162 NOMOS. 



be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the 

 day from the night ; and let them be for signs and 

 for seasons and for days and for years ; and let them 

 be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give 

 light upon the earth: and it was so. And God 

 made two great lights ; the greater light to rule the 

 day, and the lesser light to rule the night ; he made 

 the stars also. And God set them in the firmament 

 of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to 

 rule over the day and over the night, and to divide 

 the light from the darkness." The firmament, there- 

 fore, is evidently the realm of space, and hence the 

 conclusion appears to be that " the waters above the 

 firmament" are the sun and other heavenly bodies, 

 at that time covered with water as was the earth. 



But be this as it may, there is no room for doubt 

 as to what was the condition of the earth at the 

 creation ; for up to the third day this was that of a 

 shoreless ocean. Morning twice dawned and night 

 twice fell upon an unbroken waste of waters. On 

 the third day "the waters under the heaven were 

 gathered together into one place, and the dry land 

 appeared." The land is represented as being raised 

 above the waters; and upon this statement we are 

 left to cogitate. Now there is little to guide us in 

 the story ; and as we choose we may suppose that 

 the land was raised by miraculous means or by 

 natural causes. If we suppose that the land was 

 raised by miraculous causes, we have nothing more to 

 do ; if we suppose it to have been raised by natural 

 The land causes, then we may follow in imagination 

 the solar and lunar rays as they penetrate 



