ACC ~ Revelation 9 v5

SINNERS ARE NOW PUNISHED SEVERELY. OECUMENIUS: Was it not the case that certain fathers deduced the [idea] of restoration from this passage, saying that sinners are punished until now but afterward no longer, since they had been purified through punishment? But what is to be done when the majority of the other fathers and the received Scriptures claim that the torments of those suffering at that time will be everlasting? What should one say, and how should one decide between these two options? One must combine these two opinions. I say this as a kind of exercise and not as an outright assertion. For I agree with the teaching of the church that the punishments in the future age will be everlasting, for this is also what the Lord asserted according to the Gospel of Matthew: “And they will go away into eternal punishment.” And Isaiah also said, “Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched.”But by way of an exercise this must be said, taking a sort of middle path between the two opinions, that until a certain time, which this Revelation says is “five months,” using a certain mystical number, the sinners will be punished with greatest severity as though a scorpion were biting them. But after this, [they will be punished] less severely—for we will not be altogether without punishment—yet to such an extent that they seek death but do not attain it. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 9.5-6.

THE DEVIL STINGS WITH THE POISON OF SIN. CAESARIUS OF ARLES: There are two parts in the church, one part of those who are good and one part of those who are evil. The one part is persecuted in order that it might be corrected; the other part is given up to its own desires. A part of those who are good is handed over to humiliation that they might know the righteousness of God and might remember penance, as it is written, “It is good that you have humbled me, that I might know your righteous deeds.” [The torture like a sting of a scorpion] occurs when the devil draws near through the poison of transgressions and sins. EXPOSITION ON THE APOCALYPSE 9.4, HOMILY 7.

THE END OF EVIL DEEDS. ANDREW OF CAESAREA: That these spiritual locusts sting people after the manner of scorpions shows the baneful death of the soul that lies hidden at the end of evil deeds. Those are subjected to [such a death] who have not signed their forehead with the divine seal and with the enlightenment of the life-giving cross through the Holy Spirit, so that, as the Lord says, “they may let their light shine before men for the glory of the divine name.”We think that the five months of their torment signifies either the shortness of time—“For had those days not been shortened, no flesh would have been saved,” as the Lord says—or a certain five-day period representing the five senses through which sin enters into people, or a determined period that is known to God alone. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 9.1-5.

SCORPIONS STING FROM THEIR HIND PARTS. BEDE: Although supported by the secular power, the heretics are for a time allowed to attack those who are good, yet, as the Lord said, they are not able to kill the soul. By the five months he indicates the time of this age on account of the five senses that we use in this life. Another translation has “six months,” which agrees with this interpretation on account of the six periods of the age…. As a scorpion dispenses its poison from its tail, so the impiety of evil persons injures from their hind parts, when by threats and allurements it causes temporal things, which are behind, to be preferred to that which lies before, that is, to eternal blessings. EXPLANATION OF THE APOCALYPSE 9.5.

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