Ezekiel 28

Who then will pay the price for the shedding of the blood of him who came in human likeness, if not [Satan], who, clothing himself in a human form, betrayed him, not because he was able to condemn and betray him but because he wished to betray him? It was not [the Lord] who killed malice. It killed itself through its works.… If anyone shoots an arrow against his enemy that returns to strike him, he breaks the arrow and burns his bow. In the same way, Satan, seeing that the Son's death was victory for the world and that his cross freed created beings, entered into Judas, his [chosen] vessel, and the latter went and put a cord around his neck and choked himself.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart has been lifted up, and you have said: I am God, and I have sat in the chair of God in the heart of the sea; though you are a man and not God, and you have set your heart as the heart of God. Behold, you are wiser than Daniel, no secret is hidden from you; in your wisdom and your understanding you have made strength for yourself, and you have acquired gold and silver in your treasuries; in the multitude of your wisdom, in your trading you have multiplied strength for yourself, and your heart has been lifted up in your might. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because your heart has been lifted up as the heart of God, therefore behold, I will bring upon you strangers, the mightiest of the nations; and they will bare their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they will defile your comeliness. They will slay you and drag you down, and you will die in the destruction of the slain in the heart of the sea. Will you indeed speak, saying: I am God, before those who slay you, though you are a man and not God in the hand of those who kill you? By the death of the uncircumcised you will die in the hand of strangers, for I have spoken, says the Lord God. (LXX: "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: And you, son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart has been exalted, and you have said: I am God, I have dwelt in the dwelling of God in the heart of the sea; but you are a man and not God, and you have set your heart as the heart of God. Are you wiser than Daniel? The wise have not instructed you with their discipline: did you by your erudition or your understanding make strength for yourself, and make gold and silver in your treasuries, or by your great erudition and your trading did you multiply your strength? Your heart has been raised up in your strength. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have set your heart as the heart of God, on account of this behold, I will bring upon you strangers, pestilent ones from the nations; and they will unsheathe their swords against you, upon the beauty of your learning, and they will humble your beauty in perdition. And they will bring you down and lay you low, and you will die the death of the wounded in the heart of the sea. Will you indeed, speaking, say: I am God, in the sight of those who slay you? But you are a man and not God in the multitude of those who wound you. By the deaths of the uncircumcised you will die in the hands of strangers, for I have spoken, says Adonai the Lord.") Wherever, according to the Seventy, 'Lord, Lord' is set down twice, the first name is the tetragrammaton, which belongs properly to God and is called 'ineffable', the second is the common one, which is often found among men as well. Now just as, under the figure of a ship, first the riches of the city of Tyre and then its ruin and lament were described, so the prophetic word is addressed first to the prince of Tyre, that he was raised up through pride and did not use well the wealth that he had, then comes mourning and lamentation over the great goods from which he came to such great evils. First things, then, must be said first. It is written in Isaiah of the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, that he made himself equal to the power of God and was lifted up into such arrogance that he dared to say: I will ascend above the stars of heaven, and I will be like the Most High — and, cast headlong from his throne, he deserved to hear: How has Lucifer fallen, who rose in the morning? —, and of Pharaoh in this same prophet: The rivers are mine, and I made them, and of the prince of Tyre, that with lifted-up heart he said arrogantly: I am God and I sit in the chair of God (or I have dwelt in the dwelling-place of God), though he is a man and not God; and these words, although they seem to exceed the strength of human frailty and to be the words not so much of men as of raving demons, we must nevertheless take as ὑπερβολὴν [hyperbole, exaggeration]: that they swelled up to such a degree and did not know their own measure that, lifted up by the prosperity of the world and the power of their kingdom, while they think present goods to be everlasting, they did not know that they were men and claimed eternal rule for themselves; although under the type of princes and kings and of individual cities or provinces the adverse powers are shown — of whom the apostle Paul also writes: Our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the princes and powers and rulers of this darkness and the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places, and in another place: We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the princes of this age, who are being destroyed, and, again discussing wisdom, he says: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory; in the prophecy of Daniel too one reads plainly: The prince of the Israelite people Michael, and the prince of Greece, and the prince of the Persians; and Moses writes more openly in the song of Deuteronomy: When the Most High was dividing the nations, was scattering the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God (or, as it stands better in the Hebrew, according to the number of the sons of Israel); and the Lord's portion became his people, Jacob, the cord of his inheritance Israel; nor shall we wonder that on the contrary side the worst kings go before as a type of the transgressing princes, since we teach that the best kings, David and Solomon and Josiah, and the patriarchs and prophets went before in figure of the Lord Savior —.

Therefore let us discuss what is written according to both understandings, that of proud kings and equally that of apostate princes: 'Though you are', he says, 'in the midst of the sea, and are held in the narrow confines of an island, and, I will say more, though you are a man and surrounded by the frailty of human flesh, lifted up by the swelling of your heart you have supposed that you dwell on the throne of God, in the heavens; and at the same time, because you boast of wisdom, so much so that the men of your kingdom challenged Solomon with riddles: are you then wiser than Daniel, who by the grace of God overcame all the magi and soothsayers and is now the wisest in Babylon?' Or it is to be understood thus: 'Even if you are wiser than Daniel, who by the confession of all is the wisest, and by the greatness of your riches and power desire to make yourself equal to the power of God, nevertheless you will be taken by your adversaries and, your city lost, you will be pierced with many wounds, and you will no longer say: I am God; taught by your destruction that you are a man, not God'. But if we wish to say that the prince of Tyre is that same power to whom the city itself, or province, was entrusted by God, let us take up that testimony: I said: You are gods, and all sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes; for provinces were handed over to them to rule, as to judges, by the Emperor; and they, forgetting that their honor depended on the command of another, such as Heraclianus lately was in Africa, rose up with a tyrant's mind against their king and Lord, so that, scattered through the whole world, under the names of idolatry, they took to themselves the names of gods and, puffed up with pride, fell into the judgment and the snare of the devil, of which the Savior also spoke in the Gospel: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.

The bishops have directed that the case of the prince of Tyre should be examined, to say something about merits and faults, and they have ordered also that I should return to the subject of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, on certain points.

In the prophet Ezekiel the "prince of Tyre" is most plainly pictured as a certain spiritual power. When these, therefore, and other similar princes of this world, each having his own individual wisdom and formulating his own doctrines and peculiar opinions, saw our Lord and Savior promising and proclaiming that he had come into the world for the purpose of destroying all the doctrines (whatever they might be) of the "knowledge falsely so called," they immediately laid snares for him, not knowing who was concealed within him. For "the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ." But their snares became known, and the plots that they had contrived against the Son of God were understood when they "crucified the Lord of glory." Therefore the apostle says, "We speak a wisdom among the perfect; yet a wisdom not of this world or of the rulers of this world, which are coming to naught … a wisdom that none of the rulers of this world knew. For had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory."

The devil has fallen into such madness and is excited in such a frenzy that he has called himself God, and he has persuaded people to offer worship to him instead.

Who would refuse the counsel of Daniel, of whom God said, "Who is wiser than Daniel?" How can people doubt about the minds of those to whom God has given such grace? By the counsel of Moses wars were brought to an end, and for his merit's sake food came from heaven and drink from the rock. How pure must have been the soul of Daniel to soften the character of barbarians and to tame the lions! What temperance was his, what self-restraint in soul and body! Not unworthily did he become an object of admiration to all, when—and all people do admire this—though enjoying royal friendships, he looked not for gold or counted the honor given him as more precious than his faith. For he was willing to endure danger for the law of God rather than to be turned from his purpose in order to gain human favor.

This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, why in the above-mentioned Prophet Ezekiel a certain most haughty person is asked, "Art thou then wiser than Daniel?" Nor on this point can that be possibly said which some contend for in opposition to the Lord's Prayer: "For although," they say, "that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became holy and perfect, and had no sin whatever, yet it was not in behalf of their own selves, but of imperfect and still sinful men that they said, 'Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.' They used the word our," they say, "in order to show that in one body are contained both those who still have sins, and themselves, who were already altogether free from sin." Now this certainly cannot be said in the case of Daniel, who (as I suppose) foresaw as a prophet this presumptuous opinion, when he said so often in his prayer, "We have sinned;" ... but he expresses himself in language so distinct and precise, as if he were full of the distinction himself, and wanted above all things to commend it to our notice: "My sins," says he, "and the sins of my people." Who can gainsay such evidence as this, but he who is more pleased to defend what he thinks than to find out what he ought to think?

Can anyone claim to be without sin, when Daniel confesses his own sins? I mean, some proud person or other was asked through the prophet Ezekiel, "Are you wiser than Daniel?" Again, the prophet also placed this Daniel among the three holy men in whom God signifies the three sorts of human beings he is going to deliver when the great tribulation comes on the human race.

Nay, can we be better men than Daniel himself, concerning whom God, speaking to the prince of Tyre, says by the prophet Ezekiel, "Art thou wiser than Daniel?" who also is placed among the three righteous men to whom alone God saith that He would grant deliverance,—pointing, doubtless, in them to three representative righteous men,—declaring that he would deliver only Noah, Daniel, and Job, and that they should save along with themselves neither son nor daughter, but only their own souls.

The same apostle writes that God alone is wise, although both Solomon and many other holy people are called wise, and it is said, according to the Hebrew, to the prince of Tyre, "You are wiser than Daniel." Therefore, just as he alone is called the light, immortal and wise, although they are many who are immortal, and who are lights and who are wise, so also the human perfection that proceeds not from nature but from grace shows that those who seem to be perfect are imperfect.

The Lord speaks as follows to Ezekiel: "Son of man, take up a lament over the prince of Tyre, and say to him: Thus says the Lord God: You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. You experienced the pleasures of God's paradise. Every precious stone was your covering: sardius, topaz and jasper, chrysolite and onyx and beryl, sapphire and carbuncle and emerald. Gold was the work of your beauty, and your pipes were prepared in the day that you were created. You were a cherub stretched out and protecting, and I set you in God's holy mountain. You have walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were perfect in your ways from the day of your creation, until iniquity was found in you. By the multitude of your actions your inner parts were filled with iniquity and you have sinned; and I cast you out from the mountain of God, and destroyed you, O covering cherub, out of the midst of the stones of fire. And your heart was lifted up with your beauty. You have lost your wisdom in your beauty; I have cast you to the ground. I have set you before the face of kings that they might behold you. You have defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities and by the iniquity of your actions."

We now find in the prophet Ezekiel two prophecies addressed to the prince of Tyre, the first of which might appear, before one had heard the second, to be spoken of some man who was prince of the Tyrians. For the present, therefore, we shall take nothing from the first one. But since the second is most evidently of such a kind that it cannot possibly refer to a man but must be understood of some higher power that fell from higher places and was cast down to lower and worse ones, we shall conclude that as an illustration that most clearly proves that these opposing and wicked powers were not so formed and created by nature but came from better conditions and changed for the worse; and [we shall conclude] that the blessed powers also are not of such a nature as to be unable to admit qualities the opposite of their own, supposing one of them should desire to do so and should become negligent and fail to guard with the utmost caution the blessedness of his condition. For when he who is called "prince of Tyre" is said to have been "among the holy ones" and "without stain" and set "in the paradise of God," "adorned with a crown of honor and beauty," how, I ask, can we suppose such a being to have been inferior to any of the holy ones? He is described as having been "a crown of honor and beauty" and as having walked "in the paradise of God" "without stain." How then can anyone possibly suppose that such a being was not one of those holy and blessed powers that, dwelling as they do in a state of blessedness, we must believe are endowed with no other honor than this?… Who is there that, hearing such sayings as this, "You were a signet of likeness and a crown of honor in the delights of the paradise of God," or this, "from the time you were created with the cherubim, I placed you on the holy mount of God," could possibly weaken their meaning to such an extent as to suppose them spoken of a human being, even of a saint, not to mention the prince of Tyre? Or what "fiery stones" can he think of, "in the midst" of which any person could have lived? Or who could be regarded as "stainless" from the very day he was created and yet at some later time could have acts of unrighteousness found in him and be said to be "cast forth into the earth"? This certainly indicates that the prophecy is spoken of one who, not being on the earth, was "cast forth into the earth," whose holy places also are said to be polluted. These statements, therefore, from the prophet Ezekiel concerning the prince of Tyre must relate, as we have shown, to an adverse power, and they prove in the clearest manner that this power was originally holy and blessed, and that he fell from this state of blessedness and was cast down into the earth "from the time that iniquity was found in him" and that his fallen condition was not due to his nature or creation. We consider, therefore, that these statements refer to some angel, to whom had been allotted the duty of supervising the Tyrian people, whose souls also were apparently committed to his care. But what Tyre, or what souls of Tyrians we ought to understand—whether it is the city that is situated in the territory of the province of Phoenicia or some other city of which the one we know on earth is a figure, and whether the souls are those of the actual Tyrians or of the inhabitants of that Tyre that we understand spiritually—there seems no need to inquire here. For we should appear to be investigating, in a casual manner matters whose importance and obscurity certainly demand a work and treatment of their own.

It follows that the serpent in paradise was certainly not brought into being without the will of God. In the figure of the serpent we see the devil. That the devil existed even in paradise we are informed by the prophet Ezekiel, who in discussing the prince of Tyre says, "You are in Eden, the garden of God." The prince of Tyre stands for the devil. Shall we, therefore, accuse God because we cannot comprehend the treasures—with the exception of those that he has deigned to reveal—of his majesty and wisdom that lie hidden and concealed in Christ? Yet he did reveal to us the fact that the wickedness of the devil is fruitful for humanity's salvation. This would not be the devil's intention, but the Lord makes the wickedness of him who stands in opposition to us contribute something to our salvation. The wickedness of the devil has caused the virtue and patience of one holy man to shine in a clearer light.

The chief author of sin, then, is the devil, the author of all evil. Not I but the Lord has said, "The devil sins from the beginning." Before him no one sinned. Nor did he sin because by nature he was of necessity prone to sin—or else the responsibility for sin would reflect on him who created him in this way—but after being created good, he became a devil by his own free choice, receiving that name from his action. Though he was an archangel, he was afterwards called devil (slanderer) from his slandering, and though he was once a good servant of God, he was afterwards rightly named Satan, for Satan is interpreted "the adversary." This is not my teaching but that of the inspired prophet Ezekiel. For taking up a lament against him, he says, "You were a seal of resemblance and crown of beauty; you were begotten in the paradise of God," and a little further on, "Blameless you were in your conduct from the day you were created until evil was found in you."

Blessed is the poor person who gazes on that place; riches are poured in profusion outside and around it; chalcedony and other gems lie there cast out to prevent their defiling the glorious earth of paradise; should someone place there precious stones or beryls, these would appear ugly and dull compared with that dazzling land.

We should notice that the nature of angels is not said to have been made in the likeness of God but as the seal of the likeness, since as its essential nature is finer, it is suggested that God's image is expressed with greater likeness in it. The prophet immediately adds, every precious stone was your covering, carnelian, topaz and jasper, chrysolite, onyx and beryl, sapphire, carbuncle and emerald. He gave the names of nine stones, since there are nine ranks of angels. The first angel was adorned and covered with these nine since when it was set ahead of the whole multitude of angels, it was more illustrious in comparison with them. Why have I briefly listed these choirs of steadfast angels, if I am not also to comment more specifically on their functions? In Greek, angels are "messengers," and archangels are the most important messengers. We should know too that the word angel is the name of a service, not of a nature. The holy spirits of our heavenly homeland are always indeed spirits, but they cannot always be called angels since they are only angels when some message is communicated by them. So the psalmist says, he makes his spirits angels, as if to say plainly, he who always possesses them as spirits makes them angels when he wishes. Those that communicate relatively unimportant messages are called angels and those that communicate the most important are called archangels. That is why it was not just any angel, but the archangel Gabriel, that was sent to the Virgin Mary. It was right that a most important angel should come on this mission, to communicate the most important message of all.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, raise a lament over the king of Tyre, and you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord God: You, the seal of likeness, full of wisdom and perfect in comeliness; you were in the delights of the paradise of God, every precious stone was your covering: sardius, topaz and jasper, chrysolite and onyx and beryl, sapphire and carbuncle and emerald; gold, the work of your comeliness, and your openings were prepared on the day on which you were formed. You, a Cherub stretched out and protecting; and I set you on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the fiery stones, perfect in your ways from the day of your formation, until iniquity was found in you. In the multitude of your trading your inner parts were filled with iniquity, and you sinned. And I cast you out from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O protecting Cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up in your comeliness; you lost wisdom in your beauty: I cast you down to the earth, I set you before the face of kings that they might behold you. In the multitude of your iniquities and the iniquity of your trading you have polluted your sanctification; I will therefore bring forth a fire from your midst which shall devour you, and I will make you ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who see you. All who see you among the nations will be astonished over you; you have been made nothing, and you shall not be for ever. (LXX: "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, take up a lament over the prince of Tyre, and say to him: Thus says the Lord God: You are the seal of likeness full of wisdom, and a crown of comeliness; you were in the delights of the paradise of God, you were surrounded with every good stone: with sardius and topaz and emerald and carbuncle and sapphire and jasper and silver and gold and ligure and agate and amethyst and chrysolite and beryl and onyx, and with gold you filled your treasuries, and your granaries in you they prepared from the day on which you were formed, with the Cherub anointed by God and dwelling in the tabernacle, and I set you on the holy mountain of God: you were in the midst of the fiery stones, you were unblemished in your days from the day on which you were created, until iniquities were found in you. From the multitude of your trading you filled your storerooms with iniquity, and you sinned. And you were wounded from the mountain of God, and the overshadowing Cherub led you out from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was raised up in your comeliness; your discipline was corrupted with your comeliness: because of the multitude of your sins and iniquities I cast you down to the earth, in the sight of kings I set you, that you might be put to shame. Because of the multitude of your sins and the iniquities of your trading I have defiled your holy things; and I will bring out fire from your midst, it will devour you, and I will make you ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who see you. And all who knew you among the nations will be saddened over you; you have become perdition, and you will be no more for ever.") Since we have learned who the prince of Tyre is and how he fell through pride, let us come to know the lamentation over him for his former glory. First he is reminded of what he was, so that he may grieve that he has lost what he had: You, he says, the seal of likeness, according to what John the evangelist says properly of the Savior: For him God the Father has sealed, and of men: He has sealed that God is true, and in the Psalms: The light of your countenance has been sealed upon us, O Lord, and in another place: Beloved, now we are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, whence also it is said to God: Who will be like you?; for likeness is one thing, equality another. Hence that is a most savage heresy which confesses in Christ only the likeness of the Father and takes away his nature; but we say in the Son not only likeness but also equality — for this reason the Jews persecuted him: because not only did he break the sabbath, but he also made himself equal to God —; and where there is equality, there is the same nature and one substance. This is what the Apostle too says about likeness: 'My little children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you, that is, that you may recover his likeness, which you lost by your own fault'. And because in the Latin codices 'resignaculum' [unsealing] is read instead of 'signaculo' [seal] — since the one who translated, rendering word for word κακοζήλως [with misplaced zeal], set down 'resignaculum' for ἀποσφράγισμα [seal, seal-impression] according to the translation of the Seventy —, they accordingly understand it thus: that the king of Tyre unsealed and lost the seal of God and the figure that had been impressed as if in the softest wax, so that instead of a seal he made an unsealing, by no means having the image and likeness of God, according to which the first man too was formed, when God said: Let us make man according to our image and likeness; and it is to be noted that then only the image was made, while the likeness is completed in the baptism of Christ. And consequently to him to whom it was said: You, the seal of likeness, is joined: Full of wisdom and perfect in comeliness (or a crown of comeliness); for where the likeness of God is, there also is fullness of wisdom and perfect comeliness, or a crown of virtues, adorned and composed as if of various flowers, which the diligent man increases by his own effort while by industry he nourishes the good of nature, and the negligent man diminishes, according to what is said in Proverbs under the figure of a beautiful woman of bad character: As earrings in the nostrils of a pig, so is beauty to a woman of bad character.

He fell, for his dwelling place was always in heaven. He is the one to whom the words of Ezekiel are addressed: "You were stamped with the seal of perfection." Notice exactly what the prophet says: "the seal of perfection." He did not say to the devil, you are the sign of perfection, but the seal of perfection. God had set his impression on you and made you like to himself, but you afterwards destroyed the resemblance. You were created in the image and likeness of God.

He who was nurtured in a paradise of delight as one of the twelve precious stones was wounded and went down to hell from the mount of God.

Further, in Ezekiel we find it written thus: You are the seal of likeness and the crown of beauty; you were in the delights of the paradise of God. You were clothed with every first stone: sardius, topaz and emerald, carbuncle and sapphire and jasper, silver also, and gold and ligure, and agate and amethyst, and chrysolite and beryl and onyx; and with gold you filled your treasuries and your storehouses within you. From the day you were created, I set you with the Cherubim on my holy mountain; you were in the midst of the fiery stones, spotless in your days, from the time you were created until your iniquities were found in you (Ezek 28:12ff.). For who is so foolish and of so senseless a mind as to think that the prince of Tyre, whoever he believes him to be, set in the paradise of God, and created among the Cherubim, and dwelling among the fiery stones (which we understand without doubt as the Angels and heavenly Powers), was one adorned with earthly stones and having the likeness and the seal?

The Hebrews, among their other fables and γενεαλογίας [genealogies] and endless questions, are accustomed to understand these things as spoken against Hiram king of Tyre, although from Solomon to Ezekiel there are a great many years, which it is evident men did not live at that time; and to pronounce it thus, as if the prophet were speaking to him in irony: 'Are you the seal of the likeness of God, full of wisdom and perfect in comeliness, you adorned with all stones, you a Cherub, or created with a Cherub, when on the contrary you have sinned and are to be dissolved into ashes?'; and they add to their fable a marvel, so that, against the authority of Scripture, or rather without the authority of Scripture, they say: Hiram lived a thousand years. But how forced this interpretation is, the prudent reader understands without our judgment.

One of the angel powers, the marshal of one host, bore in himself no trace of natural evil from his Maker's hand but had been created for good, yet by his own free and deliberate choice he turned aside from good to evil and was stirred up by madness to the desire to take up arms against his Lord God.

The sacred word mentioned kinds of metals that were different among themselves. How are different metals fused together in the same furnace? It is because by the variety of metals there is meant the different kinds of humanity. Even silver, which is a metal of more noble material, is treated in the same fires because people have condemned the gifts of a more noble nature by their degenerate lives.

It If you turn to the prophecy of Ezekiel, you will at once perceive that this angel was both by creation good and by choice corrupt. For he speaks of the devil there in the person of the prince of Tyre.

The Manichaeans do not understand that if the devil is evil by nature, there can be no question of sin at all. They have no reply to the witness of the prophets, for example, where Isaiah, representing the devil figuratively in the person of the prince of Babylon, asks, "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of the dawn?" or where Ezekiel says, "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering." These texts indicate that the devil was for a time without sin.

There follows: You were in the delights of the paradise of God — for which in the Hebrew there stands 'in eden' — which the history of Genesis also narrates — and 'eden' is rendered as 'delights' —, and fittingly, for distinction, he names the paradise 'of God', to show that there is also a contrary paradise, 'not of God', among those who change the truth into a lie and boast that they have paradise; by which word he shows that the one of whom it is written is by no means a man, but a contrary force that once dwelt in the paradise of God; although the Jews think that this is prophesied of Hiram king of Tyre through the τρόπον [figure of speech] which is called ὑπερβολὴ; and to him to whom it is said: You were in the delights of the paradise of God, or 'you were made', it shows what he had, and what he lost. Further, as to what is joined to the dwelling in paradise: Every precious stone was your covering (or 'your binding and encircling'): sardius, topaz and jasper, chrysolite and onyx and beryl, sapphire and carbuncle and emerald, or, as in the Seventy, twelve stones are contained in a different order and with other names, this is to be observed: not that the king of Tyre was surrounded with every precious stone — or 'covered' and, as Symmachus translated, 'bound' and 'built in' —, but that every stone which the prince of Tyre had was precious. Otherwise there are many precious stones which Scripture does not name in the present passage: chalcedony, sardonyx, chrysoprase, jacinth, crystal too, and the most precious pearl; but Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion also differ greatly in the present passage, both among themselves and from the Seventy translators, not only in order but also in number and in names; in the Revelation of John too, where Jerusalem is recorded as built of living stones, the same stones, with the order changed a little in the last parts, are set in its foundations, so that its gates are written to have been built of the light of crystal; but on the breast of the high priest also the same stones are described, in four rows on the breastpiece, and on his shoulders two onyx stones, on which the names of the twelve patriarchs are written, which the true high priest, of whom it is written: You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek, bears on his breast, bears on his shoulders, so as to show in the twelve stones the number of the apostles, and in the two the mysteries of both testaments; of whom one, John the evangelist, reclined on his breast to drink in the streams of wisdom, and to be able to say: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God; these are the living stones of which the Church is built, and the apostle Peter writes: If you have believed that the Lord is sweet. Coming to him, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, honorable, you also yourselves, as living stones, are built up as spiritual houses, into a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual victims, pleasing to God through Jesus Christ. For the scripture says: Behold, I will lay in Zion a corner stone, chosen, precious; and he who believes in it will not be confounded, on which the vessel of election also agrees with like voice, saying: Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus our Lord himself being the corner stone; in whom the whole building, being constructed, grows into a holy temple of God; these are the stones of which we also read in another place: 'Holy stones roll upon the earth, like wheels, barely touching the ground and by their rolling hastening to heavenly things', of which Scripture also makes mention: Behold, I prepare your stone, the carbuncle, and your foundations, sapphire; and I will set your ramparts, jasper, and your gates with crystal stone, and your wall with choice stones, and all your sons taught by God, and your sons in much peace; and in righteousness you shall be built, on which we have said what seemed right to us in our explanations of that same prophet; of stones of this kind Psalm 20 (21) also sings: Lord, in your strength the king will rejoice, and over your salvation he will exult exceedingly. You have granted him the desire of his soul, and you have not cheated him of the will of his lips. For you have gone before him with the blessing of sweetness; you have set on his head a crown of precious stone; these are the pearls of the prophets and apostles which, in comparison with Christ, are all sold in the Gospel so that the most precious pearl may be bought, and the stone of which Zechariah writes that it has seven eyes, that is, the seven graces of the Holy Spirit, read Isaiah, and it is laid by the apostle Paul in the foundation of the Church, upon which gold, silver, precious stones are to be built; whose colors and natures and the powers of each it is not for this occasion to discuss, but they require a volume of their own, so that in Ezekiel and in Exodus and in Revelation and in Isaiah all the stones and the orders of the stones, compared with one another, raise a great question both for the reader and for the expositor; on which the holy man Bishop Epiphanius also handed me in person a volume of his own, and the thirty-seventh book of the Natural History of Pliny Secundus, after a manifold knowledge of all things, discusses gems and stones; to the knowledge of these the diligent reader must be sent by us; further, the translation of Symmachus writes that this prince of Tyre was studded with stones like a most precious necklace. Indeed it calls it a tympanum of gold, in which the stones were set; whence also according to the Hebrew there follows: Gold, the work of your comeliness, and your openings were prepared on the day on which you were formed; for which the Seventy set down: With gold you filled your treasuries, and your storehouses, referring it to the sense and mind, that his thought lay open to the divine mysteries and gathered for itself spiritual riches, of which the Lord commanded: Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor worm destroys, nor thieves dig through and steal. For where your treasure is, there is your heart also; this is the hidden treasure of which he also speaks in the Gospel: The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field; which he who finds hides, and for his joy goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field; and the storehouses, or granaries, are those of which it is written in another place: Blessed are your storehouses and your remnants.

He had in himself the power of admitting either good or evil. Falling away from good, he turned with his whole mind to evil. There are other created beings who, while possessing the power to choose either, by the exercise of free will flee from evil and cleave to the good.

For the king who was anointed with the holy oil was called a cherub. And he was overshadowing all his people.… They were sitting in the shadow of the king, while he was standing at their head. And when the crown of their head fell, they were without shade. And if anyone should say that this word is spoken concerning Christ, let him accept what I write for him without dispute, and he will be persuaded that it was said with reference to the king.

After this it is said, according to the Hebrew: You, a Cherub stretched out and protecting — it is understood: the ark of God and the mercy seat; or, according to the Seventy, 'that he himself was anointed and created with the Cherub'; from which it is shown that this cannot apply to a man, the prince of the city of Tyre, but to a force once holy and preeminent, which was set as prince of the city of Tyre —; and I set you, he says, on the holy mountain of God — no doubt it signifies paradise, to which the apostle Paul says he was caught up after the third heaven —; now 'Cherub' is said in the masculine gender, singular number, and in the plural they are called 'Cherubim', which means 'multitude of knowledge', upon whom God rests and sits, and he uses this chariot, as the prophet says to him: You who sit upon the Cherubim, show yourself, and in another place: He ascended upon the Cherubim and flew upon the wings of the winds; this Cherub, then, or the one created with the Cherub, stretched out and protecting the mysteries, was set on the holy mountain of God, of which we have often spoken and of which the apostle Paul speaks — if anyone, that is, accepts the epistle to the Hebrews —: You have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and thousands of angels; or certainly the holy mountain of God is to be understood, as we said, as paradise. He walked too in the midst of the fiery stones, of which it is written: Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire; and not only does God, who is called 'a consuming fire', consume hay, wood and stubble, but so do the angels, who are called 'fiery stones' and are fervent in spirit; whence the Lord too: Fire, he says, I came to send upon the earth, and how I wish that it may burn.

And what follows: Perfect in your ways from the day of your formation (for which the Seventy set down: You were unblemished in your days, from the day on which you were formed), until iniquity was found in you, shows that every creature was formed good by God and had perfect virtue, and through this that the prince of Tyre too was unblemished, so that the blemish thereafter is not of nature but of will.

'Until', he says, 'iniquity was found in you — found by God —, which was held shut up in the treasury of your breast, through pride and the abuse of the power you had received'; in the multitude of his trading, too, his inner parts, or storerooms, were filled with iniquity — for while he seeks out many things, and is not content with the knowledge he had received nor with the power over which he had been set, he filled the storerooms and inner parts of his breast —; so that, sated and grown fat, he kicked against his Creator: for Jacob ate indeed and was sated, and the beloved kicked back; he grew fat and was fattened and was enlarged, and forsook God who had made him, and: Out of the heart proceed the worst thoughts, on account of which God says: You sinned. And I cast you out from the mountain of God (or you were wounded from the mountain of God); reading this, we are compelled to fear: for if a Cherub stretched out and protecting, set on the holy mountain of God and in the midst of the fiery stones, perfect and unblemished, on account of the multitude of his trading filled his inner parts with iniquity, and sinned, and was cast out from the mountain of God — that is, from the dwelling of paradise — or was wounded from the mountain of God — which is plainly understood as Christ —, or certainly, while placed and dwelling on the mountain of God, was wounded by himself, and pricked by the evil of his conscience when he understands himself to be unworthy of dwelling on the mountain, what must be thought of us? For this reason it is said to him: 'And I destroyed you, O protecting Cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones, so that you should by no means stand among the fiery stones, but perish; O Cherub yourself, or the Cherubim who protected you, I led you out from the midst of the fiery stones', according to what is also written of Adam: He cast out Adam, and set him over against the paradise of delights.

Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? … The tent seems to me to be the church of this world. Now the churches that you see are tabernacles, for we are not here as permanent dwellers but rather as those about to migrate to another place. If "this world as we see it is passing away," and it says elsewhere that "heaven and earth will pass away," if, then, heaven and earth will pass away, how much more will the stones of the churches that we see also pass away? Now that is why churches are tabernacles, because we are going to migrate from them to the holy mountain of God. What is this holy mountain of God? It says in Ezekiel against the prince of Tyre, "You have been cut off as one slain from the mountain of God."

And he gives the reasons why he was led out, or cast out, from the midst of the fiery stones: 'For lifted up indeed was your heart in your comeliness, while you think yours what is God's'; whence the Apostle too says he received a goad of the flesh and an angel of Satan to buffet him, lest he be proud through the multitude of revelations and fall into the judgment of the devil. And therefore: 'Your learning has been corrupted', he says, 'with your comeliness (or you have lost your wisdom in your comeliness), so that, while you wish to be more than you were formed and to be wiser than you had received from God, you lost even what you had, and instead of beauty and learning, deformity and folly possessed you; whence you were cast down to the earth, you who formerly dwelt on the mountain of God — of whom Isaiah also writes: How has Lucifer fallen, who rose in the morning?, and the Savior in the Gospel: I was watching, he says, Satan like lightning falling from heaven, which Jeremiah also says to Jerusalem: How the Lord in his anger has darkened the daughter of Zion, has cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel —, and cast down in the sight of all kings so that they might be terrified by your example, whether the good kings, whose heart is in the hand of God, or the evil ones, whose kingdoms the devil showed to the Savior, who went to meet the Babylonian king, saying: You too have been taken as we were, and are counted among us'.

Wherefore he also polluted his sanctification, which he had had when he dwelt on the mountain and lived in the midst of the fiery stones. There follows: I will bring forth fire in your midst which may devour you; this fire would be kindled in the heart of the king of Tyre by him whose darts are fiery, and of whom it is written: All adulterers, their hearts are like an oven, of which fire Isaiah also speaks: Walk in the light of your fire and in the flame which you have kindled, so that, going forth outward, it may devour its possessor, according to what is written in the same Isaiah: It will devour the matter like hay; on that day the mountains and hills and forests will be quenched, and it will devour from the soul even to the flesh; this fire, which is called strange, Nadab and Abihu had offered at the altar of the Lord, and therefore they were consumed by divine fire; whence Moses too says: This is the word which the Lord spoke: In those who draw near to me I will be sanctified; and the sanctification of God is the punishment of sinners. After this it is said: And I will make you ashes, so that the fire may consume all that you have built upon your evil conscience; you who, though you ought in the rest and the sabbath by no means to do servile work, gathered wood on the sabbath, so that the blaze might have something to devour in your breast.

It is profitable too that all evil works be turned into ashes, so that the harmful fire may be utterly extinguished, and all may see and be astonished that the Tyrian king has perished and been made nothing, not for many ages, but for one, or certainly for ever, so that what is written may be fulfilled: I will not spare you, and I will not have mercy.

What is more true than this? The fire of sin went forth from the midst of their sin, a fire that devoured the good fortune of former times.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, set (or make firm) your face against Sidon, and you shall prophesy concerning it, and you shall say: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Sidon, and I will be glorified in you (or in your midst), and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have executed judgments in it (or in you) and have been sanctified in you (or in it). And I will send upon it (or into you) pestilence and blood in its streets (or your), and the slain (or the wounded) shall fall in its midst by the sword (or by swords) round about, and they shall know that I am the Lord. And there shall no longer be for the house of Israel a stumbling block of bitterness and a thorn bringing pain on every side round about, from those who oppose them (or who were doing them insult), and they shall know that I am the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God: When I have gathered the house of Israel from the peoples (or from the nations) among whom they have been scattered, I will be sanctified in them before the nations, and they shall dwell in their land which I gave to my servant Jacob; and they shall dwell in it secure (or in hope), and they shall build houses, and plant vineyards, and dwell confidently (or in hope), when I have executed judgments upon all who oppose them round about (or have done them insult), and they shall know that I am the Lord their God. (And what follows according to the Seventy: And the God of their fathers, is not found in the Hebrew.) Consequently, after Tyre, the word is addressed to Sidon; for both cities belong to one province, and in the Gospel Tyre and Sidon are named together: If in Tyre and Sidon had been done the mighty works which have been done in you, whence also the Canaanite woman, whose daughter was troubled by a demon, because she went out from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, obtained what she had asked.

Further, according to the spiritual understanding, this seems to us the sense. 'Sidonians' means 'hunters', of whom it is also written in the Psalms: Our soul has been snatched like a sparrow from the snare of the hunters, and again: For he will rescue me from the snare of the hunters and from the harsh word, and in Proverbs the eye of a harlot is the snare of a sinner; but there are also hunters in the good sense, contrary to these, of whom Jeremiah writes: Behold, I will send fishers and hunters who will hunt you from every hill and mountain, whom the Lord also sends to fish, and makes them from fishers of fish into fishers of men; whence the little village of Peter and Andrew too is called by this name — for 'Bethsaida' means in our tongue 'house of hunters' —. Against these, then, the worst hunters, the word of God is directed, and the prophet is commanded to set, or make firm, his face against Sidon, and by no means to waver with every wind of doctrine, but, standing firm in the truth, he will slay the hunters.

What, then, are the things with which the Lord threatens Sidon?: 'Behold, I myself will come to you, and I will be glorified in you when I have slain you; and all who live will know that I am the Lord, when I have repaid you what you deserve. And I will send pestilence and blood into your streets' — and rightly are the streets said to be Sidon's: for broad indeed and spacious is the way that leads to death —; and those who stood badly will fall slain by the sword round about, that sword which the Lord came to send upon the earth to separate what was badly joined; and those who remain will know that he is the Lord.

Now the divine word foretells that it too is to be taken by the Babylonians, and that by the weight of its evils it is to know that he is the Lord, when he has judged it and been sanctified in it and consumed it by famine and pestilence and the sword, so that it falls in its streets and is no longer a stumbling block to the people of God, nor assails them frequently; and when this has been done, the people of Israel, whom he had scattered among various nations, are to return to their own land, and he is to be sanctified in them, not, as in Sidon, in the bad sense but in the good, when he has had mercy on them, and they have dwelt in the land which he gave to their father Jacob; and they have dwelt secure and trusting in the Lord, and have built houses and planted vineyards, when he has fulfilled his promises; and then they are to know that he is the Lord, whose promises are most firm. Many refer this to the time of Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, when the people of Israel returned and dwelt in the land of Judea; but others hope that it is to be fulfilled in the last time and in the thousand years.

And when they have ceased, there will no longer be a stumbling block of bitterness and a thorn of pain pricking and wounding the people of God.

All these things, moreover, are said against the adverse powers: that in the last time they are to be destroyed, and there will be eternal security, when the Lord has gathered the house of Israel, those who discern God with the mind, and has been sanctified in them, and that will be fulfilled which is written: Be holy, for I am holy, and they have dwelt in their own land, of which we also read elsewhere: I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living, which he had given to Jacob, who had supplanted his elder brother and had deserved to receive his birthright; and they will dwell in it secure, or in hope, and they will build houses and plant vineyards, and they will dwell a second time in hope, according to what is read in Isaiah: You who have been weaned from milk, who have been drawn from the breast, expect tribulation upon tribulation, hope upon hope; and they will build houses, such as he builds in the Gospel who laid his foundations not upon the sand but upon the rock, of which it is written: Unless the Lord builds the house, they have labored in vain who build it, and in Exodus, according to the Seventy: Because the midwives feared the Lord, they made houses for themselves, and many things of this kind; and when the Lord has executed judgment against those who oppose Israel round about, or treat it with insults, then every creature will know that he is the Lord, whose judgments are true and justified in themselves.