had sinned, so that he could die, who, unless he had sinned, could not die.

He was, then, mortal by the condition of the animal body, but immortal by the benefit of the Founder. For if the body was animal, it was certainly mortal, because it could even die; though immortal also, for the reason that it could even not die. For that which can in no way die will not be immortal except as spiritual, which is promised to be ours in the resurrection. And thus that animal—and on this account mortal—body, which on account of righteousness would become spiritual and on this account in every way immortal, was made, on account of sin, not mortal, which it was before too, but dead—which could have not come to be, if man had not sinned.

26. 37. How, then, does the Apostle call our body dead, when he was still speaking of the living, except 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 is now, in the very kind of animal body, much worse: for it has the necessity of dying, which that one did not have. For although it still remained that it be changed, and, made spiritual, receive full immortality, where it would not need corruptible food; yet if man lived justly, and his body were changed into a spiritual condition, it would not go into death.

But in us, even living justly, the body is going to die; and on account of this necessity, coming from the sin of that first man, the Apostle called our body not mortal but dead, because we all die in Adam (See Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22). Likewise he says, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off, according to your former way of life, the old man; him who is corrupted according to the desires of deception (Eph 4:21-22); that is, Adam made so by sin. See, then, what follows: but be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man; him who was created according to God, in righteousness and the holiness of truth (Eph 4:23-24): behold what Adam lost by sin.

27. 37. 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 will be renewed into something better, which Adam was not yet.

27. 38. The Apostle likewise says, stripping off the old man with his acts, put on the new, who is renewed unto the knowledge of God, according to the image of him who created him (Col 3:9-10). This image, impressed on the spirit of the mind, Adam lost by sin; which we receive through the grace of righteousness—not the spiritual and immortal body, in which he was not yet, and in which all the saints rising from the dead will be: for this is the reward of that merit which he lost. Accordingly, that first robe (See Luke 15:22) is either the very righteousness from which he fell; or, if it signifies the garment of corporeal immortality, even this he so lost, since on account of sin he could not arrive at it. For a man is said to have lost both a wife and an honor, who did not receive what he hoped for, having offended the one from whom he hoped for it.

28. 39. According to this view, then, Adam had an animal body, not only before paradise, but also when established in paradise: although in the inner man he was spiritual, according to the image of him who created him; which he lost by sinning, and merited also the death of the body, who by not sinning would have merited even the change into a spiritual body. For if he lived animally even within, we cannot be said to be renewed to that very state of his. For those to whom it is said, be renewed in the spirit of your mind (Eph 4:23), it is said to them that they may become spiritual: but if he was not spiritual even in his very mind, how are we renewed to that which man never was?

But the apostles and all the just still certainly had an animal body, yet they nonetheless lived spiritually within; renewed, namely, "unto the knowledge of God, according to the image of him who created them": yet not for that reason were they now unable to sin, if they consented to iniquity. For the Apostle shows that even the spiritual can fall in the temptation of sin, where he says, brothers, if a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted (Gal 6:1). I have said this, lest it seem to anyone impossible that Adam sinned, if he was spiritual in mind, although he was animal in body.

Since this is so, we nonetheless affirm nothing as yet too hastily, but rather wait to see whether the rest of Scripture too does not hinder this understanding.

29. 40. For there follows a very difficult question about the soul, on which many have labored, and have left us where we may labor. For whether because I have not been able to read all the writings of all who, on this matter according to the truth of our Scriptures, have been able to arrive at something clear and least doubtful; or because the question is so great that even those who solve it truly are not easily understood by such as I am myself: I confess that no one has yet persuaded me to hold such a view about the soul that I should think nothing further to be inquired. But whether I shall now find and define anything certain, I do not know. Yet what I can, if the Lord helps my effort, I will take care to unfold in the following volume.

1. 1. And God formed man, dust from the earth, and blew into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul (Gen 2:7). These words of Scripture we had proposed for consideration at the beginning of the earlier book too, and we have discoursed about the man made, and especially about his body, as far as we judged sufficient, on what seemed good according to the Scriptures. But because the question about the human soul is no small one, we thought it should be deferred to this book, not knowing how much the Lord would help us who desire to speak rightly; yet knowing this, that we would not speak rightly except as far as he himself helped. But to speak rightly is to speak truthfully and fittingly, refuting nothing boldly, affirming nothing rashly while it is still doubtful whether it is true or false, whether of faith or of Christian knowledge; but asserting without hesitation what can be taught either by the most evident reason of things or by the most certain authority of the Scriptures.

1. 2. And first let us consider what is written, he blew, or, he breathed into his face the breath of life (Gen 2:7). For some manuscripts have, he breathed, or, he inbreathed into his face. But since the Greek has enephysesen, there is no doubt that he blew or he breathed must be said. But we were inquiring in the earlier discourse about the hands of God, when man was thought of as formed from clay: what, then, is now to be said in the matter of what is written, God breathed, except that, just as he did not form with the hands of a body, so neither did he breathe with throat or lips?

1. 3. Nevertheless, by this word Scripture, in a most difficult question, helps us very greatly, as I think.

2. 3. For since some, from this word, have believed that the soul is something of the very substance of God—that is, of the same nature as he is—supposing this for the reason that, when a man blows, he casts out something of himself in the breath, we are rather to be admonished from this to reject this view, hostile to the Catholic faith. For we believe that the nature and substance of God, which in the Trinity is believed by many, understood by few, is wholly unchangeable. But who doubts that the nature of the soul can be changed, whether for the worse or for the better? And thus it is a sacrilegious opinion to believe that it and God are of one substance. For what else, in this way, than that he too is believed changeable? It is therefore to be believed, and understood, and in no way to be doubted, what the right faith holds: that the soul is from God as a thing he made, not as of the nature which he himself is, whether he begot it or in any way brought it forth.

3. 4. And how, they say, is it written, he breathed into his face, and man was made into a living soul; if the soul is not a part of God, or God's substance altogether?

Indeed rather, from this word it appears sufficiently that it is not so. For when a man breathes, the soul itself certainly moves the nature of the body lying beneath it, and makes a breath from that, not from itself. Unless perhaps these people are so dull as not to know that by this reciprocal breathing, which we draw in and give back from this air poured around us, a breath also comes to be, when we breathe by our will. But if, even not from this air which lies outside, received and given back, but from the nature of our own body of which it consists, we cast out something by breathing, the nature of the body and of the soul is not the same; which these people too certainly admit. For this reason, even so, the substance of the soul, which rules and moves the body, is one thing; the breath, which by ruling or moving it makes from the body subject to it, not from itself to which the body is subject, is another.

Since, then, although in a way far incomparable, yet the soul rules the subject body, and God the subject creation, why is it not rather understood that God made the soul from the creation subject to him in the fact that he is said to have breathed; since the soul itself, although it does not so rule its body as God rules the universe he founded, yet by its movement makes a breath, not from its own substance?

3. 5. We could indeed say that the soul of man is not even the breath of God itself, but that God by breathing made the soul in man: but lest the things he made by his word be thought better than what he made by his breath—because in us too the word is better than the breath—there is meanwhile, according to the reason stated above, nothing to make us doubt to call the soul itself the breath of God, provided it be understood not to be the nature and substance of God, but that this very thing is to breathe, which is to make a breath; and to make a breath is to make a soul.

With which view agrees what God says through Isaiah, for the spirit will go forth from me, and I have made every breath (Isa 57:16 (LXX)); for that he does not mean any corporeal breath whatever, the following words teach. For when he had said, I have made every breath; and on account of sin, he says, I saddened him a little, and struck him (Isa 57:17 (LXX)). What, then, does he call breath, but the soul, which on account of sin was struck and saddened? What, therefore, is, I have made every breath, but, "I have made every soul"?

4. 6. If, then, we were to say that God is as it were the soul of this corporeal world, to which the world itself were as it were the body of one living being, we would rightly say that he made the soul of man by breathing only a corporeal one, from this air lying beneath him, from his own body: yet we ought not to suppose that he gave from himself what he gave by breathing, but so from the air subject to him, of his own body, as the soul similarly makes a breath from a thing of this kind lying near—that is, from the body, not from itself. But now, because we say that not only the body of the world is subject to God, but that he is above every creature, whether corporeal or spiritual, he must be believed to have made the soul by breathing neither from himself nor from the corporeal elements.

5. 7. But whether from that which was not at all—that is, from nothing—or from some thing which had already been made by him spiritually, but was not yet soul, can rightly be asked. For if we do not believe that God still creates anything from nothing, after he created all things at once, and on this account believe that he rested from all the completed works which he had begun to make, so that whatever he afterward made, he might make from these—I do not see how we are to understand that he still makes souls from nothing. Or must it be said 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 already existing he created the reasons of other natures to come, not the natures themselves? Otherwise, if they had already been created there as they were to be, would they still be to come? But if this is so, there was not yet in the founded things any nature of the human soul, and it then began to be, when God made it by breathing, and put it into man.

5. 8. But the question is not thereby removed, by which it is still asked whether he created from nothing that nature which is called soul, and which did not exist before—as though the breath itself were not made from some underlying substance, as we were saying of the breath which the soul makes from its body; but the breath was then made wholly from nothing, when God willed to breathe, and the same was made the soul of man: or whether there was already something spiritual, although this, whatever it was, was not yet the nature of soul, and from this the breath of God was made which would be the nature of the soul; just as the nature of the human body was not yet, before God had formed it from the clay or dust of the earth. For the human flesh was not dust or clay; but yet there was something from which it might be made, which was not yet.

6. 9. Is it, then, credible that in those first works of the six days God founded not only the causal reason of the future human body, but also the matter from which it would be made—that is, the earth, from whose clay or dust it would be formed; but of the soul founded there only the reason according to which it would be made, not also a certain matter, after its kind, from which it would be made? For if the soul were something unchangeable, we ought in no way to seek its matter, as it were: but now its changeableness sufficiently indicates that it is meanwhile rendered deformed by faults and falsehoods, but is formed by virtues and the teaching of truth, yet in its own nature by which it is soul; just as flesh too, in its own nature by which it is now flesh, is both adorned by health and disfigured by diseases and wounds.

But just as flesh—apart from the fact that it is already flesh, in which nature it either advances so as to be beautiful, or fails so as to be deformed—had also matter, that is, earth, from which it would be made, so as to be flesh at all: so perhaps the soul too, before it became that very nature which is called soul, whose beauty is virtue and whose deformity is vice, could have some matter after its kind, spiritual, which was not yet soul; just as the earth from which flesh was made was already something, although it was not flesh.

6. 10. But the earth filled the lowest part of the world, before the body of man was made from it, conferring on the universe the whole of itself, so that even if no flesh of any living thing were made from it, yet by its own form it filled out the fabric and mass of the world, according to which the world is called heaven and earth.

7. 10. But that spiritual matter, if there was any from which the soul would be made, or if there is any from which souls are made—what is it itself? What name, what form, what use does it hold among the founded things? Does it live, or not? If it lives, what does it do? What does it confer on the effects of the universe? Does it lead a blessed life, or a wretched one, or neither? Does it give life to anything? Or is it free even from this work, and does it rest idle in some secret of the universe, without waking sense and vital movement?

For if there was as yet no life at all, how would there be a certain incorporeal and non-living matter of future life? Either it is false, or it lies too deeply hidden. But if it already lived neither blessedly nor wretchedly, how was it rational? But if it was then made rational, when out of that matter the nature of the human soul was made, then was an irrational life the matter of the rational—that is, the human—soul? What, then, distinguished it from that of a beast? Or was it rational already in possibility, not yet in faculty? For if we see that the soul of an infant—already certainly the soul of a man—has not yet begun to use reason, and yet we already call it rational; why should it not be believed that, in that matter from which it was made, the movement even of sensing was at rest, just as in this infant soul, which certainly is already the soul of a man, the movement of reasoning is as yet at rest?

8. 11. For if the life from which the soul of man was made was already blessed, then it was made worse: and therefore that is now not the matter of this, but this is a flowing-down of that. For when any matter is formed, especially by God, it is without doubt formed for the better. But even if the human soul could be understood as the flowing-down of some life made blessed by God, not even so was it to be believed to have begun to be in some act of its own merits, except from the time it began to lead its own life, when, being made a soul, it gave life to flesh, and, using its senses as messengers, and feeling itself to live within itself by its own will, understanding, and memory. For if there is something from which God would breathe this flowing-down into the formed flesh, as it were making a soul by breathing, and the same is blessed; it is in no way moved, or changed, or loses anything, when this flows down from it, from which the soul is made.

9. 11. For it is not a body, that it should be diminished as it were by exhaling.

9. 12. But if an irrational soul is in a manner the matter from which the rational—that is, the human—soul is made, then again it is asked whence the irrational one itself is made; because this too is made by none but the creator of all natures. Is it from corporeal matter? Why not then this one too? Unless perhaps someone will deny that God can do by a shortcut what is granted to be done as it were gradually. Accordingly, whatever intermediate step be applied, if a body is the matter of the irrational soul, and the irrational soul is the matter of the rational soul, then without doubt a body is the matter of the rational soul. Which I know no one ever dared to hold, except one who puts the soul itself in the class of some body.

9. 13. Then care must be taken lest it be believed that a certain transference of the soul can happen from a beast into a man (which is wholly contrary to truth and the Catholic faith), if we should grant that an irrational soul lies beneath as matter, as it were, from which the rational soul is made. For thus it would come about that, if this is changed for the better, it will be a man's; that one too, changed for the worse, would be a beast's. At which mockery of certain philosophers even their successors blushed, and said that they did not mean this, but were not rightly understood.

And I believe it is so—as if someone should hold this even from our Scriptures, where it is said, man, placed in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts, and was made like them (Ps 49:12, 20 (48:13, 21)): or where it is likewise read, do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses to you (Ps 74:19 (73:19)). For not all heretics fail to read the catholic Scriptures; nor are they heretics for any other reason than that, not rightly understanding them, they obstinately assert their own false opinions against the truth of those Scriptures. But however the philosophers' opinion about the revolutions of souls may or may not stand, it does not befit the catholic faith to believe that the souls of beasts pass over into men, or those of men into beasts.

10. 14. That men do indeed become like beasts in their manner of life, both human affairs themselves cry out, and Scripture attests. Whence is that which I recorded, man, placed in honor, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts of burden, and was made like them (Ps 49:12 (48:13)): but in this life, of course, not after death. Accordingly, it was to such beasts that he was unwilling to have his soul given into the power, who said, do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses to you (Ps 74:19 (73:19)); such as the Lord signifies are to be guarded against, where he says they are clothed in the clothing of sheep, but within are ravening wolves: or to the devil himself and his angels; for he too was called a lion and a dragon (See Matt 7:15; Ps 91:13 (90:13)).

10. 15. For what argument do the philosophers bring, who suppose that the souls of men can be transferred into beasts, or those of beasts into men, after death? This, certainly: that a likeness of conduct draws to it—as the greedy into ants, the rapacious into kites, the savage and proud into lions, the followers of unclean pleasure into pigs, and any such things. For they assert these things, and do not attend that, by this reasoning, it can in no way come about that a beast's soul be transferred after death into a man. For in no way will a pig be more like a man than a pig; and when lions grow tame, they become more like dogs or even sheep than men. Since, then, beasts do not depart from the conduct of beasts, and those that become somewhat unlike the rest are nonetheless more like their own kind than the human, and differ far more from men than from beasts: these will never be the souls of men, if the things that are more alike draw them.

But if this argument is false, how will that opinion be true; since they bring forward nothing else by which, even if not true, it may at least be held verisimilar? Whence I too would more readily believe that even their successors and followers wished those men who first put these things in their books to be understood rather in this life: that by a certain perversity and baseness of conduct men become like beasts, and so in a manner are changed into beasts, so that, by casting this disgrace in their teeth, they might recall them from the depravity of their desires.

11. 16. For those things that are reported to have happened—that some as it were remembered in the bodies of which animals they had been—are either narrated falsely, or this was done in their minds by the deceptions of demons. For if it happens in dreams that, by a deceptive memory, a man as it were remembers that he was what he was not, or did what he did not do; what wonder if, by a certain just and hidden judgment of God, demons are permitted to be able to do something of the sort in the hearts even of the waking?

11. 17. But the Manicheans, who either think themselves Christians or wish to be thought so, in this opinion of the transference or revolution of souls are, than those philosophers of the nations—or if any other vain men think this—more wicked and more detestable, because those distinguish the nature of the soul from the nature of God, while these, since they say the soul is nothing else than the very substance of God, and altogether that which God is, do not tremble to call it so basely changeable that there is no kind of herb or little worm where they do not, in marvelous madness, suppose it to be mingled, or into which it cannot be revolved.

Yet if they, removing from their mind the questions of the most obscure matters—which, turning over with a carnal heart, they must needs slip and roll forward into false, harmful, and monstrous opinions—would most firmly hold that one thing which is naturally and truly implanted in every rational soul without the windings of any disputation, that God is wholly unchangeable and incorruptible; their whole thousand-formed fable would suddenly collapse, which in their vain and sacrilegious minds they have fashioned out of nothing but the most base changeableness of God.

11. 18. The matter of the human soul, therefore, is not an irrational soul.

12. 18. What is it, then, from which the soul was made by the breath of God? Was it some body, earthly indeed and moist? In no way: for from this rather the flesh was made. For what else is clay than moist earth? Nor is the soul to be believed made from moisture alone, as though flesh were from earth and soul from water. For it is too absurd to suppose the soul of man made from that from which the flesh of fish and bird was made.

12. 19. From air, then, perhaps? For to this element breath too belongs; but ours, not God's. Whence we said above that this could fittingly be supposed, if we believed God to be the soul of the world as of one greatest living being, so that he breathed it from the air of his body, as ours breathes from the air of its own. But since it is established that God is above every body of the world, and above every spirit he has created, by a distance altogether incomparable; how can this rightly be said? Or perhaps, the more God is present to his whole creation by a singular omnipotence, the more he could make from air a breath that would be the soul of man?

But since the soul is not corporeal, while whatever is made from the corporeal elements of the world must necessarily be corporeal, and this air too is numbered among the elements of the world; not even if the soul were said to be made from the element of that pure and heavenly fire ought it to be believed. For there have not been lacking those who assert that every body can be changed into every body. But that some body, whether earthly or heavenly, is turned into soul, and becomes an incorporeal nature, I know neither that anyone has held, nor does faith hold. Certain opinions of physicians about the body of man.

13. 20. Then, if it is not to be despised what physicians not only say but even affirm that they can prove—that although all flesh bears earthly solidity ready at hand, it nonetheless has in it something of air too, which is both contained 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 luminous, which they show is as it were distilled and flies up to the high place of the brain, as into the heaven of our body; whence too the rays of the eyes flash out, and from whose middle, as from a certain center, thin channels are led not only to the eyes but also to the other senses—namely to the ears, to the nostrils, to the palate, for hearing, smelling, and tasting; and that the very sense of touch, which is throughout the whole body, is directed from the same brain through the marrow of the neck, and that which is contained in the bones by which the spine of the back is joined together, so that thence certain most thin little streams, which make the sense of touch, spread through all the members. That the soul is by no means from the corporeal elements.

14. 20. Since, then, by these as it were messengers the soul receives whatever of corporeal things is not hidden from it, while it itself is to such a degree something else, that when it wishes to understand either divine things, or God, or even itself altogether, and to consider its own powers, so as to comprehend something true and certain, it turns itself away from this very light of the eyes themselves, and, feeling it to be for this business not only no help but even some hindrance, lifts itself into the gaze of the mind; how is it anything of that kind, when the highest of that kind is nothing but the light which flashes from the eyes, by which it is helped only to sense corporeal forms and colors; while it itself has innumerable things far unlike the whole class of bodies, which it beholds only by understanding and reason, to which no sense of the flesh aspires.

15. 21. The nature of the human soul, therefore, is in no way derived from earth, or from water, or from air, or from any fire; and yet it governs the matter of its grosser body—that is, a certain moist earth that has been turned into the quality of flesh—by means of the more subtle nature of the body, namely light and air. For without these two there is in the body neither sensation nor any voluntary motion of the body produced by the soul. And just as knowing must come before doing, so sensing comes before moving. Since, then, the soul is an incorporeal thing, it acts first upon the body that is nearest to the incorporeal—that is, fire, or rather light and air—and through these upon the rest of the body, the grosser parts such as moisture and earth, out of which the solidity of the flesh is built up, which are more subject to being acted upon than endowed with the power of acting.

16. 22. It does not seem to me, then, that it was said man became a living soul (Gen 2:7), except because he began to have sensation in the body, which is the most certain sign of animate and living flesh. For shrubs too are moved, not only by a force impelling them from without, as when they are stirred by the winds, but also by that motion whereby there is stirred within whatever pertains to the growth and form of the tree, the motion by which sap is drawn into the root and turned into the elements that make up the nature of grass or wood—for none of these things happens without an interior motion. But that motion is not voluntary, like the one that is joined to sensation for the governing of the body, as in every kind of animal, which Scripture calls a living soul (Gen 1:21). For unless that motion too were present in us, our bodies would neither grow nor produce nails and hair. But if this alone were in us, without sensation and that voluntary motion, man would not be said to have been made a living soul.

17. 23. Accordingly, since the front part of the brain, from which all the senses are distributed, is placed toward the forehead, and since the organs of sensation, as it were, are themselves in the face—except for the sense of touch, which is diffused throughout the whole body, though even this is shown to have its path from the same front part of the brain, a path that is led back over the crown and the neck to the spinal marrow of which we were speaking a little earlier, whence the face too has its sense of touch, just as the whole body does, apart from the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting, which are situated in the face alone—for this reason I think it was written that God breathed into man's face the breath of life, when he became a living soul (Gen 2:7). For the front part is rightly set before the back part, because the one leads and the other follows, and from the one comes sensation, from the other motion, just as deliberation precedes action.

18. 24. And since there is no bodily motion following upon sensation without intervals of time, and since we cannot accomplish intervals of time by voluntary motion 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 comes all sensation; another behind, toward the neck, from which comes all motion; and a third between the two, in which they show that memory is active, lest, when motion follows upon sensation, a man fail to connect what is to be done, if he should have forgotten what he has done.

These things they say have been proved to them by sure indications, since, when these very parts were affected by some disease or defect and the functions of sensing, or of moving the limbs, or of recalling bodily motion had failed, it was made sufficiently clear what each was capable of, and, once treatment had been applied, it was ascertained for the recovery of what function it had availed. But the soul acts in these parts as though in instruments; it is none of them itself, but it gives life to and governs them all, and through them it provides for the body and for this life in which man was made a living soul.

19. 25. When, therefore, the question is asked whence the soul itself comes—that is, from what matter, as it were, God made this breath that is called the soul—nothing corporeal ought to come to mind. For just as God surpasses every creature, so the soul surpasses every corporeal creation in dignity of nature. Yet through light and air, which even in the world itself are the more excellent corporeal things and have more of the power of acting than the bulk for being acted upon that moisture and earth have, it governs the body by means of those things that are more like the spirit. For corporeal light announces something; but the one to whom it announces is not the same as that light; and it is the soul to which it announces, not the thing that announces.

And when the soul feels the afflictions of the body with distress, it finds that its own activity, by which it is present to the body to govern it, is impeded by the disturbance of the body's balance, and this hindrance is called pain. And the air that is infused into the nerves obeys the will so as to move the limbs, yet it is not itself the will. And that middle part announces the motion of the limbs so that it may be held in memory, yet it is not itself the memory.

Finally, when these services of the soul, as it were, fail altogether through any defect or disturbance, then, the messengers of sensation and the agents of motion having ceased, the soul withdraws, as having no reason to be present. But if they do not fail in the way that usually happens at death, its attention is disturbed, like one trying to restore what is slipping away and not having the power to do so. And in the things by which it is disturbed, it is thereby recognized which part of the services is the cause, so that, if it can, medicine may bring relief.

20. 26. For that the soul itself is one thing and these its corporeal services, or vessels, or organs—or whatever they may more fitly be called—are another, becomes clearly evident from this: that very often, by an intense effort of thought, it turns itself away from everything, so that it fails to notice many things set before eyes that are open and seeing rightly; and if the effort is greater, while it was walking it suddenly halts, turning away the command to act, as it were, from the service of the motion by which the feet were being moved; but if the effort of thought is not so great as to fix the walker in place, yet great enough that it has no leisure to attend to that middle part of the brain which announces the body's motion, then sometimes it forgets both where it is coming from and where it is going, and unawares it passes by the farmstead to which it was heading—the nature of its own body sound, but its own attention called away to something else.

It is therefore not a question pertinent to our purpose whether God mingled or joined to the body of the living being those corporeal particles of the corporeal heaven—that is, of light and air—which first receive the impulses of the life-giving soul, in that they are nearer to incorporeal nature than moisture and earth are, so that the whole mass may be governed through their proximate service, drawing them from this heaven that surrounds and overspreads us; or whether he made even these too out of the mire, as he did the flesh. For it is credible that any body can be changed into any body; but to believe that any body can be changed into a soul is absurd.

21. 27. For this reason neither must we give ear to what certain men have supposed: that there is a kind of fifth body from which souls come, which is neither earth, nor water, nor air, nor fire—whether the more turbulent and earthly fire or that pure and shining heavenly fire—but I know not what else that lacks the usual name, yet is nonetheless a body (See Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.10.22; 1.17.41; 1.26.65; 1.27.66). For if those who hold this opinion mean by it a body such as we too mean—that is, any nature that occupies a place by length, breadth, and depth—then the soul is neither this nor to be believed made from it. For whatever is of such a kind can, in any part of itself, be divided or circumscribed by lines, to say no more; and if the soul were subject to this, it could in no way know such lines as cannot be cut lengthwise, lines such as it nonetheless knows cannot be found in a body.

21. 28. Nor does anything of that sort present itself to the soul about itself, since it cannot fail to know itself, even when it inquires into itself in order to know itself. For when it seeks itself, it knows that it is seeking itself; and this it could not know if it did not know itself. For it seeks itself from nowhere else than from itself. When, therefore, it knows itself as seeking, it certainly knows itself; and everything it knows, the whole of it knows. Since, then, it knows itself as seeking, the whole of it knows itself, and therefore it knows the whole of itself; for it knows the whole not of anything else, but of itself. Why, then, does it still seek itself, if it knows itself as 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 then cease for now, in the meantime, to suspect that it is a body; for if it were anything of that kind, it would know itself to be such, seeing that it knows itself better than it knows heaven and earth, which it knows through the eyes of its body.

21. 29. I forbear to say that that power of it which even beasts are understood to possess, or the birds of the air when they make their way back to their own dwellings or nests, the power by which images of all corporeal things are taken in, is in no way like any body; and surely it ought rather to be that part that resembles a body, the part in which the likenesses of corporeal things are contained. But if this is not a body, since it is certain that the likenesses of bodies are there not only retained in memory but even shaped in countless ways at will, how much less can the soul be like a body by any other power of its own?

21. 30. But if, by some other notion, they call a body everything that exists—that is, every nature and substance—this way of speaking is indeed not to be admitted, lest we find no way, in speaking, of distinguishing the things that are not bodies from bodies; yet we need not labor too much over the word. For we too say that whatever the soul is, it is not one of these four most familiar elements, which are manifestly bodies; but neither is it that which God is. What it is, however, is not better stated than as soul or spirit of life. For "of life" is added because this air also is often called spirit. And yet they have called this same air "soul" as well, so that no name can now be found by which to distinguish properly this nature which is neither a body, nor God, nor a life without sensation, such as can be believed to be in trees, nor a life without a rational mind, such as is in beasts—but a life now lesser than that of the angels, and destined to be what the angels' is, if it lives here according to the command of its creator.

21. 31. But whence it comes—that is, from what matter, as it were, it was made, or from what perfect and blessed nature it flowed down, or whether it was made altogether out of nothing—even if this is doubted and inquired into, this at least must by no means be doubted: that, if anything existed before, what existed was made by God, and that it has now been made by God to be a living soul; for either it was nothing, or what it is, it was not. But that part in which we were inquiring, as it were, into the matter from which it was made, we have now treated sufficiently.

22. 32. Now, if it did not exist at all before, we must ask how it can be understood that its causal reason was said to have existed in the first works of God's six days, when God made man to his own image, which is not rightly understood except with respect to the soul. But we must beware lest, when we say that God then created, not the natures and substances themselves that were to be, while he was creating all things at once, but certain causal reasons of those future things, 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 own image, whose body he had not yet formed from the mire, and for whom he had not yet made a soul by breathing? And of the human body indeed, even if there was some hidden reason by which it was to come about that it would be formed, there was also a matter from which it would be formed, namely earth, in which that reason can be seen to have lain hidden, as it were, in a seed; but for the making of the soul—that is, for the making of the breath that was to be man's soul—what causal reason was first established there, when God said, let us make man to our image and likeness (Gen 1:26) (which cannot rightly be understood except with respect to the soul), if there was no nature in which it might be established?

22. 33. For if this reason was in God, not in the creation, then it had not yet been established; how, then, was it said: God made man to the image of God (Gen 1:27)? But if it was already in the creation—that is, in those things that God had created all at once—in what creation was it? In a spiritual one, or in a corporeal one? If in a spiritual one, was it doing anything in the bodies of the world, whether heavenly or earthly? Or was this reason idle in it before man was established in his own proper nature, just as in man himself, who already leads his own proper life, there is latently and idly present the reason of generating, which does not operate except through intercourse and conception? Or did even that spiritual creation, in which this reason was latently present, do nothing of its own work? And to what end had it been created? Was it in order to contain the reason of the future human soul, or of future souls, as though they could not exist in themselves, but only in some creation already living its own life—just as the reason of generating cannot exist except in certain already existing and complete natures?

Some spiritual creation, then, was established as the parent of the soul, in which there would be the reason of the future soul, which does not come into existence from it except when God makes it to be breathed into man. For neither does anyone but God create and form, from man, the offspring of either the seed or the offspring itself already produced, through that Wisdom that reaches everywhere by reason of her purity, so that nothing defiled can enter into her (See Wis 7:24–25), while she reaches mightily from one end to the other and orders all things sweetly (See Wis 8:1).

But I do not know how it can be understood that there was created, for this purpose only, some spiritual creation or other, which was not mentioned among the things God established during those six days, since God is said to have made man on the sixth day—man whom he had not yet made in his own proper nature, but who was still present in causal reason in that creation which is not mentioned. For it ought rather to have been mentioned, since it had been so completed that it was not yet to be made according to a reason preceding it.

23. 34. Or did God perhaps implant this causal reason for making the soul in the nature of that day which he first established—if that day is rightly understood as the intellectual spirit—when on the sixth day he made man to his own image, fixing beforehand, that is, the cause and reason according to which he would make him after those seven days; so that the causal reason of his body might be believed to have been created in the nature of earth, but 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, as it were, the parent of the human soul, if the preestablished reason for creating the human soul is present in it just as the reason of his future offspring is present in man—so that the parents of human bodies are men, but of souls the angels, while the creator of both souls and bodies is God, yet of bodies from men, of souls from angels; or of the first body from earth, and of the first soul from the angelic nature, where he had fixed beforehand their causal reasons, when he first made man among the things he created all at once; but thereafter men from men, body from body, soul from soul?

It is hard to call the soul the daughter of an angel or of angels; but far harder to call it the daughter of the corporeal heaven; how much more, then, of the sea and the earth?

Much less, therefore, was the causal reason of the soul preestablished in any corporeal creation, when God made man to his own image, before he animated him with the breath, formed in his own time from the mire—if it is absurd to believe that he established the soul causally in the angelic nature.

24. 35. Let us see, then, whether perhaps this may be true—which certainly seems to me more tolerable to human opinion: that God, in those first works in which he created all things at once, also created the human soul, which in its own time he would breathe into the limbs of a body formed from the mire; and that the reason of this body he created causally among those things established all at once, according to which the human body would be made when it was to be made. For we rightly understand neither what was said, to his own image, except with respect to the soul, nor what was said, male and female, except with respect to the body.

Let it be believed, then, if no authority of the Scriptures or reason of truth contradicts it, that man was so made on the sixth day that the causal reason of the human body was in the elements of the world, but the soul itself was already created, just as the day was first established, and, once created, lay hidden in the works of God until in its own time he should insert it, by breathing—that is, by inspiring—into the body formed from the mire.

25. 36. But here again a question arises that 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, that a soul living innocently should be inserted into the life of this flesh, in which, by sinning, it would offend the very one who created it, so that there would deservedly follow upon it the hardship of toil and the torment of damnation? Or must it be said that by its own will it was inclined to govern the body, so that in this life of the body—since one can live both justly and unjustly—it would have, according to what it chose, either a reward for justice or a punishment for injustice, so that this is not contrary to that apostolic statement in which he says that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil (See Rom 9:11)? For that inclination of the will toward the body is not yet an act either of justice or of injustice, for which an account is to be rendered at the judgment of God, when each one will receive according to the things he has done through the body, whether good or evil (See 2 Cor 5:10).

Why, then, may not this too be believed: that it came to the body at God's bidding, where, if it should be willing to act according to his command, it would receive the reward of eternal life and the fellowship of the angels, but if it should despise him, it would pay the most just penalties, whether of long toil or of eternal fire? Or is it that this very thing—to have obeyed God's will—is already a good act, and so it will be contrary to say that those not yet born had done nothing either good or evil?

26. 37. If these things are so, we shall acknowledge that the soul was not first created in such a class of things that it would have foreknowledge of its own future deed, whether just or unjust. For it is exceedingly incredible that it could have been inclined by its own will to the life of the body, if it had foreknown that it would so sin in certain respects as to be justly punished with perpetual torment. The Creator is rightly praised in all things, he who made all things very good. For he is not to be praised only on account of those to whom he gave foreknowledge, since he is rightly praised even because he created the beasts, than which human nature is more excellent even in those human beings who sin. For the nature of man is from God, not the iniquity in which he involves himself by misusing free choice—which, however, if he did not have, he would be less excellent in the nature of things. For a man living justly must be conceived of even as not foreknowing the future, and there it must be seen how little the excellence of a good will is impeded, with respect to living rightly and pleasing God, by the fact that he lives by faith, ignorant of the future. Whoever, then, would not wish such a creature to exist among things contradicts the goodness of God. But whoever would not wish it to pay penalties for its sins is an enemy of equity.

27. 38. But if the soul is made for this purpose, that it be sent into the body, it can be asked whether, if it should be unwilling, it is compelled. But it is better to believe that it wills this naturally—that is, that it is created in such a nature that it wills it—just as it is natural for us to will to live; but to live badly is no longer of nature, but of a perverse will, which punishment justly follows.

27. 39. In vain, then, is it now asked from what matter, as it were, the soul was made, if it can rightly be understood to have been made among those first works, when the day was made. For just as those things that did not exist were made, so this too was made among them. But if there was also some formable matter, both corporeal and spiritual, yet it too was not established except by God, from whom are all things—matter that would precede its own formation not in time but in origin, as the voice precedes the song—what should we more fittingly believe than that the soul was made from spiritual matter?

28. 40. But if anyone is unwilling to think that the soul was made except when it was breathed into a body already formed, let him see what he answers when it is asked whence it was made. For either he will say that God made or makes something out of nothing after that completion of his works—and he must consider how he is to explain that man was made to the image of God on the sixth day (which cannot rightly be understood except with respect to the soul), that is, in what nature the causal reason was made of that thing which 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 corporeal or spiritual, according to the questions we have turned over above—that other difficulty also remaining, namely that it must still be asked in what substance of the creatures first established in the six days he made that causal reason of the soul which he had not yet made either from nothing or from something.

28. 41. And if he should wish to avoid this in such a way as to say that on the sixth day man too was made from the mire, but that this was mentioned later by way of recapitulation, let him see what he says about the woman, since he said, male and female he made them, and he blessed them (Gen 1:27–28). And if he should answer that she too was made on that day from the man's bone, let him attend to how he is to maintain that the birds were made on the sixth day, which were brought to Adam, when Scripture intimates that every kind of bird was created from the waters on the fifth day; likewise that on the sixth day were made even the trees that were planted in paradise, when the same Scripture has assigned this kind of creature to be spoken of on the third day.

Let him also consider the very words, what it means: he brought forth besides from the earth every tree beautiful to behold and good for food (Gen 2:9)—as though those trees the earth had brought forth on the third day were not beautiful to behold and good for food, when they were among those works that God made all very good; and also what it means: God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the heaven (Gen 2:19)—as though those that had first been produced were not all of them, or rather as though none had been produced before. For it was not said: and God further formed from the earth the remaining beasts of the field and the remaining birds of the heaven, as though the earth had produced fewer on the sixth day or the water fewer on the fifth; but, all the beasts, he says, and all the birds.

Let him also reflect on this: how God made all things in six days—first, the day itself; second, the firmament; third, the form of sea and land, and from the earth grass and trees; fourth, the lights and stars; fifth, the animals of the waters; sixth, those of the earth—and that afterward it is said: when the day was made, God made heaven and earth, and every green thing of the field (Gen 2:4–5); whereas when the day was made, he made nothing but the day itself. And how he made every green thing of the field before it was upon the earth, and all the hay before it sprang up (See Gen 2:4–5). For who would say that it was made when it sprang up, and not before it sprang up, unless the words of Scripture called us back? Let him also remember that it is written: he who lives forever created all things together (Sir 18:1); and let him see how those things can be said to be created together whose creation is separated by intervals of time, not only of hours but even of days.

Let him also take care to show how both can be true, though they may seem contrary—both that God rested on the seventh day from all his works, as the book of Genesis says, and that he works even until now, as the Lord says. Let him also consider how the things said to be completed are likewise said to be begun.

28. 42. For by all these testimonies of divine Scripture, which no one doubts to be truthful except an unbeliever or an impious man, we have been led to that opinion, so that we said that God from the beginning of the world first created all things together, some with their natures already established, others with their causes preestablished; just as the Almighty made not only things present but also things future, and rested from them once made, so that thereafter, by their administration and governance, he might create also the orders of times and of temporal things—because he had both completed them, for the determination of all kinds, and begun them, for the propagation of the ages, so that on account of the things completed he might rest, and on account of the things begun he might work even until now. But if these things can be better understood, not only do I not resist, but I even favor it.

28. 43. For the present, however, concerning 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 incorporeal—that is, that it is not a body, but a spirit; not begotten of 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 that according to a certain mutability, by which it can become either worse or better, it can not undeservedly be understood as even mortal—since he alone has true immortality of whom it was properly said: who alone has immortality (1 Tim 6:16).

May the other things I have said in the course of debating in this book avail the reader to this end: that he may either learn how things that Scripture does not state openly are to be inquired into without rashness of affirming; or, if this manner of inquiring does not please him, may let me know how he himself has inquired, so that, if he can teach me, he may not refuse, but if he cannot, may seek along with me from him by whom we both may learn.

1. 1. And God planted a paradise in Eden toward the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed (Gen 2:8). I am not unaware that many have said many things about paradise; yet there are three more or less general opinions on this matter. One is of those who would have paradise understood only corporeally; another, of those who would have it understood only spiritually; a third, of those who take paradise in both ways, some things corporeally, others spiritually. To put it briefly, then, I confess that the third opinion pleases me. According to it I have now undertaken to speak of paradise, insofar as the Lord will deign to grant, so that man, made from the mire—which is surely the human body—may be understood to have been placed in a corporeal paradise: so that, just as Adam himself, even though he signifies something else, according to the fact that the Apostle said he was a figure of the one to come (See Rom 5:14), is nevertheless understood as a man expressed in his own proper nature, who lived a fixed number of years and, having propagated a numerous offspring, died as other men die, even if he was not born of parents as others are but, as was fitting at the first, was made from the earth—so too the paradise in which God placed him is understood to be nothing other than a certain place of the earth, namely where the earthly man might dwell.

1. 2. For the narrative in these books is not of the genre of speech proper to figurative things, as in the Song of Songs, but altogether of things done, as in the books of Kings and others of the same sort. But because in those books the things spoken of are such as the most familiar usage of human life includes, they are at first taken literally without difficulty—indeed, most readily—so that thereafter there may be carved out from them what the very deeds done also signified concerning things to come; whereas here, because the things spoken of are such as do not occur to those observing the customary course of nature, certain people are unwilling to have them understood as said properly, but as said figuratively; and they would begin history—that is, the narrative of things properly done—from that point at which Adam and Eve, dismissed from paradise, came together and begot offspring. As though it were customary for us either that they lived so many years, or that Enoch was translated, or that a woman both aged and barren gave birth, and other things of this kind.

1. 3. But the narrative of marvelous deeds is one thing, they say, and that of established creatures another. For in the former, those very unusual events show that there are, as it were, certain natural modes of things and others of miracles, which are called mighty works; but here the very establishment of natures is intimated.

To whom it is answered: but these things too are unusual for this very reason, because they are first. For what is so without precedent and without an equal deed in the constitution of worldly things as the world itself? Surely it is not to be believed that God did not make the world, because he no longer makes worlds; or that he did not make the sun, because he no longer makes suns?

And this indeed ought to have been the answer to those disturbed not about paradise but about man himself; but now, since they believe that he was so made by God as no other was made, why are they unwilling to believe that paradise was made just as they now see forests come to be?

1. 4. For I am speaking to those who follow the authority of these Writings; for some of them would have paradise understood not properly but figuratively. As for those who are altogether opposed to these writings, we have dealt with them elsewhere and otherwise—though even here, in this very work of ours, we defend these things literally, so far as we are able, in such a way that those who, moved not by reason but by an obstinate or dull mind, refuse to believe these things may nevertheless find no reason by which to prove them false.

But these our own people, who have faith in these divine Books and yet are unwilling to have paradise understood according to the propriety of the letter—namely, as a most pleasant place shaded by fruitful groves, and that a great one, made fertile by a great spring—since they see no human work make so many and so great green plantations grow into woodland by the hidden working of God, I marvel how they believe that man himself was made just as they have never seen. Or if he too is to be understood figuratively, who begot Cain, and Abel, and Seth? Or were these too only figurative, and not also men born of men?

Let them therefore consider closely where this presumption tends, and let them try, along with us, to take all those things that are narrated as done first in the expression of their proper sense. For who would not afterward favor them as they understand what these things also admonish by a figurative signification, whether of spiritual natures themselves or of their affections, or even of things to come?

To be sure, if the things here named corporeally could in no way, with the truth of faith preserved, be taken also corporeally, what else would remain but that we should rather understand them as said figuratively than impiously find fault with holy Scripture? But on the other hand, if these things, understood corporeally as well, not only do not hinder but even more solidly support the narrative of the divine utterance, no one, I think, will be so faithlessly stubborn that, when he has seen them properly expounded according to the rule of faith, he would prefer to remain in his former opinion, if it had perhaps seemed to him that they could be taken only figuratively.

2. 5. For I too, against the Manichees—who err with regard to these writings of the Old Testament, not by taking them otherwise than they ought, but by not taking them at all and by blaspheming them with loathing—wrote two books shortly after the time of my conversion, wishing quickly either to refute their ravings or to raise up the intent toward seeking, in the writings they hate, the Christian and evangelical faith. And because at that time not everything occurred to me as to how it could be taken properly, and it seemed rather that it could not be taken so, or scarcely or with difficulty, I explained—lest I be delayed—with as much brevity and clarity as I could, what those things signified figuratively which I could not find literally, lest people, deterred either by lengthy reading or by the obscurity of the discussion, should not care to take them in hand. Yet, mindful of what I had especially wished and could not do—that all things might at first be understood not figuratively but properly—and not altogether despairing that they could be understood so, I set this very thing down in the first part of the second book thus.

To be sure, 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 proclaim all things agreeable to the Catholic faith, is not only not to be envied, but is to be held an outstanding and highly praiseworthy interpreter. But if no way out is given for the things that are written to be understood piously and worthily of God except by believing them to be set forth figuratively and in riddles, then, having apostolic authority, by whom so many riddles from the books of the Old Testament are unraveled, let us hold to the manner we intend, with the help of him who exhorts us to ask, seek, and knock (See Matt 7:7): that we may explain all these figures of things according to the Catholic faith, whether they pertain to history or to prophecy, not prejudging a better and more diligent treatment, whether by ourselves or by others, to whom the Lord deigns to reveal it (On Genesis Against the Manichees 2.2.3).

This I said then. But now, because the Lord has willed that, looking at and considering these things more diligently, I should reckon—not in vain, I think—that it can be shown even by me that these things were written according to a proper, not an allegorical, manner of speaking, let us examine what follows concerning paradise, just as we wished to show the things above.

3. 6. God therefore planted a paradise in delights (for this is what in Eden means) toward the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed (Gen 2:8). For so it is written, because so it was done. Then he recapitulates, so that this very thing which he set down briefly he may show how it was done; that is, how God planted paradise and there set the man whom he had formed. For thus it follows: and God brought forth besides from the earth every tree beautiful to behold and good for food (Gen 2:9). He did not say, "and God brought forth from the earth another tree or the remaining trees"; but, he brought forth, he says, besides from the earth every tree beautiful to behold and good for food. Already, then, the earth had at that time produced every tree both beautiful to behold 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 herb sowing seed, which is upon all the earth; and every fruit-bearing tree which has in itself the fruit of seed for sowing, which shall be for you for food (Gen 1:29). Did he, then, give them one thing then and wish to give another now? I think not; but since these trees established in paradise are of these kinds which the earth had already produced on the third day, he produced them again in their own time—because, namely, that the earth then produced them, as is written, had been done causally in the earth; that is, because it had then latently received the power of producing them, by which power it comes about that even now the earth brings forth such things openly and in their own time.

3. 7. The words, then, of God saying on the sixth day, behold, I have given you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed, which is upon all the earth (Gen 1:29), and the rest, are not words uttered by a sounding or temporal voice, but, as in his Word, there is the power of creating. But to tell men what God said without temporal sounds was not possible except through temporal sounds. For it was to come about that man, now formed from the mire and animated by his breath, and whatever of the human race should arise from him, would use for food those things that were to spring up upon the earth out of that power of generating which the earth had already received. Establishing in the creation the causal reasons of this future thing, he spoke, as though it had already come into being, by an interior and inmost truth, which neither eye has seen nor ear has heard (See 1 Cor 2:9), but which his Spirit assuredly revealed to the writer.

4. 8. That, however, which follows—and the tree of life in the midst of paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of discerning good and evil (Gen 2:9)—must be considered more diligently, lest it force us into allegory, so that these were not trees but signified something else by the name of tree. For it was said of wisdom: she is a tree of life to all who embrace her (Prov 3:18). Nevertheless, although there is an eternal Jerusalem in the heavens, there was also founded on earth a city by which that one would be signified; and Sarah and Hagar, although they signified the two Testaments (See Gal 4:24–26), were nevertheless also two certain women; and although Christ waters us with a spiritual stream through the passion of the wood, there was nevertheless also a rock which, struck with wood, poured out water for the thirsting people (See Exod 17:6), of which it would be said: and the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:4). They signified something other than what they all were, yet they too existed corporeally. And when they were mentioned by the narrator, it was not a figurative manner of speaking, but an express narrative of those things of which there had been a figurative foreshadowing.

There was, therefore, also a tree of life, just as the rock was Christ; nor did God will man to live in paradise without mysteries of spiritual things corporeally presented. There was for him, then, in the other trees nourishment, but in that one a sacrament; signifying what, if not wisdom, of which it was said thus: she is a tree of life to those who embrace her (Prov 3:18)—just as it would be said of Christ, "he is a rock flowing for those who thirst for him"? For that is rightly named which went before to signify him. He himself is the lamb that is sacrificed at the Pasch; yet that too was figured not only by being said but also by being done. For that lamb was not no lamb; plainly it was a lamb, and it was slain and eaten (Exod 12:3–11); and yet by that true deed something else also was figured. Not as that fatted calf which was slaughtered for the feast when the younger son returned (See Luke 15:23). For there the narrative itself is of figures, not of things done with a figurative signification.

For it was not the Evangelist, but the Lord himself, who narrated this; the Evangelist, indeed, narrated that the Lord narrated this. Accordingly, then, what the Evangelist narrated also happened—namely, that the Lord spoke such things; but the Lord's own narration was a parable, of which it is never demanded that the things uttered in speech be shown to have also been done literally. Christ is both the stone anointed by Jacob, and the stone rejected by the builders, which has become the head of the corner (Ps 118:22 (117:22)); but the former was done among things done, while the latter was only foretold in figures. For the former a narrator of past things wrote, the latter only a foreteller of things to come.

5. 9. So too Wisdom, this same Christ, is the tree of life in the spiritual paradise, into which he sent the thief from the cross (See Luke 23:43); but there was created, to signify it, a tree of life also in the corporeal paradise—because this is what that Scripture said, which, narrating things done in their own times, narrated that man was made corporeally and was set there living in the body.

But if anyone thinks that souls, when they have departed from the body, are contained in places corporeally visible, although they are without a body, let him assert his opinion: there will be no lack of those who so favor it as to contend that even that rich man, thirsting, was in a place that was surely corporeal, and who do not hesitate to declare that the soul itself is altogether corporeal, on account of the parched tongue and the drop of water longed for from Lazarus's finger (See Luke 16:24)—with whom I, on so great a question, contend with no rashness. For it is better to doubt about hidden things than to quarrel about uncertain ones. That the rich man is to be understood as in the burning of punishments, and that poor man in the refreshment of joys, I do not doubt. But how that flame of hell, that bosom of Abraham, that tongue of the rich man, that finger of the poor man, that thirst of torment, that drop of refreshment are to be understood, is scarcely perhaps found by those who inquire gently, and never by those who strive contentiously.

A brief answer must indeed be given, lest this deep question, needing much discourse, delay us: if souls are contained in corporeal 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 fitting passage of the Scriptures, if any necessity should demand it, we may set forth in some way what we either inquire or judge about this matter as well.

5. 10. Now, indeed, that wisdom is not a body, and therefore not a tree either, I neither doubt nor think doubted by anyone; but that wisdom could be signified through a tree—that is, through a corporeal creation, as by a kind of sacrament—in the corporeal paradise, that man does not think to be believed who either does not see, in the Scriptures, so many corporeal sacraments of spiritual things, or contends that the first man ought not to have lived with some such sacrament; whereas the Apostle says that even this, which was said of the woman, who, it is agreed, was made for him from his side—therefore a man will leave father and mother, and will cleave to his wife; and the two will be in one flesh (Gen 2:24; Eph 5:31)—is a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church (See Eph 5:32).

It is strange, however, and scarcely tolerable, how men are willing to have paradise said figuratively and yet unwilling to have it also made figuratively. But if they grant—as in the case of Hagar and Sarah, as in the case of Ishmael and Isaac—that these things were both done and yet also figurative, I do not see why they do not also admit that the tree of life was both truly some tree and yet figured wisdom.

5. 11. This too I add: that, although that tree supplied corporeal food, it nevertheless supplied such food as would strengthen the body of man with stable health—not as from other food, but by some hidden inspiration of wholesomeness. For surely, although it was ordinary bread, it nevertheless had something more, by one small cake of which God preserved a man from the want of hunger for the space of forty days (1 Kgs 19:5–8). Or shall we perhaps hesitate to believe that, through the food of some tree, for the sake of some higher signification, God provided for man that his body should not be changed for the worse by either weakness or age, or even sink into decline—God who provided for human food itself so marvelous a state that, in earthen vessels, he replenished the failing flour and oil and they did not fail (1 Kgs 17:16)? Now let there step forth here someone of the contentious sort, and say that God ought to have done such miracles in our lands, but ought not to have done them in paradise: as though, indeed, either from dust the man or from the man's side the woman, he did not there work a greater miracle than that by which here he raised the dead.

6. 12. It follows that we consider the tree of the knowledge of discerning good and evil. Assuredly this tree too was visible and corporeal, like the other trees. That it was a tree, then, is not to be doubted; but why it received this name must be inquired into. To me, however, as I consider it again and again, it cannot be said how much that opinion pleases me: that that tree was not harmful in its food—for he who had made all things very good (See Gen 1:31) had not established anything evil in paradise—but that the transgression of the precept was evil for man. Now it was fitting that man, placed under the Lord God, should be forbidden something from some quarter, so that obedience itself might be for him the virtue of meriting his Lord; which obedience I can most truly say is the sole virtue of every rational creature acting under the power of God; and that the first and greatest vice of pride, leading to ruin, is to wish to use one's own power—the name of which vice is disobedience.

There would therefore be nothing from which man might consider and perceive that he had the Lord, unless something were commanded him. And so that tree was not evil, but was called the tree of the knowledge of discerning good and evil, because, if after the prohibition man should eat of it, in it there would be the future transgression of the precept, in which man would learn, by the experience of punishment, what difference there is between the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience. Accordingly this too was said not in a figure, but is to be understood as a certain true tree; on which a name was imposed not from the fruit or apple that would be born from it, but from the very thing that was going to follow when it was touched against the prohibition.

7. 13. And a river went out of Eden, which watered the paradise, and from there it was divided into four parts. The name of one of these is Phison; this is the one that encircles all the land of Havilah, 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 Gihon; this is the one that encircles all the land of Ethiopia. And the third river is the Tigris; this is the one that flows over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is the Euphrates (Gen 2:10–14). Concerning these rivers, why should I trouble further to establish that they are real rivers, and that things which do not exist are not figuratively spoken of, as though their very names signified only something, when they are most well known to the regions through which they flow and are renowned among almost all nations? Rather, from these—since it is agreed that they assuredly exist (for antiquity changed the names of two of them, just as the river now called the Tiber was earlier called the Albula; for Gihon is the very river now called the Nile, and Phison was the name of the one they now call the Ganges; while the other two, the Tigris and the Euphrates, have kept even their ancient names)—we ought to be admonished to take the rest too, in the first place, according to the propriety of the letter, not to suppose a figurative manner of speaking in them, but to hold that the very things thus narrated both exist and also figure something.

Not that a parabolic manner of speaking could not take up something from a thing which it was not agreed also existed properly, as the Lord speaks of that man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers (Luke 10:30): for who would not perceive and plainly see that it is a parable, and that the whole manner of speaking is figurative? Yet the two cities named there are pointed out to this day in their proper places. But we would take these four rivers in this way too, if any necessity compelled us to take the rest of what is narrated about paradise not properly but figuratively; but now, since no reason forbids us to understand the very things properly in the first place, why do we not rather simply follow the authority of Scripture in the narrative of things done, first understanding the things as truly done, and only then examining whatever else they signify?

7. 14. Or shall we be moved by what is said of these rivers, that the sources of some are known but those of others altogether unknown, and that therefore it cannot be taken literally that they are divided from one river of paradise? When rather it should be believed that, since the place of paradise itself is most remote from the knowledge of men, the four parts of waters are divided from there, as most faithful Scripture testifies; but that those rivers whose sources are said to be known went somewhere underground, and after the stretches of long regions burst out in other places, where they are reported to be known as though in their own sources. For who does not know that some waters are wont to do this? But it is known there where they do not run long underground. A river, then, went out of Eden—that is, from the place of delights—and watered paradise, that is, all the beautiful and fruitful trees that shaded all the land of that region.

8. 15. And God took the man whom he had made, and put him in paradise to till it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For on the day you eat of it, you shall die the death (Gen 2:15–17). Since above he had briefly said that God planted paradise and set there the man whom he had formed, he recapitulated in order to narrate how paradise was established (See Gen 2:8). Now, then, by way of recapitulation he has also mentioned how God put there the man whom he had made. Let us therefore see what it means that it was said, to till it and to keep it. What was he to till, and what to keep?

Did the Lord perhaps will the first man to work at agriculture? Or is it not incredible that he condemned him to toil before sin? We would indeed think so, were it not that we see certain 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, then, agriculture has, at that time it surely had far more, when nothing adverse befell, whether from the earth or from the sky. For there was not the affliction of toil, but the gladdening of the will, when the things God had created came forth more joyfully and more fruitfully with the help of human work; whereby the Creator himself would be more abundantly praised, who had given to the soul, set in an animal body, the reason and the capacity for working—as much as would suffice for a willing mind, not as much as the body's need would compel an unwilling one to do.

8. 16. For what is a greater and more marvelous spectacle, or where can human reason in some way more converse with the nature of things, than when, the seeds having been set, the slips planted, the saplings transplanted, the cuttings grafted, each power of root and shoot is questioned, as it were, as to what it can and cannot do, whence it can and whence it cannot, what avails in it the invisible and interior power of numbers, what the diligence applied from without—and in this very consideration to perceive that neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7); because even that part of the work which is applied from without is applied through the man whom God nonetheless created, and whom he invisibly governs and orders?

9. 17. From this the eye of thought is now lifted up to the world itself, as to a kind of great tree of things; and in it too a twofold working of providence is found, partly natural, partly voluntary. The natural, indeed, is through the hidden administration of God, by which he gives increase even to trees and herbs; the 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 alternations of day and night are carried on, the earth founded upon the waters is bathed within and around, the air is poured out higher above, shrubs and animals are conceived and born, grow and grow old and die, and whatever else is brought about in things by an interior and natural motion. But according to the second, signs are given, things are taught and learned, fields are tilled, societies are administered, the arts are practiced, and whatever other things are done either in the heavenly society or in this earthly and mortal one—in such a way that the good are provided for even through the ignorant wicked. And in man himself the same twofold power of providence is active: first, toward the body, the natural, namely by that motion by which he comes to be, grows, grows old; the voluntary, by which provision is made for his food, clothing, and care. Likewise toward the soul, it is acted naturally that it live, that it sense; but voluntarily that it learn, that it consent.

9. 18. Now, just as in a tree agriculture brings it about from without that what is carried on within may prosper, so in man, with respect to the body, medicine from without serves what nature does within; and likewise with respect to the soul, that nature may be made blessed within, teaching is supplied from without. But what neglect of cultivation is to the tree, that carelessness of healing is to the body, and that sluggishness of learning is to the soul; and what useless moisture is to the tree, that ruinous food is to the body, and that the persuasion of iniquity is to the soul.

God, therefore, above all things, who founded all things and governs all things, being good, creates all natures, and being just, orders all wills. What, then, is repugnant to the truth, if we believe that man was so placed in paradise as to work at agriculture, not with servile toil, but with honorable delight of mind? For what is more innocent than this work for those at leisure, and what fuller of great consideration for the prudent?

10. 19. But to keep it—what? Paradise itself? Against whom? Surely no neighboring invader was feared, no disturber of the boundary, no thief, no assailant. How, then, are we to understand that a corporeal paradise could be kept corporeally by man? But neither did Scripture say, "to till and keep paradise"; rather it said, to till it and to keep it. Although, if it is more diligently rendered word for word from the Greek, it is written thus: and the Lord God took the man whom he had made, and put him in paradise to till it and to keep it (Gen 2:15). But whether he put the man himself to till—for this is what the one who translated to till it meant—or to till that same paradise, that is, that the man should till paradise, sounds ambiguous; and the wording seems rather to require that it be said not "should till paradise" but in paradise.

10. 20. Nevertheless, lest perhaps it was said to till paradise just as it was said above, and there was no man to till the earth (Gen 2:5) (for it is the same manner of speaking, to till the earth and to till paradise), let us treat the ambiguous statement in both ways. For if it is not necessary that we take it as keeping paradise, but as keeping in paradise, then what is there to keep in paradise? For what there is to till in paradise we have already discussed, as has been seen. Or is it that what he would till in the earth through agriculture, he should keep in himself through discipline—that is, that just as the field obeyed him as he tilled it, so he too should obey his Lord as he commanded, so that, having taken up the precept, he might render the fruit of obedience, not the thorns of disobedience? Finally, because, when subject, he was unwilling to keep in himself the likeness of the paradise tilled by him, when condemned he received a field like himself: it will bring forth thorns, he says, and thistles for you (Gen 3:18).

10. 21. But if we understand even this, that he should till paradise and keep paradise, he could indeed till paradise, as we said above, through agriculture; but keep it not against wicked men or enemies, of whom there were none, but perhaps against beasts. How so? Or why? For were the beasts already raging against man, which would not happen except through sin? For he himself imposed names on all the beasts brought to him, as is afterward mentioned; he himself also, on the sixth day, by the law of the word of God, received food in common with them all. Or if there was already something to be feared in the beasts, in what way could one man fortify that paradise? For it was no small place that so great a spring watered. For he would have to keep it, if he could fence paradise round with so great and so strong a wall that the serpent could not enter it; but it would be a wonder if, before he fenced it, he could shut out from it all serpents.

10. 22. Accordingly, why do we pass over the meaning that lies before our eyes? Man was indeed placed in paradise to till that same paradise, as was discussed above, through an agriculture that was not laborious but delightful, and that reminded the mind of the prudent of great and useful things; but to keep that same paradise for his own sake, lest he commit anything for which he might deserve to be expelled from it. Finally, he received also a precept, so that there might be that by which he keeps paradise for himself—that is, by which, if it is observed, he is not cast out of it. For anyone is rightly said not to have kept his own thing who acted so as to lose it, even if it is safe for another who either found it or deserved to receive it.

10. 23. There is another sense in these words which I think not undeservedly to be preferred: that God should till and keep man himself. For just as man tills the earth, not to make it be earth, but to make it tilled and fruitful, so God much more tills man—whom he himself created to be man—to make him 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, it says, of man's pride is to apostatize from God (Sir 10:12). Because, then, God is the immutable good, but man, both with respect to soul and with respect to body, is a mutable thing, unless, having turned to the immutable good which is God, he abides there, he cannot be formed so as to be just and blessed. And by this, the same God who creates man to be man himself tills and keeps man so that he may also be good and blessed. Therefore, by the same manner of speaking by which man is said to till the earth, which was already earth, so that it may be adorned and fruitful, by that manner of speaking God is said to till man, who was already man, so that he may be devout and wise, and to keep him, because man cannot be safe by his own power within himself, delighting in himself, rather than by God's power above himself, and despising his dominion.

11. 24. Accordingly, I think it in no way idle, but that something, and something great, is being brought to our attention: that from the very beginning of this divine book, from where it began thus, in the beginning God made heaven and earth, up to this place, nowhere is it set down "Lord God," but only God; yet now, where it has come to the point that he was to establish man in paradise and, through a precept, till and keep him, Scripture spoke thus: and the Lord God took the man whom he had made, and put him in paradise to till it and to keep it (Gen 2:15)—not that he was not the Lord God of the creatures spoken of above, but because this was written not on account of the angels, nor on account of the other things that were created, but on account of man, to admonish him how much it profits him to have the Lord God—that is, to live obediently under his dominion—rather than licentiously to misuse his own power. He willed to set this down nowhere before, except where it came to placing man in paradise to till and keep him: so as not to say, as also of all the rest above, "and God took the man whom he had made," but to say, and the Lord God took the man whom he had made, and put him in paradise to till it, that he might be just, and to keep it, that he might be safe—by that very dominion of his, which is useful not to him but to us.

For he has no need of our service, but we have need of his dominion, that he may till and keep us; and therefore he alone is truly Lord, because we serve not for his profit but for our own profit and salvation. For if he had need of us, by that very fact he would not be the true Lord, since through us a need of his would be helped, under which he himself would also be a servant. Rightly that man in the Psalm says: I said to the Lord, you are my God; for you have no need of my goods (Ps 16:2 (15:2)). Nor is what we said to be so understood—that we serve him for our own profit and salvation—as though we expect from him something other than himself, who is our highest profit and salvation. For so we love him freely, according to that saying: but for me it is good to cleave to God (Ps 73:28 (72:28)).

12. 25. For man is not such a thing that, once made, with him who made him forsaking him, he could do anything well as though of himself; rather, his whole good action is to turn to him by whom he was made, and to be made by him always just, devout, wise, and blessed—not to be made and then withdraw, as one is healed by a physician of the body and then departs; for the physician of the body was a workman from without, serving the nature working within under God, who works all health by that twofold work of providence of which we spoke above. Man, therefore, ought not so to turn to God that, once made just by him, he should depart, but so that he may always be made by him. For by this very fact, when he does not depart from him, by his presence he is justified, and illuminated, and made blessed, with God tilling and keeping him, while he exercises dominion over one obedient and subject.

12. 26. For it is not, as we were saying—just as man tills the earth that it may be tilled and fruitful, who, when he has tilled it, departs, leaving it either plowed, or sown, or watered, or whatever else, the work that has been done remaining when the workman has departed—it is not thus that God tills the just man, that is, by justifying him, so that, if he should depart, what he made remains in the one departing; but rather, just as the air, with light present, has not been made bright but is being made bright—because if it had been made and were not being made, it would remain bright even in the absence of light—so man, with God present to him, is illuminated, but in his absence is immediately darkened; from whom one departs not by intervals of place, but by the turning away of the will.

12. 27. Let him, therefore, till and keep man as good, who is immutably good. We ought always to be made by him and always perfected, clinging to him and remaining in that turning which is toward him, of whom it is said: but for me it is good to cleave to God (Ps 73:28 (72:28)); and to whom it is said: I will keep my strength to you (Ps 59:9 (58:10)). For we are his handiwork (Eph 2:10), not only to this end, that we be men, but to this also, that we be good. For the Apostle too, when he commended to the faithful, turned from impiety, the grace by which we have been saved, says: for by grace you have been saved through faith; and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not of works, lest perhaps 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 (Eph 2:8–10). And elsewhere, when he had said, with fear and trembling work out your own salvation, lest they should think it to be attributed to themselves, as though they made themselves just and good, he immediately added: for it is God who works in you (Phil 2:12–13). The Lord God, therefore, took the man whom he had made, and put him in paradise to till it, that is, to work in him, and to keep it, that is, to keep him.

13. 28. And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For on the day you eat of it, you shall die the death (Gen 2:16–17). If that tree, from which God forbade man, were something evil, it would seem poisonous unto death by the very nature of that evil. But because he who made all things very good (See Gen 1:12, 31) had planted in paradise all good trees, and there was no nature of evil there—because nowhere is there any nature of evil (which we shall discuss more diligently, if the Lord wills, when we begin to speak of that serpent)—man was forbidden from that tree, which was not evil, so that the very keeping of the precept might in itself be good for him, and the transgression evil.

13. 29. Nor could it be better and more diligently shown how great an evil disobedience alone is, since man was made guilty of iniquity for this reason, that he touched, against the prohibition, a thing which, had he touched it without being forbidden, he would surely not have sinned. For one who says, for example, "Do not touch this herb," if perhaps it is poisonous and forewarns of death if he touches it, death will indeed follow the despiser of the precept; but even if no one had forbidden it, and he had touched it, he would nonetheless surely die. For that thing would not be suited to his health and life, whether he were forbidden it or not forbidden it.

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 had laid his hand on another's money, forbidden by him whose money it was—it would for this reason be a sin for the one forbidden, because it could be damaging to the one forbidding. But when that is touched which would neither harm the one touching it if it were not forbidden, nor anyone else whenever it were touched, why was it forbidden, except that the good of obedience in itself, and the evil of disobedience in itself, might be shown?

13. 30. In short, nothing else was sought by the one sinning than not to be under the dominion of God, when that was committed in which, to avoid committing it, the bidding of the one in dominion alone ought to have been heeded. And if that alone were heeded, what else would be heeded but the will of God? What else would be loved but the will of God? What else would be set before the human will but the will of God? Why the Lord commanded, let him see to that; what he commanded must be done by the servant, and then perhaps why he commanded it may be seen by the one who deserves it. But yet—not to inquire any longer into the cause of this command—if this very thing is a great profit to man, that he serves God, then by commanding God makes useful whatever he wills to command, concerning whom there is no fear that he could command what is useless.

14. 31. Nor can it come about that one's own will does not fall upon man with the great weight of ruin, if, exalting it, he sets it before the will of a superior. This man experienced, despising the precept of God; and by this experience he learned what difference there is between good and evil—namely, the good of obedience, but the evil of disobedience, that is, of pride and contumacy, of a perverse imitation of God and a harmful liberty. But the tree by which this could happen received its name, as was already said above, from the very thing. For we would not sense evil except by experience, because there would be none, if we had not done it. For evil is no nature, but the loss of good has received this name.

For the immutable good is God; but man, as far as concerns his nature, in which God founded him, is indeed good, but not immutable as God is. Now a mutable good, which comes after the immutable good, becomes a better good when it has clung to the immutable good, by loving and serving with a rational and proper will. For this very reason this too is a nature of great good, because it received even this, that it can cling to the nature of the highest good. But if it is unwilling, it deprives itself of the good, and this is an evil for it, whence by the justice of God torment also follows. For what is so unjust as that it should be well with the deserter of good? Nor can it in any way come about that it be so; but sometimes the evil of the higher good lost 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 grief what he loved, while the creator of natures is everywhere praised. For it is still a good that grieves over the good lost; for unless some good had remained in the nature, there would be no grief over the good lost in the punishment.

14. 32. But he to whom the good pleases without the experience of evil—that is, who, before he feels the loss of the good, chooses to hold it lest he lose it—is to be proclaimed above all men. But unless this were a matter of some singular praise, it would not be attributed to that child who, made of the race of Israel, Emmanuel, God with us (See Isa 7:14; Matt 1:23), reconciled us to God, the man who is mediator of men and of God (See 1 Tim 2:5), the Word with God, flesh with us (See John 1:1, 14), 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, that he may choose the good (Isa 7:16 (according to the LXX)).

How is it that he despises or chooses what he does not know, except because these two things are known in one way through the prudence of good, in another through the experience of evil? Through the prudence of good, evil is known, even if it is not felt. For the good is held, lest the loss of it be felt as evil. Likewise, through the experience of evil, good is known; since one for whom it has gone badly through the good lost feels what he has lost. Before the child knew, then, by experience, either the good he might lack or the evil he might feel through the loss of good, he despised evil that he might choose good—that is, he was unwilling to lose what he had, lest by losing it he should 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 (See John 6:38)—not like that man who chose to do his own will, not the will of him by whom he was made. Rightly, then, as by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many are made just (Rom 5:19); because as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:22).

15. 33. But some have in vain been keenly dull, when they ask how the tree could have been called the tree of the discernment of good and evil before man had transgressed the precept in it and by the very experience discerned 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 being touched according to the prohibition, what would be felt if it were touched against the prohibition might be guarded against. For it was not because they ate of it against the precept that that tree became the tree of the discernment of good and evil; rather, surely, even if they had been obedient and had taken nothing from it against the precept, it would rightly be called by that which would befall them there if they had taken it. Just as, if it were called the tree of satiety, because men could be filled from it—surely, if no one had approached it, would that name on that account be unfitting? Since, when they approached and were filled, then they would prove how rightly that tree was so called.

16. 34. And how, they say, would man understand what was being called to him "the tree of the discernment of good and evil," when he did not at all know what evil itself was? Those who think so pay too little attention to how very many unknown things are understood from contrary known things, so that even the words of things that do not exist, when interposed in speech, leave no hearer in the dark. For that which altogether does not exist is called "nothing"; and there is no one who hears and speaks Latin who does not understand these two syllables. From where, except when the sense beholds that which is, and by its privation recognizes what also is not? So too, when "the empty" is spoken of, by beholding the fullness of a body, by its privation as though contrary, we understand what "the empty" means; just as, by the sense of hearing, we judge not only of sounds but also of silence.

So, from the life that was in man, he could be on guard against its contrary—that is, the privation of life which is called death; and the very cause by which he would lose what he loved—that is, any deed of his by which it would come about that he lost life, by whatever syllables it was named, as in Latin when "sin" or "evil" is spoken—he would understand as a sign of that which he discerned in his mind. For how do we understand when "resurrection" is spoken of, which we have never experienced? Is it not because we sense what it is to live, and call the privation of that thing death, whence we call the return to that which we sense "resurrection"? And if it is called by some other name in any language whatever, a sign is surely intimated to the mind in the voice of those speaking, so that, when it sounds, it may recognize what it would think even without the sign.

For it is a wonder how nature shuns the loss of the things it has, even a loss not experienced. For who taught the beasts to shun death, except the sense of life? Who taught a little child to cling to the one carrying him, if he threatened to drop him from a height? This begins from a certain time, but nonetheless before he has experienced anything of this kind.

16. 35. So, then, to those first human beings life was already sweet, which they surely shunned losing; and they could understand God signifying this very thing by whatever modes or sounds; nor could sin be persuaded to them otherwise than if it were first persuaded to them that by that deed they would not die—that is, that they would not lose what they had and rejoiced to have; of which we must speak in its own place.

Let those, then, who are moved by this, consider how they could understand God naming or threatening things not experienced; and let them see that we recognize the names of all things not experienced, without any surge of doubt, only from contraries we already know, if they are of privations, or from things similar, if they are of forms. Unless perhaps someone is moved by how they could speak, or understand one speaking, who had not learned, either by growing up among speakers or by some instruction; as though it were a great thing for God to teach those to speak whom he had so made that they could learn this even from men, if there were any from whom to learn.

17. 36. It is rightly asked whether God gave this precept to the man only, or to the woman as well. But it has not yet been narrated how the woman was made. Or had she perhaps already been made? But how this was done, which had been done earlier, was narrated later by way of recapitulation. For the words of Scripture stand thus: and the Lord God commanded Adam, saying; he did not say, he commanded them; then it follows: of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; he did not say, you (plural) shall eat. Then he adds: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it (Gen 2:16–17): now here he speaks as if to both, in the plural, and ends the precept in the plural, saying: for on the day you eat of it, you shall die the death (Gen 2:17). Or did he, knowing that he was going to make the woman for him, so command in a most orderly way that the precept of the Lord might reach the woman through the man? This discipline the Apostle keeps in the Church, saying: but if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home (1 Cor 14:35).

18. 37. Likewise it can be asked how God now spoke to the man whom he had made, now certainly endowed with sense and mind, so that he was able to hear and understand one speaking. For he could not otherwise receive the precept, by transgressing which he would be guilty, unless he understood what he received. How, then, did God speak to him? Within, in the mind, according to the understanding—that is, so that he wisely understood the will and precept of God without any corporeal sounds or likenesses of corporeal things? But I do not think God spoke to the first man in this way. For Scripture narrates such things that we should rather believe that God spoke to man in paradise in the way that he also afterward spoke to the patriarchs, as to Abraham, as to Moses—that is, in some corporeal form. For this is why they heard his voice walking in paradise toward evening, and hid themselves (See Gen 3:8).

19. 38. A great topic, then, not to be passed over, is set before us, that we may behold, as much as we can and as much as he himself deigns to help and grant, the twofold work of divine providence, which above, when we were speaking of agriculture, we touched on in a passing way, so that from there the reader's mind might already begin to accustom itself to consider this, which helps very much, lest we think anything unworthy of the very substance of God.

We say, then, that the highest, 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—is God who alone has immortality, and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see (1 Tim 6:16), and is contained by no space of places, whether finite or infinite, nor varied by any volume of times, whether finite or infinite. For there is not in his substance, by which he is God, anything that is less in a part than in the whole, as must be the case with things that move in places about an unmoved pivot, as the whole palm moves from the joint; nor was there in his substance anything that now is not, or will be that is not yet, as in natures that can undergo the mutability of time.

20. 39. He, then, living in immutable eternity, created all things at once, out of which times would run and places be filled, and the ages be unrolled by the temporal and local motions of things. Among these things he established some spiritual, some corporeal, forming a matter which neither another nor no one, but he alone, established unformed and formable, so that it would precede its own formation not in time but in origin. But he set the spiritual creation before the corporeal, because the spiritual could be changed only through times, but the corporeal through times and places. For example, the mind is moved through time, either by remembering what it had forgotten, or by learning what it did not know, or by willing what it did not will; but the body is moved through places, either from earth to heaven, or from heaven to earth, or from east to west, or in some other similar way. Now everything that is moved through place cannot but be moved through time at the same time; but not everything that is moved through time must also be moved through place.

As, therefore, the substance that is moved through time and place is preceded by the substance that is moved only through time, so that substance is preceded by the one that is moved neither through place nor through time. And by this, just as the created spirit, itself moved only through time, moves the body through time and place, so the creator Spirit, moved neither through time nor through place, moves the created spirit through time: but the created spirit moves itself through time, and the body through time and place; whereas the creator Spirit moves himself without time and place, moves the created spirit through time without place, moves the body through time and place.

21. 40. Therefore whoever tries to understand how the eternal—truly eternal and truly immortal and immutable God—himself moved neither through time nor through place, moves his creation temporally and locally, I do not think he can attain it unless he first understands how the soul, that is, the created spirit, moved not through place but only through time, moves the body through time and place. For if he cannot yet grasp what is done within himself, how much less that which is above?

21. 41. The soul, indeed, affected by the habit of the carnal senses, thinks that it too is moved together with the body through place, while it moves the body through place. But if it could diligently inspect, as it were, the pivots of its body's members—how they are arranged joint by joint, from which the beginnings of motions exert themselves—it would find that the things moved through spaces of places are moved only by those that are fixed in place. For the finger alone is not moved unless the hand is fixed, from whose joint, as from an unmoved pivot, it is moved. So the whole palm is moved from the joint of the elbow, the elbow from the joint of the shoulder, the shoulder from the shoulder blade, while the pivots on which the motion rests surely stand; that which is moved goes through space of place.

So in the sole of the foot there is a joint at the ankle, which, standing, it is moved by; so the leg's at the knee, and the whole foot's at the hip; and there is no motion of a member at all that the will moves, except from some joint-pivot, which the bidding of the same will first fixes, so that from that which is not moved by space of place, that which is moved may be enabled to act. Finally, even in walking the foot is not raised unless another, fixed, bears the whole body, until that one which has been moved rests, with the joint of its pivot unmoved, from the place from which it is borne to the place to which it is borne.

21. 42. Furthermore, if in the body the will moves no member through place except from that joint of the member which it does not move—since both that part of the body which is moved and that by which, fixed, it is enabled to be moved have their corporeal quantities by which they occupy the spaces of their places—how much more does the bidding of the soul itself, which the members serve so that what it pleases is fixed, from which what is to be moved may rest, since the soul is not a corporeal nature, nor fills a body by local space as water fills either a skin or a sponge, but by marvelous modes is mingled, by that very incorporeal bidding, in giving life to the body, by which it also commands the body, by a kind of intention, not by mass: how much more, I say, is the bidding of its will itself not moved through place, so as to move the body through place, when it moves the whole through parts, and moves none through place except through those which it does not move through place?

22. 43. But if this is difficult to understand, let both be believed: both 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 someone is unwilling to believe this about the soul—which indeed he would without doubt not only believe but even understand, if he could think it, as it is, incorporeal (for to whom would it not easily occur that what is not extended through spaces of place is not moved through place? but whatever is extended through spaces of place is a body; and by this it follows that the soul is not thought to be moved through place, if it is believed not to be a body)—but, as I had begun to say, if someone is unwilling to believe this about the soul, he is not to 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 perfectly immutable.

23. 44. But because that nature of the Trinity is altogether immutable, and on this account so eternal that nothing can be coeternal with it, it, with itself and in itself without any time and place, nevertheless moves through time and place the creation subject to it, creating natures by goodness, ordering wills by power: so that among natures there is none that is not from him; but among wills there is none, good, that he does not profit by, none, evil, that he cannot use well. But because he did not give freedom of will to all natures, while those to which he gave it are more powerful and superior, those natures that do not have will must necessarily be subject to those that have it, and this by the ordination of the Creator, who never so punishes an evil will as to destroy the dignity of nature. Since, then, every body and every irrational soul does not have freedom of will, these are subject to those natures that are endowed with freedom of will; and not all to all, but as the justice of the Creator has distributed.

Therefore the providence of God, ruling and administering the whole creation—both natures and wills, natures that they may be, but wills so that the good are not unfruitful nor the evil unpunished—subjects first all things to itself, then the corporeal 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 more needy to the more abundant. But among wills, the good ones to himself, the rest to those serving him; so that the evil will suffers what the good will, by God's bidding, has done, whether through itself or through an evil will, at least in those things which are by nature subject even to evil wills—that is, in bodies. For in themselves evil wills have their own interior punishment, that very iniquity of theirs.

24. 45. And by this, to the sublime angels, who submissively enjoy God and blessedly serve God, every corporeal nature is subject, every irrational life, every will whether weak or depraved; so that they may do concerning the subject things, or with the subject things, what the order of nature demands in all things, at the bidding of him to whom all things are subject. Accordingly they see in him the immutable truth, and according to it direct their wills. They become, then, partakers of his eternity, truth, and will always, without time and place. But they are moved by his command even temporally, while he is not moved temporally. Nor in such a way that they spring back or flow away from his contemplation; but at once they both contemplate him without place and time, and accomplish his commands in lower things, moving themselves through time, but the body through time and place, as much as suits their action. And therefore God, by the twofold work of his providence, presides over his whole creation: over natures, that they may come to be; but over wills, that without his bidding or permission they may do nothing.

25. 46. The nature of the corporeal universe, then, is not helped corporeally from without. For there is no body outside it; otherwise it is not the universe. But within it is helped incorporeally, with God bringing it about that it is a nature at all; for from him and through him and in him are all things (Rom 11:36). But the parts of the same universe are both helped incorporeally from within, or rather come to be, that they may be natures; and corporeally from without, that they may be in a better state—as by foods, agriculture, medicine, and whatever is also done for adornment, so that they may be not only safe and more fruitful, but even more comely.

25. 47. But the created spiritual nature, if it is perfect and blessed, as that of the holy angels is, as far as concerns itself, that it may be and may be wise, is helped only from within, incorporeally. For God speaks to it within in a marvelous and ineffable way—not through writing affixed to corporeal instruments, nor through voices sounding to corporeal ears, nor through likenesses of bodies, such as come to be imaginatively in the spirit, as in dreams or in some excess of spirit, which in Greek is called "ecstasy," and we already use that word for the Latin: because this kind of vision too, although it comes to be more inwardly than the things announced to the mind through the senses of the body, yet, because it is similar to them, so that when it occurs it can either not at all be distinguished from them, or only scarcely and most rarely, and because it is more outward than that which the rational and intellectual mind beholds in the immutable truth itself, and by that light judges of all these things—I judge it to be reckoned among those things that come to be from without.

The spiritual and intellectual creation, then, perfect and blessed, such as that of the angels, as I said, as far as concerns itself, that it may be and may be wise and blessed, is helped only from within by the eternity, truth, and love of the Creator. But if it is to be said to be helped from without, it is perhaps helped by this alone: that they see one another, and rejoice in their fellowship in God, and that, all the creatures being beheld in them too, it everywhere gives thanks and praises the Creator. But as concerns the action of the angelic creation, through which the providence of God provides for the kinds of all things, and especially for the human, that itself helps from without, both through those visions which are similar to corporeal things, and through bodies themselves which lie under the angelic power.

26. 48. Since these things are so—since God, almighty and all-holding, by immutable eternity, truth, and will always the same, moved neither through time nor through place, moves the spiritual creation through time, and also moves the corporeal creation through time and place; so that by this motion the natures which he established from within he also administers from without, and through the 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 in God himself is life without time and place.

When, therefore, God does some such thing, we ought not to suppose his substance, by which he is God, to be mutable by 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 administers from without the natures created within—while he himself is, by no interval or space of places, by immutable and excelling power, both interior to every thing, because in him are all things, and exterior to every thing, because he himself is above all things. Likewise, by no interval or space of times, by immutable eternity, he is both more ancient than all things, because he himself is before all things, and more new than all things, because the same he is after all things.

27. 49. Therefore, when we hear Scripture saying: and the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For on the day you eat of it, you shall die the death (Gen 2:16–17); if we ask the mode, how God spoke these things, the mode itself indeed cannot properly be comprehended by us; yet we ought most certainly to hold that God either speaks through his substance, or through a creation subject to him; but that through his substance he speaks only to create all natures, and to spiritual and intellectual ones not only to create but also to illuminate them, when they can now grasp his speech, such as it is in his Word, which was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God, through whom all things were made (John 1:1–3). But to those who cannot grasp it, when God speaks, he speaks only through a creation, either spiritual only, whether in dreams or in ecstasy in the likeness of corporeal things, or even through the corporeal creation itself, when to the senses of the body either some form appears or voices sound.

27. 50. If, then, Adam was such that he could grasp that speech of God which God offers to the angelic minds through his substance, it is not to be doubted that he moved his mind through time in a marvelous and ineffable way—not himself moved through time—and impressed upon him the useful and wholesome precept of truth, and showed him, in that very ineffable truth, what punishment would be owed to the transgressor: just as all good precepts are heard or seen in that immutable Wisdom which transfers itself into holy souls (See Wis 7:27) from some time, though there is no motion of it in time.

But if Adam was just only in that mode in which he still needed the authority of another, holier and wiser, creation, through which he might come to know the will and command of God—as the prophets do for us, as the angels do for them—why should we doubt that God spoke to him through some such creation, by such signs of voices as he could understand? For as for what was afterward written, that, when they had sinned, they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise, because it was done not through the very substance of God, but through a creation subject to him, no one who is wise in the Catholic faith doubts in any way.

For I wished to discuss this matter somewhat more broadly for this reason: that some heretics think the substance of the Son of God to be by itself visible, with no body assumed, and therefore suppose that, before he received a body from the Virgin, he himself was seen by the patriarchs, as though it were said of God the Father alone: whom no man has seen, nor can see (1 Tim 6:16); because the Son was seen, even through his own substance, before he received the form of a servant (See Phil 2:7): which impiety is to be driven far from Catholic minds.

But of this we shall discuss more fully elsewhere, if it please the Lord; now, this volume being ended, what follows—how the woman was created from the side of her husband—is to be hoped for in what comes next.

1. 1. And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like himself. And God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the heaven, and brought them to Adam, that he might see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called every living soul, that is its name. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to all the birds of the heaven, and to all the beasts of the field. But for Adam himself there was not found a helper like him. And God sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he fell asleep. 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 of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from her husband. And for this reason a man will leave father and mother, and will be joined to his wife; and the two will be in one flesh (Gen 2:18–24).

If the things considered and written in the foregoing books help the reader at all, we ought not to linger longer on this, that God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the heaven: for why it was said further, that is, on account of the first establishment of creatures completed in six days, in which all things were at once both perfected causally and begun, so that thereafter the causes might be brought to their effects, we have already intimated as much as we could in what precedes. And if anyone thinks this is to be unraveled otherwise, let him only diligently attend to all those things which we attended to in order to think this; and if he can elicit a more probable opinion from them, not only ought we not to resist, but we ought even to rejoice.

1. 2. But if anyone is moved that he did not say, "God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field, and from the waters all the birds of the heaven," but as though he formed both kinds from the earth: and God, he says, further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the heaven (Gen 2:19); let him see that it is to be understood in two ways: either that he was now silent about whence he formed the birds of the heaven, because even left unsaid it could occur to one that not both, but only the beasts of the field, were taken to have been formed by God from the earth, so that, even with Scripture silent, we understand whence he formed the birds of the heaven, as those who know that in the first establishment of the causal reasons they were produced from the waters; or that the earth was so named in a universal sense, together with the waters, as it is named in that Psalm where, the praises of the heavenly things being ended, the speech is turned to the earth, and it is said: praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all deeps (Ps 148:7), and the rest, nor afterward is it said, "praise the Lord from the waters." For there are all the deeps, which nevertheless praise the Lord from the earth; there too the creeping things and winged birds, which nonetheless praise the Lord from the earth. According to this universal naming of the earth, according to which it is also said of the whole world, "God who made heaven and earth," whatever things are created, whether from the dry land or from the waters, are truly understood as created from the earth.

2. 3. Now let us see how we are to take what God said: it is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like himself (Gen 2:18): whether God said this temporally, with voices and syllables uttered; or whether the very reason was recorded which was in the Word of God principally, that the woman should be made thus—which reason Scripture took up even then, when it said: and God said: Let there be (Gen 1:3) this or that, when all things were first established. Or did God perhaps say this in the mind of the man himself, as he speaks to certain of his servants in his servants themselves? Of which kind of servants of his was also that man who said in the Psalm: I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me (Ps 85:8 (84:9)). Or was some revelation about this matter made to the man himself in the man himself through an angel, in likenesses of corporeal voices, although Scripture was silent whether in dreams or in ecstasy—for these things are wont to come about so—or in some other way, as it is revealed to the prophets, whence is that: and the angel who spoke in me said to me (Zech 2:3); or did the voice itself sound through a corporeal creation, as from the cloud: this is my Son (Matt 3:17).

Which of all these took place, then, we cannot clearly comprehend; nevertheless let us most certainly hold both that God said this, and that, if he said it by a corporeal voice or by a temporally expressed likeness of a body, he said it not through his own substance, but through some creation subject to his command, as we treated in the preceding book.

2. 4. For God was seen even afterward by holy men—at one time with a head white like wool, at another with the lower part of the body like fine brass (See Rev 1:14–15), at another in one way and another in another; yet that he offered those visions to men not through the substance by which he himself is, but through things subject to him which he created, and through likenesses of corporeal forms and voices showed and said what he willed, is most certain to those who either faithfully believe, or even excellently understand, that the substance of the Trinity is immutably eternal, is moved neither through time nor through place, and moves through time and place. Let us not, then, now ask how he said this, but rather understand what God said. For that a helper like himself was to be made for man, the eternal truth itself holds, through which all things were created; and in that truth he hears it who is able in it to recognize what was created and why.

3. 5. But if it is asked for what purpose this helper had to be made, nothing else probably occurs than for the sake of procreating children, just as the earth is a helper to the seed, so that a sprout is born from both: for this too had been said in the first establishment 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 (Gen 1:27–28). This reason of the establishment and conjunction of male and female, and the blessing, did not fail even after the sin and punishment of man. For it is according to it that the earth is now full of men having dominion over it.

3. 6. For although they are recorded to have come together and begotten offspring only after being sent out of paradise, yet I do not see what could have prevented their having honorable marriage and an undefiled bed even in paradise (See Heb 13:4): God granting this to those living faithfully and justly, and serving him obediently and holily, so that without any restless ardor of desire, without any labor and pain of giving birth, offspring would be begotten from their seed; not so that children would succeed dying parents, but so that, with those who had begotten them remaining in some state of form, and taking corporeal vigor from the tree of life which was planted there, those who were begotten too would be brought to the same state, until, a fixed number being filled, if all lived justly and obediently, then that change would come about, so that the animal bodies, without any death, changed into another quality, because they would serve at every bidding the spirit ruling them, and would live by the life-giving spirit alone, without any corporeal supports of food, would be called spiritual. This could have happened, if the transgression of the precept had not deserved the punishment of death.

3. 7. For those who do not believe this could have happened attend to nothing but the custom of nature now running thus after human sin and punishment; but we ought not to be among the kind who believe nothing but what they have been accustomed to see. For who would doubt that what we said could have been granted to a man living obediently and devoutly, who does not doubt that to the garments of the Israelites a certain state in their kind was imparted, so that for forty years they suffered no harm of age (Deut 29:5)?

4. 8. Why, then, did they not come together until they had gone out of paradise? It can be quickly answered: because, soon after the woman was created, before they came together, that transgression took place, for the desert of which, destined to death, they also went out of the place of that happiness. For Scripture did not express the time, how much there was between their being made and Cain being born from them. It can also be said that God had not yet commanded that they come together. For why should not the divine authority be awaited for this matter, where no concupiscence pressed like a goad of disobedient flesh? But God had not commanded this, because according to his foreknowledge he was disposing all things, in which he without doubt foreknew their fall too, whence the human race was now to be propagated as mortal.

5. 9. Or if the woman was not made for the man as a helper for begetting children, then for what helping was she made? If as one to till the earth with him, there was not yet labor that he should need help, and if there were need, a male would be a better helper. This can be said also of comfort, if perhaps solitude was tedious. For how much more fittingly would two friends dwell together to live and converse than a man and a woman? But if it was fitting that they live together, one commanding, the other obeying, lest contrary wills disturb the peace of those dwelling together, neither for keeping this would order have been lacking, by which one would be first, the other later—especially if the later were created from the earlier, as the woman was created. Or will anyone say that God could have made from the man's rib only a female, not also a male, if he had wished this? Therefore I do not find for what helping the woman was made for the man, if the cause of bearing is withdrawn.

6. 10. For if parents had to yield this life to their children, so that in this way the whole human race might be filled to a fixed number through departures and successions, men could also, their children begotten and the justice of human duty fulfilled, be transferred hence to better things, not through death, but through some change—either that highest one by which, their bodies received, 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, then some lower one than that will be: which nevertheless would have a better state than either this body has, or even those that were first made—the man's from the mire of the earth, the woman's from the man's flesh.

6. 11. For we must not suppose that Elijah is either already such as the saints will be when, the day's work done, they will all alike receive the denarius; or such as the men are who have not yet emigrated from this life, from which he, however, migrated not by death but by translation. He has, then, already something better than he could have in this life; though he does not yet have what, from this life rightly lived, he will have in the end: for they provided better things for us, that they should not be made perfect without us (See Heb 11:40).

Or if anyone thinks that Elijah could not have merited this, if he had taken a wife and procreated children (for he is believed not to have had them, because Scripture does not say so, although it has also said nothing of his celibacy)—what will he answer about Enoch, who, having begotten children, pleasing God, was not put to death, but translated (See Gen 5:24; Heb 11:5)? Why, then, could not Adam and Eve too, if living justly they had chastely procreated children, yield to their successors by translation, not by death? For if Enoch and Elijah, having died in Adam and bearing the propagation of death in their flesh, are believed even to be going to return to this life so as to pay that debt, and, what has been so long deferred, to die, yet are now in another life, where, before the resurrection of the flesh, before the animal body is changed into a spiritual one, they fail neither by disease nor by old age: how much more justly and probably would it be granted to those first men, living without any sin of their own or of their parents, that, their children begotten, they should yield into some better state, whence, the age being ended, with all the posterity of the saints, they would be changed into an angelic form, not through the death of the flesh, but through the power of God, much more happily?

7. 12. I do not, then, see for what other helping the woman was made for the man, if the cause of generating is withdrawn—though why it should be withdrawn I do not know. For whence does faithful and devout virginity have great merit and merit of great honor before God, except because in this present time of abstaining from embrace, since from all nations a most abundant supply is at hand for filling the number of the saints, the lust of perceiving sordid pleasure does not claim for itself what the necessity of supplying offspring no longer requires? Finally, the weakness of both sexes, inclining toward the ruin of disgrace, is rightly received by the honorableness of marriage, so that what could be a duty for the healthy may be a remedy for the sick.

For it is not because incontinence is an evil that marriage, by which the incontinent are joined, is therefore not a good; rather, this good is not blameworthy on account of that evil, but that evil is venial on account of this good; since that which marriage has as good, and by which marriage is good, can never be a sin. But this is threefold: faithfulness, offspring, sacrament. In faithfulness it is observed that there be no lying with another, man or woman, apart from the marriage bond; in offspring, that it be lovingly received, kindly nourished, religiously brought up; but in the sacrament, that the marriage not be separated, and that one dismissed, man or woman, not be joined to another 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 ruled.

Therefore, because we discussed this sufficiently in the book On the Good of Marriage which we recently published, where we also distinguished widowed continence and virginal excellence according to the dignity of their grades, our pen need not be occupied here longer.

8. 13. For now we are asking for what helping the woman was made for the man, if it was not permitted to them to be joined to each other in paradise for begetting children. For those who hold this perhaps think all intercourse to be sin. For it is difficult, while men perversely shun vices, not to run ruinously into their contraries. For just as one shuddering at avarice becomes lavish; or one shuddering at extravagance becomes avaricious; or one becomes restless whose sloth you have reproved; or sluggish, one whose restlessness you have reproved; or one who, being reproved, has begun to hate his own boldness, flees to timidity; or one who tries not to be timid, as though a chain were broken, becomes rash—while they measure faults not by reason but by opinion: so, while men do not know what is condemned in adulteries and fornications by divine law, they detest even conjugal intercourse for the sake of procreation.

9. 14. Those who do not do this, but yet think that the fruitfulness of the flesh was given divinely for the succession of mortality, themselves too think that those first men could not have come together unless, destined to die on account of the sin they had committed, they sought successors by begetting; nor do they attend to the fact that, if successors could rightly be sought for those who would die, much more rightly could companions be sought for those who would live. For when the earth was filled with the human race, rightly would no offspring be sought except such as would succeed the dying; but in order that the earth might be filled by two human beings, how would they fulfill the duty of fellowship, except by begetting?

Or is anyone so blind in mind as not to discern how great an adornment to the earth the human race is, even when by a few it is lived rightly and praiseworthily; and how much the order of the commonwealth avails, restraining even sinners within the bond of a certain earthly peace? For men are not so depraved that even such do not excel the cattle and the birds; the kinds of all of which, adorning this lowest part of the world according to the lot of its place, who would not delight to consider? But who would be so senseless as to think it could have been less adorned, if it were filled with the just not dying?

9. 15. For because the heavenly city of the angels is most numerous, they would not on that account rightly be joined in marriage unless they were to die. For the Lord, foreknowing that this perfect number would also, in the resurrection of the saints, be associated with the angels, says: in the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; for they will not begin to die, but will be equal to the angels of God (Matt 22:30): but here, since the earth was to be filled with men, and it had to be filled from one, for the sake of the closer bond of kinship and the unity to be especially commended, for what else was a female sex sought as a helper like him, except that the womanly nature, like the fruitfulness of the earth, might help the man as he sowed the human race?

10. 16. Although it is more honorably and better believed that the body of those men, then constituted as animal in paradise, not yet condemned by the law of death, was so that they did not have the appetite for carnal pleasure which these bodies now have, which are already drawn from the propagation of death. For nothing was wrought in them when they ate of the forbidden tree: since God had said, not, "if you eat, you shall die the death," but, on the day you eat, you shall die the death (Gen 2:17): so that this very thing that day would work in them, which the Apostle laments, saying: I delight in the law of God according to the inner man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and taking me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:22–25). For it would not suffice him to say, "who will free me from this mortal body?" but he says, from the body of this death. So too that: the body indeed, he says, is dead because of sin (Rom 8:10); nor does he there say "mortal," but dead; although surely also mortal, because it will die.

We must not believe those bodies were thus, but, though animal, not yet spiritual, yet not dead—that is, such as it was necessary for them to die: which was done on the day they touched the tree against the prohibition.

10. 17. Just as in our own bodies a certain health is spoken of in its own mode, which, if it is so disturbed that a lethal disease now feeds upon the vitals, so that, upon inspection, the physicians declare death to be imminent, the body is surely even then called mortal, but otherwise than when it was healthy, although it is at some time without doubt going to die: so those men, bearing indeed animal bodies, but not going to die unless they sinned, and going to receive an angelic form and a heavenly quality, as soon as they transgressed the precept, in their members, as it were a lethal sickness, death itself was conceived; and it changed that quality by which they so had dominion over the body that they did not say: I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind (See Rom 7:23); because, although it was not yet a spiritual but an animal body, yet it was not yet of this death, in which and with which we are born.

For what else have we, I will not say born, but altogether conceived, except begun a certain sickness by which we are necessarily going to die? For it is not so necessary that one die of the very disease who has become dropsical, or consumptive, or leprous, as that one die who has begun to have this body, in which all men are by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3), because nothing made this except the punishment of sin.

10. 18. Since these things are so, why should we not believe that those men, before sin, could command the genital members for procreating children just as the others, which the soul moves in any work without any trouble, and as though by a tickling of pleasure? For if the almighty Creator, ineffably to be praised, who is great even in his least works, granted to bees that they so accomplish the generation of children as the form of wax and the liquid of honey; why should it seem incredible that he made the bodies of the first men such that, if they had not sinned and immediately conceived a certain disease by which they would die, they would command, by that bidding, the members from which offspring arises, with which the feet are commanded when one walks, so that there would be neither sowing with ardor nor bearing with pain?

But now, by transgressing the precept, they deserved to have in their members the motion of that law which wars against the law of the mind, of the death conceived; which marriage orders, which continence checks and restrains, so that, just as from sin punishment was made, so from punishment merit may be made.

11. 19. Whoever, then, would doubt that the woman was made for the man, from the man, in that sex, in that form and distinction of members by which females are marked—she who bore Cain and Abel, and all their brothers, from whom all men would be born, among whom she bore also Seth, through whom it came to Abraham (Gen 4:1, 25) and to the people of Israel, a nation now most well known to all nations, and through Noah's sons all nations—whoever, I say, would doubt this, makes all that we believe totter, and is to be driven far from the minds of the faithful. When, therefore, it is asked for what helping that sex was made for the man, to me, diligently considering all things as far as I am able, nothing occurs except the cause of offspring, that through their stock the earth might be filled; and not procreated in the way that men are now procreated, when the law of sin is in the members warring against the law of the mind, even if by the grace of God it is overcome by virtue: for this is to be believed 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—that is, the soul's own servant—should not serve at every bidding, just as the soul itself refused to serve its own Lord; whether God creates both from the parents, body from body, soul from soul, or makes souls in some other way—surely not for an impossible work nor for a small reward: that when the soul, devoutly subject to God, has by grace itself overcome that law of sin which is in the members of the body of this death, which the first man received as a 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?

12. 20. But since for what helping the woman was made for the man has been sufficiently inquired into, as I judge, let us now see why it was done that all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the heaven were brought to Adam, that he might impose names on them; and thus a kind of necessity arose of creating a woman for him from his side, since among those animals a helper like him had not been found. For it seems to me to have been done for the sake of some prophetic signification, but nevertheless done, so that, the deed being confirmed, the interpretation of the figure may be left free.

For what is this very thing, that Adam imposed names on the winged and earthly living creatures, but not also on the fishes and all swimming things? For if human languages are consulted, all these are called as men, in speaking, imposed names on them. Not only these things that are in the waters and on the lands, but even the earth itself, and water, and heaven, and the things that are seen in heaven, and the things that are not seen but believed, are called by different names according to the diversity of the languages of the nations.

We have indeed learned that there was at first one language, before the pride of that tower built after the flood divided human society into the diverse sounds of signs (See Gen 11:1–8). But whatever that language was, what does it matter to ask? That language Adam certainly then spoke, and in that language, if it still remains to this day, are those articulate words by which the first man imposed names on the earthly and winged animals. Is it then in any way credible that in the same language the names of fishes were instituted not by man, but divinely, which man would afterward learn by God's teaching? But if it had been done so, why it had been done so would without doubt resound with mystical signification. But it is to be believed that, the kinds of fishes being gradually known, names were imposed.

But at that time when the cattle, and the beasts, and the birds were brought to the man, that, gathered to him and distinguished by kinds, he might impose names on them—on which very ones he could impose names gradually, and much sooner than on the fishes, if this had not been done—what was the cause, except a reason of signifying something which would avail for the foretelling of things to come? To which thing the order of this narrative is especially attentive.

12. 21. Next, did God not know that he had created nothing of the kind among the natures of the animals which could be a helper like the man? Or was it necessary that the man himself too should know this, and hold his wife the more dear, because in all flesh created under heaven and living, as he himself, from this air, he found nothing like her? It would be a wonder if he could not know this except by all being brought to him and inspected. For if he believed God, God could tell him this in the way that he also gave the precept, in the way that he also questioned and judged the one who sinned. But if he did not believe, surely he could not know this either—whether the one whom he did not believe had brought all things to him; or whether perhaps in some more remote parts of the earth he had hidden some things like her which he had not shown. Therefore I think it is not to be doubted that this was done for the sake of some prophetic signification, but nonetheless done.

12. 22. Nor have we undertaken in this work to examine prophetic riddles, but to commend the faith of the things done according to the propriety of history, so that what can seem impossible to the vain and unbelieving, or to be repugnant by a kind of contrary testimony to the very authority of holy Scripture, I may, according to my powers, as much as God helps, by discussing, show to be neither impossible nor contrary.

But that which indeed appears possible, and has no appearance of repugnance, but yet can seem to some as if superfluous, or even foolish, this very thing I may show by discussing—namely, that it was therefore done not as though in the natural or customary order of things done, so that, the most faithful authority of the holy Scriptures being set before our hearts, because it cannot be foolish, it may be believed to be mystical—although its exposition or inquiry we have either already exhibited elsewhere, or defer to another time.

13. 23. What, then, does this also mean, that the woman was made from the man's side? But suppose we believe that, for the sake of commending the force of the conjunction itself, it had to be done thus; did the same reason or necessity demand that it be done to him as he slept, and that finally a bone be drawn out, in whose place flesh would be supplied? For could not the flesh itself have been drawn out, so that from it the woman, being the weaker sex, might more fittingly be formed? Or indeed, with so many additions, could God build a rib into a woman, and could he not build flesh or pulp—he who made the man himself from dust? Or if a rib had now to be drawn out, why was another rib not put back in its place? Why too was it not said, "he formed," or "he made," as in all the works above; but, the Lord God built, he says, that rib (Gen 2:22), not as a human body, but as a house?

It is therefore not to be doubted that, since these things were done and cannot be foolish, they were done to signify something, with God, foreknowing, mercifully proclaiming, from the very first beginning of the human race, in his own works, the fruit of the age to come; so that, revealed and written down at a fixed time for his servants, whether through the successions of men, or through his Spirit, or by the ministry of angels, they might bear testimony both to things future to be promised and to things fulfilled to be recognized: which will appear more and more in what follows.

14. 24. Let us see, then—what we have undertaken in this work—not according to the prefiguration of things to come, but according to the not allegorical but proper signification of things done, how these can be taken: and God, he says, further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the heaven (Gen 2:19); whence we have already discussed what was seen, and as much as was seen. And he brought all these to Adam, that he might see what he would call them (Gen 2:19). How God brought these to Adam—lest we be wise carnally—what we treated in the preceding book about the twofold work of divine providence ought to help us. For we must not believe this was done in the way that hunters or fowlers track and drive to the nets whatever living creatures they catch; or that some voice of command was made to them from a cloud, in those words which rational souls are wont to hear, understand, and obey.

For the beasts or birds did not receive the power to do this: yet in their own kind they obey God; not by the rational freedom of will, but as he moves all things at the opportune times, himself not moved temporally, through angelic ministries, which grasp in his word what ought to be done and at what time: and while he is not moved temporally, they themselves are moved temporally, so that in the things subject to them they accomplish his commands.

14. 25. For every living soul—not only the rational, as in men, but also the irrational, as in cattle, and birds, and fishes—is moved by things seen. But the rational soul, by the freedom of the will, either consents to the things seen or does not consent; the irrational, however, does not have this judgment, but, according to its own kind and nature, touched by some thing seen, is impelled. Nor is it in the power of any soul what things seen come to it, whether into the sense of the body or into the spirit itself within; by which things seen the appetite of any living creature is moved.

And thus, when those things seen are ministered from above through the obedience of angels, the command of God reaches not only men, nor only the birds and cattle, but even the things that lie hidden under the waters, as to the sea-creature that swallowed Jonah (See Jonah 2:1); nor only to these larger ones, but even to the little worm; for we read that this too was divinely commanded to gnaw the root of the gourd, under whose shade the prophet had rested (See Jonah 4:6–7).

For if God granted to man, so establishing him, that even while bearing the flesh of sin he can not only subject to his own uses the cattle and beasts of burden, and not only domestic birds, but even freely flying ones, and any savage wild beasts, both catch and tame and marvelously command them by the power of reason, not of body—when, seizing on their appetites and pains, and gradually moderating them by enticing, pressing, and relaxing, he strips them of their wild habit and clothes them, as it were, with human manners.

How much more can the angels do this, who, at the command of God, having beheld in that immutable truth of his which they eternally contemplate, moving themselves through time, and the bodies subject to them through time and place, with marvelous agility are able to effect in every living soul both the things seen by which it is moved and the appetite of carnal need, so that it is led, unknowing, wherever it is needful for it to go?

15. 26. Now, then, let us see how the very formation of the woman, which is also mystically called a building, was done. For the nature of the woman was created, although from the male, which already was, not by any motion of natures already existing. But the angels can create no nature at all: for the one and only creator of any nature, whether great or least, is God—that is, the Trinity itself, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. It is asked, then, in another way, how Adam was put to sleep, and his rib drawn from the framework of his body without any sensation of pain. For these things perhaps may be said to have been able to be done through angels; but to form or build a rib, that it might be a woman, so far could be done by no one but God, by whom all nature subsists, that I would not believe even that supplement of flesh in the man's body, which came into the place of that rib, to have been made by angels, just as not the 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; because we do not call farmers the creators of crops and trees either. For neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:7). To this increase belongs also, in the human body, that, the bone being removed, the place was supplied with flesh—namely by that work of God by which he establishes natures that they may be, by which he created the angels themselves.

15. 27. It is the work of the farmer, then, to lead the water when he irrigates; but it is not his work that the water flows down the slopes, but his who disposed all things in measure, and number, and weight. Likewise it is the work of the farmer that a slip is torn from the tree and committed to the earth; but it is not his work that it imbibes sap and sends forth a shoot, that it fix one part in its soil, by which it stabilizes a root, and advance another into the air, by which it nourishes the trunk and spreads out the branches; but his who gives the increase.

The physician too applies nourishment to the sick body, and medicine to the wounded: the first not from things he created, but which, created by the work of the Creator, he found; then he was able to prepare and administer food or drink, to form a plaster and apply it smeared with medicine; but can he also, from the things he applies, work and create strength or flesh? Nature does this by an interior motion, most hidden to us. Yet if God should withdraw from it that inmost working by which he establishes and makes it, at once, as if extinguished, none will remain.

15. 28. Therefore, since God administers his whole creation by a kind of twofold work of providence, of which we spoke in the preceding book, both in natural and in voluntary motions, an angel can as little create a nature as create itself. But the angelic will, obediently subject to God and executing his command, can, by natural motions, supply from subject things, as it were, the matter, so that, according to those principal reasons not created in the Word of God, or according to those reasons causally created in the first six days' works, something may be created in time, in the manner of farming or healing.

What ministry, then, the angels exhibited to God in that formation of the woman, who would dare to affirm? Yet most certainly I would say that that supplement of flesh in the place of the rib, and the very body and soul of the woman and the conformation of her members, all her vitals, all her senses, and whatever there was by which she was both a creature and a human being and a female, was made only in that work of God by which God—not through angels, but through himself—did not work and then dismiss, but so works continuously that the nature neither of any other things, nor of the angels themselves, subsists, if he does not work. The slowness of human wit does not attain the works of God.

16. 29. But since, as far as we have been able to experience the nature of things according to human capacity, we do not know animate and sentient flesh to be born except either from these, as it were, material elements—that is, water and earth—or from shrubs or the fruits of trees, or even from the flesh of animals, as the innumerable kinds of worms or reptiles, or at least from the intercourse of parents; but we know no flesh to have been born from the flesh of any living creature, so similar to it that it would be distinguished only by sex—we seek in the things of this creation a likeness by which the woman was made from the man's side, and we cannot find it: for no other reason than that we know how men work on this earth; but how the angels, in a certain way, farm in this world, we surely do not know.

For surely, if the course of nature wrought the kind of shrubs apart from human industry, we would know nothing but that trees and herbs are born from the earth, and from their seeds, falling likewise from them into the earth: would it become known to us what grafting could do, so that a tree of one kind, with its own root, would bear fruits of another, and, the unity growing together, now its own? These things we have learned through the works of farmers, though they were in no way creators of trees, but offered the course of nature a kind of office and ministry to God the Creator. For by no means would anything come into existence through their works, if the inmost reason of nature did not hold this in the work of God. What wonder, then, if we do not know how a human being was made from a human being's bone, when we are ignorant how angels serve God creating; we who could not even know how a tree is made from a tree's slip on alien stock, if we likewise did not know how farmers serve God creating?

16. 30. In no way, however, do we doubt that God alone is the creator both of men and of trees, and we faithfully believe that the woman was made from the man, with no intervening intercourse, even if perhaps the man's rib was ministered through angels in the work of the Creator: just as we faithfully believe that a man too was made from a woman, with no intervening intercourse, when the seed of Abraham was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator (Gal 3:19). Both are incredible to unbelievers; but to the faithful, why should what was done concerning Christ seem credible according to the propriety of the deed, and only what is written of Eve according to a figurative signification?

Or indeed, could a man be made from a woman without anyone's intercourse, and could a woman not be made from a man? And did a virginal womb have the means from which a man might be made, while a male side did not have the means from which a woman might be made—when here the Lord was born of a handmaid, there a handmaid was formed from a servant? The Lord too could have created his flesh from a rib or from some member of the Virgin; but he who could show in his own body that he had done again what was done, more usefully showed in his mother's body that nothing is to be ashamed of which is chaste.

17. 31. But if it is asked how that causal establishment stands, in which God made the first man to his image and likeness (for there too this was said: male and female he made them (Gen 1:27)): whether that reason which God created together with, and let grow up among, the first works of the world already had this, that according to it it was now necessary for the woman to be made from the man's side; or whether it had only this, that it could be done, but that it should be done so necessarily was not there already established, but was hidden in God—if this, then, is asked, I will say what seems to me, without rashness of affirming; which, however, when I have said it, perhaps those who consider these things prudently, whom the Christian faith has already imbued, even if they now learn these things for the first time, will judge not to be doubted.

17. 32. All this most customary course of nature has certain natural laws of its own, according to which even the spirit of life, which is a creature, has certain appetites of its own determined in a way, which even an evil will cannot exceed. And the elements of this corporeal world have their defined force and quality—what each can or cannot do, what can or cannot be made from what. From these, as the first beginnings of things, all things that are begotten take their rise and progress, each in its own time, and the ends and departures of each kind. Whence it comes about that from a grain of wheat a bean is not born, nor wheat from a bean, nor a man from cattle, nor cattle from a man.

But above this motion and course of natural things, the power of the Creator has within itself the ability to make from all these something other than what their, as it were, seminal reasons hold—yet not that which he did not put in them, so that it could be made from them either by himself. For he is almighty not by rash power, but by the virtue of wisdom; and he does of each thing, in its own time, that which he beforehand made in it that it could do.

There is, then, one mode of things by which that herb so sprouts, that one so; that age bears, that one does not bear; a man can speak, cattle cannot. The reasons of these and such modes are not only in God, but are also imparted to and ingrown in created things by him. But that a tree cut from the earth, dry, polished, without any root, without earth and water, should suddenly flower and bear fruit (See Num 17:8); that a woman, sterile in her youth, should bear in old age (See Gen 18:1; 21:2); that an ass should speak (See Num 22:28), and whatever of this kind there is, he gave indeed to the natures which he created, that from them these too could be made (for he would not from them make what he himself had foreordained could not be made from them, since he is not more powerful than himself); yet he gave it in another mode, so that they did not have these things in natural motion, but in that by which they were so created that their nature would be more subject to a more powerful will. God the cause of things transcending them.

18. 33. God has, then, hidden in himself the causes of certain deeds, which he did not insert into created things; and he fulfills them not by that work of providence by which he establishes natures that they may be, but by that by which he administers them as he wills, which as he willed he established. There too is grace, by which sinners are saved. For as concerns nature depraved by its own iniquitous will, it does not have recourse through itself, but through the grace of God, by which it is helped and restored. For men are not to be despaired of in that statement in which it is written: all who walk in her will not return (Prov 2:19). For it was said according to the weight of their iniquity, so that whoever returns may attribute what returns not to himself but to the grace of God, not from works, lest perhaps he be lifted up (See Eph 2:9).

18. 34. Therefore the Apostle said that the mystery of this grace was hidden, not in the world, in which the causal reasons of all things that would arise naturally are hidden—as Levi was hidden in the loins of Abraham, when he too was tithed (See Heb 7:9–10)—but in God, who created all things.

Therefore all the things too which, to signify this grace, were done marvelously, not by the natural motion of things, had their hidden causes also in God: of which, if one was that the woman was made thus from the side of the man, and that of one sleeping—she who through him was made firm, as it were strengthened by his bone, while he, for her sake, was made weak, because in the place of the rib not a rib but flesh was supplied—the first establishment of things did not have this, when on the sixth day it was said: male and female he made them (Gen 1:27), that the woman should be made altogether so; but it had only this, that she could be made so too, lest he do anything against the causes which he established by will, by a mutable will. But what would be done, so that something else altogether would not come to be, was hidden in God, who created all things.

18. 35. But since he said it was hidden in such a way that it might become known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God (See Eph 3:9–10), it is probably believed that, just as that seed to which the promise was made was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator (See Gal 3:19), so all the things which, for foretelling or announcing the coming of that seed, were marvelously done in the nature of things beyond the customary course of nature, were done with angels ministering: yet so that everywhere the creator or restorer of creatures is none but God, who alone, whatever planter and waterer there be, gives the increase (See 1 Cor 3:7).

19. 36. And by this, that ecstasy too which God sent upon Adam, so that, made drowsy, he fell asleep, is rightly understood to have been sent for this purpose: that his mind too, through the ecstasy, might become a partaker, as it were, of the angelic court, and, entering into the sanctuary of God, might understand the last things (See Ps 73:17 (72:17)). Finally, waking as though full of prophecy, when he saw his wife brought to him, he at once burst forth with what the Apostle commends as a great sacrament: this now is bone of my bones, and flesh of 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 cleave to his wife; and the two will be in one flesh (Gen 2:23–24).

Although Scripture itself testifies that these words were the first man's, 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 father and mother, and will cleave to his wife; and the two will be in one flesh (Matt 19:4–5)—so that from this we might understand that, through the ecstasy which had preceded in Adam, he could divinely say this, as it were, as a prophet. But now this terminus of this book pleases me, so that the things that follow may, from another beginning, renew the attention of readers.

1. 1. Now indeed the very order seems to demand that we discuss the sin of the first man; but because Scripture narrated about the woman's flesh, how it was made, but was silent about her soul, it has made us much more attentive, that we inquire more diligently into this: in what way those can be refuted, or cannot be, who believe that the soul comes from the soul of man, just as flesh from flesh, the seeds of both being transfused from parents into children. For from this they are first moved to say that God made one soul, which he breathed into the face of the man whom he had formed from dust, so that from it the other souls of men might now be created, just as from his flesh all the flesh of men too. Since Adam was first formed, then Eve: and of him indeed it was said whence he had a body, whence a soul—the body, namely, the dust of the earth, but the soul, the breath of God; but since she is said to have been made from his side, it is not said that God likewise animated her by breathing, as though both were drawn from him who had already been animated.

For either it ought to have been kept silent, they say, about the man's soul too, so that we might either understand, or at least believe, as we could, that it was given divinely; or, if Scripture did not keep silent about this, lest we suppose the soul too, like the flesh, was made from earth, it ought also not to have kept silent about the woman's soul, lest it be supposed to be from transmission, if this is not true. Therefore, they say, it was for this reason kept silent that God breathed into her face, because this is true: that the soul too was propagated from the man.

1. 2. This suspicion is easily met. For if they think 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 the woman was animated from the man, when not even that is written? Whence, if God makes all the souls of men being born, like the first, Scripture was for this reason silent about the others, because what is recorded to have been done in one could prudently be understood of the rest as well.

And so, if we had to be admonished of something about this matter through this Scripture, rather, if something else were being done in the woman that had not been done in the man—so that her soul was drawn from animated flesh, not, as her husband's, the body from one source and the soul from another—this very thing, that it was being done in another mode, Scripture rather ought not to have kept silent, lest we suppose that to have been done in the same way which we had already learned about him.

Accordingly, because it did not say that the woman's soul was made from the man's soul, it is more fittingly believed that by that very fact it wished to admonish us to suppose here nothing other than what we had known about the man's soul—that is, that it was likewise given to the woman: especially since there was a place of most evident occasion, so that, if not then when she was formed, at least afterward it would be said, where Adam says: this now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh (Gen 2:23). For how much more dearly and lovingly would he say, "and soul of my soul"? Yet not on this account is so great a question now so solved that we hold one of these manifest and certain.

2. 3. Therefore we must first see whether the holy Scripture of this book, treated from its beginning, permits us to be in doubt here: then perhaps we shall rightly inquire either which opinion is rather to be chosen, or what mode we ought to hold in the uncertainty of this matter. For certainly on the sixth day God made man to his image; where it was also said: male and female he made them (Gen 1:27). Of which the former, where the image of God is mentioned, we took according to the soul; but the latter, where the difference of sex is, according to the flesh.

And since so many and so great testimonies, which were considered and treated there, did not allow us to take it that on that same sixth day the man too was formed from the mire and the woman from his side, but that this was done afterward, after those first works of God in which he created all things at once, we inquired what we should believe about the man's soul; and, all the parts of our debate being discussed, it seemed more credible or more tolerable to say that the soul of man itself was made among those works, but the reason of his body in the corporeal world as though in a seed: lest we 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 the mire and the woman from his side; or that in those six days' works man was in no way made; or that only the causal reason of the human body was made, but none of the soul, when rather it is according to it that man is to the image of God.

Or at least, even if not openly against the words of Scripture, yet we would be saying something harsh and intolerable: either that in that spiritual creation, which had been created for this purpose only, the reason of the human soul was made, when the very creation in which that 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 creation which is mentioned among those works, just as in men who now exist the reason of children to be begotten lies hidden; and thus we would believe it to be either the daughter of angels, or—what is more intolerable—of some corporeal element.

3. 4. But now, if on this account the woman is asserted to have received a soul made by God not from the man, but, like him, because God makes them one by one for each, then the woman's soul was not made among those first works; or if a general reason of all souls had been made, as in men the reason of begetting, we return to that harsh and troublesome thing, that we should say the souls of men are daughters either of angels, or—what is most unworthy—of the corporeal heaven, or even of some lower element.

And by this it must be seen, even if what is true lies hidden, what at least can be more tolerably said: whether this which I have just said, or that among those first works of God one soul of the first man was made, from whose propagation all the souls of men would be created; or that new souls come into being from time to time, of which no reason, even, preceded as having been made in those first six days' works of God. But of these three, the first two are not repugnant to those first establishments, where all things were created at once. For whether in some creation, as in a parent, the reason of the soul was made, so that all souls are generated from it, but are created by God when they are given to individual men, as bodies are given by human parents; or whether not the reason of the soul as the reason of offspring in a parent, but the soul itself altogether was made when the day was made, as the day itself, as heaven and earth, and the lights of heaven—fittingly it was said: God made man to his image (Gen 1:27).

3. 5. But how this third does not conflict with that opinion by which man is taken both to have been made on the sixth day to the image of God, and to have been visibly created after the seventh day, cannot so easily be seen. For if we say that new souls come into being, which neither themselves nor their reason, as offspring in a parent, were made on that sixth day with those works, from which, completed and begun, God rested on the seventh day, we must beware lest in vain Scripture so diligently commend that God completed in six days all his works, which he made very good, if he was still going to create some natures which neither themselves nor their reasons he there made causally.

Unless it be understood that he has in himself the reason of souls to be made one by one, to be given to each one being born, and did not establish it in any creation; but that, because the soul is of no other kind of creation than that according to which on the sixth day man was made to the image of God, God is not rightly said to make now that which he did not then complete. For he had already then made a soul, such as he makes now too; and therefore he does not now make any new kind of creation which he did not then create among his completed works; nor is this working of his against those causal reasons of future things which he then imparted to the universe, but rather according to them; since to human bodies, whose propagation is extended from those first works by continued succession, it is fitting that such souls be inserted as he now makes and inserts.

3. 6. Therefore, now fearing nothing—lest we seem to hold, against the words of this book which were written about that first establishment of the six days, that the probability of any of these three opinions has prevailed—let us undertake a more diligent treatment of this question, as much as God helps: lest perhaps it may come about that, if not a clear opinion about which there ought to be no further doubt, we may at least obtain so acceptable an opinion about this matter that it would not be absurd to hold it until something certain shines forth. But if we cannot do even this, the weights of the documents wavering on all sides and equally, at least our doubt will not seem to have shunned the labor of seeking, but the rashness of affirming: so that, if anyone is now rightly certain, he may deign to teach me; but if anyone has been made certain not by the authority of divine speech, nor of clear reason, but by his own presumption, he may not disdain to doubt along with me.

4. 7. And first let us hold this most firmly: that the nature of the soul is neither changed into the nature of a body, so that what was already soul becomes a body; nor into the nature of an irrational soul, so that what was the soul of a man becomes that of cattle; nor into the nature of God, so that what was soul becomes what God is: and so, conversely, neither a body, nor an irrational soul, nor the substance that is God, is changed and becomes a human soul. This too ought to be no less certain: that the soul is nothing but a creature of God.

Therefore, if God made the soul of man neither from a body, nor from an irrational soul, nor from himself, it remains that he either makes it from nothing, or from some spiritual yet rational creature. But to wish to show that something is made from nothing after the works were completed, by which he created all things at once, is forced; and whether it can be maintained by clear documents, I do not know. Nor is it to be demanded of us what a man either cannot comprehend, or, if he now can, it is a wonder if he can persuade anyone, except such a one who, even with no man attempting to teach, can himself understand some such thing. It is safer, then, in matters of this kind, to deal not with human conjectures, but to examine the divine testimonies.

5. 8. That God creates souls from angels, as from parents, no authority from the canonical Books occurs to me. Much less, then, from the corporeal elements of the world: unless perhaps that moves someone which is in the prophet Ezekiel, when the resurrection of the dead is shown, the bodies being restored, the spirit is called from the four winds of heaven, by whose blowing they are made alive, so that they rise. For so it is written: and the Lord said to me, Prophesy over the spirit; prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord: From the four parts of the winds of heaven come, 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 revived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great gathering (Ezek 37:9–10). Where it seems to me to be prophetically signified that men would rise not only from that field where the thing itself was shown, but from the whole world, and that this was figured by the blowing of the four parts 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 (John 20:22); but surely it was signified that the Holy Spirit so proceeds from him too as that breath proceeded from his body. But because the world is not coupled to God in unity of person as that flesh was to his Word, the only-begotten Son, we cannot say that the soul is from the substance of God in the way that that breath was made from the four winds of the nature of the world: but yet I think it was one thing and signified another; which can be rightly understood by the example of the breath proceeding from the Lord's body—even if the prophet Ezekiel in that place foresaw, by a figured revelation, not the resurrection of the flesh, such as it will properly be, but the unhoped-for restoration of a despairing people through the Spirit of the Lord, who has filled the whole world (See Wis 1:7).

6. 9. Let us now see, then, which opinion the divine testimonies rather support: the one that says God made one soul, and gave it to the first man, from which he would make the rest, as from his body the other bodies of men; or the one that says he makes each soul for each, as he made one for him, not the rest from it. For that which he says through Isaiah—every breath I have made (Isa 57:16)—since what follows sufficiently shows that he says this of the soul, can be taken for both. For whether from the one soul of the first man, or from some secret of his own, he without doubt himself makes all souls.

6. 10. And that which is written: who formed their hearts one by one (Ps 33:15 (32:15)), if by the name of hearts we wish to understand souls, neither does this conflict with either of the two about which we are now in doubt. For whether from that one which he breathed into the face of the first man, he surely forms each one, as he does the bodies too; or whether he both forms each one and sends it, or forms them in those very ones to whom he has sent them: although this does not seem to me to be said, except from that by which our souls are formed by grace through the renewal to the image of God. Whence the Apostle says: for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not of works, lest perhaps anyone be lifted up. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus in good works (Eph 2:8–10). For we cannot understand our bodies to be created or formed through this grace of faith, but, as it was said in the Psalm: create in me a clean heart, O God (Ps 51:10 (50:12)).

6. 11. From this too I think is that: who formed the spirit of man within him (Zech 12:1); as though it were one thing to send a soul already made, another to make it in the man himself—that is, to remake and renew it. But even if we understand this not of the grace by which we are renewed, but of the nature in which we are born, it can be drawn to either opinion: because either, from that one soul of the first man, as it were a seed of soul drawn off, he himself forms it in the man, to give life to the body; or, the spirit of life being infused into the body not from that propagation but from elsewhere, he likewise forms it through the mortal senses of the flesh, so that the man becomes a living soul.

7. 12. That passage indeed from the book of Wisdom, where it says: I was allotted a good soul, and being more good, I came to an undefiled body (Wis 8:19–20), demands more diligent consideration. For it seems rather to attest to the opinion by which souls are believed to come to bodies not propagated from one, but from above. Nevertheless, what is: I was allotted a good soul? As though either in that fount of souls, if there is any, some souls are good, others not good, which by a kind of lot go forth, which is to be assigned to which man; or God makes some good at the hour of the conceived or born, others not good, of which each one has by lot what has befallen him.

It would be a wonder if this even helps those who believe that souls, made elsewhere, are sent one by one by God to each body of men, and not rather those who say that souls are sent into bodies according to the merits of the works which they did before the body. For according to what could some be thought to come good, others not good, to bodies, except according to their works? For not according to nature, in which they are made by him who makes all natures good. But far be it that we should contradict the Apostle, who says that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil, whence he confirms that it could be said not from works but from him who calls: the elder will serve the younger (Rom 9:11–12); when he was dealing with twins still in Rebecca's womb. Let us therefore set aside for a little this testimony from the book of Wisdom; for those are not to be neglected, whether they err or are truly wise, who think this was said specially and singly of that soul of the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Which, if it be necessary, what sort it is we shall afterward consider, so that, if it could not suit Christ, we may ask how we ought to take it, lest we come against the apostolic faith, supposing souls to have some merits of their works before they begin to live in bodies.

8. 13. Now let us see how this was said: you will take away their spirit, and they will fail, and will be turned into their dust. You will send forth your spirit, and they will be created; and you will renew the face of the earth (Ps 104:29–30 (103:29–30)). For to those who think that souls are created from parents as bodies are, this seems to sound, when it is so understood that he said "their spirit" because men received it from men: which, when they are dead, cannot be returned to them by men, that they may rise; because it is not again, as when they were born, drawn from parents, but God will return it, who raises the dead (See 2 Macc 7:23).

And by this he said it was their spirit when they die, but God's when they rise. Which those who assert that souls come not from parents but by God sending them can, for their opinion, so understand: that he said it was their spirit 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, is returned by him. Accordingly this testimony too is opposed to neither of them.

8. 14. But I think this is better understood of the grace of God, by which we are inwardly renewed. For of 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 put off the old man and are made weak, that they may be perfected, pride being expelled, saying to the Lord by humble confession: remember that we are dust (Ps 103:14 (102:14)); to whom it had been said: why is earth and ashes proud? (Sir 10:9) For, beholding through the eye of faith the justice of God, so that they do not wish to establish their own (See Rom 10:3), they despise themselves, as Job says (See Job 42:6), and waste away, and reckon themselves earth and ashes: for this is, "and they will be turned into their dust." But, the Spirit of God received, they say: I live, yet now not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). So the face of the earth is renewed, through the grace of the New Testament, by the multitude of the saints. The testimony from the book of Ecclesiastes (12:7) is called into the debate.

9. 15. That too which is written in Ecclesiastes: and let the dust return into the earth, as it was, and the spirit return to God who gave it (Eccl 12:7), supports neither opinion against the other, but stands between both. For when these say that from this it is proved that the soul is given not by parents but by God—because, the dust being turned into its own earth, that is, the flesh, which was made from dust, the spirit will return to God who gave it—those answer: surely it is so. For the spirit returns to God, who gave it to the first man, when he breathed into his face (See Gen 2:7), the dust—that is, the human body—being turned into the earth from which it was first made (See Gen 3:19). For the spirit was not going to return to the parents, although it is created from there, from that one which was given to the first man; just as the flesh itself does not, after death, return to the parents from whom it is certainly agreed to be propagated. As, therefore, the flesh does not return to the men from whom it was created, but to the earth from which it was formed for the first man; so too the spirit does not return to the men from whom it was transfused, but to God by whom it was given to that first flesh.

9. 16. By which testimony indeed we are sufficiently admonished that God made from nothing the soul which he gave to the first man, not from some creation already made, as the body from earth: and therefore, when it returns, it has nowhere to return except to the author who gave it; not to that creation from which it was made, as the body to the earth. For there is no creation from which it was made, because it was made from nothing; and by this it returns to the maker, that which returns, by whom it was made from nothing. For not all return, since there are those of whom it is said: a spirit going and not returning (Ps 78:39 (77:39)).

10. 17. It is therefore difficult to gather all the testimonies of the holy Scriptures about this matter; which, even if it could be done, so that they were not only mentioned but also treated, would run to a great length of discourse: but yet, unless something be brought forward as certain as the certain things are brought forward by which it is shown that God made the soul, or that he gave it to the first man, I do not know how this question is to be solved through the testimony of divine speech. For if it were written that God likewise breathed into the face of the formed woman, and that she became a living soul, much light would indeed be added, by which we would believe that to each formed flesh of man the soul is given not from parents: yet still it would be awaited what was properly held in offspring, which is the customary mode for us of man from man. But the first woman was made otherwise, and therefore it could still be said that the soul was for this reason not given to Eve divinely from Adam, because she did not arise from him as offspring. But if Scripture recorded of the man who was first born of them that the soul was not drawn from parents but given from above, that then ought to be understood of the rest as well, even with Scripture silent.

11. 18. Now, then, let us consider this too: whether it confirms neither opinion, but can be accommodated to either, what is written: through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12); and a little after: as through the trespass of one upon all men to condemnation, so also through the justification of one upon all men to 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 just (Rom 5:18–19).

For from these words of the Apostle those who defend the propagation of souls strive to build up their opinion thus: "if," they say, "sin or sinner can be understood according to the flesh alone, we are not compelled in these words to believe the soul comes from parents; but if, although through the enticement of the flesh, yet only the soul sins, how is it to be taken what was said, in whom all sinned, if the soul too, like the flesh, was not propagated from Adam? Or how were they made sinners through his disobedience, if they were in him only according to the flesh, not also according to the soul?"

11. 19. 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 Christ's own, for whose freeing 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, not also according to the soul: which is so contrary to the faith of the Church that parents run to receive the grace of holy Baptism even with little ones and infants; in whom, if that bond of sin is loosed which is only of the flesh, not also of the soul, it is rightly asked what it would harm them, if at that age they went out of the body without Baptism.

For if through this Sacrament their body is provided for, not also their soul, the dead too ought to be baptized: but since we see the Church universally hold this, that one runs with the living, and the living are helped, lest, when they are dead, nothing can be done that profits; we do not see what else can be understood, except that each little one is nothing but Adam both in body and in soul, and therefore the grace of Christ is necessary for him. For that age has done nothing in itself either good or evil; accordingly the soul there is most innocent, if it was not propagated from Adam: whence, how it could justly go into condemnation, if it went out of the body without Baptism, let whoever, holding this opinion of the soul, can demonstrate—he is to be wondered at.

12. 20. For it is most truly and most truthfully written: the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Gal 5:17): but yet that flesh without the soul can lust at all, I think no one, learned or unlearned, doubts. And by this the cause of carnal concupiscence itself is not in the soul alone, but much less is it in the flesh alone. For it comes from both: from the soul, namely, because without it no delight is felt; but from the flesh, because without it carnal delight is not felt. The flesh, therefore, lusting against the spirit, the Apostle without doubt calls carnal delight, which the spirit has from the flesh and with the flesh, against the delight which it has alone. For it alone has, unless I am mistaken, that desire, not mingled with the pleasure of the flesh or the cupidity of carnal things, by which the soul desires and faints for the courts of the Lord (See Ps 84:2 (83:3)). It alone has also that of which it is said to it: you have desired wisdom; keep the commandment, and the Lord will furnish it to you (See Sir 1:26).

For when the spirit commands the members of the body to serve this desire by which it alone is kindled—as when a book is taken up, when something is written, read, debated, heard, when finally bread is broken for the hungry, and the other duties of humanity and mercy are rendered—the flesh exhibits obedience, it does not move concupiscence. When something that delights the same soul according to the flesh opposes these and such good desires by which the soul alone lusts, then the flesh is said to lust against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

12. 21. For "flesh" was so spoken of, in that which the soul does according to it, when he says: the flesh lusts (Gal 5:17); as it is said, "the ear hears, and the eye sees." For who does not know that it is rather the soul that both hears through the ear and sees through the eye? So we speak too when we say, "your hand helped a man," when something is given by an outstretched hand by which someone is helped. But if it was said even of the eye of faith itself, to which it belongs to believe the things that are not seen through the flesh, all flesh will see the salvation of God (Luke 3:6); surely it was said only of the soul, by which the flesh lives, since even to see Christ devoutly through our flesh itself—that is, the form with which he was clothed for our sake—belongs not to concupiscence but to the ministry of the flesh, lest perhaps someone wish so to take what was said: all flesh will see the salvation of God: how much more fittingly is the flesh said to lust, when the soul not only furnishes animal life to the flesh, but even lusts for something according to the flesh; which it is not in its power not to lust for, as long as sin is in the members—that is, a certain violent enticement of the flesh in the body of this death, coming from the punishment of that sin from which we draw our propagation, according to which all before grace are children of wrath (See Eph 2:3).

Against which sin those established under grace do battle, not that it should not be in their body, as long as it is so mortal that it is even rightly called dead, but that it should not reign. But it does not reign when its desires—that is, those things which are lusted for according to the flesh against the spirit—are not obeyed. Accordingly, did the Apostle say, "let there be no sin in your mortal body" (for he knew the delight of sin to be present, which he calls sin, nature being depraved from the first transgression)? But: let not sin, he says, reign in your mortal body so as to obey its desires; nor present your members as weapons of iniquity to sin (Rom 6:12–13).

13. 22. According to this opinion, we neither say a thing most absurd, that the flesh lusts without the soul; nor do we agree with the Manichees, who, since they saw that the flesh could not lust without the soul, supposed the flesh to have a certain soul of its own, from another nature contrary to God, whence it lusts against the spirit. Nor are we compelled to say that the grace of Christ is not necessary for some soul, when it is said to us: "what did the soul of an infant deserve, that it should be ruinous for it to go out of the body without receiving the sacrament of Christian Baptism, if it neither committed any sin of its own, nor is from that one which first sinned in Adam?"

13. 23. For we are not dealing with older boys, to whom indeed some are unwilling to attribute their own sin except from the point of the fourteenth year, when they have begun to reach puberty. Which we would rightly believe, if there were no sins except those committed by the genital members; but who would dare to affirm that thefts, lies, and perjuries are not sins, except one who wishes to commit such things with impunity? But the age of boyhood is full of these, although in them they do not seem to be punished as in their elders, because it is hoped that, with the years advancing, in which reason grows strong, they may be able to understand the saving precepts better, and to obey them more willingly. But now we are not dealing with boys, whose carnal and childish pleasure, whether of body or of mind, if truth and equity assail it, they resist with what powers they can of words and deeds; for what do they fight, except for the falsehood and iniquity which will seem to favor them, either for obtaining the things that allure them, or for avoiding the things that offend them?

We are speaking of infants—not because they are often born of adulterers (for in depraved morals the gifts of nature are not to be blamed; nor for that reason ought the grain not to have germinated, because the hand of a thief sowed it; nor indeed will their own iniquity harm the parents themselves, if by turning to God they correct themselves; how much less the children, if they live rightly?).

14. 23. But that age moves a vehement question: whose soul, since it has no sin of its own from the freedom of the 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 that other one man. This is the voice of those who would have the souls of men created from human parents—not, indeed, except by God the creator, but as the bodies too. For neither do parents create these, and not he who says: before I formed you in the womb, I knew you (Jer 1:5).

14. 24. To whom it is answered that God gives new souls one by one to the bodies of men, to this end: that in the flesh of sin, coming from original sin, by living rightly and subduing carnal concupiscences under the grace of God, they may acquire merit, by which with the body itself they may be transferred to a better state at the time of resurrection, and live in Christ forever with the angels. But that it is necessary that, when they are fitted in a marvelous way to earthly and mortal members, and especially ones propagated from the flesh of sin, so that they can first give them life, and afterward, with the increase of age, govern them, they be weighed down, as it were, with forgetfulness.