On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.14–1.22

“And God said, Let there be stars in the firmament of heaven, so that they may shine upon the earth and divide between day and night, and let them be for signs and for times and for days and for years; and let them be for splendor in the firmament of heaven, so that they may shine upon the earth. And so it was done. And God made two lights, a greater and a lesser: the greater light for the beginning of the day, and the lesser light for the beginning of the night, and the stars. And God set them in the firmament of heaven, so that they might shine upon the earth and rule the day and the night and divide between day and night. And God saw that it is good. And evening was made, and morning was made, the fourth day.” Here they first ask how the stars, that is, the sun and the moon and the stars, were made on the fourth day. For how could the three earlier days exist without the sun, since we now see the day pass by the rising and setting of the sun, and the night come about for us by the sun's absence, when it returns from the other side of the world to the east? We answer them that it could have happened that each of the three earlier days was counted by as long a stretch of time as the sun takes to go round, from when it sets out from the east until it returns again to the east. For people could sense this stretch and length of time even if they lived in caves where they could not see the sun rise and set. And so it is seen that this stretch could have happened even without the sun, before the sun was made, and that this very stretch was counted in that period of three days, day by day. This, then, is what we would answer, if we were not called back by what is said there, “And evening was made, and morning was made,” which we now see cannot happen without the course of the sun. It remains, then, that we understand that within that stretch of time the very divisions of the works were so named: evening on account of the completion of a finished work, and morning on account of the beginning of a work to come; that is, from the likeness of human works, because they usually begin in the morning and stop toward evening. For the divine Scriptures have the custom of transferring words from human things to divine things.

Then they ask why it is said of the stars, “And let them be for signs and for times.” For, they say, could those three days have been without times, or do they not belong to the spaces of time? But “for signs and times” was said so that by these stars times might be distinguished and recognized by people; because if times run on and are distinguished by no joints, which joints are marked by the courses of the stars, times can indeed run on and pass, but cannot be understood and discerned by people. Just as hours on a cloudy day do pass and complete their spans, but cannot be distinguished and marked by us. And what is said, “And God made two lights, the greater light for the beginning of the day and the lesser light for the beginning of the night,” was said as if it had been said, “for the rule of the day and for the rule of the night.” For the sun does not only begin the day without also carrying it through and ending it; and the moon sometimes comes out to us at midnight or at the end of the night. So if those nights on which it does this are not begun by it, how was it made for the beginning of the night? But if by “beginning” you understand principle, and by principle principality, it is clear that the sun holds the principality during the day, and the moon during the night, because even though the other stars appear then, it nonetheless surpasses all by its brightness, and so is most rightly called their prince. And concerning what is said, “And let them divide between day and night,” a false charge can be made here, so as to say: How had God already divided above between day and night, if the stars do this on the fourth day? So here “Let them divide between day and night” was said as if it had been said, “Let them so divide day and night among themselves that the day is given to the sun, and the night to the moon and the other stars.” These two had already been divided, but not yet among the stars, so that it might now be fixed, as to the number of the stars, what appears to people through the day and what through the night.

“And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and flying things flying over the earth under the firmament of heaven. And so it was done. And God made great sea monsters, and every soul of animals and creeping things which the waters brought forth according to each one's kind, and every winged flying kind according to its kind. And God saw that they are good; and God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea, and let the flying things multiply upon the earth. And evening was made, and morning was made, the fifth day.” Here they usually find fault, asking, or rather making false charges, why it is written that not only the animals that live in the waters but also those that fly in the air, and all winged things, were born from the waters. But let all who are troubled by this know that this cloudy and moist air in which birds fly is usually counted with the waters by the most learned men who study these things carefully. For it thickens and becomes dense from the exhalations and, as it were, the vapors of the sea and the earth, and from this very moisture it grows somehow heavy, so that it can carry the flight of birds. That is why on clear nights it even drops dew, whose drops are found on the grass in the morning. For that mountain of Macedonia called Olympus is said to be of such height that on its summit no wind is felt and no clouds gather, because by its height it rises above all this moist air in which birds fly; and so it is asserted that birds do not fly there either. This is said to have been reported by those who used to climb the summit of that mountain every year, for the sake of I do not know what sacrifices, and wrote certain marks in the dust, which they found intact the next year; which could not happen if that place were exposed to wind or rain. Further, because the thinness of the air there did not let them breathe, they could not stay there unless they held wet sponges to their nostrils, from which they drew the thicker air they were used to. These, then, reported that they had also never seen any bird in that place. So not without reason does the most trustworthy Scripture record that not only fish and the other animals that are in the waters, but also birds, were born from the waters; because they can fly through this air, which rises from the moisture of the sea and the earth.

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living soul according to each kind, of four-footed beasts and serpents and wild animals of the earth. And so it was done. And God made the wild animals 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 are good.” The Manichees also usually raise this question, saying: What need was there for God to make so many animals, whether in the waters or on land, that are not necessary for human beings? Many are even harmful and to be feared. But when they say this, they do not understand how all things are beautiful to their maker and craftsman, who uses all things for the governing of the universe, over which he rules by the highest law. For if an unskilled person enters some craftsman's workshop, he sees there many tools whose purposes he does not know, and if he is very foolish he thinks them superfluous. And if he carelessly falls into the furnace, or wounds himself with some sharp iron tool while handling it badly, he even thinks that there are many harmful and injurious things there. Yet because the craftsman knows their use, he laughs at his foolishness and, paying no attention to his silly words, busily carries on his workshop. And yet people are so foolish that in the case of a human craftsman they do not dare to find fault with what they do not know, but when they see such things they believe them to be necessary and provided for some uses; but in this world, whose maker and governor God is proclaimed to be, they dare to criticize many things whose causes they do not see, and in the works and tools of the almighty craftsman they wish to seem to know what they do not know. For my part, I confess that I do not know why mice and frogs were created, or flies or little worms; yet I see that all things are beautiful in their own kind, although on account of our sins many seem hostile to us. For I do not consider the body and limbs of any animal without finding measures and numbers and order belonging to the unity of harmony. Where all these come from I do not understand, unless from the highest measure and number and order, which reside in the unchangeable and eternal sublimity of God himself. If these most talkative and most foolish men thought about this, they would not weary us, but would themselves, by considering all beauties, both the highest and the lowest, praise God the craftsman everywhere; and since reason is nowhere offended, if perhaps fleshly sense is offended somewhere, they would ascribe it not to a fault in the things themselves but to what our mortality has deserved. And certainly all animals are either useful to us, or harmful, or superfluous. Against the useful they have nothing to say. As for the harmful, by them we are either punished, or exercised, or frightened, so that we may love and desire not this life, subject to many dangers and labors, but another, better one, where there is perfect security, and may win it for ourselves by the merits of piety. As for the superfluous, what business is it of ours to inquire? If you are displeased that they are of no use, be pleased that they do no harm; because, even if they are not necessary for our house, the completeness of this universe is filled out by them, which is much greater than our house and much better. For God governs it much better than each of us governs his own house. So make use of the useful, beware of the harmful, leave the superfluous alone. Yet in all things, when you see measures and numbers and order, look for the craftsman. And you will find no other than where the highest measure and the highest number and the highest order are, that is, God, of whom it is most truly said that he arranged all things in measure and number and weight. So perhaps you will gain richer fruit when you praise God in the lowliness of an ant than when you cross a river on the height of some beast of burden.

“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 heaven, and all the cattle and wild beasts, and all the earth, and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth,” and the rest, up to the evening and morning with which the sixth day is completed. The Manichees usually stir up this question most of all, talkatively, and mock us because we believe that man was made to the image and likeness of God. For they look at the shape of our body and ask, unhappily, whether God has nostrils and teeth and a beard, and also inner organs, and the other things that are necessary in us. To believe such things of God is ridiculous, indeed impious; and so they deny that man was made to the image and likeness of God. We answer them that these members are often named in the Scriptures when God is being made known to little ones who are listening; and this not only in the books of the Old Testament but also in those of the New. For the eyes of God are mentioned, and the ears and the lips and the feet, and the Gospel proclaims that the Son sits at the right hand of God the Father. And the Lord himself says: “Do not swear by heaven, because it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, because it is the footstool of his feet.” Likewise he himself says that he cast out demons by the finger of God. But all who understand the Scriptures spiritually have learned to take by these names not bodily members but spiritual powers, like helmets and shield and sword, and many other things. So first these heretics must be told with what impudence they bring false charges against the Old Testament over such words, when they see them set down in the New as well; or perhaps they do not see, but are blinded when they quarrel.

But let them know that in the catholic teaching the spiritual faithful do not believe that God is bounded by a bodily form; and that when man is said to have been made to the image of God, this is said with respect to the inner man, where reason and understanding are; and that is why he also has power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven, and all cattle and wild beasts, and all the earth, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth. For when he had said, “Let us make man to our image and likeness,” he immediately added, “And let him have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven,” and so on: so that we might understand that man is said to have been made to the image of God not on account of the body but on account of that power by which he surpasses all cattle. For all other animals are subject to man not on account of the body but on account of the understanding, which we have and they do not have; although even our body is so fashioned as to show that we are better than the beasts, and therefore like God. For the bodies of all animals, whether those that live in the waters or on land or that fly in the air, are bent toward the earth and are not upright as man's body is. By this it is signified that our mind too ought to be raised up toward its own higher things, that is, toward eternal spiritual things. So it is understood that man was made to the image and likeness of God chiefly with respect to the mind, the upright form of the body also bearing witness to it.

Sometimes they also say: How did man receive power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all cattle and wild beasts, when we see people killed by many wild beasts and harmed by many birds, which we wish either to avoid or to catch and often cannot? How, then, did we receive power over them? Here they must first be told that they err greatly who consider man after sin, when he was condemned to the mortality of this life and lost that perfection by which he was made to the image of God. But if even his condemned state has so much power that he rules so many cattle (for although he can be killed by many wild beasts because of the frailty of his body, yet he can be tamed by none, while he himself tames so many, nearly all), if, then, man's condemned state has so much power, what should we think of his kingdom, which is promised by the divine voice to him when he is renewed and set free?

As for what is written, “Male and female he made them; and God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and generate, and fill the earth,” it is most rightly asked how the union of male and female before sin is to be understood, and this blessing in which it was said, “Increase and multiply, and generate, and fill the earth”: whether it is to be taken carnally or spiritually. For we are permitted to take it also spiritually, so as to believe that it was turned into carnal fruitfulness after sin. For at first there was a chaste union of male and female, his suited to ruling and hers to obeying; and a spiritual offspring of intelligible and immortal joys filling the earth, that is, giving life to the body and ruling it, that is, holding it so subject that it suffered no opposition and no trouble from it. This is to be believed for this reason: that before they sinned they were not yet children of this world. For the children of this world beget and are begotten, as the Lord says when he shows that, in comparison with the future life promised to us, this carnal generation is to be held of little account.

And what was said to them, “Have power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all creeping things that creep upon the earth”: without prejudice to the understanding by which it is plain to all that man rules all these animals by reason, it is rightly also understood spiritually, so that we should hold in subjection all the affections and movements of the mind which we have that are like these animals, and rule them by temperance and moderation. For when these movements are not ruled, they break out and rush into the foulest habits, and drag us through various and ruinous pleasures, and make us like every kind of beast. But when they are ruled and made subject, they become entirely tame and live with us in harmony. For the movements of our mind are not foreign to us. They are also fed with us on the knowledge of reasons and of the best morals and of eternal life, as on seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees and green plants. And this is the happy and tranquil life of man, when all his movements agree with reason and truth; and they are called joys, and holy, chaste and good loves. But if they do not agree, then, while they are carelessly handled, they tear apart and scatter the mind and make life most wretched; and they are called disturbances and lusts and evil desires. These we are now commanded to crucify in ourselves with as much labor as we can, until death is swallowed up in victory. For the Apostle says: “But those who are Jesus Christ's have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.” For from this at least anyone ought to be warned that these things are not to be understood carnally: that green plants and fruit-bearing trees are given in Genesis as food to every kind of beast and to all birds and all serpents, when we see that lions and hawks and kites and eagles feed only on flesh and on the killing of other animals. I believe this is true also of some serpents that are in sandy and desert places, where neither tree nor plant grows.

Certainly we should not pass carelessly over what is said, “And God saw all the things he had made, that they were very good.” For when he dealt with each one, he said only, “God saw that it is good”; but when it was said of all, it was not enough to say “good” unless “very” was added. For if the individual works of God, when they are considered by the wise, are found to have praiseworthy measures and numbers and orders established each in its own kind, how much more all of them together, that is, the universe itself, which is filled out by these individual things gathered into one? For all beauty made up of parts is much more praiseworthy in the whole than in a part: as in the human body, if we praise the eyes alone, or the nose alone, or the cheeks alone, or the head alone, or the hands alone, or the feet alone, and so on, if we praise the individual beautiful parts by themselves, how much more the whole body, to which all the members, each beautiful by itself, contribute their beauty; so that a beautiful hand, which was praised even by itself in the body, if it is separated from the body, itself loses its grace, and the other parts without it are unsightly? So great is the force and power of wholeness and unity that even things which are many and good please only when they come together and agree in one universe. For “universe” has its name from unity. If the Manichees considered this, they would praise God as the author and maker of the universe; and what offends them in a part because of the condition of our mortality they would bring back to the beauty of the whole, and they would see how God made all things not only good but very good. For in an ornate and well-composed speech too, if we consider the individual syllables, or even the individual letters, which pass away as soon as they have sounded, we do not find in them anything that delights or deserves praise. For that whole speech is beautiful not from single syllables or letters but from all of them.

Now let us also look at what they usually mock with more impudence than ignorance: what is written, that God, when heaven and earth and all that he made were finished, rested on the seventh day from all his works, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because he rested from his works. For they say: What need was there for God to rest? Was he perhaps tired and worn out by the works of six days? They also add the testimony of the Lord where he says, “My Father works until now”; and from this they deceive many unskilled people, whom they try to persuade that the New Testament is opposed to the Old. But just as those to whom the Lord said, “My Father works until now,” thought of God's rest in a carnal way, and, keeping the sabbath carnally, did not see what the meaning of that day prefigured; so these too, though with a different will, equally fail to understand the mystery of the sabbath. For the former by keeping it carnally, and the latter by cursing it carnally, did not know the sabbath. Let each one, then, pass over to Christ, so that the veil may be taken away, as the Apostle says. For the veil is taken away when the covering of likeness and allegory is removed and the truth is laid bare so that it can be seen. First, then, the rule of this way of speaking must be noticed and learned in many places of the divine Scriptures. For what else does it signify that God is said to have rested from all his works, which he made very good, except our rest, which he will give us from all our works, if we too have done good works? According to this same figure of speech the Apostle too says: “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings.” For the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for the saints according to God, does not groan as though he were in need or suffered distress; but because he moves us to pray when we groan, what we do by his moving he is said to do. So too it is said: “The Lord your God tests you, to know whether you love him.” For he permits us to be tested not so that he may know, from whom nothing is hidden, but so that he may make us know how far we have advanced in love of him. According to this same way of speaking our Lord too says that he does not know the day and the hour of the end of the world. For what can there be that he does not know? But because he was usefully hiding this from his disciples, he said that he did not know, because by hiding it he made them not know. According to this figure he also said that only the Father knows that day, because he made the same Son know it. By this figure many questions in the divine Scriptures are solved without any difficulty for those who already know this kind of expression. Our ordinary usage too abounds in such expressions, when we say a glad day, because it makes us glad; and a sluggish cold, because it makes us sluggish; and a blind ditch, because we do not see it; and a polished tongue, because it makes polished words; and finally we call a time quiet from all troubles, in which we are quiet from all troubles. So too God is said to have rested from all his works, which he made very good, because in him we shall rest from all our works, if we have done good works; for even our good works themselves are to be ascribed to him who calls, who commands, who shows the way of truth, who invites us to will, and supplies the strength to fulfill what he commands.