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Homily IX.

The creation of terrestrial animals.

1.  How did you like the fare of my morning’s discourse?  It seemed to me that I had the good intentions of a poor giver of a feast, who, ambitious of having the credit of keeping a good table saddens his guests by the poor supply of the more expensive dishes.  In vain he lavishly covers his table with his mean fare; his ambition only shows his folly.  It is for you to judge if I have shared the same fate.  Yet, whatever my discourse may have been, take care lest you disregard it.  No one refused to sit at the table of Elisha; and yet he only gave his friends wild vegetables.16901690    2 Kings iv. 39.  I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others.  There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to make them serve their own ends.  For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense.16911691    Fialon thinks that this plain reference to Origen may have been evoked by some criticisms on the IIIrd Homily.  (cf. p. 71)  St. Basil’s literalism and bold departure from the allegorizing of Origen and from the milder mysticism of Eusebius are remarked on in the Prolegomena.  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.”16921692    Rom. i. 16.  Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the shape of the earth.  If it be spherical or cylindrical, if it resemble a disc and is equally rounded in all parts, or if it has the forth of a winnowing basket and is hollow in the middle;16931693    θαλῆς καὶ οἱ Στωϊκοὶ καὶ οἱ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν σφαιροειδῆ τὴν γῆν.  ᾽Αναξίμανδρος λίθῳ κίονι τὴν γῆν προσφερῆ τῶν επιπέδων.  ᾽Αναξιμένης, τραπεζοειδῆ.  Λεύκιππος, τυμπανοειδῆ.  Δημόκριτος, δισκοειδῆ μὲν τῷ πλάτει, κοίλην δὲ τὸ μέσον.  Plut. περὶ τῶν ἀρεσκ. iii. 10.  Arist. (De. Cœlo ii. 14) follows Thales.  So Manilius i. 235:
   “Ex quo colligitur terrarumforma rotunda.”

2.  “Let the earth bring forth the living creature.”16941694    Gen. i. 24.  Behold the word of God pervading creation, beginning even then the efficacy which is seen displayed to-day, and will be displayed to the end of the world!  As a ball, which one pushes, if it meet a declivity, descends, carried by its form and the nature of the ground and does not stop until it has reached a level surface; so nature, once put in motion by the Divine command, traverses creation with an equal step, through birth and death, and keeps up the succession of kinds through resemblance, to the last.16951695    cf. note on Hom. v. p. 76.  Nature always makes a horse succeed to a horse, a lion to a lion, an eagle to an eagle, and preserving each animal by these uninterrupted successions she transmits it to the end of all things.  Animals do not see their peculiarities destroyed or effaced by any length of time; their nature, as though it had been just constituted, follows the course of ages, for ever young.16961696    “Sed, si quæque suo ritu procedit, et omnes
   Fœdere naturæ certo discrimina servant.”

   Luc. v. 921.
  “Let the earth bring forth the living creature.”  This command has continued and earth does not cease to obey the Creator.  For, if there are creatures which are successively produced by their predecessors, there are others that even to-day we see born from the earth itself.  In wet weather she brings forth grasshoppers and an immense number of insects which fly in the air and have no names because they are so small; she also produces mice and frogs.  In the environs of Thebes in Egypt, after abundant rain in hot weather, the country is covered with field mice.16971697    cf. Plin. ix. 84:  Verum omnibus his fidem Nili inundatio affert omnia exedente miraculo:  quippe detegente eo musculi reperiuntur inchoato opere genitalis aquæ terrœque, jam parte corporis viventes, novissima effigie etiamnum terrena.”  So Mela De Nilo i. 9. “Glebis etiam infundit animas, ex ipsoque humo vitalia effingit,” and Ovid, Met. i. 42:
   “Sic ubi deseruit madidos septemfluus agros

   Nilus, et antiquo sua flumina reddidit alveo,

   Æthereoque recens exarsit sidere limus,

   Plurima cultores versis animalia glebis

  We see mud alone produce eels; they do not proceed from an egg, nor in any other manner; it is the earth alone which gives them birth.16981698    Arist. H.A. vi. 16.  Αἱ ἐγχέλυς γίγνονται εκ τῶν καλουμένων γῆς ἐντέρων ἃ αὐτόματα συνίσταται εν τῷ πηλῷ καὶ ἐν τῇ γῇ ἐνίκμῳ.  Καὶ ἤδη εἰσιν ὠμμέναι αἱ μὲν ἐκδύνουσαι ἐκ τούτων, αἱ δὲ ἐν διακνιζομένοις καὶ διαιρουμένοις γίγνονται φανεραί.  Let the earth produce a living creature.”

Cattle are terrestrial and bent towards the earth.  Man, a celestial growth, rises superior to them as much by the mould of his bodily conformation as by the dignity of his soul.  What is the form of quadrupeds?  Their head is bent towards the earth and looks towards their belly, and only pursues their belly’s good.  Thy head, O man! is turned towards heaven; thy eyes look up.16991699    Arist., Part. An. iv. 10, 18.  μόνον ὀρθόν ἐστι τῶν ζῴων ὁ ἄνθρωπος.  When therefore thou degradest thyself by the passions of the flesh, slave of thy belly, and thy lowest parts, thou approachest animals without reason and becomest like one of them.17001700    cf. Ps. xlix. 12.  Thou art called to more noble cares; “seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth.”17011701    Col. iii. 1.  Raise thy soul above the earth; draw from its natural conformation the rule of thy conduct; fix thy conversation in heaven.  Thy true country is the heavenly Jerusalem;17021702    cf. Phil. iii. 20. thy fellow-citizens and thy compatriots are “the first-born which are written in heaven.”17031703    Heb. xii. 23.


   cf. Pliny xx. 68:  “Tragoriganum contra viperæ ictum efficacissimum.”
and the serpent heals sore eyes by eating fennel.17051705    ὁ δράκων ὁ τῷ μαράθρω τὸν ὀφθαλμὸν ἀμβλυώπτοντα λεπτύνων καὶ διαχαράττων.  Plut. πότερα τῶν ζ. κ.τ.λ. 731.

   ῾ἢ κοίλης μύρμηκες ὀχῆς ἐξ ὤεα πάντα

   θᾶσσον ἀνηνέγκαντο.᾽

   καίτινες οὐκ ὠ& 129· γράφουσιν, ἀλλὰ ἵνα τοὺς ἀποκειμένους καρποὺς ὅταν εὐρῶτα συνάγοντας αἴσθωνται καὶ φοβηθῶσι φθορὰν καὶ σῆψιν ἀναφερόντων, ὑπερβάλλει δὲ πᾶσαν ἐπινοιαν συνέσεως ἡ τοῦ πυροῦ τῆς βλαστήσεως προκατάληψις.  Plut. ποτ. τῶν. ζ. κ.τ.λ. 725.


4.  Virtues exist in us also by nature, and the soul has affinity with them not by education, but by nature herself.  We do not need lessons to hate illness, but by ourselves we repel what afflicts us, the soul has no need of a master to teach us to avoid vice.  Now all vice is a sickness of the soul as virtue is its health.  Thus those have defined health well who have called it a regularity in the discharge of natural functions; a definition that can be applied without fear to the good condition of the soul.  Thus, without having need of lessons, the soul can attain by herself to what is fit and conformable to nature.17091709    This is the Stoic doctrine.  “Stoicorum quidem facilis conclusio est; qui cum finem bonorum esse senserint, congruere naturæ, cumque ea convenienter vivere.”  cf. Cic., De Fin. iii. 7, 26, and De Nat. D. i. 14, and Hor., Ep., i. x. 12.  “Vivere naturæ si convenienter oportet.”  So the Stoics’ main rule of life is ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν.  But with Basil this apparent disregard of the doctrine of original sin and the need of grace for redemption must be understood in the light of the catholic doctrine that sin is the corruption of human nature (cf. Art. ix. of Original or Birth Sin), which nature, though corrupt and prone to evil, retains capacities for good.  But these capacities do need grace and training.  cf. Basil’s Homily on Ps. xlv. 166.  “What is said about the Saviour had a double sense on account of the nature of the Godhead and the Economy of the incarnation.  So, looking to the humanity of God, it is said ‘thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity,’ instead of saying ‘the rest of men by toil and discipline and careful attention mostly attain a disposition towards good and an aversion from vice.  But thou hast a kind of natural relationship to good and alienation from iniquity.’  And so to us, if we will, it is not hard to acquire a love of righteousness and a hatred of iniquity.”  i.e. In Christ, redeemed humanity loves good, and all men ‘naturally’ do need toil and discipline.  The heredity of sin is recognised by Basil.  (e.g. in Hom. in Famen. 7.)  Man fell from grace given, and must return to it.  (Serm. Ascet. in init.)  It must always be remembered that questions of original sin, the will, and grace never had the same importance in the Greek as they had in the Latin church.  cf. Dr. Travers Smith on St. Basil (c. ix. p. 108) and Böhringer (Das Vierte Jahrhundert. Basil, p. 102) who remarks:  Wenn er auch noch von einer “Wieder herstellung des freien Willens, den wir zu brauchbaren Gefässen für den Herrn und zu jedem guten Werke fähig Werden” (De spir. sanct. 18) spricht, so hat er dies doch nirgends begründet, obschon er bei der Besprechung der Folgen des Falls zuweilen sich äussert, es sei der Mensch der von dem Schöpfer erhaltenen Freiheit beraubt worden.  Im Allgemeinen setzt er den freien Willen auch nach dem Fall im Menschen so gut wieder Voraus, wie vor dem Fall, so dass jene Aeusserungen kaum mehr als den Werth einer Redensart haben.  Im Ganzen eriunert seine Darstellung wieder an diejenige des Athanasius, dessen Einfluss Man nicht verkennen kann.  Hence it 104comes that temperance everywhere is praised, justice is in honour, courage admired, and prudence the object of all aims; virtues which concern the soul more than health concerns the body.  Children love17101710    In Eph. vi. the word is “obey.” your parents, and you, “parents provoke not your children to wrath.”17111711    cf. Eph. vi. 4.  Does not nature say the same?  Paul teaches us nothing new; he only tightens the links of nature.  If the lioness loves her cubs, if the she wolf fights to defend her little ones, what shall man say who is unfaithful to the precept and violates nature herself; or the son who insults the old age of his father; or the father whose second marriage has made him forget his first children?

   “Præterea teneri tremulis cum vocibus hædi

   Cornigeras norunt matres, agnique petulci

   Balantum pecudes:  ita, quod natura reposcit,

   Ad sua quisque fere decurrunt ubera lactis.”
  The little dog has as yet no teeth, nevertheless he defends himself with his mouth against any one who teases him.  The calf has as yet no horns, nevertheless he already knows where his weapons will grow.17131713    cf. Ovid (Halieut. ad init.):
   “Accepit mundus legem; dedit arma per omnes,

   Admonuitque sui.  Vitulus sic namque minatur,

   Qui nondum gerit in tenera jam cornua fronte.”

The dog is not gifted with a share of reason; but with him instinct has the power of reason.  The dog has learnt by nature the secret of elaborate inferences, which sages of the world, after long years of study, have hardly been able to disentangle.  When the dog is on the track of game, if he sees it divide in different directions, he examines these different paths, and speech alone fails him to announce his reasoning.  The creature, he says, is gone here or there or in another direction.  It is neither here nor there; it is therefore in the third direction.  And thus, neglecting the false tracks, he discovers the true one.  What more is done by those who, gravely occupied in demonstrating theories, trace lines upon the dust and reject two propositions to show that the third is the true one?17141714    cf. Plutarch (ποτ. των ζ.φρ. κ.τ.λ 726).  οἱ δὲ διαλεκτικοί φασι τὸν κύνα τῷ διὰ πλειόνων διεζευγμένῳ χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς πολυσχιδέσιν ἀτραποῖς συλλογίζεσθαι πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἤτοι τήνδε τὸ θηρίον ὥρμηκεν ἢ τήνδε ἢ τήνδε· ἀλλὰ μὴν οὔτε τήνδε οὔτε τήνδε, τήνδε λοιπὸν ἄρα.  But the dog is said to smell the first, the second, and the third.  If he started off on the third without smelling, he would reason.  As it is, there is no “syllogism.”

Does not the gratitude of the dog shame all who are ungrateful to their benefactors?  Many are said to have fallen dead by their murdered masters in lonely places.17151715    Also taken from Plutarch (πότερα τῶν ζ 726), who tells stories of a dog found by King Pyrrhus on a journey, and of Hesiod’s dog.  Others, when a crime has just been committed, have led those who were searching for the murderers, and have caused the criminals to be brought to justice.  What will those say who, not content with not loving the Master who has created them and nourished them, have for their friends men whose mouth attacks the Lord, sitting at the same table with them, and, whilst partaking of their food, blaspheme Him who has given it to them?

1055.  But let us return to the spectacle of creation.  The easiest animals to catch are the most productive.  It is on account of this that hares and wild goats produce many little ones, and that wild sheep have twins, for fear lest these species should disappear, consumed by carnivorous animals.  Beasts of prey, on the contrary, produce only a few and a lioness with difficulty gives birth to one lion;17161716    cf. Herod. iii. 108.  Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 31) refutes this. because, if they say truly, the cub issues from its mother by tearing her with its claws; and vipers are only born by gnawing through the womb, inflicting a proper punishment on their mother.17171717    cf. Pliny (x. 72):  “Tertia die intra uterum catulos excludit, deinde singulos singulis diebus parit, viginti fere numero.  Itaque ceteræ, tarditatis impatientes, perrumpunt latera, occisa parentecf. Herod. iii. 109.
   So Prudentius (Hamartigenia 583):

    “Sic vipera, ut aiunt,

    Dentibus emoritur fusæ per viscera prolis.”

   See Sir T. Browne’s Vulgur Errors, iii. 16.
  Thus in nature all has been foreseen, all is the object of continual care.  If you examine the members even of animals, you will find that the Creator has given them nothing superfluous, that He has omitted nothing that is necessary.  To carnivorous animals He has given pointed teeth which their nature requires for their support.  Those that are only half furnished with teeth have received several distinct receptacles for their food.  As it is not broken up enough in the first, they are gifted with the power of returning it after it has been swallowed, and it does not assimilate until it has been crushed by rumination.  The first, second, third, and fourth stomachs of ruminating animals do not remain idle; each one of them fulfils a necessary function.17181718    Pliny (xi. 78) says ruminantibus geminus, but this is supposed to be a misreading for quadrigeminus, or a mistaken interpretation of Aristotle (H.A. ii. 19), whom Basil is no doubt following.  The neck of the camel is long so that it may lower it to its feet and reach the grass on which it feeds.  Bears, lions, tigers, all animals of this sort, have short necks buried in their shoulders; it is because they do not live upon grass and have no need to bend down to the earth; they are carnivorous and eat the animals upon whom they prey.


6.  Beasts bear witness to the faith.  Hast thou confidence in the Lord?  “Thou 106shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk and thou shalt trample under feet the lion and the dragon.”17221722    cf. Ps. xci. 13.  With faith thou hast the power to walk upon serpents and scorpions.  Do you not see that the viper which attached itself to the hand of Paul, whilst he gathered sticks, did not injure him, because it found the saint full of faith?  If you have not faith, do not fear beasts so much as your faithlessness, which renders you susceptible of all corruption.  But I see that for a long time you have been asking me for an account of the creation of man, and I think I can hear you all cry in your hearts, We are being taught the nature of our belongings, but we are ignorant of ourselves.  Let me then speak of it, since it is necessary, and let me put an end to my hesitation.  In truth the most difficult of sciences is to know one’s self.  Not only our eye, from which nothing outside us escapes, cannot see itself; but our mind, so piercing to discover the sins of others, is slow to recognise its own faults.17231723    cf. St. Matt. vii. 3.  Thus my speech, after eagerly investigating what is external to myself, is slow and hesitating in exploring my own nature.  Yet the beholding of heaven and earth does not make us know God better than the attentive study of our being does; I am, says the Prophet, fearfully and wonderfully made;17241724    cf. Ps. cxxxix. 14. that is to say, in observing myself I have known Thy infinite wisdom.17251725    “E cœlo descendit γνῶθι σεαυτόν” (Juv. xi. 27).  Socrates, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, Bias, Pythagoras, have all been credited with the saying.  “On reconnaît ici le précepte fécond de l’école socratique.  L’église chrétienne s’en empara comme de tout ce qu’elle trouvait de grand et de bon dans l’ancienne Grèce.  Fialon.
   St. Basil has a Homily on the text πρόσεχε σεαυτῷ (Deut. xv. 9, lxx.)
  And God said “Let us make man.”17261726    Gen. i. 26.  Does not the light of theology shine, in these words, as through windows; and does not the second Person show Himself in a mystical way, without yet manifesting Himself until the great day?  Where is the Jew who resisted the truth and pretended that God was speaking to Himself?  It is He who spoke, it is said, and it is He who made.  “Let there be light and there was light.”  But then their words contain a manifest absurdity.  Where is the smith, the carpenter, the shoemaker, who, without help and alone before the instruments of his trade, would say to himself; let us make the sword, let us put together the plough, let us make the boot?  Does he not perform the work of his craft in silence?  Strange folly, to say that any one has seated himself to command himself, to watch over himself, to constrain himself, to hurry himself, with the tones of a master!  But the unhappy creatures are not afraid to calumniate the Lord Himself.  What will they not say with a tongue so well practised in lying?  Here, however, words stop their mouth; “And God said let us make man.”  Tell me; is there then only one Person?  It is not written “Let man be made,” but, “Let us make man.”  The preaching of theology remains enveloped in shadow before the appearance of him who was to be instructed, but, now, the creation of man is expected, that faith unveils herself and the dogma of truth appears in all its light.  “Let us make man.”  O enemy of Christ, hear God speaking to His Co-operator, to Him by Whom also He made the worlds, Who upholds all things by the word of His power.17271727    cf. Heb. i. 2, 3.  But He does not leave the voice of true religion without answer.  Thus the Jews, race hostile to truth, when they find themselves pressed, act like beasts enraged against man, who roar at the bars of their cage and show the cruelty and the ferocity of their nature, without being able to assuage their fury.  God, they say, addresses Himself to several persons; it is to the angels before Him that He says, “Let us make man.”  Jewish fiction! a fable whose frivolity shows whence it has come.  To reject one person, they admit many.  To reject the Son, they raise servants to the dignity of counsellors; they make of our fellow slaves the agents in our creation.  The perfect man attains the dignity of an angel; but what creature can be like the Creator?  Listen to the continuation.  “In our image.”  What have you to reply?  Is there one image of God and the angels?  Father and Son have by absolute necessity the same form, but the form is here understood as becomes the divine, not in bodily shape, but in the proper qualities of Godhead.  Hear also, you who belong to the new concision17281728    Phil. iii. 2. and who, under the appearance of Christianity, strengthen the error of the Jews.17291729    The Arians.  To Whom does He say, “in our image,” to whom if it is not to Him who is “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person,”17301730    Heb. i. 3. “the image of the invisible God”?17311731    Col. i. 15.  It is then to His living image, to Him Who has said “I and my Father are one,”17321732    John x. 30. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,”17331733    John xiv. 9. that God says “Let us make man in our image.”  Where is the unlikeness17341734    τὸ ἀνόμοιον.  Arius had taught that the Persons are ἀνόμοιοι πάμπαν ἀλλήλων. in these Beings who have only one image?  “So God created man.”17351735    Gen. i. 27.  107It is not “They made.”  Here Scripture avoids the plurality of the Persons.  After having enlightened the Jew, it dissipates the error of the Gentiles in putting itself under the shelter of unity, to make you understand that the Son is with the Father, and guarding you from the danger of polytheism.  He created him in the image of God.  God still shows us His co-operator, because He does not say, in His image, but in the image of God.



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