Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput VII: De duabus resurrectionibus et de mille annis quid in apocalypsi Iohannis scriptum sit et quid de eis rationabiliter sentiatur.

De his duabus resurrectionibus idem Iohannes euangelista in libro, qui dicitur apocalypsis, eo modo locutus est, ut earum prima a quibusdam nostris non intellecta insuper etiam in quasdam ridiculas fabulas uerteretur. ait quippe in libro memorato Iohannes apostolus: et uidi angelum descendentem de caelo, habentem clauem abyssi et catenam in manu sua. et tenuit draconem illum serpentem antiquum, qui cognominatus est diabolus et satanas; et adligauit illum mille annis et misit illum in abyssum; et clusit et signauit super eum, ut non seduceret iam gentes, donec finiantur mille anni; post haec oportet eum solui breui tempore. et uidi sedes et sedentes super eas, et iudicium datum est. et animae occisorum propter testimonium Iesu et propter uerbum dei, et si qui non adorauerunt bestiam nec imaginem eius, neque acceperunt inscriptionem in fronte aut in manu sua, et regnauerunt cum Iesu mille annis; reliqui eorum non uixerunt, donec finiantur mille anni. haec resurrectio prima est. beatus et sanctus est, qui habet in hac prima resurrectione partem. in istis secunda mors non habet potestatem; sed erunt sacerdotes dei et Christi et regnabunt cum eo mille annis. qui propter haec huius libri uerba primam resurrectionem futuram suspicati sunt corporalem, inter cetera maxime numero annorum mille permoti sunt, tamquam oporteret in sanctis eo modo uelut tanti temporis fieri sabbatismum, uacatione scilicet sancta post labores annorum sex milium, ex quo creatus est homo et magni illius peccati merito in huius mortalitatis aerumnas de paradisi felicitate dimissus est, ut, quoniam scriptum est: unus dies apud dominum sicut mille anni, et mille anni sicut dies unus, sex annorum milibus tamquam sex diebus inpletis, sequatur uelut septimus sabbati in annis mille postremis, ad hoc scilicet sabbatum celebrandum resurgentibus sanctis. quae opinio esset utcumque tolerabilis, si aliquae deliciae spiritales in illo sabbato adfuturae sanctis per domini praesentiam crederentur. nam etiam nos hoc opinati fuimus aliquando. sed cum eos, qui tunc resurrexerint, dicant inmoderatissimis carnalibus epulis uacaturos, in quibus cibus sit tantus ac potus, ut non solum nullam modestiam teneant, sed modum quoque ipsius incredulitatis excedant, nullo modo ista possunt nisi a carnalibus credi. hi autem qui spiritales sunt, istos ista credentes χιλιαστάς appellant Graeco uocabulo; quos uerbum e uerbo exprimentes nos possemus miliarios nuncupare. eos autem longum est refellere ad singula; sed potius, quemadmodum scriptura haec accipienda sit, iam debemus ostendere. ait ipse dominus Iesus Christus: nemo potest introire in domum fortis et uasa eius eripere, nisi prius adligauerit fortem, diabolum uolens intellegi fortem, quia ipse genus humanum potuit tenere captiuum; uasa uero eius, quae fuerat erepturus, fideles suos futuros, quos ille in diuersis peccatis atque inpietatibus possidebat. ut ergo adligaretur hic fortis, propterea uidit iste apostolus in apocalypsi angelum descendentem de caelo, habentem clauem abyssi et catenam in manu sua. et tenuit, inquit, draconem illum serpentem antiquum, qui cognominatus est diabolus et satanas, et adligauit illum mille annis, hoc est, eius potestatem ab eis seducendis ac possidendis, qui fuerant liberandi, cohibuit atque frenauit. mille autem anni duobus modis possunt, quantum mihi occurrit, intellegi: aut quia in ultimis annis mille ista res agitur, id est sexto annorum miliario tamquam sexto die, cuius nunc spatia posteriora uoluuntur, secuturo deinde sabbato, quod non habet uesperam, requie scilicet sanctorum, quae non habet finem, ut huius miliarii tamquam diei nouissimam partem, quae remanebat usque ad terminum saeculi, mille annos appellauerit eo loquendi modo, quo pars significatur a toto; aut certe mille annos pro annis omnibus huius saeculi posuit, ut perfecto numero notaretur ipsa temporis plenitudo. millenarius quippe numerus denarii numeri quadratum solidum reddit. decem quippe deciens ducta fiunt centum, quae iam figura quadrata, sed plana est; ut autem in altitudinem surgat et solida fiat, rursus centum deciens multiplicantur, et mille sunt. porro si centum ipsa pro uniuersitate aliquando ponantur, quale illud est, quod dominus omnia sua dimittenti et eum sequenti promisit dicens: accipiet in hoc saeculo centuplum, quod exponens quodammodo apostolus ait: quasi nihil habentes, et omnia possidentes; quia et ante iam dictum erat: fidelis hominis totus mundus diuitiarum est: quanto magis mille pro uniuersitate ponuntur, ubi est soliditas ipsius denariae quadraturae? unde nec illud melius intellegitur, quod in psalmo legitur: memor fuit in saeculum testamenti sui uerbi, quod mandauit in mille generationes, id est in omnes. et misit illum, inquit, in abyssum; utique diabolum misit in abyssum, quo nomine significata est multitudo innumerabilis inpiorum, quorum in malignitate aduersus ecclesiam dei multum profunda sunt corda; non quia ibi diabolus ante non erat; sed ideo illuc dicitur missus, quia exclusus a credentibus plus coepit inpios possidere. plus namque possidetur a diabolo, qui non solum est alienatus a deo, uerum etiam gratis odit seruientes deo. et clausit, inquit, et signauit super eum, ut non seduceret iam gentes, donec finiantur mille anni. clausit super eum dictum est interdixit ei, ne posset exire, id est uetitum transgredi. signauit autem, quod addidit, significasse mihi uidetur, quia occultum esse uoluit, qui pertineant ad partem diaboli, et qui non pertineant. hoc quippe in saeculo isto prorsus latet, quia et qui uidetur stare, utrum sit casurus, et qui uidetur iacere, utrum sit surrecturus, incertum est. ab eis autem gentibus seducendis huius interdicti uinculo et claustro diabolus prohibetur atque cohibetur, quas pertinentes ad Christum seducebat antea uel tenebat. has enim deus elegit ante mundi constitutionem eruere de potestate tenebrarum et transferre in regnum filii caritatis suae, sicut apostolus dicit. nam seducere illum gentes etiamnunc et se cum trahere in aeternam poenam, sed non praedestinatas in aeternam uitam, quis fidelis ignorat? nec moueat, quod saepe diabolus seducit etiam illos, qui regenerati iam in Christo uias ingrediuntur dei. nouit enim dominus qui sunt eius; ex his in aeternam damnationem neminem ille seducit. sic enim eos nouit dominus, ut deus, quem nil latet etiam futurorum, non ut homo, qui hominem ad praesens uidet - si tamen uidet, cuius cor non uidet - , qualis autem postea sit futurus nec se ipsum uidet. ad hoc ergo ligatus est diabolus et inclusus in abysso, ut iam non seducat gentes, ex quibus constat ecclesia, quas antea seductas tenebat, antequam essent ecclesia. neque enim dictum est ut non seduceret aliquem, sed ut non seduceret, inquit, iam gentes, in quibus ecclesiam procul dubio uoluit intellegi, donec finiantur, inquit, mille anni, id est, aut quod remanet de sexto die, qui constat ex mille annis, aut omnes anni, quibus deinceps hoc saeculum peragendum est. nec sic accipiendum est quod ait: ut non seduceret gentes, donec finiantur mille anni, quasi postea sit seducturus eas dumtaxat gentes, ex quibus praedestinata constat ecclesia, a quibus seducendis illo est uinculo claustro que prohibitus. sed aut illa locutione dictum est, quae in scripturis aliquotiens inuenitur, qualis est in psalmo: sic oculi nostri ad dominum deum nostrum, donec misereatur nostri; neque enim, cum misertus fuerit, non erunt oculi seruorum eius ad dominum deum suum; aut certe iste est ordo uerborum: et clausit et signauit super eum, donec finiantur mille anni; quod uero interposuit: ut non seduceret iam gentes, ita se habet, ut ab huius ordinis conexione sit liberum et seorsus intellegendum, uelut si post adderetur, ut sic se haberet tota sententia: et clausit et signauit super eum, donec finiantur mille anni, ut non seduceret iam gentes; id est, ideo clausit donec finiantur mille anni, ut non seduceret iam gentes.

Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 7.--What is Written in the Revelation of John Regarding the Two Resurrections, and the Thousand Years, and What May Reasonably Be Held on These Points.

The evangelist John has spoken of these two resurrections in the book which is called the Apocalypse, but in such a way that some Christians do not understand the first of the two, and so construe the passage into ridiculous fancies. For the Apostle John says in the foresaid book, "And I saw an angel come down from heaven. . . . Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." ¹ Those who, on the strength of this passage, have suspected that the first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved, among other things, specially by the number of a thousand years, as if it were a fit thing that the saints should thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest during that period, a holy leisure after the labors of the six thousand years since man was created, and was on account of his great sin dismissed from the blessedness of paradise into the woes of this mortal life, so that thus, as it is written, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," ² there should follow on the completion of six thousand years, as of six days, a kind of seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding thousand years; and that it is for this purpose the saints rise, viz., to celebrate this Sabbath. And this opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I myself, too, once held this opinion. ³ But, as they assert that those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal. They who do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians. ⁴ It were a tedious process to refute these opinions point by point: we prefer proceeding to show how that passage of Scripture should be understood. ⁵

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man" ⁶ --meaning by the strong man the devil, because he had power to take captive the human race; and meaning by his goods which he was to take, those who had been held by the devil in divers sins and iniquities, but were to become believers in Himself. It was then for the binding of this strong one that the apostle saw in the Apocalypse "an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a chain in his hand. And he laid hold," he says, "on the dragon, that old serpent, which is called the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,"--that is, bridled and restrained his power so that he could not seduce and gain possession of those who were to be freed. Now the thousand years may be understood in two ways, so far as occurs to me: either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a Sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he calls the last part of the millennium--the part, that is, which had yet to expire before the end of the world--a thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fullness of time. For a thousand is the cube of ten. For ten times ten makes a hundred, that is; the square on a plane superficies. But to give this superficies height, and make it a cube, the hundred is again multiplied by ten, which gives a thousand. Besides, if a hundred is sometimes used for totality, as when the Lord said by way of promise to him that left all and followed Him "He shall receive in this world an hundredfold;" ⁷ of which the apostle gives, as it were, an explanation when he says, "As having nothing, yet possessing all things," ⁸ --for even of old it had been said, The whole world is the wealth of a believer,--with how much greater reason is a thousand put for totality since it is the cube, while the other is only the square? And for the same reason we cannot better interpret the words of the psalm, "He hath been mindful of His covenant for ever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations," ⁹ than by understanding it to mean "to all generations."

"And he cast him into the abyss,"--i.e., cast the devil into the abyss. By the abyss is meant the countless multitude of the wicked whose hearts are unfathomably deep in malignity against the Church of God; not that the devil was not there before, but he is said to be cast in thither, because, when prevented from harming believers, he takes more complete possession of the ungodly. For that man is more abundantly possessed by the devil who is not only alienated from God, but also gratuitously hates those who serve God. "And shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled." "Shut him up,"--i.e., prohibited him from going out, from doing what was forbidden. And the addition of "set a seal upon him" seems to me to mean that it was designed to keep it a secret who belonged to the devil's party and who did not. For in this world this is a secret, for we cannot tell whether even the man who seems to stand shall fall, or whether he who seems to lie shall rise again. But by the chain and prison-house of this interdict the devil is prohibited and restrained from seducing those nations which belong to Christ, but which he formerly seduced or held in subjection. For before the foundation of the world God chose to rescue these from the power of darkness, and to translate them into the kingdom of the Son of His love, as the apostle says. ¹⁰ For what Christian is not aware that he seduces nations even now, and draws them with himself to eternal punishment, but not those predestined to eternal life? And let no one be dismayed by the circumstance that the devil often seduces even those who have been regenerated in Christ, and begun to walk in God's way. For "the Lord knoweth them that are His," ¹¹ and of these the devil seduces none to eternal damnation. For it is as God, from whom nothing is hid even of things future, that the Lord knows them; not as a man, who sees a man at the present time (if he can be said to see one whose heart he does not see), but does not see even himself so far as to be able to know what kind of person he is to be. The devil, then, is bound and shut up in the abyss that he may not seduce the nations from which the Church is gathered, and which he formerly seduced before the Church existed. For it is not said "that he should not seduce any man," but "that he should not seduce the nations"--meaning, no doubt, those among which the Church exists--"till the thousand years should be fulfilled,"--i.e., either what remains of the sixth day which consists of a thousand years, or all the years which are to elapse till the end of the world.

The words, "that he should not seduce the nations till the thousand years should be fulfilled," are not to be understood as indicating that afterwards he is to seduce only those nations from which the predestined Church is composed, and from seducing whom he is restrained by that chain and imprisonment; but they are used in conformity with that usage frequently employed in Scripture and exemplified in the psalm, "So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us," ¹² --not as if the eyes of His servants would no longer wait upon the Lord their God when He had mercy upon them. Or the order of the words is unquestionably this, "And he shut him up and set a seal upon him, till the thousand years should be fulfilled;" and the interposed clause, "that he should seduce the nations no more," is not to be understood in the connection in which it stands, but separately, and as if added afterwards, so that the whole sentence might be read, "And He shut him up and set a seal upon him till the thousand years should be fulfilled, that he should seduce the nations no more,"--i.e., he is shut up till the thousand years be fulfilled, on this account, that he may no more deceive the nations.