ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the process from which the environment is seen as sovereign to the excision of nature in the role of world formation; a process that might be described as moving from the verdant to the desiccated by focusing on a range of Christian didactic literature dealing with animals. In charting the role played by Christian didactic, what will be argued further is that the historical process leading to the legal excising of nature and animality does not completely disavow a certain characteristic of sovereignty associated with the natural world. This characteristic might be defined in relation to a notion of a coming salvation. Animals depicted in the early Christian, or physiologus bestiaries symbolised the mystery of creation, the divine provenance of all things and the attributes of that divinity. The category of pre-Christian animal literature might loosely be termed Aristotelian and incorporates a broad range of natural histories and encyclopaedias.
