The Opening of Genesis, Part IV

And God said, “Let there be light”

(c) 2013 Bart A. Mazzetti

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I. ON GENESIS 1:4. “AND GOD SAID LET THERE BE LIGHT.”

II. CONCERNING THE PROPAGATION OF LIGHT IN RELATION TO THE FIRST WORK OF DISTINCTION:

III. ON “ONE DAY” ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

IV. ON THE DIVISION OF TIME INTO NIGHT AND DAY.

V. ON EVENING AND MORNING CONSTITUTING “ONE DAY”.

VI. CERTAIN FATHERS OF THE CHURCH ON THE MEANING OF ‘DAY’.

VII. ON THE DEFINITION OF ‘DAY’ ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE.

VIII. ON THE LIGHT CREATED ON THE FIRST DAY.

IX. ON THE PRINCIPLE OF THE MOTION OF THE HEAVENS.

X. THAT ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE THE HEAVENLY BODIES ARE ANI-MATED BY INTELLECTUAL SOULS.

XI. THAT BETWEEN THE FIRST UNMOVED MOVER AND THE OUTERMOST SPHERE THERE IS A FIRST MOVED MOVER.

XII. ON THE FIRST UNMOVED MOVER, THE CELESTIAL SPHERE, AND THE FIRST MOVED MOVER UNDERSTOOD AS THE ANIMA MUNDI.

XIII. ON LIGHT UNDERSTOOD AS AN ACTIVE QUALITY OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES AND ITS RELATION TO THE POWER TO GENERATE AND CORRUPT.

XIV. SUPPLEMENT: JOHN GILL ON JOB 38:12-14.

XV. ON LIGHT UNDERSTOOD AS THE ACT OF THE TRANSPARENT.

XVI. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING LIGHT.

XVII. ON THE SUBJECT WHICH RECEIVES THE WORLD’S FIRST FORM.

XVIII. SUPPLEMENT: WILLIAM HARVEY ON THE HEART AS BEING THE ANALOGUE OF THE SUN.

XIX. ON THE CAUSALITY OF THE LIGHT OF THE SUN.

XX. ON LIGHT IN RELATION TO THE GOOD.

XXI. ON THE FIRST UNMOVED MOVER.

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XXII. THAT THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL BUT PERISHABLE, AND HENCE SUSTAINED BY DIVINE POWER.

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TEXTS.

3 And God said: Let there be light: and there was light. (AV)

3 And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (RSVCE)

3 καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός γενηθήτω φῶς καὶ ἐγένετο φῶς

3 Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux.

1:3. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. (Douay-Rheims)

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I. ON GENESIS 1:4. “AND GOD SAID LET THERE BE LIGHT.”

The Holy BibleDouay-Rheims Translation

Challoner Revision, 1749-1752

THE BOOK OF GENESIS

This book is so called from its treating of the GENERATION, that is, of the creation and the beginning of the world. The Hebrews call it BERESITH, from the Word with which it begins. It contains not only the history of the Creation of the world; but also an account of its progress during the space of 2369 years, that is, until the death of JOSEPH.

Genesis Chapter 1

God createth Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days.

1:1. In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.

1:2. And the earth was void and empty [or “invisible and shapeless”, LXX], and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters.

1:3. And God said: Be light made. And light was made.

1:4. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness.

1:5. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.

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N.B. Before turning to St. Thomas’ exposition, let us first consider an informative text of Peter Lombard presupposed to it.

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1. Peter Lombard on the first work of distinction: the production of light.

Cf. Peter Lombard. The Second Book of the Sentences (tr. Br. Alexis Bugnolo):

LIBER SECUNDUS SENTENTIARUM.

DE  RERUM  CREATIONE  ET  FORMATI-ONE  CORPORALIUM ET SPIRITUALIUM ET ALIIS  PLURIBUS  EO  PERTINENTIBUS

DISTINCTIO XIII.

Opera Omnia S. Bonaventurae,Ad Claras Aquas, 1885, Vol. 2, pag. 308-310.

Cum Notitiis Editorum Quaracchi

cap. I.

De primo distinctionis opere.

THE SECOND BOOK OF THE SENTENCES ON THE CREATION AND FORMATION OF THINGS CORPORAL AND SPIRITUAL AND MANY OTHERS PERTAINING TO THIS

DISTINCTION 13

Latin text taken from Opera Omnia S. Bonaventurae, Ad Claras Aquas, 1885, Vol. 2, pp. 308-310. Notes by the Quaracchi Editors.

Chapter I.

On the first work of distinction.

Prima autem distinctionis operatio fuit formatio lucis, sicut ostendit Scriptura,1 quae, commem-orata rerum informitate, earum dispositionem a luce inchoavit subdens:

Dixit Deus: Fiat lux, et facta est lux; et divisit lucem a tenebris, appellavitque lucem diem, et tenebras noctem. Et factum est vespere et mane, dies unus.

« Congrue mundi ornatus a luce incepit, unde cetera, quae creanda erant, viderentur ».

Now the first work of distinction was the for-mation of light, just as Scripture shows,1 which having commemorated the formlessness of things, began their arrangement [dispositionem] by light, subjoining:

God said: “Let there be light”, and light was made; and He divided the light from the dark-ness, and He named the light “day”, and the darkness “night”. And there was made evening and morning, one day [dies unus].* 

* [Trans. note: Here it must be noted that Master Peter, following the Vulgate, uses the masculine for day [dies], whereas, as we shall see, St. Bonaventure in his commentary uses the masculine for the day-time and the feminine for one entire day, comprising the daytime and the night, following the custom of the Italian tongue: il giorno, la giornata.]

« Fittingly, the ornamentation of the world started from the light, whence all the others, which were to be created, would be seen ».

Cap. II.

De luce facta primo die, si spiritualis, an corporalis fuerit.

Si quaeritur, qualis illa lux fuerit, corporalis scilicet, an spiritualis; id respondemus quod a Sanctis legimus traditum.

Chapter II.

On the light made on the First Day, whether it was spiritual, or corporal?

If it is asked, “Of what kind was that light, namely corporal, or spiritual?”; we respond with that which we read (was) handed down by the Saints.

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—  Dicit enim Augustinus,2 quia lux illa corporalis, vel spiritualis intelligi potest.

Si spiritualis accipitur, angelica natura intelli-gitur, quae prius informis fuit, sed postea formata est, cum ad Creatorem suum conversa, ei caritate adhaesit, cuius informitatis creatio superius3 significata est, ubi dictum est:

In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram.

Hic vero eiusdem formatio ostenditur, cum ait: Fiat lux, et facta est lux.

Haec ergo angelica natura prius tenebrae et postea lux fuit, quia prius habuit informitatem et imperfectionem, deinde formationis per-fectionem; et ita divisit Deus lucem a tenebris.

Nam, ut ait Augustinus super Genesim:4  « Huius creaturae informitas et imperfectio fuit, antequam formaretur in amore Conditoris. Formata vero est, quando conversa est ad incommutabile lumen Verbi ».

—  Si vero corporalis fuit lux illa, quae utique probabile est, corpus lucidum fuisse intelligitur, velut lucida nubes, quod non de nihilo, sed de praeiacenti materia formaliter factum est, ut lux esset et vim lucendi haberet; cum qua dies prima exorta est, quia ante lucem nec dies fuit nec nox, licet tempus fuerit.

—  For (St.) Augustine2 says, that that light can be understood as corporal, and/or spiritual.

If it is taken as spiritual, it is understood as the angelic nature, which was first formless, but afterwards was formed, when having converted to its Creator, it cleaved to Him by charity, the creation of whose formlessness was signified above,3 where there was said:

In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.

But here the formation of the same is shown, when (Scripture) says: “Let there be light”, and light was made.

Therefore this angelic nature was first darkness and afterwards light, because it had first a form-lessness and imperfection, then the perfection of (its) formation; and thus God divided light from darkness.

For, as (St.) Augustine says On (a Literal Expo-sition of) Genesis:4  « A formlessness and imperfection belonged to this creature, before it was formed in the love of (its) Founder. But it was formed, when it was converted to the in-commutable Light of the Word ».

—  But if that light was corporal, which indeed is probable, it is understood to have been a lucid body, such as a lucid cloud, which (body) was made formally, not from nothing, but from pre-existing [praeiacenti] matter, to be light and to have the force of lighting; with which the First Day [dies prima] rose, because before the light there was neither day nor night, though there was time.

1  Gen. 1, 3. seqq. —  Teste cod. Erf., haec et seqq. usque ad cap. 7, sumta sunt ex Gandolpho, II. Sent. c. 54. 56. Propositio sequens: Congrue mundi etc. est ex Glossa interlin. ad v. 3.2  Libr. I. de Gen. ad lit. c. 3. n. 7, secundum sensum; et XXII. contra Faustum, c. 10. —  Paulo inferius post Creatorem Vat. cum codd. A G et plurimis edd. omittit suum.3  Cfr. dist. II. c. 64  Libr. I, c. 5. n. 10, sed non ad verbum.

1  Gen. 1:3 ff.. —  According to the Erfurt Codex, these and the following up to chapter 7, have been taken from Gandolphus, Sent., Bk. II, chs. 54 and 56. The following proposition: Fit-tingly the ornamentation etc. [Congrue mundi etc.] is from the Glossa interlinearis, on v. 3.2  On a Literal Exposition of Genesis, Bk. I, ch. 3, n. 7, according to the sense; and Against Faustus, Bk. XXII, ch. 10. —  A little below this at Creator, the Vatican edition, together with codices A and G and very many editions, omits its [suum].3  Cf. Distinction II, ch. 6.4  Book I, ch. 5, n. 10, but not literally.

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p. 309

Cap. III.

Ubi facta fuerit.

Si autem quaeritur: ubi facta est lux illa, cum abyssus omnem terrae altitudinem tegeret? dici potest in illis partibus facta, quas nunc illustrat solis diurna lux.

Nec mirum, lucem in aquis posse lucere, cum etiam nautarum operatione saepius illustrentur, qui in profundum mersi, misso ex ore oleo1

aquas sibi illustrant; quae multo rariores fuerunt in principio, quam modo sunt, quia nondum congregatae fuerunt in uno loco.

Facta ergo lux illa vicem2 et locum solis tenebat, quae motu suo circumagitata, noctem diemque discernebat.

Ibi ergo primum lucem apparuisse verisimile est, ubi sol quotidiano cursu circumvectus apparet, ut eodem tramite lux circumcurrens ac primo ad occasum descendens, vesperam facer-et, deinde revocata ad ortum, auroram, id est mane illustraret;

et ita divisit Deus lucem et tenebras et appellavit lucem diem, et tenebras noctem.

1  Ad haec verba cod. Erf. annotat: Illud exemplum ponitur in Hexaëm. Ambrosii, hom. 1. libr. I. c. 9. n. 33, et Basilii, hom. 2. n. 7. —  Hoc totum cap. in Hugone invenitur, I. de Sacram. p. I. c. 9.

2  Vat. cum paucis edd. Facta est ergo lux illa, quae vicem.

Chapter III.

Where was it made?

But if there is asked: “Where was that light made, since the abyss covered every altitude of the Earth?” it can be said (to have been) made in those parts, which the diurnal light of the Sun now brightens [illustrat].

Nor (is it) to be wondered at, that light can shine in the waters, since they are even often lit up by the work of sailors [nautarum operatione illus-trentur], who having plunged into the depth, light up the waters by sending [misso] oil out of (their) mouth;1 which were much more scattered in the beginning, than they are now, because they were not yet gathered together in one place.

Therefore, having been made, that light had the duty [vicem]2 and place of the Sun, which (light) driven about by its own movement, divided [discernebat] night and day.

Therefore it is likely [verisimile] that light first appeared there, where the Sun appears to ride around in (its) daily course, so that the light, running about by the same footpath and descen-ding first to the setting (of the Sun), would cause the evening, (and) then recalled to the rising (of the Sun), (would cause) the dawn [aururam], that is would light up the morn;

and thus God divided light and darkness and He named the light “day”, and the darkness “night”.

1  At these words the Erfurt codex notes: This example is posited in (St.) Ambrose’s On the Hexaëmeron, Homily 1, Bk. I, ch. 9, n. 33, and (St.) Basil’s (On the Hexaëmeron), Homily 2, n. 7. —  This whole chapter is found in Hugo (of St. Victor), On the Sacraments, Bk. I, p. I, ch. 9.2  The Vatican edition, together with a few editions, has Therefore, that light was made, which had etc. [Facta est ergo lux illa, quae vicem] for Therefore, having been made, that light had [Facta ergo lux illa vicem].

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2. St. Thomas Aquinas on Light: Summa Theologiae Ia q. 67 complete.

ON THE WORK OF DISTINCTION IN ITSELF (FOUR ARTICLES)

   We must consider next the work of distinction in itself. First, the work of the first day; secondly, the work of the second day; thirdly the work of the third day.

   Under the first head there are four points of inquiry:

    (1) Whether the word light is used in its proper sense in speaking of spiritual things?    (2) Whether light, in corporeal things, is itself corporeal?     (3) Whether light is a quality?     (4) Whether light was fittingly made on the first day?

  IndexFirst PartQuestion: 67Article: 1

Whether the word “light” is used in its proper sense in speaking of spiritual things?

  Objection 1: It would seem that “light” is used in its proper sense in spiritual things. For Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. iv, 28) that “in spiritual things light is better and surer: and that Christ is not called Light in the same sense as He is called the Stone; the former is to be taken literally, and the latter metaphorically.”

  Objection 2: Further, Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv) includes Light among the intellectual names of God. But such names are used in their proper sense in spiritual things. Therefore light is used in its proper sense in spiritual matters.

  Objection 3: Further, the Apostle says (Eph. 5:13): “All that is made manifest is light.” But to be made manifest belongs more properly to spiritual things than to corporeal. Therefore also does light.

  On the contrary, Ambrose says (De Fide ii) that “Splendor” is among those things which are said of God metaphorically.

  I answer that, Any word may be used in two ways—that is to say, either in its original ap-plication or in its more extended meaning. This is clearly shown in the word “sight,” origin-nally applied to the act of the sense, and then, as sight is the noblest and most trust-worthy of the senses, extended in common speech to all knowledge obtained through the other senses. Thus we say, “Seeing how it tastes,” or “smells,” or “burns”. “Further, sight is applied to knowledge obtained through the intellect, as in those words: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt. 5:8). And thus it is with the word light. In its primary meaning it signifies that which makes manifest to the sense of sight; afterwards it was extended to that which makes manifest to cognition of any kind. If, then, the word is taken in its strict and primary meaning, it is to be understood metaphorically when applied to spiritual things, as Ambrose says (De Fide ii). But if taken in its common and extended use, as applied to manifestation of every kind, it may properly be applied to spiritual things.

   The answer to the objections will sufficiently appear from what has been said. (emphasis added)

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IndexFirst PartQuestion: 67Article: 2

Whether light is a body?

  Objection 1: It would seem that light is a body. For Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. iii, 5) that “light takes the first place among bodies.” Therefore light is a body.

  Objection 2: Further, the Philosopher says (Topic. v, 2) that “light is a species of fire.” But fire is a body, and therefore so is light.

  Objection 3: Further, the powers of movement, intersection, reflection, belong properly to bodies; and all these are attributes of light and its rays. Moreover, different rays of light, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. ii) are united and separated, which seems impossible unless they are bodies. Therefore light is a body.

  On the contrary, Two bodies cannot occupy the same place simultaneously. But this is the case with light and air. Therefore light is not a body.

  I answer that, Light cannot be a body, for three evident reasons. First, on the part of place. For the place of any one body is different from that of any other, nor is it possible, naturally speaking, for any two bodies of whatever nature, to exist simultaneously in the same place; since contiguity requires distinction of place.

   The second reason is from movement. For if light were a body, its diffusion would be the local movement of a body. Now no local movement of a body can be instantaneous, as everything that moves from one place to another must pass through the intervening space before reaching the end: whereas the diffusion of light is instantaneous. Nor can it be argued that the time required is too short to be perceived; for though this may be the case in short distances, it cannot be so in distances so great as that which separates the East from the West. Yet as soon as the sun is at the horizon, the whole hemisphere is illuminated from end to end. It must also be borne in mind on the part of movement that whereas all bodies have their natural determinate movement, that of light is indifferent as regards direction, working equally in a circle as in a straight line. Hence it appears that the diffusion of light is not the local movement of a body.

   The third reason is from generation and corruption. For if light were a body, it would follow that whenever the air is darkened by the absence of the luminary, the body of light would be corrupted, and its matter would receive a new form. But unless we are to say that darkness is a body, this does not appear to be the case. Neither does it appear from what matter a body can be daily generated large enough to fill the intervening hemisphere. Also it would be absurd to say that a body of so great a bulk is corrupted by the mere absence of the luminary. And should anyone reply that it is not corrupted, but approaches and moves around with the sun, we may ask why it is that when a lighted candle is obscured by the intervening object the whole room is darkened? It is not that the light is condensed round the candle when this is done, since it burns no more brightly then than it burned before.

   Since, therefore, these things are repugnant, not only to reason, but to common sense, we must conclude that light cannot be a body.

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  Reply to Objection 1: Augustine takes light to be a luminous body in act–in other words, to be fire, the noblest of the four elements.

  Reply to Objection 2: Aristotle pronounces light to be fire existing in its own proper matter: just as fire in aerial matter is “flame,” or in earthly matter is “burning coal.” Nor must too much attention be paid to the instances adduced by Aristotle in his works on logic, as he merely mentions them as the more or less probable opinions of various writers.

  Reply to Objection 3: All these properties are assigned to light metaphorically, and might in the same way be attributed to heat. For because movement from place to place is naturally first in the order of movement as is proved Phys. viii, text. 55, we use terms belonging to local movement in speaking of alteration and movement of all kinds. For even the word distance is derived from the idea of remoteness of place, to that of all contraries, as is said Metaph. x, text. 13. (emphasis added)

  IndexFirst Part Question: 67Article: 3

Whether light is a quality?

  Objection 1: It would seem that light is not a quality. For every quality remains in its subject, though the active cause of the quality be removed, as heat remains in water removed from the fire. But light does not remain in the air when the source of light is withdrawn. Therefore light is not a quality.

  Objection 2: Further, every sensible quality has its opposite, as cold is opposed to heat, blackness to whiteness. But this is not the case with light since darkness is merely a privation of light. Light therefore is not a sensible quality.

  Objection 3: Further, a cause is more potent than its effect. But the light of the heaven-ly bodies is a cause of substantial forms of earthly bodies, and also gives to colors their immaterial being, by making them actually visible. Light, then, is not a sensible quality, but rather a substantial or spiritual form.

  On the contrary, Damascene (De Fide Orth. i) says that light is a species of quality.

  I answer that, Some writers have said that the light in the air has not a natural being such as the color on a wall has, but only an intentional being, as a similitude of color in the air. But this cannot be the case for two reasons. First, because light gives a name to the air, since by it the air becomes actually luminous. But color does not do this, for we do not speak of the air as colored.1 Secondly, because light produces natural effects, for by the rays of the sun bodies are warmed, and natural changes cannot be brought about by mere inten-tions. Others have said that light is the sun’s substantial form, but this also seems impossible for two reasons. First, because substantial forms are not of themselves objects of the senses; for the object of the intellect is what a thing is, as is said De Anima iii, text. 26: whereas light is visible of itself. In the second place, because it is impossible that what is the substantial form of one thing should be the accidental form of another; since substantial forms of their very nature constitute species: wherefore the substantial form always and everywhere

1 In other words, light has an even more material being than color; hence it is more, not less material.

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accom-panies the species. But light is not the substantial form of air, for if it were, the air would be destroyed when light is withdrawn. Hence it cannot be the substantial form of the sun.

   We must say, then, that as heat is an active quality consequent on the substantial form of fire, so light is an active quality consequent on the substantial form of the sun, or of an-other body that is of itself luminous, if there is any such body. A proof of this is that the rays of different stars produce different effects according to the diverse natures of bodies.

  Reply to Objection 1: Since quality is consequent upon substantial form, the mode in which the subject receives a quality differs as the mode differs in which a subject receives a substantial form. For when matter receives its form perfectly, the qualities consequent upon the form are firm and enduring; as when, for instance, water is converted into fire. When, however, substantial form is received imperfectly, so as to be, as it were, in process of being received, rather than fully impressed, the consequent quality lasts for a time but is not permanent; as may be seen when water which has been heated returns in time to its natural state. But light is not produced by the transmutation of matter, as though matter were in receipt of a substantial form, and light were a certain inception of substantial form. For this reason light disappears on the disappearance of its active cause.

  Reply to Objection 2: It is accidental to light not to have a contrary, forasmuch as it is the natural quality of the first corporeal cause of change, which is itself removed from contrariety.

  Reply to Objection 3: As heat acts towards perfecting the form of fire, as an instrumental cause, by virtue of the substantial form, so does light act instrumentally, by virtue of the heavenly bodies, towards producing substantial forms; and towards rendering colors actually visible, inasmuch as it is a quality of the first sensible body.2 (emphasis added)

IndexFirst PartQuestion: 67Article: 4

Whether the production of light is fittingly assigned to the first day?

  Objection 1: It would seem that the production of light is not fittingly assigned to the first day. For light, as stated above (Article [3]), is a quality. But qualities are accidents, and as such should have, not the first, but a subordinate place. The production of light, then, ought not to be assigned to the first day.

  Objection 2: Further, it is light that distinguishes night from day, and this is effected by the sun, which is recorded as having been made on the fourth day. Therefore the production of light could not have been on the first day.

  Objection 3: Further, night and day are brought about by the circular movement of a luminous body. But movement of this kind is an attribute of the firmament, and we read that the firmament was made on the second day. Therefore the production of light, dividing night from day, ought not to be assigned to the first day.

2 If we take ‘fire’ to mean “a luminous body in act” (cf. q, 67, art. 2, obj. 1), however, its active qualities of heat and light will be the same in subject, inasmuch as “ light produces natural effects; for by the rays of the sun bodies are warmed” (ibid., q, 67, art. 3, c).

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  Objection 4: Further, if it be said that spiritual light is here spoken of, it may be replied that the light made on the first day dispels the darkness. But in the beginning spiritual darkness was not, for even the demons were in the beginning good, as has been shown (Question [63], Article [5]). Therefore the production of light ought not to be assigned to the first day.

  On the contrary, That without which there could not be day, must have been made on the first day. But there can be no day without light. Therefore light must have been made on the first day.

  I answer that, There are two opinions as to the production of light. Augustine seems to say (De Civ. Dei xi, 9,33) that Moses could not have fittingly passed over the production of the spiritual creature, and therefore when we read, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” a spiritual nature as yet formless is to be understood by the word “heaven,” and formless matter of the corporeal creature by the word “earth.” And spiritual nature was formed first, as being of higher dignity than corporeal. The form-ing, therefore, of this spiritual nature is signified by the production of light, that is to say, of spiritual light. For a spiritual nature receives its form by the enlightenment whereby it is led to adhere to the Word of God.

   Other writers think that the production of spiritual creatures was purposely omitted by Moses, and give various reasons. Basil [*Hom. i in Hexaem.] says that Moses begins his narrative from the beginning of time which belongs to sensible things; but that the spiritual or angelic creation is passed over, as created beforehand.

   Chrysostom [*Hom. ii in Genes.] gives as a reason for the omission that Moses was addressing an ignorant people, to whom material things alone appealed, and whom he was endeavoring to withdraw from the service of idols. It would have been to them a pretext for idolatry if he had spoken to them of natures spiritual in substance and nobler than all corporeal creatures; for they would have paid them Divine worship, since they were prone to worship as gods even the sun, moon, and stars, which was forbidden them (Dt. 4).

   But mention is made of several kinds of formlessness, in regard to the corporeal creature. One is where we read that “the earth was void and empty,” and another where it is said that “darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

Now it seems to be required, for two reasons, that the formlessness of darkness should be removed first of all by the production of light.

In the first place because light is a quality of the first body,3 as was stated (Article [3]), and thus by means of light it was fitting that the world should first receive its form.4

The second reason is because light is a common quality. For light is common to terrestrial and celestial bodies. But as in knowledge we proceed from general principles, so do we in work of every kind. For the living thing is generated before the animal, and the animal before the man, as is shown in De Gener. Anim. ii, 3. It was fitting, then, as an evidence of the Divine wisdom, that among the works of distinction the production of light should take first place, since light is a form of the primary body, and because it is [the] more common quality.

3 I.e. of heaven, the transparent body, which, being the noblest thing, comes first.4 I.e. because the heaven is the first body, its formlessness, which was darkness, is fittingly removed first by the production of light.

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   Basil [*Hom. ii in Hexaem.], indeed, adds a third reason: that all other things are made manifest by light. And there is yet a fourth, already touched upon in the objections; that day cannot be unless light exists, which was made therefore on the first day.

  Reply to Objection 1: According to the opinion of those who hold that the formlessness of matter preceded its form in duration, matter must be held to have been created at the beginning with substantial forms, afterwards receiving those that are accidental, among which light holds the first place.

  Reply to Objection 2: In the opinion of some the light here spoken of was a kind of luminous nebula, and that on the making of the sun this returned to the matter of which it had been formed. But this cannot well be maintained, as in the beginning of Genesis Holy Scripture records the institution of that order of nature which henceforth is to endure. We cannot, then, say that what was made at that time afterwards ceased to exist. Others, therefore, held that this luminous nebula continues in existence, but so closely attached to the sun as to be indistinguishable. But this is as much as to say that it is superfluous, whereas none of God’s works have been made in vain. On this account it is held by some that the sun’s body was made out of this nebula. This, too, is impossible to those at least who believe that the sun is different in its nature from the four elements, and naturally incorruptible. For in that case its matter cannot take on another form.

   I answer, then, with Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv), that the light was the sun’s light, formless as yet, being already the solar substance, and possessing illuminative power in a general way, to which was afterwards added the special and determinative power required to produce determinate effects. Thus, then, in the production of this light a triple distinction was made between light and darkness. First, as to the cause, forasmuch as in the substance of the sun we have the cause of light, and in the opaque nature of the earth the cause of darkness. Secondly, as to place, for in one hemisphere there was light, in the other darkness. Thirdly, as to time; because there was light for one and darkness for another in the same hemisphere; and this is signified by the words, “He called the light day, and the darkness night.”

  Reply to Objection 3: Basil says (Hom. ii in Hexaem.) that day and night were then caused by expansion and contraction of light, rather than by movement. But Augustine objects to this (Gen. ad lit. i), that there was no reason for this vicissitude of expansion and contraction since there were neither men nor animals on the earth at that time, for whose service this was required. Nor does the nature of a luminous body seem to admit of the withdrawal of light, so long as the body is actually present; though this might be effected by a miracle. As to this, however, Augustine remarks (Gen. ad lit. i) that in the first founding of the order of nature we must not look for miracles, but for what is in accordance with nature. We hold, then, that the movement of the heavens is twofold. Of these movements, one is common to the entire heaven, and is the cause of day and night. This, as it seems, had its beginning on the first day. The other varies in proportion as it affects various bodies, and by its variations is the cause of the succession of days, months, and years. Thus it is, that in the account of the first day the distinction between day and night alone is mentioned; this distinction being brought about by the common movement of the heavens. The further distinction into suc-cesssive days, seasons, and years recorded as begun on the fourth day, in the words, “let them be for seasons, and for days, and years” is due to proper movements.

  Reply to Objection 4: As Augustine teaches (Confess. xii; Gen. ad lit. 1,15), formlessness did not precede forms in duration; and so we must understand the production of light to signify the formation of spiritual creatures, not, indeed, with the perfection of glory, in which they were not created, but with the perfection of grace, which they possessed from

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their creation as said above (Question [62], Article [3]). Thus the division of light from darkness will denote the distinction of the spiritual creature from other created things as yet without form. But if all created things received their form at the same time, the darkness must be held to mean the spiritual darkness of the wicked, not as existing from the beginning but such as God foresaw would exist. (emphasis added)

N.B. Contrary to what St. Thomas supposes above, should we not understand with Peter the luminary of the sun to have been moving along the ecliptic even from the first? After all, in our experience such movement is the proximate cause of night and day. Nor would its placement there give rise to its proper effects, which would not follow until it had re-ceived its determinate power on the Fourth Day.

For more on why light cannot be a body, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aris-totle’s De Anima translated by Kenelm Foster, O.P. & Sylvester Humphries, O.P. (New Haven, 1951), Bk. II, lectio 14, nn. 404-426:

TEXT418a26–418b26

BOOK II, CHAPTER VIISIGHT. ITS OBJECT

That of which there is sight is the visible; and the visible is colour, and also something which, though it has no name, we can state descriptively. It will be evident what we mean when we have gone further into the matter. § 399For the visible is colour, and it is this of which visibility is predicated essentially; not, however, by definition, but because :it has in itself the cause of being visible. For every colour is a motivating force upon the actually transparent: this is its very nature. Hence nothing, is visible without light; but by light each and every colour can be seen. Wherefore, we must first decide what light is. §§ 400-3

There is, accordingly, something transparent. By transparent I mean that which is, in-deed, visible, yet not of itself, or absolutely, but by virtue of concomitant colour. Air and water and many solids are such. But transparency does not depend on either air or water as such, but on the same quality being found in both, and in the eternal sphere above as well. § 404

Light is the act of this transparency, as such: but in potency this [transparency] is also darkness. Now, light is a kind of colour of the transparent, in so far as this is actu-alised by fire or something similar to the celestial body; which contains indeed some-thing of one and the same nature as fire. § 405

We have then indicated what the transparent is, and what light is; that light is not fire or any bodily thing, nor any emanation from a body—[if it were this last,] it would be a sort of body, and so be fire or the presence of something similar in the transparent. § 406

For it is impossible for two bodies to exist in the same place at the same time. § 407

Light seems to be the contrary of darkness; and the latter is the privation of this quality in the transparent. So it is plain that the presence of this is light. § 408

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Empedocles (or anyone else who may have said the same) was wrong when he said that light was borne along and extended between the earth and its envelope, unper-ceived by us. This is in contradiction alike to sound reasoning and to appearance. Such a thing might happen unobserved over a small space: but that it should remain unnoticed from the, east to the west is a very extravagant postulate. §§ 409-26

ST. THOMAS’ COMMENTARYLECTIO FOURTEEN

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§ 404. Then, at ‘There is, accordingly’, he discusses those things without which colour can-not be seen, namely the transparent and light; and this in three sections. First, he explains the transparent. Secondly, at ‘Light is’, he treats of the transparent’s actuality, i.e. light. Thirdly, he shows how the transparent is receptive of colour, at ‘Now that only can receive colour’.

To begin with, therefore, he says that if colour is that which of its nature affects the trans-parent, the latter must be, and in fact is, that which has no intrinsic colour to make it visible of itself, but is receptive of colour from without in a way which renders it somehow visible. Examples of the transparent are air and water and many solid bodies, such as certain jewels and glass. Now, whereas other accidents pertaining to the elements or to bodies constituted from them, are in these bodies on account of the nature of those elements (such as heat and cold, weight and lightness, etc.), transparency does not belong to the nature of air or water as such, but is consequent upon some quality common, not only to air and water, which are corruptible bodies, but also to the celestial bodies, which are perpetual and incorruptible. For at least some of the celestial bodies are manifestly transparent. We should not be able to see the fixed stars of the eighth sphere unless the lower spheres of the planets were transparent or diaphanous. Hence it is evident that to be transparent is not a property consequent on the nature of air or water, but of some more generic nature, in which the cause of transparency is to be found, as we shall see later.

§ 405. Next, at ‘Light etc.’, he explains light, first stating the truth, then dismissing an error. He says, to begin with, that light is the act of the transparent as such. For it is evident that neither air nor water nor anything of that sort is actually transparent unless it is luminous. Of itself the transparent is in potency to both light and darkness (the latter being a privation of light) as primary matter is in potency both to form and the privation of form. Now light is to the transparent as colour is to a body of definite dimensions: each is the act and form of that which receives it. And on this account he says that light is the colour, as it were, of the trans-parent, in virtue of which the transparent is made actually so by some light-giving body, such as fire, or anything else of that kind, or by a celestial body. For to be full of light and to communicate it is common to fire and to celestial bodies, just as to be diaphanous is com-mon to air and water and the celestial bodies.

§ 406. Then, at ‘We have then indicated’ he rejects a false opinion on light; and this in two stages. First, he shows that light is not a body; then he refutes an objection brought against the arguments which prove that light is not a body, at ‘Empedocles... was wrong’. As to the first point he does three things.

(a) He states his own view, saying that, once it is clear what the transparent is, and what light is, it is evident that light is neither fire (as some have said, positing three kinds of fire, the combustible, and flame, and light); nor a body at all, or anything flowing from a body, as Democritus supposed, asserting that light consisted of atomic particles emanating from

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luminous bodies. If there were these emanations from bodies, they would themselves be bodies, or something corporeal, and light would thus be nothing other than fire, or something material of that sort, present in the diaphanous; which is the same as to say that light is a body or an emanation from a body.

§ 407. (b) At ‘For it is impossible’, he proves his own hypothesis thus. It is impossible for two bodies to be in one place at one time. If therefore light were a body, it could not co-exist with a diaphanous body; but this is false; therefore light is not a body.

§ 408. (c) At ‘Light seems’ he shows that light does co-exist with the diaphanous body. For contraries exist in one and the same subject. But light and darkness are contraries in the manner in which a quality and its privation are contraries, as is stated in the Metaphysics, Book X. Obviously, darkness is a privation of this quality, i.e. of light in the diaphanous body—which is therefore the subject of darkness. Hence too the presence of this quality is light. Therefore light co-exists with the diaphanum.

§ 409. Then at ‘Empedocles... was wrong’ he refutes an answer to one argument which might be urged against those who hold that light is a body. For it is possible to argue thus against them: if light were a body, illumination ought to be a local motion of light passing through the transparent; but no local movement of any body can be sudden or instantaneous; therefore, illumination would be, not instantaneous but successive, according to this view.

§ 410. Of which the contrary is a fact of experience; for in the very instant in which a lumi-nous body becomes present, the transparent it illuminated all at once, not part after part. So Empedocles, and all others of the same opinion, erred in saying that light was borne along by local motion, as a body is; and that it spread out successively through space, which is the medium between the earth and its envelope, i.e. the sky; and that this successive motion es-capes our observation, so that the whole of space seems to us to be illuminated simul-taneously.

§ 411. For this assertion is irrational. The illumination of the transparent simply and solely presupposes the placing of a luminous body over against the one illumined, with no intervening obstacle.

§ 412. Again, it contradicts appearances. One might indeed allow that successive local motion over a small space could escape our notice; but that a successive movement of light from the eastern to the western horizon should escape our notice is so great an improbability as to appear quite impossible.

§ 413. But as the subject matter under discussion is threefold, i.e. the nature of light, and of transparency, and the necessity of light for seeing, we must take these three questions one by one.

On the nature of light various opinions have been held. Some, as we have seen, held that light was a body; being led to this by certain expressions used in speaking of light. For in-stance, we are accustomed to say that a ray ‘passes through’ the air, that it is ‘thrown back’, that rays ‘intersect’, and so forth; which all seem to imply something corporeal.

§ 414. But this theory is groundless, as the arguments here adduced of Aristotle show, to which others might easily be added. Thus it is hard to see how a body could be suddenly multiplied over the whole hemisphere, or come into existence or vanish, as light does; nor how the mere intervention of an opaque body should extinguish light in any part of a trans-parent body if light itself were a body. To speak of the motion or rebounding of light is to

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use metaphors, as when we speak of heat ‘proceeding into’ things that are being heated or being ‘thrown back’ when it meets an obstacle.

§ 415. Then there are those who maintain, on the contrary, that light is spiritual in nature. Otherwise, they say, why should we use the term ‘light’ in speaking of intellectual things? For we say that intellectual things possess a certain intelligible ‘light’. But this also is inad-missible.

§ 416. For it is impossible that any spiritual or intelligible nature should fall within the apprehension of the senses; whose power, being essentially embodied, cannot acquire know-ledge of any but bodily things. But if anyone should say that there is a spiritual ‘light’ other than the light that is sense-perceived, we need not quarrel with him; so long as he admits that the light which is sense perceived is not spiritual in nature. For there is no reason why quite different things should not have the same name.

§ 417. The reason, in fact, why we employ ‘light’ and other words referring to vision in matters concerning the intellect is that the sense of sight has a special dignity; it is more spiritual and more subtle than any other sense. This is evident in two ways. First, from the object of sight. For objects fall under sight in virtue of properties which earthly bodies have in common with the heavenly bodies. On the other hand, touch is receptive of properties which are proper to the elements (such as heat and cold and the like); and taste and smell perceive properties that pertain to compound bodies, according as these are variously com-pounded of heat and cold, moisture and dryness; sound, again, is due to local movement which, indeed, is also common to earthly and heavenly bodies, but which, in the case of the cause of sound; is a different kind of movement from that of the heavenly bodies, according to the opinion of Aristotle. Hence, from the very nature of the object it would appear that sight is the highest of the senses; with hearing nearest to it, and the others still more remote from its dignity.

§ 418. The same point will appear if we consider the way in which the sense of sight is exercised. In the other senses what is spiritual in their exercise is always accompanied by a material change. I mean by ‘material change’ what happens when a quality is received by a subject according to the material mode as the subject’s own existence, as e.g. when anything is cooled, or heated, or moved about in space; whereas by a ‘spiritual change’ I mean, here, what happens when the likeness of an object is received in the sense-organ, or in the medium between object and organ, as a form, causing knowledge, and not merely as a form in matter. For there is a difference between the mode of being which a sensible form has in the senses and that which it has in the thing sensed. Now in the case of touching and tasting (which is a kind of touching) it is clear that a material change occurs: the organ itself grows hot or cold by contact with a hot or cold object; there is not merely a spiritual change. So too the exer-cise of smell involves a sort of vaporous exhalation; and that of sound involves movement in space. But seeing involves only a spiritual change—hence its maximum spirituality; with hearing as the next in this order. These two senses are therefore the most spiritual, and are the only ones under our control. Hence the use we make of what refers to them—and es-pecially of what refers to sight—in speaking of intellectual objects and operations.

§ 419. Then again some have simply identified light with the manifestation of colour. But this is patently untrue in the case of things that shine by night, their colour, nevertheless, remaining obscure.

§ 420. Others, on the other hand, have said that light was the substantial form of the sun, and that the brightness proceeding therefrom (in the form of colours in the air) had the sort of being that belongs to objects causing knowledge as such. But both these propositions are

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false. The former, because no substantial form is in and of itself an object of sense percep-tion; it can only be intellectually apprehended. And if it is said that what the sense sees in the sun is not light itself but the splendour of light, we need not dispute about names, provided only it be granted that what we call light, i.e. the sight-perceived thing, is not a substantial form. And the latter proposition too is false; because whatever simply has the being of a thing causing knowledge does not, as such, cause material change; but the rays from the heavenly bodies do in fact materially affect all things on earth. Hence our own conclusion is that, just as the corporeal elements have certain active qualities through which they affect things materially, so light is the active quality of the heavenly bodies; by their light these bodies are active; and this light is in the third species of quality, like heat.

§ 421. But it differs from heat in this: that light is a quality of the primary change-effecting body, which has no contrary: therefore light has no contrary: whereas there is a contrary to heat. And because there is no positive contrary to light, there is no place for a contrary disposition in its recipient: therefore, too, its matter, i.e. the transparent body, is always as such immediately disposed to its form. That is why illumination occurs instantaneously, whereas what can become hot only becomes so by degrees. Now this participation or effect of light in a diaphanum is called ‘luminosity’. And if it comes about in a direct line to the lightened body, it is called a ‘ray’; but if it is caused by the reflection of a ray upon a light-receiving body, it is called ‘splendour’. But luminosity is the common name for every effect of light in the diaphanum.

§ 422. So much being admitted as to the nature of light, we can easily understand why certain bodies are always actually lucent, whilst others are diaphanous, and others opaque. Because light is a quality of the primary change-effecting body, which is the most perfect and least material of bodies, those among other bodies which are the most formal and the most mobile to actualisation are always actually lucent; and the next in this order are diaphanous; whilst those that are extremely material, being neither luminous of themselves nor receptive of light, are opaque. One may see this in the elements: fire is lucent by nature, though its light does not appear except in other things. Air and water, being more material, are diaphanous; whilst earth, the most material of all, is opaque.

§ 423. With regard to the third point (the necessity of light for seeing), note that it has been the opinion of some that not merely seeing, but the object of seeing, i.e. colour as such, presupposed the presence of light; that colour as such had no power to affect a transparent medium; that it does this only through light. An indication of this was, they said, that one who stands in the shadow can see what is in the light, but one who stands in the light cannot see what is in shadow. The cause of this fact, they said, lay in a correspondence between sight and its object: as seeing is a single act, so it must bear on an object formally single; which would not be the case if colour were visible of itself—not in virtue of light—and light also were visible of itself.

§ 424. Now this view is clearly contrary to what Aristotle says here, ‘and... has in itself the cause of being visible’; hence, following his opinion, I say that light is necessary for seeing, not because of colour, in that it actualises colours (which some say are in only potency so long as they are in darkness), but because of the transparent medium which light renders actual, as the text states.

§ 425. And in proof of this, note that every form is, as such, a principle of effects resembling itself; colour, being a form, has therefore of itself the power to impress its likeness on the medium. But note also that there is this difference between the form with a complete, and the form with an incomplete, power to act, that the former is able not merely to impress its likeness on matter, but even to dispose matter to fit it for this likeness; which is beyond the

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power of the latter. Now the active power of colour is of the latter sort; for it is, in fact, only a kind of light somehow dimmed by admixture of opaque matter. Hence it lacks the power to render the medium fully disposed to receive colour; but this pure light can do.

§ 426. Whence it is also clear that, as light is, in a certain way, the very substance of colour, all visible objects as such share in the same nature; nor does colour require to be made visible by some other, extrinsic, light. That colours in light are visible to one standing in the shade is due to the medium’s having been sufficiently illumined. (emphasis added)

3. On the dividing of light from darkness: That this separation implies the first appearance of light was the dawn.

Cf. Gen 1:3-5 (AV):

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Cf. Job 38: 12-13 (AV):

12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; 13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?

Cf. John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible (1748), on Job 38:5

Verse 12. Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days;.... Job had lived to see many a morning, but it never was in his power to command one; he had been in such circumstances as to wish for morning light before it was, but was obliged to wait for it, could not hasten it, or cause it to spring before its time; see Job 7:3; one of the Targums is, “wast thou in the days of the first creation, and commandedst the morning to be?” he was not, God was; he was before the first morning, and commanded it into being, Genesis 1:3; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place; the first spring of light or dawn of day; which though it has a different place every day in the year, as the sun ascends or descends in the signs of the Zodiac, yet it knows and observes its exact place, being taught of God.

Verse 13. That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,.... As when the morning light springs forth, it quickly does, reaching in a short time the extreme part of the hemisphere; which, and what goes before, may be applied to the light of the Gospel, and the direction of that under divine Providence in the several parts of the world, and unto the ends of it; see Psalm 19:4…. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Job, ch. 38, lect. 1 (excerpt) (tr. Brian Mullady) (© 1996-2009 Western Dominican Province), on 38:12:6

[Job 38:12]

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT: GOD RESOLVES THE QUESTION

The First Lesson: What Can Man Understand?5 Text: London, 1809. Edited, revised, and updated by Larry Pierce, 1994–1995 for The Word CD-ROM.6 (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/SSJob.htm [3/28/11])

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…12 After your rising, did you command the dawn and have you shown the dawn its place?

…After the land and the water, he proceeds on to the air, which, according to appearances, is joined to heaven. The first disposition common to the whole body which stretches over the waters and the land is the variation of night and day, which happens from the motion of the day which is first of movements. Therefore, he says as a consequence, “After your rising did you command the dawn?” as if to say: Do day and night succeed each other on this earth by your command? For dawn is a kind of boundary between day and night. He clearly says, “After your rising,” as when he spoke about the earth before he had said, “Where were you?” (v.4) For just as the earth is the first material principle of man, so also the highest heaven, which varies night and day by its motion is the first principle of the human body among corporeal causes . Consider that the clarity of the break of day or the dawn is diversified according to the diverse degrees of the intensity of signs which accompany the sun, because when there is the sign of a quick rising, in which the sun rises immediately, the dawn lasts only a little while. When the sun shows signs of a delayed rising it endures longer. The measure of place is determined out of which the brightness of the daybreak begins to appear when the sun is rising there, and expressing this he then says, “and have you shown the dawn its place?” as if to say: Have you ordered the places in the heaven from which the dawn will gives its light? He implies the answer, “No”. From all these things you can understand that your reason fall short of the comprehension of divine things, and so it is clear that you are not suited to dispute with God. (emphasis added)

4. That the light of the first day proceeded instantaneously as a “flash”.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei. On the Power of God by Thomas Aquinas, translated by the English Dominican Fathers (1952), q. 3, art. 16, c.:

…The Arians through holding that the Son does not proceed naturally from the Father, said that like other things that proceed from God according to the decree of his will he was neither co-equal nor co-eternal with the Father. The difficulty of regarding the begetting of the Son as co-eternal with the Father arose from the fact that in our human obser-vation of nature’s works one thing proceeds from another by movement: and a thing brought into being by movement begins to be at the beginning sooner than at the end of the movement. And since the beginning of a movement must needs in point of time precede the end on account of movement implying succession, and again since move-ment cannot have a beginning without a moving cause to produce it: it follows that the moving cause in the production of anything must precede in point of duration that which it produces. Consequently that which proceeds from another without movement is in point of duration co-existent with that whence it proceeds: such is the flash of the fire or the sun, because the flash of light proceeds from the body of light suddenly and not gradually, for illumination is not a movement but the term of a movement. 7 It follows then that in God in whom there is absolutely no movement, the proceeding one is co-existent with him from whom he proceeds: and thus since the Father is eternal, the Son and the Holy Spirit who proceed from him are co-eternal with him. (emphasis added)

7 Hence “[i]n things which are made without movement, to become and to be already made are simultaneous, whether such making is the term of movement, as illumination (for a thing is being illuminated and is illuminated at the same time) or whether it is not the term of movement, as the word is being made in the mind and is made at the same time.” (Summa Theol., Ia, q. 45, art. 2; tr. English Dominican Fathers)

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Now it seems to me that the production of light should be visualized in accordance with its nature as described in the preceding text: the preceding darkness all of a sudden being pierced by a flash of light heralding the dawn of the first morning of the world.

5. Traditional views of the propagation of light.

Cf. A. I. Sabra, Theories of Light, from Descartes to Newton (Cambridge, 1981; 1st ed. 1967), Ch. 2, p. 46:1

Aristotle censured Empedocles for having spoken of light as travelling, that is, taking time to go from one place to another. Light for Aristotle was not, as it was for Empedocles, a material effluence which streamed from the luminous object with finite speed; nor was it successive modification of the transparent medium which, according to him, was necessary for its transmission. Rather than being a process or movement, light for Aristotle was a state or quality which the medium acquired all at once from the luminous object, just as water may conceivably freeze at all parts simultaneously.

1 Aristotle, De anima II, 7, De senus VI.

Cf. APS Physics (American Physical Society Sites), Letters to the Editor:8

Empedocles Had the Right Idea

In July’s “This Month in Physics History,” that recounts the fascinating story of Armand Fizeau and his terrestial determination of the speed of light, it is pointed out that before the 17th century most scientists believed the speed of light to be infinite. An interesting, but obviously fallacious, argument in support of this view can be found in Aristotle who re-marked that dawn takes place in the west at the same time as it does in the east, and this can only reasonably be interpreted to mean light propagates instantaneously. In contrast, about a century before Aristotle, Empedocles (c493-c433) of Acragas (now Agrigento), a Greek colony in Sicily, maintained that the speed of light was finite. His argument was that every-thing takes time to travel, and hence light must take time to travel, say, from the sun to the earth. To the best of my knowledge, no one in ancient times actually tried to construct an apparatus to measure the speed of light, although I have often wondered whether a version of Fizeau’s (or indeed Foucault’s) experiment could have been carried out in Graeco-Roman antiquity, upon recalling the remarkable gearwork of the Antikythera mechanism (c150-100 BC), an astronomical computer that was about 1400 years ahead of its time, as well as the enormous analytical skill and mechanical ingenuity of extraordinary mathematicians such as Archimedes (c287-c212 BC) of Syracuse, another Greek colony in Sicily. Even if no such determination were possible for them, a lower limit to the speed of light might have been obtained, although I know of no historical evidence for this.

Frank R. TangherliniSan Diego, CA (Emphasis added)

Cf. APS Physics (American Physical Society Sites), This Month in Physics History:9

This Month in Physics HistoryJuly 1849: Fizeau publishes results of speed of light experiment

8 (http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201008/letters.cfm [1/18/11])9 (http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201007/physicshistory.cfm [1/18/11])

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The speed of light is one of the most well-established values in physics, measured so accur-ately that the meter is now defined in terms of it. But before the 17th century, most scientists, including such giants as Johannes Kepler and Rene Descartes, considered the speed of light to be infinite, able to travel any distance instantaneously. Galileo Galilei was among the first to question this assumption and attempt to measure the speed of light experimentally.

By modern standards, Galileo’s methods were extremely crude. He stationed himself on one hilltop, and an assistant on a distant hilltop, each armed with a lamp that could be covered and uncovered at will. Galileo would uncover his lamp, and his assistant would do the same as soon as he observed the light from Galileo’s lamp. Knowing the distance between the two lamps, Galileo could measure how much time had elapsed between the two flashes to calculate the speed of light. Not surprisingly, his conclusion was rather vague and incon-clusive: “If not instantaneous, it is extraordinarily rapid.” But he did conclude that light travels at least ten times faster than sound.

The first serious measurement of the speed of light occurred in 1676, when the Danish astro-nomer Ole Roemer observed the moons of Jupiter and noticed that their eclipses seemed to occur at different times, depending on the relative positions of Jupiter with respect to Earth, being late when Earth was far away, and early when Earth was closer to Jupiter. He correctly deduced that this effect wasn’t due to an actual shift in the moon’s orbits, but resulted be-cause the light from those moons traveled a greater distance when Earth was farther away. He knew the accepted value for the diameter of Earth’s orbit at that time, and from that, he concluded that the speed of light was 240,000 kilometers per second.

Roemer’s measurement was still wide of the actual value, but it provided a useful baseline for future experiments. In 1728, an English physicist named James Bradley added his own findings to the accumulating body of knowledge, using stellar aberration to calculate the speed of light in a vacuum: in his case, 301,000 kilometers per second. The measurements were getting better. However, it would be another 100 years before a French scientist named Armand-Hippolyte-Louis Fizeau figured out how to measure the speed of light by means of a terrestrial experiment.

Born in Paris in 1819, Fizeau was the son of a physicist and professor of medicine, who left Fizeau a considerable fortune when he died. Free to pursue his interests without worrying about making a living, Fizeau focused on scientific research, initially intending to be a physician like his father, but ultimately choosing to study astronomy with Francois Arago at the Paris Observatory, where he no doubt learned of prior attempts to measure the speed of light using astronomical phenomena.His scientific interests were quite varied, however. For instance, in 1839, he developed a fascination with Daguerrotype photography–then quite new–and teamed up with fellow French scientist Jean-Bernard-Leon Foucault in adapting the process to astronomy. It took 10 years, but the two men eventually took the first detailed photographs of the surface of the sun in 1845.

His work with Foucault inspired Fizeau to attempt his own measurement of the speed of light. He built an apparatus in which a cogwheel and a mirror were placed eight kilometers apart, and then sent pulses of light between them. He would rotate the cogwheel and observe how fast the beam of light traveled between the cogs of the wheel and the distant mirror, ob-serving that if he spun the wheel very fast, the reflection back from the mirror was obscured because the light had struck one of the cogs.

Fizeau suggested that the amount of time it took the wheel to move the width of a single cog

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was equivalent to how long it took for the light beam to travel to the mirror and back again. Since he knew how fast the cogwheel was rotating, and the width of a single cog, as well as the distance to the mirror, Fizeau was able to calculate the speed of light, obtaining the value 313,300 kilometers per second. This was still roughly 5% too high.

Foucault improved on Fizeau’s apparatus slightly, replacing the cogwheel with a rotating mirror–hence it is now known as the Fizeau-Foucault Apparatus. Light was reflected at different angles as the mirror rotated. Since both the speed of rotation and the distance to the mirror were well established, it was possible to measure the difference between the angle of the light as it entered the apparatus and when it exited the setup, and calculate the speed of light from that. Foucault concluded in 1862 that the speed of light was 299,796 kilometers per second.

Fizeau’s contributions to science are not limited to this speed-of-light measurement. Subsequent experiments in which he measured how light traveled through flowing liquid resulted in a surprising discovery: the velocity of light doesn’t change as expected when the medium it is passing through is in motion. Scientists had already determined that light traveled at varying speeds through different mediums, but until Fizeau’s experiments, they believed that if a medium was moving, the speed of light would be obtained by simply adding the velocity of the medium to that of the light. His results implied a different formula, which would later be explained by Albert Einstein as the latter was developing his theory of special relativity.

Subsequent methods to measure the speed of light, of which Albert Michelson was a pro-minent practitioner, relied on wave interference. These methods became increasingly accurate with the advent of laser technology, and today, over 350 years after Galileo’s hilltop experiment, the speed of light’s value is defined to be 299,792.458 kilometers per second, according to a 1983 declaration by the 17th General Congress on Weights and Measures, thereby rendering the meter a derived quantity. It only took some 163 separate ex-periments involving more than 100 scientists–testament to the collaborative nature of the scientific enterprise.

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II. CONCERNING THE PROPAGATION OF LIGHT IN RELATION TO THE FIRST WORK OF DISTINCTION:

1. That, as with the dawning of the day, the increase in intensity of light takes time.

Cf. Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews by Saint Thomas Aquinas translated by Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. (Dominican House of Studies: Washington, DC, nd), Ch. 10, Les-son 2, n. 513:

513. – Then (v. 25b) he gives the reason for this. For someone could say: Why should we make progress in the faith? Because a natural movement, the closer it gets to its goal, the more intense it becomes, whereas the opposite is true of a forced movement. But grace inclines in the manner of nature; therefore, he says, not neglecting, as some do, but encour-aging; and this all the more as you see the day, i.e., the end, approaching: ‘The night is passed, and the day is at hand’ (Rom. 13:12); ‘The path of the just, as a shining light, goes forward and increases even to perfect day’ (Pr. 5:18]).

Cf. The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Paul E. Kretzmann, M.A., PhD., B.D. (St. Louis, 1924) (The Kretzmann Project), on Prov. 5:18:10

V. 18. But the path of the just is as the shining light, like the growing brightness of dawn as it heralds and ushers in the day, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day, growing brighter with each succeeding minute, the comparison of the moral conduct of the righteous with the light of the rising sun being most appropriate; for he goes forward to ever greater clearness and perfection, not only in his inward knowledge, but also in its outward manifestation.

Cf. Paradise Café Discussions A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement / Religions / Watchtower Topics / Bible Translations – it ain’t necessarily so (discussing the New World Bible translation):11

Closely allied to this verse and intensely interesting is Matt 24:27 and Lu 17:24 which reads, …for just as the lightning (a noun, astrapay) comes out of eastern parts and shines over to western parts, so the presence of the Son of man will be …(Matt 24:27) …for even as lightning flashing, by it’s flashing (the verb form of astrapay), shines from one part under heaven to another part under heaven, so the Son of man will be… (Lu 17:24). The word of interest in both verses is astrapay (Strong’s #796) translated lightning. In English the literal definition is limited to sheet or fork lightning with a connotation of speed and a bright flash. But does astrapay have the same implications in Greek? See how it is used at Lu 11:36 …it will all be as bright as when lamp gives you light (astrapay) by its rays. Here it certainly does not indicate a speedy brief bright flash, particularly if we keep in mind they used oil lamps. That means in Greek astrapay has a broader usage and meaning than lightning does in English.

Reading Matt 24:27 and Lu 17:24 again with this in mind we get a different picture ...for as the light(ning) comes out of east to west... . Now we see a pre-dawn sky growing lighter from east to west, a gradual process, much like the dawning of a day …so the arrival of the Son of man will be. Even as Jesus said a couple of verses earlier in Lu 17:20 …the kingdom of God is not coming with striking observableness .

10 (http://www.kretzmannproject.org/PRO/PRO_4.htm [1/17/11])11 (http://www.paradisecafediscussions.net/showthread.php?tid=6471 [1/17/11])

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Compare 2 Peter 1:19 …until the day dawns and a daystar (lit. light bearer) rises in your hearts… Has this not already begun, brothers?

N.B. For an interpretation of Matt 24:27 that understands the appearance of light as being instantaneous, cf. John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible (1748) (ed. London, 1809. Edi-ted, revised, and updated by Larry Pierce, 1994–1995 for The Word CD-ROM), on Matt 24:27:

For as the lightning cometh out of the east,.... The eastern part of the horizon, and shineth even unto the west; to the western part of it, with great clearness; in a moment; in the twinkling of an eye, filling the whole intermediate space; so shall also the coming of the son of man be; which must be understood not of his last coming to judgment, though that will be sudden, visible, and universal; he will at once come to, and be seen by all, in the clouds of heaven, and not in deserts and secret chambers: nor of his spiritual coming in the more sudden, and clear, and powerful preaching of the Gospel all over the Gentile world; for this was to be done before the destruction of Jerusalem: but of his coming in his wrath and vengeance to destroy that people, their nation, city, and temple: so that after this to look for the Messiah in a desert, or secret chamber, must argue great stupidity and blindness; when his coming was as sudden, visible, powerful, and general, to the destruction of that nation, as the lightning that comes from the east, and, in a moment, shines to the west.

2. The production of the firmament on the second day: The relation of heat to growth.

Cf. Thomas Aquinas. Commentary on Aristotle’s De Sensu et Sensato. Translated by Kevin White. In Commentaries on Aristotle’s “On Sense and What Is Sensed” and “On Memory and Recollection”. Translated with introductions and notes by Kevin White and Edward M. Macierowski. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005, ch. 9 and Commentary (excerpt):

CHAPTER 9

Commentary

<…>

441b27 Then, when he says Of the sensible qualities, he proves something he presupposed, namely that flavor is an affection or privation in nourishment.

Here it must be considered that the food that is provided to animals serves them for two purposes, namely growth, by which they are brought to perfect size, and nourish-ment, by which their substance is preserved. Food also serves them for generation, but this no longer pertains to the individual, but the species. Accordingly he says that the food provided to animals, being sensible objects inasmuch as they are objects of touch, cause growth and diminution, because heat and cold cause growth and diminution: heat properly causes growth, for it belongs to heat to expand and spread out, moving, as it were, towards a circumference; cold causes diminution, because it belongs to cold to con-strict, moving, as it were, towards a center. Hence animals grow in youth and shrink in old age. The remark in On the Soul that food causes growth inasmuch as it is quantitative does not contradict this, because quantity would not suffice for growth if there were not heat to convert and digest it.*

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* On the Soul II, 4, 416b 12-13. (emphasis added)

N.B. Hence heat expands the vapours that will form the firmament, but cold congeals them into a solid body.

§

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III. ON “ONE DAY” ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 68, art. 1, ad 1 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

…According to another theory, touched upon by Augustine [*Gen. ad lit. ii, 1] the heaven made on the first day was the starry heaven, and the firmament made on the second day was that region of the air where the clouds are collected, which is also called heaven, but equivocally. And to show that the word is here used in an equivocal sense, it is expressly said that “God called the firmament heaven”; just as in a preceding verse it said that “God called the light day” (since the word “day” is also used to denote a space of twenty-four hours).12 Other instances of a similar use occur, as pointed out by Rabbi Moses. (emphasis added)

Cf. idem, Ia, q. 69, art. 2, ad 5 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

  Reply to Objection 5: According to Augustine (De Gen. Contr. Manich. i), primary matter is meant by the word earth, where first mentioned, but in the present passage it is to be taken for the element itself. Again it may be said with Basil (Hom. iv in Hexaem.), that the earth is mentioned in the first passage in respect of its nature, but here in respect of its principal property, namely, dryness. Wherefore it is written: “He called the dry land, Earth.” It may also be said with Rabbi Moses, that the expression, “He called,” denotes throughout an equivocal use of the name imposed. Thus we find it said at first that “He called the light Day”: for the reason that later on a period of twenty-four hours is also called day, where it is said that “there was evening and morning, one day.” In like manner it is said that “the firmament,” that is, the air, “He called heaven”: for that which was first created was also called “heaven.” And here, again, it is said that “the dry land,” that is, the part from which the waters had withdrawn, “He called, Earth,” as distinct from the sea; although the name earth is equally applied to that which is covered with waters or not. So by the expression “He called” we are to understand throughout that the nature or property He bestowed corres-ponded to the name He gave. (emphasis added)

Cf. idem, Ia, q. 74, art. 3, ad 7 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

  Reply to Objection 7: The words “one day” are used when day is first instituted, to denote that one day is made up of twenty-four hours. Hence, by mentioning “one,” the measure of a natural day is fixed. Another reason may be to signify that a day is completed by the return of the sun to the point from which it commenced its course. And yet another, because at the completion of a week of seven days, the first day returns which is one with the eighth day. The three reasons assigned above are those given by Basil (Hom. ii in Hexaem.). (emphasis added)

Hence according to St. Thomas, “day” properly means a period of twenty-four hours, but it is used “equivocally” of the period when the sun is overhead.

Cf. Greek Dictionary:

3574 nuchthemeron {nookh-thay'-mer-on}from 3571 and 2250 ; n n

12 Here St. Thomas is clearly taking “day” to mean the (twelve-hour) period when the sun is overhead, in op-position to the night. See further below.

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AV - a night and a day 1; 1 1) a night and a day, the space of twenty four hours

Cf. The New Testament Greek Lexicon:

HEMERA.

(1) the day, used of the natural day, or the interval between sunrise and sunset, as disting-uished from and contrasted with the night

in the daytime

metaph., “the day” is regarded as the time for abstaining from indulgence, vice, crime, because acts of the sort are perpetrated at night and in darkness

(2) of the civil day, or the space of twenty four hours (thus including the night)

Eastern usage of this term differs from our western usage. Any part of a day is counted as a whole day, hence the expression “three days and three nights” does not mean literally three whole days, but at least one whole day plus part of two other days.

(3) of the last day of this present age, the day Christ will return from heaven, raise the dead, hold the final judgment, and perfect his kingdom used of time in general, i.e. the days of his life.

N.B. Here ‘the natural day’ means ‘the interval between sunrise and sunset’, which is op-posed to ‘the civil day’, which is ‘the space of twenty four hours’.

Cf. The Code of Canon Law (Prepared under the auspices of the Canon Law Society of America Washington, DC 20064 Codex Iuris Canonici © Copyright 1983 by Libreria Ed-itrice Vaticana):

TITLE XI: THE RECKONING OF TIME

Can. 200 Unless the law provides otherwise, time is to be reckoned in accordance with the following canons.

Can. 201 §1 Continuous time means unbroken time.

§2 Canonical time is time which a person can so use to exercise or to pursue a right that it does not run when one is unaware, or when one is unable to act.

Can. 202 §1 In law, a day is understood to be a space of twenty-four hours, to be reckoned continuously and, unless expressly provided otherwise, it begins at midnight; a week is a space of seven days, a month is a space of thirty days, and a year a space of three hundred and sixty-five days, unless it is stated that the month and the year are to be taken as in the calendar.

§2 If time is continuous, the month and the year are always to be taken as in the calendar.

Can. 203 §1 The first day is not to be counted in the total, unless its beginning coincides with the beginning of the day, or unless the law expressly provides otherwise.

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§2 Unless the contrary is prescribed, the final day is to be reckoned within the total; if the total time is one or more months, one or more years, one or more weeks, it finishes on completion of the last day bearing the same number or, if the month does not have the same number, on the completion of the last day of that month.

§

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IV. ON THE DIVISION OF TIME INTO NIGHT AND DAY.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 67, art. 3, obj. 3, ad 3 (tr. English Domini-can Fathers):

  Objection 3: Further, night and day are brought about by the circular movement of a luminous body. But movement of this kind is an attribute of the firmament, and we read that the firmament was made on the second day. Therefore the production of light, dividing night from day, ought not to be assigned to the first day.

  Reply to Objection 3: Basil says (Hom. ii in Hexaem.) that day and night were then caused by expansion and contraction of light, rather than by movement. But Augustine objects to this (Gen. ad lit. i), that there was no reason for this vicissitude of expansion and contraction since there were neither men nor animals on the earth at that time, for whose service this was required. Nor does the nature of a luminous body seem to admit of the withdrawal of light, so long as the body is actually present; though this might be effected by a miracle. As to this, however, Augustine remarks (Gen. ad lit. i) that in the first founding of the order of nature we must not look for miracles, but for what is in accordance with nature. We hold, then, that the movement of the heavens is twofold. Of these movements, one is common to the entire heaven, and is the cause of day and night. This, as it seems, had its beginning on the first day. The other varies in proportion as it affects various bodies, and by its variations is the cause of the succession of days, months, and years. Thus it is, that in the account of the first day the distinction between day and night alone is mentioned; this distinction being brought about by the common movement of the heavens. The further distinction into successive days, seasons, and years recorded as begun on the fourth day, in the words, “let them be for seasons, and for days, and years” is due to proper movements. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 70, art. 2, obj. 3, ad 3 (tr. English Domi-nican Fathers):

  Objection 3: Further, the distinction of seasons and days began from the first day. Therefore the lights were not made “for seasons, and days, and years,” that is, in order to distinguish them.

<…>

 Reply to Objection 3: The general division of time into day and night took place on the first day, as regards the diurnal movement, which is common to the whole heaven and may be understood to have begun on that first day. But the particular distinctions of days and seasons and years, according as one day is hotter than another, one season than another, and one year than another, are due to certain particular movements of the stars: which movements may have had their beginning on the fourth day. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei, q. 4, art. 2, replies to the contrary 7:

7. The heaven has a twofold movement. One is the diurnal movement which is common to the whole heaven and causes day and night. This movement would seem to have been produced on the first day, when the formless substance of the sun and other luminaries was produced. The other is its own peculiar movement, which differs in the various heavenly bodies, whose movements bring about the differences of days, months and years.

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On the first day was produced the common division of time into day and night by the diurnal movement which is common to the whole heaven, and may be said to have begun on the first day. Wherefore on the first day mention is made only of the distinction of day and night produced by the diurnal movement common to all the heavens. On the fourth day was made the distinction as regards the difference of days and seasons, in that one day is warmer than another, one season warmer than another, and one year warmer than another: all of which result from the special and proper movements of the stars, which movements may be understood to have commenced on the fourth day. Hence it is that on the fourth day mention is made (ibid. 14) of the difference between days, seasons and years: And let them be for seasons and for days and for years: and this difference results from their respective movements. Accordingly those first three days that preceded the formation of the luminaries were of the same kind as the days that are now regulated by the sun as regards the common division of time into day and night resulting from the diurnal movement common to the whole heaven, but not as regards the special dif-ferences of days resulting from those proper movements. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 69, art. 1, c. (in part) (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

…Thus, then, the formation of the highest body took place on the first day. And since time results from the movement of the heaven, and is the numerical measure of the movement of the highest body, from this formation, resulted the distinction of time, namely, that of night and day.

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V. ON EVENING AND MORNING CONSTITUTING “ONE DAY”.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia q. 74, art. 3, obj. 6 & 7; ad. 6 & ad 7 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

  Objection 6: Further, evening and morning do not sufficiently divide the day, since the day has many parts. Therefore the words, “The evening and morning were the second day” or, “the third day,” are not suitable.

  Objection 7: Further, “first,” not “one,” corresponds to “second” and “third.” It should therefore have been said that, “The evening and the morning were the first day,” rather than “one day.”

  Reply to Objection 6: According to Augustine (Gen. ad lit. iv, 22,30), by the “evening” and the “morning” are understood the evening and the morning knowledge of the angels, which has been explained (Question [58], Article [6],7). But, according to Basil (Hom. ii in Hexaem.), the entire period takes its name, as is customary, from its more important part, the day. An instance of this is found in the words of Jacob, “The days of my pilgrimage,” where night is not mentioned at all. But the evening and the morning are mentioned as being the ends of the day, since day begins with morning and ends with evening, or because evening denotes the beginning of night, and morning the beginning of day. It seems fitting, also, that where the first distinction of creatures is described, divisions of time should be denoted only by what marks their beginning. And the reason for mentioning the evening first is that as the evening ends the day, which begins with the light, the termination of the light at evening precedes the termination of the darkness, which ends with the morning. But Chrysostom’s explanation is that thereby it is intended to show that the natural day does not end with the evening, but with the morning (Hom. v in Gen.).

  Reply to Objection 7: The words “one day” are used when day is first instituted, to denote that one day is made up of twenty-four hours. Hence, by mentioning “one,” the measure of a natural day is fixed. Another reason may be to signify that a day is completed by the return of the sun to the point from which it commenced its course. And yet another, because at the completion of a week of seven days, the first day returns which is one with the eighth day. The three reasons assigned above are those given by Basil (Hom. ii in Hexaem.). (emphasis added)

§

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VI. CERTAIN FATHERS OF THE CHURCH ON THE MEANING OF ‘DAY’.

Hippolytus (A.D. 170-236.) : Bishop of Portus, Disciple of Ireneaus, the Great Bishop of Lyons

“Gen. I. 5. And it was evening, and it was morning, one day.

Hippolytus. He did not say “night and day,” but “one day,” with reference to the name of the light. He did not say the “first day; for if he had said the “first” day, he would also have had to say that the “second” day was made.

But it was right to speak not of the “first day,” but of “one day,” in order that by saying “one,” he might show that it returns on its orbit and, while it remains one, makes up the week.

Gen. I. 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water.

Hippolytus. On the first day God made what He made out of nothing. But on the other days He did not make out of nothing, but out of what He had made on the first day, by molding it according to His pleasure.”

*Series 1, Vol. 5, The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus, On Genesis

Victorinus (A.D. 250? – 304): Bishop of Petau

“To me, as I meditate and consider in my mind concerning the creation of this world in which we are kept enclosed, even such is the rapidity of that creation; as is contained in the book of Moses, which he wrote about its creation, and which is called Genesis. God produced that entire mass for the adornment of His majesty in six days; on the seventh to which He consecrated it ...with a blessing. For this reason, therefore, because in the septenary number of days both heavenly and earthly things are ordered, in place of the beginning I will consider of this seventh day after the principle of all matters pertaining to the number of seven; and as far as I shall be able, I will endeavour to portray the day of the divine power to that consummation.

In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night, for this reason, doubtless, that day might bring over the night as an occasion of rest for men’s labours; that, again, day might overcome, and thus that labour might be refreshed with this alternate change of rest, and that repose again might be tempered by the exercise of day.”

*Series1, Vol. 7, “On the Creation of the World”

Lactantius (A.D. 307)

“...In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night, for this reason, doubtless, that day might bring over the night as an occasion of rest for men’s labours; that, again, day might overcome, and thus that labour might be refreshed with this alternate change of rest, and that repose again might be tempered by the exercise of day. “On the fourth day He made two lights in the heaven, the greater and the lesser, that the one might rule over the day, the other over the night,”-the lights of the sun and moon; and He placed the rest of the stars in the heaven, that they might

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shine upon the earth, and by their positions distinguish the seasons, and years, and months, and days, and hours.

*Series 1, Vol. 7, The Epitome of the Divine Institutes, Homily II, “On The Creation Of The World”

Basil the Great (A.D. 330-379): Archbishop of Caesarea

“And the evening and the morning were one day. Why does Scripture say “one day” not “the first day”? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says “one day,” it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain.

Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day.”

*Series 11, Vol. 8, Hexaemeron, Homily II:8 “The Earth Was Invisible and Unfinished.”

Ambrose of Milan (A.D. 340-397): Bishop of Milan

“Scripture established a law that twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent. . . . The nights in this reckoning are considered to be component parts of the days that are counted. Therefore, just as there is a single revolution of time, so there is but one day.

Thus were created the evening and the morning. Scripture means the space of a day and a night, and afterwards no more says day and night, but calls them both under the name of the more important: a custom which you will find throughout Scripture....... Scripture say “one day the first day”

*Series 11, Vol. 10, Book Exegetic, Hexaemeron

Cf. the following, from a Web Site:One Day

Psalm 90. 4 “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”

[Meaning, they swap over like changing watches: or, as we would say, ‘... and vice versa;’ there is a further implication, that time in this case, as in a watch of the night, is measured by reference to the stars rather than the sun. (B.A.M.)]

2 Peter 3. 8 “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

The meaning of ‘day’ in sum:

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the time of the passage of the sun overhead, and so is opposed to night: a twelve-hour period

the period of time comprised of both day and night: a twenty-four hour period as expressing the notion of a measure: “one day” (a number being a multitude me-

asured by one or the unit)

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VII. ON THE DEFINITION OF ‘DAY’ ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE.

1. Primary witnesses.

Cf. Aristotle, Top., VI. 4 (142b 3):

A day is the passage of the sun above the earth.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei, q. 4, art. 2, sc. 6:

6. Further if the days mentioned in the story of the creation were ordinary days, it is difficult to understand how the night could be wholly distinct from the day, and light from darkness. For if the light which we are told was made on the first day enveloped the whole earth, no-where was there darkness, which is the earth’s shadow cast on the side opposite to the light that causes day. And if that light by its movement revolved around the earth so as to cause day and night, then there was always day on one side, and night on the other, and consequently night was not wholly divided from the day, and this is contrary to Scripture. (emphasis added)

Cf. Simplicius, Commentary on the De Caelo 512.9:

They [the Pythagoreans] call the earth a star as being itself an instrument of time, for it is the cause of day and night. Day it creates by being lit up on the side which is turned toward the sun, and night through the cone of its shadow.

Counter earth was the name given by the Pythagoreans to the moon (as also “heavenly earth”), both because it blocks the sun’s light, which is a peculiarity of the earth, and because it marks the limit of the heavenly regions as does the earth of the sublunary. (emphasis added)

2. On tragedy as taking place “within one period of the sun.”

Cf. Aristotle, Poetics ch. 5 (1448b 12-15) (tr. B.A.M.):

But, besides, with respect to length, [tragedy] attempts as far as possible to be under one period of the sun, or varies but little [from this] [hupo mian periodon hêliou einai ê mikron exallattein]; but epic poetry is not limited with respect to time, and in this it differs; although [15] indeed at first it was similar in this [respect] to tragedy.

Regarding “one period of the sun”, does this mean ‘a day’, or ‘a day and a night’ under-stood as ‘the space of twenty-four hours’? I say that “one period of the sun” means the day as divided against the night, i.e. ‘when the sun is overhead’, or ‘when it is daylight’. Com-pare the following:

Aristotle used to say that men’s concept of god sprang from two sources—the experiences of the soul and the phenomena of the heavens.… And from the heavenly bodies too: seeing by day the revolution of the sun and by night the well-ordered movement of the stars, they came to think that there was a god who is the cause of such movement and order.13

13 F 10 R3, Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos IX 20-23, tr. Jonathan Barnes and Gavin Lawrence. See further below.

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VIII. ON THE LIGHT CREATED ON THE FIRST DAY.

According to the two templates or models we recognize as underlying the narrative, there are two ways of considering the light created on the first day:

(1) In comparison with the macrocosmic model(2) In comparison with the microcosmic model (for which, see my preceding paper

THE PARADIGM OF GENESIS, sec. on the comparison with embryology)

In comparison with the macrocosmic model:

The light created on the first day is to be understood first of all as the act of the transparent;14 which implies the existence of light as the active quality of the lu-minous body;15 and therefore presupposes the existence of such a body. Taken in the first way, St. Thomas understands it as “the world’s first form”; yet the act of the transparent would not exist without the luminous body producing light in the first place.

Now light understood in the second way is also the active quality proceeding from the generative power of the first luminary (in this respect being like a ray of the sun),16 making that which proceeds from it stand as something generated; that is to say, whereas the former is the agency of generation and corruption, the latter is its result (on which con-clusion, see further below).

As macrocosmic principles, light is understood as:

1. the luminous body which itself produces2. light, understood as its active quality, giving rise to3. light, understood as the act of the transparent4. and therefore the world’s “first form’, which is akin to its ‘soul’, and hence as the

principle of the movement of the entire created cosmos, but first and foremost of its first principal part, the outermost sphere

As microcosmic principles:

1. the soul of the embryo, which is its form, and hence the principle of its every movement, but first and foremost, of its first principal part, the heart

2. the seat of the generative power which itself produces3. an active power of the embryo (resembling in this a ray of the sun) enabling it to

generate, and so giving rise to4. the specific nature as existing as the form that power imparts to in the first principal

part, the heart (standing to the former as something generated by that power)

14 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In II De Anima. lect. 14, n. 420. For this and the next reference, see further below.15 Cf. ibid., n. 405.16 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Qu. Disp. de Ver., q. 10. art. 7, ad 19 (tr. B.A.M.): “To the tenth it must be said that certain irrational creatures can, by some likeness, be more likened to God than even the rational, with re-spect to an efficacy for causing: as is clear in a ray of the sun, by which all things in lower things are caused and renewed. And in this way it befits the divine goodness which causes everything, as Dionysius says….”

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In comparison with the microcosmic model:

As we shall explain further below, considered in comparison to the genesis of a living thing, the light of the first day stands for the generative principle imparted by its generator to a living thing. But as such, just as the corresponding principle in an embryo presupposes the reception of its substantial form, so in the constitution of the heavens one must presuppose the principle analogous to the soul of an animal, namely, a proximate moved mover of the first, or celestial, sphere, understood as an angelic intelligence which animates that body, for which reason some men speak of it as the Anima Mundi (for which, see below). Hence we must recognize that what is constituted on the first day stands as a principle of something rather than as that something itself, or, as St. Thomas puts it, as something common afterwards given a determinate power or form. On the macrocosmic level, then, one must consider that what is produced in being is the soul of the world, understood both of the whole and of its principal part, whereas on the second day, by the production of the firmament, what is brought into being is the sphere of the fixed stars, the relation between which will be addressed below.

2. Light in comparison with the soul of the world: a difficulty.

As we have endeavored tp show elsewhere in our exegeses, according to the comparison of the genesis of all things with the genesis of a living thing where the living thing in question is understood as man, the heavens informed by light correspond to the first principal part formed in animal generation, the heart. But as is clear from the comparison of the motion of the heart with that of the heavens, the form of each is its “soul”, making the first moved mover of the outermost sphere, which mover I call the soul of the world, or Anima Mundi, its “substantial” principle. But as we have seen, taking our beginning from light, the latter is understood to be the “form” of the world. In short, inasmuch as light as the form of the heavens is not the same as a separated substance, there is a serious discrepancy here. To resolve this difficulty, let us first consider the proportion between them:

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Motion of the Heart (De Motu Cordis), nn. 9-17 (tr. B.A.M.):

9. Again, a perfect animal, which is one that moves itself, most approaches to a likeness of the whole universe: and so man, who is the most perfect of animals, is by some called a “microcosm”. Now in the universe the first motion is local motion, which is the cause of alteration as well as the other motions, for which reason even in animals the principle of alteration appears to be local motion. And so the Philosopher in the eighth book of the Physics (ch. 1, 250 b 14-15), pursuing this resemblance, says that motion is “like a kind of ‘life’ existing in all things”.17

17 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 18, art. 1. obj. 1, ad 1 (tr. Alfred J. Freddoso):

Objection 1: In Physics 8 the Philosopher says that motion is, as it were, a sort of life in all things that exist by nature. But all natural things participate in motion. Therefore, all natural things participate in life. <…>

Reply to objection 1: This passage from the Philosopher can be understood to apply either to the first motion, viz., the movement of the celestial bodies, or to motion in general. And in both senses motion is said to be like the life of natural bodies according to a certain likeness and not properly speaking.

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10. What is more, what is per se is prior to what is per accidens.18 But the first motion of an animal is the motion of the heart; but heat does not move locally except accidentally: for it belongs to heat to alter per se, but per accidens to move something in place. It is therefore ridiculous to say that “heat is the principle of the motion of the heart;” rather one must assign a cause which can be an intrinsic cause of motion in place per se.

11. One must therefore accept as the principle of this inquiry that, as Aristotle says in the eighth book of the Physics (ch. 7, 254b 16-20), “[a thing which is moving by itself is moving by nature, e.g. each of the animals. For an animal moves itself by itself,] but we say that whatever things have a principle of motion in themselves are moving by nature. Whence the animal as a whole by nature, moves itself by itself; nevertheless its body can be moving both by nature and beside nature. For it makes a difference what sort of motion what is moving chances [to have] and from what sort of elements it is constituted.” (tr. Glen Coughlin) For when an animal moves itself downward, it is indeed a motion that is natural to the entire animal and its body, since in the body of an animal the heavier elements predominate [, the nature of which is to move down.] But when an animal moves upward, this motion is indeed natural to the animal since it comes from an intrinsic principle which is the soul; but it is nevertheless not natural to a heavy body, and so in [undergoing] this kind of motion the animal tires out more.

12. Now in animals motion according to place is caused by desire and by a sensitive or intellective apprehension, as the Philosopher teaches in the third book of the De Anima (433a 9-b 30). In other animals, to be sure, the entire process of motion is natural: for they do not act by intention but from nature: for a swallow builds its nest naturally and a spider a web. But to act intentionally and not by nature belongs solely to man. Nevertheless, the principle of any of his own activities is natural. For although he does not know naturally the conclusions of the speculative and practical sciences, but discovers them by reasoning, still, the first indemonstrable principles are known to him naturally, from which he proceeds in order to know other things. Likewise in the case of desire, to desire the last end, which is happiness, and to flee from misery is natural to man; but to desire other things is not natural, but proceeds from the desire for his last end to the desire for other things: for in this way the end in desirable things is like an indemonstrable principle in intellectual things, as the Philosopher says in the second book of the Physics (ch.15, 200a 15-24).19

For the motion of the celestial bodies in the universe of corporeal natures is like the motion of the heart by which life is conserved in an animal. Similarly, every natural motion is, as it were, a certain likeness of a vital operation in natural things. Hence, if the whole corporeal universe were a single animal, so that (as some have claimed) its motion were from an intrinsic mover, then it would follow that its motion is the life of all natural bodies.

18 That is to say, the essential comes before the accidental.19 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia-IIae, q. 17, art. 9, ad 2 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

Reply to Objection 2: In things pertaining to intellect and will, that which is according to nature stands first, whence all other things are derived: thus from the knowledge of principles that are naturally known, is derived knowledge of the conclusions; and from volition of the end naturally desired, is derived the choice of the means. So also in bodily movements the principle is according to nature. Now the principle of bodily movements be-gins with the movement of the heart. Consequently the movement of the heart is according to nature, and not according to the will: for like a proper accident, it results from life, which follows from the union of soul and body. Thus the movement of heavy and light things results from their substantial form: for which reason they are said to be moved by their generator, as the Philosopher states (Phys. viii, 4). Wherefore this movement is called ‘vital.’ For which reason Gregory of Nyssa (Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xxii) says that, just as the move-ment of generation and nutrition does not obey reason, so neither does the pulse which is a vital movement. By the pulse he means the movement of the heart which is indicated by the pulse veins.

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Therefore since the motion of all the other members of the body is caused by the motion of the heart, as the Philosopher proves in On the Movement of Animals (ch. 10, 703a—703b 2), the other motions can indeed by voluntary, but the first motion which is of the heart, is natural.

13. Now we must consider that upward motion is natural to fire as a consequence of its form: and so the generator, which gives the form, is per se its mover in place. Now just as some natural motion follows the form of the element, in the same way other natural motions follow upon other forms. For we observe that iron is naturally moved toward the magnet, which motion is nevertheless not natural to it according to its character of being heavy or light, but insofar as it has such a form.20 In this way, therefore, inasmuch as an animal has such a form which is the soul, nothing prohibits it from having a natural motion; and the mover which gives it its form [gives it] this motion.

14. I take the position that the natural motion of an animal is that of the heart, seeing that, as the Philosopher says in his book On the Movement of Animals (ch. 10, 703a29-b2), “In a sense, an animal can be compared to a city governed by good laws. For once a stable order exists in a city, no action is performed by an individual agent that is truly separate from the monarchical rule, but everything is done by custom and in accord with due order. Now in animals this comes about by nature: and since each one is naturally constituted to perform its proper work, so that there is no need for a soul to be in each one, insofar, namely, as it is a principle of motion, but rather existing in a certain principal part of the body, the other parts live indeed because they are naturally adapted to perform their proper work according to nature.” (tr. John Y. B. Hood)

15. Therefore the motion of the heart is natural as following upon the soul, inasmuch as it is the form of such a body, and principally of the heart. And perhaps in accordance with this understanding of the matter some have said that “the motion of the heart is caused by an [angelic] intelligence,” inasmuch as they held the soul to be from an intelligence, just as Aristotle says in the eighth book of the Physics (256a1), the motion of heavy and light things comes from that which generates them, inasmuch as it gives the form which is the principle of motion. For every property and motion follows on some form according to its condition, just as upon the form of the noblest21 element, fire, for example, follows motion to the noblest place, which is above. Now the noblest form in lower things is the soul, which most approaches to a likeness to the principle of the motion of the heavens. And so the motion following upon it is most similar to the motion of the heavens: for the motion of the heart in an animal is like the motion of the heavens in the world.

16. But the motion of the heart necessarily falls short of the motion of the heavens, just as what is from a principle falls short of the principle. Now the motion of the heavens is circular and continuous, and this is appropriate to it inasmuch as it is the principle of every motion of the world: for the approach and withdrawal of a celestial body imposes upon things the beginning and end of their existence, and by their continuity preserves the order in motions, which are not always [occurring].

17. Now the motion of the heart is the principle of all the motions that are in an animal; and so the Philosopher in the third book of On the Parts of Animals (ch. 4, 661a 13-14) says that “the motion involved in pleasure and pain and all other sensations seem to begin there, namely, in the heart, and terminate there.” And so in order for the heart to be the principle and end of every motion that exists in the animal, it has a certain motion not in fact circular, but similar to the circular, one, namely, composed from a pull and a push; and so the

20 Cf. St. Thomas’ opusculum, De operationibus occultis naturae.21 “Noblest”, that is, that which has “the highest rank”, so to speak.

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Philosopher says in the third book of the De Anima (433b 20-25) “what moves instru-mentally is found wherever a beginning and an end coincide” [, as in a ball and socket joint]. But “all things are moved by a push and a pull, on account of which there must be something remaining stationary, as in a wheel, and from that point motion begins.” 22 And this motion continues throughout the life of the animal, except inasmuch it is necessary for a pause to intervene between the push and the pull, by reason of which it falls short of circular motion.

In sum, as St. Thomas states, “…the noblest form in lower things is the soul, which most approaches to a likeness to the principle of the motion of the heavens. And so the motion following upon it is most similar to the motion of the heavens: for the motion of the heart in an animal is like the motion of the heavens in the world”, from which it follows that as the soul stands to the animal, so does the principle of motion stand to the heavens. But that principle is an intellectual substance. But if the so-called “soul” of the world is analogous to the animating principle of an animal, and if the latter is a separated substance, how then can the light of the first day be that form, seeing that the latter stands to the heavenly body as an accident? To go forward we must consider further evidence.

§

22 Sc. as with the pivots of the axle of a wagon wheel, or, to take the obvious point of comparison, as with the poles of the axis of the celestial sphere; “for a body revolving in a circle is kept as a whole in the same place by the immobility of the centre and the poles” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima translated by Kenelm Foster, O.P. & Sylvester Humphries, O.P., Book III, lectio 15, n. 835). Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In II De Caelo, lect. 11, n. 400 (tr. Conway & Larcher, rev. B.A.M.): “However, if we desire to apply it to the fixed stars, then we must take the word “center” as meaning the “pole” since, just as the center is to a circle on a plane surface, so is the pole in a way to a circle on a spherical surface.” (Cp. also the pillar of light and Spindle of Necessity with its “whorls” in Plato’s Myth of Er; Rep. X, 616Bff.) It is to be under-stood, then, that for motion to take place, there must be a fixed point of immobility as its ‘center’, as with a fulcrum. Cf. the entire passage from the Commentary on the De Anima excerpted above, nn. 832-835: “§ 832. Next, at ‘Now, in short” he briefly states his view on the organ of local motion. He says that the primary organic motive-principle must be such that the movement starts and finishes in the same point, proceeding in a circle, as it were, and having a swelling out at the starting point and a concavity at the end. For the contractual movement draws the organ into concavity, while the expansive impulse, whence movement begins, follows a swelling out of the organ. § 833. Now, granted that this primary organ is both the starting point and term of movement, it must, as starting point, be motionless, and, as term, in movement; and both these at once. For in any movement the starting point itself does not move, all movement must proceed from the motionless,—as, for instance, while the hand is moving the arm is still, and while the arm moves the shoulder is still. However, these two factors in the organ, the motionless and the moved, though distinct in thought, are substantially and spatially inseparable. § 834. And that the organ is both starting point and term (and therefore both motionless and moved) is clear from the fact that all animal movements consist of impulsions and retractions. In impulsion the motive force comes from the starting point, for the impelling agent thrusts itself forward against what is impelled. But in retraction the motive force comes from the term, for the drawing power draws something back to itself Thus the first organ of local motion in animals must be at once both a starting point and a term. § 835. So then there must be in it something that stays still and yet initiates motion. And in this it resembles circular movement: for a body revolving in a circle is kept as a whole in the same place by the immobility of the centre and the poles. In thought it may move as a whole, but not in reality. In reality it keeps to one place. But its parts are changing their places really, and not only in thought. And so it is with the heart: it remains fixed in the same part of the body while it dilates and contracts and so gives rise to movements of impulsion and retraction. Thus it is, in a sense, both motionless and moving.”

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IX. ON THE PRINCIPLE OF THE MOTION OF THE HEAVENS.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II: Creation. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes by James F. Anderson (Notre Dame, 1975), cap. 70, nn. 1-7:

Chapter 70

THAT ACCORDING TO THE WORDS OF ARISTOTLE THE INTELLECT MUST BE SAID TO BE UNITED TO THE BODY AS ITS FORM

[1] Now, since Averroes seeks to confirm his doctrine especially by appealing to the words and proof of Aristotle, it remains for us to show that in the Philosopher’s judgment we must say that the intellect, as to its substance, is united to the body as its form.

[2] For Aristotle proves in the Physics [VIII, 5] that in movers and things moved it is impossible to proceed to infinity. Hence, he concludes to the necessity of a first moved thing, which either is moved by an immobile mover or moves itself. And of these two he takes the second, namely, that the first movable being moves itself; for what is through itself is always prior to that which is through another. Then he shows that a self-mover necessarily is divided into two parts, part moving and part moved; whence it follows that the first self-mover must consist of two parts, the one moving, the other moved. Now, every thing of this kind is animate. The first movable being, namely, the heaven, is therefore animate in Aristotle’s opinion. So it is expressly stated in De caelo [II, 2] that the heaven is animate, and on this account we must attribute to its differences of position not only in relation to us, but also in relation to itself. Let us, then, ask with what kind of soul Aristotle thinks the heaven to be animated.

[3] In Metaphysics XI [7], Aristotle proves that in the heaven’s movement two factors are to be considered: something that moves and is wholly unmoved, and something that moves and is also moved. Now, that which moves without being moved moves as an object of desire; nor is there any doubt that it moves as a thing desirable by that which is moved. And he shows that it moves not as an object of concupiscent desire, which is a sense desire, but of intellectual desire; and he therefore says that the first unmoved mover is an object of desire and understanding. Accordingly, that which is moved by this mover, namely, the heaven, desires and understands in a nobler fashion than we, as he subsequently proves. In Aristotle’s view, then, the heaven is composed of an intellectual soul and a body. He indicates this when he says in De anima II [3] that “in certain things there is intellect and the power of understanding, for example, in men, and in other things like man or superior to him,” namely, the heaven.

[4] Now the heaven certainly does not possess a sensitive soul, according to the opinion of Aristotle; otherwise, it would have diverse organs, and this is inconsistent with the heaven’s simplicity. By way of indicating this fact, Aristotle goes on to say that “among corruptible things, those that possess intellect have all the other powers,” thus giving us to understand that some incorruptible things, namely, the heavenly bodies, have intellect without the other powers of the soul.

[5] It will therefore be impossible to say that the intellect makes contact with the heavenly bodies by the instrumentality of phantasms. On the contrary, it will have to be said that the intellect, by its substance, is united to the heavenly body as its form.

[6] Now, the human body is the noblest of all lower bodies, and by, its equable tempera-ment most closely resembles the heaven, which is completely devoid of contrariety; so

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that in Aristotle’s judgment the intellectual substance is united to the human body not by any phantasms, but as its form.

[7] As for the heaven being animate, we have spoken of this not as though asserting its accordance with the teaching of the faith, to which the whole question is entirely irrelevant. Hence, Augustine says in the Enchiridion: “Nor is it certain, to my mind, whether the sun, moon, and all the stars belong to the same community, namely, that of the angels; although to some they appear to be luminous bodies devoid of sense or intelligence.” (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Exposition of Aristotle’s Treatise On the Heavens, trans. P. Con-way and F. R Larcher (Ohio, 1964), Book I, lect. 18, n. 458:

Lecture 18: The first difficulty, concerning the number of motions of the stars, is solved. The number shown to agree with modern astronomers.

458. Having proposed the two doubts, the Philosopher here starts to solve them.

First he solves the first question; Secondly, the second one (L. 19).

As to the first he does two things:

First he shows what ought to be assumed in order to make the first question easier to resolve; Secondly, he gives the solution, at 459.

He says therefore first [324] that the reason why the first question is difficult is that we investigate the heavenly bodies as though they were merely an orderly system of bodies without being animated. As a consequence, it seems to us that the order of their motions should be in accord with the order of numbers and according to the position of the bodies. But if the problem at hand is to be settled, we must assume that they have not only some sort of life but also actions - this being proper to things with a rational soul, which act for an end as being masters of their act, and do not act by the sole impulse of nature as do all irrational things. If this is assumed, nothing is seen to be occurring unreasonably if the number of their motions does not proceed according to the position of the bodies. For the diversity and number of the motions is to be taken more in terms of a relation to the final good, which is the principle in all things able to be done [i.e., voluntary actions], as is plain from the words of the Philosopher in Ethics VII and Physics II.

One should note in this regard that it makes no difference whether we suppose that the heavenly bodies are moved by intellectual substances united to them after the manner of a soul, or by these as separated. But there would be no way to solve this question if they were moved by the sole impulse of nature, as heavy and light bodies are.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 70, art. 3 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

  Objection 1: It would seem that the lights of heaven are living beings. For the nobler a body is, the more nobly it should be adorned. But a body less noble than the heaven, is adorned with living beings, with fish, birds, and the beasts of the field. Therefore the lights of heaven, as pertaining to its adornment, should be living beings also.

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  Objection 2: Further, the nobler a body is, the nobler must be its form. But the sun, moon, and stars are nobler bodies than plants or animals, and must therefore have nobler forms. Now the noblest of all forms is the soul, as being the first principle of life. Hence Augustine (De Vera Relig. xxix) says: “Every living substance stands higher in the order of nature than one that has not life.” The lights of heaven, therefore, are living beings.

  Objection 3: Further, a cause is nobler than its effect. But the sun, moon, and stars are a cause of life, as is especially evidenced in the case of animals generated from putrefaction, which receive life from the power of the sun and stars. Much more, therefore, have the heavenly bodies a living soul.

  Objection 4: Further, the movement of the heaven and the heavenly bodies are natural (De Coel. i, text. 7,8): and natural movement is from an intrinsic principle. Now the prin-ciple of movement in the heavenly bodies is a substance capable of apprehension, and is moved as the desirer is moved by the object desired (Metaph. xii, text. 36). Therefore, seemingly, the apprehending principle is intrinsic to the heavenly bodies: and consequently they are living beings.

  Objection 5: Further, the first of movables is the heaven. Now, of all things that are endowed with movement the first moves itself, as is proved in Phys. viii, text. 34, because, what is such of itself precedes that which is by another. But only beings that are living move themselves, as is shown in the same book (text. 27). Therefore the heavenly bodies are living beings.

  On the contrary, Damascene says (De Fide Orth. ii), “Let no one esteem the heavens or the heavenly bodies to be living things, for they have neither life nor sense.”

  I answer that, Philosophers have differed on this question. Anaxagoras, for instance, as Augustine mentions (De Civ. Dei xviii, 41), “was condemned by the Athenians for teaching that the sun was a fiery mass of stone, and neither a god nor even a living being.” On the other hand, the Platonists held that the heavenly bodies have life.

Nor was there less diversity of opinion among the Doctors of the Church. It was the belief of Origen (Peri Archon i) and Jerome that these bodies were alive, and the latter seems to explain in that sense the words (Eccles. 1:6), “The spirit goeth forward, surveying all places round about.” But Basil (Hom. iii, vi in Hexaem.) and Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii) maintain that the heavenly bodies are inanimate. Augustine leaves the matter in doubt, without committing himself to either theory, though he goes so far as to say that if the heavenly bodies are really living beings, their souls must be akin to the angelic nature (Gen. ad lit. ii, 18; Enchiridion lviii).

   In examining the truth of this question, where such diversity of opinion exists, we shall do well to bear in mind that the union of soul and body exists for the sake of the soul and not of the body; for the form does not exist for the matter, but the matter for the form. Now the nature and power of the soul are apprehended through its operation, which is to a certain extent its end. Yet for some of these operations, as sensation and nutrition, our body is a necessary instrument. Hence it is clear that the sensitive and nutritive souls must be united to a body in order to exercise their functions. There are, however, operations of the soul, which are not exercised through the medium of the body, though the body ministers, as it were, to their production. The intellect, for example, makes use of the phantasms derived from the bodily senses, and thus far is dependent on the body, although capable of existing apart from it. It is not, however, possible that the functions of nutrition, growth, and generation, through which the nutritive soul operates, can be exercised by the heavenly bodies, for such

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operations are incompatible with a body naturally incorruptible. Equally impossible is it that the functions of the sensitive soul can appertain to the heavenly body, since all the senses depend on the sense of touch, which perceives elemental qualities, and all the organs of the senses require a certain proportion in the admixture of elements, whereas the nature of the heavenly bodies is not elemental. It follows, then, that of the operations of the soul the only ones left to be attributed to the heavenly bodies are those of understanding and moving; for appetite follows both sensitive and intellectual perception, and is in proportion thereto. But the operations of the intellect, which does not act through the body, do not need a body as their instrument, except to supply phantasms through the senses. Moreover, the operations of the sensitive soul, as we have seen, cannot be attributed to the heavenly bodies. Accordingly, the union of a soul to a heavenly body cannot be for the purpose of the operations of the intellect. It remains, then, only to consider whether the movement of the heavenly bodies demands a soul as the motive power, not that the soul, in order to move the heavenly body, need be united to the latter as its form; but by contact of power, as a mover is united to that which he moves. Wherefore Aristotle (Phys. viii, text. 42,43), after showing that the first mover is made up of two parts, the moving and the moved, goes on to show the nature of the union between these two parts. This, he says, is effected by contact which is mutual if both are bodies; on the part of one only, if one is a body and the other not. The Platonists explain the union of soul and body in the same way, as a contact of a moving power with the object moved, and since Plato holds the heavenly bodies to be living beings, this means nothing else but that substances of spiritual nature are united to them, and act as their moving power. A proof that the heavenly bodies are moved by the direct influence and contact of some spiritual substance, and not, like bodies of specific gravity, by nature, lies in the fact that whereas nature moves to one fixed end which having attained, it rests; this does not appear in the movement of heavenly bodies. Hence it follows that they are moved by some intellectual substances. Augustine appears to be of the same opinion when he expresses his belief that all corporeal things are ruled by God through the spirit of life (De Trin. iii, 4). From what has been said, then, it is clear that the heavenly bodies are not living beings in the same sense as plants and animals, and that if they are called so, it can only be equivocally. It will also be seen that the difference of opinion between those who affirm, and those who deny, that these bodies have life, is not a difference of things but of words.

  Reply to Objection 1: Certain things belong to the adornment of the universe by reason of their proper movement; and in this way the heavenly luminaries agree with others that conduce to that adornment, for they are moved by a living substance.

  Reply to Objection 2: One being may be nobler than another absolutely, but not in a particular respect. While, then, it is not conceded that the souls of heavenly bodies are nobler than the souls of animals absolutely it must be conceded that they are superior to them with regard to their respective forms, since their form perfects their matter entirely, which is not in potentiality to other forms; whereas a soul does not do this. Also as regards movement the power that moves the heavenly bodies is of a nobler kind.

  Reply to Objection 3: Since the heavenly body is a mover moved, it is of the nature of an instrument, which acts in virtue of the agent: and therefore since this agent is a living substance the heavenly body can impart life in virtue of that agent.

  Reply to Objection 4: The movements of the heavenly bodies are natural, not on account of their active principle, but on account of their passive principle; that is to say, from a certain natural aptitude for being moved by an intelligent power.

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  Reply to Objection 5: The heaven is said to move itself in as far as it is compounded of mover and moved; not by the union of the mover, as the form, with the moved, as the matter, but by contact with the motive power, as we have said. So far, then, the principle that moves it may be called intrinsic, and consequently its movement natural with respect to that active principle; just as we say that voluntary movement is natural to the animal as animal (Phys. viii, text. 27). (emphasis added)

Hence, in St. Thomas’ view, strictly speaking, the principle of the motion of the heavens is not conjoined to the outermost sphere in the manner of a form, but by contact of power as its mover, a relationship sufficient to found the comparison made between them.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book II, Dis-tinction 14, Question 1, art. 3 (tr. Erik Norvelle):23

Article 3: Whether the motion of the heavens is due to an intelligence

Regarding the third issue, we proceed as follows. 1) It appears that the motion of the heavens is not from a soul or from an intelligence. For the motion of the heavens is a natural motion, as the Philosopher states in On the Heavens, Book I. But a natural motion is that whose prin-ciple is a form of a natural body. Therefore it appears that the motion of the heavens is from its natural form, and not from anything which moves by understanding.

2) Further, every motion [caused] by a soul is accompanied by labor and suffering, as is stated in On the Heavens, Book II. But the motion of the heavens is not of this sort, because it would not be able to be continuous and uniform. Therefore it is not moved by a soul.

3) Further, an intellective soul is not connected to a body except by the sensitive and vegetative soul, as is clear from the comparison of the parts of the soul with the species of figures in On the Soul, Book II. But the heavenly bodies cannot have a sensitive or vege-tative soul, because they do not have a composite body, which would be required in order that it be an instrument for a vegetative and sensitive soul. Therefore it appears that [the heavens] cannot be moved by an intellective soul.

4) Further, every body moved by a soul has a left and a right, as well as other differences of position. But the heavenly body, being completely uniform, does not have this kind of diversity of parts. Therefore it appears that it cannot be moved by a soul.

But on the contrary, 1) it is proven in Physics, Book VII, that [the heavenly body] is moved by itself. But something moved by itself cannot exist, as is shown in the same place, unless it is that sort of thing of which one part is a mover, and another part the moved. But every such motion is the motion of an apprehensive power. Therefore it is necessary that the motion of the heaven be from some apprehensive power.

2) Every natural motion is from a body existing outside of its own location. But this is impossible to posit in the heavens. Therefore, the motion of the heavens is from some kind of apprehension.

I respond by saying that concerning this issue there are multiple opinions. For some say that, just as the motion of other simple bodies is from their corporal natures, so also will be the

23 “This translation is based on the Latin text contained in Scriptum super Sententiis Petri Lombardi. Parma, 1856…. Translation by Erik Norvelle, published under a Creative Commons 2.0 Non-Commercial Share-Alike license.” (Norvelle’s note)

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motion of the celestial body. But this appears not to be true. For every motion is from some motor. But in the motion of simple bodies, even though the natural form is the principle of motion, it is nevertheless not the motor. The essential motor, however, is the generator which gives form, and the accidental [motor] is that which removes that which blocks motion, as is proven in Physics, Book VIII, but this is totally inappropriate for the celestial body. And further, a natural motion is to one place only, and is perfected by natural rest, and is of a body which exists outside of its natural place, all of which is also foreign to the heavenly body. And thus others say that it must be the case that the motion of the heavenly body is from another intelligent being endowed with will, but not immediately from God Himself: for this does not correspond to the order of divine wisdom, the effect of which comes to the last things through middle things, as Dionysius states. And thus Gregory [the Great] states that corporeal creatures are governed by spiritual creatures; and thus it is probable that some created intellect is the proximate motor of the heavens.

Nevertheless it should be known that the philosophers posited diverse motors in diverse moved and mobile things, and thus they demonstrated the number of intelligent movers on the basis of the number of these [moved and mobile things]. However, they assigned to every sphere two motors: one conjoined, which they called the soul of the sphere, and an-other separated, which they called an Intelligence. The reason for this position was that an Intelligence, according to these thinkers, possesses universal forms, and is therefore not ap-propriate for immediately directing the renewals of the diverse motions of the heavens, or those things which are educed by the motor of the heavens. Hence it is necessary that there be a motor in which there are the particular forms which direct [the lesser things] in motion, and this they called the soul of the sphere. But this position is partly heretical, and partly can be held in a Catholic manner. For these same [thinkers] hold that things proceed in an or-dered fashion from God, i.e. the Intelligences are created immediately by the First Cause, which is God, and from [the Intelligences] the soul of the sphere proceeds; and from this there is produced the substance of the sphere itself. Therefore it can be said that the proximate motor is its form or soul, because it gives itself existence, like a cause pro-portioned to itself. But this our faith does not suffer, since it posits that only God is the creator of things, as was stated above. And thus we can say that the Angels, which move the spheres in a proximate fashion, are motors, but not forms or souls, because the spheres receive only motion from them, but not existence. But we can sustain [their position] in this respect, as we said, in that the higher Angels, which have more universal forms, are separ-ated and remote motors; whereas the inferior Angels, which have more particular forms, as was stated before, are proximate motors. Thus also Avicenna says that [those beings] called Intelligences by the philosophers are what, according to the Law, are called higher Angels, such as Cherubim and Seraphim; whereas the Souls of the spheres are said to be lesser, and these are called ministering Angels.

1) In response to the first argument, it should be stated that, just as the Commentator says in the first book of his commentary on On the Heavens, the motion of the heavens is said to be natural, not because its active principle is some natural form, but because the celestial body itself is of such a nature that it naturally is susceptible to such a motion [imparted] by some intellect, not having a natural repugnance to this voluntary motion, as there is in us. For nature is not said only in regards to the form, but also in regards to matter.

2) Regarding the second argument: the Philosopher is speaking against those who posited the heavens to be of the [same] nature as the inferior bodies, for then that motion would be caused by a soul against the nature of the moved body, and thus labor and suffering would be necessary present in causing motion. But if we posit that that motion is from an intellect according to the condition of the body moved, there will not then be violence nor labor.

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3) Regarding the third argument: as the Commentator states in his book On the Substance of the Spheres, the heavenly body is neither generable nor corruptible, as are our bodies; and thus it does not need any vegetative form. Similarly, also, its motor does not acquire cog-nition from things, but has a kind of active knowledge; and thus it does not need a sensitive soul; and thus according to the philosophers the soul of the heavens and that of man are not said univocally.

4) Regarding the fourth argument: according to the Philosopher, the celestial body can be as-signed differences of position; and thus its ‘right’ is said to be the East, from whence the motion originates; and its ‘left’ is the West, and ‘above’ is the southern pole, and ‘below’ is the Northern pole, and ‘ahead’ is the upper hemisphere, and ‘behind’ is the lower hemi-sphere. Nevertheless, these parts, as the Commentator himself states, are assigned differently to the heavenly body and to our bodies, in two regards. First, in us these parts are diversified by figure and power, but this is not the case in the heavenly body, since it is spherical everywhere. Secondly, in us that determinate part which is right never becomes left, but in the heavenly body that part of the sphere which is now right, later becomes left, because the part which is now in the East will later be in the West. This occurs because the power which brings out motion in us is the act of the body to whom organs are affixed, i.e. muscles and nerves, but this is not the case in the heavenly body. (emphasis added)

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X. THAT ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE THE HEAVENLY BODIES ARE ANI-MATED BY INTELLECTUAL SOULS.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas. Treatise on Separate Substances. Translated by F. J. Lescoe (West Hartford, Conn., 1959), Chapter II, n 9:

CHAPTER II

ARISTOTLE’S OPINION

9.—Again, since in the class [read genus] of movable beings, that which is desirable is present as an unmoved mover, whereas the one desiring is present as a moved mover, Ari-stotle further concluded that the first unmoved mover is as an appetible good and that the first self-moved mover, namely the first movable, is moved through a desire of that unmoved mover.*

* Aristotle, Metaph., XI, 7 (1072a 19-1073a 12).

However, we must furthermore keep in mind that in the order of appetites and of appetible objects, the first is that which is through itself an object of understanding, for intellective appetite seeks that which is good through itself; whereas sensitive appetite cannot rise to the appetition of that which is good in itself but only that which appears good. For that which is simply and absolutely good does not fall under the apprehension of sense but only of the intellect.

The first movable, therefore, seeks the first mover with an intellectual appetite and from this it can be inferred that the first movable is appetitive and intelligent. And since only a body is moved, we may infer that the first movable is a body animated by an intellectual soul. But the prime movable, namely the first heavens, is not the only one moved with an eternal motion; but also all the lesser spheres of the heavenly bodies likewise are.*

* Aristotle, Phys., VIII, 6 (259b 31-260a 10); Metaph., XI, 8 (1073a 11 -37).

Therefore each of the heavenly bodies is animated by its own soul and each has its own separate appetible object which is the proper end of its motion. (emphasis added)

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XI. THAT BETWEEN THE FIRST UNMOVED MOVER AND THE OUTERMOST SPHERE THERE IS A FIRST MOVED MOVER.

Cf. Treatise on Separate Substances, op.cit., Chapter II, nn 10-12 (with an omission):

10. -There are, accordingly, many separate substances that are in no way united to any bodies; there are, likewise, many intellectual substances united to heavenly bodies. Aris-totle attempts to find out the number of these on the basis of the number of motions of the heavenly bodies.*

* Aristotle, Metaph., XI, 8 (1073b I-1074a 14).

<…>

Between us and the heavenly bodies, Aristotle did not locate any intervening animate body. Thus, according to the position of Aristotle, between us and the highest God, there exists only a two-fold order of intellectual substances, namely, the separate substances which are the ends of the heavenly motions; and the souls of the spheres, which move through appetite and desire.

11.—Now this position of Aristotle seems to be surer because it does not depart greatly from that which is evident according to sense; yet it seems to be less adequate than the position of Plato.

In the first place, there are many things which are evident according to senses, for which an explanation cannot be given on the basis of what Aristotle teaches. For we see in men who are possessed by devils and in the works of sorcerers, certain phenomena which do not seem capable of taking place except through some intellectual substance. Certain followers of Aristotle, as is evident in Porphyry’s letter to Anebontes the Egyptian,*

* All 12 mss. read variously from Anempotem (A) to Cermephontem (L); hence, the emendation according to Cap. XIX, no. 106 (p. 112) below, where St. Thomas cites St. Augustine’s De Civ. Dei, X, II (PL 41, 288-291) concerning Porphyry’s letter.

tried to reduce the causes of these phenomena to the power of the heavenly bodies, as if the works of the sorcerers attained certain unusual and marvelous results under the influence of certain constellations. Furthermore, they say that it is through the influence of the stars that persons who are possessed sometimes foretell future events, for the realization of which there is a certain disposition in nature through the heavenly bodies. But in such cases, there are manifestly certain works which cannot in any way be reduced to a corporeal cause. For example, that people in a trance should speak in a cultivated way of sciences which they do not know, since they are unlettered folk; and that those who have scarcely left the village in which they were born, speak with fluency the vernacular of a foreign people. Likewise, in the works of magicians, certain images are said to be conjured up which answer questions and move about, all of which could not be accomplished by any corporeal cause. Therefore, as the Platonists see it, who could evidently assign a cause of these effects, except to say that these are brought about through demons.

12.—Second because it seems unbefitting that immaterial substances should be limited to the number of corporeal substances. For those beings that are higher do not exist for the sake of those that are lower. But on the contrary, that because of which something else exists, is the more noble. Now one cannot sufficiently ascertain the nature of an end from that which is for the end, but rather the other way about. Hence, one cannot adequately

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ascertain the magnitude and power of higher beings by a consideration of the lower ones. This truth is especially evident in the order of corporeal beings, for it is impossible to reckon the magnitude and number of heavenly bodies from the disposition of the elementary bodies, which are as nothing in comparison to them. But the immaterial substances surpass corporeal substances much more than the heavenly bodies surpass elementary ones. In view of this, the number, power, and disposition of immaterial substances cannot be adequately grasped from the number of heavenly movements.

13.—Let us assume the procedure and even the very words of Aristotle’s proof in order that this truth may be more particularly made manifest. Now Aristotle assumes that there can be no motion in the heavens unless it is ordered to the accomplishment of something.*

* Aristotle, Metaph., XI, 8 (1074a 17-30).

This assumption is sufficiently probable. For all the substances of the spheres seem to exist for the sake of the stars which are nobler among the heavenly bodies and have a more evident influence. Aristotle further assumes that all the higher substances, impas-sible and immaterial, are ends, being of themselves most excellent; and this assumption is reasonable.*

* Aristotle, Metaph., XI, 8 (1073a 26).

For the good has the nature of an end, and hence among beings, those that are by their very nature noblest, are ends for other beings.

But the conclusion of Aristotle that the number of immaterial substances is determined by the number of heavenly movements*

* Aristotle, Metaph., XI, (1073a 36; 1074a 5-15).

does not necessarily follow. For an end is both proximate and remote. And the proximate end of the highest heavens is not necessarily the highest immaterial substance which is the all-high God, but it is more probable that there are many orders of immaterial sub-stances between the first immaterial substance and the heavenly body. The lower of these immaterial substances is ordered to the higher as to an end and a heavenly body is ordered to the lowest of these as to its proximate end. For each thing must in some way be proportioned to its proximate end. Accordingly, because of the greatest possible distance between the first immaterial substance and any corporeal substance, it is not probable*

* I.e., it does not stand to reason.

that a corporeal substance should be ordered to the highest substance as to its proximate end. (emphasis added)

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XII. ON THE FIRST UNMOVED MOVER, THE CELESTIAL SPHERE, AND THE FIRST MOVED MOVER UNDERSTOOD AS THE ANIMA MUNDI.

Cf. James A. Weisheipl, “The Commentary of St. Thomas on the De Caelo of Aristotle”. In: Brian Davies, ed. Thomas Aquinas: Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives (New York and Oxford, 2002), ch. 1, pp. 52-53:

Celestial motions, for Aristotle, cannot be explained by the nature of the physical sphere, as Plato would have it. For Aristotle, the celestial body has no intrinsic formal principle causing it to move spontaneously in circular rotation. Nevertheless, these regular, uniform, and eternal motions are “natural” and partake of the divine. Therefore, for Aristotle, celestial bodies are animated by a soul, which is the motor, the efficient cause, of celestial move-ment.40 Thus for Aristotle, each sphere is animated by a special soul, which was the formal cause, as well as the efficient cause, of celestial motion…. For St. Thomas it did not make much difference (nec multum refert) whether the sphere was moved by a soul inherent in the body or by a distinct substance, separate from matter, moving the sphere through efficient causality.41 One could, therefore, conclude that each celestial sphere moves itself by reason of its animate form, so that the ultimate soul of the first sphere was the first mover of the universe. Thomas, of course, preferred to think of these separate substances not as souls animating celestial bodies but as separate efficient causes, like an “angel” moving the body.42

Since, for Aristotle, there can be only one universe, the mover of the outermost sphere has to be unique and supreme, for all other motions depend upon it….

In other words, each celestial sphere has a separate substance, either animating it or pushing it, but beyond the first “soul,” the anima mundi, there is the creator and final cause of all, whom Aristotle, [52-53] according to Thomas, calls God, who creates as well as moves the entire universe.

40 See Weisheipl, Nature and Motion [= James A. Weisheipl, Nature and Motion in the Middle Ages (Washington, DC: 1985)], chap. 7.41 Ibid.42 Arist., Metaph. XII, 7 1073b25-29 (emphasis added)

N.B. Having adduced the relevant texts exposing St. Thomas’ understanding of the prin-ciple of the motion of the heavens, let us return to our consideration of the light of the first day.

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XIII. ON LIGHT UNDERSTOOD AS AN ACTIVE QUALITY OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES AND ITS RELATION TO THE POWER TO GENERATE AND CORRUPT.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Job, ch. 38, lect. 1 (excerpt) (tr. Brian Mulladay):

[Job 38:12]

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT: GOD RESOLVES THE QUESTION

The First Lesson: What Can Man Understand?

…12 After your rising, did you command the dawn and have you shown the dawn its place?

…After the land and the water, he proceeds on to the air, which, according to appearances, is joined to heaven. The first disposition common to the whole body which stretches over the waters and the land is the variation of night and day, which happens from the motion of the day which is first of movements. Therefore, he says as a conse-quence, “After your rising did you command the dawn?” as if to say: Do day and night succeed each other on this earth by your command? For dawn is a kind of boundary between day and night. He clearly says, “After your rising,” as when he spoke about the earth before he had said, “Where were you?” (v.4) For just as the earth is the first material principle of man, so also the highest heaven, which varies night and day by its motion is the first principle of the human body among corporeal causes . Consider that the clarity of the break of day or the dawn is diversified according to the diverse degrees of the intensity of signs which accompany the sun, because when there is the sign of a quick rising, in which the sun rises immediately, the dawn lasts only a little while. When the sun shows signs of a delayed rising it endures longer. The measure of place is determined out of which the brightness of the daybreak begins to appear when the sun is rising there, and expressing this he then says, “and have you shown the dawn its place?” as if to say: Have you ordered the places in the heaven from which the dawn will gives its light? He implies the answer, “No”. From all these things you can understand that your reason fall short of the comprehension of divine things, and so it is clear that you are no suited to dispute with God. (emphasis added)

Cf. idem, ch. 38, lect. 2 (excerpt) (tr. Brian Mulladay):

[Job 38:13-21]

13 Have you taken hold and shaken out the ends of the earth and have you shaken wicked men out of it? 14 The seal will be opened like clay and will stand like a garment. 15 Their light will be withheld from the wicked and their upraised arm will be broken. 16 Have you entered into the depth of the sea, and have you walked in the valley of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death opened to you and have you seen the dark gates? 18 Have you considered the expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know everything, 19 in which path does the light dwell? And where is the place of darkness, 20 to lead to each of its limits and understand the paths to its home? 21 Did you know where you were born then? And do you know the number of your days?.... <intervening text on the preceding verses omitted>

After the disposition of the land and the sea he proceeds to the disposition of heaven under which air is contained. He lingers a little longer on this because of the many

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marvelous things which appear there. First, he considers the disposition of the light and the darkness which embraces the whole of the higher body in common. Consider that the heavenly bodies act through their own light on lower bodies. This is so because light is like the active quality of the heavenly bodies, like cold and heat of the elements. Therefore, he connects the effects of the heavenly bodies on those lower things with the consideration of light and darkness. Among the other effects of the heavenly bodies on lower bodies, the most common is generation and corruption. and from this he begins saying, “Have the gates of death opened to you?” For death is the corruption of a living body, and so it properly belongs to the man to whom the present discourse is addressed. But the gates of death are the causes of corruption in relation to the powers of the heavenly bodies, which are the primary powers through which one proceeds to such an effect. It is very difficult to know the period of life and the permanence of each thing, and so the gates of death are not open to us because we cannot know in the heavenly bodies the proper cause of the corruption of each thing. Darkness fittingly describes death both because in death man (who experiences knowledge by means of light) is deprived of corporeal sight, and also because man after death passes into oblivion as into a kind of darkness. Therefore he says, “and have you seen the dark gates?” He may be understood to be calling “the dark gates” because it is proper to death which before he had called the gates of death. Or “dark gates” can be referred to another action of the heavenly bodies, which is the darkness of the atmosphere, so that what he said about the gates of death is referred to only living bodies, but what he said about the dark gates may refer to transparent bodies.

He continues about the diversity of heat and cold around the earth saying, “Have you considered the expanse of the earth?” Consider here that according to the astronomers the longitude of the earth is from East to West, and the latitude of the earth from South to North, because in everything the greater dimension is called length and the lesser dimension called breadth. We know by experience that the dimension of the earth which is inhabited is greater from the East to the West than from the South to the North. Thus the latitude of the earth is measured from South to North in which progression one measures the difference of heat and cold. For the nearer one approaches the South in our populated world, the hotter the place is because of nearness to the sun. Thus what is said about the latitude of the earth can be referred to the diversity of hot and cold places.

When he has said these things about the action of heavenly light on lower bodies, he mentions the light itself when he says, “Tell me, if you know everything,” so that you are fit to argue with God who knows everything, “in which path does light dwell?” Consider here that light is found in the heavenly bodies of the world, which are called luminaries because of the fact that they are vessels of light. But since a path refers to motion, the question of the path in which the light dwells refers to the motion of the luminaries. Exactly how the luminaries move exceeds human knowledge, which is shown from the different opinions of men concerning their motions. Some assert that they move by eccentric movement [not having the axis in the center] and epicycles, others by the motion of the different spheres. So just as the movement of the luminaries causes light as they move in the upper hemisphere, so also darkness proceeds from their motion as they are moved in the lower hemisphere, this also presents the same difficulty, and so he says, “and where is the place of darkness.” One cannot measure the motion of a body perfectly unless the path that it follows is known since magnitude is measured by motion and motion by magnitude, as Aristotle says in IV Physics. Therefore, since the path of motion of the luminaries cannot be known by man for certain, the consequence is that the measure of their motions cannot perfectly be known either, and so he says, “to lead each,” i.e., the light and the darkness, “to its limits,” by showing the reason for the appearance and disappearance of each of the luminaries as to beginning and end and also with respect to their medium. He speaks about this saying, “and do you understand the path to its home,” of the light. For when at noon it

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reaches its zenith, then it walks the paths to its home, so to speak. Its two termini are in the rising and the setting.

The duration of the lower bodies and the times of generation and corruption are measured according to the motion of the heavenly bodies, as Dionysius says in Chapter IV of The Divine Names. Therefore, when one is ignorant of these causes, one consequently does not know the effects, and so he says, “Did you know when you were born then?” as if to say: Could you know the time of your birth in advance by considering the motion of the heavens? You could not know this because before you were born, you did not exist; but also no other man could know this in advance because of the weakness of human knowledge. For God speaks to Job as representing all men. Just as you could not know in advance the time of your birth, so also you cannot know the end of you life in advance, and so he says, “and do you know the number of your days?” as if to say: You cannot know this from the computation of the heavenly motions, whose certain measure you do not know. (emphasis added)

The reader will note these important correspondences between the account in Job and that of Moses in the Work of the Six Days relevant to our inquiry: the disposition of light and darkness in relation to the heavens on the one hand, and to the power to generate and corrupt on the other.

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XIV. SUPPLEMENT: JOHN GILL ON JOB 38:12-14.

N.B. By way of supplement to the part of St. Thomas’ exposition omitted above, I give John Gill’s, which provides an indispensible interpretation of the following verses:

Cf. Job 38:12-14 (AV):

12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; 13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? 14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.

Cf. John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible (1748), on Job ad loc.:

Verse 12. Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days;.... Job had lived to see many a morning, but it never was in his power to command one; he had been in such circumstances as to wish for morning light before it was, but was obliged to wait for it, could not hasten it, or cause it to spring before its time; see Job 7:3; one of the Targums is, “wast thou in the days of the first creation, and commandedst the morning to be?” he was not, God was; he was before the first morning, and commanded it into being, Genesis 1:3;

[and] caused the dayspring to know his place; the first spring of light or dawn of day; which though it has a different place every day in the year, as the sun ascends or descends in the signs of the Zodiac, yet it knows and observes its exact place, being taught of God.

Verse 13. That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,.... As when the morning light springs forth, it quickly does, reaching in a short time the extreme part of the hemisphere; which, and what goes before, may be applied to the light of the Gospel, and the direction of that under divine Providence in the several parts of the world, and unto the ends of it; see Psalm 19:4;

that the wicked might be shaken out of it? the earth, by means of the light; which may be understood either of wicked men who have been all night upon works of darkness, and be take themselves on the approach of light to private lurking places, like beasts of prey, so that the earth seems to be, as it were, clear of them; or of their being taken up in the morning for deeds done in the night, and brought to justice, which used to be exercised in mornings, Jeremiah 21:12; and so the earth rid of them: thus wicked men shun the light, of the Gospel, and are condemned by it; and in the latter day light and glory they will cease from the earth; see John 3:19.

Verse 14. It is turned as clay [to] the seal,.... As the clay receives a different form by the impress of the seal upon it, so the earth appears in a different manner by the spring of morning light upon it; in the darkness of the night nothing of its form and beauty is to be seen; it is a mere “tohu” and “bohu,” like the chaos, Genesis 1:2; its rising hills, and spreading dales, and beautiful landscapes, cannot be observed with pleasure; but when the light breaks forth in the morning, it is seen in all its beauty and glory: of the change the light of the Gospel makes in men, see 2 Corinthians 3:18;

and they stand as a garment; or things stand upon it as a garment, as Mr. Broughton renders the words; herbs, plants, and trees, unseen in the night, stand up like a vesture to the earth in the morning light; and as they are clothed themselves, they are a garment to that, which now puts on another and beautiful habit; the pastures are

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clothed with flocks, and the valleys covered with corn, and the whole earth with light itself, as with a garment: and as beautifully do men made light in the Lord appear; see Isaiah 41:10.

Verse 15. And from the wicked their light is withholden,.... Whose light is darkness, and whose day is the night, of which they are deprived when the morning light breaks forth; see Job 24:17; it may be figuratively understood of the light of prosperity being removed from them, or the light of life, when they shall be sent into utter darkness;

and the high arm shall be broken; their power weakened and made useless; even the power of such wicked men who have had a large share of it, and have used it in a tyrannical manner; and especially this will be their case at death; see Isaiah 14:10. (emphasis added)

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XV. ON LIGHT UNDERSTOOD AS THE ACT OF THE TRANSPARENT.

a. That light stands to the transparent as color stands to the body.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima translated by Kenelm Fos-ter, O.P. & Sylvester Humphries, O.P. (New Haven, 1951), Bk. II, lectio 14, nn. 404-405:

§ 404. Then, at ‘There is, accordingly’, he discusses those things without which colour can-not be seen, namely the transparent and light; and this in three sections. First, he explains the transparent. Secondly, at ‘Light is’, he treats of the transparent’s actuality, i.e. light. Thirdly, he shows how the transparent is receptive of colour, at ‘Now that only can receive colour’. To begin with, therefore, he says that if colour is that which of its nature affects the transparent, the latter must be, and in fact is, that which has no intrinsic colour to make it visible of itself, but is receptive of colour from without in a way which renders it somehow visible. Examples of the transparent are air and water and many solid bodies, such as certain jewels and glass. Now, whereas other accidents pertaining to the elements or to bodies constituted from them, are in these bodies on account of the nature of those elements (such as heat and cold, weight and lightness, etc.), transparency does not belong to the nature of air or water as such, but is consequent upon some quality common, not only to air and water, which are corruptible bodies, but also to the celestial bodies, which are perpetual and incorruptible. For at least some of the celestial bodies are manifestly trans-parent. We should not be able to see the fixed stars of the eighth sphere unless the lower spheres of the planets were transparent or diaphanous. Hence it is evident that to be trans-parent is not a property consequent on the nature of air or water, but of some more generic nature, in which the cause of transparency is to be found, as we shall see later. (emphasis added)

b. How light resembles a substantial form relative to first matter.

§ 405. Next, at ‘Light etc.’, he explains light, first stating the truth, then dismissing an error. He says, to begin with, that light is the act of the transparent as such. For it is evident that neither air nor water nor anything of that sort is actually transparent unless it is luminous. Of itself the transparent is in potency to both light and darkness (the latter being a privation of light) as primary matter is in potency both to form and the privation of form. Now light is to the transparent as colour is to a body of definite dimensions: each is the act and form of that which receives it. And on this account he says that light is the colour, as it were, of the transparent, in virtue of which the transparent is made actually so by some light-giving body, such as fire, or anything else of that kind, or by a celestial body. For to be full of light and to communicate it is common to fire and to celestial bodies, just as to be diaphanous is common to air and water and the celestial bodies. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Book III translated by Rich-ard J. Blackwell et. al. (Yale, 1963), lect. 2, n. 288:

288. Then [1977] he shows that motion is the act “of a thing existing in potency.”

For every act is strictly the act of that in which it is always found—as light is never found but in the transparent, for which reason it is the act of the transparent. But motion is found always in a thing existing in potency. Therefore, motion is the act of a thing existing in potency. (emphasis added)

c. How it differs from a substantial form relative to first matter.

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Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 67, art. 3, c. (in part), ad 1 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

   …We must say, then, that as heat is an active quality consequent on the substantial form of fire, so light is an active quality consequent on the substantial form of the sun, or of another body that is of itself luminous, if there is any such body. A proof of this is that the rays of different stars produce different effects according to the diverse natures of bodies.

  Reply to Objection 1: Since quality is consequent upon substantial form, the mode in which the subject receives a quality differs as the mode differs in which a subject receives a substantial form. For when matter receives its form perfectly, the qualities consequent upon the form are firm and enduring; as when, for instance, water is converted into fire. When, however, substantial form is received imperfectly, so as to be, as it were, in process of being received, rather than fully impressed, the consequent quality lasts for a time but is not permanent; as may be seen when water which has been heated returns in time to its natural state. But light is not produced by the transmutation of matter, as though matter were in receipt of a substantial form, and light were a certain inception of substantial form. For this reason light disappears on the disappearance of its active cause. (emphasis added)

d. Why it has no contrary.

Cf. Commentary on Aristotle’s Generation and Corruption by Thomas Aquinas, tr. by Pierre Conway & R. F. Larcher (Columbus, 1964), Bk. I, lect. 9, n. 69:

69. Then [67] he summarizes what has been said, stating that there has been a universal discussion of accidents and substances, as to the fact that some things are generated absolutely and others in a qualified sense. It has also been stated that the cause of the con-tinuity in generation, so far as the matter is concerned, is the subject which is changed into contraries. For that is the reason why in substances the generation of one is always the corruption of some other, and vice versa, for matter is never found under the privation of one form without having another form. However, in some accidents that does happen, for a transparent body exists under a privation of light without being subject to a contrary form . (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 67, art. 3, obj. 2, ad 2 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

  Objection 2: Further, every sensible quality has its opposite, as cold is opposed to heat, blackness to whiteness. But this is not the case with light since darkness is merely a privation of light. Light therefore is not a sensible quality.

<…>

Reply to Objection 2: It is accidental to light not to have a contrary, forasmuch as it is the natural quality of the first corporeal cause of change, which is itself removed from contrariety. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima translated by Kenelm Fos-ter, O.P. & Sylvester Humphries, O.P. (New Haven, 1951), Bk. II, lectio 14, n. 421:

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§ 421. But it differs from heat in this: that light is a quality of the primary change-effecting body, which has no contrary: therefore light has no contrary: whereas there is a contrary to heat. And because there is no positive contrary to light, there is no place for a contrary disposition in its recipient: therefore, too, its matter, i.e. the transparent body, is always as such immediately disposed to its form. That is why illumination occurs instantaneously, whereas what can become hot only becomes so by degrees. Now this participation or effect of light in a diaphanum is called ‘luminosity’. And if it comes about in a direct line to the lightened body, it is called a ‘ray’; but if it is caused by the reflection of a ray upon a light-receiving body, it is called ‘splendour’. But luminosity is the common name for every effect of light in the diaphanum.

§

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XVI. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING LIGHT.

In sum, light is received by the medium in such a way that it is not the first step on the road to substantial change; that is to say, the transparent does not receive its act pre-cisely as something of its own—rather, resembling in this the reception by a cognitive power of a form of that which it knows—it receives it as something of another. To con-clude thus, however, is not to affirm it to possess an intentional existence, but merely to point out a re-semblance between the two.

Having arrived at the foregoing understanding, then, we must note that the exis-tence of light in the medium resembles that of the form produced in the body by the active power of the soul, both involving, in a way, “a certain immaterial species”, as may be gathered from the following text:

Cf. Commentary on Aristotle’s Generation and Corruption by Thomas Aquinas, tr. by Pierre Conway & R. F. Larcher (Columbus, 1964), Bk. I, lect. 17, n. 118:

118. Then [118] he shows how diminution occurs. And the better to understand what is said here, we should reflect that the power of the species is otherwise in living things which are properly nourished and grow, and in things without life which are neither nour-ished nor grow. For living bodies move themselves not only with respect to local motion but also with respect to the motion of alteration, as when an animal is naturally healed, and with respect to the motions of growth and generation, especially in the sense in which nourishment is a certain generation, as was said above, in so far, namely, as, although flesh is not generated in itself, it is generated into the already existing flesh. Now whatever moves itself is, as was proved in Physics VIII, divided into two: one of which is the mover, and the other is moved. Consequently, it is necessary that in a living thing there be something moved, namely, whatever is converted into the nature of the species; and something moving, namely, the power of the species, which does the converting. This ex-plains why the virtue of the species in living things does not appropriate to itself some cer-tain signate matter, since one part flows out and another arrives, as was said above. Yet the virtue of the species cannot be without any matter, but indeterminately in this or that, since, as was proved in Metaphysics VII, the virtue of the thing that generates is a form existing in this flesh and in these bones. Now, in non-living things no such condition is found except perhaps in so far as there is in them some likeness of growth and nourishment, as, for example, in fire and in wine because of the efficacy of their active power.24 Consequently, the virtue of the species in flesh or in anything similar, in so far as it does not designate for itself any signate matter, but is now preserved in this, now in that, is as a certain immaterial species.

This, therefore, is what the Philosopher here shows, namely, that “this,” i.e., the virtue of the species of flesh, is a species without matter, as though it were a certain immaterial potency in the respect that it does not determine for itself signate matter. Yet it is always in some matter.

What has been said applies also to every other organ, such as bone or sinew and anything similar. Consequently, if there should accede some matter which is in potency not only to this species which is in a sense immaterial, but also to greater quantity, then there will be “greater immaterialities,” i.e., the virtues of the species that exist in flesh and bone and so on are extended to a greater quantity.

24 Our argument, of course, recognizes a point of resemblance that St. Thomas did not.

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But this cannot always occur: for the virtue of the species becomes weakened (since it is present in a matter subject to contrariety), by continually acting and being acted upon, and by the accession of extraneous matter which does not receive the virtue of the species as perfectly as before. Consequently, when the virtue of the species cannot do this any longer, i.e., convert, of the food which is in potency, not only not as much as is required for the species and a greater quantity, but not even so much as is required for an equal quantity, then diminution of quantity occurs, although the virtue of the species is still preserved in the smaller quantity. But at last even the species ceases, just as, if more and more water should be mixed with wine, it will become watered wine, and then finally the wine will be cor-rupted, and there will be wholly water. (emphasis added)

Note the following resemblances here: Light, understood as an active quality of the lumi-nous body, stands to that body as the active power of an animal stands to the animal. But the active power of an animal includes the capacity to produce itself in being by imparting the form of the generator to its proper matter as happens in embryogenesis, from which it follows that the form of the species it imparts to its subject as the term of its activity will resemble the form of light existing in the medium. But it is to be noted here that, while in the case of the body only the former—the virtue of the species—is understood to be a cer-tain immaterial species, while its result is a form existing in its proper matter, in the case of light even the result is, in a certain respect, immaterial; a divergence which does not, in my view, affect the cogency of the argument, but rather brings out what is proper to light as such. Accordingly, as we have seen, while light does not alter the medium in such a way as to change its species into itself, it nevertheless resembles it to a certain extent; that is to say, to the extent its nature allows.

We observe, then, how light as the act of the heavenly body resembles the substan-tial form of an animal’s body, and principally its first principal part, as well as how they differ. But this conclusion allows us to resolve the difficulty outlined above: For our argu-ment that, according to the microcosmic paradigm, the heavens informed by light corres-pond to the first principal part of an animal, namely, its heart, seemed to founder on this divergence: that the form of the world corresponding to that of an animal is the first moved mover which we have called its Anima Mundi, whereas our analogy requires that form to be, not such a world soul, but light understood as the act of the transparent, itself pro-ceeding from a luminous body which must be understood to have been produced in being on the first day. But we must perforce understand that light according to its (possible) cor-respondence to some component of an animal; and, as we have seen, that which it most nearly resembles is an animal’s active power. Now as St. Thomas makes clear in many places, but most particularly in the passages from the De Motu Cordis we have excerpted above, the soul is understood to be the principle of every motion in the animal, inasmuch as it is its first mover. Consequently, given that an animal’s generative power is founded on the same first principle, every species of change proceeding from it in the body is due to the same first cause. In sum, just as the first principal part of the animal, its heart, receives its form as the result of the animal’s active power, inasmuch as this is ordered to gener-ation, but only in dependence on the soul which first moves it, so the world’s first principal part, the heavenly body, receives its form as the result of the active power of the luminary produced on the first day in dependence on its first mover. Hence, just as the form im-parted to its proper matter by the animal’s generative power is nothing other than the form it derives from its generator, so, too, with the form of the heavenly body.

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Accordingly, recognizing the light produced on the first day to stand to the body of the heavens, which is the transparent medium it informs, in the same relation as the active power of an animal stands to the matter it informs, we may understand how the light of the first day IS the “Anima Mundi”.

§

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XVII. ON THE SUBJECT WHICH RECEIVES THE WORLD’S FIRST FORM.

1. That the first heaven is that which is being moved with an unceasing circular motion.

Cf. Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas, translated by John P. Rowan (Chicago, 1961), Book XII:

LESSON 5

An Eternal Immovable Substance Must Exist

ARISTOTLE’S TEXT Chapter 7

And since this is a possible account of the matter, and if this is not so all things will come from Night (1060) or “all things were together” (1060) or something comes from non-being (1034), these difficulties are solved. And there is something which is always being moved with an unceasing motion, and this is circular motion. This is evident not only in theory but in fact; and for this reason the first heaven will be eternal.

1066. Therefore there is also something which causes it to move. And since that which is moved and causes motion is intermediate, there must be something which causes motion and is unmoved, which is eternal and both a substance and an actuality. (emphasis added)

2. That the first heaven is moved and causes all things to be changed by its daily [diurnal] motion, and thus is the first cause of generation and corruption in the things here below.

Cf. idem, Chapter 7, nn. 2510-2512:

COMMENTARY

2510. Therefore, if something (1065).

Then he concludes that the motion of the celestial bodies must be eternal on the ground that generation is eternal. Therefore, granted that there is no other motion by which things that pass from potentiality to actuality have always been the same except that which proceeds according to the cycle of generation, he concludes from what has been shown in the philosophy of nature (especially in Book II of Generation ) that, if something remains the same throughout the cycle of generation, something must also remain numerically the same, which will act in the same way so as to cause the eternal motion of things. For none of the things which are generated and destroyed can be the cause of the eternality which is found in generation and destruction, because no one of them always exists, nor even all of them, since they do not exist at the same time, as has been shown in Book VIII of the Physics. It follows, then, that there must be some eternal agent which always acts in a uniform way so as to cause the eternal motion of things. This is the first heaven, which is moved and causes all things to be changed by its daily motion.

2511. But that which always acts in the same way only causes something that is always in the same state; and obviously those things which are generated and destroyed do not remain in the same state, for at one time they are generated and at another destroyed. This being so, if generation and destruction are to occur in the realm of lower bodies, it is ne-cessary to posit some agent which is always in different states when it acts.

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He says that this agent is the body which is moved in the oblique circle called the zodiac. For since this circle falls away on either side of the equinoctial circle, the body which is moved circularly through the zodiac must be at one time nearer and at another farther away; and by reason of its being near or far away it causes contraries. For we see that those things which are generated when the sun comes closer to the earth are destroyed when the sun recedes (for example, plants are born in the spring and wither away in the autumn); for both the sun and the other planets are moved in the circle of the zodiac. But the fixed stars are also said to be moved over the poles of the zodiac and not over the equinoctial poles, as Ptolemy proved. And the coming to be and ceasing to be of everything which is generated and destroyed is caused by the motion of these stars, but more evidently by the motion of the sun.

2512. Therefore this mover which acts in different ways must be one that “acts in one way of itself,” i.e., by its own power, inasmuch as it causes the diversity found in generation and destruction. And it must act “in another way in virtue of something else,” i.e., by the power of some other agent, inasmuch as it causes eternal generation and destruction. Hence this second agent must act either “in virtue of some third agent,” i.e., by the power of some other agent, “or of the first,” i.e., by the power of the first agent, which always acts in the same way. And since it is not possible to assign some other agent by whose power this first agent brings about the eternal motion of things, it is therefore necessary according to this “that it act in the same way”; that is, that by its power it causes the eternal generation and destruction of things. For it—the first agent—which always acts in the same way, is the cause of that which acts in different ways. For that which acts in dif-ferent ways acts eternally, and that which acts in the same way is the cause of the etern-ality of any motion. Hence it is the cause of the eternality of that which acts in different ways inasmuch as the latter acts eternally in this way; and it is also the cause of that which is produced by it, namely, eternal generation and destruction. From this it is also evident that the second agent, which acts in different ways, acts by the power “of the first agent,” i.e., the first heaven or first orb, which always acts in the same way . (emphasis added)

3. That the first heaven is the first sphere.

Cf. idem, Lesson 7, n. 2529:

LESSON 7How the First Mover Causes Motion

COMMENTARY

2529. And it causes motion (1070). He now relates the first unmoved mover to the first sphere. He says that, since the first unmoved mover causes motion as something loved, there must be something which is first moved by it, through which it moves other things. This is the first heaven. Therefore, since we suppose motion to be eternal, the first sphere must be moved eternally, and it in turn must move other things. And it is better to speak of it as something loved rather than as something desired, since there is desire only of something that is not yet possessed, but there is love even of something that is possessed. (emphasis added)

Now just as something stands to the first heaven as its first principle—namely, the separ-ated substance which moves it—so does light stand to the matter of the heavens informed by it on the first day. In sum, we observe that the light by which the world first receives its form derives from the principle of the first heaven and primary sphere of Aristotle’s

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cosmology, and hence is “the first corporeal cause of change” (Summa Theol., q. 67, art. 3, ad 2)—that is, the first cause of generation and corruption among things here below, and hence the part corresponding to the “heart” of an animal, which is to say that, upon the creation of light, the world has imparted to it the first principle of generation establishing it as its first principal part.

4. The Primum Mobile in relation to Aristotle’s Cosmology.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Exposition of Aristotle’s Treatise On the Heavens, trans. P. Con-way and F. R Larcher (Ohio, 1964), Book II, lect. 17, n. 456:

Here one should note that in Aristotle’s time no motion had yet been discovered in the fixed stars, which Ptolemy posits as moved from west to east upon the poles of the Zodiac one degree every 100 years, so that they complete one full revolution in 36,000 years. Hence the ancients posited the sphere of the fixed stars as the first mobile and as endowed with but one motion, the diurnal. But if we assume a motion of the fixed stars, then this sphere must be moved by two motions: by its own motion, which is the motion of the fixed stars, and by the diurnal motion, which is the motion of the outermost sphere, which is without stars.

Cf. ibid., Book II, lect. 9, n. 374:

Lecture 9: Two other arguments, proving no irregularity in the motion of the heaven

374. Here the Philosopher gives the third argument which is taken solely from the viewpoint of the mobile [283]. And he says that if the motion of the heaven were executed irregularly this would be either in such a way that the entire change of the heaven would vary in such a way as to be now slower, now swifter, or else parts of it would vary. The phrase “entire change” refers to the motion of the whole highest sphere, while “parts” of the change refers to the motions of the parts of the heaven. But that the parts of the supreme sphere are not moved irregularly so that one part of the heaven moves now swifter and now slower, he shows on the supposition that the sphere of the fixed stars is the supreme sphere. For in his [Aristotle’s] time it had not yet been discovered that the fixed stars, in addition to the diurnal motion of the heaven, had a motion of their own [the precession of the equinox]. And therefore he attributes the first motion, namely, the diurnal motion, to the sphere of the fixed stars, as though proper to it. Later astronomers, however, assert the sphere of the fixed stars to have a certain proper motion, above which they place another sphere to which they attri-bute the first motion.

On the supposition, therefore, that the sphere of the fixed stars is the supreme [outermost] sphere, he proves that its parts are not moved irregularly. For if its individual parts were moved now slower, now faster, then over a long period of time the fixed stars would have come to have different distances between themselves than previously as a result of one star moving faster and another slower. But the contrary of this appears. For they are found to retain the same configuration, and to be at the same distance from one another, now as when these were established by the earliest observers. Therefore there is no irregularity in the motion of the first heaven so far as its parts are concerned.

Cf. Fabian Larcher, O.P., Commentary on Ephesians by St. Thomas Aquinas, Introduction:

A Note On St. Thomas’ Cosmology

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In his commentaries on such letters as Colossians and Ephesians, both of which assert the cosmic supremacy of Christ, St. Thomas would naturally have alluded to the cosmic picture of his day. It was by no means a primitive picture, as even a cursory reading of his com-mentary on Aristotle’s De Coelo et Mundo will prove. Although Aquinas never doubted ex-pressly the essentials of his cosmology, nonetheless on many issues it was an avowedly hypothetical system—an attempt to explain what data was available concerning the celestial motions. Cf. S.T. 1, 32, 1 ad 2; In II de Coelo, 17, n. 451; and T. Litt, Les corps célestes dans l’univers des s. Thomas d’Aquin (Louvain, 1963), pp. 262-67. Aristotle’s universe was made up of between 47 and 55 concentric spheres. He had taken this idea from two fourth century B.C. mathematician-astronomers, Eudoxus and Callipus, who had resorted to the geometry of the sphere to attempt an explanation of planetary motions. Aristotle transformed their geometric symbols into a celestial mechanics in which the spheres were seen as transparent orbs (In II de Coelo, n. 413) of force or motion. They were not composed of any of the four elements (earth, air, fire, or water) but of a fifth simple, corporeal element; one not subject to the alterations of the mixed bodies (cf. In I de Coelo, Lect. 4-8). This fifth element was sometimes termed “ether” and was thought to adopt a perfectly circular movement (cf. In XII Meta., Lect. 10). The earth was at rest in the center of these concentrically moving spheres. St. Thomas’ conceptions differed from Aristotle’s on three major points. He followed Ptolemy in placing the Mercury and Venus spheres between those of the Moon and Sun, whereas Aristotle had put the Sun sphere after that of the Moon (In II de Coelo, Lect. 17). Another area in which Aquinas seems to have opted for Ptolemy’s hypothesis was in the latter’s rejection of the large number of Aristotle’s spheres intended to account for planetary motions. Each planet had only one sphere moving it in an eccentric path—the earth was not the exact center of their movement (ibid.). All the planets, excepting the Sun, were not directly moved by the cyclic movement of the spheres, they rather moved in small epicycles which, in turn, were moved by the spheres. The outermost sphere was the Primum Mobile whose absolutely perfect East-West motion imparted the 24 hour motion to the stars and planets. For Aristotle this was the Star sphere, but by Ptolemy’s time it was perceived that the fixed stars had a motion of their own besides the 24 hour one, what is now known as the precession of the equinoxes (ibid., n. 456). Hence Aquinas concluded that the Primum Mobile, with its perfect diurnal motion, had no stars (ibid., Nos. 199, 374, 456). In proportion to their proximity to the Primum Mobile the other planetary spheres shared in its regularity, the Star sphere being the most regular after it (ibid., nos. 451, 473). The perfection of these motions, in which intelligible forms had fully actualized their matter (ibid., n. 63), seemed to indicate that they were moved or animated by incorporeal intelligences (In XII Meta., Lect. 9; In de Coelo, nos. 373, 418, 473). Aquinas hesitated on just how this causal influence was exercised, cf. Litt, op, cit., pp. 99-109. In any event “it does not pertain to faith whether they are so (animated) or in some other way” (Quodlibet 12, 6, 2). There were no voids between the spheres since they were contiguous at all points ( In II de Coelo, nos. 352, 401, 476). It should be kept in mind that St. Thomas’ references to “heavenly bodies” are to these transparent, corporeal spheres of force or motion just as much as to the stars or planets the spheres moved. The following diagram gives a rough approx-imation of this cosmic picture. The Primum Mobile is concentric to the earth moving all the heavens in the diurnal East-West movement (In de Coelo, nos. 28, 341, 368, etc.). The other spheres were eccentric and had motions beside the diurnal one. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus had three other motions; one by which the planet moved around its epicycle, a second by which the epicycle’s center moved around the sphere, and a third which we now term the precession of the equinoxes. Mercury had a fourth motion by which the sphere itself moved in a small cycle about the earth, while the Moon possessed a fifth motion (cf. ibid., n. 454). The Sun alone had no epicycle movement and was directly moved by its eccentric sphere.

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Beyond the sphere of the Primum Mobile was no “beyond” for there was no space or time as we know it. Referred to as the Empyrean, it was often included in Medieval cosmography with the result that many thought the Middle Ages believed in a localized heaven. That this was not the opinion of St. Thomas can be deduced from several facts. The Empyrean is a fit “place” for the angels (S.T. 1, 102, 2 ad 1, 4 ad 1; 112, 1 ad 2; etc.); yet an angel can be said to be a “body” or to be “localized” only in a completely equivocal sense (1, 52, Ic). Again, the Empyrean is fit for human beatitude (1, 102, 2 ad 1; 1-11, 4, 7 ad 3; 111, 57, 1, 3); yet, it is “ridiculous to say that souls, which are spiritual substances, are in any natural locality” (1, 102, 2 ad 2). Hence, there is always an incommensurability between natural bodies with their space-time and what lies “beyond” them. This accounts for the fact that Aquinas never discussed the Empyrean in his strictly Cosmological works. Whereas he does categorically state in Lecture 21 of In I de Coelo that God and spirits are totally incommensurate with the universe. Dante stresses such a total incommensurability in his II Paradiso. In Canto 22 he refers to the Empyrean, “For it is not in space and has no pole” (line 67). In Canto 27 (106 ff.) Beatrice tells Dante:

This heaven it is which has no other ‘where’ Than the Divine Mind; ‘tis but in that Mind That love, its spur, and the power it rains inhere. B. Reynolds translation (Md.: Penguin, 1962) pp. 251, 294.

Among her comments on Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dorothy L. Sayers pointed out how false the notion is that ascribes a localized heaven to Medieval piety:

Beyond all nine spheres lies the Tenth Heaven, or Empyrean, the true abode of God and of His saints. It has neither position nor velocity nor movement nor duration: it is eternal and infinite, and to it all space-time measurements are wholly irrelevant and meaningless. The idea that ‘the Middle Ages’ believed in a localized, temporal, and material Heaven is entirely false; intelligent Christians no more believed such a thing then than they do now. The Divine Comedy, Hell (Md.: Penguin, 1959) p. 294.

Cf. Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800, revised ed. (New York, 1965):

St. Thomas held that when the final coming of Christ would bring this universe to its com-plete fulfillment, the celestial spheres would cease their motion. The Divine Glory will burst forth on the universe and transfuse it with visible manifestations of the Divine Presence, making it a worthy object for the glorified vision of a risen mankind (cf. Suppl. 91; and Litt, op. cit., pp. 242-54). All this concerns the sublunary region; but there is another realm of matter to be consid-ered, and this, as we have already seen, comes under a different polity. The skies are not liable to change and decay, for they – with the sun, the stars and the planets – are formed of a fifth element, an incorruptible kind of matter, which is subject to a different set of what we should call physical laws. If earth tends to fall to the centre of the universe, and fire tends to rise to its proper sphere above the air itself, the incorruptible stuff that forms the heavens has no reason for discontent – it is fixed in its congenial place already. Only one motion is pos-sible for it – namely, circular motion – it must turn while remaining in the same place. According to Dante there are ten skies, only the last of them, the Empyrean Heaven, the abode of God, being at rest. Each of the skies is a sphere that surrounds the globe of the earth, and though all these spheres are transparent they are sufficiently tangible and real to carry one or more of the heavenly bodies round on their backs as they rotate about the earth – the whole system forming a set of transparent spheres, one around the other, with the hard

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earth at the centre of all. The sphere nearest to the earth has the moon attached to it, the others carry the planets or the sun, until we reach the eighth, to which all the fixed stars are fastened. A ninth sphere has no planet or star attached to it, nothing to give visible signs of its existence; but it must be there, for it is the primum mobile – it turns not only itself but all the other spheres or skies as well, from east to west, so that once in twenty-four hours the whole celestial system wheels round the motionless earth. This ninth sphere moves more quickly than any of the others, for the spirits which move it have every reason to be ardent. They are next to the Empyrean Heaven.

In the system of Aristotle the spheres were supposed to be formed of a very subtle ethereal substance, moving more softly than liquids and without any friction; but with the passage of time the idea seems to have become coarsened and vulgarized. The successive heavens turned into glassy or crystalline globes, solid but still transparent, so that it became harder for men to keep in mind the fact that they were frictionless and free from weight, though the Aristotelian theory in regard to these points was still formally held. (emphasis added)

N.B. We therefore understand the heaven of the first day with Ptolemy as the ninth sphere, the primum mobile, and so as distinct from the sphere of the fixed stars, which is the eighth.

5. The correspondence between the heart of an animal and the heavens in relation to the world in sum.

The soul stands to its subject as the mover of the celestial sphere stands to the heavens, being both its form and its principle of motion, which is to say that, just as the soul is the form of the body, and principally of its first principal part, the heart, so, too, the mover of the celestial sphere is understood (by some) to be the form of the world, and principally of its first principal part, the heavenly body.

Again, inasmuch as the soul is the subject of the generative power, there must be a seat for it in the heart. Now in the heavens, the only thing which could be its coun-terpart is a luminary, as with the sun, a ray of whose light stands to the things be-low as the generative power of the animal stands to that within it which it trans-forms it into its substance.

Again, as that which is the principle of its local motion, the soul acts on the body from a focal point in the heart; but so, too, must the mover of the world: there must be a seat of its powers in the heavens where it first acts to cause motion. But in the case of the heavens such a point, which must be immobile, can only be the axis of the celestial sphere.

6. Their differences.

Whereas the soul is the substantial form of the body, the first moved mover of the world stands to it as conjoined mover—that is, one which moves it by contact of power, as we have seen to be the opinion of St. Thomas: In other words, not only does the world not have a substantial form, neither does its outermost sphere.

Again, whereas the form the active power of the animal imparts to its proper matter as the term of generation is the substantial form it receives from its generator, the

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form of the heavenly body imparted to it by light, understood as the act of the trans-parent, is an accidental form, though resembling it in the way we have described.

N.B. As we explain elsewhere in our exegesis, whereas the heaven informed by light on the first day corresponds to the heart of the animal, the firmament of the second corre-sponds to an entirely distinct part, for which reason the correspondence between the micro-cosm and the macrocosm breaks down on this point.

§

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XVIII. SUPPLEMENT: WILLIAM HARVEY ON THE HEART AS BEING THE ANALOGUE OF THE SUN.

Cf. Walter Pagel, William Harvey’s Biological Ideas: Selected Aspects and Historical Background. (Basel/New York, 1967), William Harvey’s Circular Symbolism, pp. 82-83:

In Harvey’s own words: “I began to think by myself whether it (the blood) has a certain motion, as it were in a circle, which afterwards I found to be true, and that the blood is propelled from the heart through the arteries into the body and all parts … and back again through the veins … to the right auricle…. This may be called circular motion, in the same way in which, accord- [82-83] ing to Aristotle, air and rain emulate the circular motion of the bodies above.25 For the moist earth evaporates when heated by the sun; the vapours lifted up are condensed, and condensed into rain come down again, moisten the earth and in this manner generation takes place and similarly tempests and atmospheric phenomena develop through the circular motion of the sun, his approach and recession. In the same way in all likelihood it should happen in the body through the motion of the blood that all parts are nourished, warmed and quickened by the warmer, more perfect, vaporous, spirituous and so to speak nutritious blood: that by contrast the blood in these parts is cooled down, thickens and as it were becomes effete—whence it returns to its principle, namely the heart, the fountain and hearth of the body in order to recuperate its perfection; here, through the natural, potent, fervent heat, as it were the treasure of life, it is made fluid again and pregnant with spirits and so to speak balsam is dispersed from here again, and all this depends upon the motion and beat of the heart. Thus the heart is the principle of life and the sun of the microcosm (just as proportionally the sun deserves to be called the heart of the world); it is through its virtue and heat that the blood is moved, perfected, quickened and protected against corruption and clotting. It is this intimate hearth—the fundament of life and author of all—that is devoted to the whole body, nourishing, heating and quickening it.”31

31 HARVEY, De motu cap. VIII. ed. 1628, p. 42, ed. Roterod. 1648, p. 102 (“coepi egomet mecum cogitare, an motionem quandam quasi in circulo haberet.”), tr. WILLIS, p.46.

Note how natural it is to see the sun as standing to the world as the heart stands to the body.

Reviewing the comparisons we have laid out in our investigation, we have under-stood the heaven as informed by light to correspond to the heart of animal, but we recog-nize Harvey’s observations, while taking a more restricted view of this correspondence, as being ultimately compatible with it. For the sun does not work in the way Harvey describes independently of the motion of the heavens as a whole: that is to say, its character as the principle of life is inseparably wed to the movement of the whole, inasmuch as the luminary in question is embedded in its sphere.26

25 Harvey has in mind Post. An., II. 12 (96a 5-8), which I give next. And notice how his understanding of the circulation of the blood seems to demand the circular motion of the heart: for just as the cycle of evaporation and condensation follows the circular motion of the heavens, so would blood that of the heart. Harvey, however, does not pursue this part of the analogy, but rather considers the blood’s effect on the body as re-sembling that of rainfall on the earth. Similarly, whereas St. Thomas does not consider the relation of the heart’s movement to that of the blood, its circulation would seem to follow from Harvey’s principles.26 As was supposed in the Aristotelian cosmology accepted by the Angelic Doctor: cf. Larcher, A Note, op.cit.: “It should be kept in mind that St. Thomas’ references to ‘heavenly bodies’ are to these transparent, corporeal spheres of force or motion just as much as to the stars or planets the spheres moved.”

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In line with this way of thinking, we have adduced the formulation of St. Thomas, to the effect that “the motion of the heart is natural as following upon the soul, inasmuch as it is the form of such a body, and principally of the heart” (De Motu Cordis, n. 15). But “such a body” corresponds to the heavens, which leaves the heart to correspond to the sun, a formulation that does justice both to the heaven as a whole as well as to its focal point. In the same way I say that the principal part of the world is, in one way, that body on high informed by light as the result of the first work of distinction; but that the agency exercised on the bodies below has as its focal point the body that will afterwards be determined to the sun.

§

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XIX. ON THE CAUSALITY OF THE LIGHT OF THE SUN.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 115, art.3, sc. (tr. B.A.M., based on Alfred J. Freddoso):

But on the contrary is what Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 4), that “Bodies of a grosser and inferior nature are ruled in a certain order by those of a more subtle and powerful nature.” And Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv) says that “the light of the sun contributes to the generation of sensible bodies, and moves them toward life, and nourishes, and gives increase, and perfects”.27

XX. ON LIGHT IN RELATION TO THE GOOD.

Cf. Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names. In Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works. Trans. Colm Luibheid. Classics of Western Spirituality. (New York, 1987), ch. 4, n. 1 (in part), n. 4, n. 5 (in part) pp. 71-75:

CHAPTER FOUR

[693A] Concerning “good,” “light,” “beautiful,” “love,” “ecstasy,” and “zeal”; and that evil is neither a

being, nor from a being, nor in beings.

[693B] 1. Let us move on now to the name “Good,” which the sacred writers have preemin-ently set apart for the supra-divine God from all other names.133 They call the divine subsis-tence itself “goodness.” This essential Good, by the very fact of its existence, extends goodness into all things.

133 Despite the title, this long chapter’s subject is the name “good” (Mt. 19:17, 20:15; Lk 18-19), as already mentioned (DN 1 596B 16) and as applied to the entire Godhead (DN 2 637A 2-6). [71-72]

Think of how it is with our sun. It exercises no rational process, no act of choice, and yet by the very fact of its existence it gives light to whatever is able to partake of its light, in its own way. So it is with the Good. Existing far above the sun, an archetype far superior to its dull image, it sends the rays of its undivided goodness to everything with the capacity, such as this may be, to receive it. These rays are responsible for all intelligible and intelligent beings, for every power and every activity.

<…> [72-73]

And, if we must speak of the matter, all this applies also to the irrational souls, to the living creatures which fly through the air or walk the earth, those that live in waters, the amphibians as well [697A] as those which are burrowed into the ground, in short, every sentient and living being. They all have soul and life because of the existence of the Good. And the plants too have nourishment and life and motion from the same Good. So also with soulless and lifeless matter. It is there because of the Good; through it they received their state of existence.<…>

27 Sed contra est quod Augustinus dicit, III de Trin., quod corpora crassiora et inferiora per subtiliora et potentiora quodam ordine reguntur. Et Dionysius dicit, IV cap. de Div. Nom., quod lumen solis ad generationem sensibilium corporum confert, et ad vitam ipsa movet, et nutrit et auget et perficit.

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[697B] 4. In my concern for other matters I forgot to say that the Good is the Cause even for the sources and the frontiers of the heavens, [72-73] which neither shrink no expand, and it brought into being the silent (if one must put it this way)136 and circular movements of the vast heavens, the fixed orders of starry lights decorating the sky and those special wandering stars, particularly those two rotating sources of light described as “great” by the scriptures 137

and enabling us to reckon our days and our nights, our months, and our years. They set the framework in which time and events are numbered, measured, and held together. And what of the sun’s rays? Light comes from the Good, and [697C] light is an image of the archetypal Good. Thus the Good is also praised by the name “Light”, just as an archetype is revealed in its image. The goodness of the transcendent God reaches from the highest and most perfect forms of being to the very lowest. And yet it remains above and beyond them all, superior to the highest and yet stretching out to the lowliest. It gives light to everything capable of receiving it, it creates them, keeps them alive, preserves and perfects them, Everything looks to it for measure, eternity, number, order. It is the power which embraces the universe. It is the Cause of the universe and its end. The great, shining, ever-lighting sun is the apparent image of the divine goodness, a distant echo of the Good. It illuminates [697D] whatever is capable of receiving its light and yet it never loses the utter fullness of its light. It sends its shining beams all around the visible world, and if anything fails to receive them the fault lies not in the weakness or defect of the spreading light but in the unsuitability of whatever is unable to have a share in light. For of course light passes over many such substances and illuminates others [700A] beyond them. Actually there is nothing in the visible world to which the light does not reach in all its abundance. It is responsible for the origins and life of perceptible bodies, nourishing them and causing them to grow, perfecting them, purifying them, and renewing them. Light too is the measure and the enumerator of the hours, of the days, and indeed of all the time we have. It was this light, then unshaped, which according to the divine Moses, marked the first three days at the beginning of time.138

136 On this disclaimer, see DN 2, note 114.137 Gn 1:16.138 Gn 1:3-5, 19 [74-75]

The Good returns all things to itself and gathers together whatever may be scattered, for it is the divine Source and unifier of the sum total of things. Each being looks to it as its source, as the agent of cohesion, and as an objective. The Good, as scripture testifies, produced everything and it is the ultimately perfect Cause. In it “all things hold together” 139

and are maintained and preserved as if in some almighty receptacle. All things are returned to it as their own goal. All things desire it: Everything with mind and reason seeks to know it, everything sentient yearns to perceive it, everything lacking perception has a living instinctive longing for it, and everything lifeless and merely existent turns, in its own fashion, for a share of it. So it is with light, with the visible image of the Good. It draws and returns all things to itself, all the things that see, that have motion, that are receptive of illumination and warmth, that are held together by the spreading rays. Thus it is the “sun” for it makes all things a “sum” and gathers together the scattered.140 [700C] Every perceptible thing seeks it, as they seek to see, to be moved, to receive its light and warmth, to be kept together by it. The old myth used to describe the sun as the provident god and creator of the universe. I do not say this. But I do say that “ever since the creation of the world, the invisible things of God, his eternal power and deity, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” 141

5, All of this has been dealt with in The Symbolic Theology.142 What I wish to do here is to praise the conceptual content of the term “light” as applied to God.

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[700D] The Good is described as the light of the mind etc.

139 Col 1:17 (see DN 1, note 19); perhaps 1 Cor 8:6.140 See Plato, Cratylus, 409a.141 Rom. 1:20.142 The Symbolic Theology concerns the perceptible symbols for God, which would include physical light. See DN 1, note 89.

§

N.B. Also relevant here is the treatment of the first work of distinction in relation to embryology, for which wee THE PARADIGM OF GENESIS.

N.B.B. Let us next consider in detail the nature of the first mover of the heavens.

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XXI. ON THE FIRST UNMOVED MOVER.

1. Texts of St. Thomas.

Cf. Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas, translated by John P. Rowan (Chicago, 1961), Book XII:

LESSON 5

An Eternal Immovable Substance Must Exist

ARISTOTLE’S TEXT Chapter 6: 1071b 3-1071b 22

1055. Since there are three classes of substance (1028), two of which are physical and one immovable, concerning the latter it is necessary to affirm that an eternal immovable substance must exist. For substances are the primary kind of beings, and if all of them are perishable, all things are perishable. But it is impossible either that motion should have come to be or that it should perish, for it always existed; and the same is true of time, for there cannot be a before and an after if there is no time. Motion is continuous, then, in the sense that time is; for time is either the same as motion or a property of it. Now the only continuous motion is that which pertains to place, and of this only that which is circular.

1056. But even if there is something which is capable of imparting or producing motion, but is not actually doing so, motion will still not exist; for that which has a potentiality may possibly not exercise it. Hence nothing is to be gained if we invent certain eternal substances, as do those who posit the separate Forms, unless there is some principle among them which is capable of causing change (83). This is not sufficient, then, nor is another substance besides the separate Forms sufficient; for if it does not act, there will be no eternal motion.

1057. And even if it does act this will still not be sufficient, if its essence is a potentiality; for there will be no eternal motion, since what is potential may possibly not be. Hence there must be a principle of the kind whose substance is an actuality.

1058. Further, such substances must also be immaterial; for they must be eternal if anything else is. Hence they are actualities.

COMMENTARY

2488. After having shown what the principles of sensible substances are, here the Philosopher begins to establish the truth about the immovable substances, which are separate from matter. This topic is divided into two parts. First (1055:C 2488), he treats substances of this sort by giving his own opinion. Second, he treats them by giving the opinions of other thinkers. He does this in the following book (“Concerning the substance of sensible things”).

The first part is divided into two members. First, he proves that there is a substance which is eternal, immovable and separate from matter. Second (1067:C 2519) he investigates the attributes of this substance (“Now the first mover”).

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In regard to the first he does three things. First, he proves that an eternal substance must exist. Second (1059:C 2500), he deals with a question arising from the foregoing discussion (“There is a difficulty, however”); and third (1064:C 2508), from the answer given to the question which was raised he proceeds to clarify a truth previously established (“Hence, Chaos or Night”).

In regard to the first he does two things. First, he shows that it is necessary to posit an eternal substance. Second (1056:C 2492), he shows what kind of substance it must be (“But even if there is”).

He accordingly says, first (1055), that it has been pointed out above (1028:C 2424) that there are three classes of substances. Two of these are natural substances, because they undergo motion—one being eternal, as the heavens, and the other perishable, as plants and animals. And besides these there is a third class, which is immovable and not natural; and of this kind of substance it is now necessary to speak. With a view to investigating this kind of substance it is first necessary to prove that an eternal immovable substance must exist. He proceeds as follows.

2489. Substances are the primary kind of beings, as has been shown above (1024:C 2417-23), and when primary things are destroyed none of the others remain. Therefore, if no substance is eternal but all are perishable, it follows that nothing is eternal but that “all things are perishable,” i.e., they do not always exist. But this is impossible. Hence there must be an eternal substance.

2490. That it is impossible for nothing to be eternal he proves from the fact that motion cannot have come to be or “perish,” i.e., it cannot have come to be anew or at some time totally cease to be. For it has been shown in Book VIII of the Physics that motion is eternal without qualification. It also seems impossible that time should not be eternal; for if time began to be at some time or will cease to be at some time it would follow that prior to time there was the non-being of time, and also that there will be time after the non-being of time. But this seems to be impossible, because there could be no before or after if time did not exist, since time is nothing else than the measure of before and after in motion. Thus it would follow that time existed before it began to be, and that it will exist after it ceases to be. Hence it seems that time must be eternal.

2491. And if time is continuous and eternal, motion must be continuous and eternal, because motion and time are either the same thing, as some claimed, or time is a property of motion, as is really the case. For time is the measure of motion, as is evident in Book IV of the Physics. However, it must not be thought that every motion can be eternal and continuous, since this can be true only of local motion; and among local motions this is true only of circular motion, as is proved in Book VIII of the Physics.

2492. But even if (1056).

Then he shows what kind of substance this eternal substance must be, and in regard to this he does three things. First, he shows that in order to account for the eternity of motion it is necessary to posit an eternal substance which is always moving or acting. He says that, since it is necessary, on the assumption that motion is eternal, that there be an eternal substance which is capable of imparting or producing motion, it is also necessary that this be a mover or agent which is always acting, because if it were “capable of imparting or producing motion,” i.e., if it had the power to produce or cause motion, and was not actually doing so, it would follow that there would be no actual motion. For that which has the power

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of causing motion may possibly not be causing it, since that which has the power of acting may possibly not act; and thus motion would not be eternal. Assuming, then, that motion is eternal, it is necessary to posit an eternal substance which is actually moving or acting.

2493. Next, he concludes from this that nothing is to be gained by accepting the opinion of Plato, who posited eternal substances, since this is not sufficient to account for the eternity of motion. For the assumption that there are certain separate and eternal substances is not sufficient to account for this unless there is some principle among them which can cause change; but this does not seem to fit the separate Forms. For Plato claimed that the separate Forms are nothing else than universals existing apart from matter. But universals as such do not cause motion; for every active or motive principle is a singular thing, as has been pointed out above (1053:C 2482). Neither the separate Forms, then, nor any other separate substances besides the Forms, such as the separate mathematical entities posited by some, are sufficient to account for the eternity of motion, because even the objects of mathematics as such are not principles of motion. And if there is no eternal active substance, there will be no eternal motion, because the principle of motion is an eternal substance which is a mover or agent.

2494. And even if (1057).

Second, he shows that, in order for motion to be eternal it is necessary not only that an eternal substance exist, which is a mover or agent, but also that its essence be an actuality. Hence he says that the eternity of motion is not adequately accounted for even if it is supposed that an eternal substance does act yet is potential in essence. For example, it would not be sufficient to hold that the first principles are fire or water, as the ancient natural philosophers did, because then motion could not be eternal. For if a mover is such that its essence contains potentiality, it can possibly not be, because whatever is in potentiality may possibly not be. Hence it would be possible for motion not to be, and so it would not be necessary and eternal. Therefore it follows that there must be a first principle of motion of the sort whose essence is not in potentiality but is only an actuality.

2495. Further, such substances (1058).

Third, he further concludes that this kind of substance must be immaterial. He says that it also follows from the foregoing (1055-57:C 2488-94) that substances of this kind, which are the principles of eternal motion, must be free from matter; for matter is in potentiality. Therefore they must be eternal if something else is eternal, as motion and time. Thus it follows that they are actualities.

2496. He concludes in this way last because of the question which he will next raise. From this reasoning, then, it is evident that here Aristotle firmly thought and believed that motion must be eternal and also time; otherwise he would not have based his plan of investigating immaterial substances on this conviction.

2497. Yet it should be noted that the arguments which he introduces in Book VIII of the Physics, which he assumes as the basis of his procedure here, are not demonstrations in the strict sense but only dialectical arguments; unless perhaps they are arguments against the positions of the ancient natural philosophers regarding the beginning of motion, inasmuch as he aims to destroy these positions.

2498. And aside from the other arguments which he does not touch upon here, it is evident that the argument which he does give here to prove that time is eternal is not

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demonstrative. For if we suppose that at some moment time began to be, it is not necessary to assume a prior moment except in imaginary time; just as when we say that there is no body outside of the heavens what we mean by “outside” is merely an imaginary something. Hence, just as it is not necessary to posit some place outside of the heavens, even though “outside” seems to signify place, so too neither is it necessary that there be a time before time began to be or a time after time will cease to be, even though before and after signify time.

2499. But even if the arguments which prove that motion and time are eternal are not demonstrative and necessarily conclusive, still the things which are proved about the eternity and immateriality of the first substance necessarily follow; for, even if the world were not eternal, it would still have to be brought into being by something that has prior existence. And if this cause were not eternal, it too would have to be produced by something else. But since there cannot be an infinite series, as has been proved in Book II (153:C 301-4), it is necessary to posit an eternal substance whose essence contains no potentiality and is therefore immaterial.

LESSON 6

Eternal Motion Requires An Eternal Mover

ARISTOTLE’S TEXT Chapters 6 & 7: 1071b 22-1072a 26

1059. There is a difficulty, however; for it seems that, while everything which is acting is able to act, not everything which is able to act is acting; so potentiality is prior.

1060. But if this is so, no beings will exist; for everything may be capable of being, but still not be. And if we take what the theologians say, who generate everything from Night, or what the philosophers of nature say, who affirm that “all things were together,” they express the same impossible view. For how will things be moved, if there is no actual cause? Matter will not move itself, but technical knowledge will move it; nor will menstrual blood or earth move themselves, but semen or seed will move them.

1061. This is the reason why some men, such as Leucippus and Plato, posit something which is always actual; for they say that motion always exists. But they do not say why it exists, or what it is, or how this is so, or what its cause is. For nothing is moved by chance, but there must always be something existing which moves it. Now things are moved in one way by nature, and in another by force or by mind or by some other agent. What kind of motion, then, is prior? For this makes the greatest difference. Plato cannot explain what it is that he sometimes thinks is the source of motion, i.e., what moves itself; for according to him the soul is later than motion and simultaneous with the heavens.

1062. Now to think that potentiality is prior to actuality is in one sense right and in another not; and we have explained how this is so (1059).

1063. That actuality is prior is affirmed by Anaxagoras (for mind is an actuality), and by Empedocles in his theory of love and strife (50), and by those who say that motion always existed, as Plato and Leucippus.

1064. Hence Chaos or Night did not exist for an infinite time, but the same things have always existed, either in a cycle or in some other way, granted that actuality is prior to potentiality.

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1065. Therefore, if something is always moved in the same cycle, there must be something which always continues to act in the same way. But if there is to be generation and destruction, there must be something else which acts in different ways. Hence this must act in one way of itself, and in another way in virtue of something else, i.e., either in virtue of some third agent or of the first. Now it must be in virtue of the first; for this is the cause both of the second and of the third. The first is preferable, then; for it was the cause of that whose being is always to be the same, and something else was the cause of that whose being is to be different; and obviously both of these account for eternal diversity. Therefore, if motion always exhibits these characteristics, why is it necessary to look for other principles?

Chapter 7

And since this is a possible account of the matter, and if this is not so all things will come from Night (1060) or “all things were together” (1060) or something comes from non-being (1034), these difficulties are solved. And there is something which is always being moved with an unceasing motion, and this is circular motion. This is evident not only in theory but in fact; and for this reason the first heaven will be eternal.

1066. Therefore there is also something which causes it to move. And since that which is moved and causes motion is intermediate, there must be something which causes motion and is unmoved, which is eternal and both a substance and an actuality.

COMMENTARY

2500. He raises a question about a point already dealt with. The question is whether actuality is prior absolutely to potentiality so that the first principle of things can be held to be one whose substance is actuality. In regard to this he does three things. First (1059:C 2500), he gives an argument to show what is false, namely, that potentiality is prior absolutely to actuality. Second (1060:C 2501), he argues on the other side of the question (“But if this is so”). Third (1062:C 25o6), he answers the question (“Now to think”).

He accordingly says, first (1059), that it has been pointed out that an eternal substance is an actuality, although there is a difficulty regarding this. For potentiality seems to be prior to actuality, since one thing is prior to another when the sequence of their being cannot be reversed (465:C 950) Now potentiality seems to be related to actuality in this way, because everything which is acting seems to be able to act, but not everything which is able to act is acting; and so it seems that potentiality is prior to actuality.

2501. But if this is so (1060).

Then he argues on the opposite side of the question, and in regard to this he does two things. First, he gives an argument reducing the counter-position to absurdity. He says that, if potentiality is prior absolutely to actuality, it follows that at some time nothing may exist; for the contingent is what can come to be but has not yet done so. Hence, if the first beings are potential, it follows that they do not exist actually; and so no other being will exist.

2502. This can be taken in two ways. First, according to the opinion of certain of the ancients, who were called the theological poets, such as Orpheus and certain others, who claimed that the world “is generated from Night,” i.e., from a simple pre-existent privation. Second, according to the later physicists, i.e., philosophers of nature and their

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followers, who, when they saw that nothing comes from nothing in the natural world, claimed that all things were together in a kind of mixture, which they called Chaos. (Anaxagoras, for example, held this view.) Thus they held that all things exist potentially and not actually.

2503. But whether this position is stated in the former or in the latter way the same impossible conclusion follows, provided that potentiality is prior absolutely to actuality. For those things which are in potentiality only, or which come entirely under privation, or belong to some confused mass, cannot be moved so as to be brought to actuality unless there is some moving cause which is existing actually. For in things made by art the matter does not move itself, but an agent moves it, i.e., “technical knowledge,” or art. Neither does the menstrual blood, which is the matter from which an animal is generated, move itself, but “semen,” i.e., the sperm of the animal, moves it. Nor does earth, which is the material from which plants are generated, move itself, but “the seed,” i.e., the seeds of plants, move it.

2504. This is the reason (1061).

Second, he shows how some of the philosophers of nature agreed with this argument. He says that this is the reason why some philosophers—Leucippus, the companion of Democritus, and Plato—claimed that something actual always exists. For they said that motion had always existed even before the world; Leucippus attributed motion to the atoms, which are mobile of themselves, from which he supposed the world to be composed; and Plato attributed it to the elements, which he said were moved by disorderly motions before the formation of the world, and afterwards were brought into order by God.

2505. Now they seem to be right in claiming that motion has always existed. But they were wrong in failing to point out which kind of motion has always existed; nor did they give the cause of motion, either by stating this in an absolute sense or by giving the reason for their own position. Yet “nothing is moved by chance,” i.e., without some fixed cause, but there must always be something existing which is the cause of motion. For example, we now see that some things are moved in this way by nature or by force or by mind or by some other agent. Hence they should also have stated what the first cause of motion is, whether nature or force or mind; for it makes a great deal of difference which of these is held to be the cause of motion.—Plato cannot be excused on the ground that he held the principle of motion to be something that moves itself, which he asserted to be a soul, since the soul did not exist of itself before the formation of the world, but only existed after the disorderly state of motion. For according to him the soul was created at the same time as the heavens, which he claimed to be animated; and thus it could not be the principle of that disorderly motion.

2506. Now to think (1062).

Then he answers the question which was raised, and concerning this he does two things. First, he returns to the points established in Book IX regarding the relationship of potentiality to actuality. He says that the opinion that potentiality is prior to actuality is in one sense right and in another not. The sense in which it is right has been explained in Book IX (778-80:C 1844-49); for it was stated there that actuality is prior absolutely to potentiality. But in one and the same subject which is being moved from potentiality to actuality, potentiality is prior to actuality in time, although actuality is prior both in nature and in perfection.

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2507. That actuality is prior (1063).

Second, he strengthens his answer by giving the opinions of some of the philosophers. He says that the absolute priority of actuality is asserted by Anaxagoras, because he claimed that the first principle of motion is an intellect; for intellect is a kind of actuality. The same thing is also asserted by Empedocles, who claimed that love and strife are the causes of motion; and also by Leucippus and Plato, who claimed that motion has always existed.

2508. Hence Chaos or Night (1064).

Then he uses the answer to the question given above to clarify a point previously established, and in regard to this he does three things. First (1064:C 25o8), in the light of the things established above he concludes that generation must be eternal. Second (1065:C 2510), on the ground that generation is eternal he concludes that the motion of the heavens must be eternal (“Therefore, if something”). Third (1066:C 2517), on the ground that the motion of the heavens is eternal he concludes that the first unmoved mover must be eternal (“Therefore there is”).

He accordingly says, first (1064), that, if actuality is prior absolutely to potentiality, it follows that it is false to hold, with the ancient philosophers of nature, who thought potentiality to be prior absolutely to actuality, that all things pre-existed potentially for an infinite time in a kind of confused mass, which they called Chaos. And false also is the opinion of the theological poets, who claimed for the same reason that the simple privation of things had existed for an infinite time before things began to be actually. Some called this privation of things “Night,” and perhaps the reason for their doing so is that among qualities and simple forms light is found to be more common and prior (since they thought that nothing exists except sensible things), and night is the privation of light. Both opinions are false, then, if actuality is prior to potentiality.

2509. But since we see that things which are generated and destroyed pass from potentiality to actuality, it will be necessary to say that the same things which begin to be actually after being potentially have always existed in some way. Either the very things which begin to be actually after being potentially have always existed according to circular generation, inasmuch as they claimed that things which are generated were formerly the same specifically but not numerically, and this is what occurs in circular generation. For from the moist earth vapors are derived, and these turn into rain, by which the earth is again made moist. Similarly sperm comes from a man, and from sperm a man again comes to be. Thus things which come to be are brought back the same in species by reason of circular generation. Or again those things which come to be actually after being potentially have always been the same things in a different way, as Anaxagoras claimed that they had actual prior existence in the things from which they are generated.

2510. Therefore, if something (1065).

Then he concludes that the motion of the celestial bodies must be eternal on the ground that generation is eternal. Therefore, granted that there is no other motion by which things that pass from potentiality to actuality have always been the same except that which proceeds according to the cycle of generation, he concludes from what has been shown in the philosophy of nature (especially in Book II of Generation ) that, if something remains the same throughout the cycle of generation, something must also remain numerically the same, which will act in the same way so as to cause the eternal motion of things. For none of the

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things which are generated and destroyed can be the cause of the eternality which is found in generation and destruction, because no one of them always exists, nor even all of them, since they do not exist at the same time, as has been shown in Book VIII of the Physics. It follows, then, that there must be some eternal agent which always acts in a uniform way so as to cause the eternal motion of things. This is the first heaven, which is moved and causes all things to be changed by its daily motion.

2511. But that which always acts in the same way only causes something that is always in the same state; and obviously those things which are generated and destroyed do not remain in the same state, for at one time they are generated and at another destroyed. This being so, if generation and destruction are to occur in the realm of lower bodies, it is necessary to posit some agent which is always in different states when it acts. He says that this agent is the body which is moved in the oblique circle called the zodiac. For since this circle falls away on either side of the equinoctial circle, the body which is moved circularly through the zodiac must be at one time nearer and at another farther away; and by reason of its being near or far away it causes contraries. For we see that those things which are generated when the sun comes closer to the earth are destroyed when the sun recedes (for example, plants are born in the spring and wither away in the autumn); for both the sun and the other planets are moved in the circle of the zodiac. But the fixed stars are also said to be moved over the poles of the zodiac and not over the equinoctial poles, as Ptolemy proved. And the coming to be and ceasing to be of everything which is generated and destroyed is caused by the motion of these stars, but more evidently by the motion of the sun.

2512. Therefore this mover which acts in different ways must be one that “acts in one way of itself,” i.e., by its own power, inasmuch as it causes the diversity found in generation and destruction. And it must act “in another way in virtue of something else,” i.e., by the power of some other agent, inasmuch as it causes eternal generation and destruction. Hence this second agent must act either “in virtue of some third agent,” i.e., by the power of some other agent, “or of the first,” i.e., by the power of the first agent, which always acts in the same way. And since it is not possible to assign some other agent by whose power this first agent brings about the eternal motion of things, it is therefore necessary according to this “that it act in the same way”; that is, that by its power it causes the eternal generation and destruction of things. For it—the first agent—which always acts in the same way, is the cause of that which acts in different ways. For that which acts in different ways acts eternally, and that which acts in the same way is the cause of the eternality of any motion. Hence it is the cause of the eternality of that which acts in different ways inasmuch as the latter acts eternally in this way; and it is also the cause of that which is produced by it, namely, eternal generation and destruction. From this it is also evident that the second agent, which acts in different ways, acts by the power “of the first agent,” i.e., the first heaven or first orb, which always acts in the same way.

2513. Hence it is clear that the first agent, which always acts in the same way, is more powerful and nobler, because it is the cause of that “whose being is always to be the same,” i.e., of eternality. But the cause of that whose being is to be different is another agent, which acts in different ways. And it is evident that both of these combined, i.e., both the first agent, which always acts in the same way, and the second agent, which acts in different ways, are the cause of that which both always is and is in different states, namely, the fact that generation and destruction are eternal.

2514. Again, he concludes from this that, if the motions of the heavens are such that eternal generation and destruction in the realm of lower bodies can be caused by them, it is not necessary to look for any other principles (such as the Ideas, which the Platonists posited, or

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love and hate, which Empedocles posited), because it is possible to account for the eternal generation and destruction of things in the above way.

2515. And if this way is not accepted, the untenable conclusions to which the first philosophers were led will follow namely, that all things “will come from Night,” i.e., from a simple privation, or “all things were together,” or something comes from non-being.

296. Therefore it is evident that, if the above-mentioned position is accepted, i.e., that eternal generation and destruction are caused by the eternal motion of the heavens , the foregoing untenable conclusions are eliminated. And it will follow that something is always being moved in an unceasing motion, which is circular motion. This becomes apparent not only by reasoning but from the effect itself and by perception. Hence, since the first heaven always causes motion by means of this motion, it must be eternal.

2517. Therefore, there is (1066).

From what has been said above he next infers that there is an eternal unmoved mover. For since everything which is being moved is being moved by something else, as has been proved in the Physics, if both the heavens and their motion are eternal, there must be an eternal mover. But since three classes are found among movers and things moved: the lowest of which is something that is merely moved, the highest something that moves but is unmoved, and the intermediate something that both moves and is moved, we must assume that there is an eternal mover which is unmoved. For it has been proved in Book VIII of the Physics that, since there cannot be an infinite number of movers and things moved, we must come to some first unmoved mover. For even if one might come to something that moves itself, it would again be necessary for the above reason to come to some unmoved mover, as has been proved in that work.

2518. Again, if the first mover is eternal and unmoved, it must not be a potential being (because any potential being is naturally fitted to be moved) but an independent substance whose essence is actuality.—This is the conclusion which he drew above (1058:C 2499). But it was necessary to raise this question, which was discussed among the ancients, in order that when it has been solved the course to be followed in reaching a first being whose substance is actuality will be made more evident.

LESSON 7

How the First Mover Causes Motion

ARISTOTLE’S TEXT Chapter 7: 1072a 26-1072b 14

1067. Now the first mover causes motion as something intelligible and something appetible; for these alone cause motion without being moved. And what is first in the class of the appetible and in that of the intelligible is the same; for it is the apparent good which is the object of concupiscible appetite, and the real good which is the primary object of will. For we desire a thing because it seems good rather than consider it good because we desire it; for understanding is the principle of desire. And the intellect is moved by an intelligible object.

1068. And one of the two columns of opposites (60) is the intelligible in itself; and in this class primary substance is first, and in substance that which is simple and exists actually. However, one and simple are not the same; for one signifies a measure (432; 825), and simple signifies a state.

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1069. But that which is good and that which is desirable in itself are in the same column of opposites; and that which is first in each class is always best, or analogous to the best. That the final cause belongs to the class of immovable things is shown by a process of division; for the final cause of a thing is either that which exists or that which does not.

1070. And it causes motion as something loved, whereas by that which is [first] moved other things are moved. Therefore, if a thing is moved, it is possible for it to be other than it. is. Hence, local motion, which is the primary kind of motion, is also the actuality of that which is [first] moved; and in this respect the thing first moved can differ in place though not in substance. But since there is something which moves yet is itself immovable and exists actually, this can in no way be other than it is. For the primary kind of change is local motion, and of local motion the first is circular motion; and this is the motion which the first mover causes. Hence the first mover necessarily exists; and insofar as it is necessary it is good, and thus is a principle. For necessary has all of these meanings: that which seems to be done by force; that without which something does not fare well; and that which cannot be other than it is, but is absolutely necessary (416-22). It is on such a principle, then, that the heavens and the natural world depend.

COMMENTARY

299. After having shown that there is an eternal, immaterial, immovable substance whose essence is actuality, the Philosopher now proceeds to investigate the attributes of this substance. In treating this he does three things. First (1061:C 2519), he considers the perfection of this substance. Second (1078:C 2553), he asks whether it is one or many (“We must not”). Third (1089:C 2600), he considers its operation (“The things which pertain”).

In regard to the first he does two things. First, he shows the perfection of this substance. Second (1076:C 2548), he proves that it is incorporeal (“And it has been shown”).

In regard to the first he does two things. First, he shows its perfection. Second (1075:C 2545), he rejects a contrary opinion (“And all those”).

In regard to the first he does two things. First, he explains how the unmoved mover causes motion; and second (1068:C 2523), he infers from this what is comprised in its perfection (“And one of the two”).

He accordingly says, first (1067), that, since it has been shown that the first mover is unmoved, it must cause motion in the way in which the desirable and the intelligible do; for only these, the desirable and the intelligible, are found to cause motion without being moved.

2520. He proves this as follows. Motion is twofold: natural and voluntary, or according to appetite. Now that which causes motion by means of natural motion necessarily undergoes motion, since a natural mover is one that begets and alters things. For both heavy and light bodies are moved locally directly by their begetter. But that which begets and alters things directly must exist in different states. Hence it has also been pointed out above (1065:C 2510) that the cause of generation and destruction acts in different ways. Now in the case of voluntary and appetitive motion, will and appetite have the character of moved movers, as is evident in Book III of The Soul. Hence it remains that only that which causes motion as something appetible is an unmoved mover.

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2521. Now it is said that the first mover causes motion as something appetible because the motion of the heavens has this mover as its end or goal, for this motion is caused by some proximate mover which moves on account of the first unmoved mover in order that it may be assimilated in its causality to the first mover and bring to actuality whatever is virtually contained in it. For the motion of the heavens does not have the generation and destruction of lower bodies as its end, since an end or goal is nobler than the things ordained to it. Therefore the first mover causes motion as something appetible.

2522. But in our own case that which causes motion as a desirable good differs from that which causes motion as an intelligible good, though each causes motion as an unmoved mover. This is particularly evident in the case of an incontinent person; for according to his reason he is moved by an intelligible good, but according to his concupiscible power he is moved by something pleasant to the senses, which, while it seems to be good, is not good absolutely but only with some qualification.—However, this kind of difference cannot be found in the first intelligible and the first desirable good. But the first intelligible and the first desirable good must be the same. The reason is that a concupiscible good, which is not an intelligible good, is merely an apparent good; but the first good “must be an object of will,” i.e., an object desired by intellectual appetite. For will belongs to the intellectual order and not merely to that of concupiscible appetite. And this is so because what is desired by the concupiscible power seems to be good because it is desired; for concupiscence perverts the judgment of reason insofar as something pleasant to sense seems to be good to reason. But what is desired by intellectual appetite is desired because it seems to be good in itself. For “understanding” as such, i.e., the act of intellection, which is moved in a way by an intelligible object, “is the principle of desire.” Therefore it is evident that the object of concupiscible appetite is good only when it is desired through a dictate of reason. Hence it cannot be the first good, but only that which, because it is good, moves desire and is at once both appetible and intelligible.

2523. And one of the two (1068).

Since he has proved that the first mover is both intelligible and appetible, it now remains to show from this how perfection is found in the first mover. In regard to this he does three things. First (1068:C 2523), he shows the perfection of the first mover in itself by considering the formal character of the intelligible and the appetible; second (1070:C 2529), in relation to the first sphere (“And it causes motion”); and third (107:C 2536), in relation to the thing that desires and understands it (“And its course of life”).

In treating the first part he does two things. First, he proves that the first mover is perfect on the ground that it is intelligible; and second (106g:C 2526), on the ground that it is appetible (“But that which is good”).

He says, first (1068), that, just as movers and things moved are related to one another, so also are intelligible things. He calls this latter relationship an intelligible column of opposites because one intelligible is the first principle for understanding another, just as one mover is also the cause of the motion of another.

2524. Therefore, just as it has been shown (1066:C 298) from the series of movers and things moved that the first mover is a simple substance and an actuality, in a similar fashion the same thing is found to be true from the series of intelligible things. For it is evident that substance is the first of intelligible things, because we understand accidents only by means of substance, through which they are defined; and among substances a simple intelligible substance is prior to a composite one; for simple things are included in the concept of

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composite things. And of the simple entities contained in the class of substance the actually intelligible are prior to the potentially intelligible; for potentiality is defined by means of actuality. It follows, then, that the first intelligible entity is a simple substance which is an actuality.

2525. And lest he should seem to be adopting the opinion of Plato, who claimed that the first principle of things is the intelligible one-in-itself, he therefore explains the difference between being one and being simple. He says that one and simple do not signify the same thing, but one signifies a measure, as has been pointed out in Book X (825:C 1950-52), and simple signifies that state whereby something is such as not to be composed of many things.

2526. But that which is good (1069).

Then he proves the same point from the formal character of the appetible. He says that that which is good and that which is desirable in itself belong to the same class. For that which is prior in the class of intelligible things is also a greater good in the class of appetible things, or is something analogous to it. He says this because intelligible things are actual insofar as they exist in the intellect, whereas appetible things are actual insofar as they exist in reality; for good and evil are in things, as has been pointed out in Book VI (558:C 1240).

2527. Hence, just as the concept of intelligible substance is prior to that of intelligible accidents, the same relationship holds for the goods which correspond proportionally to these concepts. Therefore the greatest good will be a simple substance, which is an actuality, because it is the first of intelligible things. It is evident, then, that the first mover is identical with the first intelligible and the first appetible good, which is the greatest good.

2528. But since what is appetible and what is good have the character of an end or goal, and there does not seem to be an end in the realm of immovable things, as has been explained in the dialectical discussions in Book III (192:C 374-75), he therefore removes this difficulty. He says that the division in which the various senses of end or goal are distinguished shows that a final cause can be found in a way in the realm of immovable things. Now one thing can be the goal of another in two ways: first, as something having prior existence, as the center of the world is said to be a goal which is prior to the motion of heavy bodies; and nothing prevents a goal of this kind from existing in the realm of immovable things. For a thing can tend by its motion to participate in some degree in something immovable; and the first mover can be a goal in this way. Second, one thing is said to be the goal of another, not as something that exists actually, but only as existing in the intention of the agent by whose activity it is produced, is health is the goal of the activity of the medical art. An end or goal of this kind does not exist in the realm of immovable things.

2529. And it causes motion (1070).

He now relates the first unmoved mover to the first sphere. He says that, since the first unmoved mover causes motion as something loved, there must be something which is first moved by it, through which it moves other things. This is the first heaven. Therefore, since we suppose motion to be eternal, the first sphere must be moved eternally, and it in turn must move other things. And it is better to speak of it as something loved rather than as something desired, since there is desire only of something that is not yet possessed, but there is love even of something that is possessed.

2530. And if it must be moved eternally, it must be incapable of being other than it is but must always remain substantially the same. Hence the primary kind of motion, by which

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“the first sphere” is moved, necessarily “is local motion,” i.e., motion as regards place; because that which is moved “according to the other kinds of motion,” i.e., generation and destruction, increase and decrease, and alteration, must differ as regards something intrinsic, namely, substance, quantity or quality. But that which is moved with local motion differs as regards place, which is extrinsic to the thing in place, but not as regards substance or any intrinsic disposition of substance.

2531. Therefore, since the first sphere differs as regards place but not as regards substance, the first mover, which is immovable and always actual, can in no way be other than it is, because it cannot be moved. For if it were moved, it would be moved especially with the primary kind of motion, which is local motion, of which the first type is circular. But it is not moved with this motion, since it moves other things with this motion. For the first mover is not moved with that kind of motion by which it imparts motion, just as the first cause of alteration is not itself altered. Hence it is not moved circularly, and so cannot be moved in any way. Therefore it cannot be other than it is; and thus it follows that the primary kind of motion exists in that which is moved of necessity; for that is necessary which cannot not be. But it is not necessary in the sense in which things forced are necessary, but its necessity consists in its good state. And the thing which moves it is a principle of motion as an object of desire, or a goal.

2532. That its necessity is such becomes evident from the different meanings of the term necessary, for it is used in three senses. First it means that which happens by force, i.e., what cannot fail to happen because of the power exerted by the thing applying force. Second, it means that without which a thing does not fare well—either that without which a goal cannot be attained at all (as food is necessary for the life of an animal), or that without which something is not in a perfect state (as a horse is necessary for a journey in the sense that it is not easy to make a journey without one). Third, it means that which cannot be other than it is, but is necessary absolutely and essentially.

2533. Therefore, when it is said that an orb is moved of necessity, such necessity cannot be called necessity of force; for in imperishable things there is not found anything that is outside their nature, but in the case of things which are forced what occurs is not natural. Similarly such necessity cannot be absolute necessity, because the first thing which is moved moves itself, as is proved in Book VIII of the Physics, and what moves itself has within itself the power to move or not move. It follows, then, that the necessity of the first motion is necessity from the end, inasmuch as there cannot be a fitting order to the end unless such motion is eternal.

2534. Hence it is on this principle, i.e., the first mover viewed as an end, that the heavens depend both for the eternality of their substance and the eternality of their motion. Consequently the whole of nature depends on such a principle, because all natural things depend on the heavens and on such motion as they possess.

2535. It should also be noted that Aristotle says here that the necessity of the first motion is not absolute necessity but necessity from the end, and the end is the principle which he later calls God inasmuch as things are assimilated to God through motion. Now assimilation to a being that wills and understands (as he shows God to be) is in the line of will and understanding, just as things made by art are assimilated to the artist inasmuch as his will is fulfilled in them. This being so, it follows that the necessity of the first motion is totally subject to the will of God.

LESSON 8

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The Perfection of the First Substance

ARISTOTLE’S TEXT Chapter 7: 1072b 14-1073a 13

1071. And its course of life is like the best which we enjoy for a short time; for it is always in that state, though this is impossible for us.

1072. For its operation is also pleasure. This is why being awake, sensing and understanding are most pleasant, and hopes and memories are pleasant because of them. Now understanding in itself has to do with what is best in itself, and the highest type of understanding has to do with what is best in the highest degree.

1073. And an intellect understands itself insofar as it takes on its intelligible object; for it becomes intelligible by attaining and understanding its object, so that an intellect and its intelligible object are the same. For that which is receptive of something intelligible and of substance is an intellect; and it is actual when it possesses this. Hence it is the latter rather than the former state which seems to constitute the divine state of intellect; and its act of understanding is the most pleasant and best. Therefore, if God is in that pleasurable state in which we sometimes are, this is wondrous; and if He is in that state in a higher degree, this is even more wondrous; and He is in that state.

1074. Life, then, also belongs to Him; for intellectual activity is life, and God is that activity; and the essential activity of God is the life which is best and eternal. And we say that God is an animal, eternal and most excellent. Hence life and continuous and eternal duration belong to God; for this is what God is.

1075. And all those, such as the Pythagoreans and Speusippus, who think (1109:C 2644) that the greatest good and excellence are not found in the [first] principle (because they are of the opinion that, while the principles of plants and animals are causes, it is in the things that come from these that goodness and perfection are found) are in error. For seed comes from other things which are prior and perfect, and it is not seed that is first but the perfect being. For example, one might say that the man is prior to the seed, not the man who comes from the. seed, but another man from whom the seed comes (780). Therefore it is evident from what has been said that there is a substance which is eternal and immovable and separate from sensible things.

1076. And it has been shown that this substance can have no magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible; for it causes motion for an infinite time, and nothing finite has an infinite power. And since every magnitude is either finite or infinite, this substance cannot have finite magnitude; and it cannot have infinite magnitude, because there is no infinite magnitude at all.

1077. It has also been shown (1066) that it lacks potentiality and is unalterable; for all the other kinds of motion are subsequent to local motion. It is clear, then, that these things are of this sort.

COMMENTARY

2536. Here the Philosopher relates the first being, which causes Motion as something intelligible and something desirable, to that which understands and desires it. For if the first mover causes motion inasmuch as it is the first thing understood and desired, the first thing

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moved by it must understand and desire it. This is true according to the opinion of Aristotle inasmuch as he considered a heaven to be animated by a soul which understands and desires.

In regard to this he does three things. First (1071:C 2536), he shows that pleasure naturally belongs to the soul of a heaven, which desires and understands, as a result of its understanding and desiring the first mover. He says that “its course of life,” i.e., the pleasurable state of the thing understanding and desiring the first intelligible being, is like the best which we can enjoy for a short time. For that which understands and desires this being is always in such a pleasurable state, though this is impossible for us, i.e., that we should always be in that state which is pleasant and best.

2537. For its operation (1072).

Then he proves his statement. Pleasure attends the activity of the thing that understands and desires the first principle, for pleasure follows upon the operation connatural to anything that understands and desires, as is evident in Book X of the Ethics. A sign of this is that pleasure is greatest when a person is awake and actually sensing and understanding. For intellect and sense in actual use are to intellect and sense in potential use as being awake is to being asleep.—That these states are the most pleasant is clear from the fact that other states are pleasant only because of these; for hope and memory are pleasant inasmuch as they bring past or future pleasant activities into consciousness as present.

2538. Hence, since pleasure consists in the actual use of intellect and sense, it is evident “that understanding,” i.e., the activity of the intellect as such, is concerned with what is best in itself; for an intelligible good surpasses a sensible good just as an unchangeable and universal good surpasses a changeable and particular good. It also follows that the pleasure experienced in intellectual activity is of a higher kind than that experienced in sensory activity. Hence the best and most perfect intellectual activity is concerned with what is best in the highest degree, so that the greatest pleasure follows. Therefore it is evident that the greatest pleasure is experienced in those intellectual activities by which the first mover is understood, who is also the first intelligible object.

2539. And an intellect (1073).

Then he shows that the act of understanding and the pleasure found in the first intelligible object are even more perfect than those found in the thing that understands and desires it. He says that it is characteristic of an intellect to understand itself inasmuch as it takes on or conceives within itself some intelligible object; for an intellect becomes intelligible by reason of the fact that it apprehends something intelligible. Hence, since the intellect becomes intelligible by conceiving some intelligible object, it follows that the intellect and its intelligible object are the same.

2540. He explains how an intellect attains its intelligible object. For an intellect is related to an intelligible object as potentiality is to actuality, and as something perfectible to its perfection. And just as something perfectible is receptive of a perfection, so too an intellect is receptive of its intelligible object. Now its proper intelligible object is substance, since the object of the intellect is a quiddity. Hence he says that the intellect is receptive of something intelligible and of substance. And since each thing becomes actual inasmuch as it attains its own perfection, it follows that the intellect becomes actual inasmuch as it receives its intelligible object. Now to be intelligible is to be actual in the class of intelligible things. And since each thing is active to the extent that it is actual, it follows that the intellect

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becomes active or operative, i.e., understanding, to the extent that it attains its intelligible object.

2541. But it should be borne in mind that material substances are not actually intelligible but only potentially; and they become actually intelligible by reason of the fact that the likenesses of them which are gotten by way of the sensory powers are made immaterial by the agent intellect. And these likenesses are not substances but certain intelligible forms received into the possible intellect. But according to Plato the intelligible forms of material things are self-subsistent entities. Hence he claimed that our intellect becomes actually understanding by coming in contact with separate self-subsistent forms of this kind. But in Aristotle’s opinion the intelligible forms of material things are not substances which subsist of themselves.

2542. Yet there is an intelligible substance which subsists of itself, and it is of this that he is now speaking. For the first mover must be a substance which is both understanding and intelligible. Hence it follows that the relationship between the intellect of the first sphere and the first intelligible substance, which causes motion, is similar to the relationship which the Platonists posited between our intellect and the separate intelligible Forms, inasmuch as our intellect becomes actual by coming in contact with and participating in these Forms, as Plato himself says. Hence the intellect of the first sphere becomes actually understanding through some kind of contact with the first intelligible substance.

2543. Further, since the cause of some attribute of a thing has that attribute in a higher degree, it follows that anything that is divine and noble, such as understanding and taking pleasure, which is found in the intellect having the contact, is found in a much higher degree in the first intelligible object with which it is in contact. Hence its intellectual activity is most pleasant and best. But the first intelligible object of this kind is God. Therefore, since the pleasure which we experience in understanding is the highest, although we can enjoy it only for a short time, if God is always in that state in which we sometimes are, His happiness is wondrous. But if He is always in that state (which we enjoy for only a short time) in a higher degree, this is even more wondrous.

2544. Life, then, also belongs (1074).

Third, since he has said that intellectual activity is proper to God, he shows how this applies to Him. He says that God is life itself, and he proves this as follows. “Intellectual activity,” i.e., understanding, is a kind of life; and it is the most perfect kind of life that there is. For according to what has been shown, actuality is more perfect than potentiality; and therefore an intellect which is actually understanding leads a more perfect life than one which is potentially understanding, just as being awake is more perfect than being asleep. But the first being, God, is actuality itself; for His intellect is His intellectual activity; otherwise He would be related to His intellectual activity as potentiality to actuality. Moreover, it has been shown (1066:C 2517) that His substance is actuality. Thus it follows that the very substance of God is life, and that His actuality is His life, and that it is the life which is best and eternal and subsists of itself. This is why common opinion holds that God is an animal which is eternal and best; for around us life is clearly apparent only in animals, and therefore God is called an animal because life belongs to Him. Hence, from what has been said it is evident that life and continuous and eternal duration belong to God, because God is identical with His own eternal life; for He and His life are not different.

2545. And all those (1075).

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Then he rejects the opinion of those who attributed imperfection to the first principle. He says that the opinion of all those who claim that goodness and excellence are not found in the first principle are false. He cites as examples the Pythagoreans and Speusippus (1109:C 2644), who acted on the supposition that, while the principles of plants and animals are causes of goodness and perfection, goodness and perfection are not found in these principles but in the things produced from them. Thus seeds, which are imperfect principles of plants and animals, come from other individual things which are prior and perfect.

2546. He rejects this opinion by disposing of the view which influenced these thinkers. For it is not seed that is first absolutely, but the perfect being. Hence, if someone says that the man is prior to the seed, it is not the man who is said to be born from the seed in question, but a different man from whom the seed comes. For it has been proved above (1059-60:C 2500-03) that actuality is prior absolutely to potentiality, though in one and the same subject potentiality is prior to actuality in the order of generation and of time.

2547. In view of the points established he terminates his discussion by concluding that it is evident that there is a substance which is eternal and unchangeable and separate from sensible things.

2548. And it has been shown (1076).

Then he proceeds to examine certain points which still remain to be considered about the above-mentioned substance. First, he shows that it is incorporeal. He says that it has been proved in Book VIII of the Physics that this kind of substance can have no magnitude but is without parts and indivisible.

2549. He briefly restates the proof, saying that a substance of this kind moves in infinite time, since the first mover is eternal, as he said above (1075:C 2547). And from this it follows that its power is infinite. For we see that the more powerful any inferior mover is, the more capable it is of acting for a longer time. But nothing finite can have an infinite power. Hence it follows that the above-mentioned substance is not finite in magnitude. Moreover, it cannot be infinite in magnitude because an infinite magnitude is impossible, as has been proved above (1076:C 2548). Therefore, since every magnitude is either finite or infinite, it follows that the above-mentioned substance lacks magnitude in every way.

2550. Moreover, the power of this substance is not said to be infinite in a privative sense, in the way that infinity pertains to quantity; but the term is used in a negative sense, i.e., inasmuch as it is not limited to some definite effect. It cannot be said of a heavenly body, however, that its power is infinite even though it may move inferior bodies in an infinite time, because it causes motion only by being moved, and thus its influence is from the first mover. Nor can it be said that the power of a heavenly body is infinite even though it has being in infinite time, because it has no active power of being but only the ability to receive. Hence its infinite duration points to the infinite power of an external principle. But in order to receive indestructible existence from an infinite power a heavenly body must not have any principle of destruction or any potentiality to non-existence.

2551. It has also been shown (1077).

Second, since he has shown above (1066:C 2517) that the first mover is not moved with local motion, he next shows that it is not moved with the other kinds of motion. He says that it is also impossible for the first mover to be alterable, for it has been shown above (1066:C

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2517) that it is not moved with local motion. But all other motions are subsequent to such motion, which pertains to place. Therefore, when the former is removed, so also must the latter be. Hence whatever is found to be moved with the other kinds of motion is moved with local motion.

2552. Last, he concludes that the things discussed above are evidently such as he has established them to be. (emphasis added)

Cf. Aristotle, Post. An., II. 12 (95b 37—96a 8) (tr. E.S. Bouchier):

We see with regards to matters in process that production is effected in a circular manner, and we observe that this may happen when the major and minor and also the middle terms are each of them consequences of the other, and it is then that conversion takes place. Now we proved at the outset [96a] (Pr. An. II. 5–7) that causes and effects may be proved circularly, and that is the meaning of the circular process. In the case of matters of production the method may be regarded as follows. [5] When the earth has been moistened vapours must arise. When that happens a cloud is produced. From the cloud comes rain, and as a result of the rain the earth must be moistened. Hence the process has returned to its starting point, and when any one of the terms is present another follows, when that is present a third follows, and when the third is present the first recurs again.

Cf. Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas translated by Fabian R. Larcher, O.P., Bk. II, lect. 12:

Lecture 12

(95b38-96a20)

HOW IN THINGS THAT COME TO BE RECIPROCALLY, A CAUSE WHICH IS NOT SIMULTANEOUS WITH THE EFFECT IS TAKEN AS MIDDLE IN A

DEMONSTRATIONHOW ONE DEMONSTRATES THROUGH CAUSE DIFFERENTLY, IN THINGS THAT

OCCUR ALWAYS AND IN THINGS THAT OCCUR AS A GENERAL RULE

b38. Now we observe in Nature— a2. In actual fact— a8. Some occurrences are universal— a12. For if A is predicated— a20. We have already explained

After showing how one must take the middle, which is the cause, in things that come to be in a direct line, the Philosopher now shows how one should take it in the case of things that come to be in reciprocal generation. First, he proves his proposal. Secondly, he elucidates it with examples (96a2).

In regard to the first it should be noted that because the circular movement of the heavens is the cause of generation in sublunar things, it is stated in On Generation II that a kind of circular reciprocity is found is generation in the sense that earth is generated from water, and water in turn from earth.

He says therefore (95b38) that since we observe a certain pattern of generation in things that are generated circularly, it is possible in these cases also to follow what has been established above, namely, to syllogize from what is subsequent, provided that the terms of the demonstration are taken in such a way that middle and extremes follow one upon the other: because in the case of things that are generated in that way, there is a kind of circular

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conversion in the sense that one passes from the first thing to the last thing, and then a return is made from the last to the first; although these things are not numerically but specifically the same, as is explained in On Generation II. Hence it does not follow that the same numerical thing is prior and subsequent, or is cause and effect.

And this is suitable to the process of demonstrations, for, as has been established in the foregoing, whenever conclusions are converted, i.e., whenever some of the premises can be syllogized from them, this is a circular demonstration. And although this is not fitting if the very same thing which was first the conclusion is later the principle of the same numerical thing (otherwise the same thing would be at once better known and less known), nevertheless if they are not entirely the same, as happens in things that are circularly generated, there is nothing unfitting.

Then (96a2) he uses examples to elucidate what he has said, saying that a circular process is seen to occur in the works of nature. For if the earth is saturated with rain, it is necessary that the action of the sun release vapors from it; when these are released and borne aloft, it is necessary that clouds be formed; and after they are formed, it is necessary that rain water be formed; and when this is formed, it is necessary that in falling upon the earth it saturate it. Now this saturation of the earth was the very thing we took as being first; however, it is not the same saturation as the one from which we first began.

Thus it is clear that a cycle has been achieved in the sense that with one of them existing, another comes to be; and that other existing, still another comes to be; and that one existing, a return is made to the first, which is not numerically the same, but specifically the same. Yet this cycle of causes cannot be found according to the order which is found in per se causes; for in per se causes it is necessary to reach some one thing which is first in each genus of causes as is proved in Metaphysics II. But the fact that water is generated from fire, and fire in turn from water, is not per se but per accidens. For being is generated per se not from actual being but from potential being, as it is stated in Physics I. Therefore, if we proceed from cause to cause in per se causes, there will not be a cycle. For we will accept as the efficient cause of the rain-soaked earth, the heat of the air which is caused by the sun, but not vice versa; but the material cause we take as water, whose matter is not vapor but the common matter of the elements.

Then (96a8) he shows how one demonstrates through the cause differently in things which occur always and in things which occur as a general rule. Concerning this he does three things. First, he proposes what he intends. Secondly, he proves what he has proposed (96a12). Thirdly, he sums up (96a20).

He says therefore first (96a8) that there are some things which come to be universally both as to time, because always, and as to subject, because in all cases; either because they maintain themselves as unchangeable things which are not subject to coming to be, or because they come to be as changeable things which always follow a uniform pattern, as in the case of heavenly movements. Again, there are other things which do not occur in the sense of always, but as a general rule. An example of this is that every human male develops a beard as a general rule, although it does not occur always. Therefore, just as in the case of things that occur always, it is necessary to take a middle which is always, so in the case of things which occur as a general rule, it is necessary to take a middle that occurs as a general rule.

Then (96a12) he proves that if one is to conclude to something that occurs as a general rule it is necessary to take a middle which occurs as a general rule. For if one were to assume the

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opposite by taking a middle which occurs universally and always; for example, if A, which is the major extreme, is predicated universally of B, which is the middle, and B of C, which is the minor extreme, then it follows of necessity that A is predicated universally of C both as to time and as to subject, which is the same as being predicated always and of each thing. Hence, we are now saying that for something to be predicated universally is the same as being predicated of all and always. But it has been assumed that A is predicated of C as a general rule. Therefore, it is necessary that the middle, which is B, should be taken as existing as a general rule.

Thus it is obvious that certain immediate principles of things which occur as a general rule can be taken, such that those principles exist or come to be as a general rule. Yet such demonstrations do not enable one to know that what is concluded is true absolutely but only in a qualified sense, namely, that it is true in the majority of cases. And this is the way that the principles which are taken possess truth. Hence sciences of this kind fall short of sciences which deal with things absolutely necessary, so far as the certitude of demonstration is concerned.

Then (96a20) he sums up what has been said, saying that we have now established how the quod quid which is practically identical with the propter quid is assigned among syllogistic terms, inasmuch as we have shown how the several genera of causes are middles of demonstration according to the respective diversities of things. We have also shown in what sense there is or is not demonstration or definition of the quod quid. (emphasis added)

In sum, the system of the world cannot be adequately accounted for by those who “attri-buted imperfection to the first principle,” (cf. Commentary, n. 2545) or who, making an appeal to “simple privation” in the form of Night or Chaos whereby at the beginning all things were mixed together, sought to explain all things without recognizing a First Cause as pure act. For an account showing how the foregoing principles are embodied in the Work of the Six Days, cf. A System of Geography; or, A Dissertation on the Creation and Various Phænomena of the Terraqueous Globe: ...To which is prefixed, an introduction to those parts of the Mathematics, necessary to a thorough Knowledge of the Subject of Geo-graphy. By Joseph Randall (London, 1744) Part II. Chap. I, pp. 170-172

C H A P. I.

Of the Creation of the Terraqueous Globe.

IN a Chaos, the true Change that would follow from mechanical Principles, and natural Causes, is, that, if all were fluid, the heaviest and solid Bodies would subside, and fell to the Centre, every one taking Place according to its specific Gravity: Hence the lighter Bodies would always be forced uppermost: The Earth therefore, being heavier than Water, must of Necessity place itself nigh the Centre, and leave the Water to cover the Face of the whole Orb: Consequently the Surface of the Earth could never be inhabited by Mankind. Hence, the original Formation of the Terraqueous Globe was the Result of the Almighty Fiat, and not of the necessary and essential Laws of Motion and Gravitation. We may well wonder at the wild and extravagant Fancy of some who imagine, that un-thinking Matter could of itself, without some supreme and intelligent Director, fall into a regular and beautiful Structure, such as the primitive Earth was, when it came out [170-171] of the Hands of its Almighty Creator; the Parts whereof being so extremely well adapted to the various Uses of the Inhabitants, evidently show, they had been the Result of Wisdom and Contrivance. Ought we not in this, as well as in other respects, to proportion the Causes to the Effects, and to speak Truth, and bring an honest Verdict for God as well as for Art?

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And as the Earth was not formed by mechanical Principles, and natural Causes, so neither did it exist an habitable Earth ab eterno, but is perishable, and in time will be laid under Water. For Winds, Rains, and Storms would, in Tract of Time, level all the Mountains, or rather lay them under Water; for whatsoever moulders, or is wash’d away from them, is carried down into the lower Grounds, and into the Sea, and nothing is ever brought back again by any Circulation; their Losses are not repaired, nor any proportionable Recruits made from any other Part of Nature. So as the higher Parts of the Earth being continually spending, and the lower continually gaining, they must of Necessity, at length, come to an Equality; and the Waters that lie in the lower Parts, and in the Chattels and Valleys, being filled up with Earth, would be thrust out and rise every-where; so that the Earth would in time be all under Water, and consequently uninhabitable by Mankind. Indeed the Air and little Drops of Rain would deface the strongest; and proudest of the Mountains, and beat down the Rocks into the Sea, and the Hills into the Valleys; perhaps not in Ten thousandYears; but take Twenty, take a Million, for 'tis all one, we may take the one as easily as the other out of Eternity, and they make equally this Consequence, that in time the Face of the whole Earth would be destroyed by natural Causes. Then, as to the Vegetable and Animal World, there is, says the excellent Dr. Burnet, more of Thought and Contrivance, more of exquisite Invention, and fit Disposition of Parts, than is in all the Temples, Palaces, Ships, Theatres, or any other Pieces Architecture the World ever yet saw; and not Architecture only, but all other Mechanism whatsoever, Engines, Clock-work, or any other, is not comparable to the Body of a living Creature. Seeing then we ac-knowledge these artificial Works, wheresoever we meet with them, to be the Effects of Wit, Understanding and Reason; is it not manifest Partiality, or Stupidity rather, to deny the Works of God, which excel these in all Degrees, to proceed from an intelligent Principle? Let them take any Piece of human Art, or any Machine framed by the Wit of Man, and compare it with the Body of an Animal, either for Diversity or Multiplicity of Parts, or just Connection and Dependence of one Thing upon another, or sit Subserviency to the Ends propos’d of Life, Motion, Use, and Ornament to the Creature: And if, in all these respects, find it superior to any Work of human Production, why should it be thought to proceed from inferior and senseless Causes? [171-172] Ought we not in this, as well as in other respects, to proportion the Causes to the Effects, and to speak Truth, and bring an honest Verdict for God as well as for Art?

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Job, ch. 38, lect. 1-2 (tr. Brian Mulladay):

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT: GOD RESOLVES THE QUESTION

The First Lesson: What Can Man Understand?

1 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 2 Who is that man who envelops his opinions with inept arguments? 3 Gird up your loins like a man. I will question you and you answer me. 4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding, 5 who determined its measurements, if you know it? Or who stretched the measuring line upon the earth? 6 On what were the bases of the land sunk or who has laid the cornerstone 7 when each of the morning stars praised me, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 8 Who shut up the sea with doors when it burst forth as though coming from a womb, 9 when he laid out the clouds as its clothing, and I wrapped it in fog like the swaddling clothes of an infant? 10 I surrounded it with my limits and placed the bar and the doors. 11 And I said: Thus far shall you come and you will not proceed further and here shall your proud waves break. 12 After your rising, did you command the dawn and have you shown the dawn its place?

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…Consider that some of the ancients did not attribute the position of the earth and of the other elements to some ordering plan, but to material necessity, according to which the heavy elements sank under the light ones.

…After the foundation of the earth, he continues then speaking about the waters which are immediately placed over the land. The natural order of the elements requires that water surrounds the earth at every point like air surrounds earth and water at every point. But by divine disposition, it has been effected for the generation of men, animals, and plants, some part of the land remains uncovered by the waters, as God holds back the waters of the sea within their certain limits by his power, and so he says, “Who shut up the sea with doors,” with determined limits. There were some who thought the action of the sun dried up some part of the earth, but the Lord shows that it has been disposed from the beginning that the sea does not cover the land everywhere. (emphasis added)

§

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XXII. THAT THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL BUT PERISHABLE, AND HENCE SUSTAINED BY DIVINE POWER.

1. The data.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, The Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Ten Commandments. In The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas. Translated with a Commentary by Rev. Joseph B. Collins, S.S., D.D., Ph.D. Introduction by Rev. Rudolph G. Bandas, Ph.D., S.T.D. et M. (Baltimore, 1939), The Third Commandment, p. 103; 106:

The Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas

THE THIRD COMMANDMENT: “Remember that You KeepHoly the Sabbath Day.”

<…>

REASONS FOR THIS COMMANDMENT

There are five reasons for this Commandment.

The first reason was to put aside error, for the Holy Spirit saw that in the future some men would say that the world had always existed. “In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts, saying: Where is His promise or His coming? For since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For this they are willfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, created by the word of God.”[2] <…>

[105-106]

ENDNOTE

2. II Peter, iii. 3-5.

Cf. Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and the New Testaments (New York, 1811), 2 Peter 3:4-7:

Verse 4. Where is the promise of his coming?] Perhaps the false teachers here referred to were such as believed in the eternity of the world: the prophets and the apostles had foretold its destruction, and they took it for granted, if this were true, that the terrestrial machine would have begun long ago to have shown some symptoms of decay; but they found that since the patriarchs died all things remained as they were from the foundation of the world; that is, men were propagated by natural generation, one was born and another died, and the course of nature continued regular in the seasons, succession of day and night, generation and corruption of animals and vegetables, &c.; for they did not consider the power of the Almighty, by which the whole can be annihilated in a moment, as well as created. As, therefore, they saw none of these changes, they presumed that there would be none, and they intimated that there never had been any. The apostle combats this notion in the following verse.

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Verse 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of] They shut their eyes against the light, and refuse all evidence; what does not answer their purpose they will not know. And the apostle refers to a fact that militates against their hypothesis, with which they refused to acquaint themselves; and their ignorance he attributes to their unwillingness to learn the true state of the case.

By the word of God the heavens were of old] I shall set down the Greek text of this ex-tremely difficult clause: oupanoi hsan ekpalai, kai gh ex udatov kai di udatov sunestwsa, tw tou qeou logw? translated thus by Mr. Wakefield: “A heaven and an earth formed out of water, and by means of water, by the appointment of God, had continued from old time.” By Dr. Macknight thus; “The heavens were anciently, and the earth of water: and through water the earth consists by the word of God.” By Kypke thus: “The heavens were of old, and the earth, which is framed, by the word of God, from the waters, and between the waters.” However we take the words, they seem to refer to the origin of the earth. It was the opinion of the remotest antiquity that the earth was formed out of water, or a primitive moisture which they termed [Greek omitted], hule, a first matter or nutriment for all things; but Thales pointedly taught archn de twn panqwv udwr einai, that all things derive their existence from water, and this very nearly expresses the sentiment of Peter, and nearly in his own terms too. But is this doctrine true? It must be owned that it appears to be the doctrine of Moses: In the beginning, says he, God made the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now, these heavens and earth which God made in the beginning, and which he says were at first formless and empty, and which he calls the deep, are in the very next verse called waters; from which it is evident that Moses teaches that the earth was made out of some fluid substance, to which the name of water is properly given. And that the earth was at first in a fluid mass is most evident from its form; it is not round, as has been demonstrated by measuring some degrees near the north pole, and under the equator; the result of which proved that the figure of the earth was that of an oblate spheroid, a figure nearly resembling that of an orange. And this is the form that any soft or elastic body would assume if whirled rapidly round a center, as the earth is around its axis. The measurement to which I have referred shows the earth to be flatted at the poles, and raised at the equator. And by this measurement it was demonstrated that the diameter of the earth at the equator was greater by about twenty-five miles than at the poles.

Now, considering the earth to be thus formed ex udatov, of water, we have next to consider what the apostle means by di udatov, variously translated by out of, by means of, and between, the water. Standing out of the water gives no sense, and should be abandoned. If we translate between the waters, it will bear some resemblance to Gen. i. 6, 7: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of, [Hebrew omitted] bethoch, between, the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters: and God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; then it may refer to the whole of the atmosphere, with which the earth is everywhere surrounded, and which contains all the vapours which belong to our globe, and without which we could neither have animal nor vegetative life. Thus then the earth, or terraqueous globe, which was originally formed out of water, subsists by water; and by means of that very water, the water compacted with the earth – the fountains of the great deep, and the waters in the atmosphere – the windows of heaven, Gen. vii. 11, the antediluvian earth was destroyed, as St. Peter states in the next verse: the terraqueous globe, which was formed originally of water or a fluid substance, the chaos or first matter, and which was suspended in the heavens – the atmosphere, enveloped with water, by means of which water it was preserved; yet, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, was destroyed by those very same waters out of which it was originally made, and by which it subsisted.

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Verse 7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now] The present earth and its atmosphere, which are liable to the same destruction, because the same means still exist, (for there is still water enough to drown the earth, and there is iniquity enough to induce God to destroy it and its inhabitants,) are nevertheless kept in store, teqhsaurismenoi, treasured up, kept in God’s storehouse, to be destroyed, not by water, but by fire at the day of judgment.

From all this it appears that those mockers affected to be ignorant of the Mosaic account of the formation of the earth, and of its destruction by the waters of the deluge; and indeed this is implied in their stating that all things continued as they were from the creation. But St. Peter calls them back to the Mosaic account, to prove that this was false; for the earth, &c., which were then formed, had perished by the flood; and that the present earth, &c., which were formed out of the preceding, should, at the day of judgment, perish by the fire of God’s wrath.

2. That the first heaven is eternal and that its own motion, as well as the motion it causes, are continuous.

Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, XII. 7 (1072a 18—1073a 13) (tr. W. D. Ross):

Since (1) this is a possible account of the matter, and (2) if it were not true, the world would have proceeded out of night and ‘all things together’ and out of non-being, these difficulties may be taken [20] as solved. There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven21 must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which moves and is moved is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and [25] actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought is moved [30] by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this, substance is first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists actually. (The one and the simple are not the same; for ‘one’ means a measure, but ‘simple’ means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) But the beautiful, also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the same column; [35] and the first in any class is always best, or analogous to the best.

That a final cause may exist among unchangeable entities is shown [1072b] by the distinction of its meanings. For the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and (b) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable entities though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved.

Now if something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than [5] as it is. Therefore if its actuality is the primary form of spatial motion, then in so far as it is subject to change, in this respect it is capable of being otherwise,—in place, even if not in substance. But since there is something which moves while itself unmoved, existing actually, this can in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in space is the first of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind [10] of spatial motion; and this the first mover produces.22 The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has all these senses—that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary to the natural impulse, that without which

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the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way.

On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature . And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy [15] for but a short time (for it is ever in this state, which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this reason23 are waking, perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so on account of these.) And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And thought thinks on itself [20] because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the essence, is thought. But it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the divine element which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better [25] this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.

Those who suppose, as the Pythagoreans24 and Speusippus25 do, [30] that supreme beauty and goodness are not present in the beginning, because the beginnings both of plants and of animals are causes, but beauty and completeness are in the effects of these,26 are wrong in their opinion. For the seed comes from other individuals which are prior [35] and complete, and the first thing is not seed but the complete being; e.g. we must say that before the seed there is a man—not the [1073a] man produced from the seed, but another from whom the seed comes.

It is clear then from what has been said that there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible things. It has been shown also that this substance cannot have any [5] magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible (for it produces movement through infinite time, but nothing finite has infinite power; and, while every magnitude is either infinite or finite, it cannot, for the above reason, have finite magnitude, and it cannot have infinite [10] magnitude because there is no infinite magnitude at all). But it has also been shown that it is impassive and unalterable; for all the other changes are posterior27 to change of place.

21 i.e. the outer sphere of the universe, that in which the fixed stars are set.22 If it had any movement, it would have the first. But it produces this and therefore cannot share in it; for if it did, we should have to look for something that is prior to the first mover and imparts this motion to it.23 sc. because they are activities or actualities.24 Cf. 1075a 36.25 Cf. vii. 1028b 21, xiv, 1091a, 1092a 11.26 i.e. the animal or plant is more beautiful and perfect than the seed.27 i.e. impossible without. (emphasis added)

N.B. According to Aristotle, then, “We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.”

Cf. Aristotle, Meteorology, I. 2 (338b 10-33) (tr. E. W. Webster):

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We have already laid down that there is one physical element which makes up the system of the bodies that move in a circle,28 and besides this four bodies owing their existence to the four principles, the motion of these latter bodies being of two kinds: either from the centre or to the centre. These four bodies are fire, air, water, earth. [15] Fire occupies the highest place among them all, earth the lowest, and two elements correspond to these in their relation to one another, air being nearest to fire, water to earth. The whole world surrounding the earth,29 then, the affections of which are our subject, is made up of these bodies. This world necessarily has a certain [20] continuity with the upper motions: consequently all its power and order is derived from them. (For the originating principle of all motion is the first cause. Besides, that element is eternal and its motion has no limit in space, but is always complete; [25] whereas all these other bodies have separate regions which limit one another.) So we must treat fire and earth and the elements like them as the material causes of the events in this world (meaning by material what is subject and is affected), but must assign causality in the sense of the originating principle of motion to the influence of the eternally moving bodies. (emphasis added)

Cf. Aristotle, Meteorology, I. 3 (338b 34—341a 25) (tr. E. W. Webster):

Let us first recall our original principles and the distinctions already drawn and [35] then explain the ‘milky way’ and comets and the other phenomena akin to these. Fire, air, water, earth, we assert, originate from one another, and each of them [339b 1] exists potentially in each, as all things do that can be resolved into a common and ultimate substrate.

The first difficulty is raised by what is called the air. What are we to take its nature [5] to be in the world surrounding the earth? And what is its position relatively to the other physiccal elements? (For there is no question as to the relation of the bulk of the earth to the size of the bodies which exist around it, since astronomical demonstrations have by this time proved to us that it is actually far smaller [10] than some individual stars. As for the water, it is not observed to exist collectively and separately, nor can it do so apart from that volume of it which has its seat about the earth: the sea, that is, and rivers, which we can see, and any subterranean water that may be hidden from our observation.) The question is really about that which lies between the earth and the nearest stars. Are we to consider it to be one kind of [15] body or more than one? And if more than one, how many are there and what are the bounds of their regions?

We have already described and characterized the first element, and explained that the whole world of the upper motions is full of that body. [20] This is an opinion we are not alone in holding: it appears to be an old assumption and one which men have held in the past, for the word ether has long been used to denote that element. Anaxagoras, it is true, seems to me to think that the word means the same as fire. For he thought that the upper regions were full of fire, and that men1 referred to those regions when they spoke of ether. In the latter point he [25] was right, for men seem to have assumed that a body that was eternally in motion was also divine in nature; and, as such a body was different from any of the terrestrial elements, they determined to call it ‘ether’.2 For the same opinions appear in cycles among men not once nor twice, but infinitely often.

1 Reading ka)ke/nouj (Thurot) for ka)kei=noj.2 Ai)qh/r being derived from ai\ei) (always) and w)/n (to run), with an allusion to qei=oj (divine). (emphasis added)

28 I.e. ‘heaven’ or ‘the heavens’. (B.A.M.)29 I.e. ‘the world of nature’. (B.A.M.)

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3. That the eternal and continuous motion of the heavenly bodies causes generation in things here below.

Cf. Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption, II. 10 (336a 14-336b 15) (tr. H. H. Joachim):

As to our own theory—we have given a general account of the causes in an earlier work, 26

we have now explained and distinguished the matter and the [15] form. Further, since the change which is motion has been proved to be eternal, the continuity of the occurrence of coming-to-be follows necessarily from what we have established: for the eternal motion, by causing the generator to approach and retire, will produce coming-to-be uninterruptedly. At the same time it is clear that we were right when, in an earlier work, 27 we called motion (not coming-to-be) the primary form of [20] change. For it is far more reasonable that what is should cause the coming-to-be of what is not, than that what is not should cause the being of what is. Now that which is being moved is, but that which is coming-to-be is not: hence, also, motion is prior to coming-to-be.

26 See Physics II 3-4.27 See Physics 360a26ff.

We have assumed, and have proved, that coming-to-be and passing-away happen to things continuously; and we assert that motion causes coming-to-be. That [25] being so, it is evident that, if the motion be single, both processes cannot occur since they are contrary to one another: for it is a law of nature that the same cause, provided it remain in the same condition, always produces the same effect, so that, from a single motion, either coming-to-be or passing-away will always result. The movements must, on the contrary, be more than one, and they [30] must be contrasted with one another either by the sense of their motion or by its irregularity: for contrary effects demand contraries as their causes. This explains why it is not the primary motion that causes coming-to-be and passing-away, but the motion along the inclined circle: for this motion not only possesses the necessary continuity, but includes a duality of movements as well. For if coming-to-be and passing-away are always to be continuous, there must be some [336b] body always being moved (in order that these changes may not fail) and moved with a duality of movements (in order that both changes, not one only, may result). Now the continuity of this movement is caused by the motion of the whole: but the approaching and retreating of the moving body are caused by the inclination. For the consequence of the inclination is that the body becomes alternately remote and [5] near; and since its distance is thus unequal, its movement will be irregular. Therefore, if it generates by approaching and by its proximity, it—this very same body—destroys by retreating and becoming remote: and if it generates by many successive approaches, it also destroys by many successive retirements. For contrary effects demand contraries as their causes; and the natural processes of passing-away and coming-to-be occupy equal periods of time. Hence, too, the times—i.e. the lives—of the several kinds of living things have a number by which they are distinguished: for there is an order controlling all things, and every time (i.e. every life) is measured by a period. Not all of them, however, are measured by the same period, but some by a smaller and others by a greater one: for to some of them the period, which is their measure, is a year, while to some it is longer and to others [15] shorter. (emphasis added)

Cf. idem, II. 11 (336b 35-338b 19) (tr. H. H. Joachim):

Wherever there is continuity in any process (coming-to-be or ‘alteration’ [337b] or any kind of change whatever) we observe consecutiveness, i.e. this coming-to-be after that without any interval. Hence we must investigate whether there is anything which will necessarily exist, or whether everything may fail to come-to-be. For if it be true to say of

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something that it will be, it must at the same time be true to say of it that it is; whereas, [5] though it be true to say of something now that it is going to be, it is quite possible for it not come-to-be—thus a man might not go for a walk, though he is now going for a walk. And since in general amongst the things which are some are capable also of not-being, it is clear that the same character will attach to them no less when they are coming-to-be: in other words, their coming-to-be will not be necessary. Then are all the things that come-to-be of this character? Or, on the contrary, [10] is it absolutely necessary for some of them to come-to-be? Is there, in fact, a distinction in the field of coming-to-be corresponding to the distinction, within the field of being, between things that cannot possibly not-be and things that can not-be? For instance, is it necessary that solstices shall come-to-be, i.e. impossible that they should fail to be able to occur? Assuming that what is prior must have come-to-be if what is posterior is to be (e.g. that foundations must have come-to-be if there [15] is to be a house: clay, if there are to be foundations), is the converse also true? If foundations have come-to-be, must a house come-to-be? It seems that this is not so, unless it is necessary absolutely for the latter to come to be. If that be the case, however, a house must come-to-be if foundations have come-to-be, as well as vice versa. For the prior was assumed to be so related to the posterior that, if the latter is to be, the prior also must have come-to-be before it. If, therefore, it is necessary that the posterior should come-to-be, the prior [20] also must have come-to-be: and if the prior has come-to-be, then the posterior also must come-to-be—not, however, because of the prior, but because the future being of the posterior was assumed as necessary. Hence, in any sequence, when the being of the posterior is necessary, the nexus is reciprocal—in other words, when the prior has come-to-be the posterior must always come-to-be too. Now if the sequence of occurrences is to proceed ad infinitum downwards, the [25] coming to-be of any determinate later member will not be absolutely, but only conditionally, necessary. For it will always be necessary that some other member shall have come-to-be beforehand, on account of which it is necessary that this should come-to-be: consequently, since what is infinite has no beginning, neither will there be in the infinite sequence any ‘primary’ member which will make it necessary for the remaining members to come-to-be. Nor again (ii) will it be possible to say with truth, even in regard to the members of [30] a limited sequence, that it is absolutely necessary for any one of them to come-to-be. We cannot truly say, e.g. that it is absolutely necessary for a house to come-to-be when foundations have been laid: for (unless it is always necessary for a house to be coming-to-be) we should be faced with the consequence that, when foundations have been laid, a thing, which need not always be, must always be. No: if its coming-to-be is to be necessary, it must be always in its coming-to-be. For what is of necessity coincides with what is always, since that which ‘must be’ cannot possibly not-be. Hence a thing is eternal if its being is necessary: and if it is eternal, it is of [338a] necessity. And if, therefore, the coming-to-be of a thing is necessary, its coming-to-be is eternal; and if eternal, necessary. It follows that the coming-to-be of anything, if it is absolutely necessary, must [5] be cyclical—i.e. must return upon itself. For coming-to-be must either be limited or not limited: and if not limited, it must be either rectilinear or cyclical. But the first of these last two alternatives is impossible if coming-to-be is to be eternal, because there could not be any beginning , whether the members being taken downwards (as future events) or upwards (as past events). Yet coming-to-be must have a beginning [10] (if it is to be necessary and therefore eternal), nor can it be eternal if it is limited.30 Consequently it must be cyclical. Hence the nexus must be reciprocal. By this I mean that the necessary occurrence of this involves the necessary occurrence of something prior: and conversely, given the prior, it is also necessary for the posterior to come-to-be. And this will hold continuously throughout the sequence: for it makes no difference whether we take two, or by many, members. [15] It is in circular movement, therefore, and in cyclical coming-to-be that the absolutely necessary is to be found. In other words, if the coming-to-be of any things is cyclical, it is necessary

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that each of them is coming-to-be and has come-to-be: and if the coming-to-be of any things is ‘necessary’, their coming-to-be is cyclical. And this is reasonable; for circular motion, i.e. the revolution of the heavens, was seen on other grounds to be eternal since precisely those movements which [338b] belong to, and depend upon, this eternal revolution ‘come-to-be’ of necessity, and of necessity will be. For since the revolving body is always setting something else in motion, the movement of the things it moves must also be circular. Thus, since the upper movement is cyclical, the sun31 moves in a determinate manner; and since the sun moves thus, the seasons in consequence come-to-be in a cycle, i.e. return upon themselves; and since they come-to-be cyclically, so in their turn do the things [5] whose coming-to-be the seasons initiate. Then why do some things manifestly come-to-be in this cyclical fashion (as, e.g. showers and air, so that it must rain if there is to be a cloud and, conversely, there must be a cloud if it is to rain), while men and animals do not ‘return upon themselves’ so that the same individual comes-to-be a second time (for [10] though your coming-to-be presupposes your father’s, his coming-to-be does not presuppose yours)? Why, on the contrary, does this coming-to-be seem to constitute a rectilinear sequence? In discussing this, we must begin by inquiring whether all things return upon themselves in a uniform manner; or whether, on the contrary, though in some sequences what recurs is numerically the same, in other sequences it is the same only in species. In consequence of this distinction, it is evident that those things, whose substance—that which is undergoing the process—is imperishable, will be numerically, as well as specifically, the same in their recurrence: for the [15] character of the process is determined by the character of that which undergoes it. Those things, on the other hand, whose substance is perishable (not imperishable) must ‘return upon themselves’ in the sense that what recurs, though specifically the same, is not the same numerically. That is why, when Water comes-to-be from Air and Air from Water, the Air is the same ‘specifically’, not ‘numerically’: and if these too recur numerically the same, at any rate this does not happen with things whose ‘substance’ comes-to-be-whose ‘substance’ is such that it is essentially capable of not-being.

30 The text is corrupt at this point.31 Reading ku/kl% o) h(/lioj. (emphasis added)

4. The system of the world in sum and the transmutation of the elements.

Cf. Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, I. xvi (tr. C. D. Yonge, The Nature of the Gods and Divination, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1997, original edition H. G. Bohn, 1853), Book II, sec. XXXIII (excerpt):

That which inclines to the center, that which rises from it to the surface, and that which rolls about the center, constitute the universal world, and make one entire nature; and as there are four sorts of bodies, the continuance of nature is caused by their reciprocal changes; for the water arises from the earth, the air from the water, and the fire from the air; and, reversing this order, the air arises from fire, the water from the air, and from the water the earth, the lowest of the four elements, of which all beings are formed. Thus by their continual motions backward and forward, upward and downward, the conjunction of the several parts of the universe is preserved; a union which, in the beauty we now behold it, must be eternal, or at least of a very long duration, and almost for an infinite space of time; and, whichever it is, the universe must of consequence be governed by nature. For what art of navigating fleets, or of marshalling an army, and — to instance the produce of nature — what vine, what tree, what animated form and conformation of their members, give us so great an indication of skill as appears in the universe? Therefore we must either deny that there is the least trace of an intelligent nature, or acknowledge that the world is governed by it. But since the universe contains all particular beings, as well as their seeds, can we say that it is not itself governed

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by nature? That would be the same as saying that the teeth and the beard of man are the work of nature, but that the man himself is not. Thus the effect would be understood to be greater than the cause.

5. On the transmutation of the elements in general.

Cf. the following fragments of Anaximenes of Miletus (excerpts taken from Jonathan Barnes, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, 1982):

Just as our soul, being air, holds us together and controls us, so do breath and air surround the whole cosmos. (Aetius, 1.3.4 = 13B2)

Anaximenes...like Anaximander, declares that the underlying nature is one and boundless, but not indeterminate as Anaximander held, but definite, saying that it is air. It differs in rarity and density according to the substances <it becomes>. Becoming finer it comes to be fire; being condensed it comes to be wind, then cloud, and when still further condensed it becomes water, then earth, then stones, and the rest come to be out of these. He too makes motion eternal and says that change also comes to be through it.(Theophrastus, quoted by Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 24.26-25.1 = 13A5)

Anaximenes said that the principle is unlimited [boundless] air, out of which come to be things that are coming to be, things that have come to be, and things that will be, and gods and divine things. The rest come to be out of the products of this. The form of air is the following: when it is most even, it is invisible, but it is revealed by the cold and the hot and the wet, and movement. It is always moving, for all the things that undergo change would not change unless it was moving. For when it becomes condensed and finer, it appears different. For when it is dissolved into what is finer, it comes to be fire, and on the other hand air comes to be winds when it becomes condensed. Cloud results from air through felting,30 and water when this happens to a greater degree. When condensed still more it becomes earth and when it reaches the absolutely densest stage it becomes stones. (Hippolytus, Refutation 1.7.1-3 = 13A7)

Anaximenes determined that air is a god and that it comes to be and is without measure, infinite and always in motion.(Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.10.26 = 13A10)

20. Anaximenes stated that clouds occur when the air is further thickened. When it is condensed still more, rain is squeezed out. Hail occurs when the falling water freezes, and snow when some wind is caught up in the moisture.(Aetius 3.4.1 = 13A17)

Or as Anaximenes of old believed, let us leave neither the cold nor the hot in the category of substance, but <hold them to be> common attributes of matter which come as the results of its changes. For he declares that matter which is contracted and condensed is cold, whereas what is fine and “loose” (calling it this way with this very word) is hot. As a result he claimed that it is not said unreasonably that a person releases both hot and cold from his mouth. For the breath becomes cold when compressed and condensed by the lips, and when the mouth is relaxed, the escaping breath becomes warm through the rareness.(Plutarch, The Principle of Cold 7 947F = 13B1)

30 A process, involving heat and moisture, by which wool is compressed to produce felt, or matted wool.

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When the air is felted the earth is the first thing to come into being, and it is very flat. This is why it rides on the air, as is reasonable.(pseudo-Plutarch, Miscellanies 3 = 13A6)

Cf. Sir Thomas L. Heath, Greek Astronomy (London, 1932), Introduction, pp. xx-xxi:

Thales’ theory of the universe was this. According to him, the one “first principle” (as Aristotle calls it) or material cause of all things is water; earth is the result of condensation of water, air is produced from water by rarefaction, and air again when heated becomes fire. We may assume therefore that, in Thales’ view, there was in the beginning only the primordial mass of water and from this other things were gradually differentiated.

Cf. Duane Berquist, “Natural Fragments of the First Philosophers,” Anaximenes (ex-cerpt):31

ANAXIMENES

As Aristotle points out in the first book of Natural Hearing (the Physics), those who said there was one first matter generated other things out of it by rarefaction and condensation. Erwin Schrödinger comments on this:

[Anaximenes] “from a careful consideration of everyday experience...abstracted the thesis that every piece of matter can take on the solid, the liquid, the gaseous and “fiery” state; that the changes between these states do not imply a change of nature, but are brought about geometrically, as it were, by the spreading of the same amount of matter over a larger and larger volume (rarefaction) or – in the opposite transitions – by its being reduced or compressed into a smaller and smaller volume. This idea is so absolutely to the point that a modern introduction into physical science could take it over without any relevant change. Moreover, it is certainly not an unfounded guess, but the outcome of careful observation.8

8 Science and Humanism, p. 56

Cf. Plato, Timaeus (49b-d) (tr. Benjamin Jowett).

In the first place, we see that what we just now called water, by [c] condensation, I suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this same element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air. Air, again, when inflamed, becomes fire; and again fire, when condensed and extinguished, passes once more into the form of air; and once more, air, when collected and condensed, produces cloud and mist; and from these, when still more compressed, comes flowing water, and from water comes earth and stones once more; and thus generation [d] appears to be transmitted from one to the other in a circle. Thus, then, as the several elements never present themselves in the same form, how can any one have the assurance to assert positively that any of them, whatever it may be, is one thing rather than another? No one can.

Cf. Aristotle, Meteorology, IV. 1-3 (378b 10—381b 21) (tr. E. W. Webster):

1

31 (www.aristotle-aquinas.org/the-first-philosophers/the-natural-fragments/02-On%20the%20Natural%20Fragments.pdf [10/9/08])

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[10] We have explained that the qualities that constitute the elements are four, and that their combinations determine the number of the elements to be four. Two of the qualities, the hot and the cold, are active; two, the dry and the moist, passive. We can satisfy ourselves of this by looking at instances. In every case heat [15] and cold determine, conjoin, and change things of the same kind and things of different kinds, moistening, drying, hardening, and softening them. Things dry and moist, on the other hand, both in isolation and when present together in the same body are the subjects of that determination and of the other affections enumerated. [20] The account we give of the qualities when we define their character shows this too. Hot and cold we describe as active, for “congregating” is essentially a species of “being active”: moist and dry are passive, for it is in virtue of its being acted upon in a certain way that a thing is said to be “easy to [25] determine” or “difficult to determine”. So it is clear that some of the qualities are active and some passive.

Next we must describe the operations of the active qualities and the forms taken by the passive. First of all, true becoming, that is, natural change, is always the [30] work of these powers and so is the corresponding natural destruction; and this becoming and this destruction are found in plants and animals and their parts. True natural becoming is a change introduced by these powers into the matter underlying a given thing when they are in a certain ratio to that matter, which is the passive qualities we have [379a] mentioned. When the hot and the cold are masters of the matter they generate a thing: if they are not, and the failure is partial, the object is imperfectly boiled or otherwise unconcocted. But the strictest general opposite of true becoming is putrefaction. All natural destruction is on the way to it, as are, for instance, growing old or growing dry. [5] Putrescence is the end of all these things, that is of all natural objects, except such as are destroyed by violence: you can burn, for instance, flesh, bone, or anything else, but the natural course of their destruction ends in putrefaction. Hence things that putrefy begin by being moist and end by being dry. For the moist and the dry were their matter, and the operation of the active qualities caused the dry to be [10] determined by the moist.32

Destruction supervenes when the determined gets the better of the determining by the help of the environment (though in a special sense the word putrefaction is applied to partial destruction, when a thing’s nature is perverted). Hence everything, except fire, is liable to putrefy; for earth, water, and air putrefy, [15] being all of them matter relatively to fire. The definition of putrefaction is: the destruction of the peculiar and natural heat in any moist subject by external heat, that is, by the heat of the environment. So since lack of heat is the ground of this affection and everything in as far as it lacks heat is cold, both heat and cold will be the causes of [20] putrefaction, which will be due indifferently to cold in the putrefying subject or to heat in the environment. This explains why everything that putrefies grows drier and ends by becoming earth or dung.33 The subject’s own heat departs and causes the natural moisture to evaporate with it, and then there is nothing left to draw in moisture, for it is a thing’s [25] peculiar heat that attracts moisture and draws it in. Again, putrefaction takes place less in cold than in hot seasons, for in winter the surrounding air and water contain but little heat and it has no power, but in summer there is more. Again, what is frozen does not putrefy, for its cold is greater than the heat of the air and so is not [30] mastered, whereas what affects a thing does master it. Nor does that which is boiling or hot putrefy, for the heat in the air being less than that in the object does not prevail over it or set up any change. So too anything that is flowing or in motion is less apt to putrefy than a thing at rest, for the motion set up by the heat in the air is weaker than that pre-existing in the object, and so it causes no change. For the same [379b] reason a great quantity of a thing putrefies less readily than a little, for the greater quantity contains too much proper fire and cold for the corresponding qualities in the

32 Since they begin by being moist but end up dry, should this not be the other way around?33 One is reminded here of fruits or vegetables that “go bad”.

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environment to get the better of. Hence, the sea putrefies quickly when broken [5] up into parts, but not as a whole; and all other waters likewise. Animals too are generated in putrefying bodies, because the heat that has been secreted, being natural, organizes the particles secreted with it. So much for the nature of becoming and of destruction.

2

We must now describe the next kinds of processes which the qualities [10] already mentioned set up in actually existing natural objects as matter. Of these concoction [pepsis] is due to heat; its species are ripening, boiling, broiling. Inconcoction is due to cold and its species are rawness, imperfect boiling, imperfect broiling.34 (We must recognize that the things are not properly denoted by these words: the various [15] classes of similar objects have no names universally applicable to them; consequently we must think of the species enumerated as being not what those words denote but something like it.) Let us say what each of them is. Concoction is a process in which the natural and proper heat of an object perfects the corresponding passive qualities, which are the proper matter of any given object. For when [20] concoction has taken place we say that a thing has been perfected and has come to be itself. It is the proper heat of a thing that sets up this perfecting, though external influences may contribute in some degrees to its fulfilment. Baths, for instance, and other things of the kind contribute to the digestion of food, but the primary cause [25] is the proper heat of the body. In some cases of concoction the end of the process is the nature of the thing—nature, that is, in the sense of the formal cause and essence. In other cases it leads to some presupposed state which is attained when the moisture has acquired certain properties or a certain magnitude in the process of being broiled or boiled or of putrefying, or however else it is being heated. This state is the end, for when it has been reached the thing has [30] some use and we say that concoction has taken place. Must is an instance of this, and the matter in boils when it becomes purulent, and tears when they become rheum, and so with the rest. Concoction ensues whenever the matter, the moisture, is mastered.35 For the matter is what is determined by the heat connatural to the object, and as long as the ratio between them exists in it a thing maintains its nature. Hence things like the [380a] liquid and solid excreta and ejecta in general are signs of health, and concoction is said to have taken place in them, for they show that the proper heat has got the better of the indeterminate matter.

Things that undergo a process of concoction necessarily become thicker and [5] hotter, for the action of heat is to make things more compact, thicker, and drier. This then is the nature of concoction: but inconcoction is an imperfect state due to lack of proper heat, that is, to cold. That of which the imperfect state is, is the corresponding passive qualities which are the natural matter of anything. [10] So much for the definition of concoction and inconcoction.

3

Ripening is a sort of concoction; for we call it ripening when there is a concoction of the nutriment in fruit. And since concoction is a sort of perfecting, the process of ripening is perfect when the seeds in fruit are able to reproduce the fruit [15] in which they are found; for in all other cases as well this is what we mean by “perfect”. This is what “ripening” means when the word is applied to fruit. However, many other things that have undergone concoction are said to be “ripe”, the general character of the process being the

34 The analogy with the cooking of food is inescapable.35 That is, it begins by being moist, and becomes drier, as Aristotle states just below.

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same, though the word is applied by an extension of meaning.36 The reason for this extension is, as we explained before, that the various [20] modes in which natural heat and cold perfect the matter they determine have not special names appropriated to them. In the case of boils and phlegm, and the like, the process of ripening is the concoction of the moisture in them by their natural heat, for only that which gets the better of matter can determine it. So everything that ripens is condensed from a spirituous into a watery state, and from a watery into an [25] earthy state, and in general from being rare becomes dense. In this process the nature of the thing that is ripening incorporates some of the matter in itself, and some it rejects. So much for the definition of ripening. Rawness is its opposite and is therefore an imperfect concoction of the nutriment in the fruit, namely, of the undetermined moisture. Consequently a raw thing is either spirituous or [30] watery or contains both spirit and water. Ripening being a kind of perfecting, rawness will be an imperfect state, and this state is due to a lack of natural heat and its disproportion to the moisture that is undergoing the process of ripening. (Nothing moist ripens without the admixture of some dry matter: water alone of liquids does not thicken.) This disproportion may be due either to defect of heat or to [380b] excess of the matter to be determined: hence the juice of raw things is thin, cold rather than hot, and unfit for food or drink. Rawness, like ripening, is used to denote a variety of states. Thus the liquid and solid excreta and catarrhs are called raw for the [5] same reason, for in every case the word is applied to things because their heat has not got the mastery in them and compacted them. If we go further, brick is called raw and so is milk and many other things too when they are such as to admit of being changed and compacted by heat but have remained unaffected. Hence, while [10] we speak of “boiled” water, we cannot speak of raw water, since it does not thicken. We have now defined ripening and rawness and assigned their causes. Boiling is, in general, a concoction by moist heat of the indeterminate matter contained in the moisture of the thing boiled, and the word is strictly applicable only to things boiled in the way of cooking. The indeterminate matter, as we said, will be either spirituous or [15] watery. The cause of the concoction is the fire contained in the moisture; for what is cooked in a frying-pan is broiled: it is the heat outside that affects it and, as for the moisture in which it is contained, it dries this up and draws it into itself. But a thing that is being boiled behaves in the opposite way: the moisture contained in it is [20] drawn out of it by the heat in the liquid outside. Hence boiled meats are drier than broiled; for, in boiling, things do not draw the moisture into themselves, since the external heat gets the better of the internal: if the internal heat had got the better it would have drawn the moisture to itself. Not every body admits of the process of boiling: if there is no moisture in it, it does not (for instance, stones), nor does it if [25] there is moisture in it but the density of the body is too great for it-to-be mastered, as in the case of wood. But only those bodies can be boiled that contain moisture which can be acted on by the heat contained in the liquid outside. It is true that gold and wood and many other things are said to be “boiled”: but this is a stretch of the meaning of the word, though the kind of thing intended is the same, the reason for the usage being [30] that the various cases have no names appropriated to them. Liquids too, like milk and must, are said to undergo a process of “boiling” when the external fire that surrounds and heats them changes the savour in the liquid into a given form, the process being thus in a way like what we have called boiling.

36 Insofar as an animal resembles a plant, with regard to the production of the catamenia (menses) or of an egg, which are the “fruit” of the womb, an analogous process will be understood to take place. Cf. De Gen. Animal, I. 20 (728a 25-30): “Thus it is clear that it is reasonable to suppose that generation comes from this. For the catamenia are semen not in a pure state but in need of working up, as in the formation of fruits the nutriment is present, when it is not yet sifted thoroughly, but needs working up to purify it. Thus the catamenia cause generation by mixture with the semen, as this impure nutriment in plants is [30] nutritious when mixed with pure nutriment.”

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The end of the things that undergo boiling, or indeed any form of concoction, is [381a] not always the same: some are meant to be eaten, some drunk, and some are intended for other uses; for instance dyes, too, are said to be “boiled”. All those things then admit of “boiling” which can grow denser, smaller, or heavier; also those which do that with a part of themselves and with a part do the opposite, dividing in such a way that one portion thickens while the other grows thinner, like milk when it divides into whey and curd. Oil by itself is affected in none of these ways, and therefore cannot be said to admit of “boiling”. Such then is the species of concoction known as “boiling”, and the process is the same in an artificial [10] and in a natural instrument, for the cause will be the same in every case. Imperfect boiling is the form of inconcoction opposed to boiling. Now the opposite of boiling properly so called is an inconcoction of the undetermined matter in a body due to lack of heat in the surrounding liquid. (Lack of heat implies, [15] as we have pointed out, the presence of cold.) The motion which causes imperfect boiling is different from that which causes boiling, for the heat which operates the concoction is driven out. The lack of heat is due either to the amount of cold in the liquid or to the quantity of moisture in the object undergoing the process of boiling. Where either of these conditions is realized the heat in the surrounding liquid is too great to have no effect at all, but too small to carry out the process of concocting uniformly [20] and thoroughly. Hence things are harder when they are imperfectly boiled than when they are boiled, and the moisture in them more distinct from the solid parts. So much for the definition and causes of boiling and imperfect boiling. Broiling is concoction by dry foreign heat. Hence if a man were to boil a thing [25] but the change and concoction in it were due, not to the heat of the liquid but to that of the fire, the thing will have been broiled and not boiled when the process has been carried to completion: if the process has gone too far we use the word “scorched” to describe it. If the process leaves the thing drier at the end the agent has been dry heat. Hence the outside is drier than the inside, the opposite being true of things [30] boiled. Where the process is artificial, broiling is more difficult than boiling, for it is difficult to heat the inside and the outside uniformly, since the parts nearer to the fire are the first to get dry and consequently get more intensely dry. In this way the [381b] outer pores contract and the moisture in the thing cannot be secreted but is shut in by the closing of the pores. Now broiling and boiling are artificial processes, but the [5] same general kind of thing, as we said, is found in nature too. The affections produced are similar though they lack a name; for art imitates nature. For instance, the concoction of food in the body is like boiling, for it takes place in a hot and moist medium and the agent is the heat of the body. So, too, certain forms of indigestion [10] are like imperfect boiling. And it is not true that animals are generated in the concoction of food, as some say. Really they are generated in the excretion which putrefies in the lower belly, and they ascend afterwards. For concoction goes on in the upper belly but the excretion putrefies in the lower: the reason for this has been explained elsewhere. We have seen that the opposite of boiling is imperfect boiling: now there is something [15] correspondingly opposed to the species of concoction called broiling, but it is more difficult to find a name for it. It would be the kind of thing that would happen if there were imperfect broiling instead of broiling proper through lack of heat due to deficiency in the external fire or to the quantity of water in the thing undergoing the process. For then we should get too much heat for no effect to be produced, but too little for concoction to take place.[20] We have now explained concoction and inconcoction, ripening and rawness, boiling and broiling, and their opposites. (emphasis added)

Cf. Aristotle, Meteorology, IV. 4-6 (381b 23—783b 16) (tr. E. W. Webster):4

We must now describe the forms taken by the passive qualities the moist and the dry. The elements of bodies, that is, the passive ones, are the moist and the [25] dry; the bodies

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themselves are compounded of them and whichever predominates determines the nature of the body; thus some bodies partake more of the dry, others of the moist. All the forms to be described will exist either actually, or potentially and in their opposite: for instance, there is actual melting and on the other hand that which admits of being melted. Since the moist is easily determined and the dry determined with difficulty, their relation to one another is like that of a dish and its condiments. The moist is [30] what makes the dry determinable, and each serves as a sort of glue to the other—as Empedocles said in his poem on Nature, ‘glueing meal together by means of [382a] water.’ Thus the determined body involves them both. Of the elements earth is especially representative of the dry, water of the moist, and therefore all determinate bodies in our world involve earth and water. Every body shows the quality of [5] that element which predominates in it. It is because earth and water are the material elements of all bodies that animals live in them alone and not in air or fire. Of the qualities of bodies hardness and softness are those which must primarily belong to a determined thing, for anything made up of the dry and the moist is [10] necessarily either hard or soft. Hard is that the surface of which does not yield into itself; soft that which does yield but not by interchange of place: water, for instance, is not soft, for its surface does not yield to pressure or sink in but there is an interchange of place. Those things are absolutely hard and soft which satisfy the definition absolutely, and those things relatively so which do so compared with [15] another thing. Now relatively to one another hard and soft are indefinable, because it is a matter of degree, but since all the objects of sense are determined by reference to the faculty of sense it is clearly the relation to touch which determines that which is hard and soft absolutely, and touch is that which we use as a standard or mean. So we call that which exceeds it hard and that which falls short of it soft. [20]

5

A body determined by its own boundary must be either hard or soft; for it either yields or does not. It must also be concrete: or it could not be so determined. So since everything that is determined and solid is either hard or soft and these qualities are due to [25] concretion, all composite and determined bodies must involve concretion. Concretion therefore must be discussed. Now there are two causes besides matter, the agent and the quality brought about, the agent being the efficient cause, the quality the formal cause. Hence concretion and disaggregation, drying and moistening, must have these two causes. [30] But since concretion is a form of drying let us speak of the latter first. As we have explained, the agent operates by means of two qualities and the patient is acted on in virtue of two qualities: action takes place by means of heat or cold, and the quality is produced either by the presence or by the absence of heat or cold; but that [382b] which is acted upon is moist or dry or a compound of both. Water is the element characterized by the moist, earth that characterized by the dry, for these among the elements that admit the qualities moist and dry are passive. Therefore cold, too, [5] being found in water and earth (both of which we recognize to be cold), must be reckoned rather as a passive quality. It is active only as contributing to destruction or incidentally in the manner described before; for cold is sometimes actually said to burn and to warm, but not in the same way as heat does, but by collecting and concentrating heat. [10] The subjects of drying are water and the various watery fluids and those bodies which contain water either foreign or connatural. By foreign I mean like the water in wool, by connatural, like that in milk. The watery fluids are wine, urine, whey, and in general those fluids which have no sediment or only a little, except where this absence of sediment is due to viscosity. For in some cases, in oil and pitch for [15] instance, it is the viscosity which prevents any sediment from appearing.

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It is always a process of heating or cooling that dries things, but the agent in both cases is heat, either internal or external. For even when things are dried by [20] cooling, like a garment, where the moisture exists separately it is the internal heat that dries them. It carries off the moisture in the shape of vapour (if there is not too much of it), being itself driven out by the surrounding cold. So everything is dried, as we have said, by a process either of heating or cooling, but the agent is always heat, either internal or external, carrying off the moisture in vapour. By external [25] heat I mean as where things are boiled: by internal where the heat breathes out and takes away and uses up its moisture. So much for drying.

6

Liquefaction is, first, condensation into water; second, the melting of a [30] solidified body. The first, condensation, is due to the cooling of vapour: what melting is will appear from the account of solidification. Whatever solidifies is either water or a mixture of earth and water, and the [383a] agent is either dry heat or cold. Hence those of the bodies solidified by heat or cold which are soluble at all are dissolved by their opposites. Bodies solidified by the dry-hot are dissolved by water, which is the moist-cold, while bodies solidified by cold are dissolved by fire, which is hot. Some things seem to be solidified by water, e.g. [5] boiled honey, but really it is not the water but the cold in the water which effects the solidification. Aqueous bodies are not solidified by fire: for it is fire that dissolves them, and the same cause in the same relation cannot have opposite effects upon the same thing. Again, water solidifies owing to the departure of heat; so it will clearly [10] be dissolved by the entry into it of heat: cold, therefore, must be the agent in solidifying it. Hence aqueous bodies do not thicken when they solidify; for thickening occurs when the moisture goes off and the dry matter comes together, but water is the only liquid that does not thicken. Those bodies that are made up of both earth and water are solidified both by fire and by cold and in either case are thickened. The [15] operation of the two is in a way the same and in a way different. Heat acts by drawing off the moisture, and as the moisture goes off in vapour the dry matter thickens and collects. Cold acts by driving out the heat, which is accompanied by the moisture as this goes off in vapour with it. Bodies that are soft but not liquid do not thicken but solidify when the moisture leaves them, e.g. potter’s clay in process [20] of baking: but those mixed bodies that are liquid thicken besides solidifying, like milk. Those bodies which have first been thickened or hardened by cold often begin by becoming moist: thus potter’s clay at first in the process of baking steams and grows softer, and is liable to distortion in the ovens for that reason. Now of the bodies solidified by cold which are made up both of earth and water but in which the earth preponderates, those which solidify by the departure of heat melt by heat when it enters into them again; this is the case with frozen mud. But those which solidify by refrigeration, where all the moisture has gone off in vapour with the heat, like iron [30] and horn, cannot be dissolved except by excessive heat, but they can be softened-though manufactured iron does melt, to the point of becoming fluid and then solidifying again. This is how steel is made. The dross sinks to the bottom and is purged away: when this has been done often and the metal is pure we have steel. The [383b] process is not repeated often because the purification of the metal involves great waste and loss of weight. But the iron that has less dross is the better iron. The stone pyrimachus, too, melts and forms into drops and becomes fluid; after having been in [5] a fluid state it solidifies and becomes hard again. Millstones, too, melt and become fluid: when the fluid mass begins to solidify it is black but its consistency comes to be like that of lime. and earth, too. Of the bodies which are solidified by dry heat some are insoluble, others are [10] dissolved by liquid. Pottery and some kinds of stone that are formed out of earth burnt up by fire, such as millstones, cannot be dissolved. Natron and salt are soluble by liquid, but not all liquid but only such as is cold. Hence water and any of its varieties melt them, but oil does not. For

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the opposite of the dry-hot is the cold-moist and [15] what the one solidified the other will dissolve, and so opposites will have opposite effects. (emphasis added)

6. The principles of natural changes according to the Meteorology of Aristotle.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology (tr. Pierre Conway, O.P. and F.R. Larcher, O.P.) , lect. 2, nn. 10-14:

Principles of the natural changes to be considered in this book. Their relations to each other

10. Having completed an introduction, in which the Philosopher has revealed his intention, he now begins to show his proposition. And this is divided into two parts:

In the first he restates facts necessary for knowing the principles of the transmutations to be treated in this book, at 11; In the second part he begins to treat of them (L. 3).

About the first he does two things:

First, he enumerates the principles of these transmutations and their difference from one another, at 11; Secondly, he shows how they are related to one another in causing, at 12.

11. He says therefore first [8] that it has been previously determined both in the book, On the Heavens, and in the book, On Generation, that among the other corporeal principles that are principles of other bodies there is one which is the principle of those bodies from which is constituted the nature of the bodies circularly moved, i.e., of spheres and stars. This principle, out of which all such bodies are formed, he calls the “fifth essence.” The other principles, of the lower bodies, are four in number, because of the primary tangible qualities, which are the principles of acting and of being acted upon. These are the hot, cold, moist and dry, of which there are but four possible combinations: for the hot and dry is fire, the hot and moist is air, the cold and moist is water, and the cold and dry is earth (that something should be hot and cold, or moist and dry, is impossible).

Of these four bodies there are two motions: one is upward from the middle [center] of the world, and this is the motion of light things, namely, fire and air; the other is to the middle [center], and this is the motion of heavy things, namely, earth and water . Accordingly, bodily motions are threefold: namely, to the middle for heavy bodies; from the middle for light bodies; and about the middle for the heavenly bodies, which are neither heavy nor light.

But notice should be taken of the differences in light and heavy. For there is something which is absolutely light, namely, fire, which is above all the others; there is something which is absolutely heavy, namely, earth, which is under all the others. But the other two are in a certain respect heavy and light — for air is light in relation to earth and water, but heavy in relation to fire; water, on the other hand, is light with respect to earth, but heavy with respect to air and fire. Consequently, these two are proportional to the other two that are extremes, i.e., as air is nearer to fire, so water is nearer to earth. Thus it is plain that the universe around the earth consists of four bodies. This is the world whose passions — which are the various transmutations found in the elements — we must consider in this book.

12. Then [9] he shows how the aforesaid principles are related to one another in causing. And he says that it is necessary for the lower world to consist of the four elements thus in continuity with the “upper movements,” i.e., with the bodies circularly moved (by “con-

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tinuous” he here means “contiguous,” in the sense that nothing lies between them). The reason why this is necessary is not only because no empty place can exist (hence bodies must be contiguous to bodies), but also because the end requires it – the end being that the whole power of the lower world be governed by the superior bodies, and this would not be, unless they touched — for a bodily agent must touch the thing acted upon and moved by it.

13. That the lower world is ruled and moved by the superior bodies he proves with two arguments. The first is this: The movent cause, i.e., the originative principle of motion, is necessarily the first cause. (This is to be understood in its relation to the formal and material cause. For matter is acted upon by the agent, which is by nature prior to the patient. The form, too, is an effect of the movent, which educes matter from potency to act. But the end is prior to the agent, because it moves the agent. Yet it is not always prior in the order of existence, but [sometimes] only in the order of intention.) Now it is plain that in the sphere of natural things the heavenly body is the first cause, and this is proved from its incorruptibility and nobility. Consequently, the heavenly body, with respect to these lower bodies, must be the originative cause of motion.

14. At [10] he gives the second argument, which is this: The motion of the heavenly body is perpetual. This is apparent from the very disposition of place: for in the case of a straight line, one arrives at an end in act, namely, the terminus of the line, but in the case of a circle, one does not arrive at an end. He says, therefore, that circular motion does not have an end according to place. And lest anyone conclude from this that circular motion is imperfect, on the same ground that a straight motion is imperfect before reaching its end, he adds that a circular motion is always at an end — for any point you designate on a circle is both a beginning and an end, and circular motion is as perfect at any sector as a straight motion is at its end. Therefore it is plain, from the very disposition of place, that, to heavenly motions, perpetuity is congruent.

The motions of lower bodies, on the other hand, cannot be perpetual, because such bodies are moved with rectilinear motions, and a rectilinear motion remains one and continuous only according to the measure of the rectilinear magnitude along which the motion passes, and a reflected motion is not continuous, as was proved in Physics VIII. Hence, since all the lower bodies are a finite distance from one another, and no such body is infinite, as was proved in Physics III and in On the Heavens I, their motions must be finite and not perpetual.

What is perpetual and always, consequently, is the movent of those things which are not always. Wherefore the lower elements, namely, fire and earth and the others which are “syngeneous,” i.e., congenerable, with them, namely, air and water, and those things which are composed out of them, must be reckoned the causes of the things occurring in the lower world, “in the line of matter,” i.e., after the manner of the material cause, because that is the way we speak of a subject and a patient being a cause of things.

But their cause in the sense of “originative source of motion,” i.e., their cause after the manner of movent cause, must be “sustained,” i.e., held, to be that power which belongs to the “always moved,” i.e., to the heavenly bodies, which are always in motion — for what is always in motion is compared to what is not forever in motion as agent is compared to patient. (emphasis added)

Cf. ibid., Book, I, lect. 3, nn. 15-17:

Mutual transformation of the elements. Presence above of the heavenly body

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15. Having identified which are the active principles and which the material principles of the passions which he intends to treat, he now begins to determine concerning them. And this is divided into two parts:

In the first he determines concerning the particular transmutations of the elements, whereby they are transmuted according to themselves, at 15;

Secondly, he determines about their transmutations accordingly as they enter into composition to form a mixture, in Book IV. The first part is divided into two parts:

In the first he determines concerning the transmutations or passions of the elements which occur on high;

In the second, about those which occur below, and this in Book II.

The first part is divided into three parts:

In the first he declares what his intention is;

In the second he states certain preliminaries necessary for determining what is to follow, at 16;

In the third he begins to determine concerning his main proposition (L.6).

He says therefore first [11] that we must speak of the “image of the milk,” i.e., of the appearance of the milky circle, and of comets and of all other like things which are “syngeneous,” i.e., generable along with them; but in doing so we shall [first] recall the positions laid down by us in the earlier books and the determinations already determined therein, so that we may, when necessary, use them to manifest the proposition.

16. Then [12] he sets forth certain things needed for what is to follow. About this he does two things:

First, he premises something pertaining to the mutual transmutation of the elements, at 16;

Secondly, he speaks of the arrangement of the elements in the world, with special emphasis on air, at 17.

He says therefore first [12] that fire and air and water and earth are produced from one another (even though Empedocles thought the contrary). And he restates this as proved in On Generation II. The reason for this which he assigns is that each element exists potentially in another, and that things so related can be generated one from the other. He assigns a further reason, which is that they all have the same common first matter which underlies each of them and into which, as into an ultimate, they are all resolved: for all things whose matter is one and common to all are so related that any one is potentially in any other – as, for example, a knife is potentially in a nail, and a nail potentially in a knife, because they have a common matter, iron.

17. Then [13] he inquires into the order of the elements and into the case of air in particular. About this he does three things:

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First he raises the question and says that our first problem is about the body called “air,” as to what nature it has in the world surrounding the earth: i.e., is the whole air, and, if not, how it is related to the other elements?

Secondly [14], he proposes certain evident facts about the order of the elements. The first fact concerns the earth, and it is that we are not entirely ignorant of the size of the earth in comparison to the surrounding magnitudes, namely, those of the heavenly bodies and of the other elements. For it is already plain from the considerations of astronomers that the earth is much smaller than certain stars, and that it is but the size of a point in comparison to the outermost sphere. The second fact he proposes is about water [15] and he says that we do not observe water to exist by itself and isolated from the body located about the earth, namely, from the sea and rivers, which we see, and from the bodies of water which some have asserted to exist hidden from us in the bowels of the earth. For it does not occur to water to be gathered together in this way — since the moistness which is water is contained by some alien terminus. (emphasis added)

Cf. ibid., Book, I, lect. 3, n. 19 [with glosses inserted by B.A.M.]:

19. Secondly [17], he repeats something already determined in On the Heavens: this is the condition, as far as its power is concerned, of the first element, namely, the celestial body [sc. that it is “perpetual”]; and that that entire world which is “about the upper motions,” i.e., which is moved with a circular motion [sc. which is everlasting], is filled with that body — for all the heavenly bodies pertain to the nature of that first element [which element is called “aether” from the fact that it is “always running”, as is next explained]. And since the philosophers supposed the contrary, he therefore, lest his opinion appear novel, adds that not only did he have this opinion, but it was also an ancient opinion of earlier men. For the body which is called “aether,” and which we call the “heaven,” has an ancient name.

But Anaxagoras seems to have supposed that it means the same as “fire” – for he took the word “aether” not to mean “always running,” i.e., to be in continuous motion, but he derives it from aethein, which is “to burn,” because he believed the superior bodies to be filled with fire. And although in this he spoke ill, nevertheless he was right in supposing the name “aether” to befit a corporeal potency over and above those bodies. For all the ancients are seen to have believed, and decided, that the name “aether” should be given to the body which always “runs,” i.e., is always in motion, and which is a certain “divine,” i.e., perpetual, something according to its nature. This they did as if that body were like no body that exists around us. (emphasis added)

Notice how the foregoing considerations—namely, the sensibly-apparent movement of the heavens and its attendant bodies as “always running” in a circular motion suggesting their character as perpetual and hence divine—make manifest the foundational reason why the first work of the Six Days should consist in the imparting to the heavens of a principle giv-ing them just such a character—that is to say, imparting to them a generative power consis-ting in an element analogous to what Aristotle and the ancients called “aether”, being the subject of “vital heat”, as we have argued above.

7. Aither in relation to the gods and the primary body.

Cf. Aristotle, On the Heavens (De Caelo), I. 3 (270b 16-25) (tr. J. L. Stock):

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The common name, too, which has been handed down from our distant ancestors even to our own day, seems to show that they conceived of it in the fashion which we have been expressing. The same ideas, one must believe, recur in men’s minds not once or twice but again and again. And so, implying that the [20] primary body is something else beyond earth, fire, air, and water, they gave the highest place a name of its own, aither, derived from the fact that it ‘runs always’ for an eternity of time. Anaxagoras, however, scandalously misuses this name, taking aither as equivalent to fire.

Cf. Plato, Cratylus, 397d (tr. Benjamin Jowett):

SOCRATES. My notion would be something of this sort:- I suspect that the sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven, which are still the Gods of many barbarians, were the only Gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes. Seeing that they were always moving and running, from their running nature they were called Gods or runners (qeou/j, qe/ontaj); and when men became acquainted with the other Gods, they proceeded to apply the same name to them all.

Cf. Plutarch, Philosophical Essays. In Plutarch’s Complete Works, edited by W. Lloyd Bevan. Vol. Essays and Miscellanies, Vol. I. New York: Thomas Crowell & Co., 1909:

SENTIMENTS CONCERNING NATURE WITH WHICH PHILOSOPHERSWERE DELIGHTED

BOOK I.

CHAPTER VI.

WHENCE DID MEN OBTAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCEAND ESSENCE OF A DEITY?

To men the heavenly bodies that are so visible did give the knowledge of the deity; when they contemplated that they are the causes of so great an harmony, that they regulate day and night, winter and summer, by their rising and setting, and likewise considered those things which by their influences in the earth do receive a being and do likewise fructify. It was manifest to men that the Heaven was the father of those things, and the Earth the mother; that the Heaven was the father is clear, since from the heavens there is the pouring down of waters, which have their spermatic faculty; the Earth the mother, because she receives them and brings forth. Likewise men considering that the stars are running (Greek omitted) in a perpetual motion, that the sun and moon give us the stimulus to view and contemplate (Greek omitted), they call them all gods (Greek omitted).37

Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Phys. I. 20-23 (= Aristotle, On Philosophy, frag. R3 12), tr. W. D. Ross, The Works of Aristotle, Vol. XII, Select Fragments, 12 a, p. 84:

Aristotle used to say that men’s thought of gods sprang from two sources—the experiences of the soul and the phenomena of the heavens. To the first head belonged the inspiration and prophetic power of the soul in dreams. For when, he says, the soul is isolated in sleep, it assumes its true nature and foresees and foretells the future. So it is too with the soul, when at death it is severed from the body. At all events, Aristotle accepts even Homer as having observed this; for Homer has represented Patroclus, in the moment of his death, as foretelling the death of Hector, and Hector as foretelling the end of Achilles. It was from

37 Plutarch’s indebtedness here to Aristotle’s dialogue On Philosophy will be apparent from the next two ex-cerpts.

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such events, he says, that men came to suspect the existence of something divine,1 of that which is in itself akin to the soul and of all things most full of knowledge. But the heavenly bodies also contributed to this belief; seeing by day the sun running his circular course, and by night the well-ordered movement of the other stars, they came to think that there is a God who is the cause of such movement and order. Such was the belief of Aristotle. (emphasis added)

1 Reading in R, 28. 13 qei=on, with Mutschmann.

Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Math. 9 (Phys. I) 26-27 (= Aristotle, On Philosophy, frag. R3 13), tr. W. D. Ross, The Works of Aristotle, Vol. XII, Select Fragments, 12 b, p. 85:

Some men, when they come to the unswerving and well-ordered movement of the heavenly bodies, say that in this the thought of gods had its origin; for as, if one had sat on the Trojan Mount Ida and seen the array of the Greeks approaching the plains in good order and arrangement, ‘horsemen first with horses and chariots, and footmen behind’,1 such a one would certainly have come to think that there was someone arranging such an array and commanding the soldiers ranged under him, Nestor or some other hero who knew ‘how to order horses and bucklered warriors’.2 And as one familiar with ships, as soon as he sees from afar a ship running before the wind with all its sails well set, knows that there is someone directing it and steering it3 to its appointed harbours, so those who first looked up to heaven and saw the sun running its race from its rising to its setting, and the orderly dances of the stars, looked for the Craftsman of this lovely design, and surmised that it came about not by chance but by the agency of some mightier and imperishable nature, which was God.

1 Hom. Il. 4. 297.2 Ibid. 2. 5543 Reading in R. 29. 6 kata/gwn, with Mutchsmann. (emphasis added)

8. Pneuma as vital spirit and its relation to the fifth element.

On pneuma in general, cf. Galen II. Claudius Galenus. Philosophy:38

On the basis of his philosophical studies, Galen came to the conclusion that the various bodily functions were induced by the Pneuma or universal spirit. He believed the pneuma to be a fine, spirit-like material which drifted through the universe and which controlled and organized physical bodies. Galen distinguished between three types of spirit: the spiritus vitalis or life spirit, originating in the heart and flowing through the arteries; the spiritus animalis or animal spirit to be found in the brain and nerves; and the spiritus naturalis, or natural spirit, formed in the liver. However, Galen also believed that the life process was sustained by food, which was convened into blood in the liver. Blood from the liver nourished the heart, lungs and other organs, including the brain. Waste materials were also thought to be removed by the blood. Thus, blood circulation and metabolism are critical elements of Galenic physiological theory, and Galen was the first person to suggest a relationship between food, blood and air. (emphasis added)

Cf. Stefan Stenudd, Qi-energy Info. Qi synonyms:39

38 (www.geocities.com/IslamPencereleri/galen_2.htm [10/25/09])39 (http://www.qi-energy.info/qi-synonyms-P.htm [10/30/09])

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But pneuma was central in the theories of the Greek physician Galen (Klaudios Galenos, 131-201 CE), which were the basics of medicine all the way to the 17 th century. His thoughts on pneuma can be described as biological applications of Aristotle’s ideas about the quintessence. According to Galenos, pneuma entered through the lungs, and was in the liver transformed to natural spirit (pneuma physikon, in Latin spiritus naturalis), which entered the blood. He also talked about a vital spirit (pneuma zotikon, in Latin spiritus vitalis), which traveled through the heart and the blood, setting the body in motion, and a spirit of the psyche (pneuma psychikon, in Latin spiritus animalis), which traveled from the brain out to the nerves, for the senses to function. (emphasis added)

For Aristotle, cf. On the Generation of Animals, II. 3 (736b 29—737b 6) (tr. Arthur Platt):

Now it is true that the faculty of all kinds of soul seems to have a connexion with a matter different from and more divine than the so-called elements; but as one [30] soul differs from another in honour and dishonour, so differs also the nature of the corresponding matter. All have in their semen that which causes it to be productive; I mean what is called vital heat. This is not fire nor any such force, but it is the spiritus included in the semen and the foam-like, and the natural principle in the spiritus [pneuma], being analogous to the element of the stars. Hence, whereas fire generates [737a ] no animal and we do not find any living thing forming in either solids or liquids under the influence of fire, the heat of the sun and that of animals does generate them. Not only is this true of the heat that works through the semen, but whatever other residuum of the animal nature there may be, this also has still a vital principle in [5] it. From such considerations it is clear that the heat in animals neither is fire nor derives its origin from fire. Let us return to the material of the semen, in and with which comes away from the male the spiritus conveying the principle of soul. Of this principle there are two kinds; the one is not connected with matter, and belongs to those animals in which is included something divine (to wit, [10] what is called reason [nous]), while the other is inseparable from matter. This material of the semen dissolves and evaporates because it has a liquid and watery nature. Therefore we ought not to expect it always to come out again from the female or to form any part of the embryo that has taken shape from it; the case resembles that of [15] the fig-juice which curdles milk, for this too changes without becoming any part of the curdling masses. It has been settled, then, in what sense the embryo and the semen have soul, and in what sense they have not; they have it potentially but not actually. Now semen is a secretion and is moved with the same movement as that in virtue [20] of which the body increases (this increase being due to subdivision of the nutriment in its last stage). When it has entered the uterus it puts into form the corresponding secretion of the female and moves it with the same movement wherewith it is moved itself. For the female’s contribution also is a secretion, and has all the parts in it potentially though none of them actually; it has in it potentially even those parts [25] which differentiate the female from the male, for just as the young of mutilated parents are sometimes born mutilated and sometimes not, so also the young born of a female are sometimes female and sometimes male instead. For the female is, as it were, a mutilated [or ‘defective’] male, and the catamenia are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul. For this reason, [30] whenever a wind-egg is produced by any animal, the egg so forming has in it the parts of both sexes potentially, but has not the principle in question, so that it does not develop into a living creature, for this is introduced by the semen of the male. When such a principle has been imparted to the secretion of the female it becomes an embryo. [35] Liquid but corporeal substances become surrounded by some kind of covering on heating, like the solid scum which forms on boiled foods when cooling. All bodies are held together by the [737b] glutinous; this quality, as the embryo develops and increases in size, is acquired by the sinewy substance, which holds together the parts of animals, being actual sinew in some

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and its analogue in others. To the same class belong also skin, blood-vessels, [5] membranes, and the like, for these differ in being more or less glutinous and generally in excess and deficiency. (emphasis added)

Cf. Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, II. 4 (739b 20-32) (tr. Arthur Platt):

[20] When the material secreted by the female in the uterus has been fixed by the semen of the male (this acts in the same way as rennet acts upon milk, for rennet is a kind of milk containing vital heat, which brings into one mass and fixes the similar material, and the relation of the semen to the catamenia is the same, milk and the [25] catamenia being of the same nature)—when, I say, the more solid part comes together, the liquid is separated off from it, and as the earthy parts solidify membranes form all round it; this is both a necessary result and for a final cause, the former because the surface of a mass must solidify on heating as well as on cooling, the latter because the foetus must not be in a liquid but be separated [30] from it. Some of these are called membranes and others choria, the difference being one of more or less, and they exist in ovipara and vivipara alike. (emphasis added)

Cf. Aristotle, Generation of Animals, translated by A. L. Peck. (London, 1942, rprt. 1963) From the Introduction, Sec. 32:

It may be noted here that the physical substance concerned throughout the theory of generation is pneuma [= spiritus] (a substance “analogous to aither,” the “fifth element,” the “element of the stars”),40 with which Soul is “associated”; and it is this pneuma which Soul charges with a specific “movement” and uses as its “instrument” in generation just as it does in locomotion, and as an artist uses his instruments, to which he imparts “movement,” in order to create his works of art.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 118, art. 1, obj. 4, ad 4 (tr. English Domini-can Fathers):

Objection 4. Further, if there be in the semen any principle productive of the sensitive soul, this principle either remains after the animal is begotten, or it does not remain. Now it cannot remain. For either it would be identified with the sensitive soul of the begotten animal; which is impossible, for thus there would be identity between begetter and begotten, maker and made: or it would be distinct therefrom; and again this is impossible, for it has been proved above (76, 4) that in one animal there is but one formal principle, which is the soul. If on the other hand the aforesaid principle does not remain, this again seems to be impossible: for thus an agent would act to its own destruction, which cannot be. Therefore the sensitive soul cannot be generated from the semen.

Reply to Objection 3. This active force which is in the semen, and which is derived from the soul of the generator, is, as it were, a certain movement of this soul itself: nor is it the soul or a part of the soul, save virtually; thus the form of a bed is not in the saw or the axe, but a certain movement towards that form. Consequently there is no need for this active force to have an actual organ; but it is based on the (vital) spirit in the semen which is frothy, as is attested by its whiteness. In which spirit, moreover, there is a certain heat derived from the power of the heavenly bodies, by virtue of which the inferior bodies also act towards the production of the species as stated above (115, 3, ad 2). And since in this (vital) spirit the power of the soul is concurrent with the power of a heavenly body, it has been said that “man and the sun generate man.” Moreover, elemental heat is employed

40 It being the vital heat in the pneuma which makes it to be the element analogous to that of the stars.

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instrumentally by the soul’s power, as also by the nutritive power, as stated (De Anima ii, 4). (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent., dist. 18, q. 2, art. 3, c. (tr. B.A.M.):

…Now this power is not passive in the seed of the male in the way in which we say that wood and stones are in potency to a house (for in this way there is a power in the menstruum of the woman) but it is an active potency, just as we say the form in the mind of the artisan is in potency to a house. Whence the Philosopher in Book 17 of the De Animalibus compares it to art; and this power Avicenna and the Commentator in Book 7 of the Metaphysics call the formative virtue: which virtue, in fact, with respect to the mode of operating is a mean between the intellect and the other powers of the soul. For the other powers in their operations use determinate organs: but the intellect uses none. But this uses something bodily in its operation which does not yet have a determinate species. Now the subject and organ of this power is the vital spirit enclosed in the seed; whence in order for a spirit of this sort to be contained in the seed it is foamy, and this is the cause of its whiteness. Now the formative virtue is conjoined to this spirit in the manner of a motor rather than in the manner of a form, even if in some way it is its form; whence the Commentator in Book 7 of the Metaphysics says that that virtue is included in the seed in some way just as the motors are united to the orbs…. (emphasis added)

In sum, the vital heat belonging to the seed stands to it just as the corresponding quality in the stars—which is their vital heat—stands to them; the aither being its ‘element’. But in-asmuch as the one bears “the principle of soul”, the virtus formativa of Thomas, so, too, would the other: cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 118, art. 1, sc. (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

On the contrary, The power in the semen is to the animal seminally generated, as the power in the elements of the world is to animals produced from these elements—for instance by putrefaction. But in the latter animals the soul is produced by the elemental power, according to Genesis 1:20: “Let the waters bring forth the creeping creatures having life.” Therefore also the souls of animals seminally generated are produced by the seminal power. [Which power, as we have seen, is concurrent with the power of a heavenly body. (B.A.M.)]

Cf. Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, III. 11 (762a 8-33) (tr. Arthur Platt):

All those which do not bud off or ‘spawn’ are spontaneously generated. Now all things formed in this way, whether in earth or water, manifestly come into [10] being in connexion with putrefaction and an admixture of rain-water. For as the sweet is separated off into the matter which is forming, the residue of the mixture takes such a form. Nothing comes into being by putrefying, but by concocting; putrefaction and the thing putrefied is only a residue of that which is concocted. For [15] nothing comes into being out of the whole of anything, any more than in the products of art; if it did art would have nothing to do, but as it is in the one case art removes the useless material, in the other Nature does so. Animals and plants come into being in earth and in liquid because there is water in earth, and air [= pneuma] in water, [20] and in all air is vital heat [cf. 736b 35 ff.] so that in a sense all things are full of soul. Therefore living things form quickly whenever this air and vital heat are enclosed in anything. When they are so enclosed, the corporeal liquids being heated, there arises as it [25] were a frothy bubble. Whether what is forming is to be more or less honourable in kind depends on the embracing of the psychical principle; this again depends on the medium in which the generation takes place and the material which is included. Now in the sea the earthy matter is present in large quantities, and consequently the testaceous

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animals are formed from a concretion of this kind, the earthy matter [30] hardening round them and solidifying in the same manner as bones and horns (for these cannot be melted by fire), and the matter (or body) which contains the life being included within it. (emphasis added)

Cf. Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, II. 4 (739a 4-19) (tr. Arthur Platt):

We have thus stated the reason for which the generative secretions are formed in [5] animals. But when the semen from the male (in those animals which emit semen) has entered, it puts into form the purest part of the female secretion (for the greater part of the catamenia also is useless and fluid, as is the most fluid part of the male secretion, i.e. in a single emission, the earlier discharge being in most cases apt to be [10] infertile rather than the later, having less vital heat through want of concoction, whereas that which is concocted is thick and of a more material nature). If there is no external discharge, either in women or other animals, on account of there not being much useless and superfluous matter in the secretion, then the quantity forming [15] within the female altogether is as much as what is retained within those animals which have an external discharge; this is put into form by the power of the male residing in the semen secreted by him, or, as is clearly seen to happen in some insects, by the part in the female analogous to the uterus being inserted into the male. (emphasis added)

Cf. Gad Freudenthal, Aristotle’s Theory of Material Substance: Heat and Pneuma, Form and Soul (Oxford, 1995), Ch. III, sec. 2.2, pp. 121-124; 128-129:

...To improve our insight into Aristotle’s ideas in pneuma we should consider here not only the word, but the world too. I suggest that when Aristotle referred to the formation of pneuma within the blood through the action of vital heat, he had in mind the singular characteristic features of the process in which fresh milk is heated and eventually boiled, a procedure we may safely assume he had occasion to observe. The action of heat on milk [121-122] almost from the outset (above 30o C) causes the formation of minute bubbles throughout the liquid. These tiny bubbles do not coalesce to form large ones and they do not immediately rise to the surface, where they would vanish; rather, they persist in the liquid and rise only very slowly. Thus, as long as milk is maintained warm, it contains bubbles through and through—it remains thoroughly “pneumatized” in the precise sense of the term. ...The continued existence of bubbles throughout the liquid—its pneumatization—thus is a phenomenon which is characteristic of milk and indeed is due to some very specific chemical features.34 Now Aristotle considers milk one of the fluids produced in the body through the concoction of the blood, and my suggestion is that he took it as a model of how the pneuma can durably remain suffused in the blood: milk is the paradigmatic instance lurking behind the notion of a pneumatized fluid as a fluid in which an aeriform substance continuously inheres without separating off and rising to its natural place. That this is how Aristotle pictured the pneumatization seems to be confirmed by his description of male semen, which, like milk, is blood that has undergone further concoction: Aristotle says that the semen contains pneuma in the form of tiny bubbles (GA 2. 2)—manifestly the pneuma of the semen does not separate off the fluid.35 Similarly, when pneuma

34 [footnote omitted]35 [footnote omitted] [122-123]

is produced in water by the action of the heat of the sun, a ‘frothy bubble’ is formed (GA 3. 11, 736a24).36

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Our interpretation of Aristotle’s view of how connate pneuma is produced and maintained can be confirmed by considering the four following accounts in which pneuma is explicitly or implicitly involved: (1) The most impressive one is Aristotle’s account of ‘spontaneous’ generation: ‘Animals and plants are formed in earth and in the water because in earth water is present, and in water pneuma is present, and in all pneuma soul-heat is present, so that in a way all things are full of soul. (GA 3. 11, 762a19 ff.) Aristotle here says in so many words that (a) in all moisture pneuma is—and this means, is potentially—present, so that (b) upon heating by the sun’s generative37 heat (c) pneuma is formed (just as in the living body) , which (d) carries vital, generative, heat. There is no essential difference, then, between sexual and ‘spontaneous’ generation in Aristotle’s physiology: from a physiological point of view, the only difference relates to the source of the vital heat. ...In

36 [footnote omitted]37 GA 3. 11, 762a14; cf. Also 2. 3, 737a3; 2. 6 743a33 f. And Ch. 1, n. 54. [123-124]

‘spontaneous’ generation that initial pneuma is produced by the action of the heat of the sun.

[intervening text omitted, but cf. GA 3. 4, 755a17 ff. on yeast making dough rise, and Meteorology, 4. 3, 380b23 on the ripening of fruit]

On [128-129] what grounds, then, can warmer (and purer) pneuma be assumed to travel higher than less warm pneuma? For Aristotle’s answer, we must turn to his theory of exhalations, whose rationale was precisely to bridge the gap between the two competing construals of the elements [one being according to their proper places; the other according to the primary qualities (B.A.M.)] a gap which forbade one to say that something rises because it is hot.50 Physically speaking, the connate pneuma is somewhat analogous to what, on the scale of the entire world, Aristotle calls ‘exhalation’. Aristotle, as is well known, postulates the existence of a moist and a dry exhalation, raised by the sun from water (the sea, etc.) and the earth, respectively (e.g. Meteorology I. 4, 341b5ff.). In the present context we are interested in the first only. The ‘exhalation from water’, also called ‘vapour’ (atmis, Meteorology I. 9, 346b33; 2. 2, 354b31; 2. 4, 359b34. ff.), Aristotle says, is ‘most naturally moist and warm’ (Meteorology I. 3, 340b2f f.) 51 The vapour results from the action of heat on water, then, as connate pneuma results from blood within the body (except that the vapour, unlike the connate pneuma, separates off). Now the idea that the exhalations produced by the sun rise is self-evident: it is part of their definition. 52 On the basis of the theory of exhalations, then, the connate pneuma can indeed be held to rise by virtue of its heat, and the more so the hotter (and purer) it is.

51 ... Meteor,, I. 9, 346b29ff.52 [footnote omitted] (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 115, art. 2, sc., c., ad 4 (tr. Alfred J. Freddoso):

Now it is manifest that the active and passive principles of the generation of living things are the seeds from which living things are generated. Therefore Augustine fittingly gave the name of “seminal virtues” [seminales rationes] to all those active and passive virtues which are the principles of natural generation and movement. These active and passive virtues may be considered in several orders. For in the first place, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. vi, 10), they are principally and originally in the Word of God, as “typal ideas.” Secondly, they are in the elements of the world, where they were produced altogether at the beginning, as in

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“universal causes.” Thirdly, they are in those things which, in the succession of time, are produced by universal causes, for instance in this plant, and in that animal, as in “particular causes.” Fourthly, they are in the “seeds” produced from animals and plants. And these again are compared to further particular effects, as the primordial universal causes to the first effects produced.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 73, art. 1, ad 3 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

Nothing entirely new was afterwards made by God, but all things subsequently made had in a sense been made before in the work of the six days. Some things, indeed, had a previous existence materially, as the rib from the side of Adam out of which God formed Eve; whilst others existed not only in matter but also in their causes, as those individual creatures that are now generated existed in the first of their kind. Species, also, that are new, if any such appear, existed beforehand in various active powers; so that animals, and perhaps even new species of animals, are produced by putrefaction by the power which the stars and elements received at the beginning. Again, animals of new kinds arise occasionally from the connection of individuals belonging to different species, as the mule is the offspring of an ass and a mare; but even these existed previously in their causes, in the works of the six days. Some also existed beforehand by way of similitude, as the souls now created. And the work of the Incarnation itself was thus foreshadowed, for as we read (Phil. 2:7), The Son of God “was made in the likeness of men.” And again, the glory that is spiritual was anticipated in the angels by way of similitude; and that of the body in the heaven, especially the empyrean. Hence it is written (Eccles. 1:10), “Nothing under the sun is new, for it hath already gone before, in the ages that were before us.”

10. That man is generated by man and the sun.

Cf. Aristotle, Physics II. 2 (194b 10-15) (tr. R. P. Hardie & R. K. Gaye):

[10] Again, matter is a relative term: to each form there corresponds a special matter. How far then must the physicist know the form or essence? Up to a point, perhaps, as the doctor must know sinew or the smith bronze (i.e. until he understands the purpose of each): and the physicist is concerned only with things whose forms are separable indeed, but do not exist apart from matter. Man is begotten by man and by the sun as well. The mode of existence and essence of the separable it is the business of the primary type of philosophy to define. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Books I-II translated by Richard J. Blackwell, Richard J. Spath & W. Edmund Thirlkel Yale U.P., 1963, Bk. II, lect. 4, n. 175:

LECTURE 4 (194 a 12-b 15)PHYSICS CONSIDERS NOT ONLY MATTER BUT ALSO EVERY FORM EXISTING

IN MATTER

175. Next where he says, ‘How far then ...’ (194 b 10), he shows to what extent natural science considers form.

Concerning this he makes two points. First he raises the question, i.e., to what extent should natural science consider the form and quiddity of a thing. (For to consider the forms and quiddities of things absolutely seems to belong to first philosophy.)

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Secondly, he answers the question by saying that as the doctor considers nerves, and the smith considers bronze, up to a certain point, so also the natural philosopher considers forms. For the doctor does not consider nerve insofar as it is nerve, for this belongs to the natural philosopher. Rather he considers it as a subject of health. So also the smith does not consider bronze insofar as it is bronze, but insofar as it is the subject of a statue or something of the sort. So also the natural philosopher does not consider form insofar as it is form, but insofar as it is in matter. And thus, as the doctor considers nerve only insofar as it pertains to health, for the sake of which he considers nerve, so also the natural philosopher considers form only insofar as it has existence in matter. And so the last things considered by natural science are forms which are, indeed, in some way separated, but which have existence in matter. And rational souls are forms of this sort. For such souls are, indeed, separated insofar as the intellective power is not the act of a corporeal organ, as the power of seeing is the act of an eye. But they are in matter insofar as they give natural existence to such a body.That such souls are in matter he proves as follows. The form of anything generated from matter is a form which is in matter. For the generation is terminated when the form is in matter. But man is generated from matter and by man, as by a proper agent, and by the sun, as by a universal agent with respect to the generable.41 Whence it follows that the soul, which is the human form, is a form in matter. Hence the consideration of natural science about forms extends to the rational soul. But how forms are totally separated from matter, and what they are, .or even how this form, i.e., the rational soul, exists insofar as it is separable and capable of existence without a body, and what it is according to its separable essence, are questions which pertain to first philosophy. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas Against the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect. Tr. Ralph McInerny (West Lafayette, 1993):

[27] It is not difficult to understand how the soul can be the form of a body yet some power of the soul not be a power of body if one takes into account other things as well. For in many things we see that a form is indeed the act of a body of mixed elements and yet has a power which is not the power of any element, but belongs to that form because of a higher principle, namely a celestial body, e.g. the magnet has the power to attract iron and jasper of coagulating blood. And presently we shall see that insofar as forms are nobler they have powers which more and more surpass matter. Hence the ultimate form, the human soul, has a power, namely intellect, which wholly surpasses corporeal matter. Thus the intellect is separate because it isn’t a power in the body but in the soul, and soul is the act of the body.

[28] Nor do we say that the soul, in which the intellect is, so exceeds corporeal matter that it does not exist in the body, but rather that intellect, which Aristotle calls a power of the soul, is not the act of the body. For the soul is not the act of body through the mediation of its powers but is through itself (per se) the act of body, giving to body its specific existence. Some of its powers are acts of certain parts of body, perfecting them for definite operations, but the power which is intellect is not the act of any body, because its operation does not take place by means of a bodily organ.

[29] And lest it seem to anyone that we give this as our own reading, not Aristotle’s meaning, the words of Aristotle expressly stating this must be cited. For in Book Two of the Physics he asks “to what degree it is necessary to know the species and quiddity”, for it is not the natural philosopher’s task to consider every form. And he solves this, adding, “to the degree that the doctor must know sinew and the smith bronze,” that is, up to a point. And up to what point he shows, adding, “until he understands the cause of each,” as if to say, the doctor considers the nerve insofar as it pertains to health, and so too the artisan

41 For this sort of causality, see further below.

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bronze for the sake of the artifact. And because the natural philosopher considers form insofar as it is in matter, for such is the form of mobile body, so too it should be under-stood that the naturalist considers form insofar as it is in matter.

[30] The term of the physicist’s consideration of form is of forms which are in some way in matter and in another way not in matter, for these forms are on the border of material and separated forms. Hence he adds, “and concerning these,” namely, those forms which terminate the natural philosopher’s consideration, “which are separable but which do not exist apart from matter...” What these forms are, he goes on to show: “For man is generated by man and by the sun as well.” Man’s form therefore is in matter and separate: in matter indeed insofar as it gives existence to body, for thus it is the term of generation, separate however because of the power which is proper to man, namely intellect. Therefore, it is not impossible for a form to be in matter yet its power be separate, as was shown concerning intellect. (emphasis added)

Cf. Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas, translated by John P. Rowan (Chicago, 1961), Book XII, lect. 4, n. 2481:

2481. And since he had said that actuality and potentiality not only apply to different things in different ways but also differ for different things, he next explains this by saying that it is in a different way that the distinction of actuality and potentiality applies to different things of which the matter, which is in potentiality, is not the same, and the form, which is actuality, is not the same but different.

For example, the material cause of a man is his elements, namely, fire and the like, and his formal cause is “his proper form,” i.e., his soul, and his moving cause is something extrinsic—his father being a proximate efficient cause, and the sun and “the oblique circle,” or zodiac, through which the sun moves together with the other planets which cause generation in lower bodies by their motion, being remote efficient causes. But extrinsic causes of this sort are neither matter nor form nor privation nor anything conforming to or specifically the same as these so that it could be said that they are reduced to these causes as actuality and potentiality. They are reduced to a different class of cause because they are movers, and these are also reduced to actuality. But things which differ from man have a different proper matter and a different proper form and some proper agent. (emphasis added)

Cf. also the text cited above, St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 118, art. 1, ad 3 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

Reply to Objection 3. This active force which is in the semen, and which is derived from the soul of the generator, is, as it were, a certain movement of this soul itself: nor is it the soul or a part of the soul, save virtually; thus the form of a bed is not in the saw or the axe, but a certain movement towards that form. Consequently there is no need for this active force to have an actual organ; but it is based on the (vital) spirit in the semen which is frothy, as is attested by its whiteness. In which spirit, moreover, there is a certain heat derived from the power of the heavenly bodies, by virtue of which the inferior bodies also act towards the production of the species as stated above (115, 3, ad 2). And since in this (vital) spirit the power of the soul is concurrent with the power of a heavenly body, it has been said that “man and the sun generate man.” Moreover, elemental heat is employed instrumentally by the soul’s power, as also by the nutritive power, as stated (De Anima ii, 4). (emphasis added)

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Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol. Ia, q. 71, art. 2, ad 1 (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

  Reply to Objection 1: It was laid down by Avicenna that animals of all kinds can be generated by various minglings of the elements, and naturally, without any kind of seed. This, however, seems repugnant to the fact that nature produces its effects by determinate means, and consequently, those things that are naturally generated from seed cannot be generated naturally in any other way. It ought, then, rather to be said that in the natural generation of all animals that are generated from seed, the active principle lies in the formative power of the seed, but that in the case of animals generated from putrefaction, the formative power is the influence of the heavenly bodies. The material principle, however, in the generation of either kind of animals, is either some element, or something compounded of the elements. But at the first beginning of the world the active principle was the Word of God, which produced animals from material elements, either in act, as some holy writers say, or virtually, as Augustine teaches. Not as though the power possessed by water or earth of producing all animals resides in the earth and the water themselves, as Avicenna held, but in the power originally given to the elements of producing them from elemental matter by the power of seed or the influence of the stars. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II: Creation. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes by James F. Anderson (Notre Dame, 1975), c. 86, nn. 6-7:

[6] Moreover, every form brought into being through the transmutation of matter is educed from the potentiality of matter, for the transmutation of matter is its reduction from potentiality to act. Now, the intellective soul cannot be educed from the potentiality of matter, since it has already been shown that the intellective soul altogether exceeds the power of matter, through having a materially independent operation, as was likewise proved above. The intellective soul, therefore, is not brought into being through the transmutation of matter; nor, then, is it produced by the action of a power in the semen.

[7] Then, too, the operation of no active power exceeds the genus to which that power belongs. But the intellective soul transcends the whole genus of bodies, since it enjoys an operation completely surpassing the range of bodily things, namely, the operation of understanding. Therefore, no corporeal power can produce the intellective soul. But every action of a power present in the semen is exercised through some bodily potency, since the formative power acts by means of a threefold heat—the heat of fire, of the heaven, and of the soul. Therefore, the intellective soul cannot be produced by a power in the semen. (emphasis added)

Now as St. Thomas informs us (Summa Theol., IIIa, q., 32, art. 1, ad 1, tr. English Domi-nican Fathers), “just as the power of the soul which is in the semen, through the spirit enclosed therein, fashions the body in the generation of other men, so the Power of God, which is the Son Himself, according to 1 Cor. 1:24: “Christ, the Power of God,” through the Holy Ghost formed the body which He assumed.” But as we have seen, that selfsame power also worked upon the seed of creation in order to fashion its body: for “at the first beginning of the world the active principle was the Word of God, which produced animals from material elements, either in act, as some holy writers say, or virtually, as Augustine teaches” (Ia, q. 71, art. 2, ad 1) , doing so through the agency of His Spirit. Conse-quently, we may suppose the formative principle, which is “the faculty of generation”, to have been imparted to the heavens with the creation of light by the spirit of God at the out-set of the first day.

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The following proportion is therefore made manifest: just as (a) the power of the soul which is in the semen stands to (b) the body it fashions in the generation of other men so (a) the Power of God which is the Son Himself stands to (b) the body Christ assumed; the former working through (c) the spirit enclosed therein just as (c) the Holy Spirit works for the Son.

§

We may arrive at the same conclusion from the following considerations: According to the sed contra of Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 118, art. 1, the elements of the world are to the living things generated from them as “the power in the semen is to the animal seminally generated”. But in the same way, supposing the spirit of God moving over the waters to correspond to the seed of the male vis-à-vis the seed of the female, we may infer that, just as the latter contains a formative virtue ordered to producing the thing generated, so, too, does the Spirit of God. Hence we may conclude that by the production of light on the first day God imparts to His creation a generative principle analogous to that which He breathed into the face of the first man on the Sixth: “For,” as Lactantius says (cf. The Divine Institutes, Book II, ch. 13):

…having made the body, He breathed into it a soul from the vital source of His own Spirit, which is everlasting, that it might bear the similitude of the world itself, which is composed of opposing elements. For he consists of soul and body, that is, as it were, of heaven and earth: since the soul by which we live, has its origin, as it were, out of heaven from God, the body out of the earth, of the dust of which we have said that it was formed. (emphasis added)

Hence, as the Spirit of God stands to the body of the first man, so does that same Spirit stand to the body of the world; the generative principle it imparts to the former being imparted to the latter as well. Again, according to the explanation St. Thomas gives in his Commentary on the Sentences, the vital spirit contained in the semen of the male stands to that seed in the same way as the celestial movers stand to the orbs they move, which is by being united to them; the aforementioned spiritus being used by the virtus formativa pre-sent in it as its organ or tool. Let us recall in this regard St. Thomas’ consideration of the composition of the heavenly body of Genesis 1: Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 66, art. 3, c. (in part) (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

  I answer that, On this question the opinions of philosophers have differed. Plato and all who preceded Aristotle held that all bodies are of the nature of the four elements. Hence because the four elements have one common matter, as their mutual generation and corruption prove, it followed that the matter of all bodies is the same. But the fact of the incorruptibility of some bodies was ascribed by Plato, not to the condition of matter, but to the will of the artificer, God, Whom he represents as saying to the heavenly bodies: “By your own nature you are subject to dissolution, but by My will you are indissoluble, for My will is more powerful than the link that binds you together.” But this theory Aristotle (De Caelo i, text. 5) disproves by the natural movements of bodies. For since, he says, the heavenly bodies have a natural movement, different from that of the elements, it follows that they have a different nature from them. For movement in a circle, which is proper to the heavenly bodies, is not by contraries, whereas the movements of the elements are mutually opposite, one tending upwards, another downwards: so, therefore, the heavenly body is without contrariety, whereas the elemental bodies have contrariety in their nature.

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And as generation and corruption are from contraries, it follows that, whereas the [four] elements are corruptible, the heavenly bodies are incorruptible [and so must be made up of a fifth element, traditionally called ‘ether’ (B.A.M.)]. (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 68, art. 1, c. (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

…We say, therefore, that the words which speak of the firmament as made on the second day can be understood in two senses. They may be understood, first, of the starry firmament, on which point it is necessary to set forth the different opinions of philosophers. Some of these believed it to be composed of the elements; and this was the opinion of Empedocles, who, however, held further that the body of the firmament was not susceptible of dissolution, because its parts are, so to say, not in disunion, but in harmony. Others held the firmament to be of the nature of the four elements, not, indeed, compounded of them, but being as it were a simple element. Such was the opinion of Plato, who held that element to be fire. Others, again, have held that the heaven is not of the nature of the four elements, but is itself a fifth body, existing over and above these. This is the opinion of Aristotle (De Coel. i, text. 6,32). According to the first opinion, it may, strictly speaking, be granted that the firmament was made, even as to substance, on the second day. For it is part of the work of creation to produce the substance of the elements, while it belongs to the work of distinction and adornment to give forms to the elements that pre-exist. But the belief that the firmament was made, as to its substance, on the second day is incompatible with the opinion of Plato, according to whom the making of the firmament implies the production of the element of fire. This production, however, belongs to the work of creation, at least, according to those who hold that formlessness of matter preceded in time its formation, since the first form received by matter is the elemental. Still less compatible with the belief that the substance of the firmament was produced on the second day is the opinion of Aristotle, seeing that the mention of days denotes succession of time, whereas the firmament, being naturally incorruptible, is of a matter not susceptible of change of form; wherefore it could not be made out of matter existing antecedently in time. Hence to produce the substance of the firmament belongs to the work of creation. But its formation, in some degree, belongs to the second day, according to both opinions: for as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv), the light of the sun was without form during the first three days, and afterwards, on the fourth day, received its form. (emphasis added)

Gathering up the doctrines laid out in the foregoing passages, then, we may argue as follows: Assuming that the coming to be of all things as represented by Moses is analogous to the coming to be of a living thing; and further, supposing its principles to be analogous to those recognized by Aristotle in his work on animal generation, the Creation will be seen to possess both a material principle analogous to the seed of the woman, and a moving principle analogous to that of the male: for “to give the nature and species to the offspring belong to the father, and to conceive and bring forth belong to the mother as patient and recipient.” (SCG IV, c. 11, n. 19). But the moving principle is understood to be productive by its possession of vital heat resident in its pneuma or spiritus, a quality which, when imparted to the seed of the female, renders it productive—that is to say, able to become the offspring of its generator, as a chick comes from the egg. So, then, taking the heavens and earth at the outset of creation to be analogous to the female principle, and the spirit of God moving over the waters to be analogous to that of the male, we would have to suppose that, just as the latter is understood to receive from its generator the divine spark in the form of the virtus formativa, the subject and tool of which is the vital heat in the

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pneuma, itself being the element akin to that of the stars, so, too, the heavens God created at the beginning of the world would had to have been composed of an element that, like the aither, was receptive of the generative virtue imparted to it by God, and so possessed of a sort of vital heat of its own. Hence, it would appear that, just as the seed of the male is understood to be charged with the vital or animal spirit bearing the formative virtue which Aristotle calls “the principle of soul”, and according to which generation results, so, too, is the heavenly body ‘charged’ by the Spirit of God, making it to be the first cause of generation, something suggested by the diurnal rotation implied by the alternation of day and night, of morning and evening, consequent upon the creation of light. It would follow, then, that behind the heavens as its first institutor and perpetual mover lies a divine power analogous to the spirit God breathed into the first man making him a living soul, and so able to generate another like himself. Accordingly, since like is generated by like, the power to cause motion and generation having been imparted to it, we must suppose the heaven to have received its form and species, and so to have undergone a substantial change, a subject to which I shall return below.

11. Additional texts.

Cf. John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1748), on Genesis 1:24:

Ver. 24. And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind ,.... All sorts of living creatures that live and move upon the earth; not that the earth was endued with a power to produce these creatures of itself, without the interposition of God: for though it might be impregnated with a quickening virtue by the Spirit of God, which moved on it whilst a fluid, and had been prepared and disposed for such a production by the heat of the body of light created on the first day, and of the sun on the fourth; yet no doubt it was by the power of God accompanying his word, that these creatures were produced of the earth, and formed into their several shapes. The Heathens had some traditionary notion of this affair: according to the Egyptians, whose sentiments Diodorus Siculus {c} seems to give us, the process was thus carried on; the earth being stiffened by the rays of the sun, and the moist matter being made fruitful by the genial heat, at night received nourishment by the mist which fell from the ambient air; and in the day was consolidated by the heat of the sun, till at length the enclosed foetus having arrived to a perfect increase, and the membranes burnt and burst, creatures of all kinds appeared; of whom those that had got a greater degree of heat went upwards, and became flying fowl; those that were endued with an earthly concretion were reckoned in the class or order of reptiles, and other terrestrial animals; and those that chiefly partook of a moist or watery nature, ran to the place of a like kind, and were called swimmers or fish. This is the account they give; and somewhat like is that which Archelaus, the master of Socrates, delivers as his notion, that animals were produced out of slime, through the heat of the earth liquefying the slime like milk for food {d}: and Zeno the Stoic says {e}, the grosser part of the watery matter of the world made the earth, the thinner part the air, and that still more subtilized, the fire; and then out of the mixture of these proceeded plants and animals, and all the other kinds; but all this they seem to suppose to be done by the mere efforts of nature; whereas Moses here most truly ascribes their production to the all powerful Word of God:

<…>

{c} Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 7. {d} Laert. in Vita Archelai, p. 99. {e} Ib. in Vita Zenonis, p. 524. (emphasis added)

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For the Orphic system, cf. G.R.S. Meade, The Orphic Pantheon (In: Orpheus. London, 1896) (excerpt):42

UNAGING TIME

Orpheus designated the Supreme Cause, although it is in reality ineffable, Chronus (Time). This Time, and with it other ineffable Powers, was prior to Heaven, Uranus (Procl. in Crat., p. 71, Boiss.). The name Chronus closely resembles the name Cronus (Saturn), remarks Proclus (loc. sit., p. 64) suggestively; and in the same passage he says that ‘“God-inspired” words [Oracles] characterize this divinity [Cronus] as Once Beyond.’ This may mean that Chronus is ideal Unending Duration, and Cronus Time manifested; though this leaves unexplained the strange term ‘Once Beyond,’ which is found in the Chaldæan system. The same statements are found elsewhere in Proclus’ works (Tim., i.86; Theol., i.28, 68; Parm., vii.230).   And Philo (Quad Mand. Incorr., p. 952, b) says: ‘There was once a Time when Cosmos was not.’ This is called ‘Unborn Time, The Æon,’ by Timæus of Locris (p. 97). It is the ‘First One, the Supersubstantial, the Ineffable Principle.’ It may be compared to the Zervan of the Avesta, the En Suph and Hidden of the Hidden of the Kabalah, the Bythos of the Gnostics, the Unknown Darkness of the Egyptians, and the Parabrahman of the Vedântins.   ÆTHER, CHAOS AND NIGHT   Next come Æther and Chaos, Spirit-Matter, the Bound and Infinity of Plato (Proc., Tim., ii. 117), the Purusha-Prakriti of the Sânkhya. Orpheus calls this Æther the Mighty Whirlpool (Simplicius, Ausc., iv.123); called Magna Vorago by Syrianus (Metaph., ii.33a). And Proclus (Tim., ii.117), speaking of Chaos, says: ‘The last Infinity, by which also Matter is circumscribed—is the Container, the field and plane of ideas. About her is “neither limit, nor foundation, nor seat, but excessive darkness”.’ This is the Mûlaprakriti or Root-Matter of the Vedântins, and Æther is the so-called first Logos, Æther-Chaos being the second. ‘And dusky Night comprehended and hid all below the Ether; [Orpheus thus] signifying that Night came first.’ (Malela, iv.31; Cedrenus, i.57, 84.)

Then comes the Dawn of the First Creation. In the Unaging Time, Chaos, impregnated by the whirling of Æther, formed itself into   THE COSMIC EGG   Proclus (Parm., vii.168) calls this Chaos the ‘Mist of the Darkness.’ It is the first break of the Dawn of Creation, and may be compared to the ‘fire-mist’ stage in the sensible universe. Thus the author of the Recognitions (X.vii.316) tells us: ‘They who had greater wisdom among the nations proclaim that Chaos was first of all things; in course of the eternity its outer parts became denser and so sides and ends were made, and it assumed the fashion and form of a gigantic egg.’ For before this stage, the same writer tells us (c. xxx): ‘Orpheus declares that Chaos first existed, eternal, vast, uncreate—It was neither darkness, nor light, nor moist, nor dry, nor hot, nor cold, but all things intermingled.’

Apion (Clement, Homil., VI.iv.671) writes that: ‘Orpheus likened Chaos to an egg, in which the primal “elements” were all mingled together. . . . This egg was generated from the infinitude of primal matter as follows. [The first two principles were] primal matter

42 (http://www.nazorean.com/MysteryTeachings/Orphic.html [5/31/03]) Website: The Orphic Theogony. The Ancient Wisdom Home Page.

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innate with life, and a certain vortex in perpetual flux and unordered motion—from these there arose an orderly flux and interblending of essences, and thus from each, that which was most suitable to the production of life flowed to the centre of the universe, while the surrounding spirit was drawn within, as a bubble in water. Thus a spherical receptacle was formed. Then, impregnated in itself by the divine spirit which seized upon it, it revolved itself into manifestation—with the appearance of the periphery of an egg.’   Proclus (Crat., p. 79) mentions this circular motion as follows: ‘Orpheus refers to the occult diacosm [primary or intellectual creation] in the words, “the boundless unweariedly revolved in a circle”.’ He also refers to it elsewhere (in Euclid, ii.42; Parm., vii.153), and in his Com-mentary on the Timæus (iii. 160), he writes: ‘The spherical is most closely allied to the all.. . . This shape, therefore, is the paternal type of the universe, and reveals itself in the occult diacosm itself.’   And Simplicius (Aus., i.31, b) writes: ‘If he [Plato in Parmenides,] says that Being closely resembles the circling mass of the sphere, you should not be surprised, for there is a correspondence between it and the formation of the first plasm of the mythologist [Orpheus]. For how does this differ from speaking, as Orpheus does, of the “Silver-shining Egg”?’

And so Proclus (Tim., i.138) sums up the question of the Egg by reminding us that: ‘The Egg was produced by Æther and Chaos, the former establishing it according to limit, and the latter according to infinity. For the former is the rootage of all, whereas the latter has no bounds.’

It would be too long to point to the same idea in other religions, whether Phoenician, Babylonian, Syrian, Persian, or Egyptian (cf. Vishnu Parâna, Wilson, i.39; and Gail’s Recherches sur la Nature du Culte de Bacchus en Grèce, pp. 117, 118); it is sufficient to refer readers to the Hiranyagarbha of the Hindus, the Resplendent Egg or Germ, which is set forth at length in the Upanishads and Purànas. It is a most magnificent idea, this Germ of the Universe, and puts the doctrine of the ancients as to cosmogony on a more rigidly scientific basis than even the most advanced scientists of our day have arrived at. And if this shape and this motion are the ‘paternal types of the universe’ and all therein, how is it possible to imagine that the learned of the ancients were not acquainted with the proper shape and motion of the earth?   But as the subject is of great interest not only from a cosmogonical standpoint, but also from an anthropogonical point of view, some further information may with advantage be added. This Egg of the Universe, besides having its analogy in the germ-cell whence the human and every other kind of embryo develops, has also its correspondence in the ‘auric egg’ of man, of which much has been written and little revealed. The colour of this aura in its purest form is opalescent. Therefore we find Damascius (Quæst., 147) quoting a verse of Orpheus in which the Egg is called ‘silver-white’, that is to say, silver-shining or mother o’ pearl; he also calls it, again quoting Orpheus (op. cit., p. 380), the ‘Brilliant Vesture’ or the ‘Cloud’. (emphasis added)

12. The causality of breath (pneuma).

A. In relation to the heavens: the breath of God (1):

Cf. Psalm 33:6:

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By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.43

B. In relation to the earth: the wind:

Cf. Archibald Geikie, Elementary Lessons in Physical Geography (1886), CHAPTER III. LESSON X. — The Moisture of the Air, sec. 4, p. 65:

Evaporation, therefore, takes place chiefly during the day, especially the warm parts of the day, and more actively in summer than in winter. It is feeble in amount when the air is moist and still, but goes on briskly when a fresh wind blows . It takes place far more copiously in warm tropical regions than in those with a temperate or polar climate. (emphasis added)

Cf. also St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Job, ch. 38, lect. 2 (tr. Brian Mulladay):

Vapors bearing rain arise especially from humid places, and so if the clouds and rains were not set in motion by the winds it would follow that it would never rain in dry places.

For the related causality of ‘exhalation’, cf. Gad Freudenthal, Aristotle’s Theory of Material Substance: Heat and Pneuma, Form and Soul (Oxford, 1995), Ch. III, sec. 2.2, pp. 127-129:

On [128-129] what grounds, then, can warmer (and purer) pneuma be assumed to travel higher than less warm pneuma? For Aristotle’s answer, we must turn to his theory of exhalations, whose rationale was precisely to bridge the gap between the two competing construals of the elements [one being according to their proper places; the other according to the primary qualities (B.A.M.)] a gap which forbade one to say that something rises because it is hot.50 Physically speaking, the connate pneuma is somewhat analogous to what, on the scale of the entire world, Aristotle calls ‘exhalation’. Aristotle, as is well known, postulates the existence of a moist and a dry exhalation, raised by the sun from water (the sea, etc.) and the earth, respectively (e.g. Meteorology I. 4, 341b5ff.). In the present context we are interested in the first only. The ‘exhalation from water’, also called ‘vapour’ (atmis, Meteorology I. 9, 346b33; 2. 2, 354b31; 2. 4, 359b34. ff.), Aristotle says, is ‘most naturally moist and warm’ (Meteorology I. 3, 340b2f f.) 51 The vapour results from the action of heat on water, then, as connate pneuma results from blood within the body (except that the vapour, unlike the connate pneuma, separates off). Now the idea that the exhalations produced by the sun rise is self-evident: it is part of their definition. 52 On the basis of the theory of exhalations, then, the connate pneuma can indeed be held to rise by virtue of its heat, and the more so the hotter (and purer) it is.

51 ... Meteor,, I. 9, 346b29ff.52 [footnote omitted] (emphasis added)

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology (tr. Pierre Conway, O.P. and F.R. Larcher, O.P. [1964]), Book I, lect. 5, n. 39:43 Thus when God said, “Let there be light,” He made the heavens by the ‘breath’ of His mouth, which must therefore be understood of the spirit of God moving over the waters. But He formed the first man in the same way by breathing into his face (or nostrils) the breath of life. Hence we recognize the following proportion: as the body of man stands to his soul, so stands the earth and heaven at the outset of the first day to the light of ver. 3.

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39. Secondly [39], he determines his proposition, about which he does two things:

First, he states the causes generating the aforesaid, and says that the principle, both active and passive, of the aforesaid phenomena and of many others is what he will indicate. For when the earth has been warmed by the sun’s motion, a certain exhalation is necessarily released from the earth. This is not of one sort, as some think, but is twofold: one is more vaporous and moist, the other more foam-like and dry — for from the aqueous moisture upon the earth’s surface there is released and lifted on high a vaporous exhalation which is moist; from the earth itself, which is by nature dry, there is raised a fume-like or foam-like exhalation. Of these, the foam-like exhalation rises above the other on account of warmth which dominates in it and renders it more subtle: for the dry and warm is light — and fire is of this nature. But the vaporous exhalation, which is more moist, finds its place under the foam-like, being heavier, for it is not so fine: hot and moist pertain to the nature of the air, which is below fire, which is hot and dry. The very order of the elements surrounding the earth attests to this. For under the circular motion of the heaven there is first located what is hot and dry and which is commonly called “fire,” though that is not its proper name, as has been said above: for, since the item common to every smoky exhalation has no name, and such is especially apt to burn, consequently, it was necessary to use words in keeping, and so such a fume-like evaporation comes to be called “fire.” Under this fume-like exhalation is air. Thus we have posited both the effective cause of the aforesaid passions, which is the sun’s movement, and the material cause, namely, the fume-like exhalation. (emphasis added)

See also my discussion of this topic in Part I in reference to the power of the moon as causing the tides, and of the wind as contributing to the former as well as to earthquakes, with regard to which I excerpted the foregoing text in order to illustrate the corres-pondence between the vapour produced by the hydrological cycle and pneuma. But it is the self-same causes which impart contours to the surface of the earth: Cf. “Geology”, Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1910) (on the atmosphere), p. 654:

Of the vapours contained in it by far the most important is that of water which, although always present, varies greatly in amount according to variations in temperature. By condensation the water vapour appears in visible form as dew, mist, cloud, rain, hail, snow and ice, and in these forms includes and carries down some of the other vapours, gases and solid particles present in the air. The circulation of water from the atmosphere to the land, from the land to the sea, and again from the sea to the land, forms the great geological process whereby the habitable condition of the planet is maintained and the surface of the land is sculptured (Part IV.). (emphasis added)

For the correspondence with embryology, see also THE PARADIGM OF GENESIS.

C. In relation to man: the breath of God (2):

Cf. Genesis 2:1-7:

(Douay-Rheims Version)

THE BOOK OF GENESIS

Genesis Chapter 1

(King James Version)

Man in the Garden of Eden

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Genesis Chapter 2 [1-7]

2:1. So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them.

2:2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.

2:3. And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

2:4. These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth:

2:5. And every plant of the field before it sprung up in the earth, and every herb of the ground before it grew: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth; and there was not a man to till the earth.

2:6. But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth.

2:7. And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2 [1-7]

1: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

4: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

5: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6: But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Cf. Hippocrates, The Nature of the Child, section 17:

…[a]s the flesh grows it is formed into distinct members by breath.

Cf. Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, II. 6 (741b 35—742a 14) (tr. Arthur Platt):

The agency by which the parts of animals are differentiated is air [= pneuma, ‘breath’], not however that of the mother nor yet of the embryo itself, as some of the physicists say. This is manifest in birds, fishes, and insects. For some of these are separated from the [742a] mother and produced from an egg, within which the differentiation takes place; other animals do not breathe at all, but are produced as a scolex or an egg; those which do breathe and whose parts are differentiated within the mother’s uterus yet [5] do not breathe until the lung is perfected, and the lung and the preceding parts are differentiated before they breathe. Moreover, all polydactylous quadrupeds, as dog, lion, wolf, fox, jackal, produce their young blind, and the eyelids do not separate till after birth. Manifestly the same holds also in all the other parts; as the qualitative, [10] so also the quantitative differentia comes into being, pre-existing potentially but being actualized later by the same causes by which the qualitative distinction is produced, and so the eyelids become two instead of one. Of course air must be present, because heat and moisture are present, the former acting and the latter being acted upon. (emphasis added)

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Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Book IV translated by Richard J. Blackwell et. al (New Haven, 1963), lect. 9, n. 505 (excerpt):

505. Then [348] he gives the opinions of the non-natural philosophers about the void. And he says that the Pythagoreans also posited a void which entered into the parts of the universe from the heavens, on account of the infinite void which they supposed existed outside the heavens—a void like some infinite air or infinite spirit [i.e. breath]: just as a person who breathes divides by means of his breath certain things that are easy to divide, such as water or similar things, so it was that the things of this world became distinct by some being as though through breathing.

13. On the element of fire.

Note that of the four sublunar elements earth and water are expressly mentioned by Moses, while the existence of air is implied by the Spirit of God moving over the deep. But according to the ancient view accepted by Aristotle, “there is water in earth, and air [= pneuma] in water, [20] and in all air is vital heat” (cf. GA, 762a 19-21, cf. also 736b 35 ff.]), allowing us to infer in all things a source of that heat, which would be a fire of some sort. Now as we have also seen, pneuma is analogous to vapour, which is produced by the action of heat on water. Recognizing, then, that heat is the proper quality of fire, consider the implication the following texts:

14. That our God is a consuming fire: Against idolatry.

Cf. Hebrews 12:25-29 (Douay-Rheims):

25 See that you refuse him not that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke upon the earth, much more shall not we, that turn away from him that speaketh to us from heaven. 26 Whose voice then moved the earth; but now he promiseth, saying: Yet once more, and I will move not only the earth, but heaven also. 27 And in that he saith, Yet once more, he signifieth the translation of the moveable things as made, that those things may remain which are immoveable. 28 Therefore receiving an immoveable kingdom, we have grace; whereby let us serve, pleasing God, with fear and reverence. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.

For this last verse, cf. Deut. 4. 21-24 (Douay-Rheims):

21 And the Lord was angry with me for your words, and he swore that I should not pass over the Jordan, nor enter into the excellent land, which he will give you. 22 Behold I die in this land, I shall not pass over the Jordan: you shall pass, and possess the goodly land. 23 Beware lest thou ever forget the covenant of the Lord thy God, which he hath made with thee: and make to thyself a graven likeness of those things which the Lord hath forbid to be made: 24 Because the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Cf. Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews by Saint Thomas Aquinas translated by Fabian R. Larcher, O.P., sec. 12.5, nn. 724-725:

724. – He continues thus: and so let us offer to God acceptable worship. Here he comes to the service as something required of us. For natural reason dictates that we are obligated to show reverence and honor to anyone from whom we receive many favors; therefore, much more to God, Who has given us the greatest things and has promised us an infinitude of

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them. Hence, he says that by that grace, namely, given and to be given to us, let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe. For it is not enough merely to serve God, which can be done by outward action; we must also please Him by a right intention and by love: ‘He pleased God and was beloved’ (Wis. 4:10); ‘I will please the Lord in the land of the living’ (Ps. 114:9). But God is especially served by an inward service: ‘Let us serve him in holiness and justice’ (Lk. 1:74). Now by reason of creation God is called Lord, but by reason of regeneration, Father. But to a Lord fear is owed, and to a Father love and reverence: ‘The son honors the father, and the servant fears his lord. If I am your father, where is my honor; and if I am your Lord, where is my fear’ (Mal. 1:6). Therefore, the Lord should be served in fear and in reverence: ‘Serve the Lord in fear; and rejoice unto him with trembling’ (Ps. 2:11).

725. – That we should serve God in that manner he proves by the authority of Deuteronomy (4:24): For our God is a consuming fire. When God is said to be a fire, it does not mean that He is something corporeal, but it is because intelligible things are designated by sense-perceptible things, among which fire has greater nobility and clarity; and greater activity; and a higher natural place; and is more cleansing and more consuming. Therefore, God is especially called fire on account of His clarity, because He inhabits light inaccessible (1 Tim. 6:16), and because He is supremely active: ‘You have worked all our works in us’ (Is. 26:12), and He is in a loftier place: ‘The Lord is high above all nations; and his glory above the heavens’ (Ps. 112:4). Furthermore, he cleanses and as it were, consumes sins; hence, he says that he is a consuming fire: ‘He is like a refining fire’ (Mal. 3:2); and he continues: ‘And he shall purify the sons of Levi’; ‘making purgation of sins’ (Heb. 1:3). He also consumes sinners by punishing: ‘But a certain dread in expectation of judgement and the rage of a fire that shall consume the adversaries’ (Heb. 10:27). Therefore, because such things are promised to us: ‘And the light of Israel shall be as a fire, and the Holy One thereof as a flame’ (Is. 10:17); ‘A fire shall go before them and shall burn up enemies round about’ (Ps. 96:3), we should strive to serve and please God. (emphasis added)

Cf. Duane Berquist, “Natural Fragments of the First Philosophers,” Heraclitus:44

God is many times called fire metaphorically in the Bible. The likeness is threefold. The light of fire represents the light of God’s understanding, the warmth of the fire the intensity of the divine love, and the moving power of the fire, the divine power which moves the universe. Sometimes fire is used as a metaphor for the Trinity. Here the substance of the fire represents God the Father and the light which proceeds from the Father, the procession of the Word who proceeds by way of understanding and the procession of the warmth, the procession of the Holy Spirit who proceeds by way of love. Sometimes God is compared to fire or the sun in his action upon us. As the fire or sun enlightens the world before warming it, so too God enlightens our reason by faith before he moves our will to love. (emphasis added)

For an additional reason for calling God a fire, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent., d 34, q. 3, art. 1, ad 2 (tr. B.A.M.):

To the second it must be said that likeness is twofold: for there is a certain kind through a sharing of the same form, and there is no such likeness of the bodily to the divine, as the objection proves. There is also a certain kind by a likeness of proportionality, which consists in the same relation of proportions, as when it is said, as eight is to four, so is six to three; and as the consul is to the city, so is the pilot to the ship. And the transport from bodily

44 (www.aristotle-aquinas.org/the-first-philosophers/the-natural-fragments/02-On%20the%20Natural%20Fragments.pdf [10/9/08])

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things to the divine is made according to such a likeness: as if God were called a fire because, just as fire stands to this, that it make what is liquefied flow through its own heat, so God through his own goodness pours perfections into every creature, or something of the sort. (emphasis added)

In sum, there are good reasons for supposing the element of fire, the existence of which is implied in the text, to be attributed to God the maker of heaven and earth.

For the pagan’s awareness of the generative power of fire, looking to the sun, cf. Julian the Apostate, in the following excerpt from “Julian the Emperor” (1888). Oration Upon the Sovereign Sun. Addressed to Sallust (ed. Bohn, tr. C. W. King):

Is it not He that stirs up and fans the flame of all Nature, by imparting unto her the faculty of generation? Nay more, to the disembodied natures also He is truly the cause of their progress towards perfection, for Man is generated by Man and the Sun, as Aristotle hath it. The same opinion it behooves us to hold respecting the Sovereign Sun, in the case of all other things, whatever be the operations. (emphasis added)

If, then, the pneuma which conveys the power we have called ‘the divine spark’, namely, the virtus formativa, is similar to the vapour which arises from the action of heat on water, may we not also suppose the constitution of the spiritus of creation to be the result of God’s fire, the moving cause with which the vital heat enclosed in all things by way of water concurs? That is to say, could not Moses have left fire otherwise unmentioned so that, with respect to the source of the generative principle imparted to things, this element could be attributed to God the Creator and Institutor of nature? And note here that the verse of Scripture in question is adduced by the sacred writers in regard to the worship due to God. But among the pagans of antiquity, the heavens, as well as the luminaries afterwards formed from its substance on the Fourth Day—being the very subjects with which we are here concerned—were thought to be gods, and they and especially the sun were understood to possess generative power.

But to return to our immediate object, as the witnesses cited above make clear, the very principle underlying the ceaseless motion of the heavens—the self-same principle Julian the Apostate describes as imparting to Nature “the faculty of generation”, and hence inspiring their worship, and which Tatian speaks of as “the Spirit that pervades matter”, but which is not to be offered divine worship—is the aforementioned complex of pneuma and virtus formativa coming to it from God. If, then, “our God is a consuming fire”, and if this is said with respect to false worship; and if, further, that worship was given to the heavenly bodies in virtue of their orderly motions on the one hand and their generative power on the other, both of which are due to one and the same cause, it is not unreasonable to attribute to the true First Cause of these bodies the divine element of fire.

15. Supplement: The order of causes in generation.

As we have seen, the moving cause of generation is a seed of some sort, as with the seed of the male, understood as ‘possessing’—that is, of ‘enclosing within it’—pneuma or spiritus, an originative source to which, in turn, vital heat is attributed, which heat St. Thomas describes as “the subject and organ” used by the virtus formativa; the latter being what Aristotle calls “the faculty of all kinds of soul”, and which the Angelic Doctor compares to

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the mover of a celestial orb. But a seed is also the generative principle understood as some element in things rendering them able to generate a living thing under the influence of the heavenly body, as was believed to be the case with certain insects and cetaceans with respect to earth or water. Now the aforementioned virtue, wherever it be located, is a movement conveying “the principle of soul”, being that in which the soul to be produced exists virtually, just as the artifact exists in the movement of the artisan’s tools before coming to be in act in the material upon which he works.

16. Supplement: On the heavenly bodies as objects of worship.

Cf. Eusebius of Caesarea: Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel). Tr. E.H. Gifford (1903) – Book II, Chapter V:

For at that time there were no laws yet established for the guidance of life, no civilized government set in order among men, but they led a loose and wandering life like that of the beasts: and some of them, like irrational animals, cared for nothing beyond the filling of their belly, and among these the first kind of atheism found a home; but others, being in some small degree stirred by natural instincts, conceived that God, and God’s power, was some good and salutary thing, and because they wished to find Him, they raised their souls aloft to heaven, and there stopping short in thought, and being astonished at the various beauties of the luminaries which gave and received light in heaven, declared that these were gods.

Cf. Job 31:26-28 (with commentary from a Web Site):

26 If I beheld the sun when it shined, and the moon going in brightness: 27 And my heart in secret hath rejoiced, and I have kissed my hand with my mouth: 28 Which is a very great iniquity, and a denial against the most high God.

26 “If I beheld the sun”... If I behold the sun and moon with admiration, knowing them to be created and governed by the power of God, I call on my adversaries to produce any thing against me, whereby I could be charged with worshipping the sun or moon.

Cf. Deuteronomy 4:19:

And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars – all the heavenly array – do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshipping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Ia, q. 70, art. 2, c. (tr. English Dominican Fathers):

I answer that, As we have said above (Question [65], Article [2]), a corporeal creature can be considered as made either for the sake of its proper act, or for other creatures, or for the whole universe, or for the glory of God. Of these reasons only that which points out the usefulness of these things to man, is touched upon by Moses, in order to withdraw his people from idolatry. Hence it is written (Dt. 4:19): “Lest perhaps lifting up thy eyes to heaven, thou see the sun and the moon and all the stars of heaven, and being deceived by error thou adore and serve them, which the Lord thy God created for the service of all nations.” Now, he explains this service at the beginning of Genesis as threefold.

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First, the lights are of service to man, in regard to sight, which directs him in his works, and is most useful for perceiving objects. In reference to this he says: “Let them shine in the firmament and give life to the earth.”

Secondly, as regards the changes of the seasons, which prevent weariness, preserve health, and provide for the necessities of food; all of which things could not be secured if it were always summer or winter. In reference to this he says: “Let them be for seasons, and for days, and years.”

Thirdly, as regards the convenience of business and work, in so far as the lights are set in the heavens to indicate fair or foul weather, as favorable to various occupations. And in this respect he says: “Let them be for signs.”

17. That the celestial bodies are gods and the divine pervades nature: Cicero’s De Natura Deorum.

Cf. Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods (tr. C. D. Yonge, The Nature of the Gods and Divination, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1997, original edition H. G. Bohn, 1853), Book II. I-XVI:

BOOK II.

I. WHEN Cotta had thus concluded, Velleius replied: I certainly was inconsiderate to engage in argument with an Academician who is likewise a rhetorician. I should not have feared an Academician without eloquence, nor a rhetorician without that philosophy, however eloquent he might be; for I am never puzzled by an empty flow of words, nor by the most subtle reasonings delivered without any grace of oratory. But you, Cotta, have excelled in both. You only wanted the assembly and the judges. However, enough of this at present. Now, let us hear what Lucilius has to say, if it is agreeable to him.

I had much rather, says Balbus, hear Cotta resume his discourse, and demonstrate the true Gods with the same eloquence which he made use of to explode the false; for, on such a subject, the loose, unsettled doctrine of the Academy does not become a philosopher, a priest, a Cotta, whose opinions should be, like those we hold, firm and certain. Epicurus has been more than sufficiently refuted; but I would willingly hear your own sentiments, Cotta.

Do you forget, replies Cotta, what I at first said - that it is easier for me, especially on this point, to explain what opinions those are which I do not hold, rather than what those are which I do? Nay, even if I did feel some certainty on any particular point, yet, after having been so diffuse myself already, I would prefer now hearing you speak in your turn. I submit, says Balbus, and will be as brief as I possibly can; for as you have confuted the errors of Epicurus, my part in the dispute will be the shorter. Our sect divide the whole question concerning the immortal Gods into four parts. First, they prove that there are Gods; secondly, of what character and nature they are; thirdly, that the universe is governed by them; and, lastly, that they exercise a superintendence over human affairs. But in this present discussion let us confine ourselves to the first two articles, and defer the third and fourth till another opportunity, as they require more time to discuss. By no means, says Cotta, for we have time enough on our hands; besides that, we are now discussing a subject which should be preferred even to serious business.

II. The first point, then, says Lucilius, I think needs no discourse to prove it; for what can be so plain and evident, when we behold the heavens and contemplate the celestial

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bodies, as the existence of some supreme, divine intelligence, by which all these things are governed? Were it otherwise, Ennius would not, with a universal approbation, have said,

Look up to the refulgent heaven above,Which all men call, unanimously, Jove.

This is Jupiter, the governor of the world, who rules all things with his nod, and is, as the same Ennius adds,

- of Gods and men the sire,

an omnipresent and omnipotent God. And if any one doubts this, I really do not understand why the same man may not also doubt whether there is a sun or not. For what can possibly be more evident than this? And if it were not a truth universally impressed on the minds of men, the belief in it would never have been so firm; nor would it have been, as it is, increased by length of years, nor would it have gathered strength and stability through every age. And, in truth, we see that other opinions, being false and groundless, have already fallen into oblivion by lapse of time. Who now believes in Hippocentaurs and Chimaeras? Or what old woman is now to be found so weak and ignorant as to stand in fear of those infernal monsters which once so terrified mankind? For time destroys the fictions of error and opinion, while it confirms the determinations of nature and of truth. And therefore it is that, both among us and among other nations, sacred institutions and the divine worship of the Gods have been strengthened and improved from time to time. And this is not to be imputed to chance or folly, but to the frequent appearance of the Gods themselves. In the war with the Latins, when A. Posthumius, the dictator, attacked Octavius Mamilius, the Tusculan, at Regillus, Castor and Pollux were seen fighting in our army on horseback; and since that the same offspring of Tyndarus gave notice of the defeat of Perses; for as P. Vatienus, the grandfather of the present young man of that name, was coming in the night to Rome from his government of Reate, two young men on white horses appeared to him, and told him that King Perses was that day taken prisoner. This news he carried to the senate, who immediately threw him into prison for speaking inconsiderately on a state affair; but when it was confirmed by letters from Paullus, he was recompensed by the senate with land and immunities. Nor do we forget when the Locrians defeated the people of Crotone, in a great battle on the banks of the river Sagra, that it was known the same day at the Olympic Games. The voices of the Fauns have been often heard, and Deities have appeared in forms so visible that they have compelled every one who is not senseless, or hardened in impiety, to confess the presence of the Gods.

III. What do predictions and foreknowledge of future events indicate, but that such future events are shown, pointed out, portended, and foretold to men? From whence they are called omens, signs, portents, prodigies. But though we should esteem fabulous what is said of Mopsus, Tiresias, Amphiaraus, Calchas, and Helenus (who would not have been delivered down to us as augurs even in fable if their art had been despised), may we not be sufficiently apprised of the power of the Gods by domestic examples? Will not the temerity of P. Claudius, in the first Punic war, affect us? who, when the poultry were let out of the coop and would not feed, ordered them to be thrown into the water, and, joking even upon the Gods, said, with a sneer, “Let them drink, since they will not eat;” which piece of ridicule, being followed by a victory over his fleet, cost him many tears, and brought great calamity on the Roman people. Did not his colleague Junius, in the same war, lose his fleet in a tempest by disregarding the auspices? Claudius, therefore, was condemned by the people, and Junius killed himself. Coelius says that P. Flaminius, from his neglect of religion, fell at Thrasimenus; a loss which the public severely felt. By these instances of calamity we may be

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assured that Rome owes her grandeur and success to the conduct of those who were tenacious of their religious duties; and if we compare ourselves to our neighbors, we shall find that we are infinitely distinguished above foreign nations by our zeal for religious ceremonies, though in other things we may be only equal to them, and in other respects even inferior to them.

Ought we to contemn Attius Navius’s staff, with which he divided the regions of the vine to find his sow? I should despise it, if I were not aware that King Hostilius had carried on most important wars in deference to his auguries; but by the negligence of our nobility the discipline of the augury is now omitted, the truth of the auspices despised, and only a mere form observed; so that the most important affairs of the commonwealth, even the wars, on which the public safety depends, are conducted without any auspices; the Peremnia are discussed; no part of the Acumina performed; no select men are called to witness to the military testaments; our generals now begin their wars as soon as they have arranged the Auspicia. The force of religion was so great among our ancestors that some of their commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the solemn, formal expressions of religion, sacrificed themselves to the immortal Gods to save their country. I could mention many of the Sibylline prophecies, and many answers of the haruspices, to confirm those things, which ought not to be doubted.

IV. For example: our augurs and the Etrurian haruspices saw the truth of their art established when P. Scipio and C. Figulus were consuls; for as Tiberius Gracchus, who was a second time consul, wished to proceed to a fresh election, the first Rogator, as he was collecting the suffrages, fell down dead on the spot. Gracchus nevertheless went on with the assembly, but perceiving that this accident had a religious influence on the people, he brought the affair before the senate. The senate thought fit to refer it to those who usually took cognizance of such things. The haruspices were called, and declared that the man who had acted as Rogator of the assembly had no right to do so; to which, as I have heard my father say, he replied with great warmth, Have I no right, who am consul, and augur, and favored by the Auspicia? And shall you, who are Tuscans and Barbarians, pretend that you have authority over the Roman Auspicia, and a right to give judgment in matters respecting the formality of our assemblies? Therefore, he then commanded them to withdraw; but not long afterward he wrote from his province to the college of augurs, acknowledging that in reading the books he remembered that he had illegally chosen a place for his tent in the gardens of Scipio, and had afterward entered the Pomoerium, in order to hold a senate, but that in repassing the same Pomoerium he had forgotten to take the auspices; and that, therefore, the consuls had been created informally. The augurs laid the case before the senate. The senate decreed that they should resign their charge, and so they accordingly abdicated. What greater example need we seek for? The wisest, perhaps the most excellent of men, chose to confess his fault, which he might have concealed, rather than leave the public the least atom of religious guilt; and the consuls chose to quit the highest office in the State, rather than fill it for a moment in defiance of religion. How great is the reputation of the augurs!

And is not the art of the soothsayers divine? And must not every one who sees what in-numerable instances of the same kind there are confess the existence of the Gods? For they who have interpreters must certainly exist themselves; now, there are interpreters of the Gods; therefore we must allow there are Gods. But it may be said, perhaps, that all predictions are not accomplished. We may as well conclude there is no art of physic, because all sick persons do not recover. The Gods show us signs of future events; if we are occasionally deceived in the results, it is not to be imputed to the nature of the Gods, but to the conjectures of men. All nations agree that there are Gods; the opinion is innate, and, as it were, engraved in the minds of all men. The only point in dispute among us is, what they are.

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V. Their existence no one denies. Cleanthes, one of our sect, imputes the way in which the idea of the Gods is implanted in the minds of men to four causes. The first is that which I just now mentioned - the foreknowledge of future things. The second is the great advantages which we enjoy from the temperature of the air, the fertility of the earth, and the abundance of various benefits of other kinds. The third cause is deduced from the terror with which the mind is affected by thunder, tempests, storms, snow, hail, devastation, pestilence, earthquakes often attended with hideous noises, showers of stones, and rain like drops of blood; by rocks and sudden openings of the earth; by monstrous births of men and beasts; by meteors in the air, and blazing stars, by the Greeks called ‘cometae,’ by us crinitoe, the appearance of which, in the late Octavian war, were foreboders of great calamities; by two suns, which, as I have heard my father say, happened in the consulate of Tuditanus and Aquillius, and in which year also another sun (P. Africanus) was extinguished. These things terrified mankind, and raised in them a firm belief of the existence of some celestial and divine power.

His fourth cause, and that the strongest, is drawn from the regularity of the motion and revolution of the heavens, the distinctness, variety, beauty, and order of the sun, moon, and all the stars, the appearance only of which is sufficient to convince us they are not the effects of chance; as when we enter into a house, or school, or court, and observe the exact order, discipline, and method of it, we cannot suppose that it is so regulated without a cause, but must conclude that there is some one who commands, and to whom obedience is paid. It is quite impossible for us to avoid thinking that the wonderful motions, revolutions, and order of those many and great bodies, no part of which is impaired by the countless and infinite succession of ages, must be governed and directed by some supreme intelligent being.

VI. Chrysippus, indeed, had a very penetrating genius; yet such is the doctrine which he delivers, that he seems rather to have been instructed by nature than to owe it to any discovery of his own. “If,” says he, “there is anything in the universe which no human reason, ability, or power can make, the being who produced it must certainly be preferable to man. Now, celestial bodies, and all those things which proceed in any eternal order, cannot be made by man; the being who made them is therefore preferable to man. What, then, is that being but a God? If there be no such thing as a Deity, what is there better than man, since he only is possessed of reason, the most excellent of all things? But it is a foolish piece of vanity in man to think there is nothing preferable to him. There is, therefore, something preferable; consequently, there is certainly a God.”

When you behold a large and beautiful house, surely no one can persuade you it was built for mice and weasels, though you do not see the master; and would it not, therefore, be most manifest folly to imagine that a world so magnificently adorned, with such an immense variety of celestial bodies of such exquisite beauty, and that the vast sizes and magnitude of the sea and land were intended as the abode of man, and not as the mansion of the immortal Gods? Do we not also plainly see this, that all the most elevated regions are the best, and that the earth is the lowest region, and is surrounded with the grossest air? so that as we perceive that in some cities and countries the capacities of men are naturally duller, from the thickness of the climate, so mankind in general are affected by the heaviness of the air which surrounds the earth, the grossest region of the world.Yet even from this inferior intelligence of man we may discover the existence of some intelligent agent that is divine, and wiser than ourselves; for, as Socrates says in Xenophon, from whence had man his portion of understanding? And, indeed, if any one were to push his inquiries about the moisture and heat which is diffused through the human body, and the earthy kind of solidity existing in our entrails, and that soul by which we breathe, and

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to ask whence we derived them, it would be plain that we have received one thing from the earth, another from liquid, another from fire, and another from that air which we inhale every time that we breathe.

VII. But where did we find that which excels all these things — I mean reason, or (if you please, in other terms) the mind, understanding, thought, prudence; and from whence did we receive it? Shall the world be possessed of every other perfection, and be destitute of this one, which is the most important and valuable of all? But certainly there is nothing better, or more excellent, or more beautiful than the world; and not only there is nothing better, but we cannot even conceive anything superior to it; and if reason and wisdom are the greatest of all perfections, they must necessarily be a part of what we all allow to be the most excellent. Who is not compelled to admit the truth of what I assert by that agreeable, uniform, and continued agreement of things in the universe? Could the earth at one season be adorned with flowers, at another be covered with snow? Or, if such a number of things regulated their own changes, could the approach and retreat of the sun in the summer and winter solstices be so regularly known and calculated? Could the flux and reflux of the sea and the height of the tides be affected by the increase or wane of the moon? Could the different courses of the stars be preserved by the uniform movement of the whole heaven? Could these things subsist, I say, in such a harmony of all the parts of the universe without the continued influence of a divine spirit?

If these points are handled in a free and copious manner, as I purpose to do, they will be less liable to the cavils of the Academics; but the narrow, confined way in which Zeno reasoned upon them laid them more open to objection; for as running streams are seldom or never tainted, while standing waters easily grow corrupt, so a fluency of expression washes away the censures of the caviller, while the narrow limits of a discourse which is too concise is almost defenseless; for the arguments which I am enlarging upon are thus briefly laid down by Zeno:

VIII. “That which reasons is superior to that which does not; nothing is superior to the world; the world, therefore, reasons.” By the same rule the world may be proved to be wise, happy, and eternal; for the possession of all these qualities is superior to the want of them; and nothing is superior to the world; the inevitable consequence of which argument is, that the world, therefore, is a Deity. He goes on: “No part of anything void of sense is capable of perception; some parts of the world have perception; the world, therefore, has sense.” He proceeds, and pursues the argument closely. “Nothing,” says he, “that is destitute itself of life and reason can generate a being possessed of life and reason; but the world does generate beings possessed of life and reason; the world, therefore, is not itself destitute of life and reason.”

He concludes his argument in his usual manner with a simile: “If well-tuned pipes should spring out of the olive, would you have the slightest doubt that there was in the olive-tree itself some kind of skill and knowledge? Or if the plane-tree could produce harmonious lutes, surely you would infer, on the same principle, that music was contained in the plane-tree. Why, then, should we not believe the world is a living and wise being, since it produces living and wise beings out of itself?”

IX. But as I have been insensibly led into a length of discourse beyond my first design (for I said that, as the existence of the Gods was evident to all, there was no need of any long oration to prove it), I will demonstrate it by reasons deduced from the nature of things. For it is a fact that all beings which take nourishment and increase contain in themselves a power of natural heat, without which they could neither be nourished nor increase. For everything which is of a warm and fiery character is agitated and stirred up by its own

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motion. But that which is nourished and grows is influenced by a certain regular and equable motion. And as long as this motion remains in us, so long does sense and life remain; but the moment that it abates and is extinguished, we ourselves decay and perish.

By arguments like these, Cleanthes shows how great is the power of heat in all bodies. He observes that there is no food so gross as not to be digested in a night and a day; and that even in the excrementitious parts, which nature rejects, there remains a heat. The veins and arteries seem, by their continual quivering, to resemble the agitation of fire; and it has often been observed when the heart of an animal is just plucked from the body that it palpitates with such visible motion as to resemble the rapidity of fire. Everything, therefore, that has life, whether it be animal or vegetable, owes that life to the heat inherent in it; it is this nature of heat which contains in itself the vital power which extends throughout the whole world. This will appear more clearly on a more close explanation of this fiery quality, which pervades all things.

Every division, then, of the world (and I shall touch upon the most considerable) is sus-tained by heat; and first it may be observed in earthly substances that fire is produced from stones by striking or rubbing one against another; that “the warm earth smokes” when just turned up, and that water is drawn warm from well-springs; and this is most especially the case in the winter season, because there is a great quantity of heat contained in the caverns of the earth; and this becomes more dense in the winter, and on that account confines more closely the innate heat which is discoverable in the earth.

X. It would require a long dissertation, and many reasons would require to be adduced, to show that all the seeds which the earth conceives, and all those which it contains having been generated from itself, and fixed in roots and trunks, derive all their origin and increase from the temperature and regulation of heat. And that even every liquor has a mixture of heat in it is plainly demonstrated by the effusion of water; for it would not congeal by cold, nor become solid, as ice or snow, and return again to its natural state, if it were not that, when heat is applied to it, it again becomes liquefied and dissolved, and so diffuses itself. Therefore, by northern and other cold winds it is frozen and hardened, and in turn it dissolves and melts again by heat. The seas likewise, we find, when agitated by winds, grow warm, so that from this fact we may understand that there is heat included in that vast body of water; for we cannot imagine it to be external and adventitious heat, but such as is stirred up by agitation from the deep recesses of the seas; and the same thing takes place with respect to our bodies, which grow warm with motion and exercise. And the very air itself, which indeed is the coldest element, is by no means void of heat; for there is a great quantity, arising from the exhalations of water, which appears to be a sort of steam occasioned by its internal heat, like that of boiling liquors. The fourth part of the universe is entirely fire, and is the source of the salutary and vital heat which is found in the rest. From hence we may conclude that, as all parts of the world are sustained by heat, the world itself also has such a great length of time subsisted from the same cause; and so much the more, because we ought to understand that that hot and fiery principle is so diffused over universal nature that there is contained in it a power and cause of generation and procreation, from which all animate beings, and all those creatures of the vegetable world, the roots of which are contained in the earth, must inevitably derive their origin and their increase.XI. It is nature, consequently, that continues and preserves the world, and that, too, a nature which is not destitute of sense and reason; for in every essence that is not simple, but composed of several parts, there must be some predominant quality — as, for instance, the mind in man, and in beasts something resembling it, from which arise all the appetites and desires for anything. As for trees, and all the vegetable produce of the earth, it is thought to be in their roots. I call that the predominant quality, which the Greeks call ‘hege-

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monikon’; which must and ought to be the most excellent quality, wherever it is found. That, therefore, in which the prevailing quality of all nature resides must be the most excellent of all things, and most worthy of the power and pre-eminence over all things.

Now, we see that there is nothing in being that is not a part of the universe; and as there are sense and reason in the parts of it, there must therefore be these qualities, and these, too, in a more energetic and powerful degree, in that part in which the predominant quality of the world is found. The world, therefore, must necessarily be possessed of wisdom; and that element, which embraces all things, must excel in perfection of reason. The world, therefore, is a God, and the whole power of the world is contained in that divine element. The heat also of the world is more pure, clear, and lively, and, consequently, better adapted to move the senses than the heat allotted to us; and it vivifies and preserves all things within the compass of our knowledge. It is absurd, therefore, to say that the world, which is endued with a perfect, free, pure, spirituous, and active heat, is not sensitive, since by this heat men and beasts are preserved, and move, and think; more especially since this heat of the world is itself the sole principle of agitation, and has no external impulse, but is moved spontaneously; for what can be more powerful than the world, which moves and raises that heat by which it subsists?

XII. For let us listen to Plato, who is regarded as a God among philosophers. He says that there are two sorts of motion, one innate and the other external; and that that which is moved spontaneously is more divine than that which is moved by another power. This self-motion he places in the mind alone, and concludes that the first principle of motion is derived from the mind. Therefore, since all motion arises from the heat of the world, and that heat is not moved by the effect of any external impulse, but of its own accord, it must necessarily be a mind; from whence it follows that the world is animated.

On such reasoning is founded this opinion, that the world is possessed of understanding, because it certainly has more perfections in itself than any other nature; for as there is no part of our bodies so considerable as the whole of us, so it is clear that there is no particular portion of the universe equal in magnitude to the whole of it; from whence it follows that wisdom must be an attribute of the world; otherwise man, who is a part of it, and possessed of reason, would be superior to the entire world.

And thus, if we proceed from the first rude, unfinished natures to the most superior and perfect ones, we shall inevitably come at last to the nature of the Gods. For, in the first place, we observe that those vegetables which are produced out of the earth are supported by nature, and she gives them no further supply than is sufficient to preserve them by nourishing them and making them grow. To beasts she has given sense and motion, and a faculty which directs them to what is wholesome, and prompts them to shun what is noxious to them. On man she has conferred a greater portion of her favor; inasmuch as she has added reason, by which he is enabled to command his passions, to moderate some, and to subdue others.

XIII. In the fourth and highest degree are those beings which are naturally wise and good, who from the first moment of their existence are possessed of right and consistent reason, which we must consider superior to man and deserving to be attributed to a God; that is to say, to the world, in which it is inevitable that that perfect and complete reason should be inherent. Nor is it possible that it should be said with justice that there is any arrangement of things in which there cannot be something entire and perfect. For as in a vine or in beasts we see that nature, if not prevented by some superior violence, proceeds by her own appropriate path to her destined end; and as in painting, architecture, and the other arts there is a point of

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perfection which is attainable, and occasionally attained, so it is even much more necessary that in universal nature there must be some complete and perfect result arrived at. Many external accidents may happen to all other natures which may impede their progress to perfection, but nothing can hinder universal nature, because she is herself the ruler and governor of all other natures. That, therefore, must be the fourth and most elevated degree to which no other power can approach.

But this degree is that on which the nature of all things is placed; and since she is possessed of this, and she presides over all things, and is subject to no possible impediment, the world must necessarily be an intelligent and even a wise being. But how marvellously great is the ignorance of those men who dispute the perfection of that nature which encircles all things; or who, allowing it to be infinitely perfect, yet deny it to be, in the first place, animated, then reasonable, and, lastly, prudent and wise! For how without these qualities could it be infinitely perfect? If it were like vegetables, or even like beasts, there would be no more reason for thinking it extremely good than extremely bad; and if it were possessed of reason, and had not wisdom from the beginning, the world would be in a worse condition than man; for man may grow wise, but the world, if it were destitute of wisdom through an infinite space of time past, could never acquire it. Thus it would be worse than man. But as that is absurd to imagine, the world must be esteemed wise from all eternity, and consequently a Deity: since there is nothing existing that is not defective, except the universe, which is well provided, and fully complete and perfect in all its numbers and parts.

XIV. For Chrysippus says, very acutely, that as the case is made for the buckler, and the scabbard for the sword, so all things, except the universe, were made for the sake of something else. As, for instance, all those crops and fruits which the earth produces were made for the sake of animals, and animals for man; as, the horse for carrying, the ox for the plough, the dog for hunting and for a guard. But man himself was born to contemplate and imitate the world, being in no wise perfect, but, if I may so express myself, a particle of perfection; but the world, as it comprehends all, and as nothing exists that is not contained in it, is entirely perfect. In what, therefore, can it be defective, since it is perfect? It cannot want understanding and reason, for they are the most desirable of all qualities. The same Chrysippus observes also, by the use of similitudes, that everything in its kind, when arrived at maturity and perfection, is superior to that which is not — as, a horse to a colt, a dog to a puppy, and a man to a boy — so whatever is best in the whole universe must exist in some complete and perfect being. But nothing is more perfect than the world, and nothing better than virtue. Virtue, therefore, is an attribute of the world. But human nature is not perfect, and nevertheless virtue is produced in it: with how much greater reason, then, do we conceive it to be inherent in the world! Therefore the world has virtue, and it is also wise, and consequently a Deity.

XV. The divinity of the world being now clearly perceived, we must acknowledge the same divinity to be likewise in the stars, which are formed from the lightest and purest part of the ether, without a mixture of any other matter; and, being altogether hot and transparent, we may justly say they have life, sense, and understanding. And Cleanthes thinks that it may be established by the evidence of two of our senses — feeling and seeing — that they are entirely fiery bodies; for the heat and brightness of the sun far exceed any other fire, inasmuch as it enlightens the whole universe, covering such a vast extent of space, and its power is such that we perceive that it not only warms, but often even burns: neither of which it could do if it were not of a fiery quality. Since, then, says he, the sun is a fiery body, and is nourished by the vapors of the ocean (for no fire can continue without some sustenance), it must be either like that fire which we use to warm us and dress our food, or like that which is contained in the bodies of

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animals. And this fire, which the convenience of life requires, is the devourer and consumer of everything, and throws into confusion and destroys whatever it reaches. On the contrary, the corporeal heat is full of life, and salutary; and vivifies, preserves, cherishes, increases, and sustains all things, and is productive of sense; therefore, says he, there can be no doubt which of these fires the sun is like, since it causes all things in their respective kinds to flourish and arrive to maturity; and as the fire of the sun is like that which is contained in the bodies of animated beings, the sun itself must likewise be animated, and so must the other stars also, which arise out of the celestial ardor that we call the sky, or firmament.

As, then, some animals are generated in the earth, some in the water, and some in the air, Aristotle thinks it ridiculous to imagine that no animal is formed in that part of the universe which is the most capable to produce them. But the stars are situated in the ethereal space; and as this is an element the most subtle, whose motion is continual, and whose force does not decay, it follows, of necessity, that every animated being which is produced in it must be endowed with the quickest sense and the swiftest motion. The stars, therefore, being there generated, it is a natural inference to suppose them endued with such a degree of sense and understanding as places them in the rank of Gods.

XVI. For it may be observed that they who inhabit countries of a pure, clear air have a quicker apprehension and a readier genius than those who live in a thick, foggy climate. It is thought likewise that the nature of a man’s diet has an effect on the mind; therefore it is probable that the stars are possessed of an excellent understanding, inasmuch as they are situated in the ethereal part of the universe, and are nourished by the vapors of the earth and sea, which are purified by their long passage to the heavens. But the invariable order and regular motion of the stars plainly manifest their sense and understanding; for all motion which seems to be conducted with reason and harmony supposes an intelligent principle, that does not act blindly, or inconsistently, or at random. And this regularity and consistent course of the stars from all eternity indicates not any natural order, for it is pregnant with sound reason, not fortune (for fortune, being a friend to change, despises consistency). It follows, therefore, that they move spontaneously by their own sense and divinity. Aristotle also deserves high commendation for his observation that everything that moves is either put in motion by natural impulse, or by some external force, or of its own accord; and that the sun, and moon, and all the stars move; but that those things which are moved by natural impulse are either borne downward by their weight, or upward by their lightness; neither of which things could be the case with the stars, because they move in a regular circle and orbit. Nor can it be said that there is some superior force which causes the stars to be moved in a manner contrary to nature. For what superior force can there be? It follows, therefore, that their motion must be voluntary. And whoever is convinced of this must discover not only great ignorance, but great impiety likewise, if he denies the existence of the Gods; nor is the difference great whether a man denies their existence, or deprives them of all design and action; for whatever is wholly inactive seems to me not to exist at all. Their existence, therefore, appears so plain that I can scarcely think that man in his senses who denies it. (emphasis added)

18. Summaries of Cicero.

Cf. De Natura Deorum Liber Tertius by Marcus Tullius Cicero (from “Introduction”, De Natura Deorum Libri Tres, ed. Austin Stickney. Ginn & Co.: Boston, 1881):

English Summary of Book II

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Finally, the wise order of the world, the connection and interpenetration of all its parts lead necessarily to the recognition of a divine spirit governing and holding together the whole (19).

Cf. idem:

English Summary of Book II

For since there exists in all not simple, but composite natural bodies a superior governing power (hegemonikon), to which all the rest are subordinate, so there must be a superior governing power in the universe; and since some subordinate parts of the universe are endowed with reason, the superior parts must also be so endowed; hence the universe and this all-pervading, all-animating principle must be endowed with reason, and the universe, since it is penetrated and animated by this principle, must be a being endowed with reason, divine and possessing in full divine power (29, 30). This principle is then, as has been said, heat,<2> but a heat much purer, much more powerful than that which exists in earthly things and which produces life and consciousness in men and animals, and so all the more sensitive, conscious and thinking.

And since it derives its spring of action not from something external but from itself; and since whatever is the source of its own activity is, as Plato teaches, soul; the principle of heat is to be regarded as the soul of the universe, and the universe as a being possessing a soul (31, 32): it is at the same time a reasonable and wise being, because the universe must surely be better than the individual beings which it contains; while if it were not reasonable and wise, it would follow that man by the possession of reason would thereby have the preeminence over the universe (32). (emphasis added)

Cf. Jules Lebreton, “The Logos”, The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1910):

The Logos

The word Logos is the term by which Christian theology in the Greek language designates the Word of God, or Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Before St. John had consecrated this term by adopting it, the Greeks and the Jews had used it to express religious conceptions which, under various titles, have exercised a certain influence on Christian theology, and of which it is necessary to say something.

I. THE LOGOS IN HELLENISM

It is in Heraclitus that the theory of the Logos appears for the first time, and it is doubtless for this reason that, first among the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus was regarded by St. Justin (Apol. I, 46) as a Christian before Christ. For him the Logos, which he seems to identify with fire, is that universal principle which animates and rules the world. This conception could only find place in a materialistic monism. The philosophers of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ were dualists, and conceived of God as transcendent, so that neither in Plato (whatever may have been said on the subject) nor in Aristotle do we find the theory of the Logos. It reappears in the writings of the Stoics, and it is especially by them that this theory is developed. God, according to them, “did not make the world as an artisan does his work, but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that He is the demiurge of the universe” (Galen, “De qual. incorp.” in “Fr. Stoic.”, ed. von Arnim, II, 6); He penetrates the world “as honey does the honeycomb” (Tertullian, “Adv. Hermogenem”, 44), this God so intimately mingled with the world is fire or ignited air; inasmuch as He is the principle

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controlling the universe, He is called Logos; and inasmuch as He is the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (logos spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly (Cleanthus, “Hymn to Zeus” in “Fr. Stoic.” I, 527-cf. 537). Conformably to their exegetical habits, the Stoics made of the different gods personifications of the Logos, e. g. of Zeus and above all of Hermes. At Alexandria, Hermes was identified with Thoth, the god of Hermopolis, known later as the great Hermes, “Hermes Trismegistus”, and represented as the revealer of all letters and all religion. Simultaneously, the Logos theory conformed to the current Neoplatonistic dualism in Alexandria: the Logos is not conceived of as nature or immanent necessity, but as an intermediary agent by which the transcendent God governs the world. This conception appears in Plutarch, especially in his “Isis and Osiris”; from an early date in the first century of the Christian era, it influenced profoundly the Jewish philosopher Philo. (emphasis added)

Cf. Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) II (tr. Francis Brooks) London: Methuen, 1896):

Bk. II. V.

Now Cleanthes, who belongs to our own school, said that ideas of the gods had been formed in men’s minds owing to four causes.

First he placed the cause just mentioned by me, which had had its origin in premonitions of the future; second, the one which we have found in the greatness of the advantages obtained from temperate climate, the fertility of the earth, and a plentiful number of other sources of benefit; third, the terror caused to the mind by lightning, tempest, storm-clouds, snow, hail, desert places, pestilence, the movements and frequent rumblings of the earth, showers of stones, rain-drops with the appearance of blood, landslips or sudden openings in the earth, monstrous human and animal portents, torch-like appearances in the sky, stars of the kind which the Greeks call cometæ, and our countrymen cincinnatæ,1 which in the recent struggle with Octavius2 were the precursors of great calamities, the phenomenon of a double sun, which I have heard from my father occurred during the consulship of Tuditanus and Aquilius, the very year in which the light of that other sun Publius Africanus was extinguished,—things which by the terror they inspired made men conceive the existence of some kind of divine and heavenly power.

As the fourth and most important cause of all he names the uniformity of motion, the revolutions of the heavens, the grouping of the sun, and moon, and all the stars, their serviceableness, beauty, and order, the mere appearance of which things would be a sufficient indication that they were not the result of chance.

Just as a man going into a house, or gymnasium, or market-place, would find it impossible, when he saw the plan, and scale, and arrangement of everything, to suppose that these things came into being uncaused, but would understand that there was some one who superintended and was obeyed, so in the case of such vast movements and alternations, in the orderly succession of phenomena so numerous and so mighty, in which the measureless and infinite extent of past time has never deceived expectation, it is much more inevitable that he should conclude that such great operations of nature are directed by some intelligence.

1 i.e., “with curling hair,” just as cometes (κομήτης) = “longhaired”. 2 i.e., Cnæus Octavius, a partisan of Sulla. The calamities portended were the proscriptions under Marius and Sulla.

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Bk. II. XXIV

…There is, too, another method, and one moreover based upon natural science, from which a great number of gods have resulted, the clothing of whom in mortal form has supplied poets with stories, but has saturated human life with every kind of superstition. This subject has been treated by Zeno, and afterwards worked out more at length by Cleanthes and Chrysippus. For instance, a long-established belief prevailed over Greece that Cælus had been mutilated by his son Saturn, and Saturn himself bound by his son Jupiter, but in these impious stories a physical theory was contained which was not without point, for they meant that the element which holds the topmost position in the sky, the element of æther, or fire, which creates all things by its own agency, is without that part of the body which in order to generate needs the conjunction of a second part.

Bk. II. XXVIII.Do you see, then, how from the right and useful discovery of natural phenomena a passage was made in thought to imaginary and fictitious deities?—a passage which gave rise to false beliefs, and frantic errors, and superstitions worthy almost of a beldame.

For we are made acquainted with the forms, age, dress, and equipment of the gods, as also with their descents, marriages, relationships, and everything in them that has been reduced to the likeness of human frailty. Thus, they are brought before us with their minds a prey to disturbance, for we hear of their desires and sorrows and angers, and they have even, as the stories relate, had experience of wars and battles, not only, as in Homer, when they protected on one side or the other two opposing armies, but they have also waged their own personal wars, as with the Titans and Giants. These are things to which it is in the highest degree foolish to give either utterance or credit, and they abound in futility and the most utter triviality. Nevertheless, while we scorn and reject these stories, we shall be able to understand the being and character of the gods who extend through the nature of each thing, Ceres through the earth, Neptune through the sea, one god through one thing, and another through another, together with the name by which custom has designated them, and it is these gods1 whom we ought to reverence and worship.

And the worship of the gods which is best, and also purest, and holiest, and most full of piety, is that we should always reverence them with a mind and voice that are without stain, and guiltless, and uncorrupt; for religion has been dissociated from superstition not only by philosophers but by our own ancestors as well. I may mention as to these two terms that men who used to spend whole days in prayer and sacrifice in order that their children might survive them (essent superstites), were called superstitiosus, a title which afterwards extended more widely, while such as heedfully repeated and, as it were, “regathered” (relegerent) everything that formed a part of divine worship, were named religiosus from relegere, in the same way that elegans is derived from eligere, diligens from diligere, and intellegens from intellegere, for in all these words the force of legere is the same as in religiosus. It was in this way that with the words superstitiosus and religiosus the one became the designation of a fault, the other of an excellence. I have, I think, sufficiently shown both the existence of the gods and their nature.

1 i.e., gods whom we regard as personified forces of nature.

N.B. Notice how Cicero here brings together the two traditions of myth Aristotle describes. Notice also how the Orator moves from Aristotle’s twofold division to the distinction be-tween religion on the one hand, and superstition on the other. On the latter division, cf. the excerpt from Eusebius, citing the authority of Porphyry, given above.

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19. Additional texts.

Cf. T. H. Huxley, “Mr. Gladstone and Genesis” (1886). Preface and Table of Contents to Volume IV, Science and Hebrew Tradition: Collected Essays IV:

Mr. Gladstone appears to wish that I should (1) enter upon a sort of essay competition with the author of the pentateuchal cosmogony; (2) that I should make a further statement about some elementary facts in the history of Indian and Greek [182] philosophy; and (3) that I should show cause for my hesitation in accepting the assertion that Genesis is supported, at any rate to the extent of the first two verses, by the nebular hypothesis. A certain sense of humour prevents me from accepting the first invitation. I would as soon attempt to put Hamlet’s soliloquy into a more scientific shape. But if I supposed the “Mosaic writer” to be inspired, as Mr. Gladstone does, it would not be consistent with my notions of respect for the Supreme Being to imagine Him unable to frame a form of words which should accurately, or, at least, not inaccurately, express His own meaning. It is sometimes said that, had the statements contained in the first chapter of Genesis been scientifically true, they would have been unintelligible to ignorant people; but how is the matter mended if, being scientifically untrue, they must needs be rejected by instructed people? With respect to the second suggestion, it would be presumptuous in me to pretend to instruct Mr. Gladstone in matters which lie as much within the province of Literature and History as in that of Science; but if any one desirous of further knowledge will be so good as to turn to that most excellent and by no means recondite source of information, the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” he will find, under the letter E, the word “Evolution,” and a long article on that subject. Now, I do not recommend him to read the first half of the [183] article; but the second half, by my friend Mr. Sully, is really very good. He will there find it said that in some of the philosophies of ancient India, the idea of evolution is clearly expressed: “Brahma is conceived as the eternal self-existent being, which, on its material side, unfolds itself to the world by gradually condensing itself to material objects through the gradations of ether, fire, water, earth, and other elements.” And again: “In the later system of emanation of Sankhya there is a more marked approach to a materialistic doctrine of evolution.” What little knowledge I have of the matter–chiefly derived from that very instructive book, “Die Religion des Buddha,” by C. F. Koeppen, supplemented by Hardy’s interesting works–leads me to think that Mr. Sully might have spoken much more strongly as to the evolutionary character of Indian philosophy, and especially of that of the Buddhists. But the question is too large to be dealt with incidentally. And, with respect to early Greek philosophy,3 the seeker after additional enlightenment need go no further than the same excellent storehouse of information:–

“The early Ionian physicists, including Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, seek to explain the world as generated out of [184] a primordial matter which is at the same time the universal support of things. This substance is endowed with a generative or transmutative force by virtue of which it passes into a succession of forms. They thus resemble modern evolutionists since they regard the world, with its infinite variety of forms, as issuing from a simple mode of matter.”

Further on, Mr. Sully remarks that “Heraclitus deserves a prominent place in the history of the idea of evolution,” and he states, with perfect justice, that Heraclitus has foreshadowed some of the special peculiarities of Mr. Darwin’s views. It is indeed a very strange circumstance that the philosophy of the great Ephesian more than adumbrates the two doctrines which have played leading parts, the one in the development of Christian dogma, the other in that of natural science. The former is the conception of the word [logos] which

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took its Jewish shape in Alexandria, and its Christian form4 in that Gospel which is usually referred to an Ephesian source of some five centuries later date; and the latter is that of the struggle for existence. The saying that “strife is father and king of all” [...], ascribed to Heraclitus, would be a not inappropriate motto for the “Origin of Species.” I have referred only to Mr. Sully’s article, because his authority is quite sufficient for my purpose. But the consultation of any of the more elaborate histories of Greek philosophy, such as [185] the great work of Zeller, for example, will only bring out the same fact into still more striking prominence. I have professed no “minute acquaintance” with either Indian or Greek philosophy, but I have taken a great deal of pains to secure that such knowledge as I do possess shall be accurate and trustworthy.

3 I said nothing about “the greater number of schools of Greek philosophy,” as Mr. Gladstone implies that I did, but expressly spoke of the “founders of Greek philosophy.”

Cf. Eusebius of Caesarea: Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel). Book III Ch. III (excerpt), CH. IV. Tr. E.H. Gifford (1903) Book II:

So that from all these proofs this wonderful and noble physiology is convicted of having no connexion with truth, and containing nothing really divine, but possessing only a forced and counterfeit solemnity of external utterance. Hear, however, what Porphyry records concerning these same gods in his Epistle to Anebo the Egyptian.15

CHAPTER IV

‘FOR as to Chaeremon and the rest, they do not believe in anything else prior to the visible worlds, since they account as a ruling power the gods of the Egyptians, and no others except the so-called planets, and those stars which fill up the zodiac, and as many as rise near them: also the divisions into the “decani,” and the horoscopes, and the so-called “mighty Rulers,” the names of which are contained in the almanacks, and their powers to heal diseases, and their risings and settings, and indications of future events.

‘For he saw that those who assert the Sun to be the Creator twist the story of Osiris and Isis, and all the priestly legends, either into allusions to the stars and their appearances and disappearances and their solar distances at rising, or to the waxings and wanings of the moon, or to the course of the sun, or to the hemisphere of night, or of day, or to their river; and generally that they interpreted all things of physical phenomena, and nothing of incorporeal and living beings. And most of them made even our own free will depend upon the motion of the stars, binding all things down by indissoluble bonds, I know not how, to a necessity which they call fate, and making all things depend closely on these gods, whom, as the sole deliverers from the bonds of fate, they worship with temples, and statues, and the like.’

Let then this quotation from the before-mentioned Epistle suffice, clearly declaring, as it does, that even the secret theology of the Egyptians made no other gods than the stars in the heaven, both those which are called fixed, and the so-called planets, and introduced no incorporeal mind as creator of the universe, nor any creative reason, nor yet a god or gods, nor any intelligent and invisible powers, but only the visible Sun. “Wherefore also they referred the cause of the universe to the heavenly bodies alone, making all depend on fate, and the movement and course of the stars, as in fact this opinion has prevailed among them until now. If therefore all is interpreted by the Egyptians of the visible elements of the world alone, and nothing of incorporeal and living beings, and if the elements and all visible bodies are by their own account inanimate and irrational, and in their nature fleeting and perishable,—see into what difficulties their

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theology has fallen again, in deifying inanimate substance and dead and irrational bodies, especially since they referred nothing to incorporeal and intelligent beings, nor to a mind and reason creating the universe. But since it was acknowledged in the passages before quoted that their theological doctrines had been brought over to the Greeks from the Egyptians, it is time that the Greeks also should take their place with them, and give the same physiological explanations as the Egyptians, and be convicted of deifying nothing more than inanimate matter. For such were the august deities of the Egyptians according to the description of the writer before mentioned, who again, in the work which he entitled On Abstinence from Animal Food, gives such details as the following concerning the same people:16 

‘Starting from this discipline and intimacy with the deity, they judged that the divine pervaded not man only, nor did soul tabernacle upon earth in man alone, but all animals were pervaded by almost the same kind of soul. Wherefore they admitted every animal into their manufacture of gods, and mixed up beasts and men just alike, and also the bodies of birds and men.

‘For with them there is a figure represented like a man up to the neck, but having the face of a bird or a lion or some other animal: and, on the other hand again, the head of a man and members of some other animals, set partly below, and partly above. And hereby they indicate that according to the mind of the gods these animals also are associated one with another, and that it is not without a divine purpose that the wild beasts are bred up with us and tamed.

‘Hence also the lion is worshipped as a god, and a division of Egypt which they call a Nome has from the lion the name Leonto-polites, and another, from the cow, Busirites, and another, from the dog, Cynopolites. For the power which is over all they worshipped through the associated animals which each of the gods had given them.

‘Water and fire, the most beautiful of the elements, they reverence as being chief causes of our preservation, and exhibit them also in their temples; as, I believe, even now at the opening of the sanctuary of Serapis the worship is performed by means of fire and water, the precentor pouring out the water and exhibiting the fire, whenever he stands upon the threshold and wakes the god in the native language of the Egyptians.

‘They reverence, therefore, these elements that bear a part in the sacrifices, and above these they reverence most highly the things which are more fully associated with the sacrifices: and such are all living beings, for in the village Anabis they even worship a man, and sacrifice is there offered to him, and the victims are consumed by fire upon the altars: and yet presently he would eat the proper things prepared for him as a man. As, therefore, we ought to abstain from eating man’s flesh, so we should abstain from the flesh of other animals. ‘But further out of their abundant wisdom and their familiarity with the divine, they perceived that certain animals were more dear than men to certain of their gods, a hawk, for instance, to the Sun, as having its whole nature made up of blood and breath, and feeling pity even for man, and shrieking over an exposed corpse, and scraping up earth over it.’

A little further on he says: ‘An ignorant person might detest a beetle, being without judgement in things divine: but the Egyptians reverenced it, as a living image of the sun. For every beetle is male, and deposits his spawn in a marsh, and having made it into a ball carries it back with his hind feet, as the sun does the heaven, and waits a lunar period of days.

‘In like manner they make some philosophic explanation concerning the ram, and another concerning the crocodile, and the vulture and the ibis, and generally as to each of the

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animals; so that out of their wisdom and their superior knowledge of things divine, they attained even to the worship of animals.’

15 92 a 4 Porphyry, Epistle to Anebo, a fragment preserved by Eusebius: see Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, Parthey 16 93 c 13 Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food, iv. 9

Cf. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 360, sec. 25 (tr. F.C. Babbitt), pp. 59-61:

25.d Better, therefore, is the judgement of those who hold that the stories about Tryphon, Osiris, and Isis, are records of experiences of neither gods nor men [E], but of demigods [daimonon], whom Platoe and Pythagoras f [50-51]

d In comparison with chapters 25 and 26 one may well compare 418 D—419 A and 421 C-E, infra, and Eusebius Praepar. Evang. iv. 21-v. 5.e Cf. 361 C, infra.f Cf. Diogenes Laertius, viii. 32.and Xenocratesa and Chryssipus,b following the lead of early writers on sacred subjects, allege to have been stronger than men and, in their might, greatly surpassing our nature, yet not surpassing the divine quality unmixed and uncontaminated, but with a share also in the nature of the soul and in the perceptive faculties of the body, and with a susceptibility to pleasure and pain and to whatsoever other experience is incident to these mutations, and is the source of much disquiet in some and of less in others. For in demigods, as in men, there are diverse degrees of virtue and of vice. [F] The exploits of the Giants and Titans celebrated among the Greeks, the lawless deeds of a Cronus,c the stubborn resistance of Python against Apollo, the flights of Dionysus,d and the wanderings of Demeter, do not fall at all short of the exploits of Osiris and Typhon and other exploits which anyone may hear freely repeated in traditional story [muthologoumenon]. So, too, all the things which are kept always away from the ears and eyes of the multitude by being concealed behind mystic rites and ceremonies have a similar explanation.

a Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 2. 29.b Cf. Moralia, 277 A, 419 A, and 1051 C-D; and von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 1102 (p. 329).c The vengeance which he wreaked on his father Uranus.d Homer, Il. vi. 135 ff. [remainder of note omitted]e The word is found forty-four times in Homer.f Homer employs the expression sixty-two times.

Cf. Plutarch, Philosophical Essays. In Plutarch’s Complete Works, edited by W. Lloyd Bevan. Vol. Essays and Miscellanies, Vol. I. New York: Thomas Crowell & Co., 1909:

SENTIMENTS CONCERNING NATURE WITH WHICH PHILOSOPHERSWERE DELIGHTED

BOOK I.CHAPTER VI.

WHENCE DID MEN OBTAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE OF A DEITY?

The Stoics thus define the essence of a god. It is a spirit intellectual and fiery, which acknowledges no shape, but is continually changed into what it pleases, and assimilates itself

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to all things. The knowledge of this deity they first received from the pulchritude of those things which so visibly appeared to us; for they concluded that nothing beauteous could casually or fortuitously be formed, but that it was framed from the art of a great understanding that produced the world. That the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful variety of those stars which adorn this world.

The world is spherical; the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being round itself it hath its parts like itself. (On this account, according to Plato, the understanding, which is the most sacred part of man, is in the head.) The color of it is most beauteous; for it is painted with blue; which, though little blacker than purple, yet hath such a shining quality, that by reason of the vehement efficacy of its color it cuts through such a space of air; whence it is that at so great a distance the heavens are to be contemplated. And in this very greatness of the world the beauty of it appears. View all things: that which contains the rest carries a beauty with it, as an animal or a tree. Also things which are visible to us accomplish the beauty of the world. The oblique circle called the Zodiac in heaven is with different images painted and distinguished:—

There’s Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and the Claws;Scorpio, Arcitenens, and Capricorn;Amphora, Pisces, then the Ram, and Bull;The lovely pair of Brothers next succeed.(From Aratus.)

There are a thousand others that give us the suitable reflections of the beauty of the world. Thus Euripides:—

The starry splendor of the skies,The beautiful and varied work of that wiseCreator, Time.

From this the knowledge of a god is conveyed to man; that the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, being carried under the earth, rise again in their proper color, magnitude, place, and times. Therefore they who by tradition delivered to us the knowledge and veneration of the gods did it by these three manner of ways:— first, from Nature; secondly, from fables; thirdly, from the testimony supplied by the laws of commonwealths. Philosophers taught the natural way; poets, the fabulous; and the political way is to be had from the constitutions of each commonwealth. All sorts of this learning are distinguished into these seven parts.

The first is from things that are conspicuous, and the observation of those bodies which are in places superior to us. To men the heavenly bodies that are so visible did give the knowledge of the deity; when they contemplated that they are the causes of so great an harmony, that they regulate day and night, winter and summer, by their rising and setting, and likewise considered those things which by their influences in the earth do receive a being and do likewise fructify. It was manifest to men that the Heaven was the father of those things, and the Earth the mother; that the Heaven was the father is clear, since from the heavens there is the pouring down of waters, which have their spermatic faculty; the Earth the mother, because she receives them and brings forth. Likewise men considering that the stars are running (Greek omitted) in a perpetual motion, that the sun and moon give us the stimulus to view and contemplate (Greek omitted), they call them all gods (Greek omitted).

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In the second and third place, they thus distinguished the deities into those which are beneficial and those that are injurious to mankind. Those which are beneficial they call Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Ceres; those who are mischievous the Dirae, Furies, and Mars. These, which threaten dangers and violence, men endeavor to appease and conciliate by sacred rites. The fourth and the fifth order of gods they assign to things and passions; to passions, Love, Venus, and Desire; the deities that preside over things, Hope, Justice, and Eunomia.

The sixth order of deities are the ones made by the poets; Hesiod, willing to find out a father for those gods that acknowledge an original, invented their progenitors,—

Hyperion, Coeus, and Iapetus,With Creius:(Hesiod, “Theogony,” 134.)

upon which account this is called the fabulous. The seventh rank of the deities added to the rest are those which, by their beneficence to mankind, were honored with a divine worship, though they were born of mortal race; of this sort were Hercules, Castor and Pollux, and Bacchus. These are reputed to be of a human species; for of all beings that which is divine is most excellent, and man amongst all animals is adorned with the greatest beauty, is also the best, being adorned by virtue above the rest because of the gift of intellect: therefore it was thought that those who were admirable for excellence should resemble that which is the best and most beautiful. (emphasis added)

20. On “belief in the one supreme God” and the divine.

Cf. P. J. Toner, “Monotheism”, The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1909):

Monotheism (from the Greek monos “only”, and theos “god”) is a word coined in comparatively modern times to designate belief in the one supreme God, the Creator and Lord of the world, the eternal Spirit, All-powerful, All-wise, and All-good, the Rewarder of good and the Punisher of evil, the Source of our happiness and perfection. It is opposed to Polytheism, which is belief in more gods than one, and to Atheism, which is disbelief in any deity whatsoever. In contrast with Deism, it is the recognition of God’s presence and activity in every part of creation. In contrast with Pantheism, it is belief in a God of conscious freedom, distinct from the physical world. Both Deism and Pantheism are religious philosophies rather than religions.

Etymology of the Word “God”:(Anglo-Saxon God; German Gott; akin to Persian khoda; Hindu khooda).

God can variously be defined as: the proper name of the one Supreme and Infinite Personal Being, the Creator and Ruler

of the universe, to whom man owes obedience and worship; the common or generic name of the several supposed beings to whom, in polytheistic

religions, Divine attributes are ascribed and Divine worship rendered; the name sometimes applied to an idol as the image or dwelling-place of a god.

The root-meaning of the name (from Gothic root gheu; Sanskrit hub or emu, “to invoke or to sacrifice to”) is either “the one invoked” or “the one sacrificed to.” From different Indo-Germanic roots (div, “to shine” or “give light”; thes in thessasthai “to implore”) come the Indo-Iranian deva, Sanskrit dyaus (gen. divas), Latin deus, Greek theos, Irish and Gaelic dia,

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all of which are generic names; also Greek Zeus (gen. Dios, Latin Jupiter (jovpater), Old Teutonic Tiu or Tiw (surviving in Tuesday), Latin Janus, Diana, and other proper names of pagan deities. The common name most widely used in Semitic occurs as ‘el in Hebrew, ‘ilu in Babylonian, ‘ilah in Arabic, etc.; and though scholars are not agreed on the point, the root-meaning most probably is “the strong or mighty one.”

Cf. Athenagoras, A Plea Regarding Christians by Athenagoras, the Athenian, a Philoso-pher and a Christian (Early Christian Fathers, Cyril C. Richardson), n. 9:

9. Were we satisfied with such reasoning, one would think our doctrine was human. But prophetic voices confirm our arguments. Seeing how learned and well-informed you are, I suppose that you are not unaware of Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest of the prophets. Under the impulse of the divine Spirit and raised above their own thoughts, they proclaimed the things with which they were inspired. For the Spirit used them just as a flute player blows on a flute. What, then, did they say? “The Lord is our God: no other can be compared with him.”855 Or again, “I am God the first and the last; and apart from me there is no god.”856 Similarly: “Before me there was no other god, and after me there shall be none. I am God, and there is none besides me.”857 Then, concerning his greatness: “Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, or in what place shall I rest?”858 But I leave it to you, when you come on their books, to examine their prophecies in more detail, so that you will have good reason to dispel the false accusations brought against us.

855 Ex. 20:2, 3. 856 Isa. 44:6. 857 Isa. 43:10, 11. 858 Isa. 66:1.

Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol. Ia, q. 13, art. 8 (tr. B.A.M.):

To the eighth one proceeds as follows.

obj. 1. It seems that the name ‘God’ is not the name of a nature. For Damascene says in the first book [sc. De Fide] that God is said from theein, which is ‘to run’, and ‘to cherish’ all things; or from aethein, that is, ‘to burn’ (for our God is a fire consuming all malice); or from theasthai, which is ‘to consider’ all things. But all these things pertain to operation. Therefore, the name ‘God’ signifies an operation, and not a nature.

obj. 2. Further, to the extent that something is named by us, to that extent it is known. But the divine nature is unknown to us. Therefore, the name ‘God’ does not signify the divine nature.

But to the contrary is what Ambrose says in the first book De Fide, that God is the name of a nature. I reply that it must be said that that from which [id a quo] a name is imposed in order to signify is not always the same as that with respect to which [id ad quod] the name is imposed in order to signify. For just as we know a thing from its properties or operations, so at times we name the substance of a thing from some operation or property or it, just as we name the substance of a stone from some action of it because laedit pedem, it ‘hurts the foot’. Still the name has not been imposed in order to signify this action, but the substance of the stone. But if there are things which are known to us according to themselves [secundum se], like heat, cold, whiteness, and the like, they are not named from other things. And so in such things what the name signifies and that from which it is imposed in order to signify are

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the same thing. Therefore, since God is not known to us in His own nature, but he is made known to us from His operations or effects, we are able to name Him from these things, as was said above. And so the name Deus, ‘God’, is the name of an operation, with respect to that from which it is imposed in order to signify. For the name is imposed from the universal providence of things; for all men speaking about God intend this to name God, because he has a universal providence over all things. And so Dionysius says in chapter 12 of About the Divine Names that the Deity is that which watches over all things with perfect providence and goodness. But the name Deus, ‘God’, taken from this operation has been imposed in order to signify the divine nature.

ad 1. To the first, then, it must be said that all the things set down by Damascene pertain to providence, from which the name ‘God’ is imposed in order to signify.

ad 2. To the second its must be said that according as we can know the nature of any thing from its properties and effects, so we can signify it by a name. And so because we can know the substance of a stone from its property according to itself [secundum se], by knowing what a stone is, the name ‘stone’ signifies the very nature of a stone as it is in itself, for it signifies the definition of a stone, by virtue of which we know what a stone is. For the ratio which the name signifies is the definition, as is said in the fourth book of the Metaphysics. But from the divine effects we cannot know the divine nature as it is in itself such that we know about it what it is, but by way of eminence and causality and negation, as was said above. And thus the name Deus, ‘God’, signifies the divine nature. For the name has been imposed in order to signify something existing above all things, which is the principle of all things, and is removed from all things. For those naming God intend to signify this. (emphasis added)

In sum:

That which can exist apart (sc. from matter) and is immovable “must surely be the divine, and this must be the first and most dominant principle”. (cf. Aristotle, Meta., XII. 7)

The primary body is “eternal and not subject to increase or diminution, but unaging and unalterable and unmodified”. “For all men have some conception of the nature of the gods, and all who believe in the existence of gods at all, whether barbarian or Greek, agree in allotting the highest place to the deity, surely because they suppose that immortal is linked with immortal and regard any other supposition as incon-ceivable. If then there is, as there certainly is, anything divine, what we have just said about the primary bodily substance was well said.” (cf. Aristotle, De Caelo., I. 3)

Again, the heaven is exempt from decay and destruction and is eternal. (cf. Aristotle, De Caelo., I. 8)

Further, that ‘God’, in Greek, is said from an operation, being imposed in order to signify “the universal providence over all things”:

And so the name Deus, ‘God’, is the name of an operation, with respect to that from which it is imposed in order to signify.

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For the name is imposed from the universal providence of things; for all men speaking about God intend this to name God, because he has a universal provi-dence over all things.

And so Dionysius says in chapter 12 of About the Divine Names that the Deity is that which watches over all things with perfect providence and goodness.

But the name Deus, ‘God’, taken from this operation has been imposed in order to signify the divine nature.”

§

The Opening of Genesis, Part IV

And God said, “Let there be light”

(c) 2013 Bart A. Mazzetti. All rights reserved.

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