Revelation 21:1

Every rational soul is made unhappy by its sins or happy by its well doing. Every irrational soul yields to one that is more powerful, or obeys one that is better, or is on terms of equality with its equals, exercising rivals or harming any it has overcome. Every body is obedient to its soul so far as permitted by the merits of the latter or the orderly arrangement of things. There is no evil in the universe, but in individuals there is evil due to their own fault. When the soul has been regenerated by the grace of God and restored to its integrity and made subject to him alone by whom it was created, its body too will be restored to its original strength, and it will receive power to possess the world, not to be possessed by the world. Then it will have no evil. For the lowly beauty of temporal changes will not involve it, for it will have been raised above change. There will be, as it is written, a new heaven and a new earth, and there souls will not have to do their part in toiling but will reign over the universe. "All things are yours," says the apostle, "and you are Christ's and Christ is God's." And again: "The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God." Accordingly, since the vice of the soul is not its nature but contrary to its nature and is nothing else than sin and sin's penalty, we understand that no nature, or, if you prefer it, no substance or essence, is evil.

Having concluded his prophecy of the judgment awaiting bad people, John has to speak of what is to befall the good.… [The new heaven and earth] will happen in the order which he indicated, by anticipation, in the earlier verse where he said he saw sitting on a throne one from whose face heaven and earth fled away. First, to be sure, will come the judgment of those uninscribed in the Book of Life and their consignment to eternal fire.… Afterwards, this world as we see it will pass away, burned away by terrestrial fires, just as the flood was caused by the overflowing of terrestrial waters. This conflagration will utterly burn away the corruptible characteristics proper to corruptible bodies, as such; whereupon our substance will possess only those qualities that are consistent with bodies immortalized in this marvelous transformation—to this end, that the world, remade into something better, will become fit for people now remade, even in their bodies, into something better.

It is hard to know whether [the sea] will be dried up by the terrible heat of those flames or will itself be transformed into something better. For though we read that there will be a new heaven and earth, I cannot recall having ever seen mentioned a new sea, save perhaps in that verse of the Apocalypse, "a sea of glass similar to crystal." Yet in that passage, John was not talking about the end of the world; moreover, he did not claim to have seen a sea proper, but something like a sea. Still, as prophecy is prone to intermingle the literal and metaphorical and so veil its meaning, it may be that in our present text, "and the sea is no more," John was speaking of the identical sea he spoke of earlier: "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it." For then, this world of ours, made restless and stormy by the lives of men (and, hence, figuratively, called the sea), will have passed away.

For after the times of the kingdom, he says, "I saw a great white throne, and Him who sat upon it, from whose face the earth fled away, and the heavens; and there was no more place for them." And he sets forth, too, the things connected with the general resurrection and the judgment, mentioning "the dead, great and small." "The sea," he says, "gave up the dead which it had in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead that they contained; and the books were opened.

For at that time the trumpet shall sound, and awake those that sleep from the lowest parts of the earth, righteous and sinners alike. And every kindred, and tongue, and nation, and tribe shall be raised in the twinkling of an eye; and they shall stand upon the face of the earth, waiting for the coming of the righteous and terrible Judge, in fear and trembling unutterable. For the river of fire shall come forth in fury like an angry sea, and shall burn up mountains and hills, and shall make the sea vanish, and shall dissolve the atmosphere with its heat like wax. The stars of heaven shall fall, the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. The heaven shall be rolled together like a scroll: the whole earth shall be burnt up by reason of the deeds done in it, which men did corruptly, in fornications, in adulteries, and in lies and uncleanness, and in idolatries, and in murders, and in battles. For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth.