; which has made it become a wandering star or planet, that is, a
Satellite of another sun, and even perhaps of that one whose superiority
its angel refused to recognize; and that therein consists the fall of
Lucifer. Now the chief of the bad angels, who in Holy Scripture is named
the prince, and even the god of this world, being, with the angels of his
train, envious of that rational animal which walks on the surface of this
globe, and which God has set up there perhaps to compensate himself for
their fall, strives to render it accessary in their crimes and a
participator in their misfortunes. Whereupon Jesus Christ came to save men.
He is the eternal Son of God, even as he is his only Son; but (according to
some ancient Christians, and according to the author of this hypothesis)
having taken upon him at first, from the beginning of things, the most
excellent nature among created beings, to bring them all to perfection, he
set himself amongst them: and this is the second filiation, whereby he is
the first-born of all creatures. This is he whom the Cabalists called Adam
Kadmon. Haply he had planted his tabernacle in that great sun which
illumines us; but he came at last into this globe where we are, he was born
of the Virgin, and took human nature upon him to save mankind from the
hands of their enemy and his. And when the time of judgement shall draw
near, when the present face of our globe shall be about to perish, he will
return to it in visible form, thence to withdraw the good, transplanting
them, it may be, into the sun, and to punish here the wicked with the
demons that have allured them; then the globe of the earth will begin to
burn and will be perhaps a comet. This fire will last for aeons upon aeons.
The tail of the comet is intended by the smoke which will rise incessantly,
according to the Apocalypse, and this fire will be hell, or the second[134]
death whereof Holy Scripture speaks. But at last hell will render up its
dead, death itself will be destroyed; reason and peace will begin to hold
sway again in the spirits that had been perverted; they will be sensible of
their error, they will adore their Creator, and will even begin to love him
all the more for seeing the greatness of the abyss whence they emerge.
Simultaneously (by virtue of the _harmonic parallelism_ of the Realms of
Nature and of Grace) this long and great conflagration will have purged the
earth's globe of its stains. It will become again a sun