City of God 20.20–20.23

Chapter 20. What the same apostle taught about the resurrection of the dead in his first letter to the same people.

But here the apostle said nothing about the resurrection of the dead; writing to the same people in his first letter, however, he says: “We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so too God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep; for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.” These apostolic words show most clearly that the resurrection of the dead will take place when Christ comes, that is, to judge the living and the dead.

But it is commonly asked whether those whom Christ will find alive here, whose person the apostle was representing in himself and in those who were living with him then, will never die at all, or whether in the very moment of time in which they are caught up with those who rise in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, they will pass through death to immortality with wonderful speed. For it should not be said that it is impossible for them both to die and to come to life again in that space while they are being carried aloft through the air. For his saying, “And so we shall always be with the Lord,” is not to be taken as though he said that we shall remain always in the air with the Lord; for he himself certainly will not remain there, since he will pass through as he comes; for one goes to meet someone who is coming, not someone who is staying; but “so we shall be with the Lord” means that we shall be with him having everlasting bodies, wherever we are with him. The apostle himself seems to press us to this sense, so that we think that even those whom the Lord will find alive here will both suffer death and receive immortality in that short space, where he says, “In Christ all will be made alive,” while in another place, speaking of the resurrection of bodies itself, he says, “What you sow is not made alive unless it dies.” How, then, will those whom Christ finds alive here be made alive in him through immortality, even if they do not die, when we see that it was for this reason said, “What you sow is not made alive unless it dies”? Or, if we do not rightly speak of sowing except for those human bodies which by dying in some way return to earth (as is also the case with that sentence divinely pronounced against the transgressing father of the human race: “You are earth, and to earth you shall go”), it must be admitted that those whom Christ, when he comes, will find not yet gone out of their bodies are bound neither by these words of the apostle nor by those from Genesis; since, being caught up in the clouds, they are certainly not sown, for they neither go to earth nor return to it, whether they experience no death at all or die for a little while in the air.

But again something else occurs to us, which the same apostle said when he was speaking to the Corinthians about the resurrection of bodies: “We shall all rise,” or, as other manuscripts have it, “We shall all sleep.” Since, then, there can be no resurrection unless death has gone before, and we cannot understand sleep in that place as anything but death, how will all either sleep or rise, if so many whom Christ will find in the body will neither sleep nor rise? If, then, we believe that the saints who will be found alive when Christ comes and are caught up to meet him will leave their mortal bodies in that same rapture and return to the same bodies, now immortal, at once, we shall meet with no difficulties in the apostle's words, whether where he says, “What you sow is not made alive unless it dies,” or where he says, “We shall all rise,” or “We shall all sleep”; because they too will not be made alive through immortality unless they first die, however briefly; and so they will not be strangers to the resurrection either, which they precede by a sleep that is very short, but not none. And why should it seem incredible to us that that multitude of bodies should in a way be sown in the air and there at once come to life again immortal and incorruptible, when we believe what the same apostle says most plainly, that the resurrection will take place in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of the most ancient corpses will return with such ease and such inestimable speed to limbs that will live without end? Nor should we think that those saints will be exempt from that sentence in which it was said to man, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” if their bodies, when they die, do not fall to earth, but just as they die in the very rapture, so also rise again while they are carried into the air. For “to earth you shall go” means: you will go, when life is lost, into what you were before you took up life; that is, you will be, when lifeless, what you were before you were given life (for God breathed the breath of life into the face of earth when man was made a living soul); as if it were said: “You are earth given life, which you were not; you will be earth without life, as you were.” This is what all the bodies of the dead are even before they decay; this is what those bodies too will be, if they die, wherever they die, when they lack life, which they will at once receive again. So they will go to earth because from living human beings they will become earth, just as that goes into ash which becomes ash; that goes into old age which becomes old; that goes into a pot which from clay becomes a pot; and we speak in this way of six hundred other things. But how it will come about, which we now conjecture as best we can with the strength of our little reasoning, it will rather be possible for us to know then. For we must believe, if we wish to be Christians, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and in the flesh, when Christ comes to judge the living and the dead; but our faith on this matter is not therefore empty if we cannot fully comprehend how it will be.

But now, as we promised above, we must show, as far as seems enough, what the old prophetic books too foretold about this last judgment of God; and I think it will not be necessary to treat and explain them at such length, if the reader takes care to be helped by what we have set out beforehand.

Chapter 21. What the prophet Isaiah said about the resurrection of the dead and the retribution of the judgment.

The prophet Isaiah says: “The dead will rise, and those who were in the tombs will rise, and all who are on the earth will rejoice; for the dew that comes from you is health to them; but the land of the ungodly will fall.” All the first part of this belongs to the resurrection of the blessed. But his saying, “But the land of the ungodly will fall,” is well understood to mean: “But the ruin of damnation will receive the bodies of the ungodly.” Further, if we wish to look more carefully and distinctly at what was said about the resurrection of the good, “The dead will rise” is to be referred to the first resurrection, and what follows, “and those who were in the tombs will rise,” to the second. And if we also ask about those saints whom the Lord will find alive here, what he added will fittingly be assigned to them: “And all who are on the earth will rejoice; for the dew that comes from you is health to them.” By “health” in this place we most rightly understand immortality; for that is the fullest health, which is not restored by food as by daily medicines.

Likewise the same prophet, first giving hope to the good about the day of judgment and then terrifying the wicked, speaks thus: “Thus says the Lord: Behold, I turn toward them like a river of peace and like a torrent flooding the glory of the nations. Their children will be carried on the shoulders and comforted on the knees. As a mother comforts someone, so I will comfort you; and you will be comforted in Jerusalem, and you will see, and your heart will rejoice, and your bones will spring up like grass. And the hand of the Lord will be known to those who worship him, and he will threaten the stubborn. For behold, the Lord will come like fire, and his chariots like a storm, to render vengeance in indignation and devastation in a flame of fire. For by the fire of the Lord all the earth will be judged, and by his sword all flesh; many will be wounded by the Lord.” In the promise to the good, by the river of peace we must surely understand the abundance of that peace than which there can be none greater. With this certainly we shall be watered at the end; of it we spoke abundantly in the preceding book. He says that he turns this river toward those to whom he promises so great a blessedness, so that we may understand that in the region of that happiness which is in heaven all things are filled by this river; but since the peace of incorruption and immortality will flow from there into earthly bodies too, he said that he turns this river, so that from the heights it may in a way pour over the lower things as well and make human beings equal to angels. By Jerusalem, too, let us understand not that which is in slavery with her children, but, according to the apostle, our free mother, eternal in heaven. There, after the labors of mortal troubles and cares, we shall be comforted, carried on her shoulders and knees like her little ones. For that blessedness, unaccustomed to us, will receive us, untutored and new as we are, with the tenderest help. There we shall see, and our heart will rejoice. He did not say what we shall see; but what, if not God? so that the promise of the Gospel may be fulfilled in us: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” and all those things which we do not see now, but, believing, conceive according to the small measure of human capacity, far less than they are and beyond comparison. “And you will see,” he says, “and your heart will rejoice.” Here you believe; there you will see. But since he had said, “And your heart will rejoice,” so that we should not think that those goods of Jerusalem belong only to our spirit, he says, “And your bones will spring up like grass”; here he touched on the resurrection of bodies, as though supplying what he had not said; for it will not take place when we see, but when it has taken place we shall see. For he had also spoken above of the new heaven and new earth, when he was speaking often and in many forms of the things promised to the saints at the end: “There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and they will not remember the former things, nor will they come into their heart, but they will find joy and gladness in it. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a gladness and my people a joy; and I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; and the voice of weeping will no longer be heard in her,” and the rest, which some try to refer to those carnal thousand years. For figurative expressions are mixed with literal ones in the prophetic manner, so that a sober mind may arrive at the spiritual understanding with a certain useful and wholesome labor; but carnal sloth, or the slowness of an untaught and unexercised mind, content with the surface of the letter, thinks that nothing more inward need be sought. Let this be enough about the prophetic words written before this place.

In this place, from which we digressed to them, when he had said, “And your bones will spring up like grass,” to show that he was now speaking of the resurrection of the flesh, but of the good, he added: “And the hand of the Lord will be known to those who worship him.” What is this but the hand of one who distinguishes his worshipers from those who despise him? Of these he goes on, joining what follows: “And he will threaten the stubborn,” or, as another translator puts it, “the unbelieving.” Nor will he threaten then; rather, what is now said threateningly will then be effectively fulfilled. “For behold,” he says, “the Lord will come like fire, and his chariots like a storm, to render vengeance in indignation and devastation in a flame of fire. For by the fire of the Lord all the earth will be judged, and by his sword all flesh; many will be wounded by the Lord.” Whether by fire, or storm, or sword, he signifies the punishment of the judgment; since he says that the Lord himself will come like fire, to those, surely, for whom his coming will be penal. His chariots (for they are spoken of in the plural) we not unfittingly take to be the ministries of angels. And as to his saying that all the earth and all flesh will be judged by his fire and sword, let us not understand here the spiritual and the saints too, but the earthly and carnal, of whom it is said, “who set their minds on earthly things,” and, “To set the mind on the flesh is death,” and such as are called simply flesh by the Lord where he says, “My spirit will not remain in these men, because they are flesh.” And as to what is set down here, “Many will be wounded by the Lord,” by this wound the second death will come about. Fire and sword and wound can indeed also be taken in a good sense. For the Lord said that he wished to send fire on the world, and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them when the Holy Spirit came; and the same Lord says, “I did not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword”; and Scripture calls the word of God a two-edged sword because of the double edge of the two testaments; and in the Song of Songs the holy church says that she is wounded with love, as if pierced by the arrow of love. But here, when we read or hear that the Lord will come as avenger, it is clear how these things are to be understood.

Then, having briefly mentioned those who will be consumed by this judgment, signifying sinners and the ungodly under the figure of the foods forbidden in the old law, from which they did not abstain, he recapitulates the grace of the New Testament from the beginning, from the first coming of the Savior to the last judgment, which we are now dealing with, carrying his discourse through to its end. For he relates that the Lord says that he is coming to gather all nations, and that they will come and see his glory. For, as the apostle says, all have sinned and lack the glory of God. And he says that he will leave signs among them, so that, marveling at them, they may believe in him; and that he will send some of them who are saved to various nations and to far-off islands which have not heard his name or seen his glory; and that they will proclaim his glory among the nations and bring the brothers of those to whom he was speaking, that is, brothers in the faith, under God the Father, of the chosen Israelites; and that they will bring them from all nations as an offering to the Lord on beasts of burden and in carriages (which beasts and carriages are well understood as divine aids through God's ministries of every kind, whether angelic or human) to the holy city Jerusalem, which is now spread throughout the earth in its holy believers. For where they are helped by God, there they believe, and where they believe, there they come. And the Lord compared them, as by a likeness, to the children of Israel offering him their sacrifices with psalms in his house, which the church now does everywhere; and he promised that he would take for himself from among them priests and Levites; which we see being done no less now. For we now see priests and Levites chosen not by descent of flesh and blood, as it was first according to the order of Aaron, but, as was fitting in the New Testament, where Christ is high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, according to the merit which divine grace has conferred on each; and they are to be weighed not by that name, which the unworthy often obtain, but by that holiness which is not common to good and bad.

When he had said these things of that mercy of God which is now granted to the church, clear and very well known to us, he promised also the ends to which one will come through the last judgment, when the separation of the good and the wicked has been made, speaking through the prophet, or the prophet himself speaking of the Lord: “For as the new heaven and the new earth will remain before me, says the Lord, so your seed and your name will stand; and there will be month after month and sabbath after sabbath. All flesh will come to worship before me in Jerusalem, says the Lord; and they will go out and see the limbs of the men who have transgressed against me. Their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched, and they will be a sight to all flesh.” The prophet ended his book with this, with which the world will end. Some, indeed, have translated not “the limbs of men” but “the corpses of men,” meaning by corpses the evident punishment of bodies; although only lifeless flesh is usually called a corpse, whereas those bodies will be alive, otherwise they could feel no torments; unless perhaps, because they will be the bodies of the dead, that is, of those who will fall into the second death, they can for this reason not absurdly be called corpses too. Hence also that saying of the same prophet which I have already set down above: “But the land of the ungodly will fall.” And who does not see that cadavera, “corpses,” are named from cadere, “to fall”? It is plain that those translators put “men” (virorum) for “human beings” (hominum). For no one will say that transgressing women will not be in that punishment; but both sexes are understood by the more prominent one, especially that from which woman was made. But what matters most is this: since in the case of the good it is said, “All flesh will come,” because that people will be made up of every kind of human being (for not all human beings will be there, since more will be in punishment), but, as I had begun to say, since “flesh” is named in the case of the good, and “limbs” or “corpses” in the case of the wicked, it is surely declared that the judgment by which the good and the wicked will be separated to their ends will take place after the resurrection of the flesh, belief in which is fully confirmed by these words.

Chapter 22. What the going out of the saints to see the punishments of the wicked will be like.

But how will the good go out to see the punishments of the wicked? Will they leave those blessed abodes by bodily movement and proceed to the places of punishment, to behold the torments of the wicked in bodily presence? Far from it; they will go out by knowledge. For by this word it is signified that those who will be tormented will be outside. That is why the Lord too calls those places the outer darkness; the opposite of it is that entering of which it is said to the good servant: “Enter into the joy of your Lord”; so that the wicked should not be thought to enter there in order to be known, but rather the good, as it were, to go out to them by the knowledge by which they will know them, because what they will know is outside. For those who will be in punishment will not know what is happening within, in the joy of the Lord; but those who will be in that joy will know what is happening outside, in that outer darkness. That is why it was said, “They will go out,” because even those who will be outside them will certainly not be hidden from them. For if the prophets could know these things before they happened, because God was in the minds of those mortals, however little, how will the immortal saints not know them when they have happened then, when God will be all in all?

So in that blessedness the seed and the name of the saints will stand: the seed, namely, of which John says, “And his seed remains in him”; the name, of which it was said through this same Isaiah, “I will give them an everlasting name.” For them there will be month after month and sabbath after sabbath, as it were moon after moon and rest after rest; both of which they themselves will be, when they pass from these old and temporal shadows into those new and everlasting lights. In the punishments of the wicked, however, both the unquenchable fire and the ever-living worm have been explained differently by different people. Some have referred both to the body, others both to the mind; others the fire literally to the body and the worm figuratively to the mind, which seems more credible. But now is not the time to discuss this difference. For we undertook to fill this volume with the last judgment, by which the separation of the good and the wicked will be made; the rewards and punishments themselves must be discussed more carefully elsewhere.

Chapter 23. What Daniel prophesied about the persecution of Antichrist, the judgment of God, and the kingdom of the saints.

Daniel prophesies about this last judgment in such a way as to foretell that Antichrist will come first, and he carries his account through to the eternal kingdom of the saints. For when in a prophetic vision he had seen four beasts signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth overcome by a certain king, who is recognized as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom of the Son of Man, who is understood to be Christ, he says: “My spirit shuddered, I, Daniel, within my frame, and the visions of my head troubled me. And I approached,” he says, “one of those standing there, and asked him the truth about all this, and he told me the truth.” Then he tells what he heard from the one of whom he asked about all these things, as that one explained it to him: “These four great beasts are four kingdoms that will arise on the earth, which will be taken away; and the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and possess it for ever and for ever and ever. And I inquired,” he says, “carefully about the fourth beast, which was different from every beast, more terrible, its teeth of iron and its claws of bronze, devouring and crushing and trampling the rest with its feet; and about its ten horns, which were on its head, and about the other, which came up and shook out three of the earlier ones; that horn in which were eyes and a mouth speaking great things, and its appearance was greater than the rest. I watched, and that horn made war with the saints and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of Days came and gave the kingdom to the saints of the Most High; and the time came, and the saints possessed the kingdom.” This is what Daniel said he asked. Then he at once adds what he heard: “And he said” (that is, the one of whom he had asked answered and said): “The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will prevail over all kingdoms; and it will devour the whole earth and trample it and cut it down. And its ten horns are ten kings who will arise; and after them another will arise, who will surpass in evils all who were before him; and he will humble three kings, and will speak words against the Most High, and will wear down the saints of the Most High, and will think to change times and law; and it will be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time. And the judgment will sit, and they will remove his dominion, to destroy and ruin it to the end; and the kingdom and the power and the greatness of the kings who are under the whole heaven have been given to the saints of the Most High. And his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions will serve and obey him. Here,” he says, “is the end of the account. I, Daniel: my thoughts greatly troubled me, and my appearance was changed upon me, and I kept the matter in my heart.”

Some have explained those four kingdoms as those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. How fittingly they have done so, let those who wish to know read the presbyter Jerome's book on Daniel, written with enough learning and care. But that the most savage reign of Antichrist against the church is to be endured, though for a short space of time, until by God's last judgment the saints receive the everlasting kingdom, no one who reads this, even half asleep, is allowed to doubt. For that “a time and times and half a time” is one year and two and a half, and so three and a half years, becomes clear also from the number of days given later, and is sometimes declared in the Scriptures by the number of months as well. For “times” seems here to be said indefinitely in the Latin language; but it is said in the dual number, which the Latins do not have. As the Greeks have it, so too the Hebrews are said to have it. So “times” is said as if “two times” were said. I confess that I fear we may be mistaken about the ten kings whom Antichrist seems likely to find as ten individual men, and so he may come unexpectedly, there not being so many kings in the Roman world. For what if by this number ten is signified the whole number of kings after whom he is to come, just as totality is frequently signified by a thousand, a hundred, and seven, and by various other numbers which it is not necessary to mention now?

In another place the same Daniel says: “And there will be a time of tribulation such as has not been since a nation was born on earth until that time. And at that time all your people will be saved who are found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the mound of the earth will arise, these to eternal life, and those to reproach and to eternal confusion. And those who understand will shine like the brightness of the firmament, and many of the righteous like the stars for ever and beyond.” This place is very like that saying of the Gospel, at least about the resurrection of the bodies of the dead. For those who there are said to be in the tombs are here those sleeping in the mound of the earth, or, as others have translated, in the dust of the earth; and as it was said there, “they will come forth,” so here, “they will arise”; as there, “those who have done good to the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment,” so also in this place, “these to eternal life, and those to reproach and to eternal confusion.” Nor should it be thought different that, whereas there it is put “all who are in the tombs,” here the prophet does not say “all,” but “many of those who sleep in the mound of the earth.” For Scripture sometimes puts “many” for “all.” Hence it was said to Abraham, “I have made you the father of many nations,” to whom nevertheless it is said in another place, “In your seed all nations will be blessed.” And of such a resurrection it is said a little later to this same prophet Daniel: “And you, come and rest; for there are still days until the completion of the consummation; and you will rest, and rise in your lot at the end of days.”