66. Gn. litt. 1.4; Hill, Genesis, 171; CSEL 28.7-8.
Creation as the Unifying Prologue 21
God said, Let it be made, because it is by the Word, always adhering to the Father, that God eternally says everything, not with the sound of a voice nor with thoughts running through the time which sounds take, but with the light, co-eternal with himself, of the Wisdom he has begotten; and imperfection or incompleteness does not imitate the form of this Word, being unlike that which supremely and originally is, and tending by its very want of form toward nothing? Rather, it is when it turns, everything in the way suited to its kind, to that which truly and always is, to the creator that is to say of its own being, that it really imitates the form of the Word which always and unchangingly adheres to the Father, and receives its own form, and becomes a perfect, complete creature.66
Although Augustine's main concern in this passage is to make sense of the origin of formability, there are four aspects of this passage that help us to see how he understood creation's adherence to God. The first is the relationship between the Father and the Word, setting the pattern for how creatures are to be united to God. The second is creation's conversion toward God, apart from which there could be no definite natures. The third aspect is how all must imitate the Word, marking all of creation with a clear Logocentric stamp. From this imitation comes the fourth point, the Word's bestowal of form on every created thing.
First, the relationship between the Father and his Word is introduced in terms of an unending adherence [cohaerere]. This is an eternal and equal bond, and here the Father speaks all else into being through his very Word. He speaks with neither audible sounds nor with discursive thoughts, but with a co-eternal light. Notice the change in possible images to explain how the Father operates with the Word: Augustine first entertains how this operation might be likened to speaking and then to thinking, but then settles on the image of light, perhaps relying on the biblical and creedal imagery of the Son as light as well as possibly also drawing from the Platonic in-
66. Gn. litt. 1.4; Hill, Genesis, 171; CSEL 28.7-8.