Annotation CCCXXX

”The heavens themselves shall perish, but thou shalt remain; and all, like a garment, shall grow old.” — Hebrews 1:11

Whether the celestial bodies are to be burned up.

Ambrose of Compsa, in the commentaries on the epistle to the Hebrews, explaining this versicle, brings forth two opinions, not received by the schools of theologians: of which the former is, that the heavens are to be set aflame by fires at the end of the world, and thereafter, as by a certain re-fusion [remolding], are to obtain a far better state; the latter is, that the earth, renewed by the same fires, will be the perpetual habitation of those men who shall be found worthy neither of heaven nor of hell. Both assertions he confirms in the commentary of the latter epistle of Peter, where thou shalt find these [things] more amply annotated, Annotation 340.