On the Last Judgement
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 (cf. Mt. 8:29), 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 (Rom. 9:14) and as he elsewhere says, His
judgments are inscrutable, and His ways past finding out (Rom. 11:33). 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.
* * *
The Passages in Which
the Savior Declares that There Shall Be a Divine Judgment in the End of the
World (Chapter 5)
The Saviour Himself,
while reproving the cities in which He had done great works, but which had not
believed, and while setting them in unfavorable comparison with foreign cities,
says,But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the
day of judgment than for you (Mt. 11:22). And a little after He says, Verily, I
say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of
judgment than for thee (Mt. 11:24). Here He most plainly predicts that a day of
judgment is to come. And in another place He says, The men of Nineveh shall
rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they
repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and
shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear
the words of Solomon; and behold, a greater than Solomon is here (Mt.
12:41–42). Two things we learn from this passage, that a judgment is to take
place, and that it is to take place at the resurrection of the dead. For when
He spoke of the Ninevites and the queen of the south, He certainly spoke of
dead persons, and yet He said that they should rise up in the day of judgment.
He did not say, “They shall condemn,” as if they themselves were to be the
judges, but because, in comparison with them, the others shall be justly
condemned.
Again, in another
passage, in which He was speaking of the present intermingling and future
separation of the good and bad,—the separation which shall be made in the day
of judgment,—He adduced a comparison drawn from the sown wheat and the tares
sown among them, and gave this explanation of it to His disciples: He that
soweth the good seed is the Son of man [Augustin quotes the whole passage, Mt.
13:37–34] etc. Here, indeed, He did not name the judgment or the day of
judgment, but indicated it much more clearly by describing the circumstances,
and foretold that it should take place in the end of the world.
In like manner He
says to His disciples, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me,
in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory,
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt.
19:28). Here we learn that Jesus shall judge with His disciples. And therefore
He said elsewhere to the Jews, If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do
your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges (Mt. 12:17).
Niether ought we to suppose that only twelve men shall judge along with Him,
though He says that they shall sit upon twelve thrones; for by the number
twelve is signified the completeness of the multitude of those who shall judge.
For the two parts of the number seven (which commonly symbolizes totality),
that is to say four and three, multiplied into one another, give twelve. For
four times three, or three times four, are twelve. There are other meanings,
too, in this number twelve. Were not this the right interpretation of the
twelve thrones, then since we read that Matthias was ordained an apostle in the
room of Judas the traitor, the Apostle Paul, though he labored more than them
all (cf. 1 Cor. 15:10), should have no throne of judgment; but he unmistakeably
considers himself to be included in the number of the judges when he says, Know
ye not that we shall judge angels? (1 Cor. 6:3). The same rule is to be
observed in applying the number twelve to those who are to be judged. For
though it was said, “judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” the tribe of Levi,
which is the thirteenth, shall not on this account be exempt from judgment,
neither shall judgment be passed only on Israel and not on the other nations.
And by the words “in the regeneration,” He certainly meant the resurrection of
the dead to be understood; for our flesh shall be regenerated by incorruption,
as our soul is regenerated by faith.
Many passages I omit,
because, though they seem to refer to the last judgment, yet on a closer
examination they are found to be ambiguous, or to allude rather to some other
event,—whether to that coming of the Saviour which continually occurs in His
Church, that is, in His members, in which comes little by little, and piece by
piece, since the whole Church is His body, or to the destruction of the earthly
Jerusalem. For when He speaks even of this, He often uses language which is
applicable to the end of the world and that last and great day of judgment, so
that these two events cannot be distinguished unless all the corresponding
passages bearing on the subject in the three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, are compared with one another,—for some things are put more obscurely by
one evangelist and more plainly by another,—so that it becomes apparent what
things are meant to be referred to one event. It is this which I have been at
pains to do in a letter which I wrote to Hesychius of blessed memory, bishop of
Salon, and entitled, “Of the End of the World.” [Ep.199].
I shall now cite from
the Gospel according to Matthew the passage which speaks of the separation of
the good from the wicked by the most efficacious and final judgment of
Christ:When the Son of man, he says, shall come in His glory, . . . then shall
He say also unto them on His left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25:34–41), given
in full. Then He in like manner recounts to the wicked the things they had not done,
but which He had said those on the right hand had done. And when they ask when
they had seen Him in need of these things, He replies that, inasmuch as they
had not done it to the least of His brethren, they had not done it unto Him,
and concludes His address in the words, And these shall go away into
everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. Moreover, the
evangelist John most distinctly states that He had predicted that the judgment
should be at the resurrection of the dead. For after saying, The Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men should honor
the Son, even as they honor the Father: he that honoreth not the Son, honoreth
not the Father which hath sent Him; He immediately adds, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death to
life(John 5:22–24). Here He said that believers on Him should not come into
judgment. How, then, shall they be separated from the wicked by judgment, and
be set at His right hand, unless judgment be in this passage used for
condemnation? For into judgment, in this sense, they shall not come who hear
His word, and believe on Him that sent Him.
Source: http://www.saintspiridon.org/
