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| Argument: Moreover, It is Not at All to Be Wondered at If This World is to Be Consumed by Fire, Since Everything Which Has a Beginning Has Also an End. And the Ancient Philosophers are Not Averse from the Opinion of the Probable Burning Up of the World. Yet It is Evident that God, Having Made Man from Nothing, Can Raise Him Up from Death into Life. And All Nature Suggests a Future Resurrection.
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Chapter XXXIV.—Argument: Moreover, It is Not at All to
Be Wondered at If This World is to Be Consumed by Fire, Since
Everything Which Has a Beginning Has Also an End. And the Ancient
Philosophers are Not Averse from the Opinion of the Probable Burning Up
of the World. Yet It is Evident that God, Having Made Man from
Nothing, Can Raise Him Up from Death into Life. And All Nature
Suggests a Future Resurrection.
“Further, in respect of the burning up of
the world, it is a vulgar error not to believe either that fire will
fall upon it in an unforeseen way, or that the world will be destroyed
by it.1822
| 1822 This passage is very
indefinite, and probably corrupt; the meaning is anything but
satisfactory. The general meaning is given freely thus:
“Further, it is a vulgar error to doubt or disbelieve a future
conflagration of the world.” | For who of
wise men doubts, who is ignorant, that all things which have had a
beginning perish, all things which are made come to an end? The
heaven also, with all things which are contained in heaven, will cease
even as it began. The nourishment of the seas by the sweet waters
of the springs shall pass away into the power of fire.1823
| 1823 This passage is very
variously read, without substantial alteration of the sense. | The Stoics have a constant belief
that, the moisture being dried up, all this world will take fire; and
the Epicureans have the very same opinion concerning the conflagration
of the elements and the destruction of the world. Plato speaks,
saying that parts of the world are now inundated, and are now burnt up
by alternate changes; and although he says that the world itself is
constructed perpetual and indissoluble, yet he adds that to God
Himself, the only artificer,1824
| 1824 Otherwise, “to
God Himself alone, the artificer.” | it is both
dissoluble and mortal. Thus it is no wonder if that mass be
destroyed by Him by whom it was reared. You observe that
philosophers dispute of the same things that we are saying, not that we
are following up their tracks, but that they, from the divine
announcements of the prophets, imitated the shadow of the corrupted
truth. Thus also the most illustrious of the wise men, Pythagoras
first, and Plato chiefly, have delivered the doctrine of resurrection
with a corrupt and divided faith; for they will have it, that the
bodies being dissolved, the souls alone both abide for ever, and very
often pass into other new bodies. To these things they add also
this, by way of misrepresenting the truth, that the souls of men return
into cattle, birds, and beasts. Assuredly such an opinion as that
is not worthy of a philosopher’s inquiry, but of the ribaldry of
a buffoon.1825
| 1825 This is otherwise
read, “the work of the mimic or buffoon.” | But for our
argument it is sufficient, that even in this your wise men do in some
measure harmonize with us. But who is so foolish or so brutish as
to dare to deny that man, as he could first of all be formed by God, so
can again be re-formed; that he is nothing after death, and that he was
nothing before he began to exist; and as from nothing it was possible
for him to be born, so from nothing it may be possible for him to be
restored? Moreover, it is more difficult to begin that which is
not, than to repeat that which has been. Do you think that, if
anything is withdrawn from our feeble eyes, it perishes to God?
Every body, whether it is dried up into dust, or is dissolved into
moisture, or is compressed into ashes, or is attenuated into smoke, is
withdrawn from us, but it is reserved for God in the custody of the
elements. Nor, as you believe, do we fear any loss from
sepulture,1826
but we adopt the
ancient and better custom of burying in the earth. See,
therefore, how for our consolation all nature suggests a future
resurrection. The sun sinks down and arises, the stars pass away
and return, the flowers die and revive again, after their wintry decay
the shrubs resume their leaves, seeds do not flourish again. unless
they are rotted:1827
thus the body
in the sepulchre is like the trees which in winter hide their verdure
with a deceptive dryness. Why are you in haste for it to revive
and return, while the winter is still raw? We must wait also for
the spring-time of the body. And I am not ignorant that many, in
the consciousness of what they deserve, rather desire than believe that
they shall be nothing after death; for they would prefer to be
altogether extinguished, rather than to be restored for the purpose of
punishment. And their error also is enhanced, both by the liberty
granted them in this life, and by God’s very great patience,
whose judgment, the more tardy it is, is so much the more
just.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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