Oh, God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of travail.

In circa A.D. 375. Included in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (NPNF), edited by P. Schaff and Henry Wace (Edinburg: T. Clark, 1897), 2nd Series, Vol. 8. Quoted in Matthew Scully, [//books.google.it/books?id=SYY7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT28 Dominion] (2002).

'Alcuni, tratti in inganno dall'ateismo che portavano dentro di sé, immaginarono un universo privo di guida e di ordine, come in balìa del caso. | Some, misled by the atheism they carried within themselves, imagined a universe devoid of governance and order, as if at the mercy of case. | Homilies on Hexameron, On Genesis, 1,2,4; quoted by Pope Benedict XVII, General Audience of 9 November 2005.