Peter Abelard

English

And it is well said of the elements 'created' rather than 'formed', because that is properly said to be created which is so brought forth from non-being to being that it has no pre-existing matter, and did not first subsist in any state of nature. But when something is made out of matter already prepared, by the joining on of a form, that is rightly said to be formed — as is what is set down in what follows: 'The Lord God therefore formed man of the slime of the earth' (Gen 2:7). And again: 'All the animals of the earth therefore having been formed out of the ground' (Gen 2:19). For when a pre-existing matter is denoted — as when 'out of the ground' is put first, since it was to be formed into some appearance — then a thing is most rightly said to be formed.

Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by

Latin

PL 178, col. 734B · pd

Notes

The distinction stated as a rule about two Latin verbs, and the rule is exactly what Ibn Ezra denies about the one Hebrew verb underlying both. Creare is properly said of what is brought from non-being to being with no pre-existing matter and no prior state of nature; formare of what is made out of matter already prepared by the joining on of a form. The proof is the usage of Genesis itself: formavit hominem de limo terrae at 2:7, formatis de humo cunctis animantibus at 2:19 — where the material is named first, the verb is formavit. Abelard is reading a Latin translation, and the two verbs he separates render two different Hebrew verbs at 2:7 and 2:19 but not at 1:21 and 1:27, where the Hebrew has bara and the Latin has creavit of things made out of something. That is the gap Rupert closes with a distinction and Ibn Ezra widens into a lexical entry, and none of the three has read either of the others.

Threads

• ← parallel · Abraham ibn Ezra
  Abelard secures ex nihilo on the difference between two Latin verbs — creavit of the elements, formavit of man at Gen 2:7 and the animals at 2:19 — where Ibn Ezra dissolves it by showing that the one Hebrew verb bara stands at 1:21 and 1:27 of things made out of something. The Latin distinction is available only because the translation supplies two words where the Hebrew has one at the decisive places.
• → parallel · Rupert of Deutz
  Two Latin answers to one difficulty within about fifteen years: Rupert grants that creavit is used of things shaped from matter and refers the word back to the creation of the matter; Abelard denies that it is properly so used at all and assigns those cases to formare. Neither cites the other, and the two answers are incompatible.
• ← parallel · Hugh of St Victor
  The same definition by contrast, in Paris within four years: Abelard, 'creari proprie id dicitur, quod de non esse ita ad esse producitur, ut praejacentem non habeat materiam'; Hugh, 'quod de aliquo factum est, factum quidem est sed creatum non est; quia de nihilo factum non est'. Neither names the other, and the school relations between them make silence the interesting fact.
• → cites · Jerome
  Phase 4. Abelard's whole definition of creation rests on a distinction between two Latin verbs — created of what has no pre-existing matter, formed of what is shaped out of matter — and the distinction is available only because the translation supplies two verbs where the Hebrew has one at the places that matter. Ibn Ezra brings the same two verses (Gen 1:21, 1:27) to the opposite conclusion, that bara does not mean bringing forth from nothing, because in Hebrew there is no second verb to escape into.