{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>After this mention of the closing persecution, he summarily\r\nindicates all that the devil, and the city of which he is the\r\nprince, shall suffer in the last judgment. For he says, \"And\r\nthe devil who seduced them is cast into the lake of fire and\r\nbrimstone, in which are the beast and the false prophet, and\r\nthey shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.\"\r\nWe have already said that by the beast is well understood\r\nthe wicked city. His false prophet is either Antichrist or\r\nthat image or figment of which we have spoken in the same\r\nplace. After this he gives a brief narrative of the last judgment\r\nitself, which shall take place at the second or bodily\r\nresurrection of the dead, as it had been revealed to him: \"I\r\nsaw a throne great and white, and One sitting on it from\r\nwhose face the heaven and the earth fled away, and their\r\nplace was not found.\" He does not say, \"I saw a throne\r\ngreat and white, and One sitting on it, and from His face the\r\nheaven and the earth fled away,\" for it had not happened\r\nthen, <i>i.e.</i> before the living and the dead were judged; but he\r\nsays that he saw Him sitting on the throne from whose face\r\nheaven and earth fled away, but afterwards. For when the\r\njudgment is finished, this heaven and earth shall cease to be,\r\nand there will be a new heaven and a new earth. For this\r\nworld shall pass away by transmutation, not by absolute destruction.<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_374\">[Pg 374]</a></span>\r\nAnd therefore the apostle says, \"For the figure\r\nof this world passeth away. I would have you be without\r\nanxiety.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_742_742\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_742_742\">[742]</a> The figure, therefore, passes away, not the nature.\r\nAfter John had said that he had seen One sitting on the\r\nthrone from whose face heaven and earth fled, though not till\r\nafterwards, he said, \"And I saw the dead, great and small:\r\nand the books were opened; and another book was opened,\r\nwhich is the book of the life of each man: and the dead were\r\njudged out of those things which were written in the books,\r\naccording to their deeds.\" He said that the books were\r\nopened, and a book; but he left us at a loss as to the nature\r\nof this book, \"which is,\" he says, \"the book of the life of each\r\nman.\" By those books, then, which he first mentioned, we\r\nare to understand the sacred books old and new, that out of\r\nthem it might be shown what commandments God had enjoined;\r\nand that book of the life of each man is to show what\r\ncommandments each man has done or omitted to do. If this\r\nbook be materially considered, who can reckon its size or\r\nlength, or the time it would take to read a book in which\r\nthe whole life of every man is recorded? Shall there be present\r\nas many angels as men, and shall each man hear his life\r\nrecited by the angel assigned to him? In that case there\r\nwill be not one book containing all the lives, but a separate\r\nbook for every life. But our passage requires us to think of\r\none only. \"And another book was opened,\" it says. We must\r\ntherefore understand it of a certain divine power, by which it\r\nshall be brought about that every one shall recall to memory\r\nall his own works, whether good or evil, and shall mentally\r\nsurvey them with a marvellous rapidity, so that this knowledge\r\nwill either accuse or excuse conscience, and thus all and\r\neach shall be simultaneously judged. And this divine power\r\nis called a book, because in it we shall as it were read all that\r\nit causes us to remember. That he may show who the dead,\r\nsmall and great, are who are to be judged, he recurs to this\r\nwhich he had omitted or rather deferred, and says, \"And the\r\nsea presented the dead which were in it; and death and hell\r\ngave up the dead which were in them.\" This of course took\r\nplace before the dead were judged, yet it is mentioned after.<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_375\">[Pg 375]</a></span>\r\nAnd so, I say, he returns again to what he had omitted. But\r\nnow he preserves the order of events, and for the sake of\r\nexhibiting it repeats in its own proper place what he had\r\nalready said regarding the dead who were judged. For after\r\nhe had said, \"And the sea presented the dead which were in\r\nit, and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them,\"\r\nhe immediately subjoined what he had already said, \"and\r\nthey were judged every man according to their works.\" For\r\nthis is just what he had said before, \"And the dead were\r\njudged according to their works.\"</p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK TWENTIETH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-598"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"15e0f29abdd6e0a3f92566e76fe86a6b4b58ccfd58fcdbff59a61154774f4561","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"1CO","chapter":7,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"1 Cor. vii. 31","verse":31,"verse_end":31}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_742_742","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_742_742","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_742_742\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_742_742\"><span class=\"label\">[742]</span></a> 1 Cor. vii. 31, 32.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_742_742","text_sha256":"9aef742481680158fab88e7a72d05d561f2b1d368bb93f6551bbd2302d7105ad","verified":false,"work_id":null}