Key Arguments

• Augustine says ‘We have also considered the reasons for the symbolism in the fact that you willed created things to be made in a particular order or to be recorded in a particular order’, so the six‑day order is intentionally symbolic.
• He identifies in God’s Word, the Son, a timeless predestination of ‘heaven and earth’ understood as ‘the head and body of the Church’, which ‘has no morning and evening’, i.e., lies outside time.
• He then describes how God ‘began to carry out your predestined plan in time so as to reveal hidden secrets and to bring order to our disordered chaos’, linking the temporal order of salvation to the Genesis sequence.
• Specific stages are mapped to Genesis motifs: God ‘justified the ungodly’ and ‘separated them from the wicked’; he ‘established the authority of your book between those in higher authority’ and those ‘below who were subject to it’, corresponding to the firmament.
• He says God ‘gathered a society of unbelievers to share a single common aspiration, so that the zeal of the faithful should “appear” and so bring forth for you works of mercy’, echoing the gathering of waters and appearance of dry land bearing fruit.
• Next, God ‘kindled lights in the firmament, your saints “having the word of life”, shining with a sublime authority made manifest by spiritual gifts’, applying the creation of celestial lights to saints.
• He ascribes to God the production ‘from physical matter’ of ‘sacraments and visible miracles and the sounds of the words of your book, symbolized by the “firmament”’, which instruct unbelievers but also bless believers.
• He then says God ‘formed “the living soul” of the faithful with their affections disciplined by a strong continence’, aligning the earth’s production of a living soul with temperate, already‑believing Christians.
• He adds that God ‘renewed the mind … after your image and likeness … to be subject to you alone and in need of no human authority as a model to imitate’, distinguishing renewal in God’s image from imitation of human superiors.
• He again uses the marital analogy: ‘You made its rational action subject to the superiority of the intellect, as if symbolized by a woman’s submissive role with her husband.’
• Finally, Augustine notes that God ordained that ‘to all the ministerial officers necessary to bring the faithful to perfection in this life, you willed that the same faithful should provide for their temporal needs good works which could be fruitful for them hereafter’, tying the Genesis motif of fruit‑bearing to ecclesial support and eschatological reward.

Source Quotes

The matter of heaven and earth is one thing, the beauty of heaven and earth is another. You made the matter from absolutely nothing, but the beauty of the world from formless matter—and both simultaneously so that the form followed the matter without any pause or delay.36 xxxiv (49) We have also considered the reasons for the symbolism in the fact that you willed created things to be made in a particular order or to be recorded in a particular order. And because particular things are good and all of them together very good, we have seen in your Word, in your unique Son, ‘heaven and earth’, the head and body of the Church (Col.

You made the matter from absolutely nothing, but the beauty of the world from formless matter—and both simultaneously so that the form followed the matter without any pause or delay.36 xxxiv (49) We have also considered the reasons for the symbolism in the fact that you willed created things to be made in a particular order or to be recorded in a particular order. And because particular things are good and all of them together very good, we have seen in your Word, in your unique Son, ‘heaven and earth’, the head and body of the Church (Col. 1: 18),37 in a predestination which is before all time and has no morning and evening. But then you began to carry out your predestined plan in time so as to reveal hidden secrets and to bring order to our disordered chaos.

1: 18),37 in a predestination which is before all time and has no morning and evening. But then you began to carry out your predestined plan in time so as to reveal hidden secrets and to bring order to our disordered chaos. For our sins were over us, and we had abandoned you to sink into a dark depth.

142: 10). You justified the ungodly (Rom. 4: 5), you separated them from the wicked, and you established the authority of your book between those in higher authority who were submissive to you and those below who were subject to it. You gathered a society of unbelievers to share a single common aspiration, so that the zeal of the faithful should ‘appear’ and so bring forth for you works of mercy, distributing to the poor their earthly possessions so as to acquire celestial reward.

You gathered a society of unbelievers to share a single common aspiration, so that the zeal of the faithful should ‘appear’ and so bring forth for you works of mercy, distributing to the poor their earthly possessions so as to acquire celestial reward. Hence you kindled lights in the firmament, your saints ‘having the word of life’ (Phil. 2: 16), shining with a sublime authority made manifest by spiritual gifts. And then to instruct the unbelieving peoples, you produced from physical matter sacraments and visible miracles and the sounds of the words of your book, symbolized by the ‘firmament’.

2: 16), shining with a sublime authority made manifest by spiritual gifts. And then to instruct the unbelieving peoples, you produced from physical matter sacraments and visible miracles and the sounds of the words of your book, symbolized by the ‘firmament’. Believers also are blessed by them.

Believers also are blessed by them. Then you formed ‘the living soul’ of the faithful with their affections disciplined by a strong continence. Then you renewed the mind (Rom.

Then you formed ‘the living soul’ of the faithful with their affections disciplined by a strong continence. Then you renewed the mind (Rom. 12: 2) after your image and likeness (Col. 3: 10) to be subject to you alone and in need of no human authority as a model to imitate. You made its rational action subject to the superiority of the intellect, as if symbolized by a woman’s submissive role with her husband.

You made its rational action subject to the superiority of the intellect, as if symbolized by a woman’s submissive role with her husband. To all the ministerial officers necessary to bring the faithful to perfection in this life, you willed that the same faithful should provide for their temporal needs good works which could be fruitful for them hereafter. All these things we see, and they are very good, because you see them in us, having given us the Spirit by which we see them and love you in them. xxxv (50) ‘Lord God, grant us peace; for you have given us all things’ (Isa.

Key Concepts

• We have also considered the reasons for the symbolism in the fact that you willed created things to be made in a particular order or to be recorded in a particular order.
• we have seen in your Word, in your unique Son, ‘heaven and earth’, the head and body of the Church (Col. 1: 18),37 in a predestination which is before all time and has no morning and evening.
• But then you began to carry out your predestined plan in time so as to reveal hidden secrets and to bring order to our disordered chaos.
• You justified the ungodly (Rom. 4: 5), you separated them from the wicked, and you established the authority of your book between those in higher authority who were submissive to you and those below who were subject to it.
• you kindled lights in the firmament, your saints ‘having the word of life’ (Phil. 2: 16), shining with a sublime authority made manifest by spiritual gifts.
• you produced from physical matter sacraments and visible miracles and the sounds of the words of your book, symbolized by the ‘firmament’.
• Then you formed ‘the living soul’ of the faithful with their affections disciplined by a strong continence.
• Then you renewed the mind (Rom. 12: 2) after your image and likeness (Col. 3: 10) to be subject to you alone and in need of no human authority as a model to imitate.
• To all the ministerial officers necessary to bring the faithful to perfection in this life, you willed that the same faithful should provide for their temporal needs good works which could be fruitful for them hereafter.

Context

Book XIII, xxxiv (49): Augustine explicitly re‑reads the ordered sequence of Genesis 1 as a symbolic outline of God’s eternal predestination of Christ and the Church and its temporal realization through justification, Scripture, ecclesial structure, sacraments, sanctification, and mutual support within the Church.