I do not presume to determine whether God does so, and whether
these times which are called "ages of ages" are joined together
in a continuous series, and succeed one another with a regulated
diversity, and leave exempt from their vicissitudes only those who
are freed from their misery, and abide without end in a blessed
immortality; or whether these are called "ages of ages," that we may
understand that the ages remain unchangeable in God's unwavering
wisdom, and are the efficient causes, as it were, of those ages
which are being spent in time. Possibly "ages" is used for "age,"
so that nothing else is meant by "ages of ages" than by "age of
age," as nothing else is meant by "heavens of heavens" than by
"heaven of heaven." For God called the firmament, above which are
the waters, "Heaven," and yet the psalm says, "Let the waters that
are above the _heavens_ praise the name of the Lord."[557] Which of
these two meanings we are to attach to "ages of ages," or whether
there is not some other and better meaning still, is a very profound
question; and the subject we are at present handling presents no
obstacle to our meanwhile deferring the discussion of it, whether
we may be able to determine anything about it, or may only be made
more cautious by its further treatment, so as to be deterred from
making any rash affirmations in a matter of such obscurity. For at
present we are disputing the opinion that affirms the existence
of those periodic revolutions by which the same things are always
recurring at intervals of time. Now, whichever of these suppositions
regarding the "ages of ages" be the true one, it avails nothing for
the substantiating of those cycles; for whether the ages of ages be
not a repetition of the same world, but different worlds succeeding
one another in a regulated connection, the ransomed souls abiding in
well-assured bliss without any recurrence of misery, or whether the
ages of ages be the eternal causes which rule what shall be and is
in time, it equally follows, that those cycles which bring round the
same things have no existence; and nothing more thoroughly explodes
them than the fact of the eternal life of the saints.