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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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80 Pages (Homilies: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
Page 7
To this world at last it was necessary to add a new world, both a school and training place where the souls of men should be taught and a home for beings destined to be born and to die. Thus was created, of a nature analogous to that of this world and the animals and plants which live thereon, the succession of time, for ever pressing on and passing away and never stopping in its course. Is not this the nature of time, where the past is no more, the future does not exist, and the present escapes before being recognised? And such also is the nature of the creature which lives in time,--condemned to grow or to perish without rest and without certain stability. It is therefore fit that the bodies of animals and plants, obliged to follow a sort of current, and carried away by the motion which leads them to birth or to death, should live in the midst of surroundings whose nature is in accord with beings subject to change. [1383] Thus the writer who wisely tells us of the birth of the Universe does not fail to put these words at the head of the narrative. "In the beginning God created;" that is to say, in the beginning of time. Therefore, if he makes the world appear in the beginning, it is not a proof that its birth has preceded that of all other things that were made. He only wishes to tell us that, after the invisible and intellectual world, the visible world, the world of the senses, began to exist.
The first movement is called beginning. "To do right is the beginning of the good way." [1384] Just actions are truly the first steps towards a happy life. Again, we call "beginning" the essential and first part from which a thing proceeds, such as the foundation of a house, the keel of a vessel; it is in this sense that it is said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," [1385] that is to say that piety is, as it were, the groundwork and foundation of perfection. Art is also the beginning of the works of artists, the skill of Bezaleel began the adornment of the tabernacle. [1386] Often even the good which is the final cause is the beginning of actions. Thus the approbation of God is the beginning of almsgiving, and the end laid up for us in the promises the beginning of all virtuous efforts.
[1383] cf. Plato, Timaeus, S: 14, chronos d' oun met' ouranou gegonen hina hama gennethentes hama kai luthosin, an pote lusis tis auton gignetai kai kata to paradeigma tes aionias phuseos hin, hos homoiotatos auto kata dunamin e Fialon (p. 311) quotes Cousin's translation at greater length, and refers also to Plotinus, Enn. II. vii. 10-12. The parallel transistoriness of time and things has become the commonplace of poets. "Immortalia ne speres monet annus et almun Quae rapit hora diem." Hor.,Carm. iv. 7.
[1384] Prov. xvi. 5, LXX.
[1385] Prov. ix. 10.
[1386] cf. Arist., Met. iv. 1. ,'Arche he men legetai hothen an ti tou pragmatos kinetheie proton; hoion tou mekous, kai hodou...he de hothen an kallista hekaston genoito; hoion kai matheseos, ouk apo tou protou kai tes tou pragmatos arches eniote arkteon, all' hothen rast' an mathoi, he de, hothen proton ginetai enuparchontos; hoion hos ploiou tropis, kai oikias themelios.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/hexaemeron.asp?pg=7
