St. Basil's scepticism of the Greeks

"The wise men of the Greeks wrote many works about nature, but not one account among them remained unaltered and firmly established, for the later account always overthrew the preceding one. As a consequence, there is no need for us to refute their words; they avail mutually for their own undoing. Those, in fact, who could not recognize God, did not concede that a rational cause was the author of the creation of the universe, but they drew their successive conclusions in a manner in keeping with their initial ignorance. For this reason some had recourse to material origins, referring the beginning of the universe to the elements of the world; and others imagined that the nature of visible things consisted of atoms and indivisible particles, of molecules and interstices; indeed, that, as the indivisible particles now united with each other and now separated, there were produced generations and deteriorations; and that the stronger union of the atoms of the more durable bodies was the cause of their permanence. Truly, it is a spider's web that these writers weave, who suggest such weak and unsubstantial beginnings of the heavens and earth and sea. It is because they did not know how to say: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' They were deceived by the godlessness present within them into thinking that the universe was without guide and without rule, as if borne around by chance. In order that we might not suffer this error, he who described the creation of the world immediately, in the very first words, enlightened our mind with the name of God, saying: 'In the beginning God created.'"

From: St. Basil, Saint Basil: Exigetic Homilies, "Homily One On the Hexameron", Trans. by Sr. Agnes Clare Way, Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1963, pp.5-6.