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Augustine on the Creation of the World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

William A. Christian
William A. Christian
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

Few passages of Scripture intrigued Augustine as much as the first sentence of the book of Genesis. In the Confessions, in his treatises on Genesis, in the City of God, and elsewhere he dwells on it and recurs to it, as though he felt he could not exhaust its suggestions and implications. His reflections on this sentence are ample evidence of the acuteness, force, and fecundity of his mind.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 1953 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953

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References

1 There is in the way the Scripture speaks, says Augustine, a loftiness which mocks at the pretensions of the intellectually arrogant, and a profundity which frightens away those who are mere pedants (adtentos). By its truth, however, it feeds mature minds, and by its gentleness it nourishes immature minds, de Genesi ad litteram V, 3.

References are to the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum unless otherwise noted. The translations in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (First Series), except for the Confessions where Pusey's translation was used, have been compared with the text and in many cases revised. I am grateful to Mr. David Coffin, of Smith College, for his advice on translation, but any mistakes are my own.

2 Conf. XIII, v (6).

3 Cf. Timaeus 38B.

4 de civ. Dei XI, 6.

5 de civ. Dei XI, 6. Cf. also XII, 16.

6 de civ. Dei XI, 8. Cf. Ps. 148:5.

7 de Gen. ad litt. VI, 6 (creavit omnia simul). Augustine quotes this Latin version of Ecclesiasticus 18:1 very often. The Septuagint reads ἔκτισεν τὰ πάντα κοινῆ. Cf. Messenger, E. C.: Evolution and Theology (New York, Macmillan, 1932)Google Scholar.

8 Conf. XII, xv (18).

9 de Gen. ad litt. IIII, 26.

10 de civ. Dei XI, 33.

11 de Gen. ad litt. V, 3.

12 Cf. Institutes I, xiv, 1, and Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh, 1847), p. 61.

13 Critique of Pure Reason (N. Kemp Smith, tr.), p. 397 (first antinomy, antithesis).

14 Conf. XI, xii–xiii (14–15). Cf. also VII, xv (21).

15 de civ. Dei XII, 16 (15 in NPNF). He says he fears if he makes this reply he may be accused of recklessness, therefore he does not make it as a positive assertion. But his hesitation is not at saying there was no time when there was no time. He says it would be utter foolishness to deny this. His point is that the suggestion about the angels is speculation beyond what is clearly taught in Scripture. It is plain that as far as speculation goes he is inclined toward this suggestion.

16 de civ. Dei XII, 16 (15 in NPNF).

17 de civ. Dei XII, 17 (16 in NPNF). Cf. Titus 1:2.

18 Conf. XI, xiii (16). Cf. Ps. 102:27 (101:28).

19 Introduction à l'ètude de saint Augustin (Paris, Vrin, 1929), pp. 246, 251. Cf. Conf. XI, xi (13).

20 Conf. XI, xxxi (41).

21 de civ. Dei XI, 4. Cf. also X, 30; XII, 21 (20 in NPNF). Augustine excepts Porphyry, who acknowledged that the soul which found the happy life did not lose it again, and at this point “abjured the tenets of his school” (XII, 21).

22 de civ. Dei XI, 4.

23 Though the drama of human life on this earth will have an end (cf. de civ. Dei XX, 7), this will be the end of the age (saeculum) but not the end of time. Presumably, time will exist as long as there are changing creatures.

24 de civ. Dei XII, 14 (13 in NPNF).

25 de civ. Dei XII, 14 (13 in NPNF). Cf. Rom. 6:9; I Thess. 4:16.

26 de civ. Dei XII, 20 (19 in NPNF).

27 de civ. Dei XII, 19 (18 in NPNF).

28 de civ. Dei XII, 21 (20 in NPNF). Cf. also 19.

29 de civ. Dei XII, 18 (17 in NPNF).

30 Conf. XII, xiii (16).

31 Conf. XII, vii (7).

32 de natura boni 18. Cf. C. J. O’Toole: The Philosophy of Creation in the Writings of St. Augustine (Washington, Catholic University, 1944), ch. 3.

33 Conf. XII, vi (6). The association of formless matter with change leads Augustine to speak of a “spiritual matter,” since angels and human souls, as well as bodies, are changeable. Cf. Conf. XII, xx (29) and de Gen. ad litt. V, 5; VII, 9, 10.

34 Conf. XIII, xxxiii (48).

35 Conf. XII xxix (40).

36 de Gen. ad litt. V, 23.

37 Cf. M. J. McKeough: The Meaning of the Rationes Seminales in St. Augustine (Washington, Catholic University, 1926); E. C. Messenger, op. cit.; and C. J. O’Toole, op. cit.

38 de Gen. ad litt. VI, 6.

39 de Gen. ad litt. VI, 8. In the City of God Augustine argues against those who hold that the human race always existed. He says, “From the sacred writings we compute that six thousand years have not yet passed since the institution of mankind.” XII, 11 (10 in NPNF). Dods’ translation in NPNF is misleading since he leaves out an equivalent of ab institutione hominis. It seems probable that Augustine is not here arguing that the world is less than 6000 years old, as the editor of NPNF, J. E. C. Welldon in his edition (London, S.P.C.K., 1924), and Bourke, V. J.: Augustine’s Quest for Wisdom (Milwaukee, Bruce, 1945), p. 265Google Scholar, all seem to suggest. Later in the same book of the City of God Augustine says, “I confess I am ignorant what ages passed before the human race was instituted” (17–16 in NPNF).

Augustine was inclined to think that the human soul was not created “causally” but “actually” in the beginning, later to be united with man’s body, though he was aware of the difficulties attending this view. Cf. de Gen. ad litt. VII, 22–28, 33; Bourke: op cit., pp. 232–236; Messenger: op. cit., pp. 177–178; and McKeough: op. cit., p. 87. He was torn between “creationism” and “traducianism” as explanations of the origin of the souls of subsequent human beings.

40 de Gen. ad litt. IX, 17.

41 de Gen. ad litt. IX, 17.

42 Conf. XII, xxvii (37).

43 de civ. Dei XI, 5.

44 In Joannis evangelium II, 10 (Migne: PL).

45 In de nat. boni 26, he cites Rom. 4:17, II Mace. 7:28, and Ps. 148:5. He uses de nihilo, as a more exact expression than ex nihilo would be. Cf. de nat. boni 27.

46 Conf. XII, vii (7).

47 de nat. boni 27.

48 de civ. Dei XIV, 5.

49 Cf. Enn. I, viii, 3, 14; II, iv, 16; and W. R. Inge: The Philosophy of Plotinus (London, Longmans, 1918), v. I, p. 134. Porphyry reported that Plotinus was ashamed of being “in the body.” Plotinus, nevertheless, does not assert that nonbeing (τò µὴ ὅν), which he distinguished from “absolutely nothing” ( οὐκ ὄν), is intrinsically evil so clearly and consistently as Étienne Gilson seems to suggest he does. Cf. The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (New York, Scribner's, 1936), p. IIIGoogle Scholar.

50 de civ. Dei XIII, 16.

51 de civ. Dei XIII, 18.

52 de civ. Dei X, 30. Cf. also XXII, 24, and de doctrina Christiana I, 24.

53 de civ. Dei XI, 22.

54 contra epistulam fundamenti, 23. Cf. de nat. boni, 18.

55 de civ. Dei XI, 22.

56 Conf. XII, xi (11).

57 de civ. Dei XI, 22.

58 de civ. Dei XI, 23.

59 de civ. Dei XI,. 21. Cf. Timaeus 29E–30B.

60 Conf. XIII, xxxii (47).

61 Philosophical Theology (Cambridge University, 1930), v. II, p. 132Google Scholar.