{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly\r\nthis advantage, that it causes many opinions about the\r\ntruth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh\r\nmeaning in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure\r\npassage should be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious\r\nfacts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts.\r\nThis obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at\r\nlast reached after the discussion of many other interpretations,\r\nor whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are\r\nbrought out by the discussion of the obscurity. To me it does\r\nnot seem incongruous with the working of God, if we understand\r\nthat the angels were created when that first light was\r\nmade, and that a separation was made between the holy and the\r\nunclean angels, when, as is said, \"God divided the light from\r\nthe darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness\r\nHe called Night.\" For He alone could make this discrimination,\r\nwho was able also, before they fell, to foreknow that they\r\nwould fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they\r\nwould abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as regards\r\nthe day and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded\r\nthose luminaries of heaven that are obvious to our\r\nsenses to divide between the light and the darkness. \"Let\r\nthere be,\" He says, \"lights in the firmament of the heaven, to\r\ndivide the day from the night;\" and shortly after He says,\r\n\"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule\r\nthe day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also.\r\nAnd God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give\r\nlight upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the\r\nnight, and to divide the light from the darkness.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_486_486\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_486_486\">[486]</a> But\r\nbetween that light, which is the holy company of the angels\r\nspiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and\r\nthat opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the\r\nspiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from\r\nthe light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from\r\nwhom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet\r\nit was future, could not be hidden or uncertain.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK ELEVENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-794"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"3f700ed322507d25c2193e7a1da79db36f75c2bd72d87f7080c187c014202a03","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"GEN","chapter":1,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Gen. i. 14-18","verse":14,"verse_end":18}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_486_486","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_486_486","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_486_486\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_486_486\"><span class=\"label\">[486]</span></a> Gen. i. 14-18.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_486_486","text_sha256":"ce1da846788488786758e553c8c22b50e77e647003773fca2bad73b8242a8390","verified":false,"work_id":null}