XXX. (156) What, then, is the proof that they had not entirely completed this building? First of all, the manifest notoriety of the fact. For it is impossible for even so slight a portion of the earth to touch the heaven, by reason of the cause beforementioned, that no centre can ever touch the circumference; in the second place, because the aether aitheµr is sacred fire and an unquenchable flame, as its very name shows, being derived from aithoµ, to burn, which is a synonymous word with kaioµ. (157) And we have a witness in our favour in one portion of the heavenly system of fire, that is in the sun, who, though he is at such a distance from the earth, sends his beams down into his inmost recesses, and sometimes warms and at times even scorches the earth itself, and the air which reaches from earth up to the heavenly sphere, though it is by nature cold; for, all those things which are removed to a distance from his rapid course, or which are in an oblique direction, one side of it only warms; but those which are near to him, or in a direct line from him, is violently burnt up. If, then, these things are so, was it not necessary that those men who were endeavouring to mount up to heaven must have been stricken with thunderbolts and burnt up, their high-minded and proud designs being unaccomplished by them? (158) This is the meaning which Moses appears to intend to convey, figuratively, by the expressions which follow: “For they ceased,” says, he, “to build the city and the Tower.”{47}{genesis 11:8.} Not, indeed, because they had finished their work, but because they were prevented from accomplishing it by the confusion which supervened. Nevertheless, they have not escaped blame for their actions, inasmuch as they had decided on them and attempted to carry them out.
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