Augustin Calmet

 

 

(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.)