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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput I: Quod, quamuis omni tempore deus iudicet, in hoc tamen libro de nouissimo eius iudicio sit proprie disputandum.

De die ultimi iudicii dei quod ipse donauerit locuturi eumque adserturi aduersus inpios et incredulos tamquam in aedificii fundamento prius ponere testimonia diuina debemus; quibus qui nolunt credere, humanis ratiunculis falsis atque fallacibus contrauenire conantur, ad hoc ut aut aliud significare contendant quod adhibetur testimonium de litteris sacris, aut omnino diuinitus esse dictum negent. nam nullum existimo esse mortalium, qui cum ea, sicut dicta sunt, intellexerit et a summo ac uero deo per animas sanctas dicta esse crediderit, non eis cedat atque consentiat, siue id etiam ore fateatur siue aliquo uitio fateri erubescat aut metuat, uel etiam peruicacia simillima insaniae id, quod falsum esse nouit aut credit, contra id, quod uerum esse nouit aut credit, etiam contentiosissime defendere moliatur. quod ergo in confessione ac professione tenet omnis ecclesia dei ueri Christum de caelo esse uenturum ad uiuos ac mortuos iudicandos, hunc diuini iudicii ultimum diem dicimus, id est nouissimum tempus. nam per quot dies hoc iudicium tendatur, incertum est; sed scripturarum more sanctarum diem poni solere pro tempore nemo, qui illas litteras quamlibet neglegenter legerit, nescit. ideo autem, cum diem iudicii dei dicimus, addimus ultimum uel nouissimum, quia et nunc iudicat et ab humani generis initio iudicauit dimittens de paradiso et a ligno uitae separans primos homines peccati magni perpetratores; immo etiam quando angelis peccantibus non pepercit, quorum princeps homines a se ipso subuersus inuidendo subuertit, procul dubio iudicauit; nec sine illius alto iustoque iudicio et in hoc aerio caelo et in terris et daemonum et hominum miserrima est uita, erroribus aerumnis que plenissima. uerum etsi nemo peccasset, non sine bono rectoque iudicio uniuersam rationalem creaturam perseuerantissime sibi suo domino cohaerentem in aeterna beatitudine retineret. iudicat etiam non solum uniuersaliter de genere daemonum atque hominum, ut miseri sint propter primorum meritum peccatorum, sed etiam de singulorum operibus propriis, quae gerunt arbitrio uoluntatis. nam et daemones ne torqueantur precantur, nec utique iniuste uel parcitur eis uel pro sua quique inprobitate torquentur; et homines plerumque aperte, semper occulte, luunt pro suis factis diuinitus poenas siue in hac uita siue post mortem: quamuis nullus hominum agat recte, nisi diuino adiuuetur auxilio; nullus daemonum aut hominum agat inique, nisi diuino eodemque iustissimo iudicio permittatur. sicut enim ait apostolus, non est iniquitas apud deum; etiam sicut ipse alibi dicit, inscrutabilia sunt iudicia eius et inuestigabiles uiae eius. non igitur in hoc libro de illis primis nec de istis mediis dei iudiciis, sed de ipso nouissimo, quantum ipsi tribuerit, disputabo, quando Christus de caelo uenturus est uiuos iudicaturus et mortuos. iste quippe dies iudicii proprie iam uocatur, eo quod nullus ibi erit inperitae querellae locus, cur iniustus ille sit felix et cur ille iustus infelix. omnium namque tunc nonnisi bonorum uera et plena felicitas et omnium nonnisi malorum digna et summa infelicitas apparebit.

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The City of God

Chapter 1.--That Although God is Always Judging, It is Nevertheless Reasonable to Confine Our Attention in This Book to His Last Judgment.

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

That, therefore, which the whole Church of the true God holds and professes as its creed, that Christ shall come from heaven to judge quick and dead, this we call the last day, or last time, of the divine judgment. For we do not know how many days this judgment may occupy; but no one who reads the Scriptures, however negligently, need be told that in them "day" is customarily used for "time." And when we speak of the day of God's judgment, we add the word last or final for this reason, because even now God judges, and has judged from the beginning of human history, banishing from paradise, and excluding from the tree of life, those first men who perpetrated so great a sin. Yea, He was certainly exercising judgment also when He did not spare the angels who sinned, whose prince, overcome by envy, seduced men after being himself seduced. Neither is it without God's profound and just judgment that the life of demons and men, the one in the air, the other on earth, is filled with misery, calamities, and mistakes. And even though no one had sinned, it could only have been by the good and right judgment of God that the whole rational creation could have been maintained in eternal blessedness by a persevering adherence to its Lord. He judges, too, not only in the mass, condemning the race of devils and the race of men to be miserable on account of the original sin of these races, but He also judges the voluntary and personal acts of individuals. For even the devils pray that they may not be tormented, ¹ which proves that without injustice they might either be spared or tormented according to their deserts. And men are punished by God for their sins often visibly, always secretly, either in this life or after death, although no man acts rightly save by the assistance of divine aid; and no man or devil acts unrighteously save by the permission of the divine and most just judgment. For, as the apostle says, "There is no unrighteousness with God;" ² and as he elsewhere says, "His judgments are inscrutable, and His ways past finding out." ³ In this book, then, I shall speak, as God permits, not of those first judgments, nor of these intervening judgments of God, but of the last judgment, when Christ is to come from heaven to judge the quick and the dead. For that day is properly called the day of judgment, because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man unhappy. In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only.