Why the waters were created in such abundance

So the boundless nature of the water had been poured around the earth, not in proportion to it, but exceeding it many times over. From the beginning the great craftsman foresaw what was to come and arranged the first things for the need that would follow. What need was there, then, for the water to exceed by an unspeakable amount? Because the substance of fire is necessary to the whole—not only for the ordering of things around the earth, but also for the completion of the universe. For the whole would have been maimed if it lacked the one greatest and most vital element of all. These two are opposed to each other, and each is destructive of the other: fire destroys water when it prevails by force, and water destroys fire when it exceeds in quantity. But there had to be neither a standoff between them nor any occasion given to the universe for dissolution through the complete failure of one of them. The One who orders all things arranged in advance such a quantity of the moist nature that, as it is gradually consumed by the power of fire, it would hold out until the appointed limits of the world's duration. For the One who arranged all things by weight and measure—since, according to Job, even the drops of rain are numbered by him (Job 38:37 (LXX))—knew how much time he had marked off for the world to endure, and how much expenditure he needed to set aside in advance for the fire. This is the reason for the abundance of water at creation.

But surely no one is so entirely outside of life as to need instruction from this discourse that fire is necessary to the world. Not only because all the crafts that sustain our lives require the work of fire—I mean weaving, leather-working, building, and farming—but because neither the sprouting of trees, nor the ripening of fruits, nor the generation of land animals or water creatures, nor their nourishment, would ever have come into being in the beginning or endured over time if heat were absent. So the creation of heat is necessary for the formation and continuance of things that come into being, and the abundance of moisture is necessary because the consumption of fire is unceasing and unavoidable.

Look around at the whole creation, and you will see the power of heat ruling over everything that comes into being and decays. For this reason much water was poured over the earth, carried beyond the visible regions, and in addition sown throughout the entire depth of the earth. From there come abundant springs, the gathering of wells, the streams of rivers—both winter torrents and ever-flowing ones—so that the moisture is preserved in many and varied storehouses. From the east, from the winter solstice, flows the Indus River, the greatest stream of all river waters, as those who have written accounts of the earth's regions have recorded. From the middle of the east flow the Bactrus, the Choaspes, and the Araxes, from which the Tanais branches off and empties into the Sea of Azov. And besides these, the Phasis flows down from the Caucasus Mountains, and countless other rivers from the northern regions rush toward the Black Sea. From the west, from the summer solstice, beneath the Pyrenees, flow the Tartessus and the Ister. One of these pours into the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, while the Ister flows through Europe and empties into the Black Sea.