Latin Translation of Basil's Hexaemeron 0.1–1.11

Your Fraternity's mind, devout and studious alike, longing to know the fullness of the heavenly Scriptures, searched through all the church libraries and their founders with constant reading, and came at last to the Hexaemeron of the holy and venerable bishop Basil, written in the Greek tongue. Wishing to place it among the monuments of the Latin language, you judged that this task should be entrusted to me. But I, considering that you gave this command out of love rather than judgment, was eager indeed to obey your simple orders, urged by your charity, yet did not dare to promise, seeing my own lack of eloquence. So, pulled two ways in thought, I did not know what to do: I feared that if I chose to refuse, I would offend the mind of one who devoutly presumed well of me; if I chose to obey, that I could not carry out the duty I had undertaken. This being so, I decided rather to offer my service faithfully than to excuse my style stubbornly, trusting that if I displease, you who commanded it will pardon me. For you will impute whatever comes of it not to my fault but to your own judgment; it is enough for me to have carried out your commands.

"In the beginning God made heaven and earth." The one who was about to narrate the composition of the world took up a fitting opening: he made the order of the works accomplished the beginning of his discourse. For the making of heaven and earth must be reported as not formed spontaneously, as some have supposed, but as having obtained the causes of its own substance from God. What hearing, then, is worthy of the greatness of the things related, or how prepared should the mind be for the perception of such matters! Surely it must be free from the vices of the flesh and in no way darkened by the cares of the world; it must also be diligent and alert and look round on all things, so that it may be able to draw to itself a worthy notion of God. But before we discuss the precision of the words and search out how great the meaning of these expressions is, let us consider who it is that speaks to us. For although, because of the weakness of our understanding, we cannot reach the depth of the historian's heart, yet when we look at the authority of the speaker we shall be led of our own accord to assent to what has been said. Moses, then, is the author of this scripture: that Moses who is said to have been beautiful before God while he was still hungry at his mother's breasts; whom Pharaoh's daughter adopted and brought up generously with royal care, appointing the philosophers of the Egyptians as teachers for his education (Acts 7:22); who abhorred the pride of tyranny and turned to the lowliness of his fellow citizens, content "to be afflicted with the people of God rather than to enjoy the temporary fruit of sin"; who received the love of justice from nature itself, since even before he received the leadership of the people he is seen, through a natural hatred of wickedness, to have pursued the wicked even to death. He was driven away by those whom he himself had helped; he gladly left behind the tumults of Egypt and went off to Ethiopia, and there, free from other business, he gave himself for forty years to the contemplation of things; and in the eightieth year of his age he saw God, as far as it was possible for a man to see him, or rather as it was permitted to no one else, according to the testimony of God himself: "If there is a prophet of the Lord among you, I will make myself known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream; but not so my servant Moses, who is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth I will speak with him, in appearance and not in riddles" (Num 12:6–8). This man, then, who in enjoying the present sight of God had been made equal to the angels, tells us what he heard from God. Let us therefore listen to the truth of the words, not in the persuasiveness of human wisdom, but in the most approved words of spiritual teaching, whose end is not the praise of the hearers but the salvation of the learners.

"In the beginning God made heaven and earth" (Gen 1:1). The wonder of my mind holds back my speech, as I consider what I should say first, or where I should take the beginning of my account: should I refute the vanity of the worldly, or rather proclaim the truth of our own? The philosophers of the Greeks argued a great deal about the nature of things, but among them no account is held fixed and stable, the earlier one always being overthrown by the one that follows. It is not worth our while to refute their views, since they are sufficient for their own destruction. Those who could not know God did not in any way grant that wisdom presides over the things of mortals; slipping into an ignorance that was natural to them, they enclosed everything in various definitions. Therefore many of them reduced themselves to a confused and formless matter, assigning the causes of all things to the elements of the world. Others taught that atoms, indivisible bodies, masses, and passages make up the nature of visible things: that those light, round little bodies, now coming together, now drawing apart and separating from one another, bring about births and deaths, and that in more lasting bodies the combination of the atoms is set more firmly and expresses more strongly the causes of their duration. Truly they weave a spider's web who describe such things, and who assign such empty and vain principles to heaven, earth, and sea. For they did not know how to say, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth"; therefore, deceived by the error of impiety implanted in them, they said that all things are driven and carried along without direction or government, by chance. So that we might not suffer this as well, the expositor of the making of the world, in the very first words of his narrative, lighting up our minds with the mention of God, said: "In the beginning God made." What a good order: he set the beginning first, so that no one might think the world unbegotten. Then he added "made," to show that the creation is a work, a small part of the Creator's power. For as the potter, after shaping vessels, loses neither his art nor his power, so God, the maker of things, possessing a power not merely sufficient for one creation but exceeding it infinitely, built the greatness of the things that are seen by a single moment of his own will. But if the world has a beginning and was made, ask who gave it its beginning and who its maker is. Lest perhaps, by examining this with human reasoning, you should stray from the path of truth, he forestalled you by instructing us with teaching, and, fixing the venerable name of God in our minds like the seal of a guard, he inserted it at once, saying: "In the beginning God made." Therefore the blessed nature, the rich goodness, the beauty most beloved and exceedingly dear to all who have reason, the principle of all that exists, the fountain of life, the intelligible light, the inaccessible wisdom: he himself made heaven and earth in the beginning.

Do not suppose, then, O man, that the things that are seen are unmade or unprovided for; and do not believe that the nature of revolving bodies is without beginning because the things that move in the heaven run round about you, or because the beginning of the circle itself is not perceptible to our senses. For this orb, that is, this flat and round figure that is contained within one boundary, escapes our understanding, and we cannot find where it began or where it ends; yet we must not on that account assert that it was not composed; nor, because it entirely escapes our senses, is it therefore to be thought not to have begun from anywhere. So you too should not be deceived into holding that the world has no beginning or end because the things you see revolving are carried round upon themselves, and their surface is interrupted by no intervening obstacles. For "its form passes away" (1 Cor 7:31), and "heaven and earth will pass away" (Matt 24:35). The proclamation of all the commandments concerning the consummation of the age and the renewal of the world is made known, according to the indication of the spiritual teaching, from what has been briefly handed down at present: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." All things that began in time must end in time. If there is a beginning in time, do not doubt the end. Geometry and arithmetic, invented writings, and fabulous astrology are a very busy vanity. To what end, then, must one conclude it comes, when those who devoted themselves to the investigation of these subjects declare that this visible world is coeternal with God the Creator of all, ascribing to his glory this circumscribed orb, which has a composite body, though his is an incomprehensible and invisible nature? They could not see even this: that a whole body whose individual members are all subject to dissolution and corruption must itself perish by the same accidents. But they became so vain in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was so darkened, and claiming to be wise they became so utterly foolish (Rom 1:21–22), that some of them even dare to affirm that the heaven is eternal with God, has neither beginning nor end, and is the author and governor of the things arranged part by part.

When, where, or with what will worldly wisdom begin to fear the coming condemnation, when those who look so keenly at the vainest things have of their own accord become blind to conceiving the understanding of truth? Some count up the distances of the stars and describe those of the north that always shine, and how many of those that move under the southern pole are seen by certain people but are unknown to us. Or they divide the northern latitude and the zodiac into a thousand spaces, and minutely observe the courses of the stars, their occultations, and the chief motions of them all, and after how long each of the planets usually completes its own circuit. Yet they could not find the one reason of all, so as to say that God is the maker of the whole world and will render to each, by just judgment, a worthy recompense for his deeds. Nor, with a view to the coming examination, did they form a fitting thought about the end of all things, considering that the world too must be renewed if the state of souls is to be transferred to another form of life. For as the present life has a nature akin to this world, so the future life of souls will take a condition suited to its own kind. But they are so far from believing that these things are true that they laugh at us everywhere when we proclaim the consummation of this world and the renewal of the age. Since the first principles are by nature the beginnings of all things, the writer, discussing the things that began in time, set this word first, saying: "In the beginning he made."

For there was, as you see, before this world a certain substance, contemplable indeed by our understanding, but left unspoken, because those who were being instructed could not easily grasp it on account of the smallness of their senses. There was a most ancient order of creation, suited to the powers that are outside the world, arising without time, everlasting and proper to itself, in which God, the Creator of all, established all his works: that is, an intelligible light suited to the blessedness of those who love the Lord. I mean the rational and invisible natures and the whole adornment of intelligible beings, which exceed the capacity of our mind, and whose names cannot even be found. These, we must know, filled the substance of the invisible world, as Paul teaches us, saying: "For in him all things were created, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers" (Col 1:16), or virtues, or the armies of angels, or the assemblies of archangels. But when it became necessary to bring this world in addition to these things, a world which is above all a school and training place for human souls, and also a fitting dwelling for all things that rise and pass away, then the course of time also is recognized as having been generated together with the world itself and the living things in it; and it is always pressing on and flowing away, and never reaches the end of its passage. Or do we not say that time is of such a kind that the part of it that has passed is not seen, the part that is to come is not yet present, and the part that is present slips away before it becomes known to our senses? Such too is the nature of things that come to be: it is either growing or decreasing, and its stability and foundation have nothing certain. The bodies of animals and plants, then, were alike, as though bound by the force of a torrent to an inborn necessity, and subject to that motion which brings them to birth and death, and contained by the nature of time, which possesses a property akin to changeable things. From this point, accordingly, the narrator began, teaching us plainly about the construction of the world, that in the beginning God made it. Now a "beginning" is what belongs to time, not what looks to that antiquity which is prior to all things. So he did not say "In the beginning God made" with respect to that, but after those invisible and intelligible things he narrates the beginning of the origin of the things that are seen and grasped by the senses. A beginning is also called the first motion, as "The beginning of a right road is to do just things" (Prov 16:5 LXX). For by just works we are moved to live blessedly. A beginning is also called that from which a thing is made out of some underlying material, as the foundation in houses, the keel in ships, and as it is said, "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord" (Prov 1:7). For reverence with fear is always set first as a kind of defence and support for firmness of faith. The first part of works of construction is also called the beginning, as the wisdom of Bezalel for the adornment of the tabernacle. And often the good outcome of what is begun becomes the beginning of actions: as in generous mercy the favour of God follows, and in the practice of virtues that end is held which lies in the promises.

Since "beginning" has so many meanings, consider whether the present word does not suit them all. For you can speak of the time from which the establishment of the world began, if, going back from the present to the past, you look for the first day of the world's creation, the point from which time received its first motion. Then, that heaven and earth were founded first as a kind of seat and set of bars; and that there is a craftsman, the Word, who made the adornment of all that is seen, as the word "beginning" here used shows; and that the world was not formed without reason or in vain. For it was to provide a useful and necessary outcome for things, if indeed it gives our mind, as we said, the schooling of rational souls and instruction in the knowledge of God through these visible and perceptible things, leading us, so to speak, by the hand, so that we may more easily contemplate the invisible, as the Apostle says: "For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made" (Rom 1:20). Perhaps also, because of the speed of creation, which was built without any moment of time, it was said "In the beginning he made," since a beginning is something indivisible and without parts. For as the beginning of a road is not yet a road, and the beginning of a house is not yet a house, so also the beginning of time is not yet full time, nor even a small part of time. And if someone objects and says that the beginning is time, let him know that he will divide it into many portions, that is, into a first, a middle, and a last. But to seek the beginning of a beginning is utterly ridiculous and absurd. And whoever divides the beginning will necessarily make two parts instead of one, or rather many, since whatever is divided is undoubtedly cut into two portions. So, that we might be taught that the world came into existence without time, together with the will of God, he said, "In the beginning he made." Certain interpreters, explaining this more plainly, have said: "God made summarily," that is, briefly and suddenly. Let it suffice to have said thus far these few things out of many about the "beginning."

We should know that of all arts some are called productive, some practical, and some contemplative. The end of the contemplative is only the attention of the mind; that of the practical is the movement of the body itself, and when it stops, nothing remains and nothing more is shown to those who watch. For dancing and singing leave no product: the whole activity is spent upon itself. But in the productive arts, even if the labour and activity have stopped, their work is still evident, as in carpentry, architecture, weaving, and the like: even if the craftsman is not present, the skill of the art itself is apparent, and from the work that is seen we can admire the expertise of each craftsman. So, that it might be certain that the world, which lies open to everyone's sight, was completed by art, so that through it the wisdom of its maker might be known, Moses used no other word, but said: "In the beginning God made." He did not say "built" or "put together," but "made." Yet some of those who are prejudiced by a vain opinion, saying that the world is everlasting with God, in no way granted that it was made by him, but said it is a kind of shadow of the divine power. For they say that it came together spontaneously; and although they admit that God is its author, they admit it in such a way as to affirm that it proceeded from him without his will, like a shadow from a body or brightness from light. Wishing to correct such an error, the prophet chose this precision of words, saying, "In the beginning God made": that is, he did not merely provide the cause of its being, but made it, as one who is good makes something useful, as one who is wise makes what is best, as one who is mighty makes what is greatest. For when he says "made," he undoubtedly declares a craftsman who, by the composition of individual members, formed a world fitting and harmonious with itself in every part. "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." By the two chief elements, then, he indicates that the substance of all things was built: assigning the worthier privileges to heaven, and setting the earth in the second place among creatures; and whatever else lies between was completed together with these principal ones. So, although nothing has been said of air, fire, or water, you must understand them by your own good sense. First, because all things are mixed in all. It is quite certain that water, air, and fire are joined to the earth: for fire is often struck out by friction from iron and stones, which certainly come from the earth. And it is wonderful how, while the flame is hidden in these bodies, it is harmless to them, but when it is drawn out, it devours the matter in which it was kept. Diggers of wells show that the nature of water lies beneath in the veins of the earth; and that air is mixed with it we can know from this, that when the earth is moistened and receives the warmth of the sun, it soon breathes out abundant vapours. Then, if heaven by nature received the higher seat and the earth is lower, because light things are carried toward heaven and heavy things are carried down toward the earth, and lower and upper are contrary to each other, what must we say except that he who joined the most separated things by the fellowship of his command also arranged by his own will the things that the middle place between the two elements contains? Do not, then, ask for an account of each thing, but you must perceive from what has been related even the things the Scripture passed over in silence.

"In the beginning God made heaven and earth." The substance of the earth, then, and the investigation of each of the things that lie open to our senses, would make our account so long that far more words would have to be spent on such an examination than on all the other things that can be explained. From this no benefit at all is brought to the building up of the church. Concerning the nature of heaven, let us be content with what Isaiah said, who in simple words gave us a sufficient understanding of it, saying: "Who made the heaven firm like smoke" (Isa 51:6), that is, who set a nature that is not at all strong and dense in the composition of heaven. Of its shape too he said enough, in glorifying God: "Who established the heaven like a vault?" (Isa 40:22). We urge that the same view be taken about the earth: not discussing what kind its substance is, nor wearing ourselves out with reasonings by searching what lies beneath it, nor examining a nature empty of qualities and formless; but it suits us to know only that all the things we see about the earth were arranged for this alone, that they might be, things by which its substance is completed. So you will reach no end if you try to pursue each of its qualities in words. For if you separate off its blackness, coldness, heaviness, density, and the qualities perceptible by taste, there will be nothing at all left as the underlying earth. Leaving these aside, then, we do not urge inquiry into this either: on what the earth is founded. For the mind will be tormented, since the search of its reasoning reaches no sure outcome. If you say that air lies beneath its foundation, you will certainly fail when you consider how a fluid and diffuse nature, pressed down by so great a weight, remains in place and does not rather slip away, escaping on every side from the density of the earth and always rising above what presses on it. And if you suppose that water lies beneath the stability of the earth, you must still ask how so heavy and dense a mass is not sunk beneath the water, but the imposition of so great a weight is supported by a weaker nature. Then the foundations of the water itself must be sought, and again you will fail when you want to find on what support the lowest bottom is held, so that it resists.

But if you bring in some other, stronger body to keep the earth from sinking to the depths, you will have to consider that this too is founded on a similar barrier that does not let what it carries fall lower. And if we could invent something to put beneath this as well, the mind will necessarily run on to another support beneath it, and so we shall be led on in thought to infinity, always seeking new supports for the ones we find. And the further we go in argument, the more we shall be compelled to bring in a power that sustains the earth, able to support at once all the things it allows to be placed upon it. So you must set limits to your inquiry, lest at some point, as your curiosity handles things too incomprehensible, the word of Job should seem to stand against you, and you be asked, "On what were its circles fixed?" (Job 38:6). And if you ever hear in the psalm, "I have made firm its pillars" (Ps 75:3), understand the pillars to be its holding-together power. And what does "He founded it upon the seas" (Ps 24:2) mean, except that the nature of the waters surrounds and embraces the circle of the earth on every side? How, then, since water is fluid and always tends to run to lower places, does it hang there and not flow away on either side? Nor do you consider that the earth itself brings us not less but even greater difficulty, since with so great a weight it is held balanced in the air. But whether you grant that it is placed upon itself or we say that it is carried upon the waters, it is fitting that we never depart from the thought of piety, but confess that all things are held together by the power of the Creator. We should therefore persuade ourselves of this, and answer those who ask where the vast and insupportable weight of the earth is fixed by saying: "The ends of the earth are in the hand of God" (Ps 95:4). This can be found either more convenient for us to believe or more profitable for those who listen.

Yet some of the natural philosophers argue that the earth remains unmoved because of a certain arrangement. They say that it is set in the middle of the world and, being gathered at equal distances on every side up to the outer limit, has no direction in which it can incline more, and for this reason it always rests in itself; and that the equality surrounding it makes it impossible for it to find any impulse to turn itself to another place. The earth, they say, holds the middle region not by chance or spontaneously or by some lot, but this position was decreed for it by nature and necessity. For since the heavenly body has obtained the farthest seat above, whatever weights, they say, we think descend from higher places to the depths are gathered into the middle place; and the whole body must be drawn into the positions in which its several parts come together. If stones and timbers and all earthly things are always driven downward, there will undoubtedly be the proper and fitting position of the earth. But if anything lighter is moved out of the middle region, it is quite certain that it is carried upward, since it is natural for the heaviest things always to seek the depths; and by "depths" we mean the middle place of the whole world. So do not wonder if the earth nowhere inclines, since it has received the middle seat of all, in which it must always stand and in no way be moved, against nature, from its own limits. If any of these things seems probable to you, you should transfer your wonder at such things to the wisdom of the Creator, who arranged them so. For the dignity of the greatest things is not lessened if we discover what their reason is; and if it turns out otherwise, I urge that the simplicity of faith be made stronger than all other proofs.

If you say the same about heaven, you will not sin, although the talkative disputation of the philosophers has said a great deal about the nature of heaven. Some of them assert that it is composed of the four elements, and that it is invisible, and has a share of earth because of its inborn hardness, and also a share of fire, which is why it is thought to be transparent, and that it nonetheless includes mixtures of the remaining portions. But others, despising such an opinion, added by their own invention a certain fifth nature in the composition of heaven: to them the ethereal body seems to be neither air, nor earth, nor water, nor fire, nor anything at all believed to be simple; for this reason, that it is natural to simple bodies always to have a straight motion, the lighter of them always tending upward and the heavier slipping downward; but in circular motion neither the upper nor the lower part keeps the same or a straight interval relative to the round of the circle. And things whose natural motions change must also have changeable qualities. Nor can we believe that heaven was composed of those principal bodies called elements, since things built of different matter do not agree with one another, nor can they keep a harmonious motion without some force, since each part has by nature a different impulse, and things so composed are kept in continuous motion only with great effort. For one and the same principle cannot harmonize things that are unlike and opposed to one another, since what is friendly to lighter things is judged contrary to heavier ones. For when we hasten to the heights and heavenly places, we are pressed down by earthly weight; and when we plunge to the depths, we do violence to fire, dragging it downward against its nature. And the pulling of elements in different directions brings causes of ruin and dissolution. For what is attempted by force against nature's refusal is quickly scattered, as each part from which the mass was built returns to its own principle. Because of the difficulties of these opinions, those who came after rejected the school of the earlier philosophers and hastened to put forward their own assertions, affirming, as we said, that a certain fifth nature of body underlies the substance of heaven and the stars. And yet another, one of the sharper ones, destroyed all that we have narrated and appeared to commend his own doctrine. If we chose to report each of these, we would suffer an error like theirs. Let us rather leave them to be overthrown by one another in turn, and, putting aside all their contention, let us follow Moses when he says, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." Let us glorify the best Creator of things most wisely formed, and from the beauty of visible things let us contemplate him who is supremely good. From the greatness of bounded bodies let us measure him who is infinite and greatest, and who surpasses every thought of the human heart by the vastness of his power. For although we do not comprehend the nature of creation, yet that very part of it which slightly falls under our understanding holds so much wonder that even the swiftest mind seems inferior to the smallest things in this world; and let us render more fervently the praise due above all to the Creator, to whom be glory and honour, now and always, and for ages of ages. Amen.