Rev 9:5

“There are two parts in the church, one part of those who are good and one part of those who are evil. The one part is persecuted in order that it might be corrected; the other part is given up to its own desires. A part of those who are good is handed over to humiliation that they might know the righteousness of God and might remember penance, as it is written, "It is good that you have humbled me, that I might know your righteous deeds." [The torture like a sting of a scorpion] occurs when the devil draws near through the poison of transgressions and sins.”

“That these spiritual locusts sting people after the manner of scorpions shows the baneful death of the soul that lies hidden at the end of evil deeds. Those are subjected to [such a death] who have not signed their forehead with the divine seal and with the enlightenment of the lifegiving cross through the Holy Spirit, so that, as the Lord says, "they may let their light shine before men for the glory of the divine name." We think that the five months of their torment signifies either the shortness of time—"For had those days not been shortened, no flesh would have been saved," as the Lord says—or a certain five-day period representing the five senses through which sin enters into people, or a determined period that is known to God alone.”

“And it was said to them that they should not kill them, etc. Although heretics, empowered by secular authority, are allowed to attack the good temporally, they cannot kill the soul, as the Lord says. For the time of the world is signified by five months, because of the five-part sense which we use in this life. That another translation contains six months agrees with the same sense because of the six ages of the world.”

“And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. Just as the scorpion spreads poison from its hind parts, so the impiety of the wicked harms from behind, when it compels temporal things, which are behind, to be preferred to eternal goods by threats or blandishments. This scorpion, contrary to the parable of the Gospel, the generation of vipers hands over to its offspring.”

“And it was given unto them that they should not kill them; but that they should torment them five months yet. If those who do not have the sign are reprobates, how can the locusts be forbidden from killing them? And can it be that those who do not have the sign of God are alive? Therefore it is implied that this refers to the previous sentence. So let us take It was given unto them that they should not kill them; but that they should be tormented five months to mean that the heretics cannot deceive the signed, but only test them by tormenting them in this life, which is ruled by the five senses. What follows corresponds well to them: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man. Which means that the elect, who despise the things that are behind and stretch forth to the things that are before, [Cf. Phil. 3:13] are believed to be afflicted by others by means of what they themselves have visibly rejected out of contempt for the world, that is by means of either secular power or the error of bad credulity.”

“Could it be that some of the Fathers accepted the concept of restoration [ἀποκατάστασιν] from this point onward, saying that sinners are punished only up to this time, but thereafter no longer, as if they have been purified by the punishment? But what should be done regarding the many others among the Fathers, and the approved Scriptures, which speak of the punishments of those who were then being punished as eternal? What then might one say, or how should one regulate the parts? One must blend the opinions of both sides. I say this as in a kind of exercise, and not as a definitive statement; for I add to the doctrine of the Church that which wishes the punishments in the future to be eternal, since even this was said by the Lord in the Gospel according to Matthew, saying, "And these will go away into eternal punishment" (Matt. 25:46); and Isaiah said, "Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched." (Isa. 66:24) As in an exercise, therefore, this must be said: a middle portion of each part of the path is to be marked out, because until a certain time—"five months", as the present Revelation, having employed a certain secret number, has said—the sinners will be severely "tormented" "as if" stung "by a scorpion"; but after this, gradually, although we will not be entirely free from punishment, it will be to such an extent that we "will seek death and not find it". For who would have a need to seek death for those who are not punished at all? "Death", he says, "will flee from them", for they share in punishment eternally.”