Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 102:26

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

"They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure" [Psalm 102:26]. The Apostle Peter saith this openly: "By the word of God the heavens were of old," etc. He hath said then that the heavens have already perished by the flood: and we know that the heavens perished as far as the extent of this atmosphere of ours. For the water increased, and filled the whole of that space in which birds fly; thus perished the heavens that are near the earth; those heavens which are meant when we speak of the birds of heaven. …

Exposition on Psalm 102 ↗

Ambrose of Milan

But when a man falls asleep, he does not rise until the heaven is sewn. This seems to indicate that until the heaven is renewed; for there will be a new heaven and a new earth, as it is written. For what is sewn is old: what is old will be changed. Lastly, listen to David saying: In the beginning you founded the earth, O Lord, and the works of your hands are the heavens. They will perish: but you endure, and all will grow old like a garment, and you will change them as a covering, and they will be changed. …

Interrogation of Job and David ↗

Bonaventure

That the divine being is immutable is shown by authority. The Psalm: You shall change them, and they shall be changed, but You are the selfsame; the Gloss says: "immutable." For inasmuch as it is simple, it is immutable from itself: for it has nothing that is not its own essential being, which indeed "is not an accident, but a subsistent truth," as Hilary says. Inasmuch as it is immense, it is not mutable in another or by another: for nothing else can transfer it, since it is everywhere whole. …

Quaestiones Disputatae, De Mysterio Trinitatis, Question 6 ↗