Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Having discussed the soul's immortality, our next task is to teach in what manner it is granted to man, and when, so that here too the errors bred by the depravity and folly of certain people may be exposed — those who suppose that particular mortals were turned into gods by the decrees and opinions of other mortals, whether because they had invented crafts, or taught people to use certain crops, or passed down things of use to human existence, or slew monstrous beasts. We have already shown, in earlier books, and will show again here, just how distant such achievements stand from true immortality, so that it becomes evident that righteousness by itself confers eternal life on a man, and God alone is the giver who rewards that life everlasting. As for those said to have won immortality through their own merits — having possessed neither righteousness nor genuine virtue — what their sins and desires actually gained them was death rather than deathlessness, and rather than a heavenly prize, the torments of the underworld, shared with everyone who paid them worship. I intend to demonstrate that this judgment's hour approaches, so the righteous may receive their fitting reward and the wicked their merited punishment. Plato, along with a great many other philosophers, not knowing where things originated or the supreme instant the world came to be, claimed that countless thousands of ages had elapsed from when this magnificent ornament of a world first appeared — perhaps taking their cue from the Chaldeans, who, according to Cicero's account in the opening book of his treatise on divination, boast madly of possessing records spanning four hundred and seventy thousand years; confident no one could disprove them, they took this as license for falsehood. We, by contrast, instructed in the knowledge of truth by the divine scriptures, understand both how the world began and how it will end; that second matter we shall take up now, near this work's conclusion, having already laid out the beginning back in book two. So let the philosophers who tally the world's age in thousands of eons understand this: the sixth millennium has not yet run its course. Once that number reaches completion, an ending is bound to occur, and human affairs must be recast into something better — a claim whose grounds must be laid out first, so the logic behind it stands clear. Across a span of six days, God brought to completion the world and this astonishing work of nature, as the concealed sense of holy scripture records, and he set apart the seventh as sacred, the day on which his labors ceased. This is the Sabbath, whose very name in the Hebrew tongue derives from its number, making seven the number that is both lawful and whole. Seven days, cycling in recurrence, mark off the years' revolutions; seven fixed stars never set; and seven wandering heavenly bodies, moving unevenly and irregularly, are thought responsible for all the changes in things and seasons. Since, then, God's entire work was brought to completion across six days, the present state of the world must likewise persist across six ages — that is, six millennia. God's own great day is measured out by a cycle of a thousand years, as the prophet indicates in saying: before your eyes, O Lord, a thousand years pass like a single day. And just as God toiled through those six days fashioning such vast things, so too his truth and worship must labor across these six thousand years, with evil holding the upper hand and ruling throughout. And again, because he rested and pronounced a blessing on the seventh day once his labors were done, it follows that once the sixth millennium ends, wickedness will be swept entirely from the earth, righteousness will hold sway for a thousand years, and there will be peace and repose after the toils the world has borne for so long. I will explain in due course just how this comes to pass. We have often noted that small, slight things serve as figures and previews of greater ones — that our ordinary day, marked off by sunrise and sunset, carries the likeness of that great day defined by the thousand-year cycle. In just the same way, the molding of earthly man prefigured, for a later age, the shaping of a heavenly people. Just as God, having finished everything made for man's benefit, fashioned man himself last of all on the sixth day and brought him into the world as into a dwelling already carefully prepared, so too, in this present sixth great day, the true man takes shape through God's word — meaning a holy people is molded toward righteousness by divine teaching and commandment. And just as that first man was formed from earth, mortal and incomplete, destined for a thousand-year lifespan in this world; so now, drawn out of this present earthly era, a whole and perfected man is being shaped, so that, brought to life by God, he may reign a thousand years within that same world. Whoever searches the divine writings will discover how this consummation is to unfold and what outcome looms over human affairs. Yet the secular prophets, in harmony with the heavenly ones, likewise proclaim that things will end and collapse before long, depicting what amounts to the final decrepitude of an exhausted, disintegrating world. All that the prophets and seers foretell will happen before that ultimate close arrives, I shall gather from every source and lay out together.
Among the hidden depths of the sacred writings it is told how a grain shortage forced the leader of the Hebrews, together with his whole household and kin, across the border into Egypt. In time his descendants, lingering there and swelling into a vast nation, found themselves crushed beneath slavery's heavy and unbearable yoke; God then struck Egypt with a plague beyond healing and set his people free, leading them straight through the middle of the sea, its waves split and pushed apart on both sides so that the people crossed on dry land. When the Egyptian king tried chasing down the escapees, the sea closed back over its bed and caught him along with his entire army. Remarkable and famous as this deed was in showing God's power to the people of that day, it nevertheless served as a preview and figure of something far greater which this same God will accomplish when time reaches its final close: he means to liberate his people from the world's crushing bondage. Yet at that earlier moment God's people were a single nation, so Egypt alone bore the blow; now, though, because God's people are drawn from every language and live scattered among all nations, oppressed by those who rule them, every nation without exception — the entire world, in other words — must be struck by heavenly plagues, so that the righteous folk who worship God may finally go free. And exactly as signs then warned the Egyptians of the disaster coming their way, so too, near the very end, astonishing wonders will appear through every element making up the world, revealing to every nation the ruin bearing down on it. As this age nears its close, the state of human affairs is bound to shift and, wickedness gaining strength, sink further toward ruin, so much so that even our present era — where injustice and evil have already climbed to their peak — will look happy, nearly golden, set beside that incurable evil still to come. Righteousness, indeed, will become so rare, and wickedness and greed and lust and craving so common, that whatever good people happen still to exist then will fall prey to the wicked, hounded from every direction by the unjust; only the wicked will prosper, while the good are flung about amid every disgrace and every deprivation. Every law will collapse into chaos and legal codes will cease to exist. No one at that time will possess anything beyond what force has won or force has kept safe; audacity and violence will own everything. Trust among men will vanish, along with peace, kindness, shame, and truth — leaving neither safety nor governance nor any rest whatsoever from these evils. The entire earth will churn with turmoil, war will roar in every quarter, every nation will take up arms and turn against its neighbors; cities near one another will clash, and Egypt above all will pay the price for its foolish superstitions, drenched as though by a river running blood. A sword will then sweep across the earth, cutting down everything and flattening the whole like a harvest being reaped. Behind this ruin and chaos lies this cause: the Roman name, under which the world is presently ruled — my mind recoils from saying it, yet say it I must, since it is what lies ahead — will be wiped from the earth, and dominion will pass back to Asia, so that once again the East commands and the West serves. Nor should it strike anyone as odd that a realm built on such a colossal scale, raised across so long a span by so many able men, and eventually secured by such enormous riches, should nonetheless someday come crashing down. For nothing that human effort constructs is beyond destruction by that same human effort, since whatever mortal hands produce remains mortal itself. Earlier kingdoms too, however long they had thrived, fell in just this way. History records that Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Assyria each held sway over the earth in turn; once each had been swept away, supreme power finally reached the Romans. And the more they tower over every other kingdom in scale, the harder their eventual fall will be, since whatever stands taller than the rest carries greater weight when it collapses. Seneca showed real insight in mapping the city of Rome's history onto the stages of a human life. Its infancy, he said, fell under king Romulus, from whom Rome received both birth and, in a sense, its rearing; childhood followed under the later kings, under whose hand it grew larger and took shape through numerous disciplines and institutions. But once Tarquin took the throne, Rome — having reached something like young adulthood — found servitude intolerable, and, casting off arrogant domination's yoke, chose to answer to laws instead of kings. When its adolescence ended with the close of the war against Carthage, its strength now settled, it finally began entering young manhood. With its longstanding rival Carthage finally destroyed, Rome's power spread until sea and land alike, everywhere in the world, answered to it; then, once no king or nation remained unconquered and no enemy was left to fight, that same strength turned inward, gnawing away at Rome by Rome's own hand. This marked its first old age: torn apart by civil war and worn down by trouble from within, it collapsed back into rule by a single man, as though rolled backward into a second infancy. Having forfeited the freedom it once guarded under Brutus's leadership, it aged to the point where it could no longer stand unaided, needing the support of those who governed it as a crutch. Given all this, what else can follow old age but death? The gatherings of the prophets foretell that this will happen soon, veiling it under other names so that not everyone grasps it easily. The Sibyls, however, state plainly that Rome will fall, and indeed at God's own verdict, since Rome despised his name and, as an enemy to righteousness, butchered the people who were truth's own children. Hystaspes as well — an ancient king among the Medes, the very man from whom the river now known as the Hydaspes took its name — passed down to later generations, through the interpretation given by a boy who prophesied in his sleep, a marvelous dream: he announced, long before the Trojan people even existed, that the Roman empire and its name would vanish from the earth.
Lest anyone judge this unbelievable, I shall lay out how it will happen. To begin, the kingdom will multiply, its supreme power splintered and cut apart among many hands until it shrinks away. Civil strife will then be sown without end, and ruinous wars will allow no rest, until ten kings emerge together, dividing the world between them not to rule it but to use it up. Once these have swollen their armies to three... with their lands left empty — the start of overthrow and calamity. Everything will be wasted, broken apart, devoured. Then, all at once, a mighty enemy will rise up against them out of the farthest edge of the northern region; after wiping out three of the number who then hold Asia, he will be drawn into partnership by the rest and made supreme over everyone. Ruling with intolerable tyranny, he will torment the world, blend the human together with the divine, plot deeds too horrible and cursed to speak of, turn fresh schemes over in his mind to set up a kingdom of his own, overturn existing laws and impose his own, defile, plunder, ravage, and kill; and once his name is switched and the seat of power relocated, chaos and disorder will overtake the human race. A time will then arrive that is truly detestable and abominable, one in which no man finds life pleasant. Cities will be torn out by the roots and perish, not merely by sword and flame but by relentless earthquakes, floods, widespread disease, and recurring hunger. The very air will grow tainted, turning foul and disease-ridden, alternating between untimely downpours and pointless drought, between bitter cold and scorching heat, and the earth will yield man no harvest: no grain, no tree, no vine will produce fruit, but after promising the richest hope while flowering, they will fail at the moment of fruiting. Springs together with rivers will run dry, leaving not even water to drink, and what water remains will turn to blood or bitterness. As a result, four-footed creatures on land will perish, along with birds in the sky and fish in the sea. Marvelous signs will likewise fill the heavens, gripping human minds with utter dread — comets trailing tails, the sun gone dark, the moon discolored, stars dropping from where they course. None of this, however, will occur in familiar fashion; instead stars never before seen or known will suddenly appear. The sun will stay dim without ceasing, hardly letting day be told from night; the moon, rather than merely failing for three hours as before, will run unusual courses soaked continually in blood, leaving man unable to easily track the movement of the stars or reckon the seasons — summer will show up amid winter, winter amid summer. The year will contract, the month will shrink, and the day will be squeezed into a tight span, while stars fall in constant showers until the whole sky looks blind, stripped of every light. Even the tallest mountains will topple and be flattened level, and the sea will become impossible to sail. And so that nothing be missing from the calamities striking men and earth alike, a trumpet-blast will sound down from the sky, which the Sibyl announces in these words: a trumpet out of heaven will let loose a voice heavy with lament. Everyone, at that, will panic and shake at the sound of such mourning. Then, driven by God's wrath against men who never acknowledged righteousness, sword, fire, hunger, and disease will run wild, with a dread that never lifts hanging over everything besides. People will pray to God then, and get no answer; they will long for death, and it will not arrive. Not even nighttime will offer their fear any relief, nor will sleep touch their eyes, but worry and wakefulness will wear their souls thin; they will weep, groan, and grind their teeth, envying those already dead while mourning those still living. Through such troubles, among many others, the earth will become an empty waste, and the world will be left marred and abandoned — just as the Sibylline verses put it: the world will turn into disorder itself, as mankind perishes. The human race will be reduced so severely that barely a tenth of men will survive, and where a thousand once set out, scarcely a hundred will now come forth. As for God's worshippers, two-thirds of them will perish too, and the surviving third — the ones proven faithful — will remain.
Let me lay out more clearly how this will unfold. Once the ages draw near their close, God will send a great prophet to bring men to acknowledge him, and this prophet will be granted power to perform wonders. Wherever people refuse to listen, he will seal off the sky and hold back the rain, change water into blood, and inflict on them hunger and thirst, and if anyone attempts to harm him, fire will burst from his mouth and consume that person. Through such wonders and powers he will draw many toward worshipping God. When that prophet's mission concludes, a different king will appear, his origin Syrian and his begetting the work of a malevolent spirit; humankind will find in him its destroyer and its ruin, and along with himself he will eliminate whatever traces of the former evil still remain. This king will make war on God's prophet, defeat him, kill him, and leave his body lying unburied; yet on the third day the prophet will rise again and, while everyone watches in wonder, be swept up into heaven. That utterly vile king, however, will prove to be a false prophet himself, setting himself up and declaring himself god, demanding worship as though he were god's own son. He will be granted the power to perform signs and marvels, and through these he will trap people into adoring him. He will order fire down out of the sky, halt the sun in its path, and make an image speak, and all of this will happen at his command; wonders like these will lure in even a great number of learned people. He will then attempt to tear down God's temple and hunt down the righteous, bringing on distress and oppression unmatched since the world's beginning. Those who believe and join him will be branded like livestock, while anyone who rejects his mark will either escape to the hills or, once seized, be killed through elaborate torture. He will similarly bundle righteous men inside the scrolls of the prophets and set them ablaze. He will be permitted to ravage the earth across forty-two months. That period will see justice thrown away and innocence despised, with the wicked hunting down the good as enemies. No law, order, or military discipline will hold; nobody will honor age, recognize devotion's duty, or show mercy toward either sex or the very young — everything will collapse into confusion, mixed against what is right and against nature's own laws. In this way the whole earth will be plundered as though by one shared band of thieves. Once these things have come to pass, the righteous and those devoted to truth will cut themselves off from the wicked and escape into the wilderness. Hearing of this, the impious one, burning with rage, will march out with an enormous army, and, marshalling all his forces, will close in around the mountain sheltering the righteous, meaning to seize them. But once they see themselves hemmed in and surrounded on every side, they will cry out to God in a great voice and beg for aid from heaven, and God will listen to them, sending down a mighty king from heaven to pull them free and set them loose, wiping out the wicked entirely by sword and fire.