will bring all things round again, after a certain fixed cycle,
to the same order and form as at first._
This controversy some philosophers have seen no other approved means
of solving than by introducing cycles of time, in which there should
be a constant renewal and repetition of the order of nature;[538]
and they have therefore asserted that these cycles will ceaselessly
recur, one passing away and another coming, though they are not
agreed as to whether one permanent world shall pass through all these
cycles, or whether the world shall at fixed intervals die out, and
be renewed so as to exhibit a recurrence of the same phenomena--the
things which have been, and those which are to be, coinciding. And
from this fantastic vicissitude they exempt not even the immortal
soul that has attained wisdom, consigning it to a ceaseless
transmigration between delusive blessedness and real misery. For how
can that be truly called blessed which has no assurance of being so
eternally, and is either in ignorance of the truth, and blind to the
misery that is approaching, or, knowing it, is in misery and fear?
Or if it passes to bliss, and leaves miseries for ever, then there
happens in time a new thing which time shall not end. Why not, then,
the world also? Why may not man, too, be a similar thing? So that, by
following the straight path of sound doctrine, we escape, I know not
what circuitous paths, discovered by deceiving and deceived sages.
Some, too, in advocating these recurring cycles that restore all
things to their original, cite in favour of their supposition what
Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes: "What is that which hath
been? It is that which shall be. And what is that which is done? It
is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Who can speak and say, See, this is new? It hath been already of old
time, which was before us."[539] This he said either of those things
of which he had just been speaking--the succession of generations,
the orbit of the sun, the course of rivers,--or else of all kinds of
creatures that are born and die. For men were before us, are with
us, and shall be after us; and so all living things and all plants.
Even monstrous and irregular productions, though differing from one
another, and though some are reported as solitary instances, yet
resemble one another generally, in so far as they are miraculous and
monstrous, and, in this sense, have been, and shall be, and are no
new and recent things under the sun. However, some would understand
these words as meaning that in the predestination of God all things
have already existed, and that thus there is no new thing under the
sun. At all events, far be it from any true believer to suppose that
by these words of Solomon those cycles are meant, in which, according
to those philosophers, the same periods and events of time are
repeated; as if, for example, the philosopher Plato, having taught
in the school at Athens which is called the Academy, so, numberless
ages before, at long but certain intervals, this same Plato, and the
same school, and the same disciples existed, and so also are to be
repeated during the countless cycles that are yet be be,--far be it,
I say, from us to believe this. For once Christ died for our sins;
and, rising from the dead, He dieth no more. "Death hath no more
dominion over Him;"[540] and we ourselves after the resurrection
shall be "ever with the Lord,"[541] to whom we now say, as the
sacred Psalmist dictates, "Thou shalt keep us, O Lord, Thou shalt
preserve us from this generation."[542] And that too which follows,
is, I think, appropriate enough: "The wicked walk _in a circle_;"
not because their life is to recur by means of these circles, which
these philosophers imagine, but because the path in which their false
doctrine now runs is circuitous.