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1. "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the
moving creature that hath life" after their kind, "and fowl that may
fly above the earth" after their kind. After the creation of the
luminaries the waters are now filled with living beings and its own
adornment is given to this part of the world. Earth had received hers
from her own plants, the heavens had received the flowers of the
stars, and, like two eyes, the great luminaries beautified them in
concert. It still retained for the waters to receive their adornment.
The command was given, and immediately the rivers and lakes becoming
fruitful brought forth their natural broods; the sea travailed with all
kinds of swimming creatures; not even in mud and marshes did the water
remain idle; it took its part in creation. Everywhere from its
ebullition frogs, gnats and flies came forth. For that which we see
to-day is the sign of the past. Thus everywhere the water hastened to
obey the Creator's command. Who could count the species which the
great and ineffable power of God caused to be suddenly seen living and
moving, when this command had empowered the waters to bring forth
life? Let the waters bring forth moving creatures that have life.
Then for the first time is made a being with life and feeling. For
though plants and trees be said to live, seeing that they share the
power of being nourished and growing; nevertheless they are neither
living beings, nor have they life. To create these last God said,
"Let the water produce moving creatures."
Every creature that swims, whether it skims on the surface of the
waters, or cleaves the depths, is of the nature of a moving creature,
since it drags itself on the body of the water. Certain aquatic
animals have feet and walk; especially amphibia, such as seals,
crabs, crocodiles, river horses and frogs; but they are above all
gifted with the power of swimming. Thus it is said, Let the waters
produce moving creatures. In these few words what species is omitted?
Which is not included in the command of the Creator? Do we not see
viviparous animals, seals, dolphins, rays and all cartilaginous
animals? Do we not see oviparous animals comprising every sort of
fish, those which have a skin and those which have scales, those which
have fins and those which have not? This command has only required one
word, even less than a word, a sign, a motion of the divine will,
and it has such a wide sense that it includes all the varieties and all
the families of fish. To review them all would be to undertake to
count the waves of the ocean or to measure its waters in the hollow of
the hand. "Let the waters produce moving creatures." That is to
say, those which people the high seas and those which love the shores;
those which inhabit the depths and those which attach themselves to
rocks; those which are gregarious and those which live dispersed, the
cetaceous, the huge, and the tiny. It is from the same power, the
same command, that all, small and great receive their existence.
"Let the waters bring forth." These words show you the natural
affinity of animals which swim in the water; thus, fish, when drawn
out of the water, quickly die, because they have no respiration such
as could attract our air and water is their element, as air is that of
terrestrial animals. The reason for it is clear. With us the lung,
that porous and spongy portion of the inward parts which receives air by
the dilatation of the chest, disperses and cools interior warmth; in
fish the motion of the gills, which open and shut by turns to take in
and to eject the water, takes the place of respiration. Fish have a
peculiar lot, a special nature, a nourishment of their own, a life
apart. Thus they cannot be tamed and cannot bear the touch of a man's
hand.
2. "Let the waters bring forth moving creatures after their kind."
God caused to be born the firstlings of each species to serve as seeds
for nature. Their multitudinous numbers are kept up in subsequent
succession, when it is necessary for them to grow and multiply. Of
another kind is the species of testacea, as muscles, scallops, sea
snails, conches, and the infinite variety of oysters. Another kind
is that of the crustacea, as crabs and lobsters; another of fish
without shells, with soft and tender flesh, like polypi and cuttle
fish. And amidst these last what an innumerable variety! There are
weevers, lampreys and eels, produced in the mud of rivers and ponds,
which more resemble venomous reptiles than fish in their nature. Of
another kind is the species of the ovipara; of another, that of the
vivipara. Among the latter are sword-fish, cod, in one word, all
cartilaginous fish, and even the greater part of the cetacea, as
dolphins, seals, which, it is said, if they see their little ones,
still quite young, frightened, take them back into their belly to
protect them.
Let the waters bring forth after kind. The species of the cetacean is
one; another is that of small fish. What infinite variety in the
different kinds! All have their own names, different food, different
form, shape, and quality of flesh. All present infinite variety,
and are divided into innumerable classes. Is there a tunny fisher who
can enumerate to us the different varieties of that fish? And yet they
tell us that at the sight of great swarms of fish they can almost tell
the number of the individual ones which compose it. What man is there
of all that have spent their long lives by coasts and shores, who can
inform us with exactness of the history of all fish?
Some are known to the fishermen of the Indian ocean, others to the
toilers of the Egyptian gulf, others to the islanders, others to the
men of Mauretania. Great and small were all alike created by this
first command by this ineffable power. What a difference in their
food! What a variety in the manner in which each species reproduces
itself! Most fish do not hatch eggs like birds; they do not build
nests; they do not feed their young with toil; it is the water which
receives and vivifies the egg dropped into it. With them the
reproduction of each species is invariable, and natures are not mixed.
There are none of those unions which, on the earth, produce mules and
certain birds contrary to the nature of their species. With fish there
is no variety which, like the ox and the sheep, is armed with a
half-equipment of teeth, none which ruminates except, according to
certain writers, the scar. All have serried and very sharp teeth,
for fear their food should escape them if they masticate it for too long
a time. In fact, if it were not crushed and swallowed as soon as
divided, it would be carried away by the water.
3. The food of fish differs according to their species. Some feed
on mud; others eat sea weed; others content themselves with the herbs
that grow in water. But the greater part devour each other, and the
smaller is food for the larger, and if one which has possessed itself
of a fish weaker than itself becomes a prey to another, the conqueror
and the conquered are both swallowed up in the belly of the last. And
we mortals, do we act otherwise when we press our inferiors? What
difference is there between the last fish and the man who, impelled by
devouring greed, swallows the weak in the folds of his insatiable
avarice? Yon fellow possessed the goods of the poor; you caught him
and made him a part of your abundance. You have shown yourself more
unjust than the unjust, and more miserly than the miser. Look to it
lest you end like the fish, by hook, by weel, or by net. Surely we
too, when we have done the deeds of the wicked, shall not escape
punishment at the last.
Now see what tricks, what cunning, are to be found in a weak animal,
and learn not to imitate wicked doers. The crab loves the flesh of the
oyster; but, sheltered by its shell, a solid rampart with which
nature has furnished its soft and delicate flesh, it is a difficult
prey to seize. Thus they call the oyster "sherd-hide." Thanks to
the two shells with which it is enveloped, and which adapt themselves
perfectly the one to the other, the claws of the crab are quite
powerless. What does he do? When he sees it, sheltered from the
wind, warming itself with pleasure, and half opening its shells to the
sun, he secretly throws in a pebble, prevents them from closing, and
takes by cunning what force had lost. Such is the malice of these
animals, deprived as they are of reason and of speech. But I would
that you should at once rival the crab in cunning and industry, and
abstain from harming your neighbour; this animal is the image of him
who craftily approaches his brother, takes advantage of his
neighbour's misfortunes, and finds his delight in other men's
troubles. O copy not the damned! Content yourself with your own
lot. Poverty, with what is necessary, is of more value in the eyes
of the wise than all pleasures.
I will not pass in silence the cunning and trickery of the squid,
which takes the colour of the rock to which it attaches itself. Most
fish swim idly up to the squid as they might to a rock, and become
themselves the prey of the crafty creature. Such are men who court
ruling powers, bending themselves to all circumstances and not
remaining for a moment in the same purpose; who praise self-restraint
in the company of the self-restrained, and license in that of the
licentious, accommodating their feelings to the pleasure of each. It
is difficult to escape them and to put ourselves on guard against their
mischief; because it is trader the mask of friendship that they hide
their clever wickedness. Men like this are ravening wolves covered
with sheep's clothing, as the Lord calls them. Flee then fickleness
and pliability; seek truth, sincerity, simplicity. The serpent is
shifty; so he has been condemned to crawl. The just is an honest
man, like Job. Wherefore God setteth the solitary in families. So
is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable,
both small and great beasts. Yet a wise and marvellous order reigns
among these animals. Fish do not always deserve our reproaches; often
they offer us useful examples. How is it that each sort of fish,
content with the region that has been assigned to it, never travels
over its own limits to pass into foreign seas? No surveyor has ever
distributed to them their habitations, nor enclosed them in walls, nor
assigned limits to them; each kind has been naturally assigned its own
home. One gulf nourishes one kind of fish, another other sorts;
those which swarm here are absent elsewhere. No mountain raises its
sharp peaks between them; no rivers bar the passage to them; it is a
law of nature, which according to the needs of each kind, has allotted
to them their dwelling places with equality and justice.
4. It is not thus with us. Why? Because we incessantly move the
ancient landmarks which our fathers have set. We encroach, we add
house to house, field to field, to enrich ourselves at the expense of
our neighbour. The great fish know the sojourning place that nature
has assigned to them; they occupy the sea far from the haunts of men,
where no islands lie, and where are no continents rising to confront
them, because it has never been crossed and neither curiosity nor need
has persuaded sailors to tempt it. The monsters that dwell in this sea
are in size like high mountains, so witnesses who have seen tell us,
and never cross their boundaries to ravage islands and seaboard towns.
Thus each kind is as if it were stationed in towns, in villages, in
an ancient country, and has for its dwelling place the regions of the
sea which have been assigned to it.
Instances have, however, been known of migratory fish, who, as if
common deliberation transported them into strange regions, all start on
their march at a given sign. When the time marked for breeding
arrives, they, as if awakened by a common law of nature, migrate from
gulf to gulf, directing their course toward the North Sea. And at
the epoch of their return you may see all these fish streaming like a
torrent across the Propontis towards the Euxine Sea. Who puts them
in marching array? Where is the prince's order? Has an edict
affixed in the public place indicated to them their day of departure?
Who serves them as a guide? See how the divine order embraces all and
extends to the smallest object. A fish does not resist God's law,
and we men cannot endure His precepts of salvation! Do not despise
fish because they are dumb and quite unreasoning; rather fear lest, in
your resistance to the disposition of the Creator, you have even less
reason than they. Listen to the fish, who by their actions all but
speak and say: it is for the perpetuation of our race that we undertake
this long voyage.
They have not the gift of reason, but they have the law of nature
firmly seated within them, to show them what they have to do. Let us
go, they say, to the North Sea. Its water is sweeter than that of
the rest of the sea; for the sun does not remain long there, and its
rays do not draw up all the drinkable portions. Even sea creatures
love fresh watery TIres one often sees them enter into rivers and swim
far up them from the sea. This is the reason which makes them prefer
the Euxine Sea to other gulfs, as the most fit for breeding and for
bringing up their young. When they have obtained their object the
whole tribe returns home. Let us hear these dumb creatures tell us the
reason. The Northern sea, they say, is shallow and its surface is
exposed to the violence of the wind, and it has few shores and
retreats. Thus the winds easily agitate it to its bottom and mingle
the sands of its bed with its waves. Besides, it is cold in winter,
filled as it is from all directions by large rivers. Wherefore after a
moderate enjoyment of its waters, during the summer, when the winter
comes they hasten to reach warmer depths and places heated by the sun,
and after fleeing froth the stormy tracts of the North, they seek a
haven in less agitated seas.
5. I myself have seen these marvels, and I have admired the wisdom
of God in all things, If beings deprived of reason are capable of
thinking and of providing for their own preservation; if a fish knows
what it ought to seek and what to shun, what shall we say, who are
honoured with reason. instructed by law, encouraged by the promises,
made wise by the Spirit, and are nevertheless less reasonable about
our own affairs than the fish? They know how to provide for the
future, but we renounce our hope of the future and spend our life in
brutal indulgence. A fish traverses the extent of the sea to find what
is good for it; what will you say then--you who live in idleness,
the mother of all vices? Do not let any one make his ignorance an
excuse. There has been implanted in us natural reason which tells us
to identify ourselves with good, and to avoid all that is harmful. I
need not go far from the sea to find examples, as that is the object of
our researches. I have heard it said by one living near the sea, that
the sea urchin, a little contemptible creature, often foretells calm
and tempest to sailors. When it foresees a disturbance of the winds,
it gets under a great pebble, and clinging to it as to an anchor, it
tosses about in safety, retained by the weight which prevents it from
becoming the plaything of the waves. It is a certain sign for sailors
that they are threatened with a violent agitation of the winds. No
astrologer, no Chaldaean, reading in the rising of the stars the
disturbances of the air, has ever communicated his secret to the
urchin: it is the Lord of the sea and of the winds who has impressed
on this little animal a manifest proof of His great wisdom. God has
foreseen all, He has neglected nothing. His eye, which never
sleeps, watches over all. He is present everywhere and gives to each
being the means of preservation. If God has not left the sea urchin
outside His providence, is He without care for you?
"Husbands love your wives." Although formed of two bodies you are
united to live in the communion of wedlock. May this natural link,
may this yoke imposed by the blessing, reunite those who are divided.
The viper, the cruelest of reptiles, unites itself with the sea
lamprey, and, announcing its presence by a hiss, it calls it from the
depths to conjugal union. The lamprey obeys, and is united to this
venomous animal. What does this mean? However hard, however fierce
a husband may be, the wife ought to hear with him, and not wish to
find any pretext for breaking the union. He strikes you, but he is
your husband. He is a drunkard, but he is united to you by nature.
He is brutal and cross, but he is henceforth one of your members, and
the most precious of all.
6. Let husbands listen as well: here is a lesson for them. The
viper vomits forth its venom in respect for marriage; and you, will
you not put aside the barbarity and the inhumanity of your soul, out of
respect for your union? Perhaps the example of the viper contains
another meaning. The union of the viper and of the lamprey is an
adulterous violation of nature. You, who are plotting against other
men's wedlock, learn what creeping creature you are like. I have
only one object, to make all I say turn to the edification of the
Church. Let then libertines put a restraint on their passions, for
they are taught by the examples set by creatures of earth and sea.
My bodily infirmity and the lateness of the hour force me to end my
discourse. However, I have still many observations to make on the
products of the sea, for the admiration of my attentive audience. To
speak of the sea itself, how does its water change into salt? How is
it that coral, a stone so much esteemed, is a plant in the midst of
the sea, and when once exposed to the air becomes hard as a rock? Why
has nature enclosed in the meanest of animals, in an oyster, so
precious an object as a pearl? For these pearls, which are coveted by
the caskets of kings, are cast upon the shores, upon the coasts, upon
sharp rocks, and enclosed in oyster shells. How can the sea pinna
produce her fleece of gold, which no dye has ever imitated? How can
shells give kings purple of a brilliancy not surpassed by the flowers of
the field?
"Let the waters bring forth." What necessary object was there that
did not immediately appear? What object of luxury was not given to
man? Some to supply his needs, some to make him contemplate the
marvels of creation. Some are terrible, so as to take oar idleness to
school. "God created great whales." Scripture gives them the name
of "great" not because they are greater than a shrimp and a sprat,
but because the size of their bodies equals that of great hills. Thus
when they swim on the surface of the waters one often sees them appear
like islands. But these monstrous creatures do not frequent our coasts
and shores; they inhabit the Atlantic ocean. Such are these animals
created to strike us with terror and awe. If now you hear say that the
greatest vessels, sailing with full sails, are easily stopped by a
very small fish, by the remora, and so forcibly that the ship remains
motionless for a long time, as if it had taken root in the middle of
the sea, do you not see in this little creature a like proof of the
power of the Creator? Sword fish, saw fish, dog fish, whales, and
sharks, are not therefore the only things to be dreaded; we have to
fear no less the spike of the stingray even after its death, and the
sea-hare, whose mortal blows are as rapid as they are inevitable.
Thus the Creator wishes that all may keep you awake, so that full of
hope in Him you may avoid the evils with which all these creatures
threaten you.
But let us come out of the depths of the sea and take refuge upon the
shore. For the marvels of creation, coming one after the other in
constant succession like the waves, have submerged my discourse.
However, I should not be surprised if, after finding greater wonders
upon the earth, my spirit seeks like Jonah's to flee to the sea.
But it seems to me, that meeting with these innumerable marvels has
made me forget all measure, and experience the fate of those who
navigate the high seas without a fixed point to mark their progress,
anti are often ignorant of the space which they have traversed. This
is what has happened to me; whilst my words glanced at creation, I
have not been sensible of the multitude of beings of which I spoke to
you. But although this honourable assembly is pleased by my speech,
and the recital of the marvels of the Master is grateful to the ears of
His servants, let me here bring the ship of my discourse to anchor,
and await the day to deliver you the rest. Let us, therefore, all
arise, and, giving thanks for what has been said, let us ask for
strength to hear the rest. Whilst taking your food may the
conversation at your table turn upon what has occupied us this morning
and this evening. Filled with these thoughts may you, even in sleep,
enjoy the pleasure of the day, so that you may be permitted to say,
"I sleep but my heart waketh," meditating day and night upon the law
of the Lord, to Whom be glory and power world without end. Amen.
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