Wisdom 5:2
These seeing it, shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected salvation.
Open Wisdom 5:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Videntes turbabuntur timore horribili, et mirabuntur in subitatione insperatæ salutis ;
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἰδόντες ταραχθήσονται φόβῳ δεινῷ, καὶ ἐκστήσονται ἐπὶ τῷ παραδόξῳ τῆς σωτηρίας·
The Fathers on this verse
St Hippolytus Expository Treatise Against the Jews
10. And again David, in the Psalms, says with respect to the future age, “Then shall He” (namely Christ) “speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure.” And again Solomon says concerning Christ and the Jews, that “when the righteous shall stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted Him, and made no account of His words, when they see it they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of His salvation; and they, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit, shall say within themselves, This is He whom we had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach; we fools accounted His life madness, and His end to be without honour. …
St Cyprian Treatise V
24. What will then be the glory of faith? what the punishment of faithlessness? When the day of judgment shall come, what joy of believers, what sorrow of unbelievers; that they should have been unwilling to believe here, and now that they should be unable to return that they might believe! An ever-burning Gehenna will burn up the condemned, and a punishment devouring with living flames; nor will there be any source whence at any time they may have either respite or end to their torments. Souls with their bodies will be reserved in infinite tortures for suffering. …
St Cyprian Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, Testimony XVI
In the Proverbs of Solomon: “The faithful martyr delivers his soul from evils.” Also in the same place: “Then shall the righteous stand in great boldness against them who have afflicted them, and who took away their labours. When they see them, they shall be disturbed with a horrible fear; and they shall wonder at the suddenness of their unhoped-for salvation, saying among themselves, repenting and groaning with distress of spirit, These are they whom some time we had in derision, and in the likeness of a proverb; we fools counted their life madness, and their end without honour. How are they reckoned among the children of God, and their lot among the saints! Therefore we have wandered from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness has not shined upon us, and the sun has not risen upon us. …
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).