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Chapter 25LDO.2.25

VISIO QUINTA, cap. XXV

The Firmament of Faith Dividing the Peoples

God's command to make the firmament is interpreted as the establishment of faith among unbelieving peoples, dividing the faithful from the unfaithful, and showing how unbelievers lose the heavenly inheritance through hardness of heart and rejection of the true light.

God also said: Let the firmament be made in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.✦ This is how it should be understood: God said, Let the firmament of faith be made in the midst of unbelieving peoples, who would grasp the preaching of the apostles and who would also willingly receive their words along with them; and let it divide the waters—that is, the faithful—from the waters, namely the unbelieving Jews and pagans, so that, as my Son said to the Jews: The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation that bears its fruit.✦1 This is how it should be understood: You who are unbelieving have lost your inheritance through unbelief. Therefore, by God's just judgment the kingdom will be taken from you—the kingdom in which you should have reigned with God—and it will be given to those who, abandoning their sins, bear the fruits through which the kingdom of God is glorified. For there is great hardness in the hearts of unbelievers, who act not according to the knowledge of good but according to the unlawful desires of their hearts. For reason is the material for the knowledge of good and evil, and it exists as a kind of craftsman, building and destroying. For whoever loves the day of faith builds his house in the heavenly Jerusalem; but whoever rejects it destroys his house, along with the honor and blessedness of the heavenly inheritance; and since this same person does everything he does in the forbidden fruit, according to his own desires, his works are dark because they are done in darkness, fleeing from the light.2 Unbelievers, therefore, rejected the true light, that is, the Son of God; they didn't want to see him or to do his works, and so they also lost their inheritance. But those who received him with good faith and fulfilled his commandments have obtained the heavenly kingdom by the gift of his blood.

Heaven Named: Faith as the Church's Firm Struggle

The making of the firmament and its naming as heaven are expounded as the creation of faithful hearers through apostolic preaching, with faith itself understood as the great and firm city of the Church waging victorious struggle against unbelief.

"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament from those that were above the firmament."✦ "And so it was done."✦ "God made the firmament of faithful hearers through the preaching of the apostles, and divided the waters, that is, the unfaithful peoples who had been under the firmament with earthly things, idols, and the like, from those who were above the firmament, that is, above Christ."✦3 "And God called the firmament heaven, through which faith is understood, because that firm and great city with its heavenly works is itself faith."✦4 "How?" "That city of the whole ecclesiastical order is itself, and a most victorious struggle against the unbelief of all unbelievers." "And there was evening and morning, the second day."✦ "That boundary of unfaithful hearts came with the rising of the firmament of that day, namely, of right faith; the second day, which is, as it were, in the second light of faith, believing in Christ."✦5

Faith Without Works Is Not Praised

Faith without shining works would be of no praise, just as the second day existed without the heavenly lights, and therefore the approval formula was not applied to its works.

For just as the second day existed without the lights of heaven, so too faith without shining works would be of no praise whatsoever; and therefore in the work of that same day, as in the works of the others, it was not placed — 'God saw that it was good.' »

Read the original Latin

« Dixit quoque Deus: Fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum, et dividat aquas ab aquis . » Hoc considerandum sic est: Dixit Deus: Fiat firmamentum fidei in medio infidelium populorum, qui intelligant praedicationem apostolorum, et qui etiam cum illis verba eorum voluntarie percipiant; et dividat aquas, id est fideles, ab aquis, scilicet incredulis Judaeis et paganis, ut Filius meus ad Judaeos dixit: « Auferetur a vobis regnum Dei, et dabitur genti facienti fructus ejus . » Hoc considerandum sic est: Vos qui infideles estis, haereditatem vestram per infidelitatem perdidistis. Quapropter justo Dei judicio auferetur a vobis regnum in quo cum Deo regnare debuistis, et dabitur illis qui, peccata sua deserentes, proferunt fructus per quos regnum Dei glorificatur. Nam magna duritia in cordibus infidelium est, qui non secundum scientiam boni, sed secundum illicita desideria cordium suorum operantur. Rationalitas enim materia scientiae boni et mali est, et quasi faber aedificando et destruendo existit. Nam qui diem fidei diligit, domum suam in coelesti Jerusalem aedificat; qui autem illam repudiat, domum suam ab honore et beatitudine supernae haereditatis destruit; et quoniam idem omnia quae facit in noxiali pomo secundum concupiscentias suas operatur, opera ejus obscura sunt, quia in tenebris fiunt lucem fugientio. Increduli itaque veram lucem, id est Filium Dei, reprobaverunt, nec eum videre, nec opera ipsius facere volebant, et ideo etiam haereditatem suam perdiderunt; illi autem qui eum bona fide susceperunt, et praecepta ipsius compleverunt, dote sanguinis ejus coeleste regnum adepti sunt.

« Et fecit Deus firmamentum: divisitque aquas quae erant sub firmamento ab his quae erant super firmamentum. Et factum est ita . » Deus firmamentum fidelium auditorum in praedicatione apostolorum fecit, et divisit aquas, id est infideles populos, qui in terrenis rebus cum idolis et his similibus sub firmamento fuerant, ab hominibus illis quis super firmamentum, id est super Christum erant. Vocavitque Deus firmamentum coelum, per quod intelligitur fides, quia ipsa firma et magna civitas cum coelestibus operibus est. Quomodo? Ipsa civitas omnis ecclesiastici ordinis est, et victoriosissimum certamen contra incredulitatem omnium incredulorum. » Et factum est vespere et mane dies secundus . » Facta est illa finitio infidelium cordium cum ortu firmamenti illius diei, scilicet rectae fidei, dies secundus, quod quasi in secunda luce fidei est in Christum credere.

Quia sicut dies secundus sine luminaribus coeli fuit, ita et fides absque lucidis operibus nullius laudis sit, et ideo in opere ejusdem diei sicut in operibus caeterorum non est positum, « vidit Deus quod esset bonum. »

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gen.1.6 — And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate waters from waters."
  2. ↩Matt.21.43 — Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruit.
  3. ↩Gen.1.6-Gen.1.8 — And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate waters from waters." Gen.1.7 — And God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. Gen.1.8 — And God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning — a second day.
  4. ↩Gen.1.7 — And God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.
  5. ↩Gen.1.6-Gen.1.8 — And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate waters from waters." Gen.1.7 — And God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. Gen.1.8 — And God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning — a second day.
  6. ↩Gen.1.8 — And God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning — a second day.
  7. ↩Gen.1.8 — And God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning — a second day.
  8. ↩Gen.1.5 — And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning: the first day.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The allegorical reading interprets the firmament of faith as a dividing wall between believers and unbelievers, and the transfer of the kingdom echoes Matt 21:43.
  2. 2 ↩The unusual term noxialis ('noxal, deadly') modifying pomo ('fruit') evokes the forbidden fruit of Gen 3 and the idea of deadly desire. The rare form fugientio is rendered as 'fleeing from the light' as an ablative of manner.
  3. 3 ↩quis is likely an error for qui; the translation follows the intended sense 'those who' rather than the literal interrogative 'who?'.
  4. 4 ↩The clause 'ipsa firma et magna civitas cum coelestibus operibus est' is compressed; the sense is that faith is the firm and great city established by heavenly works.
  5. 5 ↩finitio is used in the sense of a defining limit or boundary; the image marks the separation wrought by the rise of right faith.

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