Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to describe the atrocity of the destruction of Gog. He asserts therefore that the army of Gog will be slain on the mountains of Israel with such great slaughter that the Jews will burn his spears and arms for seven years, and from this it will be called the valley of the multitude of Gog, and the nearby city Amona, that is crowd, or multitude. Then secondly, from verse 17, he invites all nations and beasts to the feast of so many corpses, as to his holy sacrifice. Finally, from verse 25, with Gog and the Antichrist slain, he prophesies that the Jews will be converted to Christ.
Vulgate Text: Ezekiel 39:1-29
1. But you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Mosoch and Thubal: 2. and I will turn you about, and bring you forth, and cause you to come up from the sides of the North: and I will bring you upon the mountains of Israel. 3. And I will strike your bow from your left hand, and I will cause your arrows to fall from your right hand. 4. On the mountains of Israel you shall fall, you and all your troops, and your peoples who are with you: I have given you to wild beasts, birds, and every flying creature, and to the beasts of the earth to be devoured. 5. On the face of the field you shall fall: for I have spoken, says the Lord God. 6. And I will send fire upon Magog, and upon those who dwell in the islands confidently: and they shall know that I am the Lord. 7. And I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not allow My holy name to be profaned any more: and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. 8. Behold, it comes, and it is done, says the Lord God: this is the day of which I have spoken. 9. And the inhabitants shall go forth from the cities of Israel, and shall kindle and burn the weapons, the shields and spears, the bows and arrows, and the hand-staves and javelins: and they shall kindle fire with them for seven years. 10. And they shall not bring wood from the fields, nor cut down from the forests: for they shall burn the weapons with fire, and they shall plunder those who had been their plunderers, and spoil those who had spoiled them, says the Lord God. 11. And it shall come to pass on that day: I will give to Gog a noted place of burial in Israel: the valley of the travelers, to the east of the sea, which shall cause those who pass by to marvel: and they shall bury there Gog and all his multitude, and it shall be called the valley of the multitude of Gog. 12. And the house of Israel shall bury them to cleanse the land for seven months. 13. And all the people of the land shall bury him, and it shall be to them a noted day, on which I was glorified, says the Lord God. 14. And they shall appoint men continually to survey the land, who shall bury and search out those who remained on the face of the earth, to cleanse it: and after seven months they shall begin to search. 15. And they shall go about surveying the land: and when they see a human bone, they shall set up a marker beside it, until the embalmers bury it in the valley of the multitude of Gog. 16. And the name of the city shall be Amona, and they shall cleanse the land. 17. And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God: Say to every bird, and to all the birds, and to all the beasts of the field: Assemble, hasten, come together from every side to My sacrifice, which I immolate for you, a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel: that you may eat flesh and drink blood. 18. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth: of rams, and lambs, and goats, and bulls, and fatted animals, and all that is fat. 19. And you shall eat fat to satiety, and drink blood to intoxication, from the sacrifice which I shall immolate for you: 20. and you shall be sated at My table with horse and strong horseman, and with all men of war, says the Lord God. 21. And I will set My glory among the nations: and all the nations shall see My judgment, which I have executed, and My hand, which I have laid upon them. 22. And the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward. 23. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel was taken captive for their iniquity, because they had forsaken Me, and I hid My face from them: and I delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and they all fell by the sword. 24. According to their uncleanness and their wickedness I dealt with them, and I hid My face from them. 25. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now I will bring back the captivity of Jacob, and I will have mercy on all the house of Israel: and I will be zealous for My holy name. 26. And they shall bear their confusion, and all the transgression with which they transgressed against Me, when they shall dwell in their land confidently, fearing no one: 27. and I shall have brought them back from the peoples, and gathered them from the lands of their enemies, and I shall be sanctified in them in the eyes of many nations. 28. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I carried them away into the nations, and gathered them upon their own land, and left none of them there. 29. And I will no longer hide My face from them, because I have poured out My Spirit upon all the house of Israel, says the Lord God.
Verse 1: Above
1. Above, — namely I will come against you, to punish you.
Chief prince, — that is the supreme prince. Vatablus explains differently, that is to say: You who are the head of Mosoch, that is of Cappadocia, and of Thubal, that is of Italy. See the preceding chapter, verse 2.
Verse 2: I will turn you about.
2. I will turn you about. — Vatablus, I will break you, or crush you; Pintus, I will reduce you to fragments or sparks.
I will bring you forth. — Pintus, I will cut you down; the Chaldean, I will cause you to wander; in Hebrew it is scisseticha, that is I will "sixth" you, which Pagninus explains as: I will leave a sixth part of you, that is of your army, because namely I will kill the other five parts. Better, Rabbi Joseph, Rabbi David, Vatablus and Maldonatus explain: I will "sixth" you, that is I will afflict you with six plagues, namely pestilence, blood, rain, hailstones, fire and brimstone, as I said in the preceding chapter, verse 22. For he is speaking of the complete destruction and annihilation of Gog.
Verse 3: I will strike the bow from your left hand
3. I will strike the bow from your left hand, — I will take away all your power and strength. For archers are accustomed to carry the bow in the left hand and arrows in the right. He puts one species of weapon for the whole class of arms, that is to say: I will disarm you, I will shake the weapons from your hands.
Verse 4: On the mountains of Israel.
4. On the mountains of Israel. — From this it seems that some king or several Christian princes will lead out a great army against Gog, and will engage with Gog in Judea, and slay him, so that the corpses of the slain will become the prey of birds and beasts, unburied. Yet this will happen more by the arms of God than of the faithful: for this is what is said in Apocalypse 20:9: "And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." And Apocalypse 19:14: "The armies that are in heaven followed Him," namely Christ going to war against Gog.
Verse 6: I will send fire (lightning and fires from heaven) upon Magog
6. I will send fire (lightning and fires from heaven) upon Magog, — that is, upon the region and land, as well as upon the army of king Gog: and upon the islands, namely subject to or allied with Magog.
Mystically, this signifies that the entire kingdom of the Antichrist will be overthrown.
Verse 7: I will not allow My holy name to be profaned (I will not permit it to
7. I will not allow My holy name to be profaned (I will not permit it to be polluted, that is profaned and blasphemed) any longer, — as I have hitherto permitted it to be profaned through the victories and impiety of Gog and the Antichrist.
Verse 8: Behold, it comes, and it is done
8. Behold, it comes, and it is done, — that is to say: What I say is at hand, and will happen so certainly and swiftly, as if it were already done. Indeed a thousand years with God are as one day, 2 Peter 3:8. Whence St. John too, 1 John 2:18, calls this last age of the world the last hour.
Verse 9: And the inhabitants shall go forth from the cities of Israel
9. And the inhabitants shall go forth from the cities of Israel, — that is to say: After the Antichrist, Gog and all his army have been slain, so great will be the spoils, spears and weapons of the slain, that the Jews will flock from all cities to plunder them, and for seven years they will have enough to burn them, and will not need any other wood from the countryside and forests. See Apocalypse 19:17 and following.
From this it appears that after the death of the Antichrist, there will be granted
not only 45 days, as some incorrectly gather from Daniel 12:12, but several years, so that those who fell under the Antichrist may repent, and then after the greatest persecution there will be the greatest peace of the Church. So Hector Pintus, Ribera in Apocalypse 20, number 72, Lessius, book 13 of On the Divine Attributes, chapter 19, near the end, and others. For Ezekiel does not say that the Jews will be able to burn, but that they will in fact burn the weapons of the slain army of Gog for seven years. Again in verses 12 and 13, he says: "After seven months they shall begin to search" for the remains of the corpses of Gog, to bury them. The reason is: for, as the Apostle says in Romans 11:25, then "all Israel shall be saved:" but for this more time is required. Moreover, it is probable that then in Judea churches will again be founded, and in the then Christian Jerusalem both Jews and Gentiles will worship Christ, as the Venerable Bede expressly teaches in his commentary on Luke 21, and Dionysius the Carthusian here. And this is implied in Apocalypse 20:8. Read Pannonius there. Finally Lyra in 1 Thessalonians 5: "The Doctors and Saints," he says, "commonly say that, with the Antichrist dead and his falsity manifestly exposed, all nations will be converted to Christ." Whence Sebastian Barradius, volume 3, book 9, chapter 7, concludes that some years will remain from the slaying of the Antichrist until the judgment. For God will grant time to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles for conversion and for the founding of churches, so that the Christian religion may be established among them. But exactly how many years there will be, whether seven, or more, or fewer, is not certain; especially since Maldonatus and some others understand by these seven years not precisely seven, but indefinitely many, so that a definite and fixed number is put for an indefinite one. For they think that by all these things is figuratively signified that the slaughter of the enemies and the victory will be remarkable. And thus often elsewhere the number seven simply signifies abundance and multitude. Thus he says in verse 12, "seven," that is many, "months."
Wherefore the Sibyl, book 3 of the Oracles, teaches that after the death of the Antichrist, a widowed woman will reign, who will cast gold, silver, bronze and iron into the sea, and then the end of the world and the day of judgment will follow.
It was the error of the Chiliasts, or Millenarians, who taught that after the persecution of the Antichrist the just alone would rise, to reign with Christ for a thousand years on earth, and after these thousand years Gog and Magog would come and make war against the Church, and finally there would be the general resurrection and the last judgment. Indeed even some Catholics, although they do not subscribe to the error of the Chiliasts, nevertheless in what pertains to the designation of a thousand years after the death of the Antichrist, agree with the Chiliasts. Among them are Joachim the Abbot, Ubertinus de Cassalis, Seraphinus de Fermo, Pannonius, and some others writing on Apocalypse 20:6, where these thousand years are discussed. But this opinion is improbable and without foundation, as I will show in my commentary on Apocalypse 20.
Verse 10: Nor shall they cut down from the forests.
10. Nor shall they cut down from the forests. — This is to be read thus with the Romans, and this is what the Hebrew yahtab signifies. Therefore some read corruptly succendent [they shall burn].
Verse 11: A noted place.
11. A noted place. — The Hebrew reads mecom scem, that is a place of name, that is a noted place. So also the Septuagint. Now some wrongly, with different vowel points, read scam, that is there, as if to say: This place, from the slaughter and multitude of men who will be buried with him there, will be noted and famous: for it will be called a polyandrium, or the valley of the multitude of Gog. The Syriac translates: And it shall be called the valley (or torrent) of destruction (perdition) of Gog; the Arabic: And it shall be called the valley of perdition of Agog.
The valley of the travelers to the east of the sea, — that is to say: The proud Gog coming from the mountains will be buried in a well-frequented and famous valley of Judea, so that his tomb may be seen by very many, namely in the valley, because travelers coming from the East go toward the sea, namely the Dead Sea, or rather of Tiberias. For this is properly called the sea of Judea. So the Chaldean, who translates, to the sea of Genesareth; which by another name, from a city built nearby in honor of Tiberius Caesar, is called Tiberias.
Allegorically, this valley is hell, through which many travelers who enter upon the wide way proceed. This is to the east of the sea, because from it bitterness arises, and in it is the most bitter fountain of all sorrows.
Which shall cause those who pass by to marvel, — on account of the multitude of tombs and buried. Rabbi David translates: Which valley shall stop the nostrils of those passing by, on account of the intolerable stench of the corpses.
Verse 12: To cleanse the land
12. To cleanse the land, — namely from the stench of the corpses.
Mystically, that is to say: Catholics will labor for seven, that is many months, in suppressing the heresy of the Antichrist and the heretics, to purge the Church. So Maldonatus, although he himself holds that this is the literal sense.
Verse 13: And it shall be to them a noted day, on which I was glorified
13. And it shall be to them a noted day, on which I was glorified, — namely by slaying so great an army of Gog and the Antichrist. This day therefore will be celebrated by Christians, because at the same time the faithful and prelates will uproot and bury his heresies and vices together with him.
Verse 14: After seven months
14. After seven months, — during which they will bury the corpses, as verse 12 says, they will begin to search whether any remain to be buried.
Verse 15: And when they see a human bone, they shall set up a marker beside it
15. And when they see a human bone, they shall set up a marker beside it, — so that from it, as from a sign, they may recognize it as a human bone, not that of a beast, and may bury it.
Embalmers, — that is those who take care of funerals and bury corpses: about whom Martial writes in book 10:
Now with the grave, now with the bier, now with the embalmer prepared.
Verse 16: The name of the city (near which Gog and his followers will be
16. The name of the city (near which Gog and his followers will be buried, will be called) Amona, — that is his multitude. The Septuagint translate, polyandreion, that is a cemetery, or a multitude of buried men, says St. Jerome. Namely from this multitude of the slain, the nearby city will be called "Amona;" just as in verse 11, he said: "It shall be called the valley of the multitude of Gog." Some think this city is Jerusalem. The Syriac translates: And the name of the city shall be called, strong (fortified).
For the Hebrew aman (whence Amona) signifies to make firm, to fortify, to confirm: whence amen is a mark of confirmation. The Antiochene Arabic: And the name of the city shall be called strong (glorious, illustrious).
Verse 17: A sacrifice.
17. A sacrifice. — God calls the great slaughter of enemies a sacrifice, which He, as it were, immolated to His justice.
Verse 18: And of bulls and fatted animals.
18. And of bulls and fatted animals. — In Hebrew, of bulls and oxen of Bashan, that is those which in the rich region of Bashan have been fattened, fed and made fat. So Vatablus, who by these understands magistrates and those who held some public office in the army of Gog. But this seems mystical, the former literal.
Verse 20: At My table.
20. At My table. — God calls that valley full of the corpses of Gog His table.
Verse 21: And I will set (display) My glory (among the nations) and My hand;
21. And I will set (display) My glory (among the nations) and My hand; — that is My power and vengeance, by which I slew them.
Verse 23: And they shall know that because of their iniquity (for their
23. And they shall know that because of their iniquity (for their iniquity, by which it killed Christ, it was captured and overthrown) the house of Israel, — that is Judea through Titus, and it remained overthrown and desolate until the destruction of the Antichrist, after which the Jews, seeing that they were deceived by him who boasted himself to be the Messiah, will all be converted to Christ. And this is what verse 25 says: "Now I will bring back the captivity of Jacob;" although some think that there he returns to the liberation from the Babylonian captivity. But the former exposition is the genuine and more common one, which Adrianus Finus also follows, book 7 of The Scourge of the Jews, chapter 15. In vain therefore do the Jews abuse this passage to defend their Judaism. For they object to Catholics: God here promises us Jews a return from captivity after the fall of Gog and Magog: therefore then our Messiah will come, who will restore the Jews and Judaism. I respond by denying the consequence. For the Messiah has already come long ago, and abolished Judaism, and substituted the New Testament for the Old, as I showed in Daniel 9:23, from the 70 weeks; and Jeremiah 31:31, where this new Testament of Christ is promised; and Genesis 49:10, where Jacob predicts that the Messiah will come when the scepter shall have departed from Judah: and this departed under Herod; and elsewhere. Moreover, this Roman captivity befell the Jews because they despised and killed Christ, as I showed in Daniel, at the place cited; therefore in order to be freed from it and return, they must first return through repentance to God, and to Christ sent by Him, and become Christians: which they will do at the end of the world. For God does not remove the punishment unless the fault that is its cause is first removed. Therefore as long as the Jews remain in Judaism and in hatred of Christ, they remain in their guilt, and consequently remain in their captivity, which they will not escape unless, having abandoned Judaism, they embrace Christ and Christianity, which will happen after the Antichrist is slain by Christ: for then the remnants of Israel, seeing that they were deceived by him, will be converted to Christ, and thus will be saved. And this is what Daniel says: "And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be killed, and His people who will deny Him shall not be His. And the people (the army of Titus) with the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be desolation, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation, etc., and in the middle of the week (in which they will kill Christ), sacrifice and offering shall cease: and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation: and until the consummation and end the desolation shall continue" of the temple, and consequently of Judaism. Add that this freedom will be "in the last of the years," as is said in chapter 38:8. It will therefore be, not earthly, as the Jews want, but spiritual and heavenly, namely one which is begun here through grace, and soon perfected in heaven through glory.
Verse 25: I will be zealous
25. I will be zealous, — I will be zealous for the salvation of My Jewish people, not because of their merits, but for My own sake and for My name, that I may be called a faithful and merciful Father.
Verse 26: They shall bear their confusion
26. They shall bear their confusion, — when they shall consider that they killed Christ and heaped insults and injuries upon Him in their Judaism, now converted to Christ they shall be confounded.
Verse 27: I shall have brought them back from the peoples
27. I shall have brought them back from the peoples, — among whom the Jews were scattered both by Titus and by the Antichrist, I will bring them back to their dwellings, and to Judea, both bodily and even more spiritually, that is to the Church of Christ.
And I shall be sanctified in them, — when I shall have shown and exercised My holy mercy, as formerly My justice, toward them, and thus shall have declared Myself to be God, whose proper quality is to be holy. Wherefore for God to be sanctified in Scripture means for God to show Himself to be God: for God is holy and holiness itself, infinite and uncreated by essence.
Verse 29: My Spirit
29. My Spirit, — of grace, justice, and holiness. The Chaldean, the Holy Spirit; the Septuagint however, My fury, namely which I poured out upon the Jews on account of their crimes.
From these two chapters, and from Apocalypse chapter 19, verse 11 and following, and chapter 20, verse 9, we certainly gather these things about Gog and Magog:
First, that they will be the army of Satan and the Antichrist who will fight against Christ and Christians. For this is what is said in Apocalypse 19:19: "And I saw the beast (that is the Antichrist), and the kings of the earth, and their armies (Gog and Magog) gathered to make war with Him who sat on the horse (that is with Christ, as is clear from verse 13) and with His army." And chapter 20:7: "Satan shall be loosed, and shall seduce the nations that are upon the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, etc., and they encompassed the camp of the Saints."
Second, that they will be very numerous, and as it were innumerable. For this is what is said in Apocalypse 20:7: "Whose number is like the sand of the sea." Again, that they will be fierce, and will come from the North, as is said in Ezekiel 38:15, and this at the end of the world. For this is what Ezekiel says there, verse 8: "In the last of the years he shall come;" and St. John, Apocalypse 20:7: "After a thousand years Satan shall be loosed, and shall seduce Gog."
Third, that Jerusalem will then return to its former splendor, both of kingdom and of faith, so that in it there will be very many faithful and Christians: wherefore the Antichrist will establish his royal seat in it, and there Elijah and Enoch will fight and preach against him, as is clear from Apocalypse 11:8, at whose preaching many will flock to Jerusalem, and with them will steadfastly, like the Maccabees, oppose the Antichrist, who with his army of Gog and Magog will surround them to destroy them near Jerusalem: and there the Antichrist, Gog and Magog will be divinely slain. For this is what is said in Apocalypse 20:8: "And they went up (Gog and Magog) over the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the Saints (Christians) and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven and devoured them."
Fourth, that God will rain from heaven upon the army of Gog and Magog hailstones, pestilence, fire and brimstone, by which He will destroy them, as is expressly said in Ezekiel 38:22. He will also send upon them a horrible earthquake, likewise terror and panic fury, so that they slay one another with mutual slaughter, as is said there in verse 21.
Fifth, that the slaughter of Gog and Magog will be so great that their weapons will suffice the faithful Jews as firewood for burning for seven years, and all the birds and wild beasts will feed on their corpses.
Sixth, that they will be slain and buried near the city of Amona, in the valley of the multitude of Gog, as is clear from Ezekiel 39:11 and 16.
Seventh, that in this battle the Antichrist himself will be slain, and his precursor, or the false prophet, and both will be cast down from heaven to the infernal regions. For this is what is said of this battle in Apocalypse 19:19: "And the beast was captured (that is the Antichrist), and with him the false prophet, etc., these two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone."
Eighth, that after the slaying of the Antichrist, Gog and Magog, the Jews will be converted to Christ; and Christians who lapsed during the persecution of the Antichrist will return to Christ, and then the faith and religion of Christ will flourish. For this is what is said in this chapter 39, verse 25: "Now I will bring back the captivity of Jacob, and I will have mercy on all the house of Israel, and I will be zealous for My holy name," etc.
From what has been said it is clear that what Pererius teaches, in his Prologue to the Apocalypse, disputation 5, seems less probable, namely that Gog and Magog will come after the Antichrist; for the sixth persecution of the Church will be inflicted by the army of the Antichrist: but the seventh by the remnants of the Antichrist, namely Gog and Magog. For Scripture signifies that the last persecution will be that of the Antichrist, and in it associates Gog and Magog with him as his allies.
Mystically, Gog and Magog, and the precursors of the Antichrist were the heretics who attacked the Church: and therefore, similarly to them, they perished punished by God.
How great was the fury of Arius and the Arians, and especially of the Emperor Constantius, against the orthodox, St. Athanasius and others, as well as St. Hilary writing to him, thus recounts: "Priests," he says, "are confined in prisons, the people are disposed in the custody of a chained order, virgins are stripped for punishment, bodies consecrated to God are exposed to public view, fitted for the enjoyment of spectacle and torture. They compel us, indeed, not that we all be Christians, but that we be Arians." Wherefore Arius, by the avenging God, poured out his bowels (by which others are contained in their mother's womb, because he himself had been impious and blasphemous against the Son of God) in the latrines together with his soul.
Constantius nearly died of grief when he saw himself gradually being excluded from the empire and life by Julian the Apostate, his kinsman, whom he had made Caesar.
Valens the Arian, a great persecutor of the Homoousians, was defeated by the rebelling Goths, and grievously wounded in flight, entering a hut that happened to be nearby, was burned alive when the enemy set it on fire: receiving indeed a fitting end by temporary fire from heretics, for whom he had arranged eternal fire. For he himself had previously made the Goths, whom he had conquered, into Arians.
Theodoric, the Arian king of the Goths, slaughtered by the sword Symmachus the patrician, and Boethius the senator, Catholic men outstanding in virtue; wherefore when dying he was seen by a certain holy hermit, ungirded and unshod, with his hands bound, being led between them and thrown into the nearby cauldron of Vulcan, so that by those whom he had here oppressed with most unjust judgments, it was signified that he was sent into eternal fire, as St. Gregory narrates in the Dialogues.
Totila, king of the Goths, invaded Italy and Sicily, cruel and exceedingly so, leaving traces everywhere of his and his men's most savage cruelty against churchmen: whence he also ordered Carbonius, Bishop of Populonia, to be thrown to the most savage bears in the amphitheater where the king himself sat as spectator, because he had received Catholic soldiers as guests, and hidden and protected them at home from the Goths who arrived. Then he took Perugia, and soon gave his prefect this order of cruelty: "From the Bishop (who was St. Herculanus), first strip a band of skin from the top of his head to his heel, and then cut off his head: and destroy with the sword all the people found there." Wherefore he rightly heard from St. Benedict: "You do many evils, you have done many evils, now cease from iniquity. Indeed you shall cross the sea, you shall enter Rome, you shall reign nine years, and in the tenth you shall die."
For in that year Narses, the exarch sent by the Emperor, defeated the Goths in battle and killed Totila. See St. Gregory, Dialogues 3, chapters 12 and 13, and book 2, chapter 15.
Julian the Apostate, enemy of the Galileans (as he called the Christians), struck by a heavenly weapon, perished, crying out: "You have conquered, O Galilean, you have conquered."
How great were the disasters that the Arian Vandals, and their king Huneric, inflicted upon the faithful, can be seen in Victor of Utica in the three books which he wrote about the persecution of the Vandals. But what was the end? Huneric, long fed on the blood of the Saints, was finally seized by a demon, and tore himself with his own bites, says Gregory of Tours, and, as Victor of Utica reports, with his body having opened in its most private parts, teeming with worms, he expired.
Constantine, who was called Copronymus from the font defiled when he was baptized, a sworn enemy of the Blessed Virgin and the sacred images, and a destroyer of monks, when he had reigned 33 years in this cruelty, was seized by the most burning fevers, and in despair cried out that he had already been delivered alive to the unquenchable fire, and demanded that her honor be restored to the Blessed Mother of God (whom he had so many times assailed with blasphemies).
Aistulf, king of the Lombards, grievously and for a long time harassed the Church, killed the faithful, destroyed churches, broke the faith he had given, threatened that he would slaughter all the Romans with a single sword: he also threatened Pope Stephen and Pepin, and finally besieged Rome. But what was the end? Hear Anastasius: "The wretched Aistulf," he says, "going out to hunt in a certain place, was struck by a divine blow and died" in the year of the Lord 756.