Common earth

[Kendall K. Down]

St Augustine is quite scathing about those who only take a literal,
historical meaning for Scripture. Everything in the Old Testament has an
allegorical meaning and in some way relates to the New Testament. (Mind
you, he isn't very keen either on those who reject the historical meaning.)

So in the passage I'm reading at the moment he is interpreting Hannah's
prayer (1 Samuel 2:1-10) where everything she said is a prophecy about
Jesus and the Christian church. I won't waste you time with his
speculations, but this passage I thought was interesting in view of the
fact that some have posted here defending the idea that somehow we get a
second chance after this life. It is also interesting for the extreme
literalism with which he views the resurrection.

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But lest any one should think that, after the end of the life led in
this body, there remains a time for doing judgment and justice which he
has not done while he was in the flesh, and that the divine judgment can
thus be escaped, "in the midst of the earth" appears to me to be said of
the time when every one lives in the body; for in this life every one
carries about his own earth, which, on a man's dying, the common earth
takes back, to be surely returned to him on his rising again. Therefore
"in the midst of the earth," that is, while our soul is shut up in this
earthly body, judgment and justice are to be done, which shall be
profitable for us hereafter, when "every one shall receive according to
that he hath done in the body, whether good or bad."
City of God, Book XVII Chapter 4
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God bless,
Kendall K. Down