And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
All Commentaries on Matthew 24:22 Go To Matthew 24
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Ep. 199. 30: In Luke it is thus read, “There shall be great distress upon the earth, and wrath upon this people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations.” .
Indeed some persons seem to me not unfitly to understand by “these days” the evils themselves, as in other places of divine Scripture evil days are spoken of; not that the days themselves are evil, but the things that are done onthem. And they are said to be shortened, because they are less felt, God givingus endurance; so that even though grievous, they are felt as short.
For we ought not to doubt that when Jerusalem was overthrown, there were among that people elect of God who had believed out of the circumcision, or would have believed, elect before the foundation of the world, for whose sake those days should be shortened, and their evils made endurable. Some there are who suppose that the days will be shortened by a more rapid motion of the sun, as the day was made longer on the prayer of Jesus Name.
For in tribulations we must beware of coming down from the spiritual heights, and yielding ourselves to the carnal life; or of failing and looking behind us, after having made some progress forwards. Woe also to those that are being suckled; the weak souls, that is, who are being brought to the knowledge of God as by milk, to whom it shall be woe, because they are too laden to fly, and too inexperienced to resist Antichrist, having neither escaped sin, nor partaken of the food of true bread.
Serm. App. 75, 2: Or, “They that are with child,” are they who covet what belongs to others; “they that give suck,” are they who have already forcibly taken that which they coveted; to them shall be “woe” in the day of judgment. "Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, or on the sabbath day;” that is.
Quaest. Ev., I, 37: that no one be found in that day in either joy or sorrow for temporal things.
