.
And further, when God proclaimed the goodness of light, it was not in
regard to the charm of the eye, but as a provision for future advantage,
because at that time there were as yet no eyes to judge of its beauty.

"And God divided the light from the darkness." That is to say, God gave
them natures incapable of mixing, perpetually in opposition to each
other, and put between them the widest space and distance.

"And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night." Since
the birth of the sun, the light that it diffuses in the air when shining
on our hemisphere is day, and the shadow produced by its disappearance
is night. But at that time it was not after the movement of the sun, but
following this primitive light spread abroad in the air or withdrawn in
a measure determined by God, that day came and was followed by night.

"And the evening and the morning were the first day." Evening is then
the boundary common to day and night; and in the same way morning
constitutes the approach of night to day. It was to give day the
privileges of seniority that Scripture put the end of the first day
before that of the first night, because night follows day: for, before
the creation of light, the world was not in night, but in darkness. It
is the opposite of day which was called night, and it did not receive
its name until after day. Thus were created the evening and the
morning. Scripture means the space of a day and a night, and afterward
no more says day and night, but calls them both under the name of the
more important: a custom which you will find throughout Scripture.
Everywhere the measure of time is counted by days without mention of
nights. "The days of our years," says the Psalmist; "few and evil have
the days of the years of my life been," said Jacob; and elsewhere "all
the days of my life."

"And the evening and the morning were the first day," or, rather, one
day.--(_Revised Vers_). Why does Scripture say "one day," not "the first
day?" Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth
days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first
which began the series? If it, therefore, says "one day," it is from a
wish to determine the measure of day and night and to combine the time
that they contain. Now, twenty-four hours fill up the space of one
day--we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the
solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by
Sc