Hexaemeron 3

The works of the first day — or rather, of "the one";

for let us by no means take from it the dignity which it has in its nature, given by the Creator on its own account, not numbered in arrangement with the others;

nevertheless, since the discourse yesterday went over the things that came to be in it and, dividing its exposition for the hearers, made the morning the nourishment of souls and the evening their gladness, it now passes on to the wonders of the second day.

And I say this not referring to the power of the expositor, but to the grace of the things written, which has by nature a ready acceptability, and is agreeable and dear to every heart that prefers the true to the merely plausible;

in keeping with which the psalmist also, most emphatically setting forth the sweetness that comes from the truth, says: "How sweet are your words to my throat, more than honey to my mouth!"

Yesterday, then, having as far as was possible gladdened your souls by the discourse concerning the words of God, we have met again today, on the second day, to behold the wonders of the works of the second day.

But indeed it has not escaped me that many artisans of the manual trades, who gladly provide their food for themselves from their daily labor, stand around us, and who would have us shorten the discourse, lest they be drawn away too long from their work.

To these what do I say? That the portion of time lent to God is not lost, but is repaid by Him with a great addition.

For indeed all the circumstances that breed hindrance to work, these the Lord will set aside;

giving to the body vigor, to the soul eagerness, ease in transactions, and prosperity in all of life, to those who count spiritual things the more precious.

And even if at present what we strive for should not turn out according to our hopes, still, for the age that comes next, the teaching of the Spirit is a good treasure.

Take away, then, from your heart all anxiety of life, and gather yourself wholly here to me.

For there is no benefit in the presence of the body, when your heart is toiling over the earthly treasure.

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it be dividing between water and water."

Already yesterday too we heard words of God: "Let there be light."

And today: "Let there be a firmament."

But the present passage seems to have something more, in that the discourse did not remain in the bare command, but also further specified the cause for which the making of the firmament is sought.

"That it may divide," it says, "between water and water."

First, then, taking up the question, let us inquire how God speaks.

Is it after our manner — first the impression from things arises in the understanding, then, after the imagining, choosing from the underlying objects the meanings proper and fitting to each, one declares them; then, committing the things conceived to the service of the vocal organs, one makes the inner thought clear through the shaping of the air, according to the articulate movement of the voice? And how is it not absurd to say that God needs such a process for the disclosure of His thoughts? Or is it more reverent to say that the divine will and the first impulse of the intellectual movement — this is the Word of God? And Scripture figures Him discursively, in order to show that God willed not merely that the creation come to be, but also that it be brought into being through some co-worker.

For He could have, as He said at the beginning, dealt with all things summarily: "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth";

then, "He made the firmament";

but now, by introducing God commanding and conversing, Scripture intimates by way of silence the one to whom He commands and with whom He converses — not grudging us the knowledge, but kindling us toward longing, through which it suggests certain traces and intimations of the ineffable.

For what is gained with toil is received with great joy and guarded with care;

but of those things whose acquisition is easy, the possession is held in contempt.

For this reason, by a certain way and order, He leads us forward to the notion concerning the Only-Begotten.

And yet, even so, there was no need of spoken word for the incorporeal nature, since the very things conceived could be imparted to the co-worker.

So what need of speech for those who can communicate their counsels to one another from the thought itself? For voice is 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 up to the common perception in the head, there is no need of words either, but the imparting of the will from the very thoughts in the heart, so to speak.

As I said, then, in order to rouse our mind to the search for the person to whom the words are addressed, this figure of speech has been adopted wisely and skillfully.

Second, we must examine whether this firmament is other than the heaven made in the beginning — it too being called heaven — and whether there are altogether two heavens;

which those who have philosophized about the heaven would rather give up their tongues than accept as true.

For they suppose one heaven, and that it has no nature for a second, or third, or many more to come to be, since the whole substance of the heavenly body has been used up, as they think, in the constitution of the one.

For they say the circularly-moving body is one, and this finite;

and if it has been wholly used up on the first heaven, nothing remains for the generation of a second or third.

These things, then, those imagine who introduce unbegotten matter alongside the Creator, being carried from their first mythmaking to the falsehood that follows;

but we ask the wise men of the Greeks not to ridicule us before they have settled their disputes with one another.

For there are among them some who say there are infinite heavens and worlds; and when those who employ weightier proofs refute the implausibility of this, and by geometrical necessities establish that it is not in nature for another heaven to come to be beside the one, then we shall laugh all the more at their linear and artful nonsense — if, seeing bubbles produced by a like cause both one and many, they then doubt about more heavens, whether the creative power suffices to bring them into being.

Whose strength and magnitude we reckon to differ in nothing from the hollow moisture that is blown up to a swelling in the fountains, when we look to the surpassing greatness of God's power.

So that their argument from impossibility is ridiculous to them.

But we are so far from disbelieving in a second heaven, that we even seek out the third, of the sight of which the blessed Paul was deemed worthy.

And the psalm, naming "heavens of heavens," has implanted in us the notion of yet more.

Nor surely are these things more paradoxical than the seven circles, along which the seven stars are agreed by almost all to be borne, which they also say are fitted one within another, after the image of vessels set one inside another.

And these, borne in a direction contrary to the whole, with the aether cleft apart by them, render a certain melodious and harmonious sound, so as to surpass all the pleasure in melodies.

Then, when those who say these things are required to give the assurance of sense-perception, what do they say? That because of the habituation from the beginning, having been accustomed to the sound from our first coming into being, by much practice in hearing we have lost the perception of it;

like those who in the smithies are continually battered on the ears.

To refute the sophistical and rotten character of these notions, so plainly evident to all from the first hearing, is not the part of a man who knows how to spare time, nor of one who has regard to the understanding of his hearers.

But leaving the things of those outside to those outside, we return to the ecclesiastical discourse.

It has been said, then, by some of those before us, that this is not the generation of a second heaven, but the further explanation of the former — because there the making of heaven and earth was delivered summarily, while here Scripture delivers to us more elaborately the manner in which each came to be.

But we say that, since both a different name and a distinct use of the second heaven have been delivered, this one is other than the one made in the beginning, of a more solid nature, and furnishing an exceptional use to the universe.

"Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it be dividing between water and water."

"And God made the firmament;"

"and God divided between the water which was below the firmament and the water which was above the firmament."

And before laying hold of the meaning of the things written, let us try to resolve the objection brought against us by others.

For they ask us: if the body of the firmament is spherical, as sight shows, and water is fluid and slips off high places, how could it have been settled upon the convex surface of the firmament? What then shall we say to this? That above all, it is not necessary, if something round appears to us on the inner concavity, that for this reason the outer surface too must be finished spherically, and the whole accurately turned and smoothly rounded;

since indeed we see the stone roofs of the baths and the constructions of cavern-like buildings, which, rounded into a semicircular shape according to the inner view, often have a level surface on the upper part of the roof.

So that on this account at least let them neither have trouble themselves, nor cause us trouble, as though we were unable to hold the water in the upper regions.

Next it would be to say what is the nature of the firmament, and for what cause it was appointed to mediate between the waters.

The name "firmament" Scripture is accustomed to apply to things surpassing in strength;

as when it says, "The Lord is my firmament and my refuge";

and, "I have made firm her pillars";

and the verse, "Praise Him in the firmament of His power."

For those outside call a solid body that which is, as it were, compact and full, which is said in contradistinction to the mathematical.

And the mathematical is that which has its being in dimensions alone — in breadth, I mean, and depth, and height;

but the solid is that which, in addition to the dimensions, has also resistance.

But for Scripture it is customary to call "firmament" the strong and unyielding, as it has often used this word even of air that has been condensed;

for the firmness and resistance of the wind enclosed in the hollows of the clouds, which, because it bursts forth violently, produces the sounds in thunder, Scripture has called "the firmament of thunder."

And now, then, we hold that this word has been assigned to a certain firm nature, sufficient to hold back the slippery and easily-dissolved character of the water.

And by no means, because according to the common acceptation it seems to have had its origin from water, ought we to think it fitting that it be like frozen water, or like some such material taking its beginning from the filtering of moisture — such as is the nature of crystal stone, which they say is transformed by an excessive freezing of water, or the nature of mica (selenite) forming in mines.

For it is a translucent stone, possessing a peculiar and most pure transparency, which, if it be found exact according to its own nature, neither eaten away by any rot nor cracked through in depth by fissures, comes near to air in its translucency.

To none of these things, then, do we liken the firmament.

For it is truly the mark of a childish and simple mind to hold such suppositions about the heavenly things.

Nor yet, even if all things are in all — fire in earth, air in water, and likewise the one in the other of the rest —

and none of the elements that fall under sense-perception is pure and unmixed, apart from communion either with the intermediate or with the opposite;

for this reason we admit to say that the firmament exists either out of one of the simple bodies, or as the mixture of these, having been taught by Scripture not to permit our mind to imagine anything beyond what is conceded.

And let not this also pass by us unmarked, that after God commanded, "Let there be a firmament," it was not said simply, "and there came to be a firmament";

but, "And God made the firmament";

and again, "God divided."

"You deaf, hear; and you blind, look up and see."

And who is deaf, but he who does not hear the Spirit crying out so loudly? And who is blind? He who does not see, in such evident demonstrations, the things concerning the Only-Begotten.

This is the voice of the originating cause:

"God made the firmament."

This is the testimony of the productive and creative power.

But let us bring the discourse back to the continuous course of the exposition.

"Let it be dividing," it says, "between water and water."

The flood of the waters was, as it seems, boundless, surging over the earth on every side and suspended about it;

so that it seemed even to exceed the due proportion to the other elements.

For this reason it was said in the preceding passage that the abyss was cast about the earth on every side.

And the cause of the abundance we shall render in what follows.

And surely none of you, not even of those whose minds are very well trained and who are keen-sighted concerning this corruptible and flowing nature, will assail the opinion as though we were positing things impossible or fabulous in our account;

nor will demand of us an accounting, on what the nature of the waters was set.

For by the same reasoning by which they suspend the earth, though it is heavier than water, leading it away from the center toward the extremities, by that very same reasoning they will surely also concede that that vast water, both because of its natural downward movement and because of its equilibrium on every side, rests immovable about the earth.

The nature of the water, then, was poured around the earth in immense quantity, not in due proportion to it, but exceeding it many times over — the great Artificer having thus from the beginning foreseen what was to come, and disposed the first things on account of their subsequent use.

What need, then, was there for the water to exceed in such unspeakable quantity? Because the substance of fire is necessary to the universe, not only for the management of earthly things, but also for the completion of the whole.

For the whole would be maimed, lacking the one greatest and most vital of all.

But these are opposed to one another, and each is destructive of the other;

fire of water, when it prevails in power;

water of fire, when it exceeds in quantity.

Now it was necessary that there be neither strife between them, nor, in the utter failing of one, occasion given to the universe for dissolution.

He who orders the universe laid up beforehand so great a nature of moisture, that, being little by little consumed by the power of fire, it might hold out until the appointed limits of the world's constitution.

He, then, who has arranged all things by weight and measure (for to Him, according to Job, even the drops of rain are numbered), knew how much time He had marked off for the world's endurance, and how great an expense He must lay up beforehand for the fire.

This is the reason for the abundance of water in the creation.

But indeed, as for fire's being necessary to the world, no one is so utterly outside of life as to need teaching from the discourse on this;

not only because the arts that sustain our life all require the working of fire — weaving, I mean, and shoemaking, and building, and farming — but also because neither the budding of trees, nor the ripening of fruits, nor the generation of land or water animals, nor the nourishment of these, could either have come into being from the start, or have endured for any time, were the heat not present.

Necessary, then, is the creation of heat, for the constitution and endurance of the things that come to be;

and necessary the abundance of moisture, because of the unceasing and unavoidable expending of the fire.

Look around at all creation, and you will see the power of heat holding sway over all things in generation and corruption.

For this reason the water is much, poured out over the earth, and carried away beyond the things seen, and moreover scattered throughout the whole depth of the earth.

Whence the abundance of springs, and the confluences of wells, and the streams of rivers, both torrents and ever-flowing, that the moisture might be preserved in many and varied storehouses.

From the east, then: from the winter solstice the river Indus flows, a stream the greatest of all river-waters, as those who write the surveys of the earth have recorded;

and from the middle regions of the sunrise flow the Bactrus, the Choaspes, and the Araxes, from which the Tanais also branches off and issues into the Maeotic lake.

And besides these, the Phasis, flowing down from the Caucasian mountains, and ten thousand others from the northern regions, are borne to the Euxine Sea (the Black Sea).

From the west, from the summer regions, under the Pyrenean mountain, are the Tartessus and the Ister;

of which the one is discharged into the sea beyond the Pillars (of Hercules);

and the Ister, flowing through Europe, empties into the Pontus (the Black Sea).

And what need is there to enumerate the others which the Rhipaean mountains beget — the mountains beyond innermost Scythia? Among which is also the Rhone, with ten thousand other rivers, themselves navigable, which, after passing by the western Galatians (Gauls) and Celts, and the barbarians neighboring upon them, all pour themselves into the western sea.

Others from the south, from above through Ethiopia: some come to the sea over against us;

others discharge into the sea beyond the navigable one;

the Aegon and the Nyses and the so-called Chremetes, and besides these also the Nile, which does not even resemble rivers in nature, when it floods Egypt like a sea spreading abroad.

Thus the place of our inhabited world is encompassed with water, bound about with boundless seas and watered by ten thousand ever-flowing rivers, through the unspeakable wisdom of Him who ordered that the nature opposed to fire be hard to use up.

Yet there will be a time when even all things shall be burned up by fire, as Isaiah says in the passage where he converses with the God of all:

"He who says to the abyss, You shall be made desolate, and all your rivers I will dry up."

So that, having cast away the wisdom that has been made foolish, receive with us the schooling of the truth, plain in word, but unfailing in knowledge.

For this reason, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it be dividing between water and water."

It has been said what is signified in Scripture by the name "firmament";

that it does not call "firmament" the resisting and solid nature, the one having weight and counter-pressure;

or else in that way the earth would more properly have been deemed worthy of such a name.

But because the nature of the things above is fine and rare and apprehensible by no sense, He named this "firmament," in comparison with the most subtle things, imperceptible to sense.

And conceive for me some place that distinguishes the moisture;

letting the fine and filtered part pass through to the upper regions, and sending down the thicker and earthy part to the lower, so that from beginning to end the same good temperature may be preserved, the withdrawal of the moisture taking place little by little.

But you disbelieve the multitude of the water, yet you do not look to the multitude of the heat;

which, even if it be small in magnitude, is, on account of its power, consumptive of much moisture.

For it draws to itself the moisture lying near, as the cupping-glass shows;

and it is consumptive of what is drawn, after the image of the lamp's fire, which, having drawn to itself the nourishment lying near through the wick, quickly turns it to ash by transformation.

And who doubts that the aether is fiery and burning? Which, if it were not held in check by the necessary limit set by Him who made it, what would have prevented it, blazing and burning up everything contiguous, from consuming together at once all the moisture in existing things? For these reasons there is aerial water, the upper region being clouded over from the rising of the vapors which the rivers and springs and marshes and lakes and seas all send up, lest the aether, setting all on fire, should lay hold of everything;

since indeed we see this very sun, in the summer season, often leaving an utterly waterless and dry land out of one that was sodden and marshy, in a very brief instant of time.

Where, then, is that water? Let those clever at everything show us.

Is it not plain to everyone that, evaporated by the heat of the sun, it was consumed? And yet those men say that the sun is not even hot;

so great is their excess of talking.

And consider on what sort of proof they rely while they oppose the plain evidence.

Since it is white, they say, in color, but not reddish nor yellow, for this reason it is not even fiery in nature;

but its heat, too, they say, comes from its swift revolution.

What do they contrive for themselves from this? That the sun may seem to consume nothing of the moist things.

But even if what is said be not true, yet, as helping to establish my argument, I do not reject it.

For it was being said that, because of the expending by the heat, the multitude of the waters is necessary.

And it makes no difference whether it be hot by nature, or have its burning from an affection, with regard at least to producing the same results about the same materials.

For whether pieces of wood, rubbed against one another, kindle fire and flame, or be burned up by a flame kindled from elsewhere, the end from both is equal and alike.

And yet we see the great wisdom of Him who governs all things transferring the sun from one region to others, lest, by always lingering on the same places, it should ruin the good ordering by the excess of heat;

but now leading it away to the southern part at the winter solstice, now transferring it to the equinoctial points, and thence bringing it back to the northern regions at the summer solstice, so that by its gradual transition the good temperature about the earth may be preserved.

And let them consider whether they do not fall into self-contradiction, those who say that the sea neither overflows with the rivers because of the consuming by the sun, and moreover is left salty and bitter, the fine and drinkable part having been consumed by the heat;

which comes about chiefly from the sun's separation, as it carries off the light part, but leaves behind the thick and earthy part like a kind of mud and sediment;

from which the bitter and salty and drying quality belongs to the sea.

These very men, then, who say these things about the sea, changing again, say that there comes about no diminution of the moisture from the sun.

"And God called the firmament Heaven";

as the appellation strictly fits another, but this one too partakes of the name by way of likeness.

And we have observed in many places the visible region being called heaven (because of the compactness and continuity of the air evidently falling under our sight, and being deemed worthy of the appellation "heaven" from its being seen), in the passages where it says, "The birds of heaven";

"The things that fly along the firmament of heaven."

Of this sort 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 solstices of the sun, and from the conjunctions of the months, and from the top of the mountains and the everlasting hills," as the region about the earth flourishes through the good ordering in these things.

But also in the curses upon Israel: "The heaven over your head," He says, "shall be of bronze."

What does He mean by saying this? The utter dryness and the failing of the aerial waters, through which the fruitfulness of crops is present to the earth.

When, then, it says that dew or rain is borne from heaven, we understand it of the waters which have been appointed to occupy the upper region.

For when the exhalations are gathered about the height, and the air is condensed by the compressions from the winds, then, when the moistures that till then were scattered through the cloud in a vaporous and fine manner come close to one another, they become drops, borne downward by the weight of the things combined;

but when the moisture is whipped into foam, broken up by the violences of the winds, then frozen at the surface and congealed wholly throughout, the cloud being shattered, snow comes down.

And in general, by the same reasoning, you may see the whole nature of the moist gathering together about the air over our heads.

And let no one compare the simplicity and unembellished character of the spiritual discourses with the curious subtleties of those who have philosophized about the heaven.

For by as much as the beauty in modest women is more to be preferred than that of the harlot, by so much also is the difference of our discourses from those outside.

For they bring in to their discourses a forced plausibility;

but here the truth lies open, naked of artifices.

And what need is there for us to take trouble in refuting their falsehood, when it suffices to set their very own books over against one another and to sit in great quiet as spectators of their war? For neither fewer in number, nor inferior in repute, but far surpassing in many voices, they range themselves against the opposing argument — those who say that the universe is consumed by fire, and lives again out of the seminal principles remaining in the things burned up;

whence they also introduce infinite corruptions of the world and regenerations.

But those men, splintering off to either side of the truth, on this side and that find out for themselves deviations into error.

But for us there is also a certain argument against those from the Church concerning the divided waters — those who, on the pretext of an anagogical interpretation and of loftier meanings, took refuge in allegories, saying that spiritual and incorporeal powers are figuratively signified by the waters;

and that above, upon the firmament, the better powers remained, while below, in the earthly and material places, the wicked ones were left behind.

For this reason, they say, even the waters above the heavens praise God;

that is, the good powers, being worthy by reason of the purity of their ruling faculty, render the fitting praise to the Creator;

but the waters below the heavens are the spiritual hosts of wickedness, fallen from their natural height into the depth of evil;

which, as being turbulent and seditious and tossed by the tumults of the passions, were named "sea" because of the changeableness and instability of their movements according to choice.

Dismissing such interpretations as comparisons of dreams and old wives' tales, let us understand water as water, and let us accept the division made by the firmament according to the cause assigned.

And indeed, even if the waters above the heavens are sometimes taken up into the doxology of the common Lord of all, we do not on that account posit them to be a rational nature.

For neither are the heavens animate, because "they declare the glory of God";

nor is the firmament a sentient living being, because it "proclaims the work of His hands."

And if anyone should say that the heavens are the contemplative powers, and the firmament the practical and productive of duties, we accept the saying as elegantly turned, but we shall not altogether grant it to be true.

For in that way dew also, and frost, and cold, and heat, since they were commanded in Daniel to hymn the Creator of all, would be some intelligent and invisible nature.

But the meaning in these passages, taken contemplatively by those who have understanding, is completive of the doxology of the Creator.

For not only does the water above the heavens, as foremost in honor on account of the excellence belonging to it from virtue, fulfill the praise to God, but, "Praise Him," it says, "also you things from the earth, you sea-monsters and all you abysses."

So that even the abyss, which the allegorizers cast into the worse portion, was not judged to be cast-off by the psalmist, but was taken into the common choir of creation; and it too, according to the principles inherent in it, harmoniously completes the hymnody to the Maker.

"And God saw that it was good."

It is not that the things made by Him afford delight to the eyes of God, nor is the acceptance of good things with Him such as it is with us;

but good is that which is accomplished by the principle of the art, and tends toward the usefulness of its end.

He, then, who set before Himself a clear aim of the things made, went over the things made in their particulars, as completive of the end, by His own artistic principles, and approved them.

Since indeed a hand by itself, and an eye separately, and each of the members of a statue lying divided apart, would not appear beautiful to the chance beholder;

but when set down in their proper order, the result of the proportion, becoming manifest only at last, with difficulty makes itself known even to the layman.

The artificer, however, even before the composition, knows the beauty of each part, and praises the things severally, referring his thought to their end.

Such a one, then, as a skilled praiser of the particular works, is God now recorded to be;

and He is about to fulfill the fitting praise also for the whole world together, when it has been completed.

But indeed let our discourses concerning the second day come to a stop here, so as to afford the diligent hearers an opportunity for the examination of what they have heard, that if there be anything useful in them, this they may hold fast in memory, and through diligent meditation, as through a kind of digestion, await the distribution of the profitable things;

and to those occupied with life's affairs, to give leisure, that during the intervening time, having disposed of their cares, with a soul pure from anxieties they may come to the evening banquet of the discourses.

And may God, who created the great things and ordained these small things to be spoken, give you understanding in all things of His own truth, that from the things seen you may conceive the Invisible, and from the magnitude and beauty of the creatures may take up the fitting glory concerning Him who created us.

"For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, both His eternal power and Godhead"; so that in earth, and in air, and in heaven, and in water, and in night, and in day, and in all things seen, we may take up clear reminders of our Benefactor.

For neither shall we give any occasion to sins, nor leave a place for the enemy in our hearts, having God dwelling within us through continual remembrance;

to whom be all glory and worship, now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages.