Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to exhort to the Christian life, pure and holy, and to the flight from fornication.
Secondly, in verse 9, he renews in them the zeal for fraternal charity, and in verse 11, the flight from idleness and labor with their hands.
Thirdly, in verse 12, he treats of faith and the hope of the resurrection: namely, that they should not be saddened at their own death or that of their loved ones, he affirms that the faithful who die piously will shortly rise again, so that they will seem not so much to be dead as to be sleeping; and that, when Christ comes to judgment with the trumpet of the Archangel, all together will meet Him in the air, that they may always be with Him and reign in heaven.
Vulgate Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-17
1. For the rest therefore, brethren, we beseech and entreat you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you have received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, so also you would walk, that you may abound the more. 2. For you know what precepts I have given you by the Lord Jesus. 3. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from fornication, 4. that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, 5. not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God: 6. and that no man overreach, nor circumvent his brother in business: because the Lord is the avenger of all these things, as we have told you before, and have testified. 7. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification. 8. Therefore he that despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God, who also hath given His Holy Spirit in us. 9. But as touching the charity of brotherhood, we have no need to write to you: for yourselves have learned of God to love one another. 10. For indeed you do it toward all the brethren in all Macedonia. But we entreat you, brethren, that you abound more; 11. and that you use your endeavor to be quiet, and that you do your own business, and work with your own hands, as we commanded you; and that you walk honestly toward them that are without; and that you want nothing of any man's. 12. And we will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. 13. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again: even so them who have slept through Jesus, will God bring with Him. 14. For this we say unto you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them who have slept. 15. For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with commandment, and with the voice of an Archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead who are in Christ, shall rise first. 16. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air, and so shall we be always with the Lord. 17. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Verse 1: To Walk and to Please God
1. To walk and to please God. — Thus it is said of Enoch, Genesis V, 22: "Enoch walked with God," as if to say: Enoch lived so holily and piously, as though he always had God present before his eyes, and revered Him; therefore in every work he proceeded most cautiously, most modestly, most religiously, and was in all things conforming to God and the will of God, just as a man walking everywhere and inseparably with a friend or with his lord, agrees with him in all things, conforms himself to him in all things. Whence the Lord took him and snatched him to Himself, as one higher than the earth, worthy of God and the angels, indeed familiar with them. Hence God commands Abraham, Genesis XVII, 1, saying: "I am God Almighty, walk before Me, and be perfect." It is a great art and wisdom to know how to walk with God.
So also you may walk, that you may abound the more. — As if to say: I beg you so to conduct yourselves that you may daily make progress in the way you have begun, namely that you may strive daily to surpass yourselves, to advance and excel in the Christian life and virtues. Thus Anselm. The Greek does not have the "so also you may walk," but only ἵνα περισσεύητε μᾶλλον, that is, that you may abound the more, supply, in this walking and pleasing (so to speak) of God. Chrysostom and Theophylact explain it thus: "That you may abound the more, that is, they say, that you may desire to do something above what is commanded, that you may surpass what has been ordered; for just as the earth does not return and yield only those seeds which it has received: so the soul ought not to stop in what has been received, but to go beyond them as well."
Note: It belongs to a Christian not to stand still, but to walk and ever to make progress in virtue and the Christian life, so that he may say to himself daily that of Psalm LXXVI, 11: "I said: Now I have begun;" and that of Psalm LXXXIII, 8: "They shall go from virtue to virtue;" in Hebrew מחיל אל חיל mechail el chail, that is, as Jerome translates, they shall go from strength to strength, namely because they will become daily stronger by the grace of God, that they may ascend into Sion, that is into heaven, where they may openly see the God of gods.
St. Bernard beautifully to Drogo, Letter 34: "No one, he says, is perfect who does not desire to be more perfect; and in this very thing he proves himself more perfect, that he tends to a greater perfection."
Verse 2: For You Know What Precepts I Have Given You
2. For you know what precepts I have given you by the Lord Jesus, — that is, by the authority and mandate of the Lord Jesus, I Paul as a legate of Jesus have given you precepts, as if to say: The precepts which I commanded are not mine, but Christ's; Christ is the lawgiver, I am the herald of Christ: for Christ has handed over to me many commandments of faith, virtues, and Sacraments to be set forth and promulgated in particular to you and to other Christians, the rest He has commissioned me to sanction, and has commanded me to prescribe to Christians those laws which I think suitable for them, according to the demand of circumstances. Thus the court or parliament commonly says it bears a law or edict par le Roi, that is, through the king, because in place of the king, in his name and authority, it bears and sanctions a law or edict.
Verse 3: For This Is the Will of God, Your Sanctification
3. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication. — Note first: Here the will of God is understood not as that which is called the will of good pleasure, by which God creates and does whatever pleases and is agreeable to Him, but as that which is called the will of sign, by which God signifies what He wills and commands us to do, namely that we should be zealous for holiness.
Secondly, complete "holiness," says St. Dionysius, both in God and in us and the angels, "is purity free from all defilement, most uncontaminated and most perfect." And thus holiness is opposed to any sin, and is the completion of all virtues. But here, and in 1 Corinthians VII, 34, chastity alone is called holiness; for here and in verse 7, it is opposed to fornication and uncleanness. Whence he also adds: "That every one may know how to possess his vessel in sanctification," that is, in purity and chastity, as I shall presently say. The reason for this nomenclature is this, that, as lust is bestial, shameful, and the greatest impurity: so on the contrary chastity is the highest and greatest purity, which makes a man angelic; nay rather makes him a temple of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle insinuates in verse 8. Hence also the Poet, Aeneid XI:
And thou, O most holy spouse,
Happy in thy death.
"Most holy," that is, most chaste; and Aeneid XII:
A holy soul, and ignorant of this fault,
Will descend to you.
"Holy," that is, pure and chaste.
Excellently St. Cyprian, in the treatise On the Lord's Prayer, explaining that, Thy will be done: "It is, he says, the will of God which Christ both did and taught: humility in conversation, stability in faith, modesty in words, justice in deeds, mercy in works, discipline in morals, not to know how to do injury, and to be able to bear it when done; to keep peace with the brethren, to love God with the whole heart, to love in Him what is the Father, to fear what is God; to prefer absolutely nothing to Christ, because He preferred nothing to us; to cleave inseparably to His charity, to stand bravely and confidently by His cross: when there is a contest concerning His name and honor, to show in speech that constancy by which we confess; in questioning that confidence by which we engage; in death that patience by which we are crowned. This is to wish to be a co-heir of Christ, this is to do the precept of God, this is to fulfill the will of the Father."
Verse 4: That Every One Should Know How to Possess His Vessel
4. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. — It is asked, what is this vessel? St. Augustine, in book I On Marriages and Concupiscence, chapter VIII, and book IV Against Julian, chapter X, and book V, chapter IX, takes the vessel as the wife, as if to say: Let each man use his wife honestly and chastely. Thus in Proverbs V, 15 it is said: "Drink water out of thy cistern." Where the Septuagint translates: Son, drink water out of thy vessels, the sense of which place is this: Draw the chaste, pure, and fruitful pleasure of marriage from thy wife, who is to thee as a cistern, and as a pure vessel free from the mire of fornication, jealousy, peevishness, etc. So Bede, Jansenius and others on the said place. Thus St. Peter, epistle I, chapter III, verse 7, admonishes husbands to sympathize with and condescend to their wives as to a weaker vessel. In like manner the Apostle here seems to command husbands, not only that they abstain from another's wife, but also that they use their own, as a holy vessel, chastely and moderately: "It is enjoined, says Jerome, or rather Rabanus on chapter 1 of Lamentations, on husbands, that they know certain times for intercourse. For, as Ecclesiastes says, there is a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. Let the wife therefore beware, lest, overcome by lust, she allure her husband; and the husband, lest he do violence to his wife, thinking that the pleasure of his spouse must be subject to him at every time. Whence also Paul says: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in holiness." For, as Xystus the philosopher beautifully says: "He is an adulterer who is too ardent a lover of his wife."
But because among the Thessalonians many, especially the younger ones, were still celibate and without a wife, but the Apostle attributes this vessel to each one; more generally and better with Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Ambrose, Oecumenius, and Anselm, by "vessel" we shall take the body, which generally in the Hebrew idiom is called a vessel, that is, the instrument of a man: for just as a craftsman uses his ruler or trowel as an instrument for every work, so the soul uses the body as an instrument and organ for all its actions, so much so that it cannot even understand without bodily senses and phantasms. Thus Plato said the body is the vessel of the soul. Thus Paul is called a vessel of election, that is, an instrument chosen by God for the conversion of the Gentiles. Thus in Genesis XLIX, Simeon and Levi are called vessels, that is, instruments, of iniquity, that is, of the unjust slaughter and devastation of the Shechemites. Or secondly, the body is called the vessel of the soul especially and properly, because as the vessel receives and contains wine, so the body receives and contains the soul. And just as a sordid and foul vessel affects and corrupts the wine itself, so the filth, pollutions, and lusts of the body defile the soul. Hence that saying of the Apostle, 1 Corinthians VI, 18: "Every sin that a man does, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body:" because he pollutes, sullies, and contaminates it.
Thus David, in 1 Samuel XXI, asking the high priest to give him and his men in the necessity of hunger the bread of proposition, when the priest asked: "If the young men are clean, especially from women?" he replied: "We have kept ourselves from yesterday and the day before; and the vessels of the young men are holy," that is, their bodies are unpolluted. "Moreover this way is polluted," as if to say: This is a lay and polluted use, namely that I and my companions, who are laymen, should eat the bread of proposition, of which only priests are permitted to eat; "but it shall be sanctified in the vessels," that is, this bread will not be polluted, but will be received holily into our holy and pure bodies, in this necessity of hunger, in which it is also permitted to laymen to eat the holy breads. Thus Abulensis there.
Therefore the Apostle here wills, that "each one possess his vessel," that is, his body, as a master (not however as a slave to serve the desires of the body) "in sanctification and honor," that is holily, this is chastely and honorably, "not in the passion of desire," that is, not in the affection of lust, namely that the mind should not serve the desires of the flesh, but the flesh should serve the right wills of the mind, says Anselm. Thus that Philosopher said to a certain voluptuous youth: Are you not ashamed, when you are freeborn, to make yourself a slave of your body? On the statues of Anacharsis it was also inscribed: One must restrain the tongue, the belly, and the private parts; for an unbridled tongue is the cause of the greatest evils, nothing is more shameful than luxury, and lust makes a beast out of a man: witness Laertius, book I, chapter IX. Otherwise Chrysostom and Theophylact take the passions of desire as delicacies, riches, idleness, sloth, and whatever inflames concupiscence: for these being cut off, the chastity both of mind and of body is safe.
Verse 6: That No Man Overreach, Nor Circumvent His Brother
6. And that no man overreach, nor circumvent his brother in business. — Note: The Apostle is not treating of fraud, avarice, and injustice in goods, but of injustice and fraud of the marriage bed, that is, of adultery; for he is treating of lust and uncleanness. Therefore he calls adultery "overreaching" and "circumvention." Overreaching, that is transgression and oppression, by which someone invades a neighbor's bed by climbing over (for this is the Greek ὑπερβαίνειν) and committing adultery: the same he calls circumvention, by which someone fraudulently usurps another's wife, which here in Greek is called πλεονεξία, that is, an excessive desire of having not wealth but concubines: for he who is not content with his own wife, but desires and invades others, he is πλεονέκτης. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Jerome on Ephesians chapter IV, verse 19; for there the Apostle uses πλεονεξίαν, or as Our Translator renders it "avarice," for the unlawful and immoderate desire of venereal things, as I said there. Therefore when he says here: "in business," understand of fornication. Thus πρᾶγμα is called fornication by the Greeks, just as by the Latins, as when they say to "have a thing" with a harlot: so the same thing is called negotium by the Italians, by an honest reticence. Thus St. Clement, in book III of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter II: "Younger widows, he says, should not be enrolled in the order of widows, lest, excusing themselves that they cannot contain the fervor of youth, they sometimes marry again, and be in business (that is, in lust and intercourse, as Turrianus explains there)." Whence explaining he adds: "They are to be helped, lest, excusing themselves that they are abandoned, they marry again and become entangled in shameful business."
Verse 7: For God Hath Not Called Us Unto Uncleanness
7. For God hath not called us into (unto) uncleanness, but into (unto) sanctification, — that is, chastity. For Christianity is the profession of chastity and the detestation of lust, so that the Gentiles addicted to lusts must renounce them, and embrace chastity, when they receive baptism and Christianity; and therefore in baptism God gives them the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle subjoins.
Verse 9: But Concerning the Charity of Brotherhood
9. But concerning the charity of brotherhood, — that is, brotherly. It is a Hebraism: for the Hebrews call all of their nation brothers. Hence in like manner Christians ought to address and embrace other Christians as brothers, not only by other names, but especially because they have the same Father, namely Christ, and the same Mother, namely the Church. This was of old and ought to be the φιλαδελφία of Christians. Zeno, asked what a friend was, replied: Another self. Alexander said to the mother of Darius, who through error had honored Hephaestion in place of Alexander: Mother, there is nothing for you to be troubled about, for this one too is Alexander. What might a Christian say?
For you yourselves have learned of God. — In Greek this is more beautifully said in one word, θεοδίδακτοί ἐστε, as if to say: You are God-taught, just as we say "Adeodatus": for God by the law of Christ, and by the inner grace and instinct of Christ, has taught you to love one another.
Verse 10: For Indeed You Do It Toward All the Brethren
10. For indeed that (loving, and showing the signs of love) you do toward all the brethren.
Verse 11: And That You Use Your Endeavor to Be Quiet
11. And that you use your endeavor to be quiet. — For "use your endeavor," in Greek it is φιλοτιμεῖσθαι, that is, strive zealously and ambitiously, says Erasmus; and, as Ambrose, exert yourselves; and, as the Syriac, devote diligent labor; but Theophylact translates, that you may be munificent: for he disjoins this from what follows; but others everywhere conjoin it with them, and it is plain that it should be joined.
That you may do your own business, — πράσσειν τὰ ἴδια, that you may do your own affairs.
He notes the idleness and curiosity of some of the Thessalonians: for these two are connected: and from them arises restlessness, vain and varied desires, the appetite for another's possession and happiness, and other evils which disturb households and commonwealths. Euclides, once asked by someone, what the gods were like, and in what they chiefly took pleasure? "Other things," he said, "I do not know, but that they hate the curious, I know for certain." When someone was asking whether the world was animate, and again, whether it was spherical? "You," said Demonax, "are anxious about the world, and you do not care for your own uncleanness." An Egyptian porter carrying something covered, when someone asked what he was carrying? "It is veiled," he said, "that you might not know: but why do you curiously search out what is hidden?" To Socrates, when one was curiously inquiring about the stars: "What is above us," he said, "is nothing to us." Again to the curious he was wont to throw out that Homeric saying:
What evil or right things are being done in our houses.
Xenocrates used to say it made no difference whether you brought feet or eyes into another's house. Crates the Theban was commonly called θυρεπανοίκτης, that is, the door-opener: because he would burst into every house, and if anything displeased him, would rebuke it with cynic freedom.
When the maidservant saw Thales gazing up at the stars in the heavens and falling into a pit, she said it had deservedly happened to him: who, when he was ignorant of what was before his feet, contemplated the heavens that he might know.
Zeno, when a young man was asking something rather curiously, led him to a mirror, and admonished him to contemplate himself; and then asked whether it seemed fitting to such a face to put forth questions of that kind?
Finally, the curious are moles to themselves, but lynxes to others,
And the wallet on the back ahead is gazed at.
Therefore let the curious man think it said to him by Christ what He said to Peter when he was inquiring rather curiously about John: "What is it to thee? Follow thou Me."
And that you walk honestly (εὐσχημόνως, that is, becomingly) toward them that are without. — That is, conduct yourselves becomingly with the Gentiles, namely that you not, being idle and inert, beg unbecomingly among the Gentiles to the reproach of the Church, when they see you healthy and strong but idle and begging; but rather that you decently provide your livelihood for yourselves by honest labor and craft. Thus Theophylact; for all these things look to the flight from idleness and sloth, to the zeal for labor and work. Whence follows:
And that you may want nothing of any man's, — as if to say: Lest by the want which is wont to follow from idleness, you be forced to desire what belongs to another. "For the slothful man," says the wise man, "is always in desire." In Greek it is, καὶ μηδενὸς χρείαν ἔχητε, that is, that you may need nothing of anyone's: for idleness begets indigence and poverty, and poverty makes thieves or beggars.
Verse 12: We Will Not Have You Ignorant, Brethren, Concerning Them That Are Asleep
12. We will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, — that is, that mystery of the resurrection, which I shall presently explain in verse 15.
Note with St. Augustine, sermon 32 On the Words of the Apostle, vol. X: Scripture calls those who are dead "sleeping" on account of the hope of resurrection, by which they will most swiftly be awakened from the sleep of death and from their bed, that is, their tomb. Thus Daniel, chapter XII, verse 2, ישנים iescenim, that is, those who sleep, calls the dead. Hence it was a pious custom of Christians, and still is, that when someone had died, they would not say: "That one is dead," but, "He has fallen asleep in the Lord;" and that for the consolation of friends, and that they might mutually rouse themselves to contempt of the present life and hope of the resurrection. Thus Christ speaks of the dead Lazarus, saying: "Lazarus our friend sleeps; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep," John XI, 11. Secondly, because there is a great affinity between sleep and death: for sleep is a kind of shorter death, while death is a longer sleep. Hence the Poet:
Foolish one, what is sleep, if not an image of cold death?
Hence sleep is also called "the kinsman of death."
That you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. — St. Augustine notes, sermon 32 On the Words of the Apostle, that the Apostle does not forbid all sorrow at the death of deceased friends; for this is natural: but only that which the Gentiles and the impious have, "who, as he himself says, have no hope." Therefore we are saddened, says Augustine, at the deaths of our own from the necessity of losing them, but with the hope of receiving them again; thence we are saddened, hence we are consoled; thence weakness afflicts us, hence faith refreshes us; thence the human condition grieves, hence the divine promise heals.
Again, from this hope of resurrection and heavenly glory, St. Augustine infers that it is a pious tradition of the Church, that we sacrifice, pray, and give alms for the deceased. "For this," he says, "handed down from the Fathers, the universal Church observes, that for those who have died in the communion of the body and blood of Christ, when they are commemorated at their place in the sacrifice itself, prayer be made, and that it be commemorated to be offered for them also. But when, for the sake of commending them, works of mercy are celebrated, who doubts that they assist those for whom prayers are not vainly presented to God?" Let the Novatians note these things, and learn from Augustine that the Mass is a sacrifice, and that in it prayer is wont to be made for the deceased, namely that they may be freed from the pains of Purgatory, and this from the tradition of the whole Church.
Verse 13: For If We Believe That Jesus Died and Rose Again
13. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so (supply: we ought equally to believe, that) God will bring with Him those who have slept through Jesus, — or certainly by hypallage the words must be arranged thus: "If (that is, just as) Jesus died and rose again, as we believe, so also God will bring with Him those who have slept through Jesus." Theophylact notes that the "through Jesus" can be taken in two ways: first, that it be referred to "He will bring with Him," as if to say: By the grace of Jesus Christ we shall rise again; secondly and better, that it be referred to "those who have slept," so that it is a periphrasis for the faithful deceased: for the faithful, who die having Christ in themselves, sleep "through Jesus," that is, in Jesus, namely in the faith, charity, and hope of resurrection in Jesus. Thus they take διά for "in," in verse 16, and Romans XIV, 14; Apocalypse XIV, 13. God will "bring" these, namely called forth from the tombs to a new and glorious life, and to blessed immortality, as is said in 1 Corinthians XV, 53. Here Paul proves that we shall rise by the example of Christ, and that on a double title and argument, as if to say: Christ rose, therefore we also shall rise: both because Christ was a man like us, and died as we shall die; and because Christ as our head infuses the power of rising into us as His members, so that as in Him and in His faith and hope we have lived and died, so we shall also rise in the same.
Verse 14: For This We Say Unto You in the Word of the Lord
14. For this we say unto you in the word of the Lord, — that is, through the word, revelation, and doctrine of the Lord, as if to say: I speak and teach not what I have learned from myself, but what I have learned from Christ, namely the mystery of the resurrection, which follows.
Because (that) we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord. — In Greek εἰς τὴν παρουσίαν, that is, unto the coming, and thus the Roman Bibles read, as if to say: We who are left as survivors unto the coming of the Lord, that we may be found alive at that coming. Note here: Paul speaks of himself thus, as if he were to live until the coming of the Lord, that is, until the day of judgment; not because he thought it would be so, but to instill in us the memory and perpetual fear of that terrible and uncertain day, so that we may ever in suspense await that day and prepare ourselves for it. There is therefore here an enallage of person: "We who are alive," that is, whoever shall live, whether of us or of our descendants, whose person I here put on and assume, that I may speak of them in my person. Thus St. Augustine, book XX On the City of God, chapter XX.
We shall not prevent (in the resurrection, of which in the previous verse) those who have slept. — In Greek κοιμηθέντας, that is, lulled to sleep (namely the sleep of death); Augustine, in book XX On the City of God, chapter XX, reads, "who have slept before." Here in the Greek he seems to have read not κοιμηθέντας, but προκοιμηθέντας, as if to say: We who still live, and whoever shall live on the day of judgment, will not rise sooner, nor be granted glory, before those rise to glory who have long ago died before us and rotted away, as if to say: See therefore how easily and suddenly God will raise up those sleeping, of whom I have spoken, though decayed and turned to ashes: do not therefore mourn much for your dead brethren and friends, nor be saddened over them, as I said in verse 12. Whence Theophylact notes that the Apostle here tacitly says the same thing as he said in 1 Corinthians XV, namely that we shall rise in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye. "For because," says Theophylact, "it seemed difficult that those who had rotted away should rise, hence Paul says that the living shall in no way precede them (because, namely, all shall rise in a moment), and just as it is easy for God to bring the living and whole to Christ, so also those who are corrupted." Therefore those who died earlier are not further from the resurrection than those who died later, or those who are alive: for both will rise together.
Otherwise St. Methodius takes this with Theophylact: We, he says, who are left, that is, the immortal souls will not anticipate the bodies in the resurrection; but the body will rise together with the soul to immortal life. But this is not to the mind of the Apostle; for he ought thus to have said: "We shall not prevent them," namely the bodies; but he now says "them," namely the sleeping men.
Verse 15: For the Lord Himself Shall Descend from Heaven
15. For the Lord Himself (Christ the judge) with commandment, and with the voice of an Archangel, and with the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven. — Theophylact distinguishes the commandment from the voice: "The command," he says, "of God will make the earth render up the bodies, and will raise them and transform them into immortality; but the voice of the Archangel, with the other angels ministering, will bring it about that all the raised, dispersed through diverse places, may be gathered into one." But this is not said with sufficient solidity: for the voice of the Archangel will not only gather, but also raise up the dead, as I said in 1 Corinthians XV, 52, and the Apostle here insinuates, when he subjoins: "And the dead, who are in Christ, shall rise first."
Secondly, and better, the same Theophylact with Chrysostom takes these by epexegesis, or hendyadis: "With commandment and with voice," that is, with a commandment which is a voice, or with the commandment of the voice of the Archangel. Again, "with commandment," that is, with the commandment; "with voice," that is, with the voice: for the Hebrews often use beth, that is "in," for "im," that is "with."
Note: For "in commandment," in Greek it is ἐν κελεύσματι, that is, in (with) a celeusma; now the celeusma is the shout of sailors mutually exhorting one another, that as if in one accord and effort all together they may lift the oars and begin to row. Such therefore seems to be the common celeusma of the other angels: who, when the Archangel sounds, themselves at the same time, with their voices or trumpets in each part of the world, will likewise shout together, that everywhere all may rise at the same time. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Anselm.
In the voice of an Archangel and in the trumpet of God. — It is an epexegesis, or hendyadis, as I said, as if to say: With the voice of the Archangel, which is the trumpet of God, or with the voice of the trumpet, or trumpet-blast of God: therefore the voice of the Archangel will be the same as the trumpet of God. It is called "of God" by Hebraism, that is, greatest and most loud, that it may be heard through the whole world. Thus mountains and cedars are called "of God," that is greatest and highest: for all things which are of God are greatest. Secondly, it is called "of God," because it will go before God the judge, as a trumpet is wont to go before a king or Emperor. Thirdly, it is called the voice of God, because it will be magnificent and horrible like thunder, and such as befits the divine majesty, that it may be as it were proportioned to Him. Whence the type of this trumpet was that trumpet of the angel proclaiming to the Jews the decalogue on Sinai, Exodus chapter XX, verse 18. Thus Theophylact from Chrysostom.
Hence note first, that this trumpet will not be the spiritual rule of Christ, as some have wished from St. Gregory; but it will be a sensible clang and trumpet-voice formed by an angel in the air either from the collision of air alone, or rather through a real trumpet, as Anselm in the Elucidarium and others wish; for Christ, Paul, and the Fathers always call it a trumpet, and the trumpet is a most apt instrument even for an angel, that it may emit a most sonorous voice, by the impact and collision of air against the sides of the trumpet. Of what material this trumpet shall be — whether of silver, or of bronze, as Francis Suarez opines, or of cloud and meteors, or of some other material more sonorous, which men are ignorant of but the angels know — is uncertain.
Note secondly: To this end this trumpet will sound: first, that it may rouse all men from the dead, and cite them to judgment, as is sufficiently clear from John V, 28; secondly, that it may call the elect to the solemnity and joy of blessed eternity, like the trumpet which called the Hebrews to the feasts, Numbers X, 8 and 10: thus Anselm; thirdly, that it may terrify the reprobate and call the elect to war, that they may cast the reprobate down into Gehenna. So Anselm: for it will be as it were a military signal.
Note thirdly: In 1 Corinthians XV, 52, this trumpet is called "last," because after the trumpets of the seven angels, by which before the day of judgment they will inflict the greatest plagues on the whole world, of which in Apocalypse chapters VIII and IX, this last one will follow, and will cry out and thunder: "Arise, ye dead, come to judgment," as Chrysostom and Theophylact indicate, and St. Thomas teaches in book IV, distinction CXIII, Question I, article 4.
Note fourthly: This trumpet of the Archangel, in John V, 28, is called "the voice of the Son of God," because although it will be by the ministry of angels, it will nevertheless be formed by the command of the Son of God, and from Him it will receive the power of raising the dead: "The hour cometh," He says, "wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of Him (of the Son of God), and they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life, but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment (of eternal damnation)."
You will ask: How can the dead hear this voice? I reply: they will hear, that is, they will sense the power of this voice; or they will hear, that is, they will obey by rising again, just as if they were hearing the voice of the Son of God, who calls those things that are not as if they were: so that it is a catachresis. For this trumpet will be, as many Fathers and Doctors teach, at least a moral instrument of the resurrection, through which Christ will work the resurrection: just as the words of consecration are an instrument of transubstantiation. Hence St. John adds: "And those who hear (this voice) shall live." I say moral, for it does not seem necessary, nor sufficiently fitting, to attribute to this trumpet a physical power of raising the dead.
Add secondly, the dead will hear this voice after they have risen: for the resurrection will happen in an instant, when the trumpet sounds "Arise." So that, as the rising ones hear this voice prolonged and resounding, they may still hear it, or certainly that which the trumpet will add: "Come to judgment." Thus Francisco Suarez, III part., Question LV, art. 1. For this trumpet will be, as it were, a prayer summoning all to judgment. Hence the Church sings: "The trumpet, scattering a wondrous sound through the sepulchres of the regions, will gather all before the throne."
Of the Archangel. — Not of Christ, as Ambrose holds, but, as St. Thomas says, of Michael, who by command and in the place of Christ presides over the Church, as he formerly did over the Synagogue, Daniel XII, 1; or certainly of Gabriel, who presides, as many hold, over the second order, which is that of the Archangels: so that, just as Gabriel announced Christ's first coming to the Most Blessed Virgin, so he might also announce the second to the world. Therefore, when the Archangel sounds this trumpet, as if roused by the command of their superior, the angels will be present; this trumpet will first cry out to them, says Chrysostom: "Make all ready, the judge is at hand." And this is what Christ says, Matthew XXIV: "He (the Son of Man) shall send (not only the Archangel, but) His angels with a trumpet and a great voice." Hence secondly, it seems that when the Archangel sounds his trumpet, the other angels with a great, slow, and prolonged voice will cry out together: "Arise, you dead;" and at the same time each will run with utmost speed to their respective places to gather the ashes of men. Thirdly, God will then arrange these ashes, organize them, and give them life, that they may rise in a moment in the manner I described in 1 Corinthians XV, 52. Each will rise where his body or ashes are. Then the angels will snatch them into the valley of Josaphat near Jerusalem, where the judgment will take place, as it is said in Joel III, 2: "I will gather all nations," He says, "and lead them down into the valley of Josaphat, and there I will dispute with them." And this is what Christ signified, Matthew XXIV, 31, when He said: "And they (the angels) shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the highest heavens, even to the ends thereof."
Verses 15 and 16: And the Dead Who Are in Christ Shall Rise First
15 and 16. And the dead who are in the faith and grace of Christ, that is, who are Christ's faithful and friends, shall rise first: then we who are alive, who remain, shall together be caught up with them in the clouds.
The same Jerome to Heliodorus: "That day will come," he says, "on which this corruptible and mortal will put on incorruption and immortality. Then at the voice of the trumpet the earth will tremble with its peoples; and you will rejoice. The world will groan mournfully when the Lord comes to judge: tribes will beat their breasts against tribes. The most powerful kings of old will tremble with bared chest. Venus will then be exhibited with her offspring: then fiery Jupiter will be led forth; and Plato with his foolish disciples: Aristotle's arguments will be of no use. Then you, the rustic and poor man, will exult and laugh, and say: Behold my crucified God, behold the judge, who wrapped in swaddling clothes wailed in the manger; this is that son of a workman and a poor woman; this is He, who carried in His mother's bosom, God fled as a man into Egypt; this is He clothed in scarlet, this is He crowned with thorns. Behold the hands, O Jew, which you pierced; behold the side, O Roman, which you dug: see the body, whether it is the same that you said the disciples secretly carried away by night."
Morally St. Chrysostom here, homily 8, p. 1370: "When therefore those things shall have come to pass, then the voice will be heard of the Archangel commanding the other angels and crying out; trumpets will then be heard, indeed the sound of trumpets. What trembling then, what fear will seize those who will then be on earth, who will await the judge! For one shall be taken, and one left; and one shall be received, and one left. What will be the spirit then of those who saw these taken away, but themselves left behind? Will not any gehenna be less terrible than to render them so cast down and dismayed? Let us imagine in word that it is already at hand: for if sudden death, or the upheavals of cities, and the other threats so shake our spirits; when we shall see the earth broken open, and filled with all these things, when we shall hear the trumpet, when we shall perceive that voice of the Archangel clearer than any trumpet, when this heaven shall be everywhere lifted up and contracted, when we shall see the very God, the King of all, coming, what spirit shall we then have?" And below: "I have heard many, who after being led out to death were called back to the king's benevolence and clemency, saying that they had not seen men as men, because they had been with mind utterly disturbed, struck, and stupefied when they were being led away. If therefore bodily death so terrifies us, when that eternal one shall come, what shall we suffer?"
Hence also St. Jerome is said to have kept this saying ever before his eye, and to have handed it on to others: "Whether you drink, or eat, or wake, or sleep, let this trumpet sound in your ears: Arise, you dead, come to judgment." Although this saying is no longer found in the works of Jerome, yet something similar of his is found in the Rule of the Monks, tom. IV of the works of St. Jerome, which was compiled from St. Jerome and written by the Superior of the Hieronymite Order, which Martin V the Pope approved, as is stated at the beginning of the Rule.
Verses 16 and 17: To Meet Christ in the Air
Into the clouds to meet Christ in the air. — It is asked here whether some shall rise earlier and others later? For this is what the Apostle seems to say here. First, Sedulius answers that what is signified here is not an order of time but of dignity: for those who have died in the faith and grace of Christ shall rise first, not in time, but in dignity. Second, Chrysostom and Theophylact say: The just shall rise before the wicked, so that they may be first in the resurrection not only in dignity but also in time, inasmuch as they are to be caught up into the air to meet Christ the judge as He comes, for the sake of honor. But afterwards the wicked shall rise, who are neither to be caught up into the air, nor to meet Christ. But this seems to be beside the Apostle's mind: for the Apostle does not here set an order between the just and the wicked, but between those dead in Christ and those still living with Him. Hence thirdly, Theodoret explains more literally thus: They who long ago and many ages before died shall rise so quickly that they shall precede those who shall then be found surviving and alive; for these latter must first die before they rise: therefore when these are dying, those formerly dead shall rise, and consequently shall precede them in the resurrection. Fourthly, others think that no order or consequence is signified here, but only accompaniment, so that "then" is the same as "besides." But fifthly, this passage should be genuinely expounded thus: "The dead who are in Christ shall rise first," Greek πρῶτον, that is first, namely before they are caught up to meet Christ in the air; "then we who are alive, together with them (who have risen from the dead), shall be caught up to meet Christ." For the order set here is not of those rising, nor of resurrection to resurrection, but the order of resurrection to the rapture and meeting of Christ, namely that those who were dead shall rise first, then that the same with the others then living shall be caught up together to meet Christ. So Anselm, St. Thomas and others.
Note: The Apostle does not here mention the resurrection of the impious and reprobate, but only of those dead in Christ, that is, in the faith and grace of Christ: for he wishes only to console the faithful, the pious and the good with this hope of the resurrection.
We who are alive. — That is, who shall then be alive, namely those of us, or those of our descendants who are just, who shall then be alive, and perhaps I myself, because it is uncertain when the day of judgment will be, and each one must be prepared for it at every hour; for it will come like a thief in the night, as he will say in the next chapter. Hence each one can prudently fear and persuade himself that this day may perhaps be at hand, says Anselm. So throughout the Apostle assumes the person of those who shall then be living, and transforms himself into them, as I noted at verse 14.
We shall be caught up, — both by the angels and by the power of Christ through the gift of agility, which He has imparted to each Saint already in beatitude: for the Saints shall not rise first to life, and then later to glory; but together with the resurrection they shall receive the glory of the body; for they shall rise in a body not mortal and passible, but immortal, impassible and glorious.
You will ask, whether those who are found alive on the day of judgment shall not die, or shall be caught up alive to meet Christ, so that without death they become immortal and glorious? Justin asserts this, Question CIX, and Augustine, book II De Peccat. merit., ch. XXXI, Cajetan and others: for these think that those who are found alive at the end of the world are to be exempted from the common law of death, and that these are those living of whom it is said in the Creed, that Christ is to judge the living and the dead. But this exception from a plainly universal law of death rests on a weak foundation. Hence afterwards, having discussed the matter better, retracting his opinion, St. Augustine, book XX De Civit., ch. XX, teaches that absolutely all men shall die and rise again. Ambrose, St. Thomas and others now teach the same throughout. Therefore those who are found alive on the day of judgment shall die in the air and in the rapture, says St. Augustine and Anselm; or rather, as St. Thomas and Oecumenius say, on earth, which is the place of the dying, before they are caught up: for all shall rise when the trumpet sounds, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians XV, 52.
You will say: Who then are those living whom Christ is said in the Creed to judge? I reply: They are those who shall be found alive and surviving on the day of judgment; for these shall die in a very brief and very short time (so as to pay the common debt of nature and original sin, to which we are all bound); for they shall rise again immediately after death. Hence they are reckoned not so much dead as living: just as Christ said of Lazarus, because he was soon to be raised, that he was not dead, but living and sleeping, John XI, 11. And this is the reason why the Apostle made no mention of their death or resurrection, but called them living, and reckoned them among the living, as if those who so die that they scarcely seem to die remain ever alive: so that their death does not seem to be death, but a passing to a better and eternal life.
Christ therefore is called judge of the living and the dead, that is, of all men, both those who have lived and died, and those who shall be living when Christ comes to judgment: for otherwise at the judgment itself there will be no dead, but all alive, and Christ will properly judge only the living. That this is so is clear from the fact that Paul, 1 Corinthians XV, 51, expressly asserts: "We shall all rise again," or, as others read; "we shall sleep, but we shall not all be changed;" and verse 22: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive;" and verse 36: "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die first." The same is clear from the fact that he said here at verse 14: "We who are alive shall not, by rising, prevent those who have slept;" because, namely, we shall rise together with them, and then together with them shall be caught up to meet Christ: if we shall rise with them, then we shall first die; he therefore tacitly signifies that they shall die; yet he says: "We who are alive," lest, by calling them sleeping, that is, dead, he should sadden them and reopen their wound, which he touched at verse 12, saying: "But we will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, as others who have no hope."
To meet Christ in the air. — In Greek, εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ Κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα, that is, in the meeting of Christ in the air. Hence it appears that, just as citizens go out to meet a king who is coming, going forth for the sake of honor: so the Saints will go out to meet Christ coming to judgment in the air. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact. This meeting of the Saints will therefore be before the universal judgment, namely when Christ the judge shall descend from heaven for it. And this is what is said in Matthew chapter XXV: "Behold the bridegroom comes, go out to meet him." For this Christ's dignity demands, this the reverence and love of the Saints toward Christ, this finally the glory both of Christ and of the Saints requires: for the Saints, as I have already said, will be blessed before the judgment, and will rise in a glorious body; and so with immense glory, both their own and Christ's, they will meet the glorious Christ; afterwards however at the judgment they will receive the public sentence of eternal felicity (the same one which they received privately at death and the particular judgment), so that thus before all their holiness and glory may be praised and honored.
Note secondly: The Saints will be caught up to meet Christ in the air, so that there in a most splendid cloud, as on a throne where He sits to conduct the judgment, all the Saints will stand by Him on splendid clouds, as it were on thrones, and as it were sit beside Him, as Francisco Suarez teaches, III part., disp. LVII, sect. II, tom. II, at the end; yet so that each one sits according to his order and rank for his merits. Hence on more splendid thrones and nearer to Christ shall sit the Apostles and Apostolic men, who shall properly judge with Christ, as is said in Matthew XIX, 28.
Hence it appears thirdly, how the valley of Josaphat in which the judgment shall take place, with the fields and neighboring places (which can extend very far and, if needed, even be leveled), will be able to hold all men who ever were, are, or shall be: for the reprobate shall stand in this valley packed on the earth on the left of the judge round about; but the saints shall stand on the right not on the earth, but higher and nearer the judge in the air; yet so that, just as in amphitheaters there were various ranks of spectators by tiers and platforms, some higher than others: so also the Saints shall have various ranks, some sitting higher than others according to their merits, as on an aerial platform; yet so that the lowest stand far above the reprobate and the earth (which in life they trampled and despised), and approach near to Christ. "And so always," namely both in the judgment and in heaven, to which they shall presently ascend, "they shall be with the Lord (Christ)," as is said here.