On the Firmament. - NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works

Bad Advertisement?

Are you a Christian?

Online Store:

Visit Our Store

On the Firmament.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP

Homily III.

On the Firmament.

1. We have now recounted the works of the first day, or rather of one day. Far be it from me indeed, to take from it the privilege it enjoys of having been for the Creator a day apart, a day which is not counted in the same order as the others. Our discussion yesterday treated of the works of this day, and divided the narrative so as to give you food for your souls in the morning, and joy in the evening. To-day we pass on to the wonders of the second day. And here I do not wish to speak of the narrator’s talent, but of the grace of Scripture, for the narrative is so naturally told that it pleases and delights all the friends of truth. It is this charm of truth which the Psalmist expresses so emphatically when he says, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”¹⁴⁵⁸

¹⁴⁵⁸ Ps. cxix. 103.
Yesterday then, as far as we were able, we delighted our souls by conversing about the oracles of God, and now to-day we are met together again on the second day to contemplate the wonders of the second day.

I know that many artisans, belonging to mechanical trades, are crowding around me. A day’s labour hardly suffices to maintain them; therefore I am compelled to abridge my discourse, so as not to keep them too long from their work. What shall I say to them? The time which you lend to God is not lost: he will return it to you with large interest. Whatever difficulties may trouble you the Lord will disperse them. To those who have preferred spiritual welfare, He will give health of body, keenness of mind, success in business, and unbroken prosperity. And, even if in this life our efforts should not realise our hopes, the teachings of the Holy Spirit are none the less a rich treasure for the ages to come. Deliver your heart, then, from the cares of this life and give close heed to my words. Of what avail will it be to you if you are here in the body, and your heart is anxious about your earthly treasure?

2. And God said “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”¹⁴⁵⁹

¹⁴⁵⁹ Gen. i. 6.
Yesterday we heard God’s decree, “Let there be light.” To-day it is, “Let there be a firmament.” There appears to be something more in this. The word is not limited to a simple command. It lays down the reason necessitating the structure of the firmament: it is, it is said, to separate the waters from the waters. And first let us ask how God speaks? Is it in our manner? Does His intelligence receive an impression from objects, and, after having conceived them, make them known by particular signs appropriate to each of them? Has He consequently recourse to the organs of voice to convey His thoughts? Is He obliged to strike the air by the articulate movements of the voice, to unveil the thought hidden in His heart? Would it not seem like an idle fable to say that God should need such a circuitous method to manifest His thoughts? And is it not more conformable with true religion to say, that the divine will and the first impetus of divine intelligence are the Word of God? It is He whom Scripture vaguely represents, to show us that God has not only wished to create the world, but to create it with the help of a co-operator. Scripture might continue the history as it is begun: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; afterwards He created light, then He created the firmament. But, by making God command and speak, the Scripture tacitly shows us Him to Whom this order and these words are addressed.¹⁴⁶⁰

¹⁴⁶⁰ Origen, c. Cels. vi. says τὸν μὲν προσεχεῖς δημιουργὸν εἶναι τὸν υἱ& 232·ν τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγον, καὶ ὡσπερεὶ αὐτουργὸν τοῦ κόσμου, τὸν δὲ πατέρα τοῦ λόγου, τῷ προστεταχέναι τῷ υἱ& 242· ἑαυτοῦ λόγῷ ποιῆσαι τὸν κόσμον, εἶναι πρώτως δημιουργόν. cf. Athan., c. gentes § 48, sq.
It is not that it grudges us the knowledge of the truth, but that it may kindle our desire by showing us some trace and indication of the mystery. We seize with delight, and carefully keep, the fruit of laborious efforts, whilst a possession easily attained is despised.¹⁴⁶¹

¹⁴⁶¹ Solon is credited with the saying, δύσκολα τὰ καλά. cf. the German proverb, Gut ding wil weile haben, and Virgil in Georg. i. 121:

“Pater ipse colendi

Haud facilem esse viam voluit.”
Such is the road and the course which Scripture follows to lead us to the idea of the Only begotten. And certainly, God’s immaterial nature had no need of the material language of voice, since His very thoughts could be transmitted to His fellow-worker. What need then of speech, for those Who by thought alone could communicate their counsels to each other? Voice was made for hearing, and hearing for voice. Where there is neither air, nor tongue, nor ear, nor that winding canal which carries sounds to the seat of sensation in the head, there is no need for words: thoughts of the soul are sufficient to transmit the will. As I said then, this language is only a wise and ingenious contrivance to set our minds seeking the Person to whom the words are addressed.

3. In the second place, does the firmament that is called heaven differ from the firmament that God made in the beginning? Are there two heavens? The philosophers, who discuss heaven, would rather lose their tongues than grant this. There is only one heaven,¹⁴⁶²

¹⁴⁶² Plato said one. πότερον ὀ& 202·ν ὀρθῶς ἕνα ουρανὸυ προειρήκαμεν; ἢ πολλοὺς ἢ ἀπείρους λέγειν ἦν ὀρθότερον; εἴπερ κατὰ τὸ παράδειγμα δεδημιουργημένος ἔσται, τὸ γὰρ περιέχον πάντα ὁπόσα νοητὰ ζῶα, μεθ᾽ ἑτέρον δεύτερον οὐκ ἄν ποτ᾽ εἴη…εἷς ὅδε μονογενὴς οὐρανὸς γεγονὼς ἔστι τε καὶ ἔσται. Plat., Tim. § 11. On the other hand, was the Epicurean doctrine of the ἀπειρία κόσμων, referred to in Luc. i. 73:

Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra

Processit longe flammantia mœnia mundi.
they pretend; and it is of a nature neither to admit of a second, nor of a third, nor of several others. The essence of the celestial body quite complete constitutes its vast unity. Because, they say, every body which has a circular motion is one and finite. And if this body is used in the construction of the first heaven, there will be nothing left for the creation of a second or a third. Here we see what those imagine who put under the Creator’s hand uncreated matter; a lie that follows from the first fable. But we ask the Greek sages not to mock us before they are agreed among themselves. Because there are among them some who say there are infinite heavens and worlds.¹⁴⁶³

¹⁴⁶³ So Anaximander (Diog. Laert. ii. 1, 2) and Democritus (Diog. Laert. ix. 44).

But, as Fialon points out, the Greek philosophers used κόσμος and οὐρανός as convertible terms: Basil uses οὐρανός of the firmament or sky.
When grave demonstrations shall have upset their foolish system, when the laws of geometry shall have established that, according to the nature of heaven, it is impossible that there should be two, we shall only laugh the more at this elaborate scientific trifling. These learned men see not merely one bubble but several bubbles formed by the same cause, and they doubt the power of creative wisdom to bring several heavens into being! We find, however, if we raise our eyes towards the omnipotence of God, that the strength and grandeur of the heavens differ from the drops of water bubbling on the surface of a fountain. How ridiculous, then, is their argument of impossibility! As for myself, far from not believing in a second, I seek for the third whereon the blessed Paul was found worthy to gaze.¹⁴⁶⁴

¹⁴⁶⁴ cf. 2 Cor. xii. 2.
And does not the Psalmist in saying “heaven of heavens”¹⁴⁶⁵

¹⁴⁶⁵ Ps. cxlvii. 4.
give us an idea of their plurality? Is the plurality of heaven stranger than the seven circles through which nearly all the philosophers agree that the seven planets pass,—circles which they represent to us as placed in connection with each other like casks fitting the one into the other? These circles, they say, carried away in a direction contrary to that of the world, and striking the æther, make sweet and harmonious sounds, unequalled by the sweetest melody.¹⁴⁶⁶

¹⁴⁶⁶ “You must conceive it” (the whirl) “to be of such a kind as this: as if in some great hollow whirl, carved throughout, there was such another, but lesser, within it, adapted to it, like casks fitted one within another; and in the same manner a third, and a fourth, and four others, for that the whirls were eight in all, as circles one within another…and that in each of its circles there was seated a siren on the upper side, carried round, and uttering one voice variegated by diverse modulations; but that the whole of them, being eight, composed one harmony.” (Plat., Rep. x. 14, Davies’ Trans.) Plato describes the Fates “singing to the harmony of the Sirens.” Id. On the Pythagorean Music of the Spheres, cf. also Cic., De Divin. i. 3, and Macrobius In Somn: Scip.

cf. Shaksp., M. of Ven. v. 1:

“There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.”

And Milton, Arcades:

“Then listen I

To the celestial Sirens’ harmony,

That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,

And sing to those that hold the vital sheres,

And turn the adamantine spindle round

On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
And if we ask them for the witness of the senses, what do they say? That we, accustomed to this noise from our birth, on account of hearing it always, have lost the sense of it; like men in smithies with their ears incessantly dinned. If I refuted this ingenious frivolity, the untruth of which is evident from the first word, it would seem as though I did not know the value of time, and mistrusted the intelligence of such an audience.

But let me leave the vanity of outsiders to those who are without, and return to the theme proper to the Church. If we believe some of those who have preceded us, we have not here the creation of a new heaven, but a new account of the first. The reason they give is, that the earlier narrative briefly described the creation of heaven and earth; while here scripture relates in greater detail the manner in which each was created. I, however, since Scripture gives to this second heaven another name and its own function, maintain that it is different from the heaven which was made at the beginning; that it is of a stronger nature and of an especial use to the universe.

4. “And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.”¹⁴⁶⁷

¹⁴⁶⁷ Gen. i. 6, 7.
Before laying hold of the meaning of Scripture let us try to meet objections from other quarters. We are asked how, if the firmament is a spherical body, as it appears to the eye, its convex circumference can contain the water which flows and circulates in higher regions? What shall we answer? One thing only: because the interior of a body presents a perfect concavity it does not necessarily follow that its exterior surface is spherical and smoothly rounded. Look at the stone vaults of baths, and the structure of buildings of cave form; the dome, which forms the interior, does not prevent the roof from having ordinarily a flat surface. Let these unfortunate men cease, then, from tormenting us and themselves about the impossibility of our retaining water in the higher regions.

Now we must say something about the nature of the firmament, and why it received the order to hold the middle place between the waters. Scripture constantly makes use of the word firmament to express extraordinary strength. “The Lord my firmament and refuge.”¹⁴⁶⁸

¹⁴⁶⁸ Ps. xviii. 2, LXX.
“I have strengthened the pillars of it.”¹⁴⁶⁹

¹⁴⁶⁹ Ps. lxxv. 3, LXX.
“Praise him in the firmament of his power.”¹⁴⁷⁰

¹⁴⁷⁰ Ps. cl. 1. LXX.
The heathen writers thus call a strong body one which is compact and full,¹⁴⁷¹

¹⁴⁷¹ ναστός (fr. νάσσω, press or knead)=close, firm. Democritus used it as opposed to κενόν, void. Arist. fr. 202.
to distinguish it from the mathematical body. A mathematical body is a body which exists only in the three dimensions, breadth, depth, and height. A firm body, on the contrary, adds resistance to the dimensions. It is the custom of Scripture to call firmament all that is strong and unyielding. It even uses the word to denote the condensation of the air: He, it says, who strengthens the thunder.¹⁴⁷²

¹⁴⁷² Amos iv. 13, LXX.
Scripture means by the strengthening of the thunder, the strength and resistance of the wind, which, enclosed in the hollows of the clouds, produces the noise of thunder when it breaks through with violence.¹⁴⁷³

¹⁴⁷³ Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 43) writes: “Si in nube luctetur flatus aut vapor, tonitrua edi: si erumpat ardens, fulmina; si longiore tractu nitatur, fulgetra. His findi nubem, illis perrumpi. Etesse tonitrua impactorum ignium plagas.” cf. Sen., Quæst. Nat. ii. 12.
Here then, according to me, is a firm substance, capable of retaining the fluid and unstable element water; and as, according to the common acceptation, it appears that the firmament owes its origin to water, we must not believe that it resembles frozen water or any other matter produced by the filtration of water; as, for example, rock crystal, which is said to owe its metamorphosis to excessive congelation,¹⁴⁷⁴

¹⁴⁷⁴ ᾽Εμπεδοκλῆς στερέμνιον εἶναι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐξ ἀ& 153·ρος συμπαγέντος ὑπὸ πυρὸς κρυσταλλοειδῶς, τὸ πυρῶδες καὶ ἀερῶδες ἐν ἑκατέρῳ τῶν ἡμισφαιρίων περιέχοντα. (Plutarch περὶ τῶν ἀρεσκόντῶν τοῖς φιλοσόφοις, ii. 11.) Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxvii. 9) says that crystal is made “gelu (vide Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, ii. 1) vehementiore concreto…glaciem que esso certum est; unde et nomen græci dedere.” So Seneca, Quæst. Nat. iii. 25. Diodorus Siculus, however, asserts it “coalescere non a frigore sed divini ignis potentia.” (Bibl. ii. 134.)
or the transparent stone¹⁴⁷⁵

¹⁴⁷⁵ i.e. the “Lapis Specularis,” or mica, which was used for glazing windows. cf. Plin., Ep. ii. 17, and Juv., Sat. iv. 21.
which forms in mines.¹⁴⁷⁶

¹⁴⁷⁶ Mica is found in large plates in Siberia, Peru, and Mexico, as well as in Sweden and Norway.
This pellucid stone, if one finds it in its natural perfection, without cracks inside, or the least spot of corruption, almost rivals the air in clearness. We cannot compare the firmament to one of these substances. To hold such an opinion about celestial bodies would be childish and foolish; and although everything may be in everything, fire in earth, air in water, and of the other elements the one in the other; although none of those which come under our senses are pure and without mixture, either with the element which serves as a medium for it, or with that which is contrary to it; I, nevertheless, dare not affirm that the firmament was formed of one of these simple substances, or of a mixture of them, for I am taught by Scripture not to allow my imagination to wander too far afield. But do not let us forget to remark that, after these divine words “let there be a firmament,” it is not said “and the firmament was made” but, “and God made the firmament, and divided the waters.”¹⁴⁷⁷

¹⁴⁷⁷ Gen. i. 7.
Hear, O ye deaf! See, O ye blind!—who, then, is deaf? He who does not hear this startling voice of the Holy Spirit. Who is blind? He who does not see such clear proofs of the Only begotten.¹⁴⁷⁸

¹⁴⁷⁸ With Christian associations it is startling to read at the end of the Timæus that the Cosmos is the εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ, or, according to another reading, itself Θεός,… μονογενὴς ὤν.
“Let there be a firmament.” It is the voice of the primary and principal Cause. “And God made the firmament.” Here is a witness to the active and creative power of God.

5. But let us continue our explanation: “Let it divide the waters from the waters.”¹⁴⁷⁹

¹⁴⁷⁹ Gen. i. 6.
The mass of waters, which from all directions flowed over the earth, and was suspended in the air, was infinite, so that there was no proportion between it and the other elements. Thus, as it has been already said, the abyss covered the earth. We give the reason for this abundance of water. None of you assuredly will attack our opinion; not even those who have the most cultivated minds, and whose piercing eye can penetrate this perishable and fleeting nature; you will not accuse me of advancing impossible or imaginary theories, nor will you ask me upon what foundation the fluid element rests. By the same reason which makes them attract the earth, heavier than water, from the extremities of the world to suspend it in the centre, they will grant us without doubt that it is due both to its natural attraction downwards and its general equilibrium, that this immense quantity of water rests motionless upon the earth.¹⁴⁸⁰

¹⁴⁸⁰ According to Plutarch (περὶ τῶν ἀρέσκ: etc. iii. 10) Thales and the Stoics affirmed the earth to be spherical, Thales (id. 11) placing it “in the middle.” Pliny, Hist. Nat. ii. 4, says that the earth “universi cardine stare pendentem librantem per quæ pendeat; ita solam immobilem circa eam volubili universitate, eandem ex omnibus necti, eidemque omnia inniti.”
Therefore the prodigious mass of waters was spread around the earth; not in proportion with it and infinitely larger, thanks to the foresight of the supreme Artificer, Who, from the beginning, foresaw what was to come, and at the first provided all for the future needs of the world. But what need was there for this superabundance of water? The essence of fire is necessary for the world, not only in the economy of earthly produce, but for the completion of the universe; for it would be imperfect¹⁴⁸¹

¹⁴⁸¹ On κολοβός, docked, curtailed, cf. Matt. xxiv. 22.
if the most powerful and the most vital of its elements were lacking.¹⁴⁸²

¹⁴⁸² The supremacy of fire was the idea of Heraclitus. Τὸ πῦρ Θεὸν ὑπειλήφασιν ῞Ιππασος …καὶ ῾Ηράκλειτος. Clem. Alex., Protrep. v. 55. Plutarch has an essay on the comparative use fulness of fire and water.
Now fire and water are hostile to and destructive of each other. Fire, if it is the stronger, destroys water, and water, if in greater abundance, destroys fire. As, therefore, it was necessary to avoid an open struggle between these elements, so as not to bring about the dissolution of the universe by the total disappearance of one or the other, the sovereign Disposer created such a quantity of water that in spite of constant diminution from the effects of fire, it could last until the time fixed for the destruction of the world. He who planned all with weight and measure, He who, according to the word of Job, knows the number of the drops of rain,¹⁴⁸³

¹⁴⁸³ Job xxxvi. 27, LXX.
knew how long His work would last, and for how much consumption of fire He ought to allow. This is the reason of the abundance of water at the creation. Further, there is no one so strange to life as to need to learn the reason why fire is essential to the world. Not only all the arts which support life, the art of weaving, that of shoemaking, of architecture, of agriculture, have need of the help of fire, but the vegetation of trees, the ripening of fruits, the breeding of land and water animals, and their nourishment, all existed from heat from the beginning, and have been since maintained by the action of heat. The creation of heat was then indispensable for the formation and the preservation of beings, and the abundance of waters was no less so in the presence of the constant and inevitable consumption by fire.

6. Survey creation; you will see the power of heat reigning over all that is born and perishes. On account of it comes all the water spread over the earth, as well as that which is beyond our sight and is dispersed in the depths of the earth. On account of it are abundance of fountains, springs or wells, courses of rivers, both mountain torrents and ever flowing streams, for the storing of moisture in many and various reservoirs. From the East, from the winter solstice flows the Indus, the greatest river of the earth, according to geographers. From the middle of the East proceed the Bactrus,¹⁴⁸⁴

¹⁴⁸⁴ Balkh.
the Choaspes,¹⁴⁸⁵

¹⁴⁸⁵ Kerak.
and the Araxes,¹⁴⁸⁶

¹⁴⁸⁶ Probably the Volga is meant.
from which the Tanais¹⁴⁸⁷

¹⁴⁸⁷ Don.
detaches itself to fall into the Palus-Mæotis.¹⁴⁸⁸

¹⁴⁸⁸ Sea of Asov.
Add to these the Phasis¹⁴⁸⁹

¹⁴⁸⁹ Phaz.
which descends from Mount Caucasus, and countless other rivers, which, from northern regions, flow into the Euxine Sea. From the warm countries of the West, from the foot of the Pyrenees, arise the Tartessus¹⁴⁹⁰

¹⁴⁹⁰ Ebro.
and the Ister,¹⁴⁹¹

¹⁴⁹¹ The Danube.
of which the one discharges itself into the sea beyond the Pillars and the other, after flowing through Europe, falls into Euxine Sea. Is there any need to enumerate those which the Ripæan mountains¹⁴⁹²

¹⁴⁹² Used vaguely for any mountains in the north of Europe and Asia. Strabo (vii. pp. 295, 299) considers them fabulous.
pour forth in the heart of Scythia, the Rhone,¹⁴⁹³

¹⁴⁹³ A varia lectio is Eridanus.
and so many other rivers, all navigable, which after having watered the countries of the western Gauls and of Celts and of the neighbouring barbarians, flow into the Western sea? And others from the higher regions of the South flow through Ethiopia, to discharge themselves some into our sea, others into inaccessible seas, the Ægon¹⁴⁹⁴

¹⁴⁹⁴ Αἰγών is properly the Ægean Sea.
the Nyses, the Chremetes,¹⁴⁹⁵

¹⁴⁹⁵ Basil’s geography is bad. He might have improved it by consulting Strabo or Ptolemæus, but has been content to go for his facts to Aristotle (Met. i. 13), whose errors he repeats. Fialon remarks “nouvelle preuve de l’indifférence des cités grecques de l’ Asie pour cet Occident lointain dont elles se séparèrent si facilement.” If this refers to the theological separation it is hardly fair. The East in the 4th c. and 5th c. shewed no indifference to the sympathy of the W., and when the split came the “separation” was not taken “easily.”
and above all the Nile, which is not of the character of a river when, like a sea, it inundates Egypt. Thus the habitable part of our earth is surrounded by water, linked together by vast seas and irrigated by countless perennial rivers, thanks to the ineffable wisdom of Him Who ordered all to prevent this rival element to fire from being entirely destroyed.

However, a time will come, when all shall be consumed by fire; as Isaiah says of the God of the universe in these words, “That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers.”¹⁴⁹⁶

¹⁴⁹⁶ Isa. xliv. 27.
Reject then the foolish wisdom of this world,¹⁴⁹⁷

¹⁴⁹⁷ Schools of “the wisdom of the world” did, however, teach that the world was a world γενόμενον καὶ φθαρτόν. cf. Lucretius v. 322, “totum nativum mortali corpore constat.”
and receive with me the more simple but infallible doctrine of truth.

7. Therefore we read: “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” I have said what the word firmament in Scripture means. It is not in reality a firm and solid substance which has weight and resistance; this name would otherwise have better suited the earth. But, as the substance of superincumbent bodies is light, without consistency, and cannot be grasped by any one of our senses, it is in comparison with these pure and imperceptible substances that the firmament has received its name. Imagine a place fit to divide the moisture, sending it, if pure and filtered, into higher regions, and making it fall, if it is dense and earthy; to the end that by the gradual withdrawal of the moist particles the same temperature may be preserved from the beginning to the end. You do not believe in this prodigious quantity of water; but you do not take into account the prodigious quantity of heat, less considerable no doubt in bulk, but exceedingly powerful nevertheless, if you consider it as destructive of moisture. It attracts surrounding moisture, as the melon shows us, and consumes it as quickly when attracted, as the flame of the lamp draws to it the fuel supplied by the wick and burns it up. Who doubts that the æther is an ardent fire?¹⁴⁹⁸

¹⁴⁹⁸ So the “liquidissimus æther” of the Epicurean Lucretius (v. 501), “Suos ignes fert;” i.e. the fiery stars are of the nature of the element in which they move. cf. the Stoic Manilius i. 149, “Ignis in æthereas volucer se sustulit oras summaque complexus stellantis culmina cœli, Flammarum vallo naturæ mœnia fecit.”
If an impassable limit had not been assigned to it by the Creator, what would prevent it from setting on fire and consuming all that is near it, and absorbing all the moisture from existing things? The aerial waters which veil the heavens with vapours that are sent forth by rivers, fountains, marshes, lakes, and seas, prevent the æther from invading and burning up the universe. Thus we see even this sun, in the summer season, dry up in a moment a damp and marshy country, and make it perfectly arid. What has become of all the water? Let these masters of omniscience tell us. Is it not plain to every one that it has risen in vapour, and has been consumed by the heat of the sun? They say, none the less, that even the sun is without heat. What time they lose in words! And see what proof they lean upon to resist what is perfectly plain. Its colour is white, and neither reddish nor yellow. It is not then fiery by nature, and its heat results, they say, from the velocity of its rotation.¹⁴⁹⁹

¹⁴⁹⁹ So Aristotle, Meteor. i. 3, 30. ῾Ορῶμεν δὴ τὴν κίνησιν ὅτι δύναται διακρίνειν τὸν ἀ& 153·ρα καὶ ἐκπυροῦν ὥστε καὶ τὰ φερόμενα τηκόμενα φαίνεσθαι πολλάκις. Τὸ μὲν οὖν γίγνεσθαι τὴν ἀλέαν καὶ τὴν θερμότητα ἱκανή ἐστι παρασκευάζειν καὶ ἡ τοῦ ἡλίου φορὰ μόνον.
What do they gain? That the sun does not seem to absorb moisture? I do not, however, reject this statement, although it is false, because it helps my argument. I said that the consumption of heat required this prodigious quantity of water. That the sun owes its heat to its nature, or that heat results from its action, makes no difference, provided that it produces the same effects upon the same matter. If you kindle fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, or if you light them by holding them to a flame, you will have absolutely the same effect. Besides, we see that the great wisdom of Him who governs all, makes the sun travel from one region to another, for fear that, if it remained always in the same place, its excessive heat would destroy the order of the universe. Now it passes into southern regions about the time of the winter solstice, now it returns to the sign of the equinox; from thence it betakes itself to northern regions during the summer solstice, and keeps up by this imperceptible passage a pleasant temperature throughout all the world.

Let the learned people see if they do not disagree among themselves. The water which the sun consumes is, they say, what prevents the sea from rising and flooding the rivers; the warmth of the sun leaves behind the salts and the bitterness of the waters, and absorbs from them the pure and drinkable particles,¹⁵⁰⁰

¹⁵⁰⁰ cf. Diog. Laert. vii. on Zeno. Τρέπεσθαι δὲ τὰ ἔμπυρα ταῦτα καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ἄστρα, τὸν μὴν ἥλιον ἐκ τῆς μεγάλης θαλάττης. So Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonius.
thanks to the singular virtue of this planet in attracting all that is light and in allowing to fall, like mud and sediment, all which is thick and earthy. From thence come the bitterness, the salt taste and the power of withering and drying up which are characteristic of the sea. While as is notorious, they hold these views, they shift their ground and say that moisture cannot be lessened by the sun.¹⁵⁰¹

¹⁵⁰¹ Pliny (ii. 103, 104) writes: “Itaque solis ardore siccatur liquor;…sic mari late patenti saporem incoqui salis, aut quia exhausto inde dulci tenuique, quod facillime, trahat vis ignea, omne asperius crassiusque linquatur: ideo summa æquarum aqua dulciorem profundam: hanc esse veriorem causam asperi saporis, quam quod mare terræ sudor sit æternus: aut quia plurimum ex arido misceatur illi vapore, aut quia terræ natura sicut medicatas aquas inficiat.” The first of these three theories was that of Hippocrates (De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, iv. 197) and of Anaximander (Plutarch περὶ τῶν ἀρέσκ, etc. ii. 552). On the second vide Arist., Prob. xxiii. 30. The idea of the sea being the earth’s sweat was that of Empedocles. cf. Arist., Meteor. ii. 1.

8. “And God called the firmament heaven.”¹⁵⁰²

¹⁵⁰² Gen. i. 8.
The nature of right belongs to another, and the firmament only shares it on account of its resemblance to heaven. We often find the visible region called heaven, on account of the density and continuity of the air within our ken, and deriving its name “heaven” from the word which means to see.¹⁵⁰³

¹⁵⁰³ The derivation of οὐρανός from ὁράω is imaginary. Aristotle (De Cœl i. 19, 9) derives it from ὅρος, a boundary. cf. ῾Ορίζων. The real root is the Skt. var=cover. M. Müller, Oxford Essays, 1856.
It is of it that Scripture says, “The fowl of the air,”¹⁵⁰⁴

¹⁵⁰⁴ Ps. viii. 8.
“Fowl that may fly…in the open firmament of heaven;”¹⁵⁰⁵

¹⁵⁰⁵ Gen. i. 20.
and, elsewhere, “They mount up to heaven.”¹⁵⁰⁶

¹⁵⁰⁶ Ps. cvii. 26.
Moses, blessing the tribe of Joseph, desires for it the fruits and the dews of heaven, of the suns of summer and the conjunctions of the moon, and blessings from the tops of the mountains and from the everlasting hills,¹⁵⁰⁷

¹⁵⁰⁷ cf. Deut. xxxiii. 13–15, LXX.
in one word, from all which fertilises the earth. In the curses on Israel it is said, “And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass.”¹⁵⁰⁸

¹⁵⁰⁸ Deut. xxviii. 23.
What does this mean? It threatens him with a complete drought, with an absence of the aerial waters which cause the fruits of the earth to be brought forth and to grow.

Since, then, Scripture says that the dew or the rain falls from heaven, we understand that it is from those waters which have been ordered to occupy the higher regions. When the exhalations from the earth, gathered together in the heights of the air, are condensed under the pressure of the wind, this aerial moisture diffuses itself in vaporous and light clouds; then mingling again, it forms drops which fall, dragged down by their own weight; and this is the origin of rain. When water beaten by the violence of the wind, changes into foam, and passing through excessive cold quite freezes, it breaks the cloud, and falls as snow.¹⁵⁰⁹

¹⁵⁰⁹ cf. Arist., Meteor. i. 9–12, Plutarch περὶ τῶν ἀρέσκ. etc. iii. 4.
You can thus account for all the moist substances that the air suspends over our heads.

And do not let any one compare with the inquisitive discussions of philosophers upon the heavens, the simple and inartificial character of the utterances of the Spirit; as the beauty of chaste women surpasses that of a harlot,¹⁵¹⁰

¹⁵¹⁰ Fialon quotes Hor., Ep. i. 18: “Ut matrona meretrici dispar erit atque Discolor.”
so our arguments are superior to those of our opponents. They only seek to persuade by forced reasoning. With us truth presents itself naked and without artifice. But why torment ourselves to refute the errors of philosophers, when it is sufficient to produce their mutually contradictory books, and, as quiet spectators, to watch the war?¹⁵¹¹

¹⁵¹¹ The well known “Per campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri” (Lucr. ii. 5) may be an echo of some Greek lines in the preacher’s mind, just as the preceding “suave mari magno” is of Menander.
For those thinkers are not less numerous, nor less celebrated, nor more sober in speech in fighting their adversaries, who say that the universe is being consumed by fire, and that from the seeds which remain in the ashes of the burnt world all is being brought to life again. Hence in the world there is destruction and palingenesis to infinity.¹⁵¹²

¹⁵¹² These Stoical atheists did also agree with the generality of the other Stoical theists in supposing a successive infinity of worlds generated and corrupted” (ἀπειρία κόσμων) “by reason of intervening periodical conflagrations.” Cudworth, I. iii. 23.
All, equally far from the truth, find each on their side by-ways which lead them to error.

9. But as far as concerns the separation of the waters I am obliged to contest the opinion of certain writers in the Church¹⁵¹³

¹⁵¹³ i.e. Origen.
who, under the shadow of high and sublime conceptions, have launched out into metaphor, and have only seen in the waters a figure to denote spiritual and incorporeal powers. In the higher regions, above the firmament, dwell the better; in the lower regions, earth and matter are the dwelling place of the malignant. So, say they, God is praised by the waters that are above the heaven, that is to say, by the good powers, the purity of whose soul makes them worthy to sing the praises of God. And the waters which are under the heaven represent the wicked spirits, who from their natural height have fallen into the abyss of evil. Turbulent, seditious, agitated by the tumultuous waves of passion, they have received the name of sea, because of the instability and the inconstancy of their movements.¹⁵¹⁴

¹⁵¹⁴ cf. Jerome to Pammachius against John of Jerusalem, § 7 (in this edition vol. vi. p. 428) and Origen’s Homily on Genesis, preserved in the Translation of Rufinus.
Let us reject these theories as dreams and old women’s tales. Let us understand that by water water is meant; for the dividing of the waters by the firmament let us accept the reason which has been given us. Although, however, waters above the heaven are invited to give glory to the Lord of the Universe, do not let us think of them as intelligent beings; the heavens are not alive because they “declare the glory of God,” nor the firmament a sensible being because it “sheweth His handiwork.”¹⁵¹⁵

¹⁵¹⁵ Ps. xviii. 1.
And if they tell you that the heavens mean contemplative powers, and the firmament active powers which produce good, we admire the theory as ingenious without being able to acknowledge the truth of it. For thus dew, the frost, cold and heat, which in Daniel are ordered to praise the Creator of all things,¹⁵¹⁶

¹⁵¹⁶ Bened.
will be intelligent and invisible natures. But this is only a figure, accepted as such by enlightened minds, to complete the glory of the Creator. Besides, the waters above the heavens, these waters privileged by the virtue which they possess in themselves, are not the only waters to celebrate the praises of God. “Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps.”¹⁵¹⁷

¹⁵¹⁷ Ps. cxlviii. 7.
Thus the singer of the Psalms does not reject the deeps which our inventors of allegories rank in the divisions of evil; he admits them to the universal choir of creation, and the deeps sing in their language a harmonious hymn to the glory of the Creator.

10. “And God saw that it was good.” God does not judge of the beauty of His work by the charm of the eyes, and He does not form the same idea of beauty that we do. What He esteems beautiful is that which presents in its perfection all the fitness¹⁵¹⁸

¹⁵¹⁸ καλον μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ὃ ἂν δ᾽ αὑτὸ αἱρετὸν ὂν ἐπαινετὸν ᾖ, ὃ ἂν ἀγαθὸν ὂν ἡδὺ ᾖ ὅτι ἀγαθόν. Arist., Rhet. i. 9.

cf. E. Burke (On the Sublime and Beautiful, iii. § 6): “It is true that the infinitely wise and good creator has, of his bounty, frequently joined beauty to those things which he has made useful to us. But this does not prove that our idea of use and beauty are the same thing, or that they are in any way dependent on each other.” Dr. Johnson instances a painting on a coffee-cup as beautiful, but not useful. “Boswell,” Ann. 1772. St. Basil’s idea is in accord with that of Ruskin (Mod. P. chap. vi.). “In all high ideas of beauty it is more than probable that much of the pleasure depends on delicate and untraceable perception of fitness, propriety, and relation, which are purely intellectual, and through which we arrive at our noblest ideas of what is commonly and rightly called ‘intellectual beauty.’”
of art, and that which tends to the usefulness of its end. He, then, who proposed to Himself a manifest design in His works, approved each one of them, as fulfilling its end in accordance with His creative purpose. A hand, an eye, or any portion of a statue lying apart from the rest, would look beautiful to no one. But if each be restored to its own place, the beauty of proportion, until now almost unperceived, would strike even the most uncultivated. But the artist, before uniting the parts of his work, distinguishes and recognises the beauty of each of them, thinking of the object that he has in view. It is thus that Scripture depicts to us the Supreme Artist, praising each one of His works; soon, when His work is complete, He will accord well deserved praise to the whole together. Let me here end my discourse on the second day, to allow my industrious hearers to examine what they have just heard. May their memory retain it for the profit of their soul; may they by careful meditation inwardly digest and benefit by what I say. As for those who live by their work, let me allow them to attend all day to their business, so that they may come, with a soul free from anxiety, to the banquet of my discourse in the evening. May God who, after having made such great things, put such weak words in my mouth, grant you the intelligence of His truth, so that you may raise yourselves from visible things to the invisible Being, and that the grandeur and beauty of creatures may give you a just idea of the Creator. For the visible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, and His power and divinity are eternal.¹⁵¹⁹

¹⁵¹⁹ cf. Rom. i. 20.
Thus earth, air, sky, water, day, night, all visible things, remind us of who is our Benefactor. We shall not therefore give occasion to sin, we shall not give place to the enemy within us, if by unbroken recollection we keep God ever dwelling in our hearts, to Whom be all glory and all adoration, now and for ever, world without end. Amen.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH