An individual eschatology of death and of the world beyond the tomb has partially replaced the general eschatology of the second coming. From time to time the sentiment of waiting for the Christ Who comes, the prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus,” burns with a new flame in human souls and illumines them with a glimmer of another world.

Then I moved, as if by some inner command, forward, from this world there — to God. I rushed with speed and freedom, devoid of any heaviness. I knew with some kind of authentic inner feeling that I had already passed our time and the present generation, that the next generation had passed, and the end had already begun to glow behind it. The inexpressible lights of the approach and presence of God lit up, the light became brighter, the joy was inexplicable: "It is not for a man to speak"^[1].
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Then the afterlife and the joy of the next century were revealed to me, along with the continuation and end of history.

But this history also has an end, to which both the Old Testament and the New Testamtnt eschatologies bear witness. … The life of the world does not end with history. It is followed be a new aeon: meta-history.

The time of the coming of the end of this creation, beyond which the transfiguration of the world will take place, is known only to God. The coming of the end is a new action of God upon the world upon the world, analogous to its creation^[1].

Having created man in the fulness of his potential tasks, God entrusts to him their fulfillment. In this sense, the world created by God is completed by man, not as a creator "out of nothing" of course, but as the accomplisher of God's design. Man accomplishes this mission according to the modalities of creaturely creative activity. Without this accomplishement the fullness of the universe cannot be manifested, and the universe cannot attain its end and its ultimate transfiguration, the passage in the new state of the future age.

First of all, history is not a bad infinity, a negative eternity, without begining or end. One cannot apply to history the antinomy of time and eternity that holds for all of creation in its relation to God. History takes place within the limits of creation. It belongs to "this age," which is on the threshold of "the life of the future age". History has a beginning and an end. Chasms bound it on both sides: The beginning is bounded by the creation of man; the end is bounded by the beginning of the new time and the future age. In this sense, hisotry is a certain state of becoming being that is included in being in a definite way: an additional creation of the world within itself, as it were.

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The life of the world does not end with history. It is followed by a new aeon: meta-history.

One cannot annul this proper life of the world, whose foundation has been laid by God, by conceiving of a kind of divine arbitrariness which does not take into account the proper work of God Himself, who created this world on an unshakable foundation. “Learn a parable of the fig tree” (Matt 24:32); “let both grow together until the harvest” (Matt 13:30).

A consequence of this positive content of human history is the fact that the latter is a closed whole. As the image of God, man is inexhaustible as the image of God in its dynamics, in its infinite development and manifestation, in the variations of its themes. But these themes or tasks are determinate and, in this sense, exhaustible in their content. They are a closed circle, a positive infinity, in contradiction to "bad infinity," indeterminacy, boundlessness, and thus contentlessness, inasmuch as it is deprived of the determinateness of content. This determinate possession of content, the thematics of history, is precisely what makes history self-contained. History cannot arbitrarily or randomly break off at any point; it must end inwardly, mature for its own end. “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh” (Matt 24:32).

The end of this world and its transfiguration are depicted both as God's action upon the world and as the ripe fruit of the world's life, comparable to a butterfly flying out of its cocoon or a chick breaking through its shell. There is no incompatibility or contradiction here. God's actions correspond to the age of the world itself, the times and seasons of its organic being. But the history of the world and its ripening toward its end are not determined only by its organic development. Human freedom and creative activity participate in this history. The humanization of the world and of man himself, the manifestation of the fullness of powers implanted in his humanity, is man's creative act over himself and over the world.

Man is not a thing or only an object of creation; he is also its subject. Creative freedom is interwoven into the world's being, together with its organic nature.

This image of the ripening of berries can be applied to the whole outcome of history, including the deeds of both the righteous and the sinners. However, the following words refer predominantly, if not directly exclusively, to the latter: "and the angel cast his sickle to the ground" (once again here you can see confirmation that "sitting on a cloud" is only an angel, but not the Son of God, but, as it were, His representative or messenger (Mat XIII, 41): "The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity"). "And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God." This image, obviously, means God's judgment on people, which also corresponds to the events of human history, expressing a general historical crisis. However, this is not the end of history and the Last Judgment (which, according to Revelation, is accomplished by the Father: XX, 11 ff.). Rather, it is a historical judgment, expressed in external catastrophes and internal upheavals after the sixth seal: VI, 12-16. In contrast, it is depicted as the harvest of grapes, which takes place in the winepress of God's wrath. What is its relationship to the Millennium? Does it happen before it or after it? Such a ratio is not established here, just as in connection with the earthquake of Chapter VI. Egzegetically, there is no need to assume it, since both are parallel, although correlative, internally interconnected events, however, each having its own origin: the first in the judgments of God in history, the second in the special action of the power of God in the first resurrection. One can only hypothetically state, admit that one precedes the other.

This idea [of the thousand-year kingdom] is an expression of the Christian notion of progress, where the latter is liberated from its limited naturalistic conception. … This idea grounds the validity of history with its supreme achievements in this world; moreover, it presupposes and commands these achievements. The end of history is not due to an arbitrary deus ex machina, to a divine act of violence that interrupts the contentless bad infinity of human history. On the contrary, a positive goal is set for history: its inner ripening to a good end, although this end comes convulsively and catastrophically.

The fundamental, guiding idea of this historiosophy is that the history of the Church is not a peaceful "progress" that leads to a harmonious resolution within the limits of this time, but a battle and a tragedy that end in a universal-historical catastrophe and a universal fire. And only out of this is the phoenix of the future age born. And the whole of world history consists of the growth in intensity of this spiritual antagonism and combat.^*) This is history growing toward its maturity.

Can we characterize as pessimism this philosophy of history as the "philosophy of the end"? By no means. On the contrary, it is the most vital and energetic of worldviews. But neither is it optimism, for, within the limits of history itself, there is no resolution for this tragedy. It is true that, as the end approaches, the dawn becomes brighter and brighter, illuminating the heavens, and the sensitive ear already hears hymns of victory coming from there. But, down below, the black armies of Gog and Magog amass for the last time, encircling the camp of the saints, preparing for the battle of Armageddon (Rev. 20:8-9). And, in response to this, the armies of heaven and earth gather around the one sitting on the white horse, the one whose name is "The Word of God" (19:11-13), until the arrival of the end of history and the universal resurrection and judgment.

The end of this age is God's business, a determination of the Father's will: "Of that day and hour [it is said in the anthropomorphic language of our time] knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven [neither the Son, according to Mark 13:32], but my Father only" (Matt. 24:36). "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power" (Acts 1:7). This means that the end of the age is due to a creative act of God, which depends on the power of the Father, the Almighty, the Creator.

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Only God Himself, through his prophets, can reveal the end to us. Christ, as the God-man, bore witness to it in accomplishing His prophetic, humanly kenotic ministry, in the course of which He Himself, in His self-diminution, did not know the time of the end (Mark 13:32), although, after His glorification, He already knew it. The Apocalypse powerfully bears witness to this: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him" (Rev. 1:1).

… not only is history no longer standing before a tearing end, but it is not yet internally finished, and therefore the history of the Church still has a new, unrevealed future ahead of it, and in the face of this future it is appropriate to think, perhaps, not about the end, but rather about the beginning of history.