ACC ~ 1 Thessalonians 4 v17

AS WITH CHRIST, SO FOR US. GREGORY OF NYSSA: For that which has taken place in Christ’s humanity is a common blessing on humanity generally. For we see in him the weight of the body, which naturally gravitates to earth, ascending through the air into the heavens. Therefore, we believe according to the words of the apostle, that we also “shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Even so, when we hear that the true God and Father has become the God and Father of Christ, precisely as the firstfruits of the general resurrection, we no longer doubt that the same God has become our God and Father too. This is true inasmuch as we have learned that we shall come to the same place where Christ has entered for us as our forerunner. AGAINST EUNOMIUS 12.1.

CAUGHT UP IN THE CLOUDS. RUFINUS OF AQUILEIA: That the righteous shall ever abide with Christ our Lord, we have already demonstrated. This is where we have shown that the apostle says, “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” And do not marvel that the flesh of the saints is to be changed into such a glorious condition at the resurrection as to be caught up to meet God, suspended in the clouds and borne in the air. Indeed, the same apostle, setting forth the great things which God bestows on them that love him, says, “Who shall change our vile body that it may be made like his glorious body.”It is in no way absurd, then, if the bodies of the saints are said to be raised up in the air, seeing that they are said to be renewed after the image of Christ’s body, which is seated at God’s right hand. A COMMENTARY ON THE APOSTLES’ CREED 46.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. EPHREM THE SYRIAN: This Jesus that gathered and carried and brought with him of the fruit was longing for the Tree of Life to taste the fruit that quickens all. For him Rahab too was looking. For when the scarlet thread in type redeemed her from wrath, in type she tasted of the Truth. For him Elijah longed, and when he did not see him on earth, he, thoroughly cleansed through faith, mounted up to heaven to see him. Moses saw him and Elijah. The meek man from the depth ascended, the zealous from on high descended, and in the midst beheld the Son. They figured the mystery of his advent: Moses was a type of the dead, and Elijah a type of the living, that fly to meet him at his coming. For the dead that have tasted death, them he makes to be first: and the rest that are not buried, are at last caught up to meet him. HYMNS ON THE NATIVITY 1.

THE VENERABLE BEDE: By Moses and Elijah [at the transfiguration] we can rightly understand everyone who is going to reign with the Lord. By Moses, who died and was buried, [we can understand] those who at the judgment are going to be raised up from death. By Elijah, on the other hand, who has not yet paid the debt of death, [we can understand] those who are going to be found alive in the flesh at the Judge’s coming. At one and the same moment, both of them, having been caught up “in clouds to meet the Lord in the air,” will be led into eternal life, as soon as the judgment is brought to completion. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.24.

THE GREAT RECEPTION. CHRYSOSTOM: If he is about to descend, on what account shall we be caught up? For the sake of honor. For when a king drives into a city, those who are in honor go out to meet him; but the condemned await the judge within. And upon the coming of an affectionate father, his children indeed, and those who are worthy to be his children, are taken out in a chariot, that they may see and kiss him; but the housekeepers who have offended him remain within. We are carried upon the chariot of our Father. For he received him up in the clouds, and “we shall be caught up in the clouds.” Do you see how great is the honor? And as he descends, we go forth to meet him, and, what is more blessed than all, so shall we be with him. HOMILIES ON 1 THESSALONIANS 8.

TRUE LIFE. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: Now the life that is really and truly life is God the Father, the fount of life, who pours out his heavenly gifts upon all his creatures through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, and the blessings of eternal life are faithfully promised even to us men, through his love for us. There must be no incredulity about the possibility of that. For we ought to believe, because our minds should be set on his power, not on our feebleness. For anything is possible with God, and that our eternal life is both possible and to be looked forward to by us is shown when Daniel says, “the understanding. . . from among the many righteous shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.”And Paul says, “And so shall we be ever with the Lord.” For “being ever with the Lord” means the same thing as eternal life. CATECHETICAL LECTURES 18.29.

THE FINAL VISION. PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS: In a fashion beyond words, the simplicity of Jesus became something complex, the timeless took on the duration of the temporal, and, with neither change nor confusion of what constitutes him, he came into our human nature, he who totally transcends the natural order of the world. … And so it is that the Transcendent is clothed in the terms of being, with shape and form on things which have neither, and numerous symbols are employed to convey the varied attributes of what is an imageless and supranatural simplicity. But in time to come, when we are incorruptible and immortal, when we have come at last to the blessed inheritance of being like Christ, then, as Scripture says, “we shall always be with the Lord.” THE DIVINE NAMES 1.4.