1:23). Here, after he had said And thus it was made, he did not add his usual
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 145 sweetly (Wis 8: 1 ). So how could they in one day both conceive and carry in the womb and hatch65 what they have laid and rear them and fill the waters of the sea and multiply upon the earth? lt does, after all, add and thus it was made before the evening comes.
But doubtless when it says, there was made evening, it is indicating unformed basic material, while when it says there was made morning it is the specific form, which has been impressed by the work in question on the material.66 This, you see, is how he concludes the passage of the day, after the performance of the work. However, God did not say, "Let evening be made," or "Let morning be made"; there is just the briefest reminder of things done, with evening and morning signifying basic material and specific form, which of course God had already been said to have made; while as for any defect, on the other hand, that is to say a thing's tendency to slip back to basic material and nothingness—if we are right, that is, in supposing that this is hinted at by the name "night"—it did not say that it was made but only that it was set in order by God,67 when it said above, God divided between the lightand the darkness (Gn 1 :4); so that the word "evening" would signify the unformed material, which although it was made from nothing still in fact is, and has the capacity to receive specific forms. It is also possible that nothingness in its very selfwas indicated by the name ofdark ness, which God did not make, and from which he made whatever he deigned to make in his inexpressible goodness, since he is almighty, who made so many things even from nothing.
Genesis 1:23
52. And there was made evening and there was made morning, afifth day (Gn 1:23). Here, after he had said And thus it was made, he did not add his usual carrying out of the work, as if they were made all over again. This had already been said earlier on, you see;68 nor was any new nature fashioned by that blessing, which was concerned with the begetting of offspring, but things that had already been made were being preserved thereby through successive gener ations. And that is why it did not even say And God saw that it was good; he had already approved, you see, of the thing itself, which now only had to be preserved in its young. And so here nothing has been repeated, except for its
65. He uses a rather singular word here: vaporare, to steam! 1t can be used in a more general sense of warming, but usually with a liquid object. 66. See above, the end of section 37, where he first broaches this idea—and expounds it clearly enough. His returning to it at this particular place, and at unnecessarily greater length is hard to explain. 1 suspect a certain confusion in the file of the author's notes, from which he was dictating the book. 67. See above, section 25. 68. 1n verse 21.