When in 1977 Joseph Ratzinger, then newly appointed professor of theology bishop of Munich, he had his first book, Eschatology just ceased to be an auxiliary science of theology to occupy the center of theological thought as "Doctrine of the end (death, trial, hell and glory). "For the author, this evolution was related to the sinking consciousness increasingly harassing to the spirits from the late nineteenth century. Awareness tragically confirmed by the devastating wars of the twentieth century, which eventually cause the collapse of a cultural Christianity hitherto filled with optimism. For the author, now Pope Benedict XVI, this fundamental work is still full, despite the time elapsed and the anthropological and theological discussion that began with her and that he was responding in successive German editions, and even in the prologue Pope already being drafted. This edition includes the translation of these new texts.