Dist. 12
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/12/q/bon-sent-II-d12-littera
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### DISTINCTION XII.

### Chapter I.

*On the distinction of the works of the six days.*

Let what has been said about the constitution of the angelic nature suffice. It now remains to bring forth some things about the creation of the other things as well, and especially about the distinction of the works of the six days. When God in His wisdom founded the angelic spirits, He also created other things, as the above-mentioned Scripture of Genesis shows, which says that in the beginning God created the heaven — that is, the Angels — and the earth, namely the matter of the four elements, yet confused and formless, which by the Greeks is called *chaos*; and this was before any day. Afterward God distinguished the elements and gave to individual things their own and distinct species according to their kind — [things] which He formed, not all at once, as it pleased certain of the holy Fathers, but *through the intervals of times* and *six volumes of days,* as it seemed to others.

### Chapter II.

*That some have held that all things were made at once in matter and form, others through intervals of times.*

For certain of the holy Fathers, who excellently searched the words and arcana of God, seem to have written on this matter as if at variance. Some indeed handed down that all things were created at once in matter and form, which Augustine seems to have held. — But others rather approved and asserted this: that first rude and formless matter, holding the commixture and confusion of the four elements, was created; afterward, however, through the intervals of six days, the kinds of corporeal things were formed from that matter according to their proper species. This opinion Gregory, Jerome, Bede, and many others commend and prefer, which also seems to agree more with the Scripture of Genesis, whence the first cognition of this matter has flowed to us.

### Chapter III.

*How through the intervals of times the corporeal things were established.*

According to this tradition therefore let us inspect the order and mode of the creation and formation of things, as has been mentioned above. *In the beginning God created the heaven,* that is, the angelic nature — yet still formless, as it pleases some — *and the earth,* that is, that confused matter of the four elements, which by the name of *earth,* as Augustine says against the Manichees, Moses thus called, « because earth among all the elements is the least seemly; and it was *invisible* and *incomposite* on account of the commixture of all the elements. The same thing he also calls *the abyss,* saying: *And darkness was upon the face of the abyss* etc., because it was confused and commingled, lacking a distinct species. The same formless matter is also called *water, over which the spirit of the Lord was borne,* just as the will of the craftsman is borne over things to be fabricated; because to the good will of the Creator was subjected what He had begun to form and to perfect; who, as Lord and Founder, presided over the floating and confused matter, that He might distinguish it through diverse species, when He willed and as He willed. It is therefore called *water,* because all things which are born in earth — whether animals or trees or herbs and the like — begin to be formed and nourished from moisture. By all these names that formless matter was called, that a thing unknown to us might be intimated to the more untutored by names, and not by one only; for if it were signified by only one name, this would be thought to be that which men were accustomed to understand under that name ». Under these names, therefore, was signified that confused and formless matter, which could be discerned and handled in no [definite] species — that is, by the senses for visible things — which were to be afterward, on account of the weakness of the little ones, who are less suited to comprehend the invisibles. — *And then there was darkness,* that is, *the absence of light.* « For darkness is not something, but the very absence of light; just as silence is not any thing, but where there is no sound, silence is said [to be]; and nakedness is not any thing, but in a body, where there is no covering, nakedness is said [to be]; just as also emptiness is not something, but a place is said to be empty where there is no body, and emptiness is the absence of body ».

### Chapter IV.

*In what sense darkness is said to be something, and in what sense it is said not to be something.*

*Attend,* because here Augustine says that darkness is not something, although elsewhere darkness is placed among the creatures which *bless the Lord*; whence it is said: *Bless the Lord, light and darkness.* Therefore it is to be known that *darkness is taken in diverse modes,* namely either for the absence of light, in which manner Augustine took it above — according to which acceptation they are not anything — or for darkened air, or for the dark quality of the air; and according to this some things were created. Therefore he says that *darkness was then upon the face of the abyss,* because there was as yet no light — which, if it had been, would both have been above and would have been poured upon [the abyss]; but not yet had God adorned His work with the grace of light, which afterward in the first day was formed.

### Chapter V.

*Why that confused matter is said to be formless, and where it came to be, and how high it ascended.*

Before we treat of this matter, two things present themselves to be discussed: first, why that confused matter is called formless — whether because it lacked all form, or for some other reason; second, where it came to be and how far it ascended on high. — *To that, then, which was first set forth,* answering briefly we say that that first matter was not on this account said to be formless, that it had no form at all, because no corporeal thing of that kind can exist which has no form; but on this account we say that it can be called formless not absurdly: that, subsisting in a certain confusion and commixture, it had not yet received the beautiful and open and distinct form which we now discern. That matter therefore was made in the form of confusion before the form of disposition. In the form of confusion all corporeal things were created together and at once materially; afterward, in the form of disposition, they were ordered in six days. — Behold, it is settled what was first proposed in the discussion, namely why that matter is called formless.

« Now it remains to explain what was secondly proposed, namely where that matter subsisted and how far it stretched on high. To which, asserting nothing rashly, we say that that first mass of all things, when it was created, seems to have come to be in the same place where it now formed subsists; and this earthy element was subsisting in one place and at the same middle, the other three being commingled in one confusion, and these spread on all sides about [it] in the manner of a certain cloud, so wrapped about that what was there could not appear. But those three, confused in one commixture suspended on every side, were stretched on high so far as now the summit of corporeal nature reaches ». And as it seems to some, that mass extended beyond the place of the firmament — which in its lower part was thicker and grosser, in its upper part rarer and lighter and more subtle; and from this rarer substance some think the waters were, which are said to be *above the firmament.* « Such was the face of the world in the beginning, before it received form or disposition ».

Now it remains that we should pursue in order how that disposition was perfected. In six days, as the Scripture of Genesis teaches, God distinguished and reduced into their proper forms all things which He had made simultaneously in matter; and He perfected His work on the sixth day, and so afterward on the seventh day He rested from every work — that is, He ceased to make a new creature. For in six days He distinguished six kinds of things and made nothing afterward which is not contained in some one of them; yet He worked afterward, just as Truth says in the *Gospel*: *My Father works until now, and I work.*

### Chapter VI.

*On the four modes of divine operation.*

For in four modes, as Alcuin says on Genesis, God operates: « first, by disposing all things in the Word; second, in the formless matter of the four elements, creating it from nothing — whence: *He who lives forever created all things at once* — that is, all the elements, or He created all bodies materially at once. Third, through the works of the six days He distinguished diverse creatures. Fourth, from the primordial seeds not unknown natures arise, but known ones are more often reformed, lest they perish ».

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