Chapter 127

¹ But surely someone will say: How will you prove to me that the Saviour was born in the five thousand five hundredth year?

² Be readily instructed, O man. For the things done of old in the wilderness by Moses concerning the tabernacle were accomplished as types and images of spiritual mysteries, so that, when the truth came in Christ at the last times, you might be able to understand these things as fulfilled.

³ For he says to him: And you shall make the ark of incorruptible wood, and you shall overlay it with pure gold within and without, and you shall make its length two and a half cubits, and its breadth a cubit and a half, and its height a cubit and a half. This measure, added together, makes five and a half cubits, so that the five thousand five hundred years might be indicated, the time in which the Saviour, coming from the Virgin, brought into the world the ark, his own body, overlaid with pure gold, within by the Word and without by the Holy Spirit, so that the truth was demonstrated and the ark made manifest.

⁴ From the birth of Christ, therefore, one must reckon the five hundred years that remain for the completion of the six thousand years, and so the end will come.

⁵ And that the Saviour was present in the world at the fifth and a half time, bearing the incorruptible ark, his own body, John says: Now it was the sixth hour, so as to indicate the half of the day; and a day of the Lord is a thousand years; the half of these, therefore, is five hundred.

⁶ For it was not possible for him to be present sooner; for the weight of the law was still in force; nor again when the sixth was already fulfilled, for then the bath is closed; but at the fifth and a half, so that in the remaining half time the gospel might be proclaimed to all the world, and, the sixth day being fulfilled, he might bring the present life to an end.

⁷ For since the Persians held the kingdom, reigning two hundred and thirty years, and after them the Greeks, being indeed more glorious, for three hundred years, of necessity the fourth beast, as strong and greater than all that were before it, must reign five hundred years; and when these times are completed and the ten horns are raised up from it at the last, the Antichrist will appear among them, concerning whom we have spoken earlier.

⁸ When he is making war and persecuting the saints, then must one look for the appearing of the Lord from heaven, so that the King of kings may be openly displayed to all, and the Judge of judges be revealed, coming with boldness and glory.

⁹ For whatever has already been foreordained by God to come to pass, and has been proclaimed beforehand by the prophets, these things will be fulfilled in this way, each in its own time.