The Ancient Witnesses

Chapter 8: The Fulfillment of Time • 265

The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God…. 5 A witness whom Mentor identified as Jerome came to the lectern. “He’s one of the four great doctors of the Western Church,” whispered Father Greg, “he translated the entire Bible into Latin.” “At the sound of the trumpet the earth and its people shall tremble,” declared Jerome, “but you shall rejoice! The world shall howl at the Lord who comes to judge it, and the tribes of the earth shall smite their breast. But you, though poor and country-bred, you shall rejoice and laugh, and say, behold my crucified Lord, behold my judge!” I could feel a swell of emotion coming over me as I imagined the scene. Jerome stepped back from the lectern and Mentor introduced Prudentius, who led the assembly in a hymn he had composed on the theme, and which included this verse:

When at the awesome trumpet’s sound The earth will be consumed by fire, And with a mighty rush the world Unhinged, will crash in dreadful ruin! 6

The witnesses sang with such gusto and conviction, it was as if the scene was unfolding before our eyes. We’d only begun the Fulfillment of Time , but already the drama of the Second Coming of Christ was overtaking us.

5 1 Thessalonians 4:16a.

6 Prudentius, The Poems of Prudentius, A Hymn for Christmas Day (FOTC 43, Hymn #11, 83; ACC IX, 89.