And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;
All Commentaries on Luke 2:34 Go To Luke 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary His mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against. The form for the sacerdotal blessing is prescribed in Numbers 6:24, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," &c.
Blessed them. That Isaiah , Joseph and Mary, not the Child Christ, say Maldonatus, Francis Lucas, and others; for the Child, as his Saviour and his God, he venerated and adored, desiring to be blessed by Him, and not presuming to bless Him. Jansenius, however, thinks that the word "them" includes Christ.
And said unto Mary His mother, rather than to Joseph, both because she was the true and natural mother of Jesus, while Joseph was only nominally His father, and also because Joseph seems to have died before the thirtieth year of Christ, when the things here foreshadowed were accomplished, so that the Blessed Mary alone experienced them in herself. To her alone, then, did Simeon here foretell both the happiness and the adversity which are to befall Christ and her, that in happiness she might not be lifted up too much, nor be cast down in her adversity.
Set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. For fall the Greek has πτω̃σιν, and so the Arabic. The allusion is to Isaiah 8:14, "And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel" (that is), "for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem;" and in xxviii16 , "Behold, I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation;" the latter text is quoted, against the unbelieving Jews by S. Paul, Romans 9:33, by S. Peter, 1 Peter 2:6, and Acts 4:2, and by Christ Himself, Matt. xxi42. Christ was laid and placed in the new, that is the Christian Church as a foundation and a corner-stone, that upon Him He might build all those that believed in Him, and of them build up the spiritual edifice of the Church, as He had promised to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and the other patriarchs and prophets. God did this directly with the intention of drawing all the Israelites to the faith of Christ, that He might so bring them into His Church and save them; but He foresaw that a great part of them would, by reason of their wickedness, speak against Christ when He came, and would strike against Him as on a stone of offence, and that so they would be broken, and fall into ruin both temporal and eternal. Yet He would not change His resolve of sending Christ, but would permit this rebellion and speaking against Him on the part of the Jews in order that it might be the occasion for S. Paul and the Apostles to transfer the preaching of the Gospel from them who resisted it to the Gentiles; and that Song of Solomon , instead of a few Jews, numberless nations might believe in Christ, be built in to Him in the Church, and be saved, as S. Paul shows at length in Rom. xi. Such was the design of God by which He set Christ as the corner-stone of the Church, to be indirectly "for the fall," but director "for the rising again of many in Israel." By fall is meant the destruction of the Jews who rebelled against Christ; by rising again, the salvation of those who believe in Him: for they that rebelled against Christ fell from faith into faithlessness, from the hope of salvation into despair and reprobation, from heaven into hell; but they who believe in Him have risen by his grace from the sins in which they lay prostrate to a new life of virtue and grace, looking for the hope of glory. Such is the interpretation of S. Augustine, Bede, Theophylact, Euthymius, Toletus, and many others; indeed, so Christ Himself, S. Peter, and S. Paul interpret in the places quoted above. S. Gregory of Nyssa also interprets "ruin" as the devastation of Judæa and Jerusalem by Titus; for this calamity came upon them because they set at nought and crucified Christ.
Symbolically, Theophylact says that Christ was set "for the ruin and the resurrection of Israel," that Isaiah , of the penitent soul that sanctifies itself by the grace of Christ, because this grace brings it to pass that pride, gluttony, and lust fall in the soul, while humility, abstinence, and chastity rise up in it.
And for a sign which shall be spoken against. In Greek είς σημει̃ον α̉ντιγόμενον, a sign of contradiction or of contention, as the Syriac and Arabic render it. Tertullian (de Carne Christi, c. xxiii.) renders it "for a contradictory sign."
The question arises, What is this sign?
1. Maldonatus and Francis Lucas say that Christ was set as an archer"s target at which the unbelieving Jews and Scribes hurled not only evil words with the tongue, but also maleficent weapons with the hand. This target was one of contradiction, because the Scribes strove together and contradicted one another about striking and piercing it. So that Simeon alludes to Lamentations 3:12, "He hath set me as a mark for the arrow, he hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins."
2. S. Basil, Bede, and Theophylact understand the sign of the cross, making it refer to Isaiah 11:10, "In that day there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign for the people" The Hebrew word translated "sign" is × ×¡, nes, a standard, rendered by the Septuagint σημειον, which is the word here used by Luke. Christ, when lifted up on the Cross, is to be a standard-bearer, and shall raise the banner of the Cross, to which He will draw all the faithful as His soldiers to fight against Jews, Mohammedans, Pagans, and other impious soldiers of the devil, who contradict the Cross of Christ and fight hard against it. So Toletus interprets.
3. The most obvious interpretation is that Simeon is alluding to Isaiah 8:18, "Behold I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel." The wondrous, strange, and hitherto unheard of birth of Christ from a virgin is here called a "sign" or "wonder," and His Divine teaching, life, death, resurrection, and miracles, by which He clearly showed Himself to be the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. Against this "sign" of Christ not only do Jews and heathens speak with the tongue, but bad Christians also by their wicked lives. So Origen and Jansenius. S. Basil, commenting on "Behold a virgin shall conceive" ( Isaiah 7:14), favours this view. Tertullian also (De Carne Christi) makes the allusion to Isaiah 7:14, "Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son. We recognise, then, the contradictory sign, the conception and child- bearing of the Virgin Mary, of which these academicians say she bore a child and bore no child, she was a virgin and no virgin." And these cavillers he answers, "She bore a child in that she did so of her own flesh; and she did not bear, in that she bore not of the seed of man. And she was a virgin for Prayer of Manasseh , not a virgin for childbirth."
Symbolically, Cajetan says, "Christ was the sign of the reconciliation of the human race with God." And Dionysius, "The sign of the covenant between God and Prayer of Manasseh , that the flood was no more to be brought upon the earth." Others take "sign" as that with which God"s sheep are marked. Christians are to be marked with the faith of Christ, His baptism, and His character as a sign, that they may be distinguished from infidels. Baradius thinks that the allusion is to the brazen serpent which Moses set up, for a sign, that those who looked at it might be cured of the serpent"s bite, Numbers 21:8-9.
