Alcuin of York — on Rev 9:3 (COMMENTARY ON REVELATION)

“And from the smoke there came out locusts upon the earth. It is fitting for the heretics to be represented by locusts, for just as we see locusts, neither flying perfectly like birds nor walking by steps, but making leaps, chew up the crops of the earth, so do the heretics, having neither the flight of full knowledge nor the walk of perfect work, but only moved by the leaps of pride, kill the souls of the wicked by preaching unheard-of things. So locusts come out of the smoke when heretics are born from heretics. And power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. The power of scorpions is in the tail, which is at the end of the body: so is temporality left behind as it withdraws from itself; for everything that passes is, as it were, behind, while everything that remains is before. So the locusts receive power to hurt as the scorpions of the earth because the heretics, sustained by temporal powers, hurt only with what is behind.”