{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010235.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010235.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010235.htm","text":"Chapter II.\u2014Of the Double Heaven,\u2014The Visible, and the Heaven of Heavens.\n2. The weakness of my tongue confesseth unto Thy Highness, seeing that Thou madest heaven and earth. This heaven which I see, and this earth upon which I tread (from which is this earth that I carry about me), Thou hast made. But where is that heaven of heavens, 1072 O Lord, of which we hear in the words of the Psalm, The heaven of heavens are the Lord\u2019s, but the earth hath He given to the children of men? 1073 Where is the heaven, which we behold not, in comparison of which all this, which we behold, is earth? For this corporeal whole, not as a whole everywhere, hath thus received its beautiful figure in these lower parts, of which the bottom is our earth; but compared with that heaven of heavens, even the heaven of our earth is but earth; yea, each of these great bodies is not absurdly called earth, as compared with that, I know not what manner of heaven, which is the Lord\u2019s, not the sons\u2019 of men.\nThat is, not the atmosphere which surrounds the earth, as when we say, \u201cthe birds of heaven\u201d (Jer. 4.25), \u201cthe dew of heaven\u201d (Gen. 27.28); nor that \u201cfirmament of heaven\u201d (Gen. 1.17) in which the stars have their courses; nor both these together; but that \u201cthird heaven\u201d to which Paul was \u201ccaught up\u201d (2 Cor. 12.1) in his rapture, and where God most manifests His glory, and the angels do Him homage.\n176:1073\nPs. 115.16, after the LXX., Vulgate, and Syriac.","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: Chapter II","type":"page"}