Confessions

12. The Author of Heaven and Earth

BOOK TWELVE Chapter 1 DN THIS POOR LIFE of mine, my heart, struck by the words of Thy Holy Scripture, is puzzling over many things, Lord. So, oftentimes, the poverty of human understanding is expressed in rich talk. For, inquiry talks more than discovery; petition is longer than the final concession ; and busier is the hand that knocks than the hand that takes. We have the promise: who shall break it? 'If God is for us, who is against US?'l 'Ask and you shall receive:'2 'Seek and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks, it shall be opened.'3 They are Thy promises, and who need fear falling into error, when Truth makes a promise? 1 Rom. B.lIi. 2 John 16.24. 11 Matt. 7.7·9. 367 368 SAINT AUGUSTINE Chapter 2 (2) The lowliness of my tongue confesses to Thy highness , for Thou hast made heaven and earth4-this sky which I see and the earth which I tread, from which comes this earth5 that I carry about. Thou wert the Maker. But, where is the heaven of heaven,s 0 Lord, of which we hear in the words of the psalm: 'the heaven of heaven is the Lord's: but the earth He has given to the children of men'?7 Where is the heaven which we do not see, in relation to which all that we do see is as earth? For, this corporeal world whose lower part is our earth has thus been beautifully formed, though not throughout its whole unto its lowest parts; but, in relation to the heaven of heaven, even the heaven of our earth is like an earth. And both these great bodies8 are not unreasonably considered as earth, in relation to that ineffable heaven which belongs to the Lord, not to the sons of men. Chapter 3 (3) Now, certainly, this 'earth was invisible and unorganized ,'9 some sort of deep abyss above which there was no light, because no visible appearance belonged to it. For this 4 For a brief analysis of the commentary on Gen. 1.1·2, which com· mences at this point, cf. Cayre, Initiation 178·180. 5 I.e., Augustine's human body; cf. above, 9.11.28. 6 caelum caeli: it was necessary for Augustine to distinguish between caelum (sky) and Heaven in the spiritual sense. To do this, he employed an Hebraicism, 'the heaven of heaven' (caelum caeli) , to designate God's Heaven. (Cf. Dr. Pusey's useful note in the Every· man's Library edition of the Cdnfessions 278 n. 1.) The Septuagint uses a similar Semiticism, e.g., Ps. 113.16: ho ouranos tou ouranou. 7 Ps. 113.16. 8 The two bodies are the earth and the corporeal heavens. 9 invisibilis et inconposita: this was the Old Latin version which Augus· tine had for Gen. 1.2; the Septuagint has: aoratos kal akataskeuastos. The Douai English, 'void and empty,' is from the Vulgate, 'jnanis et vacua.' CONFESSIONS: BOOK TWELVE 369 reason Thou didst command it to be written, 'that darknesses were upon the deep': 10 what else is this than the absence of light? For, where would light be, if it existed, unless it were above, in the sense of dominating and enlightening ? So, where the light did not yet exist, what else did it mean by darknesses being present than that light was absent? And so, darknesses were there above, because light was not there; just as where sound is not, there is silence. And what does it mean that silence is there, except that sound is not there? Hast not Thou taught this soul which is confessing to Thee? Hast not Thou taught mell that, before Thou didst form and distinguish into different kinds this unformed matter, there was not any definite thing, neither color, nor shape, nor body, nor spirit? Yet, it is not that there was absolutely nothing: it was a cortain formlessness without any species.12 Chapter 4 (4) Now, what should one call this [matter], so that some meaning may be conveyed even to those of slower perceptions , unless one use some familiar term? In fact, what can be found, in all the regions of the world, that is nearer to absolute formlessness than earth and abyss?13 For, these are 10 Gen. 1.2. II Cf. Ps. 70.17. 12 Augustine...