Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Moses explains the work of this day in the same chapter of Genesis, verse 6 and following, in these words: And God also said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament. And it was so done. And God called the firmament, Heaven: and the evening and morning were the second day. That these words may be set forth,

YOU ASK I. — What is signified here by the name of Firmament?

The Vulgate Interpreter, following the Septuagint on account of the word στερέωμα added by them, said that the firmament was formed on the second day of the world: but the Hebrew text has in place of firmament רקיע Rakia, i. e., an expanse; for it is derived from the word Raka, which signifies to extend, to draw apart, to expand, or to enlarge, and to attenuate; even as the curtains of tents are stretched out, and silver or other metal is beaten out and thinned with the hammer. To the force of this word the Psalmist alludes in psalm 103, when he says: Stretching out the heaven as a skin, and Isaias chap. 40: Who stretcheth forth the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them abroad as a tabernacle to dwell in. Heaven, therefore, is called by the Hebrews Rakia from its extension, just as it is called Schamaim from its watery matter, whence it is thought to have been formed, as St. Jerome observes: Between heaven, he says, and earth the firmament is built up in the midst; and according to the etymology of the Hebrew speech, heaven, that is, schamaim, derives its name from the waters. — Now since we said above that there is a threefold heaven, namely the aerial, the sidereal, and the empyrean, it is disputed among the sacred Interpreters what Moses meant by the word firmament here. On this matter there are chiefly three opinions, of which the first holds that by the name of firmament the true heavenly body is signified, namely either the eighth orb in which the wandering stars are, or something conjoined of the eight orbs, plainly the eighth, and the other seven inferior ones, which was called firmament for this reason, because, they say, it is solid, and of firmly compacted matter. Thus Theodoret, question 1 on Genesis: Wherefore, he says, it was called Firmament, because from water which before was fluid and meltable it was most vehemently thickened and most strongly hardened into a compacted substance. Severianus, bishop of Gabala, agrees, Orat. 2. On the creation of the world:

This mass of waters, he says, stood upon the earth, suppose thirty cubits. Then God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water; and thereupon in the midst of the waters there was a fixing like ice, and He raised one half part upward and left the other half below, as it is written: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between water and water. But what is the reason why He calls it firmament? That plainly He made firm that substance of the waters which was rarer and dissolved. Therefore David also says: Praise him in the firmament of his power. And that I may use another example, just as smoke diffused from wood upon the fire is rarer and softer: but when it has ascended aloft, changed into a cloud it grows thick: so also God raising up the waters rarefied, fixed them in the heights, > and as it were congealed them. That this example is apt, Isaias is witness, when he says: The heaven was made firm as smoke. Heaven therefore, congealed in the midst of the waters, lifted the middle part of the waters into the heights.

Such are his words. The Venerable Bede subscribes to him in these words: After the manner of waters, he says, it is agreed that the starry Heaven is the firmament, nor does anything hinder its being believed to have been made from the waters: since we know of crystalline stone how great firmness with so much transparency and purity: it is certain that it was brought forth from the concretion of waters; what remains but to believe that the same Disposer of natures solidified into the firmament of Heaven the substance of waters? — Yet this opinion did not please Basil, but he himself derides it in his third homily on Genesis, saying that it is altogether childish, and for a mind too simple, to think that Heaven was compacted from water. — The second opinion is that of those who understand by the word firmament not only the eighth sphere but absolutely all the heavenly orbs, except the empyrean heaven produced on the first day. So judge all those, both the holy Fathers and the sacred Interpreters and Scholastic Doctors, who affirm that the waters really stand above the celestial orbs. — The third opinion at last is that of those who think that by the name of firmament the aerial heaven is signified, or that whole space of air which extends and spreads itself from the stars down to the earth, in such wise that the uppermost part is held by the Heavens and the Stars; the middle by the element of fire; the lowest by air. Which opinion St. Jerome taught in Epistle 83 to Oceanus: Between Heaven, he says, and earth the firmament is built up in the midst: and according to the etymology of the Hebrew speech, Heaven, that is, schamaim, derives its name from the waters. The same interpretation St. Augustine also hints at and proves in book 22 De Genesi ad litteram chap. 4, where, treating of the supercelestial waters, he writes that Moses designated the air by the name of heaven. He shows, he says, that even this air is called heaven, not only in common speech, according to which we speak of a clear or cloudy heaven, but also according to the very usage of our Scriptures, when the fowls of heaven are spoken of, since it is manifest that birds fly in this air. And when the Lord speaks of the clouds: you can, he says, prove the face of the heaven. But we often see clouds gathered together even in the air nearest the earth, when they lie along the slopes of ridges so that they often rise above even the summits of mountains. Since therefore He had shown that even this air is called heaven, He willed it to be considered called firmament for no other reason than because its intervening space divides certain ruptures of the waters, and those waters which float more massively upon the lands. He has similar things on the same Genesis in the incomplete commentary chap. 12, where treating of this same passage of Moses he says: When the firmament is called Heaven, that whole ethereal fabric must be understood to be meant, which contains all substance, beneath which flourishes the serenity of pure and tranquil air, beneath which again this same air, turbulent and stormy, is agitated. Rupert also subscribes, book De Trinitate chap. 22. The firmament, he says, is not something solid or hard, as is commonly thought, but it is air extended and greatly rarefied, so that it can be seen through; yet more truly can it be called spirit than body, Ecclesiastes 1 bearing witness when it says of the lights, which are borne merrily in it: The spirit goeth forward surveying all places round about, and returneth to his circuits. — This same exposition can be confirmed from holy Scripture, whereby sometimes it names as firmament that upper part of Heaven in which the stars burn and shine, sometimes it calls firmament even the lower portion of the air, as when it says that birds fly in the firmament, or above the firmament; for where the Latin version has: Let the waters bring forth the creeping thing having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of heaven; in Hebrew we read word for word: and the fowl shall fly upon the face, or surface, of the firmament of heaven, al al-Raqia Coeli. Beda himself also favors this exposition, in his Commentary on Genesis, where expounding the work of the fifth day he says: It must be thus understood that it was said, the birds fly according to the firmament of heaven, because by this name also the aether is indicated, that is, that higher space of air which reaches from this turbulent and darksome region, in which birds take their flight, up to the stars, and is believed not undeservedly to be wholly tranquil and full of light: for since Scripture placed the seven wandering stars, which are said to be driven and carried in this space of the aether, in the firmament of heaven, therefore the birds are rightly said to fly according to the firmament of heaven, because these spaces of air which sustain the flight of birds are near the aether, as I said: nor is it to be wondered at if the aether be named the firmament of heaven, when the air is called Heaven, as we taught above.

You will say: This exposition seems to conflict with the very narrative of Moses: First indeed, because he says that on the fourth day God made the Sun, and the Moon, and the Stars, and placed them in the firmament: but these are not in the air, but in Heaven: therefore not the air, but Heaven is the firmament. Next, the name of firmament signifies something solid and stable; but air is a body exceedingly tenuous and unstable, and tossed about by perpetual agitation: therefore the appellation of firmament does not befit the air. Finally, Moses teaches that the firmament divides the waters which are under it from those which exist above it: but the waters do not stand unmoving above the air: therefore the air is not the firmament dividing the waters from the waters. —

I answer, that these arguments do not impede our opinion, for they are easily resolved. The first indeed, because where Moses says that God placed the Sun, Moon, and Stars in the firmament, he did not signify by the name of firmament the starry Heaven, which is commonly called the eighth sphere. For all confess that the Sun and Moon are stored not in the eighth, but in the lower Heavens, and therefore it is necessary that he signified by the name of firmament that whole amplitude of space which extends from the empyrean Heaven down to the Earth. Secondly, I say that the firmament is not so called because it is a most solid body, but because it is the interval and, as it were, the boundary interposed between the upper and lower waters: a boundary, I say, most firm and immutable, for the nature of things ever demands that the upper waters be generated in the more sublime air: but the lower waters run beneath the air and above the earth. Which exposition St. Augustine handed down in book 2 De Genesi ad litteram chap. 10, writing thus: But the name of firmament compels us to think that Heaven stands firm: for Firmament may be understood not on account of standing still, but on account of firmness, or on account of the untransgressable boundary of the upper and lower waters. And that satisfaction may be given to the third objection, I shall conclude with the words and excellent verses of Claudius Marius Victor, who in book 1 on Genesis sings thus:

From the midst of the waves, yielding in concrete body, He bore them up, and widely hardened in rigid strength,

He hung the sundered waters, and cast against the clouds A cold profound, and resting on the enclosed deep He laid beneath the things which with vast circuit The ethereal heaven encompasses. Hence drawing the name, heaven. Perhaps here someone skilled in error may thus dispute with himself, lest sustenance fail the ethereal flames, And excessive heat seeking the depths, by pursuing nourishment Burn up the mortal race, and earthly things cannot endure The gleaming heaven; the firm machine of the pole is set below: Which while it protects us with its shade, Meanwhile grows cold above with the abundant waters laid upon it. But to seek the causes of divine Godhead Far be our mind: may it ever be more for thee to believe That God can do whatsoever is thought impossible to be done, And that a great sea is borne above the stars and constellations, Prove by the reason of those very men who refuse to believe it, And who will that the world hangs, which its Creator himself Carries and rolls constant with immense weight.

YOU ASK II. — What is signified by the waters which are above the Firmament?

I answer. that since the firmament here expressly signifies whatever is above us up to the empyrean Heaven, and embraces at once the celestial spheres and likewise the three regions of the air, I think it must be said as more probable that the waters which are above the firmament are none other than those which are generated in the middle region of the air: for thither vapors from the earth and from the waters, raised upward by the power of the Sun and the attraction of the Stars, are densified and coagulated into clouds, from which rains flowing forth irrigate and enrich the earth; and that with such abundance and sometimes such violence that they seem to burst forth from huge rivers and fountains. Concerning these supercelestial waters, or those which flow forth from the middle air as if from Heaven, holy Scripture very often makes discourse, as when God is said to withhold rains from Heaven, to give rain from Heaven, to shut Heaven so that it rain not, and again to open Heaven, that it dissolve into showers, as we read in Deuteronomy chap. 18; so likewise in Ps. 103, after the Psalmist had said, Stretching out the heaven as a skin, who coverest the upper parts thereof with waters; that he may explain more clearly what these waters are, he soon subjoins: Who layeth the cloud for thy ascent. And below: Watering the mountains from his stores. Of these namely which he had before said were covered with waters, and presently of the middle region of the air, whence proceeds the irrigating rain. Which manner of speaking he also uses Ps. 146, saying: Who covereth the heaven with clouds, and prepareth rain for the earth: but the Heaven covered with clouds is surely none other than the very region of the air, wherein through the condensation and resolution of vapors the rain is prepared which may irrigate the earth. Hence in Proverbs 8 divine Wisdom says: When he prepared the heavens I was present, when with a certain law and compass he enclosed the depths, and balanced the fountains of waters. Where for that word, the aether, the Septuagint Interprets render, upper mists or clouds: wherefore what follows, and balanced the fountains of waters, seems to be understood not of the fountains which spring from the earth, but of those which flow from Heaven, namely from the clouds, down upon the earth. But God is said to have weighed out those fountains of waters because in the lofty air He suspends the clouds by His divine power, from which as from fountains they are poured forth; and that with just measure, lest too sparing or too lavish a profusion of such waters harm the lands. To this tends that word of Job chap. 26: He bindeth up the waters in his clouds, so that they break not out and fall down together. And chap. 12: If he withhold the waters, all things shall dry up, and if he send them out, they shall overturn the earth. For this very reason, when the deluge took place, God is said to have opened the sluices of Heaven, Genesis 7; so likewise He says in Malachias chap. 3: If I open not the sluices of Heaven, and pour you out blessing even to abundance: and in Jeremias chap. 10 we read that at His voice God giveth the multitude of waters in the heaven, and lifteth up the clouds from the ends of the earth. — All this St. Ambrose excellently confirms in book 2 Hexaemeron chap. 5, where weighing that word of Leviticus 26: Your heaven shall be brass over your head, and your earth iron, he says: When the people of the Jews paying the penalty of their smiting were punished with the intemperateness of the heaven and the barrenness of the earth: for from heaven comes the cause of fertility. Finally, Moses bestowed blessings upon Joseph from the ends of the heaven, and from the dew, and from the abysses of fountains descending from below, and in due season from the course of the sun, and from the months coming together, and from the top of the everlasting mountains and hills, because by celestial maturation the fruitfulness of the earth is nourished. A heaven of brass, therefore, is that which pours forth no moisture, when no shower bursts from the clouds. There is also an iron heaven the darkened air, pressed and cloudy with an iron-colored hue, when the earth is straitened by the rigor of cold, then as it were suspended moisture is seen hanging over our head, and momentarily threatening. Very often also, rigid with the icy blasts of winds, the waters consolidate into snow, and the air being broken, the snow melts down; nor indeed can this firmament be broken without some crash, or penetrated, etc. By these words St. Ambrose elegantly confirms our answer and exposition: for he teaches that in Scripture the air is called Heaven and firmament, and that those waters which flow forth upon the lands from the middle part of the air through rain or snow fall from Heaven and from the firmament. It stands, therefore, that the clouds in the middle region of the air, fertile with rainy shower, can be called water above Heaven and firmament. — This exposition is confirmed first indeed, because God and nature attempt nothing in vain: but waters constituted above the starry Heaven would seem utterly vain: seeing that all the utilities which the Assertors of the opposite opinion infer from those waters lying above the starry Heaven appear utterly futile, or rest upon a lighter foundation, as is evident from their own sayings. For Procopius and Theodoret say the waters were placed there in order that they might temper the heat of the Sun, Moon, and stars, lest it dissolve the Heavens: or, as Bede says, for remitting the heat excited by the force and motion of the stars. St. Justin, question 99, adds that they were placed above the firmament that by their weight they might press it down, lest it be carried upward, but remain as it were suspended and poised. Some think those waters lie there that they may reverberate the rays of the Sun and Moon and repel them downward to the earth. Oleaster however says the waters were first constituted there by God that through the reopening of the floodgates of Heaven they might overwhelm the earth in the deluge of Noe. Others deem those waters to have been constituted there for the adornment of the Universe; perhaps also for the delight of the Saints abiding in the empyrean Heaven, that namely their eyes might be pleasantly refreshed by these crystalline and variegated waters; for waters are of all things most capable of form, beauty, color, and ornament, as appears in the Iris. At this holy John seems to allude Apoc. 7, where he says: He shall lead them to the fountains of the waters of life. And chap. 22: He showed me a river of the water of life clear as crystal. These are the chief utilities which various Authors bring forward from the waters placed above the starry Heaven. But who does not see that all these reasons are of lighter moment than that they should suffice for asserting that God detains waters heavy by their nature and ponderous, and therefore ever seeking the earth in which as in a center they may rest, above Heaven, as it were in a violent place and state? — Secondly, the opposite exposition also does not seem to fit the narrative of Moses; since Moses, handling history and informing a ruder people concerning the beginnings of the world, seemed willing to commemorate only those divine works which would be best known to men; but passed over in silence those which appeared remote not only from the senses but even from understanding, for which reason also concerning Angels he suppressed in silence many things which he could have taught, taking up only the description and explanation of this corporeal and visible world, and of those things which fall upon the senses of men, or can most readily and easily be known from those things which have been perceived by the senses.

You will say: Not only are the celestial waters said to be above the firmament, but even above the heaven of heavens: Thus Ps. 148: Praise the Lord from the heaven of heavens; and let all the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord: but by the heavens of heavens according to the Hebrew idiom are understood the sidereal Heavens: therefore the celestial waters are above the starry heaven. Next, the three Children of the Babylonian furnace in their Canticle, where all the works of God are commemorated, invite them to the praise of God in that very order that they proceed from things higher to things lower. But in the first place are set the Angels, secondly the heavens, thirdly the waters which are above the heavens, fourthly sun, moon, and stars: therefore it is a sign that the celestial waters are superior to the sun, moon, and stars. Finally the Church in the Hymn which she publicly chants at vespers of the second feria says:

Immense Maker of the heavens, Who lest mingled things be confounded, Dividing the flowing waters, Didst give the heaven as their bound. Establishing a place for the heavenly things And at once for the rivulets of earth, That the wave may temper the flames, Lest they lay waste the soil of earth.

By which words the Church not obscurely signifies that there are waters placed above Heaven to temper the heat of the stars. Of the same opinion is Severianus the bishop, orat. 2. On the creation of the world, where having inquired why indeed the waters in the heights? For what use were they placed? That someone may drink? That someone may sail? he answers:

Truly that there are waters in the upper regions David is witness when he says: And the waters which are above the heavens. Now I attended to the wisdom of the Creator: the heaven was compacted from the waters after the manner of ice. For since it was about to receive the flame of the sun and the moon, and the immense multitude of the stars, and being wholly full of fire it was to be guarded lest by excessive heat it be dissolved and burnt up, He spread under the heaven those expanses of waters knit together, with which, as it were to enrich it, water might > anoint it, that after that manner it might resist that fire, nor be consumed by it. Nor is an example wanting: just as if today you should set fire beneath a cauldron, and cast water into it, it resists the fire: but if that be lacking, it is dissolved. So also God committed water, fire's adversary, to the heaven, that from its convexity being lined with waters there might abundantly supply wherewith it might endure and remain unharmed. » He adds in confirmation of what has been said: So greatly does moisture abound to the heavenly body, though so great a force of fire is hostile to it that it would burn up even the earth. For I ask, whence does it rain? There is no cloud anywhere. The air has no water. Is it not evident thence that it distills from the heaven, with which it abounds? Whence also Isaac the Patriarch blessing Jacob said: God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth. They say however that three things shall be at the day of judgment: that the upper water recede, and that coherence of the waters fail of itself: and that the stars fall, which have no place among the fixed seats. These things moreover we say not rashly, but Scripture teaches: for the heaven, it says, shall be folded up, in place of saying, it shall be scorched: for what is scorched is rolled and twisted round) and the stars shall fall as leaves from the vine. » He subjoins another utility of this divine disposition in establishing the supercelestial waters after this manner: Attend indeed also, I pray, to another use: the waters which are above the heavens not only preserve the heaven. Truly they also send down the flame of the sun and moon. For if the heaven were translucent, all its splendor would flee upward. For since fire is borne upward by nature, it would leave the earth deserted. Therefore with immense force of waters He densified the higher heaven, that the splendor constrained into straits might descend to the earth. Behold the wisdom and skillfulness of the Artisan.

Such are his words. From these therefore it stands that the supercelestial waters are other than the clouds poised in the middle air. —

I deny the consequence. and to the first argument I say, that although by the Heavens of Heavens are signified the sidereal Heavens, or rather the Empyrean Heaven, which is the seat of God and dwelling of the Blessed, nevertheless it does not follow that the waters which are said to be above Heaven are above the sidereal Heavens. For David there commemorates two things as it were distinct, namely the Heaven of Heavens and the Heavens, that is, the regions of the air: whence he says not the waters which are above the Heavens of Heavens, but precisely those which are above the Heavens. Nor does it matter that he writes Heavens in the plural, as though that did not befit the air: for he uses the custom of the Hebrew tongue, in which Heaven lacks the singular number, as Estius notes dist. 11, although Interpreters have rendered now the singular, now the plural: just as among the Latins Athenae, Venetia, Trebae, etc. lack the singular and can be used only in the plural. — To the second I say, that that Canticle relates things not precisely in that order in which they were disposed by divine providence in the Universe; since first are enumerated dews, hoarfrosts, snow, ice, and frost, afterwards however day and night, light and darkness, which certainly existed before. — To the third however I say, that the Church rightly teaches that the flames of Heaven are tempered by the wave; since the earth would be utterly scorched by the heat of the stars unless it were frequently moistened and enriched by showers, dew, snow, and clouds.

YOU ASK III. — Why did Moses not say on this day, what he said on the others; and God saw that it was good?

The Hebrew Doctors answer that for this reason the elegy of charity was not added to the works of the second day, because on that very day gehenna was created, or the place destined for the punishment of the damned, into which straightway the demons were thrust. But this answer seems altogether silly and alien from all reason 1. because it can by no moment be proved that gehenna was founded on that very day, seeing that sacred Scripture maintains profound silence concerning it; 2. Gehenna, since it is the artifice and work of the best God, must truly be judged good, because, as the Apostle says, 1 Timothy 4: every creature of God is good. Nor does it stand in the way that it is ordained for the punishment of the guilty, for this redounds to the glory of God and the commendation of His divine justice; 3. Although gehenna for this reason could not be called good, must therefore all the other works of that day not be held for truly good, and accordingly be defrauded of this solemn encomium of divine approbation?

Some answer that this approbation was omitted because the firmament or heaven produced on that very day was not yet perfect, inasmuch as it was still void of stars. — Yet neither was heaven more imperfect without the stars and constellations than the earth without plants, and the water without fishes, and the light without the body of the sun and moon, to which nevertheless this divine blessing and approbation was not denied. — St. Jerome book 1 contra Iovinianum chap. 1, and from him Peter Lombard book 2 dist. 14 judge that the works of this second day were not crowned with divine benediction and approbation, because this day was second from the first, and consequently the beginning was of eternity and a sign of division; whence the number two among the ancients was of unlucky name, as Ovid testifies book 1 De natura mundi:

Twice two I pronounce you by reason of your double name, That number was not one of happy omen.

But if these things be so, why then did God Genesis chap. 2, v. 18 say: It is not good for man to be alone, let us make him a help like unto himself? Why did Ecclesiastes chap. 4 pronounce: It is better that two be together than one etc.? — Others judge this knot so difficultly solved that it is more religious to venerate in silence the counsel of God, who willed in the very frontispiece and beginning of sacred Scripture itself to show that the mysteries therein are abstruse and hidden, than by curious inquiry to search out a thing which God willed to be unknown to us mortals. — But it is certain that the divine encomium of goodness was granted no less to this second day of creation than to the others: first, because in the same chapter, v. 31, we read indefinitely written concerning each of the works of the six days of the creation of the world: God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. Secondly, because not with general approbation alone but even with special approbation of God are gifted the works of the second day, and those which pertain to the remaining days, which will plainly be discovered if we observe that the narration of the works of the second day is not ended at v. 8, as has hitherto been thought, but only at v. 10. For on the second day God not only produced the firmament which should divide the upper waters from the lower, or the celestial from the terrestrial; but moreover separated the waters from the surface of the earth that it might appear dry: whence on the same day was made a twofold separation of the waters, one of the upper from the lower, the other of the innermost from the land, because, as Estius says tom. 2 in lib. Sententiarum, pag. 101, the gathering together of the waters into one place was in a certain way a continuation and consummation of that work whose description went before, namely the dividing of the waters from the waters. For it is credible that with one continuous local motion, following upon the condensation of the lower waters, the whole of this was done, both that they were separated from the upper, and seeking the more sloping places they left the surface of the earth and constituted the seas. Wherefore such a separation was not to be divided between two days. » Such are his words. — Since these things are so, there is no doubt that this second day of creation was likewise adorned with divine approbation, for immediately after that separation of the waters from the surface of the earth, and their gathering into one place, there is added: and God saw that it was good: even as He had said after the production of light on the first day, and its separation from the darkness.