Ideas about the structure of the firmament in the worldview of an Orthodox Christian of the X–XVII centuries (based on canonical and apocryphal texts)

The author analyzes a fragment of the religious worldview of the Eastern and southern Slavs associated with the perception of celestial space. The research was conducted on the basis of canonical biblical texts and works popular in Ancient Russia of the X–XVII centuries containing information about the world order (Severian Gabalsky "Six speeches about the universe / Shestodnev"; John Damascene "Theology"; "Palea the Sensible"). The study of the field of verbalizers of the concept of "Heaven" in the texts of the Holy Scriptures revealed the presence of several meanings of the noun "heaven". The biblical texts contain references to the components of the firmament: the firmament of heaven, created on the second day of Creation, and the spiritual invisible sky – the place of God's presence. However, an analysis of exclusively classical biblical texts and their commentaries did not make it possible to build the structure of the concept of "Heaven" in the Christian worldview. To this day, interpretations of the semantics and etymology of the name "firmament" for the designation of the firmament are controversial. In non-canonical Christian texts, ideas about the heterogeneity of the aboveground space are concretized and illustrated with examples that are understandable to the reader. The sky is interpreted as a plane that exists parallel to the earth's surface; as a dome resting on the earth; as a sphere that has no support and is held only by the power of divine design. The differentiation of the sky into "existing, visible" and "heaven – the upper sky" is complemented by the concept of a boundary separating the material world from the higher ideal world. The overlap was associated with masses of water that turned into ice and looked like crystal. The verbalizers of these representations were the linguistic units "firmament", "firmament of heaven", "condensation of ice". Consequently, in the ancient Russian worldview of the X–XVII centuries, the first level of the sky could act as the very "solid" boundary that separated the material world from the higher ideal world. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by an attempt to recreate the concept of "Heaven" in the worldview of an Orthodox Christian of the X-XVII centuries.

The picture of the world, religious worldview, the structure of the firmament, The Sky concept, The firmament of heaven, The sky is visible, Heaven of heavens, the sky is above, The Holy Scriptures, non-canonical texts