The Two Reigns and the Judgment of the Nations

This is not a punishment from God against those standing in injustice. It is clear that evils will not prevail against the one undergoing training, but he will rise up as if from sleep, just as it was said in the third Psalm: even if he falls seven times according to the proverb, he will rise (Ps 92:1b; Prov 24:16).

It is possible, therefore, and how much more appropriate to speak of the clothing of glory and the girding of power in relation to the knowledge concerning men, rather than regarding the dishonor of Christ's former presence and human weakness. He himself also brings forward in it the sustaining of the inhabited world for good, which can no longer be moved in any way.

He says that the unjust cannot partake of your kingdom, those who bring toil upon those guarding the laws, by whom the righteous is hunted for capture and he who does no injustice is murdered (Ps 93:20). In these things, the destruction of injustice is shown generally, being established by the justice of God. You said, 'You will not give dominion to the evil, but you will set safety for the righteous, establishing it as a refuge for him and the hopes that hold fast to you'; and what the wicked thought would proceed against the righteous, these things will turn back and upon them themselves; and just as they worked to make the righteous vanish, so they will go into vanishing. This is the end of the vengeance from you.

Let God be known, whom we revere, he who has the heaven and the glory supra-heavenly, to whom beauty is present, to whom power and majesty are beyond words5:6); that is, according to the incorporeal and divine excellence, since the physical magnitudes of the temples have been granted to the bodily, and beauty to technical precision, and wealth to luxury, and to the nations concerning demons. In Israel, indeed, even if these things were present, they occurred according to a type of the invisible things from the beginning, and it is said through Moses, and it yields to the invisible; especially now during the present Gospel, when spiritual excellence is sought and perceived, but also the old way is present for the wise, just as with Solomon, the greatest and most luxurious, since he was the greatest, having built a temple for the God who spoke, saying that even the heaven cannot contain the glory of God. The Lord has reigned differently then and differently now, hearing (Ps 96:1)...

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For indeed, from the former presence he reigned as one decisively condemning sin in the holy flesh and having abolished death. And in the second reign, through each of his partakers, having overcome evil and corruption, so that men shall finally arrive to behold the treasury of eternal life being filled with the life from him, already being able and seeing the glory of his kingdom appearing in them as in a royal house, while making the adversaries invisible as fire melts wax.

Therefore, the earth rejoices again, as it says, and the many islands, that is, the nations, are glad (Ps 96:7-8); then after that, the earth shall labor and the mountains shall melt. How does he speak of the saints, and how does he speak of the adversaries, of whom he also depicts the highness through pride as mountains, and makes the destruction of their pride like the melting of mountains? And to the strangers, he shows fear and constriction by meeting them with clouds and darkness before the sight of the Lord; but to those receptive of light, he says his lightning flashes and glory is being seen, and furthermore, the judicial fire shall consume the ungodly, the righteousness of the Lord being revealed from heaven, as the apostle says. But the psalmist says the being revealed from heaven is announced by naming the appearance of the heavens as an angel, and that he establishes the heaven by righteousness and judgment, as if speaking upon some foundation. He makes it clear that the throne is not a physical thing, but that the kingdom is called a throne.

Those who worship idols through much insensitivity and foolishness, whom they themselves have adorned with statues, he prays will be ashamed, having received sense. For such a thing will be for the beautiful ones. For they will turn away, having been ashamed of this foolish notion, which they held as if they were gods.

An enemy and an adversary to God, the evil one, will not oppose a thing that is of nature (Ps 96:10). For that which is contrary to nature is not divided from the good nature, nor is it possible to find any nature which is called evil; for we do not have such a thing in our knowledge, so that knowing it we might hate it, but we recognize all evil as a work according to wickedness, and the hatred of this, if we think well, we are prepared to treat equally.