For God would never have created any, I do not say angel , but even man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the good He could turn him, thus embellishing, the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses. For what are called antitheses are among the most elegant of the ornaments of speech. They might be called in Latin oppositions, or, to speak more accurately, contrapositions; but this word is not in common use among us, though the Latin, and indeed the languages of all nations, avail themselves of the same ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use of antithesis, in that place where he says, By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. 152 Corinthians 6:7-10 As, then, these oppositions of contraries lend beauty to the language, so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things. This is quite plainly stated in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way: Good is set against evil , and life against death: so is the sinner against the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are two and two, one against another. 16Sirach 33:15 Chapter 19.— What, Seemingly, We are to Understand by the Words, God Divided the Light from the Darkness. Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the truth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh meaning in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure passage should be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious facts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts. This obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after the discussion of many other interpretations, or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the discussion of the obscurity. To me it does not seem incongruous with the working of God , if we understand that the angels were created when that first light was made, and that a separation was made between the holy and the unclean angels , when, as is said, God divided the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. For He alone could make this discrimination, who was able also before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth , they would abide in the darkness of pride . For, so far as regards the day and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded those luminaries of heaven that are obvious to our senses to divide between the light and the darkness. Let there be, He says, lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and shortly after He says, And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. 17Genesis 1:14-18 But between that light, which is the holy company of the angels spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth , and that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the spiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet it was future, could not be hidden or uncertain. Chapter 20.— Of the Words Which Follow the Separation of Light and Darkness, And God Saw the Light that It Was Good. Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture without noticing that when God said, Let there be light, and there was light, it was immediately added, And God saw the light that it was good . No such expression followed the statement that He separated the light from the darkness, and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the seal of His approval might seem to be set on such darkness, as well as on the light. For when the darkness was not subject of disapprobation, as when it was divided by the heavenly bodies from this light which our eyes discern, the statement that God saw that it was good is inserted, not before, but after the division is recorded. And God set them, so runs the passage, in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good . For He approved of both, because both were sinless. But where God said, Let there be light, and there was light; and God saw the light that it was good ; and the narrative goes on, and God divided the light from the darkness! And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night, there was not in this place subjoined the statement, And God saw that it was good , lest both should be designated good, while one of them was evil , not by nature, but by its own fault. And therefore, in this case, the light alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not approved.
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