Annotatio XI
”He divided the waters that were under the firmament,” etc. — Genesis 1:7
Origen — as Epiphanius witnesses in his letter to John of Jerusalem, and Jerome in his letter to Pammachius — when he discussed these words upon Genesis in his Tomes, said that the waters which are above the firmament are not waters but holy angels, and the waters which are under the firmament are evil demons fallen from heaven.1 Against this opinion, which Epiphanius and Jerome condemn as an error, Basil, in homily 3 on the Hexaemeron, suppressing Origen’s name, writes this:2 “We have a word also for certain ecclesiastics concerning the divided waters — [those] who, under the pretext of a withdrawal from sensible things into the heights and of a loftier understanding, fled to allegories, saying that spiritual and incorporeal powers are figuratively signified by the waters; and that above, indeed, above the firmament, the better ones remained, but below, in earthly and material things, the malignant ones stayed. On this account, forsooth, they say that God even praises the waters above heaven — that is, that the good powers, on account of their purity of mind, complete a hymn to their Founder — but that the waters under heaven are spiritual malignities, fallen from their natural height into the depth of malice, which, being turbulent and seditious and overflowing and boiling with tumults and passions, are named ‘sea.’ But relegating such discourses as being on a level with dreams and old wives’ fables, let us understand water [to be] water, and let us understand the division made by the firmament according to the cause we have rendered.”