Latin Translation of Basil's Hexaemeron 6.2–6.10

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, and let them divide between day and night." Heaven and earth had gone before; light had already been made over them; day had been separated from night; the dry land had already been revealed; the water had been gathered into the station assigned to it; the earth was filled with its fruits, having sprouted so many thousands of plants and abounding in various kinds of growth. But the sun and the moon did not yet exist, lest those who do not know God should call the sun the prince and father of light, or suppose it the author of what grows from the earth. Therefore on the fourth day he said, "Let there be lights," and "God made two lights." Who commanded? Who obeyed? Do you not notice the twofold persons in these words? Everywhere, then, the doctrine of the Godhead is woven into the history by a mystical narrative. And the reason for the creation of the lights is at hand: to light up the earth. How, then, if light had gone before, is the sun now said to be established for giving light? First, let the simplicity of our speech not move you to laughter, if we do not aim at the elegance of your eloquence nor follow the arrangement of rhythmic clauses. For we are not accustomed to cultivate the construction of words or the euphony of pronunciation, but we think that the honest meaning of names must everywhere be put first. Notice, then, how by the nature of the word he declared sufficiently what he wanted: for he names them "lights" for the giving of light, which certainly does not conflict with what was said before about light. For then the nature of light was produced; but now the body of the sun was made, on which that firstborn light is carried. For as fire is one thing and a lamp another, one possessing the power to illuminate, the other made to serve light to those who need it, so these lights were placed beneath that most pure and genuine light as a kind of vehicles; though the Apostle (Phil 2:15) calls certain people "lights of the world." But the true light of the world is another, by whose outpouring the saints, illumined, became lights to souls, freeing them from the darkness of ignorance by teaching them the truth. So too this visible sun shines, kindled by that original brightness.

And let it not seem incredible to anyone that we said the brightness of light is one thing and the body underlying the light another. First, because composite things are divided into two parts, namely the receiving matter and the quality that comes upon it. As, then, natural whiteness is one thing and what is white another, so the things mentioned are seen to differ from each other by nature, but are joined by the Creator's power. And do not tell me that it is impossible for these to be separated from each other; for I do not claim that the separation of light from the sun's body is graspable by me or you, but that it is held divisible by us in thought alone. Clearly, at the Creator's will these can easily be separated from their nature. For it is entirely impossible for us to distinguish the heat of the sun from its brightness; but God, wishing to turn his servant aside by a wonderful sight, set the flame in the bush in such a way as to show only the power of its brightness, its burning laid aside; as the psalm too testifies, saying: "The voice of the Lord who divides the flame of fire" (Ps 29:7). Hence also, in the recompense for the sins we have committed in life, a certain more hidden reasoning teaches us that the nature of fire will be divided: its light will be assigned to illumine the righteous, its burning will serve to consume sinners. We can also easily gain confidence in what we are seeking from the changes of the moon. For when it wanes, its whole body is not used up at all; but now laying aside the light set in it, now receiving it back, it shows us certain appearances of its own growth and diminution. That its whole body is not used up when it wanes, what we see bears witness. For in clear air, free of cloudy vapours, you can watch the waning moon, when it is round in shape, when its globe, on the side that is dark, is circumscribed by just such an orb as when it is full of light; looking at it, you see it plainly whole and complete, made manifest by the part that shines. And do not tell me that its light is borrowed, since it diminishes when it turns toward the sun and grows when it moves away from it. For it is not our purpose to discuss this now, but only that its body is one thing and the cause of its light another. Understand something of the same kind, then, about the nature of the sun, which seems to differ from the moon only in this: that the sun never lays aside the light once received and implanted in it, while the moon, often stripped of its light and clothed with it again, can easily confirm by itself what has been said of the sun. These lights, then, were appointed to divide between day and night, whose natures he then set apart from each other by contrariety, so that they might be without blame toward each other, and darkness might have no fellowship with light. For what shade is by day, darkness is at night. And as every shadow is cast by bodies placed under light, stretching toward the west in the morning, turning toward the east in the evening, and leaning to the north at midday, so night too withdraws backward, driven back by the rays of light. What else must its nature be understood to be than the shadow of the world? For as, on a bright day, a shadow at once accompanies someone standing in the sunrise, so night is produced when the air nearest the earth is shaded; and this is what it says: "God divided between the light and the darkness." For darkness almost always flees the coming of light, since from their first generation estrangement from each other was naturally fitted to them. And now he commanded the sun to run through the spaces of the day, and appointed the moon, when it has completed its circle, as ruler of the night; and by a fixed measure these lights succeed each other in turn. For when the sun comes forth, the moon, if it is full, is at once led to its setting; and again, when the sun has set the bounds of its course, the moon begins to rise. And if in other phases the moon's light does not match the length of the night, this does not concern the present question; we assert only that when the moon is full it holds the rule of the night, surpassing the stars by its own brightness and lighting up the earth, and shares the measure of time equally with the sun.

"And let them be," it says, "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." You will find that the noting and observing of signs is necessary for human life, as long experience teaches, provided that you do not search into them more than you should. For we can learn many things about coming rains, and very many about the vapours of the earth and the movements of winds, whether they come in parts or blow everywhere at once, and whether they will come violently or gently. One of these signs is that which the Lord shows us, saying that a storm is coming when the sky begins to be gloomy with a fiery red (Matt 16:3). For when clouds come up, the darkened rays are seen with a reddish, blood-like colour, the density of the air presenting such an appearance to our eyes; not yet dispersed by the force of heat, and thickened more and more by the vapours continually rising and by the increase of waters, it threatens a sure storm to the regions over which it has gathered. The same happens when the moon is ringed, or when the halo, as it is called, surrounds the sun: it announces either a quantity of waters or the roaring of winds to come; or when those called mock suns are seen moving about it, they portend certain events in the regions of the sky. Likewise those streaks of rainbow colour that are shown beneath the morning clouds signify heavy rains and storms, or some disturbance of the sky in any case. Those who have studied this science are said to have noted very many signs in the waxing or waning moon, asserting that the air nearest the earth necessarily changes according to the moon's phases and qualities. For when it is three days old, if it appears slender and not with blunt horns, it declares stable and settled fair weather; but if it is reddish and thick in its horns, it threatens excessive rains and the violence of the south wind. Who does not know how much benefit the observation of these things brings to human beings? Those about to sail can keep their fleet in harbour, foreseeing future dangers; the traveller too, made cautious by the gloom of the sky, waits for a time of calm; and farmers, giving anxious care to their seeds and plants, instructed by the signs mentioned, wait for the fitting opportunity. What of the fact that the Lord foretold that portents of the dissolution of all things will be seen in the sun, the moon, and the stars, saying: "The sun will be turned into blood, and the moon will not give its light" (Joel 2:31; Acts 2:20)? But these are signs of the consummation of the world, as we said.

But those who try to stretch their leaps beyond the ditch turn the course of the discourse before us to the doctrine of nativities. For they say that our life hangs on the motion of the heavenly bodies; therefore the Chaldeans assert that the configurations of the stars bear on human fortunes. And the simple saying of Scripture, "for signs," they expound as it seems good to them, applying it not to the change of the air or the quality of the seasons, but to the lot of human life; saying that the combination of certain moving stars, when they come together with the stars that move in the zodiac circle in such and such a configuration, for example, usually produces a certain nativity, and again, if their position is different, it composes contrary decrees. Concerning these it may perhaps not be useless, for the sake of opening up the question, if I begin by going back a little in the course of the account. I shall say nothing of my own, but to refute them I shall use their own statements, so that those who have been seized by error may receive remedies for the injury they have taken, and the rest may find some protection against suffering the like. The inventors of the doctrine of nativities, having found by long experience that many of the configurations escape them, reduced the measure of time to the narrowest compass, so that even in the smallest interval, as the Apostle says, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor 15:52), there is a great difference between one nativity and another; asserting that one born at this point will be king of nations and ruler of peoples, obtaining the greatest power and much wealth, while one born at that moment will be a beggar and a vagrant, going round to people's doors for his daily food. For this reason they divide the circle called the zodiac into twelve parts, since the sun takes thirty days to pass through the twelfth part of the sphere called aplanes, that is, the unwandering. And again they divide each section of thirty parts into twelve spaces, and again distribute each of these portions into another sixty, and count sixty sixtieths of those sixty. Arranging the nativity of those born in this way, let us see whether they can keep this precision within the measure of time. As soon as the infant has come out of the womb, the midwife must look and say whether what has been born is a boy or a girl, and she waits for the cry by which she takes the sign of the little one being alive. How many sixtieths would you say have passed while this is being done? Then, while the birth of the child is made known to the astrologer, how many points do we say have slipped away while the messages are carried between? And if it happens that the one taking the hour of birth stands outside the doors of the chamber, the water clock must be watched, so that the course of the hours, whether by day or by night, can be calculated carefully and without any break. How many sixtieths, then, will be thought to have passed in that very time? For the star must be found, not only in which part of the twelfth division it stands, but at which point of the portion divided twelve times, or rather at which moment of the sixtieths, among which we said the lot of the decrees was divided; or, to search out the truth completely, at which of the sixtieths that are reckoned again from the first sixtieths. And they affirm that this so minute and incomprehensible finding of time must be made for each of the planets, so that it may be known what position it held toward the wandering stars, or what configuration they held among themselves when the infant was born. For if the hour has not been carefully observed, and even a little of that most precise reckoning happens to be changed, the whole observation is thrown into confusion. Those who have given themselves to the study of this inexplicable discipline deserve laughter; but much more those who gape after them eagerly, as if they knew something.

So they are accustomed to foretell the fortunes and even the looks of each person, declaring that this one will be curly-haired and lively, because his hour is placed in the Ram, for such is the appearance of that animal; and that he will have great power, because the Ram is a leader. He will also be a magistrate and given to gain, because that beast easily regains, without trouble, the wool it has shed, nature supplying it. One born under the Bull will be tyrannical and laborious, and also servile, for the bull is accustomed to bow its neck to the yoke. One born under the sign of the Scorpion will be given to wounding, as being like it; and one born at the hour of the Scales becomes just, because of the balance kept in the scales. What could be more ridiculous than this? The Ram, from which you borrow the nativity for human beings, is the twelfth part of the heaven; when the sun stands in it, it touches the heavenly signs; the Scales or the Bull likewise are a twelfth portion of the zodiac. How, then, while asserting that the principal causes of the life of mortals come from there, do you shape the characters of those born from earthly beasts, and say that the man of the Ram will be generous, not because that part of heaven produces such characters, but because such is the nature of a sheep? You urge us, then, on the strength of the dignity of the stars, or rather you try to persuade us, to give you our assent by way of dumb beasts. But if the sky itself has the properties of characters taken from animals, it too is subject to necessities not its own, since it has obtained the principles of causes drawn from four-footed beasts. And if you say this is absurd, you will pronounce it much more absurd that you should dare to bring assertions about things that seem to have nothing in common with us. These arguments of theirs are like spiders' webs: if a gnat or a fly settles in them, it is held entangled, but when something stronger falls in, it soon goes through and breaks the weak threads.

Yet they are not content with this everywhere, but go further astray. For they attach to the necessities of the heavenly bodies the things placed in the freedom of our will, that is, virtues and vices. Although it is ridiculous to contradict them, yet since many have fallen through this seduction, it seems fitting to me not to pass it over in silence. First of all we ask them to acknowledge whether the configurations of the stars do not change a thousand times every day. For the stars called planets are always moving and running about; some follow one another with swift steps, others, moving more slowly, often look upon one another and hide from one another within the same hour. The greatest force in a nativity, as they say, is whether a good star or an evil one looks upon the one being born. Now it often happens that at a time when a good star presides, the astrologer, failing to find the time because of ignorance of one of the minute portions we mentioned above, describes the child as lying under an evil daemon, to use their own words, in which there is great madness but greater impiety. For the more malign stars transfer the causes of their own wickedness to their maker: if wickedness were in them by nature, the maker would surely be the author of malignity. But if they are very evil by choice, then first they must be thought to be living creatures serving their own will, moved by an unbound and free impulse to whatever pleases them, since to accuse lifeless things exceeds all measure of madness. Then, how irrational it is to distinguish good and evil not by the worth of each, but to define something as becoming best or worst by the quality of its place or its aspect to another! And when a star turns a little from its configuration, it is said to forget its own malignity. So much for this; but at every moment of time, as they say, they pass into one configuration after another. Among so many thousands of such changes, how many decrees of royal birth must be thought to be formed every day! Why, then, are princes not produced every day? Or why among them is the succession of the paternal rule always kept? Because no one, of course, refers the fortunes of his children to the configuration of the stars, since the kingdom is handed to them not by the fate of nativity but by the right of birth. Did not Uzziah beget Jotham, and was not Ahaz born of Jotham? And yet none of them fell upon an hour of servile condition. Then, if we obtain the beginnings of virtues and vices not from our will but from the necessity of nativity, lawgivers are superfluous, as I see it, giving us commands to follow or avoid; superfluous too are judges, honouring the upright with praises and punishing the wicked with penalties; and the boldness of the murderer or the thief must be judged innocent, since even if they had wished to hold back their hands from the crime, they could not have, because of the unavoidable impulse of necessity. All craftsmen who seek the means of life by the labour of their hands must be thought vain. The sweat of farmers too is superfluous, since abundance of fruits could come to them even without working. And the merchant would grow rich at leisure, if nativity brought him money even against his will. And the hope of Christians, which is great, would be taken away and utterly perish, since justice would be practised in vain and wickedness condemned in vain, if we are not allowed to do anything at all by our own decision. For when the force of nativity and the decree of fate press upon us, the examination of a just judgment finds no place at all. Let it suffice to have said this against them. For you do not need longer discourses, being strong in soundness of mind, nor does the time allow the bounds of the discussion to be extended further.

But let us turn the discourse rather to what remains. "Let them be," it says, "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." We have already spoken of signs. By seasons we understand the four parts of the revolving year: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These, succeeding one another in turn, are regulated by the arranged courses of the lights. For winter comes when the sun lingers in the southern regions and draws out the darkness of night for a longer space around the climate we inhabit. So the air nearest the earth becomes cold, and all the cloudy vapours, gathered together, produce rains, snows, and ice. But when the sun, returning from the southern quarter, holds the middle circle of the heaven, it then divides the time equally between days and nights. And the higher it is carried above the earth, the more it gradually produces a mild temperature, through which spring comes on; by its benefit shrubs and trees put forth leaves, and all animals of land or water, stirred by generative warmth, extend the propagation of their kind by the succession of offspring. From there the sun soon turns toward the summer line and passes through the northern borders, making the days longer for us; and lingering longer in the air, it makes the air blazing and hot and the earth drier, from which the desired means of ripening seeds and fruits is supplied. At that time it is hotter and makes the midday shadows shorter, since it looks on our region from a very high place; and the days are longer when the shadows are short, just as conversely the days are short when the shadows are longer. This is how it happens with us who are called heteroscii, that is, having shadows on one side, and who live in the northern parts. For there are some who for two whole days each year are entirely without shadow, when they stand under the midday sun; the sun, placed right over their heads and lighting them equally from every side, lets their shadows fall in no direction at all. Even the water in their wells can scarcely receive the faintest light of the sun into its bed; for this reason some call them ascii, that is, shadowless. Those who live beyond the spice-bearing lands shift their shadows to both sides. For only those who seem to inhabit our region are believed always to cast their shadows away from the south, that is, from midday... [Others], who throw them both ways, are named amphiscii, that is, two-shadowed, by some. All these things come about as the sun travels to the northern parts. From this we must consider how great the heat of its rays is, and how many effects it has on human beings. After this comes the autumn season, which, holding equal portions of cold and heat, hands us over without discomfort to the coming of the following winter, as the sun returns again from the northern parts to the southern region. These are the changes of the seasons which, serving the courses of the sun, are believed to govern our life. "And let them be," it says, "for signs and for days": not that the sun should make the day, but that it should rule the day. For night and day were made long ago, before the lights were created; as the psalm also declares, saying: "He set the sun to rule the day, the moon and the stars to rule the night" (Ps 136:8–9). How, then, does the sun have rule over the day? Because, carrying the light around in itself, when it comes to the circle we inhabit, it dissolves the darkness and provides the day. So no one is mistaken who calls day this air lit by the sun's rays, and holds that the measure of daytime is the time it lingers, as they think, in the hemisphere above the earth. "And for years too," it says, these signs are appointed. When the moon has completed the spaces of its course twelve times, it makes a year; yet it requires one month to be inserted, so that the full concurrence of the hours may be more exactly gathered, as the Hebrews of old observed the year, and the most ancient of the Greeks. But the solar year is the name for the sun's ordered course, as it revolves from a certain sign back to the same along its own tracks.

"And God made two great lights." The term "great" is twofold: one sense is absolute, the other assigns greatness to what is greater in respect of something smaller, as when we say a great horse or a great ox. For such things receive this testimony not from the vast size of their bodies but from comparison with another. How, then, shall we take the sense of the term "great" here? Shall we take the first sense, comparing lesser things to greater, as an ant or some other animal small by nature is ranked below the largest by comparison? Or rather are they rightly called great lights because of their huge size? I think it should rather be understood so. For they are not called great because they are greater than the other stars, but because the size of their orb is so great that the brightness shining from them sufficiently lights up the whole air and, stretched out everywhere, reaches all lands and seas. In whatever part of the sky it stands, rising or setting, it appears equally to the sight of all mortals. Its greatness has a very sure proof: that not even by comparison with these lights is the breadth of the earth determined, so that by this the sun and moon might be understood to be smaller or greater. For things placed far off always seem small to our eyes, but when we come near we more easily find how great they are. But the sun is never said to be farther from anyone or nearer; it looks on all that lies beneath it from every side with an equal balance; the Indians and the Britons see it alike. For as it sinks to its setting it is not felt by those who live in the East to lose any of its greatness; nor does it appear smaller as it rises to those placed in the West; nor when it holds the middle axis of the sky does it change its appearance for either side. So do not let its apparent smallness deceive you, nor think that because its orb seems a cubit across to those who see it, it is truly such. For the size of things looked at always depends on the stretch of the intervals; the sharpness of the eyes does not attain the length of the intervening space by looking, but is spent as if failing, and reaches what is seen more by estimate than by sight; and so, because of its own feebleness, it thinks great things small, ascribing its own weakness to what it sees. Clearly, then, the eyes are deceived and do not have a faithful judgment. Remember your own weakness, and you will take a proof of what has been said from yourself. If ever you have looked from the high top of a mountain at the plain of the fields below, did you not judge the yoked oxen, so large, or their ploughmen, to be like ants? Likewise, when placed on a lofty lookout you turned your eyes to the sea, what did the islands look like to you? Did they not present to you an image of the tiniest doves? Or were not huge ships, seen far off with white swelling sails, thought to be black? For this reason, namely, that the sense of the eyes, as we said, weakened by the extent of the air, cannot fully grasp what is seen. For hollows of very great rocks, cut deep, are thought to look round and full, since sight, taken up by the projecting edges on every side, cannot reach the middle of the hollow as it fails. So too the eye does not perceive what the shapes of bodies are, but people think towers that are square to be round. It is certain, then, that at longer distances we receive a confused, not a definite, sight of bodies. So also the great lights, according to the testimony of Scripture, are many times greater than they appear.

This too is a probable proof of their greatness: that though the stars are countless in number, the brightness that comes from them cannot cut through the thickness of the night. But the sun, its light poured through the world, breaks the darkness of night not only when it is seen, but even when it is expected and before it lights up the lands; it surpasses the stars in brightness, and dissolves and disperses the air nearest the earth, congealed with cold and mists; from this the morning breeze and the dewy moisture arise in fair weather. And since the earth is very vast, how could it be wholly lit by rays in a single moment of time, unless a most abundant light were supplied to it from the very great orb of the sun? Notice here the wisdom of the Creator, how he gave its immensity a moderate force of heat, so that immoderate burning might not scorch the earth, nor a complete denial of heat make it unfruitful. Understand things in keeping with these about the moon too. Its body is bright, yet its size is not always visible, but now it is seen full in its globe, now half-full, now shown diminished, and it marks its waning on both sides: for it is found dark on one side when it waxes and on the other when it wanes. There is indeed a more hidden reason, declaring the arrangement of the Creator, the craftsman, by which the variation of the moon gives us an example of our own nature: that nothing in human affairs remains lasting and permanent, but things produced from nothing, when they have grown to something and been raised to the full measure of their age, gradually waste away and are dissolved. From the consideration of the moon, then, we are taught to notice mortal things, and, grasping their changeableness in thought, we must take care not to be lifted up by prosperity and aim at pride or insolence, nor trust in temporal power, nor be exalted by possessions or riches, which are very uncertain; but let us chastise the desire of the body, which is most unstable, and give our diligence rather to the soul, whose good always remains unmoved. If perhaps the moon saddens you, failing as it gradually lays aside its light, the soul should affect you more, which loses through the vice of intemperance the honour it received from divine power, never keeping a firm purpose, but constantly turning about, as being supported by no bars of constancy. For truly, according to the proverb, "the fool changes like the moon" (Sir 27:11). And I think that from the changes of the moon no small formative influence is conferred on the animals to be created and on all the other things the earth produces. For their bodies are disposed one way when the moon is full and another way when it wanes: sometimes they appear looser and empty when it wanes, sometimes whole and full when it waxes, since it secretly pours into them inwardly a certain moisture mixed with heat. Those who sleep in the open under a shining moon show that this is so: when they get up, they find their heads soaked with a great deal of dew. And fresh meat, if it lies under the moon, is soon corrupted with liquid putrefaction. The brains of cattle show the same, and the entrails of sea creatures, which are moister, and the pith of trees: none of these could the moon bring to its own quality, unless it excelled in the greatness of its power, according to the testimony of Scripture.