ESCHATOLOGY. – From ἄρχεται, “last,” and λόγος, it is the doctrine concerning the ultimate end of humanity. It is generally divided into individual and collective eschatology.
I. IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS.
INDIVIDUAL ESCHATOLOGY. – Among primitive peoples, life after death is more or less imagined as a continuation of earthly life; this explains why the dead were lowered into the grave together with the utensils, clothing, animals, slaves, and women they had possessed during life. Moreover, the otherworldly environment, separated from the living and situated in the west, where the sun dies, reproduces more or less the setting in which the ethnic group lives, and is located on islands, in mountains, underground places, or among the stars, according as the group is seafaring, pastoral, cremating, inhuming, etc. The idea of gathering the dead in an underground 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, leaves the corpse but often returns to visit it; hence the necessity of embalming the corpse and of the funeral ritual. The deceased, having arrived in the kingdom of the dead situated in the west, appears before Osiris and the forty-two judges, pronouncing the negative confession of sins. If justified, he enters the kingdom of Osiris; otherwise his soul and personality are annihilated by a devouring monster. In Assyria and Babylonia, the deceased enters Arallā, a dark and dusty subterranean place situated in the west, through which a spring of life flows. There the fate of all is the same; 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 same life in the world of the fathers, where Yama, the first mortal, reigns. In the Brahmanic age there appears the theory of metempsychosis, according to which the soul is reincarnated until it is annihilated in the universal soul. In present-day Hinduism there is belief in a place of torment, not eternal but temporary, divided into seven sections according to the gravity of the fault, over which Yama reigns, having been elevated to the position of judge of the dead. Beside this place are the paradises of Indra, Vişnu, Śiva, and Brahma, reserved especially for the Brahmins; the soul reaches them after purifying itself of every fault through reincarnation. But these paradises too are not eternal: after a certain time the soul returns to incarnation until it re-enters the universal soul, which for the Hindus constitutes the ultimate end.
In Buddhism, the condition of individuals depends on transmigration from one existence to another, according to the actions performed in the preceding life. Only after attaining awareness of the suffering and evil of life can one achieve the supreme state, namely, the extinction of suffering in nirvana.
For the Mazdeans, immediately after death the soul finds itself confronted by demonic dangers, from which it is freed by the good guide Sraosha, who leads it to the Cinvai Bridge, between heaven and earth. There it awaits the judgment of Mithra. If the soul is guilty, it falls into the abyss; if justified, it enters paradise, foretold to it by a beautiful maiden.
In Homer, the soul, freed from the body, descends into Hades, situated within the earth, according to the Iliad, or in the far west, according to the Odyssey. There it leads an inert existence, enlivened only by the occasional tasting of the blood of sacrificed victims. In Homer there are no traces of rewards or punishments, since the Elysian Fields promised to Menelaus merely foreshadow immortality, in which he, as the son-in-law of Zeus, may participate. In the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., Orphism attempted to give the Greeks a more vivid vision of life beyond, which the soul could attain if it followed Orphic discipline. In Orphic Hades, two paths open up: the one on the right leads to the flowering fields of the good; the one on the left, where there is a spring shaded by a white cypress, leads to Tartarus, for the wicked.
The remains of the painted decoration of the tombs provide a gloomy vision of the Etruscan underworld, where the soul arrives on foot, on horseback, or in a chariot, and where demons hold sway, represented with terrifying features. Charun is a demon, often winged and armed with a terrible hammer; Tuchulcha, another winged demon, has equine ears, a vulture’s beak for a mouth, and two snakes on his head; Aita (Pluto) and Phersepnei (Persephone) are the two rulers of the subterranean world, while the Lase (Fates) cut the thread of life.
According to the Romans, after death the soul descends into Orcus, where it leads a shadowy life resembling that lived on earth, “made more bearable by sacrifices” and by the funerary offerings of the survivors. This dwelling is connected with the living by means of a ritual pit called the mundus.
This sad vision was rendered less lugubrious by the Orphic and Neoplatonic theories that spread in Rome toward the end of the Republic, of which there is an example in Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis and a description in Book VI of the Aeneid. Having reached Orcus through the cavern near Lake Avernus, Aeneas crosses the Acheron and, after passing through the ante-inferno, where the children, those violently slain, and the victims of fatal passions are found, arrives at a crossroads. To the left lies Tartarus, which appears from afar to be enclosed 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 laurel groves, not only continue 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 soul’s immortality remained alive throughout the Empire, reaching its culmination in the first century in the grandiose syncretism of solar theology, which saw in the sun the principle of the universe and ultimately made the soul return to it as well, since the soul was regarded as one of its sparks.
Muslims imagine that after death the deceased will be subjected to the judgment of the two angels Munkar and Nakr, seated respectively to the right and left of the tomb; but it is not clear how Muhammad conceived the condition of the soul between death and the final resurrection.
E. COLLECTIVE. — Mazdeism seeks to ensure universal salvation through the promise of a kingdom in which the righteous will enjoy happiness, since evil will no longer have a place there. This will occur 3000 years after Zarathustra, who appeared 3000 years after the first man. The Persians imagined a great cosmic period of 1200 years, in relation to the 12 signs of the zodiac, itself divided into four periods of 3000 years, corresponding to the four seasons. At the end of the world Zarathustra, moving from the East, will, through a sacrifice, render the demons powerless; they will then be destroyed by the good spirits. The resurrection of the dead will follow, together with the final judgment, with the good entering paradise and the wicked hell, for only 3 days. Finally, a fiery river, 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; at the end of the world, evil 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. By contrast, the souls still under the dominion of darkness, after losing in the purifying fire their last particle of light, will remain as 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, each lasting 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 an apparent destruction of the world will take place, in which all the elements, human beings, and gods are reabsorbed into Brahma, the universal substance. Brahma then falls into a long sleep, and when it awakens, the series of things will begin again from the first age.
Late Buddhism also accepted the idea of the kalpa, with the accompanying cataclysm followed by rebirth.
The Stoics, following Ecaclito, recognized in fire the vital principle of matter and the force determining the succession of events in a series of periods. They further held that at the end of each period all the elements of the world, including 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, human beings will scatter like butterflies and the mountains will fly like snowflakes (Cor. 1. 3. 4). If God, in his judgment, finds him righteous, the Muslim will cross the Sirkt bridge, stretched over the abyss, in order to enter the paradise of delight, at Allāh’s right hand. By contrast, the unbeliever forever, and the wicked Muslim for a period of time, will fall from the bridge into the infernal abyss full of fire, considered sometimes as a moving entity that Allāh will cause to advance on the day of the universal judgment, and sometimes as static, divided into 7 circles and having 7 gates.
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 and O. Prockach, Eschatologie, in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. II, 2nd ed., there 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. EKRONELI SYSTEMS
J. Weiss (1892), following the hints of T. Colani and W. Baldenberger, was the first to seek in eschatology the essence of Christ’s message. Jesus is supposed to have taught the imminent end of the universe (cosmic eschatology); everything else is a creation of the Christian community, formed spontaneously in expectation of the end. Even evangelical morality, for the liberal rationalists the sole authentic expression of Christ’s teaching, would be contingent and provisional (Interimæthik). 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: Lc. 17, 20–18, 8; these would correspond to Paul’s clear conviction that he would witness, together with his contemporaries, parousia (v.) of Christ (I Thess. 4, 14–17; I Cor. 15, 51), and to 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 in existence until 1914.Prepared by E. Troeltsch and M. Köhler, the second period extended from 1922 to 1927: its representatives were K. Barth (Römerbrief, 2nd ed., Berna 1922) and the proponents of Formengeschichte (R. Bultmann, M. Dibelius, etc.). Eschatology is detached from time; it is no longer cosmic, but only individual. The Kingdom of God is the heavenly one. Christianity not only turns wholly toward eternity, but is actually foreign to this world, without any relationship to time or history (ungeschichtliche eschatology). Revealed doctrine is thus replaced by a philosophical-theological conception of our relations with the hereafter.
K. Heim (1926) initiated the third tendency, in an attempt to reconcile the two preceding ones. He admits an eternal element within time, as a “preformation” of eternity. This 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 take place at the end of time (Ph. Bechmann, W. Künnet, W. G. Kümmel, O. Cullmann, etc.). “The essential element of the nearness of the kingdom is not the final date, but the certainty that Redemption constitutes the decisive stage in 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 that it has exaggerated beyond measure, thereby distorting 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 writings predating Christ, contain nothing different (A. Médebielle, coll. 503–14).
II. E. IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. — In the Old Testament, eschatology is only collective, national, and messianic: everything is directed toward the Kingdom of the Messiah, who will elevate and absorb the nation as such, renewed within the post-exilic community (v. MESSIA 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 days to come” (Gen. 49:1; Num. 24:14, etc.). In a messianic context (Is. 2:2; Mt. 4:1, etc.; cf. Ez. 38:6, 16; Dan. 10:14: in novissimis diebus or in novissimo diorum), it indicates the end of the era or of the times of the Old Testament (the etymological sense of 'aḥārith) and the beginning of the messianic era, regarded as perfect and definitive: the Kingdom of the Messiah will last forever (Dan. 7:14-27, etc.; Lk. 1:32 f.). This is the conception of the entire New Testament: the messianic age is called καιρός ἕπανος (I Pt. 1:5, 20; Ind. 18; I Tim. 4:1; I Io. 2:18); πληρωμᾶ τοῦ χρόνου (Gal. 4:4); τῶν καιρῶν (Eph. 1:10); τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων (I Cor. 10:11); συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων (Hebr. 9:26; cf. F. Spadafora, Ezechiele, Torino 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 Jahveh,” that is, the various manifestations of Jahveh’s vengeance against the nations (“the sun shall be darkened,” “the stars shall fall,” etc.; Is. 13:10; 24; 34; Ex. 32:7 f.; Iod. 2:10; 3:15; Soph. 1:15; etc.), are merely grandiose metaphors (J.-M. Lagrange; L. De Grandmaison; A. Médebielle, coll. 493-503); the same is true in Mt. 24:29; Mc. 13:24 f.; Lk. 21:25 f.
“New heavens and a new earth” are likewise mere images expressing the profound renewal that the Messiah will bring about among human beings (Is. 65:17; 66:22; II Pt. 3:13; cf. the παλεντεύσια of Mt. 19:28; the καπνή κτίσις of Gal. 6:15; II Cor. 5:17; the passage from death to life in Io. 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 (Is. 34:10; 66:15; Dan. 7:13 ff., etc.; Mt. 16:27; 26:63 f.; Mc. 14:61 f., etc.) are merely descriptive, characteristic of the prophetic style.
The eschatology of the New Testament is individual and universally collective. Kingdom of God (v.) has a twofold phase, earthly and heavenly, in perfect continuity; between them there is only a difference of degree, not of nature (E. B. Allo, op. cit., p. cxiv f.). The Kingdom of God has already been inaugurated (Mt. 11:12-15; 12:28; Lk. 16:16; 17:20 f.; I Cor. 15:25); it must grow (Mt. 13:31 f.), throughout the whole world (Mc. 3:13-19; 6:7-13; 13:9 f.; 16:15 f., 20; Act. 1:8; etc.), and pass to the Gentiles (Mt. 8:10 ff.; 21:33-46; 22:2-10, etc.); it is identified with the Church, headed by Peter (Mt. 16:13-20; Io. 21:15 ff.; I Cor. 12; Rom. 12:3-8, etc.); it includes both good and wicked (Mt. 13:24-30, 36-43, 47-50; 25:1-13, etc.); it is the economy of Grace (Io. 1:16 f.; Rom. 3:21-31, etc.), with a new moral legislation (Mt. 5, 6); it requires a spiritual rebirth (Io. 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, and in heaven the life of glory (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 by the first and, if he perseveres, passes into the other immediately upon death. Hence the importance of “being prepared,” of “keeping watch,” so as not to fear this “day of the Lord,” this “coming” of his (v. FABUSIA), which for us is sudden because entirely unknown (Mt. 24:37-51; 25:1-30; Mc. 13:32-37; Lk. 12:16-21, 35-46; 17:26-35; 21:24-36; Rom. 13:11-14; 14:10 f.; I Cor. 3:10-15; 7:20-32; 10:1-12; Phil. 2:15 f.; etc.), as well as the desire of the just person “to die in order to be with Christ” (II 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: 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 human beings will rise at a sign from the Most High; the just, with their glorified bodies, will fly upward toward Christ, while the wicked will return to eternal punishment with their accursed bodies (cf. Mt. 25:31-46; V. JUDGMENT). Christ will present the elect to the Father, placing everything in his hands (I Thess. 4:14-17; I 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 eschatology, of transformations and destructions of the physical world. It is said only that human life will cease.
There is Elijah (v.) Antichrist (v.); for II Thess. 2:1-12, preference should be given to the exegesis that refers the passage to the end of Jerusalem (“the apostasy” = Hebr. 6:6-8; 10:26-38; “the persecutions” = Mc. 13:11-13, etc.; “the lawless one,” “the adversary,” “the antichrist,” cf. I Io. 2:18-22, are the Jews, the Zealots, and their leaders, against whom Paul writes in I and II Thessalonians; they will establish themselves in the Temple, Flavius Josephus, Bell. Ind., V, 1-38, 98-105, 562-66; Mt. 24:15; Mc. 13:14; J. Huby, p. 343; F. Prat, J.C., II, p. 247; L. Tondelli, Gesù Cristo, pp. 288-99). In reality, I-II Thessalonians are an echo of Jesus’ discourse on the end of Jerusalem (Mt. 24; A. Plummer, Commentary on II Tess., 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 teaching, the conversion of Israel after that of all the Gentiles (Rom. 11:25 f.), and the thousand years (Apoc. 20), a symbolic figure for an indefinite and, at the very least, exceedingly long duration (Allo, Apoc., pp. cxx, 307-29), lead one to infer a period by no means brief (cf. Médebielle, coll. 525-36).
The Synoptic texts, called “eschatological,” are not such; they merely foretell the destruction of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Church. The former was the most resounding manifestation of the justice of the glorious Messiah, described in prophetic style as the “coming of Christ”: Mt. 10, 23; 26, 63 f.; Lc. 22, 69 (Lagrange, Matthieu, pp. 205, 507 f.; Luc., p. 572 f.; A. Feuillet, in Nouvelle revue théol., 71 [1949], pp. 701-707; F. Prat, J. C., II, p. 349). Mt. 16, 27 f. speaks of the Church’s assertion: the coming of the Son of Man (as in Dan. 7, 13 f.). Lc. 9, 26 f. speaks of the coming of the Kingdom of God, that is, of the Church, as an external organization definitively distinct from the Synagogue (Lagrange, Matthieu, p. 233; Luc. 269 f.; Spadafora, pp. 17 ff., 25 ff.). The two predictions are joined in Lc. 17, 20-18, 8 and in Mt. 24; Mc. 13; Lc. 21. In Lc. 17, Jesus answers the Pharisees, who, mistakenly relying on Dan. 7, 13 f., expected the Kingdom of God to appear as one of the empires which it was to succeed, that it was already in their midst; it had entered the world unnoticed. Then, turning to the disciples, who were likewise deluded (Dan. 7, 13) concerning the Messiah’s temporal glory (Lc. 9, 46 ff.; etc.), he foretells the grave persecutions awaiting them after his death. On their behalf he will intervene in an unmistakable manner, especially on his “day,” mentioned in chap. 21; they must therefore not allow themselves to be deceived by false announcements of deliverance. Verse 22 clearly says that Jesus is not speaking of his physical coming at the end of the world, but of manifestations of his power (“one of the days”), to punish the persecutors and liberate his faithful. Among these manifestations, that against the deicidal city stands out unmistakably (Mt. 10, 23; 26, 63 f.); the destruction of the Temple and of worship, signifying the end of the era of the Old Testament and the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecies (Lc. 13, 34 ff.; 19, 42 ff.). It also marked the end of the fierce Jewish persecution of the Church (Hebr. 13, 7; 10, 32 ff.; Act. 4, 1-31; 5, 17 ff.; 6, 11 ff.; 7, 54-8, 3; 12, 1-4; etc.). Jesus is speaking to the faithful of Palestine; the promised deliverance is directly for them (Lc. 21, 28, 31).
Jesus therefore refers to this specific punishment (17, 25, 30). Instead of investigating its time (cf. I Thess. 2, 1-11), the disciples should take care always to remain in grace, since during the national punishment they too could be overtaken by death (vv. 26-30, 33-36). The Apostles ask where the punishment will fall; Jesus answers with a proverbial expression (Iub. 29, 30); the prey is Jerusalem; the vultures are the legions of Rome (cf. Mt. 24, 28). Through prayer the faithful will be able to hasten the Messiah’s intervention (18, 1-8; cf. Act. 4, 23-31; 12, 5, 12; L. Tondelli, Gesù, pp. 364-68; A. Feuillet). The literary relations between Lc. 17 and Mt. 24, Mc. 13, Lc. 21 are evident (Lagrange, Luc., p. 462): they are two discourses on the same subject, delivered on different occasions; Matthew and Mark preserved only the second. Those who have seen in it a prophecy also of the end of the world (Lagrange, Huby, Buzy, etc.) have referred Mt. 24, 36 to it rather than Mt. 24, 34, as the entire evangelical context requires. In reality, however, it concerns only the end of Jerusalem. The Apostles ask when the destruction of the Temple will occur and what signs will precede it (Lagrange, Evangile, p. 465 f.). Mt. 24, 36; Mt. 10, 23, etc.; and Mt. 24, 36; Hebr. 9, 26. It is the end of a world, not the end of the world (Spadafora, pp. 10-45). Nor is it possible to posit in the answer 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 world (Rom. 1, 8; Col. 1, 6). The immediate and unmistakable sign of the end is the advance of the Roman army upon Jerusalem (Lc. 21, 20), the profanation of the Temple carried out by the Zealots (Mt. 24, 15; Mc. 13, 14); the only escape is flight. The great calamity then begins, the siege; no one would escape it if God did not shorten its duration for the sake of the faithful who will be caught up in it (Mt. 24, 21-25; Mc. 13, 20-23; Lc. 21, 23b). The epilogue of the tragedy, with the deliverance of the survivors, will be manifest and unmistakable like lightning flashing from east to west: cf. Mt. 24, 26 ff. (Lc. 17, 23 f. 37), which, together with Lc. 21, 24, serves as a transition between the calamity thus far described and the final act. The latter is announced in the grandiose images of prophetic style (Mt. 24, 20; Mc. 13, 24; Lc. 21, 25 f.). Mt. 24, 30a is merely a reference to the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zach. 12, 2: not a physical vision (cf. Mt. 26, 64; Mc. 9, 1), but recognition of the vindication of the Cross; just 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 were punished for the crucifixion of Christ.
The end of the Jewish nation will be deliverance for the Church (Lc. 21, 28), and its development will benefit from II. This manifestation of Christ on behalf of the Church is expressed in Mt. 24, 30b, Mc. 13, 26 (Dan. 7, 13 f.; cf. Mt. 36, 63 f.), with the descriptive elements (Mt. 24, 31; Mc. 13, 27) that ordinarily accompany it (cf. Mt. 16, 27 f.; for ἐπισυνέχεια cf. Mt. 23, 27); and in proper terms by Lc. 21, 28, 31.
With the parable of the fig tree (Mt. 24, 32 ff.; Mc. 13, 28 f.; Lc. 21, 29 ff.) Jesus places this prophecy of comfort and victory for his Church in the first position, coordinating with it the prediction of the end of Jerusalem. Everything would certainly take place within that generation, while the exact moment remains undisclosed (Mt. 24, 34 ff.). Warnings to vigilance follow, as in Lc. 21, 17.
Just as all of Pauline teaching (cf. II Cor. 5, 1-10; Phil. 1, 21-26; Rom. 11, 25 f.; etc.) requires the exclusion of every error, illusion, or change in the Apostle concerning the imminence of the parousia (cf. Allo, Apoc., pp. cxxiv-xxxv), so his repeated and clear affirmations concerning 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 living survivors, at the parousia of the Lord, will not precede our dead. For, at the heavenly sign, we shall all rise first, and then fly toward Christ together, we who survive today together with the departed whom we mourn.” περιλεισόμενοι has always been joined with εἰς τὴν παρουσίαν, understood as “we left for the parousia” and taken in the future; but in V. 17 it is repeated without any further addition; nor is περιλεισθέντι ever constructed with elç. St. Paul corrects the excessive mourning of the Thessalonians by reminding them (in addition to the truth that the just are already with Christ) of the final resurrection, which will restore forever to our affection those bodies now dissolved. Finally, I Cor. 15, 51: “We shall all rise again (as the Latin version correctly translates: οὐ καυτρόνησεθα), and we shall all be transformed.” The negation concerns only the verb; it is contrary to syntax to refer it to the πάντες as though it were a limitation.