Annotation CCCXL

”But the day of the Lord will come, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence.” — 2 Peter 3:10

Whether the heavens are to be burned by the fire of the world-conflagration.

Ambrose, bishop of Compsa, in the commentary of the latter epistle of Peter, elucidating this clause, professes two [things] against the opinion of all the theologians of the schools: the first is, that the heavens are to be burned up by the fires of the world-conflagration, and thereafter to be re-fused [remolded], and renewed into a better form; the second is, that the earth, by the final burning of the world, is to be renewed, and adorned with greater pleasantness, that there may be in it a perpetual habitation of those men who are worthy neither of heaven, nor of hell. The former assertion he explains with almost these words: “I ADMONISH the reader, [that] elsewhere the exposition of the Scholastics is too constrained [forced], who wished the heavens to suffer nothing, but only to cease from motion. Since certainly by these words of blessed Peter, and [those] of the ancient prophecies

—[of the ancient] prophecies, it [the Scholastic reading] is repugnant. But that he [Peter] speaks properly of the heavens, and not of the air, is plain. For after he had said, ‘In which the heavens shall be dissolved with great violence,’ he added, ‘But the elements shall be dissolved with heat’ — which seems to pertain to the air and to the water, which are to be dissolved by fire. But of the earth he says particularly, ‘and the earth, etc.’ And the passage in which this author says he indicated these [things] elsewhere is had in the Commentaries on the epistle to the Hebrews, where, examining that [text] from the first chapter of the same epistle, ‘The works of thy hands are the heavens: they shall perish, etc.,’ he writes these [things]: ‘THEY shall perish; but thou shalt remain: and all, like a garment, shall grow old. In what manner shall the heavens perish? Most say, as regards local motion. But this is not to perish, nor to grow old. For that which tends to destruction is (as the Apostle says) lower [inferior]; and that which grows old is near destruction.’ Besides, blessed Peter, in the second epistle, left this testimony concerning the heavens: ‘The day of the Lord will come as a thief; in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, but the earth, and the works which are in it, shall be burned up. Since, therefore, all these [things] are to be dissolved: what manner [of men] ought you to be in holy conversations, awaiting the coming of the day of the Lord, through which the burning heavens shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the heat of fire? But we await new heavens and a new earth, according to his promise.’ Besides these, the Beloved [John], in the Apocalypse:¹ ‘I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven, and the first earth, passed away.’ And Isaiah:² ‘Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look down beneath the earth: for the heavens shall melt like smoke; and the earth shall be worn away like a garment; and its inhabitants shall perish like these.’ And again:³ ‘Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth.’ And our Lord himself:⁴ ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.’ From these testimonies of the scriptures, therefore, unless we altogether wish to do violence to the words, we are compelled to confess that there will truly be some great alteration of the heavens by fire, and not merely a cessation of motion alone: by which alteration the heavens shall in a certain manner be founded [anew], and shall become far more beautiful than they now are.” Thus far concerning the former assertion of Ambrose — which also Lucian, a Benedictine monk, in his Annotations on Chrysostom (reproved by the Council of Trent), not only defends, but even strives to draw Chrysostom into the same opinion.

The latter assertion — concerning the earth, [as] to be inhabited by men after the judgment — he declares with these words in the same commentary on Peter:⁵ “PETER says, ‘But we await new heavens, and a new earth.’ But for what use [is] a new earth, if no one is to inhabit it? Therefore it is most fittingly believed by many, that those who by their own sin will not merit hell, nor yet have been received in Christ through grace (such as children departing without baptism), shall possess this new, much more beautiful earth, pure from all defilement and corruption, where they shall perpetually praise God.” And in the commentaries on the epistle to the Hebrews, in the passage adduced above, confirming this same [thing] more certainly, he says: “BUT if thou ask, for what use, then? This certainly needs a longer inquiry — or, more truly, a special revelation — unless indeed we wish piously to say, that there shall be certain men upon this new and most pleasant earth, who shall be found worthy neither of heaven, nor of hell: as certain [authors] hand down, not without great reasons; and I indeed have accepted [it], and believe [it] not unwillingly.” Thus Ambrose.

But I, re-reading the writings of the ancient fathers, find in their monuments a threefold opinion concerning the final dissolution of the heavens.

The FIRST is that of the divine Clement, who, in the second volume of the Recognitions, introduces Peter the Apostle teaching two heavens: one higher and invisible, perpetual and eternal, which the blessed spirits inhabit; the other lower [and] visible, distinguished by various stars, corruptible, and to be dissolved at the consummation of the age, and utterly abolished — that, the veil of its corpulence [material bulk] being removed, that higher heaven may appear to those who are worthy of its sight. Then, in the third book of the same work, bringing in Simon Magus objecting to Peter’s opinion, he thus writes: “BUT Simon says, ‘Answer me, and tell [me]: if this visible heaven (as thou wilt) shall be dissolved, why was it made from the beginning?’ Peter answered: ‘This present life was made for the sake of men, that there might be a certain interjection and division; lest perhaps anyone unworthy should see the habitation of the heavenly [ones], and the seat of God himself — which are prepared to be seen by those alone who are pure of heart. But now, that is, in the time of the contest [agon], it has pleased [God] that those [things] be invisible, which are destined as a reward to those who conquer.’ And Simon says, ‘If the Founder is good, and the world is good: how shall the Good [one] at some time dissolve good [things]? But if he dissolves and destroys [it] as if [it were] evil, how shall he not seem evil, who made evil?’ Peter to these [things]: ‘Hear: this heaven, which is visible, also passes away. If indeed it had been made for its own sake, it would perhaps have something of the reason which thou sayest, because it ought by no means to be dissolved. But if it was made for the sake of something else, and not for its own sake, it will necessarily be dissolved, that that [thing], for which it seems to have been made, may appear. As, for example, I might say, the shell of eggs, although it seem made and diligently formed, must nevertheless be broken and dissolved, that from it the chick may come forth, and that [thing] may appear, for [the sake of] which the form of the whole egg seems to have been expressed. So, therefore, this state also must needs pass away, that that more sublime state of the heavenly kingdom may shine forth.’” Thus far the opinion of Clement.

Embracing which, Hilary, [in] canon 4 on Matthew, says: “We judge the heaven and earth, [the] greatest elements, to be dissolved”; and in the exposition of Psalm 122, explaining the same more amply, he says: “This heaven, which lies subject to our sight through its matter — which took both nature and name as [it were] a solidified smoke of the firmament — shall pass away, and shall not be. But the seat of the Lord — namely, the heaven in which God dwells — remains for ever.” This opinion of Hilary and Clement, Jerome, in the fourteenth book on Isaiah, reports to have been approved by certain [authors] by the present testimony of Peter,⁶ “The heavens which now are, and the earth, are reserved unto fire, and the burning elements shall be dissolved.” And likewise by the authority of Paul, saying, “The figure of this world passes away — [with] us contemplating not the [things] which are seen, but [those] which are not seen. For the [things] which are seen are temporal; but the [things] which are not seen, eternal.” And again, by the prophecy of Isaiah crying—

—[of Isaiah] crying, “The heavens shall melt like smoke” — which Aquila and Symmachus rendered, “The heavens shall be broken into nothing, and shall be ground to the manner of salt, and shall vanish.” Jerome also notes that this was the opinion of certain philosophers, who thought that all [the things] which we behold would perish by fire. Eusebius, [in] the 15th [book] of the Evangelical Preparation, writes that this was the doctrine of the Stoics — among whom the most ancient of all, Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, handed down that all things, after long circuits of ages, are to be dissolved into ethereal fire.

The SECOND opinion is of those who believe that the heavens shall neither perish nor be abolished, but shall nevertheless be purified by the burning of the flames — that, purged from [their] inborn corruption, they may from corruptible become incorruptible and immortal. Among these, Oecumenius, examining the proposed passage of Peter in his Collectanea, left [this] thus written: “MOREOVER, that a corruption of this universe should take place seems [true] not only to Christians, but also to the wise men of the Greeks — as to Heraclitus of Ephesus, and Empedocles of Etna. But someone will say: And what was the reason that it should be founded, if it had to be reduced again to nothing? And we say, that the world will not tend wholly to corruption, but to renewal — just as we are wont to melt certain corporeal things by fire, not that we attribute an absolute destruction to them, but that we may afford them purity and sincerity.”

Thus far Oecumenius, with whom Gennadius agrees, in the book On Ecclesiastical Dogmas, chapter 70, saying thus: “Let us not believe the elements, heaven and earth, [to be] abolished by fire, but changed for the better; and [that] the figure also of the world — that is, [its] image, not [its] substance — shall pass away.”

The THIRD is the opinion of Augustine, asserting that the higher heavens are neither to be purged by that final burning, nor even to be touched by the fires, but only the aerial heavens, and the elements alone, are to be renewed by the conflagration of fire. He, in the twentieth book On the City of God, chapter 24, expounding the testimony of Peter taken up concerning the burning of the aerial heaven, sets forth these [things]: “IN the epistle of Peter the Apostle — where the world, which then was, is said to have perished, flooded by water — it is clear enough both what part of the world is signified by ‘the whole,’ and in what sense it is said to have perished, and which heavens are ‘laid up, reserved unto fire’ for the day of judgment and of the perdition of the impious. And in that [text] which he says a little after, ‘The day of the Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass by with great violence, but the burning elements shall be dissolved, etc.,’ those heavens can be understood [as] about to perish, which he says are ‘laid up, to be reserved unto fire’; and those elements [can be] taken [as] about to burn, which subsist, stormy and turbulent, in this lowest part of the world — in which he said those same heavens were laid up, those higher [heavens] remaining safe and in their integrity, in whose firmament the stars are constituted.”

This opinion of Augustine the Scholastics have followed, as [being] more reasonable, and more consonant to the words of Peter; who, explaining himself, shows that he speaks not of the starry heavens, but of the heavens and earth which once perished by the flood’s inundation, saying: “The heavens formerly, and the earth, perished by water.” And according to this understanding of the aerial heaven, they have expounded that which, in the premises, was said by the oracles of divine scripture — [namely] that the heavens grow old, are worn away, melt, are dissolved, are changed, pass away, fail, and perish. Nor does it stand against this interpretation, that Lucian objects that never in the sacred letters are “heavens,” in the plural number, taken for “air.” For this he [Sixtus] shows to be most false — [seeing] that in the eighth Psalm, and elsewhere most frequently, is read⁷ צִפּוֹר שָׁמַיִם, zipur sciamaim [tsippor shamayim], that is, “the birds of the heavens.” But if anyone press more sharply, that these [things] are to be understood of the higher heavens, which David said grow old, are changed, and perish: we shall answer, that there is a twofold change — old age and destruction: the one, by which mortal things are corrupted and abolished, of which there is none in the heavens; the other, [merely] by way of likeness, which — according to Didymus — designates a cessation from [their] former use, and — according to Jerome — a change for the better. They shall therefore grow old and perish, not by that oldness by which animals and plants tend to destruction, but by a cessation of use — by which (as Didymus says) their use shall cease. For, men being taken up from the earth into eternal felicity, there will no longer be any use of the heavenly motion, of light, and of heat, by which the life of mortals is fostered. Or they shall also perish by the destruction of change and renewal — in that manner in which Jerome, [in] the eighteenth book on Isaiah, expressed [it] with these words: “THEY shall perish; but thou shalt remain; and all, like a garment, shall grow old; and like a mantle thou shalt fold them, and they shall be changed.” In which it is plainly demonstrated, that “perdition” and “destruction” sound not an abolition into nothing, but a change for the better. For neither does that which is written in another place —⁸ “The moon shall shine as the sun, and the sun shall receive sevenfold light, etc.” — signify a destruction of the former [luminaries], but a change for the better. That this may be understood, let us set examples from our own condition. An infant, when it grows into a boy, and the boy into a youth, and the youth into a man, and the man into an old man, by no means perishes through the several ages. For he is the same who before was, but is little by little changed, and is said to have perished to [his] former age. Which understanding, Paul the Apostle also spoke: “FOR the figure of this world passes away.” Let us consider what he said: the figure passes away, not the substance. This same [thing] Peter also signifies, saying: “THIS is hidden from them, willing [it so]: that the heavens were from the beginning, and the earth [was] out of water, and through water, by which the former world perished in the flood. But the heavens which now are, and the earth, are by the same reason kept unto fire.” In what sense this is to be taken, he afterward teaches: “But we shall see new heavens and a new earth.” He did not say, “We shall see other heavens and another earth,” but the old and ancient [ones] changed for the better. See certain [things] pertaining to this argument [in] the third book of the Method of Exposition, which is called Ethnic Rhapsody, and Annotation 245 of this book.