The temple was not overthrown all at once, but gradually as time went by. Similarly, every one who welcomes the Word of God into himself is something like a temple. If, after committing sin he does not completely fall away from the Word of God, but still partially preserves in himself traces of faith and accountability to God’s commands, he is a temple partly destroyed, partly standing. But he who after sinning has no care for himself but is always prone to depart from faith and from life according to the gospel, till he completely departs from the living God, he is a temple in which no stone of doctrine is left upon any stone and not thrown down.

Antichrist^[1] will come at such a time as there shall not be left of the temple of the Jews one stone upon another, to quote the sentence pronounced by the Savior.^[2] For it is not until all the stones are overthrown, whether by the decay of age, or through being pulled down for building material or in consequence of this or that other happening, and I do not mean merely the stones of the outer walls, but the floor of the inner temple where the cherubim were,^[3] that Antichrist will come with all signs and lying wonders^[4] treating all the idols with disdain.

There is no discrepancy in the Gospels as to facts of the end time,^[1] although one may supply details which another may pass over or describe differently. Rather, they supplement each other when compared, and thus give direction to the mind of the reader.^[2]

Christ is truth. Antichrist falsifies truth. Christ is wisdom. Antichrist deftly simulates wisdom. All genuine excellences have a correspondence with Christ. All pretended virtues correspond with Antichrist. For each variety of good which Christ embodies in himself to build up the faithful, the demonic will find a way of mimicking in appearance to deceive the faithful.^[1]

As to wars, when has the earth not been scourged by them at different periods and places? To pass over remote history, when the barbarians were everywhere invading Roman provinces in the reign of Gallienus,^[1] how many of our brothers who were then alive do we think could have believed that the end was near, since this happened long after the ascension of the Lord! Thus, we do not know what the nature of those signs will be when the end is really near at hand, if these present ones have not been so foretold that they should at least be understood in the church. Certainly, there are two nations and two kingdoms, namely, one of Christ, the other of the devil.

Just as bodies become sick before their death if they do not suffer violence from without, and in all cases the way of separation of soul from body comes through weakness, so it happens with the whole course of the world creation. When the creation begins to decay, having as it has both beginning and end, it must grow weak before its dissolution. At this point the earth may be frequently shaken with earthquakes. The air having received some diseased contagion may become overrun with pestilence.^[1] Moreover the vital energies of the earth itself may suddenly fail and strangle its fruits. These destructive forces may pollute the regenerative capacity of all trees.

It is evident that the gospel of the kingdom has not yet been preached in all the world. It is not reported to have been preached among all the Ethiopians, especially among those beyond the river,^[1] nor among the Serae, nor in the East.^[2] What are we to say of the Britons, or of the Germans along the ocean,^[3] or of the barbarians, Dacians,^[4] Samaritans and Scythians,^[5] the greatest part of whom have not yet^[6] heard the word of the gospel, but who will certainly hear it by the time of the end? If any one is minded to say rashly that the gospel of the kingdom has already been preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations, he will consequently be constrained to say that the end has already come!^[7] That would be a most rash statement indicating a lack of understanding.

Therefore the Lord exhorts us to wait with patient and reverent faith until the end comes, for Blessed is he that endures to the end.^[1] It is neither a blessed nothingness that awaits us, nor is nonexistence the fruit, nor annihilation the appointed reward of faith. Rather the end is the final attainment of the promised blessedness. They are blessed who endure until the goal of perfect happiness is reached, when the expectation of faith reaches toward complete fulfillment. Their end is to abide with unbroken rest in that condition toward which they are presently pressing.^[2]

By the holy place is to be understood every saying of divine Scripture spoken by the prophets from Moses onwards, and by the Evangelists and apostles. In this holy place of all the Scriptures, Antichrist, the false Word, has often stood. This is the abomination of desolation.^[1]

He who flees ought to know the place to which he ought to flee, and also to pray that he may not flee in the time which is opposed to flight.

The housetop in this case suggests a lofty and exalted mind. We are commanded not to descend down from this housetop. Let one who flees in persecution not fail to go up to this housetop, but also from this housetop let him not come down to scramble for the things down below, in his house.

This is said figuratively, distinguishing those with child from those who give suck. Those who are with child are the souls whose hope is in the world. Those who have acquired what they hoped for are those who give suck. Suppose someone yearns to buy a country estate. She is with child, for her object is not gained as yet. The womb swells in hope. She buys it. When she has given birth, she now gives suck to what she has bought. Woe to those who put their hope in the world. Woe also to those who cling to those things which they brought forth through hope in the world.

When the elect pray that their flight not be on the Sabbath or in the winter, this means that God asks us not to let ourselves be surprised by the things which meet us unexpectedly when we might be sluggish in righteousness (neglecting the Sabbath or caught in worldly preoccupations).

Winter is without fruit and sabbath without labor.^[1] Do not let it be you who might be led away captive under such circumstances—when you have neither fruit nor work. Pray that captivity does not come either of some external necessity, such as the winter, or during a time of inattentiveness such as the sabbath. This means that neither the constraint of others nor the relaxation of your own will should be the occasion to take you away from the work of the Lord your God. . . . It is true that distress will come and that you will have to flee. But keep on praying lest this calamity come upon you in the winter, or surprise you on the sabbath when you are resting. . . . Winter is the time of repose from all the work of the summer, just as the sabbath is the time of repose, the seventh day, when work is not done.

Let us keep in mind that these present afflictions are as far below the last tribulations, as is the person of the herald below the majesty of the judge he precedes. Reflect with all your mind upon this day, my dearest ones. Remedy what is now defective in your present life. Amend your ways. Overcome evil temptations by standing firm against them. Repent with tears of the sins you have committed. For the more you make ready against the severity of his justice by serving him in fear, the more serenely shall you behold the coming of that eternal judge, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, world without end. Amen.

While Antichrist is generically one, there may be many species of him. It is as if one would say that falsehood is generically one, but according to the differences of false doctrines there are found many specific falsehoods. . . . If possible is a hyperbole. For he did not suggest or indicate that even the elect are to be thrown into error, but wishes to show that often the words of the heretics are exceedingly plausible and have power to move even those who hear them wisely. Every word professing to be truth while not the truth, whether among gentiles or barbarians, is in a sense Antichrist, seeking to mislead as though the truth, and to separate from the One who said, I am the truth.^[1]

The more the Adversary rages, the more error deceives. Senselessness makes its pretenses, envy inflames, covetousness makes blind, impiety depraves, pride puffs up, discord exasperates, anger hurries headlong. . . . Let the brethren beware of these things, for I have told you all things beforehand.^[1] Avoid such people. Drive them away from your side and your ears, as if their mischievous conversation were the contagion of death. . . . It is an enemy of the altar, a rebel against Christ’s sacrifice, who offers the faithful faithlessness, who is a disobedient servant, an impious son, a hostile brother, who despises bishops, who forsakes the elders, who dares to set up another altar to make another prayer with prohibited words, to profane the truth of the Lord’s offering.

We must not inordinately fix upon the chronology of what is said in Scripture, because frequently the Holy Spirit,^[1] having spoken of the end of the last times, then returns again to address a previous time, and fills up what had before been left unsaid. Nor must we look for a specific chronology in apocalyptic visions,^[2] but rather follow the meaning of those things which are prophesied.

As in its monthly eclipse, the moon, by reason of the earth coming between it and the sun, disappears from view, so likewise the holy church, when the vices of the flesh stand in the way of the celestial light, can no longer borrow the splendor of its divine light from the sun of Christ. . . . Also the stars, that is, leaders surrounded by the praise of their fellow Christians, shall fall, as the bitterness of persecution mounts up.

When impious persecutors rage beyond measure, and when the fortune of this world seems to smile upon them and fear leaves them and they say: Peace and security, then the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be moved, when many who seemed to shine brilliantly with grace will yield to the persecutors and will fall, and even the strongest of the faithful will be shaken.

The stars at the day of judgment will seem to be dark, not by any failure of their own luster, but in consequence of the increase of the true light throwing them into the shade.

If you examine this whole passage of Scripture from the inquiry of the disciples down to the parable of the fig tree,^[1] you will find that it makes sense at every point in connection with the coming of the Son of Man. He will bring both sorrow and joy. The Son of Man is coming in the midst of both calamities and promises, both the grief of nations and the longing of the saints. He is the common element in both. He who is common to both will end the one by inflicting judgment on the nations, and will commence the other by fulfilling the longings of the saints.

The powers above—the angels guarding the universe—will be put into action in that storm and tumult of all things. Powerful men will stop. Laboring women will also stop and flee into the dark places of their houses.

What wonder is it, that human beings should be troubled at this judgment, the sight of which makes the very angelic powers tremble? What will the upper parts of the house do when the pillars underneath begin to shake?

This could be taken in two ways: one, that he will come in the church as in a cloud, as he continues to come now according to his word: Hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven.^[1] He comes with great power and majesty because his greater power and majesty will appear in the saints to whom he will give great power, so that they may not be overcome by such persecution. The other way in which he will come will be in his body in which he sits at the right hand of the Father,^[2] in which, also, he died and rose again and ascended into heaven.

In his last advent he will come in the clouds to judge the quick and the dead,^[1] just as he preached of clouds in his first voice which sounded forth in the gospel: They will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.^[2] What is then? Will not the Lord come again in later times, when all the peoples of the earth shall lament? He came first in preaching, and filled the whole wide world. Let us not resist his first coming, that we may not tremble at his second.

That he will gather his elect from the four winds means from the whole world.^[1] For Adam himself, as I have shown, signifies in Greek the whole world, with the four letters (A, D, A, M). As the Greeks think of these matters, the four quarters of the world have these initial letters, Anatole (east), Dysis (west), Arktos (north), and Mesembria (south). Adam after the fall has been scattered over the whole world.^[2] He was in one place, but fell, and as if crushed in tiny pieces, his progeny filled the whole world. But the mercy of God is gathering together the fragments from every side and is forging them together by the fire of love, and making one what was pulverized. That incomparable artist knew just how to do this. So let no one despair. This indeed is a great work of art. But reflect upon who the artist is. The very one who made shall restore. The one who formed shall reform. Where finally shall we come to know righteousness and truth? He will gather together his elect with him to the judgment, and the rest will be separated out.^[3]