• This truth of the simultaneous creation of mind and matter, as stated in line 29. ↩
• The opinion of St. Jerome and other Fathers of the Church, that the Angels were created long ages before the rest of the universe, is refuted by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica , I Quaest. LXI 3. ↩
• That the Intelligences or Motors of the heavens should be so long without any heavens to move. ↩
• The subject of the elements is the earth, so called as being the lowest, or underlying the others, fire, air, and water. ↩
• The pride of Lucifer, who lies at the centre of the earth, towards which all things gravitate, and “Down upon which thrust all the other rocks.” Milton, Paradise Lost , V 856, makes the rebel angels deny that they were created by God:⁠— “Who saw When this creation was? Rememberest thou Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being? We know no time when we were not as now; Know none before us; self-begot, self-raised By our own quickening power, when fatal course Had circled his full orb, the birth mature Of this our native heaven, ethereal sons.” ↩
• The merit consists in being willing to receive this grace. ↩