It does not, therefore, remain immovable by its own balancing, but is frequently moved by the nod and decision of God, as Job too says that 'the Lord moves it from its foundations, and its pillars are shaken'; and elsewhere: 'Hell is naked in His sight, and there is no covering for death. He stretches out the north over the void, hanging the earth upon nothing, binding up the water in His clouds. The pillars of heaven flew away and trembled at His rebuke. By His power He calmed the sea, by His discipline He laid low the monster, and the bars of heaven fear Him.' By the will of God, therefore, the earth remains immovable and stands for ever, according to the sentence of Ecclesiastes; and by the will of God it is moved and totters.
It does not, then, subsist resting upon its own foundations, nor does it remain stable by its own props, but the Lord set it up and holds it together by the firmament of His will, because in His hand are all the ends of the earth. And this simplicity of faith excels all arguments. Let others praise the fact that the earth therefore never falls anywhere, because according to nature it possesses its own region in the middle, since it must necessarily remain in its region and not be inclined to one side, seeing that it is not moved contrary to nature, but according to nature; let them proclaim the excellence of the divine Craftsman and eternal Worker—for what craftsman has not received from Him, or who gave to women the wisdom of weaving or the discipline of variety?
—Yet I, who cannot comprehend the depth of His majesty and the excellence of His art, do not commit myself to balancings of joints and to measures, but esteem all things to be deposited in His will, since His will is the foundation of all things, and on account of Him this world still endures. This too it is permissible to establish by the example of apostolic authority. For it is written that 'the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected it in hope. But the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption,' when the grace of the divine recompense shall come.
But concerning the nature and quality of the substance of heaven, why should I enumerate those things which the philosophers in their disputations have set forth—since some assert that heaven is composed of the four elements, while others bring in a certain fifth nature of a novel body for its constitution, and feign that it is an ethereal body, with which is mingled neither fire nor air nor water nor earth?
For the elements of this world have, each of them, a certain course and use and motion of nature, so that the heavier sink down and are borne downward, while the empty and light raise themselves upward—for there is a motion proper to each—but in the circuit of a sphere these are confounded and lose the force of their own course, since the sphere is rolled in its own orbit, and the upper things are changed into the lower, the lower also into the upper. But of those things whose motions according to nature have been changed, they necessarily bear that the qualities of their substances are wont to be changed. Why, then, do we defend that there is an ethereal body, lest it seem subject to corruption? For that which is composed of corruptible elements must necessarily be dissolved.
For by the very fact that things of diverse nature are the same elements, they cannot have a simple and inviolable motion, since the diverse motion of the elements wars against itself. For it will be sung that one motion cannot be fit for all things, nor agree with elements that are distant from one another; for that which is suited to the light is rendered unsuited to the heavier elements. And so, when motion toward the upper parts is necessary for heaven, it is weighed down by the earthly elements; when a downward course is sought for the lower parts, that fiery vigor is violently drawn down; for it is forced downward contrary to the use of its own nature. But everything that is forced into its contrary is not its nature.
But it is quickly dissolved by necessity and is rent into those things of which it seems to be composed, each part recurring to its own region. Considering these things, therefore, others, judging that the ethereal body of heaven and of the stars could not be stable, introduced a certain fifth nature of body, by which they thought the substance of heaven would remain lasting. But this opinion could not withstand the prophetic sentence, which the divine majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, also confirmed in the Gospel. For David said: 'In the beginning You, Lord, founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands. They shall perish, but You remain.'
'And they all shall grow old as a garment, and as a vesture You shall change them, and they shall be changed; but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail.' Which the Lord so confirmed in the Gospel that He said: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' Those, therefore, accomplish nothing who, for the sake of asserting the perpetuity of heaven, thought a fifth ethereal body must be introduced, since they equally see that a portion of a single member, unlike the rest, when adjoined, is wont rather to bring decay to the body. At the same time note this, that the prophet David, when he named the earth in the prior place and afterward the heaven, believed it must be declared to be the work of the Lord.
For when He said 'and they were made,' it makes no difference which you express first, since both were made at the same time—at the same time, lest by this even the least prerogative should seem to be adjudged to heaven, as of a more divine substance, so that it should be esteemed superior by the privilege of being a firstborn creature. Therefore let us leave those men to their own contentions, who refute themselves by mutual disputations; but for us it is enough unto salvation, not the controversy of disputations, but the truth of the precepts; not the cunning of argumentation, but the faith of the mind, that we may serve the Creator rather than the creature, who is God blessed for ever. 'But the earth was invisible and unformed.'
A good craftsman first lays the foundation; afterward, the foundation being laid, he distinguishes the members of the building and adds the adornment. The foundation of the earth being laid, therefore, and the substance of heaven being confirmed—for these two are as it were the hinges of things—he subjoined: 'But the earth was invisible and unformed.' What is 'was'? Lest perchance, framing their opinion into infinity and without beginning, they should say: Behold, that matter—that is, hylē, as the philosophers say—even according to divine Scripture had no beginning. But to those saying this you will answer that it is written: 'Now Cain was a worker of the earth,' and of him who was called Jubal Scripture has it:
This was the father who pointed out the psaltery and the harp; and there was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. Let them therefore cease to raise a question about the word, especially since Moses had set down beforehand that God made the earth. It was, therefore, from the moment it was made. For if they say that it exists without a beginning, then, saying that not only the Lord but also matter (ὕλη) is without beginning, let them define where it was. If it was in a place, then it is also asserted that the place itself existed without a beginning, in which was the matter of things, which had no beginning. But if it seems absurd to believe this concerning a place, see whether perhaps we ought to imagine a flying earth, which, having no foundation, was suspended by the oarage of wings.
From where, then, shall we get wings for it—unless perhaps we divert here the interpretation of the prophetic saying: 「We have heard wonders from the wings of the earth,」 and that other: 「Woe to the wings of the ships of the earth.」 But even granting that we take it so, in what air did the earth fly? For without air it could not fly; yet air could not as yet exist, because the distinction of the elements had not been made apart from the matter of things, since the very elements themselves had not yet been made. Where, then, was this matter, upheld by the oarage of wings? It was not in the air, because air is a body of the world; and that air is a body, the reading teaches us, since when an arrow is shot toward the spot at which the archer aims, the cleft air at once resolves itself back into itself.
Where, then, was matter (ὕλη), unless perhaps it be said—by some demented presumption—that it was in God? Then God, who is of invisible and inviolable nature, who dwells in light unapproachable, incomprehensible and most pure Spirit, would be the place of the world's matter, and there would be in God a portion of the world—although the mind of His servants is not of this world, as we have it written: 「They are not of this world, even as I also am not of the world.」 How then could invisible things be joined to visible things, and things uncomposed to Him who gave order and beauty to all things? Unless perhaps because He said:
「But the earth was invisible」—let them believe it invisible by its substance, and not for this reason, that, being covered with waters, it could not be visible to bodily eyes, just as very many things set in the depths of the waters escape the sight and keen edge of the eyes. For nothing is invisible to God; but a created thing of the world is reckoned so only by the estimation of a creature. The earth was invisible also because there was not yet light to illumine the world, not yet the sun; for the lights of heaven were made afterward. But if the sun's ray very often illumines even covered things and, by the splendor of its light, brings forth what is sunk in the deep, who can doubt that things which are in the deep cannot be invisible to God?
Unless perhaps we should so understand the earth to be invisible, because it was not yet visited by the word of God and His protection, since it had no man for whose sake the Lord might look upon the earth—as it is written: 「The Lord looked upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand or seek after God.」 And elsewhere He says: 「From heaven He hurled forth judgment: the earth trembled and was still.」 And rightly invisible, because uncomposed, since it had not yet received a fitting form and appearance from its own Maker. And perhaps they may say: Why then did not God—since He spoke and they were made—at once grant to the rising elements their fitting adornment, as though heaven could not, marked with stars, shine forth suddenly as soon as it was created, and the earth be clothed with flowers and fruits?
He could indeed; but for this reason they are declared first to have been made and afterward composed, lest they be believed truly uncreated and without beginning, if the appearance of things had seemed, as it were, unbegotten from the start, and not added afterward. The earth is read of as uncomposed even by those philosophers by whom God is honored with the prerogatives of eternity: what would they say if from the beginning it had flourished in its own preservation? It is described as sunk in waters, as though consigned to a kind of shipwreck of its own first principles, and even now is by some not believed to have been made: what if it had laid claim to a firstborn beauty? There is also this, that God willed us to be imitators of Himself, that we should first make some things and afterward beautify them, lest, while we attempt both at once, we be able to complete neither.
Now our faith grows by a certain gradation. Therefore God first made, afterward beautified, that we may believe the same One to have adorned who made, and to have made who adorned, lest we suppose one to have adorned and another to have created, but that the same One wrought both—first to make, afterward to compose—so that the one might be believed through the other. You have in the Gospel a clear testimony of this matter. When the Lord was about to raise Lazarus, He commanded that the Jews should remove the stone from the tomb, so that, seeing the dead man, they might afterward believe him raised. Then He called Lazarus, and he rose, and came forth with hands and feet bound. Could He not have removed the stone, who could—they contend—raise the dead?
And He who could restore life to the dead, could He not loose the knots of the bindings? To him whose feet were bound He gave a stride; could He not, with the bonds broken, restore him a free gait? But assuredly we observe that He willed first to show the dead man, that they might believe with their own eyes; then to raise him; thirdly, to command that they themselves should loose the bonds of burial—so that amid these stages faith might be poured into the unbelieving, and belief might be born through certain degrees. God therefore first made heaven and earth, yet willed them to be subject—not as everlasting, but as corruptible creation—to a consummation. Hence in the book of Isaiah He says:
「Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heaven was made firm like smoke, but the earth shall grow old like a garment.」 This is the earth which before was uncomposed. For there were not yet seas bounded by their own limit, and therefore the earth was flooded with wandering flood and deep abyss. Consider that even now the earth is wont to bristle with marshy dampness, and is not patient of the plowshare, where the moisture poured upon the land overflows. It was therefore uncomposed, as it were unplowed by the tillage of a skillful farmer, because as yet the tiller was lacking. It was uncomposed, because bare of growing things, neither grassy with the mounds of its banks, nor shaded with groves, nor glad with crops, nor shadowy with the brows of mountains, nor fragrant with flowers, nor pleasing with vineyards.
Rightly uncomposed, since it lacked adornments, since it was without the garlands of gleaming vines. For God willed to show that not even the world itself would have grace, unless the Worker should transform it with varied cultivation. Heaven itself, woven over with clouds, is wont to stir up dread in the eyes and gloom in the soul; the earth drenched with rains is a thing of loathing; the seas troubled by storms—whom do they not strike with fears? Most beautiful is the appearance of things: but what would it be without light, what without temperateness, what without the gathering of the waters, by which before this the very beginnings of this firmament were held submerged? Take the sun from the lands, take from heaven the orbs of the stars: all things bristle with darkness. So was it, before the Lord poured light into this world.
And therefore Scripture says that 「darkness was upon the deep.」 There was darkness, because the brightness of light was wanting; there was darkness, because the air itself is dark. The water itself under the cloud is dark, because the water of the clouds of the air is dark. There were therefore darknesses upon the abysses of the waters. For I do not think that evil powers are to be understood, as though the Lord had created their malice; since malice is certainly not substantial but accidental, having turned aside from the goodness of nature. And so in the constitution of the world let the notion of malice be set aside for the moment, lest we seem to mingle things discolored with the divine working and the most beautiful creature—especially since there follows:
「And the Spirit of God was borne above the waters.」 Even though some take this for the air, and some for the spirit which we breathe and draw in—the breath of this vital air—we nevertheless, in agreement with the opinion of the saints and the faithful, take it to be the Holy Spirit, so that in the constitution of the world the working of the Trinity may shine forth. For when it had been set down beforehand that 「in the beginning God made heaven and earth」—that is, God made it in Christ, or the Son of God who is God made it, or God made it through the Son, since 「all things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made」—there remained the fullness of the working in the Spirit, as it is written: 「By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host.」
Therefore, just as in the psalm we are taught the working of the Word, which is the Word of God, and the power which the Holy Spirit gave, so here the prophetic oracle echoed back that God spoke and God made; 「the Spirit of God also was borne above the waters.」 For in adorning the vault of heaven and the earth that was to bring forth, the Spirit was beautifully borne above, because through Him the seeds of new births were to germinate—according to what the prophet said: 「Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.」 Finally, the Syriac, which is close to the Hebrew and in very many things agrees and harmonizes in expression, has thus: 「And the Spirit of God cherished the waters」—that is, gave them life, so as to gather them into new creatures and by its cherishing quicken them to life.
For we also read that the Holy Spirit is the Creator, when it is said: 「Thou shalt turn me back: the divine Spirit, who made me.」 Whether, then, the Holy Spirit was borne above the waters, the darkness of the contrary powers could not be upon them, where so great a grace claimed a place for itself; or—if some will have it that air is meant—let them answer for what reason He called it 「the Spirit of God,」 when it would have been enough to name it 「spirit」 (breath). These, then, would have it that four elements were first generated by the Lord our God—heaven, earth, sea, air—because fire and air, earth and water, are the causes of things, of which the form and shape of the world consists. Where, then, could the darkness of spiritual wickednesses have a place, when the world was putting on the comeliness of this august form?
Did God create malice at the same time? But it, arising from us, not founded by God the Creator, is generated by the levity of our morals, having no prerogative of a created thing nor authority of a natural substance, but is a vice of mutability and an error of falling away. God wills this to be uprooted from the souls of each one: how should He Himself generate it? The prophet cries out: 「Cease from your malice」; and especially holy David: 「Cease from evil and do good.」 How then do we assign to the Lord its beginning? But this deadly opinion belongs to those who have thought to throw the Church into confusion. Hence the Marcionites, hence the Valentinians, hence that pestilence of the Manichaeans have attempted to bring deadly contagions upon the minds of the saints.
Why do we ourselves seek out the darkness of death in the light of life? Divine Scripture supplies salvation, breathes forth the fragrance of life, that as you read you may take in its sweetness, and not headlong rush into danger. Read simply, O man; do not, as a perverse interpreter, dig a pit for yourself. The saying is simple: that God made heaven and earth—He made what was not, not what was; and 「the earth was invisible」—from the moment it was made, it was, and it was invisible, because the water overflowed and covered it, and 「darkness was poured out upon it,」 because there was not yet the light of day, not yet the sun's ray, which is wont to reveal even things hidden beneath the waters.
What, then, do they mean by saying that God created evil, since from things contrary and adverse nothing adverse to itself is in any way generated? For neither does life generate death, nor light darkness. For the progressions of generations are not like the changes of affections. The latter are turned from contraries into contraries by the deflection of the will; the former are not turned from contraries into adverse things, but, created from things of the same kind—whether their authors or their causes—are referred back into the likeness of their author. What, then, shall we say? For if malice is neither without a beginning, as though uncreated, nor made by God, whence has nature its malice? For no wise man has denied that there are evils in this world, since there is so frequent a falling into death in this age.
But from what we have already said we can gather that it is not a living substance, but a depravity of the mind and soul, straying aside from the path of virtue, which frequently creeps in upon careless souls. The greater peril, then, is not from things external to us, but from ourselves. Within is the adversary, within the author of error, within—I say—shut up in our very selves. Survey your own purpose, examine the state of your mind, set a watch against the thoughts of your mind and the desires of your soul. You yourself are the cause of your own wickedness, you yourself the leader of your own disgraceful deeds and the kindler of your crimes. Why do you summon an alien nature to excuse your own falls?
Would that you did not push yourself on, would that you did not hurl yourself down, would that you did not entangle yourself, either by pursuits run headlong, or by indignation, or by desires which hold us ensnared as in certain nets! And surely it is in our power to moderate our pursuits, to restrain anger, to curb desires; in our power also to indulge luxury, to fan the flames of lust, to inflame anger, or to lend an ear to one who inflames it; to be lifted up rather by pride, to be poured out into savagery rather than to be checked into humility, to love gentleness. Why do you accuse nature, O man? It has, as it were, certain hindrances—old age and weakness.
But old age itself in us is sweeter in character, more useful in counsel, more ready for the constancy of undergoing death, stronger for restraining lusts. Weakness of body, too, is sobriety of mind. Hence the Apostle says: 「When I am weak, then am I strong.」 And so he gloried not in his strengths, but in his weaknesses. The divine answer too shone forth in a saving oracle, that 「strength is made perfect in weakness.」 Those things are to be guarded against which proceed from our own will—the sins of youth and the irrational passions of the body. Of those things, then, of which we are the masters, let us not seek their beginnings from outside, nor divert them onto others, but acknowledge those things which are properly our own.
For what we can refrain from doing if we will not, the choice of that evil we ought to ascribe rather to ourselves than to others. Therefore even in the judgments of this world, guilt binds and punishment condemns those who are voluntary offenders, not those compelled by necessity. For if someone in a fit of madness slays an innocent person, he is not liable to death. Nay more, by the oracle of the divine law itself, if anyone through imprudence has inflicted death, he receives hope of impunity, a means of refuge, that he may be able to escape. Let this, then, be said concerning that which properly seems to be evil; for those things alone are evils which implicate the mind in crime and bind the conscience.
For the rest, no wise man would call poverty, lowliness of birth, sickness, or death evils, nor reckon them in the lot of evils, since their contraries are not held among the greatest goods either—of which some seem to befall us from nature, others from convenience. This digression of ours has not proceeded idly, that we might prove that darkness and the deep are to be taken simply. For there was darkness from the overshadowing of heaven, since every body casts a shadow, by which it overshadows things either neighboring or beneath it, and especially those things which it seems to cover and enclose. Now the vault of heaven encloses, because heaven is stretched out like a vaulted chamber, as we have shown above.
Therefore the dark substance was not primordial, but, as it were a shadow, the murk of darkness followed the body of the world. And so, at the moment of the divine command, the world, rising up, enclosed a shadow within itself—just as if someone in the middle of a field which the noonday sun illumines should suddenly fence off some spot and cover it with the dense foliage of branches: does not the dwelling within become darker, the more splendid the appearance of that place shines outside, by the dreadful canopy overhead? Or whence did men call a cave 「a place shut in on every side」 of this kind, except that it bristles with a black situation and the suffusion of darkness? These darknesses, then, were upon the abysses of the waters.
For that 「the deep」 means a multitude and depth of waters, the reading of the Gospel teaches us, where the demons begged the Savior not to command them to go into the deep. But He who taught that the wills of demons are not to be done commanded them to go into the swine; and the swine hurled themselves into a pool of water, so that what the demons refused they did not escape, but were plunged down by a worthy precipitation. Such, then, was the uncomposed appearance and form of the world. 「And the Spirit of God,」 it says, 「was borne above the waters, and God said: Let there be light.」 Rightly, then, was the Spirit of God sent ahead, where the divine working was to begin. 「Let there be light,」 He says.
From where ought the voice of God in divine Scripture to have begun, except from light? Whence ought the adornment of the world to take its beginning, except from light? For it would be in vain, if it were not seen. God Himself indeed was in light, because He dwells in light unapproachable, and was the true Light, which enlightens every man coming into this world; but He willed that light to come into being which could be apprehended by bodily eyes. He who desires to build some edifice worthy of the dwelling of the head of a household, before he lays the foundation, explores from where he may pour light into it. And that is the first grace, which, if it be lacking, the whole house bristles with deformed neglect. It is light that commends the remaining adornments of the house. 「Let there be light,」 He says.
The full utterance of light signifies not the apparatus of an arrangement, but shines forth in the effect of the working. The Maker of nature spoke light and created it. The word of God is His will, the work of God is nature: He created light, He illumined the darkness. 「And God said: Let there be light. And there was light.」 He did not say it so that the working might follow, but with the word He completed the business. Hence beautifully did David say: 「He spoke, and they were made,」 because the effect fulfilled the word. God, then, is the author of light, but the world is the place and cause of darkness. Yet the good author so spoke 「light」 that, by the light poured in, He might open up the world itself and beautify its appearance.
Suddenly, therefore, the air shone forth, and the darkness took fright at the brightness of the new light; the inpoured radiance of light at once repressed it and as it were plunged it down into the abysses throughout the whole world. Beautifully, then, and properly did He say: 「There was light.」 For just as light swiftly illumines the heaven, the lands, the whole expanse, and in a moment of time, without any apprehension, with the splendor of the rising day spread over the regions, pours itself around our sight, so the rising of that light ought swiftly to have been unfolded. Why do we wonder if God spoke light and a glow flashed out upon the murky world, when, if anyone submerged among the waters should let oil out of his mouth, he makes clearer those things which were covered by the hidden depth?
God said—not that some sound of speech should issue through the organs of the voice, nor that the motion of a tongue should form a heavenly address and a certain din of words should beat upon this air, but that He should make known the cognition of His will by the effect of His working. 「And He divided between the light and the darkness, and God saw the light, that it was good.」 He spoke, and no one heard the sound of a voice; He divided, and no one perceived the efforts of the working; He saw, and no one beheld the intention of His eyes. 「And God saw,」 it says, 「the light, that it was good.」 He neither saw what He was ignorant of, nor approved what He had not known or seen before; but it is proper to good works that they do not need to be blazoned by anything external, but that, when they are seen, they themselves attest their own grace.