Manhunter analysis - part 66: Augustine on the idea of cyclically reoccurring events

CATEGORY: MOVIES

A type of biblical event which seems to repeat itself as if in a reoccurring cycle, is that of a major prophet predicting the downfall of a civilization: we have gone over Jonah prophesying the downfall of the city of Ninevah, Jeremiah that of Israel, and most notably, John of Patmos prophesying the end of Babylon in the book of Revelation. We here begin with Augustine's City of God 12:13, which is titled, Of the Revolution of the Ages, Which Some Philosophers Believe Will Bring All Things Round Again, After a Certain Fixed Cycle, to the Same Order and Form as at First:

[Some philosophers have introduced the idea of] 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...

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.”[Eccles. 1.9-10 ] 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...

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";[Romans 6.9] and we ourselves after the resurrection shall be “ever with the Lord,”[Thess 4.16] to whom we now say, as the sacred Psalmist dictates, “Thou shall keep us, O Lord, Thou shall preserve us from this generation.”[Ps. 12.7] 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. (emphasis in original; biblical citations inside square brackets in original).

City of God (Dods)