angels elsewhere, without particular reference also to demons, does Augustine assume that
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15. But if those transgressors wore celestial bodies18 before they trans gressed, it is also hardly surprising if these were turned as a punishment into something like air, so that they could now be acted upon and suffer pain from fire, that is, from the element higher up in the natural scale. Nor in any case were they allowed to occupy the loftier and purer regions of the air, but only these murky parts, which serve as a kind of prison for them until the time ofjudgment. And if there are further questions to be investigated more thoroughly about these transgressor angels, there will be some other place ofscripture more suited to the matter. For the moment it is sufficient to make this point: if these turbulent and stormy regions of the air are able, on account of its nature where it reaches down to sea and land, to sustain airy bodies, they can also hold up those of birds, produced from the waters, on account of the tenuous exhalations from the waters. These, as we have seen, are inserted in the form of vapor into this same air where it is poured round the world next to the sea and land, and they interlace the breezes which distill the gentle dew when made heavier by the rigors of the night; while if the cold gets more severe they also lay on the ground the white mantle of hoar frost.
On the various kinds ofanimal createdfrom the earth
1 1 , 1 6. And God said: Let the earthproduce live soul according to kind; quad rupeds and reptiles and beasts of the earth according to kind, and cattle according to kind. And it was made thus. And God made the beasts of the earth according to kind and cattle according to kind and all reptiles of the earth according to kind. And God saw that they were good (Gn 1 :24-25). Now at last it was time to furnish with its animals the other part, the one that is properly called earth, of this lowest region with all its abysses and cloudy air, the whole ofwhich is elsewhere in scripture embraced under the name of "earth." And the kinds of animal which the earth produced at a word from God are indeed plain enough. But all animals not endowed with reason are often in general usage lumped together under the name of "cattle" or the name of "beasts"; so it is worth inquiring what are here properly meant by "beasts" and what by "cattle." There is no doubt, of course, that by "reptiles" or crawling things he meant all serpents—though they too can also be called beasts, while the name of"cattle" is
18. That is, bodies of fire, that being the element proper to the celestial region. When talking of angels elsewhere, without particular reference also to demons, does Augustine assume that they too had airy bodies, being of the same created nature as demons? Aquinas thinks he does, and quotes him as the leading authority for the idea. But he only refers to this chapter, section
14, in his Summa Theologiae 1, q.5 1 , a. 1 , ad 1 . Saint Thomas, however, clearly did not read on to this section 15, where Augustine is implying that they have bodies of fire, an idea he would have found supported by Ps 104:4, which he would have read as running: "who makes your angels spirits, and your ministers burning fire." See also the quotation of this verse in Heb 1 :7.