ACC ~ Mark 13 v31b

THE WORD WILL NOT COME TO NOTHING

ORIGEN: Although heaven and earth, and the things that are in them, may pass away, yet his divine speech regarding each individual thing, whether viewed as parts of a whole or species of a genus, shall by no means pass away. [1] The utterances of God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, will not come to nothing. AGAINST CELSUS 5.22. [2]

[1] Cf. Mt 24:35; Mk 13:31; Lk 21:33.

[2] TLG 2042.001, 5.22.16-20; cf. ANF 4:553. The divine speech that creates each particular thing will not pass away.

DURABILITY OF MATTER AND SPEECH

GREGORY THE GREAT: Nothing of this world is more durable than the heavens and the earth, and nothing in the order of nature passes away more quickly than speech. Words, as long as they are incomplete, are not yet words. Once completed they cease utterly to be. In fact they cannot be perfected except by their own passing away. Therefore he says: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass.” As if he were openly to say: all that seems to you enduring and unchangeable is not enduring and without change in eternity. And everything of mine that seems to pass away is enduring and without change. My speech, that seems to pass away, utters thoughts (sententiae manentes) which endure forever. HOMILIES 1. [1]

[1] Cetedoc 1711, 1.1.4.5; SSGF 1:19*; PL 76, 1077-81, Homily 1.

GOD’S MAKING OF THINGS FUTURE

AMBROSE: For just as he calls the things that are not as though they were, [1] so he has made things future as though they were. It cannot come to pass that they should not be. Those things that he has directed to be necessarily will be. Therefore he who has made the things that are to be, knows them already in the way in which they are to be. ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 5.4.192. [2]

[1] Rom 4:17.

[2] Cetedoc 0150, 5.16.86; NPNF 2 10:309**. God has a different relation to time than we do. God exists in eternal simultaneity with all times and hence knows the future as now.