Literal Commentary on Genesis 1.1–1.13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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