[1458] Ps. cxix. 103.
[1459] Gen. i. 6.
[1460] Origen, c. Cels. vi. says ton men prosecheis demiourgon einai ton hui& 232;n tou Theou logon, kai hosperei autourgon tou kosmou, ton de patera tou logou, to prostetachenai to hui& 242; heautou logo poiesai ton kosmon, einai protos demiourgon. cf. Athan., c. gentes § 48, sq.
[1461] Solon is credited with the saying, duskola ta kala. cf. the German proverb, Gut ding wil weile haben, and Virgil in Georg. i. 121: "Pater ipse colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit."
[1462] Plato said one. poteron o& 202;n orthos hena ouranou proeirekamen; e pollous e apeirous legein en orthoteron; eiper kata to paradeigma dedemiourgemenos estai, to gar periechon panta hoposa noeta zoa, meth' heteron deuteron ouk an pot' eie...heis hode monogenes ouranos gegonos esti te kai estai. Plat., Tim. § 11. On the other hand, was the Epicurean doctrine of the apeiria kosmon, referred to in Luc. i. 73: Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi.
[1463] So Anaximander (Diog. Laert. ii. 1, 2) and Democritus (Diog. Laert. ix. 44). But, as Fialon points out, the Greek philosophers used kosmos and ouranos as convertible terms: Basil uses ouranos of the firmament or sky.
[1464] cf. 2 Cor. xii. 2.
[1465] Ps. cxlvii. 4.
[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.
[1467] Gen. i. 6, 7.
[1468] Ps. xviii. 2, LXX.
[1469] Ps. lxxv. 3, LXX.
[1470] Ps. cl. 1. LXX.
[1471] nastos (fr. nasso, press or knead)=close, firm. Democritus used it as opposed to kenon, void. Arist. fr. 202.
[1472] Amos iv. 13, LXX.
[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.
[1474] 'Empedokles steremnion einai ton ouranon ex a& 153;ros sumpagentos hupo puros krustalloeidos, to purodes kai aerodes en hekatero ton hemisphairion periechonta. (Plutarch peri ton areskonton tois philosophois, 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.)
[1475] i.e. the "Lapis Specularis," or mica, which was used for glazing windows. cf. Plin., Ep. ii. 17, and Juv., Sat. iv. 21.
[1476] Mica is found in large plates in Siberia, Peru, and Mexico, as well as in Sweden and Norway.
[1477] Gen. i. 7.
[1478] With Christian associations it is startling to read at the end of the Timæus that the Cosmos is the eikon tou Theou, or, according to another reading, itself Theos,... monogenes on.
[1479] Gen. i. 6.
[1480] According to Plutarch (peri ton aresk: 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."
[1481] On kolobos, docked, curtailed, cf. Matt. xxiv. 22.
[1482] The supremacy of fire was the idea of Heraclitus. To pur Theon hupeilephasin Ippasos ...kai Erakleitos. Clem. Alex., Protrep. v. 55. Plutarch has an essay on the comparative use fulness of fire and water.
[1483] Job xxxvi. 27, LXX.
[1484] Balkh.
[1485] Kerak.
[1486] Probably the Volga is meant.
[1487] Don.
[1488] Sea of Asov.
[1489] Phaz.
[1490] Ebro.
[1491] The Danube.
[1492] Used vaguely for any mountains in the north of Europe and Asia. Strabo (vii. pp. 295, 299) considers them fabulous.
[1493] A varia lectio is Eridanus.
[1494] Aigon is properly the Ægean Sea.
[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."
[1496] Isa. xliv. 27.
[1497] Schools of "the wisdom of the world" did, however, teach that the world was a world genomenon kai phtharton. cf. Lucretius v. 322, "totum nativum mortali corpore constat."
[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 coeli, Flammarum vallo naturæ moenia fecit."
[1499] So Aristotle, Meteor. i. 3, 30. Oromen de ten kinesin hoti dunatai diakrinein ton a& 153;ra kai ekpuroun hoste kai ta pheromena tekomena phainesthai pollakis. To men oun gignesthai ten alean kai ten thermoteta hikane esti paraskeuazein kai he tou heliou phora monon.
[1500] cf. Diog. Laert. vii. on Zeno. Trepesthai de ta empura tauta kai ta alla astra, ton men helion ek tes megales thalattes. So Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonius.
[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 peri ton aresk, 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.
[1502] Gen. i. 8.
[1503] The derivation of ouranos from horao is imaginary. Aristotle (De Coel i. 19, 9) derives it from horos, a boundary. cf. Orizon. The real root is the Skt. var=cover. M. Müller, Oxford Essays, 1856.
[1504] Ps. viii. 8.
[1505] Gen. i. 20.
[1506] Ps. cvii. 26.
[1507] cf. Deut. xxxiii. 13-15, LXX.
[1508] Deut. xxviii. 23.
[1509] cf. Arist., Meteor. i. 9-12, Plutarch peri ton aresk. etc. iii. 4.
[1510] Fialon quotes Hor., Ep. i. 18: "Ut matrona meretrici dispar erit atque Discolor."
[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.
[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" (apeiria kosmon) "by reason of intervening periodical conflagrations." Cudworth, I. iii. 23.
[1513] i.e. Origen.
[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.
[1515] Ps. xviii. 1.
[1516] Bened.
[1517] Ps. cxlviii. 7.
[1518] kalon men oun estin ho an d' hauto haireton on epaineton e, ho an agathon on hedu e hoti agathon. 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.'"
[1519] cf. Rom. i. 20.