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We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the
setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun; but the first
three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have
been made on the fourth day. And 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 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, "Jerusalem which is above is our
eternal mother in heaven;" and in another place, "For ye are all
the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of
the night, nor of darkness."' Yet in some respects we may
appropriately speak of a morning and evening of this day also. For the
knowledge of the creature is, in comparison of the knowledge of the
Creator, but a twilight; and so it dawns and breaks into morning when
the creature is drawn to the praise and love of the Creator; and night
never falls when the Creator is not forsaken through love of the
creature. In fine, Scripture, when it would recount those days in
order, never mentions the word night. It never says, "Night
was," but "The evening and the morning were the first day." So of
the second and the rest. And, indeed, the knowledge of created
things contemplated by themselves is, so to speak, more colorless than
when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art by which they
were made. Therefore evening is a more suitable figure than night;
and yet, as I said, morning returns when the creature returns to the
praise and love of the Creator. When it does so in the knowledge of
itself, that is the first day; when in the knowledge of the
firmament, which is the name given to the sky between the waters above
and those beneath, that is the second day; when in the knowledge of
the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the earth,
that is the third day; when in the knowledge of the greater and less
luminaries, and all the stars, that is the fourth day; when in the
knowledge of all animals that swim in the waters and that fly in the
air, that is the fifth day; when in the knowledge of all animals that
live on the earth, and of man himself, that is the sixth day.
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