St Augustine’s Confessions, Creation in Genesis, Manicheism, and Pagan Myths, Books 11 Through 13

Why should we reflect on St Augustine’s commentary on the Book of Genesis in his
spiritual autobiography, the Confessions, Books 11 through 13?
St Augustine’s commentary on Genesis is not an appendix, but is rather an integral
part of his Confessions, as he confesses why we should reject the Manichean view
of Creation and salvation.
How does the Genesis creation story differ from the pagan creation stories? How
does Genesis express the nature of the Trinity?
How does God’s creation of light reflect God’s Love for us, and how we should, in
return, Love God, and love our neighbor?
How is the Creation a metaphor compelling us to live a holy and sacramental life?
Why is St Augustine so fascinated by the nature of time?

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video. Feel free to follow along in the
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St Augustine recalls that he fell away from the Christian faith,
drifting into the Manichean heresy, in part because the bible of
his time was written in inelegant Latin. St Jerome was his
contemporary, it would be many decades before he released his
more elegant Latin Vulgate translation. Since ancient culture
emphasized rhetoric, inelegant Latin created doubts among
educated Romans about the reliability of the Scriptures.
St Augustine sees his time spent as a Manichean inquirer as both
a time of rebellion from God and his Holy Scriptures, and in
particular the Manichees rejected the Old Testament and the
Genesis creation story.

St. Augustine in His Study, painted 1502 by Vittore Carpaccio

St Augustine prays to God, For those of us
who “see true meanings in your words,”
“let us love one another, and if our thirst is
not for vanity but for the truth, let us
likewise Love you, our God, who are the
Source from which is flows. Let us also
honor Moses your servant, who delivered
your Scriptures to us and was filled with
your Spirit, by believing that when he
wrote those words, by your inspiration his
thoughts were directed to whichever
meaning sheds the fullest light of truth and
enables us to reap the greatest profit.”
Moses with the Ten Commandments, by
Philippe de Champaigne, 1648

St Augustine is my favorite Catholic saint because in every
major work he explicitly states that the foundation of the
Christian faith is the two-fold Love of God, and love of
neighbor, where we love our neighbors as ourselves. Since
St Augustine views the Creation story as a story of how
God loved his creation, and in particular man whom he
created in his own image, he discusses this two-fold love
many times in his interpretation of the first chapter of
Genesis.

St Ambrose baptizes St Augustine, by Umbrian Master, 1510

For example, just as the earth bears
fruit in the Creation, so St Augustine
says, “our souls should bear fruit in
works of mercy.” By this mercy “we
love our neighbor by giving him help
for his bodily needs.” “We are weak,
and therefore pity leads us to aid the
needy, aiding them as we should
wish to be aided ourselves if we were
in like distress.”
St Augustine, by Carlo Cignani, 1600’a

The first nine books of the Confessions are a spiritual autobiography,
where his beliefs and evolving emotions change as he first denies the
Christianity of his youth when he is deceived by the Manichee heresy for
over a decade, and as he travels down the road leading to his conversion
back to the true Christian faith. These are confessions on multiple levels.
They are a confession of his sins, especially as he recounts how he and a
ragamuffin band of youngsters steal many pears from a neighbor’s
orchard. They are a confession of faith as he finds his way back to the
Christianity espoused by his mother Monica, urged on by the sermons of
St Ambrose and the teachings of the NeoPlatonists. They are also a
confession of scientific belief as he rejects the nonsensical worldview of
the Manichean heresy.

https://youtu.be/gdK1a3AbI9w https://youtu.be/ydskqlgZSrE
https://youtu.be/AjGbBozIReY https://youtu.be/Vijtjxm3Ta0

St Augustine summarizes these spiritual events,
exploring their meaning, and the important role
memory plays in our spiritual life, in Book 10 of the
Confessions.

We also reflected on the differences between
Christianity, where the Almighty God is the source of
all goodness, where evil is but a corruption of the
good, and the dualistic Manichean system, where
good and evil are more or less equal, and eternally
battle for supremacy.

Although the prophet Mani claims to be the Paraclete that Jesus promises to
send, denying that the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete, he repudiates the Old
Testament and the Genesis Creation story. Furthermore, the Manichean creation
story resembles the Gnostic accounts and does not closely resemble any of the
ancient Middle Eastern or Greek creation myths. In the complex Manichean
account, there are three creations. In the First Creation story, the World of Light
and the World of Darkness are separated until the King of Darkness greedily
attacks the World of Light. The forces of light and darkness battle each other, and
in the Third Creation account, evil beings swallow as much light as they can, they
copulate, and give birth to men, trapping the light inside of these men. All
mankind has light entrapped in them, and the Prophet Mani reveals to mankind
the true source of the spiritual light imprisoned within them. As a consequence
of these beliefs, as St Augustine notes, the Manichean religion tends to
underemphasize the value of repentance.

Manicheism denies the validity of the Old Testament,
it declares that the god of the Old Testament is an
evil deity distinct from the God of Light. In the
creation story, misery and corruption were caused by
the trapping of spiritual light in ignorance and
darkness, while the disobedience of Adam and Eve
was seen as heroic, aided by the Serpent, who gave
them knowledge.

The New Aeon and Liberation of light: triad of the Sun, Moon, and Column of Glory

St Augustine Disputing with the Heretics, by Vergós Group, 1486
In one anti-Manichean work, St Augustine
states the “the Manichees assert that Christ
was the one called by our Scriptures the
Serpent, and they assure us that they have
been given insight into this to open the eyes
of knowledge and to distinguish between
Good and Evil. They state that Christ came in
the latter days to save souls, not bodies.
They say Christ did not really exist in the
flesh, but in mockery of the human senses
simulated the fleshly form,” and both the
Crucifixion and the Resurrection were
illusions.

These are beliefs common to many Gnostic heresies
of the ancient world.

How the Creation Reflects the Love of God
St Augustine begins Book 11
of these Confessions praying,
“O Lord, since you are
outside time in eternity, are
you unaware of the things
that I tell you? Or do you see
in time the things that occur
in it?” “Can any praise be
worthy of the Lord’s
majesty?” “I write this book
for love of your love.”
Four Doctors of the Western Church, by Pier
Francesco Sacchi, 1516, St Augustine, Pope
Gregory I, St Jerome, St Ambrose

We can contrast this spiritual yearning
for the Love of God with St Augustine
remembering how his raging
hormones induced him to seek an
imperfect romantic love as a youth: “I
went to Carthage where I found myself
in the midst of a hissing cauldron of
lust. I had not yet fallen in love, but I
was in love with the idea of it.” But
now St Augustine only seeks the Love
of God and friendships rooted in his
Love for God, a more perfect love.
St Augustine, by Carlo Cignani, 1600’a

How can we find our true
happiness in God? St Augustine
quotes the Beatitudes, “you
have called us to be poor in
spirit, to be patient and to
mourn, to hunger and thirst for
holiness, to be merciful and
clean of heart, and to be
peacemakers.”
The Creation, for St Augustine,
signifies God’s Love for man, just
as sending his Son to live among
us signifies his Love of man.

St Augustine also discusses the light of
creation, the light of the Scriptures, as he
prays, “I have long been burning with desire to
contemplate your law and to confess to you
both what I know of it and where my
knowledge fails; how far the first gleams of
your light have illuminated me and how dense
my darkness remains and must remain, until
my weakness is swallowed up in your
strength.” “Let your Scriptures be my chaste
delight. Let me not deceive myself in them nor
deceive others about them. Hear me, O Lord.
Have mercy on me, O Lord my god, Light of the
blind and Strength of the weak, Light, too, of
those who see and Strength of the strong.” St Augustine, Spanish School, 1600’s

Let There Be Light, and the Light Began
St Augustine prays to God, “At the
beginning of creation you said, ‘Let
there be light, and the light began.’”
“And it became light, not simply by
existing, but by fixing its gaze upon
you and clinging to you, the Light
which shone upon it. It owes to your
grace, and to your grace alone, both
the gift of its very existence and the
gift of a life that is lived in happiness.”
York Minster, The first Day of Creation, 1408

Thus, the Creation is also a metaphor for us
living a godly life, as Jesus exhorts us in the
Sermon on the Mount, “You are the light of
the world. A city set on a hill cannot be
hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it
under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives
light to all in the house.”
Why was light created? St Augustine prays to
God, “the angels fell; man’s soul fell; and
their fall shows us what a deep chasm of
darkness would still have engulfed the whole
spiritual creation if you had not said, ‘Let
there be light.’” St Augustine adds to this
prayer, “I show you my Love, God, but if it is
too little, give me strength to Love you more.” Jesus: I am the light of the world, Bantry, Ireland

St Augustine recalls the lights that lit
the apostles at Pentecost when they
received the Holy Spirit, quoting from
Acts that “all at once a sound came
from heaven, like that of a strong
wind blowing, and then appeared to
them what seemed to be tongues of
fire, which parted and came to rest
on each of them, and they became
lights in the firmament of heaven,
possessing the word of life.”
Pentecost, Anonymous, 1776

How can the light shine in our
lives? St Augustine prays, “since
your Spirit moved over the waters,
your mercy did not abandon us in
our misery. You said, ‘Let there be
light.’ You also said, ‘Repent; for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ You
told us to repent. You commanded
light to be made.” So, to St
Augustine, repentance is light.
Repentance of St Peter, by Didier Descouens

Quoting many Scriptures, St Augustine
continues his prayer, “In our sad mood we
thought of you; in the land of Jordan, we
remembered you, O Lord. We
remembered you in Christ, in the
mountain high as yourself, who humbled
himself for us. We realized how hateful
our darkness was. We turned to you, and
light was made. And so it is that once we
were all darkness, but now, in the Lord,
we are all daylight.”
Creation, by Giusto de' Menabuoi, 1378

Comparing Genesis Creation to Pagan Myths

What distinguishes the Creation story in Genesis
from the Manichean and all the pagan Creation
stories of the ancient Middle East is that the Creation
in Genesis does not involve some sexual act or battle
between primordial beings, but rather, in Genesis,
Creation occurs when God wills the Creation, when
God speaks his Creation into being.

The first chapter of Genesis begins:
“In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth. The earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of
the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving
over the face of the waters.
And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there
was light. And God saw that the light was
good; and God separated the light from the
darkness. God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And there was
evening and there was morning, one day.”
The Ancient of Days, by William Blake, 1794

St Augustine probably did not know that the Genesis
story of Creation relied heavily on the Mesopotamian
epic, the Enuma Elis. In this story, and in all ancient
Middle Eastern creation stories, the heavens and the
earth was created from a formless pre-existing chaos,
and Genesis seems to adopt this view, as “the earth
was without form and void.” But all Jewish and
Christian commentators insist that the God created
the world ex-nihilo, out of nothing.

Garden of
Eden, by Jan
Brueghel,
1612

How did St Augustine
explain this? He simply
teaches us that God first
created this formless
earth, as he prays: “You,
O Lord, created the world
from formless matter,
which you created out of
nothing.” “From nothing
you created heaven and
earth, distinct from one
another.”
Church of Raperswilen, Switzerland

The Babylonian cosmology from
the Enuma Elis is seen in the
second day of Creation in Genesis:
“And God said, ‘Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the
waters, and let it separate the
waters from the waters.’ And God
made the firmament and
separated the waters which were
under the firmament from the
waters which were above the
firmament. And it was so. And
God called the firmament Heaven.
And there was evening and there
was morning, a second day.” Church of Raperswilen, Switzerland
York Minster, The Second Day of Creation, 1408

In Babylonian cosmology, the firmament is the earth
and sky, the waters are separated into the lower
waters of the oceans and fresh waters of the earth
from the water above the skies, some of which are
periodically released as rain, snow, and hail. The sun,
moon, and stars move in circles in the upper reaches
of this firmament. This may sound ridiculous to
modern ears, but this made perfect sense to the
ancients.

Hebrew conception of Cosmos / The sun, planets and angels and the firmament. Woodcut dated 1475.

We are planning a video comparing Genesis to the
various Middle Eastern Creation stories, based
primarily on a set of Wondrium lectures.

St Augustine views the firmament as a
metaphor, as he prays “Above this firmament of
your Scripture I believe that there are other
waters, immortal and kept safe from earthly
corruption.” The faithful “read your will, they
choose it to be theirs, they cherish it. They read
it without ceasing and what they read never
passes away. For it is your own unchanging
purpose that they read, choosing to make it
their own, cherishing it.” “Those who preach
your word pass on from this life to the next, but
your Scripture is outstretched over the peoples
of this world to the end of time.”
Creation of the Skies, Separation of
Waters, by Francisco de Holanda, 1573

St Augustine
praises God, “You
set special lights
to burn in the
firmament. These
were your saints,
who are
possessed of the
word that gives
life. In them
shines the sublime
authority that is
conferred upon
them by their
spiritual gifts.” Creation of Adam, by Lieven Mehus, 1691
The Last Judgement, Michelangelo, 1541

St Augustine Reflects on the Nature of Time

Why does St Augustine ponder the nature of time? Partially because
the Creation story, though it mentions the seven days of creation, is
really timeless, outside the boundaries of time, its consequences are
eternal.
Are the days of Creation in Genesis actual twenty-four-hour days, or
are they metaphorical days, eons rather than days, or an
indeterminate measurement? Although God created light and
darkness, and day and night, in the first day, they were intermingled.
God did not separate the light from the darkness, and the day from
the night, until the fourth day of Creation, when God also created the
sun and the moon and the stars that measure time.

St Augustine reasons that “time is not
the movement of a body,” time is not
the movement of the sun and earth
and moon.
St Augustine teaches us that God
“uttered in time, that heaven and
earth should be made.” He prays to
God, “In this way you mean for us to
understand your Word, who is God
with you, God with God, your Word
uttered eternally in whom all things
are uttered eternally.”

St Augustine rues, “those who
ask, ‘What was God doing before
he made heaven and earth?’ are
steeped in error.” “The will of God
is not a created thing. It is there
before any creation takes place
because nothing could be created
unless the will of its Creator
preceded its creation. The will of
God, then, is part of his
substance.”

God is not only beyond time, as St Augustine
prays to God, “You are the Maker of all time. If
there was any time before you made heaven
and earth, how can anyone say that you were
idle? You must have created time, for time
could not elapse before you had created it.”
As mortal creatures, we experience time
differently from God. St Augustine prays to
God, “Our years are completed when they
move into the past. Your years, God, are one
day, yet your day does not come daily but is
always today, because your today does not
give way to any tomorrow, nor does it take the
place of any yesterday. Your today is eternity.”

St Augustine seeks a scientific
definition of time. St Augustine
remembers that “once I heard a
learned man say that time is nothing
but the movement of the sun and
the moon and the stars, but I did not
agree.” But St Augustine is frustrated
in his search, as he prays, “I confess
to you, Lord, that I still do not know
what time is.” One fact we can be
sure of, is that we should not waste
our time on earth on selfish
endeavors but seek true happiness in
Loving God and our neighbor.
Salvador Dali, Profile of Time

We finally have a scientific theory about the nature
of time, time and space in quantum physics is posited
as a fourth dimension. When we travel extremely fast
at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, time
actually dilates relatively. However, we still do not
understand exactly what time is, as one physics
professor notes, he who says he understands
quantum physics is a liar.

Genesis Creation Story Reveals the Trinity
St Augustine glimpses
the Trinity when, in the
Creation story, “the
Spirit of God was moving
over the face of the
waters.” This reminds St
Augustine of St Paul,
who exhorts that the
“Love of God has been
poured out in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit, whom
we have received.”

St Augustine prays, “How shall I find the words to
explain how the weight of the passions of
concupiscence drag us down into the sheer depths
and how the Love of God raises us up through
your Spirit, who moved over the waters?” “The
depths to which we sink, and from which we are
raised, are not places in space.” “They are our
passions, our loves, the unclean leanings of our
own spirits, which drag us downward in our love
of the world and its cares; but in our love of that
life where all care is banished, the holiness of your
Spirit raises us aloft, so that we may lift up our
hearts to you, to the place where your Spirit
moved over the waters.”
The Holy Trinity by Miguel Cabrera, 1760

Creation is eternal, as God is eternal, and the
Love of God is eternal. St Augustine prays,
“To whatever place I go, I am drawn to it by
Love. By your Gift, the Holy Spirit, we are set
aflame and borne aloft, and the fire within
us carries us upward. For our journey leads
us upward to the peace of heavenly
Jerusalem; it was a welcome sound when I
heard them singing, ‘We will go into the
Lord’s house, as we sing the Song of Ascents.
There, if our will is good, you will find room
for us, so that we shall wish for nothing else
but to remain in your house forever.”
The Holy Spirit, by Corrado Giaquinto, 1750

St Augustine praises God,
“For we were overwhelmed
by our sins; we had fallen
away from you into the
depths of darkness; and your
good Spirit was moving over
us, ready to bring help when
the time was due. You made
just men of sinners and set
them apart from the wicked.”
God the Father and Holy Spirit, by Pompeo Batoni, 1743

Creation as a Metaphor for the Sacraments
Genesis continues with the third day of
creation:
“And God said, “Let the waters under the
heavens be gathered together into one
place, and let the dry land appear.” And it
was so. God called the dry land Earth, and
the waters that were gathered together he
called Seas.” “And God said, ‘Let the earth
put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed,
and fruit trees bearing fruit.” “And God saw
that it was good. And there was evening
and there was morning, a third day.”
York Minster, The Third Day of Creation, 1408

The pattern is that in the first three days of Creation,
God primarily separates the elements in the chaotic
existence, whereas in the next three days, God
primarily creates the earth, the animals, and
mankind.

In Genesis, on the fourth day,
after he creates vegetation, God
creates the sun, which measures
the days, and the moon and stars,
and separates day from night.
“And God said, ‘Let there be lights
in the firmament of the heavens
to separate the day from the
night; and let them be for signs
and for seasons and for days and
years, and let them be lights in
the firmament of the heavens to
give light upon the earth.’ And it
was so.”
York Minster, The Fourth Day of Creation, 1408

“And God made the two great lights, the
greater light to rule the day, and the
lesser light to rule the night; he made
the stars also. And God set them in the
firmament of the heavens to give light
upon the earth, to rule over the day and
over the night, and to separate the light
from the darkness. And God saw that it
was good. And there was evening and
there was morning, a fourth day.”
The Creation, by Lucas Cranach, 1534

As the lights shine in the firmament, so should
our good deeds shine to those around us, as St
Augustine prays, “Let there be luminaries in
the sky. Let us share our bread with the
hungry, make the poor and vagrant welcome in
our houses, and meet the naked and clothe
him.” “These good deeds are the fruits that
spring from the earth.” “Let our light shine out
in the world and from this humble crop of
good deeds let us pass on to that more
sublime harvest, the joy of contemplation, so
that we may come to possess the Word of Life
and shine in the world like stars set in the
firmament of your Scripture.”
Triumph of St Augustine, by Claudio Coello, 1664

On the fifth day, in Genesis, God created the
creatures swimming in the waters, and the birds who
fly in the air.

The creation of
birds and fish,
by Izaak van
Oosten, 1600's

On the sixth day, in Genesis, God created the land
animals, then he created man in his own image,
giving him dominion over all his creation.
Why does St Augustine see this as a metaphor for the
sacraments? Man has assumed a great responsibility
in his dominion over creation, his life should be
sacramental, as a child created by God, he should
Love God and love his neighbor as himself.

Garden of
Eden with
the Fall of
Man, by
Jan
Brueghel
de Oude
and Peter
Paul
Rubens,
1617

We are reminded of this two-fold Love
when “through the sacrament of the
Eucharist, the Fish which was raised
from the depths is held out to us and is
received as food.” “Almsgiving is like
the earth bearing fruit.” “The fruits of
the earth represent the works of mercy
which the fertile earth produces to help
us in the needs of this life,” and so we
should show hospitality towards our
acquaintances, as many helped Paul in
his ministry and when he was
imprisoned. The Last Supper, Carl Block, late 1800’s

7th Day of Creation, Sabbath of Eternal Life
In Genesis, on the seventh day, God rested,
“Thus, the heavens and the earth were
finished, and all the host of them. And on
the seventh day God finished his work
which he had done, and he rested on the
seventh day from all his work which he had
done. So, God blessed the seventh day and
hallowed it, because on it, God rested from
all his work which he had done in creation.”
God Blessing the Seventh Day, William Blake, 1805

The Old Testament repeats important concepts, so
the fact that the world was created by God is
emphasized by repeating his “work which he had
done.” The Creation was done by God alone.

At the end of our days, mortal
man will also enjoy eternal rest.
St Augustine prays to God, “After
all your works were done and you
had seen that they were very
good, you rested on the seventh
day.” This is a reminder that
“when our work in this life is
done, we too shall rest in you in
the Sabbath of eternal life,
though our works are very good
only because you have given us
the grace to perform them.” York Minster, The Seventh Day of Creation, 1408

St Augustine continues this prayer to
God, “In that eternal Sabbath you will
rest in us, just as now you work in us. The
rest that we shall enjoy will be yours, just
as the work that we now do is your work
done through us. But you, O Lord, are
eternally at work and eternally at rest. Is
it not in time that you see or in time that
you move or in time that you rest: yet you
make what we see in time; you make
time itself and the response which comes
when time ceases.”
God is Restings After Creation

The Greatest Truth of the Creation Story
Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo, 1510

There is no theological topic that generates more
hostility than arguments over the creation story
and the validity of the scientific theories of
evolution. St Augustine repeats in the Confessions
his main warning in his key work, On Christian
Doctrine, aka On Christian Teaching:

https://youtu.be/uQCnAJMPoos
We should always remember what is most
important in our lives in Christ: “Let us Love the
Lord our God with our whole heart and our
whole soul and our whole mind, and love our
neighbor as ourselves,” as Mathew exhorts.

In On Christian Teaching, St Augustine teaches
us that only the biblical interpretations that
increase in our hearts our two-fold Love of
God and neighbor are proper.

Similarly, in his Confessions, St Augustine warns
against foolish and mischievous arguments,
teaching us that “whatever Moses meant in his
books, unless we believe that he meant it to be
understood in the spirit of these two precepts of
charity, we are treating God as a liar.”

St Augustine was an excellent orator and writer, but the
Confessions is the most beautifully crafted and closely edited of
his works, and there are many translations. Although the Nicene
Fathers is an outdated translation, we always consult it for the
excepts from his Retractions as well as the interesting translator
prefaces. Also, the first half of volume four of the Nicene Fathers
contain St Augustine’s anti-Manichean writings, some are
debates with Bishop Faustus, who was his friend when he was a
Manichee. Faustus’ weak philosophical knowledge and his
inability to intellectually defend Manicheism contributed to St
Augustine’s leaving the Manichees and converting to Christianity.

Please view the first video on the Confessions for
more comments on my sources.
In addition, there are some Manichean writings in
the Other Bible, an excellent collection of esoteric
texts, some heretical, some mainstream. We also
consulted the excellent book by a leading Catholic
priest on Reading the Old Testament, which includes
historical backgrounds and archeological findings on
the various books of the Old Testament.

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To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
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my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
YouTube Description has links for:
• Script PDF file
• Blog
• Amazon Bookstore
© Copyright 2023
Blog and YouTube Description
include links for Amazon books
and lectures mentioned, please
support our channel with these
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Blog: https://wp.me/pachSU-OO

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St Augustine’s Confessions, Creation in Genesis, Manicheism, and Pagan Myths, Books 11 Through 13

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St Augustine’s Confessions, Creation in Genesis, Manicheism, and Pagan Myths, Books 11 Through 13