the intelligible meaning of the audible utterance, Let light be made, and not the
170 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis light that we perceive with our bodily eyes which was made, when God said through a spiritual creature (which God had already made when he made heaven and earth in the beginning), Let light be made; said in a way in which through the interior and hidden motion of such a creature the words "Let light be made" could be said by divine inspiration.
5. Or did the voice of God, saying Let light be made, also make an audible sound, as did the voice of God when he said, You are my Son, the beloved (Mk
1:11); and this too through some bodily creature, which God had made when he made heaven and earth in the beginning, before light had been made, which was then made at the audible utterance of this voice? And if that is the case, what language was this voice speaking when God said Let light be made, since there was no diversity of languages yet, something that came about later on at the building of the tower after the flood?3 What was the one and only language in which God spoke the words, "Let light be made"? And who was there, who needed to hear and understand, to whom this sort of utterance would be addressed? Or is this an altogether absurd and literal-minded, fleshly, train of thought and conjecture?
6. So what are we to say, then? ls the voice of God best understood as being the intelligible meaning of the audible utterance, Let light be made, and not the audible utterance itself? And the question then arises whether this does not belong to the very nature of his Word, about which it is said, ln the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and it is God that the Word was (Jn
1:1)? Seeing that it is said about him, All things were made through him (Jn 1:3), it is evident enough that light also was made through him, when God said, "Let light be made." lf that is the case, then God's saying Let light be made is some thing eternal, because the Word of God, God with God, the only Son of God, is co-eternal with the Father, although when God said this in the eternal Word, a time-bound creature was made. While "when" and "some time" are time words, all the same the time when something should be made is eternal for the Word of God, and it is then made when it is in that Word that it should have been made, in the Word in which there is no "when" nor "some time," because that whole Word is eternal.
ls the light spiritual, corporeal, or both?
3, 7. And what is this light that was made? Something spiritual or something bodily? If something spiritual, you see, it could be the first thing created, which had first been called heaven, when it said, ln the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gn 1:1), and was now perfected by this utterance; so that the text here,
3. SeeGn 11:1-9.