ACC ~ Revelation 21 v1b

THE RESTLESS AND STORMY LIFE OF PEOPLE WILL PASS AWAY. AUGUSTINE: It is hard to know whether [the sea] will be dried up by the terrible heat of those flames or will itself be transformed into something better. For though we read that there will be a new heaven and earth, I cannot recall having ever seen mentioned a new sea, save perhaps in that verse of the Apocalypse, “a sea of glass similar to crystal.”Yet in that passage, John was not talking about the end of the world; moreover, he did not claim to have seen a sea proper, but something like a sea. Still, as prophecy is prone to intermingle the literal and metaphorical and so veil its meaning, it may be that in our present text, “and the sea is no more,” John was speaking of the identical sea he spoke of earlier: “And the sea gave up the dead that were in it.” For then, this world of ours, made restless and stormy by the lives of men (and, hence, figuratively, called the sea), will have passed away. CITY OF GOD 20.16.

THERE WILL BE NO MORE NEED OF COMMERCE. ANDREW OF CAESAREA: Concerning the sea, it says that “the sea was no more.” For what use is there of a sea when people no longer need to sail it or to acquire by means of it the goods grown in regions lying far away? Moreover the “sea” is symbolic of the turbulence and unsettledness of life, and so there will then be no need of it when there remains no trouble or fear among the saints. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 21.1.

Rev