But when the vessel is so placed that its mouth is not downward but tilted to the side, the water enters below while the air goes out above. Likewise, if the mouth of an upright vessel lies open toward the sky, when you pour in water the air escapes upward through the other parts where you are not pouring, and there comes to be a place for the water to enter downward. But if the vessel is pressed down with greater force, so that the waters suddenly flow in from the side or from above and cover the mouth of the vessel on every side, the air, striving upward, bursts them apart so as to make room for itself toward the bottom; and this very bursting is the gurgling of the vessels, while it escapes in parts, because it cannot all escape so quickly on account of the narrowness of that mouth.
So too, if the air is forced to pass over the waters, it scatters even those that flow together, when, driven by its impulse, they leap out and bubble up and send it forth with crackling bubbles as it hastens to its own place and gives them an opening to fall to the bottom. But if it is forced to go beneath the waters out of a vessel — so that, as it yields, you want the vessel pressed mouth-first into the depths to be filled — the vessel is more easily covered by the waves on every side than a tiny drop finds a place to enter through its mouth from the lower part. But who does not perceive that fire too, darting toward the heights, wills by its very nature to transcend the air itself? Since indeed, if anyone hold a burning torch head-downward, the tress of flame nonetheless strives toward the higher parts.
But since, by the overpowering density of the air that surrounds and overlies it, fire is presently extinguished and, overcome by its abundance, is presently changed and turned into its quality, it cannot endure to leap across the whole height of it. And so above the air pure fire is said to be heaven; whence they conjecture that even the stars and luminaries were made — that fiery light being, of course, gathered together and arranged into those forms which we behold in heaven. And through this, just as both air and water yield to the weights of the lands, so that they reach the earth, so to the weight of the waters the air itself yields, so that they reach either earth or water.
Whence they will it to be understood that in this manner it was necessary that even the air too — if anyone could release a particle of it in those lofty spaces of heaven — would fall by its own weight until it reached the airy spaces below. Wherefore they conclude that there can be far less place for waters above that fiery heaven, since there the air, far lighter than the waters, cannot remain. Yielding to such disputations of theirs, a certain man laudably attempted to demonstrate the waters above the heavens, so that from the very visible and conspicuous natures he might uphold the faith of Scripture.
And first indeed — which was easiest — he showed that this air too is called heaven, not only in common speech, according to which we say the sky is clear or cloudy, but also by the usage of our very own Scriptures, when the birds are called 'the birds of heaven,' since it is manifest that birds fly in this air; and the Lord, when He was speaking of the clouds, said: 'You can discern the face of the sky.' But clouds too we often see gathered together in the air near the earth, when they lie along the slopes of ridges, so that they are for the most part overtopped even by the summits of mountains.
When therefore he had proved that this air too is called heaven, he wished it to be thought called 'firmament' for no other reason than that its interval divides between certain vapours of the waters and those waters which flow more corporeally on the earth. For the clouds indeed — as those have experienced who have walked among them on the mountains — produce such an appearance by the gathering and massing together of the tiniest droplets; and if these are thickened further, so that many minute droplets are joined into one large one, the air does not suffer it to be held with itself, but gives way to its weight toward the bottom, and this is rain.
Therefore from the air, which is between the moist vapours — whence the clouds are massed together above — and the seas spread beneath, he wished to show that there is a heaven between water and water. This diligence and consideration, then, I judge most worthy of praise; for what he said is neither against the faith and can be believed on the strength of the evidence set before us. Although it may seem not to hinder the proper weights of the elements how even above that lofty heaven there can be waters, by means of those tiny particles by which they were able to be even above this space of air. For the air, though heavier and lower, lies beneath the highest heaven, yet without doubt is lighter than the waters; and nevertheless, that those vapours may be above it, they are prevented by no weight.
So therefore even above that heaven a lighter breath of moisture can be spread out in still tinier droplets, which is not compelled to fall by weight. For those very men persuade us, by a most subtle reasoning, that there is no corpuscle however small in which division comes to an end, but that all things are divided infinitely, since every part of a body is itself a body, and every body must necessarily have a half of its own quantity. And through this, if water can — as we see — arrive at such minuteness of droplets that it is borne as vapour above this air, which is by nature lighter than the waters, why cannot it also, in still tinier droplets and lighter vapours, abide above that lighter heaven?
Certain of our own writers also endeavour to convince those who deny, on account of the weights of the elements, that there can be waters above the starry heaven, by arguing from the very qualities and courses of the stars. For they assert that the star which they call Saturn's is the coldest, and that it traverses the zodiacal circle in thirty years, because it moves in a higher and therefore ampler orbit. For the sun completes the same circle in a year; and the moon in a month — by so much briefer, as they say, as it is lower — so that the extent of space may correspond to the extent of time. It is therefore asked of them whence that star is cold, which ought to be so much the hotter as it is swept along in a loftier heaven.
For without doubt, when a round mass is driven in a circular motion, its inner parts move more slowly, its outer parts more swiftly, so that the greater spaces together with the shorter reach the same circuits at the same time; but those that move more swiftly are surely the hotter. Accordingly, the aforementioned star ought rather to be hot than cold; for although by its own motion, since it is a great space, it traverses its whole circuit in thirty years, nevertheless, being turned by the motion of the heaven in the contrary direction more swiftly — which it must undergo daily, since, as they say, the single revolutions of the heaven make up single days — it ought to conceive a greater heat from the more rapidly moving heaven.
Doubtless, therefore, it is the nearness of the waters set above the heaven that makes it cold — those waters which they who dispute about the motion of the heaven and the stars, as I have briefly stated, are unwilling to believe in. By these conjectures certain of our writers act against those who are unwilling to believe that there are waters above the heaven and who wish that star to be cold which circles next to the highest heaven, so that from this they may be compelled to admit that the nature of the waters hangs there no longer in vaporous thinness but in glacial solidity. But in whatever manner and of whatever kind the waters there may be, let us in no wise doubt that they are there; for greater is the authority of this Scripture than all the capacity of human ingenuity. But it has been noticed by certain persons — a thing which I too think ought not to be passed over — that it was not without purpose that, when God had said:
'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let there be a division between water and water,' it seemed too little to add: 'And it was so done,' unless there were added: 'And God made the firmament; and God divided between the water that was above the firmament and the water that was beneath the firmament' — not without purpose. This indeed they understand in such a way as to say that the person of the Father is declared in that which is written: 'And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let there be a division between water and water. And it was so done'; and then, that the Son may be understood to have made what was said by the Father that it should be made, they think it to be subjoined: 'And God made the firmament, and God divided,' and the rest. But when previously it is read: 'And it was so done,' by whom do we understand it to have been made?
If by the Son, what need was there now to say: 'And God made,' and what follows? But if we understand that which is written, 'And it was so done,' to have been made by the Father, then it is no longer the Father who speaks and the Son who makes; and the Father can make something without the Son, so that then the Son makes not this, but another thing in like manner — which is against the Catholic faith. But if that of which it is said, 'And it was so done,' is the same as that which comes to be when it is likewise said, 'And God made,' what prevents us from understanding the same one to make what He said, who said that it should be made? Or, apart even from that which is written, 'And it was so done,' do they wish the person of the Father and of the Son to be understood only in these words, in which it is said, 'And God said: Let there be,' and afterward it is said, 'And God made'?
But it may yet be asked whether we ought to take it that the Father, as it were, commanded the Son in that which is written: 'And God said: Let it be.' But why did Scripture not take care to show the person of the Holy Spirit also? Or is the Trinity understood thus: 'And God said: Let it be' — 'And God made' — 'And God saw that it was good'? But it does not befit the unity of the Trinity that the Son should be understood to have made as it were at command, while the Holy Spirit, with none commanding Him, freely saw that what was made was good. For by what words would the Father command the Son to make, since He Himself is the principal Word of the Father, through whom all things were made? Or is it by this very thing which is written:
'Let there be a firmament,' this very utterance is the Word of the Father, the only-begotten Son, in whom are all things that are created, even before they are created; and whatever is in Him is life, because whatever was made through Him, in Him is life, and life indeed that is creative. But is the creature under Him? Otherwise, then, are those things in Him which were made through Him — because He rules and holds them together; and otherwise are those things in Him which He Himself is. For He Himself is the life which is so in Him that He Himself is it, since He Himself is the life, the light of men.
Since, therefore, nothing could be created — whether before the ages (which indeed is not coeternal with the Creator), or from the beginning of times, or in some time — whose ratio of being created (if indeed it is rightly called a ratio) did not live, as a coeternal life, in the Word of God coeternal with the Father: therefore Scripture, before it introduces each single creature, in the order in which it says it was founded, looks back to the Word of God, first setting down: 'And God said: Let that thing be.' For it finds no cause for a thing's being created which it does not find, in the Word of God, that it ought to be created. Not therefore did God say so many times, 'Let this or that creature be,' as often as in this book it is repeated, 'And God said.' For He begot one Word, in which He said all things, before they were made singly;
but the discourse of Scripture, descending to the capacity of the little ones, while it introduces the kinds of creatures one by one, looks in each single case to the eternal ratio of each kind in the Word of God. Nor does he who repeats those things repeat: 'And God said.' For if he wished first to say: 'The firmament was made in the midst of the waters, that there might be a division between water and water,' if anyone should ask of him how it had been made, he would rightly answer: 'God said: Let it be' — that is, it was in the eternal Word of God that it should be made. Thence therefore he begins to narrate each single thing made, which even after the narration of the thing made, to one asking how it was made, he ought to answer in rendering the reason. When therefore we hear: 'And God said: Let it be,'
we understand that it was in the Word of God that it should be made. But when we hear: 'And it was so done,' we understand that the creature made did not exceed the bounds of its kind prescribed in the Word of God. But when we hear: 'And God saw that it was good,' we understand that in the benignity of His Spirit it did not please Him as it were as something recognized after it was made, but rather that in that goodness it pleased Him that what was made should abide there where it pleased Him that it should be made. And through this there yet remains a cause for inquiry: why, after He had said, 'And it was so done,' where the completion of the work is now indicated, He added: 'And God made,' since by that very thing which He says, 'And God said: Let that thing be,'
'And it was so done,' it may now be understood that God said that thing in His Word, and that it was made through His Word, and there now the person not only of the Father but also of the Son can appear. For if, in order to show the person of the Son, it is repeated and it is said, 'And God made,' surely, then, did He not gather the waters together on the third day through the Son, so that the dry land might appear — since there it is not said, 'And God made the water to be gathered together,' or, 'God gathered the water together'? Yet even there, after He had said, 'And it was so done,' He then repeated, saying, 'And the water which is under the heaven was gathered together.' Was not the light too made through the Son, where He in no way at all repeated? For He could have there also said thus: 'And God said: Let there be light. And it was so done,'
'And God made the light. And He saw that it was good'; or at least, as in the gathering of the waters, so that He should not say, 'And God made,' but should nevertheless again repeat: 'And God said: Let there be light. And it was so done. And light was made. And God saw the light, that it was good.' But in no way repeating, after He had set forth, 'And God said: Let there be light,' He brought in nothing else but: 'And light was made'; and thereupon, concerning the light being pleasing and divided from the darkness, and each being called by its own name, He narrated without any repetition. What then does that repetition in the other cases mean?
Or is it shown in this manner that on the first day, on which light was made, the condition of the spiritual and intellectual creature is intimated by the name of light — in which nature all the holy angels and powers are understood — and therefore He did not repeat 'it was made' after He had said, 'Light was made,' because the rational creature did not first know its own conformation and then was formed, but in its very conformation it knew, that is, by the illumination of the truth toward which, being turned, it was formed; whereas the other things, which are below, are so created that they first come to be in the knowledge of the rational creature and then in their own kind?
Wherefore the condition of light is first in the Word of God according to the ratio by which it was founded — that is, in the Wisdom coeternal with the Father — and then in the very condition of light according to the nature which was founded: there not made, but begotten; here truly made, because formed out of formlessness. And therefore God said: 'Let there be light. And light was made,' so that what was there in the Word might be here in the work. But the condition of heaven was first in the Word of God according to the begotten Wisdom, then it was made in the spiritual creature — that is, in the knowledge of the angels according to the wisdom created in them;
then, that heaven was made, so that the very creature of heaven might now be in its own proper kind; and so likewise the distinction or species of the waters and the lands, so the natures of trees and herbs, so the luminaries of heaven, so the living things sprung from the waters and the earth. For the angels do not, like cattle, see these sensible things by the bodily sense alone; but if they use any such sense, they rather recognize those things which they know better within, in the very Word of God, by whom they are illumined, that they may live wisely, since there is in them the light which was first made — if we understand a spiritual light to have been made on that day.
As therefore the ratio by which a creature is founded is prior in the Word of God to the very creature which is founded, so also the knowledge of that same ratio comes to be first in the intellectual creature — which has not been darkened by sin — and then comes the very founding of the creature. For the angels were not, like us, advancing to the perception of wisdom, so as to behold the invisible things of God, understood through the things that are made; they, from the time they were created, enjoy the very eternity of the Word by a holy and pious contemplation, and thence, looking back upon these things according to that which they see within, either approve of things rightly done or disapprove of sins.
Nor is it any wonder that to His holy angels, formed in the first condition of light, God first showed what He was afterward going to create. For they would not know the mind of God, except in so far as He Himself had shown it. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things.' From Him, therefore, the angels learned, when in them there came to be the knowledge of the creature that was afterward to be made, and then it came to be in its own proper kind. Wherefore, light now being made — in which we understand the rational creature to have been formed by the eternal light — when in the other things to be created we hear: 'And God said:'
'Let it be,' let us understand the intention of Scripture as recurring to the eternity of the Word of God. But when we hear: 'And it was so done,' let us understand that there came to be in the intellectual creature the knowledge of the ratio — which is in the Word of God — of the creature to be founded, so that in that nature it was in a certain manner first made, which by a certain prior motion first knew, in the very Word of God, that it was to be made; so that at last, when we hear it repeated and said, that God made, we may now understand the very creature to come to be in its own kind. Further, when we hear: 'And God saw that it was good,' let us understand that it pleased the benignity of God that what was made should abide, according to the measure of its own kind — that it pleased Him should be, which pleased Him should be made, when the Spirit of God was borne above the water.
It is also wont to be asked what form and figure of the heaven ought to be believed according to our Scriptures. For many dispute much about these matters, which our authors with greater prudence passed over, as things not going to profit those who learn them toward the blessed life, and — what is worse — occupying much of the precious spans of time that ought to be expended on wholesome matters. For what does it pertain to me whether the heaven, like a sphere, encloses the earth on every side, poised in the midst of the world's mass, or whether it covers it on one side from above like a disc?
But because it concerns the faith of the Scriptures, on account of that cause which I have more than once mentioned — lest anyone, not understanding the divine words, should, when he has either found something of this sort about these matters in our books or heard it from them that seems to be contrary to the reasonings perceived by himself, in no wise believe them in the other useful things they advise or narrate or foretell — it must be briefly said concerning the figure of the heaven that our authors knew this, which the truth holds; but that the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men these things, as profitable to no salvation. But, someone says, how is it not contrary to those who attribute the figure of a sphere to the heaven, that it is written in our letters: 'Who stretches out the heaven like a skin'?
Let it indeed be contrary, if what they say is false; for this is true which divine authority says, rather than that which human weakness conjectures. But if perhaps they should be able to prove that by such proofs that it ought not thence to be doubted, it must be demonstrated that this which is said among us about the 'skin' is not contrary to those true reasonings; otherwise it will be contrary even to our own Scriptures themselves in another place, where the heaven is said to be suspended like a vault. For what is so diverse and self-opposed as the flat extension of a skin and the curved convexity of a vault?
But if it is fitting — as it is fitting — so to understand these two things that both may be found to agree and not to be in conflict with each other, then it is fitting also that neither of these should be opposed to those disputations, if perhaps sure reasoning should declare them true, by which it is taught that the heaven is on every side convex in the figure of a sphere — if indeed it be proved. And indeed that likeness of a vault among us, even taken according to the letter, does not hinder those who speak of a sphere. For it is rightly believed that Scripture wished to speak of the figure of the heaven according to that part which is above us. If therefore it is not a sphere, on one side it is a vault, from that side by which the heaven covers the earth; but if it is a sphere, it is a vault on every side.
But that which is said about the skin presses more urgently, lest it be opposed not to the sphere — which is perhaps a human invention — but to our very vault. But what I have felt of allegory from this, the thirteenth book of our Confessions contains. Whether therefore it is to be understood as I there set down, or in some other way, that the heaven is stretched out like a skin — on account of the troublesome and excessive exactors of the literal exposition I say this, which, as I judge, is plain to the senses of all. For each perhaps — that is, both skin and vault — can be understood figuratively; but how each can be understood literally must be considered.
For if a vault is rightly called not only curved but also flat, then assuredly a skin too is stretched out not only into a flat surface, but also into a rounded fold. For both a wineskin and a bladder are made of skin. Concerning the motion of the heaven also, some brethren raise a question, whether it stands still or is moved. For if it is moved, they say, how is it a firmament? But if it stands still, how do the stars, which are believed to be fixed in it, revolve from east to west, the northern ones performing shorter circuits near the pole — so that the heaven, if there is another pole hidden from us, from another summit, seems to be rotated like a sphere; but if there is no other pole, seems to be rotated like a disc?
To these I reply that such matters are investigated by very subtle and laborious reasonings, in order that it may truly be perceived whether it is one way or the other; and for entering upon and handling these I now have no time, nor ought there to be any for those whom we desire to instruct for their own salvation and for the necessary benefit of the holy Church. Let them assuredly know this: that the name 'firmament' does not compel us to suppose that heaven stands still — for it may be understood to have been called 'firmament' not because of its standing still, but because of its firmness, or because of the impassable boundary between the upper and the lower waters — nor, if the truth should persuade us that heaven stands still, are we hindered by the circuit of the stars from being able to understand this.
For even by those very men who investigated these things most curiously and most idly, it was discovered that, even if heaven did not move, provided the stars alone were moved, all the phenomena which have been observed and grasped in the very revolutions of the stars could have come to pass. And God said: Let the water which is under the heaven be gathered together into one gathering, and let the dry land appear. And it was done so. And the water which is under the heaven was gathered into its gathering, and the dry land appeared. And God called the dry land 'earth,' and the gathering of the water he called 'sea.' And God saw that it was good. Concerning this work of God we have already, in our first volume, treated sufficiently, on account of the need of investigating another matter.
Here therefore we briefly point out that, if anyone is perhaps not troubled by the question of when the form of the waters and lands was created, let him understand that on this day nothing was made except that these two lower elements were separated. But whoever is troubled as to why on the days light and heaven were made, whereas outside the days — or before all the days — water and earth were made; and why those former things were made at God's word, when God said 'Let there be,' whereas these latter things are found indeed to have been distinguished at God's speaking, but not to have been made at God's speaking — such a person has something he may understand while keeping his faith safe. Namely, that which was said before the enumeration of the days: 'The earth was invisible and without order,' when Scripture was commending of what kind was the earth that God had made, since it had said beforehand:
'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' — that by these words it wished to convey nothing other than the formlessness of corporeal matter, choosing to call it by a more familiar term rather than a more obscure one; provided, however, that it does not steal upon a slow understanding, so that, because Scripture separates matter and form in words, one should attempt to separate these two also in time, as though matter existed first and, with an interval of time interposed, form was afterwards added to it — whereas God created these two together and established matter already formed, whose formlessness Scripture, as I have said, had beforehand named by the familiar term either of 'earth' or of 'water.'
For earth and water, though by their own qualities they exist as that which we see, are nevertheless, on account of their easy corruptibility, nearer to that same formlessness than are the heavenly bodies. And since, through the enumeration of the days, all things are now counted as formed out of the formless, and Scripture had already related that heaven was made out of this corporeal matter — heaven, whose form differs greatly from earthly things — so now, as for that which remained out of that matter to be formed in the lowest part of things, Scripture did not wish to insert it under these words into the order of created things, so that it should be said 'Let there be'; for this residual formlessness was not to receive such a form as heaven had received, but one now lower and weaker and nearest to formlessness, so that rather by these words, when it is said 'Let the waters be gathered,' and:
'Let the dry land appear' — these two received their own proper forms, most familiar to us and handleable by us: water a moving form, earth an unmoving one; therefore of the former it was said 'Let it be gathered,' of the latter 'Let it appear'; for water is slippingly fluid, earth stably fixed. And God said: Let the earth bring forth the herb of fodder bearing seed after its kind and after its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself after its likeness upon the earth. And it was done so. And the earth brought forth the herb of fodder having seed after its kind and after its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself after its kind upon the earth. And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day. Here the moderating skill of the Ordainer is to be noted: since the creation of herbs and trees is something distinct from the form of lands and waters — so distinct that they cannot be counted among the elements — it was said of them separately that they should come forth from the earth, and to them separately were rendered those customary formulas, so that it should be said 'And it was done so,' and then that which was done should be repeated, and separately too it should be indicated that God had seen that it was good; yet, because being fixed by roots they are continuous with the lands and joined to them, He willed that these too should belong to the same day. And God said: