The Sword of Separation and the Antichrist

The power of those things commanded to him. For those who do not understand the words press upon those performing the works of the teacher.

Since, therefore, regarding an inexperienced shepherd lacking the art of shepherding, the holy one receiving God had to understand the listeners, he perceived the spoken vessels sensually, so that he might speak about them and what they signify when asked by those seeing that he had taken up shepherd's vessels not as an experienced man but as an inexperienced one. Much is thus managed in the prophets, especially in Ezekiel. It is not unlikely that things concerning the Antichrist, regarding such a destructive shepherd, are pre-announced, as is found in many writings. He said, 'the elect sheep, whose flesh he eats,' not absolutely and truly the elect, but those chosen as dear and familiar to the one eating their flesh. 'O you who shepherd the vain and who have abandoned the sheep: a sword upon his arm and upon his right eye; his arm being dried shall be dried, and his right eye being blinded shall be blinded' (Zech 11:17). Rather than merely blaming, the divine word threatens the false shepherds who have turned away and abandoned the sheep, hunting the vain, making shameful gain manifest, and the destruction of the flesh which they were entrusted to nourish, as concerning each of them or as if all were done through the same wickedness: 'A sword upon the arm,' that is, his work. Often it has been demonstrated that the arm signifies, according to allegory, a work.

What then is the sword upon the arm and eye of the wicked shepherd? Either the punitive word of which God says in Isaiah to those who follow the law: 'If you are willing and would obey, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword' (Isa 1:19-20). Concerning this defensive sword, God says again in Jeremiah: 'I will stretch out my hand against all who dwell in the land,' because they would undergo these harmful things. According to another understanding, the sword may be the divine, dividing word which separates those clothed in the hands from them. Immediately indeed in the Gospels the Savior says: 'Do not think, he says, that I came to cast peace...'

not of the earth, but a sword. For the evangelical teaching does not prepare one to live in peace with earthly things and the earth, but divides from it those who think earthly things and bear the image of the swine.

This sword of use is given by way of a judgment to Abraham, so that he might depart from the earth and from his kin and from the father's house, the earth being understood as the body in which he was surrounded, and kin as those who are of the same kind and were brought up together, and the father's house is the spoken word of the mind, as one of the wise interpreted concerning the Mosaic education. What was said to the divine bride, or rather to his father, is equivalent to what was said to Abraham: 'Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, for the King of your beauty has desired you, and He is your Lord' (Song of Solomon 2:10-13). For it is the same thing to forget one's own people and the father's house as to depart from the kin and the father's house for the one driven to this.

The aforementioned punitive sword, having come upon the arm and the eye, that is, upon the practical power and the contemplative power, like a punishing shepherd dries the arm, removing all moisture and soft suppleness so that it may be deadened. And it will blind the eye and blind it, the one which seems to the possessor to be right, but not being such in truth, but being crooked and left and perhaps something even more inferior.

And these words were also struck by the Antichrist, promising to have a strong and living arm through the signs and wonders which he performs, being false, and a right eye, partaking of the glance of the haughty king of the Assyrians, concerning whom the Lord Himself said: 'I will strike upon the great mind, upon the king of the Assyrians' (Isaiah 7:20), boasting arrogantly: 'I will provide the strength of the nations, and with the wisdom of understanding I will remove the borders of nations, I will seize the whole inhabited world with my hand.' Having thus shouted this insolently: 'There is no one who will escape me or oppose me,' the Antichrist, being a son according to impiety, boasted to have a strong arm and a right eye, which is the arm dried by the previously interpreted sword, and the...