Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 14.--Of the Damnation of the Devil and His Adherents; And a Sketch of the Bodily Resurrection of All the Dead, and of the Final Retributive Judgment.

After this mention of the closing persecution, he summarily indicates all that the devil, and the city of which he is the prince, shall suffer in the last judgment. For he says, "And the devil who seduced them is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, in which are the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." We have already said that by the beast is well understood the wicked city. His false prophet is either Antichrist or that image or figment of which we have spoken in the same place. After this he gives a brief narrative of the last judgment itself, which shall take place at the second or bodily resurrection of the dead, as it had been revealed to him: "I saw a throne great and white, and One sitting on it from whose face the heaven and the earth fled away, and their place was not found." He does not say, "I saw a throne great and white, and One sitting on it, and from His face the heaven and the earth fled away," for it had not happened then, i.e., before the living and the dead were judged; but he says that he saw Him sitting on the throne from whose face heaven and earth fled away, but afterwards. For when the judgment is finished, this heaven and earth shall cease to be, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. For this world shall pass away by transmutation, not by absolute destruction. And therefore the apostle says, "For the figure of this world passeth away. I would have you be without anxiety." ¹ The figure, therefore, passes away, not the nature. After John had said that he had seen One sitting on the throne from whose face heaven and earth fled, though not till afterwards, he said, "And I saw the dead, great and small: and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of the life of each man: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their deeds." He said that the books were opened, and a book; but he left us at a loss as to the nature of this book, "which is," he says, "the book of the life of each man." By those books, then, which he first mentioned, we are to understand the sacred books old and new, that out of them it might be shown what commandments God had enjoined; and that book of the life of each man is to show what commandments each man has done or omitted to do. If this book be materially considered, who can reckon its size or length, or the time it would take to read a book in which the whole life of every man is recorded? Shall there be present as many angels as men, and shall each man hear his life recited by the angel assigned to him? In that case there will be not one book containing all the lives, but a separate book for every life. But our passage requires us to think of one only. "And another book was opened," it says. We must therefore understand it of a certain divine power, by which it shall be brought about that every one shall recall to memory all his own works, whether good or evil, and shall mentally survey them with a marvellous rapidity, so that this knowledge will either accuse or excuse conscience, and thus all and each shall be simultaneously judged. And this divine power is called a book, because in it we shall as it were read all that it causes us to remember. That he may show who the dead, small and great, are who are to be judged, he recurs to this which he had omitted or rather deferred, and says, "And the sea presented the dead which were in it; and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them." This of course took place before the dead were judged, yet it is mentioned after. And so, I say, he returns again to what he had omitted. But now he preserves the order of events, and for the sake of exhibiting it repeats in its own proper place what he had already said regarding the dead who were judged. For after he had said, "And the sea presented the dead which were in it, and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them," he immediately subjoined what he had already said, "and they were judged every man according to their works." For this is just what he had said before, "And the dead were judged according to their works."

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XIV: De damnatione diaboli cum suis et per recapitulationem de resurrectione corporea omnium mortuorum et de iudicio ultimae retributionis.

Post hanc autem commemorationem nouissimae persecutionis breuiter conplectitur totum, quod ultimo iam iudicio diabolus et cum suo principe ciuitas inimica passura est. dicit enim: et diabolus, qui seducebat eos, missus est in stagnum ignis et sulphuris, quo et bestia et pseudopropheta; et cruciabuntur die ac nocte in saecula saeculorum. bestiam bene intellegi ipsam inpiam ciuitatem supra diximus. pseudopropheta uero eius aut Antichristus est aut imago illa, id est figmentum, de quo ibi locuti sumus. post haec ipsum nouissimum iudicium, quod erit in secunda resurrectione mortuorum, quae corporum est, recapitulando narrans quomodo sibi fuerit reuelatum: et uidi, inquit, thronum magnum et candidum et sedentem super eum, cuius a facie fugit caelum et terra, et locus eorum inuentus non est. non ait: uidi thronum magnum et candidum et sedentem super eum, et ab eius facie fugit caelum et terra, quoniam non tunc factum est, id est, antequam esset de uiuis et mortuis iudicatum; sed eum se uidisse dixit in throno sedentem, a cuius facie fugit caelum et terra, sed postea. peracto quippe iudicio, tunc esse desinet hoc caelum et haec terra, quando incipiet esse caelum nouum et terra noua. mutatione namque rerum, non omni modo interitu transibit hic mundus. unde et apostolus dicit: praeterit enim figura huius mundi, uolo uos sine sollicitudine esse. figura ergo praeterit, non natura. cum ergo se Iohannes uidisse dixisset sedentem super thronum, cuius a facie, quod postea futurum est, fugit caelum et terra. et uidi, inquit, mortuos magnos et pusillos, et aperti sunt libri; et alius liber apertus est, qui est uitae uniuscuiusque; et iudicati sunt mortui ex ipsis scripturis librorum secundum facta sua. libros dixit esse apertos et librum; sed librum cuiusmodi non tacuit: qui est, inquit, uitae uniuscuiusque. ergo illi libri, quos priore loco posuit, intellegendi sunt sancti, et ueteres et noui, ut in illis ostenderetur, quae deus fieri sua mandata iussisset; in illo autem, qui est uitae uniuscuiusque, quid horum quisque non fecisset siue fecisset. qui liber si carnaliter cogitetur, quis eius magnitudinem aut longitudinem ualeat aestimare? aut quanto tempore legi poterit liber, in quo scriptae sunt uniuersae uitae uniuersorum? an tantus angelorum numerus aderit, quantus hominum erit, et uitam suam quisque ab angelo sibi adhibito audiet recitari? non ergo unus liber erit omnium, sed singuli singulorum. scriptura uero ista unum uolens intellegi: et alius, inquit, liber apertus est. quaedam igitur uis est intellegenda diuina, qua fiet, ut cuique opera sua, uel bona uel mala, cuncta in memoriam reuocentur et mentis intuitu mira celeritate cernantur, ut accuset uel excuset scientia conscientiam atque ita simul et omnes et singuli iudicentur. quae nimirum uis diuina libri nomen accepit. in ea quippe quodammodo legitur, quidquid ea faciente recolitur. ut autem ostendat, qui mortui iudicandi sint, pusilli et magni, recapitulando dicit tamquam ad id rediens, quod praeterierat potiusue distulerat: et exhibuit mortuos mare, qui in eo erant, et mors et infernus reddiderunt mortuos, quos in se habebant. hoc procul dubio prius factum est, quam essent mortui iudicati; et tamen illud prius dictum est. hoc est ergo quod dixi, recapitulando eum ad id redisse quod intermiserat. nunc autem ordinem tenuit, atque ut explicaretur ipse ordo, commodius etiam de iudicatis mortuis, quod iam dixerat, suo repetiuit loco. cum enim dixisset: et exhibuit mortuos mare, qui in eo erant, et mors et infernus reddiderunt mortuos, quos in se habebant, mox addidit quod paulo ante posuerat: et iudicati sunt singuli secundum facta sua. hoc est enim quod supra dixerat: et iudicati sunt mortui secundum facta sua.