It is probably in this way that, so far as our weakness allows, we shall maintain a reverent belief about God, neither asserting that his creatures were unbegotten and coeternal with him nor that he turned to the work of creation to do good when he had done nothing good before. For the saying that is written, “In wisdom you have made all things,” is a true one. And certainly if “all things have been made in wisdom,” then since wisdom has always existed, there have always existed in wisdom, by a prefiguration and preformation, those things which afterwards have received substantial existence. This is, I believe, the thought and meaning of Solomon when he says in Ecclesiastes, “What is it that has been made? The same that is to be. And what is it that has been created? The same that is destined to be created. And there is nothing fresh under the sun. If one should speak of anything and say, Behold, this is new: it already has been, in the ages that were before us.” If then particular things which are “under the sun” have already existed in the ages which were before us—since “there is nothing fresh under the sun”—then all universal categories have forever existed, and some would say even individual things; but either way, it is clear that God did not begin to create after spending a period in idleness.
We say that not then for the first time did God begin to work when he made this visible world; but as, after its destruction, there will be another world, so also we believe that others existed before the present came into being. And both of these positions will be confirmed by the authority of Holy Scripture. For that there will be another world after this is taught by Isaiah, who says, “There will be new heavens, and a new earth, which I shall make to abide in my sight, says the Lord.” And that before this world others also existed is shown by Ecclesiastes, in the words “What is that which has been? Even that which shall be. And what is that which has been created? Even this which is to be created: and there is nothing altogether new under the sun. Who shall speak and declare, Lo, this is new? It has already been in the ages which have been before us.” By these testimonies it is established both that there were ages before our own and that there will be others after it. It is not, however, to be supposed that several worlds existed at once but that, after the end of this present world, others will take their beginning.
Let none of those listening think that there is a longwinded and meaningless repetition of words in the distinction between what has come to be and what has been made. The text points out in each of the expressions the difference between the soul and the flesh. The soul has come to be, and the body has been made. It is not because the words have two different meanings that the text uses this distinction of terminology for each of the things referred to. But [it does so] to enable you to reckon what is advantageous in each case. The soul came to be in the beginning the same as it will again appear hereafter, when it has been purified. The body shaped by the hands of God was made what the resurrection of the dead in due time will reveal it to be. For such as you may see it after the resurrection of the dead, just such it was made at the first. The resurrection of the dead is nothing but the complete restoration of the original state.
Let no one listening to these words think that much talk and the repetition of words is vanity by the distinction between what is and what had been, for they demonstrate the difference between body and soul. Although the meaning of terms does not differ that much, the text does make a distinction to clearly manifest the difference for you. The soul existed right from the beginning; it had been purified in the past and will appear in the future. God fashioned the human body and will show the resurrection at the proper time, for that which comes after the resurrection was indeed fashioned first. The resurrection is nothing other than the restoration [apokatastasis.] of all things to their original state.
"The
thing that has been, it is that which will be.
And that which is done is that which shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun." It seems to me that he now speaks generally about those
things that he enumerated above: about generation after generation, the globe
of the earth, the rising and setting of the sun, the course of rivers, the
vastness of the ocean and all things which we learn either through thought or
through sight or hearing, because there is nothing in nature that has not been
before. For from the beginning of the
world men have been born and have died, and the earth stood level above the
waters and the sun lay in its origin.
And lest I should go on to list more things, it is left to God as
creator to fly with the birds, to swim with the fish, and walk with the
creatures of the earth and slide with snakes.
And the comic [Terence Eunuchus, prol. 41.]
said something similar to this: "Nothing has been said, which has not been
said before", about which my teacher Donatus, when he was lecturing about
this verse, said: "Let them die, who have said our words before us." [Donatus Comm. in Terent. Eun.]
Then if is possible to say nothing new in discourse, how great the creation of
the world must have been, which has been complete right from the start, that
God was able to rest from his work on the seventh day! Read also in another book: "If
everything that is done under the sun has already been done is past centuries,
and man was already made when the sun was made: then man existed before he came
under the sun." [Origines peri Archon III 5, 3.] But he is excluded, because by this reasoning
even packhorses, gnats, and each insect and large animal is said to have been
made before the sky. Unless however he
should reply that talking comes from the consequences of speaking not about
other animals but about the man Ecclesiastes, for he says "there is nothing
new under the sun about which one can say 'look this is new!' But he does not speak of animals but of man
alone, because if he means animals to be new, then he refutes his own opinion
that nothing is new under the sun.
There are some people who want to twist even a famous passage in the book of Solomon, called Ecclesiastes, into a defense of these recurring cycles of universal dissolution and re-evocation of the past: “What is it that has been? The same thing that shall be. What is it that has been done? The same that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is anyone able to say, ‘Behold, this is new,’ for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us.” But here Solomon was speaking either of things he had just been discussing—the succession of generations, the revolution of the sun, the course of rivers—or, at any rate, of those creatures in general that come to life and die. For example, there were people before us, they are with us now, and they shall come after us. And the same is true of animals and plants. Even monstrosities that are abnormal at birth, different as they are among themselves and, in certain cases, unique, nevertheless, inasmuch as they come under the heading of prodigies and monsters, have existed before and will exist again. Consequently, it is nothing new or even of recent date that a monster should be born under the sun. However, there are some who interpret the words to mean that what Solomon had in mind was that, in the predestination of God, everything is already a fact and, in that sense, there is nothing new under the sun.Far be it from us Christians, however, to believe that these words of Solomon refer to those cycles by which, as these philosophers suppose, the same periods of time and sequence of events will be repeated. For example, the philosopher Plato having taught in a certain age at the school of Athens called the Academy, even so, through innumerable ages of the past at long but definite intervals, this same Plato and the same city, the same school and the same disciples all existed and will all exist again and again through innumerable ages of the future. Far be it from us, I say, to believe this.
For Christ died once for our sins; and “having risen from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no longer have dominion over him.” And we after the resurrection “shall ever be with the Lord,” to whom we say, as the holy psalmist reminds us, “You, Oh Lord, will preserve us: and keep us from this generation forever.” And the verse that follows, I think, may be suitably applied to these philosophers: “The wicked walk round about.” These words do not mean that their life will repeatedly recur in cycle after cycle as they think but that here and now the way of their errors, that is, their false doctrine, goes around in circles.
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Ecclesiastes 1:9