Commentary on the Prophet Amos

and burnt (since the Lord and God, being truth itself, cannot speak falsehood), but rather that which is understood by the mind: the celestial Jerusalem, the supernal and divine Sion, that glorious and preeminent city whose craftsman, builder, and architect is God himself, to which may we too arrive through Christ.

OF OUR HOLY FATHER CYRIL, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, COMMENTARY ON THE PROPHET AMOS, CONTAINING FOUR TOMES. PROEMIUM.

^A 1. Amos was a shepherd, reared in pastoral customs and ways. He spent his time in the wilderness, which is situated toward the south of the Jewish territory, and which extends as far as the borders of the Indian Sea and reaches into the land of the Persians; a myriad of barbarian tribes pasture their flocks there, and it is most suitable for the rearing of herds of sheep, for it is well-watered, wide, and covered with a diversity of herbs. Now Amos was from the village of Thecua, situated at the very feet of the wilderness. And since he was a good man and a practitioner of all equity, he was immediately enriched with the spirit of prophecy, and he prophesied not in Jerusalem, but among those who practiced animal husbandry, taking care of the people of his own race and calling from the beginning. Then he came even to Bethel itself. For Thecua was contained not by Judah, but by the kingdom of Ephraim. That this is so you will easily learn most clearly even from his own words. For he prophesied in Bethel, as I said, that the altars of laughter would be destroyed and the ceremonies of Israel would be abolished. He adds to these: "And I will cut..." ^{B C}

off from the house of Jeroboam with the sword." ^A But Amasias, the priest of Bethel—he who gnashed his teeth at the prophet—then sent word to Jeroboam the king of Israel, saying: "Amos is making conspiracies against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land will not be able to bear all his words. For thus says Amos: 'Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be led away captive from its land.'" And Amasias said to Amos: "O seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and live there, and prophesy there; but do not prophesy again at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the house of the kingdom." And Amos answered and said to Amasias: "I was no prophet, nor was I a prophet's son; but I was a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore figs; and the Lord took me from following the flock. And the Lord said to me: 'Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.'" He was taken, therefore, from the flocks, and prophesied in Bethel, where the first Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, had placed the golden calf. ^B I think it is worth noting here, too, that Amos the father of Isaiah was a different person. But as for what he prophesied and concerning whom throughout the whole book, having approached our subject, we shall demonstrate to the best of our ability.

VOLUME ONE. CHAPTER I.

VERS. 1. *The words of Amos, which were made in Accarim from Thecue, which he saw concerning Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joas, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.*

II. *"The words of Amos, which were made in Accarim from Thecue, which he saw concerning Jerusalem."* These, he says, are the prophetic words of Amos the Thecuite, which were made in Accarim. ^C It should be noted that this expression, namely "in Accarim," is entirely absent from the Hebrew edition, in which one finds only these words: "The words of Amos from Thecue." Other interpreters, in place of "in Accarim," have put "in cattle-stalls," that is, in places where herds or beasts of burden are pastured. These words of Amos the Thecuite were, therefore, what were made at the time he was still tending the sheep, and in the very folds or enclosures of the sheep. ^D Concerning Jerusalem herself, he says that he not only heard the words but saw them. For God makes manifest to the prophets, along with the revelations themselves, the things themselves, rendering them all but present, so that they seem to see the words even before they come to pass, perhaps with the vision of future events concurring with those things which God has spoken. Otherwise, it is a point worthy of inquiry how it is to be understood that the words were made concerning Jerusalem alone, when nevertheless, through the voice of the prophet himself, God accuses both Judah and Israel? For he says below: "Because these"

^A iniquities of the sons of Judah, and concerning the four, I will not turn them away," and what follows. Then, immediately after this: "Thus saith the Lord: Against three iniquities of Israel," and what follows. Having further brought forward the modes of their sin, He threatened dire things, and the discourse has for Him the sharpest possible rebuke against both. How then, it will be asked, could the words be understood to have been spoken concerning Jerusalem alone, when God says: "I will send fire upon Judah," and the rest? ^B Let us, I pray, consider what the method of the reply will be. We say, therefore, that it is the custom of the holy prophets, at one time distinctly to call the two tribes which are in Jerusalem—Judah and Benjamin—by the name of Israel; and at another time, in turn, to name the ten tribes which are in Samaria otherwise as Israel, or as Ephraim, for they very frequently confuse them. And since they are all sprung from the blood of Israel, they call the two, and the ten tribes, by this name. But if peradventure they wish to signify to us the entire multitude of the Jews, we shall no longer find them using the name of Israel in a distinct sense. The words of the prophecy of Amos have therefore been made concerning the entire multitude ^C of Judah, as well that which is in Jerusalem as that which is in Samaria. It is necessary to say how they could be for them. There is, therefore, a twofold method for our reply. For, in the first place, He has brought in the God of all mentioning the sins of the Jewish Synagogue; then, foretelling the things that would happen to them, He added to these the good things which would come from His kindness, and that in time there would be a very great sparing of them, and a renovation unto the beginning. For the same Amos says again, as if from the person of God: "Nevertheless, I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. For behold, I give command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, ^D like as corn is shaken in a sieve, and there shall not a grain fall upon the earth." He also necessarily foretells the future redemption through Christ, and that they will pass over unto renovation, and will be in happiness through the Lord showing mercy. For He says again thus: "In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David," and the rest.

But the words concerning Jerusalem can correctly be understood in another way also. For the kings of Syria and Damascus, and not a few of the neighboring nations, ravaged the region of the Jews, rising up against it one after another, and devastating it in a hostile manner, carrying off and plundering it, and acting from unbridled rage so as to bring them into extreme misery. Therefore, the prophet introduced God threatening desolation to all these destroyers of it, and promising that He would exact punishment for their wicked enterprises. Therefore, the words of Amos were made concerning Jerusalem, or concerning the whole Jewish gathering. And this will appear clearly if we weigh the times of the prophecy. For it follows: "In the days of Ozias, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joas, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake." But someone will object, I suppose, "What will it profit the readers, if, with curiosity and precision, we examine the reigns"

^A of those just mentioned—of Uzziah, I mean, and also Jeroboam?" To this we reply that the matter is necessary, as it contains, as it were, the whole underlying circumstance of the prophecy like a pang of labor. For it threatens destruction, invasions, and burnings to Syria, to Damascus, and to the barbarians dwelling around Judea, and from this fact the beginning of his holy oracles has come to him. It is necessary, therefore, to learn the reasons why the times of their reigns were added, what and how many were the upright deeds performed by each, how they lived their lives, and if there is anything regarding either of them that deserves to be heard.

After Israel and Judah had slipped into apostasy, they were disciplined in many ways. Sometimes the princes of Damascus and ^B the Syrians would invade and besiege their cities and carry off spoils. At other times, the Moabites and Edomites, the Girgashites and Elamites, the Azotians and those dwelling in Accaron, would harass Samaria and, indeed, the kingdom of Judah as well, using unrestrained impulses and an insatiable frame of mind, becoming as savage as bulls in their extreme rage. We shall find that they did this in various places; for instance, when Ahab was reigning over Samaria and Israel. It is written thus in the third book of Kings: "And the son of Ader gathered all his army, and went up, and besieged Samaria, and thirty-two kings with him" (III Reg. xx, 1). Consider, therefore, how the king of Damascus, that is to say Ader, made allies in his expedition against Israel, ^C taking thirty-two other leaders of surrounding nations, who thus afflicted the land. But also, in the time of Joas, king of Judah, Hazael the Syrian made war on Jerusalem, as is written in the fourth book of Kings: "When Joas took all the consecrated things, and all the gold found in the treasures, and sent it to Hazael, and he went up from Jerusalem" (IV Reg. xii, 18). For they were doing such things according to divine wrath, because Israel had offended God, having turned very far away, and being dreadfully enthralled by the worship of idols.

Nevertheless, the foreigners, in their victories, were disparaging the glory of God. For those wretched people wrongly assumed within themselves that the hand that guarded them had grown weak, and they dared to insult His honors most insolently. ^D The Syrians, having been crushed after the son of Ader had invested Samaria and then soon broken the siege, excused their cowardice poorly, saying, "The God of the mountains is the God of Israel, and not the God of the valleys" (III Reg. xx, 28). For they believed that the Israelites had conquered because their God was able to save only in the mountains or on the hills. "We have been defeated," they say, "because the God of Israel is a God of the mountains. But if it should come to pass that we meet in battle in the open plains, we shall prevail, since the God of Israel is powerless in the valleys." But these are charges of Greek dementedness, and the forwardness of tongues that do not know God in truth and by nature. Therefore, the Almighty God was indignant against the foreigners, and most deservedly so, because after defeating Israel, as I said, they were offering thanks to their own gods, and in their delirium were imagining that they had overcome God Himself. After Ahab had passed away, and the kings who followed him, his successors, Jeroboam is created king in Samaria, a different one from the first Joas who was.

born of Nabat, though he was his namesake in name, character, and impiety. But in the times of his reign, God, who delights in showing mercy, looked upon Israel laboring under an intolerable affliction, and relieved him from his distress through the hand of Jeroboam, although he was wicked and a great apostate. For they so prevailed over the foreigners that they even recovered cities which had been torn away from them in the times of the preceding kings, and brought them back under their own scepter, and inflicted very many evils upon those who formerly used to defeat them. In the fourth book of Kings, therefore, it is written that the children of Israel had been so oppressed, with none to save them, that they were very few and scattered; yet they were saved ^B by the hand of Jeroboam. ‹By the hand,› he says, for ‹through the hand.› For he was not one who crushed Israel, but rather one who fought and defended him. And he restored Damascus, and recovered the border of Israel, and performed many acts of power. While Jeroboam was reigning, Azarias, also called Ozias, is anointed king over Judah in Jerusalem, who was no less formidable to the nations, and applied himself manfully against those who had brought devastation upon Judea. For he was indeed a pious man and a striver after virtue. But when, with God’s approval, he had now tamed his enemies, he fell into the disease of pride, and by his own decree decided henceforth to function as a priest to God, and he even dared to ascend the divine altar itself, and ^C to offer incense to Him. But God immediately checked the man. For he was sprinkled with leprosy, a terrible and incurable disease, so that, as one unclean according to the law, he was sent out of Jerusalem, so that he might henceforth cease to function as a priest to God, and from the ministry he had illegally attempted, and from defiling the divine temple. The sacred Scripture says these things in the fourth book of Kings. But in the second book of Chronicles the narration of this history is clearer. Concerning, then, the fact that Ozias was struck with leprosy, this is sufficient. But that he was a powerful man, and invaded the provinces of the foreigners, and was so mighty and vigorous that he even built cities among them, and imposed tribute, and ^D subjected them to his own scepter, although they were once very pleased with themselves, the sacred Scripture sufficiently teaches. Since, therefore, the prophetic word mentions at the beginning the future desolation that is to come upon the foreigners, it was necessary to make mention of the reigns of Ozias and Jeroboam, for it was through them that they were defeated, as we have already said. I know indeed that Damascus was burned by the hand of the Assyrians, who also devastated the peoples of the foreigners with sword and fire; but since that happened later, we have necessarily touched upon what happened to the foreigners and the Assyrian leaders themselves during Jeroboam's time. But because the prophet added, ‹two years before the earthquake,› it was necessary also to mention the leprosy of Ozias, by which he was afflicted, God punishing him after he undertook the performance of sacred

^A rites in violation of the law. For Jerusalem trembled, as the inhabitants showed their anger toward God.

252 ^B VERSE 2. *And He said: The Lord hath spoken from Sion, and from Jerusalem He hath uttered His voice, and the pastures of the shepherds have mourned, and the top of Carmel is withered.*

III. In these words, the whole scope of the prophecy becomes clear to us, and the goal of the entire oracle, and the thought of the proposed words—rightly received, perhaps, as a kind of preliminary narrative ^C clouded by much obscurity. For the discourse consists of a certain resemblance and metaphor, as happens sometimes with the ridges of mountains flowering with shrubs, or with fields laid bare. For mountains, although covered in forests and trees, and plains, although clothed in much and dense grass, suddenly wither, perhaps because of some plague or other pestilence of the air. Thus, also, human affairs fall away, and sometimes bitter and unbearable calamities overwhelm cities and regions, which destroy both great and small alike and take them away from this life. For whom would either a hostile sword, I ask, or rather a pestilence spare? It mows down from the roots alike the one pre-eminent in wealth, glory, and power, and the obscure and cast-away person. The prophet, therefore, has now spoken in a manner most befitting those things to which he was accustomed. For he was a shepherd, as we said, and since the pastures of flocks are often corrupted, he caught that metaphor there. What, then, will be the truer sense of the words? *The Lord, he says, hath spoken from Sion,* as from His own place, *and from Jerusalem,* as from a place attributed to Him; for that which lacks a body is not contained by a place. But because that famous temple was in Jerusalem, it seemed in a way to be His own place, as the ancients suspected, as they still thought of God in a humble way. Instead of «hath spoken,» the Hebrew edition has «ululated,» or «roared,» like a lion, clearly. By this having been done, he says, *The pastures of the shepherds have mourned.* By this name, he understands the ^D gentile nations, subject as they were to their own princes like certain shepherds, who seize and drive the subject peoples to all things that please them. «They have mourned, therefore,» that is, they have been involved in sorrows and every evil. For mourning is undertaken over the dead. The cause, however, of their miseries is that God had roared, and had as it were threatened them with ruin. «The lion will roar, who shall not fear?» But indeed, not only have the pastures of the flocks mourned, but in addition to this, the top of Carmel has withered, that is, Jerusalem. For Carmel is a mountain situated in the land of the Jews, in which also Elias the Thesbite dwelt. Frequently, however, the land of the Jews is indicated by the name of Carmel: as is that which is said by the voice of another prophet to the children of Israel by God: «And I brought you into Carmel, that you might eat of its good things and its fruits. And you entered, and defiled my land, and my inheritance...

^A you have set for an abomination.» Since, therefore, of the other cities in Judæa, Jerusalem is termed more noble and illustrious, he calls it the summit of Carmel, as elevated in glory, as excelling in superiority, as more conspicuous than the rest, both on account of the divine temple and those of the tribe of Judah who reigned there in their time. It is, however, the custom of the holy prophets to wrap their words in obscurities because of the immoderate anger of their hearers; for they would not have suffered them to speak openly, being too much carried away by insolence, and they would rebuke the holy prophets, saying: «Speak other things to us, and announce another fable to us.»

^B Vers. 3-5. «And said the Lord: For three impieties of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn it back, because they sawed with iron saws those with child in Galaad. And I will kindle a fire in the house of Azael, and it shall devour the foundations of the son of Ader. And I will break the bars of Damascus, and I will destroy the inhabitants from the field of On, and I will cut off the tribe from the men of Charran, and the chosen people of Syria shall be taken captive, saith the Lord.»

IV. The divine Moses admires God as good and patient, and most rightly so. ^C For after Israel had fashioned the calf in the wilderness, and foolishly said: «These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up from the land of Egypt,» he could not but fall into the offense against God. But when he had once threatened them with destruction, Moses, coming as a suppliant, besought and even persuaded the Creator to forgive the guilty, and offered a song of thanksgiving in these words: «Lord God, compassionate and merciful, patient and of great pity, and keeping justice, and showing mercy unto thousands, taking away iniquities, and injustices, and sins. And he will not clear the guilty, bringing the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children of children, unto the third and fourth generation.» The people of the Jews did not understand this well. For they thought God to be so harsh, and inexorable, and holding onto anger, that he would impose the crimes of fathers upon their children’s children. Wherefore they kept saying this in their parlance: ^D «The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth have been set on edge.» For this reason God says to the prophet Ezekiel: «Son of man, what is this parable to you in the land of Israel? Ye say: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth have been set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord, this parable shall no more be cited in Israel. For all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son. The soul that hath sinned, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of his father, nor the father

^A be punished for the sin of the son. For how is the Lord of all still long-suffering and rich in mercy, if He does not dismiss sins and cleanse the guilty, but rather extends His indignation to the third and fourth generation? What, then, is the rationale? As I have said, He is forbearing and incomparably good, and He does not immediately inflict punishment upon those who have sinned. Instead, He defers it even to a second generation, in case some repentant change of heart should creep in and check the divine wrath. But if this does not happen, and those who follow from the first are found at the third and fourth steps in the same or even worse evils, and are discovered to be imitators of their ancestral impiety, then, and only then, does He finally bring in the penalties, having granted to the race sufficient forbearance for what has already passed—that is, the transferring of the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Is it not, He says, that having been long-suffering with Damascus many times, I should not finally be indignant, and very justly so, over three and four sins? For what have they done? Many other things, indeed. But they shall pay the penalty for their excessive cruelty: "For I will not turn back from them, because they have sawed with iron saws them that are with child in Galaad." Galaad is a small town of Judea, situated on the border of the land of the Philistines. The Syrians had occupied this place and destroyed it uttermost, cutting with iron saws those carrying children, and slaughtering at the same time the embryos with the infants. He calls iron saws the wheels of wagons, with which it is the custom of the Syrians to thresh the floor. And indeed, God says somewhere through the voice of Isaiah ^B to the Synagogue of the Jews: "Behold, I have made thee as wheels of a threshing wagon, new, saw-like." It is similar to saying to Damascus, as it were: I will thresh thy punishment, just as thou didst thresh and crush the inhabitants of Galaad, so as not to spare even those still in the womb, to whom pity is granted and owed by all. But that those from Damascus treated the Israelites cruelly and savagely, you might easily learn without labor if you pay heed to the words of the prophet Elisha. For he went to Damascus. And when he met Hazael, while Ader (Ben-Hadad) was still sick, "The man of God wept," the Scripture says. "And Hazael said, Why does my lord weep? And he said, I know the evils that thou wilt do to the children of Israel. Their strongholds thou wilt send into the fire, and their chosen men thou wilt kill with the sword, and their infants thou wilt dash against the stones, and their women with child thou wilt rip up." Since Damascus did these things against Galaad, or rather even against the whole land of the Jews, He threatens to burn down the house of Hazael and Ader, and to break in pieces the bars of Damascus. These things were indeed done through Uzziah and Jeroboam, separately and at different times; for they themselves also invaded Syria and conquered it by force, just as the king of the Assyrians also did in the passing of time. Then He says: "And I will destroy them that dwell out of the plain of On." This is what the prophets call Bethel, in which the ^C abominable Jeroboam set up the golden calf. But because from that time the whole region henceforth worshipped idols, they were accustomed to name it so. Therefore, the dwellers in the land and the plain of the vain, that is, of the idols—

(for this is how the others interpreted it)—I will bring down, and I will utterly destroy, he says. I will cut down, no less, a tribe from the men of Charran, which is a small town surely bordering on Damascus, having most warlike inhabitants. He also says that the people called to the aid of Syria will be led into captivity—"called," saying either explicitly notorious, or mercenary, and collected for them for assistance. For they used to pay wages, as I said, to the neighbors of the foreigners, becoming an army against the land of the Jews; that is to say, "the called," the one summoned from outside, and [that] the accursed Jeroboam put away the golden [calf]. ^B It must be known that the Hebrew edition, instead of "the people of Syria," has "Cyrenes," for the Syrians were colonists of the Cyrenians. We remember, however, as it is written again in the Fourth Book of Kings, that when Ahaz was reigning over Jerusalem, Phacee and Raasson, the kings of Syria and Damascus, were going against Jerusalem, laying waste the cities of Judea under them. And since a terror not bearable was upon Ahaz, who was reigning over Judah, he hired with money Theglathphalasar the Assyrian. "And the king of the Assyrians listened to him," it says, "and went up to Damascus, and captured it, and carried it away, and put Raasson to death."

VERS. 6-8. Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn them away, because they led away captive the Solomon captivity, to shut them up in Idumea. And I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza, and it shall devour its foundations. And I will utterly destroy the inhabitants of Azotus. And the tribe shall be removed from Ascalon, and I will stretch out my hand upon Accaron, and the remnant of the foreigners shall perish, saith the Lord.

V. Before other things, I think it necessary to say this, that neither the Hebrew edition nor that of the others makes mention of Solomon, but they have said, the Hebrews indeed, "Because they led them away captive," but the others added, in place of "Solomon," "complete," or "perfect." We shall necessarily follow the reading of the Seventy. Gaza, then, is accused, a city of the Philistines, which now is Palestine, as having led away captive the Solomon captivity, to shut them up in Idumea. And if we understand it in this way, as at any rate the other translators understood, they devastated Judea not insignificantly, but carried off a huge number of captives, and handed them over to the Idumeans. Now, the Idumeans had indeed been born from the blood of Esau; however, they had become enemies forever to those from Israel, to whom having become collaborators and comrades-in-arms, the Gazaites and Azotians and Ascalonites, and those of the so-called Accaron, and certain others of the foreigners, contributed very much to the conquest of the cities of Judea. If, however, according to the translation of the Seventy Elders, we say that they led away the captivity of Solomon, we must understand it thus.

^A For King Solomon was indeed most powerful and very strong, and he mastered the surrounding nations to such an extent that he built many cities among them, and he established Israel in them, with Hiram granting this to him. It is written thus in the second book of Chronicles: "And it came to pass after twenty years, in which Solomon built the house of the Lord, and his own house, and the cities which Hiram gave to Solomon, Solomon built them, and made the children of Israel to dwell there. And Solomon came to Emath Suba, and prevailed against it. And he built Thedmor in the desert, and all the fortified cities which he built in Emath." And a little later: "And all that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all his kingdom. All the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the seed of Israel, their children, and their descendants whom the children of Israel had not destroyed, Solomon subjected as tributaries unto this day."

Having therefore joined forces with those from Idumea, the Gazites and the Azotians, and the rest [of them], they sacked these cities which are called [the cities] of Solomon, so that they were no longer under the kingdom of Judah, but were distributed as if to the unholy leaders of the Moabites. ^B Therefore, he says that Gaza, along with the others, will be consumed by fire; and that the Azotians, and the tribe of Ascalon, and those of Accaron will be destroyed by the hand of the conqueror. Certainly, even the rest of that barbarian race will be destroyed along with them. For, as is to be expected, they had summoned and hired some for assistance from elsewhere. It seems, therefore, a harsh thing, and full of every danger, to take up arms with the wicked and to set out to attack those beloved by God, and to persecute the saints. For even if we suffer something at times on account of our transgressions, we are disciplined by God, who nevertheless will not utterly overlook those who are consecrated to Him; but when He has profitably chastened them with punishments, He will destroy the vessels of wrath, ^C that is, those who have rushed upon them with unbridled fury—clearly according to that which was excellently said to Babylon concerning the children of Israel: "I have delivered them into your hands, but you have shown them no mercy." For God greatly abhors and is indignant at their insolence, even to the point of injuring those whom He had commanded to be a chastisement.

"Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not turn away from it, because they shut up the captivity of Solomon into Idumea, and remembered not the brotherly covenant. And I will send a fire upon the walls of Tyre, and it shall devour its foundations." ^D

VI. The Tyrians also, who with those from Damascus, and indeed with the Azotians, the Gazites, and the Ascalonites, and those of Accaron, had exceeded the divine patience by their wickedness and the magnitude of their impieties...

^A they will be subjected to punishments, according to the sense of the oracle, and will endure the ultimate penalty of all. The accusation against them is that they enclosed the captivity of Solomon within Idumea, forgetful of the covenant of the brethren. ^B Our discourse has sufficiently shown what this captivity of Solomon was. But it is necessary to explain how it was closed up into Idumea, and by the Tyrians as well. For, having enslaved an innumerable multitude from Judah and Jerusalem, they sold them to the Idumeans. ^C And these men, treating those born of the blood of their brethren, lately free, as captives taken in war, crushed them with the bitter yoke of slavery, and compelled them to live according to the laws of the Greeks, almost mocking the glory of God, as if He had neither preserved to them their ancestral freedom nor been able to provide for them a place in prosperity. Therefore, the God of all says through the voice of another, accusing those who enclosed the captivity of Solomon in Idumea not lightly: “And what have I to do with you, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the Galilee of the aliens? Do you render a recompense to me, or do you harbor anger against me? Quickly and speedily I will recompense your recompense upon your heads. For you have taken my silver and my gold, and you have brought my chosen and beautiful things into your temples, and you have sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel to the sons of the Greeks, that you might cast them out of their borders.” For as the physical boundary of the Israelites is Judea, the spiritual one is the Law, from which they have been cast out, having been monstrously sold to the sons of the Greeks. ^D The Tyrians did this, unmindful of the covenant of the brethren. And this may be understood by us in three ways. Come, let us say who these brothers are and what this covenant is, being led by the hand by the holy Scriptures to the understanding and sense of these things. Hiram, who once reigned over the Tyrians, was most dear in every way to the divine David. Then, after him, he became beloved by Solomon, so that he made a covenant of mutual affection with him, helped him in all things, and contributed his share to him as he was building the divine temple, and sent him very many gifts, for which he himself received greater and more opulent ones in return. Either, therefore, this means that the Tyrians vexed the Israelites in war, oblivious of the covenant of those who loved them as brothers and who were so in one mind and charity that they even seemed to be of the same blood; or, because the Idumeans, tracing their race from Esau, were brothers to those from Israel, but nevertheless, having made light of the covenant, attacked them with arms. For Esau was not of a good or friendly mind toward Jacob, grieving from the beginning over the birthright. Yet, when he was leaving the house of Laban and desiring to return home with his wives and children, he met him as a brother; for they embraced and kissed one another, and performed the duties of friends toward one another, and having laid aside the old dissension,

they made covenants of harmony and peace. And this, indeed, they did. But the Tyrians, not remembering this fraternal covenant, delivered up the families, and persuaded the Idumaeans to be willing to hold as slaves those who were of the same blood and brothers, whom they themselves, by their own assistance, rendered far stronger than those who had conquered them. And now, if anyone were to say this same thing regarding the Moabites, who were of the blood of Lot, that the Tyrians had violated the covenant of brothers—namely, that which was from Abraham toward Lot—it is manifest. For because the shepherds of both strove, "Abraham," says the divine Scripture, "said to Lot: Let there be no strife between me and you, and between my shepherds and your shepherds, for we are brothers." ^A Therefore, he says they shall be burned and utterly destroyed from their very foundations. For that saying, "You shall not be with the many," applies everywhere to the wicked.

Ver. 11. Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Idumaea, and for four, I will not turn them away, because they pursued their brother with the sword.

^B VII. The discourse now passes to the Idumaean himself, that is, clearly, to the descendants of Esau. And he says quite well that they too shall be subjected to the evils that result from wrath. For they have warred against a brother, the Israelite, and have never feared to raise an audacious and cruel sword against those near them and of the same blood, having no regard for the law of nature, nor caring for any human rights, but accustomed to overcome even those outside and most hostile through animosities against their brothers, and perhaps even feeling pride in this. Therefore, let them hear from us: "Why do you boast in malice, O mighty man?" ^C And regarding them, it might be said, and very aptly: "Whose glory is in their shame." For those things which it had been better to love to keep at the greatest distance, these they honor with an excellent judgment, and they shall again hear: "Woe to those who call evil good," and what follows.

"And he violated the womb on the earth."

VIII. It is useful that the crimes of the Judahites ^D are recounted, and he traces them back to Esau himself, declaring them to be ignoble and born of an unholy father, so that we may perhaps understand that which is indirectly hinted at by the voice of Isaiah: "For from the seed of serpents shall come forth offspring of asps." He narrates, therefore, that their first progenitor, Esau, had all but corrupted the goods that were his by birth and nature, and cast down to the earth the dignity of the firstborn, valuing it as of almost no account at all for the sake of bodily pleasure. For he sought a mess of pottage, and having received it, he gave away the gift of nature. "Because of this," he says, "his name was called Edom," from which, I think, those who were born from him were later called Idumaeans. Thus, he says, he violated the dignity that he had obtained from the birth and mother's womb on the earth, in exchange for an earthly thing.

^A

Those who prefer carnal pleasures to spiritual ones, who choose the temporal over the eternal, and the fleeting over the stable are bound by a similar crime. And those who despise the glory that comes from God, and most foolishly prefer the things that are highly esteemed among men—things which pass away like shadows—also share in this. The divine Paul also speaks very fittingly: "Lest there be any fornicator or profane person," he says, "as Esau, who for one morsel sold his birthright." 27

And he snatched into testimony his horror.

IX. He mentions yet another deed, accusing the Idumaean as one who has always been stupid and wicked, and deeply malevolent and hostile toward his own kinsmen. It is written, therefore, in Numbers thus: "And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the labor that has come upon us. And our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt many days, and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers. And we cried to the Lord, and he heard us, and now we will pass through your land. We will not pass through fields, nor through vineyards, nor will we drink water from your well. And Edom said to him: You shall not pass through me, otherwise I will come out against you in war. And he came out in a heavy crowd. But Israel turned away from him." ^B Observe again in these things how terrible and beyond every account are the crimes of lack of affection. For Israel was not asking for Edom’s water as a free gift; yet he, having taken up arms, was directing his line of battle against them, and was wickedly begrudging them only the passage; and his progress in stupidity was so apparent that, had Israel not turned aside, he would not even have spared their blood. "And he snatched into testimony his horror." For they were entreating and were drawing back in their hearts, fearing to engage their hands, lest they should seem to value lightly the love for their brothers. But he made that drawing back, or the fear of this matter (which he signifies with the word "horror"), an occasion for a harsh testimony against them, as it were. For he threatened gravely that, if they did not wish to depart from his borders, he would go out against them with arms. Edom, therefore, was alien to mutual love and was exceptionally guilty of hatred toward his brothers, and therefore is not unjustly detested by God. ^C "For God is love," according to the word of John, "and he who abides in love abides in God." Therefore, he who has decided to pass his life devoid of love does not trust in God, but rather is situated outside of friendship with God.

And he kept his impulse in contention.

X. This is the third sin of the descendants of Esau. For they kept his impulse—that is, toward hatred and impiety—right up to the point of victory, and always. For they never ceased to commit wicked deeds, even though Esau had already laid aside that ancient impiety of his and had ceased to pursue Jacob with hatred, and rather... ^D

turned to gentleness and loved him in return. For indeed, as he returned from the home of Laban, he kissed him with tears. And it is customary, surely, for tears to be shed also in moments of great joy. But his descendants were exceedingly harsh, and by their perversity of character they even surpassed the wickedness of their own forefather; but it is true that “the ways of those who bear grudges are in every way unto death.” Therefore he says:

*And I will send a fire upon Theman, and it shall devour the foundations of her walls.*

XI.

*Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn them away; because they ripped up the pregnant women of the Galaadites, that they might enlarge their borders. And I will kindle a fire upon the walls of Rabbath, and it shall devour its foundations ^B with a cry in the day of battle, and it shall be shaken in the day of its consummation. And their king shall go into captivity, their priests and their princes together, saith the Lord.*

XII.

And those who are at the head of heresies are like those who rip open pregnant women, so as to enlarge their borders. For in order to appear to be leaders of many, they force miserable souls, and... ^D

make them miscarry the faith, as it were, through their deceitful words; they speak to them perverse things ^A, searching them out from their own hearts, and not from the mouth of the Lord. "For no one says, 'Lord Jesus,' except in the Holy Spirit; and no one says 'anathema to Jesus' except in Beelzebub."

CHAPTER II.

VERS. 1-3. *Thus says the Lord: For three impieties of Moab, and for four, I will not turn them away, because they burned the bones of the king of Idumea into ash. And I will send fire into Moab, and it shall devour the foundations of its cities; and Moab shall die in weakness, with a voice and with the sound of a trumpet. And I will destroy the judge from its midst, and all its princes I will kill with it, says the Lord.*

XIII. Furthermore, the Moabites were not uncommonly wicked; they had already surpassed the meekness and patience of the God of all, and the sin against a dead man is placed before them as a charge. He says they burned the bones of the king of Idumea, and burned them in such a way as to reduce them to earth and ash. What, then, is this wickedness? Hatred, inhumanity, and untamed savagery against the Israelites. For one could affirm that the bones of the aforementioned king were burned for ^B no other reason than on account of the Israelites. I will relate this well-known history in a few words. It is written in the Fourth Book of Kings that, after Achab died, Moab revolted against the king of Israel. And Joram sent from Samaria to Josaphat, king of Juda, a message to this effect: "The king of Moab has revolted against me. Will you go with me against Moab to battle?" And he answered: "I will go up." And the king of Israel went, and the king of Juda, and the king of Edom. Consider, therefore, how the king of Edom, that is, of Idumea, also joined his arms with these kings. While they were suffering from a shortage of water, they summoned Elisha, asking that what they sought might be given to them by the Lord. Once this was done, the Moabites fell into their power, as is explained below. ^C The Moabites, therefore, being angry at the Israelites by whom they had once been defeated, and because the king of Edom had brought them aid—since they could no longer harm those who were dead, they sinned against the remains in another way, consuming them with fire and not even sparing the bones; and thus, because the Israelites had utterly destroyed them, they added [to their list of victims] even the one who had once been their ally. Wherefore He says that their cities will be burned, and they themselves will perish in weakness, not exhausted by disease, nor wasted away by common infirmities, but with a shout and the sound of a trumpet—that is, as in war and conflict. He also threatens that the judges and princes ^D shall perish together with their subjects. For they were the authors of this counsel and undertaking, and they were surely the ones who incited the others to all this impiety.

^A Thus says the Lord: For three impieties of the children of Judah, and for four, I will not turn them away, because they have cast aside the law of the Lord, and His commandments they did not keep, and their vanities led them astray, which they made, and which their fathers followed after them. And I will send fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the foundations of Jerusalem.

^B XIV. Judah, though instructed by the law, is added to the lawless nations; for the Judge is no respecter of persons. Now, to have endured the sinner and to have tolerated him for a long time signifies that He was moved to wrath only after the third or even the fourth transgression. Yet fairness would have demanded that He grant more abundant kindness and a longer period of forgiveness to the other nations, as they did not possess the divine law, while immediately demanding penalties for negligence from Israel, as Israel had been reared on divine precepts and was not ignorant of the path of what is advantageous. But He endured those who knew the law just as those who did not. Since, however, He saw that they had already plunged into the depths of depravity and the perversity of their thoughts, He then declares that He will send fire upon Jerusalem itself, and that He will consume such a glorious and renowned city down to its very foundations. He rebukes indeed very many of the crimes of the Israelites, but most of all that they followed the errors of their fathers. For those of old, being still subject to the dominion of the Egyptians and accustomed to their customs and laws, ascribed divine honors to the calf. But these men, having escaped that most nefarious servitude and having been instructed in many ways by the discipline of the divine commandments so that they might clearly know what is pleasing to God, were found to have turned backward and been carried away into the error of their fathers—though perhaps out of shame they feared to be seen falling into the same evil. For they, too, worshipped the golden calves. The cause of such impiety in them was that they cast aside the law of the Lord and were unwilling to keep His commandments.

^D Therefore, as long as we are guardians of the law and lovers of God, and busy ourselves with keeping the things that have been commanded, we shall be found to be wise, astute, cognizant of all virtue, and enriched with all manner of such wealth. But if we have turned toward sloth and have neglected the divine laws, we shall henceforth be carried about by every wind, bereft of our best sense and mind. We shall also be "the portions of foxes," with unclean spirits dragging us hither and thither. Rightly, therefore, and wisely does the divinely inspired David sing regarding every just man: "The law of his God is in his heart, and his steps shall not be supplanted."

Thus says the Lord: For three impieties of Israel, and for four, I will not turn him away, because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor

and trampling upon the head of the poor in the dust of the earth. ^A

XV. He does not leave them unpunished, but subjects Israel—that is, the tribes in Samaria—to judgment. That they also sinned freely, and have almost squandered the peace and tranquility owed by God to the weak, the turning away ^B for three and four transgressions can demonstrate; for it is necessary for those who have suffered this to be subjected to disasters and to be wallowed in every misery. Therefore, David, fearing this matter and knowing that destruction is brought about by it, besought him, saying: "Turn not thy face away from me, and decline not in thy wrath from thy servant." For wrath follows turning away entirely, and in a way accompanies it. ^C But he clearly indicates what the crimes of Israel are. "For they have sold the just for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes"—that is, they did not endure to speak what is right and just, nor to exercise judgment in each case in accordance with the law. But if it happened that a just, modest, mild, temperate man, and one alien to boasting (for such a one might be understood by this name of "just and poor," that is, poor in spirit), ^D were brought into judgment by those more powerful, he was sold to his enemies, even though the law clearly forbade it, when it says: "Thou shalt not respect persons in judgment," and again, "The innocent and the just thou shalt not kill." For he who is entrusted to judge sits in every way in the place of God, to whom alone it is proper to judge. "For there is one lawgiver and judge," as a certain holy man says. Therefore, he who corrupts the principle of justice and shows partiality, will in some way offer insult to the divine dignity, and will offend God, who says: "Judge righteous judgment, and show mercy and compassion every man to his neighbor." He accuses them, therefore, as men who sold the just and the poor to their enemies, and were accustomed to do this for the sake of a most vile profit, which could only suffice the recipients for the purchase of shoes. Yet it was far better to have embraced righteousness and what is well-pleasing to God, to be inebriated as it were by the honors bestowed by Him, and to obtain the riches of a good reputation. "For a good name is more desirable than great riches." It should be known, furthermore, that even through the voice of Isaiah, something of this kind is said to the mother of the Jews, namely to Jerusalem: "Thy princes do not judge the orphans, and they do not attend to the judgment of widows." And again through Jeremiah: "Her princes judged with bribes." Therefore, it is a detestable thing among all people not to perform the duty of judging rightly and without reproach, but in a way that is burdensome and defamed by inequality, so that you are exposed to accusations.

*Vers. 7. And they were beating with their fists upon the heads of the poor.*

XVI. He reproves them according to their power and their desire to excel others, and openly as impious and...

^A devoid of mercy. It would have been better to have thought them worthy of care, to have chosen honor for them, and to have won them over with the supports of charity, rather than being habituated to harming them, and with unbearable and bitter sorrows ^B afflicting those who are burdened by poverty. But our Lord records as done to His own person whatever is done to them. Therefore, we offend God not insignificantly when we circumvent the weak and strike the humble with our fists, as it is written, weighing down with mental distresses those who are burdened by the weight of poverty, when we should rather be extending to them the hand of mutual love. “For poverty,” He says, “humiliates a man, but the hands of the strong make rich.”

And Christ’s disciple writes somewhere: “Religion pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

“And they turned aside the way of the humble.”

XVII. You will understand this in two ways. For either he says that they have become arrogant beyond measure, and have reached such a degree of god-hating pride that they disdain even their brothers if they are not surrounded by wealth and possess brilliant riches, and that they loathe walking along the same path with those who are not very well exercised in the passion of greedily gathering money, who are humble and push away from themselves the random fluctuations of life. Or it means that, having become teachers and leaders of the people, they turn aside the way of the weaker ones, that is, of the humble—it being clear that these are those who do not possess the knowledge of what is profitable of their own accord, but adhere rather to the voices of those ^C who guide them. The multitude of such people is very large. For some live quite simply and without much inquiry, but they are dependent upon the voice or instruction of those who teach, and whatever way they learn is good, they love it dearly. Therefore, the wise and God-loving among those who have been allotted the task of leading show the straight path, through which, hastening vigorously, they accomplish a life pleasing to God. But those who have held the divine law in little regard turn aside the way of the humble, causing them in truth to become outside of what is reasonable and proper (such as Jeroboam did, having persuaded them to worship the man-made calves), and having made them apostatize from the way that leads to what is straight and good, ^D that is, from adhering to Him who is God by nature.

Those also turn aside the way of the humble who do not hesitate to say to the simple-minded: “Come with us, be a partaker of unjust blood.” Those, furthermore, turn aside the way of the humble who distort the correctness of ecclesiastical dogmas to suit their own opinion, and persuade the minds of the simpler ones to walk a crooked and perverted path. For not only is there nothing straight among them, but rather perverted and unseemly words, and compoundings of speeches, filled at once with impiety and ignorance.

And the son and the father went in unto the same maid, that they might profane the name of their God.

^A XVIII. He inveighs again against their proterve and reprehensible pleasures, and shows that in this one sin they have despised all sense of shame, when it would have been better to suppress tumultuous emotions, to be superior to such an unusual and detestable pleasure, to cut off desires, and, knowing how to curb the will of the flesh, to persuade the law that rages in our members to be quiet. But they, not aspiring to such noble virtue, were, I think, overcome by their own passions. Furthermore, how is it not inconsistent with wisdom, if one must choose, at least to choose the better among base things? But it is altogether foolish to conceive of the most nefarious deeds, for a son to leap into his father’s bed, and for a father, driven by a wicked and insane passion, to be carried into the bed of his son, and not to hesitate to commit a crime which, even without the law given through Moses, nature itself knows to be base and deems worthy of condemnation with an angry mind. And so Reuben, having violated his father’s bed, offended greatly. ^B Paul, too, was vehemently indignant at such a crime committed among the Corinthians, and he writes to them: "It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife." But his indignation did not stop here; for he delivered the one who had done this to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. They, therefore, who are entangled in such passions profane the name of their God. And we do not say that they sprinkle the divine nature with filth and impurity—for how or whence could they do that?—but rather that they cause the God of all to be blasphemed, as though He were the ruler of profane peoples. Hence He says to Judah: "Through you my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles." For just as those who live rightly are said to sanctify God, so those who pursue an impure and unpraiseworthy mode of life can be understood to profane Him. ^C

VERS. 8. And binding their garments with ropes, they made curtains clinging to the altar; and they drank the wine of extortion in the house of their God.

XIX. Our Lord Jesus Christ, teaching that divine temples are to be built for no other reason than that the God of all may be glorified in them and the worship befitting Him may be offered, once rebuked the merchants of the Jews who were bringing animals into the temple, when He said: "My house shall be called a house of prayer." And the holy Scripture adds that the disciples remembered that it was written: "The zeal of thy house has consumed me." Paul, too, rebukes some who were accustomed to dare similar things: "What, do you not have houses," he says, "in which to eat and drink, or do you despise the church of God?" Everywhere, therefore, it appears to be harmful to ^D make use of divine houses as if they were common and profane, or as if they were personal property for each individual. For where can worship be provided that is suitable to God, if before His eyes we serve the pleasures of the flesh? And in places where it was fitting that we should be seen to be radiant on account of our sanctity, if

^A there, we are to be laughed at for stumbling, which is not permitted. He does not refrain from chastising those who do such things, and quite rightly. For, says He, they did not remove the veils from the altar, but hiding under them, they dared to become drunk and to perform the works of pleasure, so that they might also hear God saying clearly: "And I am a witness, says the Lord." For from what disgraceful acts would a man, drunk and with his mind led astray, and ready for any kind of evil, refrain? For the God of all surveys even what is done in darkness, as it is written, and there is nothing at all invisible to Him.

It seems to me that things done in churches are done, one might say, while God is present and looking on. And if it is truly most shameful, and has the ultimate condemnation by the law, to be drunk at all, how much more is it greater than any wickedness for such people to be seen even in the church itself? And what is more burdensome, if one collects funds for luxury from unjust and wicked blood-money? Those who do this will hear God saying openly: "Is my house a den of thieves?" Therefore, the offenses of others will yield much benefit to us, and through those things by which others have stumbled, we shall become better, if only we withdraw from their footsteps. For the prudent will be safer, if indeed they wish to live according to the laws and do not wish to emulate the wicked.

But if this is said to Judah, that is to the two tribes in Jerusalem, the statement would be correctly understood by the theory we have just ^C mentioned. If, however, the offense also pertains to Israel, the meaning would be that not in the house of God—who is God by nature—had they woven the tents of curtains adjacent to the divine altar, or given themselves over to drunkenness; but in the house of their own god, as one might say Baal, or something else of those things which are devised by human ingenuity in the image of an idol. In a way, therefore, Israel is to be held accountable for the sin because, in the house of idols and perhaps by the altar of Baal himself, they were getting drunk with wine and weaving tents, because they honored such things and treated the temples as workshops—as it were—of drunkenness and every pleasure of the gods that were imagined. And although it was necessary to desire rather to worship God purely and most holily, and to enter in truth the holy temple and to consider the altar venerable, ^D they, striving to make nothing of things so venerable and worthy of admiration, and honoring things much filthier, even dared to mock their own gods, trampling everywhere on the divine majesty and shamelessly insulting the glory owed to the God who is alone and by nature God, when, having attributed it also to the falsely-named, they nevertheless held them for nothing.

VERS. 9. "And I removed the Amorite from before them, whose height was as the height of the cedar, and who was strong as the oak. And I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath."

^B XX. You see how he points out that they were subsequently impious, insulting, and contemptuous toward Him; and how those whom it would have been more fitting to gladden with songs of thanksgiving and with obedience in all things—since the grace they had received was so immense—they chose to sadden, most foolishly and stupidly, in their great perversity of character, and having driven from their memory the things they had benefited from. "For I," He says, "removed the Amorite from before them," that is, I destroyed the barbarian nations, ^C signified perhaps by the one nation of the Amorites, as being fierce and more powerful. I caused them to conquer one so surprisingly tall and strong, that he seemed to reach the height of a cedar and to imitate the strength of a very sturdy oak. "For there was no one else," He says, "but I alone who withered him and struck him to the roots, and all but dried up his fruit." Since He has spoken as if about a tree, the discourse consistently and aptly maintains the metaphor, and says that the injury reached even to the root, and that the fruit was thus destroyed. For there is no other way that trees in the woods die ^D except after this manner. That the Amorites, Hivites, Girgashites, Perizzites, and Jebusites were consumed—while the Israelites fought against them, with God, naturally, shielding them—no one could doubt.

It is bitter, therefore, to despise Christ, who has given us the power to tread upon serpents, who overthrows enemies and subjects the strong. "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual hosts of wickedness." And we have conquered all these things in Christ. But if we are going to sadden our Savior and Redeemer by turning toward sloth, we shall find, I know, no account or excuse that can avail to rescue us from punishment and fire.

VERS. 10. *And I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you about in the desert forty years, to inherit the land of the Amorites.*

XXI. He explains clearly what He said, and the discourse, in a sense retracing its steps, briefly indicates what was done from the beginning to the end. For, He says, I freed you from slavery and delivered you from the tyranny of the Egyptians. I fed you in the desert, sending down manna to them from above, and in a manner worthy of God releasing springs of water, and providing for them, by striking the surface of the rock, unexpected gushes of water. And the toil of their journey did not look toward small things, but was intended so that they might possess the land of the Amorites, which had been promised to their fathers. But they slipped into such madness that they did not even recognize, perhaps, my love and humanity toward them. We who are in Christ through faith must therefore remember that we too have been freed from slavery, and have crossed over, as it were, out of Egypt into the desert—that is, into a way of life that is most pure, and truly broad, and unmixed with any evil, I mean the evangelical life. We have received bread from heaven, which gives life to the world. For we are strengthened in...

Christ, and we have obtained fountains of incorruptible waters, the writings of the holy apostles. For thus also Isaiah named them, saying: "Draw water with joy from the fountains of salvation." ^A For those are indeed fountains of salvation, which send forth to us the salvific and life-giving Word, and announce the mystery of Christ, and initiate the world in celestial mysteries.

VERS. 11, 12. *And I took of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for sanctification. Is it not so, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. And ye gave the sanctified drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying: Ye shall not prophesy.*

XXII.

saying: "It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."

Therefore, behold, I will roll out from beneath you, just as a wagon full of straw is rolled.

^A XXIII. It was the custom among the ancients, a custom which even to this day holds sway among those who dwell in the East and in the West, to transport the fruits of the fields and those things which fill the threshing floor by means of wagons. And the wheels rotate together with the axles, the wood creaking with a heavy and unpleasant sound, as if groaning beneath the burdens placed upon them. "I, therefore," says the Lord of all, "will be as that which rolls in the wagon," that is, the axle. For it, as I have said, has the wheels fixed and fitted to it, and rotates along with them. And I shall cry out as one who can no longer bear the heavy burden of the sins heaped up by the impious. ^B For they rejected the law of the Lord and did not keep His commandments; but their vanities, which their fathers made, led them astray. Furthermore, they forgot Me, who brought them out of Egypt, who took away the Amorite from before their face, who took from among their sons those to be prophets, and from among their young men those for sanctification. And I, indeed, honored them; but they attained such a degree of folly that they tied their garments with ropes, making them into veils adhering to the altar, and drank wine from calumnies in the house of their God, and gave drink of wine to those who were sanctified, and commanded the prophets, saying: "Do not prophesy." Being burdened, therefore, ^C by such impieties of yours, just as an axle is burdened in a wagon that is full of sheaves of straw, I will make a very great outcry. And what harm will happen to them from this, or what evils are about to invade them, He clarifies immediately in what follows.

Yet, it is necessary to say this also: that it is truly a terrible thing to provoke God, and to slip into such wickedness henceforth as to cause Him to be unable to tolerate our sins any longer, although by nature He is good, merciful, and exceedingly gentle. One must, therefore, guard against offending Him in every way. But if anything human should happen that we suffer, it is our duty not to appear sluggish toward patience, nor to allow sin to be heaped upon sin; but rather, ^D to restrain them with a holy vigilance, and to call back the ailing soul to better things. For thus God will patiently endure us, and since He is kind, He will grant mercy.

VERS. 14-16. And flight shall perish from the runner, and the strong shall not keep his strength, and the fighter shall not save his soul, and the archer shall not stand, and the swift of foot shall not be saved, and the horseman shall not save his soul. And he shall find his soul in powers. The naked shall be pursued in those days, says the Lord.

And the swiftness of feet will not deliver the most excellent runner from evils, nor will bodily strength deliver the robust, nor expertise in war the leader, nor long training the most excellent archer, already admired for this. Useless, however, to those who employ them, will be the speed of horses, and the very knowledge of cavalry warfare in addition to this. But each of these will clearly find his own heart in powers, that is, oppressed by terrors and yielding victory without a fight to those desiring to devastate it. For there will then be fear among those of Israel, and so great will be the power of the Babylonians that they will be able to pursue even the naked—that is, to prevail over those in arms, even if one of the Babylonians himself be not clad in a breastplate—and those in full armor will be able to pursue the unarmed and unprepared. Therefore, when God casts down into weakness those whom He chooses to afflict, nothing will be able to help. And this, I think, is what is indicated to us in other words by the voice of the Psalmist: "He will not have pleasure in the strength of the horse." And again: "A horse is a vain thing for safety." For such things are entirely useless if God does not contend along with them. For He Himself is the Lord of hosts, who gives vigor to the weak and enervates those by whom He has been offended; and with Him as an ally, "one shall chase a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight," and a great and immeasurable multitude will be destroyed, perhaps by two or three standing against them, if God does not defend it.

VOLUME TWO. CHAPTER III.

Hear this word, which the Lord has spoken against you, O house of Israel, and against every tribe which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

^{C D} XXV. The word should be understood as having become directed against the whole of Israel, not with Judah and Ephraim being set apart separately, but with the whole race gathered together as one. For every tribe of those from Israel was brought back out of Egypt. Since no one, therefore, was excluded, He commands them to listen to the things from God. And what indeed were these? For there are myriads, He says, of cities and regions under the sun, and the number of those in them is beyond counting; but from all of them I chose you, those from Israel, and I manifested Myself plainly through many miracles, I delivered you from a bitter and unbearable slavery, and I rendered you enviable and thrice-blessed. I instructed you by the Law toward what is pleasing to Me, I hedged you round with aid, and I brought you into the land promised to your fathers. But since you alone of all have been deemed worthy of such conspicuous grace, and yet you have not ceased to grieve Me and have offended in many ways, for this reason I will henceforth avenge myself for your madness. I will not allow you to sin further and to turn hither with impunity. Therefore, whoever from now on despises God, and the Lord’s...

^A will, is preparing destruction for himself, whether he is one of those who knew Him, or is known by Him through the mode of spiritual kinship. And indeed, the most wise Paul writes to those called from the nations through faith, who then suffer from weakness and are, as it were, eager to retreat, saying: "But now that you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and poor elements, to which you desire to be enslaved again?" He knew them, indeed, even before faith, the Creator who is ignorant of nothing at all; but in these things, as I said, knowledge perhaps very fittingly signifies spiritual friendship.

VERS. 3. If two walk together at all, unless they know themselves?

XXVI. The riddle is profound and the discourse obscure. Nevertheless, we shall explain it as best we can. He was therefore rebuking the Israelites because they had commanded the prophets, saying: "You shall not prophesy." It is necessary to state for what reason they imprudently forbade the holy ones to speak. For because they were announcing the grim things that were about to happen to them from an angry God, and because it was fitting that sinners should change their ways of life for the better through these things, they—fearing the outcome of ^B the predictions, as is likely—strove to resist and oppose them; for such is the disposition of the crowd, accustomed to lead to illicit things, and those who, while they misled their subjects, rebuked the prophets, commending those who were in error as if they were walking in the right way. Therefore God says through the mouth of Isaiah: "My people, those who call you blessed deceive you and confuse the path of your feet." And Amaziah the priest of Bethel rebuked the prophet Amos, saying: "You seer, be off, flee to the land of Judah, and live there, and prophesy there, ^C but do not persist in prophesying in Bethel." But those who opposed the prophets, out of a great deal of perversity and wicked stubbornness, were feigning a lighthearted resistance, saying this: "The Lord has not sent you." He therefore rebukes them because they claimed that the prophets sent by Him were not bringing messages from above or from God, but held that they were simply blurting out things concocted by their own minds and speaking things alien to the mind of the Lord of all. Therefore He says: O imprudent and foolish ones, will any from among you become friends and walk the same path of life, if they do not know themselves—that is, if they ^D have not observed a similarity of morals and a consensus of will? For every animal loves its like, and a man will attach himself to one like him. And if this is true, how could I have deemed them worthy, as it were, of friendship and love—being holy myself—if they themselves had not also become holy? How then do you persecute the holy ones, to whom I have entrusted my words, whom I have received as good, surely because they are walking the same path of will as I? For what is pleasing to me, will be the same to them. Why therefore do you rebuke the prophets,

^A seeing that it is nothing other than to make the rebuke against me henceforth? The Savior also says something similar to his holy disciples: “He who receives you receives me, and he who does not receive you, does not receive him who sent me.” Furthermore, he ordered that while they were being driven out, they should even shake off the very dust from their feet, adding that it would be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for that city. It is necessary, therefore, to welcome those who are ambassadors for God and who convey to us the things that seem good to Him; such as was Paul, saying: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, we implore on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God.”

^B “If a lion will roar from his thicket, not having prey? If a young lion will give his voice from his lair at all, unless he has seized something?”

XXVII. Those who inquire more closely into the habits of wild beasts say that a lion, when it has come to be in need of food, ^C prowls vigorously through mountains and glens and thickets, turning its gaze here and there, in order to seize something of those that graze in the woods. And when it observes something suitable for food, and then comes close, it makes its attack with a terrible and harsh roaring. And if it should be bringing food to its cubs, and then should come near its lair, they also leap up and, with a clamor, seize and tear what has been caught. Why, then, he says, do you blame God because he makes the threat before the arrival of evils? And why do you also rail against the prophets themselves, because they too cry out over your impiety? For I, he says, am like a lion accustomed to roar at prey, ^D and to threaten the attack almost before making it; and the cubs are like my own, copying all my habits; for they cry out, as I said, against those who are accustomed to act impiously. But just as the warning cry of this beast is not entirely unprofitable to the animals in the mountains, since it compels them to flight before they happen to be caught, so too for those who sin, the threat and warning of evils before they come is extremely useful, bringing them to repentance and to the avoidance of things they have done wrong. Therefore God likens himself to a lion, who does not leap first and inflict things in anger upon some, unless he has first uttered his threat, so that those who repent may be saved, having received the warning of future events as a saving medicine before the arrival of evils.

“If a bird will fall upon the earth without a fowler? If a snare will be set upon the earth without catching something?”

XXVIII. Even now, the discourse is fashioned as if from a similitude. For fowlers bring down with great skill those sparrows that live in the trees. And some use snares to catch what is being trapped. The discourse appears now to signify, under the cover of the sparrows, those who are accustomed to be high-minded, those who are arrogant in their intellect and puffed up in their thoughts, and who do not endure to agree with the humble; by

means of those who are caught in the snares of earthly things, and who love only what is carnal and feeding upon them. ^A And God again likens himself to a fowler and a snare, casting down the proud to the ground, and as it were crushing them, and catching for punishment those who think only of earthly things. But the men from Israel were arrogant, despising God, rejecting the prophets, and dishonoring the law. They were, nevertheless, very much entangled in worldly affairs, and they pursued only what is fleeting and perishing, ^B overcome by whose strange desires they shunned the word of God, and resisted those who were calling them to virtue. For they said to the prophets: “Talk to us of other things, and announce to us another delusion.” If then I am, he says, one who in the manner of a fowler casts down the proud, and, as in the manner of a snare, is accustomed to crush—like a fox or a mouse—those who are greedily intent on worldly dealings, why do you persecute the saints in vain, because they bring only my words to you, while I myself satisfy the wrath conceived against the impious?

*If a trumpet shall sound in a city, and the people shall not be afraid? If there shall be evil in a city, which the Lord hath not done?*

XXIX. I indeed, he says, slay you on account of my wrath; but the prophets are useful, and they serve only for words. For they carry to you those things which I command them through the Spirit. But perhaps you neglect them, and ^C harshly receive them with blows, for the sake of the word which they sometimes deliver. But tell me, what have you finally achieved by these things? What fear has seized you? Or what change for the better have you instituted? For if a trumpet were to sound in a city, announcing a war stirred up by enemies and the arrival of armed men, who is so unfeeling as not to conceive, in every way and altogether, a fear of the evils to come? But my trumpets never cease to sound [the future] beforehand, and yet you perceive nothing of advantage from this. And although you understand that you are to be devastated by enemies, you set yourselves vehemently against terrors of this kind, so that perhaps you even laugh at the proclamation as a vain thing; ^D and indeed you shout that accustomed phrase, habitual to those lacking understanding: “The vision which this man sees will come to pass after many days, and he prophesies for long times.” Why then do you consider those who are, as it were, sounding the trumpets to be burdensome, if you consider their words to be worth nothing? But perhaps you will answer that, [that] you are not moderately grieved by the outcome of events. “Shall there therefore be evil in a city, which the Lord hath not done?” Just as if he were to say: Is any man capable of being able to afflict a city with diseases, or sieges, or the corruption of fruits, or in any other such way? But if no man has done these things, and they are placed rather in the power and might of God, why do you [despise] those who announce [these] harsh...

things? Although one ought to repent, and by becoming conciliatory on such occasions toward the one who has been offended, check those who have power to do wrong to those who have sinned. For we shall understand the "evil" happening in cities from God not as wickedness—far from it!—but rather as chastisement, that is, any anger or movement that He might stir up against those who sin, persuading them to turn back to more fitting things. For it is written: “In a bridle and rein, constrain the jaws of those who do not approach you.” Because He is good, and “wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” He is in a way incensed through anger against those who act for the better, and He firmly changes them, sometimes through terrors and threats, whom neither words nor the teaching of what is advantageous persuade.

Vers. 7, 8. *Because the Lord will not do a thing, unless He reveals instruction to His servants the prophets. A lion will roar, and who will not fear? The Lord has spoken, and who will not prophesy?*

XXX. The prophets, he says, do not bring on the punishments of the wrathful from anywhere else; for they too are human beings and like you in nature, but they have been honored by God to learn everything that He might wish, and to bring upon cities and regions either good things, perhaps, or those things which are accustomed to cause grief. But perhaps you say to this: "Let them learn, if it seems good, let them be enriched by You with the knowledge of things to come, let all the mysteries be made clear to them; but let them speak to no one, nor let them sound anything into the ears of those who are testing them." What, then, does God say to these things? “A lion will roar, and who will not fear?” For if, he says, when the lion, “the strongest of beasts,” roars, no one would be so stubborn and insolent as not to be struck with terror, how would they not fear God when He speaks and commands them to announce what they have learned, if they did not fear the One who commanded them? For they are not dismissive and unfeeling like you, and do not treat the things that seem good to the Lord of all as of no account. ^B Everywhere, therefore, He secures the saints, and averts the injuries of those who wish to do evil from the prophets of His own accord. And this is nothing other than deeming the people worthy of fitting care. For to remove the physicians from the midst would be nothing other than to leave the sick without help. This He also forewarns through the voice of David: “Do not touch my anointed ones.” And he says somewhere regarding the prophets themselves: “And it shall be, he who touches you is as one who touches the apple of my eye.” For he injures his own soul not moderately who grinds his teeth over the heads of the saints, and attacks them impiously, and does not shrink from daring something unworthy against them. ^C

VERS. 9-11. *Announce to the regions in Assyria, and to the regions in the land of Egypt, and say: Assemble yourselves upon the mountain of Samaria, and see many wonders in the midst of it, and oppression in it. And he did not know what things will be contrary to him, says the Lord, the treasures...*

up iniquities ^A and misery in their regions. For this reason the Lord God says thus: Tyre, and your land will be deserted all around, and He shall pull down your strength from you, and your regions shall be plundered.

XXXI. He threatens again to bring upon them the things which it was likely that those who had arrived at such a degree of wickedness—so as to revolt from God, to rebuke the prophets, and to despise altogether the things ordained through Moses—must deservedly sustain and suffer. However, it must be known that the Hebrew edition differs in this place from the interpretation of the Seventy. For the Hebrews have published, "Proclaim in the regions of Azotus, and in the regions of the land of Egypt." But the Seventy, "Proclaim in the regions in Assyria, and in the regions of Egypt." Now Azotus is a neighbor, I believe, and is bordering on the land of the Judeans, but the region of the Assyrians, that is, of the Persians and Medes, is separated by great distances from it, lying as it were at the very boundaries of the East. We judge, therefore, that it will be nothing alien ^B if they are called Azotians perhaps, or Assyrians: for in both ways the words of the divinely inspired Scripture are found to be true, just as we shall demonstrate, declaring the proposed context. For that which is indicated has a reminder of a certain history, from the Fourth [Book] of Kings and the Second of Chronicles, which I shall recount very briefly, so that I may not appear prolix to those who know it. Manasseh once reigned in Jerusalem, a son indeed of Hezekiah, but in character very different, and most remote from the piety of his father. For he became a wicked man, and ready for any of the strange [vices] whatsoever, detestable, and an idolater, and not moderately addicted to the deceits of demons. He built altars and shrines for Baal. He worshiped all the host of heaven. He led his own children through fire. He assembled augurs, and those whose study was lying, and who were said to know something ^C special and singular, while they were ignorant, and spoke rather from their own heart; and there was perhaps no sort of the extreme wickedness of all that he was not, in general, very eager to practice. Being king, God said through a prophet concerning Jerusalem and the whole province of the Judeans: "Behold, I am bringing evils upon this people, such that everyone who hears them, both his ears will tingle." After Manasseh died, Amon his son succeeded him in the kingdom, a bad egg of a bad crow. He held in honor the same things as he did. He lived, moreover, for only two years. After him, Josiah his son, a man wise, and quick-witted, and most of all a lover of God, was anointed as king. The man of God, having arrived at Bethel, ^D foretold of him while Jeroboam was standing upon the altar, and dedicating the festival to the calves. For he said thus: "Altar, says the Lord, behold a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who are sacrificing upon you, and he shall burn the bones of men upon you." For having entered into the kingdom, Josiah destroyed the shrines of the idols, overturned the altars, cut down the groves, and...

burned the chariot of the sun; he slaughtered the priests of the high places in Bethel, and burned upon the altar of the calves the bones of men; he drove away the observers of omens—I mean the false prophets—and the soothsayers and the ventriloquists. He commanded that the things decreed through Moses be held and prevail in Israel. In his time they sacrificed the lamb and celebrated the Passover in Jerusalem. ^B And because he was good and sincere with God, he sent to the prophetess Huldah, seeking to inquire if the Lord of all had ceased from His anger, if it would be well for the prosperity of Israel, and if the calamity foretold to them by the voices of the prophets would henceforth cease. She answered them: "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing evils upon this place and upon those who dwell in it, all the words of the book which the king of Judah read. Because they have forsaken Me and offered incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with the works of their hands, and My wrath shall be kindled against this place and shall not be quenched. But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord, so shall you say to him: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: As for the words which you heard, because your heart was softened and you were humiliated before the face of the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and its inhabitants, that it would be for destruction and a curse, and you tore your garments and wept before Me, I also have heard you, says the Lord. Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered into your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evils that I am bringing upon this place and upon those who dwell in it." And the promise was fulfilled, for the Lord of all postponed His wrath for the duration of his reign. ^C And there were thirty-one years. But in the final time, Pharaoh Necho, the leader of the Egyptians, campaigned against Babylon and marched out from his own country with his entire army. Since Josiah was suspicious that he was coming to ravage the region of Judah, he armed himself according to the law of war and wished to meet him. But he [Pharaoh] ordered him to withdraw, saying he was hurrying toward the Euphrates river and to transfer to the land of the Assyrians. But because he nonetheless engaged unnecessarily in the battle, he was struck in the war. Having died, he was subsequently brought home to Jerusalem by his own kin. And Jehoahaz, his son, was anointed as king. But after he had barely completed his third month, Pharaoh Necho removed him from the scepter, and having bound him, kept him under guard in Egypt. ^D And for a great sum of money he barely consented to let Eliakim, that is, Jehoiakim, reign in Jerusalem,

^A imposing tributes on the entire people of the land and exacting taxes from everyone. In this state of affairs, while Jehoiakim was administering the kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar ascended and occupied Jerusalem, in such a way that he reduced Eliakim to servitude, imposed tributes upon him as well, and utterly devastated the city with the sword. Yet God did not rest from measuring out calamities to these wicked men by this standard, but added over and above another hardship, and one most burdensome. For from every neighboring region and land—from the Syrians, for instance, and the Tyrians, the Azotians, the Idumeans, and the Moabites—bands of brigands ran about through the districts and depopulated the land of Judea. For it is written thus in the fourth book of Kings: "Then he began to exact tributes, that they might give silver to Pharaoh, and it was exacted from each man according to his ability—gold and silver—by the king of the land, so as to give it to Pharaoh Necho. Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, and did evil before the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. In his days Nebuchadnezzar came into the land, and he was his servant for three years, and again he rebelled against him. And the Lord sent against him the Chaldean marauders, and the Tyrian marauders, and the Moabite marauders, and the sons of Ammon against Samaria." All these things, therefore, Israel suffered because they were contemptuous of God's glory and were impiously corrupted, while they desired to worship the works of their own hands. Since the history has been sufficiently recounted by us, come, let us run through the proposed passage as we explain it. ^B "Announce to the regions in Assyria and Egypt, and say: Assemble yourselves on the mountain of Samaria, and see many wondrous things in the midst of it, and the oppression in it." He says, as it were, let someone announce as quickly as possible to the Egyptians and Assyrians, and let them with a strong hand make an incursion upon the mountains of Samaria, or the very region itself; for they say that it is mountainous. When they have come, they will see in it many wondrous things and an unexpected oppression. For those who once conquered will be miserable, bearing the yoke of servitude, he says. Those who, if I may put it this way, lifted their eyebrows on high against all nations, will lie pitiable, cast down, and under the feet of their enemies. And they will endure such a great oppression that they will consider it enough to save their lives, and to live in servitude, and to pay tribute to the victors. "But Samaria," he says, "did not know what would be against it," that is, what adverse things will befall it. Then, where are "those who from now on store up ^C iniquity and misery in their regions?" For what, he says, did greed and their heaping up of sin profit them, while they were unwilling to know the things of God? Is the disaster for those who have sinned to be delayed only until the incursion of the Assyrians and Egyptians? By no means, he says: "Therefore thus saith the Lord: Tyre and the land around you shall be desolate, and I will break your strength from you, and your regions shall be plundered." As for what is said, "Tyre, and in the circuit," you will understand it thus. From Tyre, he says, and from the surrounding land, your region shall be desolate, as bands of brigands make incursions upon it. Then ^D

^A your power shall be broken—that is, all your strength shall be shattered, being as it were enfeebled and crushed. Therefore, if perhaps there is in the Hebrew edition, "Proclaim to the regions in Azotus," and again if the Septuagint has "in Assyria," both speak the truth. For not only the Assyrians, but the Syrians and Azotians also, with their armies, invaded Israel and harassed them in the manner of brigands.

Thus saith the Lord: As when a shepherd snatches from the mouth of a lion two legs, or the tip of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be snatched away, who dwell in Samaria, over against the tribe, and in Damascus.

^B XXXII. Observe everywhere, and you will greatly admire the providence of the prophet. Because he did not destroy all Israel at once, but certain remnants were saved, according to the voice of Isaiah, lest the truth should seem to have spoken falsely, he altogether mingles mercy from gentleness with the predictions of evils. Just as, he says, when a lion is satisfied, and has devoured the animal it has taken once and for all, barely a few remnants are left—perhaps two legs, or a part of an ear—and the shepherds gather even these, weeping; so shall it be for the children of Israel who are in Samaria, and for those who dwell in Damascus, "over against the tribe," that is, for those who cherished enmity and were always opposing the tribe of the Jews. For those dwelling in Samaria were captured by force and pillaged by enemies, and since the war had consumed almost everyone, a very few indeed were barely carried away, and the remains of the dead stayed in the region. ^C Or, also in another way, they were snatched out as from the mouth of a lion. Being led away into Assyria, and released at times during the captivity, not all returned, but a very few indeed of those who had been carried away. That the Assyrian Tiglath-pileser once held Damascus and resettled its people into his own country is clear to everyone, I think; for as it is written in the Fourth Book of Kings, he was once called to the aid of the king of Judah, when Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, were warring against him. When he arrived, he killed Rezin and took Damascus itself.

If anyone should wish to apply the power of those set before us generally to all men, he will not wander from the mark. For he will understand, and most correctly, by considering this: that Satan snatched and devoured those dwelling on earth, more ferociously than monstrous beasts are accustomed to do. ^D But the Good Shepherd appeared and came to help, He who laid down His life for the sheep, and snatched us who were left among the living, and those who were already dead. For as the Psalmist says: "He broke the grinders of the lions."

And as Paul says: "He died and rose again, that He might have dominion over both the living and the dead." ^A

Verses 13-15. "Hear, O priests, and testify to the house of Jacob, says the Lord God Almighty. For in the day when I shall avenge the iniquities of Israel upon him, I will also take vengeance upon the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be broken and shall fall upon the ground. I will strike and smite the winter house together with the summer house, and the ivory houses shall perish, and many other houses shall be added, says the Lord."

XXXIII. He returns again to a clear narrative of the things that shall befall those who have sinned, repeating the same discourse often, for the profit of his hearers. ^B Thinking, I suppose, that this task is not fruitless, Paul writes to some: "To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe." He commands the priests, therefore, as if with a most clear voice, to testify to Israel and to predict to them the individual events soon to take place. And whom shall we understand to be the ones ordered to cry out with such a piercing voice? Are they the priests of the calves, or of other shrines, or of idols? But I think this is incredible. For they would not have proclaimed their own evils, and the evils of others, whom they themselves had led astray. Who, then, are the priests commanded to do this? They are those who were of the blood of Levi. For not all had slipped away together with those in Samaria who had been led into error. They could not endure to serve idols. ^C Fleeing from the religion of the Samaritans, they returned to Jerusalem; and it is written thus regarding them in the second book of Chronicles. The discourse concerns Jeroboam. Then, explaining the power that was with him, he says: "And there were with him Judah and Benjamin. The Levites and the priests who were in all Israel came together to him from all their borders. Because the Levites left their dwelling places and their possessions and went to Judah in Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had cast them out from ministering to the Lord. And he appointed for himself priests of the high places." Since, therefore, those of whom the discourse speaks had been not a little aggrieved, driven as they were from their kinship, their inheritance, and the ministry itself, ^D necessarily He commands them, especially, to proclaim the destruction of their idols and of Samaria, in a way comforting them and teaching them that those who have chosen to mind the things of God, and who love the Lord of all, will not perish with the others, but will be outside of wrath. For when I shall bring upon those of Israel their sins, He says, "Then will I also take vengeance upon the altars of Bethel; for their horns shall be broken and shall fall upon the ground." Does, then, the destruction of Samaria go only as far as these things, and will it be enough for those commanded to tear down and uproot the altars only to destroy the shrines? Not at all. "For I will strike," He says, "and smite the winter house together with the summer house." A life of luxury

And what he means to signify is this: the people in Samaria who lived in luxury, possessing the amplitude that comes from wealth, prepared for themselves both winter and summer houses. He calls the winter house "pinnacled"—as if it were hedged about on all sides with wings or walls—so that it might be, as it were, unapproachable by the assaults of winter. But the summer house he calls the open one, exposed to the breath of the winds. Therefore, says he, along with the shrines that are to be razed, I will confound and strike both the winter and summer houses. Even [their] ivory houses will perish. We recall that King Ahab also built such a house for himself in Samaria. "And many others shall be added," he says, meaning those of the lower and more obscure people, that is, of the thin and common sort. Thus, all of Samaria finally perished, with every house being shaken down.

What are we to learn from this, then, if we have chosen to think aright? ^B That worldly splendor will profit those who have it nothing—not wealth, nor glory, nor any other thing meant for luxury—if love toward God is absent, and if justice is in no way honored by us. "For treasures will not profit the lawless," according to what is written; "but justice delivers from death." Therefore, it would be better before God to love justice, and to store up treasure in heaven, to desire the dwellings above, and to love becoming attached to the hope in God. For the things in this world are both small and fleeting, and they possess nothing standing firm toward security; but those things both remain and are saved, and they accompany us into the infinite ages.

CHAPTER IV

Hear this word, you heifers of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the needy and trample the poor, who say to your masters: Give us that we may drink. The Lord swears by his holy ones, that behold, the days are coming upon you, and they will take you with weapons, and those with you into the pots of greedy merchants. And you shall be brought out naked against one another, and you shall be cast out upon the mountain of Rhemnan, says the Lord God.

^D XXXIV. Out of an excess of great arrogance and a passion for seductive pleasures, the more illustrious of Samaria, being superior to all others in the abundance of their wealth, as I said just now, prepared houses for themselves that were splendid and most luxurious, and appropriate to the seasons—I mean winter and summer—which the oracle proclaimed would utterly and by all means perish. Therefore, he calls these very masters of the houses, who had practiced fattening themselves upon transitory pleasures, the "heifers of Bashan." The region of Bashan is rich in soil, fruitful and full of flowers, and very well suited to the ability to fatten abundantly those animals grazing in it. Since, therefore, they were living in luxury,

^A and were extremely well-reared, and made a practice of soft living, God compares them to the heifers of Bashan. He accuses them because they were oppressing the poor, and almost trampling the beggars under their own feet—for the pasture of the rich is the poor, according to what is written. He adds: “Saying to their masters, Give us that we may drink,” by which he reveals them to be unruly, not even enduring to give way to their own masters as much as is appropriate for royal honor, but rather, as if from an immeasurable arrogance, prescribing a measure of domestic obedience even to their own masters. For to dare to say to those who are superior and set over them, “Give us that we may drink,” is the sign of those who wish to be served rather than to serve.

What, then, will be the outcome for those who have proceeded to such a point of insanity? ^B “The Lord swears,” he says, “by His holy things,” that is, by His sanctifications or mysteries (which are indeed He Himself, for He has no one greater by whom to swear), “that times and days will follow when” the fear of suffering the hardships of war and taking up arms will compel even you yourselves, who are so much given to luxury and rearing and are accustomed to debauchery. And he says they will be taken, even while in this condition and thus equipped, along with their dearest children, and wives, and the flatterers who are always with you, who have always applauded you with innumerable praises and called you thrice-blessed. For this breed of flatterers always acclaims those who feed them. But they will be burned with fire, for they are pests, and they receive nothing else, having admired those who are wicked and given to sin.

But you, stripped of glory and furthest removed ^C from all luxury, and deprived of that former prosperity, will thereafter be led away as slaves and captives. “And you shall be cast,” he says, “unto the mountain of Remnan,” which is in Armenia, situated in the furthest reaches of the land of the Persians; for the regions are neighbors and border on one another. It will therefore be possible to see from this that the striving of those who live for pleasure ends in a bitter conclusion, as the Savior says: “Blessed are they that mourn.” For luxury ends in tears, while the end of labors and sorrows is rest. Someone bears witness to the very same thing with these words: “The fruit of good labors is glorious.”

It is not absurd to suppose that by the heifers of Bashan are meant the women of Samaria, who, through softness and the luxury of clothing, and the brilliance of cosmetics applied for beauty, and by ^D fattening themselves as it were to harmonize their bodies, would depress the poor and trample the beggars, and would all but consume those who were weak and struggling with spiritual poverty in the fire of carnal pleasure; for those who lack the riches of strength from above have a heart easily softened by the impulses of the passions. Therefore, these heifers say to their own masters: “Give us that we may drink.” For women of loose character always seek out men, and those whom they have snared, they all but kill through extreme lethargy. And although they may have them as masters, yet, as if they were lovers yielding to pleasure, they persuade them to do what they most desire. But you, indeed, he says, O heifer, in

arms they will take, not as lovers who with flattery persuade and with endearments seek to please, because they are too overcome by the pleasure that finds its way to you; but cruelly and savagely, and by the law of war, they will betray even those lovers who were indulging themselves with ^A you. And stripped of those absurd adornments, you will be carried away to Mount Rhemman.

VERS. 4. Venistis ad Bethel, et impie egistis, et in Galgala, et multiplicastis ut impie ageretis.

XXXV. He immediately joins the sins to the punishments, and usefully adds to the accounts of the calamities a clear demonstration of their wicked acts, so that no one may mock or blame God, as if He had imposed a harsher penalty than was deserved upon the children of Israel. For, he says, these things, and these things will come upon you. And because they will come into the midst, He cries: "You came to Bethel, and you acted impiously," where the God-hating Jeroboam set up the golden calf [to be worshipped] ^B instead of God. There you are proven to have gravely and nefariously violated the law. For I gave commandments through Moses: "You shall not make for yourself golden gods and silver gods; you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve." But you, mocking my law, have worshipped, he says, the works of your own hands. And beholding the golden calf, and inanimate matter, you endured it with equanimity, while the author of the error said: "These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt." But he committed the greatest impiety in Galgala. For this is a city beyond the ^C waters of the Jordan, leaning terribly toward apostasy. Therefore the Lord of all says concerning it: "All their wickednesses are in Galgala; for there I hated them, because of the malice of their inventions." As the writer of Proverbs says: "The ways of a man are before the eyes of God, and He considers all his paths." And He accepts those who have practiced walking straight, but casts off him who departs from the straight way and is eager to go where he ought not.

VERS. 5. Et attulistis in mane sacrificium vestrum, in triduum decimas vestras. Et legerunt foris legem, et invocaverunt confessionem. Annuntiate, quoniam ista dilexerunt filii Israel, dicit Dominus.

XXXVI. Truly, it is a terrible and ^D impious thing, having reached the highest degree of depravity, to dare to violate the glory of God, and to bestow upon the honors of idols those things which befit Him, and Him alone. For those accustomed to doing this, as much as lies within them, cast down the divine and most high nature from its own and most fitting throne, and expel it from sacred seats, and install therein, as it were, impure demons. So horrendous are the crimes with which we see the insensate Israel entangled. For the God of the universe issues a law somewhere through

^A Moses, that two lambs should be offered to Him daily in the holy tabernacle, the one in the morning and the other in the evening, signifying by this practice the constancy and perpetuity of the most sweet fragrance of the Church—a spiritual one, without doubt—as if in an enigma and a type. Moreover, He also prescribed by law three seasons during the year in which every male of yours should appear before Me. And in these three seasons, defined by the law, they were to bring tithes, the first-fruits of their fields, sacrifices, and thanksgivings. For it is written: “You shall not appear before Me empty.” ^B But the Israelites, transferring the commandments so rightly given by Moses to the glory of idols, offered their sacrifices to them in their temples in the morning. They also brought their tithes during the three-day period. By "three-day period," he means the three days of the year when every male was required to appear before the Lord. And the impiety of those from Israel did not stop even there, but they even "read the law of those outside"—that is, they honored the law of foreigners, while regarding the law that is from God as worth almost nothing at all. For they offered sacrifices in the temples of idols at the appointed times, and they observed the feasts customary to them with the greatest zeal. Or, he is saying this: They attributed the ordinances decreed for My glory to outsiders, and consecrated My temple to idols, slaughtering victims to them according to the custom of their fathers, and dedicating tithes to them during that three-day period. “And they called out a confession.” The word "called out" signifies that they vowed, that is, they promised. Confessions, moreover, are voluntary offerings according to the law, which anyone might bring to God of his own accord. ^C Then He calls out to the priests: “Announce and bear witness that the sons of Israel have loved these things,” which is to say, not only have they dared to do this once, but they even loved it, having—it is clear—come to hate the things of God. For it is necessary to be uniform. For not to limp, but to strive to walk straight with both feet, has great hearing before God; and the Savior Himself testifies in His words: “No one can serve two masters,” and what follows. It is indeed most unworthy to divert through error those things that pertain to the glory of God, and to bestow upon others those things that are in accordance with His honor. For divine things are proper and peculiar to God, and they would befit no one else more than Him, ^D and Him alone.

“And I will give you a grinding of teeth in all your cities, and a lack of bread in all your places, and you have not returned to Me, says the Lord. I also withheld from you the rain three months before the harvest; and I will rain upon one city, but upon one city I will not rain. One part shall be rained upon, and the part upon which I do not rain shall wither. And two and three cities shall gather into one city to drink water, and shall not be satisfied; and even so you have not returned to Me, says the Lord.”

XXXVII. Again, the prophet wisely meets their

those who are fond of finding fault, and who—out of great ignorance—rashly rail against the goodness that is in God. For why (some perhaps might say) does God inflict upon those of Israel a punishment so harsh and utterly intolerable, when He is by nature good, and declares that He is the author of inexorable wrath against them? But in this same place, He shows that, in the beginning, He punishes sinners more mildly—not demanding vengeance, but, out of His innate kindness, turning them to Himself and, as if by a scourge and pain, transferring their will toward doing what is better. For those who were living as I have described, and who had acted impiously in an intolerable way, He chastened with the blunting of teeth, and also with destitution of bread, that is to say, with famine. ^B “And you have not returned to Me, says the Lord. I have withheld from you the rain three months before the vintage,” or (as the Hebrews have rather rendered it) “the harvest.” It is more apt, however, to say “three months before the harvest,” when it is most of all necessary and beneficial for the crops to be frequently watered from heaven so that they may bear fruit. Such a scarcity of water occurred that, by the judgment and decree of God who knows all things, it rained upon one city, while the other was passed over and rejected; and two or three cities gathered into one to drink, and even so remained thirsty. “And you have not returned to Me, says the Lord.” Now, it has come to pass that those of Israel suffered such things both symbolically and historically. For as the disciple of the Savior said: “Elias was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed, and it did not rain for three years and six months.” And there was such a severe famine in Samaria that an ass’s head was sold for many denarii. Moreover, even in the times of the prophet Jeremiah, God, the Parent of all things, withheld the rain. Wherefore He spoke words regarding the drought in this manner: “Judaea has mourned, and her gates have been emptied, and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up, and her nobles have sent their juniors to the water; they came to the pits and found no water,” and so forth. Because, therefore, those of Israel had contaminated themselves with no common impiety, God withheld the rain, and sent the blunting of teeth and the destitution of bread in all their cities.

Verily, as I was saying just now, we may also perceive them to have suffered in an intelligible sense. For while food and drink are owed to earthly bodies (which are produced from the earth, and the water which falls under the senses), the soul of man is nourished by divine and heavenly words. Its stream is spiritual, and the fountain which waters it conceptually is the divinely inspired Scripture, which discourses of the mystery of Christ. But just as teeth, if they suffer a blunting, become too weak to be able to chew anything and grind up food, so also the human mind, having slipped into weakness and being seized by the malady of sloth, would not be able to attain to spiritual knowledge, nor to take anything for digestion from those contemplations that are very subtle. Therefore, the heart of Israel has been thickened; for it did not understand the mystery of Christ at all. Thus, they have had a destitution of spiritual bread and a scarcity of water ^D

as they do not possess the Word that sustains, the One who descended from heaven and gives life to the world, the One who irrigates souls by the grace of the Spirit—the living fountain, the Son from God the Father—the consolation through the law and the prophets. For as the prophet Isaiah says: “He commanded the clouds from above not to rain upon it.” ^A

VERS. 9, 10. *I struck you with blasting and with jaundice. You multiplied your gardens, and your vineyards, and your fig trees, and your olive groves; these the caterpillar devoured. And not even so did you return to me, says the Lord. I sent among you death in the way of Egypt. I slew your young men with the sword, with the captivity of your horses, and I brought up your camps in fire in your anger; and not even so did you return to me, says the Lord.*

XXXVIII. To those who are unfeeling regarding the things that happen as a result of wrath, and are overly indolent, and fall into such sluggishness that they do not even deign to take into their minds any thought of repentance, no method of being struck would suffice; rather, more are necessary, and others worse than the first, having always a greater increase toward pain. Since, therefore, the indigence of bread and drink moved the Israelites but little, as it appears, toward amendment, a somehow more troublesome thing is inflicted upon them: namely, diseases of the bodies, fever and jaundice (which is otherwise called the arquatus or royal malady). This was also predicted through the voice of Jeremiah, for he says: ^C “Thus says the Lord: Behold, I bring infirmity upon this people, and fathers and sons will be infirm in it; neighbor and his fellow will perish.” Since they were also addicted to sordid gains and were occupied in heart and thought in making much money, and for this reason were acquiring gardens, and vineyards, and fig trees, and olive groves, God touched these things as well, through which—being affected with no small pain—they might be able to return to a sound mind and choose the salutary in place of the harmful, He heaping punishments upon them so that, being struck from every side, they might be saved. But because even this was little, a greater thing was added. For when, He says, you despised My hand—all but accusing God, who is mighty in all things, of imbecility—and went off to the Egyptians, and chose the flesh of horses over My care for you, and preferred an Egyptian man to Me, then, indeed then, the entire most warlike race was consumed, He says, by the sword of the Babylonians. ^D And your entire cavalry was made captive, God weakening even those who knew how to advance toward glory and were accustomed to bringing back victories from battles. You will understand it also in another way, “I sent among you death in the way of Egypt.” When Josiah was reigning over Judah, Pharaoh Necho, the tyrant of the Egyptians, led an army against Babylon. Because there was a necessity for him to pass through the land of the Judeans, Josiah, thinking that the way toward Babylon was only a pretext, and that the Egyptian had taken up arms against him, rashly went to meet him with an army, and Israel perished.

^A And “I have sent,” he says, “among you death in the way of Egypt,” that is, in the passage of the Egyptians; “and I brought up in fire your camps,” that is to say, I razed from the foundations your fortified and most tower-crowned cities. He said this also in the beginning: “And Ephraim went to the Assyrians, and Judah multiplied fortified cities, and I will send fire into their cities, and it shall devour their foundations.” Therefore, from those very foundations, he says, I have cast down your most fortified cities, “and yet you have not turned back to me, says the Lord.”

Verse 11. “I overthrew you as the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you became as a torch snatched from the fire; and yet even so you have not returned to me, says the Lord.”

^B XXXIX. Seeing no reformation in you, he says, being moved to greater wrath, I added things more grievous than these, and I sharpened my indignation against you. For “I overthrew you,” he says, “just as Sodom and Gomorrah,” and you did not return. By these words he seems to point to the final devastation which occurred in the times of Jeremiah by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, who subdued all of Judea, and burned Jerusalem itself, and the cities and villages round about it, and having torn down the divine temple itself, he took as prisoners of war those who were left, ^C and having returned victoriously to his home, they with difficulty returned to Judea after the space of seventy years had been completed for them. For Cyrus, as I have said, when Babylon was captured, released the survivors and those who remained from the captivity. For this reason, he says, you became like a brand half-burned, and preserved in the few remaining. Therefore, when God is disciplining, to be slothful and negligent is pernicious; and to cast off common sense, and without ceasing to depart from duty to the whim of doing and thinking wicked things, is the cause of even more intolerable evils. For just as those who remove the diseases of the body, and are trained in the skill of healing, cleanse the more insensible parts of wounds with hot and harsh medicines, and by thinning the thickness of the impurity within them, force them to yield to the skills of art, ^D so too God, who knows all things, burdens those who feel no pain from small matters with even more severe blows, the experience of which a wise and shrewd man would rightly pray to avoid.

“For this reason, I will do this to you, Israel.”

XL. For since, he says, I have done this, and added that, and brought on almost every kind of blow and pain, yet I saw you moved by no grief, and learned it by experience itself, for this reason: “And so will I do to you.” But how so? For he was not content with the first things. But he added also the...

^A final catastrophe. For the last, as I said, such is the plague inflicted upon them by an angry God.

“Nevertheless, because I will do this to you, prepare to invoke your God, O Israel.”

XLI. But if you wish, he says, to know the reason why I will do this to you, you shall certainly hear it, as if he who strikes you were crying out and saying: “Prepare to invoke your God, O Israel.” That is: be diligent and ready, so that you may not invoke a strange and false god, but the God of Israel—that is, him whom you have known by actual experience, who is God by nature and truth, and not one discovered by the excellent craftsmanship of men, as are those, for instance, which are fashioned from wood and stone. ^B

VERS. 13. “Therefore behold, I who establish thunder, and create spirit, and announce to men His Christ, making morning and mist, and treading upon the high places of the earth: the Lord God Almighty is His name.”

XLII. By the opposition of the superior, that which is considered inferior is easily recognized. Therefore, that the weakness of the idols might be made manifest to those who, from excessive and great folly, imagined them to be gods and worthy of being worshipped, the Lord of all things profitably manifests himself to us, introducing Himself as Creator and Fabricator of the universe, holding power over us, and as Governor of human affairs, superior to every height and every excellence, and administrator of every creature. For the nature of God transcends all things, ^C and not by local elevations, but by the excellence of His glory and by incomparable power, He exceeds every measure and extent of everything that has come to be. “Invoke, therefore, your God, O Israel,” he says, acknowledging an omnipotent power and supreme excellence. “For I am, and there is no other, who establish thunder,” that is, covering the sky with clouds and sending down rains; “and creating spirit,” that is, also the creator of the winds. “And announcing to men His Christ,” is just as if He were saying: By me kings reign, and by me tyrants rule over the earth. For in these words, He does not name Christ as Emmanuel, but rather as one anointed for the kingdom, or for reigning. Similarly with “spirit”—not the divine and ^D holy one (although some who have attempted to pervert what is right are so insane), but this aerial and worldly spirit, of which the Savior Himself says: “The spirit blows where it wills.” I, therefore, he says, who gather the clouds, and establish thunder, and bring forth the winds from their treasuries, I manifest whom I will to be adorned and illustrated by the royal throne. “Therefore the King of kings, and Lord of lords,” by nature God, “who creates the morning,” that is, day or light, He is the one who “creates the mist,” that is, darkness or night; He who “treads upon the high places of the earth,” superior and more eminent than every high and eminent thing,

^A bearing a name fitting and very much in accordance with His own glory: the Lord Almighty. Behold, therefore, how great is the gentleness and philanthropy that the God of all manifests toward us. For having held out the threat, and having foretold some things as already having come to pass and others as being about to come to pass, He calls us to recognition; He initiates into the mysteries the one who has turned aside, and leads back to understanding the one who has slipped due to ignorance. To those who do not know Him who is by nature and in truth the Master, He renders Himself manifest by the fact that He is able to bring all things to pass and that He rules over all. This was ^B the act of One correcting with pain and the scourge, and, so to speak, striking them, even if unwilling, toward conversion, and usefully introducing the means by which it is likely they could be taught to think better thoughts.

CHAPTER V.

^C *Hear the word of the Lord, which I receive against you as a lamentation. The house of Israel has fallen, it shall no more rise again. The virgin of Israel is cast down upon her land, there is none to raise her up.*

^D XLIII. The blessed prophets, foreseeing what will happen to certain people, then becoming filled with terrors from this and grieving excessively because of their brethren, sometimes use harsher rebuke, almost "biting" out of love, and stirring them up to vigilance and caution by the prediction of things about to happen in a moment. The prophet does a similar thing now, speaking as if in his own person; yet it is not from his own mind, but as if inspired by God, he says: *Hear this word of the Lord, which I receive against you as a lamentation.* For the Lord of all, he says, has spoken in me, and I have composed a lamentation over you who have departed from Him. What then is this mournful song? What is this lamentation? And what could I ever weep for? A terrible and irremediable calamity: *The house of Israel has fallen.* It stood fast while it honored and loved God. Now it has fallen, having been irritated by the madness of those who wander. Now, who will raise up the one prostrate by divine nod? *For her virginity is cast down.* This is to say, she has committed fornication. And who is she? Surely Israel again, or rather the Synagogue of the Jews, to whom it was said by God: *Did you not call me as a house, and as a father, and as the guide of your virginity?* Therefore, she who had obtained God as the guide of her virginity has been cast down upon her land; that is, she has committed fornication, and her sin is without excuse. For she did commit fornication in Egypt long ago. But then she was not in her own land, and she was subject to the laws of those she endured as masters, and perhaps, unwillingly and under compulsion, she was driven into their customs, forced to abandon the piety and religion of her ancestors. Now, no one is forcing her. For she is in her own region, where the law is the tutor, bringing her back to the recognition of Him who is by nature and in truth God, released and free and entirely without excuse for any—

what mode of defense, then, could be devised for her? ^A For she has committed fornication, not compelled by anyone, but henceforth of her own will. Therefore, there is no one who might raise her up, now that she has been dashed to the ground. Let it be said, then, very aptly, even by us ourselves to God who is powerful in all things: "You are terrible, and who shall stand against You from the weight of Your wrath?"

But the multitude of the Jews has fallen in another way, through the insolence shown toward Christ, having been brought under compulsion for correction; and it now lies there, with no one to assist it, waiting only for the grace of Him who shows mercy, I mean, Christ. For it also shall be called to recognition through faith in the last times of the age.

VERS. 3. "For thus says the Lord: The city, out of which a thousand were going forth, shall have a hundred left; and out of which a hundred were going forth, shall have ten left for the house of Israel."

XLIV. He clearly declares in these words in what manner it shall fall. For, he says, the cities shall remain empty of men, as war consumes those in them, and reduces them to such a state of misery that scarcely a tenth part shall remain to them. ^B For since they, by provoking God to anger, have offered the tithes to the unclean demons—for they have brought them in during that three-day period—they themselves also shall be left behind, as it were, as a meager tithe; God, as it were, weighing their transgression and imposing a punishment of equal weight upon their impieties. It is terrible, therefore, to be disciplined in fury. For this reason the prophet also supplicated God, saying: "Discipline us, O Lord, but in judgment, and not in fury, lest You make us few."

"For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek Me, and you shall live; and do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal, and do not cross over to the well of the Oath; for Gilgal shall be taken captive into captivity, and Bethel shall be as if it never existed. Seek the Lord, and you shall live, that the house of Joseph may not flash forth like fire, and devour it, and there be no one to quench it for the house of Israel."

XLV. ^C He does not allow those who have sinned to slip again into despair, even though they have been entangled in terrible and unbearable transgressions. But he sets forth and holds out divine promises, and thus, like a fisherman with a net, he gathers them into repentance. And now he introduces Him who necessarily promises that He will forgive them their crimes, and will deliver them both from punishment and from the terrors that result from it. "For by nature the Creator is good, long-suffering and very merciful and repentant regarding evils," as it is written; and He Himself says through Ezekiel: "He does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he should turn from his evil way and live." If, therefore, you consider life to be of great value, and the matter appears worthy of acceptance to you, cease from being deceived; and having leapt away from such long-standing despondency, seek me, He says: that is, serve Me, who am by nature God,

^A vivifying, able to save, and rendering those who revere Him exempt from every evil. For he says that they must first cleanse themselves, casting out the filth of apostasy from their own souls, and thoroughly melting away the stain that has clung to them from being deceived, and thus cleave to God. And what indeed they must do, having chosen to repent, he clarifies by saying: "Seek not Bethel, and go not into Gilgal, and pass not over to the Well of the Oath." He says the Well of the Oath is Gerar, which is a city of the Philistines, or the Palestinians. For since Abraham and Abimelech swore together and established covenants of peace at the well, the city was subsequently named "The Well of the Oath." Therefore, Gilgal, and Bethel, and indeed Gerar also were cities greatly turned toward impiety, and involving those who were deceived in manifold errors. He commanded them to depart from these entirely, attaching a threat to his words, so that he might from every side drive them toward what is beneficial. For Bethel and the others shall perish, he says. And one, having been captured, shall go to the enemies; another shall be laid waste, so that it might seem as if it had never even existed at one time. Therefore, seek God, he says, that you may live, before the house of Joseph blazes up ^B and it devours her, and there shall be none to quench it. Now, by "blazes up" he means "shall be burned"; and he names the house of Joseph "Ephraim," that is, those in Samaria; for Ephraim and Manasseh came from Joseph. Therefore, just as when Israel names them, we understand those from him to be called by the name of their father, so if he should happen to say "Joseph," you shall understand it in the same way. Penitence is therefore a good thing, warding off punishments and averting the penalties to be inflicted from wrath, and delivering those who are devoted to it from the Master’s movements of anger and from every calamity.

"Who makes judgment to the height, and has set justice upon the earth. Who makes and transforms all things, and turns the morning into shadow, and darkens the day into night; who calls for the water of the sea, and pours it out upon the face of the earth, Lord God Almighty is His name. Who divides crushing upon strength, and brings misery upon a fortress."

^D XLVI. The discourse has a mystery, and it fits wonderfully those who are called to the knowledge of God and who are striving to come to the light of truth. For it is the proposal of the prophet to teach the deceived, first, that the sovereignty of all things depends upon God, and that by His nods all things are steered and governed, and that the all-blessed multitude of the angels is subjected to the law of His justice, and that it is fitting and necessary for those who dwell upon the earth to be bound by the laws of His justice. For if that which is more excellent in these creatures serves God, and the holy multitude of spirits on high is subjected to Him in fear, how or from where should one possess the unblamable

^A frame, or refuse the bridle, he who is so much inferior in nature and glory—that is, the man who is born from the earth and returns to the earth? "I therefore," He says, "the Lord of all, who execute judgment on high." As if He were saying: He who prescribes for the sublime and heavenly spirits the manner of justice that is fitting for them (for by "judgment" He means justice), He Himself has also set justice upon the earth; that is, He has defined and established laws upon the earth as well, according to which it is fitting for them to live, and has placed within their reason the knowledge of well-being, of living, and of enjoying His own gentleness and philanthropy.

That God is omnipotent and most powerful, and that nothing is impossible for Him at all, and that even the nature of the elements yields to Him and existing things change according to His will, He demonstrates by taking as an example the fact that the shadow declines into the morning, and the day in turn darkens into night. Moreover, by a nod of His authority, He summons water from the sea by a certain ineffable and hidden power to the regions above, and changing it into a quality not its own, He makes it sweet for the inhabitants of the earth.

He says that the shadow is changed into the morning—that is, that the night or darkness passes into day. For as it is written by Moses: "Darkness was in the beginning over the abyss," that is, shadow. But, "God said," he says, "and ^B light was made." Thus, into the morning—that is, into the day—the shadow, that is, the darkness, has been turned. But when the day was made, night in turn expelled it; that is, it caused the day to darken into night.

The prophet therefore advises those who have been deceived, showing them not matter that senses nothing, but Him who is God by nature and in truth; not such as golden calves—that is, such gods as human art has invented and devised—but the King of the spirits on high, and the Lawgiver, and likewise of those on earth, and the One who rules over the elements and inclines the nature of existing things to His own will. For this reason, and very justly, he says, is the name appropriate to Him: "The Lord God Almighty."

Since these things are so by nature and in truth: "He brings about destruction upon strength, and brings misery upon the stronghold." He tears apart, he says, the proud, and upon those who reject His yoke, He inflicts crushings. Moreover, if anyone perhaps out of a certain stupor of the mind thinks himself to be robust and great, Him He accumulates with misery. In this way he aptly shows that if they should choose to be slothful, and to persist in the vices of a certain apathy, so that they are not moved at all by any warning—nay, rather, even please themselves—they will fall into extreme misery, being struck by the hand of the Almighty, and henceforth justly shattered. ^C "For the Lord," he says, "resists the proud," and accounts the arrogant, the disobedient, and the stubborn as an enemy: "But He looks towards the humble, and the quiet, and him who trembles at His words." And this is a good thing, and truly worthy of emulation among those who have chosen for themselves the best course of life.

VERS. 10. They have hated in the gates him who reproves, and they have abhorred ^D a holy word.

^A XLVII. The discourse again maintains the sequence that is appropriate for it. For since the divine prophet termed God omnipotent and most powerful, and added that He distributes destruction upon strength and brings misery upon a fortress, therefore even now, lest anyone think that He threatens those who have sinned but little with severity greater than is just, he enumerates the crimes and brings forward the causes for which He distributes destruction and misery to some. For "they have hated," he says, "the correctors"; they have deemed as nothing those who rebuke and those accustomed to provide guidance toward what is pleasing to God; they have abhorred every holy word that is, clearly, one that invites and urges toward holiness and sanctification. And the phrase "in the gates," know that it means openly, publicly, and freely. It seems that he now makes mention of their insolence and aversion toward the prophets and the Law. For the prophets offered reproof, approaching openly; but the Law was a holy word, since it is a steward of God and of justice, and a pedagogue unto piety, and indicative of Him who is by nature and truly God. For this reason also Paul affirms the law given through Moses to be holy, just, and good. Accordingly, it is the foulest of diseases and constitutes a root, as it were, and an origin of the vicious passions in the soul, to shake off counsels, and to hate rebukes, and to seem not even to know the divine law. For he who has arrived at such a depth of baseness is surely like a ship bereft of a rudder and having no pilot, which is carried about by every wind and moves simply and fortuitously hither and thither as it is pushed, as if drunk, and subsequently tossed about by the rush of the waves. But the wise David calls that just man blessed, saying: "The law of his God is in his heart, and his steps shall not be tripped." For the law is a guide and mistress for performing what is ^B pleasing to God.

Wherefore, "forasmuch as you used your fists to beat the poor, and you have received from him choice gifts. You have built hewn houses, and you shall not dwell in them. You have planted desirable vineyards, and you shall not drink the wine of them."

^C XLVIII. It is true that in every way and altogether, to abstain from good things is the beginning of vices, and an aversion from what is useful and beneficial necessarily compels us to fall into things that are not such. For just as when light is driven away, darkness forthwith, immediately, and at once comes to be, so where virtue has departed, there impiety, thrusting itself in, succeeds it. Wherefore, as soon as they hated him who reproves in the gates, and abhorred ^D a holy word, they slipped into multifaceted sin; they turned toward avarice, and, occupying themselves with tyranny and oppression—things most hateful to God—they used their fists to beat the humble and inflicted blows upon the heads of the poor, being men most blessed and excelling others in glory and wealth. Moreover, they plundered gifts, taking them under the name of those who were not unwilling [to give them], which they possessed as the more valuable in their own properties. Nevertheless, he usefully warns

that for those accustomed to doing such things, greed is profitless, and to be overcome by base gains ends in sorrows, and has punishment as its end. For if they neither enjoy homes built with diligence and magnificence, and labor in fields to no purpose, and the use of the most cherished things—for the sake of which more were sought and the effort to accumulate money was made—vanishes in an unexpected outcome, how will the custom of gathering more and more riches in certain cases not seem vain and useless? He acts wisely, therefore, who considers within himself that which is in the Proverbs: "Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with iniquity." ^A Moreover, Paul calls greed idolatry, and that with very good reason; for it is godlessness, and those who trample on the law of love towards brothers, "which is the fulfillment of the law," are placed in the same category as those who do not know God. For he who does not know the law denies the Lawgiver. Christ Himself also makes us more moderate and superior to unjust greed, saying, "For what will it profit a man," ^B and what follows. "For treasures of the wicked will not profit," as it is written; "but righteousness will deliver from death." VERS. 12, 13. For I have known your many impieties, and your strong sins, trampling on the just, taking exchanges, and turning aside the needy in the gates. Therefore, the prudent will keep silent in that time, because it is an evil time. XLIX. He shows that God does not seek penalties from the guilty for slight or casual crimes, but when He has patiently connived at moderate faults, He attempts to teach that He attacks those who rush headlong into wickedness. For He says that those in Samaria [will be deprived] of homes and vineyards and everything, I suppose, that holds ^C joy and happiness; since their sins had become dire, and great, and no longer tolerable. For they oppressed the just or any man they happened upon, or, looking to ungodliness, they thought it worth little to concern themselves with upright and just judgment. And this is in a way to oppress and to practice greed without restraint, [contrary to] what seems right to the law. For they accepted "exchanges," that is, recompenses and rewards for unjust judgments, and in addition to this, "they turned aside the poor in the gates." And what does this mean? For it either means this: that they drove away those who counseled moderation and gave free advice about this; or that they dared to judge the poor wrongly, or dissimulately, not as those who craftily contrive piety, but as those who in the gates—that is, openly and in the sight of all—having put aside all shame, and not revering the divine law in any way. To such a degree of perversity and wickedness, ^D however, did they eventually descend, that even to the wise themselves and those capable of understanding, it seemed more cautious neither to rebuke thereafter, nor to seek to correct the impiety, because those who were being corrected, as if they already had no ears, would leap upon those who

desired to benefit them, and would consider those who brought them the best counsel as enemies. For they would revile the holy prophets, and when they occasionally came forward bringing them messages from on high, they would treat them quite injuriously. Zedekiah, for instance, would at times bind the prophet Jeremiah when he came to report the things from God, and at other times would even lower him into a cistern, wanting to extinguish him in the mire therein. Therefore, it is necessary to repent even for small transgressions, and not by the infliction of greater ones to stir up God, as if He were unwilling and reluctant; for if sins were to become powerful and very numerous, then He will surely repay, and He will bring the flames of indignation. We say that sins are "powerful"—that is, terrible and unbearable—because not every sin is unto death, according to the most wise voice of John.

THIRD VOLUME

Vers. 14, 15. Seek the good, and not the evil, that you may live, and the Lord God Almighty will be with you. Thus said the Lord God Almighty, as you have said: We have hated evil things, and we have loved good things, and judgment will be restored in the gates, that the Lord God Almighty may have mercy on the remnants of Joseph.

L. I have said already many times that there was not one single captivity, but various captivities at different times and in different parts. For Phul the Assyrian came and, having razed the cities across the Jordan, led away two tribes in Samaria. After him, Shalmaneser did not take the whole of Samaria, but a certain part of it, and returned to his own kingdom with the captives. God did this economically, instructing through pain and the whip Israel, whom he had caused to turn aside, and transferring them toward the necessity of thinking and seeing the better and more becoming things. It happened, therefore, that those who were able to escape from the wars of which we have spoken, already in a manner repenting for the things in which they were deceived, knew and confessed that many and ^A unbearable things, when they sinned, then finally were brought by divine wrath as a penalty from Him; then they promised in a certain way to God an amendment of their ways, saying: "We have hated the evil things, and we have loved the good things." Therefore, just as he says: ^B "Seek the good, and not the evil," that you may also gain well-being, living and being saved, and the Lord God, who has authority over all, may be with you. "And restore judgment in the gates," that is, become upright judges; do not write down an unjust vote against those who are weaker; do not adulterate the power of justice; ^C nor strike the heads of the poor; nor turn aside from the way of the humble, so that God may finally have mercy on those who from the already happened captivities remain of Joseph. And he signifies again Ephraim, that is, the ten ^D

it is indicated by the name of the father. It is necessary, therefore, to be wise and to direct our minds so that they may be compelled to think thoughts pleasing to God, to perform the duties of virtue, to embrace the ways of justice, and to procure wisely those things that are praiseworthy. For thus we shall have the God of all dwelling with us and protecting us. ^A

VERS. 16. *Therefore thus saith the Lord God almighty: In all the streets there shall be wailing; and in all the ways it shall be said, Woe, woe! And they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and to lamentation, and to them that know mourning. And in all ways shall be there wailing, for I will pass through the midst of thee, saith the Lord.*

51. Having now tasted the evils of war, and being not a little afflicted by the past disasters, you promised that you would hate evil and love good. But having been freed from those terrors only a short while and with difficulty, you turned back to sloth, and were seen to have fallen back into your old sins nevertheless. Therefore, the cities and villages will now be ^B full of lamentations and groanings, and there will be tears everywhere, and they will seek those who know how to lament; and because you who dwell in the city will not be sufficient for this, even the husbandman will be taken up, so that he may sing to you a mournful song, however rustic and unrefined it may be, and the calamities of the slain may be bewailed by the shoulders of the natives. "For I will pass through the midst of thee," he says, surveying even now how you have sinned, and no longer standing far off from those who have committed impieties that cannot be endured. For as long as God chastens only with words, He seems in a way not to be present; but when He is angry and takes vengeance on the wicked, He is present as it were, and inflicts ^C punishments. Thus also the angels came to Sodom, about to burn the wicked with fire, as if they had been absent while they were not punishing them. Therefore, "I will pass through the midst of thee" signifies the visitation, and that the time has arrived when it is necessary to punish.

VERS. 18-20. *Woe to you that desire the day of the Lord. To what end is this day of the Lord for you? It is darkness, and not light. As if a man should flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should meet him, and he should go into the house, and lean his hands upon the wall, and a serpent should bite him. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light, and darkness, not having brightness in it?*

52. While the holy prophets were prophesying to them the things that were to come, namely, that they would fall into bitter and incurable calamities, those who were impotently carried away toward the works of error, mocking and ^D haughty, sometimes indeed said that the prophets were singing of things that would happen a long time after, if they were to happen at all; but at other times, being utterly in despair, they dared to say, according to the voice of Jeremiah: "Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come." For they supposed either that the prophets were lying, and filling them with empty terrors, or at least that, even if they were attacked by war from somewhere, they would be superior to their enemies, opposing them with hard and invincible strength and alacrity. It is true

^A indeed, that "When the ungodly comes into the depth of evils, he acts with contempt." But those who are in such a state, like those with desperate wounds, all but cry out that they are in need of fire and surgery, and they are in desire of such things. For they thirst in a certain way for the necessity of being punished, even if they do not testify to it with their voice. "Woe, therefore," he says, "to those who desire and expect nothing else but the day of punishment," which he calls the day of the Lord; for it is brought on by God. Why, then, he says, is it darkness to you, and not light? Because, of course, you will be filled with a great many calamities. For it will not be possible for anyone to escape, nor will anyone get away from the evil; but he who has fled this one will be caught by that one, and to those who have turned away from the first, the second will meet them. For this is what it is: to flee from the mouth of a lion, and to fall into a bear. But even if someone should think, he says, that he might by chance be in safety, and should enter into the house, he will fall there into death, having unexpectedly undergone the bites of a serpent. For if God is driving someone to destruction and to toils, who will save him? Who will aid him, and deliver him from the judgment? Or what manner will there be by which, if one were to go through it, he would be outside of evils? None at all. "For who shall turn back the high hand?" and, "If he shuts against a man, who shall open?" according to what is written.

"I have hated, I have rejected your feasts, and I will not take pleasure in your assemblies. Because if you offer me your burnt offerings and sacrifice, I will not accept them, and I will not look upon your offerings of salvation."

^C LIII. This discourse might apply especially to those from Judah and Benjamin. For the tribes in Samaria were addicted entirely to the worship of idols, and were extremely slothful and very negligent of the laws given through Moses. But those in Jerusalem, while they did sacrifice to Baal in the high places and offered libations to the host of heaven, nevertheless feigned that they also had at heart a reverence for the law, and were eager to fulfill both sacrifices and feasts. But that the Creator of all has hated these things, he also made clear through the voice of Isaiah, saying: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?" and the following. We maintain that the preceding text is connected to this thought. For "I have hated," he says, "and rejected your feasts, and I would not commend your sacrifices, nor would I ever reckon the burnt offerings and the offerings for salvation as a sweet-smelling savor." And these are kinds of sacrifices distinguished by times and by modes. For a burnt offering is one thing, and a sacrifice is another, and the "offering of salvation," that is to say, to come into the sight of God and to offer sacrifices for salvation. But for the Jews, who are pursuing impiety to the greatest extent, what we have just said would naturally be appropriate.

However, God receives and most gladly admits the sacrifices of those who are in faith, the spiritual burnt offering, on the feast days

^A For we do not scatter a sweet odor for ourselves, but for Him who is in us through the Spirit, I mean Christ. It would be highly appropriate—and reasonably so—that what is unacceptable for sacrifices should also be so for the unholy heretics and those to whom it is not permitted, as it is for those who are sincere in the faith, to say, "We are the fragrance of Christ to God." For their odor is in Beelzebub, if it is true that "no one says 'Anathema to Jesus' except in Beelzebub." For the wretches blaspheme recklessly, and slandering the glory of the Only-Begotten, they bear a mind not drunk with spiritual fragrance, but rather steeped in mud.

*Verse 23, 24. Take away from me the sound of your songs, and I will not hear the psalm of your instruments. And judgment shall roll down like water, and righteousness like an impassable torrent.*

^C 54. God rejects the praises rendered by musical instruments along with the feasts and useless sacrifices, not wishing His glory to be celebrated by inanimate objects, but rather preferring to share the enjoyment of such splendid glory with those who release their voice from pure virtue. For such glorification is good and pleasing to God. Moreover, He very rightly calls the Jewish glorifications—those found, I know not where, by means of instruments—a "sound of songs," as if it were something superfluous and an empty noise, emitting a certain inarticulate and unsuitable melody. He further shows that these, too, were inventions of Jewish recklessness, saying, "the psalm of your instruments." For He says, in effect, "It is not mine," for the matter is outside the Law, and Moses commanded nothing concerning such instruments. Therefore He will not be mollified, nor will He cast off the charges because of the sweetness of organic sounds. "But My judgment shall roll down like water," and the righteousness that has proceeded from Me—that is, the just sentence hereafter against you—shall be like a torrent against you, sweeping away, of course, what comes in its path, and sparing no one. For torrents descend from the mountains with great force. In the same way, the divine decree, if it comes against anyone, will be an unconquerable water and an irresistible torrent, and nothing else. Therefore, it seems useful and necessary everywhere to repent and to avert the divine wrath by turning to better things, not by uttering to God a voice that is completely weak and which no one understands, but by sounding a truly wise and rhythmic melody out of good virtue. "For offer," He says, "a sacrifice of praise," and what follows.

*Verses 25–27. Did you offer me victims and sacrifices for forty years in the desert, house of Israel? And you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Raiphan, the figures of them which you made for yourselves. And I will cause you to migrate beyond Damascus, says the Lord God, Almighty is His name.*

^A LV. According to the preceding explanation, it was God who said to the sons of Israel, "I hate your festivals." For in order to show that He had saved Israel out of His own gentleness, and that He had granted mercy to the children on account of the memory of their fathers, and not as if He were compensating for or rewarding their sacrifices, He says quite fittingly that they spent not a few years in the wilderness. And they were nourished by manna; they walked with a cloud overshadowing them by day, and a pillar of fire leading them by night. And the ark was their guide as a type of God, going before them and scouting out a place for them and a resting place. And they were in lack of nothing necessary, with waters suddenly bursting forth and enemies falling. ^B And while all these things were taking place, they were receiving the laws concerning sacrifices, and they were hearing everywhere, and apparently [receiving] over each of the things ordained: "And when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers to give to you, you shall do this and that, and you shall offer sacrifices." Therefore, during the period of forty years that they were in the wilderness, they brought sacrifices of their own will, but He did not demand them as a necessity; rather, the matter was deferred until they should enter into the land promised to their fathers. That is why He says: "Did you bring me offerings and sacrifices for forty years, O house of Israel? says the Lord." But they were being saved even without sacrifices; and as He says again through another prophet: "You have not purchased for me incense with silver, nor for me have you brought the sheep of your burnt offering, nor have you made an incision in Lebanon." ^C But they, being once again apostates, so that they could not be excused, and being unstable and in their nature truly despising God, were carrying the tabernacle of Moloch. "And the star of your god Raiphan." What this is, must be considered. When Moses therefore had gone up to the mountain to receive the law, the sons of Israel rose up against Aaron, saying: "Make us gods who shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." And so they made a calf in the wilderness. And the calf, being manifest and a kind of common idol for everyone, was [their god]. But many other things were also fashioned by each one. For once turned toward their ancient error, and having leaped away from the path of piety toward God, each one made and fashioned for himself the object of worship that seemed good to him, according to the habit they still held from long ago in Egypt. But they were more devoted to the worship of the stars. And from where might this also be made clear? Perhaps someone will say. It is not difficult to demonstrate and know this from the very monuments of the sacred Scriptures. For Moses was annoyed, and cried out against Aaron; then he fell before God, saying: "I beseech you, Lord, this people has sinned a great sin; for they made for themselves golden gods," ^D yet it was a calf that they had fashioned. But he was not unaware that they had nevertheless added other carved images. Moreover, the blessed Stephen, having been accused at one time before the leaders of the Jews on account of blasphemies against God

and Moses, and having ^B refuted their slanders with appropriate apologies, then showing that those who had acted impiously, fiercely, and insultingly toward Christ were imitating the baseness and hardness of heart of their own fathers, makes clear mention of the calf fashioned in the wilderness, and says concerning Moses: "This is he who was in the Church in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, who received living oracles to give to us, whom our fathers would not obey," and the things that follow, up to those words, "The figures which you made to worship them. And I will translate you beyond Babylon." You see, therefore, that the divine Stephen, a man filled with the Holy Spirit, testified that they had fashioned a calf and had turned to worshipping the host of heaven. He also remembers the voice of the prophet, from which it is possible to understand that along with the calf they had also taken up the tabernacle of Moloch. For having made a tabernacle, they set up an idol, and they called this Moloch, or Molchom (this being an idol of the Moabites), having a transparent and exceptional stone on the upper part of the forehead, in the form of Lucifer. And indeed, "Moloch" in Latin means "our king": for so Aquila and Theodotion translated it. But the workmanship was of the form of Lucifer. They carried, therefore, the tabernacle of Moloch, that is, of our king. But what kind of king is this? The star of your god Rephan, which is translated "obtenebration" or "excæcation." Furthermore, they used to worship Lucifer as one rising before the rays of the sun and bringing the beginning of the day to the inhabitants of the earth. However, to those who worshipped him, he became Rephan, that is, obtenebration or excæcation. Not, indeed, as if the star itself had worked darkness in them, but because their worship of this became the cause of obtenebration for them. ^C Since, therefore, he says, you have emulated the madness of the Moabites and the neighboring Damascus, for this reason you will go away even beyond Damascus, and to parts still more remote—I mean, the Babylonians. For the edition of the Seventy says, "beyond Damascus," but the holy Stephen said, "beyond Babylon." What, then, shall we say to this? Stephen spoke according to the Hebrew edition. For it seems to them that the land of the Babylonians is what is meant by "beyond Damascus." For since the territory of the Damascenes, or the kingdom of the Syrians, perhaps extended to the borders of the cities of the east, the territory and region of the Babylonians was immediately adjacent.

CHAP. VI.

^A than their ancestors, they have fashioned calves and carried the tent of Moloch, he now reproves them as following in the ways of their fathers and treading the footsteps of their ancestral impiety, and thus provoking to anger the Lord of all. He says that those of Judah and Benjamin despise Sion. For while remaining in Jerusalem and possessing the divine temple, they held ^B in no account their reverence and love for God; but, as the holy Scripture says, "They sacrificed in the high places under every shady oak and poplar." They even served the host of heaven. And so the God of all, being not a little grieved, said to Jeremiah: "And do not you pray for this people, and do not ask to be shown mercy toward them, and do not come to me in intercession and prayer for them, for I will not listen." Then he sets forth the cause of his turning away, saying: "Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the ways of Jerusalem? Their children gather wood, and their fathers kindle the fire, and their women knead dough to make cakes for the host of heaven. And they poured out drink offerings to strange gods, that they might provoke me to anger." Therefore, those in Jerusalem have despised Sion. Hence, appropriately, I have brought upon them the "Woe." ^C And this utterance would also be fitting for those who trust in the mountain of Samaria, that is, those dwelling in Samaria, and trusting in themselves. For they thought that even without God they would prevail over their enemies, and that all would go well with them, and that whatever was most delightful to them would remain established. It is bitter, therefore, and detestable, to have fallen into such depravity of counsel as to dare to hold the love toward God as nothing, and to be attached to abominations, and to behold what is not permissible, and to cause Him grief, and to think that we will possess any good things without Him giving them. "For every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." Therefore, it is good to cling to Him, and to place in Him hope and to expect His aid. But those who maintain impious ^D dogmas also despise Sion, that is, the Church; and they trust in their own eloquence, and are accustomed to be puffed up and to boast in the discoveries of their own impious reasonings and in worldly wisdom. "Woe" is fitting for them before all others.

"They have harvested the chief of the nations, and have entered in themselves. O house of Israel, pass over all, and see, and pass over from there to Emath Raba, and descend from there to Gath of the foreigners, the best of these kingdoms, if their borders are greater than your borders."

LVII. He shows that they were ungrateful and had determined to be forgetful of His great benefits, although it was fitting that they should always and most abundantly acknowledge the grace, and sing thanksgiving songs, because He not only incredibly snatched them from a hard and intolerable slavery—

^A but He also brought them into the land that He swore to their fathers. He brought them in, furthermore, having uprooted many nations that were difficult to conquer and not unpracticed in the victory of combat. For thus David also spoke somewhere to God concerning those of the blood of Israel: "You brought a vine out of Egypt; You cast out the nations, and You planted it." They are reproached, therefore, and most justly so, as being utterly ungrateful, and as those who, by pouring themselves into every kind of evil, grieved their Benefactor. For "they have harvested," He says, "the chief parts of the nations," and made the land of those others their own possession, while God was shattering their adversaries and weakening the strength of those rising up against them with ineffable power.

But because they have inherited a land that is fat, and fertile, and overflowing with every good thing, and one that is better and more spacious than other regions, He commands them to learn this by carefully considering the principalities, or rather the kingdoms, of those nearby, or even those further away. ^B "Pass over," He says, "to Hamath Rabbah, and to Gath" (for these are among the more illustrious of the kingdoms of the foreigners), "and seek out if their borders are greater than your borders." For there were truly many distinct kingdoms of the nations, of the Moabites, the Idumeans, the sons of Ammon; but there was nothing great in them. More brilliant than the rest were those of the Damascenes and the Philistines. And there were two cities under the kingdom of Damascus, looking toward the east, by the name of Hamath, of which the one was wider and greater, and the other obtained the lesser part. "Rabbah," if one interprets it, signifies "greater and more ample." ^C Pass over, therefore, into Hamath Rabbah, that is, into the Hamath that is greater and wider; for it was, as I said, a namesake to the other, which was not so ample. The report is that this ample Hamath is the same as what is now called Antioch; but as for the smaller and narrower one, which is neighbor and border to it, Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, named that one Antioch, and this other one Epiphaneia, for the sake of his own honor.

Gath was a city of what is now called Palestine, a primary one in those times. In it remained the Anakim and those who were called Philistines, whom the sons of Israel did not destroy at that time. Therefore He says concerning it: "To Gath of the foreigners," and, "Search out diligently whether you are not instead inhabiting a wider region, and the better and preeminent one of all the others." ^D It is necessary to know, furthermore, that the Hebrew scripture has "Calneh" placed first. For it is read thus: "Pass over into Calneh, and into Hamath, and into Gath." Now Calneh is under the Persian kingdom, and is today called Lysippa. And because the Hebrew edition mentions the kingdom of the Persians, we for that reason affirm that blessed Stephen also, instead of "I will carry you away beyond Damascus," said "beyond Babylon." The crime of the ungrateful ones, therefore, is that having obtained such a greater and more abundant land, they did not offer thanks to God the more; but some despised Zion, and others, trusting in the mount of Samaria, took no account of the reverence due to it.

^A It will be useful, as it appears, even for those who after their conversion have admired the wisdom of the Greeks, so as to prefer their opinions and doctrine to our own, or who are much inclined to adhere to those who corrupt the truth and undermine the rectitude of ecclesiastical dogmas, to consider the text: "Pass over into Emath Raba, and into Geth of the Philistines, and see if their borders are larger than your borders." For the divinely inspired Scripture is wider than the narrow discourse of the Greeks, proclaiming the light of truth, bringing knowledge of dogmas, and rousing the minds of believers to all things worthy of praise. ^B Wider, in turn, than the narrowness of the heretics is the discourse of truth; for those who fight against it are, as it were, stifled, swimming in cold and dark reasonings. But those who advocate the dogmas of piety, and contemplate the illustrious elegance of truth, run out into a wide sea of contemplations, "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," springing now here, now there, and most accurately gathering what pertains to true knowledge from the divinely inspired Scripture. And so, to the Corinthians, who chose to depart from the holy commandment delivered to them and persisted in habitually following those accustomed to teach things contrary to the faith, Paul writes: "Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, and our heart is enlarged," and so on, up to the words: "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers."

"Woe to those who approach the evil day, who draw near and touch false Sabbaths."

^C 58. He was saying, "Woe to those who despise Zion, and to those who trust in the mount of Samaria." And since he made mention of two sorts of persons—I mean those who despise Zion, and those who trust in the mount of Samaria—in searching out of necessity the force of the ideas, we have applied to those from Judah and Benjamin the cause of despising Zion, and to those from Ephraim the trusting in the mount of Samaria. The discourse, therefore, returns in a way to the past, and recounts the crimes of both again, bringing upon them the "Woe." Now it is the custom of divine Scripture to employ the cry "Woe" on the occasion of a direct fall, as I say: "Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord." And again: "Woe to those who rise up in the morning, and follow strong drink." ^D "Woe," therefore, he says, "to those who approach the evil day." For not to endure to repent, nor even to receive fear regarding the things declared beforehand, is, as it were, to desire to fall into a day of destruction. Just as if one were to say by chance of someone who delights in sinning: "He desires to die," although he would never wish to suffer this—but as far as the will is concerned, to do that, and to do it without end, which is contrary to divine laws; why, he does not even love the punishment and vengeance always laid up for those who love sin. Therefore, not enduring to repent, they all but desire to fall into an evil day, and to be oppressed by the calamities already [predicted]. "As those who draw near and touch false Sabbaths." For the temple and its altars were still standing, and they were offering to God

the sacrifices according to the law, yet they were keeping the observances on the Sabbaths, though not perfectly and accurately, but rather altogether negligently and most slothfully. And thus, through the voice of the prophets, He accused them as not having kept the Sabbath. Woe, therefore, He says, to those who pretend to draw near to God by pretending to cherish still the institutions of Moses, and yet touch false Sabbaths. You see how He has reproached them for not having guarded the Sabbath rest properly or carefully.

^B Furthermore (for I think I ought to say something of greater importance regarding these matters), the false Sabbaths are the affairs of the Jews; since the law, and that which was done through Moses, is a type and an adumbration. But a type is not the truth, but rather a figure and a phantom of the truth. Therefore, Paul also writes to the Hebrews, and says concerning those of antiquity: "There remains, therefore, a sabbatismus for the people of God." For Jesus did not cause them to rest, nor have they entered into the rest of God. But we sabbatize spiritually in Christ, by casting off and abandoning sins, and by ceasing from every corruptible and earthly business. For as Paul says: "He who has entered into His rest, he himself also has ceased from all his works, as God did from His own."

VERS. 4–6. Sleeping on beds of ivory, and indulging themselves on their couches, and eating kids from the flocks, and calves from the midst of the herds, fed on milk. Playing to the sounds of instruments, they have reckoned it as standing and not as fleeing. Drinking filtered wine, and anointed with the first ointments, and they suffered nothing over the contrition of Joseph.

LIX. Again, Woe because of the calamity, to those who sleep on beds of ivory, and are accustomed to do this and that. He blames strongly those in Samaria who stood out above the rest in glory, and surpassed others in the abundance of their possessions, as though they were almost drunk from excessive prosperity, and led astray by the variety of their delights, so that they suspected nothing of future afflictions, nor did they imagine that God would ever be more violently angry with those so affected, or that He would pursue those addicted to sins with penalties. Furthermore, he declares their license and their life poured out into every form of intemperance. They use, he says, beds of ivory, which are very costly, and delicate couches. And the choicest of lambs, and calves fed on milk are their food. So too, songs and poems, and all musical instruments for the sake of pleasure; they frequent carousals also and applause. And what is more grievous, they reckoned such evils as firm and constant,

^A for things of this kind pass away, and worldly delusion has no permanence. For it vanishes like shadows, and, as it is written, "the fashion of this world passes away," and pleasures end entirely in death itself. Furthermore, regarding the Samaritans, another interpretation of these words may also exist. Since they were to be led into slavery, and that before long, he speaks of their luxuries, which were vainly devised for pleasure, as fleeting and unstable, as if they were just about to pass away. They applaud, therefore, amidst musical concerts, drinking wine that is perhaps fragrant and most finely filtered. They are also anointed with ointment, blending together choice things, and they have absolutely no concern that Joseph is about to be crushed. For although they foresaw the impending calamity, and the capture of Samaria, and the crushing that was about to happen to Joseph, they did not refrain from their accustomed luxury. It is truly most miserable, then, for the princes and rulers of regions, cities, and peoples to succumb to bodily pleasures. For since it behooves them rather to apply with great care the vigilance befitting their office, to look after what is advantageous, to direct their subjects according to the standard of duty, and to appease God, who has been offended, by every means, how can we not consider it the height of madness to cast oneself into the pleasures of the body, and to deem nothing better than the care of impure flesh? Respecting such as these, I should believe it was said through the voice of the holy ones: "O shepherds, scattering and destroying the sheep of my pasture." For that the subjects are endangered by the negligence of the shepherds, can be made clear from the fact that God again says plainly: "For the shepherds acted foolishly, and did not seek the Lord: therefore the whole flock did not understand, and they were scattered." On account of this, now they shall be captives from the beginning of the mighty, and the neighing of horses shall be taken away from Ephraim. ^B 6. For since, he says, they have lived in luxury, having abandoned the love for God, and have trusted in the mountain of Samaria—that is, in those who are in Samaria—lifting up a great brow, and thinking that they are rulers of an immeasurable multitude, and having a warrior class superior in number, for this reason, he says, the time of captivity will come, it will come, and most swiftly against all. And it will make its beginning with the more powerful. For enemies, whenever they plunder a city, always run to the houses of the more distinguished, to plunder what is in them. And since it was the custom for the illustrious in Samaria to delight in riding upon choice horses, and these, as is natural, went through the middle of the streets, neighing with a certain intelligence and wisdom, and as if from knowledge (for the animal is always somehow ready for the perception of order and the reception of knowledge befitting its nature), even this shall cease, he says. "The neighing of horses shall be taken away from Ephraim," he says, similar to as if he were to say: "The insolence of many in Samaria shall be stopped, ^D and though unwilling, they shall cease, as they proceed, through the neighing of horses.

and those who are adorned with bright trappings perhaps recognize their rider, and all but breathe loudly, having placed upon themselves a venerable and admirable rider. But that being sober is safe for leaders, while being accustomed to vanity is harmful, you might learn from this, for whatever comes from wrath will be upon them, and before others as well. And they will be deprived of all glory. They will lie together with others, bearing a bitter and grievous judgment; and because they not only destroyed themselves but also added others as partners in their own lawlessness, they shall give an account.

VERS. 8. *For the Lord has sworn by Himself: Because I will abhor all the pride of Jacob, and I have hated his countries.*

^B LXI. He expresses the immutability of the divine wrath, showing that God has sworn that He has hated the pride of Jacob. And we certainly do not say that the discourse is making a condemnation of the patriarch Jacob; for it would be utterly foolish to think this, since God loved Jacob from the womb, and chose him while he was yet an embryo. But Jacob again refers to those from Jacob, whose execrable arrogance—for it is the custom of Holy Scripture to call arrogance "pride"—He says He has hated. For is it not the very thing of pride, I say, to reject the worship of God and to attribute to idols the glory most fitting to Him, and furthermore not even deign to listen to what He might wish to declare through the holy prophets, and to treat His threats as a mockery, and having been made confident by a multitude of allies, to despise His mercy and help entirely? And how can there be doubt about this? "The Lord of all, therefore, swore by Himself," he says. And "by Himself," because He had no one greater by whom to swear. And what was sworn? "That I will abhor all the pride of Jacob," that is, his arrogance, "and I have hated all his countries." For there was no one there who kindled worship for Him and excelled in praises of justice. For God would not have been averted if there had been some among them, even if only a few, who had studied to please Him. And so He says through the voice of Jeremiah: "Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and seek in her broad places, ^C if you find a man, if there is one who executes judgment and loves truth, and I will be merciful to them, says the Lord." Since, however, the countries of Jacob have been in need of every good and God-loving man, for this reason they have been given over to desolation, and the cities have perished together with their inhabitants. There is, therefore, great need for saints; for they save cities and deliver countries from impending calamity, blunting or dulling the wrath of God, however fervent, with the brightness of their lives, and, as it were, pulling back those of us charging against the onsets of His divine indignation.

*And I will take away the city with all who are in it. And it shall be, if there shall remain men in one house,*

^A they shall die, and the remainder shall be left, and their relatives shall take them up, and they shall be urged to carry out their bones from the house, and he shall say to those presiding over the house, "Is there yet any with you?" And he shall say, "Not yet." And he shall say, "Hush, for fear of naming the name of the Lord."

LXII. Commentaries on the Prophet Amos

Since He has hated their regions, and He abominates all the insolence of Jacob—that is, their arrogance—for this reason He says that their cities are to perish with the inhabitants themselves. And He explains precisely how each of these things will befall those who have sinned in that manner. I will take away, He says, whichever city I wish, and in a way I shall remove it from the midst, together with its inhabitants. And if it should happen that ten out of one house survive, who in fleeing the enemy's sword enter into the recesses and the inner parts of the house, they will die, perhaps fearing to peer even a little bit out from the recesses in which they are hidden. Therefore, the pestilence will succeed the hand of the smiter, He says, and will slay those who are hidden. But when the enemies have departed, some who are relatives by blood and by affection will come, ^B *and they shall be urged to carry out their bones.* Whom, then, will they urge to gather up the remains of the dead? Themselves, evidently. For it is truly burdensome and intolerable to touch bodies already wasting away and rotting, and for those performing such a task, there is need of closed nostrils; for there could be nothing worse than so dire a stench. They will, therefore, urge themselves, bestowing compassion on those who have passed away and perished by the pestilence, not disdaining to wrap their cadavers and bury them in tombs. But as they do this, He says, they will then inquire quite carefully from him who knows the house whether there might be any survivor besides them, either still alive perhaps and lying hidden in the recesses, or else already dead and stinking. And he will answer, saying, "Not yet." This is nothing else but a clear demonstration of total desolation. But if those presiding over the house should say this, they will hear in turn, He says, from the one making the inquiry: *Hush, for fear of naming the name of the Lord.* And it is necessary to see what this is. Some indeed think and say that those who are questioning will silence the masters of the house, so that they may not swear by the name of the Lord. And they add that the minds of those from Ephraim had slipped into such extreme godlessness that they would not even endure for anyone to invoke, if they should choose, the God of the universe. ^C But this argument, in my opinion, is utterly rotten and possesses no elegance; for that those from Ephraim had fallen completely away from the love of God, no one would doubt. But having become more sober from blows and scourge, it was fitting rather that they should fear at least a little, and thereafter proceed to take up more salutary counsels, not to speak so fiercely and boldly from their adverse circumstances against piety toward God. Furthermore (for I would add this also to what has been said), what need, I ask, was there for the house-stewards, when asked who among them was still alive perhaps or at least already lying dead, to also add an oath that there was no one else among them? What is it, therefore, that he shall say: *Hush, lest you name the name of the Lord?* We think that because

it was the custom ^A for those of the blood of Israel to call, in accordance with the legal commandments they had received, such reviling and blasphemy against God in this way. For it is written in Leviticus that two men [note: see textual reference] were striving with each other in the camp; then one of those who were fighting, the son of the Egyptian woman, blasphemed, and he died by stoning. God immediately established the law concerning this, saying: *If a man curses his God, he shall bear his sin; but he who names the name of the Lord, let him be put to death.* ^B Therefore, to "name the name of the Lord" is to blaspheme, expressed by these expressions of good omen through the sacred Scriptures. Since it is the custom for many, whenever they are in any pain or sorrow, to sometimes cast forth reviling words against God, he says to the one who reports the state of the house—namely, that there is no one left with him, even though he is surrounded and oppressed by the most grievous calamities—"You shall shut his mouth," he says, "lest he name the name of the Lord,"—that is, ^C lest he utter anything reviling against God. By these words it is shown that the plague or punishment brought upon them was not inflicted rashly, nor undeservedly, but necessarily and for their benefit. For it is possible, indeed it is very easy, to see from an example not so ancient, that those who were still alive and left behind to face the calamities of others were converted to religion, and that they conceived a fear of offending God further, or even of harming Him with a mere word, even among those who formerly did not fear to do this ^D at all, adding to their words insults against their fathers as well. Wherefore, those who are truly good and prudent consider it much better, before the calamity and the scourges, to betake themselves to the harbor of utility, and by departing from wickedness, and by resolving to perform rightly those things which please the all-holy God, to anticipate the experience of divine wrath.

VERS. 12. *Because, behold, the Lord will command, and He will strike the house that is great with fractures, and the house that is small with ruptures.*

LXIII. He has openly threatened that the cities together with their inhabitants will be captured, or rather, will be destroyed. And that this matter comes from God, and will not happen by chance, is made very clear by the fact that the Lord will command those who are powerful in laying waste to do this, and they will easily perform what the divine wrath has decreed. He calls the "great house" and the "small house" perhaps Ephraim and Judah. For Ephraim was populous, as it consisted of ten tribes; therefore, it is the great house. Judah, however, was smaller, as it had only two tribes, for it was in Jerusalem with the tribe of Benjamin. It is consistent to think that what is "fractured" collapses entirely and perfectly, but that what is "ruptured" may deservedly be understood as suffering in part. Now, it happened that the house of Ephraim, that is, all of Israel, underwent total capture and the extreme suffering of war, while Judah underwent, as it were, a brief rupture. The judge is just, and does not accept persons. For with the same measure of punish—

^Ament he weighs the crimes of cities or regions, and brings upon each a stroke proportionate to what is useful. Let us not, therefore, despise God, knowing that the most powerful strength is in his supreme hand. For the understanding of this matter is an excellent thing.

*If horses shall run upon rocks? Shall they be silent in females? For you have turned judgment into fury, and the fruit of justice into bitterness.*

^B LXIV. He exhorts us again, and warns that he will strike the great house with breakings, and the smaller house with clefts, even if this is to happen by the hand of the Assyrians, saying: *If horses shall run upon rocks?* For it is the same as if he were to say clearly: The horse is an arrogant animal, and most apt for running; but the place fit for his running is not one that is stony and full of mounds, but bare and level. Thus the Assyrians shall pursue you, although you were once a people rough and, as it were, stony, and never subdued by any enemy. But it is God whom you have despised, who makes hard and impassable places accessible and horse-traversable for enemies. Furthermore, just as horses would not cease to desire, and, upon seeing females, ^C being incited by the spurs of nature, leaping upon them; so the enemies shall not be at rest, but will rush against those guilty of impiety with a certain most fervent and unbridled impetus: and the cause of this matter is you, and no one else. For you have perverted my just judgment concerning you into fury, he says, and instead of having fruits of justice—the purveyor of all your cheer—you have driven it toward anger, having impiously embraced things worthy of bitterness. For the God of all was showing mercy, as he did to Israel struggling in Egypt; but they have not ceased to provoke him. And this, I think, is the meaning of: *You have turned judgment into fury.* Therefore the crime of ingratitude is indeed terrible; and it is punished, and most justly so. For how could it not bring destruction upon us, to foolishly incite to anger him whom it was better to soften further by blessings and to gladden with thanksgivings?

VERS. 14, 15. *Who rejoice in no word. Who say, Have we not taken to ourselves horns by our own strength? For behold, I will raise up against you, O house of Israel, ^D a nation, saith the Lord God of hosts, and they shall afflict you, that you may not enter into Emath, and unto the torrent of the desert.*

LXV. *You have turned,* he says, *judgment into fury, and the fruit of justice into bitterness,* you who think great things of yourselves, and lift high your eyebrow against God, who rejoice in a vain and senseless word. For you have said that I did not grant you your strength, and your ability to conquer your enemies. But relying on your own powers, you have dared to say boastfully: *Have we not taken to ourselves horns by our own strength?* This is on a par with someone foolishly saying, as if counting those who have been captured as nothing: We ourselves have been the masters, and we shall overcome our enemies, and even if God should not wish to protect us, we shall conquer, and concerning our works so splendidly

^A performed, we ought to boast, attributing nothing at all to God. Pride, therefore, and insolence against God is a frame of mind and a matter so senseless. But David was most wise, in that he ascribed the glory to the God who is Lord over all, saying: "For thou art the glory of their strength" (Ps. LXXXVIII, 18). And again: "In thee shall we push down our enemies" (Ps. XLIII, 6). For all strength is from Him, and nothing of note could be achieved by us if He were not present and presiding. "For the Lord crushes wars," as Scripture has it (Osee II, 18). Since, therefore, he says, you are found to have fallen into such a state of arrogance and unbridled speech, "Behold, I will bring upon you a nation"—clearly, that of the Assyrians—"and they shall oppress you," so that you may not enter into Emath and as far as the torrent of the West. Now Emath is one of the eastern cities, at that time subject to the kingdom of Damascus. It has now undergone a change of name, as I said, to Antioch, or Epiphaneia. By the "torrent of the West" he understands the river of the Egyptians, since Egypt looks toward the western part of Judea. Because the Israelites had a custom, when war was about to break out, of asking for help sometimes from Damascus and the Syrians, and sometimes of slipping into the region of the Egyptians, he says for this reason he will stir up a nation against them. And it will come with great power, bringing upon them such distress that they will henceforth be able to enter neither into Emath nor unto the torrent of the West; that is, they will be unable to summon the forces of Damascus or those of Egypt to bring them aid. "For when God shuts, who shall open?" as Scripture says (Isa. XXII, 22). What manner of salvation will there be, when He who has power over all is driving them to destruction? ^B

CHAP. VII.

VERS. 1-3. "Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me: and behold a swarm of locusts coming in the morning; and behold the bruchus was Gog the king. And it shall come to pass, if he shall have made an end of eating the grass of the land," and I said: "Lord, Lord, be merciful. Who shall raise up Jacob? for he is small. Repent, O Lord, concerning this. And this shall not be, saith the Lord."

LXVI. Whether the nation is one to be sent against the Israelites, or what slaughter it is about to bring upon them, he reveals to the prophet. He accommodates himself, however, to his habits, and through things he knows, he precisely teaches what is to come. For the locust and the bruchus are always thought by shepherds to be, and are in truth, a most grievous thing. For as the grass is shorn away by them, it follows of necessity that the flocks perish from hunger. Therefore, as a shepherd, God indicates to the prophet the calamities to be received through war. For under the species of the locust He signifies the Assyrian, as one who, by his immense multitude, is almost consuming and devouring the land. He calls it "morning-borne," falling like dew, and spread out over the land like snow in a dense mass. "But it was not the bruchus," he says; "but this was Gog the king." Then, when he says ^C

^A God says, "And it shall be when he finishes eating the grass of the land"—that is to say, when he has consumed the pastoral multitude, that which is in Samaria, evidently, and in the city of Judea—and then, as if about to add something else, the prophet interrupts, begging him to stay his wrath, saying: "Lord, be propitious. Who shall raise up Jacob? For he is very small." For if you wish, he says, in the manner I have seen, to hand over Israel to the enemy for devouring, he is utterly small. To these things God [replies]: "And this shall not happen, says the Lord. I would not cease, he says, nor would I relax. For I would by no means desist from chastising the impious."

But investigating necessarily, who in the world Gog is, we say this: that even Ezekiel writes a lament over him, at God's command. We suppose it to be Sennacherib, when, while Rabsaces was insulting God, an angel of God went forth ^B and in one night slaughtered one hundred and eighty-five thousand. I shall necessarily mention what was written about him by the voice of Ezekiel: "Thus says the Lord to Gog: 'Thou art he of whom I spoke in the days of old, by the hand of my servants the prophets of Israel, in those days and years, to bring thee upon them.'" Do you hear how he says he is the one, and no other, whom he threatened through the holy prophets that he would bring against those of Israel? And that he paid the price for his insolent speech, and having supposed he would prevail, was unexpectedly destroyed and fell in the land of Israel—this he signifies again, saying: "And thou, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say: 'Behold, I will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel, and thou shalt fall, and all [thy forces] with thee, and I will give to Gog a place of renown, a monument in Israel, and the house of Israel shall bury them.'" For when the Assyrians had fallen, who are perhaps signified by Gog, the multitude of those from Israel buried the dead, so that the intolerable ^C stench might not ruin cities and regions with its foulness.

"Thus did the Lord show me. And behold, the Lord called for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great abyss, and it devoured the portion. And I said: 'Lord God, cease, I pray. Who shall raise up Jacob? For he is small. Repent, Lord, concerning this.' And this shall not happen, says the Lord."

LXVII.

that arrogant one surrounded. But when the ^A prophet again sought to soothe the Lord of all, and persuaded Him to repent, that is, to change His counsel, He Himself replied, “This shall not be.” What then shall we learn from this again? That sins beyond what can be expressed provoke God, however patient He may be, to severe anger, and render the prayers of the saints all but ineffectual. And indeed He said to Jeremiah concerning those of Israel: “Do not approach Me for them, for I will not listen to you.”

325 Vers. 6-9. *Thus the Lord showed me. And behold, the Lord standing upon an adamantine wall, and in His hand an adamant. And the Lord said to me: What do you see, Amos? And I said: An adamant. And He said to me: Behold, I am placing an adamant in the midst of My people Israel. I will no longer pass by them. And the altars of laughter shall be destroyed, and the festivities of Israel shall be laid waste, and I shall rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.*

^B LXVIII. Since God had shown the Assyrian, or Gog, as he was, like the locust and the bruchus, and as a judgment in fire, to the prophet, He now shows Himself standing upon an adamantine wall, that by this it may be understood that He has risen, so to speak, or is walking upon an ineffable power, and possesses an unshakable security in His own good things. For nothing is stronger than the divine majesty, and it has a firm support; since it knows not how to change: being superior to every change, and rejoicing in the everlasting stability of its own good things. It is seen, therefore, standing upon an adamantine wall. Now, among stones, the adamant cannot be broken or subdued by any force: it does not endure to yield to hard things that are accustomed to resist, nor does it suffer itself to be broken by any other material of the hardness it possesses, being perhaps also accustomed to disregard the vigor of fire. Since, however, He who stood upon the wall and held the adamant in His hand asked the prophet: “What do you see, Amos?” and as he saw and answered what it was—for he said, “An adamant”—He affirmed clearly that He would place this in the midst of Israel. ^C By the name of adamant you will understand either the fierce and unbroken Assyrian, and one appointed for this by God (for the Lord of hosts strengthens whomsoever He may choose), or certainly the unbroken and most robust word of God, which cannot return empty, or lack effect. For that which God has spoken will run to its conclusion, with absolutely no one to hinder it. So also the Lord says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” He says soon that He will no longer pass by Israel, that is, that He will exact penalties for their impious deeds, and will no longer tolerate them, and will henceforth deliver them to those called against them to power, together with their shrines, altars, and idols. For He says, “The altars of laughter shall be destroyed.” For the making of any idol whatsoever is truly a laughter. ^D In my judgment, however, we may properly and specifically understand “laughter” to be Beelphegor,

on account of the deformity of its very shape. ^A He inveighs against the entire fashioning of idols, as if it were all derived from this one thing—the foulest of all. Therefore, the altars shall be pulled down, and at the same time the festivals of Israel shall be taken away; that is, the childish toys of idolatry, and the profane and detestable mysteries. He clearly foretells that Jeroboam, illustrious in the glories of the kingdom, will go away with his own gods into exile. But we must remember that the one of whom we are now speaking is different from the first. For the former was the son of Nabat, but this one was born of Joas; and these things in the meantime will be in agreement with history.

Now [the prophet] will show that the true diamond is Christ, the Lord of hosts, who possesses an unconquerable and invincible strength, who crushes His enemies and conquers those who stand against Him, and who can be shattered by no one. This one, as a choice stone, has been set in the midst of the people. ^B For “He appeared on the earth, and lived among men.” Therefore, he is also called Emmanuel by the voice of the prophet, which is interpreted as “God with us.” For He was with us when He became man, like us. Being set among us by God the Father as a diamond stone, He overthrew the tyranny of the devil and truly caused the altars of laughter to vanish. For as soon as Emmanuel shone forth and spread the light of true knowledge to all those under heaven, He showed Himself to us as the image and likeness of the Father. Then—yes, then—He dispelled the darkness of the ancient deception, and the very author of the deception, namely Satan, ^C fell, and that profane and God-hated idolatry was taken from the midst.

VERS. 10, 11. *And Amasias the priest sent to Bethel to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: Amos is making conspiracies against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land cannot bear all his words. For thus saith Amos: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be led away captive out of their own land.*

LXX. Falsehood is always infirm by itself, and the feet of deception rest upon a ruinous foundation. Therefore, it is mocked, as it can barely subsist with external aid, such as this which exists in idolatry. For there were among them, as it were, the toys of drunkards: golden calves, the works of a metalworker, as it is written, “they are the work of the hands of men,” and the invention of impious endeavors. ^D But truly the blessed prophets call those who are entangled in deceptions to health. The ministers of idols, on the other hand, as if their whole stage had been demolished, are not a little indignant; they cast about terrors, lamenting the repentance of those who had been led astray. For they know that a keen and vigilant mind looks upon the profanation of divine worship among them not without distress. That profane Amasias, therefore, feared lest, by the word of the prophet,

^A those who had been persuaded to worship the golden calves might have their eyes opened to a better understanding, and he himself might slip from his priestly duties, and the idols within the shrines might perish along with the shrines themselves. For this reason, he tries to incite Jeroboam, saying that Amos is all but rising up against his kingdom, and he dares to speak words that were now considered somehow intolerable and heavy, namely that he, the king, would die by the sword, and Israel would go into captivity.

The wretched Jews did something similar, contriving slanders against Christ. For when, by his miraculous works, he was astonishing Judea and calling all to himself, those miserable men, having their hearts inflamed by the fires of envy, brought him before Pilate, and added besides: "If you do not kill this man, you are no friend of Caesar." ^B Such are the attempts of all who fight against piety and against the saints, and the infirmity of falsehood, sick everywhere, comes to similar undertakings.

VERS. 12, 13. *And Amasias said to Amos, saying: Seer, go, depart into the land of Juda, and live there, and there you shall prophesy. But at Bethel you shall not add to prophesy anymore, because it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the house of the kingdom.*

LXX. Henceforth he is clearly shameless, and he sets his envy in battle array, as it were, against the divine words. For he calls the prophet "Seer," yet not for the sake of honor, nor to venerate him with the title of prophecy, but as though he were disgracing him as one of the false prophets, he orders him to depart into the land of Juda. ^C But by adding that, "Live there," he says in effect: If you desire base gain, and are seeking to scrape together what is necessary for sustaining life by whispering little charms into ears to soothe them, then leave Samaria, speak to the tribe of Juda, and do not prophesy in Bethel. "For it is the king's sanctuary." By "sanctuary," he means "consecrated," or rather, a place of consecration. For there the first Jeroboam set up the golden calf. And referring the crime of the prophet, as it were, to the honor of the ruler, he says: "It is the king's house. But you disturb the royal affairs, you stir up tumults, resisting the will of the rulers with unbridled audacity." See, therefore, how clearly true is that which was said by God to Israel: "You were giving the sanctified ones wine to drink, and to my prophets you were giving orders, saying: You shall not prophesy." ^D

VERS. 14-17. *And Amos answered and said to Amasias: I was not a prophet, nor a son of a prophet, but I was a goat-herd, nipping sycamores. And the Lord took me from the sheep, and the Lord said to me: Go, and prophesy to the house of Israel. And now hear the word of the Lord. You say: You shall not prophesy to Israel, and you shall not trouble the house of Jacob. Therefore*

thus says the Lord: Your wife shall commit fornication in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword. And your land shall be measured with a line, and you shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall be led away captive from his land. Thus the Lord showed me.

^A LXXI. When the practitioners of wickedness heap insults upon the good, they are accusing their own morals and, while making the baseness of their own sins manifest, they think they are harming others. But they deceive themselves, and as if on a tablet they depict what kind of people they are and show themselves to others. We find this now happening to this senseless Amaziah. For, being a false prophet and sitting by the altars of idols, and gathering portions and the remnants of the sacrifices, and being willingly and gladly overcome by shameful gain, he reproached Amos and bade him depart, as a seer, from Samaria, and depart, if he wished, into the land of Judah, and there be established. ^B "For there," he says, "you will prophesy easily, and by deceiving many you will scrape together what is necessary for life, and you will find there a livelihood that is more than sufficient." That expression "live there" implies some such meaning. But the prophet endeavors to teach that this was not his goal, nor did he look to gain, but rather, as one submissive to the will of the Lord, he fulfilled the ministry of a prophet; and he does so most rightly, saying that he was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, nor in any way his disciple, I mean according to the spirit, just as certainly were Elisha and Elijah. But he was a goatherd, living a rustic, simple, and guileless life, having very little for food, and being content with the things that grow in the fields, which no one would even buy—and these were sycamores. For the masters of the flocks, being idle, take to the shades of the trees, and as if mocking the vices that usually arise from leisure, they pluck the fruits, and satisfy the need of their belly as far as they are able. "But as for me," he says, "while I was occupied in these things, God made me a prophet according to His own will, and commanded me to expound to those of the blood of Israel the things that were coming upon them, and the things that were soon to be. ^C But you, setting your own will against the divine commands from above, command me to be silent. Therefore, 'thus says the Lord: Your wife shall commit fornication in the city'—and it is clear that she will be subject to the insults of the citizens and, whether she wills it or not, will endure the incontinence of those lustful men who have her—'and your children also shall be destroyed, having become the work of the sword. And in addition to this, your land shall be measured with lines,' that is, it shall be tributary, and shall pay taxes to him who has conquered it. But you, in addition to these things, O you who now think that you have a holy Bethel and a sanctuary of the king, you shall go away a captive, and shall die in miseries, never to return. For how, or whence, since you shall have remained dead in a foreign region and in the unclean land of the enemies? And Israel himself shall also depart a captive, having chosen you as a prophet and an overseer of holy things to the contrary." It is, therefore, full of danger to resist the divine command and to walk inconsiderately, and to forbid those who are holy to interpret the things that are pleasing to God, to whom also from Him

^A it has been said: “And he who touches you is as one who touches the pupil of his eye.” ^B Observe, moreover, how single and worthy of admiration is the purpose set before the saints, namely, that one should serve the words of God, I say, without fear, and should consider human affairs as of no account, even if some bring wars and tribulations upon them. For the blessed Amos, having utterly disregarded the stupidity of Amaziah, not only did not keep silent but, moreover, forcefully hurled a condemnation back upon him. The divine disciples, too, when the Pharisees and Scribes had at one time commanded silence upon them, said openly: “Whether it is just in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge. For we cannot but speak of the things which we have seen and heard.”

CHAPTER VIII

VERS. 1-3. Thus did the Lord show me. And behold, a fowler’s basket. And the Lord said: What do you see, Amos? And I said: A fowler’s basket. And the Lord said to me: The end has come upon my people, Israel; I will not pass them by anymore. And the ceilings of the temple will howl in that day, says the Lord. Many are the corpses. In every place I will cast silence.

^C LXXI. The prophet’s thoughts return again, as it is said, and when those things which had once been brought into his mind have received for themselves a sufficient narration, the order of the visions proceeds to the purpose appropriate to it. He saw, therefore, the forces of the Assyrians like a morning brood of locusts, and with them Gog—that is, Sennacherib—described as a bruchus (a type of locust), because that insect covers a great deal of the earth with great force. ^D Such is a man who is arrogant, who always jumps to what is high and refuses to associate with the humble. He saw also judgment called down as if in fire. Furthermore, he saw the adamant placed in the midst of Israel by Him who stood upon the adamantine wall. What then? Moreover, it was a fowler’s basket or instrument. But what I said in the beginning, I will say again: that to a prophet raised in a coarser setting, God reveals mysteries through those things which happen most of all in the countryside. For fowlers, and the things caught by them—namely, birds—would not suit city dwellers so well as those whose zeal and scope of life are in the countryside and what is to be found there. But that they would be caught in every way and altogether for slaughter, just as by the hand of those accustomed to fowling, the power of the visions signifies—both the common people and the selected nobility of Samaria, I mean the arrogant, who are accustomed to be borne on high like birds—under a certain covering of the vision. For it was a fowler’s basket that was seen. Therefore, the Lord of all says: “The end has come upon my people, Israel, and I will not pass over their crimes anymore.” Furthermore, he shows that the temple itself, which possesses the golden calf in Bethel, is to be burned.

saying that ^A “the laquearia [paneled ceilings] of the temple shall howl in that day.” By the name “paneled ceilings,” he understands the roof, and the laquearia, or the cornices wrought with great craft and variety around the roof itself, according to that saying: “Our rafters are cedars; our paneled ceilings are cypresses.” He says the paneled ceilings will howl, not indeed emitting an articulate voice, but rather a sound and the screeching of breaking. Since many will fall, he says, “I will cast silence into every place.” For since every place will henceforth be brought to desolation and will not have inhabitants, there will be much silence, or rest, just as in solitary and impassable lands. The God of the universe will in no way lack a plan if he should choose to punish sinners; but the modes of chastisements will be supplied to him, and no one will hinder him as he brings on irritation and punishments. However, he who shakes off wrath by means of repentance will escape, transferring to himself the gentleness of the Lord, who is kind and merciful.

VOLUME FOURTH.

^A VERS. 4-6. Hear this, you who oppress the poor in the morning, and crush the beggars from the earth, saying: “When will the month pass, and we shall sell; and the Sabbaths, and we shall open the treasure, that we may make the measure small, and make the weight great, and make a dishonest balance, to possess the beggars in silver, and the poor for the sake of shoes, and we shall trade in every sale?”

LXXIII. A Pharisee once asked the Lord which he considered the first and great commandment. He received the answer that this was the first commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God.” The second, and joined to it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” One may also see the most holy Paul ^B placing almost every kind of virtue in charity, and not hesitating to affirm it to be greater than faith and hope, and clearly confessing that he who lacks it is nothing, even if he distributes his possessions to the needy, even if he gives his body to be burned by persecutors. Therefore, whatever is great and worthy of hearing in us will surely proceed from charity toward God and the brethren. But if anyone should depart entirely from the laws of charity, and be seen as partaking of none of the good things flowing from it, he himself will be utterly useless, and could not unjustly be considered as entangled in every wickedness: for where no zeal for obtaining the good is applied, there ^C vice must necessarily sprout. Observe, therefore, the economy and the distribution and the order of the whole discourse. For having previously accused Ephraim, that is, Israel, of ungodliness, and having declared him a worshiper of calves, and one not possessing love for the one and natural God, because of his attachment to loving the works of his own hands,

^A he manifests him as truly unholy, and as one who has in every way spared no love for his neighbor. He brings his rebuke generally and very clearly, and although still briefly, he nevertheless enumerates the crimes. Therefore he says: "Hear this, you who tread upon the poor in the morning and oppress the needy of the earth." It is as if he were saying: The word is directed to you, who are extremely eager, as it were, to wipe the weak and the poor from the earth, and to act as tyrants in the morning. For those who are lovers of the moderation that is according to God, as the day shines upon them, offer thanksgiving to God, they worship, they pray, and they turn their efforts toward every praiseworthy thing. But those who look only to oppressing others, and who deem it a task most desirable—thinking that there is nothing equivalent to the necessity of enriching themselves—to jump out of bed as soon as dawn breaks and set their minds to their customary wickedness, and to see whom they might defraud in order to surpass them in wealth; they, whether they like it or not, complain almost of the intervening night, since it cuts off for them the time suitable for exercising their avarice. These people say: "When will the month pass, and we shall sell?" This is the prayer of those who lend at interest ^B and wish to become wealthy in a short time, these infamous and sordid men, who are always thirsting for the end of the month, so that by accumulating a little upon a little, they might make their trade more substantial, and by impiously heaping interest upon interest, they might oppress the weaker ones, even though the law clearly says: "And if you lend money to your neighbor, you shall not press him, nor shall you impose interest upon him." But these say: "When will the month pass, and we shall sell?" Others, again, entangled in equal or even worse maladies, and subdued by the desire for sordid gain, say again: "When will the Sabbaths pass, and we shall open the treasuries, to make the measure small, and to make the shekel large, and to make the balance unjust?" ^C And it is necessary to explain what this is, or the passage of which Sabbaths they are seeking, that they might open the treasuries, and make the measure small, and enlarge the weights, and make an unjust balance. It is therefore written in Deuteronomy: "At the end of seven years you shall make a remission. And this is the ordinance of the remission. You shall release every debt which your neighbor owes you, and from your brother you shall not exact it, because the remission is named for the Lord your God. From a foreigner you shall exact whatever you have with him. To your brother you shall make a remission of your debt." And further on, He admonishes in this manner: "Take heed to yourself, lest there be a hidden word in your heart, an iniquity, saying: The year, the seventh year, the year of remission, approaches, and your eye be evil toward your brother who is in need, and you do not give to him, and he shall cry out against you to the Lord, and it shall be a great sin in you." ^D Since, therefore, the Law commanded the cutting off of debts, as if in the years of the Sabbath (for it commanded that the time of payment be fulfilled in the seventh year), and then reminded them that it is not...

to be demanded but rather lent to those in need. Even if the year of remission did not appear to be far off, those who had many and abundant treasures, by withholding their hand, were eager to await the Sabbaths of the years, which were already before the doors; and only then did they lend, so that the debt, or pecuniary obligation, might not be subject to the periods of remission. These men say, "When will the Sabbaths pass (it is clear that they mean the years), and we shall open our treasures?" ^B Nor did their impiety stop here, but they also leaped upon the miseries of those who had fared poorly—with no consideration of mutual love—using small measures in that which they sold, while they received payment back not by equal weights, but by those that were larger, and far heavier than the former, although the Lord says through Moses, "There shall not be in your pouch a weight and a weight, large and small. There shall not be in your house a measure and a measure, large and small. A true and just weight shall be yours, that you may be long-lived upon the earth which the Lord your God gives you in possession, for every one who does this, every one who commits injustice, is an abomination to the Lord your God." But there was no concern for justice with them. Looking only to their own avarice, they wore down the poor, all but devouring the wretched, and treating them as under their heels, according to what is written: "For the pastures of the rich are the poor." But the writer of Proverbs benefits us not a little, saying, "Let the heart of a man think just things, that his steps may be directed by God. For the ways of a man are before the eyes of God, and He contemplates all his paths." ^C Since, therefore, God is watching and strictly scrutinizing each of our affairs, it is necessary for those who are truly good and wise to make their paths straight, and to consider nothing equal to the love toward God and toward one’s brothers. Love toward God indeed has a sincere and unshakable faith; but that toward brothers is coupled with the glory of justice. For if love is true, it does no harm to one's neighbor. And I maintain that those who have chosen to be of good repute, and who lead a life most consistent with the laws, ought to put on bowels of mercy, and to show themselves most invincible against the accursed greed of gain, and to offer their own possessions to those in need. For whoever has thus kept the law of love will be illustrious and worthy of emulation both before God and men. For it is written, "He has dispersed, he has given to the poor; his justice remains forever and ever." ^D "The Lord swears by the pride of Jacob, if all his works shall be forgotten to the end. And for these things shall not the earth be troubled? And shall not everyone who dwells in it mourn? And destruction shall rise up like a river, and shall go down like the river of Egypt."

LXXIV. God lays a charge of pride against the descendants of Jacob—that they have spared themselves the divine laws, and have trampled upon even the very love toward brothers. Therefore He swears by the proud ones of Jacob. We do not say, however, that the God of all takes the pride of certain ones as the subject of His oath.

^A He swears by it, that is, He determines the penalty due to it. But what, pray, is it that He swears? That He will no longer pass over their crimes, and will not tolerate them to the end. For this is, I suppose, what He means by "unto victory"—namely, always, and tending unto victory. Then He asks, since the oblivion of the things impiously committed by them has been taken away, how it can come about that the land is not filled with tumult, with enemies overrunning it, and they themselves lamenting because of a bitter and inevitable calamity. And what is this calamity? "For a finishing," He says, "shall ascend upon them like the river of Egypt," overturning everything, and flooding the whole land of Samaria with many and irresistible currents. It will descend likewise, dragging along everything it encounters, and sparing absolutely no one. ^B For Sennacherib ascended against them with an army of many thousands, like a river flooding the land, and bringing everything under his power. He departed again to his own kingdom, dragging away with him a very great and innumerable multitude of captives. If, therefore, we despise God, we shall find our own interior forces to be our adversaries, and we shall experience a certain tumult and sorrow, being in a way plundered by them, and as if compelled into servile servitude. For they will attack us like an irresistible water, dragging us down into ruin and drowning us in destruction. But rivers will not enclose us, as it is written, nor will the deep absorb us, nor will a storm drown those who desire to please God. Then, yes, then—manfully escaping the frauds of the demons, and greatly despising their wickedness—with joy we shall say: "If it had not been that the Lord was among us, perhaps they would have swallowed us up alive." And again: "Our soul has passed through the torrent, the intolerable water." For although the water of diabolical vexation is intolerable and impregnable to our souls—the inundation, that is, through the passions—yet in Christ we shall be able. For we shall cross over the assault of his malice as one would cross a torrent. ^C

VERS. 9, 10. And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, the sun shall set at noon, and the light shall darken in the day. And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentations, and I will bring sackcloth upon every loin, and baldness upon every head. And I will set him as the mourning of a beloved One, and those with him as a day of sorrow.

LXXV. These words contain a double meaning. For it is almost always the custom for the holy prophets, especially at the end of their words, to remember God, and to set forth more clearly the mystery concerning Him, which was until then obscure and hidden. Come, therefore, embracing both, let us speak of those things that are consistent. We shall bring forward in the first place what follows from the stated words, and afterwards we shall adapt the meaning of these words to the explanation concerning Christ. For on that day, in which... ^D

^A the consummation against the entire land of the Samaritans shall dwell, like the river of Egypt, all the inhabitants of the land, so to speak, shall be overwhelmed by a terrible and deep darkness, with the sun in a way setting, and this at midday. And we do not mean that the light of the sun has actually set, but that the calamity from the war has become, as it were, darkness for those who dwell in Samaria. For great and overwhelming grief, when it arises, muddies the mind and darkens the heart with things that happen contrary to expectation and unforeseen, and the bitterness of these mournful events produces a kind of haze and fog in the hearts of those who suffer. Therefore, he says, they shall see darkness, even if by chance the sun should be at its zenith.

And they who once celebrated brilliantly with strings and lyres, and always made use of the most melodious of songs, will abstain ^B from such pursuits, and will lament all the more, and will practice songs of mourning, and will take up the appearance of mourners, I mean sackcloth and shaving of the bald. It is, however, extremely shameful to be made bare of hair on the head. And indeed, Job shaved his hair when his children had perished. “And I will make,” he says, “Jacob as the mourning for a beloved one,” that is, those who see him will be so saddened over him as if a mother or father were lying over an only beloved child. “And those with him as a day of grief,” that is, those from the neighbors of Judah and Benjamin, who together with Ephraim had served idols, and had been with him in this manner, it is understood, in this way, as having a day of grief and found as though they were in labor pains, and I mean by labor pains, those arising from terrors, and grief, and pains. ^C For Sennacherib, having ravaged Samaria, took all their cities. Then he sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, who threatened terrible things to those on the wall. And he so shattered those in Jerusalem with despair that they expected to perish immediately along with those in Samaria. Then indeed, then Hezekiah the king, having become exceedingly sorrowful, sent to Isaiah saying: “A day of tribulation, and of reproach, and of rebuke, and of wrath is this day, because the pangs have come to the one who is bringing forth, but she has no strength to bring forth.” Therefore, he speaks of the pains from the pangs and grief as a day of grief. They were, therefore, in a day of grief, expecting to perish, those in Jerusalem who had been with Ephraim, in the manner, I mean, of idolatry. And these things I have said as being apposite and fitting for those who at that time provoked ^D the Lord of all to anger.

One might, nevertheless, adapt these things no less to those who acted wickedly against Emmanuel at the time when He walked among men on the earth. For they are the ones who “crush the poor in the morning,” that is, those who are eager to reject living according to the law, and who proceed to nothing else perhaps, than the destruction of the just man, and dare to consider as nothing that which is very clearly defined by the divine commandments, and to enrich themselves

^A in a manner which they themselves might choose, at the expense of those who are weaker. They might also be the ones saying: "When will the month be over?" and what follows. For that the Scribes and Pharisees were excessively fond of money and greedy for gain, we might know in many ways by applying our mind to the evangelical writings. For Christ counselled those who hold dear the equity that is according to God to appear willingly free from infamous gain and from all avarice. He even exhorted them to go further, and to succour the needy, and to distribute their possessions. But what does the evangelist say? "Now the Scribes and Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they scoffed at him." Therefore, it may rightly be said also regarding them: "The Lord swears against the proud of Jacob, if their works shall be forgotten forever." For it is truly pride to disregard even the divine laws, and what is more burdensome than this, to behave wantonly against Christ himself. For this reason, therefore, their transgressions do not pass into oblivion; but a "consummation" has, as it ^B were, "come up over them," and the war of the Romans inundates them like a river. And since they delivered the Lord of all to the cross, the sun set upon them, and the light was darkened. "For there was darkness from the sixth hour until the ninth hour." And to the Jews this was a clear sign and argument of the darkening, in an intellectual sense, of the souls of those who crucified Him. "For a hardening in part has happened to Israel." And as the divine Paul writes: "Until today, when Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart." David also cursed them out of love for God, saying thus: "Let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see, and bow down their back always." And that they have also mourned, having turned, as it were, their feasts into sorrow, can be made clear by Christ himself speaking to the women weeping for Him as He was being led away to be crucified: ^C "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." For they lamented when they perished together with the city and the divine temple, while the Romans were consuming everything with fire. "I will set him," therefore—meaning clearly the Emmanuel—"as the mourning of a beloved, and those with him as a day of pain." For those who had believed mourned Jesus who had been crucified. "And the women who were lamenting stood at a distance," and creation itself mourned its own Master. For the sun was being darkened, the rocks were being split, and the temple itself fulfilled the figure of those who mourn, the veil being torn "from top to bottom." And God signified something of this kind to us through the voice of Isaiah, saying: "And I will clothe the heaven, he says, and I will set sackcloth as its covering." Therefore, the mourning over Him was as for a beloved. And those with Him, that is to say, ^D the disciples, are set "unto a day of pain." For that they themselves have also mourned,

^A there is no room for doubt. For when the women were in sorrow, they announced the resurrection of Christ to them. Then, at last, and barely regaining their senses, they ran to the tomb; and perhaps Isaiah, in the Spirit, speaks concerning these women who brought the good tidings of the resurrection: "Women coming from the sight, come; for it is not a people having understanding," the Jewish people, that is to say; "therefore He who made them will not have pity on them."

"Behold, the days are coming, saith the Lord, and I will send a famine upon the earth, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. And water shall be shaken from sea to sea, and from the north even unto the east they shall run about, seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it."

^B LXXVI. It is written: "O Lord, in tribulation I remembered Thee; in small tribulation is Thy correction to us." The divine David, knowing that tribulation is a most excellent and fruitful thing, at one time said, "In my tribulation I called upon the Lord"; and at another time, again, "It is good for me, O Lord, that Thou hast humbled me, that I may learn Thy justifications." For tribulations make us more cautious, and they deliver us from the snares of sloth; they urge us to love moderate ways, and reduce the unbridled and the unruly, as if by necessity and fear, to the yokes of holiness and obedience. ^C When Samaria had been laid waste, therefore, he says, and the Babylonian had set the cities on fire, even if some should wish to learn what the will of God might be, and by doing or saying what they might obtain mercy from Him, so as to escape His wrath, there shall not be, he says, anyone left to teach them. For I will bring upon them a famine of the words from God, so that there shall be found strictly no prophet at all, even if they should run from the west to the east, or if they should run from the south to the north. Similar to this is that which was said by God to the prophet Ezekiel: "And I will bind thy tongue to thy throat, and thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a man that rebuketh, because it is a provoking house." For those who have once spurned the word from God, even if they should want to receive it afterward, would not justly be able to do so. He calls the "shaken waters" the ^D infinite multitude of the Jews, as having become embroiled in tumults, and henceforth like to the waves in the sea, which are driven everywhere by the onsets of the winds.

In another way, too. When Christ was crucified, the wretched Jews experienced a famine of the words from God. For there is no longer among them a prophet, nor a teacher accurate and diligent, who knows how to thin out the thickness of the Mosaic history and to draw forth the mysteries buried under the letters. For they would not endure Christ saying, "I am the bread of life, which came down from heaven, and giveth life to the world." They heard, therefore, in turn, Him saying through the voice of Isaiah: "Behold, My servants shall eat, but you will be hungry. Behold, My servants shall drink, you...

will be thirsty." ^A For it is true, as it is written: "The Lord will not slay the soul of the righteous with hunger; but He will subvert the life of the ungodly," not imparting to them the divine word, which nurtures and feeds the soul for the desire of virtue. For as the Savior Himself has said: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

"In that day the fair virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst. They who swear by the propitiation of Samaria, and say: Thy God, O Dan, liveth, and thy God, O Bersabee, liveth; and they shall fall, and shall not rise again."

^B LXXVII. The discourse has an emphatic meaning, or signifies more than is said, namely, that their sons and daughters will be snatched away by enemies; for virgins and young men signify this. For we know that those who are accustomed to taking captives mostly seek to capture this age group. But these words seem to us to hint at another hidden meaning. There were certain virgins dwelling in the shrines of idols, and with them young men, or prepubescent boys, through whom those who were more curious thought they could learn answers from demons regarding magic. For, as if inviting them to undefiled bodies, they prepared them to elicit an answer from them by clandestine whispers. Some say that even to this day certain unholy people want to divine in the same manner as they did. Therefore, that Israel will lack not only the word of God ^C given through the holy prophets, which is useful and necessary for the amendment of morals, but even that which was given by the false prophets, that is, the demons, through virgins and children to certain people, he hints at, saying: "In that day the fair virgins shall faint." As if he were to say: "Together with others, thy fair virgins also shall perish." Furthermore, he mocks those who, together with the girls, also swear by the boys by "the propitiation of Samaria." For perhaps it was their custom to swear by the gods in Samaria—that is, by the calves—mocking God, perhaps, by attributing His power and divinity to carved images, saying: "Thy God, O Dan, liveth, and thy God, O Bersabee, liveth." These are cities situated in the extreme borders of Judea, which, from the south toward the sea, ^D defined the region, as it were. It is, therefore, just as if those who were swearing happened to say, "The god of the land of Judea liveth," that is, the calf. For through the extremities, the middle and the whole is implied. He says, moreover, that the virgins and young men will faint in thirst, no longer receiving the lying suggestions and instincts of demons, because they also have fallen into the hands of foreigners, or have fallen by the sword, or have undergone an inglorious and intolerable captivity.

After Christ was lifted up on the cross and set for the Jews, together with this worldly sun and the light that comes under the senses, they were also deprived of the radiance which the intellect alone perceives, and of the illumination of the Spirit. For the word of God and the heavenly...

^A way of life, the virgins along with the young men—that is to say, the beautiful and approved souls—have lost their comfort. They have failed, the virgins along with the youths, meaning that both their incorruption through virginity and the firmness of their powers and most perfect strength through their youth have withered away. For who among them is holy, since "the law can make no one perfect," nor did it suffice for them unto righteousness? Among whom, therefore, of them would there be spiritual strength and a sound mind, when they have not known the brilliant achievements of the evangelical way of life? For were they not all slothful, and their mind relaxed in sins? How, then, is this a matter of doubt? They have failed, therefore, in thirst. And yet, the saying was not addressed to them: "You shall draw water from the well of the Savior." Nay, rather, He even commanded the clouds not to rain a shower upon them, because they did not become obedient even to Him, to Christ, who cried out: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me, and drink." But having abandoned Him, although He is the fountain of life, "they have dug for themselves broken cisterns that will not be able to hold water." For they have attended to the teachings and commandments of men, which have no power to give drink unto life, nor yet to preserve those who resort to them unto salvation.

CHAPTER IX

VERS. 1. I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and He said: Strike the propitiatory, and the vestibules shall be shaken, and cut them into the heads of all. And the rest of them I will kill with the sword.

^B LXXVIII. The blessed prophets, having the eye of their understanding illumined by the torch of the Spirit, not only grasp the knowledge of future things, but also sometimes seeing the actions themselves as if depicted on a tablet, they themselves are struck with wonder at the spectacle, and they strive to attain a power of declaration by visions so that those who hear might be affected in the same way as they are. The divine Amos, therefore, says: "And the Lord said to me, The end has come upon my people Israel; I will no longer pass them by, and the panels of the temple shall howl in that day, says the Lord. Many are the corpses; in every place I will cast ^C silence." But behold, what was foretold is seen, and proved by the very events themselves. For he says that he saw the Lord Himself standing upon the propitiatory, or altar, as though beginning the catastrophe, and commanding this very thing to be done. He stood upon the altar, not bestowing honor upon it, for it would be foolish to think so; since it is most absurd to suppose and say that God would bestow reverence and honor upon the altars of idols. And how, by any means, would He have honored the altar of the calves? He stood upon it, rather, as one about to destroy and overthrow it. Therefore, He almost commanded the prophet to make a beginning of the destruction, saying: "Strike the altar, and the vestibules shall be shaken," ^D and let the temple now be loosened, as if soon to fall. "And cut into the heads of all," that is, begin from the more notable among them, and strike the preeminent who, among others

^A are placed in the position of a head; and together with them the rest shall perish, and shall be involved in the disasters of those who presided over them, having themselves also become the work of the sword. Similar to this is that which is said through the voice of Ezekiel to the six men who came from the gate that looks toward the north, and having lifted their axes, they followed the man clothed in the long robe, to whom it was said by God: "Go into the city after him, and strike, and do not spare, and show no mercy. Kill the old man, and the young man, and the virgin, and the little ones, and the women, for total destruction. But do not draw near to all those upon whom is the mark, and begin from my sanctuary." Do you see that ^B he made the first beginning from the leaders, or those who were thought to be venerable and holy, perhaps because they were distinguished by the glory of the priesthood, or were otherwise adorned with certain honors? For such as these are as the head of the rest.

This happened to those who raged against Christ. For after those wretches, caring little for the law and the prophets, rejected Christ, who is the end of the law and the prophets, and although they plainly knew him to be the heir, they cast him out of the vineyard and finally crucified him, they were delivered to the Roman generals for destruction. And that most celebrated temple was burned, and its altar was torn down, the vestibule was shattered, and the nobles perished together with the common people; for ^C hostile weapons spared none of them. But there is also each one of the faithful, whether he be the temple of God, as having Him dwelling within, or whether he be understood as an altar, as one who offers his own life to God, if afterward he gives himself to sloth and provokes God, he shall be brought to nothing and shall undergo a most miserable catastrophe. "For the Lord is no respecter of persons, and the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day in which he falls into sin," as it is written.

VERS. 2-4. *And there shall not escape from them one who flees, and there shall not be saved from them one who is delivered. If they be dug into hell, thence my hand shall draw them out. And if they ascend into heaven, thence I will bring them down. If they be hidden in the top of Carmel, thence I will search them out and will take them. And if they be swallowed up from my eyes into the depths of the sea, there I will command the dragon, and he shall bite them. And if they go into captivity before the face of their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them. And I will fix my eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.*

LXXIX. Perhaps it will be fittingly recited to those who hear these things in sequence, what is sung to the Lord by the voice of David: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit?" ^D and what follows. For the Divinity sees all things, and moreover vi-

^Agilant, nor can anyone ever escape His relentless eye. For He says: "God is drawing near am I, and not a God from afar. Shall anything be hidden from me?" 68 Certainly no one will escape the calamity that comes upon him by divine decree, for according to what is written: "Who shall turn away the high hand?" 69 For what machine will help us, or by what means shall we be protected, if God has decreed that we must suffer it at all? He explains, therefore, that counsel, deliberation, and every kind of device are entirely useless to those against whom God is angry, saying that no one can escape, even if he were to hide himself in Tartarus itself (the discourse is hyperbolic), even if he were to fly up to heaven, or sneak away to the summit of Carmel. For if he ascends, he will be caught; and if he is in the sea, he will fall upon the dragon, or, according to the literal meaning of the Hebrew, he will be delivered to the sea-monster; and if he were among enemies, and thereafter a captive, and bound helplessly to the yokes of slavery—and this, he says, will be little, and will not suffice for his punishment. For the terror of the sword will hang over him, and the God of all will not cease, he says, from fixing His eye upon him; and the matter is a sign of wrath and threat, for we ourselves sometimes fix our gaze on those who grieve us, looking at them with a fierce and joyless countenance. Since, however, God also looks upon the good and the just, He declares the difference in His gaze, saying: "For evil, and not for good." For He will look down, he says, not to bestow any good thing, but so that they may have the punishment and retribution decreed for them immovable and, as it were, fixed.

The wretched multitude of the Jews also endured this, having invoked the vengeance of just blood upon their own head. For they said to Pilate, persuading him to crucify Christ: "His blood be upon us and upon our children." 70 Therefore, they perished with their whole families, and their cities were plundered along with the inhabitants themselves, so that perhaps not even one could escape. For how great and what kind of things they suffered is widely celebrated in the long narratives of historians.

And the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, who touches the earth and causes it to quake; and all who dwell upon it shall mourn; and its end shall rise like a river, and it shall descend like the river of Egypt.

^D 80. Out of love, the prophet does not allow his hearers to disbelieve his words, as if they were not going to come to pass. And this was to persuade them to choose better things and to respect what is profitable, so that God might also cease from His wrath, and hold back the calamity, and receive those who repent. For He always has pity on those who wish to turn back. He teaches, therefore, that God is all-powerful and not unable to bring to an end the things of which He spoke. For He says: "The Lord, the Lord God Almighty, who touches the earth and causes it to quake." As if to say: Do not let us think

that the Lord acts like a man. He is the Lord of Hosts, who, by putting His own hand—that is to say, upon the Samaritans—and shaking it, does not make it endure the customary tremor, but rather, by war and most atrocious calamities, shakes the whole of it and causes it to be tossed about. Therefore He says: "Every one who dwells in it shall mourn, and the end shall rise up like the river of Egypt," covering and baptizing all things. It will subside again in the same way, dragging along and pulling down with it whatever it has seized. We have stated that Sennacherib, and the multitude of the Assyrians, and the war which was stirred up by them against Samaria, are compared to the currents of rivers. Therefore, for those who offend and grieve God, there will be no way of escape; for the hand that strikes is all-powerful and inescapable, and to those once caught in its grasp, there will be no help or consolation. "For if He shuts," as it is written, "against a man, who shall open?" It is, however, much better to turn away divine wrath by ascents according to His will and pleasure. ^B And this, most rightly, can be done if, forgetting the things which are behind and unlearning our vices, we enlighten ourselves with the growth of virtues. For then we shall escape the punishments prepared by divine wrath and shall easily incline the Creator, who is good by nature, to deem us worthy of His most kind and gentle care.

Verse 6. "Who builds His ascent into the heaven, and establishes His promise on the earth; who calls for the water of the sea, and pours it out upon the face of the earth: the Lord Almighty is His name."

LXXXI. By still more words He terrifies those who depart from God and compels them toward better things, skillfully recounting the excellence and the supreme powers of the divine nature, and attempting to give full assurance ^C that He will in every way bring to completion the things He has said, and that no one can hinder Him. "He who touches the earth," He says, "and makes it shake," according to the ways explained by us a little before, "He is also the one who builds His ascent into the heaven," which is almost the same as if He were to say: He who has all power, so as to ascend even into the heavens themselves, and to possess dominion over all, so that He even has the supernal and heavenly realm—or the blessed multitude of the holy angels—subjected to Him. For we call the angels who inhabit heaven "heaven." We must know, moreover, that Jacob also saw this very thing through an enigma. For a ladder reached ^D from the earth even unto heaven. "And the Lord," he says, "was leaning upon it." Through it he saw the angels ascending and descending. This, I think, is what is meant by "Building His ascent into the heaven." But also, He says, whatever He promises to those living on the earth, this is altogether immovable, and unbroken, and established as if on a firm foundation. For the Lord of Hosts will in no way grow weak, nor will a word spoken by Him fail. And to make us believe this, the Lord confirms us with these words: "Heaven

that the things which He has uttered from Him could fall away. ^A And the Savior confirms this to us, saying: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” He Himself is also the One who draws up the water of the sea by ineffable powers and rains it upon the earth; finally, He is the One who administers the heavenly things, and is so powerful in strength that He can easily transform the natures of existing things into whatever He might wish, and His name is Lord and God, and, in addition to these, Almighty. And surely one should not suppose this title to be a mere empty thing, as perhaps it might be assumed among men, but one rightly found from the truth itself. For from the fact that He rules essentially, and holds power over all things, He is so named by us ourselves and by the holy angels. The intention of the prophet, therefore, is to terrify the deluded with a very long discourse and, as much as he is able, to persuade them to adopt the most just opposite course—namely, to turn backward swiftly, as it were, and to admire the splendor of justice, and to make piety toward God desirable to them once again, by cutting off their inclination toward base things through the terrors of the things to come. And this is perhaps what was spoken well by the voice of David to the Lord of all: “In bit and bridle thou shalt bind their jaws, who do not draw near to thee.” ^B

It could also be said regarding Christ, and very fittingly: “Who builds His ascent into heaven.” For He is Himself from above and from heaven, because He is God born of God by nature. Therefore He also said: “I am from above.” And the wise John has also testified concerning Him, saying: “He who comes from above is above all.” But He has the ascent into heaven essentially. For it is set before Him, as I said, as God, who made it passable for mortals. For He ascended as our forerunner to the Father, and, as Paul writes, “He has inaugurated for us a new and living way.” For He appeared as a man for us in the presence of God and the Father; ^C “who also raised us up with Him, and seated us in the heavenly places.” Since Christ ascended, He also built His own ascent for us, if Paul is truthful, saying: “That we who are alive shall not precede those who have fallen asleep, but together with them we shall be caught up in the clouds.” He ascended, therefore, as a man, so that the ascent which is proper to Him alone, because He is God and from God, He might also make accessible to us who have believed. He Himself also “founds His own promise upon the earth.” For He will in no way lie, but will rather bring to pass whatever He promises to perform for us. For He said: “It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you.” ^D Therefore, He also commanded the apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the promise of the Father, which they had heard from Him. But He poured out grace upon them abundantly. Therefore, they also became witnesses of His glory both in Jerusalem and in Judea. In another way

^A we shall find his promise established. For we have believed that he will also raise us from the dead, and make us superior to corruption, and "will transform the body of our humility," making it "conformed to the body of his glory," and will receive us as sharers in his own kingdom. He it is who "calleth the water of the sea, and poureth it out upon the face of the earth;" that is to say, who transforms things bitter and unacceptable, and unfit for use, into that which is profitable. For "the letter of the law killeth," and it is in itself a useless shadow, but to us who understand, it has become most useful for understanding in Christ, and has been revealed as a sort of spiritual rain, irrigating in a certain way that which is under heaven. ^B For if it is true that the law of old was to the ancients harsh and intolerable, it has become for us a pedagogue unto the mystery of Christ, so that we too might be able to bear fruit in it, when the thickness of the shadow is thinned out into truth. Wherefore, we shall take what has been said as an example, bringing forward also the water of Marah as a proof: because it was indeed bitter, but when God showed Moses a tree, and commanded him to cast it into the waters, it received sweetness. That sign was an image and type of the precious cross, through which the law became sweet, and as it were most fit for drinking, although in the history it has bitterness. "For the letter killeth," as I said, or rather as the wise Paul left written for us.

Verse 7, 8. "Are ye not as the sons of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have I not led Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the strangers from Cappadocia, and the Syrians from the pit? Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the kingdom of sinners, and I will take it away from the face of the earth."

^C LXXXII. The Israelites, always lifting up their eyebrows and perpetually boasting to and fro of the nobility of their ancestors, were very glib-tongued, and used to say: "We have Abraham to our father." Nevertheless, they heard the contrary from Christ: "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham." "For not all who are of Israel are Israelites, nor are all who are the seed of Abraham his children;" but the brightness of works also grants a just faculty of boasting exceedingly in the nobility of one's ancestors. They insolently looked down upon all other nations, insisting upon this, that they had been chosen by God out of all nations. And indeed, God led us out of Egypt, and brought us into the land of promise. This is true. But those who ought to have gladdened in return with a fitting requital the One by whom they had been honored, instead became wondrously and in many ways contumelious toward Him, through every kind of apostasy and through declensions into wickedness. ^D To such a degree of madness, however, did the wretched men proceed, that they thought it would be sufficient for their happy state and for glory to have sprung from the root of Abraham, and to have been carried out of Egypt into the land of promise. That, therefore, we

they might know that such things—boasts of this kind—were of no benefit to them, having fallen into sloth and being unwilling to be pious, he says of necessity: ^A Shall I not account you as such, even if you possess a noble lineage from your fathers, just as, indeed, I do the sons of the Ethiopians, who have not Abraham as the root of their ancestry? For the Divine nature does not incline more to one side than the other, and it is entirely impartial; nor does it acknowledge a carnal nobility that is destitute of good deeds. It deems worthy of all reverence and honor, however, the spiritual nobility, and that which the will, shining forth from the splendor of illustrious deeds, accompanies. ^B But you think that it is also something great and extraordinary to have migrated from Egypt to another land. Then what is this? he says; or what benefit will it bring you? Others have received this benefit, having taken it from me. For I translated the foreigners—that is, the Philistines, for so the Hebrews interpreted—from Cappadocia, and the Syrians—meaning, of course, all those who were then reckoned under the kingdom of Damascus—I removed from the pit. It should be known that the Jews have rendered "Cyrene" in place of "pit." The Philistines, therefore, have become colonists from the Cappadocians, and the Syrians from the Cyrenaeans. And they named Cyrene "the pit," although it is very elevated and situated on high, because it lies as if in a deep basin. For all the land of Libya, so to speak, has bays and maritime recesses that are exposed or open. ^C To me, therefore, he says, who look upon all with parity, the purpose is to root out from the earth the entire kingdom of sinners. Nothing, then, will benefit those who possess carnal brilliance. For nobility before God is judged by good character, and by one greatly inclined toward the pursuit of virtue, and one accustomed to compete with the piety of his ancestors.

Vers. 9, 10. Verumtamen quia non in finem auferam domum Jacob, dicit Dominus. Quia ecce ego mando, et cribrabo in omnibus gentibus domum Israel, sicut cum ventilatur in ventilabro, et non cadet contritum super terram. In gladio morientur omnes peccatores populi mei, dicentes: Non appropinquabunt, neque fient super nos mala.

^D LXXXIII. The remnants are preserved again for Israel on account of the fathers. For they will not undergo total destruction, he says, nor will the race from Jacob vanish from the earth entirely. But as if winnowed in a sieve, he says, they will indeed be scattered among all the nations. Yet, "let not a fracture fall upon the earth," that is, the seed of Jacob will not fall in such a way as to arrive at a complete shattering; for it will be saved, in that part which has attained mercy. For some indeed returned from the captivity at that time; but a part was saved later through Christ, nor were those who believed from among the Jews few in number. And the remnant will be saved also in the last times, when the flock of the nations has also been gathered. Then, as if someone were to object, "If Jacob is saved again, against whom are the threats sent?" he responds conveniently that he will not indiscriminately in all respects be free from judgment...

but will rather fall upon those who have committed unbearable transgressions. This is what is meant: "In the sword shall die all the sinners of my people, who say, 'It shall not draw near, nor shall evils come upon us.'" ^A For some have come to such a degree of insanity as to think that the holy prophets also speak falsely; and indeed they claimed that none of those things which were foretold would come to pass. Jeremiah will testify to this, saying to God: "Behold, these say to me, Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come." Therefore, the transgression of those who are so disposed is twofold. For they provoked Him in many ways, and they also presumed to charge the truth with lying.

We will find that also at the time of the advent, the teachers of the Jews ^B made light of the words of our Savior. Therefore they heard: "Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves have not entered, and those who were entering you have hindered." And again: "Woe to you, for you travel about land and sea," and the things that follow. Therefore, they were justly considered not as children, but as those stripped of their ancestral nobility, and they were reckoned as if among the sons of the Ethiopians, and were consumed by the sword; they paid to God their Judge penalties equal to their own folly.

VERS. 11, 12. In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that has fallen, and I will rebuild those things of it that have fallen, and I will raise up its ^C ruined parts, and I will rebuild it as in the days of old; that the remnant of men may seek me, and all the gentiles upon whom my name has been invoked, saith the Lord, who does all these things.

CLXXXIV. He promised that He would not utterly destroy the race of Jacob, but although they were scattered as if by a winnowing fan, and became strangers and aliens from their fatherland, driven from their homes, and inhabited a barbarian and foreign land, yet they would not be crushed completely, nor would they suffer ultimate destruction. Therefore He adds that He will raise up the tabernacle of David. He will raise up its ruins ^D "as in the days of old," that is, for a long span of time. The sign of this, He says, shall be a full and certain faith brought to the rest of the nations, both those near and those very far away, that it is necessary henceforth to turn to the Lord and choose to seek Him, admiring the greatness of His power and the gentleness of God. Therefore, when He says "the tabernacle of David," He signifies the Jewish nation, namely, the house of Jacob. It must be known, however, that having received liberty from Cyrus, they returned to Judea, and having built the temple, and having fortified the cities that had been laid waste, and having built houses within them, they dwelt securely; afterwards, though they were provoked by some in war, as by Antiochus and Hadrian, no longer...

^A were they taken captive, nor have they been laid waste, as they were by the Babylonians. This, therefore, is the account of the history; but the deeper and truer meaning pertains to Christ. For after He rose from the dead, God and Father having raised up His tabernacle that had fallen into death, that is, the flesh from the earth, then indeed all that was cast down in us was borne toward a new vision. "For if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation," according to the Scripture. For we have been raised together with Him; and death indeed dug up the tabernacles of all, but God and Father has rebuilt them in Christ. And this will exist for us not measured by time, but for the days of eternity. For the good of incorruption is irrevocable in us, and death will no longer prevail over those who have been saved in Christ. ^B Then indeed the rest of men, following those who believed from Israel, have known Him who is by nature and truly God, having departed from that ancient and profane error. For it was not possible for Christ to lie when He said: "If the grain should die, it bears much fruit." And again: "When I am lifted up, I will draw all to Myself." On that day, therefore, on which I shall raise up the collapsed and fallen tabernacle of David, all the nations shall be called, and My name shall be upon them. And that the thing foretold will reach its goal entirely and in every way, He has assured us, adding: "Says the Lord God who does these things." For if the Lord is truly God, He will certainly do these things too, lacking power in nothing; "For He does great and inscrutable, glorious and marvelous things, of which there is no number."

"Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and the plowman shall overtake the vintage, and the grape shall ripen in the seedtime, and the mountains shall drip sweetness, and all the hills shall be fruitful. And I will turn the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the desolate cities, and shall inhabit them, and shall plant vineyards, and drink their wine, and shall make gardens, and shall eat the fruits of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no longer be plucked up from their land, which I have given them, says the Lord the Almighty God."

^C LXXXV. He clearly interpreted what He said. And if anyone should choose to make a thick and historical interpretation, he will surely say again that which has been clearly promised to those who have endured the captivity, namely, the return, and that they shall possess their own land, having rebuilt cities and houses; and having been finally placed in a state of happy prosperity, they shall gather the good things from the fields, and they shall apply themselves to farming with gladness and joy, so that they may bring the labor of working to an end in the most pleasant harvests, when the grain threshed on the threshing floor shall be brought simultaneously with the vintage, and the vintage shall last until the time of sowing,

moving the husbandman from the winepress to the fields for plowing, and after washing away the dust of the threshing floor, ^A giving him care for the concerns of the winepress. But if we should wish to apply a more subtle and spiritual consideration to the things set before us, it would be fitting to think thus: For since, as I said, Christ rose to life, the Father raised up the tabernacle of David and rebuilt the things that had fallen, and all mortals, Gentiles and Jews alike, have attained a great and exuberant abundance of good things. For one and the same God has justified the circumcision through faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. ^B By the earthly fruits, therefore, is most aptly signified the most liberal distribution of spiritual fruits to those who have believed. A great quantity of grain and wine, he says, shall come forth. And for the present, indeed, we shall receive the grain as representing spiritual strength; for it is written: “And bread strengthens man's heart,”—the intelligible bread, of course, divine and descending from heaven. And we shall take the wine for gladness; for it says again: “Wine gladdens the heart of man.” And we rejoice in hope, according to the word of Paul. And the mountains shall distil sweetness. By mountains, as it seems, he means here the ^C Churches of Christ, because of the sublimity of their dogmas and the transcendent nature of their piety toward God; and because mountains appear flourishing with diverse plants, while the Churches of Christ contain myriads of heads of saints, like cedars and most tall trees, planted beside the courses of the waters, as if under the reach of the intelligible waters. But just as on the most wooded mountains swarms of bees flying around produce sweet and precious honey, so again in the Churches those who are more illustrious than the rest, and more robust in virtue and in the knowledge of the doctrine in Christ, gathering the sweet honey, as it were, distil it into the hearts of others. In this way, then, I reason, the mountains distil sweetness. ^D And he says that the hills shall also be planted. Hills are those who occupy the second place and yield in the praise of virtue to those who are pre-eminently distinguished in it. For there are measures of holiness and righteousness in the Churches, and as Paul says, according to the grace given to each by God, who distributes these things. Therefore, he says, the hills shall also be planted—that is, well-flourishing and filled with good fruits, bearing a mind densely foliated with the sincerity of divine dogmas. And that God, the Lord of all, has turned our captivity, no one would doubt. For Christ preached forgiveness to the captives and delivered the world from the greed of the devil. Then, indeed, we have become, as it were, husbandmen diligent in the fruitfulness of the mind; we have planted gardens and vineyards, and we shall eat the fruit of them. For we shall receive [the recompense of our labors, and]

of retribution, and we shall harvest the fruits of gentleness. That we shall have a firm and stable dwelling with God, and that once the inheritance has been given by Him, no one will cast out those who have come into it, He declares, saying: "I will plant them in their land, which I have given them, says the Lord God." For the gifts of God are irrevocable. And we shall be settled in the stability of every good thing, having Christ Himself as the Guide and Master of our ^A celebration.

OF OUR HOLY FATHER CYRIL, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, COMMENTARY ON THE PROPHET OBADIAH.

PROOEMIUM

1. It seems that Obadiah prophesied at the same time as Joel, and he shares the vision with him as if by mutual agreement, and the narrative is divided. For Joel, at the very end of his own prophecy, says: "Egypt shall be for a desolation, and Edom shall be for a field of desolation, because of the iniquities of the sons of Judah, for the reason that they shed innocent blood in their land." But this one recounts in detail the desolation of Edom, by what method and how it will come to pass in its own time. Because it will be profitable for the readers of this book’s composition to learn accurately, and before other things, who Idumaea is, and what has happened to it, and for what reason it has been subjected to dire calamities from the wrath of God, come, let us set forth these things clearly and precisely for those who are studious, as much as lies in our power,