"God said: 'Let the waters produce reptiles with living souls, and on the earth winged creatures flying across the firmament of heaven.' This is what happened." (Genesis 1.20) This translation is in Homily 7 on Genesis by St. John Chrysostom (18). It is also in my Grandfather's Russian Bible. It is also in the Greek in the Septuagint.
St. Basil the Great in his Hexaemeron:
"Let the earth bring forth the living soul" of domestic
animals, of wild beasts, and of reptiles after their
kind.
"Let the earth bring forth the living creature (Gen.
1.24)." Thus when the soul of brutes appeared it was
not concealed in the earth, but was born by the command
of God. (19)
The body-soul-spirit scheme of being is more accurate than the body-soul scheme is.
St. Theophan the Recluse says:
Letter 9 - Just what is the spirit? It is that force
which God breathed into man when He created him. The
earth bore all species of earthly creatures by God's
command. From the earth also came every kind of living
creatures soul. The human soul, although it resembles
the animal soul in its lowest part, in incomparably
superior to it in its highest part. That it is this
way in man is because of it's bonding with the soul.
The spirit, breathed by God, combined with it and
raised it far above every nonhuman soul. That is why
we note within ourselves, in addition to what we see in
the animals, that which is peculiar to the
spiritualized soul of man, and even higher, that which
is peculiar only to the spirit.
Letter 11 - I will take up where I left off, that is,
with what happened to the soul as a result of its union
with the spirit, which is from God. From this union,
the entire soul was transformed from being an animal
soul, which it is by nature, into a human soul... The
human soul, being such as described, displays
aspirations above all this and rises a step further,
because it is an inspired soul... (man) is the high
priest in the sense that the voices of all creation
praise God instinctively, while man raises praise to
the Creator Above All with rational song. (13)
St. Maximos the Confessor in his Third Century on
Love:
46. God, full beyond all fulness, brought creatures
into being not because He had need or anything, but so
that they might participate in Him in proportion to
their capacity and that He himself might rejoice in His
works (Psalm 104.31) through seeing them joyful and
ever filled to overflowing with His inexhaustible
gifts. (11)
Bishop Kallistos Ware says:
...all created things are God-sourced, God-rooted,
finding their origin and fulfillment in him. (14)
St. John of Kronstadt says:
"All things are near to God." says the Russian proverb.
Truly everything is near: all spiritual, and sentient
creatures, the Angels, the souls of the departed, all
living men, all animals, all material worlds. The
Spirit of God passes through all things, a reasoning
pure, most refined Spirit, dwelling in every believing,
pious soul. "The wild beasts of the field are in my
sight (Psalm 1:11)," says He. "I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:20)." As an
infinite Spirit, to God nothing is far away, but all
things are in Him. All things live and exist in Him.
(15)
Orthodox Prayer for & with our Fellow Creatures
Speak a word to me, Father.