"heaven").
Book V 283 first to be made was the day. lt was only right, after all, that the first place in creation should be held by that nature which was able to come to knowledge of the creature through the creator, not of the creatorthrough the creature. Secondly the solid structure, from which the corporeal world starts; thirdly the specific appearance ofsea and land, and potentially, if I may so put it,7 in the earth on land the nature of grasses and trees. This, you see, was how the earth produced them at the word of God before they had sprung up, by receiving in itself all their numbers,8 which it would extrude through the periods of time proper to each kind of plant.
Next, after this dwelling place, so to say, for things had been fashioned, the lamps and constellations were created, so that the higher part of the cosmos might be furnished with visible things that move about within the cosmos. On the fifth day the element ofwater, being adjacent to heaven and the air, produced at God's word its indigenous inhabitants, all things to wit that swim and fly; and these too potentially in their numbers, which were to be extruded through suit ably timed movements. On the sixth day land animals likewise, as the last things from the last of the elements of the cosmos,9 but still nonetheless potentially, for their numbers to be visibly unfolded by time later on.
15. All this order of duly ordered creation was known to that day;10 and through this knowledge it presented itself somehow or other six times as six days, and while it is in fact just one day, it thus exhibited the things that have been made, coming to know them first in the creator and subsequently in them selves. lt did not linger in them, however, but referred this subsequent knowl edge of them to the love of God, thus providing evening and morning and noon in all cases, not as periods of time but as marking the order of the things fash ioned. Finally it presented its knowledge of the quiet rest of its creator, with which he rested in it from all his works, knowledge in which it has no evening, and for this reason it was found worthy to be blessed and sanctified. That is why the number seven is somehow dedicated to the Holy Spirit, and is commended to us as such by scripture and the common teaching of the Church."
7. He excuses his use of this word, because in classical Latin polentialiter and the adjective potentialis meant "powerfully" and "powerful." Perhaps Augustine was the first writer to use them in the sense they normally have in English, which derives from their use in scholastic Latin; but again they had possibly already been used in this sense in translations of Aristotle. 8. 1 presume numeri here, taken from that favorite text, Wis 1 1 :20, You have disposed all things in measure, number and weight, means the same as what he elsewhere calls rationes seminales seminal formulae. 9. Earth, coming after the element of water, which came below air and fire (here represented by "heaven").
1 0. That is, known to the angelic intelligence. 1f this equivalence of"that day" is not borne in mind, this paragraph will prove very baffling.
1 1 . The reference is primarily to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, 1s 1 1 :2, and then to such texts as Zee 3:9, 4:10, and Rv 1:4, 3:1,4:5, which are all ultimately based on the passage in 1saiah.