text's afferat, "bringing forward." We must remember that in the older orthography the letter
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 1 33 lowerdown had not been put in the previous verse, so that we do not have to poke and pry too scrupulously into every nook and cranny of the text? You may choose whichever you prefer; only avoid asserting41 anything rashly, and some thing you don't know as if you did; and remember you are just a human being investigating the works of God to the extent you are permitted to do so.
31. And God called the solid structure heaven (Gn 1:8). Here too we can reflect on what was discussed above about naming things;42 it is not every solid structure after all that is called heaven. And God saw that it was good. Here too you can look back to what was discussed about this above—the only difference being that I do not see the same order as there. Above, you see, And God saw the light, that it was good, and then it adds next, God divided between the light and the darkness; and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night; whereas here, after the work was described it went on to say that the work was done, and after the solid structure was called heaven it then says, and God saw that it was good.
lfwe are not to treat this variation simply as a way of avoiding boredom, then we are certainly obliged here to find confirmation of that text, And God made all things simultaneously (Sir 18:1). Why, I mean to say, did he there first see that it was good and next impose a name, while here he first imposed a name and next saw that it was good? Why indeed, if not that this indifference43 indicates that there were no intervals of time in God's actual working, though they are to be found in the works it produced? An interval of time is involved when something is done first and something next, and without this there can be no telling of the story ofthings done, although God was able without this to effect these things.
And there was made evening and there was made morning, the second day (Gn 1:8). This has already been discussed above, and in my opinion the same considerations hold good here too.44
41. Reading asserat with the Maurists and all the manuscripts except one, instead of the CSEL text's afferat, "bringing forward." We must remember that in the older orthography the letter "s" in the middle of words was written very like the letter "f." 1n fact either reading is equally likely. Another possibility is that both words were in the original, and one omitted by scribal oversight, so that the text would have read: tantum ne aliquid temere asserat atque incognitum pro cognito afferat. 42. See above, 6, 26. 43. Indifferentia; in classical Latin this means lack of difference, similarity; and as what is being discussed here is precisely a difference between the order of things mentioned above and mentioned here, the Maurists followed those manuscripts which had differentia. Perhaps the use here of indifferentia (which no copyist would have preferred to differentia) indicates that by Augustine's time the word was acquiring the meaning it now has in English. 44. See above, 6, 26.