Saturday, March 6, 2021

Origen vs. the "First" and "Second" Heavens of 2 Corinthians 12:2 being the Sky and Outer Space

  

How much I would have to labor in order to ascend into the first heaven; how much more difficult it would be for me to be worthy of the second! I would need to become an equal to Paul in order to ascend into the third (see 2 Cor 12.2); even if I were to become like Paul, I would hardly get to the sixth heaven . . .(Psalm 76 Homily 3 in Homilies on the Psalms: Codex Monacensis Graecus 314 [The Fathers of the Church; trans. Joseph W. Trigg; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020], 264)