Gary Pollard
[Editor’s Note: Gary is translating the Ante-Nicene Fathers works, beginning with Origin’s work. It is meant to update the British English of Roberts and Donaldson. What follows is part of that translation]
We must remember that some beings, who fell away from the original state we spoke of earlier, have sunk so deeply into corruption and wickedness that they are considered unworthy of the kind of training and instruction given to humanity in this life, with the help of heavenly powers. Instead, they remain in open hostility and opposition to those who are receiving that instruction. This is why our mortal life is full of struggles and trials: they are stirred up by the resistance of those who fell from a better condition without even looking back. Scripture calls them “the devil and his angels,” along with the other ranks of evil that the apostle listed among the hostile powers.
Will any of these beings, who now live under the devil’s rule and obey his evil commands, one day be restored to righteousness because they still possess free will? Or has their stubborn and deep-rooted wickedness become so hardened by habit that it has essentially become their very nature? The answer is not yet clear. Perhaps you, reader, may consider it possible that in the end, nothing—whether in the visible, temporal worlds or in the unseen, eternal worlds—will remain entirely outside the ultimate unity and order of all things.
For now, however, both in the visible and temporal realms and in the unseen, eternal ones, every being is placed according to a deliberate plan, in the order and degree that matches its worth. Some may, in the earliest times, and others much later—even after long and severe punishments lasting through countless ages—be improved by this stern discipline. Maybe they will slowly be restored, first by the teaching of angels, and later by higher powers, until step by step they advance to better states. Through this process, they may finally reach the eternal and invisible realm, having passed through every stage of heavenly instruction.
From this, I think we might infer that every rational being, by moving from one order to another, may eventually experience the whole range of states—rising and falling, progressing or failing—according to its own choices and the exercise of its free will.
Paul teaches that some things are visible and temporary, while others are invisible and eternal. So we must ask: in what sense are visible things “temporary”? Does it mean that they will completely cease to exist in the ages to come, when all things scattered from one beginning are being restored to unity? Or does it mean that, while the outward form of visible things will pass away, their underlying essence will remain, free from corruption?
Paul seems to support the latter view when he says, “The form of this world is passing away.” David says the same: “The skies will leave, but You endure. They will grow old like a garment, You will change them like clothing, and they will be changed.” If the skies are “changed,” then they do not vanish altogether. Likewise, if the form of the world “passes away,” this is not destruction of its substance but a transformation of its quality and appearance. Isaiah also, when he speaks of “a new sky and a new earth,” points to the same reality.
This renewal of sky and earth—the transformation of the world and of the skies themselves—is prepared for those who follow the path we have described, moving toward that final happiness in which even enemies are subdued, and in which God is said to be “all in all.” If anyone imagines that at the end material, bodily nature will be completely destroyed, that view is hard to sustain. For how could so many powerful beings exist without bodies? Only God has the nature to exist entirely without material substance. Others suggest instead that, in the end, bodily existence will be purified and refined until it is like the clearness of the skies, pure and radiant as the aether. Ultimately, however, the truth of how this will be is known with certainty only to God, and to His friends through Christ and his spirit.
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