(Gn 1.1-2); the works of distinction or division, what is here called sorting out and arranging (Gn
218 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS name forever. The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob couldn't be a name for ever, unless Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived for ever."
Turning to the Lord, etc., and prayer
May the power of his mercy confirm our hearts in truth, confirm and set our souls at rest; may his grace come abundantly upon us, and may he have mercy on us, and remove all stumbling blocks from our path, and from his Church, and from all our dear ones; and may he make us pleasing to himself by his power and the abundance of his mercy upon us for ever: through Jesus Christ his Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with him and with the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.21
NOTES
1. There is general agreement among the scholars about this date. It was only Augustine's third or fourth Easter as bishop. I wonder if he ever again preached such a long sermon at the end of the Easter vigil. But in note 9 below I suggest a possible reason for dating the sermon some years later, say 405-410.
2. Well, he certainly does his best! Not that this is a particularly long sermon by his standards; but coming after all the readings of the vigil, and the singing, it would certainly leave a modern congregation feeling stunned; and there is evidence toward the end that at times the preacher was so tired he was losing his thread.
3. Because no one can. No one has ever seen God (Jn 1:18). We cannot know what God is, but only what he is not (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, la, q.3, prol.).
4. Machinafacientis verbum estjubentis. Quid miraris? Opus est Omnipotentis.
5. Augustine's identification of Word with Wisdom is not just arbitrary; it is in accord with the mind of the evangelist John himself. The inspiration for his prologue about the Word, the Logos, was the Old Testament figure of Wisdom in such passages as Prv 8:22-36, and Sir 24:1-23. But Wisdom, Sophia, is feminine, and John needed a masculine word to apply to Jesus; Logos filled the bill exactly, God's creative word of Genesis 1 corresponding to the creative wisdom of Proverbs 8, and God's lawgiving word (ten words, the decalogue) corresponding to the wisdom identified with the law of Sirach 24.
6. See 1 Cor 1:24.
7. The works of creation were traditionally analyzed into the work of creation in the strict sense (Gn 1.1-2); the works of distinction or division, what is here called sorting out and arranging (Gn
1:3-10); the works of furnishing or adorning (Gn 1:11-19).
8. See 1 Cor 3:1-2; though Augustine does not have in mind quite the same thing as Paul does.
9. The substance. Why he chooses to employ the Greek word, it is hard to say; unless he happened to be engaged at the time in writing Books V-VII of his The Trinity, where among other things he discusses the ambiguity of the Latin substantia as a rendering of the Greek ousia, since it also corresponds to the Greek hypostasis. If that were the case, the sermon would have to be put several years later, say 405-410.
11. Whatever that might be! In his more considered moments, he admits one cannot think without material images, and is content to warn us not to identify the images with the realities they so inadequately represent. J
10. That is, I think, the naive Christian, still feeding on milk.