De Moor VIII:29: The Sixth Day, Part 2

Finally, on the Sixth Day God formed Man, the crown of all the visible Works of God, and to whom all the rest are subservient; but who nevertheless was agreeing in general nature with the other animals created on this Day, and so was able agreeably to be created with them on the same Day.  While our AUTHOR separately treats of the Creation of Man more distinctly in Chapter XIII.

Moreover, our AUTHOR wants a twofold Paradox to be avoided here:  α.  One of BASIL concerning the use of Speech granted to Animals.  In Historia Paradisi, book I, chapter XIX, § 4, our AUTHOR narrates, that everywhere, yet with others interrupting, it is attributed to BASIL the GREAT, that Animals in Paradise made use of intelligible speech or utterance.  Then, reciting the very words of BASIL out of Homily XXX, which is de Paradiso, opera, tome I, page 541, where in Paradise he places καὶ ζώων ποικίλων θεάματα, πάντων ἡμέρων, καὶ πάντων ὁμοηθῶν ἀλλήλοις, καὶ ἀκουόντων, καὶ φθεγγομένων εὐσύνετα, also the spectacles of the diverse animals, all tame, and all of the same habits with each other, both hearing and uttering things readily understood.  But our AUTHOR teaches that this is solidly refuted by use of reason, presupposed in intelligible and apposite, which in and with the image of God Moses and the rest of Scripture claim for man alone among corporeal things.  While, on the other hand, ζῶα φυσικὰ, natural beasts, are described as ἄλογα/brute, without reason, 2 Peter 2:12;[1] Jude 10.[2]

Our AUTHOR observes that the contrary is added without propriety, 1.  either from the history of the Temptation, as JOSEPHUS, Jewish Antiquities, book I, chapter II, putting this divine punishment of the Serpent in the first place, ἀφείλετο δὲ καὶ τὸν ὄφιν τῆς φωνῆς, ὀργισθεὶς ἐπὶ κακοηθείᾳ τῇ πρὸς τὸν Ἄδαμον, etc., He also took speech from the serpent, having been provoked over the malignity, which was directed against Adam, etc., appears to ascribe the use of speech at least to this animal in that first state; which opinion, with other related topics, SIMON DE MUIS also attributes to a number of Hebrews in his Variis Sacris.  But DE MUIS gives a good response on page 9:  If it were so, why is there no mention of those in the curses on the Serpent, since they would be far more grievous than those that are mentioned there; next, it is plain that this opinion overturns the natures of things.  We are certainly obliged to admit anything unusual in the Speech of that Serpent as arising from diabolical possession:  see our AUTHOR’S Historia Paradisi, book III, chapter V, § 8, 9, 11.

              2.  Of the same sort is the history of Balaam’s Ass speaking, where it is related as a thing most unusual, Numbers 22:28, that Jehovah opened the mouth of the Ass; while in other respects Peter expressly teaches, that the Speech of the Ass was not natural, 2 Peter 2:16, calling the same ὑποζύγιον ἄφωνον, a dumb ass:  see our AUTHOR’S Commentarium in præcipuas partes Pentateuchi, ad Numeros, chapter 22, § 19, 20, pages 400-408.

              3.  Finally, from the history of the tower of Babel that use of Speech, of old freely granted on Animals, is gathered:  although Moses, narrating in Genesis 11:1, that the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech, speaks, not of the irrational contents of the Earth, but of the rational, or of men inhabiting the Earth; which the whole succeeding context, treating of men sinning and punished, is able to show, just as much as that most common use of the term the Earth and the whole Earth.  To the Mythoplasts,[3] therefore, are to be left those things that, as PHILO of ALEXANDRIA relates of them, de Confusione Linguarum, pages 320, 321, Ἕτερον δέ τι συγγενὲς τούτῳ περὶ τῆς τῶν ζώων συμφωνίας πρὸς μυθοπλαστῶν ἀναγράφεται. λέγεται γὰρ ὡς ἄρα πάνθ᾽ ὅσα ζῶα, χερσαῖα καὶ ἔνυδρα καὶ πτηνὰ τὸ παλαιὸν ὁμόφωνα ἦν· καὶ ὅνπερ τρόπον ἀνθρώπων, ἕλληνες μὲν ἕλλησι, βαρβάροις ὁμόγλωττοι διαλέγονται, τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον καὶ πάντα πᾶσι περὶ ὦν ἢ δρᾷν ἢ πάσχειν τί συνέβαινεν, ὡμίλει , etc., but there is also another story like unto this, related by the mythoplasts, concerning the harmonious language existing among animals:  For they say that formerly all the animals, those of the land and of the sea and of the sky, were of one language:  and that, just as among men Greeks speak the same language as Greeks, and the present race of barbarians speaks the same language as barbarians, in the same manner every animal spoke the same language with every other animal with which to do something, or to suffer something, it might meet, associate, etc.  With which are able to be compared those things that PLATO has in his Politico under the heading of Hospitis, concerning the Golden Age of Saturn, in which men were able μὴ μόνον ἀνθρώποις ἀλλὰ καὶ θηρίοις διὰ λόγων συγγίνεσθαι, to hold converse through words, not only with men, but also with beasts, and to make use of all those for philosophy, μετά τε θηρίων καὶ μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων ὁμιλοῦντες, καὶ πυνθανόμενοι παρὰ πάσης φύσεως, etc., holding converse with the beasts and with one another, and learning of each creature, etc., which things EUSEBIUS selected out of Plato and brought together with the Mosaic history of man’s Temptation, Præparatione Euangelica, book XII, chapter XIV:  see our AUTHOR’S Exercitationes Textuales I, Part VI, § 3.

              4.  It is useless to examine all the Examples of Animals Talking, which are also found in the Historians, and are brought and set forth out of the same by GROTIUS and BOCHART, whose words, contracted into a compendium, our AUTHOR relates, Commentario ad Vaticinia Bileami, Numbers 22, § 20, page 405; and concerning which BOCHART himself thus judges, Hierozoico, part I, book II, chapter XIV, columns 197, 198, Since these things so frequently occur in the historians of the highest reputation, no one would say that all these things are imaginary.  It suffices, that after the likeness of portents, as GROTIUS speaks on Numbers 22:22, these things were recorded in the histories; while BOCHART observes that it is plain, that in this the Devil showed himself to be the ape of God.  And, although magpies and parrots learn to imitate the human voice, and often know how to set forth some words quite fittingly; yet they furnish that without an understanding of those things that they say, since the use of reason is wanting, and hence Speech, properly so called, is not able to be attributed to them:  see also BOCHART’S Epistola de Serpente Tentatore after Phaleg et Canaan, column 839.

              5.  It is one thing, to speak of the diverse sounds of Brutes, which are observed to vary, as they are angry, or want to testify of benevolent affections, or fulfill the office of rendering thanks; but which does not at all evince that the use of Speech is to be attributed to them:  while whatever the external indications of sound might be in Brutes, whereby their internal motions might be expressed, among other Brutes and among Men, they always differ much from articulated word made with reason.  On this question concerning the Speech of Animals, see VOETIUS, Disputationum theologicarum, part I, page 734, problem X, page 735, problem XIII.

[1] 2 Peter 2:12:  “But these, as natural brute beasts (ὡς ἄλογα ζῶα φυσικὰ), made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption…”

[2] Jude 10:  “But these speak evil of those things which they know not:  but what they know naturally, as brute beasts (φυσικῶς, ὡς τὰ ἄλογα ζῶα), in those things they corrupt themselves.”

[3] That is, devisers of fables.