St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis

St. Augustine. THE LITERAL MEANING OF GENESIS

Book IV

Chapter 33 God created all things simultaneously.

51. But if the angelic mind can grasp simultaneously all that the sacred text sets down separately in an ordered arrangement according to causal connection, were not all these things also made simultaneously, the firmament itself, the waters gathered together and the bare land that appeared, the plants and trees that sprang forth, the lights and stars that were established, the living creatures in the water and on the earth? Or were they rather created at different times on appointed days?

Perhaps we ought not to think of these creatures at the moment they were produced as subject to the processes of nature which we now observe in them, but rather as under the wonderful and unutterable power of the Wisdom of God, which reaches from end to end mightily and governs all graciously.[66] For this power of Divine Wisdom does not reach by stages or arrive by steps. It was just as easy, then, for God to create everything as it is for Wisdom to exercise this mighty power. For through Wisdom all things were made, and the motion we now see in creatures, measured by the lapse of time, as each one fulfills its proper function, comes to creatures from those causal reasons[67]implanted in them, which God scattered as seeds at the moment of creation when He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created.[68]

52. Creation, therefore, did not take place slowly in order that a slow development might be implanted in those things that are slow by nature; nor were the ages established at the plodding pace at which they now pass. Time brings about the development of these creatures according to the laws of their numbers, but there was no passage of time when they received these laws at creation. Otherwise, if we think that, when they were first created by the Word of God, there were the processes of nature with the normal duration of days that we know, those creatures that shoot forth roots and clothe the earth would need not one day but many to germinate beneath the ground, and then a certain number of days, according to their natures, to come forth from the ground; and the creation of vegetation, which Scripture places on one day, namely the third, would have been a gradual process.

And then how many days were necessary for birds to fly, if they proceeded from the earliest stages through the periods of natural growth to the sprouting of feathers and wings? Or perhaps were eggs only created, when on the fifth day, according to the scriptural narrative, the waters brought forth every winged bird according to its kind? If this can be maintained on the ground that in the liquid substance of the eggs there already existed all that grows and develops in the required course of days, because there were already present the numerous reason-principles implanted in an incorporeal manner within corporeal creatures, why could not the same thing have been said before the appearance of eggs, when in the humid element these same reason-principles were produced, from which winged creatures might be born and develop in the time required for the growth of each species?

In this narrative of creation Holy Scripture has said of the Creator that He completed His works in six days; and elsewhere, without contradicting this, it has been written of the same Creator that He created all things together.[69] It follows, therefore, that He, who created all things together, simultaneously created these six days, or seven, or rather the one day six or seven times repeated. Why, then, was there any need for six distinct days to be set forth in the narrative one after the other? The reason is that those who cannot understand the meaning of the text, He created all things together, cannot arrive at the meaning of Scripture unless the narrative proceeds slowly step by step.

Chapter 34 All things were made both simultaneously and in six days.

53. How, then, can we say that the light was repeated six times in the knowledge of the angels from evening to morning? It was enough for them just once to have day and evening and morning together when, in the primordial and immutable forms by which creatures were made, they contemplated the whole of creation together, as it was made together, thus beholding day; and when, in things existing in their own proper nature, they knew creation, thus beholding evening; and when, recognizing this knowledge as inferior, they praised the Creator, thus beholding morning. How did morning come first, so that the angels would know in the Word what God was to make next, and afterwards know this very thing itself in the evening, if no "before" or "after" was made, because all things were made together?

As a matter of fact, the creatures mentioned in the narrative of creation were made according to a "before" and "after" during the six days, and they were also all made together. For this Scripture text that narrates the works of God according to the days mentioned above, and that Scripture text that says God created all things together, are both true. And the two are one, because Sacred Scripture was written under the inspiration of the one Spirit of truth.

54. In this sort of thing there is no lapse of time to show what is before and what after. We might say that the creation of things took place all at once and also that there was a "before" and "after," but it is more readily understood as happening all at once than in sequence. Thus also, when we look at the sun rising, it is certainly evident that our gaze could not reach it without passing over the whole expanse of air and sky that lies between. And who can calculate this distance? Now this gaze of ours or this ray from our eyes[70] would not be able to traverse the air above the sea unless it first passed over the air above the land as we look out from any inland site towards the seashore.

And then if our gaze, turned in the same direction, meets land again across the sea, it cannot pass through the air above that distant land unless it first travels through the air above the sea that lies between. And let us suppose that beyond this land across the sea only ocean remains. Can our gaze pass through the air spread out over the ocean unless it first penetrates the air over the land on this side of the ocean? The expanse of the ocean is said to be greater than anything we know; but however vast it may be, it is necessary for the rays of our eyes first to pass through the air above it, and afterwards to pass through whatever is beyond, and then finally to come to the sun that we behold.

In describing this experience, I have used the words "first" and "afterwards" several times, but in so speaking I am not denying that our gaze passes over all this space at once with a single glance of the eye. If we close our eyes and turn towards the sun, as soon as we open them we shall have the feeling that our gaze has touched the sun without our being aware that we have stretched it out to that point; and there will seem to be no lapse of time between the moment we open our eyes and the moment our gaze meets its object. Now this is certainly a ray of material light that shines forth from our eyes and touches objects so remote with such speed that it cannot be calculated or equalled. It is quite obvious, then, that all those measureless spaces are traversed at one time in a single glance; and at the same time it is also certain what part of these spaces is passed first and what part later.

55. It was only right that when St. Paul wished to express the speed with which we should rise from the dead, he said it would happen in the twinkling of an eye.[71] Surely nothing swifter can be found in the movements and impulses of bodies. Now, if vision in the eyes of the body is capable of such speed, what cannot intellectual vision do, even in the case of men, and much more in the case of angels? And what can we say of the speed of the supreme Wisdom of God Himself, which penetrates everywhere by reason of Its purity, and which no stain ever sullies?[72]

In such actions, therefore, which happen simultaneously, no one sees what must have occurred "first" or "later," unless he beholds it in that Wisdom by which all things were made in due order simultaneously.

Chapter 35 There is no "before" or "after" in God but there is in creatures.

56. If, therefore, the day that God first made is the company of spiritual and rational creatures called supercelestial angels[73]and virtues, it was made present to all the works of God to see them in that order in which angelic knowledge foreknows in the Word of God creatures that are to be made and knows in themselves creatures already made. There are no intervals of time here; but one can speak of "before" and "after" in the relationships of creatures, although all is simultaneous in the creative act of God. For God made the creatures that were to be in the future in such a way that without Himself being subject to time He made them subject to time. Thus time when made by Him would run its course.

The seven days, therefore, with which we are familiar, which the light of a heavenly body unfolds and folds in its course, are like a shadow and a sign reminding us to seek those days wherein created spiritual light was able to be made present to all the works of God by the perfection of the number six. We are reminded also that the seventh day, the day on which God rested, has a morning but no evening, and that He rested on this day not because He needed the seventh day for rest, but because He rested in the sight of His angels from all the works He had made, resting only in Himself, who was not made. In other words, the angels that God created were made present to all His works, knowing them in Him and in themselves, as day along with evening; and after all the works of God, which were very good, there was nothing better for them to know than that God Himself was resting in Himself from all His works, needing none of them to add to His beatitude.[74]