40. Rationes in the Latin.
Book IV 265 ranee of those who do not even know the creature in itself, that in comparison with that it can be called, not unsuitably, day.
It is like the life the faithful lead in this flesh and this world; in comparison with the life of unbelievers and godless people it is not unreasonably classified as light and day, with the apostle saying: You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8); and again: Let us cast away the works ofdarkness, and clothe ourselves in the armoroflight; let us walk honorably, as in the day (Rom
13: 12-13). On the other hand, unless this day, again in comparison with that day in which after being made equal to the angels (Lk 20:36) we shall see God as he is, were itself also night, we would not need here the lamp of prophecy, about which the apostle Peter says: We have the more certain prophetic word, to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts (2 Pt 1:19).
The knowledge of the angels
24, 41 . For this reason, since the holy angels with whom we shall be equated after the resurrection, if we keep to the way (which Christ has become for us, right to the end), always see the face of God, and enjoy the Word of God, his only-begotten Son in his equality with the Father, and since in them wisdom was created as the first of all things,39 there can be no doubt that they have first come to know the universal creation, in which they themselves were the first to be established, in the Word of God himself, in whom are the eternal ideas40 even of things which were made in time, as in the one through whom all things were made (Jn 1 :3). Only after that do they know creation in itself, by glancing down below, as it were, and then referring it to the praise of the one in whose unchangeable Truth they originally see the ideas according to which it was made.
So then they see it there as it were in daylight, which is why their wonderfully harmonious unity by sharing in that truth is the day that was originally created, while here they see it as if in the evening twilight; but then straightaway morning is made (this can be observed in all six days) because angelic knowledge does not linger in what has been created without straightaway referring it to the praise and love of the one in whom it is known, not as already made but as due to be made; by staying in this Truth it is day. l mean, if the angelic nature were to turn
39. An allusion to Prv 8:22, which in Augustine's version, taken from the Greek Septuagint, has Wisdom saying, The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways. This was a real crux for the Church Fathers, who in accordance with the constant tradition, derived from the scriptures, identified Wisdom with the Son, the Word; so how could she say she was created? Here Augustine is implicitly solving the problem by saying she is "created" in the created impression she stamps on the angelic intellect. 40. Rationes in the Latin.