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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XIX: Quid sentiendum uideatur de eo quod scriptum est: diuisit deus inter lucem et tenebras.

Quamuis itaque diuini sermonis obscuritas etiam ad hoc sit utilis, quod plures sententias ueritatis parit et in lucem notitiae producit, dum alius eum sic, alius sic intellegit - ita tamen ut, quod in obscuro loco intellegitur, uel adtestatione rerum manifestarum uel aliis locis minime dubiis adseratur; siue, cum multa tractantur, ad id quoque perueniatur, quod sensit ille qui scripsit, siue id lateat, sed ex occasione tractandae profundae obscuritatis alia quaedam uera dicantur - non mihi uidetur ab operibus dei absurda sententia, si, cum lux prima illa facta est, angeli creati intelleguntur, inter sanctos angelos et inmundos fuisse discretum, ubi dictum est: et diuisit deus inter lucem et tenebras; et uocauit deus lucem diem et tenebras uocauit noctem. solus quippe ille ista discernere potuit, qui potuit etiam priusquam caderent praescire casuros et priuatos lumine ueritatis in tenebrosa superbia remansuros. nam inter istum nobis notissimum diem et noctem, id est inter hanc lucem et has tenebras, uulgatissima sensibus nostris luminaria caeli ut diuiderent imperauit: fiant, inquit, luminaria in firmamento caeli, ut luceant super terram et diuidant inter diem et noctem; et paulo post: et fecit, inquit, deus duo luminaria magna, luminare maius in principia diei, et luminare minus in principia noctis, et stellas; et posuit illa deus in firmamento caeli lucere super terram et praeesse diei et nocti et diuidere inter lucem et tenebras. inter illam uero lucem, quae sancta societas angelorum est inlustratione ueritatis intellegibiliter fulgens, et ei contrarias tenebras, id est malorum angelorum auersorum a luce iustitiae taeterrimas mentes, ipse diuidere potuit, cui etiam futurum non naturae, sed uoluntatis malum occultum aut incertum esse non potuit.

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The City of God

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." ¹ 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.