But let us stop here and return to our subject.
"The earth was invisible and unfinished." In saying "In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth" the sacred writer passed over
many things in silence--water, air, fire, and the results from them,
which, all forming in reality the true complement of the world, were,
without doubt made at the same time as the universe. By this silence
history wishes to train the activity of our intelligence, giving it a
weak point for starting, to impel it to the discovery of the truth.
Thus, we are told of the creation of water; but, as we are told that
the earth was invisible, ask yourself what could have covered it and
prevented it from being seen? Fire could not conceal it. Fire brightens
all about it, and spreads light rather than darkness around. No more was
it air that enveloped the earth. Air by nature is of little density and
transparent. It receives all kinds of visible objects and transmits them
to the spectators. Only one supposition remains: that which floated on
the surface of the earth was water, the fluid essence which had not yet
been confined to its own place.
Thus the earth was not only invisible; it was still incomplete.
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