Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit

The beginning of a plant is the seed, and the end is the fruit, each of them being the work, not of husbandry, but of nature. Again, of knowledge the beginning is nature, as has been shown, but the end can never reach mankind, for no man is perfect in any branch of study whatever; but it is a plain truth, that all excellence and perfection belong to one Being alone; we therefore are borne on, for the future, on the confines of beginning and end, learning, teaching, tilling the ground, working up everything else, as if we were really effecting something, that the creature also may seem to be doing something;

therefore, with a more perfect knowledge, Moses has confessed that the first-fruits and the end belong to God, speaking of the creation of the world, where he says, "In the beginning God created ..." [*](Genesis i. 1. ) And again he says, "God finished the heaven and the earth."

Now therefore he says, "Take for me," assigning himself what becomes him, and admonishing his hearer not to adulterate what is given to him, but to take care of it in a manner worthy of its importance. And again, in another passage, he who has need of nothing, and who on this account takes nothing, will confess that he does take something, for the sake of giving to his worshippers the feeling of piety, and of implanting in them an eagerness after holiness, and moreover sharpening their zeal in his service, as one who favourably receives the genuine worship and service of a willing soul,

"For behold," says he, "I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born that openeth the womb among the children of Israel; they shall be their ransom;" [*](Num. iii. 12. ) therefore we take and give, but we are said to take with strict accuracy, but it is only by a metaphorical abuse of the term that we are said to give, for the reasons which I have already mentioned. And it is very felicitously that he has called the Levites a ransom, for nothing so completely conducts the mind to freedom as its fleeing for refuge to and becoming a suppliant of God; and this is what the consecrated tribe of the Levites particularly professes to be.

Having now, therefore, said as much as is proper on these subjects, let us proceed onwards to what comes next; for we have postponed the consideration of many things which [*](Genesis i. 1. ) [*](Num. iii. 12. )

"Take for me," also the external sense, which lives and directs all its energies to the world, which is perceptible by it, that is, "a goat," three complete years old, enjoying solid strength in a perfect number, having beginning, middle, and end. Besides all these things, "a turtle dove and a pigeon," that is to say, divine and human wisdom, both of them being winged, and being animals accustomed to soar on high, still different from one another, as much as genus differs from species or a copy from the model;

for divine wisdom is fond of lonely places, loving solitude, on account of the only God, whose possession she is; and this is called a turtle-dove, symbolically; but the other is quiet and tame, and gregarious, haunting the cities of men, and rejoicing in its abode among mortals, and so they liken her to a pigeon.

Moses appears to me to have intended figuratively to represent these virtues when he calls the midwives of the Egyptians, Shiphrah and Puah, [*](Exodus i. 15. ) for the name Shiphrah, being interpreted, means "a little bird," and Puah means "red." Now it is the especial property of divine wisdom, like a bird, to be always soaring on high; but it is the characteristic of human wisdom to study modesty and temperance, so as to blush at all objects which are worthy to cause a blush;

and as a very manifest proof of this the scripture says, "He took for himself all these things." [*](Genesis xv. 10 ) This is the praise of a virtuous man, who preserves the sacred deposit of those things which he has received, the soul, the outward sense, speech, divine wisdom, human knowledge, in a pure and guileless manner, not for himself, but only for him who has trusted him.

After this the scripture proceeds to say, "And he divided them in the middle," not explaining who did so, in order that you may understand that it was the untaught God who divided them, [*](Genesis xv. 9. ) [*](Exodus i. 15. ) [*](Genesis xv. 10 )

and when it has gone through them all, and arrived at the things which are called atoms and indivisible, then again this divider begins from them to divide those things which may be contemplated by the speculations of reason into unspeakable and indescribable portions, and to "beat the gold into thin plates," [*](Exodus xxxix. 3. ) like hairs, as Moses says, making them into one length without breadth, like unsubstantial lines.

Each therefore of the three victims he divided in the midst, dividing the soul into the rational and the irrational part, speech into truth and falsehood, and the outward sense into imaginations which can be and which cannot be comprehended; and these divisions he immediately places exactly opposite to one another, that is, the rational part opposite to the irrational, truth to falsehood, what is comprehensible to what is incomprehensible, leaving the birds undivided; for it was impossible to divide the incorporeal and divine sciences into contrarieties at variance with one another.

But as the discussion on the subject of a division into equal portions, and on that of opposite contrarieties, is of great extent and of necessary importance, we will not wholly pass it by, nor will we dwell on it with prolixity, but, investigating it as it is, we will be content with such things as seem suitable to the occasion. For as the Creator divided our soul and our limbs in the middle, so also, in the same manner, did he divide the essence of the universe when he made the world;

for, having taken it, he began to divide it thus: in the first instance, he made two divisions, the heavy and the light, separating that which was thick from that which was more subtle. After that, he again made a second division of each, dividing the subtle part into air and fire, and the denser portion into water and earth; and, first of all, he laid down those elements, which are perceptible by the outward senses, to be, as it were, the foundations of the world which is perceptible by the outward senses.

Again, he subdivided heavy and light [*](Exodus xxxix. 3. )

and each of these, again, received other further subdivisions; for the land was divided into continents and islands, and the water into sea and rivers, and all drinkable springs, and the air was divided into the solstices of summer and winter; fire, also, was divided into what is useful (but fire is a most insatiable and destructive thing), and also by a different division into what is saving; and this division was assigned for the conformation of the heaven.

But as he divided the things when entire, so also did he divide the particular divisions, some of which were animated and others inanimate; and of those which were inanimate he made a division into those which always remain in the same place, the bond of which is habit, and those which move, not indeed in the way of changing their place, but so as to grow, which indescribable nature has vivified. Again of these, those which are of wild materials are productive of wild fruits, which are the food of brute beasts; but others producing good fruit, the cultivation of which has called forth diligent superintendence and care, and these produce fruit for the tamest of all animals, namely, for man, that he may enjoy them.

And not only did he divide the inanimate things, and those which had received a soul and vitality in one manner—for of these he defined one species as that of irrational, and one as that of rational animals—but he also again subdivided each of these things, dividing the irrational into the wild and the tame species, and the rational into the mortal and the immortal.

Again, of the mortals he made two divisions, one of which he called men, and the other women; and, in the same manner, he divided the irrational animals into male and female. And these things were also subjected to other necessary divisions, which made distinctions between them; winged animals being distinguished from terrestrial, terrestrial from aquatic creatures, and aquatic creatures, again, from both extremities.

Thus God, having sharpened his own word, the divider of all things, divides the essence of the universe which is destitute of form, and destitute of all distinctive qualities, and the four elements of the world which were separated from