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

The fifth day brought forth the twofold work of the divine art, the kinds of fishes and of birds: which Moses expressed in verses 20, 21, 22, and 23 in these words: God also said: Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of heaven. And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature, which the waters brought forth according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind. And God saw that it was good; and he blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea: and let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. And it was evening and morning the fifth day. Concerning these words several points occur that must be discussed.

You ask 1. Whether the birds were formed out of the water, as also the fishes.

I affirm. For the narrative of Moses indicates this, and the holy Fathers of better note agree: among whom Basil, homily 8, where he proposes the same question, says: Why, he says, did He give origin even to winged creatures from the waters? He answers, because there is, as it were, a certain kinship of birds with fishes: for just as fishes cleave the water, advancing by the beating of their fins, while with their tail by a change of flexions they steer for themselves winding and straight motions and impulses: so the same may be seen even in birds, which swim through the air with wings in like manner. The same the Church teaches, which in the Hymn of Vespers of the fifth day sings thus:

Hymn, O God of power, Who of the fertile water born, Part Thou leavest to the deep, Part Thou bearest into the air; The submerged impressing upon the waters, The uplifted raising to the heavens, That, sprung from one stock, They may fill diverse places.

Which same opinion the same St. Ambrose confirms and proves, book 4 In Hexaemeron cap. 11, from the varied kinship which birds have with fishes;

For, he says, the first kinship seems to be that of birds with fishes, since certain common endowments of swimming appear to belong to both kinds. There is also a second kinship of all birds and fishes, in that the use of flying is a species of swimming: for as the fish by swimming cuts through the water, so the bird is cleft through the air by swift flight. Thirdly, to both alike the tail supplies aid, and the rowing of the wings, that fishes may raise themselves by their fins toward what is before, and advance to what is further: and by the rudder of the tail also they easily turn themselves whither they will, or by a certain impulse direct their course out of their course. Fourthly, birds also ride upon the air with their oar-like wings as upon horses, and as it were stretch out certain arms, and with the tail too either raise themselves upward or dip themselves downward. Whence, since in several respects there is the same use and species, the same divine precept bade that of the waters both kinds, thus nurtured, proceed. So Ambrose.

To him accords Severianus of Gabala, oration 4 De mundi creatione: The creeping things, he says, he calls fishes, because they creep rather than walk. Whence also the blessed David, treading in the footsteps of the Lawgiver, says: this great and wide sea, in the hands of which are the creeping things of which there is no number. Then weighing the same words morally, he subjoins these:

Since therefore He who was about to offer to the world the first life through the regeneration of the waters commanded the first waters to bring forth the nature of vital seed, that you may know whence the root of life exists: indeed when I see those who are illumined going forth from the holy waters, having entered into baptism indeed with many evils, as it were creeping things, but those who emerge upheld by eternal life, I see the Lawgiver saying: Let the waters bring forth, formerly indeed creeping things, but now a living soul. Whence may this be made manifest? Doubtless that they who approach the laver bear on account of former sins the name of creeping things. Very many went out to the baptism of John. He says to those who had gone out: Ye brood of vipers, who hath showed you to flee from the wrath to come? When a soul, about to be dipped in baptism, long since accustomed to vice for many years, shall have gone forth with its filth laid aside, see whether the Lord's voice shine forth in the very things themselves, which says: Let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls, and the winged fowl that fly? For he who is gifted with salvation receives a twofold grace: namely, that he is then quickened in soul, and then admitted to the rank of things winged, who now holding the paths of heaven with the Angels, dwells in their equal fellowship, and as their companion rejoices together with the heavenly order. So he.

— Tertullian had gone before him, book De Baptismo cap. 3: To the first waters, he says, was given the command to bring forth souls: the first liquid which then appeared brought them forth, lest it be a marvel if in Baptism the waters bring forth souls. Hence, complaining of Quintilla because she drew men away from Baptism, he had said before, and knew full well, that she was wont to kill the little fishes by taking them out of the water.¹ — Pererius adds that there is a great similitude and kinship between fishes and birds, whether you regard the natural place of each, that is, water and air; for both are diaphanous, humid, agitable bodies, which yield easily: the air likewise is full of aqueous moisture, and is most readily changed into water. Or whether you consider the conformation of the body in the animals of each kind, for lightness and agility inhere in both; there is a great similitude between the fins of fishes and the wings of birds, between the feathers of the latter and the scales of the former: both lack ears, and are touched through certain meatus in the office of ears. Hence birds have no bladder, lest it impede their flight, nor teats, nor milk, as Aristotle relates, book 3 De Historia animalium c. 20; lastly, many kinds of birds are aquatic, as Cranes, Geese, Coots, Mergansers, Ducks, Kingfishers; which seem to dwell in the waters rather than in the air. — I judge, however, that St. Augustine, book 3 De Genesi ad litteram c. 3, for this reason said the birds were said to be formed out of the water, namely because they came forth from an aqueous vapor together with an earthy one, borne aloft through the air; so that this word water signifies also the air, or a cloud compacted chiefly of water; whence, when he had said that both this kind of living things is related to have been brought forth from the waters, he concludes: Whatever, therefore, of the waters, whether flowingly wavy and fluid, or attenuated and suspended by evaporation, so that that volatile may appear distributed among the creeping things of living souls; yet both is assigned to the humid nature. He teaches, therefore, that the birds were said to be of the water on account of their greatest kinship, and on account of the highest similitude of the air with water expressed above. I judge, therefore, with St. Augustine, that the birds were not formed out of that dense water which glides through the earth, and is contained in it, from which the fishes came forth; but out of water attenuated into vapors, and conformed into clouds, which ascends into the inner region of the air, in which the birds flit, and inhabits it.

You will say. Moses, in the second chapter of Genesis, verse 19, sufficiently indicates that the birds were formed out of the earth; for he says: Having therefore formed out of the ground all the animals of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, etc. Then this same the Hebrew text here indicates; for where we read in the Vulgate: Let the waters bring forth the creeping thing of life, and the volatile: Cajetan, devoted as is his wont to the Hebrews, correcting the received Interpreter from the Hebrew text, says that only this is to be gathered, that the birds were here commanded to fly; for he renders it word for word: let the waters bring forth the creeping thing of a living soul, and the volatile shall fly over the earth: from which it appears that Moses in this place does not hand down that the birds were brought forth from the waters: nay rather he indicates above, c. 2, that they are said to be of the earth; here, however, that they were commanded by divine precept to fly through the airs: therefore they did not come forth from the water.

I deny the consequence. And to the objection I say that the words of Moses do not indicate in them that the birds were brought forth from the earth, but only that they were formed by God. Whence that conjunction, and, is not tied to those words of the ground, as if the sense were: formed out of the ground both the terrestrial animals and the volatile ones; but it is referred only to the passive participle formed; as if Moses said: the terrestrial animals having been formed out of the ground, and the birds having been formed also, that is, after God had created these two kinds of living things, he brought them to Adam, that he might see what he would call them. Or to the second argument in truth I say that likewise nothing is evinced from it; for in the Hebrew text there is an ellipsis of the relative pronoun, as if it said: And the volatile which shall fly, which pronoun indeed the Greeks and Latins have supplied for the sake of a clearer signification; which the Targum of Onkelos also has, writing thus: And the volatile which shall fly over the earth. Nor say that the bodies of birds are mixed of the four elements, and therefore did not come forth from water alone: for if this argument should prove anything, it would also persuade that man was not procreated of the earth, nor the earth, or the water, from nothing.

You ask 2. Why Moses did not express the fishes by their proper name, but called them creeping things in these words: Let the waters bring forth the creeping thing?

The Seraphic Doctor answers, dist. 10, first doubt, where he distinguishes the motion of creeping from the motion of walking: Every animal, he says, that is moved, either is moved by impelling itself forward, and this it does either with feet, and is a walker; or with wings, and is volatile; or it moves itself by drawing itself backward, and this can be done in four ways; either that it draws itself by the force of its mouth as the worm: or by the force of its ribs and belly as serpents: or by the force of little fins as fishes: or lastly they are said to creep, not properly, as lizards and geckos, which although they have parts, small ones [exiguaes] they have nevertheless, and raise themselves but little from the ground, and while they move apply a great part of their body to the earth: wherefore these also are said to creep: and thus according to diverse acceptations, the creeping thing can pertain to adorning all the elements. — I add from the annotation of Hugh of St. Victor on Genesis cap. 7, that there are three kinds of creeping things, namely, drawing ones, serpentine ones, and crawling ones. The drawing ones are worms, which first sucking the earth with their mouth afterwards draw themselves along. The serpentine ones are serpents, which have no feet outside the skin, but have ribs within, leaning upon which they are borne along all at once. The crawling ones are those which have feet outside the skin, as toads, lizards, geckos. Wherefore by the name of creeping thing Moses here signified chiefly the fishes, that he might denote, namely, that as serpents, lacking feet, move themselves upon the earth above their breast by creeping, so fishes in the sea swim as it were by clutching; whence they are called creeping things, because indeed they brood upon the waters with their belly, as it were creeping and rowing. Although, however, there are certain living things dwelling in the waters which have feet, as otters, beavers, hippopotami; yet these, so long as they are in the waters, do not walk, but use them for swimming as for oars. — Moses adds: the creeping thing of a living soul; because, says the Seraphic Doctor, life appeared chiefly in fishes and volatiles on this day; namely, through sense and motion: hence a living soul is called that which manifests even an animal life, such as that is which gives to the body motion and sense: such, however, is not in plants, but in animals: and therefore, to distinguish them from plants, he says: let the waters bring forth the creeping thing of a living soul, as if in plants there were a soul living, and in animals a soul flourishing, because these are moved and feel, but those by no means.

You ask 3. What Moses wished to signify by the great whales?

The sacred Interpreters answer that that word whales signifies dragons, and all huge animals, both terrestrial and aquatic; as are the whales, which seem as it were aquatic dragons. Hence Ps. 103, the immense fishes are called dragons in these words: The dragons and all the deep. And Ezek. 32, speaking of Pharaoh king of Egypt, says: Thou art likened to the dragon that is in the sea. And c. 20. Behold I come against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, thou great dragon, that sittest in the midst of thy rivers. Therefore not by whales is any one species of fishes understood, but all fishes of greater form and vaster body. Moses, moreover, makes mention chiefly of the Dragons, or Whales, that he might indeed guard against the error of the Philosophers, who deemed that animals of this kind were not made by the counsel and purpose of God, but by accident, as it were from the necessity of matter: or that he might designate that, since God is the creator of the immense beasts of the sea, He is much more easily to be believed the artificer of the smallest beasts. Although, however, certain ones deem that Moses therefore called them great whales, and did not bestow the same appellation upon terrestrial animals, because the aquatic are far greater than the terrestrial; for Whales, as Basil and Theodoret say, have a prodigious and scarcely credible bulk of body; and when they raise their back above the waters, they exhibit the appearance of an immense island. Pliny, book 9. c. 30, writes that the whales of the Indian sea are four iugera: but the Pistes two hundred cubits: and the eels in the Ganges three hundred feet: and book 32, cap. cited, Iuba, King of Mauritania, who relates in the volumes written to Caius Caesar, son of Augustus, that whales of six hundred feet in length and three hundred sixty in breadth enter the river of Arabia. — But, as Pererius observes, terrestrial animals seem of no less magnitude than the aquatic: for book 8, cap. 12, 13, and 14, Pliny writes that the Indian dragons are of such magnitude that they easily encircle the greatest Elephants with their coils, and strangle them with the knot of their grip: but the Ethiopian ones are of twenty cubits, and the Indian serpents are wont to grow to such a magnitude that they swallow stags: Aelian also relates, book 15 of the History of Animals c. 21, that when Alexander was waging war against the Indians, it happened that he heard from the inhabitants there was within a great cave an most immense serpent, which was judged to be seventy cubits long, and was venerated as something divine; and when it had put forth its head from the cave, its eyes were seen to have grown to the magnitude of a great Macedonian shield; which so terrified and disordered the army of Alexander, that unless the Emperor had held them back, all would have taken to flight. — Nevertheless I judge it must be said that the animals in the waters are far greater than those on land; for this both the history of the ancients confirms, and even the experience of today. Add that the aqueous moisture contributes especially to the fashioning of that tallness, for, as Aristotle testifies, book 3 De generatione animalium, c. 11, moisture has a nature more apt for shaping and forming than earth. Consistent with these Pliny writes, book 9, cap. 2, where, when he had said that the things which are in waters are both more numerous and greater than terrestrial ones, he subjoins: The cause, he says, is evident: the abundance of moisture; very many monstrous ones also are found, with their seeds and beginnings confused, and turned one way and another within themselves, now by brooding, now rolled by the wave; so that true becomes the vulgar opinion, that whatever is born in any part of nature is also in the sea, besides many things which are nowhere at all. Consonant with these are the things David sang in Psalm 103. This great and wide sea, in the hands thereof: there are creeping things of which there is no number. — Moses subjoins that when God had approved the production of living things, he blessed them, saying:

Increase and multiply. Which words Severianus of Gabala weighing, Oration 1 De creatione mundi:

What cause is there, he says, why when He made the stars He did not bless? Why when He made the sun and the moon did He not bless? Why when He made the herbs and plants and trees did He not bless? The one He blesses, the other He blesses not. What the cause of this distinction may be, attend. The stars, as many as were said from the beginning, so many they persevere, and of none of them can there be an increase either in number or in magnitude. Suppose that they were to remain in the identity of their nature, they had no need of a blessing which should multiply them; but those which were to be multiplied by the succession of others from others, nor otherwise were they to receive increase, are necessarily imparted a blessing also.

Aleimus Avitus, praised above, explains all these things excellently:

Straightway into diverse figures many animals arise, And run their course, brute creatures, through the empty globe. The winged fowl borne up on high, with swift-moving flight Hanging, pursued their ways, and in the clear air They poise the weights of their members on speeding wings. After, even the fishes, shut beneath the vast abyss, Breathe in the waters, and draw their breaths beneath the deep, The humid things give to them the life they deny to us. Nor less in the sea grow the mighty whales, And take for habitations dens worthy their lurking places: And what monsters the sea, now seldom, is wont to bear in its mass, His skill adapts, compacting them into unshapen forms.