Creation Read Free Page A

nothing .He believes that all space is filled with something, even if we cannot see it—the wind, for instance. He is most interesting (and atheistic!) about birth and death.
    “The Greeks,” he has written, “have a wrong conception of becoming and perishing. Nothing comes to be or perishes, but there is mixture and separation of things that exist. Thus they ought properly to speak of generation as mixture, and extinction as separation.” This is acceptable. But what are these “things”? What makes them come together and go apart? How and when and why were they created? By whom? For me, there is only one subject worth pondering—creation.
    In answer, Anaxagoras has come up with the word mind. “Originally, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, all things were at rest. Then mind set them in order.” Then those things ( what are they? where are they? why are they?) started to rotate.
    One of the largest things is a hot stone that we call the sun. When Anaxagoras was very young, he predicted that sooner or later a piece of the sun would break off and fall to earth. Twenty years ago, he was proved right. The whole world saw a fragment of the sun fall in a fiery arc through the sky, landing near Aegospotami in Thrace. When the fiery fragment cooled, it proved to be nothing more than a chunk of brown rock. Overnight Anaxagoras was famous. Today his book is read everywhere. You can buy a secondhand copy in the Agora for a drachma.
    Pericles invited Anaxagoras to Athens and gave him a small pension, which currently supports the sophist and his family. Needless to say, conservatives hate him almost as much as they do Pericles. Whenever they wish to embarrass Pericles politically, they accuse his friend Anaxagoras of blasphemy and impiety and all the usual nonsense ... no, not nonsense for Anaxagoras is as much an atheist as all the other Greeks, but unlike the rest he is not a hypocrite. He is a serious man. He thinks hard about the nature of the universe, and without a knowledge of the Wise Lord you must think very hard indeed for otherwise nothing will ever make sense.
    Anaxagoras is about fifty years old. He is an Ionian Greek from a town called Clazomenae. He is small and fat, or so I am told by Democritus. He comes from a wealthy family. When his father died, he refused to administer the ancestral estate or hold political office. He was interested only in observing the natural world. Finally he turned over all his property to distant relatives and left home. When asked whether or not his native land concerned him at all, Anaxagoras said, “Oh, yes, my native land very much concerns me.” And he pointed to the sky. I forgive him this characteristic Greek gesture. They do like to show off.
    During the first table, as we dined on fresh rather than preserved fish, Anaxagoras was curious to know my reaction to the tales of Herodotus. I tried several times to answer him, but old Callias did most of the talking. I must indulge Callias because our invisible peace treaty is by no means popular with the Athenians. In fact, there is always a danger that our agreement will one day be renounced and I shall be obliged to move on, assuming that my ambassadorial status is recognized and I am not put to death. The Greeks do not honor ambassadors. Meanwhile, as co-author of the treaty, Callias is my protector.
    Callias described yet again the battle of Marathon. I am very tired of the Greek version of this incident. Needless to say, Callias fought with the bravery of Hercules. “Not that I was obliged to. I mean, I’m hereditary torch-bearer. I serve the mysteries of Demeter, the Great Goddess. At Eleusis. But you know all about that, don’t you?”
    “Indeed I do, Callias. We have that in common. Remember? I am also hereditary ... torchbearer.”
    “ You are?” Callias has not much memory for recent information. “Oh, yes. Of course. Fire -worship. Yes, very interesting, all that. You must let us watch one of your