Bruno of Segni

English

But what is that light, which is said to be prior to the sun, the moon and the stars? Hear what follows: 'He called the light Day, and the darkness Night.' Light, therefore, is put for day.

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

Latin

PL 164, col. 149B · pd

Notes

The crux asked in the Latin bench's own words — quae est ista lux, quae prior sole, luna et stellis esse perhibetur? — and then dismissed in six. Bruno's answer is that the verse answers itself two clauses later: God called the light Day, so 'light' here simply means the day, and there is nothing further to look for. Of every witness on this crux he is the only one who declines the question rather than answering it, and he does it by the same appeal to the text's own next words that he uses at K10 to settle dies unus.

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  Bruno asks Augustine's question in Augustine's terms — what is that light, said to be prior to sun and moon and stars? — and then refuses to answer it: God called the light Day, so light here is put for day, and there is nothing further to look for.