But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Read Chapter 5
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
On the verse: “This is the day which the Lord has made.” What we have sung to our Lord let us put into practice with his help. To be sure, every day has been made by the Lord, but with good reason has it been said of a particular day, “This is the day which the Lord has made.” We read that when he created heaven and earth, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light, and God called the light Day, and the darkness Night.” But there is another day, well established and definitely to be commended by us, concerning which the apostle says, “Let us walk becomingly as in the day.” That day, commonly called “today,” is caused by the rising and setting of the sun. There is still another day by which the word of God shines on the hearts of the faithful and dispels the darkness, not of the eyes, but of evil habits. Let us, therefore, recognize this light; let us rejoice in it; let us pay attention to the apostle when he says, “For we are children of the light and children of the day. We ...
Therefore, not to know the times is something different from decay of morals and love of vice. For, when the apostle Paul said, “Don’t allow your thinking to be shaken nor be frightened, neither by word nor by epistle as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand,” he obviously did not want them to believe those who thought the coming of the Lord was already at hand, but neither did he want them to be like the wicked servant and say, “My Lord is long in coming,” and deliver themselves over to destruction by pride and riotous behavior. Thus, his desire that they should not listen to false rumors about the imminent approach of the last day was consistent with his wish that they should await the coming of their Lord fully prepared, packed for travel and with lamps burning. He said to them, “But you, brothers, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief, for all you are the children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness.” ....
Overtake you. It is a subject of astonishment, that some people are so childishly afraid of the last day, that they cannot think of it without consternation, lest it should happen in their time. Weak souls! Do they not recollect that death will certainly overtake them, and that will be to them individually the end of the world, and the last day. The whole world then does perish as far as regards them. (Haydock)
Now if the good God sees that a man’s heart has not inclined to any of these things as David said, indicating the same, “You have tested my heart, You have visited it in the night, You have tried me by fire, and unrighteousness was not found in me,” then God will help him and deliver him. Why does he say “in the night” and not “in the day”? Because the enemy’s deceptions are a night, as Paul also said, “We are not children of the night but children of the day,” since the Son of God is the Day, but Satan is night.
Here he speaks of a life that is dark and impure. For it is just as corrupt and wicked men do all things as in the night, escaping the notice of all, and inclosing themselves in darkness. For tell me, does not the adulterer watch for the evening, and the thief for the night? Does not the violator of the tombs carry on all his trade in the night? What then? Does it not overtake them as a thief? Does it not come upon them also uncertainly, but do they know it beforehand? How then does he say, You have no need that anything be written unto you? He speaks here not with respect to the uncertainty, but with respect to the calamity, that is, it will not come as an evil to them. For it will come uncertainly indeed even to them, but it will involve them in no trouble. That that Day, he says, may not overtake you as a thief. For in the case of those who are watching and who are in the light, if there should be any entry of a robber, it can do them no harm: so also it is with those who live well....
