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Confessiones (CSEL)

Caput 28

Alii vero, quibus haec verba non iam nidus, sed opaca frutecta sunt, vident in eis latentes fructus et volitant laetantes, et garriunt scrutantes, et carpunt eos. vident enim, cum haec verba legunt vel audiunt, tua, deus, aeterne stabili permansione cuncta praeterita et futura tempora superari nec tamen quicquam esse temporalis creaturae, quod tu non feceris; cuius voluntas quia id est quod tu, nullo modo mutata vel quae antea non fuisset exorta voluntate fecisti omnia, non de te similitudinem tuam formam omnium, sed de nihilo dissimilitudinem informem, quae formaretur per similitudinem tuam recurrens in te unum pro captu ordinato, quantum cuique rerum suo genere datum est, et fierent omnia bona valde, sive maneant circa te, sive gradatim remotiore distantia per tempora et locos pulchras variationes faciant aut patiantur. vident haec et gaudent in luce veritatis tuae, quantulum hic valent. Et alius eorum intendit in id, quod dictum est: in principio fecit deus, et respicit sapientiam principium, quia et loquitur ipsa nobis. alius itidem intendit in eadem verba et principium intellegit exordium rerum conditarum, et sic accipit: in principio fecit, ac si diceretur: primo fecit. atque in eis, qui intellegunt in principio, quod in sapientia fecit caelum et terram, alius eorum ipsum caelum et terram, creabilem materiam caeli et terrae, sic esse credit cognominatam; alius iam formatas distinctasqua naturas, alius unam formatam eandemque spiritalem caeli nomine, aliam informem corporalis materiae terrae nomine. qui autem intellegunt in nominibus caeli et terrae adhuc informem materiam, de qua formaretur caelum et terra, nec ipsi uno more id intellegunt: sed alius, unde consummaretur intellegibilis sensibilisque creatura; alius tantum, unde sensibilis moles ista corporea, sinu grandi continens perspicuas promptasque naturas. nec illi uno modo, qui iam dispositas digestasque creaturas caelum et terram vocari hoc loco credunt; sed alius invisibilem atque visibilem, alius solam visibilem, in qua luminosum caelum suspicimus et terram caliginosam quaeque in eis sunt.

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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter XXVIII.--The Words, "In the Beginning," And, "The Heaven and the Earth," Are Differently Understood.

38. But others, to whom these words are no longer a nest, but shady fruit-bowers, see the fruits concealed in them, fly around rejoicing, and chirpingly search and pluck them. For they see when they read or hear these words, O God, that all times past and future are surmounted by Thy eternal and stable abiding, and still that there is no temporal creature which Thou hast not made. And by Thy will, because it is that which Thou art, Thou hast made all things, not by any changed will, nor by a will which before was not,--not out of Thyself, in Thine own likeness, the form of all things, but out of nothing, a formless unlikeness which should be formed by Thy likeness (having recourse to Thee the One, after their settled capacity, according as it has been given to each thing in his kind), and might all be made very good; whether they remain around Thee, or, being by degrees removed in time and place, make or undergo beautiful variations. These things they see, and rejoice in the light of Thy truth, in the little degree they here may.

39. Again, another of these directs his attention to that which is said, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth," and beholdeth Wisdom,--the Beginning, ¹ because It also speaketh unto us. ² Another likewise directs his attention to the same words, and by "beginning" understands the commencement of things created; and receives it thus,--In the beginning He made, as if it were said, He at first made. And among those who understand "In the beginning" to mean, that "in Thy Wisdom Thou hast created heaven and earth," one believes the matter out of which the heaven and earth were to be created to be there called "heaven and earth;" another, that they are natures already formed and distinct; another, one formed nature, and that a spiritual, under the name of heaven, the other formless, of corporeal matter, under the name of earth. But they who under the name of "heaven and earth" understand matter as yet formless, out of which were to be formed heaven and earth, do not themselves understand it in one manner; but one, that matter out of which the intelligible and the sensible creature were to be completed; another, that only out of which this sensible corporeal mass was to come, holding in its vast bosom these visible and prepared natures. Nor are they who believe that the creatures already set in order and arranged are in this place called heaven and earth of one accord; but the one, both the invisible and visible; the other, the visible only, in which we admire the luminous heaven and darksome earth, and the things that are therein.