On First Principles 2.3.1–2.3.7

It remains, after this, to inquire whether before this world which now exists there was another world; and if there was, whether it was such as this one which now exists, or somewhat different, or inferior; or whether there was no world at all, but something such as we understand will be after the end of all things, when the kingdom will be handed over to God the Father; which would nevertheless have been the end of another world, namely of that after which this world began; and whether the varied fall of intellectual natures moved God to this varied and diverse condition of the world. And this too I think must likewise be inquired: whether after this world there will be some healing and correction, harsher indeed and full of pain for those who were unwilling to obey the word of God, but through instruction and rational training by which they might advance to a richer understanding of the truth, like those who in the present life have devoted themselves to these studies and, made purer in mind, have already from here become capable of divine wisdom; and whether after this the end of all things will follow at once, or whether, for the correction and amendment of those who need such things, there will again be another world, either similar to this one which now exists, or better than it, or much worse; and how long that world after this one, whatever it will be, will last; and whether there will ever be a time when there is no world at all, or whether there was ever a time when there was no world at all; or whether there have been or will be several; or whether it may ever happen that one world turns out equal and similar to another in all respects and indistinguishable from it.

So that it may appear more clearly whether bodily matter subsists only at intervals, and, just as it did not exist before it was made, is dissolved again so as not to exist, let us first see whether it is possible for anyone to live without a body. For if anyone can live without a body, all things too can be without a body; for the preceding treatise has taught that all things tend to one end. But if all things can lack bodies, there will undoubtedly be no bodily substance, since there will be no use for it. And how shall we understand what the Apostle said in those passages where he discusses the resurrection of the dead, when he says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory; where, O death, is your victory? Your sting, O death, is swallowed up; the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” The Apostle seems to suggest some such understanding as this. For when he says “this corruptible” and “this mortal,” with the gesture, as it were, of one touching and pointing, to what else does it apply but bodily matter? This matter of the body, then, which is now corruptible, will put on incorruption when a perfected soul, instructed in the teachings of incorruption, has begun to use it. And do not be surprised if we call the perfected soul the clothing of the body, the soul which, on account of the Word of God and his wisdom, is now called incorruption; since Jesus Christ himself, who is the Lord and creator of the soul, is said to be the clothing of the saints, as the Apostle says: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” As Christ, then, is the clothing of the soul, so by a certain intelligible reasoning the soul too is said to be the clothing of the body. For it is its adornment, veiling and covering its mortal nature. Such, then, is the meaning of “This corruptible must put on incorruption”: as if he said, this corruptible nature of the body must receive the clothing of incorruption, a soul which has incorruption in itself, because it has put on Christ, who is the Wisdom and Word of God. And when this body, which we shall at some time have in a more glorious state, has shared in life, then it will attain to what is immortal, so as to become incorruptible as well. For whatever is mortal is by that very fact also corruptible; but not everything corruptible can be called mortal. We call a stone or wood corruptible, but we shall not therefore call it mortal. The body, however, since it shares in life, we consequently call mortal, because life can be and is separated from it; and in another sense we also call it corruptible. With wonderful reasoning, then, the holy Apostle, looking first to the general cause of bodily matter (a matter which the soul always uses, set in whatever quality, now fleshly, afterwards finer and purer, which is called spiritual), says, “This corruptible must put on incorruption”; and secondly, looking to the special cause of the body, says, “This mortal must put on immortality.” And what else will incorruption and immortality be but the Wisdom and Word and righteousness of God, which form and clothe and adorn the soul? So it comes about that it is said that the corruptible will put on incorruption, and the mortal immortality. For now, even if we make great progress, yet since we know only in part and prophesy in part, and see through a mirror in an enigma those very things which we seem to understand, this corruptible has not yet put on incorruption, nor is the mortal surrounded by immortality; and since this training of ours in the body is undoubtedly drawn out at length, namely until our very bodies with which we are surrounded merit incorruption and immortality on account of the Word of God and his wisdom and perfect righteousness, therefore it is said: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Those, however, who think that rational creatures can at some time lead their life outside bodies may raise some such points as these at this place. If it is true that “this corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality,” and that “death is swallowed up at the end,” this declares that nothing other than material nature is to be destroyed, in which death could do something, while in those who are in the body the sharpness of the mind seems to be blunted by the nature of bodily matter. But if they are outside the body, then they will escape altogether the trouble of disturbance of this kind. But since they will not be able suddenly to escape all bodily clothing, they must be thought first to dwell in finer and purer bodies, which can no longer be overcome by death nor pricked by the sting of death; so that thus at last, as material nature gradually ceases, death may be swallowed up and even exterminated at the end, and all its sting entirely blunted by the divine grace, of which the soul has been made capable, and by which it has merited to obtain incorruption and immortality. And then it will rightly be said by all: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin.” If, then, these things seem to follow, it remains that our condition is to be believed to be at some time incorporeal; and if this is accepted, and all are said to be subjected to Christ, this must also be granted to all to whom the subjection of Christ extends; since all who are subject to Christ will at the end also be subject to God the Father, to whom Christ is said to be about to hand over the kingdom; and so it seems that then the use of bodies too will cease. And if it ceases, it returns to nothing, as it also did not exist before. But let us see what confronts those who so assert. For it will seem necessary that, if bodily nature has been destroyed, it must be restored and created a second time; for it seems possible that rational natures, from whom the faculty of free choice is never taken away, may again be subject to some movements, the Lord himself allowing this, lest perhaps, if they always held an unmoving state, they should not know that it was by the grace of God and not by their own power that they were set in that final blessedness; and those movements will undoubtedly again be followed by variety and diversity of bodies, by which the world is always adorned; nor can a world ever consist except of variety and diversity, which can in no way be brought about apart from bodily matter.

Now as for those who affirm that worlds sometimes come about that are not unlike one another and are equal in all respects, I do not know by what proofs they can assert this. For if a world is said to be similar in every respect, it will follow that Adam and Eve will again do the same things they did; there will again be the same flood, and the same Moses will again lead out of Egypt a people numbering about six hundred thousand; Judas too will twice betray the Lord; Paul will a second time keep the garments of those who stoned Stephen; and everything that has been done in this life will be said to be done again. I do not think this can be established by any reasoning, if souls are moved by freedom of choice and undergo their progress or decline according to the power of their own will. For souls are not driven by some course revolving into the same circles after many ages, so as to do or desire this or that; but wherever the freedom of their own minds has aimed, there they direct the course of their deeds. What these people say is as if someone were to assert that if a bushel of grain is poured out on the ground, it could happen that the grains fall a second time in the same and completely indistinguishable way, so that each grain, poured out a second time, would lie next to the one beside which it was once thrown down the first time, and be scattered in the same order and with the same marks as when it was first poured out; which is certainly utterly impossible for the countless grains of a bushel, even if they were poured out unceasingly and continually for immeasurable ages. So it seems to me impossible that a world should be restored a second time with the same order and in the same ways of being born and dying and acting; but that different worlds can exist with no small changes, so that for certain clear causes the state of one world is better, for others worse, and for others in between. But what their number or measure is, I confess I do not know. If anyone could show it, I would gladly learn.

Yet this world, which is itself also called an age, is said to be the end of many ages. The holy Apostle teaches that Christ did not suffer in the age that was before this one, nor even in the one before that; and I do not know whether I am able to count how many earlier ages there were in which he did not suffer. I shall set out from which words of Paul I came to the occasion of this understanding. For he says: “But now once at the consummation of the ages he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” For he says that he became a sacrifice once, and was manifested at the consummation of the ages to put away sin. And that after this age, which is said to have come about for the consummation of other ages, there will be other ages to come, we have learned plainly from Paul himself, who says: “That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us.” He did not say “in the age to come,” nor “in two ages,” but “in the ages to come”; from this I think that many ages are indicated by what he says. But if there is something greater than the ages (so that ages are understood among created things, but in others, which exceed and surpass visible creatures, …), which will perhaps be in “the restoration of all things,” when all things reach their perfect end, that perhaps is to be understood as something more than an age, in which the consummation of all things will be. I am moved in this by the authority of holy Scripture, which says “for an age, and still further.” For when it says “and still further,” it undoubtedly wishes something more than an age to be understood. And see whether what the Saviour says, “I will that where I am these too may be with me; and as I and you are one, so they too may be one in us,” does not seem to indicate something more than an age and ages, perhaps even more than the ages of ages, namely when all things are no longer in an age, but God is in all.

Having discussed, as far as we could, the account of the world, it seems not unfitting also to inquire what the name “world” itself means; for this name is often shown in the holy Scriptures to signify different things. What we call mundus in Latin is called κόσμος in Greek; and κόσμος means not only world but also ornament. Indeed in Isaiah, where a word of rebuke is directed to the chief daughters of Zion, it says: “Instead of an ornament of gold on your head you shall have baldness because of your works”; there it called “ornament” by the same name as “world”, that is, κόσμος. The plan of the world is also said to be contained in the vesture of the high priest, as we find in the Wisdom of Solomon, when it says that “on the long robe was the whole world.” This globe of the earth with its inhabitants is also called our world, as when Scripture says: “The whole world lies in the evil one.” Clement, the disciple of the apostles, indeed mentions those whom the Greeks called ἀντίχθονες, and other parts of the globe of the earth which none of our people can reach and from which none of those who are there can cross to us; and these too he called worlds, when he says: “The ocean is impassable to human beings, and the worlds that are beyond it, which are governed by these same arrangements of God the ruler.” This universe too, which is contained by heaven and earth, is called the world, as Paul says: “For the form of this world will pass away.” Our Lord and Saviour also indicates another world besides this visible one, which is truly difficult to describe and indicate; for he says, “I am not of this world.” He says “I am not of this world” as though he were from some other world. We have said beforehand that the explanation of this world is difficult for us, lest occasion be given to some for the understanding by which they think we affirm certain images which the Greeks call ἰδέαι: for it is certainly foreign to us to speak of an incorporeal world existing only in the fantasy of the mind or the slipperiness of thoughts; and how they will be able to affirm that the Saviour comes from there, or that the saints too will go there, I do not see. Yet there is no doubt that something more glorious and splendid than this present world is indicated by the Saviour, toward which he calls and urges those who believe in him to strive. But whether that world which he wishes to be understood is separate from this one and far divided from it, whether in place or quality or glory, or whether it excels in glory and quality but is contained within the bounds of this world, which seems to me more likely, is still uncertain and, as I think, as yet unfamiliar to human thoughts and minds. Yet from what Clement seemed to indicate when he says, “The ocean is impassable to human beings, and the worlds that are beyond it,” naming the worlds beyond it in the plural, which he signifies are driven and ruled by the same providence of the most high God, he seems to scatter for us some seeds of an understanding of this kind: that the whole universe of things that are and subsist, heavenly and super-heavenly, earthly and infernal, may be called in general one perfect world, within which, or by which, the others, if there are any, are to be thought to be contained. Hence some wished the globe of the moon, or of the sun, and of the others which they call planets, each to be called a world. And they wish the very globe which surpasses them, which they call ἀπλανής (fixed), to be properly called a world as well. Indeed they also call the book of the prophet Baruch to witness to this assertion, because in it seven worlds or heavens are more clearly indicated. Yet above that sphere which they call ἀπλανής they hold that there is another, which, just as with us the heaven contains all things that are under heaven, so, they say, by its immense magnitude and ineffable embrace binds together the spaces of all the spheres with a more magnificent circuit; so that all things are within it as this earth of ours is under heaven. This too is believed to be called in the holy Scriptures the good land and the land of the living, having its own heaven, the higher one, in which heaven the names of the saints are said by the Saviour to be written or to have been written; by which heaven that land is held in and enclosed which the Saviour in the Gospel promises to the meek and gentle. For they hold that this earth of ours, whose name at first was “dry land”, was named after that land, just as this firmament was called heaven after the name of that heaven. But we have treated opinions of this kind more fully in the place where we inquired what it means that in the beginning God made heaven and earth. For another heaven and another earth is indicated than that firmament which is said to have been made after two days, or the dry land which was afterwards called earth. Indeed, what some say of this world, that it is corruptible because it was made, and yet is not corrupted because the will of God, who made it and holds it together so that corruption may not rule it, is stronger and more powerful than corruption, could more rightly be held of that world which we called above the ἀπλανής sphere, since by the will of God it is in no way subject to corruption, because it has not received the causes of corruption. For that world belongs to the saints and to those who have been thoroughly purified, and not to the impious, as this one of ours does. We must see whether the Apostle had this in view when he said: “While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this dwelling is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” For when he says elsewhere, “For I will see the heavens, the works of your fingers,” and God said through the prophet of all visible things, “For my hand has made all these things,” he declares that this eternal house which he promises to the saints in the heavens is not made with hands, showing without doubt a difference of creation between the things that are seen and the things that are not seen. For “the things that are not seen” and “the things that are invisible” do not mean the same. The things that are invisible are not only not seen but do not even have a nature such that they can be seen; these the Greeks called ἀσώματα, that is, incorporeal. But those of which Paul said, “which are not seen,” have a nature such that they can be seen, but he explains that they are not yet seen by those to whom they are promised.

These three opinions, then, about the end of all things and the supreme blessedness having been sketched as far as we were able to perceive, let each reader judge for himself more carefully and scrupulously whether any of them can be approved or chosen. For it has been said either that an incorporeal life is to be thought possible after all things have been subjected to Christ, and through Christ to God the Father, when God will be all and in all; or that, when all things have nonetheless been subjected to Christ, and through Christ to God, with whom they also become one spirit, in so far as rational natures are spirits, then bodily substance itself too, united to the best and purest spirits and changed into an ethereal state according to the quality or merits of those who take it on, will shine, as the Apostle says, “And we shall be changed”; or certainly that, when the form of the things that are seen passes away, all corruptibility being shaken off and purged, and this whole state of the world in which the spheres of the planets are said to be having been passed beyond and surmounted, the dwelling of the pious and blessed is placed above that sphere which is called ἀπλανής (fixed), as in a good land and a land of the living, which the meek and gentle will receive as an inheritance; to which belongs that heaven which with a more magnificent circuit surrounds and contains that very land, and which is truly and principally called heaven. In this heaven or land the end and perfection of all things can rest in a safe and most sure station: so that those who, after the correction and chastisement which they have endured for their sins by way of purification, have fulfilled and paid everything, may merit the dwelling of that land; while those who have been obedient to the word of God and have already from here shown themselves capable of his wisdom and obedient to it are said to merit the kingdom of that heaven or heavens; and so what was said may be more worthily fulfilled: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth as an inheritance,” and “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall receive the kingdom of heaven as an inheritance”; and what he says in the Psalm: “He will exalt you, and you shall receive the land as an inheritance.” For one is said to go down to this land, but to be exalted to that which is on high. In this way a kind of path seems to be opened for the progress of the saints from that land to those heavens, so that they seem not so much to remain in that land as to dwell there, being about to pass on, when they have made progress in this too, to the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven.