Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
John, by command of Christ, writes, first, to the Angel of Ephesus, that he may restore his first charity that has fallen: if he does not do this, He threatens that He will remove his candlestick; if he does, He promises him the tree of life. Second, verse 8, to the Angel of Smyrna, that he be constant in faith and virtue even unto death, promising him the crown of life. Third, verse 12, to the Angel of Pergamum, that he stoutly oppose the Nicolaitans, threatening them with a sword, and promising him hidden manna and a white stone. Fourth, verse 18, to the Angel of Thyatira, that he resist Jezebel teaching to fornicate and to eat of things sacrificed to idols, promising him power over the nations, and the morning star.
Vulgate Text: Apocalypse 2:1-29
1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write: These things saith He, who holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks: 2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them that are evil, and thou hast tried them, who say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: 3 And thou hast patience, and hast endured for My name, and hast not fainted. 4 But I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first charity. 5 Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen: and do penance, and do the first works. Or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou do penance. 6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaites, which I also hate. 7 He, that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches: To him, that overcometh, I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of My God. 8 And to the angel of the church of Smyrna write: These things saith the First and the Last, who was dead, and is alive: 9 I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich: and thou art blasphemed by them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. 10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried: and you shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. 11 He, that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches: He, that shall overcome, shall not be hurt by the second death. 12 And to the angel of the church of Pergamus write: These things, saith He, that hath the sharp two edged sword: 13 I know where thou dwellest, where the seat of Satan is: and thou holdest fast My name, and hast not denied My faith. Even in those days when Antipas was My faithful witness, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. 14 But I have against thee a few things: because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat, and to commit fornication: 15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaites. 16 In like manner do penance: if not, I will come to thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth. 17 He, that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches: To him that overcometh, I will give the hidden manna, and will give him a white counter, and in the counter, a new name written, which no man knoweth, but he that receiveth it. 18 And to the angel of the church of Thyatira write: These things saith the Son of God, who hath His eyes like to a flame of fire, and His feet like to fine brass. 19 I know thy works, and thy faith, and thy charity, and thy ministry, and thy patience, and thy last works which are more than the former. 20 But I have against thee a few things: because thou sufferest the woman Jezabel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach, and to seduce My servants, to commit fornication, and to eat of things sacrificed to idols. 21 And I gave her a time that she might do penance, and she will not repent of her fornication. 22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed: and they that commit adultery with her shall be in very great tribulation, except they do penance from their deeds. 23 And I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He that searcheth the reins and hearts, and I will give to every one of you according to your works. But to you I say, 24 And to the rest who are at Thyatira: Whosoever have not this doctrine, and who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will not put upon you any other burthen. 25 Yet that, which you have, hold fast till I come. 26 And he that shall overcome, and keep My works unto the end, I will give him power over the nations. 27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and as the vessel of a potter they shall be broken, 28 As I also have received of My Father: and I will give him the morning star. 29 He, that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Verse 1: To the Angel of the Church of Ephesus
1. To the Angel of the Church of Ephesus write. — "Angel," that is, Bishop, as I said in chapter 1, verse 20.
Ephesus, a noble trading center and metropolis of Asia Minor, was the work of the Amazons. For Justinus in book II, and Pliny in book V, chapter 29, hand down that it was founded by them, although Pherecydes, and Strabo following him, hand down that it was built by Antiochus, son of Codrus the king of the Athenians. In it was the most celebrated temple of Diana, built by all of Asia over two hundred years. Paul preached at Ephesus and there appointed Timothy as Bishop. Hence his epistle to the Ephesians is extant, written 38 years before this Apocalypse.
Note: This is the first epistle of Christ, which He writes to the Bishop of Ephesus, and through the Bishop to the whole Church, as is clear from chapter 1, verses 7, 11, 17, 24, where it says: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." Hence morally Alcazar holds that in these seven Bishops are signified seven kinds of consciences among Bishops and any other faithful. The first kind is of the wicked, who boldly rush into crimes. The second, of the lukewarm. The third, of those of approved virtue. The fourth, of those who are weak in virtue, but are protected by God and freed from temptations. The fifth, of the weary, namely those who, because of weariness in the way of God, somewhat draw back. The sixth, of the timid. The seventh, of the imprudent. Hence he compares these seven Bishops to the seven planets. For the Sardian was like Mars, bold and headlong toward evil. The Laodicean like Saturn, lazy and sluggish. The Smyrnaean like the Sun, of outstanding virtue, surpassing all clouds. The Philadelphian weaker, but of more prosperous fortune, like Jupiter. The Ephesian was like Mercury, good and prudent, but weary, and hence of remitted ardor. The Pergamene like the Moon, more timid: for the moon is believed to instill fear in those over whom it dominates. The Thyatirene like Venus, imprudently fervid.
Thus these seven Epistles are as it were the seven decretals of Christ the Supreme Pontiff, by which the whole heavenly Canon Law, namely doctrine pertaining to morals, is comprehended in summary, through which the consciences of men may be formed and may make progress in true holiness. God therefore has set up these seven Bishops as seven mirrors, as it were, for the faithful, so that in them each may contemplate his own conscience and way of life, and may correct, direct, and perfect it. Symbolically and prophetically, Petrus Galatinus holds here that by these seven epistles of Christ are signified the seven states and vicissitudes of the Church, succeeding one another in order, which he himself recounts.
You will ask who was this Angel, that is, Bishop, of Ephesus? Lyranus answers that it is the common opinion that he was St. Timothy, to whom St. Paul wrote two epistles. Yet Ribera denies this, as does Lyranus himself: because, they say, Timothy was a most holy man, but this Bishop of Ephesus is strongly rebuked by Christ. But Aureolus, Viegas, Alcazar, Pererius here, Magalianus in his preface to the epistle to Timothy, and Baronius assert the same thing. And this can be sufficiently proved from chronology; for at this time there was no other Bishop of Ephesus than St. Timothy: for St. Paul wrote his epistle to Timothy, as to the Bishop of Ephesus, in the year of Christ 57; but John wrote this in the year of Christ 97. Timothy indeed died as Bishop of Ephesus in the year of Christ 109, which was the tenth year of Trajan. For then Onesimus succeeded him in the bishopric of Ephesus, whom St. Paul commends when writing to Philemon. Hence in the same year of Christ 109, St. Ignatius writing to the Ephesians, after Timothy mentions Onesimus, as their newly appointed Bishop. Those therefore err who contend, on the authority of Metaphrastes, that Timothy was killed before these times under Domitian. For after these times St. Dionysius the Areopagite wrote most of his books, and dedicated them to this Timothy. To Ribera's argument I shall reply at verse 4.
THESE THINGS SAYS HE WHO HOLDS THE SEVEN STARS. — Of whom I spoke in chapter 1, last verse. Here begins the epistle of Christ to the Bishop of Ephesus, and under his person to any Pastor and Prelate whatsoever, indeed to any faithful person who has cooled from the original ardor of charity. Hence in order to rouse and inflame him, at the beginning He recalls to his memory his calling and the loftiness of his rank, as if to say: Remember that you have been called by Christ to be a star and light of the world; take care therefore to shine before the world by your splendor and fervor; remember that you are in the right hand of Christ, that Christ continually directs His eye upon you, that He wishes to use you as an instrument and torch to illumine the Church and to convert the Gentiles. See therefore that you do not impede the work of Christ, see that you do not obscure the radiance of the Church, see that you are not the cause why many souls who should be saved through you perish through your lukewarmness and sloth; for Christ will demand them back from you. Therefore so act, so live, so be fervent, that through you all may glorify the Father who is in heaven, that you may bring infidels and the impious to Christ, that you may kindle the lukewarm, and inflame the strenuous and fervid the more. Imitate Paul saying: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I do not burn?" 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 29.
Verse 2: I Know Thy Works and Labor
2. I know thy works and labor. — See the praises of this Bishop in Pererius, disputation 3 and 4.
Morally by His own example Christ teaches us to temper the rebuke of vice with the praise of virtue, lest it fall too bitterly; as physicians coat pills with sugar. Hear Rupertus here: "Notable, he says, is how skillful is the arrangement of the discourse. And before He uttered the authority of rebuke, He commended what was praiseworthy; and afterwards, when He had reproved and threatened, He again praised what was praiseworthy. Thus He coated the bitterness of rebuke with the sweetness of praise, lest it offend or terrify too much." Christ the Lord kept the same moderation in rebuking that Samaritan woman. For first He commended her truthfulness in speaking: "You have spoken well," He said, "for I have no husband," John 4:18. Then He rebuked her intemperance in living: "You have had five husbands," He said, "and the one whom you now have is not your husband." Finally, as if it were not enough to have commended her truthfulness once, He commends it again: "This you have said truly." Rupertus adds: "This, he says, is great and worthy of imitation, the magisterium of the Spirit of God: to reprove those things which need correction; but in reproving, both before and after, to commend, if anything has been well said or done by him who is rebuked in other things: so that, as far as possible, he may be kept favorable, and the soul of the sinner may not flee in confusion or terror, unable to bear hearing."
AND YOU HAVE TESTED THOSE WHO SAY THEY ARE APOSTLES AND ARE NOT, — you have examined, investigated, and refuted those who lie that they are Apostles, when they are pseudo-apostles.
Verse 3: And Hast Endured for My Name
3. And you have endured for My name (persecutions and various tribulations), AND HAVE NOT FAILED. — Greek οὐκ ἐκοπίασας; for κοπιᾶν means both to labor simply, and in the perfect act so to labor as to fail and succumb in the labor. In the former sense it is taken in the preceding verse: "I know your works and labor," in Greek κόπον; in the latter sense it is taken in this place. Although Peter Faber, book II of Agonist., chapter 8, probably suspects there is a corruption in the Greek here, and that for ἐκοπίασας should be read κέκμηκας. For the Apostle does not seem to take κόπος in one sense in this verse, and in another in the preceding verse. Hence the Aldine codex of the New Testament published at Venice in 1518, and that of Robert Stephens published at Paris in 1546, and the Basel one of 1565, and the Lyons one of 1571, read thus: καὶ διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου κεκοπίακας, καὶ οὐ κέκμηκας, that is, and you have labored for My name, or have grown weary and fatigued, but have not failed.
Verse 4: Thou Hast Left Thy First Charity
4. BUT I HAVE A FEW THINGS AGAINST YOU. The "few things" are deleted by the Roman and Greek, and by the Syriac, which renders: But I have against you on account of that first thing of yours which you have left behind; or, as the Arabic: You have dismissed it from yourself.
BECAUSE YOU HAVE LEFT YOUR FIRST CHARITY. — Ambrose and Haymo hold that this Bishop had lost charity, and was in the state of mortal sin. But who would believe this of St. Timothy? Especially when his patience, zeal, and illustrious works are commended here, not only past but also present? Better therefore Ribera, Pererius, Alcazar, and others expound it, as if to say: "The first charity," that is, that first fervor of charity, "you have left behind." For such is human weakness, that those who have begun to serve God with great spirit, gradually slacken from His effort, grow languid, weary, and lukewarm.
It seems therefore that St. Timothy, who had now been Bishop of Ephesus for 40 years (for he was Bishop in the year of Christ 57, and the year of Christ 97 was now in progress, as I said in verse 1: therefore 40 years had now elapsed since the beginning of his episcopate), had grown somewhat lukewarm in preaching the word of God, in the labor of converting the Ephesians: because he saw the Jews and Gentile worshippers of the Ephesian Diana persistently opposing him; whence partly from faintheartedness and lukewarmness, partly from human prudence, suggesting that for the sake of peace it was necessary to act more remissly, lest by too much zeal he should the more disturb the Christian cause, and rouse the infidels against himself and his own (as he remembered had once happened at Ephesus to St. Paul, when the crowd cried out against him: "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," Acts 19:34), he relaxed somewhat from his original ardor of evangelizing, and this was his venial, not mortal sin. For often Prelates sin more through remissness, which creeps in under the appearance of prudence, than through imprudence, which is under the appearance of zeal. Yet both are vices, both are here rebuked by Christ, the former in the Bishop of Ephesus, the latter in the one of Thyatira, says Alcazar.
Therefore Timothy, here admonished by Christ through St. John, corrected his remissness and resumed his first fervor of preaching, and fervently rebuked the worshippers of Diana, and therefore by them was made a martyr in the year of Christ 109, on the 24th day of January, on which day his memory, inscribed in the sacred records, is celebrated yearly in the Church.
Add that these things are said not to the Bishop alone, but also to his Ephesian Church, as I said at the beginning of the chapter. The Ephesian faithful therefore are here accused of lukewarmness in their own person, and through their Bishop, inasmuch as upon him as upon the head and shepherd all blame, mark, and reproach of subjects redounds. Commonly we say: "There is no sin in a college which the Rector does not commit." So there is no sin in a parish and diocese which the Pastor and Bishop does not commit: so Pererius, who however does not rightly hold that there was no fault of Timothy here; but that all the fault here accused was of the Church and of the faithful. For properly and primarily the Bishop is blamed here; and the lukewarmness and fault of the faithful can hardly exist without the lukewarmness and fault of the Bishop, as St. Chrysostom teaches, homily 38 on Matthew.
Morally note: Easily a man, even a holy and perfect one, grows lukewarm from his first fervor. First, because the soul is changeable, soft, and inconstant. Second, because it is difficult and forced to resist so many difficulties and temptations as occur daily.
Third, because grace in us is as it were in a foreign, not natural, place; whence our nature, unless continual force is applied, returns to itself and its natural desires. Fourth, because we have innate concupiscence, which always struggles against grace and good, against which we must fight, and as it were row against an opposing river, indeed an opposing wave.
Memorable is the saying of St. Bernard, epistle 56 to Richard, Abbot of Fontaines: "Much more easily, he says, will you find many seculars converted to good, than one of the Religious passing to something better. He is a rare bird on earth, who climbs even a little above the rank which he perhaps once attained in Religion." And of St. Bonaventure: "I have seen many who, passing from the world to Religion, made progress and changed their lives: scarcely have I seen any who, after the novitiate, became more fervent and more perfect in religion." Wherefore he himself in the Life of St. Francis writes of him, as something rare and wonderful, in chapter 14 of His life, that approaching the end of his life, fixed to the cross with Christ through the sacred stigmata both in flesh and in spirit, "he not only burned with Seraphic love toward God, but also thirsted with the crucified Christ for the multitude of those to be saved, and therefore he had himself and his nearly dead body carried through cities and camps, to encourage the rest to bear the cross." He also used to say to the brothers: "Let us begin, brothers, to serve our God, for until now we have made little progress. He burned also with desire to return to the beginnings of humility, that he might serve lepers as he did at the beginning, and recall his body, now collapsed from labor, to its former service. He proposed, with Christ as leader, to do great things; and with limbs failing, strong and fervid in spirit, he hoped for a triumph in a new contest and against a new enemy. For neither languor nor sloth has place, where the goad of love always urges on to greater things. So great was in him the concord of flesh to spirit, so great the readiness of obedience, that when he strove to attain to all sanctity, the flesh itself not only did not resist, but strove to run ahead."
Therefore against this lukewarmness and its sources, frequently and assiduously, and especially at the beginning of the week, month, and year, as well as on the greater feasts, man ought to rouse his languishing spirit and renew his former vows and resolutions. "Consider, says St. Bernard, epistle 91, that on Jacob's ladder all the angels are either ascending or descending, none stand still. And so you also, if you do not advance, you fall back, and where you begin to be unwilling to become better, you cease to be good." Whence Psalm 83 says: "They shall go from virtue to virtue." And Proverbs 4: "The path of the just, as a shining light, goes forward and grows even to the perfect day." And Canticles 6: "Who is she that comes forth as the rising dawn?" Wherefore Abbot Agatho in the Lives of the Fathers, book 5, chapter on discretion, gave this precept to one aspiring to the Religious life: "As on the first day when you enter to the brothers, so guard your pilgrimage all the days of your life, and do not assume confidence," as if to say: Preserve the fervor, reverence, and modesty of the novitiate throughout the whole time of Religion, and beware lest with the passage of time you become free and bold in speaking, criticizing, murmuring, idling, etc. See what was said in Philippians 3:13, and Ephesians 4:22, and Romans 12:2.
Specifically, that a Bishop ought not to grow lukewarm in preaching, even if few or none are converted, St. Chrysostom teaches in homily 1 On Lazarus: first, by the example of fountains which always gush forth, though no one draws from them: second, by the example of Jeremiah, chapter 20, verse 7, who though mocked by the Jews, is nevertheless commanded by God to preach to them; third, by the example of Christ, who admonished Judas, though obstinate; fourth, because those who are good at least become better, and those who are not now converted may perhaps be converted later. Hence to the same Timothy St. Paul, epistle 2, chapter 4, commands saying: "Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, beseech, rebuke in all patience."
Verse 5: I Will Move Thy Candlestick Out of Its Place
5. BUT IF NOT, I WILL COME TO YOU, AND I WILL MOVE (the Syriac: I move, namely at once and suddenly) YOUR LAMPSTAND FROM ITS PLACE, — as if to say: "The lampstand," that is the Church, I will take from you, that you may not be its head and Bishop, and I will place it in another's hand. For in chapter 1, last verse, He explained the lampstands as the Churches. These are said to be moved from their place, that is from their state, when they are transferred from one head, namely a Bishop, to another, and placed in his hand to be governed. So kingdoms are said to be moved, changed, and transferred from nation to nation, when the king and emperor is changed, and is raised up from another nation: for the body is as much in the head as the head in the body; the kingdom as much in the king as the king in the kingdom; the Church as much in the Bishop as the Bishop in the Church. When therefore the head is moved and changed, the body is moved and changed; when the king is changed, the republic is changed; when the Bishop is changed, the Church is changed.
Thus the monarchy of the Chaldeans is said to have been changed and transferred to the Persians, when Cyrus became monarch; that of the Persians to the Greeks, when Alexander became monarch; that of the Greeks to the Romans, when Augustus became monarch. So Rupertus, Hugh, Richard of St. Victor.
Hence again this phrase could be explained by hypallage in this way, as if to say: I will move your lampstand from its place, that is, I will move you from the place of your lampstand, that is, I will remove you from the Episcopate of the Church, I will take from you both your dignity and grace, and the Episcopal gifts by which you preside over and shine forth in your Church. By a similar hypallage it is said of the demons in Apocalypse 12:8: "Neither was their place found anymore in heaven," as if to say: They themselves are no longer found in their place in heaven. Or rather "lampstand" is put by metonymy for the lamp itself, or candle which is set in the lampstand. For this is similar to a king on his throne and a Bishop sitting in his cathedra. Hence in Scripture lamp signifies kingdom, and consequently priesthood; for this is a priestly kingdom, and a royal priesthood. Hence Psalm 131:17 says: "Thither will I bring forth a horn for David, I have prepared a lamp for My Christ." 1 Kings 11:36: "But to his son I will give one tribe, that there may remain a lamp for David." I will move therefore the lampstand, that is the lamp, that is your bishopric, "from its place," namely from you, in whom it now stands: so Delrio, Adage 112.
Second, Haymo, Thomas Anglicus, Dionysius, and Ribera hold that lampstand is taken here in another sense than in chapter 1, namely for the Episcopal dignity and grace itself, as if to say: I will take from you the lampstand, that is your bishopric, by which you shine forth in the Church. So Elijah and Enoch in chapter 11, verse 4, are called "two lampstands" in the sight of God.
This exposition, though in substance it coincides with the first, Alcazar rightly impugns, because in these seven Bishops there is always a respect to the vision of chapter 1; therefore it is forced to take lampstand here in a different sense than in chapter 1, especially since in this very epistle express mention is made of the seven lampstands of chapter 1, in verse 1.
Third, Andreas of Caesarea expounds, as if to say: I will take away the lampstand, that is the Pontifical seat, from Ephesus, and transfer it to a royal city, e.g. Byzantium, or Constantinople.
Fourth, Ambrose and Bede expound, as if to say: I will deprive you of the reward, which is promised by God to a Bishop and Rector of the Church for his care and labor.
Fifth, Victorinus the Martyr: "I will move, he says, the lampstand, that is, I will scatter your people;" and Lyranus: "From your obedience, he says, I will withdraw your subjects;" and Andreas of Caesarea: "I will strip your people of My grace and protection, and cast them into waves and tempests." So also Alcazar holds that here God threatens the Bishop with disturbance of the public peace.
For the proper and fitting punishment of remissness, he says, is that the very thing by which someone thought he would enjoy quiet and tranquility, namely by relaxing something of fervor and zeal, that very thing devolves into greater sedition of citizens and disturbance of the faithful: both because God justly punishes each one in that very thing in which he sins, and because among men the disturbance of soldiers usually arises from the remissness of the leader: just as on the contrary by discipline and severity peace and obedience are much better preserved and increased. So it happens that the Prelate, while preparing quiet, brings forth unrest, and the people are scattered, and subjects withdraw themselves from the Prelate's obedience. Commonly it is said: "Where there is rigor, there is vigor; where there is severity, there is authority." The sense therefore is, as if to say: From human prudence you thought to escape difficulties and disturbances by remissness, and to gain peace and quiet; but I will punish you, by leading you into the very temptation which you were fleeing by the not good way; for I will requite your negligence with the sedition and commotion of your citizens, which you most certainly would have escaped, if you had not followed human prudence, but My counsels, and exercised zeal and spiritual fervor. This sense is very moral, prudent, and useful in practice. But the first sense, as the simplest and plainest, also seems the most genuine. For He intends this punishment not against the Church, but against the Bishop himself who has sinned. For this is what He says: "But if not, I will come to you, and I will move your lampstand."
Verse 6: Thou Hatest the Deeds of the Nicolaitans
6. You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. — Whose heresy was that it was lawful to fornicate, and to use women promiscuously, even married ones. See St. Augustine, heresy 5, and Clement of Alexandria, book 3 of the Stromateis, who excuse Nicolas, one of the seven first Deacons (from whom the heresy received its name and origin), but accuse those who understood his sayings perversely. "He, says St. Augustine, when he was reproached for his jealousy of his most beautiful wife, is said to have permitted, as if for the sake of clearing himself, that whoever wished should have her. Which deed of his was turned into a most shameful sect, by which the indiscriminate use of women is approved." From these arose the Gnostics, the most filthy heretics. Yet Nicolas is accused of disgrace by Epiphanius, book 1, heresy 25; Philastrius, on the heresy of the Nicolaitans; St. Jerome in his epistle to Heliodorus, namely that when ordained a Deacon, he had abstained from his wife whom he had as a beautiful one; afterwards however overcome by concupiscence, he returned to her; and when for this cause he was reproached by the Apostles, he devised the shameful heresy, namely that it was necessary for salvation to give attention to lust. Nicolas is also accused by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hilary, and others, whom Baronius cites, volume 5, year of Christ 68. The heresy and filthiness of the Nicolaitans broke out again under Louis the Pious, Emperor, son of Charlemagne; whom, because Louis did not resist as strenuously as was fitting, hence after death he paid the penalty in Purgatory for thirty years, after which were spent he appeared to his son likewise the Emperor Louis, demanding aid and prayers from him, as Cardinal Baronius narrates from the Franciscan Annals, volume 10, year of Christ 874 at the beginning.
Verse 7: To Him That Overcometh I Will Give to Eat of the Tree of Life
7. What the Spirit says to the Churches. — For what He says to the Bishop of Ephesus, this He says to his Church, and through it to all the others. "What I say to you, I say to all," Christ says to His Apostles.
TO HIM WHO OVERCOMES I WILL GIVE TO EAT OF THE TREE OF LIFE, — "TO HIM WHO OVERCOMES," namely the Nicolaitan heretics; likewise pagans and tyrants. Again "to him who overcomes" the world, the flesh, the demon, in the way that Martyrs, Doctors, Virgins, and Religious have overcome and overcome. For this is a general statement, says Pererius.
Secondly, properly applied to the matter at hand: by "to him that overcometh" — that is, his slackness and torpor — through true repentance, and a serious resolve to take up again his former works and former fervor of charity; for in this Christ had blamed this Bishop, and to this He rouses him by setting before him a reward, namely the tree of life, as if to say: If you shake off your weariness and torpor, I will give you the tree of life, by which you may recover your former strength, and so strengthen and confirm it, that henceforth weariness, age, and torpor may not creep up on you. For this is what the tree of life would have done in Paradise. So Rupert and Alcazar.
You will ask: what is this tree of life that Christ here promises? Some answer that it is Christ, who in the Paradise of the Church is set forth to all to be enjoyed: so Victorinus and Bede; and that this is in the Eucharist, say Rupert and Anastasius of Sinai, Book I of the Hexaemeron, tome I of the Library of the Holy Fathers; Paschasius, Book I On the Body of Christ, ch. vii and viii; and Alcazar, who adds that Christ here promises His help and protection through the Eucharist to those who shall firmly resolve within themselves to renew their former vows and desires, to take up again their old zeal and exertion, and not to grow weary in the exercise of the virtues; for the Eucharist, which is the bread of life, as Christ teaches in John vi, strengthens such people after the manner of the tree of life, confirms in them the powers of the soul, does not allow their former vigor to grow dull, and makes a man spiritually as it were immortal, ever lively and vigorous. For to this end Christ gave us and left us the Eucharist amid this corruption, infirmity, and languor of nature: indeed, by virtue of the Eucharist we shall rise to immortal life. For resurrection and immortality is the effect of the Eucharist, as it would have been the effect of the tree of life in Paradise. For this is what Christ says, John vi, 58: "He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever."
Furthermore, although the Eucharist provides this same grace to all who communicate worthily, it provides it more properly and far more abundantly to those who approach it with this serious resolve of renewing their fervor. The reason for this is that, just as the manna changed its taste according to each person's desire, Wisdom xvi, 21 — so that he who wished to taste bread in the manna tasted bread, not meat; he who wished meat tasted meat, not fish; he who wished fish tasted fish, not eggs — so likewise in the Eucharist, he who seeks humility receives humility; he who seeks charity, charity; he who has a serious resolve of renewing his fervor obtains the very thing he asks: so Alcazar.
This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm xxii, 5: "Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me." Theodoret and many others everywhere take this passage of the Eucharist, and especially St. Chrysostom on the same place, saying: "Who are they that afflict you? The suggestions of the enemy, lusts, the delights of the world, honors; but when we come to the table of the mighty One, the tribulations are turned into consolations, and from the prepared table we go forth strengthened against those who afflict us." For this cause St. Ignatius, writing to the Ephesians, exhorts Christians to frequent reception of the Eucharist: "Endeavor to assemble more frequently for the Eucharist, etc., breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote of death, and life-giving in God through Jesus Christ, a medicine cleansing from vices and driving away all evils." Wherefore in former times, down to the days of St. Jerome, the faithful at Rome and in Spain communicated daily, as he himself testifies in writing to Lucinius, epist. 28, and epist. 50. For this same cause they celebrated Masses in prison among the Martyrs in time of persecution; and indeed the faithful carried home particles of the Eucharist, so that during persecution, lest by the long duration of troubles and torments they should gradually grow lukewarm in faith, by frequent reception of it they might repair their strength, solidify their constancy, and prepare themselves with greater ardor for new struggles and torments, and even for martyrdom itself. And from this — namely from frequent and daily communion — flowed that fortitude of Sts. Lawrence, Agnes, Vincent, Sebastian, and others, who mocked the rack, the flames, and the tyrants, as well as their zeal and desire to die for Christ. So, to pass over others, St. Catherine of Siena restored the strength of body and soul by almost daily communion, and lived almost on this alone, scarcely eating bodily food. So great was her ardor for the Eucharist, so great her hunger, that if on any day she had not communicated, she seemed about to breathe out her soul; but as soon as she had communicated, she came forth in spirit and body so vigorous that she undertook immense labors and penances, and loathed all human food — indeed, she came to the table as to a rack, to nourishment as to torments.
Secondly, more genuinely and plainly, this tree of life is the fruition of God and beatitude, and the immortality consequent upon it. For this is the unfading crown of life and glory which Christ promises to His faithful, as if to say: "To him that overcometh I will give to eat," by contemplation and fruition, "of the tree of life," that is, of the Divinity which beatifies and gives immortal glory, as the wood, that is, the tree of life in paradise, did in an inchoate way, being a figure and type of this. That this is the true meaning will clearly appear in ch. xxii, v. 2, where by the tree of life is meant this beatitude and immortal glory. I have spoken of the tree of life on Genesis ii, 9.
So also Blessed Peter Damian beautifully adapts Christ's words to St. Victor the Confessor, on the first of September: "For he, says he, having received his name from his work, conquered before he knew how to conquer, and conquered no ordinary foe, but that one over whom victory is rare and never secure," etc.
Thus St. Bernard, describing the life of another St. Victor the Confessor, on the 26th of February: "He fought, he says, valiantly, manfully prevailed, and so at last is crowned with glory and honor. For how could the brave warrior, the humble Victor, have remained without glory? I marvel and am astonished that an infant still in the womb was a terror to the dread demons, since he was foreknown by them and even then designated by name: nor was the name empty, where the flight of the enemies and an extorted confession granted victory to the little child." And further on: "Let us imitate in the man his sober diet, his devout affection; let us imitate his meekness of spirit, chastity of body, custody of mouth, purity of soul, his bridling of anger and measure of speech, sleeping sparingly, praying frequently, admonishing ourselves with psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, joining nights to days, and occupying ourselves with divine praises." For these were the victories of St. Victor, which will likewise make us victors and crown us.
Such Conquerors and Victors among the Greeks were the holy Nicetæ, Nicandri, Nicanores, Nicetii, Nicones, who carried victory in their name as it were a presage; for νίκη in Greek is victory, and νίκα as νικητής etc., is the victor. Such was St. Nicæas the Martyr at Antioch, August 29. Such St. Nicander the Martyr at Melitene under Diocletian, November 7. Such Nicanor the Martyr in Egypt under Maximinus, April 5. Such St. Nicephorus the Martyr in Egypt under the Emperor Numerian, February 25. Such St. Nicetas the Martyr in Lycia, July 24. Such St. Nicetas the Goth, Martyr under Athanaric, September 15. Such St. Nicetius, bishop of Vienne, May 5. Such St. Nicostratus the tribune with his soldiers, Martyr at Cæsarea, May 21. Such St. Nicomedes the Martyr at Rome, September 15. Such St. Nicon the Martyr at Antioch, September 28. Such many others bearing similar names and similarly bearing the palm, as may be seen in the Martyrology index in Baronius. And especially Sts. Victor and Corona, illustrious Martyrs, May 22, of whom the Christian Poet sings elegantly thus:
How fittingly the Crown matches with holy Victor!
How rightly is the Crown bestowed upon Victor!
Such finally was St. Ursula, who merited not one but eleven thousand crowns, because she advanced as many virgins to the gem-set crowns of virginity and martyrdom; of whom the same Poet excellently writes:
Ursula, in weaving the little crowns for thee and thine,
I could believe that the hands of angels grew stiff with toil.
To these must be added Sts. Digna and Emerita, virgins and martyrs, September 24, of whom the same Poet says:
How well their names suit their deeds! To bear the palm
is Emerita's reward; the other was Digna ("Worthy").
Verse 8: To the Angel of the Church of Smyrna
8. And to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna write. — This is the second epistle of Christ to the Bishop of Smyrna, and under his person to any Bishops and Christians of approved and perfect virtue: so Alcazar.
Furthermore Smyrna is a city of Ionia in Asia, concerning which Strabo, Book XIV: "When the Lydians, he says, had overthrown Smyrna, it remained inhabited for about four hundred years in the manner of a village; afterwards Antigonus revived it, then Lysimachus, and now it is the most beautiful of all: part of it is situated on a hill, the greatest part in the plain. It also has a library and a Homereum, that is, a square portico with a temple and statue of Homer. For these especially claim this Poet for themselves: whence a certain bronze coin among them is called a Homer. The river Melas flows by the city walls: in addition to the rest of its structure, it has also an enclosed harbor." Thus far Strabo. Smyrna is also called by the Greeks myrrha. Therefore Smyrna means the same as myrrh, namely of passion and tribulation, for the patience in which its Angel is here praised.
You will ask: who was this Angel, that is, Bishop, of Smyrna? I answer: It is very likely that it was St. Polycarp. For he flourished at this time with eminent virtue and was ordained Bishop of Smyrna by St. John, as St. Jerome relates. So think Aureolus, Ribera, Pererius, Alcazar, and Lyranus, who says this is the common opinion. The chronology and reckoning of time supports it. For St. Polycarp was killed and met his death as a martyr in the year of Christ 169, having already served Christ — as he himself dying declared to the proconsul — for 86 years. He was therefore converted to Christ in the year of Christ 83. Wherefore in this year of Christ 97, in which John wrote these things, he had already been a Christian for fourteen years: he could therefore have been Bishop; indeed it suggests that he was, since he was consecrated by St. John. And St. John, after writing the Apocalypse and returning from exile, since he was now quite old, betook himself to nearby Ephesus, and there wrote his Gospel, and shortly after died there. Whence it does not seem he was at Smyrna after this time to ordain a Bishop there. Add that these persecutions and hatreds of the Jews, which St. John here lists, agree very well with St. Polycarp and his time, in which many were made Martyrs, as Eusebius narrates, Book IV of his History, ch. xv. Furthermore, how solid and perfect was the sanctity of St. Polycarp, so that these praises of Christ rightly belong to him, is plain both from the epistle of the Smyrnaeans, which they themselves wrote about him and his martyrdom in circular form, which is extant in Eusebius at the place cited; and from the very epistle of St. Polycarp to the Philippians, which is extant in tome III of the Library of the Holy Fathers, in which he candidly and holily instructs women, widows, young men, deacons, and others according to their rank and state to the perfection of Christian life, and finally among other things says: "Let us be imitators of His (Christ's) endurance, and if we have suffered for His name, let us glorify Him: for this is the judgment He has set concerning Himself, and we believe this. I beseech you all to attend to the word of justice and patience, which you have seen with the eye of faith, not only in those most blessed ones, Ignatius, Zosimus, and Rufus, but in others also who are among you, and in Paul and the rest of the Apostles, trusting that all these have not run in vain, but in faith and justice, and have gone to their due place with the Lord, with whom also they suffered; because they did not love this world, but Him who died for them and for us, and was raised by the Lord. While you can do good, do not fail to do so." And further on: "Now may God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself the everlasting High Priest, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, build you up in faith and truth, and in all meekness, and without anger, in patience and long-suffering and endurance and chastity, and grant you a lot and portion among His Saints, and us with you, and with all who are under heaven, who shall believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." Behold a heavenly breast, breathing forth the heavenly aromas of the virtues.
THESE THINGS SAITH THE FIRST AND THE LAST, WHO WAS DEAD, AND LIVETH. — See on these things what I said in ch. i, v. 18. He brings these things again to St. Polycarp, as if to say: I know that you are afflicted, that you are being driven to death and martyrdom; but be steadfast, look upon Me as a mirror: behold, I was slain and rose again; so also will you be slain, and with Me will rise in great glory.
Verse 9: I Know Thy Tribulation and Thy Poverty, but Thou Art Rich
9. I know thy tribulation (which thou sufferest from unbelieving persecutors), AND THY POVERTY. — Some understand poverty of spirit, of which it is said in Matt. v: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Secondly, others understand the lack and scarcity of temporal goods and human supports. For of old the Bishops were poor: for episcopal sees had not yet been endowed. Thirdly and best, by poverty take that to which they were reduced by the despoiling and loss of their goods. For that the faithful suffered this then is plain from St. Paul, Hebr. x, 34: "You took with joy the being stripped of your own goods." For this poverty is joined to tribulation, that is, persecution; therefore it pertains to it: so Richard, Primasius, Aretas, Rupert, Ticonius, Bede, and others.
BUT THOU ART RICH — in God, in trust in God, in His protection and providence. Again, "thou art rich" in grace and in spiritual goods. Thus St. James, ch. ii, v. 5, says: "Rich in faith;" Ecclus. xliv, 6: "Rich men in virtue;" and 1 Tim. vi, 18: "Rich in good works."
Add: "He is rich who lacks nothing," who is αὐτάρκης (self-sufficient), and content, indeed glad, with his poverty. Truly Seneca, epist. 2: "An honorable thing, he says, is cheerful poverty. Indeed, that is no poverty, if it is cheerful: for he with whom poverty agrees well is rich; not he who has little, but he who desires more, is poor." And epist. 17: "If you wish to be at leisure of mind, you must either be poor, or like the poor." And in epist. 16, he praises that saying of Epicurus: "If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to opinions, you will never be rich: nature desires little, opinion an immense amount." And epist. 18: "No one is more worthy of God than he who has despised wealth, the possession of which I do not forbid you, but I wish to bring it about that you possess it intrepidly." See what I said on 1 Tim. vi, 6.
Finally, you are poor on earth, but rich in heaven: for there you have many riches stored up. Beautifully St. Augustine, and from him Bede on that passage of 2 Cor. ch. viii, Christ for our sake became poor: "All good faithful, then, he says, are rich; let no one despise himself, the poor man in his cell, rich in conscience, sleeps more securely on the ground than the rich man in purple sleeps on gold." And St. Jerome to Heliodorus: "He is amply rich who is poor with Christ." And to Pammachius: "The disciple of Christ ought to provide more than the philosopher of the world, that creature of glory and of popular breath, and slave bought with rumors;" as Crates and others, who threw their wealth into the sea so that they might philosophize more freely. To the Christian philosopher, that is, the religious, "let Christ be all things, so that he who has given up all things for Christ may find Him alone in the place of all things, and may with free voice proclaim: The Lord is my portion." Thus, says the same Jerome, St. Hilarion, "inflamed with the confidence of a poor conscience, rejoiced in this, that he had nothing of the world, and that he was thought a beggar by his neighbors."
Truly and movingly St. Jerome concludes the story of St. Paul, the first hermit, poor and half-naked, living and dying in the bare desert, thus: "It pleases me at the end of the little work to question those who do not know the extent of their own patrimony, who clothe their houses with marble, who join up the lands of country estates by a single thread: what was ever lacking to this naked old man? You drink from gems, he satisfied himself with the cupped hands of nature. You weave gold in your tunics, he had not even the meanest garment of your slave. But, on the contrary, paradise stands open to him, the poor little man, while hell will receive you, the avaricious. He, though naked, kept the garment of Christ: you, clothed in silks, have lost the garment of Christ. Paul lies covered in the meanest dust, to rise again in glory: you are weighed down by the laborious tombs of stone, about to burn with your wealth. Spare, I beg you, yourselves: spare at least the riches you have loved. Why do you wrap your dead too in gilded garments? Why does ambition not cease amid grief and tears? Are the corpses of the rich incapable of rotting except in silk? I beseech you, whoever reads these things, to remember Jerome the sinner; to whom, if the Lord were to give the choice, he would much rather choose Paul's tunic with his merits, than the purple of kings with their punishments." The same thought St. Augustine had and urged, Book I On the City of God, ch. v: "Give, he says, temporal things, receive eternal; give earth, receive heaven."
THOU ART BLASPHEMED BY THOSE WHO SAY THEY ARE JEWS, AND ARE NOT. — Βλασφημία (blasphēmia) is the same as δυσφημία (dysphēmia), that is, defamation, reproach, disgrace; but in Ecclesiastical usage it is taken for an insult cast against God or the Saints: yet sometimes in Scripture it is taken generally in its proper meaning, so that to blaspheme is the same as to defame, revile, slander. Thus Paul says to Titus iii, 2: "Admonish them, etc., to speak evil of no man." And 1 Cor. iv, 13: "We are blasphemed, and we entreat." Thus Goliath is said to have blasphemed Israel, 1 Chron. xx, 7. Thus God says He has heard "the reproach of Moab, and the blasphemies of the children of Ammon, who reproached the people," Ezek. v, 15. And Isa. li, 7: "Do not, He says, fear the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their blasphemies." Commonly, however, it is taken for a reproach against God or the Saints. Thus the Emperor Justinian in the Authentic Constitutions, 77, says: "Famines, earthquakes, and pestilences are sent by God when angered because of blasphemies, and these are to be rooted out by the ultimate punishment." Whence St. Louis, king of France, decreed that the tongue of the blasphemer should be burned with red-hot iron. Here it is taken in both senses. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: "Thou art blasphemed," that is, assailed with insult, and you are accounted and called by the Jews — who falsely claim to be the true worshippers of religion and of God — not faithful and pious, but as if an enemy of the Law and of Judaism, since you are a follower of Christ, impious and execrable. For these are not true Jews, that is, those confessing and worshipping God, such as Judah was (from whom they are called Jews) and the other fathers of theirs, because these persecute Christ. For, as the Apostle says, Rom. ii, 28: "He is not a Jew, who is so outwardly; but he is a Jew, that is one inwardly." For this is the true Jew, the worshipper and confessor of God, "whose praise is not from men, but from God."
For the first persecution of Christians was stirred up by the Jews, and through the Jews, who incited the Gentiles against the Christians. Whence in the Acts of the Apostles the Jews are so often read to have persecuted Paul.
St. Augustine excellently in the Sentences, no. 32: "All, he says, who wish to live piously in Christ, must necessarily suffer reproaches from the impious and unlike, and be despised as fools and madmen, because they let go of present goods and promise themselves invisible goods to come. But this contempt and mockery will be turned back upon the impious, when their abundance passes into want, and their pride into confusion."
Verse 10: Be Thou Faithful Unto Death, and I Will Give Thee the Crown of Life
10. THE DEVIL WILL CAST SOME OF YOU INTO PRISON. — Among these was Germanicus the Martyr, who was thrown to the wild beasts, indeed willingly threw himself; Pionius, who was pierced with nails; Polycarp, who was given to the fire; and many others, of whom the Church of Smyrna wrote a circular epistle most worthy of reading, which is extant in Eusebius, Book IV of his History, ch. xv, in which, describing the constancy of the Martyrs in enduring sufferings, they say among other things: "The bystanders were astonished to see them torn by scourges down to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the more hidden inward parts of the body, the viscera and members, lay open to view; then they saw seashells and certain sharp obelisks placed under the Martyrs, and every kind of punishment and torment inflicted, and at length they saw them given to the beasts to be devoured."
THAT YE MAY BE TRIED, — that is, that you may be tested by various hardships and torments. Truly St. Gregory, hom. 9 on Ezekiel: "No one, he says, can become Abel whom Cain's malice does not exercise." And St. Augustine on Psalm liv: "Do not think, he says, that the wicked are in this world for nothing, and that God does no good through them: every wicked man either lives for this purpose, that he may be corrected; or lives for this purpose, that through him the good man may be exercised."
AND YE SHALL HAVE TRIBULATION TEN DAYS. — "Ten," that is, on all the days of life. "For there is no place for joy, where the whole life of man is temptation:" so Primasius, Bede, and Rupert. For the number ten, in the Decalogue and elsewhere, signifies universality, and is taken to mean all.
Secondly, Andrew of Caesarea, Aretas, and Alcazar: "Ten," that is, few, "days." For in like manner ten is taken for a few in Numbers xi, 19, although elsewhere, depending on the context, ten is taken for many.
Thirdly, Bede, Haymo, Lyranus, and Joachim think that here are signified the ten persecutions of Christians stirred up by the Roman Emperors, which are counted from Nero down to Diocletian.
Fourthly, Lyranus, as if to say: "Ten days," that is, you shall have perfect tribulation: for the number ten is the symbol of perfection.
Fifthly, the same Lyranus: "Ten days," that is, he says, ten years.
Sixthly, St. Ambrose: "Ten days," because, he says, although this tribulation lasts for many days and months, yet for ten days it will be most cruel.
Seventhly and best, Pererius and Ribera: "Ten," that is many, "days." Thus Job says ch. xix, v. 3: "Behold, ten times," that is often, "you confound me." Numbers xiv, 22: "They have tempted me now ten times," that is, many times. 1 Sam. ch. i, v. viii: "Am I not better to thee than ten," that is many, "sons?" and elsewhere everywhere.
BE THOU FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH, AND I WILL GIVE THEE THE CROWN OF LIFE. — Eternal happiness is called a crown. First, because it is given to those contending and conquering. For it alludes to boxers, athletes, and others wrestling in the stadium or contest, e.g. the Olympic, as I have said on 1 Cor. ch. ix, v. 25. So Augustine, Book I On the Christian Combat. As a type of this matter, God willed the Hebrews to advance armed in ranks and squadrons into the promised land. Whence in Cant. vii, this crown and glory of the Church and the faithful is likened to a palm. "Thy stature," he says, "is like to a palm tree;" and this for three reasons, says Bede in the same place. First, because the more the palm is pressed down, the more it rises up: so also the athlete of Christ. Secondly, because the palm is rough below, beautiful above, and sweet in its fruits: so also the boxer of Christ. Thirdly, because the palm is the ornament of the victor's hand.
Secondly, because the round crown signifies perfection and the embrace of all goods and joys, lacking beginning and end like a circle and a crown.
Thirdly, because it is most precious like a crown adorned with gems, according to that of Psalm xx: "Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones." The twelve gems of this crown drawn from the sacred Scriptures Viegas lists in Commentary 2. I have said beautiful things about this crown on Isaiah ch. lxi, v. 10, and ch. lxii, v. 3.
Furthermore it is called the crown of life, that it may signify that the Saints who laid down their life for Christ, and were slain, have not lost life, but have exchanged it for a better; for it most fittingly answers to death endured for Christ, as the reward of true life: so Richard of St. Victor and Abbot Joachim, whose words are these: "The crown of life is promised, because those who give their life to God, with the triumph of a precious death come to true life; because, in order that they might preserve it in the kingdom, they lost it in exile, according to that of John xii: He that loveth his life, shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal."
Secondly, "of life," because their glory and joy will live forever, and they themselves will always be vigorous, and will flourish forever, will never grow old, never fail, never be wearied. Whence this life and glory is called by St. Peter, 1 Epistle, ch. v, "unfading;" and by St. Paul, 1 Cor. ix, 25, "incorruptible."
Thirdly, because life includes delights, glory, wisdom, and every good: for this flows from this life. This immense and eternal crown of life, then, Christ sets before the eyes of His own, so that, gazing continually on it, they may generously and constantly overcome whatever is harsh and adverse, and remain faithful in His love unto death and the cross. Among others illustrious in this matter was St. Agatha, virgin and martyr, who, tempted in marvelous ways, eager for the crown, remained faithful to Christ her Spouse unto death. She herself was most noble, most rich, most honorable, and most beautiful, so that the proconsul Quintianus, captivated by love of her, acted not so much as judge as suitor; but in vain. Wherefore he handed her over to Aphrodisia, that she might bend her by her enticements: and although she like a Siren chanted Agatha pleasures and delights night and day, the Saint, as one deaf, fixed her whole mind on Christ. But when she did not cease soliciting, Agatha at length replied: "Your voice and your tongue I receive not as yours, but as the instrument and tongue of the cacodemon (evil spirit), who suggests these things to you. But know that you are wasting time and effort, and singing to a deaf person. For I am so fixed and confirmed in the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, and so constant in the vow of virginity which I have made to Him, that through His grace I trust quite plainly that the sun will sooner lose its rays, fire its heat, snow its whiteness, than I shall change my will and resolve. Let Quintianus prepare lions, kindle the pyre, stretch the racks, open the gates of hell if he can, and stir up all the power and torments of demons against me, I will receive everything willingly and joyfully, that I may die a Christian and a virgin. I fear no violence of Quintianus, because I know that I am dear and a care to God, to whom I have consecrated body and soul." Wherefore Aphrodisia, reporting the words and deeds to the proconsul, said: "It is easier to soften stones, or to turn iron into lead, than to move Agatha's mind from the love and chastity of Christ. For I and my daughters for thirty days, day and night, have continually assailed her mind, now by flattery, now by threats, now by terrifying, now by promising; but she remains immovable as adamant. For she values everything under heaven, for the sake of Christ, no more than the dust of the earth which she treads under foot; nay, all day and night she thinks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else, but to die for Christ." Quintianus therefore, summoning Agatha, employed all arts, all devices, to bend her. To whom the Saint replied: "Outside of Christ I desire nor want neither life nor salvation nor anything else. There is no reason for you to hope, O Quintianus, to strike me down by your cruelty. For I know that there is no hind, however panting and thirsty, that so desires clear water as I desire and thirst for your torments, that through them I may be united to Christ and embrace Him. Therefore if you wish to draw iron against me, behold my neck; if scourges, behold my shoulders; if fire, behold my whole body, torture as you prefer. Burn, cut, bind, stretch, break, tear, transfix, slay: the more cruelly you rage against me, the greater the benefit you confer on me, the more pleasing and glorious I shall be to my sweet Spouse. Why do you tarry? why delay? Bring out the scourges, the swords, the crosses, the racks, the fires, the lions. To a thirsting soul every hour is too long a delay." She spoke and made good her words. For she generously, as if playfully, endured the twisting and cutting off of her breasts, the potsherds, fires, burning plates and other dire torments, and dying as a martyr she flew up to heaven. So great a deed was led by a woman.
In a similar way Christ set this crown of life before St. Vitalis the Martyr, of whom St. Ambrose, who found his relics and those of St. Agricola at Bologna, writes thus in epistle 55: "St. Vitalis (so called, as if by the contempt of this life he might gain for himself another life which is eternal), when he was assailed by persecutors to deny Christ, and he confessed Him the more steadfastly, was so tortured with every kind of torment that there was no place on his body without a wound. Wherefore he poured out this prayer to the Lord, saying: Lord Jesus Christ, my Savior and my God, command that my spirit be received, because I now desire to receive the crown which Thy holy angel has shown me. And, his prayer ended, he gave up his spirit."
Verse 11: He That Overcometh Shall Not Be Hurt by the Second Death
11. HE THAT OVERCOMETH SHALL NOT BE HURT BY THE SECOND DEATH, — that is, by sin, which separates the soul from its life, that is, from the grace of God: so Rupert and Albert the Great. Secondly and properly, the first death is that by which the body dies in this life, of which I just said: "Be faithful unto death." The second death is that by which soul and body always die in hell, where the pains are greater than in bodily death; and yet they are never dead. That this is so is plain from ch. xx and xxi, where it is said: "Their portion shall be in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." So Victorinus Andreas, Bede, Lyranus, and Haymo, who however thinks that the first death is called not the death of the body, but of the soul through sin. Christ therefore says here the same as in Matt. x, 28: "Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in hell." The first death therefore is of the body, the second death is of hell. Hence the goad of death is effective for combat and victory; whence Xenophon used it, while urging the Greeks to fight bravely against the Persians: "He who, he says, desires to see his own people, let him show himself vigorous; he who is held by the desire of living, let him strive to conquer: for to the victor are appointed the slaughter and spoils of the enemies, to the conquered, death." So he himself relates in Book III On the Expeditions.
Verse 12: To the Angel of the Church of Pergamum
AND TO THE ANGEL OF PERGAMUM WRITE. — Pergamus, or Pergamum, was a most famous city of Asia or of the Troad, through which the river Silenus flows, from which Claudius Galen, prince of physicians, took his origin. This same city is called Troy. Whence Vergil, Aeneid Book II: "Beholding Troy in flames, and Pergamum laid low." P. Scipio, a most noble man, died at Pergamum, as Cicero testifies, oration For Flaccus. Hence the Lavinian Pergama in Italy, concerning which Silius, Book XIII.
Now the Phrygian victor was founding the Lavinian Pergama,
And was fixing his Trojan arms in the Laurentine grove.
Thus he calls Lavinium, a town in Latium founded by Aeneas.
King of Pergamum was Attalus, who, having been granted that kingdom by the Roman people, since he had no children, made the Roman people his heir. Parchments also were discovered at Pergamum, says Varro, which from there were called Pergamene, which they used of old in place of papyrus and paper.
This is the third epistle of Christ to the Bishop of Pergamum, and under his person to the faithful otherwise praiseworthy, but in this reprehensible, that they shrink back from the spiritual battle, says Alcazar.
You will ask: Who was the Angel, that is, Bishop, of Pergamum? Aureolus and Lyranus answer that it was St. Carpus. For it is established that he was a Bishop, and was crowned by martyrdom at Pergamum under the emperor Antoninus, as is plain from Eusebius, Book IV of the History, xv. But Eusebius there only asserts that Carpus was slain at Pergamum, not however that he was Bishop there. Again the Roman Martyrology, on April 13, calls St. Carpus the Martyr Bishop of Thyatira, not of Pergamum. Therefore who this Bishop was is not clear. So Pererius, Alcazar, and others.
THESE THINGS SAITH HE WHO HAS THE SHARP TWO-EDGED SWORD, — that is, a sword, of which I have spoken in ch. i, v. 16. By this symbol He signifies, first, that not Caesar the persecutor is to be feared, but Christ, who can cut asunder and destroy soul and body with His sword. Secondly, that the Bishop ought to imitate Christ, so that he may courageously and boldly brandish the sword of the word of God against the Nicolaitans (v. 18) and other heretics, and wage sharp war against them: so Joachim, Alcazar, and others.
Pannonius notes that in this sword of Christ there is reference and allusion to the angel who stood with drawn sword against Balaam and wished to kill him, Num. xxii, 23; whence He adds: "Thou hast them that hold the doctrine of Balaam."
Verse 13: I Know Where Thou Dwellest, Where the Seat of Satan Is
13. I KNOW WHERE THOU DWELLEST, WHERE THE SEAT (in Greek θρόνος, throne) OF SATAN IS. — Where, namely, Satan rules partly through the Gentiles, partly through the Nicolaitans. "Pergamus," says Aretas, "was given to idolatry above the rest of Asia." Whence there was great persecution of the Christians in it, as is plain from the martyrdom of Antipas, of which follows, and from Eusebius at the place cited. And this was the cause of the fear and pusillanimity of the Bishop of Pergamum, that he did not dare to oppose himself to the Nicolaitans, for which he is reproved by Christ in v. 15.
AND IN THOSE DAYS (lived and was renowned) ANTIPAS MY FAITHFUL WITNESS, WHO WAS SLAIN AMONG YOU. — He praises the constancy in faith of the Bishop of Pergamum, as if to say: You, O Bishop, did not waver in faith and constancy even at this cruel spectacle and martyrdom of Antipas; but rather came forth stronger and more solid.
Antipas, while Domitian was raging against the Christians, Bishop of Pergamum, publicly preached Christ, and forced the demons to confess that they were put to flight when invoked by him through the name of Christ. Hence he was seized by the Prefect of the city, dragged to the temple of Diana, and cast into a brazen bull glowing with much fire, praising and giving thanks to God that He had deemed him worthy of this contest and laurel of martyrdom, the Martyr flew up to heaven about the year of Christ 93, the tenth of Domitian: when also St. John, seized in Asia and brought to Rome, was plunged into boiling oil, and when he had escaped safe and unharmed, was banished into exile: so Aretas, Metaphrastes, Baronius, and Pererius. See the martyrdom of Antipas in Surius, on April 11. Furthermore the brazen bull in which Antipas was burned was transferred from Pergamum to Constantinople, and placed in the temple of the Apostles, says Baronius from Cedrenus, in the year of Christ 330.
Verse 14: Thou Hast There Them That Hold the Doctrine of Balaam
14. THOU HAST THERE THEM THAT HOLD THE DOCTRINE OF BALAAM. — Note: Balaam, the soothsayer, called by Balak, king of Moab, and that he should curse the Hebrews as they made their way from Egypt into Canaan through the territory of Moab, since, God forbidding, he was not able to do this, but rather was constrained to bless them, he suggested to King Balac that he should send to the camp of the Hebrews beautiful Moabite girls, who should invite them to fornication, on this price and condition: that the Hebrews should first eat things sacrificed to idols (that is, flesh offered to idols), and venerate Chamos and their other idols. Balaam did this with the design of turning the Hebrews away from God to lust and to idols; so that the Hebrews, in turn, being abandoned by their God offended and angered, might be cursed by him and conquered by Balac. From this came that slaughter of the Hebrews who worshiped Beelphegor, Num. xxv, 3. See what is said there. Furthermore, that Balaam gave this counsel is plainly evident from Num. xxxi, 16. Therefore he compares the Nicolaitans to Balaam, because, like him, they taught that it was lawful to indulge the belly and Venus, to feast lavishly on whatever one pleased, even if it were food sacrificed to idols, forbidden by the Apostolic law (Acts xv), so that gluttony might be the kindling of lust: these banquets, then, prepared for luxury, were as it were the things sacrificed to idols of those "whose God was their belly:" so Alcazar. For otherwise we do not read in history that the Nicolaitans expressly taught that it was lawful to eat things sacrificed to idols.
Verse 15: So Hast Thou Also Them That Hold the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans
Symbolically and tropologically, Blessed Peter Damian says the heresy of the Nicolaitans is the concubinage of priests, against which, raging in his own century — that is, in the year of the Lord 980 — he himself contended most fiercely. Hear him in epistle 6 to Nicholas II, Roman Pontiff: "Dost thou not tremble, O unhappy Bishop (he addresses by apostrophe a concubinary bishop, not the chaste Pope Nicholas), that, while thou plungest into the abyss of luxury, thou hast incurred the heresy of the Nicolaitans? For Nicholas, one of those whom Peter the Apostle had consecrated as Deacons, taught that clerics of every order should be united in nuptial bonds. What therefore he taught in words, thou, sitting in the chair of pestilence, dost invite to far more grievously by example. Concerning which crime the divine voice says to the Angel of the Ephesian Church: Thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Hence in that age this concubinage of priests was called the heresy of the Nicolaitans.
Verse 16: I Will Fight Against Them With the Sword of My Mouth
16. LIKEWISE (as I declared and prescribed repentance to the Ephesian Bishop in verse 5: so Ambrose and Primasius. Wherefore some wrongly think there is an error here, and that into the Greek, in place of ἃ μισῶ — that is, which I hate — there has crept ὁμοίως — that is, likewise) DO PENANCE, — drive away fear, take courage, and boldly contend against the Nicolaitans, and uproot them according to thy strength.
If not (that is, otherwise), I WILL COME TO THEE QUICKLY, — chastising both thee and them. Again "quickly," because every dominion and prelacy is a brief life. We see this at Rome in the Cardinals and Supreme Pontiffs. Blessed Peter Damian, asked by Pope Alexander II why no one of the Pontiffs has reached the years of St. Peter, indeed why most scarcely preside over the Church for four or five years, replies in epistle 17 to the same: "Therefore the order of heavenly judgment so disposes things, that it may strike fear of death into the human race; and how contemptible the glory of temporal life is, it may evidently show even in the very pinnacle of glory: so that, while the foremost of men dies in the brief compass of so narrow a time, every man, made to tremble, is roused to keep watch in expectation of his own death; and the tree of the human race, when it sees that its summit and crown have so easily fallen, shaken by the gust of fear, trembles in all its branches on every side." For the Pope is, as it were, the sun of the world, whose eclipse, when all behold, they are smitten.
AND I WILL FIGHT AGAINST THEM WITH THE SWORD OF MY MOUTH — namely, by the command, sentence, and decree of effective vengeance, as if to say: I will pronounce against them the sentence of death, and I will inflict it upon them in deed through angels and other ministers of mine, and I will slay them and put them to death by a death both present and eternal.
Alcazar interprets it differently: for he takes this sword to mean the word of God, by which God, preaching to the Nicolaitans through the lowest of the people, was about to convert them. Christ, he says, had accused the Bishop of cowardice, because, though armed with the sword of the word of God, he yet did not dare contend with the Nicolaitans: to which no more fitting threat or punishment could be added than that God would raise up some men from the lowest of the people who would contend with the Nicolaitans, conquer them, and bring them under the truth: as if God were transferring this expedition and crown to others, and leaving the Bishop suffused and covered with shame. For this shame would be a great punishment for him. And this is what is said in chapter III, verse 11, to the Bishop of Philadelphia: "Hold fast what thou hast, that no man take thy crown." But this explanation seems partly foreign and partly mystical.
Verse 17: To Him That Overcometh I Will Give the Hidden Manna
17. TO HIM THAT OVERCOMETH — both the deeds of the Nicolaitans and the foul pleasures of the flesh, and still more his own faintheartedness, which I, Christ, have rebuked in thee, O Bishop of Pergamum. For in these epistles of Christ "the conqueror" is the name given to the Bishop who carries out in deed what Christ commands him therein, and in that matter generously overcomes and transcends both himself and the difficulties that arise in the affair: so Alcazar.
I WILL GIVE HIDDEN MANNA. — This manna signifies a remarkable sweetness and delight; but what kind and what sort?
First, this manna is the Eucharist, say Ticonius, Bede, Rupert, and Aretas: for manna, on account of its taste and other reasons which I recounted in Exodus chapter xvi, and which Viegas reviews here in section 4, was a type of the Eucharist, in which Christ is hidden. Bede and Rupert note that the phrase "to him that overcometh," namely gluttony and lusts, must be referred to the chastity and purity of mind and body, to which the Nicolaitans were opposed: for this is the necessary disposition for holy communion.
Second, Richard of St. Victor judges this manna to be the secrets of the Divinity and eternal felicity. For this, says Pererius, is signified by three most desirable goods; for manna denotes the unspeakable sweetness of felicity; the stone, the wealth and price of the same; the name, the brightness of fame and glory.
Third, Primasius and Ambrose take it as Christ, who was hidden first in the law, second in the flesh, third in the Eucharist. Hence it is said in Isaiah xlv, 13: "Verily Thou art a hidden God."
Fourth, St. Bernard, in the book On the Conversion of Clerics, chapter xxi: This manna, he says, is the sweetness which is perceived in the contemplation of heavenly things. "It is the sweetness of the Lord; unless thou shalt have tasted, thou shalt not see: taste and see that the Lord is sweet. The manna is hidden; the new name is such that no one is it except him who receives it: not erudition, but unction teaches it; nor knowledge, but conscience grasps it."
Fifth and best, this manna is the spiritual consolations, which are given as a fitting reward by God to him who conquers both the delights, temptations, and carnal concupiscences, and also his own fear and faintheartedness, such as this of the Bishop of Pergamum was. For He appositely arouses him by proposing to him that, in the war which he had to undertake against the Nicolaitans by Christ's command, there would not be that horror and those bitter difficulties which he himself apprehended and dreaded; because God would not only be present to him, but would also pour into him such serenity of mind, such consolation, and such an abundance of spiritual joys that he would exult even in the midst of enemies and dangers: such as the Apostolic men now experience who dwell among the Indians, Hollanders, and English, especially when they celebrate and receive the holy Eucharist. For this is truly and properly the hidden manna, which is not seen externally, but is felt and tasted internally in the soul of the faithful man devoted to God. Hence St. Paul says, Col. iii, 3: "Your life is hidden with Christ in God."
Now these consolations are called manna because they are wonderful and immense, so that those who receive them wonder and are astonished, and say man hu, what is this? "How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for those that fear Thee!" Psalm xxx, 20. For this consolation is a certain foretaste of eternal beatitude, in which this manna will be most perfect.
Note: Those who desire this manna must conquer their concupiscences as well as their fears and passions; for it is promised to him who conquers. Hence the temptation that precedes is wont to be the sign of the consolation that follows. For heaven is promised to those proved by temptation, and the promised consolation is given. Experience shows that no one heroically overcomes any temptation, infirmity, faintheartedness, or contempt without soon feeling a wonderful pleasure and joy of the soul, which far surpasses adverse sadness as well as the delights of concupiscence. Let each one make trial within himself, and he will feel that it is so. Thus St. Bernard, in his preface on the Psalm Qui habitat, recounting the mortifications of his Religious — fasts, vigils, labors, sweats, temptations — adds: "What remedy then? That the labor be kept, and yet this labor be made sweet by divine sweetness. For if your tribulation abounds for Him, your consolation will abound through Him, so that the soul may be delighted in Him, which has refused to be consoled by these things. For with Him even the very tribulation can be found to be a great consolation. For is it not certain that what you bear is above human strength, beyond nature, contrary to custom? Another, then, carries these things — He, without doubt, who, according to the Apostle, carries all things by the word of His power." And to Clerics, chapter xxx: "The sufferings of this time," he says, "are not worthy to be compared with past guilt, which is remitted; nor with present consolation, which is poured in; nor with future glory, which is promised. Lastly, no bitterness is so great that the prophetic meal does not sweeten it, that the wisdom-tree of life does not render savory." This manna the royal Psalmist tasted, when, transcending the wealth and delights of his kingdom and clinging to God, inscribing his psalms To the Conqueror, he sang Psalm xxxiv: "My soul shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall delight in His salvation; all my bones shall say: Lord, who is like unto Thee?" And Psalm xxxv: "They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house, and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure." And Psalm lxxxiii: "My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God." And St. Paul saying: "We glory in tribulations; if God be for us, who is against us? who shall separate us from the love of Christ? tribulation, etc. I am sure that neither death, nor life," etc., Rom. chapter viii. And St. James, chapter i, verse 2: "Esteem it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into divers temptations."
Do you wish for Confessors? Abbot John in Cassian, Collation XIX, IV, conquering all worldly things and ascending in mind to heaven, was wont to be so flooded with inward sweetness that he would not even remember whether he had eaten the day before.
St. Ephrem, scorning all earthly delights, exulted with such joy that his inward parts seemed about to burst. Wherefore he cried out: "Withdraw from me a little, Lord, for the weakness of this vessel cannot bear it."
St. Bernard, conqueror of gluttony and of all enticements, was so absorbed in heavenly joys that, riding all day along a lake, he never saw it; and dwelling for a whole year in one cell, he still did not know whether that cell had a vaulted ceiling.
Our holy Father Ignatius so abounded in a flood of sweet tears that he nearly lost his eyes; and indeed he would have lost them had he not, at the warning of physicians and at the urging of his companions, obtained from God the power either to release them or to restrain them at will.
St. Xavier, fixed upon heaven, was so flooded with divine consolations that he cried out: "It is enough, Lord, it is enough." In Japan, walking on foot, he was so absorbed in God that he often turned aside from the road and ran into thorns, brambles, and stones, without noticing it: wherefore his soles and shins were always flowing with blood, while yet he did not even feel it.
St. Catherine of Siena, victress over all things sensible: "So great," she said, "is the joy that holds my mind, that I greatly marvel that the soul can endure in the body;" and she added: "I feel so great a fire in my soul that material fire seems to me to be cold rather than to burn. From this fire, moreover, there arises in my soul a certain renewal of purity and humility, so that I seem to myself to have returned to the age of four or five years; and so great a fraternal love is kindled in me from this, that I would not only willingly, but also gladly, undergo death for any neighbor whatsoever." Then from God she received the gift of apathy and constancy, so that whatever might happen to her, she would remain wholly unmoved.
Do you wish for Martyrs? St. Adelphardus, banished into exile by the Emperor Louis because he had freely reproached him for his sins, so rejoiced and congratulated himself, that he reckoned his exile as paradise, and said that there he was recovering his pristine liberty in Christ. So has it his Life, which Paschasius Rathertus, Abbot of Corbie, wrote.
St. Tiburtius the Martyr, walking with bare feet upon glowing coals: "To me," he said, "these coals seem roses; for the creature serves the command of the Creator."
St. Clement, Bishop of Ancyra and Martyr, underwent an arduous, long, and continuous martyrdom for twenty years, with such constancy and joy that he said he was receiving an immense benefit from the President and tyrant, as well as an honor, because through his cruelty he was being made a sharer in the passion of Christ as well as in the crown of the holy Martyrs.
Theodorus the Martyr, under Maximian, most cruelly had burned, while his ribs were laid bare, he exulted so that he sang: "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall be ever in my mouth," as we read in the office of the Church, November 9.
St. Andrew, led to the cross, seeing it from afar, with inward jubilation of mind so saluted it: "O good cross, which hast taken thy beauty from the limbs of the Lord, long desired, anxiously loved, sought without ceasing, and at last prepared for a longing soul, receive me from men, and restore me to my master, that He who redeemed me through thee may receive me through thee." St. Sisinnius the Deacon, condemned by Maximian to carry stones and sand for the building of the baths of Diocletian, in this long and harsh martyrdom so exulted in soul that he not only continually took upon his shoulders his own weight and burden, but also that of the feeble old man Saturninus; and meanwhile he sang hymns and praises to God assiduously. Wherefore Maximian, raging, ordered him to be racked together with Saturninus on the rack and most cruelly torn with scourges, and burned with torches; but in these torments both had no other voice than: "Glory to Thee, O Christ, who deignest to make us sharers in Thy passion." So has it the Life of St. Saturninus, November 29.
AND I WILL GIVE HIM A WHITE STONE (the Arabic: clear, true, absolute, in which there is no falsity or obscurity), AND IN THE STONE A NEW NAME WRITTEN, WHICH NO MAN KNOWETH, BUT HE THAT RECEIVETH IT. — First, Victorinus: A white stone, he says, is a white gem — namely, the adoption of man into a son of God, in which is written a new name, that is, the name of Christian.
Second, Bede: A white stone, he says, is the body made white in baptism, later shining with the glory of the resurrection. The new name is the name of the Son of God.
Third, Aretas: The white stone is the brightness of the name.
Fourth, Haymo and St. Jerome, in epistle 143 to Damasus, which begins Septuaginta: The white stone, they say, is called a carbuncle, because in the darkness it shines like a glowing coal: this is the Word made flesh, or Christ Himself. But carbuncle in Greek is properly called ἄνθραξ, while here it is ψῆφος.
Fifth, Ambrose: The pebble, he says, which is a small stone and so called from being trodden upon (calcando), is the Gospel of Christ in which His name is written, namely that with which John began, saying: "In the beginning was the Word." The white pebble, therefore, is the pure and white doctrine of Christ.
Sixth, Rupert and Hugo: The white stone, they say, will be the glory of bodies in heaven. By the hardness of the stone, says Cardinal Hugo, is signified the dowry of impassibility; by the whiteness, brightness; by the new name, the full obedience and subjection of the body to the soul, which is not so now, from which shall be born agility and subtlety. Again, the new name, says Hugo, will be Jesuans, or Jesuites — that is, the saved, by which all in heaven shall be called.
Seventh, Ansbert: This stone is charity, which has whiteness because it is a garment; and fire, because it is love.
Eighth, Hugo again: The white stone is Christ in the Eucharist, on which Viegas has much here, in section 6.
Ninth, Pererius: "The white stone," he says, "denotes incomparable wealth, that is, an abundance of precious things."
Tenth, Alcazar takes the white stone for a most perfect grade, and one of the highest price with God, to which the Bishop of Pergamum will attain if he sharply contends with the enemies for the Gospel. This grade is the highest imitation of Christ, and the greatest grace with Him, by which he can easily overcome any difficulty whatsoever, saying with St. Paul: "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me." For Christ devoted Himself wholly for the glory of God, and for it contended even unto death against all His enemies; he who imitates Christ in this stands on the lofty summit of heroic and Christian virtues, and is given by Christ the precious stone of His imitation — that is, the carbuncle — by which, supremely rich and joyful, with every fear cast off, courageous and glorious, he will remain as it were a Seraph. For Alcazar thinks that an allusion is here made to the vision of the Seraphim in Isaiah vi, and that the stone, both that promised here to the Bishop of Pergamum and that placed upon the lips of Isaiah, was a carbuncle, which would inflame both with the love of God and as it were make him a Seraph. Now, because this gem, he says, is given to the imitator of Christ that by Christ's virtue he may be made powerful and strong for all things through the imitation of Christ, hence consequently the new name written upon it is the name Jesus, by which he to whom this gem is granted is to be named; by which he signifies that with the virtue and name of Christ Jesus he is able to undertake and accomplish every excellent deed, so as to perform them by the king's ring and seal — being one who is very dear to the king and prevails much in grace with him, and to whom the king bids by royal authority to use these things as he wills; whence he adds: "Which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it." For many speak speculatively many and great things about the imitation of Christ; but no one feels and experiences its power except he who receives this gem, which inflames all, enriches them, and renders them all-powerful. So Alcazar piously and learnedly, except that he transforms this stone into a carbuncle — indeed into a diamond. For he himself thinks, in note 6, that some carbuncles are white and adamantine, namely those in which a most liquid fire appears — fire, I say, not in red color, but in whiteness and liquidity. Certainly these are not ψῆφοι, that is, pebbles; for a pebble (calculus) is properly called a small stone mingled with earth: so called because, by reason of its smallness, it is trodden underfoot without trouble, says Servius on that line of Virgil, Georgics II:
Thin as clay, and pebbles in thorny fields.
Furthermore, "new name" means that he may be and be called a son and heir of God. This stone St. Francis received while still living, when in his ecstasy he received the revelation of his predestination; whence, returning to himself, he cried out: "Praised be the Lord my God, to Him be glory and honor without end." Indeed he spent the next eight days in such a way that he could neither speak of any other thing nor recite the canonical Hours, but kept this alone on his lips, and ever repeated it: "Praised be the Lord."
Eleventh and best: the white stone is the sentence of felicity, which Christ will pronounce upon the conquerors, and eternal felicity itself, with which God will gift the conquerors. For the white stone was, among the ancients, a symbol: first, of a festal matter and happiness. Hence a happy day is said to be "to be marked with a snow-white pebble." Second, of acquittal in judgment, just as condemnation was marked with a black stone. Whence Ovid, in Metamorphoses XV, near the beginning:
It was the custom of the ancients with snow-white and black pebbles
To condemn these as guilty, those to absolve from blame.
And:
The black pebble is dropped into the unforgiving urn.
And Pliny in the Panegyric to Trajan: "Every year," he says, "thou dost commit thy ballot to the gods themselves as judges, whether thou art worthy of safety." Third, of victory, says Sixtus of Siena, in book II, under the word calculus. For to an athlete contending in the contest and conquering a white stone was given, says Aretas. For "stone" (calculus) is sometimes taken for the difficulties which must be conquered. Whence Pliny, book II, chapter xix: "Set down," he says, "all those whom I know on both sides of the ledger:" stones, that is, difficulties and reasons. Whence to him who conquers these difficulties a white stone is fittingly given. Fourth, in the assemblies and in casting votes for the creation of magistrates, a white pebble inscribed with the name of him for whom they were voting was given. All these things suit the elect and the Blessed; for John is speaking to those recently converted from paganism. Whence he alludes to their pebbles in the casting of votes, and the Greek ψῆφος properly signifies these. Some add that with pebbles debts and payments are reckoned, and therefore by them are here signified the rewards corresponding equally to the merits of the conquerors. Whence the Syriac and Arabic, for "stone," render "reckoning" or "computation." But the word "white" hints that it is here a question of a judicial stone, not a reckoning stone.
Thence about the game of chess, or of the brigands (latrunculi), Ovid in his book to Piso:
In a more cunning manner the open board is varied,
The pebble (piece), and the wars are fought with a glass soldier,
So that the snowy now binds the black, and the black the white.
The same, elsewhere:
Whether the pebble shall go under the image of brigandage,
Make thy soldier perish at the hand of a glass enemy.
Finally, St. Bernard in his Declamations, near the end, by metonymy takes "new name" for a new thing — a new and unheard-of gift. Wherefore this is the hundredfold promised by Christ to those who renounce the world and follow Him, Matt. xix, 29 — namely, joy in the Holy Spirit and an abundance of heavenly goods and consolations, concerning which Psalm xxx: "How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for those that fear Thee!" "This hundredfold, then," says St. Bernard, "is the adoption of sons, the liberty and first-fruits of the spirit, the delights of charity, the glory of a good conscience, the kingdom of God which is within us, not indeed meat or drink, but justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; joy, indeed, not only in the hope of glory, but even in tribulations. This is the fire which Christ willed to be vehemently kindled. This is the virtue from on high, which made Andrew embrace the cross, Laurence laugh at his executioner, Stephen kneel in prayer for those stoning him. This is that peace which Christ left to His own when He gave even His own. For this is both the gift and the peace of God's elect — the peace, namely, of the present, and the gift of the future. That peace surpasses every sense; but to this even whatever pleases under the sun, whatever is coveted in the world, cannot be compared. This is the grace of devotion and the unction teaching about all things, which one who has experienced it knows, and one who has not is ignorant of: for no one knows it but he who receives it."
Verse 18: To the Angel of the Church of Thyatira
18. AND TO THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH OF THYATIRA WRITE. — Thyatira is the last city of the Mysians, a Macedonian colony, to the south of Pergamum, of whose jurisdiction it was likewise. It was formerly called Thyatira because God answered the Mysians who were about to found the city that "it must be founded there, where a stricken and running stag would appear," διὰ τὸ θύειν καὶ τροχάζειν τὸν ἔλαφον (because of the slaying and running of the stag). So some. But Strabo, book XIII, Pliny, book V, chapter ix, and others everywhere relate that it was at first called by Seleucus, son of Nicator, θυγάτηρ ("daughter"), on account of the joyful tidings of a daughter born to him, whence the name Thyatira. A citizen of this place was Lydia the purple-seller, whom St. Paul converted to Christ, Acts xvi, 14. Thyatira therefore in Greek means "daughter," which fittingly suits the Jezebel here, who is reproved here. Others explain Thyatira as if it signified an odor or a sacrifice of labor or contrition. But from what has been said it is plain that this is not its original etymology.
This is Christ's fourth epistle to the Angel — that is, the Bishop — of Thyatira, and under his name to the faithful who were fervent in God's service but deceived through imprudence, says Alcazar. For this Bishop was zealous and diligent, but was deceived through imprudence, thinking that if he connived with Jezebel, he would by this way bring her to better fruit, not noticing with how great peril to the faithful this was being done, and how slight, or rather none, was the hope of her conversion.
You will ask: Who was this Bishop? Aureolus thinks it was St. Irenaeus, who, a disciple of Polycarp and an excellent doctor and martyr, was first Bishop of Thyatira, afterwards of Lyons. You will say: Irenaeus was later than St. John. Aureolus answers that John writes to a Bishop not present, but future. Whence also Epiphanius, in heresies 51, thinks that, when John was writing these things, there was no Church at Thyatira, but that John foresaw that there would be one many years later. But John, as appears from his words, addresses the present Bishop of Thyatira, as well as the other Bishops of the other Churches. Add: none of the ancients has handed down that Blessed Irenaeus was Bishop of Thyatira, but only of Lyons. Finally, Irenaeus lived a hundred years afterward; for John writes these things in the year of Christ 97. But Irenaeus the martyr died in the year of Christ 204. More probably one might assert that this angel was Blessed Carpus; for that he preached at Thyatira, and was Bishop there about this time, is plain from what has been said on verse 12. The Roman Martyrology asserts the same on April 13, on which day the illustrious martyrdom of St. Carpus is to be seen in Lipomanus and Surius. Whence it also appears that there was then a Church at Thyatira.
THESE THINGS SAITH THE SON OF GOD, WHO HATH HIS EYES AS A FLAME OF FIRE AND HIS FEET LIKE BRASS. — First, Christ has eyes of fire, because, says Richard of St. Victor, He most sharply sees the crimes and lusts of Jezebel: let those who fornicate with her know that they are seen by Christ in secret, and that they are to be smelted in the furnace of hell as it were brass. Second, that the Bishop may imitate Christ, and foresee these crimes, and have fortitude and zeal in correcting them, like brass. Third, Rupert: Christ, he says, ascended into heaven, and from there as it were with flaming eyes looked down upon the earth, and sent the Holy Spirit, who made the Apostles fiery and strong like brass. Fourth, Joachim: A Bishop, he says, should have the contemplative life in His eyes, and the active in His feet. Again, a Bishop should have eyes that he may see what is done, and feet, that is, careful and serious execution of those things which he has foreseen as needing to be corrected or done.
By the eyes the imprudence of the Bishop of Thyatira is silently rebuked, in that he did not foresee or rebuke the hypocrisy and crimes of Jezebel, into which she enticed many. Alcazar adds that Jezebel is the Jews and Judaizers. Therefore, he says, this Bishop is admonished to leave the obstinate Jews, on whom he wastes his labor, and turn himself to the conversion of the Gentiles; and that, on account of the great danger from the Jews to himself and to the faithful, they should depart from Thyatira and, dispersed through the neighboring towns, preach the faith of Christ to the Gentiles. But who this Jezebel was, I will now discuss.
Verse 20: Thou Sufferest the Woman Jezebel
Thou sufferest the woman Jezebel. — Jezebel was the daughter of the king of Tyre, wife of Ahab, who from Tyre brought Baal and the Baalites into Judaea, and persecuted Elijah and the other worshipers of God.
You will ask: Who was this Jezebel? Some think she was the wife of the Bishop of Thyatira. Whence the Royal Greek and Aretas read, "thou sufferest the woman, or thy wife;" but the word "thy" others everywhere do not read, and this opinion is new and improbable.
Second, Epiphanius, in heresies 51, refers this to the women of Montanus, namely Priscilla, Maximilla, and Quintilla, who taught that Montanus was the Paraclete. But these feigned chastity, and therefore condemned second marriages. But this Jezebel taught fornication.
Third, Aretas: Jezebel, he says, is the name given to the Nicolaitans, because of their lusts and impieties. Whence Ticonius, Primasius, and Rupert: Jezebel, they say, are the effeminate heretics serving lust.
Fourth, Alcazar takes Jezebel for the Synagogue — that is, the Jews who pursued the Apostles and Christians with implacable hatred (just as Jezebel persecuted Elijah and the worshipers of God), and drove them either to death or to their own heresy, contending that Christians should at least observe the law of Moses, and so mixed Judaism with Christianity, whereby they seduced many. And therefore this Bishop is rebuked, because he connived with them, falsely and vainly hoping for their conversion. For to this exposition that of verse 24 fittingly suits: "I will not put upon you any other burden." For the Apostles use the same words in abrogating the use of the legal observances, saying, Acts xv, 28: "It hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no further burden upon you." Therefore he himself judges that here by Jezebel is signified the Synagogue, just as by Babylon, in chapter xvii, is signified pagan Rome. Each, he says, attacked the Church of Christ, but each, conquered by her, submitted her neck to her. Thus he forces everything toward the goal which he has conceived in advance. Jezebel, therefore, according to him, were the Judaizers, whom Paul often attacks and calls pseudo-apostles. But according to this exposition, both Jezebel, and her fornication, and her things sacrificed to idols, etc., must be explained mystically: hence by the eating of things sacrificed to idols, he understands the excessive familiarity of Christians with Jews; by fornication, the unlawful observance of the Mosaic legal precepts. For this was a kind of spiritual fornication; for it was an unlawful association with a harlot, namely with the Judaizing Synagogue: all of which are mystical.
Fifthly and best, taken literally this Jezebel was some noble and powerful heretical woman, who, by falsely claiming to be a prophetess, propagated the sect of the Nicolaitans, teaching that it was permissible to fornicate and to eat things sacrificed to idols (for this was the heresy of the Nicolaitans, as we heard at verse 15), just as Jezebel propagated the worship of Baal. So Bede, Rupert, Primasius, Pererius. Likewise St. Jerome, in his epistle to Ctesiphon, notes that all heresies have been propagated through women. I cited his words at 2 Timothy 3:6.
Now Ambrose, Pererius and Viegas understand fornication here not as bodily but as spiritual, namely heresy or idolatry. But more simply, Ribera and others take fornication in its proper sense. Note: the phrase "to fornicate and to eat things sacrificed to idols" is to be referred to "to teach."
He rightly admonishes this Bishop for his imprudence in tolerating Jezebel: for what is more powerful for propagating a carnal heresy than a woman, and one noble and powerful? The serpent through Eve destroyed Adam and all his descendants. A woman therefore is an instrument of the devil, a torch of strife, an incentive to lust. But this one was a iynx (lure-bird), because she was an enticer, because she was noble, because she was a prophetess; she was a threefold incentive both to Venus and to heresy. Aristippus, having seen a woman small but beautiful, said: "A small thing indeed beautiful, but a great evil." Democritus, when asked why, since he was tall, he had taken a small wife, said: "In choosing an evil, I chose what was least." Blessed Thomas More said the same thing.
Socrates, having enumerated his three evils, namely grammar, poverty, and a wife, used to say: "I have escaped the first two, but by no means my pernicious wife. As no one feels where the shoe pinches except him who is shod with it, so no one knows the disposition of a woman except him who has taken a wife," as Plutarch says in his Moralia.
"Nothing more pestilent than a woman," says Homer. "Trust not a woman, not even a dead one," says Menander. "He who does not quarrel is a bachelor," says St. Jerome, as if to say: A woman is quarrelsome, and therefore marriage is quarrelsome. It is commonly said: Fire, sea, woman — three evils. Three young Hebrew men disputed in the court of the king of the Persians as to what was the strongest: the first said it was "wine;" the second, "the king;" the third, namely Zorobabel, said that "women are stronger, but the strongest of all is truth," and he carried off the prize and reward from King Darius, in 3 Esdras chapter 4.
Hugh of St. Victor, in his book On Vices to be Shunned and Avoided, says: "In a honeycomb there are two things, honey and wax: in the face of a harlot there are likewise two, namely beauty and grace," that is, "beauty of countenance and of speech. Wax kindles the fire, honey furnishes sweetness: so the beauty of the harlot inflames the flesh with the fire of lust, and by the allurement of pandering speech subverts the mind. Honey drips from the wax, when the harlot softens her words and makes them sweet."
TO EAT OF THINGS SACRIFICED TO IDOLS. — Note: It is in itself lawful to eat of things sacrificed to idols; but it was not lawful, first, on account of scandal; second, on account of the precept of the Apostles, Acts 15; third, on account of what John especially here inveighs against in her, namely the danger of idolatry; for the Gentiles could easily have relapsed through these things to their idols. See what is said at 1 Corinthians 8, at the beginning.
Verse 22: Behold, I Will Cast Her Into a Bed
22. "Behold I will cast her into a bed," — that is, into hell, say Rupert, Bede, Richard of St. Victor; for there Jezebel, that is, heretics, will not rest, but will be tormented. Concerning which Isaiah in chapter 14 says: "Beneath you shall be strewn the moth, and your covering shall be worms."
Secondly, Ansbert and Primasius: The bed, they say, is the security and impunity of sinning, in which the sinner, resting as it were on a most soft bed, falls from one crime into another, and finally into damnation. This impunity therefore is a sign of reprobation: just as on the contrary it is a sign of election if anyone's sins are chastised here by God, as St. Gregory teaches in book VII of the Moralia, chapter vii. For as is said in Apocalypse chapter iii: "Those whom I love, I rebuke and chastise."
Thirdly, Alcazar: This threat of the bed, he says, denotes most grievous illnesses, that is, the storms of wars and the tempests of destruction, to be stirred up against the Jews by the Romans, because they rejected Christ and His Gospel.
Fourthly and best, Arethas and Pannonius: "I will cast her into a bed," that is, they say, I will strike her with disease and sickness, so that she who now rests on the bed of her pleasures and sins may lie down on the bed of sickness, and from there pass to the bed of Gehenna, in which the damned lie.
Verse 23: I Will Kill Her Children With Death
23. I WILL KILL IN DEATH, — that is, with death. It is a Hebraism: for the Hebrews use bet, that is "in," when they signify the instrument, manner, and means; thus they say: "He struck them in the mouth of the sword," that is, with the mouth, namely the edge, of the sword.
AND ALL THE CHURCHES SHALL KNOW THAT I AM HE WHO SEARCHES THE REINS AND HEARTS, — that is, the most hidden secrets of Jezebel's heart, and her most secret thoughts; for the reins are the symbol of these. For harlots and hypocrites who feign themselves prophetesses, and heretics such as this Jezebel, with wonderful art and craftiness conceal their counsels, so that under the appearance of piety and honesty they may entice and deceive the unwary souls of the faithful. From this Christ's divinity is evident; for God alone is the cardiognostes, that is, He who searches the reins and hearts.
Verse 24: I Will Not Put Upon You Any Other Burden
BUT TO YOU I SAY, AND TO THE REST. — "And" here means "that is." Hence the Greek does not have the "and"; for John here turns his discourse from Jezebel with her followers to the other true worshippers of God, who were at Thyatira.
Alcazar otherwise: Christ here, he says, extends His admonition to all other Christians. For Thyatira means "illumined," according to St. Jerome's testimony; and all who are in the Church of Christ are in the mystical Thyatira, that is, in the city illumined by God. But this exposition is mystical, not literal.
24. WHOEVER DO NOT HAVE (do not accept, do not hold) THIS DOCTRINE — of Jezebel and the Nicolaitans, that it is lawful to fornicate and to eat things sacrificed to idols.
WHO HAVE NOT KNOWN (that is, have not approved, says Bede, Rupert, Primasius, Richard) THE DEPTHS OF SATAN. — This depth is pride, says Rupert, by which Satan once said, in Isaiah 14: "I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the Most High," and even now says, when namely he wants sacrifices to be offered to himself in idols by the Thyatirenes, who in honor of idols eat things sacrificed to idols. So Rupert, Haymo, Bede, Primasius. But for "heights" the Greek has βάθος, that is, depth. Thus we often call the deep "high," as when we say: The well is deep (altus), that is, profound.
Hence secondly, others expound thus: "Who have not known the depths of Satan," that is, who have not made a pact with hell, namely who are not confederate with Satan.
Thirdly, Gagneius: The depth of Satan, he says, is the immense sea of crimes; because the impious man, when he has come into the depth of his sins, despises them, and ever falls more deeply.
Fourthly, the depths of Satan are the deep frauds, says Andrew of Caesarea, the deceits and cunnings of Satan, which the just do not know, that is, do not approve, concerning which St. Gregory speaks in homily 12 on Ezekiel.
Fifthly, Ambrose: The depth of Satan is the law of Moses taken carnally, and observed together with the Gospel; for this deeply submerges and entangles its observers into Judaism. Whence it follows: "I will not lay upon you any other burden," as if to say: I will not burden you with the observance of the Mosaic law, beyond the few things which the Apostles enjoined upon you, that you abstain from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood, and from things sacrificed to idols. To this Alcazar adds, saying:
When He says: "Who has not this doctrine of Jezebel," He marks the cautious and prudent; but when He says: "Who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say," He marks the imprudent who were deceived by Jezebel, that is, by the Judaizers; for these, when accused of error, excused themselves saying that they had not known the depths, that is, the deep frauds and craftinesses of Satan, with which, transfiguring himself into an angel of light, through Jezebel, that is, the Jews, he had deceived them, so that they mingled the legal observances with the Gospel.
Sixthly and better, Lyranus: They have not known the depth of Satan, that is, they have not approved the heresy of Ebion and Cerinthus, who proudly resisted Christ, denying His divinity and eternity.
Seventhly and best, these words: "The depths of Satan, as they say," are to be referred to the Thyatiran heretics, the followers of the Nicolaitans and of Jezebel; for heretics are wont to call their doctrine the highest, the deepest, and comprehensible to no one but themselves and their disciples, as Vincent of Lerins teaches in his golden booklet against heresies, and St. Gregory, book V of Moralia, chapter xviii. Whence he adds: "As they say," that is, as heretics are wont to speak and boast, namely that their dogmas are the height of God, which in reality is of Satan, as John interprets here. So Ribera. Yet add with Lyranus that here is touched the heresy of Ebion and Cerinthus, who wanted to mingle circumcision and the legal observances with the Gospel. This heresy therefore Jezebel and the Nicolaitans seem to have taught among many others. For the following words insinuate this; for he adds: "I will not lay upon you any other burden." Thus Valentinus (whom perhaps St. John, foreseeing in the spirit that he would soon be a heresiarch, here touches) invented thirty aeons and gods, which were in reality portents of names and crimes rather than of divinities: among whom he placed first βῦθος (which is the same as what St. John here calls βάθος, that is depths), that is, the deep. For from Bythos and Sige (that is, silence) sprang Nous (that is, mind) and truth, who begat speech and life: from these then sprang man and the Church. So reports Tertullian, book Against Valentinus, chapter vii.
I WILL NOT LAY UPON YOU ANY OTHER BURDEN. — "Burden," that is, a heavy load to the Gentiles accustomed to fornication and to the freedom of the flesh in heathenism, was after conversion to Christ to abstain from it, and to bridle their concupiscence. Again, it was a heavy burden for them to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, since they constantly dwelt among idolaters, whose foods were often nothing other than things sacrificed to idols. Knowing this, Jezebel urged the Thyatirenes to shake off this so hard a burden, and likewise the yoke and law of Christ. Hence John meets them with these words, as if to say: I confess indeed that this is some burden to you, but the idols, or your gods, and their priests, formerly imposed more upon you: the Jews and Judaizers also impose more upon their own. Therefore the Apostles, Acts 15, in forbidding fornication and things sacrificed to idols, a burden indeed have laid upon you, but far less than that of the Gentiles and Jews. Wherefore observe this lesser one, lest you be burdened with a greater. For I promise and decree to you: "I will not lay upon you any other burden; nevertheless (only) that which you have (namely this decree of the Apostles) hold fast until I come," to judgment, when, rewarding you for your patience and obedience, I will wholly free and unburden you of every weight.
For St. John clearly alludes to Acts 15:28, where the Apostles against Cerinthus define, saying: "It hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things, that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication." Where for "burden" the Greek has the same noun βάρος, which Our author here translates "pondus." Tacitly therefore he here strikes at the heresy of Cerinthus then rampant, as if to say: I do not wish to impose upon you the unbearable burden of the old law, as Cerinthus wishes; but I impose upon you only the three precepts which the Apostles sanctioned, Acts 15. So Victorinus, Ambrose, Primasius, Rupert, Bede, Haymo, Joachim, Lyranus, Ansbert, Hugh and Pannonius.
Tichonius expounds otherwise, as if to say: "I will not lay upon you any other burden," that is, other tribulations, because you have spurned the errors and filth of Jezebel.
For thus Isaiah, Nahum, and other Prophets call the "burden" of Babylon, of Edom, of Nineveh, etc., the weight of punishments and afflictions impending and as it were lying upon the Babylonians, Idumeans, Ninevites, and other nations by God's decree.
Verse 26: He That Overcometh Shall Rule the Nations With a Rod of Iron
26. HE WHO SHALL CONQUER, AND KEEP MY WORKS UNTO THE END, I WILL GIVE HIM POWER OVER THE NATIONS, AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON. — First, Bede, Primasius and Ansbert hold that here is promised to the Church and her Prelates the conversion and subjection of the Gentiles, which was promised by God the Father to Christ, Psalm 2: "I will give you," he says, "the Gentiles for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession." Hence Alcazar expounds thus, as if to say: "He who shall conquer, and shall keep," in Greek ὁ τηρῶν, that is, who shall observe My works (namely Christ's) "unto the end," so that he may continually fix his eyes and mind upon the works wrought by Christ, and upon His perseverance, that he may imitate Him in both: "I will give him power over the Gentiles," that is, great force and efficacy in the conversion and sanctification of the Gentiles. Whence He soon calls the same a rod of iron, saying: "And He shall rule them with a rod of iron." For that "unto the end" can be taken not only of the end of life, but also of the end and perfection of individual works, as it is to press and bring through to the end any difficult matter once undertaken.
Alcazar continues, and says that Gospel perfection is foreshadowed under the appearance of a most harsh rule and of a rod of iron; because it commands one to bridle desires, to mortify the flesh by fasting and hair-shirts, to die for Christ, etc.: and so this rod of iron is chiefly seen in the Religious life. Finally, that the rod of iron is the symbol of the best government, which God's providence uses, and notes its seven attributes, namely fortitude, beneficence, equity, wisdom, patience, threatening and punishment, which Alcazar fully sets forth, in notes 7 and 8. There he shows that an iron rod, if applied to a magnet, receives from it a twofold power, namely first, of judging the people of the world, and all regions of the globe; secondly, of attracting other iron. And so this iron rod, or nautical compass needle, is the symbol of wisdom and government, especially because a magnet duly armed all around with iron attracts a hundredfold greater weight, e.g., if a bare magnet without iron attracts an ounce of iron, when armed and as it were equipped with iron it will attract a hundred ounces, as he himself professes from his own experience: for so a Ruler ought to have the power of attracting to himself all his subjects, that he may rightly govern them.
For there are three duties of a Ruler and Bishop: first, to attract the unbelievers and the weak to Christ; second, to direct the upright; third, to chastise the wicked. This is represented by the Bishop's pedum, or his Pastoral staff, which is curved upward, like a hook that draws; straight in the middle; at the bottom doubled like a point, which three things the Poet expressed in verse:
The curve draws, the straight part rules, the lowest part pricks.
Therefore let the Ruler prick the hard and difficult, but also anoint them.
Secondly, Richard, Anselm and St. Thomas understand by the rod of iron the severity of laws and discipline in the observance of the laws to be exacted of all, and in the punishing of those who transgress against them. From which it comes about that some, being chastised, are restrained and converted; others, being recalcitrant, are condemned to the ultimate punishment. Hence our Viegas holds that here is promised to those who shall conquer, that is, who shall strenuously resist Jezebel and other heretics and the impious, a higher degree of dignity, that, established in it, they may rule others with a rod of iron, that is, inflexible and most just, but break the rebels in pieces. Whence these Doctors infer that the care of governing is to be entrusted only to him who has conquered, that is, to a man upright, just, strong, magnanimous, unconquered, who yields to no troubles, murmurings, threats, or dangers.
Again from this they infer, that he who conquers vices in himself will easily conquer and uproot the same in another; so that, if you conquer pride in yourself, you will easily conquer the same in another: whence it comes about that such conquerors often in fact, by their mortification and holiness, convert the Gentiles to Christ and to their own imitation. Whence St. Hilary, St. Augustine, Theodoret, Bede and Euthymius on Psalm 2 explain that passage of Psalm 2: "You shall break them as a potter's vessel," as if to say: You shall crush idolatry, lust, and other vices out of the souls of the Gentiles, and shall reform them, so that they may become other and new men, holy, chaste, and true Christians. Just as Jeremiah in chapter 18 broke a vessel made and fashioned from soft clay, and from it reformed another. But these are mystical interpretations.
Verse 27: He Shall Rule Them With a Rod of Iron
Thirdly therefore and genuinely St. John here speaks of the day of judgment, on which the holy victors, and those keeping God's commandments unto the end of life, will be made by God judges of the world, and with Christ will condemn the impious Gentiles, that they may be broken in pieces, that is, irreparably cast down into eternal death and hell. For this is what is signified by the phrase "shall keep My works unto the end (those commanded by Me, and confirmed by My example)." And: "He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and they shall be broken as a potter's vessel." For He alludes to Psalm 2:9, as is clear by comparing both passages, where for "rule them" the Hebrew is not תרעם tirem, that is, "you shall feed them;" but תרועם teroem, that is, "you shall crush," and, as St. Jerome translates, "you shall break them," namely the unbelievers and those rebellious to You. You shall break them, I say, both in this life, as You broke Diocletian, Maximian, Maxentius, Licinius and others through Constantine, Theodosius, and others, and you shall break all on the day of judgment, when by Your sentence You will drive them as by a thunderbolt into Tartarus. So Victorinus, Andrew, Arethas, Lyranus, Ribera and others.
This is what Christ promised to His own, Matthew 19:28, and Luke 22:30: "In the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel;" and Wisdom 3:8: "The Saints shall judge nations, and rule over peoples;" and Malachi 4:3: "You shall trample the impious;" and Psalm 149:6: "Two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance upon the nations."
Note that the kingdoms and power of the world are like potter's vessels, because earthen, and quickly leap apart and shatter at the impact of any harder object, according to that saying: "Fortune is glass; when it shines, it breaks." But the kingdom of Christ and of God is eternal, and crushes and subdues all hostile things. Whence St. Athanasius notes that the rod of iron is the power of Christ, or of Christ's cross, whose material is wood, but whose force and strength are of iron.
Verse 28: I Will Give Him the Morning Star
28. I WILL GIVE HIM THE MORNING STAR. — This morning star is Venus, or Lucifer. Now this Lucifer is the devil, says Andrew of Caesarea, of whom it was said in Isaiah 14: "How are you fallen from heaven, Lucifer, who used to rise in the morning?" For God gives him to the Saints to be trampled, as is said in the last chapter of Romans: "May the God of peace crush Satan under your feet."
Secondly, this star, or Lucifer, is He who, as St. Peter says in chapter 1 of his second epistle, arises in our hearts, namely the heavenly light sent from God into the soul. So says the same Andrew of Caesarea.
Thirdly, this Lucifer is John the Baptist and Elijah, of whom the former preceded Christ's first coming as Lucifer, the latter will precede the second, as if to say: I will make him a companion and partner in the glory of Elijah and John the Baptist; I will make him as it were another John, another Elijah. So says the same Andrew of Caesarea.
Fourthly, Joachim: The morning star, he says, is faith and the gift of knowledge, by which we foreknow those things which we are to see in heaven; and, as Gagneius says, it is the clear understanding of divine things, especially of Sacred Scripture: hence the star led the Magi to Christ.
Fifthly, this star is justifying grace, says Richard of St. Victor, and Maldonatus in his Manuscript Notes: ἀστέρα, he says, πρωϊνόν, that is, the morning star, He calls some chief angel, such as Lucifer is among the other stars, who guards him; or, as if to say: I will give him in heaven a most illustrious place. Thus we read in the Lives of the Saints that to illustrious Saints, such as was St. Frances of Rome, who strenuously progressed in heroic virtues, more illustrious angels were given for their guardianship. This is more truly the case with Prelates and princes, who often have for the guardianship of themselves, and of their Church or commonwealth, not an angel, but an archangel, or another from a higher order. Whence he used to say he had not a Doctoral, but an Episcopal angel.
Sixthly, this star is the guardian angel, says Denis the Carthusian.
Seventhly, Ribera by the star understands the invisible, and sometimes visible, apparition of Christ, by which He consoles His Saints when they are at the point of death.
Eighthly, Alcazar: Christ, he says, is called the morning star, that is Lucifer, because in the very most burning persecutions He consoles His own with the most certain hope of the sun about to rise, that is, of prosperity soon to follow. For He alludes to Ecclesiasticus chapter 50, verse 6, where it is said of the just and illustrious high priest Simon (who was a type of Christ): "As the morning star in the midst of a cloud," as if to say: As Simon, like a star, refreshed the people overcast and afflicted with the cloud of calamity, and like Lucifer gave them sure hope of the sun, that is, of prosperity, soon to rise: so will Christ do also for His own when set in affliction and persecution, and will be to them as it were Lucifer, the herald of impending happiness.
Ninthly, Lyranus: This star, he says, is the glorified body, by the gift of brightness shining as a star.
Tenthly and best: The morning star is Christ, who says in chapter 22, verse 16: "I am the bright and morning star;" of whom it is said in Numbers chapter 24: "A star shall rise out of Jacob." For Christ promises Himself to the conquerors, and the vision of His brightness. Christ is called the morning star, that is Lucifer: first, because in this life He has dispelled the darkness of unbelief, and in the future He will dispel the darkness of mortality; secondly, because as Lucifer brings the end of night and the beginning of day: so Christ has brought the end of sin and ignorance, the beginning of faith and salvation; thirdly, He is morning, "because when in Himself He gave us the example of resurrection, He indicated what light should follow," says St. Gregory, XXIX Moralia, chapter xxx, on those words of Job 38: "Do you bring forth Lucifer in his time?" And Bede: "Christ," he says, "is the morning star, because when the night of this world is past, He promises and unfolds to the Saints the light of eternal life." And Rupert: "For the labor by which a Bishop in this life labors as in the night, ever-vigilant in the guardianship of the souls committed to him, I will manifest to him Myself, who am the bright and morning star." And Haymo: "Christ," he says, "is the morning star, that is Lucifer, who in the resurrection, when the darkness of mortality has been driven away, will appear as Lucifer, and will display the perfect day of eternity." So also Pererius, Viegas and Ribera.
Again, more fully and more clearly: The morning star is the light of glory and the clear vision of God, which the victorious soul attains through Christ's grace after death; this is called a star, because of the brightness of contemplation. "O Lord," says the Psalmist, "in Your light we shall see light." It is called morning, first, because it will shine forth after the night of this life and of this world; secondly, because of the inchoation of beatitude, which will be completed at the resurrection of the body, when this morning star will be changed as it were into the noonday sun, namely when the soul will diffuse its glory into the body. Both these senses, namely concerning Christ, and concerning the glory of the blessed soul, Richard of St. Victor, Primasius and Arethas have.
He alludes to that passage of Daniel 12:3: "Those who have been learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and those who instruct many unto justice, as stars for perpetual eternities:" see what is said there. For Christ wishes this Bishop to teach the true faith, and to overcome Jezebel and the heretics, and as a teacher He promises him this star. Philip, king of the Macedonians, when he was a boy, used to attack with arrows the stars falling at night, from which the seer Diognetus conjectured that he would rule over many, as Ptolemy Hephaestion reports, and from him Nicolas Caussin, book IV of his Historical Parables, chapter lvi. Thus the magnanimous hunt for stars, who, lifting their mind above earth and earthly things, aspire to the dwelling of blessed minds, and therefore enter upon a heavenly and heroic life:
Few whom equitable
Jupiter loved, or whom burning virtue raised to the upper air.
Ptolemy, author of the Almagest, a noble Astrologer in the time of Emperor Antoninus, set this epitaph upon his own tomb:
Although I know I have been created mortal by lot,
yet I, a goddess, search out the paths of the stars in the heavenly globe.
With my feet I am far from earth, and beside the Thunderer
I sit as a god, and feed on ambrosia.
What now shall holy Bishops and Doctors say, whose conversation while they lived was in the heavens, who now translated to heaven, members of God's household, citizens of the Saints, gaze upon the stars not from afar, like Ptolemy, but from close by, tread upon them with their feet, and possess them?
Finally, I have set forth ten analogies between the star and the holy man in Genesis 1, at the end of the work of the fourth day, in the third edition.
Note: "The crown of life," which Christ promises to the angel of Smyrna in verse 10; the same, in verse 7, He promises to the angel of Ephesus, and calls it "the tree of life;" the same He promises to the angel of Pergamum, and calls it "a white stone," verse 17; the same again He here promises to the angel of Thyatira, and calls it "the morning star;" the same, in chapter 3, He promises to the angel of Sardis, and calls it "the book of life," verse 5; and to the angel of Philadelphia, verse 12, calling it "a pillar in the temple of God;" and to the angel of Laodicea, verse 21, calling it "a seat on Christ's throne." Where note: This glory changes its names, that it may suggest the various endowments and excellencies which it includes, and which the names themselves signify: for He will give these to each suitably and proportionately to his struggle and victory. To the Ephesian, because, broken by old age, he had departed from his first fervor, if he resume it, this glory is promised under the name of the tree of life, which restored strengths growing weary with age, and brought them back to their pristine vigor. To the Smyrnean, because he was of tried and perfect virtue, this glory is given and called a crown, which is a full circle, hedged about and closed on every side with gems, roses, lilies, etc. The Pergamene had to struggle against timidity: hence, if he conquers, the same glory is promised to him under the name of a white stone. For the stone, because solid, and brightness, because it dissipates darkness, are rightly opposed to timidity, which vacillates, and pours darkness over the soul. The Thyatiran had to struggle against imprudence: hence, if he conquers it, the same glory is promised under the name of a bright star illuminating all things. The Sardian was spiritually dead: whence, if he rises again to the life of grace, the book of life is promised to him. The Philadelphian was weak and of moderate virtue: hence, if he overcomes these things, a pillar in heaven is promised to him. The Laodicean was sluggish and slothful: hence, if he rises up and labors strenuously, a seat on Christ's throne is promised to him. So Alcazar after his manner at length, which I have done concisely or briefly.