On the Imminent and Final Conflict Between the City of God and the City of Man

Man's sin in the Garden of Eden separated man from God and man from man. As a result of this sin, man tried to hide from God, and to hide from himself and his fellow man. Already there was separation and conflict between Adam and Eve (Gen 3:12, 16). Through his sin, man had transferred his allegiance from the kingdom of God to the kingdom of darkness (Matt 12:26; Luke 11:18; Col 1:13). But immediately God initiated a way of redemption, promising a Seed who would crush the head of darkness, and showing the manner by which the Seed would do so by sacrificing an animal, and clothing man's nakedness and shame with its skin (Gen 3:21).

From that time until the present, man has been divided into two cities: the city of God and the city of man. And from that time until the present there has been conflict between these two cities. The sons of darkness have made war upon the sons of light, Cain's murder of Abel being the prototype of the inevitable conflict between the two cities. At one point, the city of God on earth (i.e. the Church) consisted of only eight people, that is, Noah and his family, while the descendents of Cain were destroyed in the flood. The salvation of Noah and his family through the flood is a type of baptism, and the ark is a type of the Church (1 Peter 3:21; John 21:1-11; Luke 5:1-11). Noah, a preacher of righteousness (2 Pet 2:5) and the covenantal head of the household of God (1 Tim 3:15) is a type of the Pope, and the pitch used to seal the ark was a type of the consecrated oil by which the Holy Spirit seals us in the sacrament of confirmation. In another way the flood is also a type of the coming judgment of the unrighteous when Christ returns at the end of the age (Matt 24:37-39). Not all the persons in the ark were righteous, as we see with Ham (again, as is true in the Church, cf. Matt 13). Though Cain's descendants perished, Ham and his son Canaan perpetuated the city of man, mocking the nakedness of their father Noah (who is there a type of the nakedness of Christ on the cross). But the righteous act of Shem and Japheth showed them to belong to the city of God.

The city of man is evident in the account of the tower of Babel. Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, (Gen 10:8-10) is a prototype of the Antichrist, the ruler of the city of man. According to the Jewish tradition it was Nimrod who organized and oversaw the building of the tower of Babel. Eber, the father of the Hebrews and the great-grandson of Shem, (Gen 10:24-25; 11:14-17) refused to participate, and for this reason his language (Hebrew), which was the language spoken by Noah and all those before him, was not changed at Babel. Nimrod and those following him wanted to build a city and a tower, to make a name for themselves in order to preserve their unity, to exalt themselves to heaven while denying their need for God and while refusing to trust in God. God saw that the city of man, when so unified, would be capable of whatever evil it purposed to do. Just as God had mercifully driven man out of the garden of Eden to prevent him from eating of the tree of life and so living forever in his sinful condition, so also at Babel God acted mercifully in confusing man's language, to prevent the city of man from carrying out the great evils it would do if united together apart from God. God delayed judgment of the city of man (even until the second coming of Christ) only to allow man to repent. (2 Peter 3:9,15) In confusing the language of the men at Babel, God separated and scattered the city of man into various races, languages, cultures, and lands, and thereby limited its capacity for evil and destruction until the time allotted for repentance was completed.

It is not as though God wants man to be separated or divided. On the contrary, God wants all men to be united through being incorporated into the body of Christ, i.e. the Church (Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 12). That is the only way men can truly be united. This is the peace that comes only through Christ, the peace that passes all [human] understanding (Phil 4:7). The gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost was a reversal of God's confusion of the language at the tower of Babel, the divinely ordained way of uniting men in one body, one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism into one God (Eph 4:4-5). The true unification of man takes place only through Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Church. But godless men always seek a substitute for the divine. And the city of man seeks peace and unity through political, economic, technological and military means. Yet the city of man cannot find true peace and unity through these means.

In Babylon of old, technology (i.e. brick building and masonry), political power (i.e. the dictatorship of Nimrod), and a unified public project (i.e. building the city and the tower) joined the people together (Gen 11:3-4). Now, in these last days, globalization, technology and political unification are reducing the separation and scattering that God imposed upon the city of man at the tower of Babel. And this extrinsic re-unification will continue, as globalization continues. This coalescing of the city of man will strengthen it so much that the weakening it incurred as a result of that divine act confusing man's language at Babel will have been mostly overcome. When that happens, the protection against great evils afforded by that divine act at Babel, will effectively have been removed.

At the same time, these same factors of globalization and technology are bringing these two cities into ever greater proximity, so to speak, while simultaneously making clearer and clearer the distinction between them and the impossibility of any middle position. As a result, the inherent conflict between the city of man and the city of God will in a short time be greatly magnified and pronounced. The war that has always been waged by the city of man upon the city of God will break out into its full magnitude and form, with the fury of Cain upon Abel. He who received a mark on his forehead for his sin will impose his mark upon his heirs. (Gen 4:15; Rev 13:16-17) At this same time, the increased persecution waged upon the city of God by the city of man, and the closer social and cultural proximity of Christians with one another (due to globalization and technology) will strengthen and unify the city of God. The many scattered and separated citizens of the city of God will reunite under the successor of Peter, their true and rightful shepherd (John 21:15-17) and earthly principle of unity (Matt 16:18-19). And the many scattered and separated citizens of the city of man will unite under a false shepherd, i.e. the second and final Nimrod, for the city of man must imitate the city of God. All men will be divided into those that receive the sign of the cross (which also stands for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) on their forehead in the sacrament of confirmation, and those that receive the sign of Man on their forehead or hand. (Rev 13:8,17; 14:1, 9-11) Though the city of man is irreligious in its refusal to worship God, in another respect the city of man is not irreligious, for it will worship the second Nimrod and his image, and even (whether knowingly or unknowingly) worship Satan, who will give his own throne, power, and authority to this second Nimrod. (Rev 13:2)

Not accidentally does St. Peter refer to Rome as Babylon (2 Pet 5:13), for at that time Rome, like the Babylon of old, was the locus of that same human attempt to unify man apart from God, just as Nimrod had sought to do. Shortly after Peter wrote those words he was executed by Nero. This too was not accidental, for the ruler of the city of man is at enmity with the ruler of the city of God, as Cain was at enmity with Abel. And so the successor of Peter (i.e. the Pope) will be the primary object of enmity and violence by the Nero to come and by the city of man. The Apostle John likewise refers to Rome (as the center of the political kingdom encompassing the world at that time) as "Babylon the Great" (Rev 17:5,18). What took place between Simon Magus and Simon Peter before Nero in 67 AD (see here) is a foreshadowing of the conflict between the false prophet (Rev 13:11-17) and the final successor of Peter before the Nero to come, who will have political power over all the nations. The final Babylon ("Babylon the Great") will make all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality (Rev 14:8). She will force her immorality and godlessness upon the entire world, and her wrath will be directed at the Catholic Church. We see that already, in news stories just from the last month:

"We'll axe Catholic schools" (Green party in Scotland claims that having separate schools "tends to divide communities", April 4, 2007)

"Genoa bishop under police guard" (after receiving death threats for speaking out against same-sex unions, April 10, 2007)

"Get out of San Francisco": San Francisco Board of Supervisors Condemns the Catholic Church's teachings as "hateful", particularly regarding adoption by homosexuals (April 24, 2007). See here also.

"Religious group attacks religion in U.S. healthcare" (The Catholic Church is seen as the reason why the five Catholic U.S. Supreme Court justices upheld the partial-birth abortion ban, and why "rights" to abortion and contraception are being interfered with, April 24, 2007)

"Vatican Radio says bullet in envelope is latest threatening message to Genoa bishop" (April 29, 2007)

"Catholic hospitals may be forced to do abortions" (by the State of Connecticut, April 30, 2007)

"Doctors may be forced to perform artificial insemination of lesbians" (in the State of California, May 01, 2007)

"Students at Pro-Gay High School Swarm Parents Protesting Homosexuality" (Brookline, MA; May 04, 2007)

These and other examples are commonplace now. And the trend is obvious to the one giving careful heed to the times. At this point the moral decay of our culture is almost exponential. St. Paul told us that evil men "will proceed from bad to worse" (2 Tim 3:13). Jesus told us that in the end times, there will be an "increase in evildoing" (lit. "lawlessness is increased") and believers "will be hated by all nations because of my name" (Matt 24:12, 9) Now is the time for believers to be united as Christ prayed for us to be united (John 17), with one heart and mind (Rom 15:5; Phil 1:27; 2:2), that there be "no divisions" (lit. schisms) among us (1 Cor 1:10), and that we ourselves not cause or preserve divisions (Jude 1:19). Jesus tells us explicitly that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (Matt 12:24-25; Mark 3:24; Luke 11:17-18), and in this time of evil and forthcoming persecution the Church must remain strong and united. The division, separation, conflict, and violence that our first parents' sin brought about, comes to its full fury in the last days, as the descendants of Cain seek to pour out their wrath on the descendents of Abel. That is why the children of Abel must be united in genuine love and peace.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, let us make every effort to seek to be reconciled to each other in the peace of Christ, the love of God the Father, and the unity of the Holy Spirit.