Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

MOSES testifies, from verse 9 to verse 13, that the third day was made illustrious by a twofold work of God. For he relates that the waters were gathered into one place together, that the greatest part of the earth was laid bare and prepared as a dwelling for the animals to come, and that forthwith the earth was restored with the greenness of herbs and the abundance and plenty of plants. Which he indeed explains in these words: And God said: Let the waters that are under the heaven be gathered together into one place: and let the dry land appear. And it was so done. And God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And he said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as seedeth according to its kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. Although these words carry before them an evident and easy meaning, they nevertheless involve a greater difficulty than appears on the surface. For truly

Quaeres 1. — Since water, before the third day, covered all the earth on every side, by what means could it on the third day be gathered at once into one place of the earth?

SOME have thought this question so arduous that they judged the earth to have been created only on the third day, at least as regards its final completion. Thus taught the Master of the Sentences, dist. 14; Hugh of St. Victor, book 1 De Sacramentis; and not a few sacred Interpreters and Scholastic Doctors. But from what has been said it is abundantly clear that the earth was founded on the first day of the world together with the Heaven: since in the beginning God created Heaven and Earth. Hence on this day God did not say: let there be earth, but only, let the dry land appear. There are those who think, with Saint Basil and Ambrose, that the overflowing waters, which before covered the surface of the earth, flowed together into one place in such wise that that vast mass of waters was constrained by divine power into a swelling like unto a mountain: whence they think the sea was raised far higher than the land, and could by its natural inclination overflow and drown the earth, unless God restrained it within the limits fixed for it by divine command, as it were with a certain bridle. This Saint Ambrose elegantly expounds, book 3. Hexaemeron, cap. 2: Circumscribed therefore, he says, by the boundary set upon them, the seas are shut in, lest, poured over the lands, they flood all things, and, the culture of trees being lacking, hinder the office of earthly fruitfulness. They know therefore that they belong to a divine precept. For the Lord speaks through the cloud to Job, among other things, also concerning the enclosure of the sea: I set my bounds around it, and made it bars and doors: and I said: Hitherto shalt thou come, and shalt go no further; and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves. Do we not ourselves see the sea often full of waves, so that in the deep its billows rise like a sheer mountain of water, where, having spent their force upon the shore, they dissolve into foam, checked by certain barriers in the course of the lowly sand? According to what is written in Jeremiah: Will you not fear me, saith the Lord, who have set the sand a bound for the sea? Therefore by the firmest of all things, the most contemptible powder of sand, the might of the sea is held back in tempest, and, as it were, by certain reins of heavenly command is governed from the limit prescribed to it; the troubled motion of the sea breaks upon itself, and is divided into its receding channels. But this reply begets another difficulty far graver than the foregoing: namely, that the congregation of the waters would occupy a station far loftier than the land; which above all Sacred Scripture seems to impugn, when it says of those who go to sea that they do not ascend but descend. So Psalm 106: they that go down to the sea in ships. Reason likewise favors this; for since water is by its own nature heavier than air, and is fluid and unstable, certainly it could not so stand without a great miracle, so as not to flow out upon the land. But to assert a perpetual miracle on this account, and that the weight and impulse of the waters are violently restrained by God beyond their natural tendency, does not seem to accord with the ordinance of the divine providence which sweetly disposes all things. Add that everywhere water exhibits an even level: wherefore, says Saint Ambrose, the sea is called aequor on account of its evenness (aequabilitas). This very thing daily experience demonstrates; for if the sea rose higher than the land, then, by an equal force and impulse of winds and oarsmen, the same ship would reach port with swifter motion than it left it; for departing from the shore, laboring upward as against a steep incline, it would make harder progress; whereas, approaching the shore, as if descending through a slippery declivity, it would be borne along with great speed and great impetus. Moreover, the farther the ship proceeded into the sea, the more conspicuous would it be, as it mounted into a higher place. Likewise, those putting out from port, the farther they went, since they were always mounting to a higher place, would the more easily behold the land lying below them; yet the contrary of this very experience persuades us. Further, we see the motion of water always carried toward lower levels; since, therefore, all rivers roll themselves through long tracts of land into the sea, doubtless the sea must needs stand in the lower places: for if it swelled higher than the land, the rivers would run a contrary course, flowing not from the lands into the sea, but overflowing from the sea upon the lands. Finally, if the sea so swelled as to be far higher than the land, the center of the sea and of the earth would not be the same, or else one must say that earth and water did not make one single globe, nor have a spherical figure: but both of these are proved false by experience; for otherwise the Sun would nowhere stand in the Equator, nor would days and nights anywhere be equal, since the swollen part and the lower part would render the days shorter or longer. All which things are opposed by experience; wherefore the aforesaid reply seems the less to be approved. — Wherefore others answer, by this reasoning, that the earth appeared dry and the waters gathered into one, because water, whereas before it was rarer and subtler, on this third day was thickened and condensed; and the same was rendered more earthy and salt: partly lest it should putrefy, partly that it might have nourishment for fishes, partly that it might more easily serve for the bearing up of ships. Thus, then, by the operation of God the water, made denser, contracted itself, and occupied a lesser place than before: and so left the greatest part of the earth dry. Which reply indeed is approved by Saint Augustine, book 1. De Genesi ad litteram, cap. 12, while he inquires, since the wavy substance covered the whole earth entirely, whither it gave way so as to lay bare certain parts: Perhaps, he says, truer is that opinion which says that the lands were stretched out where the waters were thickened by their concretions, so that from many parts of them, wherein the dry might appear, it laid bare. But although this opinion appears probable, nevertheless I judge it must be said with more truth that the earth was therefore in part laid bare of the waters, because, whereas before the earth had been entirely round, and admitted the waters equally on every side, on this third day, by God's command, it began to rise into mountains, to sink into hills, yea, and to have vast caverns and inner hollows, into which the abundance of the waters withdrew itself; as Saint Augustine indicates in the same place, adding: Although, he says, also the earth sinking down far and wide could present other parts sloping and concave, into which the waters flowing together and rushing down might be received, and the dry would appear in those parts wherein the moisture was swallowed up. — Therefore on this very third day, God ordaining, vast channels were made within the bowels of the earth, into which the greatest part of the waters poured itself forth. Hence it is no wonder if the earth is washed round about with water: for since it holds within its bowels that vast store of waters which is commonly called Barathrum, or the abyss, and which through various passages overflows into the Ocean, or within the earth through rivers: hence also it is washed with water on every side: the sign of which is, that wherever anyone digs into the earth, there he always finds water, as is evident from wells dug: for the earth is, as it were, the mother of living things and of things mingled. Thence, as in the body of any animal and of any man a great abundance of blood resides in the liver and in the heart, and thence is dispersed through very many veins through the whole body, both upward and downward: so, says Seneca, book 3. Natural Questions, cap. 16, those mighty maidens pour forth water through the tunnels of the earth, as it were through veins: and burst forth in certain places of the earth into fountains, brooks, and rivers. What therefore the liver is in man, that is that vast abyss of waters hidden within the bowels of the earth.

From these things it appears that the opinion of those must not be approved who think that before the deluge the earth was altogether round, without inequality of higher and lower places, and that this distinction of mountains and valleys which we behold in the earth existed only after the deluge. For this opinion is openly refuted by Sacred Scripture itself: for if no mountains rose before the deluge, how could that be verified which we read, cap. 7. Genesis: The waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered: the water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains which it covered? Why does Scripture call the mountains strongest, Psalm 65? Why finally, in Solomon, Prov. 8, does the divine Wisdom, to demonstrate her antiquity, say that she existed before the mountains settled with their heavy mass? — Why, says Saint Basil, homil. 1. pag. 12. et seq., does Scripture reduce to the command of the Maker that the waters seek the sloping and lowest places? Then, by what reason does it say the waters were bidden to flow together into one congregation, when so many seas are seen to exist, disjoined from one another by the greatest interval and situation? Finally, how could so vast and almost immeasurable a mass of waters, which filled that immense space between the empyrean heaven and the earth, gather into one single place? — To the first it will be answered: The nature of the waters was commanded to run, nor is it ever wearied, that precept perpetually urging it on to its course. This indeed I would say with respect to the fluid part of the waters. For there are some which flow by their own nature, such as are the fountain-waters and river-waters. Against these there are others collected and nowhere permeable. Yet my discourse now concerns those which are stirred and flow by a certain impulse of nature. Let them be gathered therefore into one congregation. Has such a thought ever occurred to thee concerning a fountain belching forth abundant water? Who compels this water to leap forth from the midst of the bowels of the earth? Who urgently presses it to hasten, that it may proceed inward? What storehouses whence they are drawn forth contain so great a yield of waters? What at length is that place, whither they hasten with headlong overflow? How comes it that these fail not, nor meanwhile are those filled? Know that these things depend upon that first voice of God. For thus the primary motion to running was implanted in the waters as a prerogative. — Basil of Seleucia follows Basil of Caesarea, orat. 1., writing in words to the same effect: The earth lays bare its backs to the waters, shutting up the seas in certain cells, as it were, while by command it uses the abyss for a cloister, and the sand contains the formidable sea like a landslide, keeping the land free from the washing of the deep: suppose the sea be driven by the violence of winds toward the land. It is indeed borne in billows before its barriers; but touching the boundaries it turns again and flees, and when it beholds the voice of the Lord inscribed upon the shores, and bends its billows, it adores the setter of the limits: and though it strike the land violently, it is driven back, and, mindful of the divine command, is driven back in flight. Wherefore, easily growing purple, it flatters the neighboring shore of the continent contiguous thereto, and takes hold, as it were embracing the land with soft arms; ever is it honored with the Lord's precept: and it pleases to hear as ratified at every single moment: Let the waters be gathered into one place, and let the dry appear. And the sand abides mindful of the precept, bound, nor violates its bonds through reverence of its vanquisher, and silently ratifies the voice of the prophet, Psalm. 103: Thou hast set a bound which it shall not pass over. — To the second Saint Ambrose answers, book 2. cap. 6., that there is one congregation of the waters; that is, whereby, he says, the walls of one and the same continuous deep even to the Gaditan shore of the coast, and thence into the Red Sea, includes the circle of the world with the Ocean poured around: inwardly also the Tuscan, Ionian, Adriatic, and other seas are mingled, distinguished by names, not by billows.... So also there is one general collection which is called sea, and many collections which are called seas on account of the regions wherein they are named. Further, Saint Basil adds, pag. 62: The fountain, the origin of all moisture washing the earth on every side, is the abyss of the sea. For this, dividing itself through hidden passages everywhere, just as they say the lands of the littoral are cleft by rifts wider, like sponges and subterranean conduits diffused beneath, under which the sea flowing and percolating through tunneled and narrow channels, soon when it perceives that it has met its end in oblique, or certainly in straight eruptions rising aloft, compelled by the stirring spirit, bursts forth with the surface of the earth broken open by force, and leaps forth abroad, and becomes potable, its bitterness deposited by transcolation or distillation. — To the third he answers, pag. 18: That the capacious receptacles of those waters were adorned by the Maker for receiving the matter, when they were to come and be compelled into one confluence and to be separated. For neither was it now that sea which is external beyond Gades; nor likewise that pure and inaccessible and dreadful deep which embraces the British island and the western Hesperides: but a vast and capacious receptacle having been created by the command of God, the multitudes of waters betook themselves thither. His opinion, therefore, is that on this third day God, by his omnipotent command, made the subterranean hollows, yea and in the very surface of the earth, into which that vast mass of waters flowing down; by experience itself also it has been apprehended that there is a vast abundance of waters under the earth, which consequently is called by many Barathrum, or abyss, and is joined through various passages with the Ocean, and seems to be the womb and origin of all fountains and rivers. And indeed, says Seneca, book 3. Natural Questions, after the pattern of our bodies, in which there are both veins and an artery; those the receptacles of blood, this of spirit. In the earth also there are other ways, through which water runs, and others through which spirit runs: and so nature formed it after the likeness of human bodies, that our elders also called water cena (chyle).... Therefore as in our bodies the blood, when the cena is pierced, remains so long until it has wholly flowed out, or until the bursting fissure has subsided and closed, or from some other cause gives back the blood: so in the earth, when the veins are loosened or opened, a brook or river is poured forth. — Eustathius, Patriarch of Antioch and martyr, also most excellently expounds this matter in his Hexaemeron near the beginning, Leo Allatius interpreting: Of all, he says, the humidity that lies hid in the earth the fountain and origin is the water of the sea, which, since the whole earth is tunnel-like, pours itself forth through passages meeting no eyes, as is manifest from the cavernous places of the earth. For the fluid sea, running out through narrow places, when it shall have bent its course through oblique and straight outlets, breaks open by force the surface of the earth with the violence of waves and winds, and, issuing forth, becomes efficacious for drink; for, strained and sifted, it grows sweet. Again, if it be left in lakes burning hot, led forth by the same reason it boils. It is likewise the fountain of the waters which occupy the air: for of that water attracted through the clouds, and warmed by the rays of the sun, presently cooled by the shadow of the clouds, and at last made sweet by the very height exposed to heaven, it sprinkles the earth with drops. — Hence some think the Latin words concato and concavitas to be elicited from the Hebrew word liuru, i.e. let them be gathered, which Moses uses here; for it arises from the root curah, which word however signifies not to hollow out, but to expect and hope and await; whence we are admonished that the waters awaited and heard the command of God, that by his bidding they should flow forth into the place destined for them; although I judge it truer that that word Ikacu is derived from the name lin, which signifies rule, measure, and plumb-line; as if God said: let the waters be gathered to one fixed place, as it were to a rule and plumb-line, beyond which they should not flow forth. Hence the royal Prophet,

Psalm. 103: Thou hast set them a bound which they shall not pass; neither shall they return to cover the earth. — Wherefore, says Saint Basil, homil. 4. pag. 17., oftentimes the sea, swelling with winds, and lifting itself to an immense height with the violence of its billows, as soon as it has touched only the shores, dissolved with that same impetus straightway slides backward into itself. Will ye not fear me, saith the Lord, who have placed the sand as a bound for the sea? Lo, the sea, a thing plainly intolerable by its own force, yet of all things the weakest, namely sand, holds and restrains it. Otherwise what should hinder the Red Sea from breaking in with its overflowing flood upon all Egypt, which lies depressed beneath that sea by so great a hollow, and joining itself to the sea which borders Egypt, unless it were restrained bound, as it were with fetters, by the command of the Creator? For that Egypt lies lower than the Red Sea, they have persuaded us thereof in very deed, who strove to join these seas; Egypt, I say, and the Indian Sea, with which the Red Sea is mingled, to meet one another and join the one to the other. Wherefore to desist from so great an enterprise, Sesostris the Egyptian who first undertook it; likewise Darius the Mede who next wished to pursue so great a work, and to lay the last hand to the task. — The same thou hast in Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch, in his Hexaemeron.

Quaeres: How are the words to be taken which Moses subjoins, Let the dry appear, and God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas? — I answer, that the earth, which had been brought forth at the beginning of the world and was covered by the waters, was likewise overlaid with a certain slimy matter; whence there was need that, the waters withdrawing, it should be dried and parched: that namely it might be habitable, sown, and bear fruit. For arid is not the same as sandy; for so, from the heap of sands, it would be utterly unfruitful: but it is so called from the dryness superinduced after the retreat of the waters from its surface. The earth therefore remained somewhat dried, yet not wholly; since it was overspread with that sweet moisture which rendered it somewhat humid; partly that it might become fruitful; partly that, as it were by a glue, its parts might be bound one to another, nor gape and dissolve into dust and sand. And God called that dried and parched matter Earth; either from the verb terere (to tread), because namely it was to be trodden by the feet of men and beasts; or, as Saint Bonaventure says, distinct. 14. par. 2. dubio 1., it is called terra as it were trita (trodden). For, he says, he first calls it dry, and afterwards earth: because the first name declares the property of the element, namely dryness; but the second name declares its use or utility, which it has by commixture with water, that it might be tilled and made fruitful. Similarly, he says, must be said of the waters; for they are called seas, not because bitterness is the first quality of water, but because it accompanies water in its congregation on account of the grossness of the parts which remain, the subtler being raised upward, or penetrating into the depths of the earth, from which subtiliation they grow sweet. Whether, however, God himself truly imposed this name upon earth and sea, or whether he inspired Adam, formed on the sixth day, so to call each of them, nothing certain can be resolved.

Quaeres: To what end did God will the waters thus to be gathered into one Ocean and sea? — I answer, that this was done on account of the various utilities thence arising to men and to the universe, which Saint Ambrose elegantly expounds, book 2. cap. 5., in these words: And if fair be the aspect of that element, he says, either when it whitens with rising heaps and whirlpools of waves, and the golden rocks rotate with silvery spray, or when the expanse of the deep grows milder with gentler breezes, and blushes purple with the bland serenity of tranquillity, passing into that color which is often shed forth upon beholders from afar; when it beats not the neighboring shores with violent billows, but encircles and greets them, as it were, with peaceful embraces: how sweet a sound, how pleasant a roar, how grateful and harmonious an echo! I nevertheless do not judge the beauty of the creature appraised by the eyes; but I define that it accords and agrees with the judgment of the Operator according to the reason of the operation. Good therefore is the sea; first, because it necessarily sustains the lands with moisture, to which through certain veins it secretly ministers a certain juice not useless. Good is the sea as the hostelry of rivers, the fountain of rains, the channel of inundations, the conveyance of traffic: whereby peoples distant from one another are joined; whereby the dangers of wars are removed; whereby the fury of barbarism is shut in; a help in necessities, a refuge in perils, delight in pleasures, salubrity of health, a conjunction of the separated, a shortening of journey, a passage for wayfarers, an aid to revenues, nourishment against sterility; hence rain is transfused into the lands... Then, setting forth how the sea rears up certain islands, wherein those who withdraw themselves from the intemperate enticements of the world choose to lie hid, and to decline the doubtful windings of this life, he concludes: The sea is therefore the secret place of temperance, the exercise of continence, the retreat of gravity, the port of security, the tranquillity of the age, the sobriety of this world, and for faithful and devout men an incentive to devotion, that the canticles of psalm-singers may vie with the sound of the gently laving waves; the island applauds with the tranquil motion of the billows, the choirs of Saints ring out with hymns.

Quaeres denique. — In what manner is the earth said, on this same third day, to have brought forth the green herb?

I answer, that it is more probable that the earth concurred on this day toward the formation of herbs and trees not actively and efficiently by producing, but only passively, by ministering matter; for neither could the earth, by its native virtue, concur actively in so many and so diverse species of plants and trees in so brief a time. Add that the earth can bring forth no plant unless either by receiving seed or a fertilizing germ. For, as Saint Ambrose observes, book 3. cap. 8.: In all things which are called the births of the earth, first is the germ: when it has lifted itself a little, it becomes herb; afterwards a shrub, thence it becomes fruit.... To some, therefore, the series of succession is acquired from seed, to others from root, to others by diverse office. For in each of the things born there inheres either seed or some seminal virtue: and that according to genus; that what is born of it may be like those things which are, or of whose root it germinates.... Straightway therefore the earth, travailing, poured herself forth into new births, and clothed herself with the garment of greenness, assumed the grace of fruitfulness, and, adorned with divers germs, took upon her her proper ornaments. — But that she attained this swift fruitfulness not by her native virtue, but by the divine aid alone working, he proves from this, that the earth cannot break forth into the propagation of any plant except with long-continuing time succeeding, wherein the seed is received, worn away, resolved, as it were by a certain death of itself, that it may rise again into richer fruits; which indeed he elegantly opens thus: The crumbling clod, therefore, receives the grain of wheat, and holds together the slain grain scattered abroad, and compresses it, as if the earth were the maternal bosom. Thence, when that grain has resolved itself, it germinates into herb; the pleasing aspect itself now of the greening verdure forthwith brings forth from it the fruit sown after the likeness of itself: that in the very sap of the stalk thou mayest recognize of what genus the herb is; and in the herbs the fruit appear; and little by little it shoots up that it may grow firm, and, growing downy with the culm, erects itself and rises. But when the jointed ear has already lifted itself, certain sheaths are prepared for the fruit, in which the grain is fashioned within, lest its tender beginnings either cold injure, or the heat of the Sun scorch, or the inclemency of winds, or the late rains shake off. Certain orders succeed in the ear, wrought with wondrous art, either for beauty's sake, or bound for safeguard by a certain bond of natural coherence among themselves, when the divine providence formed it: and lest, by the weight of more abundant fruit, the culm should give way, as it were by a certain loss, certain sheaths the culm itself assumes, that with doubled strength it may sustain the manifold fruit, lest, unequal to the burden, it bend toward the earth. Then over the very ear a husk is built of awns, that it may stretch forth, as it were, a machine in the air, lest by the bites of lesser birds it be deprived of its fruits, or be trodden underfoot. What shall I say of how the clemency of God prospers human utility? The earth, having lent, restores what it received, and multiplied with usurious increase; men often deceive, and it defrauds its creditor himself of the principal: The earth remains faithful, even though, owing, it has not paid; perchance the inclemency of cold hath withstood it, or excessive drought, or the immense force of rains; it compensates by another harvest the losses of the former year: So that when it bows down, disappointing the hope of the husbandman, nothing does the earth lack; and when the plenty of the fruitful mother smiles, she pours herself forth into births, that she may never inflict upon her creditor any loss. What, moreover, the aspect of the full field? What odor? What sweetness? What delight of the husbandman? Which we can scarce expound, if we use our own speech? But we have the testimonies of Scripture, wherein we mark the sweetness of fields compared to blessing and grace of Saints, holy Isaac saying: Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a plentiful field. What should I describe of the fading violets, the shining lilies, the glowing roses, of the painted countryside now with golden, now with varied, now with yellow flowers, wherein thou knowest not whether the beauty of the flowers more delights, or the sweet odor? The eye is fed with the grateful spectacle, far and wide the odor is spread abroad, with whose sweetness we are filled.