experience, they are led to give fire the highest place, next to it the air, after it water comes third, and last the earth in the lowest place, since in weight it surpasses all the others.
These things have their place and use as rudiments or primary principles, which if any one contend that they are not universally true, yet they are true in general and serve to the end that we may learn and hand down to others the true theories. For though fire can be struck from flint, yet it cannot therefore be denied that in the highest regions there is fire. Therefore theology gives these theorists this rule, which philosophy does not know sufficiently, that although God ordained and created all these things by his Word, yet he is not therefore bound to these rules so that he can not change them according to his good pleasure. For we see that neither grammar nor the other sciences are so perfectly set forth in rules that there are no exceptions; thus the laws of public and secular affairs step in and temper all things with reason. How much more can this be done in divine things, so that, although we indeed experience that the four elements are ordained and disposed by God, yet they can, contrary to this order, also have and maintain fire in the middle of the ocean, just as we saw that it was hidden in flint.
Likewise the mathematicians have concluded that there were a definite number of spheres, not that it is necessary to be so, but because one can not teach anything definitely about such things unless one distinguishes the spheres thus, on account of the variety of their motions, about which one can teach nothing without such imagination, if I may so name it. For teachers and professors of these sciences or theories say: We give examples, not because they are in every detail correct, but in order that no one may teach differently concerning those subjects. Therefore it would be the height of folly to despise and ridicule such things as some do, because it is not so sure that it could not be different, for they serve to the end that good arts and sciences may be taught, and that is sufficient.
The philosophers in general teach such things, to which the more modern theologians agree and add to these eight spheres two more,—the crystalline, glacial or aqueous heaven, and then the empyreal or fiery heaven. The Greeks however have discussed these themes much more elegantly and prudently than our scholars. For Ambrose and Augustine have had very childish thoughts. Therefore I praise Jerome because he simply passed over them in silence.
There are some who hold that the crystalline heaven is watery, because they think it is the waters of which Moses here speaks, and there the firmament or eighth sphere is added so that they be not consumed by their rapid and constant motion. But these are puerile thoughts, and I will rather confess that I do not understand Moses in this passage than that I should approve such illiterate thoughts.
The seventh heaven they call empyreal; not because it is fiery or burning, but from the light which is lucid and splendid. This heaven in the home of God and of the blessed, because it was filled immediately after creation with angels, and Lucifer, as they affirm, fell from this heaven. These are about all the ideas that theologians have added to the opinions of philosophers.
However, our scientists, who have studied astronomy, teach that there are still more spheres; namely, twelve, and three motions in the eight spheres; as, the motum raptum, motum proprium, motum trepidationis, a rending motion, a characteristic motion, and a trembling motion. For of such things indeed one cannot speak, unless he give each motion its own sphere.
Averrois had other thoughts, more absurd and far more in agreeable to reason. For he advocated that each sphere was an intellect, or an intelligent nature. The occasion or cause of these foolish thoughts was that he saw the infallibly perfect and most regular motion of the heavenly bodies. Therefore he thought these spheres were intelligent substances, each setting itself in motion in a sure and continuous manner. But from this follows the greatest and worst ignorance of God; wherefore we repudiate the thoughts of Averrois. But the others, which we have mentioned, we approve in so far as they are useful to be taught. For indeed this knowledge of the motion of the heavenly bodies is most worthy of all praise, however little that knowledge may be. Moses however proceeds with his narrative of the creation in all simplicity and plainness, as they say; making here three divisions: waters “above” the firmament, waters “under” the firmament, and “the firmament” in the middle. In the term heaven, Moses comprehends all that body which philosophers represent by their eight spheres, by fire and by air. For the sacred historian makes no mention of the flowing of the waters until the third day. And it is manifest that the air in which we live is called in the holy Scriptures the heaven; because the Scriptures speak of the “fowls of heaven,” Job 28:21; Ps. 8:8. It also speaks of the heavens being shut when it does not rain, 1 Kings 8:35. And again it speaks of the heavens giving their dew, Zech. 8:12; all these things take place in the air, not in the spheres of the moon or of the other planets. This distinction of the spheres therefore is not Mosaic nor scriptural but is an invention of men as an aid to instruction on these astronomical subjects; and which ought not to be despised as such an assistance.