The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the Devil

To cling to God continually, and, as you say, to hold fast to meditation on him without a break, is impossible for a man while he is still in this weak flesh of ours. But we ought to know on what we should keep the purpose of our mind fixed, and to what goal we should always call back the gaze of our soul. When the mind can achieve this, it may rejoice; and it should grieve and sigh when it is drawn away from it. As often as it finds that it has fallen away from gazing on him, it should admit that it has lapsed from the highest good, reckoning that even a momentary departure from gazing on Christ is fornication. And when our gaze has wandered ever so little from him, let us turn the eyes of the soul back to him, and recall our mind’s gaze as in a perfectly straight line. [a]

For everything depends on the inner frame of the mind. When the devil has been driven out of it and sins no longer reign in it, it follows that the kingdom of God is founded in us, as the evangelist says: “The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will men say, ‘Look, here,’ or ‘Look, there’; for truly I say to you that the kingdom of God is within you.” But nothing can be “within you” except knowledge or ignorance of the truth, and delight either in vice or in virtue; and through these we prepare a kingdom in our heart for the devil or for Christ. The apostle describes the character of this kingdom when he says: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” So if the kingdom of God is within us, and the kingdom of God itself is righteousness and peace and joy, then the man who abides in these is most certainly in the kingdom of God. And on the other hand, those who live in unrighteousness and discord and the sorrow that brings death have their place in the kingdom of the devil, and in hell, and in death. For by these marks the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil are told apart.

And in truth, if we lifted the gaze of our mind on high and considered the state in which the heavenly powers live above, who are truly in the kingdom of God, what should we imagine it to be but perpetual and lasting joy? For what belongs so especially and fittingly to true blessedness as constant calm and eternal joy? And so that you may be quite sure that what we say is really so, not on my authority but on the Lord’s, hear how very clearly he describes the character and condition of that world. “Look,” he says, “I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. But you will be glad and rejoice forever in what I create.” And again: “Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of praise; and there will be month after month, and Sabbath after Sabbath.” And again: “They will obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” And if you want to know more definitely about that life and the city of the saints, hear what the voice of the Lord proclaims to the heavenly Jerusalem herself: “I will make your officers peace,” he says, “and your overseers righteousness. Violence will no more be heard in your land, nor desolation or destruction within your borders. Salvation will take possession of your walls, and praise of your gates. The sun will no longer be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God your glory. Your sun will no longer go down, nor will your moon withdraw itself; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be ended.”

And so the holy apostle does not say generally, or without qualification, that every joy is the kingdom of God, but pointedly and emphatically only that joy which is “in the Holy Spirit.” For he was well aware of another, detestable joy, of which we hear: “The world will rejoice,” and “Woe to you who laugh, for you will mourn.” In fact, the kingdom of heaven must be taken in a threefold sense. It may mean that the heavens will reign, that is, the saints, over other things made subject to them, according to this text: “You are to be over five cities, and you over ten,” and what is said to the disciples: “You will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Or it may mean that the heavens themselves will begin to be reigned over by Christ, when “all things are made subject to him,” and God begins to be “all in all.” Or else it may mean that the saints will reign in heaven with the Lord.