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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; 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 forever, 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 favor 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." 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 to 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; and we ourselves after the
resurrection shall be "ever with the Lord," to whom we now say, as
the sacred Psalmist dictates, "Thou shall keep us, O Lord, Thou
shall preserve us from this generation." 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.
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