For as a fountain in a limited space is more plentiful, and affords supply for more streams over larger spaces than any one of those streams which, after a wide interval, is derived from the same fountain; so the narrative of Your dispenser, destined to benefit many who were likely to discourse thereon, does, from a limited measure of language, overflow into streams of clear truth , whence each one may draw out for himself that truth which he can concerning these subjects — this one that truth , that one another, by larger circumlocutions of discourse. For some, when they read or hear these words, think that God as a man or some mass gifted with immense power, by some new and sudden resolve, had, outside itself, as if at distant places, created heaven and earth, two great bodies above and below, wherein all things were to be contained. And when they hear, God said, Let it be made, and it was made, they think of words begun and ended, sounding in times and passing away, after the departure of which that came into being which was commanded to be; and whatever else of the kind their familiarity with the world would suggest. In whom, being as yet little ones, while their weakness by this humble kind of speech is carried on as if in a mother's bosom, their faith is healthfully built up, by which they have and hold as certain that God made all natures, which in wondrous variety their senses perceive on every side. Which words, if any one despising them, as if trivial, with proud weakness shall have stretched himself beyond his fostering cradle, he will, alas, fall miserably. Have pity, O Lord God , lest they who pass by trample on the unfledged bird; and send Your angel , who may restore it to its nest that it may live until it can fly. Chapter 28. The Words, In the Beginning, And, The Heaven and the Earth, Are Differently Understood. But others, to whom these words are no longer a nest, but shady fruit-bowers, see the fruits concealed in them, fly around rejoicing, and chirpingly search and pluck them. For they see when they read or hear these words, O God , that all times past and future are surmounted by Your eternal and stable abiding, and still that there is no temporal creature which You have not made. And by Your will, because it is that which You are, You have made all things, not by any changed will, nor by a will which before was not — not out of Yourself, in Your own likeness, the form of all things, but out of nothing, a formless unlikeness which should be formed by Your likeness (having recourse to You the One, after their settled capacity, according as it has been given to each thing in his kind), and might all be made very good; whether they remain around You, or, being by degrees removed in time and place, make or undergo beautiful variations. These things they see, and rejoice in the light of Your truth , in the little degree they here may. Again, another of these directs his attention to that which is said, In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and beholds Wisdom — the Beginning, because It also speaks unto us. 27John 8:23 Another likewise directs his attention to the same words, and by beginning understands the commencement of things created; and receives it thus — In the beginning He made, as if it were said, He at first made. And among those who understand In the beginning to mean, that in Your Wisdom You have created heaven and earth, one believes the matter out of which the heaven and earth were to be created to be there called heaven and earth; another, that they are natures already formed and distinct; another, one formed nature, and that a spiritual, under the name of heaven, the other formless, of corporeal matter, under the name of earth. But they who under the name of heaven and earth understand matter as yet formless, out of which were to be formed heaven and earth, do not themselves understand it in one manner; but one, that matter out of which the intelligible and the sensible creature were to be completed; another, that only out of which this sensible corporeal mass was to come, holding in its vast bosom these visible and prepared natures. Nor are they who believe that the creatures already set in order and arranged are in this place called heaven and earth of one accord; but the one, both the invisible and visible; the other, the visible only, in which we admire the luminous heaven and darksome earth, and the things that are therein. Chapter 29. Concerning the Opinion of Those Who Explain It At First He Made. But he who does not otherwise understand, In the beginning He made, than if it were said, At first He made, can only truly understand heaven and earth of the matter of heaven and earth, namely, of the universal, that is, intelligible and corporeal creation. For if he would have it of the universe . as already formed, it might rightly be asked of him: If at first God made this, what made He afterwards? And after the universe he will find nothing; thereupon must he, though unwilling, hear, How is this first, if there is nothing afterwards? But when he says that God made matter first formless, then formed, he is not absurd if he be but able to discern what precedes by eternity , what by time, what by choice, what by origin. By eternity , as God is before all things; by time, as the flower is before the fruit; by choice, as the fruit is before the flower; by origin, as sound is before the tune. Of these four, the first and last which I have referred to are with much difficulty understood; the two middle very easily. For an uncommon and too lofty vision it is to behold, O Lord, Your Eternity, immutably making things mutable, and thereby before them. Who is so acute of mind as to be able without great labour to discover how the sound is prior to the tune, because a tune is a formed sound; and a thing not formed may exist, but that which exists not cannot be formed? So is the matter prior to that which is made from it; not prior because it makes it, since itself is rather made, nor is it prior by an interval of time. For we do not as to time first utter formless sounds without singing, and then adapt or fashion them into the form of a song, just as wood or silver from which a chest or vessel is made. Because such materials do by time also precede the forms of the things which are made from them; but in singing this is not so. For when it is sung, its sound is heard at the same time; seeing there is not first a formless sound, which is afterwards formed into a song. For as soon as it shall have first sounded it passes away; nor can you find anything of it, which being recalled you can by art compose. And, therefore, the song is absorbed in its own sound, which sound of it is its matter. Because this same is formed that it may be a tune; and therefore, as I was saying, the matter of the sound is prior to the form of the tune, not before through any power of making it a tune; for neither is a sound the composer of the tune, but is sent forth from the body and is subjected to the soul of the singer, that from it he may form a tune. Nor is it first in time, for it is given forth together with the tune; nor first in choice, for a sound is not better than a tune, since a tune is not merely a sound, but a beautiful sound. But it is first in origin, because the tune is not formed that it may become a sound, but the sound is formed that it may become a tune. By this example, let him who is able understand that the matter of things was first made, and called heaven and earth, because out of it heaven and earth were made. Not that it was made first in time, because the forms of things give rise to time, but that was formless; but now, in time, it is perceived together with its form. Nor yet can anything be related concerning that matter, unless as if it were prior in time, while it is considered last (because things formed are assuredly superior to things formless), and is preceded by the Eternity of the Creator, so that there might be out of nothing that from which something might be made.
TheoFons