Book XII.
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He continues his explanation of the first Chapter of Genesis according to the Septuagint, and by its assistance he argues, especially, concerning the double heaven, and the formless matter out of which the whole world may have been created; afterwards of the interpretations of others not disallowed, and sets forth at great length the sense of the Holy Scripture.
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Chapter I .--The Discovery of Truth is Difficult, But God Has Promised that He Who Seeks Shall Find.
1. My heart, O Lord, affected by the words of Thy Holy Scripture, is much busied in this poverty of my life; and therefore, for the most part, is the want of human intelligence copious in language, because inquiry speaks more than discovery, and because demanding is longer than obtaining, and the hand that knocks is more active than the hand that receives. We hold the promise; who shall break it? "If God be for us, who can be against us?" [1070] "Ask, and ye shall have; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." [1071] These are Thine own promises; and who need fear to be deceived where the Truth promiseth?
[1070] Rom. viii. 31.
[1071] Matt. vii. 7, 8.
Chapter II.--Of the Double Heaven,--The Visible, and the Heaven of Heavens.
2. The weakness of my tongue confesseth unto Thy Highness, seeing that Thou madest heaven and earth. This heaven which I see, and this earth upon which I tread (from which is this earth that I carry about me), Thou hast made. But where is that heaven of heavens, [1072] O Lord, of which we hear in the words of the Psalm, The heaven of heavens are the Lord's, but the earth hath He given to the children of men? [1073] Where is the heaven, which we behold not, in comparison of which all this, which we behold, is earth? For this corporeal whole, not as a whole everywhere, hath thus received its beautiful figure in these lower parts, of which the bottom is our earth; but compared with that heaven of heavens, even the heaven of our earth is but earth; yea, each of these great bodies is not absurdly called earth, as compared with that, I know not what manner of heaven, which is the Lord's, not the sons' of men.
[1072] That is, not the atmosphere which surrounds the earth, as when we say, "the birds of heaven" (Jer. iv. 25), "the dew of heaven" (Gen. xxvii. 28); nor that "firmament of heaven" (Gen. i. 17) in which the stars have their courses; nor both these together; but that "third heaven" to which Paul was "caught up" (2 Cor. xii. 1) in his rapture, and where God most manifests His glory, and the angels do Him homage.
[1073] Ps. cxv. 16, after the LXX., Vulgate, and Syriac.
Chapter III.--Of the Darkness Upon the Deep, and of the Invisible and Formless Earth.
3. And truly this earth was invisible and formless, [1074] and there was I know not what profundity of the deep upon which there was no light, [1075] 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? [1076] 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.
[1074] 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."
[1075] The reader should keep in mind in reading what follows the Manichæan doctrine as to the kingdom of light and darkness. See notes, pp. 68 and 103, above.
[1076] Compare De Civ. Dei, xi. 9, 10.