Creed in its African form, that is. the baptismal creed of the African Church, with occasional
1 1 6 Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis forgiven to those who are repentant; and in eternal life and the promise of the kingdom of heaven.7
History, allegory, analogy, and aetiology
2. 5. We must now consider the things that can be asked about and discussed in this book, in accordance with this faith. ln the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gn 1:1). Four ways of expounding the law have been laid down by some scripture commentators, which can be named in words derived from the Greek, while they need further definition and explanation in plain Latin; they are the way ofhistory, the way of allegory, the way of analogy, the way of aetiology. History is when things done by God or man are recounted; allegory when they are understood as being said figuratively; analogy, when the harmony of the old and new covenants is being demonstrated; aetiology, when the causes of the things that have been said and done are presented.
Various historical ways of interpreting Gn 1:1
3. 6. So about these words, ln the beginning God made heaven and earth, one may inquire whether they are only to be taken in an historical sense, or whether they also have some figurative meaning, and how they agree with the gospel, and what the cause is of this book's beginning in this way. As regards the historical sense, we ask what in the beginning means; that is, whether it is in the beginning of time, or in the beginning, in the very Wisdom of God, because the Son of God actually called himselfthe beginning when he was asked Who are you, then ? and he said, The beginning* as which l am also speaking to you (Jn 8:25). There is,
7. This exposition of the Catholic faith is presumably an amplified statement of the Apostles' Creed in its African form, that is. the baptismal creed of the African Church, with occasional reference, which the reader will recognize, to the Nicene Creed; but to this, however, in the form in which it left the Council of Nicea in 325, which ended with the words "and in the Holy Spirit." The rest of the creed as we recite it today, from "the Lord, the giver of life" to "the life of the world to come." was added at the Council of Constantinople in 381, and was not known in the Western, Latin-speaking Churches until very much later. That Council was assumed in the West to be a purely Eastern affair of the Greek-speaking Churches, as is clear from the distinctly hostile reaction to one of its decrees by Leo the Great after the Council of Chalcedon in 45 1 ; he would not accept its canon according the see ofConstantinople the second place after the see of Rome, with precedence over Alexandria and Antioch. 8. The literal rendering by the Latin versions of a very peculiar Greek idiom, variously translated in modern versions. But R.H. Lightfoot in his commentary, published posthumously (Oxford, 1956), suggests that Jesus' answer should be construed as "From the beginning 1 am that which
1 am also telling you," and argues that this rendering recalls the basic teaching of this gospel that the speaker is the Word who "was in the beginning with God"; and this accords very well with the meaning of the Latin version Augustine had. Lightfoot rejects the Revised Version translation, and in effect all other contemporary translations, on the grounds that while they are possible translations of this Greek sentence, they do not really fit the whole context of this chapter—or of this gospel.