Augustine
PL 41, col. 345
English
For when it is said thus, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth', so that the Father is understood to have made in the Son — as the Psalm bears witness, where it reads, 'How magnified are your works, O Lord! you have made all things in wisdom' (Ps 104:24 [Vg 103:24]) — most fittingly a little after the Holy Spirit also is mentioned. For when it had been said what kind of earth God first made, or what mass and matter he had called by the name of heaven and earth for the construction of the world to come, by subjoining and adding, 'But the earth was invisible and unordered, and darkness was over the abyss', at once, that the mention of the Trinity might be completed, 'And the Spirit,' he says, 'of God was borne above the water' (Gen 1:1–3).
Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by
Latin
Cum enim ita dicitur, In principio fecit Deus coelum et terram, ut Pater fecisse intelligatur in Filio, sicut attestatur Psalmus, ubi legitur, Quam magnificata sunt opera tua, Domine! omnia in sapientia fecisti (Psal. CIII, 24) : convenientissime paulo post commemoratur etiam Spiritus sanctus. Cum enim dictum esset, qualem terram Deus primitus fecerit, vel quam molem materiamve futurae constructionis mundi coeli et terrae nomine nuncupaverit, subjiciendo et addendo, Terra autem erat invisibilis et incomposita, et tenebrae erant super abyssum: mox ut Trinitatis commemoratio compleretur, Et spiritus, inquit, Dei superferebatur super aquam (Gen. I, 1-3) .
PL 41, col. 345 · pd
Notes
The mature statement of the same reading, and the one that shows the machinery: 'in the beginning' means 'in the Son' because Ps 104:24 says all things were made in wisdom, and Wisdom is the Son. That is an inference through a proof text, not a philological claim, and Jerome had already ruled out the philological claim. The witness is here rather than under K3 because the argument turns on what in principio names; the Trinitarian reading of the whole opening belongs with elohim-and-trinity.
In the SonIn Wisdom
Threads
- → parallel · Bereshit Rabbah
The identical inference on both benches. Augustine: in principio means in the Son, because Ps 104:24 says 'you have made all things in wisdom' and Wisdom is the Son. Bereshit Rabbah: bereshit means by the Torah, because Prov 8:22 says 'the Lord made me reshit of his way' and that speaker is the Torah. One move, one kind of proof text, two Wisdoms, and no contact in either direction. - → echoes · Augustine
The same identification with its proof supplied: the Confessions name the Beginning as Wisdom without arguing, and the City of God adds the psalm that licenses it, 'omnia in sapientia fecisti' (Ps 104:24). - → echoes · Ambrose
Ps 104:24 is Ambrose's proof text on this verse before it is Augustine's, and it does different work for each: Ambrose cites it to show that the world was given a beginning at all, Augustine to show that the beginning is the Son. - ← echoes · Rupert of Deutz
The Ps 104:24 chain taken over entire — 'you have made all things in wisdom, which wisdom is none other than the Word of God' — but reached only after an argument Augustine never makes, that principium in the common sense would be a superfluity of expression and so must be a proper name.