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8. But that heaven of heavens was for Thee, O Lord; but the
earth, which Thou hast given to the sons of men,x to be seen and
touched, was not such as now we see and touch. For ff was invisible
and "without form, and there was a deep over which there was not
light; or, darkness was over the deep, that is, more than in the
deep. For this deep of waters, now visible, has, even in its
depths, a light suitable to its nature, perceptible in some manner
unto fishes and creeping things in the bottom of it. But the entire
deep was almost nothing, since hitherto it was altogether formless;
yet there was then that which could be formed. For Thou, O Lord,
hast made the world of a formless matter, which matter, out of
nothing, Thou hast made almost nothing, out of which to make those
great things which we, sons of men, wonder at. For very wonderful is
this corporeal heaven, of which firmament, between water and water,
the second day after the creation of light, Thou saidst, Let it be
made, and it was made? Which firmament Thou calledst heaven, that
is, the heaven of this earth and sea, which Thou madest on the third
day, by giving a visible shape to the formless matter which Thou
madest before all days. For even already hadst Thou made a heaven
before all days, but that was the heaven of this heaven; because in
the beginning Thou hadst made heaven and earth. But the earth itself
which Thou hadst made was formless matter, because it was invisible
and without form, and darkness was upon the deep. Of which invisible
and formless earth, of which formlessness, of which almost nothing,
Thou mightest make all these things of which this changeable world
consists, and yet consisteth not; whose very changeableness appears in
this, that times can be observed and numbered in it. Because times
are made by the changes of things, while the shapes, whose matter is
the invisible earth aforesaid, are varied and turned.
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