Daniel said, I beheld in the night a vision, and saw one coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man, and he came on to the Ancient of Days and was brought near to him. To him was given the dominion and the honor and the kingdom. And all people, tribes and tongues will serve him. His dominion is an eternal dominion, which shall not pass away. And his kingdom shall not be destroyed.^[1] . . . Then all the gates of heaven will be opened, or rather the heaven itself is taken away. For we read, The heaven shall be rolled up like a scroll, wrapped up to the middle like the skin and covering of some tent, so as to be made into a more useful shape.

So, our Lord Jesus Christ comes from heaven, and he comes with glory at the last day to bring this world to its close. For this world will accomplish its course, and the world that once came into being is hereafter to be renewed. For seeing that corruption, theft, adultery and every form of sin has been poured out on the earth, and in the world fresh blood has been ever mingled with previous blood,^[1] this astonishing habitation filled with iniquity is not to last. This world passes away that the fairer world may be revealed. Now would you have this proved by the express words of Scripture? Listen to these from Isaiah: And the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all the stars shall fall down, as the leaf falls off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.

You have spread out the heavens like a tent cloth. The prophet means to say that from the beginning God spread out the heavens, just as if he were unfolding a scroll and rolling it back again, as it is written in Holy Scripture: And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll. You have constructed your palace upon the waters, as similarly in Genesis,^[1] there were waters above the firmament and, likewise, below the firmament. You travel on the wings of the wind. This typifies the presence of God everywhere.

To us this life is a race course: we contend here, we are crowned elsewhere. No one can lay aside fear while serpents and scorpions beset his path. The Lord says, My sword has drunk its fill in heaven, and do you expect to find peace on the earth? No, the earth yields only thorns and thistles, and its dust is food for the serpent.^[1] For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.^[2] We are hemmed in by hosts of foes; our enemies are upon every side. The weak flesh will soon be ashes: one against many, it fights against tremendous odds. Not till it has been dissolved, not till the prince of this world has come and found no sin therein,^[3] not till then may you safely listen to the prophet’s words: You shall not be afraid for the terror by night nor the arrow that flies by day; nor for the trouble which haunts you in darkness.^[4] . . . When the hosts of the enemy distress you, when your body is hot with fever and your passions roused, when you say in your heart, What shall I do? Then Elisha’s words shall give you your answer, Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.^[5] He shall pray, Lord, open the eyes of your handmaid that she may see. And then when your eyes have been opened, you shall see a fiery chariot like Elijah’s waiting to carry you to heaven,^[6] and you shall joyfully sing, Our soul has become free like a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken and we have been set free.^[7]

Because God did not spare the sinful angels who lost their heavenly home through their own fault, therefore does he say through Isaiah, My sword in heaven is satiated. For every sinner among the people will die by the sword, yet not by a physical sword (there are many and varied ways to die other than by a sword) but by the spiritual sword with which all who fail to do penance must be stricken.

It [sacred Scripture] has a dreadful appearance^[1] when, describing hell, it says, The day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of recompense of the judgment of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched . . . forever.

Which conduct the Lord by the prophet well reproves, under the character of Babylon, saying, Thorns and nettles shall spring up in her houses, and the bramble in their fortresses. For what do we understand by nettles but the irritations of thoughts, and what by thorns but the piercing of sins? Nettles therefore and thorns spring up in the houses of Babylon, because in the disorder of a reprobate mind there arise longings of thoughts that exasperate and sinful deeds that wound.

It is rightly said by the prophet, under the similitude of Judea, against the soul that sins and excuses itself, There has the hedgehog had its hole. Here the term hedgehog symbolizes the duplicity of the insincere mind that craftily defends itself. For when the hedgehog is discovered, its head is seen, its feet are obvious, its whole body revealed; but the moment it is captured, it gathers itself up into a ball, draws in its feet, hides its head, and the thing disappears in the hands of him who holds it, whereas before all the parts were visible.

Such, indeed, is the case of insincere minds when detected in their transgressions. The head of the hedgehog is seen in that one perceives from what beginnings the sinner approaches his crime. The feet of the hedgehog are visible, because one sees by what steps the evil was done. Then by quickly giving excuses, the insincere mind gathers up its feet, inasmuch as it tries to hide every vestige of its sin. It withdraws its head, because it claims through strange pleas that no evil ever began. The thing [i.e., the sinner] remains, as it were, in the hand of him who holds it like a ball. The one who reproves the evil suddenly no longer sees the sins that he had known earlier and holds the sinner enfolded in his own mind. The one who had seen everything at the moment of capturing the sinner (like a hedgehog) loses all knowledge of the sinner, being deluded by the subterfuges of his wicked pleas. Therefore the hedgehog has its nest in the wicked, that is, the duplicity of a malicious mind that conceals itself in the obscurity of its self-defense by drawing itself into a ball.