City of God 20.8–20.13

Chapter 8. On the binding and loosing of the devil.

“After this,” he says, “he must be loosed for a short time.” If for the devil to be bound and shut in means that he cannot deceive the church, will his loosing, then, mean that he can? Far from it. For the church predestined and chosen before the foundation of the world will never be deceived by him, the church of which it is said: “The Lord knows those who are his.” And yet it will be here even at that time when the devil is to be loosed, just as it has been here since it was founded and will be at all times, in its own members, that is, who succeed the dying by being born. For a little later he says that the devil, when loosed, will draw the nations he has deceived throughout the whole world into war against it, and the number of these enemies will be as the sand of the sea. “And they went up,” he says, “over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven from God and devoured them; and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are; and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” But this already belongs to the last judgment; I thought it should be mentioned now so that no one should think that in that short time when the devil is loosed there will be no church on this earth, whether because he will not find it here when he is loosed or because he will destroy it when he has persecuted it in every way. So the devil is not bound through this whole time which this book covers, that is, from the first coming of Christ to the end of the world, which will be his second coming, in such a way that his binding through this interval, which he calls by the number of a thousand years, means that he does not deceive the church; since, certainly, not even when loosed will he deceive it. For surely, if to be bound means for him that he cannot deceive, or is not permitted to, what will being loosed mean except that he can deceive, or is permitted to? Far be it that this should happen. Rather, the binding of the devil is his not being permitted to put forth all the temptation that he can, whether by force or by guile, to seduce people to his side, compelling them by violence or misleading them by fraud. If this were permitted him over so long a time and amid the great weakness of many, he would cast down very many, of such a kind as God does not wish to have suffer this, both believers already and those whom he would hinder from believing; it is to prevent him from doing this that he has been bound.

But he will be loosed when the time will also be short (for we read that he will rage with all his forces and those of his followers for three years and six months), and those with whom he must make war will be such that they cannot be overcome by all his onslaught and snares. If he were never loosed, his malignant power would be less apparent, the most faithful patience of the holy city would be less proved, and finally it would be less clearly seen how well the Almighty has used so great an evil of his. For he neither removed him altogether from tempting the saints, though he cast him out of their inner man, where there is faith in God, so that they might profit by his assault from outside; and in those who are on his side he bound him, so that by pouring out and exercising all the malice he could he should not deter from the faith of godliness, or break down in it, the countless weak, from whom the church had to be multiplied and filled, some who would believe, some who already believe; and he will loose him at the end, so that the city of God may see how strong an adversary it has overcome, to the great glory of its Redeemer, Helper, and Deliverer. What are we, indeed, in comparison with the saints and believers who will then be? Since so great an enemy will be loosed to test them, one with whom we struggle amid such dangers even while he is bound. And yet there is no doubt that even in this interval of time there have been, and are, some soldiers of Christ so wise and strong that, even if they were living in this mortality at the time when he is loosed, they would both most wisely guard against all his snares and assaults and most patiently endure them.

This binding of the devil did not take place only from the time when the church began to spread beyond the land of Judea into one nation after another; it is taking place even now and will take place until the end of the world, when he is to be loosed. For even now people are being converted to faith from the unbelief in which he possessed them, and they will without doubt be converted until that end; and this strong man is bound, in the case of each one, at the time when that person is seized from him as his goods; and the abyss in which he is shut up was not used up when those died who were alive when he began to be shut in; others have succeeded them by being born, and succeed them, until this world ends, who hate Christians, in whose blind and deep hearts, as in an abyss, he is shut up daily.

But whether in those last three years and six months, when he is loosed and rages with all his forces, anyone who was not in the faith will come to it, is a considerable question. For how will the saying stand, “Who enters a strong man's house to seize his goods unless he first binds the strong man?” if they are seized even when he is loosed? Accordingly this saying seems to compel us to believe that in that time, short as it is, no one will join the Christian people, but that the devil will fight with those who are found to be Christians already; and that even if some of these are overcome and follow him, they do not belong to the predestined number of the sons of God. For not without reason does the same apostle John, who also wrote this Apocalypse, say of certain people in his letter: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.” But what of little children? For it is beyond belief that no children of Christians who have been born and not yet baptized will be overtaken at that time as infants, and that none will be born in those very days; or, if there are such, that they will not somehow be brought by their parents to the washing of regeneration. If this happens, how will these goods be seized from the devil when he is already loosed, into whose house no one enters to seize his goods unless he first binds him? Rather, it is to be believed that at that time there will be no lack either of those who fall away from the church or of those who come to it; but that both the parents, for the baptism of their little ones, and those who then first believe will be so strong that they will overcome that strong man even when he is not bound; that is, they will both watchfully understand and patiently endure him as he lies in wait with all his arts or presses with all his forces, such as never before, and so they will be seized from him even when he is not bound. Nor will that saying of the Gospel therefore be false: “Who enters a strong man's house to seize his goods unless he first binds the strong man?” For in accordance with the truth of that saying this order has been kept: first the strong man was bound, and when his goods had been seized, the church was so multiplied far and wide among all nations, strong and weak, that by its most robust faith in the things divinely foretold and fulfilled it could carry off his goods even when he is loosed. For just as it must be admitted that the love of many will grow cold, because iniquity abounds, and that many who are not written in the book of life will yield to the unheard-of and very great persecutions and deceptions of the devil when he is loosed, so we must reckon that that time will find not only good believers, but also some who will still be outside, who by the help of God's grace, through considering the Scriptures, in which among other things the very end is foretold, which they will perceive to be now coming, will be firmer in believing what they did not believe, and stronger to overcome the devil even though he is not bound. If this is so, his binding must be said to have gone before so that the plundering of him, both bound and loosed, might follow; since of this it is said: “Who will enter a strong man's house to seize his goods unless he first binds the strong man?”

Chapter 9. What the reign of the saints with Christ for a thousand years is, and how it differs from the eternal kingdom.

Meanwhile, while the devil is bound for a thousand years, the saints reign with Christ, also for those thousand years, which are without doubt to be understood as the same years and in the same way, that is, as this present time of his first coming. For, apart from that kingdom of which he will say at the end, “Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you,” unless his saints were reigning with him even now in some other way, far inferior indeed, those saints to whom he says, “Behold, I am with you to the end of the age,” the church would surely not be called even now his kingdom, or the kingdom of heaven. For certainly it is in this time that the scribe we spoke of above is instructed in the kingdom of God, who brings out of his treasure things new and old; and it is from the church that those reapers are to gather the weeds which he allowed to grow together with the wheat until the harvest. Explaining this, he says: “The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. As the weeds, then, are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age; the Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin.” Out of that kingdom, surely, where there are no causes of sin? It is from this kingdom of his, then, which is the church here, that they will be gathered. Again he says: “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” He says that both are in the kingdom of heaven: he who does not do the commandments which he teaches (for this is what it is to break them: not to keep them, not to do them), and he who does and teaches so; but the one least, the other great. And he at once goes on to add: “For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,” that is, of those who break what they teach (for of the scribes and Pharisees he says in another place, “For they say, and do not do”), unless, then, your righteousness exceeds theirs, that is, so that you do not break but rather do what you teach, “you will not enter,” he says, “the kingdom of heaven.” So the kingdom of heaven is to be understood in one way where both are, namely he who breaks what he teaches and he who does it, but the one least, the other great; and the kingdom of heaven is spoken of in another way, into which none enters except him who does. Consequently, where both kinds are, there is the church as it is now; but where only the one kind will be, there is the church as it will be then, when there will be no evil person in it. Therefore the church is even now the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. His saints, then, reign with him even now, though otherwise than they will reign then; and yet the weeds do not reign with him, although they grow in the church with the wheat. For those reign with him who do what the apostle says: “If you have risen with Christ, set your minds on the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not those on earth”; of such people he also says that their citizenship is in heaven. Finally, those reign with him who are in his kingdom in such a way that they themselves are his kingdom. But how are those the kingdom of Christ who, to say nothing else, although they are there until all causes of sin are gathered out of his kingdom at the end of the world, nevertheless seek their own interests there, not those of Jesus Christ?

It is of this kingdom of warfare, then, in which there is still conflict with the enemy, and sometimes vices are resisted as they fight back, sometimes they are ruled as they yield, until one comes to that most peaceful kingdom where there will be reigning without an enemy, and of this first resurrection, which is now, that this book speaks thus. For when he had said that the devil is bound for a thousand years and afterwards loosed for a short time, then, recapitulating what the church does, or what is done in it, during these thousand years, he says: “And I saw thrones, and those who sat on them, and judgment was given.” This is not to be thought to be said of the last judgment; rather, the thrones of those set over the church, and those set over it themselves, are to be understood, by whom the church is now governed. And the judgment given seems best taken as nothing other than what was said: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” Hence the apostle says: “For what have I to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?” “And the souls,” he says, “of those who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God”; understand what he will say afterwards, “reigned with Jesus for a thousand years”; the souls, that is, of the martyrs, their bodies not yet given back to them. For the souls of the godly dead are not separated from the church, which even now is the kingdom of Christ. Otherwise they would not be remembered at the altar of God in the communion of the body of Christ; nor would it be of any use in danger to run to his baptism, lest this life end without it; nor to reconciliation, if perhaps someone has been separated from that same body by penance or by a bad conscience. For why are these things done, if not because the faithful, even when dead, are his members? Although, then, not yet with their bodies, their souls already reign with him while these thousand years run their course. Hence in this same book we also read elsewhere: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Henceforth, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow them.” So the church now first reigns with Christ in the living and in the dead. For this is why, as the apostle says, Christ died, that he might be Lord of both the living and the dead. But he mentioned only the souls of the martyrs because they especially reign, when dead, who fought for the truth even to death. But taking the part for the whole, we understand the other dead too who belong to the church, which is the kingdom of Christ.

And what follows, “and any who had not worshiped the beast or its image, nor received its mark on their forehead or on their hand,” we must take of the living and the dead together. What this beast is must be inquired into more carefully; yet it is not out of keeping with right faith to understand by it the ungodly city itself and the people of unbelievers opposed to the faithful people and the city of God. Its image seems to me to be its pretense, namely in those people who profess the faith, as it were, and live faithlessly. For they pretend to be what they are not, and are called Christians not by a true likeness but by a deceitful image. For to this same beast belong not only the open enemies of the name of Christ and of his most glorious city, but also the weeds which are to be gathered out of his kingdom, which is the church, at the end of the world. And who are those who do not worship the beast or its image, if not those who do what the apostle says: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers”? For “do not worship” means do not consent, do not submit; “nor receive the mark,” that is, the brand of crime, on the forehead because of profession, on the hand because of action. Those, then, who are free of these evils, whether still living in this mortal flesh or dead, reign with Christ even now, in a manner suited to this time, through this whole interval which is signified by the number of a thousand years.

“The rest of them,” he says, “did not live.” For “the hour is now when the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live”; the rest of them, therefore, will not live. And as to what he added, “until the thousand years are ended,” it is to be understood that they did not live at the time when they ought to have lived, namely by passing from death to life. And therefore, when the day comes on which the resurrection of bodies also takes place, they will come forth from the tombs not to life but to judgment, that is, to condemnation, which is called the second death. For whoever has not lived until the thousand years are ended, that is, has not, during this whole time in which the first resurrection takes place, heard the voice of the Son of God and passed from death to life, will surely, in the second resurrection, which is of the flesh, pass with that very flesh into the second death. For he goes on to say: “This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has a share in this first resurrection,” that is, who partakes of it. And he partakes of it who not only comes to life again from the death which is in sins, but also remains in the life to which he has come again. “Over these,” he says, “the second death has no power.” It does have power, therefore, over the rest, of whom he said above, “The rest of them did not live until the thousand years are ended”; since in this whole interval of time which he calls a thousand years, however long any of them lived in the body, he did not come to life again from the death in which ungodliness held him, so as to become by this new life a partaker in the first resurrection, and so that the second death should have no power over him.

Chapter 10. What reply is to be made to those who think that resurrection belongs only to bodies and not also to souls.

There are some who think that resurrection can be spoken of only in the case of bodies, and therefore they contend that this first resurrection too will take place in bodies. “For what can fall,” they say, “can rise again. But bodies fall by dying; indeed, dead bodies are called cadavera from cadere, ‘to fall.’ So there cannot be a resurrection of souls,” they say, “but only of bodies.” But what do they say against the apostle, who calls it a resurrection? For it was certainly according to the inner man, not the outer, that those had risen to whom he says: “If you have risen with Christ, set your minds on the things that are above.” He put the same sense in other words elsewhere, saying: “That as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Hence too that saying: “Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” As for their saying that none can rise again except those who fall, and their thinking that resurrection therefore belongs to bodies and not to souls because it is bodies that fall, why do they not listen to: “Do not turn away from him, lest you fall,” and: “To his own Lord he stands or falls,” and: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”? For I think that this fall to be guarded against is in the soul, not in the body. If, then, resurrection belongs to those who fall, and souls also fall, it must surely be admitted that souls also rise again.

And when he had said, “Over these the second death has no power,” he went on to add: “But they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him for a thousand years.” This is certainly not said only of the bishops and presbyters, who are now properly called priests in the church; but just as we call all Christians “anointed ones” because of the mystical chrism, so we call all priests, because they are members of the one Priest. Of them the apostle Peter says: “A holy people, a royal priesthood.” Indeed, though briefly and in passing, he intimated that Christ is God by saying “priests of God and of Christ,” that is, of the Father and the Son; although it was because of the form of a servant that Christ, as he became the Son of Man, so also became a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. Of this we have spoken more than once in this work.

Chapter 11. On Gog and Magog, whom the devil, when loosed near the end of the world, will stir up to persecute the church of God.

“And when the thousand years are ended,” he says, “Satan will be loosed from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and will draw them into war; their number is as the sand of the sea.” This, then, is the purpose for which he will deceive them at that time: to draw them into this war. For before this too he used to deceive in whatever ways he could, through many and various evils. “He will go out” is said meaning he will break out from lurking hatred into open persecution. For this will be the last persecution, with the last judgment at hand, which the holy church will suffer throughout the whole world; that is, the whole city of Christ will suffer it from the whole city of the devil, however great each will be on earth. For these nations which he calls Gog and Magog are not to be taken as though they were some barbarians settled in some part of the world, whether the Getae and Massagetae, as some suspect because of the first letters of these names, or some other foreigners outside Roman jurisdiction. For they are signified to be throughout the whole world when it is said, “the nations which are in the four corners of the earth,” and he added that these are Gog and Magog. We have found that the meaning of these names is: Gog, “roof”; Magog, “from the roof”; as it were the house, and he himself who comes out of the house. They are therefore the nations in which we understood above that the devil is shut up as in an abyss, and he himself in a way bringing himself out and proceeding from them; so that they are the roof and he is “from the roof.” But if we refer both names to the nations, and not one to them and the other to the devil, then they are both the roof, because in them the ancient enemy is now shut up and in a way covered over, and they will be “from the roof” when they are to break out from covered hatred into open hatred. And as to his saying, “And they went up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city,” they are certainly not signified to have come, or to be going to come, to one place, as though the camp of the saints and the beloved city were to be in some one place; since this is nothing but the church of Christ spread throughout the whole world. And therefore wherever it will be then, and it will be in all nations, which is signified by the name “breadth of the earth,” there will be the camp of the saints, there will be his city beloved by God; there it will be surrounded by all its enemies with the savagery of that persecution, because they too will be with it in all nations; that is, it will be pressed into the straits of tribulation, hard pressed, hemmed in; yet it will not desert its warfare, which is signified by the word “camp.”

Chapter 12. Whether the fire said to have come down from heaven and devoured them belongs to the final punishment of the ungodly.

As for his saying, “And fire came down from heaven and devoured them,” this is not to be thought the final punishment which will come when it is said, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire.” For then they themselves will be sent into the fire, not fire come from heaven upon them. Here, rather, the fire from heaven is well understood of the very steadfastness of the saints, by which they will not yield to those who rage so as to do their will. For heaven is the firmament, and by its firmness they will be tormented with most burning zeal, because they will not be able to draw the saints of Christ over to the side of Antichrist. And this will be the fire that devours them, and it is “from God,” because it is by God's gift that the saints become unconquerable, and by this their enemies are tormented. For as it is said in a good sense, “Zeal for your house has devoured me,” so on the contrary: “Zeal has seized the untaught people, and now fire will devour the adversaries.” “And now,” of course, meaning apart from the fire of that last judgment. Or, if he has called “fire coming down from heaven and devouring them” that blow by which the persecutors of the church whom Christ will find alive on earth are to be struck when he comes, when he will slay Antichrist with the breath of his mouth, even this will not be the final punishment of the ungodly; that will be what they are to suffer after the resurrection of bodies has taken place.

Chapter 13. Whether the time of Antichrist's persecution is to be counted in the thousand years.

This last persecution, which is to come from Antichrist, will last, as we have already said, three years and six months, since this is stated both above in this book and in the prophet Daniel. Whether this time, short as it is, belongs to the thousand years in which he says both that the devil is bound and that the saints reign with Christ, or whether this small span is added on to those years and lies outside them, is rightly questioned. For if we say that it belongs to those same years, the reign of the saints with Christ will be found to extend over a longer time, not an equal one, than the binding of the devil. For surely the saints will reign with their King especially in that very persecution, overcoming such great evils, when the devil will no longer be bound, so that he can persecute them with all his forces. How then does this Scripture set the same thousand years as the limit of both, namely the binding of the devil and the reign of the saints, when the binding of the devil ends three years and six months before the reign of the saints with Christ in these thousand years?

If, on the other hand, we say that this short span of this persecution is not to be counted in the thousand years but rather added after they are completed, so that we may take in its proper sense his adding, after he had said, “The priests of God and of Christ will reign with him for a thousand years,” the words, “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison” (for in this way he signifies that both the reign of the saints and the chain of the devil will end together, so that the time of that persecution would be believed to belong neither to the reign of the saints nor to the imprisonment of Satan, both of which are within the thousand years, but to be added on and counted outside them): then we shall be forced to admit that the saints will not reign with Christ in that persecution. But who would dare to say that his members will not reign with him then, when they will cleave to him most of all and most strongly, and at a time when, the fiercer the onslaught of the war, the greater will be the glory of not yielding and the thicker the crown of martyrdom? Or, if they are not to be said to reign because of the tribulations they will suffer, it will follow that in earlier days too, within these same thousand years, any of the saints who were afflicted must be said not to have reigned with Christ during the very time of their affliction; and so even those whose souls the author of this book writes that he saw, of those slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, were not reigning with Christ when they were suffering persecution, and were not themselves the kingdom of Christ, whom Christ possessed in a more excellent way. That is utterly absurd and to be rejected in every way. But certainly the victorious souls of the most glorious martyrs, all their pains and labors overcome and ended, after they laid aside their mortal members, have reigned and do reign with Christ until the thousand years are ended, so that afterwards, having received their bodies too, now immortal, they may reign. Accordingly, during those three and a half years, the souls of those slain for his testimony, both those which left their bodies before and those which are to leave them in that very last persecution, will reign with him until the mortal age is ended and there is a passing over to that kingdom where there will be no death. Therefore the years of the saints reigning with Christ will be more than those of the devil's chain and imprisonment, because they will reign with their King, the Son of God, for those three and a half years as well, when the devil is no longer bound.

It remains, then, that when we hear, “The priests of God and of Christ will reign with him for a thousand years, and when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison,” we understand either that it is not the thousand years of this reign of the saints that end but those of the devil's chain and imprisonment, so that each party has its thousand years, that is, all its own years, ending at different and proper lengths, the reign of the saints longer, the chain of the devil shorter; or else, since the span of three years and six months is very short, it is to be believed that he did not wish to count it, whether because the chain of Satan seems to have less, or because the reign of the saints seems to have more; just as I discussed in the sixteenth book of this work concerning the four hundred years, which were something more and yet were called four hundred. And such things are often found in the sacred writings, if one pays attention.