ACC ~ Revelation 20 v4

OVERVIEW:

During the life of the incarnate Lord, the apostles in a partial way rendered judgment, for they condemned those responsible for the death of the Christ (OECUMENIUS). Moreover, teaching thrones were given to them for the enlightenment of the nations, even as in the age to come thrones will be given to them for the judgment of those who rejected their teaching (ANDREW OF CAESAREA). However, even now in the present age the church is the kingdom of Christ in which the saints reign with Christ. These saints are themselves the kingdom of Christ, while the “weeds,” although in the church, do not even now reign with Christ. The temporal church in which the saints reign is of the living and of the departed saints, and this is indicated by the commemoration of the saints in the liturgy and by the necessity of baptism and of penance (AUGUSTINE).

Already at the time of Christ many who refused to conspire against Christ were martyred and their property confiscated (OECUMENIUS). The martyrs of the church do reign in death with a special splendor (AUGUSTINE), and the authority they have over the demons is evident in their miracles and their healings (ANDREW OF CAESAREA). However, the promises of God are not only for the martyrs and for the persecuted. Those who remain firm in their faith and do not succumb to idolatry will also be honored along with the martyrs of Christ (CYPRIAN). Similarly, those who live according to their faith by refusing the hypocrisy of deception and bad morals will reign with Christ (AUGUSTINE). Finally, even as those who followed Christ lived the reasonable life and defeated demons with works of power (OECUMENIUS), so at the resurrection of the dead the martyrs and all faithful will reign with Christ by the sign of Christ’s most glorious passion (APRINGIUS).

20:4a | Those to Whom Judgment Was Committed

THOSE REIGN WITH CHRIST WHO ARE HIS KINGDOM. AUGUSTINE: During the “thousand years” when the devil is bound, the saints also reign for a “thousand years” and, doubtless, the two periods are identical and mean the span between Christ’s first and second coming. For not only in that future kingdom to which Christ referred in the words, “Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you,” but even now those saints reign with him in some authentic though vastly inferior fashion. To them he said, “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” … This, to be sure, is the period in which the scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven brings forth from his storeroom things new and old, as I mentioned above. So, too, the reapers are to gather up out of the church the weeds, which he allows to grow intermixed with the wheat up to the time of harvest. … This certainly cannot be the kingdom that is to be utterly without scandals. The kingdom from which scandals are gathered out, then, must be the church on earth. … The mixed kingdom must be the church, such as she exists in her temporal stage, while the unmixed kingdom is the church such as she will be when she is to contain no evildoer. Consequently the church, even in this world, here and now, is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Here and now Christ’s saints reign with him, although not in the way they are destined to reign hereafter; but the “weeds” do not reign with him, even now, though they grow along with the “wheat” in the church. … Those alone reign with Christ whose presence in his kingdom is such that they themselves are his kingdom. … Now it is of this militant stage of the kingdom, during which there is still war with our enemy, alternating victory over, and defeat before, our evil inclinations, that the Apocalypse speaks. The “thou-sand years” are to last until we come to that kingdom, free of the foe, where the saints reign in fullest peace. … After mentioning the devil’s chaining for a thousand years and his brief interval of freedom to follow, John sums up the activity of and in the church during the “thousand years”: “And I saw thrones, and men sat upon them and judgment was given to them.” Now there is no question of the last judgment in this verse. The thrones and the enthroned people are the prelates who govern the church here and now. And the judgment is best interpreted as the one contained in the words, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” CITY OF GOD 20.9.

THE APOSTLES JUDGED THOSE WHO DID NOT BELIEVE. OECUMENIUS: He explains yet more fully the life of the incarnate Lord, namely, that which now meets us in the vision. For it says, “Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed.” He sees the holy apostles to whom the promise was made that they would “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Although this will be fulfilled more completely in the coming age, it did happen partially at the time of the incarnation. For when they believed in the Lord and shared in a multitude of blessings, they condemned those who did not wish to come to the faith and those who, although they had been taught by the grace given to the apostles, did not advance to the same piety but rather plotted his death on the cross. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 20.4-8.

CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE WHO REJECT THE GOSPEL. ANDREW OF CAESAREA: Indeed, the teaching thrones had already been given to the holy apostles through whom the nations have been enlightened. However, thrones will also be given according to the purpose of God in the age to come for the condemnation of those who rejected the preaching of the gospel. As David said, “For there the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, as a testimony for Israel,” and again, “For there are set thrones for judgment.” COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 20.4.

20:4b | The Souls Who Had Been Beheaded

THE FIRM IN FAITH AND LIFE WILL BE HONORED. CYPRIAN: The rewards of divine promise do not await only the persecuted and the slain. If passion is lacking in the faithful, yet if the faith has remained sound and unconquered and, after forsaking all his possessions and so continuing in this way, shows that he follows Christ, he also is honored among the martyrs of Christ, as he himself says: “There is no one who leaves house, or land, or parents, or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who shall not receive much more in the present time, and in the age to come life everlasting.” In the same way in the Apocalypse he says: “And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the name of Jesus and the Word of God.” And when he had put those beheaded in the first place, he added saying, “And who did not worship the image of the beast, and did not accept his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands.” And all these he joins together as seen by him in the same place and says, “And they came to life and reigned with Christ.” He says that all live and reigned with Christ, not only those who have been slain. He is referring to those who stand in the firmness of their faith and who in the fear of God have not adored the image of a beast and have not consented to his deadly sacrilegious edicts. EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM 5.12.

THE CHURCH REIGNS WITH CHRIST. AUGUSTINE: We are to understand as implied by the words that come further on that these souls of the martyrs “reigned with Christ a thousand years”—of course, not yet reunited with their bodies. For the souls of the faithful departed are not divorced from Christ’s kingdom, which is the temporal church. If they were, we should not be mindful of them at God’s altar in the communion of the body of Christ; nor would there be any point in hastening one’s baptism in time of danger, lest one die unbaptized; nor in seeking reconciliation, when one has been cut off from Christ’s body by a sinful conscience or by the church’s penitential discipline. Why do we go to all this trouble if the faithful departed are not still Christ’s members? We may be sure, then, that their souls reign with him, just as their bodies will in time to come, even while the thousand years are rolling on. … We conclude, therefore, that even now, in time, the church reigns with Christ both in its living and departed members. “For to this end Christ died,” says Paul, “and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” If John mentions only the souls of the martyrs, that is because they who have battled for the truth unto death reign in death with a special splendor. But as the part is here used for the whole, we know that the words apply to the remaining faithful who belong to the same church, which is Christ’s kingdom. CITY OF GOD 20.9.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO DID NOT CONSPIRE AGAINST CHRIST. OECUMENIUS: And it says, “and the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God.” These, in common with the others, he saw sitting on thrones and judging the rest of humankind. It says that they were “beheaded,” for they had been killed by the axe. He is speaking figuratively about the members of those who died for the sake of the faith in Christ and especially those who were martyred for the faith. For to be sure, [the Jews] caused them to be thrown outside the synagogues with much revilement and they confiscated for themselves their property, as the wise apostle testifies, for they believed completely in Christ. The Lord also spoke about these persons: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” And following the thought of the narrative and holding captive every idea in obedience to the holy Scriptures, you will consider those who did not worship the beast or receive his mark and his image to be those who did not conspire with the rest of the Jews in their plots against the Lord, nor [did they wish] to obey the suggestions of the devil, who is hated of God. For this would be to worship him and also his image. The imprint of his will upon the hearts of the Jews he calls an “image,” which he also calls a “mark,” which encompasses both their guiding and their active principles. For the head, of which the forehead is a member, is representative of the guiding principle, while the hand is representative of the active principle. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 20.4-8.

MARTYRS CONTINUE TO DEMONSTRATE THEIR POWER OVER THE DEMONS. ANDREW OF CAESAREA: Judgment, that is, the authority to judge, was given to the rest of the saints, namely, to the martyrs who suffered for Christ and did not receive the mark of that spiritual beast, the devil, that is, the image of his apostasy. And as we can see, even to the present time they judge the demons by this authority, for they reign with Christ until the consummation of the present age and are honored by pious kings and faithful rulers and demonstrate their God-given power against every bodily weakness and demonic activity. It is clear that the devil, the antichrist and the false prophet share with one another both their deeds and their names, since each of them is called “beast,” and the dragon, clearly Satan, is shown with seven heads and ten horns with as many diadems. Moreover, the beast that comes up out of the sea, clearly the antichrist, appears in a similar form and testifies to the same will and activity for the destruction of those who have been deceived. Those who have been freed from this will reign with Christ in the manner just mentioned until his second coming, and after that they will enjoy more abundantly the promises of God. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 20.4.

THEY REIGN WITH CHRIST WHO REFUSE FALSE FAITH AND BAD MORALS. AUGUSTINE: This verse should be applied to both the living and the dead. … As to the identity of the beast in question, there is need of very careful study. Nevertheless, consistently with sound faith, one may take it to be the godless city as opposed to the city of God, men and women without faith as opposed to those who believe. The beast’s “image,” I think, is his deception as found, for example, in such people as profess the faith yet live like pagans. For they pretend to be what, in fact, they are not, and are called Christians, not because of full faith but of false face. The beast possesses, in addition to the openly avowed enemies of Christ’s name and of his glorious city, the “weeds” that are marked for uprooting from his kingdom, the church, at the end of the world. Those who do not follow the beast or his image are surely those who follow Paul’s admonition: “Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers.” Their not worshiping means their not agreeing with, their not becoming subjects to, unbelievers. Their not accepting his “mark” upon their “foreheads” and “hands” means that they refuse the stigma of false faith and bad morals. Such people, alive or dead, keep themselves aloof from such evils and so reign with Christ, even now, in a fashion befitting the passage of time, throughout this whole era indicated by the “thousand years.” CITY OF GOD 20.9.

20:4c | They Came to Life

ALL MARTYRS AND FAITHFUL REIGN BY THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. APRINGIUS OF BEJA: The souls of all the martyrs and of all the Christian faithful who rise again and awaken from the dust of the earth shall reign, it says, with Christ for a thousand years. That is, they will reign by the sign of the cross and by the pre-eminence of the Lord’s passion. TRACTATE ON THE APOCALYPSE 20.4.

THOSE WHO FOLLOWED CHRIST. OECUMENIUS: “They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” He again speaks of a “thousand years” to indicate, as we said above, the sojourn of the Lord on the earth. During this time they lived the spiritual life and reigned with Christ, confronting demons and giving honor to suffering and bringing about a great many miracles. Not that one is only to be present with Christ, the King of glory, one should also reign with him. And so it is spoken by the prophet concerning them: “When the heavenly One scatters kings upon it, they will become white as snow on Zalmon.” COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 20.4-8.