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But who are the dead which were in the sea, and which the sea
presented? For we cannot suppose that those who die in the sea are not
in hell, nor that their bodies are preserved in the sea; nor yet,
which is still more absurd, that the sea retained the good, while hell
received the bad. Who could believe this? But some very sensibly
suppose that in this place the sea is put for this world. When John
then wished to signify that those whom Christ should find still alive
in the body were to be judged along with those who should rise again,
he called them dead, both the good to whom it is said, "For ye are
dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God," and the wicked of
whom it is said, "Let the dead bury their dead." They may also be
called dead, because they wear mortal bodies, as the apostle says,
"The body indeed is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life
because of righteousness;" proving that in a living man in the body
there is both a body which is dead, and a spirit which is life. Yet
he did not say that the body was mortal, but dead, although
immediately after he speaks in the more usual way of mortal bodies.
These, then, are the dead which were in the sea, and which the sea
presented, to wit, the men who were in this world, because they had
not yet died, and whom the world presented for judgment. "And death
and hell," he says, "gave up the dead which were in them." The
sea presented them because they had merely to be found in the place
where they were; but death and hell gave them up or restored them,
because they called them back to life, which they had already quitted.
And perhaps it was not without reason that neither death nor hell were
judged sufficient alone, and both were mentioned, death to indicate
the good, who have suffered only death and not hell; hell to indicate
the wicked, who suffer also the punishment of hell. For if it does
not seem absurd to believe that the ancient saints who believed in
Christ and His then future coming, were kept in places far removed
indeed from the torments of the wicked, but yet in hell, until
Christ's blood and His descent into these places delivered them,
certainly good Christians, redeemed by that precious price already
paid, are quite unacquainted with hell while they wait for their
restoration to the body, and the reception of their reward. After
saying, "They were judged every man according to their works," he
briefly added what the judgment was: "Death and hell were cast into
the lake of fire;" by these names designating the devil and the whole
company of his angels, for he is the author of death and the pains of
hell. For this is what he had already, by anticipation, said in
clearer language: "The devil who seduced them was cast into a lake of
fire and brimstone." The obscure addition he had made in the words,
"in which were also the beast and the false prophet," he here
explains, "They who were not found written in the book of life were
cast into the lake of fire." This book is not for reminding God, as
if things might escape Him by forgetfulness, but it symbolizes His
predestination of those to whom eternal life shall be given. For it is
not that God is ignorant, and reads in the book to inform Himself,
but rather His infallible prescience is the book of life in which they
are written, that is to say, known beforehand
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