2 Timothy 4:1
I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom:
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Testificor coram Deo, et Jesu Christo, qui judicaturus est vivos et mortuos, per adventum ipsius, et regnum ejus :
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Διαμαρτύρομαι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, τοῦ μέλλοντος κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, καὶ τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ·
Haydock's commentary
I charge thee (literally, testify to thee) before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead; i.e. all those that have been dead for so many ages since the beginning of the world; and the living, i.e. those who shall be found living at the end of the world, but who shall die, and be presently raised again. See 1 Corinthians xv. 52.
By his coming.1 The sense by the Greek seems to be, who shall judge them at or by his coming, rather than I charge thee by his coming, as others translate. (Witham)
1 Per adventum, kata ten epiphaneian.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Ignatius of Antioch Epistle to the Magnesians: Shorter and, Chapter XI. I write these things to
These things [I address to you], my beloved, not that I know any of you to be in such a state; but, as less than any of you, I desire to guard you beforehand, that ye fall not upon the hooks of vain doctrine, but that you may rather attain to a full assurance in Christ, who was begotten by the Father before all ages, but was afterwards born of the Virgin Mary without any intercourse with man. He also lived a holy life, and healed every kind of sickness and disease among the people, and wrought signs and wonders for the benefit of men; and to those who had fallen into the error of polytheism He made known the one and only true God, His Father, and underwent the passion, and endured the cross at the hands of the Christ-killing Jews, under Pontius Pilate the governor and Herod the king. …
St Augustine City of God, Of the 3d, 41st, 15th, and 68th Psalms, in Which the Death and Resurrection of the Lord are Prophesied
About His resurrection also the oracles of the Psalms are by no means silent. For what else is it that is sung in His person in the 3d Psalm, “I laid me down and took a sleep, [and] I awaked, for the Lord shall sustain me?” Is there perchance any one so stupid as to believe that the prophet chose to point it out to us as something great that He had slept and risen up, unless that sleep had been death, and that awaking the resurrection, which behoved to be thus prophesied concerning Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown much more clearly, where in the person of the Mediator, in the usual way, things are narrated as if past which were prophesied as yet to come, since these things which were yet to come were in the predestination and foreknowledge of God as if they were done, because they were certain. …
St Augustine On the Holy Trinity, In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form of God, Other Things According to the Form of a Servant. In What Way It is of Christ to Give the Kingdom, in What Not of Christ. Christ Will Both Judge and Not Judge
27. I ask, therefore, how we are to understand, “I will not judge him; but the Word which I have spoken shall judge him:” which appears from what follows to be so said, as if He would say, I will not judge; but the Word of the Father will judge. But the Word of the Father is the Son of God Himself. Is it to be so understood: I will not judge, but I will judge? How can this be true, unless in this way: viz ., I will not judge by human power, because I am the Son of man; but I will judge by the power of the Word, because I am the Son of God? Or if it still seems contradictory and inconsistent to say, I will not judge, but I will judge; what shall we say of that place where He says, “My doctrine is not mine?” How “mine,” when “not mine?” For He did not say, This doctrine is not mine, but “ My doctrine is not mine:” that which He called His own, the same He called not His own. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XLVII
9. “God shall reign over all nations” ( ver. 8 ). Who reigned over one nation, “shall reign” (saith He) “over all nations.” When this was said, God reigned over one nation. It was a prophecy, the thing was not yet shown. Thanks be to God, we now see fulfilled what before was prophesied. A written promise God sent unto us before the time, the time fulfilled He hath repaid us. “God shall reign over all nations,” is a promise. “God sitteth upon His Holy Seat.” What then was promised to come, now being fulfilled, is acknowledged and held. “God sitteth upon His Holy Seat.” What is His Holy Seat? Haply saith one, The Heavens, and he understandeth well. For Christ hath gone up, as we know, with the Body, wherein He was crucified, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; thence we expect Him to come to judge the quick and the dead. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXVIII
30. “There have been seen Thy steps, O God” ( ver. 24 ). The steps are those wherewith Thou hast come through the world, as though in that chariot Thou wast going to traverse the round world; which chariot of clouds He intimateth to be His holy and faithful ones in the Gospel, where He saith, “From this time ye shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds.” Leaving out that coming wherein He shall be Judge of quick and dead, “From this time,” He saith, “ye shall see the Son of Man coming in clouds.” These “Thy steps have been seen,” that is, have been manifested, by the revealing the grace of the New Testament. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, 2 Timothy 3:16,17
Chap. iv. 1 . “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall judge the quick and the dead.”
Theodoret Letters of the Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus, To John the Œconomus
Let us, then, not shun the name whereby we enjoy salvation, and whereby all things are made new, as says our teacher himself in his Epistle to the Ephesians, “According to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of time He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him.” Let us rather learn from this blessed language how we are bound to glorify our benefactor, by connecting the name of Christ with our God and Father. …
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, That the ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech
The ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech; lest he either utter what ought to be suppressed or suppress what he ought to utter. For, as incautious speaking leads into error, so indiscreet silence leaves in error those who might have been instructed. For often improvident rulers, fearing to lose human favour, shrink timidly from speaking freely the things that are right; and, according to the voice of the Truth ( Joh. x. 12 ), serve unto the custody of the flock by no means with the zeal of shepherds, but in the way of hirelings; since they fly when the wolf cometh if they hide themselves under silence. For hence it is that the Lord through the prophet upbraids them, saying, Dumb dogs, that cannot bark ( Isai. lvi. 10 ). …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).