11

But if someone, holding a stone in his hand, should release it from above, in how much interval of time will it reach the bottom? Someone will say again, by hypothesis, in four hours. And again, supposing the space to be full of a finer body, such as air, in how much interval of time again will it reach the bottom? Clearly in a shorter one, as if in two hours. Again, supposing a yet finer body, he will find one hour, and again, supposing a yet finer body, half an hour. And again, supposing the finest, he will find it yet shorter, until, as the body is rarefied and arrives at an incorporeal state, of necessity time also will cease into timelessness. 2.15 Thus also here, in no body at all, but in an incorporeal one, it is necessary for the heavy body of the whole space to reach the bottom timelessly and to be established. Thus then God, naturally, according to the Scripture, having hung the earth upon nothing and established it, which has reached the bottom of space, founded it upon its own security; it shall not be moved for ever and ever. 2.16 But if again someone, contending out of shamelessness, should suppose a place outside of earth and heaven made of another invisible and fabricated body, that also stands upon something, infinite upon infinite. Nevertheless, with God, we answer to this also more naturally, if someone should suppose that space to be a chaos, that since heaven is light and tends upward, and the earth is heavy and tends downward, and the ends are bound to the ends, of the one tending upward, and of the one tending downward, pulling against each other, they support each other and remain unmoved. 2.17 Having therefore founded the earth, which is oblong, upon its own security, God bound the heaven at its ends to the ends of the earth; having established from below the ends of the heaven from four parts, and from above having vaulted it very high over the length of the earth, and into the breadth of the earth having walled the ends of the heaven from below up to above and having enclosed the space, He made a house, as one might say, of immense size, as in the form of an oblong, vaulted dome. "For 'He who has established the heaven as a vault,'" says the prophet Isaiah. 2.18 And concerning the heaven being joined to the earth, it is written thus in Job: "And he bowed the heaven to the earth, and it is poured out like dust of the earth; and I have joined it like a cube of stone." How does His bowing it to the earth and His joining it not manifestly declare that, standing like a vault, its ends are bound to the ends of the earth? For to bow it and to join it to the earth cannot be understood in the case of a sphere. 2.19 And Moses also, in describing the table in the tabernacle, which is a type of the earth, commanded its length to be two cubits, and its breadth one cubit. Thus therefore, as Isaiah said, we also say that the shape of the first heaven, that which came to be on the first day, that which came to be with the earth, that which contains the whole with the earth, is vaulted. And as it is said in Job that the heaven is joined to the earth, so we say again. But also having learned from Moses that the earth is stretched out more in its length, we say again, having learned to be persuaded by the truly divine Scripture. 2.20 Then, since God brought forth at once the waters and angels and certain other things together with the earth and the first heaven itself, on the second day He makes in their sight, as if using His own creatures, having solidified out of the waters as if from matter, this second and visible heaven, in likeness of appearance, not of shape, to the first heaven, and it is in the middle of the height from the earth to the first heaven. And having spread it out there, He stretches it through the whole space according to its breadth, as if a middle roof, and He binds the firmament to the first heaven, having divided and parted the remaining waters, leaving some above the firmament, and some upon the earth below the firmament, as the divine Moses relates, and He makes the one space, or house, two houses, that is, an upper and a lower story. For again the divine Scripture speaks thus concerning the second heaven, in Moses: 'And God called the firmament Heaven', and in the divinely inspired David: 'Stretching out the heaven like a curtain'. For he adds: 'Who covers his upper chambers with waters

11

κρατήσας δέ τις λίθον τῇ χειρὶ ἄνωθεν ἀπολύσει, πόσῳ διαστήματι χρόνου τὸ βάθος καταλήψεται; Ἐρεῖ τις πάλιν καθ' ὑπόθεσιν ὡρῶν τεσσάρων. Ἔτι δὲ λεπτοτέρου σώματος ὑποθέμενος γέμειν τὸν χῶρον, οἷον ἀέρος, πόσῳ πάλιν διαστήματι χρόνου τὸ βάθος καταλήψεται; ∆ῆλον ὅτι βραχυτέρῳ, ὡσανεὶ ὡρῶν δύο. Πάλιν ἔτι λεπτοτέρου σώματος ὑποθέμενος, μιᾶς ὥρας εὑρήσει, καὶ ἔτι πάλιν λεπτοτέρου σώματος ὑποθέμενος, ἡμιωρίου. Καὶ ἔτι πάλιν λεπτοτάτου, πάλιν βραχυτέρου εὑρήσει, μέχρι καὶ τοῦ σώματος λεπτυνομένου καὶ εἰς ἀσώματον καταντήσαντος ἐξ ἀνάγκης καὶ ὁ χρόνος εἰς ἄχρονον λήξει. 2.15 Οὕτως καὶ ἐνταῦθα ἐν οὐδενὶ σώματι παντελῶς, ἀλλ' ἀσωμάτῳ, ἀνάγκη ἀχρόνως καταλαμβάνειν τὸ βαρὺ σῶμα τοῦ παντὸς χώρου τὸ βάθος καὶ ἵστασθαι. Οὕτως οὖν ὁ Θεὸς φυσικῶς ἐπ' οὐδενί, κατὰ τὴν Γραφήν, τὴν γῆν κρεμάσας καὶ ἑδράσας κατειληφυῖαν τὸ βάθος τοῦ χώρου, ἐθεμελίωσεν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀσφάλειαν αὐτῆς· οὐ κλιθήσεται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος. 2.16 Εἰ δὲ καὶ πάλιν ἐξ ἀναιδείας τις φιλονεικῶν ἔξωθεν γῆς καὶ οὐρανοῦ τόπον ὑπόθοιτο ἐξ ἑτέρου ἀοράτου καὶ πεπλασμένου σώματος, ἄπειρον μὲν καὶ ἐπ' ἄπειρον ἐπί τινος κἀκεῖνο ἵσταται. Ὅμως σὺν Θεῷ καὶ εἰς τοῦτο ἀπαντῶμεν φυσικώτερον, εἰ καὶ χάος τις ὑπόθοιτο τὸν χῶρον ἐκεῖνον, ὅτι τοῦ μὲν οὐρανοῦ κούφου καὶ ἀνωφεροῦς ὑπάρχοντος, τῆς δὲ γῆς βαρείας καὶ κατωφεροῦς, ἄκρα δὲ ἄκροις συνδεδεμένα, τοῦ μὲν ἀνωφεροῦς, τῆς δὲ κατωφεροῦς, ἄλληλα ἀντιπερισπώμενα, συμβαστάζουσι καὶ ἀκίνητα διαμένουσι. 2.17 Θεμελιώσας τοίνυν ὁ Θεὸς τὴν γῆν ἐπὶ τὴν αὐτῆς ἀσφάλειαν, ἐπιμήκη οὖσαν, τὸν οὐρανὸν κατ' ἄκρα τοῖς ἄκροις τῆς γῆς συνέδησε· στήσας μὲν κάτωθεν τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἐκ τεσσάρων μερῶν, ἄνωθεν δὲ ὑψηλότατα πάνυ ἐπὶ τὸ μῆκος τῆς γῆς καμαρώσας, εἰς δὲ πλάτος τῆς γῆς τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ κάτωθεν ἕως ἄνω τειχίσας καὶ ἀποκλείσας τὸν χῶρον, οἶκον, ὡς ἄν τις εἴποι, παμμεγέθη ὡς ἐν τάξει θόλου καμαροειδοῦς ἐπιμήκους ἐποίησεν. "Ὁ στήσας" γὰρ "τὸν οὐρανὸν ὡς καμάραν" φησὶν ὁ προφήτης Ἠσαΐας. 2.18 Περὶ δὲ τοῦ κεκολλῆσθαι τὸν οὐρανὸν τῇ γῇ ἐν τῷ Ἰὼβ γέγραπται οὕτως· "Οὐρανὸν δὲ εἰς γῆν ἔκλινε, κέχυται δὲ ὥσπερ γῆ κονία· κεκόλληκα δὲ αὐτὸν ὥσπερ λίθον κύβον." Τὸ εἰς γῆν αὐτὸν κλῖναι καὶ τὸ κολλῆσαι αὐτὸν πῶς οὐ φανερῶς δηλοῖ ὅτι ἄκρα ἄκροις τῇ γῇ συνδέδεται ἱστάμενος ὡς καμάρα; Τὸ γὰρ κλῖναι αὐτὸν καὶ κολλῆσαι αὐτὸν τῇ γῇ ἐπὶ σφαίρας οὐ δύναται νοεῖσθαι. 2.19 Καὶ ὁ Μωϋσῆς δὲ διαγράφων ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ τὴν τράπεζαν, τύπον ὑπάρχουσαν τῆς γῆς, τὸ μῆκος αὐτῆς δύο πήχεων προσέταξε γενέσθαι, καὶ τὸ πλάτος πήχεως ἑνός. Οὕτως οὖν, καθὼς εἶπεν Ἠσαΐας, τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τοῦ πρώτου, τοῦ γεγονότος ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, τοῦ σὺν τῇ γῇ γεγονότος, τοῦ περιέχοντος τὸ πᾶν σὺν τῇ γῇ, τοῦ καμαροειδοῦς, καὶ ἡμεῖς λέγομεν. Καὶ ὡς ἐν τῷ Ἰὼβ λέλεκται κεκολλῆσθαι τῇ γῇ τὸν οὐρανόν, πάλιν οὕτως λέγομεν. Ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Μωϋσέως μεμαθηκότες ὅτι ἐπὶ τὸ μῆκος πλέον ἡ γῆ ἐκτέταται, λέγομεν πάλιν μεμαθηκότες πείθεσθαι τῇ θείᾳ ὄντως Γραφῇ. 2.20 Εἶτα λοιπὸν ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὰ ὕδατα καὶ ἀγγέλους καί τινα ἕτερα σὺν τῇ γῇ καὶ αὐτῷ τῷ πρώτῳ οὐρανῷ ὁ Θεὸς ἀθρόως παρήγαγε, ποιεῖ ἐπ' ὄψεσιν αὐτῶν τῇ δευτέρᾳ ἡμέρᾳ, ὥσπερ ἰδίοις κτίσμασι κεχρημένοςἐκ τῶν ὑδάτων πήξας ὥσπερ ἐξ ὕλης, τὸν δεύτερον τοῦτον οὐρανὸν καὶ ὁρώμενον, καθ' ὁμοιότητα τῷ εἴδει, οὐ τῷ σχήματι τοῦ πρώτου οὐρανοῦ, καὶ μεσάζει τὸ ὕψος τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἕως τοῦ προτέρου οὐρανοῦ. Κἀκεῖ ἁπλώσας ἐκτείνει δι' ὅλου τοῦ χώρου κατὰ τὸ εὖρος, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ στέγης μέσης, καὶ συνδεσμεῖ τὸ στερέωμα τῷ πρώτῳ οὐρανῷ, διελὼν καὶ μερίσας τὰ λοιπὰ ὕδατα, τὰ μὲν ἐπάνω τοῦ στερεώματος, τὰ δὲ εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐάσας ὑποκάτω τοῦ στερεώματος, καθὰ διηγεῖται ὁ θεῖος Μωϋσῆς, καὶ ποιεῖ τὸν ἕνα χῶρον, ἤτοι οἶκον, δύο οἴκους, τουτέστιν ἀνάγαιον καὶ κατάγαιον. Πάλιν γὰρ λέγει ἡ θεία Γραφὴ περὶ τοῦ δευτέρου οὐρανοῦ οὕτως, παρὰ μὲν τῷ Μωϋσῇ· "Καὶ ἐκάλεσεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸ στερέωμα οὐρανόν", παρὰ δὲ τῷ θεσπεσίῳ ∆αυΐδ· "Ἐκτείνων τὸν οὐρανὸν ὡσεὶ δέρριν". Ἐπάγει γάρ· "Ὁ στεγάζων ἐν ὕδασι τὰ ὑπερῷα