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.

脚注:

38. All things were now prepared; the parturient branch, according to the times of gestation, inclining itself by degrees towards the ground, at length deposited its burden commodiously on the couch spread beneath.

(The birth itself is described and how all things were favorable.)

The heavenly beings (Vita), clothed with a bright cloud, also stood by, and found that nothing had been neglected, but that all things were prepared obsequiously by nature in conformity to their provisions. Hence when the months were completed, at that time so many years, the foetus, perfectly conscious of what was decreed, himself broke through the bands and bars of his enclosure, and raised himself by his own effort into this world and its paradise, desired from the first moments of his life; and he immediately drew in with his nostrils and breast the air, which he saluted with a light kiss and which pressed in by its force as a new vital guest and spirit, for which the approaches and interior chambers had been previously provided,y and opening by its aid a field for exertions, he excited to their offices all the powers of his body, which were already in potency and endeavor, to exercise themselves.

[2] The choicest flowers, encompassing this couch, now exhaled their odors from their deepest pores, that by them, infused into the attracted air, they might penetrate and exhilarate with rich and delicious gifts all the blood of the infant, flowing from the heart and now meeting the air. Whatever was in the kingdoms of nature, as if conscious and excited by a kind of festivity, favored, and in its own manner, greeted this birthday; for all celestial stores at this moment were effulgent, and by their influx, as it were, announced it. Choirs of the heavenly ones concluded this scene, which was the third, with the delicate vibrations of their lights, as so many tokens of gladness and favor.

(y) That by the vital spirit infused into Adam (Gen. 2:7), was not meant the soul, so far as by soul is to be understood the spiritual mind, but only the air, by which respiration is effected and the life of the body preserved in activity, is very clear, not only from the words themselves, but also from parallel passages of the Sacred Scripture; for the words are these:

(That by the vital spirit infused into the nostrils of Adam is signified the air admitted into the lungs.)

When Jehovah God had formed man out of the dust of the earth, He breathed into his nostrils the vital spirit, by which man was made animate. It is evident, as well from inspiration on the reception of air through the nostrils, as from animation or the respiration thence arising, that the life of his body was opened by means of that spirit. Moreover that the wind and aerial atmosphere which the lungs respire, is called divine spirit more than once in the Sacred Scriptures, may be manifest, as was said, from parallel passages and the interpreters of this, as from Gen. 6:17, 7:15; Psalm 104:29, 30.

To quote here only Gen. 7:22: All things whatsoever on the earth, which drew in vital spirit with the nostrils, died.

Also Exod. 15:8, to: At the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were heaped together; by Thee, when Thy spirit blew, they were overwhelmed in the sea.

2 Sam. 22:16: At the blast and spirit of Thy nostrils the whirlpools of the sea were discovered.

Job 27:3: So long as breath shall remain in me, and I shall have divine spirit in my nostrils, etc., etc.