Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XXII/Chapter 3

Chapter 3.—Of the Promise of Eternal Blessedness to the Saints, and Everlasting Punishment to the Wicked.

Wherefore, not to mention many other instances besides, as we now see in Christ the fulfillment of that which God promised to Abraham when He said, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed,” so this also shall be fulfilled which He promised to the same race, when He said by the prophet, “They that are in their sepulchres shall rise again,” and also, “There shall be a new heaven and a new earth:&#160; and the former shall not be mentioned, nor come into mind; but they shall find joy and rejoicing in it:&#160; for I will make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people a joy.&#160; And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in

my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her.” &#160; And by another prophet He uttered the same prediction:&#160; “At that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.&#160; And many of them that sleep in the dust” (or, as some interpret it, “in the mound”) “of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” &#160; And in another place by the same prophet:&#160; “The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and shall possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.” &#160; And a little after he says, “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.” &#160; Other prophecies referring to the same subject I have advanced in the twentieth book, and others still which I have not advanced are found written in the same Scriptures; and these predictions shall be fulfilled, as those also have been which unbelieving men supposed would be frustrate.&#160; For it is the same God who promised both, and predicted that both would come to pass,—the God whom the pagan deities tremble before, as even Porphyry, the noblest of pagan philosophers, testifies.