abyss was underneath and the darkness above, as though places had already been
1 20 Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis
(which consists oftwo chiefparts, namely heaven and earth) would be fashioned by the sorting out of its elements and the bestowal on them of shape and form?" This mixed-up material could best be suggested to the comprehension of the common man if it was called earth that was invisible and shapeless, or unordered and unfurnished and darkness over the abyss, that is, over the vast deep; and this deep in turn was perhaps given this name because owing to its formlessness nobody's mind could fathom it.
12. And there was darkness over the abyss.11 The question arises, whether the abyss was underneath and the darkness above, as though places had already been distinguished and defined. Or else, since the mishmash of material is still being explained, which is also called chaos in Greek, is the reason it says there was dark ness over the abyss just because there was no light? If there had been, it would of course have been above, because it would have been lighting up from a higher point the things subjected to it—and indeed, if you consider carefully what dark ness is, you will find it to be nothing but the absence of light. So this, therefore, is what it means by there was darkness over the abyss, as if it had said, "there was no light over the abyss." Hence this material, which is arranged and distinguished by God's subsequent activity into the forms of things, is called the invisible and shapeless earth, and the deep without light. ln the preceding sentence it had been given the name of "heaven and earth" as being a kind of seed ofheaven and earth, as I have already said, provided, that is, that God was not intending to point to the whole universe first by saying "heaven and earth," so that he could then go on to construct the parts of the world after suggesting the material it was to be made of.
Genesis 1:2; what may be meant by "water"
1 3. And the Spirit of God was being borne over the water (Gn 1:2). Nowhere had it said, "God made the water," and yet in no way may we believe that God did not make the water and that it already existed before he had constituted anything. He after all is the onefrom whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things (Rom 1 1 :36), as the apostle says. Therefore God made the water too, and to believe otherwise is a serious error. So why does it not say that God made the water? Or again, did he also wish to call "water" the same material as he had already named either "heaven and earth," or "invisible and shapeless earth," or "abyss"? Why, after all, could it not be called water, if it could be called earth, since so far neither water nor earth nor anything else had been sorted out and formed?
17.1 here follow ihe text of the Maurists; the CSEL text has here, what it has not had in the previous quotations, over theface of the deep. But that is the Vulgate reading, which scribes were always likely to introduce inadvertently; 1 do not think it probable that Augustine had two Latin versions before him. and first quoted one, then the other.