Darkness as shadow, not substance

But the argument presses further: was darkness created along with the world? Is it older than light? And why is the worse thing the more ancient? And why is the worse thing the more ancient? We answer that this darkness did not subsist in its own right as a substance. It is an affection around the air, coming upon it by deprivation of light. What light, then, did the region within the world suddenly find itself without, so that darkness came to be over the water? We reason as follows: if anything existed before the constitution of this perceptible and perishable world, it was clearly in light. For neither the ranks of the angels, nor all the heavenly armies, nor any named or unnamed rational nature or ministering spirit whatsoever, lived in darkness. They held their proper state in light and all spiritual gladness. No one will dispute this—at least no one who awaits the light above the heavens in the promises of good things, about which Solomon says, “Light is always for the righteous” (Proverbs 13:9), and the apostle says, “Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12). For if those who are condemned are sent into the outer darkness, then clearly those who have done what is worthy of acceptance have their rest in the light beyond the world.

So when the heaven came into being by God’s command, suddenly stretched around, enclosing the things within by its own circumference—a continuous body able to separate what is inside from what is outside—it necessarily made the space left within it lightless, cutting off the brightness from outside. For three things must come together for a shadow: the light, the body, and the unlit place. The darkness within the world, then, came to subsist by the shadow of the heavenly body. Understand what I am saying from a clear example: at a still midday, someone sets up a tent around himself made of dense, watertight material and shuts himself inside in a makeshift darkness. Suppose that the darkness in question was like that—not subsisting in its own right beforehand, but following upon other things.

This darkness is also said to walk upon the deep, because the outermost part of the air naturally touches the surfaces of bodies. At that time water lay over everything. Therefore it is necessarily said that darkness was over the deep.

“And the Spirit of God,” it says, “was borne upon the water” (Genesis 1:2). If this means the spirit as the pouring of the air, then accept that the writer is enumerating for you the parts of the world: God made heaven, earth, water, air—and this air already being poured out and flowing. But if—what is more true and was approved by those before us—the Spirit of God means the Holy Spirit, then accept this reading, because Scripture especially and uniquely honors the Spirit with this mention, and nothing else is called the Spirit of God except the Holy Spirit, the completing element of the divine and blessed Trinity. If you accept this meaning, you will find the benefit from it greater.

How, then, was this Spirit borne upon the water? I will tell you not my own word, but that of a Syrian man who was as far from worldly wisdom as he was near to the knowledge of true things. He said that the Syriac language is more expressive, and because of its closeness to Hebrew it somehow approaches the meaning of the Scriptures more nearly.