AUGUSTINE, 



73 



passage, " In the beginning God created the heaven 

 and the earth," he says: — 



"In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, as 

 if this were the seed of the heaven and the earth, although as 

 yet all the matter of heaven and of earth was in confusion ; but 

 because it was certain that from this the heaven and the earth would 

 be, therefore the material itself is called by that name." Again, 

 as in the foregoing passage, in a later passage he speaks of 

 Creation as of things being brought into due order, — " not by 

 intervals of time, but by series of causes, so that those things 

 which in the mind of God were made simultaneously might be 

 brought to their completion by the sixfold representation of 

 that one day." 



Of these passages Cotterill remarks : — 



"We observe that both the language itself and, yet more, 

 Augustine's profound sense of the impossibility of representing 

 in the forms of finite thought the operations of the infinite and 

 eternal Mind compelled this great theologian to look beyond 

 the mere letter of the inspired history of Creation, and to indi- 

 cate principles of interpretation which supply by anticipation 

 very valuable guidance, when we compare other conclusions of 

 modern science with this teaching of Holy Scripture." 



Cotterill continues that Augustine again illus- 

 trates the work of Creation by the growth of a tree 

 from its seed, in which are originally all its various 

 branches and other parts, which do not suddenly 

 spring up such and so large as they are wlicn 

 complete, but in that order with which wc are 

 familiar in Nature. All these things are in the 

 seed, not by material substance, but by causal energy 

 and pote7icy, and " even so as in the grain itself 



