{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-2317","native_reference":{"book_number":600,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":8,"verse_to":8},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: We have heard that the Lord Jesus not only judges but also punishes in the Spirit. For neither would he punish Antichrist, whom, as we read, \"the Lord Jesus shall slay with the Spirit of his mouth,\" unless he had already judged him as fit for punishment … but the unity of the divine action remains undivided, since Christ cannot be separated from the Spirit, nor the Spirit act apart from Christ. For the unity of the divine nature cannot be divided.<br/><i>— On the Holy Spirit 3.7.44</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Or if by this fire coming down out of heaven and consuming them, John meant that blow wherewith Christ in His coming is to strike those persecutors of the Church whom He shall then find alive upon earth, when He shall kill Antichrist with the breath of His mouth, then even this is not the last judgment of the wicked; but the last judgment is that which they shall suffer when the bodily resurrection has taken place.<br/><i>— City of God 20.12</i></p><p><b>Cyril of Jerusalem</b>: The Antichrist just mentioned by Paul will come when the destined period of the Roman Empire has run its course and the subsequent end of the world is drawing near. Ten claimants to the empire will arise simultaneously, I suppose in different parts, but all wearing the purple at the same time. Antichrist will form an eleventh after them, having seized the imperial power by the use of magic arts. He will humble three of those who came to power before him and cause the remaining seven to be Caesars under him. At first he will feign mildness and will appear to be a learned and understanding man, with pretended prudence and kindness. Then he will take in the Jews, by making them suppose him to be their expected Messiah, by false signs and wonders produced by magical trickery. And afterwards his character will be written large in evil deeds of inhumanity and lawlessness of every kind, so as to outdo all wicked and godless men that were before him. He will display a murderous, most absolute, pitiless and unstable temper toward all people, but especially toward us Christians. He will act insolently for only three and a half years. Then he will be defeated by the second glorious coming from heaven of the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus, the true Christ. He will destroy Antichrist \"with the spirit of his mouth\" and commit him to the flames of hell.<br/><i>— Catechetical Lecture 15:12</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: Of whom also the Apostle Paul again, speaking in the second [Epistle] to the Thessalonians, and at the same time proclaiming the cause of his advent, thus says: \"And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy by the presence of His coming; whose coming [i.e., the wicked one's] is after the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and portents of lies, and with all deceivableness of wickedness for those who perish; because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God will send them the working of error, that they may believe a lie; that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but gave consent to iniquity.\"<br/><i>— Against Heresies Book V</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"To the one a savor from death unto death, to the other a savor from life unto life.\" For this sweet savor some so receive that they are saved, others so that they perish. So that should any one be lost, the fault is from himself: for both ointment is said to suffocate swine, and light (as I before observed,) to blind the weak. And such is the nature of good things; they not only correct what is akin to them, but also destroy the opposite: and in this way is their power most displayed. For so both fire, not only when it giveth light and when it purifieth gold, but even when it consumeth thorns, doth very greatly display its proper power, and so show itself to be fire: and Christ too herein also doth discover His own majesty when He \"shall consume\" Antichrist \"with the breath of His mouth, and bring him to nought with the manifestation of His coming.\"<br/><i>— Homily on Second Corinthians 5</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"And then,\" he says, \"shall be revealed the lawless one.\" And what after this? The consolation is at hand. \"Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of His coming, even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan.\"</p><p>For as fire merely coming on even before its arrival makes torpid and consumes the little animals that are afar off; so also Christ, by His commandment only, and Coming. It is enough for Him to be present, and all these things are destroyed. He will put a stop to the deceit, by only appearing. Then who is this, whose coming is after the working of Satan, \"With all power,\" but nothing true, but for deceit. \"And lying wonders,\" he says, that is, false, or leading to falsehood.<br/><i>— Homily on 2 Thessalonians 4</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: The war with the Lord and the divine angels was waged by both the Devil and the Antichrist, for he calls him a false prophet of the beastly Devil, and kings who band together with them; but they were defeated sooner than speech. What do the divine Scriptures say about them? Isaiah says, \"Let the impious be taken away, so that he may not see the glory of the Lord,\" (Isa. 26:10) the sudden annihilation; but the apostle, \"whom the Lord will consume by the breath of his mouth.\" (2 Thess. 2:8) What is swifter than to breathe upon and blow the enemies away?<br/><i>— Commentary on Revelation</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: Now just as it is said that the task of the Word is to judge with justice, so also the Word's task is to fight with justice, that by thus fighting the soul's enemies with reason and justice, he may dwell in the soul, justifying it when the irrational elements and injustices are destroyed. He casts out the hostile elements from that soul which, if I may speak in this way, has been taken captive by Christ for salvation. The war that the Word wages is seen even more clearly when we compare it to the war waged by he who pretends to be the Word. This one proclaims himself the truth when he is not the truth but a lie, declaring that he is the truth. For then the Word, having fully armed himself against the lie, \"destroys it with the breath of his mouth and annihilates it by the appearance of his presence.\"<br/><i>— Commentary on John 2.54-55</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: \"Let no man deceive you by any means. For that day shall not come, unless indeed there first come a falling away,\" he means indeed of this present empire, \"and that man of sin be revealed,\" that is to say, Antichrist, \"the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or religion; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, affirming that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things? And now ye know what detaineth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hinders must hinder, until he be taken out of the way.\" What obstacle is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which, by being scattered into ten kingdoms, shall introduce Antichrist upon (its own ruins)? \"And then shall be revealed the wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.\"<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p><p><b>Thietland of Einsiedeln</b>: at the brightness of his return<br/>because His coming will be in a flash of lightning, as that passage says, \"just as a flash of lightning goes forth from the east.\" Mt.24:27</p><p><b>Victorinus of Pettau</b>: \"And out of His mouth was issuing a sharp two-edged sword.\" By the twice-sharpened sword going forth out of His mouth is shown, that it is He Himself who has both now declared the word of the Gospel, and previously by Moses declared the knowledge of the law to the whole world. But because from the same word, as well of the New as of the Old Testament, He will assert Himself upon the whole human race, therefore He is spoken of as two-edged. For the sword arms the soldier, the sword slays the enemy, the sword punishes the deserter. And that He might show to the apostles that He was announcing judgment, He says: \"I came not to send peace, but a sword.\" And after He had completed His parables, He says to them: \"Have ye understood all these things? And they said, We have. And He added, Therefore is every scribe instructed in the kingdom of God like unto a man that is a father of a family, bringing forth from his treasure things new and old,\" -the new, the evangelical words of the apostles; the old, the precepts of the law and the prophets: and He testified that these proceeded out of His mouth. Moreover, He also says to Peter: \"Go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that shall first come up; and having opened its mouth, thou shalt find a stater (that is, two denarii), and thou shalt give it for me and for thee.\" And similarly David says by the Spirit: \"God spake once, twice I have heard the same.\" Because God once decreed from the beginning what shall be even to the end. Finally, as He Himself is the Judge appointed by the Father. on account of His assumption of humanity, wishing to show that men shall be judged by the word that He had declared, He says: \"Think ye that I will judge you at the last day? Nay, but the word,\" says He, \"which I have spoken unto you, that shall judge you in the last day.\" And Paul, speaking of Antichrist to the Thessalonians, says: \"Whom the Lord Jesus will slay by the breath of His mouth.\" And Isaiah says: \"By the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.\" This, therefore, is the two-edged sword issuing out of His mouth.<br/><i>— Victorinus Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"047bcbc076c9d1a4fdc7832c47a511d97d53ba4f0d2a08b3406f91e8f5a002ba","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":2317,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"d695ab867e1c53468016fd4ce1535ea4ec26bafae9b2415a1c15144131e7db74","translator":null,"work":null}