That heaven of heavens was yours, Lord, but the earth which you gave to the sons of men to be seen and touched was not then in the same form as that in which we now see it and touch it. For then it was invisible and unformed and there was an abyss over which there was no light. The darkness was truly over the abyss, that is, more than just in the abyss. For this abyss of waters which is now visible has even in its depths a certain light appropriate to its nature, perceptible in some way to fish and the things that creep about on the bottom of it. But then the entire abyss was almost nothing, since it was still altogether unformed. Yet even there, there was something that had the possibility of being formed. For you, Lord, had made the world out of unformed matter, and this you made out of nothing⁠a and made it into almost nothing. From it you have then made these great things which we, the sons of men, marvel at. For this corporeal heaven is truly marvelous, this firmament between the water and the waters which you made on the second day after the creation of light, saying, "Let it be done," and it was done. This firmament you called heaven, that is, the heaven of this earth and sea which you made on the third day, giving a visible shape to the unformed matter which you had made before all the days. For even before any day you had already made a heaven, but that was the heaven of this heaven: for in the beginning you had made heaven and earth. But this earth itself which you had made was unformed matter; it was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss. Out of this invisible and unformed earth, out of this formlessness which is almost nothing, you then made all these things of which the changeable world consists—and yet does not fully consist in itself—for its very changeableness appears in this, that its times and seasons can be observed and numbered. The periods of time are measured by the changes of things, while the forms, whose matter is the invisible earth of which we have spoken, are varied and altered.