58 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



the same faith in prodigies as opposed to natural 

 occurrences. The fathers knew little more about 

 the true order of the physical universe than savages. 

 They believed, for instance, the use of the spade 

 made the earth fertile because it was of the form of 

 a cross ; that the sun, moon, and stars shone less 

 brightly since the fall. Irenaeus gave, as his rea- 

 sons for accepting the four Gospels and no more, 

 the fact that there are four universal winds and four 

 quarters of the earth, and because living creatures 

 are quadriform. Origen believed that the sun, moon, 

 and stars were living, rational beings, capable of sin- 

 ning, and were subject to vanity, etc., and that they 

 prayed to the Supreme Being through his only-be- 

 gotten Son. Tertullian shared the belief of his con- 

 temporaries that the hyena changes its sex every 

 year, being alternately male and female. Clement 

 of Eome believed the story of the phcenix, that 

 wonderful bird of Arabia, which was said to live 

 five hundred years ; and when it died at the end of 

 that time, that a worm sprang from its decaying 

 flesh which soon became a new phoenix, which forth- 

 with took up the bones of its defunct parent and 

 flew away to the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt, and 

 laid them on the altar of the sun. The natural 

 philosopher has always taught that " death is a law 

 and not a punishment," but " the fathers taught it 

 is a penal infliction introduced into the world on ac- 

 count of the sin of Adam, which was also the cause 

 of the appearance of all noxious plants, of all con- 

 vulsions in the material globe, and, as was sometimes 



