書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 5 章 第 97/118 段

But as for what was said: 'And this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, and then the end shall come,' first, the Lord's own promise was such that his very apostles should become witnesses of his name and of his resurrection in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and even to the ends of the earth; and the Apostle teaches by this authority: 'But I say, have they not heard? "Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world."' Likewise: 'For the hope which is laid up for you, which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as also in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing.'

But the faith begun by the apostles among the nations had many persecutors, so that being checked it prevailed more slowly, that this might be fulfilled: 'But before all these things they shall lay their hands upon you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name's sake,' that this might be fulfilled which was written: 'And you shall be quickly rebuilt by whom you were destroyed.' For from the time when the most merciful emperors began by the will of God to be Christians, whatever the faith had been growing little by little in the ages by reason of persecution, once the kings were made Christian, the Gospel of Christ penetrated everywhere in a short time.

The exposition indeed of the blessed Daniel concerning the weeks, although our holy fellow-presbyter Jerome expounded it—in the manner in which the teachers of the churches had handed it down—leaves the reader … For if that most learned man, our fellow-presbyter, says that it is perilous to judge concerning the opinions of the masters of the churches and to prefer one to another, how much more can the reader not do this, which the master hesitated to do! But we believe what the Lord says: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but one iota or one point shall not pass from the Law until all things be fulfilled.' In what way then the mystery of the weeks may have been fulfilled up to the birth and passion of Christ, I marvel, since the prophet spoke that other thing in the middle of the week, saying:

'In the midst of the week my sacrifice and supplication shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolations shall be unto the sacrifice.' If then this abomination had already been fulfilled, in what way does the Lord admonish and say: 'When you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place—let him who reads understand'? But I, lest I should be a despiser of the petition of your beatitude, have written these things to your charity as I felt them. Deign, however, to instruct and gladden us more fully by writing back a word of your grace. CXCIX. ON THE END OF THE AGE. TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD, AND TO BE RECEIVED WITH VENERATION, HIS FELLOW AND CO-BISHOP HESYCHIUS, AUGUSTINE, GREETING IN THE LORD.

I have received the letter of your reverence, in which most wholesomely you exhort me that the coming of our Savior be loved and longed for. You do this as a good servant of that same head of the household, eager for your Lord's gains, and wishing to have very many partners in the love with which you yourself are especially and perseveringly enkindled. Considering therefore what you have recalled concerning the Apostle—that he said the Lord would render the crown of righteousness not only to himself but also to all who love his manifestation—

we thus live rightly and conduct ourselves in this world as pilgrims, when our heart in this love profitably extends itself, whether he come sooner or later than is supposed—he whose manifestation is loved with faithful charity and desired with pious affection. For that servant who says, 'My lord delays,' and beats his fellow-servants, eats and drinks with the drunken, surely does not love his manifestation; for from his morals his mind appears. And these morals the good Master took care briefly to express—namely pride and luxury—lest what he was saying, 'My lord delays,' should be believed to be said out of desire for his lord, with which that man burned who said: 'My soul thirsted for the living God;'

'when shall I come and appear before the face of God?' For in saying 'when shall I come?' he grievously bore the delays he endured, because even what is hastened in time seems slow to desire. But in what way is his coming slow, or in what way is it far off in the future, when the very apostles, at the time when they were still in the flesh, said: 'It is the last hour'—although they had heard from the Lord: 'It is not for you to know the times'? This therefore they did not know, which we also do not know—so far as it pertains to me, I speak, and to those who together with me do not know this—; and yet, they to whom it was said:

'It is not for you to know the times which the Father has placed in his own power'—they loved his manifestation and gave their fellow-servants their portions of food in due season, and did not beat them by domineering over them, nor did they revel with the lovers of the world, saying: 'My lord delays.' It is therefore one thing to be ignorant of the times, and another to have a corruption of morals and a love of vices. For the Apostle Paul too, when he said: 'Be not quickly shaken in mind, nor be troubled, either by word or by epistle as though from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand,' surely did not wish them to believe those who supposed the coming of the Lord to be already drawing near; nor yet did he wish them, like that servant, to say: 'My lord delays his coming,' and to give themselves over to be destroyed by pride and luxury;

but he wished them thus not to give ear to false rumors about the approaching last day, yet in such a way that he would have them ready, with loins girded and lamps burning, to await the coming of their Lord. To whom he says: 'But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. For you are all children of the light and children of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness.' But that man who says thus, 'My lord delays his coming,' so as to beat his fellow-servants and feast with the drunken, is not of the light but of darkness, and therefore that day shall overtake him as a thief. This everyone ought to fear even concerning the last day of this his own life;

for in whatever state each man's own last day shall find him, in that state the world's last day shall overtake him, since such as each dies on that day of his, such shall he be judged on that other day. To this pertains what is thus written in the Gospel according to Mark: 'Watch therefore, for you do not know when the lord of the house comes, at evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. But what I say to you, I say to all: Watch.' To whom does he say 'to all,' but to his elect and beloved ones belonging to his body, which is the Church?

Not only therefore did he say it to those who were then hearing him speak, but also to those who were after them before us, and to us ourselves, and to those who shall be after us until his last coming. But will that day find all men in this life, or will anyone say that what he says pertains also to the dead: 'Watch, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping'? Why then does he say to all what pertains to them alone who shall then be alive, unless because in the manner I have said it pertains to all? For then shall that day come to each one, when there comes to him the day that he should depart hence such as he is to be judged on that day. And by this every Christian ought to watch, lest the coming of the Lord find him unprepared.

And that day will find him unprepared whom the last day of this his own life shall find unprepared. For certainly this at least was manifest to the apostles, that the Lord was not to come in their times, while they lived here in the flesh; and yet who can doubt that they especially watched and kept that which he said to all, lest coming suddenly he should find them unprepared? I do not yet indeed understand in what way that ought to be taken which your holiness wrote—that the Lord said to the apostles: 'It is not for you to know the times or the moments which the Father has placed in his own power,' for this reason: because following on he added: 'But you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.' You expound this sense of the Scripture so as to say:

'He willed the apostles therefore to be understood as witnesses not of the consummation of the world, but of his name and of his resurrection.' He did not indeed say: 'It is not for you to preach the times,' but: 'It is not for you to know.' Yet if you would have it understood thus, that in saying 'It is not for you to know,' it is as if he said: 'It is not for you to make it known,' that is, 'It is not for you to teach this,'—who among us would dare to teach, or presume that he knows, what that Master, God, did not teach even those disciples by whom, present, he was questioned present, nor could those so holy and great teachers teach the Church? Or shall it be answered that the apostles did not teach these things, but the prophets? For this you said, and it is true, that those things

'which are to come are made known by the voices of the holy prophets, who, before those things came to pass which were to come'—you say—'spoke to men by the divine will.' But if your reverence says that it is 'full enough of wonder, if God has determined that those things which he willed to be foretold utterly cannot reach the understanding of men,' with how much greater wonder is it full, if those things which the prophets spoke to men, these the apostles were either forbidden to know or to teach! And in what way were the prophets, teaching those times of which we are treating, not understood by the apostles, if they are understood by us?

Or if the apostles did understand the prophets prophesying that measure of time, in what way would they not teach what they understood, when through their proclamation the very prophets became known, who taught them these things in their books? And therefore, through the same writings by which they themselves had learned these things, others too could learn them among those nations among which the apostles commended the prophetic authority. Why then was it said to them: 'It is not for you to know'—or, if it is to be so understood, 'It is not for you to teach the times which the Father has placed in his own power'—since indeed they were teaching them thus, when those in whose writings they were learned became known through them?

Hence it is more credible that God did not refuse that to be known which he refused to be preached, but refused to be preached that which he saw was not usefully known. 'Why then,' you say, 'does the Lord himself admonish concerning the knowing of the times, where he says: "Who then is the faithful and prudent servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them food in due season?"' and the rest. Nay rather, he admonishes not that the good servant should know the end of the times, but that at all times he should watch in good work, because he does not know the end of the times; he does not admonish that we should attain the times which the Father has placed in his own power, above the apostles, but he admonishes that, since we do not know when the Lord comes, in the preparation of the heart we should imitate the apostles—about which I have already said enough above.

He rebukes the Jews, moreover, because they do not recognize the time, saying: 'Hypocrites, you can judge the face of the sky,' and so forth. For they did not recognize that time which he now wished to be recognized, that is, the time of his first coming, in which they should believe in him — the very men who wished, while watching vigilantly, to await his second coming, whenever it should come to pass. For whoever has not recognized the Lord's first coming will not be able to prepare himself for the second by believing in him and faithfully keeping watch, lest that coming seize him like a thief in the darkness, whether it come later or sooner than is hoped. The apostle Paul also says, as you remind me: 'In the last times perilous times shall be at hand,' and the rest.

But does he on that account teach the times which the Father has placed in his own power? Or does anyone thereby know how long or how short these very times are, which must be confessed to be the last? For we ought indeed to consider how long ago it was said: 'Little children, it is the last hour.' Again you recall that the same apostle said: 'But concerning the times and the seasons, we have no need to write to you; for you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they shall say, Peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.' And here he did not say after how great a time this would come to pass.

but in what manner it would come to pass — that is, not how great would be the brevity or length of the interval, but that, however great the interval and span of time might be, nevertheless that last evil would not come upon them except when they should say: 'Peace and security.' By these words the apostle seems to have removed either the hope or the fear of this last day from our present time; for we do not see those very lovers of this world, upon whom sudden destruction will come, now saying: 'Peace and security.' The apostle himself sufficiently shows what it is enough to know, saying: 'Concerning the times and the seasons we have no need to write to you,' or, as other manuscripts have it: 'You have no need that anything be written to you.' Nor did he go on to add:

'For you yourselves know perfectly how much time remains'; but he said: 'For you yourselves know perfectly that the hour of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.' This, then, is what needs to be known: that the sons of light may take care to be such, and to watch with a heart prepared — those who do not wish to be seized by that hour as by a nocturnal thief. For if, in order to guard against this evil — namely, lest the hour of the Lord find one unprepared, as a thief would — it were necessary to know the spans of the times, the apostle would not say that it was not needful for him to write this, but rather, as a most provident teacher, he would judge that this very thing ought to be written to them. But as it is, he showed that not even for them was this needful.

For it sufficed them to know that the hour of the Lord would come like a thief upon the unprepared and the sleeping, and that by knowing this they themselves might be vigilantly ready, after however great a span of time it might come; and he kept his own measure, so that, though an apostle, he nevertheless did not presume to teach others what he had learned the Lord had said to the apostles: 'It is not for you to know.' You also set down what this same apostle said: 'Do you not remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what restrains, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of iniquity is already at work: only that he who now holds fast may hold, until he be taken out of the way, and then that lawless one shall be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth.'

Would that you had not merely set down these apostolic words, but had also deigned to expound them; for they are indeed so obscure and mystically spoken that nevertheless it is plain that he said nothing about fixed times, and disclosed no interval or span of them. For he says: 'That he may be revealed in his own time,' and did not say after how great a time this would come to pass. Then he added: 'For the mystery of iniquity is already at work.' However this 'mystery of iniquity' be understood — what it is being taken one way by one, another way by another — yet how long it may be at work is hidden. Nor did the apostle express this as a man from the number of those to whom it was said: 'It is not for you to know the times';

for although he was not yet among them when this was said to them, we nevertheless do not doubt that he too belongs to their fellowship and society. Likewise, as to what follows: 'Only let him who now holds fast hold, until he be taken out of the way, and then that lawless one shall be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth' — this teaches us that the Antichrist will be made manifest, since indeed he seems to have touched upon that one who is to be slain by the breath of the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ with somewhat clearer signification; but after how great a time this will be he did not speak, not even obscurely. For who indeed is he who now holds fast, or what does he hold, or what does he mean by saying:

'that he may be taken out of the way' — each one may constrain himself to understand it, or at least to some degree conjecture, since he reads it written in whatever manner; but how long it holds fast, and after how great spans of time it is taken out of the way, here is passed over in total silence. 'Likewise the Lord,' you say, 'in the Gospel reproaches the Jews, saying: And you, if you had known the time of your visitation — perhaps you would have remained; but now it is hidden from your eyes.' But this pertains to the time of the Lord's first coming, not the second, about which the present question is. For concerning his second coming he said: 'It is not for you to know the times' — not concerning the first; for about that first coming the disciples asked him, the one they were hoping for, not about this one, which they were already seeing.

For if the Jews had recognized his first coming, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory, and therefore they could have not been overthrown but have remained. But indeed, as to what he said to them: 'Repent, the times are fulfilled, believe in the Gospel,' you yourself have affirmed that this was said concerning those times of the Jews which were straightway to pass within a few years, and which we now know to be already past — the city, that is, having been overthrown, in which their kingdom had been established. Accordingly, as to what your Reverence set down from Daniel concerning the beast that was slain, and concerning the kingdom of the remaining beasts, and among these concerning the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, you said it was plain to those who understand the Scripture.

But if you were to deign to expound how these things pertain to knowing the span of time after which the coming of the Savior will be — in such a way that they may be found manifest without any ambiguity — then I too shall confess, with great giving of thanks, that what the Lord said, 'It is not for you to know the times,' was spoken only to the apostles, not to their descendants, who were destined to know these things. Therefore the coming of the Lord is to be loved and awaited, as you holily exhort, saying that great is the blessedness of those who love his coming, and adducing the testimony of the apostle, whose words you set down thus:

'For the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render to me in that day; and not to me only, but also to those who love his coming.' For then, as you recall from the Gospel, 'the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father'; and as the prophet says: 'For behold, gloom and darkness shall cover the earth over the nations; but upon you the Lord will appear, and his majesty will be seen upon you'; likewise as it is written: 'But those who wait for the Lord shall exult with strength, they shall put forth wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not hunger.' This you say most piously and most truly, commending the blessedness of those who love the coming of the Lord. But also those to whom the apostle said:

'Do not be quickly shaken in mind, as though the day of the Lord were at hand' — these too surely loved the coming of the Lord, nor did the teacher of the nations, in saying this, break them off from that love, by which he wished them to be inflamed; and therefore he was unwilling that they should believe those from whom they heard that the day of the Lord was at hand, lest perhaps, when the time in which they had believed he would come had passed, and they did not perceive that he had come, they might, thinking that the rest also was being falsely promised them, despair even of the very reward of faith. Therefore he does not love the coming of the Lord who asserts that it is drawing near, nor he who asserts that it is not drawing near, but rather he who, whether it be near or far, awaits it with sincerity of faith, firmness of hope, and ardor of charity.

For if the Lord is loved so much the more, the more it is believed and preached that he will come sooner, then those who said that his coming was now at hand loved him more than these whom the apostle forbade to believe them, or than the apostle himself, who certainly did not believe this. But if my weakness is not burdensome to your holiness, I beg that you not think it too much trouble to expound more openly how you said that no one can 'gather the measures of the times,' lest perhaps this seem so to me too as it does to your charity, and either of us wait in vain to be instructed by the other. For when you had said this, you then added and said: 'The Gospel indeed says:

That day and hour no one knows; but I,' you say, 'because of the impossibility of my understanding, say that neither the month nor the year of his coming can be known.' For this seems to sound as though it cannot be known in what year he will come, but it can be known in what week of years, or in what decade — as though it could be said and defined that within these or those seven years, or within these or those ten years. But if not even this can be grasped, I ask whether at least the time of his coming can be defined in this way, so that we may say he will come within, for example, these fifty or hundred years, or however many, whether of a greater or a lesser number of years — but in which of them, we are ignorant.

If you have now grasped this, it is much that you have been able to grasp. But this very thing is what I ask you kindly to impart to us, applying suitable proofs by which you have been able to track it down. If, however, you do not presume that you have grasped even this, then you feel as I do. For that these are the last times, we all who believe it perceive, since many signs of things are appearing which we read the Lord foretold. But even a span of a thousand years, if its end were the end of the age, could be called altogether the last time, or even the last day, because it is written: 'A thousand years before your eyes are as one day' — so that whatever should be transacted throughout those thousand years might be said to be transacted in the last time or on the last day.

For I say again what must often be said in this matter: let us consider how many years ago the blessed evangelist John said: 'It is the last hour.' For if we had been living then, upon hearing this, when would we have believed that so many years would pass afterward, and would we not rather, while John himself was still established in the body, have hoped that the Lord was coming? For he did not say 'It is the last time,' or 'the last year,' or 'month,' or 'day,' but: 'It is the last hour.' And behold, how long this hour is! Yet he did not lie, but he is surely to be understood as having put 'hour' for 'time.' This some so take as to reckon six thousand years as one day, and to divide that day into parts, as it were, into twelve hours.

so that thus the last five hundred years may seem to constitute the last hour; and in those years, they say, John was already speaking when he said it was the last hour. But it is one thing to know something, another to conjecture. For why not rather, if six thousand years are to be reckoned as one day, is one hour not the twelfth but the twenty-fourth part of it — that is, not five hundred but two hundred and fifty years? For a whole day, the whole circuit of the sun, is more truly named not from east to west but from east to east, whence, when the whole day is completed — that is, twenty-four hours — it rises again.

And through this, this last hour, from the time when John spoke it, is found to have been already elapsed nearly seventy years ago at the least, and yet the end of the age has not come. To this is added that, when the ecclesiastical history is diligently inspected, the apostle John is found to have died long before five thousand five hundred years from the beginning of the human race were completed. And so it was not yet the last hour, if the twelfth part of six thousand years — that is, five hundred years — is reckoned as the span of one hour. Further, if according to the Scriptures we set down one day as a thousand years, so much the more did the last hour of so long a day pass long ago;

I do not say if the twenty-fourth part of it — which is a little more than forty years — but even if the twelfth part be reckoned, which has double those years. Whence more fittingly is that apostle believed to have put 'hour' for 'time' — an hour which, how long it may be, we are ignorant, because it is not for us to know the times which the Father has placed in his own power; although we know it to be the last hour much more surely, of course, than those who were before us, from the time when the last hour began to be, or to be called such. But as to what seems to your Reverence that the measures of the times cannot on this account be grasped so as to define in what year the end will be, because according to the Lord's promise those days will be shortened — this I altogether do not understand.

For if they will be so shortened that from more they become fewer, I ask: according to what truth were they going to be more, unless they were shortened? For you suppose that the weeks of holy Daniel pertain not to the first coming of the Lord, as has seemed to many, but rather to the second. Will they then be so shortened that in them there will be even one week less, and the prophecy will be false which with such great diligence took care to define the number of the weeks, so that it said that something was to be fulfilled even in the half of a week? I marvel if by the prophecy of Christ the prophecy of Daniel is destroyed. Then, what kind of thing is it that we should suppose that Daniel, or rather the angel from whom he learned these things, was ignorant,

that the Lord would shorten those days, and so erred in saying this; or that he indeed knew it, but lied to the one whom he was teaching? But if this is absurd, why do we not rather believe that, according to that which the Lord is going to shorten those days, Daniel prophesied that number of weeks — if indeed that number of years refers to the second coming of the Lord, which I do not know in what manner it can be shown? Finally, it is said much more certainly and more securely that the coming of the Lord will be within seventy, or at most within a hundred years, if these weeks foretell it. For there are four hundred and ninety years in seventy weeks;

but from the Lord's nativity to today are reckoned nearly four hundred and twenty years, and from his resurrection or ascension some three hundred and ninety years, more or less. And through this, if it be computed from when he was born, seventy remain; if from when he suffered, about a hundred remain, within which all Daniel's weeks, if they were prophesied concerning his last coming, will be fulfilled. Whoever therefore says, 'It will be within so many years,' then speaks falsely if it will be beyond; but because they will be shortened, they can be fewer, not more. Rightly therefore is it said: 'It will be within these,' since, however much they be shortened, it will be true; for that very shortening, if it is to be understood in this way,