63. De vera religione 26.48–27.50 (BA 8:90–94); my trans. (continued)
The Philosopher 75 lent of ages. . . . Just as death marks the endpoint of "the old man," so eternal life marks the goal of "the new man." The first is a person of sin; the second, a person of justice.
(27.50) Both of these lives are, no doubt, interrelated. One can live the entirety of one's life as the first of these—that is, the "old" or the "earthly"— but no one can live out this life as the "new" and "heavenly" except alongside the "old." It is necessary to begin from the "old," and one must continue until this visible death, though the "old" weakens as the "new" progresses. It is the same way for the whole human race, whose life, like that of a single individual, unfolds from Adam until the end of the ages and is arranged by the laws of divine providence so that it appears divided into two categories. One of these is constituted by the mob of impious who bear the image of "earthly men" from the beginning to the end of the ages. The other is the generations of people dedicated to the one God, from Adam until John the Baptist, and they live out the life of the "earthly man" in servitude to a certain righteousness. Their history is called the Old Testament, as though promising simply an earthly kingdom, but also holding the image of a new people and a New Testament, promising the kingdom of heaven. Meanwhile, the life of this people in its temporal phase begins with the coming of the Lord in humility and goes on until the Day of Judgment, when He will return in brightness. After this judgment, with the "old man" having been extinguished, there will be that change which promises us an angelic life: "All of us will be raised, but not all will be changed" (1 Cor 15:51).62 The people of holiness will be raised so that the remnants of the "old man" in them may be transformed into the new. The people of impiety who bore this "old man" from the beginning to the end will also be raised so as to be tossed headlong into a second death.63 time and eternity
For Augustine, eternity does not mean endless time; it is rather a timeless present utterly beyond past or future. Roland Teske has argued that this is the second of Augustine's two great contributions to Western metaphysical thought.64 The following passage anticipates the much, much lengthier and better-known formulation found in Book 11 of Confessions. This dense and rather subtle passage may require some mulling over.
62. Here Augustine is following the Vetus Latina, which has: "Omnes enim resurgemus, sed non omnes immutabimur." Some editions of the Vulgate have: "Non omnes quidem dormiemus, sed omnes immutabimur" (with the "non" omitted in some manuscripts), and this Vulgate reading is mirrored in the NAB: "We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed."
63. De vera religione 26.48–27.50 (BA 8:90–94); my trans. 64. Teske, "Augustine as Philosopher," esp. 24–25.