Annotatio CXXVIII

”These are the mansions of the children of Israel.” — Numbers 33:1

Origen, in homily 27 on Numbers, expounding these things, indicates that souls after the resurrection are not immediately raised to the vision of God,¹ but are led step by step to the contemplation of God through the ascents of many illuminations. For he says: “It is treated, therefore, of the ascent from Egypt to the land of promise, through which through which — as I said — we are taught, by mystical descriptions, the ascent of the soul to heaven by the sacrament of the resurrection from the dead. And the names of the mansions too are set down.” And a little after: “Such, therefore, shall be the ascent of the blessed soul, when all Egypt, and the Amalekites, and all who assailed it, shall have been submerged; and, departing through each single mansion — those many, namely, which are said to be with the Father² — it is illumined more and more, coming from one to another, and always acquires greater increases of illumination, until it be made accustomed to the very true Light itself (which illumines every man), [able] to endure its gaze, and to bear the splendor of [its] wondrous majesty.” These things Origen: to whom it is objected, that Paul says, “The DEAD, who are in Christ, shall rise first: then we, who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them to meet Christ in the air; and so shall we be always with the Lord.”³ By which words he shows that the souls of the saints are to be caught up to the gaze of God, without any delay, immediately after the resurrection.⁴ But the mansions which Origen says are in the Father’s house are to be referred not to diverse times of ascent, but to diverse grades of rewards.