Augustine on the Creation of the World

Abstract

Few passages of Scripture intrigued Augustine as much as the first sentence of the book of Genesis. In the Confessions, in his treatises on Genesis, in the City of God, and elsewhere he dwells on it and recurs to it, as though he felt he could not exhaust its suggestions and implications. His reflections on this sentence are ample evidence of the acuteness, force, and fecundity of his mind.