1. IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, THE HISTORY OF CREATION AS GIVEN BY MOSES

GENESIS CHAPTER I

According to the versions of Schmidius and Castellio.

Verses [are in parentheses after the quote]

1. ¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

(1) Namely, in the beginning of time, when as yet there was no time.

And the earth was waste and void, (2) or, according to the interpretation of Castellio, was inert and unformed; that is, was an unordered mass, called by the Ancients, Chaos. ¹

And darkness was upon the faces of the abyss, or, as Castellio renders it, the deep was overspread with darkness.

The universe without atmospheres is not a universe but a void, an abyss, and a deep, where is mere darkness. For it is the atmospheres, and especially the ethereal atmospheres, that transmit the solar rays, that is, light; wherefore, without these atmospheres there is a vacuity, a void, or, nothing natural; and hence mere darkness.

And the spirit of God moved upon the faces of the waters, or, according to Castellio, moved to and fro over the waters.

By the Divine Spirit is meant the ether, as may be evident from numerous passages in the Sacred Scripture. ²

When these ethers had been produced, and were incumbent upon the earth, that is, upon its waters which they moved to and fro, or whose surface they reduced to a level by their pressure,

God said, Let there be light; and there was light, (3) or, as Castellio has it, and light existed.

By this is signified that although the sun existed as the first creation of all, yet it was without light, because without atmospheres, which are the supports and vehicles of its rays; but as soon as atmospheres surrounded the earth, which was at first purely aqueous, that is, was fluid consisting of the elements of inert nature, then it began to be illumined, or to be suffused with light.

And when God saw the light that it was good, God distinguished between the light and the darkness, or, He divided the light from, the darkness. (4)

This was done when the aqueous globe — now become a terraqueous globe, or an earth with its ether, or, now encompassed by the ethereal vortex — began to rotate on its axis; for then, as is well known, darkness and light succeeded each other. Wherefore, by this division of light from darkness, is signified that an axillary motion was impressed on the earth. (Concerning the days of creation, see The Word Explained 1445.)

And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (5) Before darkness came into existence by means of the circumvolution of the globe, no light could be predicated of the latter; and before night, no day. For nothing is known and distinguished except from its opposites or contraries. For this reason day is said to come into existence only after darkness or night has first been induced, together with the distinctions of light and shade. It commences, therefore, from the darkness of the deep, and then from light.

But by Day here, and in the following verses of this chapter, is not meant one ordinary day, but the whole space of that time, or that whole time of creation during which the sun — the globe of the future earth — and also the ethereal atmospheres, came into existence. For in the Sacred Scriptures whole periods of time are frequently called a day, as will be seen even more clearly from what follows.

Footnotes:

17. And out of the earth made God to grow trees of every kind, both, pleasant to the sight and suitable for eating; and also the tree of life in the midst of the fruit garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (9)

It is very clearly evident that the earthly paradise represented the heavenly paradise, or, that the type of the one stood forth in the other. For there is nothing on earth to which there is not some corresponding thing in heaven, since whatever is created or brought forth in the effect descends from heaven. Therefore there is not a thing on the earth that does not represent some type of its origin. For all uses are heavenly, and effects are so many uses sent forth into the circuit of nature. The ends of uses are Divine; and therefore all things that are produced are nothing but images of heaven, just as man or Adam was made an image of God himself. Representations of things heavenly are therefore effected by means of images of similar effects such as exist on earth; of which matter we shall treat at length in the following pages. Therefore this whole garden planted in Eden represented the heavenly paradise, into which Adam is said to be translated that he might enjoy the delights of nature or of the world together with the delights of heaven. Since, therefore, natural effects are symbols of things heavenly, the tree of life which was set in the midst of the garden, signified the wisdom which flowed into his mind from heaven, or by the superior way; while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil signified the intelligence which flowed into the same mind from the world and its nature, by the inferior way, or by way of the senses and animus. For there are two ways opening into the human mind, namely, from heaven through the soul, and from the world through the senses and the animus — of which ways we have treated fully elsewhere. ¹ The tree of wisdom or of life (for in wisdom is true life) is therefore said to be placed in the midst of the garden; as also the tree of intelligence by means of knowledges.

Footnotes: