Bede

English

Only to this extent is that matter formless out of which Scripture testifies that the world was made, when it says in the praises of God: 'You who made the world out of formless matter' (Wis 11:17). For all the things which we are accustomed to see in the world along with the waters and the earth either took the beginning of their nature from these, or took it out of nothing; but the earth itself and the waters themselves have received the name of formless matter for this reason, that before they came into the light there was nothing from which they might have comeliness.

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

Latin

PL 91, col. 15C · pd

Notes

Bede taking the sting out of the word. Wisdom 11:17 says the world was made out of formless matter, and the whole Latin difficulty is in that verse: it appears to concede the philosopher's point in Scripture's own voice. Bede's answer is a restriction — the matter is formless only to this extent, that the earth and the waters had nothing to give them comeliness until the light came — so that 'formless matter' names two visible things at a stage of their history, not a substrate. And the sentence that follows keeps both possibilities open without choosing: what we see either began from the earth and the waters, or was taken out of nothing. Rabanus copies this paragraph verbatim at PL 107:446C and the Glossa prints it condensed at 113:69D–70A, which is where most readers after 1150 met it.

Threads

• ← transmits · Glossa ordinaria (school of Laon)
  Migne prints the gloss under (BEDA ubi supra.). Bede: 'cuncta quae cum aquis et terra videre solemus in mundo, vel de ipsis exordium naturae, vel sumpsere de nihilo; ipsa autem terra et ipsae aquae propterea nomen sortitae sunt materiae informis, quia priusquam in lucem venirent, unde formositatem haberent non erat.' Glossa: 'Ipsa autem terra et aqua informis dicuntur materia, quia omnia quae videmus, vel ex istis sumpserunt exordium, vel ex nihilo: et priusquam in lucem venirent, non erat unde formam haberent.' The restriction that opened Bede's paragraph — 'Ad haec tantum informis est illa materies' — is not carried over.
• → parallel · Augustine
  Both hang the difficulty on Wisdom 11:17, 'qui fecisti mundum de materia informi', and take opposite routes out of it: Augustine grants the formless matter and pushes creation one step behind it; Bede restricts the phrase to the earth and the waters before the light came, so that no substrate is conceded at all.
• ← parallel · Angelomus of Luxeuil
  Wisdom 11:17 again, quoted in full by Angelomus in the form 'non enim erat manus tua, Domine, invalida, qua creasti mundum ex informi materia', and used to the opposite end: for Angelomus the verse proves that God made the matter and then made everything out of it, for Bede that 'formless matter' is only a name for the earth and waters in the dark.