De Verbis Scripturae

Victorinus on the Words of Scripture: "Evening came, and morning, and it was one day." Does the day begin from evening, or from morning? I. If the divine scriptures were read simply, the reading of any chapter would never be misunderstood by anyone, but would be received unanimously, piously and justly as it contains itself. The Philonic dispute would cease, the syllogistic speech would cease, every superstitious invention would cease: nor would the dark collation of any men ever be recognized. All would think as one, would acquiesce to each other, would profess the same things, as the most lucid reading declares itself. For our dear friend and companion posed a question to us, whether the whole world had hours appropriate to itself, or not: "Finally," he says, "I say, if it is the first hour here, it would hold the first hour for the whole world. For it seems absurd to me to hear that different hours are said to be contained across the four parts of the earth. But I say, since all are habitable, how can it be proven to me that one hour does not belong to all men? But I say, since it is day here, show me in which part you assert it is night, when all regions of the sky are illuminated by day. For Moses taught us in the book of Genesis no differently than that day would be day for the whole world, and night would hold the entire orb in darkness." Therefore, friend, if these things which have been said by you are sufficient for the question, I ask that you patiently grant, and hear from us what is true.

But not so that you might detect human fabrications, but rather that you might more fully approve that they are divine utterances. Hence, if the reading is found to have authority, you must grant us the opportunity to speak, so that you may learn more plainly how the most blessed Moses briefly signified concerning day and night. For Solomon also teaches us, saying: "Your good spirit is in all things; for this reason, you correct those who err in parts; but concerning those who sin, you admonish them by speaking, so that, having abandoned ignorance, they may believe in the words of God" (Wisdom 12:1). For every scripture is inspired by the Spirit of God, as the Apostle Paul says, because it requires interpretation (2 Peter 1:20). For Apollos, too, was powerful in the Scriptures (Acts 18:24), especially, and he burned with the spirit; and yet Aquila and Priscilla took hold of him and more diligently revealed the way of the Lord to him. For the wise are easily rebuked. For the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

II. We therefore unfold each thing that the reading of Genesis teaches. But it would be lengthy to make a discourse concerning those things which have been said above: and let us refrain from disputing about heaven and earth, darkness and the abyss, water and spirit, because it is not yet time to say anything about these, until this more responds and satisfies the matters set forth. There is indeed the fact that darkness possessed the whole world, as the reading declares in the preceding text. For it is said thus: "Let there be light, and light was made" (Gen. 1:3). It is asked by the wise where light was made: for darkness was not substantial, as the philosophers say, and there was in them a certain material figuration: 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. Therefore, what is made by God is believed to be substantial. Hence, if they are substantial, they were not reduced to nothing when light was made. But neither were they mixed together, because both are substances, which are contrary to each other even today, as heat is to cold, or sweetness to bitterness. But when they are tempered with each other, they are recognized as necessary to each other. Let the calumny cease, therefore, if we have said they are contrary according to substance, but necessary in generating creatures and in resting from all works. We have shown, however, that when light was made, darkness was not removed, but rather Scripture teaches that it was reduced in part, that is, condensed in the middle of the orb, so that light, once made, would illuminate the middle part of the world.

For the substance of God is not the mundane light, which was made so that it might possess the whole orb. But there is another light which is true, which can illuminate the whole world, concerning which the Evangelist says: "There is a true light, which illuminates every man coming into this world" (John 1:9). The true light therefore illuminates the whole world, because darkness yields place to its author: just as the sun will be darkened by the true light, and will be covered with darkness. But that which is not yet the true light, for that reason could not illuminate the whole world at once with its apex, indeed ought not, lest the day be adjudged as defined, but be established by a swifter course at the moments of the hours. For the weakness of the creature appears in that it cannot encompass the whole world, and therefore it is discerned to travel through parts even today. III. But truly, if it possessed the whole orb with its light, it would by no means show any hour in the day: if it were to illuminate the whole world at some time, there would be nothing for it to traverse. According to this reasoning, which we have discussed, we will be able rightly to understand the prophet Moses saying: "And God separated between light and darkness" (Gen. 1:4). But what is it to separate, if not to make a distance between these? If he instituted a distance and set one against the other, and decreed that they themselves be in division, so that he called light day, but darkness night, we now hear one thing called by another. But why was the other not pleasing, if what was first announced were sufficient?

afterwards called it "day," as if it had come into his mind. But far be it from us to be unwilling to inquire, while the aforementioned name remains, that it is called "day": what followed certainly concluded to signify a space of twelve hours. For not even today, if it is called the Lord's day, is it defined without its proper hours. Therefore, when you say "day," you establish any defined hour up to evening. Thus my master Moses says that light is called "day," so that we might recognize that the daily usage of twelve hours was spoken of not without purpose. Finally, he continues: "And there was evening, and there was morning, one day" (Gen. 1:5). But if he calls it evening and afterwards day made, he designates the completed hours of that creation. For Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes asks: "What is it that has been made? That which will be made; but what has been, that is what will be" (Eccl. 1:9). IV. Therefore, friend, if today the day is defined in this way, why do we not believe the prophet saying that in the beginning it was made as it is made today: nothing new under the sun, nothing added, nothing diminished? Evening remains until morning, fulfilling the hours of the night, and thus one defined day is called, in which that morning is not said to be of the first day, but is found to be the beginning of the second. We inquire, however, whether our Lord worked in the day or in the night? Certainly, if in the day, that morning is not adjudged to be of the first day, when the firmament of heaven is commanded to be made in it.

If, however, the firmament was made on the second day, the morning of the second day appeared. For the equilibrium of day and night had been 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" (Gen. 1:9), which it soon commanded to bring forth grass of fodder according to its kind, and fruit-bearing trees. In these things, evening came, and morning came, the third day. Therefore, if you take that morning as belonging to the third day, why does Scripture say: "Let two luminaries be made in the firmament of the sky, so that they shine upon the earth at the beginning of day and night, so that they divide between day and night, and be signs for days and times and years?" (Ibid., 14). But no one 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. If that morning truly belonged to the third day, our predecessors would never have professed that the sun and moon were made on the fourth day. If they were made on the fourth day, that morning is not from the third day, but from the fourth, on which the sun and moon and the rest were made. Finally, they divide between day and night in their beginnings.

For thus their author balanced them, so that they would hold and traverse an equal amount of the world’s space: not that, having fulfilled their office, they would have a resting place, but rather they run unceasingly within their own limits. For the sun, which travels through the year, the moon is known to traverse in thirty days. Having completed the cycle of the orb, they have returned to the point from which they set out. Therefore they have not paused when they have run the whole cycle: or else show me that it is written, and I will 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. Itself rising, it goes to the South, and circling, it goes around as far as the North (Eccl. 1:5). If you think the sun sets, give us the reason how it returns to its place. Hence, if the sense escapes you to fashion falsehoods, believe Solomon saying that it itself rising goes to the South, so that circling it reaches the North: Because the spirit, circling and turning, traverses, the spirit turns back into its circuit (Eccl. 1:6). What more clearly could we ourselves argue, when the prophet has outlined our question in few words, that it is the spirit which, circling and turning, unceasingly traverses the whole orb? Thus one day is defined, and passage is made to another morning, on account of which days, months, years have been instituted.

VI. Be satisfied with this, and agree with our earlier fathers who handed down what we have recalled above: that this light does not occupy the whole world, but its middle. And therefore, wherever the sun looks, day and hours are made. Thus, as it travels through the space carried along, it changes the hours. If this is true, where morning has occurred, morning cannot remain there longer, because as the sun moves to other places, the hours always change, and so it happens that evening is reached. What follows in the office of the night is that the hours fill it. But when we see morning rise, we recognize a deficiency of darkness, and when evening comes, the day suffers its setting. For the climates of the sky have distinguished between day and night in such a way that wherever the sun has made its step, morning is held; and likewise, wherever the moon has traveled, evening is recognized, which is said to belong to the following day. For it is foolish to hear that the earlier night was made according to evening, and that afterwards morning arose. If evening had been made first, our lawgiver would not have hesitated to declare that one night in the number of nights. No one who holds what is first and principal disdains to name it, and then hears what is subsequent named. Therefore, if nothing of this kind is perceived by men, how is it reckoned by you that morning, made later, is called one day?

Why do you not profess what you read earlier, that light was made and called day, and afterwards darkness was called night? Therefore, night was not made before day. Nor should you believe that evening was made before you understand that morning was made first of the day. VII. But that the scripture was silent about morning, it reveals the reasoning when it commanded light to be made. For what could the rising of light have shown, if it did not define that it was morning? For day could not be called apart from morning; and we rightly say that when God called light "day," he included morning within it. For when day was finished, evening began to arise, which, working through the whole night, would reach the morning of the second day, on which the firmament was made. And although we have discussed the third and fourth day, on which he made the sun and moon, let us nevertheless inquire more fully on which day man was made, whether on the fifth day or the sixth, so that it may be found whether evening is prior to morning. For God said: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." And God made man: he made him in the image of God; he made them male and female, and gave them all food for eating. And evening came, and morning came, the sixth day (Gen. 1:26, 31). Hence, if that morning is of the sixth day, then man was made on the fifth day. For if he was made on the sixth day, it is confirmed that that morning is of the seventh day, on which God rested.

If that is not the case, give me back here the works of the sixth day, where they are, since all things which he said were made on the sixth day were completed. On the fifth day, however, I find that the waters produced reptiles and birds; not man, who was made from the earth together with the quadrupeds and 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 produced, nor those 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 which were made together with man, all the work which God had begun to do was completed? Therefore, if man and the things mentioned above were made on the fifth day, we find that all things were completed on the fifth day, so that we may define that God rested on the sixth day from all his works. But if you understand evening after the creation of the waters, you will be able to find not the beginning of the fourth day, but the start of the fifth night. If that is true, that morning, which was called after the evening, does not pertain to the fifth day, but to the sixth, because in it Scripture teaches us that man was made. Hence, after the making of that same man, it says that evening was made, and the morning which is truly the beginning of the seventh day. For in that morning God rested from all his works which he had begun to make, not in the evening which was the sequel of the sixth day.

Now, friend, examine the reading more clearly, and satisfy your own mind that night cannot be placed before day, just as evening cannot be placed before morning, in which the action and work of the day is shown to be defined, and thus the following evening is so called. Finally, after the evening of the sixth day, he ceased to make mention of it, just as of the morning, which the prophet clearly and plainly announced to be the seventh day itself. Hence, if it is not that, do you now teach concerning the seventh evening, that morning may follow it. But if you do not find it, believe the reading that the seventh day itself is that which, after the evening, was called morning.