angels in the Word of God, because these cannot be said to have been made or created. Rather
Book IV 273 because the very formulae47 of their measures and numbers were already present, being woven incorporeally into the texture of corporeal things: why could not this have been rightly said even before the egg stage, when in the liquid element itself the very same formulae were being made, according to which the fowls of the air would be able to arise and reach full growth and perfection through the periods of time proper to each kind? The creator, after all, about whom scripture told this story ofhow he completed and finished his works in six days, is the same as the one about whom it is written elsewhere, and assuredly without there being any contradiction, that he created all things simultaneously together (Sir 18:1).
And consequently, the one who made all things simultaneously together also made simultaneously these six or seven days, or rather this one day six or seven times repeated. So then, what need was there for the six days to be recounted so distinctly and methodically? It was for the sake of those who cannot arrive at an understanding of the text, "he created all things together simultaneously," unless scripture accompanies them more slowly, step by step, to the goal to which it is leading them.
All things both made simultaneously, and nonetheless also made in six days
34, 53. So then, how can we say that the presence of that light in the angelic knowledge from evening to morning was repeated seven times, when it would have been sufficient for these three, that is both day and evening and morning, to be grasped by it simultaneously just once? Just as the whole created universe, after all, was all made simultaneously, so the angelic light could simultaneously both account for day by contemplating it all in the original and unchangeable ideas according to which it was fashioned, and account for evening by knowing it all in its own proper nature, and account for morning by rising to praise the creator from that inferior knowledge too.
Or how could morning come first, for the light to know in the Word what was there for God to make next, with evening then following for the light to know this in itself, if nothing was made before and after, because all things were made together simultaneously? lndeed, though, both statements are true: both that the things mentioned were made "before and after" in the course of the six days, and that they were all made simultaneously, because each passage of scripture, both the one telling the story of God's works through these days, and the one saying
47. Rationes again. These formulae or ideas are not to be identified with those contemplated by the angels in the Word of God, because these cannot be said to have been made or created. Rather they are the created manifestations of the uncreated ideas, and are elsewhere called by Augustine rationes seminales, seminal formulae planted like seeds, programmed into the whole created universe which was all made simultaneously, instantaneously, on the one day of creation.