Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/95

CHAP. IV has no interest in physical phenomena, which have no laws for him except the will of God.

The archbishop then explains that God did not fix the earth's stability as an artisan would, with compass and level, but as the Omnipotent, by the might of His command. If we would understand why the earth is unmoved, we must not try to measure creation as with a compass, but must look to the will of God: "voluntate Dei immobilis manet et stat in saeculum terra." And again Ambrose asks, Why argue as to the elements which make the heaven? Why trouble oneself with these physical inquiries? "Sufficeth for our salvation, not such disputation, but the verity of the precepts, not the acuteness of argument, but the mind's faith, so that rather than the creature, we may serve the Creator, who is God blessed forever."

Thus with Ambrose, the whole creation springs from the immediate working of God's inscrutable will. It is all essentially a miracle, like those which He wrought in after times to aid or save men: they also were but operations of His will. God said Fiat lux, and there was light. Thus His will creates; and nature is His work (opus Dei natura est). And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters; and it was so. "Hear the word, Fiat. His will is the measure of things; His word ends the work." The division of the waters above and beneath the firmament was a work of His will, just as He divided the waters of the Red Sea before the eyes of the Jews in order that those things might be believed which the Jews had not seen. He could have