(printed p. 237)
[Margin: 1. Opinion, for incorruptibility.]
[I.] The first opinion was, and still is, that the heaven is, from within and by its own nature, ingenerable and incorruptible. In this [opinion] were engaged not only Aristotle (On the Heavens bk. 1, ch. 3 and 4; and bk. 2, ch. 1) and all those Peripatetics who affirmed the heaven to be a certain simple substance—that is, not composed of matter and form distinct by a real distinction between themselves—nay, [who affirmed it] to be an eternal and necessary being (the chief of whom, as regards simplicity, I have already reviewed in ch. 5, number 1); but also many of those who said the heaven consists of matter and form really distinct between themselves: among whom were chiefly St. Thomas (Prima Pars, q. 66, art. 2; and on [Sentences] 2, dist. 14, q. 2), Albertus Magnus (part 1, On the Four Coevals, q. 4, art. 1), Alensis [Alexander of Hales] (Summa, part 2, q. 50), St. Bonaventure (on [Sentences] 2, dist. 14, art. 1, q. 1 and 2), Pererius (bk. 2 On Genesis, q. 1), Molina (part 1, q. 9, art. 2, dist. 2), Suárez (disp. 13, Metaphysics, sect. 11, from num. 13), the Conimbricenses (On the Heavens bk. 1, ch. 3, q. 1, art. 2), Adam Tanner (On the Heavens, q. 5, assertion 2), Amicus (tract 5, On the Heavens, q. 1), Hurtado (disp. 1, On the Heavens, sect. 5), Arriaga (the single Disputation On the Heavens, section 3, num. 42), Oviedo (the single Controversy On the Heavens, point 2, num. 20; Disputation 22 of the Physics), John Punch (q. 4, last conclusion), Tycho (in the Letters, ch. 5, num. 4, cited)—whom, however, Téllez wrongly adduces to the contrary. Of these, nevertheless, some concede to the visible heaven a matter of the same kind as the sublunary, like St. Bonaventure and Molina, but they attribute that incorruptibility to the perfection of the form, or to the impotence of a natural agent. Again, some add that [the heaven] is not to be corrupted as to its substance even at the end of the World—like Pererius, the Conimbricenses, and Tanner.
[Margin: Arguments for incorruptibility.]
The foundations of these [views] are: First, the authority of Sts. Dionysius (On the Divine Names, ch. 4), Gregory of Nyssa (the book On the Making of Man, ch. 1), Jerome (on ch. 65 of Isaiah), Augustine (City of God bk. 4, ch. 24), and Gregory the Great (Morals bk. 11, ch. 5), who seem strongly to favor this opinion. Secondly, because this grade of incorruptible bodies is required for the perfection of the universe, since it is otherwise not impossible. Thirdly, because no trace of generation or substantial corruption appears in the heaven as a whole or in its parts; for all the novelties of the heaven—such as new stars and Comets, the spots and faculae of the Sun—can be defended by alteration alone, and by condensation, or by local motion, or certainly by a creation made anew by God. Fourthly, because the Fathers who say the heavens are corruptible say it [only] because the destruction of the substantial form, or even the annihilation of the whole composite, is not repugnant to them in respect of the divine Omnipotence; and [because] in fact [the heavens] are to be corrupted, or at least vehemently changed as to their accidental qualities.
[Margin: 2. Opinion, on the corruptibility of the heaven.]
[II.] The second opinion was, and still is today, that this visible heaven is by its own nature corruptible; nay—if you speak of our Theologians—[that it is] to be corrupted. Its ancient authors are reported by Plutarch (On the Opinions [Placita] bk. 2, ch. 4), Theodoret (the book On Matter and the World), St. Jerome (on Isaiah ch. 51), [and] Eusebius (Preparation for the Gospel bk. 15). Therefore, besides Heraclitus and Cratylus, who thought earthly and heavenly things to be in continuous flux, [these] judged that the heaven would at some time be dissolved: Anaxagoras, Democritus, Epicurus, Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Posidonius, Antipater, Panaetius, and their chief Zeno, and the follower of the Stoics, Seneca. (But as for what Plutarch says above—“Pythagoras and the Stoics [held] the world [to be] generated by God, and subject to corruption as to its nature, inasmuch as it is sensible and corporeal, yet not on that account going to perish; for, the divine power sustaining it, it will endure perpetually; [whereas] Epicurus [held it] going to perish, inasmuch as [it was] generated, like an animal or a plant”—that pertains to the opinion of Pythagoras, not of the Stoics, because they [the Stoics] thought the world would at last be burned up by Ecpyrosis, that is, by conflagration: which also from bk. 2 of the Oracles it is gathered the Sibyls sang, from those verses:
Then a burning river shall flow down from the high heaven, And, fiery, shall utterly consume all places, etc. And the heavenly pole, etc.
Plato too, in the Timaeus, [held] the heaven to be, by its own nature, dissolvable and perishable, but, by the benefit of God, immune from destruction—which Aristotle also attributes to him (On the Heavens bk. 1, text 102). The same thought Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods bk. 2), Lactantius (On False Religion, ch. 12), [and] Macrobius (On the Dream of Scipio bk. 1). But that [the heaven] is corruptible, and in fact to be corrupted substantially, the Master of the Sentences teaches (on [Sentences] 2, dist. 14), and Scotus (q. 1), the Carthusian (q. 7), Catharinus (in the [commentary on the] Letter to the Hebrews ch. 1, and on 2 Peter 3), Vallesius (On Sacred Philosophy, ch. 89), Hieronymus Magius (On the Burning of the World, bk. 2, ch. 6 and 7), Vielmius (lecture 18 on Genesis), Ascanius Martinengus (in the great Gloss, from p. 592), Salmerón (vol. 1, last prolegomenon; on 2 Peter 3, disp. 4, and there too Cornelius a Lapide and Serarius), Martín del Río (on ch. 1 of Genesis), our Molina (On the Work of the Six Days, disp. 3), Cornelius a Lapide (both in the cited passages and on Isaiah ch. 34, from p. 294), Leo Castrius (on Isaiah ch. 51), Emmanuel Sá (in the notes on the 2nd Letter of St. Peter), Fabricius Paulucius (on 2 Peter ch. 3), Marin Mersenne (on Genesis, p. 12, column 2), John Baptist Folengus (on Psalm 101), Genebrard (on Psalm 101), Martin Becanus (On the Work of the Six Days, from p. 403), [and] John Louis de la Cerda (in the Sacred Adversaria, ch. 154); and Suárez thinks [it] Probable (vol. 2, [on the Third Part], disp. 58, sect. 2); Eusebius Nieremberg (On the Nature of the Stars, bk. 6, ch. 13), Tanner (in the dissertation On the Heavens, q. 5; and in the Theological [Disputations], tract 1, disp. 6, q. 2, dub. 6), Scheiner (in the Rosa Ursina, bk. 4, part 2, ch. 24 and 25), Mastrius and Bellutus (disp. 2, On the Heavens, q. 3), Kepler (On the New Star, ch. 23), René Descartes (p. 193 of his Philosophy), Francesco Resta (in the tract, and bk. 1 of the Meteorology, ch. 10), Baltasar Téllez (disp. 40, Physics, sect. 1), Fromondus (bk. 3, Meteorology, art. 6), [and] Bullialdus [Boulliau] (Astronomy bk. 1, ch. 5). And Salianus, when in the Annals (at day 4 of the world, num. 9) he had defended this opinion, afterward in the scholia seemed to retract himself, and to return to the Peripatetics.
But I had almost forgotten Lucretius (bk. 6), singing thus:
And since I have taught that the temples of the world are mortal, And that the heaven consists of a born [native] body, And [that] whatever things come to be in it, and must come to be, [I have taught] that these are dissolved, etc.
The foundation of this opinion is threefold: namely, the authority of Sacred Scripture, the testimonies of the Fathers, and arguments drawn from experience—from the Spots and faculae which arise and pass away near the disk of the Sun (the Telescope being witness), and from certain Comets born and dying above the Moon, whose vicissitudes are more connaturally explained by generation and corruption than by other, more violent modes, or [modes] involving miracles.
[Margin: 1. Argument, from Sacred Scripture.]
[III.] First, then, in Psalm 101 [102] it is said: “In the beginning, O Lord, thou didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they shall all grow old like a garment, and like a covering thou shalt change them.” And Job 14: “Man, when he has slept, shall not rise again, until the heaven be worn away; he shall not awake out of his sleep”—but it is certain that at some time men will rise again; therefore the heaven too would at some time be worn away. Isaiah ch. 24: “All the host of the heavens shall waste away, and the heavens shall be folded together like a book, and all their host shall fall down [fade away]”; and ch. 51: “The heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall be worn away like a garment”; and ch. 65: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.” And Matthew 24: “Heaven and earth shall pass away.” And 2 Peter ch. 3: “But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief: in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be dissolved with heat; and the earth, and the works that are in it, shall be burned up. Since, therefore, all these things are to be dissolved, etc.”; and in the same place: “The burning heavens shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the heat of fire: but we look for new heavens and a new earth, according to his promises”; and St. Peter had said before, in the same place: “But the heavens [that now are] are kept in store, reserved unto fire.” Now these authorities it is not permitted, without necessity, to interpret by destroying or abandoning the literal sense; and it has been solidly said by our Maldonado, on those words [“and the stars shall fall from heaven”]: “I judge that more credence can be given to Christ affirming, than to Aristotle denying”; where he also thinks—with Chrysostom and Euthymius—that they [the stars] will truly fall.
[…continues on p. 238 (PDF 273): the second argument, from the authority of the Fathers — “Many Fathers teach that there are waters above the heavens precisely to defend them meanwhile from the excessive heat of the stars, and assert the heavens to be watery or fiery (as shown in ch. 2, q. 1 & 3, and ch. 3, concl. 4, arg. 5); therefore, just as the elements are of themselves corruptible, so too the heavens. Nay, [the Fathers] teach in express words, not to be evaded by any tergiversation, that the heavens are in fact to be dissolved and—their pristine form corrupted—transmuted into a better state, as is clear to one reading their words in Ascanius Martinengus, in the Gloss…”]
(printed p. 238 — Continuing Chapter VI, the proof of the corruptibility of the heavens.)
[Margin: 2. Argument, from the authority of the Fathers.]
Secondly, many Fathers teach that there are waters above the heavens precisely so that meanwhile they may defend them from the excessive heat of the stars; and they assert the heavens to be watery or fiery, as we already showed in ch. 2, q. 1 and 3, and ch. 3, Conclusion 4, argument 5. Therefore, just as the elements are of themselves corruptible, so also are the heavens. Nay, that the heavens are in fact to be dissolved, and—the pristine form being corrupted—to be transmuted into a better state, [the Fathers] teach in express words, not to be evaded by any tergiversation, as is clear to one reading their words in Ascanius Martinengus (in the great Gloss) and Scheiner (bk. 4 of the Rosa Ursina, part 2, ch. 24). Thus, in the first place, St. Justin (in the Responses to the Orthodox, q. 93, 94, 95), St. Basil (homilies 1 and 3 on Genesis, and homily 6 of the Hexaemeron), St. Ambrose (Hexaemeron bk. 1, ch. 6), St. Chrysostom (homily 10 To the People of Antioch; homily 23 on ch. 9 of Matthew; and homily 14 on ch. 8 of the Letter to the Romans, and in the same place Theodoret), Oecumenius (in the collectanea on ch. 3 of the 2nd Letter of Peter), St. [John] Damascene (On the Faith bk. 2, ch. 6), Gennadius (the book On Ecclesiastical Dogmas, ch. 7), St. Jerome (on ch. 51 of Isaiah), St. Hilary (on Psalms 122 and 148), St. Epiphanius (bk. 2 Against Heresies), St. Irenaeus (bk. 4 Against Heresies, ch. 6), St. Cyril of Alexandria (bk. 4, on ch. 51 of Isaiah), Andreas of Caesarea (sermon 22 on the Apocalypse), Zacharias Scholasticus, Bishop of Mitylene (the disputation On the Making of the World), [and] Caesarius (in the Dialogues, q. 71).
[Margin: 3. Argument, from reason and examples.]
Thirdly, that the Spots and faculae of the Sun are generated anew and pass away is proved by arguments already indicated in bk. 3, ch. 3, and to be adduced from Scheiner in bk. 9, sect. 4, ch. 12, num. 19 and 20; likewise also Comets, which are above the Moon, concerning which enough was said in bk. 8, sect. 1, ch. 6; as also new stars, [in] sect. 2, ch. 17. Although Tanner (in the dissertation On the Heavens, q. 7; and vol. 1 of the Theology, disp. 6, q. 3, dub. 3) contends either that the observations of the Mathematicians who assert these novelties are uncertain, or that these things are done by God in a supernatural manner, like portents, or that the spots are carried about the Sun by peculiar Epicycles, and that Comets and new stars descend to us by the passage of time—concerning which, and other modes devised for explaining these Phenomena, enough has been said by us in the places indicated a little before. Let there now be a
Conclusion
It is more probable that the visible heavens are, by their own nature and from within, corruptible—although per accidens and from without [they are] incorruptible.
[IV.] The prior part of the Conclusion is proved from what was said in ch. 5, num. 10, for Conclusion 4; for by this very fact, that we proved the heaven of the Fixed [stars] to be watery and [that] of the Planets fiery, and showed this to be more likely, it follows that these heavens are, from within and by their own nature, capable of generation and corruption; and that their matter is not so bound to the celestial form that, if a natural agent apt for introducing another form be given, that matter would not be positively apt to receive it. But because—whether on account of their distance, or because of [their] enormous mass, or because of the remarkable tempering of the secondary qualities with the primary, which God has implanted in the heaven—there is given no created natural agent which could substantially transmute the heavens, therefore I said [they are] incorruptible per accidens: in which way neither the whole earth, nor the whole air, is transmutable as to its whole or greatest part.
And the Conclusion is confirmed, because the new Phenomena of stars and Comets, and of solar Spots, and the dissolution and renewal of the heavens at the end of the world, are rather to be explained without a miracle—or at least with a lesser miracle, but in a more physical way, and similarly to other natural bodies which come to be anew. And this happens if it be admitted that the heaven is now, in some small part of itself, subject to generation and corruption, and that at the end of the world Fire is to be assumed by God as an instrument for the substantial renewal of the heavens. Nor indeed, in a controversy of this kind—which has neither evident reasons nor authorities insoluble of explanation—is it pleasing, or [is there] leisure, to linger longer.
[Margin: The incorruptibility of the Empyrean.]
But I said in the Conclusion “the visible heavens”; for that the Empyrean heaven is incorruptible is sufficiently proved from the manner of speaking of the Fathers, concerning whom [I treated] in ch. 1, q. 6, where [I spoke] at length about that heaven and its conditions. And this is that [incorruptible] body which was required for the perfection of the Universe—but [reserved] for that state and order of things in which there will also be the incorruptibility and eternal soundness of our [own] bodies.
[Margin: The destruction of the heavens at the end of the World.]
But in what manner the heavens are to be dissolved at the end of the world, very learnedly treat, in the first place, Pererius (bk. 2 On Genesis, q. 1, 2, and 6), Tanner (On the Heavens, q. 11; and vol. 1 of the Theology, disp. 6, q. 4, dub. 5), Salmerón (on 2 Peter 3), and others among them.
[Here Chapter VI ends.]