Agreement with Greek science.
On the other hand, we may note some points where Basil is in accord with Greek science. He warns his hearers not to “be surprised that the world never falls; it occupies the center of the universe, its natural place.”[2089] He advances numerous proofs of the immense size of the sun and moon.[2090] He accepts the hypothesis of four elements but abstains from passing judgment upon the question of a fifth element of which the heavens and celestial bodies may be composed.[2091] He thinks that “it needs not the space of a moment for light to pass through” the ether.[2092]
Qualification of the Scriptural account of creation.
Moreover, Basil finds it necessary to qualify some of the statements in the first chapter of Genesis. He interprets the command, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,” to apply only to the sea or ocean, which he contends is one body of water, and not to pools and lakes,[2093] recognizing that otherwise “our explanation of the creation of the world may appear contrary to experience, because it is evident that all the waters did not flow together in one place.” In this connection he states that “although some authorities think that the Hyrcanian and Caspian Seas are enclosed in their own boundaries, if we are to believe the geographers, they communicate with each other and together discharge themselves into the Great Sea.” He speaks of “the vast ocean, so dreaded by navigators, which surrounds the isle of Britain and western Spain.”[2094] Later he contends that “sea water is the source of all the moisture of the earth.”[2095] He has also to meet the following objection made to the eleventh and twelfth verses of the first chapter of Genesis: “How then, they say, can Scripture describe all the plants of the earth as seed-bearing, when the reed, couch-grass, mint, crocus, garlic, and the flowering rush and countless other species produce no seed? To this we reply that many vegetables have their seminal virtue in the lower part and in the roots.”[2096]
The four elements and four qualities.
Basil regards the words of Genesis, “God called the dry land earth,” as a recognition of the fact that drought is the primal property of earth, as humidity is of air; cold, of water; and heat, of fire. He adds, however, that “our eyes and senses can find nothing which is completely singular, simple, and pure. Earth is at the same time dry and cold; water, cold and moist; air, moist and warm; fire, warm and dry.”[2097] Indeed, as he has already stated in the previous homily, the mixture of elements in actual objects is even more intricate than this last sentence might seem to indicate. Every element is in every other, and we not only do not perceive with our senses any pure elements but not even any compounds of two elements only.[2098]
Enthusiasm for nature as God’s work.
Basil is alive to the absorbing interest of the world of nature and to the marvelous intricacies of natural science. He tells his hearers that as “anyone not knowing a town is taken by the hand and led through it,” so he will guide them “through the mysterious marvels of this great city of the universe.”[2099] As he had said in the preceding homily, “A single plant, a blade of grass is sufficient to occupy all your intelligence in the contemplation of the skill which produced it.”[2100] He sees “great wisdom in small things.”[2101] Thus by the argument from design he is apt to work back from nature to the Creator, so that his enthusiasm cannot be regarded as purely scientific. Going a step farther than Galen’s argument from design, he contends that “not a single thing has been created without reason; not a single thing is useless.”[2102]
Sin and nature.
Basil also cherishes the notion, which we have already found both in pagan and Christian writers, that human sin leaves its stain or has its effect upon nature. The rose was without thorns before the fall of man, and their addition to its beauty serves to remind us that “sorrow is very near to pleasure.”[2103]