Hexaemeron 5 part 2/3

Therefore Jeremiah too rightly likens the more wicked and double-natured characters to such a plant.

This small command was at once a great nature and a skilful word, accomplishing—faster than our thought—the countless properties of the things that grow.

That command, even now still present in the earth, urges it in each yearly cycle to bring forth all the power it has for the generation of grasses and seeds and trees.

For just as spinning-tops, from the first blow given them, make the successive revolutions, when, having fixed their centre, they whirl round upon themselves;

so too the sequence of nature, having received its beginning from the first command, runs on through all the time that follows, until it arrives at the common consummation of the universe.

Toward which let us all also hasten, fruitful and full of good works, so that, being planted in the house of the Lord, we may flourish in the courts of our God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might unto the ages of ages.

HOMILY. On the Creation of the Luminaries.

It is fitting that the spectator of athletes should himself also partake of some measure of vigour.

And this one might perceive from the rules of the festal games, which prescribe that those seated together in the stadium sit with bare head;

in order, as it seems to me, that each one might be not merely a spectator of the contenders, but himself in his turn a contender.

So then, in the same way, the examiner of great and surpassing spectacles, and the hearer of wisdom truly supreme and ineffable, ought to come from home already possessing certain resources for the contemplation of the matters set before him, and to share in my struggle as far as he is able, standing by not so much as a judge as a fellow-contender;

lest somehow the discovery of the truth escape us, and my own error become a common loss to those who hear.

To what end, then, do I say these things? Because, since there lies before us an examination and contemplation of the constitution of the world and of the universe—drawing its principles not from the wisdom of the world, but from those things by which God instructed His own servant, speaking to him face to face and not through riddles—it is altogether necessary that those who love to behold great things should not have their mind untrained for the understanding of the matters set before us.

If, then, on some clear night, gazing intently at the unspeakable beauties of the stars, you have taken thought of the Craftsman of all things—who it was that bespangled heaven with these flowers, and how in things visible the necessary outweighs the delightful;

and if again by day, with sober reasoning, you have learned the wonders of the day, and through the things seen have reasoned out the One unseen, then you come a well-equipped hearer, fit for the assembly of this august and blessed theatre.

Come then, just as those who lead by the hand the strangers to a city show them around, so I too will be your guide to the hidden wonders of this great city.

In this city, in which our ancient homeland lay—the homeland from which the murderous demon dislodged us, when by his own baits he enslaved man—

here you will behold the first generation of man, and the death that straightway overtook us;

the death which sin begot, the firstborn offspring of the author of evil, the demon.

And you will come to know yourself: earthly indeed by nature, yet the work of divine hands;

in power falling far short of the irrational animals, yet appointed by election ruler over the irrational and the inanimate.

Diminished in the equipment that comes from nature, yet able, by the abundance of reason, to lift itself up to heaven.

If we learn these things, we shall recognize ourselves, we shall come to know God, we shall worship the Creator, we shall serve the Master, we shall glorify the Father, we shall love our Nourisher, we shall reverence the Benefactor; nor shall we ever cease worshipping the Author of our life, both the present and the one to come—who, through the riches He has already supplied, both makes good His promises and, by the experience of present things, confirms to us the things we await.

For if things temporal are such, what must the eternal be? And if things visible are so beautiful, what must the invisible be? If the magnitude of heaven exceeds the measure of the human mind, what intellect could ever trace out the nature of things everlasting? If the sun, subject as it is to corruption, is so beautiful, so great, swift in its motion yet rendering its orbits in good order, having a magnitude commensurate with the universe so as not to overstep its proportion to the whole;

and by the beauty of its nature shines forth in the creation like some translucent eye;

if the sight of it is insatiable, of what beauty must the Sun of Righteousness be? If for the blind it is a loss not to see this sun, what a loss for the sinner to be deprived of the true Light?

"Let there be luminaries in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth, so as to divide between the day and between the night."

Heaven had already preceded, and the earth;

the light had been created upon these;

day and night had been distinguished;

again the firmament, and the appearing of the dry land.

The water had been gathered together into one assembled and set-apart collection.

The earth had been filled with its own offspring, having sprouted forth the countless kinds of grasses and abounding in every sort of plant.

But sun and moon were not yet, so that they who are ignorant of God might neither name the sun as the originator and father of light;

nor suppose it to be the maker of the things that grow from the earth.

And then God said, "Let there be luminaries in the firmament of heaven."

When you are taught of the One who spoke, straightway join to the thought the One who heard.

God said, "Let there be luminaries," and God made the two luminaries.

Who spoke, and who made? Do you not perceive in these the duality of Persons? Everywhere throughout the narrative the doctrine of theology is mystically sown together with it.

And the use of the generation of the luminaries is set forth:

"To give light," He says, "upon the earth."

If the generation of light had already preceded, how is the sun now again said to have come to be for giving light? First, then, let not the peculiarity of the wording move you to any laughter, if indeed we do not follow the selections of phrases current among you, nor cultivate the rhythmic arrangement of them.

For there are no chiselers of phrases among us;

nor is the euphony of the sounds, but the clearness of meaning in the names, everywhere preferred.

Consider, then, whether by the word "giving light" He did not sufficiently indicate what He meant;

for instead of "illumination" He has said "giving light."

But this is in no way contradictory to the things said concerning the light.

For then the very nature of light was brought forth;

but now this solar body has been prepared to be a vehicle for that first-begotten light.

For just as the fire is one thing and the lamp another—

the one having the power of giving light, the other made to display it to those in need;

so now too the luminaries have been fashioned as a vehicle for that purest and unalloyed and immaterial light.

For as the Apostle speaks of certain luminaries in the world, while the true light of the world is another, by participation in which the saints became luminaries of the souls they instructed, delivering them from the darkness of ignorance;

so now too the Maker of all things, having furnished this sun with that most radiant light, kindled it around the world.

And let no one disbelieve what has been said—that the brightness of the light is one thing, and the body underlying the light is another.

First, then, this follows from the fact that all composite things are so divided by us, both into the receptive substance and into the quality that has supervened upon it.

Just as, then, whiteness is one thing by nature, and the whitened body another, so too the things now spoken of, being different in nature, have been united by the power of the Creator.

And do not tell me that these are impossible to be divided from one another.

For neither do I assert that the division of light from the solar body is possible for me and you; but I say that the things which to us are separable in thought, these can also in actual operation be set apart by the Maker of their nature.

Since even for you it is impossible to separate the burning power of fire from its brightness;

yet God, wishing by a marvellous spectacle to turn back His own servant, set fire upon the bush which operated by brightness alone, while keeping the power of burning at rest.

As the psalmist also testifies, saying, "The voice of the Lord that divideth the flame of fire."

Whence also, in the recompenses of the things lived by us, a certain word secretly instructs us that the nature of fire shall be divided, and the light apportioned for the enjoyment of the righteous, but the painful part of its burning assigned to those who are punished.

Then, moreover, from the affections concerning the moon also, it is possible for us to find confirmation of the things sought.

For when it wanes and diminishes, it is not consumed in its whole body, but, laying aside and again taking on the light that surrounds it, it furnishes us with the appearances of decrease and increase.

And that its very body is not consumed away when it wanes—the things seen are a clear testimony.

For it is possible for you, in clear air free from all haze, when especially it happens to be crescent in shape, by watching attentively, to behold its dark and unlit part, encompassed by an arc as great as that which in full moon it fills out wholly.

So that the circle is clearly seen as fully completed, the sight carrying up together with the illumined part the shadowy and airy hollow.

And do not tell me that the moon's light is something brought in from outside, because it diminishes when borne toward the sun, but increases again as it withdraws.

For neither is it our purpose to examine that point at present, but rather to show that its body is one thing, and that which gives it light another.

Conceive, then, some such thing also in the case of the sun for me.

Except that the one, having once received the light and having it mingled in itself, does not lay it aside;

while the other, as it were continually undressing and again clothing itself with the light, by means of itself confirms also the things said concerning the sun.

These also were appointed to divide between the day and between the night.

For above, indeed, God divided between the light and between the darkness;

but then He set their nature toward the opposite, so that they hold themselves unmixed with one another, and there be no fellowship of light with darkness.

For what shadow is in daytime, that one must consider to be the nature of darkness in the night.

For if every shadow falls from bodies, when some ray shines opposite to the light;

and at dawn it stretches toward the west, in the evening it inclines toward the east, and at midday it becomes northward;

so also the night withdraws to the side opposite the rays, being by nature nothing else than the shadow of the earth.

For just as in daytime the shadow stands about the thing that blocks the ray, so the night is naturally constituted when the air around the earth is shadowed.

This, then, is what was said: that God divided between the light and between the darkness;

since the darkness flees the inroads of the light, a natural estrangement toward one another having been established for them in the first creation.

But now He has appointed the sun to the measures of the day;

and the moon, whenever it is brought to completion in its own cycle, He made the ruler of the night.

For then, roughly speaking, the luminaries stand diametrically opposite to one another.

For when the sun rises, at the full moon the moon is carried down toward the unseen;

but when the sun sets again, she often rises up over against it from the east.

But if in its other phases the moon's light is not co-completed with the night, this is nothing to the matter before us.

Only that, when she happens to be at her most perfect, she takes the lead of the night, outshining the stars by her own light and illuminating the earth all around;

and she divides the measures of the time equally with the sun.

"And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years."

The signs from the luminaries are necessary for human life.

If one does not pry into the signs from them beyond measure, he will find their observations, drawn from long experience, to be useful.

For there is much to learn concerning rainfalls;

and much concerning droughts and the motions of winds, whether partial or general, violent or gentle.

For one of the things indicated by the sun the Lord too has handed down to us, saying, "It will be foul weather, for the sky is red and lowering."

For whenever the rising of the sun takes place through a mist, the rays are dimmed, and it is seen coal-coloured and bloodlike in hue, the thickness of the air producing this appearance to the sight.

And the air, which had hitherto been thickened and condensed, not being dispersed by the ray, is plainly unable to master it because of the influx of vapours from the earth, but by the excess of moisture is about to bring foul weather upon the regions about which it gathers.

And likewise also whenever the moon is encircled with a watery halo;

and when about the sun the so-called halos are described, they portend either a quantity of airy water or the motion of violent winds;

or also those which they call mock-suns, when they run round together with the sun's course, become signs of certain atmospheric occurrences.

Just as also the rods, appearing upright in the clouds with the colour of the rainbow, indicate downpours or extraordinary storms, or in general a change of the air over a wide extent.

And those who have devoted themselves to these matters have observed many indicative things concerning the moon as it waxes or wanes, since the air around the earth necessarily changes together with its phases.

For being thin about the third day and clear, it announces settled fair weather;

but appearing thick at the horns and somewhat reddish, it threatens either heavy water from the clouds or a violent motion of the south wind.

And who is ignorant of how much benefit the indication from these affords to life? For it is possible for the sailor to keep his vessel within harbour, foreseeing the dangers from the winds.

And it is possible for the traveller to avoid harms from afar, awaiting the change from the lowering of the air.

And farmers, who labour over the seeds and the tending of plants, find from this all the right occasions for their works.

And already the Lord has foretold that signs of the dissolution of the universe will appear in sun and moon and stars.

"The sun shall be turned into blood, and the moon shall not give her light."

These are signs of the consummation of the universe.

But those who leap beyond the boundaries drag the saying into support of the casting of nativities, and say that our life is bound up with the motion of the heavenly bodies;

and that for this reason there come from the stars, by the Chaldeans, the indications of the things that befall us.

And while the saying of Scripture, "Let them be for signs," is simple, they take it to mean—not of the turns concerning the air, nor of the changes concerning the seasons, but as bearing upon the allotment of human lives—according to what seems good to themselves.

For what do they say? That the conjunction of these moving stars, when they come together with one another in such-and-such a figure with respect to the stars lying in the zodiac, brings to pass such-and-such destinies;

while such-and-such a relation of the same stars produces the opposite allotment of life.

Concerning which it is perhaps not unprofitable, for the sake of clarity, to speak after taking the matter up a little from the start.

But I shall say nothing of my own, but shall use their very own words for the refutation against them, providing some cure to those already preoccupied unto harm, and to the rest security against falling into the like.

The inventors of this nativity-casting, having learned that within the breadth of time many of the configurations escape them, shut up the measures of time into an utterly narrow compass;

so that even by the smallest and tiniest moment—as the Apostle says, "in an atom (instant)" and "in the twinkling of an eye"—there exists the greatest difference of one birth from another;

and the one born in this tiny instant is a tyrant of cities and a ruler of peoples, exceedingly rich and powerful;

but the one born in the other moment of the moment is some beggar and vagabond, going from door to door for the sake of his daily food.

Therefore, having divided the so-called zodiac circle into twelve parts—since through thirty days the sun traverses the twelfth part of the so-called fixed sphere—they have divided each of the twelve sections into thirty degrees.

Then, having divided each degree into sixty, they cut each of the sixtieths again sixtyfold.

Setting down, then, the nativities of those being born, let us see whether they will be able to preserve this precision in the division of time.

For no sooner is the child born than the midwife examines whether the one born is male or female;

then she waits for the cry, which is a sign of the life of the one born.

How many sixtieths do you suppose pass by in this interval? Tell the Chaldean of the birth.

Through how many—I ask you—of the most minute units shall we suppose the voice of the midwife to have passed;

especially if the one who is to mark the hour happens to be standing outside the women's quarters? For he who is going to learn the horoscopes must record the hour precisely, whether these things happen to be by day or by night.

How great a swarm of sixtieths again runs by in this interval? For it is necessary that the ascending star be found, not only in what number of the twelfth-part it is, but also in what degree of the twelfth-part, and in what sixtieth—into which, we said, the degree is divided;

or, in order that the exactness may be found, in what sixtieth of those sub-divided from the first sixtieths.

And they say it is necessary to make this so subtle and incomprehensible determination of the time for each of the planets, so as to find out what relation they had to the fixed stars, and what was the figure they made toward one another at the birth of the one being born.

So that if it is impossible to hit upon the hour exactly, while the deviation of the very smallest part causes one to err in the whole, then ridiculous are both those who have busied themselves about this fancied art, and those who gape after them as though they were able to know the things concerning themselves.

And what sort of things, too, are their predictions? "So-and-so," he says, "has curly hair and bright (gleaming) eyes;

and the creature is somehow such to look upon

since the ram is a leader;

and both giving and again provident;

since this animal both lays aside its wool painlessly, and is again easily re-clothed by nature.

"But the one born under Taurus," he says, "is long-suffering and servile;

since the bull is under the yoke."

And the one under Scorpio is a striker, on account of the likeness to the beast.

But the one under Libra is just, on account of the evenness of the balances among us.

What could be more laughable than these things? The Ram, from which you take the nativity of the man, is the twelfth part of heaven, in which the sun, coming to be, touches the vernal signs.

And Libra likewise, and Taurus—each of these is a twelfth-part of the so-called zodiac circle.

How, then, while saying that the antecedent causes for the lives of men exist there above, do you characterize the manners of the men who are born from the cattle that are among us? For the one born under Aries is liberal—not because that part of heaven is productive of such a character, but because the sheep is of such a nature.

Why, then, do you put us to shame by appealing to the trustworthiness of the stars, while you attempt to persuade us by means of the bleating of sheep? For if heaven, having taken these from the animals, possesses such peculiarities of character, then it too is subject to alien principles, having its causes hung upon the cattle;

but if it is laughable to say this, far more laughable is it to attempt to bring in plausibilities for the argument from things that have nothing in common with it.

But these clever notions of theirs are like spiders' webs, in which, whenever a gnat or fly, or some other such feeble thing, is caught, it is bound fast and held;

but whenever any of the stronger animals draws near, it both easily breaks through, and has rent apart and made to vanish the flimsy webs.

And they do not stop at these things alone, but even those things over which the free choice of each one of us is master—I mean, the pursuits of virtue or vice—even of these they fasten the causes to the heavenly bodies.

To contradict whom is in other respects laughable, yet, because the many are held captive beforehand by the deception, it is perhaps necessary not to pass it by in silence.

First, then, let us ask them this: whether the configurations of the stars do not change ten thousand times each day? For the so-called planets, being ever in motion, some overtaking one another more swiftly, others making their orbits more slowly, often in the same hour both see one another and are hidden from view; and it has the greatest power in nativities, as they themselves say, whether one is beheld by a benefic or by a malefic.

And often, not having found out the time at which the benefic star bore witness, through ignorance of one of the smallest units they have recorded it as lying in the malefic position.

For I am compelled to make use of their very own terms.

Now in such discourses there is much that is foolish, but many times more that is impious.

For the malefic among the stars transfer the cause of their own wickedness onto Him who made them.

For if the evil is from their nature, then the Creator will be the maker of evil;

but if they grow wicked by choice, then first they will be creatures endowed with choice, employing free and self-governing impulses—

which is beyond madness, to lie thus against things inanimate.

And then, how great the irrationality—not to apportion to each evil and good according to its desert, but, because one came to be in this place, to make it benefic, and because it is beheld by that one, to make the very same malefic;

and again, whenever it deviates a little from the figure, straightway to make it forget its wickedness? And of these matters, so much.

But if at each tiny moment of time they shift into one and another figure, and in these ten thousand changes, many times a day, the configurations of royal nativities are brought to pass, why are kings not born every day? Or why are there at all hereditary successions of kingship among them? For surely each of the kings does not, with careful watching, fit the birth of his own son into the royal figure of the stars.

For what man is master of such a thing? How, then, did Uzziah beget Jotham, Jotham Ahaz, Ahaz Hezekiah? And none of these chanced upon a servile hour of birth? Then, if even the causes of the workings according to vice and virtue are not from what is in our own power, but the necessities are from one's nativity, then superfluous are the lawgivers who define for us the things to be done and the things to be shunned, and superfluous too are the judges who honour virtue and punish wickedness.

For the wrongdoing is not the thief's;

for whom it was not possible, even if he wished, to master his hand, because of the inescapability of the necessity that drove him to the deeds.

And the most vain of all are those who toil at the crafts;

but the farmer will prosper, neither casting in seeds nor whetting his sickle;

and the merchant will grow exceedingly rich, whether he wishes it or not, since fate heaps up the riches for him.

But the great hopes of Christians will depart from us, vanished, since neither is righteousness honoured nor sin condemned, because nothing is accomplished by men according to free choice.

For where necessity and fate prevail, there is no room for desert, which is the distinctive mark of righteous judgment.

And toward those men, so much.

For neither do you need more words, being yourselves in good health, nor does the occasion permit extending the discourse against them beyond measure.

But let us return to the words that follow.

"Let them be," He says, "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years."

The things concerning the signs have been spoken of by us.

And by "seasons" we suppose Him to mean the changes of the times of year:

of winter, and of spring, and of summer, and of autumn;

which the ordered character of the motion of the luminaries grants us to traverse in good order.

For winter comes about when the sun lingers in the southern regions, and produces the long nightly shadow about our region;

so that the air around the earth is cooled, and all the moist exhalations, condensing about us, furnish the cause of rains and frosts and untold snowfall.

But whenever the sun, returning again from the southern regions, comes to be at the middle, so as to divide the time equally between night and day, then, in proportion as it lingers more in the places above the earth, by so much it gradually brings back the temperate climate.

And spring comes about, the originator of sprouting for all plants, granting renewal of life to most of the trees, and preserving for all land and water animals their kind through the succession of those that come after.

From there the sun, now driving on toward the summer solstice up to the very Bear, brings about for us the longest of the days.

And by associating with the air for the longest time, it both scorches the very air above our heads, and dries up all the earth, thereby aiding the seeds toward their ripening, and urging on the fruits of the trees to maturity;

at which time the sun is also at its most fiery, casting short shadows at midday, because it shines down upon our region from on high.

For greatest are the days in which the shadows are shortest, and shortest again the days that have the longest shadows.

And this is the case among us who are called "hetero-shadowed," as many of us as dwell in the northern parts of the earth;

since there are indeed some who, on two days of the whole year, become wholly shadowless at midday—upon whom the sun, shining down right overhead, illuminates them equally from every side, so that even the water of deep wells is lit up through narrow openings;

whence some also call them "shadowless."

But those beyond the spice-bearing land cast their shadows in both directions.

For they alone in the world inhabited by us cast their shadows toward the south at midday;

whence some have also named them "both-way-shadowed."

But all these things come about when the sun has already passed over to the northern part.

From these things it is possible to conjecture how great is the burning that comes to the air from the solar ray, and of what sort of occurrences it is productive.

Thereupon the season of autumn, succeeding us, breaks down the excess of the stifling heat, and gradually relaxing the warmth, through the mean state of its temperate blending, leads us on by itself harmlessly to winter;

evidently because the sun is again turning back from the northern parts toward the southern.

These are the revolutions of the seasons, which, following the motions of the sun, manage our life for us.

"And let them be," He says, "also for days";

not so as to make days, but so as to take the lead of the days.