ESCHATOLOGY. - From ἔσχατος, "last," and λόγος, it is the doctrine concerning the final end of humanity. It is generally distinguished into individual and collective e.
I. IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS.
INDIVIDUAL ESCHATOLOGY
Among primitive peoples, life after death is more or less imagined as the continuation of earthly life; this explains how the dead person was made to descend into the tomb with tools, clothing, animals, slaves, and the women he had while alive. Furthermore, the otherworldly environment, separated from the living and situated in the west where the sun dies, reproduces more or less that in which the ethnic group lives and is placed in islands, mountains, subterranean places and stars, according to whether the group is maritime, pastoral, cremating, burying, etc. The idea of gathering the dead in a subterranean place is found both among the peoples of the ancient East and among the classical peoples.
According to the Egyptians, after death, the ba or vital spirit, departs from the corpse, but often returns to visit it; hence the necessity of embalming the corpse and of the funeral ritual. The deceased, having reached the kingdom of the dead located in the west, presents himself to Osiris and to the forty-two judges, pronouncing the negative confession of sins. If justified he enters the kingdom of Osiris, otherwise his soul and his personality are annihilated by a devouring monster. In Assyria and in Babylonia the deceased enters the arallà, a dark and dusty subterranean place, situated in the west, in which a fountain of life flows. There the lot is the same for all; but worse is the condition of those who are forgotten in the world of the living.
For the Vedic Indian, after death, the soul continues the identical life in the world of the fathers, where Yama, the first mortal, reigns. In the Brahmanic age the theory of metempsychosis appears, according to which the soul is reincarnated, until it arrives at annihilation in the universal soul. In present-day Hinduism one notes the belief in a place of torments, not eternal but temporary, divided into seven compartments, according to the gravity of the guilt, over which Yama reigns, elevated to judge of the dead. Beside this place are the paradises of Indra, of Vişnu, of Śiva, of Brahma reserved particularly for the brahmans; the soul reaches them after having purified itself from every guilt through reincarnation. But not even these paradises are eternal, since the soul, after a certain time, returns to incarnate itself until it re-enters the universal soul, which for the Hindus constitutes the ultimate end.
In Buddhism the state of individuals depends on transmigration from existence to existence, according to the actions performed in the previous life. Only after having attained the consciousness of the sorrow and evil of life can one achieve the supreme state, that is, the extinction of sorrow in nirvana.
For the Mazdeans the soul, immediately after death, finds itself grappling with demonic snares, from which the good guide Sraosha frees it, leading it to the Cinvat bridge, between heaven and earth. Here the judgment of Mithra awaits it. If the soul is guilty it falls into the abyss; if it is justified it enters paradise, foretold to it by a most beautiful virgin.
In Homer, the soul freed from the body descends into Hades, situated within the earth, according to the Iliad, or in the extreme west, according to the Odyssey. Here it leads an inert life, enlivened only by the eventual tasting of the blood of sacrificed victims. In Homer, there are no traces of rewards or punishments; since the Elysian Fields promised to Menelaus only shadow forth the immortality of which he, as son-in-law of Zeus, can be a partaker. In the 7th-6th century B.C. Orphism attempts to give the Greeks a better vision of the life of the beyond, which the soul can reach if it has followed the Orphic discipline. In the Orphic Hades, two paths open: the one on the right leads to the flowery fields of the good, the one on the left, where there is a fountain shaded by a white cypress, to Tartarus, for the wicked.
The remains of the painted decoration of tombs give a gloomy vision of the Etruscan afterlife, where the soul arrives on foot or on horseback or in a chariot, and in which demons dominate, rendered under frightful appearances. Charun is a demon often winged and armed with a terrible hammer; Tuchulcha, another winged demon, has equine ears, a mouth like a vulture's beak and two serpents on his head; Aita (Pluto) and Phersepnei (Persephone) are the two kings of the underworld, while the Lase (Fates) cut the thread of life.
According to the Romans, after death, the soul descends into Orcus, where it lives a shadowy life similar to that led in life, "made more tolerable by the sacrifices" and by the funeral offerings of the survivors. This dwelling is in communication with the living, by means of a ritual pit called mundus.
The sad vision was made less gloomy by the Orphic and Neoplatonic theories, which spread in Rome toward the end of the Republic and of which there is a sample in Cicero's Somnium Scipionis and a description in Book VI of the Aeneid. Aeneas, having reached Orcus through the cave near the lake of Avernus, crosses the Acheron and after having passed the antechamber of hell, where children, the violently killed and the victims of fatal passions are found, arrives at a crossroads. To the left one goes into Tartarus, which appears from afar protected by a triple wall within which flows a river of fire, the Phlegethon; to the right one reaches the Elysian Fields, where the souls of the pious, amid flowers and sunny groves of laurel, not only attend to their customary occupations, but contemplate the order of the universe and listen to the harmony of the spheres, according to the Orphic-Pythagorean conception. In this way the hope of the immortality of the soul was kept alive during the Empire, culminating, in the 1st century, in the grandiose syncretism of solar theology, which saw in the sun the principle of the universe and into which it ultimately made the soul also re-enter, since it was considered a spark of it.
Muslims imagine that after death the deceased will be subjected to the judgment of the two angels Munkar and Nakir, seated one on the right and one on the left of the tomb; but it is not clear how Muhammad conceived the condition of the soul between death and the final resurrection.
COLLECTIVE ESCHATOLOGY
Mazdeism intends to ensure general salvation with the promise of a kingdom in which the righteous will enjoy happiness, evil no longer having a place there. This will come about 3000 years after Zarathustra, who appeared 3000 years after the first man. For the Persians imagined a great cosmic period of 1200 years, in relation to the 12 signs of the zodiac, divided in turn into four periods of 3000 years, corresponding to the four seasons. At the end of the world Zarathustra, setting out from the East, will by a sacrifice reduce the demons to powerlessness, and they will be destroyed by the good spirits. There will follow the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment with the entry of the good into paradise and of the wicked into hell, for only 3 days. Finally a river of fire, formed from all the elements, will purify the impious and cause the past to be forgotten, guaranteeing forever the blessed life and happy immortality.
Manichaeism too presents life as a struggle between good and evil, which, at the end of the world, will no longer cloud the souls that have accepted the Manichaean preaching and, already purified, are carried by luminous vessels into the kingdom of light, where they form the column of glory. On the contrary, the souls still under the dominion of darkness, after having lost in the purifying fire the last particle of light, will remain like a formless mass.
As a consequence of its immanentist conception of the cosmos, Brahmanism does not admit an e., but four ages of the world, of 1200 divine years: each divine year comprises 300 civil years; of the four ages three are mythical and the fourth corresponds to the historical age of India. A hundred of these ages form a kalpa at the end of which there will be produced an apparent destruction of the world, in which all the elements, men and gods, are reabsorbed into Brahma, the universal substance. This then falls into a long sleep, and when it awakens, the series of things will begin again from the first age.
Late Buddhism too has accepted the idea of the kalpa with its related cataclysm, which is followed by rebirth.
The Stoics, following Heraclitus, will recognize in fire the vital principle of matter and the principle determining the succession of events in a series of periods. They held moreover that at the end of each period all the elements of the world, not excluding the soul, were reabsorbed by fire in a conflagration (ἐκπύρωσις).
Islam considers the e. very similar to the Jewish and Christian one from which it derives. On the last day men will scatter like butterflies and the mountains will fly like snowflakes (Koran 1. 3. 4). If God in his judgment finds him righteous, the Muslim will pass over the bridge Sirkt, stretched over the abyss, to enter the paradise of delight, at the right hand of Allāh. On the contrary, the unbeliever forever and the wicked Muslim for a period of time will plunge from the bridge into the infernal abyss full of fire and considered at times as a movable thing that Allāh will make advance on the day of the universal judgment; at times as static, divided into 7 circles and with 7 gates.
Bibliography7 works
Paganism. Nuova Haven 1922; R. Reitzenstein, Die nordischen, persischen und christlichen vom Weltuntergang, Lipsia 1923; C. Pascal, Le credence d'altre tomba, 2nd ed., Torino 1924; P. D. Champagne de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte. I, 4th ed., Tubines 1925, p. 108-109; A. Berthelot e O. Prockach, Eschatologie, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. II, 2nd ed., ivi 1928, coll. 320-39; A. B. Davidson, Eschatology, in DB. I, pp. 734-41; J. A. Mac Culloch, Eschatology, in Hastings, Encyclopaedia biblica, II, coll. 1333-91.
Alberto Galleti
II. IN SACRED SCRIPTURE
I. ESCHATOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
J. Weiss (1892), following the hints of T. Colani and W. Baldensperger, was the first to seek in eschatology the essence of Christ's message. Jesus would have taught the imminent end of the universe (cosmic eschatology); everything else is a creation of the Christian community, which formed spontaneously to await the end. The same evangelical morality, the only authentic expression of Christ's teaching for the liberal rationalists, would be contingent and a stopgap (Interimsethik). The proof of this was seen in: Mt. 10:2 ff.; 16:27 f.; 19:28; 24 (especially v. 34); 26:63 f., and parallel passages: Lk. 17:20-18:8; to which would correspond Paul's clear persuasion that he and his contemporaries would witness the parousia (v.) of Christ (I Thess. 4:14-17; I Cor. 15:51) and the morbid expectation of the faithful. The expressions "day of the Lord," "parousia," "last times," etc. were understood as referring to the end of the world. This system (temporal eschatology, zeitgeschichtliche: A. Loisy, A. Schweitzer) or first aspect of the so-called eschatological school remained alive until 1914.
Prepared by E. Troeltsch and M. Köhler, the second period runs from 1922 to 1927: its exponents were K. Barth (Römerbrief, 2nd ed., Bern 1922) and the proponents of Formengeschichte (R. Bultmann, M. Dibelius, etc.). Eschatology is detached from time; no longer cosmic, but only individual. The Kingdom of God is the heavenly one. Christianity not only leans entirely toward eternity, but is altogether alien to this world, without any relation to time or history (ungeschichtliche eschatology). Revealed doctrine is thus replaced by a philosophical-theological conception of our relations with the afterlife.
K. Heim (1926) initiated the third tendency, in an attempt to reconcile the two preceding ones. He admits within time an eternal element, as a "preform" of eternity. And it is the eschatology of Christian Revelation (offenbarungsgeschichtliche). It recognizes in Christ's message and in his redemptive death the beginning of a new era, the last, whose full manifestation will come at the end of time (Ph. Bechmann, W. Künneth, W. G. Kümmel, O. Cullmann, etc.). "The essential element of the nearness of the kingdom is not the final date, but the certainty that the Redemption constitutes the decisive stage for the approach of the Kingdom of God" (O. Cullmann, Le retour..., p. 26 f.; cf. F. Holmström, F. M. Braun).
The error of this system is to have accentuated out of measure, falsifying it, one aspect of Jesus' authentic teaching (L. De Grandmaison, II, p. 293 ff.). The eschatological element must be sought in Revelation and not in the apocrypha and rabbinic literature, which moreover, in the writings prior to Christ, contain nothing different (A. Médebielle, coll. 503-14).
II. ESCHATOLOGY IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT
In the Old Testament the e. is only collective, national and messianic, since everything is strained toward the Kingdom of the Messiah, who will elevate and absorb the nation as such, renewed in the post-exilic community (v. MESSIAH and MESSIANISM). The idea of the end of the physical world is foreign to the Hebrew Bible. The expression bē-'aḥārith haj-jāmīm, in a prophetic context, simply expresses the future, "in the times to come" (Gen. 49:1; Num. 24:14 etc.). In a messianic context (Isa. 2:2; Matt. 4:1 etc.; cf. Ezek. 38:6, 16; Dan. 10:14: in novissimis diebus or in novissimo dierum) it indicates the end of the era or of the times of the Old Testament (etymological sense of 'aḥārith) and the beginning of the messianic era considered perfect and definitive: the Kingdom of the Messiah will last forever (Dan. 7:14-27, etc.:
Luke 1:32 f.). This is the conception of the entire New Testament: the messianic time is called: καιρός ἔσχατος (1 Pet. 1:5, 20; Jude 18; 1 Tim. 4:1; 1 John 2:18); πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου (Gal. 4:4); τῶν καιρῶν (Eph. 1:10); τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων (1 Cor. 10:11); συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων (Heb. 9:26; cf. F. Spadafora, Ezechiele, Turin 1948, pp. 280 f., 291 f.; E. B. Allo, Apocalypse, p. cxxix; J. Bonsirven, p. 307 f.).
The expressions used by the prophets to announce the "day of Yahweh," that is, the various manifestations of Yahweh's justice against the nations ("the sun will be darkened," "the stars will fall," etc.; Isa. 13:10; 24; 34; Ezek. 32:7 f.; Joel 2:10; 3:15; Zeph. 1:15; etc.) are merely grandiose metaphors (J.-M. Lagrange; L. De Grandmaison; A. Médebielle, coll. 493-503); likewise in Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24 f.; Luke 21:25 f.
"New heavens and a new earth" are likewise simple images, to express the profound renewal that the Messiah will bring about among men (Isa. 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; cf. the παλιγγενεσία of Matt. 19:28; the καινὴ κτίσις of Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17; the passage from death to life of John 5:24-28; E. B. Allo, op. cit., p. 325). Finally the various elements (angels, cloud, fire, etc.) that accompany the manifestations of God as judge (Isa. 34:10; 66:15; Dan. 7:13 ff., etc.; Matt. 16:27; 26:63 f.; Mark 14:61 f., etc.) are merely descriptive, characteristic of the prophetic style.
The e. of the New Testament is individual and collectively universal. The Kingdom of God (v.) has a twofold phase, earthly and heavenly, in perfect continuity; there is only a difference of degree between them, not of nature (E. B. Allo, op. cit., p. cxiv f.). The Kingdom of God is already inaugurated (Matt. 11:12-15; 12:28; Luke 16:16; 17:20 f.; 1 Cor. 15:25); it must grow (Matt. 13:31 f.), throughout the whole world (Mark 3:13-19; 6:7-13; 13:9 f.; 16:15 f., 20; Acts 1:8; etc.), pass to the gentiles (Matt. 8:10 ff.; 21:33-46; 22:2-10 etc.); it is identified with the Church, with Peter at its head (Matt. 16:13-20; John 21:15 ff.; 1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12:3-8 etc.); it includes good and bad (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43, 47-50; 25:1-13, etc.); it is the economy of Grace (John 1:16 f.; Rom. 3:21-31, etc.), with a new moral legislation (Matt. 5-6); it requires a spiritual rebirth (John 3:3-8; Rom. 6, etc.; cf. Médebielle, coll. 517-25; Bonsirven, pp. 213-306). It is the same "eternal life," here below the life of Grace, the life of glory in heaven (Rom. 2:7-10; 5:2 ff., 17; 6:4, 22 f., etc.; cf. J.-M. Lagrange, St Jean, p. cxxvii ff.; Bonsirven, p. 331). The baptized person lives the first and passes, if he perseveres, as soon as he dies into the other. Hence the importance of "being prepared," of "watching," so as not to fear this "day of the Lord," this "coming" of his (v. FABUSIA) which for us is sudden inasmuch as it is absolutely unknown (Matt. 24:37-51; 25:1-30; Mark 13:32-37; Luke 12:16-21, 35-46; 17:26-35; 21:24-36; Rom. 13:11-14; 14:10 f.; 1 Cor. 3:10-15; 7:20-32; 10:1-12; Phil. 2:15 f.; etc.) and the desire of the just man to "die to be with Christ" (2 Cor. 5:1-10; Phil. 1:21-26, etc.; cf. Bonsirven, pp. 311-15).
To this present effect of the Redemption must be joined the final one: the definitive victory over death in the resurrection (v.) of our bodies (Rom. 8:10-39). This triumph will close the earthly phase of the Kingdom of God: all men, at a sign from the Most High, will rise again; the just with their glorious bodies will fly on high toward Christ, while the wicked will return to eternal punishment with their accursed body (cf. Matt. 25:31-46; v. JUDGMENT). Christ will present the elect to the Father, handing everything back into his hands (1 Thess. 4:14-17; 1 Cor. 15:12-28, 50-57; cf. E. B. Allo, Ep. I Cor., pp. 387-454; Bonsirven, pp. 315-26). Here too, as in the Old Testament, there is no trace of a cosmic e., of mutations and destructions of the physical world. It is said only that human life will cease.
There is nothing of the return of Elijah (v.), of the struggle with the Antichrist (v.); for 2 Thess. 2:1-12 the exegesis that refers the pericope to the end of Jerusalem is to be preferred ("the apostasy" = Heb. 6:6-8; 10:26-38; "the persecutions" = Mark 13:11-13, etc.; "the lawless one," "the adversary," "the antichrist," cf. 1 John 2:18-22, are the Jews, the Zealots, their leaders, against whom Paul writes in 1 and 2 Thessalonians; they will install themselves in the temple, Flavius Josephus, Bell. Jud., V, 1-38, 98-105, 562-66; Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14; J. Huby, p. 343; F. Prat, J.C., II, p. 247; L. Tondelli, Gesù Cristo, pp. 288-99). In reality, 1-2 Thessalonians are an echo of Jesus' discourse on the end of Jerusalem (Matt. 24; A. Plummer, Commentary on II Thess., Edinburgh 1918, p. 46; J. B. Orchard, in Biblica, 19 [1938], pp. 19-42; D. Buzy, Ste Bible, ed. L. Pirot, XII, Paris 1938 p. 132 f.).
The New Testament does not determine the duration of the earthly phase of the Kingdom of God, the interval between the Redemption and the final resurrection. The synoptic doctrine, the conversion of Israel, after that of all the gentiles (Rom. 11:25 f.), the thousand years (Rev. 20), a symbolic figure for an indefinite and at the very least extremely long duration (Allo, Apoc., pp. cxx, 307-29), lead one to infer a period anything but brief (cf. Médebielle, coll. 525-36).
The Synoptic texts called "eschatological" are not such; they foretell only the destruction of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Church. The former was the most clamorous manifestation of the justice of the glorious Messiah, called in prophetic style the "coming of Christ": Mt. 10:23; 26:63f.; Lk. 22:69 (Lagrange, Matthieu, pp. 205, 507f.; Luc., p. 572f.; A. Feuillet, in Nouvelle revue théol., 71 [1949], pp. 701-707; F. Prat, J. C., II, p. 349). In Mt. 16:27f. there is talk of the affirmation of the Church: the coming of the Son of Man (as in Dan. 7:13f.). Lk. 9:26f., the coming of the Kingdom of God, that is, the Church, as an external organization, definitively distinct from the Synagogue (Lagrange, Matthieu, p. 233; Luc. 269f.; Spadafora, pp. 17ff., 25ff.). The two predictions are joined in Lk. 17:20-18:8 and in Mt. 24; Mk. 13; Lk. 21. In Lk. 17, Jesus, to the Pharisees, who, erroneously relying on Dan. 7:13f., expected the Kingdom of God to present itself as one of the empires to which it was to succeed, replies that it is already in their midst; it has entered the world unnoticed. Then, turning to the disciples who were equally deluded (Dan. 7:13) about the temporal glory of the Messiah (Lk. 9:46ff.; etc.), he predicts for them the grave persecutions that await them after his death. In their favor he will intervene, in an unmistakable way; especially in his "day," of which in ch. 21; they must therefore not let themselves be deceived by false announcements of liberation. V. 22 says clearly that Jesus is not speaking of his physical coming at the end of the world, but of the manifestations of his power ("one of the days"), to punish the persecutors and free his faithful. Among these manifestations there stands out without doubt that against the deicidal city (Mt. 10:23; 26:63f.); the destruction of the Temple and of the cult, sign of the end of the era of the Old Testament and fulfillment of Jesus' prophecies (Lk. 13:34ff.; 19:42ff.). It also marked the end of the fierce Jewish persecution against the Church (Hebr. 13:7; 10:32ff.; Act. 4:1-31; 5:17ff.; 6:11ff.; 7:54-8:3; 12:1-4; etc.). Jesus speaks to the faithful of Palestine; the promised liberation is directly for them (Lk. 21:28, 31).
Then Jesus refers to this determined punishment (17:25, 30). Instead of investigating its time (cf. I Thess. 2:1-11), the disciples should take care to be always in grace, so that in the national punishment they too may be surprised by death (vv. 26-30, 33-36). The Apostles ask where the punishment will fall; Jesus replies with a proverbial expression (Iub. 29, 30); the prey is Jerusalem; the vultures are the legions of Rome (cf. Mt. 24:28). The faithful by prayer will be able to hasten the intervention of the Messiah (18:1-8; cf. Act. 4:23-31; 12:5, 12; L. Tondelli, Gesù, pp. 364-68; A. Feuillet). The literary relationships between Lk. 17 and Mt. 24, Mk. 13, Lk. 21 are evident (Lagrange, Luc., p. 462); they are two discourses on the same subject delivered in different circumstances; Matthew and Mark have preserved only the second. Those who in this have seen also the end of the world announced (Lagrange, Huby, Buzy, etc.) have referred Mt. 24:36 to it, not Mt. 24:34, as the whole Gospel context requires. But in reality, it is a question only of the end of Jerusalem. The Apostles ask when the destruction of the Temple will take place and what signs will precede it (Lagrange, Evangile, p. 465f.). Mt. 24:36; Mt. 10:23, etc.; and Mt. 24:36; Hebr. 9:26. And it is the end of a world, not the end of the world (Spadafora, pp. 10-45). Nor is it possible to fix in the reply a transition to another subject (B. Rigaux, p. 224; F. Segarra, in Biblica, 19 [1938], pp. 351-54). Jesus begins with the remote signs: wars, collective disasters, persecutions against the disciples, and finally, the preaching of the Gospel throughout the whole world (Rom. 1:8; Col. 1:6). The proximate and unmistakable sign of the end is the advance of the Roman army on Jerusalem (Lk. 21:20), the profanation of the Temple committed by the Zealots (Mt. 24:15; Mk. 13:14); the only escape is flight. Then begins the great calamity, the siege; no one would escape it if God did not shorten its duration for the faithful who will fall into it (Mt. 24:21-25; Mk. 13:20-23; Lk. 21:23b). The epilogue of the tragedy with the liberation of the survivors will be manifest and unmistakable like the lightning that flashes from east to west: cf. Mt. 24:26ff. (Lk. 17:23f., 37), which with Lk. 21:24 serve as a transition between the calamity described thus far and the final act. This is announced with the grandiose images of prophetic style (Mt. 24:20; Mk. 13:24; Lk. 21:25f.). Mt. 24:30a is only a reference to the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zach. 12:2: not a physical vision (cf. Mt. 26:64; Mk. 9:1), but recognition of the vindication of the Cross; in the same way as in 16:19, 37 for Zach. 12:10. It will be a general mourning of the Jewish people, who will have to acknowledge that they have been punished for the crucifixion of Christ.
The end of the Jewish nation will be the liberation for the Church (Lk. 21:28), whose development will benefit from it. Such a manifestation of Christ in favor of the Church is expressed in Mt. 24:30b, Mk. 13:26 (Dan. 7:13f.; cf. Mt. 36:63f.), with the descriptive elements (Mt. 24:31; Mk. 13:27) that ordinarily accompany it (cf. Mt. 16:27f.; for ἐπισυνέχεια cf. Mt. 23:27); and in terms proper from Lk. 21:28, 31.
With the parable of the fig tree (Mt. 24:32ff.; Mk. 13:28f.; Lk. 21:29ff.) Jesus places in the first position this prophecy of comfort and victory for his Church, coordinating with it the prediction of the end of Jerusalem. All will surely take place within that generation, while its exact moment is left unstated (Mt. 24:34ff.). There follow the warnings for vigilance, as in Lk. 21:17.
As the whole Pauline teaching (cf. II Cor. 5:1-10; Phil. 1:21-26; Rom. 11:25f.; etc.) imposes the exclusion of any error, illusion, or evolution in the Apostle regarding the nearness of the parousia (cf. Allo, Apoc., pp. cxxiv-xxxv), so his repeated and clear affirmations on the universality of death and resurrection (A. Ronco, in Verb. Dom., 14 [1934], pp. 328-36) must guide the exegesis of I Thess. 4:15 and I Cor. 15:51. "We the living, who survive, at the parousia of the Lord will not arrive before our dead. For if the heavenly sign comes, we shall all rise first, and then we shall fly toward Christ together, we who survive today with the dead whom we mourn." One has always joined περιλεισόμενοι with εἰς τὴν παρουσίαν, understanding "we left for the parousia" and taking it as future; but at v. 17 it is repeated without any further addition; nor is περιλεισθέντι ever constructed with εἰς. St. Paul corrects the excessive mourning of the Thessalonians by reminding them (besides the truth that the just man is already with Christ) of the final resurrection that will restore to our affection forever even those bodies now dissolved. Finally I Cor. 15:51: "We shall all rise (as the Latin version well translates: οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα), and we shall all be transformed." The negation concerns only the verb; it is against syntax to refer it to πάντες as though it were a limitation.