Judgment at hand, the earth shall sweat with fear.

-
Sibilla Cumana (Cumaean Sibyl) | Domenicho Zampieri (Domenichino) 1622

Preamble

1 Thessalonians 5: 5-6

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

The Fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom, and therefore belongs to the beginnings, and is felt in the first cold hours before the dawn of civilisation; the power that comes out of the wilderness and rides on the whirlwind and breaks the gods of stone; the power before which the eastern nations are prostrate like a pavement; the power before which the primitive prophets run naked and shouting, at once proclaiming and escaping from their god; the fear that is rightly rooted in the beginnings of every religion, true or false: the fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom; but not the end. - G.K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas

The title of this post - Judgment at hand, the earth shall sweat with fear - is taken from the first line of an English version of the acrostic in Saint Augustine's de Civitate Dei based on what is known as the Sibylline Acrostic, the acrostic in book viii, 284-330 (Greek text, 217-250) of the Sibylline Oracles.

We mortals are not in control. God is in control. An assault by a microscopic enemy is the latest reminder that life is fragile, and precious, and governments are not our saviors. Christian faith frees us from irrational fear.

Procedamus In Pace

Not a few of the earliest published monographs touching the Greek Sibylline verses gave the text of this acrostic with explanatory observations upon it. Augustine in the eighteenth book of his de Civitate Dei (chap. xxiii) cites the first twenty-seven lines in a Latin translation which aims to retain the acrostic form of the Greek text. He further observes that "the verses are twenty-seven, which is the cube of three. For three times three are nine, and nine itself, if tripled, so as to rise from the superficial square to the cube, comes to twenty-seven. But if you join the initial letters of the five Greek words Ιησους (Iesous/Jesus), Χριστος (Chrístos/Christ), Θεου (Theos/God), Υιος (Uios/Son), and Σωτηρ (Soter/Saviour), i.e., Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour, they will make the Greek word ἰχδὺς (ichthys), that is, fish, in which word Christ is mystically understood, because he was able to live, that is, to exist, without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the depth of waters." - Milton S. Terry, with edits by Gilbert

The following version from the Christian Remembrancer, vol. xlii, 1861, p. 287, accords with the order of initial English letters of the words, JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, THE SAVIOUR, THE CROSS. - MST
Judgment at hand, the earth shall sweat with fear
Eternal King, the Judge shall come on high;
Shall doom all flesh; shall bid the world appear
Unveiled before his throne. Him every eye
Shall, just or unjust, see in majesty.

Consummate time shall view the saints assemble,
His own assessors; and the souls of men
Round the great judgment seat shall wail and tremble
In fear of sentence. And the green earth then
Shall turn to desert; they that see that day
To moles and bats their gods shall cast away.

Sea, earth, and heaven, and hell's dread gates shall burn;
Obedient to their call, the dead return;
Nor shall the Judge unfitting doom discern;

Of chains and darkness to each wicked soul;
For them that have done good, the starry pole.

Gnashing of teeth, and woe and fierce despair
Of such as hear the righteous Judge declare
Deeds long forgot, which that last day shall bare.

Then, when each darkened breast he brings to sight,
Heaven's stars shall fall; and day be turned to night;
Effaced the sun-ray, and the moon's pale light.

Surely the valleys he on high shall raise;
All hills shall cease, all mountains turn to plain;
Vessel shall no more pass the watery ways;
In the dread lightning parching earth shall blaze,
Ogygian rivers seek to flow in vain;
Unutterable woe the trumpet blast,
Re-echoing through the ether, shall forecast.

Then Tartarus shall wrap the world in gloom,
High chiefs and princes shall receive their doom,
Eternal fire and brimstone for their tomb.

Crown of the world, sweet Wood, salvation's horn,
Rearing its beauty, shall for man be born;
O Wood, that saints adore, and sinners scorn!
So from twelve fountains shall its light be poured;
Staff of the Shepherd, a victorious sword.

The Greek version of the Acrostic. The name of Christ is written in the lengthened Greek form (Xreistos).
  1. Ιδρώσει γαρ χθών, κρίσεως σημείον ότ΄ έσται
  2. Ηξει δ’ ουρανόθεν βασιλεύες αιώσιν, ο μέλλων
  3. Σάρκα παρών πάσαν κρίναι και κόσμον άπαντα.
  4. Όψονται δε θεόν μέροπες πιστοί και άπιστοι
  5. Ύψιστον μετά των αγίων επί τέρμα χρόνοιο,
  6. Σαρκοφόρον ψυχάς τα’ ανδρών επί βήματι κρινεί.
  7. Χέρσος ότ’ αν πότε κόσμος όλος και άκανθα γένηται
  8. Ρίψωσοι τα’ είδωλα βροτοί και πλούτον άπαντα,
  9. Εκκαύση δε το πυρ γην, ουρανόν ηδέ θάλασσαν,*
  10. Ιχνεύων, ρήξη τε πύλας ειρκτής αΐδαο.
  11. Σάρξ τότε πάσα νεκρών, ες ελευθέριον φάος ήξει
  12. Τους αγίους ανόμους τε το πυρ αιώσιν ελέγξει
  13. Οππόσα τις πράξας έλαθεν, τότε πάντα λαλήσει.
  14. Στήθεα γαρ ζοφόεντα Θεός φωστήρσιν ανοίξει.
  15. Θρήνος τ’ εκ πάντων έσται και βρυγμός οδόντων
  16. Εκλείψει σέλας ηελίου, άστρων τε χορείσει,
  17. Ουρανόν ειλίξει, μήνης δε τε φέγγος ολείται,
  18. Υψώσει δε φάραγγας, ολεί δ΄ υψώματα βουνών.
  19. Ύψος δ’ ουκέτι λυγρόν εν ανθρώποισι φανείται
  20. Ίσα τα’ όρη πεδίοις έσται και πάσα θάλασσα
  21. Ουκ εις πλουν έξει γη γαρ φρυχθείσα κεραυνώ
  22. Συν πηγαίς ποταμοί τε καχλάζοντες λείψουσιν.
  23. Σάλπιξ δ’ ουρανόθεν φωνήν πολύθρηνον αφήσει,
  24. Ωρύουσα μύσος μελεόν και πήματα κόσμου.
  25. Ταρταρόεν δε χάος τότε δείξει γαία χανούσα.
  26. Ηξουσι δ’ επί βήμα Θεού βασιλήες άπαντες.
  27. Ρεύσει δ’ ουρανόθεν ποταμός πυρός ηδέ γε θείου.
The additional verse of the Cross (σταυρóς)

Σήμα δε τοι τότε πάσι βροτοίς αριδείκετον, οίον
Το ξύλον εν πιστοίς το κέρας το ποθούμενον έσται
Ανδρών ευσεβίων ζωή, πρόσκομμα δε κόσμου
Ύδασι φωτίζον πιστούς εν δώδεκα πληγαίς.
Ράβδος ποιμαίνουσα σιδηρείη γε κρατήσει.
Ούτος ο νυν προγραφείς εν ακροστιχίοις Θεός ημών,
Σωτήρ, αθάνατος βασιλεύς, ο παθών ενέχ΄ ημών.

The twenty-seven lines as translated and published in the Christian Review, vol. xiii, 1848, p. 99.
  1. Judgment impends. Lo! the earth reeks with sweat;
  2. He, the destined King of future ages, comes;
  3. Soon he descends--the Judge in human form.
  4. On speeds the God--his friends and foes behold him.
  5. Vengeance he wears, enthroned with his holy ones.
  6. See how the dead assume their ancient forms.
  7. Choked with thorny hedges lies the waste, dreary world
  8. Ruined are the idol gods; they scorn their heaps of gold.
  9. Even land and sea and sky shall raging fire consume.
  10. Its penetrating flames shall burst the gates of hell.
  11. Shining in light behold the saints immortal.
  12. Turn to the guilty, burning in endless flames.
  13. O'er hidden deeds of darkness no veil shall be spread.
  14. Sinners to their God will reveal their secret thoughts.
  15. There will be a bitter wailing; there they gnash with their teeth.
  16. Ebon clouds veil the sun; the stars their chorus cease;
  17. O'er our heads the heavens roll not,--the lunar splendors fade.
  18. Underneath the mountains lie; the valleys touch the sky.
  19. Unknown the heights or depths of man,--since all shall prostrate lie.
  20. In the ocean's dark gulf sink the mountains and the plains.
  21. Order casts away her empire; creation ends in chaos.
  22. Swollen rivers and leaping fountains are consumed in the flames.
  23. Shrill sounds the trumpet; its blast rends the sky.
  24. O, fearful are the groanings, the sorrows of the doomed.
  25. Tartarean chaotic depths the gaping earth reveals.
  26. Earth's vaunted monarchs shall stand before the Lord.
  27. Rivers of sulphur roll along and flames descend the sky.
Revelation 16:15

Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

Matthew 24:43

But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

And, a little additional salt: https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/

The Final Judgment (Christ III)
I.

And then the mighty day of the Mighty Lord
shall overmaster the earth-dwellers with fear
in the middle of the night, and with his power
the radiant creation—just as a corrupt harmer,
a bold-coming thief, who often comes in darkness,
in the black night, suddenly seizes those bound in sleep,
sorrowless men, unready earls assailed with evil.
So upon the mountain of Sinai there will come
a great and powerful people, true to the Measurer,
bright and blissful. To them the fruits shall be given! (867-77)

Then from the four corners of the earth,
from the utmost of the earthly realm,
angels all-bright shall blow trumpets
together with one voice. Middle-earth shall tremble,
the ground below men. They shall resonate together,
strong and brilliant, with the course of the stars,
singing and reverberating in the south and the north,
in the east and the west, across all of creation.
The children of the multitude of men shall be awakened
from death, all of mankind terrified from the olden earth,
into their measured fate—by this they will order them
to stand up at once from their fixed sleep. (878-89a)

There one can hear the sorrowing people,
miserable at mind, hurrying harshly,
carefully crying out over the deeds of their lives,
affrighted by fear. That shall be the greatest foretokening
which was ever, before or since, shown to men—
there shall be commingled an entire commotion
of angels and devils, both the brilliant and the black. (889b-98)

Sources

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