Hexaemeron 8

How did the morning table of words appear to you? For it has occurred to me to liken my own efforts to the hospitality of some poor host who, ambitious to be reckoned among the lavish entertainers, through lack of more costly fare wears out his guests, bringing his meager provision abundantly to the table;

so that his ambition turns round upon him into a reproach of tastelessness.

Such, surely, is our case too—unless you yourselves say otherwise.

Yet whatever it may be, you must not despise it.

For neither did the men of that time refuse Elisha as a poor host, even though he feasted his friends on wild herbs.

I know the rules of allegory, though I did not discover them myself, but came upon them in the labors of others.

Those who do not accept the common meanings of what is written say that water is not water, but some other nature, and they interpret plant and fish according to what seems good to them, and twisting the generation of creeping things and of beasts to their own conjectures they expound them—just like the dream-interpreters who fashion their explanations of the things appearing in sleeping fantasies toward their own purpose.

But I, when I hear 'grass,' understand grass; and plant, and fish, and beast, and cattle—I take all just as it has been said.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel.

Nor, because those who have written about the world have discoursed much concerning the shapes of the earth—whether it is a sphere, or a cylinder, or whether the earth resembles a disk and is rounded off equally on every side, or is winnowing-fan-shaped and hollow in the middle (for to all these conjectures the writers about the world have been carried, each overturning the views of the others)—shall I on this account be led to call our own account of creation more dishonorable, because the servant of God, Moses, discoursed nothing about shapes, nor said that the perimeter of the earth measures one hundred and eighty thousand stadia;

and he did not measure how far into the air the shadow cast from it extends during the sun's movement beneath the earth;

and how this, when brought to bear upon the moon, produces eclipses.

Since he passed over in silence the things that are nothing to us, as useless to us;

shall I on this account regard the oracles of the Spirit as more dishonorable than the wisdom that has been made foolish? Or shall I rather glorify Him who did not occupy our mind with vain things, but ordered that all things be written for the building up and perfecting of our souls? Which thing, it seems to me, certain people, not perceiving, have attempted—by certain deflections and figurative interpretations—to attach a kind of solemnity to what is written out of their own imagining.

But this is the act of one who makes himself wiser than the oracles of the Spirit, and under the pretense of exposition introduces his own notions.

Let it then be understood as it is written.

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

Consider the word of God running through the creation—then having begun, and even until now active, and effective unto a beneficial end, until the world be completed.

For just as a ball, when it has been pushed by someone and then takes hold of some downward slope, is carried toward the descent both by its own construction and by the suitability of the place, not stopping before some level ground receives it;

so the nature of existing things, set in motion by one command, passes evenly through the creation that is in generation and corruption, preserving the successions of the kinds through likeness, until it arrives at the very end.

For it makes a horse the successor of a horse, and a lion of a lion, and an eagle of an eagle;

and each of the animals, preserved by the successions one after another, it transmits down to the consummation of the universe.

No length of time corrupts or makes obsolete the peculiar properties of the animals, but as though nature were just now established, it ever runs along fresh with time.

Let the earth bring forth a living soul.

This command remained in the earth, and she does not cease ministering to the Creator.

For some things are produced from the succession of pre-existing ones;

but others are even now shown to be brought to life from the earth itself.

For not only does it send up cicadas in rainy seasons, nor countless other kinds of winged things borne in the air, of which the most are unnamed because of their smallness, but it now also brings forth from itself mice and frogs.

Indeed, about Egyptian Thebes, whenever it rains heavily during the heat, the country is straightway filled with field-mice.

And eels we see formed in no other way than out of the mud;

for neither egg nor any other mode constitutes their succession, but their generation is from the earth.

The cattle are earthly and inclined toward the earth; but man, the heavenly plant, differs as much in the dignity of his soul as in the form of his bodily fashioning.

What sort is the shape of the four-footed beasts? Their head bends toward the earth, looks toward the belly, and in every way pursues the belly's pleasure.

Your head is raised up toward heaven;

your eyes look upward, so that whenever you dishonor yourself by the passions of the flesh, serving the belly and the parts below the belly, you are made comparable to the senseless beasts and become like them.

Another concern befits you: to seek the things above, where Christ is, to be above earthly things in your mind.

As you were fashioned, so order also your life.

Have your citizenship in the heavens.

Your true fatherland is the Jerusalem above; your fellow citizens and kinsmen are the firstborn, those enrolled in the heavens.

Let the earth bring forth a living soul.

Thus the soul of the irrational creatures did not appear as something stored up in the earth, but it came into being together with the command.

For one thing characterizes it: irrationality.

But each of the animals is distinguished by different peculiarities.

For the ox is steady, but the ass is sluggish;

the horse is hot with desire for the female;

the wolf is untamable, and the fox is crafty;

the dog is grateful and mindful in friendship.

For each was created together with, and brought along with itself, the peculiarity of its nature.

With the lion was begotten his fury, the solitariness of his life, his unsociableness toward his own kind.

For like some tyrant over the irrational creatures, because of his natural haughtiness, he does not accept equality of honor with the many.

He does not even take yesterday's food, nor would he go back to the remains of his own prey;

and nature has placed in him such organs of voice that many animals, far surpassing him in swiftness, are often caught by his roar alone.

The leopard is impetuous and swift in its onsets;

a fitting body is joined to it by its suppleness and lightness, following the movements of the soul.

The nature of the bear is sluggish, and its character is peculiar, sullen, deeply hidden within.

Its body too is clothed in like manner: heavy, compacted, ill-articulated, fitting in truth for a chilled cave-dweller.

If we go through in our discourse how much untaught and natural care for their own life is present in these irrational creatures, we shall either be moved to the guarding of our own selves and to forethought for the salvation of our souls, or we shall be the more condemned, whenever we are found falling short even of the imitation of the irrational ones.

A bear, often pierced with very deep wounds, heals herself, by every device stuffing into her sores this mullein plant, which has a drying nature.

You may see the fox too healing herself with the resin of the pine.

And the tortoise, having gorged on the flesh of a viper, by the counteracting power of marjoram escapes the harm of the venomous creature.

And the serpent cures the injury in its eyes by feeding on fennel.

And what rational understanding do their foreknowledge of the change in the air not conceal? Seeing that the sheep, as winter approaches, eagerly piles on its food, as though provisioning itself against the coming scarcity.

And oxen, long shut up in the wintry season, when spring is now at last approaching, perceiving the change by their natural sense, look from their stalls toward the exits, all at one signal changing their posture.

And already some diligent observers have noted that the land hedgehog contrives two breathing-holes for its burrow, and when the north wind is about to blow, it stops up the northern one;

but when the south wind takes over in turn, it moves over to the one facing north.

What is shown to us human beings through these things? Not only that the care of our Creator pervades all things, but also that there is in the irrational creatures a certain perception of the future, so that we too should not be glued to the present life, but should have all our zeal for the age to come.

Will you not take pains for yourself, O man? Will you not in the present age lay up beforehand the repose of the age to come, looking to the example of the ant? Which in summer stores up for itself winter food, and does not, because the hardships of winter are not yet present, idly let the time pass by;

but with a certain inexorable diligence it stretches itself to the work, until it has stored sufficient food in its storehouses;

and this not idly, but with a certain wise contrivance devising that the food should last as long as possible.

For with its own claws it cuts through the very middle of the grains, so that, having sprouted, they may not become useless to it for food.

And it dries these out whenever it perceives them becoming damp;

and it does not put them out at every season, but only when it foreperceives that the air is being kept in a fair condition.

Assuredly you would not see rain pouring from the clouds during all the time that the grain has been put out by the ants.

What discourse could attain it? What hearing could contain it? What time would suffice to tell and recount all the wonders of the Craftsman? Let us too say with the prophet: How are Your works magnified, O Lord!

It is not, then, sufficient for our defense that we were not taught by letters the things that are profitable, since we have received the choice of what is beneficial by the untaught law of nature.

Do you know what good you will do to your neighbor? That which you wish to be done to yourself by another.

Do you know what evil is? That which you yourself would not choose to suffer from another.

No root-cutting art, nor botanical experience, discovered for the irrational creatures the teaching of what is beneficial; rather, each of the animals is naturally able to procure its own salvation, and possesses a certain ineffable affinity toward what accords with its nature.

And among us too the virtues are according to nature, toward which the soul's affinity is present not from the teaching of men, but from nature itself.

For just as no reasoning teaches us to hate sickness, but we have of ourselves an aversion to things that grieve us;

so also there is in the soul a certain untaught shrinking from evil.

And every evil is a sickness of the soul, while virtue holds the place of health.

For some have well defined health to be the steady balance of the activities that accord with nature.

And one who says this also of the well-being of the soul will not miss what is fitting.

Hence the soul is, without being taught, desirous of what is proper to it and according to its nature.

Wherefore temperance is praiseworthy to all;

and justice is acceptable;

and prudence is greatly to be sought after.

These are more proper to the soul than health is to the body.

Children, love your fathers.

Parents, do not provoke your children to anger.

Does not nature also say these things? Paul exhorts nothing new, but tightens the bonds of nature.

If the lioness cherishes her offspring, and the wolf fights for its cubs, what shall a man say who both disregards the commandment and falsifies nature, when either a child dishonors a father's old age, or a father, through second marriages, forgets the children of the former? Irresistible is the affection of irrational young and parents toward one another, because the God who fashioned them compensated for the lack of reason by the abundance of the senses.

For whence does a lamb, leaping out of the folds among countless sheep, know the very color and the voice of its mother, and hasten toward her, and seek out the proper springs of milk? And if it should meet with scanty maternal teats, it is content with those, passing by many heavily-laden udders.

And the mother, among countless lambs, recognizes her own. There is one voice, the same color, a smell alike from all, so far as is presented to our sense of smell; yet nonetheless there is in them a perception keener than our apprehension, by which to each is present the discernment of its own.

The puppy has not yet teeth, and yet it defends itself with its mouth against the one who has hurt it.

The calf has not yet horns, and yet it knows where its weapons will grow.

These things furnish a proof that the natures of all are untaught, and that there is nothing disordered or undefined among existing things, but that all bear the traces of the wisdom of the Maker, showing in themselves that they were brought forth ready-equipped for the guarding of their own salvation.

The dog is without share of reason, yet it has a perception equal in power to reason.

For what the wise of this world, sitting at great leisure of life, scarcely discovered—I mean the interweavings of syllogisms—these the dog is shown to have been taught by nature.

For tracking the footprint of the beast, when it finds it split in many directions, going over the diverging branches leading off in each direction, it all but utters the syllogistic voice through its actions;

either, it says, the beast turned this way, or that way, or toward this side;

but surely neither this way nor that way; it remains that it has rushed off in this direction;

and thus, by the elimination of the false, it finds the true.

What more do those do who sit solemnly over their diagrams, scratching marks in the dust, eliminating two of three propositions and discovering the truth in the one that remains? And the gratitude-remembering nature of this animal—whom among the ungrateful toward their benefactors does it not put to shame? Seeing that, when masters have been murdered in desolate places, many of the dogs are recorded to have died upon them.

And already some, in the heat of their grief, have even become guides to those seeking the murderers, and have brought it about that the evildoers were led to justice.

What shall they say who not only do not love the Lord who made them and feeds them, but also use as friends those who speak iniquity against God, and partake of the same table with them, and at that very meal endure blasphemies against the One who feeds them?

But let us return to the contemplation of creation.

The animals more easily caught are the more prolific.

For this reason hares are prolific, and wild goats, and wild sheep bear twins, so that the kind may not fail, being consumed by the flesh-eaters.

But the creatures destructive of others are few-bearing.

Hence the lioness scarcely becomes mother of one lion.

For having torn the womb with the sharp points of its claws, it comes forth thus, as they say;

and vipers too come forth having eaten through the wombs, paying to the one that bore them the wages that befit her.

Thus nothing among existing things is without providence, nor without share of the care that has fallen to its lot.

And if you study the very members of the animals, you will find that the Creator neither added anything superfluous, nor took away any of the necessary things.

To the flesh-eating animals He fitted sharp teeth;

for such were needful for that kind of food.

But those that are only half-armed with teeth He furnished with many and various stomachs for their food.

For because at the first the food is not sufficiently broken up, He gave them the power to bring up again what has been swallowed, so that, ground fine by rumination, it may be assimilated to the one nourished.

The paunch, and the reticulum, and the omasum, and the abomasum, do not lie idle in the animals that have them, but each fulfills the use of necessary things.

Long is the neck of the camel, that it may be on a level with its legs and may reach the herbage on which it lives.

Short and sunk into the shoulders is the neck of the bear;

and so too of the lion, and the tiger, and the rest that are of this kind;

because their food is not from grass, nor is there any need for them to stoop toward the earth, since they are flesh-eaters and are sustained by the hunting of animals.

What is the purpose of the trunk to the elephant? Because the animal is great, and the largest of land creatures, brought forth for the astonishment of those who meet it, its body had to be fleshy and massively compacted.

To this, if a neck great and proportionate to its legs had been added, it would have been hard to manage, ever sinking downward by the excessive weight.

But as it is, the head is joined to the spine by a few vertebrae of the neck;

and it has the trunk, which fulfills the use of the neck, by which it both brings food to itself and draws up its drink.

But also its feet are unjointed, like pillars joined together, supporting the weight.

For if its limbs had been set under it loose and pliant, the joints would have been continually dislocated, since they would not have sufficed to lift the weight as the animal crouched down and rose up again.

But as it is, a short ankle-bone lies beneath the foot of the elephant, jointed neither into a bend nor into a knee.

For the slipperiness of the joints would not have borne up the great fleshiness of the animal, poured around it abundantly and quivering.

Hence arose the need for that trunk let down to the feet.

Do you not see in wars that, like living towers, they go before the phalanx? Or like fleshy hills, having an irresistible onset, they break through the shield-wall of the enemy? To which, if the lower parts were not proportionate, the animal would not have lasted for any length of time.

But as it is, some already record that the elephant lives three hundred years and more;

for this reason its limbs are compacted and not articulated.

And the food, as we have said, the trunk carries up from the ground to the height, being serpentine in form and rather moist in nature.

So true is the saying, that nothing superfluous nor deficient can be found among the things created.

Yet this creature, so great in size, God has made subject to us (so that it both understands when taught, and submits when struck), clearly teaching us that He has subjected all things to us, because we were made according to the image of the Creator.

And not only in the great animals is it possible to behold the untraceable wisdom, but also in the smallest one may gather no less the wonder.

For just as I do not marvel more at the great peaks of the mountains, which, by being near the clouds, preserve their wintry cold through the continual breeze around them, than at the hollow in the ravines, which not only escapes the windiness of high places, but also ever keeps the air warm;

so also in the structures of the animals I do not admire the elephant for its size more than the mouse, because it is fearful to the elephant;

or the very fine sting of the scorpion, how the Craftsman hollowed it out like a pipe, so that through it the venom might be injected into those it wounds.

And let no one on this account accuse the Maker, that He introduced venomous and destructive creatures, hostile to our life;

or one might in the same way accuse a tutor too, who brings the heedlessness of youth into order, and chastens unruliness with blows and scourges.

The wild beasts are a proof of faith.

Do you trust in the Lord? You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample the lion and the dragon.

And you have the authority through faith to tread upon serpents and scorpions.

Or do you not see that when the viper fastened on Paul as he was gathering brushwood, it inflicted no harm, because the holy man was found full of faith? But if you are unbelieving, fear not the beast so much as your own unbelief, by which you have made yourself an easy prey to every destruction.

But indeed I perceive that I have long been being asked for the things concerning the creation of man, and I all but seem to myself to hear the hearers crying out in their hearts, that we are taught of what nature our possessions are, yet we ourselves are ignorant of ourselves.

It is necessary, then, to speak, thrusting aside the hesitation that holds us back.

For in truth it seems to be the most difficult of all things to know oneself.

For not only does the eye, looking at things outside, not employ its sight upon itself, but our very mind, sharply discerning another's fault, is slow toward the recognition of its own defects.

For this reason now too the discourse, having sharply gone over the affairs of others, is sluggish and full of hesitation toward the examination of its own;

and yet it is no more possible to know God from heaven and earth than from our own structure, for one who examines himself with understanding;

Your knowledge is made wonderful from me;

that is, having studied myself, I was fully taught the surpassing greatness of the wisdom in You.

And God said, Let us make man.

Where now is my Jew, who, in what went before—when the light of theology shone through as it were through certain windows, and a second Person was indicated mystically, though not yet clearly manifested—fought against the truth, saying that God was conversing with Himself? For He Himself spoke, he says, and He Himself made.

Let there be light, and there was light.

Even then, therefore, the absurdity in what they said was ready at hand.

For what smith, or carpenter, or shoemaker, sitting alone at the tools of his craft, no one working with him, says to himself, Let us make the knife, or let us put together the plough, or let us finish off the shoe;

but does he not rather carry out the appropriate work in silence? For it would be a truly dreadful piece of nonsense for someone to sit as a ruler and overseer of himself, urging himself on imperiously and vehemently.

But nonetheless those who did not shrink from slandering the Lord Himself—what would they not say, having tongues trained for falsehood? Yet the present utterance utterly stops their mouth.

And God said, Let us make man.

Tell me, is the speaker here too left solitary? For it is not written, Let there be man, but, Let us make man.

So long as the one to be taught had not yet appeared, the proclamation of theology lay hidden in the depths;

but when at last the creation of man is awaited, the faith is unveiled, and the doctrine of the truth is set forth more plainly.

Do you hear, O fighter against Christ, that He addresses the partner in creation, through whom also He made the ages, who upholds all things by the word of His power?

But he does not quietly accept the word of true religion;

but just as the most man-hating of wild beasts, when shut up in their cages, bellow against the bars, displaying the bitterness and savagery of their nature, yet unable to vent their fury;

so too that race hostile to the truth, the Jews, being hard pressed, say: there are many persons to whom the word of God was spoken.

For He says to the angels who stand before Him, Let us make man.

A Judaic fabrication, a fable born of the frivolity that comes from that quarter;

so that, in order not to admit the One, they bring in countless others.

And while denying the Son, they attach the dignity of taking counsel to mere servants;

and they make our fellow-servants into lords of our own creation.

Man, when perfected, is raised to the dignity of the angels.

But what created thing can be equal to the Creator? Consider also what follows: After our image.

What do you say to this? Is there indeed one image of God and of angels? For of the Son and the Father there is every necessity that the form be the same;

the form being understood, of course, in a manner befitting God, not in any bodily shape, but in the property of the Godhead.

Hear this, you also who come from the new circumcision, who profess Judaism under the pretense of Christianity.

To whom does He say, After our image? To whom else than to the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, who is the image of the invisible God? To His own living image, therefore, the one who said, I and the Father are one, and, He who has seen Me has seen the Father;

to this one He says, Let us make man after our image.

Where there is one image, where is the unlikeness? And God made man.

Here He fled from the multiplicity of persons.

Through the former words instructing the Jew, and through the latter shutting out Hellenism, He safely returned to the unity, that you might both conceive of the Son together with the Father, and escape the peril of polytheism.

In the image of God He made him.

Again He brought in the person of the fellow-worker.

For He did not say, in His own image, but, In the image of God.

In what respect, then, man has the being according to the image of God, and how he partakes of the likeness, will be told in what follows, God granting it.

But for now let only this much be said: if there is one image, whence has it come over you to commit such unbearable impiety, calling the Son unlike the Father? O what ingratitude!

The likeness which you yourself have received—this you will not grant to your Benefactor? And do you think that the gifts bestowed on you by grace remain your own by right, yet you do not allow the Son to possess by nature the likeness to Him who begot Him? But the evening, which long ago sent the sun toward its setting, now enjoins silence upon us.

Here, then, let us also lay our discourse to rest, content with what has been said.

For now we have only touched on the subject just enough to stir up your zeal for the word;

but the more complete examination of the matters before us we shall render in what follows, with the cooperation of the Spirit.

Go in joy, O Christ-loving Church, adorning your honorable tables with the remembrance of what has been said, in place of every costly dish and varied delicacy.

Let the Anomoean be put to shame, let the Jew be confounded, let the godly rejoice in the doctrines of the truth, let the Lord be glorified, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages.

Amen.