V. 3-5. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light as good. Then God separated the light from the darkness, and called the light Day, and the darkness Night. Then the evening and the morning became the first day.
(8) Here a great question arises: whether one should count the things that precede this time as the first day, or whether one should only understand the preceding as a preface? So it sounds as if the first day began when God said, "Let there be light." We 2) have said before [§ 2] that nothing could have been before the beginning; so 3) the beginning must ever have begun at night, and the morning must have begun when God created the light. For he said that it was dark. So the night is the first part of the day, which the Scriptures also hold otherwise. For according to the Jewish language, the day is reckoned to begin at night, when it has become dark, and lasts until evening again; which we now reverse. Therefore, since we have it clear from the text that there was no light at the first, but
1) Weimarsche: wehet.
2) In the editions: "And we". We have deleted the "and".
3) "Must" is set by us according to the Weimar edition. In the other editions: müßte.
Since night and darkness have lasted until morning, and God has separated night from day, it must be reckoned, as the text says, that evening and morning, that is, night and day, have become one day.
9. 1) Now these are the first words of Moses, so that he begins this book; they are to be understood, as [§ 2] said, in the most simple way, as they are set, that there were six days differently one after the other, and that Moses at the first described heaven and earth with names, and these were still rough and raw and not adorned, as afterwards, as he then explains himself, when he speaks: "The earth was desolate and empty"; that is, that there was neither strength nor sap in it, so that something could have grown out of it, but lay in the water that went around it; which he also calls here the deep, that is, a dark, thick mist or air, from which the water came.
(10) Further, in these words the three persons in the Godhead are also touched and secretly indicated; but especially the first two are expressed in the clearest way, on which many high people, but St. Augustine most of all, have broken. But this is the sum of it: At first, when Moses speaks: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" 2c., no person is particularly named or expressed. But as soon as he says further: And God said: "Let there be light"; [there] he expresses that with God there was a word before the light came. Now the same word that God speaks could not be anything of the things that were created, neither heaven nor earth, since God, by the very speaking that he did, made heaven and earth together with light and all other creatures, so that he did nothing more to create than his word. Therefore it must have been before all creatures. If it was before time and the creatures began, it must be eternal, and a different and higher being than all creatures; from this it follows that it is God.
(11) But when God speaks, and the word is forged, he is not alone; neither can he himself be the word that he speaks. Therefore, because the word is also God,
1) This entire paragraph is missing from Weimar's.
it must be another person. Thus the two persons are expressed: the Father, who speaks the Word and has the essence from Himself; the Son, who is the Word and comes from the Father, and is eternally with Him. 2) Hence St. John took his Gospel, which he begins thus: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word" 2c.
Now here a carnal man must take off his shoes. For these high and excellent words are not written nor set forth for children, but are intended by men of understanding in the Scriptures, who are accustomed to them; otherwise it is childish to say that the Lord speaks one word, and by the same creates all creatures. Now let it be held, as the text compels, that it is such a word, which was before the light and all creatures, because by it all things are made. But the word is not made, for you do not hear here that he makes the word, but only speaks it. With this, Moses wants to teach that it is inexpressible and unfathomable how God creates the creatures. We can say that God created all things freely, from nothing; but it is incomprehensible to us, without our being able to repeat the words.
(13) Moses says this much about the light: God has a word with Him, and by it He made the light at the first, and needed no more for it than the word. Thus he determined that the light should be made on the first day; and because he had thus determined it, it also happened thus. Therefore it follows that the Word is like God, and must be God Himself, since it is not a creature, but that from which all creatures spring. But if he who speaks and that which is spoken must be two things, then they cannot both be One Person, and yet must be One God. Thus, from this is founded the article of faith that there are two persons in the Godhead, yet One eternal 3) God. For Moses has with
2) Here, in the Weimar edition, there is another execution (of two paragraphs), in which essentially the same thoughts are given that we encounter in 8 14.
3) So the original, the Wittenberg and the Jena. The Erlanger has, just as Walch: a some. The latter reading is also found in the Weimar one.
He has given so much to these short words and speaks in such a way that it is impossible for a human being to speak in such a way and to grasp so much with such short words, if he already had the intellect. It is so highly, so actually, briefly and deeply spoken that it surpasses all reason.
14 The third person, the Holy Spirit, is secretly indicated and understood in the words when Moses says: "God saw the light as good," that is, he was pleased with it. For there was pleasure in that which he had made by the word; which pleasure is nothing else than that God sustains the creatures 1) as he made them, and assists them. This is actually attributed to the Holy Spirit, that He is the life and preservation of all things. Therefore the Scripture speaks of him as being the bond that holds all creatures and gives them all their exercise and effect. Thus the Holy Spirit is called the good pleasure of God the Father, as the Word is His eternal counsel.
15) But here is 2) a question: why Moses did not put thus at the beginning: In the beginning God said: Let there be heaven and earth, but says: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth", and only afterwards says: "God said: Let there be light. Answer, in the first place: If we do not know the cause, let us give glory to the Holy Spirit, that he knows better than we. But as far as I can think, it is because of the cause. For if he had said, In the beginning God said, Let there be heaven and earth, it would almost sound as if the word had not been before the beginning, so that one could not know whether it had begun or had been from eternity. Therefore it could not well stand that he said: In the beginning God spoke; lest someone thought that it had begun at the very beginning, when time and the creatures began, as the heretics Ariani have said. So the error is met with it before. This is one cause, as far as I can judge.
16 The other is that he has to indicate the three persons properly one after another.
1) Weimarsche: "erhebt" and immediately following: "erhebung" instead: Preservation.
2) but - again.
3) "the" is missing in the Erlanger.
First, the Father, saying, "God created"; second, the Son, saying, "God spoke"; then the Holy Spirit, saying, "God saw it good." The seeing that God did was not after the speaking, but at the same time; and His speaking and seeing did not begin there, but His creating began there. Even though the three were at the same time, he still had to write it one after the other, because he could not comprehend it with one word at the same time. As the three persons go one after the other, and we have to put the words one after the other, if we want to talk about it, and cannot say it all at once with one word, so he could not say it at the same time: God created, spoke, and saw; and does not want to deny with it, but to confirm that all three persons are the same, and all were there on the first day.
(17) For since he says that by the Word God makes light and separates it from darkness, surely the Word was before light and darkness. For how could he make them light and separate them from one another by the word if they were not there before? So it goes together that the Father does the work through the Son, who is the Word, and in the Holy Spirit, who is the divine good pleasure, and to each person is given its characteristic, so that one can grasp a difference that three persons and One God remain; and although they are at the same time, they still have to have their different description.
(18) Now what he could not do the first time, that he put the word first, he afterwards turns back again, and puts the word first, when he says, "God said, Let there be a feast," after which follows: "Then God made the feast, and it came to pass." He actually made this change in order to prevent the word from being placed not after but always before the creatures, even though on the first day he was unable to place it first for a reason, as he does afterwards. And all this was done with diligence and careful counsel, so that the article of faith might be rightly established, that the Word existed at the same time that God created all things. Thus we have the first day, when the earth together with the heavens was rough and raw,
and created the light, which he called the day when the night had gone before. Now what this day and this darkness were, we shall hear further on the fourth day, when they will clash with each other. Now follows