The anonymous Hiberno-Latin treatise On the Order of Creatures, long printed among Isidore’s works and addressed to a “venerable Father” (the dedication made medieval scribes name Braulio of Zaragoza). Migne’s text after the Montpellier manuscript and the Baluze/Martène edition; Latin text with the editor’s notes summarised, translated into modern British English.

Editor’s note on authorship. In the Isidoriana I showed by many proofs that this work is not Isidore’s. I must now add that I have since found it is cited under Isidore’s name by Æneas of Paris in his book against the Greeks (ch. 94), who quotes words from the book On the Order of Creatures; so the attribution was already made in the ninth century. The work came from the noble monastery of St Benignus of Dijon. In the printed editions the epilogue addresses a “bishop Braulio of the city of Rome” — that is, Zaragoza (Caesaraugusta being called “Rome” as Heiric wrote of Auxerre: “it wished to be called a second Rome”) — but the whole dedication is wanting in the Florence codex, whose readings I here append.

The Book on the Order of Creatures #

Chapter One — Of the faith of the Trinity #

¹ The disposition of the universe must be understood by a twofold reckoning: in God and in things — that is, in the Creator and in creatures; not that we place God as one part, or that the Creator could be made equal to a creature, but because everything that is is understood either as made or unmade, either as powerful or as subject, either as eternal or as temporal. What is made, therefore, and subject and temporal — that is the creature; what is unmade and powerful and eternal — that is God.

² And one God, holy and inseparable through all things in substance — that is, one Godhead, and in the subsistence of persons an inseparable Trinity: in which nothing is to be believed lower, nothing higher, nothing earlier, nothing later in the nature of the Godhead; nothing serving, nothing subject, nothing comprehensible by place, nothing temporal, nothing infirm, nothing growing, nothing pertaining to sex or bodily state, nothing corporeal to be felt; but one King without beginning, everlasting without place, wholly everywhere, disposing all mutable creatures without mutation of Himself; beholding past, present and future times alike — to Him nothing is past and nothing remains to come, but all things are present. To whom nothing is displeasing that is good, nothing pleasing that is evil; of whom nothing is to be believed naturally evil — since everything created by His virtue and working is good, for of itself nothing is the will of anything but created good. Good therefore without quality, great without quantity, eternal without time, foremost without site; who is poured into all creatures though He has no place; whom no creature contains, no intelligence comprehends.

³ One God almighty, the holy Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The Father then, God almighty, draws His origin from none, and is Himself the origin of the Godhead; of whom the Son, God almighty, was begotten without time — not created, since He is God, with whom, save that He is Son, all is common with the Father in eternity, in will, in power, in wisdom. So likewise to the Father, save that He is Father, all is common with the Son.

⁴ The Holy Spirit is God almighty; nor is He begotten, since He is not Son; nor created, since He is not creature; but proceeding from the Father and the Son — with whom, save that He is the Holy Spirit, all is common with the Father and the Son. For he who is the Father is not in person the Son or the Holy Spirit; nor is he who is the Son here the Father or the Holy Spirit; nor is he who is the Holy Spirit here the Father or the Son. But in essence, what the Son is, that the Father and the Holy Spirit is; and what the Holy Spirit is, that the Father and the Son is — yet there is no threefold number of gods in that Trinity; for, the distinction of persons being preserved, the whole of the Godhead is common.

⁵ The Son in time took human flesh which is free from fault; He had the nature of humanity — a prudent, intellectual, wise soul, the divine nature excepted — that humanity might be made whole; which the Son, who is without time Son of God the Father, therefore assumed, that he who in the Godhead was God’s Son should in humanity be the same man’s Son. Of which humanity He was born of the Holy Spirit and of Mary ever virgin; not that He was conceived of the Holy Spirit as of the Virgin, but born of the Virgin as of the Spirit.

⁶ He endured the passion of the cross in the flesh, not in the Godhead; He sustained death for our redemption and salvation; buried for three days’ space, He rose again in the same flesh by the divine power. And after He had instructed the one holy catholic church by word, established it by example, confirmed it by grace and defended it by peace — taking up the whole human nature save that whereby it is liable to corruption — returning to the Father from which He was never absent, He sits at the Father’s right hand; from where, all men rising again, He is to come in the Father’s glory to the judgement of living and dead, to render to the wicked eternal punishments and to the just eternal rewards.

⁷ This is the catholic faith: to believe and confess it profits more than to debate it; which neither worldly prudence nor mundane philosophy — following the images of things rather than the intelligence of truth — could discern, but which the apostolic faith handed down and the church’s vigilance guards.

Chapter Two — Of the spiritual creature #

¹ Now that so much has been premised concerning the Creator’s immensity, let us look awhile upon the order of the creatures — not following the inventions of our own intention, which of itself is nothing, but pursuing with tranquil mind the tracks of holy Scripture and of the elders who expound it. Every creature therefore is either spiritual or corporeal. And since the creature consists in intellectual spirits, which are not held by flesh, and in the souls of men, which are shut in flesh — we must first speak of the distinct grades of the spirits above, whose names or diversities of ministries are comprehended through the divine Scriptures: namely, seraphim and cherubim, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, virtues, archangels, angels.

² The signification of these nine orders of the citizens above is also shown by the nine precious stones in Ezekiel, where under the person of the prince of Tyre the prophet’s words direct a lament over that highest angel who fell; where it is said: Every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, topaz and jasper, chrysolite, onyx and beryl, sapphire, carbuncle and emerald. By which stones he is said to have been covered with nine, because he was adorned with the nine orders of spiritual offices over which he presided.

³ As therefore we have spoken of the number, so also let us disclose somewhat of the distinct grades of the offices. The seraphim then — that is, the “burning” or “kindling” — are so called because they burn with a certain special largess of the divine gift of God’s love beyond all rational creatures; and by how much they excel all creatures, by so much do they draw near to the Creator by the privilege of divine charity. Isaiah saw them standing above the Lord’s exalted throne and heard them singing, and merited to be purged of the pollution of his lips by one of them sent to him.

⁴ The cherubim moreover in the oracle of the testimony covered the propitiatory and the ark; and in the Lord’s temple they were depicted by Solomon with oxen and lions; and Ezekiel also describes having seen in God’s visions the fourfold figure which the Scriptures of both Testaments join with mystic utterance. And Paul the apostle writing to the Colossians mentions thrones and dominations and principalities and powers; and to the Ephesians he speaks of the virtues, saying: Above all principality and power and virtue and domination. And the books of the divine volumes are full of the appearances and namings of archangels and angels.

⁵ In the second order also the cherubim are numbered among the citizens above — whose name is interpreted “fullness of knowledge”; for their intellect, refreshed by cleaving near to the contemplation of God, is enlarged beyond all the intellectual creatures beneath them in fullness of knowledge. For they who gaze more keenly into the mirror of the divine brightness — how can the hidden secrets of creatures remain hid from them?

⁶ In the third order of the intellectual spirits are set the troops of the thrones, which are interpreted “seats”; for upon them, while by a special gift the Lord sits, through them He exercises His judgements upon all creatures terribly and wondrously. Hence it is said by the Psalmist: you have sat upon the throne, who judge justice. And in John’s revelation the angel says: And he that sits on the throne shall defend them.

⁷ In the fourth grade also of the heavenly offices stand the dominations, which excel by their height the ministries of the five grades written below; and by how much they are set before the others in greatness of power, by so much is the subjection of the rest rendered to them through obedience.

⁸ Next after them in the fifth order of the citizens above are named the principalities: to them among the good spirits a principality is now committed, that they may take the lead of those subject to them for the fulfilling of God’s ministries.

⁹ In the sixth rank also among the good spirits are ordained the powers, who have received by the Lord’s gift the principate over various powers; who by their power restrain the wickedness of the malign spirits, lest — if they be suffered beyond what is fitting — they should dare to exercise their savagery or to inhere in human senses.

¹⁰ The seventh grade of the spiritual ministrations is named the virtues: through whom signs and wonders and wonderful things are often wrought in men by the Spirit.

¹¹ The eighth order is the archangels — that is, the “chief messengers” — through whom the greater things are announced to men; and by how much they excel the angels in the summit of their order, by so much loftier messages do they bring to men at the Lord’s command.

¹² The ninth order of the heavenly ministers is named the angels: who announce to men the lesser and commoner things, and persuade them by the Lord’s will.

¹³ Furthermore, concerning these it is to be known that whenever they are named, they have taken their names from the property of their offices when they come to men — since that supreme society of the citizens above needs no proper names. Hence he is called Michael, that is “Who is like God?” — because he is destined to be sent in the end against him who exalts himself against God. And Gabriel, that is “Strength of God,” is written to have been sent to Zachary and to the Virgin Mary — that he who had foretold that that which nature denied should come to pass might be called the Strength of God. And to Tobias likewise Raphael is sent, that is “Medicine of God” — for he who brought salvation by the divine power is not unfittingly named God’s medicine. And what holds in individuals may also hold in the grades: that when one performs another’s office he is accounted by that other’s name — as it is said: Who makes His angels spirits; that is, when you will, You make all Your spirits messengers. And sometimes by reason of the neighbourhood of other grades they assume the offices of others — as from the neighbourhood of the thrones the Scriptures also say that the Lord sits above the cherubim, as it is written in the psalm: You that sit above the cherubim, show Yourself before Ephraim.

¹⁴ But in that society above, what is specially possessed in any one is possessed by all in common — since each one delights no less in what he sees in another than in what he possesses in himself. And when they are sent, God — by whom they are refreshed — is never absent from their contemplation: not that those spirits who are sent can be everywhere alike, but that the Lord, who is everywhere, is always saw in every place, without mutation of Himself, by those who run. From where it is written: Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten times a hundred thousand stood before Him — for the heavenly powers do both alike: they minister while they are sent, and they stand before Him while they contemplate. And sometimes the angels who are sent announce in person to the men to whom they come; and sometimes they destine others as it were subjects to the office of announcing — as it is written in Daniel: Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision — which is by no means doubted to have been spoken by some one as it were superior.

Chapter Three — Of the waters which are above the firmament #

¹ But since we have taken up the discourse of the order of creatures which the compass of your proposition comprised, after the spiritual creature of which we have briefly discoursed, let us essay to bring forward what the intention of the authors could devise concerning the waters which are above the firmament. For when on the first day at the beginning light was made — which is discerned to have been the spiritual creature — on the second day the firmament was made, which divides between the waters which are above the firmament and the waters which are beneath the firmament, as Scripture testifies: from which it is understood that those waters which are above the firmament are higher in local space than every corporeal creature.

² For although in the hundred and forty-eighth psalm those waters which are above the heavens are found placed after the firmament and sun and moon and stars, yet — that he might show those to be higher than all corporeal creatures — again recapitulating the habitations of the exalted powers, the Psalmist sets the heavens before them, saying: Praise Him, you heavens of heavens; and let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord.

³ From where it is shown that after those spiritual spaces — whatever they be — where the spiritual orders, as we have said, dwell, which the prophet names “the heavens of heavens,” before this visible heaven those waters were established as it were the beginning of corporeal things; which yet, lest any should join them to the spiritual creature, he placed after the heavens of heavens and before he spoke of the earth — adding a little after: Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all deeps.

⁴ See, the Psalmist says these waters are set above the heavens, and yet sets the heavens of heavens before them: whereby it is demonstrated that they are placed between the two heavens — that is, lower than all spiritual beings and higher than the corporeal heavens; yet they are to be said to pertain to corporeal creatures, since they were made on the second day above this corporeal firmament.

⁵ But what they do there for the utility of corporeal things is investigated by a twofold intention of the masters. For some assert that they were reserved by God’s foreknowledge for the abolishing of the earth’s orb in the deluge which was wrought under Noah (as the history of Genesis narrates) — as Scripture says: And the cataracts of heaven were opened, and the rain was forty days and forty nights. And since both the clouds, from which the falling showers water the earth’s fruitful fertility, and also the air in the hemisphere from which all things and the breezes are conceived, are often reckoned in the divine Scriptures under the name of heavens — as it is said: And He rained upon them manna to eat, and gave them the bread of heaven; and elsewhere: The heavens shall give rain, and the earth shall give her fruit — it pleases certain doctors that from that inner abundance of waters the deluge was diffused through clouds; so that according to that custom whereby it is carried on through all time, the clouds even then should pour forth the store of rains — in which nevertheless Scripture mentions that cataracts were opened, because an effusion of waters beyond the custom was sent down. But others assert that the same waters are set above the firmament to this end: that they might temper the igneous heat which burns in the luminaries and stars — lest, should it be more than sufficient, it should scorch the regions beneath.

Chapter Four — Of the firmament of heaven #

¹ After those waters, the firmament seems to stand in the second place of the order of corporeal creatures — which, made on the second day as we said above, divides between both waters. Of its state also — whether it covers the earth from above like a disc, or like an egg’s shell girds the whole structure of creation round about — both estimations lack not their thinkers.

² For even what the Psalmist mentions of it, when he says: You stretch out the heaven like a skin, is not contrary to the assertions of either estimation: since when the skin of any animal clothes its flesh, it surrounds all its members equally; but when it is stretched apart separately from the flesh, it can make either a straight or a curved chamber — which is not doubted.

³ Whether therefore it covers the earth from above like the stretched skin of a tabernacle, or — as an animal’s members are covered by flesh — the firmament girds the mass of the world on every side, both assertions are not difficult to support.

⁴ Concerning this firmament’s situation also — whether it be void and penetrable, or solid and firm — various authors have brought forth their estimations, such as each drew himself to. Whose sentences rather than names I shall endeavour to set down. For those of them who more approve that the firmament is made void and penetrable bring together for the confirmation of their sentence the natures of all the elements.

⁵ For the earth they no less show than say to be the heaviest of all corporeal creatures; and therefore they assert it holds the lowest place among creatures, since it can suffer no nature save itself. But water we see to be lighter than earth, yet by so much the heavier than air; for air cannot subsist beneath water of itself, but if it be anywhere drawn down by any force of necessity it at once escapes to its own spaces.

⁶ The nature of fire also is found to be above the air; which is easily proved even in that fire which burns in terrestrial matter — since as soon as it is kindled it directs its flame to the upper spaces which are above the air, where its abundance and place are; but, extinguished by the circumfusion of the grosser air, it quickly vanishes into the soft air, so that it cannot reach the place of its own nature. In which it is shown that the nature of fire, which ascends, is lighter than air — as the nature of water, which descends, is shown to be heavier.

⁷ By this reckoning therefore they think the firmament’s space, which is above the igneous, to be lighter and subtler — since it is higher than all these natures we have spoken of. In which space they also suppose the light of the gleaming stars to be unequal, because in so ample a space some of them run farther off and some nearer; but we refrain from adopting this notion — that that space above the air and fire is subtler and more void and more penetrable — since waters can in no wise consist there: unless perchance, as those we have spoken of assert, they there consist subtler and thinner than all corporeality.

⁸ To whom also others answer in reply: What vaporousness of waters, however thin, could ever be lighter than the firmament? Therefore those others think more easily that the firmament is cast solidly and firmly like a most solid air; and therefore they reckon it is named “firmament” because it encloses within itself all the spaces we have spoken of — solid as well as void, light as well as heavy — and sustains the waters set above it, whatever they be. But since among so great men there has been variance on so great a matter, we judge no one’s estimation is to be preferred to another’s; but we send the reader to them as arbitrators of either party.

Chapter Five — Of the sun and moon #

¹ Since therefore in the firmament of heaven — although after the form of sea and earth — the two great luminaries were formed, as the Mosaic law, no the divine Scripture, pronounces in the beginning of Genesis, it is not unbecoming if the discourse, descending from the things above, describes sun and moon in the local order of creatures at once after the firmament; yet so that in the order of their establishment the mind should set these two luminaries and the stars after earth and sea with Scripture’s words — although the catholic faith believes with faithful reason that all the elements were made without time.

² Sun and moon therefore — two luminaries — were established in the firmament of heaven: the one, which is the greater, to preside over the day; the second, which is the lesser, was appointed to preside over the night. But they do not now preserve through the whole time of their ministry in the courses of days and nights that same light of their splendour which they had when they were created in the beginning.

³ For when they were destined by God the Creator to minister to the uses of men — while men lived blamelessly and persevered beneath the law of the Creator by whom they had been made — they ministered adorned also with the fullness of their own light; but when men, to whom they had first shone joined in ministry, for their transgression lost the blessedness of paradise, the luminaries themselves also — though not by their own fault — suffered the losses of their light not without their own grief, as Paul the apostle testifies, saying: For every creature groans and labours even until now.

⁴ But since through the Redeemer’s coming the restoration into better of the promised blessedness is promised to the human race, it is not doubted that the creature also shall receive its ancient adornment. From where the prophet Isaiah, speaking of the sun specially and the moon, illustrating with spiritual utterance, says: And it shall be in that day, that the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, when the Lord shall bind up the wound of His people and shall heal the stroke of their wound.

⁵ When a new heaven shall be made and a new earth, and the former things which served corruption shall not be in memory, and the Lord shall have healed the wound of sin and the stroke of the plague of death in the bodies of them that rise again, and the proud spirits shall have been deposed from the empire they had seized — then the light of the moon shall be changed into the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be restored to the light of the seven days in which it had been made, that is, restored to its sevenfold light. For nothing is restored save what has been lost or corrupted; what therefore the sun and moon lost, that they shall receive again.

⁶ From which it appears that the luminaries now retain the seventh part of their light — which they shall resume sevenfold, when the Holy Spirit, putting past things for future through Habakkuk, says: The sun shall be lifted up in your rising, and the moon shall stand in her order. For when the mutability of man’s state shall cease, whom they serve, the mutability of their own course also shall cease. For in that he says “the sun in his rising,” he indicates that it shall never be inclined to its setting; and in that it is said “the moon shall stand in her order,” this insinuates that she shall not suffer the mutations of her waxing and waning, but shall stand always in her order.

⁷ And this shall be when, as the apostle speaks, the creature itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. For when the saints, for the reward of their labour wherewith they served God, shall have been changed and shall shine as the sun of justice, whose it is to suffer loss — then also to this corporeal sun itself, for the reward of its ministry wherein it is subjected to the servitude of corruption, shall be restored the shining of its sevenfold splendour.

⁸ Meanwhile in the daily motions of her ministry, as often as the moon follows the sun she suffers increments of light; but as often as she precedes the sun she suffers diminishings of her splendour. And of the moon’s state it has been diversely thought: whether the sphere is black and dark in half its part, and lucid and white in the other half — and so the waxings and wanings are wrought, as when that lucid part is shown little by little, in the same manner the dark part is hidden, and likewise when the lucid is turned the dark is again manifested.

⁹ Or whether she is also a globe illuminated by the sun’s rays, which — whenever she approaches the sun, whether before or after — glows as it were in a single ray like a little moon; but when she seems to recede farther and farther, little by little she increases her light from the sun’s splendour, until when she stands opposite the sun with her orb equalled and face to face she can then hold the image of the sun fully in herself.

¹⁰ But of the courses of the sun and moon it is not the time nor the place to discourse in this little work — which for that reason we follow the more negligently: since both the compendious brevity does not suffer it, and they are turned to the use of almost all readers for the sake of reckoning the feast days.

¹¹ These organs of light some indeed think to be sensible creatures; but the things we have said are more usually held among Catholics. In these ambiguities of sentences the authority of holy Scripture is to be attended to, which side it more supports; and also it is to be examined what the multitude of Catholics has drawn into the end. But various estimations which have been asserted indifferently by Catholics — and against which the words of the sacred canon do not speak — are to be left in doubt to the arbitrations of readers, toward which they may equally run.

Chapter Six — Of the upper space, and of the paradise of heaven #

¹ Having spoken of the firmament and the luminaries, there follows the long void space which is drawn down from the firmament of heaven even to the earth, and is explained by some writers to be divided into two spaces — of which the upper space is said to pertain to heaven, and the lower is not doubted to be conjoined to the earth.

² For the exalted space which we said pertains to heaven is most pure and most subtle; it has neither swellings of clouds nor inrollings of winds nor moist conspires of showers or rains nor gelid congealings of snow or hail nor mutations of air nor crashes of tempests and thunders — no, not even the air itself which could support the bodies of flying birds and the grosser mass of those same clouds, and refresh the lives of various animals by the reciprocal flowing in of breath, and animate them by inhalation; nor has it any perturbations of various hemispheres at all.

³ As is proved in those who ascend the highest ridges of Mount Olympus — highest of the earth’s mountains and for that reason unknown to other men — and is related by their report: who, having put moistened sponges about their mouth and nostrils to preserve the air’s inflation of the spirit for breathing, ascend by yearly custom (led by I know not what superstition); and they affirm that they have seen there neither bird nor cloud nor rain nor any wind; and having consummated the offices of the sacrifices for whose sake they go, they depart from there impressing certain signs and marks upon the sands — which also they find, when they ascend again after a year, unharmed and untouched.

⁴ From which it is perspicuously demonstrated that no perturbation of air consists there — especially since in that same place nothing pertaining to the green of herbs or shrubs can be found or seen. But yet that most pure and subtle upper space of which we spoke above is not to be thought to be that which no earth can touch or approach; but this place pertains to the confines of the lower space — that is, the nebulous and gloomy part of this lower space — near to that upper one. In which place nevertheless the life of those clothed in flesh can in no wise abide.

⁵ From where it is perspicuous that that uppermost pure and tranquil space of which we discoursed a little before was not prepared for the habitations of the carnal nor for the uses of mortal things. Therefore very many of the Catholic authors assert that space was first destined for the habitation of the angels who fell with their prince — because they think that none of the heavenly angels fell from above, but were heavenly while they were in angelic blessedness, in which nevertheless they had not stood fast.

⁶ For since, as Scripture says, the devil himself is a liar from the beginning and in the truth he stood not — him they think to have received by lot this place of habitation which Scripture pronounces the celestial paradise, where under the person of the prince of Tyre it speaks thus to that highest apostate angel: Perfect in beauty, you were in the delights of the paradise of God.

⁷ For as men, after their sin, cast down from the felicity of the earthly paradise into the habitation of this earth subject to the curse — so that while they sinned on earth they should afterwards live in the mansion of a worse earth under the penalty of their fault: so also they judge that the angels, who are thought to have sinned in the air — no in the very air’s purer space — were cast down from their upper and pure air and the most blessed seat of their dignity, to live miserably and unhappily beneath the expectation of the future examination in which they shall be more hardly condemned. For since they have aerial bodies and now dwell in the air, they are not unfittingly judged to have had of old even the seat of their former blessedness in air — but purer and subtler.

⁸ And this place, since it pertains to the heaven of the firmament as I have said, is reckoned under heaven’s name — as the Lord Himself attests, saying: I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning. For cast down from the perspicuous and pure blessedness of that same place by the merit of his sin, he was destined to a wretched and miserable habitation in the lower space — that is, the nebulous and gloomy part of the air — as the apostle Paul testifies, saying: Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of this air, against the rulers of the world of these darknesses — which “spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places” Paul declares Christ to have triumphed over in Himself.

⁹ Therefore the malign spirits with their prince the devil being cast down from that most limpid habitation of the spaces beneath heaven — and afterwards the human race being redeemed from Adam’s and each one’s own fault by the Mediator’s coming — they think that same place is meanwhile the rest of holy souls while they await the future resurrection; and they even call it the celestial paradise, of which the Lord answered the thief commending himself on the cross: Amen I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.

¹⁰ For in that paradise planted with trees and pre-eminent with a lucid spring, souls divested of bodies have no need; for the spiritual man, freed from the carnal use by the death of the body, does not possess it — nor does it behove him to seek the earthly paradise’s fruitful trees: for the eternal does not use temporal things but contemplates eternal and spiritual things.

¹¹ These things we have touched upon as the senses of those who estimate, not of those who confirm — especially since we do not attribute even the perspicacity of estimating such things to ourselves. For when necessity shall have required it, we can bring into the middle the authors of all these opinions, to which either faith or doubt can be ascribed; we labour rather in reporting their opinions than in defending them — for if another and better assertion be present, to which either Scriptural examples or the estimations of Catholic consentients shall give more support, we are prepared to submit in concord. But these things concerning the upper space being explained thus or otherwise, let us hasten to what follows.

Chapter Seven — Of the lower space, and of the diverse hemispheres #

¹ Next, the lower space is called the air — which we said is joined to the earth, and by which the life of all flesh that is conversant in the earth’s air is helped and contained in us and by us, as we prove. And it is sometimes also called in the Scriptures by the earth’s name — as when it is said by the Psalmist, while all creatures are summoned in highest order to the praise of the Lord Creator; and when those things which pertain to the superior order of the heavens are consummated, it is come to these spaces of air, and thus it is subjoined: Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all deeps; fire and hail, snow and ice, spirits of tempests that do His word.

² For hitherto in the air the discourse runs which is called by the earth’s name; for afterwards there is commanded in Scripture’s words concerning the lower earth’s soil and natures: Mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars. And for this reason the air often obtains the earth’s name: since by its grossness and as it were solidity wherewith it is possessed, the bodies of flying birds — even the greatest — are sustained; which as fish penetrate the hidings of the sea’s waves by swimming, so the birds pass through the aerial spaces by flying.

³ For all that water affords for preserving the life of water-dwellers, the air does for flying things — since as by the reciprocal breath of birds and of all that live in air and earth life is fed and preserved, so in those that dwell in the waters the vital motion is refreshed through the water by the tract of breathing in and out.

⁴ From where when they are drawn out into the air, since they have not the lymphatic breathing they quickly die — even as the things which live in the air cannot live longer when the air is shut off from them. And as by that solidity of air the flying bodies are supported, as I have said, so also the moist mass of the clouds is sustained by that same terrestrial grossness which it has in itself — for which it often obtains the earth’s name; and by that solidity of air, the aerial grossness, aided by the force of cold, begets snows and hails and ice when it is so effected.

⁵ For this space of air has this instilled in its nature, that by fumal lightness it draws together and collects the vapours of waters from the species of earth and sea; and lifting them on high, while they consist in most minute drops, gathering them into clouds within itself, the air itself suspends them by its own self. But when those little drops, vexed by the wind, run together into greater drops, the air’s nature no longer bearing them up, they slip down and fall as showering rains to the earth.

⁶ But if the wind has seized the drops we have spoken of, collated by its congealing into little masses before they fall downward, the violence of the cold constricts them into coagulated hailstones. But if it has forestalled the vapours, somewhat more remiss and not yet condensed into drops — that is, the cold has forestalled them — the great force of the cold changes them into the form of snow; and what it so nourishes in the higher suspended cloud — the air not sufficing and the wind dispersing — it sends down to earth.

⁷ As the Psalmist, commemorating the same thing, says of the Lord: Who gives snow like wool, scatters the mist like ashes; He casts forth His crystal like morsels: who shall stand before the face of His cold? And to show that snows, whether on earth or in the clouds, are accustomed to be resolved again into waters, he subjoins a little after: He shall send forth His word and shall melt them; His spirit shall blow and the waters shall flow.

⁸ And that it may be perspicuous that the waters themselves are suspended in this manner in the clouds, it is seen written in the book of holy Job: Who binds up the waters in His clouds, that they break not out alike downward. And yet the air sends down to the land and to the sea those same waters which it had before taken up from the same lower parts. And although the rainy conception drew them from the salt breadth of the deep, they grow sweet through the air — as when salt water drawn from the deep sea is poured through the soil of the earth (as is the frequent custom of sailors) it is at once changed into the taste of sweet water. And by the commotion of the air it produces winds, and by the more violent concitation even fires and thunders — by hidden commands, as through angels by whom the visible world is governed, as the Maker does all else.

⁹ And some understand this of the effect of thunder: that since about the air are the spaces of two elements — fire and water — one above, as we have said, and one below, and yet the air’s nature draws both into itself (water vapourously from below and fire heat-wise from above) — those two elements, contrary to each other, collide.

¹⁰ For it is impossible that thunders should be moved without moist clouds and lightnings — as is perspicuous to the eyes of beholders: in which conflict of fire and water confused and horrible crashes are stirred up. And if fire be the victor it hurts not a little the fruits of earth and trees; but if water wins, it does not destroy the fruitful force both in trees and in the things which are born in diverse species.

¹¹ For thunders sound chiefly in that season when the fruits of trees and lands are still in their showing forth, before they begin to ripen. For through creatures the increments and decrements of other creatures are governed by the Lord Maker’s command.

Chapter Eight — Of the devil and the nature of demons #

¹ In this turbulent and cloudy habitation of the air, then, the angels repulsed from their lofty felicity, as we have said, dwell with their prince. And that prince is named Satan and the devil; the rest — the spirits of his ministry, who before were angels — are now called demons. For as they changed their minds, so they changed their names and places; yet even now they are often called in Scripture by the ancient name of angels — because they are messengers of iniquity as the good spirits are messengers of justice.

² As it is written in the gospel: Which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels. And the apostle says: There was given me a thorn of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. And these seats they possess meanwhile until the time of judgement, beneath the expectation of the Lord’s terrible coming, not without fruitless fear and trembling — as the apostolic sayings attest: For the devils also believe and tremble. And that it may be manifest that under the expectation of the time in which they shall be more hardly judged — or rather destroyed — the unclean spirits inhabit this place of air: they cried in the Saviour’s presence: What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? are you come here to destroy us before the time?

³ For at the coming of the eternal judge — when the common prayer of all the saints is fulfilled, saying Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven — the useless servants shall be cast out into the outer darkness; when the Lord, as He repulsed them from the soil, so shall expel them from heaven — for whom the penalty of eternal fire (as the Lord Himself testifies) has been prepared by the Father without remedy.

⁴ Who therefore deserve to receive neither remission nor redemption, because they fell from the most sublime state of their order; and therefore they had nothing else in which they could be restored, their fault being forgiven — since they polluted all their blessedness in which they had been established; for which reason they neither desire to repent, nor even if they had repented could they receive pardon at all.

⁵ For the human race merited to receive redemption from its Maker because it fell from the lower grade of its own order — since when it was still set in the earthly paradise, destined to the office of begetting and deputed to the eating of foods, it would have received a better, more sublime and spiritual immutation of life without death, if, so long as it was set in that conversation, man had remained in the keeping of the commandment.

⁶ Therefore the Maker’s clemency through the Lord’s passion calls him back to that state to which, sinning, he had not yet attained — which, had he fallen from there as the angel did, He would never call him back; since the restitution shall be made not to that grade or order from which the first man fell, but to another more sublime which they hope for — the Lord saying: They shall be as the angels in heaven. That is, not as men were in paradise; for into that mortality which is deputed for a time to the begetting of offspring and the eating of foods, men — though redeemed — cannot return; but rising after death with spiritual bodies, not growing, not ageing, not dying, they shall be sharers of the angelic felicity.

⁷ But if the time of the devil’s transgression be sought, the devil’s sin is found to have been originally before the time of visible things: for Scripture teaches that all things that were made were made at once and without time, which says: He that lives for ever created all things together. In all which things it is by no means doubted that even that infernal eternal fire was made at once — of which the Lord says: Depart into everlasting fire, which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels. For in saying “He created all things together” He left nothing not made in all creatures.

⁸ For whom therefore the prison was prepared in that establishment of creatures — his sin preceded those creatures originally; for God would not have prepared a penalty for one still innocent unless his fault had preceded the prepared penalty. But this also He did without time, who wrought the penalty of his damnation wherewith the fugitive servant should be tormented.

⁹ And that angel, when he withdrew from the Maker’s blessedness, lost all the good of his nature which he had in his condition; but evil to himself, he perseveres good to God — while he obeys the Lord’s commands, not willingly, yet by God’s power he obeys. For of all the good of nature which he had, this alone he now has: that he obeys God the Creator in all commands.

¹⁰ But this good in the devil and his ministers is not good — since they obey for this reason, that they cannot disobey; but this obedience of theirs is good in God — whose good will the devil’s unwilling evil will cannot resist when it is commanded to work well. But it often happens that when by God’s willing permission he is commanded to do something, his evil will is fed in that same work. As when — to deceive Ahab, that most impious king, the idolater and persecutor of the prophets — a spirit, sent by the Lord, being asked in what he should deceive, not only offered himself willingly prepared for that work but even declared by what counsel he would effect it, and answered: I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said: Go forth, and do so, and you shall deceive Ahab.

¹¹ For it was very fitting that he who had given the Lord’s true prophets to death should perish, seduced and deceived by the false speech of false prophets. See the devil, most prompt in iniquity, offered himself for that impious office of deceiving by his own evil will — yet unless he had been permitted by the Lord he could not have done it: in which thing God’s good will exercised the just vengeance of the holy prophets, but the evil minister fed his evil will in the destruction of the impious and sinful.

¹² But neither in men nor in the things subject to men can he do anything without God’s permission — as the evangelical truth attests where it is related: If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine. For as in those men from whom he was being expelled he could remain no longer against the Lord’s command, so also into the swine he showed that he could not enter without His permission; so that it is proved that the devil’s wickedness wrought nothing without the Maker’s permission — as it is said: have you not made a hedge about him, and his house, and all his substance? And when his substance is permitted by the Lord to the power of the malign enemy, it is subjoined: See, all that he has is in your hand; only put not forth your hand upon him. And Job, understanding that these things were so, when he had learned the losses of his goods, so answered: The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. As it has pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord.

¹³ He said not: “The Lord gave, the devil took away” — for he knew most certainly that without God’s permission the adversary could do nothing at all in things or in men. But often, as I have said, in that same ministry both the adversary’s evil will is fed and the Lord’s benevolence is ministered — either in a dispensation of just vengeance or of fruitful probation; beneath which twofold distribution of good and evil will they both slay the evil through vengeances and prove the good through temptations.

¹⁴ For to this end their punishment is deferred by the Lord until the time of the last judgement, so long as they yet fly freely in this air — that the wicked may appear from among men as their associates in crime and punishment, and the good, proved by the tribulations inflicted by them, may be made manifest.

¹⁵ But the wicked and unclean spirits, vagrant and subtle, are passible in mind and move their senses in aerial bodies; exercising enmities with men, they swell with pride. Deceitful and cunning in fraud, they stir men’s senses, and bringing terror into their minds they trouble life with the unquietness of dreams and with sicknesses and distortions of the limbs — feigning phantasms and oracles, and ruling the lot, they pour the desire of illicit love and cupidities into human hearts; and lying things like truth, they transform themselves into the habit and light even of the good angels.

¹⁶ For they also, when they bring forth their own names, assume for themselves names from the offices of iniquity and powers — as when the adversary, asked by the Lord concerning his name in the region of the Gerasenes, answered and said: Legion is my name, for we are many. From where it is manifest that he brought forth not a proper name — which he had not — but the name of his grade and power; and that at the Lord’s asking — because he could not otherwise speak — he indicated what was true concerning himself.

Chapter Nine — Of the nature of the waters and the course of the Ocean #

¹ After the spaces of the air with their inhabitants, our intention is now directed to the element of water, which is established between air and earth: whose congregation, as the Scripture of Genesis declares, is called sea, when it is said: And the gatherings of the waters He called seas. Of which that part which is poured through the lands in springs and rivers and pools has sweetness — that it might furnish drink to thirsting animals and solace to the uses of the rest, and water the earth more fruitfully for the nourishing of fruits.

² Therefore also the rains, which sifted from the clouds flow down through the air — that they might serve, as we said before, the fruitful force and the quenching of thirst — are made savoury. But that part of the waters which, changed, is spread through the great spaces of the earth, and hides the bounds of the water itself, holds naturally instilled in itself saltness and a sharper taste — that fittingly for human uses it might nourish more profitably the fruits which the wave of savoury liquor would not have.

³ But whether the waters have naturally a savoury or a salt taste, or equally both — God knows for certain; although very many think saltness is the natural taste of the waters, and that sweetness is made by the nature of earth or air. Yet as salt water poured through the soil grows sweet, so also sweet water poured through the ashes of marine plants at once becomes of salt taste: from where either taste can be believed natural in its own way without difficulty — since each can be poured from the other into the other.

⁴ By the sea’s straits the spaces of the lands are sundered often — that it might both shut in the boundaries of nations and enrich all provinces of various peoples with the munificence of its waves, and minister among all countries all necessary commerces exchanged in turn. And how great a concord the Ocean has with the moon’s courses in its flowing and receding is perspicuous to them that look diligently and heedfully: for it is seen to come to the land and recede twice daily through the four-and-twenty hours unceasingly — the whole congruence of whose course shares its vicissitudes divided into ledones and malinae [the neap-tides and spring-tides].

⁵ But the ledo’s rising ever fulfils its mutation of increase in six hours, and through as many hours retraces the spaces it had covered. And the malina’s rising makes five hours of its flood-tide and through seven hours of its ebb renders void the shores it had filled — which seems to have such concord with the moon that the moon is ever born in its middle: which it is seen to persevere through seven days and twelve hours and the fourth part of a day by diligent observing.

⁶ And so it comes to pass that when the full moon again is diminished, the malina also is darkened and halved; but the ledo is found in the interposed spaces — which never reaches either the full moon or the beginnings of the waxing moon. And by this vicissitude it is brought about that through every common year there are reckoned 365 malinae and as many ledones; and in the embolismic year six-and-twenty malinae and as many ledones are found — since through all things the sea keeps company inseparably with the moon’s course.

⁷ And four of these — that is, of the seasons: the two equinoctial malinae, and the other two when either day or night makes an end of its increase or decrease — seem to become higher in flood than the wonted (as can be proved by the eyes) and are seen to uncover greater spaces of the shores. And since it is impossible that it should not desert some spaces — although unknown to us — when it overflows through the soil of our lands, as it fills the same places when it recedes from us: whether our rising is there an ebb, and our ebb there a rising — we are compelled to confess that we know not the half of the sea’s ministry.

⁸ But in this and many like things nothing is granted to our knowledge save to cry aloud the Creator’s power and immensity, who disposed all things in number, weight and measure — and meanwhile to say with the renowned master of the Gentiles: We know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then I shall know even as also I am known.

⁹ From this lymphatic element the Scripture of Genesis pronounces that the diverse kinds of fishes and birds — that is, of all water-dwellers and flyers — were made. And the philosophers who reason concerning the natures of things enumerate the genera of fishes — that is, of all living creatures that dwell in the waters — which number the apostolic net, gathering as it were from every kind of fish, contracted.

¹⁰ But whether the birds also have this number of their kinds, or a greater or a lesser — though there be some who estimate it — yet since they cannot confirm it with great authority, they are neither to be followed nor rejected. But since the origin of all birds proceeded from water — from which their so diverse customs of remaining or living or swimming? — that some always float on the salt waves and have their food there; others dwell in the pools and rivers of sweet waters; others live on land without any custom of swimming — of which some are in fields, some in woods, some on mountains, some in desert places: some the wing does not lift to fly; others penetrate by flying such exalted and remote spaces of the air that in summer time they bring down snow from the highest clouds on their wings.

¹¹ Unless perchance diversity of condition effects in all birds these so very diverse customs of origin — though of water: that some were created from the salt wave, some from sweet water, some from the dew of herbs, some from the constellations of trees, some from the humour of marshes, some from the confluence of mountains, some from the vapour of the air, some from the fluid conspiration of the highest clouds — and each one of them grew naturally accustomed to what pertained to the origin of its condition, so that every bird lives from there from which it had first its being.

Chapter Ten — Of paradise #

¹ And since after the waters the earth is set in the order of the elements, we shall first speak of paradise, where the habitation of the first men had been — concerning which, although the discourse is to be set down by way of commemoration, the various sentences of very many have been brought forth: whether that immortal life itself wherewith men were endowed before sin was called by paradise’s name; or the whole orb of the earth was disposed so commodiously for them living innocently that it might be called paradise — so that as long as they lived blamelessly and without any fault, the habitation of its earth should likewise minister all things to them happily without any labour; and afterwards, they sinning and being changed for the worse, even their orb was changed and darkened by the same fault and sentence of vengeance (as we said of the sun and moon), and lost its adornment and fruitful force — if not wholly, yet for the greatest part: that the things which had ministered to the blessedness and felicity of them that lived well should heap up the vengeances of them that lived ill.

² Or was even a certain place spiritually — or rather specially — set apart, full of the blessedness of this felicity, for men who should keep the merit of their creation: in which there was nothing to hurt their bodily blessedness so long as patience kept the commandment? To which sentence the authority of Genesis’s Scripture gives no small support, saying: And the Lord God had planted a paradise from the beginning, in which He placed the man whom He had formed. For it is said the paradise was planted “from the beginning” — since this place seems specially to hold the principate of the orb, in which the first man was established at once after his making.

³ For in all ways it was fitting that the head and beginning of the human race should be placed in the head and beginning of the orb — that from there the propagation of men might receive the increments of its members, from which the orb of lands which it inhabits received its beginning. Whose paradise’s state, when the same Scripture recounts it, it narrates planted with fruitful trees and adorned with a great spring wherewith the whole face of the earth is watered — while it speaks thus of the man set there: Of every tree of paradise you shall eat. And the woman says: Of the fruit of the trees which are in paradise we eat. And a little before it is brought forth: And a spring went up out of the earth, watering the whole face of the earth.

⁴ In which things what should hinder the truth of the Scripture itself being preserved historically without any enigmas — even as authority also shines forth corporally concerning all things which are contained of the beginning of the whole visible creature that was born? For the firmament being made, and sea and earth and luminaries and stars, and also water-dwellers and earthly animals and man himself — we believe historically, without any enigmas, as the Scripture of Genesis investigates.

⁵ Or is it in this only — that it mentions paradise’s place planted with fruitful trees and watered with a great spring — that we should not receive it save in enigma? But this can be understood in both ways: that is, both according to the historical narration of things done and according to tropology — that is, according to the moral explanation.

⁶ For sacred Scripture is understood by a threefold reckoning: of which the first mode of understanding is when it is known only according to the letter without any figural intention — as St Jerome says: “The Acts of the apostles seem to me to sound a bare history.” The second mode is when it is investigated according to the figural intelligence without any regard to events — as the first and last part of Ezekiel, and the Song of Songs, and the exposition of certain parables of the gospel, which say one thing and do another.

⁷ The third mode is when — the historical narration of things being preserved — it is understood by the mystical reckoning; as Noah’s ark and the tabernacle and the temple were historically made, and intellectually the mysteries of the Church are designated through them. So no doubt also paradise’s place prefigured the mysteries of the first Adam — who was the form of the future — and of the future Church, which is the earth of the following Adam.

⁸ But while man lived there immortally and blessedly, would not even the subjection of the whole orb have lain beneath him? For what would shut him out from entering the orb — he who feared not that anything in the creatures could hurt him: since fire burned not, water drowned not, the strength of beasts slew not, the points of thorns or of anything else wounded not, the lack of air suffocated not, nor did all things which hurt mortals hinder?

⁹ For an immortal and invulnerable and uninjurable body could meet nothing in all creatures that would inflict death or wound or injury — until it should offend the Creator by disobedience. What then forbade the inhabitant of paradise to traverse all things that had been made subject to him — since even to do this the Lord not only did not forbid but commanded, saying: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fishes of the sea and the flying things of heaven?

¹⁰ For as it is free to the angels to run to and fro from heaven’s seat in the things subject to them — and yet they have their seats in heaven — what would hinder men established in paradise from coursing through all the creature subject to them without their toil? For as they possessed bodies immune from grief and age and death, so also they had them void of all labour and sloth.

¹¹ But when the colonist of paradise had committed sin in the place of his earthly felicity, thrust down into the habitation of the cursed earth, at once all those things which he had before possessed he partly lost and partly kept with labour. And he being shut out from the seat of blessedness, the possibility of returning again was closed; and so it was brought about that as the apostate angel, cast down with his own from the summit of his paradise’s serenity, obtained by lot this gloomy place of the air — so also man was thrust down from the earthly blessedness of his paradise into the habitation of this cursed earth.

¹² For so it is written: And the Lord God cast him forth out of paradise, and sent him into the earth from which he was taken. And He placed before the paradise the cherubim, having a flaming sword and turning, to keep the way of the tree of life. In which it is shown that although the cherubim is said to keep the tree of life’s way — yet lest men should be able to return, they are bidden to defend the whole paradise too: since Scripture indicates that the sword’s flame was set not before the tree of life only but before the whole paradise.

¹³ And it is not sufficiently clear concerning which tree specially Adam ate; but it is plain that at once after the sin he covered his nakedness with the leaves of the fig tree — which alone in the time of His flesh the Lord Jesus cursed a little before He took death upon Him for Adam’s fault, and it withered quickly, when He said: Let no fruit ever grow on you henceforward — that is, that it should be able to hurt men no more, as the devil above. See — upon that tree, that is the fig, Christ gathered the curse of Adam’s fault which should infect the whole earth, before He cleansed that same earth with the dew of His blood.

¹⁴ But whether man took the fault from this tree at first or from another, God knows for certain. Yet that tree — whatever it now is — which was then called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is not to be thought able to hurt them that use it now as much as it could when it stood in paradise: for neither is anything deadly to be believed inherent in the tree’s nature, nor could it work the knowledge of good and evil — but the transgression of the Lord’s commandment, whereby it was commanded not to eat of that tree, wrought death.

¹⁵ Whose obedience, if it had been kept, this was to know the good; and the disobedience, this was to know the evil — the distance between which nevertheless man could not understand save by transgression: for while he possessed only the good, he knew not what evil was nor how it could hurt him. And that it may be manifest that in this tree, whatever it was, nothing was harmful beyond the original disobedience — see, it is not the way of this tree but of the tree of life that is shut out; in which exclusion the merciful remission of the former fault is prepared.

¹⁶ For if man after that original sin had eaten of the tree of life’s fruit, he could not have put off the stain of the thing committed, dying miserably for ever and unhappily in a body subject to old age and griefs — for in no other way did the Lord prepare the blotting out of that deed of fault save by death: which He foreknew would come to pass afterwards through the advent in flesh of His Son Jesus Christ, and predestined — that through His resurrection the law of our death should be made void, and through His body’s ascension and dwelling in heaven our humanity’s immortality should be bestowed, and the fellowship of the angelic and spiritual life which was prepared for us in the beginning should be granted: as also it is certain to be said by the Lord in the last calling of the judgement to come to those set at the right hand: Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom which was prepared for you from the origin of the world.

Chapter Eleven — Of the situation of the orb of lands which the human race inhabits #

¹ Furthermore, of the situation of the orb of lands which the human race inhabits, the Psalmist says to the Lord: Who have founded the earth upon its own stability; it shall not be bowed for ever and ever. The deep as a garment is its clothing; above the mountains shall the waters stand. From which it is understood that the earth was founded not upon the solidity of another element but upon its own stability and firmity. And whether anything is set beneath it — as itself is beneath the waters, and the waters beneath the air, and the air beneath the upper space, and that beneath the firmament, and the firmament beneath the upper waters — He Himself knows, who beholds all things everywhere and on every side.

² And in that part which is given to men for habitation, many authors have handed down that the orb was set fourfold: the names of whose four parts the wise understand to begin with the four letters of the name of the first earth-born — that is, ADAM: Anatole, Dysis, Arctos, Mesembria — that is, East, North [lit. East, West, Bear/North, Midday]: Orient, Aquilo (North), Auster (South), Occidens (West). For it was fitting that he who should fill the whole earth with his seed should gather up in his own name the names of the four quarters of the square orb.

³ And it is distinguished by four hinges of seasons in yearly order; and the space of the year being fulfilled, the dispensation of the earthly orb is ever brought round without ceasing in a circle. For in the spring time, in which the world had been established, it ever comes green; and in summer it flowers and fructifies; in autumn it ripens and yields the use of its own fruits to mortals; and in winter it falls and withers.

⁴ But this custom of its own waxing and waning it suffers so long as it is enslaved to the office of mortals, subject to the servitude of corruption. For when the condition of being born and dying shall have ceased from among men, then also the earth itself shall not have the increments and losses of its verdure and dryness — when Isaiah’s prophecy, no the Lord’s through Isaiah, shall have been fulfilled: See, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be in memory; but you shall rejoice and exult in the things which I create.

⁵ For when new bodies shall cease to be born, then shall men have no need to use mortal and corruptible things.

⁶ Which is also proved to have been fulfilled in the resurrection of the Lord’s body, as the holy gospels confirm — while they declare that the linen cloths wherewith it had been wrapped were found lying alone in the sepulchre after His resurrection: as it is said of Peter: And he saw the linen cloths lying alone, and went away wondering in himself at that which was come to pass. With new bodies therefore, not needing those things which the use of corruptible life requires, a new earth shall be created for dwelling with a new heaven — that is, this earth’s nature and surface shall be restored to a spiritual state which may suit spiritual beings, without any mutability.

⁷ But when shall this be? When Jerusalem’s praise shall have been created in the earth and her people joy and exultation; and when the saints shall rejoice in the things which the Lord creates — they whose sun shall not set and whose moon shall not wane; when the redeemed by the Lord shall come into Zion with praise, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head, and they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away; and the days of their mourning shall be fulfilled, and they that mourn shall be comforted; and God shall wipe away every tear from every face of the saints, and shall take away the reproach of His people; and the mourning of all them that lament for Zion shall be laid aside, and they shall receive a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of grief, and they shall be called in her the strong ones of justice; when the blessed shall come to the right hand and shall shine as the sun in their Father’s kingdom.

Chapter Twelve — Of the nature of men after sin #

¹ But for the habitation of this orb meanwhile after the original sin, men — set apart — lost not all the natural good which they had in their condition; but vitiated first by the parent’s fault, they corrupted it besides by evil manners; and so it was brought about that, as they receive the cursed earth’s fruits with labour, so also the natural good which they have in themselves they cannot guard without laborious care.

² And as in the serpent and the woman and the man consenting they fell in the first-formed one’s transgression by a threefold fall — in like manner all his sons, afflicted with three wounds, that is pain and old age and death, fail; and all the good which they naturally received instilled in them from the Maker they hardly preserve in some part by studious labour and great vigilance of mind; and whatever good they find by study of God’s gift — save the unjust mammon — they leave not to heirs; and all the arts which they take up severally in life they lose alike in this life’s defect, when the spirit is poured out.

³ And by an equal condition of infirmity paupers and kings, fools and wise men are vexed. For all alike need sleep, and to be refreshed by food and clothed with garments. By the passions of carnal vices they are burdened or corrupted; by the motions of the mind — that is, wrath and love, concupiscence and fear — they are straitened. By pain and old age and death they fail. From things past they are quickly loosed; of things present they enjoy little; for things future all are kept waiting.

⁴ In the same manner they feel and live by hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell. By the same bond of original sin also they are bound; enriched by the same gift of the Redeemer they are washed in the waters of baptism and the Holy Spirit; but even upon these men — neglecting either the faith of redemption or the works of faith — eternal punishment is owed alike with the transgressor angels and their prince the devil; but to them that keep the rights of their first condition, whether through Scripture’s teaching or through the defences of nature’s good, the future life is prepared by the Redeemer’s gift.

Chapter Thirteen — Of the diversity of sinners, and of the place of punishments #

¹ But since the condition of sinners is diverse — there are certain crimes which can be purged through the fire of judgement; and certain which are to be punished with the penalty of eternal fire: and of these, some are made worthy of eternal penalty, some do not come to judgement, and some after the judgement’s examination undergo the lot of perpetual damnation — as Paul the apostle says: Some men’s sins are manifest, going before to judgement; and some they follow after.

² For of those who lack judgement the Lord Himself protests and said: He that believes not in the Son is already judged. From where it is understood that they who deserve not to undergo the lot of faith nor obtain the grace of baptism shall not come forth to the future judgement, but shall go out from this life examined by the gospel’s saying, where it is written: Amen I say to you, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. To these the Psalmist’s words also agree: The impious rise not again in the judgement.

³ But they who after the washing of baptism are weighed down with a multitude of sins are themselves also divided into two factions: for some of them, before they go out from this life, are judged by the words of sacred Scripture — of whom Paul the apostle speaks, saying: Be not deceived: neither adulterers nor fornicators nor drunkards nor railers nor servers of idols nor the covetous nor the effeminate nor liers with mankind nor thieves nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God. For they who do these and like capital crimes to death without medicine [of penance] go out from this life already judged to perpetual pains.

⁴ Of whose guilt John, the beloved of the Lord’s breast, speaks: There is a sin to death; for that I say not that one should pray. For he leads sin to death who, even in the last term of life, neglects to work repentance for past crimes. And it is to be noted, by the apostle James, that he who offends in one of these is made guilty of all: For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. And if you do not commit adultery, but kill, you are made a transgressor of the law.

⁵ But certain others — who are not involved in these capital crimes — go out from this world reserved for the last divine examination of judgement; and yet by the sentence of the judge above they shall undergo the lot of eternal damnation: those who, despising the works of mercy, neither refresh Christ in the poor with food nor with drink, nor clothe them with garments, nor receive them in hospitality, nor bring the solaces of visitation to them in their infirmities and bound in mines and prisons. Therefore it shall be said to them by Him: Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels.

⁶ For it suffices not to win the kingdoms of the heavens not to do evils, if one has not taken care to do goods; for by the prophet Isaiah it is alike commanded by the Lord: Cease to do perversely, learn to do well. And by the Psalmist the same Spirit of the Lord frames these same words, saying: Decline from evil, and do good. And that it might be shown that after the terror of so terrible a sentence as we have spoken of the judge would not be turned by any repentance, it is subjoined at the end of all the dispute: Then these shall go into everlasting fire.

⁷ But of the place of that eternal fire — that is, the prison of hell where sinners’ bodies shall be tormented — many have said that it is a corporeal place. For unless that fire and place were corporeal, how should it hold tormented the bodies of them that rise again — in which the truth of corporeality shall be so passible as to be subject to gnashing of teeth and tearful wailings? As the words of the Lord and judge Himself declare, saying: And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.

⁸ In which place it is said by the prophet to the king of Babylon: Beneath you shall the moth be strown, and your covering shall be worms. Of which place a certain one also said: “As the waters are in the deep of the lands, so the hells are in the deep of the lands.” From where also that scripture appears: That neither in heaven nor in earth nor under the earth was any found who could open the book and loose its seals — from which it perspicuously appears that this place, which is called the lower hell and the land of oblivion, is in some wise beneath the earth.

⁹ But this fire, since it is said to have been prepared for the devil and his angels — of what corporeality is it to be thought, which can torment angels? The soul of the rich man also, divested of the body, that infernal fire is described to have tormented, when he said: Because I am sorely tormented in this flame. Unless perchance that fire and place has this virtue: that it can torment and hold angels and souls and bodies in the same manner. And certainly, while it is said of the sons of the resurrection and of eternal blessedness they shall be as the angels in heaven —

¹⁰ — likewise the sons of eternal damnation also, when they have taken back their flesh for the fires of eternal penalty, shall themselves be as the demons in hell: that as the sons of the good resurrection, being sons of God, have the fellowship of the good angels, so the sons of eternal death, being sons of the devil, undergo the fellowship of Satan’s angels. Of whom it is said: And they shall be gathered together as the gathering of one bundle into the lake, and they shall be shut up there in prison, and after many days they shall be visited. Whether this shall be for the increasing or the diminishing of their pains, we know not.

Chapter Fourteen — Of the purgatorial fire #

¹ Others moreover shall receive the solaces of eternal life — and they too shall take the blessedness of heaven’s kingdom by the way of largess’s gift. For upon certain of them, while they are still set on earth — being made poor for Christ — the kingdom of heaven is not merely promised but is bestowed meanwhile, though absent in labour and weariness, on them that persevere: when it is said: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

² Likewise they also who sustain men’s persecutions for justice rejoice in the same retribution of reward — when it is subjoined: Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He said not “theirs shall be,” that they should hope for a future calling; but when they go out from the body they shall receive as it were by their own selves what — dwelling in the body — they meanwhile possessed by largess’s gift. And therefore it is said to them still set on earth: Whatever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven; and whatever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven.

³ As if He said: in this it is understood that the kingdom of heaven is yours while you yet dwell on earth — since whomever you shall have loosed from sins, that he may be its possessor, this he shall possess; and whomever you shall have shut out as destined to the mass of perdition, he shall be shut out from that same kingdom. To these therefore the Lord commands: Rejoice and exult, for your names are written in the heavens. As if it were said: since your names are blotted out and cast off from the fellowship of the earthly heritage for the sake of the heavenly kingdom, you must meanwhile be enrolled as heirs of the eternal fatherland.

⁴ These therefore, receiving in this life all their pressures and evils — without any tribulation of examination and, so to speak, without any calling — shall possess eternal refreshment; for whose sake some shall be called after purgation, and shall possess solace without end — to whom after examination it shall be said: Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom. Which they shall deserve to possess for the solaces of the poor — no, of Christ in the poor: while they offered to Christ food to the hungering, drink to the thirsting, a garment to the naked, a house to the wanderer, and visitation to the sick and him set in prison, a ministry was rendered in His least brethren.

⁵ And in their calling it is manifest that they are now somewhat far off from Christ — although set at the right hand — to whom afterwards it is said by the supreme judge: Come, you blessed. As if He said: you who hitherto have been somewhat far from salvation in the examination’s purgation, while you had anything of uncleanness which the judgement’s fire might purge — now, examined clean of every even small stain of faults, draw nearer and come.

⁶ That certain faults are remitted in the future, the Lord Himself does not deny when it is said: He that blasphemes against the Holy Spirit has not redemption, neither in this world nor in the world to come, but shall be guilty of eternal sin. From which it is understood that there are certain sins which — although they are not remitted in this world — yet can be deleted through fire in the future judgement. For if it were not so, the Lord would not have set this distinction.

⁷ Of which fire John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Lord’s coming, speaks to the Jews: There comes after me one whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire — that is: who shall wash your past sins in the Holy Spirit through the baptism of water, or loose them; and certain of those which follow afterwards shall He remit through the purgatorial fire in light faults. For of that fire which is kindled not to cleanse the impious who are judged but to destroy the damned, it is subjoined a little after by the same John: Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into the barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.

⁸ For it is one thing to be baptised by fire, another to be burned with unquenchable fire. Of which same fire John also says: Every tree that makes not good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire. But of the fire of purgation the Lord Himself speaks in the gospel: He that shall say to his brother, You fool, shall be guilty of hell fire. He said not “of eternal fire” — since this fault is to be believed punished by the purgatorial fire rather than by the perpetual flame.

⁹ And of this difference — between those whom the hurt of future fire shall not touch and those who shall receive salvation after the fire’s detriment — Paul the apostle expounds, saying: For other foundation can no man lay save that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones — or wood, hay, stubble: if any man’s work abide which he has built thereupon, he shall receive a reward; if any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.

¹⁰ By these two buildings — that is, gold and silver and precious stones; and wood, hay, stubble — works perfect and less perfect, built upon the faith of Christ, are designated; but those designated by wood, hay, stubble, though fragile, are shown to be not polluted.

¹¹ From where it is understood that not the capital crimes which stain — whose workers Paul shut out of God’s kingdom — but those which hurt not much, though they build less, can be designated by these: that is, to use lawful marriage beyond what suffices; to eat of the abundance of foods immoderately; to delight in anything whatever; to be moved in wrath even to intemperate words; to delight in one’s own things more than is needful; to press upon prayer more negligently than the convenience of the hours demands; or to rise more slowly than it compels; to lift the voice in immoderate laughter; to indulge the body in sleep more than necessity requires; to keep silence about the truth; to speak idle words; to think true what is not so in the matter; to approve in things not pertaining to faith what you have deemed false; negligently to forget the good that is to be done; to have a disordered habit. These and like sins can be purged through fire — it is not to be denied — and their doer, if he is not burdened with greater, is to be deemed saved yet so as by fire.

¹² But whether penitents at the last term of the present life receive here full remission of sins, or their faults are deleted by the purgatorial fire — He knows who, beholding the reins and hearts, considers the worth of the repentance: who answered the thief on the cross repenting, wellnigh without time and without works: Today you shall be with me in paradise. And to Ezekiel He says: In what day soever the impious shall be converted from his impiety, I will not remember all the iniquities which he has wrought. But of that purgatorial fire this is to be observed: that it is longer and sharper than every manner of torment that man can devise in the present.

Chapter Fifteen — Of the future life #

¹ But of that true beatitude of the life to come holy Scripture expounds: What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what God has prepared for them that love Him. Of whom the Lord says: They shall be as the angels in heaven. And the same Lord’s own speech declares something loftier of them: Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father — the sun of justice, that is, shall arise upon them that fear the Lord’s name, in whose wings is health: who emptied Moses’ face in the mount before the apostles with Elias; to whom when the saints suffer with, they shall be glorified together.

² And in that He had first said they shall be as the angels in heaven, it is to be understood that as the angels — created mutable by nature at first, as is proved in those who fell — are now made immutable through the contemplation of God, so that they neither fear nor can sin; so also men, created mutable by nature (as is found in Adam and his seed), after the resurrection being made immutable by the Maker’s contemplation, shall neither desire to sin nor be able; for every rational creature which is refreshed by God’s contemplation cannot sin.

³ Not that the angels and men void of vice shall not have the free will’s arbitration — for all that they will in that life they do; but to will anything that is not good they cannot at all: from where, since they never will ill, they commit no fault at all.

⁴ But this perfect good will is perfected through the contemplation of the Maker above — since what the creature could not have of itself is bestowed by the gift of the Giver Himself: from which it is perspicuously understood that angels or men who sinned, whether in heaven or in paradise, saw not God — since if they had seen Him they could in no wise have sinned afterwards.

⁵ But to this one answering perchance will say: Why then did Moses, after the vision of glory from which his face shone in the wilderness, offend at the waters of contradiction? And Peter, after the Only-begotten’s glory shown on the mount with Moses and Elias, deny the Lord in the priests’ hall? To which proposition it is easily answered that Moses saw the glory of later things through an angel or another creature; and Peter and the rest of the disciples saw Christ’s Godhead shining through the human body — for if they had saw the Godhead through Itself they could in no wise have lived in flesh afterwards.

⁶ For the Lord Himself answered Moses: No man shall see my face and live. The saints therefore after the resurrection shall see the Lord not through figures and enigmas — as the same renowned master of the Gentiles pronounces of this: For we see now through a glass in an enigma; but when that which is perfect is come, then shall I know even as also I am known. As John, the beloved of the Lord’s breast, says with power: We shall see Him as He is — when that shall be fulfilled which is promised to the Church through the prophet Isaiah: you shall no more have the sun for a light by day, nor shall the brightness of the moon enlighten you; but the Lord shall be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory.

⁷ From which it is understood that not through creatures but through the majesty of the Lord Himself the Church shall be enlightened — when through the serenity of perpetual felicity she is suffered to undergo, secure, the fellowship of the angelic dignity: in which serenity she shall possess all prosperous things without any opposing pressure; where neither light shall be ended by darkness, nor life by death, nor health by grief, nor joy by sadness, nor youth by age, nor the love of dear ones by absence, nor beauty by defect or any baseness, nor strength by infirmity, nor justice by sin — though these things be above all that man’s reason, yet set on earth, can apprehend.

⁸ Now of all these creatures whose order we have touched upon, the Maker created some from nothing and some from something: for He made heaven and earth, the sea and the things that were made of them, from unformed matter; but unformed matter itself, and the orders of the angels of which we have spoken, and the human soul, He made from nothing. For God ordained that the soul should be made neither of Himself nor of any underlying matter of corporeal creatures — since we believe it is not God’s part but God’s creature. For if God had made it of Himself, it would in no wise be passible and mutable and wretched.

⁹ Likewise, if He had created it out of corporeal creatures it would have something corporeal in its nature — either heat from fire, or breath from air, or moisture from water, or grossness and solidity from earth. But since it lacks all these, it is fitting that it was created incorporeal; and through that very incorporeality and eternity and mutability and the power of free will it is discerned to have the same substance as the angels and the same origin of being created. And this image of God does not possess the likeness in eternity, but in the arbitration of free power: of which likeness of God’s image impressed upon us the prophet makes mention, saying: The light of Your countenance is marked upon us.

¹⁰ But whether souls are sent severally by God into bodies, or come from Adam and from parents like the bodies of them that are born — since this has been disputed by many and wise men, and yet they have left nothing concerning this question to which faith is rather to be accommodated — why should it behove us to attempt anything of so great and perilous a matter? Or what advantage does it confer upon us to bring forth these ambiguities — in which the parties conquer each other, since they cannot establish their own expositions?

¹¹ Therefore, lest we should seek anything above ourselves, this question — which has been said to be insoluble by many writers — let us reserve for the Maker’s knowledge: since whatever the satiety of them that eat the flesh of the paschal lamb cannot consume, the voracious flame consumes without remainder the next day — whereby it is understood that all things which escape the knowledge of our investigation of sacred Scripture’s body are enlightened and consummated by the fire of the Lord’s wisdom which I beseech.

¹² But also those things which we have touched — as it were through a narrow window of our sense and wisdom — by some illumination of His grace we cannot perfectly know all as we ought: for we know in part while we are in this world; but if we attain to that inestimable light of the Father of lights, then shall we know as we are known.

¹³ See, venerable Father — to you proposing, concerning the order of creatures I have answered summarily with a little measure of wit in a compendious discourse. Whose little gift I shall recompense by your prayers — not that the service of my littleness in obedience could confer anything worthy of your veneration and authority, but the endeavour of obedience, and even what it cannot attain, it fulfils: for even in the temple’s treasury the poor widow’s tiny gift of brass is preferred to the copious gold of the many rich; and in the gilded tabernacle, where offerings of silver and precious gems and byssus and purple and hyacinth and scarlet are brought, even the diligence of them that bring goats’ skins is not despised. Do you therefore likewise not disdain the obedience of my littleness at your heart’s placid gate; nor let it irk you to steer the little bark of the present work against the unstable waves of them that babble — protected by the shield of your authority. For I, consenting with good and catholic readers, care not for the complaints of the envious — who, creeping on earth without wings, mock at the flight of birds’ nests. Against whom, defended by the shield of your reckoning and armed by the Lord’s suffrage, I shall take care to hasten safely to the fatherland on either side. For seeking to please God, we fear not the threats of men. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Here ends the book On the Order of Creatures.