Mark 13:17 — Community Reflections

MARK 13:17 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!”

How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers — the specific compassion for pregnant women and nursing mothers communicates that the coming distress will be most devastating for those whose circumstances prevent rapid flight. The compassion is pastoral and specific: the teaching is not abstract but attentive to the concrete human conditions in which the coming distress will be most severe.

Church Fathers on Mark 13:17

Matthew says, standing 'in the holy place;' but with this verbal difference Mark has expressed the same meaning; for He says 'where it ought not' to stand, because it ought not to stand in the holy place.
Augustine · 4th century · de Con Evan, ii, 77

When we are challenged to understand what is said, we may conclude that it is mystical. But it may either be said simply of Antichrist, or of the statue of Caesar, which Pilate put into the temple, or of the equestrian statue of Adrian, which for a long time stood in the holy of holies itself. An idol is also called abomination according to the Old Testament, and He has added 'of desolation' because it was placed in the temple when desolate and deserted.
Bede · 8th century

Or He means by 'the abomination of desolation' the entrance of enemies into the city by violence.
Theophylact · 11th century

Read all 20 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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