This post is part of a series looking at Basil’s views on the creation account in Genesis. If you have not already read it, I recommend starting with part 1.

In prior posts we have seen how Basil understood the waters of creation. In this concluding post we will once more touch on these concepts as we look at how Basil understood the firmament itself.

The earth was created underwater

During his homily Basil explores why the earth was “invisible and without form”. The use of the term “invisible” instead of “empty” may indicate that Basil is using the LXX (ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος) instead of the Hebrew text. While it could be debated whether the Hebrew term encompasses the idea of being invisible or just that the earth was barren prior to the rest of creation, Basil is working off of that text and translation.

As nothing of all this [growth of all kinds of plants] yet existed, Scripture is right in calling the earth without form.

The formless earth was also invisible because it was submerged under a large body of water.

The earth was invisible … because being submerged under the waters which over-flowed the surface, it could not be seen, since the waters had not yet been gathered together into their own places, where God afterwards collected them, and gave them the name of seas.

… The earth was invisible. Why? Because the deep was spread over its surface. What is the deep? A mass of water of extreme depth. But we know that we can see many bodies through clear and transparent water. How then was it that no part of the earth appeared through the water? Because the air which surrounded it was still without light and in darkness. The rays of the sun, penetrating the water, often allow us to see the pebbles which form the bed of the river, but in a dark night it is impossible for our glance to penetrate under the water. Thus, these words the earth was invisible are explained by those that follow; the deep covered it and itself was in darkness.

– HOMILY II

What is the firmament?

As Basil tackles the creation of the firmament (or expanse) which separates the waters, he notes that this entity is also called “heaven”. He reflects on the opening passage where it states that God created “the heavens and the earth” and asks “does the firmament that is called heaven differ from that [which] God made in the beginning?”

Basil acknowledges that within the church there are differing opinions.

This post is part of a series looking at Basil’s views on the creation account in Genesis. If you have not already read it, I recommend starting with part 1.

The Genesis account according to Basil

To explore this idea of fitting the creation account into the prevailing view of the universe a bit further we will use Basil’s Hexaemeron (The Six Days) as a case study. We introduced Basil in a prior post, but as a quick reminder he was a bishop during the late fourth century. “The Six Days” is a series of homilies written about the Genesis creation account. In the first two posts in this series we learned that Basil rejected allegorical interpretations, instead approaching the creation account as a historical narrative of the events. Through each homily he unpacks each day in the creation account and compares it to the prevailing cosmology of his day. His cosmology is of course rooted in the philosophical and scientific (or pre-scientific if you prefer) ideas that were prevalent during the fourth century. At times he will refute some of the ideas philosopher/scientists offer but throughout much of the work Basil interprets the creation account in line with those theories. Although a fourth century cosmology was much closer to what Moses and the Israelites might have understood about the universe, Basil’s ideas differ from both the ANE myths and modern scientific models.

What we will find is that Basil was generally able to take the cosmology of the fourth century and read that into the creation account. With the benefit of living more than 1600 years later and having the advantage of understanding the universe in much greater detail, especially with the advancements in science over the last 400 years, we can clearly see that some of Basil’s proposals, being rooted in a flawed cosmology, are incorrect. With his failed attempts before us it should help us reconsider how we approach the creation account today. We must ask ourselves, are we not in danger of doing the same thing? Further, if Basil could see the science of his day in the account and was clearly wrong, what makes us think we can do better? We have already seen our own modern failed attempts in the water vapor canopy and gap theories. Lest we are too critical of Basil and his interpretations, his intentions were noble as he sought to help his listeners more fully appreciate the Creator.

What would a fourth century cosmology look like?

If Basil’s understanding of the universe was rooted in fourth century cosmology we would need to ask ourselves what that entails. The primary understanding of the universe during Basil’s time would have been governed by the Ptolemaic system. Built upon Aristotle and others, this system was proposed around 150 AD and benefited from being able to explain the erratic orbits of the celestial bodies around the earth. It prevailed until the late 16th and early 17th centuries when Kepler, building off Copernicus and Brahe, worked out a heliocentric model.