BOOK TWENTIETH.

Argument

CONCERNING THE LAST JUDGMENT, AND THE DECLARATIONS REGARDING IT IN
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

1. That although God is always judging, it is nevertheless reasonable to confine
our attention in this book to His last judgment.

Intending to speak, in dependence on God’s grace, of
the day of His final judgment, and to affirm it against
the ungodly and incredulous, we must first of all lay, as it
were, in the foundation of the edifice the divine declarations.
Those persons who do not believe such declarations do their
best to oppose to them false and illusive sophisms of their
own, either contending that what is adduced from Scripture
has another meaning, or altogether denying that it is an utterance
of God’s. For I suppose no man who understands what
is written, and believes it to be communicated by the supreme
and true God through holy men, refuses to yield and consent
to these declarations, whether he orally confesses his consent,
or is from some evil influence ashamed or afraid to do so; or
even, with an opinionativeness closely resembling madness,
makes strenuous efforts to defend what he knows and believes
to be false against what he knows and believes to be true.

That, therefore, which the whole Church of the true God
holds and professes as its creed, that Christ shall come from
heaven to judge quick and dead, this we call the last day, or
last time, of the divine judgment. For we do not know how
many days this judgment may occupy; but no one who reads
the Scriptures, however negligently, need be told that in them
“day” is customarily used for “time.” And when we speak
of the day of God’s judgment, we add the word last or final
for this reason, because even now God judges, and has judged
from the beginning of human history, banishing from paradise,
and excluding from the tree of life, those first men who perpetrated
so great a sin. Yea, He was certainly exercising[Pg 346]
judgment also when He did not spare the angels who sinned,
whose prince, overcome by envy, seduced men after being
himself seduced. Neither is it without God’s profound and
just judgment that the life of demons and men, the one in
the air, the other on earth, is filled with misery, calamities,
and mistakes. And even though no one had sinned, it could
only have been by the good and right judgment of God that
the whole rational creation could have been maintained in
eternal blessedness by a persevering adherence to its Lord.
He judges, too, not only in the mass, condemning the race of
devils and the race of men to be miserable on account of the
original sin of these races, but He also judges the voluntary
and personal acts of individuals. For even the devils pray
that they may not be tormented,[673] which proves that without
injustice they might either be spared or tormented according
to their deserts. And men are punished by God for their
sins often visibly, always secretly, either in this life or after
death, although no man acts rightly save by the assistance of
divine aid; and no man or devil acts unrighteously save by
the permission of the divine and most just judgment. For, as
the apostle says, “There is no unrighteousness with God;”[674]
and as he elsewhere says, “His judgments are inscrutable,
and His ways past finding out.”[675] In this book, then, I shall
speak, as God permits, not of those first judgments, nor of
these intervening judgments of God, but of the last judgment,
when Christ is to come from heaven to judge the quick and
the dead. For that day is properly called the day of judgment,
because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant
questioning why this wicked person is happy and that
righteous man unhappy. In that day true and full happiness
shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and
supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of
them only.

2. That in the mingled web of human affairs God’s judgment is present, though
it cannot be discerned.

In this present time we learn to bear with equanimity the
ills to which even good men are subject, and to hold cheap
the blessings which even the wicked enjoy. And consequently,[Pg 347]
even in those conditions of life in which the justice
of God is not apparent, His teaching is salutary. For we do
not know by what judgment of God this good man is poor
and that bad man rich; why he who, in our opinion, ought
to suffer acutely for his abandoned life enjoys himself, while
sorrow pursues him whose praiseworthy life leads us to suppose
he should be happy; why the innocent man is dismissed from
the bar not only unavenged, but even condemned, being either
wronged by the iniquity of the judge, or overwhelmed by
false evidence, while his guilty adversary, on the other hand,
is not only discharged with impunity, but even has his claims
admitted; why the ungodly enjoys good health, while the godly
pines in sickness; why ruffians are of the soundest constitution,
while they who could not hurt any one even with a
word are from infancy afflicted with complicated disorders;
why he who is useful to society is cut off by premature death,
while those who, as it might seem, ought never to have been
so much as born have lives of unusual length; why he who
is full of crimes is crowned with honours, while the blameless
man is buried in the darkness of neglect. But who can collect
or enumerate all the contrasts of this kind? But if this
anomalous state of things were uniform in this life, in which,
as the sacred Psalmist says, “Man is like to vanity, his days
as a shadow that passeth away,”[676]—so uniform that none but
wicked men won the transitory prosperity of earth, while only
the good suffered its ills,—this could be referred to the just and
even benign judgment of God. We might suppose that they
who were not destined to obtain those everlasting benefits
which constitute human blessedness were either deluded by
transitory blessings as the just reward of their wickedness, or
were, in God’s mercy, consoled by them, and that they who
were not destined to suffer eternal torments were afflicted
with temporal chastisement for their sins, or were stimulated to
greater attainment in virtue. But now, as it is, since we not
only see good men involved in the ills of life, and bad men
enjoying the good of it, which seems unjust, but also that evil
often overtakes evil men, and good surprises the good, the
rather on this account are God’s judgments unsearchable, and[Pg 348]
His ways past finding out. Although, therefore, we do not
know by what judgment these things are done or permitted
to be done by God, with whom is the highest virtue, the
highest wisdom, the highest justice, no infirmity, no rashness,
no unrighteousness, yet it is salutary for us to learn to hold
cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently
to good men and bad, and to covet those good things
which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which
belong only to evil men. But when we shall have come to
that judgment, the date of which is called peculiarly the day
of judgment, and sometimes the day of the Lord, we shall
then recognise the justice of all God’s judgments, not only of
such as shall then be pronounced, but of all which take effect
from the beginning, or may take effect before that time. And
in that day we shall also recognise with what justice so many,
or almost all, the just judgments of God in the present life
defy the scrutiny of human sense or insight, though in this
matter it is not concealed from pious minds that what is concealed
is just.

3. What Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, says regarding the things which
happen alike to good and wicked men.

Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, who reigned in Jerusalem,
thus commences the book called Ecclesiastes, which
the Jews number among their canonical Scriptures: “Vanity
of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labour which he hath
taken under the sun?”[677] And after going on to enumerate,
with this as his text, the calamities and delusions of this
life, and the shifting nature of the present time, in which
there is nothing substantial, nothing lasting, he bewails,
among the other vanities that are under the sun, this also,
that though wisdom excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness,
and though the eyes of the wise man are in his head, while
the fool walketh in darkness,[678] yet one event happeneth to
them all, that is to say, in this life under the sun, unquestionably
alluding to those evils which we see befall good and
bad men alike. He says, further, that the good suffer the ills
of life as if they were evil-doers, and the bad enjoy the good[Pg 349]
of life as if they were good. “There is a vanity which is
done upon the earth; that there be just men unto whom it
happeneth according to the work of the wicked: again, there
be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work
of the righteous. I said, that this also is vanity.”[679] This
wisest man devoted this whole book to a full exposure of this
vanity, evidently with no other object than that we might
long for that life in which there is no vanity under the sun,
but verity under Him who made the sun. In this vanity,
then, was it not by the just and righteous judgment of God
that man, made like to vanity, was destined to pass away?
But in these days of vanity it makes an important difference
whether he resists or yields to the truth, and whether he is destitute
of true piety or a partaker of it,—important not so far as
regards the acquirement of the blessings or the evasion of the
calamities of this transitory and vain life, but in connection
with the future judgment which shall make over to good men
good things, and to bad men bad things, in permanent, inalienable
possession. In fine, this wise man concludes this
book of his by saying, “Fear God, and keep His commandments:
for this is every man. For God shall bring every
work into judgment, with every despised person, whether it
be good, or whether it be evil.”[680] What truer, terser, more
salutary enouncement could be made? “Fear God,” he says,
“and keep His commandments: for this is every man.” For
whosoever has real existence, is this, is a keeper of God’s
commandments; and he who is not this, is nothing. For so
long as he remains in the likeness of vanity, he is not renewed
in the image of the truth. “For God shall bring into judgment
every work,”—that is, whatever man does in this life,—”whether
it be good or whether it be evil, with every
despised person,”—that is, with every man who here seems
despicable, and is therefore not considered; for God sees
even him, and does not despise him nor pass him over in His
judgment.

4. That proofs of the last judgment will be adduced, first from the New
Testament, and then from the Old.

The proofs, then, of this last judgment of God which I propose[Pg 350]
to adduce shall be drawn first from the New Testament,
and then from the Old. For although the Old Testament is
prior in point of time, the New has the precedence in intrinsic
value; for the Old acts the part of herald to the New. We
shall therefore first cite passages from the New Testament,
and confirm them by quotations from the Old Testament.
The Old contains the law and the prophets, the New the gospel
and the apostolic epistles. Now the apostle says, “By the
law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the
law and the prophets; now the righteousness of God is by
faith of Jesus Christ upon all them that believe.”[681] This
righteousness of God belongs to the New Testament, and
evidence for it exists in the old books, that is to say, in
the law and the prophets. I shall first, then, state the case,
and then call the witnesses. This order Jesus Christ Himself
directs us to observe, saying, “The scribe instructed in the
kingdom of God is like a good householder, bringing out of
his treasure things new and old.”[682] He did not say “old and
new,” which He certainly would have said had He not wished
to follow the order of merit rather than that of time.

5. The passages in which the Saviour declares that there shall be a divine judgment
in the end of the world.

The Saviour Himself, while reproving the cities in which
He had done great works, but which had not believed, and
while setting them in unfavourable comparison with foreign
cities, says, “But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you.”[683]
And a little after He says, “Verily, I say unto you, It shall
be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment
than for thee.”[684] Here He most plainly predicts that a
day of judgment is to come. And in another place He says,
“The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation,
and shall condemn it: because they repented at the
preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with
this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the
uttermost parts of the earth to hear the words of Solomon;[Pg 351]
and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.”[685] Two things
we learn from this passage, that a judgment is to take place,
and that it is to take place at the resurrection of the dead.
For when He spoke of the Ninevites and the queen of the
south, He certainly spoke of dead persons, and yet He said
that they should rise up in the day of judgment. He did not
say, “They shall condemn,” as if they themselves were to be
the judges, but because, in comparison with them, the others
shall be justly condemned.

Again, in another passage, in which He was speaking of the
present intermingling and future separation of the good and
bad,—the separation which shall be made in the day of judgment,—He
adduced a comparison drawn from the sown wheat
and the tares sown among them, and gave this explanation of
it to His disciples: “He that soweth the good seed is the Son
of man,”[686] etc. Here, indeed, He did not name the judgment
or the day of judgment, but indicated it much more clearly by
describing the circumstances, and foretold that it should take
place in the end of the world.

In like manner He says to His disciples, “Verily I say
unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration,
when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye
also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes
of Israel.”[687] Here we learn that Jesus shall judge with His
disciples. And therefore He said elsewhere to the Jews,
“If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons
cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges.”[688]
Neither ought we to suppose that only twelve men shall judge
along with Him, though He says that they shall sit upon
twelve thrones, for by the number twelve is signified the
completeness of the multitude of those who shall judge. For
the two parts of the number seven (which commonly symbolizes
totality), that is to say, four and three, multiplied into one
another, give twelve. For four times three, or three times
four, are twelve. There are other meanings, too, in this
number twelve. Were not this the right interpretation of
the twelve thrones, then since we read that Matthias was[Pg 352]
ordained an apostle in the room of Judas the traitor, the
Apostle Paul, though he laboured more than them all,[689] should
have no throne of judgment; but he unmistakeably considers
himself to be included in the number of the judges when he
says, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?”[690] The same
rule is to be observed in applying the number twelve to those
who are to be judged. For though it was said, “judging the
twelve tribes of Israel,” the tribe of Levi, which is the
thirteenth, shall not on this account be exempt from judgment,
neither shall judgment be passed only on Israel and
not on the other nations. And by the words “in the regeneration”
He certainly meant the resurrection of the dead
to be understood; for our flesh shall be regenerated by incorruption,
as our soul is regenerated by faith.

Many passages I omit, because, though they seem to refer
to the last judgment, yet on a closer examination they are
found to be ambiguous, or to allude rather to some other
event,—whether to that coming of the Saviour which continually
occurs in His Church, that is, in His members, in
which He comes little by little, and piece by piece, since the
whole Church is His body, or to the destruction of the
earthly Jerusalem. For when He speaks even of this, He often
uses language which is applicable to the end of the world and
that last and great day of judgment, so that these two events
cannot be distinguished unless all the corresponding passages
bearing on the subject in the three evangelists, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, are compared with one another,—for some
things are put more obscurely by one evangelist and more
plainly by another,—so that it becomes apparent what things
are meant to be referred to one event. It is this which I
have been at pains to do in a letter which I wrote to Hesychius
of blessed memory, bishop of Salon, and entitled, “Of
the End of the World.”[691]

I shall now cite from the Gospel according to Matthew the
passage which speaks of the separation of the good from the
wicked by the most efficacious and final judgment of Christ:
“When the Son of man,” he says, “shall come in His glory, …
then shall He say also unto them on His left hand, Depart[Pg 353]
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil
and his angels.”[692] Then He in like manner recounts to the
wicked the things they had not done, but which He had said
those on the right hand had done. And when they ask when
they had seen Him in need of these things, He replies that,
inasmuch as they had not done it to the least of His brethren,
they had not done it unto Him, and concludes His address in
the words, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment,
but the righteous into life eternal.” Moreover, the evangelist
John most distinctly states that He had predicted that the
judgment should be at the resurrection of the dead. For after
saying, “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all
judgment unto the Son; that all men should honour the Son,
even as they honour the Father: he that honoureth not the
Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent Him;” He immediately
adds, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth
my word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death
to life.”[693] Here He said that believers on Him should not
come into judgment. How, then, shall they be separated from
the wicked by judgment, and be set at His right hand, unless
judgment be in this passage used for condemnation? For into
judgment, in this sense, they shall not come who hear His
word, and believe on Him that sent Him.

6. What is the first resurrection, and what the second.

After that He adds the words, “Verily, verily, I say unto
you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall
live. For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He
given to the Son to have life in Himself.”[694] As yet He does
not speak of the second resurrection, that is, the resurrection
of the body, which shall be in the end, but of the first, which
now is. It is for the sake of making this distinction that He
says, “The hour is coming, and now is.” Now this resurrection
regards not the body, but the soul. For souls, too, have a
death of their own in wickedness and sins, whereby they are
the dead of whom the same lips say, “Suffer the dead to bury[Pg 354]
their dead,”[695]—that is, let those who are dead in soul bury them
that are dead in body. It is of these dead, then—the dead
in ungodliness and wickedness—that He says, “The hour is
coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” “They that hear,”
that is, they who obey, believe, and persevere to the end.
Here no difference is made between the good and the bad.
For it is good for all men to hear His voice and live, by
passing to the life of godliness from the death of ungodliness.
Of this death the Apostle Paul says, “Therefore all are 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.”[696] Thus all, without one exception, were dead in
sins, whether original or voluntary sins, sins of ignorance, or
sins committed against knowledge; and for all the dead there
died the one only person who lived, that is, who had no sin
whatever, in order that they who live by the remission of
their sins should live, not to themselves, but to Him who
died for all, for our sins, and rose again for our justification,
that we, believing in Him who justifies the ungodly, and
being justified from ungodliness or quickened from death,
may be able to attain to the first resurrection which now is.
For in this first resurrection none have a part save those who
shall be eternally blessed; but in the second, of which He
goes on to speak, all, as we shall learn, have a part, both the
blessed and the wretched. The one is the resurrection of
mercy, the other of judgment. And therefore it is written in
the psalm, “I will sing of mercy and of judgment: unto Thee,
O Lord, will I sing.”[697]

And of this judgment He went on to say, “And hath given
Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the
Son of man.” Here He shows that He will come to judge in
that flesh in which He had come to be judged. For it is to
show this He says, “because He is the Son of man.” And
then follow the words for our purpose: “Marvel not at this:
for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves
shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have
done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have[Pg 355]
done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.”[698] This judgment
He uses here in the same sense as a little before, when
He says, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him
that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
judgment, but is passed from death to life;” i.e., by having a
part in the first resurrection, by which a transition from death
to life is made in this present time, he shall not come into
damnation, which He mentions by the name of judgment, as
also in the place where He says, “but they that have done evil
unto the resurrection of judgment,” i.e. of damnation. He,
therefore, who would not be damned in the second resurrection,
let him rise in the first. For “the hour is coming, and now
is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and
they that hear shall live,” i.e. shall not come into damnation,
which is called the second death; into which death, after the
second or bodily resurrection, they shall be hurled who do not
rise in the first or spiritual resurrection. For “the hour is
coming” (but here He does not say, “and now is,” because it
shall come in the end of the world in the last and greatest
judgment of God) “when all that are in the graves shall hear
His voice and shall come forth.” He does not say, as in the
first resurrection, “And they that hear shall live.” For all
shall not live, at least with such life as ought alone to be
called life because it alone is blessed. For some kind of life
they must have in order to hear, and come forth from the
graves in their rising bodies. And why all shall not live He
teaches in the words that follow: “They that have done good,
to the resurrection of life,”—these are they who shall live;
“but they that have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment,”—these
are they who shall not live, for they shall die
in the second death. They have done evil because their life
has been evil; and their life has been evil because it has not
been renewed in the first or spiritual resurrection which now
is, or because they have not persevered to the end in their
renewed life. As, then, there are two regenerations, of which
I have already made mention,—the one according to faith, and
which takes place in the present life by means of baptism;
the other according to the flesh, and which shall be accomplished[Pg 356]
in its incorruption and immortality by means of the
great and final judgment,—so are there also two resurrections,—the
one the first and spiritual resurrection, which has place in
this life, and preserves us from coming into the second death;
the other the second, which does not occur now, but in the
end of the world, and which is of the body, not of the soul,
and which by the last judgment shall dismiss some into the
second death, others into that life which has no death.

7. What is written in the Revelation of John regarding the two resurrections,
and the thousand years, and what may reasonably be held on these points.

The evangelist John has spoken of these two resurrections
in the book which is called the Apocalypse, but in such a
way that some Christians do not understand the first of the
two, and so construe the passage into ridiculous fancies. For
the Apostle John says in the foresaid book, “And I saw an
angel come down from heaven…. Blessed and holy is he
that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second
death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of
Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”[699] Those
who, on the strength of this passage, have suspected that the
first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved, among
other things, specially by the number of a thousand years, as
if it were a fit thing that the saints should thus enjoy a kind
of Sabbath-rest during that period, a holy leisure after the
labours of the six thousand years since man was created, and
was on account of his great sin dismissed from the blessedness
of paradise into the woes of this mortal life, so that thus, as it
is written, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day,”[700] there should follow on
the completion of six thousand years, as of six days, a kind of
seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding thousand years; and
that it is for this purpose the saints rise, viz. to celebrate
this Sabbath. And this opinion would not be objectionable,
if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that Sabbath
shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God;
for I myself, too, once held this opinion.[701] But, as they assert
that those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate[Pg 357]
carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat
and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate,
but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself,
such assertions can be believed only by the carnal. They who
do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, which
we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians.[702] It
were a tedious process to refute these opinions point by point:
we prefer proceeding to show how that passage of Scripture
should be understood.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, “No man can enter
into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first
bind the strong man,”[703]—meaning by the strong man the devil,
because he had power to take captive the human race; and
meaning by his goods which he was to take, those who had
been held by the devil in divers sins and iniquities, but were
to become believers in Himself. It was then for the binding
of this strong one that the apostle saw in the Apocalypse “an
angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss,
and a chain in his hand. And he laid hold,” he says, “on the
dragon, that old serpent, which is called the devil and Satan,
and bound him a thousand years,”—that is, bridled and restrained
his power so that he could not seduce and gain possession
of those who were to be freed. Now the thousand
years may be understood in two ways, so far as occurs to me:
either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of
years or sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing),
as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a
Sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the saints,
so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he
calls the last part of the millennium—the part, that is, which
had yet to expire before the end of the world—a thousand
years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the
whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection
to mark the fulness of time. For a thousand is the
cube of ten. For ten times ten makes a hundred, that is, the
square on a plane superficies. But to give this superficies
height, and make it a cube, the hundred is again multiplied
by ten, which gives a thousand. Besides, if a hundred is[Pg 358]
sometimes used for totality, as when the Lord said by way of
promise to him that left all and followed Him, “He shall receive
in this world an hundredfold;”[704] of which the apostle gives,
as it were, an explanation when he says, “As having nothing,
yet possessing all things,”[705]—for even of old it had been said,
The whole world is the wealth of a believer,—with how much
greater reason is a thousand put for totality since it is the
cube, while the other is only the square? And for the same
reason we cannot better interpret the words of the psalm,
“He hath been mindful of His covenant for ever, the word
which He commanded to a thousand generations,”[706] than by
understanding it to mean “to all generations.”

“And he cast him into the abyss,”—i.e. cast the devil
into the abyss. By the abyss is meant the countless multitude
of the wicked whose hearts are unfathomably deep in
malignity against the Church of God; not that the devil was
not there before, but he is said to be cast in thither, because,
when prevented from harming believers, he takes more complete
possession of the ungodly. For that man is more abundantly
possessed by the devil who is not only alienated from
God, but also gratuitously hates those who serve God. “And
shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive
the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled.”
“Shut him up,”—i.e. prohibited him from going out, from doing
what was forbidden. And the addition of “set a seal upon
him” seems to me to mean that it was designed to keep it a
secret who belonged to the devil’s party and who did not.
For in this world this is a secret, for we cannot tell whether
even the man who seems to stand shall fall, or whether he
who seems to lie shall rise again. But by the chain and
prisonhouse of this interdict the devil is prohibited and restrained
from seducing those nations which belong to Christ,
but which he formerly seduced or held in subjection. For
before the foundation of the world God chose to rescue these
from the power of darkness, and to translate them into the
kingdom of the Son of His love, as the apostle says.[707] For
what Christian is not aware that he seduces nations even now,
and draws them with himself to eternal punishment, but not[Pg 359]
those predestined to eternal life? And let no one be dismayed
by the circumstance that the devil often seduces even those
who have been regenerated in Christ, and begun to walk in
God’s way. For “the Lord knoweth them that are His,”[708] and
of these the devil seduces none to eternal damnation. For
it is as God, from whom nothing is hid even of things future,
that the Lord knows them; not as a man, who sees a man at
the present time (if he can be said to see one whose heart he
does not see), but does not see even himself so far as to be
able to know what kind of person he is to be. The devil,
then, is bound and shut up in the abyss that he may not
seduce the nations from which the Church is gathered, and
which he formerly seduced before the Church existed. For
it is not said “that he should not seduce any man,” but “that
he should not seduce the nations”—meaning, no doubt, those
among which the Church exists—”till the thousand years
should be fulfilled,”—i.e. either what remains of the sixth day
which consists of a thousand years, or all the years which are
to elapse till the end of the world.

The words, “that he should not seduce the nations till the
thousand years should be fulfilled,” are not to be understood
as indicating that afterwards he is to seduce only those nations
from which the predestined Church is composed, and from
seducing whom he is restrained by that chain and imprisonment;
but they are used in conformity with that usage frequently
employed in Scripture and exemplified in the psalm,
“So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until He have
mercy upon us,”[709]—not as if the eyes of His servants would no
longer wait upon the Lord their God when He had mercy upon
them. Or the order of the words is unquestionably this, “And
he shut him up and set a seal upon him, till the thousand
years should be fulfilled;” and the interposed clause, “that he
should seduce the nations no more,” is not to be understood
in the connection in which it stands, but separately, and as if
added afterwards, so that the whole sentence might be read,
“And He shut him up and set a seal upon him till the
thousand years should be fulfilled, that he should seduce the
nations no more,”—i.e. he is shut up till the thousand years[Pg 360]
be fulfilled, on this account, that he may no more deceive the
nations.

8. Of the binding and loosing of the devil.

“After that,” says John, “he must be loosed a little season.”
If the binding and shutting up of the devil means his being
made unable to seduce the Church, must his loosing be the
recovery of this ability? By no means. For the Church predestined
and elected before the foundation of the world, the
Church of which it is said, “The Lord knoweth them that are
His,” shall never be seduced by him. And yet there shall be
a Church in this world even when the devil shall be loosed,
as there has been since the beginning, and shall be always,
the places of the dying being filled by new believers. For a
little after John says that the devil, being loosed, shall draw
the nations whom he has seduced in the whole world to make
war against the Church, and that the number of these enemies
shall be as the sand of the sea. “And they went up on the
breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints
about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God
out of heaven and devoured them. And the devil who seduced
them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the
beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and
night for ever and ever.”[710] This relates to the last judgment,
but I have thought fit to mention it now, lest any one might
suppose that in that short time during which the devil shall
be loose there shall be no Church upon earth, whether because
the devil finds no Church, or destroys it by manifold persecutions.
The devil, then, is not bound during the whole time
which this book embraces,—that is, from the first coming of
Christ to the end of the world, when He shall come the second
time,—not bound in this sense, that during this interval, which
goes by the name of a thousand years, he shall not seduce the
Church, for not even when loosed shall he seduce it. For certainly
if his being bound means that he is not able or not permitted
to seduce the Church, what can the loosing of him
mean but his being able or permitted to do so? But God
forbid that such should be the case! But the binding of the[Pg 361]
devil is his being prevented from the exercise of his whole
power to seduce men, either by violently forcing or fraudulently
deceiving them into taking part with him. If he were
during so long a period permitted to assail the weakness of
men, very many persons, such as God would not wish to expose
to such temptation, would have their faith overthrown, or
would be prevented from believing; and that this might not
happen, he is bound.

But when the short time comes he shall be loosed. For he
shall rage with the whole force of himself and his angels for
three years and six months; and those with whom he makes war
shall have power to withstand all his violence and stratagems.
And if he were never loosed, his malicious power would be less
patent, and less proof would be given of the stedfast fortitude of
the holy city: it would, in short, be less manifest what good
use the Almighty makes of his great evil. For the Almighty
does not absolutely seclude the saints from his temptation, but
shelters only their inner man, where faith resides, that by outward
temptation they may grow in grace. And He binds him
that he may not, in the free and eager exercise of his malice,
hinder or destroy the faith of those countless weak persons,
already believing or yet to believe, from whom the Church
must be increased and completed; and he will in the end
loose him, that the city of God may see how mighty an adversary
it has conquered, to the great glory of its Redeemer,
Helper, Deliverer. And what are we in comparison with those
believers and saints who shall then exist, seeing that they
shall be tested by the loosing of an enemy with whom we
make war at the greatest peril even when he is bound?
Although it is also certain that even in this intervening period
there have been and are some soldiers of Christ so wise and
strong, that if they were to be alive in this mortal condition
at the time of his loosing, they would both most wisely
guard against, and most patiently endure, all his snares and
assaults.

Now the devil was thus bound not only when the Church
began to be more and more widely extended among the nations
beyond Judea, but is now and shall be bound till the end of
the world, when he is to be loosed. Because even now men[Pg 362]
are, and doubtless to the end of the world shall be, converted
to the faith from the unbelief in which he held them.
And this strong one is bound in each instance in which he is
spoiled of one of his goods; and the abyss in which he is shut
up is not at an end when those die who were alive when first
he was shut up in it, but these have been succeeded, and shall
to the end of the world be succeeded, by others born after
them with a like hate of the Christians, and in the depth of
whose blind hearts he is continually shut up as in an abyss.
But it is a question whether, during these three years and six
months when he shall be loose, and raging with all his force,
any one who has not previously believed shall attach himself
to the faith. For how in that case would the words hold
good, “Who entereth into the house of a strong one to spoil
his goods, unless first he shall have bound the strong one?”
Consequently this verse seems to compel us to believe that
during that time, short as it is, no one will be added to the
Christian community, but that the devil will make war with
those who have previously become Christians, and that, though
some of these may be conquered and desert to the devil, these
do not belong to the predestinated number of the sons of
God: For it is not without reason that John, the same
apostle as wrote this Apocalypse, says in his epistle regarding
certain persons, “They went out from us, but they were not
of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have
remained with us.”[711] But what shall become of the little
ones? For it is beyond all belief that in these days there shall
not be found some Christian children born, but not yet baptized,
and that there shall not also be some born during that very
period; and if there be such, we cannot believe that their
parents shall not find some way of bringing them to the laver
of regeneration. But if this shall be the case, how shall these
goods be snatched from the devil when he is loose, since into
his house no man enters to spoil his goods unless he has first
bound him? On the contrary, we are rather to believe that
in these days there shall be no lack either of those who fall
away from, or of those who attach themselves to the Church;
but there shall be such resoluteness, both in parents to seek[Pg 363]
baptism for their little ones, and in those who shall then first
believe, that they shall conquer that strong one, even though
unbound,—that is, shall both vigilantly comprehend, and
patiently bear up against him, though employing such wiles
and putting forth such force as he never before used; and
thus they shall be snatched from him even though unbound.
And yet the verse of the Gospel will not be untrue, “Who
entereth into the house of the strong one to spoil his goods,
unless he shall first have bound the strong one?” For in
accordance with this true saying that order is observed—the
strong one first bound, and then his goods spoiled; for the
Church is so increased by the weak and strong from all
nations far and near, that by its most robust faith in things
divinely predicted and accomplished, it shall be able to spoil
the goods of even the unbound devil. For as we must own
that, “when iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold,”[712]
and that those who have not been written in the book of life
shall in large numbers yield to the severe and unprecedented
persecutions and stratagems of the devil now loosed, so we
cannot but think that not only those whom that time shall
find sound in the faith, but also some who till then shall be
without, shall become firm in the faith they have hitherto
rejected, and mighty to conquer the devil even though unbound,
God’s grace aiding them to understand the Scriptures,
in which, among other things, there is foretold that very end
which they themselves see to be arriving. And if this shall
be so, his binding is to be spoken of as preceding, that there
might follow a spoiling of him both bound and loosed; for it
is of this it is said, “Who shall enter into the house of the
strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first have bound
the strong one?”

9. What the reign of the saints with Christ for a thousand years is, and how it
differs from the eternal kingdom.

But while the devil is bound, the saints reign with Christ
during the same thousand years, understood in the same way,
that is, of the time of His first coming.[713] For, leaving out of
account that kingdom concerning which He shall say in the
end, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, take possession of the[Pg 364]
kingdom prepared for you,”[714] the Church could not now be
called His kingdom or the kingdom of heaven unless His
saints were even now reigning with Him, though in another
and far different way; for to His saints He says, “Lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the world.”[715] Certainly
it is in this present time that the scribe well instructed in the
kingdom of God, and of whom we have already spoken, brings
forth from his treasure things new and old. And from the
Church those reapers shall gather out the tares which He
suffered to grow with the wheat till the harvest, as He explains
in the words, “The harvest is the end of the world; and
the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered
together and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the
world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall
gather out of His kingdom all offences.”[716] Can He mean out
of that kingdom in which are no offences? Then it must be
out of His present kingdom, the Church, that they are gathered.
So He says, “He that breaketh one of the least of these commandments,
and teacheth men so, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth and teacheth thus
shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”[717] He speaks
of both as being in the kingdom of heaven, both the man who
does not perform the commandments which He teaches,—for
“to break” means not to keep, not to perform,—and the man
who does and teaches as He did; but the one He calls least,
the other great. And He immediately adds, “For I say unto
you, that except your righteousness exceed that of the scribes
and Pharisees,”—that is, the righteousness of those who break
what they teach; for of the scribes and Pharisees He elsewhere
says, “For they say and do not;”[718]—unless, therefore,
your righteousness exceed theirs, that is, so that you do not
break but rather do what you teach, “ye shall not enter the
kingdom of heaven.”[719] We must understand in one sense the
kingdom of heaven in which exist together both he who breaks
what he teaches and he who does it, the one being least, the
other great, and in another sense the kingdom of heaven into
which only he who does what he teaches shall enter. Consequently,[Pg 365]
where both classes exist, it is the Church as it now
is, but where only the one shall exist, it is the Church as it
is destined to be when no wicked person shall be in her.
Therefore the Church even now is the kingdom of Christ, and
the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints
reign with Him, though otherwise than as they shall reign
hereafter; and yet, though the tares grow in the Church
along with the wheat, they do not reign with Him. For they
reign with Him who do what the apostle says, “If ye be risen
with Christ, mind the things which are above, where Christ
sitteth at the right hand of God. Seek those things which
are above, not the things which are on the earth.”[720] Of such
persons he also says that their conversation is in heaven.[721]
In fine, they reign with Him who are so in His kingdom that
they themselves are His kingdom. But in what sense are
those the kingdom of Christ who, to say no more, though
they are in it until all offences are gathered out of it at the
end of the world, yet seek their own things in it, and not the
things that are Christ’s?[722]

It is then of this kingdom militant, in which conflict with
the enemy is still maintained, and war carried on with warring
lusts, or government laid upon them as they yield, until
we come to that most peaceful kingdom in which we shall
reign without an enemy, and it is of this first resurrection in
the present life, that the Apocalypse speaks in the words just
quoted. For, after saying that the devil is bound a thousand
years and is afterwards loosed for a short season, it goes on
to give a sketch of what the Church does or of what is done
in the Church in those days, in the words, “And I saw seats
and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given.” It
is not to be supposed that this refers to the last judgment, but
to the seats of the rulers and to the rulers themselves by whom
the Church is now governed. And no better interpretation of
judgment being given can be produced than that which we
have in the words, “What ye bind on earth shall be bound
in heaven; and what ye loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven.”[723] Whence the apostle says, “What have I to do[Pg 366]
with judging them that are without? do not ye judge them
that are within?”[724] “And the souls,” says John, “of those
who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of
God,”—understanding what he afterwards says, “reigned with
Christ a thousand years,”[725]—that is, the souls of the martyrs
not yet restored to their bodies. For the souls of the pious
dead are not separated from the Church, which even now is
the kingdom of Christ; otherwise there would be no remembrance
made of them at the altar of God in the partaking
of the body of Christ, nor would it do any good in danger
to run to His baptism, that we might not pass from this life
without it; nor to reconciliation, if by penitence or a bad
conscience any one may be severed from His body. For why
are these things practised, if not because the faithful, even
though dead, are His members? Therefore, while these thousand
years run on, their souls reign with Him, though not as yet in
conjunction with their bodies. And therefore in another part
of this same book we read, “Blessed are the dead who die in
the Lord from henceforth: and now, saith the Spirit, that they
may rest from their labours; for their works do follow them.”[726]
The Church, then, begins its reign with Christ now in the
living and in the dead. For, as the apostle says, “Christ died
that He might be Lord both of the living and of the dead.”[727]
But he mentioned the souls of the martyrs only, because they
who have contended even to death for the truth, themselves
principally reign after death; but, taking the part for the
whole, we understand the words of all others who belong to
the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ.

As to the words following, “And if any have not worshipped
the beast nor his image, nor have received his inscription
on their forehead, or on their hand,” we must take
them of both the living and the dead. And what this beast is,
though it requires a more careful investigation, yet it is not
inconsistent with the true faith to understand it of the ungodly
city itself, and the community of unbelievers set in
opposition to the faithful people and the city of God. “His
image” seems to me to mean his simulation, to wit, in those[Pg 367]
men who profess to believe, but live as unbelievers. For they
pretend to be what they are not, and are called Christians,
not from a true likeness, but from a deceitful image. For to
this beast belong not only the avowed enemies of the name
of Christ and His most glorious city, but also the tares which
are to be gathered out of His kingdom, the Church, in the end
of the world. And who are they who do not worship the
beast and his image, if not those who do what the apostle
says, “Be not yoked with unbelievers?”[728] For such do not
worship, i.e. do not consent, are not subjected; neither do
they receive the inscription, the brand of crime, on their forehead
by their profession, on their hand by their practice.
They, then, who are free from these pollutions, whether they
still live in this mortal flesh, or are dead, reign with Christ
even now, through this whole interval which is indicated by
the thousand years, in a fashion suited to this time.

“The rest of them,” he says, “did not live.” For now is
the hour when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that hear shall live; and the rest of them
shall not live. The words added, “until the thousand years
are finished,” mean that they did not live in the time in which
they ought to have lived by passing from death to life. And
therefore, when the day of the bodily resurrection arrives, they
shall come out of their graves, not to life, but to judgment,
namely, to damnation, which is called the second death. For
whosoever has not lived until the thousand years be finished,
i.e. during this whole time in which the first resurrection is
going on,—whosoever has not heard the voice of the Son of
God, and passed from death to life,—that man shall certainly in
the second resurrection, the resurrection of the flesh, pass with
his flesh into the second death. For he goes on to say, “This
is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection,” or who experiences it. Now
he experiences it who not only revives from the death of sin,
but continues in this renewed life. “In these the second
death hath no power.” Therefore it has power in the rest, of
whom he said above, “The rest of them did not live until the
thousand years were finished;” for in this whole intervening[Pg 368]
time, called a thousand years, however lustily they lived in
the body, they were not quickened to life out of that death in
which their wickedness held them, so that by this revived
life they should become partakers of the first resurrection, and
so the second death should have no power over them.

10. What is to be replied to those who think that resurrection pertains only to
bodies and not to souls.

There are some who suppose that resurrection can be predicated
only of the body, and therefore they contend that this
first resurrection (of the Apocalypse) is a bodily resurrection.
For, say they, “to rise again” can only be said of things that
fall. Now, bodies fall in death.[729] There cannot, therefore, be
a resurrection of souls, but of bodies. But what do they say
to the apostle who speaks of a resurrection of souls? For
certainly it was in the inner and not the outer man that those
had risen again to whom he says, “If ye have risen with
Christ, mind the things that are above.”[730] The same sense he
elsewhere conveyed in other words, saying, “That as Christ
has risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also
may walk in newness of life.”[731] So, too, “Awake thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee
light.”[732] As to what they say about nothing being able to
rise again but what falls, whence they conclude that resurrection
pertains to bodies only, and not to souls, because
bodies fall, why do they make nothing of the words, “Ye that
fear the Lord, wait for His mercy; and go not aside lest
ye fall;”[733] and “To his own Master he stands or falls;”[734]
and “He that thinketh he standeth, let him take heed lest
he fall?”[735] For I fancy this fall that we are to take heed
against is a fall of the soul, not of the body. If, then, rising
again belongs to things that fall, and souls fall, it must be
owned that souls also rise again. To the words, “In them
the second death hath no power,” are added the words, “but
they shall be priests of God and Christ, and shall reign with
Him a thousand years;” and this refers not to the bishops[Pg 369]
alone, and presbyters, who are now specially called priests in
the Church; but as we call all believers Christians on account
of the mystical chrism, so we call all priests because they are
members of the one Priest. Of them the Apostle Peter says,
“A holy people, a royal priesthood.”[736] Certainly he implied,
though in a passing and incidental way, that Christ is God,
saying priests of God and Christ, that is, of the Father and
the Son, though it was in His servant-form and as Son of man
that Christ was made a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
But this we have already explained more than
once.

11. Of Gog and Magog, who are to be roused by the devil to persecute the
Church, when he is loosed in the end of the world.

“And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall
be loosed from his prison, and shall go out to seduce the
nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and
Magog, and shall draw them to battle, whose number is as
the sand of the sea.” This, then, is his purpose in seducing
them, to draw them to this battle. For even before this he
was wont to use as many and various seductions as he could
continue. And the words “he shall go out” mean, he shall
burst forth from lurking hatred into open persecution. For
this persecution, occurring while the final judgment is imminent,
shall be the last which shall be endured by the holy
Church throughout the world, the whole city of Christ being
assailed by the whole city of the devil, as each exists on
earth. For these nations which he names Gog and Magog
are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some
part of the world, whether the Getæ and Massagetæ, as some
conclude from the initial letters, or some other foreign nations
not under the Roman government. For John marks that
they are spread over the whole earth, when he says, “The
nations which are in the four corners of the earth,” and he
added that these are Gog and Magog. The meaning of these
names we find to be, Gog, “a roof,” Magog, “from a roof,”—a
house, as it were, and he who comes out of the house. They
are therefore the nations in which we found that the devil
was shut up as in an abyss, and the devil himself coming out[Pg 370]
from them and going forth, so that they are the roof, he from
the roof. Or if we refer both words to the nations, not one
to them and one to the devil, then they are both the roof,
because in them the old enemy is at present shut up, and as
it were roofed in; and they shall be from the roof when they
break forth from concealed to open hatred. The words, “And
they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed
the camp of the saints and the beloved city,” do not mean
that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the
camp of the saints and the beloved city should be in some
one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of
Christ extending over the whole world. And consequently
wherever the Church shall be,—and it shall be in all nations,
as is signified by “the breadth of the earth,”—there also shall
be the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and there it
shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of all its
enemies; for they too shall exist along with it in all nations,—that
is, it shall be straitened, and hard pressed, and shut
up in the straits of tribulation, but shall not desert its military
duty, which is signified by the word “camp.”

12. Whether the fire that came down out of heaven and devoured them refers to
the last punishment of the wicked.

The words, “And fire came down out of heaven and devoured
them,” are not to be understood of the final punishment
which shall be inflicted when it is said, “Depart from
me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire;”[737] for then they shall be
cast into the fire, not fire come down out of heaven upon
them. In this place “fire out of heaven” is well understood
of the firmness of the saints, wherewith they refuse to yield
obedience to those who rage against them. For the firmament
is “heaven,” by whose firmness these assailants shall be
pained with blazing zeal, for they shall be impotent to draw
away the saints to the party of Antichrist. This is the fire
which shall devour them, and this is “from God;” for it
is by God’s grace the saints become unconquerable, and so
torment their enemies. For as in a good sense it is said,
“The zeal of Thine house hath consumed me,”[738] so in a bad
sense it is said, “Zeal hath possessed the uninstructed people,[Pg 371]
and now fire shall consume the enemies.”[739] “And now,” that
is to say, not the fire of the last judgment. Or if by this fire
coming down out of heaven and consuming them, John meant
that blow wherewith Christ in His coming is to strike those
persecutors of the Church whom He shall then find alive upon
earth, when He shall kill Antichrist with the breath of His
mouth,[740] then even this is not the last judgment of the wicked;
but the last judgment is that which they shall suffer when
the bodily resurrection has taken place.

13. Whether the time of the persecution of Antichrist should be reckoned in the
thousand years.

This last persecution by Antichrist shall last for three years
and six months, as we have already said, and as is affirmed
both in the book of Revelation and by Daniel the prophet.
Though this time is brief, yet not without reason is it questioned
whether it is comprehended in the thousand years in
which the devil is bound and the saints reign with Christ,
or whether this little season should be added over and above
to these years. For if we say that they are included in the
thousand years, then the saints reign with Christ during a
more protracted period than the devil is bound. For they
shall reign with their King and Conqueror mightily even in
that crowning persecution when the devil shall now be unbound
and shall rage against them with all his might. How
then does Scripture define both the binding of the devil and
the reign of the saints by the same thousand years, if the
binding of the devil ceases three years and six months before
this reign of the saints with Christ? On the other hand, if
we say that the brief space of this persecution is not to be
reckoned as a part of the thousand years, but rather as an
additional period, we shall indeed be able to interpret the
words, “The priests of God and of Christ shall reign with
Him a thousand years; and when the thousand years shall be
finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison;” for thus they
signify that the reign of the saints and the bondage of the
devil shall cease simultaneously, so that the time of the persecution
we speak of should be contemporaneous neither with
the reign of the saints nor with the imprisonment of Satan,[Pg 372]
but should be reckoned over and above as a superadded portion
of time. But then in this case we are forced to admit that
the saints shall not reign with Christ during that persecution.
But who can dare to say that His members shall not reign
with Him at that very juncture when they shall most of all,
and with the greatest fortitude, cleave to Him, and when the
glory of resistance and the crown of martyrdom shall be more
conspicuous in proportion to the hotness of the battle? Or
if it is suggested that they may be said not to reign, because
of the tribulations which they shall suffer, it will follow that
all the saints who have formerly, during the thousand years,
suffered tribulation, shall not be said to have reigned with
Christ during the period of their tribulation, and consequently
even those whose souls the author of this book says that
he saw, and who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and
the word of God, did not reign with Christ when they were
suffering persecution, and they were not themselves the kingdom
of Christ, though Christ was then pre-eminently possessing
them. This is indeed perfectly absurd, and to be scouted.
But assuredly the victorious souls of the glorious martyrs,
having overcome and finished all griefs and toils, and having
laid down their mortal members, have reigned, and do reign,
with Christ till the thousand years are finished, that they
may afterwards reign with Him when they have received
their immortal bodies. And therefore during these three
years and a half the souls of those who were slain for His
testimony, both those which formerly passed from the body
and those which shall pass in that last persecution, shall
reign with Him till the mortal world come to an end, and
pass into that kingdom in which there shall be no death.
And thus the reign of the saints with Christ shall last longer
than the bonds and imprisonment of the devil, because they
shall reign with their King the Son of God for these three
years and a half during which the devil is no longer bound.
It remains, therefore, that when we read that “the priests of
God and of Christ shall reign with Him a thousand years;
and when the thousand years are finished, the devil shall be
loosed from his imprisonment,” that we understand either
that the thousand years of the reign of the saints does not[Pg 373]
terminate, though the imprisonment of the devil does,—so that
both parties have their thousand years, that is, their complete
time, yet each with a different actual duration appropriate to
itself, the kingdom of the saints being longer, the imprisonment
of the devil shorter,—or at least that, as three years and
six months is a very short time, it is not reckoned as either
deducted from the whole time of Satan’s imprisonment, or as
added to the whole duration of the reign of the saints, as we
have shown above in the sixteenth book[741] regarding the round
number of four hundred years, which were specified as four
hundred, though actually somewhat more; and similar expressions
are often found in the sacred writings, if one will
mark them.

14. Of the damnation of the devil and his adherents; and a sketch of the bodily
resurrection of all the dead, and of the final retributive judgment.

After this mention of the closing persecution, he summarily
indicates all that the devil, and the city of which he is the
prince, shall suffer in the last judgment. For he says, “And
the devil who seduced them is cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, in which are the beast and the false prophet, and
they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
We have already said that by the beast is well understood
the wicked city. His false prophet is either Antichrist or
that image or figment of which we have spoken in the same
place. After this he gives a brief narrative of the last judgment
itself, which shall take place at the second or bodily
resurrection of the dead, as it had been revealed to him: “I
saw a throne great and white, and One sitting on it from
whose face the heaven and the earth fled away, and their
place was not found.” He does not say, “I saw a throne
great and white, and One sitting on it, and from His face the
heaven and the earth fled away,” for it had not happened
then, i.e. before the living and the dead were judged; but he
says that he saw Him sitting on the throne from whose face
heaven and earth fled away, but afterwards. For when the
judgment is finished, this heaven and earth shall cease to be,
and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. For this
world shall pass away by transmutation, not by absolute destruction.[Pg 374]
And therefore the apostle says, “For the figure
of this world passeth away. I would have you be without
anxiety.”[742] The figure, therefore, passes away, not the nature.
After John had said that he had seen One sitting on the
throne from whose face heaven and earth fled, though not till
afterwards, he said, “And I saw the dead, great and small:
and the books were opened; and another book was opened,
which is the book of the life of each man: and the dead were
judged out of those things which were written in the books,
according to their deeds.” He said that the books were
opened, and a book; but he left us at a loss as to the nature
of this book, “which is,” he says, “the book of the life of each
man.” By those books, then, which he first mentioned, we
are to understand the sacred books old and new, that out of
them it might be shown what commandments God had enjoined;
and that book of the life of each man is to show what
commandments each man has done or omitted to do. If this
book be materially considered, who can reckon its size or
length, or the time it would take to read a book in which
the whole life of every man is recorded? Shall there be present
as many angels as men, and shall each man hear his life
recited by the angel assigned to him? In that case there
will be not one book containing all the lives, but a separate
book for every life. But our passage requires us to think of
one only. “And another book was opened,” it says. We must
therefore understand it of a certain divine power, by which it
shall be brought about that every one shall recall to memory
all his own works, whether good or evil, and shall mentally
survey them with a marvellous rapidity, so that this knowledge
will either accuse or excuse conscience, and thus all and
each shall be simultaneously judged. And this divine power
is called a book, because in it we shall as it were read all that
it causes us to remember. That he may show who the dead,
small and great, are who are to be judged, he recurs to this
which he had omitted or rather deferred, and says, “And the
sea presented the dead which were in it; and death and hell
gave up the dead which were in them.” This of course took
place before the dead were judged, yet it is mentioned after.[Pg 375]
And so, I say, he returns again to what he had omitted. But
now he preserves the order of events, and for the sake of
exhibiting it repeats in its own proper place what he had
already said regarding the dead who were judged. For after
he had said, “And the sea presented the dead which were in
it, and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them,”
he immediately subjoined what he had already said, “and
they were judged every man according to their works.” For
this is just what he had said before, “And the dead were
judged according to their works.”

15. Who the dead are who are given up to judgment by the sea, and by death
and hell.

But who are the dead which were in the sea, and which the
sea presented? For we cannot suppose that those who die in
the sea are not in hell, nor that their bodies are preserved in
the sea; nor yet, which is still more absurd, that the sea retained
the good, while hell received the bad. Who could
believe this? But some very sensibly suppose that in this
place the sea is put for this world. When John then wished
to signify that those whom Christ should find still alive in the
body were to be judged along with those who should rise
again, he called them dead, both the good to whom it is said,
“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God,”[743]
and the wicked of whom it is said, “Let the dead bury their
dead.”[744] They may also be called dead, because they wear
mortal bodies, as the apostle says, “The body indeed is dead
because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness;”[745]
proving that in a living man in the body there is both a body
which is dead, and a spirit which is life. Yet he did not say
that the body was mortal, but dead, although immediately
after he speaks in the more usual way of mortal bodies.
These, then, are the dead which were in the sea, and which
the sea presented, to wit, the men who were in this world,
because they had not yet died, and whom the world presented
for judgment. “And death and hell,” he says, “gave up the
dead which were in them.” The sea presented them because
they had merely to be found in the place where they were;
but death and hell gave them up or restored them, because they[Pg 376]
called them back to life, which they had already quitted.
And perhaps it was not without reason that neither death nor
hell were judged sufficient alone, and both were mentioned,—death
to indicate the good, who have suffered only death and
not hell; hell to indicate the wicked, who suffer also the
punishment of hell. For if it does not seem absurd to believe
that the ancient saints who believed in Christ and His then
future coming, were kept in places far removed indeed from
the torments of the wicked, but yet in hell,[746] until Christ’s
blood and His descent into these places delivered them, certainly
good Christians, redeemed by that precious price already
paid, are quite unacquainted with hell while they wait for
their restoration to the body, and the reception of their reward.
After saying, “They were judged every man according
to their works,” he briefly added what the judgment was:
“Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire;” by these
names designating the devil and the whole company of his
angels, for he is the author of death and the pains of hell.
For this is what he had already, by anticipation, said in clearer
language: “The devil who seduced them was cast into a lake
of fire and brimstone.” The obscure addition he had made
in the words, “in which were also the beast and the false
prophet,” he here explains, “They who were not found written
in the book of life were cast into the lake of fire.” This book
is not for reminding God, as if things might escape Him by
forgetfulness, but it symbolizes His predestination of those to
whom eternal life shall be given. For it is not that God is
ignorant, and reads in the book to inform Himself, but rather
His infallible prescience is the book of life in which they are
written, that is to say, known beforehand.

16. Of the new heaven and the new earth.

Having finished the prophecy of judgment, so far as the
wicked are concerned, it remains that he speak also of the
good. Having briefly explained the Lord’s words, “These will
go away into everlasting punishment,” it remains that he explain
the connected words, “but the righteous into life eternal.”[Pg 377][747]
“And I saw,” he says, “a new heaven and a new earth: for
the first heaven and the first earth have passed away; and
there is no more sea.”[748] This will take place in the order
which he has by anticipation declared in the words, “I saw
One sitting on the throne, from whose face heaven and earth
fled.” For as soon as those who are not written in the book
of life have been judged and cast into eternal fire,—the nature
of which fire, or its position in the world or universe, I suppose
is known to no man, unless perhaps the divine Spirit
reveal it to some one,—then shall the figure of this world pass
away in a conflagration of universal fire, as once before the
world was flooded with a deluge of universal water. And by
this universal conflagration the qualities of the corruptible
elements which suited our corruptible bodies shall utterly
perish, and our substance shall receive such qualities as shall,
by a wonderful transmutation, harmonize with our immortal
bodies, so that, as the world itself is renewed to some better
thing, it is fitly accommodated to men, themselves renewed in
their flesh to some better thing. As for the statement, “And
there shall be no more sea,” I would not lightly say whether
it is dried up with that excessive heat, or is itself also turned
into some better thing. For we read that there shall be a
new heaven and a new earth, but I do not remember to have
anywhere read anything of a new sea, unless what I find in
this same book, “As it were a sea of glass like crystal.”[749] But
he was not then speaking of this end of the world, neither
does he seem to speak of a literal sea, but “as it were a sea.”
It is possible that, as prophetic diction delights in mingling
figurative and real language, and thus in some sort veiling the
sense, so the words “And there is no more sea” may be taken
in the same sense as the previous phrase, “And the sea presented
the dead which were in it.” For then there shall be
no more of this world, no more of the surgings and restlessness
of human life, and it is this which is symbolized by the
sea.

17. Of the endless glory of the Church.

“And I saw,” he says, “a great city, new Jerusalem, coming
down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned[Pg 378]
for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne,
saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He
will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God
Himself shall be with them. And God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, but neither shall there be any
more pain: because the former things have passed away. And
He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things
new.”[750] This city is said to come down out of heaven, because
the grace with which God formed it is of heaven.
Wherefore He says to it by Isaiah, “I am the Lord that
formed thee.”[751] It is indeed descended from heaven from its
commencement, since its citizens during the course of this
world grow by the grace of God, which cometh down from
above through the laver of regeneration in the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven. But by God’s final judgment, which
shall be administered by His Son Jesus Christ, there shall by
God’s grace be manifested a glory so pervading and so new,
that no vestige of what is old shall remain; for even our
bodies shall pass from their old corruption and mortality to
new incorruption and immortality. For to refer this promise
to the present time, in which the saints are reigning with their
King a thousand years, seems to me excessively barefaced,
when it is most distinctly said, “God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, but there shall be no more pain.”
And who is so absurd, and blinded by contentious opinionativeness,
as to be audacious enough to affirm that in the
midst of the calamities of this mortal state, God’s people, or
even one single saint, does live, or has ever lived, or shall ever
live, without tears or pain,—the fact being that the holier a
man is, and the fuller of holy desire, so much the more abundant
is the tearfulness of his supplication? Are not these
the utterances of a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem: “My
tears have been my meat day and night;”[752] and “Every night
shall I make my bed to swim; with my tears shall I water
my couch;”[753] and “My groaning is not hid from Thee;”[754] and[Pg 379]
“My sorrow was renewed?”[755] Or are not those God’s children
who groan, being burdened, not that they wish to be unclothed,
but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed
up of life?[756] Do not they even who have the first-fruits of
the Spirit groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption,
the redemption of their body?[757] Was not the Apostle Paul
himself a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, and was he not
so all the more when he had heaviness and continual sorrow
of heart for his Israelitish brethren?[758] But when shall there be
no more death in that city, except when it shall be said, “O
death, where is thy contention?[759] O death, where is thy sting?
The sting of death is sin.”[760] Obviously there shall be no sin
when it can be said, “Where is”—But as for the present
it is not some poor weak citizen of this city, but this same
Apostle John himself who says, “If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”[761] No
doubt, though this book is called the Apocalypse, there are in
it many obscure passages to exercise the mind of the reader,
and there are few passages so plain as to assist us in the
interpretation of the others, even though we take pains; and
this difficulty is increased by the repetition of the same things,
in forms so different, that the things referred to seem to be
different, although in fact they are only differently stated.
But in the words, “God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, but there shall be no more pain,” there is so manifest
a reference to the future world and the immortality and
eternity of the saints,—for only then and only there shall
such a condition be realized,—that if we think this obscure,
we need not expect to find anything plain in any part of
Scripture.

18. What the Apostle Peter predicted regarding the last judgment.

Let us now see what the Apostle Peter predicted concerning
this judgment. “There shall come,” he says, “in the last
days scoffers…. Nevertheless we, according to His promise,[Pg 380]
look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness.”[762] There is nothing said here about the resurrection
of the dead, but enough certainly regarding the destruction
of this world. And by his reference to the deluge
he seems as it were to suggest to us how far we should believe
the ruin of the world will extend in the end of the
world. For he says that the world which then was perished,
and not only the earth itself, but also the heavens, by which
we understand the air, the place and room of which was
occupied by the water. Therefore the whole, or almost the
whole, of the gusty atmosphere (which he calls heaven, or
rather the heavens, meaning the earth’s atmosphere, and not
the upper air in which sun, moon, and stars are set) was
turned into moisture, and in this way perished together with
the earth, whose former appearance had been destroyed by the
deluge. “But the heavens and the earth which are now, by
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the
day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Therefore
the heavens and the earth, or the world which was preserved
from the water to stand in place of that world which perished
in the flood, is itself reserved to fire at last in the day of the
judgment and perdition of ungodly men. He does not hesitate
to affirm that in this great change men also shall perish: their
nature, however, shall notwithstanding continue, though in
eternal punishments. Some one will perhaps put the question,
If after judgment is pronounced the world itself is to burn,
where shall the saints be during the conflagration, and before
it is replaced by a new heavens and a new earth, since somewhere
they must be, because they have material bodies? We
may reply that they shall be in the upper regions into which
the flame of that conflagration shall not ascend, as neither did
the water of the flood; for they shall have such bodies that
they shall be wherever they wish. Moreover, when they have
become immortal and incorruptible, they shall not greatly dread
the blaze of that conflagration, as the corruptible and mortal
bodies of the three men were able to live unhurt in the blazing
furnace.

[Pg 381]

19. What the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about the manifestation
of Antichrist which shall precede the day of the Lord.

I see that I must omit many of the statements of the
gospels and epistles about this last judgment, that this volume
may not become unduly long; but I can on no account omit
what the Apostle Paul says, in writing to the Thessalonians,
“We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ,”[763] etc.

No one can doubt that he wrote this of Antichrist and of
the day of judgment, which he here calls the day of the Lord,
nor that he declared that this day should not come unless he
first came who is called the apostate—apostate, to wit, from
the Lord God. And if this may justly be said of all the ungodly,
how much more of him? But it is uncertain in what
temple he shall sit, whether in that ruin of the temple which
was built by Solomon, or in the Church; for the apostle
would not call the temple of any idol or demon the temple of
God. And on this account some think that in this passage
Antichrist means not the prince himself alone, but his whole
body, that is, the mass of men who adhere to him, along with
him their prince; and they also think that we should render
the Greek more exactly were we to read, not “in the temple
of God,” but “for” or “as the temple of God,” as if he himself
were the temple of God, the Church.[764] Then as for the
words, “And now ye know what withholdeth,” i.e. ye know
what hindrance or cause of delay there is, “that he might be
revealed in his own time;” they show that he was unwilling
to make an explicit statement, because he said that they knew.
And thus we who have not their knowledge wish and are
not able even with pains to understand what the apostle referred
to, especially as his meaning is made still more obscure
by what he adds. For what does he mean by “For the
mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now
holdeth, let him hold until he be taken out of the way: and
then shall the wicked be revealed?” I frankly confess I do[Pg 382]
not know what he means. I will nevertheless mention such
conjectures as I have heard or read.

Some think that the Apostle Paul referred to the Roman
empire, and that he was unwilling to use language more explicit,
lest he should incur the calumnious charge of wishing
ill to the empire which it was hoped would be eternal; so
that in saying, “For the mystery of iniquity doth already
work,” he alluded to Nero, whose deeds already seemed to be
as the deeds of Antichrist. And hence some suppose that he
shall rise again and be Antichrist. Others, again, suppose that
he is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might
be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in
concealment in the vigour of that same age which he had
reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live
until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom.[765]
But I wonder that men can be so audacious in their
conjectures. However, it is not absurd to believe that these
words of the apostle, “Only he who now holdeth, let him hold
until he be taken out of the way,” refer to the Roman empire,
as if it were said, “Only he who now reigneth, let him reign
until he be taken out of the way.” “And then shall the
wicked be revealed:” no one doubts that this means Antichrist.
But others think that the words, “Ye know what
withholdeth,” and “The mystery of iniquity worketh,” refer
only to the wicked and the hypocrites who are in the Church,
until they reach a number so great as to furnish Antichrist
with a great people, and that this is the mystery of iniquity,
because it seems hidden; also that the apostle is exhorting
the faithful tenaciously to hold the faith they hold when he
says, “Only he who now holdeth, let him hold until he be
taken out of the way,” that is, until the mystery of iniquity
which now is hidden departs from the Church. For they
suppose that it is to this same mystery John alludes when in
his epistle he says, “Little children, it is the last time: and
as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are
there 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 no doubt have continued[Pg 383]
with us.”[766] As therefore there went out from the Church
many heretics, whom John calls “many antichrists,” at that
time prior to the end, and which John calls “the last time,”
so in the end they shall go out who do not belong to Christ,
but to that last Antichrist, and then he shall be revealed.

Thus various, then, are the conjectural explanations of the
obscure words of the apostle. That which there is no doubt
he said is this, that Christ will not come to judge quick and
dead unless Antichrist, His adversary, first come to seduce
those who are dead in soul; although their seduction is a result
of God’s secret judgment already passed. For, as it is
said, “his presence shall be after the working of Satan, with
all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all seduction
of unrighteousness in them that perish.” For then shall
Satan be loosed, and by means of that Antichrist shall work
with all power in a lying though a wonderful manner. It is
commonly questioned whether these works are called “signs
and lying wonders” because he is to deceive men’s senses by
false appearances, or because the things he does, though they
be true prodigies, shall be a lie to those who shall believe
that such things could be done only by God, being ignorant
of the devil’s power, and especially of such unexampled power
as he shall then for the first time put forth. For when he
fell from heaven as fire, and at a stroke swept away from the
holy Job his numerous household and his vast flocks, and
then as a whirlwind rushed upon and smote the house and
killed his children, these were not deceitful appearances, and
yet they were the works of Satan to whom God had given
this power. Why they are called signs and lying wonders
we shall then be more likely to know when the time itself
arrives. But whatever be the reason of the name, they shall
be such signs and wonders as shall seduce those who shall
deserve to be seduced, “because they received not the love of
the truth that they might be saved.” Neither did the apostle
scruple to go on to say, “For this cause God shall send upon
them the working of error that they should believe a lie.”
For God shall send, because God shall permit the devil to do
these things, the permission being by His own just judgment,[Pg 384]
though the doing of them is in pursuance of the devil’s unrighteous
and malignant purpose, “that they all might be
judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
Therefore, being judged, they shall be seduced,
and, being seduced, they shall be judged. But, being judged,
they shall be seduced by those secretly just and justly secret
judgments of God, with which He has never ceased to judge
since the first sin of the rational creatures; and, being seduced,
they shall be judged in that last and manifest judgment administered
by Jesus Christ, who was Himself most unjustly
judged and shall most justly judge.

20. What the same apostle taught in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians
regarding the resurrection of the dead.

But the apostle has said nothing here regarding the resurrection
of the dead; but in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians
he says, “We would not have you to be ignorant,
brethren, concerning them which are asleep,”[767] etc. These
words of the apostle most distinctly proclaim the future resurrection
of the dead, when the Lord Christ shall come to
judge the quick and the dead.

But it is commonly asked whether those whom our Lord
shall find alive upon earth, personated in this passage by the
apostle and those who were alive with him, shall never die
at all, or shall pass with incomprehensible swiftness through
death to immortality in the very moment during which they
shall be caught up along with those who rise again to meet
the Lord in the air? For we cannot say that it is impossible
that they should both die and revive again while they are
carried aloft through the air. For the words, “And so shall
we ever be with the Lord,” are not to be understood as if he
meant that we shall always remain in the air with the Lord;
for He Himself shall not remain there, but shall only pass
through it as He comes. For we shall go to meet Him as
He comes, not where He remains; but “so shall we be with
the Lord,” that is, we shall be with Him possessed of immortal
bodies wherever we shall be with Him. We seem
compelled to take the words in this sense, and to suppose that
those whom the Lord shall find alive upon earth shall in that[Pg 385]
brief space both suffer death and receive immortality; for this
same apostle says, “In Christ shall all be made alive;”[768] while,
speaking of the same resurrection of the body, he elsewhere
says, “That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it
die.”[769] How, then, shall those whom Christ shall find alive
upon earth be made alive to immortality in Him if they die
not, since on this very account it is said, “That which thou
sowest is not quickened, except it die?” Or if we cannot
properly speak of human bodies as sown, unless in so far as
by dying they do in some sort return to the earth, as also the
sentence pronounced by God against the sinning father of the
human race runs, “Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou
return,”[770] we must acknowledge that those whom Christ at
His coming shall find still in the body are not included in
these words of the apostle nor in those of Genesis; for, being
caught up into the clouds, they are certainly not sown, neither
going nor returning to the earth, whether they experience no
death at all or die for a moment in the air.

But, on the other hand, there meets us the saying of the
same apostle when he was speaking to the Corinthians about
the resurrection of the body, “We shall all rise,” or, as other
mss. read, “We shall all sleep.”[771] Since, then, there can be
no resurrection unless death has preceded, and since we can
in this passage understand by sleep nothing else than death,
how shall all either sleep or rise again if so many persons
whom Christ shall find in the body shall neither sleep nor
rise again? If, then, we believe that the saints who shall
be found alive at Christ’s coming, and shall be caught up to
meet Him, shall in that same ascent pass from mortal to immortal
bodies, we shall find no difficulty in the words of the
apostle, either when he says, “That which thou sowest is
not quickened, except it die,” or when he says, “We shall all
rise,” or “all sleep,” for not even the saints shall be quickened
to immortality unless they first die, however briefly;
and consequently they shall not be exempt from resurrection
which is preceded by sleep, however brief. And why should
it seem to us incredible that that multitude of bodies should[Pg 386]
be, as it were, sown in the air, and should in the air forthwith
revive immortal and incorruptible, when we believe, on the
testimony of the same apostle, that the resurrection shall take
place in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of bodies
long dead shall return with incomprehensible facility and
swiftness to those members that are now to live endlessly?
Neither do we suppose that in the case of these saints the
sentence, “Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return,”
is null, though their bodies do not, on dying, fall to earth, but
both die and rise again at once while caught up into the air.
For “Thou shalt return to earth” means, Thou shalt at death
return to that which thou wert before life began. Thou
shalt, when exanimate, be that which thou wert before thou
wast animate. For it was into a face of earth that God
breathed the breath of life when man was made a living
soul; as if it were said, Thou art earth with a soul, which
thou wast not; thou shalt be earth without a soul, as thou
wast. And this is what all bodies of the dead are before
they rot; and what the bodies of those saints shall be if they
die, no matter where they die, as soon as they shall give up
that life which they are immediately to receive back again.
In this way, then, they return or go to earth, inasmuch as
from being living men they shall be earth, as that which becomes
cinder is said to go to cinder; that which decays, to
go to decay; and so of six hundred other things. But the
manner in which this shall take place we can now only feebly
conjecture, and shall understand it only when it comes to
pass. For that there shall be a bodily resurrection of the
dead when Christ comes to judge quick and dead, we must
believe if we would be Christians. But if we are unable
perfectly to comprehend the manner in which it shall take
place, our faith is not on this account vain. Now, however,
we ought, as we formerly promised, to show, as far as seems
necessary, what the ancient prophetic books predicted concerning
this final judgment of God; and I fancy no great
time need be spent in discussing and explaining these predictions,
if the reader has been careful to avail himself of the
help we have already furnished.

[Pg 387]

21. Utterances of the prophet Isaiah regarding the resurrection of the dead and
the retributive judgment.

The prophet Isaiah says, “The dead shall rise again, and
all who were in the graves shall rise again; and all who are
in the earth shall rejoice: for the dew which is from Thee is
their health, and the earth of the wicked shall fall.”[772] All
the former part of this passage relates to the resurrection of
the blessed; but the words, “the earth of the wicked shall
fall,” is rightly understood as meaning that the bodies of the
wicked shall fall into the ruin of damnation. And if we
would more exactly and carefully scrutinize the words which
refer to the resurrection of the good, we may refer to the first
resurrection the words, “the dead shall rise again,” and to
the second the following words, “and all who were in the
graves shall rise again.” And if we ask what relates to those
saints whom the Lord at His coming shall find alive upon
earth, the following clause may suitably be referred to them:
“All who are in the earth shall rejoice: for the dew which is
from Thee is their health.” By “health” in this place it is
best to understand immortality. For that is the most perfect
health which is not repaired by nourishment as by a daily
remedy. In like manner the same prophet, affording hope to
the good and terrifying the wicked regarding the day of judgment,
says, “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will flow down
upon them as a river of peace, and upon the glory of the
Gentiles as a rushing torrent: their sons shall be carried on
the shoulders, and shall be comforted on the knees. As one
whom his mother comforteth, so shall I comfort you; and ye
shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and your
heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall rise up like a herb;
and the hand of the Lord shall be known by His worshippers,
and He shall threaten the contumacious. For, behold, the
Lord shall come as a fire, and as a whirlwind His chariots, to
execute vengeance with indignation, and wasting with a flame
of fire. For with fire of the Lord shall all the earth be
judged, and all flesh with His sword: many shall be wounded
by the Lord.”[773] In His promise to the good he says that He
will flow down as a river of peace, that is to say, in the[Pg 388]
greatest possible abundance of peace. With this peace we
shall in the end be refreshed; but of this we have spoken
abundantly in the preceding book. It is this river in which
he says He shall flow down upon those to whom He promises
so great happiness, that we may understand that in the
region of that felicity, which is in heaven, all things are
satisfied from this river. But because there shall thence flow,
even upon earthly bodies, the peace of incorruption and immortality,
therefore he says that He shall flow down as this
river, that He may as it were pour Himself from things above
to things beneath, and make men the equals of the angels.
By “Jerusalem,” too, we should understand not that which
serves with her children, but that which, according to the
apostle, is our free mother, eternal in the heavens.[774] In her
we shall be comforted as we pass toilworn from earth’s cares
and calamities, and be taken up as her children on her knees
and shoulders. Inexperienced and new to such blandishments,
we shall be received into unwonted bliss. There we
shall see, and our heart shall rejoice. He does not say what
we shall see; but what but God, that the promise in the
Gospel may be fulfilled in us, “Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God?”[775] What shall we see but all those
things which now we see not, but believe in, and of which
the idea we form, according to our feeble capacity, is incomparably
less than the reality? “And ye shall see,” he says,
“and your heart shall rejoice.” Here ye believe, there ye
shall see.

But because he said, “Your heart shall rejoice,” lest we
should suppose that the blessings of that Jerusalem are only
spiritual, he adds, “And your bones shall rise up like a herb,”
alluding to the resurrection of the body, and as it were supplying
an omission he had made. For it will not take place
when we have seen; but we shall see when it has taken
place. For he had already spoken of the new heavens and
the new earth, speaking repeatedly, and under many figures,
of the things promised to the saints, and saying, “There shall
be new heavens, and a new earth: and the former shall not be
remembered nor come into mind; but they shall find in it[Pg 389]
gladness and exultation. Behold, I will make Jerusalem an
exultation, and my people a joy. And I will exult in Jerusalem,
and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall
be no more heard in her;”[776] and other promises, which some
endeavour to refer to carnal enjoyment during the thousand
years. For, in the manner of prophecy, figurative and literal
expressions are mingled, so that a serious mind may, by useful
and salutary effort, reach the spiritual sense; but carnal
sluggishness, or the slowness of an uneducated and undisciplined
mind, rests in the superficial letter, and thinks there is
nothing beneath to be looked for. But let this be enough
regarding the style of those prophetic expressions just quoted.
And now, to return to their interpretation. When he had said,
“And your bones shall rise up like a herb,” in order to show
that it was the resurrection of the good, though a bodily
resurrection, to which he alluded, he added, “And the hand
of the Lord shall be known by His worshippers.” What is
this but the hand of Him who distinguishes those who worship
from those who despise Him? Regarding these the
context immediately adds, “And He shall threaten the contumacious,”
or, as another translator has it, “the unbelieving.”
He shall not actually threaten then, but the threats which
are now uttered shall then be fulfilled in effect. “For behold,”
he says, “the Lord shall come as a fire, and as a whirlwind
His chariots, to execute vengeance with indignation, and
wasting with a flame of fire. For with fire of the Lord shall
all the earth be judged, and all flesh with His sword: many
shall be wounded by the Lord.” By fire, whirlwind, sword,
he means the judicial punishment of God. For he says that
the Lord Himself shall come as a fire, to those, that is to say,
to whom His coming shall be penal. By His chariots (for the
word is plural) we suitably understand the ministration of
angels. And when he says that all flesh and all the earth
shall be judged with His fire and sword, we do not understand
the spiritual and holy to be included, but the earthly
and carnal, of whom it is said that they “mind earthly
things,”[777] and “to be carnally minded is death,”[778] and whom
the Lord calls simply flesh when He says, “My Spirit shall[Pg 390]
not always remain in these men, for they are flesh.”[779] As
to the words, “Many shall be wounded by the Lord,” this
wounding shall produce the second death. It is possible,
indeed, to understand fire, sword, and wound in a good sense.
For the Lord said that He wished to send fire on the earth.[780]
And the cloven tongues appeared to them as fire when the
Holy Spirit came.[781] And our Lord says, “I am not come to
send peace on earth, but a sword.”[782] And Scripture says that
the word of God is a doubly sharp sword,[783] on account of the
two edges, the two Testaments. And in the Song of Songs
the holy Church says that she is wounded with love,[784]—pierced,
as it were, with the arrow of love. But here, where we read
or hear that the Lord shall come to execute vengeance, it is
obvious in what sense we are to understand these expressions.

After briefly mentioning those who shall be consumed in
this judgment, speaking of the wicked and sinners under the
figure of the meats forbidden by the old law, from which they
had not abstained, he summarily recounts the grace of the
new testament, from the first coming of the Saviour to the
last judgment, of which we now speak; and herewith he concludes
his prophecy. For he relates that the Lord declares
that He is coming to gather all nations, that they may come
and witness His glory.[785] For, as the apostle says, “All have
sinned and are in want of the glory of God.”[786] And he says
that He will do wonders among them, at which they shall
marvel and believe in Him; and that from them He will send
forth those that are saved into various nations, and distant
islands which have not heard His name nor seen His glory,
and that they shall declare His glory among the nations, and
shall bring the brethren of those to whom the prophet was
speaking, i.e. shall bring to the faith under God the Father
the brethren of the elect Israelites; and that they shall bring
from all nations an offering to the Lord on beasts of burden
and waggons (which are understood to mean the aids furnished
by God in the shape of angelic or human ministry), to the
holy city Jerusalem, which at present is scattered over the[Pg 391]
earth, in the faithful saints. For where divine aid is given,
men believe, and where they believe, they come. And the
Lord compared them, in a figure, to the children of Israel
offering sacrifice to Him in His house with psalms, which is
already everywhere done by the Church; and He promised
that from among them He would choose for Himself priests
and Levites, which also we see already accomplished. For
we see that priests and Levites are now chosen, not from a
certain family and blood, as was originally the rule in the
priesthood according to the order of Aaron, but as befits the
new testament, under which Christ is the High Priest after
the order of Melchisedec, in consideration of the merit which
is bestowed upon each man by divine grace. And these priests
are not to be judged by their mere title, which is often borne
by unworthy men, but by that holiness which is not common
to good men and bad.

After having thus spoken of this mercy of God which is
now experienced by the Church, and is very evident and
familiar to us, he foretells also the ends to which men shall
come when the last judgment has separated the good and the
bad, saying by the prophet, or the prophet himself speaking
for God, “For as the new heavens and the new earth shall
remain before me, said the Lord, so shall your seed and your
name remain, and there shall be to them month after month,
and Sabbath after Sabbath. All flesh shall come to worship
before me in Jerusalem, said the Lord. And they shall go
out, and shall see the members of the men who have sinned
against me: their worm shall not die, neither shall their
fire be quenched; and they shall be for a spectacle to all
flesh.”[787] At this point the prophet closed his book, as at
this point the world shall come to an end. Some, indeed,
have translated “carcases”[788] instead of “members of the men,”
meaning by carcases the manifest punishment of the body,
although carcase is commonly used only of dead flesh, while
the bodies here spoken of shall be animated, else they could
not be sensible of any pain; but perhaps they may, without
absurdity, be called carcases, as being the bodies of those who
are to fall into the second death. And for the same reason[Pg 392]
it is said, as I have already quoted, by this same prophet,
“The earth of the wicked shall fall.”[789] It is obvious that
those translators who use a different word for men do not
mean to include only males, for no one will say that the
women who sinned shall not appear in that judgment; but
the male sex, being the more worthy, and that from which
the woman was derived, is intended to include both sexes.
But that which is especially pertinent to our subject is this,
that since the words “All flesh shall come” apply to the good,
for the people of God shall be composed of every race of men,—for
all men shall not be present, since the greater part
shall be in punishment,—but, as I was saying, since flesh is
used of the good, and members or carcases of the bad, certainly
it is thus put beyond a doubt that that judgment in which
the good and the bad shall be allotted to their destinies shall
take place after the resurrection of the body, our faith in
which is thoroughly established by the use of these words.

22. What is meant by the good going out to see the punishment of the wicked.

But in what way shall the good go out to see the punishment
of the wicked? Are they to leave their happy abodes
by a bodily movement, and proceed to the places of punishment,
so as to witness the torments of the wicked in their
bodily presence? Certainly not; but they shall go out by
knowledge. For this expression, go out, signifies that those
who shall be punished shall be without. And thus the Lord
also calls these places “the outer darkness,”[790] to which is
opposed that entrance concerning which it is said to the
good servant, “Enter into the joy of thy Lord,” that it may
not be supposed that the wicked can enter thither and be
known, but rather that the good by their knowledge go out
to them, because the good are to know that which is without.
For those who shall be in torment shall not know what is
going on within in the joy of the Lord; but they who shall
enter into that joy shall know what is going on outside in
the outer darkness. Therefore it is said, “They shall go[Pg 393]
out,” because they shall know what is done by those who are
without. For if the prophets were able to know things that
had not yet happened, by means of that indwelling of God in
their minds, limited though it was, shall not the immortal
saints know things that have already happened, when God
shall be all in all?[791] The seed, then, and the name of the
saints shall remain in that blessedness,—the seed, to wit, of
which John says, “And his seed remaineth in him;”[792] and the
name, of which it was said through Isaiah himself, “I will
give them an everlasting name.”[793] “And there shall be to
them month after month, and Sabbath after Sabbath,” as if it
were said, Moon after moon, and rest upon rest, both of which
they shall themselves be when they shall pass from the old
shadows of time into the new lights of eternity. The worm
that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched, which constitute
the punishment of the wicked, are differently interpreted
by different people. For some refer both to the body,
others refer both to the soul; while others again refer the fire
literally to the body, and the worm figuratively to the soul,
which seems the more credible idea. But the present is not
the time to discuss this difference, for we have undertaken to
occupy this book with the last judgment, in which the good
and the bad are separated: their rewards and punishments we
shall more carefully discuss elsewhere.

23. What Daniel predicted regarding the persecution of Antichrist, the
judgment of God, and the kingdom of the saints.

Daniel prophesies of the last judgment in such a way as to
indicate that Antichrist shall first come, and to carry on his
description to the eternal reign of the saints. For when in
prophetic vision he had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms,
and the fourth conquered by a certain king, who is
recognised as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom
of the Son of man, that is to say, of Christ, he says, “My
spirit was terrified, I Daniel in the midst of my body, and
the visions of my head troubled me,”[794] etc. Some have interpreted
these four kingdoms as signifying those of the Assyrians,
Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. They who desire to[Pg 394]
understand the fitness of this interpretation may read Jerome’s
book on Daniel, which is written with a sufficiency of care
and erudition. But he who reads this passage, even half-asleep,
cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall
fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the
last judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of the
saints. For it is patent from the context that the time, times,
and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year,
that is to say, three years and a half. Sometimes in Scripture
the same thing is indicated by months. For though the word
times seems to be used here in the Latin indefinitely, that is
only because the Latins have no dual, as the Greeks have,
and as the Hebrews also are said to have. Times, therefore, is
used for two times. As for the ten kings, whom, as it seems,
Antichrist is to find in the person of ten individuals when he
comes, I own I am afraid we may be deceived in this, and
that he may come unexpectedly while there are not ten kings
living in the Roman world. For what if this number ten
signifies the whole number of kings who are to precede his
coming, as totality is frequently symbolized by a thousand,
or a hundred, or seven, or other numbers, which it is not
necessary to recount?

In another place the same Daniel says, “And there shall
be a time of trouble, such as was not since there was born a
nation upon earth until that time: and in that time all Thy
people which shall be found written in the book shall be delivered.
And many of them that sleep in the mound of
earth shall arise, some to everlasting life, and some to shame
and everlasting confusion. And they that be wise shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament; and many of the just as
the stars for ever.”[795] This passage is very similar to the one
we have quoted from the Gospel,[796] at least so far as regards the
resurrection of dead bodies. For those who are there said to
be “in the graves” are here spoken of as “sleeping in the
mound of earth,” or, as others translate, “in the dust of
earth.” There it is said, “They shall come forth;” so here,
“They shall arise.” There, “They that have done good, to the
resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection[Pg 395]
of judgment;” here, “Some to everlasting life, and
some to shame and everlasting confusion.” Neither is it to
be supposed a difference, though in place of the expression
in the Gospel, “All who are in their graves,” the prophet does
not say “all,” but “many of them that sleep in the mound of
earth.” For many is sometimes used in Scripture for all.
Thus it was said to Abraham, “I have set thee as the father
of many nations,” though in another place it was said to him,
“In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.”[797] Of such a resurrection
it is said a little afterwards to the prophet himself,
“And come thou and rest: for there is yet a day till the
completion of the consummation; and thou shalt rest, and
rise in thy lot in the end of the days.”[798]

24. Passages from the Psalms of David which predict the end of the world and
the last judgment.

There are many allusions to the last judgment in the
Psalms, but for the most part only casual and slight. I cannot,
however, omit to mention what is said there in express
terms of the end of this world: “In the beginning hast Thou
laid the foundations of the earth, O Lord; and the heavens
are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou
shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment;
and as a vesture Thou shalt change them, and they shall be
changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not
fail.”[799] Why is it that Porphyry, while he lauds the piety of
the Hebrews in worshipping a God great and true, and terrible
to the gods themselves, follows the oracles of these gods in
accusing the Christians of extreme folly because they say that
this world shall perish? For here we find it said in the
sacred books of the Hebrews, to that God whom this great
philosopher acknowledges to be terrible even to the gods
themselves, “The heavens are the work of Thy hands: they
shall perish.” When the heavens, the higher and more secure
part of the world, perish, shall the world itself be preserved?
If this idea is not relished by Jupiter, whose oracle is quoted
by this philosopher as an unquestionable authority in rebuke
of the credulity of the Christians, why does he not similarly
rebuke the wisdom of the Hebrews as folly, seeing that the[Pg 396]
prediction is found in their most holy books? But if this
Hebrew wisdom, with which Porphyry is so captivated that
he extols it through the utterances of his own gods, proclaims
that the heavens are to perish, how is he so infatuated as to
detest the faith of the Christians partly, if not chiefly, on this
account, that they believe the world is to perish?—though how
the heavens are to perish if the world does not is not easy to
see. And, indeed, in the sacred writings which are peculiar
to ourselves, and not common to the Hebrews and us,—I
mean the evangelic and apostolic books,—the following expressions
are used: “The figure of this world passeth away;”[800]
“The world passeth away;”[801] “Heaven and earth shall pass
away,”[802]—expressions which are, I fancy, somewhat milder than
“They shall perish.” In the Epistle of the Apostle Peter, too,
where the world which then was is said to have perished,
being overflowed with water, it is sufficiently obvious what
part of the world is signified by the whole, and in what sense
the word perished is to be taken, and what heavens were kept
in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men.[803] And when he says a little afterwards,
“The day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a great rush, and the
elements shall melt with burning heat, and the earth and the
works which are in it shall be burned up;” and then adds,
“Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what
manner of persons ought ye to be?”[804]—these heavens which
are to perish may be understood to be the same which he said
were kept in store reserved for fire; and the elements which
are to be burned are those which are full of storm and disturbance
in this lowest part of the world in which he said
that these heavens were kept in store; for the higher heavens
in whose firmament are set the stars are safe, and remain in
their integrity. For even the expression of Scripture, that
“the stars shall fall from heaven,”[805] not to mention that a
different interpretation is much preferable, rather shows
that the heavens themselves shall remain, if the stars are to
fall from them. This expression, then, is either figurative, as[Pg 397]
is more credible, or this phenomenon will take place in this
lowest heaven, like that mentioned by Virgil,—

“A meteor with a train of light

Athwart the sky gleamed dazzling bright,

Then in Idæan woods was lost.”[806]

But the passage I have quoted from the psalm seems to
except none of the heavens from the destiny of destruction;
for he says, “The heavens are the works of Thy hands: they
shall perish;” so that, as none of them are excepted from the
category of God’s works, none of them are excepted from
destruction. For our opponents will not condescend to defend
the Hebrew piety, which has won the approbation of their
gods, by the words of the Apostle Peter, whom they vehemently
detest; nor will they argue that, as the apostle in his
epistle understands a part when he speaks of the whole world
perishing in the flood, though only the lowest part of it, and
the corresponding heavens were destroyed, so in the psalm the
whole is used for a part, and it is said “They shall perish,”
though only the lowest heavens are to perish. But since, as
I said, they will not condescend to reason thus, lest they
should seem to approve of Peter’s meaning, or ascribe as
much importance to the final conflagration as we ascribe to
the deluge, whereas they contend that no waters or flames
could destroy the whole human race, it only remains to them
to maintain that their gods lauded the wisdom of the Hebrews
because they had not read this psalm.

It is the last judgment of God which is referred to also in
the 50th Psalm in the words, “God shall come manifestly,
our God, and shall not keep silence: fire shall devour before
Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He
shall call the heaven above, and the earth, to judge His
people. Gather His saints together to Him; they who make
a covenant with Him over sacrifices.”[807] This we understand
of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we look for from heaven to
judge the quick and the dead. For He shall come manifestly
to judge justly the just and the unjust, who before came
hiddenly to be unjustly judged by the unjust. He, I say,
shall come manifestly, and shall not keep silence, that is, shall[Pg 398]
make Himself known by His voice of judgment, who before,
when He came hiddenly, was silent before His judge when
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and, as a lamb before
the shearer, opened not His mouth, as we read that it was
prophesied of Him by Isaiah,[808] and as we see it fulfilled in the
Gospel.[809] As for the fire and tempest, we have already said
how these are to be interpreted when we were explaining a
similar passage in Isaiah.[810] As to the expression, “He shall
call the heaven above,” as the saints and the righteous are
rightly called heaven, no doubt this means what the apostle
says, “We shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”[811] For if we take the
bare literal sense, how is it possible to call the heaven above,
as if the heaven could be anywhere else than above? And
the following expression, “And the earth to judge His people,”
if we supply only the words, “He shall call,” that is to say,
“He shall call the earth also,” and do not supply “above,”
seems to give us a meaning in accordance with sound doctrine,
the heaven symbolizing those who will judge along with
Christ, and the earth those who shall be judged; and thus
the words, “He shall call the heaven above,” would not
mean, “He shall catch up into the air,” but “He shall lift up
to seats of judgment.” Possibly, too, “He shall call the
heaven,” may mean, He shall call the angels in the high and
lofty places, that He may descend with them to do judgment;
and “He shall call the earth also” would then mean, He shall
call the men on the earth to judgment. But if with the words
“and the earth” we understand not only “He shall call,” but
also “above,” so as to make the full sense be, He shall call
the heaven above, and He shall call the earth above, then I
think it is best understood of the men who shall be caught
up to meet Christ in the air, and that they are called the
heaven with reference to their souls, and the earth with reference
to their bodies. Then what is “to judge His people,”
but to separate by judgment the good from the bad, as the
sheep from the goats? Then he turns to address the angels:
“Gather His saints together unto Him.” For certainly a[Pg 399]
matter so important must be accomplished by the ministry of
angels. And if we ask who the saints are who are gathered
unto Him by the angels, we are told, “They who make a
covenant with Him over sacrifices.” This is the whole life of
the saints, to make a covenant with God over sacrifices. For
“over sacrifices” either refers to works of mercy, which are
preferable to sacrifices in the judgment of God, who says,
“I desire mercy more than sacrifices;”[812] or if “over sacrifices”
means in sacrifices, then these very works of mercy are
the sacrifices with which God is pleased, as I remember to
have stated in the tenth book of this work;[813] and in these
works the saints make a covenant with God, because they do
them for the sake of the promises which are contained in His
new testament or covenant. And hence, when His saints
have been gathered to Him and set at His right hand in the
last judgment, Christ shall say, “Come, ye blessed of my
Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and ye gave
me to eat,”[814] and so on, mentioning the good works of the
good, and their eternal rewards assigned by the last sentence
of the Judge.

25. Of Malachi’s prophecy, in which he speaks of the last judgment, and of a
cleansing which some are to undergo by purifying punishments.

The prophet Malachi or Malachias, who is also called Angel,
and is by some (for Jerome[815] tells us that this is the opinion
of the Hebrews) identified with Ezra the priest,[816] others of
whose writings have been received into the canon, predicts
the last judgment, saying, “Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord
Almighty; and who shall abide the day of His entrance? …
for I am the Lord your God, and I change not.”[817] From
these words it more evidently appears that some shall in the
last judgment suffer some kind of purgatorial punishments;
for what else can be understood by the word, “Who shall
abide the day of His entrance, or who shall be able to look
upon Him? for He enters as a moulder’s fire, and as the
herb of fullers: and He shall sit fusing and purifying as if[Pg 400]
over gold and silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi,
and pour them out like gold and silver?” Similarly Isaiah
says, “The Lord shall wash the filthiness of the sons and
daughters of Zion, and shall cleanse away the blood from their
midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.”[818]
Unless perhaps we should say that they are cleansed from
filthiness and in a manner clarified, when the wicked are
separated from them by penal judgment, so that the elimination
and damnation of the one party is the purgation of the
others, because they shall henceforth live free from the contamination
of such men. But when he says, “And he shall
purify the sons of Levi, and pour them out like gold and silver,
and they shall offer to the Lord sacrifices in righteousness;
and the sacrifices of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to
the Lord,” he declares that those who shall be purified shall
then please the Lord with sacrifices of righteousness, and consequently
they themselves shall be purified from their own
unrighteousness which made them displeasing to God. Now
they themselves, when they have been purified, shall be sacrifices
of complete and perfect righteousness; for what more
acceptable offering can such persons make to God than themselves?
But this question of purgatorial punishments we
must defer to another time, to give it a more adequate treatment.
By the sons of Levi and Judah and Jerusalem we
ought to understand the Church herself, gathered not from
the Hebrews only, but from other nations as well; nor such
a Church as she now is, when “if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,”[819] but as she
shall then be, purged by the last judgment as a threshing-floor
by a winnowing wind, and those of her members who need it
being cleansed by fire, so that there remains absolutely not
one who offers sacrifice for his sins. For all who make such
offerings are assuredly in their sins, for the remission of which
they make offerings, that having made to God an acceptable
offering, they may then be absolved.

26. Of the sacrifices offered to God by the saints, which are to be pleasing to Him,
as in the primitive days and former years.

And it was with the design of showing that His city shall[Pg 401]
not then follow this custom, that God said that the sons of
Levi should offer sacrifices in righteousness,—not therefore in
sin, and consequently not for sin. And hence we see how
vainly the Jews promise themselves a return of the old times of
sacrificing according to the law of the old testament, grounding
on the words which follow, “And the sacrifice of Judah and
Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the Lord, as in the primitive
days, and as in former years.” For in the times of the law
they offered sacrifices not in righteousness but in sins, offering
especially and primarily for sins, so much so that even the
priest himself, whom we must suppose to have been their most
righteous man, was accustomed to offer, according to God’s
commandments, first for his own sins, and then for the sins
of the people. And therefore we must explain how we are
to understand the words, “as in the primitive days, and as in
former years;” for perhaps he alludes to the time in which
our first parents were in paradise. Then, indeed, intact and
pure from all stain and blemish of sin, they offered themselves
to God as the purest sacrifices. But since they were banished
thence on account of their transgression, and human nature
was condemned in them, with the exception of the one Mediator
and those who have been baptized, and are as yet infants,
“there is none clean from stain, not even the babe whose life
has been but for a day upon the earth.”[820] But if it be replied
that those who offer in faith may be said to offer in righteousness,
because the righteous lives by faith,[821]—he deceives himself,
however, if he says that he has no sin, and therefore he
does not say so, because he lives by faith,—will any man say
this time of faith can be placed on an equal footing with that
consummation when they who offer sacrifices in righteousness
shall be purified by the fire of the last judgment? And consequently,
since it must be believed that after such a cleansing
the righteous shall retain no sin, assuredly that time, so far as
regards its freedom from sin, can be compared to no other
period, unless to that during which our first parents lived in
paradise in the most innocent happiness before their transgression.
It is this period, then, which is properly understood
when it is said, “as in the primitive days, and as in former[Pg 402]
years.” For in Isaiah, too, after the new heavens and the new
earth have been promised, among other elements in the blessedness
of the saints which are there depicted by allegories and
figures, from giving an adequate explanation of which I am
prevented by a desire to avoid prolixity, it is said, “According
to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people.”[822]
And who that has looked at Scripture does not know where
God planted the tree of life, from whose fruit He excluded
our first parents when their own iniquity ejected them from
paradise, and round which a terrible and fiery fence was set?

But if any one contends that those days of the tree of life
mentioned by the prophet Isaiah are the present times of the
Church of Christ, and that Christ Himself is prophetically
called the Tree of Life, because He is Wisdom, and of wisdom
Solomon says, “It is a tree of life to all who embrace it;”[823]
and if they maintain that our first parents did not pass years
in paradise, but were driven from it so soon that none of their
children were begotten there, and that therefore that time
cannot be alluded to in words which run, “as in the primitive
days, and as in former years,” I forbear entering on this question,
lest by discussing everything I become prolix, and leave
the whole subject in uncertainty. For I see another meaning,
which should keep us from believing that a restoration of the
primitive days and former years of the legal sacrifices could
have been promised to us by the prophet as a great boon.
For the animals selected as victims under the old law were
required to be immaculate, and free from all blemish whatever,
and symbolized holy men free from all sin, the only instance
of which character was found in Christ. As, therefore,
after the judgment those who are worthy of such purification
shall be purified even by fire, and shall be rendered thoroughly
sinless, and shall offer themselves to God in righteousness, and
be indeed victims immaculate and free from all blemish whatever,
they shall then certainly be “as in the primitive days,
and as in former years,” when the purest victims were offered,
the shadow of this future reality. For there shall then be in
the body and soul of the saints the purity which was symbolized
in the bodies of these victims.

[Pg 403]

Then, with reference to those who are worthy not of cleansing
but of damnation, He says, “And I will draw near to you
to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against evil-doers
and against adulterers;” and after enumerating other damnable
crimes, He adds, “For I am the Lord your God, and I am not
changed.” It is as if He said, Though your fault has changed
you for the worse, and my grace has changed you for the
better, I am not changed. And he says that He Himself will
be a witness, because in His judgment He needs no witnesses;
and that He will be “swift,” either because He is to come
suddenly, and the judgment which seemed to lag shall be very
swift by His unexpected arrival, or because He will convince
the consciences of men directly and without any prolix
harangue. “For,” as it is written, “in the thoughts of the
wicked His examination shall be conducted.”[824] And the
apostle says, “The thoughts accusing or else excusing, in the
day in which God shall judge the hidden things of men, according
to my gospel in Jesus Christ.”[825] Thus, then, shall the
Lord be a swift witness, when He shall suddenly bring back
into the memory that which shall convince and punish the
conscience.

27. Of the separation of the good and the bad, which proclaim the discriminating
influence of the last judgment.

The passage also which I formerly quoted for another purpose
from this prophet refers to the last judgment, in which
he says, “They shall be mine, saith the Lord Almighty, in
the day in which I make up my gains,”[826] etc. When this
diversity between the rewards and punishments which distinguish
the righteous from the wicked shall appear under that
Sun of righteousness in the brightness of life eternal,—a diversity
which is not discerned under this sun which shines on
the vanity of this life,—there shall then be such a judgment as
has never before been.

28. That the law of Moses must be spiritually understood to preclude the
damnable murmurs of a carnal interpretation.

In the succeeding words, “Remember the law of Moses
my servant, which I commanded to him in Horeb for all[Pg 404]
Israel,”[827] the prophet opportunely mentions precepts and statutes,
after declaring the important distinction hereafter to be
made between those who observe and those who despise the
law. He intends also that they learn to interpret the law
spiritually, and find Christ in it, by whose judgment that
separation between the good and the bad is to be made. For
it is not without reason that the Lord Himself says to the
Jews, “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me;
for he wrote of me.”[828] For by receiving the law carnally,
without perceiving that its earthly promises were figures of
things spiritual, they fell into such murmurings as audaciously
to say, “It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that
we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked suppliantly
before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now
we call aliens happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set
up.”[829] It was these words of theirs which in a manner compelled
the prophet to announce the last judgment, in which
the wicked shall not even in appearance be happy, but shall
manifestly be most miserable; and in which the good shall
be oppressed with not even a transitory wretchedness, but
shall enjoy unsullied and eternal felicity. For he had previously
cited some similar expressions of those who said,
“Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord,
and such are pleasing to Him.”[830] It was, I say, by understanding
the law of Moses carnally that they had come to
murmur thus against God. And hence, too, the writer of the
73d Psalm says that his feet were almost gone, his steps had
well-nigh slipped, because he was envious of sinners while he
considered their prosperity, so that he said among other things,
How doth God know, and is there knowledge in the Most
High? and again, Have I sanctified my heart in vain, and
washed my hands in innocency?[831] He goes on to say that his
efforts to solve this most difficult problem, which arises when
the good seem to be wretched and the wicked happy, were in
vain until he went into the sanctuary of God, and understood
the last things.[832] For in the last judgment things shall not be
so; but in the manifest felicity of the righteous and manifest[Pg 405]
misery of the wicked quite another state of things shall
appear.

29. Of the coming of Elias before the judgment, that the Jews may be converted
to Christ by his preaching and explanation of Scripture.

After admonishing them to give heed to the law of Moses,
as he foresaw that for a long time to come they would not
understand it spiritually and rightly, he went on to say, “And,
behold, I will send to you Elias the Tishbite before the great
and signal day of the Lord come: and he shall turn the heart
of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his next
of kin, lest I come and utterly smite the earth.”[833] It is a
familiar theme in the conversation and heart of the faithful,
that in the last days before the judgment the Jews shall believe
in the true Christ, that is, our Christ, by means of this
great and admirable prophet Elias who shall expound the law
to them. For not without reason do we hope that before the
coming of our Judge and Saviour Elias shall come, because
we have good reason to believe that he is now alive; for, as
Scripture most distinctly informs us,[834] he was taken up from
this life in a chariot of fire. When, therefore, he is come, he
shall give a spiritual explanation of the law which the Jews
at present understand carnally, and shall thus “turn the heart
of the father to the son,” that is, the heart of fathers to their
children; for the Septuagint translators have frequently put
the singular for the plural number. And the meaning is, that
the sons, that is, the Jews, shall understand the law as the
fathers, that is, the prophets, and among them Moses himself,
understood it. For the heart of the fathers shall be turned to
their children when the children understand the law as their
fathers did; and the heart of the children shall be turned to
their fathers when they have the same sentiments as the
fathers. The Septuagint used the expression, “and the heart
of a man to his next of kin,” because fathers and children are
eminently neighbours to one another. Another and a preferable
sense can be found in the words of the Septuagint translators,
who have translated Scripture with an eye to prophecy,
the sense, viz., that Elias shall turn the heart of God the Father
to the Son, not certainly as if he should bring about this love[Pg 406]
of the Father for the Son, but meaning that he should make
it known, and that the Jews also, who had previously hated,
should then love the Son who is our Christ. For so far as
regards the Jews, God has His heart turned away from our
Christ, this being their conception about God and Christ.
But in their case the heart of God shall be turned to the
Son when they themselves shall turn in heart, and learn the
love of the Father towards the Son. The words following,
“and the heart of a man to his next of kin,”—that is, Elias shall
also turn the heart of a man to his next of kin,—how can we
understand this better than as the heart of a man to the man
Christ? For though in the form of God He is our God,
yet, taking the form of a servant, He condescended to become
also our next of kin. It is this, then, which Elias will do,
“lest,” he says, “I come and smite the earth utterly.” For
they who mind earthly things are the earth. Such are the
carnal Jews until this day; and hence these murmurs of theirs
against God, “The wicked are pleasing to Him,” and “It is a
vain thing to serve God.”[835]

30. That in the books of the Old Testament, where it is said that God shall judge
the world, the person of Christ is not explicitly indicated, but it plainly
appears from some passages in which the Lord God speaks that Christ is
meant.

There are many other passages of Scripture bearing on the
last judgment of God,—so many, indeed, that to cite them all
would swell this book to an unpardonable size. Suffice it to
have proved that both Old and New Testament enounce the
judgment. But in the Old it is not so definitely declared as
in the New that the judgment shall be administered by Christ,
that is, that Christ shall descend from heaven as the Judge;
for when it is therein stated by the Lord God or His prophet
that the Lord God shall come, we do not necessarily understand
this of Christ. For both the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Ghost are the Lord God. We must not, however,
leave this without proof. And therefore we must first show
how Jesus Christ speaks in the prophetical books under the title
of the Lord God, while yet there can be no doubt that it is
Jesus Christ who speaks; so that in other passages where this[Pg 407]
is not at once apparent, and where nevertheless it is said that
the Lord God will come to that last judgment, we may understand
that Jesus Christ is meant. There is a passage in the
prophet Isaiah which illustrates what I mean. For God says
by the prophet, “Hear me, Jacob and Israel, whom I call. I
am the first, and I am for ever: and my hand has founded
the earth, and my right hand has established the heaven. I
will call them, and they shall stand together, and be gathered,
and hear. Who has declared to them these things? In love
of thee I have done thy pleasure upon Babylon, that I might
take away the seed of the Chaldeans. I have spoken, and I
have called: I have brought him, and have made his way
prosperous. Come ye near unto me, and hear this. I have
not spoken in secret from the beginning; when they were
made, there was I. And now the Lord God and His Spirit
hath sent me.”[836] It was Himself who was speaking as the
Lord God; and yet we should not have understood that it
was Jesus Christ had He not added, “And now the Lord
God and His Spirit hath sent me.” For He said this with
reference to the form of a servant, speaking of a future event
as if it were past, as in the same prophet we read, “He was
led as a sheep to the slaughter,”[837] not “He shall be led;” but
the past tense is used to express the future. And prophecy
constantly speaks in this way.

There is also another passage in Zechariah which plainly
declares that the Almighty sent the Almighty; and of what
persons can this be understood but of God the Father and
God the Son? For it is written, “Thus saith the Lord
Almighty, After the 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 bring mine hand upon them,
and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know
that the Lord Almighty hath sent me.”[838] Observe, the Lord
Almighty saith that the Lord Almighty sent Him. Who can
presume to understand these words of any other than Christ,
who is speaking to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? For
He says in the Gospel, “I am not sent save to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel,”[839] which He here compared to the[Pg 408]
pupil of God’s eye, to signify the profoundest love. And to
this class of sheep the apostles themselves belonged. But
after the glory, to wit, of His resurrection,—for before it
happened the evangelist said that “Jesus was not yet glorified,”[840]—He
was sent unto the nations in the persons of His
apostles; and thus the saying of the psalm was fulfilled,
“Thou wilt deliver me from the contradictions of the people;
Thou wilt set me as the head of the nations.”[841] So that those
who had spoiled the Israelites, and whom the Israelites had
served when they were subdued by them, were not themselves
to be spoiled in the same fashion, but were in their own persons
to become the spoil of the Israelites. For this had been
promised to the apostles when the Lord said, “I will make
you fishers of men.”[842] And to one of them He says, “From
henceforth thou shalt catch men.”[843] They were then to become
a spoil, but in a good sense, as those who are snatched
from that strong one when he is bound by a stronger.[844]

In like manner the Lord, speaking by the same prophet,
says, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that 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 mercy; and they shall
look upon me because they have insulted me, and they shall
mourn for Him as for one very dear, and shall be in bitterness
as for an only-begotten.”[845] To whom but to God does
it belong to destroy all the nations that are hostile to the
holy city Jerusalem, which “come against it,” that is, are
opposed to it, or, as some translate, “come upon it,” as if
putting it down under them; or to pour out upon the house
of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace
and mercy? This belongs doubtless to God, and it is to God
the prophet ascribes the words; and yet Christ shows that
He is the God who does these so great and divine things,
when He goes on to say, “And they shall look upon me because
they have insulted me, and they shall mourn for Him
as if for one very dear (or beloved), and shall be in bitterness
for Him as for an only-begotten.” For in that day the Jews—those[Pg 409]
of them, at least, who shall receive the spirit of grace and
mercy—when they see Him coming in His majesty, and recognise
that it is He whom they, in the person of their parents,
insulted when He came before in His humiliation, shall repent
of insulting Him in His passion: and their parents themselves,
who were the perpetrators of this huge impiety, shall
see Him when they rise; but this will be only for their
punishment, and not for their correction. It is not of them
we are to understand the words, “And I will pour upon the
house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the
spirit of grace and mercy, and they shall look upon me because
they have insulted me;” but we are to understand the
words of their descendants, who shall at that time believe
through Elias. But as we say to the Jews, You killed Christ,
although it was their parents who did so, so these persons
shall grieve that they in some sort did what their progenitors
did. Although, therefore, those that receive the spirit of
mercy and grace, and believe, shall not be condemned with
their impious parents, yet they shall mourn as if they themselves
had done what their parents did. Their grief shall
arise not so much from guilt as from pious affection. Certainly
the words which the Septuagint have translated, “They
shall look upon me because they insulted me,” stand in the
Hebrew, “They shall look upon me whom they pierced.”[846]
And by this word the crucifixion of Christ is certainly more
plainly indicated. But the Septuagint translators preferred
to allude to the insult which was involved in His whole
passion. For in point of fact they insulted Him both when
He was arrested and when He was bound, when He was
judged, when He was mocked by the robe they put on Him
and the homage they did on bended knee, when He was
crowned with thorns and struck with a rod on the head, when
He bore His cross, and when at last He hung upon the tree.
And therefore we recognise more fully the Lord’s passion
when we do not confine ourselves to one interpretation, but
combine both, and read both “insulted” and “pierced.”

When, therefore, we read in the prophetical books that God
is to come to do judgment at the last, from the mere mention[Pg 410]
of the judgment, and although there is nothing else to determine
the meaning, we must gather that Christ is meant; for
though the Father will judge, He will judge by the coming
of the Son. For He Himself, by His own manifested presence,
“judges no man, but has committed all judgment to
the Son;”[847] for as the Son was judged as a man, He shall
also judge in human form. For it is none but He of whom
God speaks by Isaiah under the name of Jacob and Israel, of
whose seed Christ took a body, as it is written, “Jacob is my
servant, I will uphold Him; Israel is mine elect, my Spirit
has assumed Him: I have put my Spirit upon Him; He
shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry,
nor cease, neither shall His voice be heard without. A
bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall
He not quench: but in truth shall He bring forth judgment.
He shall shine and shall not be broken, until He sets judgment
in the earth: and the nations shall hope in His name.”[848]
The Hebrew has not “Jacob” and “Israel;” but the Septuagint
translators, wishing to show the significance of the
expression “my servant,” and that it refers to the form of a
servant in which the Most High humbled Himself, inserted
the name of that man from whose stock He took the form
of a servant. The Holy Spirit was given to Him, and was
manifested, as the evangelist testifies, in the form of a dove.[849]
He brought forth judgment to the Gentiles, because He predicted
what was hidden from them. In His meekness He
did not cry, nor did He cease to proclaim the truth. But
His voice was not heard, nor is it heard, without, because He
is not obeyed by those who are outside of His body. And the
Jews themselves, who persecuted Him, He did not break,
though as a bruised reed they had lost their integrity, and as
smoking flax their light was quenched; for He spared them,
having come to be judged and not yet to judge. He brought
forth judgment in truth, declaring that they should be
punished did they persist in their wickedness. His face
shone on the Mount,[850] His fame in the world. He is not
broken nor overcome, because neither in Himself nor in His[Pg 411]
Church has persecution prevailed to annihilate Him. And
therefore that has not, and shall not, be brought about which
His enemies said or say, “When shall He die, and His name
perish?”[851] “until He set judgment in the earth.” Behold,
the hidden thing which we were seeking is discovered. For
this is the last judgment, which He will set in the earth
when He comes from heaven. And it is in Him, too, we
already see the concluding expression of the prophecy fulfilled:
“In His name shall the nations hope.” And by this fulfilment,
which no one can deny, men are encouraged to believe
in that which is most impudently denied. For who could
have hoped for that which even those who do not yet believe
in Christ now see fulfilled among us, and which is so undeniable
that they can but gnash their teeth and pine away?
Who, I say, could have hoped that the nations would hope in
the name of Christ, when He was arrested, bound, scourged,
mocked, crucified, when even the disciples themselves had
lost the hope which they had begun to have in Him? The
hope which was then entertained scarcely by the one thief on
the cross, is now cherished by nations everywhere on the
earth, who are marked with the sign of the cross on which
He died that they may not die eternally.

That the last judgment, then, shall be administered by
Jesus Christ in the manner predicted in the sacred writings
is denied or doubted by no one, unless by those who, through
some incredible animosity or blindness, decline to believe these
writings, though already their truth is demonstrated to all the
world. And at or in connection with that judgment the following
events shall come to pass, as we have learned: Elias
the Tishbite shall come; the Jews shall believe; Antichrist
shall persecute; Christ shall judge; the dead shall rise; the good
and the wicked shall be separated; the world shall be burned
and renewed. All these things, we believe, shall come to
pass; but how, or in what order, human understanding cannot
perfectly teach us, but only the experience of the events themselves.
My opinion, however, is, that they will happen in the
order in which I have related them.

Two books yet remain to be written by me, in order to[Pg 412]
complete, by God’s help, what I promised. One of these will
explain the punishment of the wicked, the other the happiness
of the righteous; and in them I shall be at special pains to
refute, by God’s grace, the arguments by which some unhappy
creatures seem to themselves to undermine the divine promises
and threatenings, and to ridicule as empty words statements
which are the most salutary nutriment of faith. But they
who are instructed in divine things hold the truth and omnipotence
of God to be the strongest arguments in favour of
those things which, however incredible they seem to men, are
yet contained in the Scriptures, whose truth has already in
many ways been proved; for they are sure that God can in
no wise lie, and that He can do what is impossible to the
unbelieving.

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[Pg 413]