without any spacing of syllables, as an idea of his eternal Word, why it should
1 76 The Literal Meaning of Genesis the space of a day, and when this had been spent like that, evening came on, which is the beginning of the night. And then again when the space of a night had passed, the whole day was completed, so that morning could be made.
19. Indeed now, this really is astonishing: when God said, Let light be made, without any spacing of syllables, as an idea of his eternal Word, why it should take such a long time to make light, until the space of a whole day had passed, and evening could be made. Or was the light, perhaps, indeed made instantly, but the whole space of daytime could still be taken up in distinguishing it from the darkness, and giving each of them, once distinguished, their respective labels? It would be astonishing if this too could take God even as long to do as it takes us to say it. The distinction of light and darkness, surely, was ipsofacto a consequence of the light being made; it could not, after all be light, unless it were distin guished from darkness.
20. As for God calling the light day and the darkness night, how long could this have taken, even if he had done it with the sound of a voice, syllable by syllable? No longer, surely, than it takes us to say "Let light be called day and darkness be called night." Unless of course anyone should be so crazy as to assume that because God is greater than everything else, even the fewest sylla bles uttered by the divine mouth could be spread over a whole day. What it comes to is this, that in fact it was by a word co-eternal with himself, that is with the inner and eternal ideas10 of unchanging Wisdom, that God called the light day and the darkness night. Again, you see, it could be asked, ifhe did the calling with the words we use, what language he did it in, and what need there was for transient sounds where there was nobody's bodily sense of hearing, and no answer to the question could be found.
21 . Or must it be said that as soon as this work of God had been performed, the light remained without night following it until a full day-time period had passed, and that the night which followed the day remained until a full night-time period had passed, and morning could be made of the next day with one day, and that the first, completed? But if l say that, 1 am afraid I will be laughed at by those who know for certain, and by those who can easily work out, that during the time when it is night with us the presence of light is illuminating those parts of the world past which the sun is returning from its setting to its rising, and that thus during the entire twenty-four hours, while it circles through its whole round, there is always day-time somewhere, night-time somewhere else.
So then, are we really going to station God in some part where evening can be made for him, while the light withdraws from that part to another? For it is also written in the book called Sirach as follows: And the sun rises, and the sun sets, and leads on to its place, that is to the place from which it rose. It continues, you
10. Rationes in the Latin.