The World Grown Old

There are many arguments from which it can be gathered that souls are eternal. Plato says that whatever always moves by itself, and has no beginning of its motion, also has no end; and that the human soul always moves by itself. It is supple in reflection, quick at discovery, easy in perception, made for learning. It holds on to the past, takes in the present, looks ahead to the future, and embraces the knowledge of many subjects and skills. Therefore it is immortal, since it contains nothing mixed with the contagion of earthly weight. [a]

The soul’s eternity can also be understood from virtue and pleasure. Pleasure is shared by all animals; virtue belongs to man alone. The one is base, the other honorable. The one follows nature, the other runs against nature — unless the soul is immortal. For in defense of faith and justice, virtue does not fear poverty, is not alarmed at exile, does not dread prison, does not shrink from pain, does not refuse death. And since these things are contrary to nature, then either virtue is foolishness, if it stands in the way of a man’s advantage and does his life harm; or, if it is not foolishness, then the soul is immortal, and despises the goods of the present because there are better things it reaches once the body has been dissolved.

But the greatest proof of immortality is that man alone has knowledge of God. In the dumb animals there is no inkling of religion, because they are earthly and bent down toward the ground. Man stands upright and looks at the sky for this very purpose: that he may seek God. So he cannot be anything but immortal, since he longs for what is immortal. He cannot be liable to dissolution, since he shares something with God in his face and in his mind. Finally, man alone makes use of the heavenly element, which is fire. For if light comes through fire, and life through light, then plainly the one who has the use of fire is not mortal — since fire is closely bound and closely related to Him without whom neither light nor life can exist.

But why should we work this out from arguments, when we have divine testimonies? The sacred writings and the voices of the prophets teach it. And if that seems insufficient to anyone, let him read the poems of the Sibyls, and let him weigh the answers of the Milesian Apollo as well. Then he will understand that Democritus and Epicurus and Dicaearchus were raving — the only men out of all mortals who denied what is plain to see. Now that the immortality of the soul is proved, what remains is to teach by whom it is given, and to whom, and in what way, and at what time. Since the fixed times God appointed have begun to be filled up, the destruction and completion of all things must of necessity come, so that the world may be made new by God. And that time is near, as far as it can be gathered from the count of the years and from the signs the prophets foretold.

But since what has been said about the end of the world and the closing of the times is past counting, the things themselves must be set down without ornament; it would be a boundless task to bring forward all the testimonies. If anyone wants them, or does not place full confidence in us, let him go up to the shrine of the heavenly writings itself; and once he has been more fully taught by their trustworthiness, let him see that the philosophers were wrong who thought either that this world is eternal, or that countless thousands of years have passed since it was prepared. For six thousand years have not yet been completed; and when that number has been made up, then at last all evil will be taken away, so that justice alone may reign. How this will come about, I will explain in a few words.

These things are said by the prophets, speaking as seers, to be going to happen. When the last end begins to draw near to the world, wickedness will increase. Every kind of vice and fraud will become common. Justice will perish; faith, peace, mercy, decency and truth will have no existence. Violence and reckless daring will be everywhere. No one will have anything unless he has taken it with his hand and defends it with his hand. If there are any good men left, they will be reckoned as prey and as a joke. No one will show a son’s affection to his parents; no one will pity an infant or an old man. Greed and lust will corrupt everything. There will be killing and bloodshed. There will be wars — and not only wars with foreign and neighboring states, but wars at home as well. City will make war on city; every sex and every age will handle weapons. [i]

The dignity of government will not be kept up, nor military discipline; instead, in the manner of banditry, there will be plundering and devastation. Kingly power will be multiplied, and ten men will hold the world, carve it up, and devour it. Then another will rise, far more powerful and far more wicked, who will destroy three of them, take Asia, and bring the rest under his own power and grind the whole earth down. He will lay down new laws and abolish the old ones. He will make the state his own property, and will change both the name and the seat of the government.

Then there will be a dreadful and detestable time, in which no one would choose to be alive. In short, things will be in such a state that mourning will follow the living and congratulation the dead. Cities and towns will be destroyed — now by fire and the sword, now by repeated earthquakes; now by flooding water, now by plague and famine. The earth will produce nothing, being barren from either extreme cold or extreme heat. All water will be partly turned to blood and partly spoiled with bitterness, so that none of it can be used for food or is safe to drink.

To these evils will be added portents in the sky as well, so that nothing may be lacking that could make men afraid. Comets will appear again and again. The sun will be darkened with a permanent paleness. The moon will be stained with blood, and will not make up the losses of the light taken from it. All the stars will fall, and the seasons will not keep their order, winter and summer running together. Then the year, the month and the day will all be shortened. And Trismegistus declared that this is the old age and the decline of the world. When that has come, it must be known that the time is at hand in which God will return to change the world.

But in the middle of these evils an impious king will rise, an enemy not only of mankind but of God. He will trample and torment and harry and put to death the people that earlier tyrant spared. Then there will be tears that never stop, endless wailing and lamentation, and prayers to God that are of no use. There will be no rest from fear, no sleep for relief. The day will always bring more disaster, the night more alarm. In this way the world will be reduced almost to a wilderness, and certainly to a handful of men.

Then that impious man will also persecute the just and those who are dedicated to God, and will give orders that he himself be worshiped as God. For he will say that he is Christ, though he will be Christ’s adversary. So that he may be believed, he will be given power to work wonders, so that fire comes down from heaven, the sun withdraws from its course, and the image he has set up speaks. By these portents he will entice many into worshiping him and receiving his mark on their hand or their forehead. And whoever will not worship him and take his mark will die under refined tortures. In this way he will destroy nearly two parts of mankind; the third will flee into desolate wastes. But he, frantic and raging with an anger nothing can appease, will lead an army and lay siege to the mountain where the righteous have taken refuge. And when they see themselves surrounded, they will call out to God for help with a loud voice, and God will hear them, and will send them a deliverer.

Then the sky will be opened in a storm, and Christ will come down with great power. Before him will go a fiery brightness and a countless host of angels, and all that multitude of the wicked will be destroyed, and torrents of blood will flow. Their leader himself will escape; and after rebuilding his army again and again, he will join battle a fourth time, and there he will be taken, and with all the other tyrants he will be handed over to be burned. But the prince of the demons himself, the author and contriver of evils, will be bound with chains of fire and imprisoned, so that the world may receive peace and the earth, harassed through so many years, may rest. [p]

So, peace being made and every evil put down, that righteous King and Conqueror will hold a great judgment on the earth over the living and the dead. He will hand all the nations over into subjection to the righteous who are still alive, and will raise the righteous dead to eternal life, and will himself reign with them on the earth, and will build the holy city. And this kingdom of the righteous will last a thousand years.

Throughout that time the stars will be brighter, the brightness of the sun will be increased, and the moon will not wane. Then the rain of blessing will come down from God at morning and at evening, and the earth will bring forth all its fruit without the labor of men. Honey will drip from the rocks; springs of milk and wine will run in abundance. The wild animals will lay aside their fierceness and become tame; the wolf will roam among the flocks without doing harm; the calf will graze with the lion; the dove will be paired with the hawk; the snake will have no venom. No animal will live by bloodshed. For God will supply them all with food in abundance, and food that does no harm.

But when the thousand years are fulfilled, and the prince of the demons is loosed, the nations will rebel against the righteous, and an innumerable multitude will come to storm the city of the saints. Then God’s last judgment on the nations will come to pass. For he will shake the earth from its foundations, and the cities will be thrown down; and he will rain on the wicked fire mixed with sulfur and hail, and they will be set on fire and will kill one another. But the righteous will be hidden for a short space under the earth, until the destruction of the nations is accomplished; and after the third day they will come out and see the plains covered with corpses.

Then there will be an earthquake, and the mountains will be split, and the valleys will sink to a profound depth, and into them the bodies of the dead will be heaped together; and the name given to that place will be Polyandrion. After this God will make the world new, and will change the righteous into the form of angels, so that, presented with the garment of immortality, they may serve God forever. And this will be the kingdom of God, and it will have no end. Then the wicked also will rise again — not to life, but to punishment. For God will raise these too, when the second resurrection takes place, so that, condemned to eternal torments and delivered over to eternal fires, they may suffer the punishments their crimes deserve.

So then, since all these things are true and certain, and in harmony with what the prophets announced beforehand — and since Trismegistus and Hystaspes and the Sibyls have foretold the same things — it cannot be doubted that all hope of life and salvation is placed in the religion of God alone. Therefore, unless a man has received Christ, whom God has sent and is going to send for our redemption; unless he has come to know the Supreme God through Christ; unless he has kept his commandments and his law — he will fall into the punishments we have described. [w]

So frail things must be despised, that we may gain what is solid; earthly things must be scorned, that we may be honored with heavenly ones; things that last a moment must be shunned, that we may reach the things that are eternal. Let every man train himself for justice, shape himself to self-control, prepare himself for the contest, and equip himself for virtue — so that, if by any chance an adversary makes war on him, no force and no terror and no torture can drive him from what is upright and good; so that he throws himself down before no senseless fictions, but in his uprightness acknowledges the true and only God; so that he casts away pleasures, whose enticements drag a lofty soul down to the ground; so that he holds fast to innocence, is of service to as many people as he can be, and by good works gains for himself treasures that cannot decay — so that, with God as his judge, he may be able to win, as what his virtue has earned, either the crown of faith or the reward of immortality.