Things conflicting and contrary by nature, then, would not have brought themselves together unless there were One greater than them and Lord who bound them together. To Him the elements themselves yield and obey like slaves obeying a master. They do not each look only to their own nature and fight the other. Rather, recognizing the Lord who bound them together, they live in harmony with one another: contrary by nature, yet made friends by the will of the One who governs them.
For if their single mixture had not come about by a command greater than they are, how could the heavy have mingled and come together with the light, dry with wet, round with straight, fire with cold, or in general sea with earth, sun with moon, stars with heaven, and air with clouds, when the nature of each differs from the other? There would have been great conflict among them: one burning, another cooling; the heavy pulling downward, the light pulling in the opposite direction upward; the sun giving light, the air bringing darkness. Even the stars would have been at war with one another because some occupy higher positions and others lower; night would not have yielded to day but would have remained fighting and rebelling against it.
If these things happened, we would no longer see an ordered world but chaos; no longer order but disorder; no longer coherence but a disjointed whole; no longer measure but disproportion. Through the rebellion and conflict of each, either everything would be destroyed or only the prevailing one would remain. And this again would reveal the disorder of the whole. If one alone remained, deprived of the help of the others, it would make the whole unfitly joined, just as if only a foot or only a hand remained, it would not preserve the whole body intact.
For what sort of world would there be if only the sun shone, or only the moon made its circuit, or if there were only night, or it were always day? What harmony would there be if only heaven existed without the stars, or the stars without heaven? What use would there be if there were only sea, or if earth alone lay there without water and the other parts of creation? How could a human being, or any living creature at all, have appeared on earth if the elements were at war with one another and one of them prevailed but was unable by itself to constitute bodies? Nothing in the whole could be constituted from heat alone, or cold alone, or wet alone, or dry alone. Everything would be completely disordered and uncompounded. Yet not even the element that seemed to prevail could have subsisted without the support of the others. For that is how it subsists even now.
Things conflicting and contrary by nature, then, would not have brought themselves together unless there were One greater than them and Lord who bound them together. To Him the elements themselves yield and obey like slaves obeying a master. They do not each look only to their own nature and fight the other. Rather, recognizing the Lord who bound them together, they live in harmony with one another: contrary by nature, yet made friends by the will of the One who governs them.
For if their single mixture had not come about by a command greater than they are, how could the heavy have mingled and come together with the light, dry with wet, round with straight, fire with cold, or in general sea with earth, sun with moon, stars with heaven, and air with clouds, when the nature of each differs from the other? There would have been great conflict among them: one burning, another cooling; the heavy pulling downward, the light pulling in the opposite direction upward; the sun giving light, the air bringing darkness. Even the stars would have been at war with one another because some occupy higher positions and others lower; night would not have yielded to day but would have remained fighting and rebelling against it.
If these things happened, we would no longer see an ordered world but chaos; no longer order but disorder; no longer coherence but a disjointed whole; no longer measure but disproportion. Through the rebellion and conflict of each, either everything would be destroyed or only the prevailing one would remain. And this again would reveal the disorder of the whole. If one alone remained, deprived of the help of the others, it would make the whole unfitly joined, just as if only a foot or only a hand remained, it would not preserve the whole body intact.
For what sort of world would there be if only the sun shone, or only the moon made its circuit, or if there were only night, or it were always day? What harmony would there be if only heaven existed without the stars, or the stars without heaven? What use would there be if there were only sea, or if earth alone lay there without water and the other parts of creation? How could a human being, or any living creature at all, have appeared on earth if the elements were at war with one another and one of them prevailed but was unable by itself to constitute bodies? Nothing in the whole could be constituted from heat alone, or cold alone, or wet alone, or dry alone. Everything would be completely disordered and uncompounded. Yet not even the element that seemed to prevail could have subsisted without the support of the others. For that is how it subsists even now.