I suppose, in a way similar to how Aristotle fled the Athenians so that they would not "sin twice
against philosophy", St. Augustine fled the world and embraced the church so that Rome would
not "sin twice against theology."
Many Catholic theologians would agree that Greece was fertile ground for the proclamation of the
gospel due to the similarities that were shared by Christians and some of the Greek philosophers.
I suppose one could also point toward similarities between the Stoic philosophy and the Christian
church -- since both were considered cultures which were aimed at guaranteeing the rights of both
rich and poor, freeman and slave, man and woman alike. Likewise, Philo of Alexandria, displaying
a more hellenistic influence within a more strictly Jewish context, conceived of God as the Logos,
the Supreme Will undergirding all of reality -- and St. John the divine employs the literary device
in comparison to Christ with much success amongst the Greeks as well.
It is important to note that, within the context of texts which you have quoted below, it seems to
be, at least on some major points, that St. Augustine was engaging in a close examination of
something very similar to Anaximander of Miletus' concept of the apeiron (indefinable).
Anaximander conceived the apeiron as some endless, unlimited mass, subject to neither old age
nor decay -- which perpetually yields fresh materials from which everything we can perceive is
derived. Although, based on the fragments we possess today, he never defined this principle
precisely, it has generally been understood as a sort of primal chaos based on Aristotle's and St.
Augustine's comments of it -- and this periodically coming from other sources which have cited
Anaximander's ideas, such as Cicero.
And what is it? I asked the earth, and it answered me, "I am not He." And whatever is in
the earth confessed the same. I asked the sea and its deeps, and the living, creeping things, and
they answered, "We are not your God; seek Him above us." I asked the moving air; and the
whole air with its inhabitants answered, "Anaximenes was deceived; I am not God."
Most scholars agree that St. Augustine's reference to Anaximenes was being contrasted to
Cicero's account found in On the Nature of the Gods:
After Anaximander came Anaximenes, who taught that the air is God.
In this sense, the apeiron was supposed to in some way embrace the opposites of hot and cold,
wet and dry, and directed the movement of things, by which there grew up all of the host of
shapes and differences which are found in the world. What is known of the conception of the
aperion is that Anaximander offered up the theory in direct response to the earlier theory of
Thales, who had claimed that the primary substance was water. Anaximander basically reasons
that water cannot embrace all of the opposites found in nature -- for example, water can only be
wet, never dry -- and therefore, it can not be the one primary substance.
That everything was somehow formed from water seems to be a universal concept found in
various ways in the thoughts of the ancients. As but one example, consider an Egyptian Creation
myth from c. 2500 B.C.
In the beginning, only the ocean existed, upon which there appeared an egg. Out of the egg
came the sun-god and from himself he begat four children: Shu and Tefnut, Keb and Nut.
Likewise, even the Hebrew Scriptures seems to express a similar thought within the Genesis
account of creation.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and
the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Shortly after this passage, again found within the Hebrew Scriptures, the actions of the waters
seems to play a key role in the earth's formation..
And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from
water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water
above it. And it was so.
My personal opinion is that this passage could be referring to some primordial fission taking place
within the universe's earliest moments -- maybe.
Later, within the Christian Scriptures, St. Peter seems to echo a similar thought and even casts a
warning to those who would deliberately overlook this information.
But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth
was formed out of water and by water.
2 Peter 3:5
Exactly what the Scriptures refer to here seems to be a mystery.
However, I suppose it's not too far of a stretch to discern, employing modern science, that some
primordial event is being described where superheavy waters were being impacted against other
superheavy waters within something akin to some universally-sized particle accelarator --
powered up by God to energy levels surpassing 2.5x10**79 GeV and eventually, by God's
direction, leading to the cataclysmic transmutation of the very elements within which we see that
he formed life from.
His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.
In the very beginning there was a void?
A curious form of vacuum?
A nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound?
Yet the laws of nature were apparently in place -- and this curious vacuum held potential. Out of
this energy, matter emerged a dense plasma of particles that dissolved into radiation and back to
matter. Particles collided and gave birth to new particles. Space and time boiled and foamed as
black holes formed and dissolved.
