Hexaemeron 7

Homily VII. Concerning Birds and Aquatic Creatures.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth a living soul according to its kind, four-footed beasts and creeping things and wild animals according to their kind.

The command came, advancing on its way, and the earth too received its own adornment.

There: Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls;

here: Let the earth bring forth a living soul.

Is the earth then animate? and do the vain-minded Manichaeans have ground, who put a soul into the earth? It is not because He said, Let it bring forth, that the earth produced something already lying stored within it, but He who gave the command also bestowed on it the power to bring forth.

For neither, when the earth heard, Let it bring forth herbage of grass and fruitful tree, did it bring forth grass which it had hidden within it;

nor did it send up to the surface the palm, or the oak, or the cypress, which had been hidden somewhere down in its bowels;

but the divine word is the nature of the things that come to be.

Let it not put forth what it has, but acquire what it does not have, since God grants the power of the operation.

So also now: Let the earth bring forth a soul—not the one lying stored within it, but the one given to it by God through the command.

Furthermore, the argument will also be turned to the opposite of what they hold.

For if the earth brought forth the soul, it left itself destitute of soul.

But the abomination of those men is at once obvious of itself.

Why, however, were the waters commanded to bring forth creeping things of living souls, but the earth a living soul? We reason, then, that the nature of swimming creatures seems somehow to partake of a less perfect life, because of dwelling in the thickness of the water.

For their hearing is dull, and they see dimly, looking through the water, and there is among them neither any memory, nor imagination, nor recognition of the familiar.

For this reason the word as it were indicates that fleshly life governs the soul's motions in aquatic creatures;

but in the land creatures, as their life is more perfect, the soul has been entrusted with the whole leadership.

For their senses are more sharply distinct;

and keen are their perceptions of things present;

and exact are the memories of things past in most of the four-footed beasts.

For this reason, as it seems, in the case of aquatic creatures bodies endowed with soul were created (for creeping things of living souls were brought forth from the waters), but in the case of land creatures the soul was commanded to come into being as managing the bodies, since those that dwell on the earth have partaken of something more of the vital power.

For the land creatures too are without reason;

but nevertheless each one, by the voice that comes from its nature, signifies many of the affections of its soul.

For it makes evident, by its cry, joy and grief, and the recognition of the familiar, and lack of food, and separation from its companions, and countless affections.

But the aquatic creatures are not only voiceless, but also untamable, and unteachable, and quite intractable to men for any fellowship of life.

The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib;

but a fish would not recognize the one who feeds it.

The ass knows the familiar voice.

It knows the road which it has often traveled;

and sometimes it even becomes a guide to a man who has lost his way.

And the keenness of hearing of this animal is said to be possessed by no other of the land creatures.

And the rancorous, grudge-bearing, and persistently wrathful nature of camels—what among the sea creatures could imitate it? A camel once struck, having long stored up its rancor, when it gets an opportunity, repays the injury.

Hear, you who are heavy-tempered, who practice the bearing of grudges as if it were a virtue, to what you are like, when you keep your grievance against your neighbor, like some spark hidden in the ashes, until—having gotten hold of fuel—you kindle your wrath into a kind of flame.

Let the earth bring forth a living soul.

Why does the earth bring forth a living soul? That you may learn the difference between the soul of a beast and the soul of a man.

A little later you will learn how the soul of man was constituted;

but now hear concerning the soul of the irrational creatures.

Since, according to what is written, the soul of every living thing is its blood;

and blood, when congealed, naturally changes into flesh;

and flesh, when corrupted, dissolves into earth;

the soul of beasts is, fittingly, something earthy.

Let the earth therefore bring forth a living soul.

Observe the sequence of soul to blood, of blood to flesh, of flesh to earth;

and again, reversing it, retrace your steps through the same stages, from earth to flesh, from flesh to blood, from blood to soul;

and you will find that the soul of beasts is earth.

Do not suppose it to be older than the substance of their body, nor to survive after the dissolution of the flesh.

Flee the nonsense of the pompous philosophers, who are not ashamed to set their own souls and those of dogs as of the same kind with one another;

those who say that they themselves were once both women and shrubs and fishes of the sea.

But as for me, whether they were ever fishes I would not affirm; yet that, at the time they were writing these things, they were more irrational than the fishes—this I would maintain most emphatically.

Let the earth bring forth a living soul.

For what reason, while the discourse was running on without pause, I fell silent for no little time—perhaps the many wonder;

but the more diligent of the hearers are not ignorant of the cause of my speechlessness.

How could they be? They, by looking at one another and nodding, turned me back toward themselves, and brought to my mind the things that had been passed over.

For a whole category of creation, and that not the least, had escaped us, and the discourse, departing, had almost gone off leaving it entirely unexamined.

For: Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls according to their kind, and birds flying upon the earth according to the firmament of heaven.

We spoke of the swimming creatures, as much as the time allowed yesterday evening;

today we passed on to the examination of the land creatures.

The winged creature in between escaped us.

It is necessary, therefore—like forgetful travelers who, when they have left behind something needful, turn back along the same road even though they have advanced far on their way, paying as a fitting penalty for their carelessness the toil of the journey—so too we, it seems, must travel the same road again.

For what was passed over is by no means contemptible, but seems to be the third part of the creation among living things, seeing that there are three kinds of living things: the land kind, the winged, and the aquatic.

Let the waters, He says, bring forth creeping things of living souls according to their kind, and birds flying upon the earth according to the firmament of heaven according to their kind.

Why did He give to the birds also their origin from the waters? Because there is, as it were, a certain kinship of the flying creatures with the swimming ones.

For just as the fishes cleave the water, advancing forward by the motion of their fins, and by the shifting of the tail steering for themselves both their turns and their straight courses;

so also in the case of the birds it is possible to see them swimming through the air with their wings in a like manner.

So that, since the one characteristic in both is swimming, a single kinship was afforded them from their origin in the waters.

Except, however, that no bird is footless, because for all of them their sustenance is from the earth, and all of necessity require the service of feet.

For to the birds of prey the points of the talons are for the hunt;

while to the rest, both for procuring food, and for the rest of the conduct of life, the service of the feet has been given as necessary.

A few of the birds are poor-footed, fit neither for walking nor for hunting with their feet;

such as the swallows, able neither to walk nor to hunt, and the so-called swifts, for which their food has been devised from the things borne about in the air.

For the swallow, its low-skimming flight serves it in place of the service of feet.

There are, moreover, countless differences of kinds among the birds also, which, if one goes through them in the same manner as we touched in part upon the examination of fishes, one will find that the name 'bird' is one, but the differences among them are countless—in sizes and in shapes and in colors;

and in their modes of life, and their activities, and their characters, their variation from one another being unspeakable.

Indeed, some have even attempted to use coined names, so that, as if by certain brands of unusual and strange nomenclature, the distinctive feature of each kind might be recognized.

And some they named cleft-winged, like the eagles;

others membrane-winged, like the bats;

others feather-winged, like the wasps;

others sheath-winged, like the beetles, and all those which, having been born in certain cases and coverings, are set free for flight when their shell has been burst open.

But for us the common usage is a sufficient mark for the distinctiveness of the kinds, as well as the distinctions made by Scripture concerning clean and unclean.

There is, then, one kind, that of the flesh-eaters, and another structure befitting their manner of living—the points of talons, and the curved beak, and the swift wing—so that the prey may be both easily caught, and, when torn apart, may become food for the captor.

Another is the structure of the seed-eaters;

and another that of those fed from whatever happens to be at hand.

And in these too there are very many differences.

For some of them are gregarious, except for the birds of prey;

and of these none is social, apart from the pairing in mating.

But countless others have chosen the gathering, communal life, such as doves, and cranes, and starlings, and jackdaws.

Again, among these some are without a ruler and as it were self-governing;

but others consent to be ranged under a leader, like the cranes.

And there is yet another difference among these, according to which some are resident and native, while others naturally depart very far off, and, when winter approaches, mostly migrate elsewhere.

Most of the birds, when reared, become handleable and tame, except indeed for the timid ones, which, on account of their excessive cowardice and want of spirit, will not endure the continual disturbance of the hand.

But there are also some of the birds that are companionable with men, accepting the same dwellings as we;

while others are mountain-dwellers, and lovers of solitude.

And a very great difference is also the distinctiveness of each with regard to its voice.

For some of the birds are chattering and talkative;

and some are songful and many-voiced;

while others are quite unmusical and devoid of song.

And some are mimics, either having from nature the capacity to imitate, or acquiring it through training;

while others emit a monotonous and unchanging voice.

Lustful are the doves and the domestic fowls, having the disposition to coupling at every season.

Deceitful and jealous is the partridge, mischievously aiding the hunters in the chase.

Countless, as we have said, are the differences both of their actions and of their ways of life.

There are even some among the irrational creatures that are social; for if it is proper to a polity that the activity of each individual converge toward one common goal, this may be seen in the bees.

For with them the dwelling is common, the flight is common, and the labor of all is one.

And the greatest thing is that they undertake their works under a king and a kind of commander, not consenting to go out to the meadows before they see the king begin the flight.

And their king is not elected by vote (for often the folly of a populace has set the worst man in power), nor does he hold authority by lot (for the chance allotments of the lot often bring rule to the lowest of all), nor is he seated upon the throne by paternal succession (for these too, for the most part, become uneducated and ignorant of every virtue, through luxury and flattery); rather he holds the first place over all by nature, surpassing in size and in form and in the gentleness of his character.

For the king does indeed have a sting, but he does not use it for vengeance.

There are, as it were, certain unwritten laws of nature, that those who attain the greatest power should be slow to punish.

But also for the bees, those that do not follow the example of their king quickly come to regret their thoughtlessness, for they die together with the blow of their sting.

Let Christians hear, to whom it is commanded to render no one evil for evil, but to overcome evil with good.

Imitate the peculiar way of the bee: that it builds its combs harming no one, and destroying no fruit that belongs to another.

For the wax it gathers openly from the flowers, but the honey—the dew-like moisture scattered upon the blossoms—it draws up with its mouth and deposits in the cells of the combs.

Hence at first it is liquid;

then, ripened in time, it returns to its proper consistency and sweetness.

This creature has received fitting and becoming praises from the Book of Proverbs, being named wise and a worker;

so industriously does it gather its food (whose labors, it says, both kings and commoners take for their health), and so wisely does it craft the storehouses of the honey (for stretching the wax into a thin membrane, it builds the cells dense and continuous with one another), so that the closeness of the binding of the smallest parts to each other becomes a support for the whole.

For each little cell is joined to the next, at once separated from it and connected to it by the thin partition.

Then these tubular cells are built upon one another in two and three stories.

For it took care not to make the cell pierce straight through, lest by its weight the liquid should fall out to the outside.

Learn how the discoveries of geometry are mere by-products of the most wise bee.

For all the tubes of the combs are hexagonal and equilateral, not lying directly one upon another, lest the floors should be strained by being fitted over the empty spaces;

rather, the angles of the lower hexagons are the base and support of those lying above, so as to bear the weights safely over themselves, and to keep the liquid enclosed separately in each cell.

How could I go through with precision all the peculiarities in the lives of birds? How the cranes take in turn the night watches in rotation;

and some sleep, while others, going around in a circle, provide them with complete security during their sleep;

then, when the time of the watch is fulfilled, the one having given the call turns to sleep, while the other, taking over the relief, in its turn renders the security it had received.

This good order you will observe also in their flight.

For at different times a different one takes over the leading, and after guiding the flight in front for a fixed time, it comes round to the rear and hands over the leadership of the way to the one behind it.

The way of the storks is not far from rational understanding;

so do they all sojourn at one season in these regions,

and so at one signal do they all depart together.

Our crows escort them and accompany them, providing, it seems to me, even some sort of military alliance against hostile birds.

A sign of this is, first, that at that season no crow at all is to be seen, and next, that they return with wounds, bringing clear marks of the joint shield-wall and of the alliance in battle.

Who appointed for them the laws of hospitality? Who threatened them with an indictment for desertion, that not one should fall short of the escort?

Let the inhospitable hear—those who shut their doors and do not share even the shelter of a roof in winter and at night with travelers who come to them.

The storks' provision for their aged would suffice to make our children lovers of their fathers, if only they were willing to pay heed.

For surely no one is so lacking in good sense as not to judge it a thing worthy of shame to fall short in virtue of the most irrational of birds.

Those young storks, standing in a circle around their father when he has shed his feathers from old age, warm him with their own wings, and abundantly providing food, render him what help they can even in flight, gently lifting him on either side with their wings.

And this is so widely renowned among all that already some name the repayment of benefits 'storking in return' (antipelargosis).

Nor let him who has left no abundance at home despair of his life, if he looks to the resourcefulness of the swallow.

For she, in building her nest, carries the twigs with her mouth;

but being unable to lift mud with her feet, she wets the tips of her wings in water, then rolls them in the finest dust, and thus contrives the use of mud;

and binding the twigs little by little to one another with the mud as with a kind of glue, she rears her young in it;

and if anyone should pierce out the eyes of these, she has from nature a certain medicine, by which she restores to health the sight of her offspring.

Let these things admonish you not to turn to wrongdoing because of poverty;

nor, having cast away all hope in the most grievous troubles, to lie idle and inactive;

but to flee for refuge to God, who, if He bestows such things upon the swallow, how much greater will He give to those who call upon Him with the whole heart? The halcyon (kingfisher) is a sea-bird.

She is wont to nest right beside the shores, laying her eggs upon the sand itself;

and she nests about the middle of winter, when the sea dashes against the land with many violent winds.

Yet nonetheless all the winds are lulled to rest, and the sea-wave is stilled, whenever the halcyon broods for her seven days.

For in these days alone does she hatch her young.

And since they also have need of food, the bountiful God granted to this tiniest of creatures another seven days for the growth of her young.

So that all sailors too know this, and call those days 'halcyon days.'

These things have been laid down as a law for you, as an exhortation to ask of God the things that pertain to salvation, through God's providence over the irrational creatures.

What would not come to pass among marvels for your sake, who were made according to the image of God, when for the sake of so small a bird the great and fearful sea is held in check, commanded to keep calm in the midst of winter?

They say that the turtledove, once parted from her mate, no longer consents to any union with another, but remains unpaired, refusing fellowship with any other in memory of the one to whom she was once joined.

Let women hear how the dignity of widowhood, even among the irrational creatures, is preferable to the unseemliness of remarrying many times.

Most unjust in the rearing of its offspring is the eagle.

For having hatched two chicks, it dashes one of them to the ground, thrusting it away with blows of its wings;

and taking up the other alone, it makes it its own, rejecting the one it begot because of the toil of feeding.

But the osprey (phene), as they say, does not allow this one to perish;

rather, taking it up, it rears it together with its own young.

Such are those parents who, on the pretext of poverty, expose their infants;

or who are most unequal toward their offspring in the distribution of the inheritance.

For it is just that, as they have imparted being equally to each, so also they should provide to them the means of living equally and with like honor.

Do not imitate the harshness of the crook-taloned birds;

which, when they see their own chicks now daring to fly, cast them out of the nest, striking and shoving them with their wings, and take no further care for them thereafter.

Praiseworthy is the crow's love of its young;

for it accompanies them even when they are already flying, feeding and rearing them for a very long time.

Many kinds of birds have no need at all of the union with males for conception;

but whereas in the other kinds the wind-eggs are infertile, the vultures, they say, for the most part bear young without mating, and that though they are very long-lived;

for their life, for the most part, extends up to a hundred years.

Keep this noted by me from the natural history of birds, so that whenever you see some laughing at our mystery, as though it were impossible and outside nature for a virgin to give birth while her virginity itself is kept undefiled, you may reflect that He who was pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe, has beforehand laid down countless occasions from nature for faith in things marvelous.

Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and birds flying upon the earth, along the firmament of heaven.

They were commanded to fly upon the earth, because the food of all comes from the earth;

and 'along the firmament of heaven,' as we have already explained, heaven being here so called for the air, from the fact that it is seen;

and 'firmament' because the air above our heads is somehow denser, in comparison with the ethereal body, and is more compacted by the exhalations rising from below.

You have, then, a heaven set in order, an earth made beautiful, a sea teeming with its proper offspring, and air full of the birds that fly through it.

All things have been brought from non-being into being by the command of God; and as for what the discourse has now passed over, declining a longer treatment of these matters lest it seem to exceed all measure, do you, the diligent one, reckoning with yourself and learning the wisdom of God in all things, never cease from wonder, nor from glorifying the Maker through the whole creation.

You have in the darkness the night-dwelling kinds of birds;

for bats, owls, and night-ravens are among the night-feeders.

So that for you sometimes, when sleep is not present in due season, the consideration of these things and the examination of the peculiarities belonging to them may suffice for the glorifying of the Maker.

How sleepless is the nightingale when she broods, never ceasing her song through the whole night.

How the bat is at once a four-footed creature and a winged one.

How alone of birds it uses teeth, and brings forth live young like the quadrupeds, yet floats in the air, not borne up by feathers but by a kind of skin-like membrane.

How, moreover, this creature too has love of its own kind in its nature, and like a string of beads the bats cling to one another, each hanging from the next;

a thing which among us human beings is not easy to achieve; for what is separate and individualistic is preferred to what is communal and united with the many.

How those who have given their leisure to vain wisdom resemble the eyes of the owl.

For the owl's sight, too, is strong by night, but is dimmed when the sun shines.

And the mind of these men is most sharp toward the contemplation of vanity, but is darkened toward the apprehension of the true light.

But by day it is very easy for you to gather from every side the wonder of the Creator.

How the cock that dwells with you rouses you to your work, crying out with sharp voice and announcing the sun still approaching from afar, rising at dawn with travelers and leading farmers out to the harvest.

How sleepless is the race of geese, and most keen in the perception of hidden things—they who once even preserved the imperial city, when they revealed certain enemies who were already about, by secret underground passages, to seize the citadel of Rome.

In what kind of bird does nature not display some peculiar wonder? Who is it that foretells to the vultures the death of men, when they wage war against one another? For you may see countless flocks of vultures following the armies, inferring the outcome from the preparation of weapons.

And this is not far from human reasonings.

How shall I describe to you the fearsome incursions of the locust, which, all rising at one signal and encamping over the breadth of the land, does not touch the crops before the divine command is given to it? How the seleukis-bird follows as a remedy for the plague, having an unbounded power of eating, since the God who loves mankind has made its nature insatiable for the benefit of men? What is the manner of the cicada's song? And how at midday are they more tuneful than at other times, the sound being emitted by the drawing in of air which they make in the expansion of their thorax? But indeed I seem to fall further short, in my discourse, of the wonder of the winged creatures than if I were to try to overtake their speed with my feet.

Whenever you see the so-called insects (entoma) among the winged creatures, such as bees and wasps (for thus they have named them, because they show incisions, entomai, on every side), consider that in these there is no breathing, nor any lung, but they are nourished wholly throughout by the air.

Therefore, when drenched with oil they perish, their passages being blocked;

but with vinegar at once applied they revive again, their passages being opened.

Nothing more than is needful, nor again falling short in any necessary thing, has our God created.

Again, when you study the water-loving animals, you will find in them another structure;

feet neither cloven, like those of the crow, nor hooked, like those of the flesh-eaters;

but broad and webbed, so that they may easily swim upon the water, thrusting the water aside with the membranes of their feet as with a kind of oars.

And if you observe how the swan, lowering its neck into the depth, brings up its food to itself from below, then you will discover the wisdom of the Creator: that for this reason He attached to it a neck longer than its legs, so that, letting it down like a fishing-line, it might procure the food hidden in the depth.

Read simply, the words of Scripture are certain little syllables;

Let the waters bring forth birds flying upon the earth along the firmament of heaven;

but when the meaning in the words is searched out, then is revealed the great wonder of the wisdom of the Creator.

How many differences of winged creatures did He foresee? How did He distinguish them from one another according to kind? How did He mark each one with its separate peculiarities? The day fails me as I recount to you the wonders of the air.

The dry land calls us to the display of beasts and creeping things and cattle, being ready to show forth in return things of equal worth with the plants and the swimming kind and all the birds.

Let the earth bring forth a living soul of cattle, and beasts, and creeping things, according to kind.

What do you say, you who disbelieve Paul concerning the change at the resurrection, when you behold many of the creatures of the air transforming their shapes? Such as is recorded also concerning the horned Indian worm;

which, changing first into a caterpillar, then advancing becomes a cocoon-grub, and does not even stay in this shape, but is fitted with loose and broad wing-petals.

Whenever, then, you women sit unwinding the work of these creatures—I mean the threads which the Seres (Chinese) send to you for the making of soft garments—remembering the transformation in this creature, take a vivid notion of the resurrection, and do not disbelieve the change which Paul proclaims to all.

But indeed I perceive that my discourse is going beyond its due proportion.

For whenever I look to the multitude of the things said, I see myself carried beyond measure;

but whenever again I look to the variety of the wisdom in the works of creation, I think I have not even begun the account.

At the same time, it is not without use to detain you a little longer.

For what would one do with the time until evening? The hosts of a feast are not pressing you;

the banquets are not awaiting you.

Wherefore, if it seems good, let us employ the bodily fast for the gladness of our souls.

Often having served the flesh for its enjoyment, today abide in the ministry of the soul.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the petitions of your heart.

If you are a lover of wealth, you have spiritual riches: The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether; more to be desired than much gold and precious stone.

If you are given to enjoyment and pleasure, you have the oracles of God, which to him whose spiritual sense is sound are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

If I dismiss you and break up the assembly, some will run off to the dice;

there are oaths, and bitter quarrels, and the pangs of greed for money.

A demon stands by, kindling madness through the spotted dice-bones, and shifting the same money to either side, now lifting up this one with victory and casting dejection upon the other, then again showing that one exulting and this one put to shame.

What profit is there in fasting in body, while the soul is filled with countless evils? He who does not gamble, but spends his leisure otherwise—what vain things does he not utter? What absurd things does he not hear? For leisure, without the fear of God, is a teacher of wickedness to those who have nothing fitting to occupy them.

Perhaps, then, some profit will be found in what has been said;

but if not, at least the not-sinning is gained for you out of your being occupied here.

So that to detain you longer is to withdraw you longer from evils.

What has been said is sufficient for a fair-minded judge, if one looks not to the riches of creation, but to the weakness of our power, and to what suffices for the gladness of those who have assembled.

The earth has welcomed you with her own shoots;

the sea with its fish, the air with its birds.

The dry land is ready to show forth in return things of equal worth with these.

But let this be the measure of the morning feast, lest excessive satiety should make you duller toward the enjoyment of the evening's.

And may He who has filled all things with His own creation, and who has left in all of us clear memorials of His own wonders, fill your hearts with all spiritual gladness, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages.