Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to describe the day of judgment, on which the happiness of the wicked will cease and their unhappiness will begin, and conversely the unhappiness of the pious will cease and their happiness — never to end — will begin. Then therefore God, who in this life overlooked the crimes of the wicked and allowed the pious to be afflicted by them, will take up judgment and will show that He is the God of judgment, and that He had from eternity appointed that day for the universal judgment of all humanity, and that therefore He had allowed the pious to be harassed by the wicked in this world, so that the wickedness of the latter and the virtue of the former — to be declared and rewarded with heavenly glory on that decisive day — might shine forth before the whole world: There shall arise, He says, for you who fear My name, the Sun of justice, etc. And you shall trample upon the wicked. Hence secondly, in verse 4, He admonishes them to keep the law of God, because they are to be judged by it, and therefore He asserts that before the day of judgment He will send Elijah, who will spur them on to the keeping of the law, so that they may experience not the judge's wrath and the curse of anathema, but His clemency and eternal reward.
Vulgate Text: Malachi 4:1-6
1. For behold, the day shall come, kindled as a furnace: and all the proud, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall set them on fire, says the Lord of hosts, which shall not leave them root nor branch. 2. But unto you that fear My name, the Sun of justice shall arise, and health in His wings: and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd. 3. And you shall tread down the wicked when they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in the day that I do this, says the Lord of hosts. 4. Remember the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, the precepts and judgments. 5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. 6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest perhaps I come, and strike the earth with anathema.
Verse 1: For behold, the day
1. For behold, the day. — The word 'for' gives the reason for what preceded, as if to say: On the day of judgment you will see what a difference there is between the pious and the wicked, and that the pious have not served God in vain and fruitlessly. For behold, the day will come which will burn the wicked as fire burns stubble; but for the pious the sun of justice will arise. This day is the day of the last judgment, for the precursor of this day will be Elijah. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Remigius, Lyra, and others, with the single exception of Arias, who by the day understands the day on which Christ and Christianity dawned upon the world: for that day was like a furnace to the wicked, manifesting, rebuking, and burning their wickedness; but to the pious it was like a sun of justice and health, both of mind and body. But this interpretation is forced and mystical.
Kindled — with fire, both spiritual and mystical, namely the burning wrath and vengeance of Christ the Judge, by which He will separate the wicked from the pious and condemn and cast them down to hell, according to Daniel VII, 9: "His throne was flames of fire, His wheels burning fire. A swift stream of fire issued forth from before Him; thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened" — so St. Jerome, Remigius, and Clarius. And also with real and proper fire — namely, the fire of the world's conflagration, which will precede the judgment, and the fire of hell, which immediately after the judgment will engulf the damned in Gehenna, and will seize them most swiftly like stubble. For the fire of the conflagration will separate the wicked from the pious: both because it will burn them more severely and will inflict a worse death and destruction on them according to their demerits than on the pious, and because it will separate them in place and condition on the day of judgment — so that they stand at the left hand of the judge like goats to be slaughtered, and there it will attend them like an executioner, so that after the judge's sentence it may immediately hurl them down to hell like a whirlwind. So Lyra and Vatablus.
To this the Apostle alluded in 1 Corinthians III, 13, when, describing the day of judgment, he says: "Every man's work shall be manifest. For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire: and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." See the comments there.
Kindled — by fire, both spiritual and mystical, namely by the burning wrath and vengeance of Christ the Judge, by which He will separate the pious from the wicked, and will condemn and cast the wicked down to hell, according to Daniel 7:9: "His throne was like flames of fire, His wheels like a burning fire. A swift stream of fire issued forth from before Him: thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him: the judgment sat, and the books were opened:" so St. Jerome, Remigius, and Clarius; and also by proper, real fire, namely the fire of the conflagration of the world, which will precede the judgment, and the fire of hell, which immediately after the judgment will engulf the damned in Gehenna, and most swiftly seize them like stubble. For the fire of the conflagration will separate the wicked from the pious; both because it will burn them more severely and inflict a graver destruction and slaughter according to their demerits than upon the pious; and because it will separate them in place and condition on the day of judgment, so that they stand at the left hand of the Judge, like goats to be slaughtered, and there it will attend them like an executioner, so that after the Judge's sentence it may immediately hurl them into hell like a whirlwind: so Lyranus and Vatablus. The Apostle alluded to this, 1 Corinthians 3:13, when describing the day of judgment he says: "Every man's work shall be made manifest. For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire: and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." See what was said there.
Morally, note that the wicked kindle this fire for themselves by their sins, as Isaiah teaches, chapter 50:11: "Behold, he says, all you who kindle fire, girt with flames: walk in the light of your fire, and in the flames which you have kindled." See what was said there. Thus the Babylonians, kindling the furnace, lit it not for the three youths, who remained unharmed in it by God's power, but for themselves. For: "The flame burst out and burned those whom it found near the furnace from among the Chaldeans," Daniel 3:48.
Like a furnace. — The Septuagint: Like an oven; others, like a kiln. Consider the horror of the Babylonian furnace and fire, in which "the flame poured out above the furnace forty-nine cubits," Daniel 3:47. Consider the furnace by which Sodom and the Pentapolis were consumed by heavenly fire, Genesis 19. Consider the burnings of citadels and cities, if you have ever seen any with your own eyes; and know that these were merely a shadow and spark of this furnace, by which celestial fire the whole world will be set ablaze, and all things in it, namely houses, temples, citadels, villas, cities, trees, animals, men, and all the rest, so that the whole earth will seem to be a burning kiln and oven. Moreover, this furnace and fire of the world's conflagration will be only a shadow and spark of the fire of hell, where the smoke of their torments ascends forever and ever, Apocalypse 19:3. Set this fire before yourself when lust, pride, anger, the devil, or the world solicits you to sin.
AND ALL THE PROUD, AND ALL THAT DO WICKEDLY, SHALL BE STUBBLE — that is, like stubble, after the manner of stubble, as if to say: The proud and powerful, who in this life were strong, iron, and bronze, so that no one dared resist them; and they themselves dared to fight against God; these on the day of judgment will be weak, feeble, and powerless like stubble, which cannot resist fire: because seized by the efficacious and powerful vengeance of God, like stubble, they will be burned most swiftly; yet they will not be consumed, but God preserving them for eternal torments, they will always remain alive, so that they may always burn. Behold, then it will appear that those who served God were not in vain, but that those who served Venus, ambition, and mammon were vain and foolish; because for a small honor, reward, and pleasure they brought upon themselves eternal fires: but the pious, through a small contempt, poverty, and suffering, brought upon themselves eternal glory.
WHICH SHALL NOT LEAVE THEM ROOT NOR BRANCH. — And, that is, nor. It is a proverb signifying complete excision and destruction, as if to say: That day of judgment with its fire will so blast, cut down, and destroy the wicked, and their wealth, delights, happiness, and glory, like stubble, that it will not only take away all these things, but also deprive them of all hope of any good forever, and cast them into eternal death and fire: just as a tree, or rather stubble, cut down or torn up by the root and set on fire, cannot sprout again into a branch or be reborn. So St. Cyril and Albertus. Secondly, Lyranus by root understands the hope of returning to the state of grace and merit, as if to say: For the wicked on the day of judgment there will remain no hope of correcting their errors and falls, no hope of repentance and pardon, no hope of returning to God's grace, no time will be given for making satisfaction or meriting eternal life. The first sense is literal, the second moral.
Verse 2: And The Sun Of Justice Shall Arise For You That Fear My Name
2. AND THE SUN OF JUSTICE SHALL ARISE FOR YOU THAT FEAR MY NAME. — Of justice, both properly so called, and natural and symbolic, that is, of salvation, glory, and happiness. For justice congruent with nature, and as it were owed to it, is its integrity, health, and beauty. Hence justice, as well as salvation, is sometimes taken in Scripture for purity, brightness, and splendor, as in Psalm 132:9 and 16: "Let Your priests be clothed with justice." And: "I will clothe her priests with salvation." Where the Chaldee for justice translates, purity, as also here for sun of justice, he translates, sun of purity. And Isaiah 61:10: "He has clothed me with garments of salvation, and with the garment of justice He has covered me," that is, He has clothed me on every side with a most pure garment through Christ the Savior. For the garment of salvation and the garment of justice are the same thing: for the latter verse explains the former. So Prado on Ezekiel, chapter 16:4, near the end. Justice therefore here means salvation, beauty, and glory. Hence explaining He adds: "And healing in His wings." For the justice due to the sun is its splendor and power of healing.
Now Theodoret, Arias, and Clarius apply this to Christ's first birth and coming into the world, which He, like the rising sun, illuminated, warmed, and with every grace and virtue made fruitful and vivified. Hence He is called of justice, because from Himself He poured forth rays of justice, by which He justified, and daily justifies, sinners who wish to gaze upon Him, that is, to believe in Him and obey Him; just as the sun imparts light, joy, and life to all who turn their eyes toward it. Secondly, the rising sun is like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber: thus Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church. Thirdly, the sun is like a giant in the stadium, hastening from the starting gates to the finish with an unimpeded course: so Christ, the almighty Prince, powerfully completed the glorious course of His grace, so that He could be hindered by no one. Fourthly, the sun does not wait for prayers, but immediately shines forth and brings light and life to all who see it: so Christ first loved us, and when we were enemies He came before us, and of His own accord enriched and enriches us with the greatest benefits. He is therefore our Apollo, the guardian of health; He is the King of all ages, adorning all things with new light, new life, new beauty. Fifthly, the sun is veiled by clouds, suffers eclipse, and appears ruddy and red: so Christ, veiled in assumed flesh, suffered eclipse on the Cross, was illuminated through the Resurrection, and is a red and fearsome Judge and Avenger of sins.
But that this passage treats of Christ's second coming is clear from what precedes and follows, all of which pertains to the day of judgment, on which God will render to each one punishment or reward according to their merits. Then therefore for the pious God and Christ will arise like the sun of justice, but for the wicked
He will set. First and genuinely, because just as the sun illuminates dark things and presents them as visible and conspicuous to the eyes of all: so Christ will illuminate and glorify the virtue and justice of the pious, which in this life was obscured and suppressed by the wicked, on the day of judgment, and will present it as conspicuous and glorious to the whole world. So St. Jerome. Hence He is called of justice; the Chaldee says, of purity, that is, the most just, most pure, and most holy: because He will make the just and justice, here oppressed, there to shine and gleam. Secondly, because He will radiate like the sun with His brightness, majesty, and glory. Hence when He died on the Cross, the sun was darkened, to indicate the setting of the true Sun. Thirdly, because He will fill the saints with wondrous joy, after the long hardships of persecutions and tribulations of this life, just as the sun rising after the long darkness of night gladdens men. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Rupert, Lyranus, and Vatablus. Fourthly, because like the sun He will dispel every darkness of errors, sins, concupiscences, and temptations, and will bring a perpetual day of truth, grace, and justice. Fifthly, because the light of the sun is not ordinary, such as that of a candle, lamp, fire, or stars, but extraordinary and glorious: so Christ on the day of judgment will illuminate the saints in their souls with the light of glory, beatifying them with the vision of God, which will bring them eternal beatitude and glory, and will endow their bodies with the gift of clarity. For, as Christ says, Matthew 13:43: "The just shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Sixthly, because just as the sun "strengthens the eyes of eagles, but harms ours and darkens them when gazed upon," says St. Augustine, Book II of On the Morals of the Manichaeans, chapter 8: so Christ will sharpen and invigorate the minds of the just forever, but will blind the minds and eyes of the wicked with His light. Seventhly, because the sun in its unity is a hieroglyph of God, and in its trinity is a symbol of the Most Holy Trinity: "for in the sun there are three things, and they cannot be separated: its course, its splendor, its heat. For we see the sun in the sky running, shining, heating. Separate therefore the sun if you can, O Arian, and then at last separate the Trinity," says St. Augustine, Sermon 1 On the Words of the Apostle. The same, Sermon 181 On the Seasons: "The sun, he says, is brightness and heat, and these are three words, yet the three are one. What is bright is hot, and what is hot is bright: by these three words one thing is known: so the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three Persons, yet in the Godhead they are one, and an undivided unity is rightly believed." God is therefore the sun, "because He alone is to be worshipped, in the enjoyment of whom alone His worshipper becomes blessed; and in the non-enjoyment of whom alone every mind is wretched, whatever other thing it may enjoy," says St. Augustine, Book II Against Faustus, chapter 5; for the sun (sol) is so called because it is alone (solus), that is, the only one in the world, and because when it alone has risen, with all other stars obscured, it alone appears, says Cicero, Book II of On the Nature of the Gods.
Therefore the Manichaeans worshipped the sun as a god, indeed they considered it to be Christ Himself, as St. Augustine adds in the same place, chapter 6: "With these most obscene rags of yours, he says, you attempt to sew on the ineffable Trinity, saying that the Father dwells in a certain secret light, but the power of the Son is in the sun, His wisdom in the moon; and the Holy Spirit in the air." And a little earlier, refuting their fictions about the sun: "First, he says, you say it is a certain ship: thus you err not only, as the saying goes, by the whole sky, but by your very origin. Then since it shines round to the eyes of all, and that shape is perfect for its position in order, you claim it is triangular, that is, that through a certain triangular window of the sky this light radiates to the world and lands (just as when the sun's rays pass through a triangular opening, they soon collect themselves again, become circular, and appear round, so as to represent the round sun from which they flow, as the Optics experts teach, and experience itself demonstrates): thus it happens that toward this sun indeed you bend your back and neck; but you worship not the sun itself, so conspicuous in its clear roundness, but some ship you have invented, gleaming and shining through a triangular opening." Conversely, Anaxagoras thought the sun was a burning stone, says the same St. Augustine, Book XVIII of The City of God, chapter 12. For when once a stone fell from the sky into Aegos, a river of Thrace, Anaxagoras (whom they say also predicted that this would happen) affirmed that the entire sky was composed of stones, and that the sun itself was a glowing rock. Therefore
Euripides, his disciple, in the tragedy Phaethon, called the sun a golden clod. For this reason Anaxagoras was charged with impiety by Cleon, and though defended by his disciple Pericles, was fined five talents and punished with exile. So Diogenes Laertius in his Life.
To the error of the Manichaeans is added Homer, and from him Pliny, Book II, chapter 6. Therefore the praises that Pliny gives the sun, certainly too august and divine for it, you should most truly assign to Christ, the Sun of justice: "Among the planets, he says, the sun is carried in the middle with the greatest magnitude and power: the governor not only of times and lands, but of the stars themselves and of heaven. Him we ought to believe to be the soul of the whole world, and more plainly its mind, the principal governance and divinity of nature, considering his works. He ministers light to things and takes away darkness: he conceals the rest of the stars, he regulates the changes of the seasons and the ever-renewing year according to nature's use. He dispels the gloom of the sky and also clears the clouds of the human spirit. He lends his light to the other stars also, illustrious, extraordinary, beholding all things, also hearing all things, as I see pleased Homer, the prince of letters, in him alone." Again, Plato in the Cratylus gives a threefold etymology of helios, that is, the sun: "The Dorians, he says, call the sun halios; and it may be because it gathers men together in one and the same place, where it first rose. It may also seem to be from aei heilein, that is, because it always revolves, namely around the earth in a kind of perpetual course." Thirdly, it is called helios, "because it variously forms things that grow from the earth,
they emit rays, by which some are illuminated, and others are also kindled toward true honor and true virtue. Fifth, just as the sun is benevolent and beneficent, so also is a friend. Christ is therefore called by antonomasia the sun of justice, that is, the just and true sun, kind, generous, imparting His good things to all: "and healing in His wings," that is, in His rays; because "a faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality," Sirach 6:16. "Healing" therefore "in His wings," because He Himself consoles the mourning, refreshes the afflicted, strengthens the wavering, rouses the fallen, calms the angry, and in a word renders to all every office of friendship and charity. This indeed is the Sun of justice: because there is no one at all who has benefited men more, or shone more upon them, than Christ. Hence He is promised to those who fear and love God: for the magnet of love is love: the reward of God's friends is Christ, the most loving friend.
Symbolically, St. Augustine, Letter 119 to Januarius, chapter 5: "In Proverbs (Ecclesiastes 27:12) we read: The wise man remains like the sun, but the fool changes like the moon. And who is the wise one who remains, if not the Sun of justice, of whom it is said: The sun of justice has risen for me, and whom the wicked, lamenting on the last day that He had not risen for them, will say: The light of justice did not shine upon us, and the sun of justice did not rise for us? For God makes this sun, visible to the eyes of the flesh, rise upon the good and the bad; who also sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Who then is that fool who changes like the moon, if not Adam, in whom all sinned? For the human soul, departing from the Sun of justice, that is, from that interior contemplation of unchangeable truth, turns all its powers to earthly things, and is thereby more and more darkened in its inner and higher faculties." And further on: "When Christ shall appear, your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory. The Church seems dark in the time of her pilgrimage, groaning among many iniquities, etc. There shall arise, He says, in His days justice and abundance of peace, until the moon be destroyed: that is, the abundance of peace will so increase that it will consume all the changeableness of mortality. Then the last enemy, death, will be destroyed, and whatever resists us from the weakness of the flesh, from which we do not yet have perfect peace, will be utterly consumed, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality."
Tropologically, for the angry and the sinner the Sun of justice sets; for the gentle and the just it rises. Whence St. Augustine, Homily 43 among the 50: "The sun ought not, he says, the sun set upon your anger, and many suns have set: let your anger pass sometime; we celebrate the day of the great Sun; of that Sun, of whom Scripture says: The Sun of justice shall arise for you, and healing in His wings. What does 'in His wings' mean? In His protection. Whence in Psalm 16 it is said: Under the shadow of Your wings protect me." And
immediately after: "If therefore you are angry, let not this sun set in your heart upon your anger, lest perhaps the Sun of justice also set for you, and you remain in darkness. But do not think that anger is nothing: My eye was troubled with anger. Surely one whose eye is troubled cannot see the sun, and if he tries to see it, it is a punishment for him, not a pleasure."
Let pastors note here (a practice I have seen and heard some do) that they should admonish the people on the day of the sun, that is, on Sunday, when they gather at church, about laying aside anger and every sin, because it is the Lord's day, on which the Sun of justice rose for them. Again, St. Bernard, Letter 107: "For you, he says, who fear God, the Sun of justice shall arise. While the sons of distrust therefore remain in darkness, the son of light escapes into this new light from the power of darkness, if indeed he can now confidently say to God: I am a partner of all who fear You."
AND HEALING IN HIS WINGS. — In Hebrew בכנפיו bienaphecha, that is, in his wings. He poetically calls the rays wings, first, because they clothe, adorn, and surround the sun, just as feathers or a crest adorn a bird. Hence Homer calls it the golden-haired sun. And Virgil, at the beginning of Aeneid Book VI, speaking of Daedalus:
Daring to entrust himself to the sky on swift wings, etc. Restored here first to earth, to you, Phoebus, he consecrated The oarage of his wings.
For the sun is called Phoebus, as if phoethos, from phos and bio, that is, the light of life.
Secondly, because the sun moves most swiftly and flies, as it were, like a bird, according to that passage about the sun, Psalm 19: "He rejoiced as a giant to run his course: his going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit even to the end thereof." For the sun is so swift that in one natural day, that is, in 24 hours, it covers a million miles, and in addition 140 thousand more: which is as much as if it ran around the entire circumference of the earth fifty times, as I showed from the astronomers, Genesis 1:16. Moreover, the rising sun scatters its rays like the swiftest wings in an instant across the entire hemisphere.
Thirdly, because the sun, especially when rising, spreads its rays on both sides into such a shape that it appears to be a bird with wings spread, according to Psalm 139:9: "If I take my wings in the morning;" in Hebrew, If I take the wings of the dawn. Which words St. Augustine understands of Christ: "Who when He took His wings in the Resurrection, was no longer weighed down by the body." Hence the Egyptians depicted the sun as a bird, spreading long feathers all around, and they called it the phoenix. For the phoenix is not a real bird, but a symbolic one, namely the sun, as I showed in Genesis 7:2. Hence they said the phoenix was unique, because the sun is unique in the world; and that it dwelt in Heliopolis, that is, in the city of the sun, and that it perished and was reborn, because the sun setting in the evening rises again in the morning and as it were resurrects, according to Ovid, Metamorphoses XV:
There is one bird that renews itself and resows itself.
Hence a type and precursor of Christ was Samson, Judges 13:24: for just as God caused Samson to be born for the Jews oppressed by the Philistines, to free his people from the tyranny of enemies, and thence he was called Samson, that is, sun of joy, from shemesh, that is, sun, and sason, that is, he rejoiced; or rather Samson, that is, little sun, as a diminutive of shemesh, as if to say: For Israel, situated in darkness, sorrow, and servitude, there arose a little sun, that is, a small and new sun, namely Samson, judge and avenger, who might dispel these shadows and flood the Jews with new light, liberty, and joy. Just so, in like manner, Christ the true Samson was given by God to the world oppressed by sins and hardships, as a sun rising from on high, who would put to flight and abolish sins in His first coming, but all hardships and death in His second; and then they will no longer say: "Where is the God of judgment?" For they will see the Sun of justice, namely Christ, who will justly punish the wicked and reward the just according to their merits. Who then is that fool who changes like the moon, if not Adam, in whom all sinned?
Finally, our Martin de Roa, Book I of Singularia, chapter 14, considers that Christ is called the Sun of justice, that is, the true and just friend, who pours out the rays of His beneficence upon His faithful ones, as upon friends: for the sun among sacred and secular writers is a symbol of friendship, on account of five analogies. The first is: the sun is unique, and a friend ought to be unique; there are many stars, many acquaintances, according to Sirach 6:6: "Let those at peace with you be many, but your counselor one in a thousand." Second, to Euripides the sun is a golden clod, to Homer a golden chain let down from heaven to earth, because it engenders gold in the deepest bowels of the earth: so a friend is the finest gold, an immense treasure, Sirach 6:14: "A faithful friend is a strong protection; he who finds him finds a treasure. Nothing is comparable to a faithful friend, and no weight of gold and silver is worthy of being measured against the goodness of his fidelity." Third, the sun has eternal youth: so friendship ought to be perpetual and constant, not weakened by the changes of time, nor consumed by age. Fourth, just as the sun with its light illuminates all things, and reveals the difficulties of the roads, and shows where one must go: so also it is the duty of friends to advise friends, and to point out the perils of life, the offenses against morals, and what they ought to avoid and what they ought to embrace. Thus it is said in Judges 5:31: "But let those who love You shine as the sun shines at its rising," that is,
let them emit rays, by which others may be both illuminated and also kindled toward true honor and true virtue. Fifth, just as the sun is benevolent and beneficent, so also is a friend.
There exists in Lactantius an elegant poem by an unknown Author about the phoenix, in which its entire history, or rather fable, is narrated, where among other things it calls the phoenix a solar bird. Among other things, therefore, it sings thus of it:
The memorable attendant obeys and follows Phoebus, etc. When first the saffron dawn rises blushing, Three or four times it plunges its body in the sacred waters, And turning toward the new risings of the nascent Phoebus, It awaits the rays and the rising dawn. It begins to pour forth the measures of sacred song, And to summon the new light with a wondrous voice.
Just as almost all birds begin to sleep when the sun sets, and to awaken when it rises; hence in the morning they warble and greet the rising sun with their song. The Poet continues about the tail and feathers of the phoenix:
Its tail is spread, distinguished with tawny metal, In whose spots mingled purple glows. A bright emblem, the rainbow, is above among the feathers, As the high sky is wont to paint a cloud above. A radiate crown matches the whole head, Representing the lofty ornament of Phoebus's summit. A likeness is seen mixed between the form of a peacock And the mixed Phasian bird. It is light and swift, full of regal beauty: And the throng greets the rare bird with cheers. Attended by a choir of birds it flies through the heights, And the crowd follows joyfully with pious tribute, etc. It is itself its own offspring, its own father, and its own heir: Nurse of itself, always its own nursling: Itself indeed, yet not the same, because it both is and is not itself: Having obtained eternal life through the benefit of death.
To be sure, the phoenix is the sun, whose tail, feathers, and crest are rays spread out in length, breadth, and height, which partly gleam white, partly glow red, and in their proper place form a rainbow in a dewy cloud; and it is beautiful and handsome, as well as magnificent and swift in its movement, like a peacock trailing behind it the elegant train of its tail, namely of rays spread far and wide; hence at its rising, birds, animals, and men greet it. It is its own father and son, which after setting rises from itself again as it were and is reborn, and so by its continual setting continually begets for itself a rising, and as it were eternal life, of which it is equally a hieroglyph as of the resurrection. Therefore Malachi seems here to allude to this symbol of the phoenix, indeed to represent it in his very words, when he says: "The Sun of justice shall arise for you who fear My name, and healing in His wings." Just as some think Job also did, chapter 29:18: "I shall die in my nest, and like the palm tree I shall multiply my days." Where Tertullian reads: And like the phoenix I shall multiply my days: for the Greek phoenix in the Septuagint signifies both the phoenix and the palm tree, on account of their similar longevity. For Pliny, Book VII, chapter 40, asserts that the phoenix lives 660 years. Likewise the Hebrew חול chol, which our translation in Job 24:18 renders palm, the ancient and modern Hebrews, Rabbi Solomon, the Zurich Bible, and Cajetan translate as
phoenix. Whence Philip the priest, on Job 29, says: It is possible that Job, in the likeness of that bird (the phoenix), says that he will die for a time through death in the ashes of the flesh, as in a nest, and will thence rise again to glory and a multitude of days. Bede asserts the same.
Therefore the phoenix is a symbol of Christ (and consequently of Christians) dying and gloriously rising again from Himself and by His own power, as Aldrovandus shows in his work On the Phoenix. Furthermore, healing is in the wings of the sun, because the sun with its rays rouses, strengthens, vivifies, and gladdens plants, animals, and men languishing, torpid, and as it were dying from the cold of night, and thus heals the weaknesses and wounds of all creatures with its light, rays, and heat.
Now the meaning is, first, as if to say: Christ will come, who as the phoenix and Sun of justice rising in the world, wherever He extends His wings and feathers, that is, the rays of His preaching (hence the Syriac and Arabic translate: Healing upon His tongue), of grace and virtue, there He will heal all infirmities of body and soul. For, as St. Mark says, chapter 6:56: "As many as touched Him were made whole;" as the woman with a hemorrhage, by touching the fringe, which was like a wing and feather (as Hesychius testifies in his homily On St. Mary) of Christ's garment, was healed of her flow of blood, Luke 8:44. Again, just as the sun with its light drives away serpents, wolves, tigers, and all savage and harmful beasts: so Christ, the Sun of justice, by His coming into the world drove away demons, crushed idols, destroyed sins, and restored the sick world, indeed the dead world, to health and life. So Theodoret. He does the same daily, when He arises in the souls of the faithful, whether of sinners or of the just. For from them He expels and heals either demons and grave sins, or lighter ones, concupiscences, temptations, evil thoughts, and all infirmities, so that man, restored to himself, healthy and vigorous, may begin to work deeds not only holy but heroic, by which he may ascend to the summit and pinnacle of Christian perfection. But because the discussion here is not about the first, but about the second coming of Christ, in which He as Judge, like the Sun of justice, will restore, indeed immeasurably increase, the strength, honor, and glory of the pious who were afflicted and oppressed in this life; hence
Secondly and genuinely, take these words with the same Theodoret, Rupert, Lyranus, and others, as referring to the healing that the blessed will obtain from Christ on the day of judgment, as if to say: O pious men, you groan in this life because you are unjustly oppressed by the wicked, imprisoned, deprived of liberty, just as you, O Jews, were shut up in Babylon as in a blind prison by the Chaldeans; but lift up your spirits, endure bravely. Behold, shortly the Sun of justice will arise for you, namely Christ the Judge, who will celebrate and reward their injustice and your justice before the whole world. Again, in this age you are afflicted with a thousand infirmities and hardships, such as the despoiling of goods, poverty, squalor, sorrow, hunger, thirst, diseases, beatings, wounds, death, and martyrdom. Endure: behold, shortly the Sun of justice will pour upon you His wings, that is, the rays of His healing, by which He will dispel all your wounds, all your afflictions, all your sorrows and infirmities, as the sun dispels darkness, and will fully and perfectly heal them. For your afflicted and corrupted bodies He will bring forth from their tombs and ashes, will raise, beatify, and glorify them, so that you may leap like calves of the herd.
Therefore this healing encompasses much: for Christ at the Resurrection will thoroughly heal all sicknesses not only of the body, but also of the soul. Health therefore for bodies will be, first, the very resurrection itself; second, immortality; third, impassibility, so that one can no longer be harmed or suffer from fire, sword, enemy, demon, or any created thing; fourth, agility; fifth, subtlety; sixth, clarity; seventh, felicity; eighth, glory, namely every beauty, every honor, every sweetness, every delight, every wealth, everything that gives pleasure.
But the health of the soul will be, first, inexpressible joy, which will wipe away every sorrow from the mind and every tear from the eyes, according to Isaiah 35:10: "Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away." Second, the integrity of all the soul's powers: for, as St. Prosper says, Book I of On the Contemplative Life, chapter 4: "There the intellect will be without error, the memory without forgetfulness, thought without distraction, charity without pretense, sense without offense, fullness without disgust, and complete health without disease." For the soul was wounded by Adam's sin in the intellect, through obscurity and ignorance; in the will, through inclination to perishable goods; in the irascible faculty, through various fears and terrors; in the concupiscible, through weakness and manifold concupiscence, etc. Christ in heaven will heal all these, giving the intellect light and knowledge, the will constancy in good, the irascible faculty heroic fortitude, and the concupiscible faculty decency and rectitude, so that it may desire nothing but what is decent and right. Third, the health of the soul will be the light of glory, the vision and enjoyment of God, and the glorious gifts that will follow from it and flow into all the powers and faculties of the soul, and from them into the body. Whence St. Augustine, Letter 56 to Dioscorus: "God, he says, made the soul of so powerful a nature that from its most full beatitude, which is promised to the Saints at the end of time, there overflows even into the lower nature, which is the body, not beatitude, which is proper to the one who enjoys and understands, but the fullness of holiness, that is, the vigor of incorruption."
Morally, let the martyrs apply and meditate upon these words. Behold, we suffer for Christ, we are torn by claws, mangled by the teeth of beasts, ripped apart by scorpions, stretched on the rack, mutilated by swords, roasted by fires: behold, He will come, and shortly will come, the Sun of justice, Christ the Judge, who will restore our members, torn, mangled, ripped, mutilated, and roasted, will heal them, and adorn them with eternal glory. These thoughts
you were thinking, O St. Lawrence, when you were being roasted on the gridiron, and yet you were taunting the tyrant. These things you were meditating, O St. Vincent, when you generously conquered not only all the body's torments, but also the tyrant Dacian. These things you were pondering, O St. Christina, when, cut to pieces by scourges by your own idolatrous father, as by an executioner, throwing the falling particles of your flesh into your father's face, you said: Take back, O tyrant, the flesh you begot.
Let the penitent also say: We afflict ourselves with fasts, vigils, hairshirts, and blows; for Your sake, O Christ, we are put to death all the day long, because we hope for the resurrection of the flesh, in which You will restore it to us, now emaciated, livid, contracted, and half-dead, as succulent, rosy, blooming, and radiant; when indeed You will reform the body of our lowliness, made conformable to the body of Your glory.
Let also the mourning, the struggling, and the wrestling say: Behold, we mourn in the present life, we weep sadly, we sigh, we groan: now the flesh, now the world, now the devil tempts us: now scruples torment us, now suspicions and fears depress us, now anger irritates us, now calumnies, reproaches, and mockeries afflict us, now labors weary us, now pains almost kill us, etc. Shine forth, O Sun of justice! Pour upon us the wings and rays of Your healing, show us Your face, and we shall be saved. Come, O Lord, let the day of healing dawn, and let the shadows of infirmity recede. Come, let the day of eternity dawn, and let the shadows of mortality recede, so that with sorrows, fears, scruples, temptations, and pains driven away, peace, serenity, strength, wholeness, joy, and eternal jubilation may breathe upon our minds. Therefore whenever weakness of soul, whenever bodily pain oppresses you, think: The Sun of justice will arise shortly, and healing in His wings. Look up to Him, invoke Him, fix your hope and mind upon Him: thus you will be a phoenix.
Hear St. Augustine yearning for that day, in his Meditations, chapter 19: "O luminous and beautiful house of God, I have loved your beauty, and the place of the dwelling of the glory of the Lord my God: let my pilgrimage sigh for you night and day, let my heart long for you, let my mind reach toward you, let my soul desire to arrive at the fellowship of your blessedness: I say to Him who made you, that He may possess me in you, because He Himself made both me and you." And a little later: "O Jerusalem, eternal house of God, after the love of Christ be my joy and consolation: let the sweet memory of your blessed name be the relief of my sorrows and weariness. For I am greatly weary, O Lord, of this life and this toilsome pilgrimage. This life is a wretched life, a fleeting life, an uncertain life, a laborious life, an unclean life, a mistress of evils, a queen of the proud, full of miseries and errors, which should not be called life but death, in which at every moment we die through the various defects of changeableness, by diverse kinds of death. Can we then call what we live in this world a life, which humors swell, pains
exhaust, heats dry up, air sickens, foods bloat, fasts waste, jests dissipate, sorrows consume, anxiety constrains, security dulls, riches puff up and make vain, poverty casts down, youth elates, old age bends, infirmity breaks, grief depresses? And upon all these evils furious death follows, and at once puts an end to all the joys of this wretched life, so that when it has ceased to be, it seems never to have been. This death-filled life and life-filled death, though sprinkled with these and other bitternesses, alas! captures very many with its allurements, and deceives very many with its false promises!" Then he depicts the healing that Christ the Judge will bring to His elect: "O you life, which God has prepared for those who love Him, living life, blessed life, secure life, tranquil life, beautiful life, pure life, chaste life, holy life, life ignorant of death, knowing no sadness, life without stain, without pain, without anxiety, without corruption, without disturbance, without change and mutation, a life most full of all elegance and dignity: where there is no adversary attacking, where there is no allurement of sin, where there is perfect love and no fear: where the day is eternal, and one spirit belongs to all, where God is seen face to face, and with this food of life the mind is satisfied without failing. I delight to gaze upon your brightness,
your good things delight me: the more I am able to consider them within myself with eager heart, the more I languish with love: I am exceedingly delighted by the ardent desire for you and by your sweet memory."
YOU SHALL GO FORTH — namely from this world and life, as from a prison, to enter into another, blessed and immortal. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Albertus, and Vatablus. Or rather, "you shall go forth" on the day of judgment (for that is the subject here) from your tombs, when Christ the Sun of justice with His wings, that is, the rays of glory, will raise you up and heal you, breathing upon you a glorious life. So Theodoret. Hence Tertullian also, in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 31, reads: You will come forth from the tombs, like calves loosed from their bonds.
AND YOU SHALL LEAP LIKE CALVES OF THE HERD. — The Hebrew פוש pus means to grow, to fatten, to luxuriate, to frolic, to leap from pasture, joy, and playfulness, as fattened calves do. Hence the Chaldee, the Zurich Bible, and others translate: You will grow, or you will grow fat like calves of the stall; Pagninus, like fattened calves, that is, fatlings; the Septuagint: You will leap like calves released and loosed from their bonds, as Tertullian reads in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 31; for calves above other animals leap and are frisky (hence vitulus, calf, is derived from vitulari, that is, to frolic). Hence they are held by bonds, and therefore when they are freed from them, as if liberated from prison, they leap wonderfully for joy (as also children released from school), especially when they are being fattened: for then they abound in blood and vital spirits. Moreover, tender calves are fattened at home in stables with milk; but older ones in pastures with the herd, that is, the flock of oxen and cows. Hence our translation renders: "Like calves of the herd," that is, like calves of the herd, which are pastured with the herd, and therefore alongside their mothers and other calves and cattle of the same kind and similar to themselves, they leap about joyfully. For every animal delights in its like, takes pleasure with it, and if it is young, it gambols. Hence Rupert, and from him Delrio in adage 1027, explains "a calf of the herd" as a herd-calf: for one that ranges with the herd has been freed from bonds and therefore leaps. Or, "calves from the herd," that is, separated from the herd and placed in stalls to be fattened there. By this phrase Malachi signifies the wonderful exultation of the pious, who in this world, as in a prison, were pressed and oppressed by the wicked (as the Jews in Babylon by the Chaldeans), and who at the resurrection will be so healed by Christ that they will be succulent, beautiful, strong, indeed glorious, and therefore like fattened calves will leap with incredible joy, according to Wisdom 3:7: "The just shall shine like the sun, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds." Hence Mariana explains it thus: You will leap, he says, that is, for joy you will clap and dance, according to Psalm 149:5: "The saints shall exult in glory, they shall rejoice in their beds."
The word "you shall leap" therefore signifies, first, the full health, strength, and vigor of the bodies of the blessed; second, immense joy, hence Vatablus translates: You will spring this way and that; third, the gift of agility, says Suarez, III part, Question 54, article 4, disputation 44, section 4, from Innocent III, by which they will run most swiftly in every direction like lightning, so that wherever the spirit wills to be, there also the body will instantly be, according to Isaiah 40, last verse: "Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint." Hence St. Anselm, in his book On Similitudes, chapter 51, asserts that the blessed in agility will be like the angels, because they will glide from heaven to earth faster than one can say it; but the wicked, burdened by weight, will not be able to move their feet, their hands, or any other member of their body. And in chapter 52, he teaches that the blessed, if they wish, could move the earth from its place; but the damned cannot even remove worms from their eyes. As a symbol of this, those holy living creatures, in Ezekiel 1:14, "went and returned in the likeness of a flash of lightning."
Fourth, the word "you shall leap" signifies the immense transformation of the blessed, through the leap they will make from earth to heaven. You will leap therefore from mud to heaven, from death to life, from hardships to glory, from the tomb to the throne of God and of the Lamb. Thus the bride, that is, the Church of the blessed, will imitate the Bridegroom Christ, of whom she says in Song of Songs 2:8: "The voice of my beloved: behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. My beloved is like a roe and a young deer." For Christ made great leaps, when He leaped from heaven into the Virgin's womb; from the womb into the manger, from the manger to the Cross, and from the Cross He returned to heaven.
Fifth, the heavenly choruses and dances, ovations and applause of the blessed. He alludes to the Jews who, after crossing the Red Sea and the drowning of Pharaoh, led sacred choruses with Mary singing before them, Exodus 15:20, and after completing their 40-year pilgrimage through the desert, peacefully and joyfully inhabiting the Promised Land, which was a type of heaven and heavenly beatitude, in the Feast of Tabernacles among other signs of joy, holding palm branches in their hands they danced and led choruses, as I showed in Leviticus 23:40. By which they anagogically represented the choruses of the blessed in heaven, where after the victory, bearing palms, they will celebrate an eternal Feast of Tabernacles, according to: "Praise Him (the Lord) with timbrel and dance," Psalm 150:4. And: "All you nations, clap your hands; shout to God with a voice of exultation," Psalm 47:1. And: "His saints shall exult with exultation," Psalm 132:16. And Psalm 68:26: "The princes went before, joined to those who sang, in the midst of young maidens playing timbrels." And Psalm 126:6: "But coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves."
For although the dancing of worldly people is soft and lascivious, that of the heavenly is chaste and angelic. "So drink wine like Cato, so strike the ground with your foot like Scipio," as the saying goes. For Scipio the general, says Seneca in his book On Tranquillity, at games and festivals moved his body to the rhythm and danced, not softly but in a manly fashion, not about to bring harm to his reputation, even if watched by enemies. In a similar way, David danced with all his might before the ark, 2 Samuel 6:14; and the Israelite women before Saul and David, after Goliath was struck down, leading choruses, sang with timbrels and cymbals: "Saul has struck his thousands, and David his ten thousands," 2 Samuel 18:7; and to Jephthah the conqueror, returning from the slaughter of enemies, his daughter came forth with timbrels and dances, Judges 11:34.
"The worldly dance, says Conrad Clingius in his Theological Commonplaces, chapter On the Dance, is a circle whose center is the devil, and whose circumference is all his angels. But the heavenly dance is a circle whose center is the Lamb, and whose circumference is all His virgins and elect." Hence in Song of Songs 7:1, it is said: "What will you see in the Shulammite, but the dances of the camps?" And Jeremiah 31:4, speaking of the Church both militant and triumphant, says: "You shall be built, O virgin Israel, you shall again be adorned with your timbrels, and shall go forth in the dance of those who make merry." And Luke 15:25, the elder son at the banquet for the younger returned and revived heard "music and dancing;" indeed these dances are demanded by the marriage of the Lamb, which the Church will celebrate perpetually with Christ the Bridegroom, Apocalypse 19:9, and 12:2. Therefore St. Augustine, in his Meditations, chapter 22: "Would that, he says, I might be present at those most holy choruses, that I might stand with the most blessed spirits before the Creator of glory!" And St. Athanasius, or rather Anastasius (for he cites in Questions 3 and 8, Epiphanius and Nyssa, who were later than Athanasius), to Antiochus, Question 33: "The souls of the Saints, he says, stirred by the Holy Spirit, praise God and dance with the angels in the land of the living."
Verse 3: And You Shall Tread Down The Wicked
3. AND YOU SHALL TREAD DOWN (the Zurich Bible has, trample) THE WICKED. — Tertullian, in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 31: You will trample your enemies. First, because you will have them under your feet: for the wicked will stand in the Valley of Jehoshaphat to be judged; but the pious will be caught up to meet Christ in the air, and there they will sit with Him as judges. Second, because you will be affected with as great a joy as you would be affected with if you were now treading upon your enemies, as if to say: You will be superior to the wicked, and will have dominion over them. Third, because as assessors of Christ the Judge you will condemn the wicked. Hence Pagninus translates: You will demolish the wicked. Fourth, because through the demons, as executors and enforcers of your sentence, you will hurl them down to hell, where they will be "like ashes under the soles of your feet," that is, like ashes, crushed and humiliated, namely most contemptible and most abject. Moreover, ashes denotes the fire of hell, says Vatablus; for in it the wicked will be "like ashes," that is, they will be burned like ashes, not that they will be reduced to ashes, but that just as ashes in fire endure forever, so in the same fire the wicked will also endure forever. For what is viler, more wretched, more squalid, drier, more barren than the wicked, or than ashes? So Catullus:
Troy, that abomination, the common tomb of Asia and Europe: Troy of men, and the bitter ashes of all virtues.
And P. Sabinus:
Now ashes, and Troy only a tearful ground.
Seneca in his Hercules Furens:
O Cadmean offspring, and Ophionian ashes, to what have you fallen?
Claudian in his Against Eutropius:
Mygdonian ashes, and if anything remains of the Eastern kingdom that may perish.
ON THE DAY THAT I DO THIS — that is, I will do, namely on the day of judgment, when I will make you trample the wicked, just as they trampled upon you in this life, according to Psalm 149:6: "The high praises of God in their throats, and two-edged swords in their hands: to execute vengeance upon the nations, rebukes among the peoples: to bind their kings with fetters, and their nobles with shackles of iron: to execute upon them the judgment that is written: this honor is for all His saints." And Wisdom 3:8: "They shall judge the nations, and shall have dominion over the peoples." And Matthew 19:28: "You who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
Verse 4: Remember The Law Of Moses
4. REMEMBER THE LAW OF MOSES. — Hence the Jews attempt to prove that the law of Moses was not abolished by Christ, but would endure until the day of judgment: for that is the subject here in what precedes and follows. Rupert, Lyranus, and Vatablus respond first that by the law here is understood the moral precepts, which endure even in the time of the new law. But against this stands the fact that Malachi, explaining this law, adds precepts, in Hebrew חקים chuckim, that is, ordinances concerning sacred things and rites, namely the ceremonial precepts; and judgments, that is, the judicial precepts. Secondly, others explain it thus: "Remember the law of Moses," namely so that in its ceremonies, rites, and judgments you may behold Christ and the Church and its sacraments; "and judgments," which are prefigured in them. For Moses expressly commanded the Jews thus regarding hearing Christ: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet from your nation and from your brothers, like me; you shall hear Him." Deuteronomy 18:15. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Arias, and others. But this also seems too narrow and forced. For to command that they remember the law is to command that they fulfill it in practice and observe its ceremonial and judicial ordinances. But Malachi could not command this to the Jews for the time of Christ and the Christian law.
I say therefore that the Prophet is speaking to the Jews of his own age and their future posterity, up until Christ: for throughout this entire time the law of Moses endured and was binding. He therefore exhorts the Jews of his time to observe it, because they had grown cold in observing it, especially in the ceremonial precepts about giving tithes and first fruits, as we saw in chapter 3:8. He therefore rouses them and gives them a sharp stimulus for the observance of the law, namely the representation of the day of judgment, as if to say: See to it that you observe all the laws prescribed by Moses, both those that concern the worship of God and those that concern the rights of your neighbor. For God on the day of judgment will require from each one an exact account of the law observed or not observed, and will glorify those who observe it, and condemn those who do not. Therefore do not say: "Where is the God of judgment?" as you said in chapter 2:17. Nor: "It is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His precepts?" as you said in chapter 3:14. For on the day of judgment you will see that Christ is the God of judgment, and that you have not served God in vain, and have not kept His precepts in vain. "For then the Sun of justice will arise for you, and healing in His wings, and you will go forth, and will leap like calves of the herd. And you shall tread down the wicked," etc. So Remigius, Albertus, Hugo, Vatablus, Arias, and others.
Therefore Victorinus and Maldonatus err in Matthew 17, in thinking from this passage of Malachi and from Apocalypse 11:6 that not Enoch but Moses will come with Elijah, so that both may contend against the Antichrist.
In Horeb. — In Sinai, as I said on Exodus 17:6.
Verse 5: Behold, I Will Send You Elijah
5. BEHOLD, I WILL SEND YOU ELIJAH. — After the exhortation to his people to keep the law of Moses, which the Prophet inserted in passing, here he returns to the day of judgment, and assigns Elijah as its precursor.
You will ask: Who is this Elijah? Calvin and some Catholics, such as Burgensis, Arias, and Clarius, think he is John the Baptist, because regarding him, looking to this passage of Malachi, Christ says in Matthew 17:10: "Elijah has already come," namely John the Baptist, as St. Matthew immediately explains. And chapter 11:14: "All the Prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come." Others, innovating, take Elijah as meaning any prophets to be sent by God into the world. But I say, it is certain that by Elijah here the true Elijah is meant, not John the Baptist, or a chorus of Prophets. This is proved first, because the Septuagint calls this Elijah the Tishbite: for so the Vatican codices and others have it, so that it is surprising that in the Royal codices "the Tishbite" is missing. So also the Arabic version: Behold, it says, I will send you Elijah the Tishbite, before the appearance of the terrible day of the Lord. Therefore the discussion here is about the true Elijah: for John the Baptist was not a Tishbite. Secondly, because this Elijah will be the precursor of Christ's second coming for judgment: for this will be "the great and terrible day of the Lord:" but the Baptist preceded Christ's first coming into the world. Thirdly, because when Elijah comes, Christ will also come to strike the earth with anathema, as the Prophet indicates in the last verse. But this will happen at the second coming. For at the first He came to save the world, not to destroy or strike it. Fourthly, thus Sirach explains, alluding to this passage, chapter 48:10, saying: "You who are written down for the judgments of the times, to appease the wrath of the Lord, to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob." And Christ, Matthew 17:10: "Elijah indeed, He says, is to come and will restore all things." Fifthly, because thus interpret the Greek and Latin Fathers: Cyril, Theodoret, Remigius, Haymo, Albertus, Hugo, Lyranus, and others on this passage; St. Chrysostom, Euthymius, Bede, Anselm, St. Thomas on Matthew 17; Hippolytus in his book On the Consummation of the Age; Cyprian, treatise On Sinai and Zion; Ephrem, treatise On the Antichrist; Prosper in On the Half of the Times, chapter 13; Tertullian, On the Soul, chapter 35; Justin, Dialogue Against Trypho; Gregory of Nyssa, book of Testimonies Against the Jews; St. Augustine, City of God Book 20, chapter 29; St. Gregory, Moralia Book 11, chapter 10; Andrew, Ambrose, Haymo, Rupert, and Aretas on Apocalypse chapter 11. The same was the common opinion of the Hebrews, as is clear from Matthew 17:10. The Sibyl also predicted the same about Elijah, when she sang thus:
Then also, carried down from heaven in a celestial chariot, The Tishbite will enter the earth from heaven, and three signs Will he show to the whole world of life perishing.
You will say: St. Jerome takes Elijah as the chorus of Prophets who will precede Christ's second coming. I respond: St. Jerome explains Elijah mystically, as I shall say shortly, not literally. For he clearly teaches that Elijah will come in person, in his commentaries on chapters 11 and 17 of St. Matthew. You will press: How then does St. Jerome say here: "The Jews and Judaizing heretics think that Elijah will come before their Messiah"? I respond: because the Jews still await their Messiah, and His first coming into the world, of which they believe Elijah will be the precursor: St. Jerome refutes them. And rightly so, for here there is a twofold error on their part. The first, that they think Christ has not yet come. The second, that they think Elijah will be the precursor of the first coming of Christ, when he will be the precursor of the second.
To the argument proposed at the beginning from chapter 17 of St. Matthew, I respond that Elijah and John the Baptist were, and will be, most similar in office, zeal, preaching, and holiness; because the latter was the precursor of Christ in His first coming, the former will be the precursor of the same in His second coming. Therefore one receives the name of the other, as his antitype. For John the Baptist is called Elijah, not in person, but on account of a similar spirit and power, as Gabriel says in Luke 1:17: "He shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah." Christ therefore distinguishes two Elijahs, one literal, of whom He says: "Elijah indeed is to come, and will restore all things;" the other typical, namely John the Baptist, of whom He says: "Elijah has already come." For the Jews confused the twofold coming of Christ and mixed it into one, before which Elijah was to come, and therefore they said Christ had not yet come, because Elijah had not yet come: to whom Christ responds that there is a twofold coming of Christ, and the precursor of the first is the typical Elijah, namely John the Baptist, as Malachi predicted in chapter 3, verse 1; the precursor of the second will be the true Elijah, and therefore since they saw the typical Elijah, they ought to believe that Christ had already come, whose precursor the Prophets foretold he would be.
Mystically, St. Jerome and from him Remigius: "After Moses, he says, whose commandments we have especially taught must be kept, he says that Elijah is to be sent, signifying in Moses the law, in Elijah the prophecy. And the Lord and Savior, transfigured on the mountain, had Moses and Elijah speaking with Him in white garments, who also told Him what He was to suffer in Jerusalem. For the law and the entire chorus of the Prophets proclaim Christ's passion." And immediately: "The Lord will send in Elijah (whose name is interpreted 'My God,' and who is from the town of Thisbe, which sounds like conversion and repentance) the entire chorus of the Prophets, to turn the heart of the fathers to the children."
You will ask first, why the Prophet here introduces the mention of Elijah? I respond first, because in chapter 1:10, and chapter 2:2, he predicted the rejection of Judaism and the Jews through Christ; therefore, to console them and reconcile them to Christ, he here predicts that they will again be recalled and received back into their former grace by Christ in the time of Elijah, through his preaching and miracles. Therefore, when they see him, they will receive him as the true Elijah predicted here, and will believe in Christ whom Elijah will preach. Therefore the Jews eagerly await Elijah, so that they may embrace the Christ designated by him. Hence the maxim of the Rabbis about Elijah is: Tishbi, that is Elijah the Tishbite, will solve difficulties, that is, all knots and questions. For they refer to Elijah whatever is doubtful and obscure in Scripture, as Quinquarboreus reports in his Hebrew Abbreviations. Indeed the Jews even now, whenever they circumcise someone, place and adorn a chair for Elijah, believing him to be present in spirit and to be zealous for the law of the Lord, as the Rabbis relate in the Talmud, tractate Berachot, and Rabbi David here, and Galatinus, Book X, chapter 6.
Secondly, because Malachi said in verse 2 that Christ for those who fear God on the day of judgment "will arise like the Sun of justice, and healing in His wings; and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd, and you shall tread down the wicked." Such however was and will be Elijah; hence he will fittingly be Christ's precursor. For he was, and will be, the phoenix of his age, indeed a sun illuminating, healing, and kindling with the love of God the cold hearts of men; hence he also merited to be caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot, like Phaethon: hence also Elijah was called as if helios, that is, sun, says St. Chrysostom, about whom more shortly.
You will ask secondly, why Elijah rather than Moses, or anyone else, will be the precursor of Christ's second coming? I respond first, on account of the immense zeal with which Elijah was endowed by God above other Prophets. For when he was sent by God to correct the most corrupt morals of his age and to root out idolatry from Israel, he needed for accomplishing this an immense strength of soul and zeal, which God accordingly instilled in him; and with it he fought and defeated both the most wicked Jezebel with her husband Ahab, and all the prophets of Baal, whom he also killed, 3 Kings 18. A similar zeal will be needed at the end of the world, when charity will grow cold and iniquity will abound. Therefore the zealous Elijah will be sent, to contend with the Antichrist, to amend the most perverse morals of that age, and thus to prepare the way for Christ's coming. It is not fitting for Moses, though zealous, to return, lest he seem to be restoring the old law by his return, and confirming the Jews in Judaism: for they appeal to nothing other than to Moses and his law.
Secondly, because Elijah was sent by God to remove the schism that Jeroboam and the ten tribes made, apostatizing from Judah and from God, and for which they worshipped the golden calves in Dan and Bethel. In a similar way he will be sent at the end of the world to remove the schism that the Jews formerly made from Christ and the other faithful nations, so as to unite them with Christ and the Church. For the Jews themselves will believe him, since he is a Jew, and their own prophet, so celebrated in Scripture, and promised for the same work that he formerly did, to be carried out again at the end of the world. Malachi gives this reason when he adds: "And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; and to restore," that is, to restore to God and the ancestral faith, "the tribes of Jacob," as Sirach says, chapter 48:10.
Thirdly, because just as the world formerly perished by a flood under Noah, so at the end it will perish by the fire of conflagration. Therefore the fiery Prophet Elijah will be sent, to foretell the impending fire to sinners, and to kindle them to faith and repentance, so that they may escape this fire. Hence Sirach 48:1: "Elijah the prophet arose like fire, and his word burned like a torch."
Fourthly, because Elijah was caught up to heaven on account of his heavenly zeal. From heaven therefore he will come as a heavenly witness of Christ coming from heaven, according to Sirach 48:9: "You who were received in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses: you who are written down in the judgments of the times (that is, at a time judged and decreed by God) to appease the wrath of the Lord." Add that Elijah merited this by his virginity and angelic purity. For that he was a virgin, and indeed a singular one in that age, teach St. Ignatius, Letter 11, St. Ambrose, Book I On Virginity, and St. Epiphanius in his Ancoratus: "Elijah, he says, lived in virginity, so that by the prerogative of virginity he might preach immortality to the world." St. Ephrem, sermon On the Transfiguration: "The virgin of the Old Testament beheld, he says, the virgin of the New, that is, Elijah beheld John."
Fifthly, because Elijah was the leader and standard-bearer of the prophets, both in time, in dignity, in holiness, in freedom and effectiveness of preaching, and in the glory of his deeds; hence he represents the entire chorus of the prophets, says St. Jerome, who goes before Christ and bears witness to Him. For the same reason Elijah appeared to the apostles at the Transfiguration of Christ, to show that He was the Christ, and that he himself and all the Prophets gave Him their vote, and testified that He was the Messiah, the savior of the world.
Sixthly, because Elijah was the guardian, prophet, teacher, protector, and apostle of Israel and the Jews. He will therefore come to lead back his Jews, who have been straying from God for so many centuries, to Him and to Christ. Hence Elisha cried out to Elijah as he was being caught up to heaven: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its driver," as if to say: You, O Elijah my father, were the charioteer and chariot of Israel, because you governed and directed it as a charioteer wherever you wished, and as a chariot you bore it, protected it, and defended it against the Syrians and other enemies. Hence the Septuagint translates: My father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen, as if to say: You, O Elijah, were the entire strength, the entire army of Israel, who preserved and defended it more by your zeal, prayers, and merits than a great multitude of chariots and horsemen. Tertullian excellently says in his book On the Soul, chapter 35, citing these words of Malachi: "Elijah, he says, will come not from a departure from life, but from a translation, nor is he to be restored to a body from which he was not removed, but to be given back to the world from which he was translated, not by a return to life, but by a supplement of prophecy, the same man both in name and person."
Seventhly, because just as Elijah, caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot, was a type of Christ's glorious ascension into heaven: so again he was a type of the glorious kingdom of Christ and the blessed, to which they will ascend triumphantly to heaven on the day of judgment, to reign there forever. Fittingly therefore the glorious Elijah will precede the glorious coming of Christ, as the rising sun precedes the noonday sun. For Elijah by his holiness, zeal, and rapture was like helios, that is, the sun of the world. See St. Chrysostom's sermon On the Ascension of Elijah, volume 1, where in depicting the triumphal chariot of Elijah he says among other things: "For it was fitting that the guide of the wandering people, the governor of sacred things, the moderator of conflicting desires, the charioteer of Israel; since he recalled licentious and wandering spirits to the yoke of the fear of God, bound them with reins and thongs, and arranged them for running the course of discipline on a straight path in a kind of harmonious coupling, should be carried up and fly to the heavenly kingdoms on a chariot and horses." He then adds: "Hence I believe poets and painters took their examples in depicting the image of the sun: who, gleaming himself on a chariot and shining horses, and lifted from the wave of the Ocean, making his way among the steep cliffs of the mountains, seems to ascend to the heavens. For the sun in the Greek language is called helios. Whence Elijah was truly helios, because progressing on a chariot and horses gleaming with fire, from the wave of the Ocean, that is, from the tumult of the world, through the cliffs of mountains, that is, through the difficulties of great labors, he ascended, carried up to the heavens." For Elijah was "a man to whom the whole world was inferior," as the same says in Homily 15, among the 27 from various places in St. Matthew.
Eighthly, because Elijah is an example and type of the blessed resurrection, which Christ will confer on all the blessed and elect on the day of judgment. Hence from Epiphanius in the Ancoratus, St. Augustine, Book 15 of the City of God, chapter 19, calls Elijah and Enoch the firstborn of our resurrection. And Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 5, section 8: "Enoch and Elijah, he says, have not yet been discharged by resurrection, because they have not yet died, yet because they have been translated from the world, and by this very fact are candidates for eternity, they learn from all vice, from all harm, from all injury and outrage the immunity of the flesh; to what faith do they seal their testimony, except that which teaches us to believe that these are evidences of the future wholeness?"
Morally, learn here from Elijah how great a virtue zeal is, and how highly God esteems the zealous, inasmuch as He wills them to be His neighbors, and His precursors, forerunners, and heralds, as was the antitype of Elijah, namely John the Baptist; of whom Gabriel said to Zechariah, Luke 1:17: "He shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah." Such was St. Paul, saying in Romans 8:35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? or distress?" etc. Such was St. Ignatius, whose fiery letters, life, and martyrdom, if anyone reads them, will set him on fire. Such was Francis, who accordingly, while still living but absent, appeared to his brothers like a sun in a fiery chariot, like another Elijah, a zealot for the divine law, setting the world ablaze with his ardor, and for that reason to be caught up to heaven.
Elijah sought by supernatural power on a chariot both shining and fiery, to have it shown by the Lord, so that true Israelites might walk after him, he who as another Elijah had been made by God the chariot and charioteer of spiritual men," says St. Bonaventure in his Life, chapter 4. Of this zeal of his, Elijah boasts, 4 Kings 19:14: "With zeal, he says, I have been zealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, they have destroyed Your altars, they have killed Your Prophets with the sword, I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away."
Verse 6: And He Shall Turn The Heart Of The Fathers To The Children
6. AND HE SHALL TURN THE HEART OF THE FATHERS TO THE CHILDREN. — Various authors explain this in various ways. First, St. Jerome here, St. Augustine in City of God 20:29, Gregory in Moralia 11:9, and from them Toletus on Luke 1:17, explain it thus: Elijah will transfer the heart, that is, the mind, of the fathers into the children, that is, by arousing in the children the same heart, that is, the same spirit, faith, desire, and devotion toward Christ that their fathers had, so that the children may imitate and emulate them, as if to say: Elijah by his preaching will restore and recall the faith and devotion of the fathers, namely of the ancient Patriarchs and prophets toward the coming Messiah, in the children, that is, in their posterity, so that they too with living faith and ardent zeal may embrace Christ as the Messiah now present; and thus the fiery desire of the fathers toward Christ, now extinguished for many centuries through infidelity and crimes, he will kindle in the children. Hence for "will turn" the Hebrew is not hosheb, that is, "he will cause to return," as if to say: Elijah will cause the heart, that is, the mind, faith, and devotion of the fathers, to return in the children. Hosheb alludes to Tishbi, that is, Tishbite: for Elijah in Hebrew means the same as "My God"; Tishbi signifies conversion to repentance, restoration, and recall, as if to say: Elijah, according to his name and homeland, will be Tishbite, because he will turn the hearts of his people through repentance to his God; and thus he will restore and recall all things to their original state: so St. Jerome. This is what Christ says: "Elijah is to come and will restore all things," Matthew 17. And Sirach 48:10: "Elijah will come to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob," that is, Elijah will restore the twelve tribes, which had fallen from the old and true faith and religion of the fathers, to their original and ancestral piety: those broken and scattered by blindness and faithlessness, he will make whole again by showing the light of faith.
But against this interpretation it can be objected what follows: "And the heart of the children to their fathers;" for Elijah did not transfer the heart, that is, the mind and devotion, of the children into the fathers, so as to implant it in them, since they had possessed it originally and were now dead. But I respond that the meaning is: Elijah will turn "the heart of the children to the fathers;" that is, he will cause the heart of the Jews, that is, their mind and faith, to agree with and adhere to the heart, that is, the mind and faith, of the fathers.
Secondly, Rabbi Solomon, Aben-Ezra, Rabbi David, Arias, Vatablus, and a Castro consider that by this phrase nothing else is signified than that all, both fathers and sons, are to be turned to one faith and religion,
as if to say: Elijah will turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers, that is, he will cause fathers and children to have one heart, that is, to be unanimous in faith and love of God, so that with one common heart and mind, fathers with children and children with fathers, that is, both elders and younger ones, may receive and worship Christ. Hence Aben-Ezra: They will be, he says, all of one heart, or of one accord, to return to the Lord, both fathers and sons. But in that case he would rather have said: He will turn the heart of fathers and sons to Christ; whereas he actually says: He will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers.
Thirdly, as if to say: Elijah by his preaching and zeal will cause the Jews at the end of the world to imitate their patriarchs, so that just as they believed, hoped, and supremely desired and loved the Christ to come; so their children may believe, hope, supremely desire and love Him who has come, indeed who is present: and so he will turn the heart of the fathers, formerly turned away from their unbelieving children, toward them now believing, and will cause the Patriarchs to acknowledge the Jews who believe in Christ as their legitimate children, and to love them: "For Abraham your father rejoiced to see My day: he saw it and was glad," says Christ in John 8. Say the same of Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, etc.: so St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Lyranus, and others. For this is what it means to bring back, or turn, the heart of one to another, namely to restore the former love, to reconcile an estranged affection: for the heart is the symbol and seat of love. This sense follows from the first, and therefore both are genuine, and should be connected. Because indeed
for the Jews at the end of the world there will be the same heart, that is, spirit, faith, and piety in Christ that the fathers had; hence consequently there will be the same heart, that is, mutual love and charity, of the faithful fathers toward the faithful children, and of the children toward the fathers. Hence Luke, chapter 1:17, applying these words of Malachi to the antitype of Elijah, that is, to John the Baptist: "He will turn, he says, the hearts of the fathers to the children;" and for what Malachi adds: "And the heart of the children to the fathers," he renders: "And the unbelieving to the prudence of the just," that is, first, as if to say: Elijah, just like John, will turn the Jews to prudence, that is, to the faith which the ancient just among their fathers had concerning the Christ to come. So Maldonatus on Luke 1. Secondly, as if to say: John will cause the unbelieving to diligently consider the signs of the Messiah's coming, prescribed by the Prophets and given by God to the fathers, and from these to believe that the Messiah has already come, and to recognize Christ, namely that Christ is the one whom he himself will point out to them, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God:" for this is the work of prudence. So Toletus on Luke 1. Thirdly, John turns the unbelieving, in Greek apeitheis, that is, the disobedient, as the Syriac translates, namely to the law and the precepts of the elders, to the prudence of the just, which is to love heavenly and eternal things, not earthly and perishable; to fear and worship God, and observe His laws: for whoever does this is wise and prudent. For the preaching of John was this: "Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," Matthew 3:2. The same will be the preaching of Elijah.
Symbolically, Elijah will turn the heart of the fathers, that is, of the Jews, to the children, that is, to Christ and the apostles: for these were born from the Jews, they were their children: and the heart of the children to the fathers, namely of the Christians to the Jews (for the first Christians arose from the Jews), as if to say: Elijah will cause the Jews to believe in Christ and in Christians, so that the faith and religion of Christians may be infused into the Jews, and consequently both may have one heart, that is, one spirit, faith, and religion, namely the worship of Christ. So Theodoret here, and St. Chrysostom, and Euthymius on chapter 17 of Matthew, and Damascenus, Book 4 of On the Faith, chapter 27.
From this passage therefore it is clear that nearly all the Jews at the end of the world will be converted to Christ through Elijah. So St. Chrysostom holds, Homily 58 on Matthew: "Elijah, he says, will restore all things, namely he will convert to the faith the unbelief of the Jews who will then remain." And after some things: "How then will they believe, you ask? Since Elijah will restore all things, not only because he is known, but also because up to that day the ever-greater glory of Christ will be brighter than the rays of the sun, and when to all these things his preaching is added, driving them toward faith in Christ, they will most easily accept." The same teach St. Augustine, City of God 20:29, Theodoret on Daniel chapter 12, St. Gregory, Homily 12 on Ezekiel, Damascenus, Book 5 On the Faith, chapter 27, Bede, Book 3 on Mark, chapter 27, Theophylactus on chapter 17 of St. Matthew, Ambrose, Victorinus, and Ansbertus on Apocalypse chapter 11, and this is the common tradition of the Fathers and the Church. Note here: When Christ says: "Elijah will restore all things," He signifies that the conversion will then be immense: furthermore, that Elijah will make peace between Jews and Gentiles, so long at discord, so that by one covenant they may come together in the faith of Christ and the Church: moreover, that Elijah will reform the fallen morals of clergy and people, and by his apostolic zeal will repair all things to the pristine splendor and original glory that the Church had in the time of the Apostles, so that the Christian religion and holiness may everywhere wondrously shine and gleam. More on Elijah and Enoch I have said in Genesis 5:24, and Apocalypse 11:2 and following.
Hence again Julian, Archbishop of Toledo, Book 1 Against the Jews, proves that they have already turned away from Christ, and consequently that Christ has already come: because they will be converted to Him at the end of the world: for they cannot be converted unless they have turned away; but the Jews have not turned away from any other Christ than our Jesus Christ: therefore He is the true Christ and Messiah.
LEST I COME AND STRIKE THE EARTH — that is, coming I will strike, or, when I come to judge, I will strike. It is a hendiadys, where one thing is expressed by two. For the word perhaps does not refer to I come (because it is not chance and doubtful, but fixed and certain that He will come to judgment), but should be referred to I strike, as if to say: Lest perhaps when I come to judge the earth, I find it filled with unbelief and crimes, and therefore with a just sentence of condemnation I strike it with anathema; the Chaldee says, with extermination; Pagninus, with slaughter; the Septuagint, ardin, that is, utterly, or suddenly; the Zurich Bible, completely; others, from the foundation, from the root; others, to destruction, or annihilation. For the Hebrew חרם cherem signifies an excision by which a thing is uprooted, destroyed, and annihilated: the Greek anathema means the same. See what was said in Leviticus 27:28, and Romans 9:3. By cherem and anathema therefore understand here the eternal curse, punishment, and fire of hell, to which Christ will consign all the wicked on the day of judgment. So Remigius.
By earth understand by metonymy the inhabitants of the earth, namely earthly men with earthly minds: so St. Jerome. He says earth, not Judea, both because the Jews whom Elijah will convert are scattered throughout the whole earth; and because Elijah will convert not only the Jews, but also the Gentiles everywhere on earth, and will impress upon them either the Christian faith, or Christian life and morals, and thus will avert from them the anathema of eternal damnation. Less correctly, Arias takes anathema as the destruction of the Jews by Titus and the Romans: for the discussion here is about the day of judgment, whose precursor will be Elijah. Less aptly also, Vatablus thinks that the word perhaps signifies the indeterminate time of Christ's coming, as if to say: Lest perhaps I come at an uncertain time, when you least expect or await Me. For at whatever time Christ comes, He will certainly destroy the wicked, unless they convert through the preaching of Elijah.
Morally, learn here first, from Elijah who will avert the wrath of God lest He strike the whole earth with anathema, that illustrious and zealous saints are like the bases and pillars of the world, who by their prayers, merits, and zeal support and sustain it when it would otherwise collapse into ruin: both because by praying they bind, as it were, the hands of an angry God, lest they spring forth to vengeance: and because by preaching and living holy lives they prick the consciences of sinners and impel them to amend their lives. For these are like earthly angels, whose mind is in heaven, who are loftier than earth, and as it were stronger than God. Such an Atlas of Sodom was Abraham, Genesis 18:23, and among the Jews, Moses, Exodus 32:14, and Samuel, 1 Samuel 7:10, and David, 3 Kings 11:12, and Hezekiah, 4 Kings 20:6, and Jeremiah, chapter 1:18. For God values one outstandingly holy person more than a hundred ordinary just people. The reason is what Plato saw obliquely, through the light of nature, I say, in his Theaetetus, saying: "Nothing is more like God than when one among men is most just." Which should certainly be a spur for everyone, to continually strive with burning effort and contend toward progress and the summit of holiness. For such a one in the assembly of the just stands out like a giant, who touches heaven with his right hand, and there, like another Jacob, wrestles with God and conquers Him, though willing. Hence
the Lord said to Ezekiel, chapter 22:30: "I sought, He says, from among them a man who would build a hedge and stand in the gap before Me for the land, lest I destroy it, and I found no one. And I poured out My indignation upon them, I consumed them with the fire of My wrath." There is no doubt that there were then many just people in Judea, but no one was so eminent as to stand opposed to God and wrest the scourge from Him.
Such an Atlas of Venice was St. Lawrence Justinian, Patriarch of that city: for it was revealed to a certain holy man that God, angered at the city, would have destroyed it, had not the divine fury been averted by the prayers of its holy Patriarch. So his Life records. Such an Atlas of Emesa, indeed of the whole world, was St. Simeon, surnamed Salus, that is, the Fool, because he concealed his holiness under foolish actions, while meanwhile he performed many wonders in supreme contempt of himself, and for the bodily and spiritual salvation of his neighbors. For when a certain citizen of Emesa, having gone to Jerusalem, commended himself to the prayers of Abbot John, he received this response from him: "I am amazed that, when you have in Emesa the abbot Simeon, you turn to me, a vile and abject man. For not I alone, but the whole world needs his prayers." So Leontius, Bishop of Naples, in the Life of St. Simeon.
Similar Atlases of the Church were St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Vincent Ferrer (who converted a hundred thousand Christians, 25,000 Jews, and eight thousand Saracens to Christ); so also the Atlas of Japan and the Indies in this age was St. Xavier. Who therefore would doubt that the world stands by the prayers of such saints? Therefore St. Ambrose rightly says, Book 2 of On Cain and Abel, chapters 3 and 4: "How blessed, he says, is the city that has very many just people, how the whole is blessed on account of the part! How I rejoice when I see some gentle and wise people live long, when I behold chaste virgins and grave widows living to old age, as though they displayed a certain gray-haired senate of the Church by their very countenance and appearance of gravity, which the young may reverence, which they may imitate, by which they may be colored toward every grace of character. Likewise when someone of this kind departs, even though removed by long old age, I grieve, because the flock of the young is deprived of its aged wall." He adds that such people are like cities of refuge, to which transgressors may betake themselves: "Finally, he says, the first sign of a city about to perish, or of impending evils, or of future ruin, is if the counselors depart from it, or even the graver women. From this point the gate of pressing evils is opened." Isaiah teaches the same, chapter 1:1 and following.
Learn secondly, to esteem and weigh the final cherem and anathema, with which Malachi closes his own and all the other prophets' prophecies, so that by that spur he may incite all to a pious and holy life. With the same words Isaiah concludes his oracles, saying: "And they shall go out, and see the corpses of the men who transgressed against Me: their worm shall not die,
and their fire shall not be quenched: and they shall be a spectacle to the point of satiation for all flesh." This is the cherem, with which the wicked will be struck and blasted on the last and decisive day of the world, which will be the horizon of time and eternity, of heaven and hell, when by Christ the Judge in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, as in the theater of the whole universe, those to be condemned to eternal torments, frightened and stunned, will hear: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;" and immediately, engulfed by the fire of the conflagration, they will be seized by demons and carried to hell, where separated forever, indeed cursed by God, by the angels, and by the blessed, shut up in a perpetual prison, they will never again see the sun, the stars, or any light, they will receive no joy or consolation; but they will be engulfed in perpetual fires: where the smoke of their torments ascends forever and ever.
Think of this when lust stings you, when ambition solicits you, when anger drives you, when the flesh flatters, when the world entices, when the devil displays his deceitful allurements and pageants. In your hand, in your free will, are life and death, heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, your everlasting happiness and unhappiness. Choose what you prefer. Think: "A moment of pleasure, an eternity of torment." And conversely: "A moment of torment, an eternity of delight." St. Chrysostom says excellently, Homily 1 On Lazarus: "If someone, he says, had in a hundred years seen a sweet dream for one night, and enjoyed many delights in the dream, and then were tortured for a hundred years, would he wish to compare the one night he dreamed with a hundred years? Think this about the future life. For what one dream is to a hundred years, that is the present life to the future, indeed much less. What a tiny drop is to an immense sea, that is a thousand years to the future enjoyment; and as much as there is between dreams and reality, so much is there between the state of this life and that one." For what else are all the things and hopes of mortals "but the dreams of those who are awake?" says Philo: "What would seem great to him in human affairs, to whom all eternity and the magnitude of the whole world are known?" says Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.
Conversely, consider how different is the cherem of the saints, the anathema of the blessed. The wicked are the cherem of divine justice and vengeance; the saints are the cherem of divine mercy and glory. The wicked are the cherem of the devil; the pious and elect are the cherem of God, that is, a sacred thing separated from profane uses, dedicated to God and God's praises forever. The wicked are an anathema, the bellows and fuel of hell; the Saints are the anathema of heaven and the heavenly Jerusalem, so that in it they may shine forth to the perennial glory of God through eternal ages.
Be upright therefore and pious, flee the allurements of the world, mortify concupiscences, endure diseases, contempt, hardships, persecutions; pursue purity, cultivate holiness, strive toward every virtue: all your labor will be small and brief; but an immense reward awaits you, and an unfading crown. "For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, works for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory," 2 Corinthians 4:17. "O human frailty, how little is whatever you do for the hope of eternal things," says Eusebius of Emesa (or rather Eucherius of Lyon or whoever the author is), Homily On St. Maximus. Therefore St. Anthony, as St. Athanasius testifies in his Life, would impress this blessed cherem upon his followers, so that it might be a constant spur to heroic self-conquest and every perfection: "Let this, he says, be the first common commandment for all: not to grow weary in the vigor of the purpose they have seized upon, but as though always beginning, they should always increase what they have started, especially since the span of human life compared to eternity is very brief." And immediately: "The promise of eternal life is purchased at a cheap price, for it is written: The days of our life are seventy years; and if in the strong, eighty. When therefore we have lived eighty or a hundred years laboring in God's work, we shall not reign for that much time in the future, but for the aforesaid years the kingdoms of all ages will be given to us, etc. Let no one, when he has looked at the world, think he has left behind great things: because the whole earth compared to the infinity of the heavens is brief and small."
O eternity, how great, how enduring, how constant and eternal you are! You are a cherem, you are an anathema. O demented minds that forget you! O the stupor of stupid mortals, who sell and squander you for a moment of pleasure! Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be desolate, O gates thereof, exceedingly. If God gave and said to Judas, and to any damned soul: Every thousand years for your sins you will shed one single tear; and when in this way, through such vast intervals of years, you have shed enough tears to fill the whole capacity of the world with them, I will have mercy on you, and will deliver you from the fires and punishments of hell; Judas would surely rejoice with immense and unspeakable joy, because he would have some hope of salvation. But how long would this hope be, how vast the stretches of years he would have to traverse in punishments? How many thousands of thousands of years would he have to wait before he filled even a cup with his tears? How many millions of years for a goblet? How many cubes of millions for a single barrel? When therefore would he fill a small room, when a house, when a city, when a single province, when the earth, when the air, when the sky with his tears? But now the unhappy Judas does not even have this hope, but even if through these intervals of years he had filled the whole world with tears, it would not yet be the end, not yet the middle, indeed not yet the beginning of his wretched eternity: because a new world similar to the first, to be filled with tears, would be prepared for him by God; and when that was filled, a third, and after it a fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on without number and without end. The same is true conversely of the glory of St. Paul, and of any blessed soul. MEDITATE ON ETERNITY, enter it and penetrate it as far as you can: the more deeply you enter, the longer and deeper you will find it: An abyss
IT IS. Once said, again and again, indeed always to be said: MEDITATE ON ETERNITY.
O Blessed Virgin Mother of God, queen of the prophets, from eternity ordained as the mother of the eternal Word, and of His faithful and children, who gave God a body for us from Your virginal flesh; and through Him opened for us the entrance to blessed eternity by conquering death, offer this my work, indeed Your work, to Your blessed Son Jesus Christ, our Savior, and to the entire Most Holy Trinity, and obtain from Him that all who will read it may be kindled to His worship and perpetual praise. For He is the blessed eternity, both His own and ours. Bring it about that we may love it as the supreme good most ardently; and conversely, that we may supremely abhor and flee sin and hell, as the supreme and eternal evil: and therefore bring it about equally that the memory, fear, and love of blessed and wretched eternity may ever be before us, so that WE MAY LIVE, STRIVE, LABOR, AND SUFFER ALL THINGS HARD AND BITTER FOR BLESSED ETERNITY. Avert from us the cherem and anathema of eternal reprobation. Make and form us a cherem and anathema for God, in the temple and heavenly glory. We are Your children, or we desire to be. Show therefore that You are our mother, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
I have seen an end of all perfection: Your commandment is exceedingly broad, Psalm 119.
Store up treasure for an everlasting age. St. Gregory Nazianzen in his Sentences.
Join your heart to the Eternity of God, and with Him you will be eternal. Augustine on Psalm 91.
No labor is hard, no time is long, by which the glory of Eternity is acquired. The Angels, in Bede's History, Book III, chapter 19.
For a few years of labor, the kingdoms of all ages will be returned to us. St. Anthony, in St. Athanasius.
True blessedness is to spurn the blessedness of the world, and, neglecting earthly things, to burn for divine things. St. Eucherius to Valerianus.