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]
In the last chapter, we spoke in broad terms about the nature of rational beings, reasoning through inference rather than laying down rigid definitions. The only exception was where we did our best to discuss the nature of God. Now, however, we turn to matters that should be addressed according to the church’s established teaching. All souls and all rational natures, whether holy or wicked, were created. By their very nature, they are incorporeal, yet still creatures, since God made everything through Christ. As John’s Gospel teaches: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made.”
Paul also describes the created order in terms of classes and ranks. He writes that all things were created in Christ: “In Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head.” The text is clear that everything, whether visible and bodily, or invisible and spiritual, was made in and through Christ. The “invisible things” are none other than incorporeal and spiritual powers. Paul, having spoken broadly of the visible and invisible, then lists the particular categories: thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, and other such powers.
We have already touched on these things before. But now, moving forward in an orderly way, we must consider the sun, moon, and stars. By inference we ask: should these also be counted among the “principalities,” since they are said to have been created in ἀρχάς—that is, for the governance of day and night? Or should we instead see them only as governing day and night in the sense of providing light, without being true members of that order of ruling powers?
When we say that all things were made by Him, and that in Him all things were created—both in heaven and on earth—it is clear that the things in space, which we call heaven, including the sun, moon, and stars, are counted among these heavenly things. Next, since our discussion has already shown that everything was created, and that among created things nothing exists that cannot be capable of either good or evil, we must ask about a certain view held by some: that the sun, moon, and stars are unchangeable and incapable of becoming anything other than what they are. Many people have held a similar view even about the holy angels, and certain heretics have said the same about souls, which they call spiritual natures.
Let us first see what reason itself can discover regarding the sun, moon, and stars. Is the belief in their unchangeableness correct? To answer, we should first turn to what holy Scripture teaches. Job, for instance, appears to say not only that the stars can be subject to sin, but that they actually are not free from it. He says: “The stars also are not clean in Your sight.” This should not be taken as referring to the brightness or physical splendor of the stars, as if one were to say that a garment is unclean. If that were the meaning, it would unfairly reflect on the Creator: after all, the stars cannot, by their own effort, make themselves brighter or less bright, so how could they be blamed for being “unclean” in terms of their physical substance if they are also not praised for their brilliance?
To understand these matters more clearly, we should first ask: is it reasonable to suppose that the stars are living, rational beings? Next, we should ask whether their souls came into existence at the same time as their bodies, or whether they existed beforehand. We should also consider whether, at the end of the world, they will be released from their bodies, and whether, as we cease to live, they too will cease to illuminate the world.
Though these questions may seem bold, our desire to understand the truth as fully as possible makes it reasonable to investigate them, guided by the grace of the Holy Spirit. We think, then, that the stars may rightly be called living beings, because they are said to receive commandments from God—a characteristic normally reserved for rational beings. As the Lord says, “I have given a commandment to all the stars.” What are these commandments? They are the instructions that each star, in its proper order and course, should provide to the world the amount of brilliance entrusted to it. The planets, for example, move in one type of orbit, while the stars called ἀπλανεῖς (wandering stars) move differently.
It follows that the movement of these bodies cannot occur without a soul, nor can living beings exist without motion. Since the stars move with such order and regularity, never seeming to go astray, it would be absurd to claim that such precise and orderly behavior could occur among purely irrational beings. Jeremiah even calls the moon the “queen of heaven.” Yet if the stars are living, rational beings, we should expect both advances and retreats in their movements. Job’s words—“the stars are not clean in His sight”—seem to point to this very possibility.
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