Worlds Before This One

The next thing to look into is whether there was any other world before the one that exists now; and if there was, whether it was like the present one, or somewhat different, or worse than it; or whether there was no world at all, but something like what we understand will exist after the end of all things, when the kingdom is handed over to God the Father — which may itself, all the same, have been the end of another world, the world after which this one began. And whether the various falls of the beings endowed with mind provoked God into producing this varied and uneven state of the world. [a]

I think this point has to be looked into the same way. After this world, will there be any state in which things are preserved and put right — severe, certainly, and full of pain for those who refused to obey the word of God, but still a process by which, through instruction and rational training, those may reach a fuller understanding of the truth who in the present life gave themselves to such pursuits, and who, once their minds were cleaned, went far enough forward to become capable of taking in the wisdom of God? And after that will the end of all things follow immediately, and then again, for the correcting and improving of those who need it, another world, either like the one that exists now, or better than it, or far worse? And how long will that world last, whatever it is that comes after this one? And will there be a time when no world exists anywhere, or was there a time when there was no world at all? Have there been, or will there be, several? And will it ever come about that there is one world just like another, alike in every respect, with nothing to tell them apart?

So, to make it clearer whether bodily matter can exist through stretches of time — and whether, just as it did not exist before it was made, it can be dissolved back into non-existence — let us first ask whether anyone can live without a body. For if one person can live without a body, then everything can do without bodies, since our earlier discussion showed that all things are heading toward one and the same end. And if all things can exist without bodies, then there will certainly be no bodily substance, since there will be no use for it. But then how are we to understand the words of the apostle in the passages where he is discussing the resurrection of the dead? He says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. When this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then what is written will come true: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, death, is your victory? Death, your sting has been swallowed up. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.” [d]

Something like this, then, seems to be what the apostle is suggesting. For when he uses the words “this corruptible” and “this mortal,” with the gesture, as it were, of a man touching something or pointing at it — what can that apply to except bodily matter? So this matter of the body, which is corruptible now, will put on incorruption when a perfect soul, a soul carrying the marks of incorruption, has begun to live in it. And do not be surprised that we speak of a perfect soul as the clothing of the body — a soul which, on account of the Word of God and his wisdom, is now given the name incorruption. For Jesus Christ himself, who is the Lord and maker of the soul, is spoken of as the clothing of the holy ones, in the apostle’s words: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” So as Christ is the clothing of the soul, in a way that makes good enough sense the soul is called the clothing of the body: it is an ornament to the body, covering and hiding its mortal nature. The words “This corruptible must put on incorruption,” then, are as if the apostle had said: this corruptible nature of the body must receive the clothing of incorruption — a soul that has incorruptibility in itself, because it has been clothed with Christ, who is the Wisdom and Word of God.

But when this body, which at some future time we will have in a more glorious state, has come to share in life, then, on top of being immortal, it will become incorruptible as well. For whatever is mortal is necessarily corruptible too; but not everything corruptible can also be called mortal. We say of a stone or a piece of wood that it is corruptible, but we do not say it follows that it is mortal. Since the body shares in life, however, and since life can be and is separated from it, we call it mortal on that account, and in another sense we call it corruptible as well. So the holy apostle, with remarkable insight, is looking at the general and first cause of bodily matter — the matter the soul makes constant use of, whatever qualities that matter is given, coarse and fleshly now, but by and by finer and purer, the qualities that are called spiritual — and he says, “This corruptible must put on incorruption.” And in the second place, looking at the particular cause of the body, he says, “This mortal must put on immortality.”

Now what will incorruption and immortality be, if not the wisdom and the word and the righteousness of God, which shape the soul and clothe it and adorn it? And that is why it is said, “The corruptible will put on incorruption, and the mortal immortality.” For although we may make great progress now, we still know only in part and prophesy in part, and we see even the very things we seem to understand as in a mirror, dimly; so this corruptible is not yet putting on incorruption, and this mortal is not yet clothed with immortality. And since this training of ours in the body is drawn out, no doubt, over a longer stretch of time — right up to the point when the very bodies we are wrapped in may earn incorruptibility and immortality, on account of the word of God and his wisdom and perfect righteousness — that is why it is said, “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

All the same, those who think that rational creatures can at some time live outside the body may raise questions here like these. If it is true that this corruptible will put on incorruption and this mortal immortality, and that death is swallowed up at the end, then what this shows is that nothing is destroyed except a material nature, the one thing death could work on; and meanwhile the sharpness of mind of those who are in the body seems to be blunted by the nature of bodily matter. But if they are outside the body, they will escape that kind of disturbance altogether. Only they will not be able to shed every bodily covering at once, so they are to be thought of as living in finer and purer bodies, bodies that can no longer be overcome by death or wounded by its sting. And so at last, as the material nature gradually disappears, death is swallowed up and, at the end, wiped out, and its sting completely blunted by the divine grace which the soul has been made able to receive and has therefore deserved to obtain, so gaining incorruptibility and immortality. And then it will rightly be said by everyone: “Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin.” If these conclusions seem to hold good, it follows that we have to believe our condition at some future time will be bodiless. And if that is granted, and all are said to be made subject to Christ, then this bodilessness must also be given to everyone whom that subjection to Christ reaches; for all who are subject to Christ will in the end be subject to God the Father, to whom Christ is said to hand over the kingdom. And so it appears that then the need for bodies will cease as well. And if it ceases, bodily matter goes back to nothing, just as it did not exist before. [h]

Now let us see what can be said in answer to those who make these claims. For it will appear to follow necessarily that if bodily nature is wiped out, it will have to be restored and created again. It seems possible that rational natures, from whom the power of free choice is never taken away, may again be set in motion in some way, by the particular act of the Lord himself — for fear that, if they were always to hold a condition that could not change, they might not know that it is by the grace of God and not by their own merit that they have been placed in that final state of blessedness. And these movements will certainly be attended once more by variety and difference of bodies, which are what the world is always adorned with; nor will the world ever be made up of anything but variety and difference — and that cannot be produced without bodily matter.

And now I do not see by what proofs they can hold their position, those who claim that worlds sometimes come into being that are not unlike one another but equal in every respect. For if a world is said to be like the present one in every respect, then it will turn out that Adam and Eve do the same things they did before; there will be a second time the same flood; the same Moses will again lead a nation of nearly six hundred thousand out of Egypt; Judas will betray the Lord a second time; Paul will a second time keep the cloaks of the men who stoned Stephen; and everything that has been done in this life will be said to happen over again. I do not think that can be established by any argument, if souls are set moving by freedom of will, and hold to their advance or their falling back according to the power of that will. For souls are not driven around a cycle that comes back after many ages to the same round, so that they do or want this or that; wherever the freedom of their own will aims, that is where they steer the course of what they do. [k]

What these people say comes to much the same thing as claiming that if a bushel and a half of grain were poured out on the ground, the grain would fall the second time exactly as it fell the first, every single grain lying the second time right beside the grain it had been thrown next to before, so that the whole measure would be scattered in the same order and with the same markings as before. That is certainly an impossible result with the countless grains in such a measure, even if they were poured out without stopping for many ages. So it seems to me impossible for a world to be restored a second time with the same order and with the same tally of births and deaths and actions. But a diversity of worlds may exist, with differences of no small kind, so that the state of another world may be better than this one for reasons that are perfectly clear, and worse for other reasons, and somewhere in between for others again. What their number or measure may be, I admit I do not know — though if anyone can tell me, I would gladly learn.

But this world, which is itself called an age, is said to be the conclusion of many ages. Now the holy apostle teaches that in the age before this one Christ did not suffer, nor in the age before that either; and I do not know that I am able to count up the number of earlier ages in which he did not suffer. I will show, though, from what statements of Paul I have arrived at this understanding. He says: “But now, once, at the consummation of the ages, he has been revealed, to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” He says, that is, that Christ was made a victim once, and at the consummation of the ages was revealed to take away sin. And that after this age — which is said to be formed for the consummation of the other ages — still other ages will follow, we have learned plainly from Paul himself, who says, “so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in his kindness toward us.” He did not say “in the age to come,” nor “in the two ages to come”; from which I gather that his words point to many ages. [n]

Now if there is something greater than ages — so that among created beings certain ages may be understood, but among other beings that exceed and surpass the visible creation, ages greater still (which will perhaps be the case at the restoration of all things, when the whole universe comes to its perfect end) — then perhaps that period in which all things reach their consummation is to be understood as something more than an age. But here I am moved by the authority of holy Scripture, which says, “for an age, and still more.” This word “more” certainly means something greater than an age. And see whether the Savior’s saying may not seem to convey something more than an age and ages, perhaps even more than ages of ages: “I want those also to be with me where I am; and as you and I are one, so may they too be one in us.” That period, that is, when all things are no longer in an age, but when God is in all.