dictionary that 1 have at hand. 1t looks like an Augustinian invention (or perhaps an invention of
142 Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis stand this lower air being made then, because it is not called sea, even if it can be called water?" For this reason it seems to me that it was at the words Let the dry land appear that not only the specific form of earth, but also of this grosser air was hinted at. It is through this, after all, that the earth i s illuminated, to be clearly visible to us. ln the single verb let itappearwe are given an intimation of all the things without which it cannot become apparent, that is, its own specific form, and its being stripped of the waters, and the pouring round it of the air through which light is transmitted to it from the higher atmosphere.
Or rather, is the specific form of this air presented to us in the words Let the water be collected together, because when this air is condensed it seems to produce this water? And so perhaps he called its compression into density the collecting together of water, to become the sea, while that part of it that was not collected together, that is to say not thickened, is the water which is able to hold up the flying birds, and which is furnished with each name so that it can be called both more refined water and grosser air.
Or is it true perhaps, as some people would have it, that it is from the exhala tions of sea and land that these airs are made sufficiently coarser than that higher and more limpid zone, to be suited to bearing up the wings ofbirds, but still suffi ciently more rarified that these waters with which bodies are washed, to be perceived as dry and airy in comparison with them? And because it had already spoken about earth and sea, what need was there to say anything about their exhalations, that is about the waters for the birds, when you have realized that the purest and most tranquil kind of air has been allotted to the solid structure, the firmament?
The origin ofsprings and rivers
47. Neither has anything been said, after all, about how springs and rivers were made. Those, you see, who inquire more minutely into these matters and write articles about them, say that a sweet vapor is extracted from the sea by some influence coming down from the ether above,60 that is to say, it is drawn upwards in a way entirely beyond our senses to perceive. From it, they say, are compressed the clouds, and thus, after moistening the earth, it is filtered down to drip into hidden caverns, from where as much of it is sweated out as may be pumped and channeled through various conduits to gush out in springs, whether small ones or ones sufficient to give birth to rivers. They would illustrate this by
60. Aetherio superlapsu is his phrase; "by an etherial superlapse." The second word is given in no dictionary that 1 have at hand. 1t looks like an Augustinian invention (or perhaps an invention of the authorities he refers to. whoever they were). 1 take it to be equivalent to lapsu desuper. Why neither they nor he thought of attributing the effect to the heat of the sun, given the illustration he goes on to provide from some kind of retort for distilling sea water, it is hard to understand.