Angelomus of Luxeuil

English

But when he says, and he divided the light from the darkness, he shows that a distinction was made between light and darkness, not that darkness was made; as we say we make a voice by crying out, and silence by not crying out, because the ceasing of the voice is silence. Yet we distinguish between them by a kind of sense, and call the one voice and the other silence. As therefore we rightly say that we make silence, so God is rightly said to make darkness; because he either gives or withdraws light, at what times and places he wills. Because, as Clement says: Lighting up one part of the world, he left the other dark — namely by spreading the light over the upper part of the world, in which the human way of life was to be, and the lower parts of it remaining in their ancient darkness. If anyone chooses to take it so, we, as we began, have striven to follow blessed Augustine and the exposition of the master. And God divided the light and the darkness, and the rest. That is, the heavenly citizens of the angels from the unclean spirits, when Lucifer, turning away from the Creator and turning to himself, reckoning that he sufficed to himself, swollen with pride, was cast out from the heavenly places with his followers, without the help of his maker, and the rest remained in their stability — calling these day and those night, according to what follows: and he called the light day, and the darkness night. For the ruin of those who fell became the eternal stability of those who remained.

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

Latin

PL 115, col. 117C · pd

Notes

Three answers laid end to end with a hinge sentence between them, and the hinge is the most honest thing in the Carolingian bench: 'if anyone chooses to take it so, we, as we began, have striven to follow blessed Augustine.' First Augustine's privation with the silence analogy, copied close enough to be recognised and altered in one word — Augustine wrote that God either does not give light or withdraws it, Angelomus writes that he gives or withdraws it, which quietly makes the darkness something conferred. Then Bede's upper and lower parts of the world, attributed to Clement. Then the angelic reading, with Lucifer named and the fall narrated, and a sentence that is not in Augustine at all: the ruin of those who fell became the eternal stability of those who remained. A compiler who cannot choose is not thereby a bad witness; the three answers are the three the twelfth century will still be sorting.

Threads

• → cites · Augustine
  The silence analogy copied close enough to be certain — clamando vocem, silentium autem non clamando, cessatio vocis silentium est — with one word altered: Augustine writes that God makes darkness because he 'either does not give light or withdraws it', Angelomus that he 'either gives or withdraws light'. The change turns a withholding into a conferring, and Angelomus names Augustine two sentences later as the authority he is following.
• → cites · Bede
  'Lucem videlicet in superiore orbis parte diffundendo, in qua humana erat conversatio futura, inferiora vero ejus priscis in tenebris remanendo' is Bede's sentence with one verb changed, introduced by 'as Clement says: lighting up one part of the world, he left the other dark.' Angelomus has the words from Bede and the attribution from somewhere else.