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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput VI: Creationis mundi et temporum unum esse principium nec aliud alio praeueniri.

Si enim recte discernuntur aeternitas et tempus, quod tempus sine aliqua mobili mutabilitate non est, in aeternitate autem nulla mutatio est: quis non uideat, quod tempora non fuissent, nisi creatura fieret, quae aliquid aliqua motione mutaret, cuius motionis et mutationis cum aliud atque aliud, quae simul esse non possunt, cedit atque succedit, in breuioribus uel productioribus morarum interuallis tempus sequeretur? cum igitur deus, in cuius aeternitate nulla est omnino mutatio, creator sit temporum et ordinator: quomodo dicatur post temporum spatia mundum creasse non uideo, nisi dicatur ante mundum iam aliquam fuisse creaturam, cuius motibus tempora currerent. porro si litterae sacrae maximeque ueraces ita dicunt, in principio fecisse deum caelum et terram, ut nihil antea fecisse intellegatur, quia hoc potius in principio fecisse diceretur, si quid fecisset ante cetera cuncta quae fecit: procul dubio non est mundus factus in tempore, sed cum tempore. quod enim fit in tempore, et post aliquod fit et ante aliquod tempus; post id quod praeteritum est, ante id quod futurum est; nullum autem posset esse praeteritum, quia nulla erat creatura, cuius mutabilibus motibus ageretur. cum tempore autem factus est mundus, si in eius conditione factus est mutabilis motus, sicut uidetur se habere etiam ordo ille primorum sex uel septem dierum, in quibus et mane et uespera nominantur, donec omnia, quae his diebus deus fecit, sexto perficiantur die septimoque in magno mysterio dei uacatio commendetur. qui dies cuiusmodi sint, aut perdifficile nobis aut etiam inpossibile est cogitare, quanto magis dicere.

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The City of God

Chapter 6.--That the World and Time Had Both One Beginning, and the One Did Not Anticipate the Other.

For if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by this, that time does not exist without some movement and transition, while in eternity there is no change, who does not see that there could have been no time had not some creature been made, which by some motion could give birth to change,--the various parts of which motion and change, as they cannot be simultaneous, succeed one another,--and thus, in these shorter or longer intervals of duration, time would begin? Since then, God, in whose eternity is no change at all, is the Creator and Ordainer of time, I do not see how He can be said to have created the world after spaces of time had elapsed, unless it be said that prior to the world there was some creature by whose movement time could pass. And if the sacred and infallible Scriptures say that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, in order that it may be understood that He had made nothing previously,--for if He had made anything before the rest, this thing would rather be said to have been made "in the beginning,"--then assuredly the world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time. For that which is made in time is made both after and before some time,--after that which is past, before that which is future. But none could then be past, for there was no creature by whose movements its duration could be measured. But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world's creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!