11. See 1 Cor 11:3.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 1 1 7 you see, a beginning without beginning, and there is a beginning with another beginning. The beginning without beginning only the Father is; and that is why we believe that all things come from one beginning. The Son however is the beginning in such a way that he is from the Father.
The supreme intellectual creature9 can also be called the beginning of those things it is the head of, which God made. For since the beginning or origin of something is rightly called its head,10 it was only the woman whom the apostle did not call the head of anything in that scale he set out;" because he called the man the head of the woman, and Christ the head of the man, and God the head of Christ; in this way is the creature linked up to the creator.
7. Or is the reason it says ln the beginning that this was the first thing made? Or is it impossible for heaven and earth to have been the first thing to have been made in creation, if the angels and all the intellectual powers were made first, because we have to believe that the angels too are God's creation and were made by him? For the prophet had also mentioned angels in Psalm 1 48 when he said, lt was he thatgave orders, and they were made, he that commanded, and they were created (Ps 148:5.2).
But if the angels were the first thing to be made, one can ask whether they were made in time, or before all time, or at the actual start oftime. Ifin time, time was already there before the angels were made; and since time also is itself something created, we are on the point ofbeing obliged to accept that something was made before the angels. lfhowever we say that they were made at the start of time, so that time began with them, then we have to rule out as false what some people maintain, that time began with heaven and earth.12
8. If, though, the angels were made before time, the question arises how it can be said in the following passage, And God said. Let lights be made in thefirma ment of heaven, to shine upon the earth, and to divide between day and night; and let them be for signs andfor times andfor days andfor years (Gn 1 : 14). Here, after all, it may seem that that was when time began, when the heavens and the lights of heaven began to run their regular courses. But ifthat is the case, how could there be days before there was time, if time started with the courses of the lights of heaven, which are said to have been made on the fourth day? Or were these days arranged in this order as a help to human frailty, and to suggest sublime things to lowly people in a lowly manner by following the basic rule of
9. The phrase suggests the angelic creation; but in the context 1 think he must here be referring to the humanity of Christ, to the man Christ Jesus: thus giving a double justification to Jesus calling himself the beginning, both as the Word, the Wisdom of God, and as the man the Word became. 10. Not commonly in English; but the source of a river can also be called its head—Thames head, the source of the Thames. 11. See 1 Cor 11:3. 12. The opinion of most of Augustine"s older contemporaries, such as Basil and Ambrose.