Catechetical Lectures 15.16–16.6

For this reason the Lord, knowing the greatness of the adversary and granting indulgence to the devout, says, “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” But if anyone is conscious that he is very strong, so as to wrestle against Satan, let him stand (for I do not despair of the Church's sinews), and let him say, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” and what follows. But let those of us who are timid secure ourselves, and let those of good courage stand firm. “For then there will be great affliction, such as has not been from the beginning of creation until now, nor ever shall be.” But thanks be to God, who has confined the greatness of the affliction to a few days; for he says, “But for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” And the Antichrist will reign three and a half years only. We do not say this from apocryphal books, but from Daniel; for he says, “And it shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time.” A time is the one year in which his coming increases for a while; the times are the remaining two years of lawlessness, making three in all; and the half of a time is the six months. And again Daniel says the same elsewhere: “And he swore by him who lives for ever, that it shall be for a time and times and half a time.” And perhaps some have taken what follows in this sense too: “a thousand two hundred and ninety days,” and, “Blessed is he who endures and comes to a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.” For this reason we must hide and flee; for perhaps “we shall not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

Who, then, is blessed, but he who at that time bears witness for Christ with piety? For I say that the martyrs of that time surpass all martyrs. For those before wrestled with men only; but those under the Antichrist will wage war on Satan himself in person. And the persecuting kings before only killed; they did not pretend to raise the dead, nor did they show illusions of signs and wonders. But here there is the evil incitement both of fear and of deceit, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Let it never enter the heart of anyone then living: “What more did Christ do? By what power does this man work these things? If God did not will it, he would not have permitted it.” The Apostle secures you and foretells it: “And for this reason God sends them a working of error” (“sends” in the sense of “permits it to happen”), not that they may make excuse, but that they may be condemned. Why? “They did not believe the truth,” that is, the true Christ, “but took pleasure in unrighteousness,” that is, the Antichrist. And God permits these things, both in the persecutions from time to time and then, not because he is unable to prevent them, but because, as is his custom, he crowns his own athletes through endurance, as he did his prophets and apostles; so that, having toiled for a short time, they may inherit the eternal kingdom of heaven; as Daniel says, “And at that time your people shall be saved, everyone who is found written in the book” (plainly, of life). “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproach and everlasting shame. And those who understand shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and of the many righteous, like the stars for ever and ever.”

Make yourself secure, then, O man: you have the signs of the Antichrist; and do not only remember them yourself, but share them generously with all. If you have a child according to the flesh, admonish him already; and if you have begotten anyone through catechesis, secure him too beforehand, so that he may not receive the false one as the true. “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.” I fear the wars of the nations; I fear the divisions of the churches; I fear the hatred of brothers among brothers. Let these things be said; but God forbid that they should be fulfilled in our time; nevertheless let us secure ourselves. And so much concerning the Antichrist.

But let us wait for and look for the Lord coming from heaven on the clouds. Then angelic trumpets will sound; the dead in Christ will rise first; the devout who are living will be caught up in the clouds, receiving as the prize of their labours an honour beyond man, since they also contended beyond man; as Paul the apostle writes, saying, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

The Preacher knew of this coming of the Lord and the end of the world, saying, “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth,” and next, “And remove anger from your heart, and put away wickedness from your flesh; and remember your Creator before the days of evil come, before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened, and those who look out through the windows are darkened” (hinting at the power of sight); “before the silver cord is snapped” (showing the clustering of the stars, for their look is silvery), “and the golden flower is broken” (hinting thus at the golden sun; for the camomile is a well-known plant with many ray-like leaves growing out all around it). “And they shall rise at the voice of the sparrow, and they shall look from the height, and terrors are in the way.” What will they see? Then they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, and they will mourn tribe by tribe. And what happens when the Lord has come? “The almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall grow fat, and the caper shall be scattered.” And as the interpreters say, the blossoming almond shows that winter is past; and our bodies then, after the winter, are to blossom with a heavenly flower. “And the grasshopper grows fat” (the winged soul, …

You see how all foretell the coming of the Lord; you see how they know the voice of the sparrow. Let us see what kind of voice it is: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God.” The archangel calls out and says to all, “Arise to meet the Lord.” And the Master's coming down is fearful. David says, “God will come openly, our God, and will not keep silent; fire shall burn before him, and around him a mighty tempest,” and so on. The Son of Man comes to the Father, according to the Scripture just read, on the clouds of heaven, drawing on a river of fire to test men. If anyone has works of gold, he becomes brighter; if anyone's conduct is like stubble and without substance, it is burned up by the fire. And the Father sits, having his garment white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wool. This is said in human terms; why? Because he is king of those who have not been defiled by sins; for “I will make your sins white,” he says, “as snow, and as wool”: which is a sign of the forgiveness of sins, or even of sinlessness. And the Lord comes from heaven on clouds, he who went up on clouds; for he himself has said, “And they will see the Son of Man coming …” [22] But what is the sign of his coming, lest an opposing power should dare to imitate it? “And then will appear,” he says, “the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.” And the true sign proper to Christ is the cross. A sign of a luminous cross goes before the King, showing him who was crucified before; so that the Jews who before pierced him and plotted against him may see it and mourn tribe by tribe, saying, “This is he who was struck; this is he whose face they spat upon; this is he whom they put in bonds; this is he whom, crucified before, they set at nought. Where shall we flee from the face of your wrath?” they will say; but with the angelic hosts surrounding them, they will be able to flee nowhere. The sign of the cross is a terror to the enemies, and a joy to the friends who believed in him, or preached him, or suffered for him. Who, then, is blessed at that time, who will be found a friend of Christ? So great and glorious a King, escorted by angels, sharing the Father's throne, does not despise his own servants. For so that the elect may not be mingled with the enemies, “he will send out his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds.” He did not despise Lot, who was but one; how then will he despise many righteous? “Come …” to those gathered …

But someone present will say, “I am poor,” or, “At that time I shall perhaps be found sick in bed,” or, “I am a woman, and I shall be caught at the mill: shall we then be despised?” Take courage, O man: the Judge is no respecter of persons. “He will not judge by appearance, nor reprove by speech”; he does not prefer the learned to the unlettered, nor the rich to the poor. Even if you are in the field, the angels take you; do not think that he takes the landowners and leaves you, the farmer. Even if you are a slave, even if you are poor, do not be anxious at all: he who took the form of a slave does not despise slaves. Even if you lie sick in bed, it is written, “Then two will be in one bed; one is taken, and one is left.” Even if by force you are put to the mill, man or woman; even if you are in fetters and sit at the mill, he who leads out the prisoners with power does not overlook you. He who brought Joseph out of slavery and prison into a kingdom will redeem you too from your afflictions into the kingdom of heaven. Only take courage; only work; only contend eagerly; for nothing is lost. Every prayer and psalm of yours is written down; every almsgiving is written down; every fast is written down; every marriage kept honourably is written down; self-control practised for God's sake is written down. But virginity and chastity hold the first places among the crowns in the records, and you shall shine like an angel. But as you have heard the good things gladly, so hear in turn, unflinchingly, the contrary things. Every act of greed of yours is written down; every act of sexual immorality of yours is written down; every perjury of yours is written down, and blasphemy, and sorcery, and theft, and murder. All these things are henceforth written down, if after being baptized you now do the same things; for the former things are blotted out.

“But when the Son of Man comes,” he says, “in his glory, and all the angels with him.” See, O man, before how many you are coming into judgment: the whole race of men will be present then. Reckon, then, how great the Roman nation is; reckon how many the barbarian peoples now living are, and how many have died in the last hundred years; reckon how many were buried in the last thousand years; reckon those from Adam until today. Great indeed is the multitude, but still small; for the angels are more. They are the ninety-nine sheep, and humanity is the one only. For according to the greatness of all places, so must the multitude of their inhabitants be reckoned. The inhabited earth is like a point in the midst of the one heaven; and the heaven that surrounds it has a multitude as great as its breadth; and the heavens of heavens have a number beyond conceiving. And it is written, “Thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him”: not that the multitude is only so great, but that the prophet could not express more than this. There will be present at the judgment, then, God the Father of all, Jesus Christ sitting with him, and the Holy Spirit present with them. An angelic trumpet summons all of us, bearing what we have done. Ought we not to be in anguish from this moment? Do not think it a small condemnation, O man, even apart from punishment, to be condemned before so many. Do we not often choose to die rather than be condemned by friends? [25] Let us be in anguish, then, brothers, lest God condemn us, who has no need of examination or proofs in order to condemn. Do not say, “I committed sexual immorality at night, or practised sorcery, or did something else, and no man was there.” You will be judged out of your own conscience, “your thoughts meanwhile accusing or else excusing, on the day when God judges the secrets of men.” The fearful face of the Judge will compel you to tell the truth; or rather, even if you do not tell it, it will convict you. For you will rise clothed with your own sins or righteous deeds; and the Judge himself has shown this, saying (for it is Christ who judges: “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,”

not estranging himself from his authority, but judging through the Son. The Son, then, judges at the Father's assent; for the wills of the Father and of the Son are not different, but one and the same.) What, then, does the Judge say about whether you will bear your works or not? “And before him will be gathered all the nations” (for every knee must bow before Christ, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth); “and he will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” How does the shepherd separate them? Does he examine from a book which is a sheep and which a goat, or does he distinguish them by what is seen? Does not the wool show the sheep, and the hairy and rough coat the goat? So, if you are now cleansed from your sins, you will have your deeds from now on like pure wool; and your robe remains undefiled, and you will always say, “I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on?” By your clothing you will be known as a sheep. But if you are found hairy, like Esau, who was hairy in body and wicked in mind, who lost his birthright for food and sold his privilege, you will be among those on the left. God forbid that any of those present should be cast out from grace, or because of evil deeds be found in the ranks of the sinners on the left.

Fearful in truth is the judgment, and fearful the things proclaimed: the kingdom of heaven is set before us, and the eternal fire has been prepared. How, then, someone will say, shall we escape the fire, and how shall we enter the kingdom? “I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me food.” Learn the way; there is no need of allegory now, but of doing what is said. “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.” If you do these things, you will reign with him; but if you do not do them, you will be condemned. Begin, then, to do these things already, and persevere in the faith; lest, like the foolish virgins, you be shut out while you are going to buy oil. Do not be confident merely because you hold the lamp, but keep it burning. Let the light of your good works shine before men, and let not Christ be blasphemed because of you. Put on the garment of incorruption, distinguished in good works; and whatever you receive from God to manage as a steward, manage it profitably. Have you been entrusted with money? Manage it well. Have you been entrusted with the word of teaching? Dispense it well. Can you win the souls of your hearers? Do it zealously. Many are the doors of good stewardship. Only let none of us be condemned and cast out, so that we may meet with confidence the eternal King Christ, who reigns for ever. For he reigns for ever, who judges the living and the dead, having died for the living and the dead; and as Paul says, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

And if you ever hear anyone say that the kingdom of Christ has an end, hate the heresy; it is another head of the dragon, lately sprung up in Galatia. A certain man has dared to say that after the end of the world Christ no longer reigns; and he has dared to say that the Word, having come forth from the Father, will be resolved again into the Father and will no longer be, uttering such blasphemies to his own ruin. For he did not hear the Lord saying, “The Son remains for ever.” He did not hear Gabriel saying, “And he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Consider what is said: heretic men now teach against Christ, while Gabriel the archangel taught the eternal continuance of the Saviour. Whom, then, do you believe rather? Is it not Gabriel? Hear the present testimony of Daniel: “I saw in the vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man coming, and he came to the Ancient of Days. And to him was given the honour and the rule and the kingdom; and all the peoples, tribes and tongues shall serve him. His authority is an everlasting authority, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.” Hold to these things rather, believe these; but turn away from the words of the heresy …

You have the same also in the interpretation of the stone cut from a mountain without hands, which is Christ according to the flesh: “And his kingdom shall not be left to another people.” And David says at one time, “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and at another, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth,” and so on; “they will perish, but you remain,” and so on; “but you are the same, and your years will not fail”: words which Paul interpreted of the Son. [29] And would you know how those who teach the contrary came to such madness? They read the good saying of the Apostle badly: “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet”; and they say, “When the enemies have been put under his feet, he no longer reigns,” saying this wrongly and foolishly. For if he reigns before he has overcome his enemies, how will he not reign the more after he has prevailed over them?

They have dared to say this too: that the saying, “When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who subjected all things to him,” shows that the Son too is resolved into the Father. Then, most unholy of all men, do you, the creatures of Christ, remain, and does Christ, through whom both you and all things came to be, perish? The word is blasphemous. And how will all things be subjected to him? By perishing, or by remaining?

Do the other things, subjected to the Son, remain, and does the Son, subjected to the Father, not remain? He will be subjected, not because he then begins to obey the Father (for he always does what pleases him), but because then too he obeys, with no forced obedience but a freely chosen compliance. For he is not a slave, to be subjected by necessity, but he is a Son, to obey by choice and love.

But let us examine them: what is the meaning of “until” or “as far as”? For I will try to overturn the error by grappling with the very word. Since they have dared to say that the words “until he has put his enemies under his feet” show his end, and have dared to set bounds to the eternal kingdom of Christ and to bring his unceasing authority to an end in word, come, then, let us read similar words in the Apostle: “But death reigned from Adam until Moses.” Did men, then, die only until that time, and did no one die after Moses, and was there no more death among men after the law? But you see that the word “until” does not limit time; rather Paul showed this: that although Moses was a righteous and wonderful man, still the sentence pronounced against Adam reached him too, and those after him, even though they had not sinned like Adam in the disobedience of eating from the tree.

Take again another similar saying: “For until this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart.” Does “until this day” mean only until Paul? Is it not until today, and until the end? And if Paul says to the Corinthians, “For we came even as far as you in the gospel of Christ, having hope that as your faith increases we may preach the gospel in the regions beyond you,” you see plainly that “as far as” does not mean an end, but has something following. How, then, should you understand “until he has put the enemies”? As the same Paul says elsewhere, “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today”: that is, always. For as one must not speak of a beginning of the days of Christ, so do not tolerate anyone who ever speaks of an end of his kingdom. For his kingdom

is “an everlasting kingdom,” it is written. [33] And though I have more testimonies besides from the divine Scriptures about the kingdom of Christ, which has no end for ever, I will be content with those already given for the present, because the day is far spent. But you, the hearer, worship him alone as King, fleeing every heretical error. And if the grace of God grants it, the remaining articles of the Creed will be spoken to you in due time. And may the God of all keep all of you, remembering the signs of the end and remaining unconquered by the Antichrist. You have received the signs of the deceiver who is to come; you have received the proofs of the true Christ, who comes down openly from heaven. Flee the one, the false; await the other, the true. You have learned the way, how, when you are judged, you may be found among those on the right. Guard the deposit concerning Christ, distinguished in good works; so that, standing before the Judge with confidence, you may inherit the kingdom of heaven; through whom and with whom be glory to God, with the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

We truly need spiritual grace to discourse about the Holy Spirit; not in order to speak worthily of him, for that is impossible, but in order to go through what is in the divine Scriptures without danger. For a truly great fear is written in the Gospels, since Christ has plainly said, “Whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” And there is often fear lest someone, through ignorance or through what he takes to be reverence, should say something about him that he ought not, and so receive condemnation. Jesus Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, has declared that it has no forgiveness; if anyone, then, stumbles, what hope has he?

It must be, then, the work of the grace of Jesus Christ himself to grant both to us to speak without deficiency, and to you to hear with understanding. For understanding is needed not only by those who speak but also by those who hear, so that they may not hear one thing and take in another in their minds. Let only what is written, then, be said by us about the Holy Spirit; and if anything is not written, let us not pry into it. The Holy Spirit himself spoke the Scriptures; he himself has also said about himself as much as he willed, or as much as we could receive. Let what he has said, then, be spoken; for what he has not said, we do not dare.

The Holy Spirit is one only, the Paraclete. And as there is one God the Father, and there is no second Father; and as there is one only-begotten Son and Word of God, and he has no brother; so the Holy Spirit is one only, and there is no second Spirit equal in honour to him. The Holy Spirit, then, is a very great power, something divine and unsearchable. For he lives and is rational, the sanctifier of all things made by God through Christ. He enlightens the souls of the righteous; he was in the prophets, and he was in the apostles in the New Covenant. Let those be hated who dare to divide the working of the Holy Spirit. There is one God, the Father, Lord of the Old and the New Covenant; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, prophesied in the Old and come in the New; and one Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the Christ, and when Christ came, descended and showed him forth. [4] Let no one, then, separate the Old from the New Covenant; let no one say that the Spirit there is one and here another; since he offends against the Holy Spirit himself, who is honoured together with the Father and the Son, and at the time of holy baptism is included in the holy Trinity. For the only-begotten Son of God said plainly to the apostles, “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Our hope is in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We do not proclaim three gods; let the Marcionites be silenced …

… but with the Holy Spirit, through one Son, we proclaim one God. The faith is indivisible; the worship is inseparable. We neither divide the holy Trinity, as some do, nor make a fusion, as Sabellius does. But we know with piety one Father, who sent his Son as our Saviour; we know one Son, who promised to send the Paraclete from the Father; we know the Holy Spirit, who spoke in the prophets and on the day of Pentecost came down on the apostles in the form of fiery tongues, here in Jerusalem, in the upper church of the apostles. For all privileges are with us. Here Christ came down from heaven; here the Holy Spirit came down from heaven. And it would truly be most fitting that, as we speak of Christ and of Golgotha here on this Golgotha, so we should also speak of the Holy Spirit in the upper church. But since he who came down there shares in the glory of him who was crucified here, we speak here also of him who came down there; for the worship is undivided.

We wish next to say something about the Holy Spirit: not to describe his subsistence exactly, for that is impossible, but to tell of the various errors of some concerning him, so that we may never be carried away into them through ignorance; and to cut off the paths of error, so that we may walk the one royal road. And if for safety's sake we now relate any statement of the heresies, let it fall on their own heads, and may we be innocent, both we who speak and you who hear.

For the heretics, most unholy in all things, have sharpened their tongue against the Holy Spirit too, and dared to say unlawful things, as Irenaeus the interpreter has written in his treatises against the heresies. Some dared to say that they themselves were the Holy Spirit, of whom the first was Simon, the sorcerer in the Acts of the Apostles; for after he had been cast out he dared to teach such things. And those called Gnostics, ungodly men, have uttered other things against the Spirit, and the lawless Valentinians others again. And the impious Mani dared to say that he himself was the Paraclete sent by Christ. And others say that the Spirit in the prophets is one, and in the New Covenant another. And great is their error, or rather their blasphemy. Hate such men, then, and flee those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit and have no forgiveness. What fellowship have you with the hopeless, you who are now to be baptized into the Holy Spirit too? If he who joins with a thief and runs along with him is liable to punishment, what hope will he have who offends against the Holy Spirit?