An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 20

1 BOOK II — CHAPTER 6: Concerning the Heaven.

2 The heaven is the circumference of things created, both visible and invisible. For within its boundary are included and marked off both the mental faculties of the angels and all the world of sense. But the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, filling all things, and surrounding all things, and bounding all things, for He is above all things, and has created all things.

3 All things, then, which are brought into existence are subject to corruption according to the law of their nature, and so even the heavens themselves are corruptible. But by the grace of God they are maintained and preserved. Only the Deity, however, is by nature without beginning and without end. They will perish, but God endures: nevertheless, the heavens will not be utterly destroyed. For they will wax old and be wound round as a covering, and will be changed, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

4 It must not be supposed that the heavens or the luminaries are endowed with life. For they are inanimate and insensible. So that when the divine Scripture says, Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad, it is the angels in heaven and the men on earth that are invited to rejoice. For the Scripture is familiar with the figure of personification, and is wont to speak of inanimate things as though they were animate.