FIRMAMENT
569
FIRMILIAN
Matt, xxiv, 29). In all these particulars we recognise the same view as was entertained by the Greeks, and, to a certain extent, by the Latins. The former applied to the heaven such epithets as " brazen" (\;(iA/c£o)', Ho- mer, lUiuJ, xvii, 425; Pind. Piith. x, 42; Ni'm. vi, 6; voXvxn'KKov, II. V, 504; Od. iii, 2) and "iron" {(noii- pEov, Od. XV, 328 ; xvii, 566) — epithets also used in the Scriptures (Lev. xxvi, 19) — and that this was not mere- ly poetical embellishment appears from the views pro- mulgated by their philosophers, Empedocles, who de- scribed the heavens as aTip^f^ii'iov and KfwryraWondije, composed of air glacialized by fire (Plutarch, Plric. Phil. ii, 11 ; Stobreus, Ecloq. Phi/s. i, 24 ; Diog. Laertius, viii, 77 ; Lactant. De Opif. Dd, c. 17 ; comp. Karsten, Phil. Gr. Veter. Operum Etliquice, ii, 422) ; and Artemidorus, who taught that "sumnia coeli or.i solidissima est, in modum tecti dnrata" (Seneca, Quasi, vii, 13). The same idea is expressed in the ccelo affixa sidera of the Latins (Pliny ii, 39 ; xviii, 57). Plato also, in his Tim- cBtts, makes mention of the visible heaven under the notion of ricmQ (from TtivM,(o ertend), not unlike the Hebrew derivation. If it be ol)jected to the Mosaic account that the view embodied in the word rahia does not harmonize with strict philosophical truth, the an- swer to such an objection is, that the writer describes things as they appear rather than as thej^ are. But, in truth, the same absence of philosophic truth may be traced throughout all the terms applied to this subject, and the objection is levelled rather against the princi- ples of language than anj'thing else. Examine the Latin calum (koIXov), the "hollow place" or cave scooped out of solid space (" cavernaj coeli," Lucret. iv, 172; compare Pott, Etymol. Forschungen, i, 23, 27); our own '^ heaven," i. e. what is heaved up; the Greek ovpcwoQ, similarly significant of height (Pott, Etym. Forsch.'i^Vl'X); or the German "himmc^l," from heimelii, to cover- — the "roof" which constitutes the "heim" or abode of man : in each there is a large amount of phil- osophical error. Correctly speaking, of course, the at- nios])here is the true reiki t by which the clouds are supported, and undefined space is the abode of the ce- lestial bodies. There certainl}' appears an inconsist- encv in treating the rakia as the support both of the clouds and of the stars, for it could not have escaped observation that the clouds were below tiie stars; but perhaps tliis may be referred to the same feeling which is expressed in the cnlum ruit of the Latins, the down- fall of the rakin in stormy weather. Although the rnMa and the shamay'm ("heavens") are treated as identical in Gen. i, 8, j-et it was more correct to recog- nise a distinction between them, as implied in the ex- pression "firmament of the heavens" (Gen. i, 14\ the former being the upheaving power and the latter the upheaved bodj' — the former the line of demarcation be- tv/een heaven and earth, the latter the strata or stories into which the Iieaven was divided. See Cosjiogoxy. 2. Hence it is easy to conceive how the Gr. transla- tors came to render the Hel). term in question by ote- p!:ioi.ui, a word whicii is commonly used to designate some compact solid, such as the basis of a pillar, or a pillar itscdf, and which is used elsewhere by the Sept. as equivalent to the Ileb. -^5, a rock (Psa. xviii, 2), and by Symmachus and Theodotion as the rendering of tlie Hel). il-Ji-2, a staff. Basil (ffexaim. Hom. 3) explains the term as not intended to describe what is naturalh- hard, and solid, and weighty, which l)elongs rather to the earth ; but says (hat because the nature of the object aliove it is fine and thin, and not percep- tible b}' sense, it is called aTioi-Mf^ia, b}^ a comparison between things of extreme rarity and such as can he perceived Ijy sense (trvyKpimi rtor XnTTOTartov Ka( ri) aicrdqrru KaTa\i]TrTon>). It is not very clear what his meaning here is, but probably he intended that as a solid extension would be properly called a orfofw/m, so this mass of light and vapor}' substances might l)y analogy receive this name. Others have suggested
that this term was cmploj'ed to indicate that the ""I^'^ is the "universitas tmv XnrroiifooJi' in regionem su- peram conglobata et firmata," along witli the idea that this "nihil habet uspiam inanitatis, sed omnia sui ge- neris naturje plena" (Fuller, Miscel. Sac. bk. i, c. vi). Fuller thinks also that the Sept. selected aTtiiko/ia ratiier tiian ir'iTaiyj.ia or ■Kinnriracrf.ia in order to con- vey the idea of depth as well as superficial expansion. The general opinion, however, is, that the Sept. adopt- ed this term rather than one exactly equivalent to the original, because it convej's what was the Hebrew be- lief concerning the upper atmosphere or visible heav- ens, which they regarded as a solid expanse encircling the earth, although the true state of the case was probably not unknown to them (Job xxxvi, 27, 28). Others, nevertheless, think that the waters above the rakia are merely tlie clouds, which need no solid sup- port (Delitzsch, Comment, on Gen. i, 6 ; Kurz, Bible and Astronomy, in Hist, of the Old Covenant, i, 30).