Whether the Stars Are Alive

What we took up in the chapter before this was said in general terms. We discussed the nature of reasoning beings by drawing out what reasonably follows rather than by laying down settled definitions — apart from the place where we handled, as well as we could, the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now we have to work out which matters ought to be handled in the pages that follow according to settled teaching, that is, in agreement with what the church proclaims. All souls and all reasoning natures, whether holy or wicked, were formed, or created; and every one of them, by its own proper nature, is without a body. Yet though they are bodiless, they were nevertheless created, since all things were made by God through Christ, as John teaches in a general way in his Gospel when he says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” Paul, moreover, sets out created things by kind and number and rank, showing that all things were made through Christ: “And in him were all things created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities: all things were created by him and in him, and he is before all, and he is the head.” So he plainly declares that in Christ and through Christ all things were made and created, whether things visible, which have bodies, or things invisible, which I take to be nothing other than bodiless and spiritual powers. And of the things he had called, in a general way, bodily or bodiless, he seems to me in the words that follow to list the various kinds: thrones, lordships, rulers, authorities, powers. [a]

We have set these things down first because we want to come in an orderly way, by steps of reasoning, to the question of the sun and the moon and the stars: whether they too ought properly to be counted among the rulers, on the ground that Scripture says they were made for rule over the day and the night; or whether the only rule they have over day and night is the work of lighting them, and they are not in fact chief in that order of rulers.

Now when it is said that all things were made by him, and that in him all things were created, both the things in heaven and the things on earth, there can be no doubt that the things in the dome of the sky — which is called heaven, and in which those lights are said to be set — are counted among the heavenly things. And second: since the course of the argument has plainly shown that all things were made or created, and that among created things there is nothing that cannot admit good and evil and is not capable of either, what are we to make of the opinion some of our own people hold about the sun and the moon and the stars — that they are unchangeable, and cannot become the opposite of what they are? Not a few have held that same view about the holy angels, and certain heretics have held it about souls, which they call spiritual natures. [f]

First, then, let us see what reason itself can find out about the sun and the moon and the stars — whether the opinion some hold of their unchangeableness is correct — and let the statements of Holy Scripture be brought forward first, as far as they will go. For Job seems to say not only that the stars may be subject to sin, but that they are in fact not clean of its infection. These are his words: “The stars also are not clean in your sight.” This is not to be understood of the brightness of their physical substance, as though one were to say of a garment that it is not clean. If that were the meaning, then charging their bodily brightness with a want of cleanness would amount to an insult against their Maker. For if by their own hard effort they cannot get themselves a body of greater brightness, nor by their own laziness make the one they have less pure, how should they be blamed for being stars that are not clean, when they earn no praise for being clean?

But to reach a clearer understanding of these matters, we ought to ask first whether we may suppose them to be living and reasoning beings; next, whether their souls came into existence at the same time as their bodies, or seem to be earlier than their bodies; and also whether, after the end of the world, we are to understand that they will be released from their bodies; and whether, as we stop living, they too will stop lighting the world. This inquiry may look somewhat bold. Yet since we are driven by the desire to find out the truth as far as we can, there seems to be nothing absurd in attempting to look into the subject, with the grace of the Holy Spirit. [h]

We think, then, that they may be called living beings, for this reason: they are said to receive commands from God, and that ordinarily happens only with reasoning beings. The Lord says, “I have given a command to all the stars.” Now what are these commands? These: that each star, in its own order and course, should give the world the measure of brightness entrusted to it. For the ones called planets move in orbits of one kind, and the ones called ἀπλανεῖς in another. It plainly follows from this that the movement of such a body cannot take place without a soul, and that living things can never be without motion. And since the stars move with such order and regularity that their movements never appear at any time to be thrown out of course, would it not be the height of foolishness to say that so orderly a keeping of method and plan could be carried out or completed by beings without reason? In the writings of Jeremiah, indeed, the moon is called the queen of heaven. Yet if the stars are living and reasoning beings, then there will certainly be found among them both going forward and falling back. For Job’s words, “the stars are not clean in his sight,” seem to me to carry some such idea.

And now we have to work out whether the beings which in the course of the discussion we have found to have life and reason were given a soul along with their bodies at the time Scripture speaks of, when “God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars also”; or whether their spirit was put into them from outside, not at the making of their bodies, but after they had already been made. For my part, I suspect the spirit was put into them from outside. But it is worth proving this from Scripture, since it will seem an easy thing to assert it on guesswork, and harder to establish it by Scripture’s own testimony. [k]

Now it may be established by conjecture as follows. If the soul of a man — certainly the lesser thing, so long as it remains a man’s soul — was not formed along with his body, but is shown to have been put into him strictly from outside, this must be much more true of those living beings that are called heavenly. For take a man: how could the soul of Jacob, who took his brother’s place in the womb, be thought to have been formed along with his body? Or how could the soul of that other, and the images it carries, have been formed along with his body, when while he still lay in his mother’s womb he was filled with the Holy Spirit? I mean John, who leaped in his mother’s womb and was glad because the sound of Mary’s greeting had reached the ears of his mother Elizabeth. How could his soul and its images have been formed along with his body, who is said to have been known to God before he was made in the womb, and to have been made holy by him before he was born? Some may perhaps think that God fills certain people with his Holy Spirit and makes them holy not on grounds of justice and not according to what they deserve, but undeservedly. And how shall we escape that word, “Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!” — or this, “Does God show favoritism?” For that is the defense of those who hold that souls come into existence together with bodies. So far, then, as we can form an opinion by comparison with the condition of man, I think it follows that we must hold the same to be true of the heavenly beings as reason itself and the authority of Scripture show us to be true of men.

But let us see whether we can find in Holy Scripture anything that properly applies to these heavenly beings. Here is the statement of the apostle Paul: “The creation was made subject to futility, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope; because the creation itself also will be set free from the slavery of decay into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” To what futility, then, was the creation made subject? What creation is meant? In what sense is it said “not willingly”? In hope of what? And in what way is the creation itself to be set free from the slavery of decay? Elsewhere the same apostle says: “For the expectation of the creation waits for the unveiling of the sons of God.” And again in another place: “And not only we, but the creation itself groans together and is in pain until now.” So we have to ask what these groanings are, and what these pains are. [o]

Let us see, then, in the first place, what the futility is to which the creation is subject. I take it to be nothing other than the body. For though the body of the stars is made of ether, it is nevertheless material. And that is why Solomon appears to describe the whole of bodily nature as a kind of weight that wears down the vigor of the soul, when he says: “Futility of futilities, says the Preacher; everything is futility. I looked and saw all the works that are done under the sun; and look — everything is futility.” To this futility, then, the creation is subject — and above all that creation which, being certainly the greatest thing in this world, also holds a distinguished rule of labor. That is to say, the sun and the moon and the stars are said to be subject to futility because they are clothed with bodies and set apart for the work of giving light to the human race. And the apostle goes on: “And this creation was made subject to futility not willingly.” For it did not take up its service to futility by its own choice, but because that was the will of the one who subjected it — and because of the promise made by the one who subjected them to this unwilling obedience: that when the service of their great work was finished they would be freed from this slavery of decay and futility, once the time had come for the glorious redemption of God’s children. And the whole of creation, having received this hope and looking now for the keeping of this promise, in the meantime — having affection for those it serves — groans along with them and patiently suffers with them, hoping for the promises to be kept.

See too whether these words of Paul can apply to those who were made subject to futility not willingly, but in accordance with the will of the one who subjected them, and in hope of the promises. He says, “For I would like to cast off,” or “to go back and be with Christ, which is far better.” For I think the sun might say in the same way, “I would like to cast off,” or “to go back and be with Christ, which is far better.” Paul then adds, “Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.” And the sun may say, “To remain in this bright and heavenly body is more necessary, because of the unveiling of the sons of God.” The same is to be believed and said about the moon and the stars.

Let us see now what the freedom of the creation is, or the ending of its slavery. When Christ has handed over the kingdom to God the Father, then those living beings too — having first been made the kingdom of Christ — will be handed over, along with the whole of that kingdom, to the rule of the Father; so that when God is all in all, they also, since they are a part of all things, may have God in themselves, as he is in all things.