Confessions

^16. Meanwhile I conceive this, O my God, when I hear Your Scripture speak, saying, In the beginning God made heaven and earth; but the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep, and not stating on what day Thou created these things. Thus, meanwhile, do I conceive, that it is on account of that heaven of heavens, that intellectual heaven, where to understand is to know all at once—not “in part,” not “darkly,” not “through a glass,” but as a whole, in manifestation, “face to face;” not this thing now, that anon, but (as has been said) to know at once without any change of times; and on account of the invisible and formless earth, without any change of times; which change is wont to have “this thing now, that anon,” because, where there is no form there can be no distinction between “this” or “that;”— it is, then, on account of these two—a primitively formed, and a wholly formless; the one heaven, but the heaven of heavens, the other earth, but the earth invisible and formless—on account of these two do I meanwhile conceive that Your Scripture said without mention of days, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” For immediately it added of what earth it spoke. And when on the second day the firmament is recorded to have been created, and called heaven, it suggests to us of which heaven He spoke before without mention of days.