Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
When the disciples were pointing out and admiring the structure of the temple, He foretells the destruction of it and of the whole city through Titus, and indeed the destruction of the whole world at the end of time. Next, in verse 5, He assigns preliminary signs common to both destructions, namely wars, false prophets, famine, earthquakes, pestilence, and the preaching of the Gospel throughout the whole world. Then, in verse 15, He gives the proper preliminary sign of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem — the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. The proper preliminary signs of the destruction of the world He gives in verse 29: the darkening of the sun and moon, the falling of the stars from heaven, the shaking of the powers of heaven. Finally, in verse 36, He warns that all should vigorously prepare themselves for that day of universal destruction and the last judgment, because this day is wholly uncertain, known to none, and will come upon unthinking men unexpectedly and seize them suddenly when they feel secure.
Christ spoke these things when He was already burning and advancing toward His death, on the Tuesday after Palm Sunday, since He was to be crucified three days later, as I have said in the Chronotaxis, numbers 64 and 65.
Vulgate Text: Matthew 24:1-51
1. And Jesus going out of the temple, went away. And His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. 2. And He answering, said to them: Do you see all these things? Amen I say to you, there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed. 3. And when He was sitting on Mount Olivet, the disciples came to Him privately, saying: Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Your coming and of the consummation of the age? 4. And Jesus answering, said to them: Take heed that no man seduce you; 5. for many will come in My name, saying: I am Christ; and they will seduce many. 6. For you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you be not troubled; for these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places. 8. Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows. 9. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and will put you to death; and you shall be hated by all nations for My name's sake. 10. And then many will be scandalized, and will betray one another, and hate one another. 11. And many false prophets will rise, and will seduce many. 12. And because iniquity has abounded, the charity of many will grow cold. 13. But he who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved. 14. And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations: and then shall the consummation come. 15. When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, standing in the holy place: he who reads, let him understand; 16. then those who are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains; 17. and he who is on the housetop, let him not come down to take anything out of his house; 18. and he who is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. 19. And woe to those who are with child, and to those who nurse in those days. 20. But pray that your flight be not in the winter or on the sabbath. 21. For there shall be then great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. 22. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. 23. Then if any man shall say to you: Behold, here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. 24. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. 25. Behold I have told you beforehand. 26. If therefore they shall say to you: Behold, He is in the desert, do not go forth; behold, He is in the secret chambers, do not believe. 27. For as lightning comes out of the east, and appears even into the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. 28. Wherever the body shall be, there also the eagles shall be gathered together. 29. And immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; 30. and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then shall mourn all the tribes of the earth; and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. 31. And He shall send His angels with a trumpet and a great voice; and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the furthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them. 32. And from the fig tree learn a parable: when its branch is now tender, and the leaves have come forth, you know that summer is near; 33. so also you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34. Amen I say to you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be done. 35. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. 36. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but the Father alone. 37. And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. 38. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark; 39. and they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away: so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be. 40. Then two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left; 41. two women grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. 42. Watch therefore, because you know not what hour your Lord will come. 43. But know this, that if the householder knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch and would not allow his house to be broken through. 44. Therefore be you also ready; because at what hour you know not the Son of Man will come. 45. Who, do you think, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has appointed over his household, to give them their food in due season? 46. Blessed is that servant whom, when his lord shall come, he shall find so doing. 47. Amen I say to you, he shall set him over all his goods. 48. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart: My lord delays his coming; 49. and shall begin to strike his fellow-servants, and shall eat and drink with drunkards: 50. the lord of that servant shall come in a day he does not expect, and at an hour he knows not; 51. and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Verse 1: And Jesus Going Out of the Temple, Went Away
According to His custom, toward evening He went to Mount Olivet to spend the night, and to take food at Bethany with Martha and Magdalene, after He had taught the whole day in the temple while fasting.
And His disciples came to Him, to show Him the buildings of the temple. — The occasion was that Christ, at the end of the preceding chapter, had foretold the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem and consequently of the temple. The disciples therefore, admiring and astonished at this desolation of so great a city, in order to stir Christ to compassion and to revoke the sentence of destruction, show Him the admirable structure of the temple, its beauty, its magnificence, which seemed to merit eternity. For this temple was a wonder of the world; for, as Josephus says in Book VI of the War, chapter vi: "Its outer face had nothing that the mind and eye did not marvel at: for, being covered on every side with the heaviest golden plates, before the first rising of the sun it glittered with a fiery splendor, so that, when the eyes of beholders looked upon it, they were turned away as if by the rays of the sun." See the same author, Book XV of the Antiquities, chapter xiv, and Villalpandus, On the Temple. So also St. Hilary: "After the threat," he says, "of the forsaking of Jerusalem, as though He were to be moved by the splendor of the temple, the magnificence of its construction is shown to Him." So also Origen, St. Chrysostom, Euthymius, Theophylact, Jansenius, Maldonatus and others. But none of all this magnificence moved Christ, but He persisted in His sentence of destruction. In like manner God, on account of sins, overthrew all the magnificence of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Alexandria, Antioch and Rome, both because of the crimes of their inhabitants, and to show that all this magnificence is fleeting, brief and slight, and to turn the eyes and minds of men to behold and seek the far greater and perpetual magnificence of heaven.
Truly and piously St. Augustine says: "He will not be great who thinks it a great matter that wood and stones fall, and mortals die;" with which saying St. Augustine used to console himself and his own, when Hippo was besieged by the Vandals, of which he himself was bishop — a city which, after his death also, was taken by the Vandals, burned and left destitute of inhabitants, as Possidonius says in his Life.
Verse 2: There Shall Not Be Left Here a Stone Upon a Stone
"There shall not be left a stone upon a stone." It is a hyperbole, as if to say: It shall be utterly cut down and demolished. For neither were the Romans so curious or idle in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as not to leave a stone upon a stone; yet Jerusalem was burned by the Romans and wholly overthrown, and leveled with the ground, nay, a plough was driven over it, as St. Jerome on chapter viii of Zechariah, Josephus and others testify, and this is what Christ here signifies. Hear Josephus, Book VII of the War, chapter xviii: "Caesar (Titus) ordered them now to raze the whole city and the temple to their foundations, leaving however the towers which stood out beyond the others — Phasael, Hippicus, and Mariamne — and only so much of the wall as surrounded the city on the west: this indeed that there might be a fortress there for the garrison to be left in place; and the towers, that they might show to posterity what sort of city and how well fortified one the Roman valor had taken. But the rest of the whole circuit of the city they so leveled by demolition that those who came to it would scarcely believe it had ever been inhabited."
Verse 3: Tell Us, When Shall These Things Be?
"Disciples;" Mark, chapter xiii, 3 and 4, says that there were four, namely Peter, James, John, and Andrew, who were more intimate with Christ and privy to His secrets. "Privately," apart not only from the crowds but also from the other Apostles; the Syriac says, between themselves and Him: for it was dangerous, on account of the Scribes and magistrates, to prophesy about the destruction of the temple, much more to speak and inquire of it; for it was for this that the Jews stoned St. Stephen, as is clear from Acts vi, 14.
Tell us when these things shall be (which You said concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple)? And what shall be the sign of Your coming and of the consummation of the age? — concerning which You have often spoken to us, as in chapter xiii, verse 40; chapter xvi, verse 27; chapter xix, verse 28. They ask two things: first, when Jerusalem is to be destroyed; second, when the world is to be destroyed, and when shall be the future day of judgment, in which He Himself shall come to judge all men. For the Apostles thought that Jerusalem and the temple were to be destroyed at Christ's glorious coming and reign, at the end of the world, as though He would overthrow it in punishment and vengeance for His own slaying and death. They therefore thought that these three things would occur at the same time — the destruction of the city, the destruction of the world, and the day of judgment — and therefore, because they had learned from Christ's words that the destruction of the city was imminent, they likewise supposed that the destruction of the world and the day of judgment were imminent. They seemed to gather this from Christ's sayings at Matthew xxii, 7 and 8; chapter xxiii, penultimate and last verses, where Christ seems to have joined all these things together, that is, to have spoken of them all in conjunction.
It also seems that Christ, now sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, as Mark says, spoke again something concerning this matter, from which the Apostles took this occasion to question Him, although the Evangelists do not express this.
Verse 4: Take Heed That No Man Seduce You
"Take heed" (look out and beware) that no man deceive you — from Me and from My faith, My Gospel, and My law.
Verse 5: Many Shall Come in My Name, Saying: I Am Christ
Such were, first, that Theudas, of whom Acts v, 36; secondly, that Egyptian impostor, of whom Josephus, Book II of the War, chapter xii, and Luke, Acts xxi, 38; thirdly, Simon Magus, of whom Acts viii, 10, who, according to St. Jerome's testimony, used to say: "I am the word of God, I am the comely one, I am the Paraclete, I am the Almighty, I am all things." For this Simon, as Irenaeus testifies, Book I, chapter xx, said that he had appeared in Judea as the Son, in Samaria as the Father, and in the Gentile lands had descended as the Holy Spirit. This proud Titan, then, and as it were another Lucifer, kept saying that he was not only the Messiah or Christ, but the whole Holy Trinity Himself; who also by his magical spectacles so deluded Nero and the Romans that at Rome between the two bridges a statue was erected to him with this inscription: "Simoni Deo magno" ("To Simon, the great God"). Fourthly, such were Menander, Saturninus, Carpocras, the Gnostics, and the others sprung from the family of Simon, of whom Irenaeus, Book I, chapter xxi. Finally, such will be the Antichrist, who will peddle himself to the Jews in place of Christ, according to that saying of Christ, John v, 43: "If another shall come in his own name, him you will receive," which all understand of the Antichrist, says St. Augustine, Sermon 45 On the Words of the Lord.
Verse 6: You Shall Hear of Wars and Rumors of Wars
In Greek ἀκοάς, that is, hearings, that is, rumors; the Arabic, news. Which are often sadder than the war itself, and by the fear of evils (even of ones that will never come to pass) torment souls, according to the saying: "Worse than war is the fear of war itself." For enim the Greek has δέ, that is autem, indeed — but another sign than the false prophets of verse 5 is here assigned by Christ as preparatory to the destruction of the city and the world, namely tumults, wars, seditions, etc.; and Josephus teaches that such serious things occurred in Judea before the destruction of Jerusalem (Book II of the War, chapter xi, and Book XX of the Antiquities, chapter iv). "For He asserts that there will be a double war," says Chrysostom, "one from seducers, another from enemies."
See (beware) that you be not troubled. — Lest either through fear of enemies you fall away from faith in Me, or through despair of the fruit cease from the preaching of the Gospel; but with noble spirit struggling against all fear and tumults, may you continue to preach faith in Me and My Gospel. He adds the reason why the Apostles must not be troubled, saying:
For these things (in Greek πάντα, that is all things; the Syriac, "all these things," namely wars and rumors of wars) must come to pass, but the end is not yet (that is, will not yet be) — the end of Jerusalem and of the temple, much less of the world, and likewise of the wars and evils that precede both destructions: for the end of one war and evil will be the beginning of another and greater one, as Josephus relates happened at Jerusalem (Book III of the War, chapter xv); as if to say: Do not be troubled so as to fall in spirit, but take up greater courage, so that you may prepare yourselves to endure and overcome the greater evils which will follow, and do not hope for peace on earth, but through the endurance of evils on earth, strive toward the everlasting and blessed rest in heaven.
Verse 7: Nation Shall Rise Against Nation, and Kingdom Against Kingdom
— before the destruction of the city as well as of the world: for, as St. Jerome rightly observes, and Bede and St. Augustine (Epistle 80 to Hesychius), Christ, when the Apostles asked Him confusedly about the destruction of the city and of the world, replied confusedly and mixtly (joining and mingling one with the other) until verse 15. And He does this for this purpose, that the Apostles and the faithful, always kept in suspense regarding both, may zealously prepare themselves, arm themselves, and fortify themselves beforehand. From verse 13 onward He speaks distinctly of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, and assigns its preliminary signs, up to verse 29, where from that point on until the end of the chapter He treats of the signs which will precede the destruction of the world, or the end of the world.
Further, that from this verse to verse 13 both the destruction of the city and the destruction of the world are mingledly treated, is clear from the very signs which precede both destructions. Wherefore St. Hilary, St. Gregory (Homily 1 on the Gospels), and Irenaeus (Book V, chapter xxv) understand these things of the destruction of the world and its signs. For most grievous tumults, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and false Christs shall precede that. Again, St. Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact also rightly understand these things of the destruction of the city; and this is clear from Luke xxi, 8 and 12, where He says: "But before all these things they shall lay their hands on you, and shall persecute you, hauling you before the synagogues:" which, as is clear from the Acts of the Apostles, befell the Apostles before the destruction of Jerusalem. Before that, therefore, first, nation rose against nation, because after the people of Jerusalem seized and slaughtered their Roman garrison, soon the Ascalonites, Ptolemaidenses, Damascenes, Alexandrines, Syrians, Romans, and all the neighboring nations eagerly rose up in war against the Jews, and this continuously until the most wretched destruction of Jerusalem through Titus, concerning which Josephus treats at length in Book II of the War, from chapter xi to the end of Book VII, and Hegesippus, Book II, chapters xi, xiv, xvi, and xvii.
Secondly, that Judea was afflicted with famine before the destruction is clear from Acts xi, 28, and from Josephus (Book XX of the Antiquities, chapters ii and iii), where he writes that the queen of Adiabene came to the aid of this famine.
Thirdly, concerning pestilence and earthquake Josephus has nothing; but from this oracle of Christ it is certain that they occurred, because both are wont to accompany and follow war and famine.
Luke adds, xxi, 9: "And there shall be terrors from heaven, and great signs:" for that these would precede the destruction of the world is clear from Apocalypse viii and ix. See what is said there and what will be said here at verse 29. That these things likewise preceded the destruction of the city of Jerusalem is certain. For first, a terrible comet, in the shape of a sword, hung over Jerusalem from the sky for a whole year before the destruction; secondly, at Passover, as the people were gathering, at the ninth hour of the night a midday light shone in the temple for half an hour; thirdly, a cow that was to be sacrificed in the temple brought forth a lamb; fourthly, the Eastern gate of the temple, bronze and so very heavy that it could scarcely be closed by twenty men, at the sixth hour of the night opened of its own accord; fifthly, in the sky were seen armed battle lines, chariots, and the battles of those fighting; sixthly, at Pentecost the voice of angels was heard in the temple: "Let us depart hence;" seventhly, a certain plebeian and rustic man named Jesus, son of Ananus, suddenly began to cry out: "A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the temple, a voice against new bridegrooms and new brides, a voice against all the people;" and shouting these things by day and night, he went around all the streets of the city, and for seven years, as though thunderstruck, with a dreadful voice he continually thundered: "Woe, woe to Jerusalem;" until, when the city was surrounded by Titus, crying out on the wall more forcefully than usual: "Woe to Jerusalem, to the temple, to the people, and to me," he was struck by a stone from the enemy and died: concerning all of which, see Josephus, Book VII of the War, chapter xii, and Eusebius, Book III of the History, chapter viii.
Verse 8: All These Things Are the Beginnings of Sorrows
In Greek ὠδίνων, that is, of birth-pangs, as St. Jerome translates in his Commentary; that is, of the greatest pains, and such as women suffer in childbirth, in which not a few are killed by the pains. For as in those who are dying pains and illnesses gradually and by degrees increase, until they become so grievous that they destroy them; so likewise wars, famines, pestilence, etc., grew at the destruction of the city, as is clear from Josephus, Books VI and VII, and so it will also happen at the destruction of the world: "For because we are in the decline of the age, certain sicknesses of the world go before," says St. Augustine on chapter xxi of Luke, verse 9. See what is said at Apocalypse chapter viii and ix, and chapter xvi.
Verse 9: Then They Shall Deliver You Up to Tribulation
The Syriac prefers "oppression:" for this gives birth to hatred, as if to say: Then they will so afflict and trouble you that you will seem handed over and given over to tribulation: wherefore they will torture and afflict you with various tortures, and everywhere all nations will persecute you, as those who disparage their gods, and who preach a new God — Christ crucified. This happened under Nero, who stirred up the first persecution against Christians, and so killed the chief of the Apostles — namely, he crucified St. Peter, struck down St. Paul with the sword, and delivered many Christians in the circus to the flames, to such a degree that some, smeared with tallow, fat, and pitch, burned as torches for the use of nocturnal lighting, says Tacitus, Annals, Book XV. The Antichrist will do the same, nay more atrocious things, at the end of the world.
Verse 10: Then Shall Many Be Scandalized, and Shall Betray One Another
"Then many shall be scandalized," that is, they shall suffer scandal, be offended, fall; the Syriac, "shall stumble," so that through fear of persecutions and torments they fall away from the faith of Christ and apostatize, as is clear from Eusebius and others that many did fall away.
And they shall betray one another. — As if to say: The aforesaid apostates and other Gentiles, in order to gain the favor of the Emperors and of the princes who persecute Christians, will betray the Christians who are their friends, kinsmen or acquaintances, as the Syriac translates — as now happens in England, Scotland, and Japan. These are the false brethren, of whom Paul complains in II Corinthians, chapter xi, 26, that they lay in wait for him. "You see here," says St. Chrysostom, "that there will be a threefold war: one from enemies, another from seducers, a third from false brethren."
Verse 11: Many False Prophets Shall Rise and Shall Seduce Many
"Many false prophets" (false teachers, heresiarchs, as Simon Magus, Menander, Arius, Nestorius, Luther, Calvin, and the head of them all, Antichrist) shall rise up and shall deceive many, — not by the power of the deceivers, but by the negligence of the deceived, says the Author of the Opus Imperfectum. Paul foretold the same, Acts xx, 29, 30, saying: "I know that after my departure ravenous wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock, and from your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to lead away disciples after them."
Verse 12: Because Iniquity Has Abounded, the Charity of Many Shall Grow Cold
In Greek πληθυνθῆναι, that is, on account of its being multiplied — namely, "then," that is, because it will be multiplied and abound, as many here read; the Syriac, "on account of the multitude of iniquity." "Iniquity," namely unbelief, heresy, persecution, tyranny, and every impiety. "Shall grow cold" — the Syriac, "languish;" the Arabic, "be diminished" — nay, faith and hope also, as if to say: Those who previously burned with charity toward Christ and Christians, seeing so many persecutions and afflictions of Christians, will grow lukewarm, nay cold, so that they convert love into tepidity, nay into hatred and horror. Christ foretells these things in order to sharpen His faithful against all hardships and with magnanimity to strengthen them, and by consolations render them as it were adamantine, says Euthymius.
Verse 13: He Who Perseveres to the End Shall Be Saved
"He who perseveres" (in the faith and charity of Christ) "unto the end" — the end of persecution and tribulation, the end of life, the end of unconquered patience, so that he yields to no terrors, blandishments, or torments; whence the Syriac translates: "He who endures unto the end." As if to say: The sole remedy and victory over these evils is a noble constancy in faith and charity, and continual perseverance: for by enduring all these things, one conquers and overcomes, as was clear in the Apostles, in Ss. Lawrence, Vincent, Sebastian, and the rest of the martyrs. Rightly therefore is this line to be used by the faithful: Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito ("Yield not to evils, but go more boldly against them") [Virgil, Aen. VI.95].
Verse 14: This Gospel Shall Be Preached in the Whole World
"This Gospel of the kingdom" (by which the kingdom of heaven is announced as drawing near, according to the saying in chapter iii, 2) "shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations; and then shall the consummation come." — St. Chrysostom and his follower Theophylact hold that this was fulfilled before the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, and that it was "for a testimony to all nations," so that God would testify to all nations and make manifest His love for the Jews, and the Jews' perfidy toward Christ, and so that the substitution, election, and call of the Gentiles in their place would be just; and he proves it from that saying of Paul, Romans i, 8: "Your faith is announced in the whole world;" and "their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." And from Colossians i, 6: "Which (Gospel) has come to you, as it is also in the whole world, and bears fruit and grows."
But understand this either by hyperbole or by synecdoche, namely that the Gospel was preached and spread before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus through very many and the principal parts and provinces of the world — yet not through every smaller and less noted and renowned place. Wherefore St. Jerome, Bede, and other ancients teach that this will happen plainly and fully before the consummation of the world; for this is absolutely called "the consummation;" and before it, the Gospel will be spread and propagated among absolutely all nations, so that among all nations Churches shall be founded, Parish priests and Bishops be instituted, and every hierarchical order — which was not done before the destruction of Jerusalem, as is acknowledged; and this shall be done "for a testimony to all nations," so that God shall testify His paternal providence and diligence toward all nations, and equally His love, by which He has excluded no nation, however barbarian and impious, from the faith, salvation, and grace of Christ, but has loved, cared for, and called all at fitting and appointed times, and has omitted nothing that was needful to save all nations: so that likewise on the day of judgment He may condemn all who were unwilling to believe and obey Him.
Whence, from this oracle of Christ, St. Jerome, Franciscus Suárez and others commonly teach that this will be a sure sign of the imminent end of the world, namely the preaching of the Gospel throughout the whole world — such and so great that the Church may be founded everywhere, having everywhere her own Christians, clerics, temples, priests, and so on; though Maldonatus and Franciscus Lucas deny this, holding that Christ here only asserts that the Gospel must be preached to all nations before the end of the world, but that it is uncertain whether, when the Gospel has been preached to all at the same time, the end of the world will come immediately. And indeed this too is true: for the Church, which must be founded throughout all nations, must stand and be established among them for some time before the end of the world comes. But how long this time will be is uncertain, and known to God alone. See what is said at Romans x, 18.
Furthermore, since we have now seen for 150 years that a new world has been discovered by the Spanish — when, that is, Americus Vespucius (from whom America takes its name) and Christopher Columbus by navigating discovered the West Indies, which are plainly half of the whole world; and that the Gospel is being spread there throughout all the provinces, with the exception of some southern regions still unknown; from this we can gather that we are gradually drawing near to the end of the world. For from the rest of the world there remains nothing that has not at some time received the faith of Christ — unless perhaps China, where however our Nicolaus Trigaultius (in his book On the Faith Propagated in China) shows by certain testimonies that there were formerly Christians and Churches of Christ; and the same is proved by an inscription on a stone recently discovered in China, which plainly testifies that the Gospel was preached there by Apostolic men.
Verse 15: The Abomination of Desolation Standing in the Holy Place
"When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation" (that is, an abominable desolation; the Syriac, "an unclean portent of devastation"), "which was spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, standing in the holy place: he who reads, let him understand: then those who are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains." — What this abomination of desolation is, I have discussed at length at Daniel ix, 27. For some understand by it an idol placed in the temple; others the Antichrist himself, who shall wish to be adored in the temple as God; others the sins of the priests committed in the temple; others, better, the camp of the Romans besieging Jerusalem, which shortly after capturing her abominably devastated and desolated her; likewise the profanation of the temple by murders and other crimes committed in the temple, perpetrated by the seditious murderers and wicked Jews who called themselves the Zealots of the law and of liberty. See what is said at Daniel ix, 27.
Thus far Christ has given the Apostles common signs, which were to precede the destruction both of the city of Jerusalem and of the whole world; now He properly assigns the preliminary signs of the destruction of the city, namely the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, and the profanation of the temple by the Zealots: for after these two things Jerusalem was cut off and made desolate. Wherefore He warns the Jews as well as the Christians that, when they see these signs, they should immediately flee to the mountains — not those of Judea (for the Romans took those, as Josephus testifies, Book III of the War, chapter xii, and Book IV, chapter ii), but those situated outside Judea, so that they may escape the calamity and impending destruction of Jerusalem; just as the Christians, actually mindful of this warning of Christ, did escape it, and being warned by an oracle of God, as Eusebius testifies (Book III of the History, chapter xv), withdrew to the city of Pella situated across the Jordan, as St. Epiphanius teaches (Heresy 29 and 30) — nay, they transferred their very household goods along, and even the episcopal chair of St. James. For Eusebius teaches in Book VII of the History, xv, that it was preserved intact down to his own times. For if it had remained at Jerusalem, it would certainly have perished in the flames with the rest. So Baronius, vol. I, year of Christ 68, chapters xlv and li. Here might be seen the singular care of God toward the Christians, but wrath toward the Jews: for when the Roman army was approaching, the Galileans and Jews in throngs fled to Jerusalem as to a sanctuary, thinking they would be safe there; but God gathered them all together in that very place, that they might be slaughtered by the Romans.
Verse 17: He Who Is on the Housetop, Let Him Not Go Down
Mark, "upon the roof;" for the housetops of the Jews were flat, like boards, so that they were wont to walk on them, take meals on them, and sleep on them. "Let him not go down to take anything out of his house," but let him flee at once, to save his life and lose the rest of his possessions. For so great and so sudden will be this devastation of Judea and Jerusalem by the Romans that it is better to escape naked than, in wanting to save one's goods, to expose oneself to that danger. It is a hyperbole, meaning that one must flee very swiftly, because of the imminent extreme calamity — as if to say: Whoever is on the housetop, let him not come down from it by the usual stairs little by little, but leap down with a single jump, or let himself down very quickly by a rope, that he may escape the calamity; for otherwise the Jews had rather more time to flee. For first, Cestius Gallus, sent by Nero, besieged Jerusalem; but he was put to flight by the Jews. Then, six months later, Vespasian, sent by the same Nero, gradually captured Galilee and the other cities of Judea, with the one exception of Jerusalem, on which he spent three years; and when he was determined to besiege it, news came of Nero's death; whereupon Vespasian, hailed Emperor by the army, returned to Rome to look to the republic, committing the siege of Jerusalem and the completion of the whole war to his son Titus — who after a year and a half besieged Jerusalem at Passover, and took her six months later, burned her, devastated her. In this intervening year and a half, while the Romans were more slowly prosecuting the war in Judea, the Jews themselves fought among themselves with murderous hatreds. For first, the Zealots, occupying the temple, filled it with the slaughter and corpses of their own fellow citizens. To these succeeded the leader of a new conspiracy, Simon Gerasenus, who, admitted into Jerusalem by the people in order to check the Zealots, just as they had done, raged against the citizens with plunder and slaughter. There was therefore, from the coming of the soldiers of the Romans, sufficient time for the Jews to gather up themselves and their goods and flee; but Christ urges that they flee at once, both to signify that the calamity will be most grave, and because, with Roman soldiers already present in Judea and running through it, there was nowhere a safe place of flight: for those fleeing would fall upon Roman soldiers, and by them would be plundered and slain, as Josephus narrates at length in his book On the Jewish War.
Wherefore this most disastrous destruction of Jerusalem was an express type and prelude of the destruction of the world, just as were the Flood of Noah, the conflagration of Sodom, and the drowning of Pharaoh with his whole army in the Red Sea.
Mystically: Pope Hadrian I, in his letter to Charles, king of the Franks, Act IV: "He is upon the housetop," he says, "who, rising above carnal things, lives spiritually as in free air. Of such a spiritual man these vessels already stand empty in the house, because, with his mind towering above the body and, through the keenness of his understanding, set as upon a housetop, he enjoys the clarity of wisdom as though it were the most open sky."
Verse 18: He Who Is in the Field, Let Him Not Return
In Greek ἱμάτιον, that is, the cloak, or outermost garment, by which one defends oneself from rain, cold and other harms of the air. For farmers and those working in the field are accustomed to leave their cloak and tunic at home or in some other place, so that being half-naked they may be freer for their labor. As if to say: In like manner, when the destruction of Judea and Jerusalem is imminent, flee most swiftly and half-naked (if you are such), that you may escape so great and so sudden a calamity. It is a hyperbole and proverb similar to the former; by both Christ figuratively signifies that one must flee most swiftly, leaving everything behind, even one's clothes, and this in order to suggest the gravity of the impending calamity: for the Prophets are accustomed to use this phrase in similar matters. So Jeremiah 46:3, on the slaughter of the Egyptians by the Chaldeans: "I have seen them," he says, "fearful and turning their backs; their strong ones slain: they fled hastily, nor looked back: terror on every side, says the Lord; let not the swift flee, nor the strong think himself saved." And in chapter 48:6, on the slaughter of the Moabites: "Flee," he says, "save your souls, and you shall be as tamarisks in the desert." He alludes to Lot fleeing the burning of Sodom, to whom accordingly the angel said, Genesis 19:17: "Save your life, look not back behind you."
Verse 19: Woe to Those With Child and to Those Who Nurse in Those Days
In Greek θηλαζούσαις, that is, those giving the breast, as St. Augustine reads it in Psalm 39:1; for θηλή means a breast; that is, those suckling, namely mothers who have recently given birth, who give the milk of the breast to their infants. Because, namely, pregnant women, weighed down by the burden of the unborn they carry in the womb, and nursing or suckling mothers, burdened by the load of their nursing infants, will not be able to flee: whence they will be taken by the enraged and raging Roman enemy, and slain together with their little ones. So St. Chrysostom here, Hilary and others. Theophylact adds that allusion is here made to the severity of the famine; by which some mothers, compelled in the siege of Jerusalem, ate their own infants, as Josephus testifies in Book VII of the War, chapter 8. Christ declares the severity of the vengeance and slaughter of Jerusalem, in that not even pregnant women and infants will be spared, as is often done in other sieges and stormings of cities: for the very feminine sex of mothers, and the infant age of children, move pity even in the most enraged enemies.
Verse 20: Pray That Your Flight Be Not in Winter or on the Sabbath
"In winter," because in it, on account of the cold, the snows, the rains, the mud, the winds and the other inconveniences of weather and roads, flight is difficult, and even impossible or deadly for the sick and the old. "On the sabbath," because on that day it was not lawful for the Jews to walk more than a mile, nay more than seven hundred paces, as I have shown on Acts 1:12.
You will say: The sabbath, like the other legal observances, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, had already been abrogated by Christ and the Apostles at Pentecost, through the promulgation of the Evangelical law, Acts 2; and even if it had not been abrogated, by the right of nature it would have been lawful upon it to flee many thousands of paces in order to save one's life.
I answer: Christ is speaking of the Jews and of Christians still judaizing, who, through excessive religion, were accustomed to observe the sabbath so strictly that they would rather die than flee and carry off their goods, or defend themselves against invading enemies on the sabbath, as is clear from 1 Maccabees 2:34 and following. But the Jews and judaizers, in the destruction of Jerusalem, were going to observe their sabbath, although it had been abrogated by Christ. Add that the legal observances, abrogated by Christ at Pentecost, were then indeed dead and no longer binding, yet were not immediately deadly; but the Jews who had converted to Christ were permitted still to keep them, out of reverence for the Law and for Moses, for many years, until, being fully taught the Evangelical liberty, they might pass over into full union with the Gentiles in the Church of Christ, as I have said on Galatians 2. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius.
Christ alludes to Jerusalem, taken or rather to be taken by Titus on the day of the sabbath, as Dio Cassius testifies in his Life of Nero. Indeed, our Gaspar Sanchez, on chapter 14 of Zechariah, no. 27, takes it literally in this way, as though Christ is here proclaiming that the Jews must flee on the sabbath, because on that day Jerusalem was to be taken by the Romans. But Christ here gives signs preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, so that before it they may flee and escape, as I said on verse 15; for in its siege and destruction, Titus so surrounded it on every side with a wall that it was impossible to flee from it, as Josephus testifies.
Verse 21: There Shall Be Then Great Tribulation
In Jerusalem and in the whole of Judea, by divine vengeance, as is clear from Luke 21:23. "Such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be." Some, with St. Augustine in his epistle 80 to Hesychius, restrict the phrase "such as has not been, etc., neither shall be" to the Jews; for He has been speaking of the Jews up to this point, as if to say: The Jews, neither in the captivity of Egypt, nor in that of Assyria, nor in that of Babylon, nor in the Syrian captivity under Antiochus Epiphanes, suffered such disasters as they will suffer from Titus and the Romans; nor indeed thereafter will they suffer so great, because Titus will bring upon them the final destruction and desolation, which will endure to the end of the world, as Daniel foretold in chapter 9, the last verse.
Others more fully hold that this destruction and punishment of the Jews under Titus is to be compared — and preferred — in atrocity to any particular destructions and punishments of whatever nations; for the Jews were not from the beginning of the world, but began from Abraham and Jacob. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Neither the conflagration of Sodom, nor the drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea, nor the overthrow of the Canaanites by Joshua, nor the devastation of Nineveh, Babylon, the Persians, the Greeks, or of any other nations, was or will be so atrocious and horrible as the destruction of Judea by Titus is to be. I said: particular; for the general destruction of the whole world by the Flood in the time of Noah, and by the conflagration at the end of the world, surpasses the destruction of Judea alone in the common ruin of all and in its atrocity. Likewise the persecution of Antichrist will be more atrocious, seeing that it will be universal against all Christians of every nation believing in Christ.
Christ therefore is comparing the destruction of the one Jewish nation with the destruction of any other single nation, and not of all nations and of the whole world. That it so happened is clear from Josephus' seven books which he composed On the Jewish War, in which, among other things, he expressly says, Book 6, chapter 11: "But to say it briefly, I think that no other city ever suffered such things, nor any nation since human memory has been fiercer in seditious malice." And Book 7, chapter 17: "The number of those who were destroyed, whom the Romans partly openly killed and partly took captive, surpasses every human and divinely sent plague."
St. Chrysostom assigns as the cause of so great an atrocity of the Jewish destruction the atrocity of the crime by which they most unworthily treated and crucified their own Messiah, namely Christ the Son of God. Whence from this destruction and perpetual desolation of the Jewish nation, you may convince the Jews and teach them that Christ has already come and is He who was killed by them. For God has never so atrociously punished any other crime among the Jews, or among other nations, as He has punished and still constantly punishes the Jews, on account of this Christ-killing and God-killing. Whence rightly the Author of the Opus Imperfectum says: "Up to Christ, the Jews, even though sinners, were held as sons and chastised as sons; but when the Lord was crucified, they ceased to be sons and became enemies, and as such were uprooted without any remaining hope of salvation; for as they committed such a crime as has never been committed nor ever shall be committed, so upon them has come such a sentence as has never come nor ever shall come." This is what Luke says in 21:22: "Because these are the days of vengeance (of Christ-killing), etc., for there shall be great distress upon the earth and wrath upon this people."
Josephus adds, in Book 7 of the War, chapter 16, that Titus acknowledged this to be God's vengeance, and did not ascribe the storming of Jerusalem to his own strength. For having entered the captured city and seeing the fortifications and the height and solidity of the towers, he cried out: "Plainly we fought with God helping us, and it was God who drew the Jews down from these defences. For what hands of men, or what engines, could have prevailed against such as these?" The same Josephus, in Book 6 of the War, chapter 14, and after him Eusebius, in Book 3 of the History, chapter 5: "But when Titus," he says, "going around, saw the trenches filled with the corpses of the dead, with a great groan he raised his hands to heaven and called God to witness that this was not his own work."
Luke adds in chapter 21:24, First: "And they shall fall by the edge of the sword," that is, they shall be slain by the edge of the Roman sword. Whence Josephus in Book 7 of the War, chapter 17, asserts that, besides others slain in countless numbers throughout the whole of Judea, in Jerusalem alone during the time of its siege, eleven hundred thousand persons died by famine, plague and the sword.
Second: "And they shall be led captive into all nations," because, as Josephus there says, 97,000 Jews were then taken captive. He adds that the crowd of Jews flowing together to Jerusalem for the Passover from the whole world came to 2,700,000, that is, two million seven hundred thousand men. Hence he subjoins: "Then the whole nation was shut up by fate as in a prison, and a city crammed with people was besieged in war. And thus the number of those destroyed — whom the Romans partly openly killed, partly took captive — surpasses every human and divinely sent plague. For, searching drains and tearing open sepulchres, they cut the throats of any they came upon. And there were also found there more than two thousand, some of whom had killed themselves by their own hand, but more had slain one another with mutual wounds, while hunger had consumed still others."
Third: "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the nations be fulfilled," or of the Gentiles, that is, until the end of the world and of all nations: for when the number of Gentiles decreed by God has been fulfilled, every race and number of peoples shall come to an end along with the world. So Euthymius; or, as Bede, as if to say: Until the fullness of the Gentiles shall enter into the Church of Christ: for when this has been done, "then all Israel shall be saved," as the Apostle says in Romans 11, which shall happen at the end of the world. For Christ refers here to the desolation of Jerusalem of which He spoke in verse 20, that it was foretold by Daniel in chapter 9, the last verse, where Daniel says: "Unto the consummation and end the desolation shall continue," namely, that Jerusalem, levelled to the ground and desolated by Titus, should no longer be the royal city of the Jews, but of the Gentiles, and afterwards of the Christians, and later of the Saracens and the Turks, as it now is, and this until the end of the world, when Antichrist, king and Messiah of the Jews, shall set up the seat of his kingdom at Jerusalem, as is clear from Revelation 11:8; and then Elias and Enoch, resisting Antichrist, shall convert many of the Jews to Christ; and when Antichrist has been slain, all the Jews shall be brought over to Christ through the followers of Elias and Henoch, and shall publicly worship Christ at Jerusalem, as is sufficiently gathered from Revelation 20:8. See the remarks there.
Eusebius adds, in Book 4 of the History, chapter 6, that the emperor Hadrian, who succeeded Vespasian in the empire after Domitian, Nerva and Trajan, by a severe edict decreed that absolutely all Jews should depart far from Judea, and that it should not be lawful for any of them even from a distance to look upon Judea; and then he subjoins: "Thus it came to pass that the city, after the destruction of the Jewish nation, soon filled with inhabitants of a foreign people and its citizens changed, was even herself called Aelia, from the surname of the emperor Aelius Hadrian; and that, being turned into Roman jurisdiction, she changed at once her rite and her name." Behold, this is what Christ predicts: "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles."
From these words of Christ, St. Cyril of Jerusalem rightly refuted those Jews who, at the urging of Julian the Apostate, were attempting to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem: for he foretold that all their labor would be in vain, because Christ had declared, on the authority of Daniel, that the desolation of Jerusalem and of the temple would endure to the end of the world. And he was a true prophet. For fire, falling from heaven, consumed all the workmen's tools, and a great earthquake tore out the foundation stones and scattered them all together with the adjoining buildings; and on the following night signs of the cross, shining like a ray of the sun, appeared impressed upon the garments of the Jews, which they could in no way wipe off. So Socrates, Book 3, chapter 20, or, according to another edition, chapter 27.
Verse 22: Unless Those Days Had Been Shortened, No Flesh Should Be Saved
In Greek ἐκολοβώθησαν, that is, cut, curtailed, diminished, "by the Lord," as Mark adds in 13:20. "But for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened." The elect are of two kinds, namely unto grace, as are all the faithful and the just; and unto glory, as are all those to be saved. Both may be understood here, but especially the second: for these are perfectly the elect, and whoever are elected unto final grace, so that they may persevere in it to the end of life, these also are elected unto glory. The sense is, as if to say: Unless God had from eternity decreed that they should be fewer, and in due time had made the days of the devastation of Judea fewer — fewer, I say, than both the guilt of the Jews and the wrath of the Romans required — all the Jews without exception would have perished. For if the time of the siege of Jerusalem and the slaughter of Judea had lasted longer, no flesh, that is, no Jews would have been saved, but they would have been consumed by plague, famine and war. For the Romans raged against the Jews as against a rebellious and obstinate nation; and unless Titus' mildness had restrained them, and unless Jerusalem, by God so disposing, had been quickly captured, the Romans would have butchered all the Jews. God therefore shortened these days of the Jewish slaughter, that is, made them fewer, "for the sake of the elect."
Verse 23: If Any Man Shall Say to You: Behold, Here Is Christ
Since the Jews were expecting the Messiah at this very time, as had been promised in the prophecy of Jacob, Genesis 49:10, at that time many, fawning on Vespasian, said that he himself, as the conqueror of Judea, was the Messiah, as Suetonius testifies in his Life of Vespasian. Others, flattering Herod, said that he was the Messiah. Moreover at that time in Jerusalem, as Josephus and St. Jerome testify, there were three factions, each of which had its own leaders, who gave themselves out as the Messiah who would defend the Jews against the Romans. These leaders were Eleazar, son of Simon; John, son of Levi; Simon, son of Gioras, contending with one another over the chief command.
Of such a kind also was that impostor who, under the emperor Hadrian, pretended to be the Messiah, and on that account wished to be called Barchochebas, that is, son of a star, as though in him that prophecy of Balaam concerning the Messiah were being fulfilled: "A star shall arise out of Jacob," Numbers 24:17. Of him Eusebius, in Book 4 of the History, chapter 6: "At the time," he says, "when these things were being done, a certain Barchochebas was leading the army of the Jews, which name signifies a star — a cruel and criminal man in all other respects. But by his very name he was persuading them, as though they were worthless slaves, that for their salvation he, a great star, was bringing the aid of light to dying mortals long condemned to obscurity." On the same, see also Galatinus, Book 4 of On the Mysteries of the Faith, chapter 21.
Such in our own age were David George and John of Leyden, king of the Anabaptists, who, having seized Münster, a city of Westphalia, set himself up there as King Christ and created twelve apostles, whom he sent to all the neighboring cities to bring everyone over to his Christ; but, besieged and captured by the Catholics, suspended alive in a wicker basket from the top of a tower, eaten away by flies, birds and wasps, he perished in the year of the Lord 1536. The printed history exists. There will be many such in the times of Antichrist. Such too, tropologically, are the heresiarchs, who hawk to us another Christ, by the very fact that they bring forward other doctrines, which are not those of Christ, but of Antichrist. So Origen and St. Augustine in epistle 80 to Hesychius. For although the word tunc ("then") properly denotes the time of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, yet it can be taken indefinitely and loosely, so as to denote extensively any time whatever from the destruction of Jerusalem to the end of the world, as St. Chrysostom notes in homily 77. The reason I shall give on verse 29.
Further, the heretics ineptly think that by the phrase "If anyone shall say to you: Behold, here is Christ," the Catholics are meant, who of the Eucharist say: "Behold, here is Christ." For Christ is speaking of visible heretics and false prophets, who will say that they are Christs, in order to draw disciples after them; but not of the Eucharist, in which Christ is invisible.
Verse 24: There Shall Arise False Christs and False Prophets
"Signs," by magic art with the help of the devil, whom many heresiarchs have had as their paredrus, that is, assessor and familiar, as I have shown on 1 Timothy 4:1. Such was the first and chief of them, Simon Magus, who by his signs and wonders drove Nero and the Romans out of their senses, so much so that they set up a statue to him at Rome; but at last, flying through the air by the help of a demon, and by the prayers of St. Peter cast down to the earth, he dashed his knees upon a stone and broke them, "so that he who had attempted to fly could not walk, and he who had put on feathers lost the use of his feet," as St. Maximus says in homily 5 On Ss. Peter and Paul. See what has been said on Acts 8:9 and Matthew 7:22.
So that (if possible) even the elect shall be led into error. — Understand final error; as if to say: that the elect should fall away from the faith and from grace, and so be reprobated and damned. For there is no surer sign of reprobation than if one should apostatize from the faith. Calvin therefore wrongly infers from this that the elect, or the predestined, cannot sin: for they do sin, but they repent and rise again, so that they may depart in grace.
If it be possible. — As if to say: So great will be the force, fraud, disguise and appearance of the tribulation and temptation of the false Christs and heretics, that, were it possible, even the elect would be seduced by them and would pass over into their error and heresy, and so would fall from the faith and be damned. But this cannot happen, on account of the stronger protection of God and God's infallible predestination, as St. Augustine says in Book 20 of the City of God, chapter 19, according to that word of Christ: "I give them eternal life, and they shall not perish forever, and no one shall snatch (My sheep) out of My hand," John 10:28. For it cannot come to pass that the elect should fall and be reprobated — by a necessity not physical and absolute, but moral, which rests upon God's foreknowledge and predestination, and combines and unites it with the outcome of future things: which is a necessity in the composite sense, not in the divided sense, as the Theologians speak.
For although the elect are free and can freely sin, err and be damned, yet granted that God has predestined and foreknown that they will not sin, nor err, nor be damned, it is impossible that they should sin, err or be damned: for God's predestination and foreknowledge are most certain and cannot fail. Wherefore these two things cannot stand together: that a man be predestined, and yet be damned; that God foreknow a man will die in God's grace and be saved, and yet that he die in sin and perish. In a similar way, John says of the Jews, chapter 12:39: "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes," not as though Isaiah's prediction were the cause why the Jews did not believe Christ, but because Isaiah's prediction concerning the unbelief of the Jews could not stand together with their belief. And Paul, 2 Timothy 2:19: "The firm foundation (of the elect) of God stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are His." See what is said there.
Further, those Theologians who say that the elect unto glory have been men from before every foresight of works, out of the mere good pleasure of God, place the necessity of saving them in the force of the divine decree; but these too, in order not to injure the liberty of man, must take it likewise in the composite sense: for they must combine the constancy and perseverance of the elect with the decree of God concerning this constancy, which must be so suggested to them by Him as not to injure their liberty, and with its execution in time, namely, by His giving them in due time a congruous and efficacious grace, by which they may effectively but freely resist the heretics, and persevere in the faith and grace of God. Nor is it more strange that they cannot fall whom God does not will to fall (for who resists His will?), than that they cannot fall who have been foreknown by God that they will not fall. For God's foreknowledge is as infallible as His will.
Some more strictly, with Ambrose Catharinus, take "the elect" here as those specially beloved and chosen by God, who for that reason are wont to suffer most grievous things from the devil, from heretics and from the impious, but resist and overcome most strongly and most steadfastly; as if to say: So great will be the temptation then, that even the most holy men, religious and apostolic, who are specially beloved of God, would fall from the faith, were it possible, and were not the more powerful grace of God and the more certain election to oppose it.
Verse 25: Behold, I Have Told You Beforehand
— both the future seducers, that you may beware of them, and the future disasters of Jerusalem, that you may either escape them by fleeing, or overcome them by bravely enduring.
Verse 26: If They Shall Say to You: Behold, He Is in the Desert
Christ here notes Simon the Gerasene, son of Gioras, who in the deserts and mountains gathered a crowd of robbers and soldiers, as though he were the Messiah about to defend the Jews against the Romans; and, admitted into the city of Jerusalem in order to restrain the rioting Zealots, he himself ran wild tyrannically against the citizens just as they had, as Josephus testifies in Book 5 of the War, chapter 7.
Behold, He is in the inner chambers (the Syriac: in the private rooms, that is, in the innermost and most secret places of the temple, where God is wont to show His presence and help to the Jews, so that He might now through His Messiah protect them from the Romans), do not believe. — Christ here notes Eleazar and John, leaders of the Zealots, who occupied the inner approach to the temple under the pretext of defending the city against the Romans, but in reality in order to dominate the city and plunder it. So Josephus, in Book 6 of the War, chapter 1 and chapter 4; who also, in Book 7, chapter 11, writes that while the temple was burning many of the Jews fled into the portico outside the temple, because a certain false prophet had that day proclaimed that those who had fled to the temple would be saved, God protecting them; but that all these perished, either by the flames or by the Roman sword.
Luke adds in chapter 17:22: "The days will come when you shall desire to see one day of the Son of Man, and you shall not see it," — that is, the time will come when you will desire My presence, which you now have, both for your consolation in so great a tribulation, and for the exposition and refutation of the heresies and errors that will arise.
Verse 27: As Lightning Comes Forth From the East
As if to say: You must not believe errant people who say that the Messiah, the savior of the Jews against the Romans, is hidden and concealed in desert places or in the inner chambers of the temple: because when He Himself at His second coming returns for judgment, to crown the saints and condemn the impious, not secretly but publicly, as the judge of all gloriously to the whole world, He will appear like lightning with the highest majesty and glory, by which He will strike and turn upon Himself the eyes of all, so that no one can doubt Him to be the Messiah and Christ the savior of the world. As if to say: My coming, that is, My return for judgment, will be like lightning: first, sudden; second, unexpected; third, manifest to all; fourth, glorious; fifth, efficacious, so that no one can resist Him; sixth, not on the earth, but in the air, as is the case with lightning, which displays itself conspicuous not in a corner, but in the air, in a moment, to the whole world.
For Christ answers the Apostles according to their mind and opinion: for they themselves were imagining that Christ was about to inaugurate His glorious kingdom on earth immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. So St. Chrysostom: "Just as," he says, "lightning does not need a herald or a messenger, but in a moment appears to all, so My coming will at once be seen to shine everywhere always." The Author of the Opus Imperfectum: "Just as lightning," he says, "in the blink of an eye passes through all things, so also the Son of God will not merely be said to be coming, but will be seen already to have come. For if the sun, which was created for our service, has such virtue of splendor that in whatever part of the sky it is, it appears everywhere as if present, how much more shall the spiritual sun, Christ, when He comes, be seen in the whole world, and the world rather in Him!"
The same Author also adds that Christ here mentions lightning because lightnings will go before Him as He comes gloriously to judgment, according to that word of Psalm 96:3: "Fire shall go before Him, and shall burn His enemies round about. His lightnings have shone forth upon the world: the earth saw, and trembled, the mountains flowed down like wax at the face of the Lord." For lightning properly is that flash and vibration of light which is seen before the thunder is heard, though they happen at the same time, because sight is quicker than hearing, since light is swifter than sound, as Pliny says in Book 2, chapter 43. He adds further: if in a cloud the wind or vapor struggles, thunder is produced; if it bursts forth burning, it is a thunderbolt (fulmen); if it travels over a longer stretch, heat-lightning (fulgetra). By the former the cloud is split; by the latter it is broken through.
Verse 28: Wherever the Body Shall Be, There Shall the Eagles Be Gathered
He alludes to Job 39:30: "And wherever the corpse shall be (Hebrew: wherever they that are slain shall be), straightway he is there." After the metaphor of the lightning, He adds the parable of the eagle, both because the eagle is not struck by lightning, just as the elect will not be struck by the dart of the sentence and the curse, by which Christ at the judgment will condemn the impious to the depths; and next, lest the Apostles should think that the glorious coming of Christ was going to pass and depart like lightning, and should say: What reward then shall come to us from it? — Christ meets them with the thought that indeed He will appear to all like lightning, but will remain with the elect, and will feed them with His glory, just as the eagle is fed on a body, as upon its prey and food.
Body. — The Translator appears to have read σῶμα, as some now read; but the majority read πτῶμα, which properly signifies ruin and a fall, and from this a corpse: for πτῶμα is so called from πίπτων, just as cadaver (corpse) from cadere (to fall). Our Salmeron, however, takes πτῶμα as prey and game, or as the body of a bird, hare, or other animal that an eagle hunts; this is called πτῶμα because the animals caught by the eagle fall to the earth as it strikes them down, for the eagle is so noble a creature that it does not feed on a corpse or on carrion, unless upon that which it has itself caught alive and killed.
Aristotle, however, in Book 9 of the History of Animals, chapter 32, listing six species of eagles, counts among them the γυπαίετος, that is, the vulture-eagle, or ὑπαίετος, that is, the sub-eagle, which follows the corpses of vultures and feeds upon them. Hence the Septuagint, at Job 39:30, renders it "vulture," which by Pliny in Book 10, chapter 3, is called μελανόπτερος, that is, "black-winged," because its wings are marked with black spots. And Aldrovandus in his Aquila, and others, think that Christ here is speaking of this. Both significations and readings fit this place, as I shall presently show.
It is an enigmatic parable, or a parabolic enigma, signifying that the matter cannot be hidden, as if Christ were to say: Just as eagles, as soon as they see from on high their prey, or the body they are hunting, fly down upon it, and just as the vulture-eagle scents out even the most distant corpse and flies to it: so likewise My glorious coming and return into the world for judgment will not be hidden, but manifest to all; wherefore the faithful and the just, like eagles of most acute sight, and like sub-eagles of most sagacious scent, will scent Me out by divine power — that is, have a presentiment of Me; nay more, they will see Me with their eyes and will fly to Me, so that by Me and by My glory they may most happily be refreshed, fed and made blessed unto eternity; and therefore there will then be no need of inquiring where Christ is, seeing that His coming will be glorious and conspicuous to the whole world. This is what Paul says: "We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord," 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
Christ compares Himself to a corpse, in order to note His death, by which He gained glory for us; and also to a body brought back to life, to note His glorious resurrection, by which He will feed and beatify His elect. Whence St. Hilary gathers from this passage that the universal judgment of Christ will be in that place where the body of Christ hung upon the cross and was buried, namely near Jerusalem in the valley of Jehoshaphat, as Joel 3:2 teaches. Hear St. Hilary: "He named the saints, by reason of the flight of their spiritual body, eagles, and shows that their gathering, by the angels who gather them, will be in the place of the Passion; and fittingly the coming of His brightness will be awaited in the place where He wrought for us the glory of eternity through the Passion of His bodily humility," etc. So also St. Jerome: "The eagles," he says, "are those who take up wings to come to the Passion of Christ." The reason is that it is fitting that Christ should judge all in that place where He Himself was unjustly judged for all; and that His majesty should be beheld where before His abjection and humility were seen; that He should descend from heaven in the very place from which He ascended to heaven; and so that the whole work of our salvation should be completed and concluded in the very same place in which it was begun and carried forward.
Further, the Saints are rightly compared to eagles: First, because the eagle is the king of birds, just as the lion is of animals: so too the Saints are kings, not of the earth, but of heaven. Hear Origen: "He did not say: Wherever the body shall be, there the vultures or the crows shall be gathered; but the eagles, wishing to show all the magnificent and regal ones who believed in the Passion of the Lord."
Hear also the Author of the Opus Imperfectum, who by "eagles" understands vultures: "For Scripture speaks of vultures in Job: Wherever the body shall be, there shall the young of the vultures be found. For it is natural to vultures, as some say, even to perceive corpses from beyond the sea. Since therefore vultures are unclean birds, He therefore applied the name of eagles to their vulture-like habits, so that by their vulture-like habits the gathering of the Saints at the coming of Christ might be shown, while by the royal eagles royal dignity might be displayed: for the Saints are likened to eagles for this reason, that just as the young of eagles are tested by the sun, so that if they are able to gaze with direct look against the rays of the sun they are deemed legitimate, but if they cannot, they are deemed spurious; so also the sons of God are proved by the justice of Christ: for if they can with a whole heart receive the words of justice, they are deemed legitimate; but if they cannot, they are known to be born of the devil."
Second, because, as St. Ambrose says in his commentary on Luke chapter 18, eagles renew themselves, so too the Saints renew themselves — here by grace, in the life to come by glory — according to that word: "Your youth shall be renewed like the eagle's," Psalm 102:5.
Third, because the eagle has something of the divine in it, whence Aristotle, in Book 9 of the History of Animals, chapter 32: "Eagles," he says, "fly at great heights, so as to look at a great distance: wherefore men account the eagle, alone of all birds, to be divine." Hence St. Chrysostom by "eagles" understands the multitude of angels, martyrs and other Saints, who all, as though divine spirits, will be gathered to Christ their God on the day of judgment, that they may ascend in glory with Him into heaven.
Fourthly, the Saints are eagles, because they fly above the earth, and ascend into heaven, that they may behold heavenly things and look down on earthly things as placed far beneath them, lying in the lowest depths: whence with Paul they say, "Our conversation is in heaven," Philippians 3:20. See the remarks there. See also St. Gregory, Morals Book XXXI, chapter XIX, where he expounds that passage of Job 39: "Will the eagle mount up at thy command, and build her nest on high?" where among other things he says that the elect, like eagles, "see beneath themselves all things that flow past, and through love of eternity trample on everything that is high in the world."
Fifthly, just as eagles have firm and sharp sight, so that with undiverted eyes they fix their gaze on the sun; so the Saints with the sharp eyes of the mind continually contemplate Christ, who is the Sun of justice.
Allegorically: the body of Christ is the Church, where the eagles are — that is, spiritual men, who are of heavenly doctrine and life; on the contrary, heretics are like black ravens and chattering magpies, and like moles, who cling wholly to the earth and to earthly things. Hear St. Ambrose on Luke 17, the last verse, who in a few words gathers up the senses just given and many others besides: "Do the eagles not seem to you to be around the body when the Son of Man shall come on that day with the intelligible clouds, and every eye shall see Him, even they who pierced Him? There is also the body of which it is said: My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. Around this body are the true eagles, which fly around it on spiritual wings. There are also around the body eagles who believe that Jesus has come in the flesh; for every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Therefore, where faith is, there is the sacrament, there is the lodging-place of holiness; the Church also is a body, in which through the grace of baptism we are renewed in spirit, and the decline of old age is restored to renewed ages."
Anagogically: the Blessed, after the resurrection, on the day of judgment, shall be gathered to the body — that is, to Christ now risen and glorious — like eagles, that they may fly up with Him into heaven unto the blessed life: for in eagles is noted the endowment of agility belonging to the Blessed, according to Isaiah 40, the last verse: "They shall fly as eagles." See the remarks there. Whence St. Thomas, in the Catena, expounds from St. Gregory: "Wheresoever the body shall be, thither shall the eagles also be gathered together," as if to say: "Because, being made incarnate, I preside over the heavenly seat, when I loose the souls of the elect together with the flesh, I raise them up to heavenly things." And St. Ambrose, on Psalm 48, toward the end, reading "ruin" for "body" (for this is what the Greek πτῶμα means): "Where the ruin is, there also are the eagles, that is, where the ruin is, there also is the resurrection. Ruin is emptiness of firmness, resurrection is fullness of living; and thus the ruin of that Adam emptied us, but the grace of Christ has filled us again." Again, the eagle is a symbol of the blessed eternity of the Saints: for it lives for a very long time, and when it grows old, by renewing itself it becomes young again. Hence the proverb: Aquilae senectus ("The old age of the eagle").
Symbolically: the eagle, because of its sharp sight, is a symbol of truth. Whence St. Ambrose, On the Faith of the Resurrection: "Where the body is," he says, "there are the eagles: where the body of Christ is, there is truth." Again, the eagle is a symbol of the angels, on account of its swiftness. Whence St. Ambrose, Book I On the Sacraments, chapter II, takes this of the Eucharist, as if to say: In the Eucharist, where the body of Christ is, there are assembled the eagles, that is the angels, likewise the priests and Saints, who are as eagles and heavenly angels. The same, Book IV, chapter II: "The form of the body," he says, "is the altar, and the body of Christ is on the altar: you are the eagles, renewed by the washing away of sin."
Verse 29: The Sun Shall Be Darkened, and the Moon Shall Not Give Her Light
Christ passes from the destruction of the city to the destruction of the world, and assigns the signs preceding it, by which it may be known to be at hand.
"Tribulation," understand, first, the persecution and temptation which the false prophets and heresiarchs shall bring, of which I spoke at verse 23 — so St. Chrysostom; and, more particularly, the tribulation of the Jews in the siege of Jerusalem, when Titus and the Romans were besieging it; for He had just called this alone a tribulation a little before, in verse 21. Here note, with St. Chrysostom, Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius and others, that Christ, in order to keep His disciples and their descendants in suspense by the expectation of His coming and the day of judgment, and to spur them to prepare continually for it, seems to foster an error in the Apostles, and to speak as though the destruction of the world would follow immediately after the destruction of the city; and this in a different sense from what the Apostles understood, and in that sense truly. First, because, although 1,560 years have now flowed by since the destruction of Jerusalem, and many more shall flow by until the end of the world, yet all this time, though to us, who are shut in by the narrow bounds of a short age and life, it may seem very long, when compared with God's eternity, who is the true measurer of times, is very brief and as an instant. Thus St. Peter answers in his second epistle, chapter 3, verses 8 and 9: "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord delayeth not His promise." For this reason the Prophets and Apostles call the time of Christ and of the Gospel law "the last time and the last hour," as is clear from 1 John 2:18; 1 Corinthians 10:11; James 5:8; Hebrews 10:37. For the same reason Haggai, chapter 2 verse 4, says it will be a short time until Christ, although from Haggai to Christ 517 years passed. Secondly, because immediately after this tribulation of the city there shall follow the tribulation of the world, of which that was the type and prelude, inasmuch as no notable and pre-eminent tribulation of the Jews has come between, nor shall come between, the tribulation of the city and the tribulation of the world; but this latter is to follow the former most closely, not in time, but in type, likeness, parity, and atrocity. For this cause Isaiah, Jeremiah and the other Prophets, in describing the destruction of Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, Judea by the Chaldeans, at once pass over from it and leap across to its antitype — namely, to the destruction of the world, as though it were soon to come; and they explain the bitterness of the one by the signs and horrors which are to come in the other, as is clear from Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 15:9; Amos 8:9; Joel 2:10.
From what has been said, it is clear that Alcazar, on Apocalypse 6, verse 12, less genuinely concludes from this that all these things belong literally to the destruction, not of the world, but of the city of Jerusalem, of which Christ has hitherto been speaking. Wherefore he himself takes the darkening of the sun and moon and the falling of the stars literally of the blinding of the Jews, and of the calamities and slaughter inflicted by Titus and the Romans; and by the shaking of the powers of the heavens he understands the flight of the Christians from Jerusalem at the approach of the siege — for these by their holiness were sustaining the city, so that when they had fled away, the impious city, given over to slaughter by God, fell and perished. But no one can fail to see that these are mystical and symbolical, not literal.
The sun shall be darkened. — Note that this sign and those following will not be after the general resurrection, as St. Jerome and Chrysostom think, but before it, as is clear from Luke 21:26 and from Joel 2:31. Now as to the meaning, St. Augustine, Epistle 80 to Hesychius, says: "The sun," that is, the Church, "shall be darkened," because in so great a tribulation and temptation as there shall be at the end of the world, many shall fall from faith and grace who seemed to be illustrious and firm like the sun and stars. This sense is allegorically sound and apposite, but it is clear that these things are to be taken quite literally as they sound, as is plain from Luke, and the Fathers and Interpreters commonly teach the same.
You will ask: whence will come this so great darkening of the sun near the day of judgment and the end of the world? St. Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Theophylact answer that it will come from the fact that so great will be the brightness of Christ's glorified body that it will darken the sun. But I have already said that these signs will come before the general resurrection, and consequently before Christ's coming to judgment. I therefore answer that the sun will be darkened because God, withdrawing from the sun His concurrence, not indeed its light but its power of illuminating and of sending forth its rays, will deprive it of them, whereby it will come to pass that there will be light in the sun itself but mere darkness on the earth — just as He did in the Passion of Christ, to show its indignity: since the sun, moon, earth, rocks, and all the elements seemed to mourn, nay, to be indignant and to rage against the Jews who killed Christ, and as it were to wish to leap upon them and destroy them. Again, God will hide the sun by bringing in smoke and a very dense cloud; perhaps extraordinary and miraculous eclipses will also be added to this, as may be gathered from Lactantius, Book VII, chapter XVI. I have said more on this matter at Apocalypse 6, verse 12, on the words: "The sun became black as sackcloth of hair."
A type of this darkening of the sun at the end of the world were the calamities and prodigies in the destruction of Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, Idumea, Moab, etc.; and therefore the Prophets, when they speak of these, say by catachresis that in them the sun was darkened, and also the moon and stars, in order to signify the atrocity of the disaster, namely, because the inhabitants and citizens of those cities and kingdoms were then so afflicted that to them, struck and astonished, the sun and all the heavens seemed to be darkened and withdrawn into black gloom, trembling and shaken: for the atrocity of calamity brings vertigo and darkness upon men, so that to the sorrowful and afflicted all things seem sorrowful and afflicted; and because the slaughter of these cities was a prelude and type of the slaughter to come in the destruction of the world, where in truth literally the sun, moon, and stars shall be darkened. See what is said on the passages of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Joel cited a little before.
And the moon shall not give her light. — For when the sun is darkened, it is necessary that the moon too be darkened, since she draws her light from the sun: whence, drawing near to the sun, she appears full; drawing away, half and horned. St. John, Apocalypse 6:12, says: "And the whole moon became as blood." See the remarks there. Symbolically, the Author of the Opus Imperfectum says: "When the father of a family is dying, his whole household is thrown into confusion, the whole family wails, and cutting their tunics they clothe themselves in black garments: so also, when the human race, for whose sake all things were created, is placed near its end, the whole world is grieved, all the ministries of the heavens mourn, and casting off their brightness, they clothe themselves in mournful darkness in place of garments. For the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light."
And the stars shall fall from heaven. — First, because the stars near the end of the world shall be darkened (just as the sun and moon), from which the planets, and, as some think, the rest of the stars also borrow their light, so that they shall seem to men to have fallen from heaven. For Scripture often speaks of things not as they are in themselves, but as they appear and seem to men. Thus St. Jerome, Bede, and commonly the Scholastics.
Secondly, "the stars," that is, comets and similar stars, which are generated in the air, shall then fall from it to the earth; this is gathered from Joel 2:30.
Thirdly, St. Chrysostom and Euthymius add that at the end of the world, stars and constellations properly so called will fall from heaven. Understand this of the very smallest stars, which accordingly do not appear to us and are invisible: for otherwise the visible stars are larger than the whole earth, and therefore cannot fall upon it, as Fr. Clavius and others teach in their treatises On the Sphere. See the remarks on Apocalypse 6:13 and 8:10 and 12.
And the powers of the heavens shall be moved. — Origen, St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euthymius by "powers" understand the seventh choir of angels, or the order which is called "Virtues," because it abounds in strength and might, as if to say: These Angels, although most powerful, yet seeing the sun and moon darkened, and the stars falling from heaven, and many horrible prodigies multiplying at the end of the world, will, as it were, be struck dumb in astonishment at such great changes and terrors.
To this is added Francisco Suarez, Third Part, Question LIX, article VI, disputation 56, section 3: The powers of the heavens, he says, are the angels, who with great force turn and move the heavens; these shall be moved, because they themselves, as ministers of divine justice and vengeance upon the wicked, shall change the order and the accustomed manner of moving the heavens: whereby all lower things shall be thrown into confusion, and shall go upside down.
But more simply, by "powers of the heavens" you may understand the very stars and their influences, or the powers by which they influence these lower things, as if to say: At the end of the world the greatest and strongest stars of heaven will change their motions, aspects, and influences, and so all things on earth will be disturbed, so that the earth will be shaken with unusual movements, the sea will overflow, and the air will be so convulsed with clouds, comets, lightnings, thunders, and other meteors and storms that all things will seem to be overthrown.
Lastly, most fully, by "powers of the heavens" you may understand the poles and cardinal points, which are, as it were, the fastenings — in Hebrew גבורות gibhuroth, that is, the strengths, fortitudes, and firmaments of the heavens — as if to say: All the heavens, at the end of the world, shall be shaken and torn from their poles and cardinal points, so that they shall seem to fall downward, and this in order that they may strike terror into wicked men and represent the indignation of the angry Christ. For this is easy for God to do, and fitting for the terror of that day and for the destruction of the wicked and of the world. I have treated this matter more fully at Apocalypse 6:14. He alludes to Job 26:11: "The pillars of heaven tremble, and dread at his beck;" and to Isaiah 34:4: "All the host of the heavens shall languish, and the heavens shall be folded together as a book, and all their host (all the stars) shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine." See the remarks there. For, as Bede says on Luke 21:25 and following: "Just as trees driven to their fall commonly give warning by their crash and motion; so as the end of the world approaches, the elements, as if in dread, shall waver and tremble," and the heavens, burning as by the fire of the conflagration and as it were dying, shall rise together with the Saints and be renewed into the glorious state of happiness. John in Apocalypse, all of chapter 8 and chapters 9 and 16, gives many more signs and preceding indications of the world that is to perish. See the remarks there.
Verse 30: Then Shall Appear the Sign of the Son of Man in Heaven
The Syriac and the Arabic have: glory. You will ask: what is the sign of the Son of Man, that is, of Christ incarnate? I answer: It is the Cross: for this is the sign, because it is itself the standard of Christ, and the cause of the victory of the faithful; while of the unfaithful and wicked it was once a scandal, but for these same on the day of judgment it will be condemnation and torment. So St. Chrysostom, Jerome, Hilary, Bede, Theophylact, Euthymius, Jansenius, Maldonatus, and others commonly here, and St. Leo, Epistle 97, and at length St. Augustine, Sermon 13 On the Season — indeed, so the Church in the office of the Holy Cross sings: "This sign of the Cross shall be in heaven when the Lord shall come to judgment."
The causes why the Cross shall appear are three: first, that it may be signified that Christ through the Cross merited for Himself this glory and judiciary power; secondly, that it may be shown that Christ was crucified for the salvation of all, and therefore that those who have neglected so great a grace and charity of His are ungrateful and inexcusable; thirdly, that it may be shown that all worshippers of the crucified Christ are now to be exalted with Him into heaven, and all His haters cast down into Gehenna.
From this saying of Christ, therefore, it is very probable that the very Cross of Christ shall appear in heaven on the day of judgment, for the consolation of the Saints, who were saved through it, and who therefore strove in their life to conform themselves to the crucified Christ by patience and mortification; and for the condemnation and reproach of the impious, who, despising the Cross of Christ and ungrateful to it, preferred their own pleasures to the Cross and to mortification. So holds St. Chrysostom, in his homily On the Cross and the Thief; and Thomas of Walden, Book III On the Sacraments, title XX, chapter CXCVII. The Sibyl foretold the same, in Book VI of her Poems, when she sings thus of the Cross:
O lignum felix! in quo Deus ipse pependit;
Nec te terra capit, sed cœli tecta videbis,
Cum renovata Dei facies ignita micabit.
("O happy wood! on which God Himself hung;
Nor shall the earth contain thee, but thou shalt behold the roofs of heaven,
When the renewed face of God shall flash forth aflame.")
St. Anselm, however, in the Elucidarium, and Abulensis and Jansenius here, hold the contrary: namely, that on the day of judgment the true Cross of Christ will not appear, but a sign or image of the Cross, formed and painted in the air by the Angels; and the word "sign" favors this.
Further, St. Chrysostom and Augustine, in the place already cited, and Cyril, Catechesis 15, teach that this standard of the Cross shall be borne by the Angels before the sight of Christ the Judge descending to judgment, as a trophy of victory and a royal emblem of supreme power and dominion.
Moreover, our Salmeron says: "The Doctors of the Church believe that together with the Cross, also the column, scourges, crown of thorns, nails, sponge, lance, and the remaining instruments of the Passion, for the reasons just stated, will appear on the day of judgment. Whence D. Thomas, Opusculum II, chapter CCXLIV, asserts that, when the Lord comes to judgment, the sign of the Cross and the other marks of the Passion will be displayed." This is probable, but not certain, because nowhere expressly stated.
Finally, then the sign of the Cross will appear on the foreheads of each of the elect, according to that text of Apocalypse 7:3: "Let us seal the servants of our God in their foreheads," and that of Ezekiel 9:4, in the allegorical sense: "Mark Thau (that is, the sign of the Cross) upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and mourn," to signify that they have come to glory through the Cross, and by the merit of the Cross possess heaven. See the remarks there. Hear St. Augustine, Sermon 130 On the Season: "Have you considered how great is the power of the sign, that is, of the Cross: the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give her light; but the Cross shall shine forth and shall outshine the lights of heaven, and when the stars have fallen it alone shall shine, that you may learn that the Cross will be both brighter than the moon and more splendid than the sun, whose splendor, illumined with the flashing of the divine light, it will surpass. For just as, when a king enters a city, his army goes before him, carrying on their shoulders the royal standards and banners, and the train of his armed preparation announces the entrance of the king; so when the Lord shall descend from the heavens, the army of the angels shall go before, who, carrying that sign, that is, the triumphal standard, upon lofty shoulders, shall announce to the minds of those on earth the divine entrance of the heavenly King." And lower down: "But why shall the Cross appear then? That they may acknowledge the Word, because the nature of judgment does not receive mercy, just as neither does the time of mercy receive judgment, as the Prophet says: Mercy and judgment I will sing to Thee, O Lord. Mercy in the first coming, judgment in the second."
Hear St. Bernard mourning, nay, shuddering, in Sermon 46 on the Canticle: "I am in dread of Gehenna, I am in dread of the Judge's countenance, which is dreadful even to the angelic powers themselves. I tremble at the wrath of the Mighty One, at the face of His fury, at the crash of the falling world, at the conflagration of the elements, at the mighty tempest, at the voice of the Archangel and at the harsh word. I tremble at the teeth of the infernal beast, at the belly of hell, at the roaring things prepared for food. I shudder at the gnawing worm and the burning fire, at the smoke and vapor, and the brimstone, and the spirit of storms. I shudder at the outer darkness." Whereupon, groaning, he adds: "Who shall give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, that I may anticipate with weeping the weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the hard bonds of hands and feet, and the weight of chains pressing, binding, burning, yet not consuming? Woe is me, my mother, why didst thou bring me forth a son of sorrow, a son of bitterness, of indignation, and of eternal lamentation! Why was I received upon the knees, why suckled at the breasts, if I was born for burning and to be food for the fire?"
Finally, our Luis Alcazar on Apocalypse 6, near the end, taking his cue from Forerius, takes all these things literally of the destruction of the Jews by Titus: "For then," he says, "shall all the tribes of the earth mourn," that is, all the nations shall be brought over to Christ, and in repentance shall bewail their sins, and they "shall see the Son of Man in the clouds," namely, when Christ through the Apostles shall show them the glory of Gospel preaching, veiled as it were under the covering of speech. "And He shall send His angels with a trumpet," that is, His preachers with the trumpet of Gospel preaching; "and they shall gather His elect from the four winds," that is, by their preaching they shall convert them to Christ. Yet Alcazar admits that Christ alludes to the day of judgment, and from it draws his comparison. But that here the destruction of the world, not of the city, is literally intended is clear from what has been said and from the consensus of the Fathers and interpreters: wherefore that explanation of Alcazar is a symbolic and ingenious accommodation, not a literal exposition.
And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven. — The causes are these: first, that the cloud may temper the exceeding brightness of the body of Christ, which would otherwise blind the eyes of the reprobate; secondly, because the cloud is a symbol of hidden divinity; thirdly, because the cloud is the seat, as also the vehicle and canopy, of the glory of Christ. Hence throughout the Old Testament God appeared to Moses and the Prophets in a cloud, as is clear from Ezekiel 1:4; Exodus 19:9 and 18. He alludes to Daniel 7:13: "Behold, in the clouds of heaven, as it were the Son of Man was coming." See what I have noted on these passages.
With much power and majesty. — In Greek: with great strength and glory; Luke, chapter 21, verse 27: "with great power." For just as Christ in His first coming into flesh and into the world came in great weakness, lowliness, and contempt of the flesh; so by that very thing He merited that in His second coming He should come with great strength, glory, and majesty.
His strength and fortitude shall appear in this, that at His command all the dead shall rise from death in a moment; that all men, angels, and demons shall look up to Him as their God, Lord, and Judge, and shall reverence Him; that upon all He shall pass sentence according to their merits, and that sentence efficacious, which none shall dare to resist or contradict. His majesty shall appear in the immense splendor of His body, in the multitude and beauty of all the angels surrounding Him, in the mantle of the flashing cloud, also in the preceding trumpets, thunders, lightnings, earthquakes, etc. See Suarez, Third Part, volume II, disputation LVII, section 3.
Verse 31: He Shall Send His Angels With a Trumpet and a Great Voice
It is a hysteron proteron, or reversed order: for Christ will first send the Angels with a trumpet — nay, with many trumpets sounding throughout the whole world — that they may call all the dead and buried back to life and summon them to judgment. For when this trumpet sounds, many angels shall gather the ashes of each of the dead, and from them shall form the appearance of a human body, which God will then organize and animate; and having animated them, if they be holy and elect, He will glorify and bless them: so that the Blessed themselves, by the endowment of agility given them, shall at once from any parts of the world transfer themselves, with the angels accompanying or leading them, into the valley of Josaphat to judgment; but the reprobate, because they shall lack the endowment of agility, shall be seized either by the demons or rather by the angels. I have said more about this trumpet at 1 Thessalonians 4:15. Consult that, if you wish.
From the four winds, — that is, from the four, or from all the quarters of the world, from which just as many winds blow. For Eurus blows from the East, Zephyrus from the West, Auster from the South, Aquilo from the North. Whence, explaining, He adds:
From the highest heavens even to the uttermost bounds of them. — In Greek, ἀπ᾽ ἄκρων ἕως ἄκρων, that is, "from extreme to extreme," that is, from one bound of heaven and earth to the other bound of the same — for example, from East to West: for ἄκρα signifies any extremities whatsoever, whether they be highest or lowest, right or left. Mark 13:27 has: "From the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven," which is the same as what Matthew has; as if to say: From one extremity of the earth to another extremity of heaven and earth. For at its extremities, the earth appears to those who look at it to be joined and to cohere with heaven; for on the horizon there appears the limit both of earth and of heaven, as if there earth were coupled to heaven, and heaven, curving downward, were to end in the earth and rest upon it.
Nothing, however, prevents the extremities of heaven from being taken here in the proper sense, as if to say: The Angels shall gather the elect wherever they may be, whether in heaven or on earth. For the bodies of the Patriarchs who rose with Christ are in heaven: whence they shall descend from heaven into the valley of Josaphat at the time of the last judgment.
Yet the former interpretation seems more genuine, because it agrees better with Matthew's words about the four winds; for Mark is accustomed to follow Matthew.
Verse 32: From the Fig Tree Learn a Parable
That is to say: From the fig tree receive a likeness; learn from the analogy of the fig tree what I have said about the signs of the destruction of the world, when that shall be at hand. Christ made mention of the fig tree rather than other trees because the fig does not put forth leaves and fruit unless the heat is upon it, since its sap is very sweet and therefore already concocted; and for this the heat of summer is required. Hence Aristotle, in Book IX of the History of Animals, teaches that bees, which fly and make honey only in summer, feed on the fig and make their honey from it; for the fig is nothing other than a purse of honey. The same, in Book VIII, chapter XXI, asserts that pigs especially are nourished and fattened on figs, and in chapter VII he says that oxen grow fat on sweet things, such as the fig and raisin-wine. The same, in Book III, chapter X, teaches that the fig is like milk and curdles it: "Milk," he says, "is curdled by the juice of the fig and by rennet. The juice caught upon wool is washed off with a little milk, which when poured in thickens and clarifies a great quantity of milk;" for its juice is milky, says Pliny. Again, the fig does not flower, but directly from the leaf produces its fruit, and at once ripens it. Whence Pliny, Book XV, chapter XVIII: "Admirable," he says, "is the haste of this fruit (the fig), a single one in all its parts hurrying to maturity by nature's art." Besides, the fig is sweeter than all other fruits, fully ripened, having nothing raw about it, and therefore most tasty and most wholesome. Whence the same, Book XV, chapter XIX: "Of figs," he says, "all are soft to the touch: in the ripe ones there is wheat within, in the ripening ones the juice of milk, in the fully ripened ones that of honey." And he adds: "When dried they serve as both bread and relish; seeing that Cato, when setting down the rations of country laborers as by a fixed law, bids them be reduced at the time of fig-ripening, since fresh figs serve as a relish." Moreover, the fig is most fruitful, so much so that in Hyrcania single fig trees yearly produce 270 modii, says Pliny in the same place, chapter XVIII. He adds that Romulus and Remus were nourished under a fig tree by the she-wolf, and therefore that the fig was honored at Rome in the forum.
Symbolically, therefore, by the fig tree Christ intimates that the Saints and the elect ought to bring forth the sweetest and the most numerous fruits of good works, that through them they may merit in the summer of the resurrection to taste the sweetness and abundance of heavenly glory for all eternity.
Finally, the fig was the cause of the destruction of Carthage: for Cato, says Pliny in Book XV, chapter XVIII, "when he kept shouting in every session of the senate that Carthage must be destroyed, brought one day into the curia an early fig from that province. Showing it to the fathers, he said, 'I ask you, when do you suppose this fruit was plucked from the tree?' When all agreed it was quite fresh, he said: 'Yet know, gentlemen, that on the third day before it was plucked at Carthage — so near to our walls have we the enemy': and at once the Third Punic War was undertaken, in which Carthage was destroyed." In a similar way, these signs which Christ compares to the fig tree will be the cause of the destruction of the world.
When now its branch is tender and the leaves come forth, you know that summer is nigh, — for the cause already stated, namely, because the sweetest sap of the fig, gathering itself in winter and lying hidden in the root, is drawn forth in summer by the warmth of the air, disperses itself into the branches, and there bursts forth into leaves and figs. Hence, just as the mulberry tree does not sprout until after the cold has passed (lest its buds be harmed by it), when warmth and summer are already approaching, so also does the fig; and hence the mulberry is called μωρός, that is, foolish, because it is by no means foolish, but the wisest of trees.
Verse 33: When You Shall See All These Things, Know That It Is Nigh
(The signs already mentioned.) Christ the Judge is at hand — nay, He is already entering the earth as through a door — together with His glorious kingdom, and your "redemption" (as Luke has it), that is, resurrection and everlasting glory. For "redemption" signifies deliverance from all evils and miseries, which shall be the harvest, and, after this winter, the most joyful summer for all the elect, as this parable intimates. As if to say: Just as when the fig tree is in leaf, summer is near, which will bring forth the sweetest figs and other fruits; so, when you shall see the elect putting forth their leaves with great patience in the winter of so many tribulations which shall befall them at the end of the world, know that the reward of patience is close upon them — namely, the summer of resurrection and happiness, which shall bring them in full measure the fruits and endowments of all good things, Christ the Judge blessing and glorifying them.
Verse 34: This Generation Shall Not Pass Till All These Things Be Done
"This generation," that is, of all men — that is, this age, which shall continue henceforth until the end of the world. So St. Jerome, as if to say: Before the end of the world all these things, as I have said, will come to pass.
Secondly, Origen, St. Hilary, and Chrysostom take "generation" more strictly, so that it may signify the race of the faithful or of Christians newly begotten by Christ, to whom Christ was speaking in the Apostles, according to that word: "This is the generation of them that seek the Lord," Psalm 23:6; as if to say: The Christianity which I have introduced shall not end until the Christians who have faithfully served Me are rewarded, made blessed, and crowned by Me on the day of judgment.
Verse 35: Heaven and Earth Shall Pass Away, but My Words Shall Not Pass Away
"Shall pass away," that is, shall be changed, shall cease to be, shall perish according to their present condition and state, in order that they may pass into a better one and be glorified together with the Blessed. Some add that the heavens at the end of the world are to be changed as to their form and substance, a matter which I have discussed at length on 2 Peter 3:13 and Isaiah 34:4.
Finally, this saying could be taken not assertively but comparatively, as if to say: Heaven and earth will pass away and perish sooner than My words will pass away and perish. Just, therefore, as the heavens, being most solid — which, as Job says, are as it were cast of bronze — shall never perish, so much more shall My words, that is, My oracles and decrees, not fail, but shall in very deed be fulfilled; because they are more solid and firm than the heavens themselves. So Jansenius. For by My word I created the heavens and made them firm. So St. Chrysostom.
Verse 36: Of That Day and Hour No One Knows, but the Father Alone
(But of that day of My glorious coming to judgment, when I shall beatify the elect and lead them to the heavenly kingdom) and hour no one knows, not the angels of heaven (the inhabitants, movers, and presiders over them), but the Father alone. That is to say: Do not, O Apostles, seek from Me when I am to return as Judge, and on what day the universal judgment shall take place, because no one knows it except God, who does not wish anyone else to know it. "He checked them," says St. Chrysostom, "lest they should wish to learn what the Angels do not know." Now concerning the time of the end of the world there are various opinions.
First, many are of the opinion that the world is to end after it has stood for six thousand years, just as it was made in six days, Genesis 1, according to that saying or oracle of Elijah: "Six thousand the world." This opinion is probable, as I have shown at length on Apocalypse 20:4.
Secondly, others think that the years of the world after Christ will be as many as were before Him. This they gather from Habakkuk 3:2: "O Lord, thy work, in the midst of the years bring it to life. In the midst of the years thou shalt make it known." But that passage has a different meaning, as I have shown in the same place.
Thirdly, others think that there will be as many jubilees of years in the mystical body of Christ — that is, in the Christian Church — as the years He Himself completed in life, namely 34, which multiplied by 50 (for this is the number of the jubilee) make 1,700 years. They think, therefore, that Christianity will endure for this many years, and then will come the end of the Church militant and of the world, and the beginning of the Church triumphant. So Cardinal Cusanus, in his treatise on this matter.
Fourthly, Christian Druthmar, who flourished in the year of Christ 800 and wrote on Matthew, says: "Our elders have left in writing that on the eighth before the Kalends of April (that is, March 25) the world was made, the Lord was conceived, and He suffered; and likewise the world will be destroyed, but in what year this is to happen, they do not say." But these things are uncertain and asserted without foundation.
Fifthly, recently a new calculator — or rather, a jester — has asserted that the day of judgment is at hand, and that it will be in the year of the Lord 1666. For the Antichrist will be born, he says, in the year of Christ 1626, will reign as a monarch in the year of Christ 1656, will die in the year of Christ 1660, and finally the end of the world will be in the year 1666, and then will be the future judgment. He proves this first, from the fact that this year of Christ 1666 is the year 6666 from the creation of the world, which number is perfect, and therefore by it the course of the world will be completed; second, because it is the opinion of the ancients that the world will last for six thousand years; third, because the first consummation of the world through the Flood in the time of Noah took place in the year 1656 from the creation of the world. Therefore the second consummation of the world by fire will likewise occur in the year 1656 from the world's re-creation through Christ, because then the Antichrist will reign, who will be introduced a little before the end of the world in the year of Christ 1663. Fourth, because St. John, in Apocalypse XIII, 18, says the number of the beast, that is, of Antichrist, will be 666.
If you object with Christ's saying, "But of that day no one knows," he answers that "no one knows," namely at present — as if to say: No one now knows the day of judgment, which does not preclude that someone afterward may come to know it, either through revelation or from some other source.
But these things are frivolous and old-womanish, as Remaclus de Vaux shows at length in the book published against this calculator, with the title Harpocrates, or Silence, where he shows that the phrase "no one knows" extends to following times as well — as if to say, No one knows, nor will know; for, as Theophylact says, "By saying this, He also forbids them to strive to learn it afterward." For what Christ does not know, who shall know?
Moreover, that calculator errs in his foundation; for six thousand years from the founding of the world have not yet been completed: therefore the year of Christ 1666 will not be the year of the world 6666, as he says, but 5666. Let us therefore rest in Christ who says: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but the Father alone."
But the Father alone, — who from eternity in His mind has set and decreed the time of this day, and keeps it secret within Himself. Moreover, by the word "alone" the Son is not excluded, nor the Holy Spirit: for They Themselves also know the day and hour of judgment equally with the Father, since the essence is one and the same in all, though not so the majesty, will, mind, power, intellect, and knowledge. For it is a rule of the theologians that the word "alone," if added to the essential attributes of God (such as knowledge) and attributed to one divine Person, does not exclude the other two, but only creatures, which are of another essence and nature; but in the notional attributes, "alone" excludes the other divine Persons, as when it is said, the Father alone begets, the Son alone is begotten, etc.
You will say: Mark XIII, 32, adds, "Nor the Son"; for so the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Egyptian, Ethiopic, and Persian versions have it. Various writers answer this variously. The best answer is the common one of the Fathers, namely, that the Son, both as God and as man, knew the day of judgment and the consummation of the age through infused knowledge; for it pertains to Him who is appointed judge of the world to know this. Christ, however, denies that He knew it as He is man and as He was God's ambassador to us, because He did not know it in such a way that He could reveal it to men, either because He had no commission from the Father to reveal it. Just as an ambassador, if he is asked about the secrets of his king, truly replies that he does not know them, even though he does know them, because he does not know them as ambassador: for as ambassador he reports only those things which the king commissioned him to speak; the king commanded the secrets to be kept silent by him.
The sense, therefore, is as if He said: God alone knows in what year, day, and hour the end of the world and the day of judgment will come, and although God has made Me, Christ, inasmuch as I am man, know this also — Me, I say, as I am a private man, because united to the Word — yet not as I am His public ambassador to men, because the Father did not will Me to reveal that day to men, but willed Me to keep it secret, so as to keep men always in suspense and rouse them continually to prepare themselves for it: wherefore do not, O Apostles, curiously inquire of Me about its time, which I cannot tell you, and which as ambassador I do not know. A similar case is in John XV, 15. So Ss. Jerome, Chrysostom, Origen, Bede, Theophylact here, and St. Augustine, Book LXXXIII Questions on the Gospel, Question LXI, and Francisco Suarez, Part III, Question X, article 2.
To this view are referred those who explain it as follows: Christ, as man, did not know the day of judgment, yet knew it as a man who is God — as if to say: the man Christ knew the day of judgment by virtue not of His humanity but of His divinity. So St. Athanasius, sermon 4 Against the Arians; Nazianzen, oration 4 On Theology; Cyril, Book IX Thesaurus, chapter IV; Ambrose, Book V On the Faith, chapter VIII.
Maldonatus answers otherwise, namely, that Christ, even as He is God, does not know the day of judgment as though by office, because it is the office of the Father alone to predestine, decree, and appoint the day of judgment, and consequently to know and reveal it when He wills; for providence, of which predestination is a part, is appropriated to the Father. But this explanation is more subtle and obscure; the one already given is more solid and plainer.
Moreover, the Agnoetae were reckoned heretics because they said that Christ was ignorant of the day of judgment, as Damascene testifies in his book On Heresies. They were called Agnoetae, that is, Ignorant; their author was Theophronius (also called Themistius) in the time of the Emperor Valentinian and of Pope Liberius, about the year of the Lord 363. So Nicephorus, Book XVII, chapter 50. See Gabriel Prateolus, Book I On Heresies, chapter XIX. To them Origen in part alludes, treatise 30 on Matthew, who thinks that Christ, when He said these things, was ignorant of the day of judgment, but that He knew it after His resurrection: for then He was constituted by the Father judge of the living and the dead. But this too is an error; for Christ from the beginning of His conception was full of wisdom and grace, and so could grow in neither.
Verse 37: As in the Days of Noah, So Shall Also the Coming of the Son of Man Be
As if to say: Just as the Flood which overwhelmed all was unlooked-for and sudden, so His coming will be unlooked-for and sudden, and will sweep all away. This is clear from what follows.
Verse 38: Eating and Drinking, Marrying and Giving in Marriage
Feasting and banqueting without care or anxiety, "and wantoning as though no evil were to come," says Chrysostom. "Marrying and giving in marriage" — in Greek γαμοῦντες καὶ ἐκγαμίζοντες, that is, taking wives and giving their daughters, sisters, or female relatives to men as wives — "until the day that Noah entered into the ark."
Verse 39: They Knew Not Until the Flood Came and Took Them All Away
They did not know the destruction and engulfing that hung over them, until the flood came and took them all away: so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be — sudden, unexpected, and seizing the unwary.
You will say: from the darkening of the sun and moon, the fall of the stars, and the other dreadful signs, men will recognize that the end of the world is at hand. Whence Luke says: "Men withering for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world"; therefore the end of the world will not be unlooked-for by them. It is answered: After the darkening of the sun and moon and the other preliminary signs, God will grant some time of quiet and peace, and then men, forgetful of the signs, will give themselves up to pleasures, gluttony, and luxury as before: wherefore at that time God will bring the end upon them and the world, and will overwhelm them all in sudden destruction. In like manner dying men sometimes seem to revive, but fall back immediately into sickness and die; just as a guttering candle, exerting a last effort, gives off a little flame like a departing spirit, and at once is extinguished. Again, so great at that time will be the hardness and wickedness of many impious men, that even though they see the sun and moon darkened and the other signs, yet they will gape after the gluttony and luxury to which they have grown accustomed, and will not think of the end of the world and the day of judgment pressing upon them, as Balthasar did while feasting with his own on the night when he was besieged by Cyrus and slain — until he saw the fatal hand describing his destruction to him by "mane, thecel, phares," Daniel V. See what is said there. Hence St. Augustine, epistle 80, teaches that at the end of the world the godly will be sorrowful because of these signs, but the impious will indulge their nature and rejoice. And St. Chrysostom here says: "For the foolish there will be peace and wantonness; the just, leading their lives in tribulation, will mourn." Wherefore Christ adds:
Verse 40: Two Shall Be in the Field: One Shall Be Taken and One Shall Be Left
As if to say: In the day of judgment Christ will separate companion from companion, neighbor from neighbor, e.g. farmer from farmer; and him who lived justly and piously He will take with Himself into glory in heaven; the other, who lived impiously, He will leave in his crimes, and will reprobate and condemn to eternal punishment. For, as St. Ambrose says on Luke XVII, 35: "He who is taken is caught up to meet Christ in the air; but he who is left behind is disapproved." Christ says this both lest anyone trust in good society — that he lives among the pious — and to show how subtle and exact the coming judgment will be, which will separate and divide father from son, wife from husband, brother from brother.
Verse 41: Two Women Grinding at the Mill: One Shall Be Taken and One Left
He says the same thing by another example of grinders: for in ancient times they used mills turned not by water or wind, but hand-mills which male and female slaves turned, and so ground the flour, as is plain from Exodus XI, 5, "at the mill." In Greek, ἐν τῷ μύλωνι, that is, in the bakery; for there were the mills, so that they might at once knead the ground flour and make bread.
Verse 42: Watch Therefore, for You Know Not at What Hour Your Lord Will Come
As if to say: Watch — constantly consider that death is certain, but the day of death uncertain. I say the same of the day of judgment — both the particular one, which is carried out in each one's death, and the universal one, which will take place at the end of the world: wherefore prepare yourselves continually for both, by striving after virtues and good works. For, as St. Jerome says on Joel II, "What on the day of judgment will come to pass in all, that is fulfilled in each on the day of his death." And St. Augustine, epistle 80: "In whatever state one's last day finds him," he says, "in that state the world's last day will overtake him; for as each one dies on his own day, so shall he be judged on that day." Whence he adds: "And so every Christian ought to watch, lest the Lord's coming find him unprepared. That day, however, will find him unprepared whom the last day of this his life shall find unprepared."
Further, the reason why God willed this day to be uncertain for us is that this uncertainty may be for us a continual sharp goad to every pursuit of virtue. For, as St. Chrysostom says, and after him Euthymius: "If men knew when they were most likely to die, they would certainly strive to repent at that very hour and show diligence about that hour. Therefore, that they might be diligent not at that time alone, but continuously, and that throughout their whole life they might labor with great effort to keep themselves prepared for the common end of all and for that which is proper to each one, God caused them to be ignorant of it, and foretold that it would come like a thief."
Therefore the devil, in order to snatch away this goad of uncertainty from men, breaks it and beats it down piecemeal, persuading each one that he has at least another year of life, and when that is finished, another, and so on without end: for he makes men think themselves so lively and strong that they can easily go on living one more year. He renews this each year, and works it into their minds: "You are in perfect health, and so you will not die this year"; and thus it happens that, as though sure of life, they neglect penance and good works year after year and put them off to the year they will die; and so when that year which God has appointed for each one's death arrives, they persuade themselves that they will not die in it either; and thus it comes about that certain death and the last day at length come upon them and overwhelm them, always unprepared and secure. Therefore this principle of the devil must be overthrown as erroneous, and the contrary fixed in the mind, so that each one should say to himself at the beginning of every year — nay, of every day: Your life is short, death is certain, the day of death uncertain. Therefore, that what is uncertain may not surprise you, daily expect what is certain, and say to yourself: "You may die this year, this very day; so then live as though you were to die today."
This lesson St. Anthony gave to his disciples, as St. Athanasius attests: "When," he says, "being roused from sleep, we are in doubt whether we shall reach the evening, and when, giving our bodies to rest, we do not count on the coming of the light, etc., we shall not sin, nor be swept away by any fragile desire, nor indeed grow angry, nor be ambitious to heap up earthly treasures; but rather, through fear of the daily departure, we shall trample on all perishable things." Barlaam likewise taught the same to his Josaphat: "Think today," he said, "that you have begun the religious life, and today also that you are about to end it": so Damascene in his History. St. Jerome says: "Live so as though about to die daily; study so as though always about to live." St. Marcella, says St. Jerome, epistle 16 to Principia, "used to praise that Platonic saying, that philosophy is a meditation of death; and the precept of the satirist: Live mindful of death, the hour flies. So then she lived as if always believing herself about to die; so did she clothe herself that she might remember the grave, offering herself a reasonable, living, pleasing sacrifice to God." And the Poet also:
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum.
("Believe every day to have dawned upon you as your last.")
Verse 43: If the Householder Had Known at What Hour the Thief Was Coming
Here the other, opposite part of the parable must be supplied, which is understood, thus: but because he does not know this hour, and is neither willing nor able to watch at all other times, therefore the thief, in his usual way, comes at that hour when he thinks the householder is not watching but sleeping, and so, while he sleeps, spoils and plunders his house. That this is the sense is clear from the Greek; for there it stands in the past tense: "If the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have permitted his house to be broken into." Supply, as if to say: But because he did not know this hour, therefore he did not watch, and allowed his house to be broken into and plundered by the thief.
Hence fur (thief) is so called from furvus, that is, "dark," because he steals through dark and gloomy nights, says Nonius on the authority of Varro.
By "thief" St. Hilary understands zabulus, that is, the devil: "He shows," he says, "that the devil is a thief, ever watchful to strip plunder from us, and lying in wait for the houses of our bodies, that while we are careless and given over to sleep, he may pierce them through with the darts of his counsels and enticements. It behooves us, therefore, to be prepared, because ignorance of the day stirs up intent anxiety by the suspense of expectation." But you may better understand this of Christ; for Christ Himself so explains it, applying this parable of the thief to Himself in the following verse, saying:
Verse 44: Be Ready, for at an Hour You Know Not the Son of Man Will Come
— to judgment, both the particular judgment of your soul at the hour of death, and the universal judgment of all men at the end of the world. Christ therefore compares Himself to a thief, not with respect to the act of stealing, but with respect to the silence and secrecy with which a thief watches for the hour when he thinks his master to be absent or sleeping, and so invades him unawares and breaks into his house and robs it. For in like manner Christ calls men to death and judgment when they are unawares and unsuspecting. Whence in Apocalypse XVI, 15, warning each one, He says: "Behold, I come as a thief." And Paul, I Thessalonians V, 4: "But you, brethren," he says, "are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief; for you are all children of the light, and children of the day, etc. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober." Truly the Wise Man said: "The life of mortals is a watch."
The truth of this saying of Christ is clear from daily experience. For we see most men snatched away to death at that very time when they seem to themselves to be well, and when they are undertaking great plans, so that they think death far off from them and promise themselves many years of life. Therefore, both from this experience and from this warning of Christ, they ought to do the opposite: when they seem to themselves most sound, they should think death to be standing hidden on their doorstep, and then believe themselves about to die, when thoughts and hopes of a longer life are suggested to them either by the devil or by concupiscence. Thus it will come to pass that the uncertain day of death will never deceive them, nor will it overtake them like a thief.
So did wise and holy men in the Lives of the Fathers, Book V, little book III On Compunction, number 2. Abbot Ammon gives this saving counsel to someone: "Think as the wicked do who are in prison: for they ask men, 'Where is the judge, and when will he come?' and in the very expectation of their punishments they weep. So also a monk ought always to be uneasy and to chide his soul, saying: Woe is me, how shall I stand before the tribunal of Christ, and how shall I render Him an account of my deeds? If therefore you shall always meditate thus, you will be able to be saved."
And in number 3, Abbot Evagrius: "Picture to yourself," he says, "that divine, dreadful, and terrible judgment. Set before you the confusion laid up for sinners, which they shall suffer in the sight of Christ and God, and before the Angels and Archangels, Powers, and all men; and also all the torments — eternal fire, the undying worm, the darkness of hell, and above all these things the gnashing of teeth, and terrors, and torments. Bring before you also the good things laid up for the just — confidence before God the Father and Christ His Son, in the presence of the Angels and Archangels and Powers and all the people, the kingdom of heaven and its gifts, joy and rest," etc.
And in number 4, Abbot Elias says: "I fear three things: one, when my soul will go out of my body; another, when I shall meet God; the third, when sentence shall be pronounced against me." Theophilus of holy memory, the archbishop, when he was about to die, said: "Blessed are you, Abba Arsenius, because you always kept this hour before your eyes." In the same place, number 22, another old man gives this warning: "In every matter rebuke your soul, saying to it: Remember that you must meet God." And number 23: "An old man saw a certain man laughing, and said to him: We are to render an account of our whole life before the Lord of heaven and earth, and you laugh?"
Verse 45: Who Is the Faithful and Wise Servant?
In Greek τίς ἄρα, that is, who then, who surely, who at all. At first sight this seems to be a disjointed expression — ἀνανταπόδοτον, or an interrogation without an answer — but in truth it is not. For the words should be arranged thus: "Who, think you, is the servant whom the master has set over his household for this purpose, that he may give them (who are in the household) food in due season, faithful and wise?" Surely he is faithful and wise who performs the very thing for which he has been appointed, who, namely, gives to each of the household food in due season — that is, distributes to each servant and domestic his allotted portion of food, whether as rations or as wages for labor. For in ancient times, since money was scarce, servants' wages were paid in rations. "For both things are necessary," says Chrysostom, "namely, that we should not snatch what is the master's for our own uses, and that we should dispense everything at the proper time: for if either of these is lacking, its absence makes the other altogether limp."
By this maxim Christ is properly touching Bishops and Pastors: for on them lies the duty of feeding the Church, which is their family — nay, rather Christ's — so that they may distribute to each the food of sacred doctrine according to each one's capacity: wherefore they must be watchful in this matter, and likewise prudent and faithful. So St. Hilary: "Although," he says, "He is exhorting us in common to an unwearied care of vigilance, yet He is charging especially on the rulers of the people, that is, on the Bishops, solicitude in the expectation and coming of Himself. For by this faithful and wise servant He means the steward set over the family, caring for the advantages and benefits of the people committed to him — who, if he will hear and obey the commandments, that is, if he strengthens the weak by the opportuneness and truth of his teaching, consolidates what is broken, converts what is corrupted, and dispenses the word of life as food of eternity for the feeding of the family," etc.
This question, "who, think you," implies that such servants — namely, Bishops and Pastors — are few. In the Life of St. Amandus, who in the time of Dagobert, king of the Franks, was Bishop of Maastricht, and who flourished in the year of the Lord 670, and converted the people of Ghent, the Slavs, the Basques, and many others to Christ, it is related that at the very hour in which he departed this life he appeared to St. Aldegonde in glory, surrounded by a throng clothed in white; and when she did not know what these things meant, she heard from an angel: "Amandus, the man of God, is passing in glory to the heavenly joys." The throng in white are those who by the urgency of his preaching have been enrolled in heaven, and therefore over them the prince himself will appear forever. For his more illustrious disciples were St. Landoald, St. Bavo, St. Amantius, St. Gertrude, St. Maurontus, St. Andrew, St. Florebertus, and many others. Thus his Life has it in Surius, for the 6th of February.
Verse 47: Over All His Goods He Will Set Him
In Greek: over all things that are his, as the Syriac renders it. The "goods" of God are of two kinds: first, external and created, such as heaven, earth, and all the creatures contained in them — so Origen; second, internal and uncreated, such as His immense majesty, goodness, sweetness, wisdom, power, honor, glory, and His other attributes, both essential and personal, such as paternity, filiation, and the spiration of the Holy Spirit. For God is an ocean both of things and of all goods; and over both will God set His faithful servant, that is, the Bishop and Pastor, and He will make him, as it were, lord not only of all creatures but also of all the immense and infinite goods which God contains within Himself, so that together with God he may enjoy them, and be blessed and glorified for ever. For if Jacob, wrestling with the Angel of God and prevailing over Him though He was mighty, was called Israel, that is, "one who prevails over God," Genesis XXXII, 28; much more shall blessed Bishops, who by their virtue in a manner conquer God, be called and shall be Israels, that is, prevailers over God — "that they may have these eternal rewards, both for their own life and for the custody of their flock," says Rabanus: for because they have rightly presided over God's flock, therefore they have deserved to be set, in their own manner, over the goods of God — over God Himself, as it were, by God's own wondrous condescension; for God gives Himself to them as their possession and inheritance, according to that saying: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup," Psalm XV.
Verse 48: But If That Evil Servant Shall Say in His Heart: My Lord Delays His Coming
"That evil servant," that is, any such servant, namely one set by his master over his household. As if to say: If the Bishop should think, "The day of death and judgment is far from me, therefore I will use and abuse my life and office for every kind of luxury and ambition." Explaining this, He adds:
Verse 49: And Shall Begin to Strike His Fellow-Servants
"And shall eat and drink with the drunken," that is, with those given over to drunkenness; in Greek, "with the drunk." "To strike," namely, unjustly. For, as the Author of the Opus Imperfectum says: "He who strikes for a just cause, even though he strike, nevertheless is not seen to strike. For just as just anger is not anger but diligence, so just striking is not a striking but a correction" — as a father and a teacher strike and lash their sons and pupils in order to correct them.
Christ here indicates that there are two capital vices of Prelates, from which all the others flow; namely, imperious and tyrannical boldness, and desire or pursuit of pleasures, gluttony, and luxury. This is what St. Peter warns Pastors and Bishops of in I Peter V, 2: "Feed the flock of God which is among you, providing for them not by constraint, but willingly according to God; not for the sake of filthy lucre, but freely; not as lording it over the clergy, but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart. And when the Prince of pastors shall appear, you shall receive the unfading crown of glory." See what is said there.
Verse 50: The Lord of That Servant Shall Come in a Day He Does Not Expect
"He does not hope" (non sperat), that is, he does not think, does not fear; in Greek οὐ προσδοκᾷ, that is, he does not expect. So Virgil, Aeneid I:
At sperate (id est, timete) deos memores fandi atque nefandi.
("Yet hope — that is, fear — that the gods are mindful of right and wrong.")
And in Book IV: Hunc ego si potui tantum sperare (timere) dolorem ("If I could have hoped — feared — so great a grief as this").
Verse 51: He Shall Divide Him, and Appoint His Portion With the Hypocrites
For "shall divide," the Greek has διχοτομήσει, that is, "shall cut asunder," namely, the soul from the body in death and after death, handing over the soul to hell and the demons, the body to the grave and the worms. "He will divide him," says St. Jerome, "not by cutting him with a sword, but by separating him from the fellowship of the Saints" — as if to say: Christ will not only remove such a Bishop from his office, but will also separate him from the fellowship of the Blessed and of the Angels, of heaven and of God, and hand him over to the devil to be tormented forever with the damned in hell.
With the hypocrites, — that is, with slothful servants, who like hypocrites serve only before their master's eye, and are otherwise idle: for when set out of their master's sight, they give themselves to sleep and drinking, and therefore are to be sent into the workhouse of hell, where is the place of the slothful. Thus throughout Proverbs "hypocrite" signifies an impious man, who slothfully serves God but fervently serves his own desires, as I have said there. He alludes to Job XX, 29: "This is the portion of the wicked man from God." And chapter VIII, 13: "The hope of the hypocrite shall perish." And chapter XIII, 16: "For no hypocrite shall come before His face." And Isaiah XXXIII, 14: "The sinners in Zion are affrighted, trembling has seized the hypocrites: Who among you shall be able to dwell with devouring fire? who among you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?"
Christ has proved that every faithful man must always be watchful, so that by good works he may prepare himself for the Lord's certain coming to judgment — since the day of it is uncertain — lest it come upon him unprepared and overwhelm him unprepared, with certain danger of damnation. He proved this, first, in verse 37, by the example of the Flood, which in the time of Noah unexpectedly submerged all; second, in verse 43, by the parable of the master who watches to repel the thief stealing in secretly by night; third, in verse 45, by the parable of the faithful servant and of another unfaithful servant, of whom the former received from his master a great reward, and this one a harsh punishment; fourth, in the following chapter, verse 1, by the parable of the prudent virgins, who took oil in their lamps; fifth, in the same place, verse 14, by the parable of the talents, which the master distributed among his servants, and gloriously rewarded those who traded vigorously with them, but punished the slothful and idle.