1 Corinthians 15:41

Whence, then, comes the passion of the youngest Aeon, if the light of the Father is that from which all other lights have been formed, and which is by nature impassible? And how can one Aeon be spoken of as either younger or older among themselves, since there is but one light in the entire Pleroma? And if any one calls them stars, they will all nevertheless appear to participate in the same nature. For if "one star differs from another star in glory"

Conformably, therefore, there are various abodes, according to the worth of those who have believed. To the point Solomon says, "For there shall be given to him the choice grace of faith, and a more pleasant lot in the temple of the Lord." For the comparative shows that there are lower parts in the temple of God, which is the whole Church. And the superlative remains to be conceived, where the Lord is. These chosen abodes, which are three, are indicated by the numbers in the Gospel-the thirty, the sixty, the hundred.

Well now, if He had put forth faith to suffer martyrdoms not for the contest's sake, but for its own benefit, ought it not to have had some store of hope, for the increase of which it might restrain desire of its own, and check its wish in order that it might strive to mount up, seeing they also who discharge earthly functions are eager for promotion? Or how will there be many mansions in our Father's house, if not to accord with a diversity of deserts? How will one star also differ from another star in glory, unless in virtue of disparity in their rays? But further, if, on that account, some increase of brightness also was appropriate to loftiness of faith, that gain ought to have been of some such sort as would cost great effort, poignant suffering, torture, death.

Therefore "one star differeth from another star in glory." If, again, Christ in His advent from heaven "shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body," it follows that this body of ours shall rise again, which is now in a state of humiliation in its sufferings and according to the law of mortality drops into the ground.

"For one star differeth from another star in glory: so there are bodies terrestrial as well as celestial" (Jews, that is, as well as Christians). Now, if this language is not to be construed figuratively, it was absurd enough for him to make a contrast between the flesh of mules and kites, as well as the heavenly bodies and human bodies; for they admit of no comparison as to their condition, nor in respect of their attainment of a resurrection.

That no one should be made sad by death; since in living is labour and peril, in dying peace and the certainty of resurrection. In Genesis: "Then said the Lord to Adam, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of that tree of which alone I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat, cursed shall be the ground in all thy works; in sadness and groaning shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns and thistles shall it cast forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field in the sweat of thy brow. Thou shall eat thy bread until thou return unto the earth from which also thou wast taken; because earth thou art, and to earth thou shall go." Also in the same place: "And Enoch pleased God, and was not found afterwards: because God translated him." And in Isaiah: "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass. The grass withered, and the flower hath fallen away; but the word of the Lord abideth for ever." In Ezekiel: "They say, Our bones are become dry, our hope hath perished: we have expired. Therefore prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I open your monuments, and I will bring you forth from your monuments, and I will bring you into the land of Israel; and I will put my Spirit upon you, and ye shall live; and I will place you into your land: and ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken, and will do it, saith the Lord." Also in the Wisdom of Solomon: "He was taken away, lest wickedness should change his understanding; for his soul was pleasing to God." Also in the eighty-third Psalm: "How beloved are thy dwellings, Thou Lord of hosts? My soul desires and hastes to the courts of God." And in the Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians: "But we would not that you should be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who sleep, that ye sorrow not as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also them which have fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Also in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it have first died." And again: "Star differeth from star in glory: so also the resurrection. The body is sown in corruption, it rises without corruption; it is sown in ignominy, it rises again in glory; it is sown in weakness, it rises again in power; it is sown an animal body, it rises again a spiritual body." And again: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the word that is written, Death is absorbed Into striving. Where, O death, is thy sting? Where, O death, is thy striving? " Also in the Gospel according to John: "Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given me be with me where I shall be, and may see my glory which Thou hast given me before the foundation of the world." Also according to Luke: "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, O Lord, according to the word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." Also according to John: "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I."

Who can allow that the perfect concord subsisting among the celestial bodies derives its harmony from instruments destitute both of concord and harmony? Or, again, if there is but one and the same substance in all things, and if there is the same incorruptible nature in all—the only elements of difference being, as they aver, size and figure—how comes it that there are some bodies divine and perfect, and eternal, as they would phrase it, or lasting, as some one may prefer to express it; and among these some that are visible and others that are invisible—the visible including such as sun, and moon, and stars, and earth, and water; and the invisible including gods, and demons, and spirits? ... But who, then, is the sagacious discriminator, that brings certain atoms into collocation, and separates others; and marshals some in such wise as to form the sun, and others in such a way as to originate the moon, and adapts all in natural fitness, and in accordance with the proper constitution of each star? For surely neither would those solar atoms, with their peculiar size and kind, and with their special mode of collocation, ever have reduced themselves so as to effect the production of a moon; nor, on the other hand, would the conjunctions of these lunar atoms ever have developed into a sun. And as certainly neither would Arcturus, resplendent as he is, ever boast his having the atoms possessed by Lucifer, nor would the Pleiades glory in being constituted of those of Orion. For well has Paul expressed the distinction when he says: "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory."

Let no one suppose that all the remaining company of those who have believed are condemned, thinking that we who are virgins alone shall be led on to attain the promises, not understanding that there shall be tribes and families and orders, according to the analogy of the faith of each. And this Paul, too, sets forth, saying,

"There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another."

"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory."

And what means he by these expressions? Wherefore from the resurrection of the body did he throw himself into the discourse of the stars and the sun? He did not throw himself out, neither did he break off from his purpose; far from it: but he still keeps to it. For whereas he had established the doctrine concerning the resurrection, he intimates in what follows that great will be then the difference of glory, though there be but one resurrection. And for the present he divides the whole into two: into "bodies celestial," and "bodies terrestrial." For that the bodies are raised again, he signified by the corn: but that they are not all in the same glory, he signifies by this. For as the disbelief of the resurrection makes men supine, so again it makes them indolent to think that all are vouchsafed the same reward. Wherefore he corrects both. And the one in the preceding verses he had completed; but this he begins now. And having made two ranks, of the righteous and of sinners, these same two he subdivides again into many parts, signifying that neither righteous nor sinners shall obtain the same; neither righteous men, all of them, alike with other righteous, nor sinners with other sinners.

Now he makes, you see, first, one separation between righteous and sinners, where he says, "bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial:" by the "terrestrial" intimating the latter, and by the "celestial," the former. Then farther he introduces a difference of sinners from sinners, saying, "All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of fishes, another of birds, and another of beasts." And yet all are bodies; but some are in more, and some in lesser vileness. And that in their manner of living too, and in their very constitution.

And having said this, he ascends again to the heaven, saying, "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon." For as in the earthly bodies there is a difference, so also in the heavenly; and that difference no ordinary one, but reaching even to the uttermost: there being not only a difference between sun and moon, and stars, but also between stars and stars. For what though they be all in the heaven? yet some have a larger, others a less share of glory. What do we learn from hence? That although they be all in God's kingdom, all shall not enjoy the same reward; and though all sinners be in hell, all shall not endure the same punishment.

The members of the one church are different. Just as the sun has its own brilliance, and the moon also tempers the darkness of the night. And the five other stars called the wandering stars traverse the sky, differing both in their courses and in their brilliance. There are other countless stars that we see shining in the firmament. The brilliance of each of these is different, and yet each and every star is perfect, according to its own standard, to the degree that, in comparison with a greater star, it lacks perfection.… So the eye cannot say to the hand: “I do not need your help.”

In the body the eyes are held in high esteem. But they would be less esteemed if they were all alone or if there were no other members of seemingly less worth. In the heavens the sun outshines the moon but does not scorn it, and “star differs from star in glory” but is never measuring itself through pride.

The diversity of corporeal natures demonstrates that each one of them is not what it is because of what it could always have had all by itself. Rather it is what it is because of what it has received from the plan and working of the one omnipotent, unchangeable and all-wise Creator. If any corporeal creature whatsoever were of one and the same nature as the holy Trinity, which is the one God, it would not exist in any place locally, nor would it ever undergo change because of passage of time, nor would it move from one place to another, nor would it be circumscribed by the fact of its mass.

The second class of miracles, on this view, foretell what God has not yet done, but will do, universally. He raised one man (the man who was Himself) from the dead because He will one day raise all men from the dead. Perhaps not only men, for there are hints in the New Testament that all creation will eventually be rescued from decay, restored to shape and subserve the splendour of re-made humanity. The Transfiguration and the walking on the water are glimpses of the beauty and the effortless power over all matter which will belong to men when they are really waked by God. Now resurrection certainly involves “reversal” of natural process in the sense that it involves a series of changes moving in the opposite direction to those we see. At death, matter which has been organic, falls back gradually into the inorganic, to be finally scattered and used perhaps in other organisms. Resurrection would be the reverse process. It would not of course mean the restoration to each personality of those very atoms, numerically the same, which had made its first or “natural” body. There would not be enough to go round, for one thing; and for another, the unity of the body even in this life was consistent with a slow but perplexed change of its actual ingredients. But it certainly does mean matter of some kind rushing towards organism as now we see it rushing away. It means, in fact, playing backwards a film we have already seen played forwards. In that sense it is a reversal of Nature. But, of course, it is a further question whether reversal in this sense is necessarily contradiction. Do we know that the film cannot be played backwards?

Well, in one sense, it is precisely the teaching of modern physics that the film never works backwards. For modern physics, as you have heard before, the universe is “running down.” Disorganization and chance is continually increasing. There will come a time, not infinitely remote, when it will be wholly run down or wholly disorganized, and science knows of no possible return from that state. There must have been a time, not infinitely remote, in the past when it was wound up, though science knows of no winding-up process. The point is that for our ancestors the universe was a picture: for modern physics it is a story. If the universe is a picture these things either appear in that picture or not; and if they don’t, since it is an infinite picture, one may suspect that they are contrary to the nature of things. But a story is a different matter; specially if it is an incomplete story. And the story told by modern physics might be told briefly in the words “Humpty Dumpty was falling.” That is, it proclaims itself an incomplete story. There must have been a time before he fell, when he was sitting on the wall; there must be a time after he had reached the ground. It is quite true that science knows of no horses and men who can put him together again once he has reached the ground and broken. But then she also knows of no means by which he could originally have been put on the wall. You wouldn’t expect her to. All science rests on observation: all our observations are taken during Humpty Dumpty’s fall, because we were born after he lost his seat on the wall and shall be extinct long before he reaches the ground. But to assume from observations taken while the clock is running down that the unimaginable winding-up which must have preceded this process cannot occur when the process is over is the merest dogmatism. From the very nature of the case the laws of degradation and disorganization which we find in matter at present, cannot be the ultimate and eternal nature of things. If they were, there would have been nothing to degrade and disorganize. Humpty Dumpty can’t fall off a wall that never existed.