gigantic river encircling the earth. So Augustine's glance, sent on such a painstaking journey
274 The Literal Meaning of Genesis that he made all things simultaneously, are speaking the truth. And they are both true with one truth, because they were both written under the inspiration of the one Spirit of truth (Jn 16:13).
54. But in matters where what comes before or after is not indicated by inter vals of time, while one can indeed talk about "simultaneous" as well as about "before and after," it is still easier to understand what is said to be simultaneous than what is before and after. For example, when we look at the sun rising, it is obvious enough that our glance could not reach it before it had first crossed the whole space of air and sky between; and who could even begin to guess what a long distance that is? Clearly this glance of ours, or this ray from our eyes,48 could not get as far as crossing the air which is above the sea before it had first crossed the air above the land, whatever Mediterranean region we may be in, from the place we are in as far as the seashore. If there are still more lands after the sea along the line of our vision, our glance cannot cross the air above them before it has first negotiated the space above the sea, and after that extended itself from there. Let us suppose that after those lands across the Mediterranean only Ocean remains;49 can our glance also cross the air that spreads over Ocean before first crossing whatever air there is over the land this side of Ocean? Now Ocean is generally held to extend incomparably far. But however vast it is, the rays from our eyes will first have to cross the air above it, and after that whatever lies beyond, before they are able to reach the sun, which we are observing.
Now because we said "before" and "after" so often here, does that therefore mean that our glance does not cross all these spaces instantaneously, that is, simultaneously, in one single blink? Ifwhen about to observe the sun we turn our faces towards it with our eyes shut, won't we rather think, as soon as we open them, that we found our glance already there, than that we dispatched it there, and will it not seem that our eyes were not even opened before our glance reached its destination? And undoubtedly this is a ray of bodily light, darting out of our eyes and touching things set so far away with a speed beyond comparison or calculation. Accordingly it is quite certain on the one hand that this ray passes through all those immense spaces simultaneously in one blink, and no less clear on the other what is crossed by it before and after.
48. For the curious theory that we see things by emitting rays from our eyes, which put us in "sight touch" with the object like the antennae of certain insects, see Book 1, 1 6,3 1 , and note 20 on that text. 49. Ocean was a proper name for the ancients, and there was only one ocean, thought of as a gigantic river encircling the earth. So Augustine's glance, sent on such a painstaking journey toward the rising sun. would cross the same ocean as the one he was more familiar with to the West of him, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the straits ofGibraltar. This picture ofocean really only fits a view of the earth as flat, a view entertained by no educated person in Augustine's day; certainly not by him, as what he said above, 30,47, about day and night, morning and evening, all happening simultaneously, but of course in different parts of the world, makes clear.