ACC ~ Mark 16 v19b
STEPHEN’S VISION
TERTULLIAN: It is the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven, [1] and also descends to the inner parts of the earth. [2] “He sits at the Father’s right hand” [3] —not the Father at his own. [4] He is seen by Stephen at his martyrdom by stoning, still sitting at the right hand of God, [5] where he will continue to sit, until the Father shall make his enemies his footstool. [6] He will come again on the clouds of heaven, just as he appeared when he ascended into heaven. [7] AGAINST PRAXEAS 30. [8]
[1] Cf. Jn 3:13.
[2] Cf. Eph 4:9.
[3] Cf. Mk 16:19; Rev 3:21.
[4] As an expression of his eternal sonship.
[5] Cf. Acts 7:55-56.
[6] Cf. Ps 110:1.
[7] Cf. Acts 1:9-11; Lk 24:51.
[8] Cetedoc 0026, 30.17; ANF 3:627*.
WHETHER RIGHT HAND IS A LITERAL REFERENCE
AUGUSTINE: While such things are mystifying if we take them in a carnal sense, we may be warned thereby to think of them as ineffably spiritual. For this reason, even if we think of the Lord’s body, which was raised from the tomb and ascended into heaven, only as having a human appearance and parts, we are not to think that he sits at the right hand of the Father [1] in such a way that the Father should seem to sit [literally] at his left hand. Indeed, in that bliss which surpasses human understanding, the only right hand and the same right hand is a name for that same bliss. LETTER 120, TO CONSENTIUS. [2]
[1] Cf. Mk 16:19.
[2] Cetedoc 0262, 1201.34.2.3.717.7; FC 18:312*. Heaven’s directionality transcends our categories of space. Our language always falls short of its reality.
WHILE SITTING IN HEAVEN, HE IS OMNIPRESENT
AUGUSTINE: Do not doubt, then, that the man Christ Jesus is now there whence he shall come again. Cherish in your memory and hold faithfully to the profession of your Christian faith that he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, [1] and will come from no other place but there to judge the living and the dead. He will so come, on the testimony of the angel’s voice, as he was seen going into heaven, [2] that is, in the same form and substance of flesh to which, it is true, he gave immortality, but did not take away its nature. According to this fleshly form, we are not to think that he is everywhere present. We must beware of so stressing the divinity of the man that we destroy the reality of his body. It does not follow that what is in God is in him so as to be everywhere as God is. The Scripture says, with perfect truth: “In him we live and move and are,” [3] yet we are not everywhere present as he is, but man is in God after one manner, while God is in man quite differently, in his own unique manner. God and man in him are one person, and both are the one Jesus Christ who is everywhere as God, but in heaven as man. LETTER 187, TO DARDANUS 10. [4]
[1] Cf. Mk 16:19; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3; 10:12. If Jesus is bodily in heaven in the same form of flesh in which he lived, how can he be everywhere?
[2] Cf. Acts 1:10-11; 2 Tim 4:1.
[3] Acts 17:28.
[4] Cetedoc 0262, 187.57.3.89.6; FC 30:228-29*.
DEATH HAS NO DOMINION
AUGUSTINE: Having vanquished the devil by the resurrection, he sits at the right hand of the Father, [1] where he dies no more, and death no longer over him shall have dominion. [2] ON THE PSALMS 72.8. [3]
ASCENDED LORD, COMING LORD
PRUDENTIUS:
Hail! Thou king of all the living;
Hail! Thou judge of all the dead, [4]
At the right hand of thy Father,
Thou art throned in highest power, [5]
And from thence just judge of sinners,
Thou shalt one day come again.
HYMN 9, A HYMN FOR EVERY HOUR. [6]
[1] Cf. Mk 16:19.
[2] Cf. Rom 6:9.
[3] Cetedoc 0283, 39.71.8.37; NPNF 1 8:329.
[4] Cf. Acts 10:42.
[5] Cf. Mk 16:19.
[6] Cetedoc 1438, 9.106; FC 43:68.
PRESENT ON EARTH WHILE AT THE FATHER’S RIGHT HAND
BEDE: Because he who was taken up into heaven is both God and a human being, he remains on earth with the saints in the humanity which he took from the earth, but in the divinity with which he fills earth and heaven equally he remains “all days, even to the consummation of the world.” From this it is understood that even up to the end, the world will not lack those in whom there will be divine abiding and indwelling. Nor should we doubt that those struggling in this world will deserve to have Christ abiding in their hearts as a guest, and will abide with Christ in his kingdom after the contests of this world. Nevertheless we should note that the divine majesty, while existing everywhere, is present in one way to the elect, in another to the condemned. It is present for the condemned in the power of [God’s] incomprehensible nature, by which he knows everything, the most recent happenings and the former ones, understands [human] thoughts from afar, and foresees all the ways of each one. [1] It is present for the elect in the grace of his benevolent protection, by which he draws them, guiding each one individually by his present gifts and chastisements to the possession of their future inheritance as a father guides his children. EXPOSITION ON THE GOSPEL OF MARK 2.8. [2]
[1] Cf. Ps 139:2-4.
[2] Cetedoc 1367, 2.8.99; HOG 2:72-73*.
Mk