約伯倫理 第 669 章

Verse 20. — 'In his days the last shall be astonished, and horror shall seize the first.' 27. The savage persecution of Antichrist. Then there will be present to the saints both constancy from virtue and dread from the flesh. — For then he will rage against the just with such great iniquity that even the hearts of the elect shall be struck with no small dread. Whence it is written: 'So that, if it be possible, even the elect are led into error' (Matthew xxiv, 24). Which is said, not because the elect are about to fall, but because they are about to tremble with great terrors.

But then, against him, both the last elect and the first are related to wage the contest of righteousness; because, namely, both these who shall be found elect at the end of the world are to be laid low in the death of the flesh, and even those who came forth from the earlier ages of the world — namely Enoch and Elias — shall be recalled into the midst, and shall suffer the ferocity of his cruelty while still in their mortal flesh.

At his strength, unleashed in such great power, the last are astonished and the first are afraid; because, although, in respect to his being lifted up by the spirit of pride, they despise all his temporal power, yet, in respect to their being still in mortal flesh, in which they can be tortured for a time, they shudder at those very torments which they bravely endure; so that in them at one and the same time there is both constancy from virtue and dread from the flesh. For although they are elect, so as not to be overcome by torments, yet, by the very fact that they are men, they also fear those torments which they overcome. Let it be said, therefore:

'In his days the last shall be astonished, and horror shall seize the first'; because, namely, being about then to display such great signs, and to do cruel and hard things, he will bring to astonishment those whom he finds at the end of the world, and will pierce with the pain of carnal death the earlier fathers who have been preserved for his overthrow. Therefore, because he has narrated many things concerning all the wicked, or concerning the very head of the wicked, he presently subjoins with a general definition: