Apostles And Spectacles

Puto enim quod Deus nos apostolos novissimos ostendit, quasi morti destinatos. Hoc personae suae deputat, quia semper in necessitate fuit, persecutiones et pressuras ultra caeteros passus, sicut passuri sunt Enoch et Elias, qui ultimo temporte futuri sunt apostoli. Mitti enim habent ante Christum ad praeparandum populum Dei, et muniendas omnes Ecclesias, ad resistendum antichristo, quos et persecutiones pati et occidi lectio Apocalyspsis testatur. Horum ergo tempus suo tempori comparavit Apostolos dicens: Quasi morti destinatos, ad hoc enim venturi sunt, ut occidantur. Quia spectaculum facti sumus huic mundo, et angelis et hominibus... Quia erunt spectaculum et Enoch et Elias usque adeo, ut corpora eorum in platea projiciantur in conspectu totius populi infidelis; ita et apostoli spectaculum facti sunt, quia publice ridebantur, positi ad injuriam et mortem quam passi sunt. Mundum autem, angelos et homines dixit; quia et anglei mali sunt, dicente David in psalmo septuagesimo septimo: Vexabat illos per angelos malos, et homines mali and increduli; his apostolorum injuriae oblectamento sunt. Mundus autem idcirco infidelias dicitur, quia visibilia sequitur. Ambrosiaster, In Epistolam Beati Pauli Ad Corinthios Primam, Caput IV Source: Migne PL 17.204d-b

I think that God shows us to be the last Apostles, as men appointed to die. 1 He attributes this to his own person, because he was always in need and suffered persecutions and pressures beyond all others, as Enoch and Elijah shall suffer, who in the last time shall be Apostles. 2 For being sent before Christ they must prepare the people of God and the walls of all the Churches to resist the Antichrist, they who then shall suffer persecution and be killed, as the book of the Apocalypse bears witness. Therefore the Apostle compares his own time to these, saying: 'As men appointed to die,' for to this they will come, that they be slain. We are made a spectacle to this world, even to angels and men... Because Enoch and Elijah shall be a spectacle, even so much so that their bodies shall be cast into the street in the sight of all the faithless people, so even the Apostles were made a spectacle, because they were publicly ridiculed, and given over to injury, and even to the deaths which they suffered. He speaks of the world and of angels and men, because there are wicked angels, with David saying in the seventy seventh Psalm: 'He distressed them with wicked angels,' 3 and men are wicked and unbelieving, and to these the injuries of the Apostles are a delight. He speaks of the world for unfaithfulness, because it follows visible things. Ambrosiaster, Commentary On The First Letter of Saint Paul To The Corinthians, Chapter 4 1 1 Cor 4.9 2 The two witnesses of Apoc 11.3 3 Ps 77.49