The Hexaemeron, or Six Days of Creation

5. Moses and the Opening Words of Genesis

Whence holy Moses, foreseeing by the divine Spirit that these errors of men would come, and perhaps had already begun, says thus at the beginning of his discourse: In the beginning God made heaven and earth; comprehending the beginning of things, the author of the world, and the creation of matter; that you might know that God exists before the beginning of the world, or that He Himself is the beginning of all things; just as in the Gospel the Son of God, when they said to Him, "Who art thou?" answered: "The beginning, who also speak to you": and that He Himself gave a beginning to things brought into being, and that He Himself is the creator of the world, not one who, guided by some idea, imitates matter, from which He would form His works not according to His own will, but according to a pattern set before Him.

Beautifully too he says, "In the beginning made"; that he might express the incomprehensible swiftness of the work, since he explained the effect of the completed operation before he set forth any indication of its having begun.

6. The Life and Calling of Moses

We ought to consider who says this. That Moses, certainly, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, whom Pharaoh's daughter, having gathered him from the river, loved as a son, and, supported by royal resources, desired that he be formed and instructed in all the disciplines of worldly wisdom. Desired. He, though he received his name from water, did not nevertheless think it should be said that all things consist of water, as Thales said. And although he had been raised in the royal court, he preferred, for love of justice, to undergo voluntary exile, rather than to acquire, at the height of tyranny, the perpetration of sin through delights.

Finally, before he was called to the task of freeing the people, roused by a natural zeal for equity, having avenged one of his own people who was suffering injury, he gave himself up to hatred, tore himself away from pleasure, and, avoiding all the tumults of the royal house, betook himself into the retreat of Ethiopia; there, removed from all other business, he directed his whole mind to divine knowledge, so that he might see the glory of God face to face. To him Scripture testifies, that there arose no more a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. Not in a vision, nor in dreams, but he spoke with the Most High God mouth to mouth; not in a likeness, nor through riddles, but was granted the clear and evident dignity of the divine presence.

7. Moses as Witness to the Work of Creation

This Moses, then, opened his mouth, and poured forth what the Lord spoke within him, according to what He had said to him when He sent him to King Pharaoh: "Go, therefore, and I will open your mouth, and instruct you what you ought to say". For if what he said about the dismissal of the people he had received from God, how much more what he said about heaven? Finally, not in the persuasion of human wisdom, nor in the mock disputations of philosophy, but in the demonstration of spirit and power, as a witness of the divine work, he dared to say: In the beginning God made heaven and earth. He did not wait, as though for the world to come together by a concourse of atoms, upon a slow and idle process; nor did he think that some discipline of matter, which by contemplating he might mold the world, should be expressed, but he thought God the author should be declared.

For this man, full of prudence, perceived that the mind of God alone contains the substances, origins, and causes of visible and invisible things, not, as the philosophers dispute, that a stronger concourse of atoms provides the cause of continual perseverance: but he judged that those wove a spider's web who thus gave to heaven and earth such minute and insubstantial principles, which, just as they were joined by chance, so would be dissolved by chance and at random, unless they stood firm in the divine power of their governor. Nor without reason do those fail to know a governor, who have not known God, through whom all things are ruled and governed. Let us therefore follow Him who knows both the author and the governor, and let us not be led away by vain opinions.

8. The World's Beginning and the Swiftness of Creation

"In the beginning," he says. How good the order, that he should first assert that which men were accustomed to deny, and that they should recognize that the world has a beginning, lest men should suppose the world to be without beginning. Whence also David, speaking of heaven, and earth, and sea, says: "Thou hast made all things in wisdom". He gave, then, a beginning to the world, He gave also weakness to the creature, lest we should believe it anarchon, that is, uncreated, and a partner of the divine substance. And he beautifully added, "made," lest it should be thought that there was delay in the making; so that men might understand in this way too how incomparable a worker He was, who accomplished so great a work in the brief and small moment of His operation, such that the effect of His will preceded the sense of time. No one saw Him at work, but recognized the work done.

Where, then, is the delay, when you read: "For He Himself spoke, and they were made; He Himself commanded, and they were created"? He who fulfilled the majesty of so great an operation in the moment of His will neither expended the use of skill nor of power; so that He made those things which were not, to be, so swiftly, that neither did His will run ahead of the operation, nor the operation of the will.

9. Scriptural Witnesses to God as Maker of Heaven and Earth

You marvel at the work, you seek the worker, who gave the beginning to so great a work, who made it so quickly? He immediately added, saying that God made heaven and earth. You have heard the author; you ought not to doubt. There it is, in which Melchisedek blessed Abraham, the father of many nations, saying: "Blessed be Abraham by the Most High God, who made heaven and earth". And Abraham believed God, and said: "I will stretch out my hand to the Most High God, who made heaven and earth." You see that this was not discovered by man, but announced by God. For Melchisedek is God, who is king of peace and of justice, having neither beginning of days nor end. It is no wonder, then, if God, who is without beginning, gave a beginning to all things; so that those things which were not might begin to be.

It is no wonder if God, who contains all things by His power, and embraces the universe with His incomprehensible majesty, made these things which are seen, since He also made those things which are not seen. But who would deny that the invisible things are more powerful than those which are seen; since those which are seen are temporal, but those which are not seen are eternal? Who would doubt that God made it, He who spoke through the Prophet, saying: "Who has measured the water with his hand, and heaven with his palm, and all the earth in his closed hand? Who has established the mountains in a balance, and the rocks in a scale, and the forests in a yoke? Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor, or who has instructed Him"?

Of whom also elsewhere we read: "Who holds the circuit of the earth, and made the earth as nothing." And Jeremiah says: "The gods who have not made heaven and earth shall perish from the earth, and from under this heaven. The Lord, who made the earth by His power, and set the world right in His wisdom, and in His understanding stretched out the heaven, and the abundance of water in heaven". And he added: "Man is made foolish by his own knowledge". For he who follows the corruptible things of the world, and thinks that from these he can comprehend the truth of the divine nature, how is he not made foolish by the cunning of a crafty disputation?

10. The World Will End as It Began

Since, then, you hear so many oracles by which God testifies that He made the world, do not believe it to be without beginning; because the world is said to be like a sphere, so that no beginning of it seems to exist; and when it thunders, all things seem to be moved as it were in a circuit, so that you cannot easily grasp where they begin, or where they end; because it is held impossible to gather by sense the beginning of a circuit. For you cannot find the beginning of a sphere, nor where the globe of the moon begins, nor where the monthly waning of the moon ends. But not because you yourself cannot comprehend it, does it therefore follow that it did not begin, or that it will by no means end.

If you yourself draw a circle either with ink, or with a stylus, or trace it from a center, you do not easily gather with your eyes, nor recall with your mind, where you began, or where you left off, once an interval has intervened; and yet you yourself are witness that it both began and ended. For although it escapes sense, it does not undermine the truth. But those things which have a beginning also have an end: and to those to which an end is given, it is established that a beginning was given. But the Savior Himself teaches in His Gospel that the world will have an end, saying: "Heaven and earth shall pass away". And below: "Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the world". And the Apostle: "For the fashion of this world passeth away".

11. Against the Co-Eternity of the World with God

How then do they assert that the world is co-eternal with God, and associate it with the creator of all things, and dispute that the creature is equal, and think that the material body of the world should be joined to that invisible and inaccessible nature of the divine, when, according to their own opinion, they cannot deny that of whose parts are subject to corruption and mutability, its whole must necessarily be subjected to those same passions to which its own portions are liable?

12. The Several Meanings of Beginning

He teaches, then, that there is a beginning, who says: In the beginning God made heaven and earth. But "beginning" is referred either to time, or to number, or to foundation; just as in the building of a house the beginning is the foundation. We know also, by the authority of the Scriptures, that "beginning" can be said of turning aside and of depravity. There is also a beginning of art, which is art itself, from which the operation of various craftsmen thereafter began. There is also a beginning of good works, which is the best end, as the beginning of mercy is that what you do should please God. For by this we are especially moved to bring aid to men. There is also a divine power, which is expressed by this appellation. It is referred to time, if you wish to say in what time God made heaven and earth, that is, at the exordium of the world, when it began to come into being, as Wisdom says: "When He prepared the heaven, I was with Him".

But if you refer it to number, it is fitting to take it thus: first God made heaven and earth, then hills, regions, uninhabitable borders. Or thus: before the rest of visible creatures—day, night, fruit-bearing trees, the various kinds of living things—He made heaven and earth. But if you refer it to foundation, you have read that the beginning of the earth is its foundations, Wisdom saying: "When He was making the strong foundations of the earth, I was with Him, arranging all things". There is also a beginning of good discipline, as in that saying: "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord"; since he who fears the Lord turns aside from error, and directs his ways to the path of virtue. For unless one fears God, he cannot renounce sin.

13. The Beginning of Months and the Springtime of Creation

The same we can equally take from that saying: This month shall be to you the beginning of months; although this too may be taken as referring to time, since he was speaking of the Passover of the Lord, which is celebrated at the beginning of spring. In this, then, as the beginning of months, he made heaven and earth, so that from that point the beginning of the world was fitting to be taken, where the temperate spring season was suitable for all things. Whence also the year expressed the image of the world's birth, so that after the icy winters and wintry glooms the brighter than usual splendor of the spring season might shine forth.

The first rising of the world therefore gave the pattern for the future courses of the years, so that by this law the changes of the years might arise, and at the beginning of each year the earth might produce new sprouts of seeds, at which time the Lord God had first said: Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass, yielding seed according to its kind and according to its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit. And immediately the earth brought forth the herb of grass and the fruit-bearing tree; in which both the divine providence's perpetual moderation is confirmed for us, and the earth's swiftness in sprouting supports the reckoning of the springtime of the age.

For although at any time it would have been ready both for God to command and for earthly nature to obey, so that amid wintry ice and wintry frosts, the earth, sprouting by the warmth of the heavenly command, might bring forth its offspring; yet it was not in keeping with the eternal disposition, bound stiff with hard frost, suddenly to loosen the fields into green fruits, and to mingle bristling frosts with flowering things. Therefore, that Scripture might show the seasons of spring in the constitution of the world, it says: This month shall be to you the beginning of months, it is the first for you among the months of the year, calling the first month the season of spring. For it was fitting that the beginning of the year should be the beginning of generation, and that generation itself should be fostered by gentler breezes. For the tender beginnings of things could not endure either the toil of harsher cold, or bear the injury of scorching heat.

14. The Passover as a Figure of Spiritual Regeneration

At the same time it is permitted to note this, because it rightly coincides that at the same season is seen the entrance into this generation, and into these uses of tribute, at which season the lawful passage is made from this generation into regeneration. For indeed in the spring season the children of Israel left Egypt, and passed through the sea, baptized in the cloud and in the sea, as the Apostle said: and at that season the Passover of the Lord Jesus Christ is celebrated yearly, that is, the passage of souls from vices to virtue, from the passions of the flesh to grace and sobriety of mind, from the leaven of malice and wickedness to truth and sincerity. To those, then, who are regenerated it is said: This month shall be to you the beginning of months, it is the first for you among the months of the year.

For he who is washed leaves behind and forsakes that intelligible Pharaoh, the prince of this world, saying: I renounce thee, devil, and thy angels, and thy works, and thy dominions. Nor will he any longer serve him, whether in the earthly passions of this body, or in the errors of a depraved mind, who, having sunk all malice like lead, fortified on the right and the left with good works, strives to cross the straits of this age with unfaltering step. In the book also which is entitled Numbers, Scripture says: The beginning of the nations is Amalec, and his seed shall perish. And certainly Amalec is not the first of all nations; but because by interpretation Amalec is taken as king of the unjust, and the unjust are the nations: see whether we ought to understand the prince of this world, who rules over the nations doing his will, whose seed shall perish; and his seed are the impious and unfaithful, to whom the Lord says, You are of your father the devil.

15. Christ as the Beginning of All Things

There is also a mystical beginning, as this: I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end. And that especially in the Gospel, where the Lord, being asked who he was, answered: The beginning, who also speak to you. He who truly, and according to his divinity, is the beginning of all things, because no one is before him; and the end, because no one is beyond him: and according to Solomon he is the beginning of the ways of the Lord in his works; that through him the human race might learn to follow the ways of the Lord, and to work the works of God. In this beginning, therefore, that is, in Christ, God made heaven and earth; because through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made. That which was made, in him was life; because in him all things hold together.

And he is the firstborn of all creation, either because he is before all creation, or because he is holy, since the firstborn are holy, as the firstborn of Israel, not because before all, but because holier than the rest. Now the Lord is holy above all creation also according to the assumption of the body; for he alone was without sin, he alone without vanity. But every creature is subject to vanity.

16. Beginning as the Sum of the Work, Not of Time

We can also understand it thus: In the beginning God made heaven and earth; that is, before time: just as the beginning of a road is not yet a road, and the beginning of a house is not yet a house. Some, indeed, have said ἐν κεφαλαίῳ, as it were "in a heading," by which is signified that in a brief and small moment the sum of the work was accomplished. There are, then, some who take "beginning" not for time, but as before time, καὶ κεφαλαῖον, or "head"; so that we might say in Latin, as it were, the sum of the work; because the sum of visible things is heaven and earth, which seem to belong not only to the adornment of this world, but also to the indication of invisible things, and as a kind of argument of things not seen, as is that prophetic word: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament announces the works of his hands.

Which the Apostle, following in other words, concluded in the same sense, saying: For his invisible things are understood through the things that are made. For we easily understand him to be the author of Angels, Dominations, and Powers, who, by the moment of his command, made this so great beauty of the world exist out of nothing, which did not exist; and gave it substance not from things or causes already existing.

17. The World as a Specimen of Divine Craftsmanship

This world, therefore, is a specimen of divine operation; because while the work is seen, the operator is preferred before it. For as of these arts some are active, which consist in movement of the body, or the sound of the voice; when the motion or sound ceases, nothing remains, nor does anything remain for those who watch or hear: others are theoretical, which exercise the vigor of the mind: others are of such a kind that, even when the exercise of the operation ceases, the fruit of the work appears, as building and weaving, which, even when the craftsman is silent, show his skill, so that the work bears witness to its maker. Similarly this world is the mark of divine majesty, that through it the wisdom of God might be manifested. Seeing this, the Prophet, at the same time lifting the eyes of his mind to invisible things, says: How magnified are your works, O Lord! You have made all things in wisdom.

18. God's Will, Not Necessity, in Making the World

Nor indeed do we read that it was made idly; because most of the pagans, who wish the world to be co-eternal with God, assert that it also subsists of its own accord, as a shadowing forth of divine power; and although they confess that God is its cause, yet they wish that it was made a cause not by his will and disposition, but as a shadow is the cause of a body. For a shadow adheres to a body, and brightness to light more by natural association than by the choice of will. Beautifully, then, does Moses say that God made heaven and earth. He did not say that he caused it to be subject; he did not say that he supplied a cause for the world to exist: but he made it, as good, what would be useful; as wise, what he judged best; as omnipotent, what he foresaw as most excellent.

But how could it be as it were a shadow, where there was no body, since a corporeal shadow cannot exist of an incorporeal God? How too could the brightness of an incorporeal light be corporeal?

19. Christ as the Image and Author of Creation

But if you seek the brightness of God, the Son is the image of the invisible God. Such, then, as God is, such is his image. God is invisible, and his image also is invisible. For he is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the image of his substance. In the beginning, it says, God made heaven and earth. The world, then, was made, and began to be, which was not: but the Word of God was in the beginning, and always was. But even the Angels, Dominations, and Powers, although they began at some point, yet already existed when this world was made. For all things were created and established, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers: All things, it says, were made through him, and were created unto him. What is meant by "created unto him"? Because he is the heir of the Father, in that the inheritance passed from the Father to him, as the Father says: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.

Which inheritance nevertheless passes from the Father to the Son, and returns to the Father from the Son. Excellently, then, has the Apostle in this passage called the Son the author of all things, and, by his majesty, the one containing all things. And to the Romans he says of the Father: For of him, and through him, and unto him are all things. Of him is the beginning and origin of the substance of all things, that is, of his will and power. For all things began from his will; because there is one God the Father, of whom are all things. For he made them as it were from himself; because he made them from whence he willed. Through him is their continuance; the end is unto him. Of him, therefore, is the matter. Through him is the operation which bound and constrained all things together.

Unto him, because as long as he wills, all things remain and stand fast by his power, and their end recurs to the will of God; and by his judgment they are dissolved.

20. The Four Elements of Heaven and Earth

In the beginning of time, therefore, God made heaven and earth. For time is from this world, not before the world: but day is a portion of time, not its beginning. And although by the order of the reading we might argue that the Lord first made day and night, which are the alternations of times; and on the second day made the firmament, by which he separated the water which is under heaven from the water which is above heaven; yet it is enough for the present assertion, that in the beginning he made heaven, whence comes the prerogative and cause of generation; and made earth, in which might be the substance of generation. For in these were created those four elements, from which are generated all these things that belong to the world. Now the four elements are air, fire, water, and earth, which are mingled with one another in all things.

For indeed you will find fire also in earth, which is often struck out from stones and iron; and in heaven, since the sky is fiery and glitters with shining stars, water may be understood to exist, either above the heaven, or sent down often in copious rain from that higher place to the earth. These things we might gather at greater length, if we saw that they profited the edification of the Church. But since it is a fruitless task to occupy ourselves with these, let us rather turn our mind to those things in which there is progress toward eternal life.

21. The Nature of Heaven According to Isaiah

Concerning the quality and substance of heaven, then, it is enough to set forth those things which we find in the writings of Isaiah, who in moderate and ordinary words expressed the quality of the heavenly nature, saying that he established heaven like smoke, wishing to declare its subtle nature, not solid. It also abounds in likeness to what he himself said of the firmament of heaven, that God made heaven like a vault; that within the compass of heaven all things are enclosed, whatever is carried on either in the sea or on the lands. This is likewise signified, when we read: For the Lord stretches out the heaven. For it is stretched out either like a skin for the tabernacles and dwellings of the saints; or like a book, that the names of the many might be written who have merited the grace of Christ by faith and devotion, to whom it is said: Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

22. The Earth Suspended by the Power of God

It is of no profit to discuss either the quality or the position of the earth with a view to hope in the future, since it is sufficient for knowledge that the series of the divine Scriptures comprehends this: that He hangs the earth upon nothing. Why should we examine whether it hangs in the air, or upon water, so that from this a controversy might arise, how the thin and softer nature of air could sustain the earthly mass? Or how, if it is upon the waters, the heavy ruin of the lands would not be submerged into the water? Or how the wave of the sea would not yield to it, and diffuse itself, moved from its place, into its sides? Many indeed have said that the earth is in the middle of the air, and remains immovable by its own mass, because it hangs balanced by an equal motion this way and that.

Concerning this we think enough has been said by the Lord to His servant Job, when speaking through the cloud He said: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have knowledge. Who set its measures, if you know? Or who is it that stretched the measuring line upon it, or upon what were its circles fastened? And below: I shut in the sea with doors, and said: Thus far you shall come, and no farther, but here your waves shall be broken. Does not God clearly show that all things by His majesty consist in number, weight, and measure? For creation does not give the law, but receives it, and keeps what it has received.

Therefore it is not that the earth is suspended in the middle as if by an equal balance, but because the majesty of God's will constrains it by law; so that, above what is unstable and empty, it perseveres stable, as the prophet David also testifies, saying: He founded the earth upon its own firmness; it shall not be moved for ever and ever. Here God is not proclaimed merely as a craftsman, but as omnipotent, who has hung the earth not upon some center, but upon the firmament of His own command, and does not allow it to be moved. We must therefore accept not a measure of a center, but of divine judgment; for it is not a measure of craft, but of power: a measure of justice, a measure of knowledge; for all things do not pass by His knowledge as though immeasurable, but lie subject to His knowledge as though measured out.

For when we read: I have established its pillars, we cannot truly think it is supported by pillars, but by that power which upholds and sustains the substance of the earth. Finally, gather also from this that the constitution of the earth is in the power of God, because it is written: He who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble. And elsewhere: Yet once more I will shake the earth. It does not therefore remain immovable by its own balances, but is frequently moved by the nod and will of God, as Job also says: For the Lord moves it from its foundations, and its pillars are shaken. And elsewhere: The nether world is naked before Him, and there is no covering for destruction, stretching out the north over the void, hanging the earth upon nothing, binding up the waters in His clouds ... The pillars of heaven trembled, and were astonished at His rebuke: by His power He calmed the sea, by His skill He struck down the whale: the bars of heaven fear Him.

By the will of God, therefore, the earth remains immovable and stands forever, according to the sentence of Ecclesiastes, and by the will of God it is moved and shaken. It does not, therefore, subsist resting upon its own foundations, nor does it persevere stable by its own supports: but the Lord established it, and holds it by the firmament of His own will; for in His hand are all the ends of the earth. And this simplicity of faith surpasses all arguments. Let others praise the fact that the earth nowhere falls down because, according to nature, it possesses the middle region as its own, since it is necessary for it to remain in its own region, and not to be inclined to one side, since it is not moved against nature, but according to nature. Let them proclaim the excellence of the divine Craftsman and eternal Maker; for what craftsman has not received his skill from Him? Or who gave to women the wisdom of weaving, or the skill of variety?

I, however, who cannot comprehend the depth of His majesty and the excellence of His craft, do not commit myself to the balances and measures of disputation, but consider all things to be placed in His will, since His will is the foundation of all things, and it is on account of Him that this world still remains. This may also be established by the example of apostolic authority. For it is written: Because the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who made it subject in hope. But the creature itself also shall be freed from the bondage of corruption, when the grace of the divine reward shall have shone forth.

23. The Philosophers' Theory of a Fifth Element

But as for the nature and quality of the substance of heaven, why should I enumerate what the philosophers have woven together in their disputations? Since some assert that heaven is composed of the four elements, others introduce a certain fifth nature of a new body for its constitution, and imagine an ethereal body, with which neither fire is mixed, nor air, nor water, nor earth; because elements of this kind have a certain course and use and motion of their own nature, so that heavier things sink down and are carried downward, while empty and light things raise themselves upward; for each has its own proper motion, but in the circuit of the sphere these are confounded and lose the force of their own course, since the sphere revolves in its own orbit, and the upper things are changed with the lower, and the lower with the upper. But those things whose motion has been changed according to nature necessarily also, they say, have the qualities of their substances changed.

Why then do we maintain that there is an ethereal body, lest it seem liable to corruption? For what is composed of corruptible elements must necessarily be dissolved. For by this very fact, that the same elements are of diverse nature, they cannot have a simple and inviolable motion, since the diverse motion of the elements fights against itself. For one motion cannot be fitting to all, and suit elements that are distant from one another. For what is suitable to light things becomes unsuitable to heavier elements. And so, when the motion of heaven toward the higher regions is required, it is weighed down by earthly things; when a descent to the lower regions is sought, that fiery vigor is violently drawn down. For indeed it is forced downward contrary to the use of its own nature. But everything that is forced into the contrary, serving not nature but necessity, is quickly dissolved, and is split into those elements of which it seems to be composed, each one returning to its own region.

Considering these things, therefore, others thought that these could not be stable, and supposed that the ethereal body of heaven and of the stars was a certain fifth nature of body, by which they thought the substance of heaven would be lasting.

24. Heaven and Earth Will Pass Away

But this opinion could not stand against the prophetic sentence, which the divine majesty also of the Lord Jesus Christ confirmed in the Gospel. For David said: In the beginning, O Lord, You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They shall perish, but You remain, and all things shall grow old like a garment, and like a cloak You shall change them, and they shall be changed; but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail. This the Lord confirmed so fully in the Gospel that He said: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. They accomplish nothing, therefore, who, in order to assert the perpetuity of heaven, thought a fifth ethereal body must be introduced; since they equally see that a portion of one member, dissimilar and joined to the rest, is more accustomed to bring harm to the body.

At the same time, observe this: that when the prophet David named the earth first, and afterward heaven, he believed the work of the Lord ought to be declared; for when he said "and they were made," it makes no difference which you mention first, since both were made at once; lest even this prerogative should seem to be adjudged to the divine substance of heaven, that it should be esteemed superior by the privilege of a first-created creature. Let us, therefore, leave those to their own contentions who refute one another by mutual disputations. For us, it is enough for salvation, not the controversy of disputations, but the truth of the precepts; not the cunning of argumentation, but the faith of the mind, that we may serve the Creator rather than the creature, who is God blessed forever.

7. The Earth as Invisible and Unformed

(Sermon II.)

25. Refuting the Eternity of Unformed Matter

But the earth was invisible and unformed. A good craftsman first lays the foundation; afterward, the foundation having been laid, he distinguishes the members of the building, and adds ornament. Therefore, the foundation of the earth having been laid, and the substance of heaven confirmed—for these two are, as it were, the hinges of things—he adds: But the earth was invisible and unformed. What does "was" mean, unless perhaps some might extend their opinion to infinity and without beginning, and say: Behold, because matter, that is, hyle, as the philosophers say, even according to divine Scripture, had no beginning. But to those who say this you will answer, because it is written: Now Cain was a tiller of the earth. And of him who was called Jubal, Scripture has: He was the father who showed forth the psaltery and the harp. And, There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. Let them, then, cease to raise a question about the word, since Moses has expressly stated beforehand that God made the earth.

It "was," therefore, from the time it was made. For if they say it was without beginning, then, declaring not only God but even hyle to be without beginning, let them define where it was. If in a place, then a place too is asserted to have been without beginning, in which was the matter of things, which had no beginning. But if it seems absurd to believe this of a place, see whether perhaps we ought to think the earth volatile, which, having no foundation, was suspended by the oarage of wings. Whence then shall we get wings for it, unless perhaps we derive this from the interpretation of the prophetic word: From the wings of the earth we have heard wonders? And that: Woe to the land of the wings of ships? But if we accept this, in what air was the earth flying?

For it could not fly without air, but air could not yet exist, because there was not yet a distinction of the elements made from the matter of things, since the elements themselves had not yet been made. Where then was that matter, supported by the oarage of wings? It was not in the air, because air is a body of the world; and that air is a body the reading teaches us (Wisdom 5:12), because when an arrow is shot to the place at which the archer aims, the air, cut through, immediately closes back upon itself. Where then was the hyle, unless perhaps someone should say, with a certain mad intent, that it was in God?

Is God, then, who is of invisible and inviolable nature, who inhabits light inaccessible, incomprehensible and most pure spirit, to be the place of worldly matter, and was a portion of the world in God, since the mind of His servants is not even of this world, as we have it written: They are not of this world, as I also am not of the world?

26. Why the Earth Was Called Invisible

How then were invisible things joined together with the visible, and unformed things with Him who gave order and beauty to all things? Unless perhaps, because it says, But the earth was invisible, they believe it invisible by its substance; and therefore, because it was covered by waters, it could not be visible to bodily eyes, just as many things situated in the depth of waters escape the sight and keenness of the eyes. For nothing is invisible to God, but a creature of the world is estimated, of course, by the reckoning of a creature. The earth was also invisible because there was not yet a light that would illuminate the world, not yet a sun: for the luminaries of heaven were made afterward.

But if a ray of the sun for the most part also illuminates things covered by waters, and reveals things sunk in the depths by the splendor of its light, who would doubt that things which are in the depths cannot be invisible to God; unless perhaps we should thus understand the earth to be invisible, in that it was not yet visited by the word of God and His protection, since it did not yet have man, on whose account the Lord might look down upon the earth, as it is written: The Lord looked down upon the sons of men, to see if there be any that understands, or that seeks God? And elsewhere He says: From heaven He hurled forth judgment: the earth trembled and was still. And rightly invisible, because unformed, since it had not yet received a suitable figure and appearance from its own maker.

27. Making Before Adorning in the Order of Creation

And perhaps they will say: Why indeed, since God spoke and things were made, did He not at the same time bestow fitting adornments upon the elements as they arose, as though He could not have made the heaven, marked with stars, shine forth at once as soon as it was created, and the earth be clothed with flowers and fruits? He could indeed; but for this reason the things are declared first made, then afterward arranged, lest they be believed truly uncreated and without beginning, if the forms of things had seemed as it were unbegotten from the beginning, not added afterward. The earth is read to be unformed, and by the philosophers it is honored with the same privileges of eternity as God; what would they say if from the beginning its beauty had bloomed?

It is described as submerged by waters, as though condemned to a kind of shipwreck of its own beginnings, and even now by some it is not believed to be a created thing; what if it should claim its beauty as inborn from the first? Add to this, that God wished us to be imitators of Him, that we should first make some things, and afterward adorn them; lest, while we attempt both at once, we should be able to accomplish neither. But our faith grows by a certain gradation. Therefore God first made, and afterward adorned, that we might believe that the same one who made also adorned, and that he who adorned also made; lest we think that one made and another adorned, but that the same one wrought both; that He might first make, then arrange, so that the one might be believed on the strength of the other. You have in the Gospel clear testimony of this matter.

For the Lord, about to raise Lazarus, ordered the Jews to remove the stone from the tomb, so that, seeing him dead, they might afterward believe him raised. Then He called Lazarus, and he rose, and came forth bound hand and foot. Could not He who was able to raise the dead have removed the stone? And could He who was able to restore life to the dead not have loosed the bonds of the bindings? Could He who gave steps to feet still bound not have restored walking once the bonds were broken? But surely we perceive that He wished first to show him dead, that they might believe with their own eyes; then to raise him; third, to command that they themselves loose the bonds of burial; so that amid these things faith might be instilled in the unbelieving, and belief might be born by certain degrees.

28. The Unformed Earth and the Darkness of the Deep

God therefore first made heaven and earth, yet He willed these not as perpetual, but subject to the consummation of a corruptible creation. Whence in the book of Isaiah He says: Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look upon the earth beneath; for the heaven shall be made solid like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment. This is the earth which before was unformed. For the seas were not yet marked off by their own bound, and so the earth was inundated by a wandering flood and a deep abyss. Consider that even now the earth is accustomed to bristle with marshy dampness, and cannot bear the plowshare where moisture poured into the ground overflows. It was therefore unformed, as not yet plowed by the skilled farmer's cultivation, since the cultivator was still lacking. It was unformed, because bare of growing things, not carpeted with grassy river-banks, not shaded with groves, not glad with crops, not shadowed by the brows of mountains, not fragrant with flowers, not pleasing with vineyards.

Rightly unformed, it, which needed adornments, to which the garlands of gem-like vines were lacking. For God wished to show that not even the world itself would have grace, unless the Maker had adorned it with varied cultivation. The heaven itself, when woven with clouds, is wont to arouse horror to the eyes and sadness to the mind. The earth, soaked with rains, becomes tiresome. The seas, disturbed by storms, whom do they not strike with fear? Most beautiful is the appearance of things, but what would it be without light? What without temperance? What without the gathering together of the waters, by which formerly the beginnings of this heaven were held submerged? Take away the sun from the earth, take away from the heavens the spheres of the stars, all things bristle with darkness. Such they were before the Lord poured light into this world. And therefore Scripture says: that darkness was over the abyss. There was darkness, because the splendor of light was lacking. There was darkness, because the air itself is dark.

The water itself under the cloud is dark, because the water in the clouds of air is dark. There was, then, darkness over the abysses of the waters. For I do not think that evil powers are to be understood here, as though the Lord had created their malice; since certainly malice is not substantial but accidental, having deviated from the goodness of nature.

29. The Spirit of God Borne Over the Waters

Therefore, in the constitution of the world, let the notion of malice for the present be set aside, lest we seem to mix with the divine working and with the most beautiful creation those things which are discolored, especially since it follows: And the Spirit of God was borne over the waters. Which, though some take it for air, and some for the spirit which we breathe and draw in, the vital breath of this air, yet we, agreeing with the judgment of the saints and the faithful, understand it as the Holy Spirit, so that in the constitution of the world the working of the Trinity might shine forth.

For it having been said beforehand that in the beginning God made heaven and earth, that is, in Christ God made, or the Son of God as God made, or through the Son God made; because all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made, there remained the fullness of the working in the Spirit, as it is written: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of His mouth. Thus, just as in the Psalm we are taught the working of the Word, which is the Word of God, and the power which the Holy Spirit gave; so here the prophetic oracle came forth in like manner, that God spoke, and God made. The Spirit of God also was borne over the waters.

For in adorning the pole of heaven, and for the lands about to bring forth germination, the Spirit was fittingly borne over them, because through Him they had the seeds of new births to germinate, according to what the prophet said: Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth. Finally, the Syriac, which is close to the Hebrew, and agrees and is consonant in very many respects, has it thus: And the Spirit of God was cherishing the waters, that is, was vivifying them, so as to bring them together into new creatures, and by His warmth to quicken them to life. For we also read the Holy Spirit called Creator, Job saying: The divine Spirit who made me.

Whether then the Holy Spirit was borne over the waters, the darkness of contrary powers could not be over them, where so great a grace claimed a place for itself; or, as some wish, if they take it as air, let them answer for what reason it was called the Spirit of God, when it would have sufficed to call it simply spirit.

30. Answering the Marcionites on the Origin of Evil

These, then, wish that the four elements were first generated by the Lord our God: heaven, earth, sea, air; because fire and air, earth and water are the causes of things, from which the form and appearance of the world consists. Where, then, could the darkness of spiritual wickednesses have had a place, when the world was putting on the beauty of this majestic figure? Did God create malice at the same time? But this arises from ourselves, not established by God the Creator; it is generated by the levity of morals, having no prerogative of creation, nor the authority of natural substance, but the vice of mutability, and the error of a fall. Would God wish this to be uprooted from the souls of each, if He Himself had generated it? The prophet cries out: Cease from your evils. And especially holy David: Cease from evil, and do good; how then do we ascribe to it a beginning from the Lord? But this is the deadly opinion of those who thought to disturb the Church.

Hence the Marcionites, hence the Valentinians, hence those plagues of the Manichaeans have attempted to bring deadly contagions upon the minds of the saints. Why do we seek the darkness of death in the very light of life? Divine Scripture offers salvation, breathes the fragrance of life, so that in reading you may grasp its sweetness, not that you may fall into the peril of a precipice. Read simply, O man, lest you, a perverse interpreter, dig a pit for yourself; the word is simple, that God made heaven and earth. He made what was not, not what was. And the earth was invisible, from which it was made, it was; and it was invisible, because water overflowed and covered it, and there was darkness poured over it, because there was not yet the light of day, not yet the ray of the sun, which is accustomed to reveal what lies hidden even beneath the waters. Why then do they say that God created evil, when from contraries and opposites contraries are by no means generated for themselves?

For neither does life generate death, nor light darkness. For it is not the same with the progressions of generations as with the mutabilities of the affections. The latter are turned from contraries into contraries by a deflection of purpose: the former are not turned from contraries into their opposites, but, created of the same kind either by authors or by causes, are referred back to the likeness of their author.

31. The True Origin of Evil Within Ourselves

What then shall we say? For if it is neither without beginning, as though uncreated, nor made by God, whence does nature have malice? For that there are evils in this world, no wise man has ever denied, since so frequent in this age is the lapse into death. But from those things which we have already said, we can gather that it is not a living substance, but a depravity of mind and soul, deviating from the path of virtue, which very often creeps up on the souls of the incautious. Therefore the greater danger to us is not from things external, but from ourselves. Within is the adversary, within is the author of error, within, I say, shut up within ourselves. Observe your own purpose, examine the disposition of your mind, set watches against the thoughts of your mind and the desires of your soul. You yourself are the cause of your own wickedness, you yourself are the leader of your own crimes, and the instigator of your offenses.

Why do you summon an alien nature to excuse your own falls? Would that you yourself did not impel yourself, would that you did not hurl yourself headlong, would that you did not entangle yourself either in too immoderate pursuits, or in indignation, or in desires, which hold us bound as if by certain nets. And surely it is within us to moderate our pursuits, to restrain anger, to check desires: it is within us also to indulge in luxury, to kindle lusts, to inflame wrath, or to lend an ear to one who inflames it, to be lifted up rather in pride, to be poured out into cruelty, rather than to be repressed by humility, to love gentleness. What nature do you accuse, O man? That nature has, as it were, certain impediments, old age and infirmity. But old age itself is sweeter in good morals, more useful in counsel, more ready for the steadfast undergoing of death, stronger for repressing lusts. Bodily infirmity too is sobriety of mind.

Whence the Apostle says: When I am weak, then I am strong. Thus he gloried not in virtues, but in infirmities. The divine answer also shone forth with a saving oracle; that virtue is made perfect in weakness. Those things are to be guarded against which proceed from our own will, the sins of youth, and the irrational passions of the body of those things, then, of which we are masters, let us not seek their beginnings from without; nor let us shift them onto others, but let us acknowledge those things which are properly our own. For what we can avoid doing if we do not will it, the choice of this evil we ought rather to ascribe to ourselves than to others. Therefore also in the judgments of this world, guilt binds and penalty condemns the voluntary guilty, not those compelled by necessity. For neither, if someone in a fit of madness has slain an innocent person, is he liable to death.

Indeed, even by the oracle of the divine law itself, if anyone brings about a death unintentionally, he receives hope of impunity, the opportunity of refuge, that he may be able to escape. Let this, then, be said concerning that which properly seems to be evil. For nothing is evil except that which entangles the mind in guilt and binds the conscience. But poverty, low birth, sickness, death, no wise man would call evils, nor number them in the lot of evils; because neither are the things contrary to these reckoned among the greatest goods, of which some seem to befall us from nature, others from circumstance.

32. Darkness and the Abyss Understood Literally

This excursus of ours has not gone forward idly; that we might prove that darkness and abyss are to be taken simply. For there was darkness from the overshadowing of heaven; because every body makes a shadow, by which it overshadows either neighboring or lower things, and this especially in the case of that which seems to cover and enclose. But the pole of heaven encloses, because heaven is stretched out like a vault, as we have shown above. Therefore the substance of darkness was not primary; but a gloom of darkness followed, as it were a shadow, upon the body of the world. Thus the world, arising in a moment at the divine command, enclosed within itself a shadow; just as if someone in the middle of a field, which the noonday sun illumines, should suddenly hedge in some place and cover it with the dense foliage of branches—does not, the more brilliantly the appearance of that place shines forth outside, the darker within does its little hut become beneath the overhanging canopy of shade?

Or whence have they called a cave a place closed on every side of this kind, unless because it bristles with black gloom and the overspreading of darkness? These, then, were the darknesses over the abysses of the waters. For that "abyss" is said of the multitude and depth of waters, the reading of the Gospel teaches, where the demons begged the Savior not to command them to go into the abyss. But He, who taught that the wills of demons were not to be done, commanded them to go into the swine. But the swine hurled themselves down into a pool of waters, so that what the demons refused, they did not escape, but were plunged down in a fitting precipice. Such, then, was this unformed appearance and form of the world.

33. The Creation of Light

And the Spirit of God, it says, was borne over the waters, and God said: Let there be light. Rightly was the Spirit of God set beforehand, where the divine operation was about to begin. Let there be light, he says. Whence should the voice of God in divine Scripture have taken its beginning, if not from light? Whence should the ordering of the world take its exordium, if not from light? For it would be in vain, if it were not seen. God himself indeed was in light, because he inhabits light inaccessible, and he was the true light which enlightens every man coming into this world: but he willed that light to be made which could be comprehended by bodily eyes. He who desires to build some edifice worthy to be the dwelling of a householder, before he lays the foundations, inquires whence he may pour light into it, and this is the first grace, which if it be lacking, the whole house stands hideous in unsightly neglect.

It is light that commends the rest of the house's ornaments. Let there be light, he says. The full utterance of light does not signify an apparatus of arrangement, but shines forth with the effect of an operation. The maker of nature spoke light, and created it. The word of God is will, the work of God is nature: he created the light, he illumined the darkness. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. He did not speak so that an operation might follow, but by the saying accomplished the deed. Whence beautifully that saying of David: He spoke and they were made, because the effect fulfilled the word. God, then, is the author of light: but the world is the place and cause of darkness. But the good author so spoke light, that he might open up the world itself by the light poured into it, and adorn its beauty. Suddenly, then, the air shone forth, and the darkness shuddered at the brightness of the new light.

He repressed it, and the fullness of light poured through the whole world plunged it, as it were, suddenly into the abyss. Beautifully and properly, then, did he say: Light was made. For as light swiftly illumines the sky, the lands, the seas, and in a moment of time, without any grasping, the regions being uncovered by the splendor of the rising day, pours itself round about our sight; so its rising must have been swiftly unfolded. Why do we marvel that God spoke light, and light flashed forth upon the darkened world, when, if someone submerged among the waters should breathe forth oil from his mouth, he would make clearer the things that were covered by the hidden depths? God said—not that through the organs of a voice some sound of speech went forth, nor that the motion of a tongue formed a heavenly utterance, and some clatter of words struck this air of ours; but that he might make known the knowledge of his will by the effect of an operation.

34. God's Approval of the Light

And he divided between the light and the darkness; and God saw the light that it was good. He spoke, and no one heard the sound of a voice: he divided, and no one perceived the effort of the operation: he saw, and no one beheld the intent of his eyes. And God saw, it says, the light that it was good. Nor did he see what he did not know; nor did he approve what he had not known before, or had not seen: but it is the property of good works that they need no external commender, but themselves, when seen, bear witness to their own grace. It is more that a thing be approved by sight, than that it be praised by speech. For it uses its own testimony, not another's endorsement.

But if among us judgment is passed by the eyes, by which at once the grace of beauty and the measure of things is comprehended: how much more does God see all things that he approves, and approve what he sees, according to what is written, that The eyes of the Lord are upon the just? Such is the nature of light, that it is not in number, not in measure, not in weight, as other things are, but its whole grace is in being seen. In fitting words, then, he expressed the nature of light, which pleases by being seen, since it itself supplies the office of seeing. Nor undeservedly could it alone find such a herald, by whom it is justly praised first; since it itself brought it about that even the other members of the world are worthy of praise. God, then, saw the light, and illumined it with his countenance, and saw that it was good. This is not a partial judgment on God's part, but a general one.

Thus the grace of light is proved not only in its brightness, but in every usefulness. Whence also a distinction is made between light and darkness; so that, the nature of light and of darkness being separated, nothing might be seen to be confused within itself.

35. The Naming of Day and Night

And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night; so that by the very name he distinguished day and night. We note, then, that the rising of light seems to open the day even before the sun does; for the beginnings of the day close the departure of the night, and the end of the interval and its boundary seem to be prescribed as the limit between night and day. The sun makes the day bright, light makes the day. Often the sky is covered with clouds, so that the sun is hidden, and no ray of it appears; yet light still shows the day, and hides the darkness.

36. Evening and Morning as One Day

And there was evening, and there was morning, one day. Some ask why Scripture mentioned evening first, and morning afterward, lest perhaps it might seem to signify night before day. And they do not notice, first, that it set day before it, saying: And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night; and then, that evening is the end of day, and morning the end of night. Therefore, in order to give the prerogative and primacy of birth to the day, it first signified the end of the day, since night was to follow, and afterward added the end of the night. But Scripture could not so far prefer night to day as to fail to enclose both the times of day and night under the appellation of "day," as though claiming them by the authority of the principal name. And that this is the custom of Scripture, to assign the appellation to the more excellent, we prove by frequent examples. For Jacob too said: The days of my life, few and evil.

And again: All the days of my life. And David set down: The days of our years; he did not say "and the nights." Whence we note that what is now handed down in the form of a narrative established the force of a law for the future. The beginning of the day, then, is the voice of God: let there be light; and light was made. The end of the day is evening. The following day then succeeds from the end of night. God's sentence is plain, since he first called the light Day, and secondly called the darkness Night.

37. Why Scripture Calls It One Day Not First

Excellently, too, he called it "one" day, not "first"; for though a second, and a third day, and the rest in succession, were to follow, he could have said "first," and that would have seemed to fit the order; but he established a rule, that twenty-four hours, of day and night together, should be defined only under the name of "day," as if he had said: The measure of twenty-four hours is the space of one day. For just as the generation of men is counted, and that of women is also understood, because the lesser is joined to the more excellent; so also days are numbered, and nights are reckoned as joined to them. As, therefore, there is one circuit, so there is one day. For many even call one week one day; because it returns as it were into one day in itself, and recurs, as it were, sevenfold upon itself. Now this is the figure of a circuit: to begin from itself and return into itself. Whence also Scripture sometimes calls one age (saeculum).

For although in other places it calls them "ages," it seems rather to signify diversities of public conditions or affairs, than to define any successions of ages: Because the day of the Lord is great and glorious. And elsewhere, Why do you seek the day of the Lord? And here it is darkness and not light. For it is clear that to the guilty and unworthy that day will be dark, on which innocence will shine, and the guilty mind will be tormented. Moreover, that without the interruption of nights and the succession of darkness that perpetual day of eternal recompense is to come, Scripture teaches us.

38. Walking Honestly as in the Day

Beautifully, moreover, intending to call both alternations one day, he closed it with a morning ending, so as to teach both that the day begins from light, and ends in light. For the time of a day is not complete unless the night too has been fulfilled. Whence let us also always walk honestly as in the day, and cast off the works of darkness. For we know that night was given for the rest of the body, not for the performance of any duty or work, which is passed over in sleep and forgetfulness. Let there be no revelling, drunkenness, chambering, or wantonness among us. Let us not say: Darkness and walls cover us, and who knows whether the Most High will see?

But let there be in us love of light, and care for honesty, so that, as if walking in the day, we may desire our works to shine before God, to whom be honor, praise, glory, power, with our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit, from the ages, and now and always, and unto all ages of ages, Amen.

1. Reflections on the Completion of the First Day

The first day, or rather the one day—for let it retain the prerogative of the prophetic word—we have completed, as we were able; in which we have come to know, by the operation of God Almighty and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and also of the Holy Spirit, that heaven was founded, the earth created, the abundance of waters, the air poured around, the separation made of light and darkness. Who, then, would not marvel that a world unlike in its members should rise into one body of disparate parts, and, by the indissoluble law of concord and charity, come together into a fellowship and connection of things so distant from one another, so that things distinct in nature might be bound together, as it were by an indivisible compacting, into the bond of unity and peace? Or who, seeing these things, could with feeble wit trace out the possibility of reason for them? All these things the divine power, incomprehensible to human minds and ineffable to our words, joined together by the authority of its will.

2. God, then, made heaven and earth, and commanded them to exist, as it were, as their author—not as the inventor of a form, but as the operator of nature. For how could the operative power of the impassible God and the nature of passible matter agree with each other, as if the one borrowed from the other what each lacked? For if matter were uncreated, it would seem, then, that God lacked the power to create matter, and borrowed from it the things subject to his operation. But if it were unformed, it is exceedingly strange that matter coeternal with God could not confer adornment upon itself, since it had not received substance from a creator, but had itself possessed it without time. The maker of all things, then, found more than he conferred. He found the matter in which he could work; but he conferred the form, which brought adornment to the things found.

Whence it is to be set apart from the rest as "one day," not to be compared with the rest as "the first day," on which the foundations of all things were laid, and causes began to exist, on which the substance of this world and of the whole visible creation rests. Wherefore let our discourse proceed to the wondrous works of the second day, whose excellence is to be referred to the praise of the Creator—not according to the capacity of our treatise, but according to the truth of the Writer.

3. Contemplating Creation Through Christ Not Philosophy

I ask you, then, to deign to weigh naturally what we say plausibly, with a simple mind and diligent understanding, not gathering plausibilities of persuasion according to the traditions of philosophy and its vain deception; but according to the rule of truth, which is expressed in the oracles of the divine word, and is poured into the breasts of the faithful by the contemplation of so great a majesty—since it is written: Confirm me in your words. The unjust have told me their exercises, but not as your law, Lord: all your precepts are truth. Let us, then, consider what has been made, and question the possibility of nature, not according to the natures of the elements, but according to Christ, who did all things that he willed, overflowing with the fullness of his divinity.

For neither, when in the Gospel he cured lepers, or restored sight to the blind, did the people who were present and watching those things take note of the order of medicine: but marveling at the Lord's power, gave, as it is written, praise to God. Nor did Moses, according to the numbers of the Egyptians and the courses of the stars and the measures of the elements, stretch forth his hand, that the Red Sea might be divided, but obeying the command of divine power. Whence he himself says: Your right hand, O Lord, is glorified in strength: your right hand, O Lord, has broken the enemies. Thither, then, holy people, lift up your mind, and direct your whole soul there. God does not see as man sees; God sees in the heart, man in the face. Nor, then, does man see as God sees. You hear that God saw, and praised.

Do not, then, judge by your own eyes what has been made, nor gather opinions about it: but what God has seen and approved, do not think needs to be reconsidered by you.

4. The Command to Make the Firmament

And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide waters from waters; and it was so done. Hear the words of God: He says, Let there be. This is the word of one commanding, not of one weighing possibilities. He commands nature, he does not defer to possibility, he does not take measurements, he does not weigh out weight. His will is the measure of things. His word is the completion of the work: Let there be, he says, a firmament in the midst of the waters. Everything that God has established is firm. And quite fittingly he set down first: Let there be a firmament, before subjoining, in the midst of the waters; so that you might believe first that the firmament was made by the command of God, before you doubted concerning the flowing quality of the waters. If you consider the nature of the elements, how was the firmament made solid amid the waters? Those flow, this is bound fast; those run, this remains.

And let it, he says, divide the waters. But water is wont to mingle, not to divide. How does he command what he knows to be, according to the reasoning of the elements, contrary to itself? But since his word is the origin of nature, he rightly claims the right to give a law to nature, he who gave it its origin.

5. Whether There Is One Heaven or Many

But let us first consider what the firmament is, whether it is the same thing which he called heaven above, or something else, and whether there are two heavens, or several. For there are those who say there is one heaven, and that there could not have been sufficient substance to make another heaven, since there was one matter, as they themselves say; because since it was all expended upon the higher heaven, nothing remained which might serve toward the building of a second or third heaven. Others, however, assert that there are countless heavens and worlds, at whom even their own fellows laugh. For we have no greater quarrel with them than they have among themselves, they who contend by geometrical numbers and necessities to prove that there cannot be another heaven, nor does nature permit that there be a second or third, nor is the power of the maker sufficient to make many heavens.

And who would not laugh at this crafty eloquence of theirs, who, though they do not deny that from one and the same cause several things of the same kind can be made by men, yet doubt concerning the creator of all things, whether he could make several heavens, of whom it is written: But the Lord made the heavens. And elsewhere: All things whatsoever he willed he made. For what is difficult for him for whom to will is to have done? Their argument of impossibility therefore wavers, when they dispute concerning God, of whom it is truly said: For nothing is impossible to thee.

6. The Music of the Spheres Among the Philosophers

Therefore we cannot deny that there is not only a second, but even a third heaven, since the Apostle confirms by the testimony of his own writings that he was caught up to the third heaven. David also places the heavens of heavens in that choir of those praising the Lord. Imitating him, the philosophers introduced the harmonious motion of the spheres of the five planets and of the sun and moon, to whose orbs, or rather globes, they relate that all things are joined, which they suppose, bound together and as it were inserted one within another, to revolve backward and to be borne with a motion contrary to the rest, and that by that impulse and motion of the orbs themselves a certain sweet sound, full of suavity and art and most pleasing melody, is produced, since the air, cleft by so artful a motion, tempering the sharp with the deep, produces varied harmonies so evenly that it surpasses all the sweetness of musical song.

7. Testing the Claim of Celestial Music

If you should seek and expect proof of this matter by our sense and hearing, they hesitate. For if these things were true, how, with such a resounding motion of the orbs—since that celestial orb, to which they say the courses of the stars are fixed, which revolve without ceasing, has a swift revolution and stirs up a sharp sound, while this lunar orb has the deepest sound—would it not be heard by us, since we are accustomed to hear lighter things? If, then, we should demand proof of this discussion by our own testimony and the faculty of hearing, they reply that our ears have become deaf, and that our sense of hearing has been made duller for us, on account of that habituation to the sound conceived from the beginning of our generation.

And they bring forward the example that the Nile, greatest of rivers, at that place where it plunges down from the loftiest mountains into those cataracts, by the magnitude of its roar so stops up the ears of those dwelling nearby, that they are said to be deprived of the faculty of hearing. But the truth itself easily answers these people. For we who hear thunders generated by the collision of clouds—should we not hear the revolutions of such great orbs, which are reckoned to be borne with a motion, indeed, all the greater, and thus would excite more violent sounds? They add besides, that this sound does not reach the earth for this reason: lest men, captivated by its sweetness and pleasantness, which that swiftest motion of the heavens produces from the eastern parts even to the west, should abandon their own affairs and labors, and all things here remain idle, through a certain rapture of the human mind toward the heavenly sounds.

But let us leave to those who are outside such things as are foreign to our study and to the sequence of divine reading; let us hold fast to the teaching of the heavenly Scriptures.

8. Whether the Firmament Is the Heaven Already Made

It is therefore proposed to us, because God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide waters from waters. And here it is discussed, whether he calls this firmament that which he had already made before, of which it is written: In the beginning God made heaven and earth. Nor does it escape notice that some before us have so understood it, because Scripture above expressed the heaven created and established by God the author, and here poured forth the exposition of the work and of creation; so that there the sum of the work is briefly comprehended, here the quality of the operation is set out distributed through the very species of the things concurring. But it moves us, because both another name is signified, and a more solid form, and a cause is distinguished, and the person of a cooperator is joined.

For thus it is written: And God divided between the midst of the water which was under the firmament, and between the midst of the water which was above the firmament.

9. Waters Resting Above a Revolving Heaven

And first they wish to destroy that which by frequent reading of the Scriptures has become ingrained and impressed upon our minds, namely, that waters cannot be above the heavens, saying that that orb of heaven is round, in the midst of which the earth is, and that in that circuit water cannot stand, since it must necessarily flow off and slip away, since there is a downward course from higher to lower places. For how can water stand upon an orb, as they say, when the orb itself revolves? This is that cunning of dialectic. Give me something whence I may answer you. But if nothing is granted, no word is exchanged.

They ask it to be conceded to them that the axis of heaven is twisted by a swift motion, but that the orb of the earth is immobile; so that they may establish that waters cannot be above the heavens, because the axis, by revolving, would spill them all out: as though, granting them what they demand, and answering them according to their own opinions, they could deny that in that height and depth there is both length and breadth, which no one can comprehend, except him who is filled unto all the fulness of God, as the Apostle says. For who can easily be a judge of the divine work? There is, then, breadth even in the very height of heaven. There are also, that we may speak of things we can know, very many buildings round outside, square inside, and square outside, round inside, whose upper parts are flat, in which water is wont to remain.

We say these things, however, so that they may notice that their opinions can be overturned by more plausible opinions, and may cease to measure so great a work of God by the contemplation of human working and our own possibility.

10. The Word of God as the Law of Nature

But we follow the sequence and order of the Scriptures, and we weigh the work by contemplation of its author, and we ask what was said, and who said it, and to whom he said it: Let there be, he says, a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide the waters. I hear that a firmament was made by a command by which the water might be divided, and the upper distinguished from the lower. What is more manifest than this? He who commanded the water to be divided, with a firmament interposed and set in the midst, provided how it might be able to remain divided and separated. The word of God is the power of nature, and the substance of duration for as long as he who established it wills it to remain, as it is written: He has established them forever and ever, he has made a decree, and it shall not pass away.

And that you may know that he said this concerning those waters which you deny can be in the upper parts of heaven, hear what precedes: Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens, praise the name of the Lord. Has he not spoken as though to one contradicting you: For he himself spoke and they were made; he himself commanded and they were created: he has established them forever and ever, he has made a decree, and it shall not pass away. Does he not seem to you a fitting author, to give a law to his own work? God is he who speaks, of venerable nature, immeasurable in greatness, boundless in rewards, incomprehensible in works, whose depth of wisdom who can easily search out? He speaks to the Son, that is, he speaks to his arm, he speaks to his power, he speaks to his wisdom, he speaks to his justice.

And the Son makes, as being powerful, he makes as the power of God, he makes as the wisdom of God, he makes as the divine justice. When you hear this, why do you wonder if, by the working of so great a majesty, the wave could be suspended above the firmament of heaven?

11. Miracles of Water as Proofs of Divine Power

Gather from other things, from those which the eyes of men have seen, how, at the crossing of the Jews, if you seek a reason, the wave divided itself. It is not the way of nature that water should separate itself from water, and that in the depths the pouring waters should be parted by a midst of earth. For the waves froze, and by the appearance of a firmament restrained their course with an unaccustomed limit. Could he not have freed the Hebrew people otherwise also? But he wished to show you this, so that by that spectacle you might reckon those things also which you have not seen to be worthy of belief. The Jordan too, its stream turned back, returns to its own source. That water should stand still, when it is its way to flow, is unwonted; that it should return again to the higher places without any barrier is held impossible.

But what is impossible to him who gave power to the weak, so that the weak one might say: I can do all things in him who strengthens me? Let them say, then, how air is compressed into a cloud, whether rain is generated in the clouds, or gathered in the bosom of the clouds. We see clouds very often coming out from the mountains. I ask whether water rises from the earth, or whether that which is above the heavens descends in abundant rain. If it rises, indeed it is against nature that a heavier thing should rise to the higher places, and be carried by the air, when air is more subtle. Or if the water is caught up by the motion of the whole swiftly-turning orb, just as it is caught up by the lowest orb, so it is diffused by the highest orb.

If, as they wish, its pouring does not cease, certainly its being caught up does not cease either: because if the axis of heaven is always in motion, the water too is always drawn up. If it descends, then, that which has water from which to descend remains continually above the heavens. Then what prevents them from confessing that water is suspended above the heavens? For by what argument do they say that the earth is suspended in the midst and remains immobile, though it is certainly heavier than water; by the same reasoning they can say that water is not cast down by the revolution of that celestial orb which is above the heavens. For just as the earth is suspended in empty space, or by a balanced weight remains immobile on every side, so also water is weighed by weights either heavier than, or equal to, the earth's. And therefore the sea does not easily overflow upon the lands, except when it is commanded to go forth.

12. The Balance of Fire and Water in Creation

Then, since they themselves say that the orb of heaven revolves, gleaming with burning stars, did not divine providence necessarily foresee that within the orb of heaven, and above the orb, water should abound in overflow, to temper those burnings of the fiery axis? For this reason, because fire overflows and burns fiercely, water also overflowed upon the earth, lest the ardor of the rising sun and of the twinkling stars should scorch it, and an unaccustomed heat harm the tender beginnings of things. How many springs, rivers, and lakes water the earth, because a certain inner fire vaporizes it? For whence would trees put forth buds, or crops and sown things burst forth, or things that have sprung up ripen, unless an inner fire also gave them life? This fire is also frequently struck out of stones, and often leaps forth from wood itself when it is cut.

Therefore, just as the creation of fire is necessary, so that it may remain ordered and disposed, and the mildness of heaven may temper the rigor of the waters; so also the abundance of waters is not superfluous, lest the one be consumed by the other, since unless there be a fitting measure of each, just as fire dries up water, so also water extinguishes fire. Therefore He examined all things by weight and measure; for even the drops of the rains are numbered by Him, as we read in the book of Job. Knowing that there would be either an easy failure of things, or the dissolution of the universe, if the one should be overcome by the other, He so tempered the losses of both, that neither did the fire consume too much, nor did the water abound in excess: but a moderate diminishment of each came about, which both took away the superfluous and preserved the necessary.

And so, although such great streams of the greatest rivers burst forth from the earth—the Nile flooding Egypt with its outpoured stream, the Danube from the western regions, cutting between the peoples of the Barbarians and the Romans, until it is itself buried in the Pontus, the Rhine directing its course from the ridge of the Alps down into the depths of the Ocean, a memorable wall of the Roman empire against the wild nations, the Po, a faithful conveyor of maritime supplies for Italian aid, the Rhone, driven on by its swift course, cleaving the straits of the Tyrrhenian sea, in which no small peril to sailors is reported, while the waves of the sea and the streams of the river contend with one another, and likewise from the northern region the Phasis, poured forth from the Caucasian mountains, rushing headlong with many others into the Euxine sea—it would be tedious to pursue the names of each of the rivers which either flow down into our sea, or are emptied into the Ocean; since therefore there is such abundance of waters, nevertheless the land of the southern region is very often scorched by heat, and, dissolved by the burning, crumbles into dust, the labor of the wretched farmer being consumed; so that often, the wells having dried up, the vital aid for drinking fails from the parched flood.

And there will indeed be a time when He will say to the abyss: You shall be desolate, and I will dry up all your rivers, as He announced through Isaiah that it would come to pass. But even before that day arrives, which has been fixed by divine decree, the nature of the elements contends with itself in no small measure. Frequently, therefore, this world is shaken either by floods, or is vexed by excessive heat and dryness.

13. The Sun's Heat and the Waters Above

Do not, therefore, think the multitude of waters incredible, but look to the force of heat, and you will not be incredulous. Great is what fire absorbs: which ought to be clear to us even from this, when physicians attach to the body certain vessels, narrow at the mouth, broader above, hollow within, having caught a light flame from a lamp—how that heat draws to itself all the moisture! Who then would doubt that the fiery ether, burning with great heat, would inflame and consume all things, unless it were restrained by a certain law of its Author, so that neither rivers, nor lakes, nor the very seas could quench its force? And therefore water, descending from above with a certain force, often breaks forth into such great rains, that rivers and lakes are suddenly filled, and the very seas overflow. Whence we often see the sun itself moist and dripping with dew. In this it gives clear indication that it has taken to itself nourishment of waters for its own tempering.

14. Refuting Denial of the Sun's Fiery Nature

So great, moreover, is their zeal for attacking the truth, that they deny that the sun itself is of a hot nature; on the ground that it is white, not ruddy or reddish in appearance like fire. And so they say that it is not fiery by nature, and that if it has any heat, they claim this comes about from the excessive motion of its revolution. This they think ought to be said, so that it may seem to consume none of the moisture: because they say it does not have by nature that heat by which moisture is either diminished or often exhausted. But they accomplish nothing by making these arguments; for it makes no difference whether one has heat from nature, or from an affection, or from some other cause; since every fire is a consumer of moisture, or of such matter as flame is accustomed to burn up.

For whether fire, struck out from pieces of wood not at all half-burnt but rubbed against each other, is caught up by leaves, it likewise kindles a flame, just as if you were to light a torch from fire: or whether you kindle light from the light of a flame, the appearance and nature of the light is the same, as if that flame had not been kindled by natural fire, but had been generated by some accidental cause. Or let them at least consider from this the heat of the sun, by which God has established for it different places and times of its course; lest, if it always remained in the same places, it would burn them up with daily heat. They themselves claim that the sea has salty and bitter water for this reason, that what flows into the straits from the rivers is consumed by heat, and is consumed by the daily vapor in the same amount as is daily brought in from the various courses of the rivers.

This is said to come about by a certain discernment of the sun, which seizes to itself what is pure and light, and leaves behind what is heavy and earthy: from which remains that salty and dry residue, which is without usefulness or sweetness for drinking.

15. The Names of Heaven and Firmament

But let us return to our subject. Let a firmament be made in the midst of the water. Let it not disturb you, as I have already said, that above it says "heaven," here it says "firmament"; since David also says: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands, that is, the work of the world, when it is seen, praises its Maker. For His invisible majesty is recognized through the things that are seen. And it seems to me that the name "heavens" is common, because Scripture testifies to many heavens, but that "firmament" is a special name.

For indeed here it is stated thus: And God called the firmament heaven, so that it may seem that above He spoke generally, that in the beginning heaven was made, so as to comprehend the whole fabric of the heavenly creation: but here He speaks of the special solidity of this outer firmament, which is called the firmament of heaven, as we read in the prophetic hymn: Blessed are You in the firmament of heaven. For "heaven," which in Greek is called ouranos, is called in Latin, because it has the impressed lights of the stars like engraved marks, as it were "caelatum" (engraved): just as we call silver "caelatum" (engraved) when it shines with raised marks; but ouranos is derived apo tou horasthai, that is, from "being seen" [lacuna] Therefore the earth, which is darker, is not called ouranos; but heaven, because it is bright, is called, as it were, visible. Whence I think also that saying: The birds of heaven always see the face of my Father, who is in the heavens.

And: birds around the firmament of heaven; because the powers which are in that visible place look upon all these things, and have them subject to their sight.

16. The Closed Heaven and the Meaning of Firmament

Finally, heaven is said to have been shut up in the days of Elijah, when the perfidy of Ahab and Jezebel reigned, when the people served under royal sacrilege, because no one raised his eyes to heaven, no one venerated its Author, but they worshiped wood and stones. Whence do we gather this? Because also among the curses upon the people of Israel God said: Heaven over your head shall be brass, and your earth iron, when the people of the Jews, paying the penalty of their perfidy, are afflicted by the harshness of heaven and the barrenness of the earth; for from heaven comes the cause of fruitfulness. Finally, Moses also, in giving blessings to Joseph, gave them from the bounds of heaven and the dew of the abyss of the fountains below, and according to the season from the course of the sun, and from the fitting months, and from the summit of the everlasting mountains and hills, because by the moderation of heaven the fruitfulness of the earth is nourished.

Iron, then, is the heaven which exudes no moisture, when rain does not burst forth from any clouds. There is also an iron heaven in the somewhat dark air, pressed and clouded, of a rust-like color, when the earth is bound by the rigor of cold; then, as it were, moisture seems suspended over our head, and momentarily impending. Often too, by icy blasts of winds, the waters, stiffened, are congealed into snow, and the air being broken, the snow is poured out. For this firmament cannot be broken without some crashing sound. And so it is called "firmament," because it is not weak nor slack. Whence also, concerning thunders, which, when the spirit conceived within the bosom of the clouds bursts forth violently, crash with a great sound, Scripture says: Confirming the thunders. From firmness, therefore, "firmament" is named, or because it has been made firm by divine power, as Scripture teaches us, saying: Praise Him in the firmament of His power.

17. Spiritual and Literal Readings of the Waters Above

Nor should I fail to relate that some have referred the heavens of the heavens to intelligible powers, and the firmament to operative ones. And so the heavens praise, or declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims: but they do not proclaim as spiritual beings, but as works of the world, as we have said above. Others also have interpreted as purifying powers the waters which are above the heavens. We accept these things as an adornment for the discourse; yet it does not seem to us foreign or absurd, if we understand true waters for that reason we have mentioned. For also dew and frost and cold and heat, according to the prophetic hymn, bless the Lord, and the earth also blesses Him: and these we do not refer to intelligible natures, but to reality. Even dragons praise the Lord; because their nature and appearance, when seen, both display no small beauty and show that reason is present in them.

18. The Father the Son and the Work Pronounced Good

And God saw that it was good. The Son does what the Father wills: the Father praises what the Son does. Nothing of a degenerate nature is found in Him, whose work does not degenerate from the paternal will. He saw indeed, not with bodily eyes did He gaze: but He determined that it was fitting for the fullness of grace, that His judgment might be known to me; for we are accustomed even to dispute concerning things divine. And what wonder if they can retract concerning the work, who raise questions concerning the very generation of the Worker Himself? They call Him into judgment, they attempt to assert that He is unequal and degenerate. Therefore you read: And God said, and God made. By the same name of majesty are the Father and the Son honored. He said, as one knowing all things that the Father willed, and He saw, as one holding in knowledge all things that the Son did, and effecting them by a partnership in operation.

19. The Son's Knowledge of the Father's Will

He saw that it was good. He did not, of course, come to know what He did not know, but He approved what pleased Him. The work did not please Him as though unknown; for neither did the Father, who was well pleased in the Son, please as though unknown, as it is written: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. The Son always knows the will of the Father, and the Father the will of the Son, and the Son always hears the Father, and the Father the Son, through the unity of nature, of will, and of substance. Finally, the Son Himself testifies to this in His Gospel, saying to the Father: I knew that You always hear me. For the Son is the image of the invisible God. As an image He expresses all things of the Father, as the splendor of His glory He illumines all His things, and makes them manifest to us.

The Son also sees the work of the Father, just as the Father also sees that of the Son; as the Lord Himself also declared: The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. He sees, therefore, the Father doing, and He sees through the secret of the invisible nature, and hears likewise. Finally He says: As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is true; because I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me.

20. A Moral Reading Against the Arians and Eunomians

This is mystical, that is moral. He saw, for me; He approved, for me. What God has approved, do not you call reprehensible; since what God has cleansed, you should not call common, you remember it is written to you; therefore let no one blaspheme the good of God. If the firmament is good, how much more good is its Creator; even though the Arians be unwilling, though the Eunomians cry out against it—the fruit of a degenerate root is worse.

21. The Craftsman's Foreknowledge of a Perfect Work

He saw, it says, that it was good. Craftsmen are accustomed to make each part first, and afterward to join them together by skilled fitting: so that those who carve human faces or bodies from marble, or fashion them in bronze, or model them in wax, do not yet know how the individual members will fit together for themselves, or what grace the future joining will bring; and therefore they either do not dare to praise, or praise only in part. God, however, as the appraiser of the whole universe, foreseeing what is to come, praises already as perfect things that are still at the very beginning of the first work, anticipating the end of the work by his knowledge. Nor is it any wonder that, in the case of him for whom the perfection of things lies not in the completion of the work but in the predestination of his will, he should praise each thing individually, as fitting to what is to come: he praises the fullness of individual things composed in comeliness.

For that is true beauty, that there be in each member what is fitting, and in the whole; so that in the individual parts grace, and in the whole the fullness of a fitting form, may be praised.

22. The Close of the Second Day

But let the second day now be closed for us also, lest, while we are building up the work of the firmament, we make weaker those who are listening by the length of our discourse; while the discourse is drawn out into the night, which, still lacking the light of moon and stars—for the luminaries of heaven have not yet been created—might bring darkness upon those returning home: and at the same time so that bodies may be tended with food and drink, lest, while the souls are feasting, the frailty of the flesh should also complain of a nocturnal fast.

Let the third day now be born for us in speech, which was born in the reading. A most splendid day, which freed the earth from shipwreck, God saying: Let the water that is under heaven be gathered together into one gathering. It pleases me to begin a preface on this. It was said, Let the water be gathered, and it was gathered; and it is often said, Let the people be gathered, and it is not gathered. It is no small shame that the insensible elements obey the command of God, while men, to whom sense has been given by that same author, do not obey. And perhaps this shame has made more of you come together today; lest, on the day when the water was gathered into one gathering, the people should be seen not to be gathered at all into the Church of the Lord.

2. The Waters That Feared and Fled

Nor do we have this alone as an example of obedient water; for elsewhere too it is written: The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee, and were afraid. Nor does it seem improbable that this was said of the waters, since elsewhere the same prophet also says: The sea saw and fled, Jordan was turned back. For who does not know that this truly happened, that the sea fled at the crossing of the Hebrews, when the wave divided itself; the people crossed on a dusty path, believing that the sea had perished, that the waves had fled? Then the Egyptian believed this too, and entered in: but the wave that had fled returned upon him. The water knows, then, both to be gathered, and to fear, and to flee, when God commands. Let us imitate this water and know one gathering of the Lord, one Church.

3. The Valley as Heresy and the Church Gathered

Here the water was once gathered from every valley, from every marsh, from every lake. The valley is heresy, the valley is paganism; because God belongs to the mountains, not to the valleys. Indeed, in the Church there is exultation, in heresy and paganism weeping and sorrow. Whence he says: He has appointed weeping in the valley. From every valley, therefore, the catholic people has been gathered. Now there are not many gatherings, but there is one gathering, one Church. Here too it was said: let the water be gathered from every valley, and a spiritual gathering was made, and one people was made; the Church has been filled from heretics and from the gentiles. The valley is the stage, the valley is the circus, where the lying horse runs toward safety, where there is cheap and base contention, where there is the foul deformity of quarrels. From among these, then, who used to cling to the circus, the faith of the Church has grown, the daily assembly increases.

4. The Marsh as an Image of Vice

The marsh is luxury, the marsh is intemperance, the marsh is incontinence: in it are the wallowing-places of lusts, the murmurings of beasts, the hiding-places of passions: where whoever fall in are submerged, and do not emerge: where the footsteps of feet slip, where the steps of individuals waver: where the coots defile themselves as they bathe: where above are the mournful groans of doves: where the sluggish tortoise clings in the muddy whirlpool; finally, the boar is in the marsh, the deer at the springs. From every marsh, then, where the frogs, as it were, used to sing their old complaint, faith has been gathered, purity of soul has been gathered, and simplicity of mind.

5. The Church as One Body and Tabernacle

The water has been gathered from every lake, and from every pit, so that no one may dig a pit for his brother, into which he himself may fall: but let all love one another mutually, let all cherish one another mutually, and, as it were, one body, let the different members support one another: whom not deadly songs, and the performances of stage-players which soften the mind toward lusts, but the harmony of the Church, and the consonant voice of the people concerning the praises of God, and a pious life delight: to whom it is not a pleasure to gaze upon purple hangings, not precious tapestries, but this most beautiful fabric of the world, this bond of distance between the elements, the heaven stretched out like a vault, so that it covers those dwelling in this world, the earth given for tilling, the diffused air, the enclosed seas, this people the instrument of divine working, in which the melody of the divine oracle resounds, and the Spirit of God works within, this temple the sanctuary of the Trinity, the dwelling of holiness, the holy Church, in which heavenly hangings gleam, of which it is said: Enlarge the place of thy tents, and of thy tabernacles: stretch out, spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes: yet extend to the right and to the left, and thy seed shall possess the nations for an inheritance, and thou shalt inhabit the desolate cities.

It has hangings, therefore, by which it lifts up the good life, covers sins, casts a shadow over fault.

6. The Church Founded upon the Seas and Rivers

This is the Church that has been founded upon the seas, and prepared upon the rivers. For it has been confirmed and prepared over you, who like rivers flow down into it from the pure fountain of the world, of whom it is said: The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice, at the voice of many waters. And he added: Wonderful are the surges of the sea, wonderful is the Lord on high. Good rivers; for you have drunk from that everlasting and full fountain, from which you have flowed, who said to you: He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he said of the Spirit, which they who were to believe in him were about to receive. But now, like good streams of the Jordan, return with me to the source.

7. The Dry Land Appears

Let the water, it says, that is under heaven be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear. And it was done so. Perhaps someone will have believed too little in our earlier discourses, in which we discussed that the earth was invisible for the reason that it was covered by waters, so that it could not be seen by bodily eyes. For the prophet referred this to himself, that is, to our condition, not to the majesty of the divine nature, which indeed sees all things. But so that you may notice that we have undertaken this labor of discussion not for the sake of proving our own wit, but for your instruction, we call to witness the sequence of the reading, which openly proves that after the gathering of the water which was upon the earth, and after its derivation into the seas, the dry land appeared.

Let them cease, then, to trouble us with dialectical disputations, saying: How is the earth invisible, since every body naturally has both shape and color, and every color is subject to sight? The voice of God cries out: Let the water be gathered together, and let the dry land appear. And again Scripture says: The water was gathered together into one gathering, and the dry land appeared. What need was there to repeat this, unless the prophet judged it necessary to forestall questions? Does he not seem to say: I did not call it invisible according to its nature, but according to the overspreading of the waters? Indeed, he added that, the veil having been removed, the dry land, which was not visible before, appeared.

8. The Command That Set the Waters in Motion

Again also they sow other questions, saying: If the water was in various gatherings, how, if those gatherings were in the higher places, did the water not flow down into that place to which it was afterward carried down by the command of the Lord? For it is the nature of waters to slide spontaneously into the lower places. But if, on the other hand, those gatherings were in the lower places, how did the water, contrary to its own nature, ascend to the higher places? So then, either the natural course did not need a command, or, contrary to nature, it could not have benefited by command. To this question I shall easily reply, if they themselves first answer me whether, before the command of the Lord, it was the nature of waters to slide, to flow. For it does not have this from the ordinary custom of the other elements, but a special and proper trait, arising not from some order, but rather from the will and working of the supreme God. Let them hear what God commanded.

But the voice of God is the maker of nature. That voice was fulfilled by the effect of its working. The water began to slide, and to flow together into one gathering, which before had been spread through the lands, and clung to very many receptacles. I have not read of its course before, I have not learned of its motion before, nor has my eye seen it, nor has my ear heard it. The water stood in various places; at the voice of God it was moved. Does it not seem that the voice of God made a nature of this sort for it? The creature followed the command, and made a custom out of the law. For the law of the first constitution left its form for the time to come. Indeed, once he made day and night: from that time onward there remains the long-continued succession of each, and their long-continued renewal.

The water was also commanded to run into a gathering: from that time it runs, springs slide into rivers, rivers run into straits, lakes flow down into seas, the water itself precedes, urges on, and follows itself. There is one course, one body. And although the depth is various, yet there is an undivided equality of its surface. Whence I think also it was called “the level” (aequor), because its surface is level (aequalis).

9. Further Proofs of Water's Obedience to God's Command

I have answered according to their own proposition; now let them answer me, if they have never seen springs gush up from below, water rise from the pavement. Who compels it? Whence does it burst forth? How does it happen that it does not fail? How does it come about that the lowest edges of the ground vomit forth a wave? These things happen according to the hidden secrets of nature. Moreover, who does not know that water, often descending in a rapid rush to the lowest point, raises itself up again to the higher places, and lifts itself to the brow of a mountain; and often too, led off by channels by the hand of a craftsman, rises again as much as it had descended? Therefore, if it is either carried by its own impetus, or led and raised, contrary to its own nature, by the skill of a craftsman, do you wonder if, by the working of the divine command, something was added to its natural use which had not been in use before?

Let them tell me now how he gathered the waters of the sea together as in a bottle, as it is written, how he brought water out of the rock. He who was able to bring water out of a rock, where there was none, was he not able to bring forth water that already was? He struck the rock, and the waters flowed, David cries out, and the torrents overflowed. And elsewhere: The waters shall stand upon the mountains. You have it in the Gospel, that when a heavy storm arose, and there was great commotion on the sea, so that the apostles were trembling with fear of shipwreck, they woke the Lord Jesus, who was sleeping in the stern, and rising, he commanded the wind and the sea, and the storm was calmed, and tranquility restored. He who was able by his command to calm the whole sea, was he not able by his command to move the waters?

And yet in the flood we have received it thus, that the fountains of the deep burst forth, and that afterward he brought a wind, and dried up the water: if they do not want to admit that nature, and the use of the element, was changed by the command of God; let them at least grant this, that it was possible, by a wind sent forth, for the waters to run, which we see happening daily in the sea, so that waters run from the direction in which the wind has blown. If, in the time of Moses, when a strong south wind was raised, the sea was dried up, could not the gathering of the waters be dried up in the same way, and the water flow into the sea, which afterward was divided from the deep? But let them learn that nature can be changed, when the rock flowed with waters, and iron floated upon water, which indeed Elisha deserved to do by praying, not by commanding.

If, then, Elisha lifted iron contrary to nature, could Christ not move the waters? But he did move them, who was able to say: Lazarus, come forth, and raised the dead; for God does what he commands. Take, then, by a like example, what is said: Let the water be gathered together, and it was gathered together. And in saying, let it be gathered together, he not only moved it from its place, but also established it in its place, so that it would not flow past, but remain.

10. The Bounds Set for the Sea

This therefore is of greater marvel, how all the gatherings flowed together into one gathering, and the one gathering was not filled up. For Scripture too reckons this among wonders, saying: All the torrents go into the sea, and the sea is not filled up. Both, therefore, are by the command of God: that the water should flow, and should not overflow. The seas, therefore, being circumscribed with an appointed limit, are enclosed, lest, poured over the lands, they should flood all things, and, the cultivation of trees being taken away, hinder the office of earthly fruitfulness; let them therefore recognize that they are of the divine command and of heavenly working. For the Lord says through the cloud to Job, among other things also concerning the barrier of the sea: I set bounds for it, placing bars and doors. And I said to it: Thus far you shall come, and no farther; but here your waves shall be broken.

Do we not ourselves see the sea often surging with waves, so that its billow rises aloft like a sheer mountain of water, where, having dashed its onset against the shore, it is resolved into foam, beaten back by certain barriers of the lowly sand, according to what is written: Will you not fear me, says the Lord, who have set the sand as the bounds of the sea? By the weakest dust of all, the vile sand, the untimely force of the sea is restrained, and, as it were by certain reins of heavenly rule, is called back by the limit prescribed to it, and the violent motion of the deep is broken upon itself, and is divided into its own returning bays.

11. Joining the Red Sea and the Egyptian Sea

Moreover, unless the force of the heavenly ordinance restrained it, what would prevent the Red Sea from being mingled with the Egyptian sea through the plains of Egypt, which is asserted to lie especially as a plain in the lower valleys? This indeed those show who wished to connect these two seas together, and to pour them into one another—Sesostris the Egyptian, who was more ancient, and Darius the Mede, who, with a view to greater power, wished to bring into effect what had before been attempted by the native. Which fact is a sign that the Indian Sea, in which is the Red Sea, is higher than the Egyptian water, which washes the lower region. And perhaps lest the sea should pour itself out more widely, rushing down from the higher to the lower parts, for that reason each king called back his undertakings.

12. The Question of One Gathering and Many Seas

I ask now, since he said: Let the water be gathered together into one gathering; how could one gathering receive waters spread through lakes, marshes, pools, and poured over valleys and plains and all more level places, running with springs and rivers; or how is it one gathering, since even today the seas are diverse? For we call the Ocean a sea, and the Tyrrhenian, and the Adriatic, and the Indian, and the Egyptian, and the Pontic, and the Propontis, and the Hellespont, and the Euxine, the Aegean, the Ionian, the Atlantic. Many also call the Cretan and the Northern the Caspian sea. Whence let us consider the words of Scripture, which are weighed with a balanced examination.

13. One Sea Under Many Regional Names

Let the water, he says, be gathered together into one gathering. There is one, continuous and unbroken gathering of the waters, but the bays of the sea are diverse, as a certain one of the secular writers says. For the deep of our sea is a very ample bay, and rightly in different places there are different names, because names have clung to the waters from the names of the regions. But it is one gathering of waters, because a continuous and unbroken wave, from the Indian Sea all the way to the shore of Cadiz, and thence into the Red Sea, encloses the circle of the earth, poured round about by the outermost Ocean; within also the Tyrrhenian mingles with the Adriatic, and the other seas with the Adriatic, distinguished by names, not by their waters. Whence you have it beautifully, that God called the gatherings of waters seas. Thus there is one general gathering, which is called the sea, and many gatherings which are named seas according to regions.

For just as there are many lands—Africa, Spain, Thrace, Macedonia, Syria, Egypt, Gaul, and Italy—called by the names of regions, and yet there is one earth: so many are called seas according to the names of places, and there is one sea, as the prophet says: Yours are the heavens, and yours is the earth; the world and the fullness thereof you have founded, the north and the sea you have created. And to Job the Lord himself says: I shut up the sea with doors.

14. Could One Gathering Hold All the Waters

Now, since we have spoken of one gathering, this occurs to us: whether, when the waters had been spread through almost the whole earth and above the earth, through the valley-lands of the fields, the hollows of the mountains, and the flatness of the plains, one gathering, poured out in the manner of the deep, could receive all those waters and empty the lands, which before were made into standing pools by the river poured through the whole. For if all things were thus covered, he would not have said, the earth appeared, unless he wished to show it uncovered in all places. If in the flood at the time of Noah it hid also the mountains, when already a separation of the waters had been made both above the heavens and beneath the firmament; how much less can it be doubted that even the peaks of the mountains lay hidden under that overspreading? Whither then was all that overflow of waters carried off? What receptacles could have absorbed it, so continuous and connected as it was?

Concerning which much discourse may be furnished us.

15. The Unmeasured Depths of the Ocean

First, because the Creator of all things could have spread out the spaces of the lands themselves also; which some before us, affirming, have set forth in their own opinion. I do not omit what he could have done; what he did, since I have not learned it clearly from the authority of the Scriptures, I pass over as a secret, lest perhaps from this too they should seek other questions for themselves. Yet I assert, according to the Scriptures, that he could have spread out the low places and the open plains, as he himself says: I will go before you, and I will make the mountains level. He could also have made the very force of the waters deepen the places it had settled upon: with so great a motion of waves, and so great a surge of the more agitated element, which is wont daily to churn up the depths of the deep, and to turn up the sands from the bottom.

Who, then, could know how far that great sea extends, unaccustomed to sailors and untried by mariners, which encloses the Britains with its roaring water, and stretches out into further secrets inaccessible even to fables themselves? Who, then, would not gather how much the sea has added, poured into the Lucrine and Avernian lakes in Italy, into the Sea of Tiberias also in Palestine, and into that lake which stretches the deserts of Arabia between Palestine and Egypt, and into the various harbors of Augustus and Trajan, and the rest throughout the whole world?

16. Unmingled Lakes and the Meaning of One Gathering

But there are also lakes not mingled, and pools which are not mixed with the waves, such as Larius and Benacus, and Albanus also, and several others; how then is there one gathering of waters? But just as it is said that God made two lights, that is, the sun and the moon, though there are indeed also the lights of the stars: so also it is called one gathering, though there are many. For those things are not counted together which are not brought into comparison.

17. Why Scripture Calls It Dry Land, Not Earth

But, as it seems, since we were speaking of the sea, we have overflowed a little; let us return to our subject, and consider what it is that the Lord says: Let the water be gathered together into one gathering, and let the dry land appear, and he did not say, the earth. Who does not notice that this was excellently put? For earth can also be mixed with mud, soaked with waters, whose appearance, when waters are poured over it, does not appear. But dry land refers not only to the genus but also to the species of lands, that it may be useful, dry, fit and apt for cultivation. At the same time it was provided, lest it seem to have been dried more by the sun than by the command of God, since it was made dry before the sun was created. Whence David also, distinguishing sea and land, says of the Lord God: For the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands founded the dry land.

For dry land is the expression of a nature, earth a certain simple name of a matter, which has in itself a property. For just as animal is a signification of a genus, in which there is something proper and excellent—rational being proper to man: so also earth can be said commonly, whether abounding in waters, or deserted and pathless, and without water. Therefore even in that which abounds with waters, there is inherent in it that it should have dryness. For when the water is removed, it begins to be dry, as you have it written: He turned rivers into a desert, and the outgoings of waters into thirst, that is, he made dry land out of watery earth.

18. The Four Elements and Their Shared Qualities

The earth, therefore, has its own proper quality, just as the individual elements also have; for air has a moist quality, and water a cold one, and fire a hot one. And this is the principal property of each of the elements, which we gather by reason. But if we wish to grasp it sensibly and bodily, we find them as it were connected and composite; so that earth is dry and cold, water cold and moist, air hot and moist, fire hot and dry; and thus, through these paired qualities, the several elements are mingled with one another. For earth, since it is of a dry and cold quality, is joined to water through kinship of the cold quality, and through water to air, because air is moist. Water, therefore, as it were with two arms, of cold and of moisture, seems to embrace, with the one, earth, with the other, air—earth with the cold, air with the moist.

Air also, being midway between two things naturally opposed, that is, between water and fire, reconciles that element to itself on both sides; because it is joined to water by moisture, and to fire by heat. Fire also, since it is by nature hot and dry, is bound to air by heat, but by dryness is poured back into communion and fellowship with earth; and thus, through this circuit and a certain chorus, they come together in concord and fellowship. Whence also in Greek they are called στοιχεῖα, which in Latin we call elements, because they agree together and are in harmony.

19. Dryness as the Earth's Defining Property

But we have proceeded to this point because Scripture says that God called the dry land earth, that is, because he named it by the property of its nature which is principal to it. For the natural property of the earth is dryness: this prerogative is kept for it. Dryness therefore is principal. It is also subject to being cold: but secondary qualities are not preferred to the primary ones. But that it should be moist, it obtains this by affinity with the waters. Therefore the one is its own, the other foreign: its own, that it is dry; foreign, that it is moist. The Author of nature, therefore, kept that which he first gave; because the one is from nature, the other from a cause. From the principal qualities therefore, not from the accidental ones, ought the property of the earth to be defined; so that our knowledge might be formed according to the prerogative of its quality.

And God saw that the sea was good. Although the appearance of this element is beautiful, whether when it whitens with rising heaps and crests of waves, and the crags drip with a snowy sprinkling, or when, with the surface rippling under gentler breezes, it presents the reddish-purple color of a mild and serene tranquility, which is often diffused to those watching from a distance, when it does not beat the neighboring shores with violent waves, but encircles and greets them, as it were, with peaceful embraces—how sweet the sound, how pleasant the roar, how gratifying and harmonious the resounding—yet I do not think the beauty of this creature is to be estimated by the eyes; but I judge it defined as fitting and congruous according to the reason of its working, in the judgment of its Maker.

22. The Sea's Benefits to Mankind

Good therefore is the sea, first because it necessarily supplies the lands with moisture, to which, through certain hidden veins, it supplies a not useless liquid. Good is the sea, as it were the lodging of the rivers, the spring of rains, the source of the alluvial deposits, the conveyance of channels, by which distant peoples are joined together, by which the dangers of wars are removed, by which barbarian fury is shut out; a help in necessities, a refuge in dangers, a delight in pleasures, a wholesomeness of health, a joining of things separated, a shortening of the journey, a refuge for the toiling, a support of the revenues, a nourishment against barrenness.

From it rain is poured back onto the lands; for indeed water is drawn from the sea by the rays of the sun, and what is subtle in it is snatched up; then, the higher it is raised, the more it grows cold also by the shading of the clouds, and becomes rain, which not only tempers the dryness of the earth, but also fructifies the barren fields.

23. The Sea as an Image of the Church

Why should I enumerate the islands, which it often decks like necklaces, in which those who renounce the enticements of worldly intemperance choose, by a faithful resolve of continence, to lie hidden from the world, and to decline the doubtful windings of this life? The sea, therefore, is a retreat of temperance, an exercise of continence, a withdrawal of gravity, a harbor of security, a tranquility of the age, a sobriety of this world; then also, for faithful and devoted men, an incentive of devotion, so that, as the sound of the gently lapping waves competes, the chants of those singing psalms sound forth; the islands applaud with the tranquil chorus of the holy waves; they resound with the hymns of the saints. Whence shall I comprehend for myself all the beauty of the deep which the Maker beheld? And what more? What else is that harmony of the waves, but a certain harmony of the people?

Whence the Church is often well compared to the sea, which first, at the entering throng of the people, spews forth waves throughout all its porches: then, in the prayer of the whole people, it resounds as with refluent waves, when, with the responsorial psalms, the harmonious chant of men, women, virgins, little children, sounds like the resounding roar of the waves. For what shall I say of this, that the wave washes away sin, and the wholesome breath of the Holy Spirit blows upon it?

24. A Prayer for Safe Passage Through Life's Storms

May the Lord grant us to run those rivers of success on a favorable ship, to come to rest in a safe harbor, to be ignorant of trials of the spiritual wickedness more grievous than we can bear, to be unacquainted with shipwrecks of faith, to possess deep peace: and if ever anything should stir up against us the heavy waves of this world, to have as our ever-watchful helmsman the Lord Jesus, who by his word commands, calms the tempest, and pours back tranquility upon the sea; to whom is honor and glory, praise, and perpetuity from ages past and now and forever, unto all ages of ages. Amen.

6. The Earth's Grass Before the Sun

(Sermon V.)

25. God Commands the Earth to Bring Forth Grass

When the water withdrew, it was fitting that form and grace should be given to the earth, so that it should cease to be invisible and unformed. For many say that this too is called invisible, which has no form; and thus they take it that the earth was invisible not because it could not be seen by the Most High God or by His angels—for men had not yet been created, nor even cattle—but because it was without its proper form. Now the form of the earth is the sprouting and greenness of the field. Wherefore, that God might make it both visible and ordered, He said: Let the earth bring forth grass yielding seed, sowing seed after its kind, and the fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth.

26. The Law of Nature Governing Growth

Let us hear the words of truth, the sequence of which is the salvation of those who hear. For that first voice of God, imparted to each creature at its begetting, is the law of nature, which has remained in the earth for all ages, destined to give the prescription for future succession, according to which the practice of either generating or fructifying should in the remaining time develop. First, then, comes germination, when the nascent things are seen to burst forth: then, when the sprout has burst forth and advanced, it becomes grass: and grass too, when it has advanced a little further, becomes hay. How useful, how forceful a voice! Let the earth bring forth the grass of hay—that is, let the earth of itself bring it forth, seeking no other's aid, needing no one's ministry.

27. Against Attributing Growth to the Sun

For many are accustomed to say: Unless the milder heat of the sun warms the earth, and in some way cherishes it with its rays, the earth cannot germinate; and therefore the pagans attribute divine honor to the sun, because by the power of its heat it penetrates the bosoms of the earth, and cherishes the scattered seeds, or loosens the veins of trees stiffened by frost. Hear, then, God as it were uttering this voice: Let the foolish talk of men that is yet to come fall silent, let vain opinion depart. Before the sun's luminary is made, let the grass be born; let its prerogative be older than the sun's. Lest the error of men grow strong, let the earth germinate before it receives the warmth of the sun. Let all know that the sun is not the author of things born. The clemency of God loosens the earth, the indulgence of God causes fruits to burst forth.

How does the sun minister the use of life to things arising, when they were brought forth by the vivifying operation of God before the sun came to render this service of life to them? It is younger than the grasses, younger than the hay.

28. Fodder for Cattle Before Food for Man

And perhaps someone may wonder that fodder for cattle was created before food for man. In this we must first observe the depth of God, that He neglects not even the smallest things, just as in the Gospel the Wisdom of God says: Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them: are you not of more value than they? For since those creatures are fed by the grace of God, no one should flatter himself upon his own industry and virtue. Then, because He ought to have preferred simple food and natural nourishment before other foods. For this is the food of sobriety, the rest of delicacies and luxury: this the food common to all living creatures, that of few. It is therefore an example of frugality, a lesson in thrift, that all should be content with the simple sustenance of grass, or of cheap vegetable, or of fruit—whatever nature offered, whatever the liberality of God first gave.

That is the wholesome, that the useful food, which repels disease, which cuts off crudities, produced by no labor of men's toil but poured forth by divine gift—crops without sowing, fruit without seed—so sweet, so pleasing, that it is a delight and use even to the well-fed. In short, it was given first at the earliest tables, and it remained also at the later ones.

29. Grass as a Figure of Mortal Human Flesh

But what shall I add of the marvel of this creature, and what proof shall I express of the wisdom that works it? For in this species of sprouts, and in that gift of the green grass, there is an image of human life, and a certain mark of our nature and condition is beheld, and a mirror shines forth. That grass and the flower of hay is a figure of human flesh, as the good Interpreter of the Divinity expressed with the instrument of his voice, saying: Cry out [lacuna] What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen: but the word of the Lord abides forever. The sentence of God is a human voice. God says, Cry out: but it is Isaiah himself who speaks in Him. He answered: What shall I cry? And as though he had heard what he should say, he added: All flesh is grass.

And truly so; for the glory of man is green in the flesh as it were grass: and what is thought to be lofty is but a small thing like grass, premature like the flower, transient like the grass—it germinates the greenness of life in appearance, not in solidity of fruit, displaying, like a flower, the delight of a more cheerful life, destined to perish in a very short space, like the grass of the hay, which withers before it is plucked up. For what firmness in the flesh, what soundness of health can be lasting?

30. Examples of Human Glory's Sudden Fall

Today you may see a strong youth, at the flower of puberty, blossoming with the greenness of age, of pleasing appearance, of sweet color; tomorrow he meets you changed in face and countenance: and he who yesterday appeared to you most splendid by the grace of his comely form, on another day appears pitiable, undone by the weakness of some sickness. Many are broken by toil, or wasted by want, or vexed by indigestion, or ruined by wine, or weakened by old age, or made effeminate by luxuries, discolored by dissipation. Is it not true that the grass has withered, and the flower has fallen? Another, noble from ancestors and forefathers, honored with the insignia of his elders, illustrious with the marks of an ancient lineage, abounding in friends, surrounded by a crowd of clients and shielded on both sides, leading out and bringing back a very great household, suddenly thrown into confusion by the weight of some accidental danger, is forsaken by all, abandoned by his companions, attacked by his kinsmen.

Behold, it is true that, like grass, the life of man withers before it is plucked up. There is also one who, once overflowing with abundance of resources, whose fame for liberality flew from mouth to mouth, illustrious with honors, preeminent in powers, exalted on tribunals, lofty on his throne, blessed, esteemed by the people, while he is escorted amid the shouting of heralds, is suddenly, by a reversal of fortune, dragged into that very prison into which he himself had thrust others, and amid his own defendants weeps over the calamity of his impending punishment. How many, whom but yesterday a crowd of applauders and the envious pomp of a thronging populace escorted to his house, and one single night abolished that glorious splendor of his procession, and a sudden pain in the side mingled, amid effusions of joy, a mournful succession of grievous sorrow!

Such, then, is the glory of man, like the flower of the grass: which, even while it is borne along, adds nothing to works, in which no fruit is acquired; and when it is lost, it vanishes, suddenly abandoning the whole stage of man, both what it overshadowed from above and what it had animated within.

31. Sowing Spiritual Seed After Our Kind

And would that we might imitate this grass, of which the Lord says: Let the earth bring forth the grass of hay, sowing seed after its kind, and according to likeness. Let us therefore sow seed after its kind. What that kind is, hear him say that we ought to seek that divine thing, if by any means we might handle it or find it: Though it be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring. According to this kind let us sow seed, not in the flesh, but in the spirit. For we ought to sow not carnal things, but spiritual things, we who wish to attain to eternal life. And what the likeness is, you are not ignorant, you who were made in the image and likeness of God. The grass corresponds to its kind; you do not correspond to your kind.

The grain of wheat scattered in the earth renders back the grace of its kind, and you degenerate. Crops do not adulterate the sincerity of their seed; you adulterate the purity of the soul, the vigor of the mind, the chastity of the body.

32. Against Manichaean, Photinian, and Eunomian Errors

You do not recognize that you are the work of Christ. With His own hands, as we read, He formed you, and yet you, Manichaean, claim for yourself another author. God the Father says to the Son: Let us make man in our image and likeness; and you, Photinian, say that at the founding of the world Christ did not yet exist; and you, Eunomian, say that the Son is unlike the Father. For if He is the image, surely He is not unlike, but expresses the Father wholly out of the whole, whom the Father has sealed with the unity of His own substance. The Father says: Let us make; and do you deny the co-worker? What the Father said, the Son did; and do you deny Him equal, in whom the Father was well pleased?

33. How Plants Propagate After Their Kind

Let the earth, He says, bring forth the grass of hay after its kind. In all things which are said to be born of the earth, the sprout comes first; when it has raised itself a little, it becomes grass, afterward hay, then it becomes fruit. There are things born which sprout from a root, as trees which have not been sown are born from the root of other trees. In the reed we see how at its extremity there forms as it were a knot on the side, and from thence another reed sprouts. There is, then, in the root a certain seminal power. Grafted shoots likewise sprout in the parts above. Thus for some the succession of series is acquired from the root, for others by a different function. For there is present in each thing born either seed, or some seminal power, and this after its kind; so that what is born from it may sprout similar to those things which were sown, or from whose root it comes.

From wheat comes forth wheat, from millet millet, from the pear-tree bursts forth the pear with its white flower: the chestnut too rises from the root of the chestnut.

34. The Growth Stages of the Grain of Wheat

Let the earth, He says, bring forth the grass of hay after its kind. And immediately the earth, as though in labor, poured itself forth into new births, and clothed itself in the garment of greenness, assumed the grace of fruitfulness, and, adorned with diverse sprouts, took on its own ornaments. We marvel that it germinated so quickly; how much greater are the marvels, if you consider each thing individually, how the seeds cast into the ground are dissolved, and unless they have died, bring forth no fruit; but if they have been dissolved by a kind of death of their own, they rise again into more abundant fruits. The rotting clod, then, receives the grain of wheat, and the harrowing confines it once scattered, and the earth cherishes and presses it as it were in a maternal bosom.

Then, when that grain has dissolved itself, it germinates into grass—itself already a pleasing sight of sprouting greenness—which at once, by the likeness of itself, betrays the kind of the sown seed; so that in the very beginning of its stock you may recognize of what kind the grass is, and the fruit may appear already in the grasses; and little by little it grows up into hay, and, growing firm with its stalk, rises and stands upright. But when the jointed ear has now raised itself, certain sheaths are prepared for the coming grain, in which the kernel is formed within; lest either cold should harm its tender beginnings, or the heat of the sun scorch them, or the harshness of the winds, or the fierce force of rains beat them down. Certain rows of the ear follow, formed with wonderful skill, whether for pleasing appearance or for protection, bound together by a certain natural knitting, which divine providence has fashioned.

And lest, under the weight of the more abundant grain, the support of the stalks should as it were give way, the stalk itself is enclosed by certain sheaths, so that with doubled strength it may sustain the manifold crop, lest, unequal to the burden, it bend down to the earth. Then, above the ear itself, a rampart of awns is raised, that it may as it were serve as a fortress, lest the ear be harmed by the bites of small birds, or be stripped of its fruits, or be trampled underfoot.

35. The Earth's Faithful Return on the Sown Seed

What shall I say of how the clemency of God has looked out for the advantage of man? The earth, having received a loan, restores what it received with the increase of usury multiplied. Men often deceive, and even defraud their own creditor of his due: the earth remains faithful. And if at any time it does not pay, if by chance the harshness of cold has been unfavorable, or excessive dryness, or an immense force of rains, in another year it compensates for the losses of the previous year; so also when the yield disappoints the farmer's hope, the earth commits no fault: and when it smiles favorably, the fruitfulness of the fecund mother pours itself out into offspring, so that it never inflicts any loss upon its creditor.

36. The Beauty and Fragrance of Flowers in the Field

But what is the beauty of a full field! What fragrance! What sweetness! What delight for the farmers! What can we worthily unfold, if we use our own speech? But we have the testimonies of Scripture, by which we perceive the sweetness of the field compared to the blessing and grace of the saints, holy Isaac saying: The smell of my son is as the smell of a full field. Why then should I describe the purpling violets, the white lilies, the glowing roses, the countryside painted now with golden, now with varied, now with yellow flowers, in which you would not know whether the beauty of the flowers or their fragrant power delights more? The eyes are fed by the pleasing spectacle, the fragrance is spread far and wide, with whose sweetness we are filled. Whence the Lord divinely says: And the beauty of the field is with me; for it is with him whom he himself formed. For what other artificer could express such loveliness in each thing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how great is the whiteness in their leaves, how the leaves themselves, pressed together, seem to rise from the bottom to the top, so as to express the form of a cup, so that a kind of golden splendor shines within, which nevertheless, hedged about by the rampart around the flower, lies open to no injury. If anyone should pluck this flower, and loosen its leaves apart, what hand of so great an artificer could restore the form of the lily? What imitator of nature is so great as to presume to remake this flower whole, to which the Lord bore such testimony as to say: Not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these? A most wealthy and most wise king is judged inferior to the beauty of this flower.

37. The Medicinal Uses of Herbs and Leaves

Why should I enumerate the wholesome juices of herbs? Why the remedies of shrubs and leaves? A sick stag chews the little branches of the olive, and is made well. Locusts too are freed from sickness by gnawing olive leaves. The leaves of the bramble, cast upon a serpent, kill it. Gnats will not touch you, if you boil wormwood with oil, and anoint yourself with it.

38. Answering the Objection of Harmful Plants

But perhaps some will say: What of the fact that along with useful things deadly and harmful ones are also produced? With wheat, hemlock is found, which is harmful among the foods of life, and, unless it be watched for, is wont to injure health. Among other nourishments of life hellebore too is found. Aconites also frequently deceive and mislead the one gathering them. But this is just as if you should reproach the earth because not all men are good. But take something further: not even all the angels in heaven are good. The sun itself, from excessive heat, scorches the ears of grain, and burns the first shoots of growing things. The moon too shows travelers their path, and betrays the ambushes of robbers.

Is it then fitting that, in things which are useful, setting aside the acknowledgment of the Creator's grace, we should disparage the foreknowledge of the Creator on account of some harmful foods, as though indeed all things ought to have been created for the sake of gluttony, or as though the things which divine indulgence has ministered to our belly were few? Fixed foods have been appointed for us, and known to all, which both produce pleasure and the health of the body.

39. How Harmful Plants Serve Other Creatures

Now each of the things which grow from the earth has a certain special reason of its own, which fills up, for its part, the fullness of the whole creation. Some things, therefore, are born for eating, others for another use. Nothing is empty, nothing springs up in vain from the earth. What you think useless to yourself is useful to others; nay, it is often useful even to yourself, in another use. What does not serve as food supplies medicine: and often the very things which are harmful to you provide harmless fodder for birds or beasts. Thus starlings feed on hemlock, and it is no harm to them, since through the quality of their body they escape the poison of its deadly juice. For the force of this juice is cold, which, by fine pores leading it to the seat of the heart, they anticipate by rapid digestion, before it can affect the vital parts themselves.

But those experienced say that hellebore is food and nourishment for quails, because by a certain natural temperament of their body they avoid the force of the harmful food. For indeed if by the method of medicine it is often tempered even for the health of the human body, to which it seems to be contrary: how much more does that which is turned by a medical hand to health serve as food by the very property of nature! Through the mandrake, too, sleep is often summoned, where the sick are afflicted by the discomfort of wakefulness. For what shall I say of opium, which has become known to us also by almost daily use, since by it the most grievous pains of the inward organs are often lulled to rest? Nor does it escape notice that by hemlock the frenzies of lust have often withered away, and by hellebore the long-standing afflictions of a sick body have been dissolved.

40. The Instinctive Wisdom and Rivalries of Animals

Not only, therefore, is there no reproach of the Creator in these things, but rather an increase of thanks. For indeed what you thought was produced for danger works for you as a remedy of health. For that which is of danger is avoided by foresight: and that which is of health is not lost through diligence. Do not sheep and goats learn to avoid the things harmful to them, and, by scent alone, through a certain mystery of nature, though they lack reason, nevertheless recognize the reasoning of avoiding danger or of guarding health, and distinguish equally the harmful from the beneficial; so that often, when they have felt weapons armed with poisons, they are said to seek out known herbs and to apply them as a remedy to the wound? Food is therefore medicine to them, so that you may see the arrows spring back out of the wound, and the poisons flee rather than creep in. Again, to stags certain food is poison.

The viper flees the stag, but kills the lion: the dragon binds the elephant, whose fall is the death of the victor. And therefore the utmost struggle is waged on both sides; the one, that it may bind the foot, in which, when bound, its fall cannot harm it; the other, that it not be caught by its hindmost foot, or in a narrow path, where it could not twist itself back and crush the dragon under its heavy tread, or have the aid of a following elephant.

41. Reason Confirms the Usefulness of All Creatures

Therefore if irrational animals know by what herbs to heal themselves, or by what aids to bring themselves help; does man not know—he to whom a rational sense is innate—or is he so alien from the truth that he cannot perceive what is fitting for each use: or is he so ungrateful for the good things of nature, that, because a draught of bull's blood is deadly to man, he should therefore think that the laboring animal ought either not to have been born, or ought to have been created without blood—an animal whose strength is useful for the tilling of fields, apt for the use of wagons, pleasant for nourishment, and sustains farmers by its varied service, to whom God, if they knew their own goods, has given all things, saying: Let the earth bring forth the herb of the field yielding seed, according to its kind.

For he includes not only the spontaneous nourishment which is in herbs and roots, and in trees and other fruits: but also that which is procured by industry, and acquired by the cultivation of rustic labor.

42. The Orderly Progression From Bloom to Fruit

How fitting also that he did not command the earth to pour forth seed and fruits all at once: but ordained first that it should germinate, then that the fields should become grassy, afterward that the seed should grow according to the property of its own kind, so that the grace of the trees might never be idle, which first bloomed with pleasing beauty, and afterward supplied the usefulness of fruits!

43. Seeds Preserve Their Kind Despite Decay

But perhaps someone might say: How does the earth bring forth seeds according to their kind, when often the seeds cast into it degenerate, and, when good wheat has been sown, its appearance grows discolored, and its form becomes inferior? But if this happens at any time, it seems to be attributed not to a change of kind, but to a certain sickness and unevenness of the seed. For it does not cease to be wheat, if it is either scorched by cold or soaked by rain: but is changed in appearance rather than in kind, in color also, and by decay. Indeed, grains often, having been soaked, return to the appearance of their own kind, if they are dried either by the sun or by fires, or, entrusted to diligent cultivators, are fostered by the mildness of the air and the fruitfulness of fertile soils. And so what had degenerated in the parent is repaired in the offspring.

Whence there is no danger that that command of God, whose use has grown into nature, should remain, in the succeeding generations, defective through some flaw of succession, since even today the purity of its kind is preserved in seeds.

44. The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

For darnel and the other adulterine seeds which are often mixed with crops, we know from the reading of the Gospel to be called tares: but these have a certain kind of their own, and did not derive their degenerate nature from wheat seed being transformed by discolored change into another kind of seed. Indeed the Lord teaches this, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came, and sowed tares among the wheat. We observe, indeed, that tares and wheat seem to be distinguished as much in kind as in name. And so the servants said to the householder: Lord, did you not sow good seed in your field? Whence then does it have tares? And he said to them: An enemy has done this. For one thing is the seed of the devil, another is the seed of Christ, which is sown unto righteousness. Indeed, the Son of man sowed one thing, the devil another.

So different is the nature of each seed, that the sowers are opposed to one another. What Christ sows is the kingdom of God: what the devil sows is sin. How then can the kingdom and sin be of one kind? So, he says, is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth.

45. The Word as Sower and the Earth's Spontaneous Yield

There is also a man who sows the word, of whom it is written: He who sows, sows the word. This man sowed the word upon the earth, when he said: Let the earth bring forth grass, and suddenly the shoots of the earth sprang up, and the diverse kinds of things shone forth. Hence the greenness of the meadows, growing lush, supplied abundance of fodder: hence the ripening ear of the fields displayed, by the motion of a richer crop, the image of a surging sea. Spontaneously the earth supplied all fruits: even though, unplowed, it could not have a cultivator, for the farmer had not yet been formed; yet unplowed it still overflowed with rich harvests, and, I have no doubt, with even greater yield. Since not even the cultivator's idleness could deprive the lands of fertility.

For now fruitfulness is acquired for each according to the merit of his labor, where the tillage of the fields is observed; and through negligence or offense, or through floods of rain, or dryness of the soil, or the beating of hail, or from whatever cause, the fertile soil is punished with barrenness. But then the earth, by spontaneous yield, brought forth fruits everywhere; since he had commanded it, who is the fullness of all things. For the Word of God bore fruit in the earth, nor was the earth yet condemned by any curse. For the beginnings of the newly-born world are more ancient than our sins; and the guilt is more recent, on account of which we were condemned to eat bread in the sweat of our brow, and not to know food without sweat.

46. The Seed Growing Secretly

Indeed, even today the fruitfulness of the earth works, by the use of its spontaneous fertility, its ancient abundance. For how many things are there which even now are produced spontaneously! But even in these very things which are sought by hand, the divine benefits remain to us in large measure, so that the grain itself is brought in while men rest. This the example of the reading before us teaches, the Lord saying: For the kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed upon the earth, and should sleep, he says, and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, while he knows it not. For the earth of itself brings forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full wheat in the ear. And when it has brought forth fruit, immediately he sends the sickle, because the harvest is at hand. Therefore, while you sleep, O man, and know it not, the earth of itself brings forth its fruits.

You sleep and you rise, and you marvel at the growth of the grain through the night.

47. The Creation of the Forests and Trees

We have spoken of the herb of the field, now let us speak of the fruitful tree bearing fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself. He spoke and they were made, and suddenly, as before with the flowers and the greenness of the herbs, so here the earth was clothed with woodlands. Trees rushed together, forests rose up, the summits of the mountains suddenly grew leafy. Here the pine, there the cypress lifted their tops on high, the cedars and the spruces came together. The fir also, not content with earthly roots and an airy summit, went forth also destined to endure safely the perils of the sea by oarage, and to contend not only with the winds but also with the waves. The laurel too, rising up, gave forth its fragrance, never to be stripped of its covering. The shadowy holm-oaks also put forth their crown, destined to keep their bristling foliage even in the winter seasons.

For nature has granted this privilege to each in perpetuity, which it received under the stroke of the rising world: and thence remains its own prerogative for the holm-oaks, remains for the cypresses, that no winds may despoil them of the honor of their foliage.

48. The Rose and the Thorn as a Mirror of Life

The rose had once arisen mingled with earthly flowers without thorns, and the most beautiful flower bloomed without any deceit: afterward the thorn hedged in the grace of the flower, presenting as it were a mirror of human life, which often pricks the sweetness of its enjoyment with neighboring stings of care. For the elegance of our life is fenced about, and hedged in by certain anxieties, so that sadness is joined to grace. Whence when each one congratulates himself either upon sweetness of reason or upon the successes of a more prosperous course, it is fitting that he remember the fault, through which, while we were flourishing in the pleasantness of paradise, thorns of the mind and briars of the soul were justly assigned to us by the sentence of condemnation.

Therefore, though you flourish, O man, either by the splendor of nobility, or the height of power, or the brilliance of virtue, the thorn is always near you, the briar is always there; always look upon your lower parts, you sprout upon thorns, nor does prolonged grace remain: in a short time each one, the flower of his age having run its course, withers.

49. The Vine and the Sweetness of Its Fruit

Indeed, that you may know that fading things are common to you with flowers, so also joyful things are common to you with vines, from which wine is produced, by which the heart of man is gladdened. And would that, O man, you might imitate the example of this kind, so that you yourself might bring forth for yourself gladness and pleasantness of fruit! In yourself is the sweetness of your grace, it sprouts from you, it remains in you, it is within you—that is, in yourself the pleasantness of your conscience is to be sought. Therefore it says: Drink water from your own vessels, and from the springs of your own wells. First of all, nothing is more pleasing than the scent of a flowering vine. Indeed, from the flower of the vines a juice, when pressed, produces a kind of drink, which is for both pleasure and health.

Then who would not marvel that from the seed-stone of a grape the vine bursts forth even to the topmost summit of a tree, which it cherishes as it were with a certain embrace, and binds with certain arms, and encircles with tendrils, clothes with foliage, crowns with garlands of grapes? Which, in imitation of our life, first fixes a living root, then, because its nature is flexible and fleeting, binds with certain arm-like tendrils whatever it lays hold of, and by these raises and lifts itself up.

50. The Vine as an Image of the Church

Like this is the people of the Church, which is planted as it were by a certain root of faith, and is held down by the propagation of humility, of which the Prophet finely says: You transplanted a vine out of Egypt, and planted its roots, and filled the land: its shadow covered the mountains, and its branches the cedars of God: you extended its branches even to the sea, and its shoots even to the river. And through Isaiah the Lord himself spoke, saying: A vineyard was made for the beloved on a horn, in a fruitful place: and I surrounded it with a wall, and dug about the vineyard of Sorech, and built a tower in the midst of it For he surrounded it as with a certain rampart of heavenly precepts, and the guardianship of angels. For the angel of the Lord will encamp round about those who fear him.

He placed in the Church, as it were, a tower of apostles and prophets and teachers, who are wont to stand forth for the peace of the Church. He dug about it when he relieved it of the mass of earthly cares. For nothing burdens the mind more than the anxiety of this world and the desire of either money or power. This is shown to you in the Gospel, when you read that that woman who had a spirit of infirmity was bent over so that she could not look upward. For her soul was bent, being inclined toward earthly gain, and did not see heavenly grace. Jesus looked upon her, and called her, and immediately the woman put down her earthly burdens. He shows that those also were burdened by these desires, to whom he said: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Therefore that soul of the woman, as though dug about, breathed again, and was raised up.

51. Charity Binds the Church Like a Vine

But the same vine, once it has been dug about, is bound and raised up, lest it bend back down to the ground. Some shoots are cut back, others are propagated: those that run riot in idle profusion are cut back, those which the good farmer judges fruitful are propagated. Why should I describe the rows of props, and the grace of the trellising, which truly and manifestly teach that equality is to be preserved in the Church, so that no one who is rich or honored exalts himself, no one poor is cast down, and no lowly person despairs? Let there be for all in the Church equal and one liberty, let common justice and grace be imparted to all.

Therefore the tower is in the midst, which may bring around an example from those rustics, from those fishermen, who deserved to hold the citadel of virtues: by whose examples let our own affection be raised up, and not lie base and despicable on the ground; but let the mind of each raise itself to higher things, so that it may dare to say: But our citizenship is in heaven. Whence, lest it might be bent back by any storms of the world, and carried off by tempest, it embraces with those tendrils and rings, as it were with embraces of charity, all its neighbors, and rests in union with them. Charity, therefore, is what binds us to higher things, and grafts us into heaven. For he who abides in charity, God abides in him. Whence the Lord also says: Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine; so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.

52. The Ripening of the Vine and the Church's Beauty

Clearly, therefore, he marked out the example of the vine as one to be summoned for the instruction of our life, which first, warmed by the mildness of spring, is said to bud: then to send forth fruit from the very joints of its shoots, from which the rising grape is formed, and, gradually growing, retains the bitterness of an immature birth, nor can it become sweet unless it is now ripe and cooked. Meanwhile the vine is clothed with greening foliage, by which it is fortified against cold and every injury with no small aid, and is defended from the heat of the sun. What indeed is more pleasing a spectacle, or sweeter in fruit, than to see the garlands hanging like certain jewels of the beautiful countryside, to gather grapes gleaming either with a golden or a purple color? You would think hyacinths and other gems were gleaming, that indigo stones were flashing, that the grace of white ones was sparkling.

And do you not notice, O man, that you are being warned by these things, lest the last day find your fruits unripe, or the works, unready, disgrace the time of full age? For unripe fruit is wont to be more bitter; nor can it be sweet, except what has grown to the maturity of perfection. For this perfect man neither the cold of gruesome death, nor the sun of iniquity is wont to harm; because spiritual grace overshadows him, and extinguishes all the fires of worldly desire and bodily lust, and wards off their burning.

Let all who behold you praise you, and let the ranks of the Church shine forth like certain garlands of branches: let each of the faithful behold the beautiful jewels of souls: let them delight in the maturity of prudence, the splendor of faith, the beauty of confession, the loveliness of justice, the abundance of mercy, so that it may be said to you: Your wife is like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house; because you imitate the overflow of a fruit-bearing vine, abundant with the gift of liberality.

53. The Cedar, Cypress, Palm, and Other Useful Trees

But why do I linger only on the vine, when all kinds of trees are useful, some born for fruit, others given for use? For even those whose fruit is not more abundant nevertheless have a more valuable use. The cedar is fit for hanging the ridges of roofs, because timber of this kind is both lofty in extent and not burdensome to walls. The cypress too is suitable for paneled ceilings and adorning gables. Whence the Church too says in the Song of Songs: The beams of our houses are of cedar, our ceilings of cypress; declaring that in these are the beautiful ornaments of her gable, those who, like beams, sustain by their virtue the summit of the Church, and adorn its pinnacle. The laurel and the palm are for the emblem of victory. With laurel the heads of victors are crowned, with palm the hand of the victorious is adorned. Whence also the Church says: I said, I will climb up into the palm tree, I will hold its heights.

She, seeing the eminence of the Word, and hoping that she may ascend to its height and the summit of knowledge, says: I will climb up into the palm tree; that she may leave all lower things behind, and press on to higher things, to the prize of Christ, so that she may pluck and taste his sweet fruits. For the fruit of virtue is sweet. The poplar also, a shade-giving tree with victorious crowns, and the pliant willow, suitable for binding vines, what else do they mystically declare, but that the bonds of Christ are good, which are not wont to harm—bonds of grace, bonds of charity—so that each one may glory in his own bonds, as Paul also gloried, saying: Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ? Bound by these bonds he said: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Bonds of abstinence, bonds of charity. Bound by these bonds David also says: On the willows, in the midst of it, we hung up our instruments.

The boxwood too is useful for the points of letters to be expressed, its light material shaping the exercise of a child's hand. Whence Scripture says: Write on boxwood. At the same time, this very material—which is always green, and is never stripped of its leaves—reminds you never to be stripped bare by dissembling your hope, but let the hope of salvation always sprout in you through faith.

54. The Diversity and Ages of Trees

Why should I enumerate how great is the variety of trees, how diverse and beautiful in each is the adornment, how spreading the beeches, how tall the firs, how leafy the pines, how shady the holm-oaks, how two-colored the poplars, how woodland and self-renewing the chestnut, which, as soon as it has been cut down, is accustomed to sprout up from itself as if into a whole forest; just as in the trees themselves either an aged or a youthful age is perceived; for in younger ones the branches are slighter, in older ones the arms are stronger and gnarled: in the former the leaves are smooth and spreading, in the latter more contracted and rough. There are also trees which, with an aged and dying root, do not know how to renew their succession, if perchance they are cut down: others, in which either youth is green or nature is more fertile, for which felling is more a gain than a loss, so that through many renewed successions their heirs are put forth.

55. The Distinction of Sex in Palms and Figs

There is also something you may marvel at, a sex in fruits themselves, a distinction of sex in trees. For you may see the palm which produces dates generally bending its branches and lowering them, and presenting a semblance of desire and embrace toward that tree which the boys of the countryfolk call the male palm. That palm, then, is female, and confesses its sex by the appearance of submission. Whence the cultivators of the region cast before its branches the seeds of dates or of male shoots, by which a certain sense, as it were, of consummation is infused into that female tree, and the grace of the desired union is represented. Endowed with this gift, it rises again, and lifts up its branches, and raises again its foliage to its former state. The same opinion holds for the fig tree as well.

And therefore many are said to graft, according to the domestic and fruit-bearing fig, the wild fig-tree, because the fruits of that fertile and domestic fig, being tender, are said to fall to the ground quickly, whether tested by some breeze or by heat. Whence those skilled in this remedy, by binding the unripe fruits of the wild tree to that fruitful tree, remedy its weakness; so that it may be able to retain its own fruits, which, if remedies were lacking, would soon fall.

By this we are admonished, as by a certain riddle of nature, not to shun those who are separated from our faith and fellowship; because a Gentile who has been won over, the more grievous a champion of error he was, the more vehement a defender of the faith he can become; and if any of the heretics is converted, he as it were confirms that party to which he has betaken himself with changed opinion, especially if he has something of straightforward nature, so that his judgment may be vigorous, if it is aided by the attentiveness of sobriety, the observance of chastity. Deepen, therefore, your zeal concerning him, so that, by the likeness of that fruitful fig tree, from the presence and conjunction of that wild tree, you may be able to strengthen your own virtue. For thus your purpose will not be dissolved, and the fruit of diligence and grace will be preserved.

56. Grafting and the Cure of Bitter Fruits

How many things there are, moreover, that teach that natural hardness can be tempered by the zeal of diligence, of which the cultivation of the countryside offers an example! For pomegranates very often flower quickly, and cannot bring forth fruit unless they are cultivated with the fitting remedies of skilled men: often the inner juice vanishes away, while its strong outward appearance is beautifully displayed. This is not without reason compared to the Church, as you have it said to the Church in the Canticle: Thy cheeks are as the rind of the pomegranate. And further on: If the vine hath flourished, the pomegranates have flourished. For the Church displays the good radiance of faith and confession, beautiful with the blood of so many martyrs, and, what is more, endowed with the blood of Christ; and at the same time preserves within herself very many fruits under one enclosure by the use of that fruit, embracing many undertakings of virtues. For the wise man conceals matters in his spirit.

Farmers are also said to cure almond trees by this method, so that from bitter ones sweet fruits are produced: they bore through the root of the tree, and insert into the middle of it a graft of that tree which the Greeks call πεύκη, and we call the pitch-pine; by this means the bitterness of the sap is removed. Therefore if agriculture can change the qualities of plants, cannot the pursuits of learning and the attention of discipline mitigate whatever sicknesses of the passions? Let no one, then, set in the slippery path either of youth or of intemperance, despair of his own conversion. Wood is often turned to better uses—and cannot the hearts of men be changed?

57. The Medicinal Properties of Fruits

We have shown that not only among trees of different kinds are there differences of fruits, but that often within the same species of trees the fruits are opposed to one another. For there is one kind of male fruit and another of female, as we said above concerning dates. But who could comprehend the variety, the appearance and the charm of fruits, the usefulness of each fruit and the property of their juices, which seem suited to each particular purpose—how, for instance, more bitter fruits provide medicine for men's sick internal organs, and temper inward bloating and roughness, while conversely the harshness of humors is tempered by the sweetness of fruits? Indeed that medicine is the older, which was accustomed to heal by herbs and juices; nor is there any health more solid than that which is restored by wholesome nourishment. Hence we are taught, according to nature, that food alone is medicine for us. Certainly by herbs open wounds are closed, by herbs internal ailments are cured.

And therefore it is the physician's task to know the powers of herbs. From this the practice of healing took root.

58. Fruits Bared to the Sun and Fruits Enclosed

But that we may turn our pen back to simple fruits: some are ripened by the sun, others are enclosed and filled up within shells or husks. Apples and pears, and all kinds of grapes, are laid bare and exposed to the sun; but the nut and the kernel-fruit, and its inner kernel too, is covered both by shell and husk, yet it too is nourished and fed by the heat of the sun; and the more the kernel is hidden in the density of the pine-cone, the more it is nourished by the sun's heat.

59. The Protective Covering of Tender Fruit

How great, then, is the providence of the Lord, that where the fruit is more tender, there the thickness of the leaf provides a stronger covering to protect the fruit, as we see in the fruit of the fig tree. Thus the more delicate things must be fortified by stronger ones, as the Lord himself also teaches through Jeremiah, saying: As these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Juda, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for their good; and I will set my eyes upon them for good. For as though delicate, he has fenced them about, as it were, with a stronger covering of his own mercy, lest the tender fruit should perish too soon in its ripening. Then, of these same, he says further on: My delicate ones have walked rough ways. To whom he further says: Be of good courage, my children, and cry unto God. For this alone is the inviolable covering, the impenetrable defense, against all storms and injuries.

Therefore where the fruit is tender, there the covering is thicker and the defense of leaves stronger. On the other hand, where the fruits are stronger, there the leaves are more tender, as the apple tree teaches. For the stronger fruit does not need much aid of protection; indeed the very shade of a thicker protection could do more harm than good to the fruit.

60. The Design of the Vine Leaf and Fig Leaf

Let the vine-leaf, then, teach us the grace of nature, and the inner mysteries of divine wisdom. For we see it so cut and divided that it seems to display the appearance of three leaves: its middle part is so distinct that, were it not attached to the lower parts, it would appear separate to those beholding it. This arrangement seems to have been kept by nature, so that it may more easily admit the sun, and yet provide shade. Indeed, the middle part of it is stretched out more elongated, and tapers off at its very tip, so that it displays more beauty than covering. For it seems to fashion the likeness of a victor's prize, signifying that the grape holds the primacy among the other hanging fruits, to which, by a certain silent judgment of nature, but by an evident token, the appearance and privilege of victory is joined.

It has, then, its own prize with it, whereby it is both furnished with protection against the injuries of the air and likewise the violence of rains, and yet no hindrance is offered to the reception of the sun's heat, by which, warmed, it is nourished, colored, and increased. The leaf of the fig tree also, nearly like the vine-leaf, is divided by a fourfold cleavage: which appears more clearly, the larger the leaf is—though not in the same way as the vine-leaf, whether along its whole edge or its curling tip. For as in the fig leaf the thickness is stronger, so in the vine-leaf the form is more elegant. The thickness of the leaf, then, serves to repel the injury of storms, while the division serves for the grace of allowing the fruit to breathe. Hence this kind of fruit does not readily feel hail, but quickly comes to ripeness; because it seems both hidden against injuries and open to grace.

61. The Diversity of Leaves

Why should I describe the diversities of leaves—how some are round, others longer, some flexible, others stiffer, some not easily falling with any winds, others shaken down by the slight motion of the breezes?

62. Water's Changing Colors, Temperature, and Taste

It is inexplicable to wish to examine the properties of each single thing, and either to distinguish their diversities by clear testimony, or to reveal their hidden and concealed causes by unfailing evidence. There is but one and the same water, and yet it changes itself often into different appearances: now yellow among the sands, now foaming among the rocks, now greener among the groves, now variously colored among the flowering plants, now more radiant among the lilies, now more ruddy among the roses, now clearer in the grass, now more turbid in the marsh, now more transparent in the spring, now darker in the sea—it flows on, taking on the color of the places through which it passes. It likewise changes its temperature in the same way, so that among steaming places it grows hot, among shady places it grows cold, struck by the sun it burns, watered by snows it grows pale with icy moisture.

And how is its very taste itself transformed, so that now it is more sharp, now more bitter, now more strong, now more harsh, now sweeter, varying according to the quality of the substances into which it has been infused? It becomes sharp with unripe juices, from the crushed shell of the nut and crushed leaves it becomes more bitter than wormwood, stronger than wine, harsher than garlic: it becomes heavy with poison, sweet with honey. But if mastic, or the fruit of the terebinth, or the inner part of the nut, be mixed into it, it is easily transformed into the soft nature of oil. Since it is the nurse of all shrubs, it ministers different uses to each. Whether it waters the roots, or falls poured down from the clouds, it gives distinct powers to all: it strengthens the root, advances the trunk, spreads the branches, makes the leaves grow green, nourishes the seeds of fruits, and is accustomed to increase the fruit.

Therefore, though it is the same nurse of all, some kinds of trees bear harsher juices, others sweeter, some slow, others premature. They also differ among themselves in sweetness. One sweetness is in the vine, another in the olive, another in cherries, another in the fig, one distinct in the apple, another different in the date.

63. The Tears of Trees and the Origin of Amber

The very touch of water is in one place smooth, in another rougher, and often thicker. It differs also frequently in weight as in appearance. For in many places it is judged heavier, in many lighter. It is no wonder, then, if, since water differs even within itself, the tears of trees also differ among themselves, though generated by the flowing of the same water. And though there is one cause of all, the use of each is different, and their nature is different. The tear of the cherry tree has one power, that of the mastic-tree another. The fragrant trees of the East are said to sweat a differing drop of balsam: and different kinds of tears the shrubs of fennel-giant weep in Egypt and Libya by a certain more hidden force of nature. But why should I mention to you—though the account be mild—that amber is the tear of a shrub, and that the tear hardens into the solidity of so great a substance?

Nor is this supported by trifling testimonies, since leaves, or the tiniest bits of twigs, or certain small kinds of creatures are often found within amber, which it seems to have received while the drop was still soft, and to have held fast once solidified.

64. Solomon's Wisdom and the Limits of Discourse

But why do I decide, with a mean discourse, matters of the deep and precious reasoning of nature, since this discourse is nourished by human wit, while divine providence has formed the nature of all things? Whence the diffuseness of words must be restrained, as it were, by certain reins; lest, in what by the special gift of wisdom seems to have been divinely conferred upon Solomon, we should seem to usurp the exposition of the differences of trees and the powers of roots, and whatever things are hidden and unforeseen, as it is written, which even he did not himself declare openly; so that it seems to me that he was able to discuss the kinds of shrubs, yet not able to explain more fully all the reasons of every creature.

65. The Creator's Provision of Food for Man and Beast

But if by the watering of waters crops are often more luxuriant, and beans greener, and the manifold beauty of gardens is stirred up and stirred up again, if the bank of overflowing rivers is adorned by verdant beds—how, at the word of the Lord, which is more overflowing than the whole course of waters, did every creature of shrubs suddenly burst into bloom? The fields hastened to bring forth a crop not entrusted to them, unknown kinds of garden herbs, to sprout miracles of flowers; the banks of rivers clothed themselves with myrtle-groves: the trees hastened to rise up quickly, quickly to clothe themselves in flower, to furnish food for men, pasture for cattle. The fruit is common to all, and its use likewise is given to all. Together the trees put forth both, one thing whereby we might be fed, another whereby we might be defended by cooling shade from the sun.

Food is in the fruit, the enjoyment of pleasantness is in the leaf; yet because the providence of the Creator foreknew that human greed would especially claim the fruit for itself, he made provision for the remaining animals, that he might grant them a special nourishment of their own. Thus their food is not slight, being in the leaves and in the wild barks; and also whatever things would serve for the purpose of eating—that is, juices, tears, twigs—were likewise ministered to them. So then, those things which we have come to know as useful afterward by experiment, use, and example, the Creator from the beginning, by the majesty of his foreknowledge, granted them for whatever use was fitting, and commanded them to come forth from the bosom of the earth.

66. Willows and the Hidden Power of Seed

And because the Lord commanded that the earth bring forth the herb of grass, and the fruit-bearing tree, making fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself (lest perhaps someone should say that in many trees neither fruit nor seed appears, and should think that the divine precept somehow falters, so as to fall short of truth), let him observe this: that it can in no way happen that all growing things do not either make use of seeds, or possess something which appears to correspond with the power of seeds; and if anyone attends to this diligently, he will be able to grasp it by clear testimony. Willows seem to have no seed at all; yet they have in their leaves a certain grain which has the power of seed, so that, when it is committed to the earth, as though sown, a tree rises up from the shoot, and, as it were, rouses itself into being from seed.

From that grain, then, the root first coalesces: from the root springs up not only the willow, but also the whole forest of trees of similar kind to it. But even the generation from the root has the power of seed; whence many, by that method of planting, have propagated the increase of their memory.

67. The Power of God in the Locust and the Fruitful Earth

Great is the power of God in each single thing. Nor let anyone marvel if I have said that great power of God is in shrubs. For he said that his great power was also in the locusts and in the bruchus, in that by this great governance the sterility and want of the Jews for the offense against divine majesty was resolved. For patience is a great power, providence is a great power. For they were unworthy who should enjoy the fruitfulness of the earth, they who had wronged the Creator of the earth. And truly great is he who avenges by a wretched famine the wickedness of so great an impiety. Therefore if by the great power of God the earth brought forth the barren bruchus, how much more by great power does it bring forth what is fruitful!

68. The Symmetry of the Pine Cone

Who, seeing the pine-cone, would not be amazed at so great a skill implanted and impressed upon nature by divine precept: how, though the measurements from the same center differ, it rises with equal adhesion, whereby it fosters its own fruits? So throughout the whole circuit the same pattern and order is kept, and in each section there abounds a certain birth of kernels, and the fruit and its grace returns full circle. So in that pine-cone nature seems to express an image of herself, who keeps the privileges received from that first divine and heavenly mandate, and reports her offspring by a certain succession and order of years, until the consummation of time be fulfilled.

69. The Tamarisk as a Figure of Insincerity

But just as in this fruit she marks her own pleasing appearance, so too in the tamarisks—that is, humble shrubs—she has expressed a figure of wicked cunning. For just as men of double heart are everywhere ready at hand, presenting grace and simplicity before good men, while they cling to the most vicious: so also these shrubs are born by a certain contrary usage both in watery places and in deserts. Hence Jeremiah also compared the doubtful and insincere in morals to tamarisks.

70. The Earth's Obedience and Man's Ingratitude

Let the earth, He says, put forth green herb, and immediately, with every seed rising up, the earth was filled. And to man it is said: Love the Lord your God, and yet the love of God has not been infused into the inmost parts of all. The hearts of men are deafer than the hardness of rocks. The earth ministers to us fruits it does not owe, while it obeys its Author: we deny the tribute we owe, while we do not venerate our Author.

71. The Evergreen Palm as a Model of Steadfast Virtue

See in small things what the providence of God is, and since you cannot comprehend it, marvel how He has kept some things always flowering, while He has willed others to undergo the changes of stripping bare and of clothing anew. Amid the whiteness of snows, the frosts of cold, the fields preserve their greenness: and even when they themselves are covered with frost, they still cover over their offspring with no small beauty of verdure. Even among the very kinds of trees that are clothed with lasting foliage, there is no small difference. The olive, or the pine, keeps its covering always, yet nonetheless they often change their leaves; nor do they display these leaves as though lasting forever, but as though succeeding one another, for the beauty of their tree, casting shade in place of the gift of an unbroken covering. But the palm remains ever green through the preservation and continuance, not the diminishing, of its leaves. For whatever leaves it first put forth, it keeps them without any succession of replacement.

Imitate her, then, O man, so that it may be said of you too: Your stature has become like the palm tree. Preserve the greenness of your childhood, and of that natural innocence which you received from the beginning, so that, planted beside the courses of the waters, you may have your fruit prepared in its season, and your leaf may not fall away. This greenness of grace, ever flourishing in Christ, the Church, following it, speaks of: In his shadow I desired and sat down. This prerogative of the flourishing gift the Apostles too received, whose leaf could never fall away, so that even their shadow healed the sick. For faith of mind and the flourishing merits of virtues overshadow the infirmities of the body.

Abide, then, planted in the house of the Lord, that you may flourish like the palm in his courts, and that the grace of the Church may rise up in you, and that the scent of your nostrils may be like apples, and your throat like the best wine, so that you may be made drunk in Christ.

72. Noah, the Vine, and the Right Use of Wine

This little verse has rightly reminded us to take up again what was almost interrupted, since we said that at the command of the Lord the vine also had sprouted, which we afterward learn was planted by Noah after the flood. For so you have it, that Noah was a tiller of the earth, and planted a vine, and drank of its wine, and fell asleep. Noah, then, is not the author of the vine, but of its planting. For he could not have planted it unless he had found it already existing. He is, therefore, the cultivator, not the author, of the vines. But God, who knew that wine drunk soberly gives health and increases prudence, but taken immoderately provides occasions for vice, gave the created thing, and reserved abundance to human judgment; so that the sparingness of nature might be a teacher of sobriety, while the human condition might ascribe to itself the harm and downfall of excess and drunkenness. Accordingly, Noah himself also became drunk, and fell asleep overcome by wine.

Thus, through wine, he who had grown to glory through the flood was exposed to disgrace: but the Lord, even in this, preserved the grace of His creature, so that He might turn its fruit to our salvation, and that through it remission of sins might come to us. Whence Isaac piously said: The smell of Jacob is as the smell of a full field, that is, a natural smell. For what is sweeter than a full countryside? What more pleasant than the scent of the vine? What more agreeable than the flower of the bean? Whence, although someone before us has cleverly said: The Patriarch smelled not of vine, or fig, or grain, but breathed forth the grace of virtues; I, nevertheless, will take even the simple and sincere scent of the earth itself as a token of blessing’s grace, which no deceit composed, but which the truth of heavenly kindness poured in.

Indeed, it is counted among the most sacred blessings, that the Lord grant us from the dew of heaven the strength of wine, oil, and grain: to whom be honor, praise, and glory, perpetuity from all ages, both now and always, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.

(Sermon VI).

He who gathers the vintage is accustomed first to cleanse the vessels into which the wine is poured, lest some dross discolor the grace of the wine. For what profit is there in setting the vine in rows, digging every year, drawing furrows with the plough, pruning, propping, joining it to elms, and coupling it as in a kind of marriage, if, after so much labor, the wine so sought after should turn sour in the vessel? So too, if anyone desires to gaze upon the morning risings of the sun, he cleanses his eyes, lest any dust, any refuse, settle upon his eyes, whereby the gaze of the beholder might be dulled; nor let any cloudy mist cover over the bodily sight of the one who looks. For us in reading a sun must arise, which before was not. We have already passed the first day without sun: we have passed the second without sun: we have finished the third without sun: on the fourth day God commands that lights be made, sun, moon, and stars.

The sun begins—cleanse the eyes of your mind, O man, and the inner gaze of your soul, lest some mote of sin blunt the edge of your understanding, and disturb the vision of a pure heart. Cleanse your ear, that you may receive, as in a clean vessel, the bright streams of divine Scripture, lest any contagion enter in. The sun goes forth with great splendor filling the day, filling the world with great light, exhaling heat. Beware, O man, of weighing only its greatness, lest its excessive brightness blind the sight of your mind: just as one who looks directly into its ray, with the light reflected back, suddenly loses all sight; and unless he turns his face and eyes to other quarters, he thinks he sees nothing, and that he has been deprived of the office of seeing: but if he turns his gaze aside, the office remains whole to him. Beware, then, lest its rising ray confound your sight also.

And therefore look first at the firmament of heaven, which was made before the sun: look at the earth, which began to be visible and set in order before the sun came forth: look at its sprouting growths, earlier than the light of the sun. The locust is earlier than the sun, the grass older than the moon. Do not, then, believe to be God that whose gifts you see surpassed by the gifts of God. Three days have passed, and no one sought the sun, and the brightness of light abounded. For day too has its own light, which is the forerunner of the sun. Do not, then, rashly commit yourself to so great a splendor of the sun. For it is the eye of the world, the delight of the day, the beauty of the heaven, the grace of nature, the excellence of creation.

2. The Sun Compared to the Sun of Righteousness

But when you see this sun, consider its Author: when you marvel at it, first praise its Creator. If this sun, a fellow-partaker and sharer of creation, is so gracious, how good is that Sun of righteousness! If this one is so swift, that with rapid courses in day and night it traverses all things, how great is He who is everywhere always, and fills all things by His majesty? If he is admirable who is bidden to go forth, how far beyond admiration is He who speaks to the sun, and it rises not, as we read? If he is great who, through the changing of hours, either approaches or withdraws daily from places, what manner of being is He who, even when He emptied Himself so that we could see Him, was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world? If he is most excellent who often suffers eclipse from the earth's interposition, of how great majesty is He who says: Yet once more I will shake the earth?

The earth hides that one; the movement of this One cannot be sustained unless it is upheld by the substance of His will. If it is a loss to the blind man not to see the grace of this sun, how much greater a loss is it for the sinner, defrauded of the gift of the true light, to endure the darkness of perpetual night?

3. The Earth's Fruitfulness Before the Sun

Therefore when you see the sun, attend to the earth, which was founded first: attend to the herb of the field, which excels by privilege of order: attend to the trees, which take joy that they began to exist before the lights of heaven. Are the merits of hay greater, then, than those of the sun? Or is the prerogative of wood more potent? Far be it that we should prefer things sensible to the minister of so great a gift. What, then, did the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God foresee, that trees should begin to exist before those two lights of the world, and, as it were, the heavenly eyes of the firmament; except that all might know, by the testimony of the divine reading, that the earth can be fruitful without the sun? For that which was able, without the sun, to bring forth the first seeds of things, is surely able to nourish seeds received, and by its own warmth, without the heat of the sun, to bring forth its offspring.

4. Nature's Praise of the Sun as Fellow Servant

By this voice, as it were, of its own gifts, nature cries out: Good, indeed, is the sun, but by ministry, not by rule: a good helper of my fruitfulness, but not its creator: a good nourisher of my fruits, but not their author. Sometimes it even scorches my offspring: often it is harmful even to me, and in many places it leaves me undowered. I am not ungrateful to my fellow servant; he was given to me for my use, he is bound to labor together with me, he is subjected together with me to vanity, together with me made subject to the servitude of corruption. He groans together with me, he travails together with me, that the adoption of sons may come, and the redemption of the human race, whereby we too may be freed from servitude. Standing beside me, he praises the Author, together with me he sings a hymn to the Lord our God. Where his grace is greater, there he shares a common fellowship with me. Where the sun blesses, there the earth blesses.

Fruit-bearing trees bless, cattle bless, birds bless together with me. Placed at sea, the sailor accuses him, but longs for me: on the mountains the shepherd avoids him, and hastens to my sprouts, to my trees, under which, sweltering, he may find shade, and to my springs, thirsty and weary, he runs.

5. The Son's Creation of the Sun and the Ornament of the Heavens

But lest the testimony of the eyes seem too slight to you, cleanse the ear, and bring it near to the heavenly oracles. For by two and three witnesses every word stands firm. Hear Him saying: Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven for the lighting of the earth. Who says this? God says it. And to whom does He say it, if not to the Son? God the Father, then, says: Let there be a sun; and the Son made the sun. For it was fitting that the Sun of Righteousness should make the sun of the world. He, then, brought it into light, He illumined it, He gave it the power of pouring forth light. The sun, then, was made; and therefore it, too, serves, since it is said: You have founded the earth, and it abides: by your ordinance the day abides, for all things serve you. For indeed, since day serves, how does the sun not serve, which was made to have power over the day?

How do the moon and stars not serve, which were made to have power over the night? For indeed, the greater the grace the Creator bestowed on these—that the air should shine more brightly than usual with the sun's brightness, that the day should shine more serenely, that the darkness of night should be lit up by the brilliance of moon and stars, that the heaven, as though crowned with certain flowers, should gleam with fiery lights, so that you might think it painted as with a springtime paradise, glowing with the living necklaces of breathing roses—the greater, then, the beauty seen to be conferred upon these, the more they ought to owe. For to whom more is entrusted, he owes more. And therefore rightly by many the heaven has been called an ornament, in that it is the precious necklace of the stars.

6. Fruitfulness Ascribed to God, Not to the Sun

And that we may know that the fertility of the lands is not to be ascribed to the heat of the sun, but is attributed to divine kindness, the Prophet says: All things wait upon you, that you may give them food in due season: when you give it to them, they will gather it for themselves; when you open your hand, all things will be filled with goodness. And below: Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. And in the Gospel: Consider the birds of heaven, for they neither sow nor reap, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Not the sun, then, nor the moon, are the authors of fruitfulness; but God the Father, through the Lord Jesus, bestows on all the bounty of fruitfulness.

7. The Moon as a Figure of the Church

Now the Prophet has beautifully explained to us what he means when he says: For God made the sun to have dominion over the day and the moon to have dominion over the night. For also in that hundred and third psalm of which we spoke above, he wrote: He made the moon for seasons, the sun knows its going down. For when the day begins to complete its hours, the sun recognizes its appointed setting.

The sun, then, has dominion over the day, and the moon has dominion over the night, which is compelled to obey the changes of the seasons, and is now filled with light, and now emptied of it: although very many seem to take this passage mystically of Christ and the Church; namely, that Christ acknowledged the passion of his own body, who said: Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that by that setting of his he might grant eternal life to all who were pressed by the setting of perpetual death; and that the Church has her own seasons, namely of persecution and of peace. For she seems, like the moon, to wane, but she does not wane. She can be overshadowed, she cannot fail; because by the withdrawal of some in persecutions she is diminished, that she may be filled up by the confessions of the martyrs, and, made bright by the victories of blood poured out for Christ, she may pour forth over the whole world a greater light of her devotion and faith.

For the moon suffers a diminishing of its light, not of its body, when through the monthly changes it seems to lay aside its light, that it may borrow it again from the sun; which can easily be gathered when the air is pure and clear, when no covering cloud makes it dim. For the orb of the moon remains whole, even though it does not appear wholly so, so that only a part of it shines forth. And such as it is wont to appear when full of light, such is it in magnitude: but through a certain shadow it appears bereft of its light. And thence its horns shine forth; because its body is spread out into a circle, and, as it were, is suggested by the light of a diminishing portion.

8. The Difference Between Daylight and Sunlight

Now what he says may raise a question: Let there be lights for the illumination of the earth, to distinguish between day and night. For also above already, where he made light, he had said: God separated the light from the darkness, and there was evening, and there was morning, one day. But let us consider that the light of day is one thing, and the light of the sun and moon and the light of the stars another, since the sun itself, by its rays, seems to add brightness to the light of day, which the rising or the setting of the day can reveal. For before the sun the day shines, indeed, but does not shine fully; because it grows more resplendent still with the sun at noon. This the Prophet shows, saying: And he will bring forth thy justice as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. For he compared the justice of the saint not only to light, but even to noonday light.

9. The Burning Bush and the Two Powers of Fire

Next, he willed there to be not one sign only but two, of the distinction of day and night; so that both the light and the rising of the sun make the distinction; and again, the failing of light and the rising of the stars mark the boundary between the setting of the day and the beginning of night. For when the sun has set, still some remnant of the day remains, until darkness covers the earth: and then the moon rises, and the stars. And concerning the night indeed it is clearly evident, since the illumination of the moon and the stars attests the spaces of the night. For by day the rising of the sun hides that brightness of the moon and of all the stars. But concerning the day, the very heat of the sun itself can teach us that the nature of the light of day and of the sun is different, and that the appearance itself is of a different color. For the appearance of light is simple, so that it merely gives light.

But the sun has not only the power of illuminating but also of giving off heat; for it is fiery. Now fire both illuminates and burns. Whence the Lord, wishing to show Moses the miracle of his working, by which he might rouse Moses to zeal for obedience and inflame his affection to faith, appeared in fire in the bush, and the bush was not burnt, but only seemed to shine with the appearance of fire. One office of fire, therefore, was idle, the other was at work. The power of burning was idle, the power of illuminating was at work. Hence Moses was amazed, because contrary to its nature the fire did not burn the bush, which is wont to burn even more solid material. But the fire of the Lord is accustomed to illuminate, not to burn.

10. Fire That Illuminates the Just and Burns the Wicked

But perhaps you may say: How is it written: I am a consuming fire? You have raised a good point. It is not accustomed to consume, except sins alone. In the recompense also of deserts we gather that the nature of fire is divided; so that it illuminates some, burns others, illuminates the just, burns the impious. It does not burn the same ones whom it illuminates, and those whom it burns it does not illuminate: but its illumination is inextinguishable for the enjoyment of the good, its burning is fierce for the punishment of sinners.

11. Night as the Shadow of the Earth

But let us return to the distinction of day and night. When the light of day rises, night is put to flight; when day departs, night is poured in. For there is no fellowship between light and darkness; since by natural law the Lord established this in his first work. For indeed when he made light, he also made the distinction between light and darkness. Finally, in the very day, when the sun has already been poured over the lands, we see the shadow either of a man or of some shrub separated from the light, so that in the morning it is directed toward the west, in the evening it is turned back toward the east, at the noon hours it inclines toward the north: yet it is not confused or mingled with the light, but yields and retreats. Likewise night also seems to yield to day, and to withdraw itself from its light; for it is, as those more skilled who have gone before us either in age or in office have shown, the shadow of the earth.

For naturally shadow clings to and is joined to a body, so much so that even painters strive to express the shadows of the bodies which they have painted, and assert that it is a mark of art not to omit the force of nature; and one whose painting does not also express its shadow is held, as it were, a transgressor of natural law. Therefore, just as in the day, when some body meets the region of the sun, on that side from which the light is reflected back, a shadow stands; so when, as the day departs, the interposition of the earth meets the region of that light or of the sun, the air is overshadowed. Whence it is clear that the shadow of the earth makes the night.

12. Lights Appointed for Signs and Seasons

He made, therefore, the sun and the moon and the stars, and appointed to them measures of times, to the sun the measures of the day, to the moon and the stars those of the night; that the one may increase the grace of the day, and those may illuminate the shadow and darkness. And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years. The sun and the moon, along with the stars, have divided seasons and equal measures according to the changes of the months, and they are for signs. We cannot deny that certain signs are gathered from the sun and moon; for the Lord also said: And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars. And when the Apostles asked for a sign of his coming, he answered: The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven.

These he said would be signs of the future consummation: but a fitting measure ought to be kept for our concern.

13. Against the Claim That Character Is Fixed by Birth

Finally, some have attempted to express the qualities of nativities, what sort of person each one born shall turn out to be; whereas this is not only vain but also useless for those who inquire, and impossible for those who promise it. For what is so useless as for each one to persuade himself that he is what he was born to be? No one, then, ought to change his life, condition, and character and strive to become better, but should remain in that persuasion. Nor can you praise the upright man, nor condemn the wicked one, who seems merely to answer to the necessity of his nativity. And how has the Lord set forth rewards for the good, or punishments for the wicked, if necessity constitutes discipline, and the course of the stars shapes conduct? And what else is this than to strip man of man, if nothing is left to character, nothing to upbringing, nothing to pursuits? How many do we see, snatched from crimes and sins, converted to a better state!

The Apostles were redeemed and gathered from among sinners: not, surely, by the hour of their nativity, but the coming of Christ sanctified them, and the hour of the Lord's passion redeemed them from death. The condemned thief, he who was crucified with the Lord, passed over to the eternal things of paradise not by the benefit of his nativity, but by the confession of faith. It was not the force of his nativity but the offense of a disregarded divine command that cast Jonah down into the sea, and the same whale, receiving him, vomited him up after three days as a sign of the future mystery, and preserved him by the merit of prophetic grace. It was Christ's angel, not the succession of the stars, who freed Peter from prison when death was imminent. Blindness converted Paul to grace, and it was not the remedies of his nativity but the merits of his devotion that preserved him when struck by a viper and troubled by shipwreck.

What shall we say of those who, at their prayers, when they had died, rose again? Did their own nativity or apostolic grace raise them up? What need was there for them to commit themselves to fastings and dangers, if they could arrive wherever they wished by the benefit of their nativity? But if they had believed this, while awaiting the necessity of fates, they would never have arrived at so great a grace. Useless, therefore, is this persuasion.

14. The Impossibility of Precise Nativities

What of the fact that it is also impossible? For, to take up something of their argument, for the sake of refutation, not of proof, they say that a great force belongs to nativity, and that it ought to be gathered from certain minute and precise moments: and unless it is more precisely gathered, there is the greatest divergence; for by a brief atom, by the smallest moment, the nativity of the poor man and the powerful, of the needy and the rich, of the innocent and the guilty, differs; and often at the same hour is generated one destined for long life, and one who is to die in the first age of childhood, if the rest are unequal and distinguished by some point. Let them answer how they can gather this. Suppose the delivery of a woman; the midwife certainly recognizes it first, she notes the cry, by which the life of the newborn is inferred, she pays attention whether it is male or female. How many moments do you suppose pass amid these delays?

Suppose the astrologer prepared. Can the man possibly be present at the birth? While the midwife gives her report, the Chaldean listens, sets up the horoscope; already into another's lot have the fates of the newly born migrated, concerning one it is inquired, and another's nativity is proposed. Suppose their opinion about the necessities of nativities to be true, the calculation cannot be true. Points pass, irreparable time flees. There is no doubt that time exists in an atom and in the twinkling of an eye. I am led to believe, since we shall all be raised in an atom, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, as the Apostle affirms, saying: Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall all indeed rise again; but we shall not all be changed, in an atom, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed.

Between the pouring forth, and the receiving, and the laying down of the infant, between its crying and the announcement, how many atoms have passed! And this though I have woven these things simply. For they themselves also divide that vital circuit of the twelve signs into twelve parts: and because in thirty days the sun traverses back the twelfth part of that sphere which is held to be inexpressible, so that the circuit of the sun may be completed by the circle of the year, they distribute it into thirty small portions, which the Greeks call μοῖραι, one for each of the twelve portions; and they further divide that small portion into sixty parts. Again they cut each of those sixty into sixty. How incomprehensible it is, that they should establish the moments of nativity at the sixtieth part of a sixtieth small portion, and what the motion or the appearance of each of the individual signs may be at the nativity of the one being born!

Whence, since it is impossible to comprehend such subtle minutiae of time, and a slight alteration brings in error affecting the whole, the entire business is full of vanity. Their disputants do not know their own affairs, how do they know those of others? They are ignorant of what threatens themselves, how can they announce to others what is to come for them? It is ridiculous to believe it, since, if they could, they would rather provide for themselves.

15. Absurdities in Reading Character from the Zodiac

Now how absurd this is, that if anyone should say he was born under the sign of the Ram, he should be judged most excellent in counsel from the customary nature of the beast, because in a flock that animal is preeminent: or wealthier, because the ram has a natural clothing, and each year gains the profit of a garment, and thereby to that man the accumulations of gain should seem familiar! Similarly they argue also concerning the signs of the Bull and of the Fish; so that from the nature of base animals they think the motions of heaven and the powers of the signs are to be interpreted. Our food, then, has established for us the decrees of living, and our nourishments—that is, the Ram, the Bull, and the Fish—imprint upon us the discipline of character. How then do they seek from heaven for us the causes of things and the substance of this life, when they attribute to the very heavenly signs themselves the causes of their motion from the qualities of base food?

They say that one born under the sign of the Ram is generous, because the ram does not unwillingly lay down its wool: and they prefer to attribute such a quality of a base animal to nature, rather than to heaven, whence also serenity shines upon us, and rain often descends. They say those are laborious and patient of servitude, upon whose birth the Bull has looked, because that laborious animal, accustomed to the yoke, submits its neck to voluntary servitude. They say also that one is a striker, whose nativity the Scorpion has embraced in its part, and one who vomits forth the venoms of war, because that animal is venomous. Why then do you put forward the authority for living from the dignity of the heavenly signs, and take up as an argument of your assertion certain trifles?

For if such properties of character, taken from animals, are imprinted upon the motions of heaven, then heaven itself appears to be subject to the power of a bestial nature, from which it has received the causes of vital substance which it would impart to men. But if this is far from the truth, much more ridiculous is it that they, destitute of the support of truth, should seek from this source the credibility of their argument.

16. The Erratic Motion of the Planets

Then let us consider this, that they call those signs "planets," by whose motions they assert the necessities of our life are formed. Whether, then, as the name implies, they always wander: or, as they themselves say, because they are carried in swift motion, and ten thousand times a day, or if this seems incredible, they change their manifold appearance by their innumerable revolution; it is unbelievable that by such a wandering error and such swift motion they should determine for us a fixed and immovable substance and lot of living. Yet they say that not all have equal motions, but that the circuits of some are swifter, of others slower; so that in the same hour they are frequently seen and frequently hidden, while one is passed by another.

17. Against Blaming the Stars for Human Guilt

They say, moreover, that it matters very much whether at the birth of one begotten they see beneficent signs or maleficent and harmful ones; and that in this lies the difference of nativity, that the aspect of a beneficent sign confers very much, while that of a maleficent and harmful one does very much harm. For thus they are accustomed to call the same signs which they venerate. I am obliged to use their names, since I use their assertions, lest they say their arguments are misunderstood rather than emptied and destroyed. Therefore, since they cannot grasp that wandering and swift motion, it often happens that, through that incomprehensible subtlety of a point and moment, they place the aspect of a beneficent sign where a grave and harmful collision occurs. And what wonder is it if men are deceived there, where innocent signs are blasphemed? For if these are believed to be harmful by nature, then the Most High God is accused, if He made what is evil, and was the author of wickedness.

But if they are thought to have assumed of their own will what harms the innocent and those not yet conscious to themselves of any grievous crime, upon whom punishment is inscribed before guilt; what is so irrational, exceeding even the savagery of irrational beasts, that the practice of fraud or favor should be attributed not to the merits of men, but referred to the motions of the signs? "He has done nothing wrong," they say, "but a harmful star looked upon him. The star of Saturn met him: he turned aside a little, and took away the misfortune from himself, and absolved the crime."

18. The Astrologers' Web and the Question of Royal Birth

But this wisdom of theirs is compared to a spider's web, into which if a gnat or a fly should fall, it cannot free itself: but if any kind of stronger animals should happen to strike against it, it passes through, and breaks the weak nets, and scatters the empty snares. Such are the nets of the Chaldeans, that in them the weak stick fast, but the stronger cannot feel any injury. Therefore you who are stronger, when you see the astrologers, say: "They have woven a spider's web, which can have neither use nor binding power, unless you, like a gnat or a fly, fall into it through the slip of your own weakness: but like a sparrow or a dove you may, by the swiftness of a soaring flight, dissolve the weak snares." For what wise man would believe that the motions of the signs, which change often within a day, and recur in themselves in manifold ways, confer the marks of powers?

For if it were so, how many royal nativities would be marked out in a day? Kings, then, would be born daily, and royal succession would not be transmitted to sons: but always from a different condition would those arise who would acquire the right of imperial power. Who then gathers the horoscope of a king's son, if empire is owed to him, and does not rather assign the succession of the kingdom to his own descendants by his own choice? We read indeed that Abia begot Asa, and Asa begot Josaphat, and Josaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Ozias; and all the rest of the succession, equally of race and of honor, was carried through the kings down to the captivity. Was it because they were kings that they could command their motions to be shaped by the heavenly signs? For what man can have dominion over these things?

19. Against Fatalism: Law, Labor, and Moral Responsibility

Then if our actions and deeds are referred to the necessity of birth, and not to the institutions of morals, why have laws been set forth, why have statutes also been promulgated, by which either punishment is decreed for the wicked, or security is granted to the innocent? Why is pardon not given to the guilty, since indeed, as they themselves say, they have sinned not by their own will, but from necessity? Why does the farmer labor, and not rather wait to find unlaboured fruits by the privilege of his nativity stored in the receptacles of his barns?

If he was born so that riches should flow to him without labor, let him surely wait for the earth to bring forth of itself spontaneous returns without any seed; let him not press the plowshare into the fields, not put his hand to the curved sickle, not undergo the expense of gathering the vintage, but let wines pour forth of their own accord into all his vats, let oil sweat forth of itself with no wild olive grafted upon stocks; nor, about to cross the danger of the open sea, let the merchant, anxious for his own safety, shudder, to whom, idle, the treasure of riches can, as they say, fall by some natal lot. But this is not the opinion of all. Indeed the tireless farmer cleaves the earth with a deep-set plow, plows naked, sows naked, threshes naked in the sun's burning heat on the threshing floor the grain parched by the blaze: and the merchant, impatient of the blowing east winds, plows the sea, for the most part, in an unsafe vessel.

Whence the prophet, condemning their importunity and rashness, says: "Blush, Sidon; the sea has spoken", that is, if dangers do not move you, let shame at least restrain you, let modesty confound you. "Blush, Sidon," in which there is no place for virtue, no care for safety, no youth devoted to the watches of the fatherland in war, and trained in arms, but all anxiety is for gain, all zeal for trade. "The seed of merchants," he says, "is like the harvest". But what reward is there for a Christian man, if he arranges his cares and works not from will, but from necessity? For where necessity is decreed, there industry is unhonored.

As at midday, where no shadow is seen, where the days are longer, because for them the Sun of Justice lingers longer, as in summer months. Indeed the day of the Lord is not short, but great; because it is written: "Until the great day of the Lord shall come". Whence also Jacob says: "All the days of my life which I have lived are few and evil". For dubious light is evil. Therefore short days are of doubtful light, and shadowy: great days are without shadow, as many have learned by experience and example in certain more torrid regions. The Synagogue, therefore, in the short and evil days, whose type Jacob often expresses in his own person, or that of his people, had a very great shadow, since it did not see the Sun of Justice, and saw him not from on high above its head, but illuminating it from the south, when it was winter for it.

But to the Church it is said: "The winter is past, is gone; flowers have appeared in the land, the time of harvest has come". Before the coming of Christ it was winter; after the coming of Christ there are the flowers of spring, and the harvest of summer. From the south, then, and from the conversion of the Gentiles, seeing him illuminating, it is overshadowed. But the people of the Gentiles, which was of confusion, the Gentiles who sat in darkness, saw a great light; those who sat in the region of the shadow of death, light has arisen for them. Great is the light of divinity, which no shadow of death interrupts. And therefore he illuminates from on high, because this too is written, as Zacharias says: "In which the Dayspring from on high has visited us: to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death". There is indeed also a certain shadow of salvation, not of death, as that: "Protect me under the shadow of thy wings".

A shadow indeed, because it is of the body: a shadow, because of the cross, but a shadow of salvation; because in it was the remission of sins, and the resurrection of the dead.

23. How Shadows Vary by Season and Region

We can, then, take an example; because the winter days are short, but have longer shadows: the summer days are longer, but have shorter shadows. At midday too the shadow is shorter than it is either at the beginning or at the end of the day: and this in our region, in the part of the West. But there are those who, in the southern regions, are without shadow for two days of the whole year, because, having the sun over their very vertex, they are illuminated on every side round about, whence in Greek they are called ἄσκιοι. Many also relate that the sun comes so directly from above in that region, that through the narrow shafts of wells they have seen the water which is in the depths shining back. There are also said to be, in the meridian regions, those called ἀμφίσκιοι, because they cast a shadow on either side.

For the shadow is behind those who walk in the direction of the sun; as, for instance, if you go toward the East, in the morning hours; if you proceed toward the southern region, at midday; if toward the West, at the setting of the day. From three directions, then, the sun comes to meet you: from the East, from the South, from the West. In the morning and evening it is behind you, at midday also it is at the side: but from the North the sun is never; and therefore the shadow, if you face toward the North, whether morning, evening, or midday, cannot be behind you. For only those are so situated, in this world which we inhabit, around the South, who are seen to cast their shadow toward the southern region. This is said to happen at the height of summer's heat, when the sun turns toward the North.

Afterward, autumn receiving us, indeed breaks the greatness of the summer heats: but with the heat gradually relaxed and laid aside, through the temperance of a middle moderation, it delivers us without deceit or any harm to the winter blasts.

24. The Sun, Moon, and the Reckoning of Years

"Let them be," he says, "also for days"—not that they should make the days, but that they should have primacy in them, so that the sun should illuminate the rising of the day with richer grace, so that throughout the whole day it might have, by the gift of its course, the power of marking it out. Thus some understand what the prophet says: "The sun for power over the day, the moon and stars for power over the night". For they carry about light. The sun and moon are also ordained for years: the moon completing its course through three hundred days in twelve turns, completes a year, according to the Hebrews, with some days added; according to the Romans, with the addition of one day, celebrated twice within six years, once within a five-year period. There is also the solstitial year, when the sun, having completed its circuit through all the signs, returns to that point from which it took the beginning of its course.

For its course over the whole space is said to be completed yearly.

25. The Equal Greatness of Sun and Moon

Therefore God made these two great luminaries. We can understand them to be great not so much by comparison with others, as by their own office, as the heaven is great, and the sea is great. For the sun is great, which fills the whole circuit of the earth with its heat, and the moon likewise with its light, not only the lands, but also this air and the sea, and the face of the sky. Wherever they may be in any part of the heaven, they illuminate all things, and are looked upon equally by all; so that individual peoples might believe them to linger, as it were, only in their own regions, and to be present and to shine for them alone; whereas they shine equally upon all, so that no one thinks another nearer to them than he himself is. A clear proof of their greatness is that the same disc of the moon appears to all men of the world.

For although its light is sometimes increased and diminished, yet on the same night, such as it appears to me, such it appears to all; for if it seemed smaller to those far away, it would shine larger to those placed nearer, and would betray a mark of narrowness and smallness. For indeed we judge other things placed far away to be smaller, and looking at them from closer we believe them larger; the nearer you are, the more the magnitude of the thing you behold is increased for you. The sun's ray is nearer to no one, farther from no one; likewise the moon's globe is equal to all. The sun appears the same to Indians and to Britons at the same moment when it rises. Nor when it sinks toward setting does it appear smaller to those in the East than to those in the West; nor to those in the West, when it rises, is it reckoned lower than to those in the East. "How far," it says, "is the East from the West"?

These are distant from each other: but the sun is distant from none, nearer to none, farther from none.

26. Optical Illusion and the True Size of the Sun

Nor let it move you that the disc of the sun seems to you as it were a cubit wide when it rises: but consider how great is the space between the sun and the earth, which the weakness of our sight cannot traverse without great loss of itself. Our sight grows dim—does the sun grow dim, or the moon? Our gaze is narrow—does it therefore make narrower the things that are seen? The appearance is diminished, the magnitude is not detracted. For we ought not to ascribe the sufferings of our own infirmity to the suffering of the luminaries. Our sight lies; do not, therefore, deem its judgment trustworthy. The figure of the heavenly spectacle becomes smaller, not its actual form. If from the summit of mountains you wish to look upon the plain lying beneath your eyes, and there the herds grazing, will you not judge their bodies to be like ants?

If you look upon the sea from some watch-tower on the shore, do not the greatest of ships among the blue-green waves, with their gleaming sails, seem to you, viewed from afar, to present the likeness of flying doves? What of the islands themselves that divide the sea, that cut apart the fields of the lands—within how narrow a bound are they reckoned to be enclosed? How do things that are rough appear round, and things that are dense appear sparse? Weigh, then, these weaknesses of your sight; and summon a just judge of the things we affirm from within yourself.

27. The Sun's Brightness Compared to the Stars

If you wish to estimate the greatness of the sun not only with the eye of the mind, but also with that of the body, consider how great the globes of the stars appear to interweave the axis of heaven, and to mark it with countless lights; yet they are not able to wipe away the darkness of night, and the clouds of heaven. As soon as the sun has sent forth the signs of its rising, all the fires of the stars vanish beneath the brightness of that one luminary, the air opens, and the face of the sky is suffused with a purple-red glow. While the beginning is still breathing forth, and already, with a momentary swiftness, the splendor of full light gleams, and the sweet breath of dawn precedes the rising sun. Tell me, I ask, unless its disc were great, how could it illuminate the great circuit of the earth?

28. The Sun's Tempered Heat and the Earth's Fertility

But what shall I say of so great a temperance and moderation of the Creator, who assigned such a measure to the office of the sun; that neither its fiery vapor, as it seems, poured into the veins, juices, and forms of the earth, should burn them up, nor again, being cooled through such great spaces of the world, should implant no seed of heat in the earth, but, leaving it barren and destitute of fruits, should give off no vapor for any grace of fertility?

29. The Moon, Dew, and the Waxing and Waning of Nature

Similar things agree concerning the moon's reckoning, which we have recorded concerning its consort and brother. Since it clothes itself in the same ministry as its brother; that it may illuminate darkness, foster seeds, increase fruits. It has also many things distinct from its brother; as that whatever moisture the heat has dried from the earth throughout the whole day, the dew restores in a short space of the night; for the moon itself is also affirmed to be generous with dew. Indeed, when the night is more serene, and the moon shines all night, then a more abundant dew is reported to bedew the fields. And many who rest under the open sky have felt that, the more they were under the light of the moon, the more moisture they gathered upon their heads. Whence also in the Song of Songs Christ says to the Church: "For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of night" (Song of Songs 5:2).

Then again it is diminished and increased, so that it is smaller when it rises anew; and when it has been diminished, it is again heaped up. In which there is a great mystery. For the elements sympathize with its waning; and with its waxing, things that had been emptied out are heaped up, as the brain of living creatures, and the moist things of the sea. Since fuller oysters are reported to be found, and many other things, when the moon's globe waxes. Of the inner parts of trees, too, they who have found this out by their own experience allege the same thing. We see, then, that its rising and its waning belong to reason, not to weakness. For it would never produce so great a change in things, unless it possessed an excellent power and grace bestowed by the Creator.

30. The Moon's Influence on Tides and Weather

Some also, even learned and Christian men, have alleged that the air is wont to be changed at the rising of the moon: but if this change from the moon came about by some violence, at every one of its risings the sky would be woven over with clouds, and rains would be poured forth. Indeed, when some days ago there was talk of rain, which was said to be likely to come, someone said: "Behold, the new moon will give it." And though we were eager for rains, yet I was unwilling that assertions of this kind should be true. And indeed I was pleased that no rain was poured forth, until, given in answer to the prayers of the Church, it made manifest that it is not from the beginnings of the moon that it is to be hoped for, but from the providence and mercy of the Creator.

Indeed the Euripi, though they overflow on all sides according to the other phases of the moon, and pour back the tides they have received, or are even themselves borne along with great force; nevertheless at its rising they stand still and calm, so long as the moon is without light. But when the advance of days has uncovered it, then they return again to their ebbing courses. The ebb-tide also, which is said to occur in the Ocean, though on other days it is said to keep its own order, at the rising of the moon is reported to give a clear sign of its own change; so that the western sea itself, in which the ebb-tide is observed, advances and recedes more than usual, and is carried with a greater surge, as though drawn backward by certain breathings of the moon, and again, driven forward and drawn back by the same, is poured back into its own proper measure.

31. The Moon's Waning as a Lesson in Constancy

Whence if you marvel how the moon suffers eclipse, since it has so great a power of change belonging to it; consider that in this too there is a great mystery, that by its example you may know, O man, that there can be nothing among human affairs and among all worldly creation which is not at some time dissolved.

For if even the moon, to which the Lord has entrusted so great a ministry, that it should illuminate the circuit of the earth, both waxes and wanes—for all things that have arisen from nothing and have come to perfection wane again once perfected, for heaven and earth shall pass away—why do we not take up this measure of moderation, that we neither cast down our spirit in adversities (for he who made all things out of nothing is easily able to bring you too to the highest and most perfect state); and again that we not be puffed up in prosperous things, nor boast in any power or riches, nor glory in bodily strength or beauty, in which there is easy corruption, frequent change, but pursue rather that grace of soul which abides for the future.

For if the setting of the moon, which always restores and reshapes itself, saddens you, much more ought it to sadden you if a soul, when it has been filled with the progress of virtue, afterward, through inconstancy of mind and carelessness, turned aside from its purpose, often changes its pursuits, which is a mark of unwisdom and ignorance. Whence Scripture also says: "The fool is changed like the moon". And therefore the wise man is not changed with the moon; but will remain with the sun. Whence the moon is not a partaker of foolishness; because it is not the moon that is changed like the fool, but the fool that is changed like the moon. Indeed, the seed of the just, like the moon, remains perfect forever, and is a faithful witness in heaven. For it is one thing to fulfill a ministry, another to be carried about in disposition, and through weakness of feeling to have no fixed judgment. The moon labors for you, and is made subject on account of the will of God.

For the creature was made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but on account of him who subjected it in hope. That one, therefore, is changed not of its own will: you are changed of your own will. That one groans together and travails together in its change: you do not understand, and often rejoice. That one often awaits your redemption, that it may be freed from the common servitude of the whole creation: you bring hindrance both to your own redemption and to that one's liberty. It is your folly, then, not its own, that while you are awaited, and do not turn even late, that one still continues to be changed.

32. The Moon as a Type of the Church

Do not, then, judge the moon with the eye of your body, but with the liveliness of your mind. The moon is diminished, that it may fill the elements. This is truly a great mystery. He who gave grace to all bestowed this upon it. He who also emptied himself, that he might fill all, emptied it, that it might fill. For he emptied himself that he might descend to us: he descended to us that he might ascend for all. "For he ascended," it says, "above all the heavens, that he might fill all things". And so he who had come, emptied, filled the apostles from his own fullness. Whence one of them says: "For of his fullness we have all received". Therefore the moon has announced the mystery of Christ. Not mean is that in which he has set his sign: not mean is that which holds the type of the beloved Church, which the Prophet signifies, saying: "In his days shall justice arise, and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away".

And in the Song of Songs the Lord says of his bride: "Who is this that looks forth as the dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun"? And rightly is the Church beautiful as the moon, which has shone forth over the whole world, and, illuminating the darkness of this age, says: "The night is past, and the day is at hand". Well does it say, "Looking forth," as one looking down from above upon her own, as you have it: "The Lord looked forth from heaven upon the sons of men". The Church, then, looking forth, like the moon has frequent wanings and risings: but by her wanings she has grown, and by these has deserved to be enlarged, while she is diminished by persecutions, and crowned by the martyrdoms of confessors. This is the true moon, which borrows for herself the light of immortality and grace from the perpetual light of her brother.

For the Church shines not with her own light, but with Christ's; and draws her splendor to herself from the sun of justice, so that she may say: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me". Truly blessed are you who have deserved so great a distinction! Whence I would call you blessed not for your new moons, but for the type of the Church. For in the former you are a servant; in this you are beloved.

33. Against Magical Claims of Drawing Down the Moon

How ridiculous, moreover, is it that men mostly believe that you can be drawn down by magic songs! These are old wives' tales, and the opinions of the vulgar. For who would think that a work of God, appointed to so great a ministry, could be assailed by Chaldean superstitions? Let him have fallen, who transforms himself into an angel of light, and let him be led by his own will, not by the power of songs. Indeed, in this too, the Church, as it were, is thought able to be drawn from her place and station. Many make trial of the Church; but the songs of witch-craft cannot harm her. Enchanters avail nothing where the song of Christ is chanted daily. She has her own enchanter, the Lord Jesus, through whom she has emptied the songs of chanting magicians, and the poisons of serpents: and she herself, like the serpent lifted up, devours the serpents of the Egyptians; though a deadly song be muttered against her, it is blunted at the name of Christ.

So Paul blinded Elymas the magician, not only by the weakness of his witch-craft, but even by the loss of his eyes. So Peter, when Simon sought the high places of heaven by magic flight, dissolved the power of his songs, and cast him down and laid him low.

34. In Defense of the Fourth Day and the Number Four

Beautifully, as I think, the fourth day has turned out. How then do most people habitually shun the fourth number, and think it useless to begin anything with this number, by which the whole world flashed forth with new light? Did the sun begin under sinister auspices? And how can it signify good things for others, when it did not know how to choose the day of its own rising? Or how do they approve its signs, whose rising they do not approve? What too shall we say of the moon, which both began on the fourth day, and on the fourteenth marks the day of salvation? Shall the number be displeasing, by which the mystery of redemption is celebrated? For this reason the demons persuade that this number should be avoided, by which their own wickedness was destroyed. For this reason the pagans assert that nothing should be undertaken then; because they know that then for the first time their arts began to be idle, and the gentile peoples migrated to the Church.

Certainly they reckon that the moon on the fourth day, if it is pure and not blunted at the horns, gives an indication of fair weather for the remaining days until the month is complete. They do not wish, then, to begin with the same beginnings by which fair weather begins. But now we must take care lest the fourth day set for us in our discourse; for greater shadows fall from the mountains, the light diminishes, the shadow accumulates.

(Sermon VII.)

The earth, clothed with diverse sprouts, was green all over; the heaven too was shining, marked with the beauty of the sun and moon, twin lights of its countenance, and of the stars. There remained the third element, namely the sea; that it too might receive by divine gift the grace of vivification. For all the offspring of the earth are nourished by the ethereal spirit. The earth too, releasing its seeds, gives life to all things: and especially then, first commanded by the word of God to grow green, it was sprouting forth with the gift of its vivification. The water was idle, and seemed to be exempted from the benefit of the divine operation. The Creator still had something to confer on it, by which it might be made equal to the offices of the lands: he was reserving for it that it too might claim for itself something proper and special of the prerogative of a gift bestowed on it.

The earth was made to give life first, but to things which did not have a breathing soul. The water is bidden to produce things which would exhibit the vigor and dignity of a living soul, and would receive the sense of guarding their safety and fleeing death.

2. The Creation of Fish and the Abundance of the Waters

So God said, Let the waters bring forth reptiles having living souls according to their kind, and flying things flying above the earth according to the firmament of heaven. The command came, and suddenly the water, having received the order, poured forth into offspring: the rivers began to generate, the lakes to give life, the sea itself began to bring forth diverse kinds of reptiles, and to pour out according to kind whatever it had formed. No small pools, no muddy marshes were idle, but all took up the power of creating given to them. Fish leapt out from the river, dolphins played in the waves, shellfish clung to the rocks, oysters to the depths, sea-urchins grew. Woe is me! Before man began enticement, abundance of resources; the mother of our luxury. Before man, delights. The temptation of man came before his nature; but nature transgressed in nothing; it gave nourishments, it did not prescribe vices. It gave these things in common, lest you should claim any of them as your own.

For you the earth produces its fruits; for you the waters generate scarus fish and sturgeons, and all their offspring: and not content with these, you have tasted forbidden foods. All things are heaped up to your reproach, that the transgression of your greed might be burdened.

3. The Countless Kinds of Living Creatures

But we cannot even enumerate how many species and names there are, all of which were animated in a moment by the divine precept. At once the form of the body came together and the soul worked, and also the vital vigor of the rest of its power. The earth was filled with sprouts, the sea filled with living creatures. There the insensible things sprouted, here the sensible things move about. On the lands too the water claims its own portions for itself. The fish of the waters lick the land, and seek their prey from it. Gnats too and little frogs buzz around the marshes that beget them, and they too heard the Lord's command saying: Let the waters bring forth reptiles of living souls.

4. Creeping Creatures and Amphibious Kinds

We know that the kinds of serpents are called reptiles, because they creep upon the earth: but much more does everything that swims have either the appearance or the nature of creeping. For even if those that plunge themselves into the deep seem to cleave the water; yet when they swim upon it, they creep with their whole body, which they drag over, as it were, the backs of the waters. Whence David also says: This sea, great and wide, there are reptiles of which there is no number. Moreover, although many have feet and the use of walking, because they are amphibious, living either in waters or on lands, as are seals, crocodiles, river-horses, which they call hippopotami, because these are bred in the river Nile; yet when they are in the depth of the waters, they do not walk, but swim, nor do they use the tread of a foot for advancing, but as it were an oar for creeping. Just as a ship too, driven by oars, glides, and the keel furrows the waters.

5. The Word That Creates Both Whale and Frog

Let the waters bring forth reptiles, said the Lord. A brief word, but forceful, and widely extending, it infused a common nature into the smallest and the greatest. In the same moment the whale is produced as the frog is born, by the same power of operation. God does not labor over the greatest things, nor does he disdain the smallest. Nor did nature in travail suffer pain in bringing forth dolphins, just as she did not suffer pain when producing the tiny murex and snails. Consider, O man, how many more things are in the sea than on the lands. Number, if you can, all the kinds of fish, whether tiny or even very great, cuttlefish, octopuses, lithostracans, crayfish, crabs, and among these the innumerable of their own kind. What shall I say of the kinds of serpents, dragons, morays, eels? Nor shall I omit scorpions, frogs, tortoises, weasels also and sea-dogs, sea-calves, huge whales, dolphins, seals, sea-lions.

Why should I weave in too blackbirds, thrushes, peacocks as well, whose colors we see also expressed in the birds, as blackbirds are black, peacocks are painted with varied color on back and neck, thrushes are variegated on the belly, and the rest, which have claimed for themselves the appearance and names proper to land? For these began first in the sea and in various rivers. Since indeed the water first, at the divine command, produced the reptiles of living souls.

6. Creatures Fearsome on Land, Harmless in Water

Add this grace too, that the things we fear on land we love in the waters. For things noxious on land are harmless in the water, and the serpents themselves are without venom. The lion, terrible on land, is sweet in the waves. The moray, which they say has something noxious, is a more precious dish. The frog, dreadful in the marshes, is comely in the waters, and surpasses almost all foods. If anyone wishes to learn more, let him ask the fishermen of various places; for no one can comprehend everything. Beware indeed also of dogs in the sea, which the Apostle teaches are troublesome and to be avoided also in the Church, saying: Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers. The weasel's odor is heavy on land, sweet in the waters. The land-weasel knows how to avenge itself by its stench: this one, caught, has no less grace than free.

Nor will I dismiss you unhonored by my discourse, grayling, whose name grew from a flower; whether the wave of the river Ticinus, or the wave of the pleasant Athesis nourished you, you are a flower. In short, there is more telling testimony, that of one who exhales pleasant sweetness it was wittily said: He smells either of fish or of a flower; so it was declared that the same odor is fish that is flower. What is more graceful than your appearance? What more delightful than your sweetness? What more fragrant than your odor? What honey exhales, this you breathe from your body. What shall I say of the tenderness of ravens, what too of wolves? These wolves the lamb knows not to fear. So great is the grace of the waters, whose sea-calves even lions flee, that to these that prophetic saying about the holiness of the Church rightly applies: Then wolves and lambs shall feed together, the lion and the ox shall eat straw together.

Nor is it strange, since even in the Church the waters accomplish this, that the wickedness of robbers being washed away, they are put on a level with the innocent. Why too should I mention the purples, which adorn the banquets of kings, which imbue garments? It is of the waters, therefore, what is adored in kings: of the waters is that appearance which shines. Add the sea-pigs, welcome even to the Jews; because nothing is common which the water does not wash, and therefore they cannot reckon them common as they do those bred on land.

7. The Maternal Care of Fish for Their Young

Innumerable therefore are the uses, innumerable the kinds of fish. Some generate eggs, as the larger varieties which they call trout, and commit them to the waters to be hatched. The water therefore gives life and creates, and still to this day carries out the office of that first command as though of a perpetual law, a certain gentle mother of living creatures. Others bring forth living offspring from their own body, as weasel-fish, and dog-fish, and huge whales, dolphins, and seals, and other things of this kind. When these have brought forth their young, if by chance they have sensed some plot or terror stirring around their pups, in order to protect them, or to suppress with maternal affection the fright of their tender age, they are said to open their mouths, and suspend their offspring on a harmless tooth, and to take them back into their own body, and to hide them, carried in their genital womb. What human affection could imitate this piety of fishes?

Kisses are enough for us: for them it is not enough to open their entrails, and to receive back and recall their young whole, and again to animate them with a certain warmth of their own heat, and nourish them with breath, and for two to live in one body; until either they bring them safety, or defend their offspring from dangers by exposing their own body. Who, seeing these things, even if he could resist, would not yield to such great piety of fishes? Who would not marvel and be astonished, that nature preserves in fish what she does not preserve in men? Many mothers, out of suspicion, with stepmotherly hatreds, have killed the children they bore; others, as we read, in famine have eaten their own offspring. For human offspring the mother has become a tomb; for the offspring of fish the parent's womb is like a wall, preserving its pledges unharmed by a kind of rampart of internal organs.

8. How Fish Eggs Are Hatched by the Water

Different kinds of fish, therefore, have different uses: some generate eggs, others bring forth young alive and already formed. And those that generate eggs do not weave nests as birds do, do not undertake the labor of prolonged incubation, do not nourish with the trouble of themselves. The egg has fallen, which the water, like a gentle nurse, has received in a certain bosom of its own nature, and by a swift warming has rendered it an animal. For as soon as the egg, animated by the touch of the parent, has fallen, the fish has come forth.

9. The Purity of Fish Breeding Contrasted with Human Vice

Then further, how pure and inviolate is the succession! No one mingles with another, but with its own kind, grayling with grayling, wolf-fish with wolf-fish. The scorpion-fish too preserves the chastity of an unstained union with its own kind. So it has the modesty of its own kind, but it does not have the venom of its own kind; for the scorpion-fish does not strike, but restores. The kinds of fish, therefore, know nothing of the adulterous contagions of foreign races, such as are those unions of the kinds of asses and mares among themselves, which are brought about by great effort of men: or again when a horse mates with a she-ass, which are true adulteries of nature. For surely that which is committed to the pollution of nature is greater than that which is done to the injury of a person. And you, man, procure these things, an interpreter of the adultery of beasts of burden; and do you think that animal more precious which is adulterine, than that which is genuine?

You yourself confound foreign kinds, and mix diverse seeds, and often force unwilling creatures to forbidden matings, and this you call skill! Because you cannot do this with men, so that a mixture of diverse kinds might produce offspring, you take from man what he was born as, and strip a man of manhood, and, the part of the body cut off, deny him his sex, you make him a eunuch; so that what nature denied among men, audacity might fulfill.

10. Water as the Life-Breath of Fish

How good a mother the water is, consider also from this. You, O man, have taught the disowning of fathers by sons, separations, hatreds, offenses; learn what the bond of parent and offspring is. Fish cannot live without water, nor be separated from the fellowship of their parent, nor be parted from the office of their nurse: and this happens by a certain nature, that being separated they die immediately. For they do not, like all other things, live by the breath of this air, because the nature of drawing and returning breath is not available to them; otherwise they could not always live under the waters, not receiving the infusion of air. What air is to us, water is to them. As breath supplies to us, so water supplies to them the substance of life: we, with the passage of breath cut off, since we cannot be without vital breath even for a brief space, are extinguished at once: fish too, taken out of the water, cannot remain alive without their substance.

11. How Fish Breathe Through Their Gills

And the cause is plain, because in us the lung, through the more spacious inner chambers of the chest, receives the breath; and since it is itself penetrable by very many pores, it cools the inner heat by the infusion of breath. For as the chest receives food, so it separates the superfluous parts of foods and the wholesome juices and the blood. The lung becomes permeable, whereby the drawing-in of breath can more easily reach it. But fish have gills, which they now fold and draw together, now unfold and open. Therefore in this drawing-together and opening, while water is taken in and passed through and penetrates, they seem to fulfill the office of respiration. Fish, therefore, have a nature of their own, not shared with the rest; a special mode of use, and a manner of living separated and set apart from the rest.

For this reason they are not nourished by, nor, like land animals, do they delight in the touch and caress of the human hand; even if kept alive in their fish-ponds, they remain so.

12. The Density and Sharpness of Fish Teeth

But what shall I say of the density of their teeth? For they do not have teeth on one side only, as the ox or the sheep does: but both jaws are armed with teeth; because they are in water, and if they turned over their food for a long time, and did not swallow it quickly, the washing of the waters might carry off and dissolve the food from their teeth. Therefore they have teeth that are dense and sharp, so that they may cut quickly, quickly consume the food, and pass it through easily and without any delay or postponement.

Finally, they do not ruminate; yet the scarus alone among them is said to ruminate, as those report who either had the occasion, or the practice, or the zeal to observe such things.

13. The Prey and Predators Among Fish

Indeed, not even they themselves have escaped the violence of power among their own kind, and, subject everywhere to the greed of the stronger, they are everywhere the inferior party. The weaker each one is, the more it lies open to prey. And most of them indeed feed on plants and small worms. Yet there are some that devour one another in turn, and feed on their own flesh. Among them the lesser is food for the greater: again the greater itself is attacked by one stronger still, and becomes food for another, itself the predator of another's prey. So it happens that when one has devoured another, it is itself devoured by another, and both come together in one belly, the devoured together with its own devourer, and there is at once, in one and the same organ, a fellowship of prey and of vengeance. And perhaps this wrong grew upon them of its own accord, just as in us it did not begin from nature, but from greed.

Or else, because they were given for the use of man, they were also made into a sign, that in them we might see the vices of our own morals, and be warned by the examples; lest anyone stronger should attack one weaker, thereby giving to one more powerful than himself an example of injury. Thus he who injures another prepares a snare for himself, into which he himself may fall.

14. The Rich Man Compared to a Predatory Fish

And you, O man, are a fish, you who invade the vitals of others, who plunge down the weak, who pursue him as he yields, even into the depths. Beware lest, while you pursue him, you yourself fall upon one stronger, and he lead you into ambushes not your own, he who avoids your snares, and who beforehand watches for your calamity, he who, while you pursued him, feared for his own. What difference is there between the rich man who, with the insatiable greed of wicked desire, swallows up the patrimonies of the weak, and the shad whose belly is filled from the entrails of lesser fish? The rich man has died, and his spoils have profited him nothing—indeed the infamy of his plunder has made him more detestable still. The shad has been caught, and its useless prey has been exposed. How much is found in it, in the one that had devoured others? And you, rich man, carry in your bosom the plunderer of another.

He had the goods of the poor man which he had seized: you, crushing him, have added two patrimonies to your own wealth, and even now you are not satisfied with so great an increase; and you say that you have avenged others, while you commit the very things you claim to avenge, more unjust than the unjust, more iniquitous than the iniquitous, more greedy than the greedy. Take care lest the same end that found that fish find you too: beware the hook, beware the nets. But you presume upon your power, that no one can resist you: the shad too presumed that no one would cast a hook for it, no one would stretch nets, and that, if caught, it would break through everything; and yet it did not escape the trident, or it fell into the coils of a stronger bond, from which it could not free itself.

Without doubt the iniquity of men also, the more grievous the crimes it has committed, the less safe it will be able to remain because of its own wickedness; but at some time it will loose that which, as the price of its crimes, can hardly be avoided.

15. The Parable of the Net and Peter's Tribute Coin

You, therefore, O man, are a fish. Hear that you are a fish: The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, which gathered together of every kind of fish. When it was filled, they drew it up to the shore, and sitting down, they chose the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall go forth, and shall separate the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. There are, then, good and bad fish; the good are kept for a price, the bad are burned at once. The good fish neither the nets entangle, but lift up; nor does the hook kill and destroy it, but bathes it in the blood of a precious wound, in the confession of whose mouth a good price is found, by which the apostolic tribute and the tax of Christ may be paid.

For it is written thus, the Lord saying: The kings of the earth, from whom do they receive tribute or tax? From their own sons, or from strangers? And when Peter answered, From strangers, the Lord said: Go to the sea, and cast a hook, and take the fish that first comes up, and, opening its mouth, you will find there a stater; take it and give it to them for me and for you.

16. Peter's Nets and Stephen's Martyrdom

Do not, therefore, O good fish, fear the hook of Peter: it does not kill, but consecrates. Do not despise yourself as worthless, because you see a weak body: you have in your mouth what you may offer both for Peter and for Christ. Do not fear the nets of Peter, to whom Jesus says: Put out into the deep, and let down your nets. For he does not cast them to the left, but to the right, as he was bidden by Christ. Do not fear his bosom, for it was said to him: From now on you shall be one who gives life to men. Therefore he cast the nets, and embraced Stephen, who was the first to rise up out of the Gospel, having in his mouth the stater of justice. Whence, with steadfast confession, he cried out saying: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. For this fish the Lord Jesus stood; for he knew that in its mouth was the price of his tax.

In the end, by glorious martyrdom, this rich defender fulfilled both the judgment and teaching of Peter, and the grace of Christ.

17. Many Figures of the Gospel as a Sea

And let it not disturb you that I have set forth the Gospel in place of the sea. The Gospel is that in which Christ walked: the Gospel is that in which, though Peter faltered when he denied, yet through the right hand of Christ he found the safeguard of faith, the grace of a firm stand: the Gospel is that from which the martyr ascended: the Gospel is the sea in which the apostles fish, in which the net is cast, which is like the kingdom of heaven: the Gospel is the sea in which the mysteries of Christ are figured: the Gospel is the sea in which the Hebrew escaped, the Egyptian perished: the Gospel is the sea, because the Church is the bride of Christ, and the fullness of divine grace, which is founded upon the seas, as the Prophet said: He himself founded it upon the seas.

Leap up over the waves, O man, for you are a fish: let not the waves of this age overwhelm you: if there is a storm, seek the deep and the depths: if there is calm, play in the waves: if there is a gale, beware of the rocky shore, lest the raging tide dash you against the cliff. For it is written: Be as cunning as serpents.

18. The Viper and Moray as a Lesson on Marriage

And since an example of cunning serpents has been set forth, let us be cunning about seeking and keeping marriages, let us love the partnerships allotted to us. And if those who at their birth were separated by regions far distant from one another should come together; and if a husband should go abroad, let no distance, no absence lessen the affection once pleased. The same law binds together the present and the absent: the same bond of nature has constrained, between those who are far apart and those who dwell together, the rights of conjugal love: by the same yoke of blessing the necks of both are joined together, even if one endures the long separations of distant lands; because they have received the yoke of grace not on the neck of the body, but of the mind.

The viper, a most wicked kind of beast, and more cunning than all others of the serpent kind, when it has conceived the desire for mating, seeks out for itself the acquaintance of the sea moray eel, or arranges a new one; and, going forth to the shore, having by a hiss made known its presence, calls her to a conjugal embrace. And the moray eel, being invited, does not fail to come, and grants to the venomous serpent the desired offices of her union. What does a saying of this kind mean, except that the ways of spouses are to be borne with; and if he is absent, his presence is to be awaited, however rough, deceitful, uncouth, slippery, drunken he may be? What is worse than the poison which the moray does not shrink from in her mate? Called, she does not fail to come, and embraces the slipperiness of the serpent with dutiful affection. He bears your faults, and the fickleness proper to womanly frailty: can you not bear your husband, O woman?

Adam was deceived through Eve, not Eve through Adam (33, q. 5, c. Adam through Eve). Whom the woman called to fault, it is just that she should take as her governor; lest again through feminine frailty she fall. But he is rough and uncultivated. Once he pleased you. Must a husband be chosen over and over? Even the ox seeks its own yoke-fellow, and the horse loves its own; and if another be substituted, it still does not know how to draw the yoke with a different partner, and does not consider itself whole: you repudiate your own husband, and think he should often be exchanged; and if he is absent but one day, you bring in a rival, and at once, on an unknown cause treated as known, you carry out the injury of your shame.

The viper seeks the absent one, calls the absent one, and cries out with a coaxing hiss; and when she perceives her mate approaching, she vomits out her venom, showing reverence to her husband, made modest by the grace of wedlock: but you, woman, drive away with insults the husband arriving from afar. The viper looks out upon the sea, watches for the way of her mate: you block the way for your husband with injuries: you stir up the venom of quarrels, you do not cast it out: at the very time of conjugal embrace you seethe with dreadful poison; you feel no shame for your marriage, no reverence for your husband. 19. But you too, husband—for we may take it this way as well—lay aside the swelling of your heart, the harshness of your ways, when your attentive wife comes to meet you: drive away indignation, when your coaxing wife calls you to affection. You are not a lord, but a husband: you have received not a servant, but a wife.

God has willed you to be the governor of the weaker sex, not its tyrant. Repay her devotion with a like return, repay love with gratitude. The viper pours out its venom: can you not lay aside hardness of mind? But you have a natural harshness. You ought to temper it by consideration of your marriage, and to lay aside fierceness of soul out of reverence for your union. This too may be taken so. Do not seek, husbands, another's bed, do not lie in wait for another's union. Adultery is a grave thing, and a wrong against nature. God made two at the first, Adam and Eve, that is, man and wife—and the wife from the man, that is, from the rib of Adam; and he bade both to be in one body, and to live in one spirit. Why do you divide the one body, why do you split the one spirit? It is an adultery against nature.

This the moray eel and the viper teach, sought out in embrace not by right of kind, but by the heat of lust. Learn, O men, whoever seeks to defile another's wife, of what serpent's company he desires to make himself a partaker, to what serpent he himself is to be compared. He hastens to the viper, who pours herself into the bosom of a man not by the straight path of truth, but by the slippery way of illicit love. He hastens to her who takes back her own venom, as the viper is said, after the office of union is completed, to drink in again the venom she had vomited forth; for the adulteress is a viper. Whence Solomon also says that he who is drunk, since through wine lust is accustomed to boil, is stretched out as by the bite of a serpent, and poison is poured out upon him as by a horned viper.

And that you may know that he spoke of the adulteress, he added: Your eyes, when they have seen a strange woman, your mouth speaks perverse things.

20. Reconciling the Viper as an Example of Good and Evil

Let no one think that we have set forth contrary things, in that we have used this example of the viper both for good and for evil; since both may serve for instruction, if we are ashamed either not to show faith to our beloved, which the serpent shows, or, forsaking holy marriages, to prefer slippery and harmful things to wholesome ones, which is what he does who mingles himself with a serpent.

21. The Polyp's Camouflage and Human Deceit

And since we began to weave together our discourse concerning that cunning by which each one strives to circumvent and deceive his brother, and to contrive new frauds for himself; so that what he cannot obtain by force, he may cheat by guile, and overlay with a certain artful coloring: I will not pass over that fraudulent ingenuity of the polyp, which, having found a rock on a shallow shore, attaches itself to it, and takes on the color of its cloudy nature, and with its back covered in a similar appearance, catches in the snares of its stealthy craft a great many fish that glide up without any suspicion of deceit, while, not being on guard against what they know, they suppose it to be a rock, and it intercepts them in a kind of fold of its own flesh.

Thus the prey comes of its own accord, and is caught by such devices as those employed by men who often change their character and set in motion various arts of doing harm; that they may test the minds and feelings of individuals, when, placed among the continent, they preach continence, but in the company of the intemperate wander, as it were, from the pursuit of chastity, and sink into the haunts of intemperance; so that those who hear or see them may trust them with unwary readiness, and thereby fall the more quickly, since they know not how to avoid or beware of what will harm them, seeing that wickedness is more grievous and more injurious when it is veiled under a cloak of kindness. And therefore those are to be guarded against who spread the tendrils and arms of their fraud far and wide, or who put on a manifold appearance. For these too are polyps, having many coils, and the traces of crafty natures, by which they can entangle whatever falls upon the reefs of their deceit.

22. The Crab's Trick and the Virtue of Contentment

What tricks, too, does the crab devise for the sake of food! For it too delights in oysters, and seeks for itself a feast of their flesh. But since it is as eager for food as it is watchful of danger—for the hunt is both difficult and perilous: difficult, because the inner morsel is enclosed by very sturdy shells; for nature, the interpreter of the imperial command, has fortified the softness of the flesh as with a kind of wall, which it nourishes and cherishes in the hollow recess between the shells, spreading it out as though in a kind of valley; and therefore all the crab's attempts are vain, because it can by no force open the closed oyster: and it is dangerous, lest the oyster close upon its claw—it resorts to stratagems, and contrives an ambush by new deceit.

Accordingly, since every kind of creature is charmed by pleasure, it watches to see whether at some time, in remote places sheltered from every wind, facing the sun's rays, the oyster opens that two-leafed shell of its own and unlocks the bars of its shells, so as to take some pleasure of its inward flesh in the open air; and then, secretly inserting a pebble, it hinders the closing of the oyster; and thus, finding the bars open, it safely inserts its claws, and feeds upon the inward flesh. 23. There are, then, men who, after the manner of the crab, creep in for the purpose of circumventing another, and who, by a certain craft, prop up the weakness of their own virtue, weave deceit for their brother, and feed upon another's troubles. But do you be content with your own, and let not another's losses feed you. A good food is the innocence of simplicity.

He who has his own goods knows not how to lie in wait for another's, nor is he inflamed by the torches of avarice, for whom every gain is a loss to virtue, a conflagration to greed. And therefore blessed is poverty joined with truth, if it knows its own goods, and is to be preferred above all treasures; for better is a little given with the fear of God, than great treasures without fear. For how much is it that nourishes a man? Or if you seek what may also abound for others as a favor, that too is not much. For better is hospitality among vegetables joined with grace, than a preparation of fatted calves joined with discord. Let us, then, use our wit to seek favor and to guard our safety, not to circumvent another's innocence. We may use examples from the sea for the profit of our own salvation, not for the peril of another's.

24. The Sea Urchin as a Forecaster of Storms

The sea-urchin, a small creature, cheap and despicable—I speak of the marine one—is generally an indicator of a coming storm, or is wont to be a herald of calm to sailors. Accordingly, when it has sensed an approaching gale of winds, it seizes a heavy stone, and carries it as ballast, and drags it as an anchor, lest it be tossed about by the waves. Thus it does not balance itself by its own strength, but is governed by the weight of another's stability. By this sign the sailors take, as it were, a token of coming disturbance, and take precautions for themselves, lest an unforeseen storm find them unprepared. What mathematician, what astrologer, or what Chaldean can so grasp the courses of the stars, these movements and signs of the sky? By what skill did the urchin gather these things? By what teacher did it learn? Who was for it the interpreter of so great an augury?

Men often see a disturbance in the air, and are often deceived, because it frequently disperses without a storm. The urchin is not deceived; its signs never fail it.

25. God's Providence in the Instincts of Creatures

Whence has so small a creature such knowledge, that it foretells the future? The more that there is nothing in it by which it could have so great a foresight, believe that through the indulgence of the Lord of all things it also has received this gift of foreknowledge.

For if God so clothes the grass that we marvel; if He feeds the birds; if He has prepared food for the raven, for its young cry to the Lord; if He gave to women the wisdom of weaving; if He left not the spider, which so subtly and skillfully hangs its loose webs in doorways, without a share of wisdom; if He Himself gave strength to the horse, and loosed the dread from its neck, that it exults in the field, and meeting kings mocks them, scents the battle from afar, is roused by the sound of the trumpet; if He filled these mostly irrational things, and other insensible ones, such as grass and lilies, with the disposition of His wisdom, why do we doubt that He has also conferred upon the urchin the grace of this foreknowledge? For He has left nothing unexplored, nothing concealed. He who feeds all things sees all things: He who made all things in wisdom fills all things with wisdom, as it is written.

And therefore, if He has not left the urchin excluded from His visitation; if He regards it, and informs it by indications of things to come, does He not regard you? Nay rather, He does regard you, as His divine Wisdom testifies, saying: If He looks upon the birds, if He feeds them, are you not of more worth than they? If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, of little faith?

26. The Fixed Territories of Different Fish Species

Or shall we think that it is without some endowment of nature that this favor also remains for the fish, that each kind of fish has its own prescribed dwelling-places, which none of its own kind exceeds, nor does a stranger invade? What geometer has divided these dwellings for them, dwellings not to be broken through in any age? But we have heard of a geometer; a "thalassometer" we have never heard of; and yet the fish know their own measure, not one prescribed by the walls and gates of cities, not by the buildings of houses, not marked out by the boundaries of fields, but the measure of what is fitting; so that there be enough for each, as much as suffices for use, not as much as some unbridled greed may claim for itself. It is a certain law of nature to seek only as much as suffices for sustenance, and to reckon one's portion of inheritance only by the measure of nourishment.

This kind of fish is bred and born in that gulf of the sea, that kind in another. Indeed, you will not find the kinds of fish mixed together: but what abounds here is lacking elsewhere. And again, one gulf of the sea nourishes mullets, another nourishes bass; one nourishes rock-fish, another lobsters. There is no free power of wandering; and yet the abundance is neither shut in by mountains, nor is passage hindered by flowing rivers, but the practice impressed by nature causes each one to keep to itself as though within the bounds of its native land, and to regard going forth beyond its own inhabitants as suspect.

27. Human Greed Contrasted with the Restraint of Fish

But with us the disposition is far otherwise, to change our homes by exile, to be kept in disdain by our neighbors, to court the favor of strangers, to move the perpetual boundaries which our fathers set, to join field to field, house to house. Land is lacking for men, and even the seas are leveled. Again, at the whim of individuals the land is cut through, the sea is poured in, that they may make islands, that they may possess the straits: they claim for themselves stretches of the sea by right of ownership, and they speak of the rights of fish as being subjected to a servile condition, like that of home-born slaves. This gulf of the sea, one says, is mine, that one another's. The powerful divide the elements among themselves. For these men oysters are nourished in the waves; for these a fish is enclosed in a fishpond. The sea does not suffice for luxury unless they have storehouses of oysters.

So they count their ages, and prepare receptacles for the fish; lest the sea should not be able to fill the feasts of the rich man. For with what ears do men hear the name of "neighbor"! With what eyes do they look upon his possessions! How they scheme day and night to take away something from the one nearby! Shall you alone dwell upon the earth? Cries the prophet. The Lord knows these things, and reserves them for vengeance.

28. Whales Hidden in the Depths of the Ocean

How far removed is the rapacity of greed from the fish! They seek out the natural hidden places, and know the sea beyond the boundaries of the world, which no islands interrupt, nor does any land lie between, nor is any placed further beyond. There, then, where the sea, spread far and wide, shuts off all possibility of observation, and, for the sake of usefulness, all audacity of sailing, the whales are said to hide themselves—those immense kinds of fish, with bodies equal to mountains, as those who were able to see them have reported to us: there they pass a quiet age, kept apart from the islands, and having their own regions and dwelling-places assigned, separated from all contact with maritime cities. They remain within these, on undisturbed borders with their neighbors, nor do they seek changes of place by wandering movement; but, as it were, they love the soil as their native land, and think it sweet to abide in it.

And they have chosen these places for this very reason, that they might be able to pass a solitary life, removed from the interruption of onlookers.

29. The Seasonal Migration of Fish to the Euxine Sea

There are, however, certain kinds of fish which change their places not from any lightness of disposition, but from the necessity of nurturing their young; which, attending to this at the fitting and lawful time, from many places, and from different gulfs of the sea, gather in countless numbers, as though by common counsel, and, joined in a single company, make for the blowing of the North wind, and by a certain law of nature press on toward that sea of the northern regions. You would say, if you saw them ascending, that it was some kind of torrent, so do they rush forward, and cut through the waves, flowing with violent force through the Propontis into the Euxine sea. Who announces these places to the fish, who prescribes the times? Who grants them the arrangement of their journeying, the order of their companionship, the goals and times of their return? Men have their own commander, and look to him with respect.

Whose command is awaited, the watchword goes forth, edicts are proposed to the provincials that they may assemble, letters are directed to the tribunes of the soldiers, a day is appointed; and yet many are unable to arrive on the appointed days. What commander gave the fish their instructions? What teacher imparted to them this discipline? What surveyors lay out their routes? What guides direct their course, so that no one's meeting fails? But I recognize who that commander is, who by divine ordinance infuses His command into the senses of all things, who silently grants to dumb animals the order of natural discipline; nor does He penetrate great things only, but pours Himself through even the smallest of things. The fish obeys the divine law, and men contradict it! The fish faithfully obeys the heavenly commands, and men make void the precepts of God! Does it seem contemptible to you, because it is dumb, and devoid of reason?

But see that you do not rather begin to be contemptible to yourself, if you are found more irrational than the irrational creature. But what is more rational than this migration of the fish, whose reason indeed they do not explain in words, but declare by deeds? For they proceed in the summer season to the strait of Pontus, because in that gulf the water is sweeter than in the rest of the sea. For the sun does not linger over that strait as long as it does over the others, and this is the reason why it does not draw off all the water that is sweet and drinkable. Who indeed does not know that even those creatures which are of the sea generally delight in fresh waters? Indeed, while they follow the rivers, and ascend to the upper waters, fish of a foreign kind are frequently caught in the rivers.

Since, then, this reason makes the Pontus more agreeable to them—or because the regular blowing of the north wind there tempers the heat—they judge it more suitable than other places, in which to breed, and to nourish their own offspring, since the tender young could scarcely bear the hardship of a foreign region, whom there the gentle mildness of the air cherishes. And so, the task accomplished, they all return together in the same company by which they came.

30. Fish Migration Contrasted with Human Greed for Gain

Let us consider what this reason may be. The gulf of Pontus lies exposed to the most violent blasts of the north wind and of the other winds; whence a heavy storm rages there, and tempests are stirred up, so that sand is turned up from the deep: of which fact the sandy wave is proof, which, rising higher through the motion of the winds, then heavier with its own weight, is without doubt held to be intolerable not only to sailors but even to the creatures of the sea themselves.

To this is added the fact that very many and very great rivers mingle with the Pontus, since in the winter season the gulf itself, made colder by the inflow of torrents, grows stiff with cold; therefore the fish, as though arbiters of the currents, are accustomed in summer to seek there the mildness of the breathing breeze: and having enjoyed its pleasantness, they strive again to avoid the harshness of winter; and fleeing the fierce blasts of the northern region, they betake themselves to the other gulfs, in which either there is a milder calm of the winds, or the temperate warmth of the sun is wont to be like spring.

The fish therefore knows the time for bringing forth, which Solomon spoke of as a great mystery in Ecclesiastes: He knows the time of going and of returning: he knows the time of enduring and of tossing, and he knows so as not to be able to be deceived; because he uses not the estimation of reason nor the argument of disputation, but the inspiration of nature, which is the true teacher of piety. In short, all living creatures have prescribed times for bringing forth, man alone has them undistinguished and confused. The other kinds seek the mildness of the season, women alone pour forth their offspring without regard to season. For wandering and intemperate lust for begetting exhibits a wandering age for bringing forth. Fish cross such great seas that they may seek some advantage for their kind. We too cross the wide seas: but how much more honorably is that undertaken which is prompted by love of succession, than that which is prompted by greed for money?

In short, to them the crossing is reckoned unto piety, to us unto profit. They bring back offspring dearer than all merchandise: we, with wretched desire for gain, bring back merchandise far unequal to the risk. And so they seek again their homeland: we abandon it. To them, by swimming, an increase of their kind is acquired: to us, by sailing, it is diminished.

31. Marvels and Dangers of Small Sea Creatures

Who then would deny that a talent and virtue of this kind has been divinely infused into them? Since one sees these creatures arranging by a lively instinct so solemn a migration toward the North for the sake of fruitfulness; others assuming in a tiny body so much strength that they can halt the greatest ships running with full sails in the midst of the waves: as the small fish called echeneis is remembered to halt a huge ship with such ease that you would see it as it were rooted, clinging to the sea, and not moving. For it keeps it motionless for some while. Do you think that this creature too could have had so much power at its disposal without the gift of the Creator? Why should I speak of swordfish, or saws, or sea-dogs, or whales, or hammerhead sharks? Why even of the sting of the turtle-dove, and that even when dead?

For just as, if one steps upon the mouth of a viper—provided it be still fresh—it is said to harm more grievously than the venom itself, and the incurable wound to spread; so too the turtle-dove is remembered to bring more danger by its sting when dead than when alive. The little hare too, a timid creature on land, is fearsome in the sea, bringing swift corruption that cannot easily be removed. For the Creator willed that you should not be sufficiently safe even in the sea from those lying in wait; so that, on account of the few things that can harm, being as it were stationed on watch, always girded with the arms of faith and the shield of devotion, you should hope for the protection of salvation from your Lord.

32. Whales as Islands in the Atlantic Sea

Let us come to the Atlantic sea. How huge and of infinite size are the whales there! Which, whenever they float upon the waves, you would think islands moving, and mountains raising their highest peaks up to heaven.

Which are said to be seen not on the shore, nor on the coasts, but in the depth of the Atlantic sea, so that by the sight of them sailors may be recalled from any presumption of navigating in those places, nor dare to approach the secret places of the elements without the utmost terror of death.

33. Salt, Coral, Pearls, and Purple from the Sea

But let us now ourselves rise up from the depth of the sea, and let our discourse emerge a little, and lift itself up to higher things: let us behold those things which, familiar to many, are yet full of grace—how water is turned into the solidity of salt, so that it is often cut with iron; which is no wonder in the case of British salts, which shine in the likeness of solid marble, with the snowy brightness of that same substance, wholesome for the body’s food, and most pleasant for drink. How too the not unlovely coral, a plant in the sea, if it be brought forth into the air, hardens into the firmness of stone. Whence too nature has fixed in oysters the most precious pearl, how the water of the sea has hardened it in flesh so soft. Things which are with difficulty found among kings lie, as it were, as vile things upon the shores for the common people, and are gathered among rough rocks and crags.

The water also nourishes the golden fleece, and the shores produce wool of the color of that same metal, whose hue none of those who dye fleeces with various dyes has yet been able to imitate; so far is human industry unable to fulfill the grace of maritime nature! We know with what care the fleeces of sheep, even the less precious, are tended; yet however excellent they be, no dye is ever born in them like this. Hence this is a natural color, which no dye has yet equaled: this too is a fleece that is a fish. But the murex shellfish also, which give the mark of royalty, are creatures of the sea.

34. The Sea Compared to Meadows and Chariot Races

And what grace of meadows, or pleasantness of gardens, can match the painting of the blue sea? Though flowers gleam golden in the meadows, in the sea also wools shine with the brilliance of gold: and those wither quickly, these are kept to endure long. Lilies shine from a distance in gardens, sails on ships: here scent, there wind breathes. What use is there in a leaf! What great commerce in ships! Lilies bring the sweetness of the nostrils, sails bring the safety of men. Add to this the leaping fish, and the playing dolphins: add the waves sounding with hoarse murmur: add ships running to the shores, or going out from the shores. And when the chariots are sent forth from the starting-gates, with what zeal and love of the spectators is the contest waged! Yet the horse runs in vain, ships do not sail in vain. The horse in vain, because empty; the ships to some use, as though full of grain.

What is more pleasing than these, which are driven not by the whip, but by the breath of the winds: where no one opposes, but all are favorers: where no one is defeated, whoever arrives, but all the sterns that have completed the voyage are crowned: where the palm is the reward of safety, victory the prize of return. For how great is the difference between a straight course and a returning one! The latter perpetuate themselves, the former are dissolved. Add the shores lined with rowers, for whom the signal to set out is the breeze from heaven. And so the charioteers bring back an empty applause: these fulfill their vows, having been kept safe.

35. Jonah in the Whale and the End of the Discourse

What worthy thing shall I say of Jonah, whom the whale received unto life, and restored to the grace of prophesying? The water corrected him whom the earth had led astray: he sang psalms in the belly of the whale, who had grieved upon the earth. And that the redemption of neither element be passed over, the salvation of the lands went before in the sea, since the sign of the Son of man is the sign of Jonah. As he was in the belly of the whale, so Jesus was in the heart of the earth. In both, a remedy; yet the greater example of piety is in the sea; since the fish received him whom men refused, and whom men crucified, fish preserved. Peter also stumbles in the sea, but does not fall: and having confessed amid the waves, yet denied upon the land. And so there, as one devout, he is grasped by the hand; here, as one forgetful, he is met by a censorious look.

But now let us ask the Lord that our discourse, like Jonah, be cast forth upon the land, lest it float any longer upon the deep. And well has the gourd already come forth, to shade us from our evils: but it too, withering as the sun advances, warns us that we should rest, lest we begin to grow hot in the land with our own wit, and words even fail us. Surely a greater remission of sins has been given to us in the waters than to the Ninevites.

12. Turning the Discourse from Fish to Birds

(Sermon VIII.)

36. Recalling the Discourse on Birds

And when he had fallen silent for a little while, taking up his discourse again he said: The necessary discussion of the nature of birds, dearly beloved brethren, had escaped us, and a discourse of this sort had flown away from us together with the birds themselves. For it happens by a certain nature, that those who behold something, or wish to express it in speaking, take on the quality of the things which they either behold or speak of; so that when we linger over slower things, and are carried along with a swift glance among swift things, we too use a style either slower or rapid. And so, while I take care lest things sunk in the sea pass me by, and things covered by the waters lie hidden from me, every winged creature has escaped; because while, bent down, I searched the deepest whirlpools of the waters, I did not look back at the flights through the air; nor did even the shadow of a swift wing, which could have gleamed upon the waters, lean over me.

But when I thought the whole matter dispatched, and believed myself finished, and reckoned the fifth day accomplished; the nature of birds came into my mind, which, when they go to roost, are accustomed, as if rejoicing at a task completed, to soothe the air with song: which they are accustomed to renew as it were solemnly at the rising and the setting of the day; that they may render to their Creator the praises of the night-time as well as of the day-time, whether past or about to begin. I had therefore lost a great incentive for stirring up devotion in us. For what man possessing human feeling would not blush to close the day without the celebration of psalms, when even the tiniest birds attend the risings of days and nights with solemn devotion and sweet song.

37. The Three Kinds of Living Creatures

Let then our winged discourse return to us, which had almost slipped from our sight, and, seeking heights after the manner of an eagle, had drawn its flights up into the clouds; except that, while we lift our eyes, washed with water, from the depths up to heaven, having beheld the empty air being crossed by flights, we thought it should be recalled to the necessity of the pen. You shall be the judges, you who are fowlers of the word, whether it would have been more advisable for it to have flown away, or whether it is useful that it has fallen back into your nets. Nor do I fear that weariness should creep upon us in the examination of flights, since it did not creep upon us in the searching out of whirlpools; or that anyone should fall asleep during our discussion, when he can be roused by the songs of birds.

But surely he who has kept watch among the silent fish, I do not doubt, cannot feel sleep among the melodious birds, since he is invited to keep watch by such grace. Nor let it be thought a base thing, that it might have been passed over, since it is a third part of created living beings. For there is no doubt that there are three kinds of living creatures: the terrestrial, the winged, and the aquatic. For thus it is written: Let the waters bring forth creeping things having living souls, according to their kind, and winged creatures flying above the earth beneath the firmament of heaven, according to their kind.

38. A Traveler's Return to Unfinished Discourse

We are called back to former things like forgetful travelers, who, when they have unwisely passed by, returning upon their own tracks, take upon themselves the penalty of their carelessness by the repeated labor of the journey. Yet there is also a good traveler, who compensates for the loss of the return by the speedy shortness of the remaining journey, as I think I must do; especially since our discourse concerns birds, which are wont to strike the eyes of men with their rather hurried flight. For what good is it to linger over things in which swiftness is wont to please? Let our discourse then, wandering and unaccustomed to such a kind of writing, resound and re-echo with singing birds.

39. The Varied Songs of Birds

But whence shall I have swan-songs, which delight even under the heavy terror of imminent death? Whence shall I have those natural melodies of song, by which even the resounding marshes give forth the sweetness of a most delightful song? Whence shall I have the voice of the parrot, and the sweetness of blackbirds? Would that at least the nightingale might sing, to rouse the sleeper from sleep! For that bird is wont to mark the rising of the coming day, and to bring a more generous joy at dawn. Yet if the sweetness of these is lacking, there are the moaning turtle-doves, and the hoarse pigeons, and then too the crow with full voice calling for rain. Whence let us pursue, in whatever speech we can, the rural aviary, with the knowledge which country folk have taught us.

40. The Halcyon and the Calm of Winter Seas

And since we have spoken of aquatic creeping things, it is a hard thing for our discourse suddenly to ascend to the birds of heaven. And therefore let us speak first of those birds which dwell about the waters of the sea and of rivers, with which we can emerge together. Let us then begin our discourse with the halcyon. This is a maritime bird, which is accustomed to bring forth its young upon the shores, so that it lays its eggs in the sands about the middle of winter. For it has that time appointed for the fostering of its young, when the sea rises up most, and the waves dash more violently against the shores, so that the grace of this bird might shine forth all the more by the solemnity of a sudden calm.

For when the sea has been full of waves, once the eggs are laid it suddenly grows calm, and all the storms of the winds fall, and the blasts of the breezes are quieted, and the sea stands calm to the winds, until the halcyon has fostered her eggs. Now the fostering lasts seven days, at the end of which she brings forth her chicks, and completes her brood: immediately she adds another seven days as well, in which she nourishes her young, until they begin to grow up. Nor should you wonder at so short a time of nourishing, since the completion of so few chicks takes so few days. But so great a grace has this tiny bird been granted by divine gift, that sailors observe these fourteen days as a period of presumed calm, which they also call the halcyon days, in which they dread no disturbances of stormy tempest.

41. The Halcyon's Faith Amid the Storm

Are you not worth more than sparrows? Says the Lord. If, then, at the contemplation of a very small bird the sea rises up and is suddenly checked, and the rough weather of winter, amid heavy storms and tempests of winds, wipes away the clouds of heaven, and a sudden tranquility poured into all the elements calms the waves; how much presumption ought you to have, O man, made in the image of God, you recognize; if only you would imitate the faith of this little bird with the zeal of devotion. She, seeing storms rise up and winds rage, is not called back nor turned aside amid the fierce onslaughts of winter, but presses onward. Then she lays her eggs on the shore, where the receding wave may receive them while the sand is still moist: nor does she dread the rising waves which she sees murmuring and gliding toward her.

42. The Halcyon's Devotion to Her Young

And do not suppose that she seems to have any contempt for her eggs; as soon as she has laid them, she nests, and warms her offspring with her own body, and does not fear for her own safety from the wash of the shore: but secure in God's grace, she commits herself to the winds and the waves. This is a small thing. She adds an equal number of days again to rear them: nor does she fear that the treacherous sea's tranquility might be interrupted through so many days, and she tests her merit already established by the solemn ordinance of nature. She does not hide her tender young in any hiding-places or shelters, nor enclose them in caverns, but entrusts them to the bare and stiffening ground; nor does she defend them from the cold, but reckons that by divine warmth—whereby she may all the more despise other things—they will be the safer. Which of us does not cover our little ones with clothing, and hide them under roofs?

Who does not shut them within the enclosures of chambers? Who does not so carefully stop up the windows on every side, lest any breeze, however light, might penetrate? Deservedly, those whom we so anxiously clothe and cherish, we strip of the covering of heavenly clemency: but the halcyon clothes with a divine garment those whom she casts out naked.

43. Divers, Coots, and Herons Sensing Storms

Nor will I pass you by, divers, to whom this name has clung from your constant diving; how often, by diving, you gather signs of the winds, and, foreseeing the coming storm, quickly fly back from the midst of the sea, and hasten with cries toward the safety of the shores. How too, coots, who delight in the depths of the sea, fleeing the disturbance of the sea which you have sensed beforehand, play in the shallows. The heron itself, which is accustomed to cling to the marshes, forsakes its familiar haunts, and, dreading the rains, flies above the clouds; so that it cannot feel the storms of the clouds. Let us consider the various birds of the sea, how, when the movement of the winds threatens, they betake themselves to safer and then sweeter pools, and search out, in the hidden bosom of the lands, foods known to them.

44. The Geese That Saved the Roman Capitol

Who would not marvel at the nightly watches of geese, who attest their vigils even by continual crowing? Indeed by this very means they saved the Roman Capitol from the Gallic enemy. Deservedly, Rome, you owe it to them that you reign. Your gods were sleeping, and the geese were watching. Therefore on those days you sacrifice to the goose, not to Jove. For your gods yield to the geese, by whom they know they were defended, lest they too be captured by the enemy.

45. Swimming and Flying as Kindred Motions

Fittingly, after the description of fishes, discourse has followed concerning those birds which are accustomed to waters; because these too likewise delight in the practice and function of swimming. Whence there seems to be a first kinship between these birds and fishes; since a certain shared community of swimming appears to belong to both kinds. There is also a second kinship between all birds and fishes; in that the practice of flying is a kind of species of swimming. For just as the fish cuts through the water by swimming, so the bird cuts through the air by swift flight. And to both kinds alike belong the tail and the oarage of wings; so that fish raise themselves forward by their fins, and advance further, and by the rudder of the tail also easily turn themselves whichever way they wish, or direct their course straight ahead by a certain impulse.

Birds too swim upon the air by their flights as though upon water, and stretch out, as it were, certain arms, and by the tail likewise raise themselves upward or plunge themselves downward. Whence, since in some respects the use and appearance are the same, therefore the origin of both kinds proceeded from the waters by divine command. For God said: Let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls: and the fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, according to their kind. Not without reason, then, since both kinds are brought forth from the waters, does the property of swimming belong to both.

46. The Feet of Birds and the Need for Food

Indeed, since the slippery snake and all serpents (for the name serpent is given for this reason, because they cannot walk, but crawl serpere), and dragons likewise, in a manner similar to most fishes, are without feet; no kind of bird lacks the service of feet, because all derive their sustenance from the earth; and therefore they are supported by the office of feet, because they need this ministration for seeking food. And so some birds are armed with claws for seizing prey, as hawks and eagles, which practice the plunder of the hunt: others make use of a fitting service and ministration either for walking or for procuring food for themselves.

47. Birds of Prey and Their Single Mates

But there is one name for birds, yet diverse kinds; which who could grasp by memory or by knowledge? There are, then, birds which feed on flesh. For these there are rough claws, a curved and sharp beak, swift flight; since they live by rapine; that they may easily seize the prey they pursue, and quickly disembowel it with beak or claws. There are also birds which feed on found seed: others on various and chance food. There is also a diversity of matings, from which those intent on plunder are exempt. For on account of their eagerness for prey, or on account of scouting out ambushes, they do not even agree among themselves; and therefore they avoid mating. For avarice shuns the fellowship of many. Moreover, the union of many would easily betray itself. For these birds, then, there is no mating except the pairing of a single mate. So this is the manner of life for eagles and hawks.

But on the contrary, wood-pigeons, cranes, starlings, ravens and crows, and also thrushes, rejoice in the connection of many.

48. Migratory and Native Birds

There are also other kinds of birds, native, which always remain in their places: others migratory, which travel to other regions, and return when winter is over: there are others which return in winter, and go abroad from us in summer; either because some betake themselves to warmer places in the time of winter; or because many spend the summer again in those places which they have found more pleasant. Thrushes, indeed, at the end of autumn, on the border of winter, as it were once summer is past, return to us. Against these we, with inhospitable savagery, contrive snares, and by various devices strive now to deceive them with a faithless resting-place, now to trick them with birdlime, now to catch them with nooses. The return of the stork raises the standard of spring. Cranes, because they seek high places, love to travel frequently.

49. The Varied Natures and Voices of Birds

Some birds submit themselves to the hand, and grow accustomed to the master's table, and are soothed by touch: others are timid: others delight in the same dwellings as men: others love a secluded life in the wilderness, and compensate for the difficulty of finding food for themselves by their love of freedom. Some make noise only with their voices: others delight with a melodious and sweet modulation. Some, by nature, others by training, utter the distinctions of various voices; so that you would think a man had spoken, when it was a bird that spoke. How sweet is the voice of the blackbird, how distinct that of the parrot! There are also some simple, like doves: others crafty, like partridges: the cock more boastful, the peacock more handsome.

There are also, among birds, diversities of life and of works; so that some love to take counsel in common, and, with their strength combined, to care for a kind of commonwealth, and to live as it were under a king: others look out for themselves, refuse rule, and, if captured, prefer to depart rather than endure unworthy servitude.

50. The Night Watches of the Cranes

Let us begin, then, with those which have given themselves as a pattern for our use. In them there is a certain natural civic order and military discipline, whereas in us it is forced and servile. What an anxious watch, unbidden and voluntary, cranes keep by night! You may see sentinels stationed: and while the rest of their companions rest, others go around and search out lest ambushes be laid on any side, and they carry out the whole guard with untiring vigor. Afterward, when the time of watches has been fulfilled, having discharged her duty, one composes herself for sleep with a cry sent before; so as to rouse the sleeper to whom she is about to hand over the office of duty. And that one willingly takes up the lot, nor, as in our custom, unwillingly and more sluggish, refuses through sleep: but is roused briskly from her bed, carries out her turn, and repays with equal care and duty the favor she received.

Therefore there is no desertion, because devotion is natural: therefore the watch is secure, because the will is free.

51. The Cranes' Order in Flight

This order too they keep in flying, and by this moderation they lighten all labor; so that they take turns discharging the office of their leadership. For one goes ahead of the rest for a time appointed to her, and runs before, as it were, before the standards: then she turns back, and yields the lot of leading the column to the one following. What is more beautiful than this, that both labor and honor be common to all, and that power not be arrogated to a few, but be transferred to all by a certain voluntary lot?

52. Cranes as a Pattern of the Ancient Commonwealth

This is the office of an ancient commonwealth, and the pattern of a free state. Thus, having received it from nature at the beginning, men began to practice civic order after the example of birds; so that labor might be common, dignity common, that individuals might learn to share cares by turns, and divide services and commands, that no one might be excluded from honor, no one exempt from labor. This was the fairest state of affairs, and no one grew insolent through perpetual power, nor was broken by prolonged servitude; because promotion, allotted by order and by moderation of time, was free of envy; and the watch, which fell by common lot, seemed more tolerable. No one dared to oppress another with servitude, since those who were to succeed him in honor would have to undergo mutual burdens: to no one was labor grievous, which the dignity to follow would relieve.

But after the lust of domination began to claim undue powers, and to refuse to lay down improper ones: after military service began to be, not a common right, but slavery: after promotion became, not an order for undertaking power, but a zeal for claiming it, even the very discharge of labor began to be endured more harshly; and that which is not voluntary quickly gives place to negligence. How unwillingly men undergo the duties of watches, how reluctantly each one, having drawn the lot of danger in camp, keeps watch over what is entrusted to him by royal command! A penalty for negligence is set; and yet carelessness for the most part creeps in, and the watches are not kept. For necessity, which imposes obedience on an unwilling person, generally brings with it distaste. For there is nothing so easy but that it has its difficulty, when you do it unwillingly. Therefore continual labor turns away affection, and continuous and long-lasting power breeds insolence.

What man could you find who would voluntarily lay down command, and yield the badge of his leadership, and willingly become last in rank from first? But we contend not only for the first place, but often even for the middle, and we claim the first couches at a banquet: and if it has once been granted, we wish it to be perpetual. Therefore among cranes there is equanimity in labors, humility in powers. They are admonished to perform the turns of watch, they are not admonished to step down from power; because there natural rest of sleep must be interrupted, here the favor of voluntary diligence must be rendered.

53. The Storks' Military Order in Migration

They say storks set out in an assembled column, if they think they must proceed somewhere, and are borne together in most places around the East, and all move together, as if by a military signal. You would think an army marching with its standards, so do they all preserve the order of traveling, accompanying, and going before. Crows, moreover, lead them and direct them, and attend them as it were with certain escorting troops; so much so that they are believed to bring some assistance to those at war against enemy birds, and to undertake, at their own peril, wars not their own. A proof of this matter is, that none of them are found to remain in those places for any interval of time; and that, returning with wounds, they speak to the rest, by the manifest voice of their own blood and by other signs, that they have undergone the conflict of grave contests. Who, then, prescribed for them the penalty of desertion?

Who prescribed dreadful punishments for the abandonment of duty; so that none tries to withdraw itself from accompanying the hospitable columns, but all vie with one another in performing the duty and office of escort?

54. Storks, Crows, and the Laws of Hospitality

Let men learn to keep the laws of hospitality, and let them recognize from birds what religious observance is due to guests, what services are to be accounted, to which even crows are not accustomed to deny their own perils. To these, then, we shut our doors, to whom birds even offer up their lives; and those whom they escort into the fellowship of danger, we forbid the hospitality of a roof; and against those for whom they undertake wars, we ourselves frequently wage wars. I would be lying, if this was not the cause of punishment for the Sodomites: or if Egyptian fury, while attempting to wage war on a hospitable people, did not pay the penalties of inhospitality by the shipwreck of its treacherous populace.

55. The Stork's Care for Its Aged Parents

But how much the gentleness of this bird does not exceed the piety and prudence of rational beings ought to be considered, since not even one of us has been able to imitate it, even after its example. For when the father's limbs have been laid bare through prolonged old age of their covering of feathers and the oarage of wings, the surrounding offspring warm him with their own feathers. And what shall I say of this, that it feeds him with gathered food, when it even repairs the losses of nature itself, so that, lifting up the old one from this side and that, they exercise him to fly by the support of their wings, and recall to their former use the now disused limbs of their devoted father? Which of us does not shrink from lifting up a sick father? Which of us places a weary old man upon his own shoulders—a thing scarcely believed even in the record itself? Who, that he may be dutiful, does not entrust this service to his servants?

But for birds it is not burdensome, what is full of devotion; it is not onerous, what discharges nature's debt. Birds do not refuse to feed their father—something which many men have refused even under a prescribed necessity, under the terror of penalties. Birds are bound not by a written but by a natural law. No precepts convene birds to this duty, but the offices of natural grace. Birds do not blush to carry the limbs of a venerable elder; for it is a vehicle of piety, which has become so well known through frequent testimony that it has found a fitting reward of recompense. For by Roman usage it is called the "pious bird." And what is said to have been conferred by the senate's deliberation scarcely upon one emperor, these birds have merited in common. These birds, then, have the decrees of the fathers as the mark of their own peculiar clemency. For dutiful sons ought first to be proclaimed by the fathers' judgment.

They have also the votes of all; for the repayment of benefits is called ἀντιπελάργησις; for πέλαργος means the stork. Thus virtue itself has taken its name from these birds, since the return of thanks is called by the name of the stork.

56. The Swallow's Skillful Nest-Building

We have the example of the devotion of bird offspring toward their fathers' care: let us now receive a great proof of maternal diligence toward children. The swallow is small in body, but exalted by an eminently devoted affection, and builds nests unworthy of comparison—more precious than gold in all things; because she nests wisely. For a nest of wisdom is worth more than gold. For what is wiser than that she should both possess the wandering freedom of flight, and yet entrust her little ones to the dwellings of men and to a roof, where no one may assail her offspring? For this too is beautiful: that from their earliest origin she accustoms her young to the practice of human company, and renders them safer from the ambushes of hostile birds. Then this is admirable: with what grace she constructs her house for herself, without any helper, as though skilled in the art. For she gathers straws with her beak, and smears them with mud, so that she may glue them together.

But because she cannot carry mud with her feet, she dips the tips of her feathers in water, so that dust may easily adhere to them, and mud is thus formed, by which she gradually gathers straws or tiny twigs to herself and makes them stick; by this method she constructs the whole fabric of the nest, so that, as upon a floor pavement, her young may move about within their dwelling without stumbling, nor may anyone insert a foot through the chinks of the weaving, nor may cold creep in upon the tender ones.

57. The Swallow's Healing of Her Blind Young

But this office of industry is nearly common to many birds: but this indeed is singular, in which there is a remarkable care of devotion, and a mark of prudent understanding and knowledge, and also a certain skill in the art of medicine; namely, that if any of her young have had their eyes pierced or pricked by blindness, she has a certain kind of healing by which she can restore their sight, once its function has been intercepted. Let no one, then, complain of want, on the ground that he has left his house empty of money. Poorer is the swallow, who abounds in an industry devoid of money. She builds, and spends nothing: she raises roofs, and takes nothing from her neighbor; nor is she driven by want and poverty to harm others; nor does she despair in the grave weakness of her young. But us both poverty afflicts, and the necessity of want vexes, and want compels many into disgrace, drives them into crime.

In eagerness for gain, too, we turn our wits to fraud, adapt our affections to it, and in the gravest sufferings we lay down hope, and, broken in spirit, we dissolve, and lie improvident and inert; whereas it is precisely then that one should hope the more in divine mercy, when human aids have failed.

58. Crows' Devotion Contrasted with Human Neglect

Let men learn to love their children from the practice and devotion of crows, which accompany even their flying young with attentive escort; and, anxious lest the tender ones perhaps grow faint, they supply them food, and do not abandon the offices of nurture for a very long time. But indeed the women of our kind quickly wean even those whom they love; or, if they are wealthier, disdain to nurse at all. The poorer, however, cast away their little ones and expose them, and, when they are found, deny them. The rich also, lest their patrimony be divided among several, kill their own offspring in the womb, and with parricidal drugs extinguish the pledges of their own belly in the very genital womb, and life is taken away before it is delivered. Who but man has taught that children be disowned? Who devised such merciless rights for fathers? Who, amid nature's fraternal fellowship, made brothers unequal? The sons of one rich man are cut off by diverse lot.

One is inundated with the whole assignment of the paternal estate: another laments the drained and needy portion of the wealthy ancestral inheritance. Did nature divide the merits of children? She has granted to all equally what they might have as substance for being born and for living. Let nature herself teach you not to make distinctions in patrimony among those whom you have made equal by the title of brotherhood. For to those to whom you have given that it be common that they were born, you ought not to begrudge that they should have in common that into which they were instituted by nature.

59. Hawks and the Eagle's Trial of Their Young

Hawks are said to have this harsh unkindness toward their own offspring, that when they have noticed them attempting the first beginnings of flight, they cast them out of their nests, and immediately banish them; and if they linger, they drive them off with their wings and hurl them down, beat them with their pinions, and force them to dare what they dread; nor do they afterward bring them any gift of nourishment. Yet what wonder if, accustomed to plunder, they disdain to nourish? Let us consider that they were begotten for this purpose, that even birds may be exercised toward caution by fear; lest they relax their care indiscriminately, but foresee the dangers to be avoided from robbers. Then, since a certain instinct for plundering has grown into them by nature, they seem rather to train their young from tender age for prey, than to abandon their offspring to the shortcuts of feeding.

They take care lest in tender age they grow sluggish, lest they be dissolved by delights, lest they wither in idleness, lest they learn to expect food rather than to seek it, lest they lay aside the vigor of their nature. They interrupt their efforts of nurturing, so as to compel them to dare the practice of seizing prey.

The eagle also is much spoken of in many accounts as disowning her young, but not both, only one out of two chicks. Some have supposed this happens from disdain at doubling the food. But I do not think this readily to be believed, especially since Moses gave such testimony of devotion toward her young to this bird, that he said: As the eagle protects her nest and hovers over her young and spreads her wings, and takes them up, and bears them upon her shoulders. The Lord alone led them. How then does she spread her wings, if she has killed one of them? Whence I think that she does not become unkind out of avarice in nurturing, but by a trial of judgment. For she is said always to test those she has borne; lest the deformity of a degenerate birth stain the certain regal eminence of her kind among all birds.

And so it is asserted that she exposes her young to the rays of the sun, and suspends the little ones in mid-air by her talon; and if one of them, with the sun's light reflected, has kept the fearless keenness of his eyes with unimpaired vigor of gazing, he is approved, because by the constancy of a sincere gaze he has demonstrated the truth of his nature; but if, blinded, he has turned away his eyes, dazzled by the sun's ray, he is rejected as degenerate and unworthy of so great a parent; nor is he deemed worthy of rearing, who was unworthy of being taken up. She does not, therefore, condemn him by harshness of nature, but by integrity of judgment; nor does she disown him as her own, but rather refuses him as not her own.

61. The Coot's Care for the Eagle's Rejected Chick

Yet this unkindness of the royal bird, as it seems to some, is excused by the clemency of a plebeian bird. For the bird called the coot, which in Greek is called φηνή, joins to her own brood that chick of the eagle, whether taken up, or disowned, or unrecognized, and mixing it with her own, feeds and nurtures it by the same office of maternal diligence and equal supply of nourishment as her own offspring. Thus the φηνή nurtures another's young: but we cast off our own with merciless cruelty. But the eagle, if she casts one off, does not cast it off as her own, but rather does not recognize it as degenerate: we, what is worse, disown those whom we recognize as our own.

62. The Turtledove's Vow of Widowed Chastity

But let us come to the turtledove, which the Law of God chose as it were for the offering of a chaste sacrifice. Indeed, when the Lord was being circumcised, it was offered; because it is written in the law of the Lord, that they should give a sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons. For this is the true sacrifice of Christ: bodily chastity, and spiritual grace. Chastity is referred to the turtledove, grace to the dove. For it is said that the turtledove, when she has been widowed by the loss of her own mate, becomes weary of the marriage-bed and even of the name of marriage; because her first love has deceived her, betrayed by the death of the one she loved, since it was both unfaithful to perpetuity and bitter to grace, having generated more grief from death than sweetness from love.

And so she refuses to renew union, nor does she loosen the laws of modesty or the covenants of a pleasing husband; she reserves her love for him alone, keeps for him alone the name of wife. Learn, women, how great is the grace of widowhood, which is praised even in birds.

63. Paul Permits Remarriage; the Turtledove Does Not

Who, then, gave these laws to the turtledove? If I seek a man, I find none. For no man has dared to do so, since not even Paul dared to prescribe laws for keeping widowhood. Indeed he himself says: I desire, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, be mistresses of households, give no occasion to the adversary. And elsewhere: It is good for them if they remain so: but if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn. Paul wishes for in women what perseveres in turtledoves. And elsewhere he exhorts the younger women to marry; because our women can scarcely fulfill the chastity of turtledoves. Therefore it is God who has infused this affection into turtledoves, who has given this virtue of continence, He alone who can prescribe what all should follow.

The turtledove is not inflamed by the bloom of youth, is not tempted by the allurement of opportunity: the turtledove does not know how to break its first faith; for it knows how to keep the chastity promised at the first lot of union.

64. The Vulture's Virgin Birth and Long Life

We have spoken of the widowhood of birds, and that this virtue first arose from them: now let us speak of integrity, which is affirmed to be so in many birds indeed, that it can also be detected among vultures. For vultures are said not to indulge in intercourse, nor to be joined by any conjugal usage or by the lot of nuptial coupling, and so to conceive without any male seed, and to generate without union, and their offspring from these proceed to a great age in longevity; so that the course of their life extends up to a hundred years, nor does the narrow end of a short lifespan easily overtake them.

65. The Vulture's Example Defends the Virgin Birth

What do they say, those who are wont to mock our mysteries, when they hear that a virgin gave birth, and reckon impossible the childbearing of an unmarried woman, whose modesty no acquaintance of man had ever violated? Is it thought impossible in the Mother of God, what is not denied to be possible in vultures? A bird bears young without a male, and no one refutes it; and because Mary, a virgin betrothed to a man, gave birth, they raise a question about her modesty. Do we not observe that the Lord, from nature herself, has sent forth beforehand very many examples, by which He might prove the fittingness of the incarnation He assumed, and establish its truth?

66. Birds That Live Under Common Law

Now come, let me set forth which birds seem to tend, as it were, a certain commonwealth, and to pass the age of this life under laws. For this is the practice of a commonwealth: that laws be common to all, and that they be observed by common devotion. That all be bound by one bond: that it not be lawful for one what another understands not to be permitted to himself; but that what is lawful, be lawful for all; and what is not lawful, be not lawful for all. That there also be a common reverence for the elders, by whose counsel the commonwealth is governed, a common dwelling-place of the city for all, a common duty of association, one rule prescribed for all, one counsel held by all.

67. Bees Share All Things in Common

These things are great, but how much more excellent are they in bees, which alone among the whole kind of living creatures have offspring common to all, all dwell in one abode, are enclosed within the bounds of one homeland, labor is common to all, food is common, work is common, use and enjoyment are common, flight is common. What more? Generation is common to all, and integrity of virginal body is common to all, and so too childbirth; since they are not joined among themselves by any intercourse, nor are they weakened by lust, nor shaken by the pains of childbirth, and suddenly they send forth the greatest swarm of offspring, gathering their brood with their own mouths from leaves and grasses.

68. How Bees Choose and Honor Their King

They themselves ordain a king for themselves, they themselves create peoples for themselves; and although placed under a king, they are nevertheless free. For they hold both the prerogative of judgment and the affection of faithful devotion; because they love him as one appointed as it were by themselves, and honor him with such great scrutiny. But the king is not chosen by lot; because in a lot there is chance, not judgment, and often by the irrational accident of chance the last of all is preferred above the better; nor is he designated by the common clamor of an ignorant multitude, which does not weigh the merits of virtue, nor searches out the advantages of the public good, but wavers with uncertain fickleness; nor does he sit upon royal thrones by privilege of succession and lineage; since one ignorant of public life could not be cautious and skilled.

Add to this flatteries and delights, which, having become ingrained from tender years, are wont to enervate even a keen intellect; then the training of eunuchs, most of whom bend the mind of the king more to their own profit than to public use. But the king of the bees is formed with clear marks of nature; so that he excels in bodily size and appearance; then—what is chief in a king—in gentleness of character. For although he has a sting, yet he does not use it for vengeance. For there are laws of nature not written in letters, but impressed in character, so that those endowed with the greatest power should be gentler in punishing. But those bees also which have not obeyed the laws of their king punish themselves with a penitential condemnation, so that they die by the wound of their own sting. This the peoples of the Persians are said to observe even today: that as the price of a fault they carry out upon themselves the sentence of their own death.

And so no people so revere their king—not the Persians, who have the harshest laws toward their subjects, not the Indians, not the peoples of the Sarmatians—with so much reverence of devotion as the bees; so that none of them dare go out from their homes, nor advance to any pastures, unless the king has first gone forth, and claimed for himself the leadership of the flight.

69. The Bees' Labor and the Building of the Honeycomb

Their advance is through fragrant countryside, where gardens breathe forth with flowers, where a stream flees through the grass, where the pleasant places of the riverbanks lie; there the lively play of youth, there the exercise of the field, there the relaxation of cares. The work itself is sweet, from flowers, from sweet herbs the first foundations of the camps are laid. For what else is a honeycomb but a certain kind of camp? Indeed, from these dwellings of the bees the drone is kept away. What square camps could have as much art and grace as have the lattices of the honeycombs, in which the small and round cells are supported by mutual connection with one another? What architect taught them to compose those hexagonal cells with undistinguished equality of sides, and to hang thin waxes between the partitions of their houses, to store up honey, and to fill the storehouses mingled with flowers with a certain nectar?

You may see all of them vying over their tasks, some keeping watch in seeking food, others applying anxious guard to the camps, others exploring the coming rains, and observing the gatherings of clouds, others fashioning wax from flowers, others gathering with their mouth the dew poured upon the flowers; yet none lying in wait for another's labors, and seeking a living by plunder—and would that they need not fear the ambushes of plunderers themselves. Yet they have their own stings, and pour poison amid the honey, if they have been provoked, and lay down their lives in the wound out of the ardor of vengeance. Therefore into the middle valleys of the camps that moisture of dew is poured, and gradually, in the course of time, is gathered into honey, since it was liquid from the beginning, and by the coalescing of the wax, and by the fragrance of the flowers, begins to breathe forth the sweetness of honey.

70. Scripture's Praise of the Bee as Worker

Rightly does Scripture praise the bee as a good worker, saying: Go to the bee, and see how she is a worker. She also earns a work that is worthy of reverence, whose labor kings and common folk take up for health. For it is desirable to all and renowned. Do you hear what the prophet says? He sends you indeed that you may follow the example of that little bee, that you may imitate her work. You see how laborious, how pleasing it is. Its fruit is desired and sought by all, nor is it distinguished according to difference of persons; but with undistinguished grace it grows sweet with equal sweetness for kings and commoners alike. Nor is it for pleasure only, but also for health: it sweetens the throat, and heals wounds, and even pours in a remedy for inner ulcers. And so, although the bee is weak in strength, she is strong in the vigor of wisdom, and in the love of virtue.

71. Bees' Loyalty to the King, and Its Loss

Finally, they defend their king with the highest protection, and think it a fair thing to perish for him. While the king is safe, they know not how to change their judgment or bend their mind; once he is lost, they abandon fidelity to the duty entrusted, and themselves plunder their own honey; because he who held the leadership of the office has been slain.

72. Bees Alone Bear Two Broods a Year

And so, while other birds scarcely produce single broods in a year, bees bring forth twin offspring, and outweigh the rest with double fecundity.

Now since we have spoken of what nature and grace the flying creatures have, and these but a few examples out of many—for there is no leisure to describe them all, since they are alike and of the same kind—let us nevertheless consider what diversity the birds themselves have among one another. For we find the feet of the crow, as it were, separated and divided by certain distinct toes; the feet of ravens too and of the young ones formed otherwise by nature; while in birds that feed on flesh we observe feet, as it were, curved and hooked, and prepared as it were for prey. But those which have the use and habit of swimming have broad feet, and a kind of membrane joining and connecting those toes of their feet together.

In this the admirable reason of nature is apparent: that the former are equipped with a fitting use for flying or for seizing food, and the latter have suitable aids for swimming, whereby they can better float upon the waters, and, as though with a kind of oars, so with their feet, broadened by the extension of that membrane, propel themselves through the streams of the waters.

75. Why the Swan Has a Long Neck

Why the swan uses a rather long neck is also evident; since it is somewhat sluggish in body, and cannot easily penetrate the depths of the waters, it extends its neck to seek prey, which, going before as it were the rest of the body, seizes whatever food it has found, and draws it up from the deep. Add also this, that a sweeter and more musical note is produced through long necks, and, drawn out by longer exercise, resounds far purer.

76. The Song of Cicadas and the Humming of Bees

How sweet too is the song within the slender throat of cicadas, by whose singing the groves are made to ring at the height of summer heat, because, being more musical in the noontide heats, since they draw in with their breath a purer air at that time, their songs resound the clearer. Nor do the bees themselves sing anything unpleasant; for they have a pleasing sweetness in that hoarse murmur of their voice, which we seem at first, more slowly, to imitate with the broken sound of trumpets, than which nothing is reckoned more apt for rousing minds to vigor by its clatter. And this grace remains to them, though it is shown that they have no lung nor the function and use of respiration at all, but feed on a breath of air.

Indeed, if one pours oil over them, they are quickly killed, because, their pores being blocked, they cannot draw in that airy breath; and immediately, if one pours vinegar over them, they revive at once, because the force of vinegar is said quickly to open up, by its moisture, those pores which are blocked by the thickening of the oil.

77. The Indian Worm, the Chameleon, and the Hare

And since we are speaking of flying creatures, we do not think it foreign to include those things which history relates of the Indian worm, or the account of those who were able to see it. It is said that this horned worm is first changed into the appearance of a stalk, and transformed into that nature; then, by a certain process, it becomes a "bombylius"; yet it does not keep that form and shape, but seems to take on wings with loose and broader leaves. From these leaves the Seres comb out those soft fleeces, which the wealthy have claimed for their own uses. Whence also the Lord says: What did you go out into the desert to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, those who are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings. The chameleon, too, is said to feign various appearances by varied color.

As for hares, which we have easily come to know from close observation, it is not doubtful that they turn white in winter, and return to their own color in summer.

78. Paul's Teaching on the Resurrection of the Body

I have touched upon these things so that these examples too might rouse us to faith in that transformation which is to come at the resurrection: but in such a way that we speak of that transformation which the Apostle plainly expressed, saying: We shall indeed all rise; but not all shall be changed. And below he says: And the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. For many, interpreting the kind and forms of the transformation which they had not received, have by no means avoided the incongruous exercise of undue presumption.

79. The Phoenix and Its Renewal from Death

The phoenix bird also is said to dwell in the regions of Arabia, and to advance to a long life of up to five hundred years. When it perceives that the end of its life is at hand, it makes for itself a chest of frankincense and myrrh and other spices, into which, when the time of its life has been fulfilled, it enters, and dies. From the moisture of its flesh a worm arises, and gradually grows up, and in the course of the appointed time puts on the plumage of wings, and is restored into the appearance and form of the earlier bird. Let this bird, then, teach us to believe in the resurrection by its own example, since it, without example, and without any perception of reason, restores in itself the marks of resurrection. And indeed birds exist for the sake of man, not man for the sake of birds.

Let it therefore be for us an example, that the author and creator of birds does not allow his saints to perish forever, he who, not allowing a single bird to perish, willed that it be restored, rising again from its own seed. Who then announces to this bird the day of death, that it should make for itself a chest, and fill it with good spices, and enter into it, and die there where by the pleasant spices the stench of death might be done away?

80. An Exhortation to Build the Chest of Faith

Make, then, O man, a chest for yourself; stripping off the old man with his deeds, put on the new. Your chest, your sheath, is Christ, who may protect you and hide you in the evil day. Do you wish to know that a sheath is a protection? "In my quiver," he says, "have I hidden him". Your chest, then, is faith: fill it with the good spices of your virtues; that is, of chastity, mercy, and justice, and enter wholly into the very inmost places of faith, fragrant with the sweet odor of excellent deeds: let the end of this life find you clothed with that faith; so that your bones may grow fat, and be like a well-watered garden, whose seeds are quickly raised up. Know, then, the day of your death, as Paul also knew it, who said: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: as for what remains, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.

He entered, then, into his chest like a good phoenix, which he filled with the good odor of martyrdom.

81. Vultures Foretelling the Deaths of Men

I will ask you: but do you answer me, whence vultures have been accustomed to announce the death of men by certain signs, by what token they are taught and instructed; so that when opposing battle lines set in array a lamentable war between themselves, the aforesaid birds follow in great flocks, and signify thereby that a multitude of men is about to fall in war, destined to be prey for the vultures? Which indeed they seem to gather by a certain reasoning from a kind of human instruction.

82. The Locust as an Instrument of Divine Judgment

Even to the locust divine grace has penetrated, which, when it has occupied with a dense host the breadth of some region, first strikes an unharmed dwelling, nor does it consume the fruits by an inhospitable incursion, unless it has received the sign of divine command. For indeed, as we read in Exodus, it too, as a pious minister of vengeance, carries out the retribution of heavenly offense.

83. The Seleucis Bird That Devours Locusts

This locust also the bird called seleucis devours—for so this bird is named in the Greek—given as a remedy for the evils that the locust is wont to bring; to which the Creator gave an insatiable nature for devouring, so that with unappeasable feeding it might be able to extinguish the plague which we spoke of above.

84. Birds Returning to Their Nests at Evening

But what is this? While we prolong our discourse, behold, already the birds of night fly around us, and in this very fact, by which they warn us that our discourse must be ended, they also bring forward the mention that must be made of themselves. The various birds return to their nests, which the evening compels to withdraw by night, and hide themselves in their coverts, attending the setting of the day with a melodious song; lest they depart exempt from the thanks with which every creature praises its Creator.

85. The Nightingale's Song and the Poor Woman's Labor

Night too has its songs, with which it is wont to soothe the vigils of men; the owl too has its songs. But what shall I say of the nightingale, which, a watchful guardian, while she cherishes her eggs in the bosom and lap of her body, consoles the sleepless labor of the long night with the sweetness of her song; so that it seems to me this is her chief aim, that she may, no less by sweet melodies than by the warmth of her body, give life to the eggs she cherishes. Imitating her, that slight woman, but chaste, drawing the millstone with her arm for its use, so that the sustenance of bread might not be lacking to her little ones, soothes with nocturnal song the sorrowful feeling of poverty. And although she cannot imitate the sweetness of the nightingale, yet she imitates her in the diligence of devotion.

86. The Owl and the Blindness of False Wisdom

The owl itself, how with its great and glaucous pupils of the eyes does not feel the dimming horror of nocturnal darkness; and the darker the night has been, the more, contrary to the custom of other birds, it exercises unimpeded flights. But when day has risen, and the splendor of the sun is poured all around, its sight is dulled, as if it wandered in a kind of darkness. By this token it declares of itself that there are some who, though they have eyes for seeing, are not accustomed to see, and discharge the office of their sight in darkness as the sun's. I speak of the eyes of the heart, which the wise men of the world have, and do not see; in the light they discern nothing, in darkness they walk, while they pry into the shadowy matters of demons, and believe they see the heights of heaven, describing the world with a rod, gathering the measure of the air itself.

Moreover, being astray from the faith, they are entangled in the darkness of perpetual blindness, having close at hand the day of Christ and the light of the Church, and seeing nothing they open their mouth as if knowing all things, sharp for vain things, dull for eternal things, and by the winding of a long disputation betraying the blindness of their own ignorance. And so, while they desire to fly forth with subtle words, they vanish like owls in the light.

87. The Bat's Nature and Its Bond of Mutual Care

The bat, an ignoble animal, received its name from evening. It is both a flying creature and a quadruped, and it uses teeth such as you would not usually find in other birds. It bears, as quadrupeds do, not eggs, but living young. It flies in the air after the manner of birds; but it is accustomed to be abroad at evening twilight. It flies, however, not by any oarage of feathers, but supported by the rowing of its own membrane, by which, held aloft as if by the flight of feathers, it is carried about and animated. This lowly animal has also this trait, that they cling to one another, and hang from some place as if in the likeness of a cluster of grapes; and if the outermost ones should loosen, all are set free. This comes about by a certain office of charity, which is hard to find among the men of this world.

88. The Cock's Crow and Peter's Repentance

The cock's crowing too is sweet in the nights; and not only sweet, but also useful, since like a good housemate it both rouses the sleeper and warns the anxious, and comforts the traveler, attesting by its tuneful signal the progress of the night. At its crowing the robber abandons his ambush; at its crowing the morning star itself is roused and rises, and lights up the heaven; at its crowing the trembling sailor lays aside his sadness, and every storm and squall stirred up by frequent evening blasts grows mild; at its crowing devout affection leaps up to prayer, and renews also the task of reading; at its crowing, finally, the very rock of the Church washed away his own fault, which he had contracted by denial before the cock crowed. By its crowing hope returns to all, the sick man's distress is relieved, the pain of wounds is lessened, the burning of fevers is soothed, faith returns to the fallen, Jesus looks back upon the wavering, corrects those who err.

In short, He looked back upon Peter, and at once error withdrew: denial was driven away, confession followed. That this did not happen by chance, but by the design of the Lord, the reading teaches. For thus it is written, that Jesus said to Simon: The cock shall not crow, before you deny me thrice. Well is Peter strong by day, but troubled by night; and before the cock's crow he falls, and falls a third time; that you may know he had not slipped by a rash outpouring of speech, but was troubled also by a change of mind. Yet the same man becomes stronger after the cock's crowing, and is now worthy for Christ to look upon: for the eyes of the Lord are upon the just. He recognized that the remedy had come, after which he could no longer err: and, changed from error into virtue, he wept most bitterly; that by his tears he might blot out his error.

89. A Prayer for Tears Like Peter's

Look upon us too, Lord Jesus, that we too may recognize our own errors, may dissolve our fault with devout weeping, may merit the pardon of our sins. For this reason we have deliberately drawn out our discourse; that for us too the cock might crow, and might come to the aid of us speaking, so that if any fault had crept into our word, You, O Christ, might forgive the guilt. Grant, I pray, the tears of Peter; I do not want the joy of the sinner. The Hebrews wept, and through the sea, its waves parting, were set free. Pharaoh rejoiced that he held the Hebrews shut in, and, sunk in the sea with his own people, perished.

Judas too exulted in the reward of his betrayal, but he strangled himself with the very noose of that reward. Peter wept over his own error, and merited to abolish the errors of others.

90. Closing the Discourse with Peter's Tears

But now it is time that we should finish and close our discourse: it is a time in which it is better either to be silent or to weep: it is a time in which the pardon of sins is celebrated. Let that mystic cock also crow for us amid sacred things; since already Peter's cock has crowed in our discourse. Let Peter weep for us, who wept well for himself, and let him turn Christ's kindly countenance toward us. May the passion of the Lord Jesus draw near, which daily forgives our offenses, and works the gift of remission.

91. The Lord's Compassion on the Fasting Multitude

The good Lord does not wish to send men away fasting, lest anyone should faint on the way. If He says, I have compassion on this multitude; because it is now three days that they continue with me, and have nothing to eat, and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way; to whose speech Mary, intent upon it, refused the preparing of a feast: how much more ought we to consider, since there are not many who live on the word of God, and therefore the refreshment of the body is desired! Certainly this our morrow after is more toilsome than that period of three days.

92. From Evening to Morning: The Fifth Day Closes

And therefore, we who have played with the birds, who have sung with the cock, let us now sing the mysteries of the Lord, and let the eagles, renewed by the washing away of sins, come together to the body of Jesus; for now that great sea-monster has given us back the true Jonah: and let us rejoice that for us the fifth day has become evening; let the sixth day become morning for us.

(Sermon IX.)

This sixth day is the one on which the origin of the creation of the world is concluded; and therefore also the end of our discourse, which we undertook concerning the beginnings of things, is being prepared. And although it has advanced for us through five days already with no small labor, yet on this day it grows with a greater interest of cares, because in this day there is peril both of the earlier days and the whole sum of the contest.

For indeed if in string-music or songs and the frequent and even the greatest contests of athletes' rivalries, yet the earlier days pass without any loss of the crown, but the last day holds the lot of the crown, in which there is both the peril of the decision, and the reproach of yielding, and the prize of victory: how much more in this so great a contest of wisdom, by so great a judgment not of few but of all, since today, as it were, a certain crown of the contest advances for us, does a greater anxiety press me; lest I both pour out the labor of the earlier days, and undergo the shame of the present one. For the condition of speaking is not the same as that of singing and wrestling; since in those there is the sport of a stumble, in this there is the fall of death. There, if you err, it is the disgust of the onlookers: here it is the loss of the hearers.

2. The Theatre of the Whole Creation

Stand by me, therefore, as judges of the crown, and enter with me into this great and admirable theatre of the whole visible creation. For indeed if he who receives newly arrived guests leads them around the whole circuit of the city, showing whatever more excellent works there are, bestows no small favor: how much more without disdain ought you to receive it, that as it were by a certain hand of discourse I lead you around through this common fatherland, and show you the appearance and kinds of each thing, wishing to gather from all how much richer a favor the creator of all has given to you than He has given to all things together. To you, therefore, this crown is proposed, you I wish today to crown by your own judgment.

For we do not, after the manner of athletes, demand withering garlands, but the green assay of your holiness; by which you may judge that through all creatures indeed the divine providence penetrates, but that while you have in common with the rest a fellowship of bodily frailty, you nevertheless stand above the rest by virtue of the mind, which alone has nothing in common with the rest.

3. The Order of Scripture: Beasts Before Man

Now come, let us speak of the natures of beasts, and the generation of man. For I have long heard some whispering, saying: How long shall we learn things foreign to us, and not know our own? How long shall we be taught knowledge concerning the rest of living creatures, and be ignorant of ourselves? Let him say that which may profit me, whence I may know myself. And the complaint is just: but the order must be kept which Scripture has woven together; and at the same time, because we cannot know ourselves more fully, unless we have first known what the nature of all living creatures is.

4. The Making of Land Animals in Their Plain Sense

Let the earth, He says, bring forth the living soul according to its kind, quadrupeds, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, and cattle according to their kind, and all reptiles. And God made the beasts of the earth, and all cattle according to their kind, and all the reptiles of the earth according to their kind. And God saw that they were good, and God said: Let us make man. At this place I am not unaware that some have referred the species of beasts and cattle and creeping things of the earth to something else; so as to refer these to the monstrousness of crimes, the folly of sins, the wickedness of thoughts: but I take the simple natures of each kind.

5. The Parable of Elisha's Humble Feast

Nor do I fear that anyone will think me to be compared to the presumption of a poor host, who out of a zeal for hospitality invites many, and sets before them nothing but cheap and ordinary foods, and with the thin fare of a poor table incurs more reproach from the disdain of the guests than he gains favor from the affection of hospitality. For Elisha's friends did not refuse him as a bad host for setting before them wild herbs. Similar to vain reasonings is that elaborately sought-out and careful sumptuous feast, in which the appearance of a pheasant or turtledove is set forth, and inside a chicken is eaten, or a chicken is brought in, and it is stuffed with oysters, or spondyli; or a cup is drunk which by diverse color and odor is changed into foreign flavors: things of the sea are stuffed with things of the land, things of the land with things of the sea.

This is to reprove the providence of the Creator, who gave us all things for food, because He did not mix them: but these things seem sweet at first, and afterward become bitter. For the more copious the luxury has been, the more pernicious is the intemperance. But Elisha set forth bitter things, yet afterward they became sweet. In short, they who before thought there was death in that food, afterward obtained in it the grace of sweetness and life.

6. Elisha's Barley Loaves and the Simplicity of Creation

Nor again is there fear that I may seem to have invited more than I can feed, and that the loaves of my words may fail you; since Elisha too, though rightly inimitable by us, yet to be imitated in faith, did not consider how many loaves he had, but wished to divide among all what he had, and judged it sufficient for all. And so he ordered his servant to divide ten barley loaves among the people. And the servant said: What, shall I set this before a hundred men? And he answered, Give, and let them eat, for thus says the Lord: They shall eat, and there shall be some left. Your faith, then, will make the feast of a poor man's tongue abound. Nor do I fear that fasts will make you hungrier, so that instead of returning filled, you return hungry and empty; for it is written: The Lord upholds the just, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.

It is much more beautiful not to blush at barley loaves, and to set before others what you have, than to refuse. Elisha, who left nothing for himself, gave abundance to the peoples. Elisha, then, did not blush to set forth barley loaves; we blush to understand simple things of creation, which are declared by simple and their own names! We read of heaven, let us take it as heaven: we read of earth, let us understand the fruit-bearing earth.

7. The Immeasurable Extent of the Earth

What is it to me to inquire what the measure of its circuit is, which geometers have reckoned at one hundred and eighty thousand stadia? I gladly confess that I do not know what I do not know, indeed what it would profit nothing to know. It is better to know the kinds of lands than their extents, which, with the sea poured around, with the regions of the barbarians lying between, overspread and impassable with marshy ground, how can we comprehend? Which Scripture shows to be impossible for men, God saying: Who has measured the water with his hand, and heaven with his span, and the whole earth enclosed in his hand? Who has weighed the mountains in a balance, and the hills in scales, and the woods in a yoke? And below: Who holds the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants as locusts: who has set up the heaven as a vault?

Who then would dare to claim for himself an equal power and knowledge with God; so that what God has marked as belonging to His own majesty by His own oracle, man should presume that this can be within reach of his own understanding?

8. Moses' Silence on Eclipses and Worldly Astronomy

Assuredly Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians: but because he received the Spirit of God, as a minister of God he set aside that empty and usurping teaching of Philosophy in favor of the reasoning of truth, and he described for me those things which he judged suited to our hope, that God made the earth, that the earth brought forth, according to the command of God the omnipotent, and the operation of the Lord Jesus, shoots from the earth, and every living soul according to its kind. But he did not think it needful to say how much space of the air the shadow of the earth occupies when the sun withdraws from us and takes away the day, illuminating the lower parts of the axis; and how the globe of the moon, falling into the region of the shadow of this world, makes an eclipse; because he passed over things which are of no profit to us, as things that would benefit us nothing.

For he saw, in the Holy Spirit, that those vanities of a now withering wisdom, which occupy our mind with inexplicable matters and toy with idle labor, were not to be followed, but rather those things should be described which pertained to the advancement of virtue.

9. The Fixed Law of Each Kind's Reproduction

Let us then cling to the prophetic words, and let us not hold the utterances of the Holy Spirit in contempt as though they were worthless. Let the earth, it says, bring forth a living soul of cattle and beasts and creeping things. Why do we argue about other matters, where the nature of terrestrial creatures is plainly formed? For in the establishment of the world the Word of God runs through every creature of God; so that all at once, from the earth, all the kinds of living things which God ordained are brought forth, and, for the future, by a law prescribed beforehand, all things succeed each according to its own kind and likeness, so that the lion begets a lion, the tiger a tiger, the ox an ox, the swan a swan, the eagle an eagle. Once commanded, it has taken permanent root in nature forever.

And therefore the earth does not cease to render the service of its ministry, so that the ancient species of living creatures may be renewed into new ages by the recurring succession of their kind.

10. A Warning Against Living Like the Beasts

But do you wish to turn what has been generated to the use of man? Do not deny to each kind the truth proper to its own nature, and you will all the more fit these things to human favor. First, because nature has laid low all the kinds of cattle, beasts, and fishes toward the belly; so that some crawl on their belly, others which are borne upon feet you may see sunk down rather in the gait of a quadruped body, and, as it were, fastened to the earth rather than free. Since indeed they have no faculty of raising themselves up, they seek their food from the ground, and pursue only the pleasures of the belly to which they are bent down. Beware, O man, of being bent over in the manner of cattle! Beware lest you bend yourself toward the belly, not so much in body as in desire. Look upon the form of your body, and take up a bearing befitting your lofty vigor. Let only the animals graze bent downward.

Why do you cast yourself down in eating, you whom nature has not cast down? Why do you take delight in that in which there is an injury to nature? Why, intent on food night and day, do you graze upon earthly things after the manner of cattle? Why, given over to bodily allurements, do you dishonor yourself, while you serve the belly and its passions? Why do you take away from yourself the understanding which the Creator has bestowed upon you? Why do you compare yourself to beasts of burden, from which God willed you to be set apart, saying: Be not like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding? Or if the gluttony of the horse and its intemperance delight you, and to neigh after females is a pleasure, let it delight you too to have your jaws constrained by the bit and the muzzle.

If cruelty feeds you, this is the rage of wild beasts, which are slaughtered on account of their savagery; take care lest the monstrousness of your own cruelty turn back upon yourself.

11. The Sluggish Ass and the Lesson Against Idleness

The sluggish ass, exposed to plunder, and rather slow of perception, teaches nothing other than that we ought to be more lively, and not grow sluggish through idleness of body and mind, but flee to faith, which is accustomed to lighten heavy burdens.

12. The Crafty Fox and Its Hidden Dens

Is not the crafty fox, burying itself in dens and hiding-places, a sign that it is a fruitless animal, worthy of hatred on account of its plundering, of contempt on account of its weakness, and therefore heedless of its own safety while it lies in wait for another's?

13. The Partridge's Stolen Eggs and the Devil's Imitation

The partridge, cunning bird, which steals another's eggs—that is, another partridge's—and warms them with its own body: but is not able to have the fruit of its own fraud; for when it has brought forth its young, it loses them; because when they hear the voice of her who laid the eggs, leaving the one who hatched them, they betake themselves by a certain natural instinct and love to her whom they have recognized, by the generation of the eggs, as their true mother; signifying that the one fulfilled the office of nurse, the other of parent. And so she pours out her own labors in vain, and is mulcted the price of her own fraud. Whence Jeremiah also says: The partridge cried out, and gathered what she did not bring forth, that is, she gathered eggs, and cried out as though exulting in the effect of her fraud. But she plays at labor in vain; because with expended toil she rears others for another, whom she herself had given life by long, assiduous warming.

The devil is an imitator of this bird, who strives to snatch away the offspring of the eternal Creator; and if he has been able to gather any who are foolish and lacking the vigor of their own sense, warming them with bodily allurements, as soon as the voice of Christ has been instilled into these little ones, they depart and betake themselves to that mother who embraces her chicks, like a bird, with a mother's love. For the devil gathered together the Gentiles, whom he had not created: but when Christ sent forth his voice in his Gospel, they betook themselves chiefly to him, whom he himself received under the shadow of his wings, and gave to the Church, their mother, to be nourished.

14. The Lion's Pride and Fearsome Roar

The lion, proud in the ferocity of its own nature, does not know how to mix itself with the kinds of other wild beasts: but, as it were a certain king, disdains the company of the many. It even disdains yesterday's food, and turns away from the very remains of its own meal. What wild beast would dare associate itself with him, whose voice naturally carries such terror that many animals which, by swiftness, could escape its assault, at the sound of its roar, as though struck and stunned by a certain force, faint away?

15. The Leopard's Spots and the Unfaithful Mind

For neither has Scripture been silent regarding the appearance of the leopard, that by the variety of its color it betrays the various motions of its soul. For Jeremiah says: If the Ethiopian shall change his skin, and the leopard his variety. For this is understood not only of its outward form, but also of the mutability of its fury; because the people of the Jews, discolored by the shadowy, restless, and mobile changes of an unfaithful mind and spirit, can no longer hold the grace of good purpose, nor return to any amendment or correction, having once put on the savagery of a wild beast.

16. The Ant's Industry and the Rebuke to the Sluggard

There is, however, also in the nature of quadrupeds something that the prophetic word exhorts us to imitate, by whose example we may guard against sloth, and not be turned back from the pursuit of virtue by the smallness or weakness of the body, nor be called back from the greatness of any purpose. For small is the ant, which dares things greater than its own strength; nor is it compelled to labor by servitude, but by its own spontaneous foresight it lays up beforehand for itself future supplies of food. That you may imitate its industry, Scripture admonishes you, saying: Go to the ant, O sluggard, and imitate her ways, and be wiser than she. For she possesses no cultivated field, nor has anyone to compel her, nor does she work under a master, and yet she prepares food, and lays up for herself a harvest from your labors; and while you often are in want, she is not in want. No granaries are closed to her, no impenetrable guards, no inviolable heaps.

The watchman looks on, and does not dare forbid the theft; the owner sees his losses, and does not avenge them. The plunder is carried off in a black column across the fields, the paths seethe with the throng of travelers, and grains too large to be gripped in a narrow mouth are pushed along on their shoulders. The lord of the harvest looks on at this, and is ashamed to deny such scant profits to pious industry.

17. The Dog's Gratitude and Watchful Guardianship

But what shall I say of dogs, in whom is implanted by a certain nature the return of gratitude, and the maintaining of watchful vigils for the safety of their masters? Whence Scripture cries out against those unmindful of kindness, sluggish, and slothful: Dumb dogs, not knowing how to bark. There are, then, dogs which know how to bark for their masters, know how to defend their own roofs. Whence you too should learn to exercise your voice for Christ, when grievous wolves attack the sheepfold of the Church. Learn to hold the word in your mouth, lest, like a mute dog, you seem to have abandoned the guardianship of faith entrusted to you by a certain silence of betrayal. Such a dog was the wayfaring companion of the angel, whom Raphael, in the prophetic book, thought not without purpose to join to himself and to Tobias the son, when he went forth to put Asmodeus to flight and to establish the marriage bond.

For by the grace of a mindful affection the demon is driven away, the marriage is made stable. And so, under the appearance of a dumb beast, the holy angel Raphael instructed the affection of the young Tobias, whom he had undertaken to protect, to render gratitude. For who would not blush not to render gratitude to those who deserve well of him, when he sees even beasts shun the crime of ingratitude? And do they keep the memory of food bestowed on them, while you do not keep the memory of salvation received?

18. The Bear Shaping Its Young

The bear, though lying in wait, as Scripture says—for it is a beast full of guile—yet is said to bring forth formless offspring from the womb, but to fashion its young with its tongue and shape them into its own likeness and appearance. Do you not marvel at such dutiful offices of the mouth in a wild beast, whose nature expresses such devotion? The bear, then, shapes her offspring to her own likeness; can you not train your sons to be like yourself?

19. The Self-Healing Arts of Beasts

What of the fact that it has not overlooked even the skill of healing? Indeed, when afflicted by a grievous wound and hurt with injuries, the bear knows how to heal itself with the herb called φλόμος (phlomos), as the Greeks call it, applying it to its own sores, so that they are healed by mere contact. The serpent also, by feeding on fennel, drives away blindness once contracted. And so, when it perceives its eyes are being clouded over, it seeks the known remedy, nor is it disappointed of the effect. The tortoise, having fed on the flesh of a serpent, when it perceives that the venom is creeping upon it, applies marjoram as medicine for its safety; and though it is submerged in the wallows of marshes, it nevertheless knows how to cure itself with its own antidote, and by a sure aid of healing shows that it too knows the powers of herbs. You may also see the fox healing itself with the tear of the pine, and by such a remedy prolonging the span before impending death.

20. Animals That Foreknow the Weather

The Lord himself cries out in the book of Jeremiah: The turtle-dove and the swallow, the sparrows of the field, have kept the time of their coming: but my people have not known the judgments of the Lord. The swallow knows when it should come, and Tobit, and so in what follows. The Seventy read, τωβίτ. And also when it should return. The devout bird also knows how to announce, by the testimony of its coming, the sign of spring. The ant also knows how to discern the times of fair weather; for when it perceives that its fruits, soaked by rain, are becoming moist, having more carefully explored the air to know when it may keep a lasting mildness, it opens its heaps and carries them out of its caverns with its own shoulders, so that under the continuous sun its own grain may be dried. Indeed, on all those days you will hardly see rains burst from the clouds unless the ant has first called its grain back into its own granaries.

Oxen know to keep themselves at their stalls when rain threatens. Likewise, when by natural instinct they have gathered a change of weather, they look outward, and stretch their necks all together beyond the stalls, so that they may show they wish to go out. The sheep, at the approach of winter, insatiably snatches grass for food without being filled, because it senses in advance that, because of the harshness of winter, food will be lacking; so that it may stuff itself first with the fodder of grass, before all grass fails under the searing frost. This earthly hedgehog, which is commonly called the "ericius," if it senses any snares, closes itself up with its spines, and gathers itself into its own weapons, so that whoever thinks to touch it is wounded.

And this same hedgehog, foreseeing the future, provides for itself twin passages of breathing; so that when it has gathered that the North Wind is about to blow, it blocks the northern one; and when it has learned that the clouds of the sky are being cleared by the South Wind, it betakes itself to the northern passage, so as to turn aside the blasts that meet it and would harm it from that quarter.

21. Instinct in Beasts and the Deceived Tigress

Whence the Prophet offered worthy praise to the Lord, saying: How magnified are thy works, O Lord! Thou hast made all things in wisdom. Divine wisdom penetrates all things, fills all things: and this is gathered more richly from the perceptions of irrational creatures than from the disputation of reasoning. For the testimony of nature is stronger than the argument of doctrine. To what living creature is it unknown how it should guard its own safety: if strength is available, by resisting; if speed, by fleeing; if cunning, by taking precaution? Who taught bees the use of healing and knowledge of herbs? We are men, and we are often deceived by the appearance of herbs, and often find harmful what we thought healthful. How often has deadly food crept in amid sweet banquets, and even amid the very watches of courtiers and attendants has a deadly morsel penetrated to the vital parts of kings?

Wild beasts know by smell alone how to distinguish what is harmful from what is beneficial: no one goes before them, no taster precedes them, the herb is plucked and does no harm. For nature is a better teacher of truth. She, without anyone's instruction, infuses into our senses the sweetness of health, and the same teaches that the bitterness of pain is to be shunned. Hence life is sweeter, hence death more bitter. She commends her cubs to the lioness, and softens the fierce beast with maternal affection. She checks the ferocity of the tigress, and turns her back when she is bearing down upon her prey. For when the tigress finds the den of her stolen offspring empty, she at once follows the tracks of the thief. But he, though mounted on a swift horse, seeing nevertheless that he can be overtaken by the speed of the beast, and that no means of escape is available to him, contrives a trick of this kind by deceit.

When he sees her drawing near, he throws down a glass ball: but she is deluded by the image of herself, and thinks it her offspring, calls back her onrush, desiring to gather up her young. Again, held back by the empty appearance, she pours forth all her strength to overtake the horseman, and, spurred more swiftly by wrath, presses upon the fleeing man. He again by throwing another ball delays her pursuit; yet the mother's zeal is not banished by memory of the trick: she turns over the empty image, and settles down as though about to suckle her young. Thus, deceived by the very ardor of her devotion, she loses both her vengeance and her offspring.

22. Animal Devotion to Their Young

This Scripture brings to us, which says: Children, love your fathers: parents, provoke not your children to wrath. Nature instills this in beasts, that they should love their own cubs, cherish their own offspring. They know not stepmotherly hatreds, nor are parents, through a change of mate, alienated from their offspring, nor do they know how to prefer the children of a later union while neglecting those of an earlier. They know their own young, they know not the distinctions of affection, the incitements of hatred, the discriminations of offense. Simple is the nature of wild beasts; it knows not the calumnies of truth. For God has so tempered all things, that to those to whom He gave less reason, He granted more affection. What wild beast would not offer itself to death, above all, for its cubs? What wild beast, though beset by countless ranks of armed men, would not shield its young with its own body?

Though a harvest of weapons should press upon her, yet she keeps her little ones safe from danger, hedged by the wall of her own body. What shall be said of the man who neglects the commandment, who obliterates nature? The son despises the father, the father disowns the son; and they think this to be right, where fruitfulness is condemned: rather does the father condemn himself, who nullifies what he has begotten. And this is thought to be a matter of authority, where the nature of barrenness is punished.

23. The Reasoning Power of the Dog

No one would doubt that the dog is devoid of reason; yet if you consider the vigor of its perception, you would judge that by the sagacity of its perceiving it acquires for itself the force of reason. In short, what few, established in the schools, who have worn away the whole length of a lifetime in learning, have scarcely been able to grasp—namely how to construct the connections of syllogisms—this may easily be reckoned as comprehended by the natural learning of a dog. For when it has found the track of a hare or a deer, and has come to a fork in the path, and a certain crossing of ways which divides into very many branches, it goes around the beginnings of each path, and silently ponders within itself, as it were emitting a syllogistic utterance by the sagacity of gathering the scent.

Either, it says, it turned this way, or that way; or certainly it betook itself into this bend: but it went neither by this path nor by that: it remains, therefore, that without doubt it betook itself into this direction. What men scarcely construct by the lengthy meditation of a composed art, this is available to dogs from nature; so that they detect the falsehood beforehand, and afterward, having rejected the falsity, find the truth. Do not philosophers spend whole days dividing propositions for themselves in the dust, describing each one for themselves with a rod, and, since of three it must be that one of them is true, do they not first eliminate two as consonant with falsehood, and thus determine that the force of truth inheres in the one that is left? Who can be so steadfast in loyalty, and mindful of gratitude?

Since dogs know how to leap even upon robbers on behalf of their master, and to forbid the nocturnal approach of strangers, and are ready to die for their masters, and to die together with their masters? Often too dogs, by the evidence of a murder committed, have produced indications for the conviction of the guilty; so that credence has frequently been given to their mute testimony.

24. The Dog That Exposed a Murder at Antioch

They report that at Antioch, in a more remote part of the city, at twilight a man was slain, who had a dog attached to him. A certain soldier, in his eagerness for plunder, had been the agent of the murder: he, still covered by the still-dark beginning of the day, had withdrawn to other parts: the corpse lay unburied, a crowd of onlookers stood by in numbers, the dog with tearful whining lamented the calamity of its master. By chance he who had inflicted the death, as the cunning of human wit goes, in order that by assuming the boldness to move about in the midst he might win credit for innocence, approached that ring of the gazing populace, and drew near to the funeral as though grieving.

Then the dog, its complaint of grief suspended for a little while, took up the weapons of vengeance and, having seized him, held him fast, and, murmuring as it were a pitiable dirge by way of epilogue, turned everyone to tears, and gave credence to the proof, in that of all the many it held fast only this one, and did not let him go. At length, he, being thrown into confusion, since he could not clear himself, by any plea of hatred, or enmity, or envy, or any injury, of so manifest an indication of the crime, was no longer able to refute the charge. And so, what was more difficult, vengeance pursued him; because he could not offer a defense. What worthy return do we make to our Creator, whose food we eat, and yet we dissemble injuries, and often set out, as a banquet for the enemies of God, the very things which we have received from God?

25. The Lamb and the Ewe's Mutual Recognition

What is simpler than lambs, whom we compare to the small innocence of little children? Often among these, in a great flock, a little lamb wanders astray from its mother, roaming through the whole sheepfold, and when it cannot find her, it calls the absent one with frequent bleating, so as to rouse the voice of her who is to answer, in order that at the sound of it his wandering steps may retrace their way: though he may be moving amid many thousands of sheep, he recognizes the voice of his parent, hastens to his mother, and seeks also the fountains of maternal milk known to him: although he is held by desire of food and drink, yet he passes by the swollen udders of other ewes, though they overflow with milky moisture; he seeks his mother alone, he shows that the meager streams of the maternal udder alone are, for him, abundant.

She too, among many thousands of lambs, knows only her own son; one bleating among many, the same appearance; yet she distinguishes her own offspring from the rest, and recognizes her only son by the silent testimony of affection. The shepherd errs in distinguishing the sheep, the lamb does not know how to err in recognizing its mother. The shepherd is deceived by appearance: but the ewe is not deceived by affection. There is one scent for all, but nature nonetheless has its own domestic scent, which the beloved offspring seems to exhale by a certain special property.

26. Animals That Know Their Own Remedies

Nature has its own uses, and its own domestic instincts. Scarcely have teeth begun to break through in a little infant, and already he knows how to try out his weapons. The whelp does not yet have teeth, and yet, as though he had them, he seeks to take vengeance with his own mouth. The stag does not yet have horns, and yet he practices with his forehead, and threatens with weapons he has not yet experienced. If a wolf sees a man first, it steals his voice, and despises him as a victor over the voice thus taken away. The same wolf, if it perceives that it has been seen first, lays aside its ferocity, and cannot run. The lion fears the cock, and especially a white one. The wounded roe-deer seeks out dittany, and by it expels the arrows from its wound. Wild beasts also know their own remedies. The sick lion seeks the ape, to devour it, so that it may be healed.

The leopard drinks the blood of the wild goat, and thereby avoids the force of its languor. Every sick wild beast is cured by drinking the blood of a dog. The sick bear devours ants. The stag chews the little branches of the olive.

27. The Wolf, the Voice, and the Rock of Christ

Therefore wild beasts know how to seek out what benefits them; you, O man, are ignorant of your own remedies! You do not know how to snatch strength from your adversary, so that he, like a wolf forestalled, cannot escape you, how to detect his treachery with the eye of your mind, and to forestall the course of his words, to blunt his impudence and the sharpness of his argument. But if he forestalls you, he takes away your voice: and if you fall silent, loosen your garment, so as to loosen your speech. And if a wolf rises up against you, take a stone, and it flees. Your rock is Christ. If you take refuge in Christ, the wolf flees, nor will it be able to terrify you. This rock Peter sought, when he tottered amid the waves, and he found it; because he embraced the right hand of Christ.

28. The Power of Fasting Over the Serpent

What shall I say, that men delight in one thing, and take as food that which even the leopard flees? Indeed, wherever anyone thinks to rub garlic, the leopard bolts from there, and does not stand its ground. That whose smell the venomous beast cannot bear, do you take as food, and pour it into your inward parts? But at times it does provide medicine for pains. Let it be taken as a remedy, not as food: let it be taken by the sick, not by the feasting. You seek a remedy, and flee fasting; as though you could find some other, greater remedy. If a serpent tastes the spittle of a fasting man, it dies. See how great is the power of fasting; that man, by his very spittle, kills an earthly serpent, and with much more reason a spiritual one.

29. The Turtledove's Defense Against Wolves

How much prudence has the Lord poured even into the smallest creatures! The turtledove casts squill leaves over its nest, lest the wolf attack its young. For it knows that leaves of this kind wolves are wont to shun. The little fox knows how to cherish its offspring: and do you not know, do you neglect to know, how against the wolves of spiritual wickedness you might have the offspring of this life in greater safety?

30. Why Some Beasts Have Long Necks and Others Short

But let us return to the order of creation, and consider for what reason the Lord formed narrower necks for some wild beasts, such as lions and tigers, and bears also; and longer necks for others, such as elephants and camels. Is not the reason evident; that those beasts which feed on flesh had no need of length of neck? For they do not lower their necks and mouths to the ground for the sake of grazing: but either they attack the deer, or tear apart the ox and the sheep. But the camel, since it is taller, how could it feed on the tiniest grasses, unless it extended its neck, quite long, all the way to the ground, for the purpose of grazing? And so the camel, in proportion to its own tallness, has been allotted a longer neck; the horse in proportion to its own, the ox likewise in similar fashion; for these feed on grasses.

31. The Elephant's Trunk and Rigid Legs

The elephant, moreover, has a projecting trunk; because, since it is taller than all others, it cannot bend down to graze. And so it makes use of the trunk as a servant to gather its food. Into this immense beast pours the moisture of copious drink; and therefore it is hollow, so that it may draw up whole pools to quench the thirst of so great a creature, or may, having drawn a river together, be able to flood the drinker. Its neck, indeed, is smaller than the bulk of so great a body would seem to demand; lest it too should be more of a burden than of use. And therefore it does not bend its knees, because it needed rather stiffer legs, so that, like columns, so great a structure of limbs might be supported by them. It bends its heel slightly; the rest of the foot is rigid from top to bottom.

And it cannot, as we often let ourselves down onto our haunches, bend itself, so great a beast; and rightly it cannot have in common with the other animals the practice of rolling or bending. It is propped on this side and that by very great beams; so that in sleep it may lean back a little without danger, because its foot is not marked by any joint of limbs. For tame elephants, therefore, props of the kind that serve this purpose are provided by human ingenuity; but for the wild and untamed ones, because no one lays down such props for them to be supported by, from this arises the occasion of danger.

32. How Hunters Trap Elephants for Ivory

For, leaning against a tree, they either rub their sides, or relax themselves in sleep, and the tree, sometimes overcome and bent, is broken by so great a body: and he who had thrown himself back against it falls, and cannot raise and lift himself up; and lying there he perishes, or, betrayed by his own groaning, is struck down, since his belly and other softer parts nearby lie open to the wound. For his back and other exterior parts are not easily pierced by any weapons. There are those, moreover, who for the sake of the ivory set this snare for them; namely, that they cut somewhat, from the side where it is less frequently used, those trees which the elephants are accustomed to lean against, so that, when the elephant leans back, the tree cannot sustain the weight of its limbs, and brings about its downfall.

33. Elephants as Living Towers in War

But if anyone finds fault with these things, let him also find fault with the heights of buildings; for they threaten a heavier ruin the sooner, and once fallen are repaired with greater difficulty. Yet if we raise those buildings often either for beauty or for a watch-tower, we ought to approve this in elephants too, since they render great service in matters of war. Hence the Persian nation, fierce in wars, mighty with arrows and with every casting of missiles, since missiles are hurled with greater force from higher to lower places, advances its battle-line as though hedged about by walking towers. In the midst of the plains they fight as if from a wall; and stationed as it were on a citadel and a watch-tower, they rather watch the wars than undergo them, so far do they seem removed from danger, protected by the bulk of the beasts. For who would dare approach them, when from above he is easily pierced by javelins, and below is crushed by the onrush of the elephants?

At last the battle-lines and all the armed men give way before them, and those square encampments are broken up. For they rush upon the enemy with an unbearable charge, so that they are checked by no rank of warriors, no crowding of soldiers, no barrier of shields; they move about in battles like certain moving mountains, and, as hills tower with lofty summit, they overturn with the roar of their bellowing the confidence of all. What can the foot-soldier do against these, however strong in his arms and ready of hand, when a wall, as it were, advancing, hedged about with hosts of armed men, confronts him as he walks? What can the horseman do, when his horse, terrified by the monstrousness of so great a beast, flees in every direction?

What can the archer do, when the iron-clad bodies of the men above cannot feel the stroke of a missile; and the beast itself, even bare, is not easily pierced by iron, and, armored with breastplates, cuts through the opposing lines without danger to itself, and crushes the squadrons?

34. The Elephant's Long Life and Solid Limbs

And so, just as immense buildings, elephants too are sustained by stronger foundations; otherwise, propped on unequal feet, they would collapse within a short span of years. But as it is, they are said to prolong their life for three hundred years and more, because all their members are fitted together for their magnitude. And therefore their limbs are not distinct as ours are, but compacted, so as to be more robust. How quickly, in men, if they have stood long, or run more swiftly, or walked continuously, are their knees and soles distressed! For joined and articulated parts more readily than parts grown together and made solid admit either the sensation of pain or the mishap of a stumble.

35. The Elephant's Trunk as a Weapon in Man's Service

And why do you marvel, if they are feared when armed with weapons; since with their own tusks, as with natural weapons, they supply the need? Whence Basil, "It has the trunk, which fulfills the office of the neck." they are always armed with darts. Whatever they wrap up with their trunk, they break; and whatever they press with their foot, they crush lifeless, as by the fall of some huge ruin. They wrap the very groves in their trunk for their food, and, like certain most lofty serpents, they lash with their coils whatever they have seized, as serpents do. Very often they gather themselves into a circle, especially when food is being gathered from the ground, or drink drawn up. They are, then, a lesson to us, that nothing was created superfluous; and yet this beast of so great a bulk, subjected to us, serves at the commands of men.

36. Even the Mightiest Beasts Serve Man

For since we are about to speak of the creature man, we ought first to lay a foundation of his commendation and give a foretaste of it. It seemed that no creature had anything more robust than elephants, nothing so terrible or so tall, nothing so fierce as lions or tigers; and yet these serve man, and lay aside their own nature at human bidding. They forget what they were born, they put on what they are commanded. What more? They are taught like little children, they serve like the weak, they are beaten like the timid, they are corrected like subjects, they pass over into our manners; since they have lost their own motions.

37. The Small Overcoming the Great in Nature

Wonderful, then, is nature in the greatest things; for wonderful is the Lord in the heights, wonderful also in the least. For just as we admire the flat places of the plains no less than the heights of the mountains, and we do not marvel at the height of the cedar more than at the brief fruitfulness of the vine or the olive: so I do not marvel more at the elephant because it is tall, than at the mouse, because it is terrible to the elephant. This, then, is the power of nature: that things terrible to some are fearsome to others. For a certain prerogative has been given to individual creatures, so that they may be supported by their own particular privileges. The elephant, formidable to bulls, fears the mouse. The lion, indeed, king of beasts, is agitated by the tiny sting of the scorpion, and is killed by the venom of the serpent. The lion's surpassing beauty shakes the shaggy tufts on his neck, or raises his face, his chest lifted high.

But who would not marvel that from so brief a sting of a scorpion, so slight you would think it incorporeal, death should come forth for such huge bodies?

38. Poisonous Creatures and the Fearlessness of Faith

Nor let anyone reproach the Creator for this, that he mingled serpents and other kinds, whether of animals or of herbs, poisonous, among his creatures. For these were born for our correction, not for our disfigurement. For what things are most often an offense and a terror to the slothful, or the weak, or the impious, are of such use to others as tutors are to little children. They seem bitter, harsh and troublesome, formidable with the rod, they deny freedom of wantonness, they exact the necessity of discipline, they restrain childish minds with terror, lest they flow away into excess; and therefore by the austerity of these they turn out thrifty, sober, continent, more devoted to praise than to play. Do you see what use these terrible scourges serve? So too serpents are scourges for those whose strength of mind is weak, and who have a certain childish virtue of mind; but they cannot harm the stronger.

Finally it is said to one trusting in the Lord: "Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample the lion and the dragon". A viper bit Paul, and they thought that he, as it were a sinner scarcely saved from shipwreck, would die of the poison; but after he remained unharmed, the viper shaken off into the fire, he found more veneration among the onlookers. But the Lord himself also says to all: "He that shall believe and be baptized shall be saved; but he that shall not believe shall be condemned". And he said these would be the signs of believers, that they would handle serpents with their hand, and that poisons and every deadly thing, even if they should drink them, could not harm them. Your own unbelief, then, O man, is more to be feared than the poisons of serpents. Fear those, then, so that at least, while they are feared, they may be able to call you to faith.

But if you do not fear God, at least dread the avenging poisons of faithlessness.

39. Know Thyself: The Soul Above the Flesh

Now since you see that elephants also are made subject to you, and that lions are made subject, know yourself, O man—a saying which is not, as they report, of Pythian Apollo, but of holy Solomon, who says: "Unless thou know thyself, O fair one among women"—although long before, Moses in Deuteronomy wrote: "Take heed to thyself, O man. Take heed to thyself", says the law. And the Prophet says: "Unless thou know thyself." To whom does he say this? "Fair one," he says, "among women." Who is fair among women, but the soul, which in either sex possesses the excellence of beauty? And rightly is she comely, who desires not earthly things but heavenly, not corruptible things but incorrupt, in which beauty is not wont to perish. For all bodily things wither with the passage of age or the inequality of sickness. Take heed to her, says Moses, in whom you wholly consist, in whom is the better portion of you.

Finally the Lord has explained who you are, saying: "Take heed to yourselves of false prophets"; for these weaken the soul, undermine the mind. You, then, are not flesh. For what is flesh without the governance of the soul, without vigor of mind? Flesh is put on today, laid down tomorrow. Flesh is temporal, the soul enduring. Flesh is the garment of the soul, which clothes itself with a certain vesture of the body. You, then, are not the garment, but he who uses the garment. Therefore it is said to you, that stripping off the old man with his deeds, you should put on the new, who is renewed not in the quality of the body, but in the spirit of the mind, and in knowledge. You, I say, are not flesh; for it is not said to the flesh: "For the temple of God is holy, which you are".

And elsewhere, "You are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you": but this is said to those renewed and faithful, in whom the Spirit of God abides. But he does not abide in carnal men, for it is written: "My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh".

40. Let Us Make Man: Against the Arians

But let us consider the very order of our creation. "Let us make," he says, "man to our image and likeness". Who says this? Is it not God, who made you? What is God? Flesh, or spirit? Not flesh surely, but spirit, to whom flesh cannot be similar; for he himself is incorporeal and invisible, but flesh is comprehended and seen. To whom does he say it? Not surely to himself, since he does not say "I will make," but "let us make." Not to angels; for they are ministers; but servants cannot have fellowship of operation with their lord, nor works with their author: but he speaks to the Son; even if the Jews are unwilling; even if the Arians resist. But let the Jews be silent, and let the Arians together with their forebears fall mute, who, while they exclude one from fellowship in the divine operation, bring in many; and the prerogative which they deny to the Son, they grant to little servants.

41. Christ as the True Image of God

But grant that God seems to have needed the assistance of little servants to work with you. If the operation is common to angels with God, is the image also common to God and angels? Would he say to angels: "Let us make man to our image and to our likeness"? But hear what the image of God is, from him who says: "Who has delivered us," he says, "from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, the remission of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, and the firstborn of every creature". He himself is the image of God the Father, who always is, and was in the beginning. Finally he is the image, who says: "Philip, he that sees me sees the Father also". And how is it that, when you see the living image of the living Father, you say, "Show us the Father"? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?

The image of God is power, not weakness: the image of God is wisdom, the image of God is justice: but it is divine wisdom, and everlasting justice. The image of God is he alone who said: "I and the Father are one"; thus having the likeness of the Father, that he has the unity of divinity and of fullness. Where he says, "let us make," how is there inequality? When again he says, "to our likeness," where is there unlikeness? So too in the Gospel, where he says, "I and the Father," it is surely not one person: but where he says, "we are one," there is no discrepancy of divinity or of work. Not, then, one person in either case, but one substance. And well did he add, "we are"; because to be always is divine, so that you may believe him coeternal, whom you thought unlike. For he is eternal, of whom Moses says: "He who is has sent me".

Beautifully too he put this first: "I and the Father." For if he had put the Father first, you would judge the Son the lesser: but he put the Son first, whom it is not fitting to believe superior to the Father. He joined the Father, so that you might perceive that God the Father and his Son are not bound by the prejudice of order.

42. Take Heed to Yourself Alone

"Take heed," he says, "to thyself alone". For one thing are we, another are our things, another are the things around us. We are, that is, soul and mind: our things are the members of the body, and its senses: but around us are money, servants, and the apparatus of this life. Take heed, then, to yourself, and know yourself, that is, not what sort of arms you have, not how much bodily strength, not how great possessions, how great power, but what sort of soul and mind you have, whence all counsels proceed, to which the fruit of your works is referred. For that is full of wisdom, full of piety and justice; since all virtue is from God. To whom God says: "Behold, Jerusalem, I have painted your walls", that soul is painted by God, which has in itself the shining grace of the virtues, and the splendor of piety. That soul is well painted, in which the effigy of the divine operation shines forth.

That soul is well painted, in which is the splendor of glory, and the image of the paternal substance. According to this image which shines forth, the picture is precious. According to this image was Adam before sin: but when he fell, he put off the heavenly image, and took up the effigy of the earthly. But let us flee this image, which cannot enter the city of God, for it is written: "Lord, in your city you will reduce their image to nothing". And an unworthy image does not enter, and even one that would enter is excluded; because, he says, "there shall not enter into it anything common, and that works abomination or falsehood": but he shall enter into it, on whose forehead the name of the Lamb is written.

43. The Soul as the Image of God

Our soul, therefore, is according to the image of God. In this you are wholly man; because without this you are nothing, but you are earth, and into earth you will be dissolved. Finally, that you may know that without the soul the flesh is nothing: Fear not, he says, those who can kill the body, but the soul they cannot kill. What, then, do you presume upon in the flesh, you who lose nothing if you should lose the flesh? But fear this, lest you be defrauded of the help of your soul. For what exchange will a man give for his soul, in which is not a small portion of himself, but the substance of the whole human race? This is that by which you have dominion over the other animals, the beasts and the birds: this is according to the image of God, but the body according to the likeness of the beasts. In this is the pious mark of divine imitation; in that, a base fellowship with wild and brute creatures.

44. The Flesh Is Not the Image of God

But let us treat more precisely what it is to be according to the image of God. Is the flesh perhaps according to the image of God? Then in God there is earth; since flesh is earth. Then God is corporeal. Then he is weak as flesh, and subject to passions. And perhaps the head seems to you to be after the likeness of God, because it stands high; or the eyes, because they see; or the ears, because they hear. If you look at height, do we seem tall because we rise a little above the earth by the top of our head? But is it not for this reason unashamed that we are said to be like God, because we are taller than serpents and other creeping things, or than fawns, and sheep, and wolves? And how much taller than us are camels and elephants in that respect?

Sight indeed is an excellent faculty, to look upon the elements of the world, to know things which no one announces but which your gaze perceives; but how great a thing is it that we see, that on this account we should say we are like God, who sees all things, beholds all things, detects hidden affections, searches the secrets of the heart? Are we not ashamed to say this, when I myself cannot see the whole of myself? What is before my feet I see; what is behind my back I cannot see. I do not know my own neck, I have not seen the back of my head, I cannot see my own kidneys. Likewise how great a thing is it that we have heard, when I cannot see or hear something only a little way off? If walls stand between, sight is hindered, hearing is hindered. Then our body clings in one place, is confined within a narrow space. All wild beasts are broader than man, and all are also swifter.

45. The Soul's Boundless Reach as God's Image

Therefore the flesh cannot be according to the image of God, but our soul, which is free, and with far-ranging thoughts and counsels wanders here and there, which by considering beholds all things. Behold, now we are in Italy, and we think upon things which seem to belong to the Eastern or Western parts, and we seem to dwell with those who are established in Persia, and we see those who live in Africa, if that land has received any known to us: we follow those departing, we cling to those journeying abroad, we are joined to the absent, we speak to those separated from us, we even raise the dead to converse with us, and we embrace and hold them as if living, and grant to them the offices and use of life.

This, then, is that which is according to the image of God, which is measured not by bodily reckoning, but by vigor of mind: which sees the absent, traverses overseas places by sight, runs through them with a glance, searches out hidden things, in one moment carries its senses here and there through the bounds of the whole world and the secrets of the universe: which is joined to God, cleaves to Christ, descends into hell, and ascends, and moves freely in heaven. Finally, hear him saying: But our citizenship is in heaven. Is it not, then, according to the image of God, in which God is always present? But hear also that it is according to the image of God. For the Apostle says: But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of God, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.

46. The Soul as the Image of God

Since, therefore, we have learned that the soul is according to the image of God, let us now consider whether it could be said of the soul: Let us make man according to the image. But hear also this, that the soul is called by the name of man. For it is written in Genesis: But the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were nine souls. All the souls, therefore, who entered into Egypt with Jacob were seventy-five. And much more fittingly is the soul called, whether "man" in Latin, or ἄνθρωπος in Greek; the one from humanity, the other from the liveliness of gazing, which without doubt suits the soul rather than the body. To which matter also that saying rightly agrees which is in the Lamentations of Jeremiah: The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

He spoke of men, and thought fit to add "soul." For the soul seeks better if it is alone, withdrawing itself from the mire of the body and from carnal desire. It is this that is according to the image of God, conformed to the Lord Jesus. But those who are conformed to the Son of God are holy. For thus we read, Paul saying: But we know that to them that love God all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints: whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And whom he predestinated, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Whether, then, according to the body or according to the soul justification seems conferred upon you, answer, I ask. But you cannot doubt, since justice, from which justification is derived, belongs surely to the mind, not to the body.

47. The Soul's True Painting and the Vanity of Cosmetics

You are, therefore, painted, O man, and painted by the Lord your God. You have a good craftsman and painter. Do not erase a good painting, one that shines not with pigment but with truth, not expressed in wax but by grace. You erase the painting, woman, if you smear your face with material whiteness, if you spread on it an acquired blush. That painting is of vice, not of comeliness: that painting is of deceit, not of simplicity: that painting is temporal, and is wiped off by rain or by sweat: that painting deceives and cheats; so that you please neither him whom you wish to please, since he understands that what pleases is not yours but another's; and you displease your own maker, who sees that his work has been erased. Tell me, if you set another craftsman over some work, one who covers over with new work that of the earlier one, is not he indignant who finds his own work adulterated?

Do not take away God's painting, and assume the painting of a harlot, since it is written: Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. But if anyone adulterates the work of God, he commits a grave crime. For it is a grave crime that you should think a man paints you better than God. It is grave that God should say of you: I do not recognize my colors, I do not recognize my image, I do not recognize the face which I myself formed; I reject what is not mine. Seek him who painted you: keep company with him: receive grace from him to whom you have given a wage. What will you answer?

48. Murder, Deceit, and the Son of Man's Rest

But if it is grave to adulterate the work of God, what shall we say of those who kill the work of God, who shed human blood, who wrest away the life which God gave, who say: Let us take away the Just One, for he is useless to us? Whence it was well read today: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests where they may rest: but the Son of man has not where to lay his head. The fox, then, hides itself in a hole, the bird guards itself in a nest: man is not hidden in a hole, but is deceived. But the hole is man's own mouth; the deep hole is man's breast, where harmful and fraudulent counsels are, and evil thoughts. You walk, and another prepares a pit for you. You walk amid snares which your enemies have hidden for you in the way.

Look about, therefore, on every side, that you may escape like a fawn out of the nets, and like a bird out of the snare. The fawn avoids the nets by the liveliness of its sight; the bird escapes the snares if it betakes itself to higher places and flies above earthly things. For no one spreads nets in the higher regions, no one hides a snare there. Therefore he whose way of life is above is not wont to fall into the hunter's prey. But why do you wonder if man is deceived by man, when the Son of man had no place to rest? And yet he made such a man in whom he might rest his head. But after there began to be in our breast not the rest of a neighbor but a pit; after one began to weave snares for another whom he ought to have helped, Christ turned his head away from us: but afterward he chose rather to offer it to death for us.

Do not, then, be fraudulent, cruel, unmerciful; that Christ may rest his head in you.

49. God's Rest in Man and the Fortified Soul

Finally, when he had made the monsters of the fishes, when he had made the kinds of wild beasts and cattle, he did not rest: but he rested after he made man according to his image. In whom he rests, hear him saying: Upon whom shall I rest, but upon him that is humble and quiet, and that trembles at my words? Be, then, humble and quiet, that God may rest in your affection. He who did not rest in the beasts will much less rest in a beastly breast. For there are beastly minds, there are wild beasts clothed in the form of men, of whom the Lord says: Take heed of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but within are ravening wolves. In these, then, God did not rest: but he rested in human character, which God made according to his image and likeness, when he made the man who ought not to cover his head; since he is the image and glory of God.

To the soul of this man he says: Behold, I have painted your walls, O Jerusalem. He did not say, I have painted your belly: he did not say, I have painted your lower parts: but he said, I have painted your walls, declaring that he had given man the strong defenses of walls: so that if a wakeful watchman stands at the gates, he may be able to repel the danger of siege. He says, then: I have not given you pleasures, not the enticements of desires, not the incitements of luxury, not the coveting of another's beauty, but I have given you the foundations of walls, I have given you the lofty heights of towers, established in which you need not fear to be stormed by the enemy, nor dread the terrible attempts of hostile legions rushing upon you. Finally, you have in Isaiah, that the soul of the just, or the Church, says: I am a fortified city, I am a besieged city: fortified through Christ, besieged through the devil.

But it ought not to fear the siege, since Christ is its helper. For it is fortified by spiritual grace, and is besieged by worldly dangers. Whence also you have it said in the Canticle: I am a wall, and my breasts are as towers. The wall is the Church, its towers are the priests, in whom abounds both the word concerning natural things and the discipline concerning moral things.

50. Know Yourself and Take Heed to Your Soul

Know yourself, then, fair soul; for you are the image of God. Know yourself, O man; for you are the glory of God. Hear how you are a glory. The Prophet says, Your knowledge of me has become wonderful, that is, in my work your majesty has become more wonderful, in the counsel of man your wisdom is proclaimed. While I look upon myself, whom you discern even in the very hidden thoughts and inward affections, I acknowledge the mysteries of your knowledge. Know yourself, then, O man, how great you are, and take heed to yourself; lest sometime, entangled in the snares of the devil, you become the prey of the hunter; lest by chance you fall into the jaws of that foul lion, who roars and goes about seeking whom he may devour. Take heed to yourself, that you consider what enters into you, what goes out from you. I do not speak of food, which is absorbed and cast out, but I speak of thought, I speak of speech.

Let not the desire of another's bed enter into you, let it not creep into your mind, let not your eye seize upon the beauty of a passing woman, let your mind not entertain it, let your speech not weave the machinations of temptations, let it not betray by guile, let it not sprinkle a neighbor with slanderous reproach. God made you a hunter, not a plunderer, who said: Behold, I send many hunters: hunters not of crime, but of absolution; hunters not, surely, of guilt, but of grace. He is the fisherman of Christ, to whom it is said: From now on you shall be catching men alive. So cast your nets, so cast your eyes, so cast your words, that you crush no one, but lift up those who are wavering. Take heed, he says, to yourself. Stand thus, that you may not fall: run thus, that you may reach the prize: contend thus, that you may often win; for the crown is owed to lawful contest.

You are a soldier; scout out the enemy diligently, lest he creep upon you by night: you are an athlete; be closer to your adversary with your hands than with your face; lest he strike your eye. Let the gaze be free, the step alert; so that you may pour out him who rushes upon you, seize upon him who yields, escape a wound by a watchful glance, repel it by a strong encounter. But if you have been wounded, attend to yourself, run to the physician, seek the remedy of penitence. Attend to yourself; because you have flesh, which quickly slips away: let the good physician of souls, the divine word, come to you, let it sprinkle upon you the oracles of the Lord as wholesome medicines. Attend to yourself, lest some wicked word lie hidden in your heart: for it creeps like poison, and brings on deadly contagions. Attend to yourself; lest you forget God who made you, lest you take his name in vain.

51. Wealth, Mortality, and the Vanity of Riches

Attend to yourself; the law says lest when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built houses and begun to dwell in them, and are filled with your flocks, and abound in gold and silver, and in all that is yours, you exalt yourself in heart because of the abundance, and forget the Lord your God. For what have you, O man, that you have not received? Do not all these things pass away like a shadow? Is not your house here dust and ruin? Are not all these things false? Is not the treasure of this age vanity? Are not you yourself ashes? Look into the tombs of men, and see what will remain of you but ashes and bones, that is, of your body: look, I say, and tell me who there is rich, who poor? Distinguish the needy from the powerful. We are all born naked, we all die naked. There is no distinction among the corpses of the dead; except perhaps that the bodies of the rich, bloated with luxury, stink more heavily.

Whom have you heard of a poor man dying of indigestion? His poverty benefits him: it exercises the body, it does not oppress it. Yet we have not heard of the just man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread; since he who labors well on his own land abounds in food. Attend therefore to yourself, rich man; for you too bear flesh just like the poor man.

52. The Poor Man's True Riches

Attend to yourself, poor man; for your soul is precious: and though the flesh is mortal, the soul is long-lasting: and though money is lacking to you, grace is not lacking: and though there is no spacious house, no widespread possession, the sky lies open, the earth is free. The elements are given in common to all, the ornaments of the world lie open equally to rich and poor. Are the gilded panels of the most costly houses more beautiful than the face of the sky marked with shining stars? Are the fields of the rich broader than the expanses of the earth? Whence it was said to those who join house to house and field to field: Shall you dwell alone upon the earth? You, poor man, have a greater house, in which you cry out and are heard: O Israel, says the prophet, how great is the house of God, and vast the place of his possession! Great, and it has no end, high and immeasurable.

The house of God is common to the rich and to the poor; yet it is hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. But perhaps you grieve that no light of gilded lamps shines for you: but the moon, with its far more brilliant light poured about, shines resplendent for you. Perhaps you complain of winter, because no heated chambers are warmed for you by panting fires: but you have the heat of the sun, which tempers the globe of the earth for you, and defends you from the winter cold. Or do you think those blessed who are surrounded by throngs of attending servants? But those who need the feet of others do not know how to use their own. In short, they are preceded by a few, and carried by many. Unless perhaps you marvel at this, that they abound in gold, silver, money: you see how much they abound in, you do not see how much they lack.

But you think it precious to recline on ivory couches; and you do not consider that the earth is more precious, which spreads for the poor man beds of grass, in which rest is sweet, sleep is pleasant—sleep which he, reclined on his golden couch, seeks all night wakeful, and does not obtain. O how much more blessed the wakeful man judges the sleeping poor man to be than himself! I pass over this, which is far more excellent: that the just man who has been in want here will abound there; and he who has endured labor here will have consolation there: but he who has received good things here will not be able to hope for their reward there. For poverty reserves its reward, wealth consumes it.

53. The Temptations of Riches and Poverty

Attend therefore to yourself, poor man; attend, rich man; for in both poverty and riches there are temptations. And so the Wise Man says: Give me neither riches nor poverty. And he states the reason for this petition; for it is enough for a man to have what suffices him. Because riches, as feasts distend the belly, so they distend the mind with cares and anxieties. And therefore he asks that what is needful and sufficient be established for him: Lest, he says, being full, I become false, and say, Who sees me? Or being made poor, I steal, and swear by the name of the Lord. The temptations of the world are therefore to be fled and avoided; lest the poor man despair, lest the wealthy man grow insolent. For it is written: When you have driven out the nations, and begun to use their lands, do not say: My own strength and my own hand have procured me this possession. So it is with him who attributes his wealth to his own merit.

And therefore, as though approved, he does not recognize his own error: but he drags out sin with a long rope. For if he believed that the accession of money was either the result of chance or of shameful cunning, insolence would have no place in things where there is either no praise, and vain toil, or shameless greed knowing no limit to set to pleasure.

54. The Excellence and Grace of the Human Form

But now something must also be said about the human body itself, which who would deny to be more excellent than the rest in comeliness and grace? For although the substance of all earthly bodies seems to be one and the same, firmness and stature being greater in certain beasts: yet the form of the human body is more graceful, its stance upright and lofty; so that there is neither excessive height, nor mean and abject smallness: then the very build of the body is pleasant and agreeable, so that neither is there beastly hugeness to cause horror, nor slender thinness to suggest weakness.

55. The Head as the World's Likeness and the Body's Ruler

And first of all let us recognize that the structure of the human body is the likeness of the world. Just as the sky rises above the air, the lands, the sea, which are as it were certain members of the world: so too we perceive the head rising above the rest of the limbs of our body, and being the most excellent of all, as the sky is among the elements, as the citadel among the rest of a city's walls. In this citadel dwells, as it were, a certain royal wisdom, according to the prophetic saying: For the eyes of the wise man are in his head: that this is safer than the rest, and that from it vigor and foresight are conveyed to all the members. For what would the strength and vigor of the arms avail, what the swiftness of the feet, unless a certain imperial power of the head, as of its prince, gave assistance? For from it either all things are deprived, or all are sustained.

What could courage do, unless it used the eye as its guide in battle? What could flight do, if sight were lacking? The whole body is a prison, shuddering in dark confinement, unless it is illumined by the sight of the eyes. What the sun and moon are in the sky, that the eyes are in man. The sun and moon are the two lights of the world: but the eyes shine like certain stars in the flesh from above, and illumine the lower parts with clear light, and do not allow us to be wrapped in a kind of nightly darkness. Certain watchmen of ours keep guard day and night. For they are roused more quickly than the rest of the members from sleep, and, being watchful, survey all things; for they are nearer to the brain, whence all the function of seeing flows.

Nor indeed let anyone think that I have too hastily descended to this point, in that, leaving the crown of the head, I praise the eyes, since it is not out of place to praise the chief thing in a part. For it is certain that the eyes are a portion of the head. The head, therefore, examines all things by the eyes, searches out hidden things by the ears, knows things concealed, hears what is done far off on the earth.

56. The Adornment and Function of Hair

And the very crown of the head—how pleasant and agreeable, how comely the hair, how reverend in the old, how venerable in priests, how terrible in warriors, how becoming in youths; how neatly arranged in women, how sweet in children? Long hair does not suit one sex, shorn hair does not suit the other. From trees one may estimate what is the grace of the human head. In the head of the tree is all its fruit, there is all its beauty, its foliage either shields us from rains or defends us from the sun. Take away the tree's foliage, the whole tree is unpleasing. How much greater, then, is the adornment of the human head, which guards and clothes our brain—that is, the seat and origin of our senses—with the hair of the head; lest it be troubled either by cold or by heat? For there is the fountain of all things; and therefore where injury does the most harm, there grace excels the most.

57. The Head's Authority Over the Body's Members

What is man without a head, since he is wholly in his head? When you see the head, you recognize the man: if the head is missing, no recognition is possible: the trunk lies ignoble, without honor, without name. Only the heads of princes, cast in bronze, and features drawn from bronze or marble, are worshiped by men. Not undeservedly, therefore, do the rest of the members serve this one as their counselor, and carry it about with servile bearing as though it were a divinity, and convey it set on high. Whence, with censorial power, it directs whither it will the obedience of certain little servants, and decrees precepts to be carried out by each. You may see each one soldiering for its emperor at its own gratuitous expense. Some carry, some feed, some defend, or perform their own service: they obey as to a prince, they wait upon as to a lord.

Thence proceeds, as it were, a certain watchword, which the feet must obey through the region, which the works of military duty the hands must accomplish in completing tasks, and which form of discipline imposed the belly must observe in abstaining or eating.

58. The Brow and Eyebrows as Guardians of the Eyes

To this belongs the free brow, open with bared temples, which by its very appearance reveals the disposition of the mind: now glad, now more sorrowful: now raised to severity, now more relaxed toward gentleness, which by outward signs expresses the inner will. A certain image of the mind speaks in the countenance, the base of faith on which the name of the Lord is daily inscribed and held. Twin hedges of eyebrows follow it, which extend defenses before the eyes, and lend them grace as well; so that the loveliness of comeliness may smile forth, and the diligence of protection may stand guard. For if any filth fall from the head, or dust of sand, or the dew of mist, or the sweat of a moistening crown, it is caught by the eyebrow, lest, striking the delicate vision, it disturb the sight of the tender eyes.

59. The Eyes as a Watchtower

The eyes cling as it were to certain brows of mountains; so that, protected by the mountain's summit, they may be safer, and, as though stationed on the highest point, may survey all things as from a certain upper stage. For it was not fitting that they be lowly like the ears, or the mouth, or the inner recesses of the nostrils themselves. For a watchtower is always set on high; so that the approach of hostile bands advancing may be spied out, lest they seize unawares upon an idle people of a city, or the army of an emperor. So too the incursions of robbers are guarded against, if watchmen are stationed on walls or towers or the brow of a lofty mountain; so that they may look down upon the plains of the regions, in which the ambushes of robbers could not lie hidden.

At sea also, if anyone reckons himself approaching land, the eager watchman climbs to the very peak of the mast, and the lofty horns of the yardarms, and from afar salutes land still invisible to the rest who sail with him.

60. The Eyes' Placement and Protection

But perhaps you may say: If a loftier watchtower was necessary, why were the eyes not placed above the very top of the head, as they are at the top in crabs or beetles, in which, although no head appears, yet the neck and back are higher than the rest of the body? But those creatures have a strong shell, not so thin a membrane as we have, which could easily be injured, and torn apart by brambles and other thorns. Other living beings also have such a form that they can turn their eyes toward their necks, as horses and oxen and almost all wild beasts, or toward their wings, as birds, so that they may enjoy safe rest. But for us it was fitting that the eyes be set almost at the highest part of the body, as in a citadel, and yet be defended from every, even the slightest, injury—two things which seemed to be in conflict with each other.

For if they were placed low for the sake of protection, their function would be impeded; if on the summit, they would lie open to injury. Therefore, that neither anything might be taken away from the use of their function, nor anything be left unprovided for warding off injury, he set the eyes in that place where the eyebrows above afford no small protection, where the cheeks somewhat raised beneath add no slight defense, where the nose fences the inner part, and the prominences of the forehead and cheeks project on the outer side: and although these seem to be walled about by the joined and level confines of the bones, in the midst of them are the orbs of the eyes, safe for guarding, free for seeing, and graceful in beauty, gleaming as it were like crystal. In the middle of these are the pupils, which perform the office of seeing. Lest these be harmed by the impact of some incident injury, they are fortified all around by hairs interwoven here and there as by a kind of rampart.

Whence the Prophet, seeking safe protection for himself, says: Keep me, O Lord, as the apple of the eye; that there might be for him so anxious and safe a guardianship of divine protection as He deigned to fortify the pupil of the eye with a most secure rampart of nature. At the same time, because innocence and integrity are violated when sprinkled with even light defilement, and lose the gift of their grace; and therefore care must be taken lest any dust of error befoul it, or any mote of sin trouble it; for it is written: Cast out first the beam from your own eye, and then you will see to cast out the mote from your brother's eye.

61. The Brain, Nerves, and the Heart's Vital Heat

Therefore, for the sake of the eyes, those skilled in medicine say the human brain is located in the head, while the other senses of our body are set in a dwelling neighboring to the brain for the brain's sake. For the brain is the origin of the nerves and of all the voluntary movement of the senses, and from it flows every cause of the things we have mentioned. But the origin of the arteries and of the inborn heat, by which the vital parts are given life and warmth, most think to be the heart. The nerves, however, are as it were the organ of each of the senses, which arise from the brain like certain strings and chords, and are derived through the parts of the body into their several offices.

And therefore the brain is softer than the rest, because it receives all the senses, whence come all the nerves, and to which are referred all things that the eye has seen, or the ear has heard, or the smell has breathed in, or the tongue has tasted, or the mouth has received of flavor. For what is soft is more apt for sympathetic feeling; but what is hard, from some rigidity of the nerves, is more effective for action.

62. The Design and Grace of Hearing

Most excellent also is the office of hearing, and its grace is above that of sight. Therefore the ears stand out more prominently, both that they may present the beauty of ornament, and that they may catch whatever filth or moisture flows down from the top of the head; and also so that, in their curved recesses, the sound of the voice, being broken, may enter the inner windings without offense. For were it not so, who would not be stunned by every louder sound of voice, since even amid these very defenses we often feel ourselves deafened by an unexpected outcry of shouting? Then you may see them stretched out as certain bulwarks against the harshness of cold and the burning heat, so that neither cold may penetrate the open passages nor excessive heat scorch them. Moreover, the winding of the inner ears provides a certain measure and discipline for modulation. For indeed, through the windings of the ears a certain rhythm is produced, and the sound of the entering voice is expressed by certain measures.

Moreover, use itself teaches us that the very windings of the ears are retentive of received speech. For indeed, as in the hollows of mountains, or in the recesses of cliffs, or in the windings of rivers, the voice is heard sweeter, and echo resounds, giving back pleasant responses. Even the wax of the ears itself is not without use, which binds the voice, so that its memory and grace may be more lasting in us.

63. The Function of the Nostrils

But what shall I say of the nostrils, which by a twofold passage and a long opening provide a kind of cavern for receiving odors, so that the odor does not pass through carelessly, but clings longer to the nostrils, and through their passage feeds the brain and the senses? Therefore an odor, once received, lingers longer than speech resounds or sight appears. Often what you have smelled for a brief moment breathes in your nostrils the whole day. Through them also the purgings of the head flow down, and are diverted without any harm or offense to the body.

64. The Sense of Touch

There is also no ordinary sense in touch, and in it a most pleasing delight and a sincere judgment. For often we prove by touch what we cannot prove by the eyes.

65. The Mouth's Service to the Other Senses

The last office also is that of the mouth or tongue, which nevertheless ministers strength to all the others. For neither would the eyes have the vigor of seeing, unless they received the strength of bodily substance, which is brought by food and drink, nor would the ears have the power of hearing, or the nose of smelling, or the hands of touching, unless the whole body were strengthened by nourishment. For we fail in strength unless we restore it by the constant supply of suitable food. Finally, those worn out by hunger are delighted by none of the pleasures of the senses, but, as if excluded from them, do not feel their allurements.

66. The Teeth's Role in Chewing and Speech

Why should I describe the rampart of teeth, by which food is chewed, and the full expression of the voice is made? What food would delight without teeth? Finally, we often observe that those mature in age grow old more quickly for this very reason, that having lost their teeth they can no longer take in the strength of firmer food. Therefore infancy is mute, because it does not yet have the organ of speech.

67. The Tongue, Rational Speech, and Human Wisdom

The tongue also has a most precious office, not only in speaking but also in eating. For it is, as it were, the plectrum of one speaking, and a kind of hand for one eating, which supplies and administers to the teeth the food that flows down. The voice too is carried by a certain rowing of the air, and is borne through the void, and the same force which strikes the air now stirs, now soothes the feeling of the hearer, calms the angry, raises up the broken, consoles the mourning. Let melody, then, be common to us with the birds. But the manner in which each one uses the sound of the voice, which is rational, cannot be common with all the irrational living beings. For the senses themselves are common to us with the other living beings, but the other animals do not employ the same skill with these senses. The heifer lifts her eyes to the sky, but does not know what she beholds.

Wild beasts lift them, birds lift them, the gaze is open to all; but only to man belongs an interpreting feeling for the things he beholds. He beholds with his eyes the risings and settings of the constellations, sees the ornament of heaven, marvels at the orbits of the stars, understands too the diverse brightnesses of each, when Hesperus rises, when Lucifer; why the one shines in the evening, the other in the morning; what motions Orion has, what defects the moon; how the sun knows its own settings, and keeps also the solemn order of its own course. Other living beings also hear, but who besides man comes to know by hearing? Man alone, of all the kinds that are on the earth, gathers the secrets of wisdom by hearing and meditation and prudence, who can say: I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me. This is most precious, that man is the organ of the divine voice, and expresses with bodily lips the heavenly oracle, as it is said: Cry out. What shall I cry?

All flesh is grass. He received what he should say, and he cried out. Let those keep their own prudence to themselves who trace out the spaces of heaven and earth with a rod. Let them keep their own understanding, of which the Lord says: And the understanding of the prudent I will reject. Nor will I set in this place the numbers and measures of oratory, and the modulations of musical skill; but I define that wisdom of which the Prophet says: The uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made known to me.

68. The Kiss of the Mouth and Judas's Betrayal

But what shall I say of the kiss of the mouth, which is the pledge of devotion and love? Doves too kiss one another, but what is that to the comeliness of the human countenance, in which the mark of friendship and of humanity shines forth, in which the faithful affection of full love is expressed? Whence the Lord also, condemning as it were a kind of monstrous act in the traitor, says: Judas, do you betray the Son of man with a kiss? That is, do you turn this mark of love into a sign of betrayal and a token of faithlessness? Do you use this pledge of peace for a work of cruelty? He rebukes, then, by the oracle of the divine voice one who, with bestial service of the mouth, inflicts death rather than delivers the covenants of love. This too is remarkable, that we alone among men express with the mouth what we feel with the heart. Thus the silent thoughts of the mind are signified by the speech of the mouth.

What, then, is the mouth of man, but a certain entrance of speech, a fount of discourse, a hall of words, a storehouse of the will? We have completed, as it were, a certain royal seat of the human body, in which, although there be a certain measure of proportion, yet there is the form of the whole.

69. The Hands and Their Many Offices

There follows the throat, through which the commerce of life for the whole body, and the passage of this breath, is poured in. Then come the arms, and the strong sinews of the muscles, hands strong for working, and, with their longer fingers, apt for holding. From this comes the more apt use of working, from this the elegance of writing, and that pen of the scribe writing swiftly, by which the oracles of the divine voice are expressed. It is the hand that ministers food to the mouth: it is the hand that shines with illustrious deeds, which, as conciliator of divine grace, is brought to the sacred altars, through which we offer and receive the heavenly sacraments: it is the hand that works and at the same time dispenses the divine mysteries, by whose name the Son of God did not disdain to be declared, David saying: The right hand of the Lord has wrought strength, the right hand of the Lord has exalted me.

It is the hand that made all things, as Almighty God said: Has not my hand made all these things? The hand is the bulwark of the whole body, the defender of the head. Though lower in position, it adorns the whole crown, and beautifies it with honorable ornament.

70. The Chest, Belly, and Lung's Tempering of the Heart

Who could worthily explain the framework of the chest, and the softness of the belly? For otherwise the softer inward parts could not be cherished, and the folds of the intestines would doubtless be injured by hard bones. What is so wholesome as that the lung should be joined by a neighboring boundary to the heart, so that when the heart burns with anger and indignation, it may the more quickly be tempered by the blood and moisture of the lung? And therefore the lung is softer, because it is always moist, so that it may also soften the rigor of indignation. These things we run through briefly, that we may seem, as unlearned men, to touch lightly upon what lies before us, not, as physicians, to search and pursue more fully what lies hidden in the recesses of nature.

71. The Spleen, Liver, and Intestines in Digestion

The spleen too has a fruitful neighborhood with the liver, which, while it takes in that by which it itself is fed, wipes away whatever impurities it finds; so that through the finer fibers of the liver the thin and subtle remains of foods may pass through, which are turned into blood and profit the strength, and are not cast out with dung and filth. But the encircling coils of the intestines, though not tied together by any knot, yet mutually connected, what else do they show but the divine foresight of the Creator, providing that food may not pass through too quickly, and run off at once from the stomach? For if this happened, a continual hunger and an unceasing lust for devouring would be produced in men. For with the inward parts emptied and exhausted, while they were drained by a momentary discharge, there would necessarily be generated an insatiable and unquenchable craving for food and drink, which without doubt an early death would follow.

Therefore food is providently prepared, first in the upper womb of digestion, then cooked in the liver, and, digested by its warmth, its juice is transfused into the other parts of the body; and by this substance the human limbs are nourished, which the young receive for growth, the old for continuance: but the remainder, as superfluous, is carried down through the intestines, and is diverted through that transverse opening.

72. The Ark of Noah as a Figure of the Body

Finally, even in Genesis the ark of Noah is taken as a figure for the fabric of the human body, of which God said: Make yourself an ark of squared timbers, you shall make chambers in it, and you shall pitch it within and without with pitch, and thus you shall make the ark. And below: But you shall make the door on the side; and the lower parts of the ark you shall make with two stories and three stories. This, then, the Lord signifies, that the door should be on the hinder part, through which the superfluities of food are cast out. For our Creator, with fitting decorum, turned away the passage of the remains from the face of man, lest, while we purge the belly, we should seek to look upon it. Consider also this together, that those things which are full of shame are placed in that spot where, covered by garments, they cannot be unseemly.

73. The Veins, Bones, and Organs of Procreation

The pulse of the veins is either the messenger of illness, or of health. Yet these same veins, though diffused through the whole body, are neither bare nor uncovered, but are so covered by light coverings of flesh, that there is opportunity for examining them, and quickness for perceiving them, since there is no thickness of flesh that could obscure the pulse. All the bones likewise are covered with a thin covering of flesh, and bound together with sinews; but those of the head especially are covered with thin skin. Whence, that they may have some defense against rains and cold, they are clothed with thicker hair. What shall I say of the genitals, which, through veins led down from the region of the neck through the kidneys and loins, receive the generative seed for the office and grace of procreation?

74. The Feet, the Knee, and Man's Heavenward Nature

What of the office of the feet, which sustain the whole body without any injury of burden? The flexible knee, by which above all else the offense of the Lord is mitigated, wrath is soothed, grace is called forth. For this is the gift of the highest Father toward the Son: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. For there are two things which above all else appease God: humility and faith. The foot, then, expresses the affection of humility, and the homage of assiduous service; faith equates the Son to the Father, and confesses the same glory of both. Rightly, moreover, man has not more, but two feet; for four feet belong to wild beasts and cattle, two to birds.

And therefore man is, as it were, one of the winged creatures, who seeks lofty things with his sight, and flies by a kind of oarage of the sagacity of his senses into the heights. And therefore it is said of him: “Thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s”; because he is nearer to heavenly things, and loftier than eagles, who can say: “But our conversation is in heaven.”

75. God's Rest in Man at Creation's Completion

But let there now be an end to our discourse, since the sixth day is completed, and the supreme conclusion of the work of the world is reached; man, namely, having been made perfect, in whom is the sovereignty over all living creatures, and a certain sum, as it were, of the whole universe, and the grace of every worldly creature. Surely let us maintain silence; since God rested from all the works of the world: he rested, however, in the retreat of man, he rested in his mind and purpose. For he had made man capable of reason, an imitator of himself, a rival of virtues, desirous of heavenly graces. In these God rests, who says: “Upon whom shall I rest, but upon him that is humble, and quiet, and trembling at my words”?

Thanks, then, be to the Lord our God, who made such a work in which he might rest. He made heaven; I do not read that he rested; he made earth; I do not read that he rested; he made the sun, moon, and stars, nor there do I read that he rested: but I read that he made man; and then he rested, having one to whom he might forgive sins. Or perhaps then already there preceded the mystery of the Lord’s future passion, whereby it was revealed that Christ would rest in man, who was predestining rest for himself in the body for the redemption of man, according as he himself said: “I slept, and took my rest, and rose up; for the Lord sustained me”. For he rested who made; to whom is honor, glory, perpetuity from ages, and now, and always, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.