As to the waters placed above the firmament,
lower than the spiritual heavens, but higher than all corporeal
creatures, he says, "Some declare that they were stored there
for the Deluge, but others, more correctly, that they are
intended to temper the fire of the stars." He goes on with long
discussions as to various elements and forces in Nature, and
dwells at length upon the air, of which he says that the upper,
serene air is over the heavens; while the lower, which is
coarse, with humid exhalations, is sent off from the earth, and
that in this are lightning, hail, Snow, ice, and tempests,
finding proof of this in the one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm,
where these are commanded to "praise the Lord from the earth."[327]
So great was Bede's authority, that nearly all the anonymous
speculations of the next following centuries upon these subjects
were eventually ascribed to him. In one of these spurious
treatises an attempt is made to get new light upon the sources
of the waters above the heavens, the main reliance being the
sheet containing the animals let down from heaven, in the vision
of St.
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