How do persecution and worship appear together?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Jerusalem’s siege precedes defense, judgment and the nations’ worship.

Chapter breakdown

The heading interprets persecution followed by church prosperity and judgment against persecutors and those refusing service. The Lord’s days bring spoils divided in the city, nations gathered against Jerusalem, houses rifled, women defiled and half the city captive while the rest remain. The edition says this seems a prophecy of Antiochus’s deeds. God fights the nations. His feet stand on the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem; an opening divides it east and west, with halves north and south. People flee into the mountains’ valley as from the earthquake in Ozias’s reign; God comes with all the saints.

No light but cold and frost precede a day known to God, neither day nor night, with evening light. The edition connects absence of comfort and repose to Antiochus’s persecution and unexpected light to the Machabees. Living waters go toward the east and last seas in summer and winter, interpreted as Christ’s gospel. One Lord and name rule earth. Land returns to desert from the hill to Remmon south of Jerusalem; Jerusalem is exalted in her place, bounded by Benjamin’s gate, the former gate, corners’ gate, Hananeel’s tower and the king’s winepresses. The note distinguishes partial Machabean realization from the preferred spiritual reading of Christ’s church, true Jerusalem preserved from destruction’s anathema. People dwell securely.

The attacking nations’ flesh consumes while standing, with eyes and tongues consuming in their places. The edition relates such judgments to historical persecutors without providing a medical mechanism. In great tumult a man takes and clasps his neighbor’s hand. Juda fights against Jerusalem and surrounding wealth of gold, silver and garments is gathered. The edition’s interpretation names carnal Jews and false brothers joining persecution; this is attributed commentary, not a generalized modern ethnic claim. Horses, mules, camels, asses and other beasts share the destruction. The note includes common soldiers as well as leaders.

Survivors of the nations annually worship and keep tabernacles. The edition explains persecutors’ conversion, the feast’s remembrance of forty desert years and Christian pilgrimage toward heaven through the church’s sacraments and sacrifice. It interprets withheld rain as withheld grace’s fruitfulness. Families that do not come have no rain; Egypt’s failure brings destruction like other nonattending nations. What is on horse bridles becomes holy, and caldrons resemble altar phials. The edition interprets gold ornaments turned into offerings and plentiful vessels as the great resort to Christ’s church and sacrifice. Every Jerusalem and Juda caldron is sanctified for sacrificers to take and boil in. No merchant remains. The note preserves alternatives: Chanaanite as profane unbeliever without title to the house, or no occasion for selling oxen, sheep and doves such as Christ expelled. It does not add an inscription or declare every sacred and secular distinction abolished.

The story inside

The Antiochus allusion is qualified. The edition prefers a spiritual Jerusalem interpretation. Merchant interpretations remain alternatives.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The Antiochus allusion is qualified.
2
The edition prefers a spiritual Jerusalem interpretation.
3
Merchant interpretations remain alternatives.

Test your recall

What does the edition say bridles’ gold becomes?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 104018–104028
14:4. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem towards the east: and the mount of Olives shall be divided in the midst thereof to the east, and to the west with a very great opening, and half of the mountain shall be separated to the north, and half thereof to the south. 14:5. And you shall flee to the valley of those mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall be joined even to the next, and you shall flee as you fled from the face of the earthquake in the days of Ozias king of Juda: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with him.
Lines 104044–104051
14:8. And it shall come to pass in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem: half of them to the east sea, and half of them to the last sea: they shall be in summer and in winter. Living waters.... Viz., the gospel of Christ. 14:9. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name shall be one.
Lines 104068–104076
14:12. And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord shall strike all nations that have fought against Jerusalem: the flesh of every one shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. The flesh of every one shall consume, etc.... Such judgments as these have often fallen upon the persecutors of God’s church, as appears by many instances in history.
Lines 104097–104110
14:16. And all they that shall be left of all nations that came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year, to adore the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. They that shall be left, etc.... That is, many of them that persecuted the church shall be converted to its faith and communion.—Ibid. To keep the feast of tabernacles.... This feast was kept by the Jews in memory of their sojourning forty years in the desert, in their way to the land of promise. And in the spiritual sense is duly kept by all such Christians as in their earthly pilgrimage are continually advancing toward their true home, the heavenly Jerusalem; by the help of the sacraments and sacrifice of the church. And they that neglect this must not look for the kind showers of divine grace, to give fruitfulness to their souls.
Lines 104124–104144
14:20. In that day that which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord: and the caldrons in the house of the Lord shall be as the phials before the altar. That which is upon the bridle, etc.... The golden ornaments of the bridles, etc., shall be turned into offerings in the house of God. And there shall be an abundance of caldrons and phials for the sacrifices of the temple; by which is meant, under a figure, the great resort there shall be to the temple, that is, to the church of Christ, and her sacrifice. 14:21. And every caldron in Jerusalem and Juda shall be sanctified to the Lord of hosts: and all that sacrifice shall come, and take of them, and shall seethe in them: and the merchant shall be no more in the house of the Lord of hosts in that day. The merchant shall be no more, etc.... Or, as some render it, The Chanaanite shall be no more, etc., that is, the profane and unbelievers shall have no title to be in the house of the Lord. Or there shall be no occasion for buyers or sellers of oxen, or sheep, or doves, in the house of God, such as Jesus Christ cast out of the temple.