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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter VIII.--Heaven and Earth Were Made "In the Beginning;" Afterwards the World, During Six Days, from Shapeless Matter.

8. But that heaven of heavens was for Thee, O Lord; but the earth, which Thou hast given to the sons of men, ¹ to be seen and touched, was not such as now we see and touch. For it was invisible and "without form," ² and there was a deep over which there was not light; or, darkness was over the deep, that is, more than in the deep. For this deep of waters, now visible, has, even in its depths, a light suitable to its nature, perceptible in some manner unto fishes and creeping things in the bottom of it. But the entire deep was almost nothing, since hitherto it was altogether formless; yet there was then that which could be formed. For Thou, O Lord, hast made the world of a formless matter, which matter, out of nothing, Thou hast made almost nothing, out of which to make those great things which we, sons of men, wonder at. For very wonderful is this corporeal heaven, of which firmament, between water and water, the second day after the creation of light, Thou saidst, Let it be made, and it was made. ³ Which firmament Thou calledst heaven, that is, the heaven of this earth and sea, which Thou madest on the third day, by giving a visible shape to the formless matter which Thou madest before all days. For even already hadst Thou made a heaven before all days, but that was the heaven of this heaven; because in the beginning Thou hadst made heaven and earth. But the earth itself which Thou hadst made was formless matter, because it was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep. Of which invisible and formless earth, of which formlessness, of which almost nothing, Thou mightest make all these things of which this changeable world consists, and yet consisteth not; whose very changeableness appears in this, that times can be observed and numbered in it. Because times are made by the changes of things, while the shapes, whose matter is the invisible earth aforesaid, are varied and turned.

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Confessiones (PL)

CAPUT VIII. Materia informis ex nihilo: ex hac omnia visibilia.

8. Sed illud coelum coeli tibi, Domine; terra autem quam dedisti filiis hominum ¹ cernendam atque tangendam, non erat talis qualem nunc cernimus et tangimus. Invisibilis enim erat et incomposita, et abyssus erat super quam non erat lux; aut, Tenebrae erant super abyssum ², id est, magis quam in abysso. Ista quippe abyssus aquarum jam visibilium etiam in profundis suis habet speciei suae lucem utcumque sensibilem piscibus, et repentibus in suo fundo animantibus: illud autem totum prope nihil erat, quoniam adhuc omnino informe erat; jam tamen erat quod formari poterat. Tu enim, Domine, fecisti mundum de materia informi, quam fecisti de nulla re pene nullam rem, unde faceres magna quae miramur filii hominum. Valde enim mirabile hoc coelum corporeum, quod firmamentum inter aquam et aquam secundo die post conditionem lucis dixisti, Fiat; et sic factum est ³. Quod firmamentum vocasti coelum; sed coelum terrae hujus et maris quae fecisti tertio die, dando speciem visibilem informi materiae quam fecisti ante omnem diem. Jam enim feceras et coelum ante omnem diem, sed coelum coeli hujus; quia in principio feceras coelum et terram. Terra autem ipsa quam feceras, informis materies erat, quia invisibilis erat et incomposita, et tenebrae super abyssum: de qua terra invisibili et incomposita, de qua informitate, de quo pene nihilo faceres haec omnia quibus iste mutabilis mundus constat, et non constat, in quo ipsa mutabilitas apparet in qua sentiri et dinumerari possunt tempora; quia rerum mutationibus fiunt tempora dum variantur et vertuntur species, quarum materies praedicta est terra invisibilis.