On the Creation of the World (147-148)

And, moreover, man dwells among all the things that have been just enumerated, as most appropriate places having the closest connection with himself, changing his abode, and going at different times to different places. So that one may say with the most perfect propriety that man is every kind of animal, terrestrial, aquatic, flying, and celestial. For inasmuch as he dwells and walks upon the earth he is a terrestrial animal; but inasmuch as he often dives and swims, and sails, he is an aquatic creature. And merchants and captains of ships and purple dyers, and all those who let down their nets for oysters an fish, are a very clear proof of what is

here said. Again, inasmuch as his body is raised at times above the earth and uses high paths, he may with justice be pronounced a creature who traverses the air; and, moreover, he is a celestial animal, by reason of that most important of the senses, sight; being by it brought near the sun and moon, and each of the stars, whether planets or fixed stars.

And with great beauty Moses has attributed the giving of names to the different animals to the first created man, for it is a work of wisdom and indicative of royal authority, and man was full of intuitive wisdom and self-taught, having been created by the grace of God, and, moreover, was a king. And it is proper for a ruler to give names to each of his subjects. And, as was very natural, the power of domination was excessive in that first-created man, whom God formed with great care and thought worthy of the second rank in the creation, making him his own viceroy and the ruler of all other creatures. Since even those who have been born so many generations afterwards, when the race is becoming weakened by reason of the long intervals of time that have elapsed since the beginning of the world, do still exert the same power over the irrational beasts, preserving as it were a spark of the dominion and power which has been handed down to them by succession from their first ancestor.