Apologetics -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Celsus (Platonic philosopher), active 180; Theology -- History -- Early Church, ca. 30-600
8. And now the point for investigation is, whether, when God shall be
all in all, the whole of bodily nature will, in the consummation of all
things, consist of one species, and the sole quality of body be that
which shall shine in the indescribable glory which is to be regarded as
the future possession of the spiritual body. For if we rightly
understand the matter, this is the statement of Moses in the beginning
of his book, when he says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.”[765] For this is the beginning of all creation: to this
beginning the end and consummation of all things must be recalled,
_i.e._ in order that that heaven and that earth may be the habitation
and resting-place of the pious; so that all the holy ones, and the meek,
may first obtain an inheritance in that land, since this is the teaching
of the law, and of the prophets, and of the gospel. In which land I
believe there exist the true and living forms of that worship which
Moses handed down under the shadow of the law; of which it is said, that
“they serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things”[766]—those,
viz., who were in subjection in the law. To Moses himself also was the
injunction given, “Look that thou make them after the form and pattern
which were showed thee on the mount.”[767] From which it appears to me,
that as on this earth the law was a sort of schoolmaster to those who by
it were to be conducted to Christ, in order that, being instructed and
trained by it, they might more easily, after the training of the law,
receive the more perfect principles of Christ; so also another earth,
which receives into it all the saints, may first imbue and mould them by
the institutions of the true and everlasting law, that they may more
easily gain possession of those perfect institutions of heaven, to which
nothing can be added; in which there will be, of a truth, that gospel
which is called everlasting, and that Testament, ever new, which shall
never grow old.
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