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31 Fialon quotes Bossuet 4me élév. 3me sem.: "Le roi dit Qu 'on marche; et l'armée marche; qu'on fasse telle évolution, et elle se fait; toute une armée se remue au seul commandement d'un prince, c'est à un seul petit mouvment de ces livres, c'est, parmi les choses humaines, l'image la plus excellente de la puissance de Dieu; mais an fond que c'est image est dèfectueuse! Dieu n'a point de lèvres àremuer; Dieu ne frappe point l'air pour en tirer quelque son; Dieu n'a qu'à vouloir en lui meme; et tout ce qu'il vent éternellement s'accomplit comme il l'a voulu, et au temps qu'il a marqué.
33 St. Basil dwells rather on the sense of "beautiful" in the lxx. kalo/u. The Vulgate has pulchra.
$Espere, kuane/aj i'ero\n, fi/le, nukto\j a!galma,
To/sson a'fauro/teroj mh/naj o!son e!coxoj a!strwn,
and Milton, P.L. iv. 605:
"Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest."
37 lxx. The Heb.=literally "And evening happened and morning happened, one day." On the unique reckoning of the day from evening to morning, see the late Dr. McCaul in Replics to Essays and Reviews.
44 The argument here is due to a misapprehension of the meaning of the term eighth in Psalm vi. and xi. title. cf. n.
3 Origen, c. Cels. vi. says to\n me\n prosexei=j dhmiourgo\n ei\nai to\n uio\n tou= Qeou= lo/gon, kai\ w 9spepei\ au'tourgo\n tou= ko/smou, to\n de\ pate/ra tou= lo/gou, tw= prostetaxe/nai tw= ui'w eautou= lo/gw= poih=sai to\n ko/smon, ei\nai prw/twj dmuiourgo/n. cf. Athan., c. gentes § 48. sq.
4 Solon is credited with the saying, du/skola ta\ kala\. cf. the German proverb, Gut ding wil weile haben, and Virgil in Georg. i. 121:
"Pater ipse colendi
Haud facilem esse viam voluit."
5 Plato said one. po/teron o'u\n o'rqwj e!na ourano\u proeirh/kamen; h! pollou\j h$ a 9pei/rouj le/gein h\n o'rqo/teron ; ei$per kata\ to\ para/deigma dedhmionpghm e/noj e!otai, to\ ya\r perie/xon pa/nta o 9po/sa nohta\ zw=a, meq0 e 9te/ron deu/teron ou'k a!n pot0 ei!h. . . ei\j o$de monogenh\j ou'rano\j gegonw\j e$sti te kai\ e!stai. Plat., Tim. § 11. On the other hand, was the Epicurean doctrine of the a'peiri/a ko/smwn, referred to in Luc. i. 73:
Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra
Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi.
6 So Anaximander (Diog. Laert. ii. 1,2) and Damocritus (Diog. Laert. ix. 44).
But, As Fialon points out, the Greek philosophers used ko/smoj and ou'RANO'j as convertible terms: Basil uses oo'urano/j of the firmament or sky.
9 "You must conceive it" (the whirlh) "to be of such a kind as this: as if in some great hollow whirl, carved throughout, there was such another, but lesser, within it, adapted to it, like casks fitted one within another; and in the same manner a third, and a fourth, and four others, for that the whirls were eight in all, as circles one within another. . . and hat in each of its circles there was seated a siren on the upper side, carried round, and uttering one voice variegated by diverse modulations; but that the whole of them, being eight, composed one harmony." (Plat., Rep. x. 14, Davies' Trans.) Plato describes the Fates "singing to the harmony of the Sirens." Id. On the Pythagorean Music of the Spheres, cf. also Cic., De Divin. I. 3, and Macrobius In Somn: Scip.
cf. Shaksp., M. of Ven.. v. 1:
"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim."
And Milton, Arcades:
"Then listen I
To the celestial Sirens' harmony,
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital sheres,
And turn the adamantine spindle round
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
14 nasto/j (fr. na/ssw, press or knead) = close, firm. Democritus used it as opposed to keno/n, void. Arist. fr. 202.
16 Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 43) writes: "Si in nube luctetur flatus aut vapor, tonitrua edi: si erumpat ardens, fulmina; si longiore tractu nitatur, fulgetra. His fiindi nubew, illis perrumpi. Etesse tonitrua impactorum ignium plagas." cf. Sen., Quoest. Nat.. ii. 12.
17 Empedoklh\j stere/mnion ei\nai to\n ou'rano\n e'c a'e/roj sumpage/ntoj u 9no\ puro\j krustalloeidw=j, to\ purw=dej kai\ a'erw=dej e'n ekate/rw tw=n h 9misfairi/wn perie/xonta. (Plutarch peri\ tw=n o'resko/ntw=n toi=j filoso/foij, ii. 11) Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxvii. 9) says that crystal is made "gelu (vide Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, ii. 1) vehementiore concreto. . . glaciem que esso certum est; unde et nomen graeci dedere." So Seneca, Quaest. Nat. iii 25. Diodorus Siculus, however, asserts it "coalescere non a frigore sed divini ignis potentia." (Bibl. ii. 134.)
18 i.e. the "Lapis Specularis." or mica, which was used for glazing windows. cf. Plin., Ep. ii. 17. and Juv., Sat. iv. 21.
19 Mica is found in large plates in Siberia, Peru, and Mexico, as well as in Sweden and Norway.
21 With Christian associations it is startling to read tha the end of the Timaeus that the Cosmos is the ei'kw\n tou= Qeou= , or, according to another reading, itself Qeo/j, . . . monogenh=j w$n.
23 According to Plutarch (peri\ tw=n a're/sk: etc. iii. 10) Thales and the Stoics affirmed the earth to be spherical, Thales (id. 11) placing it "in the middle." Pliny, Hist. Nat. ii. 4, says that the earth "universi cardine stare pendentem librantem per quae pendeat; ita solam immobilem circa eam volubili universitate, eandem ex omnibus necti, eidemque omnia inniti."
24 On kolobo/j, docked, curtailed, cf. Matt. xxiv. 22.
25 The supremacy of fire was the idea of Heraclitus. To\ pu=r Qeo\n u'peilh/fasin !Ippasoj. . . kai= 0Hra/kleitoj. Clem. Alex., LProtrep. v. 55. Plutarch has an essay on the comparative use fulness of fire and water.
29 Probably the Volga is meant.
35 Used vaguely for any mountains in the north of Europe and Asia. Strabo (vii. pp. 295, 299) considers them fabulous.
36 A varia lectio is Eridanus.
37 Ai/gw/n is properly the Aegean Sea.
38 Basil's geography is bad. He might have improved it by consulting Strabo or Ptolemaeus, but has been content to go for his facts to Aristotle (Met. i. 13), whose errors he repeats. Fialon remarks "nouvelle preuve de l'indifference des cités grecques de l' Asie pour cet Occident lointain dont elles se séparèrent si facilement. If this refers to the theological separation it is hardly fair. The East in the 4th c. and 5th c. shewed no indifference to the sympathy of the W., and when the split came the "separation" was not taken "easily."
40 Schools of "the wisdom of the world" did, however, teach that the world was a world geno/menon kai\ fqarto/n. cf. Lucretius v. 322, "totum nativum mortali corpore constat.
41 So the "liquidissimus aether" of the Epicurean Lucretius (v. 501), "Suos ignes fert;" i.e. the fiery stars are of the nature of the element in which they move. cf. the Stoic Manilius i. 149, "Ignis in aethereas volucer se sustulit oras summaque complexus stellantis culmina coeli, Flammarum vallo naturae moenia fecit."
42 So Aristotle, Meteor. i. 3, 30. 0Opw=men dh 9 th\n ki/nhsin o$ti du/natai diakri/nein to\n a'epa kai\ e'kpurou=n w$ste kai\ ta\ fero/mena thko/mena fai/nesqai polla/kij. To\ me\n ou\n gi/gnesqai thn a'le/an kai\ th\n qermo/thta i'kanh\ e'sti paraske/a/ein kai\ h' tou= h 9li/ou fora\ mo/non.
43 cf. Diog. Laert. vii. on Zeno. Tre/pesqai de\ ta\ e!mpura tiu=ta kai\ ti\ i!lla a!stoa, to\n mh\n h#lion e'k th=j mega/lhj qala/tthj. So Zeno, Chrysippus, and Posidonius.
44 Pliny (ii. 103, 104) writes: "Itaque solis ardore siccatur liquor; . . . sic mari late patenti saporem incoqui salis, aut quia exhausto inde dulci tenuique, qod facillime, trahat vis ignea, omne asperius crassiusque linquatur: ideo summa aequarum aqua dulciorem profundam: hanc esse veriorem causam asperi saporis, quam quod mare terrae sudor sit aeternus: aut quia plurimum ex arido misceatur illi vapore, aut quia terrae natura sicut medicatas aquas inficat." The first of these trhee theories was that of Hippocrates (De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, iv. 197) and of Anaximander (Plutarch peri\ tw=n a'oe/sk, etc. ii. 552). On the second vide Arist., Prob. xxiii. 30. the idea of the sea being the earth's sweat was that of Empedocles. cf. Arist., Meteor. ii. 1.
46 The derivation of ou'rano\j from o 9ra/w is imaginary. Aristotle (De Coel i. 19, 9) derives it from o!roj, a boundarv. cf. 9Ori/zwn. The real root is the Skt. var=cover. M. Müller, Oxford Essays, 1856.
50 cf. Deut. xxxiii. 13-15, LXX.
52 cf. Arist., Meteor. i. 9-12, Plutarch peri\ tw=n a're/sk. etc. iii. 4.
53 Fialon quotes Hor., Ep. i. 18: "Ut matrona meretrici dispar erit atque Discolor."."
54 The well known "Per campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri" (Lucr. ii. 5) may be an echo of some Greek lines in the preacher's mind, just as the preceeding "suave mari magno" is of Menander.
55 These Stocical atheists did also agree with the generality of the other Stoical theists n supposing a successive infinity of worlds generated and corrupted" (a'peir/a ko/smwn) "by reason of intervening periodical conflagrations." Cudworth, I. iii. 23.
57 cf. Jerome to Pammachius against John of Jerusalem, § 7 (in this edition vol. vi. p. 428) and Origen's Homily on Genesis, preserved in the Translation of Rufinus.
61 kalon me/n ou\n e'otin o$ a$n d0 au 9reto\n o$n e'paineto\n h\ h$ o$ a$n a'goqo\n o$n h 9du\ h\ o$ti a'gaqo/n. Arist., Rhet. i. 9.
cf. E. Burke (On the Sublime and Beautiful, iii. § 6): "It is true that the infiinitely wise and good creator has, of his bounty, frequently joined beauty to those things which he has made useful to us. But this does not prove that our idea of use and beauty are the same thing, or that they are in any way dependent on each other." Dr. Johnson instances a painting on a coffee-cup as beautiful, but not useful. "Boswell," Ann. 1772. St. Basil's idea is in accord with that of Ruskin (Mod P. chap. vi.). "In all high ideas of beauty it is more than probable that much of the pleasure depends on delicate and untraceable perception of fitness, propriety, and relation, which are purely intellecutal, and through which we arrive at our noblest ideas of what is commonly and rightly called 'intellectual beauty.'"