What is the beginning of all things except our Lord and Savior of all,^[1] Jesus Christ the firstborn of every creature?^[2] In this beginning, therefore, that is, in his Word, God made heaven and earth as the evangelist John also says in the beginning of his Gospel: 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 by him, and without him nothing was made.^[3]

Scripture is not speaking here of any temporal beginning, but it says that the heavens and the earth and all things that were made were made in the beginning, that is, in the Savior.

Scripture called heaven and earth that form-less matter of the universe, which was changed into formed and beautiful natures by God’s ineffable command. . . . This heaven and earth, which were confused and mixed up, were suited to receive forms from God their maker.

[The Manichaeans assert that] the form of the world is due to the wisdom of the supreme Artificer; matter came to the Creator from without; and thus the world results from a double origin. It has received from outside its matter and its essence and from God its form and figure. They thus come to deny that the mighty God has presided at the formation of the universe and pretend that he has only brought a crowning contribution to a common work, that he has only contributed some small portion to the genesis of beings. They are incapable from the debasement of their reasoning of raising their glances to the height of truth. Here below arts are subsequent to matter—introduced into life by the indispensable need of them. Wool existed before weaving made it supply one of nature’s imperfections. Wood existed before carpentering took possession of it and transformed it each day to supply new wants and made us see all the advantages derived from it, giving the oar to the sailor, the winnowing fan to the laborer, the lance to the soldier. But God, before all those things that now attract our notice existed, after casting about in his mind and determining to bring into being time which had no being, imagined the world such as it ought to be and created matter in harmony with the form that he wished to give it. He assigned to the heavens the nature adapted for the heavens and gave to the earth an essence in accordance with its form. He formed, as he wished, fire, air and water, and gave to each the essence that the object of its existence required. Finally, he welded all the diverse parts of the universe by links of indissoluble attachment and established between them so perfect a fellowship and harmony that the most distant, in spite of their distance, appeared united in one universal sympathy. Let those men therefore renounce their fabulous imaginations, who, in spite of the weakness of their argument, pretend to measure a power as incomprehensible to man’s reason as it is unutterable by man’s voice. God created the heavens and the earth, but not only half—he created all the heavens and all the earth, creating the essence with the form.

Even if it is granted that the God of all things followed an order [in the creation], he is shown to be God and Creator and to have brought all things into being out of nothing.

It appears, indeed, that even before this world an order of things existed of which our mind can form an idea but of which we can say nothing, because it is too lofty a subject for men who are but beginners and are still babes in knowledge. The birth of the world was preceded by a condition of things suitable for the exercise of supernatural powers, outstripping the limits of time, eternal and infinite. The Creator and Demiurge of the universe perfected his works in it, spiritual light for the happiness of all who love the Lord, intellectual and invisible natures, all the orderly arrangement of pure intelligences who are beyond the reach of our mind and of whom we cannot even discover the names. They fill the essence of this invisible world, as Paul teaches us. For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers^[1] or virtues or hosts of angels or the dignities of archangels. To this world at last it was necessary to add a new world, both a school and training place where the souls of men should be taught and a home for beings destined to be born and to die. Thus was created, of a nature analogous to that of this world and the animals and plants which live on it, the succession of time, forever pressing on and passing away and never stopping in its course. Is not this the nature of time, where the past is no more, the future does not exist, and the present escapes before being recognized? And such also is the nature of the creature that lives in time—condemned to grow or to perish without rest and without certain stability. It is therefore fit that the bodies of animals and plants, obliged to follow a sort of current and carried away by the motion that leads them to birth or to death, should live in the midst of surroundings whose nature is in accord with beings subject to change. Thus the writer who wisely tells us of the birth of the universe does not fail to put these words at the head of the narrative. In the beginning God created; that is to say, in the beginning of time. Therefore, if he makes the world appear in the beginning, it is not a proof that its birth has preceded that of all other things that were made. He only wishes to tell us that, after the invisible and intellectual world, the visible world, the world of the senses, began to exist.

We are proposing to examine the structure of the world and to contemplate the whole universe, not from the wisdom of the world but from what God taught his servant when he spoke to him in person and without riddles.

Notice this remarkable author, dearly beloved, and the particular gift he had. I mean, while all the other inspired authors told either what would happen after a long time or what was going to take place immediately, this blessed author, being born many generations after the event, was guided by the deity on high and judged worthy to narrate what had been created by the Lord of all from the very beginning. Accordingly he began with these words: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. He well nigh bellows at us all and says, Is it by human beings I am taught in uttering these things? It is the one who brought being from nothing who stirred my tongue in narrating them. Since we therefore listen to these words not as the words of Moses but as the words of the God of all things coming to us through the tongue of Moses, so I beg you, let us heed what is said as distinguished from our own reasoning.

Let us accept what is said with much gratitude, not overstepping the proper limit nor busying ourselves with matters beyond us. This is the besetting weakness of enemies of the truth, wishing as they do to assign every matter to their own reasoning and lacking the realization that it is beyond the capacity of human nature to plumb God’s creation.

Why does it proceed, first heaven then earth? The temple’s roof made before its pavement? God is not subject to nature’s demands nor to the rules of technique. God is the creator and master technician of nature, and art, and everything made or imagined.

And as I prayed, the heavens were opened, and I saw the woman whom I had desired saluting me from the sky, and saying, “Hail, Hermas!” And looking up to her, I said, “Lady, what are you doing here?” And she answered me, “I have been taken up here to accuse you of your sins before the Lord.” “Lady,” said I, “are you to be the subject of my accusation?” “No,” said she, “but hear the words which I am going to speak to you. God, who dwells in the heavens, and made out of nothing the things that exist, and multiplied and increased them on account of his holy Church, is angry with you for having sinned against me”.

First of all, believe that there is one God who created and finished all things, and made all things out of nothing. He alone is able to contain the whole, but he cannot be contained. Therefore have faith in him, and fear him; and fearing him, exercise self-control. Keep these commands, and you will cast all wickedness away from you, and put on the strength of righteousness, and live to God, if you keep this commandment.

Let us proceed then, O king, to the elements themselves, that we may show in regard to them that they are not gods, but perishable and mutable, produced out of what did not exist at the command of the true God, who is indestructible and immutable and invisible; yet he sees all things and, as he wills, modifies and changes things. What then shall I say concerning the elements?

And he is without beginning, because he is unbegotten; and he is unchangeable, because he is immortal. And he is called God [ Theos ] because he established [ tetheikenai ] all things with a security that he himself provided; and on account of théein , for théein means running, and moving, and being active, and nourishing, and foreseeing, and governing, and making all things alive. But he is Lord, because he rules over the universe; Father, because he is before all things; fashioner and maker, because he is creator and maker of the universe; the highest, because of his being above all; and Almighty, because he rules and embraces all. For the heights of heaven, and the depths of the abysses, and the ends of the earth are in his hand and there is no place where he rests. For the heavens are his work, the earth is his creation, the sea is his handiwork; man is his formation and his image; sun, moon, and stars are his elements, made for signs, and seasons, and days, and years, that they may serve and be slaves to man; and all things God has made, out of things that were not into things that are, in order that through his works his greatness may be known and understood.

And first, [the prophets of God] taught us with one consent that God made all things out of nothing; for nothing was co-eternal with God: but he being his own place, and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make man by whom he might be known; for [man], therefore, he prepared the world. For he that is created is also needy; but he that is uncreated needs nothing.

While men cannot make anything out of nothing, but only out of matter already existing, yet God is preeminently superior to men in this point, that he himself called into being the substance of his creation, when previously it had no existence. But the assertion that matter was produced from the enthymesis of an aeon going astray, and that the aeon was far separated from her enthymesis , and that, again, her passion and feeling, apart from herself, became matter—is incredible, infatuated, impossible, and untenable.

The object of our worship is the one God, who, by the word of his command, by the reason of his plan, and by the strength of his power has brought forth from nothing this whole construction of elements, bodies, and spirits for the glory of his majesty; which is why the Greeks have bestowed upon the world the name “cosmos”.

Now, with regard to this rule of faith—that we may from this point acknowledge what we defend—it is what prescribes the belief that there is one God, and that he is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through his own Word, first of all sent forth.

On the first day God made what he made out of nothing. But on the other days he did not make out of nothing, but out of what he had made on the first day, by molding it according to his pleasure.

The particular points clearly delivered in the teaching of the apostles are as follows: First, that there is one God, who created and arranged all things, and who, when nothing existed, called all things into being—God from the first creation and foundation of the world, the God of all just men, of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets; and that this God in the last days, as he had announced beforehand through his prophets, sent our Lord Jesus Christ to call to himself in the first place Israel, and in the second place the Gentiles, after the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel. This just and good God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, gave the law and the prophets, and the Gospels, being also the God of the apostles and of the Old and New Testaments.

Then shall the righteous answer, astonished at the mighty and wondrous fact that he, who the hosts of angels cannot look upon openly, addresses them as friends, and they shall cry out to him, “Lord, when saw we you hungry, and fed you? Master, when saw we you thirsty, and gave you drink? You terrible one, when saw we you naked, and clothed you? Immortal, when saw we you a stranger, and took you in? You friend of man, when saw we you sick or in prison, and came to you? You are the ever-living one. You are without beginning, like the Father, and co-eternal with the Spirit. You are he who made all things out of nothing”.

[I]n fact out of nothing, man is brought into being, [so] how much rather shall man spring into being again out of a previously existing man? For it is not so difficult to make anything anew after it has once existed and fallen into decay, as to produce out of nothing what has never existed.

[O]ne is foolish to think the one God, who had power to create the universe, is unable to govern what he created. But if he conceives in his mind how immense is that divine work, when before it was nothing, yet that by the power and wisdom of God it was made out of nothing—a work that could only be commenced and accomplished by one—he will understand that what has been established by one is much more easily governed by one.

Now, having refuted those who entertain false sentiments respecting the world and God, its maker, let us return to the divine workmanship of the world, about which we are informed by the sacred writings of our holy religion. First of all, God made the heaven, and suspended it on high, that it might be his seat, the Creator. Then he founded the earth, and placed it under heaven, as a dwelling-place for man, and the other races of animals. He willed that it should be surrounded and held together by water. But he adorned and filled his own dwelling-place with bright lights; he decked it with the sun, and the shining orb of the moon, and with the glittering signs of the twinkling stars; but he placed on the earth the darkness, which is contrary to these. For in itself the earth contains no light, unless it receives it from the heaven, in which he placed perpetual light, and the gods above, and eternal life; and, on the contrary, he placed on the earth darkness, and the inhabitants of the lower regions, and death. For these things are as far removed from heavenly things, as evil things are from good, and vices from virtues. He also established two parts of the earth opposite to one another, and of a different character—the east and the west; and of these the east is assigned to God, because he himself is the fountain of light, and the enlightener of all things, and because he makes us rise to eternal life. But the west is ascribed to the disturbed and depraved mind, because it conceals the light, because it always brings on darkness, and because it makes men die and perish in their sins. For as light belongs to the east, and the whole course of life depends upon the light, so darkness belongs to the west, and death and destruction are contained in darkness. Then he measured out the other parts—the south and the north, which are closely united with the two former. For what glows with the warmth of the sun is nearest to and closely united with the east; but what is torpid with cold and perpetual ice belongs to the extreme west. For as darkness is opposed to light, so is cold to heat. As, therefore, heat is nearest to light, so is the south to the east; and as cold is nearest to darkness, so is the northern region to the west. And he assigned to each of these parts its own time—namely, the spring to the east, the summer to the southern region, the autumn to the west, and the winter to the north. In these two parts also, the southern and the northern, is contained a figure of life and death, because life consists in heat, death in cold. And as heat arises from fire, so does cold from water. And according to the division of these parts he also made day and night, to complete by alternate succession with each other the courses and perpetual revolutions of time, which we call years. The day, which the first east supplies, must belong to God, as all things do that are of a better character. But the night, which the extreme west brings on, belongs to the rival of God.

[T]he Word by which the Father formed all things out of nothing was begotten of the true Father himself.

[S]o also will he raise all men up by his will, not wanting any assistance. For it is the work of the same power to create the world and to raise the dead. And then he made man, who was not a man before, of different parts, giving to him a soul made out of nothing. But now he will restore the bodies, which have been dissolved, to the souls that are still in being: for the rising again belongs to things laid down, not to things that have no being. So he that made the original bodies out of nothing, and fashioned various forms of them, will also revive and raise up those that are dead.

For you [Father] are eternal knowledge, everlasting sight, unbegotten hearing, untaught wisdom, the first by nature, and the measure of being, and beyond all number; who brought all things into being out of nothing through your only begotten Son, but begot him before all ages by your will, your power, and your goodness, without any instrument, the only begotten Son, God the Word.

O Lord, who are not one thing in one place, and otherwise in another, but the self-same, and the self-same, and the self-same, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, did in the beginning, which is of you, in your wisdom, which was born of your substance, create something out of nothing. For you created heaven and earth, not out of yourself, for then they would be equal to your only-begotten, and thereby even to you; and in no way would it be right that anything should be equal to you that was not of you. And there was not anything else except you out of which you might create these things, O God, one Trinity, and triune unity; and, therefore, out of nothing you created heaven and earth.

[T]hough God formed man of the dust of the earth, yet the earth itself, and every earthly material, is absolutely created out of nothing; and man’s soul, too, God created out of nothing, and joined to the body, when he made man.

God produced that entire mass for the adornment of his majesty in six days; on the seventh he consecrated it . . . with a blessing.

There is knowledge to be had, after all, about the earth, about the sky, about the other elements of this world, about the movements and revolutions or the magnitude and distances of constellations, about the predictable eclipses of moon and sun, about the cycles of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, fruits, stones, and everything else of this kind. And it frequently happens that even non-Christians have knowledge of this sort that they can substantiate with scientific arguments or experiments. Now it is quite disgraceful and disastrous, something to be on one’s guard against at all costs, that they should ever hear Christians spouting what they claim our Christian literature has to say on these topics, and talking such nonsense that they can scarcely contain their laughter when they see them to be toto caelo , as the saying goes, wide of the mark. And what is so vexing is not that misguided people should be laughed at, as that our authors should be assumed by outsiders to have held such views and, to the great detriment of those about whose salvation we are concerned, should be written off and consigned to the wastepaper basket as so many ignoramuses. . . . It is in order to take account of this state of things that I have, to the best of my ability, drawn out and presented a great variety of possible meanings to the words of the book of Genesis that have been darkly expressed in order to put us through our paces. I have avoided affirming anything hastily in a way that would rule out any better alternative explanation, leaving everyone free to choose whichever they can grasp most readily in their turn.

But because the trustworthiness of the Scriptures is in question, this, as I have reminded readers more than once, has to be defended from those who do not understand the style of the divine utterances, and who assume when they find anything on these matters in our books, or hear them read out from them, that seems to be contrary to explanations they have worked out, that thus they should not place any confidence in the Scriptures when they warn or tell them about other useful things. It must be stated that our authors knew about the shape of the sky whatever may be the truth of the matter. But the Spirit of God who was speaking through them did not wish to teach people about things that would contribute nothing to their salvation.

The earth was invisible and unorganized, and darkness was over the abyss. Formlessness is suggested by these words, so that we might grasp the meaning by degrees, for we are unable to think cognitively about an absolute privation of form that still does not go as far as nothing. From this, another visible and organized heaven and earth were to be made.

Surely the perfect condition of the earth consists in its state of abundance: the budding of all sorts of plants, the putting forth of the lofty trees both fruit-ful and barren, the freshness and fragrance of flowers, and whatever things appeared on earth a little later by the command of God to adorn their mother. Since as yet there was nothing of this, the Scripture reasonably spoke of it as incomplete. We might say the same also about the heavens; that they were not yet brought to perfection themselves, nor had they received their proper adornment, since they were not yet lighted around by the moon nor the sun, nor crowned by the choirs of the stars. For these things had not yet been made. Therefore you will not err from the truth if you say that the heavens also were incomplete.

The good architect lays the foundation first and afterward, when the foundation has been laid, plots the various parts of the building, one after the other, and then adds to it the ornamentation. . . . Scripture points out that things were first created and afterward put in order lest it be supposed that they were not actually created and that they had no beginning, just as if the nature of things had been, as it were, generated from the beginning and did not appear to be something added afterward.

And darkness was over the abyss. The Manichaeans find fault with this and say, Was God then in darkness, before he made the light? They themselves are truly in the darkness of ignorance, and for that reason they do not understand the light in which God was before he made this light. For they know only the light they see with the eyes of the flesh. And therefore they worship this sun that every creature sees. But let us understand that there is a different light in which God dwells.

One who diligently considers what darkness is really finds only the absence of light. Thus it said, darkness was over the abyss, as if to say, There was no light over the abyss. Hence, this matter that is ordered and distinguished by the next work of God is called the invisible and unformed earth and the deep that is lacking light. This is what was above called heaven and earth, like the seed of heaven and earth.

The Spirit fittingly moved over the earth, destined to bear fruit because by the aid of the Spirit it held the seeds of new birth which were to germinate according to the words of the prophet: Send forth thy Spirit and they shall be created and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.^[1]

The matter is first called by the name of the universe, that is, of heaven and earth, for the sake of which it was made from absolutely nothing. Second, its formlessness is conveyed by the mention of the unformed earth and the abyss, because among all the elements earth is more formless and less bright than the rest. Third, by the name water, there is signified matter that is subject to the work of the Maker, for water can be moved more easily than earth. And thus on account of the easiness by which it can be worked and moved, the matter subject to the Maker should be called water rather than earth.

In the beginning of Genesis, it is written: And the Spirit was stirring above the waters. You see, then, what it says in the beginning of Genesis. Now for its mystical meaning—The Spirit was stirring above the waters—already at that time baptism was being foreshadowed. It could not be true baptism, to be sure, without the Spirit.

[The Holy Spirit] warmed the waters with a kind of vital warmth, even bringing them to a boil through intense heat in order to make them fertile. The action of a hen is similar. It sits on its eggs, making them fertile through the warmth of incubation. Here then, the Holy Spirit foreshadows the sacrament of holy baptism, prefiguring its arrival, so that the waters made fertile by the hovering of cthat same divine Spirit might give birth to the children of God.

It was appropriate to reveal here that the Spirit hovered in order for us to learn that the work of creation was held in common by the Spirit with the Father and the Son. The Father spoke. The Son created. And so it was also right that the Spirit offer its work, clearly shown through its hovering, in order to demonstrate its unity with the other persons. Thus we learn that all was brought to perfection and accomplished by the Trinity.

[F]rom baptism do we receive the Spirit of Christ. For in that hour in which the priests invoke the Spirit, the heavens open and it descends and moves upon the waters [Gn 1:2]. And those that are baptized are clothed in it; for the Spirit stays aloof from those who are born of the flesh, until they come to the new birth by water, and then they receive the Holy Spirit. . . . [I]n the second birth, through baptism, they received the Holy Spirit.

God is the author of light, and the place and cause of darkness is the world. But the good Author uttered the word light so that he might reveal the world by infusing brightness therein and thus make its aspect beautiful. Suddenly then, the air became bright and darkness shrank in terror from the brilliance of the novel brightness.

We ought to understand that God did not say Let there be light by a sound brought forth from the lungs or by the tongue and teeth. Such thoughts are those of persons physically preoccupied. To be wise in accord with the flesh is death. Let there be light was spoken ineffably. ^[1] THE ^[1]

The light was released so that it might spread over everything with-out being fastened down. It dispersed the darkness that was over everything although it did not move. It was only when [the light] went away and when it came that it moved, for when [the light] went away the rule was given to the night, and at [the light’s] coming there would be an end to [the night’s] rule. After the brightness [of the light] rendered its service for three days . . . the sun was in the firmament in order to ripen whatever had sprouted under that first light.

Evening, then, is a common boundary line of day and night; and similarly morning is the part of night bordering on day. In order, therefore, to give the prerogative of prior generation to the day, Moses mentioned first the limit of the day and then that of the night, as night followed the day. The condition in the world before the creation of light was not night but darkness. That which was opposed to the day was named night.

We should understand that this sentence does not signify joy as if over an unexpected good but an approval of the work. For what is said more fittingly of God—insofar as it can be humanly said—than when Scripture puts it this way: he spoke, and it was made, it pleased him. Thus we understand in he spoke his sovereignty, in it was made his power and in it pleased him his goodness. These ineffable things had to be said in this way by a man to men so that they might profit all.

God saw that the light was good, and these words do not mean that God found before him a good that he had not known but that he was pleased by one that was finished.

God, as judge of the whole work, foreseeing what is going to happen as something completed, commends the part of his work which is still in its initial stages, being already cognizant of its termination.

And God divided the light and the darkness, and God called the light day and he called the darkness night. It did not say here God made the darkness, because darkness is merely the absence of light. Yet God made a division between light and darkness. So too we make a sound by crying out, and we make a silence by not making a sound, because silence is the cessation of sound. Still in some sense we distinguish between sound and silence and call the one sound and the other silence. . . . He called the light day, and he called the darkness night was said in the sense that he made them to be called, because he separated and ordered all things so that they could be distinguished and receive names.^[1]

Now, henceforth, after the creation of the sun, it is day when the air is illuminated by the sun shining on the hemisphere above the earth, and night is the darkness of the earth when the sun is hidden. Yet it was not at that time according to solar motion, but it was when that first created light was diffused and again drawn in according to the measure ordained by God, that day came and night succeeded.

Heaven, earth, fire, wind and water were created from nothing as Scripture bears witness, whereas the light, which came to be on the first day along with the rest of the things that came to be afterward, came to be from something. . . . Therefore those five created things were created from nothing, and everything else was made from those [five] things that came to be from nothing.

So let no one think that there is anything allegorical in the works of the six days. No one can rightly say that the things pertaining to these days were symbolic, nor can one say that they were meaningless names or that other things were symbolized for us by their names. Rather, let us know in just what manner heaven and earth were created in the beginning. They were truly heaven and earth. There was no other thing signified by the names heaven and earth. The rest of the works and things made that followed were not meaningless significations either, for the substances of their natures correspond to what their names signify.

In fact, there did exist something, as it seems, even before this world which our mind can attain by contemplation but which has been left uninvestigated because it is not adapted to those who are beginners and as yet infants in understanding. This was a certain condition older than the birth of the world and proper to the supramundane powers, one beyond time, everlasting, without beginning or end. In it the Creator and Producer of all things perfected the works of his art, a spiritual light befitting the blessedness of those who love the Lord, rational and invisible natures, and the whole orderly arrangement of spiritual creatures which surpass our understanding and of which it is impossible even to discover the names. These fill completely the essence of the invisible world.

The angels, dominions and powers, although they began to exist at some time, were already in existence when the [visible] world was created.

For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by eating the fruit? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.

The text said that “there was evening and there was morning”; it did not say “the first day,” but said “one day.” It is because before the world existed there was not yet time. But time begins to exist with the following days.

And the evening and the morning were one day. Why does Scripture say one day the first day? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first that began the series? If it therefore says one day, it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day.

Scripture established a law that twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent. . . . [T]he nights in this reckoning are considered to be component parts of the days that are counted. Therefore, just as there is a single revolution of time, so there is but one day. There are many who call even a week one day, because it returns to itself, just as one day does, and one might say seven times revolves back on itself. That is the form of a circle, to begin with itself and to return to itself. Hence, Scripture appeals at times to an age of the world.

So for the sake of argument, let us suppose that these seven days [which we experience in a modern week], which in their stead [in the stead of the days of creation] constitute the week that whirls times and seasons along by its constant recurrence, in which one day is the whole circuit of the sun from sunrise to sunrise—that these seven [modern days] represent those first seven [days of creation] in some fashion, though we must be in no doubt that they are not at all like them, but very, very dissimilar.

One could readily jump to the conclusion, after all, that a day of bodily light was meant, which goes round and round to provide us with the alternations of daytime and nighttime. But then we recall the order in which things were fashioned, and find that all the greenery of the field was created on the third day, before the sun was made on the fourth day, the sun that regulates by its presence this normal day we are used to. So when we hear the word, “When the day was made, God made heaven and earth and all the greenery of the field,” we are being admonished to turn our thoughts to that special day we should be striving to track down with our minds, which . . . is certainly not such as the one we are familiar with here.

For in these days [of creation] the morning and evening are counted until, on the sixth day, all things God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signaled. What kind of days these were is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!

And with regard to the creation of the light upon the first day . . . and of the [great] lights and stars upon the fourth . . . we have treated it to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world.

We see that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting [of the sun] and no morning but by the rising of the sun, but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the darkness and called the light “day” and the darkness “night”; but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was and yet must unhesitatingly believe it.