Lecture 1 — The marvels of the animal kingdom

^39:1^ Do you know the time of the birth of the goats in the rocks, or have you seen the deer giving birth?

^39:2^ Can you number the months of their conception, and do you know the time of their birth?

^39:3^ They crouch to the fetus and give birth and they bring it forth roaring.

^39:4^ Their young are separated and they go to pasture, they go forth and do not return to them.

^39:5^ Who has let the wild asses go free, and who broke their chains?

^39:6^ I have given them a home in uninhabited places and tents in the land of the salt waste.

^39:7^ He scorns the tumult of the city, he hears not the shouts of the driver.

^39:8^ He ranges the mountains for his pasture and each one searches for green grass.

^39:9^ Does the rhinoceros (unicorn) will to serve you or will he spend the night in your crib?

^39:10^ Can you bind the rhinoceros with your strap to plow or will he harrow clods of the earth of the valleys after you?

^39:11^ Will you put your confidence in his great strength and will you leave your labors to him?

^39:12^ Will you have faith in him to render seed to you and to bring it together on your threshing floor?

^39:13^ The wings of the ostrich are like the wings of the falcon and the hawk.

^39:14^ She leaves her eggs in the earth and will you perhaps heat them in the dust?

^39:15^ She forgets that a foot may crush them or the beasts of the field trample them.

^39:16^ She deals cruelly with her young as if they were not hers. She labored in vain, not compelled by fear.

^39:17^ For God did not give her wisdom, nor did he give her intelligence.

^39:18^ When the time comes, she lifts her wings up high; she laughs at the mounted horse and his rider.

^39:19^ Will you give the horse his might, and clothe his neck in neighing?

^39:20^ Will you make him leap like locusts? The glory of his smell is terror:

^39:21^ He paws the ground, he exults, he proceeds audaciously to the clash of arms.

^39:22^ He scorns fear and he does not retreat from the sword.

^39:23^ Above him the quiver will sound, the pike will vibrate and the shield;

^39:24^ warming up and roaring, he sucks in the earth and he does not think twice at the sound of the trumpet.

^39:25^ When he hears the trumpet, he exclaims: Hoorah! He smells the battle from afar, the exhortations of the commanders and the shouting of the army.

^39:26^ Is it by your wisdom that the hawk puts on feathers and expands its wings towards the South?

^39:27^ Does the eagle fly high at your command and place his nest in lofty places?

^39:28^ He dwells in rocks and he dwells in steep crags and in inaccessible cliffs.

^39:29^ From there, he spies food and his eyes behold it from afar off.

^39:30^ His young suck up blood and he is immediately at the cadaver.

^39:31^ The Lord continued and spoke to Job:

^39:32^ Is he who asserts himself with confidence against God so easily stopped? Certainly he who accuses God ought to answer him.

^39:33^ Job answered and said to the Lord:

^39:34^ What can I who have spoken thoughtlessly answer? I will place my hand over my mouth;

^39:35^ I have said one thing and I would that I had not; another thing, to which I will not add anything further.

516. Do you know the time of the birth of the goats. In what preceded, the Lord called to mind what relates to the cognitive power, speaking about the wisdom of men and the intelligence of the cock (Job 38:36). He also called to mind the prey of lions and the food of ravens, which relate to the nutritive power (Job 38:39–41). Now he calls to mind certain things relating to the generative power, and he begins to treat the birth of goats and deer, in which there is something mysterious. For goats are animals small in body who live in rocky places where they also give birth. The access to places like this for men is difficult, and because of this he says, do you know the time of the birth of the goats in the rocks? This is if he should say that this is unknown to men because of the severity of the places where they give birth. The deer choose hidden places where they give birth, so wolves cannot attack them. Thus, to show the hidden character of these places, he says, or have you seen the deer giving birth? He says this to commend divine providence.

For when women give birth they need the assistance of midwives, but in the animals, whose birth is hidden from men, God comes to their aid by his providence with what is necessary for them to give birth. He gives them a natural diligence to know what they should know in such things. The first of these is to know the space of time in which the fetus is brought to term in the womb, and expressing this he says, can you number the months of their conception? namely, can you indicate to them when they must prepare themselves for birth? So he says, and do you know the time of their birth, to tell them when they should give birth? In these things women in labor are usually instructed by those who attend them, but the animals, which are far from human society, know these things through natural instinct implanted in them by God, and prepare themselves at a determined time to give birth in the way they can most easily bring forth young, and so he says, they crouch to the fetus, which they bring forth, and give birth, by themselves, instructed only by nature.

Still, birth is not delightful, but painful for them, and so he says, and they bring it forth roaring, because of the pain which they suffer in giving birth. Just as the mothers, by natural instinct, prepare themselves for birth, so also their sons, by natural instinct divinely taught, search for the necessities of life for themselves, and so he says, their young are separated, which is not the case with a human child, for a boy who has only been born cannot move himself to go to his mother, but those animals can do this. As soon as they are born they immediately move themselves, and their first motion is to look for something to eat, and so he says, and they go to pasture. But still in the beginning they need to be fed by the milk of the mother, and so they are separated from the mother, but still return to her. However, afterwards, when they are stronger, they are completely separated from their mothers, and so he says, they go forth and do not return to them, because they do not have any further need of milk from them.

517. When he has said these things which pertain to certain special properties of animals—knowledge, food and birth—he treats those things which pertain to conserving their lives as a whole. On this subject, the first wonderful thing is that animals, as long as they are domesticated, cannot live without the care of man. Yet there are some pertaining to the same species which are wild and are governed without the providence of men. This is especially remarkable in the ass, who, when he is domesticated, seems totally given to human service. But wild asses are free from this service, and so he says, who has let the wild asses, the undomesticated asses, go free, from human service? When men commonly view something to be usual, it seems to be almost natural to them, and because men do not ordinarily see asses except the domesticated kind, they seem to be naturally slaves.

So when a man at times finds a wild ass, it seems to have been freed from slavery. Things, however, are just the opposite; for first, animals of this sort were not subject to man in the way they are now. Later they were domesticated by human skill and given to the services of man. The mark of the slavery of the asses is the chains with which they are bound together, for example, as a bridle or a muzzle, or other things of this sort. As to this he says, and who broke their chains? for wild asses do not have chains of this kind. Asses also perish if they remain without stables built by men, but the wild asses have a shelter prepared for them by divine providence, and so he says, I have given them in uninhabited places, to which men do not go, a home, a cave or cavern, and tents, for example, under grass and trees, in the land of salt waste, in some land not inhabited because of dryness and the burning of the sun. Here, the dampness is always changed like the taste of salt.

Although dwellings of this sort seem more neglected and bleak because they are in a waste, still the, wild ass prefers them to any noble city, and so he says, he scorns the tumult of the city, in comparison to the dwellings of the desert. He gives two reasons for this. The first of these is because laborious work is not required of him there, and so he says, he hears not the shouts of the driver, who is his master, demanding that he carry heavy loads or something of this sort. The other reason is because there he wanders more freely in search of pasture, and so he says, he ranges the mountains for his pasture, because since he is free, he has free access to different places to find his pasture, and he receives the pastures themselves as his pledge of freedom, and so he says, and each one searches for green grass. Domestic asses are not given the best pasturage, but often the worst, because the better pastures are reserved for more noble animals.

518. Just as the ass serves man for carrying heavy loads, and the wild ass finds his habitat in wild places, so also among domesticated animals, the ox serves man for plowing because of his strength. He is compared to the rhinoceros or unicorn among wild animals, for they are very strong and cruel four‑footed animals with one horn in front. This animal, because of his ferocity, cannot be as easily domesticated as the ox, and so he says, does the rhinoceros, or the unicorn, will to serve you, so that he willingly obeys you like a domesticated animal? Domesticated animals accept their food freely from men, and to show the rhinoceros does not, he says, will he spend the night in your crib? namely, so that he may be prepared to eat what you offer him? Domesticated oxen are fed so that they may be used in the work of plowing. He shows the rhinoceros is not, saying, can you bind the rhinoceros with your strap to plow, like oxen. Men use oxen for other work, to drag a harrow to smooth plowable land and to crush the clods of earth to pieces, and so he says, or will he harrow the clods of earth of the valleys, which are often more diligently cultivated because of their great fertility, after you, after you have plowed the land?

Or after you, that is, so that with you preceding, he follows, breaking up the clods of earth in the furrows? Some strong animals are set free to guard the fields against thieves or animals which can devastate the standing grain. Fields are guarded in this way by ferocious dogs, but this cannot be done with the unicorn or rhinoceros, because he cannot be domesticated, and so he says, will you put your confidence in his great strength and will you leave your labors to him? that is, to guard the fruits of the field. So you cannot use this very strong animal like the ox for plowing, or like the dog as a guard. Likewise, you cannot use him like a strong farm-hand to reap the fruits of the earth, and so he says, will you have faith in him that he will render the seed to you and bring it together on your threshing floor? like a worker does, who sows seeds taken from his lord and gives it back multiplied, when he collects grain on the threshing floor, and after the threshing brings it to the storehouse of the master.

519. After he has examined the things which distinguish wild animals from domestic ones, he treats the properties of some animals which seem to differ from other animals. This is especially true in the ostrich, which is a species of bird very close in genus to beasts with no wings. So, although it has wings like animals which fly very high, it cannot raise itself up by them to high places, and so he says, the wings of the ostrich are like the wings of the falcon, the most noble of the falcons which is called a peregrine falcon, and the hawk, which is a well known bird, and the wings of both are good for flying.

There is, however, another property of the ostrich which distinguishes it from other birds, namely, that she does not hatch her own eggs, but warms them in the sand by depositing them there and covers them with sand, and so he says, she leaves her eggs in the earth. She has a natural instinct for recognizing hot weather; namely, when the constellation called Virgo begins to appear in the month of July. Then she lays the eggs, and so, thanks to the heat of the season and the place (because she lives only in hot climates) the eggs are hatched and the chicks come out of them. So he says, will you perhaps heat them in the dust? He implies the answer, “no.” This happens by divine providence, which even incubates eggs in the sand. The ostrich is naturally a forgetful animal and exhibits no care to guard its eggs, and so he says, she forgets that a foot, of a man passing that way, may crush them, the eggs, or the beasts of the field trample them, either in a chance passing by or in the search of food. Just as they do not care to guard their eggs, so they do not care to nourish their young, and so he says, she deals cruelly with her young as if they were not hers, because she takes no care for their nutrition, so she loses the fruit of generation, and so he says, she labored in vain, by conceiving and bringing to birth, because she does not nourish her young.

Sometimes other animals desert their new-born young from fear, but the ostrich does this without being compelled by fear. Although she does not do this because of fear, she does it because of a defect of natural instinct which other animals have for this care, and so he says, for God did not give her, the female ostrich, wisdom, to nourish and govern her young in an orderly way, nor did he give her intelligence, by which she has care for her young. Here, wisdom and intelligence mean natural instinct. Because he had said already that it has wings like the falcon and the hawk (Job 39:13), consequently he shows next what purpose wings serve it, saying, when the time comes, when some necessity of violent movement presents itself to her, she lifts her wings up high, so that although her body cannot be raised to fly by her wings, she is helped by her wings to run more swiftly, and so he says, she laughs at the mounted horse, because she runs more swiftly than a horse carrying a man, and his rider, because she would run more swiftly than a man running on foot.

520. Just as the ostrich has some properties which differ from other animals and in which she is deficient from other animals, so also the horse has some noble properties by which he differs from other animals. First God notes the strength of the horse when he says, will you give the horse his might, not only strength of body to carry heavy loads, but also of soul, to run to dangers bravely? He notes still another property of the horse, that is, he is provoked to libido by his exterior adornment. For it is said of horses that they are driven to intercourse by the adornment of the mane, and cut the mane and their libido is extinguished. To show this he says, clothe his neck with neighing? For horses usually neigh because of libido, as Jeremiah says, they became horses loving women and were made messengers, each one neighing for his neighbor’s wife (Jer 5:8). Thus, God surrounds the neck of the horse with neighing when God gives him his mane, from which he is provoked to desire. Another property of a horse is his powerful jump, which is contrary to the behavior of other quadrupeds, and so he says, will you make him leap, raising him up high, like the locusts, which move by jumping.

521. Another property of the horse is his courage in battles, which he describes at greater length because it is noble and wondrous. He first demonstrates his courage when he already perceives the odor of war from afar, and the text continues, the glory of his snorting is terror, that is, when the nostrils of the horse smell the battle, what is a terror for others is a glory for him to show his greatness of spirit. The sign of this appears immediately in him, which the text describes next, he paws the ground, to prepare himself to fight. He rejoices interiorly to perceive the coming battle, and so he says, he exults, because he senses the opportunity to fight, and he shows this by effect when he says, he proceeds audaciously to the clash of arms. Nor is he cast down with fear in the thick of the battle itself, and so he says, he scorns fear, and what is more, he is not put off by the pain of wounds, and so he says, he does not retreat from the sword.

Only loud noise is enough to terrify most animals, but this does not bother the horse, and so he says, above him the quiver will sound, that is, full of arrows while he is struck at the movement of a soldier trying to ambush the horse. The pike and the shield likewise produce sounds of war, and so he says, the pike will vibrate, for a pike makes a noise when it is brandished. A shield also makes a noise when it is moved and struck with arms, and so he says, and the shield, sounds. But the horse is not struck with terror by this sound, and so he says, warmed up, from interior courage, and roaring, that is, neighing. He calls this a roar, which is the sound characteristic of lions (Prov 19:12), because of the courage of the horse. He not only shows his interior passion with his voice, but also with an exterior act, and so he says, he sucks in the earth, that is, he seems to suck it in by digging it with his hooves. Not only does the sound of the quiver, the pike, and the shield not terrify him, but he is also not frightened by the sound of the trumpet, which is a martial instrument, and so he says, nor does he think twice at the sound of the trumpet, so that he is terrified by it. Rather, he rejoices at the sound of the military trumpet, and so he says, when he hears the trumpet, he exclaims: hooray! that is, he shouts in exaltation, for hooray is an exclamation of exultation.

Since all these things express the courage of the horse, he now adds something about his perspicacity, saying, he smells the battle from afar; that is, while the enemy is far off, he senses by smell that battle is imminent. He almost seems to sense the preparation of battle, when the leaders stir up the troops with their exhortations, and as to this he says, the exhortations of the leaders, he perceives, and the shouting, the confused shouting and uproar, of the army, preparing itself for battle.

522. After he has explained about animals which walk on the earth, he goes on to animals which fly above the earth. First, he remarks on the natural skill of the hawk, who at molting season stretches out his wings to the South, which is the south wind, so that with the pores opened, he may shed the old feathers and new ones may take their place, and so he says, is it by your wisdom that the hawk puts on feathers, that is, when his feathers are renewed, and expands his wings toward the South, to molt easily? He last speaks about the eagle, who flies higher than the rest of the birds, and so he says, does the eagle fly high at your command, like he does at mine? For the eagle does this by natural instinct. Every natural course of things is a kind of motion of creatures according to the command of God, as the Psalm says, fire, hail, snow and mist, stormy winds that obey his word (Ps 148:8). Just as the eagle flies high, so also does he enjoy living in the heights, for this expresses his nobility of nature. So he says, and place his nest in lofty places, so that his young, as soon as they are born, become accustomed to dwelling in high places. He dwells in the rocks**, enjoying the purity of the air, because in rocky places there is not a lot of evaporation, and he dwells in steep crags, where predators cannot enter, and in cliffs which are inaccessible, to man, where he provides for his security.

The eagle has very acute vision, in order to see food necessary for his survival from a long way off, and so he says, from there, namely, from the high places, he spies food, not only near, but also far away, and so he says, and his eyes behold it far off. The eagle is a powerful hunter among birds, like the lion among quadrupeds. To show this he says, his young suck up blood, that is, of the living animals, which the eagle carries to the nest. The eagle eats not only live animals, like falcons and hawks, but also the corpses of dead animals, and so he says, and he immediately goes to a cadaver. In this text, he also shows the swiftness of his flight.

523. All these things are brought into the discussion to show the greatness of divine wisdom and power which produces such marvelous effects. By these things we understand that after Job had heard so many wonderful things about the divine effects, he was stunned and silent. But the Lord aroused him to consider that man is not fit to dispute with God, and so the text says, the Lord continued, adding more to these words, and spoke to Job, who was silent. He who asserts himself with confidence against God, who offers to argue with him, so easily stopped? namely, after he has been vanquished, like you, who are silent? Certainly he who accuses God, in disputing with him about his just judgments, ought to answer him. For it is just that one who provokes another to dispute should also be prepared to answer.

524. Lest Job seem obstinate in his opinion even though he was convinced, he breaks forth in words of humility, and so the text continues, Job answered and said to the Lord: What can I who have spoken thoughtlessly answer? Consider here that Job is speaking in the presence of God and his conscience does not accuse him of speaking falsely or of a proud intention, for he had spoken from the purity of his soul, but of thoughtlessness in speech. This is because, even if he had not spoken from pride of soul, his words still seemed to taste of arrogance, and so his friends took occasion of scandal. For one must not only avoid evil things, but also those things which have the outward appearance of evil, as St. Paul says, abstain from every evil appearance (1 Thess 5:22), and so he says, I will place my hand over my mouth, so that I will not break forth in words like these about other things. I do penance for these things which I have said, and so he says, I have said one thing, and would that I had not, namely, when I said that I wanted to dispute with God (Job 13:3), and another thing, that I preferred my own justice when it was a question of God’s judgments (Job 6:2). He does not acknowledge the third thing which Eliud had reproved him with, namely, that he said that the judgment of God was unjust (Job 33:10). For this does not pertain to thoughtlessness in speaking, but to blasphemy. So he does penance for thoughtlessness in speech because he proposes to correct this defect, and so he says, to which I will not add anything further, because I will not utter anything else thoughtlessly.

525. We should consider that if this discourse of the Lord to Job is spoken in an exterior voice, but is by interior inspiration, Job has spoken in three ways in this book.

First, he represented the affective desire of the senses in his first loud complaint, when he says, let the day when I was born perish (Job 3:3).

Second, he expressed the deliberation of human reason when he disputes against his friends.

Finally, he spoke according to divine inspiration when he introduced words from the person of God. Because human reason must be directed according to divine inspiration, when the Lord has spoken, Job reproves the words which he had said according to human reason.