On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.1–1.13

If the Manichees chose whom to deceive, we too would choose the words with which to answer them. But since they pursue with their error both the learned in letters and the unlearned, and, while they promise the truth, try to turn people away from the truth, their emptiness must be refuted not with an ornate and polished style but with plain facts. For I was pleased by the advice of certain truly Christian men who, though they are educated in the liberal arts, saw, when they had read the other books that we published against the Manichees, that the less skilled either did not understand them or understood them with difficulty; and they most kindly advised me not to abandon the ordinary manner of speaking, if I intended to drive those so pernicious errors out of the minds of the unskilled as well. For this usual and simple language the learned also understand, but the other the unlearned do not understand. The Manichees, then, are accustomed to find fault with the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which they do not know, and by this faultfinding to mock and deceive our weak and little ones, who do not find how to answer them; for there is no Scripture that cannot easily be criticized by those who do not understand it. But divine providence has permitted many heretics of various errors to exist for this reason: that when they insult us and ask us things we do not know, we may at least in this way shake off our sloth and desire to know the divine Scriptures. That is why the Apostle too says, “There must be heresies, so that those who are approved may become manifest among you.” For those are approved by God who are able to teach well; but they cannot become manifest to people except when they teach, and they are not willing to teach any except those who seek to be taught. But many are slow to seek unless they are roused as if from sleep by the annoyances and insults of the heretics, and are ashamed of their ignorance, and feel that they are endangered by that ignorance. If such people are of good faith, they do not give way to the heretics but diligently inquire what to answer them. Nor does God abandon them; so that those who ask receive, and those who seek find, and to those who knock it is opened. But those who despair of being able to find in the catholic teaching what they seek are worn down by errors; and if they keep on searching, they come back to the very springs from which they strayed, after great labors, weary and thirsty and nearly dead.

So the first book of the Old Testament, which is entitled Genesis, the Manichees usually criticize in this way. Concerning what is written, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” they ask, in what beginning? And they say: If God made heaven and earth in some beginning of time, what was he doing before he made heaven and earth? And why did it suddenly please him to make what he had never made before through eternal times? We answer them that God made heaven and earth in the beginning, not in the beginning of time but in Christ, since the Word was with the Father, through whom and in whom all things were made. For our Lord Jesus Christ, when the Jews asked him who he was, answered, “The Beginning, who also speak to you.” But even if we believe that God made heaven and earth in the beginning of time, we certainly ought to understand that before the beginning of time there was no time. For God made times too, and therefore before he made times there were no times. So we cannot say that there was some time when God had not yet made anything. For how could there be a time that God had not made, since he himself is the maker of all times? And if time began to exist with heaven and earth, no time can be found in which God had not yet made heaven and earth. But when it is said, “Why did it suddenly please him?”, it is said as if some times had passed in which God did nothing. For time could not pass that God had not yet made, since no one can be the maker of times except one who is before times. Surely the Manichees themselves read the apostle Paul, and praise and honor him, and by interpreting his letters badly they deceive many. Let them tell us, then, what the apostle Paul meant: “The knowledge of the truth which is according to the piety of God, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before eternal times.” For what could eternal times have before them? Let them be forced to explain this, so that they may understand that they do not understand, when they rashly wish to find fault with what they ought to have studied carefully.

But suppose they do not say, “Why did it suddenly please God to make heaven and earth?” but take away “suddenly,” and say only, “Why did it please God to make heaven and earth?” For we do not say that this world is coeternal with God, because this world is not of the same eternity as God: God made the world, and so times began to exist together with the creature that God made, and that is why they are called eternal times. Yet times are not eternal in the way that God is eternal, because God, who is the maker of times, is before times; just as all things that God made are very good, but are not good in the way that God is good, because he made them and they were made. Nor did he beget them from himself, so that they would be what he himself is; but he made them from nothing, so that they would not be equal either to him by whom they were made or to his Son through whom they were made; for that is just. If, then, they say, “Why did it please God to make heaven and earth?”, they must be answered that those who want to know the will of God should first learn the power of the human will. For they seek to know the causes of God's will, when the will of God is itself the cause of all things that are. For if God's will has a cause, there is something that precedes God's will, which it is impious to believe. So whoever says, “Why did God make heaven and earth?” must be answered, “Because he willed to.” For God's will is the cause of heaven and earth, and therefore God's will is greater than heaven and earth. But whoever says, “Why did he will to make heaven and earth?” is seeking something greater than God's will; but nothing greater can be found. Let human rashness then restrain itself, and not seek what is not, lest it fail to find what is. And if anyone desires to know the will of God, let him become a friend of God; for if anyone wanted to know the will of a man whose friend he was not, everyone would laugh at his impudence and folly. But no one becomes a friend of God except by most purified morals and by that end of the commandment of which the Apostle says, “But the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith.” If they had this, they would not be heretics.

What follows in the book of Genesis, “But the earth was invisible and unformed,” the Manichees criticize so as to say: How did God make heaven and earth in the beginning, if the earth was already invisible and unformed? Thus, since they want to find fault with the divine Scriptures before they know them, they fail to understand even the plainest things. For what could be said more clearly than what is said here: “In the beginning God made heaven and earth; but the earth was invisible and unformed”? That is: In the beginning God made heaven and earth; but the earth itself which God made was invisible and unformed, before God arranged the forms of all things in their places and seats by an ordered distinction; before he said, “Let there be light,” and “Let there be a firmament,” and “Let the waters be gathered,” and “Let the dry land appear,” and the rest that are set out in order in the same book in a way that little ones can grasp. All these things contain such great mysteries that whoever has learned them will either grieve at the emptiness of all heretics because they are human beings, or laugh at it because they are proud.

There follows in the same book, “And darkness was over the abyss.” This the Manichees criticize, saying: Was God, then, in darkness before he made light? Truly they themselves are in the darkness of ignorance, and that is why they do not understand the light in which God was before he made this light. For they know no light except what they see with fleshly eyes. And so they worship this sun, which we see not only along with the larger beasts but even with flies and little worms, in such a way that they say it is a particle of that light in which God dwells. But let us understand that the light in which God dwells is another light, from which comes that light of which it is read in the Gospel, “He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world.” For the light of this sun does not enlighten the whole man, but the body of man and his mortal eyes, in which the eyes of eagles surpass us, since they are said to look at this sun much better than we do. But that light does not feed the eyes of irrational birds, but the pure hearts of those who believe in God and turn from love of visible and temporal things to fulfilling his commandments. All men can do this if they will, because that light enlightens every man coming into this world. So darkness was over the abyss before this light came to be, of which the passage goes on next to speak.

“And God said, Let there be light.” For where there is no light there is darkness, not because darkness is something, but the very absence of light is called darkness. Just as silence is not a thing, but where there is no sound it is called silence. And nakedness is not a thing, but on a body where there is no covering it is called nakedness. And emptiness is not something, but a place where there is no body is called empty. So darkness is not something, but where there is no light it is called darkness. We say this because they usually say: Where did that darkness over the abyss come from, before God made light? Who had made or begotten it? Or if no one had made or begotten it, the darkness was eternal. As if darkness were something; but, as has been said, the absence of light has received this name. But because they, deceived by their fables, have believed that there is a race of darkness, in which they suppose there were bodies and forms and souls in those bodies, they therefore think that darkness is something; and they do not understand that darkness is not perceived except when we do not see, just as silence is not perceived except when we do not hear. And just as silence is nothing, so darkness is nothing. And just as they say that a race of darkness fought against the light of God, so another man equally vain could say that a race of silences fought against the voice of God. But we have not undertaken at present to refute and convict those vanities. For now we have resolved to defend the things they criticize in the Old Testament, as far as the Lord deigns to grant strength, and to show in them that human blindness has no power against the truth of God.

What is written, “And the Spirit of God was borne over the water,” the Manichees usually criticize so as to say: Was water, then, the dwelling of the Spirit of God, and did it contain the Spirit of God? They try to pervert everything with a perverse mind, and they are blinded by their malice. For when we say, “The sun is borne over the earth,” do we mean it to be understood that the sun dwells in the earth and the earth contains the sun? And yet the Spirit of God was not borne over the water in the way the sun is borne over the earth, but in another way that few understand. For that Spirit was not borne over the water through spaces of place, as the sun is borne over the earth, but through the power of his invisible sublimity. Let them tell us how the will of a craftsman is borne over the things that are to be fashioned. And if they do not grasp these human and everyday things, let them fear God and with a simple heart seek what they do not understand, lest, when they want to hack at the truth they cannot see with sacrilegious words, the axe comes back onto their own legs. For the truth, which remains unchangeable, cannot be cut down; but whatever blows are aimed at it rebound, and return with a greater stroke on those who dare to strike at what they ought to believe in order to deserve to understand.

Then they ask, and mockingly inquire: Where did that water come from over which the Spirit of God was borne? For was it written earlier that God made water? If they asked this piously, they would find how it should be understood. For water is not so called in this place in order that we should understand by it this water which we can now see and touch; just as the earth that was called unformed and invisible was not such as this earth which can now be seen and handled. But in what was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” the whole creation which God made and established was signified by the name of heaven and earth. These things were called by the names of visible things on account of the weakness of the little ones, who are less fit to grasp invisible things. So first matter was made, confused and formless, from which all things would be made that are distinct and formed; this, I believe, the Greeks call chaos. For so we read in another place, in the praises of God, “You who made the world from formless matter,” which some manuscripts have as “from unseen matter.”

And so God is most rightly believed to have made all things from nothing, because, even if all formed things were made from this matter, this matter itself was nevertheless made from absolutely nothing. For we must not be like those who do not believe that almighty God could make anything from nothing, when they consider that carpenters and craftsmen of every kind cannot fashion anything unless they have something to fashion it from. For wood helps the carpenter, silver helps the silversmith, gold the goldsmith, and clay helps the potter to complete his works. For if they are not helped by the material from which they make something, they can make nothing, since they do not make the material itself. The carpenter does not make wood, but makes something from wood; and so with all other craftsmen of this kind. But almighty God needed to be helped by nothing that he had not made himself in order to accomplish what he willed. For if, in making the things he wished to make, he was helped by some thing he had not made, he was not almighty; and it is sacrilegious to believe that.

So that formless matter which God made from nothing was first called heaven and earth, and it was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” not because it already was this, but because it could be this; for it is written that heaven was made afterward. Just as, if we were considering the seed of a tree, we might say that the roots and the trunk and the branches and the fruit and the leaves are there, not because they already are, but because they will come from it: so it was said, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” as the seed, as it were, of heaven and earth, when the matter of heaven and earth was still in confusion; but because it was certain that heaven and earth would come from it, the matter itself was already called heaven and earth. The Lord too speaks in this kind of expression when he says, “I will no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master does. But I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”: not because it had already been done, but because it was most certainly going to be done. For a little later he says to them, “I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now.” Why, then, had he said, “All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you,” except that he knew he would do it? So too the matter from which heaven and earth had not yet been made could be called heaven and earth, since they were not to be made from anything else. Countless such expressions are found in the divine Scriptures. So also in our ordinary speech, when we speak of what we most certainly hope will happen, we say, “Consider it done.”

This still formless matter he also chose to call the earth invisible and unformed, because among all the elements of the world earth seems less beautiful than the others. He called it invisible on account of its obscurity, and unformed on account of its formlessness. The same matter he also called water, over which the Spirit of God was borne, as the will of a craftsman is borne over the things to be fashioned. Although the understanding of a few can reach this, I do not know whether it can be explained in human words even by a few. Matter was also not unreasonably called water because all things that are born on earth, whether animals or trees or plants and anything similar, begin to be formed and nourished from moisture. All these names, then, whether heaven and earth, or earth invisible and unformed, and the abyss with darkness, or water over which the Spirit was borne, are names of formless matter, so that an unknown thing might be conveyed to the less skilled by known words; and not by one word but by many, lest, if there were one, it should be thought to be what people were accustomed to understand by that word. It was called heaven and earth, then, because heaven and earth were going to come from it. It was called earth invisible and unformed and darkness over the abyss, because it was formless and could not be seen or handled in any form, even if there were a man to see and handle it. It was called water because it lay easy and pliant under the one working on it, so that all things might be formed from it. But under all these names was matter, unseen and formless, from which God established the world.

“And God said, Let there be light. And light was made.” The Manichees do not usually criticize this, but what follows: “And God saw the light, that it was good.” For they say: So God did not know light, or did not know the good. Wretched men, who are displeased that God was pleased with his works, though they see that even a human craftsman, a carpenter for example, who is almost nothing in comparison with the wisdom and power of God, nevertheless cuts and works the wood so long, by hewing, adzing, planing, or turning and polishing, until it is brought, as far as he can, to the rules of his art and pleases its craftsman. Because what he has made pleases him, did he therefore not know the good? Of course he knew it, inwardly in his mind, where the art itself is more beautiful than the things fashioned by the art. But what the craftsman sees inwardly in his art, he approves outwardly in the work; and that is finished which pleases its craftsman. So God saw the light, that it is good: by these words it is not shown that an unaccustomed good shone out for God, but that the finished work pleased him.

What if it had been said, “God marveled at the light, that it is good”? How they would shout! How they would quarrel! For marveling truly tends to arise from unexpected things; and yet they read and praise our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the Gospel marveled at the faith of those who believed. But who had made that very faith in them, if not he who marveled at it? And if another had made it, why would he marvel, who knew it beforehand? If the Manichees solve this question, let them see that the other can be solved too. If they do not solve it, why do they criticize these things, which they hold do not concern them, when they do not understand those that they say do concern them? For when our Lord marvels, he signifies that we, who still need to be moved in this way, ought to marvel. So all such emotions of his are signs, not of a disturbed mind, but of a teaching master. So too are the words of the Old Testament, which do not teach that God is weak, but come down kindly to our weakness. For nothing can be said worthily of God. Yet to us, so that we may be nourished and come to those things that cannot be said in any human speech, those things are said that we can grasp.

“And God divided between the light and the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.” Here it is not said, “God made darkness,” because darkness, as was said above, is the absence of light; yet a distinction was made between light and darkness. Just as we make a sound by shouting, but make silence by not sounding, because silence is the ceasing of sound; yet we distinguish by a certain sense between sound and silence, and call the one sound and the other silence. So, just as we are rightly said to make silence, so in many places of the divine Scriptures God is rightly said to make darkness, because at whatever times and places he wills he either does not give light or withdraws it. But all this was said for our understanding. For in what language did God call the light day and the darkness night? Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or some other? And so of everything he called, it can be asked in what language he called it. But with God there is pure understanding, without the noise and diversity of languages. “He called” was said for “he caused to be called,” because he so distinguished and ordered all things that they could both be discerned and receive names. But we shall inquire later in its place whether “God called” is really to be taken in this way; for the more we approach the Scriptures and grow used to them, the more their ways of speaking become known to us. So we say, “That householder built this house,” that is, had it built; and many such expressions are found throughout all the books of the divine Scriptures.

“And evening was made, and morning was made, one day.” Here too the Manichees bring false charges, since they think it was said as if the day began from evening. They do not understand that the work by which light was made, and light was divided from darkness, and the light was called day and the darkness night, that this whole work belongs to the day; and that after this work, as though the day were finished, evening was made. But because the night too belongs to its day, one day is not said to have passed until the night also had passed, when morning was made; and so the remaining days are counted from morning to morning. For now, when morning has come and one day has passed, the work begins that follows from that very morning which has now come; and after that work evening comes, then morning, and the second day passes; and so the other days pass in turn.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it be a division between water and water; and so it was done. And God made the firmament, and God divided between the water that is above the firmament and the water that is below the firmament; and God called the firmament heaven; and God saw that it is good.” I do not remember that the Manichees usually criticize this. Still, as to the waters being divided so that some were above the firmament and some below it: since we said that that matter was called by the name of water, I believe that by the firmament of heaven the bodily matter of visible things was separated from the incorporeal matter of invisible things. For though heaven is a most beautiful body, every invisible creature surpasses even the beauty of heaven; and that is perhaps why invisible waters are said to be above heaven, which few understand to surpass heaven not in location but in the dignity of their nature. Yet nothing should be rashly affirmed on this matter; for it is obscure and remote from human senses. But however it may be, it must be believed before it is understood. “And evening was made, and morning was made, the second day.” All these things that are now repeated are to be understood and treated as above.

“And God said, Let the water that is under heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear; and so it was done. And the water that was under heaven was gathered into one 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 is good.” At this place the Manichees say: If everything was full of waters, how could the waters be gathered into one? But it was already said above that the matter over which the Spirit of God was borne, from which God was going to form all things, was called by the name of waters. Now, when it is said, “Let the water that is under heaven be gathered into one gathering,” it is said so that that bodily matter may be formed into the appearance that these visible waters have. For the very gathering into one is the very forming of these waters that we see and touch; for every form is brought to the rule of unity. And when it is said, “Let the dry land appear,” what else should we understand to be said than that that matter should receive the visible form that this earth we see and touch now has? So above, what was called earth invisible and unformed was the confusion and obscurity of matter; and what was called water, over which the Spirit of God was borne, was again the same matter. But now this water and earth are formed from that matter which was called by these very names before it received these forms that we now see. Indeed, it is said that in Hebrew usage every gathering of waters, whether salt or fresh, is called sea.

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the grass of the field bearing seed according to its kind and likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit whose seed is in itself according to its likeness. And so it was done. And the earth brought forth the grass of the field bearing seed according to its kind, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit whose seed is in itself according to its likeness, according to its kind upon the earth. And God saw that it is good. And evening was made, and morning was made, the third day.” Here they usually say: If God commanded the grass of the field and the fruit-bearing tree to spring from the earth, who commanded so many plants to spring up, thorny or poisonous, that are of no use for fodder, and so many trees that bear no fruit? They must be answered in such a way that no mysteries are opened to the unworthy, and it is not shown in what figure of future things these were so spoken. So it must be said that through man's sin the earth was cursed so as to bear thorns: not so that it should feel punishment, since it is without sense, but so that it should always set the guilt of human sin before people's eyes, by which they might be warned at some time to turn away from sins and to turn to God's commandments. Poisonous plants, however, were created for the punishment or the exercise of mortals; and all this on account of sin, because we were made mortal after sin. And by unfruitful trees people are rebuked, so that they may understand how shameful it is to be without the fruit of good works in God's field, that is, in the church; and may fear lest God abandon them, since they too abandon unfruitful trees in their fields and give them no cultivation. So before man's sin it is not written that the earth produced anything except the grass of the field and fruitful trees; but after sin we see many rough and unfruitful things spring from the earth, I believe for the reason we have given. For so it is said to the first man after he sinned: “Cursed shall the earth be to you in all your works; in sadness and groaning you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the grass of your field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for earth you are, and to earth you shall go.”