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Confessiones
Caput 3
Et nimirum haec terra erat invisibilis et incomposita et nescio qua profunditas abyssi, super quam non erat lux, quia nulla species erat illi: unde iussisti, ut scriberetur, quod tenebrae erant super abyssum; quid aliud quam lucis absentia? ubi enim lux esset, si esset, nisi super esset eminendo et inlustrando? ubi ergo lux nondum erat, quid erat adesse tenebras nisi abesse lucem? super itaque erant tenebrae, quia super lux aberat, sicut sonus ubi non est, silentium est. et quid est esse ibi silentium nisi sonum ibi non esse? nonne tu, domine, docuisti hanc animam, quae tibi confitetur? nonne tu, domine, docuisti me, quod, priusquam istam informem materiam formares atque distingueres, non erat aliquid, non color, non figura, non corpus, non spiritus? non tamen omnino nihil: erat quaedam informitas sine ulla specie.
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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books
Chapter III.--Of the Darkness Upon the Deep, and of the Invisible and Formless Earth.
3. And truly this earth was invisible and formless, 1 and there was I know not what profundity of the deep upon which there was no light, 2 because it had no form. Therefore didst Thou command that it should be written, that darkness was upon the face of the deep; what else was it than the absence of light? 3 For had there been light, where should it have been save by being above all, showing itself aloft, and enlightening? Darkness therefore was upon it, because the light above was absent; as silence is there present where sound is not. And what is it to have silence there, but not to have sound there? Hast not Thou, O Lord, taught this soul which confesseth unto Thee? Hast not Thou taught me, O Lord, that before Thou didst form and separate this formless matter, there was nothing, neither colour, nor figure, nor body, nor spirit? Yet not altogether nothing; there was a certain formlessness without any shape.
Gen. i. 2, as rendered by the Old Ver. from the LXX.: aoratos kai akataskeuastos. Kalisch in his Commentary translates thv vvhv: "dreariness and emptiness." ↩
The reader should keep in mind in reading what follows the Manichaean doctrine as to the kingdom of light and darkness. See notes, pp. 68 and 103, above. ↩
Compare De Civ. Dei, xi. 9, 10. ↩