And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
Read Chapter 9
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
And the smoke Luther and his followers propagated and defended their new doctrines with such heat and violence, as to occasion every where seditions and insurrections, which they seemed to glory in. Luther openly boasted of it. "You complain "said he, "that by our gospel the world is become more tumultuous; I answer, God be thanked for it; these things I would have so to be, and wo to me if such things were not. "
The sun was darkened The light of faith, which is the word of God, may well be represented by the sun, according to that of the Psalm cxviii. 105., "Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths. "And as the air is the spring of man's respiration and life, it may be a just type of morality, which gives spiritual life and worth to all human actions. By the sun, therefore, and air being darkened, we are to understand faith and morality obscured and perverted by the novel doctrines of the reformers. (Pastorini, hic.)
'On this Caius objects, that according to this, the unrighteous are consumed by the locusts; whereas Scripture has said that sinners prosper and the righteous are persecuted, in the world' [Ps. lxxiii. 12 ] ; and Paul, that the faithful shall be persecuted and the evil shall flourish, deceiving and being deceived [2 Tim. iii. 12, 13].
But Hippolytus answers him, and says that the faithful, those who are persecuted by the unrighteous, at this period are to have rest, because they have been sealed; but the unrighteous who persecuted the saints, on them comes the plague of locusts; even as the Egyptians were devoured, and the Hebrews were free from the plagues, while they dwelt in one place. Thus the saints in this time are to be in well-being, even as our Lord said, When these things begin to be, be of good cheer, and lift up your heads, inasmuch as your redemption is nigh [St. Luke, xxi. 28]; that is, when plagues come on the evil, the righteous have rest. And this, that evil men de...
