The Contest of Wisdom with Folly

Job 12:22

He revealeth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.

And elsewhere,

God stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

Therefore, if you wish to give any place to reason, this word of the Wise Man concerning this subject—namely, concerning the matter from which God created or fashioned the world—is that it is formless matter, the darkness spoken of by both Moses and Job. But now, having produced the matter from which, you seem to hesitate and doubt regarding the Agent from these words of yours. The text is such: But whether through the medium of the sun, or any primary light of the three days, He gradually brought the water, air, heavens, and their ornaments into their places by the power of heat out of that chaos, is another matter, nor should we invent anything on that part which we have not weighed against the sacred History of Moses, which are the words of God, as if against a Lydian Stone. These are your words.

Therefore, since you seem to doubt about the immediate agent in this business, I will show you without great difficulty (if you will grant any faith to the sacred Writings) what that agent is. It is indeed for certain that uncreated light, which shone forth immediately from the Father for the creation of the world: that (I say) Word supporting and nourishing all things with His own goodness. I do not say that literal word, whose role it is (as Paul witnesses) to kill, but that whose role it is to make alive, to create all things, and without which nothing exists, as in Him is life. That Light (I say) which shines in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it, by means of which the world was made. And we have all this confirmed by St. John.

John 1

But if you still hesitate further, it was that holy spirit of Wisdom, whom the Wise Man calls the clear emanation of the almighty God and the brightness of eternal light, of whose power in the fabrication of the world the sacred Bibles write thus:

Jeremiah 51:15

He who made the earth by His strength, and prepared the world by His wisdom, and by His prudence stretched out the heavens. When He utters His voice, the waters in the heaven are multiplied, when He lifts the clouds from the end of the earth, He makes lightnings and rain, and brings forth the winds from His treasures.

Do you not yet grasp (Marinus) who is that luminous spirit by whose power the world was created from nothing, or from formless matter? God (says Job) by His wisdom adapts the weight to the air, and weighs the waters in measure, He makes the appointed rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunders. But we also have this very well confirmed by the royal Prophet, who hit upon this opinion: The works of God are wonderful and ample, which He made in Wisdom. What need is there of more? Does not the Prophet seem to confirm this most clearly elsewhere: By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by the spirit of His mouth all their power. Furthermore, concerning this word, or holy Wisdom, Solomon speaks thus: Jehovah possessed Wisdom in the beginning of His way, before His works, before any time, before the age, when He was preparing the heavens, I was there (says Wisdom) with Him, composing all things, etc.

Proverbs 8

Was not Solomon also taught by means of this luminous spirit, which works all things, how the world was made? But now I seem to see Marinus smiling with a twisted mouth, in that I seem to take the creature itself for the creator. But far be it from me that I should either assert or even think that the divine essence was ever created. But that I should boldly assert this uncreated Light to be the internal form of created light and call it its life, I will never cease. If this were not so, why would we give any faith to King David, who says that God placed His tabernacle in the Sun, which indeed was nothing other than that light created on the first day by divine information, and now on the fourth day gathered and contracted into a single pure mass? Before which time it was said of this created spirit: Covered with light as with a garment, stretching out the heaven like a skin, who coverest His superior parts with waters, and placest the cloud as Thy ascent, who walkest upon the wings of the winds, who makest Thy angels spirits, and Thy ministers a burning fire, who hast founded the earth upon its stability, etc. All these things that uncreated light made and created within the created light, not otherwise than clothed in a garment.