one day (Gn 1 :5); after which it goes on to count the second on which the solid
Book V 279 as these, what he actually did say was: This is the book of the creating ofheaven and earth when the day was made Godmade heaven andearth andall the greenery ofthefield(Gn 2:4-5), as though to suggest that when the day was made, then it was that God made heaven and earth and all the greenery of the field.
6. Again, the earlier account indicates the day made originally, and labels it one day (Gn 1 :5); after which it goes on to count the second on which the solid structure was made, and the third on which the specific forms of land and sea were distinguished from each other, and the land produced trees and grass. Or is this perhaps what we were struggling to prove in the previous book, that God made all things together simultaneously, seeing that where that arrangement of the story had all things created and completely finished in due order in six days, now all things are being concentrated in one day—with the addition also ofsome kind of shrubs, for the reason no doubt which l gave above, that ifreaders should happen to understand here one of our ordinary kind of days, they would be corrected when they recalled that God said the earth should produce the greenery of the field before this ordinary solar day?3 So now we get evidence in support, not from another book of holy scripture4 that God created all things simulta neously, but from next door neighbor's testimony on the page following this whole matter, which gives us a hint with the words, when the day was made God made heaven and earth and all the greenery of thefield.
So now you should understand that this day was repeated seven times for the seven days to be made, and also grasp if you can, when you hear that all things were made when the day was made, that this sixfold or sevenfold repetition happened without any intervals or periods of time. And if you are not yet able to grasp this, leave the contemplation of it to those who have the capacity, while you yourself go on making progress by walking more slowly with scripture at your side, where she does not desert your weakness but matches her steps to yours in motherly fashion. For she speaks, you see, in such a way that she mocks the proud by her sublimity, fills the attentive with awe at her profundity, feeds the mature with her truthfulness, fosters the little ones with her kindliness.
Why the hay is said to have been made before it sprang up
4, 7. So what is the meaning, then, of what follows? This, you see, is how the text is stitched together: When the day was made God made heaven and earth,
3. See Gn 1:11. 1 have changed the punctuation somewhat drastically here, to make a rather longer sentence, a longer question than we have in the Latin. The editors end the question at "some kind of shrubs," thus rather obscuring the reference of what follows to precisely this little addition. 1t must be admitted that Augustine's whole sentence here is something of a syntactical mess; an indication of rather hasty composition. 4. The allusion is to Sir 1 8: 1 , which states, in the Latin text, that "he who lives for ever created all things simul."