The Will of God and the Allegory of Celestial Bodies

Regarding punishment, the 'evil' that is coming, do what I tell you, so that the coming punitive evil may not find you liable. Does punishment come before? God brings punishment upon men not as it happens by chance, but when He judges it beneficial to bring it upon them; for the Lord is a 'righteous judge, powerful and long-suffering, not bringing wrath on every single day; if they do not turn back, He will whet His sword' (Ps 7:11). Since God is a 'righteous judge,' how is it that sinning men do not fall under punishment and retribution? Is it because, through weakness, He 'did not bring it'? No; He is 'powerful' and was able to punish immediately, but with His power He is also 'long-suffering' and 'does not bring wrath on every single day'; for those whom He 'brings wrath upon' and those whom He does not, He knows through His most profound words. Therefore, when they despise the warning of the threat because the 'evil' has been hidden, as if it were necessary only to be punished later, then 'if they do not turn back' to whom He was long-suffering, 'He will whet His sword.'

This is the 'evil' that is 'coming,' being not a habit in the hand, but a punitive, most violent affliction. In the 'time' therefore of 'judgment,' upon every 'time,' He judges all. And He calls this 'time' at once a 'time of judgment' and at once a 'day of wrath' and a 'day of retribution.' 'Until this evil comes,' 'until the evil has come,' repent. 'Repentance' has a 'place'; 'the Lord of the promise is not slow, as some think He is slow, but is long-suffering toward them, not wishing to destroy anyone, but wishing to bring all to repentance' (2 Pet 3:9). Since therefore 'repentance' is given to you as a superior thing, repent before the 'evil comes.'

And the years in which you speak will pass; I have no desire for them; until the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds turn back the rain (Matt 24:29). If the punitive 'evil comes,' the 'years' stand in which 'you do not have' 'in them the will.' But no one wants to be punished. If the 'years' of the promises are present, the diligent have 'in them the will'; they wish to enjoy the promises by working for what brings them. For example, the lovers of good and even these sensible things...

Those who only accept things do not have a 'will' for a time of famine, but they have it for a time of prosperity. For the righteous man, then, there is a 'will' in those times when the recompenses take place. It is written in Isaiah: 'they shall desire,' says Simon, 'if the wicked have become consumed by fire' (Isa 66:24). Does not he who wills the impending wrath 'become consumed by fire'? He has his 'will' in that time.

Until the sun is darkened and the light and the moon and the stars (Matt 24:29). The time can also be taken rhetorically, and the 'years in which not' the sinner has a 'will'; it shall happen then, when 'the heaven and the earth pass away' (Matt 24:29). And 'the sun' is 'passing away' 'with the heaven and the earth,' he says, 'it shall be darkened and the moon shall not give its light' (Matt 24:29). 'Until the sun is darkened'; and it is possible to take it thus: as much as we in this life have our present existence unhindered, we are able to be illumined by the 'sun of righteousness' (Mal 4:2) and by the 'light of the true one' and by the 'moon and the stars.' But we take the 'moon' more allegorically as the ecclesiastical opinion; and toward the 'sun of righteousness,' 'moon' may be said to be the teaching which is able to enlighten there. And likewise, the 'stars' are taken as the ministers of the divine gift, the 'angels,' in whom God 'speaks' His 'word.' They are 'darkened,' therefore, that is, from you; for the 'sun' is by no means extinguished at once. And just as in the nights it seems to us that the 'sun' itself is 'being darkened,' not because it suffers, but because it is becoming distant from us, far from our sight, so also the 'sun of righteousness' 'is being darkened' to those who are no longer worthy of being illumined by it.

And they shall turn the clouds back behind the rain. 'Clouds' have often been said to be those ministering the spiritual 'rain,' namely men or angels. And these 'turn back' 'behind the rain,' no longer ministering the 'rain'; for it is not advantageous then for the 'rain' to come. You have an apostolic saying such as this: advise that men should be diligent, and attend to virtue and divine opinion and abstain from the opposing things; and having said this, he takes such a pattern, that regarding how much the divine teaching is, 'it is necessary to attend' and