Hexameron 3.2–3.29

Nor do we have only this example of the obedience of water; for it is written elsewhere too: “The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and were afraid.” And it does not seem unlikely that this was said of waters, since elsewhere also the prophet says: “The sea saw and fled; the Jordan was turned back.” Who does not know that this really happened, that the sea fled at the crossing of the Hebrews? When the wave divided itself, the people crossed with dusty footstep, believing that the sea had perished and the waves had fled. The Egyptian believed this too and went in; but the wave that had fled came back upon him. Water, then, knew how to be gathered, to fear, and to flee, when God commanded. Let us imitate this water and know one gathering of the Lord, one church.

Here once the water was gathered from every valley, from every marsh, from every lake. The valley is heresy, the valley is paganism, because God is the God of the mountains, not of the valleys. So in the church there is exultation, in heresy and paganism weeping and grief. Hence he says: “He has set weeping in the valley.” From every valley, then, the catholic people has been gathered. Now there are not many gatherings, but one gathering, one church. Here too it was said: “Let the water be gathered from every valley,” and a spiritual gathering was made, one people was made. The church has been filled from heretics and pagans. The theatre is a valley, the circus is a valley, where the horse runs, a vain thing for safety, where there is cheap and degraded rivalry, where quarrelling is a foul ugliness. From those, then, who used to cling to the circus the faith of the church has grown, the company of the blackbirds is increased.

The marsh is luxury, the marsh is intemperance, the marsh is incontinence, in which are the wallows of lusts, the grunts of beasts, the lurking places of passions, where whoever falls in is plunged down and does not come up, where footsteps slip and each one's walk wavers, where the coots soil themselves as they wash, where the doves mourn tearfully above, where the sluggish tortoise sticks in the muddy pool; the boar, in short, is in the marsh, the deer at the springs. From every marsh, then, where they sang their old complaint like frogs, faith has been gathered, purity of soul and simplicity of mind have been gathered.

The water was gathered from every lake and from every pit, so that no one may prepare a pit for his brother into which he himself falls, but all may love one another, all cherish one another, and like one body the different members may support one another; whom not the deadly songs of stage performers, which soften the mind toward love affairs, but the harmony of the church, the voice of the people singing together in God's praise, and a holy life delight; for whom it is no pleasure to look at purple hangings or costly curtains, but at this most beautiful structure of the world, this union of elements distant from each other, heaven stretched out like a vault to cover those who dwell in this world, the earth given for work, the air poured round, the seas enclosed, this people, the instrument of the divine work, in which the melody of the divine oracle resounds and the Spirit of God works within, this temple, the sanctuary of the Trinity, the home of holiness, the holy church, in which heavenly curtains shine, of which it was said: “Enlarge the place of your tents and of your curtains, fix them, do not spare, make your cords longer and strengthen your stakes; stretch out still to the right and to the left; and your seed shall possess the nations as an inheritance, and you shall inhabit the deserted cities.” It has, then, curtains, by which it lifts up the good life, covers sins, and overshadows guilt.

This is the church that is founded upon the seas and prepared upon the rivers. For it is made firm and prepared upon you, who run down into it like rivers from the pure spring of the world, of whom it was said: “The rivers have lifted up, O Lord, the rivers have lifted up their voices from the voice of many waters.” And he added: “Wonderful are the swellings of the sea; wonderful is the Lord on high.” Good rivers; for you have drawn from that everlasting and full spring, he who says to you: “He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” And this he said of the Spirit, whom those who were to believe in him were beginning to receive. But now, like the streams of the good Jordan, turn back with me to our starting point.

“Let the water that is under heaven,” he says, “be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear. And so it was done.” Perhaps someone believed too little our earlier sermons, in which we argued that the earth was invisible because it was covered by the waters, so that it could not be seen by bodily eyes. For the prophet referred this to himself, that is, to our condition, not to the majesty of the divine nature, which certainly sees all things. But so that you may notice that we undertook this labour of treatment not to show off our wit but for your instruction, we call to witness the course of the reading, which agrees with us and plainly proves that the dry land appeared after the water that was on the earth had been gathered and drawn off into the seas. Let them stop, then, troubling us with dialectical disputes, saying: “How was the earth invisible, since every body naturally has form and colour, and every colour is subject to sight?” The voice of God cries: “Let the water be gathered and let the dry land appear.” And again Scripture says: “The water was gathered into one gathering, and the dry land appeared.” What need was there to repeat it, unless the prophet saw that questions must be met? Does he not seem to say: “I did not say it was invisible by nature, but because the waters were poured over it”? Indeed, he added that when the veil was removed the dry land appeared, which before was not seen.

Again they sow other questions, saying: “If the water was in different gatherings, then, if those gatherings were in higher places, how did the water not flow down to the place to which it was drawn after the Lord's command? (for the nature of waters is to slide down of its own accord to lower places); but if those gatherings were in lower places, how did the water climb to higher places against its nature? So either its natural course needed no command, or against nature a command could achieve nothing.” I will easily answer this question if they first answer me whether before the Lord's command the nature of the waters was to slip and to flow. Water does not have this from the use of the other elements; it is special and its own, not from some order, but rather from the will and operation of the most high God. They hear what God commanded. And the voice of God is productive of nature. The effect of the operation fulfilled that voice. The water began to slip and to flow together into one gathering, which before was spread over the earth and clung in many hollows. I have not read of its course before, I have not learned of its motion before; neither has my eye seen nor my ear heard. The water stood in various places: at the voice of God it was moved. Does it not seem that the voice of God made such a nature for it? The creature followed the command and made a custom out of a law; for the law of the first establishment left a pattern for the future. So he made day and night once: from that time the daily succession and daily renewal of each remains. Water too was ordered to run into a gathering: from that time it runs; springs slide into rivers, rivers run into the straits, lakes are drawn off into the seas; water goes before itself, presses on and follows. There is one channel, one body. And though the depth differs, yet the evenness of its surface is undivided. That is why, I think, it is called aequor (“the level”), because its surface is level.

I have answered according to their premise; now let them answer me, whether they have never seen springs bubble up from below and water rise from the ground. Who forces it? From where does it burst out? How does it not fail? How does it happen that the lowest mouths of the soil vomit out water? These things follow the secrets of hidden nature. But who does not know that water, often descending with a swift rush, raises itself up again and climbs to the brow of a mountain, and often, when drawn off in channels by the hand of a craftsman, rises again as far as it has descended? So if it is either carried by its own impetus or led and lifted against its nature by a craftsman's skill, do you wonder if by the working of the divine command something was added to the use of its nature that was not in its use before? Let them tell me now how he gathered the waters of the sea as into a wineskin, as it is written, and how he brought water out of the rock. Could he who was able to bring out of the rock water that did not exist not lead water that did exist? “He struck the rock, and the waters flowed,” cries David, “and the torrents overflowed”; and elsewhere: “The waters shall stand above the mountains.” You have it in the Gospel that, when there was a severe storm and a great commotion on the sea, so that the apostles feared the danger of shipwreck, they woke the Lord Jesus sleeping in the stern, and rising he commanded the wind and the sea, and the storm was calmed and calm poured back. Could he who was able to calm the whole sea by command not move the waters by command? Moreover, of the flood we have received that the springs of the abyss burst forth and that afterward he brought a wind and dried the water. If they do not want to admit that nature obeyed and that the use of the element was changed by God's command, let them grant at least that the waters could run when a wind was sent, as we see daily on the sea, where the waters run in the direction from which the wind blows. If in the time of Moses the sea was dried when a strong south wind was raised, could not the gathering of waters be dried in the same way and the water flow off into the sea, which was afterward separated from the deep? But let them learn that nature can be changed, when the rock poured out water and iron floated on the water, which the prophet certainly obtained by praying, not by commanding. If, then, Elisha lifted iron against nature, could Christ not move compliant waters? But he moved them who could say, “Lazarus, come out,” and raised the dead; for God made what he commands. So take in the same way the saying: “Let the water be gathered,” and it was gathered. And by saying “Let it be gathered” he not only moved it from its place but also set it in its place, so that it would not flow past but remain.

This, then, is the greater miracle: how all the gatherings flowed down into one gathering, and the one gathering was not filled up. For Scripture puts this among the wonders, saying: “All the torrents go into the sea, and the sea is not filled.” Both, then, come from God's command: that water flows and that it does not overflow. Hemmed in by a fixed boundary, the seas are enclosed, lest, pouring over the lands, they flood everything and, the tilling of the fields abandoned, hinder the gift of the earth's fruitfulness. Let them know, then, that this belongs to the divine command and heavenly operation. For the Lord, speaking through the cloud to Job, said, among other things, also about the barrier of the sea: “I set bounds for it, placing bars and gates; and I said to it: Thus far you shall come and you shall not pass beyond, but your waves shall be broken within yourself.” Do we not ourselves see the sea often so stormy that its waves rise high like a sheer mountain of water, and yet, where it has dashed its force against the shore, it breaks into foam, driven back by certain barriers of low sand, as it is written: “Will you not fear me, says the Lord, who set the sand as a boundary for the sea?” So by the weakest of all things, the dust of cheap sand, the wild force of the sea is restrained, and as if by certain reins of the heavenly command it is called back within its prescribed limit, and the motion of the violent sea is broken upon itself and split into its retreating bays.

Otherwise, unless the force of the heavenly decree held it back, what would prevent the Red Sea from mingling with the Egyptian sea across the plains of Egypt, which is said to be flat country lying in very low valleys? This is shown by those who wished to join these two seas and pour them into each other: Sesostris the Egyptian, who was earlier, and Darius the Mede, who, considering his greater power, wished to carry out what had earlier been attempted by the native king. This shows that the Indian Sea, of which the Red Sea is part, is higher than the Egyptian sea, which washes the lower land. And perhaps both kings called off their works for this reason, lest the sea, rushing from the higher to the lower, spread itself more widely.

I ask now, since he said, “Let the water be collected into one gathering,” how one collection could receive the waters spread through lakes, marshes, and pools, poured over valleys and plains and all the flatter places, and running in springs and rivers; or how is it one collection, when even today there are different seas? For we speak of the sea Ocean, and the Tyrrhenian, the Adriatic, the Indian, the Egyptian, the Pontus, the Propontis, the Hellespont, the Euxine, the Aegean, the Ionian, the Atlantic; many also name a Cretan sea and a northern Caspian sea. So let us consider the words of Scripture, which are weighed in a balanced scale.

“Let the water,” he says, “be collected into one collection.” There is one unbroken and continuous gathering of waters, but different bays of the sea, as one of the secular writers says. For the Pontus is the widest bay of our sea, and rightly there are different names in different places, because names have attached themselves to the waters from the names of the regions; but there is one gathering of waters, because a continuous and unbroken wave, from the Indian Sea to the shore of the coast of Gades, and from there to the furthest Red Sea, encloses the circle of the lands with the ocean poured around it. Within also the Adriatic mingles with the Tyrrhenian, and the other seas with the Adriatic, distinct in names, not in waves. So you have it nicely that God called the gatherings of the waters seas. Thus there is both one general collection, which is called the sea, and many collections, which are named seas after the regions. For just as there are many lands, such as Africa, Spain, Thrace, Macedonia, Egypt, Gaul, and Italy, named after the names of regions, and there is one earth, so there are said to be many seas after the names of places, and there is one sea, as the prophet says: “Yours are the heavens and yours is the earth; you founded the world and its fullness. You created the north and the sea.” And the Lord himself says to Job: “I shut up the sea with gates.”

Now, since we have spoken of one collection, the question occurs whether, when the waters had been spread over almost the whole earth and above the earth, through the valleys of the fields, the hollows of the mountains, and the level of the plains, one gathering poured out in the form of a sea could receive all those waters and empty the lands which before were flooded by a stream poured over everything. If everything was so covered (for he would not say, “The earth was seen,” unless he wished to show it uncovered in every place), and if the flood in Noah's time hid even the mountains, when the separation of the waters above the heavens and below the firmament had already been made, how much less can it be doubted that the tops of the mountains too lay hidden under that flood? Where, then, was all that overflow of waters drawn off? What receptacles could swallow it, so continuous and connected? On this a long discussion could be supplied to us.

First, because the creator of all could also extend the expanses of the lands themselves, which some before us have affirmed in their own opinion. I do not pass over what he could have done; what he did, which I have not learned plainly from the authority of the Scriptures, I pass over as a secret, lest perhaps they seek other questions for themselves from this as well. Yet I assert according to the Scriptures that he could spread out the low places and the open plains, as he himself says: “I will go before you and make the mountains level.” The very force of the waters, too, could have made deeper the places where it had settled, by so great a motion of waves and so great a surging of that more agitated element, which daily churns the bottom of the sea and turns up sand from the deep. Then who knows how far that great sea extends, unventured by sailors and untried by mariners, which encloses the Britains in its wide waters and stretches into further secret places inaccessible even to legends? And who would not reckon how much the sea, poured into Lucrinus and Avernus in Italy, and into Tiberias in Palestine and that lake which stretches out the deserts of Arabia between Palestine and Egypt, and into the various harbours of Augustus and Trajan, and others through the whole world, has added? But there are also lakes and

pools that are not mixed and do not mingle with the waves, like Larius and Benacus, the Alban lake too, and many others: how then is there one gathering of waters? But just as it is said that God made two lights, that is, the sun and the moon, though there are certainly also the lights of the stars, so too it is said to be one gathering, though there are very many; for those that are not comparable are not counted.

But, as it seems, since I was speaking of the sea, we have overflowed somewhat; let us return to our subject and consider what it is that the Lord says: “Let the water be gathered into one gathering and let the dry land appear,” and he did not say “earth.” Who would not notice how excellently this was put? For earth can be mixed with mud and soaked with water, so that its appearance does not show when water is poured over it. But “dry land” refers not only to the kind but also to the appearance of the lands, so that it is useful, dry, handy, and fit for cultivation. At the same time it was foreseen that it should not seem to have been dried by the sun rather than by God's command, because it was made dry before the sun was created. So David too, distinguishing sea and land, says of the Lord God: “For the sea is his, and he made it, and his hands founded the dry land.” For “dry land” expresses its nature; “earth” is a simple name of the thing, which has its property within it. For just as “animal” signifies a genus, to which something proper and excellent belongs, while rational is proper to man, so “earth” can be said in common, whether teeming with waters or “desert, pathless, and without water.” So even to the earth that teems with waters it belongs to have dryness; for when the water is removed it begins to be dry, as you have it written: “He turned rivers into a desert and the springs of waters into thirst,” that is, he made dry land out of watery earth.

The earth, then, has its own proper quality, as the single elements also have; for air has the quality of moisture, water of cold, and fire of heat. And this is the principal property of each element, which we gather by reason. But if we grasp them by the senses and bodily, we find them as it were linked and combined, so that earth is dry and cold, water cold and moist, air warm and moist, fire hot and dry. And so the single elements are mixed with one another by these paired qualities. For since earth is of a dry and cold quality, it is linked to water by the kinship of the cold quality, and through water to air, because air is moist. So water seems to embrace with two arms, as it were, of cold and moisture, earth with the one and air with the other: earth with the cold, air with the moist. Air also, set between two things at war by nature, that is, between water and fire, reconciles both these elements to itself, because it is joined to water by moisture and to fire by heat. Fire too, being hot and dry by nature, is linked to air by heat, and by dryness is poured back into communion and fellowship with earth; and so through this circle and a kind of chorus of concord and fellowship they agree with one another. That is why what we call elementa in Latin are called stoicheia in Greek, because they agree and harmonize with one another.

We have come this far because Scripture says that God called the earth “dry land,” that is, he named it by what is principal in it, the property of its nature. For its natural property is dryness; this prerogative was kept for it. Dryness, then, is principal. It also underlies it to be cold, but secondary things are not put before the first. That it is moist it obtains from its affinity with the waters. So the one is its own, the other foreign: its own, that it is dry; foreign, that it is moist. The author of nature, then, kept what he first gave, because the one is from nature, the other from a cause. The property of the earth, then, had to be defined from what is principal, not from what is accidental, so that our knowledge would be formed according to the prerogative of its quality. “And God saw that it was good.”

We do not pass over the fact that some think that neither in the Hebrew nor in the other translations is there the phrase, “The water was gathered into its collections and the dry land appeared. And God called the dry land earth, and the collections of waters he called seas.” For since God said, “And so it was done,” they think the word of the worker is enough as a sign of the operation carried out. But since in the other creatures too the text has both the statement of the command and the repeated sign or effect of the operation, we do not think it absurd that this is said to be added, even if the other translators are shown to have truth or authority on their side; for we find that many things were not idly added and joined to the Hebrew reading by the Seventy. God saw, then, that the sea was good.

Although the appearance of this element is beautiful, whether when it whitens with rising heaps and crests of waves and sprinkles the rocks with snowy spray, or when, with the surface rippling under gentler breezes and the soft calm of fair weather, it shows the purple colour that is often cast before those who look from afar, when it does not beat the nearby shores with violent waves but encircles and greets them as with peaceful embraces (how sweet the sound, how pleasant the crash, how welcome and harmonious the echo!), yet I do not think that the beauty of the creature was estimated by eyes, but that it was defined as fitting and suitable according to the plan of the operation, by the judgment of the worker.

The sea is good, then, first because it supports the lands with necessary moisture, supplying them secretly through certain veins with a juice that is by no means useless. The sea is good as the host of rivers, the source of rains, the outlet of floods, the carrier of supplies, by which distant peoples are joined together, by which the dangers of battles are removed, by which barbarian fury is shut out; a help in need, a refuge in dangers, a grace in pleasures, a health for the sick, a joining of the separated, a shortening of the journey, an escape for the toiling, a support for revenues, a nourishment in barrenness. From it rain is passed over to the lands, since the water is drawn from the sea by the rays of the sun and its fine part is snatched up; then, the higher it is raised, the more it cools in the shadow of the clouds and becomes rain, which not only tempers the earth's dryness but also makes the hungry fields fruitful.

Why should I list the islands, with which it often decks itself like necklaces, in which those who renounce the intemperance of the world, freed by a faithful resolve of self-control, choose to hide from the world and avoid the doubtful windings of this life? The sea, then, is the secret place of temperance, the exercise of self-control, the retreat of seriousness, the harbour of safety, the calm of the age, the sobriety of this world, and also, for faithful and devout men, an incentive to devotion, so that the singing of those chanting psalms vies with the sound of gently lapping waves, the islands applaud the peaceful chorus of the holy waves and resound with the hymns of the saints. How can I grasp the whole beauty of the sea, which the worker saw? And why say more? What else is that harmony of the waves but a harmony of the people? So the church is often well compared to the sea: first, as the crowd of people enters, it pours out waves through all its doors; then in the prayer of the whole people it hisses like ebbing waves, when, with the responsories of the psalms, the singing of men, women, virgins, and children resounds like the harmonious crash of waves. And what shall I say of this, that the wave washes away sin and the saving breeze of the Holy Spirit blows?

May the Lord grant us these things: to sail with a favourable wind on the swift timber, to come to rest in a safe harbour, not to know temptations of spiritual wickedness heavier than we can bear, to know nothing of shipwrecks of faith, to have deep peace, and, if ever there is something by which the heavy waves of this age revive against us, to have the Lord Jesus watching over us as our helmsman, who commands by his word, calms the storm, and pours back the calm of the sea; to whom be honour and glory, praise and perpetuity, from the ages, and now and always, and for all ages of ages. Amen.

When the water withdrew, it was fitting that form and grace be given to the earth, so that it would cease to be invisible and unformed. For many also say that what has no form is invisible, and so they take it that the earth was invisible, not because it could not be seen by the most high God or his angels (for men had not yet been created, nor even cattle), but because it was without its proper form. And the form of the earth is the sprouting and greenness of the field. So, to make it visible and formed, God says: “Let the earth bring forth the green herb, sowing seed after its kind, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself.”

Let us hear the words of truth, whose sequence is the salvation of those who hear. For that first voice of God, imparted to each creature that was to be born, is a law of nature that has remained in the lands for all time, to give a rule for the succession to come, how the practice of generating or bearing fruit would grow up for the future. The first stage, then, is germination, when the growing things are seen to break out; then, when the shoot has broken out and advanced, it becomes herb; and the herb, when it has gone on a little, becomes grass. How useful, how forceful the word: “Let the earth bring forth the green herb,” that is, let the earth sprout by itself, let it seek no help from another, let it need no one's service.

For many people say: “Unless the milder heat of the sun warms the lands and cherishes them in some way with its rays, the earth cannot sprout.” And that is why the pagans assign divine honour to the sun, because by the power of its heat it penetrates the bosom of the lands and cherishes the scattered seeds, or loosens the veins of trees stiff with frost. Hear, then, God as it were uttering this voice: “Let the foolish talk of men that is to come be silent, let the empty opinion depart. Before the light of the sun is made, let the herb be born; let its prerogative be older than the sun's. Lest the error of men grow strong, let the earth sprout before it receives the warmth of the sun.” Let all know that the sun is not the author of growing things. The kindness of God loosens the lands, the goodness of God makes the fruits break forth. How does the sun supply the means of living to the things that spring up, when they were brought forth by the quickening of the divine operation before the sun came into these uses of life? It is younger than the herbs, younger than the grass.

And perhaps someone may wonder why fodder for cattle was created before food for man. In this we must first notice the depth of God, that he neglects not even the least things, as the Wisdom of God says in the Gospel: “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them: are you not of more value than they?” For since they are fed by God's grace, no one should flatter himself on his own industry and strength. Then, because he had to put simple fare and natural food before other foods. For this is the food of sobriety, the others of delicacy and luxury; this is the food common to all animals, that of a few. It is, then, an example of frugality, a lesson in thrift, that all ought to be content with the fare of a simple herb and a cheap vegetable or fruit, which nature offered and the generosity of God first gave. That is healthy, that is useful food, which drives off diseases and cuts short indigestion, born by no labour of men but poured out by the divine gift, crops without sowing, fruit without seed, so sweet and pleasant that it is a pleasure and use even to those who are full. Indeed, given at the first course, it has remained for the second.

What wonder of this creation shall I add, and what proof of the working wisdom shall I express? For in this appearance of shoots and that gift of green grass there is an image of human life, and a kind of emblem of our nature and condition is seen, and a mirror shines out. That herb and the flower of the grass is a figure of human flesh, as the good interpreter of the divinity expressed with the instrument of his voice, saying: “Cry. What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass has withered and the flower has fallen, but the word of the Lord abides for ever.” The sentence is God's, the voice human. God says, “Cry,” but speaks in Isaiah himself. He answered: “What shall I cry?” And as if he had heard what to say, he added: “All flesh is grass.” And truly; for the glory of man flourishes in the flesh like grass, and what is thought lofty is slight as a herb. Premature as a flower, perishable as grass, it sprouts greenness in appearance, not solidity in fruit; it holds out as it were the flower of a gayer life to the one who is stiffening, and is to fall in a shorter space like the grass, which withers before it is plucked up. For what firmness is there in the flesh, what health can be lasting?