In the environs of Thebes in Egypt, after abundant rain in hot weather, the country is covered with field mice. 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. For, if there are creatures which are successively produced by their predecessors, there are others that even today we see born from the earth itself. This command has continued and earth does not cease to obey the Creator. Let the earth bring forth the living creature. 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. 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. Genesis 1:24 Behold the word of God pervading creation, beginning even then the efficacy which is seen displayed today, 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. Let us hear Scripture as it has been written.Ģ. It is to believe themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and to bring forth their own ideas under a pretext of exegesis.
Shall I then prefer foolish wisdom to the oracles of the Holy Spirit? Shall I not rather exalt Him who, not wishing to fill our minds with these vanities, has regulated all the economy of Scripture in view of the edification and the making perfect of our souls? It is this which those seem to me not to have understood, who, giving themselves up to the distorted meaning of allegory, have undertaken to give a majesty of their own invention to Scripture. He has passed over in silence, as useless, all that is unimportant for us. It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to shapes he has not said that the earth is a hundred and eighty thousand furlongs in circumference he has not measured into what extent of air its shadow projects itself while the sun revolves around it, nor stated how this shadow, casting itself upon the moon, produces eclipses. 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 all these conjectures have been suggested by cosmographers, each one upsetting that of his predecessor. Romans 1:16 Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the shape of the earth. For me grass is grass plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. 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. 2 Kings 4:39 I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. No one refused to sit at the table of Elisha and yet he only gave his friends wild vegetables. Yet, whatever my discourse may have been, take care lest you disregard it. It is for you to judge if I have shared the same fate. In vain he lavishly covers his table with his mean fare his ambition only shows his folly. 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.
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