I. Introduction
This first chapter of our Holy Bible is written in the simplest and plainest language, and yet it contains the greatest and at the same time the most difficult themes. Therefore the Jews, as Jerome testifies, were forbidden to read it or hear it read before they were thirty years of age. The Jews required that all the other Scriptures be well known by every one before they were permitted to approach this chapter. Their Rabbins however accomplished little good by this, for even many of the Rabbins themselves, whose years were more than twice thirty, give in their commentaries and Talmuds the most childish and foolish explanations of these, the greatest of all subjects.
Nor has any one yet in the church to the present day explained all these momentous things correctly and satisfactorily in every respect. For interpreters have confused and entangled every thing with such a variety, diversity and infinity of questions that it is very clear that God reserved to himself the majesty of this wisdom, and the correct understanding of this chapter, leaving to us only the general ideas that the world had a beginning and was created by God out of nothing. This general knowledge may clearly be taken from the text. But with respect to the particulars, there is so much that one cannot be clear about and hence innumerable questions have continually been raised in commentaries.
From Moses however we know that 6000 years ago the world did not exist. But of this no philosopher can in any way be persuaded; because, according to Aristotle the first and the last man cannot in any way be determined, although however Aristotle leaves the problem in doubt whether or not the world is eternal, yet he is inclined to the opinion that it is eternal. For human reason cannot ascend higher than to declare that the world is eternal, and an infinite generation preceded us and will follow us. Here human reason is forced to stand still. However from this belief follows as a consequence the perilous opinion that the soul is mortal, because philosophy knows no plurality of infinities. For it cannot be, but that human reason must be overwhelmed and shipwrecked in the sea of the majesty of these themes. Plato collected, perhaps in Egypt, some traditional sparks as it were from the sermons of the fathers and prophets, and therefore he came nearer the truth than others. He holds that matter and mind are eternal; but he says that the world had a beginning and that it was made out of matter. But I cease to mention the opinions of philosophers, for Lyra cites these although he does not explain them. Thus neither among the Hebrews, Greeks nor Latins is there a leading teacher whom we can follow here with safety. Therefore I shall be pardoned if I shall see what I can say on the subject. For except the one general opinion that the world was created out of nothing there is scarcely another thing connected with the subject on which there is entire agreement among all theologians.
Hilary and Augustine, two great lights in the church, believed that the world was made on a sudden and all at once, not successively during the space of six days. Augustine plays upon these six days in a marvelous manner in explaining them. He considers them to be mystical days of knowledge in the angels, and not natural days. Hence have arisen those continual discussions in the schools and in churches concerning the evening and morning knowledge, which Augustine was the cause of being introduced. These are all diligently collected and particularly mentioned by Lyra. Let those therefore who wish to know more about them consult Lyra.
But all these disputations, though subtle and clever, are not to the point in question. For what need is there to make a two-fold knowledge. Equally useless is it to consider Moses in the beginning of his history as speaking mystically or allegorically. For as he is not instructing us concerning allegorical creatures and an allegorical world, but concerning essential creatures and a world visible and apprehensive by the senses, he calls, as we say in our trite proverb, “a post, a post;” that is, when he says morning or day or evening, his meaning is the same as ours when we use those terms, without any allegory whatever. Thus the Evangelist Matthew, in his last chapter, uses the same manner of expression when he says that Christ arose on the evening of the Sabbath; that is, at that time of one of the Sabbath days which was formed by the evening light. But if we cannot fully comprehend the days here mentioned nor understand why God chose to use these intervals of time, let us rather confess our ignorance in the matter than wrest the words of Moses from the circumstances which he is recording to a meaning, which has nothing to do with those circumstances.
With respect therefore to this opinion of Augustine, we conclude that Moses spoke literally and plainly and neither allegorically nor figuratively; that is, he means that the world with all creatures was created in six days as he himself expresses it. If we cannot attain unto a comprehension of the reason why it was so, let us still remain scholars and leave all the preceptorship to the Holy Spirit!
These days were distinguished thus. On the first day the unformed mass of heaven and earth was created to which light was then added. On the second day the firmament. On the third day the earth was produced out of the waters and its fruits created. On the fourth day the heavens were adorned by the creation of the sun, moon and stars. On the fifth day the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air. On the sixth day the beasts of the earth were created, and Man was made. I say nothing of the other views which divide these sacred matters into the work of creation, of distinction, and of ornation, because I do not think such divisions of the subject can be made to harmonize in all respects with each other. If any one admire such views let him consult Lyra.
As to Lyra thinking that a knowledge of the opinion of philosophers concerning matter is necessary, and that on such knowledge must depend a man’s understanding the six days’ work of creation, I question whether Lyra himself really understood what Aristotle calls matter. For Aristotle does not, like Ovid, call the original unformed chaotic mass matter. Wherefore omitting these unnecessary subjects altogether, let us come at once to Moses as a far better teacher, whom we may more safely follow than we may philosophers, who dispute without the Word about things they do not understand.
II. God’s Work on the Six Days in Particular
Part I. God’s Work on the First Day
I. V. 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. A necessary and a very difficult question arises here, in that Moses speaks of the creation of the heavens and the earth, and yet does not mention the day on which nor the Word by which they were created. For one naturally inquires why Moses did not rather use the same form of words here, as he did subsequently, where mention is made of the Word thus: “In the beginning, God said, Let there be the heavens and the earth?” For Moses mentions “the heavens and the earth” before God had spoken anything, whereas both the Decalogue and the whole Scripture testify that God made the heavens and the earth, and all that in them is, “in six days.” But as I said before, we enter on this path without a guide. We leave therefore to others to follow their own judgment here, while we will expound it according to our views.
Not those elements which now are, but the original rude and unformed substances Moses calls “the heavens and earth.” The water was dark, and because it was by nature the lighter element it surrounded the earth, itself also as yet unformed was a kind of mud. God formed this first material, if I may so call it, of his future work, not before or apart from the six days, but, according to the express words of the Decalogue, in the “beginning” of the first day.
As I view the matter therefore Moses does not mention here the first day, because these confused substances of the hitherto rude heavens and earth were afterwards formed, and as it were fully adorned and distinguished. For what he immediately calls the “deep” and the “waters;” that is, the rude and unformed water which was not yet distributed nor adorned with its proper form, he here calls “the heavens;” whereas, had Moses spoken otherwise and had said, “In the beginning God said, Let there be the heavens and the earth;” there would have been no need of afterwards saying, “God said;” seeing that these unformed waters would have been already illuminated and the light would have been already created.
The meaning of Moses therefore in all simplicity is that all things which now exist were created by God and that “in the beginning” of the first day were created the mass of mud or of earth, and of dark mist or of water; on which afterwards, in the after part of the first day, God shed the light and caused the day to appear, which might discover this rude mass of “the heavens and the earth;” which was in all respects like undeveloped seed, and yet adapted to produce whatever God should require.
V. 2a. And the earth was waste and void. In the Hebrew words TOHU and BOHU there is no more meaning than can be expressed in any other language, yet these terms are frequently used in the sacred Scriptures. TOHU means “nothing,” so that a TOHU earth means, in its simple reality, that which is in itself “empty” or “waste;” where there is no way, no distinction of places, no hill, no vale, no grass, no herbs, no animals, no men. And such was the first appearance of the waste and untilled earth, for while the water was mixed with the earth no distinctions of those various objects could be discerned, which are clearly seen since the earth’s formation and cultivation.
Thus Isaiah, 34:11, when threatening destruction to the whole earth says “There shall be stretched upon it the line of TOHU, confusion; and the plummet of BOHU, emptiness;” that is, it shall be made so desolate that neither men nor beasts shall be left upon it; all houses shall he devastated and all things hurled into chaos and confusion. Just as Jerusalem was afterwards laid waste by the Romans and Rome by the Goths, so that no vestige of the ancient city as it once was could be pointed out. You now behold the earth standing out of the waters, the heavens adorned with stars, the fields with trees, and cities with houses; but should all these things be taken away and hurled into confusion and into one chaotic heap, the state of things thus produced would be what Moses calls TOHU and BOHU.
As the earth was surrounded with darkness or with waters over which darkness brooded, so also the heaven was unformed. It was not only TOHU because it was destitute of the garnishing of the stars, and BOHU because it was not yet separated and distinguished from the earth, but because it was as yet altogether destitute of light and a dark and deep abyss which like a dense cloud enveloped the earth, or that mass of mud; for the division of the waters from the waters follows later. Here then we have the first thing which Moses teaches: that the heavens and the earth were created on the first day; but, that the heaven was as yet unformed, not separated from the waters, destitute of its luminaries, and not elevated to its position; and the earth in like manner was as yet without its animals, its rivers and its mountains.
As to Lyra’s argument that this original matter was mere power and was afterward rendered substance by its own power, or as to what Augustine says in his book of “Confessions,” that matter is as it were nothing, and that no medium matter can be thought of between the Creator and the thing created; such subtle disquisitions I by no means approve. For how could that be a mere nothing which was already of such material and substance that Moses calls it “the heavens and the earth”? Unless indeed you would call it artificially the same kind of matter which you call wood, which is not yet wrought into a chest or a bench. But this latter substance is what true philosophers would call matter in a secondary state.
We should rather consider the whole subject, as Peter considers it, 2 Pet. 3:5, where speaking of the wicked, he says “For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” For Peter seems to intimate that the earth consists of water, and was made out of water, and that after it was produced out of water and placed as it were in the light, it swam as it now seems to do in the water. This, says he, the wicked knew, and therefore being confident of this condition of things, they feared no peril from water, which they knew to be the fundamental substance of the earth. Yet the water destroyed that earth which it preserved, buoyed up and bore; just as at the last it shall be destroyed by fire. From this intimation of Peter, it would appear, that the earth was made to stand in the water, and out of the water. But let this suffice concerning the original matter or material. If any one should discuss the subject with greater subtlety of argument, I do not think he would do so, with any profit. V. 2b. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. The “water,” the “deep,” and the “heavens,” are here put for the same thing; namely, for that dark unformed substance which afterwards was divided by the Word. For it was the office of the second Person of the Trinity, namely Christ, the Son of God, to divide and adorn that chaotic mass produced from nothing. And this may have been the very design of Moses in not mentioning the Word in the first place; that is, in not saying at first, “And God said.” For some maintain that this was done by Moses purposely.
V. 2c. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Some consider “the Spirit of God” here to mean merely the wind. But if anything material is here to be understood by “Spirit,” I should rather refer it to the first moving of the original unformed mass of heaven and earth, which is called “the deep,” which is always in motion to this day; for water is never still, its surface is always in motion. But I prefer here to understand the Holy Spirit. For the wind is a creature which did not exist, while as yet the heavens and the earth lay in that confused chaotic mass.
There is moreover an universal agreement of the Christian Church concerning a revelation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity in this first creative work. The Father through the Son, whom Moses here calls the Word, creates “the heavens and the earth” out of nothing. Over these the Holy Spirit broods. And as a hen sits upon her eggs that she may hatch her young, thus warming her eggs and as it were infusing into them animation, so the Scriptures say the Holy Ghost brooded as it were on the waters; that He might infuse life into these elementary substances which were afterwards to be animated and garnished. For the office of the Holy Spirit is to give life.
These explanations, as far as I see, are sufficient for our present purpose. Wherefore casting away all other diverse opinions, let us set down this as the truth, that God created “the heavens and the earth,” as yet a rude mass, out of nothing; so that the earth, as an unformed chaotic mass, enveloped the heaven as yet also an unformed mass, like a dark, circumfluent, nebulous cloud.
It is necessary however that we discuss the terms here used. At the very beginning of this discussion we are met by the expression “In the beginning.” Some have expounded the words “In the beginning” as meaning “In the Son,” from John 1:1; seeing that Christ also gives to the Jews when they inquired “who He was?” this answer, “The beginning, who also speak unto you,” John 8:25. This same exposition is given also from Ps. 110:3, “With thee is the Beginning, in the day of thy power;” which passage nearly all commentators expound as meaning, “With thee is thy Son in divine power.” But it is well known to those acquainted with the Greek language that the expression tan Archan should be rendered by an adverbial phraseology “at first” or “in the beginning,” etc. It is a figure of speech which we frequently meet in Greek. Wherefore let those who will, amuse themselves by thus interpreting the expression “In the beginning.” I prefer the simplest explanation which can be at once understood by the less learned. My belief is therefore that the design of Moses was to signify the beginning of time; so that “In the beginning” has the same meaning as if he had said, “At that time before which there was no time.” Or he means that when the world began it so began that the heavens and the earth were created by God out of nothing; but created in a rude shapeless mass, not formed and beautified as they now are. Though they lay not long thus, but began immediately on the first day to be garnished with the light.
The Arians imagined that angels and the Son of God were made before “the beginning.” But let us pass by this blasphemy. We will omit also another question, “What was God doing before the beginning of the world;” was he in a state of entire inaction or not? To this question Augustine introduced in his Confession the reply, “He was making a hell for all searchers into his secrets.” This reply says Augustine was made to ridicule the violent and audacious blasphemy of the question.
The modesty therefore of Augustine pleases one, who elsewhere candidly says that in all such cases he draws in the sails of his thoughts. For if we speculate and dispute to infinity, these things still remain incomprehensible. Even those things which we see we can understand but little. How much less then shall we grasp in our knowledge such things as these. For what will you determine concerning things that were before and beyond time? Or what can be your thoughts of things God did before time was? Wherefore let us away with all such thoughts and believe that God before the creation of the world was incomprehensible in his essential rest, but that now since the creation he is within and without and above all creatures; that is, he is still incomprehensible. This is all that can be said, because that which was outside of time our intellect can not comprehend.
Wherefore God does not manifest himself in anything but in his works and in his Word; because these can in some measure be comprehended, all other things which properly belong to his divinity, cannot be comprehended or understood, as they really are; such as those things which were beyond time and before the world’s creation, etc. Perhaps God appeared to Adam unveiled; but after his sin he may have shown himself to him in “a noise,” Gen. 3:8, under which he was covered as with a veil. So also later in the tabernacle God was veiled by the sanctuary; and in the desert by the pillar of a cloud and by the pillar of fire. Wherefore Moses also calls these things “appearances” or “shadowings” of God, by which he then manifested himself. And Cain calls that the “face” and the “presence” of God where he had before offered his sacrifices, Gen. 4:14. For our nature is so deformed by sin, yea corrupted and lost, that it cannot understand God naked and unveiled nor comprehend what he really is. Therefore it is that these covering veils are absolutely necessary.
It is moreover insanity to dispute much concerning God as to what he was beyond and before time, for that is to desire to comprehend naked divinity or the naked divine essence. And it is for this very reason that God has wrapt himself in the veils of his works and under certain visible appearances, just as at this day he veils himself under baptism, absolution, etc. If you depart from these veiling signs, you at once run away beyond measure, beyond place and beyond time into the most absolute nothing; concerning which, as philosophers say, there can be no knowledge. Therefore it is that we with solemn propriety enter not into this question; but rest content with this simple meaning of the expression, “In the beginning.”
II. But it is more worthy of observation that Moses does not say “In the beginning, ADONI, the Lord created the heavens and the earth;” but he uses a noun of the plural number ELOHIM; by which name, in the Books of Moses, and in other parts of the Scriptures both angels and magistrates are sometimes called. As in Ps. 82:6, “I have said ye are gods.” It is certain however that here it signifies the one true God, by whom all things were made. Why therefore does Moses here use a plural noun or name?
The Jews cavil at Moses in various ways. To us however it is clear that the intent of Moses is to set forth directly the Trinity; or the plurality of persons in the one divine nature. For as he is speaking of the work of the creation it manifestly follows that he excludes angels, who are creatures, from the creative work. There remains therefore this sacred conclusion of the whole matter; that God is One, and that this most perfect Unity is also a most perfect Trinity. For how otherwise does Moses use the plural number, “In the beginning ELOHIM created.”
The cold and wicked cavilling of the Jews therefore is to be altogether exploded, when they say that Moses used the plural number for the sake of reverence. For what place is there here for the exercise of reverence? Especially since that which is an idiom among us Germans is not common to all languages; namely, that it should be considered a point of reverence to use the plural number when speaking of one person.
Although the Jews make so much noise about this term ELOHIM being applied to angels and to men, be it remembered that it is in the plural number in this place where it cannot possibly be applied to any but the one true God, because Moses is treating of the Creation. There were moreover many other singular nouns which Moses might have used had he not purposely intended to show to the spiritually minded, that in the divine nature there is before and independently of all creation and all creatures, a plurality of persons. He does not indeed say in plain terms, there is the Father, there is the Son, and there is the Holy Ghost; and they are the one true God; because that was reserved for the doctrine of the Gospel. It was enough for him by the use of a plural noun though afterwards applied to men also, to set forth this plurality of the divine persons.
Nor ought it to offend us that this same term is afterwards applied to creatures. For why should not God communicate his name unto us, seeing that he communicates to us his power, and his office? For us to remit sins, to retain sins, to quicken to spiritual life, etc., are the works of the divine Majesty alone; and yet these same works are a sign to men and they are wrought by the Word which men teach. Thus Paul said, “That I may save some of them that are my flesh,” Rom. 11:14. And again, “I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some,” 1 Cor. 9:22. As therefore these works are truly the works of God, although they are assigned also unto men and are wrought by means of men; so the name of God truly represents God though it is applied also to men.
Arius could not deny that Christ existed before the world was created, because Christ himself says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” John 8:58. It is written in the Proverbs, 8:22, also, “Before the heavens were, I am.” Arius is obliged therefore to confess that Christ or the Word was created before all things, and that he afterwards created all things, and that he was the most perfect of all creatures though he did not exist from everlasting. But to this fanatical and impious opinion we ought to oppose that which Moses so briefly expresses by the term “In the beginning.” Nor does Moses place anything before “the beginning” but God himself; and him he here represents by a plural noun.
Into these absurd opinions do minds fall when they speculate on such mighty things without the Word. We know not ourselves; as Lucretius says, “Man knows not the nature of his own soul.” We feel that we can judge, enumerate, distinguish quantities, and, if I may so call them, spiritual creatures, such as truth and falsehood, and yet we cannot to this day define what the soul is. How much less then shall we be able to understand the divine nature! We know not for instance what is the motion of our will; for it is not a motion of quality or of quantity; and yet it is some motion. What then can we know of things divine? It is fanatical therefore to dispute concerning God and the divine nature without the Word and without some veiling representation. Yet thus do all heretics; and they think and dispute respecting God with the same security as they would respecting a hog or a cow. Therefore they receive a reward worthy their temerity; for by these means they are dashed on the rocks of every peril. Hence he who would contemplate such mighty things in safety and without danger must confine himself with all simplicity within those representations, signs and veils of the divine Majesty, his word and his works. For it is in his word and his works that he reveals himself unto us; and such as attain unto the knowledge of these are like the woman laboring under the issue of blood, healed by touching these hems of his garment.
Those on the other hand who strive to reach God without these veils and coverings, attempt to scale heaven without a ladder, that is, without the Word; and in so doing are overwhelmed by the majesty of God, which they vainly endeavor to comprehend, and they fall and perish. And so it befell Arius. He conceived the imagination that there was some medium between the Creator and the creature; and that by that medium all things were created. Into this error he necessarily fell the moment he denied contrary to the Scriptures a plurality of persons in the divine nature. But as he discussed these things without the Word of God and depended solely on his own cogitations, he could not but be thus dashed to pieces.
Thus the monk of the Papists, because he follows not the Word, imagines such a God to be sitting in heaven as will save any one who is covered with a cowl and observes a certain strict rule of life. Such a one also attempts to ascend into heaven by his own cogitations without God as revealed in his Word, or without the revealed face of God for his guide. Thus also the Jews had their idols and their groves. The fall and the destruction of all are alike. They are precipitated and dashed to pieces; because every one leaving the Word follows his own imaginations.
If therefore we would walk safely we must embrace those things which the Word teaches, and which God himself has willed us to know; and all other things which are not revealed in the Word we must leave. For what are those things to me, which God did before the world was made, or how can I comprehend them? This is indulging thoughts upon the naked Divinity. And these are the thoughts by which the Jews suffer themselves to be led away from this text; and which thus prevent them from believing in a plurality of persons in the deity; whereas it is evident that Moses employs a plural noun.
The papal decree condemned the Anthropomorphists (manlikeners), because they spoke of God as they would of a man, and attributed to him eyes, ears, arms, etc. An unjust condemnation truly! For how otherwise can man talk with man concerning God? If to think thus of God be heresy; then for a certainty is the salvation of all children, who can only think and speak thus as children concerning God, at an end for ever. But to say nothing about children, give me the most learned doctor in all the world; how otherwise will even he speak and teach concerning God?
An injury therefore was thereby done to good men; who, though they believed God to be omnipotent and the only Saviour, yet were condemned merely because they said God has eyes by which he looks upon the poor and needy, and ears by which he listens to their prayers. For how otherwise can this our nature understand the spiritual reality of God. Moreover the Scriptures use this form of speech. Wherefore such were undeservedly condemned. They should rather have been lauded for the simplicity which they studied; which is so requisite in all teaching. It is absolutely necessary that when God reveals himself unto us, he should do so under some veil of representation, some shadowing manifestation, and should say, “Behold under this veil thou shalt surely discover me.” And when we embrace God under this veil or shadow, when we thus adore him, call upon him, and offer to him our sacrifices, we are said rightly to offer our sacrifices unto God! It was thus doubtless that our first parents worshipped God. In the morning when the sun rose they adored the Creator in the creature; or to speak more plainly they were by the creature reminded of the Creator. Their posterity retained the custom, but without the knowledge; and hence the custom lapsed into idolatry. The cause of this idolatry was not the sun; for he is a good creature of God; but the knowledge and the doctrine became by degrees extinct; for Satan cannot endure true doctrine. Thus when Satan had drawn Eve from the Word, she fell immediately into sin.
To return then to the Anthropomorphists. I consider that they were condemned unjustly and without cause. For the prophets represent God as sitting on a throne. When foolish persons hear this their thoughts are immediately picturing a golden throne, marvellously decorated, etc., though they must all the while know that there can be no such material throne in heaven. Hence Isaiah says “that he saw God sitting on a throne; and his train filled the temple,” Is. 6:1. Whereas God cannot absolutely or by real vision appear to be thus represented or seen. But such figures and representations are well-pleasing to the Holy Spirit; and such works of God are set before us by the means of which we may apprehend God by our understanding. Such also are those figures when it is said that “He made the heavens and the earth”; that he sent his Son; that he speaks by his Son; that he baptizes; that he remits sins by the Word. He that does not understand these things will never understand God. But I say no more here; since these things have been frequently and abundantly discussed by me elsewhere; yet it was necessary to touch upon them on the present occasion for Moses’ sake, whom the Jews here so severely attack, in the exposition of which we are proving the plurality of the divine persons in the deity. Now let us proceed with the text.
III. V. 3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Moses has already said that the rude mass of heaven and earth which he also calls “darkness” and “the deep,” was made by the Word; and that work ought to be considered the work of the “first day.” Yet, it is now for the first time that Moses uses the expression “God said, Let there be light,” etc. A marvelous phraseology this indeed; unknown to any writer of any other language under heaven, that God by speaking causes that to exist, which had no existence before. Here therefore Moses sets before us the medium and instrument which God used in performing his works, namely the Word.
But we must here carefully mark the distinction in the Hebrew language between the words AMAR and DABAR. We render each by the terms to say or to speak. But, in the Hebrew there is this difference: AMAR only and properly signifies the word uttered. But DABAR means also the thing or substance uttered. As when the prophets say “This is the Word of the Lord,” they use the term DABAR not AMAR. Even at this day the new Arians blind the eyes of those unacquainted with the Hebrew language by saying that the term in question implies, and is, “a thing created;” and that in this way it is that Christ is called the Word. Against this impious, and at the same time ignorant, corruption of the term Word, the reader is duly warned, and exhorted to remember that Moses here uses the word AMAR which simply and properly signifies the word uttered; so that the word uttered is something distinct from him who utters it; as here is also a distinction between the person speaking and the thing spoken.
Therefore we have before proved from this text a plurality of persons; so here is also an evident distinction of persons; for it affirms that it is God the speaker, if I may so express myself, who creates; and yet he uses no material; but creates the heavens and the earth out of nothing by the sole word he utters.
Compare here the Gospel of St. John “In the beginning was the Word.” He exactly agrees with Moses. He says that there was no creature whatever before the world was made. Yet God possessed the Word. And what is this Word and what does it do? Hear Moses. The light, says he, as yet was not; but the darkness out of its nothing-state is changed into that most excellent creature, light. By what? By the Word. Therefore, “in the beginning” and before every creature is the Word; and it is so powerful that out of nothing it makes all things. Hence that irrefragably follows, which John eloquently adds, that the Word was and is God! And yet, that the Word is a person different from God the Father; even as the Word, and he who utters the Word, are things absolutely distinct from each other. But at the same time this distinction is of the nature that the most perfect oneness, if I may so speak, of unity remains.
These are lofty mysteries, nor is it safe to go further into them than the Holy Spirit is pleased to lead us. Wherefore here let us stop; content with the knowledge that when the unformed heaven and unformed earth, each enveloped in mist and darkness, had stood forth created out of nothing by the Word, the light also shone forth out of nothing; and even out of darkness itself by the Word. The first work of the Creator Paul speaks of as a marvellous work; “God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness,” etc. The command of God, says he, made that light. This therefore is enough for us and sufficient to confirm our faith, that Christ is truly God, who existed with the Father from all eternity before the world was made; and that by him, who is the wisdom and word of the Father, the Father made all things. It is remarkable also that Paul in his passage makes the conversion of the wicked the work of a new creation, and a work wrought also by the Word.
But here reason impiously busies itself with foolish questions. It argues, if the Word ever existed, why did not God create the heavens and the earth before by that Word? And again, Since the heavens and the earth were first made, when God began to speak, it seems to follow that the Word then first had existence, when the creatures began to exist, etc. But these impious cogitations are to be cast from us for concerning these things we can determine nothing nor think aright. For beyond that “beginning” of the creation is nothing but naked and divine essence; naked deity! And since God is incomprehensible that also is incomprehensible which was before the world; because it is nothing less than naked God!
We believe it right therefore to speak only of “the beginning,” because we cannot advance beyond the beginning. But since John and Moses affirm that the Word was “in the beginning,” and before every creature, it of necessity follows that the Word was ever in the Creator and in the naked essence of God. Therefore he is the true God; yet so, that the Father begets and the Son is begotten. For Moses establishes this difference when he names God, who spoke and the word which was spoken. And this was enough for Moses to do; for the clearer explanation of this mystery properly belongs to the New Testament and to the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. In the New Testament therefore we hear the literal names of the sacred persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. These indeed are indicated in certain psalms, and in the prophets but not so distinctly expressed.
Augustine explains the word somewhat otherwise. For he interprets the expression “said” in this manner. “Said;” that is, it was so defined from all eternity by the word of the Father; it was so appointed of God. Because the Son is the mind, the image and the wisdom of God. But the true and simple meaning is to be retained. “God said;” that is, God by the Word made and created all things. This meaning the apostle also confirms when he says, “By whom also he made the worlds,” Heb. 1:2. And again, “All things were made by Him and for Him,” Col. 1:16. And within these limits ought to be confined every thought of the creation; our duty is to proceed no further; if we do, we fall headlong into certain darkness and destruction.
Let these facts therefore be sufficient for us in any question concerning the world and its creation. With respect to the material of the world that it was made out of nothing; as the light was made out of that which was not light, so the whole heavens and the whole earth were made out of nothing; as the Apostle says, “He calleth those things that are not, as though they were,” Rom. 4:17.
With respect to the instrument or medium which God used, it was his omnipotent word which was with God from the beginning, and as Paul speaks, “before the foundation of the world,” Eph. 1:4. Therefore when Paul says in Col. 1:16, “All things were made by him,” for he uses the preposition, after the Hebrew manner, for per; the Hebrews thus use their letter BETH; this and all similar passages are taken from this verse of Moses, who is here speaking of the Word uttered, by which anything is commanded or demanded.
This Word was God, and was an omnipotent Word, spoken in the divine essence. No one heard this Word uttered but God himself; that is, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. While it was uttered the light was generated; not out of the material of the Word nor out of the material of the speaker, but out of darkness itself. The Father spoke within, the work was immediately wrought without, and the light existed. In the same manner also were all things afterwards created. These facts, I say, concerning the manner of the creation are amply sufficient for us.
IV. But here again a well known question is perpetually agitated, namely, of what kind was that light by which the original unformed mass of heaven and earth was illumined, seeing that neither the sun, nor the stars, were then created; and yet the text shows that this light was real and material. This fact has given occasion to some to have recourse to an allegory, who would explain the matter thus: “Let there be light;” that is, the angelic nature. And again, “God divided the light from the darkness;” that is, he separated the holy angels from the wicked angels. But this is to trifle with allegories, utterly out of place and not to interpret Scripture. Moses is here historically recording facts. He is moreover writing and penning a record for unlettered men; that they may have the plainest possible testimonies concerning the great creation. Such absurdities therefore are not here to be tolerated.
A second question is here also agitated, namely, whether this light moved itself with a circular motion. I confess that I for my part know not the truth of the matter. But if any one desires to know what I consider the nearest to the truth my opinion is, that this light was movable, so that its motion from east to west, or from its rising to its setting formed the natural day. Although it is difficult to describe the kind of light it was, yet I am by no means inclined to think that we should depart, without cause, from the plain grammar of the subject; or that we should use any violence by wresting from their common meaning the plainest terms. For Moses distinctly affirms that “there was light;” and he reckons this as the “first day” of the creation.
My opinion is therefore that this was true and real light; and that it revolved with a circular motion as the light of the sun revolves. I believe however that this light was not so clear and splendent as it afterwards was, when augmented, ornamented and beautified by the light of the sun. Even as the sacred Scriptures testify that in the last day God will make the present light of the sun, now unclean, in comparison with its future brightness, far more splendid and glorious; as therefore the present light is as it were a thick and imperfect mass of light, when compared with that light which shall be, so that original light was imperfect when compared with the light that now shines. Such are my sentiments concerning these two questions. Moses then proceeds to say: V. 5. And there was evening and there was morning one day. We must here first observe that the Jews begin their day differently from us. With them the day commences from the evening and the setting sun and terminates on the evening following. We begin our day with the rising sun. And it is very remarkable that the Jews derive their term evening, which they call AEREF, from ARAF which signifies “to mingle or confound.” In the same manner from the term AREF they form their expression AROF, which our countryman renders by Cynomia, “dogfly,” which may signify “a confused fly.” Because in the evening, the appearances of things are confused and indistinct, and when the light is removed cannot be clearly discerned.
V. Moses has taught us concerning the first day. We shall see however that Moses retains this same expression “God said” in the creation of all the other creatures. “And God said let there be a firmament,” etc. The very repetition of this same expression ought to be most delightful to us, because as I said, it brings to us a mighty testimony for the confirmation of our faith; that the Son, in these eternal things, is very God; and that in the unity of the divinity there is a plurality of Persons; because the speaker is one Person and the Word spoken another Person.
In this manner also the Psalmist speaks, “By the Word of Jehovah were the heavens made,” etc., Ps. 33:6. And Solomon implies the force of this wonderful phrase of Moses, when he writes that the divine wisdom was as it were the handmaid of the Creation. “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth was, etc.; when he established the heavens, I was there; when he set a circle upon the face of the deep,” Prov. 8:23, 27. Here Solomon shows that he fully understood this doctrine of our religion, so plainly set forth by Moses; and that he understood it in a manner beyond the knowledge of the ignorant multitude, who heard these things, and read them, but understood them not. For had not Solomon fully understood this mystery, he could not have spoken thus. But he drew all these things from this verse of Moses, as from a deep and holy fountain. Another proof of this his divine knowledge is Prov. 30:3, “What is his name, and what is his Son’s name, if thou knowest?”
I believe also that there were similar writings of other holy men, such as of Enoch, Elijah, etc., in which there existed many testimonies of the same kind. But as even at the present day, these things though plainly revealed in the New Testament remain hidden, and are by many not only not received, but fiercely opposed, so to a much greater extent did it happen among the Jewish people, while the holy fathers set these mysteries before the wise in divine things, with the greatest skill and wisdom.
To us it is great consolation to know that these divine mysteries were thus shadowed forth by Moses from the beginning of the world; that in these divine beings there is a plurality of persons and yet a unity of the divine essence. And if there are some who do not believe, but fiercely oppose this doctrine, what is that to us? Abraham saw three, and adored one! And the Holy Spirit says, Gen. 19:24, “Then Jehovah rained fire from Jehovah out of heaven.” Although fanatics understand not nor regard these words, yet we know that they are the words not of a drunken man, but of God.
Many such testimonies as these exist throughout the Old Testament, which that excellent man, Hilary, has diligently collected. If these testimonies are obscure, and to the wicked and unbelieving seem to be unfounded, yet to the godly all things which are revealed and handed down to us in the Holy Scriptures are firmly founded and sufficiently clear. They know that the Person speaking is one Person and that the Word spoken is another Person; not in nature but in Person; and is that Word by which all things were made “in the beginning;” and by which they are all upheld to this day; as Paul says in his Epistle to the Hebrews, “Upholding all things by the Word of his power,” Heb. 1:3.
But here we are to be admonished that the words, “Let there be light,” are the words of God and not of Moses; that is, that they are realities, facts, works! For God “calleth those things that be not as though they were;” and God speaks not grammatical words but very and substantial things. So that what with us is sounding voice, is with God a substantial thing, a reality! Thus, the sun, the moon, the heaven, the earth, Peter, Paul, you, and I, are all and each, words of God! Yea, we are single syllables or single letters as it were of and in comparison to the whole creation.
We also speak, but we can only speak grammatically, or in letters. That is we give names to created things, etc. But divine grammar is quite another thing! When God says, “Shine thou sun,” the sun immediately exists and shines forth. Thus the words of God are things, not mere words!
Here therefore there has been rightly made a distinction between the word created and the word uncreated. The word created is a thing, or fact, or work done, by means of the word uncreated. For what is the whole creation but the word of God spoken forth or uttered? But the word uncreated is the divine mind or thought, the internal command of God, flowing from God, and the same as God, and yet it is a distinct Person. And thus God reveals himself unto us as the speaker, having with or in himself, the word increate, by which he created the world and all things with the utmost facility of operation, namely by merely speaking! So that there was no more difficulty with God in creating than with us in speaking. It was in such meditations as these that the pious fathers Augustine and Hilary found their delight.
Part II. God’s Work on the Second Day
I. V. 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Moses may here seem to have forgotten himself in that he treats not at all of two most important themes: the creation and the fall of the angels, but confines his sacred narrative to the creation of corporeal things. Though there is no doubt that angels were created, yet not one word is found in all the Scriptures concerning their creation, their battle, or their fall; except that which Christ briefly utters, John 8:44, in reference to the devil, that he “abode not in the truth;” except also that woful account of the Serpent, which the sacred historian hereafter gives us in the third chapter of Genesis. It is wonderful therefore that Moses is wholly silent on things of such great interest.
Hence it is that men having nothing certain recorded upon the subject, naturally fell into various fictions and fabrications, that there were nine legions of angels, and that so vast was their multitude that they were nine whole days falling from heaven. Others have indulged imaginations concerning the mighty battle between these superior beings, in what manner the good resisted the evil angels. My belief is that these ideas of the particulars of this battle were taken from the fight which exists in the church, where godly ministers are ever contending against evil and fanatical teachers, and that on this ground they have formed their ideas of the battle of the good angels against the evil ones who wished to usurp Deity. But so it ever is. Where no plain testimonies exist rash men consider themselves at liberty to imagine and invent what they please.
In the same manner men form their various opinions concerning the danger and the fear of angels and of the evils they work, all which opinions are founded on Is. 14:12, 13, where Lucifer is represented as having said in his heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” But the prophet is there predicting the greatness of the pride of the King of the Babylonians. Bernard again has the idea that Lucifer foresaw in God that his purpose was to exalt man above the nature of angels, that his proud spirit envied man this felicity and that he fell in consequence. But let the Christian man take these things at their own value and at no more. For myself I would by no means urge any one to give his assent to any such opinions. The things that are certain are, that the angels fell, and that the devil from having been an angel of light was made an angel of darkness. Perhaps there was also a conflict between the good angels and the evil.
As Moses however was writing to a new and uninformed people his object was to write those things only which were useful and necessary to be known. The nature of angels therefore and other kindred subjects which were not necessary to be known he passed by. Wherefore nothing on the whole of this obscure subject, beyond what Moses has plainly recorded, ought to be expected from me. The more especially so, as the New Testament itself treats very sparingly of this deep theme. It says nothing more concerning the angels than that they were condemned and that they are still held as it were in prison and in chains until the judgment of the last day. Let it suffice us therefore to know that there are good angels and bad angels, but that God created them all alike good. Whence it follows of necessity, that the evil angels fell and stood not in the truth. But how they fell and stood not in the truth is unknown. It is nevertheless probable that they fell by pride; because they despised the Word or Son of God, and wished to exalt themselves before him. This is all I have to say. Now let us return to Moses.
II. We have heard that the work of the First Day was the rude unformed “heavens and earth,” both of which God illumined with a certain impure and imperfect light. We now come to the work of the second day, where we shall see in what manner God produced out of this original rough undigested mist or nebulosity, which he called “heavens,” that glorious and beauteous “heaven” which now is, and as it now is; if you except the stars and the greater luminaries. The Hebrews very appropriately derive the term SCHAMAIM the name of the heavens from the word MAIM, which signifies “waters.” For the letter SCHIN is often used in composition for a relative, so that SCHAMAIM signifies “watery,” or “that which has a watery nature.” This indeed appears so from the color of the “heavens.” And experience teaches that the air is humid by nature. Philosophers also say that if there were no sun the air would be a perpetual humidity. But they assert that the air is both humid and warm, but that it is humid from its own nature, because the heaven was made out of waters, and that therefore it is, that it rains and contains a fructifying moisture; but because the light and heat of the sun are added to it, the humid nature of the air is so tempered that it is also warm.
This thick and rude mass of mist or nebulosity, created out of nothing on the first day, God grasps by his Word and commands it to extend itself into the form and with the motion of a sphere. For in the Hebrew the word RAKIA signifies “a something extended;” from the verb RAKA, which means “to unfold or expand.” And the heaven was formed by an extension of that original rude body of mist, just as the bladder of a hog is extended into a circular form when it is inflated. I use thus a rustic similitude that the sacred matter may be the more plainly understood.
When therefore Job 37:18 says “that the heavens are strengthened with iron,” “that the sky is strong as a molten mirror,” his mind is not dealing with the material but with the Word of God, which can make a thing the softest by nature the hardest and the firmest. For what is softer than water? What is thinner or more subtile than air? Yet these things, which were the most subtile and the softest by nature, from being created by the Word preserve their form and motion with the greatest perfection and the greatest firmness. Whereas, had the heaven been formed of adamant or of any material infinitely harder still, it would by its rapid, long and continuous motion, have soon been broken in pieces or melted. In the same manner the sun, by his rapid motion, would melt in one day even if formed of the hardest material, were it not for the Word of God by which it was created. For motion is of itself very creative of heat. Hence Aristotle asserts that the lead of the arrow is sometimes melted by the velocity of its motion.
These facts of nature therefore are miracles of God, in which the omnipotence of his Word is clearly discerned, exhibiting the wonder that the heaven, though softer and more subtile than water, and performing continuously the most rapid revolution, and that too with so vast a variety of bodies and their motions, should have existed and revolved so many thousands of years uninjured and unweakened! It was this that caused Job to say, “that the heavens were molten, as it were, of brass,” Job 37:18; that they are by nature the softest of substances. How great the subtility of the air is in which we live, we ourselves know perfectly well; for it is not only not tangible, but not discernible. And the heaven, or ether, is still more subtile and thinner than the air or atmosphere. For its blue or sea-color or water-color appearance is not a proof of its density, but rather of its distance and its thinness; to which its rarified state, if you compare the thicker substances of the clouds, the latter will appear in comparison, like the smoke of wet wood when first ignited. It is to this extreme subtility, yet unaltered durability, that Job alludes as above mentioned. So philosophers have among them this celebrated maxim, “That which is humid is limited by no boundary of its own.” Wherefore the heaven which cannot consist by any boundary of its own, being aqueous, consists by the Word of God; as it is taught in the present divine record of Moses, “Let there be a firmament!” Gen. 1:6. Hence philosophers who were more diligent in their inquiries formed their conclusion, and that by no means a light one for nature to form, that all things were ruled and governed, not by chance nor at random, but by a divine providence; seeing that the motions of the heavens and of the superior bodies are so certain and so peculiar to themselves. Who indeed could possibly say that all these things proceeded by chance, or by their own mere undirected nature, when even the workmanship of men proceeds not from chance, but from skillful art and certain design, such as pillars formed round, triangular, hexagonal, etc.?
All these things therefore are the works of the divine Majesty! By him the sun holds his course so accurately and with so fixed a law, that he deviates not a hair’s breadth from his all-certain path in any one part of heaven. This course he holds in the most subtile ether, supported by no substances or bodies whatsoever, but is borne along as a leaf in the air. Though this comparison is neither strictly correct nor appropriate, because the motion of a leaf is irregular and uncertain; but the course of the sun is ever certain, and that too in an ether far more subtile than this atmosphere in which we move and live.
This marvelous extension of the original rule and dense nebulosity or cloud or mist is here called by Moses “a firmament,” in which the sun with all the planets have their motion round the earth, in that most subtile material. But who is it that gives such firmness to this most volatile and fluctuating substance? Most certainly it is not nature that gives it, which in far less important things than these can exert no such power. It follows therefore that it is the work of him, who “in the beginning” said unto the heavens and unto this volatile substance, “Let there be a firmament,” or “Be thou a firmament,” and who establishes and preserves all these things by his omnipotent power, put forth through his Word. This Word makes the air with all its thinness and lightness to be harder and firmer than adamant, and to preserve its own boundary; and this Word could on the contrary make adamant to be softer than water, in order that from such works as these we might know what kind of a God our God is; namely, the God omnipotent, who made out of the rude mass of unformed heavens the present all-beauteous, all-glorious heaven; and who did all these things according to his will as well as according to his power. But I have said that with the Hebrews the “firmament” derives its name from a verb in their language signifying “to extend.” It is to this signification of the Hebrew verb that David beautifully alludes, in his similitude of military hide-coverings and tents which he uses in Ps. 104:2, when he says of God “Who stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain.” For as the rolled-up hide-covering of the military tent is unrolled and then stretched out as a canopy to the stakes which are fixed in the earth, so Thou, O God, says David, unrolledst as it were and stretchedst out the first formed, but as yet unformed, rude heaven, into the present glorious “firmament,” where Thou sittest invisibly as on a sphere over the whole creation, in the midst of all things and yet out of and above all things.
It is a circumstance naturally exciting our particular wonder that Moses evidently makes three distinct parts or divisions of this portion of the creation. He describes “a firmament in the midst of the waters,” which “divides the waters from the waters.” For myself I am inclined to think that the firmament here mentioned is the highest body of all; and that the waters, not those “above” the firmament, but those which hang and fly about “under” the firmament, are the clouds, which we behold with our natural eyes; so that by the waters which are “divided from the waters,” we may understand the clouds which are divided from our waters which are in the earth. Moses however speaks in the plainest possible terms, both of waters “above” and of waters “under” the firmament. Wherefore I here hold my own mind and judgment in captivity and bow to the Word, although I cannot comprehend it. But a question here arises, what those waters are and how those bodies of water which are “above” the firmament are distinguished from those which are “under” the firmament. The division and distinction here made by philosophers is well known. They make the elements to be four; and they distinguish and place them according to their qualities. They assign the lowest place to the earth; a second place to the water; a third to the air; and the last and highest place to the fire. Other philosophers add to these four elements ether as a fifth essence. After this division and number of the elements, there are numerated seven spheres or orbs of the planets, and an eighth sphere of the fixed stars. And on these subjects it is agreed among all philosophers that there are four spheres of generating and corruptible principles; and also eight others of non-generating and incorruptible principles. And Aristotle disputes concerning the nature of the heaven; that it is not composed of the elements, but has its own peculiar nature, because if it were composed of the elements it would be corruptible, in that these substances would mingle together and mutually produce and suffer corruption. Therefore he will not attribute to heaven and the heavenly bodies the primary qualities, primas qualitates, that is, the attributes of the elements, and says that they are simply creatures possessing a co-eternal light, and qualities and attributes peculiarly their own, and created with them.
Now these things, although they are not certain, yet since they contain principles of a most beautiful theory, gathered from a course of reasoning approaching the truth, are useful for instruction, and it would be barbarous if one should determine to neglect or despise them, since in some respects they harmonize with experience. For we experience it to be the truth that fire by its very nature travels beyond itself, as is seen in the phenomena of the lightning and the fiery meteors in the air. By these principles, learned from