9. See below. 22,34.
Book II 75 interior source, and not desiring help from the clouds. For God had not yet rained upon the earth, nor was there a man to work on it (Gn 2:5). After saying, you see, God had not yet rained upon the earth, he also added the reason why he had not: because there was not a man to work on it.
The time, though, when the man started working on the land was when he had been sent away after his sin from the life of bliss he had enjoyed in Paradise. That, you see, is what is written: And the Lord God sent him awayfrom thepara dise ofdelight, to work the earthfrom which he had been taken (Gn 3:23); we shall look into this when we come to it in due course.9 1 have just mentioned it now so that we may realize that for humanity toiling away on the land, confined that is to say in the parched earth of its sins, divine teaching is essential from human words, like rain from the clouds. This sort of knowledge, however, will be done away with ( 1 Cor 13:8). For we see now in a riddle, as if seeking satis fying nourishment in the clouds; but then it will beface toface (1 Cor 13:12), when the whole face of our earth will be watered by an inner spring of gushing water. l mean to say, if we wanted to take it as meaning some spring of this visible water, when it says, Now a spring was coming upfrom the earth, and was watering all the face of the earth—well, it's hardly likely that, with so many perennial springs of streams and great rivers found throughout the earth, this one alone, which was watering all the face of the earth, should have dried up.
Summing up the exposition ofGenesis 2:4-6
6, 7. ln these few words, then, we have been presented with the whole of creation as it was before the sin of the soul. By the term "heaven and earth" the whole visible creation was signified; by the term "day" the whole oftime; by the expression "the greenery and fodder of the field" the invisible creation; and by the spring coming up and watering all the face of the earth, the flood of truth drenching the soul before sin. Now this day, which we are saying signifies the whole of time, is suggesting to us that the invisible creation too, as well as the visible one, can experience time; as for the soul's being subject to alteration by time, this is indeed obvious to us from the great variety of its moods, and also from the fall itself by which it was made wretched, and again from its renewal, restoring it once more to happiness.
And that is why it did not just say, When the day had been made, the day on which God made heaven and earth, terms that refer to the visible creation, but also added the greenery and thefodder ofthefield, terms by which we have been saying that the invisible creature, such as the soul, is being signified, on account of its vigor and vitality. And accordingly it said: When the day had been made,
9. See below. 22,34.