It is right that any one beginning to narrate the formation of the world should begin with the good order which reigns in visible things. I am about to speak of the creation of heaven and earth, which was not spontaneous, as some have imagined, but drew its origin from God.

What ear is worthy to hear such a tale? How earnestly the soul should prepare itself to receive such high lessons! How pure it should be from carnal affections, how unclouded by worldly disquietudes, how active and ardent in its researches, how eager to find in its surroundings an idea of God which may be worthy of Him!

'In the beginning God created.' What a fitting commencement! The creature began in time, was created in time, and shall finish in time. If the beginning is in time, do not doubt that the end will also be in time. Of what tense is the form of the verb 'created'? Of an indefinite tense.

Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the form of the earth. If it be a sphere or a cylinder, if it resemble a disc and is equally rounded in all parts, or if it has the form of a winnowing-basket and is hollow in the middle, all these conjectures have been suggested by cosmographers, each one upsetting that of his predecessor. It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to the shape of the earth; he has not said that it is a hundred and eighty thousand furlongs in circumference; he has not measured it. But he says, 'God created the heaven and the earth.'