The creation of luminous bodies.

1.  At the shows in the circus the spectator must join in the efforts of the athletes.  This the laws of the show indicate, for they prescribe that all should have the head uncovered when present at the stadium.  The object of this, in my opinion, is that each one there should not only be a spectator of the athletes, but be, in a certain measure, a true athlete himself.¹⁵⁶⁵

1565 In the Theatrum spectators might be covered.  cf. Mart. xiv. 29: “In Pompeiano tectus spectabo theatro; Nam ventus populo vela negare solet.” cf. Dion Cassius lix. 7.  These passages may, however, indicate exceptional cases.

1566 cf. Greg., In Ez.:  Propter bonos auditores malis doctoribus sermo datur:  et propter malos auditores bonis doctoribus sermo subtrahitur.

1567 “By night an atheist half believes in God.”  Young, N.T. v. 177.  cf. also Cic., De nat. Deor. ii. 38:  Quis enim hunc hominem dixerit, qui tam certos cœli motus, tam ratos astrorum ordines, tamque omnia ister se connexa et apta viderit, neget in his ullam inesse rationem, eaque casu fieri dicat, quæ quanto consilio gerantur, nullo consilio assequi possumus.

1568 cf. Cic., De Nat. Deor. ii. 62.  Est enim mundus quasi communis deorum atque hominum domus, aut urbs utrorumque.  Soli etiam ratione utentes, jure ac lege vivunt.  Bp. Lightfoot quotes in illustration of Phil. iii. 20, Philo, De Conf. i. 416, M.  πατρίδα μὲν τὸν οὐράνιον χῶρον ἐν ᾧ πολιτεύονται ξένον δὲ τὸν περίγειον ἐν ᾧ παρῴκησαν νομίζουσαι.  So Clem. Alex., Strom. iv. 26, λέγουσι γὰρ οἱ Στωϊκοὶ τὸν μὲν οὐρανὸν κυρίως πόλιν τὰ δὲ ἐπὶ γῆς ἐνταῦθα οὐκ ἔτι πόλεις, λέγεσθαι γὰρ, οὐκ εἶναι δέ, and Plato, Rep. ix. 592, B.  ἐν οὐρανῷ ἴσως παράδειγμα (τῆς πόλεως) ἀνάκειται τῷ βουλομένῳ ὁρᾷν καὶ ὁρῶντι ἑαυτὸν κατοικίζειν.

1569 cf. Acts iii. 15.

1570 cf. Mal. iv. 2.

2.  “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to divide the day from the night.”¹⁵⁷¹

1571 Gen. i. 14, LXX.

1572 Fialon quotes Bossuet (5th elev. 3d week):  “Ainsi il a fait la lumière avant que de faire les grands luminaires où il a voulu la ramasser:  et il a fait la distinction des jours avant que d’avoir créé les astres dont il s’est servi pour les régler parfaitement:  et le soir et le matin ont été distingués, avant que leur distinction et la division parfaite du jour et de la nuit fût bien marquée; et les arbres, et les arbustes, et les herbes ont germé sur la terre par ordre de Dieu, avant qu’il eût fait le soleil, qui devait être le père de toutes ces plantes; et il a détaché exprès les effets d’avec leurs causes naturelles, pour montrer que naturellement tout ne tient qu’à lui seul, et ne dépend que de sa seule volonté.”

When once you have learnt Who spoke, think immediately of the hearer.  God said, “Let there be lights…and God made two great lights.”  Who spoke? and Who made?  Do you not see a double person?  Everywhere, in mystic language, history is sown with the dogmas of theology.

The motive follows which caused the lights to be created.  It was to illuminate the earth.  Already light was created; why therefore say that the sun was created to give light?  And, first, do not laugh at the strangeness of this expression.  We do not follow your nicety about words, and we trouble ourselves but little to give them a harmonious turn.  Our writers do not amuse themselves by polishing their periods, and everywhere we prefer clearness of words to sonorous expressions.  See then if by this expression “to light up,” the sacred writer sufficiently made his thought understood.  He has put “to give light”¹⁵⁷³

1573 φαῦσις, the act of giving light, LXX.

1574 φωτισμός, the condition produced by φαῦσις.

1575 cf. Phil. ii. 15.

3.  And let no one suppose it to be a thing incredible that the brightness of the light is one thing, and the body which is its material vehicle is another.  First, in all composite things, we distinguish substance susceptible of quality, and the quality which it receives.  The nature of whiteness is one thing, another is that of the body which is whitened; thus the natures differ which we have just seen reunited by the power of the Creator.  And do not tell me that it is impossible to separate them.  Even I do not pretend to be able to separate light from the body of the sun; but I maintain that that which we separate in thought, may be separated in reality by the Creator of nature.  You cannot, moreover, separate the brightness of fire from the virtue of burning which it possesses; but God, who wished to attract His servant by a wonderful sight, set a fire in the burning bush, which displayed all the brilliancy of flame while its devouring property was dormant.  It is that which the Psalmist affirms in saying “The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.”¹⁵⁷⁶

1576 Ps. xxix. 7.

In the revolutions of the moon we find anew proof of what we have advanced.  When it stops and grows less it does not consume itself in all its body, but in the measure that it deposits or absorbs the light which surrounds it, it presents to us the image of its decrease or of its increase.  If we wish an evident proof that the moon does not consume its body when at rest, we have only to open our eyes.  If you look at it in a cloudless and clear sky, you observe, when it has taken the complete form of a crescent, that the part, which is dark and not lighted up, describes a circle equal to that which the full moon forms.  Thus the eye can take in the whole circle, if it adds to the illuminated part this obscure and dark curve.  And do not tell me that the light of the moon is borrowed, diminishing or increasing in proportion as it approaches or recedes from the sun.  That is not now the object of our research; we only wish to prove that its body differs from the light which makes it shine.  I wish you to have the same idea of the sun; except however that the one, after having once received light and having mixed it with its substance, does not lay it down again, whilst the other, turn by turn, putting off and reclothing itself again with light, proves by that which takes place in itself what we have said of the sun.

The sun and moon thus received the command to divide the day from the night.  God had already separated light from darkness; then He placed their natures in opposition, so that they could not mingle, and that there could never be anything in common between darkness and light.  You see what a shadow is during the day; that is precisely the nature of darkness during the night.  If, at the appearance of a light, the shadow always falls on the opposite side; if in the morning it extends towards the setting sun; if in the evening it inclines towards the rising sun, and at mid-day turns towards the north; night retires into the regions opposed to the rays of the sun, since it is by nature only the shadow of the earth.  Because, in the same way that, during the day, shadow is produced by a body which intercepts the light, night comes naturally when the air which surrounds the earth is in shadow.  And this is precisely what Scripture says, “God divided the light from the darkness.”  Thus darkness fled at the approach of light, the two being at their first creation divided by a natural antipathy.  Now God commanded the sun to measure the day, and the moon, whenever she rounds her disc, to rule the night.  For then these two luminaries are almost diametrically opposed; when the sun rises, the full moon disappears from the horizon, to re-appear in the east at the moment the sun sets.  It matters little to our subject if in other phases the light of the moon does not correspond exactly with night.  It is none the less true, that when at its perfection it makes the stars to turn pale and lightens up the earth with the splendour of its light, it reigns over the night, and in concert with the sun divides the duration of it in equal parts.

4.  “And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.”¹⁵⁷⁷

1577 Gen. i. 14.

1578 St. Matt. xvi. 3.

Those who devote themselves to the observation of these bodies find signs in the different phases of the moon, as if the air, by which the earth is enveloped, were obliged to vary to correspond with its change of form.  Towards the third day of the new moon, if it is sharp and clear, it is a sign of fixed fine weather.  If its horns appear thick and reddish it threatens us either with heavy rain or with a gale from the South.¹⁵⁷⁹

1579 πάντη γὰρ καθαρῇ κε μάλ᾽ εὔδια τεκμήραιο, πάντα δ᾽ ἐρευθομένῃ δοκέειν ἀνέμοιο κελεύθους, ἄλλοθι δ᾽ ἄλλο μελαινομένῃ δοκέειν ὑετοῖο.  Aratus 70.

1580 cf. Verg., Georg. i. 424: Si vero solem ad rapidum lunasque sequentes Ordine respicies, nunquam te crastina fallet Hora, neque insidiis noctis capiere serenæ.

1581 Basil seems to be confusing Joel ii. 31 and Matt. xxiv. 29.

5.  But those who overstep the borders,¹⁵⁸²

1582 ὑπὲρ τὰ ἐσκαμμένα πηδᾶν is a proverbial phrase for going beyond bounds.  cf. Lucian., Gall. vi. and Plat., Crat. 413, a.

1583 “On doit d’autant plus louer le grand sens de Saint Basile qui s’inspire presqu’ entièrement d’Origène et de Plotin, sans tomber dans leur erreur.  En riant toute espèce de relation entre les astres et les actes de l’homme, il conserve intacte notre liberté.”  Fialon, p. 425.  “Quale deinde judicium de hominum factis Deo relinquitur, quibus cœlestis necessitas adhibetur cum Dominus ille sit et siderum et hominum.  Aut si non dicunt stellas accepta quidam potestate a summo Deo, arbitrio suo ista decernere, sed in talibus necessitatibus ingerendis illius omnino jussa complere, ita ne de ipso Deo sentiendum est, quod indignissimum visum est de stellarum voluntate sentire.  Quod si dicuntur stellæ significare potius ista quam facere, ut quasi locutio sit quædam illa positio prædicens futura, non agens (non enim mediocriter doctorum hominum fuit ista sententia) non quidem ita solent loqui mathematici, ut verbi gratia dicunt, Mars ita positus homicidam significat, sed homicidam non facit.”  August., De C. Dei. v. 1.

Perhaps for clearness sake it is not useless to enter into more detail about this vain science.  I will say nothing of my own to refute them; I will use their words, bringing a remedy for the infected, and for others a preservative from falling.  The inventors of astrology seeing that in the extent of time many signs escaped them, divided it and enclosed each part in narrow limits, as if in the least and shortest interval, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,¹⁵⁸⁴

1584 1 Cor. xv. 52.

6.  But what effects are produced?  Such an one will have curly hair and bright eyes, because he is born under the Ram; such is the appearance of a ram.  He will have noble feelings; because the Ram is born to command.  He will be liberal and fertile in resources, because this animal gets rid of its fleece without trouble, and nature immediately hastens to reclothe it.  Another is born under the Bull:  he will be enured to hardship and of a slavish character, because the bull bows under the yoke.  Another is born under the Scorpion; like to this venomous reptile he will be a striker.  He who is born under the Balance will be just, thanks to the justness of our balances.  Is not this the height of folly?  This Ram, from whence you draw the nativity of man, is the twelfth part of the heaven, and in entering into it the sun reaches the spring.  The Balance and the Bull are likewise twelfth parts of the Zodiac.  How can you see there the principal causes which influence the life of man?  And why do you take animals to characterize the manners of men who enter this world?  He who is born under the Ram will be liberal, not because this part of heaven gives this characteristic, but because such is the nature of the beast.  Why then should we frighten ourselves by the names of these stars and undertake to persuade ourselves with these bleatings?  If heaven has different characteristics derived from these animals, it is then itself subject to external influences since its causes depend on the brutes who graze in our fields.  A ridiculous assertion; but how much more ridiculous the pretence of arriving at the influence on each other of things which have not the least connexion!  This pretended science is a true spider’s web; if a gnat or a fly, or some insect equally feeble falls into it it is held entangled; if a stronger animal approaches, it passes through without trouble, carrying the weak tissue away with it.¹⁵⁸⁵

1585 ῎Ελεγε δὲ…τοὺς νόμους τοῖς ἀραχνίοις ὁμοίους· και γὰρ ἐκεῖνα ἐ& 129·ν μὲν ἐμπέσῃ τι κοῦφον καὶ ἀσθενὲς στέγειν, ἐ& 129·ν δὲ μεῖζον, διακόψαν οἴχεσθαι.  Solon, in Diog. Laert. ii. 1.

7.  They do not, however, stop here; even our acts, where each one feels his will ruling, I mean, the practice of virtue or of vice, depend, according to them, on the influence of celestial bodies.  It would be ridiculous seriously to refute such an error, but, as it holds a great many in its nets, perhaps it is better not to pass it over in silence.  I would first ask them if the figures which the stars describe do not change a thousand times a day.  In the perpetual motion of planets, some meet in a more rapid course, others make slower revolutions, and often in an hour we see them look at each other and then hide themselves.  Now, at the hour of birth, it is very important whether one is looked upon by a beneficent star or by an evil one, to speak their language.  Often then the astrologers do not seize the moment when a good star shows itself, and, on account of having let this fugitive moment escape, they enrol the newborn under the influence of a bad genius.  I am compelled to use their own words.  What madness!  But, above all, what impiety!  For the evil stars throw the blame of their wickedness upon Him Who made them.  If evil is inherent in their nature, the Creator is the author of evil.  If they make it themselves, they are animals endowed with the power of choice, whose acts will be free and voluntary.  Is it not the height of folly to tell these lies about beings without souls?  Again, what a want of sense does it show to distribute good and evil without regard to personal merit; to say that a star is beneficent because it occupies a certain place; that it becomes evil, because it is viewed by another star; and that if it moves ever so little from this figure it loses its malign influence.

But let us pass on.  If, at every instant of duration, the stars vary their figures, then in these thousand changes, many times a day, there ought to be reproduced the configuration of royal births.  Why then does not every day see the birth of a king?  Why is there a succession on the throne from father to son?  Without doubt there has never been a king who has taken measures to have his son born under the star of royalty.  For what man possesses such a power?  How then did Uzziah beget Jotham, Jotham Ahaz, Ahaz Hezekiah?  And by what chance did the birth of none of them happen in an hour of slavery?  If the origin of our virtues and of our vices is not in ourselves, but is the fatal consequence of our birth, it is useless for legislators to prescribe for us what we ought to do, and what we ought to avoid; it is useless for judges to honour virtue and to punish vice.  The guilt is not in the robber, not in the assassin:  it was willed for him; it was impossible for him to hold back his hand, urged to evil by inevitable necessity.  Those who laboriously cultivate the arts are the maddest of men.  The labourer will make an abundant harvest without sowing seed and without sharpening his sickle.  Whether he wishes it or not, the merchant will make his fortune, and will be flooded with riches by fate.  As for us Christians, we shall see our great hopes vanish, since from the moment that man does not act with freedom, there is neither reward for justice, nor punishment for sin.  Under the reign of necessity and of fatality there is no place for merit, the first condition of all righteous judgment.  But let us stop.  You who are sound in yourselves have no need to hear more, and time does not allow us to make attacks without limit against these unhappy men.

8.  Let us return to the words which follow.  “Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.”¹⁵⁸⁶

1586 Gen. i. 14.

1587 i.e. throwing a shadow only one way at noon,—said of those who live north and south of the tropics, while those who live in the tropics cast a shadow sometimes north, sometimes south, vide Strabo ii. 5. § 43.  It was “incredible” to Herodotus that Necho’s Phœnician mariners, in their circumnavigation of Africa, had “the sun on their right hand.”  Her. iv. 42.

1588 i.e. Arabia.  cf. Lucan., Phars. iii. 247:  Ignotum vobis Arabes venistis in orbem, Umbras mirati nemorum non ire sinistras.

1589 “Simili modo tradunt in Syene oppido, quod est super Alexandriam quinque millibus stadiorum, solstitii die medio nullam umbram jaci; puteumque ejus experimenti gratia factum, totum illuminari.”  Pliny ii. 75.  cf. Lucan., Phars. 507, “atque umbras nunquam flectente Syene.”

“Let them be for days”¹⁵⁹⁰

1590 Gen. i. 14.

1591 Ps. cxxxvi. 8, 9.

1592 The Syrians and Macedonians had also an intercalary thirteenth month to accommodate the lunar to the solar cycle.  Solon is credited with the introduction of the system into Greece about 594 b.c.  But the Julian calendar improved upon this mode of adjustment.

9.  “And God made two great lights.”¹⁵⁹³

1593 Gen. i. 16.

1594 “Tertia ex utroque vastitas solis aperitur, ut non sit necesse amplitudinem ejus oculorum argumentis, atque conjectura animi scrutari:  immensum esse quia arborum in limitibus porrectarum in quotlibet passuum millia umbras paribus jaciat intervallis, tanquam toto spatio medius:  et quia per æquinoctium omnibus in meridiana plaga habitantibus, simul fiat a vertice:  ita quia circa solstitialem circulum habitantium meridie ad Septemtrionem umbræ cadant, ortu vero ad occasum.  Quæ fieri nullo modo possent nisi multo quam terra major esset.”  Plin. ii. 8.

1595 Πλάτων κατὰ συναύγειαν, τοῦ μὲν ἐκ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν φωτὸς ἐπὶ ποσὸν ἀποῤ& 191·έοντος εἰς τὸν ὁμογενῆ ἀ& 153·ρα, τοῦ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος φερομένου ἀποῤ& 191·εῖν· τὸν δὲ μεταξὺ ἀ& 153·ρα εὐδιάχυτον ὄντα καὶ εὔτρεπτον, συνεκτείνοντος τῷ πυρώδει τῆς ὄψεως, αὕτη, λέγεται πλατωνικὴ συναύγεια.  Plut. περὶ τῶν ἀρεσκ. iv. 13.  The Platonic theory of night is explained in the Timæus, Chap. xix.

1596 Plato (Phæd. § 133) makes the same comparison.  ῎Ετι τοίνον, ἔφη, πάμμεγά τε εἶναι αὐτό, καὶ ἡμᾶς οἰκεϊν τοὺς μέχρι ῾Ηρακλείων στηλῶν ἀπὸ Φάσιδος ἐν σμικρῷ τινὶ μορί& 251· ὥςπερ περι τέλμα μύρμηκας ἢ βατράχους περὶ τὴν θάλατταν ὀικοῦντας.  Fialon names Seneca (Quæst. Nat. i. præf. 505) and Lucian (Hermotimus v. and Icaromenippus xix.) as following him.  To these may be added Celsus “καταγελῶν τὸ ᾽Ιουδαιων καὶ Χριστιανῶν γενος” in Origen, C. Cels iv. 517, B.

10.  See again another evident proof of its greatness.  Although the heaven may be full of stars without number, the light contributed by them all could not disperse the gloom of night.  The sun alone, from the time that it appeared on the horizon, while it was still expected and had not yet risen completely above the earth, dispersed the darkness, outshone the stars, dissolved and diffused the air, which was hitherto thick and condensed over our heads, and produced thus the morning breeze and the dew which in fine weather streams over the earth.  Could the earth with such a wide extent be lighted up entirely in one moment if an immense disc were not pouring forth its light over it?  Recognise here the wisdom of the Artificer.  See how He made the heat of the sun proportionate to this distance.  Its heat is so regulated that it neither consumes the earth by excess, nor lets it grow cold and sterile by defect.

To all this the properties of the moon are near akin; she, too, has an immense body, whose splendour only yields to that of the sun.  Our eyes, however, do not always see her in her full size.  Now she presents a perfectly rounded disc, now when diminished and lessened she shows a deficiency on one side.  When waxing she is shadowed on one side, and when she is waning another side is hidden.  Now it is not without a secret reason of the divine Maker of the universe, that the moon appears from time to time under such different forms.  It presents a striking example of our nature.  Nothing is stable in man; here from nothingness he raises himself to perfection; there after having hasted to put forth his strength to attain his full greatness he suddenly is subject to gradual deterioration, and is destroyed by diminution.  Thus, the sight of the moon, making us think of the rapid vicissitudes of human things, ought to teach us not to pride ourselves on the good things of this life, and not to glory in our power, not to be carried away by uncertain riches, to despise our flesh which is subject to change, and to take care of the soul, for its good is unmoved.  If you cannot behold without sadness the moon losing its splendour by gradual and imperceptible decrease, how much more distressed should you be at the sight of a soul, who, after having possessed virtue, loses its beauty by neglect, and does not remain constant to its affections, but is agitated and constantly changes because its purposes are unstable.  What Scripture says is very true, “As for a fool he changeth as the moon.”¹⁵⁹⁷

1597 Ecclus. xxvii. 11.

I believe also that the variations of the moon do not take place without exerting great influence upon the organization of animals and of all living things.  This is because bodies are differently disposed at its waxing and waning.  When she wanes they lose their density and become void.  When she waxes and is approaching her fulness they appear to fill themselves at the same time with her, thanks to an imperceptible moisture that she emits mixed with heat, which penetrates everywhere.¹⁵⁹⁸

1598 cf. Alcman (ap. Plut., Sympos. iii. 10) who calls the dew Διὸς θυγάτηρ καὶ Σελάνας; and Plutarch himself in loc.  Virg., Georg. iii. 337, “Roscida Luna,” and Statius, Theb. i. 336: “Iamque per emeriti surgens confinia Phœbi Titanis, late mundo subvecta silenti Rorifera gelidum tenuaverat aera biga.”

1599 The baleful influence of “iracunda Diana” (Hor., De Art. Poet. 454) is an early belief, not yet extinct.  cf. the term σελήνιασμός for epilepsy, and “lunaticus” for the “moonstruck” madman.  Vide Cass., Quæst. Med. xxv. 1.  Perowne on Ps. cxxi. 6 notes, “De Wette refers to Andersen’s Eastern Travels in proof that this opinion is commonly entertained.  Delitzsch mentions having heard from Texas that the consequence of sleeping in the open air, when the moon was shining, was mental aberration, dizziness, and even death.” “Dass auch der Mond in heller Nacht dem ohne gehörigen Schutz Schlafenden schaden könne ist allgemeine Meinung des Orients und der köhlen Nächte wegen leicht möglich.  Vgl. Carne ‘Leben und Sitten im Morgenl.’”  Ewald, Dichter des A.B. ii. 266.

1600 A fact, however explained.  Plutarch (Sympos. Prob. iii. 10) discusses the question Διὰ τί τὰ κρέα σήπεται μᾶλλον ὑπὸ τὴν σελήνην ἢ τὸν ἥλιον, and refers the decomposition to the moistening influence of the moon.  “Air, moisture, and a certain degree of warmth, are necessary to the decay of animal bodies…where moisture continues present—even though warmth and air be in a great measure excluded—decay still slowly takes place.”  J. F. W. Johnston, Chemistry of Common Life, ii. 273.

11.  On its variations depends also the condition of the air, as is proved by sudden disturbances which often come after the new moon, in the midst of a calm and of a stillness in the winds, to agitate the clouds and to hurl them against each other; as the flux and reflux in straits, and the ebb and flow of the ocean prove, so that those who live on its shores see it regularly following the revolutions of the moon.  The waters of straits approach and retreat from one shore to the other during the different phases of the moon; but, when she is new, they have not an instant of rest, and move in perpetual swaying to and fro, until the moon, reappearing, regulates their reflux.  As to the Western sea,¹⁶⁰¹

1601 i.e.the Atlantic.  cf. Ovid., Met. xi. 258, “Hesperium fretum.”

1602 Pytheas, of Marseilles, is first named as attributing the tides to the moon.  Plut. περὶ ἀρεσκ. κ.τ.λ. iii. 17.  On the ancient belief generally vide Plin. ii. 99.

I have entered into these details, to show you the grandeur of the luminaries, and to make you see that, in the inspired words, there is not one idle syllable.  And yet my sermon has scarcely touched on any important point; there are many other discoveries about the size and distance of the sun and moon to which any one who will make a serious study of their action and of their characteristics may arrive by the aid of reason.  Let me then ingenuously make an avowal of my weakness, for fear that you should measure the mighty works of the Creator by my words.  The little that I have said ought the rather to make you conjecture the marvels on which I have omitted to dwell.  We must not then measure the moon with the eye, but with the reason.  Reason, for the discovery of truth, is much surer than the eye.

Everywhere ridiculous old women’s tales, imagined in the delirium of drunkenness, have been circulated; such as that enchantments can remove the moon from its place and make it descend to the earth.  How could a magician’s charm shake that of which the Most High has laid the foundations?  And if once torn out what place could hold it?¹⁶⁰³

1603 “Inventa jam pridem ratio est prænuntians horas, non modo dies ac noctes, Solis Lunæque defectuum.  Durat tamen tradita persuasio in magna parte vulgi, veneficiis et herbis id cogi, eamque num fæminarum scientiam prævalere.”  Plin. xxv. v.  So it was a custom to avert the spells of sorceresses, which might bring the eclipsed moon to the ground, by beating brass and shouting.  cf. Juv., Sat. vi. 443, “Tam nemo tubas, nemo œra fatigat, Una laboranti poterit succurrere lunæ,” and the “œra auxiliaria lunæ” of Ov., Met. iv. 333.

Do you wish from slight indications to have a proof of the moon’s size?  All the towns in the world, however distant from each other, equally receive the light from the moon in those streets that are turned towards its rising.  If she did not look on all face to face, those only would be entirely lighted up which were exactly opposite; as to those beyond the extremities of her disc, they would only receive diverted and oblique rays.  It is this effect which the light of lamps produces in houses; if a lamp is surrounded by several persons, only the shadow of the person who is directly opposite to it is cast in a straight line, the others follow inclined lines on each side.  In the same way, if the body of the moon were not of an immense and prodigious size she could not extend herself alike to all.  In reality, when the moon rises in the equinoctial regions, all equally enjoy her light, both those who inhabit the icy zone, under the revolutions of the Bear, and those who dwell in the extreme south in the neighbourhood of the torrid zone.  She gives us an idea of her size by appearing to be face to face with all people.  Who then can deny the immensity of a body which divides itself equally over such a wide extent?

But enough on the greatness of the sun and moon.  May He Who has given us intelligence to recognise in the smallest objects of creation the great wisdom of the Contriver make us find in great bodies a still higher idea of their Creator.  However, compared with their Author, the sun and moon are but a fly and an ant.  The whole universe cannot give us a right idea of the greatness of God; and it is only by signs, weak and slight in themselves, often by the help of the smallest insects and of the least plants, that we raise ourselves to Him.  Content with these words let us offer our thanks, I to Him who has given me the ministry of the Word, you to Him who feeds you with spiritual food; Who, even at this moment, makes you find in my weak voice the strength of barley bread.  May He feed you for ever, and in proportion to your faith grant you the manifestation of the Spirit¹⁶⁰⁴

1604 cf. 1 Cor. xii. 7.

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