- IT follows now that I give you an account what the ancient Philosophers and Sages among the Heathens thought and delivered concerning this Point. Two of the four principal Sects of Philosophers held a future Dissolution of the World, viz. The Epicureans and Stoicks.
As for the Epicureans, They held that as the World was at first composed by the fortuitous concourse of Atomes, so it should at last fall in pieces again by their fortuitous Separation, as Lucretius hath it, lib. 5. Principio maria ac terras coelúmque tuere, Horum naturum triplicem, tria corpora, Memmi, Tres species tam dissimiles, tria talia texta Vna dies dabit exitio, multósque per annos Sustentata ruet moles & machina mundi. But now to prove all this; first cast an Eye, And look on all below, on all on high, The solid Earth, the Seas, and arched Sky: One fatal hour must ruine all, This glorious Frame, that stood so long, must fall. This Opinion of theirs is consonant enough to their wild Principles, save only in that point of its suddenness, Vna dies dabit exitio, &c. one day shall destroy or make an end of it.
The Stoicks were also of Opinion that the World must be dissolved, as we may learn from the Seventh Book of Laertius in the Life of Zeno, […], &c. They hold that the World is corruptible for these Reasons; 1. Because it was generated, and had a beginning. 2. Because That is corruptible in the whole, whose parts are corruptible: But the parts of the World are corruptible, being daily transmuted one into another. 3. That which is capable of Mutation from better to worse is corruptible. But such is the World; sometimes being afflicted with long Heats and Droughts, sometimes with continued Showers and Inundations. To those we may add 4. according to some of their Opinions, Because the Sun and Stars being fed with Vapours exhaled from the Earth, all the moisture will at length be drawn out, and the World fly on fire. They were afraid1 Nè humore omni consumpto totus mundus ignesceret. The Poet Lucan, who seems to be of the Stoick Sect, in the beginning of his first Book, describing the Dissolution of the World, makes it to be a falling in pieces of the whole Frame of Heaven and Earth, and a jumbling and confounding of all their parts together. —Sic cùm compage soluta Secula tot mundi suprema coegerit hora; Antiquum repetent iterum Chaos omnia; mistis Sydera syderibus concurrent; ignea Pontum Astra petent, tellus extendere litora nolet, Excutietque fretum; fratri contraria Phoebe Ibit, & obliquum bigas agitare per orbem Indignata diem poscet sibi; tot áque discors Machina divulsi turbabit foedera mundi. —So when the last hour shall So many Ages end, and this disjointed, All To Chaos back return: then all the Stars shall be Blended together, then those burning Lights on high In Sea shall drench, Earth then her shores shall not extend, But to the Waves give way, the Moon her Course shall bend Cross to her Brothers, and disdaining still to drive Her Chariot wheel athwart the heavenly Orb, shall strive To rule the day; this Frame to discord bent The Worlds Peace shall disturb, and all in sunder rent. This Dissolution of the World they held should be by Water and by Fire alternately at certain periods, but especially by Fire, which they call […]. Philo, […]. The Stoicks say that the cause of the destruction of the World is the irresistible force of Fire that is in things, which in long periods of time consumes and dissolves all things into it self. Euseb. Praep. l. 15. […]. The most ancient of that Sect held, That at certain vast Periods of time all things were rarified into Air, being resolved into an Ethereal Fire. This […] of the Stoicks we find mentioned by many, both Christian and Heathen Writers, as besides the fore-quoted Minutius Felix, Iustin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus in 5. Strom. Plutarch, Seneca, and others. The time of this Conflagration Seneca determines not, but saith only, it shall be when God pleases. 3 Quaest. nat. cap. 20. 8. Cùm Deo visum, vetera finire, ordiri meliora; When it shall seem good to God to put an end to old things and to begin better. Some there be who tell us of the Annus Platonicus or magnus, by which they understand such a period of time, as in which all the heavenly Bodies shall be restored to the same site and distance they were once in, in respect of one another: As supposing that all the Seven Planets were at the moment of Creation in the first degree of Aries, till they come all to […]e in the same degree again, all that space of […] is called the Great Year, Annus magnus: In this Year they tell us that the height of Summer is the Conflagration, and the depth of Winter the Inundation; and some Astrologers have been so […] as to assign the time both of the Inundation and Conflagration, Seneca 3 Quest. Nat. cap. 20. Berosus, qui Belum interpretaius est, dicit, cursu ista syderum fieri, & adeo quidem assirmat, ut conflagrationi atque diluvio tempus as[…]ignet. Arsura […]nim terrena contendit, quando omnia sydera in Cancro convenerint: inundationem futuram, quando eadem syderum turba in Capricorno convenerit. Berosus, who interpreted Belus, saith, That those things come to pass according to the course of the Stars: and he so confidently affirms it, that he assigns the time both for the Conflagration and Inundation. For that all earthly Bodies will be burnt up, when all the Stars shall meet in Cancer; and the Inundation will fall out, when the same shall be in conjunction in Capricorn. Concerning the manner of this Conflagration, they held it should be sudden. Senec. Natura subitò ad ruinam, & toto impeturuit; licet ad originem parcè utatur viribus, dispensetque se incrementis fallacibus. Momento fit cinis, diu sylva, &c. Nature doth suddenly and with all its force rush on to ruin, though to the rise and formation of things it useth its strength sparingly, dispensing its influence, and causing them to grow by insensible degrees; a Wood is long in growing up, but reduced to Ashes almost in a moment. And some of them were so absurd as to think, that the Stars should justle and be dashed one against another Senec. lib. de consolatione ad Marciam: Cùm tempus advenerit: quo se mundus revo[…]aturus extinguat, viribus ista se suis caedent; & syde […]yderilus incurrent; & omni flagrante materia, uno igne, quicquid nunc ex disposito lucet ardebit. When the time shall come that the World, again to restore and renew it self, shall perish, these things shall batter and mall themselves by their own strength, the Stars shall run or fall foul upon one another, and all the matter flaming whatsoever now according to its settled order and disposition shines, shall then burn in one fire. Here by the way we may with Dr. More [Souls Immortality, lib. 3. cap. 18.] take notice how coursly, not to say ridiculously, the Stoicks Philosophize, when they are turned out of their Roadway of Moral Sentences, and pretend to give an account of the Nature of Things. For what Errours can be more gross than they entertain of God, of the Soul, and of the Stars; they making the two former Corporeal Substances, and feeding the latter with the vapours of the Earth, affirming that the Sun sups the Water of the great Ocean to quench his Thirst, but that the Moon drinks off the lesser Rivers and Brooks, which is as true as that the Ass drank up the Moon. Such conceits are more sit for Anacreon in a drunken Fit to stumble upon, who to invite his Companions to Tiple, composed that Catch, […], […]. The Sea drinks up the Vapours, And the Sun the Sea. then to be either found out or owned by a serious Philosopher. And yet Seneca mightily triumphs in this Notion of foddering the Stars with the thick Fogs of the Earth, and declares his Opinion with no mean Strains of Eloquence, &c.
As for the extent of this Conflagration, they held that not only the Heavens should be burnt, but that the Gods themselves should not escape Scot-free. So Seneca, Resoluto mundo, & Diis in unum confusis. When the World shall be dissolved, and the Gods confounded and blended together into one. And again, Atque omnes pariter Deos Perdet nox aliqua & Chaos. And in like manner a certain Night and Chaos shall destroy all the Gods. Is not this wise Philosophy? If their Morality were no better than their Physicks, their Wise man they boast of might be so denominated […], as they of Gotham.
But let us look a little further, and we shall find that the Stoicks were not the first Authors of this Opinion of the Conflagration; but that it was of far greater Antiquity than that Sect. Others of the more ancient Philosophers having entertained it, viz. Empedocles, as Clemens Alexandrinus testifies in his 5 Strom. […]. That there shall sometime be a change of the World into the nature or substance of Fire. 2. Heraclitus, as the same Clemens shews at large out of him in the same place, […], &c. And Laertius in the Life of Heraclitus, He taught […]. That there is but one World, and that it was generated out of Fire, and again burnt up or turned into Fire at certain periods alternately throughout all Ages. I might add to these the Ancient Greek Poets, Sophocles and Diphilus, as we find them quoted by Iustin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus. Neither yet were these the first Inventers and Broachers of this Opinion, but they received it by Tradition from their Forefathers, and look’d upon it as an Oracle and Decree of Fate. Ovid speaks of it as such in the first of his Metamorphosis; Esse quoque in fati reminiscitur, affore tempus, Quo mare, quo tellus, correptáque regia coeli Ardeat, & mundi moles operosa laboret. —Besides by Doom Of certain Fate, he knew the time should come, When Sea, Earth, ravisht Heaven, the curious Frame Of this Worlds Mass should shrink in purging Flame. And Lucan (Lib. 7); Hos Caesar, populos si nunc non usserit ignis, Vret cum terris, uret cum gurgite ponti: Communis mundo superest rogus ossibus Astra Misturus.— If now these Bodies want their Fire and Urn, At last with the whole Globe they’ll surely burn; The World expects one general Fire: and Thou Must go where these poor Souls are wandring now. Now though some are of Opinion that by Fata here are to be understood the Sibylline Oracles, and to that purpose do alledge some Verses out of those extant under that Title, as Lactantius in his Book De ir a Dei, cap. 2. 3. […], […]. And it shall sometime be, that God not any more mitigating his Anger, but aggravating it, shall destroy the whole Race of Mankind, consuming it by a conflagration.
And in another place there is mention made, of a River of Fire that shall descend from Heaven, and burn up both Earth and Sea.
Tunc ardens fluvius coelo manabit ab alto
Igneus, at que locos consumet funditus omnes,
Terrámque, Oceanúmque ingentem, & caerula ponti,
Stagnáque, tum fluvios, fontes, Ditémque severum,
Coelest[…]mque polum, coeli quoque lumina in unum
Haxa ruent, formâ deletâ prorsus eorum,
Astra cadent, etenim de coelo cun[…]a revulsa.
Then shall a burning Flood flow from the Heavens on high,
And with its fiery Streams all places utterly
Destroy, Earth, Ocean, Lakes, Rivers, Fountains, Hell,
And heavenly Poles, the Lights in Firmament that dwell,
Losing their beauteous Form shall be obscur’d, and all
Raught from their places, down from Heaven to Earth shall fall.
Now because the Verses now extant under the Name of Sibylline Oracles are all suspected to be false and Pseudepigrapha; and many of them may be demonstrated to be of no greater Antiquity than the Emperour Antoninus Pius his Reign: and because it cannot be proved, that there was any such thing in the Ancient genuine Sibylline Oracles; I rather think, (as I said before) that it was a Doctrine of ancient Tradition, handed down from the first Fathers and Patriarchs of the World. Iosephus in his Antiquities runs it up as high as Adam; from whom Seth his Son received it; his Father, saith he, soretelling him, […]. […] there should be a destruction of the Universe, once by the violence of Fire, and again by the force and abundance of Water; in consequence whereof he erected two Pillars, one of Brick, which might endure the Fire, and another of Stone, which would resist the Water; and upon them engraved his Astronomical Observations, that so they might remain to Posterity: And one of these Pillars, he saith, continued in Syria until his days. Whether this Relation be true or not, it may be thence collected, that this was an Universal Opinion, received by Tradition, both among Iews and Gentiles. That the World should one day be consumed by Fire. It may be proved by good Authority, that the ancient Gaules, Chaldaeans and Indians had this Tradition among them: which they could not receive from the Greek Philosophers or Poets, with whom they had no entercourse; but it must in all probability be derived down to both from the same Fountain and Original; that is, from the first Restorers of Mankind, Noah and his Sons.
I now proceed to the Third Particular proposed in the beginning; that is, to give answer to the several Questions concerning the Dissolution of the World.
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Footnotes
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Mlnut. Fellx. ↩