Millennium Debate

Further, also, it is written concerning the Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the Lord] spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, And sanctify the Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart. Exodus 20:8 ; Deuteronomy 5:12 And He says in another place, If my sons keep the Sabbath , then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them. Jeremiah 17:24-25 The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]: And God made in six days the works of His hands, and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it. Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, He finished in six days. This implies that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifies, saying, Behold, today will be as a thousand years.

Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. And He rested on the seventh day. This means: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the-sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. Moreover, He says, You shall sanctify it with pure hands and a pure heart. If, therefore, any one can now sanctify the day which God has sanctified, except he is pure in heart in all things, we are deceived. Behold, therefore: certainly then one properly resting sanctifies it, when we ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all things having been made new by the Lord, shall be able to work righteousness.

Then we shall be able to sanctify it, having been first sanctified ourselves. Further, He says to them, Your new moons and your Sabbath I cannot endure. Isaiah 1:13 You perceive how He speaks: Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to Me, but that is which I have made, [namely this,] when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when He had manifested Himself, He ascended into the heavens.

It therefore behooves us, who inquire much concerning events at hand, to search diligently into those things which are able to save us. Let us then utterly flee from all the works of iniquity, lest these should take hold of us; and let us hate the error of the present time, that we may set our love on the world to come: let us not give loose reins to our soul , that it should have power to run with sinners and the wicked , lest we become like them. The final stumbling-block (or source of danger) approaches, concerning which it is written, as Enoch says, For for this end the Lord has cut short the times and the days, that His Beloved may hasten; and He will come to the inheritance.

And the prophet also speaks thus: Ten kingdoms shall reign upon the earth, and a little king shall rise up after them, who shall subdue under one three of the kings. In like manner Daniel says concerning the same, And I beheld the fourth beast, wicked and powerful, and more savage than all the beasts of the earth, and how from it sprang up ten horns, and out of them a little budding horn, and how it subdued under one three of the great horns. You ought therefore to understand. And this also I further beg of you, as being one of you, and loving you both individually and collectively more than my own soul , to take heed now to yourselves, and not to be like some, adding largely to your sins , and saying, The covenant is both theirs and ours. But they thus finally lost it, after Moses had already received it.

For the Scripture says, And Moses was fasting in the mount forty days and forty nights, and received the covenant from the Lord, tables of stone written with the finger of the hand of the Lord; Exodus 31:18 , Exodus 34:28 but turning away to idols , they lost it. For the Lord speaks thus to Moses : Moses go down quickly; for the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt have transgressed. Exodus 32:7 ; Deuteronomy 9:12 And Moses understood [the meaning of God], and cast the two tables out of his hands; and their covenant was broken, in order that the covenant of the beloved Jesus might be sealed upon our heart, in the hope which flows from believing in Him.

Now, being desirous to write many things to you, not as your teacher, but as becomes one who loves you, I have taken care not to fail to write to you from what I myself possess, with a view to your purification. We take earnest heed in these last days; for the whole [past] time of your faith will profit you nothing, unless now in this wicked time we also withstand coming sources of danger, as becomes the sons of God . That the Black One may find no means of entrance, let us flee from every vanity, let us utterly hate the works of the way of wickedness . Do not, by retiring apart, live a solitary life, as if you were already [fully] justified; but coming together in one place, make common inquiry concerning what tends to your general welfare. For the Scripture says, Woe to them who are wise to themselves, and prudent in their own sight!

Justin: Further, to persuade you that you have not understood anything of the Scriptures , I will remind you of another psalm, dictated to David by the Holy Spirit , which you say refers to Solomon, who was also your king. But it refers also to our Christ. But you deceive yourselves by the ambiguous forms of speech. For where it is said, 'The law of the Lord is perfect,' you do not understand it of the law which was to be after Moses , but of the law which was given by Moses , although God declared that He would establish a new law and a new covenant. And where it has been said, 'O God , give Your judgment to the king,' since Solomon was king, you say that the Psalm refers to him, although the words of the Psalm expressly proclaim that reference is made to the everlasting King, i.e., to Christ .

For Christ is King, and Priest, and God , and Lord, and angel , and man, and captain, and stone, and a Son born, and first made subject to suffering, then returning to heaven, and again coming with glory , and He is preached as having the everlasting kingdom: so I prove from all the Scriptures . But that you may perceive what I have said, I quote the words of the Psalm; they are these: O God , give Your judgment to the king, and Your righteousness unto the king's son, to judge Your people with righteousness, and Your poor with judgment. The mountains shall take up peace to the people, and the little hills righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, and shall save the children of the needy, and shall abase the slanderer. He shall co-endure with the sun, and before the moon unto all generations.

He shall come down like rain upon the fleece, as drops falling on the earth. In His days shall righteousness flourish, and abundance of peace until the moon be taken away. And He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth. Ethiopians shall fall down before Him, and His enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall offer gifts; the kings of Arabia and Seba shall offer gifts; and all the kings of the earth shall worship Him, and all the nations shall serve Him: for He has delivered the poor from the man of power, and the needy that has no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy: He shall redeem their souls from usury and injustice , and His name shall be honourable before them.

And He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of Arabia, and they shall pray continually for Him: they shall bless Him all the day. And there shall be a foundation on the earth, it shall be exalted on the tops of the mountains: His fruit shall be on Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. His name shall be blessed forever. His name shall endure before the sun; and all tribes of the earth shall be blessed in Him, all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel , who only does wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious name for ever, and for ever and ever; and the whole earth shall be filled with His glory . Amen , amen .

Trypho: Being shaken by so many Scriptures, I know not what to say about the Scripture which Isaiah writes, in which God says that He gives not His glory to another, speaking thus 'I am the Lord God ; this is my name; my glory will I not give to another, nor my virtues .' Isaiah 42:8 Justin: If you spoke these words, Trypho, and then kept silence in simplicity and with no ill intent, neither repeating what goes before nor adding what comes after, you must be forgiven; but if [you have done so] because you imagined that you could throw doubt on the passage, in order that I might say the Scriptures contradicted each other, you have erred.

But I shall not venture to suppose or to say such a thing; and if a Scripture which appears to be of such a kind be brought forward, and if there be a pretext [for saying] that it is contrary [to some other], since I am entirely convinced that no Scripture contradicts another, I shall admit rather that I do not understand what is recorded, and shall strive to persuade those who imagine that the Scriptures are contradictory, to be rather of the same opinion as myself. With what intent, then, you have brought forward the difficulty, God knows . But I shall remind you of what the passage says, in order that you may recognise even from this very [place] that God gives glory to His Christ alone.

And I shall take up some short passages, sirs, those which are in connection with what has been said by Trypho, and those which are also joined on in consecutive order. For I will not repeat those of another section, but those which are joined together in one. Do you also give me your attention. [The words] are these: Thus says the Lord, the God that created the heavens, and made them fast, that established the earth, and that which is in it; and gave breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them who walk therein: I the Lord God have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand, and will strengthen You; and I have given You for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles , to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out them that are bound from the chains, and those who sit in darkness from the prison-house.

I am the Lord God ; this is my name: my glory will I not give to another, nor my virtues to graven images. Behold, the former things have come to pass; new things which I announce, and before they are announced they are made manifest to you. Sing unto the Lord a new song: His sovereignty [is] from the end of the earth. [Sing], you who descend into the sea, and continually sail [on it]; you islands, and inhabitants thereof. Rejoice, O wilderness, and the villages thereof, and the houses; and the inhabitants of Cedar shall rejoice , and the inhabitants of the rock shall cry aloud from the top of the mountains: they shall give glory to God ; they shall publish His virtues among the islands. The Lord God of hosts shall go forth, He shall destroy war utterly, He shall stir up zeal , and He shall cry aloud to the enemies with strength.

Justin: I shall do as you please. From the statements, then, which Esdras made in reference to the law of the passover, they have taken away the following: 'And Esdras said to the people, This passover is our Saviour and our refuge. And if you have understood, and your heart has taken it in, that we shall humble Him on a standard, and thereafter hope in Him, then this place shall not be forsaken for ever, says the God of hosts. But if you will not believe Him, and will not listen to His declaration, you shall be a laughing-stock to the nations.' And from the sayings of Jeremiah they have cut out the following: 'I [was] like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter: they devised a device against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood on His bread, and let us blot Him out from the land of the living; and His name shall no more be remembered.' Jeremiah 11:19 And since this passage from the sayings of Jeremiah is still written in some copies [of the Scriptures ] in the synagogues of the Jews (for it is only a short time since they were cut out), and since from these words it is demonstrated that the Jews deliberated about the Christ Himself, to crucify and put Him to death, He Himself is both declared to be led as a sheep to the slaughter, as was predicted by Isaiah , and is here represented as a harmless lamb; but being in a difficulty about them, they give themselves over to blasphemy . And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: 'The Lord God…

73. [The words] From the wood have been cut out of Psalm 96 Justin: And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: 'From the wood.' For when the passage said, 'Tell among the nations , the Lord has reigned from the wood,' they have left, 'Tell among the nations , the Lord has reigned.' Now no one of your people has ever been said to have reigned as God and Lord among the nations , with the exception of Him only who was crucified, of whom also the Holy Spirit affirms in the same Psalm that He was raised again, and freed from [the grave], declaring that there is none like Him among the gods of the nations: for they are idols of demons . But I shall repeat the whole Psalm to you, that you may perceive what has been said. It is thus: 'Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, and bless His name; show forth His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations , His wonders among all people. For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all the gods. For all the gods of the nations are demons but the Lord made the heavens. Confession and beauty are in His presence; holiness and magnificence are in His sanctuary. Bring to the Lord, O you countries of the nations , bring to the Lord glory and honour , bring to the Lord glory in His name. Take sacrifices , and go into His courts; worship the Lord in His holy temple. Let the whole earth…

74. The beginning of Psalm 96 is attributed to the Father [by Trypho]. But [it refers] to Christ by these words: Tell among the nations that the Lord, etc Trypho: We know that you quoted these because we asked you. But it does not appear to me that this Psalm which you quoted last from the words of David refers to any other than the Father and Maker of the heavens and earth. You, however, asserted that it referred to Him who suffered, whom you also are eagerly endeavouring to prove to be Christ. Justin: Attend to me, I beseech you, while I speak of the statement which the Holy Spirit gave utterance to in this Psalm; and you shall know that I speak not sinfully, and that we are not really bewitched; for so you shall be enabled of yourselves to understand many other statements made by the Holy Spirit . 'Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth: sing unto the Lord, and bless His name; show forth His salvation from day to day, His wonderful works among all people.' He bids the inhabitants of all the earth, who have known the mystery of this salvation , i.e., the suffering of Christ , by which He saved them, sing and give praises to God the Father of all things, and recognise that He is to be praised and feared, and that He is the Maker of heaven and earth, who effected this salvation on behalf of the human race , who also was crucified and was dead, and who was deemed worthy by Him (God) to reign over all the earth. As [is clearly seen ] also by the land…

Trypho: I remarked to you sir, that you are very anxious to be safe in all respects, since you cling to the Scriptures . But tell me, do you really admit that this place, Jerusalem, shall be rebuilt; and do you expect your people to be gathered together, and made joyful with Christ and the patriarchs, and the prophets , both the men of our nation, and other proselytes who joined them before your Christ came? Or have you given way, and admitted this in order to have the appearance of worsting us in the controversies? Justin: I am not so miserable a fellow, Trypho, as to say one thing and think another.

I admitted to you formerly, that I and many others are of this opinion, and [ believe ] that such will take place, as you assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith , and are true Christians , think otherwise. Moreover, I pointed out to you that some who are called Christians , but are godless, impious heretics , teach doctrines that are in every way blasphemous , atheistical , and foolish. But that you may know that I do not say this before you alone, I shall draw up a statement, so far as I can, of all the arguments which have passed between us; in which I shall record myself as admitting the very same things which I admit to you. For I choose to follow not men or men's doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] by Him.

For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians , but who do not admit this [ truth ], and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham , and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls , when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians , even as one, if he would rightly consider it, would not admit that the Sadducees , or similar sects of Genistæ, Meristæ, Galilæans, Hellenists, Pharisees , Baptists, are Jews (do not hear me impatiently when I tell you what I think), but are [only] called Jews and children of Abraham , worshipping God with the lips, as God Himself declared, but the heart was far from Him.

But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged, [as] the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare.

Justin: For Isaiah spoke thus concerning this space of a thousand years : For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, or come into their heart; but they shall find joy and gladness in it, which things I create. For, Behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and My people a joy ; and I shall rejoice over Jerusalem, and be glad over My people. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, or the voice of crying. And there shall be no more there a person of immature years, or an old man who shall not fulfil his days. For the young man shall be an hundred years old; but the sinner who dies an hundred years old, he shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and shall themselves inhabit them; and they shall plant vines, and shall themselves eat the produce of them, and drink the wine.

They shall not build, and others inhabit; they shall not plant, and others eat. For according to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound. Mine elect shall not toil fruitlessly, or beget children to be cursed; for they shall be a seed righteous and blessed by the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call I will hear; while they are still speaking, I shall say, What is it? Then shall the wolves and the lambs feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent [shall eat] earth as bread. They shall not hurt or maltreat each other on the holy mountain, says the Lord.

Now we have understood that the expression used among these words, 'According to the days of the tree [of life ] shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound' obscurely predicts a thousand years . For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years . We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, 'The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,' is connected with this subject. And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ , who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place.

Just as our Lord also said, 'They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels , the children of the God of the resurrection.' Luke 20:35 f.

And reckon that it is for your sakes we have been saying these things; for it is in our power, when we are examined, to deny that we are Christians ; but we would not live by telling a lie . For, impelled by the desire of the eternal and pure life, we seek the abode that is with God , the Father and Creator of all, and hasten to confess our faith , persuaded and convinced as we are that they who have proved to God by their works that they followed Him, and loved to abide with Him where there is no sin to cause disturbance, can obtain these things. This, then, to speak shortly, is what we expect and have learned from Christ, and teach.

And Plato , in like manner, used to say that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked who came before them; and we say that the same thing will be done, but at the hand of Christ , and upon the wicked in the same bodies united again to their spirits which are now to undergo everlasting punishment; and not only, as Plato said, for a period of a thousand years. And if any one say that this is incredible or impossible, this error of ours is one which concerns ourselves only, and no other person, so long as you cannot convict us of doing any harm.

That one God formed all things in the world, by means of the Word and the Holy Spirit: and that although He is to us in this life invisible and incomprehensible, nevertheless He is not unknown; inasmuch as His works do declare Him, and His Word has shown that in many modes He may be seen and known.

1. As regards His greatness, therefore, it is not possible to know God , for it is impossible that the Father can be measured; but as regards His love (for this it is which leads us to God by His Word), when we obey Him, we do always learn that there is so great a God , and that it is He who by Himself has established, and selected, and adorned, and contains all things; and among the all things, both ourselves and this our world. We also then were made, along with those things which are contained by Him. And this is He of whom the Scripture says, And God formed man, taking clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life. Genesis 2:7 It was not angels , therefore, who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to make an image of God , nor any one else, except the Word of the Lord, nor any Power remotely distant from the Father of all things. For God did not stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He did not possess His own hands. For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit , by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, Let Us make man after Our image and likeness; Genesis 1:26 He taking from Himself the substance of the creatures [formed], and the pattern of things made, and the type of all the adornments in the world.

2. Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which says, First of all believe that there is one God , who has established all things, and completed them, and having caused that from what had no being, all things should come into existence : He who contains all things, and is Himself contained by no one. Rightly also has Malachi said among the prophets : Is it not one God who has established us? Have we not all one Father? Malachi 2:10 In accordance with this, too, does the apostle say, There is one God , the Father , who is above all, and in us all. Ephesians 4:6 Likewise does the Lord also say: All things are delivered to Me by My Father; Matthew 11:27 manifestly by Him who made all things; for He did not deliver to Him the things of another, but His own. But in all things [it is implied that] nothing has been kept back [from Him], and for this reason the same person is the Judge of the living and the dead; having the key of David: He shall open, and no man shall shut: He shall shut, and no man shall open. Revelation 3:7 For no one was able, either in heaven or in earth, or under the earth, to open the book of the Father , or to behold Him, with the exception of the Lamb who was slain, and who redeemed us with His own blood, receiving power over all things from the same God who made all things by the Word, and adorned them by [His] Wisdom, when the Word was made flesh ; that even as the Word of God had the sovereignty in the heavens, so also might He have the sovereignty in…

3. I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word, namely the Son , was always with the Father; and that Wisdom also, which is the Spirit , was present with Him, anterior to all creation, He declares by Solomon: God by Wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding has He established the heaven. By His knowledge the depths burst forth, and the clouds dropped down the dew. Proverbs 3:19-20 And again: The Lord created me the beginning of His ways in His work: He set me up from everlasting, in the beginning, before He made the earth, before He established the depths, and before the fountains of waters gushed forth; before the mountains were made strong, and before all the hills, He brought me forth. And again: When He prepared the heaven, I was with Him, and when He established the fountains of the deep; when He made the foundations of the earth strong, I was with Him preparing [them]. I was He in whom He rejoiced, and throughout all time I was daily glad before His face, when He rejoiced at the completion of the world, and was delighted in the sons of men. Proverbs 8:27-31

Further proofs of the same proposition, drawn from the promises made by Christ, when He declared that He would drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples in His Father's kingdom, while at the same time He promised to reward them an hundred-fold, and to make them partake of banquets. The blessing pronounced by Jacob had pointed out this already, as Papias and the elders have interpreted it.

1. For this reason, when about to undergo His sufferings, that He might declare to Abraham and those with him the glad tidings of the inheritance being thrown open, [Christ], after He had given thanks while holding the cup, and had drunk of it, and given it to the disciples , said to them: Drink all of it: this is My blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins . But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of this vine, until that day when I will drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. Matthew 26:27 Thus, then, He will Himself renew the inheritance of the earth, and will re-organize the mystery of the glory of [His] sons; as David says, He who has renewed the face of the earth. He promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples , thus indicating both these points: the inheritance of the earth in which the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection of His disciples in the flesh. For the new flesh which rises again is the same which also received the new cup. And He cannot by any means be understood as drinking of the fruit of the vine when settled down with his [ disciples ] above in a super-celestial place; nor, again, are they who drink it devoid of flesh, for to drink of that which flows from the vine pertains to flesh, and not spirit.

2. And for this reason the Lord declared, When you make a dinner or a supper, do not call your friends, nor your neighbours, nor your kinsfolk, lest they ask you in return, and so repay you. But call the lame, the blind, and the poor , and you shall be blessed, since they cannot recompense you, but a recompense shall be made you at the resurrection of the just. Luke 14:12-13 And again He says, Whosoever shall have left lands, or houses, or parents , or brethren, or children because of Me, he shall receive in this world an hundred-fold, and in that to come he shall inherit eternal life. Matthew 19:29 ; Luke 18:29-30 For what are the hundred-fold [rewards] in this word, the entertainments given to the poor , and the suppers for which a return is made? These are [to take place] in the times of the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day, which has been sanctified, in which God rested from all the works which He created, which is the true Sabbath of the righteous, which they shall not be engaged in any earthly occupation; but shall have a table at hand prepared for them by God , supplying them with all sorts of dishes.

3. The blessing of Isaac with which he blessed his younger son Jacob has the same meaning, when he says, Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed. Genesis 27:27 , etc. But the field is the world. Matthew 13:38 And therefore he added, God give to you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, plenty of grain and wine. And let the nations serve you, and kings bow down to you; and be lord over your brother, and your father's sons shall bow down to you: cursed shall be he who shall curse you, and blessed shall be he who shall bless you. Genesis 27:28-29 If any one, then, does not accept these things as referring to the appointed kingdom, he must fall into much contradiction and contrariety, as is the case with the Jews , who are involved in absolute perplexity. For not only did not the nations in this life serve this Jacob; but even after he had received the blessing, he himself going forth [from his home], served his uncle Laban the Syrian for twenty years; Genesis 31:41 and not only was he not made lord of his brother, but he did himself bow down before his brother Esau , upon his return from Mesopotamia to his father, and offered many gifts to him. Genesis 33:3 Moreover, in what way did he inherit much grain and wine here, he who emigrated to Egypt because of the famine which possessed the land in which he was dwelling, and became subject to Pharaoh , who was then ruling over Egypt ? The predicted blessing, therefore,…

He contends that these testimonies already alleged cannot be understood allegorically of celestial blessings, but that they shall have their fulfilment after the coming of Antichrist, and the resurrection, in the terrestrial Jerusalem. To the former prophecies he subjoins others drawn from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Apocalypse of John.

1. If, however, any shall endeavour to allegorize [prophecies] of this kind, they shall not be found consistent with themselves in all points, and shall be confuted by the teaching of the very expressions [in question]. For example: When the cities of the Gentiles shall be desolate, so that they be not inhabited, and the houses so that there shall be no men in them and the land shall be left desolate. Isaiah 6:11 For, behold, says Isaiah, the day of the Lord comes past remedy, full of fury and wrath , to lay waste the city of the earth, and to root sinners out of it. Isaiah 13:9 And again he says, Let him be taken away, that he behold not the glory of God . Isaiah 26:10 And when these things are done, he says, God will remove men far away, and those that are left shall multiply in the earth. Isaiah 6:12 And they shall build houses, and shall inhabit them themselves: and plant vineyards, and eat of them themselves. Isaiah 65:21 For all these and other words were unquestionably spoken in reference to the resurrection of the just, which takes place after the coming of Antichrist , and the destruction of all nations under his rule; in [the times of] which [resurrection] the righteous shall reign in the earth, waxing stronger by the sight of the Lord: and through Him they shall become accustomed to partake in the glory of God the Father , and shall enjoy in the kingdom intercourse and communion with the holy angels , and union with spiritual beings; and [with respect to] those…

2. Now all these things being such as they are, cannot be understood in reference to super-celestial matters; for God , it is said, will show to the whole earth that is under heaven your glory . But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition], and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above, of which the prophet Isaiah says, Behold, I have depicted your walls upon my hands, and you are always in my sight. Isaiah 49:16 And the apostle, too, writing to the Galatians, says in like manner, But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. Galatians 4:26 He does not say this with any thought of an erratic Æon , or of any other power which departed from the Pleroma, or of Prunicus, but of the Jerusalem which has been delineated on [God's] hands. And in the Apocalypse John saw this new [Jerusalem] descending upon the new earth. Revelation 21:2 For after the times of the kingdom, he says, I saw a great white throne, and Him who sat upon it, from whose face the earth fled away, and the heavens; and there was no more place for them. Revelation 20:11 And he sets forth, too, the things connected with the general resurrection and the judgment, mentioning the dead, great and small. The sea, he says, gave up the dead which it had in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead that they contained; and the books were opened. Moreover, he says, the book of life was opened, and the dead were judged…

The distinction to be made between the righteous and the wicked. The future apostasy in the time of Antichrist, and the end of the world.

1. Inasmuch, then, as in this world ( αἰῶνι ) some persons go to the light, and by faith unite themselves with God , but others shun the light, and separate themselves from God , the Word of God comes preparing a fit habitation for both. For those indeed who are in the light, that they may derive enjoyment from it, and from the good things contained in it; but for those in darkness, that they may partake in its calamities. And on this account He says, that those upon the right hand are called into the kingdom of heaven , but that those on the left He will send into eternal fire for they have deprived themselves of all good.

2. And for this reason the apostle says: Because they received not the love of God , that they might be saved, therefore God shall also send them the operation of error , that they may believe a lie , that they all may be judged who have not believed the truth , but consented to unrighteousness. 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 For when he ( Antichrist ) has come, and of his own accord concentrates in his own person the apostasy , and accomplishes whatever he shall do according to his own will and choice, sitting also in the temple of God , so that his dupes may adore him as the Christ; wherefore also shall he deservedly be cast into the lake of fire: Revelation 19:20 [this will happen according to divine appointment], God by His prescience foreseeing all this, and at the proper time sending such a man , that they may believe a lie , that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth , but consented to unrighteousness; whose coming John has thus described in the Apocalypse: And the beast which I had seen was like a leopard, and his feet as of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion; and the dragon conferred his own power upon him, and his throne, and great might. And one of his heads was as it were slain unto death; and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon because he gave power to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like this beast, and who is able to make war with him? And there was…

3. For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. Genesis 2:2 This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; 2 Peter 3:8 and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.

Of this six days' work no man can give a worthy explanation and description of all its parts, not though he had ten thousand tongues and ten thousand mouths; nay, though he were to live ten thousand years, sojourning in this life, not even so could he utter anything worthy of these things, on account of the exceeding greatness and riches of the wisdom of God which there is in the six days' work above narrated. Many writers indeed have imitated [the narration], and essayed to give an explanation of these things; yet, though they thence derived some suggestions, both concerning the creation of the world and the nature of man , they have emitted no slightest spark of truth .

And the utterances of the philosophers , and writers, and poets have an appearance of trustworthiness, on account of the beauty of their diction; but their discourse is proved to be foolish and idle, because the multitude of their nonsensical frivolities is very great; and not a stray morsel of truth is found in them. For even if any truth seems to have been uttered by them, it has a mixture of error . And as a deleterious drug, when mixed with honey or wine, or some other thing, makes the whole [mixture] hurtful and profitless; so also eloquence is in their case found to be labour in vain; yea, rather an injurious thing to those who credit it.

Moreover, [they spoke] concerning the seventh day, which all men acknowledge; but the most know not that what among the Hebrews is called the Sabbath , is translated into Greek the Seventh ( ἑβδομάς ), a name which is adopted by every nation, although they know not the reason of the appellation. And as for what the poet Hesiod says of Erebus being produced from chaos, as well as the earth and love which lords it over his [Hesiod's] gods and men, his dictum is shown to be idle and frigid, and quite foreign to the truth . For it is not meet that God be conquered by pleasure; since even men of temperance abstain from all base pleasure and wicked lust .

Their high antiquity, first of all, claims authority for these writings. With you, too, it is a kind of religion to demand belief on this very ground. Well, all the substances, all the materials, the origins, classes, of your most ancient writings, even most nations and cities illustrious in the records of the past and noted for their antiquity in books of annals — the very forms of your letters, those revealers and custodiers of events, nay (I think I speak still within the mark), your very gods themselves, your very temples and oracles, and sacred rites , are less ancient than the work of a single prophet , in whom you have the thesaurus of the entire Jewish religion, and therefore too of ours.

If you happen to have heard of a certain Moses , I speak first of him: he is as far back as the Argive Inachus; by nearly four hundred years — only seven less — he precedes Danaus, your most ancient name; while he antedates by a millennium the death of Priam. I might affirm, too, that he is five hundred years earlier than Homer, and have supporters of that view. The other prophets also, though of later date, are, even the most recent of them, as far back as the first of your philosophers , and legislators, and historians. It is not so much the difficulty of the subject, as its vastness, that stands in the way of a statement of the grounds on which these statements rest; the matter is not so arduous as it would be tedious. It would require the anxious study of many books, and the fingers busy reckoning.

The histories of the most ancient nations, such as the Egyptians , the Chaldeans, the Phœnicians, would need to be ransacked; the men of these various nations who have information to give, would have to be called in as witnesses. Manetho the Egyptian , and Berosus the Chaldean, and Hieromus the Phœnician king of Tyre ; their successors too, Ptolemy the Mendesian, and Demetrius Phalereus, and King Juba, and Apion, and Thallus, and their critic the Jew Josephus , the native vindicator of the ancient history of his people, who either authenticates or refutes the others. Also the Greek censors' lists must be compared, and the dates of events ascertained, that the chronological connections may be opened up, and thus the reckonings of the various annals be made to give forth light.

We must go abroad into the histories and literature of all nations. And, in fact, we have already brought the proof in part before you, in giving those hints as to how it is to be effected. But it seems better to delay the full discussion of this, lest in our haste we do not sufficiently carry it out, or lest in its thorough handling we make too lengthened a digression.

I think I have offered sufficient proof upon the question of false and true divinity, having shown that the proof rests not merely on debate and argument, but on the witness of the very beings whom you believe are gods, so that the point needs no further handling. However, having been led thus naturally to speak of the Romans, I shall not avoid the controversy which is invited by the groundless assertion of those who maintain that, as a reward of their singular homage to religion, the Romans have been raised to such heights of power as to have become masters of the world; and that so certainly divine are the beings they worship, that those prosper beyond all others, who beyond all others honour them. This, forsooth, is the wages the gods have paid the Romans for their devotion.

The progress of the empire is to be ascribed to Sterculus, the Mutunus, and Larentina! For I can hardly think that foreign gods would have been disposed to show more favour to an alien race than to their own, and given their own fatherland, in which they had their birth, grew up to manhood, became illustrious, and at last were buried, over to invaders from another shore! As for Cybele, if she set her affections on the city of Rome as sprung of the Trojan stock saved from the arms of Greece, she herself forsooth being of the same race — if she foresaw her transference to the avenging people by whom Greece the conqueror of Phrygia was to be subdued, let her look to it (in regard of her native country's conquest by Greece).

Why, too, even in these days the Mater Magna has given a notable proof of her greatness which she has conferred as a boon upon the city; when, after the loss to the State of Marcus Aurelius at Sirmium, on the sixteenth before the Kalends of April, that most sacred high priest of hers was offering, a week after, impure libations of blood drawn from his own arms, and issuing his commands that the ordinary prayers should be made for the safety of the emperor already dead. O tardy messengers! O sleepy dispatches! Through whose fault Cybele had not an earlier knowledge of the imperial decease, that the Christians might have no occasion to ridicule a goddess so unworthy.

Jupiter, again, would surely never have permitted his own Crete to fall at once before the Roman Fasces, forgetful of that Idean cave and the Corybantian cymbals, and the sweet odour of her who nursed him there. Would he not have exalted his own tomb above the entire Capitol, that the land which covered the ashes of Jove might rather be the mistress of the world? Would Juno have desired the destruction of the Punic city, beloved even to the neglect of Samos, and that by a nation of Æneadæ? As to that I know , Here were her arms, here was her chariot, this kingdom, if the Fates permit, the goddess tends and cherishes to be mistress of the nations. Jove's hapless wife and sister had no power to prevail against the Fates! Jupiter himself is sustained by fate .

Let us add in completion what follows, and exhibit now with greater clearness the plagiarism of the Greeks from the Barbarian philosophy . Now the Stoics say that God , like the soul , is essentially body and spirit. You will find all this explicitly in their writings. Do not consider at present their allegories as the gnostic truth presents them; whether they show one thing and mean another, like the dexterous athletes. Well, they say that God pervades all being; while we call Him solely Maker, and Maker by the Word. They were misled by what is said in the book of Wisdom: He pervades and passes through all by reason of His purity; Wisdom 7:24 since they did not understand that this was said of Wisdom, which was the first of the creation of God . So be it, they say.

But the philosophers , the Stoics , and Plato , and Pythagoras, nay more, Aristotle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence of matter among the first principles; and not one first principle. Let them then know that what is called matter by them, is said by them to be without quality, and without form , and more daringly said by Plato to be non- existence . And does he not say very mystically , knowing that the true and real first cause is one, in these very words: Now, then, let our opinion be so. As to the first principle or principles of the universe , or what opinion we ought to entertain about all these points, we are not now to speak, for no other cause than on account of its being difficult to explain our sentiments in accordance with the present form of discourse.

But undoubtedly that prophetic expression, Now the earth was invisible and formless, supplied them with the ground of material essence . And the introduction of chance was hence suggested to Epicurus , who misapprehended the statement, Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. And it occurred to Aristotle to extend Providence as far as the moon from this psalm: Lord, Your mercy is in the heavens; and Your truth reaches to the clouds. For the explanation of the prophetic mysteries had not yet been revealed previous to the advent of the Lord. Punishments after death, on the other hand, and penal retribution by fire, were pilfered from the Barbarian philosophy both by all the poetic Muses and by the Hellenic philosophy .

Plato , accordingly, in the last book of the Republic , says in these express terms: Then these men fierce and fiery to look on, standing by, and hearing the sound, seized and took some aside; and binding Aridæus and the rest hand, foot, and head, and throwing them down, and flaying them, dragged them along the way, tearing their flesh with thorns. For the fiery men are meant to signify the angels , who seize and punish the wicked . Who makes, it is said, His angels spirits; His ministers flaming fire. It follows from this that the soul is immortal . For what is tortured or corrected being in a state of sensation lives, though said to suffer. Well!

On the plagiarizing of the dogmas of the philosophers from the Hebrews, we shall treat a little afterwards. But first, as due order demands, we must now speak of the epoch of Moses , by which the philosophy of the Hebrews will be demonstrated beyond all contradiction to be the most ancient of all wisdom. This has been discussed with accuracy by Tatian in his book To the Greeks , and by Cassian in the first book of his Exegetics . Nevertheless our commentary demands that we too should run over what has been said on the point.

Apion, then, the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth book of The Egyptian Histories , although of so hostile a disposition towards the Hebrews, being by race an Egyptian , as to compose a work against the Jews , when referring to Amosis king of the Egyptians , and his exploits, adduces, as a witness , Ptolemy of Mendes. And his remarks are to the following effect: Amosis, who lived in the time of the Argive Inachus, overthrew Athyria, as Ptolemy of Mendes relates in his Chronology . Now this Ptolemy was a priest ; and setting forth the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three entire books, he says, that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt , under the conduct of Moses , took place while Amosis was king of Egypt . Whence it is seen that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus.

And of the Hellenic states, the most ancient is the Argolic, I mean that which took its rise from Inachus, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his Times . And younger by forty generations than it was Attica, founded by Cecrops, who was an aboriginal of double race, as Tatian expressly says; and Arcadia, founded by Pelasgus, younger too by nine generations; and he, too, is said to have been an aboriginal. And more recent than this last by fifty-two generations, was Pthiotis, founded by Deucalion. And from the time of Inachus to the Trojan War twenty generations or more are reckoned; let us say, four hundred years and more.

And if Ctesias says that the Assyrian power is many years older than the Greek, the exodus of Moses from Egypt will appear to have taken place in the forty-second year of the Assyrian empire, in the thirty-second year of the reign of Belochus, in the time of Amosis the Egyptian , and of Inachus the Argive. And in Greece, in the time of Phoroneus, who succeeded Inachus, the flood of Ogyges occurred; and monarchy subsisted in Sicyon first in the person of Ægialeus, then of Europs, then of Telches; in Crete, in the person of Cres. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man. Whence, too, the author of Phoronis said that he was the father of mortal men.

1. As it was your desire, my beloved brother Theophilus, to be thoroughly informed on those topics which I put summarily before you, I have thought it right to set these matters of inquiry clearly forth to your view, drawing largely from the Holy Scriptures themselves as from a holy fountain, in order that you may not only have the pleasure of hearing them on the testimony of men , but may also be able, by surveying them in the light of (divine) authority, to glorify God in all. For this will be as a sure supply furnished you by us for your journey in this present life, so that by ready argument applying things ill understood and apprehended by most, you may sow them in the ground of your heart, as in a rich and clean soil. By these, too, you will be able to silence those who oppose and gainsay the word of salvation . Only see that you do not give these things over to unbelieving and blasphemous tongues, for that is no common danger. But impart them to pious and faithful men, who desire to live holily and righteously with fear . For it is not to no purpose that the blessed apostle exhorts Timothy, and says, O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called; which some professing have erred concerning the faith . And again, You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus . And the things that you have heard of me in many exhortations, commit to faithful men, who shall…

2. For as the blessed prophets were made, so to speak, eyes for us, they foresaw through faith the mysteries of the word, and became ministers of these things also to succeeding generations, not only reporting the past, but also announcing I the present and the future, so that the prophet might not appear to be one only for the time being, but might also predict the future for all generations, and so be reckoned a ( true ) prophet . For these fathers were furnished with the Spirit , and largely honoured by the Word Himself; and just as it is with instruments of music. so had they the Word always, like the plectrum, in union with them, and when moved by Him the prophets announced what God willed. For they spoke not of their own power (let there be no mistake as to that ), neither did they declare what pleased themselves. But First of all they were endowed with wisdom by the Word, and then again were rightly instructed in the future by means of visions. And then, when thus themselves fully convinced, they spoke those things which were revealed by God to them alone, and concealed from all others. For with what reason should the prophet be called a prophet , unless he in spirit foresaw the future? For if the prophet spoke of any chance event, he would not be a prophet then in speaking of things which were under the eye of aIl. But one who sets forth in detail things yet to be, was rightly judged a prophet . Wherefore prophets were with good reason called from the very first…

3. Do you wish then to know in what manner the Word of God , who was again the Son of God , as He was of old the Word, communicated His revelations to the blessed prophets in former times? Well, as the Word shows His compassion and His denial of all respect of persons by all the saints , He enlightens them and adapts them to that which is advantageous for us, like a skilful physician, understanding the weakness of men. And the ignorant He loves to teach, and the erring He turns again to His own true way. And by those who live by faith He is easily found; and to those of pure eye and holy heart, who desire to knock at the door, He opens immediately. For He casts away none of His servants as unworthy of the divine mysteries . He does not esteem the rich man more highly than the poor , nor does He despise the poor man for his poverty. He does not disdain the barbarian, nor does He set the eunuch aside as no man. He does not hate the female on account of the woman's act of disobedience in the beginning, nor does He reject the male on account of the man's transgression. But He seeks all, and desires to save all, wishing to make all the children of God , and calling all the saints unto one perfect man. For there is also one Son (or Servant) of God , by whom we too, receiving the regeneration through the Holy Spirit , desire to come all unto one perfect and heavenly man. Ephesians 4:13

4. For whereas the Word of God was without flesh, He took upon Himself the holy flesh by the Holy Virgin , and prepared a robe which He wove for Himself, like a bridegroom, in the sufferings of the cross , in order that by uniting His own power with our moral body, and by mixing the incorruptible with the corruptible, and the strong with the weak, He might save perishing man. The web-beam, therefore, is the pass on of the Lord upon the cross , and the warp on it is the power of the Holy Spirit , and the woof is the holy flesh wrought (woven) by the Spirit , and the thread is the grace which by the love of Christ binds and unites the two in one, and the combs or (rods) are the Word; and the workers are the patriarchs and prophets who weave the fair, long, perfect tunic for Christ; and the Word passing through these, like the combs or (rods), completes through them that which His Father wills.

Yes, certainly, you say, I do hope from Him that which amounts in itself to a proof of the diversity (of Christs), God's kingdom in an everlasting and heavenly possession. Besides, your Christ promises to the Jews their primitive condition, with the recovery of their country; and after this life's course is over, repose in Hades in Abraham's bosom. Oh, most excellent God , when He restores in amnesty what He took away in wrath ! Oh, what a God is yours, who both wounds and heals, creates evil and makes peace! Oh, what a God , that is merciful even down to Hades! I shall have something to say about Abraham's bosom in the proper place.

As for the restoration of Judæa, however, which even the Jews themselves, induced by the names of places and countries, hope for just as it is described, it would be tedious to state at length how the figurative interpretation is spiritually applicable to Christ and His church, and to the character and fruits thereof; besides, the subject has been regularly treated in another work, which we entitle De Spe Fidelium . At present, too, it would be superfluous for this reason, that our inquiry relates to what is promised in heaven, not on earth.

But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence ; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem, let down from heaven, Revelation 21:2 which the apostle also calls our mother from above; Galatians 4:26 and, while declaring that our πολίτευμα , or citizenship, is in heaven, he predicates of it that it is really a city in heaven. This both Ezekiel had knowledge of Ezekiel 48:30-35 and the Apostle John beheld. Revelation 21:10-23 And the word of the new prophecy which is a part of our belief, attests how it foretold that there would be for a sign a picture of this very city exhibited to view previous to its manifestation. This prophecy , indeed, has been very lately fulfilled in an expedition to the East.

For it is evident from the testimony of even heathen witnesses, that in Judæa there was suspended in the sky a city early every morning for forty days. As the day advanced, the entire figure of its walls would wane gradually, and sometimes it would vanish instantly. We say that this city has been provided by God for receiving the saints on their resurrection, and refreshing them with the abundance of all really spiritual blessings, as a recompense for those which in the world we have either despised or lost; since it is both just and God-worthy that His servants should have their joy in the place where they have also suffered affliction for His name's sake. Of the heavenly kingdom this is the process.

But what must we say in reply to what follows? For, in the first place, if the living come from the dead, just as the dead proceed from the living, then there must always remain unchanged one and the selfsame number of mankind , even the number which originally introduced ( human ) life. The living preceded the dead, afterwards the dead issued from the living, and then again the living from the dead. Now, since this process was evermore going on with the same persons , therefore they, issuing from the same, must always have remained in number the same. For they who emerged (into life) could never have become more nor fewer than they who disappeared (in death).

We find, however, in the records of the Antiquities of Man, that the human race has progressed with a gradual growth of population, either occupying different portions of the earth as aborigines, or as nomad tribes, or as exiles, or as conquerors — as the Scythians in Parthia, the Temenidæ in Peloponnesus, the Athenians in Asia, the Phrygians in Italy , and the Phœnicians in Africa; or by the more ordinary methods of migration, which they call ἀποικίαι or colonies , for the purpose of throwing off redundant population, disgorging into other abodes their overcrowded masses. The aborigines remain still in their old settlements, and have also enriched other districts with loans of even larger populations.

Surely it is obvious enough, if one looks at the whole world, that it is becoming daily better cultivated and more fully peopled than anciently. All places are now accessible, all are well known, all open to commerce; most pleasant farms have obliterated all traces of what were once dreary and dangerous wastes; cultivated fields have subdued forests; flocks and herds have expelled wild beasts; sandy deserts are sown; rocks are planted; marshes are drained; and where once were hardly solitary cottages, there are now large cities. No longer are (savage) islands dreaded, nor their rocky shores feared; everywhere are houses, and inhabitants, and settled government, and civilized life.

What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint), is our teeming population: our numbers are burdensome to the world , which can hardly supply us from its natural elements; our wants grow more and more keen, and our complaints more bitter in all mouths, while Nature fails in affording us her usual sustenance. In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars , and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race ; and yet, when the hatchet has once felled large masses of men , the world has hitherto never once been alarmed at the sight of a restitution of its dead coming back to life after their millennial exile.

Again, if this recovery of life from the dead take place at all, individuals must of course resume their own individuality. Therefore the souls which animated each several body must needs have returned separately to their several bodies. Now, whenever two, or three, or five souls are re-enclosed (as they constantly are) in one womb, it will not amount in such cases to life from the dead, because there is not the separate restitution which individuals ought to have; although at this rate, (no doubt ,) the law of the primeval creation is signally kept, by the production still of several souls out of only one! Then, again, if souls depart at different ages of human life, how is it that they come back again at one uniform age? For all men are imbued with an infant soul at their birth.

But how happens it that a man who dies in old age returns to life as an infant? If the soul , while disembodied, decreases thus by retrogression of its age, how much more reasonable would it be, that it should resume its life with a richer progress in all attainments of life after the lapse of a thousand years! At all events, it should return with the age it had attained at its death, that it might resume the precise life which it had relinquished.

But even if, at this rate, they should reappear the same evermore in their revolving cycles, it would be proper for them to bring back with them, if not the selfsame forms of body, at least their original peculiarities of character, taste, and disposition, because it would be hardly possible for them to be regarded as the same, if they were deficient in those characteristics by means of which their identity should be proved . (You, however, meet me with this question): How can you possibly know , you ask, whether all is not a secret process? May not the work of a thousand years take from you the power of recognition, since they return unknown to you? But I am quite certain that such is not the case, for you yourself present Pythagoras to me as (the restored) Euphorbus.

Now look at Euphorbus: he was evidently possessed of a military and warlike soul , as is proved by the very renown of the sacred shields. As for Pythagoras, however, he was such a recluse, and so unwarlike, that he shrank from the military exploits of which Greece was then so full, and preferred to devote himself, in the quiet retreat of Italy , to the study of geometry, and astrology , and music — the very opposite to Euphorbus in taste and disposition. Then, again, the Pyrrhus (whom he represented) spent his time in catching fish; but Pythagoras, on the contrary, would never touch fish, abstaining from even the taste of them as from animal food.

You who are to be inhabitants of the heavens with God-Christ, hold fast the beginning, look at all things from heaven. Let simplicity, let meekness dwell in your body. Be not angry with your devout brother without a cause , for you shall receive whatever you may have done from him. This has pleased Christ, that the dead should rise again, yea, with their bodies; and those, too, whom in this world the fire has burned, when six thousand years are completed, and the world has come to an end. The heaven in the meantime is changed with an altered course, for then the wicked are burnt up with divine fire. The creature with groaning burns with the anger of the highest God.

Those who are more worthy, and who are begotten of an illustrious stem, and the men of nobility under the conquered Antichrist , according to God's command living again in the world for a thousand years , indeed, that they may serve the saints , and the High One, under a servile yoke, that they may bear victuals on their neck. Moreover, that they may be judged again when the reign is finished. They who make God of no account when the thousandth year is finished shall perish by fire, when they themselves shall speak to the mountains. All flesh in the monuments and tombs is restored according to its deed: they are plunged in hell ; they bear their punishments in the world; they are shown to them, and they read the things transacted from heaven; the reward according to one's deeds in a perpetual tyranny.

I cannot comprehend all things in a little treatise; the curiosity of the learned men shall find my name in this. I know nothing of the second poem of our author, and am indebted for the following particulars to Dr. Schaff. It is an apologetic poem against Jews and Gentiles , written in uncouth hexameters, and discusses in forty-seven sections the doctrine concerning God and the Redeemer and mankind . It treats of the names of Son and Father; and here, probably, he lays himself open to the charge of Patripassian heresy . He passes to the obstacles encountered by the Gospel , warns the Jews and the Gentiles to forsake their unprofitable devotions, and enlarges on the eschatology, as he conceives of it. Let me now quote textually, as follows:— The most interesting part of the second poem is the conclusion.

It contains a fuller description of Antichrist than the first poem. The author expects that the end of the world will come with the seventh persecution . The Goths will conquer Rome and redeem the Christians ; but then Nero will appear as the heathen Antichrist , reconquer Rome, and rage against the Christians three years and a half. He will be conquered in turn by the Jewish and real Antichrist from the East, who, after the defeat of Nero and the burning of Rome, will return to Judea , perform false miracles , and be worshipped by the Jews . At last Christ appears, that is, God himself (from the Monarchian stand-point of the author) with the lost Twelve Tribes [?] as his army, which had lived beyond Persia in happy simplicity and virtue .

The trumpet gives the sign in heaven, the lion being taken away, and suddenly there is darkness with the din of heaven. The Lord casts down His eyes, so that the earth trembles. He cries out, so that all may hear throughout the world: Behold, long have I been silent while I bore your doings in such a time. They cry out together, complaining and groaning too late. They howl, they bewail; nor is there room found for the wicked . What shall the mother do for the sucking child, when she herself is burnt up? In the flame of fire the Lord will judge the wicked . But the fire shall not touch the just, but shall by all means lick them up. In one place they delay, but a part has wept at the judgment. Such will be the heat, that the stones themselves shall melt.

The winds assemble into lightnings, the heavenly wrath rages; and wherever the wicked man flees, he is seized upon by this fire. There will be no succour nor ship of he sea. Amen flames on the nations , and the Medes and Parthians burn for a thousand years, as the hidden words of John declare. For then after a thousand years they are delivered over to Gehenna; and he whose work they were, with them are burnt up.

From heaven will descend the city in the first resurrection; this is what we may tell of such a celestial fabric. We shall arise again to Him, who have been devoted to Him. And they shall be incorruptible, even already living without death. And neither will there be any grief nor any groaning in that city. They shall come also who overcame cruel martyrdom under Antichrist , and they themselves live for the whole time, and receive blessings because they have suffered evil things; and they themselves marrying, beget for a thousand years . There are prepared all the revenues of the earth, because the earth renewed without end pours forth abundantly. Therein are no rains; no cold comes into the golden camp. No sieges as now, nor rapines, nor does that city crave the light of a lamp. It shines from its Founder.

Moreover, Him it obeys; in breadth 12,000 furlongs and length and depth. It levels its foundation in the earth, but it raises its head to heaven. In the city before the doors, moreover, sun and moon shall shine; he who is evil is hedged up in torment, for the sake of the nourishment of the righteous. But from the thousand years God will destroy all those evils .

Adam was the first who fell, and that he might shun the precepts of God , Belial was his tempter by the lust of the palm tree. And he conferred on us also what he did, whether of good or of evil , as being the chief of all that was born from him; and thence we die by his means, as he himself, receding from the divine, became an outcast from the Word. We shall be immortal when six thousand years are accomplished. The tree of the apple being tasted, death has entered into the world. By this tree of death we are born to the life to come. On the tree depends the life that bears fruits — precepts. Now, therefore, pluck believingly the fruits of life. A law was given from the tree to be feared by the primitive man, whence comes death by the neglect of the law of the beginning. Now stretch forth your hand, and take of the tree of life.

The excellent law of the Lord which follows has issued from the tree. The first law is lost; man eats whence he can, who adores the forbidden gods, the evil joys of life. Reject this partaking; it will suffice you to know what it should be. If you wish to live, surrender yourselves to the second law. Avoid the worship of temples, the oracles of demons ; turn yourselves to Christ , and you shall be associates with God . Holy is God's law, which teaches the dead to live. God alone has commanded us to offer to Him the hymn of praise. All of you shun absolutely the law of the devil .

1. But as they produce a certain composition by Nepos, on which they insist very strongly, as if it demonstrated incontestably that there will be a (temporal) reign of Christ upon the earth, I have to say, that in many other respects I accept the opinion of Nepos, and love him at once for his faith , and his laboriousness, and his patient study in the Scriptures , as also for his great efforts in psalmody, by which even now many of the brethren are delighted. I hold the man, too, in deep respect still more, inasmuch as he has gone to his rest before us. Nevertheless the truth is to be prized and reverenced above all things else. And while it is indeed proper to praise and approve ungrudgingly anything that is said aright, it is no less proper to examine and correct anything which may appear to have been written unsoundly. If he had been present then himself, and had been stating his opinions orally, it would have been sufficient to discuss the question together without the use of writing, and to endeavour to convince the opponents, and carry them along by interrogation and reply. But the work is published, and is, as it seems to some, of a very persuasive character; and there are unquestionably some teachers, who hold that the law and the prophets are of no importance, and who decline to follow the Gospels , and who depreciate the epistles of the apostles , and who have also made large promises regarding the doctrine of this composition, as though it were some great and…

2. After certain other mailers, he adds the following statement : — Being then in the Arsinoitic prefecture — where, as you are aware, this doctrine was current long ago, and caused such division, that schisms and apostasies took place I in whole churches — I called together the presbyters and the teachers among the brethren in the villages, and those of the brethren also who wished to attend were present. I exhorted them to make an investigation into that dogma in public. Accordingly, when they had brought this book before us, as though it were a kind of weapon or impregnable battlement, I sat with them for three days in succession from morning till evening, and attempted to set them right on the subjects propounded in the composition. Then, too, I was greatly gratified by observing the constancy of the brethren, and their love of the truth , and their docility and intelligence, as we proceeded, in an orderly method, and in a spirit of moderation, to deal with questions, and difficulties, and concessions. For we took care not to press, in every way and with jealous urgency, opinions which had once been adopted, even although they might appear to be correct. Neither did we evade objections alleged by others; but we endeavoured as far as possible to keep by the subject in hand, and to establish the positions pertinent to it. Nor, again, were we ashamed to change our opinions, if reason convinced us, and to acknowledge the fact; but rather with a good conscience , and in all…

3. Then, a little further on, he speaks of the Revelation of John as follows : — Now some before our time have set aside this book, and repudiated it entirely, criticising it chapter by chapter, and endeavouring to show it to be without either sense or reason. They have alleged also that its title is false; for they deny that John is the author. Nay, further, they hold that it can be no sort of revelation, because it is covered with so gross and dense a veil of ignorance . They affirm, therefore, that none of the apostles , nor indeed any of the saints , nor any person belonging to the Church , could be its author; but that Cerinthus , and the heretical sect founded by him, and named after him the Cerinthian sect , being desirous of attaching the authority of a great name to the fiction propounded by him, prefixed that title to the book. For the doctrine inculcated by Cerinthus is this: that there will be an earthly reign of Christ; and as he was himself a man devoted to the pleasures of the body, and altogether carnal l in his dispositions, he fancied that that kingdom would consist in those kinds of gratifications on which his own heart was set — to wit, in the delights of the belly, and what comes beneath the belly, that is to say, in eating and drinking, and marrying, and in other things under the guise of which he thought he could indulge his appetites with a better grace , such as festivals, and sacrifices , and the slaying of victims. But I, for my part, could not…

4. After this, he examines the whole book of the Revelation; and having proved that it cannot possible be understood according to the bald, literal sense, he proceeds thus :— When the prophet now has completed, so to speak, the whole prophecy , he pronounces those blessed who should observe it, and names himself, too, in the number of the same: For blessed, says he, is he that keeps the words of the prophecy of this book; and I John who saw and heard these things. Revelation 22:7-8 That this person was called John, therefore, and that this was the writing of a John, I do not deny. And I admit further, that it was also the work of some holy and inspired man. But I could not so easily admit that this was the apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, and the same person with him who wrote the Gospel which bears the title according to John , and the catholic epistle. But from the character of both, and the forms of expression, and the whole disposition and execution of the book, I draw the conclusion that the authorship is not his. For the evangelist nowhere else subjoins his name, and he never proclaims himself either in the Gospel or in the epistle. And a little further on he adds : — John, moreover, nowhere gives us the name, whether as of himself directly (in the first person), or as of another (in the third person). But the writer of the Revelation puts himself forward at once in the very beginning, for he says: The Revelation of Jesus Christ , which He gave to him…

Wherefore, above all other things, I say to those who love contests, and who are strong-minded, that without delay they should honour chastity , as a thing the most useful and glorious . For in the new and indissoluble creation, whoever shall not be found decorated with the boughs of chastity , shall neither obtain rest, because he has not fulfilled the command of God according to the law, nor shall he enter into the land of promise, because he has not previously celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles. For they only who have celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles come to the Holy Land, setting out from those dwellings which are called tabernacles, until they come to enter into the temple and city of God , advancing to a greater and more glorious joy , as the Jewish types indicate.

For like as the Israelites , having left the borders of Egypt , first came to the Tabernacles, and from hence, having again set forth, came into the land of promise, so also do we. For I also, taking my journey, and going forth from the Egypt of this life, came first to the resurrection, which is the true Feast of the Tabernacles, and there having set up my tabernacle, adorned with the fruits of virtue , on the first day of the resurrection, which is the day of judgment, celebrate with Christ the millennium of rest, which is called the seventh day, even the true Sabbath .

Then again from thence I, a follower of Jesus , who has entered into the heavens, Hebrews 4:14 as they also, after the rest of the Feast of Tabernacles, came into the laud of promise, come into the heavens, not continuing to remain in tabernacles — that is, my body not remaining as it was before, but, after the space of a thousand years, changed from a human and corruptible form into angelic size and beauty, where at last we virgins , when the festival of the resurrection is consummated, shall pass from the wonderful place of the tabernacle to greater and better things, ascending into the very house of God above the heavens, as, says the Psalmist, in the voice of praise and thanksgiving, among such as keep holy day. I, O Arete, my mistress, offer as a gift to you this robe, adorned according to my ability. Euboulios .

I am much moved, O Gregorion, considering within myself in how great anxiety of mind Domnina must be from the character of the discourses, perplexed in heart as she is, and with good cause , fearing lest she should be at a loss for words, and should speak more feebly than the rest of the virgins , since they have spoken on the subject with such ability and variety. If, therefore, she was evidently moved, come and complete this too; for I wonder if she had anything to say, being the last speaker. Gregorion . Theopatra told me, Euboulios, that she was greatly moved, but she was not perplexed from want of words. After, therefore, Tusiane had ceased, Arete looked at her and said, Come, my daughter, deliver also a discourse, that our banquet may be quite complete.

For this reason, therefore, because in the septenary number of days both heavenly and earthly things are ordered, in place of the beginning I will consider of this seventh day after the principle of all matters pertaining to the number of seven; and as far as I shall be able, I will endeavour to portray the day of the divine power to that consummation. In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night, for this reason, doubtless, that day might bring over the night as an occasion of rest for men's labours; that, again, day might overcome, and thus that labour might be refreshed with this alternate change of rest, and that repose again might be tempered by the exercise of day.

On the fourth day He made two lights in the heaven, the greater and the lesser, that the one might rule over the day, the other over the night, Genesis 1:16-17 — the lights of the sun and moon and He placed the rest of the stars in heaven, that they might shine upon the earth, and by their positions distinguish the seasons, and years, and months, and days, and hours. Now is manifested the reason of the truth why the fourth day is called the Tetras, why we fast even to the ninth hour, or even to the evening, or why there should be a passing over even to the next day. Therefore this world of ours is composed of four elements — fire, water, heaven, earth. These four elements, therefore, form the quaternion of times or seasons.

The sun, also, and the moon constitute throughout the space of the year four seasons — of spring, summer, autumn, winter; and these seasons make a quaternion. And to proceed further still from that principle, lo, there are four living creatures before God's throne, four Gospels , four rivers flowing in paradise; Genesis 2:10 four generations of people from Adam to Noah , from Noah to Abraham , from Abraham to Moses , from Moses to Christ the Lord, the Son of God ; and four living creatures, viz. , a man , a calf, a lion, an eagle; and four rivers, the Pison, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. The man Christ Jesus, the originator of these things whereof we have above spoken, was taken prisoner by wicked hands, by a quaternion of soldiers .

Therefore on account of His captivity by a quaternion, on account of the majesty of His works — that the seasons also, wholesome to humanity, joyful for the harvests, tranquil for the tempests, may roll on — therefore we make the fourth day a station or a supernumerary fast. On the fifth day the land and water brought forth their progenies. On the sixth day the things that were wanting were created; and thus God raised up man from the soil, as lord of all the things which He created upon the earth and the water. Yet He created angels and archangels before He created man, placing spiritual beings before earthly ones. For light was made before sky and the earth. This sixth day is called parasceve, that is to say, the preparation of the kingdom. For He perfected Adam, whom He made after His image and likeness.

1. Since I have found some who deem themselves very wise in their opinions, acting as if they were inspired, and announcing with all the authority of an oracle, that from the time when the Christian people began to exist in the world the universe has gone to ruin, that the human race has been visited with ills of many kinds, that even the very gods, abandoning their accustomed charge, in virtue of which they were wont in former days to regard with interest our affairs, have been driven from the regions of earth — I have resolved, so far as my capacity and my humble power of language will allow, to oppose public prejudice, and to refute calumnious accusations; lest, on the one hand, those persons should imagine that they are declaring some weighty matter, when they are merely retailing vulgar rumours; and on the other, lest, if we refrain from such a contest, they should suppose that they have gained a cause , lost by its own inherent demerits, not abandoned by the silence of its advocates. For I should not deny that that charge is a most serious one, and that we fully deserve the hatred attaching to public enemies, if it should appear that to us are attributable causes by reason of which the universe has deviated from its laws , the gods have been driven far away, and such swarms of miseries have been inflicted on the generations of men.

2. Let us therefore examine carefully the real significance of that opinion, and what is the nature of the allegation; and laying aside all desire for wrangling, by which the calm view of subjects is wont to be dimmed, and even intercepted, let us test, by fairly balancing the considerations on both sides, whether that which is alleged be true . For it will assuredly be proved by an array of convincing arguments, not that we are discovered to be more impious, but that they themselves are convicted of that charge who profess to be worshippers of the deities, and devotees of an antiquated superstition . And, in the first place, we ask this of them in friendly and calm language: Since the name of the Christian religion began to be used on the earth, what phenomenon, unseen before, unheard of before, what event contrary to the laws established in the beginning, has the so-called Nature of Things felt or suffered? Have these first elements, from which it is agreed that all things were compacted, been altered into elements of an opposite character? Has the fabric of this machine and mass of the universe , by which we are all covered, and in which we are held enclosed, relaxed in any part, or broken up? Has the revolution of the globe, to which we are accustomed, departing from the rate of its primal motion, begun either to move too slowly, or to be hurried onward in headlong rotation? Have the stars begun to rise in the west, and the setting of the constellations to take place in…

3. Since this is so, and since no strange influence has suddenly manifested itself to break the continuous course of events by interrupting their succession, what is the ground of the allegation, that a plague was brought upon the earth after the Christian religion came into the world, and after it revealed the mysteries of hidden truth ? But pestilences, say my opponents, and droughts, wars , famines, locusts, mice, and hailstones, and other hurtful things, by which the property of men is assailed, the gods bring upon us, incensed as they are by your wrong-doings and by your transgressions. If it were not a mark of stupidity to linger on matters which are already clear, and which require no defense, I should certainly show, by unfolding the history of past ages, that those ills which you speak of were not unknown, were not sudden in their visitation; and that the plagues did not burst upon us, and the affairs of men begin to be attacked by a variety of dangers, from the time that our sect won the honour of this appellation. For if we are to blame, and if these plagues have been devised against our sin , whence did antiquity know these names for misfortunes? Whence did she give a designation to wars ? By what conception could she indicate pestilence and hailstorms, or how could she introduce these terms among her words, by which speech was rendered plain? For if these ills are entirely new, and if they derive their origin from recent transgressions, how could it be that the…

4. When was the human race destroyed by a flood? Was it not before us? When was the world set on fire, and reduced to coals and ashes? Was it not before us? When were the greatest cities engulphed in the billows of the sea? Was it not before us? When were wars waged with wild beasts, and battles fought with lions? was it not before us? When was ruin brought on whole communities by poisonous serpents? was it not before us? For, inasmuch as you are wont to lay to our blame the cause of frequent wars , the devastation of cities, the irruptions of the Germans and the Scythians, allow me, with your leave, to say — In your eagerness to calumniate us, you do not perceive the real nature of that which is alleged.

Who, then, is so senseless as to imagine that he reigns in heaven who ought not even to have reigned on earth? It was not without humour that a certain poet wrote of the triumph of Cupid: in which book he not only represented Cupid as the most powerful of the gods, but also as their conqueror. For having enumerated the loves of each, by which they had come into the power and dominion of Cupid, he sets in array a procession, in which Jupiter, with the other gods, is led in chains before the chariot of him, celebrating a triumph. This is elegantly pictured by the poet, but it is not far removed from the truth . For he who is without virtue , who is overpowered by desire and wicked lusts , is not, as the poet feigned , in subjection to Cupid, but to everlasting death.

But let us cease to speak concerning morals; let us examine the matter, in order that men may understand in what errors they are miserably engaged. The common people imagine that Jupiter reigns in heaven; both learned and unlearned are alike persuaded of this. For both religion itself, and prayers , and hymns , and shrines, and images demonstrate this. And yet they admit that he was also descended from Saturn and Rhea. How can he appear a god, or be believed , as the poet says, to be the author of men and all things, when innumerable thousands of men existed before his birth — those, for instance, who lived during the reign of Saturn, and enjoyed the light sooner than Jupiter? I see that one god was king in the earliest times, and another in the times that followed. It is therefore possible that there may be another hereafter.

For if the former kingdom was changed, why should we not expect that the latter may possibly be changed, unless by chance it was possible for Saturn to produce one more powerful than himself, but impossible for Jupiter so to do? And yet the divine government is always unchangeable; or if it is changeable, which is an impossibility, it is undoubtedly changeable at all times. Is it possible, then, for Jupiter to lose his kingdom as his father lost it? It is so undoubtedly. For when that deity had spared neither virgins nor married women , he abstained from Thetis only in consequence of an oracle which foretold that whatever son should be born from her would be greater than his father.

And first of all there was in him a want of foreknowledge not befitting a god; for had not Themis related to him future events, he would not have known them of his own accord. But if he is not divine, he is not indeed a god; for the name of divinity is derived from god, as humanity is from man. Then there was a consciousness of weakness; but he who has feared, must plainly have feared one greater than himself. But he who does this assuredly knows that he is not the greatest, since something greater can exist. He also swears most solemnly by the Stygian marsh: Which is set forth the sole object of religious dread to the gods above. What is this object of religious dread? Or by whom is it set forth? Is there, then, some mighty power which may punish the gods who commit perjury ?

When, therefore, He had first formed the male after His own likeness, then He also fashioned woman after the image of the man himself, that the two by their union might be able to perpetuate their race, and to fill the whole earth with a multitude. But in the making of man himself He concluded and completed the nature of those two materials which we have spoken of as contrary to each other, fire and water. For having made the body, He breathed into it a soul from the vital source of His own Spirit, which is everlasting, that it might bear the similitude of the world itself, which is composed of opposing elements.

For he consists of soul and body, that is, as it were, of heaven and earth: since the soul by which we live, has its origin, as it were, out of heaven from God , the body out of the earth, of the dust of which we have said that it was formed. Empedocles — whom you cannot tell whether to reckon among poets or philosophers , for he wrote in verse respecting the nature of things, as did Lucretius and Varro among the Romans — determined that there were four elements, that is, fire, air, water, and earth; perhaps following Trismegistus, who said that our bodies were composed of these four elements by God , for he said that they contained in themselves something of fire, something of air, something of water, and something of earth, and yet that they were neither fire, nor air, nor water, nor earth.

And these things indeed are not false; for the nature of earth is contained in the flesh, that of moisture in the blood, that of air in the breath, that of fire in the vital heat. But neither can the blood be separated from the body, as moisture is from the earth; nor the vital heat from the breath, as fire from the air: so that of all things only two elements are found, the whole nature of which is included in the formation of our body.

Man, therefore, was made from different and opposite substances, as the world itself was made from light and darkness, from life and death; and he has admonished us that these two things contend against each other in man: so that if the soul , which has its origin from God , gains the mastery, it is immortal , and lives in perpetual light; if, on the other hand, the body shall overpower the soul , and subject it to its dominion, it is in everlasting darkness and death. And the force of this is not that it altogether annihilates the souls of the unrighteous, but subjects them to everlasting punishment. We term that punishment the second death, which is itself also perpetual, as also is immortality . We thus define the first death: Death is the dissolution of the nature of living beings; or thus: Death is the separation of body and soul .

Since we have spoken of the immortality of the soul , it follows that we teach how and when it is given to man; that in this also they may see the errors of their perverseness and folly, who imagine that some mortals have become gods by the decrees and dogmas of mortals; either because they had invented arts, or because they had taught the use of certain productions of the earth, or because they had discovered things useful for the life of men , or because they had slain savage beasts. How far these things were from deserving immortality we have both shown in the former books, and we will now show, that it may be evident that it is righteousness alone which procures for man eternal life, and that it is God alone who bestows the reward of eternal life.

For they who are said to have been immortalized by their merits, inasmuch as they possessed neither righteousness nor any true virtue , did not obtain for themselves immortality , but death by their sins and lusts ; nor did they deserve the reward of heaven, but the punishment of hell , which impends over them, together with all their worshippers. And I show that the time of this judgment draws near, that the due reward may be given to the righteous, and the deserved punishment may be inflicted on the wicked .

Plato and many others of the philosophers , since they were ignorant of the origin of all things, and of that primal period at which the world was made, said that many thousands of ages had passed since this beautiful arrangement of the world was completed; and in this they perhaps followed the Chaldeans, who, as Cicero has related in his first book respecting divination , foolishly say that they possess comprised in their memorials four hundred and seventy thousand years; in which matter, because they thought that they could not be convicted, they believed that they were at liberty to speak falsely .

But we, whom the Holy Scriptures instruct to the knowledge of the truth , know the beginning and the end of the world, respecting which we will now speak in the end of our work, since we have explained respecting the beginning in the second book. Therefore let the philosophers , who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six thousandth year is not yet completed, and that when this number is completed the consummation must take place, and the condition of human affairs be remodelled for the better, the proof of which must first be related, that the matter itself may be plain. God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days, as is contained in the secrets of Holy Scripture , and consecrated the seventh day, on which He had rested from His works.

Some imagine that these things are figments of the poets, not knowing whence the poets received them, and they say that these things are impossible; and it is no wonder that it so appears to them. For the matter is related by the poets in a manner which is different from the truth ; for although they are much more ancient than the historians and orators, and other kinds of writers, yet because they were ignorant of the secret of the divine mystery , and mention of a future resurrection had reached them by an obscure rumour, yet they handed it down, when carelessly and lightly heard, after the manner of a feigned story. And yet they also testified that they did not follow a sure authority, but mere opinion, as Maro, who says, What ear has heard let tongue make known .

Although, therefore, they have partly corrupted the secrets of the truth , yet the matter itself is found to be more true , because it partly agrees with the prophets : which is sufficient for us as a proof of the matter. Yet some reason is contained in their error . For when the prophets proclaimed with continual announcements that the Son of God was about to judge the dead, and this announcement did not escape their notice; inasmuch as they supposed that there was no other ruler of heaven but Jupiter, they reported that the son of Jupiter was king in the lower regions, but not Apollo, or Liber, or Mercurius, who are supposed to be gods of heaven, but one who was both mortal and just, either Minos, or Æacus, or Rhadamanthus.

Therefore with poetic licence they corrupted that which they had received; or, the opinion being scattered through different mouths and various discourses, changed the truth . For inasmuch as they foretold that, when a thousand years had been passed in the lower regions, they should again be restored to life, as Maro said: — All these, when centuries ten times told The wheel of destiny have rolled, The voice divine from far and wide Calls up to Lethe's river side, That earthward they may pass once more, Remembering not the things before, And with a blind propension yearn To fleshly bodies to return: this matter escaped their notice, that the dead will rise again, not after a thousand years from their death, but that, when again restored to life, they may reign with God a thousand years .

For God will come, that, having cleansed the world from all defilement, He may restore the souls of the righteous to their renewed bodies, and raise them to everlasting blessedness. Therefore the other things are true , except the water of oblivion, which they feigned on this account, that no one might make this objection: why, therefore, did they not remember that they were at one time alive, or who they were, or what things they accomplished? But nevertheless it is not thought probable, and the whole matter is rejected, as though licentiously and fabulously invented.

Now I will subjoin the rest. Therefore the Son of the most high and mighty God shall come to judge the quick and the dead, as the Sibyl testifies and says:— For then there shall be confusion of mortals throughout the whole earth, when the Almighty Himself shall come on His judgment-seat to judge the souls of the quick and dead, and all the world. But He, when He shall have destroyed unrighteousness, and executed His great judgment, and shall have recalled to life the righteous, who have lived from the beginning, will be engaged among men a thousand years , and will rule them with most just command. Which the Sibyl proclaims in another place, as she utters her inspired predictions:— Hear me, you mortals; an everlasting King reigns.

Then they who shall be alive in their bodies shall not die, but during those thousand years shall produce an infinite multitude, and their offspring shall be holy , and beloved by God ; but they who shall be raised from the dead shall preside over the living as judges. But the nations shall not be entirely extinguished, but some shall be left as a victory for God , that they may be the occasion of triumph to the righteous, and may be subjected to perpetual slavery. About the same time also the prince of the devils, who is the contriver of all evils , shall be bound with chains, and shall be imprisoned during the thousand years of the heavenly rule in which righteousness shall reign in the world, so that he may contrive no evil against the people of God .

After His coming the righteous shall be collected from all the earth, and the judgment being completed, the sacred city shall be planted in the middle of the earth, in which God Himself the builder may dwell together with the righteous, bearing rule in it. And the Sibyl marks out this city when she says:— And the city which God made, this He made more brilliant than the stars, and sun, and moon.

Then that darkness will be taken away from the world with which the heaven will be overspread and darkened, and the moon will receive the brightness of the sun, nor will it be further diminished: but the sun will become seven times brighter than it now is; and the earth will open its fruitfulness, and bring forth most abundant fruits of its own accord; the rocky mountains shall drop with honey; streams of wine shall run down, and rivers flow with milk: in short, the world itself shall rejoice , and all nature exult, being rescued and set free from the dominion of evil and impiety, and guilt and error . Throughout this time beasts shall not be nourished by blood, nor birds by prey; but all things shall be peaceful and tranquil.

These are the things which are spoken of by the prophets as about to happen hereafter: but I have not considered it necessary to bring forward their testimonies and words, since it would be an endless task; nor would the limits of my book receive so great a multitude of subjects, since so many with one breath speak similar things; and at the same time, lest weariness should be occasioned to the readers if I should heap together things collected and transferred from all; moreover, that I might confirm those very things which I said, not by my own writings, but in a special manner by the writings of others, and might show that not only among us, but even with those very persons who revile us, the truth is preserved, which they refuse to acknowledge.

But he who wishes to know these things more accurately may draw from the fountain itself, and he will know more things worthy of admiration than we have comprised in these books. Perhaps some one may now ask when these things of which we have spoken are about to come to pass? I have already shown above, that when six thousand years shall be completed this change must take place, and that the last day of the extreme conclusion is now drawing near. It is permitted us to know respecting the signs, which are spoken by the prophets , for they foretold signs by which the consummation of the times is to be expected by us from day to day, and to be feared.

When, however, this amount will be completed, those teach, who have written respecting the times, collecting them from the sacred writings and from various histories, how great is the number of years from the beginning of the world. And although they vary, and the amount of the number as reckoned by them differs considerably, yet all expectation does not exceed the limit of two hundred years. The subject itself declares that the fall and ruin of the world will shortly take place; except that while the city of Rome remains it appears that nothing of this kind is to be feared. But when that capital of the world shall have fallen, and shall have begun to be a street, which the Sibyls say shall come to pass, who can doubt that the end has now arrived to the affairs of men and the whole world?

It is that city, that only, which still sustains all things; and the God of heaven is to be entreated by us and implored — if, indeed, His arrangements and decrees can be delayed — lest, sooner than we think for, that detestable tyrant should come who will undertake so great a deed, and dig out that eye, by the destruction of which the world itself is about to fall. Now let us return, to set forth the other things which are then about to follow.

We have said, a little before, that it will come to pass at the commencement of the sacred reign, that the prince of the devils will be bound by God . But he also, when the thousand years of the kingdom, that is, seven thousand of the world , shall begin to be ended, will be loosed afresh, and being sent forth from prison , will go forth and assemble all the nations , which shall then be under the dominion of the righteous, that they may make war against the holy city; and there shall be collected together from all the world an innumerable company of the nations , and shall besiege and surround the city.

Then the last anger of God shall come upon the nations , and shall utterly destroy them; and first He shall shake the earth most violently, and by its motion the mountains of Syria shall be rent, and the hills shall sink down precipitously, and the walls of all cities shall fall, and God shall cause the sun to stand, so that he set not for three days, and shall set it on fire; and excessive heat and great burning shall descend upon the hostile and impious people, and showers of brimstone, and hailstones, and drops of fire; and their spirits shall melt through the heat, and their bodies shall be bruised by the hail, and they shall smite one another with the sword.

The mountains shall be filled with carcasses, and the plains shall be covered with bones; but the people of God during those three days shall be concealed under caves of the earth, until the anger of God against the nations and the last judgment shall be ended. Then the righteous shall go forth from their hiding-places, and shall find all things covered with carcasses and bones. But the whole race of the wicked shall utterly perish; and there shall no longer be any nation in this world, but the nation of God alone. Then for seven continuous years the woods shall be untouched, nor shall timber be cut from the mountains, but the arms of the nations shall be burnt; and now there shall be no war , but peace and everlasting rest.

But when the thousand years shall be completed, the world shall be renewed by God , and the heavens shall be folded together, and the earth shall be changed, and God shall transform men into the similitude of angels , and they shall be white as snow; and they shall always be employed in the sight of the Almighty, and shall make offerings to their Lord, and serve Him forever. At the same time shall take place that second and public resurrection of all, in which the unrighteous shall be raised to everlasting punishments. These are they who have worshipped the works of their own hands, who have either been ignorant of, or have denied the Lord and Parent of the world.