Homilies on the Hexaemeron 3.1–3.9

The works of the first day, or rather of the one day (for let us not take from it the dignity it has by nature, given out by the Creator as a day by itself and not numbered in rank with the others): since yesterday our discourse went through the things that came to be in it, dividing the explanation for the hearers and making one part the morning food of souls and the other their evening delight, it now passes on to the wonders of the second day. I say this not with reference to the power of the one who explains, but to the grace of what is written, which by nature is easy to receive, and gentle and dear to every heart that prefers the true to the plausible. So too the Psalmist, presenting most expressively the sweetness that comes from truth, says: "How sweet are your words to my throat, more than honey to my mouth!" Yesterday, then, having gladdened your souls as far as we could by dwelling on the words of God, we have met again today on the second day, to look at the wonders of the works of the second day. But it has not escaped me that many craftsmen of the manual trades, content to provide their food from their daily work, stand around us and cut our discourse short, so as not to be drawn away from their work for long. What do I say to them? That the part of your time lent to God is not lost, but is paid back by him with great interest. For whatever circumstances cause hindrances, the Lord will send them away, giving strength to the body, eagerness to the soul, ease in business dealings, and prosperity in the whole of life to those who put spiritual things first. And even if in the present our efforts do not turn out as we hope, yet for the age to come the teaching of the Spirit is a good treasure. Take away, then, from your heart every care of this life, and gather your whole self here for me. For the presence of the body is no use while your heart toils over earthly treasure.

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water." Yesterday too we heard words of God, "Let there be light," and today, "Let there be a firmament." What is before us seems to contain something more, because the word did not stop at the bare command, but also specified the reason for which the making of the firmament is required: "that it may divide," he says, "between water and water." First, then, let us take the matter up again and ask how God speaks. Is it in our way? Does an impression from things first arise in his mind; then, after it has been imagined, does he announce it, choosing from the subjects the proper and fitting signs for each; then, handing over what he has thought to the service of the vocal organs, does he so make the hidden thought plain by the striking of the air, according to the articulate movement of the voice? And how is it not mythical to say that God needs such a roundabout way to make his thoughts known? Or is it more pious to say that the divine will and the first impulse of his intellectual movement, this is the Word of God? Scripture presents him in narrative form in order to show that God not only willed creation to come into being, but that it was brought into being through some fellow worker. For it could have told of all things as it said at the beginning, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth"; then, "He made the light"; then, "He made the firmament." But now, by introducing God giving commands and speaking, it hints in silence at the one to whom he gives the command and with whom he speaks. It does not grudge us the knowledge, but kindles us to longing, by putting before us certain traces and glimpses of the mystery. For what is gained by toil is received with great joy and guarded with diligence, whereas things that are easily acquired are lightly regarded once possessed. That is why it leads us by a certain path and order to the thought of the Only-begotten. And yet even so the incorporeal nature had no need of a spoken word, since the thoughts themselves could be shared with the fellow worker. For what need of speech have those who can share their counsels with one another from the very thought? Voice exists for the sake of hearing, and hearing for the sake of voice; but where there is no air, no tongue, no ear, no winding passage carrying sounds to perception in the head, there is no need of words either; the communication of the will comes, as one might say, from the very thoughts in the heart. As I said, then, it is in order to rouse our mind to search for the person to whom the words are addressed that this form of speech has been adopted, wisely and skillfully.

The second thing to examine is whether this firmament, which was itself also called heaven, is something other than the heaven made in the beginning, and whether there are two heavens at all, which those who have philosophized about heaven would rather lose their tongues than accept as true. For they posit one heaven, and say that it is not in its nature for a second, or a third, or many to come into being, since the whole substance of the heavenly body has been used up in the constitution of the one, as this too is limited; so that, once it was completed together with the first heaven, nothing was left over for the coming into being of a second or a third. This is what those imagine who bring in an unbegotten matter beside the Creator, carried along from their first mythmaking to the falsehood that follows from it. But we ask the wise men among the Greeks not to mock us before they have settled matters among themselves. For there are among them some who say that there are infinite heavens and worlds. When those who use weightier demonstrations refute the implausibility of these men's view and establish by geometrical necessities that it is not in nature for another heaven to come into being, then we laugh all the more at their linear and technical nonsense, if, seeing that bubbles are formed both one and many from the same cause, they then doubt about more heavens, whether the creative power suffices to bring them into being. Their strength and size, we think, differ in no way from the hollow drop that is puffed up in the fountains, when we look to the surpassing greatness of the power of God. So their talk of impossibility is laughable. But we are so far from disbelieving in a second heaven that we even inquire about the third, the sight of which the blessed Paul was counted worthy. And the psalm, by naming "heavens of heavens," has given us the idea of still more. Surely these things are no more incredible than the seven circles along which, almost all agree, the seven stars are carried, which they say are fitted one within another, after the image of jars set one inside another. And these, they say, carried in the direction opposite to the universe and cleaving the ether, give out a melodious and harmonious sound, so as to surpass all the pleasure of melodies. Then, when those who say this are asked for the evidence of the senses, what do they say? That, being accustomed to the sound from the beginning and used to it from our first birth, we have lost the perception of it through long practice in hearing, like those in smithies whose ears are continually struck. To refute what is so sophistical and rotten, so plainly exposed to everyone at the first hearing, is not the part of a man who knows how to spare time or who has regard for the understanding of his hearers. But leaving the things of outsiders to outsiders, let us return to the teaching of the church. It has been said by some before us that this is not the coming into being of a second heaven, but a fuller explanation of the first, because there the making of heaven and earth was handed down in summary, while here Scripture hands down to us in more detail the manner in which each came into being. But we say that, since both a different name and a special function of the second heaven are handed down, this is another heaven besides the one made in the beginning, of a more solid nature, and providing a special service to the universe.

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water. And God made the firmament; and God divided between the water that was under the firmament and between the water that was above the firmament." Before touching the meaning of what is written, let us try to resolve the objection raised by others. They ask us: if the body of the firmament is spherical, as sight shows, and water is fluid and slides off high places, how could the water have been settled on the convex circumference of the firmament? What shall we say to this? First, that if something appears circular to us on its inner, concave side, it does not necessarily follow that its outer surface too is finished as a sphere and that the whole is exactly turned and smoothly rounded; for we see the stone ceilings of baths and the structures of cave-like buildings, which, though curved to a semicircular shape when seen from inside, often have a flat surface on the upper parts of the roof. So on this account let them neither have trouble themselves nor make trouble for us, as though we could not hold water in the upper regions. Next we must say what the nature of the firmament is, and for what reason it was appointed to stand between the waters. It is Scripture's custom to apply the name firmament to things surpassing in strength, as when it says, "The Lord is my firmament and my refuge"; and, "I have made firm its pillars"; and, "Praise him in the firmament of his power." The outside writers call that a solid body which is, as it were, compact and full; it is so called in contrast to the mathematical. The mathematical is what has its being in the dimensions alone, in breadth, I mean, and depth and height, while the solid is what has resistance in addition to the dimensions. But it is Scripture's custom to call firmament what is strong and unyielding, so that it often uses this word even of condensed air, as when it says, "He who makes the thunder firm." For the firmness and resistance of the wind shut up in the hollows of the clouds, which produces the noises of thunder by violently bursting out, Scripture called the making firm of the thunder. So now too we think this word is applied to some firm nature able to hold in the slipperiness and easy dissolution of water. And surely, though in common understanding it seems to have had its origin from water, we should not think it is like frozen water, or some such substance taking its origin from the filtering of moisture, such as that of the crystal stone, which they say is transformed by an extreme congealing of water, or the nature of mica that forms in mines. This is a transparent stone with a peculiar and very pure transparency; if it is found perfect in its own nature, neither eaten away by any decay nor broken through in its depth by cracks, it is almost like the air in its clearness. To none of these do we liken the firmament. For it truly belongs to a childish and simple mind to hold such notions about heavenly things. Nor, even if all things are in all, fire in earth and air in water, and likewise the others one in another, and none of the elements that fall under the senses is pure and unmixed, without a share either in the intermediate element or in its opposite, do we on this account allow ourselves to declare that the firmament is made of one of the simple bodies or of a mixture of them, having been taught by Scripture to allow our mind to imagine nothing beyond what has been granted. And let this not pass us by unnoticed either: after God commanded, "Let there be a firmament," it is not said simply, "and a firmament came to be," but, "And God made the firmament," and again, "God divided." Hear, you deaf, and you blind, look up! And who is deaf, but the one who does not hear the Spirit crying out so loudly? And who is blind? The one who does not see such clear proofs about the Only-begotten. "Let there be a firmament": this is the voice of the primary cause. "God made the firmament": this is a testimony to the making and creative power.

But let us bring the discourse back to the continuation of the explanation. "Let it divide," he says, "between water and water." The outpouring of the waters was boundless, it seems, surging over the earth on every side and suspended around it, so that it seemed to exceed its due proportion to the other elements. That is why, earlier, the abyss was said to be cast around the earth on every side. We will give the reason for its abundance in what follows. But certainly none of you, not even those highly trained in mind and sharp-sighted about this perishing and flowing nature, will attack our view as positing impossible or fictitious things in the account, nor will demand an account from us of what the nature of the waters was settled upon. For by the same reasoning by which they suspend the earth, though it is heavier than water, bringing it away from the extremities to the middle, they will surely grant that that immense water too stays at rest around the earth, both because of its natural downward motion and because of the balance on all sides. So an immeasurable mass of water was poured around the earth, not in proportion to it, but exceeding it many times over, since the great Craftsman foresaw from the beginning what was to come and arranged the first things for the need that would follow. What need was there, then, for the water to exceed beyond telling? Because the substance of fire is necessary to the universe, not only for the management of things on the earth but also for the completion of the universe; for the whole would have been mutilated if it lacked the one element that is greatest and most vital of all. But these are opposed to each other, and each is destructive of the other: fire of water, when it prevails in power, and water of fire, when it exceeds in quantity. Yet there was to be neither strife between them, nor, through the total failure of one, an occasion given for the dissolution of the universe. So the one who governs the universe stored up beforehand so great a quantity of the moist nature that, consumed little by little by the power of fire, it could hold out until the appointed limits of the world's existence. He, then, who arranged all things by weight and measure (for "the drops of rain are numbered by him," according to Job) knew how much time he had set for the world to endure, and how much consumption he must store up beforehand for the fire. This is the reason for the abundance of water at the creation. And that fire is necessary to the world, no one is so entirely a stranger to life as to need instruction by argument: not only because all the arts that hold our life together need the work of fire, weaving, I mean, and shoemaking, building, and farming, but because neither the sprouting of trees, nor the ripening of fruits, nor the generation of land or water animals, nor their nourishment would have come about in the beginning or lasted for any time if heat were not present. So the creation of heat is necessary for the formation and permanence of the things that come to be, and the abundance of moisture is necessary because the consumption by fire is unceasing and inexorable.

Look around the whole creation, and you will see the power of heat holding sway over everything subject to coming-to-be and perishing. That is why much water is poured over the earth, and carried away beyond what we can see, and also sown throughout the whole depth of the earth. Hence the abundance of springs, the gatherings of wells, the streams of rivers, both torrents and ever-flowing ones, so that moisture may be kept in many and various storehouses. From the east, from the winter solstice, flows the river Indus, the greatest volume of all river waters, as those who write descriptions of the earth have recorded; from the middle of the east, the Bactrus, the Choaspes, and the Araxes, from which the Tanais branches off and flows out into Lake Maeotis; and besides these the Phasis, flowing down from the Caucasus mountains, and countless others are carried from the northern regions into the Euxine Sea. From the summer west, below the Pyrenees mountain, the Tartessus and the Ister: one of these empties into the sea outside the Pillars, while the Ister, flowing through Europe, discharges into the Pontus. And why need I list the others, which the Rhipaean mountains beyond inner Scythia give birth to? Among them is the Rhodanus, with countless other rivers, also navigable, which pass by the western Galatians and Celts and the barbarians who border them, and all pour into the western sea. Others from the south flow down through Ethiopia, some coming into our sea, others emptying into the sea outside the navigable one: the Aegon, the Nyses, the one called Chremetes, and besides these the Nile, which does not even resemble rivers in nature when it floods Egypt like a sea. So the region of the inhabited world we live in is encompassed by water, bound in by immeasurable seas and watered by countless ever-flowing rivers, through the unspeakable wisdom of the one who arranged that the nature opposed to fire should be hard to consume. Yet there will be a time when all things will be burned up by fire, as Isaiah says when he speaks to the God of all: "He who says to the abyss, You will be laid waste, and I will dry up all your rivers." So cast away the wisdom that has been made foolish, and accept with us the teaching of the truth, plain in its wording but unerring in its knowledge.

That is why: "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water." It has been said what the name firmament signifies in Scripture: that it does not call firmament the resistant and solid nature that has weight and offers support; otherwise the earth would more properly have been deemed worthy of this name. But because the nature of the things lying above is fine and thin and not perceptible to any sense, it named this a firmament by comparison with things very fine and imperceptible to sense. Picture, then, some place that separates the moisture, letting what is fine and filtered pass upward, and sending what is thickest and earthy down below, so that from the beginning to the end the same good balance may be preserved, as the moisture is taken away little by little. You disbelieve the great quantity of water, but you do not look to the quantity of heat, which, even if it is small in size, is able to consume a great deal of moisture because of its power. For it draws in the moisture near it, as the cupping glass shows, and it consumes what it has drawn, after the manner of the fire of a lamp, which draws up through the wick the fuel beside it and quickly turns it to ash by changing it. And who doubts that the ether is fiery and burning hot? If it were not held back by the necessary limit set by its maker, what would prevent it from setting everything ablaze and burning up all that adjoins it, consuming at once all the moisture in existing things? This is why there is airy water, as the upper region is clouded by the rising of vapors which rivers and springs and marshes and lakes and all the seas send up, so that the ether may not seize and set all things on fire. For we see even this sun of ours, in summertime, often leave a soaked and marshy country completely without moisture and dry in a very short time. Where, then, is that water? Let those who are clever at everything show us. Is it not plain to all that it has been turned to vapor and consumed by the heat of the sun? And yet they say that the sun is not even hot: such a surplus of talk do they have! And see what kind of proof they lean on in resisting what is evident. Because it is white in color, they say, and not reddish or yellow, therefore it is not fiery in nature either; but its heat too, they say, comes from its rapid revolution. What do they gain for themselves by this? That the sun should not seem to consume any moisture. But I, even if what they say is not true, do not reject it, since it helps to build up my argument. For it was said that the quantity of the waters is necessary because of the consumption caused by heat. And it makes no difference whether a thing is hot by nature or has its burning from being acted upon, so far as producing the same effects on the same materials is concerned. For whether pieces of wood rubbed against each other kindle fire and flame, or are burned by a flame set to them, the result of both is equal and alike. And besides, we see the great wisdom of the one who steers all things moving the sun from one region to another, so that by lingering always in the same places it may not ruin the order of things by an excess of heat; but now leading it to the southern part at the winter solstice, now moving it to the equinoctial signs, and from there bringing it back to the northern regions at the summer solstice, so that by its gradual passage the good balance of the region around the earth is preserved. Let them consider whether they are not contradicting themselves, who say that the sea does not overflow from the rivers because of the sun's consumption, and further that it is left salty and bitter because what is fine and drinkable has been consumed by the heat; which happens chiefly through the sun's power of separation, which carries off what is light and leaves behind what is thick and earthy, like a kind of mud and sediment; from which comes the bitterness, saltiness, and drying quality of the sea. Those who say these things about the sea change their ground again and say that no diminution of moisture comes about from the sun.

"And God called the firmament heaven." The name belongs properly to another, and this one shares in the title by likeness. We have observed that in many places the visible region is called heaven, because of the density and continuity of the air that falls clearly under our sight, and that it is deemed worthy of the name heaven from its being seen, as where it says, "The birds of heaven," and again, "The things that fly along the firmament of heaven." Of this kind too is the saying, "They go up to the heavens." And Moses, blessing the tribe of Joseph, gives the blessings from the seasons of heaven and from dew, and from the turnings of the sun and the conjunctions of the months, and from the top of the mountains and the everlasting hills, since the region around the earth flourishes through the good order of these things. And in the curses upon Israel too: "The heaven over your head," he says, "will be bronze for you." What does he mean by this? Complete drought and failure of the airy waters, through which the fruitfulness of crops is present in the earth. So when it says that dew or rain comes from heaven, we understand it of the waters that have been appointed to occupy the upper region. For when the exhalations are gathered on high and the air is condensed by the pressing of the winds, then, when the moisture that was until then scattered through the cloud in a thin, vaporous form comes together, drops are formed, carried downward by the weight of what has been compacted; and this is the coming into being of rain. And when the moisture is whipped into foam, beaten back by the force of the winds, and then, chilled to the extreme, freezes through and through, the cloud breaks and snow falls. And in general, by the same reasoning, you can see the whole nature of moisture forming in the air above our heads. And let no one compare the simple and unadorned style of the words of the Spirit with the elaborate inquiries of those who have philosophized about heaven. For as much as the beauty of chaste women is preferable to that of a harlot, so great is the difference between our words and those of outsiders. They bring a forced plausibility to their arguments; here the truth lies before us naked of artifice. And why need we trouble ourselves refuting their falsehood, when it is enough for us to set their own books against one another and sit in great quiet as spectators of their war? For neither fewer in number nor lower in reputation, but far surpassing them in noise, those who say that the universe is set on fire and comes to life again from the seminal principles that remain in what has been burned set themselves against the opposite view; whence they also introduce infinite destructions and rebirths of the world. But they, splitting off from the truth on either side, find for themselves on this side and on that the byways that lead to error.

We also have something to say, about the waters that were divided, to some from within the church who, on the pretext of a higher sense and loftier thoughts, have taken refuge in allegories, saying that spiritual, incorporeal powers are figuratively signified by the waters; that the better ones remained above, over the firmament, while the wicked ones were left below in the earthly and material regions. This is why, they say, the waters above the heavens also praise God: that is, the good powers, being worthy because of the purity of their ruling mind, render fitting praise to the Creator; while the waters below the heavens are the spirits of wickedness, which have fallen from their natural height into the depth of evil; and these, being turbulent and rebellious and tossed by the tumults of the passions, have been named sea because of the changeableness and instability of their voluntary movements. Let us dismiss such accounts as interpretations of dreams and old wives' tales, and let us understand water as water, and accept the division made by the firmament according to the reason that has been given. And indeed, even if the waters above the heavens are sometimes called upon to glorify the common Master of all, we do not on that account posit that they have a rational nature. For the heavens are not ensouled because they "tell the glory of God," nor is the firmament a perceiving living being because it "proclaims the work of his hands." And if anyone says that the heavens are the contemplative powers, and the firmament the active powers that produce what is fitting, we accept the account as clever, but we will not at all grant that it is true. For in that way dew and frost and cold and heat, since in Daniel they are commanded to sing the praises of the Creator of all, would be some intelligent and invisible nature. But the meaning in these passages, understood thoughtfully by those who have sense, is that they fill out the glorification of the Creator. For it is not only the water above the heavens, as though leading in honors because of a superiority belonging to it by virtue, that renders praise to God; but, "Praise him," he says, "you things of the earth, dragons and all abysses." So the abyss too, which the allegorizers cast away to the worse portion, was not judged rejected by the psalmist either, being taken into the common chorus of creation; but it too, according to the principles within it, harmoniously completes the hymn to the Maker.