The Work of the Third Day — Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

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The Work of the Third Day.¹

Opus Tertii Diei.

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 gatherings of the waters he called Seas. — Verse 9.²

Dixit Deus: Congregentur aquae quae sub Caelo sunt in locum unum, et appareat arida: Et factum est ita. Et vocavit Deus aridam terram, congregationesque aquarum appellavit Maria. — Vers. 9.

Auctor libri quarti Esdrae, capite sexto, docet hoc tertio die aquas in septimam terrae partem esse congregatas; reliquas autem sex terrae partes, aquis nudatas et siccatas, procreationi stirpium et usibus animalium esse assignatas: hoc si verum esset, necessario concluderetur terram multo ampliorem esse quam aquam. Basilius Homilia quarta in Hexameron tradit hoc Dei praecepto inditam esse aquis naturalem vim et propensionem ad declivia et ima loca defluendi. Basilium, ut assolet, secutus Ambrosius in eandem sententiam ita scribit: “Ex illo ergo tempore currit aqua, fontes labuntur in fluvios, lacus derivantur in maria: ipsa se aqua praecedit, urget et sequitur: unus est ductus, unum corpus.” Sic Ambrosius. Verum, cum eiusmodi vis deorsum propendendi non minus sit naturalis aquae quam eius frigiditas et gravitas, necesse est profecto eam, simul atque creata est aqua, fuisse ei ingeneratam. Sed forte Basilius et Ambrosius non aliud significare voluerunt, quam tertio die primum aquam explicuisse et exeruisse vim, quam ab initio occultam habebat, ad humiliora et depressiora loca delabendi.

The author of the fourth book of Esdras, in chapter six, teaches that on this third day the waters were gathered into the seventh part of the earth, while the remaining six parts of the earth, bared and dried of the waters, were assigned to the production of plants and to the uses of animals: which, if it were true, would necessarily lead to the conclusion that the earth is much larger than the water. Basil, in the fourth homily on the Hexaëmeron, hands down that by this command of God there was implanted in the waters a natural force and propensity to flow down to the sloping and lowest places. Ambrose, following Basil, as is his wont, writes to the same effect thus: “From that time, therefore, water runs; springs glide into rivers, lakes are drawn off into seas: the water goes before itself, presses on, and follows: there is one channel, one body.” So Ambrose. But since such a force of tending downward is no less natural to water than its coldness and weight, it must surely have been engendered in it as soon as the water was created. But perhaps Basil and Ambrose meant nothing other than that on the third day the water first unfolded and exerted the power, which from the beginning it had held hidden, of sliding down to the lower and more depressed places.³

Multi, nec e vulgo, putant hoc tertio die creatam esse terram: nam per terram, quam in principio creatam dicit esse Moses, non elementum terrae, sed materiam quandam informem interpretantur. Haec sententia placuisse videtur Augustino lib. 1 de Genesi ad litteram capite decimotertio, et libro primo de Genesi contra Manichaeos capite duodecimo, et libro de Genesi imperfecto capite decimo; placuit etiam Magistro sententiarum, et Hugoni de Sancto Victore in libro primo de Sacramentis, et Beato Bonaventurae (ubi etiam vult aquam esse hoc die creatam); et Tostatus hoc loco ait communem esse opinionem hoc die creata esse quatuor elementa secundum proprias formas et affectiones. Sed hanc opinionem supra confutavimus. Et vero ipsa Mosis verba eam redarguunt: hoc enim tertio die non dixit Deus, “Fiat terra,” sicut antea dixerat de luce et firmamento, sed dixit tantummodo “Appareat arida,” hoc est terra, quae an[tea fuit demersa]...

Many, and not of the common sort, think that on this third day the earth was created: for by the earth, which Moses says was created in the beginning, they interpret not the element of earth, but a certain unformed matter. This opinion seems to have pleased Augustine in the first book on Genesis according to the Letter, chapter thirteen, and in the first book on Genesis against the Manichees, chapter twelve, and in the unfinished book on Genesis, chapter ten; it pleased also the Master of the Sentences, and Hugh of St. Victor in the first book On the Sacraments, and Blessed Bonaventure (where he also holds that water was created on this day); and Tostatus, in this place, says it is the common opinion that on this day the four elements were created according to their proper forms and affections. But this opinion we refuted above. And indeed Moses' own words refute it: for on this third day God did not say, “Let earth be made,” as he had said before of light and the firmament, but said only, “Let the dry land appear” — that is, the earth, which be[fore was submerged]...⁴

...tea fuit demersa et operta aquis, et quae secundum naturalem elementorum dispositionem sub aquis esse debebat, animantium tamen causa nudetur aquis atque siccetur, et super aquas emineat. Basilius existimat omnem aquam quae erat in terra, sive exterius sive interius, penitus ab ea segregatam esse. “Non solum,” inquit, “exundantes aquae de terrae superficie tunc defluxerunt, sed quicquid etiam aquarum per omnem terrae profunditatem immistum erat excessit, inexorabilibus Dei praeceptis obtemperando.” Nemo autem putet Basilium loqui etiam de humore aqueo, quo veluti glutine compacta terra consistit, et sine quo in minutissimum pulverem dissolueretur. Philo ait quicquid erat tunc aquae salsum, futurum fertilitati terrae noxium, unum in locum tertio die confluxisse, dulci humore in terra relicto, tum velut glutine ad terrae coagmentationem, ne in pulverem dissiparetur, tum ad utilitatem plantarum et animalium. Verum, cum ante diem tertium totum illud corpus aquae unius esset rationis, et similibus omni ex parte qualitatibus praeditum, non potuit habere alias partes salsas et alias dulces.

...before was submerged and covered by the waters, and which, according to the natural disposition of the elements, ought to have been beneath the waters, is nonetheless, for the sake of living things, bared of the waters and dried, and stands out above the waters. Basil holds that all the water which was in the earth, whether outside or within, was utterly separated from it. “Not only,” he says, “did the overflowing waters then flow down from the surface of the earth, but whatever waters were mingled throughout the whole depth of the earth went out, obeying the inexorable commands of God.” But let no one think that Basil is speaking also of the watery moisture by which the earth holds together, as if by glue, and without which it would dissolve into the finest dust. Philo says that whatever water was then salt — bound to be harmful to the fertility of the earth — flowed together into one place on the third day, the sweet moisture being left in the earth, both as a glue for the cementing of the earth (lest it be scattered into dust), and for the benefit of plants and animals. But since before the third day that whole body of water was of one nature, and endowed in every part with like qualities, it could not have had some parts salt and others sweet.⁵

Sed quaestio exoritur hoc loco: si ante diem tertium aqua omnem undique terram operiebat, qua ratione potuit tertia die tota in unum terrae locum congregari? Solvitur haec quaestio multis modis, quorum priores duos tradit Augustinus primo libro de Genesi ad litteram capite duodecimo, et Beda in Hexameron, atque hos deinde plerique omnes secuti sunt. Primo dici potest aquam prius fuisse rariorem tenuioremque, ac modo nebulosae materiae, operuisse terram; postea vero multum coactam densatamque minori eguisse loco et receptaculo. Deinde responderi potest tunc multis partibus terram profunde subsedisse, aliis item plurimis in sublime elatis extumuisse, factasque esse magnas concavitates terrae profundasque valles et excelsos montes, quae loca fuerunt illarum aquarum receptacula; nam ante diem tertium terra aequaliter in orbem compacta et conglobata erat. Cogitare igitur oportet, cum Deus dixit “Congregentur aquae in locum unum,” factas esse Dei potentia plurimas terrae partes admodum depressas atque concavas, in quas tanta illius aquae moles confluere et recipi posset. Ad hanc intelligentiam conducit verbum Hebraeum קוה Kava, quod est hoc loco pro Latino verbo “Congregentur”; namque id proprie significat voraginem et locum profundum atque concavum, quo factum est fortasse ut etiam Latini, Hebraeos imitati, eiusmodi loca etiam cava appellarent. Ac mihi quidem videtur David hoc quod docui mirifice declarasse in Psalmo centesimotertio: nam aquam fuisse a principio usquequaque superfusam terrae demonstravit his verbis, “Abyssus sicut vestimentum amictus eius, super montes stabunt aquae”; hoc est, initio terra fuit velut amicta et operta aquis tantae altitudinis ut montium quorumlibet sublimitatem excedere possent. Tum illius praecepti divini, quo dictum est “Congregentur [aquae in locum unum]”...

But a question arises here: if before the third day the water covered the whole earth on every side, by what means could it, on the third day, be gathered wholly into one place of the earth? This question is solved in many ways, of which Augustine, in the first book on Genesis according to the Letter, chapter twelve, and Bede in the Hexaëmeron, hand down the first two, and afterward almost everyone followed these. First, it can be said that the water was before rarer and thinner, and, in the manner of nebulous matter, covered the earth; but afterward, much compressed and condensed, it needed a smaller place and receptacle. Next, it can be answered that then the earth subsided deeply in many parts, and in very many others, raised on high, swelled up, and that great concavities of the earth and deep valleys and lofty mountains were made, which places were the receptacles of those waters; for before the third day the earth was equally compacted and globed into a sphere. One must therefore consider that, when God said “Let the waters be gathered into one place,” there were made, by God's power, very many parts of the earth, quite depressed and concave, into which so great a mass of that water could flow together and be received. To this understanding the Hebrew word קוה (Kava) conduces, which here stands for the Latin verb “Let them be gathered”; for it properly signifies a chasm and a deep, concave place — whence perhaps it came about that the Latins too, imitating the Hebrews, called such places “cava” [hollows]. And to me indeed it seems that David wonderfully declared what I have taught, in Psalm one hundred three: for that the water was from the beginning poured out on every side over the earth he showed by these words, “The deep, like a garment, is its clothing; above the mountains the waters shall stand”; that is, in the beginning the earth was, as it were, clad and covered by waters of such height that they could exceed the loftiness of any mountains whatever. Then, expressing the divine command by which it was said “Let the waters [be gathered into one place]”...⁶

...aquae in locum unum,” incredibilem vim et efficacitatem exprimens, subdit, “Ab increpatione tua fugient, a voce tonitrui tui formidabunt.” Mox subiungit qua ratione Deus tantae molis aquae capacem locum et receptaculum comparaverit, ubi velut quodam carcere inclusae aquae coërcerentur, ne iterum universam terram obruerent et operirent: “Ascendunt,” inquit, “montes, et descendunt campi in locum quem fundasti eis: Terminum posuisti quem non transgredientur, neque convertentur operire terram.” Simile est quod tradit Aristoteles primo libro Meteororum, unum corpus globosum conflari ex aqua et terra, et in ipsius terrae concavitatibus universum elementum aquae contineri.

...the waters into one place,” expressing the incredible force and efficacy [of the command], he adds, “At thy rebuke they shall flee; at the voice of thy thunder they shall be afraid.” Then he subjoins by what means God prepared a place and receptacle capable of so great a mass of water, where the waters, shut up as in a kind of prison, might be confined, lest they should again overwhelm and cover the whole earth: “The mountains,” he says, “ascend, and the plains descend, into the place which thou hast founded for them: thou hast set a bound which they shall not pass, nor shall they return to cover the earth.” Similar is what Aristotle hands down in the first book of the Meteorology, that one globular body is formed of water and earth, and that the whole element of water is contained in the concavities of the earth itself.⁷

Quo licet intelligere falsam esse opinionem quorumdam existimantium fuisse terram ante diluvium totam aequabiliter rotundam, nulla celsiorum humiliorumque locorum inaequalitate; post diluvium autem hanc quam in terra cernimus montium et vallium distinctionem extitisse. Sed quomodo ante diluvium Oceanus tenebatur, ne terram effusus inundaret? Nonne huius sententiae manifesta confutatio est quod infra septimo capite huius libri scriptum est, “Aquas diluvii quindecim cubitis omnes terrae montes supergressas”? Si ab initio mundi non fuere montes, cur Scriptura appellat montes aeternos? Cur apud Salomonem Prover. 8 divina Sapientia, quo suam demonstraret antiquitatem, dixit se fuisse priusquam montes gravi mole consisterent? Quid quod inaequalitas partium terrae, et montium atque vallium distinctio, mire facit ad decorem, ornatum, et commoditatem terrae, ea ratione ut est parens stirpium et domicilium animantium? Confert etiam ad salubritatem aëris, fertilitatem, maturitatem fructuum, ad frangendos maris impetus, et ad furorem ventorum refraenandum. Denique conducit ad generationem fontium et fluminum, quae fere originem habent ex montibus. Quapropter David concinit, “Qui emittis fontes in convallibus: inter medium montium pertransibunt aquae.” Si autem terra aequabiliter omni ex parte rotunda esset, non possent ex ipsa flumina erumpere et ad varia et longinqua loca decurrere: non enim potest aqua defluere nisi locus originis eius sit vel superior, vel saltem aequalis loco unde erumpit; etenim aqua solum ascendit ad altitudinem suae originis. Si autem terra esset omnino sphaerica, cum aqua erumpere debeat ex loco subterraneo et indidem oriri, numquam profecto foras posset erumpere, quin locus originis loco scaturiginis et eruptionis eius semper esset inferior.

From which one may understand that the opinion of certain men is false, who think the earth before the flood was wholly and evenly round, with no inequality of higher and lower places, but that after the flood this distinction of mountains and valleys which we see in the earth arose. But how, before the flood, was the Ocean held back, lest, poured out, it should inundate the earth? Is it not a manifest refutation of this opinion that, below in the seventh chapter of this book, it is written that “the waters of the flood overtopped all the mountains of the earth by fifteen cubits”? If from the beginning of the world there were no mountains, why does Scripture call them “the eternal mountains”? Why, in Solomon, Proverbs 8, did divine Wisdom, to show her antiquity, say that she existed before the mountains were settled in their heavy mass? And what of the fact that the inequality of the earth's parts, and the distinction of mountains and valleys, wonderfully contributes to the beauty, adornment, and convenience of the earth — in respect of its being the parent of plants and the dwelling of living things? It contributes also to the healthfulness of the air, to fertility, to the ripening of fruits, to breaking the assaults of the sea, and to restraining the fury of the winds. Finally, it conduces to the generation of springs and rivers, which mostly have their origin from the mountains. Wherefore David sings in harmony, “Who sendest forth springs in the valleys: between the midst of the mountains the waters shall pass.” But if the earth were evenly round on every side, rivers could not break forth from it and run down to various and far-off places: for water cannot flow down unless the place of its origin is either higher than, or at least equal to, the place whence it bursts forth; for water rises only to the height of its origin. And if the earth were wholly spherical, since the water must break forth from a subterranean place and rise from there, it could surely never burst outward, but that the place of its origin would always be lower than the place of its gushing and eruption.⁸

Pulchre declarat hoc ipsum Rupertus libro primo de Trinitate et eius operibus capite tricesimoquarto. “Quid opus erat,” inquit, “eidem aridae, id est terrae, ut ascenderent montes et descenderent campi in locum quem fundasti eis? Hic plane illud sciendum est, quia si terra aequalis ubique iaceret, non levior quam in mari ventorum tempestas in ea regnaret. Nam solet et nunc, in locis illis qui montibus carent (videlicet maxime in Libya), tempestas, non minus quam in pelago, turbare foris deprehensos quoscumque, tam [pedites quam equo sedentes]...”

Rupert beautifully declares this very thing, in the first book On the Trinity and Its Works, chapter thirty-four. “What need was there,” he says, “for the same dry land — that is, the earth — that the mountains should ascend and the plains descend into the place which thou hast founded for them? Here, plainly, this must be known: that if the earth lay everywhere level, no lighter a storm of winds would reign in it than upon the sea. For even now, in those places that lack mountains (namely, most of all in Libya), a storm, no less than on the open sea, is wont to throw into confusion any caught abroad in it, both [those on foot and those sitting on horseback]...”⁹

...tam pedites quam equo sedentes. Etenim ubi per loca aequalia et nuda ventus coortus arenam humo excitavit, magna vi agitata, ora oculosque implet, et ita progressum incessumque impedit, ut in nullo mari maius fiat naufragium. Quid si nulli usquam montes ascendissent, si cuncta in planum terra descendisset? Si, ubi paululum ventis currere licet, tantas vires brevi colligunt, quid possent si nullum in toto mundo haberent repagulum? Ergo nec istud magnifici Dei laudibus deesse debuit, quod ascendunt montes et descendunt campi in locum quem ille fundavit eis: fundavit, inquam, videlicet ut neque montes semel ascendere iussi descendant, neque campi semel depressi consurgant. Cum ita terra fundator abyssum, quae sicut vestimentum amictus eius erat, dispulit, eadem ipse potentia competens aquarum subsidium large diffudit. Non enim sic ab increpatione eius aquae fugerant et congregatae sunt in locum unum, ut haec apparens sic de utero abyssi proiiceretur tanquam abortivum; sed indesinenter trahens aquas in omnes venas, copiosam sugit abyssi mammam, et ascendentem per nubes rursusque labentem temporaneam et serotinam accipit de caelo pluviam. Alitur intrinsecus dulcescentibus aquis, rigatur extrinsecus de superioribus suis; item scatent fontes, fluunt amnes. Quod itidem laudans Psalmista, “Qui emittis,” inquit, “fontes in convallibus: inter medium montium pertransibunt aquae.” Proinde et Ecclesiastes, aquarum fluentium originem considerans, “Omnia,” inquit, “flumina intrant mare, et mare non redundat. Quare? Videlicet quia non influit illuc nisi quod exinde praedictis modis sumitur.” Sic Rupertus.

...both those on foot and those sitting on horseback. For where, over level and bare places, a rising wind has stirred up the sand from the ground, it, driven with great force, fills the mouths and eyes, and so hinders progress and walking that in no sea does a greater shipwreck come about. What if no mountains had anywhere risen, if the whole earth had sunk into a plain? If, where the winds are permitted to run only a little, they gather such force in a short space, what could they do if they had no barrier in the whole world? Therefore neither ought this to have been wanting to the praises of the magnificent God, that the mountains ascend and the plains descend into the place which he founded for them: founded, I say, namely so that neither the mountains, once bidden to ascend, should descend, nor the plains, once depressed, should rise up. When thus the founder of the earth drove away the deep, which was like a garment, its clothing, by the same power he poured out abroad a fitting supply of waters. For the waters did not so flee at his rebuke and gather into one place, that this [dry land], appearing, should thus be cast forth from the womb of the deep like an abortion; but, drawing the waters unceasingly into all its veins, it sucks the deep's abundant breast, and receives the early and the late rain from heaven, which ascends through the clouds and falls again. It is nourished within by the sweetening waters, watered without from the waters above it; likewise springs gush, streams flow. Praising which likewise, the Psalmist says, “Who sendest forth springs in the valleys: between the midst of the mountains the waters shall pass.” And so also Ecclesiastes, considering the origin of the flowing waters, says, “All the rivers enter into the sea, and the sea does not overflow. Why? Namely, because nothing flows in thither except what is taken from it again in the aforesaid ways.” So Rupert.¹⁰

Hugo quoque lib. 1 de Sacramentis, 1 part. cap. 6 et 21, censet ab initio factam esse terram cum omnibus cavitatibus et alveis quae futura erant deinde aquarum receptacula; sed probabilius est a principio condita esse elementa secundum naturalem suam constitutionem convenientem ipsis, ut sunt partes universi, hoc est ut essent sphaericae figurae et unum contineretur ab alio. Tertio modo responderi potest ad quaestionem supra positam, aquam ante circumfusam toti terrae ita fuisse tertio die unum in locum coactam, ut in maximam elata sublimitatem altissime extumuerit. Hoc responsum traditur maximeque probatur a Basilio, Ambrosio, et Catharino super hunc locum, et a beato Thoma in prima parte quaestione sexagesimanona, et Dionysio Carthusiano. Verumtamen tertium hoc responsum superiori quaestioni datum gravem et arduam habet quaestionem, et inter viros doctos nostri temporis non sine studio et cura tractatam: An mare, quae est congregatio aquarum tertio die facta a Deo, sit altius quam est terra? Quam quaestionem visum est nobis nec silentio praetereundam esse, nec indiligenter et inaccurate tractandam, praesertim cum ea bonam partem in divinarum litterarum tractatione et explicatione versetur. Fuere multi, et cum primis graves atque nobiles Theologi, tam de veteribus quam de recentioribus, qui admirandam de situ maris et aquae praestituto illi a Deo, cum dixit aquis “Congregetur aqua in locum unum, et appareat arida,” habuere opi[nationem]...

Hugh too, in the first book On the Sacraments, part one, chapters 6 and 21, judges that the earth was made from the beginning with all the cavities and beds which were thereafter to be the receptacles of the waters; but it is more probable that the elements were founded from the beginning according to their natural constitution befitting them, as they are parts of the universe — that is, that they were of spherical figure, and one contained by another. In a third way it can be answered to the question set down above, that the water, which before was poured around the whole earth, was on the third day so compressed into one place that, raised to the greatest height, it swelled up exceedingly high. This answer is handed down, and most of all approved, by Basil, Ambrose, and Catharinus on this place, and by blessed Thomas in the First Part, question sixty-nine, and by Dionysius the Carthusian. Nevertheless this third answer, given to the foregoing question, has a grave and arduous question, treated among the learned men of our time not without zeal and care: Whether the sea — which is the gathering of the waters made by God on the third day — is higher than the earth is? Which question it has seemed to us neither to be passed over in silence, nor to be treated carelessly and inaccurately, especially since it is in good part engaged in the treatment and explanation of the divine writings. There have been many — and, foremost, grave and noble Theologians, both of the ancients and of the moderns — who held an admirable opinion concerning the site of the sea and water, appointed to it by God when he said to the waters, “Let the water be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”...¹¹

...opinationem: opinantur enim aquam maris esse multo altiorem quam est terra, eamque solo Dei praecepto teneri, ne ad humiliora loca quo naturaliter propendet defluens terram universam operiat et obruat. Etenim isti persuasum sibi certumque habent molem aquae longe maiorem esse quam est terra, cum sit elementum superius et nobilius, quod secundum naturalem ordinem universum terrae orbem complecti et continere debeat, et sit rarius atque tenuius corpus, eoque mole grandius; et manifesto experimento sit compertum ex pusilla terra multo ampliorem aquam generari; quin existimarunt quidam, et Aristoteles libro secundo de Generatione et corruptione indicavit, aquam esse terra decuplo ampliorem. Si igitur aqua est longe maior quam terra, cum ea intra cavas et profundas terrae partes contineatur, necesse est, cum non sit maior extensione, esse grandiorem altitudine ac sublimitate. Sed huius sententiae et auctores et firmamenta exponamus.

...an opinion: for they think that the water of the sea is much higher than the earth is, and that it is held back by God's command alone, lest, flowing down to the lower places to which it naturally inclines, it should cover and overwhelm the whole earth. For these men hold it persuaded and certain to themselves that the mass of water is far greater than the earth, since it is a higher and nobler element, which according to the natural order ought to enfold and contain the whole globe of the earth; and that it is a rarer and thinner body, and therefore greater in bulk; and that it is found by manifest experiment that from a little earth much more water is generated; indeed, some have thought — and Aristotle indicated, in the second book On Generation and Corruption — that water is ten times larger than earth. If, then, the water is far greater than the earth, since it is contained within the hollow and deep parts of the earth, it must — not being greater in extension — be greater in height and elevation. But let us set out both the authors and the supports of this opinion.¹²

Basilius, homilia quarta in Hexameron, mare altius esse terra confirmat argumento maris rubri, cum quo Sesostres rex Aegypti et Darius Persarum rex coniungere mare Aegyptiacum conati sunt: “Quod sane,” inquit, “non tentassent, nisi mare rubrum altius esse terra Aegypti compertum habuissent.” Verum in huius historiae commemoratione videtur Basilius memoria lapsus, aut mendum eius scriptis aliunde obrepsisse: tradit enim Plinius libro sexto capite vicesimonono Reges illos non mare Aegyptiacum, sed Nilum fluvium cum mari rubro coniungere voluisse, incepto autem destitisse metu exundationis, excelsiore tribus cubitis rubro mari comperto quam terra Aegypti; vel potius quia metuebant ne, immissa mari aqua Nili, quae sola Aegyptiis potum praebet, corrumperetur. Innuit etiam hoc Aristoteles extremo libro primo Meteororum. Strabo libro decimoseptimo, eandem narrans historiam, ait: “Id operis pene perfectum, derelictum tamen fuisse a Dario primo, falsa opinione persuaso; persuasus est enim rubrum mare Aegypto sublimius, unde, si intermedius Isthmus intercideretur, Aegyptum a mari obrutum iri; Ptolemaei tamen reges eum incidentes Euripum clausum fecerunt, ut, cum vellent, in exterius mare navigarent, ac rursus sine periculo reverterentur.” Haec Strabo. Quare mare rubrum altius esse terra Aegypti, et auctoritate Strabonis et experimento facto a regibus Aegypti, constat esse falsum; quamquam, ut id demus, non tamen efficitur ab istis quod intendunt: nam fieri poterat ut mare rubrum non esset altius terra quae erat ei proxime continens et adiacens, sed remotiori quae magis attingebat Aegyptum. Veruntamen Basilio assentitur beatus Thomas in prima parte quaestione sexagesimanona articulo primo, et Catharinus in Commentario super hunc locum Geneseos.

Basil, in the fourth homily on the Hexaëmeron, confirms that the sea is higher than the earth by the argument of the Red Sea, with which Sesostris, king of Egypt, and Darius, king of the Persians, attempted to join the Egyptian sea: “Which,” he says, “they surely would not have attempted, unless they had ascertained that the Red Sea was higher than the land of Egypt.” But in the recounting of this history Basil seems to have slipped in memory, or an error to have crept into his writings from elsewhere: for Pliny relates, in the sixth book, chapter twenty-nine, that those kings wished to join not the Egyptian sea, but the river Nile, with the Red Sea, and desisted from the undertaking out of fear of inundation, the Red Sea being found higher by three cubits than the land of Egypt; or rather because they feared lest, the Nile water being let into the sea — which alone furnishes the Egyptians their drink — it should be spoiled. Aristotle too hints at this at the end of the first book of the Meteorology. Strabo, in the seventeenth book, narrating the same history, says: “That work was nearly completed, yet was abandoned by Darius the First, persuaded by a false opinion; for he was persuaded that the Red Sea was higher than Egypt, whence, if the intervening Isthmus were cut through, Egypt would be overwhelmed by the sea; the Ptolemaic kings, however, cutting it, made a closed channel [Euripus], so that, when they wished, they might sail into the outer sea, and again return without danger.” So Strabo. Wherefore that the Red Sea is higher than the land of Egypt is established to be false, both by the authority of Strabo and by the experiment made by the kings of Egypt; although, even granting it, what these men intend is still not effected: for it could happen that the Red Sea was not higher than the land immediately continuous and adjacent to it, but than a more remote land which bordered more on Egypt. Nevertheless Basil is agreed with by blessed Thomas, in the First Part, question sixty-nine, article one, and by Catharinus, in his Commentary on this place of Genesis.¹³

Confirmatur autem ea opinio nonnullis Scripturae testi[moniis]...

And that opinion is confirmed by certain testi[monies] of Scripture...¹⁴

...moniis. Primum testimonium est Davidis Psalmo centesimotertio, “Super montes,” inquit, “stabunt aquae,” hoc est, aqua erit superior et sublimior quibuslibet terrae montibus. Alterum est eiusdem in Psalmo tricesimosecundo, “Congregans sicut in utre aquas maris,” vel, ut est in Hebraeo, “Congregans sicut tumulum seu acervum aquas Maris.” Cuius simile est illud in libro Ecclesiastici capite tricesimonono, “In verbo eius stetit aqua sicut congeries”; et illud quod est in Oratione Regis Manassis, “Tu ligasti mare verbo praecepti tui, et conclusisti abyssum, et signasti eam laudabili et terribili nomine tuo.” Tertium est illud ex Psalmo sexagesimooctavo, “Veni in altitudinem maris,” ex quo intelligitur mare esse altius comparatione terrae. Hoc etiam maxime consentaneum esse sacris litteris ad hunc modum argumentantur: Ubicumque Scriptura loquitur de situ maris, tamquam miraculum quoddam et clarissimum omnipotentiae Dei argumentum magnificat ac praedicat quod mare non se effundat in terras easque omnes operiat et obruat; quod sane non foret mirum si mare non esset altius terra. Atque hoc, verbis ipsius Scripturae appositis, fit illustrius. Hieremias capite quinto, “Me ergo non timebitis?” ait Dominus. “Qui posui arenam terminum mari, praeceptum sempiternum quod non praeteribit; et commovebuntur et non poterunt, et intumescent fluctus eius et non transibunt illud.” Proverb. 8, “Legem,” inquit, “ponebat aquis, ne transirent fines suos.” In Psalmo centesimotertio, “Terminum posuisti quem non transgredientur, neque convertentur operire terram.” Sed luculentius Iob capite tricesimooctavo, “Quis,” ait Dominus, “conclusit ostiis mare, quando erumpebat quasi de vulva procedens? Circumdedi illud terminis meis, et posui vectem et ostia, et dixi: Usque huc venies, et non procedes amplius, hic confringe tumentes fluctus tuos.”

...testimonies. The first testimony is David's, in Psalm one hundred three: “Above the mountains,” he says, “the waters shall stand,” that is, the water will be higher and loftier than any mountains of the earth. The second is the same author's, in Psalm thirty-two: “Gathering the waters of the sea as in a vessel,” or, as it is in the Hebrew, “Gathering the waters of the Sea as a heap or pile.” Like which is that in the book of Ecclesiasticus, chapter thirty-nine: “At his word the water stood like a heap”; and that in the Prayer of King Manasses: “Thou hast bound the sea by the word of thy command, and hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by thy praiseworthy and terrible name.” The third is that from Psalm sixty-eight: “I am come into the depth of the sea,” from which it is understood that the sea is higher in comparison with the earth. They also argue that this is most agreeable to the sacred writings in this way: Wherever Scripture speaks of the situation of the sea, it magnifies and proclaims, as a kind of miracle and a most clear argument of God's omnipotence, that the sea does not pour itself out over the lands and cover and overwhelm them all; which surely would be no wonder, if the sea were not higher than the earth. And this is made clearer by the very words of Scripture set down. Jeremiah, chapter five: “Will you not then fear me?” says the Lord. “Who set the sand a bound to the sea, an everlasting precept which it shall not pass; and they shall be moved and shall not prevail, and its waves shall swell and shall not pass over it.” Proverbs 8: “He set,” it says, “a law for the waters, that they should not pass their bounds.” In Psalm one hundred three: “Thou hast set a bound which they shall not pass, nor shall they return to cover the earth.” But more brilliantly Job, chapter thirty-eight: “Who,” says the Lord, “shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as issuing from the womb? I surrounded it with my bounds, and set a bar and doors, and said: Thus far shalt thou come, and shalt go no further, and here shalt thou break thy swelling waves.”¹⁵

Ex adverso autem Caietanus, cum Philosophis et Astrologis consentiens (quis autem tam clara, explorata et certa docentibus non consentiat?), super hunc locum Geneseos ridens hanc opinionem, “Si quis,” inquit, “dubitat terramque apparet extra aquas esse superiorem aquis, non tam eget ratione quam applicatione ad sensum: cernimus enim motum aquae semper fieri in decliviorem locum, flumina autem per terram decurrunt in mare; quod si altius esset quam terra, profecto in eam, ut in locum decliviorem et humiliorem, necessario deflueret; nam dicere mare omnipotentia Dei teneri ne defluat in terram ineptum est et puerilis inscitiae, ponere sine causa tantum et tam perpetuum miraculum.” Videtur etiam Scriptura eam opinionem coarguere, quippe eos qui ex terra petunt mare dicit descendere, sicut in Psal. 106, “Qui descendunt mare in navibus.” Certe sine magno miraculo non potest aqua, quae suapte natura gravior est aëre estque fluxa et labilis, ita consistere ut partes eius sublimiores terra ad eam non delabantur, sicut possunt partes terrae supra aërem eminentes consistere, videlicet propter partium eius firmitatem et inter se solidam connexionem. Quid quod aquam esse rotundam, et ex aqua et terra unum conflari globum, et physicis et Mathematicis argumentis evi[denter]...

But on the contrary Cajetan, agreeing with the Philosophers and Astrologers (and who would not agree with those who teach things so clear, ascertained, and certain?), laughing at this opinion on this place of Genesis, says: “If anyone doubts that the earth which appears outside the waters is higher than the waters, he needs not so much reasoning as the application of his senses: for we see that the motion of water always takes place toward the lower place, and the rivers run down through the land into the sea; and if it were higher than the land, it would surely flow down necessarily into it, as into a lower and humbler place; for to say that the sea is held by God's omnipotence lest it flow down upon the land is foolish and the mark of childish ignorance, to posit so great and so perpetual a miracle without cause.” Scripture too seems to refute that opinion, since it says that those who seek the sea from the land “descend,” as in Psalm 106: “They that go down to the sea in ships.” Certainly without a great miracle the water — which by its own nature is heavier than air, and is fluid and slippery — cannot so stand that its parts higher than the earth do not fall down to it, as the parts of the earth eminent above the air can stand (namely, on account of the firmness of its parts and their solid connection among themselves). And what of the fact that the water is round, and that one globe is formed of water and earth, is proved by both physical and Mathematical arguments evi[dently]...¹⁶

...denter probatur? Hoc item demonstrat quotidiana experientia. Si enim mare altius esset terra, pari ventorum aut remigum vi et impulsu, eadem navis multo velocius ferretur ad portum seu littus tendens quam ex portu aut ex littore discedens: discedens enim ex littore ascenderet, et in arduum et acclive obnitens difficiliorem haberet progressum; contra vero accedens ad littus, tanquam per lubricam declivitatem descendens, magna velocitate atque impetu deferretur; quin quo magis navis ex portu discederet, eo melius ab iis qui sunt in portu vel littore cerneretur, ut pote quae magis ac magis semper in altiorem locum ascenderet: quod tamen contra evenit.

...dently? This too daily experience demonstrates. For if the sea were higher than the earth, with an equal force and impulse of winds or oars, the same ship would be borne much more swiftly when heading toward the harbor or shore than when departing from the harbor or shore: for in departing from the shore it would ascend, and, struggling up a steep and rising slope, would have a more difficult progress; whereas, on the contrary, approaching the shore, as though descending a slippery incline, it would be borne along with great speed and force; indeed, the more the ship departed from the harbor, the better it would be seen by those who are in the harbor or on the shore, inasmuch as it would be ascending more and more always into a higher place: which, however, happens contrariwise.¹⁷

Haec incommoda ut declinaret Paulus Burgensis in alteram etiam magis absurdam opinionem incurrit. Ita enim in prima sua additione ad postillam Nicolai de Lyra super hunc locum Geneseos scribit, in exordio mundi creatum esse a Deo elementum aquae circumfusum et concentricum terrae; postea tertio die, propter utilitatem usumque stirpium atque animantium, ita separatam esse aquam a terra ut faceret aqua proprium globum, diversum a globo terrae, habentemque aliud centrum quam est terra et mundi centrum: non quidem ita ut globus aquae omnino esset extra globum terrae, sed ut eum secundum aliquam partem intersecaret. Quanto autem intervallo distent inter se centrum terrae et centrum aquae, ait non posse explorata certaque ratione comprehendi; posse tamen probabili coniectura existimari esse idem centrum aquae atque est centrum orbis eccentrici lunae, propterea quod aqua, ut multis constat argumentis et experimentis, sequitur motum lunae, praesertim autem in fluxu et refluxu. Addit Burgensis aquam initio mundi factam, quia erat concentrica terrae, habuisse tum naturalem vim et propensionem tendendi ad centrum terrae et mundi; sed eandem postea tertio die segregatam a terra, deposita priori propensione, accepisse aliam longe diversam, qua naturaliter propendet non ad centrum terrae et mundi, sed ad centrum eius globi quem aqua proprium confecit a terris separata, ad quod centrum omnes aquae ubicumque sint, ab eo tempore usque adhuc, naturalem habent propensionem et motum.

In order to avoid these difficulties, Paul of Burgos fell into another opinion even more absurd. For thus he writes, in his first addition to the postil of Nicholas of Lyra on this place of Genesis, that at the beginning of the world the element of water was created by God poured around and concentric with the earth; but afterward, on the third day, for the benefit and use of plants and living things, the water was so separated from the earth that the water made its own globe, distinct from the globe of the earth, and having a center other than the earth and the center of the world: not indeed so that the globe of water was wholly outside the globe of earth, but so that it intersected it in some part. By how great an interval the center of the earth and the center of the water are distant from each other, he says cannot be comprehended by any sure and ascertained reckoning; but it can be supposed, by probable conjecture, that the center of the water is the same as the center of the eccentric orb of the moon — because the water, as is established by many arguments and experiments, follows the motion of the moon, especially in the ebb and flow. Burgos adds that the water, made at the beginning of the world, since it was concentric with the earth, had then a natural force and propensity of tending to the center of the earth and of the world; but that the same water, afterward on the third day separated from the earth, having laid aside its former propensity, received another far different, by which it naturally inclines not to the center of the earth and the world, but to the center of that globe which the water made its own when separated from the lands — to which center all the waters, wherever they are, from that time until now, have their natural propensity and motion.¹⁸

Hanc suam commentationem valde laudat et magnificat Burgensis; quam tamen, si quis eam attente consideret, agnoscet esse inane ac futile commentum. Principio, potissimum et huius opinionis et eius quam proxime ante tractavimus fundamentum atque firmamentum est aquam esse longe maiorem quam est terra: quod falsum esse, et contra potius terram esse multo maiorem aqua, manifestis firmisque rationibus ostendit Alexander Piccolomineus in libro quem sermone Italico edidit de Quantitate terrae et aquae; idemque breviter, sed acute ac docte demonstravit Iulius Scaliger in opere exoticarum exercitationum, quod scrip[sit]...

Burgos greatly praises and exalts this device of his; which, however, if anyone consider it attentively, he will recognize to be an empty and futile fabrication. In the first place, the chief foundation and support both of this opinion and of the one we treated just before is that the water is far greater than the earth: which is false — and, on the contrary, that the earth is much greater than the water — Alexander Piccolomini shows by manifest and firm reasons in the book he published in the Italian tongue, On the Quantity of Earth and Water; and the same Julius Scaliger demonstrated briefly, but acutely and learnedly, in the work of Exoteric Exercitations, which he wro[te]...¹⁹

...sit adversus Cardanum, exercitatione XXXIX. Quibus auctoribus indicatis, ne, tractandis rebus instituto nostro alienis, longiores simus quam esse volumus, eorum argumenta commemorare supersedebimus. Sed isti nec philosophiam magnopere curare et Mathematicos parvipendere videntur: a quibus tamen non dubiis rationibus concluditur ex aqua et terra unum effici globum, cuius centrum gravitatis et magnitudinis idem sit atque centrum terrae et mundi, in quod omnia tam terrae quam aquae pondera, e sublimi lapsa, directo feruntur. Verum satis argumenti est ad confutandas istas opiniones earum auctores non aliter eas tueri, ac seipsos expedire posse, quam confugiendo ad miracula, quae non concessissent Philosophi nec Theologi sine magna ratione ac necessitate inducenda et admittenda censent, praesertim vero in creatione mundi primaque omnium rerum institutione atque dispositione, in qua maxime consentaneum rationi est credere Deum res omnes convenientes suis quasque naturis condidisse, disposuisse, atque collocasse. Adversus istos etiam multum valet illa B. Augustini in libro septimo capit. 30 de Civit. Dei sententia: “Sic Deus,” inquit Augustinus, “administrat omnia quae creavit, ut etiam ipsa proprios motus exercere et agere sinat.” Iam vero, quale est illud quod Burgensis dixit, aquam ante diem tertium aliam habuisse naturalem propensionem motumque et aliud centrum quam post tertium diem habuit, cum a terra est separata? Hinc enim necessario efficeretur aliam fuisse secundum speciem aquam ante diem tertium et aliam post diem tertium. Si enim centrum est aliud, alius motus aliaque propensio naturalis, necesse quoque est aliam utriusque aquae fuisse gravitatem aliamque naturam. Sed quid hoc rationibus supervacue argumentamur, quod certo sensuum iudicio et manifestis patet experimentis? Constat enim, ut terrae pondera, itidem etiam aquae, super[ne] delapsa directo et ad perpendiculum in terram et in mundi centrum deferri.

...wrote against Cardano, in the thirty-ninth exercitation. These authors being indicated, lest, by treating matters foreign to our purpose, we be longer than we wish to be, we will refrain from rehearsing their arguments. But these men seem neither to care much for philosophy nor to make much of the Mathematicians — by whom, however, it is concluded by no doubtful reasons that of water and earth one globe is made, whose center of gravity and of magnitude is the same as the center of the earth and of the world, into which all the weights, both of earth and of water, fallen from on high, are borne directly. But it is argument enough for the refutation of those opinions that their authors can defend them, and extricate themselves, in no other way than by fleeing to miracles — which Philosophers and Theologians judge are not to be introduced and admitted without great reason and necessity, but especially in the creation of the world and in the first institution and ordering of all things, in which it is most agreeable to reason to believe that God founded, disposed, and placed all things suitably to their several natures. Against these men, too, that statement of blessed Augustine, in the seventh book, chapter 30, of the City of God, has much force: “So,” says Augustine, “does God administer all the things he created, that he also lets them exercise and perform their own motions.” And now, what kind of thing is that which Burgos said — that the water before the third day had a different natural propensity and motion, and a different center, than it had after the third day, when it was separated from the earth? For from this it would necessarily follow that the water before the third day was different in species from the water after the third day. For if the center is different, the motion different, and the natural propensity different, it is also necessary that the gravity of each water was different, and its nature different. But why do we argue this superfluously by reasonings, when it is plain by the sure judgment of the senses and by manifest experiments? For it is established that the weights of the earth, and likewise of the water too, when dropped from above, are borne directly and perpendicularly to the earth and to the center of the world.²⁰

Verum deinceps testimonia Scripturae, pro confirmatione istius sententiae superius posita, quemadmodum interpretanda et accipienda sint doceamus. Primum testimonium erat illud, “Super montes stabunt aquae,” quod sane istorum causam non adiuvat: variis enim modis exponitur. Quidam putant Davidem loqui de situ aquae cum in exordio mundi terram undique tegebat altius quam est montium altitudo. Nec obstat in futuro dici “Stabunt,” sic enim dictum est pro “Steterunt” vel “Stabant,” more Hebraeorum, qui futurum pro praeterito perfecto vel imperfecto usurpare solent. Alii describi putant illis verbis procellosos maris fluctus, qui, oborta ingenti aliqua tempestate, supra montium altitudinem extumescere et efferri videntur, sicut ait David in psalmo 106, “Ascendunt usque ad caelos, et descendunt usque ad abyssos.” Nec desunt qui ea verba spectare existiment ad ori[ginem]...

But next let us teach how the testimonies of Scripture, set down above for the confirmation of that opinion, are to be interpreted and taken. The first testimony was that one, “Above the mountains the waters shall stand,” which surely does not help their cause: for it is expounded in various ways. Some think David is speaking of the situation of the water when, at the beginning of the world, it covered the earth on every side higher than is the height of the mountains. Nor does it stand in the way that it is said in the future, “shall stand”: for so it is said for “stood” or “were standing,” after the manner of the Hebrews, who are wont to use the future for the perfect or imperfect past. Others think that by those words are described the stormy waves of the sea, which, when some great tempest has arisen, seem to swell up and be raised above the height of the mountains — as David says in psalm 106, “They mount up to the heavens, and they go down to the depths.” Nor are there lacking those who think those words look to the ori[gin]...²¹

...ginem et scaturiginem multorum fontium atque lacuum, qui in supremis celsimorum montium iugis inveniuntur. Posset item sententia illa Davidis intelligi de aquis pluvialibus, quae supra montes in media regione aëris generantur. Alterum testimonium, ductum ex Psalmo 32 et ex cap. 39 Ecclesiastici et ex Oratione regis Manassis, nihil istorum causae prodest. Etenim Scriptura illis locis non designat naturalem maris et aquarum situm, sed describit duo celebratissima miracula, quorum alterum prius in mari rubro, alterum posterius (annis scilicet quadraginta) in fluvio Iordane contigerunt, aquis in sublime elatis atque consistentibus, ut Hebraeis tutus et facilis interpateret transitus. Similia enim canit David illis miraculis in Psalmo 77. Potest etiam intelligi de aqua maris, quae sic a Deo in illis suis receptaculis inclusa coërcetur, ut quis paulum aquae in utrem concludit. Nec illa verba Davidis in psalmo 68, “Veni in altitudinem maris,” contra nos faciunt: nam per altitudinem maris eo loco significari profunditatem eius antecedentia et consequentia verba demonstrant. Sic enim est inibi: “Infixus sum in limo profundi, et non est substantia. Veni in altitudinem maris, et tempestas demersit me. Eripe me de luto, ut non infigar. Libera me de profundis aquarum. Non me demergat tempestas aquae, neque absorbeat me profundum.” Porro quod Scriptura inquit praecepto Dei coërceri aquas et teneri ne terram exundent, non arguit eas sublimiores esse terra et miraculose cohiberi ne defluant ad obruendam terram, sed indicat aquas sic fuisse a Deo creatas et in talibus locis collocatas ut non queant exire ad operiendam terram.

...the source and welling-up of many springs and lakes, which are found on the highest ridges of the loftiest mountains. That saying of David could likewise be understood of the rain-waters, which are generated above the mountains in the middle region of the air. The second testimony, drawn from Psalm 32, and from chapter 39 of Ecclesiasticus, and from the Prayer of King Manasses, profits these men's cause not at all. For in those places Scripture does not designate the natural situation of the sea and the waters, but describes two most celebrated miracles, of which the one happened earlier in the Red Sea, the other later (forty years afterward, namely) in the river Jordan, the waters being raised on high and standing still, so that a safe and easy passage might lie open for the Hebrews. For David sings of like miracles in Psalm 77. It can also be understood of the sea-water, which is so shut up and confined by God in those its receptacles, as one shuts up a little water in a wineskin. Nor do those words of David in psalm 68, “I am come into the depth of the sea,” tell against us: for that by “the depth of the sea” in that place is signified its profundity, the preceding and following words demonstrate. For thus it is there: “I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing. I am come into the depth of the sea, and the tempest has overwhelmed me. Rescue me out of the mire, that I sink not. Deliver me out of the deep waters. Let not the tempest of water drown me, nor the deep swallow me up.” Furthermore, that Scripture says the waters are confined by God's command, and held back lest they overflow the earth, does not argue that they are higher than the earth and are miraculously restrained lest they flow down to overwhelm it; but indicates that the waters were so created by God and placed in such places that they cannot go out to cover the earth.²²

Ergo quia Deus indidit aquis vim et propensionem manendi in locis humilioribus, quia Deus fecit in terra loca depressa et concava eaque comparavit ut essent aquarum receptacula, quia Deus tertio die aquam segregavit a terra et in praedicta loca coëgit, quia Deus opposuit et obiecit aquis magna scopulorum, montium et littorum impedimenta, et quasi aggere quodam ita conclusit eas ut ex suo loco ad inundandam terram non possint effluere: ob has omnes causas dicitur Deus praeceptum dedisse aquis ne loco suo exirent. Naturales vero vires et facultates rerum, per quas singulae convenienter naturae suae operantur — quoniam a Deo, omnis naturae auctore, sunt eis insitae ut secundum illas operentur — vocari solent in Scriptura leges et praecepta Dei; quapropter Iob inquit Deum praecipere soli ut oriatur et occidat, et luci praescripsisse viam qua procedat. Verum de hac quaestione quae sunt hactenus disputata satis esse possunt.

Therefore, because God implanted in the waters a force and propensity to remain in the lower places; because God made in the earth depressed and concave places and provided them to be receptacles of the waters; because God on the third day separated the water from the earth and forced it into the aforesaid places; because God set and opposed against the waters the great obstacles of crags, mountains, and shores, and so shut them in, as it were by a kind of rampart, that they cannot flow out from their place to inundate the earth: for all these causes God is said to have given a command to the waters, that they should not go out from their place. And the natural forces and faculties of things, by which each operates suitably to its nature — since they are implanted in them by God, the author of all nature, that they may operate according to them — are wont to be called in Scripture the laws and commands of God; wherefore Job says that God commands the sun to rise and set, and has prescribed for the light the way by which it proceeds. But on this question what has hitherto been disputed may suffice.²³

Redeamus ad primam quaestionem supra positam, quomodo aqua prius operiens undique terram, eoque multo maior ipsa terra, potuerit unum in locum terrae cogi. Exposuimus tres modos respondendi, sed tertium abiudicavimus et reiecimus. Sunt etiamnum alii duo modi valde probabiles, quorum utervis iunctus cum [secundo superius exposito]...

Let us return to the first question set down above: how the water, which before covered the earth on every side, and was therefore much greater than the earth itself, could be forced into one place of the earth. We set out three ways of answering, but rejected and threw out the third. There are still two other ways, very probable, either of which, joined with [the second set out above]...²⁴

...cum secundo superius exposito rem planam et intellectu credituque facilem reddit. Dici enim potest aquam prius habuisse densitatem naturaliter sibi convenientem, sicut habuit et situm et figuram; hoc autem tertio die fuisse magis densatam maxima ex parte, et sic minori loco contineri potuisse. Facit huic opinioni fidem ipsum mare, quod est elementum aquae, quod densius et crassius est quam alia quaelibet aqua; itaque densitas quam habet aqua naturaliter nunc generata, ut fontium, fluminum, imbrium, est ea quae naturaliter convenit aquae, quae minor est densitate maris. Illud quoque responderi posset: licet aqua prius maior fuerit quam terra secundum extensionem et circumferentiam, quia ipsam circumplectebatur, erat tamen multo minor secundum altitudinem vel profunditatem: nam altitudo terrae a centro ad superficiem erat multo maior quam altitudo aquae, a superficie terrae usque ad extimam eius superficiem. Verisimile enim est Deum tantum aquae creasse et extendisse super terram quantum postea in terrae receptaculis commode posset contineri. Coniecturam capere licet ex aëre, qui eodem modo mansit ut fuerat creatus; cuius tamen altitudo, a terra ad extremum tertiae regionis, non implet sexaginta milliaria, ut probant Mathematici, tum ex ratione crepusculorum, tum ex altitudine apparentium in suprema regione aëris: cum tamen altitudo terrae, a centro ad circumferentiam, quae ei est semidiameter eius, contineat 3500 milliaria.

...with the second set out above, renders the matter plain and easy both to understand and to believe. For it can be said that the water before had a density naturally suited to it, just as it had both its situation and its figure; but that on the third day it was, for the greatest part, more condensed, and so could be contained in a smaller place. This opinion is given credence by the sea itself, which is the element of water, and which is denser and coarser than any other water; and so the density which the water now naturally generated has — as that of springs, rivers, rains — is the density which naturally belongs to water, which is less than the density of the sea. This too could be answered: although the water was before greater than the earth in extension and circumference, because it enfolded it, yet it was much less in height or depth: for the height of the earth, from the center to the surface, was much greater than the height of the water, from the surface of the earth to its outermost surface. For it is likely that God created and extended over the earth just so much water as could afterward be conveniently contained in the receptacles of the earth. One may take a conjecture from the air, which remained in the same way as it had been created; whose height, however, from the earth to the extreme of the third region, does not reach sixty miles, as the Mathematicians prove, both from the reckoning of the twilights and from the height of things appearing in the supreme region of the air — whereas the height of the earth, from the center to the circumference, which is its semidiameter, contains 3,500 miles.²⁵

Illud etiam in dubio vertitur, quemadmodum verum sit quod ait Moses hoc loco, omnes aquas in unum locum esse congregatas, cum videamus tam diversa et tam longe dissita esse aquarum loca in tot maribus, fluminibus, lacubus et paludibus, ut quaedam nulla inter se communione iungi videantur. Ad hoc breve et in promptu est responsum: illud “In locum unum” non significare aliud quam locum separatum a terra habitabili, hoc est, aquas in suum quamque locum confluxisse. Basilius illud quod dicitur, aquas esse congregatas in locum unum, non putat de qualibet aquarum congregatione esse intelligendum, sed tantum de maxima, quae appellatur mare: constat autem maria omnia esse coniuncta cum Oceano, ideoque habere unum locum. Sicut enim aliorum elementorum est suus cuique locus, sic aquae, et hunc esse in quo est mare vel Oceanus. Et quemadmodum propter usus et commoditates hominum multae partes et aëris et ignis a suo elemento separatae extra locum eius in variis terrae locis continentur, nec hoc tamen obstat quo minus haec elementa unum habere proprium et naturalem locum verissime dicantur: ita quoque de aquis sentire convenit. Quae sententia, ante Basilium, fuit etiam Aristotelis lib. 2 Meteororum. Atque omnia quidem maria cum Oceano continuari extra controversiam est, praeter mare Caspium, de quo non satis convenit inter scriptores: etenim Strabo, Plin., Diony. de situ [orbis]...

This too is brought into doubt: how it is true, what Moses says in this place, that all the waters were gathered into one place — since we see the places of the waters to be so diverse and so far apart, in so many seas, rivers, lakes, and marshes, that some seem joined by no communication among themselves. To this the answer is brief and ready: that “Into one place” means nothing other than a place separated from the habitable land — that is, that the waters flowed together, each into its own place. Basil does not think that what is said, that the waters were gathered into one place, is to be understood of any gathering whatever of waters, but only of the greatest, which is called the sea: and it is established that all the seas are joined with the Ocean, and therefore have one place. For as each of the other elements has its own place, so does water — and this is the place in which is the sea or the Ocean. And just as, for the uses and conveniences of men, many parts both of air and of fire, separated from their element, are contained outside its place in various places of the earth — and yet this does not prevent it being most truly said that these elements have one proper and natural place — so it is fitting to think also concerning the waters. This opinion, before Basil, was also Aristotle's, in the second book of the Meteorology. And that all the seas are continuous with the Ocean is beyond controversy, except the Caspian Sea, about which there is not sufficient agreement among writers: for Strabo, Pliny, Dionysius On the Situation [of the World]...²⁶

...orbis, et Basilius hoc loco arbitrantur mare Caspium communes habere aquas cum Oceano Arctico; ex adverso autem Herodotus in Clio, Aristoteles in secundo Meteororum, Ptolemaeus in sua Geographia, aliique cum primis graves scriptores existimant mare Caspium undequaque circumclusum esse littoribus, nec aquam accipere ex Oceano, sed ex plurimis et ingentissimis amnibus in ipsum influentibus; deonerare autem se aqua per occultos sub terra alveos in Euxinum pontum emissa. Nec officit huic sententiae salcedo maris Caspii, ut quam habet etiam lacus Genesareth in Palaestina, nullam habens manifestam cum mari Syriaco aquarum communicationem. Sed lector eiusmodi rerum curiosus, si lubet, legat quae scripsit Iulius Scaliger de mari Caspio adversus Cardanum, exercitatione 51. At enim Beda dictum Mosis de aquis unum in locum congregatis pertinere ait ad omnes aquas ubicunque locorum sint, licet diversos alveos atque origines habere videantur: quippe vel sunt maria, quorum ex Oceano manifesta est origo, vel per occultos terrae meatus primam ex mari ducunt originem et in ipsum tandem revertuntur, veluti aperte docet Salomon initio libri Ecclesiastae. Verum haec Bedae sententia gravem habet adversarium Aristotelem, qui libro secundo Meteororum ei obnixe contradicit. Iulius Scaliger Salomonis sententiam in exercitatione 46 acerrime defendit contra Cardanum. Titelmannus autem, explanans locum illum Ecclesiastae, dictum Salomonis cum Aristotelis doctrina conciliare et concordare non inerudite conatur. Sed huius quaestionis cognitionem et iudicium Christianis philosophis permittamus.

...of the World, and Basil in this place think that the Caspian Sea shares its waters with the Arctic Ocean; but on the contrary Herodotus in his Clio, Aristotle in the second book of the Meteorology, Ptolemy in his Geography, and others — grave writers among the foremost — judge that the Caspian Sea is closed in on every side by shores, and receives its water not from the Ocean, but from very many and very great rivers flowing into it; and that it unloads itself of water, sent out through hidden channels under the earth, into the Euxine [Black] Sea. Nor does the saltness of the Caspian Sea tell against this opinion — such as the Lake of Gennesareth too has in Palestine, having no manifest communication of waters with the Syrian Sea. But the reader curious about such matters, if he please, may read what Julius Scaliger wrote on the Caspian Sea against Cardano, in the fifty-first exercitation. But Bede says that Moses' saying about the waters gathered into one place pertains to all waters, wherever they are, although they seem to have diverse beds and origins: for either they are seas, whose origin from the Ocean is manifest, or, through hidden passages of the earth, they draw their first origin from the sea and at last return into it — as Solomon plainly teaches at the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes. But this opinion of Bede's has a grave adversary, Aristotle, who in the second book of the Meteorology stoutly contradicts it. Julius Scaliger most keenly defends Solomon's opinion, in the forty-sixth exercitation, against Cardano. And Titelmann, explaining that passage of Ecclesiastes, tries, not unlearnedly, to reconcile and harmonize Solomon's saying with Aristotle's teaching. But the knowledge and judgment of this question let us leave to the Christian philosophers.²⁷

Iam vero, circa id quod sequitur in narratione Mosis, “Et appareat arida,” quid Augustinus Eugubinus in sua Cosmopoeia prodiderit, non est in praeteritis relinquendum. Opinatur Eugubinus non fuisse universam terram simul aquis detectam et nudatam, sed paulatim et particulatim; prius autem extra aquas apparuisse et siccatam esse partem terrae Aquilonarem, eam dico quae inter Arcticum et Aequinoctialem circulum interiacet: tum quod ea sit potior et nobilior pars terrae habitabilis, ut in qua fuerit Paradisus, primusque homo conditus et locatus, et genus humanum propagatum, et ab eo tempore usque ad hoc semper maxime floruerit (in hoc enim terrarum tractu potentissima imperia clarissimaque hominum ingenia et rerum gestarum monumenta fuisse constat); tum etiam quod haec pars terrae aquilonaris multo altior est Australi, ob idque prior ex aquis emersit et extitit: quod eleganter poëta ille cecinit:

Now indeed, concerning what follows in Moses' narrative, “And let the dry land appear,” what Augustinus Eugubinus [Steuco] reported in his Cosmopoeia is not to be left among things passed over. Steuco holds that the whole earth was not uncovered and bared of the waters at once, but little by little and part by part; and that the Northern part of the earth — that, I mean, which lies between the Arctic and the Equinoctial circle — appeared out of the waters and was dried first: both because it is the better and nobler part of the habitable earth (as that in which Paradise was, and the first man was founded and placed, and the human race propagated, and which from that time until now has always flourished most — for in this tract of lands it is established that the most powerful empires, the brightest human intellects, and the monuments of great deeds have been); and also because this northern part of the earth is much higher than the southern, and on that account emerged and stood forth from the waters first: which that poet elegantly sang:²⁸

As the world rises steeply toward Scythia and the Rhipaean heights, so it sinks, sloping down, toward Libya and the south winds.²⁹

Mundus ut ad Scythiam Rhipheasque arduus arces / Consurgit, premitur Libyae devexus in Austros.

Id etiam confirmat Aristoteles initio libri 2 Meteororum, cuius haec inibi sunt verba: “Sicut et secundum partem ex altis fluvios apparent fluere, sic et totius terrae ex altioribus, quae ad Ursam, fluxus [sit plurimus]...”

Aristotle too confirms this at the beginning of the second book of the Meteorology, whose words there are these: “Just as, in a particular region, the rivers appear to flow from the high places, so also, of the whole earth, the flow is [greatest] from the higher places, which are toward the Bear [the north]...”³⁰

...fluxus sit plurimus. De eo autem quod est, ea quae ad Ursam sunt esse terra alta, signum quoddam est et hoc, multos persuasos esse antiquorum Meteorologicorum Solem non ferri sub terra, sed circa terram et locum hunc; obscurari autem et facere noctem, propterea quod alta sit ad Ursam terra.” Hactenus Aristoteles. Plinius vero aliud eiusdem rei ponit argumentum, aquam ex Ponto meare in alia maria, in Pontum autem nunquam refluere: sic enim scribit nonagesimoseptimo capite libri secundi, “Pontus semper extra meat in Propontidem; introrsus in Pontum nunquam refluo mari.” Et libro quarto capite decimo tertio, “Non est,” inquit, “omittenda multorum opinio, priusquam digrediamur a Ponto, qui maria omnia interiora illo capite nasci, non Gaditano freto, existimavere, haud improbabili argumento: quoniam aestus semper e Ponto profluens nunquam reciprocetur.”

...the flow is greatest. And of this — that the lands which are toward the Bear are high land — there is also this sign: that many of the ancient Meteorologists were persuaded that the Sun is not carried under the earth, but around the earth and this region; and that it is obscured and makes night, because the land toward the Bear is high.” Thus far Aristotle. But Pliny puts another argument for the same matter: that water passes out of the Pontus [Black Sea] into the other seas, but never flows back into the Pontus; for thus he writes in the ninety-seventh chapter of the second book: “The Pontus always passes outward into the Propontis; inward into the Pontus the sea never flows back.” And in the fourth book, chapter thirteen, he says: “The opinion of many is not to be omitted, before we depart from the Pontus, who thought that all the inner seas are born from that head [the Pontus], not from the Strait of Cadiz — by no improbable argument: since the tide, always flowing out of the Pontus, never flows back.”³¹

Sed redeo ad Eugubinum: is propterea ductus est in eam sententiam, quod sibi ipse persuaserat segregationem illam aquarum et exsiccationem terrae non singulari omnipotentia Dei subito esse factam, sed naturali potestate Solis tunc ardentissimi et ad attenuandum siccandumque potentissimi: quod tamen omnium Theologorum viritim respuit fides. Haec enim sex dierum prima Dei opera, et proxime a Deo, et puncto temporis suo quaeque die esse facta, nullus Theologorum abnuit. Fuisse autem Solem in exordio mundi ardentiorem et valentiorem ad operandum quam postea fuit, ut putat Eugubinus, risum profecto moveret Philosophis, quibus in confesso est vim et facultatem Solis (quod ipse sit incorruptibilis et impassibilis) nulla ex parte remitti ac minui, vel contendi et augeri posse.

But I return to Steuco: he was led into that opinion because he had persuaded himself that that separation of the waters and the drying of the earth was done not by the singular omnipotence of God suddenly, but by the natural power of the Sun, then most burning and most potent to attenuate and dry — which, however, the faith of all the Theologians, man by man, rejects. For that these first works of God's six days were done immediately by God, and each on its day in a moment of time, no Theologian denies. And that the Sun at the beginning of the world was more burning and more powerful to act than it was afterward, as Steuco thinks, would surely move the Philosophers to laughter — to whom it is an admitted point that the force and faculty of the Sun (since it is incorruptible and impassible) can in no respect be remitted and lessened, or strained and increased.³²

Tostatus opinatur terram exsiccatam esse a vento quodam vehementer urenti, quem tunc Deus immisit, et Moses indicavit supra cum dixit “Spiritus Domini ferebatur super aquas.” Simili enim ratione desiccata est terra post diluvium, ut traditur infra capite octavo; et itidem fundum maris rubri, qua transitus erat futurus Hebraeis, desiccatum esse scriptum est in Exodo capite decimoquarto illis verbis, “Cum extendisset Moses manum super mare, abstulit illud Dominus flante vento vehementi et urente tota nocte, et vertit in siccum, divisaque est aqua.” Verum hanc opinationem suam paucis, ni fallor, probabit Tostatus: incredibile enim videtur esse posse ventum aliquem talem tantumque ut omnem terrae faciem altissime madefactam oblimatamque tam brevi tempore — vel, ut verius dicam, puncto temporis — adeo queat exsiccare ut potens fiat plantas et animalia procreandi. Quod autem ait hoc loco Procopius Gazaeus, nec abnuit Augustinus libro decimosexto de Civitate Dei capite nono, alteram partem terrae huic nostrae oppositam, quam habitare dicuntur Antipodes, esse totam aquis obrutam ob idque inhabitabilem (quasi illuc aqua, prius omnem terram operiens, coacta et congregata sit), falsum esse, hoc tempore navigationibus Hispanorum plane compertum est: illa enim terra et [continues]...

Tostatus holds that the earth was dried by a certain vehemently burning wind, which God then sent, and which Moses indicated above when he said, “The Spirit of the Lord was borne over the waters.” For by a like means the earth was dried after the flood, as is delivered below in chapter eight; and likewise that the bottom of the Red Sea, where the passage was to be for the Hebrews, was dried, is written in Exodus, chapter fourteen, in these words: “When Moses had stretched out his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away, a vehement and burning wind blowing all night, and turned it into dry land, and the water was divided.” But this opinion of his Tostatus will prove, unless I am mistaken, to few: for it seems incredible that there could be any wind such and so great that it could, in so brief a time — or, to speak more truly, in a moment of time — so dry the whole face of the earth, deeply soaked and bemired, that it became able to bring forth plants and animals. And as for what Procopius of Gaza says in this place — and Augustine does not deny, in the sixteenth book of the City of God, chapter nine — that the other part of the earth opposite to this of ours, which the Antipodes are said to inhabit, is wholly overwhelmed with waters, and therefore uninhabitable (as if the water, which before covered the whole earth, were forced and gathered thither): that this is false, has in our time been plainly ascertained by the navigations of the Spaniards: for that land [is both...]...³³

...et antea fuerat ab indigenis habitata, et nunc variis locis ab Hispanis habitatur.

...and it had before been inhabited by natives, and is now inhabited in various places by the Spaniards.³⁴

Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may make seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, etc. — Verse 11.³⁵

Germinet terra herbam virentem, et facientem semen, et lignum pomiferum faciens fructum iuxta genus suum, cuius semen in semetipso sit super terram, etc. — Vers. 11.

Beatus Augustinus libro quinto de Genesi ad litteram capite quarto arbitratur hoc praecepto Dei non esse plantas actu productas ex terra, sed tantummodo causaliter: Deum enim tunc inseruisse terris naturalem vim et potestatem generandi efferendique omnes plantarum species. Huic sententiae fidem eo argumento firmat, quod infra capite secundo Moses ait Deum hoc tertio die produxisse omne virgultum agri antequam oriretur in terra, omnemque herbam regionis priusquam germinaret: quare priusquam plantae actu orirentur ex terra, Moses testificatur eas in terra esse factas, nempe causaliter tantum atque virtualiter; hoc enim tertio die terra naturalem potentiam ex se proferendi omnia stirpium genera a Deo accepit. Sed valde dura est haec interpretatio Augustini, et distorquet verba Mosis, qui diserte aperteque narrat hoc tertio die et iussisse Deum ut terra proferret omnia herbarum et arborum genera, et ea statim protulisse terram divinis iussis obtemperando. “Protulit,” inquit, “terra herbam virentem et facientem semen iuxta genus suum, lignumque faciens fructum et habens unumquodque sementem secundum speciem suam.” Et sane Moses de creatione plantarum similiter loquitur, ut de creatione lucis, firmamenti, astrorum et animalium; nec potest negari fuisse in Paradiso perfectas arbores, cum id aperte capite secundo tradat Moses. Et vero ad victum hominis et animalium opus erat herbis et herbarum fructibus. Illa autem verba quae citat Augustinus ex secundo capite, “Antequam oriretur in terra,” significant primam illam productionem plantarum non fuisse naturalem, nec usitato ordine modoque aliarum productionum factam. Sensus igitur est: antequam in terra oriretur herba (videlicet modo naturali, ut nunc oritur), in illa prima productione producta est singulari quodam modo a Deo.

Blessed Augustine, in the fifth book on Genesis according to the Letter, chapter four, judges that by this command of God the plants were not actually produced from the earth, but only causally: for God then implanted in the earth the natural force and power of generating and bringing forth all the species of plants. He supports this opinion by this argument: that below, in the second chapter, Moses says that God on this third day produced every plant of the field before it sprang up in the earth, and every herb of the region before it sprouted — wherefore, before the plants actually arose from the earth, Moses testifies that they were made in the earth, namely only causally and virtually; for on this third day the earth received from God the natural power of bringing forth of itself all kinds of plants. But this interpretation of Augustine's is very hard, and distorts the words of Moses, who clearly and openly narrates that on this third day God both commanded that the earth should bring forth all the kinds of herbs and trees, and that the earth at once brought them forth, obeying the divine commands. “The earth,” he says, “brought forth the green herb, and such as maketh seed after its kind, and the tree making fruit and having each one its seed according to its species.” And indeed Moses speaks of the creation of plants in the same way as of the creation of light, the firmament, the stars, and the animals; nor can it be denied that there were perfect trees in Paradise, since Moses plainly hands this down in the second chapter. And truly, for the food of man and of the animals, there was need of herbs and the fruits of herbs. But those words which Augustine cites from the second chapter, “Before it sprang up in the earth,” signify that that first production of plants was not natural, nor made in the usual order and manner of other productions. The sense, therefore, is: before the herb arose in the earth (namely, in the natural way, as it now arises), in that first production it was produced in a certain singular way by God.³⁶

Ex illis autem verbis, “Producat seu germinet terra herbam virentem, et facientem semen, et lignum pomiferum faciens fructum iuxta genus suum,” etc., apparet omnes herbarum et arborum species factas esse in statu perfecto, habentes nempe semen unde possent aliae generari: tunc enim unumquodque perfectum est cum potest generare sibi simile, ut est apud Aristotelem in 4 lib. Meteororum. Atque hac ratione consuluit Deus mortali plantarum conditioni, ut quae per se [non poterant]...

And from those words, “Let the earth produce or bring forth the green herb, and such as maketh seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind,” etc., it appears that all the species of herbs and trees were made in a perfect state, having, namely, seed from which others could be generated: for each thing is then perfect when it can generate its like, as it is in Aristotle, in the fourth book of the Meteorology. And by this means God provided for the mortal condition of plants, so that what by themselves [they could not]...³⁷

...per se non poterant, per generationem et propagationem aliarum ex aliis speciei immortalitatem et quandam aeternitatem (singulis individuis negatam) consequerentur. Nec refert ubi semen habeant plantae, hoc est, vel in radice, vel in stipite, vel in fructu. Nec in dubio esse potest primas illas herbas et arbores, suo quamque in genere, fuisse perfectissimas et suavissimas ad gustum, victumque hominis accommodatissimas: tum propter summam nascentis terrae bonitatem, tum quod proxime a Deo creatae (cuius quae sic fiunt perfecta sunt opera) non poterant non esse optimae, certe longe meliores quibusvis postea naturali potestate modoque procreatis. Haec prima generatio arborum, citra hominum laborem et cultum facta, non videtur latuisse poëtas: eorum enim quidam dixit:

...could not [obtain] by themselves, they might obtain — the immortality of the species and a kind of eternity, denied to the individuals — through the generation and propagation of some from others. Nor does it matter where the plants have their seed — that is, whether in the root, or in the stalk, or in the fruit. Nor can it be in doubt that those first herbs and trees, each in its own kind, were most perfect and most sweet to the taste, and most suited to the food of man: both on account of the supreme goodness of the new-born earth, and because, created immediately by God (whose works that are so made are perfect), they could not but be excellent — certainly far better than any procreated afterward by natural power and means. This first generation of trees, made without the labor and cultivation of men, does not seem to have escaped the poets: for one of them said:³⁸

The earth too, exempt [from toil] and untouched by the hoe, and wounded by no plowshares, of itself gave all things.³⁹

Ipsa quoque immunis, rastroque intacta, nec ullis / saucia vomeribus, per se dabat omnia tellus.

Sic Ovidius 1 lib. Metamor., cuius similem sententiam libr. 5 persequitur Lucretius. Quaestio est an ad primam illam herbarum et arborum generationem concurrerit terra tantum passive, an etiam active, virtute tamen a Deo supernaturaliter accepta: atque hoc posterius Caietano videtur probabilius. Nam hoc, inquit, denotant verba illa Mosis, “Producat terra.” Itaque terra per naturalem virtutem sibi inditam plantas illas produxit, attamen auxilio Dei supernaturali est adiuta, ut eas et in statu perfecto et in instanti producere posset, quae naturaliter non nisi per partes et per certa temporum spatia generare potuisset. Verba Caietani sunt haec: “Non solum significatur terrae plenitudo exterior, sed etiam modus plenitudinis, dicendo ‘Et protulit terra’: manifeste enim per hoc significatur ipsa terra generavit vegetabilia, ut intelligamus quod Deus non produxit immediate vegetabilia, sed mediate terra; non tamen in tempore, sed virtute divina: in eodem instanti suscepit terra virtutem productivam, et productionem cum effectu producto, ita quod quicquid vegetabilium produxisset naturaliter terra in spacio unius anni seu multorum annorum (ut diversa vegetabilia exigunt ad sui perfectionem), produxit tunc terra virtute divina in instanti; credimus enim omnia producta esse in statu perfecto, sicut constat hominem productum non infantem sed perfectum, et in Paradiso terrestri constat fuisse arbores cum fructibus a principio, in cuius signum non scribitur ‘herbavit terra,’ sed ‘protulit terra.’” Sic ille.

So Ovid, in the first book of the Metamorphoses, whose like sentiment Lucretius pursues in the fifth book. The question is whether to that first generation of herbs and trees the earth concurred only passively, or also actively — yet by a power received supernaturally from God; and this latter seems to Cajetan more probable. For, he says, those words of Moses denote it, “Let the earth produce.” And so the earth, by a natural power implanted in it, produced those plants — yet was aided by the supernatural help of God, so that it could produce them both in a perfect state and in an instant, which naturally it could have generated only in parts and over certain spaces of time. Cajetan's words are these: “Not only is the outward fullness of the earth signified, but also the manner of the fullness, by saying ‘And the earth brought forth’: for by this it is manifestly signified that the earth itself generated the plants, that we may understand that God produced the plants not immediately, but mediately, through the earth — yet not in time, but by divine power: in the same instant the earth received the productive power, and the production with the effect produced; so that whatever plants the earth would have produced naturally in the space of one year or of many years (as different plants require for their perfection), the earth then produced by divine power in an instant; for we believe that all things were produced in a perfect state, as it is established that man was produced not an infant but perfect, and in the earthly Paradise it is established that there were trees with fruits from the beginning — as a sign of which it is not written ‘the earth grew green,’ but ‘the earth brought forth.’” So he.⁴⁰

Sed hoc pernegat Tostatus hoc loco, et Sanctus Thomas prima parte quaestione septuagesima articulo primo, sic scribens: “In prima rerum institutione fuit principium activum verbum Dei, quod ex materia elementari produxit animalia, vel in actu secundum alios sanctos, vel virtute secundum Augustinum: non quod aqua aut terra habeat in se virtutem producendi omnia animalia, ut Avicenna posuit, sed quia hoc ipsum quod ex materia elementari, virtute seminis vel stellarum, possunt animalia produci, est ex virtute primitus elementis data.” Hactenus Sanctus Thomas. Et vero incredibile videtur terram tantae virtutis esse capacem, ut per virtutem ullam sibi inhaerentem subito queat ex se proferre omnis [generis arbores perfectas]...

But this Tostatus utterly denies, in this place, and Saint Thomas, in the First Part, question seventy, article one, writing thus: “In the first institution of things, the active principle was the Word of God, which from elemental matter produced the animals — either actually, according to other holy men, or virtually, according to Augustine: not that water or earth has in itself the power of producing all animals, as Avicenna posited, but because this very fact, that from elemental matter, by the power of seed or of the stars, animals can be produced, is from a power first given to the elements.” Thus far Saint Thomas. And indeed it seems incredible that the earth should be capable of so great a power, that by any power inhering in it it could suddenly bring forth of itself [perfect trees of every kind]...⁴¹

...omnis generis arbores perfectas, omnesque terrestrium animalium species, quas ex terra sexto die generatas esse Scriptura confirmat: quanquam hoc fortasse non adeo impossibile, vel etiam improbabile, videretur Theologis existimantibus quamlibet creaturam, ut instrumentum a Deo assumptum, active concurrere posse ad creationem cuiuscumque rei, etiam spiritualis, etiam supernaturalis: sed id tamen non potest fieri sine maximo Dei miraculo, quod in prima rerum creatione non esset sine maxima causa et necessitate admittendum. Illud autem, “Proferat terra,” vel “Protulit terra,” non aliud significat quam materialem terrae causalitatem et concursum ad generationem plantarum; nam infra capite secundo dicitur Deus produxisse ex humo omne lignum. Nam et foemina, quae secundum Aristotelem tantum passive ac materialiter concurrit ad generationem hominis, dicitur tamen hominem generare et procreare. Et nunc etiam dicitur terra proferre ac gignere plantas, cum vix earum generatrix proprie non terra sit, sed in suo cuiusque stirpis semine; ergo illud “Proferat terra herbam” eandem vim habet atque “Proferatur ex terra, et in terra herba virens.”

...perfect trees of every kind, and all the species of land animals, which Scripture confirms were generated from the earth on the sixth day: although this perhaps would not seem so impossible, or even improbable, to those Theologians who think that any creature, taken up by God as an instrument, can concur actively to the creation of anything whatever, even of a spiritual, even of a supernatural thing — but this nevertheless cannot happen without a very great miracle of God, which, in the first creation of things, should not be admitted without the greatest cause and necessity. But that phrase, “Let the earth bring forth,” or “The earth brought forth,” signifies nothing other than the material causality of the earth and its concurrence to the generation of plants; for below, in the second chapter, God is said to have produced every tree out of the ground. For the woman too, who according to Aristotle concurs only passively and materially to the generation of man, is nonetheless said to generate and procreate the man. And now too the earth is said to bring forth and beget plants, although the earth is hardly properly their generatrix, but rather the seed of each plant is; therefore that phrase “Let the earth bring forth the herb” has the same force as “Let there be brought forth out of the earth, and in the earth, the green herb.”⁴²

Basilius tradit hoc loco esse tunc factam rosam sine ullis spinis, eas namque post peccatum hominis in eius poenam esse rosae adnatas; multo autem magis diceret id Basilius de herbis homini noxiis atque lethalibus. Nec a Basilio dissentit Augustinus: in primo enim libro de Genesi contra Manichaeos capite decimotertio sic ait: “Per peccatum hominis terra maledicta est, ut spinas pareret, non ut ipsa spinas (vel, ut alii legunt, poenas) sentiret, quae sine sensu est, sed ut peccati humani crimen semper hominibus ante oculos poneret, quo admonerentur aliquando averti a peccatis et ad Dei praecepta converti. Herbae autem venenosae ad poenam vel ad exercitationem mortalium creatae sunt; et hoc totum propter peccatum, quia mortales post peccatum facti sumus.” Sic Augustinus. Sed quis credat rosam ante peccatum factam esse absque spinis? Deus enim tales condidit res quales sunt secundum naturam suam; nec peccatum Adae mutavit proprietates rerum atque conditiones, cum ne ea quidem quae vera sunt secundum naturam hominis peccatum eius quicquam variaverit. Rosam vero nasci inter spinas naturalem rosae constitutionem atque generationem consequitur. Quare ante peccatum Adae erant spinae et tribuli, et herbae homini noxiae et lethales; verum non fuissent in poenam ei si non peccasset, et terra quam ipse victus causa coluisset nihil infructuosum, nedum perniciosum, ei protulisset: sic enim homo animo corporeque fuisset affectus ut huiusmodi res omnes sibi exitiosas facillime internoscere et cavere posset.

Basil hands down, in this place, that the rose was then made without any thorns, for these grew on to the rose after the sin of man, for his punishment; and Basil would say this much more of the herbs noxious and lethal to man. Nor does Augustine dissent from Basil: for in the first book on Genesis against the Manichees, chapter thirteen, he says thus: “Through man's sin the earth was cursed, that it should bear thorns — not that the earth itself should feel the thorns (or, as others read, the punishments), since it is without sense, but that it might ever set before men's eyes the guilt of human sin, by which they might be admonished to turn away at length from sins and turn to God's commands. And the venomous herbs were created for the punishment or for the exercise of mortals; and all this on account of sin, because we were made mortal after sin.” So Augustine. But who would believe that the rose was made without thorns before sin? For God founded things such as they are according to their nature; nor did Adam's sin change the properties and conditions of things — since not even those things which are true according to the nature of man did his sin in any way alter. And that the rose is born among thorns follows from the natural constitution and generation of the rose. Wherefore, before Adam's sin there were thorns and thistles, and herbs noxious and lethal to man; but they would not have been a punishment to him if he had not sinned, and the earth which he cultivated for his sustenance would have brought forth nothing unfruitful, much less pernicious, to him: for man would have been so disposed in mind and body that he could most easily discern and beware of all such things deadly to him.⁴³

Sed quaeret aliquis: Si omnia in usum hominis sunt condita, frustra igitur tot herbarum et arborum genera mortifera homini sunt creata? Respondent Basilius, Ambrosius et Theodoretus, licet istiusmodi res esu quidem sint noxiae homini, esse tamen utilissimas multis animalium, quae sunt propter hominem. Quippe [videre licet pinguescere saepe cicuta]...

But someone will ask: If all things were founded for the use of man, were so many kinds of herbs and trees deadly to man therefore created in vain? Basil, Ambrose, and Theodoret answer that, although such things are indeed noxious to man as food, they are nonetheless most useful to many of the animals, which are for man's sake. For indeed [one may see the bearded flocks often grow fat on hemlock]...⁴⁴

For indeed one may often see the bearded flocks grow fat on hemlock, which to man is a sharp poison.⁴⁵

Quippe videre licet pinguescere saepe cicuta / Barbigeras pecudes, homini quae est acre venenum.

ut ait Lucretius libro quinto. Deinde, licet ista non conferant homini ad cibum, prosunt tamen plurimum medicinae causa, variis enim generibus morborum qui humanam vitam obsident depellendis mirabiliter auxiliantur: id quod Basilius et Ambrosius hoc loco, et Plinius multifariam clarissimis exemplis confirmant. Quare Augustinus, quod primo libro adversus Manichaeos senserat, postea maturius et accuratius perscrutatus, retractavit et emendavit, in libro tertio de Genesi ad litteram capite decimooctavo, ubi quam nos tradimus sententiam censet probabiliorem. Ad quam comprobandam adiici potest istiusmodi rerum species facere ad mundi consummationem et absolutionem: sunt enim (teste Aristotele) species rerum sicut numeri; quapropter sine istis series specierum atque contextus esset admodum interruptus et intercisus, quod sane non minus quam esse vacuum in mundo videri debet absurdum. Quid plura? Ut alia deessent, multum tamen ista conducerent homini ad Physiologiae, praesertim autem scientiae planetarum, perceptionem. Eorum porro inscitiam, vel, ut dicam proprie, insaniam, qui quarum rerum ipsi usum ignorant eas prorsus inutiliter et supervacue conditas censent, Augustinus libro primo de Genesi contra Manichaeos capite decimosexto eleganti quadam similitudine confutat.

as Lucretius says in the fifth book. Next, although these things contribute nothing to man for food, they yet profit very much for the sake of medicine, for they wondrously help to drive off the various kinds of diseases that besiege human life: which Basil and Ambrose confirm in this place, and Pliny in many places by the clearest examples. Wherefore Augustine retracted and amended what he had thought in the first book against the Manichees, having afterward searched it out more maturely and accurately, in the third book on Genesis according to the Letter, chapter eighteen, where he judges the opinion which we hand down to be more probable. To confirm which it can be added that the species of such things make for the completion and perfection of the world: for (as Aristotle witnesses) the species of things are like numbers; wherefore, without these, the series and connection of the species would be greatly interrupted and cut off — which surely ought to seem no less absurd than there being a vacuum in the world. What more? Though all else were lacking, these things would yet greatly conduce to man's perception of Natural Philosophy, and especially of the science of the planets. And the ignorance — or, to speak properly, the insanity — of those who, because they themselves are ignorant of the use of certain things, judge them to have been founded wholly uselessly and superfluously, Augustine refutes, in the first book on Genesis against the Manichees, chapter sixteen, by a certain elegant simile.⁴⁶

Veruntamen quaerat ex nobis quispiam cur Moses non aperuit hoc loco generationem metallorum et, ut vocant, mineralium, quae multo verius originem habent ex terra quam plantae. Is responsum hoc a nobis accipiat: multas ob causas istarum rerum generationem esse praetermissam. Primo, quia istarum rerum generatio, cum intra terrae viscera fiat, est vulgo occulta et ignota, nec differentia earum rerum a terra et lapidibus est cuilibet manifesta. Deinde, quia non efficiunt diversum genus et gradum ipsius Esse naturalis, diversum inquam ab elementis: quattuor enim sunt gradus ipsius Esse naturalis, videlicet Esse corporeum, Esse vivens, Esse sentiens, et Esse intelligens; sed enim eiusmodi corporum effectionem, similiter ut ceterorum omnium, a Deo esse, cum alibi, tum in libro Iob aperte docet Scriptura. Illud igitur admonendus est lector, quod hoc loco semel dictum in aliis quamplurimis similiter intelligi debet: Mosem non omnia, sed manifesta omnibus maximeque illustria et nobilia Dei opera hoc loco enarranda suscepisse; quapropter, ut tacuit generationem fontium, fluminum, lacuum, montium, vallium, camporum et collium, ita de metallorum rerumque fossilium effectione verbum nullum fecit.

But someone may ask of us why Moses did not disclose in this place the generation of metals and (as they call them) minerals, which much more truly have their origin from the earth than do plants. Let him receive this answer from us: that for many causes the generation of those things was passed over. First, because the generation of those things, since it takes place within the bowels of the earth, is to the common people hidden and unknown, nor is the difference of those things from earth and stones manifest to everyone. Next, because they do not make a different kind and grade of natural Being — different, I mean, from the elements: for there are four grades of natural Being, namely Corporeal Being, Living Being, Sentient Being, and Intelligent Being; but that the making of such bodies, like that of all the rest, is from God, Scripture plainly teaches both elsewhere and in the book of Job. The reader, therefore, must be admonished of this — which, once said in this place, ought to be understood likewise in very many others — that Moses undertook to recount in this place not all, but the works of God manifest to all, and most illustrious and noble; wherefore, as he was silent about the generation of springs, rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys, plains, and hills, so about the making of metals and fossil things he said not a word.⁴⁷

Illud quoque in quaestionem vocari solet, cur Deus, ut benedixit animalibus a se creatis dicens, “Crescite et multiplicamini,” non item benedixit plantis. Theodoretus ponit hanc dubitationem in quaestione decima septima in Genesim, eamque solvit ad hunc mo[dum]...

This too is wont to be brought into question: why God, as he blessed the animals created by him, saying, “Increase and multiply,” did not likewise bless the plants. Theodoret sets down this doubt in the seventeenth question on Genesis, and solves it in this man[ner]...⁴⁸

...dum: Deus pro nutu suo statim universam terram replevit pratis, segetibus, et aliis omnis generis herbis et arboribus, cetera vero animalia bina creavit. Unde merito benedictione eis largitus est, ut per multiplicationem, quadam replerent maria, paludes et fluvios, quadam aerem, nonnulla vero terram.

...[At creation] God by his own will at once filled the whole earth with meadows, crops, and herbs and trees of every other kind, but the other living creatures he created in pairs. Hence he rightly bestowed a blessing upon them, that by multiplying they might fill, some the seas, marshes, and rivers, some the air, and others the land.⁴⁹

Si cui forsitan haec Theodoreti solutio propterea non satisfacit, quod pro certo sumat, bina tantum cuiusque speciei animalia primo facta esse a Deo, quod vel incertum est, vel etiam falsum: hoc a nobis habeat responsum, Deum ideo proprie animantibus benedixisse, dedisseque multiplicationis praeceptum, quod eorum generatio sit quodammodo cum cognitione et appetitu, et per commixtionem atque coniunctionem diversi sexus animantium, quod in plantis nequaquam evenit. Itaque illud benedixit Deus, significat, inseruisse illis vim et facultatem generandi sibi similia, et propagandi speciem: illud autem Crescite, significat, Deum statuisse certa tempora certasque leges et modos naturales, quibus animalia, naturali instinctu et impulsu, ad generationem multiplicationemque sui similium, incitata conveniunt.

If perhaps this solution of Theodoret does not satisfy someone, because it takes for granted that only two animals of each species were first made by God, which is either uncertain or even false: let him have this answer from us, that God blessed the living creatures in the proper sense, and gave them the precept of multiplying, because their generation occurs in a manner involving knowledge and appetite, and through the mingling and union of animals of different sex, which never happens in plants. And so that phrase 'God blessed them' signifies that he implanted in them the power and faculty of generating their like and propagating the species; while that phrase 'Increase' signifies that God appointed fixed times and fixed laws and natural modes, by which the animals, by natural instinct and impulse, are roused and come together for the generation and multiplication of their like.⁵⁰

Verum rationem quam nimium restricte presseque dixi, volo ut lector, ore Ruperti enucleatius et elegantius expressam cognoscat. Etenim Rupertus libro primo de Trinitate et operibus eius, capite quinquagesimosecundo, cum hanc ipsam quaestionem, Cur Deus sicut animalibus, non ita plantis benedixit, crescendi ac multiplicandi praeceptum posuit, multis verbis in medium protulisset, ad hunc modum eam postea soluit.

But the reasoning that I have stated too tersely and compressedly I wish the reader to know set forth more fully and elegantly in the words of Rupert. For Rupert, in book one of On the Trinity and his Works, chapter fifty-two, when he had set forth at length this very question—why God set the precept of growing and multiplying upon the animals, but not likewise upon the plants—afterward resolved it in this manner.⁵¹

“The green herbs,” he says, “or the fruit-bearing tree, the same earth which sprouts or produces them also multiplies, and itself supplies them with seed, and receives them when they fall, even if the hand of a sower should happen to be wanting; and therefore, for a posterity to be multiplied, the soil in which they are itself suffices. But for the creeping or flying things, if there had been no appetite, they would not have grown or been multiplied, and their kind would not have endured. Since therefore they had received the beginning of their existence, it was necessary, by the command of the same Creator, that a natural love or appetite be implanted in them to the very marrow, so that the male, ardent to inject the seed, and the female no less eager to receive it; this the blessing conferred upon them, and for this reason it was necessary: for thence the creeping things grew and were multiplied, and filled the waters of the sea, and the birds were multiplied out of them. To this end, the great power of this blessing holds these living creatures in the bond of love.” Thus far from Rupert.⁵²

Herbas, inquit, virentes, sive lignum pomiferum, eadem terra quae germinat vel producit, multiplicat, et semen illis ipsa importat, et cadentia recipit, etiamsi serentis manus forte desit, et ideo multiplicandae posteritati, solum in quo sunt ipsa sufficit. Verum reptilibus sive volatilibus, si nullus fuisset appetitus, non ipsa crescerent, aut multiplicarentur, et non stetisset eorum genus. Cum ergo initium existendi accepissent, oportuit eiusdem Creatoris imperio, naturalem illis medullitus inseri amorem vel appetitum, ut masculus ardens ad semen ingerendum, foemina nihilominus avida foret ad recipiendum, hoc illis benedictio contulit, et ob hoc necessaria fuit: nam inde reptilia creverunt et multiplicata sunt, et repleverunt aquas maris avesque multiplicatae sunt ex eis. Ad hoc, tenet haec animantia vinculo amoris, magna huius benedictionis vis. Hactenus ex Ruperto.

Translator’s notes

Section heading (centered) introducing the commentary on the third day of creation. ↩
Genesis 1:9–10, the lemma for the section on the third day. ↩
Opening views on the third day: 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) 6:42 (waters gathered into a seventh of the earth — implying earth > water); Basil (Hexaëmeron hom. 4) and Ambrose, that the command gave water its downward tendency — which Pererius corrects (that tendency is natural, born with the water; they mean only that on day three it first exercised it). Marginal gloss: “Whether water is less than earth.” ↩
The view that earth (= elemental earth, or the four elements) was created on day three, reading the “earth” of v. 1 as unformed matter (Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. 1.13; c. Manich. 1.12; imperf. 10; Lombard; Hugh; Bonaventure; Tostatus). Pererius rejects it (already refuted): Moses says not “Let earth be made” but “Let the dry land appear.” Marginal gloss: “Who think the earth was founded on the third day.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 111. ↩
Completes the point: the dry land “appears” (it was already submerged earth). Basil — all water, surface and internal, withdrew (but not, Pererius notes, the binding moisture). Philo (De mundi opificio) — the salt (sterile) water gathered off, sweet moisture left as the earth's “glue.” Pererius objects: before day three the water was uniform, so it could not have had salt and sweet parts. Marginal gloss: “Philo, in the book On the Making of the World.” ↩
The question — how the all-covering water gathered into one place — with the first two solutions (Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. 1.12; Bede): the water was rarefied, then condensed to need less room; and the earth subsided/swelled to make valleys and mountains as basins. The Hebrew קוה (qavah, “to gather”) properly means a chasm/hollow (Pererius's pun on Latin cava). Psalm 103(104):6: the deep once clothed the earth above the mountains. Marginal glosses: “The question, how the water that first covered the whole earth was, on the third day, reduced to one place”; “The passage of Psalm 103 is explained.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 112. ↩
Continues Psalm 103(104):7–9 (the waters flee at God's rebuke; mountains rise, plains sink; a bound is set). Aristotle (Meteorology 1): earth and water form one globe, the water held in earth's hollows. ↩
Refutes the view that the earth was perfectly round (no mountains) before the Flood: the Flood overtopped mountains by 15 cubits (Gen. 7:20); Scripture calls them “eternal” (Ps. 75/76) and prior to Wisdom's settling (Prov. 8:25); mountains serve beauty, climate, fruits, breakwaters, wind-breaks, and the springs/rivers (Ps. 104:10) which need higher ground to flow from. Marginal glosses: “Whether the distinction of mountains and valleys existed before the flood”; “Ps. 75; Ps. 103.” ↩
Begins Rupert's praise (De Trinitate, bk. 1, ch. 34) of the making of mountains and valleys: without mountains, wind-storms would rage over the land as on the sea (e.g. in Libya). Sentence continues onto printed p. 113. ↩
Completes Rupert's passage: mountains as wind-breaks (Libya's sandstorms), founded immovably; the dry land draws up the deep's waters and the rains (Ps. 104:10), so the rivers run to the sea without its overflowing (Eccles. 1:7). Marginal glosses: “Ps. 103; Eccles. 1.” ↩
Hugh's view (earth made with all its basins) yielded to the more probable one (the elements made spherical, one within another). The third answer to the gathering-question — the water was heaped up to a great height on day three (Basil, Ambrose, Catharinus, Aquinas ST I q. 69, Denys the Carthusian) — leads to the famous controverted question: is the sea higher than the earth? Marginal glosses: “Hugh of St. Victor”; “Whether the sea is higher than the earth.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 114. ↩
The opinion that the sea is higher than the earth, held back only by God's command. Its premise: water is far bigger than earth (a superior, rarer element; from a little earth much water is generated; Aristotle, De gen. et corr. 2, says water is ten times earth) — so, confined to earth's hollows, it must stand higher. Pererius will give its authors and proofs (then refute it). ↩
Basil's proof (Hexaëmeron hom. 4): Sesostris and Darius wouldn't have tried to join the Red Sea unless it were higher than Egypt. Pererius corrects this from Pliny (6.29 — they meant to join the Nile, and feared inundation / spoiling the Nile water), Aristotle (Meteor. 1, end), and Strabo (17 — Darius abandoned it on a false belief; the Ptolemies built a lock-canal). So it is false, and anyway proves nothing. Yet Aquinas (ST I q. 69, a. 1) and Catharinus side with Basil. ↩
Introduces the scriptural testimonies adduced for the “sea is higher than the earth” view. Sentence continues onto printed p. 115. ↩
The scriptural testimonies for the sea standing higher than the earth: Ps. 103(104):6; Ps. 32(33):7 (Heb. “as a heap”); Sir. 39:22 (al. 39:17); the Prayer of Manasses; Ps. 68(69):2(?); and the “bounds set to the sea” passages (Jer. 5:22; Prov. 8:29; Ps. 104:9; Job 38:8–11) — read as miracles only if the sea is higher. Marginal glosses: “The testimonies of Scripture by which water seems to be proved higher than earth”; “2 Paralipomenon [Chronicles], at the end” (the Prayer of Manasses). ↩
Cajetan (with the natural philosophers and astronomers) ridicules the view: sense shows water always flows downward (rivers run down to the sea), so to keep the sea up by a perpetual causeless miracle is childish; Scripture says men “go down” to the sea (Ps. 106/107:23). Water, fluid and heavier than air, cannot stand higher than earth without a miracle; and water + earth form one round globe (provable physically and mathematically). Marginal gloss: “Cajetan refutes the aforesaid opinion, and rightly.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 116. ↩
A further proof from daily experience: if the sea were higher than the land, a ship would sail faster inbound than outbound, and would grow more (not less) visible as it left harbor — both contrary to fact. ↩
Paul of Burgos's alternative (in his Additiones to Lyra): the water forms its own globe with a center distinct from the earth's/world's (conjecturally the center of the moon's eccentric, since tides follow the moon), only partly intersecting the earth-globe; and on day three the water exchanged its natural pull toward the world-center for a pull toward its own globe's center. Marginal gloss: “The absurd opinion of Paul of Burgos.” ↩
Refutation of Burgos begins: both his view and the previous one rest on water > earth, which is false — earth is much bigger, as Alessandro Piccolomini (Della grandezza della terra et dell'acqua) and Julius Caesar Scaliger (Exotericae exercitationes, against Cardano) show. Marginal glosses: “Burgos is refuted”; “Who have taught that earth is greater than water.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 117. ↩
Refutation completed: the mathematicians prove earth and water make one globe with a single center of gravity (= the world's center), toward which all weights fall perpendicularly. These authors can only defend their views by needless miracles — disallowed in creation (Augustine, City of God 7.30: God lets created things exercise their own motions). And Burgos's view absurdly makes the water change its nature/species on day three. Marginal gloss: “Miracles are not to be resorted to rashly.” ↩
Pererius begins re-interpreting the scriptural proofs. “Above the mountains the waters shall stand” (Ps. 104:6) doesn't prove the sea is higher: it may describe the primeval all-covering water (the future “shall stand” = a Hebrew past), or the storm-tossed waves that seem to rise above the mountains (Ps. 107:26). Marginal gloss: “The passage of Psalm 103 is explained.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 118. ↩
Pererius finishes re-reading the “sea is higher” proof-texts: Ps. 104:6–10 may mean mountain-springs or rain; Ps. 33:7, Sir. 39, the Prayer of Manasses describe the Red Sea and Jordan miracles (cf. Ps. 77/78), or water shut up “as in a wineskin”; Ps. 69:3 “depth of the sea” = its profundity (from the context); and the “bounds set to the sea” mean only that God placed the waters so they cannot escape — not that they stand higher, miraculously held. Marginal glosses: “The passage of Psalm 32 and Ecclesiasticus 39”; “The passage of Psalm 68”; “The aforesaid passage of Jeremiah ch. 5 and Job 38 is explained.” ↩
The sense of “God's command to the waters”: God gave them their downward tendency, made the basins, gathered them on day three, and walled them in — these are why Scripture calls the bounds a “command.” A thing's natural powers ARE God's “laws/commands” (Job 9:7 — God bids the sun rise and set). Marginal gloss: “Job 9.” ↩
Returns to the original question (how the all-covering water gathered into one place): of the three earlier answers the third was rejected; two more probable ways remain, to be joined with the second. Marginal gloss: “How the water that first covered the whole earth was, on the third day, forced into one part of the earth.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 119. ↩
The two probable answers (with the second): (a) the water was condensed on day three, so it took less room (the sea is denser than other water); (b) though the water exceeded the earth in extent/circumference, it was far less in depth — God made only as much water as the basins could hold (the air's height is < 60 miles, the earth's semidiameter 3,500). Marginal gloss: “The thickness of the earth is greater than that of water or air.” ↩
How “one place” is true despite scattered seas/lakes: it means “separated from the habitable land,” each flowing to its own place (Basil — only the greatest gathering, the sea, is meant; all seas join the Ocean and so share one place, as each element has one place though parts are dispersed; also Aristotle, Meteor. 2). The exception is the Caspian. Marginal glosses: “How all the waters were gathered into one place”; “How Basil explains this place”; “Whether the Caspian Sea is continuous with the Arctic Ocean.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 120. ↩
The Caspian Sea debate: Strabo, Pliny, Dionysius Periegetes, and Basil say it joins the Arctic Ocean; Herodotus, Aristotle (Meteor. 2), Ptolemy say it is land-locked, fed by rivers and draining underground to the Black Sea (its saltness no objection — cf. the Sea of Galilee). On whether all waters spring from and return to the sea: Bede (and Solomon, Eccles. 1:7) say yes; Aristotle denies it; Scaliger defends Solomon, Titelmann reconciles them. Marginal gloss: “Whether all waters proceed from the Ocean.” (Pererius leaves the question to the Christian philosophers.) ↩
Steuco's notable view on “let the dry land appear”: the earth was uncovered gradually, the northern hemisphere first — both as the nobler part (Paradise, the first man, the great empires and minds) and because it is higher than the south, so emerged first. Marginal glosses: “The notable opinion of Eugubinus [Steuco]”; “Virgil, Georgics bk. 1.” ↩
Virgil, Georgics 1.240–241 — cited for the earth being higher in the north, lower in the south. ↩
Aristotle (Meteorology 2, opening): rivers flow down from high ground, and earth's greatest flow comes from the north — evidence the northern lands are higher. Sentence continues onto printed p. 121. ↩
Completes Aristotle (the ancient view that the sun goes around, not under, the high northern earth) and adds Pliny (Natural History 2.97; 4.13): the Black Sea always flows outward, never back — taken as proof the north stands higher and that the inner seas originate there. ↩
Steuco's motive (drying done by the sun's natural heat, not God's sudden omnipotence) is rejected: all theologians hold the six days' works were done immediately by God in a moment; and the philosophers laugh at the idea that the (incorruptible, impassible) sun was hotter at the beginning than now. ↩
Tostatus's view (the earth dried by a burning wind — “the Spirit of the Lord,” cf. the post-Flood drying, Gen. 8, and the Red Sea, Exod. 14:21) is rejected as incredible: no wind could dry the soaked earth in a moment so it could bear life. And the old idea (Procopius of Gaza; not denied by Augustine, City of God 16.9) that the opposite (Antipodean) hemisphere is wholly water-covered and uninhabitable is now shown false by the Spanish voyages. Marginal gloss: “What Procopius and Augustine think about the Antipodes.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 122. ↩
Completes the refutation (from p. 121) of the idea that the Antipodean hemisphere is wholly under water: the New World was already peopled and is now settled by the Spaniards. ↩
Genesis 1:11, the lemma for the section on the creation of plants on the third day. ↩
Augustine's “causal” reading (De Genesi ad litteram 5.4): on day three the plants were made only virtually, the earth receiving the power to generate them (Gen. 2:5, “before it sprang up”). Pererius rejects it as forced: Moses says the earth at once brought them forth (like the other days' works; Paradise had real trees, Gen. 2; man/beasts needed food); “before it sprang up” means only that this first production was non-natural and singular. Marginal gloss: “Whether the plants were actually produced on the third day.” ↩
All species were made perfect — i.e. seed-bearing, able to generate their like (Aristotle, Meteor. 4) — so that, being mortal as individuals, the species might be perpetuated by generation. Marginal gloss: “All things were created in a perfect state.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 123. ↩
The species gain a kind of immortality by reproduction; the first plants (no matter where seeded) were the most perfect and palatable — created directly by God from the new, supremely good earth. The poets knew of this effortless first growth. Marginal gloss: “That the first plants of the world were all most perfect.” ↩
Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.101–102 (of the Golden Age) — cited for the earth's spontaneous first yield; Lucretius (bk. 5) is said to have a like sentiment. ↩
The question whether the earth concurred passively only, or actively (by a God-given power). Cajetan holds the latter: the earth, divinely aided, brought forth the plants perfect and instantaneous (what nature would take years to do). Marginal glosses: “Whether the earth concurred to the first generation of plants only passively and materially, or also efficiently”; “Augustine, bk. 5, On Genesis according to the Letter.” ↩
Tostatus and Aquinas (ST I, q. 70, a. 1) deny that the earth had an active power: the active principle was the Word of God; the elements have only a derived power (against Avicenna, who gave the elements a power to produce all animals). Sentence continues onto printed p. 124. ↩
Pererius's verdict: it is incredible the earth could of itself bring forth all perfect trees and animals; an instrumental active power would need a great miracle, not to be assumed in creation. “The earth brought forth” means only the earth's material causality (cf. Gen. 2:9; the woman is said to “generate” though she concurs only passively, per Aristotle) — it = “let the green herb be brought forth out of and in the earth.” ↩
Basil (and Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.13) say thorns and poisons arose only after the Fall, as punishment. Pererius disagrees: Adam's sin did not change things' natures; thorns, thistles, and lethal herbs existed before the Fall — they simply would not have harmed unfallen man (who would have discerned and avoided them, and whose cultivated earth would yield nothing harmful). Marginal gloss: “Basil, hom. 5 on the Hexaëmeron, thinks the rose was generated without thorns before man's sin.” ↩
The objection: if all is for man, why deadly plants? Answer (Basil, Ambrose, Theodoret): they nourish the animals, which serve man. Marginal gloss: “Why many things were created which seem not only useless to man but even harmful — Basil hom. 6, Ambrose Hexaëmeron bk. 3, Theodoret on Genesis.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 125. ↩
Lucretius, De rerum natura 5.899–900 — cited to show that plants deadly to man nourish beasts. ↩
Harmful plants serve as medicine (Basil, Ambrose, Pliny); Augustine retracted his earlier view (De Genesi ad litteram 3.18), preferring this. Pererius adds: such species complete the world's order (species are “like numbers,” Aristotle — a gap would be as absurd as a vacuum), and aid natural science and astronomy. Those who call things useless merely because they don't know their use Augustine refutes (c. Manich. 1.16). ↩
Why Moses omits metals/minerals: their underground generation is hidden and ill-distinguished from stones; and they add no new grade of natural Being (the four grades: corporeal, living, sentient, intelligent — that all bodies are from God is taught in Job). The general rule: Moses narrates only the manifest, noble works (as he omits springs, rivers, mountains, so metals). Marginal glosses: “Why Moses did not expound the generation of metals and minerals”; “The four grades of natural Being.” ↩
Begins the question why God blessed the animals (“increase and multiply,” Gen. 1:22) but not the plants. Theodoret raises it (Quaestiones in Genesim, q. 17). Marginal gloss: “Why God, as he blessed the animals, did not likewise bless the plants.” Sentence continues onto printed p. 126. ↩
Continuation (from p. 125) of Theodoret's solution to the question why the animals, but not the plants, received the blessing 'increase and multiply': because plants the earth itself reproduces, whereas animals were made only in pairs and so needed the power to propagate. The italicized words are Theodoret's. ↩
Pererius's own explanation, distinguishing the force of 'God blessed them' (the implanted generative faculty) from 'Increase and multiply' (the natural laws governing reproduction). ↩
Rupert of Deutz, De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius, bk. 1, ch. 52. ↩
Quotation from Rupert, De Trinitate 1.52, fuller explanation of why the blessing of fertility was given to animals (which require sexual appetite to propagate) and not to plants (which the earth itself reproduces). ↩