|
In the
Beginning God made the Heaven and the Earth.
1. It is right
that any one beginning to narrate the formation of the world should begin
with the good order which reigns in visible things. I am about to speak of
the creation of heaven and earth, which was not spontaneous, as some have
imagined, but drew its origin from God. What ear is worthy to hear such a
tale? How earnestly the soul should prepare itself to receive such high lessons!
How pure it should be from carnal affections, how unclouded by worldly
disquietudes, how active and ardent in its researches, how eager to find
in its surroundings an idea of God which may be worthy of Him!
But before weighing the justice of these remarks, before examining all the
sense contained in these few words, let us see who addresses them to us.
Because, if the weakness of our intelligence does not allow us to penetrate
the depth of the thoughts of the writer, yet we shall be involuntarily drawn
to give faith to his words by the force of his authority. Now it is Moses
who has composed this history; Moses, who, when still at the breast, is described
as exceeding fair; Moses, whom the daughter of Pharaoh adopted; who received
from her a royal education, and who had for his teachers the wise men of
Egypt; Moses, who disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble
condition of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted with the people
of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting delights of sin; Moses, who received
from nature such a love of justice that, even before the leadership of the
people of God was committed to him, be was impelled, by a natural horror
of evil, to pursue malefactors even to the point of punishing them by death;
Moses, who, banished by those whose benefactor he had been, hastened to escape
from the tumults of Egypt and took refuge in Ethiopia, living there far from
former pursuits, and passing forty years in the contemplation of nature;
Moses, finally, who, at the age of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible
for man to see Him; or rather as it had not previously been granted to man
to see Him, according to the testimony of God Himself, "If there be a prophet
among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will
speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in
all mine house, with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and
not in dark speeches." It is this man, whom God judged worthy to behold Him,
face to face, like the angels, who imparts to us what he has learnt from
God. Let us listen then to these words of truth written without the help
of the "enticing words of man's wisdom" by the dictation of the Holy Spirit;
words destined to produce not the applause of those who hear them, but the
salvation of those who are instructed by them.
2. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I stop struck
with admiration at this thought. What shall I first say? Where shall I begin
my story? Shall I show forth the vanity of the Gentiles? Shall I exalt the
truth of our faith? The philosophers of Greece have made much ado to explain
nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken, each
being overturned by its successor. It is vain to refute them; they are sufficient
in themselves to destroy one another. Those who were too ignorant to rise
to a knowledge of a God, could not allow that an intelligent cause presided
at the birth of the Universe; a primary error that involved them in sad
consequences. Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the
origin of the Universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that
atoms, and indivisible bodies, molecules and ducts, form, by their union,
the nature of the visible world. Atoms reuniting or separating, produce births
and deaths and the most durable bodies only owe their consistency to the
strength of their mutual adhesion: a true spider's web woven by these writers
who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so weak an origin and so little
consistency! It is because they knew not how to say "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth." Deceived by their inherent atheism it
appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that was
all was given up to chance. To guard us against this error the writer on
the creation, from the very first words, enlightens our understanding with
the name of God; "In the beginning God created." What a glorious order! He
first establishes a beginning, so that it might not be supposed that the
world never had a beginning. Then be adds "Created" to show that which was
made was a very small part of the power of the Creator. In the same way that
the potter, after having made with equal pains a great number of vessels,
has not exhausted either his art or his talent; thus the Maker of the Universe,
whose creative power, far from being bounded by one world, could extend to
the infinite, needed only the impulse of His will to bring the immensities
of the visible world into being. If then the world has a beginning, and if
it has been created, enquire who gave it this beginning, and who was the
Creator: or rather, in the fear that human reasonings may make you wander
from the truth, Moses has anticipated enquiry by engraving in our hearts,
as a seal and a safeguard, the awful name of God: "In the beginning God
created"--It is He, beneficent Nature, Goodness without measure, a worthy
object of love for all beings endowed with reason, the beauty the most to
be desired, the origin of all that exists, the source of life, intellectual
light, impenetrable wisdom, it is He who "in the beginning created heaven
and earth."
3. Do not then imagine, O man! that the visible world is without a beginning;
and because the celestial bodies move in a circular course, and it is difficult
for our senses to define the point where the circle begins, do not believe
that bodies impelled by a circular movement are, from their nature, without
a beginning. Without doubt the circle (I mean the plane figure described
by a single line) is beyond our perception, and it is impossible for us to
find out where it begins or where it ends; but we ought not on this account
to believe it to be without a beginning. Although we are not sensible of
it, it really begins at some point where the draughtsman has begun to draw
it at a certain radius from the centre. Thus seeing that figures which move
in a circle always return upon themselves, without for a single instant
interrupting the regularity of their course, do not vainly imagine to yourselves
that the world has neither beginning nor end. "For the fashion of this world
passeth away" and "Heaven and earth shall pass away." The dogmas of the end,
and of the renewing of the world, are announced beforehand in these short
words put at the head of the inspired history. "In the beginning God made."
That which was begun in time is condemned to come to an end in time. If there
has been a beginning do not doubt of the end. Of what use men are geometry--the
calculations of arithmetic--the study of solids and far-famed astronomy,
this laborious vanity, if those who pursue them imagine that this visible
world is co-eternal with the Creator of all things, with God Himself; if
they attribute to this limited world, which has a material body, the same
glory as to the incomprehensible and invisible nature; if they cannot conceive
that a whole, of which the parts are subject to corruption and change, must
of necessity end by itself submitting to the fate of its parts? But they
have become "vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Some have affirmed
that heaven co-exists with God from all eternity; others that it is God Himself
without beginning or end, and the cause of the particular arrangement of
all things.
4. One day, doubtless, their terrible condemnation will be the greater for
all this worldly wisdom, since, seeing so clearly into yam sciences, they
have wilfully shut their eyes to the knowledge of the truth. These men who
measure the distances of the stars and describe them, both those of the North,
always shining brilliantly in our view, and those of the southern pole visible
to the inhabitants of the South, but unknown to us; who divide the Northern
zone and the circle of the Zodiac into an infinity of parts, who observe
with exactitude the course of the stars, their fixed places, their declensions,
their return and the time that each takes to make its revolution; these men,
I say, have discovered all except one tiring: the fact that God is the Creator
of the universe, and the just Judge who rewards all the actions of life according
to their merit. They have not known how to raise themselves to the idea of
the consummation of all things, the consequence of the doctrine of judgment,
and to see that the world must change if souls pass from this life to a new
life. In reality, as the nature of the present life presents an affinity
to this world, so in the future life our souls will enjoy a lot conformable
to their new condition. But they are so far from applying these truths, that
they do but laugh when we announce to them the end of all things and the
regeneration of the age. Since the beginning naturally precedes that which
is derived from it, the writer, of necessity, when speaking to us of things
which had their origin in time, puts at the head of his narrative these
words--"In the beginning God created."
5. It appears, indeed, that even before this world an order of things existed
of which our mind can form an idea, but of which we can say nothing, because
it is too lofty a subject for men who are but beginners and are still babes
in knowledge. The birth of the world was preceded by a condition of things
suitable for the exercise of supernatural powers, outstripping the limits
of time, eternal and infinite. The Creator and Demiurge of the universe perfected
His works in it, spiritual light for the happiness of all who love the Lord,
intellectual and invisible natures, all the orderly arrangement of pure
intelligences who are beyond the reach of our mind and of whom we cannot
even discover the names. They fill the essence of this invisible world, as
Paul teaches us. "For by him were all things created that are in heaven,
and that are in earth, visible and invisible whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers" or virtues or hosts of angels or the dignities
of archangels. To this world at last it was necessary to add a new world,
both a school and training place where the souls of men should be taught
and a home for beings destined to be born and to die. Thus was created, of
a nature analogous to that of this world and the animals and plants which
live thereon, the succession of time, for ever pressing on and passing away
and never stopping in its course. Is not this the nature of time, where the
past is no more, the future does not exist, and the present escapes before
being recognised? And such also is the nature of the creature which lives
in time--condemned to grow or to perish without rest and without certain
stability. It is therefore fit that the bodies of animals and plants, obliged
to follow a sort of current, and carried away by the motion which leads them
to birth or to death, should live in the midst of surroundings whose nature
is in accord with beings subject to change. Thus the writer who wisely tells
us of the birth of the Universe does not fail to put these words at the head
of the narrative. "In the beginning God created;" that is to say, in the
beginning of time. Therefore, if he makes the world appear in the beginning,
it is not a proof that its birth has preceded that of all other things that
were made. He only wishes to tell us that, after the invisible and intellectual
world, the visible world, the world of the senses, began to exist.
The first movement is called beginning. "To do right is the beginning of
the good way." Just actions are truly the first steps towards a happy life.
Again, we call "beginning" the essential and first part from which a thing
proceeds, such as the foundation of a house, the keel of a vessel; it is
in this sense that it is said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom," that is to say that piety is, as it were, the groundwork and foundation
of perfection. Art is also tile beginning of the works of artists, the skill
of Bezaleel began the adornment of the tabernacle. Often even the good which
is the final cause is the beginning of actions. Thus the approbation of God
is the beginning of almsgiving, and the end laid up for us in the promises
the beginning of all virtuous efforts.
6. Such being the different senses of the word beginning, see if we have
not all the meanings here. You may know the epoch when the formation of this
world began, it, ascending into the past, you endeavour to discover the first
day. You will thus find what was the first movement of time; then that the
creation of the heavens and of the earth were like the foundation and the
groundwork, and afterwards that an intelligent reason, as the word beginning
indicates, presided in the order of visible things. You will finally discover
that the world was not conceived by chance and without reason, but for an
useful end and for the great advantage of all beings, since it is really
the school where reasonable souls exercise themselves, the training ground
where they learn to know God; since by the sight of visible and sensible
things the mind is led, as by a hand, to the contemplation of invisible things.
"For," as the Apostle says, "the invisible things of him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."
Perhaps these words "In the beginning God created" signify the rapid and
imperceptible moment of creation. The beginning, in effect, is indivisible
and instantaneous. The beginning of the road is not yet the road, and that
of the house is not yet the house; so the beginning of time is not yet time
and not even the least par-title of it. If some objector tell us that the
beginning is a time, he ought then, as he knows well, to submit it to the
division of time--a beginning, a middle and an end. Now it is ridiculous
to imagine a beginning of a beginning. Further, if we divide the beginning
into two, we make two instead of one, or rather make several, we really make
an infinity, for all that which is divided is divisible to the infinite.
Thus then, if it is said, "In the beginning God created," it is to teach
us that at the will of God the world arose in less than an instant, and it
is to convey this meaning more clearly that other interpreters have said:
"God made summarily" that is to say all at once and in a moment. But enough
concerning the beginning, if only to put a few points out of many.
7. Among arts, some have in view production, some practice, others theory.
The object of the last is the exercise of thought, that of the second, the
motion of the body. Should it cease, all stops; nothing more is to be seen.
Thus dancing and music have nothing behind; they have no object but themselves.
In creative arts on the contrary the work lasts after the operation. Such
is architecture--such are the arts which work in wood and brass and weaving,
all those indeed which, even when the artisan has disappeared, serve to show
an industrious intelligence and to cause the architect, the worker in brass
or the weaver, to be admired on account of his work. Thus, then, to show
that the world is a work of art displayed for the beholding of all people;
to make them know Him who created it, Moses does not use another word. "In
the beginning," he says "God created." He does not say "God worked," "God
formed," but" God created." Among those who have imagined that the world
co-existed with God from all eternity, many have denied that it was created
by God, but say that it exists spontaneously, as the shadow of this power.
God, they say, is the cause of it, but an involuntary cause, as the body
is the cause of the shadow and the flame is the cause of the brightness.
It is to correct this error that the prophet states, with so much precision,
"In the beginning God created." He did not make the thing itself the cause
of its existence. Being good, He made it an useful work. Being wise, He made
it everything that was most beautiful. Being powerful He made it very great.
Moses almost shows us the finger of the supreme artisan taking possession
of the substance of the universe, forming the different parts in one perfect
accord, and making a harmonious symphony result from the whole.
"In the beginning God made heaven and earth." By naming the two extremes,
he suggests the substance of the whole world, according to heaven the privilege
of seniority, and putting earth in the second rank. All intermediate beings
were created at the same time as the extremities. Thus, although there is
no mention of the elements, fire, water and air, imagine that they were all
compounded together, and you will find water, air and fire, in the earth.
For fire leaps out from stones; iron which is dug from the earth produces
under friction fire in plentiful measure. A marvellous fact! Fire shut up
in bodies lurks there hidden without harming them, but no sooner is it released
than it consumes that which has hitherto preserved it. The earth contains
water, as diggers of wells teach us. It contains air too, as is shown by
the vapours that it exhales under the sun's warmth when it is damp. Now,
as according to their nature, heaven occupies the higher and earth the lower
position in space, (one sees, in fact, that all which is light ascends towards
heaven, and heavy substances fall to the ground); as therefore height and
depth are the points the most opposed to each other it is enough to mention
the most distant parts to signify the inclusion of all which fills up intervening
Space. Do not ask, then, for an enumeration of all the elements; guess, from
what Holy Scripture indicates, all that is passed over in silence.
8. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." If we were to
wish to discover the essence of each of the beings which are offered for
our contemplation, or come under our senses, we should be drawn away into
long digressions, and the solution of the problem would require more words
than I possess, to examine fully the matter. To spend time on such points
would not prove to be to the edification of the Church. Upon the essence
of the heavens we are contented with what Isaiah says, for, in simple language,
he gives us sufficient idea of their nature, "The heaven was made like smoke,"
that is to say, He created a subtle substance, without solidity or density,
from which to form the heavens. As to the form of them we also content ourselves
with the language of the same prophet, when praising God "that stretcheth
out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in."
In the same way, as concerns the earth, let us resolve not to torment ourselves
by trying to find out its essence, not to tire our reason by seeking for
the substance which it conceals. Do not let us seek for any nature devoid
of qualities by the conditions of its existence, but let us know that all
the phenomena with which we see it clothed regard the conditions of its existence
and complete its essence. Try to take away by reason each of the qualities
it possesses, and you will arrive at nothing. Take away black, cold, weight,
density, the qualities which concern taste, in one word all these which we
see in it, and the substance vanishes.
If I ask you to leave these vain questions, I will not expect you to try
and find out the earth's point of support. The mind would reel on beholding
its reasonings losing themselves without end. Do you say that the earth reposes
on a bed of air? How, then, can this soft substance, without consistency,
resist the enormous weight which presses upon it? How is it that it does
not slip away in all directions, to avoid the sinking weight, and to spread
itself over the mass which overwhelms it? Do you suppose that water is the
foundation of the earth? You will then always have to ask yourself how it
is that so heavy and opaque a body does not pass through the water; how a
mass of such a weight is held up by a nature weaker than itself. Then you
must seek a base for the waters, and you will be in much difficulty to say
upon what the water itself rests.
9. Do you suppose that a heavier body prevents the earth from failing into
the abyss? Then you must consider that this support needs itself a support
to prevent it from failing. Can we imagine one? Our reason again demands
vet another support, and thus we shall fall into the infinite, always imagining
a base for the base which we have already found. And the further we advance
in this reasoning the greater force we are obliged to give to this base,
so that it may be able to support all the mass weighing upon it. Put then
a limit to your thought, so that your curiosity in investigating the
incomprehensible may not incur the reproaches of Job, and you be not asked
by him, "Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?" If ever you hear
in the Psalms, "I bear up the pillars of it;" see in these pillars the power
which sustains it. Because what means this other passage, "He hath founded
it upon the sea," if not that the water is spread all around the earth? How
then can water, the fluid element which flows down every declivity, remain
suspended without ever flowing? You do not reflect that the idea of the earth
suspended by itself throws your reason into a like but even greater difficulty,
since from its nature it is heavier. But let us admit that the earth rests
upon itself, or let us say that it rides the waters, we must still remain
faithful to thought of true religion and recognise that all is sustained
by the Creator's power. Let us then reply to ourselves, and let us reply
to those who ask us upon what support this enormous mass rests, "In His hands
are the ends of the earth." It is a doctrine as infallible for our own
information as profitable for our hearers.
10. There are inquirers into nature who with a great display of words give
reasons for the immobility of the earth. Placed, they say, in the middle
of the universe and not being able to incline more to one side than the other
because its centre is everywhere the same distance from the surface, it
necessarily rests upon itself; since a weight which is everywhere equal cannot
lean to either side. It is not, they go on, without reason or by chance that
the earth occupies the centre of the universe. It is its natural and necessary
position. As the celestial body occupies the higher extremity of space all
heavy bodies, they argue, that we may suppose to have fallen from these high
regions, will be carried from all directions to the centre, and the point
towards which the parts are tending will evidently be the one to which the
whole mass will be thrust together. If stones, wood, all terrestrial bodies,
fall from above downwards, this must be the proper and natural place of the
whole earth. If, on the contrary, a light body is separated from the centre,
it is evident that it will ascend towards the higher regions. Thus heavy
bodies move from the top to the bottom, and following this reasoning, the
bottom is none other than the centre of the world. Do not then be surprised
that the world never falls: it occupies the centre of the universe, its natural
place. By necessity it is obliged to remain in its place, unless a movement
contrary to nature should displace it. If there is anything in this system
which might appear probable to you, keep your admiration for the source of
such perfect order, for the wisdom of God. Grand phenomena do not strike
us the less when we have discovered something of their wonderful mechanism.
Is it otherwise here? At all events let us prefer the simplicity of faith
to the demonstrations of reason.
11. We might say the same thing of the heavens. With what a noise of words
the sages of this world have discussed their nature! Some have said that
heaven is composed of four elements as being tangible and visible, and is
made up of earth on account of its power of resistance, with fire because
it is striking to the eye, with air and water on account of the mixture.
Others have rejected this system as improbable, and introduced into the world,
to form the heavens, a fifth element after their own fashioning. There exists.
they say, an aethereal body which is neither fire, air, earth, nor water,
nor in one word any simple body. These simple bodies have their own natural
motion in a straight line, light bodies upwards and heavy bodies downwards;
now this motion upwards and downwards is not the same as circular motion;
there is the greatest possible difference between straight and circular motion.
It therefore follows that bodies whose motion is so various must vary also
in their essence. But, it is not even possible to suppose that the heavens
should be formed of primitive bodies which we call elements, because the
reunion of contrary forces could not produce an even and spontaneous motion,
when each of the simple bodies is receiving a different impulse from nature.
Thus it is a labour to maintain composite bodies in continual movement, because
it is impossible to put even a single one of their movements in accord and
harmony with all those that are in discord; since what is proper to the light
particle, is in warfare with that of a heavier one. If we attempt to rise
we are stopped by the weight of the terrestrial element; if we throw ourselves
down we violate the igneous part of our being in dragging it down contrary
to its nature. Now this struggle of the elements effects their dissolution.
A body to which violence is done and which is placed in opposition to nature,
after a short but energetic resistance, is soon dissolved into as many parts
as it had elements, each of the constituent parts returning to its natural
place. It is the force of these reasons, say the inventors of the fifth kind
of body for the genesis of heaven and the stars, which constrained them to
reject the system of their predecessors and to have recourse to their own
hypothesis. But yet another fine speaker arises and disperses and destroys
this theory to give predominance to an idea of his own invention.
Do not let us undertake to follow them for fear of falling into like frivolities;
let them refute each other, and, without disquieting ourselves about essence,
let us say with Moses "God created the heavens and the earth." Let us glorify
the supreme Artificer for all that was wisely and skillfully made; by the
beauty of visible things let us raise ourselves to Him who is above all beauty;
by the grandeur of bodies, sensible and limited in their nature, let us conceive
of the infinite Being whose immensity and omnipotence surpass all the efforts
of the imagination. Because, although we ignore the nature of created things,
the objects which on all sides attract our notice are so marvellous, that
the most penetrating mind cannot attain to the knowledge of the least of
the phenomena of the world, either to give a suitable explanation of it or
to render due praise to the Creator, to Whom belong all glory, all honour
and all power world without end. Amen. |
|
