St. Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Volume II
Overview
A thorough and profound commentary on the first three chapters of Genesis. Completed in AD 415, Augustine’s explains, what the author of Genesis intended to say about what God did when he created heaven and earth. Contains Books 7–12.
Top Highlights
“A better example is that of air when light is present: the air has not been given its own luminosity, but it becomes luminous, for if it had been given its own luminosity and was not constantly receiving it, it would remain luminous when the light was gone. In a similar way, man is illuminated when God is present to him, but when God is absent, darkness is immediately upon him; and he is separated from God not by a distance in space but by a turning away of his will.” (Page 51)
“Why would they be ashamed, since they did not perceive in their members any law at war with the law of their mind?4 That law was rather the penalty for sin, inflicted on them after their transgression, when disobedience violated the command and justice punished the deed. But before this happened they were naked, as has been said, and they were not embarrassed. They experienced no motion of the flesh of which they would be ashamed. They did not think that anything had to be covered, because they did not feel that anything had to be restrained.” (Page 135)
“God, who has supreme power over all that He has created and who uses the ministry of His holy angels to mock the Devil—for the Devil’s evil will is used to serve the Church of God—did not permit him to tempt the woman except by the serpent, nor the man except by the woman. In the serpent it was the Devil who spoke, using that creature as an instrument, moving it as he was able to move it and as it was capable of being moved, to produce the sounds of words and the bodily signs by which the woman would understand the will of the tempter.” (Page 159)