Hexameron 5.77–6.20

And since we are speaking of winged creatures, we do not think it out of place to include what history reports of the Indian worm, or the account of those who were able to see it. This horned worm is said first to be changed into the form of a cabbage stalk and to take on the same nature, and from there by a certain progression to become a bombylius. Nor does it keep that form and shape, but seems to take on wings with loose and broader leaves. From these leaves the Seres comb those soft fleeces which the rich have claimed for their own uses. So the Lord says: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold, those who wear soft garments are in the houses of kings.” The chameleon too is said to feign different appearances with varied colour. Hares certainly, as we have easily learned close at hand, grow white in winter and in summer return to their own colour; there is no doubt of it.

I have touched on these things so that these examples too may move us toward faith in the change which will be in the resurrection, but in such a way that we speak of that change which the apostle clearly expressed, saying: “We shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed.” And further on he says: “And the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” For many, interpreting a kind of change and forms which they did not receive, have by no means avoided the unfitting usurpation of undue presumption.

The phoenix too, a bird, is said to live in the regions of Arabia and to draw out its long life up to five hundred years. When it notices that the end of its life is near, it makes itself a coffin of frankincense and myrrh and other fragrances, into which, when the time of its life is filled up, it enters and dies. From the moisture of its flesh a worm arises and gradually grows up, and in the course of the appointed time puts on the oarage of wings and is restored to the appearance and form of the former bird. Let this bird, then, teach us by its example to believe in the resurrection, which, without an example and without the perception of reason, itself renews for itself the tokens of resurrection. And certainly birds exist for man's sake, not man for the bird's. Let it be an example to us, then, that the author and creator of birds does not suffer his saints to perish for ever, since he who did not suffer the one bird to perish willed it to be propagated rising again from its own seed. Who, then, announces to it the day of its death, so that it makes itself a coffin and fills it with good fragrances and enters it and dies there, where the stench of death can be done away with by pleasing fragrances?

You too, O man, make yourself a coffin: stripping off the old man with his deeds, put on the new. Your coffin, your sheath, is Christ, who protects you and hides you in the evil day. Do you want to know that a coffin is a means of protection? “In my quiver,” he says, “I have protected him.” Your coffin, then, is faith; fill it with the good fragrances of your virtues, that is, of chastity, mercy, and justice, and enter wholly into the very inner chambers of faith, fragrant with the sweet odour of excellent deeds. Let the end of this life find you clothed in that faith, so that your bones may grow fat and be like a well-watered garden, whose green things quickly spring up. Know, then, the day of your death, as Paul knew it, who says: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” So he entered his coffin like a good phoenix, which he filled with the good odour of martyrdom.

I will ask you, and you answer me: how are vultures accustomed to announce the death of men by certain signs, by what token have they been taught and instructed that, when hostile lines draw up a tearful war against each other, these birds follow in a great column and by this signify that a multitude of men will fall in war as prey for the vultures? They seem to gather this by a kind of reasoning from the appearance of human battle array.

Divine grace has reached even to the locust, which, when it has occupied the breadth of each region in a dense column, first takes holiday in a harmless dwelling and does not feed on the fruits by an inhospitable invasion unless it has received the signal of the divine command. For, as we read in Exodus, it too carries out the vengeance of heavenly offence, as the minister of a holy punishment.

The bird seleucis also devours it (for by this Greek name the bird is called), given as a remedy for the evils which the locust usually brings. To it the creator gave an insatiable nature of devouring, so that by its insatiable feeding it can put out the plague we mentioned above.

But what is this? While we draw out our discourse, see, already the night birds are flying around you, and by the very fact that they warn us to end the discourse, they put forward that mention of them too must be taken up. The various birds seek their nests again, which evening forces to yield to night, and hide themselves in their hiding places, escorting the setting of the day with tuneful song, so that it may not go away without the thanks with which all creation praises its creator.

Night too has its songs, with which it usually soothes the watches of men; the owl too has its songs. And what shall I say of the nightingale, an ever-wakeful guardian, which, while she cherishes her eggs in a kind of fold and lap of her body, comforts the sleepless labour of the long night with the sweetness of her song, so that it seems to me her chief aim is that she can quicken the eggs she cherishes no less by sweet melodies than by the warmth of her body? Imitating her, that poor but modest woman, drawing the millstone … with her arm so that her little ones may not lack the nourishment of bread, soothes the sad feeling of poverty with a night song, and though she cannot imitate the nightingale's sweetness, she imitates her in the diligence of devotion.

The owl itself, with the large grey pupils of its eyes, does not feel the gloomy horror of the night's darkness, and the darker the night has been, the more, against the habit of other birds, it makes its flights unhindered; but when the day has risen and the splendour of the sun is poured around, its sight is dulled, as if it wandered in some darkness. By this sign of itself it declares that there are some who, though they have eyes to see, are not accustomed to see, and perform the function of their sight only in the darkness. I speak of the eyes of the heart, which the wise of this world have and do not see; they discern nothing in the light, they walk in darkness, while they search out the dark things of demons and believe they see the heights of heaven, describing the world with a rod, gathering the measure of the air itself; but, straying from the faith, they are wrapped in the darkness of perpetual blindness, having close at hand the day of Christ and the light of the church and seeing nothing; they open their mouths as if knowing everything, sharp for vain things, dull for eternal ones, and in the winding of long disputation betray the blindness of their own knowledge. So, while they long to flit about in subtle speeches, like owls in the light they have vanished.

The bat, an ignoble animal, took its name from evening (uesper). It is a bird and at the same time four-footed, and it uses teeth, which you would not usually find in other birds. Like four-footed animals it bears not eggs but living young. It flies in the air in the manner of birds, but usually spreads itself out in the evening twilight. It flies not with any oarage of feathers but supported by its membrane, by which, suspended, it is carried about and kept up as by the flight of feathers. This cheap animal has this too, that they cling to one another and hang from some place in the form of a cluster of grapes, and if the last one lets go, they all fall apart. This happens by a kind of gift of love, which is hard to find among the men of this world.

The cock's crow too is sweet in the night, not only sweet but useful: like a good housemate, it wakes the sleeper, warns the anxious, and comforts the traveller, testifying to the passing of the night with its tuneful signal. When it sings, the robber leaves his ambush; at it the morning star itself is roused and rises and lights up the sky; when it sings, the frightened sailor lays aside his sorrow, and every tempest and storm, often stirred up by the evening winds, grows gentle; when it sings, the devout heart leaps up to pray and also renews the duty of reading; when it sings, finally, the very rock of the church washed away his guilt, which he had incurred by denying before the cock crowed. At its song hope returns to all, the sick man's distress is relieved, the pain of wounds is lessened, the burning of fevers is soothed, faith returns to the fallen, Jesus looks on those who waver and corrects those who stray. Indeed he looked on Peter, and at once the error departed, the denial was driven out, confession followed. That this did not happen by chance but by the Lord's decree the reading teaches. For so it is written, that Jesus said to Simon: “The cock shall not crow before you deny me three times.” Peter, brave by day, is troubled at night, and before the cock crows he falls, and falls a third time, so that you may know that he did not slip by a thoughtless outpouring of speech but was troubled also by a wavering of mind. Yet the same Peter, after the cock crowed, becomes stronger, and worthy for Christ to look upon; for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous. He recognized that the remedy had come, after which he could no longer err, and, changed from error to virtue, he wept most bitterly, so as to wash away his error with his tears.

Look on us too, Lord Jesus, so that we too may recognize our own errors, may wash away our guilt with holy weeping, may merit the forgiveness of sins. That is why I deliberately prolonged the discourse, so that the cock might sing for us too and come to the help of those speaking, so that if any fault had crept into a word, you, O Christ, might forgive the guilt. Give me, I pray, the tears of Peter; I do not want the joy of the sinner. The Hebrews wept and were freed through the sea as the waves parted. Pharaoh rejoiced that he held the Hebrews shut in, and, plunged in the sea, he perished with his people. Judas too exulted in the reward of his betrayal, but strangled himself with the noose of his own reward. Peter wept for his error and merited to wipe out the errors of others.

But now it is time for us to end and close our discourse; it is time when it is better to be silent or to weep; it is time when the forgiveness of sins is celebrated. May that mystic cock also sing for us in the sacred rites, since Peter's cock has sung in our discourse. May Peter, who wept well for himself, weep for us, and turn the gracious face of Christ toward us. May the passion of the Lord Jesus hasten, which daily forgives our sins and works the gift of remission.

The good Lord does not want to send people away fasting, lest anyone faint on the way. If he says, “I have compassion on this crowd, because for three days they have stayed with me and have nothing to eat, and I do not want to send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way,” he for whose word Mary, intent on it, refused the preparation of the meal, how much more ought we to consider that there are not many who live on the word of God, and so refreshment of the body is desired! Certainly this “day after” of ours is more laborious than those three days.

And so, we who have played with the birds and sung with the cock, let us now sing the mysteries of the Lord, and let the eagles, renewed by the washing away of sins, gather to the body of Jesus; for now that great sea monster has given back to us the true Jonah. And let us rejoice that evening has come for us, and let the sixth day be morning.

The Sixth Day. This is the sixth day, on which the origin of the world's creation is concluded, and so too the end of our discourse is being prepared, which we took up with more difficulty than the beginnings of things. And though it has gone on for five days now with no small labour on our part, yet on this day it grows with a greater interest of cares, because in it lies both the risk of the previous days and the sum of the whole contest. For if in contests of lyre-playing or singing, and in the contests of athletes, many and very great as the games may be, the earlier days pass without any loss of the crown, while the last day holds the lot of the crown, in which there is the risk of decision, the disgrace of yielding, and the prize of victory, how much more in this great contest of wisdom, so great, not of a few but of all, on which we are dwelling: when today a kind of crown of the contest comes forward for us, a greater anxiety presses on us, lest we both pour away the labour of the previous days and incur the shame of the present one. For the condition of speaking is not the same as that of singing and wrestling: in those a slip is a game, in this a fall is death. There, if you err, it is the spectators' disgust; here the loss is the hearers' coldness.

Stand by me, then, as judges of the crown, and enter with me into this great and wonderful theatre of the whole visible creation. For if one who welcomes the arrival of guests, while he leads them around the whole circuit of a city showing all its finer works, confers no small favour, how much more ought you to receive without disdain that I lead you, as by a hand of speech, through this common homeland, and show the forms and kinds of each thing, wishing to gather from all of them how much richer a grace the creator of all has bestowed on you than on all. For you, then, this crown is set out; you I wish to crown today with your own judgment. For we do not ask, like athletes, for withering garlands, but for the green verdict of your holiness, by which you may judge that divine providence penetrates through all creatures, but that, while you share with the rest the partnership of bodily frailty, you surpass the rest in the virtue of the soul, which alone has nothing in common with the rest.

Now come, let us speak of the natures of beasts and the generation of man. For I have heard for some time now some whispering and saying: “How long are we to learn about others and not know ourselves, how long are we taught knowledge of the other animals and are ignorant of ourselves? Let him say what will profit me, so that I may know myself.” And the complaint is just; but the order must be kept which … has woven together, and at the same time because we cannot know ourselves more fully unless we first know what the nature of all animals is.

“Let the earth,” he says, “bring forth the living soul after its kind, four-footed creatures and serpents and beasts of the earth and cattle after their kind, and all creeping things after their kind. And God made the beasts of the earth and all the cattle after their kind and all the creeping things of the earth after their kind. And God saw that they were good, and God said: Let us make man.” In this place I am aware that some have referred the kinds of beasts and cattle and creeping things of the earth to this, so as to refer them to the savagery of crimes, the folly of sins, the wickedness of thoughts; but I take the simple natures of each kind.

Nor do I fear that anyone will think I should be compared to the presumption of a poor host, who out of zeal for kindness invites many and sets before them nothing but cheap and common foods, so that by the thin furnishing of a poor man's table he incurs more blame from the guests' disgust than he gains thanks from the offer of hospitality; for his friends did not reject Elisha as a bad host when he set wild herbs before them. Like empty stories is that refined and elaborate lavish banquet in which the appearance of a pheasant or turtledove is served and inside a chicken is eaten, or a chicken is brought in stuffed with oysters or mussels, or a drink is drunk that changes into other flavours by different colour and smell; sea things mixed with land things, land things with sea things alike. This is to find fault with the creator, who gave us everything for food, because he did not mix them. But these things seem sweet at first and afterward become bitter. For the more abundant luxury has been, the more ruinous is intemperance. Elisha, however, served bitter things, but afterward they became sweet. Indeed those who before thought there was death in that food afterward obtained in it the grace of sweetness and life.

Nor again do I fear that I may seem to have invited more than I can feed, and that the loaves of my words may fail you, because Elisha too, though rightly inimitable for us yet to be imitated in faith, did not consider how many loaves he had, but wished to divide what he had among all and judged that it would suffice for all. So he ordered his servant to divide ten barley loaves among the people. And the servant said: “What shall I give this before a hundred men?” And he answered: “Give, and let them eat, for thus says the Lord: They shall eat and leave over.” Your faith, then, will make the banquet of a poor tongue abound. Nor do I fear that fasts may make you hungrier, so that you go back less filled and hungry and empty, because it is written: “The Lord upholds the righteous, and in days of famine they shall be satisfied.” It is much finer not to blush at barley loaves and to set out what you have than to refuse. Elisha, who left nothing for himself, gave abundantly to the peoples. Elisha, then, did not blush to set out barley loaves; we blush to understand simply … things which are declared in simple words and by their own names. We read “heaven”: let us take it as heaven; we read “earth”: let us understand the fruitful earth.

Why should I ask what the measure of its circumference is, which the geometers have estimated at one hundred and eighty thousand stades? I gladly confess that I do not know what I do not know, or rather that I know what it would profit nothing to know. It is better to know the kinds of lands than their extents; how could we grasp these, with the sea poured round, barbarian regions lying between, and ground flooded and impassable with marshes? Scripture shows that this is impossible for men, as God says: “Who has measured the water in his hand and heaven with his span and the whole earth in his closed hand? Who has set the mountains in a scale and the rocks in a balance and the woods on a yoke?” And further on: “He who holds the circle of the earth and those who dwell in it like locusts, who set up heaven like a vault.” Who, then, dares to claim for himself knowledge equal to God's, so that a man presumes that what God has marked by his own oracle as belonging to his majesty can be available to himself for knowledge?

Certainly Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; but because he received the Spirit of God, as a minister of God he put that empty and usurping teaching of philosophy after the reason of truth, and described for me the things he judged suited to our hope: that God made the earth, that the earth, at the command of almighty God and by the operation of the Lord Jesus, brought forth shrubs from the lands and every living soul after its kind. But he did not think he should say how much of the space of the air the shadow of the earth occupies when the sun withdraws from us and takes the day away, lighting the lower parts of the axis, and how the orb of the moon, falling into the region of this world, makes eclipses; because he passed over the things that concern us not at all, as being of no profit. For he saw in the Holy Spirit that we should not follow those vanities of an already withering wisdom, which occupy our mind with inexplicable things and waste effort, but should rather describe the things that look to progress in virtue.

Let us hold fast, then, to the prophetic words, and not despise as cheap the addresses of the Holy Spirit. “Let the earth,” he says, “bring forth the living soul of cattle and beasts and creeping things.” Why do we argue about other things, where the nature of earthly creatures is plainly formed? For the word of God runs in the depths of the world through every creature, so that suddenly … all the kinds of living creatures which God established are produced, and for the future, by the prescribed law, all succeed after their kind and likeness, so that the lion begets the lion, the tiger the tiger, the ox the ox, the swan the swan, the eagle the eagle. The command once given became ingrained in nature for ever, and so the earth does not cease to offer the obedience of its service, so that the species of the first establishment are renewed by succession into new ages.

But do you wish to divert what was born to the use of man? Do not deny to each kind the truth of its own nature, and you will much more adapt them to human advantage: first, because nature laid all kinds of cattle, beasts, and fish …, so that some creep on their belly, and those supported by feet you see rather sunk by the four-footed gait of their body and as if fastened to the earth than free; since, not having the ability to raise themselves, they seek their food from the earth and follow only the pleasures of the belly toward which they are bent. Beware, O man, of being bent like cattle; beware of bending yourself toward your belly not so much in body as in desire. Look at the form of your body and take up the appearance fitting to a lofty vigour; let only the animals feed bent down. Why do you … in eating, you whom nature did not lay down? Why do you delight in what is an injury to nature? Why, intent on food night and day, do you graze on earthly things like cattle? Why, given to bodily allurements, do you dishonour yourself while you serve the belly and its passions? Why do you take away from yourself the understanding which the creator gave you? Why do you compare yourself to beasts of burden, from whom God wished to separate you, saying: “Do not become like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding”? Or if the gluttony of the horse delights you as intemperate, and neighing after women is a pleasure, let it delight you to have your jaws bound with bit and bridle. If cruelty feeds you (this is the madness of wild beasts, which are slaughtered for their savagery), see that the savagery of your cruelty is not turned against you too.

The lazy ass, exposed to prey and slower in sense, what else does it teach but that we ought to be livelier, not grow sluggish in sloth of body and soul, and take refuge in faith, which is accustomed to lighten heavy burdens?

The fraudulent fox, plunging into pits and hiding places, is it not a sign that it is a useless animal, worthy of hatred for its plunder, of contempt for its weakness, and so careless of its own safety while it lays snares for others?

… the partridge, which steals the eggs of another, that is, of another partridge, and cherishes them with its own body, but cannot have the fruit of its fraud, because when it has hatched its chicks it loses them; for when they hear the voice of the one that laid the eggs, they leave this one and betake themselves by a natural gift and love to the one they recognize as their true mother by the laying of the eggs, showing that this one performed the office of nurse, that one of parent. So it pours out its labours in vain and is punished by the price of its fraud. So Jeremiah too says: “The partridge cried out and gathered what it did not bring forth,” that is, it gathered eggs and cried out as if exulting in the effect of its fraud, but it wastes its effort, because with labour spent it hatches for another those whom it … with the warmth of long diligence. The devil is its imitator, who strives to snatch the offspring of the eternal creator, and if he has been able to gather some foolish ones lacking the vigour of their own sense, cherishing them with bodily allurements, as soon as the voice of Christ has been poured into the little ones, they depart and betake themselves to that mother who embraces her chicks with motherly love like a bird. For the devil gathered the Gentiles, whom he had not created; but when … sent forth his voice in his Gospel, they betook themselves above all to him who received them under the shadow of his wings and gave them to mother church to be nourished.

The lion, proud in the ferocity of its nature, does not know how to mix with other kinds of wild beasts, but like a king disdains the company of the many. It even disdains yesterday's food and turns away from the very remains of its meal. What wild beast would dare join itself to it, whose voice naturally holds such terror that many animals, which could escape its attack by speed, fail at the sound of its roar as if struck by a kind of force?

For of the leopard's appearance Scripture too has not been silent, that by the variety of its colour it betrays the varied motions of its soul. For Jeremiah says: “If the Ethiopian will change his skin and the leopard its spots.” This is taken not only of its appearance but also of the changeableness of its fury, in that the Jewish people, through the dark, restless, and changeable shifts of a faithless mind and spirit, can no longer keep the grace of a good purpose nor return to any amendment and correction, having once put on the savagery of a wild beast.

Yet there is also in the nature of four-footed animals something which the prophetic word urges us to imitate, by whose example we may beware of sloth and not be turned aside from the pursuit of virtue by smallness or weakness of body, nor called back from the greatness of that purpose. For the ant is small, yet it dares things greater than its strength, and is not forced to work by servitude, but by a spontaneous purpose of foresight prepares for itself the future supply of food. Scripture warns you to imitate its industry, saying: “Go to the ant, O sluggard, and imitate its ways, and be wiser than it.” For it possesses no cultivated land; having no one to force it and not acting under a master, how it prepares food, storing up for itself a harvest from your labours! And while you are often in need, it does not lack. No barns are closed to it, no guards impenetrable, no heaps inviolable. The guard watches and does not dare prevent the thefts; the owner sees his losses and does not punish them. The plunder is carried across the fields in a black column, the paths seethe with the company of travellers, and the great grains that cannot be gripped by the narrow mouth are pushed along with the shoulders. The lord of the harvest watches these things and blushes to deny so sparing gains to such dutiful industry.

And what shall I say of dogs, in whom it is implanted by a kind of nature to return gratitude and to keep anxious watch for their masters' safety? So Scripture cries to those unmindful of kindness, slothful and idle: “Dumb dogs, not knowing how to bark.” They are dogs, then, who know how to bark for their masters, know how to defend their own houses. So you too, learn to use your voice for Christ when grievous wolves attack Christ's fold; learn to hold the word in your mouth, lest, like a dumb dog, you seem by a silence of betrayal to have deserted the guard of faith entrusted to you. Such a dog is the travelling companion of an angel, which Raphael in the prophetic book thought should not idly be joined to himself and the son of Tobit, when he set out to drive away Asmodeus and to confirm a marriage; for by the grace of a mindful … the demon is driven out, the marriage is made firm. So by the appearance of a dumb beast the holy angel Raphael trained the affection of the young Tobias, whom he had taken under his protection, to return gratitude. For who would not blush not to return gratitude to those who deserve well of him, when he sees that even beasts flee the crime of ingratitude? They keep the memory of nourishment given; do you not keep the memory of salvation received?

The bear, though lying in wait, as Scripture says (for it is a beast full of fraud), is yet said to bring forth shapeless offspring from its womb, but to shape its young with its tongue and form them into its own appearance and likeness. Do you not marvel at such dutiful offices of the mouth in a wild beast, whose devotion expresses nature? The bear, then, shapes its offspring to its own likeness; can you not train your children to be like you?

What of the fact that it has not neglected the skill of healing either? For when it has been gravely injured and wounded, it knows how to heal itself with a herb whose name is phlomos, as the Greeks call it, laying its sores on it so that they are cured by its mere touch. The serpent too drives away blindness it has contracted by feeding on fennel. So when it feels its eyes clouding over, it seeks the known remedy and is not cheated of the effect. The tortoise, having fed on the entrails of a serpent, when it notices the poison creeping through it, practises the medicine of its own safety with marjoram, and though it is sunk in marshy wallows, it still knows how to cure itself with its own antidote, and by a sure help of health proves that it too knows the powers of herbs. You may also see the fox healing itself with the tear of the pine and prolonging by such a remedy the space of imminent death.

The Lord himself cries in the book of Jeremiah: “The turtledove and the swallow, the sparrows of the field, have kept the times of their coming, but my people has not known the judgments of the Lord.” The swallow knows when it should come and when it should go back; the dutiful bird knows how to announce the sign of spring by the testimony of its arrival. The ant too knows how to search out times of fair weather; for when it notices that its fruits, soaked by rain, are getting damp, having examined the air more carefully as to when it can keep a lasting mildness, it opens its heaps and carries them out of its holes on its shoulders, so that its own grain may be dried by the continuing sun. Indeed, on none of those days does rain burst from the clouds, until the ant has called its store back into its hole. Oxen, when rain is threatening, know to keep to their stalls. The same, when by natural sense they have gathered a change in the weather, look out and stretch their necks beyond the stalls, all with one appearance, to show they want to go out. The sheep, insatiable for food at the coming of winter, snatches grass insatiably, because it foresees that it will be lacking in the harshness of winter, so as to stuff itself with grass fodder before all grass fails under the scorching frost. This land urchin, which is commonly called the hedgehog, if it senses any snare, closes itself in its spines and gathers itself into its own weapons, so that whoever thinks to touch it is wounded. And the same urchin, foreseeing the future, provides itself two breathing holes, so that when it knows the north wind is going to blow, it blocks the northern one, and when it knows the clouds of the air are being wiped away by the south wind, it betakes itself to the northern one, so as to avoid the blasts that meet it head on and would harm it.