Rev 20:6

“Now "the pain of the stroke" means that inflicted at the beginning upon disobedient man in Adam, that is, death; which [stroke] the Lord will heal when He raises us from the dead, and restores the inheritance of the fathers, as Isaiah again says: "And thou shall be confident in the Lord, and He will cause thee to pass over the whole earth, and feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father." This is what the Lord declared: "Happy are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching. Verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down [to meat], and will come forth and serve them. And if He shall come in the evening watch, and find them so, blessed are they, because He shall make them sit down, and minister to them; or if this be in the second, or it be in the third, blessed are they." Again John also says the very same in the Apocalypse: "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection." Then, too, Isaiah has declared the time when these events shall occur; he says: "And I said, Lord, how long? Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses be without men, and the earth be left a desert. And after these things the Lord shall remove us men far away, and those who shall remain shall multiply upon the earth." Then Daniel also says this very thing: "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of those under the heaven, is given to the saints of the Most High God, whose kingdom is everlasting, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him." And lest the promise named should be understood as referring to this time, it was declared to the prophet: "And come thou, and stand in thy lot at the consummation of the days."”

“Moreover, concerning the resurrection and the kingdom of the saints, Daniel says, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall arise, some to everlasting life, (and some to shame and everlasting contempt)." Esaias says, "The dead men shall arise, and they that are in their tombs shall awake; for the dew from thee is healing to them." The Lord says, "Many in that day shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." And the prophet says, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." And John says, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power." For the second death is the lake of fire that burneth. And again the Lord says, "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun shineth in his glory." And to the saints He will say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But what saith He to the wicked? "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, which my Father hath prepared." And John says, "Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever maketh and loveth a lie; for your part is in the hell of fire." And in like manner also Esaias: "And they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me. And their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be for a spectacle to all flesh."”

“Jesus baptizes "in the Holy Spirit and in fire," not the same person "in the Holy Spirit and in fire," but the holy person "in the Holy Spirit," while another person, after he has believed, after he has been deemed worthy of the Holy Spirit and after he has sinned again, Jesus washes in fire. So … it is not the same person who is baptized by Jesus in the Holy Spirit and in fire. Blessed, then, is the one who is baptized in the Holy Spirit and does not need the baptism by fire, but three times unhappy is that person who has need to be baptized in fire, though Jesus takes care of both of them. For "a shoot from the stump of Jesse will come forth, and a branch will grow out of the root," a shoot for those who are punished, a branch for the righteous. So God is a consuming fire and God is light, a consuming fire to sinners, a light to the just and holy ones. And blessed is he "who shares in the first resurrection," he who has kept the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Who is he who is saved in another resurrection? He who needs the baptism from fire, when he comes before that fire and the fire tests him, and when that fire finds wood, hay and stubble to burn.”

“"Blessed and holy is he who has part in this resurrection: on them the second death shall have no power, but they shall be priests of God and Christ, and they shall reign with Him a thousand years." I do not think the reign of a thousand years is eternal; or if it is thus to be thought of, they cease to reign when the thousand years are finished. But I will put forward what my capacity enables me to judge. The tenfold number signifies the decalogue, and the hundredfold sets forth the crown of virginity: for he who shall have kept the undertaking of virginity completely, and shall have faithfully fulfilled the precepts of the decalogue, and shall have destroyed the untrained nature or impure thoughts within the retirement of the heart, that they may not rule over him, this is the true priest of Christ, and accomplishing the millenary number thoroughly, is thought to reign with Christ; and truly in his case the devil is bound. But he who is entangled in the vices and the dogmas of heretics, in his case the devil is loosed. But that it says that when the thousand years are finished he is loosed, so the number of the perfect saints being completed, in whom there is the glory of virginity in body and mind, by the approaching advent of the kingdom of the hateful one, many, seduced by that love of earthly things, shall be overthrown, and together with him shall enter the lake of fire.”

“Such fruit it is necessary that we bring when we come to the judgment-seat of Christ, on the first day of the feast; for if we are without it we shall not be able to feast with God, nor to have part, according to John, in the first resurrection. For the tree of life is wisdom first begotten of all. "She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her," says the prophet; "and happy is every one that retaineth her." "A tree planted by the waterside, that will bring forth his fruit in due season;" that is, learning and charity and discretion are imparted in due time to those who come to the waters of redemption.”

“Here he is speaking not just of bishops and of presbyters (who are now priests in the church) but of all Christians. For just as we call all of them Christs by reason of their mystical chrism, we call them all priests insomuch as they are members of the one Priest. Peter speaks of them as a "chosen race, a royal priesthood." Surely, too, this text implies, however briefly and incidentally, that Christ is God. The words "priests of God and Christ" mean priests of the Father and Son, even though it was in his servant form that Christ was both made Son of man and also ordained a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

“The Spirit repeats what he had written before, that the church is going to reign a thousand years in this age until the end of the world. It is clear that no one ought doubt about the eternal rule when the saints rule even in this present age. For those are rightly said to reign who with God's aid govern well both themselves and others in the temptations of the present world.”

“first resurrection. that is, in the rising out of deadening thoughts and mortifying actions, these are blessed.”

“[Those who have a portion of the first resurrection] shall serve as priests and shall reign with Christ, as we see, for the thousand years as they are interpreted by us, until Satan is loosed and deceives the nations. Not that these will then be deprived of the kingdom. Rather, they will possess it more certainly and more manifestly with the passing of temporal reality and the arrival of things eternal. For the time between the loosing of the devil and the verdict against him and his punishment in gehenna is short. So, that "they shall be priests of God and of Christ" ought to be regarded as the restoration of former things.… Therefore, since there are two deaths, it is necessary also to accept two resurrections. There is the first, physical death, given as a wage for human disobedience. The second death is eternal punishment. The first resurrection is the giving of life from dead works. The second resurrection is the transformation from the corruption of our bodies into incorruptibility.”

“Blessed and holy is the one who preserves what he has been reborn into.”

“But they shall be priests of God and of Christ. Another version reads, Priests of God and of Christ. However, this is not said only of bishops and priests, who are properly called priests in the Church, but just as we are all called Christians because of the mystical chrism, so we are all called priests because we are members of the one Priest. As the apostle Peter says: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (1 Pet. 2).”

“And they shall reign with Christ for a thousand years. The Spirit reported, when he wrote these things, that the Church would reign for a thousand years, that is, until the end of the world, from which there could be doubt. For it is clear about the perpetual kingdom.”

“QUESTION: Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. ANSWER: That is, he who keeps what he has gained in his second birth. THERE FOLLOWS: But they shall be saints of God and of Christ. ANSWER: Another edition has "priests of God and of Christ." This does not refer only to bishops and church ministers, who are the ones properly called priests in the Church, but, just as we are all called "christs" because of the mystical unction, so are we all called priests because we are the limbs of one priest; whence Peter says, a holy nation, a kingly priesthood. [1 Pet. 2:9] QUESTION: And shall reign with Christ a thousand years. ANSWER: When John was writing this, the Spirit announced that the Church would reign for a thousand years, that is until the end of the world. (20:7) THERE FOLLOWS: And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. ANSWER: Saying finished, he meant a part by the whole, for Satan shall be loosed when there are still left the three years and six months of the last battle; but apart from this trope, it is right to say that the time will be finished. (What he earlier defined as three years and a half, he here called three years and six months.)”

“Supply the life of glory for their souls, which glorifies life is called the first resurrection. Indeed the second will be when they will rise in glorious bodies. Because these have salvation that they already posses in their souls and afterwards they will have this bodily;”

“Blessed therefore is the one who has part in the first resurrection; for of the second resurrection we shall all partake, willingly or unwillingly. But concerning those who are participants in the first resurrection, that is, the faithful, the second death will have no power. What is it? It is the death of sin, that is, and the punishment of that time; for just as he said first and second resurrection, so also first and second death. And the first death is the physical death, the one having a separation of soul and body; second death is the spiritual death, that of sin, about which the Lord also said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body; rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." (Matt. 10:28) And the faithful are, he says, priests of God and of Christ; for the faithful have all been shown to be ministers of the evangelical word, concerning whom the prophet, striking his prophetic harp, said "he would appoint them rulers over all the earth." (Ps. 45:16) And they will reign with him for a thousand years, those of the Incarnation as has been often said.”