than the world; BR 3.7 and Koheleth 3.11 hold this very opinion rejected by Philo.
15 Hagigah 12a; PRE 3. The former passage mentions God’s ten attributes which were made use of at the creation of the world. So also in ARN, second version 43, 119, whereas the first version knows only of seven such attributes. This latter view corresponds to Jub. 2.2; Philo, De M. Opif., 7; Tadshe 6, which state that only seven categories of creation took place on the first day. Other sources ascribe three kinds of creation to each day; comp, vol. I, pp. 82–83. Quite instructive is the fact that the Talmud does not conceive רוח אלוהים (Gen. 1.2) as “God’s spirit”, but as “God’s wind”, which interpretation is certainly due to an anti-Christian tendency, since the Christians identified God’s spirit with the Holy Ghost; comp. Origen, Princip., I, 33, and Jerome, ad loc. The Jewish interpretation was later accepted by some of the Church Fathers, as e.g., by Ephraim, I, 8 B, F; Basilius, Hexaemeron, 3, and Theodoretus, Gen., loc, cit.; comp, also Ginzberg, Haggada bei den Kirchenv., 14–15. The prevalent opinion of the Palestinian Midrashim is that by “God’s spirit” the spirit (=soul) of Adam is meant; according to others it implies the spirit of the Messiah; BR 8.1. The souls of all the pious, however, were likewise created at the same time as Adam, or, as others assert, the primordial light which came into being on the first day is the material out of which the souls have been formed; comp. Excursus I, where details are also given concerning the view of the Rabbis about the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, on which they insist to the extent of counting Tohu (“void”) and Bohu (“emptiness”) among the things created. As to God’s spirit in the form of a dove (Matthew 3.16), comp. Tosefta Hagigah 2.5; Yerushalmi 2, 77a; Babli 15a; BR 2.4.
16 The heavens, like all the beings dwelling therein, consist of a combination of fire (not of an earthly or physical nature) and water, whereas the earth was formed of the snow found under the heavenly throne; Konen 24; BR 4.7 (שמים “heaven” = אש ומים “fire and water”); Hagigah 12a; BaR 12.4. Comp. further Lekah, Gen. 1.1 (ארץ “earth” is derived from רץ “the running one”, i.e., the one around which everything moves), and note 18.
17 BR 1.15; Yerushalmi Hagigah 2, 77c; Babli 12a; Tamid 32a (the question is here discussed whether light or darkness was created first; to Philo, too, darkness is something positive, not merely the absence of light; comp. De M. Opif., 7 where darkness is identified
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