Apocalypse 13:8
And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et adoraverunt eam omnes, qui inhabitant terram : quorum non sunt scripta nomina in libro vitæ Agni, qui occisus est ab origine mundi.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν αὐτὸν πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, οὗ οὐ γέγραπται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.
Haydock's commentary
Slain from the beginning. In the foreknowledge of God; and in as much as all mercy and grace, from the beginning, were given in view of his death and passion. (Challoner)
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 Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXIX
29. “Let them be blotted out from the book of the living” ( ver. 29 ). For had they been some time written therein? Brethren, we must not so take it, as that God writeth any one in the book of life, and blotteth him out. If a man said, “What I have written I have written,” concerning the title where it had been written, “King of the Jews:” doth God write any one, and blot him out? He foreknoweth, He hath predestined all before the foundation of the world that are to reign with His Son in life everlasting. These He hath written down, these same the Book of Life doth contain. Lastly, in the Apocalypse, what saith the Spirit of God, when the same Scripture was speaking of the oppressions that should be from Antichrist? “There shall give consent to him all they that have not been written in the book of life.” So then without doubt they will not consent that have been written. …
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).