Matthew 24:18

“Neither let him which is in the field, etc.] Ploughing, or sowing, or employed in any other parts of husbandry, or rural business, return back to take clothes; for it was usual to work in the fields without their clothes, as at ploughing and sowing. Hence those words of Virgil f1383. “Nudus ara, sere nudus, hyems ignava colono.” Upon which Servius observes, that in good weather, when the sun warms the earth, men might plough and sow without their clothes: and it is reported by the historian f1384 of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, that the messengers who were sent to him, from Minutius the consul, whom he had delivered from a siege, found him ploughing naked beyond the Tiber: not that he was…”

“Return back to take his clothes - His clothes which, in “working,” He had laid aside, or which, in fleeing, he should throw off as an encumbrance. “Clothes” here means the “outer” garment, commonly laid aside when men worked or ran. See the notes at Matthew 5:40. These directions were followed. It is said that the Christians, warned by these predictions, fled from Jerusalem to Pella, and other places beyond the Jordan; so that there is not evidence that a single “Christian” perished in Jerusalem - Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., lib. 3 chapter 6. return to 'Top of Page'”