ACC ~ Mark 13 v28 - 31

OVERVIEW:

Summer is symbolic of endings and gatherings (HIPPOLYTUS). God, knowing the future as if it were present, knows already the whole of history that is yet to be (AMBROSE). Great world conflicts signify for faith the promised coming of the kingdom of God (TERTULLIAN). The Word of God does not pass away, even if all earthly things pass away (ORIGEN). The passing away or destruction of the old in Scripture points to the passing forward to a fuller expression of the divine glory (METHODIUS). Nothing is more passing than speech in this world, but nothing is more durable in this world than God’s speech (GREGORY THE GREAT).

13:28 | You Know That Summer Is Near

SPROUTINGS OF SUMMER

TERTULLIAN: As the sproutings of small trees afford a sign of the approach of summer time, so do the great conflicts of the world point toward the kingdom by preceding it. [1] Both sign and thing signified belong to the same One who orders all. So if conflicts are signs of the kingdom, as sproutings are of summer, then the kingdom also is the creator’s, to whom the conflicts are ascribed, which are the signs of the coming kingdom. AGAINST MARCION 4.39. [2]

[1] Mt 24:32-33; Mk 13:28-29; Lk 21:29-31.

[2] Cetedoc 0014, 4.557.20; AEG 5:156**; cf. ANF 3:417.

THE GATHERING OF FRUIT

HIPPOLYTUS: The summer signifies the end of the world, because at that time fruits are gathered up and stored. ON MATTHEW. [1]

[1] CA 215; AEG 5:156*; loc. cit. On Matthew 13.28.

13:31a | Although Heaven and Earth Will Pass Away

WHAT IS MEANT BY “PASS AWAY”?

METHODIUS: It is usual for the Scriptures to call the change of the world from its present dire condition to a better and more glorious one by the idiom of “destruction.” For its earlier form is thereby lost in the change of all things to a state of greater splendor. This is not a contradiction or absurdity. Paul says that it is not the world as such but the “fashion of this world” [1] that passes away. So it is Scripture’s habit to call the passing from worse to better as “destruction.” Think of a child who passes from a childish stage to amore mature stage. We sometimes express this as an undoing of outmoded patterns. ON THE RESURRECTION 9. [2]

[1] 1 Cor 7:31.

[2] PG 18:276; ANF 6:366**; cf. AEG 5:161.

13:31b | My Words Will Not Pass Away

THE WORD WILL NOT COME TO NOTHING

ORIGEN: Although heaven and earth, and the things that are in them, may pass away, yet his divine speech regarding each individual thing, whether viewed as parts of a whole or species of a genus, shall by no means pass away. [1] The utterances of God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, will not come to nothing. AGAINST CELSUS 5.22. [2]

[1] Cf. Mt 24:35; Mk 13:31; Lk 21:33.

[2] TLG 2042.001, 5.22.16-20; cf. ANF 4:553. The divine speech that creates each particular thing will not pass away.

DURABILITY OF MATTER AND SPEECH

GREGORY THE GREAT: Nothing of this world is more durable than the heavens and the earth, and nothing in the order of nature passes away more quickly than speech. Words, as long as they are incomplete, are not yet words. Once completed they cease utterly to be. In fact they cannot be perfected except by their own passing away. Therefore he says: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass.” As if he were openly to say: all that seems to you enduring and unchangeable is not enduring and without change in eternity. And everything of mine that seems to pass away is enduring and without change. My speech, that seems to pass away, utters thoughts (sententiae manentes) which endure forever. HOMILIES 1. [1]

[1] Cetedoc 1711, 1.1.4.5; SSGF 1:19*; PL 76, 1077-81, Homily 1.

GOD’S MAKING OF THINGS FUTURE

AMBROSE: For just as he calls the things that are not as though they were, [1] so he has made things future as though they were. It cannot come to pass that they should not be. Those things that he has directed to be necessarily will be. Therefore he who has made the things that are to be, knows them already in the way in which they are to be. ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 5.4.192. [2]

[1] Rom 4:17.

[2] Cetedoc 0150, 5.16.86; NPNF 2 10:309**. God has a different relation to time than we do. God exists in eternal simultaneity with all times and hence knows the future as now.