General editors john baillie

0^ Matt. 6:8.

0^ The “virtues” of the Beatitudes, the reward for which is blessedness; cf. Matt. 5:1-11.

0^ Ps. 118:1; cf. Ps. 136.

0^ An interesting symbol of time’s ceaseless passage; the reference is to a water clock (clepsydra).

0^ Cf. [[Ps. 130:1 >> Ps 130.1]], De profundis.

0^ Ps. 74:16.

0^ This metaphor is probably from Ps. 29:9.

0^ A repetition of the metaphor above, [[Bk. IX, Ch. VII, 16 >> Augustine:Conf. 9.7.16]].

0^ Ps. 26:7.

0^ Ps. 119:18.

0^ Cf. Matt. 6:33.

0^ Col. 2:3.

0^ Augustine was profoundly stirred, in mind and heart, by the great mystery of creation and the Scriptural testimony about it. In addition to this long and involved analysis of time and creation which follows here, he returned to the story in Genesis repeatedly: e.g., De Genesi contra Manicheos; De Genesi ad litteram, liber imperfectus (both written before the Confessions); De Genesi ad litteram, libri XII and De civitate Dei, XI-XII (both written after the Confessions).

0^ The final test of truth, for Augustine, is self-evidence and the final source of truth is the indwelling Logos.

0^ Cf. the notion of creation in Plato’s Timaeus ([[29D-30C >> Plato:Pl., Tim. 29d-30c]]; [[48E-50C >> Plato:Pl., Tim. 48e-50c]]), in which the Demiurgos (craftsman) fashions the universe from pre-existent matter (τὸ ὑποδοχή) and imposes as much form as the Receptacle will receive. The notion of the world fashioned from pre-existent matter of some sort was a universal idea in Greco-Roman cosmology.

0^ Cf. Ps. 33:9.

0^ Matt. 3:17.

0^ Cf. the Vulgate of John 8:25.

0^ Cf. Augustine’s emphasis on Christ as true Teacher in De Magistro.

0^ Cf. John 3:29.

0^ Cf. Ps. 103:4, 5 (mixed text).

0^ Ps. 104:24.

0^ Plenivetustatis suae. In Sermon [[CCLXVII, 2 >> Augustine:Sermo 267.2]] (PL 38, c. 1230), Augustine has a similar usage. Speaking of those who pour new wine into old containers, he says: Carnalitas vetustas est, gratia novitas est, “Carnality is the old nature; grace is the new”; cf. Matt. 9:17.

0^ The notion of the eternity of this world was widely held in Greek philosophy, in different versions, and was incorporated into the Manichean rejection of the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo which Augustine is citing here. He returns to the question, and his answer to it, again in De civitate Dei, [[XI, 4-8 >> Augustine:City of God 11.4-8]].

0^ The unstable “heart” of those who confuse time and eternity.

0^ Cf. Ps. 102:27.

0^ Ps. 2:7.

0^ Spatium, which means extension either in space or time.

0^ The breaking light and the image of the rising sun.

0^ Cf. Ps. 139:6.

0^ Memoria, contuitus, and expectatio: a pattern that corresponds vaguely to the movement of Augustine’s thought in the Confessions: from direct experience back to the supporting memories and forward to the outreach of hope and confidence in God’s provident grace.

0^ Cf. Ps. 116:10.

0^ Cf. Matt. 25:21, 23.

0^ Communes notitias, the universal principles of “common sense.” This idea became a basic category in scholastic epistemology.

0^ Gen. 1:14.

0^ Cf. Josh. 10:12-14.

0^ Cf. Ps. 18:28.

0^ Cubitum, literally the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger; in the imperial system of weights and measures it was 17.5 inches.

0^ Distentionem, “spread-out-ness”; cf. Descartes’ notion of res extensae, and its relation to time.

0^ Ps. 100:3.

0^ Here Augustine begins to summarize his own answers to the questions he has raised in his analysis of time.

0^ The same hymn of Ambrose quoted above, [[Bk. IX, Ch. XII, 39 >> Augustine:Conf. 9.12.39]], and analyzed again in De musica, [[VI, 2:2 >> Augustine:On Music 6.2.2]].

0^ This theory of time is worth comparing with its most notable restatement in modern poetry, in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and especially “Burnt Norton.”

0^ Ps. 63:3.

0^ Cf. Phil. 3:12-14.

0^ Cf. Ps. 31:10.

0^ Note here the preparation for the transition from this analysis of time in Bk. XI to the exploration of the mystery of creation in Bks. XII and XIII.

0^ Celsitudo, an honorific title, somewhat like “Your Highness.”

0^ Rom. 8:31.

0^ Matt. 7:7, 8.

0^ Vulgate, Ps. 113:16 (cf. Ps. 115:16, K.J.; see also Ps. 148:4, both Vulgate and K.J.): Caelum caeli domino, etc. Augustine finds a distinction here for which the Hebrew text gives no warrant. הַשָּׁמַ֣יִם שָׁ֭מַיִם לַיהוָ֑ה is a typical nominal sentence and means simply “The heavens are the heavens of Yahweh”; cf. the Soncino edition of The Psalms, edited by A. Cohen; cf. also R.S.V., Ps. 115:16. The LXX reading (ὁ οὐρανὸς τοῦ οὐρανοῦ) seems to rest on a variant Hebrew text. This idiomatic construction does not mean “the heavens of the heavens” (as it is too literally translated in the LXX), but rather “highest heaven.” This is a familiar way, in Hebrew, of emphasizing a superlative (e.g., “King of kings,” “Song of songs”). The singular thing can be described superlatively only in terms of itself!

0^ Earth and sky.

0^ It is interesting that Augustine should have preferred the invisibiliset incomposita of the Old Latin version of Gen. 1:2 over the inaniset vacua of the Vulgate, which was surely accessible to him. Since this is to be a key phrase in the succeeding exegesis this reading can hardly have been the casual citation of the old and familiar version. Is it possible that Augustine may have had the sensibilities and associations of his readers in mind--for many of them may have not known Jerome’s version or, at least, not very well?

0^ Abyssus, literally, the unplumbed depths of the sea, and as a constant meaning here, “the depths beyond measure.”

0^ Gen. 1:2.

0^ Augustine may not have known the Platonic doctrine of nonbeing (cf. Sophist, [[236C-237B >> Plato:Pl., Soph. 236c-237b]]), but he clearly is deeply influenced here by Plotinus; cf. Enneads, II, 4:8f., where matter is analyzed as a substratum without quantity or quality; and 4:15: “Matter, then, must be described as τὸ ἄπειρον (the indefinite). …  Matter is indeterminateness and nothing else.” In short, materia informis is sheer possibility; not anything and not nothing!

0^ Dictare: was Augustine dictating his Confessions? It is very probable.

0^ Visibiles et compositas, the opposite of “invisible and unformed.”

0^ Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8.

0^ De nihilo.

0^ Trina unitas.

0^ Cf. Gen. 1:6.

0^ Constat et non constat, the created earth really exists but never is self-sufficient.

0^ Moses.

0^ Ps. 42:3, 10.

0^ 1 Cor. 13:12.

0^ Cf. Ecclus. 1:4.

0^ 2 Cor. 5:21.

0^ Cf. Gal. 4:26.

0^ 2 Cor. 5:1.

0^ Cf. Ps. 26:8.

0^ Ps. 119:176.

0^ To “the house of God.”

0^ Cf. Ps. 28:1.

0^ Cubile, i.e., the heart.

0^ Cf. Rom. 8:26.

0^ The heavenly Jerusalem of Gal. 4:26, which had become a favorite Christian symbol of the peace and blessedness of heaven; cf. the various versions of the hymn “Jerusalem, My Happy Home” in Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 580-583. The original text is found in the Liber meditationum, erroneously ascribed to Augustine himself.

0^ Cf. 2 Tim. 2:14.

0^ 1 Tim. 1:5.

0^ This is the basis of Augustine’s defense of allegory as both legitimate and profitable in the interpretation of Scripture. He did not mean that there is a plurality of literal truths in Scripture but a multiplicity of perspectives on truth which amounted to different levels and interpretations of truth. This gave Augustine the basis for a positive tolerance of varying interpretations which did hold fast to the essential common premises about God’s primacy as Creator; cf. M. Pontet, L’Exégèsede Saint Augustin prédicateur (Lyons, 1944), chs. II and III.

0^ In this chapter, Augustine summarizes what he takes to be the Christian consensus on the questions he has explored about the relation of the intellectual and corporeal creations.

0^ Cf. 1 Cor. 8:6.

0^ Mole mundi.

0^ Cf. Col. 1:16.

0^ Gen. 1:9.

0^ Note how this reiterates a constant theme in the Confessions as a whole; a further indication that Bk. XII is an integral part of the single whole.

0^ Cf. De libero arbitrio, [[II, 8:20 >> Augustine:lib. Arb. 2.8.20]], [[10:28 >> Augustine:lib. Arb. 2.10.28]].

0^ Cf. John 8:44.

0^ The essential thesis of the De Magistro; it has important implications both for Augustine’s epistemology and for his theory of Christian nurture; cf. the De catechizandis rudibus.

0^ 1 Cor. 4:6.

0^ Cf. Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; see also Matt. 22:37, 39.

0^ Cf. Rom. 9:21.

0^ Cf. Ps. 8:4.

0^ “In the beginning God created,” etc.

0^ An echo of Job 39:13-16.

0^ The thicket denizens mentioned above.

0^ Cf. Ps. 143:10.

0^ Something of an understatement! It is interesting to note that Augustine devotes more time and space to these opening verses of Genesis than to any other passage in the entire Bible--and he never commented on the full text of Genesis. Cf. Karl Barth’s 274 pages devoted to Gen., chs. 1;2, in the Kirchliche Dogmatik, III, I, pp. 103-377.

0^ Transition, in preparation for the concluding book (XIII), which undertakes a constructive resolution to the problem of the analysis of the mode of creation made here in Bk. XII.

0^ This is a compound--and untranslatable--Latin pun: nequeut sic te colam quasi terram, ut sis uncultus si non te colam.

0^ Cf. Enneads, I, 2:4: “What the soul now sees, it certainly always possessed, but as lying in the darkness. …  To dispel the darkness and thus come to knowledge of its inner content, it must thrust toward the light.” Compare the notions of the initiative of such movements in the soul in Plotinus and Augustine.

0^ Cf. 2 Cor. 5:21.

0^ Cf. Ps. 36:6 and see also Augustine’s Exposition on the Psalms, XXXVI, 8, where he says that “the great preachers [receivers of God’s illumination] are the mountains of God,” for they first catch the light on their summits. The abyss he called “the depth of sin” into which the evil and unfaithful fall.

0^ Cf. Timaeus, [[29D-30A >> Plato:Pl., Tim. 29d-30a]], “He [the Demiurge-Creator] was good: and in the good no jealousy … can ever arise. So, being without jealousy, he desired that all things should come as near as possible to being like himself. … He took over all that is visible … and brought it from order to order, since he judged that order was in every way better” (F. M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, New York, 1937, p. 33). Cf. Enneads, V, 4:1, and Athanasius, On the Incarnation, [[III, 3 >> Athanasius:Ath., De Inc. 3.3]].

0^ Cf. Gen. 1:2.

0^ Cf. Ps. 36:9.

0^ In this passage in Genesis on the creation.

0^ Cf. Gen. 1:6.

0^ Rom. 5:5.

0^ 1 Cor. 12:1.

0^ Cf. Eph. 3:14, 19.

0^ Cf. the Old Latin version of Ps. 123:5.

0^ Cf. Eph. 5:8.

0^ Cf. Ps. 31:20.

0^ Cf. Ps. 9:13.

0^ The Holy Spirit.

0^ Canticumgraduum. Psalms 119 to 133 as numbered in the Vulgate were regarded as a single series of ascending steps by which the soul moves up toward heaven; cf. The Exposition on the Psalms, loc. cit.

0^ Tongues of fire, symbol of the descent of the Holy Spirit; cf. Acts 2:3, 4.

0^ Cf. Ps. 122:6.

0^ Ps. 122:1.

0^ Cf. Ps. 23:6.

0^ Gen. 1:3.

0^ John 1:9.

0^ Cf. the detailed analogy from self to Trinity in De Trinitate, [[IX-XII >> Augustine:De Trin. 9-12]].

0^ I.e., the Church.

0^ Cf. Ps. 39:11.

0^ Ps. 36:6.

0^ Gen. 1:3 and Matt. 4:17; 3:2.

0^ Cf. Ps. 42:5, 6.

0^ Cf. Eph. 5:8.

0^ Ps. 42:7.

0^ Cf. 1 Cor. 3:1.

0^ Cf. Phil. 3:13.

0^ Cf. Ps. 42:1.

0^ Ps. 42:2.

0^ Cf. 2 Cor. 5:1-4.

0^ Rom. 12:2.

0^ 1 Cor. 14:20.

0^ Gal. 3:1.

0^ Eph. 4:8, 9.

0^ Cf. Ps. 46:4.

0^ Cf. John 3:29.

0^ Cf. Rom. 8:23.

0^ I.e., the Body of Christ.

0^ 1 John 3:2.

0^ Ps. 42:3.

0^ Cf. Ps. 42:4.

0^ Ps. 43:5.

0^ Cf. Ps. 119:105.

0^ Cf. Rom. 8:10.

0^ Cf. [[S. of Sol. 2:17 >> Song 2.17]].

0^ Cf. Ps. 5:3.

0^ Ps. 43:5.

0^ Cf. Rom. 8:11.

0^ 1 Thess. 5:5.

0^ Cf. Gen. 1:5.

0^ Cf. Rom. 9:21.

0^ Isa. 34:4.

0^ Cf. Gen. 3:21.

0^ Ps. 8:3.

0^ “The heavens,” i.e. the Scriptures.

0^ Cf. Ps. 8:2.

0^ Legunt, eligunt, diligunt.

0^ Ps. 36:5.

0^ Cf. Matt. 24:35.

0^ Cf. Isa. 40:6-8.

0^ Cf. 1 John 3:2.

0^ Retia, literally “a net”; such as those used by retiarii, the gladiators who used nets to entangle their opponents.

0^ Cf. [[S. of Sol. 1:3, 4 >> Song 1.3-4]].

0^ 1 John 3:2.

0^ Cf. Ps. 63:1.

0^ Ps. 36:9.

0^ Amaricantes, a figure which Augustine develops both in the Exposition of the Psalms and The City of God. Commenting on Ps. 65, Augustine says: “For the sea, by a figure, is used to indicate this world, with its bitter saltiness and troubled storms, where men with perverse and depraved appetites have become like fishes devouring one another.” In The City of God, he speaks of the bitterness of life in the civitas terrena; cf. XIX, 5.

0^ Cf. Ps. 95:5.

0^ Cf. Gen. 1:10f.

0^ In this way, Augustine sees an analogy between the good earth bearing its fruits and the ethical “fruit-bearing” of the Christian love of neighbor.

0^ Cf. Ps. 85:11.

0^ Cf. Gen. 1:14.

0^ Cf. Isa. 58:7.

0^ Cf. Phil. 2:15.

0^ Cf. Gen. 1:19.

0^ Cf. 2 Cor. 5:17.

0^ Cf. Rom. 13:11, 12.

0^ Ps. 65:11.

0^ For this whole passage, cf. the parallel developed here with 1 Cor. 12:7-11.

0^ In principio diei, an obvious echo to the Vulgate ut praesset diei of Gen. 1:16. Cf. Gibb and Montgomery, p. 424 (see Bibl.), for a comment on in principio diei and in principio noctis, below.

0^ Sacramenta; but cf. Augustine’s discussion of

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