Metrum In Genesim Ad Leonem Papam

A METER ON GENESIS, TO POPE LEO, which was appended to the works of Hilarius, Bishop of Arles, by Quesnel. We obeyed your commands, your sweet orders followed, O Bishop of Christ, which you gave with pious mouth. Would I not sing of so great a father’s commands, the gift and work of God, while I had a tongue? A hoarse one indeed, grating, and worthy of no crowns, and a talent lying low, but eager to speak of high things. It is a worthy and just work always to speak gratefully to you, Almighty creator of the world, by whose rule all things took their natal day, and suddenly arisen after darkness, the lights gazed upon a stupefied sky: the race of men, cattle and beasts, a thousand birds, and the hosts that run through the liquid plains. All things through yourself, from you, who build the greatest things, from you, born Father; nor is there another power of the Father. You are the head and the first head, you are the spring of the fountain, the first peak of things, the first savior, condensing all things: yet you do not draw your origin from another, yourself the eternal Spirit, living through the ages with ancient motion, you will always be, because you always were, not needing death, who lack a birth, and you know no end of time. A beginning from yourself, to which it pertains, does not remain another author of chance; a born thing is pressed by an end. When black chaos gathered all things, and the high mass of the formless world pressed down from above, and weighed down with late night in darkness, there was neither species nor form; God, you were working within, mixed with hidden bodies, a secret witness.

Already then arranging the nascent melodies of the world, and the varied faces of things and future souls, and as the head, having conquered the darkness of night, raised its sublime countenance, the shadows felt it. Soon the Lord of things shook off sluggish slumbers, and sluggish matter, struck by the divine power, trembled, and together, ripe and conscious of birth, the immense heap is split into very many parts of the body, and place is simultaneously measured out for seeds by command, and the confused masses descend together as viscera, cut into parts, pieces looking to forms, already color nourishes within and rouses with gentle fire. And first the free vault of the world, embracing all spaces, is suspended in the high sphere. Heavy earth descends with sluggish weight to the bottom, and settling on itself, founded on the sea, it subsided, so that there might be space of an open empty region, through which the tender air, advancing, might nourish mortals, and so that so many gifts of things might be able to issue from the father, and be borne forth without labor through the void. The scattered waters are gathered; soon within a fixed limit the seas flow, and the wave does not cross the boundary. Then the nourishing light arises, the day which is ordered to be devoured, and bathes the nascent world with gentle radiance. Revealing your gift and work, your greatest gifts, which the parent was preparing to establish with fatherly piety, so that the skillful life of man might be able to shine forth, drawing all lights from ethereal arts. It rejoices, and wearies the mind with varied praise.

Night follows day, black and thick with shadows, bringing sleep and rest to weary bodies, and giving all things a single, similar face. For day distinguishes the varied forms of things, and, once night is scattered, gives each its own color, and stirs minds, hot for greater works, sharpening mortal hearts with various cares: so much more is day the image of life, night the image of death. Then the Father thickens the stars in the sky, and with living light, distinguishing the constellations, chosen in varied shapes, Lucifer rises, golden and shining, and Vesper, and Dawn scatters her rosy hair; the Serpent brings fair weather, the Pleiades bring rain. There are the Yokes, there are the Wagons, and the Crowns glittering with flowers, and the signs that roll the year through twelve forms. And many other ornaments of the lofty house besides, with which the age is propped by signs, and the highest palace, painted with the varied light of stars, gleams. But the sun has greater light, which the father, with generous gift, has honored with full face. That fiery radiance, on its high summit, with a reddening face, is borne through the walls of the sky, the leader of the stars, ever vigorous, and the elements. Behold another wonder, a wondrous beauty, and the moon changes its course anew, gathering the fires it loses, and extinguishing its horns, it disturbs its face with light. Yet soon it blazes, with the circle completed, and the night-light feeds the sown stars with its light. Nor, however, is the machine that revolves in the eternal ether merely a picture of the sky, nor a lofty will; mind and reason underlie it, and an order useful for things.

From this comes teaching to the lands, from this finally counsel to all farmers and to those who traverse the deep seas, so that they may be able to predict how the lights will bear themselves in each season, and know the coming rains, the dry fair weather, the time when the plowman leads the oxen into the fields, and the sailor, now confident, tries the doubtful sea. You, best of Fathers, set about cultivating the lands with instructed fires from the sky, and you bestow them with a rich gift. The realms of men, the lair and rest of beasts and of birds, become level plains; hills rise up in steep swelling; valleys sink down; flowering meadows grow green; rocks harden; the rich clod of earth breaks up; springs burst forth, from which comes the lofty origin of rivers; various grasses of herbs rise up in the fields. And already the tender crop was striking the fruit with its ear, when there were no yokes, nor any plowshare of a plow, no bull bellowed in the furrowed fields; behold, even the vine, already full with the moist cluster, still without experience of the sickle and ignorant of hard iron, was weaving its vine-shade on the high hills. A diverse form of wild beasts arises, both rock-dwelling creatures and those creeping on the lands. Birds are born with painted wings through the clouds.

When these things were finished, the Creator, now with a rich world, sees that all things demand the care of a great king, who would govern the sea, the lands, and all that is born, and who would look upon the high heaven and praise the great gifts of the mighty God, lest these things have been established in vain. Then, you say, "Let us make man." Tell me, best of speakers, with whom do you now speak? It is clear: already then the Son sits with you on the high throne and looks upon the friendly lands. But you say, "Let us make man," whose face will be our image, and who will proceed into eternity from my hands. Then, maker of things, you take up the soft earth and form a man, from whose rib a woman is made with a face, a woman made from the rib of a man, so that she may be more dear to her husband and fit for his side. O blessed soul, whose right hand of the highest Thunderer is father! O too blessed one, who draws from Olympus both your race and your form! If the harmful vices of the earth do not deceive you, nor seductive error undermine you, you will be a divinity, and, returned to heaven, you will marvel at the realms which the faithful Father promises with his word to the good. For God bestowed many things upon you freely at your birth: first, an ethereal face and a fatherly countenance, a straight gait, a lofty neck, so that there would be no delay for your gazing eyes toward heaven; then, swift and ready hands, ministers of life, and the breast, home of divine reason and seat of high counsel, and the honor of pouring forth speech.

These things were granted to man alone: for the rest is mute beast; it obtained the belly, the heart, the sinews, the streams of veins, and the blood scattered through the body, both just and light, and sensations and pains. But You, Almighty, generous with a private gift toward man, and with Your hands and works favoring him, fostering the pledge of fatherly piety, lest anything now be lacking to divine countenances, You breathe in the fire of the aether, and You grant the rich portion of a sacred mind, mingled throughout the whole body. Then it is permitted to remember the past, to know the present is given from this, and it is allowed for the soul to see the future. From this we speak and sing of God, from this all the stars and the cultivation of the lands flourish, and the sea is stirred; from this come the arts, and the name of modesty, prudence, justice; from this arise strong souls, from this proceeds the honorable, and the path that leads the chaste to the thresholds of heaven. Therefore, Father, You place man, perfected with a full gift, over the lands, and You hand over the reins of things: let him have all and subdue it to himself, and let him become the master of the earth, Your servant; let him possess everything of the world, only let him serve You, the Lord, alone.

After the first man did not fear to feed himself from the forbidden tree, and, caught by the serpent’s wiles, offered himself to it, he stands guilty, and naked, with downcast eyes, begging for covering, and flees the Lord, and hides his face. Guilt as a companion follows; a life subject to sin weakens the strength, the gifts coming from heaven. The fire sent down from the ether gradually fails; hearts grow numb and stiffen with the cold of sin; the care of food and of the belly came upon him, the care of covering the body, and mortal things enter the sacred breast. Hence a progeny of sin is born; from there a much worse offspring sprouts, and a worse generation than the former follows, growing in crimes step by step: crimes which sharpen maddened hearts with goads, and arm you, Father, with various things. Then first it came to work the lands unseasonably; the rain first came down from the clouds untimely; then first thunderbolts were hurled from a clear sky; then savage hail beats the troubled fields, and the broken ether murmurs with deep-sounding thunder. Yet these things do not recall the wicked; impious fury besieges the world, and madness is carried with loosened reins. Wars please, and slaughters at the same time, perjuries, frauds; it is pleasing to lie, to steal is love, to hide thefts. There is no faith among peoples, no truth anywhere any longer. The crime of the lands is washed away by the flood and the waters, and one man remains as the restorer of the race and the people. The ark covers a few, preserving the seeds of the chaste; even then the likeness of the future baptism was shown, and of the many, through whom light is given to the reborn, the Church, faithful in keeping, preserves the birth.

After the flood’s swelling subsided and the waters receded, the bird of peace bore a leaf of olive; now flying back on dry wings, it gave all the signs of peace. Then a people arose, better and purer from the waters, a race of men destined to bring forth great descendants upon the earth. From this came hearts devoted to the priest in heaven, and from this, boys ready to sing amid the flames, and the unfed boy whom the lions did not touch; then kings sang of God, then the true mouths of prophets sounded forth the shining offspring of heaven from the fire. Although all things served God after the defeat of crime, yet even then a drop of the ancient poison still sprinkled the peoples, and there remained traces of deceit, which a good teacher would wash away with better waters. From the preceding Prolegomena, it was evident to the reader that Quesnellus, while engaged in editing the Works of Leo the Great, appended these little works of St. Hilary of Arles, together with a very full dissertation on that Father. This dissertation, although inscribed as Apologetic for St. Hilary, pertains to Leo with so many and such great reasons that it could be placed nowhere else than where Quesnellus inserted it, without disturbing the order of things. Here, therefore, we deliberately omit it, reserving it to be printed among the other Elucidations of Quesnellus on Leo the Great, namely in volume IV of our Patrology. THE END.