7. The whole of this reasoning, then, amounts to this: that God created two general natures,--a visible, i.e., a corporeal nature; and an invisible nature, which is incorporeal. Now these two natures admit of two different permutations. That invisible and rational nature changes in mind and purpose, because it is endowed with freedom of will, [2692] and is on this account found sometimes to be engaged in the practice of good, and sometimes in that of the opposite. But this corporeal nature admits of a change in substance; whence also God, the arranger of all things, has the service of this matter at His command in the moulding, or fabrication, or re-touching of whatever He wishes, so that corporeal nature may be transmuted, and transformed into any forms or species whatever, according as the deserts of things may demand; which the prophet evidently has in view when he says, "It is God who makes and transforms all things." [2693]
8. And now the point for investigation is, whether, when God shall be all in all, the whole of bodily nature will, in the consummation of all things, consist of one species, and the sole quality of body be that which shall shine in the indescribable glory which is to be regarded as the future possession of the spiritual body. For if we rightly understand the matter, this is the statement of Moses in the beginning of his book, when he says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." [2694] For this is the beginning of all creation: to this beginning the end and consummation of all things must be recalled, i.e., in order that that heaven and that earth may be the habitation and resting-place of the pious; so that all the holy ones, and the meek, may first obtain an inheritance in that land, since this is the teaching of the law, and of the prophets, and of the Gospel. In which land I believe there exist the true and living forms of that worship which Moses handed down under the shadow of the law; of which it is said, that "they serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things" [2695] --those, viz., who were in subjection in the law. To Moses himself also was the injunction given, "Look that thou make them after the form and pattern which were showed thee on the mount." [2696] From which it appears to me, that as on this earth the law was a sort of schoolmaster to those who by it were to be conducted to Christ, in order that, being instructed and trained by it, they might more easily, after the training of the law, receive the more perfect principles of Christ; so also another earth, which receives into it all the saints, may first imbue and mould them by the institutions of the true and everlasting law, that they may more easily gain possession of those perfect institutions of heaven, to which nothing can be added; in which there will be, of a truth, that Gospel which is called everlasting, and that Testament, ever new, which shall never grow old.
9. In this way, accordingly, we are to suppose that at the consummation and restoration of all things, those who make a gradual advance, and who ascend (in the scale of improvement), will arrive in due measure and order at that land, and at that training which is contained in it, where they may be prepared for those better institutions to which no addition can be made. For, after His agents and servants, the Lord Christ, who is King of all, will Himself assume the kingdom; i.e., after instruction in the holy virtues, He will Himself instruct those who are capable of receiving Him in respect of His being wisdom, reigning in them until He has subjected them to the Father, who has subdued all things to Himself, i.e., that when they shall have been made capable of receiving God, God may be to them all in all. Then accordingly, as a necessary consequence, bodily nature will obtain that highest condition [2697] to which nothing more can be added. Having discussed, up to this point, the quality of bodily nature, or of spiritual body, we leave it to the choice of the reader to determine what he shall consider best. And here we may bring the third book to a conclusion.
[2671] Finis omnium: "bonorum" understood.
[2672] Gen. i. 26.
[2673] Gen. i. 27, 28.
[2674] Imago.
[2675] Similitudo.
[2676] Cf. 1 John iii. 2.
[2677] Cf. John xvii. 24; cf. 21.
[2678] Ex simili unum fieri.
[2679] Jerome, in his Epistle to Avitus, No. 94, has the passage thus: "Since, as we have already frequently observed, the beginning is generated again from the end, it is a question whether then also there will be bodies, or whether existence will be maintained at some time without them when they shall have been annihilated, and thus the life of incorporeal beings must be believed to be incorporeal, as we know is the case with God. And there is no doubt that if all the bodies which are termed visible by the apostle, belong to that sensible world, the life of incorporeal beings will be incorporeal." And a little after: "That expression, also, used by the apostle, The whole creation will be freed from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God' (Rom. viii. 21), we so understand, that we say it was the first creation of rational and incorporeal beings which is not subject to corruption, because it was not clothed with bodies: for wherever bodies are, corruption immediately follows. But afterwards it will be freed from the bondage of corruption, when they shall have received the glory of the sons of God, and God shall be all in all." And in the same place: "That we must believe the end of all things to be incorporeal, the language of the Saviour Himself leads us to think, when He says, As I and Thou are one, so may they also be one in Us' (John xvii. 21). For we ought to know what God is, and what the Saviour will be in the end, and how the likeness of the Father and the Son has been promised to the saints; for as they are one in Him, so they also are one in them. For we must adopt the view, either that the God of all things is clothed with a body, and as we are enveloped with flesh, so He also with some material covering, that the likeness of the life of God may be in the end produced also in the saints: or if this hypothesis is unbecoming, especially in the judgment of those who desire, even in the smallest degree, to feel the majesty of God, and to look upon the glory of His uncreated and all-surpassing nature, we are forced to adopt the other alternative, and despair either of attaining any likeness to God, if we are to inhabit for ever the same bodies, or if the blessedness of the same life with God is promised to us, we must live in the same state as that in which God lives." All these points have been omitted by Rufinus as erroneous, and statements of a different kind here and there inserted instead (Ruæus).
[2680] Ad unitatis proprietatem.
[2681] "Here the honesty of Rufinus in his translation seems very suspicious: for Origen's well-known opinion regarding the sins and lapses of blessed spirits he here attributes to others. Nay, even the opinion which he introduces Origen as ascribing to others, he exhibits him as refuting a little further on, sec. 6, in these words: And in this condition (of blessedness) we are to believe that, by the will of the Creator, it will abide for ever without any change,' etc. I suspect, therefore, that all this is due to Rufinus himself, and that he has inserted it, instead of what is found in the beginning of the chapter, sec. 1, and which in Jerome's Epistle to Avitus stands as follows: Nor is there any doubt that, after certain intervals of time, matter will again exist, and bodies be formed, and a diversity be established in the world, on account of the varying wills of rational creatures who, after (enjoying) perfect blessedness down to the end of all things, have gradually fallen away to a lower condition and received into them so much wickedness that they are converted) into an opposite condition, by their unwillingness to retain their original state, and to preserve their blessedness uncorrupted. Nor is this point to be suppressed, that many rational creatures retain their first condition (principium) even to the second and third and fourth worlds, and allow no room for any change within them while others, again, will lose so little of their pristine state, that they will appear to have lost almost nothing, and some are to be precipitated with great destruction into the lowest pit. And God, the disposer of all things, when creating His worlds, knows how to treat each individual agreeably to his merits, and He is acquainted with the occasions and causes by which the government (gubernacula) of the world is sustained and commenced: so that he who surpassed all others in wickedness, and brought himself completely down to the earth, is made in another world, which is afterwards to be formed, a devil, the beginning of the creation of the Lord (Job xl. 19), to be mocked by the angels who have lost the virtue of their original condition' (exordii virtutem)."--Ruæus.
[2682] 2 Cor. v. 1.
[2683] 2 Cor. iv. 18.
[2684] 1 Cor. ii. 9; cf. Isa. lxiv., 4.
[2685] Insanabile.
[2686] ["Origen went so far, that, contrary to the general opinion, he allowed Satan the glimmer of a hope of future grace....He is here speaking of the last enemy, death: but it is evident, from the context, that he identifies death with the devil," etc. (Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, vol. i. p. 145-147. See also, supra, book i. vi. 3. p. 261.) S.]
[2687] Ut essent et permanerent.
[2688] Gen. iii. 19.
[2689] Ad summa.
[2690] [Elucidation IV.]
[2691] 1 Cor. xv. 28.
[2692] [Elucidation V.]
[2693] Cf. Ps. cii. 25, 26.
[2694] Gen. i. 1.
[2695] Heb. viii. 5.
[2696] Ex. xxv. 40.
[2697] Jerome (Epistle to Avitus, No. 94) says that Origen, "after a most lengthened discussion, in which he asserts that all bodily nature is to be changed into attenuated and spiritual bodies, and that all substance is to be converted into one body of perfect purity, and more brilliant than any splendour (mundissimum et omni splendore purius), and such as the human mind cannot now conceive," adds at the last, "And God will be all in all,' so that the whole of bodily nature may be reduced into that substance which is better than all others, into the divine, viz., than which none is better." From which, since it seems to follow that God possesses a body, although of extreme tenuity (licet tenuissimum), Rufinus has either suppressed this view, or altered the meaning of Origen's words (Ruæus).