Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Q69 A2: Whether it was fitting that the production of plants should take place on the third day?

Yes. The production of plants in their causes, within the earth, took place before they sprang up from the earth's surface because in these first days God created all things in their origin or causes, and on the third day, as was said (Q69, A1), the formless state of the earth comes to an end.

Ante ergo quam orirentur super terram, factae sunt causaliter in terra ... quia in illis primis diebus condidit Deus creaturam originaliter vel causaliter, et sicut supra dictum est, in tertia die informitas terrae removetur.

Augustine (Gen. ad lit. v, 5; viii, 3) says that the earth is said to have then produced plants and trees in their causes, that is, it received then the power to produce them.

Augustinus autem, V Sup. Gen. ad Litt., dicit quod "causaliter tunc dictum est produxisse terram herbam et lignum, idest producendi accepisse virtutem".

Life in plants is hidden, since they lack sense and local movement, by which the animate and the inanimate are chiefly discernible. And therefore, since they are firmly fixed in the earth, their production is treated as a part of the earth's formation.

Vita in plantis est occulta, quia carent motu locali et sensu, quibus animatum ab inanimato maxime distinguitur. Et ideo, quia immobiliter terrae inhaerent, earum productio ponitur quasi quaedam terrae formatio.

Moses put before the people such things only as were manifest to their senses, as we have said (Q67, A4; Q68, A3). But minerals are generated in hidden ways within the bowels of the earth. Moreover they seem hardly specifically distinct from earth, and would seem to be species thereof. For this reason, therefore, he makes no mention of them.

Moyses ea tantum proposuit quae in manifesto apparent, sicut iam dictum est. Corpora autem mineralia habent generationem occultam in visceribus terrae. Et iterum, non habent manifestam distinctionem a terra, sed quaedam terrae species videntur. Et ideo de eis mentionem non fecit.