Annotation CCXLV

”The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly.” — Romans 8:20

Whether the heavens were made corruptible and dissoluble on account of Adam's sin.

Chrysostom, [in] homily fourteen on the epistle to the Romans, explaining the proposed sentence, seems to hold that the bodies of the elements and of the heavens, on account of the fall of the first man into sin and death, were made liable to old age, corruption, and destruction; and that again, for man’s sake, they shall receive incorruption and immortality, when, in the last resurrection, men shall be gifted with the immortality of a glorious body. His words are these: “WHAT does this mean — ‘The

—ture is subject to vanity’? ‘It was made corruptible,’ he says. For the sake of what [thing], and wherefore? ‘On account of thee, [O] man.’ For after thou madest thy body mortal and passible, the earth too was subjected to a curse, and brought forth thorns and thistles. But that the heaven also, growing old together with the earth, is at last to be transferred into a better state — hear the prophet, saying:¹ ‘In the beginning thou, O Lord, didst found the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest: and they all shall grow old as a garment; and as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed.’ Isaiah too asserts the same, saying:² ‘Look up to the heaven, and look down upon the earth: the heaven shall vanish like smoke; the earth shall grow old like a garment: but they that dwell therein shall perish after the manner of these.’ Dost thou see how the universe [universal frame] serves vanity? and in what manner it is to be freed from corruption? For he [the Psalmist] says, ‘As a garment thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed’; and Isaiah says, ‘But they that dwell upon the earth shall perish after the manner of these’ — signifying [that they are] not to be utterly abolished (for not thus shall those who dwell upon the earth, that is, men, perish), but that their destruction shall be temporary; through which also they shall pass over unto immortality; even as [shall] all created nature — [all] which indeed he set forth at once in that [word] which he says, ‘After the manner of these’; as Paul too will say in what follows. But now he discourses so far concerning its servitude, [only] that he may open to us for what cause it was made of such a kind: which cause he asserts to be us. What then? Was the world unjustly affected [wronged], sustaining these [things] by another’s fault? By no means; for it was made on account of me [too]. And if it was made on account of me: how is it said to suffer injury, sustaining these [things] for my correction? Otherwise, neither the reason of the just nor of the unjust is to be sought in these things, which lack soul and senses. But Paul afterward — after he had once fashioned a person for the world — willed to use none of those things which I have set down, hastening by a certain other reason, as [by] an addition [makeweight], to relieve [uplift] the reader. But by what reason? ‘What sayest thou?’ he says. ‘The whole [universe] was ill-treated for thy sake, and made dissoluble?’ But it suffers no injury; for again it shall be made indissoluble on account of thee. For this is [that] which he says ‘in hope.’ But [as to that] which he said, ‘It was made subject not willingly’ — he said [it] not for this [reason], that he might make the world itself lord [master] of its own judgment, but that thou mightest understand that the whole matter is carried on by the providence of Christ, not by its [the world’s] own power. But what that hope is, he subjoined, when he says: ‘Because the very [creature-]nature also shall be delivered.’ What is ‘itself’? ‘Not thou alone,’ he says, ‘but also [that] which is worse than thee; [that] which is not capable of reason, and lacks senses. This same [thing], I say, shall be partaker of those good things. It shall be delivered,’ he says, ‘from the servitude of corruption’ — that is, it shall no more be corrupted, but shall imitate the nature of thy body. For as, it [thy body] being corrupted, [the creature] was at the same time corrupted: so also, [it] being made incorruptible, [the creature] shall follow it. Indicating which thing, he says, ‘Into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God’ — that is, on account of [their] liberty. For as a nurse, who has reared a royal boy, together with him enjoys good things when he is raised to the paternal throne: so also the world, he says, shall enjoy those good things. Dost thou perceive that man everywhere excels — for whose sake also all things were made? Dost thou see in what

—in what manner it consoles the [one] struggling; and at the same time shows the ineffable benignity of God toward us? “Why grievest thou,” he says, “in adverse things? But thou sufferest not for thine own sake alone: [is] not the whole world [made] for thy sake?” And he not only consoles the struggler, but even makes worthy of belief the [things] which have been said. For if the world itself hopes, he says, and trusts — [the world] which was founded on account of thee, and made [with] all things — much more oughtest thou too to nourish hope, thou for whose sake the world shall enjoy those good things. So also parents are wont to do, when a son is to be beheld in a higher rank: for they clothe [their] servants with new and more splendid garments, unto his glory. So therefore God too shall clothe this fabric [frame of the world] with immortality, unto the liberty of the glory of the sons [of God].

THUS FAR the discourse of Chrysostom: consonant with which are [the things] which the same [author] wrote [in] the tenth homily to the people of Antioch, in these words: “GOD made the world wondrous and great, but also corruptible and fading [withering]; and he mingled many demonstrations of its weakness. For David, demonstrating that although [it is] beautiful and great, yet it is corruptible, thus says:³ ‘In the beginning thou, O Lord, didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall grow old like a garment; and as a covering thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed.’ And again, concerning the Sun, the same [author] says:⁴ ‘As a bridegroom coming forth from his bride-chamber, [the sun] has exulted as a giant to run the way.’ Hast thou seen its beauty? hast thou seen its magnitude? See also the demonstration of its weakness. For indeed, demonstrating this too, the wise man said:⁵ ‘What is brighter than the Sun? and this shall fail.’ Again from the scriptures I will demonstrate to you that not only the Sun, but the whole world is corruptible: but since, by reason of our slenderness [of understanding], this discourse is too lofty, come, let us — leading ourselves to the sweet fountain of the scriptures — soothe our ears. For we will not speak to you of heaven and earth severally, but of every creature alike; and we will show you the Apostle himself demonstrating this very [thing], thus manifestly saying:⁶ that every creature now serves corruption, and why it serves, and when it shall be changed, and into what end it shall pass over. For after he had said, ‘The sufferings of the present time are not worthy [to be compared] to the future glory that shall be revealed in us,’ he inferred that ‘the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God; for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but on account of him who subjected it in hope.’ But [that] which he says is of this kind: ‘The creature was made corruptible’ — for this it is [that it was] ‘made subject to vanity’; and it was made corruptible, God so commanding. But God so commanded on account of our race. For since he was to nourish [feed] a corruptible man, [the creature] too had to be of this kind: for it was not fitting that corruptible bodies should use an incorruptible creature. ‘But,’ he says, ‘it does not, however, remain such: but the creature itself also shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption.’ Then, demonstrating when this shall be, and through whom, he inferred: ‘into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God.’ For when, he says, at the resurrection we shall have taken up incorrupt bodies, then also the body of the heavens, and of the earth, and of the whole world, shall be incorrupt and unfading.” Thus far I have recounted the words of Chrysostom.

To this opinion the whole school of the recent theologians is opposed — but especially in those [things] which regard the heavenly bodies. For they show these [heavenly bodies] to be perpetual and incorruptible for this reason: because they have a substance diverse from the substance of the four elements, and devoid of every foreign impression [i.e. incapable of being acted upon from without]; and because, through the lapses of so many ages, they have thus remained incorruptible, that they have given no indication of growing old, and have consumed nothing of their magnitude or beauty by the injury of time. But St. Ambrose, [in] book 1 of the Hexaemeron, chapter 6, refuting those who posit the heavens [to be] incorruptible, and consisting of a certain fifth substance, thus writes: “OTHERS have thought the body of the heaven and of the stars to be ethereal — introducing a certain fifth nature of body, in order that they might think the substance of the heaven would remain long-enduring. But this opinion could not withstand the prophetic sentence, which the divine majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ, [our] God, also approved in the gospel. For David said:⁷ ‘In the beginning thou, O Lord, didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish,’ etc. Which the Lord so approved in the gospel, that he said:⁸ ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.’ They therefore accomplish nothing, who, for the asserting of the heaven’s perpetuity, thought a fifth ethereal body was to be introduced.” Thus Ambrose: with whom nearly all the Greek Fathers agree, affirming the heaven [to be] by its own nature corruptible and perishable, yet not to be corrupted — [being] preserved by the providence and grace of God. Things akin to these thou hast below, Annotation 340.