Church Fathers Commentary Luke 19:41-44

"And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." — Luke 19:41-44 (ASV)

Origen of Alexandria: Jesus confirms all the blessings He pronounced in His Gospel with His own example. For having declared, Blessed are the meek, He later affirmed this by saying, Learn of me, for I am meek. And because He had said, Blessed are they that weep, He Himself also wept over the city.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: For Christ had compassion on the Jews, as He wills that all people should be saved. This would not have been clear to us if it were not revealed by a specific mark of His humanity, for tears are the tokens of sorrow.

St. Gregory the Great: The merciful Redeemer wept over the fall of the faithless city—a fall that the city itself did not know was coming. As it is added, He said, If you had known, even you—we may understand this to mean—you would weep. You who now rejoice do so because you do not know what is near. He continues, at least in this your day. For when the city gave herself up to carnal pleasures, she possessed things that, in her time, constituted her peace.

But why she had present goods for her peace is explained by what follows: But now they are hidden from your eyes. For if the eyes of her heart had not been blind to the future evils hanging over her, she would not have been so joyful in her present prosperity. Therefore, He immediately added the punishment that was near at hand, saying, For the days shall come upon you.

St. Cyril of Alexandria: If you had known, even you. The Jews were not worthy to receive the divinely inspired Scriptures, which explain the mystery of Christ. For whenever Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts so that they do not see what has been accomplished in Christ, who, being the truth, dispels the shadow. And because they ignored the truth, they made themselves unworthy of the salvation that flows from Christ.

Eusebius of Caesarea: Here He declares that His coming was to bring peace to the whole world. For He came for this purpose: to preach peace to them that were near, and those that were afar off. But because they did not wish to receive the peace that was announced to them, it was hidden from them. Therefore, He most explicitly foretold the siege that was soon to come upon them, adding, For the days shall come upon you...

St. Gregory the Great: By these words, the Roman leaders are indicated. For the overthrow of Jerusalem described here is the one carried out by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus.

Eusebius of Caesarea: We can understand how these things were fulfilled from the account given to us by Josephus, who, although he was a Jew, related each event as it happened, in exact accordance with Christ’s prophecies.

St. Gregory the Great: What is added next, namely, They shall not leave in you one stone upon another, is now witnessed in the changed location of the city. The new city is built in the place where Christ was crucified outside the gate, while the former Jerusalem, as it is called, was torn up from its very foundations. The crime for which this punishment was inflicted is then added: Because you did not know the time of your visitation.

Theophylact of Ohrid: That is, the time of My coming. For I came to visit and to save you. If you had known this and believed in Me, you might have been reconciled to the Romans and exempted from all danger, as were those who believed in Christ.

Origen of Alexandria: I do not deny, therefore, that the former Jerusalem was destroyed because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, but I ask whether the weeping might also concern this, your spiritual Jerusalem. For if a person has sinned after receiving the mysteries of the truth, he will be wept over. Moreover, no Gentile is wept over, but only he who was of Jerusalem and has ceased to be so.

St. Gregory the Great: For our Redeemer does not cease to weep through His elect whenever He perceives anyone who has departed from a good life to follow evil ways. If such people knew of the damnation hanging over them, they would, along with the elect, shed tears over themselves. But the corrupt soul has its day on earth, rejoicing in passing time; for this soul, present things are its peace, since it takes delight in what is temporal. It shuns any foresight of the future that might disturb its present joy, and for this reason it is said, But now they are hidden from your eyes.

Origen of Alexandria: But our Jerusalem is also wept over, because after sin, enemies (that is, wicked spirits) surround it, cast a trench around it to besiege it, and do not leave one stone upon another. This is especially true when a person, after long self-control and years of chastity, is overcome. Enticed by the flatteries of the flesh, he loses his strength and modesty and commits fornication. Of him, the enemies will not leave one stone upon another, according to Ezekiel: His formed righteousness I will not remember.

St. Gregory the Great: Alternatively, the evil spirits lay siege to the soul as it departs from the body. Seized with the love of the flesh, they entice it with deceptive pleasures. They surround it with a trench, bringing all the wickedness it has committed before its mind's eye, and closely confine it within its own damnation. Caught at the very end of life, the soul sees the enemies by which it is surrounded but is unable to find any way of escape, because it can no longer do the good works it once despised.

They also enclose the soul on every side as its iniquities rise up before it—not only in deed but also in word and thought. Thus the soul, which previously expanded itself in wickedness, is now at the end confined in every way by judgment. Then, by the very nature of its guilt, the soul is laid flat on the ground, while its flesh, which it believed to be its life, is commanded to return to dust. Its children also fall in death when all the unlawful thoughts that proceed from it are scattered in the final punishment of life.

These thoughts may also be symbolized by the stones. For when the corrupt mind adds one corrupt thought to another, it places one stone upon another. But when the soul is led to its doom, the entire structure of its thoughts is torn apart.

Yet God never ceases to visit the wicked soul with His teaching, sometimes with affliction and sometimes with a miracle. He does this so that the soul may hear the truth it did not know and, though still despising it, might be pricked to the heart and return in sorrow, or be overcome with mercies and grow ashamed of the evil it has done. But because it does not know the time of its visitation, at the end of its life it is given over to its enemies to be joined with them in the bond of everlasting damnation.