Lactantius, Divine Institutes 7.14
Since we have spoken of the soul's immortality, it follows that we teach how far and when it is granted to the human, so that in this too those may see the errors of their crookedness and folly who think certain mortals have been made gods by the decrees and votes of mortals, either because they invented arts or taught the use of certain crops or handed on things useful for human life or killed fierce beasts. How far those merits are removed from immortality we both taught in earlier books and will teach now, so that it may appear that justice alone is what brings forth eternal life for a human, and God alone who grants the prize of eternal life. For those who are said to have been made immortal by their own merits, because there was in them neither justice nor any true virtue, sought for themselves not immortality but death by sins and lusts, and earned not a heavenly prize but underworld punishments, which hang together with all those who worshipped them.
God finished the world and this wondrous work of the nature of things, as is held in the secrets of holy Scripture, in the span of six days, and he sanctified the seventh day on which he had rested from his works. This is the sabbath day, which in the Hebrews' tongue took its name from the number, whence the sevenfold number is lawful and full. For there are also seven days by which, rolled in turn, the circles of years are completed, and seven stars that do not set, and seven stars that are called wandering, whose unequal courses and uneven motions make the variety of things and times. Therefore since all God's works were completed in six days, by the same number of thousands of years it is necessary that the consummation come and the state of human affairs be remade for the better. And as this our day, which is finished by the sun's rising and setting, bears the likeness of the great day which the circuit of a thousand years determines, so also the fashioning of the earthly human beforehand showed the later forming of the heavenly people. For as, when all things he had wrought for human use were finished, God made the human himself last on the sixth day and led him into this world as into a house already carefully furnished, so now on the sixth great day the true man from heaven — Christ — is forming a holy people for God, and soon the seventh day of that great thousand-year measure will come: the rest of the just and freedom from the labors the world has long borne.
Latin
Quoniam de immortalitate animae diximus, sequitur ut doceamus quatenus homini et quando tribuatur, ut in hoc quoque prauitatis ac stultitiae suae perspiciant errores qui mortales quosdam decretis placitisque mortalium deos esse factos opinantur, uel quod artes inuenerant uel quod usum I quarundam frugum docuerant uel quod utilia uitae hominum , prodiderant uel quod inmanes bestias interemerant. quae, merita quam longe ab inmortalitate semota sint, et docuimus in prioribus libris et nunc docebimus, ut appareat solam esse iustitiam quae uitam homini pariat aeternam, et solum deum qui aeternae uitae praemium largiatur. nam illi qui suis meritis inmortales facti esse dicuntur, quia nec iustitia nec ulla in his uera uirtus fuit, non inmortalitatem sibi, sed mortem\' peccatis ac libidinibus quaesierunt neque caeleste praemium, sed inferna supplicia meruerunt, quae pendent simul cum iis omnibus qui eos coluerunt. cuius iudicii propinquare tempus ostendam, ut et iustis merces digna soluatur et poena merita inpiis inrogetur. Plato et multi alii philosophorum cum ignorarent originem rerum supremumque illut tempus quo mundus esset effectus, multa milia saeculorum fluxisse dixerunt, ex quo hic pulcherrimus mundi extiterit ornatus, secuti fortasse Chaldaeos, qui, ut Cicero tradit in libro de diuinatione primo, quadringenta septuaginta milia annorum monumentis conprehensa se habere delirant: in quo se quia posse argui non putabant, liberum sibi crediderunt esse mentiri. nos autem, quos diuinae litterae ad scientiam ueritatis erudiunt, principium mundi, finemque cognouimus: de quo nunc in fine operis disseremus, quoniam de principio in secundo libro explicauimus. sciant igitur philosophi qui ab exordio mundi saeculorum milia enumerant, nondum sextum millesimum annum esse conclusum. quo numero expleto consummationem fieri necesse est et humanarum rerum statum in melius reformari: cuius rei argumentum prius enarrandum est, quo ratio eluceat.
Mundum deus et hoc rerum naturae admirabile opus, sicut arcanis sacrae scripturae continetur, sex dierum spatio consummauit diemque septimum, quo ab operibus suis requieuerat, sanxit. hic est autem dies sabbati, qui lingua Hebraeorum a numero nomen accepit, unde septenarius numerus legitimus ac plenus est. nam et dies septem sunt quibus per uicem reuolutis orbes conficiuntur annorum et septem stellae quae non occidunt et septem sidera quae uocantur errantia, quorum dispares cursus et inaequabiles motus rerum ac temporum uarietates efficere creduntur. ergo quoniam sex diebus cuncta dei opera perfecta sunt, per saecula sex id est annorum sex milia manere in hoc statu mundum necesse est. dies enim magnus dei mille annorum circulo terminatur, sicut indicat propheta, qui dicit: ante oculos tuos, domine, mille anni tamquam dies unus. et sicut deus sex illos dies in tantis rebus fabricandis laborauit, ita et religio eius et ueritas in his sex milibus annorum laboret necesse est, malitia praeualente atque dominante. et rursus quoniam perfectis operibus requieuit die septimo eumque benedixit, necesse est ut in fine sexti millesimi anni malitia omnis aboleatur e terra et regnet per annos mille iustitia sitque tranquillitas et requies a laboribus quos mundus iam diu perfert. uerum quatenus id eueniat, ordine suo explicabo. saepe diximus minora et exigua magnorum figuras et praemonstrationes esse, ut hunc diem nostrum, qui ortu solis occasuque finitur, diei magni speciem gerere, quem circuitus annorum mille determinat. eodem modo etiam figuratio terreni hominis caelestis populi praeferebat in posterum fictionem. nam sicut perfectis omnibus quae in usum hominis molitus est deus ipsum hominem sexto die ultimum fecit eumque induxit in hunc mundum tamquam in domum iam diligenter instructam, ita nunc sexto die magno uerus homo uerbo dei fingitur, id est sanctus populus doctrina et praeceptis dei ad iustitiam figuratur. et sicut tunc mortalis atque inperfectus e terra fictus est, ut mille annis in hoc mundo uiueret, ita nunc ex hoc terrestri saeculo perfectus homo fingitur, ut uiuificatus a deo in hoc eodem mundo per annos mille dominetur. quomodo autem consummatio futura sit et qualis exitus humanis rebus inpendeat, si quis diuinas litteras fuerit scrutatus, inueniet. sed et saecularium prophetarum congruentes cum caelestibus uoces finem rerum et occasum post breue tempus adnuntiant describentes quasi fatigati et dilabentis mundi ultimam senectutem. quae uero a prophetis et uatibus futura esse dicantur, priusquam superueniat extrema illa conclusio, collecta ex omnibus et coaceruata subnectam.