Dist. 13
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/13/q/bon-sent-II-d13-littera
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## *Distinction XIII. Lombard's text.*

### DISTINCTION XIII.

### Cap. I.

*On the first work of distinction.*

Now the first operation of distinction was the formation of light, as Scripture shows, which, after recalling the unformedness of things, began their arrangement from light, subjoining: *God said: Let there be light, and there was light; and He divided the light from the darknesses, and called the light Day, and the darknesses Night. And evening and morning were made, one day.* «Fittingly the adornment of the world began from light, whence the other things which were to be created might be seen».

### Cap. II.

*On the light made on the first day — whether it was spiritual or corporeal.*

If it is asked of what kind that light was, namely *corporeal* or *spiritual*: we answer what we read handed down by the Saints. — *Opinion 1.* For Augustine says that that light can be understood [either as] *corporeal* or [as] *spiritual*. If it is taken as *spiritual*, the angelic nature is understood, which was previously unformed but afterwards formed, when, turned to its Creator, it clung to Him by charity — the creation of which unformedness was signified above, where it was said: *In the beginning God created heaven and earth.* And here the formation of the same is shown, when He says: *Let there be light, and there was light.* So therefore the angelic nature was first darkness and afterwards light, because it first had unformedness and imperfection, then the perfection of formation; and so God divided the light from the darknesses. For, as Augustine says on Genesis: «*This creature's unformedness and imperfection was before it was formed in the love of its Maker. But it has been formed, when it has been turned to the immutable light of the Word*». — *Opinion 2.* But if that light was *corporeal* — which is indeed probable — it is understood to have been a luminous body, like a bright cloud, which was made formally not from nothing but from preexistent matter, so that it might be light and have the power of giving light; with which the first day arose, since before light there was neither day nor night, although there was time.

### Cap. III.

*Where it was made.*

But if it is asked where that light was made, since the deep covered the whole height of the earth: it can be said to have been made in those parts which the daily light of the sun now illumines. Nor is it any wonder that light can shine in waters, since [waters] are often even illumined by the work of sailors, who, plunged in the deep, illumine the waters about themselves with oil sent out from the mouth; which [waters] were much rarer in the beginning than they now are, because they had not yet been gathered into one place. Therefore that light was made and held the office and place of the sun, which, agitated by its motion, distinguished night and day. There, therefore, it is likely that light first appeared, where the sun, carried round by its daily course, appears — so that the light, running round by the same track, and first descending to the setting, made evening; then, recalled to its rising, illumined the dawn, that is the morning; and thus God divided light and darknesses and called the *light Day* and the *darknesses Night*.

### Cap. IV.

*In what modes "day" is taken.*

Here it must be noted that *day* is taken in diverse modes in Scripture. For *day* is said of that light which during that three-day span illumined the darknesses, and *day* is said of the very illumination of the air. *Day* is also said of the space of twenty-four hours, in which sense it is taken when it says: *Evening and morning were made, one day.* Which must be distinguished thus: evening was made first, and afterwards morning, and so one day, completed in twenty-four hours, was made — namely a *natural* day, which had evening but not *morning*. For *morning* is said of the end of the preceding day and the beginning of the following one, which is dawn, which has neither full light nor entire darkness. Therefore the first day did not have morning, because no day had preceded which would have been terminated at the beginning of the following day; and especially because, with light appearing, then full and most bright day stood over the earth — [a day] which began not from dawn but from full light and was consummated at the morning of the following day. Hence Bede on Genesis: «*It was fitting that the day should begin from light and tend to the morning of the next day, so that the works of God might be signified as having begun from light and as being completed in light*». But the remaining days had *morning* and *evening*, each of which, beginning from its own *morning*, was extended up to the morning of another day.

### Cap. V.

*On the natural order of the computation of days, and on the [order] which was introduced for the mystery.*

This is the natural order of the distinction of days, that days be distinguished and computed from morning to morning. But afterwards it was done *in mystery*, that days be computed from evening to evening, and that the day be joined to the preceding night in the computation — although, according to the natural order, the preceding day ought to be joined to the following night — because man fell from light by sin into the darknesses of ignorance and of sins, and then through Christ returned from the darknesses to the light. Hence the Apostle: *We were once darkness, but now [we are] light in the Lord.* Thus the first day, beginning not from dawn but from full light, and then gradually receiving evening as the light went down, was completed at the morning of the next day. Hence Bede: «*With the light going down gradually and after a space of divine length passing under the lower parts, evening was made, just as it is now wont to be done by the customary course of the sun. But morning was made when the same [light] was returning over the earth and inaugurating another day; and the day was completed as one of twenty-four hours. And the night for that three-day span was wholly tenebrous, which afterwards, with the stars created, shone with some light*».

*An incidental question.* But it is wont to be asked why the sun was made, if that light of the day sufficed. To which it can be said that perhaps that light illumined the upper parts, and the sun had to be made for the illumination of the lower; or rather for this reason: because, with the sun made, the brightness of the day was increased. For with a much greater light did the day shine afterwards than before. — *A second doubt.* But if it is asked what became of that light, since it does not now appear: it can be said either that the body of the sun was formed from it, or that it is in that part of the heaven in which the sun is — not as if it were itself the sun, but so united to it that it cannot be discerned.

### Cap. VI.

*On the understanding of these words: God said.*

Furthermore it must be investigated how it is to be taken when He says: *God said* — whether He spoke that *temporally* or *with the sound of a voice*, or *in some other mode*. *A third doubt.* Augustine on Genesis hands down that God spoke neither *temporally* nor *with the sound of a voice*; because if [He had spoken] *temporally*, [He would have spoken] also *mutably*; and if the voice of God is said to have sounded *corporeally*, neither was there a tongue with which to speak, nor was there anyone whom it behooved to hear and understand. Well therefore is the voice of God referred to the nature of the Word, through which all things are made. Therefore God said: *Let there be* etc., not *temporally*, not *with the sound of a voice*, but in the Word coeternal to Himself — that is, He begot the Word intemporally, in whom He was and from eternity disposed that it should come to be in time, and in Him [the Word] it was done.

### Cap. VII.

*In what sense the Father is said to operate in the Son, or through the Son, or in the Holy Spirit.*

It is wont here to be asked how it is to be taken when it is said that *the Father operates in the Son*, or *through the Son*, or *in the Holy Spirit*. For Scripture frequently proposes this to us, as that: «*Thou hast made all things in wisdom, O Lord*», that is «*in the Son*». And: «*In the beginning*, that is *in the Son*, *God created heaven and earth*». And that: *Through whom He also made the ages.* Likewise on that locus of the Psalm: *By the word of the Lord the heavens were established* etc., Augustine says that «the Father operates through His *Word* and *Holy Spirit*». How then is this to be taken? — *A heretical opinion.* Certain heretics have supposed that the Father, as it were as author and craftsman, used the Son and the Holy Spirit in the operation of things as it were as an instrument, taking from the aforesaid words an occasion of error — which pious faith rejects as blasphemous and contrary to sound doctrine. — *Catholic exposition 1.* Therefore it is not to be understood that Scripture so frequently mentions *the Father operating in the Son* or *through the Son* as if the Son could not act unless the Father stretched out His right hand to Him, or as if [the Son] were a sort of instrument of the operating Father; but rather that by those words it willed that the Father be understood as operating *with* the Son and Holy Spirit and as doing nothing without them.

*An objection.* But the heretic says: on this account it could have been said that the Son *operates through the Father* or *in the Father*, and the Holy Spirit with each or through each, because the Son operates with the Father, and the Holy Spirit with each. — *Solution.* To which it is briefly replied: that [the former] was said and not the latter, so that the principle [of action] might be shown in the Father. For the Father does not [operate] from the Son, but the Son operates from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from both. And thus the Son is also read to operate through the Holy Spirit, because He operates with the Holy Spirit, [the Holy Spirit] having this very thing from the Son, that he should operate. — *Exposition 2.* That [phrase] can also be taken otherwise, so that the Father is said to *operate in the Son* or *through the Son*, because He begot Him as the maker of all — as one is said to *judge through Him*, because [the Father] begot the judge; so also [the Father] is said, or the Son, to operate through the Holy Spirit, because from both proceeds the Holy Spirit, the maker of all. Hence John *Chrysostom* in his exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews thus says: «*Not as the heretic vainly suspects, as though the Son had stood forth as some instrument of the Father; nor is the Father said to have made [things] through Him as though He Himself could not have made [them]; but, as the Father is said to judge through the Son, because He begot the judge, so also He is said to operate through the Son, because He is known to have begotten Him as maker. For if the Father is the cause of Him, according as He is Father, much more is He the cause of those things which have been made through the Son*». — These things have been said concerning the work of the first day.

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