Principalities and Powers, Continued

But I beg you to listen patiently as I follow him in his constant return to these same doctrines. Not, indeed, through all he says about them, for it is so much that I would have to write many volumes if I tried to exhaust it; but as much as will satisfy the reader that it is not by chance that he slips into these notions, which he now holds up for his disciples to imitate, but that he supports them with large and frequent assertion. Let us see what he teaches us in these, the most approved of his Commentaries. In this same book he teaches that men can both rise and fall, not only in the present age but in the one to come. On the passage where the words occur, “Far above every Principality and Power and Might and Dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but in the one to come,” he has, among other remarks, the following: [a]

“If, however, there are Principalities, Virtues, Powers and Dominions, they must necessarily have subjects who fear them and serve them and draw power from their strength. And this ranking of offices will exist not only in the present age but in the one to come. And it must be possible for one to rise through these various stages of advancement and honor while another sinks; there will be risings and fallings, and our spirits may pass under each of these Powers, Virtues, Principalities and Dominions in turn.”