On the Words "It Was Evening and Morning, One Day"

I. If the divine scriptures were read simply, no one would ever misunderstand the reading of any chapter, but they would be received unanimously with piety and justice, just as they contain themselves. Philonic disputation would cease, syllogistic discourse would cease, every superstitious invention would cease: nor would any dark comparison ever be recognized in any man. All would think the same thing, would yield to one another, would profess the same things, as the most lucid reading declares itself. For our dear friend and companion put a question to us, whether the whole world has hours proper to itself or not: "In short," he says, "I say that if it is the first hour here, the first hour would hold the whole world. For it seems absurd to me to hear that different hours are said to be contained through the four parts of the earth. I say moreover, since all parts are inhabited, how can it be proved to me that all men do not possess one hour?

But I say, since it is day here, show me in what part you assert there to be night, when all the regions of the sky are illuminated by day. For neither did Moses teach us otherwise in the book of Genesis, than that day should be day for the whole world, and night should hold the whole globe in darkness." And so, friend, if what you have said suffices for the question, I ask that you grant patience and hear from us what is true. But not so that you may detect human inventions, but rather that you may approve that these are divine words. Wherefore if a reading of authority shall be found, you must grant us room to speak, so that you may learn more plainly in what manner the most blessed Moses briefly signified concerning day and night.

For Solomon also teaches us, saying: Thy good spirit is in all things; wherefore those who err, thou dost correct in part: and those who sin, thou dost admonish by speaking to them, that leaving ignorance they may believe in the words of God. For all scripture inspired by the Spirit of God, says the Apostle Paul, requires interpretation. For Apollos also was mighty in the Scriptures above all, who also was fervent in spirit: and yet Aquila and Priscilla took him aside and expounded to him the way of the Lord more diligently. For the wise are easily corrected. For the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

II. We therefore set forth one by one the things which the reading of Genesis teaches. But it would be a long discourse to treat of those things which have been said above: and let us leave off disputing about heaven and earth, darkness and the abyss, water and spirit, because the time has not yet come to say anything about these, but rather now to respond to the matters proposed and to give satisfaction. It is indeed the case that darkness possessed the whole world, as the reading declares in the preceding text. For it was said thus: Let there be light, and there was light. The wise inquire where the light was made: for the darkness was not substantial, as the philosophers say, and there was a certain material figuration in them: they are nothing. But far be it from us to think anything with them, when divine scripture says that God created darkness and made heaven. What therefore is made by God is believed to be substantial.

Wherefore if they are substantial, they were not reduced to nothing when light was made. But neither were they mixed together at the same time, because both are substances, which are contrary to each other even to this day, as heat to cold, or sweetness to bitterness. But when they are tempered with each other, they are recognized to be necessary to each other. Let the objection therefore cease, if we have called them contrary according to substance, but necessary in the begetting of creatures, and in resting from all works. We have shown nevertheless that when light was made the darkness was not taken away, but rather Scripture teaches that they were reduced to a part, that is, gathered together in the middle of the globe, so that the light made might illuminate the middle part of the world. For the light of the world which was made so as to possess the whole globe is not the substance of God.

But there is another light which is the true one, which can illuminate the whole world, of which the Evangelist says: It is the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. The true light therefore illuminates the whole world, because the darkness yields place to its author: just as the sun also will be darkened by the true light and covered with darkness. But that which is not yet the true light could not therefore illuminate the whole world at once from its summit, nay rather it ought not, lest day should be adjudged to be fixed, but rather should be established by the swifter course of the moments of the hours. For the weakness of the creature appears in its inability to encompass the whole world, and therefore it is recognized to travel through it in parts even to this day.

III. But indeed, if it possessed the whole globe with its light, it would by no means mark any hour in the day: since it would illuminate the whole world at once, there would be nothing for it to travel through. According to this reasoning which we have argued, we shall be able rightly to understand the prophet Moses saying: And God separated between the light and the darkness. But what is it to separate, if not to make a distance between these things? He who established a distance and set them over against each other, and decreed that they themselves should be in division, so as to call the light day and the darkness night, we now hear one thing named from another. But why was another name not pleasing, if what was first announced sufficed? Afterwards he would call it day as though it had come into his mind.

But far be it from us to be unwilling to inquire why, with the aforesaid name remaining, it is called day: what followed certainly enclosed and signified the space of twelve hours. For neither is day today, if it is called the Lord's day, defined without its proper hours. When therefore you say day, you fix some definite hour extending to evening. Thus my lord Moses says that the light was called day, so that we might recognize that the daily use of twelve hours was not spoken of without its function. Then following he says: and there was evening, and there was morning, one day. For if he calls it evening and afterwards the day made, he designates the completed hours of that making. For Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes asks: What is it that hath been done? The same that shall be: and what hath been, the same is that which shall be.

IV. Therefore, friend, if day is so defined today, why should we not believe the prophet saying that the same thing was made in the beginning which is made today: that there is nothing new under the sun, nor anything added, nor anything diminished? Evening remains until morning, filling up the hours of the night, and thus one defined day is called, in which the morning is said not to belong to the first day, but is found to be the beginning of the second. We inquire moreover whether our Lord worked in the day or in the night. Certainly if in the day, that morning is not adjudged to belong to the first day, when the firmament of heaven is commanded to be made in it. But if the firmament was made on the second day, it appeared that the morning belonged to the second day. For the balance of day and night had been established as defined: on account of which one day had been called by number.

Again scripture says: Let the water be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear, which he presently commanded to bring forth the herb of pasture according to its kind, and fruit-bearing trees. In which there was evening made, and morning made, the third day. And so if you take that morning as belonging to the third day, why does Scripture say: Let there be two luminaries in the firmament of heaven, so that they may shine upon the earth at the beginning of day and night: so as to divide between day and night, and let them be for signs, days and times and years? But no man knowing the law would agree with you that the sun and moon were made on the third day.

V. Perhaps if I question you yourself, you will answer me that they were made on the fourth day, and you will contend that that morning belongs to the third day. But if those mornings truly belonged to the third day, our predecessors would never have professed that the sun and moon were made on the fourth day. But if they were made on the fourth day, that morning does not belong to the third day, but to the fourth, on which the sun and moon and the rest were made. Then they divide between day and night at their beginnings. For their author so balanced them between each other, that they should hold and traverse an equal space of the world: not so that having completed their office they should have a resting place, but rather they run incessantly within their own limits. For what the sun traverses in a year, the moon is recognized to run through in thirty days.

Travelling through the cycle of the globe they returned to the former point from which they had set out. They did not therefore pause when they had run through the whole cycle: or show it to be written, and I will be at rest. But you do not show it, because you do not find it, as Solomon says: The sun rises, and the sun sets, and returns to its place. Rising it goes toward the South, and turning it circles around to the North. If you suppose the sun to set, give us an account of how it returns to its place. Wherefore if the sense of fabricating falsehoods escapes you, believe Solomon saying that it rises and goes toward the South, so that turning it arrives at the North: For the spirit going round and round travels through, the spirit returns upon its circuit. What more plainly could we argue, when the prophet has sketched out our question in a few words, that it is a spirit which going round and round incessantly travels through the whole globe?

Thus one day is defined, and passage is made to another morning, on account of which days, months, and years were established.

VI. Satisfy yourself henceforth, and agree with our earlier forebears handing down these things which we have mentioned above, that this light does not hold the whole globe, but the middle. And therefore wherever the sun shall look, day and hours are made. So that as it travels and journeys through the space carried along it changes the hours. But if this is true, where morning has been made, morning will not be able to remain there longer: because as the sun moves to other places, the hours always change themselves, and so it comes about that evening is reached. What follows in the office of night is what the hours supply. But when we see morning arise, we recognize that there is a failing of darkness, and when evening comes, the day suffers its setting.

For thus he distinguished the climates of heaven between day and night, so that wherever the sun shall have made its step, morning is held: and likewise wherever the moon shall have travelled, evening is recognized to be, which is said to belong to the following day. For it is foolish to hear that the prior night was made according to the evening, and that afterwards morning arose. But if evening had been made first, our lawgiver would not have been deterred by any consideration from pronouncing that one night in the number of nights. No one who has what is first and principal despises announcing it, and hears what is subsequent named. And so if nothing of the sort is found among men, how is it reckoned by you that the morning made afterwards is called one day? Why do you not profess what you first read, that light was made and called day, and afterwards darkness was called night? Night therefore was not made before day.

So neither ought you to believe that evening was made before you understand that the morning of the first day was made.

VII. But as to the morning, which Scripture passed over in silence, it discloses the reason when it commanded light to be made. For what could the rising of light have shown, if it did not define that there was a morning? Nor indeed could the day be called such apart from the morning: and we rightly say that when God called the light day, He enclosed the morning within it. For when the day was ended, evening began to arise, which, working through the whole night, would arrive at the morning of the second day, in which the firmament was to be made. And although we have already discussed the third and fourth day, on which He fashioned the sun and moon, let us nonetheless inquire more fully on which day man was made, whether on the fifth day or the sixth, so that it may be found whether the evening precedes the morning. For God said: Let us make man in our image and likeness.

And God made man: in the image of God He made him: male and female He made them, and gave them all herbage for food. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Wherefore if this morning belongs to the sixth day, then man was made on the fifth day. For if he was made on the sixth day, it is established that this morning belongs to the seventh day, on which God rested. But if that is not so, show me here where are the works of the sixth day, by which all things that He said were made on the sixth day were completed. On the fifth day I find that the waters brought forth creeping things and flying creatures; not man, who was made from the earth together with the four-footed beasts and the beasts of the earth. But if man was made on the fifth day together with the aforementioned creatures, we find neither those things which the waters brought forth, nor those things which were completed on the sixth day.

And how does Scripture say that God rested on the seventh day from all His works, when I find that after man and those things made together with man, all the work which God had begun to make was completed? And so if man and the aforementioned things were made on the fifth day, we find that all things were completed on the fifth day, so that we must conclude that God rested from all His works on the sixth day. But if you understand the evening to follow after the creation of the waters, you will be able to find not the beginnings of the fourth day, but the beginnings of the fifth night. And if this is true, that morning which is named after the evening does not belong to the fifth day, but to the sixth, because in it Scripture teaches us that man was made. Wherefore after the making of man himself it speaks of evening being made, and of a morning, which is truly the beginning of the seventh day.

For in that very morning God rested from all His works which He had begun to make: not in the evening which followed the sixth day. Now, friend, examine the reading more plainly, and satisfy your mind that night cannot be placed before day, nor likewise evening before morning, in which the action and work of the day is shown to be defined, and the evening is thus said to follow. Finally, after the evening of the sixth day he ceased to make mention of it, just as of the morning, which the prophet openly and clearly declared to be the seventh day itself. Wherefore if it is not that very day, do you now teach, out of charity, of a seventh evening, so that a morning may follow upon it. But if you cannot find one, believe the reading that the seventh day is that very one which, after the evening, is called the morning.