Introduction to
Biblical Prophecy Quotes from St. Augustine,
City of God, Book XX
Book XX
Argument-Concerning
the last judgment, and the declarations
regarding it in the old and new testaments.
Chapter I-That Although God
is Always Judging, It is Nevertheless
Reasonable to Confine Our Attention
in This Book to His Last Judgment.
Intending to speak, in dependence on
God’s grace, of the day of His
final judgment, and to affirm it against
the ungodly and incredulous, we must
first of all lay, as it were, in the
foundation of the edifice the divine
declarations. Those persons who do not
believe such declarations do their best
to oppose to them false and illusive
sophisms of their own, either contending
that what is adduced from Scripture
has another meaning, or altogether denying
that it is an utterance of God’s.
For I suppose no man who understands
what is written, and believes it to
be communicated by the supreme and true
God through holy men, refuses to yield
and consent to these declarations, whether
he orally confesses his consent, or
is from some evil influence ashamed
or afraid to do so; or even, with an
opinionativeness closely resembling
madness, makes strenuous efforts to
defend what he knows and believes to
be false against what he knows and believes
to be true.
That, therefore, which the whole Church
of the true God holds and professes
as its creed, that Christ shall come
from heaven to judge quick and dead,
this we call the last day, or last time,
of the divine judgment. For we do not
know how many days this judgment may
occupy; but no one who reads the Scriptures,
however negligently, need be told that
in them “day” is customarily
used for “time.” And when
we speak of the day of God’s judgment,
we add the word last or final for this
reason, because even now God judges,
and has judged from the beginning of
human history, banishing from paradise,
and excluding from the tree of life,
those first men who perpetrated so great
a sin. Yea, He was certainly exercising
judgment also when He did not spare
the angels who sinned, whose prince,
overcome by envy, seduced men after
being himself seduced. Neither is it
without God’s profound and just
judgment that the life of demons and
men, the one in the air, the other on
earth, is filled with misery, calamities,
and mistakes. And even though no one
had sinned, it could only have been
by the good and right judgment of God
that the whole rational creation could
have been maintained in eternal blessedness
by a persevering adherence to its Lord.
He judges, too, not only in the mass,
condemning the race of devils and the
race of men to be miserable on account
of the original sin of these races,
but He also judges the voluntary and
personal acts of individuals. For even
the devils pray that they may not be
tormented, which proves that without
injustice they might either be spared
or tormented according to their deserts.
And men are punished by God for their
sins often visibly, always secretly,
either in this life or after death,
although no man acts rightly save by
the assistance of divine aid; and no
man or devil acts unrighteously save
by the permission of the divine and
most just judgment. For, as the apostle
says, “There is no unrighteousness
with God;” and as he elsewhere
says, “His judgments are inscrutable,
and His ways past finding out”
In this book, then, I shall speak, as
God permits, not of those first judgments,
nor of these intervening judgments of
God, but of the last judgment, when
Christ is to come from heaven to judge
the quick and the dead. For that day
is properly called the day of judgment,
because in it there shall be no room
left for the ignorant questioning why
this wicked person is happy and that
righteous man unhappy. In that day true
and full happiness shall be the lot
of none but the good, while deserved
and supreme misery shall be the portion
of the wicked, and of them only.
Chapter 2-That in the Mingled
Web of Human Affairs God’s Judgment
is Present, Though It Cannot Be Discerned.
In this present time we learn to bear
with equanimity the ills to which even
good men are subject, and to hold cheap
the blessings which even the wicked
enjoy. And consequently, even in those
conditions of life in which the justice
of God is not apparent, His teaching
is salutary. For we do not know by what
judgment of God this good man is poor
and that bad man rich; why he who, in
our opinion, ought to suffer acutely
for his abandoned life enjoys himself,
while sorrow pursues him whose praiseworthy
life leads us to suppose he should be
happy; why the innocent man is dismissed
from the bar not only unavenged, but
even condemned, being either wronged
by the iniquity of the judge, or overwhelmed
by false evidence, while his guilty
adversary, on the other hand, is not
only discharged with impunity, but even
has his claims admitted; why the ungodly
enjoys good health, while the godly
pines in sickness; why ruffians are
of the soundest constitution, while
they who could not hurt any one even
with a word are from infancy afflicted
with complicated disorders; why he who
is useful to society is cut off by premature
death, while those who, as it might
seem, ought never to have been so much
as born have lives of unusual length;
why he who is full of crimes is crowned
with honors, while the blameless man
is buried in the darkness of neglect.
But who can collect or enumerate all
the contrasts of this kind? But if this
anomalous state of things were uniform
in this life, in which, as the sacred
Psalmist says, “Man is like to
vanity, his days as a shadow that passeth
away,” -so uniform that none but
wicked men won the transitory prosperity
of earth, while only the good suffered
its ills,-this could be referred to
the just and even benign judgment of
God. We might suppose that they who
were not destined to obtain those everlasting
benefits which constitute human blessedness
were either deluded by transitory blessings
as the just reward of their wickedness,
or were, in God’s mercy, consoled
them, and that they who were not destined
to suffer eternal torments were afflicted
with temporal chastisement for their
sins, or were stimulated to greater
attainment in virtue. But now, as it
is, since we not only see good men involved
in the ills of life, and bad men enjoying
the good of it, which seems unjust,
but also that evil often overtakes evil
men, and good surprises the good, the
rather on this account are God’s
judgments unsearchable, and His ways
past finding out. Although, therefore,
we do not know by what judgment these
things are done or permitted to be done
by God, with whom is the highest virtue,
the highest wisdom, the highest justice,
no infirmity, no rashness, no unrighteousness,
yet it is salutary for us to learn to
hold cheap such things, be they good
or evil, as attach indifferently to
good men and bad, and to covet those
good things which belong only to good
men, and flee those evils which belong
only to evil men. But when we shall
have come to that judgment, the date
of which is called peculiarly the day
of judgment, and sometimes the day of
the Lord, we shall then recognize the
justice of all God’s judgments,
not only of such as shall then be pronounced,
but, of all which take effect from the
beginning, or may take effect before
that time. And in that day we shall
also recognize with what justice so
many, or almost all, the just judgments
of God in the present life defy the
scrutiny of human sense or insight,
though in this matter it is not concealed
from pious minds that what is concealed
is just.
Chapter 3-What Solomon, in
the Book of Ecclesiastes, Says Regarding
the Things Which Happen Alike to Good
and Wicked Men.
Solomon, the wisest king of Israel,
who reigned in Jerusalem, thus commences
the book called Ecclesiastes, which
the Jews number among their canonical
Scriptures: “Vanity of vanities,
said Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities;
all is vanity. What profit hath a man
of all his labor which he hath taken
under the sun?” And after going
on to enumerate, with this as his text,
the calamities and delusions of this
life, and the shifting nature of the
present time, in which there is nothing
substantial, nothing lasting, he bewails,
among the other vanities that are under
the sun, this also, that though wisdom
excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness,
and though the eyes of the wise man
are in his head, while the fool walketh
in darkness, yet one event happeneth
to them all, that is to say, in this
life under the sun, unquestionably alluding
to those evils which we see befall good
and bad men alike. He says, further,
that the good suffer the ills of life
as if they were evil doers, and the
bad enjoy the good of life as if they
were good. “There is a vanity which
is done upon the earth; that there be
just men unto whom it happeneth according
to the work of the wicked: again, there
be wicked men, to whom it happeneth
according to the work of the righteous.
I said, that this also is vanity.”
This wisest man devoted this whole book
to a full exposure of this vanity, evidently
with no other object than that we might
long for that life in which there is
no vanity under the sun, but verity
under Him who made the sun. In this
vanity, then, was it not by the just
and righteous judgment of God that man,
made like to vanity, was destined to
pass away? But in these days of vanity
it makes an important difference whether
he resists or yields to the truth, and
whether he is destitute of true piety
or a partaker of it,-important not so
far as regards the acquirement of the
blessings or the evasion of the calamities
of this transitory and vain life, but
in connection with the future judgment
which shall make over to good men good
things, and to bad men bad things, in
permanent, inalienable possession. In
fine, this wise man concludes this book
of his by saying, “Fear God, and
keep His commandments: for this is every
man. For God shall bring every work
into judgment, with every despised person,
whether it be good, or whether it be
evil.” What truer, terser, more
salutary enouncement could be made?
“Fear God, he says, and keep His
commandments: for this is every man.”
For whosoever has real existence, is
this, is a keeper of God’s commandments;
and he who is not this, is nothing.
For so long as he remains in the likeness
of vanity, he is not renewed in the
image of the truth. “For God shall
bring into judgment every work,”-that
is, whatever man does in this life,-“whether
it be good or whether it be evil, with
every despised person,”-that is,
with every man who here seems despicable,
and is therefore not considered; for
God sees even him and does not despise
him nor pass him over in His judgment.
Chapter 4-That Proofs of
the Last Judgment Will Be Adduced, First
from the New Testament, and Then from
the Old.
The proofs, then, of this last judgment
of God which I propose to adduce shall
be drawn first from the New Testament,
and then from the Old. For although
the Old Testament is prior in point
of time the New has the precedence in
intrinsic value; for the Old acts the
part of herald to the New. We shall
therefore first cite passages from the
New Testament, and confirm them by quotations
from the Old Testament. The Old contains
the law and the prophets, the New the
gospel and the apostolic epistles. Now
the apostle says “By the law is
the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
now the righteousness of God is by faith
of Jesus Christ upon all them that believe.”
This righteousness of God belongs to
the New Testament, and evidence for
it exists in the old books, that is
to say, in the law and the prophets.
I shall first, then state the case,
and then call the witnesses. This order
Jesus Christ Himself directs us to observe,
saying, “The scribe instructed
in the kingdom of God is like a good
householder, bringing out of his treasure
things new and old.” He did not
say” old and new,” which He
certainly would have said had He not
wished to follow the order of merit
rather than that of time.
Chapter 5-The Passages in
Which the Saviour Declares that There
Shall Be a Divine Judgment in the End
of the World.
The Saviour Himself, while reproving
the cities in which He had done great
works, but which had not believed, and
while setting them in unfavorable comparison
with foreign cities, says, “But
I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment
than for you.” And a little after
He says, “Verily, I say unto you,
It shall be more tolerable for the land
of Sodom in the day of judgment than
for thee.” Here He most plainly
predicts that a day of judgment is to
come. And in another place He says,
“The men of Nineveh shall rise
in judgment with this generation, and
shall condemn it: because they repented
at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold,
a greater than Jonas is here. The queen
of the south shall rise up in the judgment
with this generation, and shall condemn
it: for she came from the uttermost
parts of the earth to hear the words
of Solomon; and behold, a greater than
Solomon is here.” Two things we
learn from this passage, that a judgment
is to take place, and that it is to
take place at the resurrection of the
dead. For when He spoke of the Ninevites
and the queen of the south, He certainly
spoke of dead persons, and yet He said
that they should rise up in the day
of judgment. He did not say, “They
shall condemn,” as if they themselves
were to be the judges, but because,
in comparison with them, the others
shall be justly condemned.
Again, in another passage, in which
He was speaking of the present intermingling
and future separation of the good and
bad,-the separation which shall be made
in the day of judgment,-He adduced a
comparison drawn from the sown wheat
and the tares sown among them, and gave
this explanation of it to His disciples:
“He that soweth the good seed is
the Son of man,” etc. Here, indeed,
He did not name the judgment or the
day of judgment, but indicated it much
more clearly by describing the circumstances,
and foretold that it should take place
in the end of the world.
In like manner He says to His disciples,
“Verily I say unto you, That ye
which have followed me, in the regeneration,
when the Son of man shall sit on the
throne of His glory, ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel.” Here we learn
that Jesus shall judge with His disciples.
And therefore He said elsewhere to the
Jews, “If I by Beelzebub cast out
devils, by whom do your sons cast them
out? Therefore they shall be your judges.”
Neither ought we to suppose that only
twelve men shall judge along with Him,
though He says that they shall sit upon
twelve thrones; for by the number twelve
is signified the completeness of the
multitude of those who shall judge.
For the two parts of the number seven
(which commonly symbolizes totality),
that is to say four and three, multiplied
into one another, give twelve. For four
times three, or three times four, are
twelve. There are other meanings, too,
in this number twelve. Were not this
the right interpretation of the twelve
thrones, then since we read that Matthias
was ordained an apostle in the room
of Judas the traitor, the Apostle Paul,
though he labored more than them all,
should have no throne of judgment; but
he unmistakeably considers himself to
be included in the number of the judges
when he says, “Know ye not that
we shall judge angels?” The same
rule is to be observed in applying the
number twelve to those who are to be
judged. For though it was said, “judging
the twelve tribes of Israel,” the
tribe of Levi, which is the thirteenth,
shall not on this account be exempt
from judgment, neither shall judgment
be passed only on Israel and not on
the other nations. And by the words
“in the regeneration,” He
certainly meant the resurrection of
the dead to be understood; for our flesh
shall be regenerated by incorruption,
as our soul is regenerated by faith.
Many passages I omit, because, though
they seem to refer to the last judgment,
yet on a closer examination they are
found to be ambiguous, or to allude
rather to some other event,-whether
to that coming of the Saviour which
continually occurs in His Church, that
is, in His members, in which comes little
by little, and piece by piece, since
the whole Church is His body, or to
the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem.
For when He speaks even of this, He
often uses language which is applicable
to the end of the world and that last
and great day of judgment, so that these
two events cannot be distinguished unless
all the corresponding passages bearing
on the subject in the three evangelists,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are compared
with one another,-for some things are
put more obscurely by one evangelist
and more plainly by another,-so that
it becomes apparent what things are
meant to be referred to one event. It
is this which I have been at pains to
do in a letter which I wrote to Hesychius
of blessed memory, bishop of Salon,
and entitled, “Of the End of the
World.”
I shall now cite from the Gospel according
to Matthew the passage which speaks
of the separation of the good from the
wicked by the most efficacious and final
judgment of Christ: “When the Son
of man,” he says, “shall come
in His glory, . . . then shall He say
also unto them on His left hand, Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels.” Then He in like manner
recounts to the wicked the things they
had not done, but which He had said
those on the right hand had done. And
when they ask when they had seen Him
in need of these things, He replies
that, inasmuch as they had not done
it to the least of His brethren, they
had not done it unto Him, and concludes
His address in the words, “And
these shall go away into everlasting
punishment, but the righteous into life
eternal.” Moreover, the evangelist
John most distinctly states that He
had predicted that the judgment should
be at the resurrection of the dead.
For after saying, “The Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment
unto the Son: that all men should honor
the Son, even as they honor the Father:
he that honoreth not the Son, honoreth
not the Father which hath sent Him;”
He immediately adds, “Verily, verily,
I say unto you, He that heareth my word
and believeth on Him that sent me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come
into judgment; but is passed from death
to life.” Here He said that believers
on Him should not come into judgment.
How, then, shall they be separated from
the wicked by judgment, and be set at
His right hand, unless judgment be in
this passage used for condemnation?
For into judgment, in this sense, they
shall not come who hear His word, and
believe on Him that sent Him.
Chapter 6-What is the First
Resurrection, and What the Second.
After that He adds the words, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, The hour is
coming, and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God; and
they that hear shall live. For as the
Father hath life in Himself; so hath
He given to the Son to have life in
Himself.” As yet He does not speak
of the second resurrection, that is,
the resurrection of the body, which
shall be in the end, but of the first,
which now is. It is for the sake of
making this distinction that He says,
“The hour is coming, and now is.”
Now this resurrection regards not the
body, but the soul. For souls, too,
have a death of their own in wickedness
and sins, whereby they are the dead
of whom the same lips say, “Suffer
the dead to bury their dead,” -that
is, let those who are dead in soul bury
them that are dead in body. It is of
these dead, then-the dead in ungodliness
and wickedness-that He says, “The
hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God; and they that hear shall live.”
“They that hear,” that is,
they who obey, believe, and persevere
to the end. Here no difference is made
between the good and the bad. For it
is good for all men to hear His voice
and live, by passing to the life of
godliness from the death of ungodliness.
Of this death the Apostle Paul says,
“Therefore all are dead, and He
died for all, that they which live should
not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto Him which died for them and
rose again.” Thus all, without
one exception, were dead in sins, whether
original or voluntary sins, sins of
ignorance, or sins committed against
knowledge; and for all the dead there
died the one only person who lived,
that is, who had no sin whatever, in
order that they who live by the remission
of their sins should live, not to themselves,
but to Him who died for all, for our
sins, and rose again for our justification,
that we, believing in Him who justifies
the ungodly, and being justified from
ungodliness or quickened from death,
may be able to attain to the first resurrection
which now is. For in this first resurrection
none have a part save those who shall
be eternally blessed; but in the second,
of which He goes on to speak, all, as
we shall learn, have a part, both the
blessed and the wretched. The one is
the resurrection of mercy, the other
of judgment. And therefore it is written
in the psalm, “I will sing of mercy
and of judgment: unto Thee, O Lord,
will I sing.”
And of this judgment He went on to
say, “And hath given Him authority
to execute judgment also, because He
is the Son of man.” Here He shows
that He will come to judge in that flesh
in which He had come to be judged. For
it is to show this He says, “because
He is the Son of man.” And then
follow the words for our purpose: “Marvel
not at this: for the hour is coming,
in the which all that are in the graves
shall hear His voice, and shall come
forth; they that have done good, unto
the resurrection of life; and they that
have done evil, unto the resurrection
of judgment.” This judgment He
uses here in the same sense as a little
before, when He says, “He that
heareth my word, and believeth on Him
that sent me, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into judgment, but
is passed from death to life;”
i.e., by having a part in the first
resurrection, by which a transition
from death to life is made in this present
time, he shall not come into damnation,
which He mentions by the name of judgment,
as also in the place where He says,
“but they that have done evil unto
the resurrection of judgment,”
i.e., of damnation. He, therefore, who
would not be damned in the second resurrection,
let him rise in the first. For “the
hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God; and they that hear shall live,”
i.e., shall not come into damnation,
which is called the second death; into
which death, after the second or bodily
resurrection, they shall be hurled who
do not rise in the first or spiritual
resurrection. For “the hour is
coming” (but here He does not say,
“and now is,” because it shall
come in the end of the world in the
last and greatest judgment of God) “when
all that are in the graves shall hear
His voice and shall come forth.”
He does not say, as in the first resurrection,
“And they that Hear shall live.”
For all shall not live, at least with
such life as ought alone to be called
life because it alone is blessed. For
some kind of life they must have in
order to hear, and come forth from the
graves in their rising bodies. And why
all shall not live He teaches in the
words that follow: “They that have
done good, to the resurrection of life,”-these
are they who shall live; “but they
that have done evil, to the resurrection
of judgment,”-these are they who
shall not live, for they shall die in
the second death. They have done evil
because their life has been evil; and
their life has been evil because it
has not been renewed in the first or
spiritual resurrection which now is,
or because they have not persevered
to the end in their renewed life. As,
then, there are two regenerations, of
which I have already made mention,-the
one according to faith, and which takes
place in the present life by means of
baptism; the other according to the
flesh, and which shall be accomplished
in its incorruption and immortality
by means of the great and final judgment,-so
are there also two resurrections,-the
one the first and spiritual resurrection,
which has place in this life, and preserves
us from coming into the second death;
the other the second, which does not
occur now, but in the end of the world,
and which is of the body, not of the
soul, and which by the last judgment
shall dismiss some into the second death,
others into that life which has no death.
Chapter 7-What is Written
in the Revelation of John Regarding
the Two Resurrections, and the Thousand
Years, and What May Reasonably Be Held
on These Points.
The evangelist John has spoken of these
two resurrections in the book which
is called the Apocalypse, but in such
a way that some Christians do not understand
the first of the two, and so construe
the passage into ridiculous fancies.
For the Apostle John says in the foresaid
book, “And I saw an angel come
down from heaven. . . . Blessed and
holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection: on such the second death
hath no power; but they shall be priests
of God and of Christ, and shall reign
with Him a thousand years.” Those
who, on the strength of this passage,
have suspected that the first resurrection
is future and bodily, have been moved,
among other things, specially by the
number of a thousand years, as if it
were a fit thing that the saints should
thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest during
that period, a holy leisure after the
labors of the six thousand years since
man was created, and was on account
of his great sin dismissed from the
blessedness of paradise into the woes
of this mortal life, so that thus, as
it is written, “One day is with
the Lord as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day,” there
should follow on the completion of six
thousand years, as of six days, a kind
of seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding
thousand years; and that it is for this
purpose the saints rise, viz., to celebrate
this Sabbath. And. this opinion would
not be objectionable, if it were believed
that the joys of the saints in that
Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent
on the presence of God; for I myself,
too, once held this opinion. But, as
they assert that those who then rise
again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate
carnal banquets, furnished with an amount
of meat and drink such as not only to
shock the feeling of the temperate,
but even to surpass the measure of credulity
itself, such assertions can be believed
only by the carnal. They who do believe
them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts,
which we may literally reproduce by
the name Millenarians. It were a tedious
process to refute these opinions point
by point: we prefer proceeding to show
how that passage of Scripture should
be understood.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says,
“No man can enter into a strong
man’s house, and Spoil his goods,
except he first bind the strong man”
-meaning by the strong man the devil,
because he had power to take captive
the human race; and meaning by his goods
which he was to take, those who had
been held by the devil in divers sins
and iniquities, but were to become believers
in Himself. It was then for the binding
of this strong one that the apostle
saw in the Apocalypse “an angel
coming down from heaven, having the
key of the abyss, and a chain in his
hand. And he laid hold,” he says,
“on the dragon, that old serpent,
which is called the devil and Satan,
and bound him a thousand years,”-that
is, bridled and restrained his power
so that he could not seduce and gain
possession of those who “And he
cast him into the abyss,”-i.e.,
cast the devil into the abyss. By the
abyss is meant the countless multitude
of the wicked whose hearts are unfathomably
deep in malignity against the Church
of God; not that the devil was not there
before, but he is said to be cast in
thither, because, when prevented from
harming believers, he takes more complete
possession of the ungodly. For that
man is more abundantly possessed by
the devil who is not only alienated
from God, but also gratuitously hates
those who serve God. “And shut
him up, and set a seal upon him, that
he should deceive the nations no more
till the thousand years should be fulfilled.”
“Shut him up,”-i.e., prohibited
him from going out, from doing what
was forbidden. And the addition of “set
a seal upon him” seems to me to
mean that it was designed to keep it
a secret who belonged to the devil’s
party and who did not. For in this world
this is a secret, for we cannot tell
whether even the man who seems to stand
shall fall, or whether he who seems
to lie shall rise again. But by the
chain and prison-house of this interdict
the devil is prohibited and restrained
from seducing those nations which belong
to Christ, but which he formerly seduced
or held in subjection. For before the
foundation of the world God chose to
rescue these from the power of darkness,
and to translate them into the kingdom
of the Son of His love, as the apostle
says. For what Christian is not aware
that he seduces nations even now, and
draws them with himself to eternal punishment,
but not those predestined to eternal
life? And let no one be dismayed by
the circumstance that the devil often
seduces even those who have been regenerated
in Christ, and begun to walk in God’s
way. For “the Lord knoweth them
that are His,” and of these the
devil seduces none to eternal damnation.
For it is as God, from whom nothing
is hid even of things future, that the
Lord knows them; not as a man, who sees
a man at the present time (if he can
be said to see one whose heart he does
not see), but does not see even himself
so far as to be able to know what kind
of person he is to be. The devil, then,
is bound and shut up in the abyss that
he may not seduce the nations from which
the Church is gathered, and which he
formerly seduced before the Church existed.
For it is not said “that he should
not seduce any man,” but “that
he should not seduce the nations”-meaning,
no doubt, those among which the Church
exists-“till the thousand years
should be fulfilled,”-i.e., either
what remains of the sixth day which
consists of a thousand years, or all
the years which are to elapse till the
end of the world.
The words, “that he should not
seduce the nations till the thousand
years should be fulfilled,” are
not to be understood as indicating that
afterwards. he is to seduce only those
nations from which the predestined Church
is composed, and from seducing whom
he is restrained by that chain and imprisonment;
but they are used in conformity with
that usage frequently employed in Scripture
and exemplified in the psalm, “So
our eyes wait upon the Lord our God,
until He have mercy upon us,” -not
as if the eyes of His servants Would
no longer wait upon the Lord their God
when He had mercy upon them. Or the
order of the words is unquestionably
this, “And he shut him up and set
a seal upon him, till the thousand years
should be fulfilled;” and the interposed
clause, “that he should seduce
the nations no more,” is not to
be understood in the connection in which
it stands, but separately, and as if
added afterwards, so that the whole
sentence might be read, “And He
shut him up and set a seal upon him
till the thousand years should be fulfilled,
that he should seduce the nations no
more,”-i.e., he is shut up till
the thousand years be fulfilled, on
this account, that he may no more deceive
the nations.
Chapter 8-Of the Binding
and Loosing of the Devil.
“After that,” says John,
“he must be loosed a little season.”
If the binding and shutting up of the
devil means his being made unable to
seduce the Church, must his loosing
be the recovery of this ability? By
no means. For the Church predestined
and elected before the foundation of
the world, the Church of which it is
said, “The Lord knoweth them that
are His,” shall never be seduced
by him. And yet there shall be a Church
in this world even when the devil shall
be loosed, as there has been since the
beginning, and shall be always, the
places of the dying being filled by
new believers. For a little after John
says that the devil, being loosed, shall
draw the nations whom he has seduced
in the whole world to make war against
the Church, and that the number of these
enemies shall be as the sand of the
sea. “And they went up on the breadth
of the earth, and compassed the camp
of the saints about, and the beloved
city: and fire came down from God out
of heaven and devoured them. And the
devil who seduced them was cast into
the lake of fire and brimstone, where
the beast and the false prophet are,
and shall be tormented day and night
for ever and ever.” This relates
to the last judgment, but I have thought
fit to mention it now, lest any one
might suppose that in that short time
during which the devil shall be loose
there shall be no Church upon earth,
whether because the devil finds no Church,
or destroys it by manifold persecutions.
The devil, then, is not bound during
the whole time which this book embraces,-that
is, from the first coming of Christ
to the end of the world, when He shall
come the second time,-not bound in this
sense, that during this interval, which
goes by the name of a thousand years,
he shall not seduce the Church, for
not even when loosed shall he seduce
it. For certainly if his being bound
means that he is not able or not permitted
to seduce the Church, what can the loosing
of him mean but his being able or permitted
to do so? But God forbid that such should
be the case! But the binding of the
devil is his being prevented from the
exercise of his whole power to seduce
men, either by violently forcing or
fraudulently deceiving them into taking
part with him. If he were during so
long a period permitted to assail the
weakness of men, very many persons,
such as God would not wish to expose
to such temptation, would have their
faith overthrown, or would be prevented
from believing; and that this might
not happen, he is bound.
But when the short time comes he shall
be loosed. For he shall rage with the
whole force of himself and his angels
for three years and six months; and
those with whom he makes war shall have
power to withstand all his violence
and stratagems. And if he were never
loosed, his malicious power would be
less patent, and less proof would be
given of the steadfast fortitude of
the holy city: it would, in short, be
less manifest what good use the Almighty
makes of his great evil. For the Almighty
does not absolutely seclude the saints
from his temptation, but shelters only
their inner man, where faith resides,
that by outward temptation they may
grow in grace. And He binds him that
he may not, in the free and eager exercise
of his malice, hinder or destroy the
faith of those countless weak persons,
already believing or yet to believe,
from whom the Church must be increased
and completed; and he will in the end
loose him, that the city of God may
see how mighty an adversary it has conquered,
to the great glory of its Redeemer,
Helper, Deliverer. And what are we in
comparison with those believers and
saints who shall then exist, seeing
that they shall be tested by the loosing
of an enemy with whom we make war at
the greatest peril even when he is bound?
Although it is also certain that even
in this intervening period there have
been and are some soldiers of Christ
so wise and strong, that if they were
to be alive in this mortal condition
at the time of his loosing, they would
both most wisely guard against, and
most patiently endure, all his snares
and assaults.
Now the devil was thus bound not only
when the Church began to be more and
more widely extended among the nations
beyond Judea, but is now and shall be
bound till the end of the world, when
he is to be loosed. Because even now
men are, and doubtless to the end of
the world shall be, converted to the
faith from the unbelief in which he
held them. And this strong one is bound
in each instance in which he is spoiled
of one of his goods; and the abyss in
which he is shut up is not at an end
when those die who were alive when first
he was shut up in it, but these have
been succeeded, and shall to the end
of the world be succeeded, by others
born after them with a like hate of
the Christians, and in the depth of
whose blind hearts he is continually
shut up as in an abyss. But it is a
question whether, during these three
years and six months when he shall be
loose, and raging with all his force,
any one who has not previously believed
shall attach himself to the faith. For
how in that case would the words hold
good, “Who entereth into the house
of a strong one to spoil his goods,
unless first he shall have bound the
strong one?” Consequently this
verse seems to compel us to believe
that during that time, short as it is,
no one will be added to the Christian
community, but that the devil will make
war with those who have previously become
Christians, and that, though some of
these may be conquered and desert to
the devil, these do not belong to the
predestinated number of the sons of
God. For it is not without reason that
John, the same apostle as wrote this
Apocalypse, says in his epistle regarding
certain persons, “They went out
from us, but they were not of us; for
if they had been of us, they would no
doubt have remained with us.” But
what shall become of the little ones?
For it is beyond all belief that in
these days there shall not be found
some Christian children born, but not
yet baptized, and that there shall not
also be some born during that very period;
and if there be such, we cannot believe
that their parents shall not find some
way of bringing them to the laver of
regeneration. But if this shall be the
case, how shall these goods be snatched
from the devil when he is loose, since
into his house no man enters to spoil
his goods unless he has first bound
him? On the contrary, we are rather
to believe that in these days there
shall be no lack either of those who
fall away from, or of those who attach
themselves to the Church; but there
shall be such resoluteness, both in
parents to seek baptism for their little
ones, and in those who shall then first
believe, that they shall conquer that
strong one, even though unbound,-that
is, shall both vigilantly comprehend,
and patiently bear up against him, though
employing such wiles and putting forth
such force as he never before used;
and thus they shall be snatched from
him even though unbound. And yet the
verse of the Gospel will not be untrue,
“Who entereth into the house of
the strong one to spoil his goods, unless
he shall first have bound the strong
one?” For in accordance with this
true saying that order is observed-the
strong one first bound, and then his
goods spoiled; for the Church is so
increased by the weak and strong from
all nations far and near, that by its
most robust faith in things divinely
predicted and accomplished, it shall
be able to spoil the goods of even the
unbound devil. For as we must own that,
“when iniquity abounds, the love
of many waxes cold,” and that those
who have not been written in the book
of life shall in large numbers yield
to the severe and unprecedented persecutions
and stratagems of the devil now loosed,
so we cannot but think that not only
those whom that time shall find sound
in the faith, but also some who till
then shall be without, shall become
firm in the faith they have hitherto
rejected and mighty to conquer the devil
even though unbound, God’s grace
aiding them to understand the Scriptures,
in which, among other things, there
is foretold that very end which they
themselves see to be arriving. And if
this shall be so, his binding is to
be spoken of as preceding, that there
might follow a spoiling of him both
bound and loosed; for it is of this
it is said, “Who shall enter into
the house of the strong one to spoil
his goods, unless he shall first have
bound the strong one?”
Chapter 9-What the Reign
of the Saints with Christ for a Thousand
Years Is, and How It Differs from the
Eternal Kingdom.
But while the devil is bound, the saints
reign with Christ during the same thousand
years, understood in the same way, that
is, of the time of His first coming.
For, leaving out of account that kingdom
concerning which He shall say in the
end, “Come, ye blessed of my Father,
take possession of the kingdom prepared
for you,” the Church could not
now be called His kingdom or the kingdom
of heaven unless His saints were even
now reigning with Him, though in another
and far different way; for to His saints
He says, “Lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the world.”
Certainly it is in this present time
that the scribe well instructed in the
kingdom of God, and of whom we have
already spoken, brings forth from his
treasure things new and old. And from
the Church those reapers shall gather
out the tares which He suffered to grow
with the wheat till the harvest, as
He explains in the words “The harvest
is the end of the world; and the reapers
are the angels. As therefore the tares
are gathered together and burned with
fire, so shall it be in the end of the
world. The Son of man shall send His
angels, and they shall gather out of
His kingdom all offenses.” Can
He mean out of that kingdom in which
are no offenses? Then it must be out
of His present kingdom, the Church,
that they are gathered. So He says,
“He that breaketh one of the least
of these commandments, and teacheth
men so, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth
and teacheth thus shall be called great
in the kingdom of heaven.” He speaks
of both as being in the kingdom of heaven,
both the man who does not perform the
commandments which He teaches,-for “to
break” means not to keep, not to
perform,-and the man who does and teaches
as He did; but the one He calls least,
the other great. And He immediately
adds, “For I say unto you, that
except your righteousness exceed that
of the scribes and Pharisees,”-that
is, the righteousness of those who break
what they teach; for of the scribes
and Pharisees He elsewhere says, “For
they say and do not;” -unless therefore,
your righteousness exceed theirs that
is, so that you do not break but rather
do what you teach, “ye shall not
enter the kingdom of heaven.” We
must understand in one sense the kingdom
of heaven in which exist together both
he who breaks what he teaches and he
who does it, the one being least, the
other great, and in another sense the
kingdom of heaven into which only he
who does what he teaches shall enter.
Consequently, where both classes exist,
it is the Church as it now is, but where
only the one shall exist, it is the
Church as it is destined to be when
no wicked person shall be in her. Therefore
the Church even now is the kingdom of
Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly,
even now His saints reign with Him,
though otherwise than as they shall
reign hereafter; and yet, though the
tares grow in the Church along with
the wheat, they do not reign with Him.
For they reign with Him who do what
the apostle says, “If ye be risen
with Christ, mind the things which are
above, where Christ sitteth at the right
hand of God. Seek those things which
are above, not the things which are
on the earth.” Of such persons
he also says that their conversation
is in heaven. In fine, they reign with
Him who are so in His kingdom that they
themselves are His kingdom. But in what
sense are those the kingdom of Christ
who, to say no more, though they are
in it until all offenses are gathered
out of it at the end of the world, yet
seek their own things in it, and not
the things that are Christ’s?
It is then of this kingdom militant,
in which conflict with the enemy is
still maintained, and war carried on
with warring lusts, or government laid
upon them as they yield, until we come
to that most peaceful kingdom in which
we shall reign without an enemy, and
it is of this first resurrection in
the present life, that the Apocalypse
speaks in the words just quoted. For,
after saying that the devil is bound
a thousand years and is afterwards loosed
for a short season, it goes on to give
a sketch of what the Church does or
of what is done in the Church in those
days, in the words, “And I saw
seats and them that sat upon them, and
judgment was given.” It is not
to be supposed that this refers to the
last judgment, but to the seats of the
rulers and to the rulers themselves
by whom the Church is now governed.
And no better interpretation of judgment
being given can be produced than that
which we have in the words, “What
ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and what ye loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven.” Whence the apostle
says, “What have I to do with judging
them that are without? do not ye judge
them that are within?” “And
the souls,” says John, “of
those who were slain for the testimony
of Jesus and for the word of God,”-understanding
what he afterwards says, “reigned
with Christ a thousand years,”
-that is, the souls of the martyrs not
yet restored to their bodies. For the
souls of the pious dead are not separated
from the Church, which even now is the
kingdom of Christ; otherwise there would
be no remembrance made of them at the
altar of God in the partaking of the
body of Christ, nor would it do any
good in danger to run to His baptism,
that we might not pass from this life
without it; nor to reconciliation, if
by penitence or a bad conscience any
one may be severed from His body. For
why are these things practised, if not
because the faithful, even though dead,
are His members? Therefore, while these
thousand years run on, their souls reign
with Him, though not as yet in conjunction
with their bodies. And therefore in
another part of this same book we read,
“Blessed are the dead who die in
the Lord from henceforth and now, saith
the Spirit, that they may rest from
their labors; for their works do follow
them.” The Church, then, begins
its reign with Christ now in the living
and in the dead. For, as the apostle
says, “Christ died that He might
be Lord both of the living and of the
dead.” But he mentioned the souls
of the martyrs only, because they who
have contended even to death for the
truth, themselves principally reign
after death; but, taking the part for
the whole, we understand the words of
all others who belong to the Church,
which is the kingdom of Christ.
As to the words following, “And
if any have not worshipped the beast
nor his image, nor have received his
inscription on their forehead, or on
their hand,” we must take them
of both the living and the dead. And
what this beast is, though it requires
a more careful investigation, yet it
is not inconsistent with the true faith
to understand it of the ungodly city
itself, and the community of unbelievers
set in opposition to the faithful people
and the city of God. “His image”
seems to me to mean his simulation,
to wit, in those men who profess to
believe, but live as unbelievers. For
they pretend to be what they are not,
and are called Christians, not from
a true likeness but from a deceitful
image. For to this beast belong not
only the avowed enemies of the name
of Christ and His most glorious city,
but also the tares which are to be gathered
out of His kingdom, the Church, in the
end of the world. And who are they who
do not worship the beast and his image,
if not those who do what the apostle
says, “Be not yoked with unbelievers?”
For such do not worship, i.e., do not
consent, are not subjected; neither
do they receive the inscription, the
brand of crime, on their forehead by
their profession, on their hand by their
practice. They, then, who are free from
these pollutions, whether they still
live in this mortal flesh, or are dead,
reign with Christ even now, through
this whole interval which is indicated
by the thousand years, in a fashion
suited to this time.
“The rest of them,” he says,
“did not live.” For now is
the hour when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live; and the rest of them
shall not live. The words added, “until
the thousand years are finished,”
mean that they did not live in the time
in which they ought to have lived by
passing from death to life. And therefore,
when the day of the bodily resurrection
arrives, they shall come out of their
graves, not to life, but to judgment,
namely, to damnation, which is called
the second death. For whosoever has
not lived until the thousand years be
finished, i.e., during this whole time
in which the first resurrection is going
on,-whosoever has not heard the voice
of the Son of God, and passed from death
to life,-that man shall certainly in
the second resurrection, the resurrection
of the flesh, pass with his flesh into
the second death. For he goes to say
“This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he that hath part
in the first resurrection,” or
who experiences it. Now he experiences
it who not only revives from the death
of sin, but continues in this renewed
life. “In these the second death
hath no power.” Therefore it has
power in the rest, of whom he said above,
“The rest of them did not live
until the thousand years were finished;”
for in this whole intervening time called
a thousand years, however lustily they
lived in the body, they were not quickened
to life out of that death in which their
wickedness held them, so that by this
revived life they should become partakers
of the first resurrection, and so the
second death should have no power over
them.
Chapter 10-What is to Be
Replied to Those Who Think that Resurrection
Pertains Only to Bodies and Not to Souls.
There are some who suppose that resurrection
can be predicated only of the body,
and therefore they contend that this
