19. See Ex 4:3; 7: 10.
314 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis shapes of his limbs, but rather with respect to his standing up vertically, his head towards the sky, in order to gaze at those things that are sublime in the body of the universe itself,just as the rational soul ought to straighten itselfup to look at what is most excellent in the spiritual realm, in order to savor the things thatare above, not the things that are on the earth (Col 3:2).
13, 23. But in what manner did God make him from the mud of the earth? Was it straightaway as an adult, that is, as a young man in the prime of life? Or was it as he forms human beings from then until now in their mothers' wombs? There is no one else, after all, who does this but the one who said, Before lformedyou in the womb, l knew you (Jer 1 :5), so that the only thing proper to Adam was that he was not born of parents but made from earth; so was this done in such a way that by growing up through "the ages of man," he would complete the number of years which we see that nature has allotted to the human race? Or is this a matter, rather, which it is not our business to inquire about? Whichever of these he did, after all, he did what was in the power of a God both omnipotent and wise, and what befitted him to do.
While he set the proper times, I mean, for different kinds and qualities of things to develop from a latent to a manifest state of being, he in no way abdi cated the supremacy over everything of his will. That is, he gave creation its numerical rhythms by his power; he did not bind his power to these same numer ical rhythms. His Spirit, you see, was so borne over the world in the making,17 that it continued also to be borne over it once made, in terms not of place or space but of supereminent authority.
24. ls anybody unaware, I mean, that when water mixed with earth comes to the roots of a vine, it is led up into the vine-stock as rich nourishment, and there takes on the quality with which it goes on into the budding bunch of grapes, and becomes wine as this grows, and sweetens the wine as it matures, which still has to ferment when it is pressed out, and left to settle and age until it is fit to drink with real profit and pleasure? Does that mean that the Lord had to go looking for a vine or earth or these set intervals of time, when with a wonderful conciseness he turned water into wine, and such wine as even a tipsy table guest could praise?18 Did the one who instituted time need the help of time?
ls not a definite number of days, appropriate to each species, required for every kind of snake to be conceived, formed, hatched, reach full growth? Were these days looked for to turn the rod in the hand of Moses and Aaron into a serpent?19 And when these things happen they are not happening against nature except from our point of view, to which the course of nature appears from a
17. SeeGn 1:2. 18. See Jn 2:7-10. 19. See Ex 4:3; 7: 10.
Book VI 315 different angle, but not from God's point of view, since nature for him is simply what he has made.
The relationship between the primalformulae and what emergesfrom them in historical time
14, 25. What it is our business, though, to inquire about is how those causal formulae were set, with which he primed the universe when he first created all things simultaneously. Was it so that all things that come to birth in the way we see, whether shrubs or animals, would go through the different intervals of time appropriate to each species in its taking shape and its growth; or so that they would be fully formed forthwith, in the way it is believed that Adam was made without any growing pains in adult manhood? But why should we not believe that those formulae contained each potentiality, so that anything would be actu alized from them that pleased the one who would make them?
Ifwe limit them, you see, to the first mode, it begins to look as if not only was that turning ofwater into wine a deed done in defiance of them, but so also are all miracles which are performed in defiance of the usual course of nature. If, on the other hand, we limit them to the second mode, there will be the much more absurd consequence that these everyday forms and appearances of nature run through their various spans of time in defiance of those primary causal formulae of everything that comes to birth. It remains, therefore, that they were created with an aptitude for each mode, whether for this one by which temporal events most commonly transpire, or for that one by which rare and miraculous things are done, as it may please God to do whatever is appropriate to the time.
15, 26. In any case, the man was made, in accordance with primary causes, in such a way as to be the first man. So he did not have to be born of parents, who were not there before him anyway, but to be formed from mud in accordance with the causal formula in which he was originally made; because if he had been made otherwise, God would not have made him among the works of those six days. When he is said to have been made among them, it was, surely, the actual cause that God made, by which the man was to come to be in his own time, and in accordance with which he was to be made by the one who both finished what he had started on account of the perfect completeness of the causal formulae, and started what was to be finished on account of the ordered march of time.
So then, if in those first causes of things which the creator originally inserted into the world he not only put that he was going to form the man from mud, but also in what manner he was going to form him; whether as in the womb of a mother, or in the form ofa young man, there can be not the slightest doubt that he did it as he had prescribed it there; he would not, l mean, go against his own program in making him. If, however, he only put there the virtual possibility of the man being made, in whatever manner he was made, so that it could be done