Homilies on the Hexaemeron 1.1–1.11

A fitting beginning for one who is about to narrate the formation of the world is to set the beginning of the ordering of visible things at the head of his discourse. For the making of heaven and earth is about to be related: a making not brought together spontaneously, as some have imagined, but one that took its cause from God. What hearing is worthy of the greatness of the things being told? How prepared ought the soul to be for hearing such great matters? Pure of the passions of the flesh, unclouded by the cares of life, fond of labor, searching, looking around on every side for some notion of God worthy of him. But before examining the precision of the words, and searching out how great are the things signified by 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 reach the depth of the writer's heart, yet by attending to the trustworthiness of the speaker we shall be led of our own accord to assent to what is said. It is Moses, then, who composed this writing: that Moses who was attested to be beautiful in the sight of God while still at the breast; whom Pharaoh's daughter adopted and brought up royally, appointing the wise men of the Egyptians as the teachers of his education; who, hating the pomp of tyranny and running back to the lowliness of his kinsmen, chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to have the passing enjoyment of sin; who possessed the love of justice from his very nature, since even before the leadership of the people was entrusted to him he is seen, through the hatred of evil in his nature, avenging himself on the wicked even to death; who, banished by those he had benefited, gladly left the tumults of Egypt behind and reached Ethiopia, and there, withdrawing all his leisure from other pursuits, gave forty whole years to the contemplation of the things that are; who, when he was already eighty years old, saw God as far as it is possible for a man to see him, or rather as was granted to no one else, according to the testimony of God himself: "If a prophet of yours arises for the Lord, I will be made known to him in a vision, and in sleep I will speak to him. Not so my servant Moses: he is faithful in all my house; mouth to mouth I will speak to him, in visible form, and not through riddles." This man, then, who was counted worthy of the face-to-face vision of God equally with the angels, speaks to us of what he heard from God. Let us hear, then …

"In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth." The wonder of the thought brings my speech to a halt. What shall I say first? Where shall I begin the explanation? Shall I refute the vanity of those outside? Or shall I sing the praises of our truth? The wise men of the Greeks labored much over nature, and not one account among them has stood unmoved and unshaken, the second always overthrowing the one before it, so that we have no need to refute their views: they suffice for one another's overthrow. For those who did not know God did not allow that an intelligent cause presided over the coming into being of the universe, but drew the conclusions that followed from their original ignorance. Therefore some took refuge in material hypotheses, ascribing the cause of the universe to the elements of the world; others imagined that atoms and indivisible bodies, masses and pores, hold together the nature of visible things. For, they say, when the indivisible bodies now come together with one another and now are separated again, comings-to-be and perishings follow; and in the more durable bodies the stronger interlocking of the atoms provides the cause of their permanence. Truly those who write these things weave a spider's web, positing such slight and insubstantial beginnings 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, deceived by the godlessness that dwelt in them, they thought that all things are ungoverned and unadministered, carried along as chance may have it. So that we may not suffer the same, the writer of the account of the world's making at once, in his very first words, enlightened our understanding with the name of God, saying: "In the beginning God made." How fine the order is! He put "beginning" first, so that no one might think the world without beginning; then he added "made," to show that what was made is the smallest part of the Creator's power. For as the potter, having shaped countless vessels by the same art, has exhausted neither his art nor his power, so too the Creator of this universe, whose creative power is not merely commensurate with one world but exceeds it infinitely, brought into being the vast bodies of the visible world by the sole inclination of his will. If, then, the world both has a beginning and has been made, ask who gave it its beginning, and who is its maker. Or rather, lest by seeking with human reasonings you be turned aside somewhere from the truth, he anticipated you with his teaching, implanting in our souls, as a seal and a safeguard, the precious name of God, saying, "In the beginning God made." The blessed nature, the unstinting goodness, the object of love for all who share in reason, the much-desired beauty, the beginning of the things that are, the source of life, the intellectual light, the unapproachable wisdom: he "made in the beginning the heaven and the earth."

Do not, then, O man, imagine that the visible things are without beginning. And because the bodies that move in the sky run round in a circle, and the beginning of the circle is not easily grasped by our ready perception, do not think that the nature of the circling bodies is without beginning. For not even this circle, I mean the plane figure enclosed by one line, must we suppose to be without beginning just because it escapes our perception, so that we can find neither where it began nor where it ended. Even if it escapes perception, in truth it certainly began from some point, where the one who drew it round with a center and a certain radius began. So you too: because things moving in a circle return upon themselves, do not let the evenness of their motion, interrupted by no middle point, leave in you the error that the world is without beginning and without end. For "the form of this world is passing away," and "heaven and earth will pass away." The doctrines of the consummation and of the transformation of the world are announced in advance in what is now handed down briefly in the elementary teaching of the God-inspired instruction: "In the beginning God made." Things that began from time must of necessity also be brought to completion in time. If it has a beginning in time, do not be in doubt about the end. For geometry, and the methods of arithmetic, and the studies of solids, and much-celebrated astronomy, that laborious vanity: to what end do they lead, if those who have spent their time on them have supposed that this visible world too is coeternal with God, the Creator of all, raising to the same glory what is circumscribed and has a material body and the incomprehensible and invisible nature, and not able to conceive even this much: that a whole whose parts are subject to corruption and change must itself also at some time undergo the same things as its own parts? But they "became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened, and claiming to be wise they became fools," to such a degree that some declared that heaven coexists with God from eternity, and others that it is itself God, without beginning and without end, and the cause of the ordering of particular things.

Surely the abundance of this world's wisdom will one day bring them an increase of their grievous condemnation, because, seeing so sharply into vain things, they willingly blinded themselves to the understanding of the truth. Those who measure the distances of the stars, and record those that are always visible and northern, and those lying around the south pole that are visible to some but unknown to us; who divide the northern latitude and the zodiac into countless intervals; who have observed with precision the risings of the stars, their stations and declinations, and the forward motion of them all, and in how much time each of the planets completes its own period: these did not find one device among them all for conceiving of God as the maker of the universe and a just judge, who brings the fitting recompense upon the lives men have lived. Nor did they recognize, from the doctrine of judgment, the consequent notion of the consummation: that the world must of necessity be transformed, if the condition of souls is also to change to another form of life. For as the present life has a nature akin to this world, so too the future way of life of our souls will receive a lot suited to its condition. But they are so far from attending to these truths that they even pour out loud laughter on us when we announce the consummation of this world and the regeneration of the age. Since the beginning by nature is ranked before what comes from it, he necessarily, in speaking of the things that have their being from time, placed this word before all: "In the beginning he made."

For there was, it seems, something even before this world, which our understanding can contemplate, but which was left unrecorded because it was unsuitable for those still being introduced and still infants in knowledge. There was a condition older than the coming into being of the world, befitting the powers above the world: beyond time, everlasting, eternal. In it the Creator and Fashioner of all things accomplished works: intelligible light befitting the blessedness of those who love the Lord, the rational and invisible natures, and the whole ordered array of intelligible beings, all that surpasses our understanding, whose very names it is not possible to find out. These fill up the being of the invisible world, as Paul teaches us, saying: "For in him were created all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities," or powers, or hosts of angels, or the presidencies of archangels. But when at last this world too had to be brought in among the things that are, first of all as a school and training ground for human souls, and then also as a fitting dwelling, in general, for all things subject to coming-to-be and perishing, the passage of time came into existence, akin to the world and to the animals and plants in it, always hastening and flowing past and never ceasing from its course. Or is time not such a thing: its past has vanished, its future is not yet present, and its present escapes perception before it is known? Such too is the nature of things that come to be: either growing or decaying, and having nothing manifestly settled and stable. It was fitting, then, that the bodies of animals and plants, bound by necessity as it were to a kind of current, and held fast in the movement that leads to coming-to-be or perishing, should be encompassed by the nature of time, which has a character akin to things that change. Hence the one who wisely teaches us the coming into being of the world fittingly applied to his account the words "In the beginning he made," that is, in this beginning according to time. For when he testifies that it came into being in the beginning, he does not mean that it takes precedence in seniority over all things that have come to be; rather, after the invisible and intelligible things, he narrates the beginning of the existence of these visible things that are grasped by sense. The first movement is also called a beginning, as in "The beginning of a good way is to do righteous things"; for it is by righteous actions that we are first moved toward the blessed life. "Beginning" is also said of that from which something comes to be, when something else is built upon it, as the foundation in a house and the keel in a ship; in this sense it is said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"; for piety is like a base and pedestal for perfection. Art too is the beginning of works of art, as the wisdom of Bezalel was of the adornment of the tabernacle. And often the useful end of things done is the beginning of actions, as acceptance by God is of almsgiving, and as the end laid up in the promises is of every activity according to virtue.

Since "beginning" is said in so many ways, consider whether the present word does not fit all the meanings. For you can learn from what time the constitution of this world began, if, going back step by step from the present to what lies behind, you strive to find the first day of the world's coming into being. In this way you will find where the first movement of time was; next, that heaven and earth were laid down first, like foundations and bases; then, that there is a skilled reason which led the way in the ordering of visible things, as the word "beginning" indicates to you; and that the world was not devised at random or in vain, but for some useful end and as a great service contributed to the things that are, if indeed it is truly a school for rational souls and a training ground for the knowledge of God, providing the mind with guidance by the hand, through visible and perceptible things, toward the contemplation of the invisible, as the apostle says: "His invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made." Or perhaps "In the beginning he made" is said because of the instantaneous and timeless character of the creation, since the beginning is something without parts and without extension. For as the beginning of the road is not yet road, and the beginning of the house is not a house, so too the beginning of time is not yet time, nor even its least part. And if anyone contentiously says 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 imagine a beginning of a beginning is altogether ridiculous. And whoever cuts the beginning in two will make two instead of one, or rather many and infinite, since what is divided is always cut into further parts. In order, then, that we may be taught that the world came into existence together with the will of God, timelessly, it is said, "In the beginning he made." Other interpreters, rendering the sense more clearly, have said this: "In summary God made," that is, all at once and in a short moment. So much, then, about the beginning, to say a few things out of many.

Of the arts, moreover, some are called productive, some practical, and some theoretical. The end of the theoretical is the activity of the mind; that of the practical is the very movement of the body, which, when it ceases, leaves nothing standing or remaining for those who watch: dancing and flute-playing have no end product, but the activity ends in itself. In the productive arts, however, 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 is not present, sufficiently display the principles of the art in themselves, and you may admire the builder from his work, and the smith, and the weaver. In order, then, to show that the world is a work of art, set before all for contemplation, so that through it the wisdom of the one who made it may be recognized, the wise Moses used no other word about it but said, "In the beginning he made": not "he activated," nor "he gave subsistence," but "he made." And since many of those who imagined that the world coexists with God from eternity did not grant that it was made by him, but held that, being as it were a shadow of his power, it came into subsistence alongside him spontaneously, and they confess God as its cause, but an involuntary cause, as the body is of the shadow and the shining thing of its brightness: correcting such a deception, the prophet used this precision of words, saying, "In the beginning God made." He did not merely provide the cause of its being, but made it: as good, what is useful; as wise, what is most beautiful; as powerful, what is greatest. For he all but shows you a craftsman who has entered into the being of all things, fitting the individual parts to one another, and making the whole consistent with itself, concordant, and harmonious. "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth." By the two extremes he hinted at the existence of the whole, giving heaven precedence in coming into being and saying that earth was second in existence. Certainly whatever lies between them also came into being together with the extremes. So even if he says nothing about the elements, fire, water, and air, understand them by your own intelligence: first, that all things are mixed in all, and in earth you will find water and air and fire, since fire leaps out of stones, and from iron, which itself has its origin from the earth, abundant fire naturally flashes out when it is struck. And this too is worth wondering at: how fire, while it is in bodies, lurks there harmlessly, but when called forth outside it consumes what had been guarding it until then. Well-diggers show that the nature of water is present in the earth, and the vapors sent up from it when it is moist and warmed by the sun show the nature of air. Then, too, since by nature heaven occupies the upper place and earth is the lowest, because light things are carried up toward heaven and heavy things naturally sink down to earth, and up and down are most opposite to each other, by mentioning the things most widely separated by nature he also indicated, by synecdoche, what fills the middle space between them. So do not seek an explanation of each thing individually, but understand what is passed over in silence through what has been made plain.

"In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth." The investigation of the being of each of the things that are, whether of those that fall under our contemplation or of those set before our senses, would bring a long and far-fetched discussion into the explanation, so that more words would be spent on the examination of this one problem than on all the rest that might be said about each of the questions; besides, to busy ourselves with these matters contributes nothing to the building up of the church. About the being of heaven we are content with what Isaiah said, who in plain words gave us a sufficient understanding of its nature, saying: "He who established the heaven like smoke," that is, he gave a fine nature, not solid or dense, as the substance of heaven's constitution. And about its shape, what the same prophet said in glorifying God is enough for us: "He who set up the heaven like a vault." Let us give ourselves the same counsel about the earth too: not to busy ourselves with what its being may be, nor to wear ourselves out with reasonings in search of the bare substrate itself, nor to seek some nature void of qualities, existing without quality by its own definition, but to know well that all the things observed in it are ranked within the account of its being, as completing its being. For you will end in nothing if you try to remove by reasoning each of the qualities present in it. If you take away the black, the cold, the heavy, the dense, the qualities of taste present in it, or any others observed in it, the substrate will be nothing. Leaving these things aside, then, I urge you not to seek that either: on what it stands. For the mind will grow dizzy even so, as the reasoning runs on toward no agreed limit. If you say that air is spread beneath the breadth of the earth, you will be at a loss how a soft and porous nature holds out, crushed under so great a weight, and does not slip away on every side, escaping the pressure and always overflowing upward over what presses on it. Again, if you suppose that water lies beneath the earth, you will in the same way ask how something heavy and dense does not sink through the water, but, though so much heavier, is held up by a weaker nature; and besides, you will seek a seat for the water itself, and be at a loss again on what firm and resisting thing its lowest part rests.

If he supposes that another body, heavier than the earth, keeps the earth from going downward, let him consider that this too needs something similar to hold it together and not let it fall. And if we are able to invent something and place it beneath that, our mind will again seek the support of that, and so we shall fall into infinity, always devising further bases for the bases we have found. And the further we advance in the argument, the greater the sustaining power we are compelled to bring in, one able to resist the whole mass lying above it all at once. Therefore set limits to your thought, lest the word of Job ever lay hold of your curiosity as you pry into incomprehensible things, and you too be asked by him: "On what are its rings fastened?" And if you ever hear in the Psalms, "I have made firm its pillars," consider that its sustaining power is called pillars. For "He founded it upon the seas": what does this show, but that the nature of water is poured around the earth on every side? How then does water, which is fluid and naturally falls down a slope, remain suspended and nowhere flow away? And do you not reckon that the earth, suspended by itself, gives the argument the same difficulty, or an even greater one, since it is heavier by nature? But whether we grant that the earth rests upon itself or say that it rides upon water, we must never depart from the pious way of thinking, but confess that all things together are held together by the power of the Creator. This, then, is what we must say to ourselves and to those who ask us on what this immense and unbearable weight of the earth is supported: "In the hand of God are the ends of the earth." This is safest for our own understanding and profitable for those who hear.

Some of the natural philosophers argue ingeniously, with reasons like these, that the earth remains unmoved. Because it has taken the middle place of the universe, they say, and because of its equal distance on every side from the extremity, having nowhere to incline more than elsewhere, it necessarily rests upon itself, since the likeness surrounding it on every side makes any tilt in any direction altogether impossible for it. And the earth did not obtain the middle place by lot or by chance; this position is natural and necessary to it. For since the heavenly body holds the outermost place above, whatever weights, he says, we suppose to fall from above will be carried together from every side toward the middle. And wherever the parts are carried, the whole too will clearly be pressed together there. If stones and wood and all earthy things are carried downward, this would be the proper and fitting position for the whole earth too; and if anything light is carried away from the middle, it will clearly move toward the uppermost region. So the motion proper to the heaviest things is downward, and the argument has shown that down is the middle. Do not wonder, then, if the earth nowhere falls, since it holds the middle, its natural place. For it must by all necessity either remain in its place or, moving contrary to nature, depart from its proper seat. If any of these statements seems plausible to you, transfer your wonder to the wisdom of God that so arranged them. For amazement at the greatest things is not lessened when the manner in which some marvel comes about is discovered; and if not, at least let the simplicity of faith be stronger than logical demonstrations.

We might say the same things about heaven too: that the wise men of the world have composed treatises of every opinion about the heavenly nature. Some have said that it is composed of the four elements, as being tangible and visible, and sharing in earth because of its resistance, in fire because it is seen, and in the others because of the mixture. Others, rejecting this account as implausible, improvised out of their own heads a fifth nature of body for the constitution of heaven and brought it in. They have a certain ethereal body which, they say, is neither fire nor air nor earth nor water, nor at all any one of the simple bodies; because the motion proper to the simple bodies is in a straight line, light things being carried upward and heavy things downward; but up and down are not the same as circular revolution, and in general the straight line stands at the greatest distance from movement in a circle. And of things whose natural motions differ, they say, the substances must also differ. Nor, they say, is it possible for us to suppose that heaven is composed of the first bodies, which we call elements, because things composed of different elements cannot have an even and unforced motion, since each of the simple bodies present in the composites has from nature its own different impulse. Therefore, first, composite things are held back by weariness in continuous motion, because one motion cannot be well suited and congenial to all the opposites, but the motion proper to the light is hostile to the heaviest. For when we move upward we are weighed down by the earthy element; and when we are carried downward we do violence to the fiery, dragging it downward contrary to nature. And the pulling of the elements toward opposite directions is a cause of their falling apart. For what is constrained and contrary to nature holds out for a little while, and that by force and with difficulty, and is quickly dissolved into the things from which it was composed, each of the components returning to its own place. Because of these necessities of their reasoning, as they say, those who posit a fifth nature of body for the generation of heaven and the stars in it rejected the arguments of their predecessors and needed a hypothesis of their own. And yet another of those who are vigorous in plausible argument rose up again against them, scattered and dissolved their views, and brought in an opinion of his own in their place. If we now undertook to speak about these, we would fall into the same idle talk as they. But let us leave them to be overthrown by one another, and, ourselves setting aside the question of substance, being persuaded by Moses that "God made the heaven and the earth," let us glorify the supreme Artist of the things that were made wisely and skillfully; from the beauty of the things that are seen let us conceive of him who is beyond beauty, and from the greatness of these perceptible and circumscribed bodies let us infer him who is infinite and supremely great, and who surpasses every understanding by the abundance of his power. For even if we do not know the nature of the things that have come to be, yet what falls in a general way under our perception holds such wonder that even the keenest mind proves inferior to the least of the things in the world, unable either to treat it worthily or to render the praise owed to the Creator; to whom be all glory, honor, and might, to the ages of ages. Amen.