ture speaks of one mass it evidently does not mean that they were gathered together into one place for immediately it goes on to say, And the gatherings of the waters He called seas 5 but the words signify that the waters were separated off in a body from the earth into distinct groups. Thus the waters were gathered together into their special collections and the dry land was brought to view. And hence arose the two seas that surround Egypt, for it lies between two seas. These collections contain various seas and mountains, and islands, and promontories, and harbours, and surround various bays and beaches, and coastlands. For the word beach is used when the nature of the tract is sandy, while coastland signifies that it is rocky and deep close into shore, getting deep all on a sudden. In like manner arose also the sea that lies where the sun rises, the name of which is the Indian Sea: also the northern sea called the Caspian. The lakes also were formed in the same manner. The ocean, then, is like a river encircling the whole earth, and I think it is concerning it that the divine Scripture says, A river went out of Paradise 7. The water of the ocean is sweet and potable. It is it that furnishes the seas with water which, because it stays a long time in the seas and stands unmoved, becomes bitter for the sun and the waterspouts draw up always the finer parts. Thus it is that clouds are formed and showers take place, because the filtration makes the water sweet. This is parted into four first divisions, that is to say, into four rivers. The name of the first is Pheison, which is the Indian Ganges; the name of the second is Geon, which is the Nile flowing from Ethiopia down to Egypt: the name of the third is Tigris, and the name of the fourth is Euphrates. There are also very many other mighty rivers of which some empty themselves into the sea and others are used up in the earth. Thus the whole earth is bored through and mined, and has, so to speak, certain veins through which it sends up in springs the water it has received from the sea. The water of the spring thus depends for its character on the quality of the earth. For the sea water is filtered and strained through the earth and thus becomes sweet. But if the place from which the spring arises is bitter or briny, so 5 Gen. i. 10. 6 Text, ouvixenσav. R. 2927 has diéornoav: Edit. Veron. Reg. 3362 has ödev ovvéσrnoav: Colb. 1 has olev σuvéσTη. 7 Gen. ii. 10. 8 For ποταμὸς δὲ ὁ γλυκὺ ὕδωρ ἔχων ἐστί, reading πότιμον καὶ γλυκὺ ὕδωρ έχων. also is the water that is sent up 9. Moreover, it often happens that water which has been closely pent up bursts through with violence, and thus it becomes warm. And this is why they send forth waters that are naturally warm. By the divine decree hollow places are made in the earth, and so into these the waters are gathered. And this is how mountains are formed. God, then, bade the first water produce living breath, since it was to be by water and the Holy Spirit that moved upon the waters in the beginning, that man was to be renewed. For this is what the divine Basilius said: Therefore it produced living creatures, small and big; whales and dragons, fish that swim in the waters, and feathered fowl. The birds form a link between water and earth and air: for they have their origin in the water, they live on the earth and they fly in the air. Water, then, is the most beautiful element and rich in usefulness, and purifies from all filth, and not only from the filth of the body but from that of the soul, if it should have received the grace of the Spirit 2. Concerning the seas 3. The Egean Sea is received by the Hellespont, which ends at Abydos and Sestus: next, the Propontis, which ends at Chalcedon and Byzantium: here are the straits where the Pontus arises. Next, the lake of Maeotis. Again, from the beginning of Europe and Libya it is the Iberian Sea, which extends from the pillars of Hercules to the Pyrenees mountain. Then the Ligurian Sea as far as the borders of Etruria. Next, the Sardinian Sea, which is above Sardinia and inclines downwards to Libya. Then the Etrurian Sea, which begins at the extreme limits of Liguria and ends at Sicily. Then the Libyan Sea. Then the Cretan, and Sicilian, and Ionian, and Adriatic Seas, the last of which is poured out of the Sicilian Sea, which is called the Corinthian Gulf, or the Alcyonian Sea. The Saronic Sea is surrounded by the Sunian and Scyllæan Seas. Next is the Myrtoan Sea and the Icarian Sea, in which are also the Cyclades. Then the Carpathian, and Pamphylian, and Egyptian Seas: and, thereafter, above the Icarian Sea, the Ægean Sea pours itself out. There is also the coast of Europe from the mouth of the Tanais River to the Pillars of Hercules, 609,709 stadia: and that of Libya from the Tigris, as far as the mouth of the Canobus, 209,252 stadia and lastly, that of Asia from the Canobus to the Tanais, which, including the Gulf, is 4,111 stadia. And so the full extent of the scaboard of the world that we inhabit with the gulfs is 1,309,072 stadia 4. CHAPTER X. Concerning earth and its products. The earth is one of the four elements, dry, cold, heavy, motionless, brought into being by God, out of nothing on the first day. For in the beginning, he said, God created the heaven and the earth 5: but the seat and foundation of the earth no man has been able to declare. Some, indeed, hold that its seat is the waters: thus the divine David says, To Him Who established the earth on the waters. Others place it in the air. Again some other says, He Who hangeth the earth on nothing 7. And, again, David, the singer of God, says, as though the representative of God, I bear up the pillars of it, meaning by "pillars" the force that sustains it. Further, the expression, He hath founded it upon the seas, shews clearly that the earth is on all hands surrounded with water. But whether we grant that it is established on itself, or on air or on water, or on nothing, we must not turn aside from reverent thought, but must admit that all things are sustained and preserved by the power of the Creator. In the beginning, then, as the Holy Scripture says, it was hidden beneath the waters, and was unwrought, that is to say, not beautified. But at God's bidding, places to hold the waters appeared, and then the mountains came into existence, and at the divine command the earth received its own proper adornment, and was dressed in all manner of herbs and plants, and on these, by the divine decree, was bestowed the power of growth and nourishment, and of producing seed to generate their like. Moreover, at the bidding of the Creator it produced also all manner of kinds of living creatures, creeping things, and wild beasts, and cattle. All, indeed, are for the seasonable use of man: but of them some are for food, such as stags, sheep, deer, and such like: others for service such as camels, oxen, horses, asses, and such like and others for enjoyment, such as apes, and among birds, jays and parrots, and such like. Again, amongst plants and herbs some are fruit bearing, others edible, others fragrant and flowery, given to us for our enjoyment, for example, the rose and such like, and others for the healing of disease. For there is not a single animal or plant in which the Creator has not implanted some form of energy capable of being used to satisfy man's needs. For He Who knew all things before they were, saw that in the future man would go forward in the strength of his own will, and would be subject to corruption, and, therefore, He created all things for his seasonable use, alike those in the firmament, and those on the earth, and those in the waters. Indeed, before the transgression all things were under his power. For God set him as ruler over all things on the earth and in the waters. Even the serpent 2 was accustomed to man, and approached him more readily than it did other living creatures, and held intercourse with him with delightful motions 3. And hence it was through it that the devil, the prince of evil, made his most wicked suggestion to our first parents 4. Moreover, the earth of its own accord used to yield fruits, for the benefit of the animals that were obedient to man, and there was neither rain nor tempest on the earth. But after the transgression, when he was compared with the unintelligent cattle and became like to them 5, after he had contrived that in him irrational desire should have rule over reasoning mind and had become disobedient to the Master's command, the subject creation rose up against him whom the Creator had appointed to be ruler and it was appointed for him that he should till with sweat the earth from which he had been taken. : But even now wild beasts are not without their uses, for, by the terror they cause, they bring man to the knowledge of his Creator and lead him to call upon His name. And, further, at the transgression the thorn sprung out of the earth in accordance with the Lord's express declaration and was conjoined with the pleasures of the rose, that it might lead us to remember the transgression on account of which the earth was condemned to bring forth for us thorns and prickles 6. That this is the case is made worthy of belief from the fact that their endurance is secured by the word of the Lord, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth 1. Further, some hold that the earth is in the form of a sphere, others that it is in that of a cone. At all events it is much smaller than the heaven, and suspended almost like a point in its midst. And it will pass away and be changed. But blessed is the man who inherits the earth promised to the meek 3. For the earth that is to be the possession of the holy is immortal. Who, then, can fitly marvel at the boundless and incomprehensible wisdom of the Creator? Or who can render sufficient thanks to the Giver of so many blessings 9? [There are also provinces, or prefectures, of the earth which we recognise: Europe embraces thirty-four, and the huge continent of Asia has forty-eight of these provinces, and twelve canons as they are called '.] CHAPTER XI. Concerning Paradise. Now when God was about to fashion man out of the visible and invisible creation in His own image and likeness to reign as king and ruler over all the earth and all that it contains, He first made for him, so to speak, a kingdom in which he should live a life of happiness and prosperity 2. And this is the divine paradise 3, planted in Eden by the hands of God, a very storehouse of joy and gladness of heart (for "Eden " means luxuriousness 5). Its site is higher in the East than all the earth: it is temperate and the air that surrounds it is the rarest and purest: evergreen plants are its pride, sweet fragrances abound, it is flooded with light, and in sensuous freshness and beauty it transcends imagination in truth the place is divine, a meet home for him who was created in God's image: no creature lacking reason made its dwelling there but man alone, the work of God's own hands. In its midst God planted the tree of life and the tree of knowledge?. The tree of knowledge was for trial, and proof, and exercise of man's obedience and disobedience: and hence it was named the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or else it was because to those who partook of it was given power to know their own nature. Now this is a good thing for those who are mature, but an evil thing for the immature and those whose appetites are too strong, being like solid food to 8 St. Matt. v. 5. 9 Method, Cont. Orig. apud Epiph. Hæres. 64. Only Cod. Reg. 3451 has this paragraph. Greg. Nyss., De opif Hom., ch. 2. tender babes still in need of milk 9. For our And The tree of life, on the other hand, was a tree having the energy that is the cause deserve to live and are not subject to death. of life, or to be eaten only by those who Some, indeed, have pictured Paradise as a realm of sense, and others as a realm of mind. But it seems to me, that, just as man is a creature, in whom we find both sense and mind blended together, in like manner also man's most holy temple combines the properties of sense and mind, and has this twofold expression: for, as we said, the life in the body is spent in the most divine and lovely region, while the life in the soul is passed in a place far more sublime and of more surpassing beauty, where God makes His home, and where He wraps man about as with a glorious garment, and robes him in His grace, and delights and sustains him like an angel with the sweetest of all fruits, the contemplation of Himself. Verily it has been 3 See the treatise of Anastas. II. Antiochen., on the Hexaë fitly named the tree of life. For since the meron, bk. vii. 4 E8ep. Edem, in the text. Basil, Hom de Parad. 5 See 2 Kings xix. 12; Isai. xxxvii. 12; Ezek. xxvii. 23. 6 See Chrysost., In Gen. Hem. 16, Theodor., Quæst. 27, &c. 7 Gen. ii. 9. 8 Text, την έφεσιν λιχνοτέροις. Variant τὴν αἴσθησιν, &c. life is not cut short by death, the sweetness with evil. For God says, Of every tree in of the divine participation is imparted to Paradise thou mayest freely eat. It is, methose who share it. And this is, in truth, thinks, as if God said, Through all My creawhat God meant by every tree, saying, Of tions thou art to ascend to Me thy creator, every tree in Paradise thou mayest freely eat1. and of all the fruits thou mayest pluck one, For the 'every' is just Himself in Whom and that is, Myself who am the true life: let every through Whom the universe is maintained. thing bear for thee the fruit of life, and let But the tree of the knowledge of good and participation in Me be the support of your evil was for the distinguishing between the own being. For in this way thou wilt be many divisions of contemplation, and this immortal. But of the tree of the knowledge is just the knowledge of one's own nature, of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for which, indeed, is a good thing for those who are in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt mature and advanced in divine contemplation surely die 5. For sensible food is by nature (being of itself a proclamation of the magnifi- for the replenishing of that which gradually cence of God), and have no fear of falling, wastes away and it passes into the draught because they have through time come to have and perisheth: and he cannot remain incorthe habit of such contemplation, but it is ruptible who partakes of sensible food. an evil thing to those still young and with stronger appetites, who by reason of their insecure hold on the better part, and because as yet they are not firmly established in the seat of the one and only good, are apt to be torn and dragged away from this to the care of their own body. CHAPTER XII. IN this way, then, God brought into existence mental essence 6, by which I mean, angels and all the heavenly orders. For these clearly Thus, to my thinking, the divine Paradise have a mental and incorporeal nature: “inis twofold, and the God-inspired Fathers corporeal" I mean in comparison with the handed down a true message, whether they denseness of matter. For the Deity alone taught this doctrine or that. Indeed, it is pos- in reality is immaterial and incorporeal. But sible to understand by every tree the know- further He created in the same way sensible ledge of the divine power derived from created essence 7, that is heaven and earth and the things. In the words of the divine Apostle, intermediate region; and so He created both For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made 9. But of all these thoughts and speculations the sublimest is that dealing with ourselves, that is, with our own composition. As the divine David says, The knowledge of Thee from me, that is from my constitution, was made a wonder 2. But for the reasons we have already mentioned, such knowledge was dangerous for Adam who had been so lately created 3. The tree of life too may be understood as that more divine thought that has its origin in the world of sense, and the ascent through that to the originating and constructive cause of all. And this was the name He gave to every tree, implying fulness and indivisibility, and conveying only participation in what is good. But by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we are to understand that sensible and pleasurable food which, sweet though it seems, in reality brings him who partakes of it into communion the kind of being that is of His own nature (for the nature that has to do with reason is related to God, and apprehensible by mind alone), and the kind which, inasmuch as it clearly falls under the province of the senses, is separated from Him by the greatest interval. And it was also fit that there should be a mixture of both kinds of being, as a token of still greater wisdom and of the opulence of the Divine expenditure as regards natures, as Gregorius, the expounder of God's being and ways, puts it, and to be a sort of connecting link between the visible and invisible natures &. And by the word "fit" I mean, simply that it was an evidence of the Creator's will, for that will is the law and ordinance most meet, and no one will say to his Maker, "Why hast Thou so fashioned me?" For the potter is able at his will to make vessels of various patterns out of his clay, as a proof of his own wisdom. Now this being the case, He creates with His own hands man of a visible nature and an invisible, after His own image and likeness on the one hand man's body He formed of earth, and on the other his reasoning and thinking soul He bestowed upon him by His own inbreathing, and this is what we mean by "after His image." For the phrase "after His image" clearly refers to the side of his nature which consists of mind and free will, whereas "after His likeness" means likeness in virtue so far as that is possible. Further, body and soul were formed at one and the same time 3, not first the one and then the other, as Origen so senselessly supposes. God then made man without evil, upright, virtuous, free from pain and care, glorified with every virtue, adorned with all that is good, like a sort of second microcosm within the great world. another angel capable of worship, compound, surveying the visible creation and initiated into the mysteries of the realm of thought, king over the things of earth, but subject to a higher king, of the earth and of the heaven, temporal and eternal, belonging to the realm of sight and to the realm of thought, midway between greatness and lowliness, spirit and flesh: for he is spirit by grace, but flesh by overweening pride: spirit that he may abide and glorify his Benefactor, and flesh that he may suffer, and suffering may be admonished and disciplined when he prides himself in his greatness 5: here, that is, in the present life, his life is ordered as an animal's, but elsewhere, that is, in the age to come, he is changed and--to complete the mystery becomes deified by merely inclining himself towards God; becoming deified, in the way of participating in the divine glory and not in that of a change into the divine being 6. But God made him by nature sinless, and endowed him with free will. By sinless, I mean not that sin could find no place in him (for that is the case with Deity alone), but that sin is the result of the free volition he enjoys rather than an integral part of his nature 7; that is to say, he has the power to continue and go forward in the path of goodness, by co-operating with the divine grace, and likewise to turn from good and take to wickedness, for God has conceded this by conferring freedom of will upon him. For 1 ψυχὴν λογικήν. 2 C. Chrysostom, Hom. in Gen. 9: Anastasius, Hom. in Hex. 7; Clem. Alex., Strom. II.; Basil, Hom. de hom. Struct. 1; Greg. Nyss., De opif. hom., ch. 16; Iren., Hær. v. 8, &c. there is no virtue in what is the result of mere force 8. The soul, accordingly 9, is a living essence, simple, incorporeal, invisible in its proper nature to bodily eyes, immortal, reasoning and intelligent, formiess, making use of an organised body, and being the source of its powers of life, and growth, and sensation, and generation, mind being but its purest part and not in any wise alien to it; (for as the eye to the body, so is the mind to the soul); further it enjoys freedom and volition and energy, and is mutable, that is, it is given to change, because it is created. All these qualities according to nature it has received of the grace of the Creator, of which grace it has received both its being and this particular kind of nature. Marg. The different applications of "incorporeal." We understand two kinds of what is incorporeal and invisible and formless: the one is such in essence, the other by free gift: and likewise the one is such in nature, and the other only in comparison with the denseness of matter. God then is incorporeal by nature, but the angels and demons and souls are said to be so by free gift, and in comparison with the denseness of matter. Further, body is that which has three dimensions, that is to say, it has length and breadth and depth, or thickness. And every body is composed of the four elements; the bodies of living creatures, moreover, are composed of the four humours. Now there are, it should be known, four elements: earth which is dry and cold water which is cold and wet: air which is wet and warm fire which is warm and dry. In like manner there are also four humours, analogous to the four elements: black bile, which bears an analogy to earth, for it is dry and cold: phlegm, analogous to water, for it is cold and wet bicod, analogous to air 2, for it is wet and warm: yellow bile, the analogue to fire, for it is warm and dry. Now, fruits are composed of the elements, and the humours are composed of the fruits, and the bodies of living creatures consist of the humours and dissolve back into them. For every thing that is compound dissolves back into its elements. Marg. That man has community alike with 3 Cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. 31; Jerome, Epist. 82; August., De inanimate things and animate creatures, whe Genesi, x. 28. &c. 4 év mikpy péyav, is read in Nazianz. Hom. 38 and 42: so also in Nicetas, who says that the world is small in comparison with man, for whose sake all was made.' But Combefis emended it. 5 The text read, τῷ μεγέθει φιλοτιμούμενος· τὸ δὲ ἵνα πάσχων ὑπομιμνήσκηται, καὶ παιδεύηται ζώον. On the basis of various manuscripts and the works of Gregory of Nazianzum, it is corrected somἵνα πάσχῃ, καὶ πάσχων, υπομιμνήσκηται, καὶ παιδεύεται τῷ μεγέθει φιλοτιμούμενον. Greg. Naz, Orat. 38 and 42. 7 Reading, οὐχ ὡς ἐν τῇ φύσει, for ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐν τῇ φύσει. 8 Athan. lib. de inob. contr. Apoll. 9 The Fathers objected to Aristotle's definition of the soul as the ἐντελέχεια πρώτη σώματος φυσικοῦ ὀργανικού taking it to imply that the soul had no independent existence but was dissolved with the body. Cicero explains it otherwise, Tusc. Quæst., bk. 1. Maxim., opus de Anima. 2 Supplying the words, τῷ ὕδατι, ψυχρὸν γὰρ καὶ ὑγρόν· αἷμα, ἀναλογοῦν. |