Conflagration and separation of good and wicked

Meaning

Universal conflagration and separation of good from wicked belong first to the chapter's theological account of Christ's future return. A later separation of good from bad is explicitly interpreted within natural bodies.

II.4.3 concerns persons and judgment, with life and death as their appointed outcomes. II.4.24 instead explains “good” and “bad” as pure substance and impurity, relating their separation to the natural work. The correspondence is deliberate, but changing the recipient changes the proposition. Material destruction of an impurity is not a warrant for violence against people, and the natural operation should not be substituted for divine judgment. These limits are necessary precisely because the vocabulary encourages comparison.

The English retains the distinct personal and material objects rather than allowing “good and bad” to float without a referent. The later quatrain is translated from the supplied French verse, not from the unprinted Latin couplet mentioned by the author.