Tres Orationes

they were completely alien. I would judge the cause of that permission to have been a lack of resources, resulting from the overturning of trees and the change in the earth's pristine fertility. Because the land had been devastated, and had not failed to contract some defect from the annual flood, it could not cleanse itself so quickly, nor gather its strength to prepare for the production of mild fruits, especially since the sublunary sphere itself was still difficult to penetrate due to the prolonged duration of the rains. Therefore, the consumption of meat was granted by God to the human race from those animals that had been kept safe and sound in Noah’s ark and had multiplied for the hope of posterity, not long before being driven out and spread across the various regions of the world. From these facts, it can now be established that the original law and the ancestral method of living were subsequently changed and relaxed due to the sins of men, having previously been restricted to the fruits of trees and the green herbs of the field.

But so that the discourse may return to the point from which it diverged: even though herbs were established so that their fruits, and the seeds taken from them, would be destined for the purpose of nourishment, they were nevertheless endowed at that time with other powers as well, the γεωργία agriculture/husbandry of which was inherent in man, which in our present state medicine converts to the healing of diseases. Undefiled nature did not need medicine: now, after the fall, with bodies subject to every kind of ailment and disease, there is a need not only for food but also for remedies. Therefore, since the wisdom of the Creator gave so many and so various plants—