The east wind carries him away, and he is gone: and as a storm hurls him out of his place.
Read Chapter 27
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
32. Who is in this place called the ‘scorching wind’ but the evil spirit, who stirs up the flames of divers lusts in the heart, that he may drag it to an eternity of punishments? And so ‘the scorching wind’ is said to ‘carry off’ any bad men, because the plotter, the evil spirit, who inflames a man whilst living to evil, ‘drags him when dying to torments. For that ‘the scorching wind’ is wont to be meant for the unclean spirit, who by the breath of evil suggesting kindles the hearts of the wicked to earthly desires, the prophet Jeremiah testifies, saying, A pot kindled I see, and the face thereof by the face of the North. [Jer. 1, 13] For ‘the pot kindled’ is the heart of man boiling with the heatings of worldly concerns, and with the restlessness of desires. Which is kindled by ‘the face of the North,’ i.e. set on fire by the suggestions of the devil. For that very being is used to be called by the title of ‘the North,’ who said, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregati...
34. ‘The place’ of the wicked is the gratification of the life of time, and the enjoyment of the flesh. Therefore every single individual is in a manner’ carried out of his place by a whirlwind,’ when overwhelmed with affright on the Last Day he is severed from all his gratifications.
