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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Ubc nniversit)? of Cbicago
FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE

A STUDY OF THE GREEK AND LATIN COMMEN
TARIES ON GENESIS

A DISSERTATION
SXTBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS
AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE
OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(department of greek)

BY
FRANK EGLESTON ROBBINS

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Copyright 1912 By
The University of Chicago

All Rights Reserved

PuMished May 1912

Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
ChicaETO, Illinois, U.S.A.

PREFACE
An account of the commentaries on the creation story of Genesis
might easily be expanded to many times the size of that here
presented. The present study attempts rather to formulate
concisely the development of Genesis interpretation, from its
antecedents in Greek philosophy through the church writings, to
the time of Milton. The question of literary form and the con
sideration of any but Latin, Greek, and English works bearing
directly upon Genesis have been neglected in order to secure this
end. It is the author's hope that the adoption of this plan i^
treating a class of literature which extends over such a long period
of time and which as a whole has never previously been the subject
of investigation will excuse the necessary shortcomings which it
involves and increase the general usefulness of the essay.
The index contains an alphabetical list of authors of Hexaemera
and others to whom reference is made, and under their names have
been added bibliographical data and short accounts of those not
accorded special mention in the study proper.
I wish here to express the warm thanks I owe to Professor Paul
Shorey of the University of Chicago for suggesting to me this
investigation and for his invaluable help at all times during its
progress; to Professor Ekner Truesdell Merrill of the University
of Chicago and to Professor William Arthur Heidel of Wesleyan
University for the inspiration and practical help that have come
to me from association with them, and to the editors of the
American Journal of Theology for permitting me to reprint here
from their Journal of April, 1912, the first chapter of this study.
Frank Egleston Robbins
The University of Chicago
April, 1912

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CBAPTER PACB
I. The Influence of Greek Philosophy on the Early
Commentaries on Genesis . . . . . . i
II. Philo Judaeus and Jewish Hexaemeral Writings . 24
III. Early Christian Hexaemera before Basil ... 36
IV. Basil . . 42
V. The Followers of Basil . . -53
VI. Augustine .  64
VII. Erigena to the Renaissance . . . . . 73
Index of Names . . . . . . 93

CHAPTER I
THE INFLUENCE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY ON THE EARLY
COMMENTARIES ON GENESIS'
"Hexaemeron" is the title of certain treatises and series of
sermons written by the Fathers of the Christian church comment
ing on the story of the creation of the world as told in Genesis,
sometimes a simple exegesis and sometimes an allegorical version
of the scriptural story.' The use of the name may be extended
to cover the whole body of literature dealing with the subject,
including formal or incidental' accounts of the creation of the
world, based upon Genesis, and poetical versions of the narrative.
The works of this class extend in time from the De opificio mundi
of Philo Judaeus (dr. 40 a.d.) to Milton's Paradise Lost.
As is the case with other classes of literary composition, so the
' Most of the authors cited are commentators on Genesis, and when a simple
page reference is given, it is to be imderstood that it is to the commentary on Genesis
of the author in question; for convenience, the Migne Greek and Latin Patrologtae
have in most cases been cited.
For complete bibliography see the index. The following abbreviations for
books and collections have been used in the index :
BC : Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn Corpus), Bonn, 1828^78.
CV : Corpus [Vindobonense] Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Academiae
litter arum Caesar eae Vindobonensis, 1866 £E.
Christ : W. von Christ, Geschichte der Griechischen Litteratur, Munchen, 1890 ff.
Krumbacher : K. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur, 2d. ed., Miin-
chen, 1897.
MPG, MPL: Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca, Paris, 18578.,
Series Latina, Paris, 1844 ff.
Otto : J. C. T. Otto, Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum Saeculi Secundi, Jena,
1851-81.
' Strictly the name should be v 'E|oi)/iepos [sc. Koa-fioroita, Sinuovpyla], but the
neuter form came into use in connection with Basil's work. The first occurrence of
the word is probably in Philo, Leg. All. 93, 8; it is found also in Theophilus, Ad. Autol.
II, 12, and later passim.
s E.g., the late Greek and Byzantine chronologies frequently began with a chapter
on creation, as did Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World.

2 the hexaemeral literature
Hexaemera tended to conform to certain types established by a
few pioneers. Subsequent authors not only followed the general
outlines that had been laid down by the greater writers, and repro
duced their topics, but even copied their phraseology. Imitation
is commoner in this branch of literature than in almost any other,
and the majority of the Hexaemera are consequently lacking in
originality. At the same time the Hexaemeral writers were also consciously
or unconsciously under the influences that came from without,
from philosophy and science. The men of the early church, com
pelled to meet the arguments of pagans, had to make their own
accounts capable of standing the test of scrutiny; and often,
going beyond a mere defense of their faith, they attempted to
prove that the Christian doctrines, including those of Genesis,
are in agreement with the best pagan thought or superior to it.
As the church acquired power, the polemic tone grew sharper.
Moreover, the mingling of philosophical material with that furnished
by the sacred text took place the more easily because many of the
great Fathers had been educated in pagan surroundings and per
sonally accepted whatever of science and philosophy did not con
flict with their religion. The philosophical elements which in this
way became incorporated in the tradition form the subject of the
present discussion.
Plato is the first of the philosophers notably to influence Hexae
meral thought. Although the pre-Socratics devoted most of their
energies to the study of material Nature, very little trace of them,
in scattered citations, is found in the tradition. They tended
toward materialistic views, and according to them Deity took
little or no part in the making of the universe. Plato, however
in this important point agreed with the Christians . In the Timaeus
although that dialogue cannot be asserted to be the formal expres
sion of his own literal belief,' he presented for the first time an
" How seriously Plato took the Timaeus is a question that cannot be answered
exactly, but whether he introduced the Demiurge as a purely mythical figure, or had
some measure of belief in a Deity, his feeling in the dialogue is certainly lofty and
religious. The question was much discussed in ancient times whether Plato actually
believed in a creation in time, or presented it as such in the Timaeus for literary and

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 3
accoimt of the creation of the world by a Deity who orders it for
its own best advantage.'
In addition the Timaeus gives a plausible account of the mate
rial world, and it is a fundamental principle di the dialogue that
material things conform to a-priori ideal forms and ultimately to
the best possible ideals. The philosophical schools took it to be
the formulation of Plato 's deepest thought and it was used as the
basis of their theories.
Introducing the cosmological portion of the dialogue, Plato
states the principles on which his theories are based, a part of the
work which was especially well known. Things are either con
ceptual, and eternally, changelessly existent, or they are sensible
and subject to becoming and perishing (27D ff.). Everything
that becomes must have some cause (28A), and if the artificer of
the thing looks to a pattern that is changeless, the result is fair;
if he looks to the created as a pattern, the result is not fair. The
pedagogical reasons. See Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, II, i, 792; Archer-Hind
on Tim. 30A; Paul Shorey, A. J. P. X, 48. The Hexaemeral writers understood him
to beUeve in a creation in time.
' The teleological principle does not appear first in Plato, but he was the first to
make it all important in his cosmology and to ascribe creation to a personal, reasoning,
f eehng Deity (with the reservation indicated in the preceding note) . The pre-Socratics
uniformly looked upon "creation" as the evolution of the world from chaos to a
better state, without, however, making the development a purposed process. Hera-
clitus made the advance of stating that cosmic action depends upon law; cf. Benn,
The Greek Philosophers, I, 24-25; Zeller, I, 2, 663 fit. Diogenes of Apollonia asserted
that the first principle must be capable of thought because "if one is wilUng to con
sider, one woidd find that things (like day, night, summer, winter, rain, wind, and
fair weather) are arranged in the best possible way," and without reason such an
arrangement could not have been made (Diog. Ap. ap. Simp. Phys., 152, 11 ff.).
But his reason-endowed first principle is air, which pervades all things; and hke the
other pre-Socratics, Diogenes seems to have lost himself in mechanical speculations
as to the air. The reasoning element could not in any case have been characterized
like the Demiurge. The teleological idea however was discussed at the time of
Diogenes, as is shown by the passages (Xen. Comm. i, 4; iv, 3) treated by S. O.
Dickerman, De argumentis quibusdam e structura hominis et animalium petitis (Halle,
1909), and there seems to have been a treatise by an author as yet unknown on the
providential arrangement of the parts of the human body; cf. also J. .Adam, Religious
Teachers of Greece, 349. For later antiquity, however, and for the authors we are
considering, it is clear that Plato is most often the ultimate source for the teleological
ideas.

4 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
world is visible and tangible, and is therefore the product of becom
ing; it must therefore have a creator (28B).' But it is a hard
task to discover the maker and founder of this world, and having
discovered him it is impossible to tell of him to all men; and there
fore Plato turns to the examination of the pattern used by the
Demiurge (28C). Since the world is fair and the Demiurge good,
the pattern must have been an eternal one (29A). Now the reason
why the creator made this world is that he is good, and therefore
can begrudge nothing, but wishes to liken everything as nearly as
possible to himself (29E). He therefore took the chaotic mass of
matter' and brought it into order, this being better than disorder
(30A). But the creator must always act for the best; finding
then that that which has reason is always better than that which
has not, and that reason cannot exist without soul, he made this
universe a living creature with soul and mind (30B). The pattern
then is an ideal living thing, embracing in itself all ideal beings,
just as the world contains all material beings; it is the fairest of
ideas and in every respect perfect (30CD), and it is one, for if
there were two or more such, there would be a still higher idea
that would embrace them.
The influence of this portion of the Timaeus upon the Hexae
mera was immense. It is not necessary to assert that teleology
came into Christian literature from Plato alone, but it must be
conceded that the Timaeus is the first great cosmology wherein
design plays the chief r61e, and that in the Genesis story as it
stands the notion of preconception in the divine mind is not present.
Certainly many of the Hexaemeral writers employed Platonic
material in their interpretation of Genesis.
To be more specific, we find in Plato the idea that God is
changelessly good and can perform only the best acts (29E-30A),
and it is likewise a Platonic principle that God cannot be the cause
of anything evil.' His goodness is the reason for creation (29E).
'Philo 3, 17 ff. uses this argument; his introduction is much like Plato's, but
with Stoic elements.
^ The so-called "secondary matter," said by Zeller, II, i, 730 (following him
Baumker, Das Problem der Materie, Munster, 1890, 142 ff.), to be among the mytho
logical elements of the Timaeus.
3 Tim. 42DE; Rep. 379B, 617E.

GREEK philosophy AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 5
All these thoughts are common topics of the Hexaemera, especially
the last. It is directly quoted by Philo and PMloponus and
occurs as part of the tradition throughout its course.' The idea
that God cannot be the cause of evil appears in various connec
tions in the Hexaemeral literature.' In the polemic against
astrology we find the argument that if the stars presage evil the
blame for the latter must fall upon their maker, God, and this is
impossible.' Nor would our writers admit that God is the cause
of the harm done by animals, poisonous plants and reptiles, or
thorns; they escape all these difficulties by saying that man's
sin was the cause of all.*
The assertion that there is an ideal pattern is echoed through
out the Hexaemera in various forms and developments, all of them
to be traced ultimately to the Timaeus as the source. The "intel
ligible world" of Philo Judaeus is directly suggested by the pattern
in the Timaeus, although the two are by no means identical. For
Plato, the pattern is the idea of the living thing, independently
' Philo 6, 13; Philoponus 273, 4; 240, 16; Basil 9A; Origen De prin. II, 9, 6;
Chiysostom Hom. in Gen. Ill, 3, p. 35; Maximus ap. Euthsonius I, 6; Athenagoras
De resurr. 12; pseudo-Eucherius 89SB; Honorius of Autun Elucidarium 1112C;
Theodoretus Qu. in Gen. I, 4; Thierry of Chartres Hex. 52; Peter Lombard Sent.
II, J., 3; Hildebert of Le Mans 1218A; Erigena De div. nat. Ill, 2; Arnold of
Chartres 1S15B; Augustine DCD XI, 21 (citing Plato). Cf. R. Gottwald De
Gregorio Nazianzeno Platonico, Breslau, r9o6, 25.
' It was found in the pseudo-Salomonic Wisdom; Zeller III, i:, 293 and n. 5.
See also Greg. Nyss., Hex. 81D; Philoponus 300, 2 ff.; Odo De pecc. orig. in Max.
Bibl. pair. XXI, 228; Arnold of Chartres 1539D. Philo 25, 8 ff. (cf . De conf. linguarum
263, 8 ff. C-W), asserting this principle to show that God could not create the evil
elements in man, but left them to the angels, is directly reminiscent of Tim. 42DE ff.
See also Gottwald op. cit. 26.
3Basili32D; Ambrose 196B; Augustine £j/. II, 17, 35.
* Theophilus ad Autolycum II, 17, p. 106; Chrysostom IX, 4, p. 79; Theodoretus
Qu. in Gen. I, 18; Procopius 108A; Augustine Man. I, 18, Lit. Ill, 18; pseudo-
Eucherius 900A, 901C; Beda Com. 196C, 200A, Hex. 31D; Hugo of St. Victor 37D;
Neckam Denaturis rerum II, 156; Abelard Hex. 7S0D, 767B; 'Hanomxs Hex. 2s8D;
Angelomus i2cB, 122B; Peter Lombard II, 15, 3; Rupert of Deutz 231B; Vincent
of Beauvais, Spec. hist. I, 29; Albertus Magnus, Summa de creat. IV, 73, s, 8; Bruno
156A; Peter Comestor 1062D, 1064A. For the idea that the rose at first had no
thorns, and the Hke, see Milton, P.L. IV, 256: "Flowers of all hue and with
out thorn the rose;'' Basil 1056; Ambrose 175C; pseudo-Eustathius 716B; Glyca
4SA.

6 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
existing; while for Philo, the intelligible world is the ideal counter
part of the material world,' and it is definitely stated that God
made it.' Philo was influenced by the Stoic doctrines also in this
matter (infra, p. 15). It is in essentially the Philonic form that
the doctrine of the pattern is found in the Fathers, among whom
Origen may be especially mentioned. The neo-Platonists passed
on the doctrine of the pattern-world to Augustine, and from his
time until the middle of the twelfth century the latter was the
dominating force in Christian interpretation of Genesis. At that
time Platonic influence was again felt, particularly in connection
with this topic; but the Christians were always loath to say that
the pattern is an independently existing idea.
Another important line of Platonic influence is the notion that
matter in itself resists the efforts of the Demiurge and his assistants
to carry out their plans for its better ordering.' In the latter
part of the dialogue, wherein the nature and affections of the human
soul and body are discussed (68Eff.), the constantly-recurring
motive is the contrast of the divinely made reason with the mortal
portion of the soul and the mortal body— -products of Necessity—
and the disorder which they cause, in spite of the efforts of the
helpers of the Demiurge to make the human economy as perfect
as possible. This natural perversity of matter forms a meta
physical limitation on the power of the Demiurge. Similar limita
tion is mdicated by Philo (7, 5 ff.) when he says that matter in
itself is too weak to receive all the benefits that the power of God
could bestow; and after many centuries the theme of the resistance
of matter to the divine will again became prominent in the De
mundi universitate of Bernard of Tours.
The doctrines concerning time in the Timaeus (37C-39E) are
closely connected with the topic outlined above. The Demiurge
wished to make the world stiU more hke its pattern, but the pattern
is eternal (almvio^), and a thing generated cannot from this very
' E.g., he includes the ideas of earth, heaven, air, and space, 9, 4 ff. Cf. Paul
Shorey, Unity of Plato's Thought 37, n. 256.
'Plato hints at this; Rep. S97C; Tim. 34A8. He does not, however, develop
it as a doctrine.
3 Plato calls this resistance Necessity. Cf. 37D, 42A, 48A, 69B, 86E; Paul
Shorey, A.J. P. X, 61 f., on Tim. 48A; J. Adam, op. cit. 361.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES ^
fact be eternal. Therefore tune, the image of eternity, moving
in regular mathematical intervals was created, and the luminaries
were made to mark off its periods. Time was therefore made
together with the universe and did not previously exist (38B).
Similarly in the Hexaemera eternity is distinguished from time'
and the statement is made that time did not exist before creation.'
In connection with this came the idea that God is not in time, a
principle of which Augustine and his followers made use in answer
ing the questions how God came to create the world so late, how
an immutable God could be moved at any time to create, and
what God did before creation.
The remaining portions of the Timaeus furnished certain
Hexaemeral topics, although they are cited less frequently than
the parts outlined above. After the discussion of the pattern,
Plato proceeds to say that the world is material, and in order
to be visible must contain fire, and to be tangible, earth (3iB).3
But in order to make a proportion there had to be four elements
(31C), and from the fact that they are in proportion the elements
are held together by a bond of friendship (32C).'' The elaborate
mathematical theory of the derivation of the elements from space
exercised no influence on the Hexaemera, yet the accounts of the
development of the elements from the primal chaos, as given by
the Platonizing writers of the twelfth century, Bernard of Tours
and Thierry of Chartres, clearly owe much to this portion of the
Timaeus. Plato eventually derives matter from space, but in
several passages (30A, 52D ff.) he speaks of matter ("secondary
matter, " p. 4, n. 2) as existing in chaotic form before creation, the
' Hugo of Amiens says that God precedes the world by eternity, not by time
(1249B). Honorius De imagine mundi II, i applies aeuum to God alone; tempora
aeterna, beginning before the world and continuing with it and after it, to the arche-
typus mundus and to the angels; tempus to the world. He calls the latter umbra
aeui (cf. Tim. 37D). Cf. Peter Comestor 1056A, pseudo-Eustathius 720B.
' Philo 8, 5 ff.; Origen Hom. in Gen. 147A; Basil 13B; Ambrose 132A; Augustine
Lit. V, 5, Man. I, 2; Du Bartas, p. 2, in Sylvester's translation; Hugo of St. Victor
34A; Beda Com. 204B; Hrabanus 444B, 4S3B; Remi of Auxerre 54D; Peter
Lombard II, 2, 4; Bandinus H, 2; Giraldus Camb. 345; Arnold of Chartres 15 16A;
Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. hist. I, 2; Peter Comestor loc. cit.
3 Cited by Philoponus 78, 26; 119, i; Basil 25A; Augustine Lit. Ill, 4, 6.
¦< Cf. Basil 33A.

8 the hexaemeral LITERATURE
"nurse" of material things taking on one form after another (S2D),
and the four elements as it were having traces of their own forms
(53B). The early Hexaemeral writers had not impHed that in
the first-made chaos the elements were not present in their proper
forms.' Bernard, however, speaks of a material first principle,
hyle, existing in a state of confusion, taking on one quality after
another, although the constant change centers about the forms of
the four elements: erat hyle naturae uuUus antiquissimus, genera-
tionis uterus indefessus , formarum prima subiectio, materia corporum,
substantiae fundamentum .... irrequieta est nee potuit hyle
meminisse quando uel nascentium formis uel occidentium refluxionibus
intermissius adiretur . . . . et quod figurarum omnium susceptione
conuertitur, nullius suae formae signaculo specialiter insignitur.
uerum quoquo pacto frenata est licentia discursandi, ut elementorum
firmioribus inniteretur substantiis eisque quaternis uelut radicibus
inhaereret materies inquieta (De mundi universitate 10, 47 ff.). Noys,
the "mind" of God, brings the four elements out of the confusion
and the present world is developed. Thierry (Hex. 60-61) has
reference to the same passages of the Timaeus when he defines the
informitas of Gen. 1:2 as the hyle or chaos of the philosophers.
Such was the informitas that little or no difference between the
elements could be perceived, and this difference was overlooked
by the philosophers; but Plato saw it and declared that the con
fusion of the elements underlay the elements, not as preceding
them in time, but as confusion precedes separation.
In Timaeus 32C ff. the nature, shape, and motion of the material
world is discussed, and with 34C the topic of the world soul is
taken up. Though there is but one slight allusion to Plato's
elaborate account of its making,' it is probable that even in early
' Descriptions of chaos as a confusion of already developed elements are some
times difiicult to distinguish from the Platonic chaos about to be described. This is
perhaps due partially to Ovid Met. I, 15 ff.: utque erat et tellus illic et pontus et aer, |
sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda, \ lucis egens aer. nulli sua forma manebat.
The later lines nam caelo terras et terris ahscidit undas \ el Uquidum spisso secreuit ab
acre caelum however show that the chaos was made up of the elements. Du Bartas
follows this passage, first stating that God made the elements and then that they
lacked their present characteristics. There are also descriptions of a primary matter
like the substrate of Aristotle, mere potentiality; cf. Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist.
I, 16. ^ Justin Apol. I, chap. 60.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 9
times certain Christians identified Plato's world soul and the
Spirit of God in Gen. 1:2, for Jerome found it necessary to deny
the identity of the two.' Further protests were made by the
more orthodox writers of the twelfth century,' but their con
temporaries Abelard, Thierry of Chartres, and Bernard of Tours,
under the influence of the revival of Platonism at that time, were
believers in the world soul.'
In 41A ff . the Demiurge addresses the gods.'' The gods are
not immortal, but shall never be destroyed without the consent
of the Demiurge : to make the world complete, three other classes
of beings (the inhabitants respectively of the air, earth, and water,
since the gods are conceived of as fiery)' must be created (41B),
but if the Demiurge himself made them they would be the equals
of the gods. The immortal part of the soul therefore was made
by the Demiurge, while his helpers fashioned the mortal portion
and the body.
The remainder of the dialogue discusses psychology, the deriva
tion of the elements from primary space, the properties of matter
' Hebr. Qu. in Gen. 98 7B ff.: ex quo intellegimus non de spiritu mundi dici, ut
nonnulli arbitrantur, sed de spiritu sancto, qui et ipse uiuificator omnium a principio
dicitur (cited by Strabus Gloss. Ord. 70B). Augustine's (earlier) attitude was more
liberal; Lib. imp. 4, 17: potest autem et aliter intellegi, ut spiritum dei, uitalem crea-
turam, qua uniuersus isle uisibilis mundus alque omnia corporea continenlur et mouentur,
intellegamus, cui deus omnipotens tribuit uim quandam sibi seruiendi ad operandum
in iis quae gignuntur. Jerome 's objection might include in its appUcation those whose
belief was tinctxired with Stoicism; infra, p. 18.
' Rupert of Deutz 205D (mentioning Plato); Hugo of Amiens 1255A; Angelo
mus 116A; Peter Comestor 105 7A.
3 Abelard believed that Plato and his school held an essentially Christian doc
trine of the Trinity; cf. Theol. Chr. I, v., especially 1144A; Intr. ad theol. I, xvii-xx.
But in Hex. 73SB ff. he said that "spirit of God" might be simply wind. Thierry,
discussing Gen. r : 2, says that Plato called the spirit the world soul and the Christians
the Holy Spirit {Hex. 61-62). Bernard {De mund. univ. 13, 147 ff.) describes the
making of the world soul in language highly reminiscent of the Timaeus, deriving it,
however, hke the neo-Platonists, from the Noys by emanation. WiUiam of Conches
to some extent shared these opinions (cf. K. Werner, "Wilhelms von Auvergne Ver-
haltnis zu den Platonikem des xii. Jahrhunderts, " Sitzb. d. Ak. Wiss., Phil.-Hisl.
Kl., Wien, 74, 135) and mentions them in De phil. mundi 45D.
* Citations in Abelard 747A; Neckam 22; Philoponus 134, 24.
« Cf. 39E, which is probably the source for the statements assigning one kind of
being to each element, as Honorius De imagine mundi I, 3; Philo 51, 14-15; Giraldus
Cambr. 343 . Augustine Lit. Ill, 9 ascribes this view to quidam philosophi.

lO the HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
as dependent upon the shape of the elementary corpuscles, and the
physiology of man, all of which may be dismissed after the dis
cussion of a few special topics that made their way into the Hexae
mera. Philo 's passage in praise of sight and light (De op. mund.
17, II ff.) is based upon Timaeus 47Aff.; the statement of Philo
ponus (140, 5 ff.) that Plato assigned the cubical shape to the earth
corpuscle is a reminiscence of Tim. SSD; and there are references
to Plato's assertion that there are two kinds of fire — that which
burns, and that which does not burn but gives off light;' as well
as to the statement that coagulated blood becomes flesh and sinew
(Tim. 82C).' Philoponus (122, 24) remarks that in the universe
we cannot properly speak of "up and down" but only of "center
and circumference," possibly with reference to Tim. 62C ff., though
he was familiar with Aristotle and could have found the same in
De caelo 268b, 20. Plato however is probably the source for the
topic that man is erect in stature and thereby shows his kinship
with heaven, while the beasts are inclined toward the earth.'
While the Timaeus is the prune source of Platonic influence
among the Fathers, certain topics can be traced to other dialogues.
Among these is the idea quoted from Pindar in Theaetetus 173E,
that the mind can traverse the universe independently of the body.^
Again, the very common comparison of man, the microcosm, to the
universe is suggested in several Platonic passages, notably Philebus
29A ff., where Socrates, having shown that the body of man is
'Basil 121C; Ambrose 191D; Philoponus 76, 7ff.; Neckam I, 71. Cf. Tim.
4SB, 58C.
"Basil 168A; Philoponus 119, 16 ff.; Procopius 105D; Theodosius MeUtenus
4,3- 3 Tim. 90A, 92Aff. The notion is found before Plato in Xen. Comm. i, 4, 11.
How common it was may be seen from the citations collected by S. O. Dickerman,
op. cit., 92 ff., to which should be added Alcimus Avitus; Ambrose 245D; Philoponus
269, s; Augustine Man. I, 17, Lib. imp. 16, 60; Freculphus Chron. I, 3; Glyca 172A
(citing Greg. Nyss.); pseudo-Eucherius 901A; Beda Hex. 29D, Com. 205C; Giral
dus Camb. 348; Hrabanus 460C; Angelomus 122D; Wandalbert 639A: Rupert of
Deutz 267D; Procopius 117B; Bernard of Tours 55, 27 ff.; Basilius Seleuc. 36AB;
Peter Comestor 1063D. Ovid Met. I, 84-86 is often cited in this connection but is
evidently not the ultimate source of the topic.
••Philo 23, 12 ff.; Ambrose 259C and Ep. 43, 15 (the latter cited by Cohn-
Wendland, Philonis Alex. op. I, lxxxx); Pisides 738 ff.; Du Bartas, 166 in Sylvester's
translation.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES II
composed of the four elements, drawn from the four elements in
the universe, suggests that the soul of man may be drawn from the
soul of the universe.' In Tim. 44D the shape of the head is com
pared to that of the imiverse, and hi 81A the whole body is said
to work on the same principles as those of the universe.
Plato is accorded respectful treatment, in general, by the
Hexaemeral writers. There were,however, certain Platonic assump
tions that the church could not accept, especially the theory of the
eternity of matter,' the doctrine of metempsychosis, wliich Origen
was accused of holding,' and the theory that the ideal pattern of
creation is independent of God.''
With the exception of Philo and the Platonizing Christians of
the twelfth century our writers show their familiarity with the
Timaeus by quotation rather than by weaving it into their work.
Even Philoponus, who quotes the Timaeus more frequently than
any other Hexaemeral writer, seldom passes beyond quotation.
But Platonism in its derivative forms, as has been said above,
¦ Cf. Philo SI, 6 ff.; Honorius Elucid. 1116B ff.; Giraldus Camb. 347; Bernard
of Tours 55, 15 ff.; Arnold of Chartres 1528B ff. In a somewhat different form,
comparing man and the universe in parts other than the four elements, the topic is
found in the Jewish non-canonical books. Cf. also Ambrose 265A ff.; Honorius
Hex. 258C ff., pseudo-Eustathius 749Aff.; Wandalbert 639A; Remi of Auxerre S7B;
Raleigh I, 2, 5; Bernard of Tours passim. On the origin of the topic see Lobeck
Aglaopharmis II, 921 ff.
" The Christians probably had in mind the passages concerned jvith "-secondary
matter"; see Baumker, op. cit. 143. Theophilus II, 4, p. 54 in a'polemical passage
mentions the Platonists especially, and in other passages of the same sort Plato prob
ably shares the polemic with the Epicureans and pagan philosophy generally. Cf . Basil
8A; Ambrose 123A; Lactantius Inst. II, 8, 8; Origen Com. in Gen. 48A; Augustine
Man. I, 6; Rupert of Deutz 202C; Anastasius Sinaita 857C; Procopius Com. in
Gen. 29Aff.; Greg. Naz. Poemata dogmatica IV, 3-4; Maximus ap. Eus. Praep.ev.
VII, 22 ff. The Latin writers of the Middle Ages often repeated the statement of
Ambrose (123A), that Gen. 1:1 refutes Plato, who had three principles, God, the
pattern, and matter, and Aristotle, who had three, matter, form, and the operalorium;
cf. Remi 53D; Peter Lombard II, i, i; Bandinus II, i; Hugo of Amiens 1251A;
Hugo of St. Victor 33B; Arnold of Chartres 151SA; Peter Comestor 1055B (who
adds Epicurus).
' Origen was strenuously opposed by Arnold of Chartres 1522A; Gregory of
Nazianzus {Poem. dog. VII, 7) opposes metempsychosis. Cf. Glyca 148B; Rupert
of Deutz 266B.
¦•Cf. Ambrose 124B, followed by Rupert of Deutz I, i; Theodoretus 104A
(mentioning Plato).

12 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
became an integral part of Augustine's interpretation, and through
the latter to a certain extent colored all later thought.
The reason for the limited knowledge of Plato in the Hexaemeral
tradition is the lapse of Greek learning in the Middle Ages. From
the time of Augustine the western church knew the Timaeus only
in translation and in citation; and during the Middle Ages the
translation of Chalcidius,' which extends only through 53C,and that
of Cicero' were the sole sources with the exception of such informa
tion as could be gained from citations in Augustine and the materials
furnished by Macrobius, Boethius, and the De dogmate Platonis of
Apuleius. It seems probable that Augustine did not use the
Greek text but the translation of Victorinus.' Abelard, who had
some knowledge of Greek, knew Plato indirectly.''
A contributory cause for the respect that is shown for Plato
by the Christian writers was the belief prevalent in early times
that he was acquainted with the Hebrew sacred literature and drew
therefrom. This belief was founded upon the actual or supposed
agreements between Plato and the Scriptures, and seems first to
have been expressed by Aristobulus.' Philo asserted that the
Hebrew literature was the source of Greek philosophy^ and the
early Christians said that Plato borrowed from the Bible.' This
is common in Philoponus,* and Augustine reports that certain
' See Wrobel, Plat. Timaeus interprete Chalcidio, pp. xii ff. Ueberweg-Heinze,
Gesch. d. Phil. II, 172; De Wulf, Hist, de la phil. midievale (2d ed.), 150. Gunzo of
Novara (d. 967) seems to have carried a copy of this translation into Germany (see
G. Becker, Calalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui, Bonn, 1885, 64). The short commentary
by Wilham of Conches is founded on Chalcidius.
" Becker, op. cit. 201, indicates that Cicero's translation was in the library at Bee.
' Boissier, La fin du paganisme, I, 307.
4S. M. Deutsch, Peter Abaelard, 58; McCabe, Peter Abelard, 86-87, 120.
^Ap. Euseb. Praep. ev. XIII, 12 ff.; see Zeller III, 2, 277 ff. Hermippus had
previously declared that Greek philosophers drew from Hebrew sources; Zeller III,
I, 302, n. I.
' Zeller III, 2, 393-94, and notes.
'Justin Martyr Apol. I, 59-60, says that Plato took his conception of chaotic
matter from Gen., chap. I, and the division of the world soul {Tim. 36B) from the
narrative of the setting up of the cross by Moses in the wilderness.
'Philoponus 273, 4ff. claims that Tim. 29E is derived from the Bible; the same
is asserted (78, 156.) of Tim. 30A; of Tim. 41B (4, 25; 134, 24ff.); and of Tim. 37C
(303, 27 ff.).

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 1 3
Christians thought that Plato met the prophet Jeremiah in Egj^t.
He points out, however, that this was chronologically impossible'
and without stating that Plato and his followers knew the Scrip
tures simply says "None approach us nearer than they. "' Never
theless in the middle ages Peter Comestor believed that Plato read
the Mosaic books in Egj^t and confounded the spirit of God
(Gen. 1 : 2) with the world soul.'
No one work of Aristotle, like the Timaeus of Plato, was the
source of Aristotelian influence on the Hexaemera; much philo
sophical and scientific material, however, was drawn from his
writings, and during the period when he was the dominating
philosopher Aristotelian authority is constantly cited. It would
be an endless and profitless task to point out all the Aristotelian
elements in the Hexaemera, and we shall therefore consider but a
few of the more important lines of his influence.
It has already been stated that the Platonic theory of the
elements, with its elaborate mathematical demonstration, was not
employed by the Hexaemeral writers. The simpler Aristotelian
theory of the interaction of the elements by means of their like
qualities however was generally adopted. In De generatione et
corruptione ii, 4 Aristotle assigns two qualities out of the four,
hot;Cold, wet-dry, to each element, opposites never being joined.
Fire is hot and dry; air, hot and wet; water, cold and wet; earth,
cold and dry. When the dryness of the fire overcomes the wetness
of the air the two merge, and through such an intermediate change
an element can unite with the one, both of whose qualities are
opposite to its own. Similar explanations of interaction are fre
quently made in the Hexaemera.'' We also find mention of
' DCD, VIII, II. Augustine says that he had formerly beUeved the report and
had included it in his writings (i.e., De doclr. Chr. II, 28).
' DCD, yiii 5.
3 Peter Comestor 1057A: hunc locum male intellexit Plato dictum hoc putans de
anima mundi; cf. Rupert of Deutz 205D. Other passages of Peter Comestor (e.g.,
1061D, 1066C) similarly accuse Plato of mistaking the meaning of the Scriptures.
¦•Basil 89Cff.; Ambrose 163D ff; Chalcidius Com. in Tim. 316; Honorius
De im. mund. I, 3; Du Bartas, 31, in Sylvester's translation; Philoponus 180, 19 ff-;
Bernard of Tours 62, 50 ff.; Giraldus Camb. 343. But Cosmas 123 ff. contests the
theory.

14 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Aristotle 's doctrines of qualities and the substrate,' and of the fifth
element,' and his division of the soul into its various faculties;'
and the Historia animalium is a source of some of the stories about
animals found in the Physiologus, the compilation used by Basil
and his followers. Augustine (Lit. V, 21, 42) mentions with dis
approval the doctrine that the upper regions are under divine
guidance, while the lower are subject to disordered, fortuitous
motion, doubtless with reference to Aristotle. The criticism was
made both by pagans and by Christians that according to Aristotle
God did not concern himself with the government of the lower
world,'' aad Aristotle may therefore be criticized in the polemics
of the Christians against the notion that the world is imcreated
and eternal, or self-developed,' a doctrine which would naturally
be attributed also to the Epicureans.
Although the Stoics were materialists, their influence upon the
Hexaemeral writers, direct or indirect, was considerable. They
divided the world into the passive principle, formless matter, and
the active principle, the logos in it, God.' The latter to be sure
is not an intelligible being, but is spoken of as "technical fire"; it
receives, however, the attribute of providence and plays the part of
reason (logos) in the world.' In the Hexaemera likewise contrasts
are made in the Stoic fashion between the active and the passive.'
'Zeller II, 2, 315 ff.; references to the Aristotelian and neo-Platonic principle
that the two are separable only in thought are frequently found. Origen De prin.
IV, I, 33; Basil 21A.
"Basil 25B; Ambrose 1 34C; Anastasius Sin. 858A; Bernard of Tours 38, 80 ff. ;
Vincent of Beauvais Spec. nat. Ill, 3.
3 Aristotle De anim. 414 029 ff. enumerates five (vegetative, sensory, logical,
appetitive, motor) of which the first three are mentioned by our authors; Greg.
Nyss. De hom. op, 144D ff.; Procopius 117C.
¦"Aristotle held that the ether, of which the upper regions are composed, is
involved in a circular motion, but that the very nature of the elements necessitates
other and less regular movement in the lower regions; cf. De caelo 292 622 ff.; Zeller
II. ¦', 437-39, 468. For the criticism of Aristotie by pagans and Christians, see
Zeller ibid. 468, n. i, also Plut. De defectu orac. 423D.
s Cf. Philo 2, 12 ff. « Diog. Laer. VII, 134.
' Heinze, Die Lehre vom Logos, 83-84.
' Fire and air are said to be active, earth and water passive; Augustine Lit
III, 10; Lactant. Inst. H, 9, 21; cf. Plut. De com. not. 49, i, p. 1085; Nemes. De nat.
hom. 5, 164 Matth.; Cic. Acad, i, 26. Philo 2, 16 ff., and Basil 33B use Stoic language
in the contrast of the activity of God with the passivity of matter.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 1 5
The most important influence of the Stoics, however, came in
their doctrine of the logos in its various forms. When Philo,
adopting the Platonic theory of an ideal pattern of the universe,
stated that this pattern existed in the divine reason, he employed
the Stoic term logos, which they had used to signify the reason
of man (a part, as they held, of the universal logos mentioned above)
both when it remains in man's breast (ivSidOero^) and when it is
expressed in speech (irpocjiopiKoi).^ Philo calls the ideal pattern
of the world God's logos, on the analogy of human reason,' and
Theophilus of Antioch says that the Son, the Logos of God, was
epSiddero? before the creation, but irpo^opiKot when he goes
forth to be the agent of creation.' Theophilus does not speak
of two logoi, but of the divine Word in two phases, first, abiding
in God in eternity and so containing the ideas of all that God is
to create, and second, sent forth by God as his means of communi
cation and the instrument of creation (Ad Autol. II, 10, 80). He
does not specifically state that the Word in its first state contains
the world of ideas, but since he calls it God's "counsellor, mind,
and intelligence" and says that God made heaven and earth
through his word (op. cit. 80) we must assume that this was his
meaning and that he agrees herein with Philo, whom indeed he
probably follows.
Origen lays even more stress than Theophilus upon the phase
of the Word called by the latter ivSid0eTo<;. The Word or Wisdom
contains all the forms (species) of things to be created, whether
substantial or accidental, and was itself created prior to these
(De princ. I, 2, 131B). God's Wisdom never existed apart from
him (ibid. IV, i, 28). After Origen, the use of the terms Son,
' For a discussion of the terms see Heinze op. cit. 140 ff.
' Zeller (III, 2, 423-24) is probably right (against Heinze, op. cit. 231 ff.) in
saying that Philo did not formally distinguish a divine ivSidSeros and irpo^piKSs
logos. Philo uses the two terms with reference to the human mind.
3 Theophilus II, 10, 78: Ex«>'o5i' 6 Oeis rbv ^auToi; "Kbryov ivSidderov iv rots ISlois
iSTrhayxvoli iyivvqaev airhv, ktK. Ibid. 22, 118: Ilpd y&p rt ylpejBai, tovtov eix"
<rinPov\ov, iaVToO voOv xal tppivqaiv 6vTa. intlne Si ^8i\ri<rev 0 Seis Troiijirai. Saa i^ovKci-
(TOTO, TOVTOV Tbv XAyoi' iyivvnioev irpoipopiKbv, . . . . oi KevuBels aiTbs toS Xivou, dXXd
\6yov yevvijiras /coi t$ \6y(f a&rov dii, iravrbs o/iiXiSi'. Cf. Athenagoras Suppl. 10 and
24; Tatian Orat. 5.

l6 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Word, and Wisdom, equivalent to logos, persisted throughout the
course of the tradition.'
Likewise the Stoic doctrine of o-Trep/taTiKo? \o'709, once it had
been enunciated, found a place in some of the more important
Hexaemera. This logos, as its name implies, was according to
the Stoics a force in matter which brought about its development
along certain determined lines in the same way that seeds develop.
Used in the singular number, the term is applied to God, who
remains in this form in the world, first bringing forth the four
elements;' used in the plural number, it refers to certain powers
that take over matter and give it form, and then remain in the
world to perpetuate the species thus originated.' In the De
opificio mundi of Philo there is a trace of this Stoic doctrine in the
statement (13, 21 ff.) that the reproduction of plants is due to
logoi which lie concealed in their germinal elements; the term
aTrepfiaTiKoi Xo'70?, too, is found in Philo.'' After Philo the
neo-Platonists adopted the idea. With Aristotle they held that
matter and form are never separable,' and they sometimes applied
the term logos to the forms of matter, each a real concept, and
distinguished, as in the Stoic and Philonic systems, by always being
connected with the notion of energy.* Among the Christians,
Augustine took the idea of seminal logoi and used it in connection
with his peculiar explanation of the Hexaemeron. When God
made all things together, therein were contained whatever things
are in the universe — sun, moon, stars, earth, and water — and what
ever was later developed out of them, in the same manner that
the tree is contained in the seed (Lit. V, 23, 45) . To this Augustine
' For Gregory of Nazianzus see R. Gottwald, op. cit. 28.
' Diog. Laer. VII, 136; Heinze, in.
3 Heinze 114 and n. 2. The logoi are spoken of both absolutely and as being
contained in God; Plac. I, 7, 33.
• See Heinze 239 ff.
s Plot. Enn. IV, 3, 9: 5« Si rf Xbycfi ttjv e((roSov Kal t^v i/if^xwcnv SiSaaKaXlas Kal
ToO (ra<povs x^P"' yh''f<'Sai voiiliuv. iirel oi/K ^v Sre oix ^ux<Sto riSc tA irav oiS' iv^v
Stc aSipa i(l>euTT-nKei. ^vxv' dvoia-ris, oiSi CXt) irori Sre dK6a-p.riT0S fjv iWb. iTrivoijaai
TaOra x^P^^ovras aOrb. 6/ir ' dXXiJXwj' oXbv re.
' Heinze 318; Zeller III, 2, 609 and n. 7. Here again the first forms produced
are said to be the elements.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 1 7
joins the statement that formless matter precedes form not in
time but only in origin. He denotes the subjects of the first crea
tion variously by the terms aeternae rationes (Lit. IV, 24, 41),
causales rationes (ibid. VI, 14, 15; VII, 22, 23; cf. causaliter
conditus VI, 9; ratio creandi hominis VI, 9), causae (VI, 11, 15, 18),
primordiales causae (VI, 10), rationes primordiales (VI, 11), elementa
(VI, 10), primae causae (VI, 15). The use of the term ratio, which
often means "idea," shows probably that the general notion came
to Augustine from the neo-Platonists, but he constantly returns
to the comparison with the seed, which is more akin to Stoicism.
In his belief that in this manner the first creation contained all
things both in substance and in the forms of their various species
Augustine differed radically from many of the commentators of
the Middle Ages, who held that the substance of all things was
created at once but that they were distinguished into their various
species in the course of the six days.
Traces of this logos doctrine are likewise to be found in the
Greek Fathers. In Basil, it occurs in the notion that the commands
of God create the nature of things' and that these divine commands
remain in nature, and, for example, cause the earth to continue to
bear fruits.' Gregory of Nyssa states even more explicitly the
notion that God 's commands create the nature of things and deter
mine their natural modes of action which made up the so-called
necessary causal sequences in this world (cf. Hex. 72C, 76B).
This nature of things, made by God and distinguished by the terms
o-o<^o'9 and rexviKO';, he calls logos.' Gregory goes much farther
in this matter than Basil; he has reference not simply to the seminal
power implanted in the earth, sea, and animals, but to the begin
nings, causes, and powers (a^opfiaC, alriai, Swdfiefi, Hex. 72B)
which God lodged in the world in the beginning and from which
' Cf. Hex. 81C (where it is stated that water received its property of flowing
downhill from the command of God in 1:9): fleoS (piovii ipiireibs idTi iroirjTtK'rj.
'Ibid. 96A; the first command became a "law" of nature. Cf. 149C and
164C (the language in the latter passage is Stoic: ^X9e tA TrpbaTnypa dS( ^aSi^ov;
cf. Diog. Laer. VII, 156); also 189C. .
3 Hex. 73Aff.: dXXA xP'h iKdnTif tuv Hvtwv Kai Myov tivo, <ro^iv re khI rexvtKbv
iyxuffBai vuTTeieiv . . . . tL oSv etvev o 6e6s; iireiSii XA70V irapaffraTiK'^ i<rTiv r/ Tomiri)
(puv^, Seovpeir&s oi/mi vo^aopev els Tbv iyxel/ievov t^s KTlaeus Xbyov t6 ^ijtAj' dm^ipovrei.

1 8 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
were developed heaven, earth, ether, air, stars, fire, sea, animals,
and plants. Thus Gregory in an important item agreed with and
anticipated Augustine, namely, in asserting that potentially all
things existed in the first creation, although they were not actually
existent (77D).' The development of the world from these causes
is not automatic, but is the working of the logos of each thing
given it by God (72C); and Moses shows that the apparently
natural sequences are in fact due to God's wisdom and direction
by representing them as following God's commands (73A, 76B).
The causes or logoi in Gregory's thought therefore are forms which
determine both the constitution of things and the action and repro
duction of individuals. He seems to have blended in this doctrine
the Platonic ideas, the Aristotelian forms, and the Stoic seminal
logoi. The Stoics sometimes spoke of God as a spirit (irvevna) per
vading the whole material universe (Plac. I, 7, 33), an idea which
seems to have been suggestive to the earlier Hexaemeral writers
in commenting upon Gen. 1:2 and 2:7, even though the Stoic
"spirit" was a material thing. We find mention of this Stoic
doctrine.' Theophilus apparently conceives of the spirit of God
in Gen. 1:2 as a wind or breath, but ascribes to it a life-giving
power which nourishes the waters and through them the world;'
if God should withhold it the world would perish. God's spirit
encompasses about the whole world (I, 5, 16). There is perhaps
a suggestion of Stoicism here," together with the Old Testament
conception of the wind as a mysterious and powerful agent of God.'
In the later writers, however, the "spirit of God" in Genesis is
generally identified with the third member of the Trinity.
' Cf. H. F. Osbom, From the Greeks to Darwin, New York, 1908, 71. Gregory
apparently was acquainted with Stoic teaching; cf. De hom. op. 157A, where he
alludes to the theory that the heart is the seat of intelligence.
' Theophilus II, 4, 54; Athenagoras Suppl. 6, 32; 22, 108.
3 II, 13, 94; 7, 22. Philo's conception, De op. m. 9, 10, is similar.
¦1 Even clearer in Tatian Or. con. Gr., who distinguishes between two varieties
of spirit; the greater being the likeness of God, originally infused in man but lost
through sin, the inferior being a creation of God that permeates matter; op. cit.
7, 12, 13, 20; cf. Athenagoras Suppl. 24; Aim6 Puech, Recherches sur le discours
aux Grecs de Tatien, Paris, 1903, 65.
s W. R. Shoemaker in Jour. Bib. Lit. XXIII, 13 ff.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 1 9
Other less important reminiscences of Stoicism are sometimes
found in the Hexaemera. For example, Basil uses the Stoic argu
ment that the world is perishable because its parts are destruc
tible.' Mention is also made, but always in a hostile spirit, of
the periodical destruction of the world and the ultimate return of
all tilings to exactly the same form and order.'
It was of course inevitable that the educated Christians of the
fourth century and later should come in contact with neo-Platonism,
and it is not strange to find that they considered certain features of
that philosophy worthy of adoption. In the Hexaemera there is
evidence that the neo-Platonists inspired the tendency of the Latin
theologians after Augustine to declare that God is outside of time
and space, or even beyond attributes of any kind. The first clear
reference to them is found in Basil's objection to the theory which
regards God as the involuntary cause of the universe, as a body is
of its shadow or an illuminating body of its brilliance.' Augustine
however is the first of the commentators who was clearly influenced
by neo-Platonism in an important way, and through him certain
traces of neo-Platonism came into the Latin Hexaemera generally.
The De divisione naturae of Johannes Scotus Erigena, which was
affected by the pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita as well as by Augus
tine, and the De mundi universitate of Bernard of Tours, in which
the world soul, as was remarked above, is derived from the Noys
by the neo-Platonic device of emanation, are the most important
of the works after Augustine which show the influence of the
neo-Platonists. Augustine's acquaintance with neo-Platonism is an admitted
fact and has been the subject of investigation.'' He himself
declares in a much-quoted passage (Conf. VII, 9) that through
the writings of the Platonici — quite certainly meaning the neo-
' Hex. 9C; cf. Diog. Laer. VII, 141. This also occurs in Lucretius v, 235-46.
" Basil 73C; Bernard of Tours 32, 105; Augustme DCD, XII, 14.
3 Hex. 17BC. Plotinus often spoke of the relations between the One and the
rest of the universe in the manner which Basil reports; cf. Zeller III, 2, 552 and n. 2,
SS7 and n. 2.
* G. Loesche, De Augustino Plotinizante, Jena, 1880; L. Grandgeorge, Saint
Augustinet la nSo-Platonisme, Paris, 1896; Nourisson, La philosophie de St. Augustin,
1866, II, 102, in; N. Bouillet, Les ennSades de Plotin, II, 555.

20 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Platonists — he first came to understand the prooemium of John's
gospel.' In his exegesis of the Biblical passages dealing with
creation this knowledge of neo-Platonism shows itself especially
in two ways, in his conception of God, and in his allegorical explana
tion of the days of creation as something different from natural
days. The first point has been noted by the critics.' God —
Father, Son, and Spirit — exists without beginning or end, outside
of time and space' in an eternity in which there is no temporal
or spatial movement, but all parts of it are ever present."' With
out going to the extreme of the neo-Platonists and declaring that
God is wholly without attributes, Augustine shows by his language
that he borrowed suggestions from them. This may be seen from
Lit. IV, 1 8, 34: et ideo, dum ipse manet in se, quidquid ex illo est
retorquet ad se, ut omnis creatura in se habeat naturae suae terminum,
quo non sit quod ipse est, in illo autem quietis locum quo seruet quod
ipsa est. Herein he employs two neo-Platonic ideas, the fs-ovr) or
transcendent rest of God (manet in se) and the e'maTpo<^rj of all
things to the One (retorquet ad se).^ Both are further employed
in his exegesis of Genesis — the former to describe the seventh
day's rest (Lit. IV, 18-19), wliich Augustine says for God had no
beginning or end, and the latter in his discussion of the six days,
as will presently appear.
In accordance with this definition of God's nature, Augustine
denies that the working of God reported in the Scriptures is either
temporal or spatial; all his thought and action are in the Word,
including the commands and acts of creation.* This view, which
' The translations of Victorinus were the medium of his knowledge of the neo-
Platonists {Conf. VIII, 2).
' Grandgeorge, chap. II; Loesche 31 ff. Storz, Die Philosophie des hi. Augus-
tinus, Freiburg, 1882, 182, wrongly judges that the tendency to define Deity by
negation comes from the polemic against Manichaeism.
3 Lit. VIII, 19: dicimus itaque .... deum .... nee locorum uel finito uel
infinito spatio contineri nee temporum uel finito uel infinito uolumine uariari. Storz
183-84. *Conf. XI, 13, 16: sed praecedis omnia praeteriia celsitudine semper praesentis
aeternitatis. s The similarity of terminology may be seen by comparing Plotinus Enn. I, 7, i :
SeToHv nivftv aiirb (sc. rb dyadiv), irpbs airb Si iiriffTpiipeiv irdvra, Hiavep k6kKov -irpbs
Kirrpov, d(/>' o5 irairai ypafipal (v.l. airb Diibner, which is a closer parallel).
' Lib. imp. 5, 19; Lit. I, 2, 6; I, 5; Conf. XI, 7, 9.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 21
logically follows from the character of his conception of Deity, is
stated in Lit. I, i8, 36: sed ante omnia meminerimus .... non
temporalibus quasi animi sui aut corporis motibus operari deum,
sicut operatur homo uel angelus, sed aeternis atque incommutabilibus
et stabilibus rationibus coaeterni sibi uerbi sui et quodam, ut ita
dixerim, fotu pariter coaeterni sancti spiritus sui. The followers
of Augustine in the middle ages often cited this passage with
approval,' and they accepted his doctrine that the commands
and acts of Genesis are in the Word.' It is in these ways that the
influence of Augustine's neo-Platonic tendencies was most felt
in later times.
To justify his rejection of the ordinary belief that the world
was created in six natural days Augustine devised an explanation
of the days mentioned in Gen. i by an allegorical interpretation
of the formulae of command that appear in the Biblical account.'
The angels are the "heaven" of Gen. 1:1, and by the command
"Let there be light" they are brought out of formlessness to an
ordered life. The making of the light is their turning to the creator
and formation out of formlessness. This state of illumination
follows darkness; similarly, "morning" is the praise of God by
the angelic light after "evening," that is, the recognition of its
own nature. Each successive day up to the perfect number six*
is a repetition of the first; the first evening is the knowledge which
the light has of its own nature; the morning beginning the second
day is its conversion to the creator, its praise of him and perception
in the Word of the creation that is next to follow, in this case the
firmament. This implies that the commands couched in the form
Fiat firmamentum refer to the making in the Word of the creation
' Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist. I, 8; Peter Lombard II, i, 2; Bandinus II, i;
Bruno 156B.
' Following Lit. II, 6, 14, they declare that the commands reported in Genesis
are not actually spoken, but those beginning with fiat indicate an operation in and
through the Word, and the formulae et fecit deus and factum est ita refer to a material
creation not exceeding the bounds set in the Word. Cf. Beda Hex. 19A, Com. 195A;
Strabus 67B; Hrabanus 450A; Angelomus 11 6D; Remi 55B; Rupert of Deutz 206D;
Peter Lombard II, 13, 7; Bandinus II, 13; Honoiius Elucidarium J112C; Albertus
Magnus IV, 73, 3; Peter Comestor 1057B (but also 1058D).
3 The most detailed account is in Lit. IV, 22, 39; cf. also I, 3, 7 and II, 8, 16.
< On the perfection of this number, see infra p. 29. God could have created in
one day, had he chosen, but on account of the perfection of six took that number;
Lit. IV, 2, 2, and 6.

22 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
mentioned; the formula El sic est factum refers to the recognition
of this creation gained by the angels from the Word; and finally
Et fecit Deus regularly means that the "light" perceives the crea
tion in ipsa natura. Thereupon evening, the angels' knowledge
of the creation last made, comes again, to be succeeded as before
by morning, their conversion to the creator, praise of him, and
information through the Word of the creation next to come.
Without doubt, the theory outlined above from Lit. IV, 22, 39,
which is unique in the history of the Hexaemera, is suggested by
the neo-Platonic systems of emanation, although to Augustine
creation is not an emanation, but a real creation out of nothing.
The similarities may be seen from a comparison of Plotinus,
Enn. V, 2, I, with the above. Plotinus says: ov ydp reXeiov ra>
firjSev ^r]Telv firjSe ej^eiv firjSe Seladai, olov inrepeppvrj Kal to virep-
TrXrjpe's avrov ireTroirjKev dXXo. to Si lyevo/jLevov et? avTO eireffTpd^rf
KaX eifKrjpmOT), Kal iyeveTO Trpo? avTO BXeirov, Kal vow o5to?. Kal r)
fi6v TTjOo? eKelvo crrdcrii avrov to ov eTTOirjcrev, 17 Se tt/jo? avTo 6ea tov
vovv. In this account of the emanation of the Nous there are two
moments, eiria-Tpo(f>ij and ffToa-f^^ and second, dea; the first gives it
existence and the second makes it voxk. In Augustine' we can
parallel the eTna-Tpocft'q with conuersio (in the forms conuertere and
retorquere) : a-Tda-t<; is not especially mentioned, but Oea is bal
anced by contemplatio, and as it produces voO?, so contemplatio
produces formatio, which in the Augustinian context is a fair
equivalent of vov<;.
This unique theory of the meaning of the six days was adopted
by some of the later Latin writers, but usually only in part. It
was too speculative and difficult to appeal to the majority, who
preferred to believe that the six days were really periods of time.
Erigena, after Augustine, was most affected by neo-Platonism,
which caused him to declare that God is beyond all attributes
and even beyond the category of being.
The Epicureans were the object of the polemic against the
' Cf. in Lit. rV, 22, 39: ... . sicut post tenebras facta est (sc. lux) ubi intellegitur
a sua quadam informilate ad creatorem conuersa atque formata; ita et post uesperam
fiat mane, cum post cognitionem suae propriae naturae, qua non est quod deus refert
se ad laudandam lucem, quod ipse deus est, cuius contemplatione formatur. Ibid.
I, 2, 17: quae [sc. lux] nisi ad creatorem illuminanda conuerteretur, fluitaret informiter.
Also I, 4, 9; 5, 10; III, 20, 31. I am not aware that this paralleUsm has previously
been pointed out.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND EARLY GENESIS COMMENTARIES 23
notion that the world was automatically made (cf. Lucretius v,
187-94) and would naturally share the objectiox^s made against
the theory that matter is eternal.'
Neo-Pythagoreanism affected the Hexaemeral writers only in
the transmission of the idea that certain virtues dwell in the several
numbers — for example, that six is perfect, and for this reason the
creative work was performed in six days, or that two is evil, because
it transcends unity, and that, therefore, God failed to call the
creations of the second day good.' This sort of symbolical inter
pretation of numbers was much employed by Philo, and through
him passed into the Hexaemera. In the Middle Ages there was
a revival of the use of topics of this kind.
Manichaeanism gave rise to the polemic of Augustine and to
certain topics of the Hexaemera, for example, the denial that the
darkness spoken of in Gen. i : 2 is an entity and the principle of evil.'
It has thus become evident that the commentators upon the
creation narrative were deeply and essentially indebted to the
Greek philosophers. To the old Hebrew account they added the
great Platonic doctrine of an ideal plan underlying the foundation
of the material world. Philo and the neo-Platonists confirmed
their conviction that this plan was in the divine mind, and from
the teachings of the Stoics they derived assistance in their explana
tion of the way in which God, according to the Mosaic account,
worked upon chaotic matter to produce this world in all the per
fection of its parts. Had Greek philosophy been non-existent
it is certain that the commentaries on Genesis would have borne
an entirely different character.
' Epicurus is expressly mentioned by Helinandus {Chron. I, ap. Vincent of
Beauvais Spec, nat, 1, 18). The probability that Aristotle was also an object of the
polemics mentioned has been set forth above.
' Peter Lombard II, 14, 4; Bandinus II, 14.
3 Philoponus accused Theodorus of Mopsuestia of saying that it was an entity
(845.). The usual explanation was that the darkness was simply absence of light;
Basil 40C; Diodorus of Tarsus 15638; Ambrose 138C; Philoponus 69 ff.; Theodo
retus ap. Philop. 85, 17; Anastasius Sin. 8S9A; Augustine Man. I, 4, Lib. imp. 4,
Conf. XII, 3; Greg. Nys. Hex. 81D; Severianus I, 5; pseudo-Eucherius 895 A;
Beda Com. 194B; Hugo of St. Victor 36A; Honorius Hex. 255B; Theodoretus Qu.
in Gen. i: 7; Angelomus 115C; Peter Lombard II, 12, 3; Hugo of Amiens 1254C;
Gennadius o^. MPG LXXXV, 1628A; Eucherius Instructiones 70, 9; Bruno 148B;
Peter Comestor ios6C. Basil 37C (cf. Ambrose 139D) says that God could not
create such an evil principle because things cannot arise from their opposites (for
which cf. Dionysius Areop., MPG III, 716B).

CHAPTER II
PHILO JUDAEUS AND JEWISH HEXAEMERAL WRITINGS
Although it is not the purpose of this study to investigate
the Hebrew commentaries on the Genesis story, there are certain
Hebrew writings deaHng with the creation which from their con
nection with the Christian Hexaemeral tradition must receive
notice. Most important of these authors is Philo Judaeus, who
is in fact more Greek than Hebrew; the others are the authors of
some of the non-canonical scriptures,' the historian Josephus, and
the Hebrews mentioned by Chalcidius.
In the formulation of their doctrine of the Word, the Christian
theologians were influenced by the so-called Wisdom literature of
the Hebrews, as well as by Plato, the neo-Platonists, the Stoics,
and Philo. No exhaustive study of the Wisdom Hterature need be
undertaken at this point; a few of its leading features, however,
may be pointed out. In the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom
of Jesus the Son of Sirach, Wisdom is sometimes spoken of as a
creative and guiding power pervading the universe;' but this
characterization is not always kept up, and Wisdom is sometimes
said to have been a spectator when God created the world.' Here
the pervasion of the world by Wisdom is analogous to the pene
trative power of the Stoic logos, and in fact the whole series of
these writings is probably thoroughly under the Greek influence.''
The passage in Prov. 8:22ff., which in the Authorized Version
reads, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before
his works of old; I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning,
' Little Genesis, or the Book of Jubilees; the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, or
Slavonic Enoch; the Book of Enoch, or Ethiopic Enoch; the Book of Adam and
Eve (which is included here although it is not of Hebrew origin).
^ Cf. Wisd. of Sol. 7:248.: Si-r/Kei Si xai X"P" 5i4 irdvTuv Sid ri/v KadapbrriTa
.... liia Si oli(ra Trdvra Sivarai Kal liivovffa iv avT^ rd Tcdvra Kaivl^ei. Sirac. 24:5:
yvpov oipavoS iKixXuxra libvij. On the whole subject see Heinze, Lehre vom Logos,
193 ff. 3 Heinze op. cit., 197 and n. 6. ¦• Zeller III, 2, 293.
24

PHILO JXrOAEUS AND JEWISH HEXAEMERAL WRITINGS 2$
or ever the earth was," is sometimes cited by the Hexaemeral
writers.' The non-canonical Hebrew books belong, in a sense, to the
Hexaemeral tradition, as commentaries upon the Genesis narra
tive, because their authors in retelHng the creation story attempted
to emphasize points not mentioned in Genesis or treated briefly
there. The motive prompting such commentary was sometimes
the desire to reassert the old Hebrew faith in the face of encroach
ing Hellenism, and sometimes the desire to interpret the old
beHefs in the Hellenic manner, as in the case of the Wisdom Htera
ture. As examples of the former may be cited the tendency of
Jubilees and other writings to fix very definitely the time of the
bibHcal events, and especiaUy the importation of angels into the
narrative, although Genesis does not mention them. Angels are
frequently mentioned in other parts of the Old Testament, and
according to Job 38:7 in the LXX they are said to have been
witnesses of creation. In order to reconcile the apparent incon
sistencies, and to answer the question when the angels were created,
Jub. 2 : 2 states that they were made on the first day,' and in some
of the Byzantine chronicles this passage of Jubilees is cited.'
The angelology of Jubilees and the other works of this class
is elaborate. The classes of angels in Jubilees are defined as the
angels of the presence, the angels of sanctification, the guardian
angels of nations and individuals,'' and the inferior angels that
supervise the rain, snow, clouds, hail, and other natural phenomena,
and in Slavonic Enoch (chaps. 4-6) angels are said to be in charge
of the luminaries as well. This, or Hebrew speculation of which
this is a part, may be a source of the pecuHar doctrines of Cosmas
' Chalcidius 307, 8; Augustine Conf. VII, 21, Lit. V, 19; Ambrose 128A, 129D.
¦¦ According to Slav. Enoch 29: i, they were one of the works of the second day,
but Charles conjectures in his note ad loc. that the MS is at fault. The statement of
Jubilees that after their creation the angels praised God is doubtless added to bring
the account into agreement with Job; Cosmas has a similar passage wherein he quotes
Job. Augustine's doctrine of the "conversion" of the angels has nothing to do with
Jubilees. 3 Theodosius Mel. {et al.; see index) 2, 2; Zonaras 13, 3; Cedrenus 9, 13.
¦•The idea is found in the N.T.; cf. Matt. i8: 10, Acts 12:15; it is common in
the Hexaemera.

26 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
and Theodorus of Mopsuestia (infra, p. 62). Jubilees also says
definitely that the Genesis story was revealed to Moses by an
angel of the presence (2:1), in keeping with the statements in the
other books of the Old Testament that inspiration from God came
through the angels;' but the statements in the Hexaemera (cf.
Anastasius, 861D, 876C) that Moses talked with an angel or was
inspired by God do not come from this source.
Without describing the confused and compUcated cosmology
of this class of writings, a few of the more important ideas derived
from them may briefly be enumerated: i. It is characteristic of
Jubilees to omit the formulas of command used in Genesis and
merely to state the number of works done on each of the crea
tive days. At the end of the narrative, the sum of aU the
works is given as twenty-two, the number of the patriarchs from
Adam to Jacob.'
2. Jubilees enumerates Paradise among the works of the third
day.' 3. They contain detailed accounts of the fall of Lucifer and
his followers, of the same type as those often found in the
Hexaemera. Slav. Enoch 7 : 3 says " these angels apostatized from
the Lord" and "took counsel of their own will," and in 29:4
that Satan wished to make his throne higher and to be equal
with God.
4. In Slav. Enoch 30 : 8 there is a comparison of man with the
world; Adam's flesh is made from the earth, blood from the dew,
eyes from the sun, bones from the stones, thoughts from the swift
ness of the angels and of the clouds, veins and hair from the grass,
and spirit from God's spirit and the wind. This is to be compared
to the microcosmus topic; and Philo's comparison (Leg. All.,
' See R. H. Charles on Jub. i : 27.
'Jub. 2:15; reminiscences in Epiphan. De mens, et pond., XXII; Syncellus
5, 14-17; Cedrenus 9, 6-13; Anastasius 940; Isidorus Etym. XVI, 26, 10 (from
Epiphanius). From the form of these references Charles infers that the original
text of Jubilees also compared the number of the works to the number of the books
in the O.T. In this connection cf . Eucherius Formulae (p. 60, ed. Wotke) : xxii. ad
sacramentum diuinorum uoluminum secundum lilteras Hebraeorum.
3 Cf. Slav. Enoch 30:1; Book of Adam and Eve i:i; Syncellus 5, 7- Cedrenus
8, S-7-

PHILO JUDAEUS AND JEWISH HEXAEMERAL WRITINGS 27
95, 13 C-W) of man's bones to the stones and his nails and hair to
the plants is perhaps a reminiscence.'
5. Slav. Enoch 30:13 reads, "And I gave him a name from
the four substances, the East, the West, the North, and the South. "
This, which is a proof that Slavonic Enoch was originally written
in Greek (cf. Charles's note), refers to the acrostic 'AvaToXrj,
Avo-t?, "A/JKTO?, Mea-rififipia, and is several times mentioned in the
Hexaemera.' 6. In Jub. 4:30, when Adam dies, lacking seventy of a thousand
years of age, it is stated that he has fulfilled the prophecy, "On
the day that ye eat thereof ye will die" (Gen. 2: 17), for one thou
sand years is one day "in the testimony of the heavens." This
is an instance of the notion that the world would exist for six
thousand years after its creation until the judgment day, followed
by a miUennium of rest. Examples of similar ideas are seen in
Slav. Enoch 30:1, "Let the eighth be the first after my work, and
let the days be after the fashion of seven thousand" (see Charles's
note), and in the Book of Adam and Eve 1:3. Adam is informed
after his fall that the redeemer of him and his seed will come in
five and one-half days, that is, five thousand, five hundred years.
The idea of the world week is common in Christian writings' and
the alUed and derived idea of the seven ages of the world is a topic
of the later Hexaemera (infra p. 72).
The treatise De opificio mundi of Philo Judaeus is the first
extant work in Greek deaHng with the interpretation of the creation
story in Genesis. Like the other Jewish theologians of Alexandria,
of whom we know but little, Philo was an eclectic in his philosophy.
He drew mainly upon Plato, Platonizing neo-Pythagoreans, and
the Stoics, but throughout he held steadfast beHef in the authority
of the Hebrew Scriptures." His philosophical system is a combina-
' Cf. also Slav. Enoch 30:9 and Philo De op. mund., 41, 14-16, in each of which
seven natures of man are enumerated. Raleigh I, 2, 5 has an elaborate comparison
of this type.
"Beda Com. 216C; Orac. Sib. Ill, 24-25; II, 195; VIII, 321; XI, 3; Glyca
160AB; Severianus V, 3; Honorius De imag. mund. I, S6; Elucid. my A.
3 Iren. Contr. haer. V, 28, 3; Clem. Alex. Strom. IV, 25; Cedrenus 9; Honorius
Hex.2S9BC; Origen according to Methodius o/i. Phot. cod. 235; Suidas,i.J). Tvpprivla.
Ps. 90:4 was a source of the same ideas.
1 Zeller III, 2, 385 ff.

28 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
tion of the Scriptures and Greek philosophy through the medium
of aUegorical interpretation. In the De opificio mundi he shows
his thorough famiHarity with Plato by his citations of the dialogues,
especially the Timaeus; from the neo-Pythagoreans he derives
his tendency to use numbers in a mystical and symbolical manner.
The utter materiaHsm of the Stoics was, of course, foreign to Philo,
but their influence is seen in his doctrine of the Powers of God,
which are apparently a fusion of the Stoic seminal logoi, the Platonic
ideas, and the Jewish angels.' As the discussion will show, his
influence upon the Christian Hexaemera was great.
After the prooemium of the De opificio mundi, Philo argues
for the existence of an active principle, God, over against the
passive principle, matter.' Here he censures those who "admire
the cosmos more than its maker" (2, 12) and assert that it was
automaticaUy made — such thinkers, that is, as the Epicureans
and perhaps Aristotle (supra, p. 14). The active principle is
the purest Mind, transcending virtue, wisdom, goodness, and
beauty;' the passive is unmoved by itself but is ordered by God
into the cosmos. His arguments are that there is forethought in
the administration of the universe (3, 5), and that God could have
no care for that which he had not himself made.'' The world
without a governing God is like a state where anarchy reigns
(3, 11). For this reason Moses distinguished between the visible,
sensible world, subject to generation and decay, and the uncreated,
unseen, eternal, and intelHgible God.'
Philo then turns to discuss the meaning of the six days of
creation (4, iff.), and states that God had no need of time, since
he could have made everything at once, but created the world in
' Ibid. 408-9.
' 2, 16 ff. The contrast is fundamental with the Stoics; supra, p. 14. The
Stoic active principle, however, was material.
3 2, 20; cf. Plato Rep. S09B.
¦• 3, 6; cf. Raleigh's Preface, xl, "For what father forsaketh the child which he
hath begotten ? " The thought that God is good and cares for the world underlies
the whole Timaeus; cf. 29E, 30A.
s 3, 13, using the terminology of Tim. 27D, 28A etc.

PHILO JUDAEUS AND JEWISH HEXAEMERAL WRITINGS 29
six days because there was need of order in created things.' Else
where (Leg. All. 61, II ff.) he says that the world was not created
in time at all, but in the number six, because time, made up of the
passage of days and nights and therefore dependent upon the
movement of the sun, could not have existed before the creation
of the imiverse (supra, p. 7). The world was made in the number
six because of the perfection of that number. By the laws of
nature it is best fitted to generate (De op. mund. 4, 4ff.) because
it is the sum of its factors — one; the dyad, the first even or female
number; and the triad, the first odd or male number. Since the
universe was to embrace all the forms of existence coming from
this number, it had to be molded after the number itself. This
symboHcal manipulation of the number six is an example of the
neo-Pythagoreanism in Philo' and is the source of a long Hne of
similar passages in the Hexaemera.'
Philo explains the creation of the first day as that of the intelli
gible world, the vot/to? «o'o-/ttos.4 Like Plato, he assumes that
God had some pattern in creating the world,' for every sensible
thing has an ideal pattern and a fair thing has a fair pattern (5, i ff .) .
UnHke Plato, he says definitely that God made the intelHgible
world. Another difference between Plato and Philo is that the
' Ambrose {Ep. 44, 2, cited by Cohn-Wendland, Phil. Alex. Op. I, lxxxx) used
this passage. The question why God took six days became a topic in the Hexaemera,
probably suggested by the discussion of Philo.
' Zeller III, 2, 439, and n. 6.
3 Philoponus 304, 18 ff., much like Philo, has the two ideas that the number six
is perfect and that the world was to be perfect and was therefore to be created in the
perfect number. The perfection of six was a commonplace in the Latin mediaeval
writings. Cf. Greg. Nyss. Hom. in uerb. Fac. Hom. 285C; Procopius 140B; Augus
tine Lit. IV, 2, 6; Isidorus Lib. numerorum 184C; pseudo-Eucherius 902A; Beda
Hex. iiC, Com. 202C; Hrabanus 463D; Angelomus 125A; Hildebert 12 16D; Neckam
II, 173; Erigena III, 11; IV, 9; Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist. 1, 18; Peter Comestor
1064D. Honorius {Hex. 263A) says that Plato had the perfection of the number six
in mind in the opening phrases of the Timaeus; and William of Conches in the com
mentary on the Timaeus ascribed to him makes the same statement.
• 4, 15-21; 44, 19. The term does not occur in Plato. Cf. Shorey, A.J.P.,X, 50
s This assumption (cf . Tim. 28A) is like that which Plato makes in explaining
the theory of ideas in Rep. 596AB; cf. also Crat. 389C. The human artisan looks to
a model in his creation; on the same analogy so does the Demiurge.

30 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
former's pattern is the idea of Hving thing, while the ideas of
all things, both animate and inanimate, are included in the in
telHgible world of Philo.' Philo 's language in describing the intelli
gible world is full of reminiscences of the Timaeus.^ He illustrates
his meaning by a simile taken from the building of a city (5, 17 ff.)
in which God corresponds to the architect and his reason or logos
is the intelHgible worid (6, 7ff.). The identity of the two is
explicitly stated again in 7, i7ff.'
Philo (6, 13) accepts the reason given by Plato (Tim. 29E)
why God created the world — namely, because of his goodness
and his desire that aU creation should share therein. He sets a
precedent here that is foUowed by many Hexaemeral writers.
God's work, then, is bringing order out of chaotic matter," which
according to Philo is coexistent with God and not created by him;
but he cannot benefit the world to the fuU extent of his power, for
matter by its very nature cannot receive all that God would confer
upon it.' God's power is thus metaphysically limited. The
underlying thought is present in those passages of Plato where
matter is represented as resisting the efforts of the Demiurge.
The "beginning" (Gen. i : i) is interpreted as being not accord
ing to time but number, i.e., "first" (8, 5 ff.), for time was not
existent before the creation of the world. The first five verses of
Genesis are taken to refer to the ideal world. The first creation
' See e.g. 9, 4 and Shorey Unity of Plato's Thought 37, n. 256.
" Cf. De op. mund. 4, 21 ff., with Tim. 28A, 29A, 30D, 34C.
3 Philo's logos is identified with the highest idea (Heinze op. cit. 223) and, unlike
Plato, Philo held that the ideas are the product of God's thought (Heinze 221). He
did not, however, identify the logos with God; cf . Quis. rer. diu. her. 42, p. 501 Mangey,
where it is stated that the logos is neither ungenerated like God nor generated hke
ourselves. See also the citations in Ritter and Preller, Hist. Phil. Gr. 610a. This
is due to the tendency of mystical thought to set up a series of mediations. See
Zeller III, 2, 419 and nn. 1-2, 420 and n. 5, 421 and nn. 1-3.
4 Cf. 6, 18 ff. with Tim. 30A3 ff., 69B. In saying (3, 16 ff.) that there must be
an active and a passive principle, Philo leaves open the supposition that the former
does not create the latter. He never states that matter is generated, but often that
the cosmos is generated, meaning, therefore, that the arrangement of the universe is
not a matter of chance. The Christian -(vriters insisted that God created matter out
of nothing. On Philo 's position cf . Baumker, Problem der Materie 384.
5 Cf. De op. mund. 7, 5 ff., with Tim. 37D, 48A, 69B, 86D, Politicus 269D, Theae
tetus 176A; supra, p. 6.

PHILO JUDAEUS AND JEWISH HEXAEMERAL WRITINGS 3 1
(9, 4 ff.) consisted of ovpavov da-m/juiTov Kal yrjv aopaTov Kal aepof
ISeav Kal Kevov, so that the darkness (Gen. 1:2) and the deep
(ibid.) are respectively the ideas of air and space. Besides these
there are the ideas of water (9, 7 vSaToi aa-mfiaTov ovaiav) and of
wind or breath (trvevna, which is called God's in Gen. 1:2 because
it is life-giving) and intelligible light in the form of patterns of the
sun and stars. This light is spoken of as the image of the divine
logos (9, 15), but Philo did not identify it, as Augustine did, with
the angels. The separation of the intelHgible light and darkness
constitutes the first evening and morning (10, 8 ff .) ; it is accom-
pHshed by means of opoi, which are themselves ideal — Iheai Kal
fxerpa Kal Txnroi Kal ff(j)payiSe<i ew yeveaiv dXXmv ao-co/tara awfiaTeov
(10, 20), that is, types after which were fashioned the variations
of day and night in the material world. In this manner Philo
disposes of a question which troubled the later commentators —
how to interpret the divisions of time before the creation of the
luminaries. After this the material world was made, beginning with the
firmament, which was so called because it was somatic, that is, of
three dimensions, as opposed to the intelligible (11, 7 ff.). Philo
then did not conceive of the heaven as a solid roof, but rather
agrees substantiaUy with Augustine and Basil. He might well
at this place have said that matter was created out of nothing,
had he so believed, but from his language in 11, 5 ff. it is to be
inferred that his views were Hke those of Plato.
At first, the two elements water and earth were mingled in a
-formless mixture (11, 17 ff.), but at God's command the salt water
that was useless for nourishing herbage was brought together and
the dry land formed, while the sweet water, pouring forth from
underground veins into rivers,' was left in the earth and serves to
bind it together and prevent its dissolution.
On the third day the herbs and trees were created full-grown
(12, 20 ff.). The fourth day witnessed the creation of the lumina
ries. Philo is the first to say that these were created after the
' For this idea in the Hexaemera cf. Basil 92C; Ambrose 165A; pseudo-Eustathius
713B; Glyca S3C; Beda Hex. 20C; Honorius Hex. 256C and De. Im. Mund. I, 5;
Hugo of St. Victor 34B ; Theodoretus Qu. in Gen. I, 1 2. The notion is a common one;
cf. Plato Phaedo iiiD, Lucretius v, 812 ff.

32 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
earth had borne its herbage in order that men might not ascribe
this to the power of the sun but to God. This became a topic of
the Hexaemera.' In connection with this he also explains the
perfections of the number four (15, 8 ff.). The stars are animated
(25, 3) and incapable of evil.' The sim outshines aU the other
luminaries — a topic mentioned often in the Hexaemera. He
briefly condemns astrology, saying that the stars as signs have
only to do with the weather, the seasons, and the Hke (18, 15S.,
19, i4ff.) — a topic upon which the Hexaemera give lengthy
polemics. In the commentary on the creations of the fifth day, the number
five, Hke four, six, and seven, is given an allegorical significance
(20, loff.). The fish were given homes in various kinds of water
according to their species, not by chance but by providence.'
Turning to the creation of man in the image of God, Philo, Hke
many Hexaemeral writers after him, states that the image is no
external one but is found in the mind (23, 6)." Of the two accounts
' 14, 5 ff.; cf. Theophilus II, 15, 100; Basil 88C, 120C; Chrysostom VI, 4;
Severianus III, 2; Ambrose 166C, 163B, 188B, 189A; Philoponus i6o, 6; Glyca 84C.
"This is Platonic; Tim. 38E, 40B-D. Other Hexaemeral writers deny it:
Neckam I, 9; Augustine Lit. II, 18, and Abelard 752B are non-committal. Cf. also
Philoponus 231, 7 ff.; Du Bartas, 94 in Sylvester's translation. Milton, P.L. X, 648 ff.,
represents them as moved by angels; see also infra, p. 62. In treating of the lumina
ries and light, Philo employs two other Platonic topics. He says that the mind is the
eye of the soul, because the one sees intelligible and the other material things; cf. 17,
15 ff., and Rep. 508D. Like Plato, too, he says that men come by means of the sense
of sight and the contemplation of the heavens to the study of the universe and to
philosophy; 17, I4ff., and Tim. 47Aff.
3 This topic was later used to show that the dumb creatures do not transgress
the divine law but keep within their prescribed bounds; cf. Basil is6A, which was
copied by others. Cf. 20, 20 ff., and Basil 149A, copied by pseudo-Eustathius 724B.
Philo also introduces the Hexaemeral topic that the fish and the birds may well have
a common origin in the water because both swim, the fish in the water, the birds in
the air (21, 5 ff.). Cf. Basil 169A; Ambrose 225C; Philoponus 212; Augustine
Lit. Ill, 6; Lib. imp. 15; pseudo-Eustathius 728C; Glyca 96D; Theodosius Melit.
3, 19 ff. The origin of the topic seems to be Plato Soph. 220B. Philo follows Plato
in ascribing different grades of soul to fish, beasts, and man; cf. 21, 16 and 21 with
Tim. 92B.
¦• Cf. Origen Hom. in Gen. IS5D; Augustine Man. I, 17; Lib. imp. 16; Lil. Ill,
20; pseudo-Eucherius 900C, 904C; Eucherius Instructiones 68, 24 (Wotke); Beda
Com. 200D, Hex. 29C; Honorius Hex. 258C; Angelomus 122A; Remi 57A; Peter

PHILO JUDAEUS AND JEWISH HEXAEMERAL WRITINGS 33
in Genesis, the first describes the making of "an idea, class, or
type, intelHgible, incorporeal, neither male nor female, naturally
immortal," and the making of the body of man is described in
Gen. 2:7 (46, i8ff.). The phrase "Let us make" is used because
God calls upon his powers to assist him (24, 21 ff.). God can make
only such beings as the stars, which are animated and capable
only of good, and the irrational animals, which are dBid(popa
(the Stoic term) ; but of man, who is capable of both good and evil,
he can make only the good portions, for he cannot be the author
of evil (supra, p. 5). The reasons why man was made last are,
¦ that, since he was highest gifted with mind, the world had to be
prepared for him (26, iff.)'; appearing thus after aU was ready,
the world all but cried out to him that if he imitated his creator.
he would Hve happily without toil (27, 7ff.); in the scheme of
creation, the best of immortal things, heaven, was first made, and
the best of mortal things, man, last (28, 18 ff.); and finally, man's
sudden appearance would surprise and cow the beasts, over which
he exercises dominion, though physically the weaker (29, 4ff.).
From the aUegorical treatment of the number seven the later
writers took certain topics.'
The first man, because he was made out of new and pure
materials (47, 16 ff.) and because God himself made him with
direct reference to the archetype, the logos (49, 7), was excellent
above all other men; in succeeding generations the Hkeness to the
model fades. God led the animals before Adam to receive their
names — not because he himself was in perplexity, but to test his
powers as a teacher tests a pupil (52, 8 ff.). Adam then assigned
Lombard II, 16, 4; Bandinus II, 16; Hildebert 1215C; Alcunus Avitus; Philoponus
239, 17 ff.; Drogo De creat. et redempt. prim, hom.; Arnold of Chartres 1534A; Greg.
Nyss., Hom. in uerb. Fac. Hom. 264A; Procopius 120A; Vincent of Beauvais Spec.
hist. I, 34; Bruno 158B; Peter Comestor 1063C.
' The comparison of the late creation of man to the inviting of a banqueter to a
feast already prepared (26, 9 ff.) is found also in Ambrose, Ep. 43, 3; Greg. Nyss.
De hom. op. 133B; DuBartas, 156 in Sylvester's translation.
" It is shown that seven is the largest prime number in the decad not a factor of
other numbers therein; cf. Isidorus Lib. numerorum 186A; Philoponus 306, 7. He
also enumerates various groups of sevens, including the seven ages of man (cf. Ambrose
Ep. 44, lo-ii, cited by Cohn-Wendland).

34 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
names in accordance with the principles of the vofio0eTi]<; of
Plato's Cratylus, for he devised t^? 0e<rei<i H'^t' dvoiKelow; (ir)T^
dvapfwaTovi aW' i(i<f)aivoiia-a<: ev fidXa Tcm t&v inroKeinevoiv
ihtOTrjTa'i . . . . ev fidXa a-TOxa^dfievoi tSsv SrjXovfievcov 0)9 a/xa
Xe')(6rjvaC re Kal vorjOTJvai, ra? (f>vaei<; avT&v (52, 13 ff.; cf. Crat.
389D). Evil had its origin in pleasure' and did not come to man until
after the advent of woman, when he had ceased to be one, Hke
God and the universe (52, 22 ff.). Paradise is interpreted aUe-
goricaUy as the ^yefiovtKov t^? yjrvxrj'! (53, 23 ff.), a Stoic term, and
it is possible that some of the early Fathers were influenced by
this explanation (infra, p. 36).
After the time of Philo, the first chapter of the first book of the
Antiquitates ludaicae of Flavins Josephus furnished material to
some of the Hexaemeral writers. The account of creation there
found is hardly more than a paraphrase of the bibHcal narrative.
The portions used by later writers are that upon the firmament,'
the statement that the Sabbath was instituted because God rested
on the seventh day' and the statement that in Hebrew "Adam"
means "red.""
Chalcidius says (306, 5,19) that all the Jews agreed that what
ever the correct reading of Gen. i : 2 it means that matter was
made by God. One artisan furnishes another with the material
of his art, but ultimately Nature provides it to the first artisan,
and God gives it to Nature ; there is nothing prior to God, however,
to supply him with matter. It is therefore created from nothing
(310, 2 ff.). They held that the "beginning" was not a beginning
in time, since time could not exist before the distinction of day and
night; but from Proverbs they concluded that the beginning was
the divine Wisdom (307, 8 ff.). Wisdom is made by God, but not
' Cf. Tim. 69CD, 86C; especially Se\ea<T8els (Philo 58, 3) with fiiyurrov kokoC
Si\eap {Tim. 69D). Philo also touches the Platonic motive that love comes from the
reunion of two parts of the same body; cf. 53, 6 ff., and Symp. 191A.
' Ant. lud. 9, 13 ff. Josephus calls the firmament crystalline and does not state
that it is different from the first heaven.
3 10, 3. He says that in Hebrew "Sabbath'' means "rest." Cf. Cedrenus 9, 19.
¦» 10, 10; Zonaras 15, 21 ff.; Constant. Manasses 243-44.

PHILO JUDAEUS AND JEWISH HEXAEMERAL WRITINGS 35
in time, for there was no time when God was without Wisdom
(ibid. 16 ff.).
Some were content to think the first-made heaven and earth
those which we see (308, i ff .) ; but others differed. Giving the
view of Philo, he continues to say that others took the heaven to
mean an incorporeal thing, and earth matter without form, which
is called "without form and void" because it has no quaUties of
its own, although it is the receptacle of aU quahties (309, iff.).

CHAPTER III
EARLY CHRISTIAN HEXAEMERA BEFORE BASIL
The period between Philo and Basil has left no complete Hexae
meron save the sections on the subject in the Libri III ad Auto
lycum of Theophilus Antiochenus and enough of the De principiis
and of the commentaries on Genesis of Origen to allow us to form
an adequate idea of his opinions.
In a passage of the Hexaemeron of Anastasius Sinaita (961D ff.)
we are told that Papias of HierapoHs, the disciple of John, discussed
Paradise, referring the biblical passages to the Christian church.
Now Eusebius (Hist. eccl. Ill, 29, i) and Jerome (De uir. ill.
17) state that Papias wrote only five volumes called Explanatio
sermonum Domini, so that we are to infer that any treatment of
the creation problem by Papias was purely incidental; nor is any
more to be inferred from the fact that Pantaenus, Irenaeus, and
Justin are mentioned in the same passage of Anastasius and in the
same connection. The earHest Christian work, therefore, wliich
has a place in the tradition is that of Theophilus. We have
records, however, of lost Hexaemera written between the dates of
Theophilus and Basil wliich show that the early church took great
interest in the subject.'
The chief importance of this early period Hes in the fact that
during it was originated nearly every type or method of inter
pretation later developed by the great representatives of this form
of Hterature. The beginnings of the type of which Augustine is
the representative, wherein emphasis is laid upon the notion of the
pre-existence of the forms of things in the Word, and upon the
non-physical, to the neglect of the physical and material side of
the problem, may be seen in the Platonic-Philonic elements of the
early writings, namely, in their logos theory. On the other hand,
there are found in Theophilus and in the fragments of Hippolytus
' See in the index Rhodon, Apion, Candidus, Maximus, Clement, Methodius,
Hippolytus, Victorinus Petauionensis, Eusebius Emessenus, HeHodorus.
36

EARLY CHRISTIAN HEXAEMERA BEFORE BASIL 37
explanations of the physical phenomena of the creative week as
well. By the special development of this part of the commentary
to the comparative neglect of the theory of the divine plan there
arose the BasiUan type of exegesis. Still a third type is that which
attempts to explain the scriptural narrative by making it an edify
ing aUegory. From the statement of Anastasius cited above we
should infer that Papias, Pantaenus, Irenaeus, Justin, and Clement
made use of this method to a certain extent, and its employment by
Origen is weU known. There are also instances of aUegorical inter
pretation in Theophilus (e.g., ad Aut. II, 14 ff.). Undoubtedly
Philo, with whom this was a favorite method, herein influenced
the Christian interpreters. Allegorical exegesis persisted through
out the history of the Hexaemera, but the discussion of its details
will not form a part of the present study. A fourth variety is the
poetic type, but this too will claim but passing attention, since
for the most part the poetical Hexaemera are merely paraphrases
of the bibHcal account. Finally there should be mentioned those
short accounts of the creation which some of the chroniclers pre
fixed to their works. Josephus began his treatise on Jewish
antiquities thus, as did Sextus JuHus Africanus, who wrote at the
beginning of the third century, and the practice was common
among the Byzantine chroniclers.
For information as to the actual exegesis of the text of Genesis'
we are forced to rely upon Theophilus and Origen, and such
fragments of Hippolytus, Methodius, and Victorinus Petauionensis
as survive. The account of Theophilus is the fullest of these.
He and the rest of the church beHeved that God made matter out
of nothing;' and God's work is different from that of a human
artisan in that God makes his own material,' and in that God
makes the heaven, which is the roof, before the earth, the founda-
' Cf. supra, p. IS, on the logos theory of the early Hexaemera. The logos as the
creative agent was the aspect most emphasized; cf., e.g., Vict. Petau. De. fabr.
mund. 31 lA.
' Ad Aut. II, 10, 78, and 4, 54, where he takes issue with the Platonists on this
matter. 3 56; for the same thought see Basil 32B; Ambrose 123A; Hugo of St. Victor
33B. Cicero {ap. Lact. Inst. II, 8, lo-ii) had used the same comparison, but with
the opposite conclusion, that God had his materials furnished him.

38 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
tion.' The "deep" of Gen. 1:2 means the waters (13, 94), which
was the interpretation used by Basil and his followers. Theophilus
also perhaps suggested to Basil the explanation that the darkness
(Gen. 1:2) was due to the shadow cast by the heavens.' The
"spirit," apparently wind or breath, was a vivifying principle,
like the soul of man, and it separated heaven from the lower
darkness (supra, p. 18): the command of God, the logos, then
Hghted the world beneath the heavens. The firmament which
was then made is different from the heaven of Gen. 1:1 (96);
it is the heaven visible to us. Half of the water was taken upon
the firmament, whence it furnishes rain and dew; the other half
remained below.' The water which had covered the earth was then
drawn off to form the sea and the earth, which had previously
been invisible because of the water," was revealed. On the fourth
day the luminaries were created and Theophilus (15, 100) gives
the same reason as Philo for their late creation. In Philo 's manner
he allegorizes the number three (102). With the universal hesi
tancy of the Hexaemeral writers to admit that God is the cause of
any evil he declares that the beasts became harmful only when
their master, man, had sinned (supra, p. 5). Man's creation in
God's image shows the honor due him (18, 108) and of the two
accounts the second is added for the sake of explicitness.' Perhaps
' This too through Chrysostom became a Hexaemeral topic. Theophilus 13, 92;
cf. Chrysostom II, 3, 30; Anast. Sin. 860D; Aethicus I, 1, 2; Glyca 29C; Procopius
40A. ^Theophilus ibid.' Basil 40C-41B; Ambrose 141AB; pseudo-Eustathius 709C;
Glyca 32B; Theodoretus Qu. in Gen. 85C.
3 This and similar interpretations prevailed in the early period. Josephus ap.
Philoponus 155, c had declared that a third of the water was soUdified to make the
firmament, a third was taken above and a third was left upon the earth; cf. Hippo
lytus {fr. in Gen. I, 7). Like Theophilus are Severianus of Gabala V, 3; Theodoretus
Qu. in Gen. I, 11; Gennadius MPG LXXXV, 1629A.
* Theophilus with the LXX read diparos fcal dKaTacrKeiaaTot in Gen. i : 2 and
explained the former term in the manner indicated, being followed by Basil 29B;
Ambrose 136C; Glyca 52B; Philoponus 61, 12; Augustine Lit. I, 13; Chrysostom
IV, 2; Procopius 41 B. Theophilus explained the latter term by saying that the
earth had no plants and trees at first; he is followed by Basil, Ambrose, Philoponus
{II. cc.) and Theodoretus.
3 Hippolytus ap. Leont. et. Johann. gives a similar explanation. The first
account tells the fact and the second the manner of the same creation. Approximately
the same explanation is given in other Hexaemera; cf. Beda Hex. 30C, 42C; Hrabanus
461A; Bruno 161C; Peter Comestor 1066B.

EARLY CHRISTIAN HEXAEMERA BEFORE BASIL 39
tacitly combating the doctrine of Philo, Theophilus says that the
words "Let us make man" were addressed to the Son (ibid.).
Hippolytus, together with Theophilus, should undoubtedly be
given much credit as a source for the Hexaemeral writers of the
immediately succeeding period. St. Jerome says (Ep. ad Pamm.
et Oct. 7, p. 749): "Nuper S. Ambrosius sic Hexaemeron ilHus
(sc. Origenis) compilauit ut magis Hippolyti sententias BasiHique
sequeretur." We have seen that certain fragments of Hippolytus
show his agreement with Theophilus (supra, p. 38), and another
deaHng with Gen. i : 7 seems to indicate that he was a source for
Basil.' These facts, together with the statement of Jerome
coupling so closely the names of Basil and Hippolytus, tend to
show that Hippolytus probably interpreted the Genesis story in
much the same fashion as Basil and was a rich source for him.
Theophilus and Hippolytus must be taken as the representa
tives of the prevaiUng type of the Hexaemeral thought of this
period; compared with them, Origen, the third important writer
of the time, was unique, less orthodox, and consequently less
influential, although traces of his influence are not lacking. His
doctrine of the Word was nearer to the Philonic type than that of
his contemporaries, and for this alone, as the propagator of Platonic-
PhUonic doctrine, he is important. Most of his views on Hexae
meral matters are to be drawn from the De principiis, which we
have partly in the translations of Rufinus and of Jerome (a few
passages only were translated by the latter) and partly in the
original Greek.
Origen's idea of God, in the first place, is peculiar. God is
incorporeal; his nature is simple, admitting no variation (De
principiis I, i, 6) and his goodness is given as the reason for creation.
But' "He is not Absolute, but Perfect, and perfection itself is a
condition."' Infinity would be incomprehensible even to an
infinite God; therefore God created only a limited number of
souls and only so much matter as he could fashion into a cosmos
' Ap. Kirchenvdter Comm. Preuss. Ak. d. Wiss., Hippolytus I, 2, 51, where he
says that the first day is called "one," not "first" to show that by its repetition it
completes the week {nvKKovnivi^v Kal ipSo/idSa SuiTe\ov<rav; cf . Basil 49AB) .
' Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria 159, and n. .:. In Origen's conception
of God Bigg sees the Platonists' horror of the unlimited.

40 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
(De pr. II, 9, i, with the Greek fragment) and thus his power is Hm-
ited metaphysicaUy by the a-priori incomprehensibiHty of infimty.
Origen also raised a question with regard to the deity which
long continued to be a topic of the Hexaemera. If God's nature
is simple and unchanging, how can he at any time begin to create ?
A father cannot be a father unless there be a son, and God cannot
be omnipotent unless there be an outlet for his power (I, 2, 10).
Origen is forced to answer that God made other worlds before this
and wiU make others after it (III, 5, 3). Of course the creator
must at least logicaUy have preceded the series of worlds; for
Origen elsewhere (I, 2, 2) says that wisdom was made before the
creations prefigured in it. The question was raised by Augustine
and others, and while they did not like Origen believe in a series of
creations, they do hold with him that God is always a creator
logically preceding created things. Methodius (ap. Phot. cod. 235)
criticized Origen's answer. Methodius wrote in the dialogue
form, and having elicited from his opponent a denial that God is
changed now that he is not creating from what he was when he
was creating, he concludes that he was not changed when he began
to create from what he was previously.
According to Origen, the first creation (Gen. 1:1) included
spiritual beings (De prin. II, 9, i); it is not the world in which
we dwell. At first these souls were equal, but they advanced,
decHned, or remained stationary in their condition in accordance
with their faithfulness or unfaithfulness (I, 5, 5; II, 9, 2 and 6);'
this depended wholly upon their own wills, for nothing was created
substantially good or bad. Through sin they were reduced to
corporeal Hfe in this world (III, 5, 4).
On the creation of man Origen agreed with Philo. The crea
tion described in Gen. chap, i refers to the interior homo made in
God's image, the second account in Gen. 2:7 to corporeal man,
the plasmatus homo.' ' There is little else that survives of Origen's
commentaries on the Hexaemeron.
' MoeUer, Gesch. d. Kosm. 549 ff. Philoponus 284, 158. opposes this view, and
there was further criticism in mediaeval times; supra, p. 11, n. 3. The doctrine
evidently is based upon the Platonic metempsychosis.
'Horn, in Gen. 155C; supra p. 32; cf. Siegfried, Philo von Alexandrien 359;
Philo Leg. All. 74, 6 ff.

EARLY CHRISTIAN HEXAEMERA BEFORE BASIL 4I
Origen's influence was felt in the polemic against astrology, a
topic which after him was carried on by Basil, Ambrose, Philoponus,
and others. Basil in particular uses many of Origen's arguments
upon the futiUty of the horoscope. Origen, however, beHeved with
Plato and Philo that the stars are animated (De prin. I, 7, 3, and
Phot. cod. 8; cf. De pr. II, 9, 3); and he held that the "powers"
of God can read his commands in the configurations of the stars
(Com. in Gen. 61A).
The surviving portions of Hexaemeral writings considered
above probably represent fairly accurately the nature of the exe
gesis employed at this time. From all indications, the majority
of the interpreters were conservative and concrete in their views,
abiding closely by the text of the Scriptures, while on the other
hand their nearness to and familiarity with the philosophers led
them to emphasize in no small degree the doctrine of the Word,
wherein Christianity approached closest to philosophy, especially
to the Alexandrian school with its tendency to set up a series of
intermediaries between God and the world. The many agree
ments with Philo indicate that his works were well known and
influential. Probably if we had more of the Hexaemera of this
period we should find that most of them were very similar to the
passages of Theophilus outHned above. The work whose loss is
most to be deplored is the "TiroTvirdurei'; of Clement of Alexandria,
which, to judge from Clement's extant works, must have shown
more Philonic influence than the average in this period. Inasmuch
as the authors of the Hexaemera were prone to follow standards,
once these were set up, it is fair to suppose that Basil found much
in the writings of this period which he made part of his own Hexae
meron.

CHAPTER IV
BASIL
The Hexaemeron of Basil the Great (bishop of Caesarea a.d.
370-79) is the earHest Christian document devoted exclusively
to the subject of the six days of creation, and is of the utmost
importance in the history of the Hexaemera.' Basil had the
advantage of a good education at Athens, and was famiHar, as his
writings show, with Plato, Aristotle, and perhaps the neo-Platonists.
The Hexaemeron was much imitated in later times and from it were
drawn many of the topics which constantly recur. Some of the
later Hexaemera are little but revampings of Basil 's work, notably
those of Ambrose, the pseudo-Eustathius, Philoponus, and Glyca.
His work was translated into Latin by Eustathius and in this
manner became more directly known to the Fathers of the western
church, who had already known it indirectly through Ambrose.
Although his influence was felt more strongly in the East than in
the West, we find that Beda and his followers used many of the
topics originated by Basil.
The Hexaemeron was in some particulars influenced directly
by the Timaeus, but Basil's Platonism is Hkewise colored by
reminiscences of Origen, Aristotle, and Philo, a fact which it is
important to recognize.' Basil does not always agree with Plato.
' Studies of this work have been made by M. Berger {Die Schopfungslehre des hi.
Basilius des Grossen, Telle I u. II, Rosenheim, 1897, 1898) and E. Fialon {Etude sur
S. Basile, Paris, 1869).
= Theodore Leslie Shear [The Influence of Plato on St. Basil, Baltimore, 1906)
comparing the Hexaemeron -with the Timaeus, is inchned to disregard the possibOity
that the influence of Plato may come to Basil through the intermediaries mentioned
(cf. BPW, December 18, 1909), and is somewhat too rash in drawing parallels. His
remarks on the passage where the interaction of the elements is described are without
point, as was shown in CI. Phil., October, 1909, because the Basilian passage is thor
oughly Aristotelian (cf. De. gen. et corr. ii, 4). The comparison of Hex. 33B 5 and
Tim. 32C is based upon a misconception of Basil's meaning. Shear has, however,
collected most of the real parallels between Basil and the Timaeus. E.g., there is a
reminiscence of Plato's statement that earth is necessary to make a thing tangible
42

BASIL 43
Plato is of course among those who beHeved in an eternal matter,
against whom Basil argues (cf. 32Aff.), and Basil also finds fault
with Plato's assertion that there is but one ovpavK (56Dff.; cf.
Tim. 33 A; Plato of course used the term in a different sense from
Basil). Basil also has the distinction between time and eternity —
for he says that the "elder state" of the world was eternal and
beyond time (13 A) — and the topic that there was no time before
creation (supra, pp. 7, 29), but the idea was so well known, occur
ring in both Philo and Origen, that we cannot tell whether or not
it is due to Plato's influence that Basil uses it. There is however
an important parallel between the two when Basil states that
God bound the elements together by a bond of friendship (Tim.
32C; Basil 33A; Shear 27). The statement that the beasts, as
contrasted with man, are bent toward the earth may be derived
from Plato, but the idea was common in Basil's time (supra, p. 10).
Basil refers in Hex. 57C to the weU-known passage of the Republic,
616D, and makes reference to the theory which Plato certainly
held, that the earth is immovable because it is in the exact center
of the universe.' Basil does not contest the theory, but says that
we should rather wonder at the wisdom of God, which ordains
matters thus, than at the fact.
In language and in thought Basil gives evidence of the adoption,
to some extent, of the Stoic doctrine of seminal logoi (supra, p. 17).
With Philo, Basil has in common the Platonic doctrine that
and fire to make it visible {Tim. 31B; Basil 25A; Shear 26); the etymology oipavis
from opdadai, which Shear (30) possibly correctly thinks Platonic, is found in Philo
(11, 13); the Platonic topic of the two kinds of fire is found in Basil 121C 14; Tim.
S8C (Shear 28). Other parallels are the phraseology in Tim. 39B and Basil 121B 5
(Shear 31); the commonplaces on the division of time, Tim. 39B; Basil 137B;
Shear loc. cit.; the statements about the origin of flesh, Tim. 82C; Basil 168A; Shear
33, and the respiration of fish, Tim. 92A, Basil 149B; Shear loc. cit. The more impor
tant agreements will be especially mentioned. A probable minor parallel in phrase
ology occurs in Basil 132C and Tim. 38D.
Basil drew much scientific material from Aristotle. On this matter see K.
Miillenhoff, Aristoteles bei Basilius v. Caesarea, Hermes II, 252-58, and the notes of
Fialon on his translation of the Hexaemeron.
^ Hex. 24B; Phaedo 108E; Shear 30. But see Arist. De caelo ii, 3, 286a 9ff.
The scholiast on the BasiHan passage refers it to Straton of Lampsacus; Giorgio
Pasquali, "Doxographica aus Basiliusscholien," Nachr. d. K. Ges. Wiss., Gottingen,
1910, 201, 203.

44 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
time did not exist before the creation, as noted above; but this is
also found in the HomiUes on Genesis of Origen (147A), which
must have been known to BasU. Basil probably derived from
PhUo directly or indirectly the reason why the luminaries were
not created until the fourth day (supra, p. 31), and the notion
that both birds and fish swun (supra, p. 32, n. 3). Both likewise
speak of underground veins of water (supra, p. 31) and Basil
evidentiy refers to PhUo and his school when he says that certain
Jews assert that the plural verb in the command "Let us make
man" signifies that the angels are addressed (Hex. 2056; De op.
mund. 25, 17; supra, p. 33).
It is difficult to teU how much Basil drew from Origen, because
so much of the work of the latter has been lost. It is generally
supposed, however, that in asserting so firmly his belief that the
upper waters are real water, and in rejecting an aUegorical inter
pretation of the passage, Basil directs his arguments against
Origen, with whom aUegory was a favorite method of exegesis.'
BasU owes many of his arguments against astrology to Origen,
and the idea that it is impious to assert that God is ever inactive
is common to Origen and Basil.'
Besides the influences which we can definitely trace, it is very
probable that Basil is indebted to the lost Hexaemera of the pre
vious century for many of his topics, and especiaUy to Hippolytus.
The first two homilies of the Hexaemeron deal with Gen. i : 1-6.
Basil does not so definitely as Origen weave into the Genesis
narrative the doctrine of the Word ; however he states that there
was before this world's creation an "elder state," eternal and
extra-temporal, in which "the creator and artificer of all completed
his works, intelHgible light befitting the blessedness of those that
love the Lord, the rational and unseen natures, and the whole
system of intelligible things which transcend our knowledge, of
which we can discover not even the names" (13A). Another
passage relating to the same state is 33A: o Se ^eo'?, irpiv ti Tmv
' Hex. 76A. Cf. Garnerius' preface, MPG, XXIX, clxxxvii, and citations; also
Origen Hom. in Gen. 148A; Fialon 373 nn.
' Cf. Origen De prin. Ill, 5, 3; Basil 32B; Philo 2, 12. The sentiment is aimed
at the Epicureans and perhaps Aristotle; supra, p. 14.

BASIL

45

vvv optofievwv yeveadai, et? voijv ^aXdfievo<; Kat 6pfiricra<i dyayelv eh
yevetriv tu /jlt) ovTa, ofiov re evor^trev oirolov Tiva 'x^prj tov Koafiov
eivai, Kal tS) etSei aiiTOv T-qv dpfw^ovo'av vXrjv a-vvaireyewTjae. Kal
ovpavw fiev a^xopiae ttjv ovpavm Trpeirova-av <f>v<Tiv tS) Be ttj': 797?
crXVt^aTi TTjv oiKeCav avTJj Kal 6(j)eiXofj.evr]v ovcriav vire^aXe. irvp
Se Kal vSeop Kal aepa Siecs'x^rjfidTKTe Te atf e^ovXeTO, Kal eh
ova-iav i^yayev w? 6 eKdcsTov X6yo<; t&v yivofievmv airrjTei. The
clause "as the logos of each separate thing demanded" possibly
impHes that Basil beHeved that God created the ideas of things
in the "elder state"; he did not, however, Hke Gregory of Nyssa,
assert that, implanted by God in the world from the beginning,
they brought out of matter the parts of the world mentioned in
the account of the six days. In various passages he says that the
commands of God as related in Genesis placed logoi in matter
during the creative period, and that these logoi remained in things
and determined their future conduct (supra, p. 17 and nn. 1-2).
Basil's frequent assertions that God has arranged the world in a
providential way imply that he beHeved in the doctrine of the
Word.' But after the fashion of Milton, Basil prefers to depict
the "elder state" as an extra- temporal period wherein the angels
dwelt in heavenly Hght (cf. 13A ff., 40C ff.), rather than as God's
timeless, changeless existence with his Word. His belief that the
angels were created before the material world met with opposition
at various times in the history of the church.'
The first creation as described in Gen. i : i consists of the matter
of the universe already formed into the elements, which must be
' In various connections providence is mentioned in 13A, 33A, 64C ff., 68C ff.,
69C, 76Cff., looD, 113A, 112D, 156-157A, 160A, 193A, 193C, 197A, 200A.
' Among those who held the same opinion as Basil are Ambrose 13 iB; Philoponus
16, 19 ff. (a defense of Basil against Theodorus of Mopsuestia); Abelard 734 A;
Honorius De im. mund. II, 2; Aethicus I, 2, i; Tatian Orat. 7; Glyca 168C ff., who
cites as of the same opinion Basil's brothers Gregory of Nyssa and Caesarius, Anas
tasius, Severus, Diodorus, Amphilochius, and John of Damascus; Zonaras 13, 3;
Anastasius 858B; Arnold of Chartres 151 7A (quoting Basil, Ambrose, and Jerome);
Greg. Naz. Poem. dog. IV, 93, Orat. 45, 5 (cited by lobius ap. Phot. cod. 222, p. 1866
40 Bekk.); cf. also Theodos. Melit. ±, 14-18. The Augustinian doctrine is similar
and was adopted by many. Theodorus of Mopsuestia {ap. Philop. loc. cit.) held that
the angels were a part of the world and created with it; so also Procopius 36A; Theo
doretus Qu. in Gen. I, 3; Cosmas 167.

46 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
understood to have been included as the means, in a sense, between
the extremes heaven and earth.' It was not created wholly with
out form, and Basil explicitly denies that the words "unformed
and void" refer to an eternal formless principle Hke the Aristotelian
substrate (29C ff.) ; but God made the world, form and matter
together, formed primarily into the four elements and secondarily
into the maxima mundi membra, heaven and earth.' Basil's
conception of matter is not so clear and consistent as that of his
brother Gregory of Nyssa. Following Aristotle, Basil definitely
states in 121B that matter can be analyzed into quaHty and sub
strate, which we can separate in thought only, but which God can
actually separate, and so did when he created the brightness of
light first and the body of the sun later;' and his explanation of
the interaction of the elements by means of pairs of Hke qualities
is Aristotelian. Yet he refuses to regard the heaven of Gen. i : i
as "the substrate, a nature devoid of qualities" on the ground that
"if you take away the black, the cold, the heavy, the dense, the
quahties existing in the substance through the sense of taste, or
whatever else is observed about it, the substrate will be nothing"
(21A). This statement is substantially in agreement with Gregory
(infra, p. 55) but it is inconsistent with Basil's views elsewhere
expressed. Nearly as much space in the first two homiUes is devoted to
the criticism of the philosophers who beHeved the world to be
coeternal with God as to the exposition of Basil's own views.
He beHeved that matter was made out of nothing by God, but
' 20A. In proof Basil points out that even now the other elements are found in
the earth. Reminiscences are found in Ambrose 132B; Glyca 36C; Philoponus
12, 6; Theodos. Melit. i, 7; Beda Hex. 15A; Angelomus 115D; Hrabanus 446A;
Wandalbert 635D; Honorius Hex. 257A; Bruno 149A.
^ Cf. 33A cited above and 33B: iirolTja-ev 0 debs rbr ovpavbv Kal ttjv yijv oix tj
Tliu<rela! ixdrepov, dXX' S\ov oipavbv Kal S\-i)v yijv, air^v rijv oifflav Ttfi etSet o'VveiKtju-
fUv-qv. He goes on to assert that if matter without form and God with the knowledge
of forms existed independently they could not interact.
3i2iAff., 44C. Others who held that the "nature" of light was made first,
following Basil, are pseudo-Eustathius 717B; Glyca S7B ff.; Severianus 434; Pro
copius 8sC ff.; Theodos. Melit. i, 11 ff.; Greg. Nyss. Hex. 116A ff. Philoponus 76 ff.
accepts Basil's view with the stipulation that the transparent air was the substrate of
the light.

BASIL 47
rather as an article of faith dependent upon the revelation to
Moses' than as a thing logically to be proved. Consequently
his arguments against the philosophers are merely destructive.
Those who assert that the cause of the universe is the elements
or atoms,' he says in SAB, leave the ordering of the world to
chance. Those who reason from the standpoint of mathematics
and astronomy declare that God and the world are coeternal,
not remembering that a whole, whose parts are mutable and
destructible, is itself of the same nature (9C-12A).' Nor is God
the involuntary creator of the world, as the body makes its shadow
(17B ff.);" Moses' words refute them, for God ivolrjaev m dyadbt
TO ')(^pri(7ifi,ov, w? (TO<^o<; to KoXXiaTov, 0)9 SwaTm to fieyiaTOv. Again
in 32Aff. he combats those that hold matter pre-existent.' It would
be impious to make unformed matter thus equal in honor with
the all-wise and aU-powerful God, and again, if matter is capable
of engaging all God's wisdom, they make it equal to God's unfath
omable power;* while if it is not enough to occupy God's efforts,
they must blasphemously assert that God is idle (supra, p. 6).
Matter then had a beginning, as Moses says, and Basil (16A ff.)
defines "beginning" in four ways: (i) as the first motion; (2) as
the point from which a thing begins; (3) as the art which produces
an artistic product, and (4) as the useful end,' showing that all
four apply to Gen. 1:1. In the case of the world, there is (i) the
first movement of time, (2) the foundations of the world in the
heaven and earth, (3) a Te;\;w«o9 X6yo<s which presides over
creation, and (4) a useful end toward which God directs creation,
' Cf. 8B, 12B ff., where he says that science has proved useless as a means to gain
knowledge of God; Berger 18.
' See schol. I-II, op. cit., p. 195, which refer the charges to certain of the pre-
Socratics and Epicurus.
3 The scholiast says that Aristotle and Theophrastus are meant; ibid. Nos. VI-
VII. Supra, p. 19.
< Referring to the neo-Platonists; Berger 30 ff.; Fialon 262-63. For the neo-
Platonic position see Zeller III, 2, 550, and n. 3, 553, n. i, and citations.
5 Plato (see Berger I, 23) and his school.
' This is what Origen did; supra, p. 39.
' Drawn from Arist. Met. iv, i; cf. Berger I, 4; Fialon 312. Reminiscences are
found in Philoponus 7, 8; Ambrose 128; Hrabanus 444A; Procopius 36C ff.

48 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
not vainly and at random. The beginning itself is not time nor
even a part of it (i6C). Time was created with the world (13B)
and fittingly involves in itself things moving toward generation
and destruction (ibid., C, supra, p. 7), but aU prior existence, of
God, his Word, and his angels, was extra-temporal.
Basil did not admit, as we have seen, that the first heaven was
a substance entirely without quaUties; waiving discussion, he
declares himself satisfied with the description of its form and
nature in Isaiah 51:6 and 40:22. It is "an attenuated nature,
and not soHd or thick" (20C-21A).' He shows that the earth
cannot rest upon water, air, or any soHd support (2iBff.), but
is upheld by God,' although Basil did not deny the vaHdity of
the reasons of science why the earth is in the center of the
universe. Explaining the meaning of d6paTo<; Kal aKaTaaKevaaTo<; (Gen.
1:2 after the LXX), Basil in 29A ff. states that the first term is
appHed to the earth because there was no one to behold it and,
as Theophilus had said, because it was covered with water, and the
second because it was not furnished with herbs, trees, and the Hke.
"Unformed and void" appHes also to the heaven.' The darkness
upon the face of the waters was not, as the Manichaeans thought,
an entity, but was due to the shutting off of the Hght in which the
angels dwelt when the heaven was interposed." Discussing the
reference to the spirit of God in the same verse, BasU says that
according to a certain Syrian, the original Hebrew would be trans
lated by a-vveOaXnre better than by iire^epeTO^ the figure being that
of a bird sitting upon her eggs. This passage was much imitated,
' Later writers employ the same scriptural citation; for references to it and to
Basil, cf. Ambrose 132C; Beda Com. 192A; Augustine Lit. II, 9, 21-22; Procopius
40B; Pisides 90 ff.; Glyca 36A, 41B; pseudo-Eustathius 709B.
' Cf. Ambrose 134A; Honorius De. im. m. I, 5; on Cosmas, infra, p. 60; CL,
Marius Victor, Alethia I, 80 ff.
3 Not aU the later expositors held this view; see p. 62.
4 Cf. Ambrose i4iAB; pseudo-Eustathius 709C; Glyca 32B; Theodoretus Qu. in
Gen. 85C (which, however, Sirmond probably rightly rejects); Theodos. MeUt. i, 9;
Anast. Sin. 859A. Procopius 45A says that the heavenly light being intelhgible
could not be shut off; and Severianus 435 criticizing Basil on the ground that heaven
s hght, not dark, gives the explanation that a mist arose and caused the darkness.

BASIL 49
the most important citation of it being in Jerome's Quaestiones
in Genesim.^ The discussion of vs. 3, where it is asserted that the commands
of God were not spoken like those of a human being, but were
the simple exercise of God's will (45B; cf. 56A, 149A), gave rise
to a regular topic of the later Hexaemera,' and Basil's solution
of the problem raised by the passage, how the Hght could be
created before the sun, as noted above, Hkewise was frequently
mentioned. Before the luminaries were created as its vehicles the
Hght caused day and night by being drawn back and sent forth.'
The firmament is different from the first heaven, and supports
real water, the purpose of which is to offset the drying power of
the upper fires." As for the nature of the firmament, Basil explains
' Basil 44B; Jerome 987B; Diodorus of Tarsus 1563C; Ambrose 139A; Augus
tine Lit. I, 18; pseudo-Eucherius 8956; Glyca 96C; Honorius Hex. 254C; Abelard
735D; Erigena II, 19; Walafrid Strabus 70B; Angelomus 116A; Du Bartas 10 in
Sylvester's translation; Procopius 45C; Peter Comestor 1057A; Raleigh I, i, 6.
Through Du Bartas the idea came to Milton: P.L. VII, 234 ff.:
but on the watery cahn
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread
And vital virtue infused and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass.
In the passage of Abelard cited, the idea is combined with another, that of the cosmic
egg. The yolk of an egg corresponds to the earth, the white to water, the membranous
lining to the air, the shell to fire (so Conches, De phil. mund. 85A). The details of
the same comparison differ shghtly in Honorius De. im. mund. 1, 1, and Pisides 1219 ff.
' Cf. Ambrose 142C; Greg. Nyss. Hex. 88C; Philoponus 5, 21; Augustine Man.
I, 9, 15; Lib. imp. 5, 19; Lit. I, 9, 16; Conf. XI, 6; pseudo-Eucherius 895D; Bruno
149A. Theophilus {supra, p. 38) apparently referred the commands in Genesis to
the Word; as did Augustine and his followers {supra, p. 20).
3 48C. Augustine Lit. IV, 22 found this theory too difiScult to accept. Though
Basil did not so beheve (cf. 48B, 137B) Ambrose, who did not adopt all Basil's
doctrine of the first light, says (191B): Sed consideremus quia aliud est lumen diei,
aliud lumen solis et lunae et lumen stellarum, eo quod sol ipse radiis suis fulgorem diurno
lumini uideatur adiungere, etc. Hence the statement of Bruno 149B; similarly
pseudo-Eustathius 717D ff. claimed that the sun is lighted by the day.
•1 56D ff., where Basil, opposing the view of those that say there is but one heaven,
says that he will even admit that there is a third, that to which the apostle Paul was
snatched. Basil and his brother Gregory differed upon the subject of the drying
power of the fire. Basil declared that the fire would have eventually dried up all
the water had not God made a sufficient supply to last as long as the world (64C ff.),
while Gregory held that an even balance is maintained in the total amounts of the

50 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
the definition of a-Tepeov given by the philosophers (60 D ff.) and
adds that the Scriptures use the word to refer to thunder, which
he thinks is caused by the breaking forth of air closely confined
and made more dense in the hollows of the clouds.' But the firma
ment, although it is generally thought that it was made out of
the waters,' is neither ice nor any crystalHne stone of the varieties
thought to result from the excessive soHdificatiori of water (61 A ff.).'
It is not called firmament from its soHdity, resistance, or weight, but
in contrast with the upper parts of the universe, which are so fine in
quaHty as to be imperceptible; it is "a place having the faculty of
separating moisture," letting the finer parts pass aloft and the
coarser below (68Bff.). BasU answers the objection that the
waters could not stay on the surface of the firmament without
sHpping off by saying that because the firmament looks vaulted
from the inside it does not follow that it is rounded on the outside."
The fourth homily deals with the collection of the waters
and the appearance of the dry land. Basil asserts that the water
by God's command at this time received the property of flowing
down hill, so that God does not command it to do a perfectly
natural thing.' The same command was responsible for the
appearance at that time of the hollows in which the sea and its
arms lie.^ The sea, that is, the ocean of which the circumnavi-
elements, each having the power to exhaust the others {Hex. 89Aff.). The function
of the waters above the firmament as a shield against the fire is a frequently mentioned
Hexaemeral topic; pseudo-Eustathius 71 2B; Theodoretus Qu. in Gen. I, 11; Ambrose
150B; Augustine Lit. II, 5; Gennadius ap. MPG LXXXV, 1629B; Glyca 40B;
Severianus II, 3; Abelard 743D; Isidorus De ord. creat. 921B; Du Bartas 52 in Sylves
ter's translation; Wandalbert 636B; Procopius 72B ff.; CI. Marius Victor I, 71 ff.
' Cf. Aristotle Meteor, ii, 9; Fialon op. cit. 361, n. 5.
' So Hippolytus had said {fr. in. Gen. 1:7). Cf. Theodos. Mel. 2, 5-6.
3 For such views see Josephus Ant. lud. 9, 13 (cf. Glyca 41C, who cites him but
follows Basil) ; so also Gennadius 1629B; Severianus 442; Procopius 7 2C; cf. Theo
doretus 92B; Cosmas 168. Philoponus 118, 6 thinks it was made out of water and
is like glass. Following Basil are Theodos. Mel. 2, 7-9; Raleigh I, i, 8 (citing Basil);
Milton P.L. VII, 263: "And God made The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent elemental air. "
¦< 60BC; cf. Ambrose 148D. s 81C; cf. Procopius 73C; supra, p. 17.
' 85B; so Greg. Nyss. Hex. 89A (who added that similar receptacles were then
prepared for the upper waters on the outer surface of heaven); Glyca 5 2D; Proco
pius loc. cit.; Severianus II, i; Beda Hex. 20B; Hrabanus 4SiB; Angelomus
119D; Peter Lombard II, 14, 5; Bandinus II, 14; DuBartas 60 in Sylvester's trans
lation; Theodosius Mel. 2, 13 ff.; Milton P.L. VII, 289.

BASIL 51
gators tell,' was brought into its present confines and kept there
by God's command, so that it cannot encroach upon the dry land.'
At this point Basil introduces an elaborate encomium of the sea,
together with a Hst of the principal rivers, which furnished an
example for the later writers.'
The homiUes that follow deal with the creation of the fish,
birds, beasts, herbs, and trees. There are here introduced, for
the first time in the Hexaemeral tradition, anecdotes about the
animal and vegetable kingdoms, iUustrating the idea that Provi
dence creates nothing, even things apparently harmful, which is
without its use to man or beast, and that Providence endows
irrational creatures with the instincts of self-preservation. Ulti
mately many of these anecdotes came from Aelian and Aristotle;
but BasU probably drew them from the Physiologus, a collection
of about fifty such stories which seems to have originated in
Alexandria early in the Christian era." Basil himself became a
source for this material; the later writers who introduce such
matter are Ambrose, the pseudo-Eustathius, Glyca, Pisides, and
DuBartas. The herbs and trees passed through the process of develop
ment to maturity in a short space of time (104A). In their struc
ture they give many evidences of the providential ordering of the
universe — for example, the joints in the stem of the reed prevent
its being broken by the weight of the head (looD).
Basil now passes to the discussion of the creation of the
luminaries. The sun was made as the substance to receive the
quaHty Hght, made separately by the first command of God.'
'85Cff.; Glyca 49D; Theodoretus Qm. j« Ge». I, 12; Ambrose 161C; pseudo-
Eustathius 713A; Severianus III, i; Beda loc. cit.; Honorius Hex. 256B. Jerome
Heb. Qu. 988A is sometimes cited here to the effect that in Hebrew any collection of
water is a "sea"; Peter Comestor 1059C.
"84B; cf. Glyca 52B; Rupert of Deutz 228C; pseudo-Eustathius 71 2C; Pisides
393 ff.; Du Bartas 61 (Sylvester); Bas. Seleuc. 32B.
3 6sCff.; cf. Arist. Meteor, i, 13, 14 ff- (see . MuUenhoff , Hermes II, 252 ff.).
DuBartas gives a similar list of rivers.
4 See F. Lauchert, Gesch. d. Physiologus, Strassburg, 1889; K. Krumbacher,
Byz. Lit. 874 ff.; Encyc. Britt. s.v. "Physiologus."
5 i2iAff., using the Aristotehan terminology. Cf. Milton, P.L. VII, 359, 361:
"Of light by far the greater part he took .... and placed .... In the sun's orb."

52 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
The luminaries as "signs" are useful in foretelling weather con
ditions and the like, but the pretensions of astrology are false.'
The last three homiHes deal with the creation of fish, birds,
beasts, and finally man. Much of their content is devoted to the
recital of the anecdotes mentioned above. Basil approaches the
(discussion of the creation of man with great reluctance and in
comparison with the other topics treated he devotes a very short
space to this. This defect was later supplied by the homilies on
the creation of man by his brother, Gregory of Nyssa. Basil
interprets the use of the plural "Let us make" as a reference to
the Son,' and censures certain Jews — doubtless including Philo —
for saying that God addressed himself or that God addressed the
angels (204C, 205B). The use of the singular number in "God
made", following, shows that God is one, and is a guard against
Greek polytheism.
'I25ff. Plato briefly condemned astrology, Tim. 40CD; cf. Shorey 's note,
AJP X, 58. Plotinus Enn. II, 3 protested against it; cf. also Philo 18, 15 ff.,
19, 14 ff. Basil borrows many of his arguments against astrology from Origen. E.g.,
both make the point that it is impossible to cast the horoscope exactly at the moment
of the child's birth (Basil 129A; Orig. Com. in Gen. 77); that if the stars cause evil,
the responsibihty for the same is cast upon their maker (Basil 132D; Origen 53B);
and finally, that if the stars govern human destinies, man is not responsible for his
actions at all (Basil 133B; Origen 52). Most of the writers say that predictions of
the weather, seasons, and the like are all that can be made from the stars; cf. pseudo-
Eustathius 720B ff.; Glyca 69D; Severianus III, 3; Theodoretus Qu. in Gen. I, 15;
Honorius Hex. 257D; Hrabanus 455A; Angelomus 120D; Rupert of Deutz 235D;
Beda Hex. 22B ff., Com. 197D; Ambrose 198AB; Augustine Lil. II, 14, Lib. imp.
13; Philoponus 187, 21 ff.; Abelard 751B ff. Some say that the stars influence the
human body or character: Neckam I, 7; Hugo of St. Victor 36C; others say they
foretell wars and disasters; DuBartas (Sylvester 103); Glyca 77B; Theodoretus
loc. cit.; cf. Ambrose 195A. The Byzantine chroniclers admit the vaHdity of divina
tions if reverently performed and not in excess; Theod. Mel. 3, 3 ff. The later writers
tend to have some belief in astrology; cf. Raleigh I, i, 11. Augustine admits that
astrologers, either by unconscious occult power or by the help of evil spirits, some
times tell the truth; Lit. II, 17, 37.
» This is a regular topic of the Hexaemera; Theophilus II, 18, 108 had employed
it. Following Basil are Ambrose 169A, 257AB; Philoponus 235, 20; Augustine
Lib. imp. 16; Abelard 760B; -Greg. Nyss. De. hom. op. 140B, Hom. in. uerb. Fac.
Hom. 259C; Glyca 148D; pseudo-Eucherius 900C; Severianus IV, 5; Beda Hex.
28D, Com. 200C; Theodoretus Qu. in. Gen. I, 19; Hildebert 1215D; Peter Lombard
II, 16, i; Bandinus II, 16; Hugo of St. Victor 37C; Angelomus 122A; Remi 57A;
Theodos. Meht. 4, 18 ff.; Bas. Seleuc. 36A; Hrabanus 459C; Bruno 157A; Peter
Comestor 1063C; Milton P.L. VII, 518: "then to his Son audibly spake."

CHAPTER V
THE FOLLOWERS OF BASIL
In the discussion of the later Greek and the Byzantine writers
on the Hexaemeron the influence of both Gregory of Nazianzus
and Gregory of Nyssa, the latter the brother of Basil and both
contemporary with him, must be considered.
Of these two eminent theologians, the former wrote no Hexae
meron, but mention of him is constantly made in the later writings,
and he treated incidentally of the creation, although without
reference to the six days, in passages of his Orationes and in one
whole section of the Poemata dogmatica (4). Among the Hexae
meral topics which he mentions may be cited that of the votjto';
Koaiioi; (Or. 38, 10; P.D. 4, 67); God's goodness as the cause of
creation (Or. 45, 5; P.D. 4, 62 ff.); the prior creation of the angels
(supra, p. 4s); the denial of the Manichaean contention that
the first darkness was the principle of evil and a substance (P.D.
4, 24 ff.), and the statement that man is a microcosmus (Or. 38, 11).
Gregory dwells upon the notion that God is actively interested
in the universe, and attacks the theories that assert the contrary.
God was "moved by the contemplation of himself" before the
creation,' but this did not satisfy his goodness, and creation'
took place to give it broader scope. It is a Greek fable that mat
ter and form are coeternal with God (P.D. 4, 3-4). Gregory also
faces the questions how God can be impelled to create, and why
he created so late, and answers them by saying that to God, who
rules in eternity, not in time, all things are one (P.D. 4, 71).
Gregory of Nyssa dealt more directly with the Hexaemeron,
and, as a source for the later Greek compilations, ranks second
^ P.D. 4, 62 ff.; Or. 45, 5; cf. Arist. Met. xii, 10726 15. Gregory defines God
largely by negations; cf. R. Gottwald, De Gregorio Nazianzeno Platonico, Breslau,
1906, which is an excellent index of Gregory's philosophical behef s from the stand
point of their Platonic tendencies.
'The terms descriptive of God's creative action are voeTv, ivvoeTv {Or. 45, 5;
38, 10; P.D. 4, 20). Cf. P.D. I, 34 on the Son.
53

54 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
only to Basil. To him are ascribed two sets of homilies on the
creation of man and a treatise on the Hexaemeron. In the latter,
written at the request of his brother, Peter of Sebaste, Gregory
declares that it is his purpose to defend Basil against certain critics
who alleged obscurity in the explanation of the making of the
Hght and the later creation of the luminaries, and in the passages
dealing with the heaven, the firmament, and the heaven to which
Paul was snatched (Hex. 64C). His own explanation why Basil's
account was not satisfactory to all is the very natural one that
Basil framed his discourse to suit a miscellaneous audience (6 5 A).
Gregory had high respect for his brother Basil and was loath
to reject any of his interpretations. He too declared that "heaven
and earth" must be taken to include all other things intermediate
between these two extremes (69D), and his notion of the light
which was first made is essentially Hke that of Basil (ii6Aff.).
In the course of his argument, however, Gregory advances theories
unlike those of Basil, and he differs from the latter in stating that
the world of sense is bounded by the world of ideas, a notion which
perhaps was suggested by the myth of the Phaedrus.^
It has been seen that the underlying theory of the cosmology
of Gregory is that God created all things potentiaUy in the begin
ning in the creation of their logoi or natures (supra, p. 17), and
that the subsequent development of the world is the working out
of the processes set in motion by the divinely created causes.'
Gregory's account of the first steps in this development is as follows.
When aU matter was made together, the elements were mingled
and the Hght of the fire was obscured by the preponderance of
other substances (7 2D). But the fire, because of its natural
mobiUty, rose quickly to the outmost edge of the sensible world,
and there, since it had nothing in common with the world of ideas
' Ct. Phaedr. 246E ff. For a discussion of the influence of the Phaedrus myth
upon Aristotle 's doctrine of the spheres, ancient philosophical thought, the Hebrew
apocalyptic literature, and finally upon Christian thought, and especially upon Dante,
see J. A. Stewart, The Myths of Plato, London, 1905, 350 ff. It is remarkable that its
influence upon Gregory was not noted by C. Gronau {De Basilio Gregorio Nazianzeno
Nyssenoque Platonis imitatoribus , Gottingen, 1908).
' His assumption that the first-made heaven and the firmament are identical allows
him to escape the difiiculty raised by the description of its creation on the second day.

THE FOLLOWERS OF BASIL 55
and could not mingle with it, naturally began a circular motion,
because motion in a straight line was precluded (77A), by its
passage above and below the lower mass making day and night.
All this Moses ascribed to the direct command of God that it
might be evident that natural sequence is due to God's direction.
The firmament is simply the boundary of the material world (80D) ,
called firm by contrast with the ideas beyond, not because it is
actually something firm and material (80D, 81 A). Above it, in
in the world of ideas, and hence different from the lower waters,
are the upper waters (84Cff.). The form of speech in Genesis
shows that the two kinds of waters were never mingled. The
firmament and the first-made heaven are identical (85B).
Most of the remainder of the treatise is occupied with a detailed
discussion of the question on which Gregory and Basil differed,
whether or not the fires of heaven destroy the waters below them
(supra, p. 49, n. 4). Gregory's belief that the elements pass
into one another' and his account of the method of this change,
with the use of the Aristotelian term aXXoiwo-t?,' show that
Gregory knew Aristotle's theories and to a certain extent adopted
them. But he distinctly states that matter is made up of the
quaUties (69C),' aU of which are in themselves purely conceptual;
and so, although he often uses the Aristotehan term viroKeinevov
(cf. 108D, etc.) and apparently imitates Aristotle's account of
physical change, his fundamental principles are not purely Aris
totelian. Gregory's other works which bear upon the Hexaemeron are
the treatise on the creation of man and the two sermons upon
the same subject, which supplement the Hexaemeron of Basil.
In the absence of BasiUan material the later commentators drew
often from Gregory upon the subject of man and his creation.
' Cf. Hex. 108B and Arist. De gen. et corr. 329J, 24 ff.
" Hex. 104D : . . . . dvwaeels b drpbi . . . . Kal iv ttj lieTa^oX^ Trjs iypas iroiA-
TriTos rb iiXiKbv SieaihaaTO, ^r/pbs Si yevbpxvoi irpbs tA irvyyevii Ka6ei\Kiff6Ti Kal dire-
KaTiaT-n yv- Arist. De gen. et corr. 3296 10: dWotw<ns p.iv iariv, Srav vnop-dvovros
Tofl iiroKeip.ivov, aUrBifrov 6vtos, p£Tapd\Kri iv tois avTov irdSeffiv, 1j ivavrlo^s oiinv
fl iMTaii. The term dWoiaxris is found in 104B, 108B, etc.
3 Those named are KoOipov, ^api, vaffrbv, dpaibv, pji\aK6v, dvThvirov, iypbv, IrjpAc,
fvxpb", SeppJiv, XP'^I"'-! Te/Oi7/)o0i}, SidiTTripji.

56 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
At the beginning of the treatise De opificio hominis' Gregory
briefly summarizes the work of the previous days of creation. In
the beginning heaven surrounded matter, of which the heavy
parts settled in the middle. God's power bound it together by
the two forces rest and motion (128C), and his wisdom assigned
spatial change to the heavens, which are not subject to quaUta-
tive change, and, vice versa, qualitative change to the unmoving
lower mass, so that no one might conclude from the immutabiUty
of creation that it was God.'
Of the topics in the De opificio hominis which were echoed by
later writers some of the most important are the comparison of
man's entrance into the world to the entrance of a king into his
kingdom;' the identification of the divine image in man not
only with his rational powers and virtues but also with his kingly
quaUties;' mention of the fact that man is called the microcosmus
(i77Dff.); the topic of his erect stature (144B, Hom. in uerb.
Fac. Hom. 293C); and the statement that the form of the divine
command that created him showed man honor, because all other
things had been created by a single word." Much is said of the
design displayed in the creation of man. Man is unarmed with
horns, hoofs, or the like,' but if he were thus armed, he would be
but a beast; his ingenuity has devised better substitutes and has
subdued the animals to his will (140D ff.). Especial emphasis is
laid upon the fact that man alone has hands,* which allows him
free opportunity to exercise his rational faculties; for example, if
' Cf. Plato, Polit. 269D; Plut. De an. proc. in Tim. 1024E; Pisides 352 ff.
' 132D; Theod. Mel. 4, 5 ff.; Chrysostom VIII, 3; Procopius 116A; Gregory
133B also compares the induction of man into the world to the inviting of a guest to
a banquet; supra, p. 33; and in Severianus IV, 3, pseudo-Eucherius 901A, and Beda
Com. 201C man is compared to the master of a house.
3i36Bff.; cf. Severianus V, 3-4; Philoponus 239, 17 ff.; Diodorus of Tarsus
1564C; Theodoretus Qu. in Gen. I, 20; Theodos. Mel. 4, 27 ff.; Raleigh I, 2, i.
* De hom. op. 136A, Hom. in uerb. Fac. Hom. 259A: Theod. Mel. 4, 156.;
Peter Comestor 1064A.
s The earliest examples of this topic are Xen. Cyrop. ii, 3, 9; Plat. Prot. 320E ff.;
Arist. De. part. an. iii, .i, 6626, 28 ff. For a collection of passages and discussion,
cf. S. O. Dickerman, op. cit., 48 ff., who refers them to a source before Xenophon and
Euripides, perhaps Protagoras.
' Cf. Dickerman 82.

THE FOLLOWERS OF BASIL 57
he had no hands, his mouth would have to be of the proper shape
to gather food after the manner of beasts, and he would be dumb
(148C). Gregory here discusses a topic also found in the Latin
Hexaemera, what would have been the means of continuing the
race had there been no sin, and concludes that there would have
been no need of marriage then (189A). The soul was made at the
same time as the body (233D).' In the passage dealing with the
physiology of man at the end of the treatise teleology is again a
common motif. The HomiHes on the text ' ' Let us make man ' ' con
tain many of the usual topics but nothing of especial importance.
In the later Greek Hexaemera, Basil and Gregory are by far
the chief authorities. Some authors follow very closely the lead
of Basil — for example, Ambrose, Philoponus, and the pseudo-
Eustathius — or of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa — as Procopius and
the Byzantine chroniclers; but over against these may be set the
authors of Hexaemera of the more unscientific and credulous
variety. Theodorus of Mopsuestia and his teacher, Diodorus of
Tarsus, began this movement, in which the other prominent names
are those of Theodoretus, Severianus of Gabala, and Cosmas
Indicopleustes. These authors disagreed in some matters with
the BasiUan school, and held certain new and distinctive ideas.
Besides this group there belong in this period Johannes Chrysos-
tomus and Anastasius Sinaita, whose Hexaemera are largely of
the allegorical and edifying character, and will therefore receive
but passing notice. The Byzantine chroniclers,' who give short
accounts of the six days' work, form a fourth group; and in addi
tion should be mentioned the Byzantine poet Pisides. His Hexae
meron was the model of Du Bartas, and without giving a clear
account of the six days, presents scientific discussions of the heavens
and their movements, sections dealing with the angels and the
' In setting forth this view he condemns what he calls the Grecizing of Origen
(229Bff.). " The Byzantine chronicles were mere compilations made to serve the particular
purpose of the writer and are hardly to be regarded as separate literary works; Krum
bacher, Byz. Lit. 362. They added nothing new on the Hexaemeron. See in the
index Symeon Logothetes, Syncellus, Cedrenus, Anonymous of the loth century,
pseudo-Polydeuces, Theodosius Melitenus, Leo Grammaticus, Zonaras, Manasses,
Glyca.

58 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
doctrine of the Trinity, and many of the stories drawn from the
Physiologus. Among the writers who follow Basil most closely, Philoponus
and Ambrose are the most important. The former of these, the
Aristotehan commentator, was a learned man, and his De opificio
mundi is really a commentary on Basil's Hexaemeron, which he
tries to explain by using material drawn from Plato,' Aristotle,'
and the astronomers.' PhUoponus aims to defend Basil's posi
tion, and an important part of his work is the defense of Basil
against Theodorus of Mopsuestia and his polemic against the
latter." In his discussions of the numbers six and seven (304,
18 ff.) there are traces of the influence of Philo.
The importance of the Hexaemeron of Ambrose lies in the
fact that it, even more than the translation by Eustathius, intro
duced the ideas of Basil to the western church. As an indepen
dent work the Hexaemeron has little value. In the portion dealing
with the six days proper, Ambrose is almost entirely dependent
upon Basil, with a few reminiscences of Philo.' Ambrose adds
in the last of his homiHes matter concerning the human body,
'He quotes the Timaeus fully 30 times (see Reichardt's index). Most of the
citations are of weU-known passages hke 29E, 30A and 41B. The Platonic statement
that the stars are composed mostly of fire is mentioned with approval; cf. 189, 25 ff.;
186, 3; 118, 13; 120, 7. The statement that love came to exist because woman was
made of Adam's rib (272, 12) seems to be a reminiscence of the Symposium myth.
The definition of philosophy {Theaet. 176B) is quoted with approval, 242, 11. On
the other hand he says that elsewhere he has attempted to refute the doctrine of
dvdp.vTia-1! in Proclus and Plato (288, 5).
"E.g., the discussion of the term "beginning," Philop. 7, 8ff., Basil 16A, Ar.
Met. iv, i; the definition of privation, 69, 6 ff. (esp. 71, 22), Ar. Met. iv, 22; the
discussion of the first-made hght, supra, p. 46; the theory of the elements, supra,
p. 13; cf. also 277, 26 ff., and Ar. De. an. 4120, 15 ff.
3 Aiming to show that Moses' description of the world was in accord with Greek
science. ' For sajring that the angels are circumscribed in space (35, 15 ff.) and were
made with the material world (16, 15 ff.); for calUng the darkness in Gen. 1:2 an
entity (84 ff.); and for disbeUeving in the sphericity of the earth (125, 19 ff.).
3 Cohn-Wendland Phil. Al. Opera, I, Lxiii, cite two passages of the Hexaemeron
as showing Philonic influence (166C ff.; cf. De. op. m. 14, 12 ff.; 225C ff.; cf. De. op.
m. 21, 5 ff.); cf. however Basil 96AB, 169A ff.; in the first case there is surely BasiUan
influence. For Philonic influence on Ambrose see Cohn-Wendland op. cit., Ixii ff.,
lxxxx ff.

THE FOLLOWERS OF BASIL 59
showing that it was admirably contrived by God to meet the needs
of man. The sources of this part of the work stiU remain obscure.'
Ambrose strenuously opposes the theory that there was an
ideal pattern of the world outside of the will of God, who, he
says (124B), made the world non idea quadam duce. Unlike
Basil he says that "in the beginning" may mean "in Christ" as
well as the things suggested by Basil (129C, 130A). This thought
has previously been noted in connection with Theophilus and
Origen. Ambrose is the first to bring into the Hexaemeral tradi
tion the notion that creation took place in the spring.' He made
use of stories about animals such as are found in Basil, both draw
ing from the latter and making some additions of his own, to such
an extent that in the Middle Ages he sometimes was called the
author of the Physiologus.
The tendency in the school of Theodorus was in general to
lay stress upon less important and even fantastic questions sug
gested by the biblical text and upon the discussion of the angelic
hierarchies, and as a result their work has much less significance
than that of the great Cappadocian trio. Nevertheless, Pro
copius and the Byzantine chroniclers borrowed from Theodoretus
and Severianus, though to a less extent than from Basil and Gregory,
and these, with occasional citations of Chrysostom and John of
Damascus, furnish the later period with most of its material.
After Procopius the Hexaemeral writers showed little originaHty
and their work was mere compUation from the sources indicated.
The distinctively new feature of the exegesis of Theodorus and
his foUowers is the contention that the world is not spherical,
' G. Gossel {Quibus ex fontibus Ambrosius in describendo corpore humano hauseril,
Leipzig, 1908) shows that some of Ambrose 's material came from Galen and Apuleius
{De dogmate Platonis). There remains a large amount of matter similar to that
discussed in the thesis of S. O. Dickerman, the source of which cannot be definitely
determined. ' In Pascha Domini {128C). Cf. Beda Hea;. 21B; Honorius ffea;. 256D; Giraldus
Camb. 346; Hrabanus 452B; Conches De phil. m. 57A; Peter Comestor 1059C.
Conches says that this was the opinion of the Hebrews and the Latins, but that the
Egyptians thought that creation came in July. Vergil Georg. ii, 336 ff. expresses the
idea and is cited by Conches. The notion can be traced to Annianus (cited by Syncel
lus 597, 10; I, 6ff.; 4, 19 ff.) who placed creation on March 25. Peter Comestor
tells us that some thought creation came in the fall, because the trees are spoken of
as bearing fruit.

6o THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
but oblong and flat in shape. While this is new to the Hexaemera,
it was certainly earlier in origin and was doubtless part of the
beUef of many of the less educated Christians of the time. Back
of it lies the very ancient symboHcal interpretation of the descrip
tion of the Tabernacle in Exod. 25 ff.' In a passage of PhUo
(De uita Mosis II, 221 ff., Cohn-Wendland) the description of the
Tabernacle is allegorized in this manner.' He states that the
hangings typify the four elements and the Cherubim symboHze
the two hemispheres; he does not, however, give evidence that
he beHeved the earth not to be spherical, but rather the opposite.
From this and apparently from other Hebrew sources this sym-
boHsm passed into Christian literature.' The literal belief that
the universe is shaped like the Tabernacle seems to have been
based upon this notion inherited from the Hebrews together with
the passages in Heb., chap. 8, and 9:23ff. Among the writers
under consideration Cosmas gives the most complete account of
this beUef .
Cosmas states that the earth is oblong in shape and founded
upon its own stabiUty," while the heavens are bent in a lofty
vault to meet the earth upon its longer sides; on the shorter sides
the enclosure is completed by walls. All this is typified by the
table in the Tabernacle, which was two cubits long and one cubit
broad; proportionately, according to the reckoning of Cosmas
(138), the earth measures 12,000 miles from east to west and
6,000 miles from north to south. The firmament, which was
made out of the waters, divides the world, Hke a house, into two
stories (129, 130). The northern and western parts of the earth
are very high and the south is correspondingly depressed (133).
The sun issues from the east, and passing through the south,
ascends northward (134), causing the shadow of night by the
' Cf. A. H. McNeile, The Book of Exodus (Westminster Commentaries, London,
1908), xcii.
= Hence Josephus {Ant. lud. Ill, 182, 183, and Bell. lui. V, 212, 217, cited by
Cohn-Wendland) drew.
3 See Cohn-Wendland 's citations of Clem. Al. Strom. V, 6 and Origen in Exod.
Hom. XIII, 3, which contain matter apparently taken from Philo together with other
material. ¦• With Basil {supra, p. 48) he shows that the earth cannot rest upon a material
foundation but is upheld by God (128-29).

THE FOLLOWERS OF BASIL 6 1
interposition of the northern mountains.' The waved moldings
on the table represent the ocean passing around the inhabited
world, and the rim outside is the land beyond the ocean where
earth and heaven meet and where Paradise is located (135). The
inner part of the Tabernacle represents heaven and the outer
court the earth (163-64). The remainder of this unscientific
theory may be omitted.
A similar view of the shape of the earth was entertained by
Diodorus,' probably by Theodorus, his pupil,' and certainly by
Severianus," nor were they by any means alone in beUeving that
the earth is flat.' Naturally the same writers disbeUeved in the
existence of Antipodes,* nor it is surprising that Severianus (454)
should believe literally Ps. 32:7 (in the LXX), that the clouds are
bags, and that God causes rain by pressing them.
Severianus and Theodoretus introduced two other topics that
were much discussed in this period, the questions when the angels
were created and why Moses did not mention them. It has been
seen (supra, p. 25) that the writer of Jubilees asked the same
question, and that Jubilees directly affected some of the Byzantine
writers; the same motive that led to the recognition of the question
in Jubilees — to reconcile with Genesis such passages as Job 38 : 7 —
operated here as well, as Cosmas shows by citing Job (167).''
' Cf. Eth. Enoch 72:5 (tr. R. H. Charles): "The chariots in which he [sc. the sun]
ascends are driven by the wind, and the sun disappears from the heaven as he sets
and returns through the north in order to reach the east," etc. Cf. Severianus 452 ff.
= Cf. Against Fatalism ap. Phot. cod. 223 (p. 2206 Bekk.).
3 Philoponus 132, 7, says that he thought the world was shaped like a cylinder;
cf. Philop. 125, 19 ff.
¦•He declares that the earth is not round (452, citing Isa. 40:22; Gen. 19:23;
Ps. 18:7; Matt. 24:31); this is followed by Procopius 40B ff. His description of
the sun's course, 452 if., is like that of Cosmas.
5 Cosmas 330 cites Philo Carpathius in confirmation of his own view, but from
the evidence it is diSicult to tell upon what grounds. Lactantius Inst. Ill, 24, con
tests the sphericity of the earth, and Aethicus III, i says that the sun returns to the
east through the south veiled in a cloud.
'Cosmas 120, 157; Procopius 6gB; Lactantius /oc. «<.; Augustine DCD XVI, 9;
Beda De temporum ratione XXXIV; Dreyer, Planetary Systems, Cambridge, 1906,
chap. X (citations).
7 Cf. also Bas. Seleuc. 32A (quoting Job); Zonaras 13, 3 (citing Jubilees); Milton,
P.L. VII 252: "Thus was the first day even and morn; Nor passed uncelebrated
nor unsung By the celestial quires. "

62 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Basil, followed by many of the Fathers, believed that the angels
existed before the universe; Theodorus, with Procopius, Theo
doretus and Cosmas, held that they were made with the world
and were a part of it (supra, p. 45). Moses did not mention
them, however, as Severianus (431) says, because in that case the
IsraeUtes, fresh from heathen Egypt, might have worshiped them;
and this they would have been the more Hkely to do, Theodoretus
says (80A, quoted by Glyca, 145 ed. Bekk.), since they actually
did bow down to images of animals.' Other topics concerning
the angels are discussed — e.g., the angels as guardians;" the
Dionysian orders;' the notion that God's commands in Genesis
were issued for the instruction of the angels." Theodorus and
Cosmas thought that the angels were circumscribed in space'
and that they moved the stars.^
In the details of interpretation most of the writers agreed
with Basil upon many points,^ though in a few they held different
views* or even actively opposed him (supra, pp. 45, 48).
' lobius ap. Phot. cod. 222 also discusses the question; he adds the explanation
that Moses wrote only for the direct instruction of men in this material world and that
the mention of the angels was not necessary for his purpose.
= Cosmas 157; Theod. of Mopsuestia Cow. ire ZacA. 521B; Philop. 21, 3; 252,23;
255, 20; 262, 17; Glyca 165B.
3 Glyca 161B ff. ¦• Theodoretus I, 9; Procopius 48D.
3 Theodorus ap. Philop. 34, 7 (who dissents); Cosmas 157.
' Theodorus ap. Philop. 28, 20; Cosmas 150.
'Cf. notes on Basil supra. Some of the points of agreement are: the discussion
of the meanings of beginning; the explanation of diparos in Gen. 1:2 as referring to
the covering of the earth with water; that the darkness {ibid.) comes from the inter
position of heaven, and that darkness is not an evil principle, but the absence of light;
the theory of the first-made light; the metaphor of a brooding bird as applied to the
spirit in Gen. 1:2; the cooling function of the upper waters; the notion that God's
commands make the water fluid, created the basin of the sea, and gave reproductive
powers to plants and animals; that poisonous herbs are useful as food to certain
birds and animals; the polemic against astrology; the claim that "Let us make"
implies the Trinity.
* As in the West, they tended to call the firmament a hard substance made out
of the waters; infra, p. 81. Some held that the spirit in Gen. 1:2 was merely air;
Theodoretus I, 8; Procopius 45C; Gennadius 1628B; Severianus 436; Diodorus
1563C; cf. Basil 44A, Philoponus 13, 15; Anastasius 869D. There was opposition
to Basil's view of II Cor. 12:2 that Paul was snatched up to the upper heaven where
God dwells. Cosmas 276 says that Paul was taken to the firmament, and Procopius
68B says that he went to Paradise, i.e., on the earth.

THE FOLLOWERS OF BASIL 63
Most of them beUeved, Hke Basil, that "heaven and earth" in
Gen. I : i included aU the elements and that nothing was made
ex nihilo after the first day.' The topic of the pattern world of
ideas is ignored. The waters above the firmament are said to
reflect downward the light of the luminaries and to prevent its
dissolution upward,' and to prevent the melting of the firmament.'
Other topics introduced in the later commentaries are some of
them questions based on the scriptural phraseology — why God
did not bless the stars (Severianus 460) or the plants (Theodorus
I, 17), and why he did bless the seventh day (ibid. I, 21); some are
pedantic discussions of minutiae — the determination of the exact
phase of the moon at its creation (Severianus 449), and the question
whether day or night came first in the days of creation (Procopius
53A ff.). These topics often enter the reahn of the fantastic."
' Severianus 433; Procopius 40A; Cosmas 167 says that God made light and the
human soul out of nothing after the first day and in the presence of the angels.
' Severianus 450; Cosmas 322 ff.; Procopius 72D.
3 Cosmas loc. cit.; Procopius 72C.
< E.g., the introduction of etymologies; the statement that the Hebrew words
for "man" and "fire" are the same and discussion of the symbolism of the fact (Severi
anus 473; Glyca 157D); the acrostic on the name of Adam {supra, p. 27).

CHAPTER VI
AUGUSTINE
Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was the second of the great inno
vators of the Hexaemeral tradition and the chief authority of the
mediaeval Latin writers on creation.' He produced an interpre
tation unique in its self-consistency, depending upon the funda
mental principles of a transcendent God, an eternal ideal world,
and a systematic allegorical explanation of the six days as some
thing other than natural days. With him the physical aspect of
creation is secondary to the metaphysical and theistic; and the
result is that despite its ingenuity and philosophical consistency
his exegesis as such deserves the criticism passed upon it by Suarez :
"uerisimile non est Deum inspirasse Moysi, ut historiam de crea-
tione mundi ad fidem totius populi ideo necessariam per nomina
dierum expHcaret quorum significatio uix inueniri et difficillime
ab aliquo credi posset" (Tract, de op. sex dierum I, ii, 42).
The metaphysical nature of Augustine's works on Genesis
follows directly as the result of his acquaintance with Plato,' and,
' Of his works on Genesis, De Genesi ad Litteram (cited as Lit.) is the most impor
tant and exercised the most influence on the Hexaemera. The passages in the Con-
fessiones (XI ff.) dealing with the transcendence of God and the interpretation of Gen.
1:1-2 are very important. The Imperfectus Liber amd the De Genesi contra Mani-
chaeos were earlier than the above, and were largely superseded by them. De Ciuitate
Dei contains some remarks on the interpretation of Genesis. For discussions of the
philosophy of Augustine, see Nourisson, La philosophie de St. Augustin, 1866; Storz,
Die Philosophie des hi. Augustinus, Freiburg, 1882; G. Loesche, De Augustino Plotini
zante, Jena, 1880; L. Grandgeorge, Saint Augustin et le nio-Platonisme, Paris, 1896.
' According to Saisset, he knew the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Republic, Gorgias, and
Timaeus, to which Nourisson (II, 103, 107) adds the Symposium. The number of
citations of the Timaeus show that he knew that dialogue best. He cites with approval
Tim. 31B and 32B as agreeing with Gen. i : i, DCD VTII, 11; and ibid. XI, 21 he says
that neither in Genesis nor in Tim. 37C does the joy of the creator imply that he
acquired new information. On the other hand he wiU not admit that the angels
(the Platonic gods) created the mortal parts of man {DCD XII, 25, 27; Tim. 41B ff.).
For his conclusion on the subject of Plato's acquaintance with the Bible, supra, p. 12.
Augustine probably knew Plato only in translation; he was not a good Greek scholar
and seems not to have used Greek texts to any extent (see S. Angus, The Sources of
the First Ten Books of Augustine's "De Ciuitate Dei," Princeton, 1906, pp. 240-42).
64

AUGUSTINE 65
even more, the neo-Platonists (supra, pp. 19 ff.). His knowledge of
Aristotle was scant.
It has been shown above (p. 20) that Augustine's conception
of God was to a certain extent neo-Platonic, in that he represents
the creator as out of time and space in a state of transcendent
tranquiUity, working in and through the Word, wherein the ideas or
forms of all things were eternaUy present as the thoughts of God.'
With this hypothesis of an eternal, unchangeable God, whose
purposes and ideas are ever fixed, Augustine is forced to meet
certain fundamental difficulties. In the first place, how can God,
who does not change or move in either time or place, deal with
the material world? This difficulty he solves, or evades, by a
series of subordinations. The two modes of existence, exclusive
of deity, are corporalis and spiritualis, the former moving in both
time and space, the latter only in time (Lit. VIII, 20, 39) ; and of
the latter some creatures have free will and some do not. God,
moving in neither time nor space, communicates inwardly, in a
manner consistent with his own nature, with the spiritual creatures
which have free wills, and the lower natures are subject to them,
while all things are primarily subject to God (ibid. 23, 44; 25, 47).'
The second question, stated in Conf. XI, 10, is a dilemma —
how can the purpose to create arise in God, in consistency with
his immutabiUty? and if the purpose to create was eternally
with God, is not creation coeternal with God ? Augustine admits
that the things which were created "in the beginning," which he
takes to mean "in the Word or Wisdom," are eternal in the sense
that they precede all in time (Conf. XII, 15, 20); stiU the eternity
of God is before them' preceding creation not by passing time but
by unmoving eternity."
' Lit. IV 24, 41 : .... in ipso uerbo . ... in quo sunt omnium, etiam quae
temporaliter facta sunt, aeternae rationes, etc.; ibid. V, 15: haec omnia, priusquam
fierent, erant in notitia facientis, et utique ibi meliora, ubi ueriora, ubi aeterna et incom-
nmtabilia. Storz 193 ff.
' Ct. Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist. I, 6.
3 Conf. XII, IS, 20: etsi non inuenimus tempus ante illam, quia et creaturam tem
poris antecedit, quae prior omnium creata est, ante illam tamen est ipsius creatoris aeter-
nitas, a quo facta sumpsit exordium, quamuis non temporis quia nondum erat tempus,
ipsius tamen conditionis suae.
' DCD XII, 16: quapropter si deus semper dominus fuit, semper habuit creaturam
suo dominatui seruientem .... erat quippe ante illam, quamuis nulla tempore sine
ilia, non earn spatio transcurrente sed manente perpetuitate praecedens.

66 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
This answer depends upon the principle of God's transcen
dence, but the questions which were sometimes asked, what God
did before creation, and why creation came so late, could be
answered by the simple distinction of time and eternity (supra,
p. 7). If there was no time before creation, how can we ask
what God did then ? There was no "then," if there was no time.'
The question why creation came so late is answered by saying
that if it had come any earUer, infinite time would still have pre
ceded it, and finaUy, that time is existent not per se but only
relatively to creation and by God's will (DCD XI, 4-6; cf. Conf.
VH, 5, 15 and XI, 13).'
The Augustinian doctrines founded on the transcendence of
God had great influence on the scholars of the Middle Ages, though
none perhaps was as consistent throughout as Augustine. They
quote him with reference to God's manner of working, and employ
similarly the principle of transcendence to show that creation is
not coeternal with God even though he eternaUy willed to create.'
Augustine with Plato says that God's reason for creating was his
goodness," or in the last analysis his will, and there is nothing higher
than God's will.' Being self-sufficient, he did not need to create.^
' Conf. XI, 13; ibid. 12 he says that he will not make the jocular answer that
God was making a hell for those that seek into mysteries (referred to by DuBartas
Sylvester 3). Cf. also DCD XI, 5; Man. I, 3, and the reminiscence in Hugo of
Amiens 11; Grandgeorge 79 ff.
' The question was proposed by Parmenides fr. 8, 9-10, Diels, and Lucretius v,
168-69; cf. Bruno 156B; Arnold of Chartres 1515D ff.; Milton P.L. VII, 90: "What
cause moved the creator, in his holy rest Through all eternity, so late to build
In chaos ? "
3 Hugo of Amiens i25iCff., in answer to the questions what God did before
creation and how a new desire can arise in him, says: ea ipsa non tempore sed aeterni-
tate praecedit {sc. deus), and again, uerba nostra .... non actionem uel passionem,
non quamlibet uarietatem ponunt in ipsam deitatem. Honorius, Elucid. 1112B: unde
deus dicitur non esse antiquior sua creatione tempore sed dignitate. Cf . Angelomus 1 14A;
Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist. I, 8; Bruno is6B. Sknilar is the thought of Peter
Lombard II, i, 2, that when we say God makes anything we understand non aliquem
in operando motum illi inesse .... sed eius sempiternae uoluntatis nouum ....
efectum; and Albertus Magnus, IV, 73, 3: ab aeterno dixit utfiat, non ab aeterno, sed
tunc quando incepit. This is borrowed by Raleigh, Pref . xlviii.
¦• DCD XI, 21 (citing Tim. 29E); Lit. I, 5, 11; Storz 192.
5 Man. I, 2,4.
^ Lit. I, 5, 11; the neo-Platonists held that God, being self-sufficient, did not
need to create, but did so as a natural and necessary act.

AUGUSTINE 67
In treating of the creative work of God, Augustine rejects the
ordinary belief that the world was created in six natural days
(Lit. IV, 18, 33) and makes the fundamental assumption that it
was one act, in accordance with Gen. 2:4 (Lit. V, 3, 5). In the
beginning, that is, in Wisdom and before time, God made out of
nothing (Man. I, 6) heaven and earth, respectively the angels
and matter whoUy without form.' Formless matter is prior in
origin only, and not by an interval of time, to formed matter, and
therefore never existed as such in this world.' The relation of
the two is illustrated by the example of sound and song or speech;
sound is not made first and then formed into speech, but is pro
duced already formed.' The universe thus made by God had
in itself, just as the seed potentially contains the tree, not only
heaven, earth, and the maxima mundi membra, but also whatever
these have produced, before they arose in periods of time into the
form wherein they now exist (Lit. V, 23, 45). This was brought
about by the fact that in the beginning God placed forms (rationes)
in the universe which later produce things in their genera as we
know them." The Hkeness of this theory to that of the seminal
logoi has been noticed above (p. 16), and it will be observed that
Augustine's rationes are of a dynamic character. He can therefore
name four modes of existence — in the Word, where things are
eternal, not made; in the elements of the world, wherein all things
were made at once; in things which were created in accordance
' Conf. XII, 12, 15: duo reperio quae fecisti carentia temporibus, cum tibi neutrum
coaeternum sit; unum, quod ita formatum est ut sine ullo defectu contemplationis, sine
ullo interuallo mutationis, quamuis mutabile, tamen non mutatum aeternitate atque
incommutabilitate perfruatmr; alterum, quod ita informe erat ut ex qua forma in quam
formam uel motionis uel stationis mutaretur, quo tempori subderetur, non haberet.
' Conf. XII, 29, 40: hoc exemplo qui potest intellegat materiam rerum prima factam
et appellatam caelum et terram, quia inde facta sunt caelum et terra, nee tempore prima
factam, quia formae rerum exserunt tempora, ilia autem erat informis iamque in tem
poribus simul animaduertitur, nee tamen de ilia narrari aliquid potest, nisi uelut tempore
prior sit, etc. Storz 220. For the similar neo-Platonic view ct. Plot. Enn. IV, 3, 9
{supra, p. 16, 11. 5). Raleigh I, i, 4 cites Augustine's view.
3 Conf loc. cit.; Lit. I, 15, 29; the figure is imitated in the Middle Ages; cf.
Angelomus 114B.
¦• Lit. IV, 33: .... deus condidit omnia, quoniam per illam sunt condita; ut hoc
quod nunc uidemus temporalibus interuallis ea moueri ad peragenda quae suo cuique
generi competunt, ex illis insitis rationibus ueniat, tamquam seminaliter sparsit deus
n ictu condendi  " Storz 200.

68 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
with these causes, not at once, but each in its own time; and finaUy
potential existence in seeds (Lit. VI, lo).
The rejection of the ordinary view that the six days are real
periods of time caused Augustine to devise the theory outHned
above (pp. 21 f.), aside from which interpretation the days of
creation have no meaning to him. There are not six different
days, but the first day is repeated — that is, the process of action
of the first day is repeated, and the succession of events in the
Genesis narrative is the succession as presented to the knowledge
of the angels and not a temporal series of separate creations (Lit.
IV, 35, 56); the story of creation is told in the scriptural form for
the benefit of those who would not be able to understand the true
account (ibid. IV, 33, 52; V, 3, 6).'
On the remaining points of interpretation Augustine is not so
far removed from the other writers. The first-made chaos con
tained all the elements.' The explanation of Gen. i : 2 (cf. Man.
I, 3; Lib. imp. 4, 11) is much Hke Basil's, and Hke Basil (Hex. 40C)
he explained the darkness as absence of Hght, and not, as the
Manichaeans claimed, an entity (Man. I, 4; Conf. XII, 3). The
waters over which the spirit of God moved are chaotic matter,
over which God's mind, Hke that of an artisan planning his work,
moved, but not in a spatial sense.' Augustine preferred to under
stand "light" in Gen. 1:3 in the special sense that has been men
tioned, that is, as referring to the angels; but he allows that the
view that it is ordinary Hght may be correct. In case it is spiritual
light, the division of Hght and darkness (Gen. 1:4) is the division
' Cf. Milton P.L. VII, 176: "Immediate are the acts of God, more swift Than
time or motion, but to human ears Cannot without process of speech be told. " Peter
Lombard II, 15, 5.
^ Lit. Ill, 3, 5. He neither explains the interchange of the elements nor denies
that they interchange, although he says that both views are held {ibid. Ill, 3, 4).
Most of the mediaeval commentators held that "earth" in Gen. 1:1 meant the four
elements.

AUGUSTINE 69
of things formed and unformed or the division of the good from
the bad angels.' The expression "God saw that it was good"
does not imply, as the Manichaeans thought, that God acquired
knowledge, but simply indicates his satisfaction (Maw. 1, 8; Lib. imp.
5, 22; Lit. I, 8, 14). This later was a common topic of the Hexae
mera. Throughout his Hexaemeral works, Augustine expresses
great impatience with physical science and a feeUng that it is
useless to discuss such questions. He therefore refrains from
discussing the form of the heavens, agreeing however with Basil
that Isa. 40:22 and Ps. 103:2 describe it sufficiently, and that
they may be taken to mean that the heavens are spherical (Lit.
II, 9, 20-21).
The firmament is so called not because it stands still but because
of its firmness, and because it forms an impassable boundary
between the waters (Lit. II, 10, 23) ; and with regard to the upper
waters Augustine made the often quoted statement: "quoquo
modo autem et qualesUbet aquae ibi sint, esse ibi eas minime
dubitemus; maior est quippe scrip turae huius auctoritas quam
omnis humani ingenii capacitas" (Lit. II, 5, 9).' The suggestion
that the upper waters might. exist in the form of vapor also met
with favor.' With Basil, Augustine declared that the upper
waters act as a cooling agent against the heat of the fires of heaven
(Lit. II, 5, 9).
Gen. 1:8-9 ^'"6 taken to mean that then the earth and water
received their present form, being taken out of the confused mass
of elements (Man. I, 12; Lib. imp. 10), and in Lit. I, 12, 26 the
suggestion is made that previously the water may have been less
' Lit. I, 17, 34; DCD XI, 19. These views were adopted by mediaeval scholars;
the former by Beda Com. 194B; Angelomus 117; the latter by pseudo-Eucherius
896D; Angelomus 118A; Peter Lombard II, 5, 2; 13, 2; Bandinus II, 13; Neckam
I, 3; Rupert of Deutz I, lo; cf. Peter Comestor 1057C.
= Pseudo-Eucherius 897C; Beda Com. 194D, Hex. 19A; Hrabanus 450A; Abelard
743D; Angelomus 119A; Rupert of Deutz 220B; CI. Marius Victor I, 77 ff.: plus
sit tibi credere semper Posse deum quicquid fieri non posse putatur (perhaps with reference
to Augustine). 3 Lit. II, 4, 8; Hugo of St. Victor 35A; Honorius De im. m. I, 138; Hex. 256B;
Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist. I, 20; Spec. nat. I, 28; Peter Comestor 1058C; cf.
pseudo-Eucherius loc. cit. and Angelomus 118D.

70 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
dense and at this time became thickened. This theory was worked
out more thoroughly by Beda and his followers.
With regard to the plants, Augustine says that the existence
of harmful and poisonous herbs is due to man's sin and not to their
creation as such by God (Man. I, 13; Lit. Ill, 18, 28; supra, p. 5).
In connection with the discussion of the stars, he introduces
several topics which have been met with before — the importance
of the sun and moon (Lib. imp. 13, 42) ; the varying length of the
year of several of the planets, and the "great year" of Plato
(ibid. 13, 38), and the polemic against astrology (Lit. II, 17, 35;
cf. supra, p. 52). He does not return a definite answer to the
question whether spirits govern and infuse the stars (Lit. II, 18,
38; supra, p. 32).
The subject of the creation of the birds and fish gives rise to
the topic already seen in Philo and Basil that both the fish and
the birds swim (supra, p. 32, n. 3), and in addition, explaining
why the birds were created out of the water, Augustine shows that
they are able to fly only in the humid air which is closely akin to
water (Man. I, 15; Lib. imp. 14, 44; Lit. Ill, i, i).' He does not,
like Basil and Ambrose, introduce a mass of detail concerning the
Hfe of the birds and beasts, illustrative of God's providence in
their creation, nor are such narratives a part of the Hexaemera
which show Augustinian influence. A topic introduced by him
is the theory that animal life arising from the decay of the bodies
of other animals is not a new creation, but is the result of a natural
force created at first.'
Man's likeness to God Hes in his mental powers and is not
external, and it is because of this excellence that his creation is
given separate treatment in Genesis (Lib. imp. 16, 55;Jlfaw. I, 17;
Lit. Ill, 20, 30). For man, as for the angels, creation and forma
tion is the recognition of God's Word, and because man is a rational
creature both the formulas et sic est factum and et fecit deus are
omitted; for in accordance with Augustine's explanation, they
imply that an irrational thing is first made in the Word and recog-
' Reminiscences occur in Hrabanus 456B; Angelomus 121B; Isid. De ord. creat.
VII, 3-4; Erigena 740A; Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist. I, 26; Peter Comestor
1061C. ' Lit. Ill, 14, 23; cf. Peter Lombard II, 15, 4.

AUGUSTINE 71
nized by the angels, and then is made in its own nature (Lit. Ill,
20, 31-32). The first account of man's creation, in Gen. i, refers
to his invisible, potential, and causal creation (Lit. VI, 6, 10), the
ratio creandi hominis, non actio creati (ibid. 9, 16). God did not
fashion Adam with hands Hke ours; this is a puerile notion
(ibid. 12, 20). It is Hkely that at the time of his creation
Adam was fully developed (ibid. 18),' and inasmuch as provision
was made for his food (ibid. 21), his body then formed was immortal,
not in the sense non posse mori, but in the sense posse non mori.^
The ideas that man lost his power over the beasts by his sin (supra,
p. 5) and that man in contrast with the beasts stands erect (supra,
p. 10) are topics of the Hexaemera before Augustine. Man's
soul is incorporeal and immortal, but it is not drawn from the
divine nature, but is made out of nothing.' As to the time when
it was created, Augustine will not make any definite assertion, ^^
but it appears to hun most probable that the human soul and the
ratio causalis from which the body developed at the proper time
were created when God made all things together, and were joined
when God breathed on Adam's face (Lit. VII, 24, 35). Like
Basil, Augustine concluded from the use of the plural in "Let us
make" tha^jtheJTrinity is meaiit (supra, p. 52).
The general character of Augustine's conception of the rest of
God has already been noted. It is the timeless tranquiUity of the
creator; but explanation had to be made of the statement in
John 5:17, that God works even now. Augustine's answer, that
God ceased to create new genera, but continues to sustain the
world, became the classic solution of the difficulty." He adds a
Hst of things symbolized by the rest of God — man's rest in God,
man's rest after his good works, the rest of Christ in the tomb,
' So the mediaeval writers asserted, Beda Com. 205C; Honorius Hex. 2S8C;
Remi s6B; Peter Lombard H, 17, 4; Bandinus II, 17; Peter Comestor 1066D.
' Ibid. 25. Citations of this are found in Beda Hex. 32B, Com. 206A; Angelomus
124A; Peter Comestor 1064C.
3 Lit. VII, 28, 43; cf. Beda Hex. 43B, Com. 206A; Peter Comestor 1066C; Peter
Lombard II, 17, 2.
4 Lit IV, 12, 22; cf. Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. hist. I, 30; Eugenius Toletanus,
Monosticha; pseudo-Eucherius 901D; Beda /Tea;. 34D, 36A; Com. 202D; Angelomus
I25B- Thierry of Chartres 57; Hrabanus 465 A; Peter Lombard II, 15, 6; Bandinus
11,15'; Rupert of Deutz 259A; Hildebert 12 18A; Alcuin fr. in Gen. 1636; Glyca 29B;
Cl'. Marius Victor I, 171; Peter Comestor 1065A; Raleigh I, 2, 7; Abelard 769D.

72 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
and the Jewish Sabbath.' Augustine is also the first to make use
of the topic of the seven ages of the world, which he connects by
elaborate analogies to the days of creation and the seven ages of
man (Man. I, 23), a topic which was extremely popular among
his followers.' Ambrose, following Philo, had already spoken
of the seven ages of man, in connection with the number seven,
and Augustine apparently combined material from these sources
with the old Hebrew notion of the world-week (supra, p. 27).
' Man. 1,22; Lit. IV, 11; cf . Cl. Marius Victor I, 1 78 ff . and Eugenius Toletanus,
Monosticha. ' Of the followers of Augustine, Abelard 771D, and Honorius De im. m. II, 75,
give the ages of the world in connection with those of man; pseudo-Eucherius 903B,
Beda Hex. 36B and Com. 203, Honorius Hex. 259C, and Bruno 160A connect them
with the days of creation. The terms employed vary somewhat, but are similar to
those of Augustine. Cf. also DCD XXII, 30, 5. For the seven ages of man, see
Philo 37, 10 ff.; Ambrose Ep. 44, 10; Anast. Sin. 949C; Eugenius Toletanus; Vic
torinus Petauionensis 313A.

CHAPTER VII
ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE
The period from 430 a.d., the date of the death of Augustine,
until the Renaissance produced a great number of Hexaemera.
Most of the poetical versions of the Genesis story were written
soon before or after 430, but their interest does not faU in this
field because in general they do not attempt to comment upon the
creation story.'
Perhaps the most important single work of this period is the
epoch-making De divisione naturae of Johannes Scotus Erigena,
which contains an interpretation of the Hexaemeron highly inter
esting in itself, but of a heterodox character that diminished its
influence. Neo-Platonism, which came to him through the pseudo-
Dionysius, is the dominating influence in Erigena, but his citations
show that he was also famiHar with Basil, Ambrose, Gregory,
Origen, Maximus Confessor, and Augustine, and with the Timaeus
probably in the version of Chalcidius.
The philosophy of Erigena centers in the notion that every
thing, in so far as it exists, exists in God, and his interpretation
of the six days' work is a reconciUation of the Scriptures with his
own theory that the divine goodness proceeds from itself first into
the ideal types, second into the larger subdivisions of corporeal
things, and third into individual things (III, 19, 681BC; 27,
700C ff.).
' The poems of Cl. Marius Victor and Eugenius Toletanus are exceptions. The
former gives a. description of the Trinity in theological terms; it recognizes, and
attempts to reconcile, the two accounts of creation in Genesis (U. 15-21), argues
against the eternity of matter (22-47), says that the upper waters protect us against
the fires of heaven (66 ff.), and in discussing the two accounts of the creation of man
gives evidence that the author was familiar with the speculation on this matter, such,
e.g., as is found in Augustine Lit. Cf. also I, 171 ff., 178 S. with Aug. Lit. IV, 12, 22;
II, 21. The Monosticha of Eugenius, which supplements the poem of Dracontius,
is thoroughly Augustinian; cf. 1. 8: qui semper requielus agit faciensque quiescit with
Augustine's doctrine of God's rest. Eugenius also derives from Augustine a hst of
things symboUzed by the seventh day. 73

74 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Erigena conceives of God as a trinity. He is called essentia,
but the term is not correct; for he is vTrepova-io<;, v-7repdyado<; ^
virepaXr^Orj'; , mrepatd)vi,o<i, v7repa-o(j>o'; (I, 5, 459D); and after a
discussion of the categories Erigena concludes that God is above
them aU (ibid. 463B; I, 72, 5i8Aff.). God's action therefore is
thus defined : "cum ergo audimus deum omnia facere, nil aliud
debemus inteUegere, quam deum in omnibus esse, hoc est, essentiam
omnium subsistere. ipse enim solus per se uere est, et omne,
quod uere in his, quae sunt, dicitur esse, ipse solus est. nihil enim
eorum, quae sunt, per se ipsum uere est. quodcumque autem in
eo uere inteUegitur, participatione ipsius unius qui solus per se
ipsum uere est accipit" (I, 17, 518A).
The second of the classes of things, after God, is the created
creating, that which the Greeks called the TrpcoTOTvira, Oela BeXrjuaTa
and t'Se'at (H, 1-2), usually termed by Erigena causae primordiales.
They are Platonic ideas, but as in Philo and the neo-Platonists,
they are thoughts of God, perfect and immutable (II, 15, 547A).
The old difficulty of the Hexaemera now arises before Erigena—
if God is immutable, how can he be moved at any time to create ?
and on the other hand, how can creation be coeternal with him?
Erigena's answers bear some traces of having received suggestions
from Augustine, with whom they may be compared; briefly they
are as follows. God is always the cause, and it is therefore not
accidental for him to create the forms; the latter are eternal in
their cause, the Word, but since they are created by the Deity,
and that which is created is never coeternal with that which
creates, they are not coeternal with God. They are thus both
created and eternal (II, 8, 9; 21, 561C; III, 11, 656C). Existing
in his Word, the forms are the will of God and God is never without
his will (III, 17). Finally, we must understand that the creator
and the created are not two different things, but the same thing;
whatever is, even matter itself, gets its being from God (III, 17).
Erigena then does not with the other Christian writers assert
that God created matter out of nothing except in a special sense.
The divine goodness, which is a negation of being because it is
above being, is "nothing." Creation is the procession of the
divine goodness from the negation of being to its affirmation,

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 75
from itself into itself, from formlessness into formation; for the
divine wisdom is not subject to any superior form, but is itself
the form of forms.' Thus all things are theophaniae.
In accordance with these principles Erigena interprets the
story of creation in Genesis. "In the beginning" is "in the Son"
(III, 18). "Heaven" refers to the primordial causes of intelH
gible and celestial beings, and "earth" to those of the corporeal
world (II, 15). Before these things came forth into forms and
species, and while they lie concealed in the Word, they are incom
prehensible, and by means of this thought Erigena interprets
Gen. 1 : 2 (III, 24). The earth (i.e., the causes of corporeal things)
is unformed and void before proceeding in time and space into
the forms of corporeal things, and the causes of intelligible things
are called "abyss" and said to be covered with darkness because
they are perceived by no other intellect other than that in which
they were formed (II, 16-17). The spirit of God is said to be
borne over the abyss because it alone is superior to the causes
of intelHgible things and is their source (II, 19).
Erigena agrees with Augustine that all things were created at
once and that the division into six days is not a temporal but a
logical distinction. Formlessness and formation do not succeed
each other temporally, but naturali quadam praecessione et sequentia
(III, 9), and to illustrate this he uses the same figure as Augustine,
that of the voice and words (III, 27; supra, p. 67). Creation
took place in the number six because of the perfection of six (III,
11; III, 27).
After setting forth the interpretations of Gen. 1:3 offered by
the schools of Augustine and Basil, Erigena says that "Let there
' III 19, 681C ff.: diuina igitur bonitas, quae propterea nihilum dicitur, quoniam
ultra omnia quae sunt et quae non sunt in nulla essentia inuenitur, ex negatione omnium
essentiarum in affirmationem totius uniuersitatis essentiae a se ipsa in se ipsam descendit,
ueluti ex nihilo in aliquid, ex inessentialitate in essentialitaiem, ex informiiate in formas
innumerabiles et species, prima siquidem ipsius progressio in primordiales causas, in
quibus fit, ueluti informis quaedam materia a scriptura dicitur; materia quidem, quia
initium est essentiae rerum, informis uero, quia informitati diuinae sapientiae proxima
est. diuina autem sapieniia informis rede dicitur quia ad nullam formam superiorem
se ad formationem suam conuertitur, est enim omnium forinarum infinitum exemplar,
el dum descendit in diuersas uisibilium et inuisibilium formas ad se ipsam ueluti ad
formationem suam respicit.

76 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
be light" refers to the procession of the causes into their effects,
their existence in the Word being comparable to darkness and their
procession into their effects like the Hght (III, 24-25). The term
"one day" is used instead of "first" because the causes and effects
are really one, being different aspects of the same thing (III, 25).
He interprets the upper waters as the spiriluales omnium
uisibilium rationes (III, 26); the lower waters are the individual
things that arise and pass away in the lower world, and the firma
ment between the two is the mediary, the simple elements (ibid.).
The words "let there be Hght" and similar commands refer to the
special creation of the causes generally mentioned in Gen. 1:1,
while et facta est lux, et fecit deus firmamentum or et factum est ita
denote the procession of the causes into their effects (III, 27).
He says that Basil's is the accepted interpretation of the verse
regarding the making of the land and the sea, but to him the sea
typifies the mutability of matter endowed with quaUty and sub
ject to generation and decay, while the dry land signifies the formae
substantiates which suffer no change, and by participation in which
individuals and species are made, i.e., the class forms, like "man"
(in, 27).
Gen. I : i i-i 2 mean that the uis seminalis of the herbs and trees,
causally created in the rationes substantiarum, came forth into
species, and similarly the creation of the luminaries as given in
Genesis refers to the procession from cause to form (III, 32).
There is a long digression on the music of the spheres and the use
of the stars as signs. Speaking of the production from the waters,
Erigena allows that there is Hfe, anima, in the plants, but not uiuens
anima as in the animals (728Aff.). The creation of the animals
in species shows that the art of dialectic is not the invention of
men but was placed in the very nature of things by God (IV, 4).
Man was created with the other animals (IV, 5) but was pre
ferred above them by being made in the image of God; to inquire
why he was made an animal and at the same time in God's image
is too presumptuous (IV, 7). Man typifies the whole universe,
having intellect with the angels and in his body all the parts of
the corporeal world; so again he shows the nature of God (IV, 5 ff.).
However, real human nature, as created by God, is not that which

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 77
is subject to the senses and to the distinction of sex; it was the
true image of God; but man by his own wiU deserted this condi
tion and became like the animals (760D ff.).
By the rest of God on the seventh day is meant the intelligible
Sabbath, when aU sensible things shall rest in the intelHgible, aU
intelHgible things in their causes, and the causes in the cause of
causes, God (V, 37, 991C).
As for the other Hexaemera of this period, their first characteris
tic is eclecticism, the citation, comparison, and discussion of pre
viously expressed opinions, rather than the formation of original
views. Furthermore, although Augustine was the great authority
from whom all drew and to whom was accorded universal respect,
there was a constantly growing tendency to eUminate the abstrac
tion of Augustinianism, and to present a more concrete exegesis,
representing the successive creations as the steps in a physical
process. Some of the earUer Hexaemera, for example those of
the pseudo-Eucherius, Angelomus, and the Commentary of Beda,
are distinctly Augustinian; but there grew up a dissatisfaction,
the germ of which is found in the Hexaemeron of Beda, with the
Augustinian doctrines of the creation of all things at once and the
allegorical interpretation of the six days.
In keeping with the above is the third distinguishing tendency
of the Hexaemera of this period, increased interest in more minute
and sometimes entirely irrelevant questions suggested by the
phraseology of the Scriptures, or by science, pseudo-science,
theology, angelology, demonology, and the like, in the discussion
of which the authors display more pedantry and creduUty than
even their predecessors of antiquity.
These characteristics are perhaps partially due to the fact
that Greek philosophy and especially Plato were unknown to the
mediaeval writers except through the medium of translation or
quotation. Their sources were the better known Fathers— Augus
tine, Ambrose, BasU, and Jerome; and without the direct influence
of the Greeks they were unable to give the atmosphere of ideaUsm ;
which seems never to have been achieved in this form of Htera
ture unless the writers came under the influence of Plato's cos
mology. The direct influence of the Greek philosophers in the

78 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
early part of this period was inconsiderable, except in the case
of Aristotle in the Middle Ages; and Platonism came down
chiefly through Macrobius, Apuleius, Boethius, Chalcidius, and St.
Augustine. A few stock references to Plato were made (supra,
p. ii,n. 2).
The best index of the prevaiHng type of interpretation at this
period is a comparison of their doctrines with those of Augustine
on questions where a difference of opinion arose. The latter
had stated that in Gen. 1:1 "heaven" meant the angels and
"earth" the chaos of matter; that aU things were created, form
and matter together, in the beginning of time; and that the six
days of creation were in reaHty the six stages in which the creation
was displayed to the angels. In this manner the first chapter of
Genesis was reconcUed with Gen. 2:4, "in the day that the Lord
God made the earth and the heavens." This explanation was
seldom accepted in its entirety,' although it is frequently men
tioned,' and portions of it were adopted in somewhat modified
form.' But in general the commentators, headed by Beda, pre
ferred to understand the six days to be real days," explaining
Gen. 2:4 by asserting that in the latter passage dies means "space
of time," not "day",' and that all things were created at once
in the sense that the first heaven and earth contained the sub
stance of all things, i.e., matter, which with Augustine they
would not admit was made wholly without form, and which was
'Pseudo-Eucherius 897Aff. adopts Augustine's explanation of "evening" and
"morning," and Abelard 745C ff. says the days are not those which we measure;
they are to be understood as the distinction of the works; "evening" is the concep
tion in God's mind, "morning" its performance and completion.
^ Hugo of St. Victor 33B; Honorius Hex. 26oAff.; Vincent of Beauvais Spec.
nat. II, 15 ff.
3 Beda Com. 193D and passim, though thinking of the days as real, is reminiscent
of Augustine. It is frequently stated that "evening" is the end of one work and
"morning" the beginning of the next; Honorius Eluc. 1113B; Angelomus 118C;
Remi 56A; Augustine Lit. IV, 18, 32 is the source. The angels are identified with
the light: Neckam I, 3; Honorius Eluc. 1112D; Angelomus 116D; Peter Lombard
II, 13, 2; Bandinus II, 13; Rupert 207D. Arnold of Chartres (see index) gives an
explanation of the six days that was undoubtedly suggested by Augustine.
¦• So Suarez, Tract. I, lo-ii, after discussing and rejecting the interpretations of
Augustine and Philo; cf. Hugo of St. Victor 35A.
s Beda Hex. 39B; Hugo of St. Victor 38B.

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 79
formed in six days into this world.' From failure to emphasize the
causales rationes which, according to Augustine, were implanted in
the first creation and gave rise to the genera and species of things,
the commentators finaUy came to absolute dissent with him in this
matter, declaring that species were made after substance.' In this
may be seen a reversion to the older exegesis of Basil and Ambrose.
The writers sometimes state that God's work consists of creation,
disposition, and adornment.'
Disagreement with these fundamental doctrines of Augustine
naturally brought with it other important differences. There was
a growing tendency to explain "heaven" in Gen. i:i, identified
by Augustine with the angels, as a place, to enumerate the different
heavens," and to give an account of the first three verses wherein
the light is material, not, as Augustine said, the information of
the angels by their conversion to God. Beda here again was the
leader, and his influence may be traced in practically all the Hexae
mera that were not thoroughly Augustinian. His account (Hex.
iSAff.), which owes much to Augustine and to Ambrose, is as
follows. Earth and water are expressly mentioned in Gen. 1:2,
and the other elements must be considered to be present, fire in
the iron and stone in the earth, and air in the earth itself, as exha-
' Beda Hex. 15B; Hugo of St. Victor 34B {non ex toto carens forma sed ad compara-
tionem sequentis pulchritudinis et ordinis) ; Hugo of Amiens loc. cit.
' Beda Com. 205B : ergo ilia omnia primitus fuerunt non mole corporis aut magni-
tudine, sed ui potentiae causalis; cf. Hex. 39C. This practically agrees with Augus
tme. But cf. Gregorius Magnus, Moralia in lob, MPL LXXVT, 644D: rerum
quippe substantia simul creata est sed simul species formata non est (cited by Remi 59C) ;
Hugo of Amiens 1253C; Thierry of Chartres 53; Bruno 147B, 161A; Peter Lombard
II, 7; II, 8; Bandinus II, 7; Angelomus 127A; Peter Comestor io6sD. Albertus
Magnus IV, 72, 2, 3 and Vincent of Beauvais Spec. nat. II, 23 ff. comment on the
difference of opinion.
3 Peter Comestor ios6B, Vincent of Beauvais Spec. nat. II, 25.
'¦ Beda Com. 192B names seven heavens— air, ether, Olympus, fiery space, fir
mament, heaven of the angels, and heaven of the Trinity, and assigns to Jerome's
authority three— the last three mentioned. With Strabus 68C, Remi 55A, Peter
Lombard II, 2, 6, and Bandinus II, 2, use a formula defining the first heaven as the
empyrean, fiery, intellectual heaven, so called from its splendor, because it is always
full of angels, and not because of its heat; Neckam I, 3 enumerates the caelum trini-
tatis, empireum, sidereum, aerium. Cf. also Hrabanus 44SA; Vincent of Beauvais
Spec. hist. I, 7; Spec. nat. I, 28; Isidorus De ord. creat. Ill, 4; Peter Comestor 10558.

8o THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
lations show.' There was not a complete chaos, but the earth
was much like that portion which is now covered by the sea; the
waters, completely covering the earth, reached as high as the
waters above the firmament.' The first created Hght, which is
not the light in which the angels dwelt (i6B, quoting Basil), but
material Hght, shone on the lower portions of the universe, light
ing the region now Hghted by the sun (17A). From Ambrose he
takes the naive explanation that if divers can see under water by
emitting oil from their mouths, God can surely cause light to
shine in the water.' The explanation of the separation of the
light and darkness of course depends upon the view taken of the
light." Some, following Augustine DCD XI, 19, take it to be
the separation of the good and the bad angels; others, following
Lit. I, 17, 34, call it the separation of formed and unformed things
(supra, p. 68). But in the Hexaemeron (17C) Beda says that the
light was divided so as to shine in the upper and not the lower
parts of the earth, and that it passed under the earth, making a
day of twenty-four hours with morning and evening, precisely as the
sun does. Hrabanus (448C) follows him. This of course confficts
with the meaning of "morning "and "evening" given by Augustine,
but many of the writers show reminiscences of the latter.
The efforts to give a concrete definition of the firmament and
the waters above it are also typical of the time. In general, two
opinions were current, that of Basil, according to which the firma
ment is not soHd but simply a dividing space in the heavens,'
'This is Basilian; jm/^o, p. 46. Cf. Hrabanus 446A; Angelomus 11 sD; Remi
SSA. " Hrabanus 446C; Remi loc. cit.; Neckam I, 3; Strabus 69D.
' Ambrose 142B; cf. Basil 45B. Beda loc. cit.; Hrabanus 448A; Angelomus
117B; Peter Lombard II, 13, 3. Remi 55B says that the hght was like our twihght;
cf. Peter Comestor 1057B. It is called lucida nubes in Hugo of St. Victor 34D, Peter
Comestor loc. cit. and Peter Lombard op. cit. 2; cf. Du Bartas in Sylvester's trans
lation: "Whether about the vast confused crowd For twice six hours he spread a
shining cloud"; Milton, P.L. VII, 247: "Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourned the while. "
¦• Traces of the Augustinian doctrine of the hght are seen in Beda Com. 193D;
Honorius Hex. 261A; Strabus 67B; Neckam I, 3. Arnold of Chartres i5i9Aff.
holds the hght to be God himself, who reveals the world to Adam.
s Cf. Isid. De ord. creat. IV, 8; Rupert of Deutz 219A; Vincent of Beauvais
Spec, hist.l, 20; Angelomus 1 18D; Peter Lombard II, 14, 2; Bandinus II, 14; accord
ing to the latter two, some thought it fiery.

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 8 1
and the more popular opmion that it was a soUd thing, made out
of the waters,' and either ice' or crystalHne.' The waters above
the firmament were sometimes said to be water," sometimes ice,'
sometimes vapor (supra, p. 69, n. 3), whUe on the other hand
some tried to explain this scriptural difficulty by aUegorical means;*
and many repeat the statement of Augustine, that whatever the
nature of the waters, we must beUeve in them, for the authority
of the Scriptures is greater than the capacity of man's mind (supra,
p. 69), or that of Beda, that what the waters are and what their
use is, God alone knows.' Beda's theory of the congregation of
the waters — (Hex. 20B) — that they were at this > time thickened
from the consistency of clouds to their present density and thus
made to occupy less space than before,' and that the hoUows to
receive them were then made» — reappears many times among
these authors.
Although in the above cited specific instances and in the tone
of the whole work the mediaeval writers differ much from Augus
tine, certain of Augustine's doctrines are fundamental with them
and incidentally many topics are taken from him. For example,
from Augustine is derived the idea that God's working, being
neither in time nor space, is wholly unlike human working; in
support of which Lit. I, 18, 36 is often quoted (supra, p. 21).
'Beda Hex. 18BC; Peter Lombard H, 14, i; Bandinus loc. cit.; Hugo of St.
Victor 3SA; Vincent of Beauvais loc. cit.; Isid. op. cit. IV, 4; Peter Comestor 1058A.
» Angelomus 119A; Conches denies this, De phil. m. 57D ff.
3 Beda, Lombard, Bandinus, Vincent, Hugo, Comestor II. cc; Honorius Hex.
2S6A, Hrabanus 449C.
•• Rupert of Deutz i, 23 thinks this reasonable.
5 Remi 56A; Abelard 743B; Peter Comestor 1058C (suggests as a possibility);
cf. Vincent of Beauvais loc. cit.
<> E.g., Beda Com. 195B, giving several allegorical explanations; Hildebert 1213B;
Peter Damianus ap. MPL CXLV, 992BC.
7 Beda Hex. 19A; Peter Lombard II, 14, i; Bandinus II, 14; cf. Bruno 151C:
utrum .... superiores aquae firmamento interposito naturam mutauerint non facile
dixerim. 8 Suggested by Augustine Lit. I, 12, 26; cf. Hrabanus 451B; Angelomus 119D;
Lombard II, 14, s; Bandinus II, 14; Strabus 69D; Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist.
I 21- Spec.' nat. V, 3 (where he opposes the theory, suggesting that the upper part of
the vapor was rarefied into am and only the lower part condensed); Bruno 1516;
Peter Comestor 1059B.
9 BasiHan in origin; cf. Hrabanus, Angelomus, Lombard, Bandinus, Comestor II. cc.

82 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
They also frequentiy discuss the questions which Augustine
treated at great length— what God did before creation; how a
desire to create can arise in an immutable God; and why, if God
always had the desire and intention to create, the world is not
coeternal with him (supra, pp. 65 ff.). Furthermore the beUef
of the mediaeval writers that the commands of God in Genesis
are in the Word is founded on Augustine's doctrine (supra, p. 21).
The mediaeval Hexaemera in general discuss nearly the same
topics; some of these have their source in Augustine, some may
be traced back of Augustine, and some are the product of the
pedantic curiosity which was stated above to be characteristic of
the time. As examples of themes which occur very commonly
in these works, the following will serve: that "in the beginning"
means "in the Word" (passim); that from the wording of Gen.
1:2 heaven was not unformed and void like the earth;' that the
darkness was not an entity, but the absence of Hght (supra, p. 23) ;
that birds and fish were both created out of the water because of
the Hkeness of moist air to water (supra, p. 70) ; the comparison
of the passage of the spirit of God over the waters to the passage
of the will of the artisan over his work (supra, p. 68, n. 3); that
the second day is not blessed because the number two, which is
the first to go beyond unity, is the principle of evil;' that the soul
of man is not made from God's nature (supra, p. 71) ; the question
how the race would have been propagated had there been no sin;'
the imprisonment of the fallen angels in the lower air;" that sin
is responsible for the harm done by animals, poisons, and thorns
(supra, p. 5, n. 4); that "Let us make" in the account of man's
creation is evidence of the trinity (supra, p. 52); that the "image"
' Brxmo 148B; Honorius Hex. 255A; Angelomus iisA; Aethicus I, i, 2; Hra
banus 44SA; Bandinus II, 2; Arnold of Chartres 1518C.
^ Remi 56B; Peter Lombard II, 14, 4; Bandinus II, 14; Peter Comestor 1058D;
Vincent of Beauvais Spec. nat. II, 24 says: tradunt enim Hebraei quod in secunda
angelus f actus est diabolus, and makes this the reason (apparently drawing from Comes
tor loc. cit.).
3 Beda Com. 201A; Erigena IV, 12; Angelomus 123B; Rupert of Deutz 254;
Peter Comestor 1064B. Augustine discussed this topic.
¦•An Augustinian topic; Lit. Ill, 10, 14-15; cf. Neckam I, 3; Peter Lombard
II, 6, 3; Bandinus II, 6; Rupert of Deutz 214B; Vincent of Beauvais Spec. hist. I, 10.

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 83
of God in man is internal (supra, p. 32); that creation took place
in the spring (supra, p. 59, n. 2); that God's goodness is the
reason for creation (supra, p. 5, n. i); that God's rest on the
seventh day means that he ceased to create new genera, but con-
tmues to support the universe (supra, p. 71, n. 4); the erect
stature of man (supra, p. 10, n. 3) ; that time was made with the
world; why so Httle was said of the angels and heaven;' why
man was assigned food if he was made immortal (supra, p. 71);
topics concerning the angels;' discussion of astronomical topics.
In general the mediaeval Hexaemera conform to the type that
has just been described; in the twelfth century, however, there
were certain new developments. Briefly, these are the tendency
to explain creation as a continuous physical process depending
upon the working out of natural causes, and the renewed influx
of the influence of Plato, the neo-Platonists, and Erigena.
In the movement first mentioned, Beda, with his account of
Gen. 1:2, partiaUy adapted from Augustine, was the real leader,
and was foUowed in the essentials of his exegesis by Hrabanus,
Remi, Honorius, Bruno, Hugo of St. Victor, Peter Lombard,
Bandinus, WilUam of Conches, and Vincent of Beauvais. Thierry
of Chartres, however, and to a less extent William of Conches,
probably taking their start from the principles of Beda, carried
this variety of interpretation much farther. Thierry appHes it
to the whole narrative of creation. In Gen. 1:1, "heaven," he
states, means fire and air, and "earth" is earth and water; of
these, fire is active, earth is passive, and the others are inter
mediary.' The heavens cannot stand still because of their Hght-
ness, and since they cannot go forward, they revolve. In their
' Beda Hex. 16A; Hugo of St. Victor 38D; Hrabanus 447A; Honorius Hex.
2S3B; the reason usually given was that Moses wrote primarily for the instruction
of the inhabitants of this world. Raleigh 1, i, 4, says that it was because of the hmited>
understanding of the Israelites.
= E.g., the nine Dionysian orders, passim; the fall of Lucifer and its cause, and
the functions of the angels as guardians, passim; the question whether the angels
have bodies (Rupert of Deutz 4; Peter Lombard II, 8; Bandinus II, 8); whether all
grades of angels are sent as messengers (Lombard II, 10).
'Supra, p. 14. The whole statement is reminiscent of Plato's arrangement
of the elements in proportion, especially as Thierry (58) says that God proportionaliter
adaptauit the quaUties of the elements. Thierry, as will be seen, knew the Timaeus.

84 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
first revolution, the highest element of heaven, fire, Hghted the
highest of the lower elements, air, and through the medium of the
air warmed the water. As the result, some of the water rose and
was suspended in the form of vapor over the lower world, and with
the second movement of the heaven, the second day, the air slid
into the space between the vaporized water and the fluid water
below, forming the firmament (54). By the diminution of the
water in this way, and by the continuation of the heating process
during the third revolution of the fire, land was made to appear
in the form of islands, and the heat gave to the earth, still mingled
with the water, the power to produce vegetable forms. The
stars too were made from waters drawn up into the firmament.'
The action of heat on the earth and sea also produced the fish,
birds, beasts, and man. WilHam of Conches, who in general held
to the interpretation of Beda, agreed with Thierry in the latter
particular, the creation of living beings by the action of heat, and
to justify himself against the criticism that this detracted from
God's power, he contended that it rather exalted God's power to
hold that God gave things such a nature and created the human
body through the operation of nature (De phil. mund. 56B).'
The renewed interest in Plato at this time affected the Hexae
meral writers in various degrees, leading some merely to cite him,
others to frame portions of their doctrine by his aid, and at least
one author, Bernard of Tours, to write a Platonic account of
creation based almost entirely upon the Timaeus. ' Chalcidius was
StiU the medium through whom Plato was known. In particular,
the doctrines of the pattern of the world in God's Word, the soul
of the universe, and the chaotic state in which matter existed at
first, show Platonic influence.
' They are made from water because nothing is visible unless it opposes some
obstacle to the vision (56); air and fire do not do this, and earth is too heavy to be
drawn up; and moreover, things are nourished by likes, and the old philosophers
say that the stars are nourished by water.
' Cf. K. Werner, "Die Kosmologie und Naturlehre des scholastischen Mittelalters
mit spezieller Beziehung auf Wilhehn von Conches," Sitzungsb. d. k. Ak. Wiss.,
Phil.-Hist. Kl., Wien, 75, 320. Wilhelm's blimt statement, non enim ad litteram
credendus est constasse primum hominem {loc. cit. 56A) and some of his other theories
gave offense, and he was obliged to make retractions in a later work.

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 85
In the earUer works of this period but Httle emphasis was
on the theory of the existence of the forms of things in the Word,
although this was a part of the teaching of Augustine. Now, in
the authors who show their knowledge of Plato by citing him,
this topic is again taken up. So Honorius (De im. mund. I, 2)
says: "creatio mundi quinque modis scribitur. uno quo ante
tempora saecularia immensitas mundi in mente diuina concipitur,
quae conceptio archetypus mundus dicitur .... secundo, cum
ad exemplum archetypi hie sensibiUs mundus in materia creatur,
sicut legitur, qui manet in aeternum creauit omnia insimul. tertio
cum per species et formas sex diebus hie mundus formatur." The
other modes are, respectively, creation by man and the final
renewal of aU things by God. While the general tone is Augus
tinian, the expression archetypus mundus in the above passage is
aUied to Platonism. Honorius shows that he was familiar with
the Timaeus by citing the beginning of that dialogue in Hex. 2 63 A
and saying that Plato there used the words "one, two, three'
because he knew the virtue of the perfect number six, and that
the numbers refer respectively to God, the spiritualis creatura
and the corporeal world.
Abelard, in speaking of the archet)^e, definitely associates
Plato with the idea, and is very Hberal in his treatment of him:
"quasi bina sit omnium rerum creatio, una quidem primum in
ipsa diuinae prouidentiae ordinatione, altera in opere. secundum
quas etiam duas creationes duos esse mundos, unum uideHcet
inteUegibilem, alterum sensibUem, astruxere philosophi. quod nee
ab euangeUca dissidet discipUna, si sententiae ueritatem magis
quam uerborum attendamus proprietatem .... item nee Plato
quidem in hoc errauit quia esse mundum intellegibilem dixit, si
non uocabulum quod ecclesiasticae consuetudini in re ilia minune
usitatum est sed ipsam rem uolumus attendere. mundum quippe
Ule intellegibilem nuncupauit ipsam rationem qua fecit deus
mundum. quam qui esse negat sequitur ut dicat irrationabihter
deum fecisse quae fecit.'" He is of course wrong in identifying
' Hex. 737D ff. The last sentence is reminiscent of Augustine Retract. I, 3;
cf. also Aug. De diu. quaest. 83, qu. 46.

86 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
the Platonic pattern and the Christian Word. The same kind of
Platonism is shown in the following stanzas of his hymns :
Opus dignum opifice In ortum mundi sensilis
pulchrum indissolubile mundus intellegibilis
ad exemplar fit perfect issimum caelo simul et terra condito
instar cuncta concludens optimum. de diuino iam prodit animo.
—MPL CLXXVIII, I77S. —Ibid. 1776.
Abelard also refers to Tim. 29E ff. in connection with the phrase
"God saw it was good" (Hex. 766B), and to show that the will of
God can keep ice above fire, in the discussion of the upper waters.
he quotes 41B in the version of Chalcidius slightly modified.
The notion of the pattern of the world, containing aU the forms
of things, is also found in Thierry of Chartres and Bernard of
Tours. In the former, the pattern is the sapientia of God, which,
as will be seen, he mystically calls equaUty with God. It is the
source of being for the forms, measures and ideas of things.' In
Bernard, the pattern is the Noys, which personified is one of the
characters of his De mundi universitate: "ea igitur noys summi et
exsuperantissimi dei est intellectus et ex eius diuinitate nata
natura. in qua uitae uiuentes imagines, notiones aeternae, mundus
intellegibilis, rerum cognitio praefinita" (13, i$2S.). Thus all
the mediaeval writers who touch upon the topic of the world-
pattern express themselves in the manner inaugurated by Philo
and passed on through Origen and the neo-Platonists to Augustine.
The influence of Plato upon the doctrine of a world-soul and
upon the conception of chaotic matter has been noticed in a former
chapter (supra, pp. 7-9). Here again Bernard of Tours was most
strongly influenced by the Timaeus. He says, however, in neo-
Platonic language, that the world soul quadam uelut emanatione
defluxit (13, 168) from the Noys, and uses the Aristotehan term
rerum endelechia (ibid.)to describe it. But his description of the
world soul as a globe, finite, indeed, but quam non oculis uerum solo
peruideas intellectu (ibid.) may be compared with Tim. 36E 5 ff.,
28A I ff., and as in the Timaeus the world soul is divided mathe
matically, so here number secures the peaceful union of the world
' Hex. 66: "unde formae omnium rerum et mensurae habent existere, ibi notiones
continentur. " In Aristotehan terms he calls it the formal cause {ibid. 67, 52).

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 87
and its soul (14, 180 ff.). The function of the world soul is to stop
the warring of the elements in the corporeal world (ibid. 190 ff.).
The above are the more specific ways in which the Timaeus
exerted its influence in these times. In the two most remarkable
treatises of the series, the Hexaemeron of Thierry and the De mundi
universitate of Bernard of Tours, and particularly in the latter, its
impress may be seen in other details. Thierry Hkewise expresses
views upon the nature of God which seem to be influenced by
Erigena, although he arrives at his results by an aUegorizing
mathematical argument which appears almost neo-Pythagorean.
Thierry (52) first states, in Aristotelian form, that there are
four causes of the world — the efficient, God; the formal, God's
wisdom; the final, God's love; and the material, the four elements.
Because mundane things are perishable and changeable, they must
have an author (cf . Tim. 28A) ; and because they are arranged in
accordance with reason and the best order, they must have been
created in accordance with wisdom (cf . Tim. 29A), the formal cause.
Furthermore, because God needs nothing beyond his wisdom, they
must have been created solely from his love and kindness (cf.
Tim. 29E). The Platonism of these statements will readily
be recognized. Thierry of course held that God actually created
matter out of nothing.
In the latter part of the fragment of the Hexaemeron is found
Thierry's unique reasoning concerning God and his Wisdom.
Unity precedes all difference and all change, since change comes
from doubleness. Then unity precedes all creation, since creation
is subject to change; it is therefore eternal and divine, or God.
He then proceeds (63): "at diuinitas singuHs rebus forma essendi
est nam sicut aUquid ex luce lucidum est, uel ex calore calidum,
ita singulae res esse suum ex diuinitate sortiuntur. unde deus
totus et essentiaUter ubique esse perhibetur. unitas igitur singuHs
rebus forma essendi est." In so far then as things partake of
unity they exist; herein Thierry agrees with Erigena.
Now when unity is multipUed by itself it can produce only
equaUty of itself — unity — and this is all that it can generate of
itself (65). EquaUty with unity, then, precedes all numbers and
is therefore eternal. But there cannot be two eternal things.

88 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
and so unity and equaUty with unity are one (66). Since the
former alone has the property of generating, and the latter of being
generated, they have been designated by the names persona genitoris,
and persona geniti (ibid.). Again, since the former is the essence
of aU things, the latter must be the equal of the essence of things;
that is, an eternal mode, or definition, or determination, aside
from which nothing can exist (ibid.). This mode philosophers
have caUed the mind of divinity, and the wisdom of the creator.
From it the forms of all things take their existence, and in it are
contained the ideas (notiones, notitiae) of all things (ibid.). If a
notion does not agree with the wisdom it is not to be called a
notio but a falsa imaginatio. He Ukewise identifies the equaUty
of unity with the Word and with the aeterna creatoris de omnibus
rebus praefinitio (68).
The De mundi universitate of Bernard of Tours' marks the
extreme of pre-Renaissance Platonism. Although in some respects
the author tries to give the treatise a Christian setting,' he aban
dons all reference to the six days, and follows closely the Timaeus
both in its general outUne' and in its detail." The work has an
imaginative, mystical, and mythological form; Noys and the
natural forces denoted by Natura, Physis and Urania are per-
' It is now generally conceded that the treatise is by Bernard of Tours (Siluestris)
and not by Bernard of Chartres; Ueberweg-Heinze, Gesch. d. Phil. II, 214-16; Clerval,
Les ecoles de Chartres, 1895, 158 ff.
' The notion of heaven, with the Dionysian orders of angels, is Christian; Noys
corresponds to the second member of the Trinity, bom of God (7, 5), the reason of
God and not in time (9, 6). Bernard refers to the first unordered chaos as diuinum
opus (8, 53), implying creationism, but in 61, i ff. he calls it one of the two principia,
unitas and diuersum.
3 Matter is represented first as a mater or nutrix which receives various forms
and is in constant change (10, 47 ff., supra, p. 8). Out of this the four elements are
derived; the mathematical derivation in the Timaeus however is not imitated. Then
the creation of the world soul is described, but without the mathematical detail of the
Timaeus. The mediacy of numbers however secures the harmony of the soul and
body of the world (14, i8off.). The second book, the Microcosmus, describes the
creation and structure of man, as does the latter part of the Timaeus.
* E.g., the motif so often found in the Timaeus, that there is an innate evil in
matter which makes it recalcitrant {supra, p. 6; cf. De mund. univ. 7, 13; 9, 23;
iij 73; 3I1 81; 33, 14; 61, 15); all of each element is used up in making the world,
that the latter may be perfect, 12, 130, Tim. 32C-33A; things as they exist in the

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 89
sonified, and perform the acts of ordering the universe and making
man. Besides the Platonism of his cosmology in general, which is
seen chiefly in his conception of the world as a body animated by
a soul, Bernard introduces the doctrine of avdfivrja-i';.^ His idea of
the elements and their interaction is Aristotehan (cf. 62, 50 ff. and
supra, p. 13), and he introduces the thought that matter desires
form, probably with reference to Chalcidius, but ultimately to
Aristotle.' In certain passages there is a suggestion of the
pantheism exempUfied by Erigena.'
The Hexaemeral tradition by no means ends with Bernard of
Tours. It is however not the purpose of this study to give more
than a cursory review of its later course.
The Premiere semaine of DuBartas, the first chapters of Sir
Walter Raleigh's History of the World, Tasso's Le sette giornate del
mondo creato, and the seventh book of Milton's Paradise Lost may
be taken as representative Hexaemera of this final period of the
history of the tradition. In general they conform to the mediaeval
standards outlined above, and this is especially true of Raleigh;
the allegorical interpretations of Augustine, however, are entirely
foreign to them, and they are more apt to cite and draw upon
Basil and the authors influenced by him. In the case of Du Bartas,
Pisides furnished most of the material, an important part of which
Noys are aeternitati congruum .... natura cum deo nee substantia disparatum,
13, 165; cf. Tim. 27D-28A; the persistence of the world depends upon the will, i.e.,
goodness, of God, 30, 25-31; 60; Tim. 41A; the universe is an animal, 31, 66 ff.,
Tim. 30B; its form is the perfect one, the sphere, 31, 80, Tim. 33B; time is the image
of eternity, and differs from eternity in being involved in number and movement,
32, iii; 115; cf. Tim. 37D; besides these there is the topic of man's erect stature
(55, 27 ff.), and some of the details of human physiology are Platonic, cf. the account
of sight, 66, 15 ff. and Tim. 45B ff., and the description of the protection of the eyes,
66, 33 ff., with Tim. 45D. Cf. also 7, 10 ff. and Tim. 29E; nutricis 8, 41 with Tim.
49A; II, 8s uinxit medietatibus, etc., and Tim. 31B ff.; 11, 87 and Tim. 32C; 31, 69
and Tim. 30D.
¦ 39, 31 ff., cf. especially Tim. 41D 8 ff. In 37, 61 ff., Natura sees souls descending
from heaven to enter bodies.
'8 18 ff.- cf. Chalcidius in Tim. 286-87, and Wrobel, Platonis Timaeus interprete
Chalcidio, Intr. xiii, on the mfluence of Chalcidius.
3 29 5 : quidquid enim ad essentiam sui generis promotione succedit, ex caelo tam
quam ex deo uitae subsistentiae suae causas suscepit et naturam.— De Wulf, Hist, de la
Phil. Med. 233.

9© THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
is the anecdotes from the Physiologus. Raleigh cites Basil, Augus
tine, Philo, Lactantius, Beda, and many mediaeval authors.
Tasso seems to have used Basil, and, as PelHssier notes,' the
Premiere semaine of DuBartas. Milton used DuBartas and other
material drawn from his extensive reading. The scheme of his poem
tends to make it more concrete and picturesque than the others.
Passing to the discussion of a few of the more important topics
of the Hexaemera as they appear in these writers, it will be found
that with the exception of Raleigh they speak of the Word and the
Wisdom of God. DuBartas has little upon this matter, but in
Milton the Word is made an actor in the drama and the agent of
creation : And thou, my Word, begotten Son, by thee
This I perform. Speak thou, and be it done.
-¥11,163-64; cf.III,383f.
Milton also gives a suggestion of the doctrine of the pattern world
of Plato: though what if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven, and the things therein
Each to the other like, more than on earth
Is thought? -V, 574-77.
A primal chaos is also a part of the subject-matter of these
authors. Undoubtedly Ovid, whom Raleigh (I, i, 5) quotes, fur
nished an example for such descriptions. According to DuBartas,
who sets forth an Ovidian chaos, God first created the four
elements out of nothing, and they at first, lying together and not
yet in their proper places, were in a state of strife. In the second
book he devotes another long passage to the description of the
chaos, the elements and their interaction, upon the latter subject
following the Aristotehan doctrine.
In these passages of DuBartas, Milton found a precedent for
his own description of chaos, and perhaps used them, but there are
clear traces of both Ovid and Lucretius in his poem. In Chaos, an
illimitable ocean, without bound.
Without dimension, where length and breadth and highth
And time and space are lost -,x n
—II, 892-94.
' Georges PelHssier, La vie et les mtivres de DuBartas, Paris 1882, 267.

ERIGENA TO THE RENAISSANCE 9 1
the four champions. Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, strive for the
mastery,' and from time to time each rules for a moment, as the
atoms flock to his banner. The champions are apparently the
four elements, which are so mingled that the chaos can be called
The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave,'
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confusedly. „ -j
¦' — Ibid. 911-14.
The Son marks the bounds of the world in this chaos with golden
compasses (VII, 224), and the Spirit of God, brooding over it,
brings Hkes together and gives them their place. In the further
minor details of their accounts of the six days, Milton, DuBartas,
and Raleigh adopted the topics of the earUer Hexaemera, as the
notes in the preceding chapters have shown, and to recount them
would be more repetition.
Doubtless a thorough examination of the philosophers, encyclo
paedists, and historians of the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance,
and the post-Renaissance period would demonstrate that a sur
prisingly large number made use of topics derived from the Hexae
mera, and inherited through many intermediate hands from Plato,
Philo, Basil, and Augustine. The recognition of the existence of
this long Hne of writings, whose subject-matter tended to arrange
itself under a limited number of topics common to all, is important
for the complete understanding of many Hterary works,' not only
Milton, Raleigh, and DuBartas, but also passages in many authors
not directly connected with the tradition."
' Cf. II 898-99: "For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce. Strive
here for mastery;" Ovid Met. I, 19: frigida pugnabant calidis, umentia siccis.
' Cf. Lucr. v, 259: omniparens eadem rerum commune sepidcrum.
3 Pellissier {op. cit.) fails to appreciate that DuBartas came at the end of this
series of writings. He enumerates as authors of Hexaemera, besides Pisides, only
Tuvencus Proba (a confusion of Juvencus, who should not have been mentioned at
all and Proba; see index), Dracontius, Cl. Marius Victor, and Avitus (69, n. 6).
4 A few illustrations from Sir Thomas Browne {Religio Medici) will show the
influence of Hexaemeral topics outside of their proper field: "Time we may compre
hend" 'tis but five days elder than ourselves, and hath the same Horoscope with the
World." "Some divines count Adam thirty years old at his Creation, because they
-uppose him created in the perfect age and stature of man." "And in this sense
[i e. in the Idea of God], I say, the World was before the Creation, "

INDEX OF NAMES
Abaelaedus, Petrus (d. 1142): Expositio in Genesim; Introductio ad Theo-
logiam; Theologia Christiana {MPL CLVIII). 85 f.; 9 n. 3.
AEGiDros Parisiensis (b. 1162): Revised and enlarged the Aurora of Petrus
de Riga.
Aethicus oe Istria (6th century ?) : Cosmographia; contains an incomplete
account of creation, according to which matter was first made and then
shaped into the world (I, 1,1); there are seven heavens, the lowest being
the firmament (I, i, 7); the angels were made before the world (I, 2, i).
Text ap. D'Avezac, £thicus et les ouvrages cosmographiques intittdes de ce
nam, Paris, 1852 ; cf. Manitius, Lat. Lit. d. Mitt. 229.
Albertus Magnus (1193-1280): Summa de creaturis {Opera, XXXIV, ed.
S. C. A. Borgnet, Paris, 1895).
Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus (d. 523) : De origine mundi (ed. R. Peiper, Man.
Germ. Hist. VI, 2; also in MPL LIX); poetical paraphrase.
Alcuin {ca. 735-804): Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesim (Benedictine
ed. of Augustine, VIII, 1636 S.; MPL C, 515).
AMBROsros Mediolanensis (d. 397): Hexaemeron {MPL XIV). 58 f.; 42.
Ammontos monachus Alexandrinus (ca. 400): Enarratio in opus sex dierum
(lost); cited by Anast. Sin: 8s6A, 860C.
Anastasius Sinaita {ca. 650): Anagogicae Contemplationes in Hexaemeron
{MPG LXXXIX, 857 ff.). Mainly allegorical treatment of creation.
^6 S7.
Angelomus (monk of Luxeuil, ca. 855) : Commentarii in Genesim {MPL CXV,
loi £f.). Distinctly Augustinian (e.g., in the interpretation of "Let there
be light" and of the meaning of the six days); little originality; other
authorities are often cited. Manitius 419-20.
Annianus {ca. 412): Chronicler to whom SynceUus apparently owes the
designation of March 25 as the day of creation (cf. Gelzer, Sextus Julius
Africanus, II, 248).
Anonymous (a Pharisee, ca. 13S-10S B.C.; cf. Charles's Intr., xiii): The Book
of Jubilees or Little Genesis (translated from the Ethiopic and edited by
R H Charles, London, 1902). Originally written in Hebrew; there was
a Greek version which was the parent of the Ethiopic and Latin versions
(Charles Intr. xxvi ff.) ; the latter ed. Ceriani, Man. sacr. et prof. 1, 115-62
(1861). 25 fi.
Anonymous (early in the Christian era): The Book of Enoch ("Ethiopic
Enoch," translated and edited by R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1893). Origin
ally in Hebrew; the Ethiopic version is from a Greek intermediary lost
after Syncellus' time. 25 ff. 93

94 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Anonymous (a Hellenistic Jew in Egypt, beginning of the Christian era):
The Book of the Secrets of Enoch ("Slavonic Enoch"; translated and
edited by W. R. MorfUl and R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1896). Not a version
of the Book of Enoch; originally written in Greek. 25 ff.
Anonymous: The Book of Adam and Eve (translated from the Ethiopic by
Rev. S. C. Malan, London and Edinburgh, 1882), a Christian work of the
fifth or sixth century. 25 ff.
Anonymous ( ?) : Suidas, s.v. Tvppr/vla, speaks of a Tuscan who wrote a history
including an account of creation. The author was either Christian or used
scriptural material; he introduced the theory of the world- week.
Anonymous: Chronicler of the tenth century; in Cod. Vat. gr. 163 (Krum
bacher 361, 363); contains the creation account found in Symeon Logo
thetes (q.v.).
Anselmus (d. 1 109) : Mentioned as the author of a book on the Hexaemeron
ap. Monitum in Pisidae Hex., MPG XCII, 1388, on the authority of
Trithemius, Chron. Hirsaugiense. G. Haenel (Calalogi librorum manu-
scriptorum, Leipzig, 1830) records a MS (s. xiii membr. fol.) at the Biblio-
theque de la Ville, Arras, Anselmi Cantuar. comm. super principium genesis.
Apion (193-211): Hexaemeron (lost). Cf. Euseb. Hist. ecc. V, 27; Hieron.
De uir. ill. 48.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). 13 f.; 46,55,58.
Arnoldus of Chartres {ca. 11 60): Tractatus de operibus sex dierum (MPL
CLXXXIX, 1507 ff.; Max. Bibl. Pair. XXII, 1284 ff.). Beginning with
the Augustinian doctrine of an extra-temporal and extra-spatial God
(1S15A, 1516A), and a world eternal in its rationes causales contained in
the Word (1515CD), but not eternal in its present state, he says that
creation is one act (1518A), explains the days as the order in which the
world was unfolded to Adam by the Word (1520CD), and interprets alle-
gorically the works of the separate days.
Athenagoras Atheniensis {ca. 177): Supplicatio pro Christianis; De resur-
rectione (Otto, VII).
Augustinus Hipponensis (d. 430): De Genesi contra Manichaeos (cited as
Man.) ; De Genesi ad Litteram Imperfectus Liber; De Genesi ad Litteram
Libri XII (cited as Lit.); MPL XXXIV; the two latter also ed. J.
Zycha, CV XXVIII. Confessiones (ed. P. Knoll, Leipzig, 1898); De
ciuitate Dei (cited SiS DCD; ed. B. Dombart, Leipzig, 1877). 64 ff.; 16 f.,
19 ff.
AuxiLius (end ninth century): cited ap. Monitum in Pisidae Hex., MPG
XCII, 1391, as the author of capita cxxxvii in Hexaemeron, which the
writer claims exists in manuscript in the Bibliotheca Casinensis.
Bandinus ( ? 12th century) : Sententiarum 11. IV. {MPL CXCII). See Peter
Lombard.
Bartholomaeus de Luca {ca. 1300): Hexaemeron (lost); see note ap. MPG
XCII, 1389.

INDEX OF NAMES 95
BAsn-ros Magnus (d. 379) : Hexaemeron (MPG XXIX). 42 ff.; 17, 19, 62.
Basiltos Seleuciensis (ca. 458) : Oratio I (MPG LXXXV, 27 ff.). A sermon
containing certain topics of Basilius Magnus; introduces mention of Job
38:7.
Beda Venerabilis (673-735): Hexaemeron {MPL XCI): De natura rerum
(MPL XC) ; Commentarii in Genesim {MPL XCI) ; spurious commentaries
on the work of the six days are printed ap. MPL XCIII. 77 ff.
Bernardus Silvestris of Tours {ca. 1145-53): De mundi universitate, sive
megacosmus et microcosmus (edd. Baruch et Wrobel, Innsbruck, 1876).
88 f.; 6, 7f., 19, 86.
Bruno of Asti, bishop of Segni and abbot of Monte Cassino (1049-1123):
Expositio super Pentateuchum {MPL CLXIV, 147 ff . ; Max. Bibl. Patr.
XX, 1309 ff.) ; an account following chiefly Beda and Ambrose, with the
Augustinian ideas of God's immutability, and including allegorical inter
pretations.
Candidus (193-211) : Hexaemeron (lost). Cf. Euseb. Hist. ecc. V, 27; Hieron.
De uir. ill. 49.
Cedrenus, Georgius {ca. 1000): Swoi/fis la-TopiStv {BC, ed. I. Bekker).
Cedrenus gives a short account of creation compiled chiefly from Syn
cellus and the account mentioned under Symeon. The matter taken
from the former was originally from Jubilees, with the citations of Annianus
and Africanus mentioned below {see Syncellus). In 9, 19-21 he cites
Josephus and Jubilees, but the other citations of the latter come through
Syncellus.
CHALCinros (ca. 300 ?) : Translator of and commentator upon Plato's Timaeus
(ed. Wrobel, 1876). The translation, which goes through 53B, was an
important source of knowledge of Plato in the Middle Ages; the com
mentary is a source for certain Hebrew interpretations of Genesis. 34 f .
Chrysostomus, Johannes (d. 407): Homiliae in Genesim XII (MPG LUI).
57.
Clemens Alexandrinus (ca. 150 — ^211-16): 'YTrorinrma-eK (lost; see Photius
cod. 109). This work treated of Genesis; Photius alleges that therein
Clement expressed belief in the eternity of matter, metempsychosis, the
existence of worlds before Adam; that he called the Son a creation
{ktio-iw); and that he had a theory of two logoi, one that of the Father,
the other that of the Son. Bigg {Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 69 n.
2 270 n. i) shows that Clement did use the verb ktI^uv of the Son, and
that the statement of Photius, that Clement thought the angels joined
in wedlock with himian women, is correct, but argues convincingly, by
comparison with the extant works of Clement, that the rest of Photius'
statement must rest upon a blunder. Nourry (ap. Clem. Al. Opera, ed.
Dindorf, IV, 512 ff.) also rejects the testimony of Photius because it
does not agree with the estimate of Clement in Euseb. Hist. ecc. VI,
13 ff- 41-

96 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Constantinds Manasses (first half of twelfth century): Swoi/'ts xp<»'"<'7
{BC, ed. I. Bekker). Poetical paraphrase of slight value. He gives
(243-44) the etymology of "Adam" foimd in Josephus.
Cosmas Indicopleustes {ca. 537): XpixrTiaviK^ roTroypa^la (ed. Mont-
faucon, whose paging is given supra; reprinted ap. MPG LXXXVIII;
see also The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk, trans
lated and edited by J. W. McCrindle, London, for the Hakluyt Society,
1897). 60 ff.
Cyprianus Gallus (ca. 400?): Heptateuchos (ed. R. Peiper, CV, XXIII). A
metrical paraphrase, apparently used by Marius Victor and. Hilarius (see
Peiper op. cit. xxv-xxvi). The portion on Genesis was published by GuU.
Morel, 1560, as by Cyprianus, bishop of Carthage, and is included as a
doubtful work of the latter by Hartlein, CV III; it was ascribed to Juven
cus by Card. Pitra and others.
Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus (d. before 394) : Commentarii in Genesim (frag
ments ap. MPG XXXIII). Diodorus was the teacher of Theodorus of
Mopsuestia. 61.
DRACONTros {ca. 440): Carmen de laudibus Dei {MPL LX; ed. VoUmer,
Mon. Germ. Hist. auct. ant. XIV, 1). Paraphrase of Genesis.
DuBartas, Guillaume Salluste (b. 1544): Premiire semaine. An account
of the six days of creation showing some connection with the ancient
sources, notably Pisides (whom DuBartas knew through the Latin of
F. Morel and followed closely in some parts). He introduces the Aristo
telian doctrine of the interchange of the elements and an account of their
chaotic strife based apparently on Ovid {Met. I, 5-20) or Lucretius. He
holds to a literal interpretation of the days of creation and takes from
Pisides much of the Physiologus matter. In certain topics (see notes
supra) he agrees with other Hexaemeral writers; he introduces physiologi
cal matter after the fashion of Ambrose and probably knew some of the
Latin poems on Genesis. On the life and works of DuBartas, see Georges
PeUissier, La vie et les oeuvres de DuBartas, Paris, 1882. Citations are to
the English translation of Sylvester or the Latin of Gabriel de Lerm
(London, 1591). 89 ff. Several French poets imitated the Premiere
semaine: Du MoNiN, Jean-Eduard (1557-86): Berisithias.
De Gamon, Christophe: Creation du monde contre celle du Sieur
DuBartas (1609).
De Rivr&RE, Alexandre: Zodiaque poetique et philosophique de la vie
humaine.
D'Aubigne: Creation {(Euvres, III, 327 ff.).
Epiphanius Cyprensis (ca. 400) : De mensuris et ponderibus. Also cited by
Cosmas 326, and by Anast. Sin. together with Eusebius Emessenus (q.v.)
as a commentator on the Hexaemeron.

INDEX or NAMES 97
Erigena, Johannes Scotus {ca. 8io- ca. 877): De diuisione naturae {MPL
CXXII). 73 ff.; 87, 89.
EucHERTOS, bishop of Lyons (d. 449): Hexaemeron (spurious; attributed to
Eucherius by the first editor, J. Al. Brassicanus, reprinted ap. MPL L,
89s ff •) ; closely following Augustine. The commentary on Genesis in foU.
63M-76M of cod. 27 (s. viii) at the library of the Grande Seminaire, Autun,
headed Isidori lunioris expositionum sentencies intexuimus (the last word
somewhat indistinct) probably is identical with that attributed to Euche
rius (see L. Delisle, Extrait de la Bibl. de I'^cole des Charles, LIX, 386-87,
392). Cod. 27 however mentions the writer's authorities (omitted in
the pseudo-Eucherius), among them St. Gregory, which as Delisle re
marks would preclude its attribution to Eucherius. Isidorus Junior has
usually been understood to be Isidorus himself, but W. M. Lindsay (Cl.
Qu., January, 1911) suggests that he may be Julius Toletanus (d. 690).
A few Hexaemeral topics are found in the Instructiones of Eucherius (ed.
C. Wotke CV XXXI, 66 ff.).
EuGENTOS Toletanus {ca. 550): Monosticha de opere septimi diei {MPL
LXXXVII). Cf. Manitius, Gesch. d. chr. -lat. Poesie 426. 73 n. i.
EuSEBros Emessenus (d. ca. 360) : Said by Anastasius Sinaita (968C) to have
written on the Hexaemeron "to the letter," -without allegory. See also
Assemann, Bibl. Orient. HI, 44.
Eustathius Antiochenus (ca. 325): Hexaemeron (spurious; first edited by
L. AUatius, 1629, and reprinted in MPG XVIII, 767 ff.). The treatise
follows BasU closely. AUatius gives no details as to the MSS. 42.
Eustathtos (ca. 440) : Latin translation of Basil's Hexaemeron {MPL LIII,
867 ff.).
Euthymtos Zigabenus (living in 11 18): Panoplia orthodoxae fidei (MPG
CXXVIII ff.; Latin translation in Max. Bibl. Patr. XIX). A collection
of excerpts.
Freculphus, bishop of Lisieux (d. 850): Chronica (MPL CVI, 917 ff.), begin
ning with an account of creation showing influence of contemporary
Hexaemera.
Gennadius (patriarch of Constantinople 458-471): Fragments on Genesis
ap. MPG LXXXV, 1623 ff.
Gennadtos, bishop of Marseilles {ca. 495): De uiris illustribus or De scrip-
toribus (ed. Herding together with Hieron. De uir. ill.; also in MPL LVIII)
furnishes information on certain lost Hexaemera of the first five centuries.
Giraldus de Barri or Cambrensis (1147-ca. 1217): Symbolum electorum
(ed. J. S. Brewer, Rolls Series). II, i is entitled De mundi creatione
et contentis eiusdem, of which the author says (p. 421), "plus philosophicum
quam theologicum nonnullis in locis dogma secuta."
Glyca, Michael (ca. 1150): Annals (MPG CLVIII cited here; ed. I. Bekker,
BC). The first part is an extensive compilation of fragments from Basil

98 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
(the chief authority), Severianus, Justin, Chrysostom, Theodoretus,
Maximus, John of Damascus, Anastasius, Patricius, etc. He is the only
one of the Byzantine historians to make notable use of the Physiologus.
Krumbacher 380 ff. 42.
GoDEFRmus of Viterbo (d. 1191): Powi^eoM (reprinted from Muratorius o/>.
MPL CXCVIII, 871 ff., not including any of the OT. history). A his
tory of events from creation to 11 86 a.d.; mentions Julius Africanus as
an authority (878D).
Gregorius Nazianzenus (d. 389) : Orationes {MPG XXXVI) ; Poemata dog
matica {MPG XXXVII) . 53.
Gregortos Nyssenus (d. 397): De opificio hominis; Liber in Hexaemeron;
Homiliae in uerba Faciamus Hominem {MPG XLIV). 53 ff.; 17 f., 46,
49 n. 4.
Guibertus, abbas B. Mariae Nouigentis (d. ca. iioo): Moralia in Genesim
(MPL CLVI, 19 ff.). AUegorical.
Helinandus, Cistercian monk at Froidmont (d. 1229): Chronicon (part,
beginning with Book 45, printed MPL CCXII, 771 ff.). Of the fate of
this work and of its nature Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. hist. XXIX, 108,
says: "et etiam Chronicam diligenter ab initio mundi usque ad tempus
suum in maximo quodam uolumine digessit. et hoc quidem opus dissi-
patum est et dispersum ut nusquam totum reperiatur." It is cited by
Vincent.
Heliodorus {ca. 340): De naturis rerum exordalium (lost). Gennadius De
script. 6: "Heliodorus presbyter scripsit librum de naturis renim exor
dalium, in quo ostendit unum esse principium, nee quidquam coaeuum
deo, nee mali conditorem deum, sed ita bononim omnium creatorem ut
materia quae ad malum uersa est post inuentam maUtiam a deo sit facta,
nee quicquam materialium absque deo credatur conditum aut fuisse
alium rerum creatorem praeter deum, qui praescientia sua cum prae-
uideret morti dari {al. mutandam) naturam praemonuit de poena."
Hieronymus (331-420): Liber Hebraicarum quaestionum in Genesim (MPL
XXIII, 2). The treatise De uiris illustribus is a source of information on
certain lost writings.
Hilario, Quintus Julius {ca. 397) : Chronologia siue Libellus de mundi dura-
tione {MPL XIII, 1097 ff.). Briefly mentions the days of creation; an
adherent of the world-week theory.
Hilarius Arelatensis (d. ca. 450): Metrum in Genesim ad Leonem Papam
(ed. R. Peiper, CV XXXIII 231 ff.; also ap. MPL L, 1287 ff.). Rather
free poetic paraphrase of the Genesis story.
Hildebertus Gallus {ca. 105 5-1134): De opere sex dierum (elegiac poem;
MPL CLXXI, 1213 ff.). Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol. I, 551. For the
most part allegorical, but contains some common topics (e.g., Augustine's
explanation of God's rest).

INDEX OF NAMES 99
Hippolytus (ca. 235) : Cf. Hieron. De uir. ill. 61 : "scripsit nonnuUos in scrip-
turas commentaries e quibus haec repperi: in hexaemeron, in post hexae
meron .... in Genesim," etc.; Euseb. Hist. ecc. VI, 22, the source of
Jerome, does not especiaUy mention the latter commentary. Fragments
are published by the Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, in their
volume on Hippolytus; also in MPG X, 583 ff. In the catalogue of his
works discovered on a marble pedestal in Rome {CIG 8613) appears:
Trpos EWjji/as (Cat irpos IIXaToiva 17 Kal trtpl rmi itovtos, usuaUy identified
with the work mentioned by Photius (cod. 48). Christ 735. 39.
Honorius of Autun (ca. 11 20): Hexaemeron {MPL CLXXII, 2535.); De
imagine mundi {ibid. 119 ff.); Elucidarium (ibid. iio9ff.). 85.
Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 784-856): Commentarii in Genesim (MPL CVII,
439 ff.). Influenced chiefly by Beda.
Hugo of Amiens, archbishop of Rouen (d. 1164): Tractatio in Hexaemeron
(MPL CXCII, 1247 ff.) ; only a part has been printed. The treatment of
God's attributes, the question of the impulse to create, etc., are influenced
by Augustine.
Hugo of St. Victor (d. ca. 1141): Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Pentateuchum
(MPL CLXXV, 33 ff.). He rejects Augustine's doctrine of creation in
one act and in general foUows Beda.
lOBIUS (sixth century): Olkovoiukti Trpay/mTtia (cf. Phot. cod. 222 and fragg.
ap. MPG LXXXVI, 3, 3313-3320). Discussed creation to some extent—
see Phot. p. 182 b 27 ed. Bekk., and gave a lengthy discussion of the ques
tion why nothing is said of the angels in Genesis (ibid. 187 b 22). Cf.
Krumbacher, 56.
IiLENAEUS (bishop of Lyons after 177). 36.
Isidorus Hispalensis (d. 636): De natura rerum; Etymologiae (MPL
LXXXII) ; Quaestiones in Genesim (an allegorical work, MPL LXXXIII,
207 ff.); Liber numerorum qui in sancta scriptura occurrunt (ibid. 179 ff.);
De ordine creaturarum (ibid. 913 ff.) ; Sententiae (ibid. 547 ff.).
Josephus, Flavtos (b. ca. 37; d. under Hadrian): Antiquitatum Itidaicarum
Libri XX. (ed. B. Niese, Berlin, 1887). 34.
Julius Polydeuces (ca. 1000): A Byzantine chronicle falsely attributed to
him (ed. J. B. Bianconi, Bononiae, 1779; I. Hardt, lulii Pollucis Historia
Physica seu Chronicon, 1792); cf. Krumbacher 342 ff., 363. Contains
the creation account in Symeon (q.v.) without the matter drawn from
JubUees (Schalkhausser Makarios Magnes, 131, 177, 178).
Justin MART-sfR (d. ca. 163): Apologiae (Otto, I). Not strictly a Hexaemeral
author; on his doctrines of logos, creation and matter, cf. Pfattisch,
Der Einfhtss Platos auf die Theologie Justins des Martyrer, Paderborn,
1910, 53 ff., 93 ff- 12 n. 7; 36.
Juvencus, C. Vetttos Aquilinus {ca. 349) : The poem Liber in Genesim {MPL
XIX, 345 ff.) is identical with that of C3T)rianus Gallus and is not by
Juvencus (Arevalo ap. MPL XIX, 18 ff.).

lOO THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Lactantius {ca. 320): Diuinae institutiones (ed. Brandt, CV XIX); De
opificio Dei {ibid. XXVII). Book II of the former touches upon the
Hexaemeral theme. He argues that God made matter because otherwise
God's work would not differ from man's (II, 8, 17 ff.) and because either
God must come from matter or vice versa {ibid. 31 ff.). Since only that
which has sense can originate motion, and since providence is necessary
in every creation, God, not matter, is eternal. Matter if eternal would
not suffer change {ibid. 41). The Son is the assistant of God in designing
and creating the world {ibid. 7). Chap, v of De opificio Dei deals with
pro^vidence as manifested in the structure of the body; Lactantius seems
to have drawn from the same sources as Ambrose in the latter part of the
Hexaemeron (G. Gossel, Quibus ex fontibus Ambrosius in describendo cor
pore humano hauseril, Leipzig, 1908, 49 ff.).
Leo Grammaticus {ca. 1013): Byzantine chronicler (Leonis Grammatici
chronographia, ed. I. Bekker, BC); originaUy contained the creation
account in Symeon Logothetes (q.v.) ; only the latter part is now preserved.
Macarius Magnes {ca. 400) : Aoyoi ek rrp/ Tevecriv, a fragment of which is
preserved in cod. Vat. gr. 2022 (see G. Schalkhausser, Zu den Schriften des
Makarios Magnes, Leipzig, 1907, 137, who also shows that the fragg.
printed by Crusius ap. MPG X are not by Macarius).
Marius Victor, Claudius (d. before 450 ?) : Alethia (ed. C. Schenkl, CV XVI,
359 ff.; also a/>. i/PZ. LXI, 937 ff.). A poetical paraphrase of the creation
story in Genesis (in Book I) showing familiarity with the prose Hexae
mera. On the question of the author's identity see Schenkl op. cit. 346 ff. ;
Manitius Gesch. d. chr.-lat. Poesie 180. Schenkl identifies him with the
Victorius of Genn. De script. 61 ; Manitius is somewhat doubtful about
the matter. 73 n. i.
Martos Victorinus, C. {ca. 250): Translator of Platonic and other Greek
works. 12.
Maximus (193-211): Tltpl t^s vXris, quoted by Euseb. Praep. ev. VII, 22; cf.
Euseb. Hist. ecc. V, 27 ; Hieron. De uir. ill. 47. The fragment in Eusebius
denies the pre-existence of matter on the ground that two eternal principles
cannot coexist independently.
Methodius (ca. 275): Ilepl tSiv yevr/TZv (lost; but see Phot. cod. 235). The
passage preserved is part of a polemic against Origen; Christ 748. 40.
Milton, John (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book VII contains an account
of the six days of creation, exhibiting many traces of the influence of the
Hexaemera. In Book VIII Milton introduces speciUation about the helio
centric hypothesis. 89 ff.
More, Henry (1614-1687): Conjectura Cabbalistica, or a conjectural essay
interpreting the mind of Moses in the three first chapters of Genesis, accord
ing to a three-fold Cabbala, viz., literal, philosophical, mystical, or divinely
moral. 1662.

INDEX OF NAMES lOI
Neckam, Alexander (1157-1217): Denaturis rerum libri II. (ed. Th. Wright,
Rolls Series, London, 1863). IncidentaUy treats of creation, interpreting
"heaven," "earth," and "light" with Augustine (I, 3). The parts of the
universe are described at length.
Neo-Platonists. 19 ff.; 16.
Odo Gallus (d. 942) : Occupationes (lib. I. de opificio dei, lib. II. de creatione
hominis) MPL CXXXIII.
Origenes (d. 254): De principiis (MPG XL); Homiliae in Genesim, Commen
tarii in Genesim {MPG XII) . 39 ff . ; 1 5, 44.
Pantaenus (d. shortly before 200). 36.
Papias of Hierapolis {ca. 130): Cf. Hieron. De uir. ill. 18. 36.
Petrus Comestor (d. 1179): Historia scholastica {MPL CXCVIII, 1053 ff.).
An account in prose of the biblical ¦writings; that of Genesis is of the usual
mediaeval type, influenced mainly by Beda and Augustine; much cited
by Vincent of Beauvais. 13.
Petrus Damianus (d. 1072): Commentaria in Genesim ex epistulis collata
(JfPL CXLV, 991 ff.); aUegorical.
Petrus de Riga of Rhekns (d. 1209): Aurora, or Bibliotheca (fragmentary
selections ap. MPL CCXII, 17 ff.). Poetical paraphrase of the Bible,
including Genesis; revised by Aegidius.
Petrus Lombardus (d. 1160): Libri Sententiarum IV. (MPL CXCII), the
second book treating of creation. Beda and Augustine are the main
authorities and little originaUty is displayed. An abbreviated version
of the same was made by Bandinus (q.v.).
Philippus Sidetes {ca. 430): XpurriavLKr] Urropia (lost); began with an
account of creation; cf. Phot. cod. 35.
Philo Carpathtos (Carpastos) (ca. 400): Author of a commentary on
Canticles; Cosmas 329-30 cites a commentary on the Hexaemeron.
Philo Judaeus {fl. ca. 40 a.d.) : De opificio mundi (L. Cohn and P. Wendland,
Philonis Alexandrini Opera, Berlin, 1896-1906, Vol. I). 27 ff.; 5, 10, 15,
16, 43-44. 60.
Philoponus, Johannes (ca. 550): De opificio mundi (ed. Reichardt, Leipzig,
1897). -68; 5, 10.
Photius {ca. 860): Bibliotheca (ed. I. Bekker, Berlin, 1824). A source for
certain Hexaemera otherwise unknown.
Plato (427-347 b.c): Timaeus. Editions, J. Burnet, Oxford, 1905; R. D.
Archer-Hind, London, 1888. 2 ff.; 29, 34, 43, 54, 84 ff., 90.
Pisides, Georgtos {ca. 640) : Hexaemeron (text ap. Hercher's ed. of Aelian,
II, Leipzig, 1866; MPG XCII). The Monitum in Pisidae Hexaemeron
in Migne contains a list of writers on the Hexaemeron. 57, 89.
Priscillianus (d. 385 ?) : Tractatus Genesis (ed. G. Schepss, CV XVIII, 62 ff.).
A sermon warning against the beUef that the world is eternal or that the
body was created by the devU, with brief and uncritical account of the
Hexaemeron.

I02 THE HEXAEMERAL LITERATURE
Proba, Valeria Faltonia {ca. 350): Cento (ed. C. Schenkl, CV XVI, 513 ff-J
MPL XIX). A paraphrase of the bibUcal account made up of lines and
half-lines of VergU.
Procoptos Gazaeus {ca. 520) : Commentarius in Genesim (MPG LXXXVII,
21 ff.) ; drawn chiefly from BasU and Severianus.
Prosperus Aquitanus {ca. 400): Carmen heroicum de diuina prouidentta
MPL LI, 618 ff.); contains a brief incidental account of creation but not
of the six days.
PRUDENTros {ca. 405) : Commentarii de fabrica mundi (lost) ; cf . MPL LIX
Intr., and Gennadius Z)e 5cn^i. 13: ". . . . commentatus est et in morem
Graecorum Hexaemeron de mundi fabrica usque ad conditionem primi
hominis et praeuaricationem eius."
Raleigh, Sir Walter {ca. 1552-1618) : The History of the World (cited in the
edition printed for A. Constable & Co., Edinburgh, 1820, 6 vols.). Book
I, chaps, i-ii, deal with Genesis. 89 ff.
Remi of Auxerre (d. ca. 908): Expositio super Genesim {MPL CXXXI, 53 ff.).
Modeled chiefly after Beda (especiaUy in the interpretation of Gen.
1:2) with some trace of Ambrosian influence. Manitius 515.
Rhodon (180-193) : Hexaemeron (lost). Cf. Euseb. Hist. ecc. V, 13, 8; Hieron.
De uir. ill. 37.
Richardus de Dumellis (d. 1100): Commentary on Genesis; a few fragments
ap. MPL CLV, 1629 ff.; the rest said to be in MS. AUegorical.
ROBERTUS Scriba {ca. 1190): Lib. I. de operibus sex dierum (cat. Oxon. n.
5105); see JfPG XCII, 1391.
Rupert of Deutz (ca. 11 24): Commentarii in Genesim (MPL CLXVII,
199 ff.). The work in general treats of the same topics as Augustine and
Ambrose (with the former he understands the first made light to refer
to the angels, but he does not adopt his explanation of the meaning of the
days) .
Salvianus {ca. 440): Hexaemeron (lost); Gennadius De script. 67: ". . . .
et in morem Graecorum a principio Genesis ad conditionem hominis com-
posuit uersu Hexaemeron librum unum."
Severianus of Gabala {ca. 400): Ek KO(Ti/.oirot.w.v Xoyoi 2^ (MPG LVI,
429 ff.). 57, 6iff.
Sextus Jultos Africanus {ca. 220): TlevTajSijiXov xpovoXoyiKov (lost; but
see Phot. cod. 34). History covering the period from creation (placed
at 5500 B.C.) to 221 A.D.; cited by some of the Hexaemeral writers; it
may have included an account of creation according to Genesis. Cf.
Eus. Hist. ecc. VI, 31 ; Hieron. De uir. ill. 63 ; Christ, 751 ; H. Gelzer, Sex
tus lulius Africanus, Leipzig, 1898.
Stoics. 14 ff.
Suarez, Francisco (1548-1617): Tractatus de opere sex dierum, seu de uni-
uersi creatione, etc. (ed. Birckmann, 1622; accessible to me only through
Huxley, "Mr. Darwin's Critics," Contemp. Rev. XVIII, 443 ff.). Suarez
beUeved that the six days were natural days and that living things and

INDEX OF NAMES 103
vegetables were created in their species at first, and not derived from semi
nal principles as Augustine thought {Tr. II, 7, 8) ; and that the scriptural
story of the creation of Eve is to be taken literaUy {Tr. Ill, 2, 3). "On
the first of these days the materia prima was made out of nothing, to receive
afterward those substantial forms which moulded it into the universe of
things" (Huxley, op. cit. 455). 64.
S'VMEON Logothetes {ca. 963-969) : Byzantine chronicler to whom are ascribed
various chronicles beginning with a short account of the creation, which
appears in the recension of Georgius Hamartolus (being drawn, with other
material, from S5rmeon and added to the original of Georgius; cf. Krum
bacher 355 ; text ap. MPG CX), Leo Grammaticus, Theodosius Melitenus,
pseudo-JuUus Polydeuces and an anonymous author ap. cod. Vat. gr. 163,
in practically identical form. The account is a mere compUation, chiefly
drawn from BasU for the six days' work and from Greg. Nyss. on the crea
tion of man; there is a trace of the use of PhUo (Praechter, "Unbeachtete
PhUonfragmente," Arch. f. Gesch. d. Phil. IX, 4, 415 ff.) and of Jubilees,
in aU but pseudo-Polydeuces (G. Schalkhausser, op. cit. 131). For an
exhaustive study of the sources see Schalkhausser 143 ff. The compUer is
not known; Schalkhausser 184-85 thinks it came from some late Greek
florUegium; Praechter op. cit. beUeves that there were two forms of the
account, dra'wn from some unknown source, one represented by pseudo-
Polydeuces alone, the other by the remaining writers. On the connection
of Symeon with the account see Schalkhausser 128 n.2. 57 n. 2.
Syncellus, GEORoros (alive in 810) : 'ExXoy^ ¦)(pov(yypa<f>la<s (BC, ed. W. Din
dorf). His account of creation, 4, 19-5, 18, is compUed from JubUees,
and was used later by Cedrenus. The chronicle begins with a section on
Gen. 1:1 and cites Greg. Naz. (4, 1-2). From Annianus, Hippolytus,
and Maximus (cf. 597, 10 ff.) he takes the calculations placing creation
on March 25 (i, 6-3, 3). He also cites Africanus to the effect that the
first day was conceptual (4, 17-18), and Chrysostom (5, 19-6, 2) as
authority for the statement that Adam was expeUed from Eden on the
sixth day.
Tasso, Torquato (1544-95): Le sette giornate del mondo creato (Viterbo, 1607).
89 ff.
Tatianus Assyrianus (ca. 165) : Oratio contra Graecos (Otto, VI). 18 n. 4.
Theodoretus episcopus Cyrensis (b. ca. 386-93, d. 458): Quaestiones in
Genesim (MPG LXXX, 75 ff.). 57, 61 ff.
Theodorus Mopsuestlensis (ca. 350-428): Commentarii in Genesim (frag
ments ap. MPG LXVI; cf. Phot. cod. 38; acts of the second Council of
Constantinople; PhUoponus De mundi opificio, passim). 57, 59 ff.
Theodorus Prodromus {ca. 1150): Epigrammata in Vetus Testamentum
(MPG CXXXIII, iioi ff.); poetical; of slight value.
THEODOsros Melitenus {ca. 1000) : Byzantine chronicler {Theodosii Meliteni
qui fertur chronographia, ed. Tafel, Munich, 1859). Contains in full the
account of creation found in Sjrmeon Logothetes (q.v.); Krumbacher

I04 the hexaemeral literature
362-63. Theodosius is cited in the notes supra as representative of all
the authors who use the account of the Logothete.
Theophilus of Alexandria (end of fourth century): Mentioned by Anast.
Sin. together with Eusebius Emessenus {q.v.); an opponent of Origen;
Gennad. De script. 34: "scripsit aduersus Origenem unum et grande
uolumen in quo omnia paene dicta et ipsum pariter damnat."
Theophilus Antiochenus (bishop of Antioch after 168): Libri III ad Auto
lycum (Otto, Vlll). 37 ff.; 15.
Thierry of Chartres (d. ca. 1150): Hexaemeron (part has been edited by
B. Haureau, Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits latins de la Biblio-
theque nationale, Paris, 1900, 1, 52 ff.). 83 f.; 8, 87 f.
ViCBODUS {ca. 790 ?): Quaestiones in Octateuchum {MPL XCVI, iioiff.);
a compUation without originality from Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome,
Isidore, et al.
Victorinus Petavionensis (end of third century) : De fabrica mundi (MPL
V, 301 ff.; fragmentary). It is little more than a paraphrase of Genesis,
distinguished by the symbolical interpretation of numbers.
Vincentius Burgundus of Beauvais {ca. 1240): Bibliotheca mundi (Douai,
1624). Vol. I, Speculum naturale, and Vol. IV, Speculum historiale, treat
of creation incidentaUy.
Walafridus Strabus (d. 849) : Glossa ordinaria {MPL CXIII, 67 ff.) ; com
pUed from Augustine, Beda, Isidorus, etc. Manitius 305.
Wandalbertus of Prijm {ca. 850) : De creatione mundi {MPL CXXII, 635 ff.).
Short poem in pherecratics, showing some Hexaemeral influence, e.g., the
identification of the light with the angels; the erect stature of man. Also
printed in Mon. Hist. Germ., Poetae Lat. Aeui Carolini.
William of Conches (1080-1154): De philosophia mundi; Commentary on
Plato's Timaeus {MPL CLXXII, as works of Honorius). 84.
"Wisdom" Literature. 24.
Zacharias (ca. 540) : Disputatio de mundi opificio {MPG LXXXV) ; a dialogue
aiming to demonstrate that God created the world.
Zonaras, Johannes {ca. 1100-1140): Epitome historiarum (ed. Dindorf, Leip
zig, 1868). 12, 1-15, 29 contain an account of creation compUed from the
Bible, JubUees (cf. 13, 3-10), Josephus, and the account of Symeon Logo
thetes. Josephus is cited by name 15, 23, and Zonaras adopts certain
phrases from him (e.g., cf. Zon. 13, 23 and Jos. Ant. Ivd. 9, 18; Zon. 13,
31-32 and Jos. 9, 20). The most important citations of the accoimt of the
Logothete are those dealing with the making of the beasts (Zon. 14, 13-25
and Theod. Melit. 3, 27 ff.) and with the creation of man; other simUari-
ties show that Zonaras used the account freely. In stating that the firma
ment is hard, and not fine of texture (13, 14 ff.), he is probably objecting
to the view there expressed. In 12, 1-14 he quotes Greg. Naz. (cf. Greg.
Or. 45, 4-5)-

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