This opinion would be in some way tolerable, if it were believed that some spiritual delights would be present to the saints in that Sabbath through the presence of the Lord. For we too once held this opinion. But since they say that those who then shall have risen will give themselves over to the most immoderate carnal feastings, in which there shall be so much food and drink that they not only keep no moderation, but exceed even the measure of credibility itself: these things can in no way be believed except by carnal men. But those who are spiritual call those who believe these things by the Greek word 'chiliasts'; which, expressing it word for word, we might name 'millenarians.' But it would be tedious to refute them point by point;
but rather we ought now to show in what manner this Scripture is to be understood. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says: 'No one can enter into the house of the strong man and carry off his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man' — meaning by 'the strong man' the devil to be understood, because he was able to hold the human race captive; and by 'his vessels,' which He was to carry off, His own future faithful ones, whom the devil possessed in divers sins and impieties. Therefore, that this strong man might be bound, 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, 'on that dragon, the old serpent, who is called 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 delivered. Now the thousand years can, so far as occurs to me, be understood in two ways:
either because this thing takes place in the last thousand years, that is, in the sixth millennium of years as in the sixth day, whose latter spaces are now rolling on, with the Sabbath then to follow which has no evening — namely the rest of the saints which has no end — so that he has called the last part, as it were, of this millennium-day, which remained until the end of the world, a thousand years, by that manner of speaking whereby the part is signified by the whole; or else assuredly he put a thousand years for all the years of this world, so that by a perfect number the very fullness of time should be denoted. For the number one thousand renders the solid square of the number ten. For ten times ten make a hundred, which is now indeed 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 is sometimes put for the whole, as is that which the Lord promised to one who forsakes all his goods and follows Him, saying: 'He shall receive in this world a hundredfold' — which the apostle expounding in a certain manner says: 'As having nothing, and possessing all things,' because it had already been said before: 'The whole world of riches belongs to the faithful man' — how much more is a thousand put for the whole, where there is the solidity of that tenfold square? Whence too that is best understood which is read in the Psalm: 'He hath been mindful for ever of His covenant, of the word which He commanded to a thousand generations,' that is, unto all.
'And he cast him,' he says, 'into the abyss' — assuredly he cast the devil into the abyss, by which name is signified the innumerable multitude of the impious, whose hearts are very deep in malignity against the Church of God; not because the devil was not there before, but he is therefore said to be cast thither, because, being excluded from believers, he began to possess the impious the more. For he is possessed the more by the devil who is not only estranged from God, but also without cause hates those who serve God. 'And he shut it,' he says, 'and sealed it over him, that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished.' By 'he shut it over him' is said 'he forbade him that he might not be able to go out,' that is, to transgress what was prohibited.
But that he 'sealed it,' which he added, has seemed to me to signify that he willed it to be hidden who belong to the devil's party and who do not. For this in this world lies wholly concealed, because it is uncertain both whether he who seems to stand is about to fall, and whether he who seems to lie is about to rise. But from seducing those nations the devil is prohibited and restrained 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 that he seduces even now the nations, and drags them with himself into eternal punishment — but not those predestined unto eternal life — what faithful man is ignorant? Nor let it disturb anyone that the devil often seduces even those who, already regenerated in Christ, walk in the ways of God. 'For the Lord knoweth them that are His'; of these he seduces none into eternal damnation. For the Lord knows them thus, as God, from whom nothing even of things future lies hidden — not as a man, who sees a man for the present (if indeed he sees him, whose heart he does not see), but what he shall afterward be he does not see even in himself. To this end, therefore, the devil is bound and shut up in the abyss, that he may no more seduce the nations of which the Church consists, which nations, formerly seduced, he held 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 undoubtedly wished the Church to be understood — 'till the thousand years 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 world is henceforth to be completed. Nor is that which He says to be so understood — 'That he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished' — as though he were afterward to seduce those nations, at least, of which the predestined Church consists, from seducing whom he is prohibited by that bond and barrier. But either it is said by that manner of speech which is sometimes found in the Scriptures, such as that in the Psalm:
'So our eyes are unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us'; for not, when He shall have had mercy, will the eyes of His servants no more be unto the Lord their God. Or else assuredly the order of the words is this: 'And he shut it and sealed it over him, till the thousand years be finished'; but what he interposed — 'that he should no more seduce the nations' — is so to be taken that it should be free from the connexion of this order and understood apart, as if it were added afterward, so that the whole sentence should run thus: 'And he shut it and sealed it over him, till the thousand years be finished, that he should no more seduce the nations'; that is, therefore he shut it, till the thousand years be finished, that he should no more seduce the nations. [VIII] 'After this,' he says, 'he must be loosed for a little season.'
If for the devil to be bound and shut up is to be unable to seduce the Church, will then this be his loosing, that he should be able to? Away with the thought! For never shall the Church be seduced by him — the Church predestined and elect before the foundation of the world, of which it was said: 'The Lord knoweth them that 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 to those who die. For a little after he says that the devil, being loosed, shall draw the seduced nations over the whole world into war against the Church, and the number of these 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 are the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.' But this now pertains to the last judgment, which I have thought fit to mention here for this reason, that no one should suppose that in that very little time in which the devil shall be loosed, the Church shall not be in this land — either he not finding it here when he shall have been loosed, or destroying it when he shall have persecuted it by every means.
Not therefore throughout all this time which this book embraces — namely from the first coming of Christ until the end of the world, which shall be His second coming — is the devil so bound that this very binding of his is, during this interval which he calls by the number of a thousand years, not to seduce the Church, since indeed not even when loosed will he seduce it. For assuredly, if for him to be bound is to be unable to seduce or not to be permitted, what shall it be to be loosed but to be able to seduce or to be permitted? Which God forbid should come to pass! But the binding of the devil is his not being permitted to put forth the whole temptation which he can, either by force or by guile, to seduce men and to force them violently or fraudulently deceive them into his own party.
For if it were permitted, in so long a time and amid the great weakness of many, he would cast down very many such as God wills not to suffer this, and would hinder many from believing; and that he might not do this, he was bound. But then he shall be loosed, when both the time shall be brief (for he is read to be about to rage with all his own and his followers' forces for three years and six months) and those shall be such against whom he must wage war, that they cannot be overcome by so great an onset and by his snares.
But if he were never loosed, his malignant power would appear less, the most faithful patience of the holy city would be less proved, and finally it would be less clearly perceived how great an evil of his the Almighty has used so well — He who neither wholly took him away from the temptation of the saints (although cast forth from their inner men, where God is believed in, that by his assault from without they might profit), and, in those who are of his own party, bound him, lest, by pouring forth and exercising as much malice as he could upon the innumerable weak ones — of whom the Church was to be multiplied and filled, some about to believe, others already believing — he should deter these from the faith of piety and break those;
and He shall loose him at the end, that the city of God may behold, with the immense glory of its Redeemer, Helper, and Deliverer, how strong an adversary it has overcome. In comparison, indeed, with those saints and faithful ones who shall then exist, what are we? Since for the proving of them so great an enemy shall be loosed, with whom, while he is bound, we contend amid such great perils. And yet it is not to be doubted that even in this interval of time some soldiers of Christ have been and are so prudent and strong that, even if they were living in this mortal state at the time when he shall be loosed, they would both most wisely beware of all his snares and assaults and most patiently endure them.
But this binding of the devil was not only done from the time when the Church began to be spread out from the land of Judaea into the other nations one after another; but it is also being done now and shall be done until the end of the world, when he is to be loosed; because even now men are converted from the unbelief in which he himself possessed them unto the faith, and shall without doubt be converted until that end; and assuredly for each individual this strong man is then bound, when he is snatched away from him as his vessel; and the abyss, wherein he is shut up, has not been consumed in them when those have died who existed at the time when he began to be shut up;
but others have succeeded them by being born, and do succeed, until this world be finished — those who hate 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 forces, anyone shall come to the faith, in which he had not before been, is no small question. For how shall that stand which was said: 'Who entereth into the house of the strong man, to carry off his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man,' if his vessels are snatched away even when he is loosed?
And by this, this saying seems to compel us to believe that in that little time, however brief, no one shall come over to the Christian people, but that the devil shall fight with those who shall already have been found Christians; of whom, even if some, being overcome, follow him, they do not pertain 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 becomes of the little ones?
For it is exceedingly incredible that no children of Christians, already born and not yet baptized, should be forestalled as infants at that time, and that none should be born to them in those very days; or, if there shall be, that they should not be brought by their parents in some manner to the laver of regeneration. But if this shall be, in what way, the devil being now loosed, shall these vessels be snatched away — into whose house no one enters to carry off 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 wanting at that time;
but assuredly both the parents shall be so strong on behalf of their little ones to be baptized, and those who shall then first believe, that they may overcome that strong man even when he is not bound — that is, they may both vigilantly discern all his devices, whether ensnaring by such arts as never before, or pressing with force, and patiently endure them, and so may be snatched from him even when he is not bound. Nor therefore shall that Gospel saying be false: 'Who entereth into the house of the strong man, to carry off his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man?'
For according to the truth of that saying this order has been preserved, that first the strong man should be bound and his vessels snatched away, and that the Church should so be multiplied far and wide among all nations, from the strong and the weak, that out of its own most robust faith in things divinely foretold and fulfilled it might be able, even when he is loosed, to carry off his vessels. For as it must be confessed that the charity of many grows cold when iniquity abounds, and that, through the unwonted and greatest persecutions and deceits of the devil now loosed, many who are not written in the book of life shall yield:
so it is to be thought that that time shall find not only good faithful ones, but that some also who shall as yet be outside, with the help of the grace of God, through consideration of the Scriptures — in which both other things and the end itself was foretold, which they now perceive to be coming — shall become firmer to believe what they did not believe, and stronger to overcome the devil even when he is not bound. And if it shall be so, therefore his binding is to be said to have gone before, that the despoiling both of the bound and of the loosed might follow; since concerning this matter it was said: 'Who shall enter into the house of the strong man, to carry off his vessels, unless he first bind the strong man?'
[IX] Meanwhile, during the thousand years that the devil is bound, the saints also reign with Christ, likewise for a thousand years — the same, without doubt, and to be understood in the same way, that is, this present time of His first coming. For, apart from that kingdom of which He shall say at the end: 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you,' unless in some other way, far unequal indeed, His saints even now reigned with Him, to whom He says: 'Behold, I am with you even unto the consummation of the world,' assuredly the Church would not even now be called His kingdom or the kingdom of heaven. For surely at this time that scribe is instructed in the kingdom of God who brings forth from his treasure things new and old, of whom we spoke 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 world, but the reapers are the angels.' As therefore the tares are gathered and burned with fire, so shall it be in the consummation of the world; the Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all scandals. Is it out of that kingdom where there are no scandals? Out of this kingdom of His, then, which is here the Church, they shall be gathered. Likewise He says: 'Whosoever shall loose one of these least commandments and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and shall so teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.'
Both He says are in the kingdom of heaven — both he who does not do the commandments which he teaches (for this is to loose them: not to keep, not to do), and he 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 loose 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, that you loose not, but rather do what you teach, 'ye shall not enter,' He says, 'into the kingdom of heaven.'
In another way, therefore, the kingdom of heaven is to be understood where both are — namely he who looses what he teaches, and he who does; but the one least, the other great: in another way, however, is the kingdom of heaven spoken of, into which none enters save he who does. And by this, where both kinds are, there is the Church as it now is; but where that alone shall be, there is the Church as it shall then be, when the wicked shall not be in it. Therefore even now the Church is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly His saints reign with Him even now, in another manner indeed than they shall then reign; nor yet do the tares reign with Him, although they grow in the Church with the wheat. For they reign with Him who do what the apostle says:
'If ye be risen with Christ, mind 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.' Finally, they reign with Him who are in His kingdom in such a way that they themselves are also His kingdom. But in what way are they the kingdom of Christ who — to say nothing of other things — although they are there until at the end of the world all scandals be gathered out of His kingdom, yet there seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ?
Concerning, then, this kingdom of warfare, in which we still contend with the enemy and at times fight against resisting vices, while at other times we command them as they yield, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom where we shall reign without an enemy — and concerning this first resurrection, which is now — this book of Scripture speaks thus. For when it had said that the devil was bound for a thousand years, and afterward loosed for a short time, then, recapitulating what the Church does during these thousand years, or what is done in her, it says: 'And I saw thrones, and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given.' This must not be thought to be said of the last judgment; rather the thrones are to be understood as those of the rulers, and the rulers themselves, through whom the Church is now governed.
Now no better sense of 'judgment given' seems to be received than that which was said: 'Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' Whence the Apostle says: 'For what have I to do to judge them also 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' — with which is to be understood what he is going to say afterward: 'They reigned with Jesus a thousand years' — namely 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 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 to run into perils for his baptism, lest this life should end without it; nor to seek reconciliation, if perchance through penance or an evil conscience someone has been separated from that same body. For why are these things done, unless because the faithful, even when deceased, are his members? Therefore, although not yet with their bodies, yet already their souls reign with him, while these thousand years run their course. Whence in this same book it is read elsewhere: '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.' The Church, then, reigns with Christ now first of all among the living and the dead.
For on this account, as the Apostle says, 'Christ died, that he might be Lord both of the living and of the dead.' But he made mention only of the souls of the martyrs, because they above all reign, being dead who contended even unto death for the truth. Yet by the part we understand the whole, that the other dead also, who belong to the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ, are meant. As for what follows: 'And whosoever had not worshipped the beast nor his image, neither had received his inscription upon their forehead or in their hand' — we must take it of the living and the dead together.
What, moreover, this beast is, although it must be inquired into more carefully, yet it is not repugnant to right faith that the impious city itself be understood, and the people of the unbelieving who are opposed to the faithful people and to the city of God. His image, indeed, seems to me to be his counterfeit, namely in those men who, as it were, profess the faith and live unfaithfully. For they feign themselves to be what they are not, and are called Christians not by a true likeness but by a deceptive image. For to that 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 world.
And who are they who do not worship the beast nor his image, except those who do what the Apostle says: 'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers'? For to 'not worship' is not to consent, not to submit; 'neither to receive the inscription' — that is, the mark of the crime — 'upon the forehead' on account of profession, 'in the hand' on account of operation. Free, therefore, from these evils, whether still living in this mortal flesh or deceased, 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,' it 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.' The rest of them, therefore, shall not live. But as to what he added:
'until the thousand years should be finished' — this is to be understood that during that time they did not live, in which they ought to have lived, namely by passing over from death unto life. And therefore, when the day shall come in which the resurrection of the bodies also takes place, they shall come forth from their tombs not unto life but unto judgment; namely unto damnation, which is called the second death. For 'until the thousand years be finished,' whoever has not lived — that is, throughout this whole time in which the first resurrection is enacted — has not heard the voice of the Son of God and passed from death unto life, shall assuredly, in the second resurrection, which is of the flesh, pass over into the second death together with that very flesh. For it follows and says: 'This is the first resurrection.'
'Blessed and holy is he who has part in this first resurrection' — that is, who 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 perseveres in that in which he has revived. 'On such,' it says, 'the second death has no power.' It has power, therefore, over the rest, of whom it said above: 'The rest of them lived not until the thousand years be finished'; since throughout that whole interval of time, which it calls a thousand years, however long each of them lived in the body, he did not revive from the death in which impiety held him, so as by thus reviving to become a partaker of the first resurrection, and so that over him the second death should have no power.
[X] There are some who think that a resurrection can be spoken of only of bodies, and therefore contend that this first resurrection too is to be in bodies. For, they say, whose it is to fall, theirs it is to rise again. But it is bodies that fall by dying; for indeed corpses (cadavera) are so named from falling (a cadendo). Therefore, they say, there cannot be a resurrection of souls, but of bodies. But what do they say against the Apostle, who calls it a resurrection? For it was according to the inner, not the outer man, that they had assuredly risen again, to whom he says: 'If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.' Which sense he set forth in other words elsewhere, saying: 'That, as Christ rose from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.'
Hence too is that: 'Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' But as to their saying that none can rise again except those who fall, and therefore their thinking that the 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 master he stands or falls,' and: 'Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall'? For I think that this falling is to be guarded against in the soul, not in the body. If, therefore, resurrection belongs to those who fall, and souls also fall, then assuredly it must be confessed that souls too rise again. And as to the fact that, when he had said, 'On such the second death has no power,' he added and said: 'But they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years':
this was assuredly not said of bishops and presbyters alone, who are now properly called priests in the Church; but just as we call all 'christs' (anointed) on account of the mystical chrism, so we call all priests, since they are members of the one Priest — of whom the Apostle Peter says: 'A holy people, a royal priesthood.' Certainly, though 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, just as he became the Son of man, so also Christ became a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. On which matter we have spoken not once in this work.