The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
Devout. In Greek εὐλαβής — religious, God-fearing. Waiting for the consolation of Israel — the coming of the Messiah, who was to console Israel, that is, the faithful people, and set them free from the oppression of Satan, of Herod, the Romans, and the Scribes and Pharisees. For, eager for the common weal, “ he sought,” says S. Ambrose, “ the good of his people rather than his own.” By the transferring of the sceptre from Judah to Herod, according to the prophecy of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 10), by the completion of the seventy weeks of Dan. ix., and by other prophecies, Simeon knew that the coming of Christ was at hand, to deliver Israel — that is, the faithful— from all evil, as well from their sins as from all miseries, partly in this life, partly in the life to come. Christ, then, is the consolation of the faithful, for except in Him there is no hope of salvation , but only despair and desolation. Hence Isaiah, ch. xl. 1, promising the coming of Christ, says, “ Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God : speak unto the heart of Jerusalem.” And in ch. li. 3, “ The Lord shall comfort Sion ; ” and again in lxi. 1, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ... to comfort all them that mourn.” And in 2 Cor. i. 5, S. Paul says, “As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth.” In the time of Christ the condition, as well of the State as of the Church of Israel, was one of the deepest affliction. Their body politic, while it lacked its own chiefs, was under the yoke of Herod and the Pagan Romans, and their Church, on the other hand, was under bondage to impious priests, to Scribes and Pharisees ; and in S. Matt. xxiii. 5, Christ tells us what manner of men these were — how they oppressed the people, and into what errors and vices they led them.
And the Holy Ghost was upon him, both sanctifying him and conferring on him the gift of prophecy. Observe that in Holy Scripture the Holy Ghost is said to come to, or be in, any one not only by the grace which makes that person acceptable, but also by any grace, “gratia gratis data,” i.e., conferred not necessarily in consideration of the merit of the recipient, and not for his own benefit, but for that of others, e.g., the grace of prophecy, as here in the case of Simeon. So in ch. i. 35, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as about to come upon the Blessed Virgin, that she may conceive a Son, and become the Mother of God; this is a grace, “gratis data.” And again in ver. 41 of the same chapter Elizabeth is spoken of as full of the Holy Spirit when she began to prophecy.
Upon him. In the Greek ἐπ’ αὐτόν, the Holy Ghost, coming down upon him, took possession of his soul, so that he seemed not so much a man of this earth as a celestial and divine being, and this on purpose that his testimony as to Christ might be irrefragable and beyond dispute.
Celsus (De Incredulitate Judaorum apud Vigilium — to be found among the works of Cyprian) gives a tradition to the effect that Simeon was blind, and recovered his sight when he touched Christ ; but S. Luke would not have been silent about so great a miracle, and which would so clearly have been in place here.
Ver. 26. — And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death , before he had seen the Lord's Christ. “It was revealed ” by a divine oracle and promise — the Greek expression is κεχρηματισμένον. “The Lord’s Christ” — the Messiah, anointed with the unction of the Holy Spirit and the plentitude of grace.
In this Simeon was privileged far beyond Abraham, Isaac, and all the patriarchs and prophets, who, as the apostle says, Heb. xi. 13, “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and embraced them.” Hence it is plain that Simeon was a man of singular holiness, and full of holy aspirations and zeal.
Ver. 27. — And he came by the Spirit into the Temple. By the impulse of the Holy Spirit, moved and incited by the Holy Spirit, say Euthymius and Theophylact. And the same Spirit who urged him thither gave him the sign by which he should know Christ among so many infants that were then being offered in the Temple, or, rather, showed Him to him, inwardly prompting him and saying, Behold, this is Christ, whom I promised thee that thou shouldst see before thy death.
Timothy, a priest of Jerusalem, in his Oratio de Simeone , thinks that he must have seen the Virgin surrounded with light in the midst of the other women, and by this mark understood her to be the Mother of the Messiah. The Carthusian (Denis), too, says, “ Perhaps he saw some divine splendour in the countenance of the child.”
Hence we may learn how God guides the mind and the paths of His saints that they may fall in with the good predestined for them by Him. Wherefore we must pray diligently, especially when about to undertake a journey, for this direction, that we may be preserved from evil, and blessed with good issues ; saying with the Psalmist, “ O Lord, show me Thy ways and teach me Thy paths,” Ps. xxv. 4. “Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments,” Ps. cxix. 35.
We read, in the life of S. Ephrem, that, when he was entering a certain city, he prayed to God that he might fall in with something that should edify him. A harlot met him, and stared so hard at him, that he asked with great severity why she acted so immodestly ; and he received this answer, “ Let woman look upon man, for from him was she made, but let man fix his gaze upon the earth, of which he was formed.” The man of God felt that the rebuke was just, and, being deeply touched by it, gave thanks to God because he had received from a harlot a lesson so salutary.
And when the parents brought in the child Jesus , to do for Him after the custom of the law. In the Greek ἐν τῷ εἰσαγαγεῖν — when they had brought. This sentence is dependent on the next verse.
Ver. 28. — Then took he Him up in his arms , and blessed God , and said. Martial says of the dying swan —
“ Sweet cadences the swan with voice that fails in death Uttereth ; his own dirge shaped of his own dying breath.”
And so the last utterances of the wise are the sweetest, their powers maturing with years. Again Cicero tells us in the first Tusculan Disputation, “Not without reason are swans dedicated to Apollo, since they seem to have from him a gift of prophecy, by virtue of which, foreseeing the good that there is in death, they die with joy and in the act of singing.” And Simeon here foresees in this way the joy that through Christ is to come to him after his death, which must soon take place.
Ver. 29. — Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, Lettest thou — in Greek ἀπολύεις, loosen, as it were, from the prison-chains of this body, that I may go to the liberty, peace, and rest which the fathers in limbo enjoy. In peace, so Tobias, ch. iii. 6; and Abraham, Gen. xv. 15, desired to die in peace. Euthymius here understands by peace —
1. The calming of his feelings, which had fluctuated between hope and fear with reference to his seeing Christ.
2. The peace of an intrepid soul that did not fear death.
3. Peace may be taken to mean that security from the dangers of the world which death brings. S. Cyprian (Tract, de Mortalitate, c. i.) says, “Joyful at his approaching death, sure that it must soon come, he took the Child in his hands, and, blessing the Lord, lifted up his voice and said, Now Thou dost dismiss, &c., . . . thus proving and bearing witness that then is there peace for the servants of God, then an easy and tranquil mind when, delivered from out the whirlpools of the world, we make for the haven of our eternal habitation and our peace.”
Thy word. Thy promise, says Theophylact, when Thou didst promise to prolong my life until I should see Christ ; now have I seen Him, therefore let me depart and die.
Symbolically, S. Augustine (Serm. 20 de Tempore) says, “Now, Lord, let me depart in peace, because I see thy peace — Christ, Who shall make peace between heaven and earth — between God and angels and men — between men and themselves.”
And Simeon obtained his wish from God, for soon after he went to his rest. S. Epiphanius ( De Prophetarum vita , c. xxiv.) puts S. Simeon among the prophets. “Simon,” he says, “departed this life full of years and utterly worn out ; yet did he not obtain at the hands of the priests the last honours of burial.” He gives no reason, however, why this should have been so, but it is thought that, in openly announcing the advent of Christ, he brought upon himself the envy and hatred of the other priests.
Tropologically, the Church sings this hymn of Simeon every evening in the Office of Compline, for two reasons : — First, to admonish the faithful, and especially ecclesiastics, to think upon death, and so live as though they were to die in the evening ; and, again, that they may acquire that yearning which Simeon felt to pass away from the vanities and troubles of this life to the true and blessed life in heaven, begging of God to be permitted to depart, and saying with Paul, “I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.” “Behold how the just man,” says S. Ambrose, “as though shut in within the gross prison-house of the body, wishes to be loosed, that he may begin to be with Christ. But he that will be set free, let him come to the Temple, let him come to Jerusalem, let him wait for the Lord, let him embrace Him with good work as with the arms of faith. Then shall he be set free, that he may not see death, because he has looked upon life.”
Ver. 30. — For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. “ Salvation ,” in Greek σωτήριον, the word used by the Septuagint as a rendering of the Hebrew iescua , safety. “Safety” is used by metonomy for “Saviour.” By “salvation,” then, we are to understand the Saviour Christ, whom the ancient fathers desired to see, but Simeon alone saw, touched, and embraced.