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

The creation of luminous bodies.air, embracing at the same time earth and sea. In whatever part of heaven they may be,whether rising, or setting, or in mid heaven, they appear always the same in the eyes of men,a manifest proof of their prodigious size. For the whole extent of heaven cannot make themappear greater in one place and smaller in another. Objects which we see afar off appeardwarfed to our eyes, and in measure as they approach us we can form a juster idea of theirsize. But there is no one who can be nearer or more distant from the sun. All the inhabitantsof the earth see it at the same distance. Indians and Britons see it of the same size. Thepeople of the East do not see it decrease in magnitude when it sets; those of the West do notfind it smaller when it rises. If it is in the middle of the heavens it does not vary in eitheraspect. Do not be deceived by mere appearance, and because it looks a cubit’s breadth,imagine it to be no bigger. 1594 At a very great distance objects always lose size in our eyes;sight, not being able to clear the intermediary space, is as it were exhausted in the middleof its course, and only a small part of it reaches the visible object. 1595 Our power of sightis small and makes all we see seem small, affecting what it sees by its own condition. Thus,then, if sight is mistaken its testimony is fallible. Recall your own impressions and you willfind in yourself the proof of my words. If you have ever from the top of a high mountainlooked at a large and level plain, how big did the yokes of oxen appear to you? How bigwere the ploughmen themselves? Did they not look like ants? 1596 If from the top of acommanding rock, looking over the wide sea, you cast your eyes over the vast extent howbig did the greatest islands appear to you? How large did one of those barks of great tonnage,which unfurl their white sails to the blue sea, appear to you. Did it not look smaller than adove? It is because sight, as I have just told you, loses itself in the air, becomes weak and881594 “Tertia ex utroque vastitas solis aperitur, ut non sit necesse amplitudinem ejus oculorum argumentis,atque conjectura animi scrutari: immensum esse quia arborum in limitibus porrectarum in quotlibet passuummillia umbras paribus jaciat intervallis, tanquam toto spatio medius: et quia per æquinoctium omnibus in meridianaplaga habitantibus, simul fiat a vertice: ita quia circa solstitialem circulum habitantium meridie adSeptemtrionem umbræ cadant, ortu vero ad occasum. Quæ fieri nullo modo possent nisi multo quam terra majoresset.” Plin. ii. 8.1595 Πλάτων κατὰ συναύγειαν, τοῦ μὲν ἐκ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν φωτὸς ἐπὶ ποσὸν ἀποῤ& 191·έοντος εἰς τὸνὁμογενῆ ἀ& 153·ρα, τοῦ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος φερομένου ἀποῤ& 191·εῖν· τὸν δὲ μεταξὺ ἀ& 153·ρα εὐδιάχυτονὄντα καὶ εὔτρεπτον, συνεκτείνοντος τῷ πυρώδει τῆς ὄψεως, αὕτη, λέγεται πλατωνικὴ συναύγεια. Plut. περὶτῶν ἀρεσκ. iv. 13. The Platonic theory of night is explained in the Timæus, Chap. xix.1596 Plato (Phæd. § 133) makes the same comparison. ῎Ετι τοίνον, ἔφη, πάμμεγά τε εἶναι αὐτό, καὶ ἡμᾶςοἰκεϊν τοὺς μέχρι ῾Ηρακλείων στηλῶν ἀπὸ Φάσιδος ἐν σμικρῷ τινὶ μορί& 251· ὥςπερ περι τέλμα μύρμηκας ἢβατράχους περὶ τὴν θάλατταν ὀικοῦντας. Fialon names Seneca (Quæst. Nat. i. præf. 505) and Lucian (Hermotimusv. and Icaromenippus xix.) as following him. To these may be added Celsus “καταγελῶν τὸ ᾽Ιουδαιωνκαὶ Χριστιανῶν γενος” in Origen, C. Cels iv. 517, B.318