De Moor VIII:31: The Effects of Creation

The whole work produced by God, and especially the Corporeal Universe, goes by the name of Mundi/World, κόσμου/cosmos in Greek:  our AUTHOR in his Compendio observes that both terms, as they are most commonly established, are so called from Ornament.  There are those, as VOSSIUS relates in his Etymologico, that maintain that the Mundum/World is so called as if Movendum, a thing to be moved, because it is in perpetual motion.  Thus, for example, ISIDORE in book III of his Originum, chapter XVIII, book XIII, chapter I.  Which, that it also satisfied FESTUS,[1] could not be believed without pretense; see VOSSIUS.  But better, according to the judgment of VOSSIUS, Varro,[2] Cicero, Pliny, and Paulus the Jurisconsult,[3] who thus maintain that it is derived from munditie/cleanness, just as also among the Greeks (whether Hesiod,[4] as Zeno[5] maintained, or Parmenides,[6] as others assert, or Pythagoras, which is read in Plutarch [in de Placitis Philosophorum, book III, chapter I:  Πυθαγόρας πρῶτος ὠνόμασε τὴν τῶν ὅλων περιοχὴν, κόσμον, ἐκ τῆς ἐν αὐτῷ τάξεως, Pythagoras was the first to name the universe, cosmos, from the orderly arrangement in it], Galen,[7] and Lærtius [add also in STOBÆUS,[8] Eclogis Physicis, book I, chapter XXV], is the author of this appellation) it is called κόσμος/cosmos, ἀπὸ τῆς κοσμότητος.  The same satisfied Tertullian, whose words against Marcion, book I (chater XII, page 371), are these:  “So that I might then also speak something concerning that as unworthy of this mundi/world, to which also among the Greeks is assigned a term of ornament and cultivation, not of filth.”  Add what things HILARY has in de Trinitate, book I, chapter VII, column 770:  “And so beautiful is the heaven, ether, land, sea, and whole universitas/universe, which appears to be named from its ornatu/ornament, as it also pleases the Greeks, κόσμος/cosmos, that is, mundus/world.”  But, although verily to this Universe is assigned a name from Ornament, yet under this name contrived by Greek Philosophers, when they assert that the κόσμον/cosmos was made by God, a Gentile error lurks, wherein they believe that the ὕλην/matter, a rude and disordered mass, was present in nature with God from eternity, which the divine Mind at length merely adorned according to His strength, yet not being able to remove all the corruption from it:  see GERARDUS GULIELMUS AB OOSTEN DE BRUYN, de Philosophia Gentile Doctrinæ moralis, pages 93-95.

Among the Hebrews the whole work produced by God goes by the name of Heaven and Earth:  when according to the circumstances of particular passages Heaven and Earth are able variously to be divided and set in opposition to each other, so that Heaven either designates the third Heaven only, or also comprehends the starry and aerial Expanse under it, as the Hebrew are wont to speak of the Heavens in the dual, or rather plural, by the name שָׁמַיִם,[9] which nevertheless is able also to be used of the supreme Heaven alone to express excellence.  In accordance with the very first production and division of the World, which is found in Genesis 1:1, Heaven expresses only the third Heaven, and Earth comprehends all the remaining parts of the World under it:  but, after the Expanse was made, the Upper Waters separated from the Lower, the Expanse adorned and diversified by marvelous Luminaries, and the Atmosphere enriched with flying birds; the Starry and Aerial Expanse, although originally pertaining to the Earth, is able to be referred to the Heavens with respect to its present position, and to be set in opposition to the Earth; with this name left to our Terraqueous Globe alone, situated in the lower parts of the World.  What things I have already observed in § 24 are able to be brought in for comparison.

But the World is defined as the Ordered Structure of All Bodies, depending upon on principium, and tending toward one end.  This Definition is accommodated to that signification of the Universe and World, in which it is taken for created Works, especially the corporeal, as our AUTHOR taught in the beginning of the paragraph.  Therefore, he restricts his Definition to the Corporeal Universe, while other significations of World, through which it denotes the Earth, Isaiah 26:9; Matthew 4:8; John 9:5; Men, Romans 3:6, 19; and certain sorts of these, especially the Pious, John 6:33, 51; 2 Corinthians 5:19; or the Impious, John 15:19; 17:9; he now dismisses.  He is about to give a separate treatment of rational and spiritual Creatures, Angels in Chapter IX, and Men in Chapter XIII.

[1] Sextus Pompeius Festus was a second century Roman grammarian.  He composed an epitome of Verrius Flaccus’ de Verborum Significatu.

[2] Marcus Terentius Varro, or Varro Reatinus (116-27 BC), was a Roman statesman and scholar, called “the most learned of the Romans.”  He wrote twenty-five book de Lingua Latina, six of which survive.

[3] Julius Paulus Prudentissimus (flourished in the late second-, early third-century) was a Roman jurist.  His Sententiæ survives in fragments.

[4] Hesiod lived around the turn of the seventh century BC.  In his poetry (particularly, Theogony), he preserves a most ancient form of Greek mythology.

[5] Zeno of Citium (333-264 BC) was the founder of the philosophical school of Stoicism.  He allegorized Greek myths, interpreting a number of passages out of Hesiods Theogonia in this way.

[6] Parmenides of Elea (late sixth, early fifth century BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosopher.  He asserted that the fundamental nature of reality is one and unchanging, rather than manifold and mutable.

[7] Claudius Galenus of Pergamum (129-200 AD) was an innovative Greek physician.

[8] Joannes Stobæus was a late-fifth century compiler of Greek antiquities.

[9] Note the dual ending (ַיִם -).