Annotatio CXC

”For a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past.” — Psalm 89:4

Jerome, in the epistolary exposition of the eighty-ninth Psalm to Cyprian, deduces from the present little verse that all the duration of the present age — from the founding of the world unto the day of judgment — is concluded within the space of six thousand years,¹ writing thus: “I judge, from this passage and from the epistle which is inscribed with the name of Peter, that a thousand years are wont to be called [as] one day: so that, namely, since the world was fabricated in six days, it is believed to subsist only six thousand years; and afterward comes the sevenfold and eightfold number, in which the true sabbatism is kept, and the purity of circumcision is restored — whence also by the eight beatitudes the rewards of good works are promised. But Peter writes in this manner: ‘Let this one thing not escape you, dearly beloved: that one day with God is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’² To the same sentence he alludes in the commentary on Micah, chapter 4, where he shows that the sixth and last hour of the sixth millennium is the time of the faith of the gentiles, in these words: ‘In the consummation of the ages our Savior appeared, and came at the eleventh hour to hire laborers; and, his passion being completed, John says: “Little children, it is the last hour.”³ For if, in the six thousand years, five hundred years be divided among the single hours of the day, the last hour, consequently, is the time of the faith of the gentiles.’”

This was of old the opinion of many Fathers of great name — chiefly of Justin, philosopher and martyr, in the book of Questions to the Gentiles, question 17, writing thus: “From very many words it may be understood that those speak truly who hand down that there are now six thousand years [of] time from the founding of the world. For sometimes Paul says: ‘In these last times he has spoken to us through the Son’;⁴ but elsewhere, ‘Upon whom the ends of the ages have come’;⁵ and sometimes also, ‘When the fulfilment of the times came.’⁶ But all these things were said in the six-thousandth year.”

Irenaeus, after him, in the fifth book Against Heresies, the last chapter, speaks to the same sentence thus: “In however many days this world was made, in so many thousand years is it consummated; and for this cause the scripture of Genesis says: ‘And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the ornament of them. And God finished on the sixth day all his works which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made.’⁷ But this is both a narration of things done — in what manner they were made — and a prophecy of things to come: for the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days were consummated the things that were made. It is manifest, therefore, that the consummation of these is the six-thousandth year.”

Lactantius, in book 7 of the Institutions, chapter 7, subscribes to Irenaeus in these words: “Let the philosophers know, therefore, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, that the six-thousandth year is not yet concluded; which number being completed, the consummation must needs come, and the state of human things be reformed for the better: the argument of which is, that God consummated the world — this admirable work of nature — as is contained in the secret [pages] of holy Scripture, in the space of six days; and he sanctioned the seventh day, in which he rested from [his] works. But this is the day of the Sabbath, which in the tongue of the Hebrews took its name from the number [seven] — whence the sevenfold number is legitimate and full: for there are also seven days, by whose alternating revolution the cycles of years are completed; and [there are] seven stars, which are called Wandering [planets], whose unequal courses and unequal motion are believed to effect the varieties of things and of times. Therefore, since all the works of God were perfected in six days, it is necessary that [the world] remain in this state through six ages — that is, six thousand years; for a great day of God is bounded by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet indicates, saying, ‘Before thy eyes, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day.’⁸ And as God labored in the making of so great things, so also his religion and truth must needs labor in these six thousand years, malice prevailing and dominating; and again, since” since, his works being perfected, God rested on the seventh day, and blessed it: it is necessary that, at the end of the six-thousandth year, all malice be abolished from the earth, and that justice reign for a thousand years, and there be tranquillity and rest from the labors which the world so long endures.” These things Lactantius.

Hilary, in the seventeenth canon on Matthew, expounding that [verse], “And after six days he was transfigured,” says:⁹ “When, after six days, the Lord’s glory is shown in [his] appearance, there is prefigured — the times, namely, of six thousand years being rolled out — the honor of the heavenly kingdom.”

Augustine, in book 20 On the City of God, chapter 7, explaining the thousand years during which John foresaw that Satan would be bound, wrote thus: “The ‘thousand years’ can, as far as occurs to me, be understood in two ways: either because this thing is done in the last thousand years — that is, in the sixth millennium of years, as [on] the sixth day, whose later spaces are now unrolling, the Sabbath being thereafter to follow, which has no evening (namely, the rest of the saints, which has no end) — so that he called this millennium, as it were the last part of the day (which will remain unto the end of the age), ‘a thousand years,’ by that manner of speaking whereby the part is signified by the whole; or else he certainly put ‘a thousand years’ for all the years of this age, that by a perfect number the very fulness of time might be denoted.”

Germanus, bishop of Constantinople, added to this number five hundred years, on the authority of illustrious Fathers of Greece. For he, when in the book which he entitled On the Theory of Ecclesiastical Things he inquired the cause why the pontiff, blessing the people, raises [his] fingers fitted to the computation of the number six thousand five hundred, speaks thus: “That the pontiff signs the people, hints at this: that the future coming of Christ will be in the six-thousand-five-hundredth year — from the computation of the fingers, signifying six thousand five hundred.” This also Hippolytus of Rome and Saint Cyril say in their books on Antichrist — that in the six-thousand-five-hundredth year the [second] coming will be; and likewise Chrysostom.

These things the Christian authors have handed down concerning the duration of the world. But among the Gentiles, that Hydaspes, Mercurius Trismegistus, and the Sibyls handed down the same, Lactantius is witness. And among the Hebrews there is had a most ancient tradition of the prophet Elias, in the Talmudic volumes, in the fourth order, in the fourth tractate whose title is Sanhedrin — that is, Judgment — in these words:

שתא אלפי שני להוי עלמא וחד חרב: ב אלפים תהו: ב אלפים תורה: ב אלפים ימות המשיח

that is (scitta alphe sene lehene alma, vechad chareb, be alaphim tohu, be alaphim tora, be alaphim iemot Hamasciach): “Six thousand years shall the world be, and then it shall be destroyed: two thousand [of] emptiness, two thousand [of the] Law, two thousand [of the] days of the Messiah.”

Ambrose, in the seventh book of the commentaries on Luke, expounding that [saying] of Matthew, “After six days he was transfigured,”¹⁰ indicates that he does not accept such a period of the world’s age: because in his own times more than six thousand years were already reckoned — by a reasoning, as I judge, entered upon from a certain computation of the years of the world peculiar to himself. For, according to the calculation of the Hebrew verity, in Ambrose’s time there had not yet passed four thousand four hundred years.¹¹ For the Hebrews reckon, from the founding of the world unto Christ, 3962 years; and from Christ unto the present year 1566, in which we write these things, 5528 years. Whence, if these things be true, at this time we are distant from the consummation of the world by 476 years — whether it be so, posterity itself shall see. We affirm nothing rashly, lest we fall into the error of Judas and of Lactantius:¹² of whom the former wrote that the fall of the world would be present in his own time — that is, in the two-hundredth year from the nativity of Christ; and the latter judged that from his own age unto the destruction of the world there would be not more than two hundred years — deceived by the false computations of the Greeks, which then almost all the ecclesiastical writers followed.

Augustine, in the exposition of the present Psalm, refutes those who wrested the proposed little verse to an opinion of this kind, in these words: “Men have dared to presume the knowledge of the times — which, to the disciples desiring to know it, the Lord [refused], saying, ‘It is not yours to know the times which the Father hath put in his own power’;¹³ and they have determined that this age can be finished in six thousand years, as [in] six days: nor have they attended to what is said, ‘As one day, which is past.’ For it was not, when this was said, [that] only a thousand years had passed; and that which ought most of all to have admonished them — lest they be deluded by the uncertainty of the times — is that [phrase], ‘As a watch in the night.’ For, just as they seem to have opined something plausible concerning the six days (on account of the first six days in which God perfected his works), [not] so also can the six watches — that is, eighteen hours — be adapted to that opinion.”