This is the First World, which now is, since Moses says that it was created in the Beginning, Genesis 1:1. But I have shown in § 13, 19, that the absolute Beginning, the First of all Successive Duration, is understood by Moses.

While Peter by the Old World understand the earth before the Flood, 2 Peter 2:5 compared with 2 Peter 3:6. Peter thus makes use of metonymy of the container for the thing contained, and of the subject for an adjunct, by the World understanding the living creatures, and especially Men, contained in the World, and also the prior state of the World. Apart from the fact that he also had regard in the World synecdochically to this Lower part of the World.

Our AUTHOR in his Compendio notes that there is a Jewish Dream concerning a Cycle of seven thousand Years, whereupon a New World succeeds the old; in like manner the argument sought from the initial letter of Genesis, namely, ב,[1] is frivolous, so that it might be further concluded that this World is the Second in order. More particularly, Menasseh Ben Israel, Problem XII de Creatione, asks: Whether before this World there were other Worlds? And he relates that there were various opinions among the Hebrews concerning this matter. Inasmuch as, 1. Rabbi Moses the Egyptian[2] sharply condemns the opinion of those that assert that there was another World before this World, in which Adam and Eve lived. Thus we read in Maimonides, More Nevochim, part II, chapter XXX, page 275: “[Unto this sense they write elsewhere on the First Day:] Rabbi Yehuda Bar Simon:[3] Hence we have, that previously there was a succession of times. Rabbi Abbahu says: Hence we have, that God constructed Worlds and destroyed them again. But the latter is more absurd than the former.” 2. On the other hand, Menasseh mentions that it was related in Bereshith Rabba, what we were just now hearing out of Maimonides, that out of the ancients Rabbi Abbahu and Rabbi Yehuda established, that before this World there was another World; he relates that Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel[4] was also versed in this opinion. 3. Menasseh himself admits that he is uncertain, and that he does not dare to affirm the latter or the former opinion, at the same time relating that dream concerning the worldly Cycle of seven thousand years, and the argument for a Second World from the initial letter of the Law, ב. While the Kabbalists, says he, maintain that the terrestrial world, on each Sabbatical year, or in each seven thousands of years, is destroyed, who will definitively indicate to us whether we stand in the first revolution, and not in the second or third? Rabbi Eliezer Germanus[5] thinks that this is the second sabbatical year; and the Kabbalists in Tiqqune ha-Zohar[6] not only confirm the same, but also add that a mystery lurks in this, that the Law begins with the letter ב, בְּרֵאשִׁית, in the beginning, because according to the Hebrew manner of numbering ב means two, in such a way that according to their opinion it was then the second world. This same opinion was also held of old by Empedocles,[7] and certain Gentiles. Hitherto Menasseh. JEROME relates, Epistola ad Avitum, opera, tome 2, page 152, that Origen on this point shared similar delusions with the Jews: And again concerning the world: It please us (says he), both that there was another world before this world: and that, after this one, there is going to be yet another. You wish to learn, Is there going to be another world after the corruption of this world? Hear the words of Isaiah: There will be a new heaven and a new earth, which I make to endure in my sight.[8] You wish to know, Were there other worlds in the past before the making of this world? Listen to Ecclesiastes: What is it that hath been? the same shall be. And what is it that hath been done? the same shall be done. And there is nothing new under the sun, neither is any man able to say: Behold, this is new. For it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.[9] This witness testifies, not only that there were, but that there are future worlds: not that all happen together and side-by-side, but one after another.
The Last is the same with respect to the Mass: although with respect to qualities it is to be transformed in the future, concerning which renewal and change of the World our AUTHOR will treat in Chapter XXXIV, § 30.
[1] ב is the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
[2] That is, Maimonides.
[3] Rabbi Judah Ben Simeon was a fourth-century Palestinian Amora and haggadist.
[4] Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) was one of the great Spanish rabbis of his age and a stalwart opponent of Christianity, in spite of the danger. He held fast to a literal interpretation of the Scripture, over against Maimonides’ philosophical allegorizing. He commented on all of the Law and the Prophets.
[5] Rabbi Ezliezer ben Nathan (c. 1090-c. 1170) was one of Germany’s leading Rabbinic authorities. His responsa and halakic rulings are preserved in his Sefer ha-Raban.
[6] The Tiqqune he-Zohar is a fourteenth century Kabbalistic text. It is an appendix to the Zohar, consisting of seventy commentaries on the words, in the beginning.
[7] Empedocles (c. 490-c. 430) was a Greek philosopher, noted for originating the theory of the four elements. In their original state, the four elements existed in an inert rest and balance, without mixture or separation, bound together by the uniting power of Love. However, Strife gained strength, and the unity was dissolved, resulting in the present world of phenomena.
[8] Isaiah 66:22.
[9] Ecclesiastes 1:9, 10.
See Wendelin's summary of the Doctrine of Creation:
https://www.fromreformationtoreformation.com/introductory-theology
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