And from the wicked their light is withheld, and the uplifted arm shall be broken.
Read Chapter 38
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
“The seal shall be restored as clay and shall stand as a garment.” The Lord made humankind, whom he fashioned after his own likeness, as a kind of seal of his power. But it shall be restored as clay, because, though he may by conversion escape eternal sufferings, yet he is condemned by the death of the flesh in punishment for the pride he has committed. Humankind, who has been formed from clay and adorned with the likeness of the divine image, having received the gift of reason, forgets, when swelling with pride of heart, that it was formed of the basest materials. Hence it has been ordered by the marvelous justice of the Creator that because he [humanity] became proud in consequence of that reasonable sense which he received, he should again by death become earth which he was unwilling humbly to regard himself. And when the spirit is summoned from the body, it is stripped, as it were, of its kind of covering of flesh; it is fitly subjoined of the same clay. “The seal shall be restored...
8. Because, while they refuse to believe the truth, they lose for ever the knowledge of the Law, and while they boast of having received the Law, they are, doubtless, blinded by boasting of their knowledge. For it is written, Let their eyes be darkened that they see not. [Ps. 69, 23] And again it is written, Blind the hearts of this people, and make their ears heavy. [Is 6, 10] And again it is written, For judgment I have come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind. [John 9, 39] And because they boasted themselves in the works of the Law against the Giver of the Law, it is fitly subjoined;
And the high arm shall be broken.
9. For the high arm is broken, when the proud works of the Law are reproved, by preaching the grace of faith, when it is said, By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified. [Rom. 3, 20]
10. But all these words can be understood in another sense also. For Holy Scripture is wont to call the Church...
22. For the death of the flesh, which restores the Elect to their light, takes away their light from the reprobate. For the light of the proud is the glory of this present life. And that light is then withdrawn from it, when it is called by the death of the flesh, to the darkness of its own retributions. For then is the high arm there broken, because loftiness of heart, which has been violently seized on, beyond the order of nature, is scattered by the weight of Divine justice which overwhelms it, in order that how [Oxf. Mss. ‘quam’] wickedly it had exalted itself for a while, it may learn when it is crushed forever by the weight of judgment. But none of us would know what was to follow after death, did not the Creator of our life come even to the punishment of our death. For did He not of His own mercy seek the lowest condition, He could not justly bring back to the highest, us, who were lost after we had received His likeness.
