Bede
PL 91, col. 17A
English
But if it is asked in what places, at God's bidding, the light was made, since the abyss still covered the whole breadth of the earth — it is quite plain that that first light shone in the upper parts of that same earth, the parts which the daily light of the sun is now accustomed to illumine. Nor should we wonder that by a divine working light can shine in the waters, since it is agreed that they are often lit by a human working too: by sailors, that is, who, sunk in the deep of the sea, make it clear and bright for themselves by letting oil out of their mouths. For if a man can do such things by the oil of his mouth, how much must God be believed able to create by the Spirit of his mouth.
Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by
Latin
Si autem quaeritur quibus in locis, jubente Deo, facta sit lux, cum adhuc abyssus omnem terrae amplitudinem contegeret, patet profecto quia in superioribus ejusdem terrae partibus, quas et nunc diurna solis lux illustrare consuevit, tunc principalis illa lux emicuit. Nec mirandum nobis divina operatione lucem in aquis posse resplendere, cum et hominum operatione constet eas saepius illustrari, nautarum videlicet, qui in profundo maris demersi, emisso ex ore oleo, perspicuum sibi hoc ac lucidum reddunt. Si enim homo talia per oleum sui oris potest, quantum Deus per Spiritum oris sui creare posse credendus est
PL 91, col. 17A · pd
Notes
Once the light is material it acquires a location, and Bede supplies one: in the upper parts of the earth, where the sun's daylight falls now. The objection that the abyss covered everything he answers with an observed fact about divers, who let oil out of their mouths to see under water, and a pun that carries the argument — if a man can do it by the oil of his mouth, what can God do by the Spirit of his mouth. The Glossa keeps both the location and the divers and cuts the pun.
A bodily light
Threads
- → parallel · Bereshit Rabbah
The same question — where — and two answers that could not be further apart. Bede: in the upper parts of the earth, the parts the sun's daylight now falls on, and he defends it with the divers who let oil from their mouths. R. Berekhya in the name of R. Yitzḥak: the light was created from the site of the Temple, proved from Ezek 43:2 and Jer 17:12. - → parallel · Bede
The same exposition a page later, asking the question a material light forces: where was it, since the abyss covered everything? Bede's answer, the upper parts of the earth, only makes sense because he has already declined to make the light angelic. - ← cites · Glossa ordinaria (school of Laon)
The Bede gloss keeps the bodily light with its location and its divers letting oil from their mouths, and cuts the pun that carried Bede's argument — if a man can do it by the oil of his mouth, what can God do by the Spirit of his mouth. What is left is the observation without the reason for making it.