|
"And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed
from his prison, and shall go out to seduce the nations which are in
the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them to
battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea." This then, is his
purpose in seducing them, to draw them to this battle. For even
before this he was wont to use as many and various seductions as he
could continue. And the words "he shall go out" mean, he shall
burst forth from lurking hatred into open persecution. For this
persecution, occurring while the final judgment is imminent, shall be
the last which shall be endured by the holy Church throughout the
world, the whole city of Christ being assailed by the whole city of
the devil, as each exists on earth. For these nations which he names
Cog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in
some part of the world, whether the Getae and Massagetae, as some
conclude from the initial letters, or some other foreign nations not
under the Roman government. For John marks that they are spread over
the whole earth, when he says, "The nations which are in the four
corners of the earth," and he added that these are Gog and Magog.
The meaning of these names we find to be, Cog, "a roof," Magog,
"from a roof,", a house, as it were, and he who comes out of the
house. They are therefore the nations in which we found that the devil
was shut up as in an abyss, and the devil himself coming out from them
and going forth, so that they are the roof, he from the roof. Or if
we refer both words to the nations, not one to them and one to the
devil, then they are both the roof, because in them the old enemy is
at present shut up, and as it were roofed in; and they shall be from
the roof when they break forth from concealed to open hatred. The
words, "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and
encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city," do not mean
that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of
the saints and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this
camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the
whole world. And consequently wherever the Church shall be, and it
shall be in all nations, as is signified by "the breadth of the
earth,", there also shall be the camp of the saints and the beloved
city, and there it shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of
all its enemies; for they too shall exist along with it in all
nations, that is, it shall be straitened, and hard pressed, and shut
up in the straits of tribulation, but shall not desert its military
duty, which is signified by the word "camp."
|
|