We must entreat the Lord more earnestly here, lest we consent in error concerning the number of the thousand years or through our own excess nurture error. Rather, [let us entreat the Lord] that he who is called Faithful and True might keep our faith safe. The Lord himself said at the beginning of this book, I am the first and the last, and the living one although I was dead; and I have the keys of death and of hades.^[1] By the key it speaks of him who bears the office of ministry, so that he might open the pit of the abyss. The great chain is the unbreakable bond of the divine commandment. It is in his hand, which means that he exercises it by work and deed.

We understand the angel coming down from heaven to be our Lord, Jesus Christ, who is called the angel of great counsel. He visited the region of those who are mortal, for as one who is stronger he wished to bind the strong one, so that he might make vessels of mercy out of those who had earlier been vessels of wrath. And he accomplished this through that work that he had promised before when he said, No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his wares, unless he first binds the strong man,^[1] that is, the devil. The key of the bottomless pit is the depth of the divine judgments, for the judgments of God are a great deep.^[2] Indeed, to him alone is it known who from the mass of sinners are to be called out into the full number of the elect.

This passage expresses the destruction of the devil that occurred through the passion of our Lord. For through his passion the one who is stronger than [the devil], namely, Christ our God, bound him who seemed to be strong and freed us, who were his spoils, from his hands and condemned him by throwing him into the pit. This is shown by those demons who pleaded that he not send them into the pit. The demonstration that the devil is bound is the disappearance of idol worship, the destruction of pagan temples, the abandonment of the defilement of altars and the knowledge of the will of God throughout the world.

Summarizing again from the beginning, the author explains more fully what he had earlier spoken: The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to perdition.^[1] Therefore, possessing the power of the Father, the Lord came down into the flesh, for he was going to wage war upon the leader of the world, and when he had been bound, he was going to free his captives.

This is the reason that he put enmity between the serpent and the woman and her seed, with both of them maintaining the enmity: he, the sole of whose foot should be bitten, has power also to tread upon the enemy’s head; but the other bit, killed and impeded the steps of humanity until the seed came which was appointed to tread down his head. This was the seed who was born of Mary, of whom the prophet speaks, You will tread upon the asp and the basilisk; you will trample down the lion and the dragon. This means that sin, which was set up and spread out against man, and which rendered him subject to death, would be deprived of its power, along with death, which rules [over people]. The lion, that is, antichrist, who will be rampant against humankind in the latter days, will be trampled down by him. He shall bind the dragon, that old serpent, and subject him to the power of man, who had been conquered, so that all his might should be trodden down. Now Adam had been conquered, all life having been taken away from him. But the foe was conquered in his turn, and Adam received new life. The last enemy, death, is destroyed, which at the first had taken possession of humankind. Therefore, when man has been liberated, what is written shall come to pass, Death is swallowed up in victory, O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?^[1] This could not be said with justice, if that man, over whom death did first obtain dominion, were not set free. For his salvation is death’s destruction. When therefore the Lord vivifies man, that is, Adam, death is at the same time destroyed.

Our Lord Jesus Christ himself said, No one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.^[1] By strong man he means the devil, who was able to hold the human race in bondage. By his goods that Christ was to plunder, he means God’s future faithful ones whom the devil was keeping for himself because of their ungodliness and various sins. It was for the purpose of binding this strong man that John, in the Apocalypse, saw an angel coming down from heaven . . . who bound [the ancient serpent] for a thousand years. The angel, that is, checked and repressed his power to seduce and possess those destined to be set free.

Now, the thousand years can, so far as I can see, be interpreted in one of two ways. One interpretation is that this event is to take place in the sixth and last millennium (the sixth day), the latter span of which is now passing, and that when John spoke of the last part of this millennium as a thousand years he was using, figuratively, the whole to indicate a part. (After this sixth day will come the sabbath that has no evening, namely, the endless repose of the blessed.)

The other interpretation makes the thousand years stand for all the years of the Christian era, a perfect number being used to indicate the fullness of time. For the number one thousand is the cube of ten. Ten times ten equals one hundred, which is already a square, but still a plane figure. To give it depth and make it a cube, one hundred is further multiplied by ten to make a thousand. Now it is true that the number one hundred is sometimes made to stand for all. Thus, the Lord promised to anyone leaving all things to follow him, he shall receive a hundredfold.^[2] . . . How much more properly, then, does the number one thousand stand for the whole, since it is the cube, whereas one hundred is only the square of ten? In the same way there is no better interpretation of the text, he has remembered his covenant forever: the word that he commanded to a thousand generations,^[3] than to take a thousand as meaning all generations.

In Greek letters, one thousand is designated with an alpha. In the alpha we have the beginning, which is Christ; in the name [of Christ] we have the cross,^[1] which is our victory and the destruction of the evil enemy. Therefore, both by the cross of Christ and by the authority of the cross he bound the enemy of the world who deceived those who dwell upon the earth. For to that eternity no time is added, and the eternity of his time will be enclosed by no end, nor will there ever be an end to the number of years. And so by the sovereignty of the Lord through the power of the cross he bound him in the abyss.

The Revelation does not present to us the millenialism of the atheistic Greeks and the transmigration of souls and the Lethian water and I do not know what other idle talk and nonsense when it says that the devil will be bound for a thousand years and will again be loosed to deceive the nations. Stay away from such destructive teachings, which are suitable to the silliness of the Greeks. What, however, does it say? The prophet says, For a thousand years in your sight, O Lord, are as yesterday which is past, and as a watch in the night.^[1] Therefore, a thousand years in the sight of God is regarded as one day. And in his second letter, the holy Peter says the same thing when he writes, But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.^[2] And this is so. Moreover, the holy Isaiah speaks of the entire incarnation of the Lord as a day, saying, In the time of favor I have answered you, in a day of salvation I have helped you.^[3] And, not only this, the psalmist calls this same day also a morning. For somewhere it says, This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it, speaking of the joy of our salvation.^[4] And somewhere else the psalmist says, In the morning you will hear my voice; in the morning I will wait upon you and you will see me.^[5] For our prayers have become worthy in the sight of God the Father and become acceptable through the mediation and reconciliation of the Lord. And moreover, it says concerning Jerusalem, God will help her right early.^[6] And so, the incarnation of the Lord was a day and a morning, since, as it were, the sun of righteousness—for Malachi speaks of him in this way—shone upon us, providing us with the light of knowledge.^[7] And Zechariah foretold of this divine light when he said, Whereby the dayspring will visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.^[8] And in agreement with this, the prophet said, God is the Lord, and he has shined upon us; celebrate the feast with thick branches, even to the horns of the altar.^[9] . . .

Since it says that the day is reckoned by God as a thousand years, and moreover since the sojourn of the Lord on the earth is called a day, it calls this day a thousand years, as though with God there were no distinction between one day and a thousand years. At this time, the time of the incarnation of the Lord, the devil was bound, not being able to resist the marks of the Savior’s deity. And, therefore, when they sensed that they were spiritually bound, the wicked demons cried out, What have you to do with us, O Son of the living God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?^[10] And the Lord also made clear their bondage when he said, Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.^[11] Since, therefore, as it was indicated, we understand the incarnation of the Lord and his sojourn upon earth to be called one day and a thousand years without distinction in the holy Scriptures, such a number is used figuratively. Note, therefore, what the Revelation says. I saw another angel coming down from heaven holding the key of the bottomless pit and a chain. And it says, when he seized the devil, he bound him and threw him into the bottomless pit. That which is accomplished spiritually by the Lord is shown to the Evangelist as though on a painted tablet. For since John was a human being and could not see spiritual realities, that which occurred is depicted for him in material terms. . . . That he should deceive the nations no more, it says, till the thousand years were ended. It was necessary that the sojourn of the Lord on the earth have a somewhat greater support and protection, to prohibit the unclean demons from attacking it in the same way as they did against humankind before the time of the incarnation.

Also the great Justin says that at the coming of Christ the devil will first learn that he is condemned to the abyss, that is, to the Gehenna of fire.^[1] It is, therefore, possible also to understand the sentence of Christ against the devil in the words just spoken. The seer says that the angel administers this sentence, thereby revealing that [the devil] is weaker in power than the ministering powers and showing the vanity of one who insolently opposes him who has rule over all things. For our understanding, he speaks of a chain, meaning the work of restraining [the devil’s] evil. It is in no way good to understand the thousand years as referring to a thousand years as such. For when David says of the word that he commanded for a thousand generations,^[2] we ought not to understand this to mean a hundred years times ten. Rather, David means many [generations] taken as a whole. So also in this case, we regard the number thousand to signify either many or that which is complete. If we take it to mean many, then it refers to the preaching of the gospel into all the world and the sowing of the seeds of piety in the world. [Or] should it mean complete, then it signifies that during this time, having been released from the life learned from the law, we have been called to the perfect man, to the measure of the maturity of the fullness of Christ. Therefore, the thousand years are the time from the incarnation of the Lord until the arrival of the antichrist. Whether the matter is as we have interpreted it, or the thousand years are one hundred times ten, as some believe, or the thousand years are less than this, this is known to God alone, who knows how long his patience is beneficial to us, and he determines the continuance of the present life.

The devil is interpreted to mean flowing downwards, although in the Greek it means accuser, while Satan means adversary or deceiver. Therefore, he is called dragon because of the wicked harm he inflicts; he is called serpent because of the cunning of his deception; he is called devil because of the fall from his previous status; and he is called Satan because of the stubbornness of his opposition to the Lord.

The devil was cast into the abyss, taken in the sense of the countless number of godless people whose bitter hatred of God’s church comes from the abysmal depths of their hearts. The devil was cast into those hearts, not in the sense that he was not there before, but because in proportion as he has been more and more shut out from believing hearts, he has taken still deeper hold upon unbelievers. It is bad enough to be a stranger to God, but gratuitously to hate God’s servants is to have the devil’s hold take even deeper root. . . . The words closed it over him mean that the angel rendered him powerless to escape, that is, forbade him to go beyond bounds. The further verb, sealed, means, I think, that the angel wants no one to know the secret of who is on the devil’s side and who is not. For to be sure, this secret division is absolutely unknowable in this world of time, inasmuch as we have no certainty whether the one who is now upright is going to fall, and the one who is now lying flat is going to rise to righteousness. The nations or people freed from the devil’s seductions, in virtue of this restraining and disabling chaining and imprisonment, are those whom he used to lead astray and hold captive but who now belong to Christ. For God chose, before the world was made, to rescue these from the power of darkness and to transfer them into the kingdom of his beloved Son, as Paul says.^[1] With respect to others not predestined to eternal life, the devil continues to this very day to lead these people astray and to drag them down into eternal damnation, as every believer knows. And these assertions are not shaken by the fact that the devil often seduces those people, too, who have been reborn in Christ and walk in the ways of God. For the Lord knows who are his.^[2] Of these chosen ones the devil seduces no one to the point of eternal damnation. For the Lord’s knowledge of his elect is a divine knowledge and perfect knowledge, wholly unlike the knowledge a person has of his fellow man. Even at the moment of looking, a man can hardly see another man, since he does not see his heart, and he has no foresight at all of how anyone, including himself, is going to turn out in the future.

And sealed it over him, that is, placed upon it the bolt of the cross so that he might never regain his strength, nor any more seduce the nations, whom the resurrection will restore and make better. Nonetheless, to this explanation the following seems in opposition. Until the thousand years shall be ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while. However, one can understand this to mean to the extent that the will of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and his command allow. For a little while, that is, in a moment of time and by the power of the one who commands, [Satan] is dissolved into nothing and at the same time disappears. For if he is loosed so that he might be free, how then does he say, I saw thrones? This is similar to the most holy Daniel who speaks in the same sense as follows: In that day your people shall be saved, every one whose [name] shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to eternal life, and some to disgrace, that they might eternally see.^[1] For, how is he released from chains, if the resurrection is already celebrated and if the seats of judgment are seen?

These thousand years are reckoned from the passion of Christ. During them it is not permitted to the devil to do whatever he wishes, for God does not permit his servants to be tempted beyond that which they are able to endure.^[1]

When he is let loose at last, there will be little time left, since, as we read, he and his [followers] will rage with the fullness of strength only for three years and six months. Moreover, the people upon whom he will make war are to be such people as will be beyond overpowering by his open attacks or hidden ambush. If he were never set free, the full measure of his malevolent power would never be known, nor would the full measure of the holy city’s staunchness under fire be put to the test. Likewise, we would not have a full view of the good use to which almighty God puts the devil’s great wickedness.^[1] For example, [we would not see] how God allows him, even though driven from the saints’ inmost hearts which cling to God in faith, to tempt the saints somewhat so that they may profit by these external assaults. We would not see how God, further, has bound him in those who belong to his camp, to make it impossible for him to spill out and set to work such quantities of his evil power as would topple down countless weak souls destined to increase and fill the church. These include already believing people whose constancy the devil would smash, and people destined to believe whom he would frighten from the faith. At last, God will loose him to the end that all people may see how mighty a foe God’s city had overcome—all to the immense glory of its Liberator, Helper, Redeemer. . . . However, it may be asked whether, during the last three years and a half in which the unleashed devil will stage his all-out offensive, any one of these haters [of Christians] is to turn at last to the faith he formerly spurned? Think of the text: How can anyone enter the strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?^[2] How can these words remain true if the devil can be dispossessed just as well when he is loosed? The text seems to compel us to believe that the brief interval in question will witness no new conversions to Christianity, but that the devil will do battle only with those who are already Christians at the time of his unleashing—and, of course, any whom he may win over to his side will not have been numbered among the predestined sons of God.

[The devil] must be loosed for a little while. What does he mean by a little while? He means the time between the incarnation of the Lord and the consummation of the present age. When measured and compared with that which is past and that which is future, this is little, even though it should seem to be great. For if our Lord appears bodily at the last hour, indeed at the eleventh hour, as the faith of the holy writings claim, the time until the consummation is properly called little. After [this] the devil will again be bound, this time with an eternal and neverending bond. However, although he has been loosed, bind yet again, O Lord, his works of cunning against us. For you are our King, and it is proper to give you glory forever. Amen.

After this, the antichrist will put the whole world into confusion, bearing in himself the activity of the evil one and pouring out upon humankind the wine of his venomous wickedness, since he knows that his torment is without end. Redeeming us from his works, the all-merciful God will save us from the punishment that has been prepared for him and his angels,^[1] and he will manifest those who partake of the eternal blessings that are being made ready for those who opposed him [antichrist] even to the shedding of blood. For it is proper to ascribe to him mercy for those who trusted him, and he is worthy of thanksgiving and worship from every holy power, together with the Father and the life-giving Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

During the thousand years when the devil is bound, the saints also reign for a thousand years and, doubtless, the two periods are identical and mean the span between Christ’s first and second coming. For not only in that future kingdom to which Christ referred in the words, Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you,^[1] but even now those saints reign with him in some authentic though vastly inferior fashion. To them he said, Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.^[2] . . . This, to be sure, is the period in which the scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven brings forth from his storeroom things new and old, as I mentioned above.^[3] So, too, the reapers are to gather up out of the church the weeds, which he allows to grow intermixed with the wheat up to the time of harvest. . . . This certainly cannot be the kingdom that is to be utterly without scandals.^[4] The kingdom from which scandals are gathered out, then, must be the church on earth. . . . The mixed kingdom must be the church, such as she exists in her temporal stage, while the unmixed kingdom is the church such as she will be when she is to contain no evildoer. Consequently the church, even in this world, here and now, is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Here and now Christ’s saints reign with him, although not in the way they are destined to reign hereafter; but the weeds do not reign with him, even now, though they grow along with the wheat in the church. . . . Those alone reign with Christ whose presence in his kingdom is such that they themselves are his kingdom. . . . Now it is of this militant stage of the kingdom, during which there is still war with our enemy, alternating victory over, and defeat before, our evil inclinations, that the Apocalypse speaks. The thou-sand years are to last until we come to that kingdom, free of the foe, where the saints reign in fullest peace. . . . After mentioning the devil’s chaining for a thousand years and his brief interval of freedom to follow, John sums up the activity of and in the church during the thousand years: And I saw thrones, and men sat upon them and judgment was given to them. Now there is no question of the last judgment in this verse. The thrones and the enthroned people are the prelates who govern the church here and now. And the judgment is best interpreted as the one contained in the words, Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.^[5]

He explains yet more fully the life of the incarnate Lord, namely, that which now meets us in the vision. For it says, Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed. He sees the holy apostles to whom the promise was made that they would sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.^[1] Although this will be fulfilled more completely in the coming age, it did happen partially at the time of the incarnation. For when they believed in the Lord and shared in a multitude of blessings, they condemned those who did not wish to come to the faith and those who, although they had been taught by the grace given to the apostles, did not advance to the same piety but rather plotted his death on the cross.

Indeed, the teaching thrones had already been given to the holy apostles through whom the nations have been enlightened. However, thrones will also be given according to the purpose of God in the age to come for the condemnation of those who rejected the preaching of the gospel. As David said, For there the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, as a testimony for Israel, and again, For there are set thrones for judgment.^[1]

The rewards of divine promise do not await only the persecuted and the slain. If passion is lacking in the faithful, yet if the faith has remained sound and unconquered and, after forsaking all his possessions and so continuing in this way, shows that he follows Christ, he also is honored among the martyrs of Christ, as he himself says: There is no one who leaves house, or land, or parents, or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who shall not receive much more in the present time, and in the age to come life everlasting.^[1] In the same way in the Apocalypse he says: And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the name of Jesus and the Word of God. And when he had put those beheaded in the first place, he added saying, And who did not worship the image of the beast, and did not accept his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands. And all these he joins together as seen by him in the same place and says, And they came to life and reigned with Christ. He says that all live and reigned with Christ, not only those who have been slain. He is referring to those who stand in the firmness of their faith and who in the fear of God have not adored the image of a beast and have not consented to his deadly sacrilegious edicts.

We are to understand as implied by the words that come further on that these souls of the martyrs reigned with Christ a thousand years—of course, not yet reunited with their bodies. For the souls of the faithful departed are not divorced from Christ’s kingdom, which is the temporal church. If they were, we should not be mindful of them at God’s altar in the communion of the body of Christ; nor would there be any point in hastening one’s baptism in time of danger, lest one die unbaptized; nor in seeking reconciliation, when one has been cut off from Christ’s body by a sinful conscience or by the church’s penitential discipline. Why do we go to all this trouble if the faithful departed are not still Christ’s members? We may be sure, then, that their souls reign with him, just as their bodies will in time to come, even while the thousand years are rolling on. . . . We conclude, therefore, that even now, in time, the church reigns with Christ both in its living and departed members. For to this end Christ died, says Paul, and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.^[1] If John mentions only the souls of the martyrs, that is because they who have battled for the truth unto death reign in death with a special splendor. But as the part is here used for the whole, we know that the words apply to the remaining faithful who belong to the same church, which is Christ’s kingdom.

And it says, and the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. These, in common with the others, he saw sitting on thrones and judging the rest of humankind. It says that they were beheaded, for they had been killed by the axe. He is speaking figuratively about the members of those who died for the sake of the faith in Christ and especially those who were martyred for the faith. For to be sure, [the Jews] caused them to be thrown outside the synagogues with much revilement and they confiscated for themselves their property, as the wise apostle testifies,^[1] for they believed completely in Christ. The Lord also spoke about these persons: Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.^[2] And following the thought of the narrative and holding captive every idea in obedience to the holy Scriptures, you will consider those who did not worship the beast or receive his mark and his image to be those who did not conspire with the rest of the Jews in their plots against the Lord, nor [did they wish] to obey the suggestions of the devil, who is hated of God. For this would be to worship him and also his image. The imprint of his will upon the hearts of the Jews he calls an image, which he also calls a mark, which encompasses both their guiding and their active principles. For the head, of which the forehead is a member, is representative of the guiding principle, while the hand is representative of the active principle.

Judgment, that is, the authority to judge, was given to the rest of the saints, namely, to the martyrs who suffered for Christ and did not receive the mark of that spiritual beast, the devil, that is, the image of his apostasy. And as we can see, even to the present time they judge the demons by this authority, for they reign with Christ until the consummation of the present age and are honored by pious kings and faithful rulers and demonstrate their God-given power against every bodily weakness and demonic activity. It is clear that the devil, the antichrist and the false prophet share with one another both their deeds and their names, since each of them is called beast, and the dragon, clearly Satan, is shown with seven heads and ten horns with as many diadems. Moreover, the beast that comes up out of the sea, clearly the antichrist, appears in a similar form and testifies to the same will and activity for the destruction of those who have been deceived. Those who have been freed from this will reign with Christ in the manner just mentioned until his second coming, and after that they will enjoy more abundantly the promises of God.

This verse should be applied to both the living and the dead. . . . As to the identity of the beast in question, there is need of very careful study. Nevertheless, consistently with sound faith, one may take it to be the godless city as opposed to the city of God, men and women without faith as opposed to those who believe. The beast’s image, I think, is his deception as found, for example, in such people as profess the faith yet live like pagans. For they pretend to be what, in fact, they are not, and are called Christians, not because of full faith but of false face. The beast possesses, in addition to the openly avowed enemies of Christ’s name and of his glorious city, the weeds that are marked for uprooting from his kingdom, the church, at the end of the world. Those who do not follow the beast or his image are surely those who follow Paul’s admonition: Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers.^[1] Their not worshiping means their not agreeing with, their not becoming subjects to, unbelievers. Their not accepting his mark upon their foreheads and hands means that they refuse the stigma of false faith and bad morals. Such people, alive or dead, keep themselves aloof from such evils and so reign with Christ, even now, in a fashion befitting the passage of time, throughout this whole era indicated by the thousand years.

The souls of all the martyrs and of all the Christian faithful who rise again and awaken from the dust of the earth shall reign, it says, with Christ for a thousand years. That is, they will reign by the sign of the cross and by the pre-eminence of the Lord’s passion.

They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. He again speaks of a thousand years to indicate, as we said above, the sojourn of the Lord on the earth. During this time they lived the spiritual life and reigned with Christ, confronting demons and giving honor to suffering and bringing about a great many miracles. Not that one is only to be present with Christ, the King of glory, one should also reign with him. And so it is spoken by the prophet concerning them: When the heavenly One scatters kings upon it, they will become white as snow on Zalmon.^[1]

Compare [John’s] other words: The hour is coming, and now is here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live^[1]—implying that the rest of the dead (who do not hear) will not come to life. The added clause, until the thousand years were finished, means that during that time the rest of the dead did not come to life as they should by passing over from death to life. Therefore, in the day of the body’s resurrection, they will go forth from their tombs, not to life but to judgment, meaning that condemnation that is called the second death. Anyone at all who will have failed to come to life during this millennium, this whole era of the first resurrection, by not hearing the voice of the Son of God and by not passing from death to life will certainly, when the second and bodily resurrection comes, pass to the second death, body and soul together.

Until the thousand years were ended, that is, until such time as the sacrament of the faith and the mystery of the cross is perfected in them and that those who are beginning to flourish might appear in their eternal blessedness. The rest of the dead did not come to life. He did not say, they did not arise again, but that they did not come to life, because without joy and happiness, and without the reward of eternity, in their torments they shall be regarded as though dead.^[1] This is the first resurrection. That is to say, the happiness of the saints and their reward; for it is said to be the first because of its splendor and its preeminence.

The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. He calls those dead who remained in unbelief. The Lord also spoke of these when he said, Let the dead bury their own dead.^[1] To be sure, the unbelievers did not live the reasonable life until the time of the incarnation, which is the thousand years, was completed. But after this they lived. How so? By the visitation and presence of the Holy Spirit. For then most of the Jews believed in Christ, as many as did not believe in him when he was living among them in the flesh. This was accomplished in a most divine manner, not as the human mind might have expected. For while in the Old Testament the Son was proclaimed and was made known through his incarnation and his many signs and wonders, the Holy Spirit was not yet clearly revealed to humankind. In the Old Testament there was only talk concerning him, as there was of the Son, but there was no manifest and perceptible activity, which especially leads people to faith. He was, however, perceived by those who progressed into the depths of the divine purpose, For to be sure, everything which is done and accomplished is produced by the Holy Trinity. The Lord establishes this clearly when he says somewhere, The Father has given me commandment what to say and what to speak^[2] and again, I am able to do nothing from myself,^[3] referring to whatever happens in the Trinity; and again from John, The Son of man can do nothing from himself, unless he sees his Father doing it,^[4] and somewhere he vigorously claims, If I by the Spirit of God cast out demons.^[5] Since, as we said, there was no perceptible activity of the Holy Spirit among humankind, it was determined by plan that virtually all people would receive faith in Christ by the presence and power of the Paraclete and of God the Father, so that it might be clearly evident to all that he also is of the same substance and of equal power with the Father and the Son. To be sure, we are given no information that during the time of the incarnation any more than 120 had come to faith. The Acts [of the Apostles] numbers those who had gathered together in the upper room to have been so many.^[6] But since the power of the Lord’s teaching had reached many, certainly the conviction concerning this coming of the Spirit would have been preserved [among them]. Just as when seed is scattered upon the ground and the rains come and the sun shines upon it, all the seeds that had remained hidden and concealed in the ground until this time now start to spring up and become visible, for they had been simply kept in the earth, so also did it happen at the visitation of the Holy Spirit. All those to whom the teaching of the Lord had been thrown [as seed] began to spring up unto faith. Therefore, it is said with greater accuracy in the Revelation, the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.

Jesus baptizes in the Holy Spirit and in fire,^[1] not the same person in the Holy Spirit and in fire, but the holy person in the Holy Spirit, while another person, after he has believed, after he has been deemed worthy of the Holy Spirit and after he has sinned again, Jesus washes in fire. So . . . it is not the same person who is baptized by Jesus in the Holy Spirit and in fire. Blessed, then, is the one who is baptized in the Holy Spirit and does not need the baptism by fire, but three times unhappy is that person who has need to be baptized in fire, though Jesus takes care of both of them. For a shoot from the stump of Jesse will come forth, and a branch will grow out of the root,^[2] a shoot for those who are punished, a branch for the righteous. So God is a consuming fire and God is light, a consuming fire to sinners, a light to the just and holy ones. And blessed is he who shares in the first resurrection, he who has kept the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Who is he who is saved in another resurrection? He who needs the baptism from fire, when he comes before that fire and the fire tests him, and when that fire finds wood, hay and stubble to burn.

Everyone should know that the scarlet devil and all of his rebellious angels are shut up in the Tartarus of Gehenna^[1] at the Lord’s coming, and that after one thousand years they are released because of the nations who will have served the antichrist so that they alone might perish and therefore have merited [such a punishment]. Thereupon the universal judgment will occur. Therefore it says, The dead [who are written in the Book of Life] came to life, and they will reign with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection.^[2] Over such the second death has no power. Concerning this resurrection he says, And I saw the Lamb standing and with him—that is, standing^[3] with him—144,000.^[4] Namely, these are those from among the Jews who will come to believe at the end of time through the preaching of Elijah and who, the Spirit testifies, are chaste not only in body but also in tongue.^[5] And therefore, it is mentioned above that the twenty-four elders had said, We give thanks to you, Lord God, that you have begun to reign, and the nations have become enraged.^[6] At the time of this first resurrection will also be that future, beautiful city that this writing has described. Also Paul spoke in this manner to the church in Macedonia concerning this first resurrection: For this we declare to you by the word of God, that at the trumpet of God the Lord himself will descend from heaven to arouse [the dead from sleep]. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.^[7] We have heard that he speaks of a trumpet. We observe that in another place the apostle mentions another trumpet. He says to the Corinthians, At the last trumpet the dead will rise—they become immortal— and we shall be changed.^[8] He says that the dead will rise immortal in order to suffer their punishments; however, it is clear that we will be changed and clothed in glory. When, therefore, we hear that there is a last trumpet, we must understand that there has also been a first trumpet. Now these are the two resurrections. Therefore, however many shall not rise previously in the first resurrection and reign with Christ over the world—over all the nations—they will rise at the last trumpet after the thousand years, that is, at the final resurrection among the impious, the sinners and those guilty in various ways. Rightly, then, does the passage continue by saying, Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection; over such the second death has no power. Now, the second death is damnation in hell.

Anyone who thus participates [in the first resurrection] is one who not only rises from the death of sin but also perseveres in his newfound life. Over these, says John, the second death has no power. Therefore, it has power over all the others of whom he said above: The rest of the dead did not come to life till the thousand years were finished. They may have lived long enough in their bodies, in the period John calls the thousand years, but they did not rise from the binding death of their ungodliness. If they had, they would have shared in the first resurrection and thus escaped the power of the second death.

Whoever are not liberated from that mass of perdition (brought to pass through the first man) by the one Mediator between God and humankind, they will also rise again, each in his own flesh, but only that they may be punished together with the devil and his angels. Whether these people will rise again with all their faults and deformities, with their diseased and deformed members—is there any reason for us to labor such a question? For obviously the uncertainty about their bodily form and beauty need not weary us, since their damnation is certain and eternal. And let us not be moved to inquire how their body can be incorruptible if it can suffer—or corruptible if it cannot die. For there is no true life unless it be lived in happiness; no true incorruptibility save where health is unscathed by pain. But where an unhappy being is not allowed to die, then death itself, so to say, dies not; and where pain perpetually afflicts but never destroys, corruption goes on endlessly. This state is called, in the Scripture, the second death.

He indicates that those over whom the second death has power did not come to life. To be sure, they have been resurrected unto the second death, that is, they have been damned to the lake of fire, even as it is stated in the psalms: As though living he swallows them as in anger.^[1] Indeed, concerning those over whom the second death has no power, it says, they shall be priests of God and they shall reign with him a thousand years. All those who shall have been in the congregation of the saints, shall be called saints, and they shall be priests of Christ our God, and they shall reign with him in the strength of the cross and in the sovereignty of his might.

This is, it says, the first resurrection, clearly that of faith. For the second resurrection will be the universal resurrection of the body. Therefore, blessed is he who shares in the first resurrection! For we will all take part in the second resurrection, even those who are unwilling. Upon those who share in the first resurrection, that is, upon the faithful, the second death has no power. What sort of death is this second death? Clearly it is that of sin and of the subsequent punishment. For just as he spoke of a first and a second resurrection, so also is there a first and a second death. The first death is physical and results in the separation of the soul and the body. The second death . . . is spiritual and is caused by sin. Of this death also the Lord spoke: Do not fear those who kill the body; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^[1]

[The first resurrection] is that by which we rise through baptism. As the apostle says, If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things which are above.^[1] And again he says, living as [those who have been brought to life] from the dead.^[2] For sin is death, as the apostle says, when you were dead through trespasses and sins.^[3] Therefore, just as the first death is in this life because of sin, so also the first resurrection is in this life through the remission of sins.

From the holy Scriptures we are taught that there are two lives and two deaths. The first life, which is after the transgression of the commandment, is temporary and fleshly. The [second] life is eternal and is promised to the saints because of Christ’s obedience to the divine commandments. Likewise, there are two deaths. The first is that of the flesh and is temporary. The other is eternal and is the reward for sins. It occurs in the age to come; this is the Gehenna of fire. We also know a distinction among the dead. There are the accused, of whom Isaiah wrote, The dead shall not see life.^[1] These are those persons who by their deeds bring upon themselves both stench and death. There are . . . the praiseworthy, who in Christ put to death the deeds of the body and crucified themselves with Christ and died to the world. The dead who are rejected, who were not buried with Christ and did not rise with him through baptism but who remained in that death which comes through sins, they shall not live with him until the completion of the thousand years, that is, that perfect number that extends from his first appearance until his second, glorious appearance. . . . Having been born only from the earth and not from the Spirit, these return to the earth. Their death becomes the beginning of the punishment coming to them. However, those who have a portion in the first resurrection, that is, in the rising from thoughts that bring death and from dead works, these are blessed, for the second death, that is, the unending torment, shall have no power over them.

Here he is speaking not just of bishops and of presbyters (who are now priests in the church) but of all Christians. For just as we call all of them Christs by reason of their mystical chrism, we call them all priests insomuch as they are members of the one Priest. Peter speaks of them as a chosen race, a royal priesthood.^[1] Surely, too, this text implies, however briefly and incidentally, that Christ is God. The words priests of God and Christ mean priests of the Father and Son, even though it was in his servant form that Christ was both made Son of man and also ordained a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

The Spirit repeats what he had written before, that the church is going to reign a thousand years in this age until the end of the world. It is clear that no one ought doubt about the eternal rule when the saints rule even in this present age. For those are rightly said to reign who with God’s aid govern well both themselves and others in the temptations of the present world.

[Those who have a portion of the first resurrection] shall serve as priests and shall reign with Christ, as we see, for the thousand years as they are interpreted by us, until Satan is loosed and deceives the nations. Not that these will then be deprived of the kingdom. Rather, they will possess it more certainly and more manifestly with the passing of temporal reality and the arrival of things eternal. For the time between the loosing of the devil and the verdict against him and his punishment in gehenna is short. So, that they shall be priests of God and of Christ ought to be regarded as the restoration of former things. . . . Therefore, since there are two deaths, it is necessary also to accept two resurrections. There is the first, physical death, given as a wage for human disobedience. The second death is eternal punishment. The first resurrection is the giving of life^[1] from dead works. The second resurrection is the transformation from the corruption of our bodies into incorruptibility.