Annotatio IX
”Let there be a firmament.” — Genesis 1:6
Chrysostom, in homily 4 on Genesis, in expounding this sentence, asserts that those who teach there are many heavens are impelled to say this not from divine Scripture, but against divine Scripture and ecclesiastical dogmas, out of their own head and out of their own violent opinions:1 for Moses taught us that there is only one heaven; and further, that what is read in the psalm, “Praise him, you heavens of heavens,” is not said because there are many heavens, but because it is the custom of the Hebrew tongue to name heaven, water, and many other singular things in the plural number. He holds the same in the exposition of Psalm 148,2 where, expounding that “Praise him, you heavens of heavens,” he says: “Saying here ‘heavens of heavens,’ he does not show a multitude; yet the same [Scripture] also says ‘the heaven of heaven.’ For the language of the Hebrews names heaven in the plural number.” This opinion of Chrysostom seems to be opposed to all the schools of theologians and philosophers. Expounding it in the first part of the Summa, question 68, article 4, St. Thomas says that by these words are not condemned the theologians and philosophers who distinguish the starry heaven — that is, that whole celestial body which encloses this lower world, or globe of elements — into many particular heavens or orbs;3 but [what is condemned is] certain heretics and philosophers who taught that beyond this whole starry globe there are other starry heavens, and other worlds.