In the head of God (bereshit), Genesis 1:1
Can we enter into God’s head, penetrate His mind, His spirit, His will? Unless He reveals it to us, this is impossible for the human being. Here is what He Himself tells us through the mouth of the prophets, here are the words that tradition attributes to Moses.
Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1
בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
Bereshit (in what is in the head) created Elohim the heaven and the earth.
André Chouraqui, a Jewish thinker born in 1917 in Algeria and who died in 2007 in Jerusalem, is the author of a very literal translation of the Bible that highlights the etymological meaning of each word. Here is his translation of this verse: “INTHEHEAD Elohims created the heaven and the earth.”
Before reading about the six days of creation, we should understand that days in God, in his head, in his words, in his logos, are not like our days. Psalm 90:4 tells us that “a thousand years in your eyes are merely a day gone by,” that all of life lasts only a moment.
And here we are, with a great number of people who have tried to explain this first word of the Bible, and each explanation broadens our view to the dimensions of God, but how can we measure its width, length, height, and depth…? as St. Paul tells us (Letter to the Ephesians 3:18).
The first word of the Bible in Hebrew is: בְּרֵאשִׁית (bereshit), and the letters that make it up have been grouped in many different ways. Here is the simplest and most common reading in Hebrew: בְּ (be) means “in,” רֵאש (resh) comes from the word רֹאש (rosh) meaning “head,” and ית (it) is the suffix used to form an adjective or adverb, used here to indicate that we are talking about something related to the head.
We will look at excerpts from some of the Bible commentators who have played an important role in passing on an interpretative tradition. We will find, with variations specific to each individual and each culture (Jewish, Greek, and Christian), certain criteria and fundamental principles for approaching the reading of a text that speaks to us about the work of God.
In order to better understand these approaches to the first verse of the Bible and the meaning of its first word, here is the Greek and Latin translation:
᾿Εν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
In arkhế, God made heaven and earth.
In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram
In principio, God created heaven and earth
To approach the reading of the Greek and Latin authors who have commented on these verses, here are some key words (arkhế, lógos, génesis, principium, verbum) in their original language, as well as three passages from Aristotle on arkhế, heaven, and causes: Glossary of comments on Genesis 1:1
Here is the list of authors whose text excerpts will be discussed, each in a different article:
Ancient Judaism:
Philo of Alexandria (Alexandria 25 BC – 50 AD)
Christianity, Greek tradition:
Origen (Alexandria c. 185 – Tyre c. 253)
Basil of Caesarea (Caesarea in Cappadocia, now Kayseri, 329–379)
Gregory of Nyssa (Neocaesarea, now Niksar, between 331 and 341–394)
Christianity, Latin tradition:
Ambrose of Milan (Trier, 339–340 – Milan, 397)
Augustine, (Thagaste, now Souk Ahras in Algeria, 354 – 430 in Hippo, now Annaba in Algeria)
Judaism, during the Renaissance:
Itshaq Abravanel (Lisbon 1437 – 1508 Venice)
We will also note that these authors incorporated constant references to Greek philosophy into their culture, which is why I have compiled a glossary with some texts by Aristotle that summarize certain conceptions of the world and time that we find throughout the centuries among Jewish, Christian, Arab, and Persian philosophers and commentators.
Certain fundamental reflections and questions are found in the works of different authors: Why did God create the world? His understanding is not ours; God is outside of time and space. His desire to share his happiness with his creatures, to fill them with his own life, joy, and love is inscribed in his eternity.
These authors, believers from different traditions and cultures, engage in dialogue with philosophers, some of whom have said that the world is eternal because in God there is no succession of ideas, he does not change. However, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers will be careful to preserve God’s free choice: if he decided to give his life to creatures, this is part of him, it is eternally inscribed in his being, which is love; creation is the fruit of God’s initiative; time and matter are created out of nothing. But how can human language give an account of what has no before or after? How inadequate is our discourse, which needs time to develop and progress, to give an account of the eternal, of what exists before time and space?
Thus, when prophetic texts speak of God, we must take into account this dimension where time, before and after, do not exist, where our language speaks to us of the invisible through visible images, as Gregory of Nyssa says. And if it is God who speaks the language of men, it is also because these words and images, the objects and realities to which they refer, are made to speak of Him, provided that we try to put ourselves in His place and seek to make our earthly realities and our ways of expressing ourselves compatible with His eternal and unchanging love, which knows neither vengeance nor punishment. He can only express His eternal will to make man a participant in His own life, His fullness, His happiness. This purpose of the creative act and the goodness of the Creator are always recalled and summarized in the commentaries of Philo of Alexandria and the Church Fathers of successive centuries.
In countless translations over the centuries, bereshit has been translated in different ways, the most common of which are: “In the beginning,” “In principle,” meaning that which is at the head, which comes before, which precedes, but also that which has precedence in terms of importance, such as the fundamental principle on which an assertion is based.
In the Greek translation of the Bible, the translation made in Alexandria around 270 BC, called the Septuagint (because of the seventy wise men that translated it), bereshit was translated as Ἐν ἀρχῇ (En arkhế ). The word ἀρχή (arkhế) has a broad semantic spectrum: it refers to the principle that is at the origin of something; for Greek philosophers, it is also the principle that causes something to exist, the cause of its being. This word also covers the notion of authority: the one who is first is also the one who guides and commands, as in the words archangel, archon, etc. Aristotle examines the different meanings of this word. In Alexandria itself, the city where the Bible was translated into Greek and where Hellenistic culture flourished, a Jewish scholar, knowledgeable about the works of the Greek philosophers, also gave us his comments on this word. This was Philo of Alexandria (Alexandria 25 BC – 50 AD). Philo refers to the Greek text of the Bible and also expresses himself in that language. We can thus see, in a few excerpts from his commentary on the creation of the world, how his observations inaugurated reflection and understanding of this text among the first great Christian commentators.
In the passages analyzed, Philo immediately notes that creation cannot be linked to time because time did not exist before the world. He then introduces the idea of the creation of an intelligible world and a sensible world and asserts that the sensible world is created according to the intelligible model and that God, being good, communicates his goodness to his creatures. Indeed, he asserts, the intelligible world is the very lógos of God, his inner Word, and the world, created in the image and likeness of God, bears the imprint of God’s arkhế.
Indeed, also in Alexandria, Origen (Alexandria c. 185 – Tyre c. 253) developed explanations of this first word of the Bible, reviewing, like Philo, the multiple meanings of the word arkhế. It thus appears from these early readings of the beginning of the book of Genesis that the word bereshit, or arkhế in its Greek translation, places the narrative outside of time, in the wisdom and timelessness of God who conceives the work of creation in his eternity.
With Origen, we enter into Christian exegesis, so after reaffirming that this creation takes place in the lógos of God, who creates and orders everything, he concludes that this lógos is Christ, whose names are arkhế and wisdom of the Father. To do this, he refers to the beginning of John’s Gospel, which says: “In arkhế was the lógos.” Once again, the different meanings of arkhế in Greek culture are reviewed, and arkhế is placed outside of time in the wisdom, thought, and knowledge of God. Like Philo, Origen also uses the example of the architect who designs the work to be done. In the architect’s mind, in his plan, are the lógoi of every creature to come. The lógoi, plural of lógos, correspond to what the lógos of God conceives in himself when he calls each creature into being. These lógoi determine each creature to be what it is, a concept that will also be developed by other interpreters of Genesis, here Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine.
This brings us to considerations about the lógos of God. This word evokes God’s logic, thought, reasoning, and also the expression of his will, his word, his Verbum, as the Latins would say. Since God conceives in his mind, what he thinks exists. What his word, his inner lógos, formulates, comes into existence. God said, and it was, as both the Bible and the Qur’an tell us.
This reflection on the timelessness of God, his thought, his word, and his eternal wisdom, which began in Talmudic discussions, was then transposed into the Greek cultural world in Alexandria by the Jew Philo, and later by Christians such as Origen and others. Later, in the 4th century, it was the Christians of Cappadocia who played an important role in transmitting reflections on this text and its understanding.
We will look in particular at excerpts from the commentaries on the work of the six days written by two bishop brothers: Basil of Caesarea (Caesarea in Cappadocia, now Kayseri, Turkey, 329–379) and Gregory of Nyssa (Neocaesarea, now Niksar, between 331 and 341–394). These two played a fundamental role in the formulation of the Christian faith summarized in the Council of Constantinople (May-July 381), presided over by their great friend, Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus.
For Basil, the different meanings of the word arkhế tell us precisely that everything was made in arkhế, that the characteristics of arkhế are found precisely in the creative lógos, which is the beginning, order, foundation, and principle of all that exists, according to the affirmation of the Gospel: “In arkhế was the lógos.”
Gregory of Nyssa, like Basil before him, points out another translation of the Hebrew word bereshit: the word en kephálaioi, used by the Christian Aquila instead of arkhế. Literally, it means “in the head,” but here it is used to emphasize the totality of what is created. Moses named some of the works created, but all of them are capable of leading us from the visible to the invisible, to the Creator himself. Nevertheless, he insists on keeping the two terms kephálaion and arkhế because of their complementarity: the first tells us that God conceived all beings together, and the second tells us that this happened before the beginning of time. After placing the biblical account in the eternal dimension of God, he tells us about the modality of this creation, the work of God’s lógos. It is the divine eye that “contemplated all things before their genesis,” he says, quoting the book of Daniel 13:42. The instantaneousness of the entire creation is recalled by the example of fire and light spreading everywhere in an instant. This lógos, like light, fills creation and illuminates every creature, so that the whole of creation reflects the glory of the Creator and tells of his greatness, because it points us back to him. Everything arouses wonder and surpasses our understanding: how can fire and light spread in this way, by what mystery? Only God, who begets the lógos without uttering a word, knows.
It was the Cappadocian Fathers, but also the exegesis of the Alexandrian commentators, the Jew Philo and the Christian Origen, who were the point of reference for Bishop Ambrose in Milan. Ambrose’s role in the West, in the Latin world, was parallel to that of the Cappadocians in the East. He too convened a council in Aquileia in September 381. There he took up the affirmations of the Council of Constantinople and also offered the West biblical commentaries that reflected the interpretative tradition of Alexandria and Cappadocia.
Ambrose is a bridge between East and West. In his commentary, he takes up the traditional affirmations handed down by the Greek-speaking fathers and synthesizes them. He also makes them more accessible in his desire to instruct both the great and the small: he will be Augustine’s catechist and also a preacher and peacemaker acclaimed by the crowds. In the passage studied, he affirms from the outset that God is before the beginning of the world, that he himself is the beginning, because the Son of God affirms that he himself is arkhế, the primordial principle, the origin of the created world. He takes care to explain clearly to those discovering Christianity that Christ is the creator, not according to a pre-existing model, but as the one who gave created things their beginning. This is followed by the traditional explanations of the different meanings of the word “principium,” the principle that is before all things. Ambrose also reports the Greek translation of the original Hebrew word as kephálaion, recalling that God created such beauty all together, including the angels, in an instant, out of nothing. And that the beauty of the world refers us to its creator, the visible to the invisible, as Psalm 18:1 says: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands.” Like Basil before him, he is keen to point out that this act of creation is not the result of an involuntary emanation, like the shadow that accompanies the body, but rather the fruit of divine will and free choice.
Thanks to Ambrose, Augustine (Thagaste, now Souk Ahras in Algeria, 354–430 in Hippo, now Annaba in Algeria) discovered the Christian reflection and interpretation of the Bible in Milan and later developed it further, so we find in him the traits common to the others, as well as some new developments.
Augustine left us three treatises on the book of Genesis, the most extensive of which is “On the Literal Meaning of Genesis.” As a good philosopher, Augustine dedicates the first pages of this treatise, and of another unfinished treatise, to explaining the interpretive principles of this ancient text. For each event recounted in the Old Testament, the aim is to preserve the historicity of the event recounted, but also to extract a figurative meaning situated in the eternity of God, announcing the future work of Christ and the Church, and providing men with moral reflection and principles of conduct. He therefore questions the meaning of the words, one by one. First, he considers the first word of the Bible in Latin, In principio. Should we understand this as referring to the beginning of time or to the author of creation himself, the Verbum of God, who brings about this creation and who is the Son begotten by God in eternity, just as the inner word is begotten by the spirit? What meaning should we give to the expression “heaven and earth”? Should we see in it the creation of heavenly and earthly creatures, spiritual and corporeal? Or rather a matter that is to receive its form in the image and likeness of God, in which every being finds its fulfillment and the reason for its existence? Could this process by which the creature is led to full likeness be signified by the creation of light, which leads us to the vision of God and transforms us? The creature that thus turns to God is transformed, illuminated, and led to fullness. Different times of creation thus emerge according to the meanings of Scripture that govern its reading:
1. A literal meaning, which, dwelling on the expression “in principio,” places us before creation, outside of time, since time itself is a creature. Augustine therefore places in this principium, this origin of all things, which is God himself, the simultaneous creation of heaven and earth, which includes spiritual and corporeal beings.
2. An eternal meaning in which Augustine contemplates the work of the lógos, Verbum, the creative Word of God that gives all creation its perfect form.
3. A figurative meaning in which the work of Christ is announced, the creative Word, the divine Verbum that became flesh, announced and figured in the account of Genesis. Through his word and example, he leads creatures to be light and reflection of God’s glory.
4. A moral meaning, because God calls creatures to himself and invites them to follow him, thereby continuing his work of creation to this day, never ceasing to call his creatures to himself, perpetuating his creative Word at every moment and maintaining the order of the cosmos.
It is important to understand the efforts of those who have tried to speak of the mystery of God and who have also maintained that the world is eternal, since in God’s plan this world has always existed and his will is unchangeable. Personalities and believers such as Ibn Rushd (Averroes) have sought to explain to us that even if the world had no beginning, this would not detract from the action of God, who nevertheless creates it through his eternal action, keeps it alive and occasions it to subsist now. Otherwise, how could we exist? Would there be another world not created by God, not wanted by Him? (quotes to follow)
A great figure of Persia, the philosopher, physician, and expert in all sciences, Ibn Sinâ (Avicenna), following other philosophers such as Al-Farabi and Al-Kindi, commenting on Aristotle’s texts on the eternity of the world, questions the modalities of creation. As a Muslim believer, he was keen to preserve the act of creation and therefore affirmed that this world comes from God. As Christian commentators such as Basil and Ambrose had already noted, affirming an eternal act of creation could suggest the absence of a creative will, the natural emanation of this world from the divine nature, like a shadow emanating from the body. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was therefore concerned with preserving the origin of the act of creation in the will of God from which it came. In his Arabic and Persian texts, therefore, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) does not use the word emanation (fa’îdh), whose definition would remove the notion of will and choice. This word was later introduced by Al-Ghazali when he summarized Ibn Sinâ’s (Avicenna) ideas in order to criticize them in his treatise written in Arabic, Tahâfut al-Falasifâ, The Incoherence of the Philosophers. This treatise was translated into Latin and played a major role in the reception and sometimes misunderstanding of Ibn Sina’s (Avicenna) philosophy in the West. Unfortunately, this treatise also retained in the Latin translation the word fa’îdh, emanation, in the presentation of Ibn Sina’s (Avicenna) comments on the theme of creation.
For Christians, it was therefore necessary at that time to reaffirm the will of the creative act in God based on the biblical account. For could God not want what he chose: to give life to the world, to breathe his own breath into creatures? It is certain that God’s choice is made in complete freedom and that no one compels him to do so, but this act is also the expression of his will, the work of his Verbum, his word of wisdom, for he said and it was. At the level of human beings, it is true that a word can also be deceptive or false, but in God it can only be the perfect expression of his essence, his wisdom, and therefore his will to associate creatures with his own life, his happiness, his joy, and his love. Saint Thomas Aquinas, a fervent reader of the Arab commentators on Aristotle’s work, repeated the ancient axiom also used by the Neoplatonic philosophers and Dionysius the Areopagite: “Bonum est diffusivum sui” in his commentary on the Sentences (lib. 3 d. 24 q. 1 a. 3 qc. 1 ad 2).
Itshaq Abravanel (Lisbon 1437 – 1508 Venice), in a long commentary on the Torah, recounts the history of Jewish exegesis of this verse, beginning with the Mishnah and the Talmud. In the excerpts I have chosen, we see him in dialogue with Greek and Arab philosophers with whom he shares the view that the days of creation are not to be understood as a chronological sequence inserted into time, but he criticizes the idea of a pre-existing raw material.
Bibliography:
In principio, Interprétations des premiers versets de la Genèse, Etudes Augustiniennes, Paris, 1973
Arche, A collection of patristic studies by J.C.M. Van Winden, Brill, 1997