Ambrose
PL 14, col. 141D
English
'Let there be light,' he says. Where should the voice of God in divine Scripture begin, if not from light? Whence should the adorning of the world take its start, if not from light? For it would be in vain, if it were not seen. God himself was indeed in light, for he dwells in light inaccessible, and he was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world; but he made that light which we see. […] Where the builder lays the foundations he looks out from where he may pour light into it, and that is the first grace, and if it is wanting the whole house bristles with an unlovely neglect. It is light that commends the rest of the house's ornament. 'Let there be light,' he says. A full utterance of light — it does not signify the apparatus of an arrangement, but shines out with the effect of an operation. The maker of nature spoke light, and created it.
Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by
Latin
Fiat, inquit, lux. Unde vox Dei in Scriptura divina debuit inchoare, nisi a lumine? unde mundi ornatus, nisi a luce exordium sumere? Frustra enim esset, si non videretur. Erat quidem Deus ipse in lumine, quia lucem habitat inaccessibilem, et erat lumen verum, quod illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum: sed eam lucem fieri voluit, quae oculis corporalibus comprehenderetur. Qui aedificium aliquod dignum habitaculo patrisfamilias struere desiderat, antequam fundamenta ponat, unde lucem ei infundat explorat, et ea prima est gratia, quae si desit, tota domus deformi horret incultu. Lux est quae reliquos domus commendat ornatus. Fiat, inquit, lux. Plena vox luminis non dispositionis apparatum significat, sed operationis resplendet effectu. Naturae opifex lucem locutus est, et creavit.
PL 14, col. 141D · pd
Notes
Ambrose keeps two lights apart in one paragraph and the distinction is the whole crux in miniature: God dwells in light inaccessible and is himself the true light of John 1:9, 'but he made that light' — hanc, this one, the one under discussion. The rest is the ornament argument, that a world had to be lit before it could be seen at all, with the builder's house for an image. Nothing here is angelic. Elided at […]: the sentence on the darkness fleeing and the intervening image of the householder choosing where his windows go.
A bodily lightSpeaking is making
Threads
- → parallel · Basil of Caesarea
Ambrose's Hexaemeron follows Basil's Greek homilies closely and this passage is no exception — the light as the world's first ornament, the air taking it up, the suddenness. The witness date here is that of Eustathius' Latin version, which is later than Ambrose; Basil's Greek (378) precedes him and is his source, so the dependence runs the other way from what the dates on this page suggest. - ← contests · Augustine
Ambrose says God dwells in inaccessible light and is the true light of John 1:9, 'but he made that light' — hanc, the one in the verse, a thing among things. Augustine asks whether the light is spiritual or bodily and answers that it can be the first creature, the spiritual nature called heaven in verse 1, and that 'let there be light' is its conversion. The two positions the rest of the bench divides between are already both in place by 410.