Can all rational beings agree under one law?

After this he utters a kind of wish: “If only it were possible for the Greeks and barbarians who inhabit Asia, Europe and Libya, to their farthest bounds, to come to agreement under one law!” Then, judging this impossible, he adds that “whoever thinks this knows nothing.”

If something must be said on this too, a few things will be said on the subject, though it needs much examination and proof, to show that what is said about every rational being coming to agree under one law is not only possible but true. The Stoics say that when the element which is stronger than the others has prevailed, as far as it can, the conflagration will come, with all things changing into fire. But we say that the Word will one day gain mastery over the whole of rational nature and transform every soul into his own perfection, when each one, using nothing but his own freedom, chooses what he wills and comes to be in what he has chosen.

And we say that it is not reasonable to think that, as with diseases and wounds in the body some of the things that happen prove stronger than the whole art of medicine, so with souls some effect of wickedness cannot be healed by the Word, who is over all and is God. For the Word is mightier than all the evils in the soul, and so is the healing that is in him, and he applies it to each one according to the will of God; and the end of things is that wickedness be destroyed. Whether it will be destroyed so that it can never again, anywhere or in any way, be permitted, or not, it is not the task of the present discussion to teach.

Now the prophecies say many things, in veiled terms, about the complete destruction of evils and the setting right of every soul; for the present it is enough to set out the passage from Zephaniah, which runs thus: “Make ready, rise early: all their gleaning is ruined. Therefore wait for me, says the Lord, on the day of my rising up for a testimony; for my judgment is upon the gatherings of the nations, to receive kings, to pour out upon them all the wrath of my anger. For in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. For then I will turn for the peoples a tongue into its own generation, so that all may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him under one yoke. From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia they shall offer sacrifices to me. On that day you shall not be put to shame for all your practices by which you acted impiously against me; for then I will take away from you the contemptible things of your insolence, and you shall no longer go on boasting upon my holy mountain. And I will leave in you a people meek and lowly, and the remnant of Israel shall reverence the name of the Lord; and they shall do no wrong and speak no vain things, and no deceitful tongue shall be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and there shall be no one to make them afraid” (Zephaniah 3:7–13).

Let anyone who is able, having studied all of this, set out the clear meaning of the prophecy; and let him examine above all what it means that, when all the earth is being consumed, a tongue is turned “for the peoples into its own generation” (Zephaniah 3:9), in a way that answers to the state of things before the confusion (Genesis 11:7–9). And let him consider what it means for “all to call upon the name of the Lord and serve him under one yoke” (Zephaniah 3:9), so that “the contemptible things of insolence” are taken away (Zephaniah 3:11), and there is no longer “wrong,” nor vain words, nor a deceitful tongue (Zephaniah 3:13).

I have thought it right to set these things out briefly and without a precise exposition, because of Celsus’s statement, since he thinks it impossible for the Greeks and barbarians who live in Asia, Europe and Libya to come to agreement. And perhaps such a thing truly is impossible for those who are still in bodies, but not impossible for those who have been set free from them.