THE BOOK OF GENESIS.—The Greek word which stands for title means “birth,” just as the first word bereschith in the Hebrew text means “in the beginning.” Genesis, therefore, gives us, in its first chapters, the brief and inspired history of the creation, of the birth and first beginning both of the world and of mankind. St. Paul, in his epistle to the infant church of the Colossians (i. 12–17), tells them that “the Father . . . hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins; . . . for in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers: all things were created by Him and in Him: and He is before all, and by Him all things consist.”
Before the coming of Christ the whole pagan world was plunged in darkness impenetrable concerning the origin of man and the world, and the sublime destinies appointed in Christ for Adam and his posterity in the very beginning. Christian teaching dispelled this midnight darkness and revealed to all believers both the secret of man’s origin and the incomprehensible glory of his supernatural destinies. We, children of the nineteenth century of Christian civilization, being thus made “partakers of the lot of the saints in light,” can find unspeakable pleasure in standing with the inspired penman at the very first beginning of God’s ways, and in allowing our souls to dwell on the contemplation of his magnificence—of His infinite power and His infinite love.
According to the definition of the late general council of the Vatican, renewing the dogmatic decree of another general council also held in Rome, God in the beginning of time created—that is, brought from a state of absolute non-existence into full and complete existence—both the material universe and the world of angelic spirits. Man was only created after these.
Moreover, all things were created in and by the uncreated and eternal Son and Word of the Almighty Father, “all things . . . in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers.” Thus, together with the world of matter in all its inconceivable variety and magnificence, was created the world of angelic spirits, in their own different orders of greatness, goodness, wisdom, beauty, and loveliness—to be, in the design of their Creator and
