Psalms 135:6

O ye who are the friends of Christ, and the friends of the stranger, and the friends of the brethren, receive in kindness my speech to-day, and open your ears like the doors of hearing, and admit within them my discourse, and accept from me this saving proclamation of the baptism of Christ, which took place in the river Jordan, in order that your loving desires may be quickened after the Lord, who has done so much for us in the way of condescension. For even though the festival of the Epiphany of the Saviour is past, the grace of the same yet abides with us through all. Let us therefore enjoy it with insatiable minds; for insatiate desire is a good thing in the case of what pertains to salvation, yea, it is a good thing. Come therefore, all of us, from Galilee to Judea, and let us go forth with Christ; for blessed is he who journeys in such company on the way of life. …

5. But what meaneth, “who alone doeth great wonders”? Is it because many wonderful things He hath done by means of angels and men? Some wonderful things there are which God doeth alone, and these he enumerates, saying, “who by His wisdom made the heavens” ( ver. 5 ), “who stretched out the earth above the waters” ( ver. 6 ), “who alone made great lights” ( ver. 7 ). For this reason did he add “alone” in this verse also, because the other wonders which he is about to tell of, God did by means of man. For having said, “who alone made great lights,” he goes on to explain what these are, “the sun to rule the day” ( ver. 8 ), “the moon and stars to govern the night” ( ver. 9 ); then he begins to tell the wonders which He did by means of angels and men: “who smote Egypt with their first-born” ( ver. 10 ), and the rest. …

The earth is one of the four elements, dry, cold, heavy, motionless, brought into being by God, out of nothing on the first day. For in the beginning , he said, God created the heaven and the earth : but the seat and foundation of the earth no man has been able to declare. Some, indeed, hold that its seat is the waters: thus the divine David says, To Him Who established the earth on the waters . Others place it in the air. Again some other says, He Who hangeth the earth on nothing . And, again, David, the singer of God, says, as though the representative of God, I bear up the pillars of it , meaning by “pillars” the force that sustains it. Further, the expression, He hath founded it upon the seas , shews clearly that the earth is on all hands surrounded with water. …