While almost all of the works in this vault use Victorian translations, due to the only English translation of this commentary being in copyright, it was machine-translated (by Claude, 2026) from the public-domain Latin. It has not been checked by a human translator.
Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, written about 353–356, before his exile to the East. Chapter 26: On the sun darkened, the moon and the stars; on the sign of the fig tree, on the uncertainty of the day of the Lord’s coming, on those to be taken and those to be left, and on keeping watch.
-
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the rest. He shows the glory of His coming and the return of His brightness by the darkening of the sun, the failing of the moon, the falling of the stars, the shaking of the heavenly powers, the showing of the sign of salvation, the mourning of the nations who recognise the Son of man in the glory of God, and the sending of the angels with a trumpet to gather the saints: that is, with the summons of a freedom now public. So out of a grain of mustard seed there will be a great tree; so the stone from the mountain, the image having been broken in pieces, will become a mountain filling the whole earth; so the city will be seen by all; so the light on the wood will shine for all; so out of the lowliness of death will come the glory of God. By the sign of all these things He wished us to know the time of our redemption, at which we shall be carried over out of the corruption of our bodies into the honour of a spiritual substance.
-
He set the sign for knowing the time in the likeness of the fig tree: when its branch is tender and puts forth leaves, then summer is understood to be near. But the nature of summer and of the tree is far otherwise. For the fig swells at the very beginning of spring, and no small time lies between the coming on of summer and the tree’s branch growing tender into leaves. From this it is to be recognised that this was not said of the tree. And indeed we have treated above of the particular nature of this tree. With its leaves too we read that Adam was clothed and covered the shame of his conscience: that is, that he was wrapped under the Law as in a garment of sin. The branch of the fig tree, then, is understood to be Antichrist, the son of the devil, the portion of sin, the champion of the Law. When he begins to grow tender and put forth leaves, then summer, that is, the day of judgment, will be felt to be near. And his putting forth leaves will be known by a kind of greenness of exulting sins: for then the flower will be the criminals’, the honour the evildoers’, the favour the profane’s: for whom, however, summer, that is, the heat of eternal fire, is close at hand.
-
And that faith in what is to come might be sure, by saying Verily, as a profession of truth, He added that our generation could not pass away until all these things had run their course; and that what is thought to be firm, heaven, that is, and earth, would not be; but that His words could not but be: because those things, by the condition of their creation, that is, having come forth from nothing, have in them this necessity, that they will not be; but these, drawn from eternity, hold in them this power, that they abide.
-
And about the end of the times He has taken away our anxious care, saying that that day is known to no one, and is unknown not only to the angels but even to Himself. O priceless mercy of the divine goodness! Did God the Father refuse the knowledge of the day, intending to hide it from the Son, when He Himself said, All things are delivered unto me of my Father? Then they are not all, if there is something that is refused. But because He would carry down to us all things received from the Father, and the Word of God holds in itself the truth not so much of what is to be as of what is done, the day has therefore been placed outside any fixed limit: so that God, though granting us a generous time for repentance, might yet always keep us anxious with the fear of the uncertain; and He Himself, by telling no one, did not restrain by any fixed term of His saying His will to give this day; because, as in the time of the flood, in the very course of our life, while all men are doing and suffering, that great day will be at hand.
-
Moreover He shows that there will be a distinction in the taking of the faithful, since of two set in the field one will be taken and the other left; and of two grinding, one will be rejected and the other chosen; and of two that are in one bed, one will cleave to Him and the other be forsaken. For He teaches the distinction between the faithful and the unfaithful in the leaving of some and the taking of others. For when the wrath of God grows heavy, the saints, as the prophet says, will be stored up in the garners, but the faithless will be left as fuel for the heavenly fire. Two in the field, then: two peoples, of the faithful and the unfaithful, the day of the Lord will find in the world, as in the work of this life; yet they will be separated, the one left and the other taken. Of the two grinding the meaning is the same. The mill is the work of the Law. But because part of the Jews, as it believed through the apostles, so will believe through Elias and be justified through faith, therefore one will be laid hold of through that same faith of good work, and the other will be left in the fruitless work of the Law, grinding in vain, and not going to make the bread of heavenly food. And two are in one bed, both proclaiming the same rest of the Lord’s Passion: about which the confession of heretics and catholics is one and the same. But because the truth of the catholics will preach the unity of the Father and the Son, and their common theotes, which we call Godhead, and the falsehood of the heretics will again attack that same unity with many insults, therefore of the two in the bed one will be left and the other taken: because the judgment of the divine decision will prove the faith of each one’s confession, in taking the one and leaving the other.
-
And so that we might know that His silence about that day, unknown to all, was not without reason for a useful silence, He warned us to watch because of the coming of the thief, and, held fast in constant prayer, to cling to all the works of His commandments. For He shows that the thief is the devil, ever watchful to carry off spoils from us, and lying in wait at the houses of our bodies, to break through them with the darts of his counsels and allurements while we are careless and given to sleep. It is fitting, then, that we be ready: because ignorance of the day stirs up the strained anxiety of an expectation held in suspense.