108 RICHARD MCKEON 



pupils, Herman the Dalmatian (or Carinthian) and Robert of 

 Chester (or Katene) , in the dedication of their translation of 

 Ptolemy's Planisphere to him, address him as the first anchor 

 and sovereign of the second philosophy (the mathematical arts 

 of the quadrivium) , the immovable support of studies tossed 

 by every tempest, in whom relives the soul of Plato descended 

 from the heavens for the blessing of mortals, the true father 

 of Latin Studies. 



Thierry says that his method of commenting on the first 

 part of Genesis is by distinctions which are literal and according 

 to physics. There are four causes of earthly subsistences: an 

 efiicient cause, God the Father; a formal cause, the wisdom 

 of God, or the Son; a final cause, the benignity of God, or the 

 Holy Spirit; and a material cause, the four elements. To say 

 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth is to 

 say that he created matter in the first moment of time. Once 

 created, heaven could not remain immobile: in the revolution 

 which constituted the first day, the highest element, fire, illumi- 

 nated the lower element air. In the revolution of the second 

 day, fire through the medium of air, heated the lower element 

 water, vaporizing it into minute drops which can be suspended 

 in air; the firmament was thus placed in the midst of the water, 

 air being suspended between a layer of vaporized and a layer 

 of condensed water. Since the condensed water below was 

 diminished in that process, dry land appeared in the third 

 revolution; the action of the heat of the superior air and the 

 dampness of the earth produced herbs and trees. In the fourth 

 day, the bodies of the stars were created by contraction, caused 

 by heat, of the waters above the firmament. Heat was increased 

 in the revolution of the fifth day by the motion of the stars, 

 became vital, and produced fish in the waters and birds in 

 the air. On the sixth day, the vital heat proceeded to earth, 

 and the animals of the earth were created, including man made 

 in the image and likeness of God. After the sixth day no new 

 mode of creation was used, but new creatures were produced 

 from the seminal causes inserted in the elements in those first 



