Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 73/87

'Until the thousand years be finished,' it is to be understood that at that time they lived not, when they ought to have lived—namely, by passing over from death to life. And therefore, when the day shall come on which the resurrection of bodies also takes place, they shall come forth from the tombs not unto life but unto judgment—namely, unto that damnation which is called the second death. For 'until the thousand years be finished'—whosoever shall not have lived, that is, in all this time during which the first resurrection is being wrought shall not have heard the voice of the Son of God and passed over from death to life—he assuredly, in the second resurrection, which is of the flesh, shall pass over into the second death together with that flesh itself. For he goes on and says: 'This is the first resurrection.'

'Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first resurrection'—that is, is a partaker of it. Now he is a partaker of it who not only revives from the death which is in sins, but also abides in that wherein he has revived. 'In these,' he says, 'the second death hath no power.' It has power therefore in the rest, of whom he said above: 'The rest of them lived not, until the thousand years be finished'; since in all this interval of time, which he calls a thousand years, however long each of them lived in the body, he revived not from the death in which his impiety held him, so that by thus reviving he should become a partaker of the first resurrection and the second death should have no power over him. CHAPTER X.

What is to be answered to those who think that the resurrection pertains only to bodies, and not also to souls. There are those who think that resurrection can be spoken of only of bodies, and therefore contend that this first one also is to be in bodies. For, they say, 'whose it is to fall, theirs it is to rise again.' Now bodies fall by dying; for indeed from falling (cadendo) corpses (cadavera) are named. Therefore, they say, there can be no resurrection of souls, but of bodies. But what do they say against the apostle, who calls it resurrection? For surely it was according to the inner, not according to the outer man, that they had risen again to whom he says: 'If ye are risen with Christ, savour the things that are above.' Which meaning he set forth in other words elsewhere, saying:

'That, as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.' Hence also is that: 'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee.' But as for their saying that none can rise again save those who fall, and therefore thinking that resurrection pertains to bodies, not to souls, because it belongs to bodies to fall: why do they not hear, 'Depart not from Him, lest ye fall,' and, 'To his own Lord he standeth or falleth,' and, 'He that thinketh he standeth, let him take heed lest he fall'? For I think that this fall is to be guarded against in the soul, not in the body. If therefore resurrection belongs to those who fall, and souls also fall, assuredly it must be confessed that souls also rise again. But as for the fact that, when he had said:

'In these the second death hath no power,' he subjoined and said: 'But they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years'—this is assuredly not said of bishops and presbyters alone, who are now properly called priests in the Church; but as we call all 'christs' on account of the mystic chrism, so we call all priests, since they are members of the one Priest; concerning whom the apostle Peter says: 'A holy people, a royal priesthood.' Indeed, although briefly and in passing, he intimated that Christ is God by saying 'priests of God and of Christ,' that is, of the Father and of the Son; although on account of the form of a servant, as He is Son of man, so also is Christ made a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Concerning which matter we have spoken more than once in this work. CHAPTER XI. Of Gog and Magog, whom the devil, loosed near the end of the age, will incite to persecute the Church of God. 'And when the thousand years shall be finished,' he says, 'Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall go forth to seduce the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them into war, whose number is as the sand of the sea.' To this then he shall then seduce them, that he may draw them into this war. For before also, in what ways he could, he seduced them by many and various evils.

And 'he shall go forth' is said—'he shall burst forth out of the lurking-places of his hatreds into open persecution.' For this shall be the last persecution, the last judgment being imminent, which the holy Church shall suffer throughout the whole world—namely, the universal city of Christ from the universal city of the devil, however great each shall be upon the earth. For those nations which he calls Gog and Magog are not so to be received as though they were certain barbarians settled in some part of the earth—whether those whom some suspect to be the Getae and Massagetae, on account of the first letters of these names, or any other foreigners and persons separated from Roman law.

For they are signified to be throughout the whole circle of the earth, when it was said 'the nations which are in the four corners of the earth,' and he subjoined that these are Gog and Magog. The interpretation of which names we have found to be: Gog, 'a roof,' Magog, 'from the roof'—as it were a house and he himself who proceeds from the house. They are therefore the nations in which we understood the devil to be shut up, as it were in an abyss, above; and he himself in a certain manner bearing himself up and proceeding from them: so that they are the roof, he 'from the roof.' But if we refer both to the nations, not one of these to them and the other to the devil: they themselves are both the roof, because in them the ancient enemy is now shut up and in a certain manner covered;

and they shall be 'from the roof,' when out of what is covered they shall break forth into open hatred. But as for what he says: 'And they went up over the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city'—they are not signified to have come or to be about to come to one place only, as though the camp of the saints and the beloved city were going to be in some one place; since this is none other than the Church of Christ diffused throughout the whole circle of the earth. And accordingly, wherever it shall then be—which shall be among all nations, which is what is signified by the name of 'the breadth of the earth'—there shall be the camp of the saints, there shall be His city beloved of God, there it shall be beset by all its enemies, since they also shall be among all nations together with it.

it shall be beset by the immensity of that persecution—that is, it shall be straitened, pressed, and shut up in the straits of tribulation; nor shall it desert its warfare, which is called by the term 'camp.' CHAPTER XII. Whether it pertains to the last punishment of the impious, that fire is recorded to have descended from heaven and to have devoured them. But as for what he says: 'And fire came down from heaven and devoured them'—this is not to be thought to be that final punishment which shall be when it shall be said: 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into eternal fire.' For then indeed they themselves shall be sent into the fire, fire shall not come from heaven upon them. But here the fire from heaven is well understood of the very firmness of the saints, by which they will not yield to those who rage, so as to do their will.

For the firmament is heaven, by whose firmness those shall be tormented with most burning zeal, since they shall not be able to draw the saints of Christ over to the side of Antichrist. And this itself shall be the fire which devours them, and this from God, because by the gift of God the saints are made insuperable, whence the enemies are tormented. For just as it is set down in a good sense: 'The zeal of Thy house hath devoured me,' so on the contrary: 'Zeal hath seized an untaught people, and now fire shall devour the adversaries.' And 'now' indeed—excepting, that is, the fire of that last judgment.

Or if he called fire descending from heaven and devouring them that plague by which the persecutors of the Church are to be smitten when Christ is now coming—those whom He shall find living upon the earth when He shall slay Antichrist with the breath of His mouth—neither shall this be the last punishment of the impious, but that which they are to suffer when the resurrection of the bodies has taken place. CHAPTER XIII. Whether the time of the persecution of Antichrist is to be numbered among the thousand years. This last persecution, which is to be from Antichrist (as we have already said, since both above in this book and in the prophet Daniel it is set down), shall be for three years and six months.

Which time, although small, whether it pertains to the thousand years, during which he says both that the devil is bound and that the saints reign with Christ, or whether this small space is to be superadded to those same years and to be outside them, is deservedly doubted; because, if we shall say that it pertains to those same years, the reign of the saints with Christ will be found to be extended not for so much time, but for a longer one, than the devil is bound. For assuredly the saints with their King shall reign especially in that very persecution, overcoming such great evils, when the devil shall now no longer be bound, so that he may persecute them with all his strength.

In what manner therefore does this scripture determine both by the same thousand years—namely, the binding of the devil and the reign of the saints—when by the interval of three years and six months the binding of the devil ceases earlier than the reign of the saints in these thousand years with Christ? But if we shall say that this small space of this persecution is not to be reckoned in the thousand years, but rather to be added to them when they are fulfilled, so that it may properly be understood—that, when he had said, 'The priests of God and of Christ shall reign with Him a thousand years,' he added, 'And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison';

for in this way he signifies that both the reign of the saints and the chain of the devil are to cease together, so that thereupon the time of that persecution may be believed to pertain neither to the reign of the saints nor to the custody of Satan—each of which is within the thousand years—but to be superadded and reckoned outside: we shall be compelled to confess that the saints in that persecution shall not reign with Christ; but who would dare to say that His members shall not then reign with Him, when they shall cleave to Him most of all and most strongly, and at what time, the fiercer shall be the onslaught of war, the greater shall be the glory of not yielding, the thicker the crown of martyrdom? Or if, on account of the tribulations which they shall suffer, they are not to be said to be about to reign:

the consequence will be that even in the earlier days within those same thousand years, whosoever of the saints were tribulated, at that very time of their tribulation are to be said not to have reigned with Christ; and on this account those also, whose souls the author of this book writes that he saw, of them that were slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, did not reign with Christ when they suffered persecution, and they themselves were not the kingdom of Christ, whom Christ possessed more excellently. Most absurd indeed is this, and in every way to be abhorred.

But certainly the victorious souls of the most glorious martyrs, all their pains and labours having been overcome and finished, after they laid aside their mortal members, have assuredly reigned and do reign with Christ until the thousand years be finished, that afterwards, their bodies also being received now immortal, they may reign. Accordingly, during those three years and a half, the souls of those slain for His martyrdom—both those that went out from their bodies before, and those that are about to go out in that very last persecution—shall reign with Him, until the mortal age be ended and there be a passing over to that kingdom where there shall be no death.

Wherefore the years of the saints reigning with Christ shall be more than those of the chain and custody of the devil, because they with their King, the Son of God, shall reign even through those three years and a half, the devil being now not bound. It remains therefore that, when we hear, 'The priests of God and of Christ shall reign with Him a thousand years, and when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison,' either we understand the thousand years not of this reign of the saints to be ended, but of the chain and custody of the devil—so that the thousand years, that is, all their own years, each part should have to be ended by diverse and proper lengths, the reign of the saints being ampler, the chain of the devil briefer;

or certainly, since the space of three years and six months is the very shortest, let it be believed that he was unwilling to reckon it, whether because the chain of Satan seems to be shorter, or because the reign of the saints seems to be ampler—just as concerning the four hundred years I have disputed in the sixteenth volume of this work; since they were something more, and yet were named four hundred; and such things are often found in the sacred writings, if one observes. CHAPTER XIV. Of the damnation of the devil with his own, and, by recapitulation, of the bodily resurrection of all the dead, and of the judgment of the last retribution.

After this mention of the final persecution, he briefly sums up the whole of what the devil, together with his prince, and the hostile city, are to suffer in the last judgment now at hand. For he says: '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.' We have said above that the beast is rightly understood to be the impious city itself. The false prophet, however, is either the Antichrist or that image, that is, the figment, of which we spoke in that place. After these things he goes on to the last judgment itself, which will take place at the second resurrection of the dead, which is the resurrection of bodies, recapitulating his narrative of how it was revealed to him: 'And I saw.'

He says, 'a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose face heaven and earth fled away, and there was no place found for them.' He did not say, 'I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, and from his face heaven and earth fled away,' since this had not yet happened, that is, before the living and the dead had been judged; but he said that he saw him sitting on the throne, from whose face heaven and earth fled away—but afterward. For when the judgment has been carried out, then this heaven and this earth will cease to be, when there will begin to be a new heaven and a new earth. For this world will pass away by a change of things, not by an utter perishing. Hence the apostle too says: 'For the fashion of this world passeth away; I would have you to be without anxiety.'

Therefore the fashion passes away, not the nature. So then, after John had said that he saw one sitting upon the throne, from whose face—which is something yet to come—heaven and earth flee away, he says: 'And I saw the dead, great and small, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of each one's life; and the dead were judged out of those things written in the books according to their deeds.' He said that books were opened, and a book; but of what kind the book was he did not pass over in silence: 'which is,' he says, 'the book of each one's life.' Therefore those books which he placed first are to be understood as the holy books, both old and new, that in them might be shown what God had commanded by His precepts to be done;

but in that one which is the book of each one's life, which of these things each had done or not done. If this book be thought of in a carnal way, who could estimate its size or length? Or in how long a time could a book be read in which are written the entire lives of all men? Or will there be present as great a number of angels as there will be of men, and will each one hear his own life recited to him by an angel assigned to him? Then there will not be one book for all, but a single book for each one. But Scripture, wishing one book to be understood, says: 'And another book was opened.'

Therefore a certain divine power is to be understood, by which it will come to pass that to each person all his works, whether good or evil, will be recalled to memory, and beheld by the gaze of the mind with marvelous swiftness, so that knowledge may accuse or excuse conscience, and thus all and each be judged at once. This divine power has surely received the name of 'book.' For in it, in a certain manner, is read whatever is recalled by its working. But in order to show who the dead are that are to be judged, the small and the great, he says, recapitulating, as if returning to that which he had passed over or rather deferred: 'And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave back the dead that they had in them.' This without doubt took place before the dead were judged;

and yet it is mentioned afterward. This then is what I said, that by recapitulating he returned to that which he had passed over. But now he kept the order, and in order that the order itself might be unfolded, he more conveniently repeated in its proper place, concerning the judged dead, what he had already said. For when he had said: 'And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave back the dead that they had in them,' he at once added what he had set down a little before: 'And they were judged, each one according to his deeds.' For this is what he had said above: 'And the dead were judged according to their deeds.' CHAPTER XV. Who are the dead whom the sea presented for judgment, and whom death and hell gave back. But who are the dead whom the sea gave up, those that were in it?

For it is not the case that those who die in the sea are not in hell, or that their bodies are kept in the sea, or—what is more absurd—that the sea held the good dead and hell the evil. Who would suppose this? But assuredly some quite fittingly take the sea in this place to stand for this present age. Therefore, since he wished to signify that even those whom Christ shall find here set in the body are to be judged together with those who will rise again, he called them too 'dead,' both the good, to whom it is said: 'For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God,' and the evil, of whom it is said: 'Let the dead bury their dead.' They can also be called dead for this reason, that they bear mortal bodies; whence the apostle:

'The body indeed,' he says, 'is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness,' showing that both are in a living man, even while set in this body—both the body dead and the spirit life. Yet he did not say the body is mortal, but dead, although a little later he calls these same bodies 'mortal,' as they are more usually termed. These dead, then, the sea gave up, those that were in it, that is, this present age presented the men, whosoever were in it, because they had not yet died. 'And death and hell,' he says, 'gave back the dead that they had in them.' The sea gave them up, because, just as they were found, so they were present; but death and hell gave them back, because they recalled them to the life from which they had already departed.

And perhaps not without reason was it not enough to say 'death' or 'hell,' but both were named: death because of the good, who could only undergo death, not hell as well; but hell because of the evil, who also pay penalties in the lower regions. For if it does not seem absurd to believe that even the ancient saints, who held the faith of the Christ who was to come, were indeed in places most remote from the torments of the impious, yet were in the lower regions, until the blood of Christ and His descent to those places delivered them thence—then assuredly the good faithful thereafter, now redeemed by that price poured out, know hell not at all, until, having received back their bodies too, they receive the good things that they deserve. But when he had said:

'And they were judged, each one according to his deeds,' he briefly subjoined in what manner they were judged: 'And death and hell,' he says, 'were cast into the lake of fire,' signifying by these names the devil, since he is the author of death and of the infernal punishments, and the whole society of demons together with him. For this is what he had already said above more plainly, by way of anticipation: 'And the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.' But what he had there more obscurely added, saying, 'where also the beast and the false prophet are,' here he states more openly: 'And whosoever were not found written in the book of life,' he says, 'were cast into the lake of fire.' This book does not serve to remind God, lest He be deceived by forgetfulness;

but it signifies the predestination of those to whom eternal life will be given. For God does not fail to know them and read of them in this book in order that He may know; but rather His own foreknowledge concerning them, which cannot be deceived, is the book of life, in which they are written, that is, foreknown beforehand. CHAPTER XVI. Of the new heaven and the new earth. Now that the judgment is finished, in which he foretold that the evil are to be judged, it remains that he should speak also of the good. For he has now unfolded what was briefly said by the Lord: 'So these shall go away into everlasting punishment'; it follows that he should unfold what is also there joined to it: 'But the righteous into life eternal.' 'And I saw,' he says, 'a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and earth passed away, and the sea is now no more.'

This will take place in the order which he stated above by way of anticipation, that he saw one sitting upon the throne, from whose face heaven and earth fled away. For when those who are not written in the book of life have been judged and cast into the eternal fire (of what kind that fire is, and in what part of the world or of things it will be, I think no man knows, unless perhaps to someone the divine Spirit has shown it), then the fashion of this world will pass away in the conflagration of worldly fires, just as the flood took place by an inundation of worldly waters. And so, as I have said, in that worldly conflagration the qualities of the corruptible elements which were suited to our corruptible bodies will utterly perish by burning;

and the substance itself will have those qualities which by a marvelous change shall be suited to immortal bodies; so that, namely, the world, renewed for the better, may be aptly accommodated to men who have also in their flesh been renewed for the better. But as to what he says: 'And the sea is now no more,' whether it is dried up by that exceeding heat, or whether it too is changed for the better, I would not easily say. For we read that a new heaven and a new earth are to come; but of a new sea I do not recall having read anything anywhere—except what is found in this same book: 'as it were a sea of glass like unto crystal.' But there he was not speaking of this end of the age, nor does he seem to have said 'sea' in the proper sense, but 'as it were a sea.'

Although even now, as prophetic speech loves to mingle proper words with transferred ones and thus in a certain manner to veil what is said, he could have said of that sea: 'And the sea is now no more,' that sea of which he had said above: 'And the sea gave up the dead that were in it.' For then this present age, troubled and stormy with the life of mortals, will be no more—the age which he figured under the name of the sea. CHAPTER XVII. Of the unending glorification of the Church after the end. 'And I saw,' he says, 'the great city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, prepared as a bride newly adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them; and they themselves shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them.'

'And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; nor shall there be any pain, for the former things are passed away. And He that sat on the throne said: Behold, I make all things new.' This city is said to come down from heaven, because the grace by which God made it is heavenly. On account of which He also says to it through Isaiah: 'I am the Lord that made thee.' And indeed it has been coming down from heaven from its beginning, since throughout the time of this present age its citizens have been growing, by the grace of God coming down from above through the laver of regeneration in the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, ever and again.

But through the judgment of God, which will be the last, through His Son Jesus Christ, there will appear so great and so new a brightness of it, from the gift of God, that no traces of the old will remain; seeing that even bodies will pass over from the old corruption and mortality to a new incorruption and immortality. For to take this as referring to this present time, in which it reigns with its King for a thousand years, seems to me a mark of exceeding shamelessness, since he says most openly: 'He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; nor shall there be any pain.'

But who would be so absurd, and mad with most obstinate contentiousness, as to dare to affirm that in the hardships of this mortal life—I do not say the holy people, but any single one of the saints, who is leading, or shall lead, or has led this life—has no tears and sorrows; whereas rather the holier each one is and the fuller of holy longing, the more abundant is his weeping in prayer? Is it not the voice of the heavenly city, Jerusalem: 'My tears have been my bread day and night,' and: 'Every night will I wash my bed, I will water my couch with my tears,' and: 'My groaning is not hid from Thee,' and: 'My sorrow is renewed'?

Or are they not indeed her sons who groan, being burdened—not that they wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life? Are they not the very ones who, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of their body? Or was the apostle Paul himself not a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem—or rather, was he not much more such, when, for the sake of the Israelites, his brethren according to the flesh, he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart? But when will there be no death in this city, except when it shall be said: 'O death, where is thy strife? O death, where is thy sting?' Now the sting of death is sin. And this then surely will not be, when it shall be said: 'Where is it?'

But now, not just any lowliest citizen of that city, but this same John in his own epistle cries out: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' And in this book too, whose name is Apocalypse, many things are said obscurely, in order to exercise the mind of the reader; and there are few things in it from whose plain meaning the rest may be tracked out with labor—chiefly because he so repeats the same things in many ways that he seems to be saying one thing after another, when on investigation he is found to be saying these very same things in one way after another. But in these words, where he says: