Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 74/87

'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,'—things are said with such great light concerning the age to come and concerning the immortality and eternity of the saints (for only then and only there shall these things not be), that we ought to seek or to read nothing manifest in the sacred writings, if we have thought these things obscure. CHAPTER XVIII. What the apostle Peter preached concerning the last judgment of God. Now let us see what the apostle Peter too wrote concerning this judgment: 'There shall come,' he says, 'in the last of the days scoffers with mockery, walking after their own lusts and saying: Where is the promise of His coming?'

'For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue thus from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and through the water, by the word of God; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of impious men. But of this one thing be not ignorant, beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness; but is patient for your sakes, not willing that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.'

'But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements being on fire shall be dissolved, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things are to perish, what manner of persons ought ye to be in holy conversations, looking for and hastening unto the presence of the day of the Lord, through which the burning heavens shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with the heat of fire? But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to His promises, in which righteousness dwelleth.' Here he said nothing of the resurrection of the dead, but assuredly enough of the destruction of this world. Where, moreover, recalling what happened before the flood, he seems in a certain way to have warned us how far we ought to believe that this world will perish at the end of this age.

For he said that the world which then was perished at that time also; and not only the orb of the earth, but the heavens as well, by which we surely understand these heavens of air, whose place and space the water at that time, increasing, had overtopped. Therefore the whole, or almost the whole, of this windy air (which he calls heaven, or rather heavens, but assuredly these lower ones, not those highest ones where the sun and moon and stars are set) had been turned into a moist quality and in this manner had perished together with the earth, the former face of which earth had certainly been blotted out by the flood. 'But the heavens and the earth which are now,' he says, 'by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of impious men.'

Accordingly, the heavens that now are and the earth that now is, that is, the world which exists in place of that world which perished by the flood, having been kept in store out of the same water, is itself reserved for the last fire against the day of judgment and the perdition of impious men. For he does not hesitate to say that there will be a perdition of men also, on account of a certain great transformation, although their nature, though it be in eternal punishments, is going to abide. Someone may perhaps ask: if, after the judgment is done, this world will burn, before the new heaven and new earth are set in its place, where will the saints be at that very time of its conflagration, since, having bodies, they must of necessity be in some bodily place?

We can answer that they will be in the upper parts, to which the flame of that burning will not so ascend, just as neither did the wave of the flood. For such bodies will they have, that they may be wherever they will to be. But neither will they, made immortal and incorruptible, dread the fire of that conflagration, if the corruptible and mortal bodies of three men were able to live unharmed in the burning furnace. CHAPTER XIX. What the apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians concerning the manifestation of Antichrist, whose time the day of the Lord shall follow. I see that many evangelical and apostolic statements about this divine last judgment must be passed over by me, lest this volume be rolled out to excessive length;

but by no means is the apostle Paul to be passed over, who, writing to the Thessalonians, says: 'We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and of our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, nor be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man seduce you by any means; for unless there come a falling-away first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and is exalted above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God. Remember ye not that, when I was yet with you, these things were told you? And now what'

'knows what restrains, that he might be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now holdeth, let him hold, until he be taken out of the way; and then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His presence: him, whose presence is according to the working of Satan, in all power and signs and lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God shall send them the working of error, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but consented to iniquity.'

There is no doubt to anyone that he said these things concerning Antichrist, and that the day of judgment (for this he calls the day of the Lord) will not come unless he first come whom he calls the falling-away one (refuga)—departing, that is, from the Lord God. But if this can deservedly be said of all the impious, how much more of this one! But in what temple of God he is to sit is uncertain: whether in that ruin of the temple which was constructed by King Solomon, or rather in the Church. For the apostle would not call the temple of some idol or demon the temple of God. Hence some wish the Antichrist to be understood in this place not as the prince himself, but as in a certain way his whole body, that is, the multitude of men belonging to him, together with their prince himself;

and they think it is even more correctly rendered in Latin, as it is in the Greek, not that he 'sits in the temple of God,' but that he 'sits as the temple of God' (in templum Dei), as though he himself were the temple of God, which is the Church—just as we say, 'he sits as a friend,' that is, as it were a friend, or whatever else is wont to be said by this kind of expression. But as to what he says: 'And now ye know what restrains,' that is, what is the cause of delay, what the reason of his postponement, 'that he might be revealed in his own time'—ye know it: since he said that they knew it, he was unwilling to say this openly. And therefore we, who do not know what they knew, desire with labor to arrive at what the apostle meant, and are not able—especially because those things too which he added make this meaning more obscure. For what is:

'For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now holdeth, let him hold, until he be taken out of the way; and then shall that wicked one be revealed'? I confess outright that I do not know what he meant. Yet the conjectures of men, which I have been able either to hear or to read, I will not pass over in silence. Some think that this was said of the Roman empire, and that for this reason the apostle Paul did not wish to write it openly, lest, namely, he should incur the charge of having wished ill to the Roman empire, which was hoped to be eternal; so that by what he said—'For the mystery of iniquity doth already work'—he wished Nero to be understood, whose deeds already seemed to be as it were those of Antichrist. Hence some suspect that he himself will rise again and be the future Antichrist;

but others think that he was not even killed, but rather withdrawn, so that he might be thought to have been killed, and that he is being kept hidden alive, in the vigor of that very age in which he was when he was believed to be slain, until in his own time he be revealed and restored to his kingdom. But the great presumption of those who imagine these things is exceedingly strange to me. That, however, which the apostle says—'only he who now holdeth, let him hold, until he be taken out of the way'—is not absurdly believed to be said of the Roman empire itself, as though it were said: 'only he who now reigns, let him reign, until he be taken out of the way,' that is, removed from the midst. And then shall that wicked one be revealed—that this signifies Antichrist no one doubts. But others, even as to what he says:

'Ye know what restrains,' and that 'the mystery of iniquity works,' think it was said only of the wicked and feigned ones who are in the Church, until they come to so great a number as to make a great people for Antichrist; and that this is the mystery of iniquity, because it seems hidden; and that the apostle was exhorting the faithful to persevere tenaciously in the faith which they hold, by saying: 'only he who now holdeth, let him hold, until he be taken out of the way,' that is, until the mystery of iniquity which is now hidden go out from the midst of the Church. For they suppose that to this very mystery pertains what John the evangelist says in his epistle: 'Little children, it is the last hour; and as ye have heard that Antichrist is to come, even now are there many Antichrists become;'

'by this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would surely have continued with us.' Just as therefore before the end, in this hour which John calls the last, many heretics—whom he calls many Antichrists—went out from the midst of the Church, so, they say, all those will then go out thence who belong, not to Christ, but to that last Antichrist, and then he shall be revealed. One man, then, conjectures the obscure words of the apostle in this way, another in that; but that he said this is not doubtful: Christ will not come to judge the living and the dead, unless first there come His adversary Antichrist, to seduce those dead in soul;

although it pertains to the now-hidden judgment of God that they will be seduced by him. For his presence will be, as it has been said, 'according to the working of Satan, in all power and signs and lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish.' For then Satan will be loosed, and through that Antichrist he will work, in all his power, marvelously indeed, but mendaciously.

It is wont to be a matter of doubt whether they are called signs and lying wonders for this reason, that he is going to deceive mortal senses by phantasms, so that he may seem to do what he does not do; or because those very wonders, even if they will be true wonders, will draw to a lie those who will believe that they could not have been done except by divine power, being ignorant of the power of the devil—especially when he shall have received so great a power as he never had. For when fire fell from heaven and consumed in one onset so great a household with such great flocks of cattle belonging to holy Job, and a whirlwind rushing in and casting down the house slew his sons, these were not phantasms; yet they were works of Satan, to whom God had given this power.

On account of which of these reasons, then, they are called wonders and signs of a lie, will then rather appear. But for whichever of these reasons it be said, they will be seduced by those signs and wonders who shall deserve to be seduced, 'because,' he says, 'they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.' Nor did the apostle hesitate to add and to say: 'Therefore God shall send them the working of error, that they should believe a lie.' For God will send it, because God will permit the devil to do these things, by His own just judgment, although the devil does it by his own unjust and malignant counsel: 'that they all might be judged,' he says, 'who believed not the truth, but consented to iniquity.' Accordingly, being judged, they will be seduced, and being seduced, they will be judged.

But being judged, they will be seduced by those judgments of God which are secretly just and justly secret, by which He has never ceased to judge, from the beginning of the sin of the rational creature; but being seduced, they will be judged in the last and manifest judgment through Christ Jesus, who will judge most justly, having Himself been judged most unjustly. CHAPTER XX. What the same apostle taught in the first epistle to the same people concerning the resurrection of the dead. But here the apostle was silent concerning the resurrection of the dead; yet, writing to the same people in the first epistle, he says: 'We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again:'

'so also God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. For this we say unto you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not precede them who have fallen asleep before; for the Lord Himself, with a commandment and with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive, who remain, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.' These apostolic words most clearly show the future resurrection of the dead, when Christ shall come, assuredly to judge the living and the dead.

But it is wont to be asked whether those whom Christ shall find living here—whose persons the apostle was transferring into himself and into those who were then living with him—will never die at all, or whether at that very point of time in which they shall be caught up with those who rise again in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, they shall pass over to immortality through death with marvelous swiftness. For it must not be said that it cannot come to pass that, while they are borne aloft through the air, they should in that interval both die and come to life again. For what he says—'And so shall we ever be with the Lord'—is not to be taken as though he had said that we shall remain ever with the Lord in the air; for neither will He Himself surely remain there, since, coming, He is going to pass on;

for one goes to meet Him as He comes, not as He remains; but we shall be with the Lord in this sense, that is, we shall be thus, having everlasting bodies, wherever we shall be with Him. But the apostle himself seems to urge us toward this sense, by which we should suppose that even those whom the Lord shall find living here will, in that very brief interval, both suffer death and receive immortality, where he says: 'In Christ shall all be made alive'; whereas in another place, speaking of that very resurrection of bodies, he says: 'That which thou sowest is not made alive, unless it die.' How then will those whom Christ shall find living here be made alive in Him through immortality, even if they do not die, when we see that for this reason it was said: 'That which thou sowest is not made alive, unless it die'?

But if we may rightly say that only those human bodies are 'sown' which in dying return in some fashion into the earth (as is set down also in that sentence divinely pronounced against the transgressor, the father of the human race: 'Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou go'), then we must confess that those whom Christ at His coming shall find not yet departed from their bodies are bound neither by these words of the Apostle nor by those from Genesis; for, being caught up on high in the clouds, they are surely not sown, since they neither go into the earth nor return to it, whether they undergo no death at all or die only for a little while in the air. But again another difficulty arises, from what the same Apostle said when he was speaking to the Corinthians of the resurrection of bodies: 'We shall all rise again,' or, as other copies have it:

'We shall all sleep.' Since, then, resurrection cannot take place unless death has gone before, nor can we understand 'sleeping' in that passage to mean anything but death, how shall all either sleep or rise again, if so many, whom Christ shall find in the body, neither sleep nor rise again? If therefore we believe that the saints who shall be found alive at Christ's coming, and who shall be caught up to meet Him, will in that very rapture pass out of their mortal bodies and presently return to those same bodies now made immortal, we shall suffer no difficulty in the Apostle's words, whether where he says: 'That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die,' or where he says: 'We shall all rise again,' or: 'We shall all sleep';

because they too will not be quickened into immortality unless, however briefly, they first die; and on this account they will not be strangers to the resurrection, which they precede by a sleep, though a most brief one, yet not none at all. But why should it seem incredible to us that that multitude of bodies should in a manner be sown in the air and there forthwith revive immortally and incorruptibly, when we believe what the same Apostle most plainly declares, that the resurrection shall be in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of the most ancient corpses shall return into limbs that will live without end, with such ease and with such inestimable swiftness? Nor let us think that those saints will be exempt from that sentence by which it was said to man:

'Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou go,' so as to suppose those saints immune from it, even if the bodies of those who die do not fall back into the earth but, just as in the rapture itself they die, so also they rise again while being borne aloft into the air. For 'unto earth shalt thou go' means: 'in this thou shalt go, when life is lost, into that which thou wast before thou tookest life'; that is, thou shalt be, when deprived of soul, what thou wast before thou wast ensouled (for God breathed into the face of the earth the breath of life, when man was made into a living soul); as if it were said: 'Earth thou art when ensouled, which thou wast not: earth thou shalt be when lifeless, as thou wast'; which all the bodies of the dead are even before they decay, and which those too shall be, if they die. Wherever they die, they shall be without the life which they are forthwith to receive back.

Thus, then, they shall go into the earth, because out of living men they shall become earth; just as 'it goes into ash' which becomes ash; 'it goes into old age' which becomes old; 'it goes into a potsherd' which from clay becomes a potsherd: and so we speak in a thousand other ways. But how it shall come to pass — which we now conjecture as best we can according to the strength of our poor reasoning — shall then rather be, so that we may know it. For the resurrection of the dead to come, even in the flesh, when Christ shall come to judge the living and the dead, we must, if we wish to be Christians, believe; but our faith in this matter is not therefore vain if we are unable perfectly to comprehend in what manner it shall be.

Now, however, as we promised above, we ought to show, as far as shall seem sufficient, what the ancient prophetic books also foretold concerning this last judgment of God; and these things, as I think, it will not require so long a delay to handle and expound, if the reader take care to be assisted by what we have already set forth. CHAPTER XXI. What the prophet Isaiah spoke concerning the resurrection of the dead and the recompense of judgment. The prophet Isaiah says: 'The dead shall rise again, and they that were in the graves shall rise again, and all that are in the earth shall rejoice; for the dew that is from thee is health to them; but the land of the ungodly shall fall.' All that earlier part pertains to the resurrection of the blessed. But what he says:

'But the land of the ungodly shall fall,' is rightly understood to be said: 'But the ruin of damnation shall receive the bodies of the ungodly.' Now further, if we wish to look more carefully and distinctly at what is said of the resurrection of the good, the words 'The dead shall rise again' are to be referred to the first; but what follows, 'And they that were in the graves shall rise again,' to the second. And if we further inquire after those saints whom the Lord shall find here alive, to them will fittingly be assigned what he added: 'And all that are in the earth shall rejoice; for the dew that is from thee is health to them.' By 'health' in this place we most rightly take immortality; for that is the fullest health which is not restored by nourishments as by daily medicines.

Likewise concerning the day of judgment, first giving hope to the good and then terrifying the wicked, the same prophet speaks thus: 'Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I turn aside upon them like a river of peace, and like a torrent overflowing the glory of the nations. Their children shall be borne upon the shoulders and comforted upon the knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and in Jerusalem ye shall be comforted, and ye shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall spring up like the grass. And the hand of the Lord shall be known to them that worship Him, and He shall threaten the obstinate. For behold, the Lord shall come like fire, and like a tempest His chariots, to render vengeance in indignation and devastation in a flame of fire.'

'For in the fire of the Lord shall all the earth be judged, and by His sword all flesh; many shall be wounded by the Lord.' In the promise to the good, by 'a river of peace' we must surely take that abundance of that peace than which none can be greater. With this we shall undoubtedly be watered at the end; of which we spoke abundantly in the preceding book. He says that He turns this river aside upon those to whom He promises so great a blessedness, that we may understand that in that region of felicity which is in the heavens all things are satisfied by this river; but because peace of incorruption and immortality flows thence even to earthly bodies, He therefore said that He turns aside this river, that from things above it may in a manner flood even the things below and render men equal to the angels.

By Jerusalem too we are to understand, not that one which is in bondage with her children, but our free mother, according to the Apostle, eternal in the heavens. There, after the labors of mortal troubles and cares, we shall be comforted, as her little ones carried on shoulders and on knees. For that unwonted blessedness shall receive us, untaught and new, with most caressing helps. 'And there shall we see, and our heart shall rejoice.' Nor did he express what we shall see; but what else than God? that there may be fulfilled in us the evangelical promise: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' and all those things which we now do not see, but, believing, think of far less than they are and incomparably so, according to the small measure of human capacity.

'And ye shall see,' he says, 'and your heart shall rejoice.' Here ye believe, there ye shall see. But because he said: 'And your heart shall rejoice,' lest we should think those good things of Jerusalem pertained only to our spirit: 'And your bones,' he says, 'shall spring up like the grass'; where he touched upon the resurrection of bodies, as it were restoring what he had not said; for it is not when we shall see that it shall come to pass, but when it has come to pass we shall see. For he had already said above concerning a new heaven and a new earth, while he often and in manifold ways spoke of those things which are promised to the saints at the end. 'There shall be,' he says, 'a new heaven and a new earth, and they shall not remember the former things, neither shall they come up into their heart, but they shall find joy and exultation in it.'

'Behold, I will make Jerusalem an exultation, and my people a joy; and I will exult in Jerusalem and rejoice in my people; and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her,' and the rest, which some try to refer to those carnal thousand years. For figurative expressions are, after the manner of prophecy, mingled with proper ones, so that the sober intent may, with a certain useful and wholesome labor, arrive at the spiritual understanding; but carnal sloth, or the dullness of an unschooled and unexercised mind, content with the surface of the letter, thinks there is nothing within to be sought. Let what I have said suffice concerning the prophetic words which were written before this passage. But in this place, from which we digressed to those things, when he had said:

'And your bones shall spring up like the grass,' so as to show that he was now commemorating the resurrection of the flesh, but yet of the good, he added: 'And the hand of the Lord shall be known to them that worship Him.' What is this but the hand of Him who distinguishes His worshippers from His despisers? Concerning whom, weaving on what follows, 'And He shall threaten,' he says, 'the obstinate,' or, as another translator has it, 'the unbelieving.' Nor shall He threaten then, but the things now said by way of threat shall then be effectually fulfilled. 'For behold,' he says, 'the Lord shall come like fire, and like a tempest His chariots, to render vengeance in indignation and devastation in a flame of fire. For in the fire of the Lord shall all the earth be judged, and by His sword all flesh; many shall be wounded by the Lord.'

Whether by fire, or by tempest, or by sword, He signifies the penalty of judgment; since indeed He says that the Lord Himself shall come as it were like fire — to those, namely, to whom His coming shall be penal. But His chariots (for they are spoken of in the plural) we not unfittingly take to be angelic ministries. But where he says that all the earth and all flesh shall be judged in His fire and sword, let us not here understand also the spiritual and the saints, but the earthly and carnal, of whom it was said: 'Who mind earthly things,' and: 'To be wise according to the flesh is death'; and such as are altogether called flesh by the Lord, where He says: 'My spirit shall not abide in these men, because they are flesh.' But as for what is here set down:

'Many shall be wounded by the Lord,' by this wound shall be wrought the second death. Fire, indeed, and sword, and wound can also be taken in a good sense. For the Lord said that He willed to send fire upon the world, and there were seen by them tongues as it were divided like fire, when the Holy Spirit came; and: 'I came not,' says the same Lord, 'to send peace upon the earth, but a sword'; and Scripture calls the word of God a two-edged sword, on account of the twin edge of the two Testaments; and in the Song of Songs the holy Church says she is wounded with love, as it were shot through by an impulse of love. But here, when we read or hear that the Lord shall come as Avenger, it is clear in what manner these things are to be understood.

Then, having briefly mentioned those who shall be consumed by this judgment — signifying the sinners and ungodly under the figure of foods forbidden in the old law, from which they did not abstain — he recapitulates from the beginning the grace of the new Testament, carrying it on from the first coming of the Saviour to the last judgment, of which we now treat, and so finishes his discourse. For he relates that the Lord says He comes to gather all the nations, and that they shall come and see His glory. For all, as the Apostle says, have sinned and lack the glory of God. And He says that He will leave upon them signs, by which, marveling, they may believe in Him: