Genesis 1:16-19

Chapter I (The Six Days of Creation)

• Vulgate Text: Genesis 1:1-31 — Full Vulgate text quoted

  "16. And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day, and a lesser light to rule the night; and the stars."

• Verse 16: And God Made Two Great Lights — Moon appears great because closest to earth; philosopher Secundus on sun and moon

  "16. AND HE MADE TWO GREAT LUMINARIES, — the sun and the moon."

• Verse 16: And God Made Two Great Lights — The sun is 160 times the earth's size, 4 million miles distant

  "For first, they teach that the sun contains within itself the whole quantity of the earth one hundred and sixty times"

• Verse 16: And God Made Two Great Lights — The marvelous vastness of heaven should lead us to think of eternal things

  "If then we were standing on some star, and much more if in the empyrean heaven, and looked down upon this little globe of earth, would we not exclaim: This is the point over which the sons of Adam gape"

• Verse 16: And God Made Two Great Lights — Symbolically, the firmament is the Holy Church; sun is Christ, moon is the Blessed Virgin, stars are saints

  "Symbolically and tropologically, the firmament is the Holy Church, which is the pillar and ground of truth"