40. See above, footnote 34.
1 32 Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis
There have been people who supposed that these visible and cold waters embraced the whole upper surface of the heavens. They have tried to bring forward a supporting argument from the slowness of one of the seven wandering stars19 which is higher than the others and called Phaenon by the Greeks, and which takes thirty years to complete its significant orbit; what slows it up, so they suggest, is its proximity to those cold waters above the heavens. How this opinion may be defended by those who have inquired minutely into such matters
I have no idea. None ofthese things, however, should be rashly asserted, but they should all be discussed tentatively and with moderation.
30. And God said: Let a solid structure be made in the midst of the water, and let it be dividing between water and water. And thus it was made. After saying thus it was made, what was the point of adding again, And God made a solid structure, and divided between the water which was below the solid structure and the water which was above the solid structure? Earlier on, you see, after saying, God said: Let lightbe made; and light was made ( 1 :3), he did not go on to add, "and God made the light." Here on the other hand, after God said Let it be made; and thus it was made, there comes the addition, and God made.
Or does this just show that we should not understand that light as being of the bodily variety, and so the impression was to be avoided that God made it through the intermediary of some creature—by "God" here l mean the Trinity; whereas this solid structure of the sky, being corporeal, may be supposed to have received its specific form through some incorporeal creature? So that first the incorporeal nature would receive from the Truth the intelligible impression ofwhat was to be physically impressed on the basic material, to make the solid structure of the sky; accordingly, where it stated, and God said, Let it be made, and thus it was made, it was first made perhaps in that rational nature, for the actual species to be impressed from that upon bodily material.40
Genesis 1:7-8
9. But when it adds, And God made the solid structure and divided between the water which was below the solid structure and the water which was above the solid structure (Gn 1:7), is the actual work in that basic material being signi fied, to make the bodily reality of the sky? Or is it possibly just for the sake of varying the expression, to save the text from boring repetition, that what was put
Maurists also, has one scarcely construable sentence from "This kind of corporeal matter" to "the upper surface of the heavens." 1 happily forgo the challenge of translating it here! 39. Only given the name "planets," planetae. in medieval Latin. The one which the Greeks call Phaenon we, and certainly the classical Latin authors before Augustine, call Saturn. Perhaps he was chary of bringing in the name of a pagan deity; "Phaenon" simply means "Shining one." 40. See above, footnote 34.