gold of the temple is a debtor. Ye foolish and blind; for whether is it greater, the gold, or the temple which sanctifieth the gold (5)? And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift upon it, is a debtor. Ye blind; for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? He, therefore, that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things that are upon it; whosoever shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth in it; and he that sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not leave those undone (6). Blind guides, you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.”

Woe to

"Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of extortion and uncleanness. Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean. Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like the whited sepulchres (7), which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly, indeed, appear to men just; but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."

"Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just, and say: If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves (8), that you are the sons of them who killed the prophets. Fill ye up, then, the measure of

(5) Many Pharisees belonged to the sacerdotal order; now amongst the oaths which were obligatory, some were profitable to the priests, and there were others from which they derived no advantage. This single difference constituted, according to the decisions of these worthy men, the whole difference between serious oaths and those which were of minor consequence.

(6) See page 305, Part II., and note 3, connected with the same passage. (7) See page 305, Part II.

(8) See page 305, Part II.

your fathers. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will

cape

you es

the judgment of hell? Therefore behold, I send to you proph ets, and wise men, and Scribes; and some of them you will put to death, and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just (9), even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias (10), whom you killed between the temple and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not. Behold, your house shall be left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth till you say: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

After a discourse so long and so vehement, the Saviour, who condescended to feel fatigued, had need of some short repose. But his repose was not less useful than his labor. (a) "And Jesus, sitting over against the treasury, beheld how the people cast money into the treasury; many that were rich cast in much; there came a certain poor widow, and she cast in two mites, which make a farthing.' A thing so trifling in appearance furnished the occasion for one of the most sublime instructions contained in the Gospel. "Calling his disciples together, he saith to them: Amen, I say to you, this poor widow hath cast in more than all they who have cast into the treasury; for all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want cast in all she had, even her whole living." Men, whose wants are great, only value great things. God, who is in want of nothing, values only greatness of heart. In the offerings which we make to (a) St. Mark, xii. 41–44.

(9) See note 7, page 307, Part II.

(10) We find in Scripture one Zacharias killed between the temple and the altar, but he was the son of Joiada; we find another, the son of Barachias; but in his time, says Saint Jerome, the ruins of the temple were scarcely visible. The mos common opinion is, that he who is referred to here is the first, whose father, Joiada, had also the name of Barachias.

him, he regards not the hand, but the heart; and if the heart be generous, the smallest gift acquires in his sight the value of a rich treasure. Let not, therefore, the rich man pride himself because of his great donations; they may be given without any high degree of merit, and with but small generosity; and let not the poor man think himself deprived of the merit of giving because he has little to give. In giving all that he has, he gives much more than he who, whilst he gives much, still reserves for himself more than he gives. The reason of this is explained by the Saviour: it costs but little to give from a person's superfluity; but to deprive himself of what is necessary can only proceed from unlimited generosity.

The Saviour, before he gave this instruction to his disciples, had foretold to the Jews the impending ruin of Jerusalem, and of the temple, for such is the meaning given to this expression which he had just used: "Behold, your house shall be left to you desolate." If we believe the majority of interpreters, this fearful prediction gave rise to the following conversation, which only served to confirm it, by repeating it in terms still more precise and more energetic: (a) "Jesus being come out of the temple, went away: and his disciples came to show him the buildings of the temple;" according to the interpretation which we have adopted, their intention was to make him revoke the sentence which he had pronounced against that superb edifice. They spoke of it, therefore, with this design: (b) "And some saying of the temple that it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, one of his disciples saith to him: Master, behold what manner of stones, and what buildings are here! Jesus answering, said to him: Seest thou all these great buildings? Amen, I say to you, these things which you see, the days will come in which there shall not be left a stone upon a stone that shall not be thrown down (11)."

(a) St. Matthew, xxiv. 1. ·

(6) St. Luke, xxi. 5, 6; St. Mark, xiii. 1, 2; St. Matthew, xxiv. 2.

(11) This prediction contains nothing hyperbolical. The Romans had burned and levelled the temple, but the foundations were remaining. ing granted to the Jews permission to rebuild it, the latter the ancient foundations, in order to substitute new ones.

Julian the Apostate, havcommenced by uprooting The work was not com

God, although not subject to change, alters, nevertheless, his decrees when men become perverse. This he did with regard to converted Nineveh, and he would have done the same towards the Jews, if they had sought to obtain their pardon by similar penance. But their anticipated obduracy rendered irrevocable the sentence which had just been pronounced against them. The positive manner in which the Saviour repeated it, made it intelligible to the apostles, who now only required to know the period of its execution.

They began to consider the means of obtaining this information, and in the mean time they continued their journey. They soon. reached their destination, (a) " and as he sat on the Mount of Olivet, opposite the temple," the occasion was favorable for alluding to it. "The disciples came to him privately, and Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew asked him: Master, tell us when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign when all those things shall begin to be fulfilled? what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the consummation of the world?"

This inquiry had two objects-the destruction of the temple and the end of the world, which was to be preceded by the coming of Jesus Christ, as he himself had so often foretold. The apostles, it seems, entertained the notion that these events were to happen about the same time. The cause of this error may have been, that Jesus Christ had associated them in the prediction which he made concerning them. However, he had only done so because of several features of resemblance which were found between the destruction of the Jewish nation and that of the universe, and because the first was to be the figure of the second. But we know that he did not wish the period of his last coming to be known, but only that it might

(a) St. Mark, xiii. 3, 4; St. Matthew, xxiv. 3; St. Luke, xxi. 7.

pleted, when waving masses of fire issued from the earth, carrying off the remains of the foundations of the accursed temple, and consuming several of the workmen, which compelled the Jews to abandon the enterprise. Let us remark that Julian had permitted the Jews to rebuild the temple with the avowed object of falsifying the prediction of Jesus Christ, that it was these same Jews who had labored with their own hands to effect the entire accomplishment of the prophecy, and we shall then see what men can do when opposed to God.

be foreseen when it began to approach. We may almost say the same of the ruin of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Synagogue, the precise time of which he never made known, although he clearly insinuated that the time was not far distant. He does not, therefore, undeceive his disciples; and having rather in view to instruct his Church than to satisfy their curiosity, he goes on to inform them by what marks men may recognize the approach of these two great events. We have already said that they are sometimes represented by characters which are common to both, sometimes distinguished by others which are peculiar to each. An attentive reader will find it easy to distinguish between them, and will at once remark that the first part of the prophecy applies almost exclusively to the ruin of Jerusalem, and the second to the last coming of Jesus Christ, who thus commences to speak of it, in answer to the question which the disciples had just put to him.

CHAPTER LVI.

FORERUNNING SIGNS.-SIGN OF THE SON OF MAN. THE LAST TRUMPET.-THE ELECT GATHERED TOGETHER.-VIGILANCE ALWAYS NECESSARY.-ONE TAKEN, ANOTHER

LEFT.

(a) "TAKE heed, lest any man seduce you: for many will come in my name, saying: I am Christ (1); and the time is at hand. They will seduce many; go ye not, therefore, after them."

(b) "When you shall hear of wars and seditions, be not terrified. These things must first come to pass, but the end is not yet present

(a) St. Mark, xiii. 5, 6; St. Matthew, xxiv. 5; St. Luke, xxi. 8.

(b) St. Luke, xxi. 9-11; St. Matt. xxiv. 8; St. Luke, xxi. 12-15; St. Mark, xiii. 9-11.

(1) Even now there are become many Antichrists, said the apostle Saint John, ep. 1, chap. 2; in point of fact, there appeared several false Messiahs, from the death of Jesus Christ till the destruction of Jerusalem. There shall appear many more before the end of the world besides him who is called the Antichrist, by excellence; this mark is common to both events.