For such were that rude and carnal people to
which he spake, that he thought them fit to be entrusted with the
knowledge of such works of God only as were visible." They agree,
however, that under the words earth invisible and without form, and
that darksome deep (out of which it is subsequently shown, that all
these visible things which we all know, were made and arranged
during those "days") may, not incongruously, be understood of this
formless first matter.
What now if another should say that "this same formlessness and
confusedness of matter, was for this reason first conveyed under the
name of heaven and earth, because out of it was this visible world
with all those natures which most manifestly appear in it, which is
ofttimes called by the name of heaven and earth, created and
perfected?" What again if another say that "invisible and visible
nature is not indeed inappropriately called heaven and earth; and
so, that the universal creation, which God made in His Wisdom, that
is, in the Beginning, was comprehended under those two words?
Notwithstanding, since all things be made not of the substance of God,
but out of nothing (because they are not the same that God is, and
there is a mutable nature in them all, whether they abide, as doth the
eternal house of God, or be changed, as the soul and body of man are):
therefore the common matter of all things visible and invisible (as
yet unformed though capable of form), out of which was to be created
both heaven and earth (i.
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