{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010246.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010246.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010246.htm","text":"Chapter XIII.\u2014Of the Intellectual Heaven and Formless Earth, Out of Which, on Another Day, the Firmament Was Formed.\n16. Meanwhile I conceive this, O my God, when I hear Thy Scripture speak, saying, In the beginning God made heaven and earth; p. 180 but the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep, and not stating on what day Thou didst create these things. Thus, meanwhile, do I conceive, that it is on account of that heaven of heavens, that intellectual heaven, where to understand is to know all at once,\u2014not \u201cin part,\u201d not \u201cdarkly,\u201d not \u201cthrough a glass,\u201d 1102 but as a whole, in manifestation, \u201cface to face;\u201d not this thing now, that anon, but (as has been said) to know at once without any change of times; and on account of the invisible and formless earth, without any change of times; which change is wont to have \u201cthis thing now, that anon,\u201d because, where there is no form there can be no distinction between \u201cthis\u201d or \u201cthat;\u201d\u2014it is, then, on account of these two,\u2014a primitively formed, and a wholly formless; the one heaven, but the heaven of heavens, the other earth, but the earth invisible and formless;\u2014on account of these two do I meanwhile conceive that Thy Scripture said without mention of days, \u201cIn the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.\u201d For immediately it added of what earth it spake. And when on the second day the firmament is recorded to have been created, and called heaven, it suggests to us of which heaven He spake before without mention of days.","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...","type":"page"}