Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 72/87

into which death, after the second resurrection, which shall be of bodies, those shall be cast headlong who do not rise in the first, which is of souls. For 'the hour shall come' (where He does not say 'and now is,' because it shall be at the end of the age, that is, in the last and greatest judgment of God), 'when all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice and shall come forth.' He did not say, as in the first, 'And they that hear shall live.' For not all shall live—with that life, namely, which, because it is blessed, alone is to be called life. For surely they could not, without some kind of life, hear and come forth from the tombs with their flesh rising again. But why not all shall live, He teaches in what follows: 'They that have done good things,' He says, 'into the resurrection of life'—these are they who shall live;

'but they that have done evil, into the resurrection of judgment'—these are they who shall not live, because they shall die in the second death. They did evil things indeed, because they lived evilly; and they lived evilly because in the first resurrection of souls, which now is, they did not live again, or in that wherein they had lived again, they did not remain unto the end. As therefore there are two regenerations, of which I have already spoken above—one according to faith, which now takes place through baptism; the other according to the flesh, which takes place in its incorruption and immortality through the great and last judgment—so also there are two resurrections: one the first, which both now is and is of souls, which does not permit coming into the second death;

the other the second, which is not now but shall be in the end of the age, and is not of souls but of bodies, which through the last judgment shall send some into the second death, others into that life which has no death. CHAPTER VII. Concerning the two resurrections and the thousand years, what is written in the Apocalypse of John, and what is reasonably to be thought concerning them. Of these two resurrections the same John the evangelist has spoken in the book which is called the Apocalypse, in such a way that the first of them, not understood by certain of ours, was moreover turned even into certain ridiculous fables. For in the said book the apostle John says: 'And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a chain in his hand.'

'And he laid hold of that dragon, the old serpent, who is surnamed the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss; and shut him up and set a seal over him, that he should no more seduce the nations, until the thousand years should be finished; after these things he must be loosed for a short time. And I saw thrones, and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given. And the souls of those slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and whosoever did not worship the beast nor his image, neither received the inscription on their forehead or on their hand—and they reigned with Jesus a thousand years; but the rest of them lived not, until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first resurrection.'

'Blessed and holy is he who has part in this first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.' Those who, on account of these words of this book, have supposed that the first resurrection shall be bodily, have been moved, among other things, chiefly by the number of a thousand years, as though it were fitting that in the saints there should be made in that way, as it were, a Sabbath-keeping of so long a time—a holy rest, namely, after the labors of six thousand years from the time man was created and, by the desert of that great sin, was dismissed from the felicity of paradise into the miseries of this mortality—so that, since it is written:

'One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,' six thousand years being fulfilled as though six days, there should follow, as it were, the seventh, a Sabbath, in the last thousand years—namely for the celebrating of this Sabbath by the saints rising again. Which opinion would be in some way tolerable, if it were believed that there would be some spiritual delights present to the saints in that Sabbath through the presence of the Lord. For even we ourselves once held this opinion. But since they say that those who shall then have risen shall give themselves to the most immoderate carnal feasts, in which there shall be so much food and drink that they not only keep no moderation, but exceed even the measure of incredulity itself, these things can in no way be believed except by the carnal.

But those who are spiritual call these who believe such things by the Greek term 'chiliasts'; whom, expressing word for word, we might call 'millenarians.' But to refute them on every point would be a long task; rather we ought now to show in what way this Scripture is to be understood. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says: 'No one can enter into the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man,' wishing the devil to be understood as the strong man, because he was able to hold the human race captive; but his goods, which He was about to plunder, are His own faithful ones to be, whom that one possessed in divers sins and impieties.

In order, then, that this strong man might be bound, for this reason that 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, 'of that dragon, the old serpent, who is surnamed the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years'—that is, he restrained and curbed his power from seducing and possessing those who were to be set free. Now the thousand years can, as far as occurs to me, be understood in two ways: either because this thing is done in the last thousand years, that is, in the sixth millennium of years as in a sixth day, whose latter spaces are now being rolled out, with the Sabbath then to follow, which has no evening,

namely the rest of the saints, which has no end—so that he might have called the last part of this millennium, as of the last day, which remained until the end of the age, the 'thousand years,' by that manner of speaking by which the part is signified by the whole; or else certainly he put 'a thousand years' for all the years of this age, so that by the perfect number the very fullness of time might be marked. For the number of a thousand renders the solid square of the number ten. For ten times ten makes a hundred, which is already a square figure, but a plane one; but that it may rise into height and become solid, again a hundred is multiplied ten times, and there are a thousand.

Further, if a hundred itself be sometimes put for universality—as is that which the Lord promised to him who forsakes all his own and follows Him, saying: 'He shall receive in this age a hundredfold,' which the apostle in a certain manner expounds, saying: 'As having nothing, and possessing all things,' because it had also already been said before: 'The whole world of riches belongs to a faithful man'—how much more is a thousand put for universality, where there is the solidity of that very square of ten? Whence also that is the better understood which is read in the psalm: 'He was mindful forever of His covenant, of the word which He commanded for a thousand generations'—that is, for all. 'And he cast him,' he says, 'into the abyss';

surely he cast the devil into the abyss, by which name is signified the innumerable multitude of the impious, whose hearts are exceedingly deep in malignity against the Church of God—not because the devil was not there before, but he is said to have been sent thither for this reason, that, being shut out from believers, he began to possess the impious more fully. For he is the more possessed by the devil who is not only estranged from God, but also gratuitously hates those who serve God. 'And he shut him up,' he says, 'and set a seal over him, that he should no more seduce the nations, until the thousand years should be finished.' 'He shut him up over him' is said for 'he forbade him, that he might not be able to go forth'—that is, to transgress what was forbidden.

But the 'set a seal,' which he added, seems to me to have signified that He willed it to be hidden who belong to the part of the devil and who do not belong. For this is utterly concealed in this present age, since it is uncertain both whether he who seems to stand is to fall, and whether he who seems to lie prostrate is to rise. But from seducing those nations the devil is prohibited and curbed by the bond and barrier of this prohibition—those nations which, belonging to Christ, he formerly seduced or held. For these God chose before the foundation of the world, to rescue them from the power of darkness and to translate them into the kingdom of the Son of His love, as the apostle says.

For what faithful man is ignorant that the devil even now seduces the nations and draws them with him into eternal punishment—but not those predestined to eternal life? Nor let it disturb anyone that the devil often seduces even those who, already regenerated in Christ, are entering upon the ways of God. For 'the Lord knows who are His'; of these he seduces none into eternal damnation. For the Lord knows them as God, from whom nothing even of the future is hidden—not as man, who sees a man for the present (if indeed he sees him, whose heart he does not see), but what he is to be afterward he does not even see in himself. To this end, then, the devil is bound and shut up in the abyss, that he may no more seduce the nations of which the Church consists, which he formerly held seduced before they were the Church.

For it was not said 'that he should seduce no one,' but 'that he should no more seduce,' he says, 'the nations'—in which He without doubt willed the Church to be understood—'until the thousand years should be finished,' he says; that is, either what remains of the sixth day, which consists of a thousand years, or all the years through which this age is hereafter to be carried out. Nor is what he says to be so taken—'that he should no more seduce the nations, until the thousand years should be finished'—as though afterward he is to seduce those nations at least from which the predestined Church consists, from seducing whom he is prohibited by that bond and barrier. But it was said either by that manner of speech which is sometimes found in the Scriptures, such as is in the psalm:

'So are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us'—for surely, when He shall have had mercy, the eyes of His servants shall not cease to be unto the Lord their God; or else this is the order of the words: 'And he shut him up and set a seal over him, until the thousand years should be finished'; but what he inserted, 'that he should no more seduce the nations,' so stands that it is free from the connection of this order and is to be understood separately, as if it were added afterward, so that the whole sentence should run thus: 'And he shut him up and set a seal over him, until the thousand years should be finished, that he should no more seduce the nations'—that is, for this reason he shut him up until the thousand years should be finished, that he should no more seduce the nations. CHAPTER VIII. Concerning the binding and loosing of the devil.

'After these things,' he says, 'he must be loosed for a short time.' If for the devil to be bound and shut up is to be unable to seduce the Church, will this then be his loosing—that he may be able? Far be it! For never shall the Church, predestined and elect before the foundation of the world, be seduced by him, concerning which it is said: 'The Lord knows who are His.' And yet it shall be here even at that time when the devil is to be loosed, just as, from the time it was instituted, it has been here and shall be at every time, namely in those who succeed by being born as the others die. For a little after he says that the loosed devil shall draw the seduced nations throughout the whole world into war against it, the number of which enemies shall be as the sand of the sea.

'And they went up,' he says, 'over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city; and fire came down from heaven from God and devoured them; and the devil who seduced them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also the beast and the false prophet are; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.' But this now pertains to the last judgment, which for this reason I thought should now be mentioned, lest anyone suppose that in that very short time in which the devil is to be loosed there shall be no Church on this earth—that one either not finding it here, when he is loosed, or destroying it, when he has persecuted it in every way.

Therefore not through this whole time which this book comprehends—namely from the first coming of Christ until the end of the age, which shall be His second coming—is the devil so bound that this very thing should be his binding, through this interval which He calls by the number of a thousand years, namely not to seduce the Church, since indeed not even when loosed shall he seduce her. For surely, if for him to be bound is not to be able to seduce or not to be permitted, what shall it be to be loosed but to be able to seduce or to be permitted? Far be it that this should come to pass! But the binding of the devil is not to be permitted to exert his whole temptation, which he can either by force or by guile to seduce men, by violently compelling or fraudulently deceiving them into his own part.

For if he were permitted, during so long a time and amid so great a weakness of the many, to rage against the very many such as God does not will to suffer this, he would both cast down the faithful and hinder some from believing; and that he might not do this, he has been bound. But he shall be loosed when the time also shall be short. (For he is read to be about to rage for three years and six months with all his own strength and that of his followers.) And those will be such, with whom he must wage war, that they cannot be conquered by so great an onslaught and by his snares of his. But if he were never loosed, his malignant power would be less apparent,

the most faithful patience of the holy city would be less proved, and finally it would be less perceived how greatly the Almighty has made good use of so great an evil of his—he who has neither wholly taken him away from the tempting of the saints (although, cast forth from their inward men, where God is believed in, that by his assault from without they might profit), and yet in those who are on his own side has bound him, lest, by pouring out and exercising as much malice as he could, he should deter from the faith of godliness, or break, those innumerable weak ones—of whom the Church was to be multiplied and filled—some about to believe, some already believing:

and he shall loose him in the end, so that, with the immense glory of its Redeemer, Helper, and Deliverer, the city of God may behold how strong an adversary it has overcome. For in comparison with those saints and faithful ones who shall then be, what are we? Seeing that for their proving so great an enemy shall be loosed, with whom we, while he is bound, contend amid such great perils. And yet it is not doubtful that even in this interval of time some soldiers of Christ have been and are so prudent and brave that, even if they were now living in this mortal life when he shall be loosed, they would both most wisely beware of all his snares and assaults and most patiently endure them.

Now this binding of the devil was not only made from the time when the Church began to be spread, beyond the land of Judea, into other and yet other nations; but it is also being made now and shall be made even unto the end of the age, when he is to be loosed. For even now men are turned from the unbelief in which he himself possessed them, to the faith, and without doubt they will be turned even unto that end; and assuredly to each one this strong one is then bound, when he is snatched away from him as a vessel of his; and the abyss in which he is shut up has not been consumed in those who are dead, who were when he began to be shut up;

but others have succeeded them by being born and do succeed them, until this age be ended, who hate the Christians, in whose blind and deep hearts, as it were in an abyss, he is daily shut up. But whether even in those last three years and six months, when, being loosed, he is to rage with all his strength, anyone who had not been in it is going to come to the faith, is no small question. For how shall that stand which is said: 'Who entereth into the house of the strong man to snatch away his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man?'—if they are snatched away even when he is loosed?

And on this account this sentence seems to compel us to believe that in that brief time, though it be, no one shall come to the Christian people, but that with those who shall be found already Christians the devil shall fight; of whom, even if some, being conquered, follow him, they do not belong to the predestined number of the sons of God. For not in vain does the same apostle John, who also wrote this Apocalypse, say in his epistle concerning certain persons: 'They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.' But what is to be done about the little ones?

For it is exceedingly incredible that none already born and not yet baptized—infant children of Christians—should be forestalled at that time, and that none should be born even in those very days; or, if there shall be, that they should not by their own parents be brought in some way or other to the laver of regeneration. And if this shall be done, in what manner shall these vessels be snatched away from the devil now already loosed, into whose house no one entereth to snatch his vessels unless he first bind him? Nay rather this is the more to be believed: that neither those who fall from the Church nor those who come to the Church shall be lacking at that time;

but assuredly both the parents on behalf of their little ones to be baptized, and those who at that time are first about to believe, shall be so strong that they overcome that strong one even when he is not bound—that is, that they both most vigilantly understand and most patiently bear him as he lies in wait by all such arts as never before, or presses upon them by his strength—and thus they are snatched away from him even when he is not bound. Nor on this account shall that evangelical sentence be false: 'Who entereth into the house of the strong man to snatch away his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man?'

For according to the truth of that sentence this order has been preserved: that first the strong man should be bound, and, his vessels having been snatched away, the Church should be so multiplied far and wide among all nations, both strong and weak, that out of the most robust faith of things divinely foretold and fulfilled it could carry off the vessels even when he is loosed. For just as it must be confessed that the love of many shall grow cold when iniquity abounds, and that by the unwonted and greatest persecutions and deceits of the devil, now loosed, many of those who are not written in the book of life shall yield:

so likewise it must be considered that not only those good and faithful ones whom that time shall find, but also some who shall as yet be without—by the help of God's grace, through the consideration of the Scriptures, in which both other things and that very end have been foretold, which they now perceive to be coming—shall become firmer for believing what they did not believe, and stronger for overcoming the devil even though he is not bound. And if it shall be so, on that account his binding must be said to have gone before, that the despoiling both of the bound and of the loosed might follow; since concerning this matter it is said: 'Who shall enter into the house of the strong man to snatch away his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man?' CHAPTER IX. What the reign of the saints with Christ for a thousand years is, and how it differs from the eternal kingdom.

Meanwhile, while the devil is bound for a thousand years, the saints reign with Christ also during those same thousand years, which without doubt are to be understood in the same way and the same manner—that is, in this present time of His first coming. For setting aside that kingdom of which He is to say in the end, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you,' unless in some other way, far indeed unequal, His saints were even now reigning with Him, to whom He says, 'Behold, I am with you even unto the consummation of the age'—assuredly the Church would not even now be called His kingdom or the kingdom of heaven. For surely at this present time that scribe is being instructed in the kingdom of God, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old, of whom we have spoken above;

and from the Church those reapers are to gather the tares, which He permitted to grow together with the wheat until the harvest; expounding which He says: 'The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned with fire, so shall it be in the consummation of the age; the Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all offences.' Surely not out of that kingdom where there are no offences? Therefore out of this kingdom of His, which is here the Church, they shall be gathered. Likewise He says: 'Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and so teach, shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.'

He speaks of both in the kingdom of heaven: both him who does not do the commandments which he teaches (for this is to break: not to keep, not to do), and him who does and so teaches; but the former least, the latter great. And immediately following He adds: 'For I say unto you that, unless your righteousness shall abound above that of the scribes and Pharisees'—that is, above those who break what they teach (for of the scribes and Pharisees He says in another place, 'For they say, and do not')—'unless therefore your righteousness shall abound above these,' that is, so that you break not, but rather do what you teach, 'ye shall not enter,' He says, 'into the kingdom of heaven.'

In one way therefore is the kingdom of heaven to be understood, where both are—both he, namely, who breaks what he teaches, and he who does it; but the former least, the latter great: in another way is the kingdom of heaven spoken of, into which none enters save he who does. And accordingly, where both kinds are, there is the Church such as it now is: but where that alone shall be, there is the Church such as it then shall be, when no wicked one shall be in it. Therefore even now the Church is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. And so His saints reign with Him even now, in another way indeed than they shall then reign; and yet the tares do not reign with Him, although they grow in the Church together with the wheat. For they reign with Him who do that which the apostle says:

'If ye are risen with Christ, savour the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth'; of whom likewise He says that their conversation is in heaven. Lastly, they reign with Him who are in His kingdom in such a way that they themselves also are His kingdom. But in what manner are they the kingdom of Christ who—to be silent about other things—although they are there until at the end of the age all offences be gathered out of His kingdom, nevertheless there seek their own things, not the things which are Jesus Christ's?

Of this kingdom of warfare, therefore, in which there is still conflict with the enemy and sometimes resistance is made against the warring vices, sometimes command is exercised over them as they yield, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom where reigning shall be without an enemy—and of this first resurrection, which now is—this book thus speaks. For when he had said that the devil was bound for a thousand years, and afterwards loosed for a brief time, then recapitulating what the Church does in those thousand years, or what is done in her: 'And I saw,' he says, 'seats and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given.' This is not to be thought said of the last judgment; but the seats of the rulers and the rulers themselves are to be understood, by whom the Church is now governed.

But no better thing seems to be understood by the judgment that was given than that which was said: 'What things ye shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and what things ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.' Whence the apostle: 'For what have I to do,' he says, 'to judge them that are without? Do ye not judge them that are within?' 'And the souls,' he says, 'of them that were slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God'; there is understood what he is afterwards to say: 'They reigned with Jesus a thousand years'—the souls, namely, of the martyrs, their bodies not yet restored to them. For the souls of the pious dead are not separated from the Church, which even now is the kingdom of Christ. Otherwise their memory would not be made at the altar of God in the communion of the body of Christ;

nor would it be of any profit, in dangers, to run to His baptism, lest this life be ended without it; nor to reconciliation, if perchance through penitence or an evil conscience anyone has been separated from that same body. Why are these things done, unless because the faithful, even when dead, are His members? Although therefore not yet with their bodies, yet their souls already reign with Him, while these thousand years run their course. Whence in this same book it is read also in another place: 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow them.' Therefore the Church reigns with Christ, now first, in the living and the dead.

For on this account, as the apostle says, Christ died, that He might have lordship over both the living and the dead. But He commemorated only the souls of the martyrs, because they especially reign when dead, who contended even unto death for the truth. Yet by the part we understand also the whole—the rest of the dead also as pertaining to the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ. But what follows: 'And whosoever did not worship the beast nor his image, and did not receive the inscription on the forehead or on their hand'—we ought to receive of both the living and the dead at once. Now what this beast may be, although it must be more diligently inquired into, yet it is not contrary to right faith

that the impious city itself be understood, and the people of the unbelievers contrary to the faithful people and to the city of God. But His image seems to me to be His feigning—namely, in those men who, as it were, profess the faith and live faithlessly. For they pretend to be what they are not, and are called Christians not by a true likeness but by a false image. For to the same beast belong not only the open enemies of the name of Christ and of His most glorious city, but also the tares, which are to be gathered out of His kingdom, which is the Church, at the end of the age. And who are they that worship not the beast nor his image, save those who do what the apostle says: 'Be not yoked with unbelievers'?

For 'they do not worship' is 'they do not consent, they are not subjected'; 'neither do they receive the inscription,' namely the mark of the crime, 'on the forehead' on account of profession, 'on the hand' on account of operation. Being therefore strangers to these evils, whether still living in this mortal flesh or dead, they reign with Christ even now in a certain manner suited to this time, throughout this whole interval which is signified by the number of a thousand years. 'The rest of them,' he says, 'lived not.' For now is the hour when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live; therefore the rest of them shall not live. But as for what he added: