(On Mark 8:38)
"the printed Greek copies have removed this 39th verse to the beginning
of the next chapter ; but the connection of the discourse requires that
it be left in this place. It very conveniently unites with the preceding
remarks : and its explication is to be sought from [Matt.] chap. xvi.
28." (Com. in loc.)
(On Luke 13:3,5)
"Jesus Christ here predicts those calamities which overwhelmed them,
when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans ; for then, very many
impenitent and unbelieving Jews were buried together under the ruins of
their most devastated country." (Com. in loc. )
"Most of the recent critics apply this coming of the
Son of God to the period when Jerusalem was completely overturned and
destroyed by the Romans. Then Jesus Christ came in his Father's majesty,
to execute punishment on the rebellious, unbelieving Jews. Then the Lord
came with his angels,' &c."
(On John 7:34)
Or rather the time shall come, when your afflictions shall so increase,
that ye shall desire, though too late, and in vain, that a prophet like
me should arise among you, who should relieve you by his counsel and
assistance. Then those who believe in me shall desire a day of my
presence, as a solace in those severe calamities by which they are
overwhelmed. This corresponds with what Jesus elsewhere says, (Luke
xvii. 22.) " The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the
days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it." Indeed, he says the
same thing to his disciples, chap. xiii. 33, which makes it more
certain, that these words are to be understood in this sense : ye shall
seek me; ye shall desire to see me, and to hear me. At length it shall
come to pass, that even the unbelieving and obdurate Jews, seeing the
destruction of their nation, and the ruin of their temple, shall be
constrained to confess, that this is a just punishment of their sins ;
especially of that unrighteous persecution which caused the death of
Jesus Christ and his apostles. So Chrysostom, Theophylact, Leontius, and
Euthimius." (Com. in loc.)
(On John 17:12)
"What I have petitioned, 0 Father, I have petitioned for these ; not for
the world, not for the unbelieving Jews, not for the Gentiles, who have
not yet believed in me. I shall pray for them hereafter, (ver. 20 ;) but
now I speak of my apostles only, who deserve my first care, because they
are thine, and because thou hast given them to me." (Com. in loc.)
(On Acts 3:19)
"This may be understood concerning the time of God's vengeance against
the Jews, when the Romans laid waste their city and temple, according to
the prediction of Jesus Christ. Then the upright, faithful disciples of
Christ enjoyed quiet and refreshment The persecutions, which the Jews
had never ceased to exercise against the rising church, were restrained,
and, so far as these were concerned, all things were restored to a state
of peace and tranquillity. St. Peter does not here speak of the
persecutions which the church endured from the Gentiles, because his
discourse had reference to the Jews only, and nothing had then been said
respecting the Gentiles." (Com. in loc.)
(On 1 Thessalonians 2:16)
"God was to visit them immediately in vengeance, to scatter them among
all nations, to destroy the largest portion of them, and to cause the
remnant of this miserable race to bear the most manifest marks of his
indignation. This came to pass about seventeen years after Paul wrote
this epistle, to wit, in the year of Jesus Christ, seventy." (Com. in
loc.)
(On 1 Peter 4:17)
"If the righteous be scarcely able to escape, in these days of wrath,
what shall be the fate of the ungodly ? When God began to exercise
vengeance upon the Jews, he first permitted the Christians to suffer
many afflictions and persecutions ; but after he had purified his
church, and proved the virtue of his elect, he admonished them to depart
from Jerusalem, and its borders, and to remove beyond Jordan.
Ecclesiastical historians relate that they retired to Pella, under the
protection of King Agrippa, a friend and ally of the Romans, to which
place the violence of the war did not extend. But the remaining Jews
experienced the fury and the power of their conquerors, who levelled the
temple, and Jerusalem itself, with the ground, even ploughing the earth
on which it stood, and slew eleven hundred thousand of the Jews. St.
Peter alludes to Prov. xi. 31, " If the righteous shall be recompensed
in the earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner?" The apostle
follows the version of the LXX." (Com. in loc.)
