And the words, "And his feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem to the eastward," what else can they mean than that the Lord God, that is to say the Word of God Himself, will stand, and stand firm, upon His Church, which is here metaphorically called the Mount of Olives? For as "My Beloved had a vineyard," and "There was a vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth," are used in a figurative sense of "the house of Israel and the plant of Judah His beloved vine," so also we may say in the same sense that the Church of the (d) Gentiles has become an olive-garden to the Master, which of old He planted with wild olives, and grafted them on the apostolic roots of the good olive after cutting away the old branches, as the apostle teaches. And the Lord planted it for Himself, saying as much in the prophecy: "The Lord hath called thy name a beautiful and shady olive." For when the first vineyard should have brought forth grapes it brought forth thorns, and not justice but a cry, God rightly withdrew from it as unfruitful, its mound and its wall, and gave it to its enemies, "to rob and to tread down," according to the prophecy of Isaiah, but established another field for Himself, here named "the olive-garden," as that which had obtained God's mercy, and been planted by Christ with ever-flourishing plants, that is with souls that are holy and nourish the light, which can say, "I am like a fruitful olive-tree in the house of God."