Всего за 280 руб. Купить полную версию
Chapter 25.
Similarly, the book of Revelation indicates a certain sequence of times which even the souls of martyrs learned to endure while crying out for vengeance and judgment from under the altar so that the world might first drink of its sufferings from the bowls of the angels, so that the harlot city would meet its doom together with the ten kings, and so that the Antichrist (Beast) and his false prophet would begin persecuting the church, and so that, after the temporary imprisonment of the devil in the abyss, the first resurrection would be announced from the heavenly thrones, after which (when the devil is finally cast into the fire), the judgement of the resurrection would be proclaimed according to the books [see Rev 6:911; 15:7; 16:1; 17:12; 19:1920; 20:412]. So, since Scripture points out the order of the end times, connecting the whole fruit of Christian hope to the end of the age, it is clear that either everything that God has promised to us will be fulfilled at that time (and, therefore, all that the heretics promise to us on the earth is false) or if the greatest of mysteries is our resurrection itself that even in this case one can believe in everything predicted for the end of the world without in the least denying the above opinion. Moreover, since one resurrection is interpreted as spiritual, it follows that the other must be bodily, because if nothing had been proclaimed about the [end] times, then there would only have been one resurrection, that is, a spiritual one. But if there is a resurrection proclaimed for the end times, it must be a bodily resurrection, because no spiritual resurrection is predicted along with it. This spiritual resurrection would have to be either happening now, regardless of the difference in time, or then at the end of the age. So, it is more fitting for us to defend the spiritual resurrection taking place at the point of our turning to faith, but we also recognize that the full resurrection will take place at the end of the age.
Excerpt from Against Marcion, book 3:
Chapter 24. About the millennial Kingdom on earth
1. Certainly, you say, I expect from him what will be the evidence for the difference <between the two gods> the divine kingdom of the eternal heavenly dominion. But your Christ promises to restore to the Jews their former status after returning them to the land, and then, after death to comfort them in the realm of the dead, that is, in the bosom of Abraham [compare Lk 16:22]. O, what a kind god if he should, after getting appeased, restore to us that which he took away in anger! Your god [i.e. the way you portray him] both smites and heals [compare Deut 32:39; Job 5:18], causes calamities and creates the world [compare Is 45:7]! O god who is merciful even to the dead!
2. <I will comment> on the bosom of Abraham in due course. As for the restoration of Judea (which the Jews expect to happen exactly as it is described, deceived as they are by the names of places and countries), it would take a long time to investigate the manner in which the allegorical interpretation, spiritual by its outward appearance and fruit, refers to Christ and the Church. It is a subject for another book which we entitled The Hope of the Faithful [De spe fidelium is one of Tertullians lost works]. Besides, it would be unnecessary now because we are concerned with the heavenly promise, not the earthly one.
3. After all, we confess that we have been promised [the millennial] Kingdom on earth, but <it will come> before <our ascent to> heaven, and it will be a different Kingdom <than the one that the Jews are looking for> because it is found in the city of Jerusalem which is not made by hands and which the Apostle calls our mother from above [compare Gal 4:26]. And after <our> resurrection, it will be brought [Croymanns conjecture. In the manuscript, this word refers to Jerusalem] from heaven to earth for a thousand years [compare Rev 20:6]. And by saying that our country, that is, our citizenship, is in heaven [compare Php 3:20], he, naturally, connects it with a certain heavenly city.
4. Ezekiel also knew about this city [compare Ezek 48:3035], and the Apostle John saw [compare Rev 21:2, 914] and confirmed the word of the new prophecy which abides with our faith so as to predict that the earthly copy of this city, <shown> to us before its revelation, would become a sign. In recent times, it happened during the Eastern expedition. After all, even pagan accounts contain stories about a city floating around above Judea for forty days every morning. The apparition would gradually dissipate with the light of day, and in other cases it disappeared immediately.
5. We say that this city was prepared by God for the saints who will dwell in it after their resurrection. They will be strengthened with every kind of abundance, which is, certainly, of a spiritual nature to compensate for everything we have denied or left behind in this present age, for, after all, it is only just and fair for God to ensure that His servants are overjoyed where they were persecuted for his name. This is the meaning of the Kingdom <under heaven> [Croymanns conjecture. In the manuscript: heavenly].
6. After the thousand-year Kingdom, during which the resurrection of the saints will be completed as they rise from the dead at different times according to the merits of each, and after the destruction of the world and the judgment of fire [Et mundi destructione et iudicii conflagratione commissa, demutati in atomo in angelicam substantiam <> transferemur in caeleste regnum. Compare: Et istas ego receperim causas, <> et illam quae in conflagratione nostris placet hoc quoque transferendam puto (Sen. Nat. Quaest, III, 29,2)], we shall change in the twinkling of an eye [compare 1 Cor 15:52: ev atomo] to an angelic state, being clothed with incorruptibility <as described by the Apostle> [compare 1 Cor 15:5253]. And we shall be taken up to the Kingdom of Heaven which is now being re-evaluated <in such a way> as if it had not been foretold by the Creator and as if it would, consequently, prove that Christ had belonged to another god, who, allegedly, was the first and only one to have revealed it.
7. Know now that this <Kingdom> was foretold by the Creator and must be considered as <staying> with the Creator. What do you think: when the seed of Abraham, after receiving the first promise that they would become as countless as the sand on the seashore, received also their calling of becoming like unto the stars [compare Gen 22:17], isnt this a sign of both earthly and heavenly blessings? When Isaac, blessing his son Jacob, says: Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth [compare Gen 27:28] are these not examples of both of these mercies?
8. One should finally consider the structure of the blessing itself. Indeed, with respect to Jacob who is a symbol of a later and a better people, that is, of our people, the first promise is the promise of the heavenly dew and the second one of the earthly abundance. For we are first invited to enjoy the heavenly blessings after we have rejected the world, and thus we subsequently prove that we have been predestined to inherit also the earth. And your Gospel [i.e. the Gospel of Luke distorted by the Marcionites] also testifies: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and this will be added to you as well [see Lk 12:31].
9. However, he first gives to Esau [Croymanns conjecture. In the manuscript: he first promises] the blessing of the earth and then adds to it the heavenly things by saying: Thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above [see Gen 27:39]. In Esau, the Jews, who are firstborn by nature yet inferior to others in love, having been satiated through the Law with earthly blessings, are redirected towards heavenly blessings through the Gospel by faith. But when Jacob sees in a dream a staircase spanning the earth and heaven, and angels ascending and descending, and the Lord standing on it [compare Gen 28:1213], will it be reckless to interpret it as pointing to the right way to heaven [Tertullian refutes Marcion who claimed that, according to Jewish beliefs, the dead remain in hell] through which some ascend, others descend, [Croymann assumes a lacuna here: and since the Lord is standing above, both are done by the Lords decree] as determined by the Lords decree?