“Now all these things represent spiritual examples. Light is first created in the heart of the sinner, when he begins to recognize himself, so that he distinguishes between light and darkness, and begins to call light day, and darkness night, and is no longer of those of whom it is said: “Woe to them that … More Spiritual Examples

“I think that here a great sacrament is commended, because every soul, as long as it is in sin, is in a kind of darkness and confusion. But it can not emerge from its confusion and be disposed to the order and form of justice, unless it be first illumined to see its evils, and … More The sacrament of the divine works

Therefore, God in beginning to accomplish His works made light first, that afterwards he might make all things in light. For He signified to us that He does not like works which are done in darkness, because they are evil: “For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, … More Why light was made first

But not even this, in my opinion, will be absurd, if we believe that there was one and the same moment of time at which in the beginning both the matter of visible and corporeal things and the essence of the invisible things in the angelic nature were created simultaneously; and that this is what … More Simultaneous Creation

“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” (Genesis 1. 1) What is created is made from nothing. For what is made from something, is indeed made, but is not created, because it is not made from nothing. Therefore, God made heaven and earth; and He not only made but created them; that is, He … More Creator not demiurge

“Therefore, it is clear that all the natural arts serve divine science, and that the lower wisdom, rightly ordered, leads to the higher. Accordingly, under the sense of the significance of words in relation to things history is contained, which, as has been said, is served by three sciences: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. Under that … More Science and Scripture

“Now of this subject matter Divine Scripture treats according to a threefold sense: that is according to history, allegory, and tropology. History is the narration of events, which is contained in the first meaning of the letter; we have allegory when, through what is is said to have been done, something else is signified as … More Three levels of reading

“Now although the principal subject matter of Divine Scripture is the works of restoration, yet, in order to approach the treatment of these more competently, it first, at the very commencement of its narrative, recounts briefly and truthfully the beginning and constitution of the works of foundation. For it could not  fittingly have shown how … More Foundation and Restoration

“Whoever approaches the reading of the Divine Scriptures for instruction ought to consider first what the nature of the subject matter is with which their discourse is concerned: because if he has knowledge of those things about which Scripture is composed, he will more easily thereafter perceive the truth or profundity of its words. The … More The subject matter of Divine Scripture