RSV-CCC study - Genesis 1:2-4

[richardeekw]

**2: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. **

CCC on 1:2

**292 **The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit, 132 inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church’s rule of faith: “There exists but one God. . . he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom”, “by the Son and the Spirit” who, so to speak, are “his hands”. 133 Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.

132 Cf. Ps 33 6; 104:30; Gen 1:2-3.
133 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 2, 30, 9; 4, 20, I: PG 7/1, 822, 1032.

**243 **Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of “another Paraclete” (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously “spoken through the prophets”, the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them “into all the truth”. 68 The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father.

68 Cf. Gen 1:2; Nicene Creed (DS 150); Jn 14:17, 26; 16:13.

**703 **The Word of God and his Breath are at the origin of the being and life of every creature: 63
It belongs to the Holy Spirit to rule, sanctify, and animate creation, for he is God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son… Power over life pertains to the Spirit, for being God he preserves creation in the Father through the Son. 64

63 Cf. Ps 33:6; 104:30; Gen 1:2; 2:7; Eccl 3:20-21; Ezek 37:10.
64 Byzantine liturgy, Sundays of the second mode, Troparion of Morning Prayer.

**1218 **Since the beginning of the world, water, so humble and wonderful a creature, has been the source of life and fruitfulness. Sacred Scripture sees it as “oveshadowed” by the Spirit of God: 12
At the very dawn of creation
your Spirit breathed on the waters,
making them the wellspring of all holiness. 13

12 Cf. Gen 1:2.
13 Roman Missal, Easter Vigil 42: Blessing of Water.

3 And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

B]CCC on Gen 1:3

**298 **Since God could create everything out of nothing, he can also, through the Holy Spirit, give spiritual life to sinners by creating a pure heart in them, 148 and bodily life to the dead through the Resurrection. God “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” 149 And since God was able to make light shine in darkness by his Word, he can also give the light of faith to those who do not yet know him. 150

48 Cf. Ps 51:12.
149 Rom 4:17.
150 Cf. Gen 1:3; 2 Cor 4:6.

CCC on Gen 1:2-3

**292 **The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit, 132 inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative co-operation is clearly affirmed in the Church’s rule of faith: “There exists but one God. . . he is the Father, God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom”, “by the Son and the Spirit” who, so to speak, are “his hands”. 133 Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.

132 Cf. Ps 33 6; 104:30; Gen 1:2-3.
133 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 2, 30, 9; 4, 20, I: PG 7/1, 822, 1032.

**4: And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. **

CCC on Gen 1:4

**299 **Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: “You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.” 151 The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the “image of the invisible God”, is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the “image of God” and called to a personal relationship with God. 152 Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work. 153 Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that goodness - “And God saw that it was good. . . very good” 154- for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world. 155

152 Col 1:15, Gen 1:26.
153 Cf. Ps 19:2-5; Job 42:3.
154 Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 31.
155 Cf. DS 286; 455-463; 800; 1333; 3002.

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[richardeekw]

contd…2

(Edtracted from ) rtforum.org/lt/lt47.html (St Augustine)

    **And the earth was void and empty, .... (Gen 1:2). **St. Augustine explains that the author uses the more common word earth to signify unformed matter, but, he adds, the reader should not suppose that matter could have actually existed without form: what are separated artfully in the narrative, namely, the matter and the form, were in historical fact created simultaneously by God. 15 And so, not in temporal but in causal order first was created the unformed and formable raw material out of which everything was to be fashioned. 16 Thus does St. Augustine understand the words of Wis 11:18: "For thy almighty hand, which made the world of matter without form ...." 17 It is, furthermore, his studied opinion that all the matter in the universe was created at the same instant of time. Thus, the formless matter mentioned in verse two is understood to have had a certain priority of origin but not of time over the specific things mentioned in the succeeding verses. Matter and form are divided in the account, but they were created simultaneously. 18 While admitting that for God to make something incomplete and then to complete it has nothing reprehensible in it, St. Augustine sees the "six days" as a distribution only of narrative and not of time. 19 Thus, in his view, God "created all things together" (Ecclesiasticus 18:1), but separated them into six days in the account for those who could understand only piece by piece. 20 So the six days of the creation account are presented in the order in which they are known to the blessed angels, having before and after in the connection of the creatures but simultaneity in the effectiveness of the Creator." 21

    ... **and darkness was upon the face of the deep, .... (Gen 1:2).** This darkness is seen as covering and interpenetrating "an undefined chaos of earth and sea, for, where light is not, darkness must needs be." 22 This unformed matter, "although made out of nothing," has, nevertheless, "a capability for species and forms." 23 St. Augustine conjectures, without wanting to impose his opinion even upon himself, that the organized state of the things in the universe might be called, in the terminology of Genesis, "the world," while heaven and earth in Gen 1:1 represent the raw material, the "seed," as it were, of the organized heaven and earth, described here in Gen 1:2 as a mixture of indistinct elements to be given shape and form by God the divine Artist. 24

    ... **and the spirit of God moved over the waters (Gen 1:2).** Augustine is not sure, regarding the waters over which the Spirit of God moved, "whether by the name of water (the author of Genesis 1) wished to designate all bodily matter in order in this way to suggest from what have been made and fashioned all the things that we recognize in their kinds, calling it 'water,' because it is from moist nature that we see all the things on earth to be fashioned and to grow according to their various kinds, or whether he wished to designate a certain spiritual life [of the angels] fluctuating as it were before the form of its conversion." 25 But Augustine does not hesitate to affirm a reference to the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity in these first two verses of Genesis: "For, where Scripture says, In the beginning God made heaven and earth, we understand the Father in the name of God, and the Son in the name of the Beginning, Who is the beginning, not of the Father, but through Himself of the first and most preferred spiritual creatures, and following that, of all creatures, and, where Scripture says, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters, we see a full commemoration of the Trinity." 26 The Holy Spirit, he says, moved over the waters, not in a spatial sense, but by His power to effect, just as, for instance, the will of an artisan moves over the wood or other material that he is going to fashion." 27

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[richardeekw]

contd…3

  **And God said: Be light made. And light was made (Gen 1:3).** St. Augustine made several unsatisfactory attempts to find a chronological explanation of the six days of creation in Genesis 1 while he was working on his intellectual interpretation of its literal sense. But he wondered why it should have taken Almighty God six days to effect the creation, and he opted instead for the simultaneous creation of the whole world. He puzzled over the creation of light on the first day, if the sun, the moon, and the stars came into place only on the fourth day. What would such a light-source be and how could its encircling a formless, unsolidified earth for two days have been able to cast the shadow of night? 28 Not having found a satisfactory solution to this question, he considered the possibility that the light created on the first day was a spiritual light, coming after darkness in the sense that the minds of angels were enlightened and formed by their Creator from the supernaturally unformed state of their natural knowledge, so that their natural knowledge of their own nature is referred to as evening of the first day, and the elevation of that knowledge to the vision and praise of the Light which is God Himself is referred to as morning of the first day. 29

    **He weighed the two alternatives: "... **the first three days of all were passed without the sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. But, first of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the darkness, and called the light Day, and the darkness Night; but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was, and yet we must unhesitatingly believe it. For either it was some material light, whether proceeding from the upper parts of the world, far removed from our sight, or from the spot where the sun was afterwards kindled; or under the name of light the holy city was signified, composed of holy angels and blessed spirits, the city of which the Apostle says, '(that) Jerusalem which is above is our eternal mother in heaven' (Gal 4:26); and in another place, 'For ye are all the children of the light and the children of the day' (1 Thess 5:5)." 30

   ** Regarding the command of God, Be light made, **Augustine reasons: "But if the light which first was ordered to be made and was made is also to be understood as holding the pre-eminent place in creation, this is intellectual life, which, unless it should be turned to the Creator in order to be enlightened, would fluctuate formlessly." 31 He maintains that, if the spiritual light that was made is not to be understood as the "true light which is coeternal with the Father," but as the "wisdom that was made before all," then it is the passage of eternal wisdom into the sanctified souls of rational creatures, provided also that it was the creation of spirits that is spoken of under the name of heaven where it is written (Gen 1:1), In the beginning God created heaven and earth, and that it was not the physical heaven. 32

    While, in The City of God, Augustine states that the implicit mention of the creation of the angels which could not conceivably have been omitted in the account is made either under the name of heaven in verse one "or perhaps rather under the name of light" in verse 3, 33 he strongly asserts in The Letter of Genesis that the creation of the angels is mentioned under the name of heaven in verse 1 and their enlightenment by divine grace under the name of light in verse 3. He was guided to this conclusion by insurmounted difficulties in first ascribing the creation of physical light to this latter verse and then putting the six days of creation into a reasonable historical succession. 34 Thus, among many affirmations in The Letter of Genesis that the light mentioned in Gen 1:3 refers to the supernatural enlightenment of the angels by the Beatific Vision, we find the following: "And messengers in Greek are called 'angels,' by which generic title is named that whole city on high which we think was created on the first day." 35 It is my understanding, therefore, of St. Augustine's opinion regarding the creation and elevation of the angels in the narrative of Genesis 1, that the supernatural illumination of the good angels in the Beatific Vision is literally implied under the name light in verse three, and the creation of the angels is most probably implied under the name of heaven (or the heavens) in verse one, but, if not, then it is tacitly included under the name of light in verse three, which expressly narrates their elevation by grace. But it must be added that he never excluded the possibility that material light is what is literally intended under the creation of light in verse three.

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[richardeekw]

contd…4

**And God saw the light that it was good .... (Gen 1:4). **St. Augustine has little hesitation in affirming that the Holy Spirit is the holiness and goodness of the Blessed Trinity; He is the substantial Holiness of the Blessed Trinity, consubstantial with the Father and the Son. Hence, he says, "the whole Trinity is revealed to us in the creation, as well as "the enlightenment, the blessedness of the Holy City which is above among the angels." God has created, illumined, and blessed this city. "In God's eternity is its life; in God's truth its light; in God's goodness its joy." 36 The light whose goodness God saw is first of all the supernatural illumination of the good angels in the Beatific Vision, in their perfection as intellectual creatures converted to knowledge of and love for God in His Three Persons, and then the goodness of the species of all other creatures as seen in this light. And the three divine Persons are thus represented in the description of creation: the Word of God and the Begetter of the Word when it says God said, and the Holy Goodness in Whom God is pleased by whatever completed thing pleases Him in proportion to the measure of its nature." 37 The goodness of the thing is "the approval of the work in its design, which is the Wisdom of God." 38 God made the world good (Gen 1:31). "In this creation, had no one sinned, the world would have been filled and beautified with natures good without exception." 39


... **and he divided the light from the darkness (Gen 1:4). **In The City of God, St. Augustine avers that, if he is correct in understanding by the creation of light (verse 3) the creation of the angels as participators in that eternal light which is the only-begotten Son of God, then they themselves, as sharing in the unchanging light and day which is the Word of God, Who is "the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world" (Jn 1:9), can be called day, although they are light and day, not in themselves, but in God. But the unclean spirits, who have become impure by turning away from the true light of the Wisdom of God, "are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, having been deprived of participation in eternal light." 40 Peter the Apostle, he says, very plainly declares (2 Peter 2:4) that certain angels sinned and were thrust down to the lowest parts of this world; they are called 'darkness.' "Wherefore, though light and darkness are to be taken in their literal meaning in these passages of Genesis, ..., yet, for our part, we understand these two societies of angels, ... the one dwelling in the heaven of heavens, the other cast thence and raging through the lower regions of the air. ... For, though it is the material works of God that are spoken of, they have certainly a resemblance to the spiritual." 41

  **  Thus, evening of the first day is the contemplation by the angels of their own created nature**, while morning is their turning to the praise and love of God. Evening of the second day is their knowledge of the firmament in itself, while morning is their referring this knowledge to the praise and love of God. Evening of the third day is their knowledge of the earth and the sea and all the things that grow out of the earth. And so forth for the other three days. 57 When the sacred account states that God rested on the seventh day (which is also a perfect number for another reason), it means "that those rest who are in Him and whom He makes to rest." 58 The seventh day has no evening, since it has no creature for its object. 59 And because God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it (Gen 2:3), "Scripture commends and the Church knows that the number seven is in some way dedicated to the Holy Spirit." 60

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[richardeekw]

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 While St. Augustine is restrained in affirming this opinion, he insists that his interpretation of light and day in the Genesis account is intended as the proper and not merely a figurative or allegorical meaning of the words. In The Letter of Genesis he explains: "Let no one think that what I have said about spiritual light and the creation of day in the spiritual and angelic creature and about the contemplation which it has in the Word of God and about the knowledge by which the creature is known in itself and its being referred to the praise of unchangeable truth is meant to be understood, not in the proper sense (of the words) but figuratively, as it were, and allegorically, .... for where the light is better and more certain, there also it is more truly day. For Christ is not called the light in the same way that He is called a stone, since the former is in the proper sense, while the latter is in a figurative sense. ... Whoever seeks another meaning in the numbering of those days, not figuratively in prophecy, but properly in the actual creation of things, let him seek and with the help of God let him find one. ... For I do not maintain this interpretation in such a way that I contend that another more preferable one cannot be found, in the way that I maintain that Sacred Scripture did not want to suggest to us that God rested, as it were, after feeling tired or worn out." 61

==================

(Extrated from CSS – Dr Scott Hahn and Team & SH talks on Salvation History)

**If God created time and space, as we see here in Genesis 1, He lives outside of them. **It is a difficult concept to comprehend, isn’t it?
And yet Catholic life can be said to be pervaded with an element of “timelessness.”

• Can you describe why that is true?

Now go back to vs. 1

• What two realms of existence does God create, and

• of what does He make them?

What was God Doing Before He Created?
“In the beginning God created.”
What was God doing before he created?

Did you ever wonder that?
How many people have ever wondered, "What was God doing with the billions and trillions and quadrillions of years that he had on his hands before he created?
Just sitting around,twirling his thumbs, waiting, wondering what it would be like, planning, and so on?

It’s a hard question.
Now there are two approaches to answering it.

One was taken by a great reformer, a great Protestant reformer, John Calvin said that he was preparing hell for people who ask such impertinent questions. There might be a certain propriety in such a response. But I prefer what St. Augustine said and many others as well.

**The Void…Creation of Light and separation of light from darkness (cf Gen 1:2-4)**Augustine, I think might have been trying to be a little bit humorous. Certainly he was trying to be subtle and ironic when he said, “What was God doing before he created?”
He answered, “Nothing. He didn’t have the time.”

Now you’ve got to think about that for a second. It kind of gives you a charley horse between the ears.
What does he mean, “Nothing. He didn’t have the time.”
Well, for Augustine, time and space are relative properties for creatures but not the creator.

So what was God doing before he created?
Nothing. He didn’t have the time!
Time began when God created it. He created out of nothing. He didn’t use a pile of pre-existent matter that he had in the side yard. He created out of nothing. Matter is what he spoke into existence by the powerful word of God. So likewise, time was created and space and matter.

These were the things that God created when he said, “Let there be light” and he pronounced these various “fiats” as we might say in Latin, “Let there be, let there be…” He didn’t roll up his sleeves and get to work and so many hours later it was there. His word went forth and whatever he declared, by declaring it, he did it!

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[richardeekw]

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Haydock;s Biblical Commentary 1959 Edition

Ver. 2. Spirit of God, giving life, vigour, and motion to things, and preparing the waters for the sacred office of baptism, in which, by the institution of Jesus Christ, we must be born again; and, like spiritual fishes, swim amid the tempestuous billows of this world. (v. Tert.[Tertullian?], &c.) (Worthington) (Haydock)—This Spirit is what the Pagan philosophers styled the Soul of the World. (Calmet) — If we compare their writings with the books of Moses and the prophets, we shall find that they agree in many points.

Ver. 3. Light. The sun was made on the fourth day, and placed in the firmament to distinguish the seasons, &c.; but the particles of fire were created on the first day, and by their, or the earth’s motion, served to discriminate day from the preceding night, or darkness, which was upon the face of the deep. (Haydock) — Perhaps this body of light might resemble the bright cloud which accompanied the Israelites, Exodus xiv. 19, or the three first days might have a kind of imperfect sun, or be like one of our cloudy days. Nothing can be defined with certainty respecting the nature of this primeval light.

Ver. 4. Good; beautiful and convenient: — he divided light by giving it qualities incompatible with darkness, which is not any thing substantial, and therefore Moses does not say it was created. (Calmet) — While our hemisphere enjoys the day, the other half of the world is involved in darkness. St. Augustine supposes the fall and punishment of the apostate angels are here insinuated.

END​

Over to you.

a) Your Reflection,Observation & Personal Comments.
b) Do you like such :threads”? Do you suggest I continue with others later?

Saturday 10th Feb 2007

 

[Seamus_Sully]

2: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

St. Augustine says that God created everything through and in His Eternal Word, later to be Incarnate in the Messiah, Jesus the Christ.

Since it was from eternity, it is outside of time and space.

Also, it was done simultaneously.

It is written in steps or days for out understanding.

Also, he says that moving should really be seen as brood.

He makes the connection with Jesus brood over Jerusalem.

The without form and void is really tough for me.

If I made some sense, I will address them later.

Also, the deep is tough.