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| The creation of moving creatures.
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Homily
VII.
The creation of moving
creatures.1605
| 1605 LXX. creeping
things. |
1. “And God said, Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life”
after their kind, “and fowl that may fly above the
earth” after their kind.1606
After the creation of the luminaries
the waters are now filled with living beings and
its own adornment is
given to this part of the world. Earth had received hers
from her own plants, the heavens had received the flowers of the
stars, and, like two eyes, the great luminaries beautified them
in concert. It still remained for the waters to receive
their adornment. The command was given, and
immediately the rivers and lakes becoming fruitful brought forth
their natural broods; the sea travailed with all kinds of
swimming creatures; not even in mud and marshes did the water
remain idle; it took its part in creation. Everywhere from
its ebullition frogs, gnats and flies came forth. For that
which we see to-day is the sign of the past. Thus
everywhere the water hastened to obey the Creator’s
command. Who could count the species which the great and
ineffable power of God caused to be suddenly seen living and
moving, when this command had empowered the waters to bring forth
life? Let the waters bring forth moving creatures that have
life. Then for the first time is made a being with life and
feeling. For though plants and trees be said to live,
seeing that they share the power of being nourished and growing;
nevertheless they are neither living beings, nor have they
life.1607
| 1607 Plants are
neither ζῶα nor
ἔμψυχα. | To
create these last God said, “Let the water produce moving
creatures.”
Every creature that swims, whether it skims on the
surface of the waters, or cleaves the depths, is of the nature of a
moving creature,1608
since it drags
itself on the body of the water. Certain aquatic animals have
feet and walk; especially amphibia, such as seals, crabs, crocodiles,
river horses1609
| 1609 Basil uses the
classical greek form οἱ
ποτάμιοι
ἵπποι, as in Herod. and
Arist. The dog-Greek hippopotamus, properly a horse-river, is
first found in Galen. | and frogs; but they
are above all gifted with the power of swimming. Thus it is said,
Let the waters produce moving creatures. In these few words what
species is omitted? Which is not included in the command of the
Creator? Do we not see viviparous animals, seals, dolphins, rays
and all cartilaginous animals? Do we not see oviparous animals
comprising every sort of fish, those which have a skin and those which
have scales, those which have fins and those which have not? This
command has only required one word, even less than a word, a sign, a
motion of the divine will, and it has such a wide sense that it
includes all the varieties and all the families of fish. To
review them all would be to undertake to count the waves of the ocean
or to measure its waters in the hollow of the hand. “Let
the waters produce moving creatures.” That is to say, those
which people the high seas and those which love the shores; those which
inhabit the depths and those which attach themselves to rocks; those
which are gregarious and those which live dispersed, the cetaceous, the
huge, and the tiny. It is from the same power, the same command,
that all, small and great receive their existence. “Let the
waters bring forth.” These words show you the natural
affinity of animals which swim in the water; thus, fish, when drawn out
of the water, quickly die, because they have no respiration such as
could attract our air and water is their element, as air is that of
terrestrial animals. The reason for it is clear. With us
the lung, that porous and spongy portion of the inward parts which
receives air by the dilatation of the chest, disperses and cools
interior warmth; in fish the motion of the gills, which open and shut
by turns to take in and to eject the water, takes the place of
respiration.1610
| 1610 cf.
Arist., De Part. Anim. iii. 6. διόπερ τῶν
μὲν ἰχθύων
οὐδεὶς ἔχει
πνεύμονα
ἀλλ᾽ ἀντὶ
τούτου
βράγχια
καθάπερ
εἴρηται ἐν
τοῖς περὶ
ἀναπνοῆς·
ὕδατι γᾶρ
ποιεῖται
τὴν
κατάψυξιν,
τὰ δ᾽
ἀναπνέοντα
ἔχει
πνεύμονα
ἀναπνεῖ δὲ
τὰ πεζὰ
πάντα. | Fish have a
peculiar lot, a special nature, a nourishment of their own, a life
apart. Thus they cannot be tamed and cannot bear the touch of a
man’s hand.1611
| 1611 Here Basil is
curiously in contradiction to ancient as well as modern
experience. Martial’s epigram on Domitian’s tame
fish, “qui norunt dominum, manumque lambunt illam qua nihil
est in orbe majus” (iv. 30) is illustrated by the same
author’s “natat ad magistrum delicata
muræna” (x. 30), as well as by Ælian (De
animal. viii. 4). “Apud Baulos in parte Baiana
piscinam habuit Hortensius orator, in qua murænam adeo dilexit
ut exanimatam flesse credatur: in eadem villa Antonia Drusi
murænæ quam diligebat inaures addidit.”
Plin. ix. 71. So Lucian οὗτοι δε
(ίχθύες) καὶ
ὀνόματα
ἔχουσι καὶ
ἔρχονται
καλούμενοι.
(De Syr. Dea. 45.) John Evelyn (Dairy
1644) writes of Fontainebleau: “The carps come
familiarly to hand.” There was recently a tame carp at
Azay le Rideau. |
2. “Let the waters bring forth moving
creatures after their kind.” God caused to be born the
firstlings of each species to serve as seeds for nature. Their
multitudinous numbers are kept up in subsequent succession, when it is
necessary for them to grow and multiply. Of another kind is the
species of testacea, as muscles, scallops, sea snails, conches, and the
infinite variety of oysters. Another kind is that of the
crustacea, as crabs and lobsters; another of fish without shells, with
soft and tender flesh, like polypi and cuttle fish. And amidst
these last what an innumerable variety! There are weevers,
lampreys and eels, produced in the mud of rivers and ponds, which more
resemble venomous reptiles than fish in their nature. Of another
kind is the species of the ovipara; of another, that of the
vivipara. Among the latter are sword-fish, cod, in one word, all
cartilaginous fish, and even the greater part of the cetacea, as
dolphins, seals, which, it is said, if they see their little ones,
still quite young,
frightened, take them back into their belly to protect
them.1612
| 1612 Narrated by
Ælian (Anim i. 16) of the “glaucus,” a fish
apparently unknown. |
Let the waters bring forth after their
kind. The species of the cetacean is one; another is that of
small fish. What infinite variety in the different kinds!
All have their own names, different food, different form, shape, and
quality of flesh. All present infinite variety, and are divided
into innumerable classes. Is there a tunny fisher who can
enumerate to us the different varieties of that fish? And yet
they tell us that at the sight of great swarms of fish they can almost
tell the number of the individual ones which compose it. What man
is there of all that have spent their long lives by coasts and shores,
who can inform us with exactness of the history of all fish?
Some are known to the fishermen of the Indian
ocean, others to the toilers of the Egyptian gulf, others to the
islanders, others to the men of Mauretania.1613
| 1613 Μαυρούσιοι. cf. Strabo, ii. 33. | Great and small were all alike created
by this first command, by this ineffable power. What a difference
in their food! What a variety in the manner in which each species
reproduces itself! Most fish do not hatch eggs like birds; they
do not build nests; they do not feed their young with toil; it is the
water which receives and vivifies the egg dropped into it. With
them the reproduction of each species is invariable, and natures are
not mixed. There are none of those unions which, on the earth,
produce mules and certain birds contrary to the nature of their
species. With fish there is no variety which, like the ox and the
sheep, is armed with a half-equipment of teeth, none which ruminates
except, according to certain writers, the scar.1614
| 1614 e.g.
Arist., De Anim. viii. 2 and Ælian, ii. 54. | All have serried and very sharp
teeth, for fear their food should escape them if they masticate it
for too long a time. In fact, if it were not crushed and
swallowed as soon as divided, it would be carried away by the
water.
3. The food of fish differs according to
their species. Some feed on mud; others eat sea weed; others
content themselves with the herbs that grow in water. But the
greater part devour each other, and the smaller is food for the larger,
and if one which has possessed itself of a fish weaker than itself
becomes a prey to another, the conqueror and the conquered are both
swallowed up in the belly of the last. And we mortals, do we act
otherwise when we press our inferiors?1615
| 1615 cf.
Pericles ii. i.
3 Fish. Master, I marvel how the fishes
live in the sea.
1 Fish. Why, as men do
a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones. | What difference is there between the
last fish and the man who, impelled by devouring greed, swallows the
weak in the folds of his insatiable avarice? Yon fellow possessed
the goods of the poor; you caught him and made him a part of your
abundance. You have shown yourself more unjust than the unjust,
and more miserly than the miser. Look to it lest you end like the
fish, by hook, by weel, or by net. Surely we too, when we have
done the deeds of the wicked, shall not escape punishment at the
last.
Now see what tricks, what cunning, are to be found
in a weak animal, and learn not to imitate wicked doers. The crab
loves the flesh of the oyster; but, sheltered by its shell, a solid
rampart with which nature has furnished its soft and delicate flesh, it
is a difficult prey to seize. Thus they call the oyster
“sherd-hide.”1616
Thanks to the
two shells with which it is enveloped, and which adapt themselves
perfectly the one to the other, the claws of the crab are quite
powerless. What does he do? When he sees it, sheltered from
the wind, warming itself with pleasure, and half opening its shells to
the sun,1617
| 1617 Fialon quotes Le
Fontaine Le Rat et
l’Huitre:
Parmi tant d’huitres toutes
closes,
Une s’était ouverte, et
baillant au soleil,
Par un doux Zéphyr réjouie,
Humait l’air, respirait était
épanouie,
Blanche, grasse, et
d’un goût, à la voir, sans pareil. | he secretly throws
in a pebble, prevents them from closing, and takes by cunning what
force had lost.1618
| 1618 Pliny ix. 48,
says of the octopus: “imposito lapillo extra corpus
ne palpitatu ejiciatur: ita securi grassantur, extrahuntque
carnes.” | Such is the
malice of these animals, deprived as they are of reason and of
speech. But I would that you should at once rival the crab in
cunning and industry, and abstain from harming your neighbour; this
animal is the image of him who craftily approaches his brother, takes
advantage of his neighbour’s misfortunes, and finds his delight
in other men’s troubles. O copy not the damned!
Content yourself with your own lot. Poverty, with what is
necessary, is of more value in the eyes of the wise than all
pleasures.
I will not pass in silence the cunning and
trickery of the squid, which takes the colour of the rock to which it
attaches itself. Most fish swim idly up to the squid as they
might to a rock, and become themselves the prey of the crafty
creature.1619
| 1619 cf. Theog.
215:
πούλυπου
ὀργὴν ἴσχε
πολυπλόκου,
ὃς ποτὶ
πέτρῃ
τῇ
προσομιλήσει
τοῖος ἰδεῖν
ἐφάνη
Νῦν
μὲν τῇς
ἐφέπου, ποτὲ
δ᾽ἀλλοῖος
χρόα
γίγνου,
κραιπνόν
τοι σοφίη
γίγνεται
εὐτροπίης
.
Greg. Naz., Or. xxxvi.:
πολλὰς
μεταλαμβάνων
χρόας ὥσπερ
τὰ τῶν πετρῶν
εἱ πολύποδες
αἷς ἃν
ὁμιλήσωσι, and
Arist., Hist. An. ix. 37: καὶ θηρεύει
τοὺς ἰχθῦς
τὸ χρῶμα
μεταβάλλων
καὶ ποιῶν
ὅμοιον οἷς δη
πλησιάζῃ
λίθοις. | Such are men
who court ruling
powers, bending themselves to all circumstances and not remaining for a
moment in the same purpose; who praise self-restraint in the company of
the self-restrained, and license in that of the licentious,
accommodating their feelings to the pleasure of each. It is
difficult to escape them and to put ourselves on guard against their
mischief; because it is under the mask of friendship that they hide
their clever wickedness. Men like this are ravening wolves
covered with sheep’s clothing, as the Lord calls
them.1620
Flee then
fickleness and pliability; seek truth, sincerity, simplicity.
The serpent is shifty; so he has been condemned to crawl. The
just is an honest man, like Job.1621
| 1621 So the Cod.
Colb. and Eustathius, who renders Justus nihil habet fictum
sicut Job. The Ben. Ed. suspect that Basil wrote
Jacob and Job. Four mss. support
Jacob alone, who, whatever may be the meaning of the Hebrew
in Gen. xxv.
27, is certainly
ἄπλαστος only in the
LXX., and a bad instance of guilelessness. |
Wherefore God setteth the solitary in families.1622
So is this great and wide sea,
wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great
beasts.1623
Yet a wise
and marvellous order reigns among these animals. Fish do not
always deserve our reproaches; often they offer us useful
examples. How is it that each sort of fish, content with the
region that has been assigned to it, never travels over its own
limits to pass into foreign seas? No surveyor has ever
distributed to them their habitations, nor enclosed them in walls,
nor assigned limits to them; each kind has been naturally assigned
its own home. One gulf nourishes one kind of fish, another
other sorts; those which swarm here are absent elsewhere. No
mountain raises its sharp peaks between them; no rivers bar the
passage to them; it is a law of nature, which according to the needs
of each kind, has allotted to them their dwelling places with
equality and justice.1624
| 1624 cf.
Cudworth, Int. Syst. iii. 37, 23: “Besides this
plastick Nature which is in animals, forming their several bodies
artificially, as so many microcosms or little worlds, there must
also be a general plastick Nature in the macrocosm, the whole
corporeal universe, that which makes all things thus to conspire
everywhere, and agree together into one harmony. Concerning
which plastick nature of the universe, the Author De Mundo
writes after this manner, καὶ τὸν
ὅλον κόσμον,
διεκόσμησε
μία ἡ διὰ
πάντων
διήκουσα
δύναμις, one power,
passing through all things, ordered and formed the whole
world. Again he calls the same πνεῦμα καὶ
ἔμψυχον καὶ
γόνιμον
οὐσίαν, a spirit, and a
living and Generative Nature, and plainly declares it to be a thing
distinct from the Deity, but subordinate to it and dependent on
it. But Aristotle himself, in that genuine work of his before
mentioned, speaks clearly and positively concerning the Plastick
Nature of the Universe, as well as that of animals, in these
words: ‘It seemeth that as there is Art in Artificial
things, so in the things of Nature, there is another such like
Principle or Cause, which we ourselves partake of: in the same
manner as we do of Heat and Cold, from the Universe. Wherefore
it is more probable that the whole world was at first made by such a
cause as this (if at least it were made) and that it is still
conserved by the same, than mortal animals should be so: for
there is much more of order and determinate Regularity in the
Heavenly Bodies that in ourselves; but more of Fortuitousness and
inconstant Regularity among these mortal things.
Notwithstanding which, some there are, who though they cannot but
acknowledge that the Bodies of Animals were all framed by an
Artificial Nature, yet they will need contend that the System of the
Heavens sprung merely from Fortune and Chance; although there be not
the least appearance of Fortuitousness or Temerity in it.’
And then he sums up all into this conclusion:
ὥστε εἶναι
φανερὸν ὅτι
ἔστι τι
τοιοῦτον ὃ
δὴ καὶ
καλοῦμεν
φύσιν. ‘Wherefore it
is manifest that there is some such thing as that which we call
Nature,’ that is, that there is not only an
‘Artificial,’ ‘Methodical,’ and Plastick
Nature in Animals, by which their respective Bodies are Framed
and Conserved, but also that there is such a General Plastick
Nature likewise in the Universe, by which the Heavens and whole
World are thus Artificially Ordered and
Disposed.” |
4. It is not thus with us. Why?
Because we incessantly move the ancient landmarks which our fathers
have set.1625
We encroach,
we add house to house, field to field, to enrich ourselves at the
expense of our neighbour. The great fish know the sojourning
place that nature has assigned to them; they occupy the sea far from
the haunts of men, where no islands lie, and where are no continents
rising to confront them, because it has never been crossed and neither
curiosity nor need has persuaded sailors to tempt it. The
monsters that dwell in this sea are in size like high mountains, so
witnesses who have seen tell us, and never cross their boundaries to
ravage islands and seaboard towns. Thus each kind is as if it
were stationed in towns, in villages, in an ancient country, and has
for its dwelling place the regions of the sea which have been assigned
to it.
Instances have, however, been known of migratory fish,
who, as if common deliberation transported them into strange regions,
all start on their march at a given sign. When the time marked
for breeding arrives, they, as if awakened by a common law of nature,
migrate from gulf to gulf, directing their course toward the North
Sea. And at the epoch of their return you may see all these fish
streaming like a torrent across the Propontis towards the Euxine
Sea. Who puts them in marching array? Where is the
prince’s order? Has an edict affixed in the public place
indicated to them their day of departure? Who serves them as a
guide? See how the divine order embraces all and extends to the
smallest object. A fish does not resist God’s law, and we
men cannot endure His precepts of salvation! Do not despise fish
because they are dumb and quite unreasoning; rather fear lest, in your
resistance to the disposition of the Creator, you have even less reason
than they. Listen to the fish, who by their actions all but speak
and say: it is for the perpetuation of our race that we undertake
this long voyage. They
have not the gift of reason, but they have the law of nature firmly
seated within them, to show them what they have to do. Let us go,
they say, to the North Sea. Its water is sweeter than that of the
rest of the sea; for the sun does not remain long there, and its rays
do not draw up all the drinkable portions.1626
| 1626 cf.
Arist., Hist. Animal. viii. 12 and 13, and note on p.
70. | Even sea creatures love fresh
water.1627
| 1627 cf.
Arist. and Theophrastus. | Thus one
often sees them enter into rivers and swim far up them from the
sea. This is the reason which makes them prefer the Euxine
Sea to other gulfs, as the most fit for breeding and for bringing
up their young. When they have obtained their object the
whole tribe returns home. Let us hear these dumb creatures
tell us the reason. The Northern sea, they say, is shallow
and its surface is exposed to the violence of the wind, and it has
few shores and retreats. Thus the winds easily agitate it to
its bottom and mingle the sands of its bed with its waves.
Besides, it is cold in winter, filled as it is from all directions
by large rivers. Wherefore after a moderate enjoyment of its
waters, during the summer, when the winter comes they hasten to
reach warmer depths and places heated by the sun, and after
fleeing from the stormy tracts of the North, they seek a haven in
less agitated seas.
5. I myself have seen these marvels, and I
have admired the wisdom of God in all things. If beings deprived
of reason are capable of thinking and of providing for their own
preservation; if a fish knows what it ought to seek and what to shun,
what shall we say, who are honoured with reason, instructed by law,
encouraged by the promises, made wise by the Spirit, and are
nevertheless less reasonable about our own affairs than the fish?
They know how to provide for the future, but we renounce our hope of
the future and spend our life in brutal indulgence. A fish
traverses the extent of the sea to find what is good for it; what will
you say then—you who live in idleness, the mother of all
vices?1628
| 1628 Otiosa
mater est nugarum noverca omnium virtutum. St.
Bernard. | Do not
let any one make his ignorance an excuse. There has been
implanted in us natural reason which tells us to identify
ourselves with good, and to avoid all that is harmful. I
need not go far from the sea to find examples, as that is the
object of our researches. I have heard it said by one living
near the sea, that the sea urchin, a little contemptible creature,
often foretells calm and tempest to sailors. When it
foresees a disturbance of the winds, it gets under a great pebble,
and clinging to it as to an anchor, it tosses about in safety,
retained by the weight which prevents it from becoming the
plaything of the waves.1629
| 1629
“Tradunt sævitiam maris præsagire eos,
correptisque opperiri lapillis, mobilitatem pondere
stabilientes: nolunt volutatione spinas atterere, quod ubi
videre nautici, statim pluribus ancoris navigia
infrænant.” Plin. ix. 5. cf.
Plut., De Solert. An. 979, Oppian, Halieut. ii.
225, and Ælian, Hist. An. vii. 33. | It is a
certain sign for sailors that they are threatened with a violent
agitation of the winds. No astrologer, no Chaldæan,
reading in the rising of the stars the disturbances of the air,
has ever communicated his secret to the urchin: it is the
Lord of the sea and of the winds who has impressed on this little
animal a manifest proof of His great wisdom. God has
foreseen all, He has neglected nothing. His eye, which never
sleeps, watches over all.1630
| 1630 cf.
Prov. xv. 3: “The eyes of the Lord
are in every place,” and Ps. cxxi. 3. So Hesiod,
πάντα
ἰδὼν Διὸς
ὀφθαλμὸς
καὶ πάντα
νοήσας. Hes.
Works and Days, 265. | He is
present everywhere and gives to each being the means of
preservation. If God has not left the sea urchin outside His
providence, is He without care for you?
“Husbands love your
wives.”1631
Although
formed of two bodies you are united to live in the communion of
wedlock. May this natural link, may this yoke imposed by the
blessing, reunite those who are divided. The viper, the cruelest
of reptiles, unites itself with the sea lamprey, and, announcing its
presence by a hiss, it calls it from the depths to conjugal
union. The lamprey obeys, and is united to this venomous
animal.1632
| 1632 The fable is
in Ælian, Hist. An. ix. 66, and is contradicted by
Athenæus, who says (vii. p. 312): ᾽Ανδρέας δὲ
ἐν τῷ περὶ
τῶν ψευδῶς
πεπιστευμένων
ψευδός
φησιν εἶναι
τὸ Μύραιναν
ἔχιϊ
μίγνυσθαι
προσερχομένην
ἐπὶ τὸ
τεναγῶδες,
οὐδὲ γαρ
ἐπὶ
τενάγους
ἔχεις
νέμεσθαι,
φιληδοῦντας
λιμώδεσιν
ἐρημίαις.
Σώστρατος
δὲ ἐν τοῖς
περὶ Ζώων
συγκατατίθεται
τῇ μίξει. | What does
this mean? However hard, however fierce a husband may be, the
wife ought to bear with him, and not wish to find any pretext for
breaking the union. He strikes you, but he is your husband.
He is a drunkard, but he is united to you by nature. He is brutal
and cross, but he is henceforth one of your members, and the most
precious of all.
6. Let husbands listen as well: here is a
lesson for them. The viper vomits forth its venom in respect for
marriage; and you, will you not put aside the barbarity and the
inhumanity of your soul, out of respect for your union? Perhaps
the example of the viper contains another meaning. The union of
the viper and of the lamprey is an adulterous violation of
nature. You, who are plotting against other men’s wedlock,
learn what creeping creature you are like. I have only one
object, to make all I say turn to the edification of the Church.
Let then libertines put a restraint
on their passions, for they are taught by the examples set by creatures
of earth and sea.
My bodily infirmity and the lateness of the hour
force me to end my discourse. However, I have still many
observations to make on the products of the sea, for the admiration of
my attentive audience. To speak of the sea itself, how does its
water change into salt? How is it that coral, a stone so much
esteemed, is a plant in the midst of the sea, and when once exposed to
the air becomes hard as a rock? Why has nature enclosed in the
meanest of animals, in an oyster, so precious an object as a
pearl? For these pearls, which are coveted by the caskets of
kings, are cast upon the shores, upon the coasts, upon sharp rocks, and
enclosed in oyster shells. How can the sea pinna produce her
fleece of gold, which no dye has ever imitated?1633
| 1633 The Pinna is a
bivalve with a silky beard, of which several species are found in
the Mediterranean. The beard is called by modern naturalists
byssus. The shell of the giant pinna is sometimes two feet
long. | How can shells give kings purple of
a brilliancy not surpassed by the flowers of the field?
“Let the waters bring
forth.” What necessary object was there that did not
immediately appear? What object of luxury was not given to
man? Some to supply his needs, some to make him contemplate the
marvels of creation. Some are terrible, so as to take our
idleness to school. “God created great
whales.”1634
Scripture
gives them the name of “great” not because they are greater
than a shrimp and a sprat, but because the size of their bodies equals
that of great hills. Thus when they swim on the surface of the
waters one often sees them appear like islands. But these
monstrous creatures do not frequent our coasts and shores; they inhabit
the Atlantic ocean. Such are these animals created to strike us
with terror and awe. If now you hear say that the greatest
vessels, sailing with full sails, are easily stopped by a very small
fish, by the remora, and so forcibly that the ship remains motionless
for a long time, as if it had taken root in the middle of the
sea,1635
| 1635 “Tamen
omnia hæc, pariterque eodem impellentia unus ac parvus
admodum pisciculus, echeneis appellatus, in se tenet. Ruant
venti licet, et sæviant procellæ imperat furori,
viresque tantas compescit, et cogit stare navigia: quod non
vincula ulla, non anchoræ pondere, irrevocabili
jactæ…Fertur Actiaco marte tenuisse navim Antonii
properantis circumire et exhortare suos donec transiret in
aliam.…Tennit et nostra memoria Caii principis ab Astura
Antium renavigantes.” Plin. xxxii. 1. The
popular error was long lived.
“Life is a voyage, and, in our life’s
ways,
Countries, courts, towns, are rocks or
remoras.”
Donne, To Sir Henry
Wotton. | do you not see
in this little creature a like proof of the power of the
Creator? Sword fish, saw fish, dog fish, whales, and sharks,
are not therefore the only things to be dreaded; we have to fear
no less the spike of the stingray even after its death,1636
| 1636 Pliny
(ix. 72) says it is sometimes five inches long. Ælian
(Hist. An. i. 56) calls the wound incurable. | and the sea-hare,1637
| 1637 Pliny (ix. 72)
calls it tactu pestilens, and says (xxxii. 3) that no other
fish eats it, except the mullet. | whose mortal blows are as rapid as they
are inevitable. Thus the Creator wishes that all may keep
you awake, so that full of hope in Him you may avoid the evils
with which all these creatures threaten you.
But let us come out of the depths of the sea and
take refuge upon the shore. For the marvels of creation, coming
one after the other in constant succession like the waves, have
submerged my discourse. However, I should not be surprised if,
after finding greater wonders upon the earth, my spirit seeks like
Jonah’s to flee to the sea. But it seems to me, that
meeting with these innumerable marvels has made me forget all measure,
and experience the fate of those who navigate the high seas without a
fixed point to mark their progress, and are often ignorant of the space
which they have traversed. This is what has happened to me;
whilst my words glanced at creation, I have not been sensible of the
multitude of beings of which I spoke to you. But although this
honourable assembly is pleased by my speech, and the recital of the
marvels of the Master is grateful to the ears of His servants, let me
here bring the ship of my discourse to anchor, and await the day to
deliver you the rest. Let us, therefore, all arise, and, giving
thanks for what has been said, let us ask for strength to hear the
rest. Whilst taking your food may the conversation at your table
turn upon what has occupied us this morning and this evening.
Filled with these thoughts may you, even in sleep, enjoy the pleasure
of the day, so that you may be permitted to say, “I sleep but my
heart waketh,”1638
meditating day and
night upon the law of the Lord, to Whom be glory and power world
without end. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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