1.  And God said “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so.” Gen. i. 24.  The command of God advanced step by step and earth thus received her adornment.  Yesterday it was said, “Let the waters produce moving things,” and to-day “let the earth bring forth the living creature.”  Is the earth then alive?  And are the mad-minded Manichæans right in giving it a soul?  At these words “Let the earth bring forth,” it did not produce a germ contained in it, but He who gave the order at the same time gifted it with the grace and power to bring forth.  When the earth had heard this command “Let the earth bring forth grass and the tree yielding fruit,” it was not grass that it had hidden in it that it caused to spring forth, it did not bring to the surface a palm tree, an oak, a cypress, hitherto kept back in its depths.  It is the word of God which forms the nature of things created.  “Let the earth bring forth;” that is to say not that she may bring forth that which she has but that she may acquire that which she lacks, when God gives her the power.  Even so now, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature,” not the living creature that is contained in herself, but that which the command of God gives her.  Further, the Manichæans contradict themselves, because if the earth has brought forth the life, she has left herself despoiled of life.  Their execrable doctrine needs no demonstration.