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

On the Firmament.others into inaccessible seas, the Ægon 1494 the Nyses, the Chremetes, 1495 and above all theNile, which is not of the character of a river when, like a sea, it inundates Egypt. Thus thehabitable part of our earth is surrounded by water, linked together by vast seas and irrigatedby countless perennial rivers, thanks to the ineffable wisdom of Him Who ordered all toprevent this rival element to fire from being entirely destroyed.However, a time will come, when all shall be consumed by fire; as Isaiah says of the Godof the universe in these words, “That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thyrivers.” 1496 Reject then the foolish wisdom of this world, 1497 and receive with me the moresimple but infallible doctrine of truth.7. Therefore we read: “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let itdivide the waters from the waters.” I have said what the word firmament in Scripture means.It is not in reality a firm and solid substance which has weight and resistance; this namewould otherwise have better suited the earth. But, as the substance of superincumbentbodies is light, without consistency, and cannot be grasped by any one of our senses, it is incomparison with these pure and imperceptible substances that the firmament has receivedits name. Imagine a place fit to divide the moisture, sending it, if pure and filtered, intohigher regions, and making it fall, if it is dense and earthy; to the end that by the gradualwithdrawal of the moist particles the same temperature may be preserved from the beginningto the end. You do not believe in this prodigious quantity of water; but you do not take intoaccount the prodigious quantity of heat, less considerable no doubt in bulk, but exceedinglypowerful nevertheless, if you consider it as destructive of moisture. It attracts surroundingmoisture, as the melon shows us, and consumes it as quickly when attracted, as the flameof the lamp draws to it the fuel supplied by the wick and burns it up. Who doubts that theæther is an ardent fire? 1498 If an impassable limit had not been assigned to it by the Creator,what would prevent it from setting on fire and consuming all that is near it, and absorbing1494 Αἰγών is properly the Ægean Sea.1495 Basil’s geography is bad. He might have improved it by consulting Strabo or Ptolemæus, but has beencontent to go for his facts to Aristotle (Met. i. 13), whose errors he repeats. Fialon remarks “nouvelle preuve del’indifférence des cités grecques de l’ Asie pour cet Occident lointain dont elles se séparèrent si facilement.” If thisrefers to the theological separation it is hardly fair. The East in the 4th c. and 5th c. shewed no indifference tothe sympathy of the W., and when the split came the “separation” was not taken “easily.”1496 Isa. xliv. 27.1497 Schools of “the wisdom of the world” did, however, teach that the world was a world γενόμενον καὶφθαρτόν. cf. Lucretius v. 322, “totum nativum mortali corpore constat.”1498 So the “liquidissimus æther” of the Epicurean Lucretius (v. 501), “Suos ignes fert;” i.e. the fiery stars areof the nature of the element in which they move. cf. the Stoic Manilius i. 149, “Ignis in æthereas volucer se sustulitoras summaque complexus stellantis culmina cœli, Flammarum vallo naturæ mœnia fecit.”285