But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.
All Commentaries on Mark 10:31 Go To Mark 10
Bede
AD 735
And because it is not sufficient to have left all, he adds that which makes up perfection, “and have followedthee.” As if he said, We have done what Thou hast commanded. What reward therefore wilt Thou give us?.
Some, however, taking occasion from this saying, in which it is announced that he shall receive an hundredfold nowin this time, teach that Jewish fable of a thousand years after the resurrection of the just, when all that we have left for the Lord’s sake is tobe restored with manifold usury, besides which we are to receive the crown of everlasting life. These persons do no perceive, that although the promise inother respects be honourable, yet in the hundred wives, which the other Evangelists mention, its foulness is made manifest: particularly when the Lord testifies that there shall be not marriage in the resurrection, and asserts that those things which are put away from us for His sake are to be received again in this life with persecutions, which, as they affirm, will not take place in their thousand years.
This which is here said, “shall receive an hundredfold,” may be understood in a higher sense. For the number a hundred which is reckoned by changing from the left to the right hand, although it has the same appearance in the bending of the fingers as the ten had on the left, nevertheless is increased to a much greater quantity. This means, that all who have despised temporal things for the sake of the kingdom of heaven through undoubting faith, taste the joy of the same kingdom in this life which is full of persecutions, and in the expectation of the heavenly country, which is signified by the right hand, have a share in the happiness of all the elect. But because all do not accomplish a virtuous course of life with the same ardour as they began it, it is presently added, “But many that are first shall be last, and the last first”; for we daily see many persons who, remaining in a lay habit, are eminent for their meritorious life; but others, who from their youth have been ardent in a spiritual profession, atlast wither away in the sloth of ease, and with a lazy folly finish in the flesh, what they had begun in the Spirit.
