general sense of the passage. 1n neither edition is there any note in the apparatus, so 1 conclude
1 80 The Literal Meaning of Genesis torrents, and in this way dry land could have appeared in those parts from which the wet had departed.
27. Basic material, however, in which even something as minimally specific as mist has appeared, is not absolutely shapeless and without form.
When had earth and water been created?
13. And therefore the question can still be asked: when did God create these visible species and qualities of the waters and the lands of the earth; l mean, there is no record of them in any of the six days. And so suppose that he did it before any day, according to what is written before these first days are mentioned: ln the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gn 1:1). So we could understand by the word "earth" the earth species already formed and in essence visible, but with the waters manifestly covering all of it. Then we would not think of any form lessness of basic material in the words of scripture which follow: Now the earth was invisible and shapeless, and there was darkness over the abyss; and the Spirit of God was being borne over the water (Gn 1 :2), but of earth and water without light (which had not yet been made), but established with those qualities we are now so familiar with. So we could take it that the reason the earth was said to be invisible was that being covered with water it could not be seen, even if there had been anyone there to see it, while the reason it was called shapeless was that it had not yet been distinguished from the sea and girded with its shores and embellished with its fruits and animals.
So if that is the case, why were these particular species, which are unques tionably bodily, made before any day? Why does the text not run: "God said, Let the earth be made; and the earth was made," and again, "God said, Let the water be made; and the water was made"? Or both of them together, if they are both contained under what you could call the law of the lowest place: "God said, Let the earth and water16 be made; and thus it was made"?
14. Why does it not say, when this had been done, "God saw that it was good"?
Why did God not "see that it was good" after creating formless matter, in verse 2?
28. It is, after all, obvious (that everything changeable is given form or shape out of something lacking form or shape) and at the same time Catholic faith prescribes and reason indubitably teaches that there could have been no basic material for any specific natures, unless it came from God the initiator and
16. The CSEL text omits "and water," which is there in the Maurist text—and required by the general sense of the passage. 1n neither edition is there any note in the apparatus, so 1 conclude that the CSEL omission is merely the result of a printer's oversight.
Bookl 181 creator of all things, both formed and formable, about which one passage of scripture says to him: You that made the world out offormless matter (Wis
1 1 : 1 8). It is considerations of this sort, you see, that have convinced me that it was this basic material that was indicated by those words which spiritual fore sight adapted even to less quick-witted readers or listeners, and which say before coming to any counting of days, ln the beginning God made heaven and earth, and so on until it comes toAnd God said, so that from there on the order of things given form and shape might follow.
Formless matter prior as a source, but not prior in time, to the things formed out of it
15, 29. lt is not because formless matter is prior in time to things formed from it, since they are both created simultaneously together, both the thing made and what it was made out of; but because that which something is made out of is still prior as its source, even if not in time, to what is made from it, that scripture could divide in the time it takes to state them what God did not divide in the time it took to make them. Just as a voice, after all, is the basic material for words, while words are what a voice is formed into, but the speaker does not first give vent to an unformed voice which he can later on gather up and form into words, so too God the creator did not first make formless material and later on form it, on second thoughts as it were, into every kind of nature; no, he created formed and fashioned material. Ifthe question were asked, I mean, whether we make a voice from words or words from a voice, it would not be easy to find anyone so slow of wit as not to answer that it is rather words which are made from a voice. So too, although the speaker makes them both simultaneously, it is clear enough, on a moment's reflection, what he makes out of which.
For this reason, since God made them simultaneously, both the material which he formed and the things into which he formed it, and since both had to be mentioned by scripture and both could not be mentioned simultaneously, can anybody doubt that what something was made out ofhad rightly to be mentioned before what was made out of it? Because even when we just say "matter" and "form," we understand them as being together simultaneously, and we are unable to state them simultaneously. Now just as it happens in a very short space of time, when we utter these two words, that we utter them one before the other, so too in the longer form of a narrative, one thing had to be mentioned before the other, although God made each of them, as we have said, simultaneously. Thus what came first in the making solely as source comes first also in time in the telling. If two things of which neither is in any way prior to the other cannot be named simultaneously, how much less can their stories be told simultaneously! So then, there can be no doubt at all that this formless basic material, almost the