24 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGICAL 
verse, and as the commencement of the first of 
the six succeeding days, in which the earth was to 
be fitted up, and peopled in a manner fit for the 
reception of mankind. We have in this second 
verse, a distinct mention of earth and waters, as 
very probable that bara, ^^ created,'^ as being the stronger word, was 
selected to describe the first production of the heaven and the earth. 
The point, however, upon which the interpretation of the first 
chapter of Genesis appears to me really to turn, is, whether the 
two first verses are merely a summary statement of what is related 
in detail in the rest of the chapter, and a sort of introduction to 
it, or whether they contain an account of an act of creation. And 
this last seems to me to be their true interpretation, first, because 
there is no other account of the creation of the earth ; secondly, the 
second verse describes the condition of the earth when so created, 
and thus prepares for the account of the work of the six days ; but 
if they speak of any creation, it appears to me that this creation 
*' in the beginning" was previous to the six days, because, as you 
will observe, the creation of each day is preceded by the declara- 
tion that God said, or willed, that such things should be (" and 
God said"), and therefore the very form of the narrative seems to 
imply that the creation of the first day began when these words are 
first used, i. e. with the creation of light in ver. 3. The time then of 
the creation in ver. 1 appears to me not to be defined : we are told 
only what alone we are concerned with, that all things were made 
by God. Nor is this any new opinion. Many of the fathers 
(they are quoted by Petavius, Z. c. c. 11, § i. — viii.) supposed the 
two first verses of Genesis to contain an account of a distinct and 
prior act of creation ; some, as Augustine, Theodoret, and others, 
that of the creation of matter; others, that of the elements; 
others again (and they the most numerous) imagine that, not 
these visible heavens, but what they think to be called elsewhere 
" the highest heavens," the " heaven of heavens," are here spoken 
of, our visible heavens being related to have been created on the 
second day. Petavius himself regards the light as the only act 
of creation of the first day (c. vii. " de opere primse diei, i. e. 
