"When the heaven was made by God's command, in a moment it extended to f ill its region, and it enclosed all that was in it as a continuous mass capable of dividing what was contained within from what was outside of it, thus making the space it enclosed unlighted by cutting off external light. Three things together are necessary for a shadow to exist: the light, a mass, and an unlighted place. Therefore, the darkness that covered the earth was due to the shadow of the heavenly mass [of vapor]. Try to understand me through this clear example: At midday you set up a tent of thick, impenetrable material and you shut yourself up in this improvised darkness. This is how you should imagine that darkness...At that time the water covered everything. This is why the darkness necessarily was said to be over the deep". (Hom. II, 5) It is clear from the preceding texts that on the first day of creation the heaven was completed, including the sun, the moon, and all the stars. But they were not visible; neither was their light able to reach the surface of the earth due to the layer of water vapor that covered the earth. Later, when the vapors dispersed, the diffused light of the sun was able to reach the surface of the earth and illuminate it, much as it does on cloudy days. The vapors thinned out as the water cooled and passed from a gaseous to a liquid state. In this way the earth was hidden by a vast ocean that covered it completely. Dense clouds remained suspended in the atmosphere. Between these clouds and the ocean there was clear space, which the Scripture calls the "firmament" (1:6-8). Finally, much later, on the fourth day of creation, the clouds dispersed and broke up and separated as we see them today, permitting the clear sky to appear, and the sun, the moon, and the stars with it. (St. John Chrysostom explains these things in exactly the same way in his Third Homily on Genesis.)
9. The Spirit of God Another very important point where we ought to stop is the meaning of the passage "And the Spirit of God was stirring, above the water". (1:2) These words are of primary significance and are a key to understanding the beginning of life on the earth. And again, Basil the Great shows us their meaning: "The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God because this name is given to It alone by the Holy Scripture. There is no other Spirit of God named, but the Holy Spirit, Who completes the Divine and Blessed Trinity. How, then, was It stirring above the waters? I will tell you an explanation that is not my own, but that of a Syrian who was as distant from worldly wisdom as he was near the knowledge of truth. He used to say that the [Syriac] language of the Syrians is more expressive and more closely approaches the meaning of the Scripture because it is related to Hebrew. The meaning of the phrase is this: The words 'stirring above,' they say, are in place of 'warming with fostering care,' that is, the Spirit was imbuing the nature of the waters with life, in the image of a bird brooding on its eggs and
