New Jerusalem as the “Flipside” to the Last Judgment in Primasius, Bede, and Beatus

“New Jerusalem” is a place and a state of being in contradistinction or opposition
to an event (“last judgment”). It might of course be conducive of consequences,
although not described. Yet as a place of “rest,” it is an end in itself. The correspondence
between the place of good news and safety and the event of ultimate
doom is of course not totally symmetrical. Chapter 21 of the Apocalypse provides
a vision of peace (to play with the etymology of “Jerusalem”) and provides an
oasis or a sabbath amidst a good deal of chaotic and restless imagery in John’s
vision, not only in ch. 20.
The New Jerusalem is the Heavenly Jerusalem. That means that while it
transcends the old or earthly Jerusalem, it did not supersede it in the sense of
rendering it otiose. In what follows I will discuss the idea of the new or heavenly
Jerusalem in the history of Christian thought before turning to consider how
three first-millennium commentators on Apocalypse 21 made sense of that vision
and came to understand “Jerusalem” in ways that were diverse and distinct but
also commonly ecclesiological.