The City of God: Book 20

Being now prepared to address the day of God's final judgment against the faithless and the wicked, we must first lay down Holy Scripture as the foundation of everything that follows. Some people reject Scripture and oppose it with foolish, empty arguments, either twisting it to mean something else entirely or denying outright that it contains anything divine. I don't believe any person exists who, understanding Scripture as it was meant to be understood and believing that God inspired it through sanctified men, could withhold full assent from what it declares. Such a person would have to profess as much, however ashamed or afraid to admit it, or however stubborn in concealing it and defending what they know to be falsehood against it. Therefore, the whole Church believes and confesses that Christ will come from heaven to judge both the living and the dead, and this we call the day of God's judgment, the last moment of all. We don't know how many days this judgment will last, but Scripture uses "day" to mean "time" very frequently, as anyone who reads it regularly will readily recognize. When we speak of this day, we add the word "last," calling it "the last day," because God is judging even now and has been doing so ever since He drove man out of Paradise and banished our first parents from the Tree of Life for their sins. Indeed, His judgment has been at work since He cast out the rebellious angels, whose envious prince now does everything in his power to destroy human souls. It is by His judgment that both men and devils live in such misery and turmoil, in air and on earth, surrounded by nothing but evil and error.

And if no one had sinned, it would have been His good judgment that humanity and all rational creatures should have lived in perfect blessedness and eternal union with the Lord their God. He judges not only humanity and devils to misery in general, but He holds every individual soul accountable for the works it has performed out of its own free will. The devils themselves pray that they may not be tormented, and God is not unjust whether He spares them or punishes them. As for humanity, sometimes openly but always in secret, people feel the hand of Almighty God punishing them for their sins and misdeeds, either in this life or in the next, though no one can do good without God's help, nor can any devil cause harm without His just permission. As the apostle says: "Is there unrighteousness in God? God forbid" (Rom 9:14); and in another place, "Unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out" (Rom 11:33). I do not intend, therefore, in this book to deal with God's ordinary daily judgments, or with those from the beginning, but with that great and final judgment of His (by His gracious permission) when Christ shall come from heaven "to judge both the quick and the dead" (2 Tim 4:1), for that is properly called the judgment day: because on that day there will be no room for ignorant complaint about the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous. True and perfect happiness on that day will belong only to the good, and eternal torment will reveal itself as an everlasting inheritance only for the evil.

But here on earth, the evils that good people endure teach us to bear them with patience, while the prosperity that wicked people enjoy warns us not to desire it too eagerly. So even where God's judgments are not clearly visible, His wisdom is not to be ignored. We don't know why God makes one wicked man rich and one good man poor; why the person whose character deserves reward suffers, while the person whose life seems unworthy enjoys comfort; why a corrupt judge or lying witnesses send an innocent person away condemned, or even uncleared; why a wrongdoer walks away not only unpunished but vindicated; why the wicked man enjoys good health while the godly person lies bedridden; why vigorous young men turn to theft while those who never harmed anyone in word or deed are struck down by terrible illness; why innocent children, full of promise, are cut off by early death while those who seem unworthy of having been born at all live long and happy lives; why the guilty are honored and the godly are crushed. Who could bear to compile and recount all such cases?

Even if this seemingly disordered pattern held without exception throughout the whole of this life (in which, as the prophet says in the Psalm, "Man is like to vanity, and his days like a shadow that vanisheth"), so that the wicked alone possessed temporal blessings and the good suffered only evils, this could still be referred to God's just judgments and even to His mercies. Those who never sought eternal happiness might justly be given this passing prosperity as a fitting reward for their wickedness, or God in His mercy might allow it as a comfort to the good. And those who will not ultimately lose eternal blessedness might for a time be tested by earthly hardships, either for the correction of their sins or the growth of their virtues.

But now, since not only the good suffer while the wicked prosper (which seems unjust), but the good also often enjoy good fortune and the wicked suffer evil, this makes God's judgments all the more inscrutable and His ways all the more unsearchable. Even when we can see no reason why God acts as He does, He in whom all wisdom and justice reside, and in whom there is no weakness, rashness, or injustice, we learn here that we should not place too high a value on those blessings or misfortunes that we see the wicked share with the righteous. Instead, we should seek the good that belongs uniquely to the one, and avoid the evil reserved for the other.

And when we come to that great judgment, rightly called "the day of doom" or "the consummation of time," we will not only see all things laid bare, but will acknowledge every judgment of God from first to last as firmly grounded in justice. There we will also come to understand why God's judgments are so generally beyond our comprehension, and how just His ways are even in that very point. Though already, it is plain to the faithful that we are justly, for now, ignorant of all of them, or at least of most.

Solomon, the wisest king ever to reign over Israel, opens his book called Ecclesiastes (which the Jews themselves consider canonical) with these words: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What does a man gain from all his labor under the sun? Solomon then catalogues the torments and troubles of this declining world, and the short, swift passage of time in which nothing is firm and nothing lasts. Among the many vanities he finds under the sun, he mourns this one in particular: that while wisdom surpasses folly as light surpasses darkness, and while "the wise man's eyes are in his head" when the fool stumbles in darkness, the same fate still overtakes them both in this fleeting life. Both the wise and the foolish are equally exposed to the evils that good and bad people sometimes share alike. He goes further, saying that the good will suffer as the wicked do, and the wicked will enjoy good things as the righteous do: "There is a vanity which is done upon the earth, that there be righteous men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked, and there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the just: I thought also that this is vanity." The wise man wrote this entire book to expose that vanity, for no other reason than to turn our eyes toward a life that is not vanity under the sun, but truth, under the One who made the sun. As for this worldly vanity, is it not God's just judgment that a man made in its likeness should fade away just as it does? Yet even within these fleeting days, there is a world of difference between obeying truth and opposing it, between embracing godliness and neglecting it. This difference does not show up in the gaining or losing of earthly goods, but in the great judgment to come, which will distribute good things to the good and evil to the evil, permanently and forever. The wise king closes his book with this: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every work unto judgment of every despised man, be it good or be it evil." Could any instruction be more concise, more true, or more useful? "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." The person who does this is fully human in the truest sense; the person who does not is, in God's reckoning, nothing, because he has not been reformed into the image of truth but remains trapped in the shape of vanity. "For God will bring every work" (that is, every act of a person's life) "unto judgment, be it good or evil" ; yes, even the works of the most despised and overlooked person. God sees him. God does not despise him, nor does He pass over him in His judgment.

The scriptural testimonies I intend to use in proving this final judgment of God should be drawn first from the New Testament and then from the Old. Though the Old Testament is more ancient, the New Testament carries greater authority, since it contains the true fulfillment of what the Old promised. The New Testament will therefore come first, supported and confirmed by the Old. The Old Testament gives us the law and the prophets; the New Testament gives us the Gospels and the writings of the apostles. As the apostle says: "By the law cometh the knowledge of sin. But now is the righteousness of God made manifest without the law, having witness of the law and the prophets, to wit, the righteousness of God, by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe" (Rom 3:20-22). This righteousness of God belongs to the New Testament and finds its confirmation in the Old, that is, in the law and the prophets. We must therefore present the case first and then bring forward the supporting evidence. Christ Himself established this order when He said: "Every scribe which is taught unto the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto an householder which bringeth out of his treasury things both new and old" (Matt 13:52). Notice that He says "new and old," not "old and new." Had He valued antiquity above dignity, He would have said it the other way around.

Our Saviour, therefore, condemning the cities where His great miracles had failed to produce faith, and placing foreigners above them, told them: "I say unto you, it shall be easier for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you." And then, to another city: "I say unto you, that it shall be easier for them of the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." Here is a plain prediction of that coming day. Again, He says: "The men of Nineveh shall arise in judgment with this generation, and condemn it," and so on. "The queen of the south shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it," and so on. From these words we learn two things: 1\. That there will be a judgment; and 2\. That it will take place when the dead rise again. For when our Saviour speaks of the Ninevites and the queen of the south, He is speaking of people who had been dead for a very long time. Nor did He say "shall condemn" as though they were to serve as judges; rather, their comparison with that generation will rightly move the judge to pronounce a sentence of condemnation. Again, speaking of the present mingling of the good and the wicked, and their future separation at the day of judgment, He uses the image of wheat sown in a field and tares sown among it afterward, which He then explains to His disciples: "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man: the field is the world: the good seed, they are the children of the kingdom: the tares are the children of the wicked: the enemy that soweth, that is the devil: the harvest is the end of the world: and the reapers be the angels. As then the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world: the Son of Man shall send forth His angels and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and they which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the just men shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

He doesn't name the judgment day here, but He describes it far more plainly through its effects, and promises it will come at the end of the world. He also says to His disciples: "Verily I say unto you, that when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His majesty, then ye which followed Me in the regeneration, shall sit also upon twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel." Here we see that Christ will be Judge, together with His apostles. On this point, He said to the Jews elsewhere: "If I through Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges." Now, when He speaks of twelve thrones, we should not imagine that He and exactly twelve others will be the world's judges. The number twelve represents the whole body of judges, by virtue of the two factors of seven, the number that signifies totality: those two factors, four and three, multiplied together produce twelve (whether three times four or four times three), and there are other reasons as well why twelve appears in our Savior's words. If we took the number literally, then since Matthias took Judas's place, Paul would have no seat left among the judges, even though he labored more than all the rest. Yet his own words prove that he belongs among their number: "Know ye not that we shall judge the angels?" The scope of their judgment is also contained within that number twelve. When Christ says He will "judge the twelve tribes of Israel," He excludes neither the tribe of Levi (which was the thirteenth) nor any of the other nations beyond Israel from facing this judgment.

Now when He says "In the regeneration," He is clearly referring to the resurrection of the dead. For our flesh will be regenerated through incorruption, just as our soul is regenerated through faith. I will pass over many things that might relate to this great day, because closer examination tends to make them seem ambiguous or applicable to other purposes: such as Christ's daily coming to His Church in His members, or to each believer individually, or to the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem. Our Savior, when speaking of that destruction, uses the same language He uses when speaking of the end of the world and the last judgment, making it nearly impossible to distinguish the two without comparing the three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, side by side on this point. One evangelist presents the matter in a way that is somewhat difficult to interpret, while another makes it clearer, each one shedding light on the other's meaning. I have compared those passages together in one of my letters to Hesychius (of blessed memory), Bishop of Salon; that letter is titled *De fine seculi*, "On the world's end." Here, then, I will cite only that passage from Matthew in which Christ, present as the final judge, separates the good from the wicked. It reads as follows.

"When the Son of Man cometh in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats, and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, and the goats on His left. Then shall the King say to them on His right hand: Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit ye the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world. For I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat; I thirsted, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye lodged Me; I was naked, and ye clothed Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me." Then shall the righteous answer Him saying: "Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered and fed Thee, or athirst, and gave Thee drink?" &c. And the King shall answer, and say unto them, "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Then shall He say unto them on the left hand: "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat: I thirsted, and ye gave Me no drink," &c. Then shall they also answer Him, saying: "Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger; or naked, or in prison, or sick, and did not minister unto Thee?" Then shall He answer them, and say, "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto Me. And these shall go into everlasting fire, and the righteous into life eternal." (Matt 25:31-46)

John the Evangelist makes it clear that Christ was speaking about a judgment at the resurrection. After saying, "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; because all men should honor the Son as they honor the Father: he that honoureth not the Son, the same honoureth not the Father that sent Him," He immediately adds, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word and believeth in Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but shall pass from death to life." Here Christ states plainly that the faithful will not be judged. How, then, will His judgment separate them from the faithless, unless "judgment" here means condemnation? For that is precisely the judgment that those who hear His word and believe in the One who sent Him will never face.

He then continues: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour shall come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so likewise hath He given unto the Son to have life in Himself."

He is not yet speaking of the second resurrection, the bodily resurrection still to come, but of the first resurrection, which is happening now. To distinguish between the two, He says, "the hour shall come, and now is." This first resurrection is the soul's resurrection, not the body's; for souls die in sin just as bodies die by nature. It was of such spiritually dead souls that our Saviour spoke when He said, "let the dead bury their dead," to wit, let the dead in soul bury the dead in body. So then these words: "The hour shall come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live." They that hear it, that is, they that obey it, believe it, and remain in it. He makes no distinction here between good and evil, none at all. For it is good for all to hear His voice, and thereby to pass out of the death of sin and impiety into life and eternity. Of this death in sin the apostle speaks in these words: "If one died for all, then were all dead, and He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again."

So all were dead in sin, without exception, whether in original sin or in actual sin: either through ignorance of the good, or through knowing the good and failing to do it. For all these dead souls, one living Son came and died. He was living in the sense that He was without any sin, so that those who receive life through the forgiveness of their sins should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who suffered for all our sins and rose again for our justification. We who believe in the One who justifies the wicked, being justified from wickedness and raised (as it were) from death to life, can be assured that we belong to the first resurrection, which is happening now. Only those who are heirs of eternal blessedness have any part in this first resurrection; the second resurrection is shared by both the blessed and the wretched. The first is the resurrection of mercy; the second, the resurrection of judgment. This is why the Psalm says: "I will sing of mercy and judgment unto Thee, O Lord!" The Evangelist continues with this theme of judgment: "And hath given Him power also to execute judgment, in that He is the Son of Man." Here, then, in the very flesh in which He was judged, He will come to judge the whole world. The phrase "in that He is the Son of Man" points directly to this. Then he adds: "Marvel not at this, for the hour shall come in the which, all that are in the graves shall hear His voice; and they shall come forth, which have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment."

This is the judgment He referred to earlier, when He said, "He that heareth My word," etc., "shall not come into judgment, but shall pass from death to life" ; meaning that person belongs to the first resurrection, which belongs to life, so that he will not come into condemnation. This is what He means by "judgment" in that final phrase: "unto the resurrection of judgment." Rise, then, in the first resurrection, all you who do not want to perish in the second! "For the hour will come, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live" ; that is, they will not come into condemnation, which is called the second death, into which all who do not rise in the first resurrection will be cast headlong after the second. "For the hour will come" (He does not say the hour is now, because it will be at the end of the world): in which all who are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth. But He does not say here, as He said before, "and they that hear it shall live," because not all of them will live in blessedness, which alone deserves to be called life, since it is the true life.

And yet they must have some form of life, otherwise they could neither hear nor rise in their quickened flesh. So why will not all of them live? He gives this reason in what follows:

"Those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life" (John 5:29), and these alone are the ones who will truly live. "Those who have done evil will come forth to the resurrection of condemnation" (John 5:29), and these, God knows, will not live, for they will die the second death. In living badly they have acted badly, and in refusing to rise in the first resurrection they have lived badly, or at least in failing to carry their resurrection through to its completion. So then, just as there are two regenerations, one in faith through baptism and another in the flesh through incorruption, so there are two resurrections: the first (which is happening now) of the soul, which prevents the second death; and the latter (which is still to come) of the body, sending some into the second death and others into the life that scorns and excludes all death entirely.

John the Evangelist speaks of these two resurrections in his Revelation in such obscure terms that some of our theologians, going beyond their own ignorance of the first resurrection, twist the passage into various ridiculous interpretations. His words are these: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand; and he took that dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and sealed the doors upon him, that he should deceive the people no more, till the thousand years were fulfilled. For after he must be loosed for a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them which were slain for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and worshipped not the beast, nor his image, neither had taken his mark upon their foreheads, or on their hands: and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead men shall not live again until the thousand years be finished: this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath his part in the first resurrection, for on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be the priests of God and of Christ, and reign with Him a thousand years." (Rev 20:1-6)

The main reason so many people believed this passage referred to a bodily resurrection was the thousand years. The idea was that the saints would enjoy one long, continuous Sabbath lasting that entire period: a thousand years of rest following six thousand years of struggle, counting from humanity's creation and expulsion from Paradise into the sorrows of mortal life. The reasoning ran as follows: since Scripture says, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet 3:8), once six thousand years had passed (like the six days of creation), a seventh would follow as a Sabbath age, lasting a thousand years, during which all the saints would rise bodily from the dead to celebrate it.

This view might be acceptable if it promised only spiritual joys to the saints during that period (and we once held something like this opinion ourselves); but those who champion it go further, claiming that after this resurrection the saints will do nothing but feast on lavish, fleshly banquets where the food and drink exceed all modesty and measure. That is a crude notion, fit only for those whose minds are fixed on earthly pleasures. Those who are genuinely and truly spiritual call the people who hold these views Chiliasts, a Greek word that can be rendered as "Millennarians" or "Thousand-year-ists."

This is not the place to refute them; let us instead take the text's true meaning with us. Our Lord Jesus Christ says: "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and take away his goods, unless he first bind the strong man, and then spoil his house" (Matt 12:29). By "the strong man" He means the devil, who alone was capable of holding mankind in captivity; and by "the goods he would take away" He means His future faithful, whom the devil held as his own through various sins and impieties. So that this strong man might be bound, the apostle saw the angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand: "And he took," he says, "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years" (Rev 20:2), meaning that God restrained him from seducing or holding back those who were to be set free. I think the thousand years can be understood in two ways: either this will occur in the final thousand years, that is, on the sixth day of the world's duration, after which the Sabbath of the saints will follow (a Sabbath with no night, bringing a blessedness that has no end), in which case the apostle uses the last portion of the current thousand years (which make up the sixth day) to stand for the whole; or else "a thousand years" simply stands for eternity, representing the fullness of time through a number considered most perfect. A thousand is the solid cube of ten: ten times ten is one hundred, which is a square but only a flat one; to produce the solid, you multiply ten by one hundred, and the result is one thousand.

Now, if a hundred sometimes signifies perfection, as we see in Christ's words about the one who leaves everything to follow Him ("He shall receive an hundredfold more"), which the apostle seems to explain by saying, "As having nothing, and yet possessing all things" (having already said, "Unto a faithful man the whole world is his riches"): why should one thousand not signify consummation, especially since it is the most solid square that can be drawn from ten? We therefore interpret that passage in the Psalm, "He hath alway remembered His covenant and promise that He made to a thousand generations," by taking a thousand to mean all things in general. Let us proceed.

"And he cast him into the bottomless pit": he cast the devils into that pit, meaning the multitude of the wicked, whose malice toward God's Church is bottomless and whose hearts are a depth of envy against it. He cast him into this pit not because he was absent from it before, but because the devil, being shut out from among the godly, holds a tighter grip on the wicked. He is a most secure stronghold for the devils: not only cast out from God's servants, but pursuing them with causeless hatred as well.

To continue. "And shut him up, and sealed the door upon him, that he should deceive the people no more till the thousand years were expired": He sealed it, meaning His will was to keep it unknown who belonged to the devil and who did not. This remains hidden from the world, for we do not know whether the one who stands will fall, or the one who has fallen will rise again. Yet this restraint keeps the devil from tempting those nations who are God's elect, as he did before. For God chose them before the foundations of the world, intending to bring them out of the power of darkness and place them in the kingdom of His Son's glory, as the apostle says. Who does not know that the devils daily seduce and draw others toward eternal torment, even those who are not among the predestinate? Nor is it surprising that the devil should overturn some who are even regenerate in Christ and walking in His ways, for God knows those who are His, and the devil cannot drag a single one of them to damnation. God knows this as One who knows all things to come, not as one person sees another face to face, unable to tell what will become of the one seen or of himself in the future. The devil was therefore bound and locked up so that he could no longer seduce the nations (the members of the Church) whom he had held in error and impiety before they were united to the Church. The text does not say "that he should deceive no man any more," but "that he should deceive the people no more," by which it unquestionably means the Church.

To proceed: "until the thousand years be fulfilled," meaning either the remainder of the sixth day (the last thousand years) or the whole span of time the world was to continue. Nor should we understand the devil's restraint from seducing to mean that, once this period expired, he would seduce those nations again from which the Church is drawn and over which he was previously forbidden. Rather, this passage is like that verse in the Psalm, "Our eyes wait upon the Lord until He have mercy upon us" (for God's servants do not look away from Him the moment He shows mercy). Or else the structure of the words is this: "He shut him up, and sealed the doors upon him until a thousand years were fulfilled," with everything in between, namely, that he should not deceive the people, having no necessary connection to the time clause but standing as a separate thought, added afterward, so that the full sense reads: "And He shut him up, and sealed the door upon him until a thousand years were fulfilled, that he should not seduce the people," meaning that He shut him up for so long precisely so that he could seduce them no more.

"After that," says John, "he must be loosed for a season." But if the devil is bound and locked away so that he cannot seduce the Church, will he then be loosed to seduce it? God forbid. The Church that God predestined and established before the foundation of the world, of which it is written, "God knoweth those that be His," will never be seduced by the devil. And yet that Church will still be on earth at the time of his loosing, just as it has continued in successive generations ever since it was first established. For shortly after this, John says that the devil will bring his deceived nations against it in arms, their number like the sand of the sea: "And they went up unto the plain of the earth, and compassed the tents of the saints about, and the beloved city, but fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophets shall be tormented even day and night for evermore."

But all of this belongs to the last judgment, and I thought it worth reciting here so that no one imagines that when the devil is released for a season, he will either find no Church at all, or that his violence and schemes will overthrow everything he encounters. The devil's imprisonment throughout the entire period covered in this book (that is, from Christ's first coming to His last) is not a specific restraint against deceiving the Church, because he could not harm the Church even if he were completely free. If his bondage were a fixed prohibition against seduction, then what would his freedom be but full permission to seduce? God forbid that should ever be the case. No, his binding is a restraint on his full power of temptation, which is the very means by which people are seduced, whether through his violence or his cunning. If he were allowed to exercise that power throughout the long age of human weakness, he would corrupt and destroy the faith of many souls whom God's goodness will not permit to be cast down. To prevent this, he is bound; and only in the final, brief remainder of time will he be released. We read that he will rage with his greatest malice for only three years and six months, and he will wage war against enemies whom all his hatred will never be able to conquer or even harm. But if he were never released at all, his malice would be less visible, and the patience of the faithful would be less glorious. In short, it would be far less clear how God, in His goodness, turned even the devil's wickedness to a blessed end: not barring him absolutely from tempting the saints (though he is utterly shut out from their inner life), so that they might draw benefit even from his evil; and binding him firmly in the hearts of those who have pledged themselves to follow him, lest his wicked envy, given free rein, should break in among the weaker members of the Church and, through violence and cunning together, drive them away from their faith, which is their only means of salvation. In the end, he will be released, so that the City of God may see what a powerful adversary she has conquered through the grace of her Savior and Redeemer, to His eternal glory.

What are we, compared to the saints who will live to see that time? Such an enemy will be unleashed against them as we can barely resist even while he is bound (though no doubt Christ has had soldiers in our own era who, had they lived in those days to come, would have avoided every trap the devil set through their genuine and discerning wisdom, or withstood them with unshaken patience). This binding of the devil began when the Church first spread from Judea into other regions, and it continues still, and will continue until his allotted time expires. Even now, people refuse the chain by which he once held them, namely unbelief, and turn to God, and will continue to do so until the end of the world. He is bound with respect to each individual soul when that soul, once his captive, breaks free from him. Nor does his confinement end when those in whom he was imprisoned die, for the world will have a continuous succession of people who hate Christianity as long as the earth endures, and in their hearts the devil will always find a prison.

But a question arises: will anyone turn to God during the three and a half years of his reign? How can this be reconciled with the words, "How can a man enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man, and then spoil his house" (Matt 12:29), if he can do it while the strong man is free? This seems to prove directly that during that period no one will be converted, and that the devil will wage unrelenting war against those already in the faith, perhaps conquering a certain number of them, but none of God's elect, not a single one. It is not without reason that John, the author of Revelation, writes in one of his letters concerning certain apostates: "They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us" (1 John 2:19). But what then becomes of children? It is hard to believe that Christians will have no children during this period, or that if they do, they will fail to have them baptized by one means or another. How then will these children be taken from the devil, whose house no one can plunder before binding him?

It is therefore more reasonable to maintain that the Church in that time will experience neither decline nor growth, and that parents standing firm for their children's baptism, together with others who come to faith even then, will push the devil back at the very height of his freedom. That is, they will both wisely recognize and carefully avoid his newest schemes and most hidden stratagems, and by doing so keep themselves clear of his merciless grip. Even so, that passage of Scripture, "How can a man enter into a strong man's house," and so on, remains entirely true. According to its logic, the order was that the strong man should first be bound and his goods taken from him across all nations, building up the Church in such a way that through a true and faithful understanding of the prophecies yet to be fulfilled, they might take his goods from him even when he is at his most free. For just as we must acknowledge that "because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold" (Matt 24:12), and that many whose names are not written in the book of life will fall before the fury of the newly unleashed devil, so too must we consider what faithful people will still be found on the earth, and how many will even then flee to the shelter of the Church through God's grace and the clarity of Scripture. Among other things, Scripture itself foreshadows the very end they see drawing near, so that they will be both more firmly convinced of what they once rejected and more capable of withstanding the greatest assaults and fiercest attacks. If this is so, then his earlier binding left his goods open to plunder for all time to come, whether he is bound or free. This is ultimately the main point toward which the words "How can a man enter into a strong man's house," and so on, are chiefly directed.

Now, while the devil is bound in this way, Christ reigns with His saints for the same thousand years, both understood in the same sense: that is, throughout the entire period from His first coming. This does not include that kingdom of which He says, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you" (Matt 25:34). For if there were no other reign of Christ with His saints, of which He Himself says, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matt 28:20), then the Church here on earth could not be called His kingdom, or the kingdom of heaven. After all, the scribe who was taught about the kingdom of God lived within this thousand-year period. "The reapers shall take the tares out of the Church, which grew together with the good corn until the harvest" (Matt 13:30): a parable He explains by saying, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. As the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend" (Matt 13:39-41). Does He speak here of that kingdom where there is no offence? No, but of the Church as it exists here below. He says further: "Whoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach others to do so shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever shall observe and teach them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 5:19). So both things happen within the kingdom of heaven: both the breaking of the commandments and the keeping of them.

Then He continues: "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees" (that is, of those who break what they teach, and of whom Christ says elsewhere, "Ye say but do not") "unless you exceed these," meaning both teach and observe, "ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now the kingdom where both the keeper of the commandments and the one who despises them were said to dwell is one kingdom, and the kingdom into which "he that saith and doth not" shall not enter is another. So where both sorts are found, that is the Church as she exists now; but where only the better sort remains, that is the Church as she will be hereafter, entirely free from evil. The Church on earth, then, is both the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. The saints reign with Him now, but not as they will reign hereafter. Yet the tares do not reign with them, even though they grow in the Church among the good seed. Those who reign with Him are those who do as the apostle says: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God: set your affections on things which are above, and not on things which are on earth" (Col 3:1-2), of whom he also says that "their conversation is in heaven" (Phil 3:20). In short, those who reign with Christ are those who belong entirely to His kingdom where He reigns. But how can those who remain below, continuing until the world's end, until His kingdom is purged of all the tares, and who seek their own pleasures rather than their Redeemer's, be said to reign with Him at all? This book of St. John therefore speaks of this kingdom of conflict, in which there are daily struggles with the enemy, sometimes ending in victory and sometimes in defeat, until the time of that most peaceful kingdom draws near, where no enemy will ever show his face. This, and the first resurrection, are the subject of the apostle's Revelation. For having said that the devil was bound for a thousand years and then was to be loosed for a short time, he recounts the gifts given to the Church during those thousand years.

"And I saw thrones," he says, "and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them." This need not be understood as referring to the last judgment. Rather, the thrones represent the ruling seats of the Church, and the persons sitting on them represent those who govern it. As for the judgment given to them, it cannot be better explained than by these words: "whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Hence Paul writes: "What have I to do to judge them also that be without? do not ye judge them that are within?" To continue: "And I saw the souls of them which were slain for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God" (Rev 20:4), and understand what follows: "they reigned with Christ a thousand years." These were the souls of the martyrs, not yet reunited with their bodies, for the souls of the godly are not excluded from the Church, which as it stands now is the kingdom of God. If they were excluded, the Church would not mention them, nor celebrate their memories at our communions of the body and blood of Christ. Nor would it be necessary for us, in times of danger, to seek His baptism, or to fear dying without it, or to seek reconciliation with His Church when a person has done something that demands repentance or burdens the conscience. Why do we do these things, if not because even those who have died in the faith remain members of God's Church? They are not yet in their bodies, and yet their souls reign with Christ throughout the entire span of this thousand years. We read elsewhere in the same book: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord" (Rev 14:13), and the Spirit adds, "for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." So the Church reigns with Christ, first among "the quick and the dead," for Christ (as the apostle says) died and rose again "that He might henceforth rule both over the quick and the dead" (Rom 14:9). The apostle here names only the souls of the martyrs, because their kingdom is most glorious after death, having fought for the truth until death itself. But this is simply a case of naming the part for the whole, and we take this passage to include all the dead who belong to Christ's kingdom, which is the Church. The passage continues: "And which did not worship the beast, neither his image, neither had taken his mark upon their foreheads, or on their hands" (Rev 20:4). This applies to both the living and the dead. We must examine more carefully what this beast represents, but it is entirely consistent with Christian teaching to interpret it as the society of the wicked, set against the company of God's servants and against His holy city. His image, then, represents the hypocrisy of those who profess religion while practicing unbelief. They pretend to be what they are not, and it is their outward show, not their inner truth, that earns them the name of Christians. For this beast consists not only of the open enemies of Christ and His glorious Church, but also of the tares that at the end of the age are to be gathered out of the very fields of His own Church. And who are those who do not worship the beast, if not those on whom Paul's counsel takes effect: "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers" (2 Cor 6:14)? These give him no worship, no agreement, no obedience, and they do not take "his mark," that is, the brand of their own sin, on their foreheads by openly professing it, or on their hands by acting according to it. Those who are free of this, whether living or dead, reign with Christ throughout this entire period, from their union with Him to the end of the time represented by the thousand years. "The rest," says John, "shall not live, for now is the hour when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live; the rest shall not live" (Rev 20:5). But the addition, "until the thousand years be finished," implies that they will lack life for the entire time during which they could have obtained it, by passing through faith from death to life. Therefore, on the day of the general resurrection, they too will rise, not to life, but to judgment, that is, to condemnation, which is rightly called the second death. For whoever does not live before the thousand years are complete, that is, whoever does not hear the Savior's voice and pass from death to life during the time of the first resurrection, will assuredly be cast both body and soul into the second death at the day of the second resurrection. John then states plainly: "This," he says, "is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection" (Rev 20:5-6), and a share in it belongs to whoever not only rises from death in sin but continues firm in that resurrection. "On such," he says, "the second death hath no power" (Rev 20:6). But it does have power over the rest, of whom he said earlier, "The rest shall not live until the thousand years be finished" (Rev 20:5), because throughout the entire span represented by the thousand years, though each of them had a bodily life at one time or another, they spent it and ended it without ever rising out of the death of iniquity in which the devil held them. That resurrection would have been their only means of securing a share in the first resurrection, over which the second death has no power.

Some object that resurrection pertains only to the body, and therefore the first resurrection must be a bodily one. What falls, they argue, can rise again; the body falls in death (hence the word *cadaver*, meaning "corpse," derived from *cado*, "to fall"); therefore, rising again belongs solely to the body and not to the soul. But how will they answer the apostle, who in the plainest possible terms describes the soul's improvement as a resurrection? Those to whom he spoke were not renewed in the outward man but in the inward, and it is to them he said, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above" (Col 3:1), which he explains elsewhere: "Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4). From this same vein comes the passage: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph 5:14). Now when they argue that only what falls can rise, and therefore only the body can rise, why can they not hear that clear voice of the Spirit: "Depart not from Him lest ye fall"? And again, "He standeth or falleth to his own Master" (Rom 14:4); and further, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor 10:12). These passages, I think, speak not of bodily falls but of the soul's. If resurrection concerns those who fall, and if the soul can also fall, it follows necessarily that the soul can rise again. Now after St. John said, "On such the second death shall have no power" (Rev 20:6), he continues: "But they shall be the priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." This does not refer only to those whom the Church specifically calls bishops and priests. Just as we are all called Christians because of our mystical anointing (*chrism*), so we are all priests as members of the one Priest. St. Peter makes this point when he calls us "a royal priesthood, an holy nation" (1 Pet 2:9). Notice also how briefly St. John hints at the deity of Christ in the phrase "of God, and of Christ," meaning of the Father and of the Son. Yet just as Christ was made the Son of Man on account of His servant's form, so in that same respect He was made a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, a subject we have addressed several times throughout this work.

"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the people which are in the four quarters of the earth, even Gog and Magog, to gather them together into battle whose number is as the sand of the sea." The aim of his deceit, then, will be war. Before this, he had used many different methods of seduction, all of them bent toward evil. Now he will abandon the hidden dens of his hatred and burst out into open persecution. This will be the final persecution, coming just before the last judgment, and the Church will endure it across the whole earth. The entire city of the devil will assail the City of God everywhere and all at once.

Gog and Magog should not be understood as any particular barbarian nations, nor as the Goths and Massagetae simply because of their similar names, nor as any peoples living beyond the borders of Rome. When the text says "the people which are in the four quarters of the earth," it means all the earth, and then identifies them as Gog and Magog. "Gog" means "a house," and "Magog" means "of a house," as if to say "the house and the one who comes out of the house." These, then, are the nations in which the devil was bound, and from which he now emerges once he is released: they are the house, and he is the one coming out of it. But we apply both names to the nations rather than to the devil himself. They are both the house, because the ancient enemy lies hidden within them; and they are of the house, because out of secret hatred they eventually erupt into open violence.

When the text says "they went up into the plain of the earth, and compassed the tents of the saints about, and the beloved city," we should not imagine this as a march on any single location, as though the saints' tents were confined to one particular nation, or the beloved city to one place. That city is nothing other than the Church of God, scattered across the whole earth, present in every place and among every people. This is what the phrase "the plain of the earth" suggests. There the tents of the saints will stand; there the beloved city will stand; and there the fury of the persecuting enemy will encircle them with multitudes from every nation, all united in one rage of persecution. The Church will be hemmed in by tribulations and pressed on every side, yet she will not abandon her warfare, which is precisely what the word "tents" signifies.

But his following words, "Fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them," should not be understood as referring to that punishment implied in the words, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire" (Matt 25:41): for in that judgment the wicked will be cast into the fire, not fire cast down upon them. Rather, this first fire suggests the steadfastness of the saints who will not yield to the will of the wicked. Heaven here means the firmament, and its firmness will burn the wicked with sheer frustration and rage that they cannot draw God's servants over to the side of Antichrist. This is the fire from God that will consume them: God has so strengthened His saints that they become a torment to their enemies. Now when I say "zeal," understand that the word can be taken in either a good sense or a bad one. In a good sense, as here: "The zeal of Thine house has eaten me up" (Ps 69:9); in a bad sense, as here: "Zeal hath possessed the ignorant people" (Ps 119:139). And so this fire will consume these enemies, though it is not the fire of the final judgment. Moreover, even if the apostle means by this fire from heaven the plague that will fall on those of Antichrist's supporters whom Christ finds still alive at His coming, this will still not be the wicked's final punishment, for that will come afterward, when they have risen again in their bodies.

This final persecution under the Antichrist, as we noted earlier and as the prophet Daniel confirms, will last three and a half years: a brief span. But whether this period falls within the thousand years of the devil's bondage and the saints' reign with Christ, or extends beyond that thousand years as additional time, is a serious question.

If we hold the first view, then we must conclude that the saints reigned with Christ longer than the devil was bound. The saints will indeed reign with Him even in the thick of this persecution, standing firm against the devil when his power to torment them is at its height. But then why does Scripture confine both their reign and the devil's bondage to the same thousand years, given that the devil's captivity ends three and a half years before their kingdom with Christ does?

If we hold the second view, that these three and a half years extend beyond the thousand, and we understand John to mean that the saints' reign with Christ and the devil's imprisonment ended simultaneously at the close of the thousand years (so that the period of persecution belongs to neither count), then we must concede that during this persecution the saints do not reign with Christ. But who would dare claim that His members are not reigning with Him precisely when they hold most firmly to Him? When wars rage, their constancy becomes all the more visible, and the ascent from martyrdom to glory all the more frequent. If we say they do not reign because of the suffering they endure, we could apply the same logic to earlier ages: whenever the saints were afflicted in times past, their kingdom with their Savior would have ceased. By that reasoning, the souls this evangelist saw in his vision, those slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, would not have been reigning with Christ during their persecutions, and would not have been part of the kingdom of Christ, though they were His most precious possessions. That conclusion is both absurd and repugnant.

No: the victorious souls of the glorious martyrs, having overcome every earthly trial and torment, ascended to reign with Christ (as they had already been reigning with Him) until the thousand years were complete, and will then receive their bodies again and reign body and soul with Him forever. Therefore, even through this severe three-and-a-half-year persecution, both the souls of those who suffered for Christ before and those who will suffer during it will reign with Him until the world's end and the eternal kingdom begins. The saints' reign with Christ will certainly outlast Satan's bondage, for they will continue to reign with God the Son, their King, for three and a half years after Satan is released.

What remains, then, is this: when we read that "the priests of God and of Christ" will reign with Him for a thousand years, and that after a thousand years the devil will be loosed, we must understand one of three things. Either the thousand years refer specifically to the devil's bondage and not to the saints' kingdom; or the saints' kingdom is longer and the devil's bondage shorter; or, since three and a half years is such a small span, it was simply not counted, either because the saints' reign exceeded what was stated or the devil's bondage fell short of it. This is similar to what we discussed in Book 16 regarding the four hundred years: the actual time was longer, yet only that number was given. As anyone who pays close attention will notice, this kind of rounding is quite common in Scripture.

After this account of the last persecution, John turns to the fate of the devil and his city at the last judgment. "And the devil," he says, "that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for evermore." The beast, as I noted earlier, is the city of the wicked; his false prophet is either Antichrist or his image, the figment I described before. After all this comes the last judgment, in the second resurrection, that is, the resurrection of the body. John relates this by way of recapitulation, as it was revealed to him: "I saw," he says, "a great white throne, and One that sat on it, from whose face flew away both the earth and heaven, and their place was no more found." He does not say that heaven and earth fled from His face as something happening in the present, for that did not occur until after the judgment. Rather, "from whose face flew away both heaven and earth" refers to what will happen afterward: when the judgment is finished, this heaven and this earth will pass away, and a new world will begin. Yet the old one will not be utterly destroyed; it will only undergo a universal change. This is why the apostle says, "The fashion of this world passeth away, and I would have you without care." The fashion passes away, not the nature itself. But let us follow John, who, after describing this throne, continues: "And I saw the dead both great and small stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened which is the book of life, and the dead were judged of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."

Behold, the opening of books, and of one book in particular! John explains what this means: the one book is the book of life. The others are the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, shown there to reveal what God had commanded. But the book of life contains a precise record of every person's actions and omissions on earth. If we imagine this as a physical book like the ones we use, who could conceive how enormous a volume it would be, or how long it would take to read all its contents? Would there be as many angels as there are people, each one reciting the deeds of the person entrusted to their care? In that case, there would not be one book for all, but one for each person. Yet Scripture here mentions only one book of this kind. It must therefore be some divine power infused into the conscience of each individual, calling all their works to memory in a wonderful and mysterious way, so that each person's own knowledge either accuses or excuses their conscience. All are judged, each one within themselves. This divine power is fittingly called a book, because through it every deed the doer has committed is read back to them; by its working, they remember everything. But the apostle, wanting to explain the judgment of the dead more fully and to show how it encompasses both great and small, makes what amounts to a return to something he had omitted (or rather deferred), saying, "And the sea gave up her dead which were within it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them" (Rev 20:13). This happened before the judgment, yet the judgment had already been mentioned, so that, as I said, he circles back to what he had passed over. Having said, "The sea gave up her dead," and so on, he now continues in proper order: "And they were judged, every man according to his works" (Rev 20:13). He repeats this here to clarify the sequence of events in the judgment he had already described in these words: "And the dead were judged according to those things which were written in the books, according to their works" (Rev 20:12).

But which dead are those whom the sea will give up? Not everyone who dies at sea is kept from hell, nor are their bodies kept in the sea. Should we say that the sea holds the righteous dead and hell holds the wicked? What a monstrous idea. Who could be foolish enough to believe that? No, the sea here is best understood as representing the whole world. Christ, intending to show that those He found on earth at the appointed time would be judged alongside those who were to rise again, calls them dead, and yet these are the righteous, to whom it was said, "Ye are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3:3). But He calls the wicked dead as well, of whom He said, "Let the dead bury their dead" (Matt 8:22). Beyond this, they may be called dead because their bodies are subject to death. As the Apostle says: "The body is dead, because of sin, but the spirit is life for righteousness' sake" (Rom 8:10), showing that in a mortal person there is both a dead body and a living spirit. Notice that he did not say "the body is mortal" but "dead," even though just a little earlier he had used the word "mortal" for bodies in his usual manner of speaking. So then, the sea gave up its dead: the world gave up all of humanity who had not yet gone to the grave. And death and hell, he says, "gave up the dead which were in them" (Rev 20:13). The sea gave up its own, because those people were found just as they were at that moment; but death and hell first called theirs back to the life they had left, and then gave them up. Perhaps it would not have been enough to mention death alone, or hell alone, so he names both: "death and hell," death for those who only died without entering hell, and hell for those who experienced both. For if it is not unreasonable to believe that the ancient fathers who trusted in the Christ who was to come were all at rest in a place far from all torments (though still within hell) until Christ's passion and His descent there set them free, then surely the faithful who have already been redeemed by that passion never encounter hell at all, from their death until they rise and receive their rewards. "And they judged every one according to their deeds" (Rev 20:13): a brief summary of the judgment. "And death and hell," he says, "were cast into the lake of fire; this is the second death" (Rev 20:14). "Death and hell" here represent nothing other than the devil and his angels, the sole authors of death and hell's torments. He had already touched on this when he said, "And the devil that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone" (Rev 20:10), with the further detail, "where the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented." And then he states it plainly: "Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev 20:15). As for the book of life, it is not meant to jog God's memory lest He forget, but rather to reveal who are predestined to salvation. God is not ignorant of their number, nor does He read this book to discover it. His foreknowledge is itself the book, in which all whom He has known beforehand are written.

Having foretold the judgment of the wicked, he must now address the judgment of the good, for he has already explained what Christ said in brief: "They shall go into everlasting pain." Now he must express the sequel: "And the righteous into life eternal." "And I saw," he says, "a new heaven and a new earth." The first heaven and earth were gone, and so was the sea, for this was the order described earlier when he saw "the great white throne," and One sitting on it from whose face they fled. Those not found in the book of life were judged and cast into eternal fire. Where that fire is, and what it is, I believe is unknown to all except those to whom the Spirit chooses to reveal it. Then this world will lose its present form through fire, just as it was once destroyed by water. Then (as I said) all the world's corruptible qualities will be burned away, along with everything that corresponded to our own corruption, and all things will be made fit for immortality. The world, so thoroughly renewed, will be fittingly adapted to the people whose own natures have been renewed as well. As for what follows, "There was no more sea," I cannot easily determine whether this means the sea will be dried up by that universal conflagration or transformed into something of a higher nature. We read that heaven and earth "shall be renewed," but I cannot recall reading anything similar about the sea, unless that other passage in this book, where he speaks of what he calls something like a sea of glass, resembling crystal, implies such a transformation. Even there, however, he is not speaking of the world's end, and he does not say directly "a sea," but rather "as a sea." Still, it is the prophet's way to speak of truths in a figurative manner, weaving together literal realities and symbolic images. So he may well have said "there was no more sea" in the same sense that he said "the sea shall give up her dead," meaning that there would be no more turbulent ages in the world, which he signals through the word "sea."

"And I, John," he said, "saw that holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and He Himself shall be their God with them. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither tears, neither crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new," etc.

This city is said to come from heaven because the grace of God that founded it is heavenly, as God says in Isaiah: "I am the Lord that made thee." This grace came down from heaven from the very beginning, and since then the citizens of God have grown in number through the same grace, given by the Spirit from heaven, in the waters of regeneration. But at the "last judgment of God" by His Son Christ, this city will appear in such glory that all its former shape will be cast aside: the bodies of each member will shed their old corruption and put on a new form of immortality. It would be the height of impudence to think this was meant of the thousand years mentioned earlier, during which the Church is said "to reign with Christ," because the text says plainly, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrows, neither crying, neither shall there be any more pain." Who is so stubbornly absurd, or so absurdly stubborn, as to claim that any single saint (let alone the whole company of them) has passed through this transitory life without fears or sorrows, or ever could? For the holier a person's desires and the more fervent their devotion, the more tears will fall during their prayers. Is it not the heavenly Jerusalem itself that says, "My tears have been my meat day and night"? And again: "I cause my bed every night to swim, and water my couch with tears." And further: "My sorrow is renewed." Are not these God's own children, who grieve over what they will not abandon, waiting to be clothed in immortality so that their mortality may be swallowed up by eternity? And having "the first fruits of the Spirit," do they not "sigh in themselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of their bodies"? Was not St. Paul himself a citizen of the heavenly city, all the more so because he cared so deeply for the earthly Israelites? And when will death be truly conquered in that city, if not when they can say: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin." These words could not be spoken in a world where death had already lost its sting; but as for this present world, St. John himself says: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us." In his Revelation, much is written to exercise the reader's understanding, and only a few things are clear enough to serve as a guide to the rest. He repeats the same truths in so many different ways that the text can seem to point in an entirely different direction, and it often can be read as speaking of something else altogether. But when he says, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," and so on, this refers directly to the world to come and the immortality of the saints, for there will be no sorrow, no tears, and no cause for either. If anyone finds this passage obscure, they will find no clarity anywhere in Scripture.

Now let us hear what St. Peter says about this judgment. "There shall come," he says, "in the last days, mockers, which will walk after their lusts, and say, Where is the promise of His coming? For, since the fathers died, all things continue alike from the beginning of the creation. For this, they (willingly) know not, that the heavens were of old, and the earth that was of the water, and by the water by the Word of God, wherefore the world, that then was, perished, overflowed with the water. But the heavens and earth that now are, are kept by the same Word in store, and reserved unto fire against the day of judgment; and of the destruction of ungodly men. Dearly beloved, be not ignorant of this, 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 men count slackness), but is patient toward us, and would have no man to perish, but would have all men to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a noise, and the elements shall melt with heat, and the earth with the works that are therein shall be burnt up. Seeing, therefore, all these must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in holy conversation and godliness, longing for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, by the which, the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with heat. But we look for a new heaven, and a new earth according to His promise wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet 3:3-13). So far, so good. Notice that Peter says nothing here about the resurrection of the dead, but he says quite enough about the destruction of the world, and his reference to a past destruction gives us ample reason to believe in the one still to come. The world that perished in that earlier event (he tells us) lost not only the earth itself, but also that part of the atmosphere the floodwaters reached and covered, and so nearly all those lower aerial regions, which he calls "the heaven" or, in the plural, "the heavens." The higher spheres where the sun and stars move were not touched; everything else was transformed by the flood's moisture, and so the earth perished and lost its original form in the Deluge. But the heavens and earth that now exist, he says, are kept by the same Word in store, reserved for fire against the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly. Therefore, the same heaven and earth that survived the Deluge are precisely those reserved for the fire to come, on the day of judgment and the ruin of the wicked. Because of this great transformation, Peter does not hesitate to speak of a destruction of human beings as well, even though their essential natures will never be annihilated, however much they may suffer in torment. But someone may ask: if this present heaven and earth are to be burned at the end of the age before the new ones are made, where will the saints be during that conflagration, since they have bodies and must therefore occupy some physical place? We may answer: in the upper regions, where the fire at that time will reach no further than the floodwaters did in the Deluge. For on that day the saints' bodies will be able to move wherever their wills direct them, and they will have no need to fear the fire, being by then both immortal and incorruptible. After all, the three young men in the furnace had corruptible bodies, yet not a hair on their heads was harmed by the flames. Could not the same power preserve the bodies of the saints?

I see I must pass over many worthy sayings of the saints concerning this day, lest my work grow to too great a volume; but Saint Paul's words I cannot omit. He says: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our assembling unto Him, that you be not suddenly moved from your mind, nor troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as if it were from us, as though the day of Christ were at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a fugitive first, and that that man of sin be revealed, even the son of perdition: which is an adversary, and exalteth himself against all is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he sitteth as God in the Temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his due time. For the mystery of iniquity does already work: only he which now withholdeth shall let till he be taken out of the way: and the wicked man shall be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall abolish with the brightness of His coming: even Him whose coming is by the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and in all deceivableness of unrighteousness amongst them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And therefore God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that all they might be condemned which believe not in the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." This passage is without doubt about Antichrist and the day of judgment. Paul says this day will not come until Antichrist has come before it, the one called here a fugitive from the face of the Lord; for if all the ungodly deserve that name, how much more does he? But in which Temple of God he is to sit as God remains uncertain: whether it be the ruined Temple of Solomon or in the Church. It cannot be any pagan temple, since Paul would never call such a place the Temple of God. Some, therefore, understand Antichrist to mean the devil together with his entire dominion and the whole multitude of his followers, and suggest it would be better to read that he shall sit *in Templum dei* (in the Temple of God) in the sense of sitting as though he were the Church itself, just as we say *Sedet in amicum* ("he sits as a friend"), and so on. As for Paul's words "And now ye know what withholdeth," meaning what is holding back his revelation, this implies that his readers already knew, which is why he does not spell it out here. We, who do not share that knowledge, struggle to understand what the apostle meant, and we cannot get there; his additional comment only deepens the mystery. What does it mean: "The mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he that withholdeth shall let till he be taken out of the way"? I freely admit I have no idea what he means; but I will not stay silent about what others have conjectured. Some say Paul was speaking of the Roman Empire and chose not to be more explicit, for fear of being accused of wishing Rome ill, since Rome was expected to last forever. By "the mystery of iniquity" they say he meant Nero, whose deeds closely resembled what Antichrist will do, so much so that some believe Nero will rise again and prove to be the true Antichrist. Others think he never actually died, but disappeared, and that he lives on (in the same age and vigor he had when he was believed to have been killed) until the time comes for him to be revealed and restored to his kingdom.

But this interpretation seems too presumptuous. Still, the words "He that withholdeth shall let till he be taken out of the way" can reasonably be understood as referring to Rome, as if Paul had said, "He that now reigns shall reign until he is taken away, and then the wicked man shall be revealed." No one doubts that this wicked man is the Antichrist. Some, however, understand the words "Now ye know what withholdeth" and "the mystery of iniquity doth already work" to refer only to the false Christians within the Church, who will grow to such a number as to make Antichrist a great people. This, they say, is the mystery of iniquity, because it remains unrevealed. On this reading, the apostle encourages the faithful to persevere, saying "Let him that holdeth, hold" until he is taken out of the way: that is, until Antichrist and his followers (this unrevealed mystery of iniquity) depart from the midst of the Church. To support this, they appeal to John's words: "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us." Just as, before the end, in this period John calls "the last of all," many heretics (whom he calls many Antichrists) went out from the Church, so in the same way all those who belong not to Christ but to the final Antichrist will eventually depart from the midst of Christ's flock, "and then shall the man of sin be revealed." Different readers take the apostle's words in different directions, but one thing he clearly means is this: Christ will not come to judge the world until Antichrist has first appeared to seduce it (though it is by God's secret judgment that this seduction is permitted), for His coming will be, as Paul says, "by the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and in all deceivableness of unrighteousness amongst them that perish." At that time Satan will be released, working through this Antichrist to astonish all people, yet doing so entirely through deception. A question arises here: are these called lying wonders because he merely deceives the eyes, creating the appearance of miracles without actually performing them, or because, even if the actions themselves are real, their entire purpose is to lead ignorant people into the false belief that such things could only be done by divine power? Those who fall for this deception simply don't know that the devil will be granted far greater power at that time than he has ever had before. Consider that the fire which fell from heaven and consumed the house and possessions of holy Job, and the whirlwind that struck the building and killed his children, were neither of them mere illusions: yet both were the devil's work, accomplished through the power God had granted him.

So in what sense these are called lying wonders will be clearer at that time. In any case, they will deceive those who deserve to be deceived, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. The apostle then adds: "Therefore shall God send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie." God will send it, because His just judgment permits it, even though the devil's malevolent desire carries it out. This is so that all who do not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness, might be condemned.

Condemned in this way, they are deceived; and being deceived, they are condemned. But their deception comes through the secret judgment of God, justly secret and secretly just: the judgment of the One who has been judging continually since the world began. Their condemnation, however, will come through the final and open judgment of Jesus Christ, who judges most justly and was Himself most unjustly judged.

The apostle says nothing about the resurrection of the dead in that passage, but in another place he writes: "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those which sleep, that ye sorrow not even as those which have no hope: for if we believe that Jesus died, and is risen again, even so also them which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which live and are remaining at the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent those that sleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall arise first: then shall we which live and remain, be caught up with them also in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess 4:13-17). Here the apostle gives a clear demonstration of the future resurrection, when Christ will come to sit in judgment over both the living and the dead. A common question arises, however: will those whom Christ finds alive at His coming (whom the apostle includes himself and his companions among) ever die at all, or will they immediately be caught up with the rest to meet Christ and be made immortal on the spot? It is not impossible that they might both die and live again in the very moment of their ascension through the air. The words "and so shall we ever be with the Lord" should not be taken to mean that we will remain suspended in the air with Him, since He will not stay there but pass through it. We meet Him as He comes, not as He lingers; yet we will "ever be with Him," that is, in immortal bodies, wherever we may dwell. In this sense, the apostle seems to press toward the conclusion that those whom Christ finds alive will nonetheless both die and rise again, when he says, "In Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor 15:22), and shortly after, "That which thou sowest, is not quickened except it die" (1 Cor 15:36). How, then, can those whom Christ finds alive be made alive in Him through immortality unless they first die, if the apostle's words are to hold true? If we argue that the sowing refers only to those bodies returned to the earth, in keeping with the sentence pronounced on our sinning forefathers, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen 3:19), then we must admit that neither Paul's passage nor this one from Genesis applies to the bodies of those whom Christ finds still living at His coming. Those bodies are not sown, because they neither go into the earth nor return from it; whether they linger briefly in the air or escape death altogether, they follow a different path. But the apostle has yet another passage on the resurrection: "We shall all rise again," he says, or, as some manuscripts read it, "We shall all sleep" (1 Cor 15:51).

So then, since death always precedes resurrection, and since "sleep" in this context means nothing other than death, how can all rise again, or sleep, if those whom Christ finds still living on earth will neither sleep nor rise? The answer becomes clear if we simply affirm that the saints whom Christ finds in the flesh, and who will meet Him in the air, do in that rapture briefly leave their bodies and then take them up again. This resolves the difficulty on both counts: in the apostle's earlier words, "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die" (1 Cor 15:36), and in his later statement, "We shall all rise again," or, "We shall all sleep" (1 Cor 15:51). For they will not be raised to immortality unless they first taste death, and they therefore share in the resurrection by means of this brief sleep. And why should we find it incredible that those bodies could be sown and revived to immortality while still in the air? After all, we already believe the apostle when he says plainly that the resurrection will happen in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor 15:52), and that the dust of the most aged body will in a single moment be gathered together to reconstitute those members that will never again perish. Nor should we suppose that the word spoken in Gen, "Dust thou art" (Gen 3:19), does not apply to the saints simply because their dead bodies do not return to the earth; for they are both dead and revived while they remain in the air.

"To dust you shall return" means that by losing life, you will become what you were before you had life. It was earth into whose face the Lord breathed the breath of life, when man became a living soul, so that one might say: "You are living dust, which you were not before, and you shall be lifeless dust, as you once were." This is true of all dead bodies even before decay sets in, and it will be true of them wherever they die, being void of life, though they will immediately return to life again. So they will return to earth by becoming earth, as living men do; just as what is made from ashes returns to ashes, what decays returns to putrefaction, what is shaped from earth into a pot returns to earth, and so on through a thousand similar examples. But how exactly this will happen, we can only speculate for now, and we will not know until we see it.

That there will be a resurrection of the flesh at the coming of Christ to judge the living and the dead is something every Christian must hold with confidence. Our faith on this point is not groundless, even though we don't know how it will be accomplished. But, as I said before, I still intend to continue laying out passages from the Old Testament that bear on this final judgment, as far as is necessary. It will not be quite so necessary to dwell on them at length, however, if the reader brings to bear what has already been covered.

"The dead shall arise again; and they shall arise again that were in the graves; and all they shall be glad that are in the earth: for the dew that is from Thee, is health to them, and the land (or earth) of the wicked shall fall" (Isa 26:19). All of this points to the resurrection. When the prophet says "the land of the wicked shall fall," we should understand this as referring to their bodies, which will be destroyed in damnation. But if we look carefully at the resurrection of the saints, the words "the dead shall rise again" belong to the first resurrection, while "they shall arise again that were in the graves" belongs to the second. As for those holy ones whom Christ will meet in their flesh, the following words apply perfectly to them: "All they shall be glad that are in the earth: for the dew that is from Thee, is health unto them." By "health" here, the prophet means immortality, for that is the truest form of health, requiring no daily nourishment to sustain it.

The same prophet also speaks of the judgment, both to comfort the godly and to terrify the wicked. "Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will incline unto them as a flood of peace: and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck: ye shall be borne upon her shoulders, and be joyful upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this your heart shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish as an herb: and the hand of the Lord shall be known unto His servants, and His indignation against His enemies. For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots like a whirlwind, that He may recompense His anger with wrath, and His indignation with a flame of fire, for the Lord will judge with fire, and with His sword, all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." Notice what He promises to the good: He inclines to them "like a flood of peace," that is, in all peaceful abundance. This is how our souls will be refreshed at the world's end (though I will address this more fully in the final book). He extends this promise to those He has chosen for such blessedness, so that we can understand that this flood of beatitude thoroughly saturates the entire heavenly realm where we are to dwell. Yet because He bestows the peace of incorruption on corruptible bodies, He says He "will incline," as though descending from above to raise humanity to the level of the angels.

By Jerusalem we understand not the city that serves with her children, but our free mother (as the apostle says), eternal and above; where, after the shocks of all our sorrows have passed, we will be comforted and rest like infants in her glorious arms and on her knees. Then our rough ignorance will be clothed in that unfamiliar blessedness; then we will see this, and our heart will rejoice. But what will we see? It is not stated. What can it be but God, so that the Gospel might be fulfilled: "*Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.*" All that bliss which we now believe, but which we grasp only dimly as frail human beings, we will then behold and see clearly: here we hope, there we will enjoy. But lest we imagine that those causes of joy concern only the spirit, He adds, "*And your bones shall flourish as an herb.*" Here is a plain reference to the resurrection, touching on what He had, as it were, left out.

These things will not be happening at the moment we see them; rather, when we see them, they will already have come to pass. For He had spoken earlier of the new heaven and earth in His account of the promises to be fulfilled for the saints at the end, saying, "*I will create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind: but be you glad and rejoice therein; for behold I will create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people as a joy, and I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people, and the voice of weeping shall be heard no more in her, nor the voice of crying,*" etc.

This passage is sometimes used to support the doctrine of Chiliasm. The reason is that prophets tend to mix figurative language with literal truth, challenging readers to search for the deeper spiritual meaning. But lazy, carnal minds are satisfied with the surface reading and never look further. That covers what the prophet said before the passage we're now examining. Let us continue. "And your bones shall flourish like an herb:" that he means only the resurrection of the saints becomes clear from what follows: "And the hand of the Lord shall be known amongst His servants." What is this but His hand, distinguishing His servants from those who scorn Him? Then it continues regarding the others: "And his indignation against His enemies," or, as another translator renders it, "against the unfaithful." This is not merely a threat; it is the fulfillment of all His threats. "For behold," the prophet says, "the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots like a whirlwind, that He may recompense His anger with wrath, and His indignation with a flame of fire. For the Lord will judge with fire, and with His sword, all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." Whether they perish by fire, sword, or whirlwind, all of these images point to nothing other than the pain of judgment, since the prophet says that "God shall come as a whirlwind," meaning that His coming will be a punishment to those who receive it that way. His chariots, being mentioned in the plural, represent His ministering angels. When the prophet says that "all flesh shall be judged by this fire and sword," we exclude the saints from this, understanding it to refer only to those "which mind earthly things," since that kind of earthly-mindedness leads to death. These are the kind of people God speaks of when He says, "My Spirit shall not alway strive with man, because he is but flesh." And the words "The slain (or wounded) of the Lord shall be many" point to the second death.

The fire, the sword, and the stroke can all be understood in a positive sense. God said He would send fire into the world, and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of fiery tongues. Christ also said, "I came not to send peace, but the sword" (Matt 10:34). Scripture calls God's Word "a two-edged sword" because of the two Testaments. Beyond this, the Church in the Song of Songs says that she is wounded with love, as though struck by the force of love itself. All of this is clear, as is what we read about the Lord coming as an Avenger.

So the prophet continues with the destruction of the wicked, using as types those who in the old law did not refrain from forbidden foods. He traces the grace of the New Testament from Christ's first coming all the way to the judgment now under discussion. First, he records God's declaration that He is coming to gather the nations, and that they will come to see His glory. "For all have sinned," as the apostle says, "and are come short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23). He also says that God will leave signs among them to draw them to faith in Him, and that He will send His elect into many nations and distant islands that have never heard His name, to proclaim His glory to the Gentiles and to bring their brothers, that is, the brothers of elect Israel (of whom He spoke), into His presence: to bring them as an offering to God in chariots and on horses, meaning through the ministry of men or angels, to holy Jerusalem, which is now spread throughout the earth in her faithful citizens. For these, when God helps them, believe; and when they believe, they come to Him. God then compares them, by way of analogy, to the children of Israel who offered Him their sacrifices with psalms in the Temple, just as the Church does now in every place. He also promises to take some of them as priests and Levites, which we can now see Him doing. He has not, as He did in the time of Aaron's priesthood, selected His ministers according to physical lineage. Instead, in keeping with the New Testament, where Christ is Priest after the order of Melchizedek, He chooses each of His priests according to the merit that God's grace has built up in their souls, as we now observe. These priests are not to be honored for their offices (which the unworthy often hold), but for their holiness, which is not something shared equally by the good and the bad.

Now the prophet, having opened God's mercies to the Church, describes the different fates that will befall the good and the wicked at the last judgment: "As the new heavens and the new earth which I shall make shall remain before Me, saith the Lord: even so shall your seed and your name. And from month to month, and from Sabbath to Sabbath shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the members of the men that have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." With those words the prophet closes his book, ending on the note of the world's final judgment. Some manuscripts read "carcass" instead of "members" here, pointing to the body's evident punishment, though strictly speaking a carcass is nothing but dead flesh. But those bodies will be living, for otherwise how could they feel pain? Unless, that is, we call them dead bodies in the sense that their souls have fallen into the second death, in which case "carcasses" is a fitting description. The prophet's earlier phrase, "the land of the wicked shall fall," should be read in the same light. The Latin word *cadaver* (carcass) everyone knows comes from *cado*, meaning "to fall." When the translators speak of "the carcasses of the men," they are not excluding women from this damnation; they are simply speaking by reference to the stronger sex, since woman was taken out of man. Note especially that when the prophet, speaking of the blessed, says "all flesh shall come to worship," he does not mean every human being, since the greater number will be in torment. Rather, he means that people from every nation will come to worship God in the heavenly Jerusalem. As I was saying, since the prophet refers to the good by the word "flesh" and to the wicked by the word "carcasses," these words confirm our faith in the resurrection of the flesh, and what will fix both the good and the wicked in their final states will be the judgment to come.

But how will the good go forth to see the bad punished? Will they leave their blessed dwellings and travel bodily to hell to see them face to face? God forbid. No, they will go forth in knowledge. For this implies that the damned will be outside, and for this reason the Lord calls their place "outer darkness," in contrast to the welcome given to the good servant in the words, "Enter into your Master's joy." And lest anyone think the wicked go in to be seen, rather than the good going out through knowledge to see them, consider this: those who are tormented will never know what is happening in the Lord's joy, but those who are in that joy will know what is happening in the outer darkness. This is why the prophet says "they shall go forth," meaning they will know what lies outside. For if the prophets, through that small measure of divine inspiration, could know these things before they came to pass, how much more will these immortals know them after they have come to pass, seeing that in them the Lord is all in all? So the saints will be blessed both in seed and in name. In seed, as John says, "his seed remaineth in him" (1 John 3:9). In name, as Isaiah says, "so shall your name continue; from month to month, and from Sabbath to Sabbath shall they have rest upon rest" (Isa 66:22-23), passing from old and temporal types to new and everlasting truths. As for the pains of the wicked, that eternal worm and that undying fire, these are interpreted in various ways: some apply them to the body only, some to the soul only, and others hold that the fire belongs literally to the body while the worm belongs figuratively to the soul. This last interpretation is the most plausible of the three. But this is not the place to work through the details. We must close this volume, as we promised, with the judgment, the separation of good from bad, and the rewards and punishments distributed accordingly.

Daniel prophesied about this judgment, saying that Antichrist will precede it, and then he moves on to describe the eternal kingdom of the saints. In his vision, he saw four beasts representing four monarchies, and the fourth was overthrown by a king whom everyone agrees is Antichrist. After that, he saw the eternal empire of the Son of Man, Christ, that would follow. Daniel writes: "I was troubled in spirit, in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head made me afraid. Therefore I came to one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this: so he told me and showed me the interpretation of these things. These four great beasts are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth, but the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess it for ever, even for ever and ever. After this, I would know the truth of the fourth beast which was so unlike the other, very fearful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass, which devoured, broke in pieces, and stamped the rest under his feet. Also to know of the ten horns that were on his head, and of the other that came up, before whom three fell, and of the horn that had eyes, and of the mouth that spoke presumptuous things, whose look was more stout than his fellows: I beheld, and the same horn made battle against the saints, yea and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High: and the time approached that the saints possessed the kingdom."

All of this Daniel inquired, and then he continues: "Then he said, the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom on the earth, which shall be unlike all the kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down and break it in pieces. And the ten horns are ten kings that shall rise, and another shall rise after them, and he shall be unlike the first, and he shall subdue three kings, and shall speak words against the Most High, and shall consume the saints of the Most High, and think that he may change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time, and half a time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it to the end: and the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the holy people of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all powers shall serve and obey Him. Even this is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, had many thoughts which troubled me, and my countenance changed, but I kept the matter in my heart." Some hold these four kingdoms to be those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans.

How fitting this is, as Jerome's commentaries on Daniel make clear. But no one who reads this passage can doubt that Antichrist's reign will be brutally cruel against the Church, even if it lasts only a short time, until the saints receive sovereignty. The phrase "a time, times, and half a time" means three and a half years: one year, two years, and half a year. This is confirmed later by a count of days, and elsewhere in Scripture by a count of months. "Times" here might seem indefinite, but the Septuagint uses the dual number, which Latin lacks though both Greek and Hebrew have it. So "times" means simply "two times." I must confess, though, that I worry we are deceiving ourselves about the ten kings whom Antichrist will find, as if they must be ten individual men by our reckoning, since there are not that many kings in the Roman monarchy. This means Antichrist could come upon us before we realize it. What if this number simply represents the fullness of royal power, which will have run its course before he arrives, just as numbers like a thousand, a hundred, or seven often signify completeness rather than a precise count? I leave that to the reader's judgment. Continuing in Daniel, he says: "There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there began to be a nation unto that same time, and at that time Thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some to everlasting life, and some to shame and perpetual contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars, for ever and ever" (Dan 12:1-3). How closely this passage resembles what the Gospel says about the resurrection! The Gospel speaks of "they that are in the graves" (John 5:28); Daniel says "they that are in the dust of the earth." The Gospel says they "shall come forth"; Daniel says they "shall awake." The Gospel says "they that have done good, unto eternal life, and they that have done evil unto everlasting damnation" (John 5:29); Daniel says "some to everlasting life, and some to perpetual shame and contempt." Nor should anyone think these two passages conflict because the Gospel says "all that are in the graves" while the prophet says only "many," since Scripture sometimes uses *many* to mean *all*. So it was said to Abraham, "thou shalt be a father of many nations" (Gen 17:4), and yet elsewhere, "in thy seed shall all nations be blessed" (Gen 22:18). Concerning this same resurrection, Daniel himself was told a little later: "Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand up in thy lot at the end of the days" (Dan 12:13).

On this last judgment, the Psalms have much to say, and while I pass over most of it, I cannot leave out the clearest passage: "You laid the foundation of the earth long ago, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They shall perish, but You endure; they shall all wear out like a garment. Like clothing You will change them, and they will pass away, but You are the same, and Your years will never end." What reason, then, does Porphyry have to praise the Hebrews for worshipping the greatest God, while blaming Christians for claiming the world will have an end, when these very Hebrew books, whose God he admits is terrible to all others, state this plainly? "They shall perish" ; what shall perish? The heavens: the greatest, the highest, the most enduring part of the world shall perish, and shall the lesser and lower parts not do the same? If Jupiter objects to this (his oracle, according to Porphyry, having condemned Christian credulity), why does he not also condemn the Hebrews for preserving this teaching in their holiest writings? And if the Jewish wisdom Porphyry so admires affirms that the heavens shall perish, how pointless it is to despise the Christian faith for claiming the world will perish, since if the world does not perish, neither can the heavens. Our own Scriptures, which have nothing to do with the Jews, our Gospels and apostolic writings, all affirm this: "The form of this world is passing away." "The world passes away." "Heaven and earth will pass away." I think, though, that "passes away" does not carry quite the same force as "perishes." But in Peter's epistle, where he says the world perished when it was flooded with water, he makes clear what he means by "the world," how far it perished, and what was reserved for fire and the destruction of the wicked. And shortly after: "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, the elements will melt with heat, and the earth and everything in it will be burned up" ; and he concludes from this that, since all these things are to be destroyed, what kind of people should you be? We can understand that the heavens he says were reserved for fire are the ones that will perish, and that the elements which will melt are those here below in this mass of conflicting natures. When he says those heavens are reserved, he does not mean the upper spheres where the stars are set: for where it is written that the stars will fall from heaven, that is good evidence the heavens themselves will remain untouched (if these words are not figurative, but mean that the stars will literally fall, or that some such wondrous apparitions will fill the lower air, as Virgil describes:

A tailed star flew on, with glittering light,

and so hid itself in the woods of Ida). But this passage in the Psalm seems to exempt none of the heavens from perishing. "The heavens are the works of Thine hands: they shall perish." Just as He made all things, so all things will be destroyed. The pagans will surely refuse to call on Saint Peter to defend that Hebrew doctrine which their own gods so readily approved, by appealing to the figure of speech known as the part for the whole (*pars pro toto*): "all shall perish," meaning only the lower regions, just as the apostle says there that the world perished in the flood, when in fact only the earth and some portion of the air were destroyed. They will not take this way out, for fear of either conceding the point to Saint Peter or accepting the position that the fire at the last judgment may accomplish as much as we say the flood accomplished before it. Their insistence that all mankind can never perish leaves them no room for either of these escapes. They are then forced to say that when their gods praised the wisdom of the Hebrews, those gods had simply not read this Psalm. But there is another Psalm just as clear: "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and a mighty tempest shall be moved round about Him: He shall call the heaven above, and the earth to judge His people. Gather My saints together unto Me, those that make a covenant with Me with sacrifice." This speaks of Christ, whom we believe will come from heaven to judge both the living and the dead. He will come openly, to judge all people with perfect justice, He who, when He came in secret, was judged most unjustly Himself, now comes again to judge. "He shall come and shall not be silent," and His voice will now confound the very judge before whom He was silent, when "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb," as the prophet says of Him, and as was fulfilled in the Gospel. We spoke earlier about this fire and tempest in our discussion of Isaiah's prophecy on this point. When He calls the heavens above (that is, the saints), this corresponds to what Paul says: "Then shall we be caught up also in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thess 4:17). If it meant something else, why would the heavens be called "above," as though they could be anywhere but above? The words that follow, "and the earth," if you do not add "above" here as well, may refer to those who are to be judged, while the heavens refers to those who will judge alongside Christ. In that reading, calling the heavens "above" implies the placing of the saints on thrones of judgment, not their being caught up into the air. We may also understand it as His calling of the angels down from their high places to descend with Him to judgment, with "the earth" referring to those who are to be judged. But if we do read "above" into both clauses, it points directly to the saints being caught up: taking the heavens to mean their souls and the earth to mean their bodies, "to judge (or discern) His people," that is, to separate the sheep from the goats, the good from the bad. Then He speaks to His angels: "Gather My saints together unto Me." This is accomplished through the ministry of angels. And whom do they gather? "Those that make a covenant with Me with sacrifice," which is the duty of every righteous person. For either they must offer their works of mercy (which surpasses sacrifice, as the Lord says, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice"), or else their works of mercy are themselves the sacrifice that appeases God's wrath, as I demonstrated in the ninth book of this volume. In such works the righteous make their covenant with God, performing them in light of the promises given in the New Testament. So then, with His righteous gathered on His right hand, Christ will welcome them with these words: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit ye the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world: for I was an hungered and ye gave Me to eat" (Matt 25:34-35), and so on through the good works and the eternal rewards that will be given for them at the last judgment.

The prophet Malachiel, or Malachi (also called "the Angel," and held by some, as Jerome notes, including the Hebrews, to be Esdras the priest who wrote other portions of the canon), prophesied of the last judgment in these words: "Behold He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts: but who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall endure when He appeareth? for He is like a purging fire, and like fuller's soap: and He shall sit down to try and fine the silver, He shall even fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold and silver, that they may bring offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then shall the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be acceptable unto the Lord as in old time, and in the years afore. And I will come near unto you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the soothsayers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that wrongfully keep back the hireling's wages, and vex the widow and the fatherless, and fear not Me, saith the Lord of Hosts: for I am the Lord, I change not." These words seem clearly to imply a purification of some at the last judgment. What else can be meant by this: "He is like a purging fire, and like fuller's soap, and He shall sit down to try and fine the silver, He shall fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold or silver?" Isaiah says the same: "The Lord shall wash the filthiness of the daughters of Zion, and purge the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning." Perhaps this burning refers to the separation of the polluted from the pure in that penal judgment, after which the good will live forever without any contact with the wicked. But the words "He shall even fine the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold and silver, that they may bring offerings to the Lord in righteousness" suggest a purging even of the good, who will be cleansed of the unrighteousness by which they displeased the Lord, and once cleansed and brought to the fullness of righteousness, they will themselves become pure offerings to Him their Lord. What better or more acceptable oblation could there be than themselves? But let us set aside this theme of penal purgation for a more fitting occasion. By the sons of Levi, Judah, and Jerusalem, we should understand the Church of God, comprising both Hebrews and others, though not in its present condition (for as we are now, "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us"); but as it will be then, like a threshing floor swept clean by the fan of the last judgment, with all who needed purification having been penally purged, so that no further sacrifice for sin will be required, since all who now offer such sacrifices do so as sinners, seeking through God's gracious acceptance of their offering to be freed from the sin for which they offer.

To show that the City of God would no longer follow such customs, it is written that "The sons of Levi shall bring offerings to the Lord in righteousness" (Mal 3:3): not in sin, and therefore not for sin. We can gather from the words that follow, "Then shall the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem be acceptable unto the Lord, as in old time and in the years before" (Mal 3:4), that the Jews are mistaken in believing their ancient legal ceremonies will be restored. All the sacrifices of the old covenant were offered in sin and for sin; the priest himself, who we must assume was the holiest among the people, was expressly commanded by the Lord to offer first for his own sins, and only then for the people. We must therefore explain what the phrase "as in old time and in the years before" actually means. It may refer to the time when our first parents lived in paradise, for they were then pure and offered themselves as spotless offerings to the Lord. But they sinned and were driven out, and all humanity was corrupted and condemned in them. Since their fall, no one has ever been free from sin except the Redeemer of the world and infants newly baptized: not even a child one day old.

If someone answers that those who offer in faith are rightly said to offer in righteousness, since "the just shall live by faith," yet also acknowledges that "if he says he has no sin, he deceives himself," and therefore does not claim sinlessness precisely because he lives by faith: I ask again, is anyone so mistaken as to compare these present times of faith with the final judgment, when those who offer their oblations in righteousness will first be purged and refined? Indeed, since after that purification there will be no room for even the slightest trace of sin, the time when sin no longer exists can only be compared to one other period: the time before our first parents' fall in paradise, when they lived in spotless felicity. This, then, is what is meant by "the old time" and "the years before," for there is a parallel passage in Isaiah. After the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, among the other allegorical promises of blessedness to the saints (which our concern for brevity forced us to leave without explanation), we find this one: "As the days of the tree of life, so shall the days of My people be." Who among those who have read the Scriptures does not know that God planted this tree, and where, and how our first parents were barred by sin from eating its fruit, with a fearsome guard set over it ever after? Some may argue that the prophet meant by this the days of Christ's Church as it now exists, and that Christ himself is that tree (in keeping with Solomon's words about wisdom: "She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her"). They might add that our first parents lived only a brief time in paradise, since they had no children during that period, and so when we speak of the time they spent there, we cannot speak of "years" in the way this passage does: "In old time and in the years before." This question, however, is too tangled to work through at this point, so let it pass.

There is another meaning in these words as well, one that also rules out interpreting this passage as referring to the legal and ceremonial sacrifices, as though their restoration would be some great benefit. Those offerings under the old law, being made from unblemished animals and presented with care, signified spotless and holy men, such as Christ Himself alone was, and no one else. Since, therefore, at the judgment all who need cleansing will be cleansed, no sin will remain in the saints; each will offer himself in righteousness to God as an immaculate and pure offering. It will then be as it was in the years before, when what was represented in type will at last be fulfilled in reality. The purity that was once prefigured in the sacrifices will then be genuinely present in the saints. So much for that point.

Now, as for those who are not worthy of being cleansed but are instead condemned, the prophet speaks plainly: "I will come to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the soothsayers, and against the adulterers, &c., for I am the Lord, and change not" (Mal 3:5-6). It is as if He said: your sin has made you worse, and My grace once made you better, but "I change not." He will be His own witness, because at that judgment He will need no other. He will be swift because He will come suddenly, unexpected, when He is thought to be farthest away, and also because He will convict the guilty conscience without a single word needing to be spoken. "Inquisition shall be made in the thoughts of the ungodly," says the wise man (Wis 1:9). "Their conscience also bearing witness," says the apostle, "and their thoughts accusing one another or excusing, at the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel" (Rom 2:15-16). So it is that God will be a swift witness, calling immediately to mind the very thoughts that will at once condemn them.

That passage I cited earlier (for a different purpose) in Book 18, from this same prophet, also belongs to the last judgment: "They shall be to me, says the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I do this, as a flock, for I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him: then you will return and see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not. For behold, the day comes that will burn like an oven, and all the proud, yes, and all who do wickedly, will be stubble, and the day that comes will burn them up, says the Lord of Hosts, and will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear My name, the Sun of righteousness will arise, and healing will be under His wings, and you will go forth and grow up like well-fed calves. And you will tread down the wicked, for they will be dust under the soles of your feet in the day when I do this, says the Lord of Hosts." This separation of rewards and punishments, dividing the just from the unjust, cannot be seen by the passing light of this world's sun. But when it appears before that Sun of righteousness, in the full revelation of the life to come, there will be a judgment unlike any that has come before.

The prophet continues: "Remember the law of Moses My servant, which I commend unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments." This addition is fitting for two reasons: it follows the earlier distinction between those who keep the law and those who despise it, and it implies that the law must be interpreted spiritually, so that Christ, the one who separates the good from the wicked, may be found within it. He was not speaking idly when He told the Jews, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me." These men read the Scriptures in a purely literal sense and failed to see that the earthly promises were figures pointing to eternal ones. This failure drove them into the wicked complaints in which they dared to say, "It is in vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His commandment, and that we walked humbly before the Lord of Hosts? Therefore we count the proud blessed, even they that work wickedness are set up," and so on. Their words seem almost to force the prophet to predict the final judgment, where the wicked will be stripped of every shadow of happiness and shown to be utterly miserable, while the righteous will be freed from all lasting suffering and, untouched even by the most fleeting pain, will reign fully and freely in eternal blessedness. Their earlier words amount to this: "All who do evil are good in God's sight and please Him." These complaints against God arose entirely from a carnal reading of Moses' law. This is why the psalmist says that he himself nearly stumbled, that his feet almost slipped, when he grew troubled at the foolish and saw the prosperity of the wicked, to the point where he asks, "How doth God know it, or is there knowledge in the Most High?" and shortly after, "Have I cleansed mine heart in vain, and washed mine hands in innocency?" To resolve the difficulty of how the wicked could prosper while the righteous suffer, he adds: "Then thought I to know this, but it was too hard for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God and then understood I their end." On the day of the Lord, things will not stand as they do now. The misery of the wicked and the happiness of the godly will be fully revealed, in an order far different from anything the present world can show.

After advising the people to remember the law of Moses, the prophet, foreseeing that they would later misinterpret much of it, adds: "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and fearful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with cursing." That this great and mighty prophet Elijah will convert the Jews to Christ before the judgment, by expounding the law to them, is the most widely held and taught belief among Christians, and is considered a point of certain truth. We can reasonably hope for his coming before the judgment of Christ, since we truly believe he is alive in the body at this very hour, never having tasted death. He was taken up by a fiery chariot, body and soul, from this mortal world, as the Scriptures plainly attest. So when he comes to give the law a spiritual interpretation, which the Jews now understand entirely in a carnal sense, "then shall he turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children" (or "the heart of the father unto the child," since the Septuagint often uses the singular for the plural): that is, the Jews will then understand the law as their holy forefathers did before them, Moses, the prophets, and the rest. The fathers' understanding being brought to the children's understanding is the turning of the fathers' hearts toward the children, and the children's agreement with the fathers' understanding is the turning of their hearts toward the fathers. Where the Septuagint says "the heart of a man unto his kinsman," fathers and children are the nearest of kin, and so are what is meant here. There may be a deeper and more precise reading of this passage: that Elijah will turn the heart of the Father toward the Son, not by making the Father love the Son, but by teaching that the Father already loves Him, so that the Jews who had hated Him before may come to love Him as well. They currently hold that God hates Him, because they regard Him as neither God nor the Son of God. But then His heart (in their understanding) will be turned toward Him, when they are themselves so changed as to understand how deeply the Father loves the Son. The phrase that follows, "and the heart of man unto his kinsman," means the heart of man toward the man Christ, for He who is one God in the form of God took the form of a servant, became man, and graciously became our kinsman. This, then, is what Elijah will accomplish. "Lest I come and smite the earth with cursing." The earth here means those carnally minded Jews who even now murmur against God, saying that He delights in the wicked and that it is pointless to serve Him.

Gathering every scriptural prophecy about His judgment would take far too long. It is enough that we have established the point from both Testaments. The Old Testament passages, however, are not as clearly about Christ's personal coming as those in the New Testament. When we read in the Old Testament that "the Lord God shall come," we cannot automatically conclude that this refers to Christ, since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all equally Lord and God, and we must not overlook this. We should therefore begin by identifying those prophetic passages that explicitly name the Lord God while clearly referring to Jesus Christ, as well as those where the reference is less obvious but can still reasonably be understood as pointing to Him. There is one passage in Isaiah that could not be plainer: "Hear me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am, I am the first, and I am the last: surely my hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call them, they stand together. All you, assemble yourselves, and hear: which among them hath declared these things? The Lord hath loved him: he will do his will in Babel, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans. I, even I have spoken it, and I have called him: I have brought him and his ways shall prosper."

"Come near unto Me, hear ye this: I have not spoke it in secret from the beginning, from the time that the thing was, I was there, and now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent Me." This was He who spoke here as the Lord God; and yet it would not have been clear that He was Christ, except that He adds the final clause, "The Lord God and His Spirit hath sent Me." For He spoke this with reference to what was to come in the form of a servant, using the past tense for the future, as the prophet does elsewhere, saying, "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter" (Isa 53:7), rather than "He shall be led," putting the past tense in place of the future, according to the customary style of prophetic speech.

There is also another passage in Zechariah that is just as clear: where "The Almighty sent the Almighty," which is nothing other than the Father sending the Son. The words are these: "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: after this glory hath He sent Me unto the nations, which spoiled you, for he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye. Behold, I will lift My hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to those that served them, and ye shall know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent Me." Here, the Lord of Hosts declares that the Lord of Hosts has sent Him. Who would dare claim these words come from anyone other than Christ, speaking to His lost sheep of Israel? He says as much Himself: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel." He compares them here to the apple of His eye, expressing His most fervent love for them, and the apostles themselves were among those lost ones. But after His resurrection (before which, John tells us, the Holy Spirit had not yet been given, because "Jesus was not yet glorified"), He was also sent to the Gentiles through His apostles, fulfilling the words of the psalm: "Thou hast delivered Me from the contentions of the people: Thou hast made me the head of the heathen." This meant that those who had plundered the Israelites and enslaved them would do so no more, but would instead become their servants. He promised this to His apostles, saying, "I will make you fishers of men," and again, to one of them alone, "From henceforth thou shalt catch men." So the nations will become spoils, but to a good end, like a vessel taken from a strong man who has been bound by one who is stronger.

The same prophet also says elsewhere (or rather, the Lord says through him): "In that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, and I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and compassion, and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall lament for Him as one mourns for an only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn" (Zech 12:9-10). Who but God will rid Jerusalem of the enemies who come against her, those who oppose her faith, or (as some interpret it) seek to make her captive? Who but He can pour the spirit of grace and compassion upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem? This is properly God's own attribute, spoken by God Himself through the prophet. And yet the passage makes clear that this God who will do all these wonderful works is Christ: "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and grieve." For those Jews who receive the spirit of grace and compassion in the time to come will repent that they ever mocked Christ during His passion, when they see Him coming in His majesty and recognize that this is the very one whose humble origins they once ridiculed. Their ancestors, too, will see Him, those who treated Him with such impiety, but they will behold Him not to their correction, only to their shame. The words "I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and compassion" have nothing to do with those ancestors; they concern only their descendants, whom the preaching of Elijah will bring to the true faith. But just as we say to the Jews, "You killed Christ," even though it was their predecessors who did it, so the children of those killers will mourn Christ's death as their own, even though it was their forebears and not they who committed the act. So even though they receive the spirit of grace and compassion and thereby escape the condemnation that fell on their ancestors, they will still grieve as though they had shared in their predecessors' wickedness. Yet it will not be guilt that drives this grief, but zeal. The Septuagint reads this passage as "They shall behold Me over whom they have insulted," while the Hebrew reads "whom they have pierced," which gives a fuller indication of Christ's crucifixion. But the insult in the Septuagint's reading ran through the entire passion of Christ: the arrest, the binding, the trial, the dressing Him in mockery, the crown of thorns, the blows to the head with reeds, the feigned reverence, the forcing Him to carry His own cross, and the crucifixion itself right to His last breath, all of it was one continuous act of contempt. Taking both readings together, as we do, we express the full meaning: this passage points to Christ and no one else.

Therefore, whenever we read in the prophets that "God shall judge the world," even without further qualification, the very word "judge" points to the Son of Man, because it is through His coming that God's judgment will be carried out. God the Father will not judge anyone in His own person, but has given all judgment to His Son, who will show Himself as man to judge the world, just as He showed Himself as man to be judged by the world. And who is it that God speaks of in Isaiah under the names of Jacob and Israel, if not this Son of Man who took flesh from Jacob's line? "Jacob, My servant, I will stay upon him. Israel, Mine elect in whom My soul delighteth, I have put My spirit upon Him, He shall bring forth judgment unto the Gentiles. He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause His voice to be heard in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench: He shall bring forth judgment in truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged until He have settled judgment in the earth, and the isles shall hope in His name" (Isa 42:1-4).

In the Hebrew text, there is no mention of Jacob or Israel, but the Seventy (the translators of the Septuagint) wanted to clarify what God meant by "His servant," namely, that form of a servant in which the Highest humbled Himself. So they added the name of the man from whose lineage He would take on that servile form. "The Spirit of God came upon Him in the form of a dove," as the Gospel confirms. "He brought forth judgment to the Gentiles," by foretelling things they had never known before. "He did not cry out," yet He never stopped preaching. "Nor was His voice heard without" (that is, in the street), because those cut off from His fold never hear His voice. "He neither broke down nor extinguished" those Jews who persecuted Him, whose lost integrity and abandoned light made them like bruised reeds and smoldering flax. "He spared them," because He had not yet come to judge them, but to be judged by them. "He brought forth judgment in truth," by showing them the plagues that awaited them if they persisted in their malice. "His face shone on the mount" refers to His fame spreading across the whole world. "He neither failed nor fainted," because both He and His Church stood firm against every persecution. His enemies therefore never had, and never will have, reason to think they saw fulfilled what they wished for in the Psalm: "When shall He die and His name perish?" (Ps 41:5) This will not come to pass until He has settled judgment on the earth. And there it is, the very thing we are looking for. The final judgment is what He will settle on the earth when He comes from heaven to carry it out. As for the closing words, "The isles shall hope in His name," we can already see that fulfilled before our eyes.

Thus, what is so undeniable proves credible even what impudence still dares to deny. Who would ever have hoped for what unbelievers themselves now witness alongside us, to their utter heartbreak and confusion? Who could have imagined that the Gentiles would embrace Christianity after seeing its Author bound, beaten, mocked, and crucified? What one thief dared only to hope for on the cross is now the firm confidence of nations far and wide, and to avoid eternal death they are marked with the very sign on which He suffered His temporal death. Let no one doubt, therefore, that Christ will bring about the judgment the Scriptures promise, unless he refuses to believe the Scriptures and clings in willful blindness to what the rest of the world has already seen as light.

The judgment itself will unfold through a series of events, some preceding it and some accompanying it: Elijah will come, the Jews will believe, Antichrist will persecute, Christ will judge, the dead will rise, the good and the wicked will be separated, and the world will burn and be renewed. All of this we must believe will happen, but as for the precise order, our full experience of it then will far surpass our incomplete understanding now. Yet I do believe these events will occur in the sequence I have laid out. Two more books remain on this theme to fulfill our promise: the first will treat the punishments due to the wicked, and the second the glories bestowed on the righteous. In these, if God is willing, we will dismantle the arguments that foolish and miserable mortals construct against God's holy and divine promises, and against the sacred nourishment that an unspotted faith gives the soul. Such people imagine themselves the only wise men in their graceless objections, and they mock all religious instruction as contemptible and absurd. But those who are wise in God take a different approach: whenever something seems most incredible to human reason, if it is affirmed by the Holy Scriptures (whose truth we have already sufficiently demonstrated), they hold fast to the True and Omnipotent God as their strongest argument against all opposition. They know He cannot possibly speak falsely in those Scriptures, and they know equally that He can by His divine power bring about what may seem utterly impossible to unbelievers.