No one will contradict this; least of all he who looks for celestial light as one of the rewards promised to virtue, the light which, as Solomon says, is always a light to the righteous, Prov. xiii. 9, lxx. the light which made the Apostle say “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” Col. i. 12.  Finally, if the condemned are sent into outer darkness cf. Matt. xxii. 13. evidently those who are made worthy of God’s approval, are at rest in heavenly light.  When then, according to the order of God, the heaven appeared, enveloping all that its circumference included, a vast and unbroken body separating outer things from those which it enclosed, it necessarily kept the space inside in darkness for want of communication with the outer light.  Three things are, indeed, needed to form a shadow, light, a body, a dark place.  The shadow of heaven forms the darkness of the world.  Understand, I pray you, what I mean, by a simple example; by raising for yourself at mid-day a tent of some compact and impenetrable material, and shutting yourself up in it in sudden darkness.  Suppose that original darkness was like this, not subsisting directly by itself, but resulting from some external causes.  If it is said that it rested upon the deep, it is because the extremity of air naturally touches the surface of bodies; and as at that time the water covered everything, we are obliged to say that darkness was upon the face of the deep.