Works (CSEL) 17 part 6/16

Therefore, if irrational animals know with what herbs they may heal themselves or by what aids they may bring help to themselves, does man not know, in whom a rational sense is inborn? Or is he so estranged from the truth that he by no means perceives what things are fit for each one's use? Or is he so ungrateful to the goods of nature that, because the draught of bull's blood is deadly to man, he therefore thinks that the toilsome animal ought either not to have been born, or to have been generated without blood—the animal whose power, useful for the tillage of fields, suited for the use of wagons, sweet for nourishment, supports the husbandmen by its varied service? To these husbandmen God, that they might know His good things, has given all things, saying: 'Let the earth bring forth the grass of hay sowing seed according to its kind.'

For He comprehended not only the spontaneous nourishment which is in herbs and roots and the trees and the rest of the fruits, but also that which is procured by industry and acquired by the labor of rustic cultivation. But how seemly is it that He did not command the lands to pour forth seed and fruit at once, but ordained that the fields should first germinate, then put forth grass, afterward that the seed should grow up according to the property of its own kind, so that the grace of the fields never failed, which should first afford the pleasing comeliness of tranquillity, and afterward the usefulness of fruit. But perhaps someone may say:

How does the earth bring forth seeds according to kind, when for the most part the seeds cast in degenerate, and, when good wheat has been sown, both its appearance is rendered discolored and its form inferior? But if this ever happens, it seems to be referred not to a transformation of the kind, but to a certain sickliness and unevenness of the seed. For it does not cease to be wheat, if it is either scorched by cold or harmed by rain, but it is changed rather in appearance than in kind, in color too and by corruption. In short, grains that have frequently been soaked return into the appearance of their own kind, if they are parched either by the sun or by fires, or, entrusted to careful cultivators, are cherished by the mildness of the air and the richness of fruitful lands.

Thus what had degenerated in the parent is repaired in the offspring. Whence we are in no danger lest that precept of God, whose use has grown ingrained in nature, should be left destitute in the rest of its succession by some defect, since even today in the seeds the purity of their own kind is preserved. For darnel and the rest of the adulterine seeds, which are often mixed with the crops, we have learned by the reading of the Gospel to be called tares; but these have a certain proper kind of their own, not having been transferred from wheat-seed into another kind of seed by a discoloring change, and so drawn off a degenerate nature. In short, the Lord teaches this, saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is like to a man that sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and oversowed tares among the wheat.'

We certainly perceive that the tares and the wheat seem to be distinct in kind as in names. In short, the servants too said to the householder: 'Lord, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it tares?' And he said to them: 'An enemy hath done this.' For one is the seed of the devil, another the seed of Christ, which is sown unto righteousness. In short, one thing the Son of Man, another thing the devil has sown. So diverse is the nature of each seed, that the sower of each is opposite: 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 is the kingdom of God,' He says, 'as if a man should cast vain seed upon the earth.'

There is also a man who sows the word, of whom it is written: 'He that soweth the word soweth.' This man sowed the word upon the earth, when He said: 'Let the earth bring forth grass': and at once the germs of the lands sprouted, and the diverse kinds of things shone forth. Hence the green grace of the meadows supplied an abundance of fodder; thence the yellowing ear of the fields, by the swaying of the richer crop, expressed the image of the heaving sea. Of its own accord the earth supplied every fruit. And although it could not be plowed without a cultivator—for the husbandman was not yet formed—yet, unplowed, it overflowed with rich harvests, and I do not doubt with a greater yield, since the slothfulness of a cultivator could not deprive the lands of their richness.

For now fruitfulness is acquired for each one according to the merit of his labor, where the tillage of the fields is regarded, and negligence or offense is punished either by deluges of rains, or by the dryness of the lands, or by a fall of hail, or by the barrenness of rich soil from whatever cause. But then the earth, by a spontaneous yield, conveyed fruits in all places, since He had given the command who is the fullness of all things. For the word of God bore fruit in the lands, nor was the earth as yet condemned by any curse. For more ancient are the beginnings of the nascent world than our sins, and more recent is the fault on account of which we were condemned to eat our bread in the sweat of our brow, and to know no nourishment without sweat.

And so even today the fruitfulness of the earth works its ancient abundance by the exercise of a spontaneous fertility. For how many things there are which even now are generated of their own accord! But even in those very things which are sought by hand, in great part the divine benefits remain to us, so that the grains themselves are brought in while we rest. This the example of the lesson set before us teaches, the Lord saying that 'so is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth and should sleep,' He says, 'and should rise night and day, and the seed should germinate and grow up while he knoweth not. Of its own accord the earth bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full wheat in the ear. And when it hath brought forth the fruit, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is at hand.'

While you sleep, therefore, O man, and know it not, the earth of its own accord brings forth its fruits. You sleep and rise, and you marvel at the increases of the grain through the night. We have spoken of the grass of hay; now let us speak of the fruitful tree making fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself. He said, and they were made; and suddenly, as above with the flowers and the greenness of the grasses, so here the earth was clothed with woods. The trees ran together, the forests rose up, the peaks of the mountains suddenly put forth leaves. Here the pine, there the cypress, lifted themselves into lofty summits; the cedars and the pitch-pines came together.

The fir-tree too, not content with its earthly roots and airy summit, came forth destined safely to undergo even the chances of the sea by its rowing, and to contend not only with the winds but even with the waves. The laurel also, rising up, gave forth its fragrance, never to be stripped of its own covering. The shady ilexes too put forth a summit bristling with foliage, destined to keep it even in winter seasons. For this nature held as a bond upon each for the rest, which it received under the stroke of the rising world. And thence its prerogative remains to the ilexes—they remain green—so that no winds despoil them of the garment of their own foliage.

There had risen up before, mingled with the earthly flowers, the rose without thorns, and the most beautiful flower bloomed without any deceit; afterward the thorn hedged about the grace of the flower, as if holding forth a mirror of human life, which often pricks the sweetness of its own enjoyment with the neighboring stings of cares. For the elegance of our life is fenced about and hedged in by certain anxieties, so that sadness is joined to its grace. Whence, when each one congratulates himself either on the sweetness of reason or on the successive prosperities of his affairs, it behooves him to remember the fault, on account of which, while we flourished in the pleasantness of paradise, the thorns and brambles of the mind and soul were by the right of condemnation assigned to us.

Therefore, O man, though you be illustrious either by the splendor of nobility, or by the height of power, or by the brilliance of valor, the thorn is always near you, the bramble is always there; always look upon your lower things. You sprout above the thorn, nor does an extended grace remain. In a brief while each one, his bloom of age run through, withers away. Yet, that you may know perishable things to be common to you with the flowers, so also know glad things to be common with the vines, from which is generated the wine that gladdens the heart of man. And would, O man, that you might imitate the example of this kind, that you yourself might bear for yourself the fruit of gladness and delight. In your own self is the sweetness of your grace; from yourself it sprouts, in yourself it remains, within you it is; in your own self is the delight of your conscience to be sought. Therefore He says:

'Drink water out of thine own vessels, and out of the springs of thine own wells.' First of all, nothing is more pleasing than the fragrance of the blooming vine, since from their blossom the pressed-out juice produces a kind of cup which is both for pleasure and for health. Then, who would not marvel that from the kernel of the grape the vine bursts forth even to the topmost summit of the tree, which it cherishes as with a certain embrace and binds with certain arms and surrounds with its limbs, clothes with its tendrils, crowns with garlands of grape-clusters? And it, in imitation of our life, first fixes a living root, then, because its nature is flexible and prone to fall, with certain little hooks, as if with arms, it grips whatever it has grasped, and by these it raises and lifts itself up.

Like to this is the people of the Church, which is planted as by a certain root of faith and is held down by the offshoot of humility, of which the prophet beautifully says: 'Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt and hast planted its roots, and the land was filled. The shadow of it covered the mountains, and its boughs the cedars of God. It stretched out its branches unto the sea, and its shoots unto the river.' And the Lord Himself spoke through Isaiah, saying: 'A vineyard was made for the beloved on a horn, in a fertile place. And I set a wall about it and dug round the vineyard of Sorek and built a tower in the midst of it.' For He surrounded it as with a kind of rampart of the heavenly precepts and with the guard of angels. For the angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear Him.

He set in the Church as a tower the apostles and prophets and teachers, who are wont to stand forth on behalf of the Church's peace. He dug round it, when He unburdened it of the mass of earthly cares; for nothing burdens the mind more than the solicitude of this world and the greed either of money or of power. This is shown to you in the Gospel, when you read that that woman who had a spirit of infirmity was bowed down so that she could not look up again. For her soul was bent, which was inclined toward earthly gains and did not see the heavenly grace. Jesus looked upon her and called her, and at once the woman laid down her earthly burdens. That these men too were burdened with these greeds He shows by those to whom He says:

'Come to me all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.' Therefore that soul of the woman, as it were dug round about, took breath and was raised up. But the same vine too, when it has been dug round about, is bound up and raised, lest it be bent back to the earth. Some shoots are cut away, others are propagated: those are cut away which run riot in idle luxuriance, those are propagated which the good husbandman has judged fruitful. 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 rich and honored should exalt himself, no one poor cast himself down, and the ignoble despair? Let there be for all in the Church one and equal liberty, let common justice and grace be imparted to all.

Therefore the tower stands in the midst, that it may carry abroad an example drawn from those rustics, from those fishermen, who were counted worthy to hold the citadel of the virtues. By their examples let our affection be raised up, and let it not lie low, cheap and despicable upon the ground, but let the mind of each one lift itself toward the things above, that it may dare to say: 'But our citizenship is in heaven.' Hence, that it may not be turned back by any storms of the world nor swept away by tempest, by those little keys and rings, as it were by the embraces of charity, it enfolds all its neighbors and finds rest in their union. It is charity, therefore, that binds us to the things above and grafts us into heaven. For 'he who abides in charity, God abides in him.' Wherefore 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.' Plainly therefore he signified that the example of the vine must be brought forward for the instruction of our life. The vine, first warmed by the mildness of spring, is said to put forth buds, and then from the very shoots to send out fruit on every side; from these the grape, arising, is formed, and growing little by little it retains for a while the sourness of an unripe birth, and cannot grow sweet until it is now ripe and mellowed. Meanwhile the vine is clothed with greening leaves, by which against the cold and every injury it is fortified with no small protection, and is defended from the heat of the sun.

And what is more pleasing as a spectacle, or sweeter in fruit, than to see the clusters hanging like certain necklaces of a beautiful countryside, to pluck grapes gleaming with golden or with purple color? You might think hyacinths and other gems were glittering, that Indian stones were flashing, that the grace of white ones was sparkling; and do you not perceive, O man, that you are admonished by these, lest your last day find your fruits unripe, or the time of full age carry off works that are scanty? For unripe fruit is wont to be the more bitter, nor can anything be sweet save what has grown up to the maturity of perfection.

To this perfected man neither the cold of dreadful death nor the sun of iniquity is wont to do harm, because spiritual grace overshadows him and quenches all the fires of worldly desire and bodily lust, and wards off their burnings. Let all who behold you praise you, and let them marvel at the throngs of the Church as at certain garlands of vine-branches; let each of the faithful gaze upon the fair necklaces of souls, let them delight in the maturity of prudence, the splendor of faith, the comeliness of confession, the beauty of righteousness, 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,' inasmuch as you imitate the overflowing abundance of the fruitful vine by the bounty of a copious generosity.

But why do I linger on the vine alone, when all kinds of trees are useful? Some are born for fruit, others are given for use; for even those whose fruit is not more plentiful have nonetheless a more precious use. The cedar is fit for raising the ridge-poles of roofs, because timber of this sort is both tall in its spans and not burdensome to the walls. The cypress too is suitable for paneled ceilings and for adorning gables. Hence the Church also says in the Song: 'The beams of our houses are cedar, our paneled ceilings are cypress,' declaring that those who fly aloft are the fair adornments of her gable, who like beams sustain the summit of the Church by their virtue and adorn her pinnacle. The laurel and the palm are the emblem of victory:

with laurel the heads of victors are crowned, the palm is the adornment of the victorious hand. Hence the Church also says: 'I said, I will go up into the palm tree, I will lay hold of its heights.' She, seeing the eminence of the Word and hoping that she might be able to ascend to its height and to the summit of knowledge, says: 'I will go up into the palm tree,' that she may leave behind all lower things and strive toward the things above, toward the prize of Christ, that she may pluck and taste his sweet fruit; for sweet is the fruit of virtue.

The poplar too, a shady tree, used for the garlands of victors, and the pliant willow, suited for tying up vines—what else do these mystically declare but that the bonds of Christ are good, bonds that are not wont to harm: the bonds of grace, the bonds of charity, that each one may glory in his own bonds, as Paul also gloried, saying: 'Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ'? Bound with these bonds he said: 'Who shall separate us from the charity of Jesus Christ?'—the bonds of abstinence, the bonds of charity. Bound with these bonds David also says: 'Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments.' The boxwood too, useful for engraving the tips of letters, with its smooth material forms the use of a child's hand; whence Scripture says:

'Write upon boxwood,' that at the same time the material itself may admonish you—the material that is always green and is never stripped of its leaves—lest you ever be laid bare through a dissembling of your hope, but that the hope of salvation may ever sprout for you through faith. Why should I enumerate how great is the variety of trees, how diverse and how beautiful the adornment in each: how spreading the beeches, how tall the firs, how leafy the pines, how shady the holm-oaks, how two-colored the poplars, how groved and ever-reviving the chestnut, which, as soon as it has been cut down, is wont to sprout forth a very forest from itself; how in the trees themselves either an aged or a youthful age is perceived;

for in the younger ones the branches are slighter, while in the older ones the limbs are stronger and knotted; in the former the leaves are smooth and outspread, in the latter more contracted and rough. There are also trees which, with an aged and dead root, know not how to repair their own succession if perchance they be cut down; others, which have either a vigorous youth or a more fruitful nature, to which cutting is rather a gain than any loss, so that they are renewed through many heirs by a reviving succession of themselves. There is also, at which you may marvel, a sex in the fruits themselves, there is a distinction of sex in the trees.

For you may see the palm which bears dates often inclining its branches and bowing them down and presenting a likeness of desire and embrace toward that tree which the children of the country folk call the male palm. That palm, therefore, is female and confesses its sex by an appearance of submission. Hence the keepers of the groves cast upon its branches the seeds of dates or the shoots of the males, by which to that female tree there is poured in, as it were, a certain sense of consummation, and the favor of the longed-for union is presented. Endowed with this gift, it is raised up again and lifts its branches and once more raises its foliage to its former state.

Concerning the fig the same opinion holds, and therefore very many are reported to graft a wild fig beside a domestic and fruitful fig, because the fruits of that fecund and domestic fig, when assailed by any breeze or by heat, are said to fall quickly to the ground. Hence those skilled in this remedy, by binding the unripe figs of the wild tree to that fruitful tree, heal its weakness, so that it may be able to preserve its own fruits, which were on the very point of falling if the remedies had been wanting.

By this we are admonished, as by a certain riddle of nature, not to shun those who are separated from our faith and fellowship, since even a Gentile who has been won over—the more grievous an asserter of error he was, the more vehement a defender of the faith he may prove to be; and one of the heretics may be converted, or may strengthen that party to which he has come over by a changed opinion, especially if he has some uprightness of nature, so that his judgment may be lively, if there be added to him the attentiveness of sobriety and the observance of chastity. Pour out, therefore, your zeal upon him deeply, that by the likeness of that fruitful fig you may, from the presence and conjunction of that wild tree, be able to strengthen your own virtue.

For thus your purpose shall not be dissolved, and the fruit of diligence and of grace shall be preserved. How many are the things, moreover, which teach that natural hardness can be tempered by the zeal of diligence—things to which rural husbandry brings an example. For very often pomegranates flower quickly and cannot bear fruit unless they are cultivated with the fitting remedies of the skilled; very often the inner sap fails and a fair outward appearance is held forth. And this is not undeservedly compared to the Church, as you have it said to the Church in the Canticles: 'Your cheeks are like the rind of a pomegranate,' and further on: 'If the vine has flowered, the pomegranates have flowered.'

For the Church holds forth the good radiance of faith and of confession, beautiful with the blood of so many martyrs and, what is more, endowed with the blood of Christ, at once preserving very many fruits within herself by the use of that pome under one defense, and embracing many works of the virtues; for the wise man in spirit conceals his affairs. Almonds too, husbandmen are reported to heal in this fashion, so that from bitter ones the fruits become sweet for them: they bore through the root of the tree and insert into the middle a slip of that tree which the Greeks call peuke and we call the pitch-pine; and when this is done the bitterness of the sap is laid aside. If, then, agriculture transforms the qualities of stocks, can not the pursuits of doctrine and the attentiveness of discipline mitigate any sicknesses of the passions whatever?

Let no one, therefore, placed on the slippery ground either of youth or of intemperance, despair of his own conversion. Timbers are very often turned to better uses: can the hearts of men not be changed? We have taught that not only among trees of diverse kinds there are diversities of fruit, but very often within the same species of trees the fruits are at variance among themselves. For one is the species of male fruits, another of female, as we have already said above concerning dates.

But who could comprehend the variety, the beauty and grace of fruits, and also the usefulness of each, and the property of the fruits and their juices, which seem suited to each purpose: how the more bitter fruits act as medicine for the sick inwards of men and temper the inner swelling and harshness; how again the harshness of the humors of fruits is tempered by sweet ones? Indeed, that medicine is the older which was wont to heal by herbs and juices, nor is any health more secure than that which is taken hold of by the law of nourishment. Hence we are taught according to nature that food alone is medicine for us. Certainly open ulcers are closed by herbs, by herbs internal ills are cured; and therefore it is the work of physicians to know the powers of herbs—for from this the practice of healing has grown up.

But to bring back our pen to simple fruits: some are those which are ripened by the sun, others which, enclosed by shells and rinds, are filled out. The apple and pear, and also all kinds of stone-fruit, are exposed naked to the sun; but the kernel of the nut and of the nutshell, the fruit of the kernel too, though covered by shell and rind, is nevertheless nourished by the heat of the sun; and as much as the kernel is hidden by the density of the pine, so much is it nourished by the heat of the sun. How great, moreover, is the Lord's providence, that where the fruit is softer, there the thickness of the leaf affords a stronger covering for guarding the fruit, which we see in the fruit of the fig. Thus the more delicate things are to be protected by the stronger, as the Lord himself also teaches through Jeremiah, saying:

'Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge the carried-away of Judah, whom I have sent out from this place into the land of the Chaldeans for good, and I will set my eyes upon them for good.' For, as it were, he hedged in the delicate ones with a stronger covering of his mercy, lest the tender fruits should perish too soon. Indeed, of these same ones he says afterwards: 'My delicate ones have walked rough ways,' to whom further on he says: 'Be steadfast, sons, and cry out to the Lord.' For this alone is the inviolable covering against all storms and injuries, the impenetrable defense. Therefore where the fruits are tender, there are the thicker coverings and defenses of leaves; but on the contrary, where the fruits are stronger, there the leaves are more tender, as the apple tree teaches.

For a stronger fruit does not need much help of protection; indeed the very shade of a thicker protection could harm the fruit more. Finally, let the vine-leaf teach us the grace of nature and the inner mysteries of divine wisdom. For we see it so cleft and divided that it seems to show the appearance of three leaves; the middle part is so distinguished that, unless it clung to the lower parts, it would seem separate to those who behold it. And this plan seems preserved by nature, that it may both more easily admit the sun and overspread shade. Finally, its middle part is extended more tall and is thinned at its very summit, so that it presents more of beauty than of covering.

For indeed it seems to portray the appearance of a prize, signifying that the grape holds the primacy among the other hanging fruits; to it, by a certain silent judgment of nature but by an evident sign, are born the appearance and prerogative of victory. With itself, therefore, it has its own prize, by which both a defense is afforded it against injuries and against the violence alike of the air and of the rains, and no hindrance is offered to its receiving the heat of the sun, by which, warmed, it is nourished, colored, and increased. The leaf of the fig too, almost like the vine-leaf, is cut by a four-fold division, which is seen the more clearly the larger the leaf is—though not so as the vine-leaf, with either every edge or its summit curling.

For just as in the fig-leaf the thickness is stronger, so in the vine-leaf the appearance is more elegant. The thickness of the leaf, therefore, serves to repel the injury of the storm, the cleaving serves to warm the fruit into grace. Finally, this kind of pome does not quickly feel the hail, but quickly feels ripening, because it seems both to lie hidden against injuries and to lie open to grace. Why should I describe the diversities of leaves—how some are round, others longer, some flexible, others stiffer, some not easily falling in any winds, others which are shaken off by the slight motion of the breezes?

It is inexplicable to inquire into the properties of single things, and either to distinguish their diversities by manifest testimony, or to lay open their hidden and secret causes by unfailing proofs. Water, to be sure, is one and the same, and yet very often changes itself into diverse appearances: now yellow among the sands, now foaming among the rocks, now greener among the groves, now varicolored among the flowering fields, now more shining among the lilies, now more glowing red 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, running on having taken up the color of the places through which it flows.

Its temperature too it changes by like reason, so that among warm things it grows hot, among shady things it grows cold, struck back by the sun it boils up, watered by snows it grows white with an icy moisture. And how its very taste is altered, so that now it is harsher, now more bitter, now stronger, now more austere, now sweeter, being varied according to the quality of the substances in which it has been infused! It is made rough by unripe juices, by the pounded rind of the nut and crushed leaves; it becomes bitter as wormwood, stronger than wine, more austere by other things, it grows heavy with poison, it grows sweet with honey. But if mastic, the fruit of the terebinth too, or the inner part of the nut be mixed with it, it is easily transfused into the soft nature of oil.