{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/102/1020313.htm","path":"chr/ecf/102/1020313.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/102/1020313.htm","text":"Chapter 9.\u2014What the Scriptures Teach Us to Believe Concerning the Creation of the Angels.\nAt present, since I have undertaken to treat of the origin of the holy city, and first of the holy angels, who constitute a large part of this city, and indeed the more blessed part, since they have never been expatriated, I will give myself to the task of explaining, by God\u2019s help, and as far as seems suitable, the Scriptures which relate to this point. Where Scripture speaks of the world\u2019s creation, it is not plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if mention of them is made, it is implicitly under the name of \u201cheaven,\u201d when it is said, \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,\u201d or perhaps rather under the name of \u201clight,\u201d of which presently. But that they were wholly omitted, I am unable to believe, because it is written that God on the seventh day rested from all His works which He made; and this very book itself begins, \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,\u201d so that before heaven and earth God seems to have made nothing. Since, therefore, He began with the heavens and the earth,\u2014and the earth itself, as Scripture adds, was at first invisible and formless, light not being as yet made, and darkness covering the face of the deep (that is to say, covering an undefined chaos of earth and sea, for where light is not, darkness must needs be),\u2014and then when all things, which are recorded to have been completed in six days, were created and arranged, p. 210 how should the angels be omitted, as if they were not among the works of God, from which on the seventh day He rested? Yet, though the fact that the angels are the work of God is not omitted here, it is indeed not explicitly mentioned; but elsewhere Holy Scripture asserts it in the clearest manner. For in the Hymn of the Three Children in the Furnace it was said, \u201cO all ye works of the Lord bless ye the Lord;\u201d 462 and among these works mentioned afterwards in detail, the angels are named. And in the psalm it is said, \u201cPraise ye the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights. Praise ye Him, all His angels; praise ye Him, all His hosts. Praise ye Him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heaven of heavens; and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for He commanded, and they were created.\u201d 463 Here the angels are most expressly and by divine authority said to have been made by God, for of them among the other heavenly things it is said, \u201cHe commanded, and they were created.\u201d Who, then, will be bold enough to suggest that the angels were made after the six days\u2019 creation? If any one is so foolish, his folly is disposed of by a scripture of like authority, where God says, \u201cWhen the stars were made, the angels praised me with a loud voice.\u201d 464 The angels therefore existed before the stars; and the stars were made the fourth day. Shall we then say that they were made the third day? Far from it; for we know what was made that day. The earth was separated from the water, and each element took its own distinct form, and the earth produced all that grows on it. On the second day, then? Not even on this; for on it the firmament was made between the waters above and beneath, and was called \u201cHeaven,\u201d in which firmament the stars were made on the fourth day. There is no question, then, that if the angels are included in the works of God during these six days, they are that light which was called \u201cDay,\u201d and whose unity Scripture signalizes by calling that day not the \u201cfirst day,\u201d but \u201cone day.\u201d 465 For the second day, the third, and the rest are not other days; but the same \u201cone\u201d day is repeated to complete the number six or seven, so that there should be knowledge both of God\u2019s works and of His rest. For when God said, \u201cLet there be light, and there was light,\u201d if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called \u201cDay,\u201d in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made. \u201cThe true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,\u201d 466 \u2014this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name \u201cevil.\u201d 467\nVives here notes that the Greek theologians and Jerome held, with Plato, that spiritual creatures were made first, and used by God in the creation of things material. The Latin theologians and Basil held that God made all things at once.\n210:466 210:467\nMali enim nulla natura est: sed amissio boni, mali nomen accepit.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II: City of God: Cha...","type":"page"}