Homilies on the Hexaemeron 8.2–8.8

"Let the earth bring forth a living soul." Why does the earth bring forth a living soul? So that you may learn the difference between the soul of a beast and the soul of a man. A little later you will learn how the soul of man was constituted; but now hear about the soul of the irrational animals. Since, according to what is written, "the soul of every animal is its blood," and blood when congealed naturally changes into flesh, and flesh when it decays is dissolved into earth, the soul of beasts is fittingly something earthy. "Let the earth, then, bring forth a living soul." See the sequence from soul to blood, from blood to flesh, from flesh to earth; and resolving it again, go back through the same steps from earth to flesh, from flesh to blood, from blood to soul, and you will find that the soul of beasts is earth. Do not think it older than the subsistence of their body, nor that it survives after the dissolution of the flesh. Flee the nonsense of the pompous philosophers, who are not ashamed to make their own souls and those of dogs of the same kind as one another, who say that they themselves were once women, and bushes, and fish of the sea. Whether they were ever fish I would not say; but that while they were writing these things they were more irrational than fish, I would maintain with all vigor. "Let the earth bring forth a living soul." Why, as my discourse was running along all at once, I fell silent for no short time, many perhaps wonder; but the more diligent of my hearers are not ignorant of the reason for my speechlessness. For they are the ones who, by looking at one another and nodding, turned me toward themselves and brought me to remember what had been passed over. For a whole kind of creation, and not the least, escaped us, and very nearly went away, leaving the discourse altogether unexamined. For: "Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls according to their kind, and birds flying over the earth along the firmament of heaven." We spoke about the swimming creatures in the evening, as much as the time allowed; today we passed on to the examination of the land animals. The winged kind in between escaped us. So, like forgetful travelers who, when they have left behind something important, turn back the same way even if they have gone far along the road, paying the toil of the journey as a fitting penalty for their carelessness, so we too, it seems, must walk the same road again. For what was passed over is not contemptible; it seems to be the third part of the creation of animals, if there are three kinds of animals: the land kind, the winged, and the water kind. "Let the waters bring forth," he says, "creeping things of living souls according to their kind, and birds flying over the earth along the firmament of heaven according to their kind." Why did he give birds too their origin from the waters? Because there is, as it were, a kinship between flying things and swimming things. For as fishes cut through the water, going forward by the movement of their fins and steering both their turns and their straight rushes by the shifting of their tail, so with birds too one may see them swimming through the air with their wings in the same way. So, since swimming is one property of both, a single kinship was given them by their origin from the waters. Except that no bird is without feet, because all of them have their living from the earth, and all necessarily need the service of their feet. To birds of prey the points of their talons are given for hunting; to the rest the necessary service of the feet has been granted both for providing food and for the rest of their way of life. A few birds have weak feet, fit neither for walking nor for hunting, such as the swallows, which can neither walk nor hunt, and the so-called drepanides, whose food has been arranged from the things carried about in the air. For the swallow, flying close to the ground takes the place of the service of feet.

There are, moreover, countless differences of kinds among the birds too; if one goes through them in the same way in which we partly touched on the examination of the fishes, he will find a single name for the winged creatures, but countless differences among them, in sizes, shapes, and colors, in ways of life, actions, and habits: an untold variation from one another. Some have even tried to coin names, so that by a kind of brand of unusual and strange names the peculiar character of each kind might be recognized. Some they named "split-winged," like eagles; others "skin-winged," like bats; others "feather-winged," like wasps; others "sheath-winged," like beetles and all those that are born in cases and coverings and are freed for flight when their sheath bursts around them. But for us common usage, and the distinctions Scripture makes between clean and unclean, are enough to mark the peculiarity of the kinds. The carnivorous kind is one, with a structure suited to its manner of life: points of talons, a hooked beak, a swift wing, so that the prey can be easily seized and, torn apart, become food for its captor. The structure of the seed-eaters is different, and different again that of those that feed on whatever they come across. And among these there are very many differences. For some of them are gregarious, apart from the birds of prey; none of these is sociable, except for pairing in couples. Countless others have chosen the flocking life, like doves, cranes, starlings, and jackdaws. Again, among these some are without a leader and as it were self-governing, while others accept being ranged under a leader, as cranes do. There is also another difference among them, by which some are resident and native, while others naturally depart very far away and mostly emigrate as winter approaches. Many birds, when reared, become tame and domestic, except the weak ones, which through excessive timidity and cowardice do not endure the constant handling of the hand. Some birds live alongside men, accepting the same dwellings as we do; others live in mountains and love solitude. The greatest difference is also the peculiarity of each one's voice. Some birds are chattering and talkative, others silent. Some are songful and many-voiced, others altogether unmusical and without a share of song. Some are imitative, having the ability to imitate either from nature or acquired by training; others utter a single, unchanging voice. The cock is proud; the peacock loves beauty; doves and domestic fowls are lustful, mating at every season. The partridge is deceitful and jealous, wickedly helping hunters to catch their prey.

Countless, as we said, are the differences in actions and ways of life. Some irrational creatures are even social, if it is the mark of a commonwealth that the activity of the individuals converges on one common end, as one may see in the bees. For their dwelling is common, their flight is common, and the work of all is one; and, greatest of all, they set about their work under a king and a kind of commander, not consenting to go to the meadows until they see the king leading off the flight. And their king is not elected (for often the lack of judgment of a people has put the worst man into office), nor does he hold his authority by lot (for the irrational chances of the lot often carry power to the very last of all), nor does he sit on the throne by hereditary succession (for these too mostly become uneducated and ignorant of all virtue through luxury and flattery); but he holds the first place over all by nature, excelling in size and shape and in the gentleness of his character. For the king has a sting, but he does not use it for defense. These are certain unwritten laws of nature: that those who ascend to the greatest powers should be slow to punish. But the bees that do not follow the king's example soon repent of their thoughtlessness, because they die upon striking with the sting. Let Christians hear this, who have the command to render to no one evil for evil, but to overcome evil with good. Imitate the special way of the bee, which builds its combs harming no one and spoiling no one else's fruit. It gathers the wax openly from the flowers; and the honey, the moisture sown like dew in the flowers, it draws up with its mouth and puts into the hollows of the combs. That is why at first it is liquid; then, matured by time, it returns to its proper consistency and sweetness. It has received fair and fitting praise from the Proverbs, being called wise and a worker: so diligently gathering its food (whose labors, it says, kings and commoners take for their health), and so wisely and artfully contriving the storehouses for the honey (for, stretching the wax into a thin membrane, it builds the hollows close together and contiguous with one another), that the closeness with which the tiniest parts are bound to one another becomes a support for the whole. For each cell holds on to the next, at once separated from it and joined to it by a thin partition. Then these tubes are built upon one another in two and three stories. For it took care not to make a single hollow running all the way through, lest the liquid by its weight should fall out. Learn how the discoveries of geometry are side-works of the most wise bee. For all the cells of the combs are hexagonal and equal-sided, not set directly on top of one another, lest the bottoms, resting on empty spaces, should give way; but the angles of the hexagons below are the base and support of those above, so as to hold up the weights above them securely and keep the liquid in each hollow separately.

How could I go through for you precisely all the peculiarities in the lives of birds? How the cranes take the night watches in turn: some sleep, while others, going round in a circle, provide them with complete safety in their sleep; then, when the time of the watch is completed, the one that cried out turns to sleep, and the one that takes over the duty repays in its turn the safety it enjoyed. You will see this good order in their flight too. Now one, now another takes the lead, and, after guiding the flight for a set time, goes round to the rear and hands over the leadership of the journey to the one behind it. And the conduct of the storks is not far from rational intelligence: so all at the same season they arrive in these regions, so all depart at one signal. Our crows escort them and send them on their way, providing, it seems to me, a kind of alliance against hostile birds. The sign of this is, first, that no crow at all appears at that season; and then that they come back with wounds, bringing clear marks of their shield-fellowship and their fighting alongside. Who laid down among them the laws of hospitality? Who threatened them with an indictment for desertion, so that none is left out of the escort? Let the inhospitable hear, who shut their doors and do not share even a roof with strangers in winter and at night. The storks' care for their aged would be enough to make our children lovers of their fathers, if they were willing to attend to it. For no one is so lacking in good sense as not to judge it shameful to fall behind the most irrational birds in virtue. They gather round their father when his feathers have fallen out in old age, warm him with their own wings, provide food abundantly, and give him what help they can in flight too, gently raising him with their wing on either side; this is so celebrated everywhere that some now call the repaying of benefits "antipelargosis." Let no one lament poverty, nor despair of his life who has left no means at home, when he looks at the resourcefulness of the swallow. When it builds its nest, it carries the straws in its mouth; but, being unable to lift mud with its feet, it wets the tips of its wings in water, then rolls in the finest dust, and so contrives the use of mud; and gradually binding the straws to one another with the mud as with a kind of glue, it rears its young in the nest. And if anyone pricks out their eyes, it has a remedy from nature by which it restores the sight of its young to health. Let this warn you not to turn to wrongdoing because of poverty, nor, in the hardest sufferings, to throw away all hope and lie idle and inactive, but to take refuge in God, who, if he grants such things to a swallow, how much greater things will he give to those who call on him with their whole heart? The halcyon is a sea bird. It naturally nests by the very shores, laying its eggs on the sand itself; and it nests about midwinter, when the sea is dashed against the land by many violent winds. Yet all the winds are lulled to sleep and the sea wave is still while the halcyon broods for its seven days; for in that many days alone it hatches its young. And since they also need food, the munificent God has granted to this tiniest creature another seven days for the growth of its young. So all sailors know this and call those days "halcyon days." These things have been ordained through God's providence over the irrational creatures to encourage you to ask God for what pertains to salvation. What marvel would not be done for your sake, who have been made according to the image of God, when … the sea, commanded …

They say that the turtle-dove, once separated from its mate, no longer accepts union with another but remains unpaired, refusing union with another in memory of the one it was once joined to. Let women hear how, even among the irrational creatures, the dignity of widowhood is preferred to the unseemliness of many marriages. The eagle is most unjust in rearing its young. For when it has hatched two nestlings, it dashes one of them to the ground, pushing it away with blows of its wings, and takes up and owns only the other, disowning the one it begot because of the labor of feeding it. But, they say, the osprey does not let this one perish, but takes it up and rears it with its own nestlings. Such are those parents who, on the pretext of poverty, expose their infants, or who are most unequal toward their children in the division of their inheritance. For it is just that, as they gave existence to each equally, so they should also provide them equally and with equal honor the means of living. Do not imitate the harshness of the birds with hooked talons, which, when they see their own nestlings at last venturing on flight, throw them out of the nest, striking and pushing them with their wings, and take no care of them thereafter. The crow's love for its young is praiseworthy: it follows them even when they are already flying, feeding and rearing them for a very long time. Many kinds of birds do not need the union of males for conceiving; but among the others the wind-eggs are infertile, while vultures, they say, mostly bear without mating, and these are very long-lived, their life mostly extending as far as a hundred years. Keep this marked for me from the natural history of birds, so that whenever you see some laughing at our mystery, as though it were impossible and outside nature for a virgin to give birth while her virginity itself was kept unstained, you may consider that he who was pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe laid down beforehand from nature countless grounds for believing marvels.

"Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls, and birds flying over the earth along the firmament of heaven." They were commanded to fly over the earth because all have their food from the earth. And "along the firmament of heaven," as we explained before, heaven here meaning the air, named from its being seen, and firmament because the air above our heads is somewhat denser compared with the ethereal body and more compacted by the vapors that rise from below. You have, then, heaven adorned, earth beautified, the sea abounding in its own offspring, the air full of the birds that fly through it. All these things, brought from not being into being by the command of God, and all that our discourse has now passed over to avoid lingering longer on them, lest it seem to exceed due measure: work them out for yourself, you who are diligent, learning the wisdom of God in all things, and never cease from wonder, nor from glorifying the Maker through the whole creation. In the darkness you have the night-living kinds of birds, in the light those that go about by day. Bats, owls, and night ravens are among the night-feeders. So that if ever sleep does not come to you, it may be enough to spend your time on these, and to examine the peculiarities that belong to them, for the glorifying of their Maker: how the nightingale is sleepless when it broods, not ceasing its melody all night long; how the bat is at once four-footed and winged; how it alone of birds has teeth, and bears its young alive like four-footed creatures, and is carried along on the air raised not by a wing but by a kind of skin membrane; how it also has this mutual love in its nature, that bats cling to one another like a chain, each hanging from the next, which is not easily achieved among us men, for the separate and private is preferred to what is sociable and united with many. How like the eyes of the owl are those who have spent their time on vain wisdom! For its sight at night is … ; their mind is very sharp for the contemplation of vanity, but is blinded for the understanding of the true light. And by day it is very easy for you to gather the wonder of the Creator from every side: how the bird that lives with you rouses you to work, crying out with its shrill voice and announcing from far off the sun that is still approaching, rising early with travelers and leading farmers out to the harvest; how wakeful the race of geese is, and very quick to perceive what is hidden, which once even saved the imperial city by revealing enemies who were about to seize the citadel of Rome through hidden passages under the ground. In what kind of birds does nature not show some marvel of its own? Who announces beforehand to the vultures the death of men, when they march against one another? For you may see countless flocks of vultures following the armies, inferring the outcome from the preparation of the weapons; and this is not far from human reasoning. How shall I describe to you the fearful invasions of the locust, which rises all together at one signal and encamps across the breadth of the land, yet does not touch the crops before the divine command is given to it? How the selucid bird follows as the cure for the plague, having a boundless power of eating, since the God who loves mankind made its nature insatiable for the benefit of men? What is the manner of the cicada's song? And how are they more songful at midday than at other times, the sound being given out by the drawing in of the air which they make in the expansion of the chest? But I seem to fall farther short of the wonder of winged creatures with my discourse than if I tried to match their speed with my feet. When you see the so-called insects among the winged things, such as bees and wasps (for they have been so named because they appear notched all round), consider that they have no breathing and no lung, but are nourished by the air through and through. That is why they die when soaked in oil, their pores being blocked; and if vinegar is poured on at once, they come to life again as the passages are opened. Our God created nothing beyond what is needed, nor left anything lacking in what is necessary. Again, if you study the water-loving creatures, you will find a different structure in them: feet neither split, like the crow's, nor hooked, like those of the carnivores, but broad and webbed, so that they may easily swim on the water, pushing the water away with the membranes of their feet as with oars. And if you learn how the swan lets its neck down into the depth and brings up its food from below, then you will discover the wisdom of the Creator, that for this reason he gave it a neck longer than its feet, so that, letting it down like a fishing line, it might obtain the food hidden in the depth.

The words of Scripture, read simply, are a few short syllables: "Let the waters bring forth birds flying over the earth along the firmament of heaven"; but when the meaning in the words is searched out, then the great wonder of the Creator's wisdom appears. How many differences among winged creatures he foresaw! How he separated them from one another by kinds, and marked each with distinct peculiarities! The day fails me as I describe to you the wonders of the air. The land calls us to the display of wild beasts and creeping things and cattle, ready to show in its turn things equal to the plants, the swimming kind, and all the winged creatures. "Let the earth bring forth a living soul of cattle and wild beasts and creeping things according to their kind." What do you say, you who disbelieve Paul about the change at the resurrection, when you see many creatures of the air changing their forms? Such is what is reported about the horned worm of India, which first changes into a caterpillar, then in time becomes a silk moth, and does not stop even at this form, but grows wings of loose, broad leaves. So when you sit, you women, unwinding the work of these creatures, I mean the threads which the Seres send you for making soft garments, remember the change in this creature, take a clear idea of the resurrection, and do not disbelieve the change which Paul announces for all. But I perceive that my discourse is exceeding due proportion. When I look at the quantity of what has been said, I see myself carried beyond measure; but when I look again at the variety of wisdom in the works of creation, I think I have not even begun the account. At the same time, keeping you longer is not useless. For what would one do with the time until evening? No hosts are pressing you, no banquets await you. So, if you will, let us use the bodily fast for the gladness of souls. You have often served the flesh for enjoyment; today persevere in the service of the soul. "Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." If you love wealth, you have spiritual wealth: "The judgments of the Lord are true, justified altogether, more to be desired than gold and much precious stone." If you love enjoyment and pleasure, you have the words of God, which are "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb" to one strong in spiritual sense. If I let you go and dissolve the assembly, some will run to the dice. There are oaths there, and bitter quarrels, and the pangs of love of money. A demon stands by, kindling the madness through the spotted bones, moving the same money to one side and the other, now exalting this one with victory and bringing dejection on that one, then again showing the other exultant and this one put to shame. What use is it to fast in body and fill the soul with countless evils? And the one who does not play dice but spends his leisure otherwise, what vain things does he not utter? What absurdities does he not hear? For leisure without the fear of God is a teacher of wickedness to those who do not use their time well. Perhaps, then, some benefit will be found in what is said; and if not, at least not sinning is gained for you from being occupied here. So to keep you longer is to keep you longer away from evils. What has been said is enough for a fair-minded judge, if one looks not to the wealth of creation but to the weakness of our power and to what is sufficient for the gladness of those who have come together. The earth has welcomed you with its own growths, the sea with its fishes, the air with its birds. The land stands ready to show in turn things equal to these. But let this be the measure of the morning feast, lest excessive fullness make you duller for the enjoyment of the evening one. And may he who filled all things with his creation and left among us in all things clear memorials of his wonders fill your hearts with all spiritual gladness, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might to the ages of ages. Amen.