The Last Age of the World

I have shown, I think, that the soul is not subject to dissolution. What remains is to bring forward witnesses whose authority may confirm my arguments. And I will not for the moment call on the testimony of the prophets, whose whole system and whole art of prediction consists in this one thing — the teaching that man was made to worship God and to receive immortality from him. I will bring forward instead the witnesses whom the people who reject the truth cannot help believing. [a]

Hermes, describing the nature of man in order to show how he was made by God, brought in this statement: “And the same God made out of two natures — the immortal and the mortal — one nature, that of man, making him partly immortal and partly mortal; and bringing him forth, he set him in the middle, between the nature that was divine and immortal and the nature that was mortal and changeable, so that seeing all things he might admire all things.” But someone may perhaps count Hermes among the philosophers, even though he has been placed among the gods and is honored by the Egyptians under the name of Mercury, and may give him no more authority than Plato or Pythagoras. So let us look for weightier testimony. A man named Polites asked Apollo of Miletus whether the soul remains after death or goes to dissolution, and the god answered in these lines:

And what do the Sibylline poems say? Do they not declare that this is how it stands, when they say that the time will come when God will judge the living and the dead? I will bring forward their authority later on.

So the opinion that Democritus and Epicurus and Dicaearchus held about the dissolution of the soul is false. They would not dare to speak about the destruction of souls in front of any magician, who knows that souls are called up from the regions below by certain incantations, and that they are at hand, and let themselves be seen by human eyes, and speak, and foretell what is to come. And if they did dare, they would be beaten down by the fact itself and by the proofs set before them. But because they did not grasp the nature of the soul — which is so fine that it escapes the eyes of the human mind — they said that it perishes.

And what of Aristoxenus, who denied that there is any soul at all, even while it is living in the body? As on a lyre a harmonious sound, the strain that musicians call harmony, is produced by the tightening of the strings, so he thought that the power of perception arose in bodies out of the joining together of the vital organs and the vigor of the limbs. Nothing more senseless could be said. His eyes, to be sure, were sound, but his heart was blind: with it he did not see that he was alive, and that he had the very mind by which he had formed that thought. But this has happened to many philosophers — that they did not believe in the existence of anything that is not apparent to the eyes, when the sight of the mind ought to be far clearer than the sight of the body, for perceiving those things whose force and nature are felt rather than seen.

Since I have spoken about the immortality of the soul, it follows that I should teach how and when it is given to man. In this too they may see the errors of their own perversity and folly — those who imagine that certain mortals have become gods by the decrees and rulings of mortals: either because they had invented arts, or because they had taught the use of certain crops of the earth, or because they had discovered things useful for human life, or because they had killed savage beasts. How far these things fell short of deserving immortality I have shown in the earlier books, and I will show now, so that it may be plain that it is justice alone that gains eternal life for a man, and God alone who bestows the reward of eternal life. For those who are said to have been made immortal by their merits, since they had neither justice nor any true virtue, gained for themselves not immortality but death, by their sins and their lusts; and they earned not the reward of heaven but the punishment of hell, which hangs over them, together with all who worship them. And I will show that the time of this judgment is drawing near, so that the reward due to the just may be given, and the punishment deserved by the wicked may be inflicted. [h]

Plato and many others of the philosophers, since they did not know the origin of all things or that first period at which the world was made, said that many thousands of ages had passed since this beautiful arrangement of the world was completed. In this they were perhaps following the Chaldeans, who — as Cicero reports in his first book on divination — rave that they have four hundred and seventy thousand years contained in their records. Since they thought they could not be caught out in the matter, they believed they were free to speak falsely. But we, whom the holy scriptures teach to know the truth, know the beginning and the end of the world, and I will speak about it now, at the end of my work, since I explained the beginning in the second book. So let the philosophers who count up thousands of ages from the beginning of the world know that the six thousandth year is not yet finished, and that when this number is complete the consummation must come, and the condition of human affairs be remade for the better. The proof of this must be set out first, so that the matter itself may be plain.

God finished the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days, as is contained in the secrets of holy scripture, and he consecrated the seventh day, on which he had rested from his works. This is the Sabbath day, which in the language of the Hebrews took its name from the number; and so seven is the lawful and complete number. For there are seven days, by whose turning in order the circles of the years are made up; and there are seven stars that never set; and there are seven lights called planets, whose differing and unequal movements are believed to cause the variety of circumstances and of times.

So, since all the works of God were finished in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages — that is, six thousand years. For the great day of God is bounded by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows when he says, “In your sight, Lord, a thousand years are as one day.” And as God labored during those six days in creating such great works, so his religion and his truth must labor through these six thousand years, while wickedness prevails and holds rule. And again, since God rested on the seventh day when he had finished his works, and blessed it, at the end of the six thousandth year all wickedness must be abolished from the earth, and justice must reign for a thousand years; and there must be quiet and rest from the labors that the world has now long endured. But how that will come about I will explain in its own place.

I have often said that lesser things, things of small importance, are figures and advance shadows of great things. This day of ours, which is bounded by the rising and the setting of the sun, is a picture of that great day to which the circuit of a thousand years fixes its limits.

In the same way, too, the fashioning of the earthly man held out in advance the forming of the heavenly people. For when all the things contrived for man’s use had been completed, last of all, on the sixth day, God made man too, and brought him into this world as into a home now carefully made ready. So now, on the great sixth day, the true man is being formed by the word of God — that is, a holy people is being fashioned for justice by the teaching and the commands of God. And as then a mortal and imperfect man was formed out of the earth, so that he might live a thousand years in this world, so now out of this earthly age a perfect man is being formed, so that, brought to life by God, he may hold rule in this same world through a thousand years.

But in what manner the consummation will take place, and what end awaits the affairs of men, anyone who examines the divine writings will find out. The voices of the world’s own prophets also agree with the heavenly ones: they announce the end and overthrow of all things after a short time, describing what is, as it were, the last old age of a worn-out and wasting world. And the things that prophets and seers say are going to happen before that final ending comes upon the world, I will add here, gathered and heaped up from every quarter.

It is contained in the mysteries of the sacred writings that a prince of the Hebrews, driven by lack of grain, crossed over into Egypt with his whole household and all his relatives. His descendants stayed long in Egypt and grew into a great nation, and they were crushed under the heavy and unbearable yoke of slavery. Then God struck Egypt with a blow past curing and set his people free, leading them through the middle of the sea: the waves were cut apart and stood back on either side, and the people went over on dry ground. The king of the Egyptians tried to follow them as they fled, and when the sea returned to its place he was destroyed, with all his people. [o]

That deed, so famous and so wonderful, displayed to men the power of God for the moment; but it was also a foreshadowing and figure of a greater deed that the same God is going to perform at the last completion of the times, when he will free his people from the crushing bondage of the world. At that time the people of God were one people, and in one nation only, and so Egypt alone was struck. But now the people of God are gathered out of every language and live among all the nations, and are oppressed by those who bear rule over them; and so it must come about that all nations — that is, the whole world — are beaten with blows from heaven, so that the just people who worship God may be set free. And as signs were given then by which the coming destruction was shown to the Egyptians, so at the last time astonishing portents will take place throughout all the elements of the world, by which the destruction hanging over them may be understood by every nation.

So, as the end of this world draws near, the condition of human affairs must undergo a change, and grow worse through the prevailing of wickedness — so much worse that these present times of ours, in which wrongdoing and godlessness have increased to the very highest pitch, may be judged happy and almost golden by comparison with that evil past all curing. For justice will so decrease, and godlessness, greed, craving, and lust so greatly increase, that if there happen to be any good men then, they will be prey for the wicked and will be harassed on every side by the unjust. The wicked alone will be in wealth, while the good will be afflicted with every kind of slander and left in want. All justice will be thrown into confusion, and the laws will be destroyed. No one will have anything then except what has been got or defended by the hand: boldness and violence will possess everything. There will be no good faith among men, no peace, no kindness, no shame, no truth — and therefore no safety either, no government, no rest from evils.

For all the earth will be in an uproar. Wars will rage everywhere; all nations will be under arms and will set themselves against one another; neighboring states will fight one another. And first of all, Egypt will pay the penalties for her foolish superstitions, and will be covered with blood as if with a river. Then the sword will pass across the world, mowing everything down and laying all things low like a crop.

And — my mind dreads to tell it, but I will tell it, because it is going to happen — the cause of this desolation and confusion will be this: that the Roman name, by which the world is now ruled, will be taken away from the earth, and government will return to Asia; the East will bear rule again, and the West be reduced to servitude.

And it ought not to seem strange to anyone if a kingdom founded with such vastness, and increased for so long by so many great men, and in short strengthened by such great resources, should nevertheless fall at some time. There is nothing put together by human strength that cannot be equally destroyed by human strength, since the works of mortals are mortal. Other kingdoms in earlier times were destroyed in the same way, though they had long flourished. For it is related that the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Assyrians held the government of the world, and after all of them were brought down, the chief power came to the Romans too. And since the Romans surpass all other kingdoms in size, they will fall with so much the greater crash, because buildings that stand higher than others have more weight for a downfall.

Seneca, then, divided the times of the city of Rome into ages, and not unskillfully. He said that first came its infancy, under King Romulus, by whom Rome was brought into being and, as it were, brought up; then its boyhood, under the other kings, by whom it was enlarged and shaped with more numerous systems of training and more institutions; but at last, in the reign of Tarquin, when it had now begun as it were to be grown up, it would not endure slavery, and having thrown off the yoke of an arrogant tyranny it chose to obey laws rather than kings. And when its youth was brought to an end by the end of the Punic war, then at last, its strength settled, it began to come into manhood. For when Carthage was taken away, which had long been its rival in power, it stretched out its hands by land and sea over the whole world, until, having subdued all kings and nations, when the materials for war had run out, it misused its strength, and with that strength it destroyed itself.

This was its first old age: when, torn by civil wars and worn down by trouble at home, it fell back again under the government of a single ruler, as though it were turning around into a second infancy. For having lost the liberty it had defended under the leadership and authority of Brutus, it grew so old that it had no strength to hold itself up unless it leaned on the help of its rulers.

But if this is how things stand, what is left except that death should follow old age? And that it will happen so, the predictions of the prophets briefly announce, under the cover of other names, so that no one can easily understand them. Still, the Sibyls say openly that Rome is doomed to perish, and to perish indeed by the judgment of God, because it held his name in hatred, and because, being the enemy of justice, it destroyed the people who were reared on the truth. Hystaspes too, who was a very ancient king of the Medes, and from whom the river now called the Hydaspes received its name, handed down to the memory of later generations a wonderful dream, interpreted by a boy who uttered prophecies, announcing long before the founding of the Trojan nation that the Roman empire and the Roman name would be taken away from the world.