formlessness or shapelessness of the earth in Gn 1 :2. The terms he uses are that the basic
Book VIII 369 them up by forming or shaping a basic material which none other but he himself had put in place as shapeless, and capable of being formed or shaped in such a way that it did not precede its formation in time, but simply as its source.47 But he put the spiritual before the corporeal or bodily creation, because the spiritual could only be changed through moments of time, while the corporeal was changeable both through the succession of times and the change of places. For example, spirit undergoes motion in time, whether by remembering what it had forgotten, or learning what it had been ignorant of, or willing what it had not wanted, while body is moved through places, whether from earth to sky or from sky to earth, or from east to west, or in any other similar fashion. Everything, though, that is moved in place cannot but also be moved simultaneously through time, while not everything, on the other hand, that is moved through time is necessarily also moved through space or place.
So then just as the substance which is only subject to movement in time has precedence over the substance which is subject to movement in time and place, in the same way it yields precedence in its turn to the substance which is not subject to movement either in place or in time. And thus,just as the created spirit, being moved itself only through moments oftime, itselfmoves the body through time and place, so the creator Spirit, not subject itself to movement either in time or in space, moves the created spirit through moments of time. But the created spirit moves itself through time and the body through both time and place, while the creator Spirit moves itself without either time or place, moves the created spirit through time without place, moves the body through both time and place.
The point illustrated by a closer look at the way the soul moves the body
21, 40. For this reason, if you are striving to understand how the Eternal One, the truly eternal and truly immortal and unchangeable God, not being moved himself either through place or through time, yet moves his creation in terms both oftime and ofplace, l think you will not succeed unless you first understand how the soul, that is to say a created spirit, itself subject to movement only through time and not through place, moves the body through both time and place. I mean, if you cannot yet grasp what is going on in yourself, how much less what is above you!
4 1 . Now the soul, being infected by its familiarity with the senses of the flesh, thinks that while it is moving the body through place, it is itselfalso being moved through place together with it. But let it only take a thorough look at the pivots, as it were, of the parts of its own body and how they are disposed through the
47. See Book I,15,29 for his introduction of this distinction, when he was discussing the formlessness or shapelessness of the earth in Gn 1 :2. The terms he uses are that the basic material, materia, is prior to that which is formed out of it not tempore but origine.