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In the
Beginning God made the Heaven and the Earth.
1. It is right
that any one beginning to narrate the formation of the world should
begin with the good order which reigns in visible things. I am about to
speak of the creation of heaven and earth, which was not spontaneous,
as some have imagined, but drew its origin from God. What ear is worthy
to hear such a tale? How earnestly the soul should prepare itself to
receive such high lessons! How pure it should be from carnal
affections, how unclouded by worldly disquietudes, how active and
ardent in its researches, how eager to find in its surroundings an idea
of God which may be worthy of Him!
But before weighing the justice of these remarks, before examining all
the sense contained in these few words, let us see who addresses them
to us. Because, if the weakness of our intelligence does not allow us
to penetrate the depth of the thoughts of the writer, yet we shall be
involuntarily drawn to give faith to his words by the force of his
authority. Now it is Moses who has composed this history; Moses, who,
when still at the breast, is described as exceeding fair; Moses, whom
the daughter of Pharaoh adopted; who received from her a royal
education, and who had for his teachers the wise men of Egypt; Moses,
who disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble condition
of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted with the people of God
rather than to enjoy the fleeting delights of sin; Moses, who received
from nature such a love of justice that, even before the leadership of
the people of God was committed to him, be was impelled, by a natural
horror of evil, to pursue malefactors even to the point of punishing
them by death; Moses, who, banished by those whose benefactor he had
been, hastened to escape from the tumults of Egypt and took refuge in
Ethiopia, living there far from former pursuits, and passing forty
years in the contemplation of nature; Moses, finally, who, at the age
of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible for man to see Him; or
rather as it had not previously been granted to man to see Him,
according to the testimony of God Himself, "If there be a prophet among
you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will
speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful
in all mine house, with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even
apparently and not in dark speeches." It is this man, whom God judged
worthy to behold Him, face to face, like the angels, who imparts to us
what he has learnt from God. Let us listen then to these words of truth
written without the help of the "enticing words of man's wisdom" by the
dictation of the Holy Spirit; words destined to produce not the
applause of those who hear them, but the salvation of those who are
instructed by them.
2. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I stop
struck with admiration at this thought. What shall I first say? Where
shall I begin my story? Shall I show forth the vanity of the Gentiles?
Shall I exalt the truth of our faith? The philosophers of Greece have
made much ado to explain nature, and not one of their systems has
remained firm and unshaken, each being overturned by its successor. It
is vain to refute them; they are sufficient in themselves to destroy
one another. Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of a
God, could not allow that an intelligent cause presided at the birth of
the Universe; a primary error that involved them in sad consequences.
Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the origin of
the Universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms,
and indivisible bodies, molecules and ducts, form, by their union, the
nature of the visible world. Atoms reuniting or separating, produce
births and deaths and the most durable bodies only owe their
consistency to the strength of their mutual adhesion: a true spider's
web woven by these writers who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so
weak an origin and so little consistency! It is because they knew not
how to say "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing
governed or ruled the universe, and that was all was given up to
chance. To guard us against this error the writer on the creation, from
the very first words, enlightens our understanding with the name of
God; "In the beginning God created." What a glorious order! He first
establishes a beginning, so that it might not be supposed that the
world never had a beginning. Then be adds "Created" to show that which
was made was a very small part of the power of the Creator. In the same
way that the potter, after having made with equal pains a great number
of vessels, has not exhausted either his art or his talent; thus the
Maker of the Universe, whose creative power, far from being bounded by
one world, could extend to the infinite, needed only the impulse of His
will to bring the immensities of the visible world into being. If then
the world has a beginning, and if it has been created, enquire who gave
it this beginning, and who was the Creator: or rather, in the fear that
human reasonings may make you wander from the truth, Moses has
anticipated enquiry by engraving in our hearts, as a seal and a
safeguard, the awful name of God: "In the beginning God created"--It is
He, beneficent Nature, Goodness without measure, a worthy object of
love for all beings endowed with reason, the beauty the most to be
desired, the origin of all that exists, the source of life,
intellectual light, impenetrable wisdom, it is He who "in the beginning
created heaven and earth."
3. Do not then imagine, O man! that the visible world is without a
beginning; and because the celestial bodies move in a circular course,
and it is difficult for our senses to define the point where the circle
begins, do not believe that bodies impelled by a circular movement are,
from their nature, without a beginning. Without doubt the circle (I
mean the plane figure described by a single line) is beyond our
perception, and it is impossible for us to find out where it begins or
where it ends; but we ought not on this account to believe it to be
without a beginning. Although we are not sensible of it, it really
begins at some point where the draughtsman has begun to draw it at a
certain radius from the centre. Thus seeing that figures which move in
a circle always return upon themselves, without for a single instant
interrupting the regularity of their course, do not vainly imagine to
yourselves that the world has neither beginning nor end. "For the
fashion of this world passeth away" and "Heaven and earth shall pass
away." The dogmas of the end, and of the renewing of the world, are
announced beforehand in these short words put at the head of the
inspired history. "In the beginning God made." That which was begun in
time is condemned to come to an end in time. If there has been a
beginning do not doubt of the end. Of what use then are geometry--the
calculations of arithmetic--the study of solids and far-famed
astronomy, this laborious vanity, if those who pursue them imagine that
this visible world is co-eternal with the Creator of all things, with
God Himself; if they attribute to this limited world, which has a
material body, the same glory as to the incomprehensible and invisible
nature; if they cannot conceive that a whole, of which the parts are
subject to corruption and change, must of necessity end by itself
submitting to the fate of its parts? But they have become "vain in
their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools." Some have affirmed that
heaven co-exists with God from all eternity; others that it is God
Himself without beginning or end, and the cause of the particular
arrangement of all things.
4. One day, doubtless, their terrible condemnation will be the greater
for all this worldly wisdom, since, seeing so clearly into vain
sciences, they have wilfully shut their eyes to the knowledge of the
truth. These men who measure the distances of the stars and describe
them, both those of the North, always shining brilliantly in our view,
and those of the southern pole visible to the inhabitants of the South,
but unknown to us; who divide the Northern zone and the circle of the
Zodiac into an infinity of parts, who observe with exactitude the
course of the stars, their fixed places, their declensions, their
return and the time that each takes to make its revolution; these men,
I say, have discovered all except one tiring: the fact that God is the
Creator of the universe, and the just Judge who rewards all the actions
of life according to their merit. They have not known how to raise
themselves to the idea of the consummation of all things, the
consequence of the doctrine of judgment, and to see that the world must
change if souls pass from this life to a new life. In reality, as the
nature of the present life presents an affinity to this world, so in
the future life our souls will enjoy a lot conformable to their new
condition. But they are so far from applying these truths, that they do
but laugh when we announce to them the end of all things and the
regeneration of the age. Since the beginning naturally precedes that
which is derived from it, the writer, of necessity, when speaking to us
of things which had their origin in time, puts at the head of his
narrative these words--"In the beginning God created."
5. It appears, indeed, that even before this world an order of things
existed of which our mind can form an idea, but of which we can say
nothing, because it is too lofty a subject for men who are but
beginners and are still babes in knowledge. The birth of the world was
preceded by a condition of things suitable for the exercise of
supernatural powers, outstripping the limits of time, eternal and
infinite. The Creator and Demiurge of the universe perfected His works
in it, spiritual light for the happiness of all who love the Lord,
intellectual and invisible natures, all the orderly arrangement of pure
intelligences who are beyond the reach of our mind and of whom we
cannot even discover the names. They fill the essence of this invisible
world, as Paul teaches us. "For by him were all things created that are
in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible whether they be
thrones or dominions or principalities or powers" or virtues or hosts
of angels or the dignities of archangels. To this world at last it was
necessary to add a new world, both a school and training place where
the souls of men should be taught and a home for beings destined to be
born and to die. Thus was created, of a nature analogous to that of
this world and the animals and plants which live thereon, the
succession of time, for ever pressing on and passing away and never
stopping in its course. Is not this the nature of time, where the past
is no more, the future does not exist, and the present escapes before
being recognised? And such also is the nature of the creature which
lives in time--condemned to grow or to perish without rest and without
certain stability. It is therefore fit that the bodies of animals and
plants, obliged to follow a sort of current, and carried away by the
motion which leads them to birth or to death, should live in the midst
of surroundings whose nature is in accord with beings subject to
change. Thus the writer who wisely tells us of the birth of the
Universe does not fail to put these words at the head of the narrative.
"In the beginning God created;" that is to say, in the beginning of
time. Therefore, if he makes the world appear in the beginning, it is
not a proof that its birth has preceded that of all other things that
were made. He only wishes to tell us that, after the invisible and
intellectual world, the visible world, the world of the senses, began
to exist.
The first movement is called beginning. "To do right is the beginning
of the good way." Just actions are truly the first steps towards a
happy life. Again, we call "beginning" the essential and first part
from which a thing proceeds, such as the foundation of a house, the
keel of a vessel; it is in this sense that it is said, "The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom," that is to say that piety is, as it
were, the groundwork and foundation of perfection. Art is also tile
beginning of the works of artists, the skill of Bezaleel began the
adornment of the tabernacle. Often even the good which is the final
cause is the beginning of actions. Thus the approbation of God is the
beginning of almsgiving, and the end laid up for us in the promises the
beginning of all virtuous efforts.
6. Such being the different senses of the word beginning, see if we
have not all the meanings here. You may know the epoch when the
formation of this world began, it, ascending into the past, you
endeavour to discover the first day. You will thus find what was the
first movement of time; then that the creation of the heavens and of
the earth were like the foundation and the groundwork, and afterwards
that an intelligent reason, as the word beginning indicates, presided
in the order of visible things. You will finally discover that the
world was not conceived by chance and without reason, but for an useful
end and for the great advantage of all beings, since it is really the
school where reasonable souls exercise themselves, the training ground
where they learn to know God; since by the sight of visible and
sensible things the mind is led, as by a hand, to the contemplation of
invisible things. "For," as the Apostle says, "the invisible things of
him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made." Perhaps these words "In the beginning God
created" signify the rapid and imperceptible moment of creation. The
beginning, in effect, is indivisible and instantaneous. The beginning
of the road is not yet the road, and that of the house is not yet the
house; so the beginning of time is not yet time and not even the least
par-title of it. If some objector tell us that the beginning is a time,
he ought then, as he knows well, to submit it to the division of
time--a beginning, a middle and an end. Now it is ridiculous to imagine
a beginning of a beginning. Further, if we divide the beginning into
two, we make two instead of one, or rather make several, we really make
an infinity, for all that which is divided is divisible to the
infinite. Thus then, if it is said, "In the beginning God created," it
is to teach us that at the will of God the world arose in less than an
instant, and it is to convey this meaning more clearly that other
interpreters have said: "God made summarily" that is to say all at once
and in a moment. But enough concerning the beginning, if only to put a
few points out of many.
7. Among arts, some have in view production, some practice, others
theory. The object of the last is the exercise of thought, that of the
second, the motion of the body. Should it cease, all stops; nothing
more is to be seen. Thus dancing and music have nothing behind; they
have no object but themselves. In creative arts on the contrary the
work lasts after the operation. Such is architecture--such are the arts
which work in wood and brass and weaving, all those indeed which, even
when the artisan has disappeared, serve to show an industrious
intelligence and to cause the architect, the worker in brass or the
weaver, to be admired on account of his work. Thus, then, to show that
the world is a work of art displayed for the beholding of all people;
to make them know Him who created it, Moses does not use another word.
"In the beginning," he says "God created." He does not say "God
worked," "God formed," but" God created." Among those who have imagined
that the world co-existed with God from all eternity, many have denied
that it was created by God, but say that it exists spontaneously, as
the shadow of this power. God, they say, is the cause of it, but an
involuntary cause, as the body is the cause of the shadow and the flame
is the cause of the brightness. It is to correct this error that the
prophet states, with so much precision, "In the beginning God created."
He did not make the thing itself the cause of its existence. Being
good, He made it an useful work. Being wise, He made it everything that
was most beautiful. Being powerful He made it very great. Moses almost
shows us the finger of the supreme artisan taking possession of the
substance of the universe, forming the different parts in one perfect
accord, and making a harmonious symphony result from the whole.
"In the beginning God made heaven and earth." By naming the two
extremes, he suggests the substance of the whole world, according to
heaven the privilege of seniority, and putting earth in the second
rank. All intermediate beings were created at the same time as the
extremities. Thus, although there is no mention of the elements, fire,
water and air, imagine that they were all compounded together, and you
will find water, air and fire, in the earth. For fire leaps out from
stones; iron which is dug from the earth produces under friction fire
in plentiful measure. A marvellous fact! Fire shut up in bodies lurks
there hidden without harming them, but no sooner is it released than it
consumes that which has hitherto preserved it. The earth contains
water, as diggers of wells teach us. It contains air too, as is shown
by the vapours that it exhales under the sun's warmth when it is damp.
Now, as according to their nature, heaven occupies the higher and earth
the lower position in space, (one sees, in fact, that all which is
light ascends towards heaven, and heavy substances fall to the ground);
as therefore height and depth are the points the most opposed to each
other it is enough to mention the most distant parts to signify the
inclusion of all which fills up intervening Space. Do not ask, then,
for an enumeration of all the elements; guess, from what Holy Scripture
indicates, all that is passed over in silence.
8. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." If we were
to wish to discover the essence of each of the beings which are offered
for our contemplation, or come under our senses, we should be drawn
away into long digressions, and the solution of the problem would
require more words than I possess, to examine fully the matter. To
spend time on such points would not prove to be to the edification of
the Church. Upon the essence of the heavens we are contented with what
Isaiah says, for, in simple language, he gives us sufficient idea of
their nature, "The heaven was made like smoke," that is to say, He
created a subtle substance, without solidity or density, from which to
form the heavens. As to the form of them we also content ourselves with
the language of the same prophet, when praising God "that stretcheth
out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell
in." In the same way, as concerns the earth, let us resolve not to
torment ourselves by trying to find out its essence, not to tire our
reason by seeking for the substance which it conceals. Do not let us
seek for any nature devoid of qualities by the conditions of its
existence, but let us know that all the phenomena with which we see it
clothed regard the conditions of its existence and complete its
essence. Try to take away by reason each of the qualities it possesses,
and you will arrive at nothing. Take away black, cold, weight, density,
the qualities which concern taste, in one word all these which we see
in it, and the substance vanishes.
If I ask you to leave these vain questions, I will not expect you to
try and find out the earth's point of support. The mind would reel on
beholding its reasonings losing themselves without end. Do you say that
the earth reposes on a bed of air? How, then, can this soft substance,
without consistency, resist the enormous weight which presses upon it?
How is it that it does not slip away in all directions, to avoid the
sinking weight, and to spread itself over the mass which overwhelms it?
Do you suppose that water is the foundation of the earth? You will then
always have to ask yourself how it is that so heavy and opaque a body
does not pass through the water; how a mass of such a weight is held up
by a nature weaker than itself. Then you must seek a base for the
waters, and you will be in much difficulty to say upon what the water
itself rests.
9. Do you suppose that a heavier body prevents the earth from failing
into the abyss? Then you must consider that this support needs itself a
support to prevent it from failing. Can we imagine one? Our reason
again demands vet another support, and thus we shall fall into the
infinite, always imagining a base for the base which we have already
found. And the further we advance in this reasoning the greater force
we are obliged to give to this base, so that it may be able to support
all the mass weighing upon it. Put then a limit to your thought, so
that your curiosity in investigating the incomprehensible may not incur
the reproaches of Job, and you be not asked by him, "Whereupon are the
foundations thereof fastened?" If ever you hear in the Psalms, "I bear
up the pillars of it;" see in these pillars the power which sustains
it. Because what means this other passage, "He hath founded it upon the
sea," if not that the water is spread all around the earth? How then
can water, the fluid element which flows down every declivity, remain
suspended without ever flowing? You do not reflect that the idea of the
earth suspended by itself throws your reason into a like but even
greater difficulty, since from its nature it is heavier. But let us
admit that the earth rests upon itself, or let us say that it rides the
waters, we must still remain faithful to thought of true religion and
recognise that all is sustained by the Creator's power. Let us then
reply to ourselves, and let us reply to those who ask us upon what
support this enormous mass rests, "In His hands are the ends of the
earth." It is a doctrine as infallible for our own information as
profitable for our hearers.
10. There are inquirers into nature who with a great display of words
give reasons for the immobility of the earth. Placed, they say, in the
middle of the universe and not being able to incline more to one side
than the other because its centre is everywhere the same distance from
the surface, it necessarily rests upon itself; since a weight which is
everywhere equal cannot lean to either side. It is not, they go on,
without reason or by chance that the earth occupies the centre of the
universe. It is its natural and necessary position. As the celestial
body occupies the higher extremity of space all heavy bodies, they
argue, that we may suppose to have fallen from these high regions, will
be carried from all directions to the centre, and the point towards
which the parts are tending will evidently be the one to which the
whole mass will be thrust together. If stones, wood, all terrestrial
bodies, fall from above downwards, this must be the proper and natural
place of the whole earth. If, on the contrary, a light body is
separated from the centre, it is evident that it will ascend towards
the higher regions. Thus heavy bodies move from the top to the bottom,
and following this reasoning, the bottom is none other than the centre
of the world. Do not then be surprised that the world never falls: it
occupies the centre of the universe, its natural place. By necessity it
is obliged to remain in its place, unless a movement contrary to nature
should displace it. If there is anything in this system which might
appear probable to you, keep your admiration for the source of such
perfect order, for the wisdom of God. Grand phenomena do not strike us
the less when we have discovered something of their wonderful
mechanism. Is it otherwise here? At all events let us prefer the
simplicity of faith to the demonstrations of reason.
11. We might say the same thing of the heavens. With what a noise of
words the sages of this world have discussed their nature! Some have
said that heaven is composed of four elements as being tangible and
visible, and is made up of earth on account of its power of resistance,
with fire because it is striking to the eye, with air and water on
account of the mixture. Others have rejected this system as improbable,
and introduced into the world, to form the heavens, a fifth element
after their own fashioning. There exists. they say, an aethereal body
which is neither fire, air, earth, nor water, nor in one word any
simple body. These simple bodies have their own natural motion in a
straight line, light bodies upwards and heavy bodies downwards; now
this motion upwards and downwards is not the same as circular motion;
there is the greatest possible difference between straight and circular
motion. It therefore follows that bodies whose motion is so various
must vary also in their essence. But, it is not even possible to
suppose that the heavens should be formed of primitive bodies which we
call elements, because the reunion of contrary forces could not produce
an even and spontaneous motion, when each of the simple bodies is
receiving a different impulse from nature. Thus it is a labour to
maintain composite bodies in continual movement, because it is
impossible to put even a single one of their movements in accord and
harmony with all those that are in discord; since what is proper to the
light particle, is in warfare with that of a heavier one. If we attempt
to rise we are stopped by the weight of the terrestrial element; if we
throw ourselves down we violate the igneous part of our being in
dragging it down contrary to its nature. Now this struggle of the
elements effects their dissolution. A body to which violence is done
and which is placed in opposition to nature, after a short but
energetic resistance, is soon dissolved into as many parts as it had
elements, each of the constituent parts returning to its natural place.
It is the force of these reasons, say the inventors of the fifth kind
of body for the genesis of heaven and the stars, which constrained them
to reject the system of their predecessors and to have recourse to
their own hypothesis. But yet another fine speaker arises and disperses
and destroys this theory to give predominance to an idea of his own
invention.
Do not let us undertake to follow them for fear of falling into like
frivolities; let them refute each other, and, without disquieting
ourselves about essence, let us say with Moses "God created the heavens
and the earth." Let us glorify the supreme Artificer for all that was
wisely and skillfully made; by the beauty of visible things let us
raise ourselves to Him who is above all beauty; by the grandeur of
bodies, sensible and limited in their nature, let us conceive of the
infinite Being whose immensity and omnipotence surpass all the efforts
of the imagination. Because, although we ignore the nature of created
things, the objects which on all sides attract our notice are so
marvellous, that the most penetrating mind cannot attain to the
knowledge of the least of the phenomena of the world, either to give a
suitable explanation of it or to render due praise to the Creator, to
Whom belong all glory, all honour and all power world without end.
Amen.
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