Amos 5

Hear this word, which I raise over you as a lament. The house of Israel has fallen; it will not again rise. The virgin Israel is cast down into her land; there is no one to raise her up. LXX: Hear this word, which I will take up over you as a lament. The house of Israel has fallen; it will not any more rise again. The virgin Israel is cast down upon her land; there is no one to raise her up. As far as concerns the order of the letter and the truth of the history begun, the ten tribes, which are called Israel, once led into captivity, by no means returned afterwards to their own land. And the people of Israel is called a virgin, not because it remained in the purity of virginity, but because it was once joined to the Lord like a virgin. Hence the prophet is also commanded to take up a lament over it, because it will by no means be restored to its former rank. But as far as concerns the spiritual understanding, the prophet takes up a lament over every Israel which used to discern God with the mind and afterwards ceased to serve him, according to that which is commanded to Ezekiel, that he should devour the book in which there was written, both within and without, lamentation, and song, and woe. Understand by within the Song of Solomon that follows, who says: The king has brought me into his chamber. And the forty-fourth (45th) psalm, in which it is written: All the glory of the king's daughter is within. But without is whatever is read in the letter, and is seen in the bark, and is not held in the marrow of the spirit. And so, both according to the letter and according to tropology, in all the books of the prophets a lament is written over those who repent after sins; a song over those who, stained by no filth of sins, are worthy of canticle and praise; woe over those who do not repent, but according to the hardness of their heart treasure up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath.

If, then, the apostle, who was a chosen vessel separated unto the gospel of Christ, by reason of the pricks of the flesh and the allurements of vice keeps his body and brings it into subjection, lest when he has preached to others he may himself be a cast away; and yet, for all that, sees another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin; if after nakedness, fasting, hunger, imprisonment, scourging and other torments, he turns back to himself and cries, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" do you fancy that you ought to lay aside apprehension? See to it that God say not some day of you, "The virgin of Israel is fallen, and there is none to raise her up." I will say it boldly: God can do all things, but the virgin who has fallen will not be raised up. He may indeed relieve one who is defiled from the penalty of her sin, but he will not give her a crown. Let us fear lest in us also prophecy be fulfilled, "Good virgins shall faint." Notice that it is good virgins who are spoken of, for there are bad ones as well. "Whoever looks on a woman," the Lord says, "to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." So that virginity may be lost even by a thought. Such are evil virgins in the flesh, not in the spirit; foolish virgins, who, having no oil, are shut out by the bridegroom.

But if, as we have said, the lament is over those who repent, and repentance restores health to the wound, how is it said according to the Seventy: The house of Israel has fallen, it will rise no more. The virgin Israel has strayed in her land, there is no one to raise her up? This can be resolved thus: after the house of Israel has collapsed by its own will, it will by no means recover its former dignity; after the virgin Israel has strayed in her land, she will no longer be able to find one to raise her up. And consider the proper meanings of the words. He who is a house, and is counted in the crowd, is said to fall. But he who is of the number of the virgins, if he strays, even for a light sin, will not be able to be raised up; not that he is not raised up, but the virgin Israel is by no means raised up, and the Lord of Israel will by no means rise again. For the glory is not the same of him who has always followed the Lord and of him who has wandered from the flock and afterwards been carried back on the shoulders of the good shepherd. Hence the Lord also says through another prophet: I prefer the repentance of a sinner rather than his death. Repentance becomes better not when compared with the purest holiness and the Church of Christ — which has no wrinkle nor spot —, but when compared with death and the underworld. We say these things, not in order to take away, with Novatus, the hope of repentance, but in order to make more fearful, and therefore anxious, those who, with the door of repentance open, while they hope for the future, lose the present, and who, though they could have remained without a wound, carelessly receive a wound, so as afterwards to be tormented by pain. There are many mansions with my Father, and star differs from star in brightness; so also is the resurrection of the dead, the saints shining like the sun and the moon, the evening star and the morning star. But those who have repented after sin will be made equal to other stars, according to the diversity of their merits.

For thus says the Lord God: The city from which a thousand went out, there shall be left in it a hundred; and from which a hundred went out, there shall be left in it ten, in the house of Israel. LXX: likewise. The divine word gives the reasons why the house of Israel, falling, does not rise again, and the virgin Israel, straying, or cast down upon the land, has no one to raise her up. The city, he says, from which a thousand went out, there shall be left in it a hundred; and from which a hundred went out, there shall be left in it ten, in the house of Israel; so that where once there had been a multitude, because of the excessive devastation scarcely a tenth part remains. And lest, clinging wholly to the letter, we leave the mysteries of numbers untouched: that the number seven is holy the sabbath also proves, on which God rested from all his works. And he commands that no servile work be done on it, except only those things which pertain to the soul, and that we should not carry burdens on it. Hence also in the wilderness the man who had gathered wood on the sabbath day, things that are to burn, is condemned by the sentence of the Lord. And seven weeks complete the number of holy Pentecost, and the jubilee year of remission and of the sounding trumpets is woven from this number. In the seventh month also tabernacles are pitched, and the Hebrew, when he has served six years, is set free in the seventh year. Secular philosophy also knows this, and the books of the physicians, of whom Galen, most eloquent and most learned, wrote three books, κρίσεων καὶ τῶν κριτικῶν ἡμερῶν (On Crises and Critical Days), in which, showing the power of the number seven, he says that the most burning fevers are broken on the seventh day; or, if the quantity of noxious humour and phlegm has been so great that it has by no means been consumed by the heat of the first week, the last day of the second week is awaited, that is, the fourteenth. But if, to speak with Hippocrates, the νόσος (the disease) has overcome this one, they pass on to the twenty-first day, that is, to the end of the third week; the days having been so established from the beginning of the world that all labours and troubles come to rest at the seventh number. Finally, the captivity of the people of Israel and the overthrow of the temple were also completed in the seventieth year of desolation, and seven stars are said to be wandering, according to the number of the days. Of the mysteries of this number Cicero tells more fully in the Dream of Scipio; and the Timaeus of Plato is a most obscure book, which is not made plainer even by the golden mouth of Cicero. Just as, therefore, the number seven has its own mystery, so the number that is held in unity, and is enclosed by the majesty of the one God, is sanctified and perfect and, so to speak, the true number. Hence the Son says: I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and, wishing all to be one with the Father, he speaks to him: Father, grant that, as I and you are one, so these also may be one in us. The first blessedness, therefore, is to be in the first number, which is one and true; the second in the second, that is, in the decad; the third in the third, that is, in the hecatontad. For as the decad is completed by the tenth unit, so the hecatontad is built from ten decads. The fourth number, which is contained in the thousand, consists of ten hecatontads. When, therefore, someone has repented, from the thousand and the fourth number he scarcely returns to the hundred and the third number. Again, he who is in the hundred scarcely returns to the second number, that of the first decad; and so it comes about that the house of Israel which had fallen cannot rise again, and the virgin Israel which had strayed has no one in the land to raise her up, because he who has once departed from unity, and has lost that glory of the purest virginity — of which the Apostle says: For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God, and I have resolved to present you as a chaste virgin to one husband, to Christ, in which there is no spot nor wrinkle —, will not be able to recover his former state and the blessedness of unity, and it will scarcely be granted him to return from a thousand to a hundred, and to go back from a hundred to ten. I have said these things briefly, lest I should seem in this section to have fled tropology altogether because of the difficulty of the numbers.

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 pass over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall be led captive, and Bethel shall be useless. LXX: For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek me, and you shall live; and do not seek Bethel, and do not go into Gilgal, and do not pass over upon the well of the oath; for Gilgal shall be led captive, and Bethel shall be as though it were not. It is the custom of the Scriptures always to join glad things to adverse ones, and after God has threatened sad things, he calls to repentance those whom he has frightened, according to that which we read in Isaiah: Woe, sinful nation, a people full of offences, a most wicked seed, unjust sons. And when he had said: Your land is deserted, your cities consumed with fire, strangers will devour your regions before you, he speaks to them, promising better things: Wash yourselves, be clean; take away your wickednesses from your souls, learn to do good, seek judgment, judge for the orphan, justify the widow; and come, let us dispute, says the Lord. Just as, therefore, in Isaiah he supports with gentle speech those whom he had frightened with a severe voice, so also in this prophet, to those to whom he had said: The house of Israel has fallen, it will not again rise; the virgin Israel has strayed in the land, there is no one to raise her up. Now he speaks to them and says: To the house of Israel, that is, to the ten tribes, Seek me and you shall live, since in that you do not seek me, you are dead. And when you have sought, you will find; and when you have found, you will live.

And do not seek Bethel, in which was the golden calf, and Gilgal, the place of idolatry, of which I have also said above: All their wickedness is in Gilgal. And you shall not pass over to Beersheba. Beautifully he says: you shall not pass over to Beersheba, that is, to the well of the oath, where the tribe of Judah, whenever it went astray, had been accustomed to worship idols. But Israel raged in the worship of images to such a degree that, by no means content with its own idols, it passed over to those of others. Finally, Gilgal, he says, shall be led captive, and Bethel shall be useless, or not subsisting at all, when the idols in it have been overthrown. But of Beersheba he was altogether silent, because when the ten tribes were conquered, the city by the name of Beersheba, which was in the tribe of Judah at that time, was neither taken nor destroyed. And at the same time it must be noticed that the LXX translators in the present place translated the name Beersheba, saying: The well of the oath, and in later passages they set down the name itself: Your God lives, O Dan, and the way of Beersheba lives. And they set down the way of Beersheba because from Israel they went by a long journey to the farthest borders of Judah, which were in Gerar and adjoined the Egyptian wilderness, in order to worship idols. It is, moreover, the place in which Abraham dwelt; and from the fact that he and Abimelech, after seven sheep had been given, swore to a mutual covenant, it was called the well of the oath, or the well of the seventh, because of the number of the seven sheep. For Sabe signifies both. And according to the laws of allegory he commands the house of Israel, that is, those who promise themselves the knowledge of God, not to seek Bethel, and not to enter into Gilgal, and not to pass over, or go up, to the well of the oath, but rather to seek God and live in him. And they seek Bethel, which is interpreted house of God, who say: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord; and they trust in buildings, of which the Lord spoke to the disciples: Days will come in which there will not be left a stone upon a stone that will not be destroyed. And they enter into Gilgal who after the coming of Christ desire to be circumcised again. For in Gilgal the people was circumcised a second time. Hence the place itself also received its name, because the Lord took away from them the reproach of Egypt. And you shall not pass over, he says, to Beersheba, or to the well of the oath, lest you think those to be the borders of Judea which Scripture once, according to the letter, had promised, from Dan to Beersheba. Nor should you say any longer with the prophet: God is known in Judea, his name is great in Israel, but you should hear with the apostles: Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world, because Gilgal also, that is, the circumcision of the flesh, will be led captive by the true circumcision of the heart. And Bethel, which you think the house of God, will not subsist, or, as I think better, returns useless, that is, auen, so that it is by no means called the house of God, but is called the useless house, or the house of the idol. Another interpretation: he seeks Bethel who follows only the letter that kills, and does not seek in the words the sense, which is God; and he enters into Gilgal who strives after greater revelations, promising himself the knowledge of things above; and he passes over, or goes up, to the well from which the Samaritan woman, desiring to draw waters that could not satisfy thirst, did not know him from whose belly proceed rivers of water springing up into eternal life.

Therefore, while there is time, look to the true and eternal salvation, and, since the end of the world is now at hand, out of fear of God turn your minds to God. Let not your powerless and vain dominion in the world over the just and the meek delight you. Remember that in the fields the tares and the darnel have dominion over the cultivated and fruitful corn, and you should not say that evils happen because your gods are not worshiped by us. But you should realize that this is God's anger, this is God's censure, so that he who is not recognized for his blessings may at least be recognized for his judgments. "Seek God, and your soul shall live." Acknowledge God even though it is late. For Christ advises and teaches this, saying, "Now this is everlasting life, that they may know you the only true God and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ." Believe him who by no means deceives. Believe him who has foretold that all these things would come to pass. Believe him who will give the reward of eternal life to those who believe. Believe him who by the fires of Gehenna will inflict eternal punishments on the disbelieving.

Seek the Lord and live, lest perhaps the house of Joseph be burned like fire; and it will devour, and there will be no one to quench Bethel. LXX: Seek the Lord and live, lest perhaps the house of Joseph be kindled like fire; and it devour it, and there be no one to quench the house of Israel. Just as it is said in the person of God: Seek me, and you shall live, so the prophet speaks about the Lord, that they should seek him and live. For in seeking the Lord they begin to live; but if they have not sought him, and for that reason have not lived, at once the house of Joseph will be kindled like fire. By it we ought to understand, because of Jeroboam, who was of the tribe of Ephraim and of the house of Joseph, the ten tribes, which are called Israel and, from the greater part of the people, possessed the former name. But the two tribes which were ruled by the stock of David, who was of the tribe of Judah, were called Judah, and possessed Jerusalem, in which was the temple of God. And when the house of Joseph has been kindled, it will devour and consume Bethel, of which I have said above: Do not seek Bethel, and there will be no one to quench it, since it will have been set on fire by its own kings. In place of Bethel, in the LXX is read the house of Israel, since they translated the sense rather than the word; so that, as King Jeroboam succeeded, and all the kings who thereafter succeeded him in the rule, the ten tribes, which are called Israel, burn. This is the fire which is kindled, or shines out, and inflames the house of Joseph, so that Bethel is consumed; of which it is said elsewhere: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame which you have kindled. And since we have often referred the house of Joseph — because of Jeroboam, who separated the people of God from the stock of David, and made golden cows in Dan and in Bethel, and said: We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse — to the person of the heretics, who with polished speech have fashioned comely and beautiful and, so to speak, golden images, and adore the works of their own hands, and under the appearance of cows promise themselves an image of agriculture, it is said to them: Seek the Lord, and live, him who says: I am the way, and the truth, and the life, so that, after they have walked in him and found the truth, those who before were dead may then begin to live. And unless they do this, they will be burned by the ardours of the devil, and none will be able to be found among their princes, who themselves also have been kindled by the heretical fire, who could put out the flame that devours all things, and especially Bethel, which assumes for itself the false name of the house of God.

You who turn judgment into wormwood and leave righteousness on the earth; him who makes Arcturus and Orion, and turns darkness into morning, and changes day into night. Who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is his name. Who smiles devastation upon the strong, and brings plundering upon the mighty. LXX: Who makes judgment on high and has set righteousness on the earth; who makes all things, and transforms them, and turns the shadow of death into morning, and darkens the day into night. Who calls the water of the sea and pours it out upon the face of the earth: the Lord God Almighty is his name. Who divides crushing upon strength, and brings misery upon the fortress. In this place the common edition disagrees greatly with the Hebrew truth, as the prudent reader at once understands, without our reminder, from what we have set forth. Let us therefore expound first according to the Hebrews, and afterwards, if we have deserved it, with Christ opening the way, let us say what seems to us in the translation of the LXX. The house of Joseph, that is, the house of Ephraim, and for that reason the royal house, and Bethel, or, as the LXX translated, the house of Israel, that is, both kings and peoples, both worshippers and idols alike, will be overthrown, who by unjust judgment provoked God to anger. And they turned the sweetness of judgment into the bitterness of wormwood, which is a kind of most bitter herb, taking up iniquity and leaving righteousness.

Let us speak also according to the LXX: God makes judgment on high, when he judges truth and renders to each according to his work; and everyone who is an imitator of God, and desires to be his son, and to be perfect, as his Father who dwells in heaven is perfect, makes judgment on high, and does not imitate that judge who did not fear God, and did not respect man, and by the perversity of his judgment did not lift his sentence up to heaven, but dragged it down to the depths. And as for what follows: And has set righteousness on the earth, we ought to take it according to this, that he gave us Christ, his righteousness, and did not cast it away but set it down on the earth, so that, all iniquity being overcome, he might make us heavenly from earthly. I think that the Gentile poet also stole from this place, who, discoursing on the simplicity and blessedness of country folk, added: "Justice, leaving the earth, made her last steps among them."

But what this righteousness is, the following verse shows: Him who makes Arcturus and Orion, and turns darkness into morning, and changes day into night. He of whom he had said above: Forming the mountains, and creating the wind, and announcing to man his speech, making the morning mist, and stepping upon the high places of the earth: the Lord God of hosts is his name, he it is who is the Creator of Arcturus, which in Hebrew is called Chima, and by Symmachus and Theodotion is rendered εἰς πλειάδα (the Pleiades), which is commonly called Boötes. And as for what follows, Orion, which in Hebrew is called Chasil, Symmachus translated it absolutely as stars, Theodotion as the evening star. But the Hebrew who instructed us in the holy Scriptures thinks that Chasil means splendour, and signifies in general the shining stars. But when we hear Arcturus and Orion, we ought not to follow the fables of the poets and the ridiculous and monstrous lies with which they try to defame even heaven and to set the reward of debauchery among the stars, saying: "He scans Arcturus and the rainy Hyades and the twin Triones, and Orion armed with gold"; but we ought to know that the Hebrew names, which among them are called otherwise, have been carried over into our language by the terms of the Gentile fables, since we cannot understand what is said except through those terms which we have learned by use and drunk in with error. Hence also in the book of Kings the Greeks translated the Hebrew Raphaim as titans, which is a most celebrated fable among the heathen, from which they write γιγαντομαχίας (battles of the giants) in praise of the gods; and the Typhoean shafts, and Mount Etna placed upon Enceladus, at whose movement Trinacria trembles. But this God, the Creator of all things, who makes Arcturus and Orion, changes night into day and day into night, and filters the most bitter waters of the sea, suspended by the heat of the upper air, and distils them into the sweet taste of the rains, like a medicinal cupping-glass, which by the heat of its upper round draws moisture and blood upward; from which we learn whence the rains come.

But in saying: Making all things and transforming them, they comprehend Arcturus and Orion in one word, neglecting to carry over the proper sense of the names into the Greek language. And God transforms all things when he makes heavenly things from earthly, and bestows on men the likeness of angels; when the moon will glow with the brightness of the sun, and the sun will have sevenfold light; when man, animal and weak and corruptible, is transformed into one spiritual and strong and incorrupt, changing his glory, not his nature; when those who understand will shine like the splendour of the firmament, and what is written will be fulfilled: One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, another the glory of the stars. For star differs from star in brightness; so also is the resurrection of the dead; when every creature will be set free from the slavery of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. This God who transforms all things also changes the shadow of death into light, when those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death saw a great light, and those who were sons of night and of darkness became sons of light and sons of the day. This is the God who also turns the day into darkness, the day of those who said: Crucify, crucify him, take such a one from the earth; when from the sixth hour, as a type of Jewish blindness, the day was turned into night. And not only according to the letter but also according to a higher understanding, the light which rose for them in the law and the prophets was turned into darkness, since they do not know what they read, what they hear, so that there is fulfilled concerning them what is written: Let their eyes be darkened, lest they see, and bend their back always. This God calls to himself the water of the sea and pours it out upon the face of the earth, making righteous men out of sinners. To expound this, for the sake of brevity let us set down only one example. Paul the Apostle, like a violent whirlwind and a savage tempest and the flood of a swelling sea, was persecuting the Church of God and striving to crush it. Being called by God, he was poured out upon the face of the whole earth, to preach the Gospel from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum, and to build not upon another's foundation, where there had already been preaching, but to press on as far as the Spains, and to run from the Red Sea, nay rather from ocean to ocean, imitating his Lord and the sun of righteousness, of whom we read: His going forth is from the highest heaven, and his course to its highest point, so that the earth gave out before him sooner than his zeal for preaching.

When I think of the past tempest, and of the present calm, I cease not saying, "Blessed be God, who maketh all things, and changeth them; who hath brought light out of darkness; who leadeth to the gates of hell, and bringeth back; who chastiseth, but killeth not." And this I desire you too to repeat constantly, and never to desist. For if He hath benefitted us by deeds, what pardon shall we deserve, if we do not requite Him even by words. Therefore, I exhort that we never cease to give Him thanks; since if we are grateful for the former benefits, it is plain that we shall enjoy others also, which are greater. Let us say, then, continually, Blessed be God, who hath permitted us to spread before you in security the accustomed table, whilst He hath also granted you to hear our word with assurance of safety! Blessed be God, that we no longer run hither flying from the danger without, but only from desire to hear; that we no longer meet one another with agony, trembling, and anxious thoughts; but with much confidence, having shaken off all our fear. Our condition, indeed, on former days was nothing better than that of those who are tossed up and down in the midst of the deep; and expecting shipwreck every hour. We were scared all day long by innumerable rumours, and disturbed and agitated on every side; and were every day busy and curious to know who had come from the court? what news he had brought? and whether what was reported was true or false? Our nights too we passed without sleep, and whilst we looked upon the city, we wept over it, as if it were on the eve of its destruction.

See how highly God has honored us, in committing to us so excellent a frame. I made heaven and earth, He says, and to you I give the power of creation. Make your earth heaven. For it is in thy power. "I am He that maketh and transformeth all things" (Amos v. 8, Sept.), saith God of Himself. And He hath given to men a similar power; as a painter, being an affectionate father, teaches his own art to his son. I formed thy body beautiful, he says, but I give thee the power of forming something better. Make thy soul beautiful. I said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, and every fruitful tree." Do thou also say, Let this earth bring forth its proper fruit, and what thou willest to produce will be produced. "I make the summer and the cloud. I create the lightning and the wind." I formed the dragon, that is, the devil, to make sport with him. Nor have I grudged thee the like power. Thou, if thou wilt, canst sport with him, and bind him as thou wouldest a sparrow. I make the sun to rise upon the evil and the good: do thou imitate Me, by imparting of that is thine to the good and the evil. When mocked I bear with it, and do good to those who mock Me: do thou imitate Me, as thou canst. I do good, not to be requited; do thou imitate Me, and do good, not to be repaid.

What, then, is your opinion about that section of the statement that follows, "He brings about rain upon the just and the unjust"? Surely he who gives, gives when he wishes and gives where he wishes, either by arranging the well- ordered nature or by lavishly bestowing his own munificence. And in case you contemplate also casting aside this statement, in keeping with the madness of your impiety, listen to the prophet testifying about this truth: "He who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth. The Lord is his name."

And as for what follows: Who smiles devastation upon the strong, he returns to the present time. And the order is: he who is the Creator of all things also threatens captivity upon Samaria, and brings plundering upon the mighty, since it turns judgment into wormwood and leaves righteousness on the earth. Where we have said, who smiles, Aquila translated ὁ μειδιῶν. And μειδίαμα is properly said of what we can call a smiling, when someone is angry and, with his lips parted a little, pretends to smile, so as to show the greatness of his anger.

This God also divides crushing upon strength, so as to make weak those who are wickedly strong, and so that they can imitate the Apostle, who says: When I am weak, then I am stronger. For the sons of this world are more prudent than the sons of light in their own generation. The strength of the body is the weakness of the soul, and again the strength of the soul is the weakness of the body. Therefore the Lord, who dispenses all things by reason and does all things by true judgment, divides crushing upon the strong enemy, so as to bring misery upon the fortress which raises itself up against the knowledge of God. Of which we also read in Proverbs: The wise man entered strong cities and destroyed the fortress in which the ungodly trusted. This he does indeed against all worldly strength, but properly against the heretics, who try to strengthen the falsity of their dogmas with arguments and sophisms and the dialectical art. But the wise man destroys it, and, helped by the aid of God, shows every fortress to be most vain, so as to bring misery upon it, and, when its pride has been bowed down, he can say with the Apostle: Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?

They hated him who rebukes in the gate, and abhorred him who speaks perfectly. LXX: They hated him who reproves in the gates, and abhorred the holy word. These upon whom God smiles devastation, and brings plundering upon them, who are strong in evil and mighty to oppress, hated him who rebukes in the gate, that is, in court: either me, or the other prophets who have been sent to them; and him who speaks perfectly, or the immaculate word, as Symmachus translated, or the holy speech, as Theodotion and the LXX rendered. That the judgments of the people took place in the gate, according to the ancient custom of the Jews, we have both often read and frequently explained, so that neither would the farmer coming to a case be frightened by the throng of the city and its novel aspect, nor would the inhabitant of the city hasten far from the city and seek the conveyance of beasts of burden. This much let us say according to the letter. But it is a great sin to hate him who rebukes, especially if he rebukes you not out of hatred but out of love; if alone with you alone; if with another brother taken along; if afterwards in the presence of the Church; so that he may be seen to bring the charge not from a desire to disparage, but for your amendment. We often read in the Scriptures of double gates, of death and of life, of vices and of virtues, as in that place in the psalms: You who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may announce all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion. There is no doubt that he signifies the Church: the lofty Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the multitude of angels, and the Church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven. He who has been lifted up in the gates of Zion will not be able to fear the gates of death, of which the Lord spoke to Peter: Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The gates of virtue we learn plainly in another psalm: Open to me the gates of righteousness; having entered into them, I will confess to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter into it. Finally, Wisdom too, in the gates of the city, said boldly: As long as the innocent have held to righteousness, they will not be put to shame. Therefore I think that the gates of the city, that is, of the soul that believes in Christ, are the virtues through which Christ enters into those who believe. And since it is not written in which gates they hated him who rebukes, whether in the evil or in the good, let us refer it to both. The prophet reproves sinners standing in the gates of vices, and for that reason he is held in detestation by them. Or certainly the prophet himself stands in the gates and beginnings of the virtues, and is hated by those whom he rebukes; and it is not enough for sinners to hate him who reproves, or rebukes, in the gates, unless they also abhor the holy word that is brought forth from his mouth. For he who does not receive the prophet does not receive him who sent him. But if they abhorred the holy word, or him who spoke perfectly — moreover, the holy word is the Lord Jesus, of whom it is said: You will not give your holy one to see corruption —, all the Jews, saying anathema to Jesus, abhor the word of God, which is both perfect and holy and immaculate. For to the sinner piety is an abomination. And whatever we have said of the Jews can be referred both to the heathen and to the heretics, of whom the former abhor all the holy Scriptures, in which is the word of God; the latter, while they perversely understand what they read, set up an abomination in the house of God.

They take the two sons as types of two peoples, the elder Jewish, the younger Christian.… But if I show that the Jew does not fit the type represented by the elder son, it will be admitted, in consequence, that the Christian is not typified by the younger. Admittedly, the Jew is called a "son" and an "elder son" since he is first by adoption, and although he resents the Christian's reconciliation with God his Father (this is a point which our opponents seize upon most eagerly), yet the statement "Behold, how many years I serve you and I have never transgressed your commandment" cannot be one which the Jew makes to the Father. For when was Judah not a transgressor of the law? "Hearing with the ear and not hearing, holding in hate him who reproves at the gates and scorning holy speech."

We can say this very thing of the heretics as well, who plunder the poor man, or strike his head with a clenched hand: for this is what κατεκονδύλιζον means in Greek, according to what we read above, striking the poor upon the head. For the heretics strike none but the poor man, who cannot withstand the threat, and not in his other members, but in the ruling part of the heart and in the truth of faith. The poor, I think, are those who, content with a simple faith, are unable to answer the malice of the heretics. But whatever good work they have also prepared as gifts for God, unless they resist the adversaries, they will lose in the time of battle and contest; and these adversaries, by the composition and structure of words, build houses for themselves so that they may remain safe and secure. But they shall not dwell in them, when these have been destroyed and overturned by churchmen. And they not only build houses, but also plant most lovely and desirable vineyards, so as to counterfeit the mysteries of Christ; but they shall not drink wine from them, except that which is the incurable fury of dragons. For the Lord waited for these vineyards to bring forth fruit, and they brought forth not grapes but thorns or wild grapes, not judgment but a cry, with which they blaspheme against their God with insane mouth. And therefore they shall not dwell in their houses, and shall not drink the wine of the vineyards which they had planted, because the Lord has known their many impieties.

Therefore, because you plundered the poor man and took choice spoil from him, you shall build houses of squared stone and shall not dwell in them; you shall plant most lovely vineyards and shall not drink their wine. For I have known your many crimes and your strong sins, enemies of the just, taking a gift and pressing down the poor in the gate; therefore the prudent man shall keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time. LXX: Therefore, because you struck the poor with the fist, and received choice gifts from them, you have built houses of hewn stones, and you shall not dwell in them; you have planted desirable vineyards, and you shall not drink their wine; for I have known your many impieties and your strong sins; trampling the just, receiving exchanges, and turning aside the poor in the gates; therefore he who understands shall be silent at that time, for it is an evil time. Lest Israel should perhaps think that it was being handed over to the enemy for punishment on account of idolatry alone, he joins to it also the other things which it committed once the religion of the truth had been lost. You plundered the poor man, he says, so as to take from him who scarcely had what was necessary for his sustenance, and whatever you saw that was precious and beautiful you handed over to your own uses. Hence also from the price of the things which you seized and took from the poor man you built houses of squared stone, so that, while despoiling men, you might clothe walls with marble; and because you built them out of plunder, and prepared them not only for dwelling and shelter, which human frailty requires, but for beauty and delights, you shall not dwell in them, carried off by sudden captivity or by death. You also planted most lovely vineyards, providing for future drinking, and you shall not drink wine from them, because I have known all your crimes and sins, and strong sins, which have provoked my wrath. You are the enemies of righteousness, or of every just man, and you receive gifts and press down the poor in judgment.

Here knowledge is not to be understood according to what we read elsewhere: The Lord knew those who are his, but in the sense that nothing is hidden from God, and that he knows all the secrets of sinners. I have known, he says, many impieties, which are not only many but also strong and oppressing, or trampling on righteousness itself, or on him who is just. And you receive, he says, exchange, for which all likewise translated ἐξίλασμα, that is, propitiation, and we said gift; but ἄλλαγμα, according to the idiom of the Scriptures, means a price, as we also read in the Gospel: Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? They also turned aside the poor in the gates, or, as Symmachus translated, oppressed them, so as to sell a sentence for a price against the truth of judgment, falling into that which is written: Gifts blind the eyes even of the wise. These the heretics receive, so as to turn the severity of the Scriptures, which announce torments to sinners, into blessedness; and while they promise every prosperity to the rich, toward the poor alone they are fierce and severe.

Therefore he who is poor and prudent, when he sees that the judge has been bought, shall keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time. Or certainly it is to be understood thus: What use is it now, when your captivity is near, to enumerate your sins, when there is no longer any remedy and a hostile army surrounds the walls of your cities?

When therefore a churchman, prudent and understanding, comes to know that there are many impieties in that which is called the house of God, and not only many but also strong, and such as can oppress righteousness, and that the madness of the teachers has gone so far that they take a price in judgment and do everything for gifts, and also shun the poor in the gates and disdain to hear them, let him be silent at that time, lest he give what is holy to dogs and cast pearls before swine, who would turn and trample them; and let him imitate Jeremiah, who says: I sat alone, because I was filled with bitterness. And that in the psalms: I am alone until I pass over.

And so, where the good God is, there are the good things that David desired to see and believed that he would see, even as he says, "I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.(Ps. 27:13)"' They indeed are the good things that endure always, that cannot be destroyed by change of time or of age.

For when a man rules his own self—and that counts for more than to govern others—his heart is in the hand of God, and God turns it where he wills. No wonder if he turns it to the good, perfect goodness is his. And so let us be in the hand of God that we may seek the good, that incorruptible and immutable good of which the prophet Amos says, "Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the Lord God almighty will be with you, as you have said, 'We have hated evil and loved good.' " And so, where the good God is, there are the good things that David desired to see and believed that he would see, even as he says, "I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living." They indeed are the good things that endure always, that cannot be destroyed by change of time or of age.

Let us hurry to him in whom is that highest good, since he is goodness itself. He is the patience of Israel calling you to repentance, so you will not come to judgment but may receive the remission of sins. "Repent," he says. He is the one of whom the prophet Amos cries, "Seek you good." He is the highest good, for he needs nothing and abounds in all things. Well may he abound, for in him dwells bodily the fullness of divinity. Well may he abound, of whose fullness we have all received, and in whom we have been filled, as the Evangelist says.

Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so it will be the Lord God the Almighty with you; in the manner that you said, We have hated evil and loved good, and establish judgment in the gates, so that the Lord God the Almighty may have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. Therefore, in the manner you have spoken, he says, seek good and not evil, so that you may gain well-being by living and being saved, and the Lord God, who has authority over all, may be with you. And establish judgment in the gates, that is, become upright judges; not recording an unjust vote against the weaker; not misrepresenting the power of the just; nor indeed striking the heads of the poor; nor turning aside the way of the humble, so that God may henceforth have mercy on those left from Joseph from the captivities that have already occurred. Therefore, it is necessary to think rightly, and to correct our own minds, so that we must think the things pleasing to God, and achieve virtue, and cling to the ways of justice, and be wise guardians of uprightness; for thus we will have the God of all with us and defending us.

It was the old custom that the elders should sit at the gate to make out by judicial trial the quarrels of persons at strife, in order that they should never enter the city at variance and should dwell there in harmony. And hence the Lord says by the prophet, "Establish judgment at the gate."

Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as you have said: Hate evil and love good, and establish judgment in the gates, if perhaps the Lord God of hosts may have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. LXX: Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord God Almighty will be with you, as you have said: We have hated evil things and loved good things; and render judgment in the gates, that the Lord God may have mercy on those who are left of Joseph. You say that God is with you because you are sons of Abraham; hear what follows: If you are sons of Abraham, do the works of your father. What are the works of your father Abraham? Love good and not evil. It is a great sin not only to do evil but also to love it. Many sin, and when the heat of pleasure is spent they are stung by their conscience, and they repent of their sin. But he who not only does not grieve that he has done what is evil, but even glories in his crime, fulfils that which is written: The sinner, when he has come into the depth of impiety, despises. Seek therefore good and not evil. For if you seek good, in the very act of seeking good you at once repel evil. But you would never seek good unless you first repelled evil, fulfilling the words of the psalmist, who says: Turn away from evil and do good. And when you have sought good and avoided evil, then you will live in him who says: I am the life. He seeks good who believes in him who speaks in the Gospel: I am the good shepherd. He repels evil who flees from him of whom it is written: The world is set in the evil one. And in the Lord's prayer he says: Deliver us from evil. And when you have sought good, he says, and not evil, and have lived, then the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as you had said that he was with you for this reason, that you were born of Abraham.

All these things can also be fitted to the heretics, so that, abandoning the error which they have invented, they may return to the Church, and hate their former dogmas, and love the truth of the Lord in the Church, and exercise true judgment in the gates of vices and virtues, leaving the former and passing over to the latter; and that those who have been able to escape from the jaws of the devil may hope for mercy. But according to the LXX, with the order changed, the reading of the present section can be rendered more plainly thus: As you have said, We have hated evil things and loved good things, so seek good and not evil, that you may live; and as the Lord God Almighty is with you, so render judgment in the gates, that the Lord God Almighty may have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.

And again it signifies Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes. For as I have already said before, since Ephraim came from Joseph, for this reason he is also signified by his father's name.

Nor is it enough to seek good and not to seek evil, unless you have ἐπιείκησιν (equity) in both, so that first you hate evil and then love good. He hates evil who is not only not overcome by pleasure, but hates the works of pleasure; and he loves good who does what is good not unwillingly, nor from necessity or fear of the laws, but because it is good, so that he has as the reward of his good work his own conscience and the love which he bears toward the good. Hence the Apostle too says: God loves, he says, a cheerful giver. For not every almsgiving pleases God, but only that which is offered with cheerfulness. And when you have hated evil and loved good, establish judgment in the gates, of which it was spoken above, so that, iniquity being driven out, truth may return. And if you do this, perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph, those of the tribe of Ephraim and of the ten tribes who were able to escape captivity.

All these things can be referred to the heretics, so that, because they would not do this and that which is just, there may be wailing in all their streets. Wide indeed and spacious is the way that leads to death, and each of the heretics and of the gentiles has his streets in their fables and fictions; to which it is fittingly added: And in all the places that are outside it shall be said: Woe, woe. For those who are in the Church will not hear woe, which is the last of punishments; but if perhaps they have sinned, a lamentation will be taken up over them. And it shall be said outside, or in all the ways: Woe, woe, for this reason, that they do not have the one way that leads to life, which is the king's way, but crooked and perverse ways, turning aside to the right and to the left, since they do not hear the Lord saying: Do not be overmuch just, and: Perverse are the ways which are on the left. And they fall into a double woe, of the flesh and of the spirit, of the present age and of the age to come; whereas, on the contrary, the churchmen hear: Rejoice, again I say, rejoice. But the farmer too is called to mourning — for the heretics have their own farmers, in whose fields thistles and thorns spring up —, and to wailing are called those who know how to wail, whether for their own sins or for those of others; although we can also take this in a good sense, that a churchman who is able to call others to repentance should imitate his Lord, who says: We have lamented, and you have not wailed; and that he should wail for the heretics, as Samuel once wailed for Saul, king of Israel. And the Apostle says that he mourns over those who have not repented.

Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the Ruler: In all the streets there shall be wailing, and in all the places that are outside it shall be said: Woe, woe. And they shall call the farmer to mourning, and to wailing those who know how to wail. And in all the vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord. LXX: Therefore thus says the Lord God Almighty: In all the streets wailing, and in all the ways it shall be said: Woe, woe. The farmer shall be called to mourning, and to wailing those who know lamentation, and in all the ways wailing, for I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord. I commanded you to seek good and not evil, that you might live, and that the Lord might be with you. And again I added, lest you should say that you had been warned only once: Hate evil and love good, and restore judgment in the gates, you who hated him who rebuked in the gate, that the Lord may have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. And because you would not do it, trampling on my commandments, and you turned a retreating shoulder to me, therefore thus says the Lord God Almighty, who is the Lord of hosts. Everywhere lamentation, everywhere sadness. The farmers shall be called to mourning, and those who know how to lead the dirge, after the custom of the province, so as to stir up tears, shall be called, so that the wailing and mourning shall be, not in all the streets, as was said above, but in the vineyards, so that where there was once the matter of gladness, there may be the source of tears. And all these things shall come to pass, because I will pass through, he says, the midst of you. The Hebrew word I will pass through, which in their language is said eebor, whenever it is placed in the holy Scriptures in the person of God, is to be taken as a punishment, meaning that he does not remain among them but passes through and leaves them. Hence also in other places, according to the translation of Aquila, when God is angry, he calls his fury and wrath ἀνυπερθεσίαν (no postponement).

And in all the vineyards there shall be wailing, for their vineyards are the vineyards of Sodom. And instead of the wine of gladness, which gladdens the heart of man, they have brought forth the wine of dragons and the incurable fury of asps. And they will suffer all these things, because the Lord will pass through their midst, so as not to dwell among them, nor to say: I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age.

Yet here a question arises: why do the saints desire the day of the Lord, when the prophet says, “Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord” (Amos 5:18)? For we know that the day of the Lord is the condemnation of the wicked, as we have already said. And what need was there for the prophet to say, “Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord,” when no wicked person is found who either desires his own death or the day of the Lord, since he fears being condemned in it? And because what the prophet said is true, we must investigate what it signifies. Indeed, the condemnation of the wicked is their sins: whoever therefore desires to go to bed with a prostitute, desires his own condemnation; whoever desires to get drunk, desires his own condemnation; whoever desires to steal a horse or an ox or anything like that, desires his own condemnation; whoever desires to inflict some harm on his neighbor, desires his own condemnation. Therefore, since the condemnation of the wicked will be the day of judgment, whoever desires to commit those crimes for which he will be condemned on the day of judgment, desires the day of the Lord, that is, he desires his own condemnation.

But no one doubts that all our writers understand the day of darkness as the day of judgment, of which Zephaniah also writes: Near is the great day of the Lord, it is near and exceedingly swift: the voice of the day of the Lord is bitter and hard. And Isaiah: Behold, the incurable day of the Lord is coming, of fury and wrath, to make the whole world a desert, and to destroy the sinners out of it. And at the same time the confidence of the proud is shaken off, who, in order to appear just before men, are accustomed to await the day of judgment and to say: Would that the Lord might come, would that it were granted us to be dissolved and to be with Christ, imitating the Pharisee who spoke in the Gospel: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, unjust, adulterers, or like this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. For by this very fact, that they desire the day of the Lord and do not dread it, they are judged worthy of punishment, because no man is without sin, and the stars are unclean before him. And he has shut up all things under sin, that he may have mercy on all. Since therefore no one can pass judgment on the judgment of God, and we are to render an account even for an idle word, and Job daily offered sacrifices for his sons, lest perhaps they should think something perverse against the Lord, what rashness it is to hear with the Corinthians: Without us you reign, and would that you did reign, that we also might reign with you. Certainly, even if their own conscience did not sting them, they ought to have imitated Paul, who says: Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn? And they ought to have been anxious for all, lest, as lovers of themselves, they should desire the torments of others so that they themselves might reign, as if someone wished his own country to be captured and his city overthrown, so that he alone might enjoy the friendship of the victors. We are accustomed to say in straits and tribulations: Would that I might depart from the body and be freed from the miseries of this age, not knowing that so long as we dwell in this flesh we have a place for repentance; but if we have departed, we shall hear that word of the prophet: But in hell who will confess to you? This is the sadness of the world, which leads to death, by which the Apostle does not wish him to perish who had committed fornication with his father's wife; by which also the unhappy Judas perished, who, swallowed up by excessive sadness, joined murder to betrayal, and a murder worse than all murders, so that where he thought there was a remedy, and the death of hanging an end of his evils, there he found the lion and the bear and the snake.

Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for you? That day of the Lord 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 enter the house and lean with his hand upon the wall, and a snake should bite him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light? And gloom and no brightness in it? LXX: Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord: to what end is this day of the Lord for you? And it is darkness and not light. As if a man should flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should fall upon him, and he should go into the house and lean with his hands upon the wall, and a snake should bite him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light? And gloom, and it has no brightness. Lest the Tekoite prophet, who was of the tribe of Judah, should seem to neglect the men of his own tribe altogether and to address his word to the ten tribes alone, the prophecy is now directed to both kingdoms, that is, to Judah and Israel; this can be understood from many other things indeed, but especially from what follows: Woe to you who are wealthy in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria. Woe therefore to Judah and Israel, who say: Let the day come, let the foretold captivity come, provided that the restoration also which is promised through the prophets follows. For there is not so much evil in the injury of captivity as there is good in the things which the Lord promises after the captivity. To them the prophet replied that they were waiting in vain, after the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, for what is to come a long time afterwards, at the coming of the Son of God; for desolation and poverty and innumerable miseries will follow them. For to those who flee, he says, from the face of Nebuchadnezzar the lion, Ahasuerus will come to meet them, under whom the history of Esther is told; or, when the empire of the Assyrians and Chaldeans has been destroyed, the Medes and Persians will rise up. And when you have returned in the reign of Cyrus, and at the command of Darius have begun to build the house of the Lord, and have put all your confidence in the temple, so that you rest in it and lean your weary hands upon the walls, then will come Alexander, king of the Macedonians, or Antiochus surnamed Ἐπιφανὴς (Epiphanes), who will stay in the temple and bite you like a snake, not outside in Babylon and in Susa, but within the borders of the holy land. By these things it is proved that the day which you long for is not one of light and joy, but of darkness and sadness. These things we have said briefly according to the history, so as not to leave the opinion of the Jews wholly untouched.

Perhaps we will understand what has been written if we deal with a Gospel text spoken by the Savior, which expresses it in this way: "Work while it is day. The night comes when no one can work." He has named here as this age the day—but of necessity I have added the word here, for I know that in other passages other meanings are revealed—so he has called this age the day, but the darkness and the night the consummation because of punishments. For "why do you desire the Day of the Lord? And it is darkness and not light," says the prophet Amos. If you can envision after the consummation of the world what the gloom is, a gloom that pursues nearly all of the race of humans who are punished for sins. The atmosphere will become dark at that time, and no longer can anyone ever give glory to God, since the Word has given orders to the righteous saying, go, "my people, enter into your rooms, shut the door, hide yourself for a little season, until the force of my anger has passed away."

Since there were some buoyed up by audacity and temerity who resisted the prophetic oracles, raging against them, calling the divine pronouncements false and demanding the fulfillment of the prophecies, the Lord declares these people lamentable for longing to see darkness instead of light. Those who long to see the fulfillment of prophecy, he is saying, are no different from a person fleeing an attacking lion and after that running into a bear, or fearfully going into a house and, with one's soul in the grip of panic, putting a hand on the wall and being bitten by a venomous snake. In other words, as that person on that day sees darkness and not a gleam of light, so these people will be given over to deep darkness on the day of punishment.

I am pierced by one wound and tortured with much grief, the bond of bitterness does not permit the tongue to perform its function, and it is easier to weep than to talk. Lo, one affliction comes upon another affliction and contrition upon contrition, "as if a man were to flee from a lion, and a bear should meet him," or howl at being struck by a scorpion, "and a snake should bite him," so completely am I dejected and afflicted with the misery of sorrow. I confess, madam, that every time I try to write to you about the passing of our lady Basilla of blessed memory, I am overcome with bitterness and experience a dullness in my mind, a heaviness in my sense and slowness in my tongue, because while I was occupied with grief, my mind was moved by death.

By these names there seem to me to be signified either various punishments or the devil himself, who is rightly called both lion and bear and snake. And when we think that we hear Isaiah saying: Go, my people, into your chambers; shut the door, hide yourself for a little while until the wrath of the Lord passes, and that we are as it were in our own house, as it were resting in hell, then the snake will bite us, which in the present place is called Nahas, and in Job is called Leviathan, about whose nature and manifold terror we learn more fully in that book itself. But in the gloom and darkness, which are the opposites of brightness and light, the diversity of torments is set forth.

The word would be especially fitting for those from Judah and Benjamin. For the tribes in Samaria to the worship of idols being wholly attached, they were found to be very slothful and greatly negligent of the laws given through Moses; but those in Jerusalem sacrificed on the high places to Baal and offered libations to the host of heaven, yet in addition to this they pretended to take care to show reverence for the law, and to be eager to fulfill both sacrifices and feasts. But that the Creator of all things has hated these things, he also made clear through the voice of Isaiah, saying, "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; attend to the law of God, you people of Gomorrah. What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats I do not desire, not even should you come to appear before me. For who has sought these things from your hands? You shall not continue to tread my court. If you bring fine flour, it is in vain; incense is an abomination to me. Your new moons and your Sabbaths and the great day I do not tolerate; fasting and idleness and your feasts my soul hates; you have become to me a surfeit." We say that the preceding words depend on this thought. For he says, I have hated and cast off your feasts, and I would not praise your sacrifices, nor would I ever reckon as a fragrant aroma the whole burnt offerings and the offerings for salvation.

I have hated and cast away your festivals, and I will not take in the odour of your gatherings. And if you bring me your whole burnt offerings and your gifts, I will not accept them, and I will not regard the vows of your fatlings. LXX: I have held in hatred and rejected your festivals, nor will I smell in your assemblies. And if you offer me holocausts and sacrifices, I will not accept them, and I will not regard the saving offering of your presence. This is said properly against the tribe of Judah, and against those who had migrated from Israel to the ceremonies of God, and nevertheless did not depart from the high places, and worshipped idols, and polluted the sacrifices of God by the greatness of their sins. For I never think that he would have said of the offerings of calves which they offered in Dan and in Bethel: If you offer me your whole burnt offerings and your gifts, I will not accept them. But God hates, and not only hates but also has cast away, the festivals of those who flee the lion and run into the bear, and enter the house and are bitten by the serpent, because they do not celebrate the festivals of God but their own festivals, as the Lord says: I have hated and cast away your festivals. And he does not accept the gathering and the odour of men of this kind, nor does he hold it for an odour of sweet fragrance, and he detests all their gifts, and does not regard their fattest vows. This indeed will happen not only to the men of that time, but to us as well, if we commit similar offences, and think that we offer to God what has been gained by plunder and perjuries and crimes, and that we redeem our sins, when we have read that Zacchaeus restored fourfold whatever he had seized, and of what he had gained honestly offered half his substance. For he could not offer as gifts to God what had been wrongly gained, unless he first restored it to its owners, and afterwards fulfilled what is written: Honour the Lord from your just labours, and: The ransom of a man's soul is his own riches; for God does not accept vows from the hire of a harlot. On the contrary, the just man can say: Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight. This prayer was turned into sin for Judas the betrayer, for it did not have a good odour, but he said by his deed: My scars have putrefied and are corrupted, because of my foolishness. All these things we can say of the heretics as well, who, while they flee the lion, run into the bear, and having entered the house which they think is the Church of God, lean upon walls which they themselves have made, and are bitten by the serpent; whose light and day darkness and gloom snatch away, so that the darkness is palpable and their firstborn are slain. God hates their sacrifices and casts them away from himself, and whenever they have gathered under the name of the Lord, he detests their stench and shuts his nostrils. But in speaking of hating and casting away and not smelling, he speaks by a human likeness, so that we may come to know the disposition of God through our own words. And if they offer holocausts, or seem to fast, to give alms, to profess chastity, which are the true holocausts, the Lord does not accept these, nor does he deign to look upon their fattest victims. For he judges not the greatness of the sacrifices but the merits and motives of those who offer. Hence also the widow in the Gospel, who had cast two mites into the treasury, is preferred by the Savior to all those who believed that they were offering the fattest vows and victims full of marrow, giving little out of much, since she had offered all that she had. Are these things said more plainly and more truly, after the coming of the Lord, to the people of the Jews, who, though the temple and the altar have been destroyed, believe that they offer victims? God hates and casts away their festivals, and does not take in the odour of their gathering, when, gathered together, they say: Crucify, crucify such a one, and: His blood be upon us and upon our children. And if they offer holocausts in the synagogues, and gifts in the councils of Satan, and their fattest vows, the Lord does not regard them, just as he did not regard the gifts of Cain. They worship the one God well indeed, and offer rightly, but in this they are not regarded, that they do not divide their confession into the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But our gifts, that is, those of the Church, which we offer from our firstfruits, God regards, as once he regarded the sacrifices of Abel.

This brings us to a conclusion on another matter of great importance. The observances regarding sacrifices, sabbaths, new moons, and all such things prescribed by the Jewish way of life of that day—they are not essential. Even when they were observed they could make no great contribution to virtue; nor when neglected could they make the excellent person worthless or degrade in any way the sanctity of his soul. People of old, while still on earth, manifested by their piety a way of life that rivals the way the angels live. Yet they followed none of these observances, they slew no beasts in sacrifice, they kept no fast, they made no display of fasting. They were so pleasing to God that they surpassed this fallen human nature of ours and, by the lives they lived, drew the whole world to a knowledge of God.

And besides, before His coming He refused the sacrifices of the people, while they frequently offered them, when they sinned against Him, and thought He was to be appeased by sacrifices, but not by repentance. For thus He speaks: "Why dost thou bring to me frankincense from Saba, and cinnamon from a remote land? Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not sweet to me." And afterwards: "Gather your burnt-offerings, together with your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I did not command you, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices." And He says by Isaiah: "To what purpose do ye bring me a multitude of sacrifices? saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and I will not accept the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and of goats. Nor do you come and appear before me; for who hath required these things at your hands? Do not go on to tread my courts any more. If you bring me fine flour, it is vain: incense is an abomination unto me: your new moons, and your Sabbaths, and your great day, I cannot bear them: your fasts, and your rests, and your feasts, my soul hateth them; I am over-full of them." And He says by another: "Depart from me; the sound of thine hymns, and the psalms of thy musical instruments, I will not hear." And Samuel says to Saul, when he thought to sacrifice: "Obedience is better than sacrifice, and hearkening than the fat of rams. For, behold, the Lord does not so much delight in sacrifice, as in obeying Him."

What shall I say to those who worship Astarate or Chemosh, the abomination of the Sidions, or the likeness of a star, a god a little above them to these idolaters, but yet a creature and a piece of workmanship, when I myself either do not worship two of those into whose united name I am baptized, or else worship my fellow servants, for they are fellow servants, even if a little higher in the scale; for differences must exist among fellow servants.

Take away from me the tumult of your songs, and the canticles of your lyre I will not hear. LXX: Remove from me the sound of your songs, and the psalm of your instruments I will not hear. The beautiful canticles of the Levites, with which they praised God, he calls a tumult and a confused sound, because praise is not beautiful in the mouth of a sinner, and they had been accustomed to offer these same things to idols as well. The prayer of the Jews also, and the psalms which they sing in the synagogues, and the composed praise of the heretics, are a tumult to the Lord and, so to speak, the grunting of a swine and the braying of asses, to whose cries the works of Israel are rather compared. But the psalm and the songs, the lyre and the instruments, take either according to the letter in the people of Israel, things which were once done as an image of things to come, or according to the spirit in us and in the heretics: if we direct them with good works, they are heard by the Lord; if with evil works, he shuts his ears and does not deign to hear the canticles of the ungodly.

And judgment shall roll down as water, and righteousness as an impassable torrent. The righteous verdict against them will be like an impassable torrent, that is, dragging away what falls into it and sparing nothing. For when God drives someone into destruction and troubles, who is the one who will save? Who is the one who will help and deliver from judgment? Or what way will there be, by which if one passed through, he might be outside of the evils? None at all. "For who will turn back the high hand?" And, "If he shuts a man in, who can open it?" according to what is written.

And judgment shall be revealed as water, and justice as a mighty torrent. LXX: And judgment shall roll as water, and justice as an impassable torrent. As water, if it slides down a slope, lays bare what it had covered before and makes it lie open to the eyes of all, so the judgment and justice of God, which he once judged concerning his own people, will lie open to all and will be borne along like a most mighty torrent. Whatever it seizes, it drags with it, and it suffers nothing to withstand it. But according to the Seventy the judgment of the worst men rolls about like water, because it does not stand in one opinion but is carried about by every wind of doctrine, disapproving what it had approved, and thinking what it had praised before to be worth nothing. Their justifications are compared not to rivers and the purest springs, but to muddy and miry torrents, which have no waters of their own but waters gathered from rocks and brambles and crags. Whoever wishes to cross them will at once be swept headlong, and, his feet overturned, he will not be able to say: He set my feet upon a rock; for he treads upon sands, which have no foundation, and when he has been in peril he will say, according to the Hebrews: The torrent has passed over my soul. On the contrary, we read of the just, whose judgment does not roll like water and whose justice is not borne along like an impassable torrent: The thoughts of the just are judgments.

This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. He brought them out, after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years. This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. [Amos 5:25-27]

We ask how they offered victims and sacrifice in the desert not to God but to their king, whom they call Lucifer? From the time when they transformed the gold into the head of a calf, saying: These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, everything they did is shown to have been done not for God but for idols. And as for our reading that afterwards they offered certain things to the Lord, they did it not willingly but out of fear of punishment, and because of the slaughter of those who fell on account of the idols; but the Lord regards not the things that are offered but the will of those who offer. Finally, whenever there was occasion, they always returned in heart to Egypt, longing for the garlic and onions and cucumbers and the flesh of Egypt, and despising the manna that was given from heaven.

Did you offer victims and sacrifice to me in the desert for forty years, house of Israel? And you carried the tabernacle of your Moloch and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves. And I will make you migrate beyond Damascus, said the Lord: the God of hosts is his name. LXX: Did you offer victims and sacrificial beasts to me in the wilderness for forty years, house of Israel, and you took up the tabernacle of Melchom, and the star of your god Repham, their figures which you made for yourselves. And I will carry you over beyond Damascus, says the Lord: God Almighty is his name. From this place we learn that all the victims and sacrifices which Israel offered in the desert it offered not to God but to Moloch its king, whose tabernacles they carried, and that they venerated the image of their idols and statues. And what this image or idol is, he shows in the words that follow: The star of your god, which in Hebrew is called chocab, that is, of Lucifer, whom the Saracens worship to this day. For this reason the Lord made them migrate beyond Damascus, that is, to the Assyrians and Chaldeans, the Lord whose omnipotence is shown from the fact that he is the Lord God of hosts.

That we may understand it so, Stephen, the first martyr of the Gospel, worthy of his name, relates in the history of the apostles: And they made a calf in those days, and offered a victim to the image, and rejoiced in the works of their hands. But God turned, and gave them up to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: Did you offer sacrificial beasts or victims to me for forty years in the desert, house of Israel? And you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Rhepham, the figures which you made to worship them, and I will carry you over beyond Babylon. Nor must the first martyr be thought to have erred because, where it is written in the prophet, Beyond Damascus, he said, Beyond Babylon. For he set down the sense rather than the word, since they were led beyond Damascus into Babylon, or beyond Babylon. But in the place where Luke put Μολὸχ and where in the Hebrew is written Melchechem, Aquila and the LXX translated Μελχὸμ, Symmachus and Theodotion, of your king. Likewise, where Repham is read in the Seventy, Aquila and Symmachus, transferring the Hebrew word itself, put Chion, Theodotion ἀμαύρωσιν, that is, obscurity. Again, for Sochoth Aquila translated συσκιασμοὺς, that is, tabernacles, Symmachus and the Seventy, tabernacle, Theodotion, vision. And this is to be observed in all the holy Scriptures: that the apostles and apostolic men, in setting down testimonies from the Old Testament, consider not the words but the sense, and do not tread in the same footprints of the expressions, provided they do not depart from the meaning.

But whatever is said according to the letter against the people of the Jews, refer all of it to those who worship idols under the name of Christ, and who, inventing perverse dogmas for themselves, carry the tabernacle of their king the devil, and the image of their statues and idols. For they do not worship one idol, but according to the variety of their doctrine they adore different gods, and the star of their god. Since he is an angel of Satan, he transforms himself into an angel of light, and falls from heaven like lightning, and the antichrist imitates Christ. And he fittingly added: Which you made for yourselves. For they did not receive these things from God, but fashioned them out of their own mind.

Therefore the Lord will make them migrate beyond Damascus, so that they may not drink the blood of the Lord, but may pass over into Babylon and hear through the prophet: Babylon is a golden cup, making all the nations drunk. For Damascus, as we have often said, means drinking blood, or the blood of sackcloth, so that through repentance they may be called forth to drink the blood of the Lord.