and the stars which you established. The Hebrew text of the psalm seems to picture the heavens
Book II 211
32. There are not wanting those, all the same, who say that they do reckon that the moon was first made by God halfway through the month, not because we have to believe it was made at the full, but because the words in God's own scrip tures go like this: the moon madefor the beginning of the night (Gn 1:16). But it is when the moon is full that it is seen at nightfall, while in its other phases it begins to be seen during the day before it comes to the full, and later and later in the night the more it is on the wane.
But if you understand that "the beginning of the night" in fact only means dominance over it, in fact the Greek word used here, where it has archen, suggests this more obviously, and then in the psalms it is written more plainly still, The sun with authority over the day, the moon and the stars with authority over the night (Ps 136:8.9), you are not obliged to count from the fourteenth of the month, and to believe that the moon when first made was not beginning its first phase.
On the relative brilliance ofsun, moon and stars
16, 33. A question also commonly asked is whether these conspicuous lamps in the sky, that is, sun and moon and stars, are all equally brilliant, but because of their different distances from the earth appear to our eyes for that reason to vary in brightness. And about the moon those who take this line do not hesitate to say that its light is in itself less than that of the sun, by which they also maintain it is illuminated. Many of the stars, however, so they boldly assert, are equal to the sun, or even greater, but they seem small because they have been set further away. And for us, no doubt, it can be enough to know that whatever the truth may be in this matter, the stars were fashioned by God as their craftsman,39 although we must hold to what was said with the apostle's authority: One is the glory of the sun and another the glory of the moon and another the glory of the stars;for star differsfrom star in glory (1 Cor 15:41).
But they can still say, even if they are not deliberately disagreeing with the apostle: "They do indeed differ in glory, but to the eyes ofpeople on earth"; or else, because the apostle said this as a comparison with those who rise from the dead, who will not of course be one thing to the eyes ofothers and another in themselves: "The stars do indeed differ in glory in themselves as well; but all the same there are some which are even greater than the sun." So that being what they say, let them see for themselves how they can attribute such great primacy to the sun that they say it checks by its rays, or even turns back from their proper courses some of the stars, and those the principal ones, to which these people show the greater devo
39. He doubtless had Ps 8:3 in mind: When I see the heavens, the work ofyourfingers, the moon and the stars which you established. The Hebrew text of the psalm seems to picture the heavens as a vast piece of embroidery into which God deftly sewed the moon and stars.