Mark 13:33 — Community Reflections

MARK 13:33 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.”

Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come — the third be on guard command in the discourse (verses 5, 23, 33). The three-fold warning creates a sustained refrain of vigilance: the response appropriate to the Olivet Discourse is not chronological calculation but constant readiness. You do not know when: the unknown timing is not a frustration but the theological basis for the vigilance command — if you knew exactly when, vigilance would be unnecessary.

Church Fathers on Mark 13:33

The Lord wishing to prevent His disciples from asking about that day and hour, says, 'But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.'
Theophylact · 11th century

This ignorance of the day and hour is urged against the Only-Begotten God, as if, God born of God had not the same perfection of nature as God. But first, let common sense decide whether it is credible that He, who is the cause that all things are, and are to be, should be ignorant of any out of all these things. For how can it be beyond the knowledge of that nature, by which and in which that which is to be done is contained? And can He be ignorant of that day, which is the…
Hilary of Poitiers · 4th century · de Trin., ix

For we must needs watch with our souls before the death of the body.
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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