PhiloAlexandria, c. 40
greek jewish · floruit 30–45 · Alexandria
First, then, the Maker made an incorporeal heaven, and an invisible earth, and the idea of air and of void; of which the one he named darkness, since air is black by nature, and the other the abyss, for the void is very deep and yawning. Then the incorporeal substance of water and of breath, and over all, seventh, of light, which again was incorporeal, an intelligible model of the sun and of all the light-bearing stars that were to be constituted throughout the heaven.
The passage Chalcidius is reporting when he tells the Latin west what Philo held, and the one place in this edition where a Latin witness and its named Greek source can be set side by side. Philo lists what was made first, and every item on the list is incorporeal: a heaven without body, an invisible earth, the idea of air and of void. Then he does something no other witness on this daf does, and identifies the terms of Gen 1:2 with items on that list: the darkness is the air, because air is black by nature, and the abyss is the void, because the void is deep and yawning. Water, breath and light follow, light seventh and last, itself incorporeal and the model of the sun and the stars. This is a reading of the first two verses as an inventory of models rather than a narrative of events, and it is why Chalcidius can say that those who search more deeply deny that this heaven was made in the beginning. On the other bench the same instinct is b. Chagigah 12a's ten things created on the first day, which is also an inventory and is also longer than the verse.
An incorporeal heaven and an invisible earthHeaven firstUnformed matter
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
greek jewish · floruit 30–45 · Alexandria
The incorporeal world, then, had already reached its end, established in the divine Reason; and the perceptible was being brought to completion after the model of that one. And first of its parts, the best of them all, the craftsman made the heaven, which he rightly named 'firmament', inasmuch as it is corporeal; for body is by nature solid, since it is also extended in three directions, and what other notion is there of the solid and of body than what is extended in every direction? Fittingly, then, setting the perceptible and body-formed against the intelligible and incorporeal, he called this one 'firmament'.
Anchor note: Philo is here on the word stereoma, which the Greek Genesis has at 1:6 and not at 1:1, and the witness is anchored on 1:1 under the second clause of the anchor rule. What he is doing is answering this crux's question, what is the heaven of the first verse, and he answers it by pairing the two words: the heaven of the beginning is the incorporeal one, established in the divine Reason, and the heaven the chapter goes on to call firmament is the corporeal one, named firmament for that very reason, because body is what is extended in three directions. That is the same argument from the chapter's own vocabulary that Chalcidius makes in Latin, and Chalcidius makes it having read this book: the firmament is not called heaven until the second day, so the heaven of the beginning must be something else. Remigius reaches the conclusion, the empyrean heaven, without any argument at all, and Comestor turns it into the schoolroom formula of the container and the thing contained. Philo's version is the only one on the daf that gets there from a definition of body.
'Firmament' names the heaven as bodyHeaven first
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
Patres378–720
latin · 300–400 · Cordoba (?)
But it is to be understood what heaven, or what earth, Scripture is speaking of. Those who are content with a hasty understanding think that this heaven which we see, and the earth on which we are carried, are meant; whereas those who search more deeply deny that this heaven was made in the beginning, but on the second day. For in the beginning light was made, and that was called day. But this heaven afterwards, which God called the solidity. Then on the third day, the waters being removed, the dry appeared, and the name of earth was imposed on it. So that it is evident that neither this heaven known to us, nor this earth on which we are, was made from the outset, but that there are others more ancient, to be drawn in by the understanding rather than by the senses. Scripture therefore testifies that the true heaven is one thing and the solidity another; and in the same way that the earth is one thing and the dry another. What heaven, then, did God found before the rest, or what earth? Philo judges them to be incorporeal and intelligible essences, the ideas and exemplars both of this dry land and of the solidity. And finally he says that the human too was first intelligible, the archetypal exemplar of the human race, and only then made corporeal by God. Others not so: but that the prophet, knowing that there are two species of all things, one intelligible and one perceptible, called those powers which embrace and contain both natures 'heaven and earth' — heaven being the incorporeal nature, and earth that which is the substance of bodies, which the Greeks call hyle.
The oldest Latin statement of this crux on the daf, and it arrives with an apparatus nobody after him has. The question is put exactly as the twelfth century will put it — what heaven and what earth does Scripture mean? — and answered by a chronology within the chapter itself: the firmament is called heaven on the second day and the dry is called earth on the third, so the heaven and earth of the first verse cannot be the ones we see, and must be older and intelligible rather than sensible. That is Remigius's empyrean and Comestor's container-and-contained argument, six hundred years early. What is unique to Chalcidius is the sourcing. He names Philo, who does not appear anywhere else in this edition and whom the Latin bench of Gen 1 never cites: heaven and earth are the incorporeal ideas and exemplars, and the human too was intelligible before he was corporeal. Then he reports a second school — alii non ita — for whom the two names are the two species of all things, the intelligible and the perceptible, earth being the substance of bodies, quam graeci hylen uocant. The Greek word is printed in Greek type in the 1520 edition. On the other bench the same question is Beit Shammai against Beit Hillel at b. Chagigah 12a, and the same instinct is R. Akiva's, that the et of the verse must include something more than what is named.
A name for the whole creationThe empyrean heaven
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
latin · c. 387 · Milan
In the beginning of time, then, God made heaven and earth. For time is from this world, not before the world; and a day is a portion of time, not its beginning. And although from the order of the reading we could establish that the Lord first made day and night, which are the alternations of times, and on the second day made the firmament, by which he divided the water which is under heaven from the water which is above heaven — yet for the present assertion it is enough that in the beginning he made heaven, from which comes the prerogative of generation and its cause; and made earth, in which the substance of generation should be. For in these two the four elements were created, out of which are generated all these things which belong to the world. And the elements are four — air, fire, water, and earth — which are mingled with one another in all things. Indeed you will find fire in the earth too, which is often struck out of stones and iron; and in heaven, since the vault is fiery and glitters with shining stars, water can be understood to be, which is either above heaven, or is often sent down from that upper place upon the earth in a full shower.
The chapter heading Migne prints over this is the crux itself: 'that in heaven and earth the four elements were created, out of which all things are composed; of what substance heaven is, and what the position of the earth.' Ambrose's answer is that the two words are a container for the four elements — heaven supplying the prerogative and cause of generation, earth the substance of it — and he proves the mixture empirically, fire struck from flint and iron in the earth, water inferred in heaven from the rain and from the waters above. It is Abelard's reading of the verse seven hundred years early and Ramban's a century after Abelard, and none of the three cites another. Rabanus copies this paragraph verbatim at PL 107:444B, where K1 has already built it.
The four elements
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 387 · Milan
For David said: 'In the beginning you founded the earth, Lord, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They shall perish, but you remain, and all shall grow old as a garment, and as a cloak you shall change them, and they shall be changed; but you are the same, and your years shall not fail' (Ps 102:26 [Vg 101:26]). Which the Lord so confirmed in the Gospel that he said: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away' (Matt 24:35). Those, then, accomplish nothing who thought a fifth, ethereal body had to be brought in to establish the perpetuity of heaven — since they equally see that a part of a single limb joined on unlike the rest usually brings more harm to the body. Note this at the same time, that when the prophet David named the earth in the first place (Ps 148:5) and heaven afterwards, he judged that the work of the Lord had to be declared; for when he said 'and they were made', it makes no difference which you utter first, since both were made together — and at the same time, lest even this prerogative should seem to be adjudged to heaven's divine substance, that it should be reckoned the better by the privilege of being the firstborn creature.
The Latin answer that matches the rabbinic one exactly, and it turns on the same verse. Ps 102:26 names the earth first and the heavens second — the proof R. Yehuda bar Ilai brings for Beit Hillel in Bereshit Rabbah 1:15 — and Ambrose draws from it not that the earth was made first but that the order of naming decides nothing, since both were made together; and then the reason, which is the interesting half: lest heaven be given the privilege of the firstborn. That is R. Shimon ben Yoḥai's stewpot and its lid, and it is Bereshit Rabbah's closing rule that a reversed order teaches equality of honour. Two benches, one psalm verse, the same conclusion, and no contact of any kind.
Both togetherNamed for dignity, not order
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 388–389 · Thagaste
But as to what is said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' — by the name of heaven and earth the whole creation is signified, which God made and founded. And these were called by the names of visible things on account of the weakness of little ones, who are less able to grasp invisible things. First, then, was made the confused and formless matter, out of which should be made all the things that are distinguished and formed — which I believe is called chaos by the Greeks. For so we read it said elsewhere too, in the praises of God: 'You who made the world out of formless matter' (Wis 11:17) — which some manuscripts have as 'out of unseen matter'.
The answer that dissolves the question. 'Heaven and earth' is not a list of two things in an order; it is a name for everything God made, put in visible words because the audience cannot yet hold invisible ones. The Bavli's ten-things list is answering the same question — what does 'heaven and earth' contain, and what else was made with them — and answers it by enumeration where Augustine answers it by generalisation. Note also the variant Augustine records at the end: some copies of Wis 11:17 read 'de materia invisa' for 'de materia informi'. His own text of Gen 1:2, 'invisibilis et incomposita', is the reason he notices.
A name for the whole creationUnformed matter
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 401–415 · Hippo Regius
And why is it said thus, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth', and not said, 'In the beginning God said, Let heaven and earth be made; and heaven and earth were made', as it is told of the light, 'God said, Let there be light; and light was made'? Was it that first, under the name of heaven and earth, what God made had to be taken in universally and commended; and then to be gone through in its parts — how he made it — when at each thing it is said, 'God said', that is, because through his Word he made whatever he made?
A question about the shape of the sentence, and the answer settles what 'heaven and earth' is doing in it: the phrase is a heading. Scripture takes the whole in at one stroke and commends it, and only then goes through the parts with 'God said' at each — which is why v. 1 has no 'let there be' in it. Augustine offers a second answer immediately after (that formless matter cannot be addressed with 'let it be made', since it does not yet imitate the Word), which belongs to K4. This paragraph is the one the Carolingians take: Angelomus compresses it into two lines, and it stands at the head of the Glossa's VERS. 1 in the margin, which K1 has already sliced whole.
The whole first, then the partsA name for the whole creation
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
VersionesLXX · Vulgate
greek jewish · c. 250 BCE · Alexandria
In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.
ἐν ἀρχῇ without an article and without a governing noun: the Greek turns a Hebrew word that may be construct into an adverbial phrase, and in doing so closes off the reading Rashi and Ibn Ezra will call the plain sense. Note also ἐποίησεν, 'made', where the Vulgate will write creavit: the Latin bench's whole argument that creare means to make from nothing has no purchase on the Greek. Every Latin witness here quotes fecit or creavit according to which Latin text is in front of him, and the variation is evidence, not noise.
In the beginning of time
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 392 · Bethlehem
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Jerome translates in principio and not in Filio, and in the Hebrew Questions he says in so many words why: the reading 'in the Son' is false as a translation, however true as a sense. But he also writes creavit where the Old Latin his own contemporaries quote has fecit — Augustine, Ambrose, Bede and the Glossa all argue from fecit — so the Latin bench spends seven centuries reasoning about a verse in two versions at once.
In the beginning of time
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
Glossa ordinariaLaon, c. 1120
latin · compilation 1110–1130 · Laon
Verse 1. 'In the beginning he created,' etc. He does not say: In the beginning God says, Let heaven and earth be made. But he said, 'Let there be light, and light was made' — because under the name of heaven and earth was to be comprehended universally whatever God made, and then it was to be set out in parts how he made it. Whence there follows: 'God said, Let it be' — that is, he made it through his Word. Or, because when formless matter, spiritual or bodily, was first coming to be, it was not to be said 'God said, Let it be'; for it was unfitting that 'let it be' should be said by God, since imperfection does not imitate the form of the Word except when a creature is perfected by the turning of its kind to the Creator; so that when it is said 'God said, Let it be', we may understand him to be calling the creature's imperfection back to himself. When therefore it is said 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth', mention is made of the Son, because he is the Beginning; but when it is said 'God said, Let it be', mention is made that he is the Word. By 'beginning' he notes the origin of the creature existing from him; by 'Word', the perfecting of the creature called back from him to himself, that it may be formed by imitating the unchangeable form of the Word. […] 'In the beginning,' etc. (BEDE, Hexaemeron I, vol. II, col. 13.) Scripture, in intimating the creation of the world, shows in its first word the eternity and omnipotence of God: for him whom it declares to have created the world in the beginning of times, it signifies to have existed eternally before times. […] 'In the beginning,' etc. Heaven — not the visible firmament, but the empyrean, that is, the fiery or intellectual heaven, so called not from burning but from splendour, which was at once filled with angels. […] (ALCUIN, on Genesis, vol. I.) 'In the beginning.' In the Son, by whose becoming man it became plain who were the heavenly and who the earthly. Heaven, the spiritual creature, perfect and blessed from its outset. Earth, bodily matter, still imperfect. […] Mystically. 'In the beginning God created heaven' — namely those who bore the image of the heavenly. 'And earth', that is, those who afterwards, by growing proud, bore the earth, that is, the image of the earthly man, and made themselves deformed. 'But the earth was empty', because it had laid aside its good form. 'And void', of the fruit of good work. 'And there were darknesses', namely the privation of the true light; 'over the face of the abyss', namely the hearts of the proud.
The margin as a settlement rather than an argument. Five glosses stand on this verse: an unattributed Augustinian one distinguishing Beginning from Word (the Son is called the Beginning where origin is meant and the Word where perfecting is meant); three from Bede, on eternity, on the simultaneity of heaven and earth, and on the empyrean heaven; and then Alcuin's, which is one word — Filio. That is the whole apparatus a twelfth-century reader met: Jerome's refutation is nowhere on the page, and the reading he had called false stands unargued in the margin under a great name. Elisions marked […] are Bede's house-building simile, his Ps 102 argument, the seven heavens list with Jerome's three, and the Sapientia 11 gloss on unformed matter, all of which are on the making rather than on the word 'beginning'. Wilson's edition of the Glossa (migne.app/glossa) supersedes this draft when its English reaches Gen 1:1.
In the SonIn the beginning of time
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
מפרשיםTargums · Midrash · Bavli · Rashi
rabbinic · 100–300 · Palestine
In the beginning the LORD created the heavens and the earth.
be-qadmin, a plain adverb of time and nothing else: no construct, no wisdom, no first thing. Onkelos hears the verse as the Greek does. Etheridge's Onkelos did not return from Sefaria by version title (see notes/SOURCES-FINDINGS.md) and the Metsudah English is CC BY-NC, so the English is a fresh draft.
In the beginning of time
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
rabbinic · 100–400 · Palestine
In the beginning and in great wisdom, God created and finished the heavens and the earth.
The single most consequential word on this crux: Neofiti does not translate bereshit, it interprets it — min qadmin be-ḥokhmah, 'from the first, in wisdom' — and then adds a second verb, shakhlel, 'and finished'. A Palestinian targumist and the Latin fathers reach the same gloss on the same word, 'in Wisdom', and then part company entirely over what Wisdom is: for Bereshit Rabbah it is the Torah, for Augustine and Bede it is the Son. Neither side knows the other is there. The CC0 English prints 'in great wisdom'; there is no word for 'great' in the Aramaic, and the reading בחוכמתא recorded in the manuscript's own margin is simply the emphatic state. Note that this witness and K7's targ-neof-1-2 are two slices of one Sefaria segment: the whole of Gen 1:1–5 comes back as a single block.
In Wisdom
English: Sefaria Community Translation
rabbinic · compilation 400–500 · Galilee (Tiberias / Sepphoris)
Rabbi Yishmael asked Rabbi Akiva, saying to him: ‘Because you studied under Naḥum of Gam Zo for twenty-two years, [who taught:] The words akh and rak are restrictive expressions, et and gam are inclusive expressions, [I ask you:] What is the meaning of the et that is written here [twice]?’ He said to him: ‘Had it been stated: “In the beginning God created heavens and earth [bereshit bara elohim shamayim vaaretz]” – we might have said that the heavens and the earth are deities.’ He [Rabbi Yishmael] said to him: “For it is not an empty matter for you [mikem]” (Deuteronomy 32:47) – if it is empty, it is because of you [mikem], because you do not know how to expound, because you do not exert yourself in its regard. “As it [the Torah] is your life” (Deuteronomy 32:47) – when is it your life? It is when you exert yourself in its regard. Rather [the explanation is]: “et hashamayim” – to include the sun, the moon, and the constellations; “ve’et haaretz” – to include trees, vegetation, and the Garden of Eden.
The question of what 'heaven and earth' contains, asked as a question about a particle. R. Yishmael puts it to R. Akiva, who served Naḥum of Gam Zo twenty-two years and learned from him that akh and rak restrict while et and gam include: what, then, are the two ets doing here? Akiva's first answer is theological — without them we might have said that the heavens and the earth are deities — and R. Yishmael slaps it down with Deut 32:47, if the Torah is empty it is empty because of you, because you do not exert yourself in it. Then the real answer, and it is an inventory: et ha-shamayim brings in the sun, the moon and the constellations; ve-et ha-aretz brings in the trees, the plants and the Garden of Eden. Augustine asks the identical question in Latin — what is signified by the name of heaven and earth — and answers that the two words are a name for the whole creation, given in visible terms for the sake of little ones. Ramban quotes this passage by name eight hundred years later and treats it as settling the matter.
The particle includesA name for the whole creation
English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022
rabbinic · compilation 400–500 · Galilee (Tiberias / Sepphoris)
Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, Beit Shammai say: The heavens were created first and the earth was created thereafter. Beit Hillel says: The earth was created first and the heavens thereafter. These cite a reason for their position and those cite a reason for their position. According to the opinion of Beit Shammai, who say that the heavens were created first and the earth thereafter, it is analogous to a king who had a throne made, and once that was made he had its footstool made. So, the Holy One blessed be He said: “The heavens are My throne and the earth is My footstool…” (Isaiah 66:1). According to the opinion of Beit Hillel, who say that the earth was created first and the heavens thereafter, it is analogous to a king who built a palace; first he built the lower sections and then he built the upper sections, so, “on the day that the Lord God made earth and the heavens” (Genesis 2:4). Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai said: This verse, too, supports Beit Hillel: “You laid the foundations of earth in times past” (Psalms 102:26), and then, “the heavens are the work of Your hands” (Psalms 102:26). Rabbi Ḥanin said: From the same place where Scripture supports Beit Shammai, from there, Beit Hillel refute them: “The earth was” (Genesis 1:2) – it already was. Rabbi Yoḥanan said in the name of the Sages: In terms of Creation, the heavens were first, but in terms of completion, the earth was first. Rabbi Tanḥuma said: I will say the source; in terms of Creation, the heavens were first, as it is stated: “In the beginning, God created [the heavens].” In terms of completion, the earth was first, as it is stated: “On the day that the Lord God made earth and the heavens.” Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai said: I am surprised how it is that the fathers of the world, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, disagreed regarding the creation of the heavens and the earth. It is, rather, as I say, that both of them were created [at the same time,] like a stewpot and its lid, as it is stated: “[My hand also laid the foundation of the earth and My right hand measured the heavens]; I appointed them; they arise together” (Isaiah 48:13). Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Shimon said: If it is in accordance with the opinion of my father, why is it that at times the earth is mentioned before the heavens and at times the heavens are mentioned before the earth? Rather, it teaches that both of them are equal in importance to one another. In every place Abraham is mentioned before Isaac and Jacob, but in one place it says: “I will remember My covenant with Jacob, [and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham]” (Leviticus 26:42). This teaches that the three of them are equal in importance to one another. In every place Moses is mentioned before Aaron, but in one place it says: “It is Aaron and Moses” (Exodus 6:26). This teaches that both of them are equal in importance to one another. In every place Joshua is mentioned before Caleb, but in one place it says: “Except for Caleb son of Yefuneh the Kenizite and Joshua son of Nun” (Numbers 14:30, Numbers 32:12). This teaches that both of them are equal in importance to one another. In every place turtledoves are mentioned before young pigeons, but in one place it says: “And a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering” (Leviticus 12:6). This tells you that both of them are equal in importance to one another. In every place, honor of the father is mentioned before the mother, but in one place it says: “Each of you shall fear his mother and his father” (Leviticus 19:3). This tells you that both of them are equal in importance to one another. However, the Sages said: The father takes precedence over the mother, because both he [a son] and his mother are obligated to honor his father. In every place the creation of the heavens is mentioned before the earth, but in one place it says: “On the day that the Lord God made earth and the heavens.” This tells you that both of them are equal in importance to one another.
The crux in its classical rabbinic form, with five answers and a refusal. Beit Shammai: the heavens first, because a king has his throne made and then its footstool (Isa 66:1). Beit Hillel: the earth first, because a king building a palace builds the lower parts first, and because Gen 2:4 says 'earth and heavens'. R. Yehuda bar Ilai adds Ps 102:26, 'you laid the foundations of the earth in times past, and the heavens are the work of your hands'. R. Ḥanin turns Beit Shammai's own proof against them: 'the earth WAS' — it already was. R. Yoḥanan in the sages' name splits the question: in creation heaven was first, in completion the earth. Then R. Shimon ben Yoḥai says he is astonished that the fathers of the world should have disputed it at all, since both were created together like a stewpot and its lid (Isa 48:13, 'I call to them, they stand up together'). The section closes with a rule for reading Scripture's word order generally: where the sequence is reversed in one place, that teaches that the two are equal — turtledoves and pigeons, father and mother, heaven and earth. That rule is what Ambrose reaches independently in Milan.
Heaven firstEarth firstBoth togetherNamed for dignity, not order
English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022
rabbinic · redaction 500–600 · Babylonia (Sura / Pumbedita)
And R. Yehudah said in the name of Rav, Ten things were created on the first day, and they are these: Heaven and earth, chaos and desolation, light and darkness, wind and waters, the measure of the day and the measure of the night. "Heaven and earth", as it is written, (Genesis 1:1) "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Chaos and desolation, as it is written, (Genesis 1:2) "And the earth was chaos and desolation." Light and darkness, darkness as it is written, (Genesis 1:2) "and darkness was upon the face of the deep," light as it is written, (Genesis 1:2) "And God said, Let there be light." Wind and water, as it is written, (Genesis 1:3) "and the wind of God floated upon the face of the waters." The measure of the day and the measure of the night, as it is written, (Genesis 1:5) "And there was evening and there was morning, one day."
Rav Yehuda in Rav's name lists ten things made on the first day, and the tenth pair is proof-texted from our verse: the measure of the day and the measure of the night, 'and there was evening and there was morning, one day.' The day's own measure is itself a creature of day one — which is the rabbinic way of answering the question the Latin bench asks as 'what kind of day was it, with no sun?' Hugh of St Victor's dies naturalis is the same instinct in computistical dress.
The day's measure is a creature
English: Sefaria Community Translation
rabbinic · redaction 500–600 · Babylonia (Sura / Pumbedita)
R. Yishmael asked R. Akiva, while they were walking on the road. He said to him, You are one who served Nachum Ish Gamzu for twenty-two years, who expounded the meaning of all the particles "et" in the Torah. What was his exposition of "the heaven and earth" - "et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz"? He said to him, If it had said "shamayim va'aretz," I would have said, "Shamayim" is the name of the Holy One, blessed be He. Now that the words are "et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz," "shamayim" means the heaven, literally, and aretz means the earth, literally.
The same encounter as Bereshit Rabbah 1:14 — R. Yishmael asking R. Akiva what Naḥum of Gam Zo made of the two ets — and the answer has changed. Here Akiva says that without the particles he would have taken shamayim to be a name of the Holy One, blessed be He; now that the text reads et ha-shamayim ve-et ha-aretz, heaven means heaven literally and earth means earth literally. In the Palestinian version the danger is that the heavens and the earth would be taken for deities and Akiva is rebuked for the answer; here the danger is narrower, that one word would be a divine name, and the answer stands unchallenged. Both are a Jewish witness to the same anxiety the Latin bench meets at Megillah 9a and in the Greek word order (K3). And note what neither version does: it never occurs to either that the et might include the angels.
The particle includes
English: Sefaria Community Translation
rabbinic · redaction 500–600 · Babylonia (Sura / Pumbedita)
Our Rabbis have taught, The house of Shammai say, The heavens were created first, and afterwards the earth was created, as it is said, (Genesis 1:1) "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." But the house of Hillel say, The earth was created first, and afterwards the heavens, as it is said, (Genesis 2:4) "In the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." The house of Hillel said to the house of Shammai, According to you, [does] a person builds an upper story, and afterwards builds the house? [The heavens are called an upper story,] as it is said, (Amos 9:6) "He builds his upper story in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth." The house of Shammai said to the house of Hillel, According to you, [does] a person makes a footstool and afterwards makes a throne? [The heavens are called a throne,] as it is said, (Isaiah 66:1) "So says the Lord, The heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool." But the sages say, This and that were created at once, as it is said, (Isaiah 48:13) "My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they all stand up together." And the other [opinions of Shammai and Hillel], what is "together"? That they cannot be separated the one from the other [once created]. The verses contradicts each other! Resh Lakish said, When they were created, He created the heavens, and afterwards created the earth, but when He stretched them out, He stretched out the earth, and afterwards stretched out the heavens.
The Babylonian redaction of the same dispute, and it argues where Bereshit Rabbah illustrates. Beit Hillel now put the objection as a question — on your view does a man build the upper storey and then the house? (Amos 9:6) — and Beit Shammai answer in kind: on your view does a man make a footstool and then a throne? (Isa 66:1). The sages say both at once, from Isa 48:13, and the Bavli will not leave it there: if 'together' only means that once made they cannot be parted, the two proof-texts still contradict each other, and Resh Lakish settles it with a distinction the Palestinian version does not have — when they were created, heaven was created first; when they were stretched out, the earth was stretched out first. It is the same move Hugh of St Victor makes in Paris six hundred years later with 'not order but dignity', and R. Yoḥanan's 'in creation first, in completion first' in Bereshit Rabbah: the sequence of the words is not the sequence of the acts.
Heaven firstEarth firstBoth togetherCreated in one order, stretched in the other
English: Sefaria Community Translation
rabbinic · redaction 500–600 · Babylonia (Sura / Pumbedita)
What is heaven? R. Yose bar Chanina said, That there is water. It was taught in a Mishnah, fire and water. Teaching that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought them and mingled them one with the other, and made from them the firmament.
The crux's second half asked in three words — mai shamayim, what is heaven — and answered from the name itself. R. Yose bar Ḥanina: sham mayim, 'there is water'. A mishnaic tradition: fire and water, which the Holy One brought and mingled with each other, and out of them made the firmament. It is an answer of exactly the kind the Latin bench never gives, because the Latin word yields nothing: caelum can be etymologised (Isidore tries chaos, others caelare, 'to engrave', for the stars) but it cannot be made to spell out what heaven is made of. Where the Bavli reads the substance out of the noun, Remigius and the Glossa have to import a substance — the empyrean, fiery not by heat but by brightness — from elsewhere.
Sham mayim — 'there is water'
English: Sefaria Community Translation
rabbinic · redaction 500–600 · Babylonia (Sura / Pumbedita)
Our rabbis taught: It once happened that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananya was standing on a step on the Temple Mount, and Ben Zoma saw him and did not rise before him. He said to him: From where and to where, Ben Zoma? He said to him: I was gazing between the upper waters and the lower waters, and between the one and the other there are only three fingerbreadths, as it is said, 'and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters' (Gen 1:2) — like a dove that hovers over her young and does not touch them. Rabbi Yehoshua said to his disciples: Ben Zoma is still outside. — Now, 'the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters': when was that? On the first day. But the dividing was on the second day, as it is written, 'and let it divide water from water' (Gen 1:6). And how much [lies between them]? Rav Aḥa bar Yaakov said: a hair's breadth. The rabbis say: like the gap between the planks of a bridge. Mar Zutra, or some say Rav Ashi, said: like two cloaks spread one over the other; and some say, like two cups tipped one upon the other.
The Bavli's Ben Zoma reads merahefet as a physical fact about distance: hovering measures the gap between upper and lower waters. The anonymous continuation then argues the gap into a hair's breadth. Steinsaltz/Davidson English is CC BY-NC and is NOT embedded; this is a fresh draft against the Wikisource Aramaic.
Dove hovering, not touching
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
rabbinic · 600–800 · Palestine
At the beginning the LORD created the heavens and the earth.
A third Aramaic word for the same Hebrew one: min avvela, 'from the first'. Etheridge prints the Aramaic in transliteration inside his English ('At the beginning (min avella)'), which is why his sentence carries a gloss no other version has; the parenthesis is his.
In the beginning of time
English: J. W. Etheridge, 1862
rabbinic · c. 1155 · Lucca
Now don’t be surprised by the vav of veha’aretz (“and the earth’), for its meaning is like the feh in Arabic and like “and a mist” v’ed would rise up from the earth” Genesis 2:6, for Moshe did not speak about the World to Come, which is the world of the angels, but rather of this transitory world. And those who explain that the heavens in the first verse are really the heavenly heavens, what will they do [here] with the earth? Behold, complete proofs, for reasonable people, that there is only earth. Now it is expounded that there were seven earths is [actually] that the earth is divided into seven and the Temple was in the center of the settled region, for it was distant from the center of the earth.
A grammarian refusing the whole allegorical apparatus, and the argument is a symmetry argument. Moses, he says, did not speak of the world to come, which is the world of the angels, but of this world of coming-to-be and passing-away; and to those who explain that the heavens of the first verse are really the heavens of the heavens he puts one question — then what will you do with the earth? If shamayim in v. 1 is the intelligible heaven, aretz beside it must be something other than the ground, and no one is willing to say so. That is precisely the position of Remigius, the Glossa and Comestor, who take the heaven of v. 1 to be the empyrean and are then obliged to make the earth beside it into prime matter or the four elements. Ibn Ezra also disposes of the seven earths: there is one earth, divided into seven settled regions, with the Temple at the centre of the settlement and not at the centre of the globe.
One earth, and no heaven of heavens here
English: Sefaria Community Translation
rabbinic · 1263–1270 · Girona
And the earth, includes all the four elements, [not merely the land] as in the verse, And the heaven and the earth were finished, which includes the entire lower sphere, and in Praise the Eternal from the earth, ye sea-monsters, and all deeps, and as in many other verses. Now with this creation, which was like a very small point having no substance, everything in the heavens and on the earth was created. The word eth —[eth hashamayim ve’eth ha’aretz] — is like “the essence of a thing.” The Sages have always set it forth as serving to include, since it is derived from the expression, The morning ‘atha’ (cometh), and also the night. And so did our Rabbis say: “‘Eth hashamayim (the heavens)’ — eth includes the sun, moon, stars and constellations. ‘Ve’eth ha’aretz (and the earth)’ — ve’eth includes the trees, herbs, and the Garden of Eden.” These include all created things which are corporeal.
Ramban gives the Latin schools' answer and the midrash's answer in the same paragraph, and does not notice that they are two. 'The earth' takes in all four elements — as in 'the heavens and the earth were finished', which covers the whole lower sphere, and 'praise the Lord from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps' — which is Abelard's reading of the verse to the letter, and Ambrose's before him. Then the particle: et is like 'the essence of a thing', and the Sages have always expounded it as including, so that et ha-shamayim brings in the sun, moon, stars and constellations and ve-et ha-aretz the trees, herbs and the Garden of Eden. He names Bereshit Rabbah for it. The two answers pull opposite ways — one makes the two words a physics of elements, the other an inventory of furniture — and the sentence that joins them is 'these include all created things which are corporeal'. Chavel's English shows on Sefaria as CC BY; licence key chavel-ramban is marked for checking before publication.
The four elementsThe particle includesA name for the whole creation
English: Charles B. Chavel, 1971–76
ScholaeCarolingian and twelfth-century Latin, 790–1170
latin · c. 796 · Tours
Question 28. What is signified by the name of heaven and earth, when it is said, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' (Gen 1:1)? — Answer. That formless matter, which God made out of nothing, was first called heaven and earth: not because it already was this, but because it already could be this. For on the second day this starry heaven is read to have been made, and on the third day the earth to have appeared and begun to be clothed with flowers. Or else, by the name of heaven and earth the spiritual and the earthly creatures can be understood.
Augustine reduced to a rule a pupil can hold: heaven and earth in v. 1 are the names of formless matter, given proleptically — not because it already was this, but because it already could be this — and the proof is the calendar, since the starry heaven comes on the second day and the earth appears on the third. Then, as usual, Alcuin adds the alternative without weighing it: 'or else the spiritual and the earthly creatures'. That second answer is the seed of the empyrean reading which Remigius, the Glossa and Comestor will make the standard one.
A name for the whole creationThe empyrean heaven
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 819–822 · Fulda
In the beginning of time, therefore, God made heaven and earth. For time is from this world, not before the world; and a day is a portion of time, not its beginning. But God, whose hand is omnipotent, needed no delay of times to accomplish his work, because, as it is written, 'Whatever he willed, he did' (Ps 115:3 [Vg 113B:3]). Whence it is well said that in the beginning God created heaven and earth, so that it may be plainly understood that both were made by him at once, although both cannot be said at once by a man. And then the prophet says: 'In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth' (Ps 102:25 [Vg 101:26]); but here the Lord is related to have created heaven and earth in the beginning. Whence it is plainly gathered that the making of both elements was completed together, and this with such swiftness of divine power that not even the first moment of the world's birth had been passed. It can also be understood, not improbably, that God made heaven and earth in the beginning in his Only-begotten Son, who answered the Jews when they asked what they should believe him to be: 'The Beginning, who also speak to you' (John 8:25); because in him, as the Apostle says, 'all things were created in the heavens and on the earth' (Col 1:16).
Bede's paragraph again, taken over silently and unattributed, exactly as the K7 threads found at PL 107:447C and the K10 threads at 448D — but with a sentence in front of it that is not Bede's and that answers the crux more sharply than Bede does: 'in the beginning of time, therefore, God made heaven and earth. For time is from this world, not before the world; and a day is a portion of time, not its beginning.' Rabanus also drops Bede's long house-building simile and keeps everything after it. This is the Carolingian method visible in one paragraph: an inherited exposition, silently abridged, with the compiler's own thesis set at its head. On the id: K7 already holds a witness called rabanus-gen-1-1 which is in fact on Gen 1:2, so this one takes the b suffix (see notes/SOURCES-FINDINGS.md).
In the beginning of timeIn the Son
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 850 · Luxeuil
But it is asked why it is said thus: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth', and not said: 'In the beginning God said, Let heaven and earth be made', as it is told of the light: 'God said, Let there be light', and the rest? — Unless because first what he made had to be taken in universally under the name of heaven and earth, and commended, and then gone through in its parts, as it is read to have been done.
Augustine's question and his first answer, compressed to two sentences and shorn of the second answer that made the first provisional. What in De Genesi ad litteram is one horn of a dilemma ('was it that…? or was it that…?') is here the explanation, flatly. The sentences that follow immediately are Angelomus' treatment of 'empty and void' (built at K6), so this witness and that one are one continuous stretch of his commentary divided between two cruxes.
The whole first, then the parts
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 900 · Auxerre
'For he created heaven and earth.' By 'heaven' we ought not to understand this visible firmament, but that empyrean — that is, fiery, or intellectual — heaven, which is called fiery not from burning but from brightness, and which was at once filled with the angelic spirits, of whom it is said in Job: 'When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy' (Job 38:7). And note that three elements are named here. For under the name of heaven gather the air; under the name of earth, the earth itself, and the fire that lies hidden in its bowels. Of the fourth element, that is water, mention is made in what follows.
The empyrean enters the Latin gloss tradition here in the form it will keep: not the visible firmament but a fiery heaven, and fiery from brightness rather than heat — the qualification matters, because it is what makes the fire intelligible rather than physical — filled with angels the moment it was made, on the authority of Job 38:7. The Glossa prints this sentence almost word for word at PL 113:68C, inside the VERS. 1 block that K1 slices whole, and from there it reaches Comestor. Remigius then counts the elements out of the two words and finds only three, water being held over to v. 2 — where Ambrose and Abelard find all four.
The empyrean heavenThe four elements
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 1079–1123 · Segni
'In the beginning,' he says, and before every creature, God created heaven and earth. For this the Psalmist too testifies, saying: 'And you, God, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands' (Ps 102:25 [Vg 101:26]). Not, therefore, heaven before earth, but God created heaven and earth together. Whence also this: 'He who lives for ever created all things at once' (Sir 18:1). For even if God is narrated in this same book to have made all things in six days, it is not to be doubted that he nevertheless created all things at once out of nothing. He created at once the very matter of all things, out of which he commanded the rest to be made at distinct times, as he willed. Let it be said, then: In the beginning of all creatures God created heaven — and those things, namely, which are contained in it, that is, the angels and the heavenly powers — and the earth, already as it were pregnant and in labour, and the matter and mother of all those things that arise from it.
Bruno takes the second of Augustine's three readings, the one nobody else on the bench builds on: not in the beginning of time and not in the Son but 'in the beginning of all creatures', that is, before anything else — and he takes it in order to get simul out of the verse, so that Sir 18:1 and the six days can both stand. His pregnant earth, matter and mother of what rises from it, is the same instinct as Bereshit Rabbah 1:1's architect's plans: read the first verse as a statement about what was available to the maker. The Corpus Corporum text of Bruno is the dirtiest on the bench (K7 found Dei. vero, K10 found tuce for luce); nothing in this slice looks corrupt, but it is not collated.
First of all thingsThe world is not eternal
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 1130 · The Paraclete (Nogent-sur-Seine)
By the name of heaven and earth I judge the four elements to be taken in here, out of which, as out of a material first beginning, all other bodies are agreed to be composed. By 'heaven' he means the two light elements, that is fire and air. The remaining two, which are heavy, he calls generally 'earth'. For we call heaven both the airy — as in 'the birds of heaven' — and the ethereal, which is fiery. Whence it is not unfitting that he here names both air and fire 'heaven'. It is agreed too that the ethereal heaven, in that its fire is purer, is properly wont to be called heaven; whence with reason the name of heaven, since the purer the fire the lighter its nature, is here put, as has been said, for the two light elements, fire and air. Just so, on the contrary, by 'earth', whose nature is most heavy and weighty, he marks out both the earth itself and the water that clings to it. These four elements, then, as the first principles of all other bodies, he announces that God made in the beginning. And what he says is as if he said: In the beginning, before all those things which he enumerates in order, and of whose completion he adds afterwards, 'Thus the heavens were finished' (Gen 2:1). What he says, 'in the beginning' of the works that follow, is as if he said: In the beginning of the world, that is, before he brought about anything of those things which belong to the world. For the angels, being of an incorporeal nature, are not included among the creatures of the world, as men are, of whom the philosopher makes mention in the third book of the Topics: 'The world,' he says, 'is governed by Providence; but men are a part of the world; therefore human affairs are governed by Providence.'
The most thoroughly physical reading of the verse on the Latin bench, and it ends by throwing the angels out. Heaven names the two light elements, fire and air; earth names the two heavy, earth and the water that clings to it; and the whole verse announces that God made the four elements as the first principles of bodies. Then the consequence, stated without embarrassment: the angels are not included among the creatures of the world at all, being incorporeal, so 'in the beginning of the world' does not touch them — and Boethius' Topics is quoted for the premise that men are a part of the world. That is the exact position Remigius and the Glossa deny, and it is what Ibn Ezra argues for in Lucca, from the other direction, when he asks those who make the heavens of v. 1 the heaven of heavens what they will then do with the earth.
The four elementsOne earth, and no heaven of heavens here
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 1130–1137 · Paris
Two things are set down in the beginning, heaven and earth. Which of these do you suppose was below, and which shall we say was above? Either earth above and heaven below, or earth below and heaven above? But is it to be believed that in that first condition of things heaven was created underneath, and afterwards in the forming was set above? Perhaps, because Scripture named heaven before earth, someone may say that heaven was created below as a foundation. But I judge it to be so placed not for the sake of order but of dignity; and because the discourse that follows had to be about the element of earth, as about the nearer thing — and for this reason named later — therefore heaven had to be named first and earth afterwards. Nor indeed would the very nature of the things founded allow any other order of position or placing than that the weighty should be disposed downward and the light upward. Therefore the earth was below and heaven above, and what was above the earth was heaven. Therefore heaven was above the earth.
Hugh takes the question seriously enough to consider the absurd answer — that heaven was made underneath, as a foundation, because it is named first — and then gives the school's rule: word order is dignity, not sequence. His second reason is better than his first and is entirely about composition: the discourse that follows is going to be about the earth, so the earth is named last, nearest to what comes next. That is a claim about how the sentence was written rather than about what happened, and it is R. Yoḥanan's distinction between creation and completion, and Resh Lakish's between creating and stretching, arrived at from the writer's side rather than the world's.
Named for dignity, not order
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · c. 1170 · Paris
'World' is said in four ways: sometimes the empyrean heaven is called world, on account of its cleanness; sometimes the sensible world, which is called by the Greeks pan and by the Latins 'all', because the philosopher did not know the empyrean; sometimes the region below the moon alone, because this alone has the living creatures known to us — of which it is said, 'The prince of this world shall be cast out' (John 12:31); sometimes man is called a world, because he presents in himself the image of the whole world, whence by the Lord man was called 'every creature', and the Greek calls man microcosm, that is, the lesser world. Now the empyrean and the sensible world and the sublunary region God created, that is, made out of nothing; but man he created, that is, moulded. Of the creation, then, of those three the lawgiver says: 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth' (Gen 1) — that is, the container and the thing contained, that is, the empyrean heaven and the angelic nature. But 'earth' is the matter of all bodies, that is, the four elements, that is, the sensible world consisting of them. Some understand 'heaven' as the upper parts of the sensible world, and 'earth' as the lower and palpable.
The twelfth-century synthesis, and it is the most systematic thing said on this crux in Latin: four senses of 'world' laid out first, so that when the verse is read the reader already knows which world is meant. Heaven and earth are then 'the container and the thing contained' — the empyrean heaven with the angelic nature, and the matter of all bodies, the four elements. Remigius' empyrean and Abelard's elements are here in one sentence, which is what Comestor is for; and the aside that the philosopher did not know the empyrean is a quiet acknowledgement that the best-attested part of this reading has no ancient authority behind it. He then reports the rival, flatter reading — heaven the upper parts of the sensible world, earth the lower — without deciding.
The empyrean heavenThe four elementsA name for the whole creation
English: fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt
latin · 1322–1332 · Paris
He says therefore: In the beginning, that is, of time or of the production of things. God created, that is, produced out of nothing, which belongs to God alone. Heaven, that is, all the heavenly bodies distinct in their substantial forms, although as yet they were unformed in certain accidental properties, as will appear below. And the earth, distinct in its substantial form and in certain properties necessarily accompanying a substantial form; but because as regards certain things it was still unformed, therefore there follows.
The most widely read Latin commentary on Genesis of the later middle ages, and on this verse it prints the answer the Glossa does not have. Where the Glossa's first word on Gen 1:1 is Filio -- in the beginning, that is, in the Son -- Lyra's literal exposition gives in principio, scilicet temporis vel productionis rerum, of time or of the production of things, and the Son does not appear. That is not a denial: Lyra keeps the moral and mystical senses in a separate apparatus and this is the Postilla litteralis. But it is the point at which the reading Jerome had refuted, Alcuin had reduced to four words and the Glossa had printed as one, stops being the literal sense of the verse for the schools. The line just before this one gives his reason, that in the beginning marks a priority not of duration but of nature, as sound precedes the voice. On creavit he states the whole of K4 in a clause -- de nihilo produxit, quod est proprium ipsius Dei -- and on celum and terram he takes the pair as the heavenly bodies and the earth already distinct in their substantial forms, which is Abelard's four elements read through a fourteenth-century physics. This witness and the two that follow it are transcribed from the Koberger folio, not sliced from the Patrologia, which does not contain Lyra.
In the beginning of timeFirst of all thingsOut of nothing
Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson
see every crux on this verse →
Both benches ask which was made first, and both end by refusing the question — and they refuse it with the same psalm. Ps 102:26 names the earth before the heavens: R. Yehuda bar Ilai brings it for Beit Hillel, Ambrose brings the same reversal to prove that the order of naming settles nothing, 'lest heaven be reckoned the better by the privilege of being the firstborn creature' — which is R. Shimon ben Yoḥai's stewpot and its lid and Bereshit Rabbah's closing rule that a reversed order teaches equality of honour. Where the two benches genuinely divide is on the second half of the question. Asked what 'heaven' is, the Bavli reads the answer out of the Hebrew noun — sham mayim, 'there is water' — while Latin, whose word will not spell anything, has to import a substance, and imports the empyrean: a fiery heaven, fiery from brightness and not from heat, filled with angels the moment it was made, which Comestor admits in passing that no ancient philosopher knew. Abelard throws it out and puts the four elements back, and Ibn Ezra, who never heard of him, makes the same objection from the other side: if the heavens of v. 1 are the heavens of the heavens, what will you do with the earth? The oldest witnesses on the daf decline the question in a third way. Philo's inventory of what was made first has no heaven overhead in it at all — an incorporeal heaven, an invisible earth, the idea of air and of void — and when the chapter reaches the firmament he explains the second name by a definition of body: stereoma because it is solid, and solid because it is extended in three directions, so that the word itself marks the corporeal heaven off from the intelligible one. Chalcidius carried that reading into Latin in the fourth century and named its author — Philo, who judges heaven and earth to be incorporeal and intelligible essences — which is the only place in this edition where a Latin cites a Jewish author by name and the passage he cites is printed beside him; and then nobody read Chalcidius, so that Remigius arrives at the intelligible heaven six hundred years later with the conclusion and no argument, and Comestor turns it into the container and the thing contained. Lyra ends the Latin side by treating the question as settled physics: the heaven of the first verse is the heavenly bodies distinct in their substantial forms, the earth likewise, and the pair is Abelard's four elements read through a fourteenth-century commentary on the De caelo.