Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 46–49

“Then if anyone says to you, Behold, here is the Christ, behold, there, do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and will give great signs and wonders, so as to lead into error, if it were possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, Behold, he is in the wilderness, do not go out; behold, in the houses, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and appears as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered.”

Since we have said that the abomination of desolation standing in the place is the word of falsehood which seems to stand in the holy place of the Scriptures, someone will say: and how, as though it were not standing there, will someone say to the disciples of Christ, “Behold, here is the Christ, behold, there,” and another, “Behold, he is in the wilderness,” and another, “Behold, in the houses”? See, then, whether we can say on these points that by “Behold, here; behold, there” one must not look outward beyond Scripture. For one who wishes to lead us astray and defend what is contrary to the truth will say, “Behold, here is the Christ,” pointing, for instance, to this passage of the Gospel; and the author of another error will say, “Behold, here is the Christ,” offering as an example another text, which seems to defend the falsehood he has undertaken to vindicate; and so from the law, the prophets, and the apostles each brings forward what seems to defend his falsehood as though it were truth. Or “Behold, here is the Christ, behold, there” is fulfilled in this way: pointing not to Christ but to some fiction of the same name, for example according to the teaching of Marcion, or according to the traditions of Valentinus, or the long fable-making of Basilides, or according to the false testimony of Apelles against Paul. And there will be many others too who, joining their own sense to the divine Scriptures, will say to the disciples, “Behold, here is the Christ, behold, there.” “But if they say to you, Behold, he is in the wilderness, do not go out; behold, in the houses, do not believe it.” For some, bringing forward secret writings, say, “Behold, in the wilderness.” For when they bring forward secret and unpublished scriptures to confirm their falsehood, they seem to say, “Behold, the word of truth is in the wilderness.” For secret scriptures are rightly called wildernesses, in which there are either few believers or none. But whenever they bring forward the canonical Scriptures, on which every Christian agrees and believes, they seem to say, “Behold, the word of truth is in the houses.” But we ought not to believe them, nor to go out from the first and ecclesiastical tradition, nor to believe otherwise than as the churches of God have handed down to us by succession. Or thus: some professors of those false words do not even pretend to the Scriptures from the beginning, and so try to deceive. Therefore, I think, wishing to point to those discourses that are wholly outside Scripture, he said, “If they say to you, Behold, he is in the wilderness, do not go out” from the rule of faith; but wishing to point to those who, for schism, pretend to the divine Scriptures, he said, “If they say to you, Behold, in the houses, do not believe it,” whatever they profess from the Scriptures, and from the mysteries in them, by way of demonstration; do not believe what is said. For the truth is like the lightning that comes from the east and appears as far as the west: such is the truth of the Church of God; for from her alone “their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” She alone is truly the truth of God. “For as the lightning comes from the east and appears as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man,” and the rest. We must know this too, that the lightning of truth does not appear from one place of the Scriptures while from another place of the Scriptures it is not defended, but it is defended from every place of the Scriptures, that is, whether from the Scripture of the law, or of the prophets, or of the Gospels, or of the apostles; and this lightning of truth, going out from the east, that is, from the beginnings of Christ, appears as far as the dispensation of his passion, in which is his setting. And like such lightning is the coming of the Son of Man, that is, the word of truth. We can also understand the saying, “It comes from the east and appears as far as the west,” in this way: Christ is shown to be the Word, and the truth, and the wisdom, from the first beginning of the created world to the last Scripture of the apostles, that is, from Genesis to the apostolic books, after which no scriptures are to be believed as these are. Or thus: since the law and the prophets were until John, in whom is the lightning of truth, the east is the law, and the west, the end of the law, is John. And the Church alone neither takes away the word and sense of this lightning nor adds anything else as prophecy. But if we must inquire subtly why it is not said “east” in the singular nor “west” in the singular, but thus, “from the east to the west,” we shall say that one east and one west are the law and the prophets until John; another east to west is Christ Jesus until Paul, to whom, last of the apostles, as to one untimely born, Christ appeared. Consider this too: that above he spoke of one abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place; but he adds, as of many, “For false christs will arise.” For in general Antichrist is one, but his kinds are many; as if I should say that falsehood in general is one, but according to the differences of false doctrines we find that there are many falsehoods. For if falsehood does not differ from falsehood, say that of Basilides, or Marcion, or Valentinus, or Apelles, or others like them, falsehood seems to be one; but since they lie according to different doctrines, those who arise are many. For they are antichrists, and whoever have risen after them. And just as the holy prophets who have been from of old belonged to the one true Christ, foretelling the sufferings of Christ and afterwards his future glories, so understand with me that according to each false christ there are many false prophets of his. They are not, then, teachers of some one falsehood, but false prophets of all of that Antichrist whose false words they preach and teach as true. According to what we have said, then, those who teach the church's word are prophets of Christ; but those who preach the false word of Marcion or of any of them are prophets of the Antichrist who is according to Marcion, that is, of that falsehood which Marcion introduced; and others are false prophets of the falsehood that is according to Basilides, and others of that according to Apelles. You will say the same of the preachers of each of the heresies. For all the persuasive things brought forward in defence of the antichrist word are signs and wonders of that Antichrist: whatever is suggested by the serpent, the wisest of all the beasts of the earth, and by the great mind of the ruler of the Assyrians, are great signs and wonders, so as to lead into error, if it were possible, even the elect. The phrase “if it were possible” is a word of exaggeration; for he did not declare or say that even the elect would be led into error, but he wishes to show that the words of heretics are often very persuasive and able to move even those who listen wisely. But since the Saviour has foretold everything to us, let us neither go out into the wilderness nor believe those who profess that Christ is in the houses. To what we have said let us add this further: every word that professes to be the truth when it is not the truth, whether among the Gentiles or among the barbarians, is in some way Antichrist, wishing to lead astray as though it were the truth and to separate people from him who said, “I am the truth.” Therefore we ought not to attend to those who say, “Behold, here is the Christ,” but do not show him in the Church, which is full of the lightning from the east to the west, which is full of the true light, which is “the pillar and ground of the truth,” in which, whole, is the whole coming of the Son of Man, who says to all everywhere: “Behold, I am with you all the days of life, until the consummation of the age.” And wherever is that which belongs to the dispensation of his passion, his carcass, who fell in order to raise up those who had fallen, there are gathered not just any, but the eagles, the disciples. Of them the prophet also said: “They will grow wings like eagles, and they will run and not labour, and they will go and not hunger.” And Solomon in Proverbs likens one who is rich in God, saying: “Wings like an eagle's are prepared for him, and he will return to the house of his master.” And see that he did not say, “Wherever the carcass is, there the vultures or the ravens will be gathered,” but, wishing to show that all who have believed in the Lord's passion are magnificent and royal, he said fittingly: “Wherever the carcass is, there the eagles too will be gathered.”

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn.”

Considering that we are running into propositions greater than the understanding of men, even of those who have advanced furthest in wisdom beyond others, come, let us examine the word: first seeking what can easily be accepted for the explanation of the gospel text, as the Lord prophesying in it; then we shall inquire what the truth of these words is according to those who think there is something higher and subtler in the words, keeping the sequence of the figurative traditions here too, as above. Someone, then, will say: just as when great fires begin to be kindled, darkness is seen to rise from the abundant smoke, so at the consummation of the world, from the fire that is to be kindled, even the great lights will be darkened; so that, when the sun has been darkened, the moon too, hindered in consequence of the sun's darkening, will be allowed neither to receive light from the sun nor to give its own light. And so great darkness must first lay hold of the nature of the world; and so, as the light of the stars grows faint, the rest of their body, having become denser, so that it cannot be raised aloft as at first when it was lifted up carried by the light itself, will fall from heaven. When these things happen, it follows that the rational powers of the heavens, suffering amazement, will undergo some disturbance and be troubled, being removed, that is, from their first functions. One who understands these things to be so will add that then the sign of the Son of Man will appear, in which the heavenly things were made, both those in heaven and those on earth: for example, the power which the Son worked when he hung on the wood; and his sign will shine above all in heaven; and men of all the tribes, who before did not believe what announced Christianity, and even spoke ill of it, will then, recognizing it through that manifest sign, mourn and lament for their ignorance and sins, because they did not receive the word of the Lord in its figure. But another will think otherwise about these words: that, as these words show, the corruption of the world will come not through fire but through its failing. And another uses an example: just as when the light of a lamp fails the light gradually diminishes, so when the nourishment of the heavenly lights fails, the sun will be darkened, no longer having the exhalations that came up to it from them. And when the greater light suffers this, much more will the moon be unable to show that fiery brightness which appears according to its phases. When these things happen to the sun, then, the light of the stars too will fail, so that what remains in them, being as it were earthy, will fall from heaven; and all the powers of the heavens will be shaken when these things happen. For just as at the dispensation of the cross, when the sun failed, darkness came over all the earth, so too, when the sign of the Son of Man appears in heaven, the light of the sun and moon, and also of the stars, will fail, as though consumed by the great power of that sign. When it appears, the tribes that then remain on earth will mourn. For this he will use the example of Isaiah the prophet, who speaks in this way: “Behold, the incurable day of the Lord is coming, of wrath and fury, to make the world desolate and to destroy the sinners out of it. For the stars of heaven, and Orion, and all the ornament of heaven will not give their light, and the sun will be darkened at its rising, and the moon will not give its brightness. And I will command evils for the world, and for the ungodly their sins.” And likewise from Joel: “Before his face the earth will be confounded, and the heaven will be shaken. Sun and moon will be darkened, the stars will not give light, and the Lord will utter his voice before the face of his host, for his camp is very mighty, for strong are the works of his words.” And again: “And I will give wonders in heaven above, and on earth blood and fire and vapour. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.” And you will find many things like these in the Scriptures, if you wish to look at nothing else in the gospel passages than the simple words. For in keeping with the saying, “Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn,” as needing no interpretation, you will take such words from the prophet Zechariah: “And it will be on that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, and I will pour out on the house of David and on all who dwell in Jerusalem a spirit of grace and compassion; and they will look on me because they mocked, and they will mourn for themselves with a mourning as for a beloved one, and grieve with grief as for a firstborn. On that day the mourning over Jerusalem will be magnified like the mourning for a pomegranate tree cut down in the plain; and the land will mourn tribe by tribe: the tribe of the house of David by itself, and their women by themselves; the tribe of the house of Nathan by itself, and their women by themselves; the tribe of the house of Levi by itself, and their women by themselves; the tribe of the house of Simeon by itself, and their women by themselves; all the tribes that are left, each by itself, and their women by themselves.” It will seem to some, then, that the interpretation ought to be carried thus far and nothing be examined beyond the text.

But since one who speaks about the divine Scriptures must care not only for the simple, so as not to neglect for their sake those who can bear more abundantly the nature of subtle words, lest perhaps such traditions be false and nothing of the kind that ought to be said by God about such matters, for the sake of such men we shall set out a few things figuratively, as far as we can. Such men will say: How can it be said of the sun that its light will be darkened, when Isaiah the prophet declares that there will be some increase of the sun at the consummation, while this saying declares a taking away? Likewise about the moon, Isaiah reports that it will be like the sun, but the present saying that it will not give its light. And about the stars they will say this: from the earth to heaven is a great distance, especially to the middle zone, in which there are no wandering stars; considering its height, one must suppose that unless the stars were exceedingly great, their light would not be seen across so great a distance by all who are in every part of the earth. And, as some try to say, either all of them or most are greater than the earth itself, using as an argument to commend their reasoning that the whole heaven, gathered in the form of a sphere, embraces the whole earth; and they will say something like this: those who gather the truth of these sayings simply from the text itself speak of a thing impossible by its very nature as possible, that stars of such magnitude should fall from heaven. For where would they fall, when the earth is not sufficient for their magnitude, nor could it hold, so to speak, the magnitude of two stars? But suppose it could hold two or three, could it hold so great a multitude? Must we not perhaps understand something else figuratively in the divine Scriptures? It is bold, but necessary; yet these passages need long treatment by one who wishes to show at once both the possibility of the Scriptures and their truth. He will say, then, that it must be observed that the sun is the devil, who transforms himself into an angel of light and, like a sun, leads many astray. Since, then, at the consummation he is to be convicted, being darkness though he pretends to be the sun, the saying “the sun will be darkened” can be understood of him. And he will say that this account is more honourable than to suppose that such a sun as this will suffer darkness. “All,” he says, “may agree without any danger to this approved word, that such a sun is to be thus darkened.” And in keeping with such a sun must also be understood the moon, which seems to be illuminated by such a sun. For every church of the evil-doers, which often promises that it has and gives light, will then, convicted and exposed together with its rejected doctrines, not give its brightness. And whoever, whether in doctrines or in feigned virtues, promised men the truth but led astray by lies those who attended to them, these may fittingly be called stars falling from heaven: from their own heaven, so to speak, where the heights were set that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. To commend such a word they will use the example of Proverbs, which says: “The light of the righteous is always unquenchable, but the light of the ungodly will be quenched”: the true knowledge, which those enlightened for themselves who heard the one who says, “Light for yourselves the light of knowledge,” being the light of the righteous, and false knowledge the light of the ungodly; and the light of the saints is always unquenchable, but the light of those who fall from the truth is quenched. The light of that sun of which we spoke will be darkened, then, and of that moon which we explained; and all who exalt themselves against the knowledge of God will fall from their height, which they thought to be heaven. Perhaps the saying fits this too: “I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven.” And when these things happen to such a sun and moon and stars, the divine powers of the heavens will not be wholly unmoved; but they will be moved when that sun has been convicted and darkened, and that moon does not show its brightness, and such stars have fallen, as Jude too says in his letter. Then what is bright will appear in heaven, and everyone who has borne the image of the heavenly; and when these things have been done thus, the tribes of heaven will rejoice, while the tribes of the earth, who have borne the image of the earthly, will mourn. Further, to commend his tradition, the one who made this interpretation will add that, if the perceptible sun were darkened (granting that this is so), and the moon did not give its brightness, and the stars fell, it would not be possible for the tribes of men to exist on earth; and if it is not possible, then neither, as the text says, “will the tribes of the earth mourn.” Then, therefore, as the Lord says in the Gospel, those who now laugh will mourn, and will mourn as those in the tribes of the earth. In this sense one who wishes to raise what is said to a figurative explanation will try to interpret the words of Isaiah and Joel too. Further, for what has been said about the falling stars, it is not without reason to take from the Revelation of John what concerns the third part of the stars drawn to earth by the tail of the dragon. For it says thus: “And another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems; and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.” To explain all this in detail, about the seven heads of the dragon, which perhaps can be referred to certain rulers of the affairs of wickedness, or to so many sins leading to death, is not for this time; it will be explained in its time in the Revelation of John. And the ten horns, which one may say are the kingdoms of the malice of serpents, and of one who has a serpent's nature and always goes on breast and belly through sins, it is not time to explain now either. What of the present account of the seven diadems which the dragon seems to have on his seven heads? For instance, diadems which some head of the dragon takes up for each of those joined to it. These principal explanations and proofs must be given when the book itself has been set before us to expound; but now we need explain only this from that Revelation: that the dragon's tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast it to the earth. For I think that one who ought to hear, “You shall walk after the Lord your God,” and “Come after me,” and stops his ears to these but follows sin, is drawn by the dragon's tail, going after it. And if it happened that one who so lived as to hear, “You are the light of the world,” and whose good works once shone, having once been set as a star and having his way of life in heaven, is torn away by the dragon to the earth, he will be a star drawn by the dragon's tail and cast to the earth. So stars are drawn by the dragon's tail and cast to the earth. But there are others, some part of which is darkened, while the greater part is luminous, which the word of the Revelation seems to show, running thus: “And the fourth angel sounded the trumpet, and the third part of the moon was struck, and the third part of the stars, so that the third part of them was darkened.” For there are some who have neither wholly kept the saying, “So let your light shine before men,” nor have been wholly quenched and darkened, but in part. For some shone like the brightness of heaven because of their knowledge, and others became like stars because of their way of life. But to some we seem to have brought forward these explanations, and explained them in part, not consistently with the preceding ones: since there we said that those would fall as stars who seemed to have been stars but were not, while here we speak of those who truly were stars and fell either wholly or in part. Let us answer them that in bringing forward these examples we have shown this, that the stars are wholly to be understood as men, not what kind of stars; otherwise that passage has its own interpretation, and this one its own. Yet when these things have happened thus, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then the tribes of the earth will mourn. For this it is not absurd to use the examples of Zechariah the prophet, which run: “And it will be on that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, and I will pour out on the house of David and on those who dwell in Jerusalem a spirit of grace and compassion, and they will look on me because they mocked, and they will mourn for themselves with a mourning as for a beloved one, and grieve with grief as for a firstborn. And on that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be magnified like the mourning for a pomegranate tree cut down in the plain, and the land will mourn tribe by tribe: the tribe of the house of David by itself, and their women by themselves; the tribe of the house of Nathan by itself, and their women by themselves; the tribe of the house of Levi by itself, and their women by themselves; the tribe of the house of Simeon by itself, and their women by themselves; and all the remaining tribes, each by itself, and their women by themselves.” Every earthly company, then, since it is a tribe of the earth, which they have assigned to themselves, will mourn with those like them, especially if one must mourn more abundantly in some of the sins. I think that by this are shown the differences of those who seem to have been in the faith and in its company but did not please God. The house of David, then, is those who, being of the people, did things worthy of mourning, or of the kings and great men. Those of the teachers who lived badly are the mourning tribe of Nathan, since Nathan was a prophet, and to teach is to prophesy. Thus those sinners who were set over the Church and had the priesthood enjoined on them, and did not administer their office well, are the mourning tribe of the house of Levi. To speak the truth, whether about those we have mentioned or about the tribe of Simeon, belongs to God alone; but we at present apply it thus: all who have been catechized and instructed in the divine mystery, and were not ordained in any of the tribes we spoke of above, and have sinned grave sins, as are very many of the laity, are the tribe of Simeon; and the remaining men are those he called the remaining tribes, which he did not name specifically. It is no ordinary task to speak also of the women of each tribe mourning by themselves. And see whether you can say that in each class those who were more bodily and worldly are the women, and those who were better by comparison with them were the men.