The Luminaries

Quarta die facta sunt luminaria in firmamento. Per firmamentum, sicut diximus, sacra Scriptura non inconvenienter accipitur: per luminaria vero evangelistas, doctores et praedicatores intelligimus, qui illuminati Spiritus sancti gratia alios ad lucem fidei sua praedicatione convertunt. Qualibus per Paulum dicitur: In medio nationis pravae et perversae inter quos lucetis sicut luminaria in mundo verbum vitae continentes. Bene autem luminaria in firmamento posita vel constituta, illi semper inhaereant: quia doctores debent contemplari et cohaerere sacrosanctae Scripturae. Quod apte praefigurabant vectes illi qui in quatuor arcae circulis positi nunquam inde abstrahebantur. Per quatuor quippe circulos totidem Evangeliorum volumina praefigurantur: per vectes, doctores, in quorum cordibus portatur arca, id est, lex divina, Nunquam ergo vectes a circulis arcae auferebantur: quia praedicatores doctores nunquam habere debent vacuam meditationem legis Dei. Remigius Antissiodorensis, Commentarius In Genesim, Caput I Source: Migne PL 131.57d-58a

On the fourth day the luminaries in the firmament were made. 1 By the firmament, as we have said, the Holy Scriptures are not inappropriately understood. And by the luminaries we understand the evangelists and the teachers and preachers, who, illuminated with the grace of the Holy Spirit, turned others to the light of the faith by their preaching. Concerning which it is said by Paul: 'In the midst of a depraved and perverse people, among whom you shine as luminaries in the world, bearing the word of life.' 2 And well it is that the luminaries are placed or established in the firmament so that they always inhere there, because teachers should contemplate and bind themselves to the Holy Scriptures. Which is aptly prefigured by the four poles which were placed in the four rings of the ark, never to be taken away from there. 3 For by the four rings are prefigured all the volumes of the Gospel and by the poles the teachers, in whose hearts the ark is borne, that is, the Divine Law. Never, then, are the poles taken from the rings of the ark, because the preaching teachers should never have be apart from meditation on the Law of God. Remigius of Auxerre, Commentary On Genesis, Chap 1 1 Genes 1.14 2 Philip 2.15-16 3 Exod 35.11-12