But since it is the nurse of all shrubs, it ministers diverse uses to each. If it wash the roots or descend poured down from the clouds, it gives distinct powers to all: it fattens the root, advances the trunk, spreads out the branches, makes the leaves grow green, nourishes the seeds for the fruit, and is wont to make the pome increase. Therefore, since the same is the nurse of all, some kinds of trees bear more bitter juices, others sweeter, others slow, others early. Their very sweetnesses too differ among themselves. One sweetness is in the vine, another in the olive, another in cherries, another in the fig, distinct in the apple, unequal in the date. The very touch of water is in one place gentle, in another harsher, very often it is more unctuous. In weight too it frequently differs as in appearance;
for in very many places it is reckoned heavier, in very many lighter. It is no wonder, therefore, if, when it differs in itself, the kinds of trees also differ among themselves which are produced by the watering of the same water. And when there is one cause of all, the use of each is diverse, the nature is diverse. The tear of the cherry tree has one force, that of the mastic another. The fragrant woods of the East too are reported to sweat a different drop of balsam, and a diverse kind of tears the shrubs of ferns in Egypt and Libya weep by a certain force of a more secret nature. But why should I relate to you—though the discourse be a mild one—that amber is the tear of a shrub, and that the tear hardens into the solidity of so great a material?
Nor is this asserted by light testimonies, since leaves, or the tiniest portions of twigs, or certain small kinds of living creatures are often found in amber, which it seems, while it was still a softer drop, to have received and, once solidified, to have held fast. But why do I decide upon it with cheap discourse, when nature's reckoning is lofty and precious, when this discourse of mine is nourished by human wit, but divine providence has formed the nature of all things? Hence the diffusion of words must be restrained as by certain reins, lest what seems to have been divinely conferred upon Solomon especially by the gift of wisdom, we should seem usurpingly to expound—the differences of trees and the powers of roots and whatsoever things are hidden and unforeseen, as it is written.
These things, however, are not even by him made manifest and disclosed, so that it seems to me that he could discourse concerning the kinds of shrubs, but could not more fully unfold the reckonings of every creature. But if by the irrigations of waters both the crops are very often more luxuriant and the beans are green, and the manifold grace of gardens is roused and revived, if the bank of overflowing rivers is adorned with greening beds, how at the word of the Lord—which is more abounding than every course of waters—suddenly all the creation of shrubs burst into flower!
The fields hastened to put forth the grain not committed to them; the unknown kinds of garden vegetables, the wonders of flowers, hastened to sprout; the banks of rivers to clothe themselves with myrtle-groves; the trees hastened to rise quickly, to clothe themselves quickly in flower, to minister sustenance for men, fodder for cattle. The fruit is common to all, the use too is given to all. At once both did the trees sprout: one thing whereby we might be fed, another whereby by the cooling shade we might be defended from the sun. Food is in the fruit, the use of pleasantness in the leaves; yet because the providence of the Creator was foreknowing that the greed of men especially would claim the fruit for itself, he provided for the remaining living creatures, that he might grant them a special nourishment.
And so there is for these no scanty food in the leaves and in the woodland barks; those things too which were to be of use for healing—that is, juices, tears, and shoots—were likewise ministered. And so those things which afterwards by experience, use, and example we have come to know as useful, these the Creator from the beginning, by the majesty of his foreknowledge, commanded to come forth from the bosom of the earths for whatever use he should grant them apt.
And since the Lord commanded that the earth should bring forth the grass of hay and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in it—lest perhaps someone should say that in many trees neither fruit nor seed seems to be seen, and should think the divine precept to waver in some point, so that it be doubtful as to its truth—let him consider this: that it can by no means come to pass that not all things which generate either use seeds or have certain things which seem to agree with the power of seeds; and if anyone attentively observe this, he will be able to grasp it by manifest testimony.
Willows seem to have nothing of seed, yet they have in their leaves a certain grain which has the power of a seed, so that, when it is committed to the earth, a tree rises up as if from a planted slip, and rouses itself as if from a seed. And so by that grain the first root coalesces; from the root sprouts not only the willow, but also a forest of the other trees of this kind after the same likeness. The generation of the root too has the power of a seed, whence very many have propagated the increase of their grove by this sowing. Great is the power of God in single things.
Nor let anyone wonder if I have said that there is great power of God in shrubs, since he declared that there was great power of his even in locusts and in the cankerworm, inasmuch as the offense against the divine majesty was atoned for by the great means of Jewish barrenness and want. For great is the power of patience, great the power of providence. For unworthy were they who should enjoy earthly fecundity—who had wounded the Creator of the fattened lands. And truly great is he who avenges by a pitiable famine so great a wickedness of impiety. And so, if by the great power of God the earth generated the barren cankerworm, how much more does it produce by great power the things which are fruitful.
Who, beholding the pine cone, would not be amazed at so great an art ingrafted and impressed upon nature by the divine precept—how from the very center, though by distinct measurements, it rises up with an equal binding, by which it cherishes its own fruits? And so throughout the circuit the same appearance and order is preserved, and a certain birth of kernels abounds in each of the sections, and the fruit and grace returns into a circle. And so in that pine cone nature seems to express an image of itself, which, having received its privileges from that first divine and heavenly command, guards them, and renders its offspring by a certain succession and order of the years, until the consummation of time be fulfilled.
But as in this fruit it marks the pleasing appearance of itself, so also in the tamarisks—that is, the lowly shrubs—it has expressed the figure of wicked craftiness. For just as men of a double heart are everywhere at hand and hold forth grace and simplicity before the good, yet cleave to the most vicious, so also these shrubs are born by a certain contrary practice both in watery and in desert places. Hence Jeremiah too compared the doubtful and insincere in their ways to the tamarisks. 'Let the earth sprout,' he says, and at once all the earth was filled with the rising shoot. And to man it is said: 'Love the Lord your God,' and there is not the charity of God poured into the inward parts of all. The hearts of men are deafer than the hardness of rocks.
The earth ministers to us fruits not owed, while it obeys its Author: we deny the debt of our service, while we do not revere our Author. See in small things what the providence of God is, and, because you cannot comprehend it, marvel how he has kept some things ever flowering, has willed others to have the changes of despoiling and of clothing. Amid the white of snows, the frosts of the cold, the fields preserve their greenness; and though they themselves be covered with frost, they yet overspread no scanty beauty of greenness for their offspring. Even among those kinds of trees which are clothed with long-lasting foliage, there is no slight difference.
The olive or the pine ever keeps its garment, yet they often change their leaves, and hold them forth not as long-lasting but as supplemental to the beauty of their tree, overshadowing by the integrity of a perpetual vesture the alternation of the gift. But the palm remains green always outwardly and by long endurance, not by a change of leaves. For the leaves which it first put forth, these it preserves without any succession of substitution. Imitate it then, O man, that it may be said to you also: 'Your stature is made like to the palm.' Keep the greenness of your boyhood and of that natural innocence which you received from the beginning, that, planted beside the watercourses, you may have your fruit prepared in your season, and your leaf may not wither.
Following this greenness of grace ever flowering in Christ, the Church says: 'In his shadow I desired and sat down.' This prerogative of a verdant gift the apostles received, whose leaf could never slip away, so that even their shadow healed the sick; for the faith of the mind and the flourishing merits of the virtues overshadowed the infirmities of the body. Remain therefore planted in the house of the Lord, that in his courts you may flower like the palm, and that the grace of the Church may rise up in you, and that there may be the odor of your nostrils—as it says—like apples, that you may be made drunk in Christ. Well has this little verse admonished us to take up again what was almost left off, since we said that by the precept of the Lord the vine also sprouted, which afterwards, after the flood, we know to have been planted by Noah.
For thus you have it, that 'Noah was a husbandman of the earth, and he planted a vine, and drank of its wine, and fell asleep.' Noah, therefore, is not the author of the vine, but of its planting. For he could not have planted it unless he had found it already generated before. He is the cultivator, then, not the author of the vine. But God, who knew that wine drunk soberly would give health and increase prudence, but taken immoderately would give occasions to vices, gave the creature, but reserved the abundance to human judgment, so that thrift of nature might be a schooling in sobriety, and the human condition might ascribe to itself the harm of abundance and the fall of drunkenness. Finally, Noah himself too was made drunk and fell asleep, lulled by the wine.
Through wine, it is said, he lay open to deformity, who through the flood had grown up to glory. But the Lord even in this preserved the grace of his creature, that he might turn its fruit for us unto salvation, and that through it the remission of sins might come to us. Hence Isaac piously said: 'The odor of Jacob is the odor of a full field'—that is, a natural odor. For what is sweeter than a full countryside, what more delightful than the odor of the vine, what more pleasing than the flower of the bean? Hence, although someone before us has ingeniously said: 'The patriarch smelled not of vine or fig or grain, but breathed forth a spacious grace,' I nevertheless accept the very odor of the earth, simple and sincere, in place of the grace of blessing—an odor which no fraud has compounded, but the truth of heavenly indulgence has poured in.
Finally, it is reckoned among the most sacred blessings, that the Lord should grant us from the dew of heaven the strength of wine, of oil, and of grain—to whom be honor, praise, glory, and perpetuity from the ages and now and always and unto all the ages of ages. Amen. THE FOURTH DAY. He who gathers the vintage is wont first to cleanse the vessels into which the wine is poured, lest some dreg discolor the grace of the wine. For what does it profit to set the vine in order, to dig yearly or to draw furrows with the plows, to prune, to prop up, to join it to elms and to couple it by a kind of wedlock, if the wines sought with so great labor turn sour in the vessel?
If anyone desires to behold the morning risings of the sun, he first cleanses his eyes, lest any dust, lest any speck of refuse should settle upon them, by which the gaze of the beholder might be dulled, and lest some misty fog should veil the bodily vision of the one who looks. For us, in this reading, a sun must rise that did not exist before. We have already passed the first day without a sun, we have spent the second without a sun, we have completed the third without a sun; on the fourth day God commands the lights to come into being, the sun and the moon and the stars. The sun begins. Cleanse the eyes of your mind, O man, and the inner gaze of your soul, lest any mote of sin blunt the keenness of your understanding and trouble the vision of a pure heart.
Cleanse your ear, that with a pure vessel you may receive the bright streams of the divine Scripture, lest any defilement enter in. The sun proceeds, filling the day with great radiance, flooding the world with great light, breathing forth warmth. Beware, O man, of weighing only its greatness, lest its excessive brilliance blind the sight of your mind; just as one who looks straight into its ray loses all vision at once from the reflected light, and, unless he turns his face and eyes toward other regions, thinks he sees nothing and has been robbed of the faculty of sight—but if he averts his gaze, his full power of seeing endures. Beware, then, lest its rising ray also confound your sight.
And therefore first look upon the firmament of heaven, which was made before the sun; look upon the earth, which began to be visible and ordered before the sun came forth; look upon its sprouting plants, earlier than the light of the sun. The locust was earlier than the sun, the herb more ancient than the moon. Do not, then, believe to be a god that which you see to have had the gifts of God set before it. Three days have passed: and no one looked for the sun, and the brightness of light was abundant. For the day too has its own light, which is the forerunner of the sun. Do not, then, rashly commit your eye to so great a splendor of the sun—for it is the eye of the world, the gladness of the day, the beauty of heaven, the grace of nature, the excellence of creation—but when you see it, consider its Author; when you marvel at it, praise its very Creator.
If the sun, a fellow and partaker of creation, is so welcome, how good is that Sun of righteousness! If this one is so swift that with rapid courses it traverses all things by day and by night, how great is He who is everywhere always and fills all things with His majesty! If He is admirable who is commanded to come forth, how far beyond admiration is He who speaks to the sun and it does not rise, as we read! If great is he who through the changing hours daily draws near to places or withdraws from them, what is He who, even when He emptied Himself that we might see Him, was the true Light which enlightens every man coming into this world! If most excellent is he who by the interposition of the earth often suffers eclipse, of how great majesty is He who says: «Yet once more, and I will shake the earth»!
The earth hides that sun, but it cannot sustain the motion of this One, unless it be upheld by the substance of His will. If it is a loss for the blind not to see the grace of this sun, how great a loss for the sinner, robbed of the gift of the true Light, to endure the darkness of perpetual night! Therefore, when you see the sun, attend to the earth, which was founded before it; attend to the grass of the field, which excels by the privilege of order; attend to the trees, which clap their hands because they began to be before the lights of heaven. Are the merits of the field's grass greater than those of the sun, or is the prerogative of wood superior? Far be it that we should prefer insensible things to the minister of so great a gift.
What, then, did the depth of God's wisdom and knowledge foresee, that the trees should begin to be before those two lights of the world and the certain 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 germinate the first seeds of things, is surely able to nourish the seeds it has received and, by its own warmth, without the heat of the sun, to bring forth its offspring. By this voice, then, nature cries out, as it were, concerning its own gifts: good indeed is the sun, but by ministry, not by command; 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 too is a harm to me, and in many places leaves me undowered.
I am not ungrateful to my fellow-servant; he was given to me for my use, he was bound to labor with me, with me he was made subject to vanity, with me he was put under the bondage of corruption. With me he groans together, with me he travails in birth, that the adoption of sons and the redemption of the human race may come, whereby we too may be set free from bondage. Standing with me, he praises the Author; with me he sings a hymn to the Lord our God. Where his grace is greater, there he has fellowship in common with me. Where the sun blesses, there the earth blesses; the fruit-bearing trees bless, the cattle bless, the birds bless together with me. Set upon the sea, the sailor accuses him and longs for me; on the mountains the shepherd turns away from him toward my sprouting growth.
He hastens to my trees, that being overheated he may be shaded by them; to my springs when thirsty and weary. But lest the testimony of the eyes seem to you too slight, cleanse your ear, apply it to the heavenly oracles; for by two and three witnesses every word stands. Hear Him who says: «Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven for the illumination of the earth.» Who says this? God, He says. And to whom does He say it but 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 forth into light, He illumined it, He granted to it the power of pouring forth light. The sun, then, was made; and therefore it too serves, since it is said: «Thou hast founded the earth, and it abides.»
By Thy disposition the day abides, since all things serve Thee. For if the day serves, how does the sun not serve, which was made to govern the day? How do the moon and stars not serve, which were made to govern the night? Indeed, by how much greater grace the Creator has bestowed upon them—that the air should shine more than usual with the sun's brightness, that the day should glow more serenely, that the darkness of night should be lit by the splendor of moon and stars, that heaven, as though crowned with certain flowers, should so sparkle with fiery lights that you would think it painted like a Paradise in springtime, glittering with the living jewels of breathing roses—by however much more of adornment seems to have been conferred upon them, by so much the more they owe; for to whom more is committed, more is owed.
And therefore it has rightly been called by many the ornament of heaven, because it is the precious necklace of the stars. And that we may know that the fertility of the lands is not ascribed to the heat of the sun but is reckoned to the divine bounty, the prophet says: «All things wait upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them food in due season: when Thou givest to them, they will gather for themselves; when Thou openest Thy hand, all things will be filled with good»; and further on: «Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt 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.» Therefore neither the sun nor the moon are the authors of fruitfulness, but God the Father, through the Lord Jesus, imparts to all the liberality of fertility.
But the prophet has beautifully explained for us what is meant by that which He says, that God made the sun to govern the day and the moon to govern the night. For in that very Psalm, the hundred and third, of which we spoke above, he wrote: «He made the moon for seasons; the sun knew his going down.» For when the day has begun to fulfill its hours, the sun acknowledges the setting due to it. The sun, then, is in the power of the day, and the moon in the power of the night, which is compelled to obey the changes of the seasons and is now filled with light and now emptied. Although many seem to take this passage mystically, of Christ and the Church—that Christ acknowledged the passion of His own body, He who says: «Father, the hour is come: glorify Thy Son.»
that by that His own setting He might give eternal life to all who were pressed down by the setting of perpetual death; and that the Church too has her own seasons, namely of persecution and of peace. For she seems, like the moon, to wane, yet she does not wane. She can be overshadowed, she cannot fail; she is indeed diminished in persecutions by the falling away of some, that she may be filled by the confessions of the martyrs and, made glorious by the victories of blood poured out for Christ, may shed throughout the whole world a greater light of her devotion and faith. For the moon, as it is written, has light, not body, when by its monthly changes it seems to lay aside its light, that it may borrow from the sun what can easily be gathered in clear and transparent air, when no overhanging cloud makes it dim.
For the orb of the moon remains entire, even if it does not all shine alike as a part of it does; and such as it is wont to appear when it is full of light, such is it in magnitude, but it appears bereft of its own light through a certain shadow. And hence its horns shine forth, because its body is spread out into an orb and is, as it were, disclosed when the light of a portion fails. Now it may move one that He says: «Let there be lights for the illumination of the earth, to divide between day and night,» since Scripture, where it made the light, had said: «God divided between the light and the darkness. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.»
But let us consider that the light of the day is one thing, the light of the sun and moon and the light of the stars another, in that the sun itself seems by its rays to add brightness to the light of day, as either the rising or the setting of the day can show. For before the sun it is indeed light, but the day does not shine forth, because it shines more fully under the midday sun. This the prophet shows, saying: «And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.» For he compared the righteousness of the saints not only to light, but even to the noonday light.
Then He willed there to be not only one sign but even two of the distinction of day and night, that both the daylight should make the distinction together with the sun's rising, and again the failing of daylight together with the rising of the stars should mark off the setting of the day and the beginning of the night. For where the sun has set, there yet remains something of the remnants of day, until darkness covers the earth, and then the moon rises and the stars. And concerning the night it is plainly evident, since the illumination of the moon and stars attests the spaces of the night, seeing that during the day the risen sun hides that lunar brightness and that of all the stars. But concerning the day, even the very blaze of the sun cannot teach otherwise—that the nature of daylight and of the sun is different, and that it is itself of a distinct hue.
For the nature of light is simple, in that it furnishes light: but the sun has not only the power of its kind, but also of giving warmth; for it is fiery, and fire both illumines and burns. Hence God, willing to show Moses the miracle of His working—by which He might rouse Moses to zeal for obedience and inflame his affection to faith—was seen in fire in the bush, and the bush was not burned, but only seemed to shine with the appearance of fire. One office, then, of the nature of fire it left idle, the other it worked. The force of burning was at rest, the illumination was at work. Therefore Moses was amazed, because contrary to its nature the fire did not burn the bush, the fire which is wont to burn even more solid matter. But the fire of the Lord is wont to illumine, not to burn.
And perhaps you may say: how is it written, «I am a consuming fire»? You have admonished well: it is not wont to consume except sins alone. In the recompenses of merits, too, we gather the nature of the divine fire—that it illumines some and burns others, illumines the just, burns the impious. It does not burn the same ones it illumines, nor illumine those it burns; but its illumination is inextinguishable for the enjoyment of the good, its burning vehement for the punishment of sinners. But let us return to the distinction of day and night. When the light of day arises, the night is put to flight; when the day departs, the night pours in. For there is no fellowship of place for light with darkness, since by a natural law the Lord has established this in the working of living things.
For indeed, when He made the light, He also made the distinction between light and darkness. Finally, in the day itself, 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, and in the midday hours it inclines toward the north; yet it is not confounded and mingled with the light, but yields and flees. Likewise it seems to yield to the day and to turn away from its light; for it is, as the more skilled have proved—those who have preceded us either in age or in office—the shadow of the earth.
For naturally the shadow clings and is joined to a body, so much so that even painters strive to express the shadows of bodies, which they account to be the test of art—not to pass over the force of nature—and as it were by a kind of natural-law judgment that picture is reckoned defective which does not also express its own shadow. Therefore, just as in the day, when some body meets the sun from the opposite quarter, on that part where the light is repelled a shadow remains; so when, at the departure of the day, the interposition of the earth meets the opposite quarter from the light or the sun, the air is overshadowed. Whence it is clear that the shadow of the lands makes the night.
He made, then, the sun and the moon and the stars, and appointed for them the measures of times—for the sun the daily measures, for the moon and stars the nightly—that the one might increase the grace of the day, the others govern the shadow and the darkness, and that they might be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. The sun and the moon, with the stars, have divided times 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 too said: «And there shall be signs in the sun and moon and stars,» and to the apostles seeking 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 coming consummation.
Finally, some have attempted to express the qualities of nativities—what each one who is born will turn out to be—although this is not only restrained but even useless to those who inquire, impossible to those who promise it. For what is so useless as that each one should persuade himself that he is that which he was born? No one, then, ought to change his life, condition, and morals and strive to become better, but to remain in that persuasion; nor can you praise the upright nor condemn the wicked, who would seem merely to answer the necessity of his nativity. And how has the Lord either set rewards before the good or punishments before the wicked, if necessity produces discipline and the course of the stars shapes our conduct?
And what else is this than to wash—nay, to strip—the man out of the man, if nothing is left to morals, nothing to training, nothing to study? How many do we see snatched from crimes and sins and converted to a better state! The apostles were redeemed and gathered out of sinners, not indeed by the influence of their natal hour, but the coming of Christ sanctified them, and the hour of the Lord's passion redeemed them from death.