Creation And Understanding

Creatura coeli et terrae quomodo historialiter ab exordio principii condita sit legimus; sed qualiter in Ecclesia spiritualiter a doctoribus accipiatur, intelligamus. In principio fecit Deus coelum et terram Principium Christus est, sicut ipse in Evangelio Judaeis interrogantibus respondit: Ego principium qui loquor vobis. In hoc igitur principio fecit Deus coelum, id est, spirituales, qui coelestia meditantur et quaerunt; in ipso fecit et carnales, qui necdum terrenum hominem deposuerunt.  Terra autem inanis et vacua... Terra scilicet carnis nostrae inanis erat et vacua, priusquam doctinae acciperet formam.  Et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi,  Quia delictorum caecitas et ignorantiae profunda obscuritas corda nostra tegebat. Et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquos.  Spiritus autem Dei super cor nostrum tenebrosum et fluidum quasi super aquas, jam superferebatur; in quo subsistentes requiesceremus, cujusque vivificaremur flatu, et cujus unda ablueremur. Dixit quoque Deus: Fiat lux... Id est, illuminatio credulitatis appareat. Prima enim die lucem fidei dedit, quia prima est in conversione fides. Unde et istud primum in Dei praeceptis mandatum est: Dominus Deus tuus Deus unus est. Propter quam fidem ipse Dominus etiam visibiliter in mundo apparere voluit. Et divisit lucem a tenebris... Nam tunc Deus juxta praescientiae suae gratiam divisit justos, id est, filios Dei et lucis, a peccatoribus, tanquam a tenebris; justos vocans diem, et illos noctem; nam quod in Ecclesia lucis nomine justi appelentur, audi Apostolum: Fuistis, inquit, aliquando tenbrae, nunc autem lux in Domino. Sanctus Isidorus Hispalensis,Mysticorum Expositiones Sacramentorum Seu Quaestiones In Vetus Testamentum,In Genesin, Caput I Source: Migne PL 83.209b-210a

How the creation of heaven and earth was performed in the beginning we may read in a historical fashion, but let us understand how it is received spiritually by the learned in the Church. In the beginning God made heaven and earth. 1 The beginning is Christ, as He Himself replies to His Jewish questioners in the Gospel of John: 'I the beginning speak to you.' 2 In this beginning, then, God made heaven, that is, the spiritual ones, those who meditate on and seek spiritual things, and in that beginning He also made fleshy ones, those who have not yet laid down the earthly man. The earth empty and barren... Certainly the earth empty and barren was our flesh before it received form by teaching. And darkness on the face of the abyss. Because the blindness of sins and the depths of ignorance covered our darkened hearts. And the spirit of God over the face of the waters. For the spirit of God is over our dark and yielding hearts as over the waters, already being above, in which established we shall have rest, and by whose spirit we shall be enlivened, and with whose wave we shall be cleansed. And God said, 'Let there be light'... That is, the light of belief shall appear. For on the first day He gave the light of faith, because first is the conversation to faith. Whence it is first commanded in the precepts of God: 'The Lord your God is one God.' 3 Whence the Lord Himself wished to make faith appear visibly in the world. And He divided the light from darkness. For then God by His prescient grace divided the righteous, that is, the sons of God and light, from sinners, that is the darkness, naming the righteous the day, and the others the night, for that the righteous are given the name of light in the Church, hear the Apostle: 'You were once in darkness, but now in the light of the Lord.' 4 Saint Isidore of Seville, Expositions of Sacred Mysteries or Questions on the Old Testament, On Genesis, Chap 1 1 Gen 1.1 2 Jn 8.25 3 Deut 6.4, Mark 12.29 4 Ephes 5.8