Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 76/87

will anyone say that this time of faith is to be equated with that end, when those who shall offer sacrifices in righteousness shall be cleansed by the fire of the last judgment? And through this, since it must be believed that after such cleansing the just shall have no sin, assuredly that time, as far as pertains to having no sin, is to be compared with no time, except when the first human beings in paradise, before the transgression, lived in most innocent felicity. Rightly therefore is this understood to have been signified when it was said, 'As in the days of old and as in former years.'

For also through Isaiah, after the new heaven and the new earth have been promised, among the other things which there he sets forth concerning the blessedness of the saints by allegories and enigmas, to which the care of avoiding prolixity has forbidden us to render a suitable exposition, he says: 'According to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of My people.' But who has touched the sacred Scriptures and is ignorant where God planted the tree of life, from whose food when those men were separated, when their own iniquity cast them out of paradise, a fiery and terrible guard was set round about that very tree?

But if anyone contends that those days of the tree of life, which the prophet Isaiah commemorated, are these days of the Church of Christ which are now being passed, and that Christ Himself was prophetically called the tree of life, since He is the wisdom of God, of which Solomon says, 'She is a tree of life to all who embrace her'; and that those first human beings passed no years in paradise, whence they were so quickly cast out that they begot no son there, and that therefore that time cannot be understood in what was said, 'As in the days of old and as in former years'—this question I pass over, lest I be compelled, what is a long matter, to discuss everything, so that the manifest truth may confirm some one of these views.

For I see another meaning, lest we believe that days of old and former years of carnal sacrifices were promised to us as a great gift through the prophet. For those victims of the old law in whatever cattle were commanded to be offered spotless and altogether without any blemish, and they signified holy men, such as Christ alone was found to be, wholly without any sin.

Accordingly, since after the judgment, when those also shall have been cleansed by fire who are worthy of such cleansing, in all the saints no sin at all shall be found, and so they shall offer themselves in righteousness, so that such victims shall be in every way spotless and without any blemish—they shall assuredly be as in the days of old and as in former years, when in the shadow of this future thing the cleanest victims were offered. For this shall be the purity then in the immortal flesh and mind of the saints, which was figured in the bodies of those victims. Then, on account of those who are worthy not of cleansing but of condemnation, He says: 'And I will come near to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the workers of evil and against the adulterers,'

and the rest, to which, after the damnable crimes had been enumerated, He added: 'For I am the Lord your God, and I change not'—as though He said: 'When your fault shall have changed you for the worse and My grace for the better, I change not.' And He says that He will be a witness, because in His judgment He needs no witnesses; and a swift one, either because He is suddenly to come and the judgment shall be most rapid by His very unlooked-for advent, which seemed most slow, or because He will convict the very consciences without any prolixity of speech. For in the thoughts, as it is written, of the ungodly there shall be examination; and the Apostle:

'Their thoughts,' he says, 'accusing or also excusing them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, through Jesus Christ.' Even so therefore the Lord, the future witness, is to be understood as swift, since without delay He shall recall to memory that whereby He may convict and punish the conscience. CHAPTER 27. On the separation of the good and the evil, by which the distinction of the last judgment is declared. That also which, while doing something else in the eighteenth book, I cited from this prophet, pertains to the last judgment, where he says: 'They shall be Mine, saith the Lord Almighty, in the day when I make, for an acquisition, and I will choose them as a man chooses his son who serves him;'

and I will turn, and ye shall see what is between the just and the unjust, and between him who serves God and him who serves Him not. For behold, the day cometh burning like an oven, and it shall consume them; and all the aliens and all who work iniquity shall be stubble, and the coming day shall set them on fire, saith the Lord Almighty, and there shall not be left in them root nor branch. And there shall arise to you who fear My name the Sun of righteousness, and healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth and leap like calves loosed from their bonds; and ye shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under your feet, saith the Lord Almighty.

This distinction of rewards and punishments, separating the just from the unjust, which under this sun in the vanity of this life is not discerned, when under that Sun of righteousness in the manifestation of that life it shall shine forth, then assuredly there shall be a judgment such as never was. CHAPTER 28. On the law of Moses to be understood spiritually, lest the carnal sense run into damnable murmurings. But what the same prophet subjoins: 'Remember the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, precepts and judgments,' he opportunely calls to mind after having declared the future so great a difference between the observers of the law and its despisers;

that they may at the same time also learn to understand the law spiritually and find in it Christ, through whom as Judge that very separation between the good and the evil is to be made. For not in vain did the same Lord say to the Jews: 'If ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me also; for he wrote of Me.' For by taking the law carnally and not knowing that its earthly promises are figures of heavenly things, they fell into those murmurings, so that they dared to say: 'Vain is he who serves God, and what profit is it that we have kept His commandments, and that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now we call the aliens blessed, and all who work iniquity are built up.'

By these words of theirs the prophet was in some way compelled to foretell the last judgment, where the evil shall not be even falsely blessed, but most evidently appear most wretched, and the good shall labor under no temporal misery even, but shall enjoy a clear and everlasting blessedness. For he had indeed reported some such words of these men saying also above: 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such please Him.' To these things, I say, did their murmurings against God come, by taking the law of Moses carnally. Whence in the seventy-second psalm he says that his feet were almost moved and his steps poured out, namely into a fall, because he was envious at sinners, beholding the peace of sinners;

so that among other things he said: 'How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High?' He said also: 'Have I in vain justified my heart and washed my hands among the innocent?' But that he might solve this most difficult question which arises when the good are seen to be wretched and the evil happy, he says: 'This is labor before me, until I enter into the sanctuary of God and understand in the last things.' For in the last judgment it shall not be so; but in the open misery of the unjust and the open felicity of the just, something far other than now is shall appear. CHAPTER 29. On the coming of Elijah before the judgment, by whose preaching, unsealing the secrets of the Scriptures, the Jews shall be converted to Christ.

But when he had admonished them to remember the law of Moses (since he foresaw that for a long time yet they would not receive it spiritually as they ought), he immediately subjoined: 'And behold, I will send to you Elijah the Tishbite, before the great and illustrious day of the Lord come, who shall turn the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbor, lest perhaps coming I smite the earth utterly.' That through this great and wonderful prophet Elijah, the law being expounded to them, at the last time before the judgment the Jews shall believe in the true Christ, that is, in our Christ, is most celebrated in the discourses and in the hearts of the faithful.

For he himself is not without reason hoped to be about to come before the advent of the Judge and Saviour, since even now he is not without reason believed to be alive. For he was caught up by a fiery chariot from human affairs, which the holy Scripture most evidently testifies. When therefore he shall have come, by expounding spiritually the law which the Jews now savor carnally, he shall turn the heart of the father to the son, that is, the heart of the fathers to the sons: for the translators, the Seventy, put the singular for the plural number; and the sense is, that the sons also, that is, the Jews, may so understand the law as the fathers understood it, that is, the prophets, among whom was Moses himself;

for thus the heart of the fathers shall be turned to the sons, when the understanding of the fathers shall be brought to the understanding of the sons; and the heart of the sons to their fathers, while these too consent to that which those perceived; where the Seventy said: 'And the heart of a man to his neighbor.' For fathers and sons are very near to one another among themselves. Although in the words of the Seventy translators, who interpreted prophetically, another and indeed a more select sense may be found: that Elijah is understood to be about to turn the heart of God the Father to the Son—not indeed by bringing it to pass that the Father should love the Son, but by teaching that the Father loves the Son; so that the Jews also may love the same Christ, who is ours, whom before they hated.

For God now has His heart turned away from our Christ toward the Jews, because they think thus. To them, then, His heart shall then be turned to the Son, when they themselves, with converted heart, shall have learned the love of the Father toward the Son. But as to what follows: 'And the heart of a man to his neighbor,' that is, Elijah shall turn also the heart of a man to his neighbor—what is better understood than the heart of man to the man Christ? For although in the form of God He is our God, yet, taking the form of a servant, He deigned to be also our neighbor. This therefore Elijah shall do. 'Lest perhaps,' he says, 'I come and smite the earth utterly.' For they are earth who savor earthly things, as the carnal Jews even now; from which fault those murmurings against God came: 'For the evil please Him,' and:

'Vain is he who serves God.' CHAPTER 30. That in the books of the Old Testament, when God is read as about to judge, the person of Christ is not evidently shown; but from certain testimonies, where the Lord God speaks, it appears beyond doubt that He Himself is Christ. There are many other testimonies of the divine Scriptures concerning the last judgment of God, which, if I were to collect them all, it would be too long. Let it suffice, therefore, that we have proved this to have been foretold both in the new and in the old sacred writings.

But in the old writings it is not so evidently expressed as in the new that the judgment is to come through Christ, that is, that Christ the Judge is to come from heaven; for this reason, because, when the Lord God there says that He Himself is to come, or the Lord God is said to be about to come, it is not consequently understood to be Christ. For the Lord God is both Father and Son and Holy Spirit; nevertheless we ought not to leave this without attestation. First, therefore, it must be demonstrated how Jesus Christ speaks as the Lord God in the prophetic books, and yet Jesus Christ evidently appears; so that, even when He does not so appear and yet the Lord God is said to be about to come to that last judgment, Jesus Christ may be understood.

There is a passage in the prophet Isaiah which evidently shows what I say. For God says through the prophet: 'Hear Me, Jacob and Israel, whom I call. I am the first and I am unto eternity, and My hand founded the earth, and My right hand established the heaven. I will call them, and they shall stand together, and they shall all be gathered and hear. Who has declared these things to them? Loving thee, I have done thy will upon Babylon, that I might take away the seed of the Chaldeans. And I have spoken, and I have called; I have brought him, and have made his way prosperous. Draw near to Me and hear these things. Not from the beginning have I spoken in secret; when they were being done, there was I. And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.' Surely it is He who was speaking as the Lord God;

yet He would not be understood to be Jesus Christ, had He not added: 'And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit.' For He said this according to the form of a servant, using the word of past time concerning a future thing, just as in the same prophet it is read: 'As a sheep He was led to the slaughter.' For he did not say 'shall be led,' but, for that which was future, he put the word of past time. And prophecy assiduously speaks thus. There is also another passage in Zechariah which evidently shows this, that the Almighty sent the Almighty: who whom, but God the Father God the Son? For thus it is written: 'Thus saith the Lord Almighty: After the glory He has sent Me upon the nations which spoiled you;'

'for he who touches you is as one who touches the pupil of His eye. Behold, I will bring My hand upon them, and they shall be spoils to those who served them; and ye shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent Me.' Behold, the Lord Almighty says that He was sent by the Lord Almighty. Who here would dare to understand any but Christ speaking, namely to the sheep which had perished of the house of Israel? For He says in the Gospel: 'I am not sent but to the sheep which have perished of the house of Israel'; which here He compared to the pupil of the eye of God on account of the most excellent affection of love; of which kind of sheep the apostles themselves also were. But after the glory of His resurrection, of course (before which came to pass, the evangelist says:

'Jesus was not yet glorified'), He was also sent upon the nations in His apostles, and thus was fulfilled what is read in the psalm: 'Thou shalt deliver Me from the contradictions of the people, Thou shalt set Me at the head of the nations'; so that those who had spoiled the Israelites and whom the Israelites had served, when they are made subject to the nations, should not in turn be spoiled in the same way, but should themselves become the spoils of the Israelites (for this He had promised to the apostles, saying: 'I will make you fishers of men,' and to one of them: 'From henceforth,' He says, 'thou shalt be catching men'); spoils therefore they should become, but unto good, like vessels snatched from that strong one, but more strongly bound. Again, the Lord speaking through the same prophet:

'And it shall come to pass in that day,' He says, 'that I will seek to take away all the nations which come against Jerusalem; and I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of mercy; and they shall look upon Me because they insulted Me, and they shall mourn over Him a mourning as over a most beloved one, and shall grieve with grief as over an only-begotten.' Is it not God's alone to take away all the nations hostile to the holy city Jerusalem, which come against it, that is, are contrary to it, or, as others have interpreted, come upon it, that is, to subject it to themselves; or to pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of the same city the spirit of grace and of mercy?

This is assuredly God's, and is said from the person of God through the prophet; and yet Christ shows Himself to be this God doing such great and such divine things, by subjoining and saying: 'And they shall look upon Me because they insulted Me, and they shall mourn over Him a mourning as over a most beloved one (or a beloved one), and shall grieve with grief as over an only-begotten.' For in that day the Jews shall repent, even those who are to receive the spirit of grace and of mercy, that in His passion they insulted Christ, when they shall have looked upon Him coming in His majesty and shall have recognized Him to be the very one whom in His humility, in their forefathers, they mocked;

although their forefathers also, the authors of that so great impiety, rising again shall see Him, but now to be punished, not now to be corrected. Not therefore in this place are they themselves to be understood, where it is said: 'And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of mercy; and they shall look upon Me because they insulted Me'; but rather those coming of their stock, who through Elijah at that time shall believe. But just as we say to the Jews: 'You killed Christ,' although their forefathers did this: so these too shall grieve to have done in some way what those did, from whose stock they descend.

Although therefore, having received the spirit of grace and of mercy, being now faithful, they shall not be condemned with their impious forefathers, yet they shall grieve as though they themselves had done what was done by those. They shall therefore grieve not by the guilt of the crime, but by the affection of piety. To be sure, where the Seventy translators said: 'And they shall look upon Me because they insulted Me,' it has been thus translated from the Hebrew: 'And they shall look upon Me, whom they pierced'; by which word indeed Christ crucified more evidently appears. But that insulting, which the Seventy preferred to put, was not lacking to His whole passion.

For both when He was seized and bound and condemned, and clothed with the reproach of a shameful garment, and crowned with thorns, and struck on the head with a reed, and mockingly adored with bended knees, and bearing His own cross, and now hanging on the tree—they assuredly insulted Him. Accordingly, by not following one interpretation, but joining both, since we read both 'they insulted' and 'they pierced,' we more fully recognize the truth of the Lord's passion. When therefore in the prophetic writings God is read as about to come to execute the last judgment, even if no other distinction of Him be set down, for the sake of the judgment itself Christ alone ought to be understood; because, even though the Father shall judge, He shall judge through the advent of the Son of man.

For He Himself, by the manifestation of His presence, judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, who shall be made manifest as a man about to judge, even as He was judged as a man. For who else is He, of whom likewise God speaks through Isaiah under the name of Jacob and Israel, from whose seed He took a body? as it is thus written: 'Jacob is my servant, I will uphold him; Israel is my chosen one, my soul has taken him to itself. I have put my Spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not cry out, nor cease, nor shall his voice be heard outside. A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench; but in truth he shall bring forth judgment. He shall shine forth and not be broken, until he set judgment in the earth; and in his name the nations shall hope.'

In the Hebrew there is not read 'Jacob' and 'Israel': but what is there read is 'my servant.' Doubtless the Seventy translators, wishing to point out in what sense this should be taken — namely that it was said on account of the form of a servant, in which the Most High showed Himself most lowly — set down the name of that very man to signify Him from whose race that same form of a servant was taken. The Holy Spirit was given upon Him, which was also shown in the form of a dove, as the Gospel testifies; He brought forth judgment to the nations, because He foretold a future thing that was hidden from the nations; in His meekness He did not cry out, yet He did not cease in proclaiming the truth;

but His voice was not heard outside, nor is it heard, since indeed He is not obeyed by those who have been cut off outside from His body; and His own persecutors, the Jews — who, having lost their wholeness, are likened to a bruised reed, and, having lost their light, to smoking flax — He did not break, He did not quench, because He spared them, He who had not yet come to judge them, but to be judged by them. Yet in truth He did bring forth judgment, foretelling to them when they should be punished, if they persisted in their malice. His face shone forth on the mountain, His fame throughout the world; nor was He broken or crushed, because neither in Himself nor in His Church did He yield to His persecutors so as to cease to be;

and therefore that has not come to pass, nor shall it come to pass, which His enemies have said or say: 'When shall he die and his name perish?' — until He set judgment in the earth. Behold, that has now been made manifest which, when hidden, we were seeking; for this is the last judgment, which He shall set in the earth, when He Himself shall come from heaven; of which we already see fulfilled that which is here set last: 'And in his name the nations shall hope.' By this, surely, which cannot be denied, let that also be believed which is shamelessly denied. For who would have hoped that even those who as yet refuse to believe in Christ should now see along with us, and — since they cannot deny it — gnash their teeth and pine away?

Who, I say, would have hoped that the nations would hope in the name of Christ, at the time when He was being held, bound, beaten, mocked, crucified — when even His own disciples had lost the hope which they had already begun to have in Him? What then scarcely one thief hoped on the cross, now the nations, spread far and wide, hope; and that they may not die forever, they are marked with the very cross on which He died. No one therefore either denies or doubts that, through Christ Jesus, such a last judgment as is foretold in these sacred writings shall come to pass, save him who, by some unbelievable animosity or blindness, does not believe in those same writings which have already demonstrated their truth to the whole earth.

In that judgment therefore, or about that judgment, we have learned that these things are to come: Elijah the Tishbite, the conversion of the Jews, Antichrist who shall persecute, Christ who shall judge, the resurrection of the dead, the separating of the good and the evil, the conflagration of the world and its renewal. That all these things are indeed to come, we must believe; but in what manners and in what order they shall come, the actual experience of the events will then teach better than human understanding can now attain to perfectly. Yet I think they will come in the order in which they have been mentioned by me. Two books remain to us pertaining to this work, that, with the Lord's help, we may fulfill our promises; of which one shall be on the punishment of the wicked, the other on the felicity of the righteous;

in which, especially, as God shall grant, the human arguments shall be refuted by which wretched men think to gnaw wisely against the divine predictions and promises, and despise the nourishments of saving faith as though they were false and laughable. But those who are wise according to God hold all things which seem incredible to men, and yet are contained in the holy Scriptures (whose truth has already been asserted in many ways), as a most powerful argument for the truthful omnipotence of God, whom they hold as certain that He could in no way lie in them, and that He can do what is impossible to the unbeliever. Concerning the order of the discussion, in which we must treat first of the perpetual punishment of the damned with the devil, before treating of the eternal felicity of the saints.

When through Christ our Lord, the judge of the living and the dead, both cities shall have arrived at their due ends — of which one is God's, the other the devil's — what manner of punishment shall be the future punishment of the devil and of all who belong to him, must in this book be discussed by us more diligently, so far as we shall be able by divine aid. And I have preferred to keep this order, so that I may afterwards discourse of the felicity of the saints, because both will be with bodies, and it seems more incredible that bodies should endure in eternal torments than that they should remain without any pain in eternal blessedness;

and on this account, when I shall have demonstrated that that punishment ought not to be incredible, it will help me very greatly, so that much more easily the future immortality of the bodies of the saints, free from all distress, may be believed. Nor is this order at variance with the divine utterances, where sometimes indeed the blessedness of the good is placed first, as is that saying: 'They who have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but they who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment'; but sometimes also it is placed later, as is this: 'The Son of man shall send his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all stumbling-blocks, and shall cast them into the burning furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father'; and that other:

'These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal'; and in the prophets, which it would be tedious to recount, now the one order, now the other, if anyone should examine, is found. But I have said for what cause I have chosen this one. CHAPTER II. Whether bodies can be perpetual in the burning of fire. What therefore shall I show, by which the unbelieving may be convinced, that human bodies, animated and living, can not only never be dissolved by death, but also endure in the torments of eternal fires? For they are unwilling that we should refer this to the power of the Omnipotent, but they demand to be persuaded by some example. To whom, if we shall answer that there are animals which are assuredly corruptible, because mortal, which nevertheless live in the midst of fires;

and that a certain kind of worms is also found in the bubbling of hot waters, whose heat no one handles unharmed; yet those creatures not only are there without any injury to themselves, but cannot be outside it — either they are unwilling to believe it, if we are not able to show it; or, if we have been able to demonstrate the things themselves before their eyes, or to teach it through suitable witnesses, they will contend with the same unbelief that this is not enough as an example of the matter in question, because these animals neither always live, and live in those very heats without pains: for they are vivified by elements suited to their own nature, not tortured by them; as though it were not more incredible to be vivified than to be tortured by such things.