ACC ~ Matthew 24 v39

THEY DID NOT KNOW UNTIL THE FLOOD CAME

ORIGEN: All who listen to the depths of the gospel and live it so completely that none of it remains veiled from them care very little about whether the end of the world will come suddenly and all at once or gradually and little by little. Instead, they bear in mind only that each individual’s end or death will arrive on a day and hour unknown to him and that upon each one of us “the day of the Lord will come like a thief.” [1] It is important therefore to be vigilant, whether in the evening (that is, in one’s youth) or in the middle of the night (that is, at human life’s darkest hour) or when the cock crows (at full maturity) or in the morning (when one is well advanced in old age). When God the Word comes and brings an end to the progress of this life, he will gather up the one who gave “no sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids” [2] and kept the commandment of the One who said, “Be vigilant at all times.” [3] …

But I know another kind of end [4] for the righteous person who is able to say along with the apostle, “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” [5] In a certain sense, the end of the world has already come for the person to whom the world is crucified. And to one who is dead to worldly things the day of the Lord has already arrived, for the Son of man comes to the soul of the one who no longer lives for sin or for the world. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 56. [6]

[1] 1 Thess 5:2.

[2] Ps 132:4 (131:4 LXX).

[3] Lk 21:36.

[4] The greek telos, like consummatio in Latin, signifies completion, thus end and also perfection. Origen, little interested in the matter of the end of the world as a whole, takes the term in the first interpretation to refer to the death of the individual Christian, who must always be prepared for death. In this second interpretation, he reads the term as the perfection one reaches in Christ by dying to the world.

[5] Gal 6:14.

[6] GCS 38.2:130-31.