Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 80

←

Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV, Commodianus, The Instructions of Commodianus
by Commodianus, translated by Robert Ernest Wallis

Chapter 80

Elucidation

→

156013Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV, Commodianus, The Instructions of Commodianus — Chapter 80Robert Ernest WallisCommodianus

LXXX.—The Name of the Man of Gaza.

Ye who are to be inhabitants of the heavens with God-Christ, hold fast the beginning, look at all things from heaven. Let simplicity, let meekness dwell in your body. Be not angry with thy devout brother without a cause, for ye shall receive whatever ye may have done from him. This has pleased Christ, that the dead should rise again, yea, with their bodies; and those, too, whom in this world the fire has burned, when six thousand years are completed, and the world has come to an end. The heaven in the meantime is changed with an altered course, for then the wicked are burnt up with divine fire. The creature with groaning burns with the anger of the highest God. Those who are more worthy, and who are begotten of an illustrious stem, and the men of nobility under the conquered Antichrist, according to God’s command living again in the world for a thousand years, indeed, that they may serve the saints, and the High One, under a servile yoke, that they may bear victuals on their neck. Moreover, that they may be judged again when the reign is finished. They who make God of no account when the thousandth year is finished shall perish by fire, when they themselves shall speak to the mountains. All flesh in the monuments and tombs is restored according to its deed: they are plunged in hell; they bear their punishments in the world; they are shown to them, and they read the things transacted from heaven; the reward according to one’s deeds in a perpetual tyranny. I cannot comprehend all things in a little treatise; the curiosity of the learned men shall find my name in this.^[1]

Footnotes

↑ [Dr. Schaff says this Nomen Gazæi may indicate his possession of the wealth of truth, etc. But, if we read the acrostical initials of the verses backwards, we find the name Commodianus Mendicus Christi, which betokens his poverty also, in the spirit of St. Paul (2 Cor. vi. 10; also, Rev. ii. 9), which our author would naturally make emphatic here.]

[1] [Dr. Schaff says this Nomen Gazæi may indicate his possession of the wealth of truth, etc. But, if we read the acrostical initials of the verses backwards, we find the name Commodianus Mendicus Christi, which betokens his poverty also, in the spirit of St. Paul (2 Cor. vi. 10; also, Rev. ii. 9), which our author would naturally make emphatic here.]

[1]