Homilies on the Hexaemeron 6.1–6.8

The spectator of athletes ought himself to have some share of vigor. One can see this from the rules of the festivals, which direct those seated in the stadium to sit with bare heads, so that, it seems to me, each may be not only a spectator of the contestants but in a measure himself a contestant. So too the one who examines great and supernatural spectacles, the hearer of truly great and unspeakable wisdom, ought to come bringing from home some resources for contemplating what is set before us, and to share in the contest with me as far as he can, standing by not so much as a judge as a fellow contestant, lest the discovery of the truth escape us, and my error become a common loss for the hearers. Why do I say this? Because, since what lies before us is an examination of the constitution of the world and a contemplation of the universe that takes its starting points not from the wisdom of the world but from what God taught his servant, speaking to him in visible form and not through riddles, it is altogether necessary that those who love great spectacles should not have their minds untrained for understanding what is set before us. If ever, then, on a clear night, gazing at the unspeakable beauties of the stars, you have formed the thought of the Craftsman of all, who it is that embroidered heaven with these flowers, and how in what is seen the necessary outweighs the delightful; if again by day you have studied the wonders of the day with a sober mind, and through the things that are seen have reasoned your way to the one who is not seen: then you come as a prepared hearer, fit to fill this august and blessed theater. Come, then: as those who take strangers to a city by the hand and lead them around, so I too will guide you as strangers to the hidden wonders of this great city. In this city lies our ancient homeland, from which the man-slaying demon removed us, having enslaved man by his baits. Here you will see the first coming into being of man, and the death that at once overtook us, which sin begot, the firstborn offspring of the demon who is the author of evil. And you will come to know yourself: earthy by nature, but a work of divine hands; falling far short of the irrational animals in strength, but appointed ruler of the irrational and the inanimate; inferior in natural equipment, but able by the abundance of reason to rise up to heaven itself. If we learn these things, we will know ourselves, we will know God, we will worship the Creator, serve the Master, glorify the Father, love our Nourisher, revere our Benefactor, and never cease to worship the author of our present and future life, who through the wealth he has already given assures us of what lies in the promises, and by the experience of present things confirms for us what we hope for. For if temporal things are such, what will eternal things be? And if visible things are so beautiful, what will invisible things be? If the greatness of heaven exceeds the measure of human understanding, what mind will be able to trace the nature of everlasting things? If the sun, subject to corruption, is so beautiful and so great, swift in its motion and orderly in completing its circuits, proportioned in size to the universe so as not to exceed its due relation to the whole, and by the beauty of its nature shining in creation like a clear eye; if the sight of it never satisfies, how beautiful will the sun of righteousness be? If it is a loss for a blind man not to see this sun, what a loss it is for a sinner to be deprived of the true light!

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven for illumination upon the earth, to divide between the day and between the night." Heaven and earth had come first; after these light had been created, day and night had been distinguished; then the firmament, and the appearing of the dry land. The water had been collected into a fixed and bounded gathering. The earth had been filled with its own products, having sprouted the countless kinds of plants and abounding in trees of every sort. But there was not yet a sun, nor a moon, so that those who did not know God might not name the sun the author and father of light, nor think it the maker of what grows from the earth. That is why it was on the fourth day that God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven." When you have been taught who spoke, at once join in your thought the one who heard. "God said, Let there be lights; and God made the two lights." Who spoke, and who made? Do you not perceive in these words the twofold persons? Everywhere the doctrine of theology is mystically sown through the history. And the purpose of the creation of the lights is added: "for illumination," he says, "upon the earth." If the coming into being of light had come first, how is the sun now said to have been made for illumination? First, let the peculiarity of the expression move no one to laughter, if we do not follow your choices of words nor practise a rhythmical arrangement of them. For among us there are no polishers of phrases, nor is euphony of sound prized; everywhere the clarity of the words is preferred. Consider, then, whether by "illumination" he has not sufficiently shown what he meant: for instead of "lighting" he said "illumination." And this does not conflict with what was said about light. For then the very nature of light was brought forth; now this solar body has been prepared to be a vehicle for that firstborn light. For as fire is one thing and the lamp another, the one having the power of giving light, the other made to shine for those who need it, so too the lights have now been made as a vehicle for that most pure, unmixed, and immaterial light. For as the apostle speaks of some as lights in the world, while the true light of the world is something else, by participation in which the saints became lights to the souls they taught, rescuing them from the darkness of ignorance; so now too the Creator of all, having furnished this sun with that most brilliant light, kindled it around the world.

And let no one find incredible what has been said, that the brightness of light is one thing and the body underlying the light another. First, from the fact that we divide all composite things in this way, into the receptive substance and the quality that has come upon it. As whiteness is one thing by nature and the whitened body another, so too the things now spoken of, though different in nature, have been united by the power of the Creator. And do not tell me that these cannot be separated from each other. For I do not say that the separation of the light from the body of the sun is possible for you and me; but that what is separable for us in thought can also be separated in actual operation by the maker of their nature. For you too cannot separate the burning power of fire from its brightness; yet God, wishing to turn his servant aside by a marvelous sight, set fire on the bush, working by its brightness alone, while its power of burning stayed idle. As the Psalmist also testifies, saying, "The voice of the Lord who divides the flame of fire." In the recompense for the lives we have lived, a word teaches us in secret that the nature of fire will be divided, and the light assigned to the righteous for enjoyment, the pain of burning to those who are punished. Then too, from what happens to the moon we can find proof of what is being examined. For when it wanes and diminishes, it is not consumed in its whole body, but by putting off and taking on again the light around it, it gives us the appearances of decrease and increase. That its body itself is not consumed when it wanes, what is seen is clear evidence. For you can, in clean air free of all mist, especially when it happens to be crescent-shaped, if you watch carefully, see its dark and unlit part bounded by an arc as great as that which fills the whole of it at full moon; so that the full circle is seen plainly completed, as the eye takes in, together with the illuminated part, the shadowy and airy hollow. And do not tell me that the moon's light is borrowed, since it decreases as it moves toward the sun and increases as it moves away. That is not what we have set ourselves to examine now, but that its body is one thing and what illuminates it another. Understand something of the same kind with the sun too, except that the sun, having received the light once and holding it mixed with itself, does not put it off, while the moon, continually as it were undressing and dressing again in the light, by her own case confirms what has been said about the sun. These were also appointed to divide between the day and between the night. Earlier God divided between the light and between the darkness; then he set their natures in opposition, so that they are unmixed with each other and light has no fellowship with darkness. For what the shadow is by day, that we must think the nature of darkness is by night. For if every shadow, when some brightness shines, falls from bodies opposite the light, stretching toward the west in the morning, inclining toward the east in the evening, and turning north at midday, night too withdraws to the side opposite the rays, being nothing else by nature but the shadow of the earth. For as by day the shadow is cast beside what blocks the radiance, so night naturally forms when the air around the earth is shaded. This, then, is what was said: "God divided between the light and between the darkness," since darkness flees before the onrush of light, a natural estrangement between them having been established at the first creation. But now he appointed the sun to the measures of the day, and the moon, whenever she completes her own circle, to be the ruler of the night. For at that time the lights stand almost diametrically opposite each other: when the sun rises at full moon, the moon goes down into invisibility, and when the sun sets again, she often rises in her turn from the east. If in her other phases the light of the moon does not extend over the whole night, that has nothing to do with the present argument. Except that, when she is at her fullest …

"And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." The signs given by the lights are necessary for human life. For if one does not pry beyond measure into the signs they give, he will find the observations drawn from long experience of them useful. For much can be learned about rainy weather, and much about droughts and the movement of winds, partial or general, violent or gentle. The Lord too has handed down to us one of the things shown by the sun, saying, "There will be a storm, for the sky is red and lowering." For when the sun rises through mist, its rays are dimmed, and it is seen coal-like and blood-red in color, the thickness of the air producing this appearance to the eyes. And the air, until then condensed and compacted, not having been dispersed by the ray, has clearly not been able to prevail because of the inflow of vapors from the earth, but will bring a storm through the excess of moisture on the regions over which it is gathered. Likewise when the moon is surrounded by a pool; and when what are called halos are drawn around the sun, they indicate either a mass of airy water or a movement of violent winds; or when the so-called mock suns run along with the course of the sun, they become signs of certain happenings in the air. So too the rods that appear upright on the clouds in the colors of the rainbow indicate rains, or extraordinary storms, or in general the greatest change in the air. Those who have studied these things have also observed many signs in the waxing or waning moon, since the air around the earth necessarily changes along with its phases. When it is thin and clear around the third day, it promises settled fair weather; but when it appears thick in its horns and reddish, it threatens either heavy rain from the clouds or a violent movement of the south wind. Who does not know how much benefit the signs drawn from these things give to life? The sailor can keep his ship inside the harbor, foreseeing the dangers from the winds; the traveler can avoid harm from far off, expecting the change from the gloominess of the air. And farmers, who toil over seeds and the care of plants, find from here all the right times for their work. And the Lord has foretold that at the dissolution of the universe signs will appear in sun and moon and stars: … "blood, and the moon will not give her light." These are signs of the completion of the universe …

But those who leap beyond what is written have dragged the saying into the advocacy of casting nativities, and they say that our life depends on the movement of the heavenly bodies, and that this is why the Chaldeans draw from the stars the signs of what befalls us. And the simple word of Scripture, "Let them be for signs," they take, as suits themselves, not of the changes in the air, nor of the alterations of the seasons, but of the allotment of our lives. For what do they say? That such an interweaving of these moving stars with the stars lying in the zodiac, when they come together with one another in such a figure, produces such births, while such another relation of the same stars produces the opposite lot in life. About these things it is perhaps not useless, for the sake of clarity, to speak, taking the matter up a little from the beginning. I will say nothing of my own, but will use their own words to refute them, offering some remedy to those already caught in the harm, and to the rest a safeguard against falling into the same. Those who invented the casting of nativities, having realized that in the breadth of time many of the figures escape them, narrowed the measures of time to the utmost, as though in the smallest and shortest moment, as the apostle says, "in an atom," and "in the twinkling of an eye," there were the greatest difference between one birth and another; and the one born in this instant would be a tyrant of cities and a ruler of peoples, exceedingly rich and powerful, while the one born at the next moment of time would be a beggar and a vagrant, going from door to door for his daily food. That is why, having divided the so-called zodiac circle into twelve parts, since the sun passes through the twelfth part of the so-called fixed sphere in thirty days, they have divided each of the twelfths into thirty degrees. Then, dividing each degree into sixty, they cut each of the sixtieths again sixty times. Let us then set down the births of those born, and see whether they will be able to keep this precision in the division of time. As soon as the child is born, the midwife examines whether the newborn is male or female; then she waits for the cry, which is the sign that the child is alive. How many sixtieths do you suppose pass in this time? She tells the Chaldean what has been born. Through how many of the very smallest units, would you have us suppose, does the midwife's voice pass, especially if the one recording the hour happens to be standing outside the women's quarters? For the one who is going to learn the horoscope must record the hour precisely, whether it falls by day or by night. How great a swarm of sixtieths runs past again in this time? For the star that marks the hour must be found not only in which twelfth it is, but in which degree of the twelfth, and in which sixtieth, into which we said the degree is divided; or, that precision may be reached, in which sixtieth of those subdivided from the first sixtieths. And they say that this so fine and incomprehensible finding of the time must be made for each of the planets, so as to find what relation they had to the fixed stars, and what figure they formed with one another at the moment of the child's birth. So if it is impossible to hit the hour exactly, and the slightest deviation makes one miss everything, then both those who busy themselves with this nonexistent art and those who gape at them as able to know their affairs are laughable.

And what of their predictions of outcomes? So-and-so, they say, is curly-haired and bright-eyed, for he has the Ram for his hour, and such is somehow the look of that animal. He is also high-minded, since the Ram is a leader; and generous, and again good at providing, since this animal puts off its wool without pain and is easily clothed again by nature. And the one born under the Bull, he says, is long-suffering and servile, since the bull is under the yoke. And the one born under the Scorpion is quick to strike, because of his likeness to that creature. And the one born under the Balance is just, because of the equality of our scales. What could be more laughable than these things? The Ram, from which you take the birth of a man, is the twelfth part of heaven, on reaching which the sun touches the points of spring. And the Balance and the Bull likewise: each of these is a twelfth of the so-called zodiac circle. How then, while saying that the primary causes of men's lives lie there, do you characterize the characters of those who are born by the cattle among us? For the one born under the Ram is generous, not because that part of heaven produces such a character, but because the sheep has such a nature. Why then do you overawe us with the credibility of the stars, while trying to persuade us with bleatings? For if heaven has taken such peculiarities of character from the animals, then it too is subject to principles foreign to it, having its causes depending on the cattle; and if it is laughable to say this, it is much more laughable to try to bring plausibility to one's argument from things that have nothing in common. But these clever notions of theirs are like spiders' webs: when anything weak is caught in them, it is bound and held fast; but when one of the stronger creatures comes near, it easily breaks through itself and tears the feeble webs apart and destroys them.

And they do not stop at these things; even of the things over which each one's own choice is master (I mean the pursuits of virtue or of vice) they attach the causes to the heavenly bodies. To contradict them would otherwise be laughable, but because many are already in the grip of the deception, it is perhaps necessary not to pass it by in silence. First, then, let us ask them whether the figures of the stars do not change countless times every day. For the so-called planets are always moving, some overtaking one another more quickly, others making slower circuits, so that often within the same hour they both see one another and are hidden; and in births, as they themselves say, it has the greatest power whether one is looked upon by a beneficent star or by a maleficent one. And often, not finding the moment at which the beneficent star was bearing witness, through ignorance of one of the smallest units, they have registered the child as lying under an evil genius. I am compelled to use their own words. In such talk there is much folly, and many times more impiety. For the maleficent stars shift the blame for their own wickedness onto the one who made them. If evil is theirs by nature, the Creator will be the maker of evil; but if they are made evil by choice, then first they will be living beings with the power of choice, using free and self-governing impulses; and it is beyond all madness to tell such lies about things without souls. Then, how great the absurdity is, to distribute evil and good to each not according to desert, but to say that because a star has come to be in this place it is beneficent, and because it is looked upon by that one the same star becomes maleficent, and when it inclines a little from the figure again it at once forgets its wickedness! But so much for this. If at every instant of time they are shifted from one figure to another, and in these countless changes, many times a day, the configurations of royal births are completed, why are kings not born every day? Or why at all do hereditary successions of kingship exist among them? For surely each king does not carefully fit the birth of his own son to 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 them happened on a servile hour of birth? Then, if the beginnings of the acts of vice and virtue are not in what is in our power, but are necessities arising from our birth, superfluous are the lawgivers who define what we must do and what we must avoid, and superfluous too the judges who honor virtue and punish wickedness. For the wrong is not the thief's, nor the murderer's, if even when he wished it he could not restrain his hand, because of the inescapable necessity driving him to his deeds. And most foolish of all are those who toil at the arts: the farmer will prosper without sowing seed or sharpening a sickle; the merchant will become exceedingly rich whether he wishes or not, as fate gathers his money for him. And the great hopes of Christians will vanish and be gone, since neither is righteousness honored nor sin condemned, because nothing is done by men by choice. For where necessity and fate rule, there is no room for desert, which is the special mark of just judgment. So much against them. For you, being sound of yourselves, do not need more words, nor does the time allow us to go on against them beyond measure.

Let us return to the words that follow. "Let them be," he says, "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." We have spoken about the signs. By seasons we take him to mean the changes of the seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn, which the ordered movement of the lights enables to come round for us in good order. Winter comes when the sun lingers in the southern parts and produces much nighttime shadow in our region, so that the air around the earth is chilled, and all the moist exhalations, gathering about us, provide the cause of rains and frosts and untold snow. But when, returning again from the southern regions, it comes to the middle, so as to divide time equally between night and day, the longer it lingers in the regions above the earth, the more it brings back the mild balance by degrees. And spring comes, the leader of sprouting for all plants, giving most trees their revival, and preserving the kinds of all land and water animals through the succession of their offspring. From there the sun, driving on toward the summer solstice in the direction of the north itself, presents us with the longest of the days. And because it keeps company with the air for the longest time, it scorches the air above our heads and dries out the whole earth, thereby helping the seeds toward ripeness and urging the fruits of the trees on to maturity; at that time the sun is at its most fiery, making the shadows short at midday, because it shines down on our region from on high. For those are the longest days in which the shadows are shortest, and those are the shortest in which the shadows are longest. So it is among us who are called "heteroskioi" (shadowed on one side), we who inhabit the northern parts of the earth. For there are some who on two days of the whole year become altogether shadowless at midday, on whom the sun shines from directly overhead and lights them equally from every side, so that even the water at the bottom of wells is lit up through their narrow mouths; whence some call them "askioi" (shadowless). Those beyond the spice-bearing land shift their shadows to both sides; for they alone in our inhabited world cast their shadows to the south at midday; whence some have named them "amphiskioi" (shadowed on both sides). All these things happen when the sun has already passed over into the northern part. From these one can conjecture how great the heat is that arises in the air from the sun's ray, and what effects it brings about. Next the season of autumn takes us over, breaking the excess of the stifling heat and gradually relaxing the warmth, and by the moderation of its temperature bringing us harmlessly through itself to winter, as the sun returns again from the northern regions to the south. These revolutions of the seasons, following the movements of the sun, govern our life. "And let them be," he says, "for days": not to make days, but to rule the days. For day and night are older than the coming into being of the lights. This the psalm too shows us, saying, "He set the sun for authority over the day, the moon and the stars for authority over the night." How does the sun have authority over the day? Because, carrying the light about in itself, whenever it rises above our horizon it produces day by dissolving the darkness. So one would not err in defining day as the air lit by the sun, or day as the measure of time in which the sun is in the hemisphere above the earth. But sun and moon were also appointed for years. The moon, when it has completed its own cycle twelve times …