“The earth,” says Holy Scripture, “was without form and void”—­i.e., invisible and unfinished.  The heavens and the earth were created together.  How, then, is it that the heavens are perfect whilst the earth is still unformed and incomplete?  In one word, what was the unfinished condition of the earth and for what reason was it invisible?  The fertility of the earth is its perfect finishing; growth of all kinds of plants, the up-springing of tall trees, both productive and unfruitful, flowers’ sweet scents and fair colors, and all that which, a little later, at the voice of God came forth from the earth to beautify her, their universal mother.

As nothing of all this yet existed, Scripture is right in calling the earth “without form.”  We could also say of the heavens that they were still imperfect and had not received their natural adornment, since at that time they did not shine with the glory of the sun and of the moon, and were not crowned by the choirs of the stars.  These bodies were not yet created.  Thus you will not diverge from the truth in saying that the heavens also were “without form.”  The earth was invisible for two reasons:  it may be because man, the spectator, did not yet exist, or because, being submerged under the waters which overflowed the surface, it could not be seen, since the waters had not yet been gathered together into their own places, where God afterward collected them and gave them the name of sea.

What is invisible?  First of all, that which our fleshly eye can not perceive—­our mind, for example; then that which, visible in its nature, is hidden by some body which conceals it, like iron in the depths of the earth.  It is in this sense that the earth, in that it was hidden under the waters, was still invisible.  However, as light did not yet exist, and as the earth lay in darkness because of the obscurity of the air above it, it should not astonish us that for this reason Scripture calls it “invisible.”

But the corrupters of the truth, who, incapable of submitting their reason to Holy Scripture, distort at will the meaning of the Holy Scriptures, pretend that these words mean matter.  For it is matter, they say, which from its nature is without form and invisible—­being by the conditions of its existence without quality and without form and figure.  The Artificer submitting it to the working of His wisdom clothed it with a form, organized it, and thus gave being to the visible world.

If the matter is uncreated, it has a claim to the same honors as God, since it must be of equal rank with Him.  Is this not the summit of wickedness that utter chaos, without quality, without form or shape, ugliness without configuration, to use their own expression, should enjoy the same prerogatives as He who is wisdom, power, and beauty itself, the Creator and the Demiurge of the universe enjoys?  This is not all.  If the matter is so great as to be capable of being acted on by the whole wisdom of God, it would in a way raise its hypostasis to an equality with the inaccessible power of God, since it would be able to measure by itself all the extent of the divine intelligence.