Peter Abelard. An Exposition on the Six-day Work (Corpus Christianorum in Translation) 9782503535111, 2503535119

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Peter Abelard An exposition on the Six-day Work



CORPVS CHRISTIANORVM IN TRANSLATION

8

CORPVS CHRISTIANORVM Continuatio Mediaeualis

XV

PETRI ABAELARDI EXPOSITIO IN HEXAMERON

EDITA A

Mary Romig (†)

auxilium praestante David LUSCOMBE

TURNHOUT

BREPOLS H PUBLISHERS

PETER ABELARD An exposition on the Six-day Work Introduction, translation and notes by Wanda zemler-Cizewski

H

F



© 2011, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

D/2011/0095/45 ISBN 978-2-503-53511-1 Printed on acid-free paper.



Table of Contents

Preface

7

Introduction

9 9 12 17 18

The Author Summary Relationship to Other Works Manuscripts and Editions Bibliography

20 20 20 25

Abbreviations Primary Sources Secondary Works An exposition on the Six-day Work

Preface Exposition Concerning the work of the first day Concerning the second [day] Concerning the third [day] Concerning the fourth [day] Concerning the fifth [day] Concerning the sixth [day] Moral Allegory Continuation

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29 31 33 34 47 58 62 70 75 93 95 97

Table of Contents 

Indices Index of scripture references Index of non-biblical sources Index of names Index of subjects

123 125 128 129

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Preface

During my first year at the Pontifical Institute and the Centre for Medieval Studies in the University of Toronto, I discovered to my delight that Peter Abelard had commented on the beginning of Genesis at the request of his beloved Heloise, and that the text, which survived in a mere handful of manuscripts, had not yet been critically edited. It was, I thought, the ideal doctoral dissertation project. I soon learned, to my chagrin, that I was not the only person to have formed that impression, and that at the University of Southern California, Mary F. Romig was already well on her way with an edition that she would submit, in 1981, as part of her work toward the doctorate. Like every dissertation, however, her work was in need of some revisions, which she could not undertake at the time. The task passed into the hands of Charles Burnett and David Luscombe at the University of Sheffield; their edition was published as volume 15 in the Corpus christianorum continuatio medievalis series, part 5 of the works of Peter Abelard. Meanwhile, my interest in the Expositio in hexaemeron broadened to include works by other twelfth-century authors of hexaemeral treatises; it became part of the research presented in my doctoral dissertation, entitled “The Doctrine of Creation in the First Half of the Twelfth Century: Selected Authors,” and completed in 1983 under the direction of Brian Stock. When, at last, the critical edition of Abelard’s commentary was published in 2004, I took the opportunity to return to my earlier 

Preface

e­ nthusiasm, and was able to begin work on the present translation in the spring of 2008, during a sabbatical term supported by Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am indebted to many friends and colleagues for their encouragement and support. In Toronto, Brian Stock not only directed my dissertation, but also introduced me to other Abelard scholars, including Constant Mews, David Luscombe, and Eileen Kearney. I owe an enormous debt to David Luscombe for his willingness to read the draft manuscript of my translation and to offer suggestions for improvements. My work would not have been possible without recourse to his expert knowledge of the text. Finally, I should like to thank the community of scholars at Marquette University, in the Department of Theology, at the Haggerty Museum of Art and in the Raynor Memorial Library, for their collegiality and support throughout the years. Most of all, I have to thank John David Zemler, my husband and best of colleagues. Wanda Zemler-Cizewski Marquette University January, 2011

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INTRODUCTION

The Author The outline of Peter Abelard’s personal and professional career to around 1130 can be pieced together from evidence in the autobiographical Historia calamitatum and his subsequent correspondence with Heloise. In the Historia calamitatum, he informs the reader of his origins in Le Pallet, Brittany, from a family belonging to the military aristocracy, and sketches his early career as a freelance knight of Minerva in the schools of dialectic and theology at Melun, Paris, and Laon. He describes the scandal of his affair with Heloise, his conversion, and the series of disasters that befell him and his theological works in his new role as a Benedictine monk of St. Denis in Paris, as the hermit of the Paraclete, and subsequently as abbot of St. Gildas in his native land. References in the writings of friends, former students, and enemies to his teaching activity in and around Paris, and the condemnations for heresy – in 1121 at the synod of Soissons, and in 1140 at the council of Sens – help fill the gaps and complete the picture up to Abelard’s death in 1142.1 1 Peter Abelard, Historia calamitatum, ed. J. Monfrin (3rd ed. Paris, 1967), ed. J. T. Muckle, Abelard’s letter of Consolation to a Friend, Historia calamitatum, in Mediaeval Studies, 12, 1950, pp. 163-213, and John of Salisbury, Metalogicon 2: 17, 3: prol., 3: 1, ed. C. C. J. Webb (Oxford, 1929), pp. 92, 119, and 123; see Peter Dronke, Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies, W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture 26 (Glasgow, 1976), pp. 7-14; John Benton, “A Reconsideration of the Authenticity of the Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise,” in Petrus Abaelardus (1079-1142): Person, Werk, und Wirkung, TriererTheologische Studien 38, ed R. Thomas, et al. (Trier, 1980), pp. 41-52.

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Introduction

From the evidence supplied by these twelfth-century ­sources, it appears that Abelard began his career as a student and master of logic during the first decade of the twelfth century and continued in that profession until about 1117. His first theological work, a commentary on the prophet Ezechiel, was produced around 1114 at Laon, and seems to have been reworked in a second edition at Paris, but no manuscript version has survived. Abelard’s extant theological works were for the most part composed between 1118 and 1140. His oeuvre falls into several distinct groups. First, there are the works on logic, principally the Dialectica, edited by L. M. de Rijk.2 Second, there is the series of theologiae, beginning with the treatise De unitate et trinitate divina, or the Theologia ‘summi boni’, written at some time between Abelard’s entry into St. Denis and his condemnation at Soissons, or 1118 to 1120. He revised the treatise repeatedly, and developed it into a series of longer and more complex versions. In modern printings, these are the Theologia christiana and the Theologia scholarium or Introductio ad theologiam. The first redactions of the Theologia christiana were probably started a few years after the condemnation at Soissons of the original Theologia ‘summi boni’, and can be dated from 1122 to 1127.3 In 1125, Abelard was elected abbot of St. Gildas de Ruys in Brittany, where he could not have found the leisure to begin any new theological projects, although he may have carried on with some of the work he had begun earlier. Between his flight from St. Gildas in 1132, and his reappearance in Paris in the mid 1130’s, he seems to have wandered France and Brittany, with the convent of the Paraclete as a home base. From around 1135 to 1139, and the beginning of Bernard of Clairvaux’s action against him, he was intensely active, teaching, writing, and ­revising his theological treatises. The revised Theologia christiana and ­extant versions of the Theologia scholarium date from this 2 Abelard, Dialectica, ed. L. M. De Rijk, Petrus Abelardus. Dialectica (Assen, 1970). 3 C. J. Mews, “On Dating the Works of Peter Abelard,” in AHDLMA, 52, 1985, pp. 73-134.

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Introduction

period, together with more or less final versions of other major works, including the Sic et Non, the commentary on Romans, and the Scito te ipsum, or Ethics. A third group of theological writings comprises works written for Heloise and her community after they had been established at the Paraclete, around 1129.4 These include not only the letters and a Rule, the Problemata and various sermons, but also the Expositio in hexaemeron and the Hymnarius paraclitensis, with its hexaemeral theme. The Expositio in hexaemeron contains only one explicit reference to an earlier work, when Abelard omits detailed discussion of the terms bonum, malum, and indifferens, because he treated them in sufficient detail in the “second Collatio.” As Van den Eynde has shown, the Collationes are the Dialogus inter philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum, believed formerly by scholars to have been written at Cluny in the final year of Abelard’s life.5 Were that the case, we would be looking at the somewhat ­improbable conclusion that the hexaemeral commentary requested by Heloise was Abelard’s last piece of writing, left incomplete in the manuscripts because of sickness and death. E. Buytaert, however, argued for a much earlier date of the Collationes or Dialogus, suggesting that the condemnation of a theologia mentioned in the Dialogus is not the condemnation of the Theologia scholarium at Sens in 1140, but the condemnation of the Theologia ‘summi boni’ at Soissons in 1121, since the latter theologia might plausibly be said to have “grown more glorious” in its subsequent redactions.6 The composition of the Dialogus would, in that case, be datable to the 1130’s or the height of Abelard’s theological teaching career. The Expositio in hexaemeron would, accordingly, also have belonged to that period.

4 D. Van den Eynde, “Chronologie des écrits d’Abélard à Héloise,” Antonianum, 37, 1962, pp. 347-349. 5 Van den Eynde, ibid. 6 E. M. Buytaert, “Abelard’s Expositio in hexaemeron,” in Antonianum, 43, 1968, 163-194.

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Introduction

Summary In his prologue, Abelard addresses Heloise and her spiritual daughters as his intended readers, explaining that at her request, he has undertaken the difficult task of commenting on the literal sense of Genesis. He cites passages from Origen and Jerome to show that in the Hebrew tradition, the hexaemeral work ­described at the beginning of Genesis, together with the visionary material at the beginning and end of Ezechiel and all the contents of the Song of Songs, were considered to be extremely demanding, and suitable only for mature minds to ponder. Moreover, literal interpretation of the hexaemeral text presented so many difficulties that among commentators working in the ­Latin language, Abelard asserts, only Augustine ever attempted to ­expound the historical sense. Abelard is willing to venture ­upon an interpretation with the expectation that his work will raise more questions than it answers; Heloise, accordingly, is asked to support his labors with her prayers, so that he may discover the true sense of the text.7 Abelard announces at the beginning of his commentary that he will offer historical, moral, and mystical interpretations, but intends to ground his reading primarily in history, or the “truth of things done.” He then offers an accessus ad auctorem8 in the manner current among cathedral school interpreters of ancient texts: the prophetic author is identified as Moses; the author’s intention is to entice the newly liberated Israelites into knowledge and service of God, their Creator; the subject matter or m ­ ateria of the text is, in a suitable pun, the material world itself, as it is created and set in order over the course of six days. Finally, the author’s method of treatment is the simplest type of historical narrative, beginning at the beginning of things and tracing their natural order. The authorial intention of Moses, in 7 Compare Epistola II (III) and Epistola VI (VII), ed. J. T. Muckle, in The Personal Letters between Abelard and Heloise, in Mediaeval Studies, 15, 1953 pp. 6 and 253, Hymnarius Paraclitensis, ed. J. Szövérffy, vol. 2, pp. 9, 81, and 169. 8 E. A. Quain, “The Medieval Accessus ad auctorem,” in Traditio 3, 1945, pp. 215-264.

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Introduction

turn, ­resembles the intention ascribed to God in creation, since he is understood to create so as to give the rational creature some knowledge of himself, and to begin in a figural sense to speak to the rational creature with the creation of light, by which the material creature is disclosed to view, and to continue speaking with the created works disclosed by the morning light of each new day. Abelard devotes more time to interpreting the first day than he does to any of the others. His comments on the first day, understood as the “one day” in which God created all things, include some of his most complex and difficult speculation on the order and composition of the material creature. The influence of Augustine’s Genesis commentaries can be seen in his figurative interpretations of the relationship between the light of morning and evening on each day, while that of Calcidius’ commentary on Plato’s Timaeus is evident in his discussion of the natures of the four elements and their origin as hyle or prime matter. Use of these sources, together with Abelard’s interest throughout the commentary in the emergence of those regular processes that we identify as “nature” suggest an unmistakable kinship with the hexaemeral commentary by his teacher, Thierry of Chartres, the related work of Clarembald of Arras, and some aspects of William of Conches’ cosmological writing.9 Abelard ascribes the ordered relationship among the elements to the will of God in the beginning of his work. Commenting on the creation of the firmament, he reviews and critiques several opinions offered by patristic sources as to the nature of the upper waters and the force that keeps them fixed outside their natural sphere, above both air and fire. In his opinion, the upper waters are a very fine, light vapor, supported by the upper atmosphere of air and fire, but enclosing them within itself much as the casing of a football 9 Thierry of Chartres, Tractatus de sex dierum operibus, ed. N. M. Häring in Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts, 20, Toronto, 1971, pp. 555-575, Clarembald of Arras, Tractatulus super librum Genesis, ed. N. M. Häring in Life and Works of Clarembald of Arras, A Twelfth-Century Master of the School of Chartres, Studies and Texts 10, Toronto, 1965, pp. 225-249; William of Conches, Philosophia, ed. G. Maurach and H. Telle, Pretoria, 1980.

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Introduction

encloses and is supported by the air within. Because the placement of the upper waters over the elements of air and fire is contrary to the order that we perceive as natural, he concludes that the force or vis naturae by which these waters are kept in their place is implanted in the creature by the will of God. In evidence, he quotes from Plato’s Timaeus to show that it is by God’s will that all natural powers were first instituted and to God’s will that all are subject. Nevertheless, he also entertains the more naturalistic explanation that a powerful wind projected the upper waters into place, where they froze into an immobility from which they would not fall. In his somewhat cursory remarks on the third day, Abelard devotes his attention to the origin of the natural process by which seeds germinate, and to the diversity of climate and soil that produces variety in vegetation and crops around the world. Once again, he holds that the will of God in creating is the sole force behind the earth’s ability on that day to germinate and produce vegetation where no seeds had been sown. On the other hand, he reflects that a naturalistic explanation for the spontaneous generation of vegetation might be that the newly created earth had somehow been endowed with greater powers for producing new life than it has at the present time. The luminaries of heaven were created on the fourth day, and Abelard devotes most of his comments on that day’s work to the question whether these creatures are somehow sentient and therefore moved by living spirits, as Augustine and other patristic sources seem to have thought. Abelard finds the notion plausible, but does not venture to resolve the question with an opinion of his own. He is by no means as reticent on the topic of astrology, which he ­introduces because the text states that the stars are created to serve as signs of days and seasons.10 Abelard condemns the use of astrology for predicting future contingents as diabolical, and vigorously satirizes the claims of its practitioners. Nonetheless, he concedes that the movements of the stars can rightly be interpreted by experts to

10 See M.-T. D’Alverny, “Abélard et l’astrologie,” in Pierre Abélard-Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 611-630.

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Introduction

predict future events in nature such as changes in climate and in the seasons for planting and harvest. Abelard’s comments on the creation of aquatic animals and birds on the fifth day include an original reflection on the origin of sentient life from water as a prefiguring of the regeneration of humankind through the waters of baptism. He makes the connection among the Spirit’s movement over the waters on the first day, warming them with its love as a bird warms its’ egg, and the production of living things from water, together with the use of ­water for sacramental cleansing from sin. Moreover, he suggests that the Benedictine Rule permits consumption of the meat of animals produced from water, namely fish and fowl, because the element is lighter than earth, from which the land animals, whose meat is forbidden in the Rule, were created. Finally, in comparing the creation of creeping things from water and from earth on the fifth and sixth days, he adverts again to the question whether the stars are sentient beings, and if so, whether they are a kind of reptile or creeping thing, since they move through the heavens without using feet. The principal subject of Abelard’s comments on the sixth day is the creation of human beings to the image and likeness of God. Following Augustine, Abelard identifies human likeness to God with the imaging of the Trinity in the human soul. His ascription of power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and goodness to the Holy Spirit11 comes into play as he imagines a conversation among the three divine Persons in which Power invites Wisdom and Goodness to share in this unique creative act. However, Abelard distinguishes between the image and the likeness of God in the human creature, arguing at length that the man is created to the image, and the woman to the likeness of God, so that in several ways, the male of the human species is more like God that the female. Nevertheless, both share in dominion over the other living things of the earth, and in the duty of procreation. That human beings are instructed from the beginning of their creation to “be fruitful and multiply,” is seen as explicit condemnation 11 See, eg., Abelard, Theologia summi boni 1, 10; Theologia christiana 1, 12; Theologia scholarium 1, 73.

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Introduction

both of those who condemn marriage, and those who engage in homosexual intercourse. Commenting on the general blessing of all creatures on the seventh day, Abelard asserts that all were created good in the beginning, and that even now those creatures that seem either defective or immature are good insofar as they are represented in the original creation that God blessed and called “very good,” but also intended at the present time by the divine providence that governs all things. Having concluded the historical or literal interpretation of the text, Abelard then offers brief moral and mystical readings of the hexaemeral work. In so doing, he used the tripartite interpretation introduced by Gregory the Great and described in detail by Hugh of St. Victor in the Didascalicon, rather than the four senses of Scripture first described by John Cassian.12 Abelard’s moral and allegorical interpretations are brief and not especially original: the former draws on Augustine’s Confessiones XIII, and the latter is derived from Augustine’s De Genesi contra Manichaeos I, xxiii. Abelard returns to the literal sense of the text in a continuation beginning with Genesis 2, 4, and ending at Genesis 2, 25 in the longest extant version. In all the surviving manuscripts, the text appears to break off before reaching a conclusion; it is possible, judging from Abelard’s discussion of the trees of knowledge and of good and evil, that he intended to continue the commentary up to the temptation and expulsion from the garden. In his commentary on the creation of the woman from ­Adam’s rib, Abelard notes that the sleep into which God plunged Adam was not the ordinary kind, but must rather have been like that induced by medical practitioners when they wish to operate. This is not his only reference to contemporary medical lore. Commenting on the creation of the firmament, he mentions that when phlebotomists wish to draw blood, they insert and light a small wick in the flask used for their purpose, so as to attract the moist humor of blood with the heat of fire. Similarly, he is 12 Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Epistula missoria 3, PL 75, 513; Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon 5, 2.

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Introduction

aware that medicinal herbs must be planted and harvested at the right season and under the right conditions. His examples may represent instances of medical practice familiar to Heloise, who was a product of the Benedictine tradition, or may reflect his ­familiarity with the state of the art in cathedral school lectures.13 Commenting on the trees of life and of knowledge, Abelard considers the possibility that the tree of knowledge was a fig tree, so that when Jesus told Nathanael that he “saw [him] under the fig tree” (John 1, 48) he was referring to the omniscience of the divine Word, whereby he knew every human being. Among the “Hebrews,” however, the tree of knowledge is believed to have been the grape vine, and to have grown side by side with and supported by the tree of life, much as an elm tree may support a vine. Hence, the forbidden fruit may have been the grape, which, in its fermented form, can both sharpen and dull the wits, depending on quantities consumed. Abelard’s occasional references to Jewish beliefs and interpretations of the text appear to derive for the most part from Jerome’s writings. Sometimes Abelard uses the term “Hebrews” or “Hebrew truth,” usually when explaining alternative translations or peculiarities of the Hebrew language. On rare occasions, he makes a ­pejorative reference to the beliefs of “the Jews,” most notably when taking them to task for failing to accept the doctrine of the Trinity. He makes no explicit reference to contemporary Jewish sources, but may have had access to some rabbinic material; his interpretation of the tree of knowledge as a vine, for instance, is not to be found in the Christian sources, but is known in Jewish tradition.14

Relationship to Other Works The Expositio refers explicitly to the “second Collatio,” but ­includes a number of additional passages and turns of phrase that establish links with other works by Abelard. For example, the salutation to 13 Compare Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon 2, 26; see C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Medieval Science, Cambridge, Mass., 1927, p. 374. 14 See, eg., The Torah, A Modern Commentary, ed. G. Plaut, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, New York, 1981, p. 42.

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Introduction

Heloise and the reference to her supplications on Abelard’s behalf are reminiscent of similar expressions in the letters, sermons, and Hymnarius paraclitensis. According to Luscombe and Buytaert, points of contact with the later theologiae and the Sic et Non are also to be observed, especially where Abelard discusses the persons of the Trinity in terms of power, wisdom, and goodness.15 In terms of overall content, the Expositio is closely linked to the first part of the Hymnarius Paraclitenis, where Abelard’s ­cycle of hymns for matins, lauds, and vespers, including the wellknown “O quanta qualia,” derives its theme from the literal, moral, and allegorical interpretations of the hexaemeral week.16

Manuscripts and Editions The Expositio survives in four manuscripts, all of the twelfth ­century. These are known by the following sigla: A Avranches, Bibliothèque municipale 135, fols. 75-90v. K Copenhagen, Det kongelige Bibliothek, e don. var. 138 quarto, fols. 9-16v, 19-25v. P Paris, Bibliothèque nationale lat. 17251, fols. 33v-46. V Vatican, Biblioteca apostolica, Vat. Lat. 4214, fols. 1-30. The Paris manuscript includes an incomplete commentary on the hexaemeron that closely follows the Expositio text. Of the four manuscripts, KPV include the text of the commentary from Genesis 1, 1 to 2, 25, but A, lacking a final gathering, ends at Genesis 2, 16. The shortest version of the text is found in K, and the longest in V, which is distinguished by extra passages not found in the other three. Consequently, Luscombe concludes that K represents an earlier version of the commentary, distinct from the later version on which APV appear to depend.17 Although brief and full of errors, manuscript K represents an intriguing 15 Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica: Expositio in Hexaemeron, ed. M. Romig and D. Luscombe, CCM 15, pp. LXXI-LXXIV. 16 For tables of contents and motifs, see Hymnarius Paraclitensis, vol. 1, pp. 60-63. 17 Expositio in Hexaemeron, CCM 15, p. XLVIII.

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Introduction

link between the French monastic schools of the twelfth century and Christian culture in Scandinavia. The text of Abelard’s work is part of a codex from the Cistercian monastery of Herrevad in the diocese of Lund, together with other material on the Pentateuch, the twelve minor prophets, and Isaiah. It cannot be ­determined whether this material was known to Anders Sunesen when he wrote his Hexaemeron in verse in the later twelfth century, although there are some points of contact between his work and Abelard’s Expositio. The first printed edition was published in 1717 by Martène and Durand, using the defective A. Their work was adapted, with a few changes, by Cousin, whose version was printed in Migne’s Patrologia latina 178, 731-784. In 1892, Haureau published the missing final section from P, and in a 1968 article, E. Buytaert offered a preliminary description of the relationships among the four manuscripts, including a full text of the concluding section absent from A.18 Mary Romig’s 1981 doctoral dissertation represents the first attempt at a critical edition of the Expositio, although she was unable to continue preparation of the text for publication. Her work was revised by David Luscombe and published in 2004 in the Corpus christianorum continuatio medievalis series vol. 15; it is on their edition that the present translation is based.

18

Expositio in Hexaemeron, CCM 15, pp. XXX-XXXI.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbreviations AHDLMA BGPMA BGPTMA CCL CCM CSEL PG PL

Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, Paris, 1926Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Munster i. w., 1928Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Munster i. W., 1928Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout, 1953Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis, Turnhout, 1954Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna, 1866Patrologia graeca, ed. J. P. Migne, Paris. Patrologia latina, ed. J. P. Migne, Paris.

Primary Sources Peter Abelard, Petri Abaelardi Opera, PL 178. —, Petri Abaelardi Opera, ed. V. Cousin, 2 vols, Paris, 1849; 1859. —, Ouvrages inédits d’Abélard pour server à l’histoire de la philosophie scolastique en France, ed. V. Cousin, Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de la France, 2ème série. Histoire des Lettres et des Sciences, Paris, 1836. —, Carmen ad Astralabium, ed. J. M. A. Rubingh-Boscher, Peter Abelard. Carmen ad Astralabium, Groningen, 1987.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

—, Collationes, ed. and trans. J. Marenbon and G. Orlandi, Oxford ­Medieval Texts, Oxford, 2001. —, Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, ed. E. M. Buytaert, ­Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, I, CCM 11, 1969. —, Dialectica, ed. L. M. de Rijk, Petrus Abaelardus. Dialectica, Assen, 1970. —, Epistolae, ed. J. T. Muckle, The Personal Letters between Abelard and Heloise, in Mediaeval Studies, 15 (1953), pp. 47-94 (letters 2-5; part of 6); ed, Muckle, The letter of Heloise on the Religious Life and Abelard’s First Reply, in Mediaeval Studies, 17 (1955), pp. 240-81 (letters 6-7); T. P. McLaughlin, Abelard’s Rule for Religious Women, in Mediaeval Studies, 18 (1956), pp. 241-292 (letter 8); ed. E. R. Smits, Peter Abelard. Letters IX-XIV, Groningen, 1983. —, Ethica, ed. D. E. Luscombe, Peter Abelard’s Ethics. An Edition with English Translation, Oxford Medieval Texts, Oxford, 1971. —, Expositio in hexaemeron, ed. M. Romig and D. Luscombe; Abbreviatio Petri Abaelardi expositio in hexaemeron, ed. C. Burnett and D. Luscombe, in Petri Abaelardi opera theologica V, CCM 15, 2004. —, Historia calamitatum, ed. J. Monfrin, Abélard. Historia calamitatum, Paris, 1959 (2nd ed. 1967); ed. J. T. Muckle, Abelard’s Letter of Consolation to a Friend, Historia calamitatum, in Mediaeval Studies, 12 (1950), pp. 163213. —, Hymnarius Paraclitensis, ed. J. Szövérffy, Peter Abelard’s Hymnarius Paraclitensis. An annotated edition with introduction, 2 vols, Albany, N. Y. and Brookline, Mass., 1975. —, Introductiones parvulorum, ed. M. Dal Pra, Pietro Abelardo – Scritti di Logica, Nuova Biblioteca Filosofica, Serie III, 2nd ed., Florence, 1969. —, Logica ‘Ingredientibus,’ BGPTMA, XXI, Hefte 1-3, 1919-27; II. Die Logica ‘Nostrorum petitioni sociorum,’ ed. B. Geyer, in BGPTMA, XXI, Heft 4, 1933 (2nd ed. 1973). —, Sic et Non, ed. B. Boyer and R. McKeon, Peter Abelard. Sic et Non, Chicago, 1976, 1977. —, Theologia christiana, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, II, CCM 12, 1969, pp. 5-372. —, Theologia ‘Scholarium,’ Recensiones breviores, ed. E. M. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, II, CCM 12, 1969, pp. 373-451. —, Theologia ‘Scholarium,’ ed. E. M. Buytaert and C. J. Mews, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, III, CCM 13, 1987, pp. 309-549.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

—, Theologia ‘Summi boni,’ ed. E. M. Buytaert and C. J. Mews, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, III, CCM 13, 1987, pp. 83-201. —, Tractatus de intellectibus, ed. L. U. Ulivi, La Psicologia di Abaelardo e il “Tractatus de intellectibus,” Rome, 1976. Adelard of Bath, Quaestiones naturales, ed. and trans. C. Burnett, Adelard of Bath, Conversations with his Nephew: On the Same and the Different, Cambridge Medieval ClasQuestions on Natural Science, and On Birds,������������������������� sics 9, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 81-235. Ambrose of Milan, Hexaemeron, ed. C. Schenkl, Sancti Ambrosii Opera, CSEL 32, I, Vienna, 1897; PL 14, 123-274. Andreas Sunesen, Hexaemeron, ed. M. C. Gertz, Andreae Sunonis filii ­archiepiscopi Lundensis Hexaëmeron libri duodecim, Copenhagen, 1892; new ed. by S. Ebbesen and L. B. Mortensen, in Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi XI, 1-2, Copenhagen, 1985, 1988. Anon., De generibus et speciebus (attr. Abael.), ed. V. Cousin, Ouvrages inédits d’Abélard pour server à l’histoire de la scolastique en France, Collection des documents inédits sur l’histoire de la France, 2ème série. Histoire des Lettres et des Sciences, Paris, 1836. Apuleius, De deo Socratis, ed. P. Thomas, Apulei Platonici Madaurensis de philosophia libri, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig, 1908. Aristotle, Categoriae, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, Aristoteles Latinus, I, 1-5: Categoriae vel Praedicamenta. Translatio Boethii ..., Bruges-Paris, 1961. —, De interpretatione, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, De interpretatio vel ­Periermeneias. Translatio Boethii. Specimina Translationum ­Recentiorum. Aristotelis Latinus, II, 1, Bruges, 1965. Augustine of Hippo, Confessionum libri XIII, ed. L. Verheijen, CCL 27, 1981. —, De civitate Dei, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCL 47-48, 1955. —, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim, ed. J. Zycha, CSEL 28, Sect. III, Pars 1 (potius 2), 1894, pp. 1-456; PL 34, 219-246. —, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber, ed. J. Zycha, CSEL 28, Sect. III, Pars 1 (potius 2), 1894, pp. 456-503.; PL 34, 245-486. —, De Genesi contra Manichaeos, PL 34, 173-220. —, De immortalitate animae, PL 32, 1021-1034. —, De trinitate, ed. W. J. Mountain and F. Glorie, CCL 50-50A, 1968. —, Enchiridion, ed. E. Evans, CCL 46, 1969. —, Retractationum libri II, ed. A. Muntzenbecher, CCL 57, 1984.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Basil of Cesarea, Homiliae in Hexaemeron, PG 29, 3-208 [see also Eusthatius]. Bede, De natura rerum, ed. C. W. Jones, in Bedae Venerabilis Opera, Pars I, Opera didascalica, CCL 123A, 1975. —, Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, ed. D. Hurst, CCL 121, 1983. —, Liber quatuor in principium Geneseos usque ad nativitatem Isaac et eiectionem Ismahelis adnotationum, ed. C. W. Jones, in Bedae Venerabilis Opera, Pars II, Opera exegetica, I, CCL 118A, 1967. Benedict, St., Regula, ed. and trans. A. de Vogüé and J. Neufville, La Règle de Saint Benoît, 6 vols, Sources chrétiennes 181-86, Paris, 1971-1972. Bernard of Chartres, Glosae super Platonem, ed. P. E. Dutton, The Glosae super Platonem of Bernard of Chartres, Studies and Texts 107, Toronto, 1991. Bernard Silvestris, Cosmographia, ed. P. Dronke, Leiden, 1978. Boethius, Opera, PL 63-64. —, In Isagogen Porphyrii commenta (edition prima, edition secunda), ed. S. Brandt, CSEL 48, 1906. —, Philosophiae consolation, ed. L. Bieler, CCL 94, 1957. Calcidius, Commentarius, see Plato, Timaeus. Cicero, De natura deorum, ed. O. Plasberg; rev. W. Ax, Bibliotheca Teubneriana. Repr. Stuttgart, 1961. —, Somnium Scipionis, in Macrobius Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed. J. Willis, Leipzig, 1963. Clarembald of Arras. Tractatulus super librum Genesis, ed. N. M. Häring, in Life and Works of Clarembald of Arras, A Twelfth-Century Master of the School of Chartres, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 10, Toronto, 1965. Eusthatius, Latina versio homiliarum Basilii, ed. E. Amand de Mendieta and S. Y. Rudberg, Eusthatius Ancienne version latin des neuf homélies sur l’Hexaéméron de Basile de Césarée in Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 66 (V. Reihe, Band 11), Berlin, 1958; PL 53, 867-966. Gregory the Great, Dialogi, ed. A. de Vogüé, trans. P. Antin, Sources chrétiennes 251, 260, 265 (1978, 1979, 1980). —, Homiliae in Euangelia, PL 76, 1075-1342. —, Moralia in Job, PL 76, 9-782. Hermann of Carinthia, De Essentiis, ed. C. S. F. Burnett, Leiden, 1982.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, PL 176, 173-618. —, Didascalicon de studio legend, ed. C. H. Buttimer, Catholic University Press, Washington, 1939. Isidore of Seville, Quaestiones in Genesim, PL 83, 207-288. —, De ordine creaturarum, PL 83, 913-954. —, Sententiarum libri III, PL 83, 537-738. —, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols, Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Oxford, 1911 (Repr. 1962). Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, PL 23, 221-352. —, Commentarium in Hezechielem libri XIV, ed. F. Glorie, S. Hieronimi presbyteri Opera, Pars 1, Opera exegetica 4, CCL 75, 1964. —, Epistolae, ed. I. Hilberg, S. Eusebii Hieronimi opera (Sect. 1, Partes ­i-iii), CSEL 54, 1910-1918. —, Hebraeicae Quaestiones in Libro Geneseos, ed. P. Antin, CCL 72, 1959. —, Liber de situ et nominibus locorum hebraicorum, PL 23, 903-976. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, ed. J. B. Hall and K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Joannis Sarisberiensis Metalogicon, CCM 98, 1991. John the Scot, Periphyseon, ed. E. A. Jeauneau, Iohannis Scotti seu Eriugenae Periphyseon, libri I-V, CCM 161-5, 1996-2003; PL 122. Josephus, Opera, ed. G. Dindorfius, Flavius Josephi Opera, Graece et ­Latine, 2 vols, Paris, 1845-1847. Missale Romanum, Tours, 1922. Origen, In Canticum canticorum libri quattuor, ed. D. A. B. Caillau and G. Guillon in Origenis opera, vol, 4, Paris, 1892, pp. 355-546. Ovid, Metamorphoses, ed. W. S. Anderson, P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoses, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig, 1977. Plato, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. J. H. Waszink, Plato Latinus 4, London, 1962. Pliny, Naturalis historia, ed. C. Mayhoff, C. Plinii Secundii Naturalis ­Historiae libri XXXVII, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig, 1933-37. Porphyry, Isagoge, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, Aristoteles Latinus, I, 6-7, ­Categoriarum suppelementa, Bruges-Paris, 1966. Priscian, Institutionum grammaticarum libri XVIII, ed. M. Hertz, in Grammatici Latini, ed. H. Kiel, II-III, Leipzig, 1855-159.

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Sallust, Historiarum Reliquiae, ed. B. Maurenbrecher, C. Sallustii Crispi Historiarum Reliquiae, fasc. II: Fragmenta, Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Leipzig, 1893. Thierry of Chartres, Commentaires on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and his School, ed. N. M. Häring, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 20, Toronto, 1971. Virgil, Opera, ed. R. A. B. Mynors, P. Vergilii Maronis Opera, Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Oxford, 1969. William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem, ed. E. Jeauneau, Paris, 1965. —, Philosophia mundi. Ed. G. Maurach and H. Telle, Wilhelm von Conches “Philosophia,” Pretoria, 1980; PL 172, 39-102.

Secondary Works Ch. Burnett, Hermann of Carinthia, in A History of Twelfth-Century ­Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke, pp. 386-404. E. M. Buytaert (ed.), Peter Abelard, Louvain, 1971. —, Abelard’s Expositio in Hexaemeron, in Antonianum, 43, 1968, pp. 163-181. M.-D. Chenu, La Théologie au douzième siècle, Études de philosophie médiévale 45, Paris, 1957. W. Cizewski, The Doctrine of Creation in the First Half of the Twelfth Century, Ph. D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1983. M.-T. D’Alverny, Abélard et l’astrologie, in Pierre Abélard - Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 611-630. R. C. Dales, A Twelfth-Century Concept of the Natural Order, in Viator, 9, 1978, pp. 179-192. P. Dronke (ed.), A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ­Cambridge, 1988. —, Thierry of Chartres, in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke, pp. 358-85. —, La Filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo. Atti del Terzo Congresso Internazionale di Filosofia Medioevale. Passo della Mendola (Trento) - 31 agosto 5 settembre 1964, Milan, 1966. T. Gregory, Anima mundi. La Filosofia di Guglielmo di Conches e la Scuola di Chartres, Firenze, 1955.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

—, Abélard et Platon, in Peter Abelard, ed. E. M. Buytaert, pp. 38-64. —, Ratio et Natura chez Abélard, in Pierre Abélard - Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 569-581. —, The Platonic Inheritance, in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke, pp. 54-80. N. M. Häring, Die vierzehn Capitula Haeresum Petri Abaelardi, in ­Cîteaux, XXXI, 1980, pp. 35-52. Ch. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Science, Cambridge, Mass., 1927. R. Heyder, Auctoritas scripturae: Schriftauslegung und Theologieverständnis Peter Abelards unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der “Expositio in Hexaemeron,” BGPTMA N.F. Bd. 74 (2010). J. Jolivet, Éléments du concept de nature chez Abélard, in La Filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo, pp. 297-304. —, Notes de lexicographie abélardienne, in Pierre Abélard - Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 531-545. E. Kearney, Peter Abelard as Biblical Commentator: A Study of the Expositio in Hexaemeron, in Petrus Abaelardus (1079-1142): Person, Werk, und Wirkung, ed. R. Thomas, Trier, 1980, pp. 199-210. A. Landgraf, Écrits théologiques de l’École d’Abélard, Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense 14, Louvain, 1934. M. Lapidge, The Stoic Inheritance, in A History of Twelfth-Century ­Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke, pp. 81-112, at pp. 99-112. D. E. Luscombe, Nature in the Thought of Peter Abelard, in La Filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo, pp. 314-319. C. J. Mews, The Lists of Heresies Imputed to Peter Abelard, in RB, XCV, 1985, pp. 73-110. —, On dating the works of Peter Abelard, AHDLMA 52, 1985, pp. 73-134. —, In Search of a Name and its Significance: A Twelfth-Century Anecdote about Thierry and Peter Abelard, in Traditio, 44, 1988, pp. 171-200. Pierre Abélard - Pierre le Vénérable. Les courants philosophiques, littéraires et artistiques en Occident au milieu du XIIe siècle. Abbaye de Cluny, 2 au 9 juillet 1972. Colloques internationaux de Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, No. 546, Paris, 1975. M. Foster Romig, A Critical Edition of Peter Abelard’s Expositio in ­Hexaemeron, Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Southern California, Berkeley, 1981.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Somfai, The Transmission and Reception of Plato’s “Timaeus” and Chalcidius’ “Commentary” during the Carolingian Renaissance, Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1998. A. Speer, Die entdeckte Natur. Untersuchungen zu Begründungsversuchen einer “scientia naturalis” im 12, Jahrhundert, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 45 Leiden, 1995. F. Stegmüller, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi, 11 vols, Madrid, 19401980. B. Stock, Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Bernard Silvester, Princeton, N. J., 1972. R. Thomas (ed.), Petrus Abaelardus (1079-1142): Person, Werk, und Wirkung, Trier, 1980. D. van den Eynde, Chronologie des écrits d’Abélard à Héloise, in, Antonianum, 37, 1962, pp. 337-49. W. Wetherbee, Philosophy, Cosmology, and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke, pp. 21-53.

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE SIX-DAY WORK

PREFACE

1 There are three places in the Old Testament which experts in Sacred Scripture consider to be among the more difficult to understand: namely, the beginning of Genesis according to the historical sense of the divine work, and the Song of Songs, and the prophecy of Ezechiel, especially in the first vision about the animals and the wheels, and in the last about the city built upon a hill. 2 Hence they say that among the Hebrews it is customary that because of their extreme difficulty interpretation of the aforesaid Scriptures was to be entrusted only to the mature judgment of older persons, as Origen also notes in his first homily on the Song of Songs saying: “They say also that it is maintained among the Hebrews that unless one has attained the age of perfect maturity, he is not permitted to take this book in hand. But we have learned from them that it is their tradition that all scriptures are handed on by teachers to their sons, that four books are reserved for the last, that is, the beginning of Genesis, where the creation of the world is described, and the beginning of Ezechiel the prophet where there is mention of the cherubim, as well as the end, including the construction of the temple, and this Song of Songs.”a 3 Hence also there is Jerome’s statement in the prologue to his exposition on Ezechiel: “Let me begin Ezechiel the prophet, the difficulty of which is demonstrated by a tradition of the Hebrews. For unless one of them has attained the age of priestly ministry, that is, thirty years, he is not allowed to read the beginning of Genesis, nor the Song of Songs, nor the beginning a

Origen, In Canticum canticorum, praef. (PG 13, 63D-64A).

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and end of this volume, so that the mature season of human nature may reach perfect knowledge and mystical understanding.”a 4 And so by pleading you demand and by demanding you plead, sister Heloise, once dear in the world, now most dear in Christ, that I might look into the interpretation of these texts, so much the more zealously, the more difficult their meaning is known to be, and especially that I should explain this for you and your spiritual daughters. Hence also I ask you, who ask, that you who compel me to this by asking, obtain strength for me by your prayer to God. And since, as they say, one should begin from the beginning, may your prayers help me so much the more in the beginning of Genesis, the more difficult it is known to be than most other [texts], as the very rarity of its interpretation testifies. 5 For while many have made numerous moral or mystical interpretations of Genesis, the penetrating genius of the most blessed Augustine alone among us [Latin authors] has attempted to expound the historical interpretation here. He recognized that it was so difficult that he put forward what he said therein more by way of opinion than by way of confident assertion, or more by seeking hesitantly, than by defining confidently, as though he were following the Aristotelian advice, “Perhaps,” he said, “it may be difficult to pronounce confidently on such matters, unless they be frequently examined. But it will not be useless to question particular things.”b 6 And as the aforesaid Teacher stated in the second of his twelve books of Retractations, when he was going to reconsider the [treatise] on Genesis according to the letter, “In that work more things are sought than discovered, and of those that are discovered few are certain, in fact the rest are set down as if they were yet to be found out.”c 7 But because things said in this work also seem so obscure to you that the very interpretation seems to require interpreting, you urgently requested our opinion on interpretation of the aforesaid beginning of Genesis. In fact you must know that I now begin that interpretation in such a way, at the insistence of your pleas, that when you see me fail, you may expect that apostolic excuse from me, “I am made a fool, you compel me to it” (II Cor. 12, 11). End of prologue. Jerome, In Ezech., prol. (CCL 75, pp. 3-4). Boethius, In categorias Aristotelis II (PL 64, 238D). c Augustine, Retractationes 2, 24 (CCL 57, p. 109). a

b

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EXPOSITION

8 Scrutinizing the immense abyss of profundity, Genesis by a threefold interpretation, namely historical, moral, and mystical, let us invoke the same Spirit at whose dictation these words were written, so that the one who bestowed words upon the prophet may open their sense for us. First, therefore, as far as he permits, or rather grants, let us plant the truth of things done as the root of history.a 9 Now the prophet, wishing to entice a carnal people to divine worship, to whom as if to an as yet rough and undisciplined people the principles of the older testament were to be conveyed, first taught them to obey God as the creator and ruler of all things, namely with the excellence of his corporeal works in the supremely good creation and arrangement of the world. Each of which, in fact, he traced with a careful narrative from the very beginning of the world to his own time. 10 Hence also we properly designate as his material, this very thing which we called the creation and arrangement of the world, that is, those very things which divine grace has worked out in the creation or arrangement of the world. 11 Indeed the apostle said in regard to the fact that this work leads us to recognition of the maker, The invisible things of God are seen by the intellect from the beginning of the world through the things that were made, etc. (Rom. 1, 20) For whoever wishes to understand about any maker whether he is good or expert in his craft ought to consider not him, but his work. So also God, who is invisible and ­incomprehensible in himself, confers on us the first ­knowledge a Cf. Abelard, TChr II, 126: triplici expositio, Hymnarius 2, 3-4: triplex intelligentia (ed. Szoverffy, pp. 19-20; PL 178, 1775D-1776A).

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of himself from the magnitude of his works, since all human knowledge arises from the senses.a 12 Carefully attentive to that fact, Moses decided to write this Old Testament in five books, according to the five senses, for that carnal and sensual people unprepared for spiritual understanding, taking his beginning from this very beginning of divine creation, and in so doing following the natural order. Hence we properly designate this same [divine] work as the prophet’s matter.b 13 His intention, in fact, is what we have already mentioned, namely by the telling or teaching of these things to entice an as yet carnal people to the worship of God at least through his visible works, so that indeed we may understand from these things how much obedience we owe to God who both created us in his image and, lodging us in paradise, placed us in authority over other creatures, as if everything were created for our sake, as has been written, Thou hast placed all things under his feet, etc. (Ps. 8, 8). 14 [God] did not abandon us without his favors even when we were cast out of paradise after sin, but never ceased to invite us with the utmost solicitude to forgiveness, sometimes by attracting through gentleness, sometimes by instructing with the law, sometimes by reinforcing with miracles, sometimes by deterring with threats, sometimes by enticing with promises. In fact, as we have mentioned, Moses, setting all this forth by a careful narrative from the beginning of the world to his own day, began as follows.

Concerning the work of the first day 15 In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Under the names of heaven and earth in this passage I consider the four elements to be understood, from which in the Cf. Abelard, TSum III, 2 (67) (CCM 13 ll. 854-855). Abelard employs the accessus ad auctorem to introduce the author’s intention, material, and method of treatment; see E. A. Quain, “The Medieval Accessus ad auctorem,” Traditio 3 (1945) 215-64. a

b

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EXPOSITION, 11-20

sense of a ­material origin it is certain that all other bodies are composed. In fact, [the prophet] names the two lighter elements, namely fire as well as air, heaven. He generally calls the other two, which are heavier, earth. 16 Heaven, of course, we call both the aerial, as in “birds of the heavens,” and the aetherial, which is fire. Hence it is not inappropriate that air as well as fire should be named heaven here. For it is certain that the aetherial heaven, insofar as it is pure fire, is usually called heaven in the proper sense. It deserves the name of heaven, from the fact that the purer fire is, the lighter is its nature; as mentioned, it is understood to be set down here for the two lighter elements, namely fire and air, just as by contrast he identifies earth itself as well as the water adhering to it with earth, whose nature is most heavy and weighty. Thus [the prophet] declares in advance that in the beginning God made these four elements as the [material] principles of other bodies. 17 And so he says In the beginning, as if to say, “before he enumerates all those other things which follow,” 18 and about the completion also of these things he afterwards adds, Hence were completed the heavens, etc. So he says in the beginning of the sequence of works, as if he were saying, “in the beginning of the world”, that is, before [God] was to make any of these things which are of the world. 19 For the angels, since they are incorporeal by nature, are not included among earthly creatures, as are human beings, of whom the Philosopher remarks in book two of the Topics: “The world,” he says, “is governed by providence. But human beings are part of the world. Hence providence governs human affairs.”a 20 But In the beginning he created this, can also be understood thus, as if it were said that the very things that we call the elements were the original cause of the other bodies that were to be made from them. Hence also the elements are rightly named, as it were, “alimentary,” because all the rest draw their being from them, just as living things are held to live and subsist through the nourishment (alimenta) of food. a

Boethius, De diff. top. II (PL 64, 1188C).

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21 But it is properly said in regard to the elements that he created rather than that he formed, because what is properly said to be created is brought from non-being to being as if it did not have pre-existing matter nor previously subsisted in any state of nature. But when something is made from pre-existing matter by the addition of form, it is rightly said to be formed, as is the case where it is stated in what follows, Then he formed the human being from the dust of the earth (Gen. 2, 7). And again, Therefore when all the living things were formed from the dust of the earth (Gen. 2, 19). For when preexisting matter is indicated, as for example when it is stated in advance about the dust that it would be formed into some shape, then it is most correctly said to be formed. Lest perhaps it trouble someone that several philosophers have also considered the four elements to be the matter which they have called hyle, one should know that this is said by the philosophers not as regards the act of existence but as ­regards the ordering of nature, that is, they place every genus before species as its matter, just as animal comes ­before ­human. Granted that in the very creation of the human being, through the act of existence, the nature of animal scarcely precedes ­human nature—that is, since we do not believe that that which is ­human was animal before it was human, nor that it was ever right for an animal or any genus to exist ­­except in some species of its own—so also the corporeal nature which they call hyle they set down as the matter of ­individual elements, from which indeed they say singulars are constituted with the forms of singular elements taken up as if from matter. But I suppose that the corporeal substance is called hyle, that is silva [or wood], especially because the wooden material in which we most ­often work presents itself as highly tractable for being shaped. So also we recognize corporeal substance to be most receptive to a succession of forms or qualities, because it does not cease to be changed not only by accidental but even by substantial [forms] and to be varied by species, so that what was once inanimate then may be animate, and the reverse. And what is now one [species], dissolved by death, changes into another

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EXPOSITION, 21-24

species, and by a continuous flowing forth or flowing back physical nature does not cease to be varied and to be changed through species. That does not happen to incorporeal things. For the essence of a quality does not change into diverse species, so that it is now white, ceases to be that, and may be black or something else, or might acquire parts through something flowing into or flowing out of it, nor would the fact of whiteness ever have previously existed somehow as something other than white, and when it ceased to be white, it would not retain the status of an essence. Hence, so much the less variable and mobile some accidents are than substances, so much the more truly they would attribute true being to them.a 22 But the earth was empty and void. Because that treatise, by which, as we said, the prophet intended to draw us to the worship of God, tends especially towards the creation of the human being [who was] to be formed from the earth and to be returned to the earth, he turns his pen to the earthly work, omitting the creation of the celestial and superior ­nature, that is, the angelic, lest perhaps if he were to pursue it and demonstrate its excellence to the praise of its creator, he would attract us less to the love of a God who might appear to prefer another nature to our own. 23 Beginning, therefore, with the fact that the earth stood empty and void at its creation, he explains how afterward the divine work took thought for its emptiness and vacuity with the works of the subsequent days. The earth was called empty of fruit, which it had not yet produced; it was void of inhabitants, not only of human ­beings, but also of all other kinds of living things, since no dwelling place as yet contained living things, whether earthly or aquatic, both of which, as we have said, are included under the term earth. Hence, as [we have] explained, he names earth this lower region of the world consisting of the heavy elements. 24 And it should be noted that when he says, but the earth was empty and void, he [subtly] implies by the addition Cf. Plato, Timaeus 50E, Calcidius, Comm. 123, 268, 318, 344 (ed. Waszink, pp. 167, 273, 314, 336). a

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13

of that adversative conjunction “but” that this was not to be understood of the heavens, since the angels who are said in a sense to be the ­inhabitants of heaven are evidently understood to be created either ­before heaven or together with heaven, so that even though the prophet does not describe their creation, he touches on it in passing, lest anything appear to have been omitted from his ­account of the divine works. 25 And there were shadows over the face of the abyss. He calls the abyss, that is, the depth, all that confused mass of the elements that are not yet distinct as they would be afterward. In fact a number of philosophers or poets call this confused mass chaos, for what is deep is less evident and open to sight. 26 And so that mass of elements not yet divided into ordered parts so that it could be open to our knowledge or sight, even if a human being had been created, is called the abyss. The Face, in fact, by which everyone is recognized, is set down for knowledge. Hence “the face” of the abyss was obscured by shadows, that is, knowledge of that mass was hampered by its own confusedness, so that it did not present itself visibly to anyone nor was any of its usefulness evident to the praise of the Creator. 27 And the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the ­waters. The Hebrew has “hovered over the face of the waters.” One translation in fact has “brooded upon the waters,” and ­another has “moved upon the waters,” just as it appears in the one we have here to hand, and it occurs to us to explain first. 28 As far as we can tell, therefore, that fluid and unstable mass, not yet ­established in a fixed arrangement of its parts, is actually included under the name of waters. Over this, accordingly, the Spirit of the Lord hovered, because, so that it might be set in order, divine grace was arranging it in subjection to its command, lest in fact it should continue to be empty or void or shadowy or fluid. 29 For what is the Spirit of God understood to be if not his goodness, by participation in which all things are good? To be sure, because the goodness of God was not yet revealed in that confusion of the elements, it is said rather to move over them than in them, because it had not yet wrought in them that whence it might present

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EXPOSITION, 24-34

something useful. 30 Hence he does not say in appreciation of this work “God saw that it was good,” as [he says] on the excellence of the other works. [The prophet] attentively says, hovered over the waters rather than “was,” as if showing that [the Spirit] had a kind of movement upon those things, so that it might lead them from shadows unto light, not that it had a permanent place in things which it did not intend to leave in this disorder. 31 As we said, there is also another translation, And the Spirit of the Lord brooded over the waters, namely in the manner of a bird which sits on an egg, so as to warm and vivify it. Hence also we rightly call the Spirit life-giver. But that confused mass is rightly compared to an egg not yet vivified or formed, in which as in an egg, containing in itself four parts, four elements are comprehended. 32 In fact there is the outer shell on the egg, then the inner web, that is a kind of cartilage adhering to the shell, and afterward the white, then the middle of the egg, like its pith. That middle part of the egg, which we call the yolk, is rather like the earth in the world, the white is like water adhering to the earth, the membrane like air, the shell like fire. It is well known that the chick is formed and brought forth from the yolk and the white. 33 And this book records that from earth or from water all living things were produced or formed. Hence just as the bird sitting on the egg, and applying itself to it with the utmost affection, warms it with its heat so that thence, as was said, the chick is formed and vivified so also divine goodness, which is understood to be the Holy Spirit, both is properly called the love of God which, poured into the hearts of believers, makes them fervent unto God, and also somehow makes warm by its heat that as yet fluid and unstable mass [of the material elements] said to preexist as waters so that from then on it might produce living things, because it subjected it to itself, that is to say, in its power, so that from then on it might form the human being and other living things like the chick from the egg and might give life to what was formed. 34 In fact it should be noted that when we say the spirit of the Lord moved upon the waters, the Hebrew has “ruauh” for “spirit,” which can mean wind as well as spirit; and

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where we say moved upon the waters, in Hebrew it is “was hovering over the face of the waters,” as we also mentioned above, and subsequently it is described elsewhere in the [writings of the] same prophet as flying, when it is said: like an eagle urging its young to fly and flying over them (Deut. 32, 11). 35 And so because God’s wind is said just then to fly, that is, to blow over the face of the waters, it is perhaps as if it were said according to the letter that just then a wind sent into the waters by God tossed upward their upper part, which in any mass of water is always known to be lighter, so that in fact they would afterward be established in a suspended form. 36 For when [God] later says, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and then, Let the waters that were below the firmament be divided from those that were above, he implies that they were already divided, but were not yet established. Nor should you marvel that the wind sent by the Lord into the waters should in this place be called the Spirit of God by Moses, since the prophet has the same thing elsewhere as if idiomatically: In the Spirit of your fury the waters are gathered (Ex. 15, 10). 37 And again: Your Spirit blew and parted the waters for them (Ex. 15, 10). Nor is it surprising that a wind sent by the Lord should be called Spirit, when an evil spirit which he sometimes permits to rage is called an evil spirit of the Lord, as we read in [the case of] Saul (cf. I Reg. 16, 14-15). 38 But the wind that was sent into the waters, and lifting them up so that they covered the whole world, rightly prefigures the type of our regeneration through water and the Spirit. For the Holy Spirit gives this element preeminence in rank over the others, and makes it superior to them, when it bestows on it the benefits of its grace, so that the sins of any human beings whatever are so covered over or washed away by the sprinkling of baptismal water that no bodily penance remains at all. 39 But even if one were to trace this to the natural order of the elements – as one might say that water is surrounded by air, or that the heavens go around the air, and the Spirit at that time hovered over the waters in such a way that it moved around them as if by its swift lightness – it would appear that here also the ­natural

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EXPOSITION, 34-45

order of things agreed with the thought except perhaps that, when Spirit is said of air, of the Lord is added, which is not ever said of earth or the other elements. But perhaps the prophet wrote this the more carefully the more perfectly he understood both the actual event and the mystical sense. 40 Hence “the Spirit of the Lord moved over the waters” is as if to say “the wind blew on them,” offering the type of the Holy Spirit who would make the waters of baptism fecund by his grace and would somehow breathe into them this benefit. 41 Consequently, since the prophet had previously made explicit mention of heaven and earth, saying He created heaven and earth, and in this had plainly included the two elements, namely fire and earth - especially since one usually understands by the name of heaven and earth none other than the terrestrial element and the igneous, from which the outer sphere of the world is [made], that is aether, which is properly called heaven – he also subsequently takes care to mention explicitly the two others, namely water and air. 42 While he did not say plainly that they were created then, like the former, even though, as we said, these also are included in their names, he took care now to single them out clearly so that he might carefully announce that the whole structure of the world is founded in these four. 43 And God said Let there be light. This utterance of God is the Word of the Father, which we understand to be his coeternal wisdom, in which originally everything is arranged ­before being put into effect, as it is written, Who made [the heavens in his intellect] (Ps. 135, 5), he made, I say, the things that were to be, arranging before putting the work into effect. 44 Hence just as it is the word of his mouth, so it is called the word of his heart, according to that [text]: They conversed heart to heart (Ps. 11, 3). When therefore, regarding the various creations of things, the prophet says first God said and immediately links its ­effect to what is said, saying, and so it was made, he shows that God created all things in his Word, that is in his wisdom, that is, nothing suddenly or hastily, but everything reasonably and providently. 45 Of him the psalmist also said, He spoke, and they were made, (Ps. 32, 9) that is, with reason or providence leading the

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way he made or arranged all things. Elsewhere, too, showing more openly that this Word is not an audible and transitory word but intelligible and permanent, he said: He made the heavens in his intellect, (Ps. 135, 5) that is, resolving upon them by reason within himself before completing them by [his] work, as if the creation of all things were twofold: one at first in the decree of divine providence, the other in the work. 46 The philosophers add that just as there are two creations, there are two worlds, namely one intelligible, the other sentient. Nor does this conflict with Gospel teaching if we are attentive to the truth of the thought rather than to the peculiarity of the words; indeed, it is written in the Gospel about this same Word of God: What was made was life in him (John 1, 3-4). 47 But that the philosophers also call the concept of divine providence a world in itself appears to many to differ from the usage of ecclesiastical language. Hence Augustine stated in his first Retractation: “It displeases me that I said that the philosophers, not endowed with true piety, shone forth with the light of virtue, and that I commended the two worlds, one sentient, the other intelligible, as if the Lord also wished to indicate this, because he did not say: ‘My kingdom is not of the world,’ but My kingdom is not of this world (John 18, 36)”.a 48 And again: “And Plato was not in fact mistaken in this, because he said that there is an intelligible world, if we do pay attention in this matter to the thing itself, not a word which is very unusual in ecclesiastical usage. For he named that intelligible world the very reason by which God made the world. If one denies this, it follows that one says that God made what he made irrationally.”b 49 Likewise, On the City of God, book 16, carefully describing this interior speech of God, and this intellectual, not audible word he says: “God’s speech before his act is the immutable reason for this act of his; it does not have a sound bursting forth and passing away, but has a force which remains everlasting and acts in time.”c Augustine, Retractationes I, 3 (CCL 57, p. 12). Augustine, Retractationes I, 3 (CCL 57, pp. 2-13). c Augustine, De Civitate Dei XVI, 6 (CCL 48, p. 507). a

b

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EXPOSITION, 45-54

50 And so when it is said: God said: Let there be light, and there was light, it is as if to say that he first arranged it in the word of his mind, that is, decreed by his own reason that it was to be made, and then afterward completed the work. In fact, we understand that light by which he removed the aforesaid shadows of the abyss to be the distinction itself of the works that follow, through which indeed that commingled mass, which did not as yet present itself to sight, nor could have been recognized by anyone as apt for use, nor yet could be perceived as having a purpose for its creation, was reduced to such order that it might appear entirely suitable for these. 51 And there was light. This is, God completed by works what he had arranged in the word of his mind, so that in fact that disorder which we call darkness was removed by the light of the distinctions that follow. Nor should it be forgotten that previously in the creation of heaven and earth it was not written: God spoke and so it was made, just as we see written in what follows work by work; but at first God was, as it were, silent, and after the creation of light began to speak. 52 And rightly so. For the Lord says Let there be, as if commanding, and the creature subject to him obeys, no matter how irrational or brute it may be, as if it heard and understood the command, just as Jeremiah also mentions, saying: He completed the earth and filled it with cattle. He called it and it heard with a shudder. But the stars gave forth the light in their custody and they rejoiced. They were called and they said, ‘We are here,’ and shone forth with joy (Bar. 3, 32-35). 53 How, in fact, would words of command have fittingly been spoken when matter was not yet created, nor any existing thing to which orders might be given? Moreover, on the first occasion when the work of God had come into the light, the prophet represented well that utterance of God, this is, his Word, of whom it is written: He was the true light who enlightens every human being, etc. (John 1, 9). 54 For God somehow first ­began to speak to human beings and to reveal himself through the light of his works, just as the apostle clearly taught, saying: For his

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invisible things are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made, etc. (Rom. 1, 20). 55 And so while that as yet confused mixture offered itself neither to human sight nor to knowledge, nor appeared apt for any use, whether to angel or to human being (if one had by then been created), God is shown to have been somehow silent, because he had not yet done anything in it on account of which he could say something, that is, instruct human reason and offer some knowledge of his excellence. 56 In fact it should be noted that in this same beginning of Genesis the prophet carefully expresses the foundation of our faith about the unity and trinity of God. For when he said: the Spirit of the Lord, he clearly designates the person of the Holy Spirit and of the Father from whom that same Spirit (as blessed Augustine mentions)a principally proceeds. Indeed, in that he adds: God said, he clearly portrays the speech of that same God, that is, his Word who is the Son, together with the Father himself. And as a matter of fact no one in their right mind can be so stupid as to suppose that this is corporeal speech, since the deity is not corporeal nor does he have corporeal speech, nor yet was there anyone present to whom he should have spoken ­corporeally. 57 But where we say: God made, for the word God the ­Hebrew has “Elohim”, which shows the plurality of the divine persons. “El” in fact is the singular, which is translated God; “Elohim” is actually plural, by which we understand the diversity of Persons, each one of whom is God. 58 But it is prudently said, “Elohim created”, not “they created”, so that in fact a singular verb refers to a plural name; since it is implied that in those three Persons we ought to understand not three creators, but only one. 59 And so when [the prophet] said “Elohim created”, in which he taught that all three divine Persons worked together equally, he established right away that the works of the Trinity are undivided. But when afterwards, as we said, he distinguished the persons of the Father, the Spirit, and the Word, he defined that in which the Trinity consists. a

Augustine, De trinitate XV, 27 (CCL 50A, 503).

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EXPOSITION, 54-66

60 In fact it should be noted that where we say: Let there be light, and there was light, the Hebrew has: “Be light, and it was light”; and similarly in the rest of what follows, wherever we have: God said: let there be this, and so it was made, in Hebrew it is: “Be” this, “and so it was.” 61 By these words, perhaps, the swiftness of the divine work is expressed. For when something comes into being which did not yet exist, there can be some delay in making it be. When, to be sure, the expression is “be”, and “it was”, it shows that there was no intervening delay. 62 And God saw the light, that it was good. When it is said in the case of individual works of God after their completion that God saw that it was good, it is as if to say, “he knew nothing was done there by mistake that needed to be corrected”; he also signified something was perfect by comparison with prior imperfection. God highly approved of the light, that is, the differentiation of works, because by it he displayed for us the praise of his excellence, since praise of the work redounds to the maker. 63 Hence also in regard to those things which he made for the sake of the human being, when it is said that he saw that they were good, I believe it is in no way to be better understood than that he arranged them so that he actually makes us see that they are good, just as he also says to Abraham: Now I know that you fear God (Gen. 22, 12), that is, “I have made it known.” 64 Hence he is not said to approve the work of the second day, namely in the raising of the upper waters, since that work, of which we in no wise perceive the reason and advantage, does not make us praise him. 65 And He divided light from darkness. That is, he divided by his work the completed from the incomplete, and the distinct from the disordered. But where [Moses] said above: And God said: let there be, and there was light, he showed that the light was made at God’s command. 66 But when he says here: And he divided light from darkness, he shows that this differentiation of the works (which he calls light) was made by [God], so that he is understood to be the creator as well as the

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shaper of matter and that all praise as much for the creation of matter as for the formation of works is attributed to him. 67 And he named light day and darkness night. That is, he made them worthy of the name, so that the completed differentiation of the works is actually called day by a simile, and that confusion which came before, and was called darkness above, is called night. 68 And it was evening and morning day one. Here the totality of all the completed works of God is called day one, first retained in the mind and afterward finished in the six-day work. But evening of this entire time, which is here called day one, names the entirety of that work of God in so far as it was first concealed in his mind before it was brought forth into the light through completion. 69 And again that same work is named morning in so far as it afterward presented itself visibly in the completed work. And so the [prophet] calls the concept in the divine mind for planning future works evening; but names morning the actual working out of that concept and the effect of the divine arrangement finished in six days. 70 And so when it is said: And it was evening and morning day one, it is as if to say, “it is the same work which first lay hidden in the mind of God as if in twilight, and which afterward bursts forth to the light through completion of the works.” That is to say, “just as he first conceived it in mind, so afterward he completed it in works,” according to what is written: What was made, was life in him. (John 1, 3-4). For God brought forth each particular thing as though from his secret hiding place, when he displayed through the work what he previously conceived in his mind; and the work did not differ from the concept, when what was decided in his mind was completed in the work. 71 Since, therefore, he embraces as much in the evening as in the morning the sum total of the divine works, namely the concepts in the mind as well as the things displayed in the work, as we said, it is rightly called day one, rather than the “first day”, for, since it includes all the works, there is no day of works with respect to which “first” can here be said. Indeed the unity of this

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EXPOSITION, 66-77

day demonstrates the great harmony and fittingness of the divine works, namely in the sum total of so many different works. 72 In fact, the prophet himself declares in what follows that this one great day is all the time of that divine work, saying: These are the generations of heaven and earth when they were created, on the day when the Lord made heaven and earth and every growing thing of the fields, etc.(Gen. 2, 4-5) 73 In fact when he says in what follows “the second day” or “the third”, etc. he understands the first day [to be] when heaven and earth are created, as it was said: In the beginning God created heaven and earth, but not when light was created or divided from the darkness. 74 For in fact in regard to the works that are to be ascribed to the first day, only the creation of heaven and earth pertains to the work of the first day; it is with respect to the first day that we may speak of a second or third day, so that In the beginning he created may be [understood] as if to say, “on the first day”, that is, ­before the works that follow. In fact it was necessary for matter to be created before being formed. 75 However, if someone were to ­refer the statement: And it was evening and morning day one, to the work only of the first day, just as in fact it is on the remaining days about their work, there is no objection. For God first knew in thought, as it were in the evening, both matter itself and what materialized from it, before he brought [them] forth in the morning through creation.

Concerning the second [day] 76 God also said. Certainly, it should be noted that in these divine utterances, our translation sometimes has God ­also said, sometimes Indeed God said, or moreover, or furthermore, which is the same, sometimes as above, And God said, when the Hebrew truth everywhere has “and God said.” 77 Indeed, according to our explanation above the Hebrew truth is especially fitting at this point, so that here namely it should say, “and God said,” rather than God also said. As we have said,

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the differentiation of all the subsequent works is understood in the light that was made; the conjunction also should not be supposed to signify some kind of increase here. The work of this day and of all the other days is already included in the making of light. 78 The Hebrew and he said distinguishes light was made and continues what was said before. That is to say, light was made and the former confusion was given definition as God said. And so it was made at the command of his utterance, thereby differentiating what was happening both now and afterward. And God said, etc. refers to the first act of differentiation now. 79 God said, that is, in his coeternal Word, as it had already been determined. He arranged it beforehand in the providence of his wisdom before carrying out the work. 80 Let a firmament be made in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Firmament he calls the aerial together with the aetherial heaven, in regard to which it is said: And the waters which are above the heavens, which now lie between each of them, between these lower waters or the earth and those upper waters. 81 At any rate it is called firmament because it supports the fluid nature of the upper waters by its permanent interposition, lest they flow down and sink back. Hence also Jerome says: “The word Samaym in Hebrew, that is, the heavens, namely the aetherial and the aerial, which Moses here names firmament, is derived from waters, that is, it is so named for the fact that it establishes the waters above in such a way that they should not flow lower down”.a 82 Now it may be asked how fire and air are able to support the substance of water, which is heavier. But really these waters can be so fine and so thin, and the mass of fire and air that underlie it can be so great that it can be supported by them, just as wood and some stones can be supported by water, even though they are of an earthy and heavier nature. 83 For who does not know that even though it is lighter than the waters, air adjacent to them nevertheless suspends and supports them as vapor drawn from a

Cf. Jerome, Epist. LXIX ad Oceanum, 6 (CSEL 54, i, p. 689).

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EXPOSITION, 77-91

an exhalation of the earth, before they condense into droplets? 84 If therefore those upper waters are finer and less corpulent than these water vapors, why could they not be permanently supported by fire together with air, just as these more corpulent waters are suspended even now by air alone? 85 For it is obvious that both dense clouds and the enormous bodies of dragons or of birds are supported by air. 86 Nor does any believer doubt that human bodies, even though they are of an earthy nature, will be so fine and so light after the resurrection that not only will they be able to exist above the heavens, but also that they may be moved without delay wherever the spirit wills. 87 Furthermore, who does not know that when air is enclosed in a football the encompassing skin of the football is supported and upheld on all sides, even though [the air] itself is certainly lighter than the skin? On the contrary, it can even support the weight of any number of bodies as long as it can be kept enclosed within [the ball]. 88 So also the accumulation and cluster of air and fire, enclosed within the thickness of the waters, is not prevented in any way by its lightness from supporting and sustaining them, nor can that surrounding water, which encircles the fire and air on all sides, sink down in any way until fire and air yield to it at some point, because the place of one body cannot be occupied by ­another unless the former were to be withdrawn from that place. 89 But in fact air as well as fire are enclosed on all sides by ­encompassing waters, lest perhaps they could fly away, and on all sides they are covered by waters, because in every sphere what is on the outside is higher [than what is on the inside]. 90 But so that they may contain and enclose it, there must be some weight involved, and so moderately that it can be supported by them. It is indeed certain, as was stated, that there are only two heavy elements, namely earth and water, and earth is heavier than water. Hence, so that the weight should be more moderate, water, which can more easily be supported by the lighter [elements], ought to be placed above them rather than earth. 91 Finally, who can reasonably deny that in those ­bodies which are constituted from the four elements, whether animate or inanimate, these four elements are so joined to

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each other that a number of particles of the lighter elements support some particles of the heavier ones? 92 For the lower parts of any large body do not lack an admixture of the elements of fire or air deep within, just as the upper parts in turn are not devoid of water and earth; but the upper as well as the lower parts of this body consist of the four elements, joined to each other by a kind of harmonious natural moderation, ­according to what is said to God: “You who bind the elements by number.”a Well then what is surprising if in the composition of the world the water which is heavier than they are could be put above fire and air, and even be supported by them? 93 But some have claimed that those upper waters were hardened to the solidity of ice, and into crystal. If indeed that is the case, the more solid they are, the more powerfully do they keep fire and air enclosed lest they drift up somewhere else, and so much the more strongly are they supported by them; it is perhaps not even necessary for [the waters] to be supported by them, now that they are not fluid but in crystalline solidity. 94 Hence Josephus [states] in book one of the Antiquities: “On the second day he established heaven over all, and distinguishing it from the rest, he ordered it to be established in itself, and fixing around it a crystal, he made it suitable to be moist and rainy for the benefit which comes from the rains of the earth.”b 95 Jerome [states in his letter] to Oceanus, about the husband of one wife: “In between heaven and earth a middle firmament is extended and according to the etymology of the Hebrew word heaven, that is ‘samaym,’ the word is derived from waters; and the waters which are above the heavens were divided unto the praises of the Lord. Hence also Ezechiel: A crystal was seen extended over the cherubim, that is the compact and denser waters (cf. Ez. 1, 22; 10, 1).”c 96 Bede, On the Nature of Things: “The heaven of the upper circle contains the angelic virtues. Going out to us, these assume aetherial bodies, so that they can be like human beings even in eating, and they set Boethius, Philos. consolatio III, met. IX, 10 (CCL 94, p. 52). Josephus, Antiquit. I, 1, cf. Dindorfius, ed., I, p. 4. c Jerome, Ep. LXIX ad Oceanum, 6 (CSEL 54, i, p. 689). a

b

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EXPOSITION, 91-102

them aside when they return there. God tempered this [heaven] with glacial waters, lest it set fire to the lower elements. Hence, the lower heaven is called the firmament on ­account of its support of the upper waters.”a 97 And again: “Some assert that the waters placed over the firmament, lower indeed than the spiritual heavens but above all corporeal creatures, were reserved for the inundation of the flood, others in fact more correctly affirm that they are poised to temper the fire of the stars.”b 98 In fact, blessed Augustine, setting aside those conjectures about the upper waters, namely whether they be frozen or not, or what sort of use they had in themselves, said: “Truly, what kinds of waters were there, or for what use they were reserved, the Creator himself knows; nevertheless there is no doubt that they are there, by the testimony of Scripture.”c Well then, it would appear the height of arrogance for us to settle a question that so great a teacher abandoned as if unsure of himself. 99 That some actually take the view that [the waters] were established and reserved for the inundation of the flood, so that overflowing thence, they would cover the earth with their abundance, proves to be entirely frivolous. 100 For when the psalmist living long after the flood said: And let the waters that are above the heavens praise the ­name of the Lord, (Ps. 148, 4-5) it certainly confirms that they exist there now just as before. For he does not actually say “that were” but that are. But if some part were fallen thence, the firmament would not have been placed under that part; it did not uphold them to prevent them overflowing later. 101 Moreover it is well known, as Genesis relates, that the flood occurred out of an abundance of rain and also when the springs of the great abysses burst. When these were afterward sealed up and the rains halted, the deluge itself ceased. 102 But it is held to be certain that the rains do not arise from anywhere except the exhalation of the earth, namely when the sun warming them to the point of evaporation attracts the waters, as fine as Bede, De natura rerum VII (CCL 123A, pp. 197-198). Bede, De natura rerum VIII (CCL 123A, pp. 198-199). c Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram II, 5 (CSEL 28, iii, 2, p. 39). a

b

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smoke, rising up out of the warmth of the earth. Consequently that abundance of waters which was in the deluge had its origin not from above but from below. 103 Where also at the time when the flood subsided it is added not only that the rains were stopped but also that the fountains were sealed, it is clearly indicated that all that abundance of waters in the flood was from ­nowhere else than the lower waters, which were gathered together on the third day so that dry land might appear. 104 When in fact it is said that the floodgates of heaven were opened in the deluge and there was rain, [the prophet] refers to the aerial heaven, whence rain falls, not the aetherial. In fact, by saying floodgates, not narrow openings, he implies the abundance of the rain, as if the air retained nothing by way of cloud or evaporated water anywhere. 105 And so with the water falling from above as rain, and bursting forth from the openings of the earth, the earth must necessarily have been covered everywhere by waters, just as it was on the third day, before these same lower waters were gathered in one place so that dry land might appear. Hence what use that suspension of the waters might have, when it is not defined with a reliable opinion by the saints, I consider most difficult to explain. 106 Nevertheless, the opinion that seems the more probable to us, is that they were established for the purpose primarily of tempering the heat of the upper fire, lest that burning upper heat ­absorb either the very clouds or the lower waters in their entirety, since the power of fire is naturally attractive of moisture. Hence also when phlebotomists wish to draw blood with the application of a small vessel they insert fire by means of an enclosed wick so that they attract the [moist] humor of blood with the heat of fire. 107 And it should be noted that where we say Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, the Hebrew has: “Let there be an extension below the waters,” this is a dividing wall by which each is separated from the other in perpetuity lest they touch each other further, just as it is written: Extending the heavens like a skin, who covers their high places with waters. (Ps. 103, 2-3) And elsewhere: Gathering the waters of the sea as in a flask (Ps. 32, 7). 108 Hence that extension by which the upper

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EXPOSITION, 102-114

and lower waters are separated, like a kind of skin lying between, ­encloses the lower waters as if in a flask, and suspends and supports the upper waters like a firmament. 109 But when [Moses] says: He divided the waters that were below the firmament, etc. it seems as if he were saying “he divided [waters] that were already divided.” For he does not say: “which now are under the firmament and which [are] above,” but “which” at that time already were. 110 Thence it is clear that since the first day the waters had already been established over the aether, whether cast up into that place by a burst of wind as we said, or made there in their very creation and wrapped around the entire world, not lifted up to that place from the lower regions by any wind. 111 And so when it is now said “on the second day the waters that were above were divided from those which were below”, that separation through the interposition of the firmament means that they were so established on the second day that they could not overflow any further. For although they were already there on the first day they were nevertheless not yet ­established there so that they could not overflow; that was done on the second day, on which the firmament is said to be made. 112 Nevertheless where we have He divided the waters which were below the firmament, the Hebrew does not have were because the substantive verb is rarely or never used, and it was customary to make statements without this verb, for example when it says “blessed man” for “blessed is the man.” That is what it has here as if it were said, “he divided the waters below the firmament from those above the firmament.” 113 At any rate if “they are” is understood, which is the present [tense of the] verb, it is as if the prophet says: Then He divided what [is] now under the firmament, etc. because in the time of the prophet who speaks, both the firmament had already existed for a long time, and the separation of the waters by its interposition was just [the same] as at present. 114 But if anyone were to ask how much time passed before they were established, wishing to know what that first day was before the second, he should bear in mind that those six days

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in which the world was completed ought not to be measured according to those which we now have by the illumination of the sun, especially since the sun had not yet been created on those first three days. 115 When therefore we reckon days in these works of God and we say that there was morning and evening one day, we do not interpret day or evening or morning according to our days as we now know them, but we distinguish one day from another according to the differentiation of works, in other words the first of God’s works which he had previously achieved is called the first day. So he was able to enlighten us with what he knew as the apostle said: For his invisible things, etc. (Rom. 1, 20)116 For even if the unformed matter created on the first day were less than sufficient for knowledge or praise of the Creator, as long as it remained in that disorder or formlessness, nevertheless understanding that the disorder of the first creation was afterward to be formed and distinguished into the embellishment of the world which we now use and which is necessary to us, we henceforth praise God; it was called the first day with good reason, because thence the beginning of human knowledge of God began. 117 In fact it was necessary for heaven and earth, that is, matter for what was to come, to be prepared in the elements before it was formed in the works that follow. Accordingly [the prophet] calls the first creation of matter in the elements the first day, as we have already mentioned above. As regards the evening as well as the morning of this day, and likewise of the rest, we have already spoken. 118 But so that we may now return to what was interrupted, not omitted – let the reader know that we inserted this – when he hears one day or another named by the prophet, he should not understand those intervals of time which we now take as our days, but trace the difference among days back to the difference among works, however long the delay in their sequence or their production. Let no one therefore marvel when he hears that on the second day waters are set over heavens already in existence, as if there were some delay between their existence and their ­establishment, since in fact they were established there straight away after they

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EXPOSITION, 114-123

came into existence. 119 And so when it is now said, Let there be a firmament or He divided the waters which were, etc., that founding or dividing of theirs is so to be understood, that without delay after they came into existence they were so stabilized and established into an indissoluble crystal-like ice through the interposition of aether and air lest they overflow to the lower, even though the watery elements have a certain weightiness by nature, and according to the philosophers all heavy things are carried toward earth by their own inclination. 120 And perhaps someone may ask at this point, if, as it is said, those upper waters were hardened into ice positioned over fire, by what force of nature was that done? To which in the first place I answer that, when we now seek or assign a force of nature or natural causes in any outcomes of things, in nowise do we do it according to that first work of God in the disposition of the world, where the will of God alone had the power of nature in those [things] then to be created or arranged; but only after the work of God completed in six days. 121 We usually identify a force of nature in the aftermath, when those things are in fact already so prepared that their constitution or preparation would be enough to do anything without miracles. Hence we say that those things which occur though miracles are rather against or beyond nature than according to nature, since that former preparation of things could not suffice for doing it, unless God were to confer some new power on these things, just as he was also doing in those six days, where his will alone worked as the force of nature in each thing to be made. 122 If indeed he were also to work now as he did then, we would say at once that this is against nature, as for instance if the earth were spontaneously to produce plants without any sowing [of seed], or [to produce] beasts out of itself, or if water were to form birds. 123 Hence we call nature the force of things ­bestowed on them since that former preparation, sufficient thenceforth for something to be born, that is, to be made. Let no one, therefore, ask through what nature [God] hardened into ice those upper waters established over fire, or even extended them above, when at that time his will alone,

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as was said, obtained the force of ­nature.a 124 In his Timaeus Plato also professed that [the will of God] was more powerful than all their nature in the creation or preservation of things, namely where he ­introduces God speaking to the sidereal deities, when he says: “Truly you are by no means immortal nor entirely indissoluble, but you will never be dissolved nor will you undergo the necessity of death, because my will is a bond more powerful and more vigorous for the preservation of eternity than those vital bonds from which your eternity is joined together and composed.”b 125 It may perhaps also be said with some probability that the wind that projected [the waters] upward bound them by the chilliness of its blast into ice, so that the firmament was made on the second day; the waters being solidified then in this way, having been there before they were so made solid. 126 For that they already were there before they were solidified in this way, is clearly implied, as we recalled above when it is said Which were rather than “which are”. But the Hebrew, as in fact has already been stated, does not have “they were”, so much the less calling it into question. 127 And it was so done. That is, this separation of the waters was established in perpetuity so that those upper waters might never sink back to these lower ones. Indeed, I believe that this was said lest someone might think that the rains fall from those upper waters, and that the upper waters had been suspended for this purpose, as was the opinion also of Josephus, which we ­mentioned above. 128 And he called. That is, through this he brought about the reason why the firmament would afterward be called heaven by us, since of course we now refer to the aerial as well as the aetherial heaven, as if [naming] the upper parts of the world by comparison with our dwelling-place. See R. C. Dales, “A Twelfth-Century Concept of the Natural Order,” in Viator 9 (1978) 179-192; T. Gregory, “Ratio et Natura chez Abelard,” in Pierre Abelard – Pierre le Venerable, 569–581; D. E. Luscombe, “Nature in the Thought of Peter Abelard,” in La Filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo, pp. 314-319. b Plato, Timaeus 41B (ed. Wazinck, p. 35). a

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EXPOSITION, 123-135

129 But when in Hebrew it has for heaven “samaym” which is a word derived, as mentioned, from waters, “samaym” appears to be rightly used to express the separation of waters or suspension and confirmation of those upper [waters]. 130 And it was evening. As we learned above that evening and morning are a concept in the divine mind and an effect of the [divine] work, so it is to be understood in this passage as well as the rest. 131 When therefore it is said of this work or of the rest: There was evening and morning one day, it is as if to say the completion of this work, which is designated by this day, is brought forward to the morning in just the same way as it had been in the evening, that is the visible work is completed just as it was first planned in the divine mind, and the meaning of each work is the same in the last words as in the earlier as if the end were retraced to the beginning. 132 In fact the same is true as regards the sense when it states before each work, God said: let this be made, and it was made; which is supplied at the end, when it is said that on this day there was evening and morning one day, that is the completion of this work is just as God had earlier planned it. 133 In fact it should be noted, as indeed we mentioned above, that it is not said thus of this day as [it is] of the rest: And God saw that it was good; that is, God did not approve the work of this day in the same way as [the work] of the rest, the reason for which in fact we have already given, that is since God has not yet made us see what good or use there is in the placement of those upper waters. 134 But the separation of waters did not appear worthy of praise either, since the divided waters were not so located and established that they might endure, and there was need for the creation of things to come. For the lower waters were as yet to be gathered into one place, so that dry land might appear. 135 Nor finally did the prophet wish to commend that physical suspension of the upper waters so that they might enclose the whole world, foreseeing that a future baptism in waters that would overwhelm any number of sins was prefigured in these superior waters.

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Concerning the third [day]

37

136 God then said: Let the waters be gathered. God prepared the lower region of the earth, in which he would create and settle humankind, to the extent necessary for us, namely by removing the overflowing waters from the surface of the earth and by embellishing the earth itself with grasses and trees. 137 Which are under heaven. He says this to ­differentiate them from those that are suspended above heaven, that is, the ­firmament. 138 In one place. This is so that they should not now cover the earth, but receding into one part of the earth, they would ­expose the other suitable for habitation. 139 And it was so done. That is, with the waters receding to one side, land was uncovered on the other, just as it is written, Who founded the earth over the waters (Ps. 135, 6). 140 For it is as though some globe were so situated in water that one part of it rises above the surface; thus the globe of the earth sits on the waters so that the sea comes into contact with it on one side, and pours itself through its veins, whence springs or rivers are born for us. In fact the water of this sea now gathered into one is made deeper than before when it was spread out, unless perhaps what is sent in through the veins of the earth diminish its depth. 141 And he called. That is, he made the earth uncovered by water worthy to be called dry, that is, firm land. For even when the waters spread over it receded the earth was muddy, but it was now made dry, when the waters had receded. 142 And the gathering together of the waters. That is, the interconnections of those [waters] separated into various locations. For among the Hebrews all bodies of water whether salty or fresh are said to be called sea. 143 And note that when [the prophet] announces the work of the second day: And God made a firmament, and divided the waters, etc. afterward he adds: And it was so done. But he has not made this comment for the gathering of waters that has now taken

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EXPOSITION, 136-149

place. 144 For he did not first say, “the waters were gathered” so that he might afterward add, and it was so done; but he said only that it was so done. For if he had added it was so done here just as there, he would appear to imply that just as that suspension of the waters was perpetual, so also was this gathering of them. That would not be true at all, since the same waters then drawn aside into one place so that dry land might appear, were to be brought back in the flood so that they might cover it. 145 And he saw. That is, he made the gathering [of the ­waters] in such a way, that he made it appear to be good and necessary for what was afterward to be done. 146 Let the earth germinate. That is, let it first conceive in itself what it shall afterward bring forth, just as a birth is brought forth into the light from a conception. Indeed concerning that birth he adds at once: And it brought forth. What is interposed, And it was so done, pertains only to the concept of germination. What he adds right away, And it brought forth is as if to say “and soon it produced shoots.” 147 And note that when things are said to be procreated or born from the earth or from the waters, it is not so to be understood that they consist in only one element, but the names are derived from the prevailing [element], just as they also are traced back to the one from which they were produced. 148 Green grass. The ones that cling to the earth by the roots, and have to live and grow from the moisture of the water, are rightly added to the aforesaid ordering of earth and water over the course of one day. It should be noted, in fact, that to some it seems to be suggested that the world was adorned with these [grasses] in the springtime, by this fact especially, that we might see that a spring mildness is necessary for these things to be born from the earth or to survive. 149 But really I do not see on what grounds the world could have this mildness, which we now experience in spring, when the sun, from whose approach mildness now occurs, was not yet created; rather on this day on which the earth brought these forth there appears to have been a colder climate than on those wintry days which the sun warms at least a little

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bit. 150 And so there is some question whence, according to the nature of things, the earth could germinate or sustain these things at that time. But, as we have already mentioned above, the will of God alone functioned as the force of nature in those works of the first six days, when even nature itself was being created; that is, a kind of force was being conferred on those things that were then coming into existence, whence afterward they themselves would be sufficient for their own multiplication whether the outcomes be the result of spreading or of births. 151 In fact, as was said, we now call nature nothing other than a force and faculty that was then given to those works, whence they would suffice to achieve these things that result from them later. 152 Perhaps some natural reason can also be offered as to why the earth could produce these [things], namely because the newness of the earth then would have had greater powers for producing or conserving plants than afterward; and it would have received this especially from its extreme wetness, which the abundance of the waters gave it before they were gathered together, and for conserving them it would have profited from the heat of the sun that was to be created on the next day, perhaps as soon as it was created producing a springtime mildness by its warmth in some parts of the earth, [but] not, I think, everywhere. 153 For all regions are never equally hot or cold at the same time, nor do the things which get born or become green [do so] at the same time, nor do their fruits reach ripeness at the same time everywhere, nor do the same grasses or trees sprout in all parts of the earth. 154 If, therefore, the earth brought forth every kind of grass or tree on this day, when in six days God had finished his work, and spring mildness could not be present in all the earth, what need was there that it should happen in spring, except perhaps in that part of the earth where it would have been spring? In fact, they could afterward have been transferred and transplanted from that region to other parts of the earth. 155 But a perpetual spring mildness is believed to exist in paradise, and there perhaps the earth could produce and preserve everything simultaneously, where both a soil suitable for everything and the very mildness

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EXPOSITION, 149-163

of the heavens might coincide. 156 But we know many [things] are born from the earth, of which some desire a hot land, others a cold, others a temperate; and so it might be that at whatever time the earth germinated, it produced different [things] in different places. Nor does mildness seem so necessary for the production of plants as [it is] for the ripening of fruits. But scripture ­makes no mention of fruit in this place, only of fruit-bearing plants. 157 But we believe that in paradise, where the human being was to be settled, fruit was produced simultaneously together with the trees to the extent that it was necessary for the human being. Hence also scripture records that they transgressed in [regard to] the fruit of the forbidden tree, and that the fruit of the other trees was granted to them as their necessary food. 158 But there is no objection, if in various lands in proportion to their quality and the variety of the heavens’ mild temperatures, various plants might bring forth their fruit at the same time, or the same plants exist, in some lands with fruit, in others without fruit, until the coming of milder temperatures, as happens every day, since we see that not all lands bring forth the same fruits at the same rate. 159 And bringing forth seed. Whether so that as soon as [it is] born it might have its seed as if it had attained to maturity, or it was created so that it be apt for having seed. 160 And apple-bearing trees. That is, fruit-bearing trees, whether bearing apples, that is, their fruit, as soon as they were brought forth, or not at once. Obviously, apple is usually understood to stand in general for the fruit of every tree. 161 According to their kind. This is, according to the fixed quality of their nature so that in fact because of the variety of grasses or trees, rather than that of the earth, they bear a variety of fruit and not the same. 162 Having seed. This is, when rooted it will adhere to the earth, having the power of its propagation in itself, whether by seed, or by grafting of branches, or by planting. 163 And note that when he says apple-bearing tree, only of fruit-bearing trees not of [trees] without fruit, he appears to say that they were created then; and so not all trees were ­created then,

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but some [were created] afterward, just as it is believed about thorns and thistles, produced from the earth after sin as a punishment for the human being. 164 But it would seem reasonable, if someone were to say that those trees also which now are without fruit were first created fruit-bearing, although they afterward became barren on account of human sin, or that the fruit or apple of the tree stands for any use of the wood, since trees without fruit have many uses, even if they do not produce any fruit as food. 165 And because it is not a customary expression to say that apple is understood for any sort of usage as is fruit, so when it was first named apple-bearing afterward as if by way of explanation he added fruit-bearing, that is having all sorts of uses. For the same explanatory purpose when he first says so it was done at once he adds and the earth brought forth grass, etc.

Concerning the fourth [day] 42

166 Let there be lights. The lights were made between the creation of plants now finished and that of the animals yet to be done, so that the plants might be encouraged and benefit from their warmth, and the animals have solace by their light, lest they wander as if blind in the darkness, and so that they might pick out their food. 167 In the firmament of heaven. Intransitively in so far as the heaven named most recently is from the waters between which it is placed, as stated, and it is called firmament from the waters which it supports above. 168 And let them divide. [The prophet] explains what uses they may have: First, to differentiate the times of day and night by their illumination. In fact it is daytime in so far as it is illumined by the sun, just as night [time is] is lit by the moon and stars, or lacks the illumination of the sun. 169 Unto signs. Not [those] which it is meaningless to ­observe, as in auspices and auguries, but unto certain kinds of

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EXPOSITION, 163-177

­ atural displays of future or present events. In fact, sailors are n in the habit of recognizing to what parts of the world they are traveling by observing the stars, and they obtain much information about changing seasons from the sun and moon or the stars, when they seem to be now one color or warmth, now another, or in some other way appear different to our sight. 170 And times. This is, the computation of time, as days or years, which are added right away as examples. For we calculate days and number [them] according to the motion and course of the sun from east to west, and we usually calculate years according to its revolutions and sometimes [those] of the other planets, so that in fact we may say that as many of their revolutions as there are to the same point, so many years there are of the sun or of Saturn or of the other planets. 171 And let them shine, as in one place “let them be”, and in another place “let them cast light”, on the earth, namely where it is necessary, thence casting forth their light. 172 And he made. In regard to those which he previously said were to divide day and night [the prophet] explains how it was done, when [God] instituted the sun to illumine day time and the moon and stars to illumine the night. 173 A greater luminary. Namely the sun, not so much by the size of its orb as by the power of its illumination in relation to our sense who receive thence the greater light. 174 Let it preside over the day. Namely as if causing that same day-time by its illumination, or by conferring light on it, as moon and stars do on the night. 175 A lesser luminary. He names the moon, as if second to the sun in effect for shedding light. Because it is closer to the earth than the stars, it has a greater power for giving light to us than the stars; even if some of those farther away from us are believed to have a greater splendor or size. 176 And stars, you may supply [the words] he likewise ­made, so that they might preside over the night. These also, ­namely the stars, [are set] in the firmament like the sun and moon. 177 That they might shine. That [phrase] refers generally to the stars as much as to the sun and moon. Otherwise it

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45

would not be clear how he is saying that they preside over day and night, when in fact the stars have to preside over the night only, not the day. 178 In regard to the planets which are said to be carried against the firmament, it is no small question, whether they are living things, as it seems to the philosophers, their bodies being governed by some kind of spirits which bestow this motion upon them, or whether they hold this course immovably by the sole will and decree of God. 179 Indeed the philosophers add that these as well as the whole world itself are living things, and they do not hesitate to argue that they are a kind of rational animal, immortal and impassible, saying that every motion in bodies begins from the soul, and no body is moved anywhere except by it. They even wish to fill the world in this way with living things, so that every single part of the world has its own living things: this lower and denser air, [is inhabited by] demons all the way up to the moon, the upper part of the world, however, which we are accustomed to name the aetherial heaven, [is inhabited by] planets or the other stars. 180 In fact, blessed Augustine, mentioning this opinion in book 8 On the City of God, spoke thus of the Platonists: “They say there is a threefold division of all living things, in which there is a rational soul, into gods, human beings, and demons. The home of the gods is in heaven, of human beings on earth, of demons in the air.” 181 Further: “Demons have immortality of bodies in common with the gods, but passions of the soul in common with human beings.”a And a little further on, referring to a description of demons taken from the sayings of Apuleius, a Platonist, he says: “Briefly defining demons, Apuleius states that they are a kind of living thing with a passible soul, a rational mind, an aerial body, an eternal lifespan.”b 182 From these sayings of the philosophers – especially, in fact, [those] of the Platonists – it is clear that the heavens and also the air are adorned with their own living things. Of these they name [the inhabitants of] the latter demons, that a b

Augustine, De civitate Dei VIII, 14 (CCL 47, pp. 230-321). Augustine, De civitate Dei VIII, 16 (CCL 47, p. 233).

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EXPOSITION, 177-186

is rational, ­immortal, and passible living things, the [inhabitants of the] former however they call gods, that is rational, immortal, and impassible living things, as are all the stars, not only the planets, but indeed each and every star. 183 In fact, that planets are not only gods but even gods of gods, as if they were more excellent than the rest of the stars and had greater power, they claim Plato said, especially where, so they say, he invites the planets to the creation of the ­human ­being, so that through some power of theirs the human body, into which God would infuse a soul, was formed from earth. 184 But while they believe that all of the gods are good, nevertheless they distinguish between some demons that are good and some that are evil, as is also [true] of human beings. Hence the Greeks call the former calodaemones, the latter cacodaemones. For they know nothing about the fall of the devil, but they believe that, like human beings or other living things, demons also were created with bodies. Hence they distinguish the bodies of all rational animals according to the region or part of the world which they inhabit, so that some of these are terrestrial, like human beings, others aerial or aetherial, like demons or gods.a 185 And so it is well known, according to Plato’s opinion or that of the Platonists, that the stars themselves are living things, and some kinds of souls inhabit those stellar bodies which we see, by which they are able to be moved or agitated. 186 Blessed ­Augustine, never really presuming to refute that opinion, says in the Enchiridion that it was as yet uncertain to him whether the sun and moon belonged to the company of angels, or whether in fact some of the angelic spirits were assigned to those ­sidereal bodies, so that drawing them and leading them around they bring very great benefits to human needs. But he suggests in the first book of the Retractationes that reason is less able to approach the question whether the world is some kind of living thing, which contains in itself both these and other living things.b a Augustine, De civitate Dei IX, 1 (CCL 47, p. 249); Calcidius, Comm. 134 (ed. Waszink, p. 175, l. 7). b Plato, Timaeus 30BC, 37CD (ed. Waszink, p. 23, ll. 8-9, 27, l. 23).

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187 We may now bring to bear supporting statements of his, suitably gathered from both of his works. Accordingly, he said in the Enchiridion chapter 25: “Whether the archangels be named virtues, and what difference there is between thrones, whether dominions or principalities or powers, (Col. 1, 16) let them tell who are able, if in the end they can prove what they say. I myself confess that I do not know these things. But neither do I know for certain whether the sun, moon and stars belong to the same company, although a number of luminous bodies appear to lack sense or intelligence.”a 188 Again in Retractationes 1: “That the world is a living thing, as Plato with many other philosophers opined, I have not been able to trace with certain reason, nor did I know I could be persuaded by the authority of divine scripture. Hence I branded it a bold statement when I also said in the book Concerning the Immortality of the Soul that such a thing can be ­accepted, not because I assert that this is false, but because I do not understand that it is true that the world is a living thing.”b 189 The Apostle also appears to recognize both celestial animals, which the philosophers call gods, and aerial animals, which they call demons. (cf. Eph. 6, 12) 190 If, therefore, as it appeared to the philosophers and the saints did not subsequently presume to deny, some kind of spirits guide those celestial bodies of the stars, which are able to move or to agitate them, the solution to the proposed question about the motion of the planets is easy. 191 But if they have their ordered and stable motion from elsewhere, it is enough to attribute this to the divine will, which, as was stated, functions as the force of nature in the primordial causes, and according to Plato is more powerful in all that is to be made than the natural faculty itself of created things. 192 There are some who so exalt and extol the teaching of ­astronomy and the very power of the stars that they claim to foretell even future contingents from these things, and assert that by Augustine, Enchiridion LVIII (CCL 46, pp. 80-81). Augustine, Retractationes I, ix, 4 (CCL 57, p. 35); Augustine De immortalitate animae XV (PL 32, 1033). a

b

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EXPOSITION, 187-198

this art they make judgments concerning things that the philosophers profess [to be] unknown by nature; as if indeed these very stars were signs not only of natural occurrences in the future, as we have said, but also of future contingents, as they falsely claim. 193 In fact future natural events are those that have some natural cause for their occurrence, so that they have to happen as a result of what came before, as if by their certain natural causes, and thus they are connected to them, so that the latter event can scarcely or never be prevented from happening when the former events preceded it: as the future dissolution of death in the next moment ­after draining poison, or rain after thunder, or sterility of the earth after extreme drought or excessive rain. 194 In fact, future contingents are those which so equally have the potential to be and not to be, that there is no antecedent cause in the nature of things whence they are compelled either to happen or not to happen, nor can it be known in advance from anything whether they have to happen or not, as [for example] my being about to read today, and whatever consists in the power of our will as much to do as to omit. 195 Certain ­future events are therefore natural, and somehow predetermined in their occurrence, since their causes can be known in advance from a kind of natural connection to the preceding events, and by this they are already said to be known in nature, like all things that are present or in the past. 196 When now for instance in the present the stars themselves might be equal or not equal, and it is not known to us which of these it is now, Boethius asserts that it is known by ­nature since in fact there is already such an order in the very stars that it can bestow knowledge of itself, because it is naturally known or determined.a 197 For even a voice or sound is said to be naturally audible in itself, even if no one is present who is able to hear it, and a field was fit for cultivation before there was a ­human being who could cultivate it. 198 In fact future contingents of nature are also said to be unknown, since of course they cannot be known in ­advance from any action or arrangement of a Boethius, In librum Aristoteles de interpret. Commentarii prima editio I, 9, secunda editio III, 9 (PL 64, 334A, 489A, 491A).

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nature. Hence I marvel that some profess that by astronomy they know, and are able even to judge concerning these things, and to be as it were diviners of such things. But since astronomy is a branch of physics, that is, of natural philosophy, how are they able to ­investigate by it what the very philosophers of nature ­assert to be ­unknown, that is, impossible to predict from any nature of things? 199 In fact we deny that any future natural events whatsoever can be known through it, just as they cannot [be known] through medicine. For medical [practitioners] can foretell much about the sick according to the make-up of bodies, whether for example they can make a recovery or are not likely to do so. 200 So also experts in the stars, who know their natures, know why they are warm or cold, dry or moist or temperate; and by astronomy they learn those parts of the heavens which are called their houses, where they will be when they most strongly exercise their powers; they can know much in advance about coming natural events, whether for example in the coming season there will be increased drought or rain, whether [it will be] hot or cold. This is valid in many ways not only for prudent cultivation of the earth, but also for the measurement of medications. 201 Hence also the philosophers presumed to call these planets gods, and to profess [that they are] some kind of rulers of the earth; for example, in that according to their natures and qualities this situation of ours varies greatly, as we said, so that sometimes barrenness, sometimes abundance results thence, sometimes it is time to plant in moist places, sometimes in dry, sometimes warm or moist are to be provided in medications or other things. 202 But in regard to future contingents which, as we said, are also unknown by [their very] nature, whoever promises any certitude through the evidence of astronomy is to be considered not so much astronomical as diabolical. We can easily convict them of knowing nothing about it. 203 For if we were to ask about anything that is to be done, which it is equally in our power to do or to leave undone, they dare make no ­judgment

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EXPOSITION, 198-208

in the matter from any proof of their art, knowing that if they were to say one thing, we would turn ourselves to the other. 204 In fact they say that if someone other than ourselves were to ask them the same thing about us, and that not for the sake of testing them but with the sincere intention of inquiring into the truth, then they promise they will tell the truth. Who does not see what a mockery is to be expected? 205 For if they have certitude by their art concerning events about which they are consulted, what does it matter who asks them about it, or even with what intention? Or why can they not even discern in regard to intention, which, since it is present has already a settled outcome, but promise certitude in regard to the future which is entirely uncertain? 206 From this I judge it to be obvious that if at some point it happens that they tell the truth in such things, they do not offer this out of their so-called art but instructed through diabolical conjecture. For just as we, seeing the preparation of some things, may predict what outcome will proceed thence more from surmise than from certainty, so also the devil whom they consult ­induces them in this divination to pronounce truly many uncertain things. When they have made accurate predictions about some things they are believed to be prescient about all the rest. 207 Often too by diabolical promptings they report the presence of things that are absent or past, nor do they lie, which is held to be a marvel by the inexperienced, who do not notice that it is the devil who reports what he already knows by discernment so that he might be believed also about future things themselves. And so no one should ascribe such divinations to the art of prediction but rather to diabolical machination.a 208 And thus when it is said of the stars, and let them be as signs, of future events, that is, it does not refer to future contingents, namely, casual or fortuitous events, which ­Aristotle a M.-T. d’Alverny, “Abélard et l’astrologie,” in Pierre Abélard – Pierre le Vénérable, pp. 611-630.

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states can go either way,a but to future natural events, as has been said; just as study of the astronomical discipline took its beginning especially from this, or by its authority proved outstandingly useful in this place especially, and Moses himself, highly skilled in the knowledge of the Egyptians, is believed to have been trained in it.

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209 Creeping things having life. In his Exameron Ambrose [states] concerning the fifth day: “We know the genera of snakes are called creeping things in that they creep over the earth, but much more all that swims has either the species or the nature of a reptile. For when they swim over the water, they creep with their whole bodies, whence they are drawn over what one might call the ridge of the water. Hence also David said: There is the sea large and spacious; there the creeping things of which there is no number (Ps. 103, 25). 210 Indeed even when most of them have feet and the ability to walk insofar as they are amphibious, and live either in the water or on the earth, as do seals, crocodiles, [and] river horses, which are called hippopotami, in that they are generated in the Nile river, nevertheless when they are in deep water they neither walk nor swim, nor do they use the motion of the foot for walking, but like an oar for creeping.”b 211 In fact, it is clear from these words of Ambrose that all fish are also grouped together with creeping things, since they move themselves without the tread of feet. 212 Having Life is said to distinguish them from the life given to plants, which if they are said to have some kind of soul, that is life, nevertheless do not have [the ability] to live of themselves, like those which live by inhaling and exhaling, but affixed to the earth they have only the moisture of the earth a Aristotle, De interpretation 9, tr. Boethius (ed. Minio-Paluello, p. 17, ll. 15-16). b Ambrose, Exameron V, i, 4 (CSEL 32, I, pp. 142-143).

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EXPOSITION, 208-217

mounting into them to provide life. Such therefore is living things, this is living in themselves, as was stated, enduring, not from the absorption of the earth’s humors. 213 And fowl. From which it is clear that fish as well as birds created from water have bodies of the same nature, and their meat does not administer as much energy for lechery to human bodies as the meats of terrestrial animals, which are of the same nature as our bodies. Hence the Rule of blessed Benedict does not prohibit the former meats to monks in the same way as the latter, namely when it requires abstinence only from the flesh of fourfooted animals, not [from that] of birds.a Indeed the passage that follows shows that the Lord singled out these only by his blessing as if unto our food. 214 Over the earth, under the firmament of heaven. That [the prophet] says over the earth under the firmament of heaven appears to refer not only to fowl but also to creeping things. If in fact the stars also are believed [to be] living things, then since they move about without feet they would be included with creeping things as well as the fish. But since they are in no sense under the firmament, it is clear that they are excluded since it says under the firmament of heaven. 215 Such therefore is creeping thing and fowl, as if it were said “an animal apt for creeping or flying over the earth,” that is, such that it does not touch the earth. For afterward when [the prophet] says creeping things of the earth rather than “over the earth”, at once he carefully distinguishes the former from the latter kind of creeping thing. 216 A number of aquatic birds are said to have feet attached to their posteriors in such a way that they cannot walk with them, but only swim, just as fish [do] with their fins, which as a result we believe are to be called creeping rather than walking [things]. 217 Since they never appear to go out onto land there is no small question as to their eggs, how they warm them, or whether supported by the waters themselves the eggs of such [birds] like those of fish also are able somehow to quicken through a warmth a

Benedict, Rule 39.

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of their own. 218 When he says under the firmament of heaven, it seems it is to be understood intransitively, as if [to say] under the firmament which is heaven, as when it is said, “the city of Rome”, “the river of Tiber”, “creature of salt”, “body or essence of stone”. But this firmament, as stated above, is so named because, interposed between the waters, it so establishes the upper waters by supporting them that they cannot flow back down to the lower or even touch them. 219 What is mixed with the waters of the clouds is therefore not in the proper sense called firmament, but the higher one that is absolutely empty of waters. In fact birds cannot fly through the firmament, because their bodies cannot be supported by air without the [added] density of waters. 220 And he created, namely from the same waters. 221. He puts soul for the whole living thing, consisting in both body and soul, namely comprehending the whole by the name of a part, according to what he also says elsewhere: Give me the souls, take the rest for yourself. (Gen. 46, 27) And again, Jacob went down into Egypt in [all] seventy souls. (Act. 7, 14-15) 222 Living. You should understand that this means [living] in itself, not from the earth, like plants affixed by the roots to the earth. 223 And moving, namely for the difference from other animals which the earth, which is a heavier element than water, afterward brought forth. Hence also those [who] are brought forth from the waters are naturally more mobile and agile, since of course they consist of a lighter element. 224 And note what he said above concerning plants, that the earth has germinated and brought them forth. With regard to animals in fact it is only said that water or earth should produce them, not that it should germinate, so that it might actually suggest that, not fixed to the earth by the roots, they do not receive thence vegetative growth, as plants do. 225 Which the waters brought forth according to their kinds. Construe thus: he created every soul, that is, every living thing, thus according to [their] kinds, as if

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EXPOSITION, 217-231

he were saying “every”, I would say, “according to their kind, not according to number”. For in fact not every individual of these species, but each particular species of birds as well as fish, was then ­created. 226 Hence also what follows, when he says that God rested from all his work, is not about individuals belonging to species being multiplied, but about the natures of the species being now prepared for whatever was subsequently to be procreated thence. 227 Which they brought forth, that is, the waters were already prepared for their production, whether sweet, as [are] the rivers, or salt, as [are] the seas. 228 And he saw. Note that in the works of this day it is never said in repetition of their creation: And so it was done, as above on the second day. Or when he stated first: And he created the firmament, etc., then added And so it was done, as if implying by this that the separation of the waters was to endure thus in perpetuity. So also in the creation of the human being after he has said: God created the human being etc., he added: and so it was done. 229 Therefore everywhere when he says: so it was done, a kind of persistence of the work is signified, so that they are actually to endure just as they were made; it seems that cannot be rightly said of the species of birds, since in fact several species among them have at some time become absolutely extinct, as one may read about the phoenix, and perhaps this happened to several others, birds as well as fish, which pertain to the work of this day. 230 And he blessed. God is recorded as having blessed only these living things produced from water in the same way that he afterward blessed human beings when they were created, as if these animals, which were generated from that element from which human beings were also to be regenerated, approximated somewhat to the dignity of human beings. 231 Hence also in the Ark, it does not seem unjust that birds held second place after human beings, because in fact they were made from that element which in the sacrament of baptism would be most necessary for

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our salvation. 232 Rightly, therefore, God’s benediction began from the aquatic creatures, since from this element, as has been mentioned, the blessing of our salvation was to have its beginning in the perfect remission of sins. Such therefore is: he blessed them as if he were saying “now at this moment he provided a symbol of the sanctification of those to be born again from water, or of their multiplication by contrast with the circumcised.” 233 In fact although circumcision is said to have the same effect as baptism upon the remission of sins, it could not have had this efficacy among as many as those in whom the grace of baptism has remained; for none except males were circumcised, and only Jews or proselytes. 234 Saying, that is, deciding within himself what he would afterwards show us. 235 Grow and multiply, this is, receive increase through the number of individuals, not by the diversity of species. 236 For it is not so to be understood as if they afterwards grew in themselves, until they came to the perfect age at which they were able to reproduce, since the creation of such should be believed to have been perfect at once, otherwise it would have had to be drawn out a long time, until it might reach perfection. But if we also take it as referring to birds it does not easily appear whence they were to receive nourishment. 237 Fill, that is, be fruitful with as many as are enough for this. 238 The waters of the sea, even though all the fresh waters also have both fish and birds. But it is well known that the whole body of the waters, as much the salt as the fresh, is called sea, and all waters came forth from the sea. 239 Where also he says: living and moving thing, namely in regard to those living things that are produced from water, it appears very much more to go with the sacrament of baptism in which liberated from sin and as it were raised from the dead we begin to be born through the life-giving Spirit and to live in God, and we are moved forward from the old Adam into the new and we are transformed into members of Christ.

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EXPOSITION, 231-244

240 And note that only on these animals actually created from water, and afterward on human beings, and lastly on the seventh day, is God described as bestowing a blessing, with the blessing of human beings set in the middle as if the other two converged on it. 241 In fact, the blessing of the human being begins with baptism, with the full remission of sins received there, and then having advanced to the Sabbath of heavenly bliss, it is consummated, so that hence also it may well be said that the living and moving thing is brought up higher from the waters. In baptism to be sure we begin to live, so that moved forward thence unto the aforementioned Sabbath we may likewise rest.

Concerning the sixth [day] 242 Living thing. This is a living [thing] living from itself, not drawing life from the earth, as by contrast plants do, although it is [created] from the earth. Living, he says, in its kind, because even if those animals which were created in former times were now to fail in themselves, and not now survive in the same numbers as they were formerly created, nevertheless they would somehow always live in their kind, because although individuals perish, the genus or species does not become extinct. Hence they live in [their] kind, that is in their species [in] which they were first created, even if they do not now live in themselves, just as also it is said concerning some tyrant now dead, that he lives in his sons. 243 And note that when he says living thing about these [creatures] which the earth produced, he has not added “moving” as he did before in regard to those which water brought forth, because since the element of water is lighter than earth, it follows that animals produced from water have an easier motion, and their bodies can more readily be moved and be agitated by their soul, as we have already mentioned above. 244 Cattle, that is domestic quadrupeds, as it were placed under our yoke and dominion.

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245 Creeping things of the earth. It has to be added in this way of course to differentiate [them] from the aforesaid creeping things of the water. 246 Beasts, namely wild, as feral, or any that are remote from our [human] society. 247 And he made. He said at first, it was so made, that is, that the earth produced animals according to corporeal substance. But afterward the Lord made this by way of completion; as if he completed [them] by giving them vital spirit from water, as it seems to some, or from other elements less corpulent or heavy, but instead light and mobile. 248 God is not said to have blessed the beasts as he blessed the fish and birds, because the serpent who was to be accursed was one of the beasts then [­created]. He blessed the human being even though he would sin, and [God] called the earth, not [the human being], accursed on account of him. 249 Let us make the human being. With all the rest either created or arranged for the sake of the human being, he created us last, and established [us] as the goal of his creation. To us as end and cause of his creation all the rest tended, since all of them existed for our sake. 250 Hence it was necessary for us not to be created unless the others, over which we ought to preside, or which were necessary to us as food, or were at least fitting for the glorification of God, [were] first created and prepared for us, lest perhaps we could put forward some need as an excuse for our sin, and could have been recalled from offense of God so much the more, the greater we had cause to love the one, who set us over all, or even after the fall have been moved more swiftly to penitence, deploring the fact that we had offended the one to whom we owed so much. When he says as if speaking by some kind of deliberation, let us make, it clearly implies the excellence of our creation. 251 But why does it say in the plural: Let us make the human being to our image, if there is absolutely no plurality in God, who alone is said in what follows to have created the human being to his image with these words: And God created the human being to his image, to the image of

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EXPOSITION, 245-258

God created he him? Let the Jews say, if they can, or let them confess with us that in one essence of divinity there is a plurality of persons rather than of things. 252 Diligently considering this, the prophet said in the plural for the distinction of persons, let us make, but for signaling the unity of God he actually added in the singular, and God created the human being, etc. 253 Thus [it is] as if someone talking to himself set up himself and his reason as if they were two [distinct persons], since he made reference to the latter, like Boethius in the book On the Consolation of Philosophy or Augustine in the book Of Soliloquies. And so God the Father says as if inviting to the creation of the human being his wisdom together with his goodness, this is the Son and the Holy Spirit: Let us make him thus and so, so that he should be our image and likeness. 254 How excellent this particular creation is and how far superior to the others described above, is in fact expressed in these words, [spoken] as if conferring together in some sort of council for the making of something great when he says: Let us make. Such an expression is not used in the other creations, but only that this or that should be, or that the earth or water should produce this or that. 255 But since human being is the shared name of both the man and the woman, since both are a rational mortal animal, hence also in what follows where it says God created the human being at once there is added Male and female created he them; we understand that the man was created in the image of God, but the woman [was created in] the likeness. 256 Indeed the apostle says concerning the man: Truly he ought not to veil his head, because he is the image and glory of God (1 Cor. 11, 7), that is his more glorious and precious likeness. 257 For there is a difference between image and likeness because likeness to something can be said to exist because there is a kind of conformity with it, whence something can be said to be similar to it. But an image refers only to the express likeness, like the statues of men which more perfectly represent them limb by limb. 258 And so because the man is more worthy than the woman and consequently more like God, he is called his image, but the woman is [his] likeness, since she

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as well as the man imitates God through reason and immortality of the soul. But the man has this in addition by which he is made more like God, [namely] the fact that just as everything has being from God, so from one man by bodily descent both the woman and the whole human race has its beginning. 259 But if one should wish to consider this image or likeness of God, according to which the human being is said [to be made], more diligently and more precisely in terms of the distinction of the [divine] persons, one will see that same human being has acquired the highest likeness as much to the Father as to the Son or to the Holy Spirit from his very creation. 260 It is certain, in fact, that to God the Father, who has being of himself and not of another, according to this property of his, that which pertains to divine power is especially ascribed, just as also to the Son, who is called his wisdom, that which is wisdom; and to the Holy Spirit, who is called their mutual love and properly named charity, that which pertains to the goodness of divine grace is allotted especially. 261 And so as stated, the human being was made to the likeness of each particular person [of the Trinity] in terms of the dignity of the soul, since surpassing other living things through power, wisdom, and love, he is made more like God. In fact on that account the human soul by the power of its proper nature is stronger than all other souls, because it alone is created immortal and free of defect. 262 It alone, moreover, is capable of reason and wisdom and partakes of divine love. For what cannot recognize God through reason cannot love him. 263 And these three are common to the woman as well as the man, whence both are said to be made in the likeness of God, when it says in what follows: On the day on which God created the human being he created him in the likeness of God; male and female created he them. 264 While therefore both, according to the aforesaid, have likeness to the divine persons, nevertheless the man, in that he holds the greater likeness to them, is said to be created not only in the likeness but also in the image. For as the other [divine] persons have being from the Father, so [also] in the human

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EXPOSITION, 258-272

c­ reation the woman, created from the man, has being thence, not the man from the woman. 265 Through wisdom also or reason we taught above that the man surpassed the woman, and he is shown to be wiser in this, that he could not be seduced by the serpent. 266 It is not to be doubted that God is loved more by him, who could not believe that he begrudged him or said anything deceitful to him or burst forth in falsehood as the woman did who was seduced. 267 From these [characteristics] therefore it is clear that the man created in the beginning received not only the likeness but also the image of the divine persons from their cooperation in his creation, because he was created more like them in these. Hence it is rightly said of the man: in our image, this is in the express likeness, and concerning the woman it is added only in the likeness. 268 And let him rule over the fishes. Not indeed that God set [one] human being over another human being, but only over insensible or irrational creatures, so that he might receive into his power and dominate the [creatures] which lack reason and sense, just as afterward it says there: And let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, etc. 269 But power and dominion over these are said to be conferred on the human being in such a way that he should arrange all this according to his discretion, and make use of them altogether as he might choose so long as he himself was subject to the will of his creator. 270 It is not easy to say in detail for what purposes, if he were always to remain in paradise, he had all these things at that time, having virtually everything necessary at hand, and sufficient food granted to him from the fruits of the trees or from grasses, especially since not all living things could come into contact with him. 271 For even if we overlook beasts and birds, who would think great whales or fishes of the sea could reach that place and even live [there]? And what sort of dominion could he exercise over those he would never see, nor even know where they were, nor perhaps know whether they existed? 272 How besides could he dominate or preside over the whole earth, as it is said,

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being always enclosed in the one place of paradise, with all the other parts of the world unknown because not yet seen? Or since he says afterward, Increase and multiply and fill the earth; how would it ever happen, if enclosed in such a little part of the world they would not yet go out into the various regions of the world? 273 Accordingly there is no reason [that] the whole future multitude of human beings should always dwell in that one place of paradise even if they had not sinned, but they were to be dispersed thence, throughout the world, as also from the Ark, to find nothing punitive anywhere since the earth would not have been stricken with any curse for sin from God. 274 All the same, we believe that the first human beings were located in paradise, because the mildness of that place, which the Lord had planted from the beginning, was extremely abundant with fruit, when these or the rest had not yet been propagated throughout the world. 275 But nor should it be doubted as regards the tree of life, that it could be multiplied on earth through planting before the cursing of the earth. Then humankind could have ruled and held dominion everywhere on the whole earth, and the other living things be useful to us in many ways, perhaps afterward also granted to us as food, just as the Lord granted to Noah after the flood. 276 They could also bring the human being no slight pleasure according to the various senses, when they soothe the ears with song, or with the beauty of form delight the eyes, or refresh the sense of smell with sweetness of odors; or by whatsoever manner, their various natures rightly understood, may excite us the more unto love and praise of the Creator, according to what the psalmist says of him: You delight me, O Lord, in your works, and I rejoice in the works of your hands. (Ps. 91, 5) 277 There are [some], perhaps, to whom such questions appear to be frivolous and not to be reasonably proposed, for who in fact would ask about some event that never took place and say: what would happen if it was like that? For what reason is there, they say, to enquire if what neither has to happen nor to exist would be like this? 278 And so they say that God,

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EXPOSITION, 272-284

foreknowing future events, had granted to humankind, that we might have dominion through reason over the other living things, and that we might restrain them and oppress them, even though [they were] more robust in body; so that in fact by the [faculty of] reason granted to us the human being might love him so much the more, the more we would recognize how much we had received from him in this. 279 When he says: The fowl of the heavens, this is the birds, of heaven is added not to differentiate some kind of flying thing, but to show through what part of the world they have to fly, just as it is also said: the fish of the sea, or we are accustomed to say the stars of heaven, not to differentiate some [from others] but rather to express their proper place. 280 This word heaven therefore here, including both the aerial and the aetherial, names whatever is contained between the lower waters up to the higher. 281 And the beasts. Because he distinguished above between beasts and cattle here he includes both by the name of beasts. 282 Of all the earth. Note that when permission is here granted to the human being to govern the earth itself as much as the beasts that are on the earth, nevertheless it is not granted to us in the same way as above to govern the sea itself as much the fish of the sea, or heaven itself as much the flying things of heaven. For the sea or the sky are not in our power in the same way as the earth, on which we dwell and [on which] we build our houses, and which we prepare for our use by cultivating [it]. 283 Creeping things which move upon the earth. That is in this lower part of the world, perhaps to differentiate [them] from celestial living things, that is the stars which, as it has seemed to the philosophers, are alive and are to be called creeping things in their motion rather than walking things, since they lack feet. 284 In his image. Obviously he created the man first in such a way that he might be his image, as we have explained. Directly after it is said: Let us make the human being

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in our image, there is added: God created the human being in his image, this is, of God, not of another thing, just as immediately after there is appended, in the image of God created he them, lest in fact since our is put before, he might be understood to be made not only in the image of God, but in fact also in [that] of some other, with whom [God] might appear to have spoken when he said: let us make the human being. 285 And note that when [the prophet] says here: In the image of God he created him, and afterward adds: Male and female created he them, and does not repeat: in the image of God when he says in the plural them, as he did when he said him, he clearly implies that it is to be understood only of the man that he was created in the image of God. 286 For it can be seen that the added phrase: in the image of God created he him ought to be understood differently from the words: in his image. To be sure, the Son, who is from the Father alone, is called the image of God, since the Holy Spirit is said to be from the Father and the Son. 287 And so the man is created in the image of God, because in this especially he has likeness with the Son of God, since just as the latter is in fact begotten of the Father alone, so the former in fact has being created by God alone, not assumed from some living thing the way the woman was taken from the man, and was formed from his rib. 288 Male and female, that is, those who would suffice for the propagation of the human race. In regard to that propagation he says afterward: Increase and multiply. When he says them, using the masculine gender for the man as well as the woman, it is done on account of the dignity of the male sex. We observe that such is the case even up to the present day, so that where one man is together with many women, when we speak of them, using a plural adjective applying to all of them together, we put it into the masculine gender, as we would if we were to say of them that they are good or white. 289 And he blessed, this is he was already arranging a better state, immortal and incorruptible, for their future life. But the

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EXPOSITION, 284-293

prophet said this, anticipating their future fall, lest someone perhaps despair of heaven when hearing later of their expulsion from the earthly paradise. 290 Increase and multiply. Just as he is shown above to have said to the aquatic animals: Increase and multiply and fill the waters of the sea, so also he is described as saying to created human beings: Increase and multiply and fill the earth, in such a way that this utterance like that one is understood in fact [to occur] not through the speaking of a word, but through the disposition of the divine work, especially since no language had yet been formed and no names had yet been given by Adam, as he is later he said to have done. 291 Hence in fact that utterance of God, just like the one previously mentioned, seems not so much to be derived from the utterance of words as from a divine disposition, when God actually decided within himself to make them in such a way that they might increase and be multiplied, that is, achieve the increase of multiplication through the union of male and female, which he already distinguished above as if they were created male and female for this [purpose]. 292 In consequence he clearly implies how far removed from the creation of God and the institution of nature is that abominable intercourse of sodomites, by which they merely pollute each other, gaining no profit of offspring. Also condemned through this passage are those especially who condemn marriage, since the conjugal state was immediately sanctified with the Lord’s authority at the creation of the first human beings. 293 And fill the earth. As blessed Jerome observes, the sense of the words is to be considered. To be sure, marriage fills the earth, virginity [fills] paradise.a The earth is filled by human beings, not that human beings live in all parts of the world but that, to the extent that it is enough and agrees with divine providence, human beings may multiply on earth. a

Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum I, 16 (PL 23, 235C).

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294 With living things that move upon the earth. What he adds, which move upon the earth, can appear to have been added for the exclusion both of the celestial living things, according to that opinion of the philosophers by which they call the stars gods, that is, rational, immortal, impassible living things, and [of the living things] of the air, that is demons. 295 Behold I have given. As if he were saying, “in the present time or place,” because after the flood the Lord gave humankind permission to eat meat also. But since we may now observe a number of beasts or birds for whom the eating of meat is necessary, how were only grasses and trees now granted as food to these as well as to human beings, as if these would suffice for them at first, and they would not need meat except after the sin of the human being, with the result actually that the penalty coming out of the sin of the human being would redound also on these, over whom the human being had to rule and govern, so that in fact one kind of living things would be handed over to another kind as prey and [as] food? 296 And perhaps there are none of these animals among us which now need meats as food, for which in certain parts of the world sufficient food cannot be found in grasses or trees. 297 And note how much he wishes the human being to obey him in all things, since he does not wish him to eat so that he might live, except by obedience, and not to touch anything without his permission in any necessity whatsoever, not even for the support of life. From which he clearly implies that the whole of human life consists in nothing except obedience to God, and that he ought to live solely for this. 298 To you and to all the living things of earth. Namely some [things] to you, others to them, or some equally to you and to them. For it does not seem that all food is suitable for either human beings or those [animals], although before sin no edible thing would have been noxious to the human race or perhaps unfitting. But if we suppose that everything was suitable for human beings, it is not to be believed that we agree to this in regard to animals, to the extent that the tree of life was also granted to them as well as all the other things, unless perhaps someone would have it that they, too, like the human being had a remedy thence

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EXPOSITION, 294-303

against death and decrepitude, and we never read that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden to them, as afterward it is said to be forbidden to human beings. 299 For it is not clear how this permission was granted from among all the trees to human beings and the other animals, if that forbidden tree was never granted to human beings or to [the animals]. 300 And note that those trees that are called barren could offer nourishment to a number of animals at least in leaves or flowers or bark. 301 And notice that when he makes provision in regard both to food for the human being and for the animals, and he grants earthly food to all equally, it clearly implies that human beings were also created mortal, and that they were made in animal and not spiritual bodies, and that food was necessary to human beings then as now lest they be dissolved by death. Hence that animal state of life, in which the human being was actually created, does not deserve to be praised by comparison with that spiritual life to which he was to be transferred. 302 For it is not said also concerning the creation of the human being as it is said concerning the other living things, that God saw that it was good, because that life ought not to be commended in the human being which he was not created to attain, but from which he was to cross over to a far better. In fact it can be praised in general with the rest, because by comparison with the others even this mortal state of the human being is to be commended as excellent and the best, when finally by comparison to what was to come, it is not to be judged worthy of praise to the extent that it might be called the best, that is, very good, in itself. 303 And so it was done. This would appear to refer not only to the creation of the human being or to the work of day six, but to all of the prior work in its entirety. That includes everything at once, since bursting forth in the praise of them he says: all that he made, as much namely in regard to the creation of heaven and earth as in regard to light, the additional works and in the completed creation of the human being. To [the human being], indeed, all things look as if to [their] end, that is, the final cause of the others, since they were created or arranged for the sake

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of the human being: the human being, to be sure, not for them, but for the glorification of God alone. 304 When therefore they come into the hands of the human being on account of their uses, they have completed their course as if [arriving] at a kind of goal and predetermined end of a race. But the human being has to get to God, and in the vision of Him have rest on the true Sabbath. 305 And note that [the prophet] does not say: “he saw that they were all very good,” as was said above on the various works: he saw that it was good, but he specifies thus: God saw all that he had made, and afterward not repeating he saw, he adds, And they were very good. For this is not said according to what we have explained in regard to singulars: God saw that it was good, this is he makes us see this and understand it from their manifest utility; it could be said about all that he saw that it was all good on account of the work, except for the second day in regard to the suspension of the waters, the use of which, as we said, we are not yet able to demonstrate. 306 What is said therefore: He saw everything and it was very good, is as if he judged by his perfect knowledge that nothing in them was to be corrected, but that he created all things so good, as good as they should be created, that in their situation it would not be fitting to have anything better added, as in the opinion of Plato also, to the effect that the world, created by an all-powerful and not envious God could not be improved in any way.a 307 Considering which, Moses also asserts that everything was created very good although we may believe that it was not granted even to him to give a reason for everything. Not singulars in themselves, however, but everything altogether is said to be very good because, as blessed Augustine also notes, particulars in themselves are good, but everything together is very good; because things [that] ­considered in themselves might appear to be worth little or nothing, in the sum total of everything are very necessary.b Hence it is said: Great are the works of the Lord, exquisite his decrees in all things. (Ps. 110, 2) a b

Plato, Timaeus 29D-30A (ed. Waszink, p. 22). Augustine, Enchiridion X (PL 40, 236).

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EXPOSITION, 303-313

308 When it says very good it may perhaps move some [to ask] what we should say about certain poisonous animals or plants, or about certain other things which are considered to be entirely superfluous, or finally about those apostate angels who were made evil through pride right away at the beginning of their creation. But because that was by their own malice, and they did not receive it in their creation; they were by no means created evil by God but were corrupted by their own selves through pride. 309 And so because even those spirits were created good and without sin, but did not persevere as such, it cannot on their account be denied that the works of God were good, since he created them also as good spirits, namely in the very nature of a spiritual substance, which they themselves tarnished by the fall of pride, but did not destroy. 310 And so all the works of God are good, and every creature is to be called good, because it did not receive any sin or evil in the very origin of its creation, but God bestowed on each as much as was right, so that each particular creature was made by him not only good, but truly even the best, that is, very good, not only then, when they were first created, but in fact even daily when they are procreated or multiplied by being born from those primordial causes. 311 For even if an infant when he is born is not yet called a good man - this pertains to morals - nevertheless he is a good creature. So also a colt when it is born, although it is not yet a good horse and suitable for use, nevertheless is a good creature, and has received as much as was right for it in its very creation by God, who never does or permits anything to happen without reason, even when young [creatures] are produced abortive or born defective. 312 As regards the twigs of plants which appear to be superfluous, and must often be trimmed by us, as also [we trim] our hair and fingernails, or as regards the poisonous [creatures] which we mentioned, perhaps it seems sufficient as a solution, that he said they were very good then, namely before human sin, not now, and now after sin they are turned on us in punishment. 313 It is in fact clear that had the human being not sinned, no danger would have menaced us from poison, nor would we have been tormented by anything, but all those animals however

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s­ avage, however cruel, would be as gentle to us as if domesticated, in all things subject to our dominion, as long as we ourselves were subject through obedience to our Creator who subjected these to us. 314 When we afterward neglected this, many of these [creatures] became dangerous and were even permitted to have the power to kill us, so that miserable as a result we might now realize how much we lost by not obeying God, when we deserved to have these in our power as long as we were ourselves subject to that highest power, from whom we had ourselves received [the power] to dominate these. 315 Those whom reason ought to restrain from sin and teach in advance what should be feared, irrational creatures, insensible also, now made dangerous to us, clearly teach how much has been lost, as if feeling by a kind of divine power that they now owe no subjection to the human being, after we failed to be subject to God, as if they owe us nothing except on account of God. 316 Hence also these [creatures], even lacking reason and sense, plainly instruct our foolishness, lest we obey some of them in what they presume to do against God, although we owe nothing to anyone except for the sake of God and God should be our end in all that we do. 317 And so no one is to be accused of disobedience, nor even to be accused, wherever offense against God, which alone makes anyone guilty, is feared. Should anyone swear to someone to do what he might require of him, and then stands by his oath, as long as he has not realized that what he swore he would do would be an offense to God, is like ourselves, learning from those who, as we have said, have no reason, do not accept our dominion over them and seem to understand that we have rejected God’s. 318 When they kill us or torment us, thereby executing divine judgment and inflicting due punishment, we falsely accuse these works of God as if they were evil, because they have become sources of pain for us on account of what we deserve. Otherwise we might question both the very penalty which is just, and God as well as any just judge, when he punishes the guilty and does what he ought. None of the works of God are therefore to be called evil, although many, as is just, may be dangerous and harmful, or when sometimes the just have to perish [these creatures] set them free from the

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EXPOSITION, 313-324

sufferings of this life, or purify them by some affliction. 319 But neither is anything to be called superfluous in creatures, although they may sometimes aggravate us very much, because by virtue of [their] various benefits those which are scarcely good for one, are adaptable to another, as sharp twigs which would harm the fruit of the vine if they were to remain on it, are not useless for starting a fire or for other necessities. Finally, the more this life is regarded as more dangerous or more penitential, the more ardently is sought that which exists free from all these. 320 But what [is] actually good in itself and properly speaking, without qualification, or what is to be called evil or indifferent, is sufficiently defined in our second Collation as far as I am concerned.a 321 In regard to creatures, however, there is no small question as to whether in fact, as it seems to some, whatever is, and is not a creator, may be called a creature, or whether only substances, but not their accidents, are to be called creatures, or even whether something such as sitting [is a creature]. For when someone happens to sit, we do not say that something is which previously was not, or that something perishes which previously had been in [one] standing. 322 And it was evening. As on the other days [the prophet] so brings their works to a conclusion that nothing further is to be understood which might pertain to the works of this particular day, so also concerning this day it appears that it should be understood in such a way that in fact nothing beyond what is mentioned is said to pertain to the works of this day, but once the first parents were created, the whole work of this day was ­completed. 323 Hence it is not necessary for us to profess that all that is added in what follows concerning prohibition of the tree or transgression of the precept, and concerning the expulsion from paradise or the imposition of names by Adam, or anything else that might have happened, was done on day six; especially since it is uncertain for how long a space of time those parents remained in paradise, so that all this, namely, which they are afterwards said to have done there, they could have done before their expulsion. 324 For that they could have remained a

Abelard, Collationes II, 199-222 (ed. Marenbon and Orlandi, pp. 202-227).

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for many years or days in paradise before their sin, appears to be supported by authority as much as reason, as we will afterwards describe in its place. 325 The sixth day. For the prophet to have related that God completed his work in six days is not without its mystery, as the perfection of the number itself actually confirms the perfection of the works. In fact this number, which is called the senarius, occurs first among those numbers that are called perfect. For there are reckoned to be three distinct kinds of numbers according to the reckoning of their parts, with some in fact called perfect, others abundant, others diminished. 326 The perfect are actually those of which the sum of the parts is equal to the whole. For example: the senarius has the ternary as its middle part, the third binary, the sixth unity. So when these [are] added up when you say one, two, three this alone makes up the senarius. 327 Those numbers are called abundant of which the sum of the parts exceeds the [numbers] themselves, such as the twelfth. Of the [twelfth], indeed, the senarius is the middle part, the quaternary the third, the ternary the fourth, the binary the sixth, unity twelve. All of these joined together make the sixteenth, which number is obviously greater than twelve. 328 The diminished are those of which the parts reckoned and added together cannot reach the sum of the whole, such as eight. Indeed this number has as its middle part quaternary, the quarter binary, the octave one, which all added together make seven, which it is obviously less than eight.a 329 And so they were completed. That is, because the ­elements, as has been stated, were created and arranged and adorned with stars, plants, and animals, and so they were not just finished in their creation but were also perfected in their arrangement. 330 Their adornment he calls not only the things that are in them, but even the things that are [made] out of them, not spiritual to be sure but corporeal substances, which pertain to the praise of the world, especially through the fact that they take a

Calcidius, Comm. 14 (ed. Waszink, pp. 65-66).

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EXPOSITION, 324-334

their beginning from this: All their ornament, namely of the heavens – such as stars – as much as [the ornament] of the earth or water, as are the plants or animals. 331 Which he made, that is on the six previous days. But how then did he complete his work and not on the sixth day, if he then did nothing? Here we understand the seventh day [to be] all future ages of time, in which created species did not cease to multiply in a certain number of individuals from their existing nature, according to that truth: My Father works until now, and I also work, (John 5, 17) as if he were saying: “Just as he has not yet ceased to work, namely by daily multiplying what was made in the beginning, so also likewise I do not [cease] to cooperate as his coeternal wisdom, by whom he made all things.” 332 And he rested, namely by ceasing, as [the prophet] at once explains, from [work on] the species which he created, not from the number of things to be multiplied in them. In fact none of those species were afterwards to perish, so that the nature already prepared in itself would be insufficient to replenish it, as is also true of the multiplication of individuals of the species. For even if we suppose that the phoenix were a [single] species, or that some species of grasses or flowers sometimes die out, yet nature is already so prepared by the primordial causes that it has the capacity to restore them. 333 And so it is well said: What he had completed, namely in the species, not what he was to multiply in the number of individuals. For although the mule was not created among the species of animals, or the many worms afterward generated out of some rotten or decomposing thing, however in the same aforementioned species they had their seed-bed and a kind of force of their future creation. And granted that souls in fact are not propagated from souls by transmission, because in fact the species of the soul had already been created, their daily multiplication is not impeded [when] God is said to have rested from all, etc. 334 Certainly Ecclesiastes was looking to this diversity of species, not the multiplication of individuals, when he said What is it that was? The same thing that will be. Nothing is new under the sun, nor

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is anyone able to say: this is new. Again: I have learned that all the works that God has made endure forever. We cannot add or take away anything that God made, so that he is to be feared. What was made, the same endures. The things to come already have been; he restores that which has passed. (Eccle. 1, 9-10; 3, 14-15.) 335 He blessed and sanctified, that is, he preferred [it] to the other days and established [it] in celebration. 336 And he ceased. That it says he ceased, is an explanation of the fact that [the prophet] said he rested, lest perhaps we might think that he rested from his labor. 337 He created in the word, so that he might make in the work according to that text: He spoke, and they were made. And note that it is not said of the seventh day as it is said of the other days, “that the evening and morning were the seventh day.” For God is not recorded on [that day] as on the other days as having made something, but only as having rested, nor are the works of multiplication which would happen daily until the end of the world completed on this seventh day. 338 Because we have followed the foregoing [text] as well as we have been able according to the root of history and the truth of what was done, it is good for us also to examine it in the light of a moral and then a mystical interpretation. 339 An interpretation is called moral in so far as the things said are so applied to the edification of morals, that there are in us or have to be done by us good [things] which are necessary to salvation, as when we instruct our reader with our interpretation in regard to faith, hope, and charity or good works. 340 On the other hand an interpretation is called mystical when we teach that those [things] that were to be consummated from the time of grace through Christ were prefigured or those events in future history which were shown in advance.a

a Cf. Gregory the Great, Moralium in Iob, epist. missoria 3 (PL 75, 513BD).

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EXPOSITION, 334-345

Moral 341 That mixture of heaven and earth first created in matter and not yet brought to a fixed differentiation of parts is the human being consisting of a higher and a lower substance, that is, of the soul and the body; but as yet somehow shapeless and with morals unformed, with the flesh not yet subject to the spirit as it ought [to be], or rather ruling over the spirit and thus confusing and disturbing the natural order, until divine grace changes and forms this animal man into a spiritual one just as afterwards it brought order to that brute and confused mass of the elements. 342 It is on this mixture, which is again figuratively represented by the fluid element of water, that the Spirit broods, when divine goodness sets out to make a spiritual man from an as yet animal man; and thus somehow he warms that mixture in the manner of a nesting bird, so that he might somehow produce from it a chick, when he prepares to reform the still old human being into a new one. 343 This in fact he first achieves by inspiring the light of faith, afterward hope, then charity, finally by bringing him to perfection in the works of charity, so that he lives not only for himself but also for others, and is not merely good in himself, but also makes others good, as much by the example of [his] works or benefits bestowed as by the instruction of preaching. 344 And so the creation of light is the illumination of faith after the Holy Spirit, inspiring those whom he wills, begins the spiritual construction of the soul from this foundation, without which, as the apostle states, it is impossible to please God. (Hebr. 11, 6) Hence also the prophet rightly mentions that light was created immediately after the creation of heaven and earth. 345 But after faith follows hope, which now somehow lifts up the human being, who, drawn by various desires, had been sinking downward through concupiscence to earthly things, from the earthly to the heavenly ones, and in these his soul originally chasing after many [things] becomes firm and steady, and survives like an anchored ship all sorts of storms of adversity, and is strengthened by the desire for heavenly things to undergo or to undertake ­anything.

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This is rightly represented in that suspension of the upper waters completed on the second day, firmly established by the ­interposition of heaven above. 346 On the third day, with the waters receding or subsiding through certain channels in the earth, the earth was dried and became arid, because a soul inflamed by the fire of charity, when it subordinates the flesh to the spirit, somehow becomes arid, dried by this heat, without the flood or the desires of carnal appetites, so that now these have become desert places, through which the devil passes without finding a place of rest for his suggestions, because such a soul is not drawn to consent through desires. But so that such a soul may be further perfected through works, first the earth produces plants, afterward the stars placed in the ­firmament provide [their] light. 347 And so the earth made dry, as stated, produces plants, when any soul displays the charity which glows inwardly in the [outward] evidence of corporeal works. Were it to grow up into such perfection, that it could also edify and illuminate others by the word of preaching, there would be luminaries in heaven; that is, the words of one preaching in the Church, that were to give light to the lesser and as it were still earthly [souls], and this is let them illumine the earth. 348 Not only by day, but even by night, because preaching is needed by weak souls as much in prosperity as in adversity, lest by the one they become puffed up or by the other they become crushed. Indeed, to that kind of luminaries, edifying others not only by example but also by word, the apostle said: Among whom you will shine like lights, (Phil. 2, 15) and the Truth himself: You are the light of the world (Matt. 5, 14). 349 Therefore through the perfect man, building up others, sometimes with the light of works, at other times by the instruction of preaching, this world brings forth living things on every side, birds as well as land animals or reptiles, that is the triple order of believers, namely the celibate, the rulers, and the married. 350 Finally, that human being created outside of paradise is transferred into paradise, when he who in this life by the grace of God was fruitful with so much goodness, is transferred to the

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EXPOSITION, 345-354

heavenly fatherland from this [place of] exile for [his] merits, attaining first to the Sabbath, then to the octave.a

Allegory 351 That sextet of days by which the world was brought to perfection and also adorned portrays the six ages of the world. The first age of the world is in a sense its infancy, from Adam up to Noah; there is a second [age] up to Abraham, which is childhood; next a third up to David, like adolescence; afterward a fourth up to the Babylonian captivity, like youth, that is, the virile age; thence a fifth up to Christ, like old age; finally a sixth up to the end of time, like the age of senility or ­decrepitude. 352 And so that confused and as yet indistinct mass of elements rightly represents the first uncultivated and rough age of the world, without law and discipline, which is called the infancy of the world. And it is rightly called infancy, being as yet incapable of forming the words of God from the teaching of the law, just as infants are not yet able to speak. This age is erased by the flood, just as the memory of things done in infancy is erased by ­forgetfulness. 353 The second age is not erased by the flood, since anyone is able to remember those things which one did in childhood. In this age the Ark preserved the faithful in the flood, and like the firmament placed between the waters, guarded them unharmed from the waters raining down from above and the from the flood waters below. 354 In the third age the law was given, which held back the ancient people through fear of punishments from a flood of carnal desire, just as the earth was freed on the third day from the lower waters and germinating immediately it produced earthly offspring in grass and trees; because the ancient people, desiring earthly rather than heavenly [things], received the promise of the earthly, and adhering especially to the earthly with [their] desires, a

Cf. Augustine, Confessiones XIII, 12-17 (CCL 27, pp. 248-253).

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it was a kind of earthly generation, both depending entirely on the earth, and basing its life in earthly [things]. 355 On the fourth day the luminaries [that were] created signify the light of the prophets after the law, speaking much more openly concerning Christ than the law had done before, just as Daniel says: Many will pass away, and knowledge will be multiplied, (Dan. 12, 4) as much in men, for instance Samuel [and], Nathan, as in women, for instance Anna. 356 For the time of the prophets properly begins from the time of Samuel, as is diligently explained in the Acts of the Apostles where it is written: And all the prophets from Samuel and successively, etc. (Acts 3, 24), and Bede bears witness too when expounding that passage, saying: “Although the patriarchs and holy men of former times prophesied much concerning the sayings and deeds of Christ, nevertheless the time of the prophets properly [speaking], of those I say who clearly wrote about Christ and the mystery of the Church, took its beginning from Samuel, and endured up to the end of the Babylonian captivity.”a 357 The fifth age like the maturity of the world depicts the absence of former goods, since the patriarchs and the prophets had passed away, and the anointing had been transferred to a foreign race, nor now was sacrifice celebrated with the ritual of former times, which also the Babylonian captivity took away. 358 Indeed with the world now languishing in this old age, the saviour was sent who was to revive the old human being, was to preach baptism. In that baptism, indeed, human beings putting off the old and putting on the new, as scripture states: All who were baptized, you have put on Christ, (Gal. 3, 27) were like the living things brought forth from the waters. 359 In the sixth age the human being [who was] made new is placed in paradise, because only after the passion of the Lord is such access to heaven opened to human beings, where first a Sabbath is celebrated in the soul, afterward an octave in the body united with the soul. Hence also it was said to the robber: Today you will be with me in paradise, (Luke 23, 43) so that it might be shown that in this age alone heaven is opened to human beings. a

Cf. Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos I, xxiii (PL 34, 190-191).

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CONTINUATION

360 These Generations, as if saying: “I blessed.” he ceased, because those generations were the ones, not others [resulting] afterward from some new preparation of nature yet to come. 361 The generations of heaven and earth, that is the species of things made in matter from the elements first signified by heaven and earth, as we mentioned. 362 When they were created, that is when they, namely the generations, were first made, before this seventh day after which they daily multiply. 363 On the day, that is, in that time-period of the six preceding days. 364 On which the Lord made heaven and earth. In Hebrew the order is altered thus: “on which the Lord made earth and heaven,” although at the beginning it was the other way around, because he created heaven and earth. Hence a certain difference of meaning is implied by this inversion of order for understanding the aforesaid generations. 365 It understands living things by earth and heaven, [and] plants by sprouts and grasses. For living things because they receive life not from moisture, as plants do, but from breath, according to Gregory [the Great]’s distinction among three vital spirits, are signified by earth and heaven [in] this passage, seeing that in their body they consist of a corporeal and heavy substance, and in their soul they consist of a spiritual and light [substance].a Gregory the Great, Dialogi IV, 3 (ed. Vogüé, III, pp. 22-25); cf. Hom. In evangelia II, 29 (PL 76, 1214AB). a

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366 And because bodies are formed before spirits are infused, [the prophet] has rightly referred here to earth before heaven. Where he also appears to mention the stars, if he includes everything made from the elements, some kind of spirits also dwell in these, so that they can be numbered among the living things, just as the philosophers assert; and blessed Augustine professed himself to be so unsure [about it] that he said he did not know whether the sun and moon pertain to the society of the angels, as we also mentioned above. 367 The sprouts of the field, that is, as yet wild and not yet cultivated by human beings or planted as now, or with some kind of attention from a human custodian. 368 There arose on the earth, that is, [then] as now dispersed over the entire earth it produced fruitfulness, originating also from the moisture of the rain. 369 Of the region for which [the word] in Hebrew is field as above, as if he were saying, the [land was] as yet uncultivated and not enriched by propagation and a supply of rain as now. 370 Hence also it is added: For not, that is, rain was not yet made, from which then also as now this growth takes place throughout the whole world, with the human being then as now cultivating [it], since the human being who was to work the earth was not present then. 371 This he adds at once, saying, And there was no human being. He does not say simply there was no one, since [the human being] was also included above among the generations of heaven and earth and shown to have been made, but he was not present to work the earth, because he did not yet need to undertake the laborious [work of] cultivation, which he subsequently received as the penalty for sin and in which he now engages everywhere on earth. 372 But a spring. Lest perhaps someone were to ask whence, therefore, the plants received the moisture by which they were nourished or preserved when there was no rain, he answers that from the deep a thin stream of water, rising in the manner of a spring, irrigated those parts of the world in which plants were dispersed. 373 And note that while he is called

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CONTINUATION, 366-379

only God, but not “Lord” throughout the seven days above, here however, when the generations of heaven and earth are described as complete, he is called not only “God” but also “Lord,” and after that the word “Lord” frequently designates him. 374 Indeed the name Lord is not appropriate unless there were some among the creatures over which he might exercise dominion and rule, and not only some creatures but all together. Hence it seems fitting to apply such [a title] to him only after the completion of all. 375 He formed therefore. This has regard to what was set out previously concerning the creation of human beings on the sixth day, when it is said: And God created the human being, etc. There indeed it is set out in advance that the human being, male as well as female, was created, but the manner of creation was not expressed. 376 This [the prophet] here diligently discloses, namely by teaching that the body of the man was first formed from the slime of the earth, and then the soul was infused, the woman in fact was not created separately, but was taken from the man as the sequel teaches. 377 Continuation: I said that the human being was created, but I did not express the mode of creation; hence I shall do so now. And this is what he does now, saying: He formed the human being, that is, he composed the human body into that shape which we have now. 378 From the slime of the earth, that is, from earth [that was] moist and somehow compacted, not liquid, and so he infused the soul into a body already created. Hence [the prophet] clearly implies that the human soul is different from the other souls by the very manner of its creation. In fact in the creation of the other living things, it was said that earth or water produced them, souls as well as bodies. 379 Hence it is indicated that their souls are also [made] from the same elements, like some fineness or subtlety of theirs, on account of which subtlety, namely, those souls also are called spirit, just as the wind, too, is sometimes called spirit, by contrast with earth and water, which are grosser and more corpulent substances.

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380 [The prophet] carefully chooses his words when he says that the human being is “formed” from the earth, rather than “created.” For where something is made from matter with form super-added to it, it is properly said to be “formed.” Isidore Etymologies book 11, chapter 1: “The human being is so named, because he is made from humus, just as it also says in Genesis: And God created the human being from the slime of the earth. However, the whole man is not properly named from either substance, that is, from the association of soul and body, for ­properly [­speaking] human [is derived] from humus.” Also: “But the human being is twofold, interior and exterior; the interior human being is the soul, the exterior human being is the body.” Again: “The soul of the human being is not the human being, but the body, which is made from humus, that alone is the human being.”a 381 Bede On Genesis book 2 [states]: “And he called their names Adam, on the day on which they were created; Adam means human being so it can apply to either sex. Hence it is rightly said: He called the name of them Adam, that is, human being. Just as human being in Latin is from humus, so among the Hebrews Adam is named from earth. Hence [the name Adam] may also be interpreted earthy or red earth. Moreover, among the Greeks human being has another etymology; for he is called anthropos, from the [fact] that he ought to look above and to raise the eyes of his mind to observe celestial things.”b 382 He breathed the breath of life, that is, as if from himself, not from any primordial matter, he gave a soul to the body already formed, so that the soul should actually receive its being from God alone as its beginning, not from some other primordial cause. 383 The breath of life, he says, to distinguish [it] from a puff of wind which is also called breath but does not give life, just as the soul, too, is often called breath, according to that [passage in] Isaiah: I made every breath. (Isa. 57, 16) Hence also the soul is rightly compared to a puff [of air] or breath, a b

Isidore, Etymolog. XI, i, 4-6. Bede, In Genesim II, v, 2 (CCL 118A, pp. 92-93).

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CONTINUATION, 380-389

because it is especially [evident] whether it is in the body or not by exhalation or inhalation, since life cannot be maintained in living things without these. 384 Into his face. Breath, I say, was [blown] into his face, that is, [the face] of the human being, so that in fact only that soul, not [those] of the other living beings, should have consciousness or knowledge through reason. Face, in fact, signifies the knowledge by which everyone is recognized. 385 And it was done, that is, the human being was thus completed. Into a living soul, that is, through such a soul as lives forever, since it has no defect. 386 A paradise of pleasure, that is a delectable garden, so that the human being might notice how much he owed to God not only from the dignity of his creation but also in fact from the amenity and the delightfulness of the place selected from out of the whole world for him to be situated. Indeed, it is written concerning this place that “many would have it that the location of paradise is in the eastern part of the globe of the earth, although with a great distance intervening, whether of ocean or of lands, hidden away from all regions that the human race now inhabits. 387 Hence also the waters of the flood, which covered the entire surface of our globe most deeply, were not able to reach it.”a That appears especially to be the case from the fact that Enoch, transferred into paradise before the flood, could not have been drowned. 388 Jerome [states in his] Hebrew questions on Genesis: “A paradise from the beginning. Hence it was most clearly shown that before God created heaven and earth, he first founded paradise. And it reads in Hebrew: ‘but the Lord God planted a paradise in Eden from the beginning.’”b 389 Isidore [states in] book 14 chapter 3 of the Etymologies in regard to Asia, where paradise is located: “Paradise is a place established in eastern parts, the name of which translated from Greek into Latin is garden. Moreover it is called Eden in Hebrew, which in our language means delights. One joined to the other, this makes a b

Bede, In Genesim I, ii, 8 (CCL 118A, p. 46). Jerome, Hebraicae Quaestiones in Libro Geneseos II, 8 (CCL 72, p. 4).

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a garden of delights. 390 For it is planted with every kind of wood and fruit bearing trees, including even the tree of life. The air there is not cold, nor hot, but perpetually temperate. A fountain springing forth from the middle of it waters the whole grove, and divides into four rivers at the start of their course. After sin, access to this place was closed off. For it is surrounded on all sides by a fiery stockade, that is, encircled with a wall of fire, so that its flames reach almost up to heaven. 391 Moreover cherubim, that is a garrison of angels, is stationed [there] to keep off evil spirits above the fiery stockade, so that the flames drive men away and angels [banish] evil angels, lest access to paradise be opened to any carnal or spiritual transgressor.”a 392 When in fact [the prophet] says, from the beginning, that is, of the planting, he implies that this came before other plantings, so that it might have something more delightful about it than other places, when the human being was introduced into it, so much the more lovingly was it prepared in advance, the more time was spent on its preparation. 393 He placed the human being whom he had formed, that is, the man whose formation was already described. Actually, the man was made outside of paradise from the slime of the earth, then transferred into paradise. But the woman, who was created in paradise from the man, nevertheless got both the man and herself thrown out of paradise, just as the sequel clearly relates. Hence it is evidently implied that salvation pertains not so much to place as to morals, since the woman was created in a better place but behaved worse when tempted. 394 And it produced. The prophet gives the reason why he said of pleasure: beautiful to see and sweet to eat, so that he might enjoy seeing it and be refreshed by the sweetness of its taste. 395 And the tree of life. When he said every tree, why is it that he says even in regard to those two trees, as if the same were not true of all trees, that they were delectable to sight and to taste, especially since it is written in what follows concerning a

Isidore, Etymolog. XIV, iii, 2-4.

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CONTINUATION, 389-400

the tree upon which the transgression was made, that the woman saw that it was a good tree and delectable? 396 But perhaps it is also said not because of the difference in the trees, but because of the difference in the place where he established and brought together these two trees, that is, in the middle of paradise, not on the circumference like the others. For when he had said that the earth in paradise should bring forth the other trees as well as these, he did not make any distinction as to how they were to be placed, or in what relationship they were to stand. Which he now does, when he describes these in the middle, the others around the circumference. 397 The tree of life names the one which was created as if for a medicine and granted to the human beings for the preservation of life and integrity of the body without the defects of old age. Hence also in what follows it was written about them after sin and expulsion from paradise: lest perhaps they take from the tree of life and live forever. And again: He stationed cherubim before the gates of paradise, to guard the way of the tree of life. 398 For they had the other trees for daily food to support life and refresh the body, not as health-giving medicine. Indeed, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is [so] named, not from what it received in its creation, but from what followed for those first parents as a result of what they did by transgressing. For, by this they learned from actual experience, what a difference there was between the good of the delectable life that they had before, and the evil of the penalty which they incurred, like the difference between rest and hard work. 399 And the tree of knowledge, in the middle of paradise together with the tree of life, so that when the human being saw that access was granted to the latter tree, which was better and more necessary to him, he would be especially restrained from trespassing on the other, if not through love of God, at least so as to retain so great a benefit constituted in the tree of life. But what kind of tree it was on which they trespassed, there is no definite scriptural authority. 400 But it seems to some to be the fig, particularly since these [first] parents are said afterward to have made themselves aprons of

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fig leaves. Hence also some wish to interpret what the Lord answered when Nathanael asked whence he knew him, saying: I saw you when you were under the fig tree, (John 1, 48) as if the Lord were saying: You did not first come to my attention now, whom I knew by foreknowledge from the beginning as existing in the first parents through [their] seed. Likewise also the apostle says Levi was in the loins of Abraham (Cf. Hebr. 7, 5). 401 But the Hebrews assert that this tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the vine, and that it was set next to the tree of life in the middle of paradise in the same way that we now often see a vine supported by an elm, and clinging to it as if in one body. Hence they even call the vine the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that the wine produced from its fruit taken moderately or immoderately, gives the human being knowledge of good or evil, that is it makes him sense what is good or bad, when it either sharpens his mind or confuses it. 402 Hence also they think of the grape as its fruit, in which the fathers of old were deceived, according to those words of the prophet: Our fathers have eaten sour grapes, that is, the fruit by which we incur the sourness of penalty. At once establishing this, he says: And the children’s teeth are set on edge (Jer. 31, 29; Ez. 18, 2), that is, the penalty endured, transmitted to posterity. The fact that after eating of this tree they at once felt the promptings of lust would seem consistent with that opinion. 403 Indeed, it is well known that this fruit or the wine pressed from it is warm in nature, and that it is highly conducive to lechery, according to that saying of the apostle: Do not be drunk with wine, in which there is lustfulness. (Eph. 5, 18) Insofar as there resulted from it that movement of lustfulness in those first human beings, because of which, feeling ashamed, they concealed their genitalia, that tree seems fittingly to have been called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 404 Finally, the taste of this tree, in which Adam by trespassing, condemned to punishment his descendants as well as himself, his posterity afterward so abhorred or determined to avoid that before the flood no one is believed to have touched wine, as if mindful of the penalty which he had incurred from

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CONTINUATION, 400-412

contact with the forbidden fruit. After the flood, Noah, who planted a vineyard as if he had forgotten the aforementioned trespass, is described as drunk with wine and at once his disgrace became evident when he uncovered his genitalia. 405 So also it happened with the first parents, who after the offending taste of the forbidden tree, are reported to have been naked and soon to have been ashamed of their nakedness and at once to have hastened to cover their private parts, just as also in the story of Noah two of his sons took care to do, while the third was laughing at his father (Cf. Gen. 9, 20-24). 406 And a river. Also as a part of the description of the amenity of the place, the pleasure of a river as well as trees would delight the inhabitants. 407 From the place of pleasure, that is, from that same paradise, not flowing in from outside, but rising from within paradise itself, so that it is shown to contain within itself all that is necessary, not receiving [anything] from elsewhere. 408 To irrigate, and for conferring lasting freshness on it, so that no rain would be necessary there. 409 Thence, namely from the place where it bubbled up flowing forth from the earth, or from that same paradise when it flowed outward, although in paradise itself it was like one river. 410 Into four fountainheads, that is, this was a separation into the sources of four rivers. For where this separation begins, thence the rivers have to be distinguished, because before this separation all that water, running through one channel, should be called one river or one fountainhead and source of those ­rivers. 411 The name of the one, namely of the source of those four. For just as any river of the four has to be distinguished from its source so also it derives its name from its source, because up to the beginning of its separation the entire river is named this or that until it enters the sea. 412 That is it. The relative pronoun that, since it is in the masculine gender grammatically, has to be related to the name of Phison, not to the former one, namely the one source.

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413 All the land. It says for the greater part, since no river can go all the way around any land, since it cannot flow out through that region by which it flowed in. 414 Evilat, that is, India, which has this name because after the flood it was occupied by Evila son of Iectan, son of Heber, hence the Hebrews. Pliny states that the regions of India are richer in veins of gold than any other lands.a 415 Bdellium is an aromatic tree, black in color; its sap clear, bitter to taste, of a good odor, but more fragrant than wine when poured out. 416 Onyx, a precious stone so named because it has in itself a mixture of color similar to human fingernails. For the Greeks call nails “onichen.” The older translation has carbuncle and green stone for these. The carbuncle is a stone the color of fire, which lights up the darkness of the night. Prassine [signifies] a greenish aspect. Hence also it derives its name from “leek”, which is called “prasson” by the Greeks. 417 When [the prophet] continues with the praise of each one of the rivers flowing from paradise it seems to redound to the praise of this place, as if [the river] draws from its birthplace [the fact] that it is abundant in these goods. And note that to the greater fame of these rivers he distinguishes them not only by their names but also by the geographical locations to which they penetrate, so that they are further commended by their usefulness where [they are] especially known. 418 When he refers to these rivers as the one or second or third or fourth, this is not according to the order of their positions, but rather it appears according to the order of the narrative, lest perhaps someone might say that they have this order in their aforesaid separation, so that one is separated into its riverbed before another from that source whence they were born. 419 That is the Euphrates. He does not describe this one like the others in terms of the places through which it flows since, as they say, it was closer and better known to the Jewish people. These rivers are best known to the people through [whose lands] a

Pliny, Naturalis historia VI, xxi, 80 (ed. Mayhoff, p. 464).

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CONTINUATION, 413-425

they flowed. In the case of two of them, their names changed long ago. Gion is, in fact, the one that is now called the Nile. But the one that was called Phison they now name the Ganges. Two, indeed, the Tigris and the Euphrates, retain their ancient names. 420 But one might wonder why it is said in regard to these rivers, that the sources of some are known, others simply unknown, and therefore it cannot be taken literally that they branch out from a single source, when it is rather to be believed, seeing that the location in paradise, which is divided into four bodies of water, as the most faithful scripture testifies, is remote from human knowledge. 421 But those rivers whose sources are said to be known, are cited as being somewhere under the earth, and after traversing vast regions bursting forth at other places, where they are known as if in their sources. For who does not know that it is usual for some channels of water to do this? 422 In this way they offer an explanation for what Boethius says in these words concerning the Tigris and Euphrates in book 5 of the Consolation: Among the crags of the Achaemenian cliffs, where turned in flight The fighting Parthian’s arrows pierce his pursuers’ breast. The Tigris and Euphrates rise from one spring.a

423 In the Etymologies, book 13, Isidore [states]: “It is called Gion because by the spread of its flooding it irrigates the land of Egypt. For Ge in Greek means earth in Latin. Among the Egyptians this is called Nile on account of the slime it carries which produces fertile earth; hence also it is called Nilus, as if Nianomon. For formerly, the Nile was called Melo in Latin. 424 Ganges, which the Scriptures name Phison, proceeds towards the regions of India. But it is called Phison, which means crowd, because it is filled with ten great rivers joining it and becoming one. But it is called Ganges from king Gangara of India. But it is related of the Nile that it sometimes rises and spills out over the lands of the east. 425 The Tigris, river of Mesopotamia, proceeding opposite Assyria, after many windings flows into the Dead Sea. But it is called by this name a

Boethius, Philosophiae consol. V, met. I, 1-3 (CCL 94, p. 90).

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on account of the speed of its current, similar to the tiger, an extremely dangerous beast. 426 Euphrates, a river of Mesopotamia most abundantly filled with gems, flows through the middle of Babylon. Here it receives its name from fruits or from abundance; for in Hebrew Euphrata means fertility. And it even irrigates Mesopotamia in certain locations in the same way that the Nile does Alexandria. But Sallust, a most reliable authority, asserts that the Tigris and Euphrates rise from one source in Armenia, then, flowing in different directions, are widely separated with a distance of many miles between them. Nevertheless, the land which is surrounded by them, is called Mesopotamia. Hence Jerome noted that it was to be understood differently in regard to the rivers of Paradise.”a 427 Bede On the Nature of Things: “Egypt uses the Nile river instead of rain, because the heat of the sun repels mist and clouds. For in the month of May, when the estuaries, through which it flows into the sea, are blocked up by a gusting wind, waves cast up sand dunes, little by little swelling and impelled backward, it irrigates the plains of Egypt. But when the wind ceases, and the sand dunes rupture, it returns within its banks.”b 428 Then he took, evidently because the setting of paradise was so delectable and pleasant. The man was rightly made outside paradise and thence transferred into paradise, so that he might desire the delightfulness of paradise so much the more, and exert himself so much the more to keep it the more he saw that it surpassed that outlying land where he was created. 429 So that he should cultivate [it], that is, to cultivate paradise itself and by obedient service maintain it for himself, lest of course he were to lose it [by being] expelled through transgression. 430 But [the prophet] at once introduces the topic of the precept that he was required to obey there, when he says: And he commanded him. He does not say “them” in the plural, but him in the singular, referring to the man alone whom he a b

Isidore, Etymolog. XIII, xxi, 7-10. Bede, De natura rerum XLIII (CCL 123A, p. 227).

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CONTINUATION, 425-433

said was transferred into paradise, although the woman later says that God had given this command to her as well as the man, saying: Of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden God commanded us that we should not eat. 431 Hence it is to be understood that when the Lord forbade that tree to the man in this place, he spoke to the human species jointly in him, not directing that utterance to that particular person, but generally to human nature, that is, absolutely forbidding that any one of human nature presume [to do] it. So also when a priest blessing any water present to hand says: “Who walked over you on foot, who turned you into wine,”a what he says is addressed to the element of water, not to the water actually present. 432 But how is it true that God placed the human being in paradise in order that he cultivate it and maintain it for himself when the consequence was in no wise that the man maintained it for himself? In fact there are two ways in which we say that something is done in such a way that as a result something else should happen or be done: namely, sometimes by intention, sometimes by consequent effect. For example, if I were to say about someone that he went out to war to kill, or went out to be killed, just as the former is understood to be done by him with the intention that he might kill another, so the latter is done in such a way that it might happen as a consequence that another killed him. 433 But in fact when we say that God placed the human being in paradise to maintain it for himself, it does not mean that since he had this intention he did not know what would happen in the future nor the way in which it would subsequently happen. So therefore that he might cultivate, etc. is to be understood as if to say that by placing him there, he appointed him the cultivator and custodian of that place, namely by commanding him that he should cultivate and maintain it for himself. Indeed, he would have cultivated it with enjoyment by doing something like pruning the trees or vegetation, rather than with the hardship of fatigue. a

Missale Rom., Benedictio fontis, Sabbato sancto.

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434 And it can be asked, if this precept was audible, in what language would it have been uttered which Adam could have understood, when he is afterward described as having invented language, when he gave names to the animals that were led to him? But we know that many things in Scripture are often related outside of the order of deeds done, by digression or anticipation. 435 For see above on the sixth day with the woman as well as the man already created, but an account of the manner of their ­creation is not yet [given], that creation is later repeated and ­narrated as carefully and completely, as if it happened only then and not before. 436 And so just as for things made earlier, there is later a repetition because the way in which they were made had been left out, so also it is not out of the question that a number of things are related here by anticipation out of sequence, so that Adam may have devised words for speaking before he heard the precept of the Lord in the very words which he had himself devised, so that he might understand them and speaking himself might later say in these words: This now, bone of my bones, etc. and in these words the serpent also might speak with the woman, or the woman with the serpent; and again the Lord himself in rebuke of sin with Adam and Eve, or they with the Lord. 437 From which it follows that those who think those first parents lived for some years in paradise before sin, although they did not conceive any children there, have no little reason in support. 438 For a short space of time, were we to omit all the rest, could not suffice for the invention of one language, and not only the invention of the names which alone is mentioned here, is contained in these utterances which are said to be spoken in paradise; rather on the contrary not one of the names of things living on earth or of the birds, which Adam is said to have assigned, is contained in these speeches. 439 But apart from the reasons which we mentioned, the authority of Malachi the prophet appears to teach that they might have lived innocently in paradise for several years, a position with which blessed Augustine strongly agrees. 440 Hence the same teacher, bringing to bear the words of that prophet,

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CONTINUATION, 434-446

states in book 20 of The City of God, chapter 27: “we should explain the meaning of the text: As in the days of old and as in former times (Mal. 3, 4). Perhaps it refers to that time, when the first human beings were in paradise. 441 For at that time, being pure and undamaged by any stain and weakness of sin, they offered themselves to God as the purest sacrifice. For the rest of the time 99 they were sent away for the sin they had committed, and human nature, except for one mediator and after the washing of regeneration was condemned in them – even children while still small, as it is written: no one is clean of sin, not even an infant who has lived only one day on earth (Job 14, 4). 442 But if it is answered that even these can rightly be said to offer sacrifice in justice, who offer them in faith – for the just man lives by faith (Rom. 1, 17) – although he would deceive himself if he said that he does not have sin, and therefore let him not say that he lives by faith – surely no one will say this time of faith is the same as at the end of time, when they will be purified by the fire of the last judgment, who offer in justice? 443 And with that, since we must believe that after such cleansing the just will have no sin, then certainly only that time, to the extent that freedom from sin is attainable, is to be compared to the time when the first human beings lived in completely innocent happiness in paradise before their transgression. This, therefore, is the right interpretation of what is signified by the words: As in the days of old and as in former times. 444 For he says through Isaiah, after the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, among the other things which are described there about the blessedness of the saints, through allegories and riddles (our concern to avoid lengthy explanations prevents us from suitably explaining these): As in the day(s) of the tree of life will be the days of my people (Is. 65, 22). 445 But who has stud100 ied the sacred text and does not know where God planted the tree of life, from the food of which those human beings were severed, when their own iniquity cast them out of paradise, [and] the same tree was encircled and guarded by terrible flames? 446 What if someone were to contend that those days of the tree of life which the prophet Isaiah mentioned are the days of the

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Church at present, and Christ himself is the tree of life prophetically speaking, because he himself is the wisdom of God, of which Solomon said: It is a tree of life to all who embrace it (Prov. 3, 18), and that the first human beings did not spend any years in paradise, since they were cast out so swiftly that they conceived no children there, and therefore that time cannot be understood to refer to the text: as in the days of old and as in former years? I would rather not discuss all of that question at length, so that at least some of the truth about these matters may be plainly established. 447 In fact I see another meaning, which prevents us from believing that the pristine days and former years of carnal sacrifices had been promised to us through the prophet as a great gift. For the sacrificial victims that were required as offerings by the old law from among each kind of cattle, which were immaculate and without any flaw whatever, signified holy persons, of which only one, Christ, is found entirely without any sin.”a 448 But so that we may strive to satisfy those also who would have it that the first parents spent no more than a day in paradise, perhaps the Lord used there not the spoken word but some signs, whose interpretation he could easily inspire in the human being. For it is believed that the serpent spoke to the woman not in words but by hissing, and that the first parents were characterized by such sagacity that they were able to recognize their disposition from the hiss of the snake or the cries of birds. 449 If we assume this, we do not have to say that Adam invented language in paradise, but that the prophet related by anticipation what happened outside paradise. 450 Of every. Only what follows: But from the tree of knowledge, etc., appears to pertain to the command. From every tree appears to be a concession rather than a command, for they would not be culpable, if they did not eat from all the other trees, when they were in paradise. Hence also the woman, responding to the serpent (Gen. 3, 3), stated that she received a command only about the tree that is in the middle of the garden. a

Augustine, De civitate Dei XX, 26 (CCL 48, pp. 749-50).

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CONTINUATION, 446-457

451 In whatever. He exhorts him to obedience with the threat of punishment, saying that on whatever day he touches that forbidden tree, after the death of his soul, that is, after sinning he would suffer death of his body and as it were, suffer a double death, or ‘dying you will die and so shall your posterity.’ 452 But perhaps you ask why he forbade something which he knew they would transgress, something in which there would have been no sin had there not been a command? Who will not see that he was almost seeking an opportunity for them to do something for which as transgressors they could be punished or proven guilty, deserve to be condemned? But I say: what if before the human being sinned he sought an opportunity to make him better after sin, by seeking him through himself and redeeming him by his own death, and by showing us so great a love, that as he himself says: Greater love has no man (John 15, 13)? 453 For in fact from this supreme love shown to us, we love God so much the more, the more we have greater cause to love him. By loving him more after sin, we are made better, and by his mercy our wickedness is turned into the highest good for ourselves. 454 In fact one woman is now worth more to God, and appears more pleasing to him through merit than might many thousands of men, if they had persevered forever without sin. For if there were no fight [against] adversity, where would be the crown of victory? 455 This is what he who blesses the Paschal candle is carefully thinking as he exclaims over the mercy of God: “O wondrous condescension of your affection for us, O immeasurable love of charity: so that you might redeem a slave you sent a son. O certainly necessary sin of Adam which was erased by the death of Christ, O happy fault, that merited such and so great a redeemer.”a 456 But if you were also to object that no human being would have sinned if those first human beings had not sinned or if they had received no command to obey, no reason or authority can support you. For who does not know that from just parents very bad [children] are born, or the opposite? 457 What would have made their descendants better equipped to resist sin than those a

Exsultet, Missale Rom., Benedictio cerei, Sabbato sancto.

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whose particular or special maker was God himself? Finally who does not know that we are able to recognize by the natural law of reason without having received any precept that in which we can offend God or sin? 458 For Cain, and all those who existed before the law, were not ignorant [as to] what would please or displease God, when avoiding the latter they sought the former, or doing the contrary incurred guilt. Hence it is by no means to be ­conceded that they [would have] remained immune to sin if they had received no command to obey, when even without a ­command they could sin against conscience. 459 You may also say that so minor and reparable a sin as the tasting of that fruit, ought not be punished with so great a penalty, engulfing all later children, when greater sins are daily committed and require minimal satisfaction. 460 To which I reply that in the first sin even though [it was] relatively slight, the human being needed to experience how much graver faults displease God which he does not punish with corporeal and transitory penalties, but with perpetual and very severe ones as well, not with those very light [ones] which, as blessed Augustine states, unbaptized infants endure.a 461 And he said. As if he were saying: “he said not only what has gone before, but also what follows,” although he said the former differently by speaking through an angel, here by deciding within himself. 462 For the man to be alone: that is, for one man to remain alone without the company of a woman. 463 Let us make, he speaks in the plural at the creation of the woman just as [he spoke] above at the creation of both the man and the woman, when he says: Let us make the human being in our image and likeness. 464 For him, namely for the man [who was] already created. Ahelper, for that [task] especially which God was previously shown saying to them: Be fruitful and multiply. 465 Like unto himself, that is, of the same species as the man, since the woman also, as has been said, is called “human.” a

Augustine, Enchiridion XCIII (CCL 46, p. 99).

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CONTINUATION, 457-471

466 Therefore when they were formed. That therefore is so to be read that when all the living things of the earth had been formed, etc., therefore, namely because they had already been formed, God brought them to Adam. And when all the fowl – add had been formed – not, however, from the earth, but, as was said above, from the waters. 467 He brought them. If animals one by one or birds two by two or seven by seven went into the Ark, it is no wonder that paradise could hold one single animal from each species. 468 To Adam. In this place the Hebrew name Adam first occurs for us, which is the common name as much of the man as of the woman, with the same meaning among the Hebrews as human, the name the species [has] among the Latins. Hence also in what follows it is said: This is the book of the ­generations of Adam. On the day on which God created the human being, in the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created he them, and blessed them: And he called their name Adam on the day on which they were created. (Gen. 5, 1-2) 469 So although it is said, He brought them to Adam, it is uncertain whether they were led to the man only or to both the man and the woman, who were described by the prophet as having already been created on the sixth day, although at that point he did not describe the manner of their creation as he did later. 470 Josephus [states] in book 1 of the Antiquities: “Adam in the Hebrew tongue signifies ruddy, because he was made from moistened red earth. For such is virgin soil and true.”a 471 Bede, on Genesis book 2: “And he called their names Adam, on the day on which they were made. Adam is translated as human being so that it can be applied to either sex. Hence it is rightly said: He called their name Adam, that is, human being. Just as [the name] human being is derived in Latin from humus, so among the Hebrews [the name] Adam [is derived] a

Josephus, Antiq. I, i (ed. Dindorfius I, p. 5).

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from earth. Hence also it can be interpreted earthy or red earth.”a 472 Again: “There is another mystery in the name of Adam. For it has four letters, from which the four regions of the globe take their beginning when they are named in Greek, so that the name of the protoplast mystically contains in itself all the regions of the world, through whose progeny all the world was to be filled.”b 473 So that he might see, first no doubt by inspecting their natures, afterward devising words for defining them. We do not believe that the part of days as we reckon them from dawn until afternoon, when they were rebuked by the Lord and afterward evicted, would have sufficed to bring this to completion. 474 But why is it that only the beasts of the earth and the birds are said to have been led to Adam so that he might give them names, and not the fish also or the trees or the other non-sentient things to which he is said to have given [names]? 475 I do not believe it is because he gave names only to these, but that it has especially to do with commending divine power that they were gathered and led to him in this manner; and perhaps because only these living things, and not fishes, were to be to be dedicated in sacrifice to the Lord, they were worthy to be led up so as to receive names from Adam so that they might act out a type of Christ. 476 For every. Construe thus: Every name which Adam called, that is, assigned, the living things, that was its name, in the Hebrew language that is, which is said to be the mother and origin of the others. 477 And he named. As they were led up to be named by him. All living things. Since it was said above only in regard to the beasts of the earth and the birds that they were led up so that they might be named, how is it said here of Adam that he named all living things, and how is there soon added, and the universe, etc., although these are not among the living things? But perhaps so that it should not be generally understood that it says all living things, as if by way of definition there is added and the universe, as if to say, “all this, to be a b

Bede, In Genesim II, v, 2 (CCL 118A, p. 92). Bede, In Genesim II, v, 2 (CCL 118A, p. 93).

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CONTINUATION, 471-485

sure, which follows.” 478 In Hebrew for what is called living things, there is “quadrupeds,” that is domestic animals. And where there is added beasts of the earth, or fields, this designates the forest animals, as they are wild. 479 Adam truly. After [the prophet] spoke of the imposition of names, he returned to what he had interrupted, the creation of the woman from where it was written above: And God said: it is not good for the man to be alone, let us make for him, etc. We can be surprised as to why the prophet put off ­telling this until here, in order to insert [the story] of the imposition of names. But perhaps he decided to insert this digression before he described the creation of the woman so as to suggest that names were assigned by the man alone, and not by the woman. 480 And note that when he says: Adam did not find a helper, etc., he makes this name Adam, which is common to both man and woman, as it were proper to the man who was already created, from that connected [phrase]: Ahelper like unto himself, a helper, as we said, for the propagation of the human species. 481 Like unto himself. Namely of the same species, as we mentioned above. Although he is speaking of the woman, nevertheless he does not say “helper-ess” but helper, since in fact we often use the masculine gender without distinction for either sex, like “horse” when we say, “all things that whinny are horses.” 482 And so he plunged him [into a deep sleep]. I do not believe this was the normal and natural sleep of humankind, but the kind which renders a man unconscious, so that he might incur no sensation of pain from the removal of the rib, just as medical doctors usually do to those on whom they wish to operate. 483 One of the ribs. He decided to form the woman from the side of the man, not from a higher or a lower part, so that before sin he saw her as a kind of partner and companion, not as a superior or a subordinate. For after sin she was handed over into the power and dominion of the man. 484 Flesh for it, namely the rib, not restoring another rib for him. This is not to be believed of other men, so that the number of each man’s ribs, as some surmise, is not equal to those of women. 485 And so he decided to work in that first man in such

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107

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AN EXPOSITION ON THE SIX-DAY WORK

109

a way namely that he did not restore the rib but substituted flesh for the rib, so that he might especially learn through this, when he felt the place that lacked the rib, and felt somewhat weakened in strength, so that a woman might be made from him, how important to God the woman also is whom he decided to create at some detriment or loss to the man or to the strength of his bone structure. Hence also the man would love her the more, because he recognized that she was not created through herself but out of him. 486 And he brought her. When it is said, he brought her, it appears that the Lord created the woman in some place apart, whence he afterward brought her. Or it is said he brought her when he handed her over into marriage and conjoined her unto a wife. 487 And Adam said. This is the first prophecy by which Adam, fully awake, recognized what was made from his rib while he was asleep. Whether he said it by an audible word, perhaps with words of the Hebrew language that had already been devised, or he conceived it by an intelligible mental word, is uncertain. 488 This, now, is bone, as if [to say] already existing in herself and separate from my person. 489 Of my flesh, although nothing was said above about flesh of Adam being extracted to form the woman. Hence we are to understand that flesh adhered to the rib which would turn into the flesh of the woman. 490 If perhaps one were to ask whether only what was taken from Adam turned into the body of the woman, or whether something was super-added from the elements to make the whole mass of [her] body complete, just as we believe in regard to the growth of children, the former opinion certainly and only the last part of question is supported by reason. 491 And notice that Adam recognized that only bodily things were derived from his body, clearly indicating that the soul cannot be transposed, nor can a soul ever be propagated from a soul, but souls are individually infused into our created bodies, just as was stated above in regard to Adam. Hence, only bodies are able to be generated by derivation from other bodies, since some part of the latter is a kind of seed-bed for the former. But souls, since they are entirely

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CONTINUATION, 485-497

simple things, have no parts as regards the extent of their essence; nothing can be derived from them by way of a share in the creation of some other [soul]. 492 Nevertheless, some parental souls appear to be causes of the souls of children. For just as the bodies of those who are conceived derive [their] shape or features from the bodies of their parents, so also the souls of the former [appear to derive from] from the souls of the latter. For just as the souls of parents are rational or brutish, so also the souls of children are naturally similar, and delight in the same nourishment, and often human children also imitate their parents in conduct, just as they do in bodily features. 493 Hence, as has been said, some parental souls appear to be the natural causes and some kind of source for the souls of [their] children just as certain qualities also, which are known to pertain to the incorporeal nature, [appear to be the causes] of other qualities which they bring in, and are in a position somehow to generate naturally just as the weakness of one [brings on] the weakness of another, or paleness in an offspring as if born from itself, not by derivation, however, but by some natural force and faculty for producing it. 494 Wo-man, because [she is taken] from man, so that she should be joined to the man by name as well as by nature, her name as well as her being coming from the man, both names showing how much those who are joined together should love each other. 495 In Hebrew the man is called ‘is’, hence the woman is called ‘issa’. The Latin translation does imitate the Hebrew derivation as best it can, with virago, from vir, instead of femina, the usual word [for woman], even though in current usage not every woman would be called virago, but only those who are virile, that is, strong-minded. 496 For which reason. So far, these words could be as much those of Adam himself as of the prophet writing. Continuation: because she who was to become the wife of Adam was so conjoined to him as much by the substance assumed from him as by the derivation of [her] name, the man shall leave, etc. 497 That is, whoever are to be born from these first parents, as a result of what the Lord did in them, ought to cling to their

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wives with such affectionate love, that they place the care of their [wives] before the care of their own parents, providing in all things with a greater solicitude for the former than for the latter. 498 And they shall be two. That is, they shall be so equal between themselves that in the use of the flesh granted against fornication, neither takes precedence over the other, but in this the woman may have as much power over the body of the man as the man has over the body of the woman. 499 And note that it does not say, ‘he leaves,’ but he shall leave. For Adam, who until then was alone out of all men, did not have a father except God, and a mother except the earth, neither of which were to be left on account of his wife. And the two shall be in one flesh, is as if to say: “they shall be so united and equal in their use of carnal pleasure,” that in asking for what is due they shall be entirely equal in power. 500 But since the apostle states that in these words of Adam the great sacrament of Christ and the Church is prefigured (Cf. Eph. 5, 32), it should be asked whether when Adam uttered these words he understood this sacrament, namely that the Son of God was to be incarnate and was to be joined to the Church as if to his spouse? This not credible, since this incarnation appears to have happened for no other reason than for the reparation of humankind after the fall, or for our redemption. It is certainly not to be believed that Adam would have foreseen that fall. But if Adam did not understand the sacrament [expressed] in his words, nevertheless the Holy Spirit who spoke through him was by no means unaware of it. 501 But they were. It clearly shows that the condition of humankind was more worthy and better before sin than after, when they could incur no passion of shame in regard to their nudity or in regard to the sight of their genitalia, whence now after sin we are especially embarrassed, although we have the greatest pleasure in the use of such members, so that the more pleasurable is this voluptuousness of the flesh, the more intense is the feeling of embarrassment. 502 Clearly now after sin there is embarrassment, since in fact no one now is stimulated to intercourse except after the manner of beasts, that is, solely for the sake of carnal pleasure and not with any regard to God.

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INDICES

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

Genesis 2, 4-5 2, 7 2, 19 3, 3 5, 1-2 22, 12 46, 27

110, 2 135, 5 135, 6 148, 4-5

47 36 36 112 115 45 72

86 41, 42 58 51

Proverbs 3, 18

112

Ecclesiastes 1, 9-10 3, 14-15

92 92

Exodus 15, 10

40

Deuteronomy 32, 11

40

Isaiah 57, 16 65, 22

100 111

I Kings 16, 14-15

40

Jeremiah 31, 29

104

14, 4

111

Baruch 3, 32-35

Psalms 8, 8 11, 3 32, 7 32, 9 91, 5 103, 2-3 103, 25

34 41 52 41 80 52 70

Ezechiel 1, 22 10, 1 18, 2

50 50 104

Daniel 12, 4

96

Job



43

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

Malachai 3, 4

111

I Corinthians 11, 7

77

Matthew 5, 14

94

Galatians 3, 27

96

Ephesians 5, 18 5, 32 6, 12

104 120 66

Philippians 2, 15

94

Colossians 1, 16

66

Hebrews 11, 6

93

Luke 23, 43

96

John 1, 3-4 1, 9 1, 48 5, 17 15, 13 18, 36

42, 46 43 104 91 113 42

Acts of the Apostles 3, 24 7, 14-15 Romans 1, 17 1, 20

96 72 111 33, 44, 54



INDEX OF NON-BIBLICAL SOURCES

Abelard Collationes (ed. Marenbon and Orlandi) II, 199-222 Hymnarius (ed. Szövérffy; PL 178) 2, 3-4 Theologia christiana (ed. Buytaert, CCM 12) II, 126 Theologia “Summi boni” (ed. Buytaert and Mews, CCM 13) III, 2

89 33 33 34

Ambrose Hexaemeron (CSEL 32; PL 14) V, 1, 4

70

Aristotle De interpretatione (tr. Boethius; ed Minio-Paluello) 9

70

Augustine Confessiones (CCL 27) XIII, 12-17 De civitate Dei (CCL 47-48) VIII, 14 VIII, 16 IX, 1 XVI, 6 XX, 26 De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim (CSEL 28; PL 34) I, 6 II, 5



70 64 64 65 42 112 44 51

INDEX OF NON-BIBLICAL SOURCES

De Genesi contra Manichaeos (PL 34) I, xxiii, 35-39 Retractationum libri II (CCL 57) I, 3 1, xi, 4 2, 24 Bede De natura rerum (CCL 123A; PL 90) VII VIII XLIII In Genesim (CCL 118A) II, v, 2 Benedict Regula (ed. De Vogüé) 39

96 42 66 32

51 51 108 100, 106

71

Boethius De differetiis topicis (PL 64) II In categorias Aristotelis (PL 64) II In librum Aristotelis de interpretatio (PL 64) Secunda editio III, 9 Philosophiae consolatio (CCL 94) III, met. IX, 10 V, met. I, 1-3 Gregory the Great Dialogi (ed. De Vogüé) IV, 3 Homiliae in evangilia (PL 76) II, 29 Moralia in Iob (PL 75) Ep. missoria

35 32 67 50 107

97 97 92

Isidore Etymologiae (PL 83) XI, i, 4-6 XIII, xii, 7-10 XIV, iii, 2-4

100 108 102



INDEX OF NON-BIBLICAL SOURCES

Jerome Adversus Iovinianum (PL 23) I, 16 Epistula LXXIX ad Oceanum (CSEL 54) 6 Hebraeicae quaestiones in libro geneseos (CCL 72) II, 8 In Ezechielem (CCL 75) Prol. Josephus Antiquitates Iudaicae (ed. Dindorfius) I, 1 Missale Romanum Benedictio fontis, Sabbato sancto Exsultet, Benedictio cerei, Sabbato sancto Origen In Canticum canticorum (PG 13) Praef.

83 48, 50 101 32

50, 115 109 113

31

Plato Timaeus (Ed. Wazink) 29D-30A 30BC 41B 50E Calcidius: Commentarius in Timaeum (ed. Wazink) 14 123 134 Pliny Naturalis historia (ed. Mayhoff ) VI, xxi, 80

86 65 56 37 90 37 65

106



INDEX OF NAMES

Isidore 100, 102, 108

Abelard 9-19, 33, 34, 89 Ambrose 70 Andreas Sunonis (suneson) 19 Aristotle 32, 70 Augustine 12, 13, 14, 15, 32, 42, 44, 51, 64, 65, 66, 86, 95, 96

Jerome 12, 32, 48, 50, 83, 101 John Cassian 16 John of Salisbury 9 Josephus 50, 115 Luscombe, d. 18, 56n.

Bede 51, 100, 101, 108, 116 Benedict 15, 71 Benton, J. 9 Bernard of Clairvaux 10 Boethius 32, 35, 50, 52, 67, 107 Buytaert, E. 11, 18, 19

Mews, C. J. 10 Monfrin, J. 9 Muckle, J. T. 9, 12 Origen 12, 31

Calcidius 13, 37, 65, 90 Clarenbald of Arras 13 Cousin, V. 19

Plato 13, 14, 37, 56, 65, 86 Pliny 106

D’alverny, M.-T. 14, 69n. De rijk, L. M. 10 Dronke, P. 9

Szövérffy, J. 12, 33n.

Romig, M. F. 19

Thierry of Chartres 13 Thomas, R. 9

Gregory the Great 16, 92, 97

Van den Eynde, d. 11

Heloise 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 32 Hugh of st. Victor 16, 17

William of Conches 13

128

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Air 13, 14, 35, 39, 48, 49, 52 Allegory 95 Angels 35, 38, 44, 50, 65, 66, 87, 98, 102, 114 Animals 62, 65, 66, 70, 71, 75, 76, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 94, 110 Astrologers, astrology 14, 66, 67-69

Euphrates 106, 107, 108 Evening 46, 54, 56, 89 Fig 17, 103, 104 Fire 13, 14, 35, 39, 48, 49, 52, 102 Firmament 13, 48, 50, 51, 52, 56, 58, 62, 72, 73 Fish 15, 70, 71, 73, 76, 79, 81, 116 Football 13, 49 Fruit 37, 60, 61, 62, 114

Baptism 40, 41, 57, 73-75 Beasts 55, 76, 79, 84, 116 Birds 15, 35, 49, 55, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 79, 81, 84, 94, 110, 112, 116

Ganges 107 God (vid. Creator) Gods 64, 65, 66, 68, 84 Grass 59, 60, 91, 97

Chaos 38 Clouds 49, 52 Creator 12, 33, 38, 51, 54, 55, 56, 73, 76, 85, 86, 98, 99 Crocodile 70

Heaven 34, 35, 41, 42, 47, 50-52, 53, 56, 58, 61, 64, 81, 91, 97 Hebrew, Hebrews 17, 31, 39, 40, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 101, 104, 106, Hippopotamus 70 Hyle 36

Darkness 43, 45, 47 Demons 64, 65, 66, 68, 84 Dragons 49 Earth 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 41, 47, 50, 51, 52, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 70, 72, 75,

India 106, 107

129

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Jews 17, 74, 77

Shadows 38, 43 Soul 64, 65, 72, 94, 99, 100, 101, 118, 119 Spirits 14, 87, 97, 98, 99 Stars 14, 15, 51, 62-64, 67, 69, 90, 91, 98 Sun 51, 62, 63, 65, 97

Man 15, 53, 77-79, 81, 82, 99, 102, 108, 109, 111, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120 Moral, morals 12, 32, 33, 92, 93-95, 102 Morning 46, 54, 56 Mule 91

Tigris 107, 108 Trees 16, 17, 60, 61, 62, 84, 85, 89, 102-105, 111-113 Trinity 15, 44, 77, 78, 82

Night 46, 62 Nile 70, 107, 108 Paradise 34, 60, 61, 79, 80, 89, 96, 101, 102, 108, 111 Phlebotomy 16, 52 Phoenix 91

Vine 17, 104 Water, waters 13-15, 35, 38, 39, 40, 45, 48, 49-59, 70-76, 94, 97, 101 Woman 15, 16, 77, 78, 79, 82, 99, 102, 109, 110, 113-115, 117-120

Rain 50, 51, 52, 97 Reptiles 70, 94 Sea 52, 58, 74, 79, 81 Serpent, snake 70, 76, 110, 112

130