Moses ben Naḥman (Naḥmanides)מֹשֶׁה בֶּן נַחְמָן

English

Now listen to the correct and clear explanation of the verse in its simplicity. The Holy One, blessed be He, created all things from absolute non-existence. Now we have no expression in the sacred language for bringing forth something from nothing other than the word bara (created). Everything that exists under the sun or above was not made from non-existence at the outset. Instead He brought forth from total and absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having a power of potency, fit to assume form and to proceed from potentiality into reality. This was the primary matter created by G-d; it is called by the Greeks hyly (matter). After the hyly, He did not create anything, but He formed and made things with it, and from this hyly He brought everything into existence and clothed the forms and put them into a finished condition. Know that the heavens and all that is in them consist of one substance, and the earth and everything that is in it consist of one substance. The Holy One, blessed be He, created these two substances from nothing; they alone were created, and everything else was constructed from them.

Charles B. Chavel, 1971–76 · chavel-ramban

Hebrew / Aramaic

Ramban on Gen 1:1, s.v. בראשית (the hyle) · sefaria-vocalized

Notes

The rabbinic bench's fullest statement of creation out of nothing, and it is built on the Latin schools' distinction without naming them. The Holy One created all things from absolute non-existence; and there is no expression in the sacred tongue for bringing forth something from nothing except the word bara. Then the qualification that makes the doctrine survive the objection: nothing under the sun or above it was made from non-existence at the outset — what was brought forth from the utter nothing was a very thin substance, without corporeality, having a power of potency, fit to receive form and to pass from potentiality into act; the primary matter, which the Greeks call hyly. After the hyly he created nothing, but formed and made. Two substances only were created, one for the heavens and one for the earth, and everything else was constructed from them. That is Hugh of St Victor's chapter one — God not only made all things out of matter but created the matter of all things out of nothing — reached in Girona a century and a half later with the Greek word intact and no Latin in sight. And the first sentence is aimed at a named man: R. Abraham is Ibn Ezra, quoted and answered a few lines above, who had denied precisely that bara carries the sense Ramban here says it alone carries. Chavel's English shows on Sefaria as CC BY; licence key chavel-ramban is marked for checking before publication.

Threads

• → contests · Abraham ibn Ezra
  Ramban names R. Abraham a few lines above this passage and then writes 'there is no expression in the sacred tongue for bringing forth something from nothing other than the word bara' — which is the exact claim Ibn Ezra had refuted from Gen 1:21, Gen 1:27 and Isaiah 45:7. The contest is direct and is the reason the sentence is phrased as an exclusive.
• → parallel · Hugh of St Victor
  Hugh: 'omnia ergo quae facta sunt, Deus non solum ex materia fecit, sed materiam omnium ipse de nihilo creavit.' Ramban: 'the Holy One, blessed be He, created these two substances from nothing; they alone were created, and everything else was constructed from them.' The same two-stage doctrine — one creation out of nothing, everything afterwards made out of what was created — with the Greek word for the matter on the Hebrew side and not on the Latin.
• → cites · Bereshit Rabbah
  Ramban's tohu is bar Kappara's difficulty resolved: BR 1:5 asks 'from what?' and answers 'the earth was tohu va-vohu', with an apology; Ramban makes tohu the name in the sacred tongue for the hyle, so that the verse now says the world was made out of the one thing that was created out of nothing. He quotes the rabbinic material of this section (and Sefer Yetzirah, 'he created substance from tohu') by name in the lines that follow.
• ← echoes · Moses ben Naḥman (Naḥmanides)
  Phase 4. One continuous argument that the crux boundaries split in two: having said that the Holy One created all things from absolute non-existence and that after the hyle he created nothing, Ramban goes straight on to name it — the substance the Greeks called hyly is what the sacred tongue calls tohu. The hyle and the tohu are the same thing, and the two witnesses are consecutive sentences.
• ← parallel · Chalcidius
  The two witnesses on this daf who take the plain sense of the verse to be about matter and still hold that the matter was made. Ramban: bara means from absolute non-existence, and what was drawn out on the first day was a formless substance from which everything after was formed. Chalcidius: the earth of v. 2 is corporeal hyle, the old substance of the world before it took form — and the Hebrews, he has just said, confess it was generated. Girona 1267 and a Latin commentary on the Timaeus of about 350, agreeing on both halves of the crux.