D. Two Small Doubts

274. Two small doubts remain: one is whether the resurrection of everyone will be at the same instant (the first argument touches on this [n.249]), and the other is at what instant - though not a determinate or specific one, yet what instant by comparison to the parts or hours of the natural day, as whether in an instant of the middle of the night, or some other instant that has a determinate relation to the parts of the natural day.

275. As to the first, Augustine in the whole of the cited chapter 20 [n.250, City of God] seems to determine of express intent that the resurrection of those who will be found dead at the coming of the Judge will precede in time the resurrection of those who will be found alive. But those who are alive, according to the words of the Apostle [n.249, I Thessalonians 4], “will be taken up to meet him etc.,” and there as is probable, according to Augustine, they will die and immediately afterwards rise; and so the resurrection of these latter will follow after the resurrection of the former.

276. Hence Augustine says [ibid.], “If we believe that the saints who will be found alive at Christ’s coming, and who will be taken up to meet him, will in that same taking up leave bodies mortal and return directly to the same bodies immortal, we will experience no difficulties in the words of the Apostle.” This also seems to be expressly indicated by the words of the Apostle, “the dead who are in Christ will rise first, then we etc.,” where, according to Augustine, the Apostle “exemplified in himself and in those who were alive with him the persons of those who will be found alive [sc. at Christ’s coming].”

277. As to the second doubt, it seems true prima facie that any instant at all has every relation to the parts of the natural day; for what in one part of the earth is an instant in the middle of the night is in another meridian an instant between midnight and midday, and in the meridian opposite the first an instant of midday, and so on about the individual instants that can be singled out in a natural day; therefore, comparing things in this way, the dead will rise in any and every hour of the natural day.

278. But since not without cause is a question raised about the hour of the resurrection, one must understand that those who ask it are asking about the hour in comparison to the region where the judgment of the resurrection will be, and to where those who are to rise will be transferred so as to be judged - transferred, I say, either after complete resurrection or before it through transfer of the collected dust. For both are possible to God, so that either they will be resuscitated in diverse places, perhaps where they were buried, or the dust will be collected from the individual places to the one place where all must come together after the resurrection to be judged; and in that place the resurrection of everyone will happen.

279. Now I mean by ‘dust’ any bodies whatever into which resolution is ultimately made, namely if into so much amount of fire and so much of water and so much of earth; and let an amount of fire be immediately next to the sphere of the moon above any point on the earth, and another amount directly in the diametrically opposite extreme in the sphere of fire, and let a third part be at the bottom of water or the middle or top of it, and the like.

280. All these parts, even a thousand thousands, are understood when ‘dust’ or ‘ash’ are spoken of. For when Christ says, “from the ends of the heavens” and “from the four winds” [Matthew 24.31], he himself does not mean that the dust we usually take in tombs has been dispersed to the furthest distance, but he means generally that ‘whatever bodies or parts dissolution may have been made into, those parts will be collected, and from the collected parts, that is, from the matter in them which was previously the matter of the corrupted body, the same body will again be restored’.

281. Now the place of the general judgment is reckoned probably to be the land of promise [Genesis 13.14-17, 17.8] or the valley of Josaphat [Joel 3, 2.12], or another determinate part there, or as large a part as will suffice for the reprobate (if indeed the elect will not be on the earth but “will be caught up to meet Christ in the air” [n.249]); and, consequently, the hour [of general judgment] must be understood with respect to that part of the earth.

282. But as to what is then said to be “in the middle of the night” (it is taken from Matthew 25.6 and from the Apostle in I Thessalonians 5.2, “Now the day of the Lord will come as a thief”), it does not seem it must be understood literally, because, although the Lord could make himself manifest to each singly, yet it is more probable - for the confusion of the reprobate (who will be seen by each other and the good) and for the glory of the elect (who will be seen by each other and the bad) - that it will be in an illumined place, and so there will not then in the place of resurrection and judgment be the darkness of the middle of the night. Therefore, in the hour perhaps in which Christ rose, in that hour, I say, in reference to the place mentioned, the dead will be resuscitated; or in the hour in which he was condemned by Pilate; or in the hour in which he expired on the cross - since we do not have certainty about this from Scripture. And whichever of these times be posited, the words ‘in the middle of the night’ must be expounded as signifying uncertainty.