Hexaemeron 1

OF OUR FATHER AMONG THE SAINTS BASIL, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, NINE HOMILIES ON THE HEXAEMERON. Homily 1. "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth." A fitting beginning for one who is about to recount the framing of the world is to set at the head of his discourse the beginning of the ordering of the things that are seen.

For the making of heaven and earth is about to be set forth—not brought together of its own accord, as some have imagined, but having received its cause from God. What hearing is worthy of the grandeur of the things being spoken? How ought a soul to come prepared for the hearing of such great matters? Cleansed of the passions of the flesh, unclouded by the cares of this life, diligent, searching, looking about on every side to find, if anywhere, a worthy conception of God.

But before we examine the precision in the words, and search out how great are the meanings of these small phrases, let us consider who it is that speaks to us.

For even if, through the weakness of our understanding, we do not attain to the deep heart of the writer, yet by attending to the trustworthiness of the one who speaks, we shall be led of ourselves to assent to what is said. Now it is Moses who composed this writing—

that Moses who, while still a nursing infant, was testified to be "fair before God";

whom Pharaoh's daughter adopted and reared royally, setting over him the wise teachers of the Egyptians for his instruction;

who, hating the pomp of tyranny and running back to the lowliness of his kinsmen, chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

He who possessed a love of justice from his very nature—seeing that even before the rule of the people was entrusted to him, he is shown, through the nature's hatred of evil, to have avenged the wicked even unto death.

He who was driven into exile by those he had benefited, gladly leaving behind the tumults of Egypt, and reaching Ethiopia, devoted himself there to entire leisure apart from all other things, and for forty whole years gave himself to the contemplation of the things that are.

He who, being already in his eightieth year, saw God as far as it is possible for a man to see—rather, as it belonged to none of the others, according to the very testimony of God: "If there be a prophet among you to the Lord, I will make myself known to him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream."

"Not so with my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house;

with him I will speak mouth to mouth, plainly, and not in dark sayings."

This man, then, having been deemed worthy of the face-to-face vision of God on an equality with the angels, speaks to us out of what he heard from God.

Let us therefore hear the words of truth, spoken "not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the teachings of the Spirit";

the end of which is not the praise of the hearers, but the salvation of those who are taught.

"In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth."

The wonder of the thought brings my discourse to a halt.

What shall I say first? Where shall I begin my exposition? Shall I refute the vanity of those outside, or shall I extol our own truth? Many of the Greek sages have laboured much concerning nature, and not one of their doctrines among them stood unmoved and unshaken, since each later one always overthrew the one before it;

so that there is no need for us to refute their teachings;

for they suffice one another for their own undoing.

For those who were ignorant of God did not allow that an intelligent cause presided over the genesis of all things, but, in keeping with their initial ignorance, drew the rest of their conclusions to match.

For this reason some took refuge in material hypotheses, attributing the cause of the universe to the elements of the world;

while others imagined that atoms—indivisible bodies—and masses and pores hold together the nature of visible things.

For now, they say, as the indivisible bodies come together with one another, and now as they are re-combined, comings-into-being and passings-away supervene;

and that, in the more enduring bodies, the stronger interlocking of the atoms provides the cause of their permanence.

Truly they who write such things weave a spider's web, who lay down such fine and insubstantial principles for heaven and earth and sea.

For they did not know how to say, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth."

Therefore they were deceived by the godlessness dwelling in them into thinking that all things are without governance and without administration, carried along as chance may have it.

Lest we ourselves suffer this, the one who wrote the cosmogony at once, in the very first words, illumined our understanding with the name of God, saying, "In the beginning God made."

How beautiful the order is! First he set down "a beginning," lest any should suppose Him to be without beginning.

Then he added "He made," that it might be shown that what was made is the very least part of the Creator's power.

For just as the potter, having fashioned countless vessels from the same craft, has exhausted neither his craft nor his power;

so too the Maker of this universe, having a creative power that is not merely commensurate with a single world but surpassing it to an infinite degree, by the mere inclination of His will brought into being the vast magnitudes of the things we see.

If, then, the world both has a beginning and was made, seek who it is that gave it its beginning, and who is its Maker. Rather, lest in seeking by human reasonings you be turned aside somewhere from the truth, he forestalled you by his teaching, casting, as it were, a seal and a safeguard upon our souls—the all-honoured name of God—when he said, "In the beginning God made."

The blessed Nature, the ungrudging Goodness, the One beloved by all who partake of reason, the much-desired Beauty, the Beginning of all that is, the Fountain of life, the intellectual Light, the unapproachable Wisdom—this One "made in the beginning the heaven and the earth."

Do not, then, O man, imagine the things we see to be without beginning; nor, because the things that move in the heavens run round in a circle, and the beginning of a circle is not easily grasped by our ready perception, think that the nature of bodies moving in circles is without beginning.

For neither ought we, in the case of this circle—I mean the plane figure bounded by a single line—because it escapes our perception, and we can neither discover whence it began nor where it ended, therefore at once to suppose it also to be without beginning.

But although it escapes our perception, in truth it certainly began from some point—he who circumscribed it with a centre and a certain radius.

So too, do not, because the things moving in a circle converge upon themselves, let the evenness of their motion—uninterrupted by any midpoint—leave you in the error of holding the world to be without beginning and without end.

For "the fashion of this world passes away";

and, "The heaven and the earth shall pass away."

These are a foreannouncement of the doctrines concerning the consummation and the transformation of the world, which are now delivered briefly, as a rudiment of the divinely-inspired teaching.

Whatever has begun from time must of all necessity also be brought to its end in time.

If it has a temporal beginning, doubt not concerning its end.

For geometrical and arithmetical methods, and the treatises concerning solids, and that much-bruited astronomy, that busy vanity—toward what end do they conclude? Indeed those who busied themselves with these things conceived this visible world to be co-eternal with God the Creator of all, bringing the circumscribed thing that has a material body to the same glory as the incomprehensible and invisible Nature, not being able even to grasp so much as this: that of that whose parts are subject to corruption and alteration, the whole also must of necessity at some time undergo the same affections as its own parts.

But they were so far "made vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened, and professing to be wise, they became fools," that some declared heaven to co-exist eternally with God;

while others declared that it is itself God, without beginning and without end, and the cause of the administration of things in their particulars.

Surely the abundance of the world's wisdom will at some time add to their grievous condemnation, that, seeing so sharply in vain things, they willingly blinded themselves to the understanding of the truth.

But those who measure out the distances of the stars, and register their ever-visible and northern ones, and all those lying about the southern pole which are visible to some but unknown to us;

and who divide the northern breadth and the zodiacal circle into countless intervals;

and who have observed with precision the risings of the stars, their stations, their declinations, and the motion of them all toward the leading signs;

and through how much time each of the wandering stars fulfils its own period;

of all their devices not one have they found out for the perceiving of God as Maker of all and as a just Judge, who renders the fitting recompense to men according to their lives;

nor, from the doctrine of the judgment, to come to recognise the consequent notion of the consummation—that the world must necessarily be transformed, if indeed the state of souls is also to change into another kind of life.

For just as the present life has a nature akin to this world,

so too the future mode of life of our souls will receive a lot befitting that state.

But they are so far from giving heed to these things as true, that they even pour out broad laughter at us when we proclaim the consummation of this world and the regeneration of the age.

Since, then, the beginning by nature is set before the things that come from it, of necessity he who discourses of things that have their being from time set this utterance before all others, saying, "In the beginning He made."

For there was, as it seems, something even before this world, which is contemplable by our understanding, but was left unrecorded, because it was unsuitable for those who are still being introduced and are infants in respect of knowledge.

There was a certain condition older than the genesis of the world, befitting the supercosmic powers—a state above time, eternal, everlasting.

And in it the Creator and Maker of all things accomplished His works: an intelligible light befitting the blessedness of those who love the Lord, the rational and invisible natures, and the whole ordering of intelligible beings—all that surpasses our understanding, of which it is not even possible to discover the names.

These fill up the substance of the invisible world, as Paul teaches us, saying, "For in Him were all things created, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers or virtues, whether hosts of angels or commands of archangels";

but when it was now necessary that this world too should be introduced among the things that are—primarily as a school and place of training for human souls,

and thereafter, quite simply, as a fitting dwelling-place for all things in genesis and corruption.

Connatural, therefore, with the world and with the living things and plants in it, the passage of time came to subsist—ever pressing on and flowing past, and nowhere ceasing from its course.

Or is not time of such a kind, that its past has vanished, its future is not yet present, and its present escapes perception before it can be known? And such, too, is the nature of things that come to be: either ever increasing or ever decreasing, having nothing settled and stationary that is manifest.

It was fitting, then, that the bodies of living things and of plants—bound, as it were, by some current to necessity, and held fast by the motion that leads to genesis or corruption—should be encompassed by the nature of time, which possesses a property akin to the things that change.

Hence, fittingly, he who wisely instructs us in the genesis of the world directed his account concerning it, saying, "In the beginning He made";

that is, in this beginning according to time.

For he does not say that it came to be "in the beginning" as testifying that it excels in priority of birth over all things that came to be; rather, after the invisible and intelligible things, he is recounting the beginning of the existence of these visible things that are grasped by perception.

Now "a beginning" is also said of the first motion;

as in, "The beginning of a good way is to do righteous things."

For it is from righteous deeds that we are first moved toward the blessed life.

And "a beginning" is also said of that from which something comes to be, as something inherent in it—as the foundation in the case of a house, and the keel in the case of a ship; according to which it is said, "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord."

For piety is, as it were, the substructure and pedestal toward perfection.

And the art is also "a beginning" of works of craft;

as was the wisdom of Bezalel for the adornment of the tabernacle.

And often "a beginning" of actions is also the useful end of the things done;

as the acceptance with God is of almsgiving, and the end laid up in the promises is of every activity according to virtue.

Since, then, "beginning" is spoken of in so many senses, consider whether the present word does not fit all the things signified.

For from what time the constitution of this world began, it is possible for you to learn, if at least, counting back from the present into the past, you contend to find the first day of the world's genesis.

For thus you will find whence the first motion came to time; then, that heaven and earth were laid down beforehand as a kind of foundations and substructures;

next, that there is a certain artistic reason that presided over the ordering of the things that are seen, as the word "beginning" indicates to you;

and that the world was devised not at random nor in vain, but contributing toward some useful end and great service to the things that are—if indeed it is in reality a school of rational souls and a place of training in the knowledge of God, furnishing through visible and sensible things a guidance for the mind toward the contemplation of the invisible, even as the Apostle says, that "the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."

Or perhaps, because of the instantaneous and timeless character of the creation, it was said, "In the beginning He made," since the beginning is something partless and without extension.

For as the beginning of the road is not yet road, and the beginning of the house is not house, so too the beginning of time is not yet time, nor indeed even the least part of it.

And if anyone, contending, should say that the beginning is time, let him know that he will divide it into the parts of time.

And these are: beginning, middle, and end.

But to conceive of a beginning of a beginning is altogether ridiculous.

And he who cuts the beginning in two will make two out of one—rather, many and infinitely many, since what is divided is always being cut into yet others.

Therefore, that we might be taught that the world subsisted together with the will of God timelessly, it was said, "In the beginning He made."

Which other translators, giving the sense more clearly, have rendered, "In sum God made," that is, all at once and in a brief space.

Concerning the beginning, then, so as to say a few things out of many, let this much suffice.

And since, of the arts, some are called productive, some practical, and some theoretical;

and of the theoretical, the end is the activity according to the mind;

while of the practical, the end is the very motion of the body, which, when it ceases, nothing remains nor abides for the onlookers;

for of dancing and flute-playing there is no result, but the activity terminates in itself;

but in the case of the productive arts, even when the activity has ceased, the work lies before us;

as in building, carpentry, metalwork, weaving, and all such arts, which, even if the craftsman be not present, sufficiently display in themselves the principles of the craft, and you are able to admire the builder from his work, and the smith and the weaver.

In order, then, that it might be shown that the world is an artistic structure, set before all for contemplation, so that through it the wisdom of its Maker might be recognised, the wise Moses used no other word concerning it, but said, "In the beginning He made";

not "He was active," nor "He gave subsistence," but "He made."

And inasmuch as many of those who imagined the world to co-exist with God from eternity did not concede that it came to be from Him, but, as though it were a kind of shadow of His power, that it subsisted alongside Him of its own accord;

and they confess God indeed to be its cause, but a cause without choice—as the body is of the shadow, and the shining object of the brightness;

correcting such deception, then, the prophet used this precision of words, saying, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth."

He did not merely furnish the cause of its being, but "He made"—as good, the useful thing; as wise, the most beautiful; as powerful, the greatest.

For he all but showed you the Craftsman entering into the substance of all things, fitting the several parts to one another, and bringing the whole to completion in accord with itself, in concord, and harmoniously disposed.

"In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth."

From the two extremities of the universe he hinted at its whole existence, assigning to heaven the seniority of genesis, and declaring the earth to be second in existence.

And surely, if there be anything intermediate between these, it was brought into being together with the extremities.

So that, even if he says nothing about the elements—fire, water, and air—do you yourself, by your own understanding, perceive: first, that all things are mingled in all; and you will find in earth both water and air and fire, seeing that out of stones fire leaps forth, and out of iron—which itself also has its genesis from earth—abundant fire is wont to flash forth in the friction.

And this too is worthy of wonder—how the fire, while present within bodies, lurks harmlessly;

but when called forth to the outside, it is destructive of the very things that had until then preserved it.

The nature of water present within the earth, the well-diggers show;

and the nature of air, the vapours sent up from the moistened earth when it is warmed by the sun.

Further, then, even if by nature heaven occupies the upper place and earth is the lowest;

because toward heaven the light things are borne, while toward earth the heavy things are wont to sink down, and they are most opposite to one another—the up and the down;

he who made mention of the things by nature most widely separated also, by implication, indicated the things that fill out the region in the midst of them.

So do not seek a detailed exposition of each thing, but, through the things declared, perceive the things passed over in silence.

"In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth."

The inquiry into the substance of each of the things that are—whether of those that fall under our contemplation, or of those set before our perception—introduces a long and digressive discourse into the exposition, so that more words are consumed in the examination of this single problem than of all the rest that can be said about each of the things inquired into;

and this, to no advantage at all for the building up of the Church, this busying oneself about such matters.

But concerning the substance of heaven, we are content with what was said by Isaiah;

who, in plain words, wrought in us a sufficient conception of its nature, saying:

"He who established the heaven like smoke";

that is, He gave subsistence to a fine nature, and not a solid or thick one, for the constitution of heaven.

And concerning the shape too, what comes from him is sufficient for us, since he says, in a doxology of God:

"He who set up the heaven like a vault."

And these same things let us also counsel ourselves concerning the earth: not to be over-curious about its substance, whatever it may be, nor to wear ourselves out in reasonings, searching out the underlying subject itself, nor to seek some nature devoid of qualities, existing without quality in its own account; but to know well that all the things contemplated about it are ranged under the account of its being, being constitutive of its substance.

For you will come to nothing, if you attempt to take away in thought each of the qualities inherent in it.

For if you remove the black, the cold, the heavy, the dense, the qualities inherent in it according to taste, or any others that are contemplated about it, there will be no underlying subject left.

Leaving these things aside, then, I exhort you not to inquire even into that question—upon what the earth stands.

For thus too the understanding will grow dizzy, the reasoning running on toward no agreed-upon limit.

For if you should say that air is spread beneath the breadth of the earth, you will be at a loss how the soft and very porous nature withstands being compressed under so great a weight, instead of slipping away on every side, escaping the compression, and ever overflowing upward away from that which presses it.

Again, if you suppose to yourself that water is what is laid beneath the earth, even so you will inquire how the heavy and dense does not sink through the water, but the so great thing, far exceeding in weight, is upheld by the weaker nature;

in addition to which you will go on to inquire after the seat of the water itself, and again be perplexed upon what solid and resisting thing its lowest bottom rests.

And if you suppose some other body heavier than the earth to hinder the earth from going downward, you will reflect that that too needs something similar to support it and not let it fall.

And even if we are able to invent and place something beneath it, our mind will again seek a support for that one, and thus we shall fall away into infinity, ever devising other foundations beneath the ones we keep finding.

And the further we advance in our reasoning, the greater the supporting power we are compelled to bring in underneath—one that will be able to withstand at once the whole mass lying above.

Therefore set limits to your understanding, lest the word of Job lay hold of your over-curiosity while you look around at the incomprehensible, and you too be asked by him, "Upon what are her rings fastened?"

But if ever you hear in the Psalms:

"I have set firm its pillars";

consider that by "pillars" is meant its sustaining power.

For "He founded it upon the seas"—what does it show, but that the nature of water is poured around the earth on every side? How then does the water, being fluid and naturally falling toward the downward slope, remain suspended and nowhere flow away? But you do not consider that the earth, hanging by itself and heavier in nature, presents to the argument the same difficulty, or even a greater one.

But it is necessary—whether we grant that the earth exists of itself, or say that it tosses upon the water—in no case to depart from the godly understanding, but to confess that all things together are held fast by the power of the Creator.

These things, then, we ought to say both to ourselves and to those who question us upon what this measureless and unbearable weight of the earth is propped: that "In the hand of God are the ends of the earth."

This is for us most secure for understanding, and profitable for those who hear.

But certain of the natural philosophers prettily contrive even such causes for the earth's remaining motionless.

Namely, that because it has taken the central place of the universe, and because of its equal distance on all sides from the extremity, having nowhere it might rather incline, it necessarily remains in itself, since the uniformity surrounding it on every side makes any tendency of it toward any one direction wholly impossible.

And the earth did not obtain this central place by lot, nor of its own accord, but this position is natural and necessary to the earth.

For, since the heavenly body occupies the outermost place as toward the upper, whatever weights, he says, we may suppose to fall from the upper regions, these will be borne together from every side toward the centre.

And toward whatever point the parts are borne, toward this clearly the whole also will be thrust together.

And if stones and wood and all earthy things are borne toward the lower, this would be the proper and fitting position for the whole earth as well;

and if any of the light things be borne away from the centre, it will clearly be moved toward the uppermost.

So that the proper motion of the heaviest things is the one toward the lower;

and "the lower," the argument has shown to be the centre.

Do not, then, wonder if the earth nowhere falls out of place, having the centre as its natural place.

For of all necessity it must either remain in its place, or, if moved contrary to nature, depart from its own seat.

If, then, any of the things said seem to you persuasive, transfer your wonder to the wisdom of God who thus arranged these things.

For our astonishment at the greatest things is not lessened when the manner in which one of the marvels comes to be is discovered;

but if not, at least let the simplicity of faith be stronger than logical demonstrations.

And these same things we might say also concerning heaven: that most manifold treatises have been laid down by the world's sages concerning the heavenly nature.

And some have said that it is composite, out of the four elements, as being tangible and visible, partaking of earth because of its resistance, of fire because of its being seen, and of the rest because of the mixture.

But others, rejecting this account as implausible, introduced a fifth nature of body for the constitution of heaven, devising it offhand from themselves and out of their own resources.

And there is, with them, a certain ethereal body, which is, he says, neither fire, nor air, nor earth, nor water, nor in general any one of the simple bodies;

because to the simple bodies the proper motion is the rectilinear—the light ones being borne upward, the heavy ones downward;

but the up and the down are not the same as the circular rotation;

and in general the straight line has the greatest distance from revolution in a circle.

And the natural motions of which prove to be different, of these, they say, the substances also must of necessity be different.

But indeed neither is it possible for us to suppose heaven to be composite out of the primary bodies, which we call elements, since things compounded out of different things cannot have an even and unforced motion, each of the simple bodies present in the compounds having from its nature one impulse and another.

Wherefore, first, composite things are beset with strain in continuous motion, because one motion cannot be well-suited to and friendly with all the contraries;

but the motion proper to the light is hostile to the heaviest.

For whenever we move toward the upper, we are weighed down by the earthy element in us;

and whenever we are borne toward the lower, we do violence to the fiery element, dragging it down, contrary to its nature, toward the lower.

And this dragging of the elements in contrary directions is an occasion of dissolution.

For that which is constrained and contrary to nature, holding out for but a little while—and that forcibly and barely—quickly is dissolved into the things out of which it was compounded, each of the components returning to its own place.

Through these necessities of their reasonings, then, as they say, having rejected the accounts of their predecessors, those who posit a fifth nature of body for the genesis of heaven and of the stars in it stood in need of their own hypothesis.

But yet another, of those overflowing with plausible argument, rising up again against these, scattered and dissolved their views, and brought in instead an opinion of his own.

Concerning which, if we now undertake to speak, we shall fall into the like garrulity as theirs.

But let us, leaving them to be overthrown by one another, and ourselves abstaining from the discourse on substance, being persuaded by Moses that "God made the heaven and the earth," glorify the supreme Artificer of things wisely and skilfully made; and from the beauty of the things seen let us conceive of Him who is beyond beauty; and from the greatness of these sensible and circumscribed bodies let us reason out the Infinite and Surpassingly-great One, who exceeds all understanding in the fullness of His own power.

For even though we are ignorant of the nature of the things that have come to be, yet that which in a general way falls under our perception has such great wonder, that even the most acute mind is shown to be inferior to the least of the things in the world, with respect to being able either to treat of it worthily, or to render the praise that is owed to the Creator;

to whom be all glory, honour, and might, unto the ages of ages. Amen.