Beginning. As St. Matthew begins his Gospel with the same title as this work, the Book of the Generation, or Genesis, so St. John adopts the first words of Moses, in the beginning; but he considers a much higher order of things, even the consubstantial Son of God, the same with God from all eternity... [ Continue Reading ]
_Spirit of God, giving life, vigour, and motion to things, and preparing the waters for the sacred office of baptism, in which, by the institution of Jesus Christ, we must be born again; and, like spiritual fishes, swim amid the tempestuous billows of this world. (v. Tert.[Tertullian?], &c.) (Worthi... [ Continue Reading ]
. _Light. The sun was made on the fourth day, and placed in the firmament to distinguish the seasons, &c.; but the particles of fire were created on the first day, and by their, or the earth's motion, served to discriminate day from the preceding night, or darkness, which was upon the face of the de... [ Continue Reading ]
_Good; beautiful and convenient: --- he divided light by giving it qualities incompatible with darkness, which is not any thing substantial, and therefore Moses does not say it was created. (Calmet) --- While our hemisphere enjoys the day, the other half of the world is involved in darkness. St. Aug... [ Continue Reading ]
_A firmament. By this name is here understood the whole space between the earth and the highest stars. The lower part of which divideth the waters that are upon the earth, from those that are above in the clouds. (Challoner) --- The Hebrew Rokia is translated stereoma, solidity by the Septuagint., a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Above the firmament and stars, according to some of the Fathers; or these waters were vapours and clouds arising from the earth, and really divided from the lower waters contained in the sea. (Calmet)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Seed in itself, either in the fruit or leaves, or slips. (Menochius) --- At the creation, trees were covered with fruit in Armenia, while in the more northern regions they would not even have leaves: Calmet hence justly observes, that the question concerning the season of the year when the world be... [ Continue Reading ]
For signs. Not to countenance the delusive observations of astrologers, but to give notice of rain, of the proper seasons for sowing, &c. (Menochius) --- If the sun was made on the first day, as some assert, there is nothing new created on this fourth day. By specifying the use and creation of these... [ Continue Reading ]
Two great lights. God created on the first day light, which being moved from east to west, by its rising and setting made morning and evening. But on the fourth day he ordered and distributed this light, and made the sun, moon, and stars. The moon, though much less than the stars, is here called a g... [ Continue Reading ]
_Creeping: destitute of feet like fishes, which move on their bellies. (Menochius) --- Fowl. Some assert that birds were formed of the earth, but they seem to have the same origin as fishes, namely, water; and still they must not be eaten on days of abstinence, which some of the ancients thought law... [ Continue Reading ]
_Blessed them, or enabled them to produce others. --- Multiply: the immense numbers and variety of fishes and fowls is truly astonishing._... [ Continue Reading ]
Let us make man to our image. This image of God in man, is not in the body, but in the soul; which is a spiritual substance, endued with understanding and free-will. God speaketh here in the plural number, to insinuate the plurality of persons in the Deity. (Challoner) --- Some of the ancient Jews m... [ Continue Reading ]
_Male and female. Eve was taken from Adam's side on this same day, though it be related in the following chapter. Adam was not an hermaphrodite as some have foolishly asserted. (Calmet) --- Adam means the likeness, or red earth, that in one word we may behold our nobility and meanness. (Haydock)_... [ Continue Reading ]
Increase and multiply. This is not a precept, as some protestant controvertists would have it, but a blessing, rendering them fruitful: for God had said the same words to the fishes and birds, (ver. 22.) who were incapable of receiving a precept. (Challoner) --- Blessed them, not only with fecundity... [ Continue Reading ]
_Every herb, &c. As God does not here express leave to eat flesh-meat, which he did after the deluge, it is supposed that the more religious part of mankind, at least, abstained from it, and from wine, till after that event, when they became more necessary to support decayed nature. (Haydock) (Menoc... [ Continue Reading ]