Natural Philosophy of Animals
The creation of fish, birds, and land animals with extensive moral symbolism. Fish are unteachable and stupid from excess moisture; the smaller is the food of the larger. Moral lessons from sea creatures: the crab and the oyster (cunning thieves), the octopus (hypocrites). Basil and Ambrose marvel at the industry of bees, the sentry watches of cranes, the filial piety of storks. In small animals God's magnificence shines equally or more than in large ones.
Chapter I (The Six Days of Creation)
-
Verse 20: Let the Waters Bring Forth
— Fish: the Hebrew iisretsu signifies marvelous fecundity; fish are unteachable and stupid from excess moisture, and the smaller is the food of the larger.
"In Hebrew iisretsu, that is, let them bubble up and gush forth in great abundance. This is the proper word for fish and frogs, and signifies their marvelous fecundity, propagation, and prolific nature."
-
Verse 20: Let the Waters Bring Forth
— Moral lessons from sea creatures: the crab and the oyster (cunning thieves), the octopus (hypocrites who take on the color of whatever they cling to).
"The crab, in order to devour the flesh of the oyster, when the oyster opens its shell to the sun, throws a small stone into it so that it cannot close, and so invades and feeds upon it. Crabs are cunning thieves and robbers."
-
Verse 22: And He Blessed Them, Saying: Increase and Multiply
— Basil and Ambrose on the industry of bees, the sentry watches of cranes, and the filial piety of storks.
"St. Basil, Homily 8 on the Hexaemeron, and following him St. Ambrose, Book V of the Hexaemeron, describes and marvels at, first, the industry of bees in constructing honeycombs"
-
Verse 22: And He Blessed Them, Saying: Increase and Multiply
— The kingfisher lays eggs in midwinter and the seas calm for seven days; it teaches us to hope in God.
"the kingfisher lays its eggs by the seashore in about the middle of winter, when winds and storms rage, and then immediately the winds and storms fall silent and are lulled"
-
Verse 22: And He Blessed Them, Saying: Increase and Multiply
— Silkworms as a proof and type of the resurrection: worm, caterpillar, cocoon, death, and reviving as a butterfly.
"silkworms are a proof and type of the resurrection. For in them, first a tiny worm is born from seed, from this comes a caterpillar, from the caterpillar a silkworm"
-
Verse 24: Let the Earth Bring Forth the Living Creature
— In small animals God's magnificence shines equally or more than in large ones. Tertullian: imitate if you can the buildings of the bee, the webs of the spider.
"Note that in small animals God's magnificence shines forth equally, and sometimes even more, than in large ones."
-
Verse 24: Let the Earth Bring Forth the Living Creature
— Augustine: who arranged the limbs of the flea and the gnat? Consider any tiny creature — it flees death, loves life, exercises diverse senses. "You tremble at the smallest things -- praise the Great One."
"who arranged the limbs of the flea and the gnat, so that they have their own order, their own life, their own movement?"