The Purpose of the Luminaries

Because all things have come to be, this number is taken up for the sake of order and for the sake of harmony, as has been said; and because of this, due to our weakness and our inability to perceive otherwise in any suitable way. Let what is said be clear from an example. Our body possesses color and size together with its substance, and it did not come into being as separate things divided in time, but rather, except by thought, the one is before and the other is after.

In the same way, the world, having come into being in order, is completed not by time but by harmony. For no part of the world will be able to be conceived in relation to the others unless the rest exists. And the luminaries, having come into being on the fourth day, show by their preciousness that they were spoken into existence in this way because of the reason concerning them. For the tetrad, being in power, exists as a ten in honor; for through all Scripture, the ten is praised.

But that a certain number, if it is signified in the divine letters, does not always declare a multitude, but a reason, it is to be understood from what has been said concerning God: 'I have left behind seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal' (1 Kings 19:18). For if such a number was the case, the prophet would not have said, 'I am left alone' (1 Kings 19:10), nor did they have the pure relationship toward one another; for they were not fleeing themselves.

A precious reason concerning the seven—for this is both without seed and without fruit—submits the thought that the saints are of the same power, even if they exist as humans, having established something divine and being considered superhuman through contemplation and life. But also in the Apocalypse, John, saying that twelve thousand men fall to the Lamb, who is the Savior, and these virgins with women not defiled, shows that there is a certain precious reason concerning this number; for no one would have said such a great multitude of virgins were gathered from those who believed while John was still alive, perhaps even if there were not so many of them.

We say therefore that the world has come to be in six because of the previously mentioned reason, and the luminaries on the fourth because of the previously mentioned reason, that the tetrad, being a ten in power, possesses the honor. For Moses gave ten words and ten are provided; and one finds other privileges of the ten. 'Let there be' (Genesis 1:3) therefore 'luminaries in the expanse of the...'

of the heaven. And this instructs them toward not being their own gods, just as it seemed to the deceived Egyptians. And it is well placed in the firmament and not beyond the firmament; for those seeing these things.

And he says their work is both that which shines upon the earth and to divide between the day and between the night; for the rising makes the day, and the setting makes the night. Another of their work is to be for signs; for the stars and the sun himself signify many things; but they signify not as making, but as revealing. And those proposing fate set them as poets, saying that if this does to that, but not so, but so that they might signify seasons, months, years; it is not the signifying that is poetic.

For he says, 'And let them be for signs and for seasons and for years' (Genesis 1:14), which signifies the annual seasons, the spring, the winter, and the others; for being in this climate the sun does this or that. And if those concerning the sciences were to say, rushing to conclude that these are for signs, that in this way the argument of fate is introduced, it would not have probability for them; but otherwise it is not even possible for human nature to grasp such signs, because of the pole being moved most sharply by them, through which it is impossible to grasp the hour of the setting.

And the 'and it happened thus,' being reciprocal, shows that the Son did this which the Father willed to establish. For indeed, since it was not said how many lights would become, it was brought forth: 'And God made the two lights' (Genesis 1:16); thus it is the same will and energy of Father and Son. And in part also the beginnings of the lights came to be, of the sun the leader of the day, and of the moon and the other stars the leaders of the night.

Whom He set, not declaring that He set them the same as He made them, nor that having first come to be they were later set, but that the concept submits to the word that the coming-into-being is first to be the placement; for to establish is one thing, and to fit to the other parts of the world is another. And let this be appropriate to those who have said, that He rightly said six days and not six hours or months or years; for to say months or years seemed a slowness, and to say hours seemed unthinkable; for he who does not...