Oecumenius

Could it not be that the thousand years of the atheistic Greeks and the transmigrations of souls and the water of Lethe, and I do not know what foolish confusions the Revelation hands over to us, saying that the Devil will be bound for a thousand years and then will be released and will deceive the nations? Away with such destructive doctrines and with the silliness fitting for the Greeks. What then does it say has been spoken to the prophet? "That a thousand years are in your sight, O Lord, as yesterday that is past, and as a watch in the night." (Ps. 90:4) Therefore the thousand years are reckoned as one day in the sight of God. The same is said in the second epistle of Peter the inspired, who wrote: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8)

Moreover the inspired Isaiah says that all the human life of the Lord is one day, saying: "In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I helped you." (Isa. 49:8) Not only that, but the Psalmist also calls that day both "day" and "morning," saying on the one hand, "This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it," (Ps. 118:24) the joy of our salvation; and on the other hand singing, "In the morning you will hear my voice; in the morning I will present myself to you," (Ps. 5:4) and I will look upon you; for our prayers are well-received when deemed worthy of the vision of God and the Father, through the Lord's mediation and reconciliation. And again concerning Jerusalem he says: "God will help her with the dawn of the morning." (Ps. 46:5) And the day and the morning became the indicator of the Lord's incarnation, as "the Sun of righteousness" shone upon us. For therefore Malachi speaks of him, (Mal. 4:2) and bringing us "the light of knowledge," (Hos. 10:12) concerning which the divine light Zachariah preannounced, saying: "a rising to us from on high has visited those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death"; (Luke 1:78-79; see Zech. 14:6-7) to which the prophet also added, "God said, the Lord, and he appeared to us to appoint a feast among those who burn incense up to the horns of the altar." (Ps. 117:27)

Having therefore prefaced these matters, proceed to the point in hand. Since it has been said that a day is reckoned by God as a thousand years, and conversely the day is called the Lord's sojourn on earth, he declares this day to be a thousand years, as if there is no distinction before God between a single day and a thousand years; in which day, that of the Lord's incarnation, the Devil was bound, being unable to resist the Savior's divine signs.

Wherefore, perceiving this bondage of the spiritual realm, the true demons cried out, "What have we to do with you and with us, Son of the living God? Have you come before the appointed time to torment us?" (Matt. 8:29) But the Lord, while loosing their bonds, said: "Or how can one enter the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man? and then he will plunder his house." (Matt. 12:29) Since, therefore, as has been said, we have conceived of the Incarnation of the Lord and his sojourn on earth as lasting one day and a thousand years, this same number being mystically called in the divine Scripture without distinction, see what the Revelation says.

For he says, And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. He beholds the holy apostles, according to the promise made to them, "seated upon twelve thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt. 19:28) Which indeed will be fulfilled more perfectly in the age to come but also occurred to a degree at the time of the Incarnation. For those who had believed in the Lord and been transformed into countless good things judged those who did not willingly run to the faith, nor, having been led by the grace given to the apostles into devotion toward unity, did they ascend, but rather wove for him a cross and death.

And he says, that the souls of those crowned were slain because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God. He saw them sitting together on thrones and judging the rest of mankind.

He says that those who had been beheaded means those who were killed with axes. He speaks metaphorically about the dead who lost their limbs because of faith in Christ, and most of them endured this for that reason. For they were made outcasts, were subjected to countless insults, and had their possessions seized by theft, as the wise apostle testifies (see Heb. 10:34), since they wholly believed in Christ.

Concerning these the Lord also said, "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and utter every evil word against you falsely on my account." (Matt. 5:11)

If you follow the continuity of the argument and taking every thought captive to the obedience of the divine Scripture, you will understand that those who do not worship the beast nor receive his mark and his image, as not like-minded with the rest of the Jews in plots against the Lord, nor willing to submit to the suggestions of the God-hating Devil; for this is to worship him and his image. For he calls an image the impressing of his will upon the hearts of the Jews. And he calls it a mark, encompassing their ruling and practical parts; for the form of the ruling part is the head, of which the forehead is a part, and the hand is of the practical part.

And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. A thousand years again he calls, according to what was said before, the Lord's reign upon earth, by which they lived the spiritual life, and they reigned together with Christ, commanding demons, rebuking passions, and working countless miracles. Not that even the mere thought that he should share the kingship of the glory with Christ is granted to him alone. (see 2 Tim. 2:10-12) Therefore it is also said concerning them by the prophet in the phrase "the heavenly kings upon it shall be whitened in Selmon." (Ps. 68:14)

And concerning the rest of the dead he says they did not live again until the thousand years are completed. He calls dead those who have remained in unbelief, about whom also the Lord said, "let the dead bury their own dead." (Matt. 8:22)

Therefore, the unbelievers did not live the spiritual life until the time of the Incarnation is fulfilled, which is the thousand years; for after these things they lived. How? By the visitation and presence of the Holy Spirit. For then most of the Jews will have believed in Christ, those who did not believe in him when he was present bodily among them. For the matter was administered in the most divine way, and beyond what human reason could have hoped for; for in the Old Covenant the Father was proclaimed and known, and by the Incarnation and the countless divine signs and powers the Son was proclaimed; but the Holy Spirit had not yet been clearly revealed to men. But only a word about the Spirit existed in the Old Covenant, and there was no work that was evident and perceptible, nothing that most of all leads people to faith, as with the Son, although it was known to those who had advanced into the depths of contemplation. That indeed all things that have been done and fashioned by the Holy Trinity have been accomplished, and the Lord clearly presents this, where he says "the Father gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak," (Jn. 12:49) and again: "I can do nothing from myself," (Jn. 8:28) bringing the things that happen into the Trinity; and again to John: "the Son of man cannot do anything of himself unless he sees the Father doing it," (Jn. 5:19) and he further confirms: "if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God." (Matt. 12:28) But since, as has been said, the work of the Holy Spirit was not perceptible to people, he arranged that almost all people should receive faith in Christ by the visitation and power of the Paraclete and of God the Father, so that indeed the consubstantial and equal-to-all relation of the Son to the Father might become clear. It is needless to say that in the whole period of the Incarnation there are recorded not more than one hundred and twenty who had believed; for the Acts specify so many gathered together in the upper room. (Acts 1:15)

Even if the power of Christ's teaching has been proven to many, faith in that presence was preserved by the Spirit. Therefore, one might find, as with a scattered seed, that whenever rain comes and the sun shines, all the formerly hidden and unnoticed seeds in the earth then spring up, clearly showing that they had entirely been committed to the earth; so it occurs with the visitation of the Holy Spirit. All those to whom the Lord's teaching was sown have risen toward faith.

Therefore, it is said more precisely in the Revelation that the rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years should be completed. This, he says, is the first resurrection, namely the resurrection of faith; for the second will be the universal resurrection of bodies.

Blessed therefore is the one who has part in the first resurrection; for of the second resurrection we shall all partake, willingly or unwillingly. But concerning those who are participants in the first resurrection, that is, the faithful, the second death will have no power. What is it? It is the death of sin, that is, and the punishment of that time; for just as he said first and second resurrection, so also first and second death.

And the first death is the physical death, the one having a separation of soul and body; second death is the spiritual death, that of sin, about which the Lord also said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body; rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." (Matt. 10:28) And the faithful are, he says, priests of God and of Christ; for the faithful have all been shown to be ministers of the evangelical word, concerning whom the prophet, striking his prophetic harp, said "he would appoint them rulers over all the earth." (Ps. 45:16)

And they will reign with him for a thousand years, those of the Incarnation as has been often said.

And when he says that when the thousand years are ended, that is, when the Lord, having fulfilled the economy of his flesh, has returned to the heavens, the bonds of the spiritual powers will be loosed from the Devil, and again he will deceive the nations; for it has been said in what has been spoken before that the Lord's presence among men abolishes the activity of the Devil. But since the Lord has ascended into the heavens, it is the Devil who will exercise his ordinary and habitual powers, and those on earth will use their free will as they used to; for the Devil endeavors to deceive all. Some, however, are persuaded, while others, by resisting, contend against the evil one.

But one might perhaps say: and why, being somewhat restrained and hindered in his natural impulse by the bodily presence of the Lord, was the Devil nevertheless allowed once more to deceive those on earth? For would it not have been better that he be bound, and that men remain unled astray? To this it must be replied: why do you rather ask of him the origin, how the Devil came into being, than, having come and transgressed, why he was not utterly destroyed, so that no opportunity against men might remain to him? And how, then, sir, were the contestants trained if there was no opponent at all? And how, moreover, was the strength of the athletes shown if there was no rival? For the careless are inferior in men and in pleasures, and, with no Devil present to incite them, are altogether foolish on their own; but those who are men of God and brave contestants would be wronged if their courage against the passions were not made public; as happens, that the careless gain nothing when Satan is absent, and the zealous are most greatly wronged. For Satan is in a manner a trainer of men, providing an occasion of crowns to those who struggle. For the sinful, who even without the presence of the Devil, through their own negligence make use of him instead of the Devil, are not even wronged, as has been said. Therefore, he benefits some unwillingly, and does no wrong to others, or very little. But you wished through me and you, the "slaves of sin" (Rom. 6:16) and stripped and fallen, that we be deprived by the activity of the Devil of the glory of patriarchs and prophets, of apostles and evangelists and those who endured even to blood for the witness of Christ and kept what is genuine for him, moreover of confessors and those shepherds esteemed good for the churches and the most steadfast abstainers and all that is righteous and perfected in the faith of Christ, "of whom this world is not worthy." (Heb. 11:38) So that the brave champions of virtue console the punishment of sinners whose brief crimes are judged, for one who succeeds is to be preferred by the God, even when ten thousand reject Him.

Both therefore were brought about in the fairest and most inspired manner, and that in the Lord's presence the impious impulses of the Devil were cut off, and after the Lord's ascent into heaven he was loosed for the testing of men. For if Satan had been allowed to display all his power while the Lord was dwelling on earth, he would not have permitted men even to be hearers of His divine teaching or to learn who is by nature and in truth God, or what religion is acceptable to Him, or what wickedness and what virtue are; indeed he would have prepared the cross for Him beforehand and begun it even before the teaching. Were this to happen, the incarnation of the Lord and so great and so honorable a mystery would have been incomplete and, rather, useless. But after these things were taught on earth under the bondage of the Devil, men were left thereafter to use their own free will and to contend with the adversary by means of those confessed and unknown ways of wickedness and of virtue. For he who knows the good and the not-good, by self-willed impulses chooses one thing or the other at any cost; but he who is ignorant of what he should do, as one wounded in a night-battle and unaware even that he has been struck, does not even know his own ruin. For in the case of one who has knowledge of opposites there is room for self-choice to select what he wishes, but for the ignorant there is no room. God made man free from the beginning and governed him by sovereign planning.

That it is necessary first to know virtue and vice, so that the land may therefore be subject to free choice, see what Moses says to the disobedient people of Israel in Deuteronomy: "Behold, I have set before you this day life and death, the good and the evil," (Deut. 30:15) that you may surely choose the thing which is preferred; and again the same in Exodus: "If you will indeed listen to the voice of my words and do them, he says, all that I shall say to you." (Ex. 23:32) And what says Isaiah, of whom the same teaching is cited at the beginning of his prophecy, speaking from the presence of God: "If you will and will hear me, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you will not and will not hear me, the sword will devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." (Isa. 1:19-20)

Therefore, enough of these things. But since he said in what has gone before that the Devil will come forth to deceive the nations, he now says what nations and from whom they are gathered: He says, Gog and Magog, to gather them to the war.

A war, however, against the saints. For having fulfilled the discourse concerning the salvific incarnation, he again returned from where he had gone out and related those things to us. He had gone forth from the Devil and the Antichrist; and from the defeat and punishment of the nations taken with them. Now I complete what was previously said insufficiently. He joins to the remaining nations those who have joined battle with the Antichrist; and Gog, thus saying:

And he went out to deceive all the nations that are in the four corners of the earth; among whom he says also Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war, whose number is like the sand of the sea.

Concerning these, of Gog and of Magog, the prophetic seer Ezekiel delivered a prophecy, explaining how the wicked will be destroyed. These will be certain nations and rulers of nations gathered around the end (see Ezek. 38-39); for now they do not yet exist, or they are some of the nations now existing called by different names in the divine Scripture. These therefore will resist the God-hating Satan against the servants of Christ.

And the Devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the False Prophet are, and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Let the reader know that the present Revelation has handed down to us three things in the foregoing: first, the original evil Dragon shown in heaven; second, a beast rising from the sea, whom we understood to be second in command to Satan, but superior to the other demons; and third, the Antichrist, whom he also calls the False Prophet. But concerning the second, the Devil, and the Antichrist it was said a little above (Rev. 19:20) that the two were thrown into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. Now concerning Satan, or rather the Devil, whom in the preceding passages he named the Dragon, he says that they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Therefore, the one who met the vision perceived very precisely that the thousand years, during which the Devil was bound and cast into the abyss and then released, we understood to be the Lord's dominion and his reign on earth, in which the Devil's activity was suspended for a short time. For now he has shown that their punishment and that of those deceived by him is not for a thousand years, and that, far from being a release from evil, it is for ever and ever.

And I saw, he says, the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. He calls the righteous great, not because of bodily size, but because of the glory and brilliance of virtue, and he calls the sinners small as nothing because of their lowliness and baseness.

And the little scrolls were opened; and another little scroll was opened, which is the book of life. The Lord in the Gospels says that the way leading to punishment is broad and spacious, and that many go on it; but that the way leading to life is narrow and compressed, and that few are not only walking on it, but also finding it (see Matt. 7:13-14). Therefore, he saw many scrolls and one scroll; many in which all men are written because of the multitude of those contained, one however of life, in which are those chosen from the others and who are as it were flawless in virtue and walking every rough and upward road of virtue.

And he says that each of those in the scrolls was judged according to his own deeds. And at the beginning of the sixth discourse he also remembers another little scroll, which he calls a tiny scroll.

Now the scroll and little scroll of life are threefold in meaning: he calls a tiny scroll in which are those very ungodly according to what is conceived there; the little scroll of life, in which are the very pious and righteous; and scrolls, in which all people are somewhat average, partaking of wickedness and virtue; and speaking of the matters concerning the resurrection:

For to say "and I saw the dead standing before the throne receiving and being judged according to their works" is to speak of the resurrection. For having risen, he saw the reward for the dead, receiving his recompense.

And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each was judged according to their works.

Those who disbelieve in the resurrection of bodies mock both us and our doctrine that these bodies will be raised again, as if this were not only difficult but wholly impossible. And they say that each of the bodies on earth is composed of the four basic elements, fire, water, earth, air, and that bodies dissolved by death return to those elements from which they were originally formed. Therefore, the fiery element in us returns to its kindred universal fire; the watery element to water; and the other components to their proper counterparts. If then these are dissolved and mingled with their own substances, how can that which has become indiscernible by composition be restored again to every one of the bodies which you call bodies, unless you would say that some arise from others rather than from their own? To these one might reply with the words of the divine Scripture: "You are mistaken, O men, not knowing the power of God," (Matt. 22:20) by whose will all things were constituted, whose will alone accomplishes the work intended, as has also been said before.

For what is easier than for what is not to bring into being the substances, or having been produced and mingled either with themselves or with others to separate them again, and to assign to each its own? For the last indeed we perform too, often separating artfully the wine that has been mixed with water. Moreover the sun draws from the sea the drinkable and sweet by means of the vapors and exhalations, and lets go the heavy and earthy and salty and bitter. And first this belongs to God alone, who is able to do all things whatever He wishes. If then God brought the non-being into being, how would it not be easy for him to separate again for himself the things mixed according to the elements, and to distribute the same to each body, even if this is impossible for men? For just as it is impossible for you and for me to separate the illuminating from the burning aspect of fire, but possible for God, for "the voice of the Lord has been said to cut off the flame of fire," (Ps. 29:7) so also the things that have been mingled are impossible for you and for me, but easy and effortless for God.

Now this marvelous assertion is presented to us by the present account of the Revelation, saying, "The sea gave up the dead that were in it from the sea." And this element of water signified every moist substance. The moist substance, then, he says, gave as much as was contained in it from the watery parts of human bodies.

And Death and Hades, he says, gave up the dead who were in them. Calling the earth "death" because our bodies are dissolved in it, therefore also the inspired prophet, by indirectness, calls death "earth of death," saying "and brought me down into the earth of death." (Ps. 21:16) Therefore the whole earth gave what in it was our earthly part. In addition, Hades gave up the dead who were in it, calling Hades the air and the fire because of their invisibility and imperceptibility. For the air, by its thinness, happens to be invisible unless it were thickened; and the fire that once dwelt in the woods is invisible, unless it were applied outwardly. Moreover, the element of fire, the ether, is invisible to us because it is darkened by the superaddition of much air. Or rather, he calls fire Hades because it imparts invisibility and imperceptibility to whatever it seizes; therefore many of the learned designate it as "invisible." When therefore each of the elements had given up as much as of the human composition was in them, the resurrection was affected.

When this had taken place, he says, each was judged according to their deeds.

And he says, I saw new heavens and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more. Peter says something similar in his second epistle, saying that "we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth." (2 Peter 3:13) But he does not say that the heaven and the earth and the sea have passed into annihilation and nonexistence, or that others have been created in their stead; rather, that those now existing have cast off their corruption and have become new, as one puts off an old and polluted garment and removes its filth. For everything is called new that was not such before but has now come into being.

Then the creation will be made free from all corruption, which it has suffered through the transgression of men. And most trustworthy witness of these things is the divine apostle writing to the Romans and saying these things concerning the creation: "for the creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will but because of him who subjected it, with hope that the creation itself also will be liberated from the bondage of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (Rom. 8:19-21) And not only he but also the inspired prophet, singing concerning heaven and earth according to the testimony just cited: "and all of them shall be worn out as a garment, and like a mantle you will fold them up and they will be changed." (Ps. 101:27)