The Empyrean Heaven
The first and highest heaven — the seat of the Blessed, created on the first day and adorned with all its beauty. Paul calls it the third heaven, David the heaven of heavens. Bonaventure calls the identification of the empyrean with the heaven of Genesis 1:1 the more common opinion of the Fathers.
Chapter I (The Six Days of Creation)
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Heaven and Earth: Four Interpretations
— The empyrean heaven, called by Paul the third heaven and by David the heaven of heavens, is the seat of the Blessed, created on the first day with all its beauty.
"it is most probable that by heaven is here understood the first and highest, namely the empyrean, which Paul calls the third heaven, David the heaven of heavens, and which is the seat of the Blessed, as all commonly teach."
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Heaven and Earth: Four Interpretations
— This opinion proved by many Fathers: Clement from the lips of St. Peter, Origen, Theodoret, Hilary, Bede, Abulensis, and many others; Bonaventure calls it the more common opinion.
"This is the opinion of Blessed Clement, received from the lips of Saint Peter; of Origen, Theodoret, Alcuin, Rabanus, Lyranus, Philo, Saint Hilary, Theophilus of Antioch, Junilius, Bede, Abulensis, Catharinus, and many others"
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Verse 16: And God Made Two Great Lights
— The vast breadth of the empyrean heaven: the proportion of the whole world to the empyrean is far less than that of the earth to the firmament.
"Sixth, they teach that the proportion of the entire world contained within the concavity of the firmament, to the extent of the empyrean heaven, is much less than that of the globe of the earth to the firmament itself."