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Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
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Preface, Explaining His Design in Undertaking This Work.
Chapter 5.—Cæsar’s Statement Regarding the Universal Custom of an Enemy When Sacking a City.
Chapter 6.—That Not Even the Romans, When They Took Cities, Spared the Conquered in Their Temples.
Chapter 9.—Of the Reasons for Administering Correction to Bad and Good Together.
Chapter 10.—That the Saints Lose Nothing in Losing Temporal Goods.
Chapter 11.—Of the End of This Life, Whether It is Material that It Be Long Delayed.
Chapter 13.—Reasons for Burying the Bodies of the Saints.
Chapter 14.—Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein.
Chapter 17.—Of Suicide Committed Through Fear of Punishment or Dishonor.
Chapter 19.—Of Lucretia, Who Put an End to Her Life Because of the Outrage Done Her.
Chapter 20.—That Christians Have No Authority for Committing Suicide in Any Circumstances Whatever.
Chapter 21.—Of the Cases in Which We May Put Men to Death Without Incurring the Guilt of Murder.
Chapter 22.—That Suicide Can Never Be Prompted by Magnanimity.
Chapter 25.—That We Should Not Endeavor By Sin to Obviate Sin.
Chapter 26.—That in Certain Peculiar Cases the Examples of the Saints are Not to Be Followed.
Chapter 27.—Whether Voluntary Death Should Be Sought in Order to Avoid Sin.
Chapter 31.—By What Steps the Passion for Governing Increased Among the Romans.
Chapter 32.—Of the Establishment of Scenic Entertainments.
Chapter 33.—That the Overthrow of Rome Has Not Corrected the Vices of the Romans.
Chapter 34.—Of God’s Clemency in Moderating the Ruin of the City.
Chapter 36.—What Subjects are to Be Handled in the Following Discourse.
Chapter 1.—Of the Limits Which Must Be Put to the Necessity of Replying to an Adversary.
Chapter 2.—Recapitulation of the Contents of the First Book.
Chapter 5.—Of the Obscenities Practiced in Honor of the Mother of the Gods.
Chapter 6.—That the Gods of the Pagans Never Inculcated Holiness of Life.
Chapter 15.—That It Was Vanity, Not Reason, Which Created Some of the Roman Gods.
Chapter 21.—Cicero’s Opinion of the Roman Republic.
Chapter 24.—Of the Deeds of Sylla, in Which the Demons Boasted that He Had Their Help.
Chapter 28.—That the Christian Religion is Health-Giving.
Chapter 29.—An Exhortation to the Romans to Renounce Paganism.
Chapter 6.—That the Gods Exacted No Penalty for the Fratricidal Act of Romulus.
Chapter 7.—Of the Destruction of Ilium by Fimbria, a Lieutenant of Marius.
Chapter 8.—Whether Rome Ought to Have Been Entrusted to the Trojan Gods.
Chapter 13.—By What Right or Agreement The Romans Obtained Their First Wives.
Chapter 15.—What Manner of Life and Death the Roman Kings Had.
Chapter 19.—Of the Calamity of the Second Punic War, Which Consumed the Strength of Both Parties.
Chapter 24.—Of the Civil Dissension Occasioned by the Sedition of the Gracchi.
Chapter 26.—Of the Various Kinds of Wars Which Followed the Building of the Temple of Concord.
Chapter 27.—Of the Civil War Between Marius and Sylla.
Chapter 28.—Of the Victory of Sylla, the Avenger of the Cruelties of Marius.
Chapter 1.—Of the Things Which Have Been Discussed in the First Book.
Chapter 2.—Of Those Things Which are Contained in Books Second and Third.
Chapter 4.—How Like Kingdoms Without Justice are to Robberies.
Chapter 5.—Of the Runaway Gladiators Whose Power Became Like that of Royal Dignity.
Chapter 11.—Concerning the Many Gods Whom the Pagan Doctors Defend as Being One and the Same Jove.
Chapter 13.—Concerning Those Who Assert that Only Rational Animals are Parts of the One God.
Chapter 15.—Whether It is Suitable for Good Men to Wish to Rule More Widely.
Chapter 17.—Whether, If the Highest Power Belongs to Jove, Victoria Also Ought to Be Worshipped.
Chapter 18.—With What Reason They Who Think Felicity and Fortune Goddesses Have Distinguished Them.
Chapter 27.—Concerning the Three Kinds of Gods About Which the Pontiff Scævola Has Discoursed.
Chapter 2.—On the Difference in the Health of Twins.
Chapter 5.—In What Manner the Mathematicians are Convicted of Professing a Vain Science.
Chapter 6.—Concerning Twins of Different Sexes.
Chapter 7.—Concerning the Choosing of a Day for Marriage, or for Planting, or Sowing.
Chapter 10.—Whether Our Wills are Ruled by Necessity.
Chapter 15.—Concerning the Temporal Reward Which God Granted to the Virtues of the Romans.
Chapter 19.—Concerning the Difference Between True Glory and the Desire of Domination.
Chapter 20.—That It is as Shameful for the Virtues to Serve Human Glory as Bodily Pleasure.
Chapter 22.—The Durations and Issues of War Depend on the Will of God.
Chapter 24.—What Was the Happiness of the Christian Emperors, and How Far It Was True Happiness.
Chapter 25.—Concerning the Prosperity Which God Granted to the Christian Emperor Constantine.
Chapter 26.—On the Faith and Piety of Theodosius Augustus.
Chapter 6.—Concerning the Mythic, that Is, the Fabulous, Theology, and the Civil, Against Varro.
Chapter 7.—Concerning the Likeness and Agreement of the Fabulous and Civil Theologies.
Chapter 9.—Concerning the Special Offices of the Gods.
Chapter 11.—What Seneca Thought Concerning the Jews.
Chapter 7.—Whether It is Reasonable to Separate Janus and Terminus as Two Distinct Deities.
Chapter 9.—Concerning the Power of Jupiter, and a Comparison of Jupiter with Janus.
Chapter 10.—Whether the Distinction Between Janus and Jupiter is a Proper One.
Chapter 12.—That Jupiter is Also Called Pecunia.
Chapter 14.—Concerning the Offices of Mercury and Mars.
Chapter 15.—Concerning Certain Stars Which the Pagans Have Called by the Names of Their Gods.
Chapter 17.—That Even Varro Himself Pronounced His Own Opinions Regarding the Gods Ambiguous.
Chapter 18.—A More Credible Cause of the Rise of Pagan Error.
Chapter 19.—Concerning the Interpretations Which Compose the Reason of the Worship of Saturn.
Chapter 20.—Concerning the Rites of Eleusinian Ceres.
Chapter 21.—Concerning the Shamefulness of the Rites Which are Celebrated in Honor of Liber.
Chapter 22.—Concerning Neptune, and Salacia and Venilia.
Chapter 26.—Concerning the Abomination of the Sacred Rites of the Great Mother.
Chapter 28.—That the Doctrine of Varro Concerning Theology is in No Part Consistent with Itself.
Chapter 3.—Of the Socratic Philosophy.
Chapter 6.—Concerning the Meaning of the Platonists in that Part of Philosophy Called Physical.
Chapter 8.—That the Platonists Hold the First Rank in Moral Philosophy Also.
Chapter 9.—Concerning that Philosophy Which Has Come Nearest to the Christian Faith.
Chapter 10.—That the Excellency of the Christian Religion is Above All the Science of Philosophers.
Chapter 11.—How Plato Has Been Able to Approach So Nearly to Christian Knowledge.
Chapter 16.—What Apuleius the Platonist Thought Concerning the Manners and Actions of Demons.
Chapter 19.—Of the Impiety of the Magic Art, Which is Dependent on the Assistance of Malign Spirits.
Chapter 22.—That We Must, Notwithstanding the Opinion of Apuleius, Reject the Worship of Demons.
Chapter 25.—Concerning Those Things Which May Be Common to the Holy Angels and to Men.
Chapter 26.—That All the Religion of the Pagans Has Reference to Dead Men.
Chapter 27.—Concerning the Nature of the Honor Which the Christians Pay to Their Martyrs.
Chapter 1.—The Point at Which the Discussion Has Arrived, and What Remains to Be Handled.
Chapter 4.—The Opinion of the Peripatetics and Stoics About Mental Emotions.
Chapter 11.—Of the Opinion of the Platonists, that the Souls of Men Become Demons When Disembodied.
Chapter 14.—Whether Men, Though Mortal, Can Enjoy True Blessedness.
Chapter 15.—Of the Man Christ Jesus, the Mediator Between God and Men.
Chapter 19.—That Even Among Their Own Worshippers the Name “Demon” Has Never a Good Signification.
Chapter 20.—Of the Kind of Knowledge Which Puffs Up the Demons.
Chapter 21.—To What Extent the Lord Was Pleased to Make Himself Known to the Demons.
Chapter 22.—The Difference Between the Knowledge of the Holy Angels and that of the Demons.
Chapter 2.—The Opinion of Plotinus the Platonist Regarding Enlightenment from Above.
Chapter 4.—That Sacrifice is Due to the True God Only.
Chapter 6.—Of the True and Perfect Sacrifice.
Chapter 12.—Of the Miracles Wrought by the True God Through the Ministry of the Holy Angels.
Chapter 15.—Of the Ministry of the Holy Angels, by Which They Fulfill the Providence of God.
Chapter 22.—Whence the Saints Derive Power Against Demons and True Purification of Heart.
Chapter 24.—Of the One Only True Principle Which Alone Purifies and Renews Human Nature.
Chapter 27.—Of the Impiety of Porphyry, Which is Worse Than Even the Mistake of Apuleius.
Chapter 28.—How It is that Porphyry Has Been So Blind as Not to Recognize the True Wisdom—Christ.
Chapter 30.—Porphyry’s Emendations and Modifications of Platonism.
Chapter 3.—Of the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Composed by the Divine Spirit.
Chapter 6.—That the World and Time Had Both One Beginning, and the One Did Not Anticipate the Other.
Chapter 8.—What We are to Understand of God’s Resting on the Seventh Day, After the Six Days’ Work.
Chapter 9.—What the Scriptures Teach Us to Believe Concerning the Creation of the Angels.
Chapter 15.—How We are to Understand the Words, “The Devil Sinneth from the Beginning.”
Chapter 23.—Of the Error in Which the Doctrine of Origen is Involved.
Chapter 25.—Of the Division of Philosophy into Three Parts.
Chapter 27.—Of Existence, and Knowledge of It, and the Love of Both.
Chapter 31.—Of the Seventh Day, in Which Completeness and Repose are Celebrated.
Chapter 32.—Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World.
Chapter 1.—That the Nature of the Angels, Both Good and Bad, is One and the Same.
Chapter 5.—That in All Natures, of Every Kind and Rank, God is Glorified.
Chapter 7.—That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will.
Chapter 10.—Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past.
Chapter 23.—Of the Nature of the Human Soul Created in the Image of God.
Chapter 24.—Whether the Angels Can Be Said to Be the Creators of Any, Even the Least Creature.
Chapter 25.—That God Alone is the Creator of Every Kind of Creature, Whatever Its Nature or Form.
Chapter 1.—Of the Fall of the First Man, Through Which Mortality Has Been Contracted.
Chapter 6.—Of the Evil of Death in General, Considered as the Separation of Soul and Body.
Chapter 10.—Of the Life of Mortals, Which is Rather to Be Called Death Than Life.
Chapter 11.—Whether One Can Both Be Living and Dead at the Same Time.
Chapter 13.—What Was the First Punishment of the Transgression of Our First Parents.
Chapter 17.—Against Those Who Affirm that Earthly Bodies Cannot Be Made Incorruptible and Eternal.
Chapter 4.—What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God.
Chapter 6.—Of the Character of the Human Will Which Makes the Affections of the Soul Right or Wrong.
Chapter 12.—Of the Nature of Man’s First Sin.
Chapter 13.—That in Adam’s Sin an Evil Will Preceded the Evil Act.
Chapter 14.—Of the Pride in the Sin, Which Was Worse Than the Sin Itself.
Chapter 17.—Of the Nakedness of Our First Parents, Which They Saw After Their Base and Shameful Sin.
Chapter 18.—Of the Shame Which Attends All Sexual Intercourse.
Chapter 20.—Of the Foolish Beastliness of the Cynics.
Chapter 22.—Of the Conjugal Union as It Was Originally Instituted and Blessed by God.
Chapter 25.—Of True Blessedness, Which This Present Life Cannot Enjoy.
Chapter 28.—Of the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly.
Chapter 1.—Of the Two Lines of the Human Race Which from First to Last Divide It.
Chapter 2.—Of the Children of the Flesh and the Children of the Promise.
Chapter 3.—That Sarah’s Barrenness was Made Productive by God’s Grace.
Chapter 4.—Of the Conflict and Peace of the Earthly City.
Chapter 8.—What Cain’s Reason Was for Building a City So Early in the History of the Human Race.
Chapter 9.—Of the Long Life and Greater Stature of the Antediluvians.
Chapter 11.—Of Methuselah’s Age, Which Seems to Extend Fourteen Years Beyond the Deluge.
Chapter 13.—Whether, in Computing Years, We Ought to Follow the Hebrew or the Septuagint.
Chapter 14.—That the Years in Those Ancient Times Were of the Same Length as Our Own.
Chapter 17.—Of the Two Fathers and Leaders Who Sprang from One Progenitor.
Chapter 18.—The Significance of Abel, Seth, and Enos to Christ and His Body the Church.
Chapter 19.—The Significance Of Enoch’s Translation.
Chapter 2.—What Was Prophetically Prefigured in the Sons of Noah.
Chapter 3.—Of the Generations of the Three Sons of Noah.
Chapter 4.—Of the Diversity of Languages, and of the Founding of Babylon.
Chapter 5.—Of God’s Coming Down to Confound the Languages of the Builders of the City.
Chapter 6.—What We are to Understand by God’s Speaking to the Angels.
Chapter 8.—Whether Certain Monstrous Races of Men are Derived from the Stock of Adam or Noah’s Sons.
Chapter 9.—Whether We are to Believe in the Antipodes.
Chapter 12.—Of the Era in Abraham’s Life from Which a New Period in the Holy Succession Begins.
Chapter 14.—Of the Years of Terah, Who Completed His Lifetime in Haran.
Chapter 16.—Of the Order and Nature of the Promises of God Which Were Made to Abraham.
Chapter 20.—Of the Parting of Lot and Abraham, Which They Agreed to Without Breach of Charity.
Chapter 25.—Of Sarah’s Handmaid, Hagar, Whom She Herself Wished to Be Abraham’s Concubine.
Chapter 33.—Of Rebecca, the Grand-Daughter of Nahor, Whom Isaac Took to Wife.
Chapter 34.—What is Meant by Abraham’s Marrying Keturah After Sarah’s Death.
Chapter 37.—Of the Things Mystically Prefigured in Esau and Jacob.
Chapter 39.—The Reason Why Jacob Was Also Called Israel.
Chapter 41.—Of the Blessing Which Jacob Promised in Judah His Son.
Chapter 42.—Of the Sons of Joseph, Whom Jacob Blessed, Prophetically Changing His Hands.
Chapter 1.—Of the Prophetic Age.
Chapter 14.—Of David’s Concern in the Writing of the Psalms.
Chapter 19.—Of the 69th Psalm, in Which the Obstinate Unbelief of the Jews is Declared.
Chapter 21.—Of the Kings After Solomon, Both in Judah and Israel.
Chapter 4.—Of the Times of Jacob and His Son Joseph.
Chapter 6.—Who Were Kings of Argos, and of Assyria, When Jacob Died in Egypt.
Chapter 7.—Who Were Kings When Joseph Died in Egypt.
Chapter 8.—Who Were Kings When Moses Was Born, and What Gods Began to Be Worshipped Then.
Chapter 9.—When the City of Athens Was Founded, and What Reason Varro Assigns for Its Name.
Chapter 10.—What Varro Reports About the Term Areopagus, and About Deucalion’s Flood.
Chapter 13.—What Fables Were Invented at the Time When Judges Began to Rule the Hebrews.
Chapter 14.—Of the Theological Poets.
Chapter 17.—What Varro Says of the Incredible Transformations of Men.
Chapter 19.—That Æneas Came into Italy When Abdon the Judge Ruled Over the Hebrews.
Chapter 28.—Of the Things Pertaining to the Gospel of Christ Which Hosea and Amos Prohesied.
Chapter 29.—What Things are Predicted by Isaiah Concerning Christ and the Church.
Chapter 30.—What Micah, Jonah, and Joel Prophesied in Accordance with the New Testament.
Chapter 32.—Of the Prophecy that is Contained in the Prayer and Song of Habakkuk.
Chapter 34.—Of the Prophecy of Daniel and Ezekiel, Other Two of the Greater Prophets.
Chapter 35.—Of the Prophecy of the Three Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Chapter 36.—About Esdras and the Books of the Maccabees.
Chapter 39.—About the Hebrew Written Characters Which that Language Always Possessed.
Chapter 51.—That the Catholic Faith May Be Confirmed Even by the Dissensions of the Heretics.
Chapter 53.—Of the Hidden Time of the Final Persecution.
Chapter 6.—Of the Error of Human Judgments When the Truth is Hidden.
Chapter 10.—The Reward Prepared for the Saints After They Have Endured the Trial of This Life.
Chapter 16.—Of Equitable Rule.
Chapter 17.—What Produces Peace, and What Discord, Between the Heavenly and Earthly Cities.
Chapter 19.—Of the Dress and Habits of the Christian People.
Chapter 20.—That the Saints are in This Life Blessed in Hope.
Chapter 23.—Porphyry’s Account of the Responses Given by the Oracles of the gods Concerning Christ.
Chapter 25.—That Where There is No True Religion There are No True Virtues.
Chapter 28.—The End of the Wicked.
Chapter 6.—What is the First Resurrection, and What the Second.
Chapter 8.—Of the Binding and Loosing of the Devil.
Chapter 15.—Who the Dead are Who are Given Up to Judgment by the Sea, and by Death and Hell.
Chapter 16.—Of the New Heaven and the New Earth.
Chapter 17.—Of the Endless Glory of the Church.
Chapter 18.—What the Apostle Peter Predicted Regarding the Last Judgment.
Chapter 22.—What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked.
Chapter 2.—Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for Ever in Burning Fire.
Chapter 3.—Whether Bodily Suffering Necessarily Terminates in the Destruction of the Flesh.
Chapter 4.—Examples from Nature Proving that Bodies May Remain Unconsumed and Alive in Fire.
Chapter 7.—That the Ultimate Reason for Believing Miracles is the Omnipotence of the Creator.
Chapter 9.—Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.
Chapter 14.—Of the Temporary Punishments of This Life to Which the Human Condition is Subject.
Chapter 16.—The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate.
Chapter 17.—Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.
Chapter 1.—Of the Creation of Angels and Men.
Chapter 2.—Of the Eternal and Unchangeable Will of God.
Chapter 7.—That the World’s Belief in Christ is the Result of Divine Power, Not of Human Persuasion.
Chapter 14.—Whether Infants Shall Rise in that Body Which They Would Have Had Had They Grown Up.
Chapter 15.—Whether the Bodies of All the Dead Shall Rise the Same Size as the Lord’s Body.
Chapter 16.—What is Meant by the Conforming of the Saints to the Image of The Son of God.
Chapter 17.—Whether the Bodies of Women Shall Retain Their Own Sex in the Resurrection.
Chapter 21.—Of the New Spiritual Body into Which the Flesh of the Saints Shall Be Transformed.
Chapter 29.—Of the Beatific Vision.
Chapter 30.—Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath.
Chapter 23.—What Daniel Predicted Regarding the Persecution of Antichrist, the Judgment of God, and the Kingdom of the Saints.
Daniel prophesies of the last judgment in such a way as to indicate that Antichrist shall first come, and to carry on his description to the eternal reign of the saints. For when in prophetic vision he had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth conquered by a certain king, who is recognized as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom of the Son of man, that is to say, of Christ, he says, “My spirit was terrified, I Daniel in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me,”1408 Dan. vii. 15–28. Passage cited at length. etc. Some have interpreted these four kingdoms as signifying those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. They who desire to understand the fitness of this interpretation may read Jerome’s book on Daniel, which is written with a sufficiency of care and erudition. But he who reads this passage, even half asleep, cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the last judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of the saints. For it is patent from the context that the time, times, and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year, that is to say, three years and a half. Sometimes in Scripture the same thing is indicated by months. For though the word times seems to be used here in the Latin indefinitely, that is only because the Latins have no dual, as the Greeks have, and as the Hebrews also are said to have. Times, therefore, is used for two times. As for the ten kings, whom, as it seems, Antichrist is to find in the person of ten individuals when he comes, I own I am afraid we may be deceived in this, and that he may come unexpectedly while there are not ten kings living in the Roman world. For what if this number ten signifies the whole number of kings who are to precede his coming, as totality is frequently symbolized by a thousand, or a hundred, or seven, or other numbers, which it is not necessary to recount?
In another place the same Daniel says, “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as was not since there was born a nation upon earth until that time: and in that time all Thy people which shall be found written in the book shall be delivered. And many of them that sleep in the mound of earth shall arise, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting confusion. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and many of the just as the stars for ever.”1409 Dan. xii. 1–3. This passage is very similar to the one we have quoted from the Gospel,1410 John v. 28. at least so far as regards the resurrection of dead bodies. For those who are there said to be “in the graves” are here spoken of as “sleeping in the mound of earth,” or, as others translate, “in the dust of earth.” There it is said, “They shall come forth;” so here, “They shall arise.” There, “They that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment;” here, “Some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting confusion.” Neither is it to be supposed a difference, though in place of the expression in the Gospel, “All who are in their graves,” the prophet does not say “all,” but “many of them that sleep in the mound of earth.” For many is sometimes used in Scripture for all. Thus it was said to Abraham, “I have set thee as the father of many nations,” though in another place it was said to him, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.”1411 Gen. xvii. 5, and xxii. 18. Of such a resurrection it is said a little afterwards to the prophet himself, “And come thou and rest: for there is yet a day till the completion of the consummation; and thou shall rest, and rise in thy lot in the end of the days.”1412 Dan. xii. 13.
CAPUT XXIII. Quid prophetaverit Daniel de persecutione Antichristi, et de judicio Dei, regnoque sanctorum.
1. Daniel de hoc ultimo judicio sic prophetat, ut Antichristum prius quoque venturum esse praenuntiet, atque ad aeternum regnum sanctorum perducat narrationem suam. Cum enim visione prophetica quatuor bestias significantes quatuor regna vidisset; ipsumque quartum a quodam rege superatum, qui Antichristus agnoscitur; et post haec aeternum regnum Filii hominis, qui intelligitur Christus: Horruit,0695 inquit, spiritus meus, ego Daniel in habitudinemea, et visus capitis mei conturbabant me. Et accessi, inquit, ad unum de stantibus, et veritatem quaerebam ab eo de his omnibus: et dixit mihi veritatem. Deinde, quid audierit ab illo, a quo de omnibus his quaesivit, tanquam eo sibi exponente, sic loquitur: Hae quatuor bestiae magnae, quatuor regna surgent in terra, quae auferentur, et accipient regnum sancti Altissimi: et obtinebunt illud usque in saeculum et in usque saeculum saeculorum. Et quaerebam, inquit, diligenter de bestia quarta, quae erat differens prae omni bestia, terribilis amplius: dentes ejus ferrei, et ungues ejus aerei, manducans et comminuens, et reliqua pedibus suis conculcans: et de cornibus ejus decem, quae erant in capite ejus, et de altero quod ascendit, et excussit de prioribus tria: cornu illud in quo erant oculi, et os loquens magna; et visus ejus major caeteris. Videbam, et cornu illud faciebat bellum cum sanctis: et praevalebat ad ipsos, donec venit vetustus dierum, et regnum dedit sanctis Altissimi: et tempus pervenit, et regnum obtinuerunt sancti. Haec Daniel quaesisse se dixit. Deinde quid audierit, continuo subjungens, Et dixit, inquit, id est, ille a quo quaesierat, respondit, et dixit, Bestia quarta, quartum regnum erit in terra, quod praevalebit omnibus regnis; et manducabit omnem terram, et conculcabit eam, et concidet. Et decem cornua ejus, decem reges surgent: et post eos surget alius, qui superabit malisomnes, qui ante eum fuerunt; et tres reges humiliabit, et verba adversus Altissimum loquetur: et sanctos Altissimi conteret. Et suspicabitur mutare tempora et legem: et dabitur in manu ejus usque ad tempus, et tempora, et dimidium temporis. Et judicium sedebit, et principatum removebuntad exterminandum et perdendum usque in finem; et regnum, et potestas, et magnitudo regum, qui sub omni coelo sunt, data est sanctis Altissimi. Et regnum ejus regnum sempiternum: et omnes principatus ipsi servient, et obaudient. Huc usque, inquit, finis sermonis. Ego Daniel, multum cogitationes meae conturbabant me, et forma mea immutata est super me, et verbum in corde meo conservavi. (Dan. VII, 15-28). Quatuor illa regna exposuerunt quidam Assyriorum, Persarum, Macedonum, et Romanorum. Quam vero convenienter id fecerint, qui nosse desiderant, legant presbyteri Hieronymi librum in Danielem, satis diligenter eruditeque conscriptum. Antichristi tamen adversus Ecclesiam saevissimum regnum, licet exiguo spatio temporis sustinendum, donec Dei ultimo judicio regnum sancti accipiant sempiternum, qui vel dormitans haec legit, dubitare non sinitur. Tempus quippe et tempora et dimidium temporis, annum unum esse et duos et dimidium, ac per hoc tres annos et semissem, etiam numero dierum posterius posito dilucescit, aliquando in Scripturis et mensium numero declaratur. Videntur enim tempora indefinite hic dicta lingua latina: sed per dualem 0696 numerum dicta sunt, quem latini non habent. Sicut autem Graeci, ita hunc dicuntur habere et Hebraei. Sic ergo dicta sunt tempora, tanquam dicerentur duo tempora. Vereri me sane fateor, ne in decem regibus, quos tanquam decem homines videtur inventurus Antichristus, forte fallamur, atque ita ille inopinatus adveniat, non existentibus tot regibus in orbe Romano. Quid enim si numero isto denario universitas regum significata est, post quos ille venturus est: sicut millenario, centenario, septenario significatur plerumque universitas, et aliis atque aliis numeris, quos nunc commemorare non est necesse?
2. Alio loco idem Daniel, Et erit, inquit, tempus tribulationis, qualis non fuit ex quo nata est gens super terram usque ad tempus illud. Et in tempore illo salvabitur populus tuus omnis qui inventus fuerit scriptus in libro. Et multi dormientium in terrae aggere exsurgent: hi in vitam aeternam, et hi in opprobrium et in confusionem aeternam. Et intelligentes fulgebunt sicut claritas firmamenti, et ex justis multi sicut stellae in saecula (Dan. XII, 1-3). Et adhuc sententiae illi evangelicae est locus iste simillimus, de resurrectione duntaxat mortuorum corporum. Nam qui illic dicti sunt esse in monumentis, ipsi hic dormientes in terrae aggere; vel, sicut alii interpretati sunt, in terrae pulvere. Et sicut ibi, procedent, dictum est; ita hic, exsurgent. Sicut ibi, Qui bona fecerunt, in resurrectionem vitae; qui autem mala egerunt, in resurrectionem judicii; ita et isto loco, Hi in vitam aeternam, et hi in opprobrium et in confusionem aeternam (Joan. V, 28, 29). Non autem diversum putetur, quod cum ibi positum sit, Omnes qui sunt in monumentis, hic non ait Propheta, Omnes; sed, Multi dormientium in terrae aggere. Ponit enim aliquando Scriptura pro omnibus multos. Propterea et Abrahae dictum est, Patrem multarum gentium posui te; cui tamen alio loco, In semine, inquit, tuo benedicentur omnes gentes (Gen. XVII, 5; XXII, 18). De tali autem resurrectione huic quoque ipsi prophetae Danieli paulo post dicitur: Et tu veni, et requiesce: adhuc enim dies in completionem consummationis; et requiesces, et resurges in sorte tua in fine dierum (Dan. XII, 43).