NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

In the Beginning God made the Heaven and the Earth.which it conceals. Do not let us seek for any nature devoid of qualities by the conditions ofits existence, but let us know that all the phenomena with which we see it clothed regardthe conditions of its existence and complete its essence. Try to take away by reason each ofthe qualities it possesses, and you will arrive at nothing. Take away black, cold, weight,density, the qualities which concern taste, in one word all these which we see in it, and thesubstance vanishes. 1400If I ask you to leave these vain questions, I will not expect you to try and find out theearth’s point of support. The mind would reel on beholding its reasonings losing themselves57without end. Do you say that the earth reposes on a bed of air? 1401 How, then, can this softsubstance, without consistency, resist the enormous weight which presses upon it? How isit that it does not slip away in all directions, to avoid the sinking weight, and to spread itselfover the mass which overwhelms it? Do you suppose that water is the foundation of theearth? 1402 You will then always have to ask yourself how it is that so heavy and opaque abody does not pass through the water; how a mass of such a weight is held up by a natureweaker than itself. Then you must seek a base for the waters, and you will be in much difficultyto say upon what the water itself rests.9. Do you suppose that a heavier body prevents the earth from falling into the abyss?Then you must consider that this support needs itself a support to prevent it from falling.Can we imagine one? Our reason again demands yet another support, and thus we shallfall into the infinite, always imagining a base for the base which we have already found. 1403And the further we advance in this reasoning the greater force we are obliged to give to thisbase, so that it may be able to support all the mass weighing upon it. Put then a limit to1400 Fialon points to the coincidence with Arist., Met. vii. 3. ᾽Αλλὰ μὴν ἀφαιρουμένου μήκους καὶ πλάτουςκαὶ βάθους, οὐδὲν ὁρῶμεν ὑπολειπόμενον πλὴν ἐ& 176· τι ἐστὶ τὸ ὁριζόμενον ὑπὸ τούτων, ὥστε τὴν ὕληνἀνάγκη φαὶνεσθαι μόνην οὐσίαν οὕτω σκοπουμένοις. Λέγω δ᾽ ὕλην ἢ καθ᾽ αὑτὴν μήτε τὶ, μήτε ποσὸν, μήτεἄλλο μηδὲν λέγεται οἷς ὥρισται τὸ ὄν· ἔστι γὰρ τι καθ᾽ οὗ κατηγορεῖται τούτων ἕκαστον, ᾧ τὸ εἶναι ἕτερον,καὶ τῶν κατηγορεῶν ἑκάστῃ. Τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα τῆς οὐσίας κατηγορεῖται· αὕτη δὲ, τῆς ὕλης. & 169·Ωστε τὸἔσχατον, καθ᾽ αὑτὸ οὔτε τὶ, οὔτε ποσὸν, οὔτε ἄλλο οὐδέν ἐστιν· οὐδὲ δὴ αἰ ἀποφάσεις1401 cf. Arist., De Cœlo. ii. 13, 16. ᾽Αναξιμένης δὲ καὶ ᾽Αναξάγο ρας καὶ Δημόκριτος τὸ πλάτος αἴτιον εἶναίφασι τοῦ μένειν αὐτήν· οὐ γὰρ τέμνειν ἀλλ᾽ ἐπιπωματίζειν (covers like a lid) τὸν ἀ& 153·ρα τὸν κάτωθεν, ὅπερφαίνεται τὰ πλάτος ἔχοντα τῶν σωματων ποιεῖν1402 The theory of Thales. cf. note on Letter viii. 2 and Arist., De Cœlo. ii. 13, 13 where he speaks of Thalesdescribing the earth floating like wood on water.1403 cf. Arist., De Cœlo. ii. 13 (Grote’s tr.): “The Kolophonian Xenophanes affirmed that the lower depthsof the earth were rooted downwards to infinity, in order to escape the troublesome obligation of looking for areason why it remained stationary.” To this Empedokles objected, and suggested velocity of rotation for thecause of the earth’s maintaining its position.261