Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/468

 beginnings, principalities, and thrones. Devils are also divided into categories, but the names of these categories are not precisely known.

Then much time passed and God began to create anew and made the material world. He made it in six days. By day is to be understood the turning of the earth about its axis. And there was morning and evening the very first day. If during those first days there was no sun, God himself shook the illuminating matter, so that there might be morning and evening. God made six days; on the sixth day he made Adam, the first man, out of earth, and blew the soul into him; then he made woman. Man is made out of soul and body. The destination of man is to remain true to the power of God. Man was created good and absolutely perfect. His whole duty lay in this, that he should not eat the forbidden apple, and God not only had created him perfect, but also aided him in every way possible, teaching, amusing, and visiting him in the garden.

But Adam none the less ate the forbidden apple, and for that the good God wreaked revenge on Adam and drove him out of the garden, cursing him, the whole earth, and all the descendants of Adam.

All that is not to be understood in any transferred, but in a direct sense, as having actually occurred. After that, God, that same God in three persons, the omniscient, all-good, almighty God, who had created Adam and cursed him and all his posterity, still continued to provide, that is, to care for their good, for Adam, for his descendants, and for all the creatures which he had made. He preserves the creatures, coöperates with them, and rules over them all and over each in particular.

God rules over the bad and good angels, and over the bad and good men. The angels help God to rule the world. There are angels who are attached to kingdoms, to nations, and to men, and omniscient, almighty, and