68. Three opinions of the faithful as to when the Lord will come
THE RECKONING OF TIME
sixth millenium the day of Judgement will come, though its arrival is generally to be expected around the end of the sixth millenium. If you ask them where they have read that such things should be thought or believed, they immediately become vexed, and because they have nothing else to answer they say: ''Have you not read in Genesis how
God made the world in six days? Hence it deservedly ought to be believed that it will exist for more or less six thousand years.''
Whatismoreserious,thereweresomewhobelieved,onaccountofthe seventh day on which God rested from his works, that after six thousand years in which the saints labour in this life, they would reign with Christ inthe Seventh Ageafterthe Resurrection, inthis same life [but] immortal, and in the midst of pleasures and great happiness. Giving such things a wide berth, because they are heretical and frivolous, let us understand in aplainandcatholicmannerthosesixdaysinwhichGod¢nishedadorning this world, and the seventh in which He rested from all His work, and which for this reason He consecrated with a blessing of perpetual rest.
These signify, not six thousand years /537/ of labour and a seventh of the reignoftheblessedonearthwithChrist,butrathersixAgesofthis£eeting worldinwhichthe saintslabourinthislifeforChrist,andthe SeventhAge of rest in another life which the holy souls, released from their bodies,will possess in Christ. This sabbath of the souls is rightly believed to have begun when Christ's ¢rst martyr [i.e. Abel], slain in the £esh by his brother, was translated in spirit into eternal rest. But it will come to an end when the souls shall have received incorrupt bodies on the day of resurrection. And because none of the ¢ve Ages in the past is found to have run its course in a thousand years, but some in more, some in less, and none had the same total of years as another, it follows that this [Age] likewise, which is now running its course, will also have a duration uncertain to mortal men, but known to Him alone who commanded His servants to keep watch with loins girded and lamps alight like men waiting fortheirlord, when he shall return fromthe marriagefeast.4
68. THREE OPINIONS OF THE FAITHFUL AS TO WHEN
THE LORD WILL COME
To be sure, all the saints wait attentively for the hour of His coming and long for it to arrive quickly. But they behave rather dangerously if any
4 Luke 12.35^36.