Habakkuk 2

Where, then, did I find you in order to learn about you? For you were not already in my memory before I learned of you. Where, then, did I find you in order to learn about you, unless in yourself above me? Yet there is no place. We go backward and we go forward, yet there is no place. O truth, you do preside over all things, even those that take counsel with you, and you do answer in the same time all who consult you, however diverse their questions. You do answer clearly, but all do not hear clearly. All seek counsel concerning what they wish, but they do not always hear what they wish. He serves you best who does not so much expect to hear the thing from you that he himself desires, but rather to desire what he hears from you.

I will stand upon my watch, and fix my step upon the fortification, and I will look out, to see what is said to me and what I may answer to the one who reproves me. LXX: I will stand upon my watch, and I will go up upon the rock, and I will look out, to see what he speaks in me, and what I may answer to my correction. Symmachus has followed it out more plainly: Like a watchman I will stand upon the lookout, and I will stand as one shut in, and I will look out, to see what is said to me, and what I may answer, and gainsay against the one who reproves me. For fortification and rock, in place of which Symmachus translated shut in, there is put in the Hebrew masur, which Theodotion translated circuit, Aquila and the Fifth Edition compass. To the first complaint the Lord had answered: Look among the nations and see, and wonder and be astonished. To which the prophet, as though doing penance for what he had said before, had indeed moderated his question, saying: O Lord my God, my Holy One, and we shall not die. But nonetheless, with veneration and praises of God, he had questioned him: Your eyes are pure, so that you do not see evil, and you do not know how to look upon iniquity. Why do you not look upon those who do iniquitous things, and are silent, while the wicked devours one more just than himself? And what the devouring of the just would be, he has set out in its parts: that men would become like the fish of the sea, and like creeping things; and that with his hook, and dragnet, and net all would be dragged to destruction, and there would be no end of their slaughter. Therefore, because he is a prophet, and asks for this reason, and says he is in doubt so that what was answered to him might be answered to all: I will stand, he says, upon my lookout, that is, upon the height of my prophecy, and I will see what follows after the captivity of the people and the overthrow of the city and temple, and thereafter. Or certainly thus: I will guard my heart with all diligence, and I will stand upon Christ the rock. And with this circuit and compass I will be fenced as with a wall, so that the roaring lion may not be able to break in upon me, and I will see what God answers me after my second question, and, after he has answered me and rebuked me for having complained wrongly, what I too ought to answer him. But elegantly and with wonderful sense he describes human impatience, which we are always accustomed to show in disputes, so that before anyone on the opposing side answers us, and we know in what he has reproved us, we are made ready to answer. From this it is shown that the answer is not of reason but of contentiousness. For if it were reason, the answer ought to have been awaited, and so he should see whether he ought to reply, or to assent to a reasonable answer. But this too is to be noted from what he had said: To see what he speaks in me, that the prophetic vision and the utterance of God come to the prophets not from without, but within, and answer to the inner man. Whence Zechariah also: And the angel, he says, who spoke in me. And in the psalms: I will hear what the Lord speaks in me.

If someone perseveres continually in this watchfulness, therefore, he will effectively bring to pass what is quite plainly expressed by the prophet Habakkuk: "I will stand on my watch and go upon my rock, and I will look out to see what he will say to me and what I should reply to him who reproaches me." The laboriousness and difficulty of this is very clearly proved by the experiences of those who dwell in the desert of Calamus or Porphyrion.

Of what else than the advent of Christ, who was to come, is Habakkuk understood to say, "And the Lord answered me, and said, 'Write the vision openly on a tablet of boxwood so that the one who reads these things may understand.' " For the vision is yet for a time appointed, and it will arise in the end, and it will not become void. If it delays, wait for it, because it will surely come and will not be delayed.

You are perhaps distressed that you are driven outside the walls, but you shall dwell under the protection of the God of heaven. The angel who watches over the church has gone out with you. So they lie down in empty places day by day, bringing upon themselves heavy judgment as seen in the dispersion of the people. And, if in all this there is sorrow to be borne, I trust in the Lord that it will not be without its use to you. Therefore, the more have been your trials, look for a more perfect reward from your last judge. Do not take your present troubles ill. Do not lose hope. Yet a little while and your helper will come to you and will not tarry.

The all-merciful and beneficent Father has [a heart for] those who fear him, and kindly and lovingly he bestows his favors upon those who come to him with a simple mind. Therefore let us not be double-minded; neither let our soul be lifted up on account of his exceedingly great and glorious gifts. Far from us be that which is written, "Wretched are they who are of a double mind and of a doubting heart; who say, 'These things we have heard even in the times of our fathers, but, behold, we have grown old, and none of them has happened unto us.' " You foolish ones! Compare yourselves with a tree; take the vine. First of all, it sheds its leaves, then it buds, next it puts forth leaves, and then it flowers; afterwards comes the sour grape, and then follows the ripened fruit. You perceive how in a little time the fruit of a tree comes to maturity. Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall his will be accomplished, as the Scripture also bears witness, saying, "Speedily will he come, and will not tarry," and "The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple, even the holy one, for whom you look."

He is blessed who is named by another prophet, "He that comes," in the passage, "Yet a little while, and he that comes will come and will not tarry," who also came in the name of the Lord God his Father. And he is the Lord God that appeared for us. For he insists that he has come in the name of his Father when he says to the Jews, "I have come in my Father's name, and you receive me not. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him." He, then, who appeared for us—the Lord God, the blessed, who comes in the name of the Lord—was also the stone that those of old built up on the foundation of the Mosaic teaching, which they set aside and which, though set aside by them, has become the head of the corner of the church of the Gentiles. The oracle says it is wonderful, not to all that look on it but only to the eyes of the prophets, when it says, "And it is wonderful in our eyes."

According to the promise which is made to the holy man in Isaiah, saying: While you are still speaking, I will say, Behold, I am here, now too the Lord answered the prophet, and commanded him to write the vision and to set her out upon tablets, that is, to write more plainly. But I think the tablets are those of which the Apostle also speaks to the Corinthians: You are our letter, written in our hearts, which is known and read by all men; being made manifest that you are the letter of Christ, ministered by us, and written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart. And Solomon too signifies something of the kind in Proverbs, saying: Write her upon the breadth of your heart. And he is commanded to write more plainly, so that the reader may be able to run, and his speed and his desire of reading may be held back by no hindrance.

But what he says is of this kind, provided only that we mix in the translation of the Seventy too. Write in your heart; and as little children who receive the first elements of letters train their crooked strokes and trembling hand on boxwood, and by practice grow used to writing correctly, so you too, who have spoken in the person of the doubting people, write what I say on the tablets of your heart and on the boxwood of your breast. For it is a vision which is promised and which is commanded to be set out and written more plainly, so that it may be wrapped in no cloud and obscured by no windings of riddles; let a clear hope have a clear pledge. And this, O prophet, I command, not because you do not know — for you would not be a prophet if you were ignorant —, but so that what you have written more plainly the reader may be able to read and run through without hindrance and difficulty, which the Seventy translated: Ὅπως διώκῃ ὁ ἀναγινώσκων, that is, that he who reads may pursue, according to that sense which is written to Timothy: Pursue justice, piety, faith, charity, patience, gentleness. And to the Romans: Pursuing hospitality. And to the Corinthians: Pursue charity.

"[The Lord] who keeps the truth forever." If we are crushed by falsehood and deceit, let us not grieve over it. The Lord is the guardian of truth for all eternity. Someone has lied against us, and the liar is given more credence than we who are telling the truth. We must not despair. The Lord keeps faith forever. Aptly said, "keeps." He keeps truth and keeps it in his own treasury; he pays back to us what he has stored away for us. "Who keeps truth forever." Christ is truth; let us speak truth, and truth will safeguard truth for us. "[The Lord] secures justice for the oppressed." Even if justice delays its coming, do not give up hope; "it will surely come," and bring salvation, securing justice for the oppressed. May our conscience testify only that we are not suffering on account of our sins and that we are not guilty of the charge brought against us.

However, I am not unaware that according to their translation it can also be taken thus: Write the vision in which Christ is promised, and, whether on boxwood, or on tablets, or, as Symmachus translated, on pages, weave this discourse of your prophecy: that at the appointed time and at the consummation of the world my Son will come, to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and to join other sheep also to the ancient sheep, and, making one flock, to join the two rods, which Ezekiel, that is, the strength of God, holds joined and cleaving to one another in his prophetic hand. But if, O prophet, or you, O people — in whose person my prophet also seemed to doubt —, Christ withdraws himself a little and seems to delay, wait for him; for coming he will come, and will not tarry, and the rest which we have already expounded above.

And the Lord answered me, and said: Write the vision, and make him plain upon tablets, that he who reads him may run through; for the vision is still far off, and he will appear at the end, and will not lie; if he delays, wait for him, for coming he will come, and will not tarry. Behold, he who is unbelieving, his soul will not be upright in himself. But the just shall live in his faith. LXX: And the Lord answered to me, and said: Write the vision, and plainly on boxwood, that he who reads may pursue these things; for the vision is still for a time, and will rise at the end, and not in vain. If he fails, wait for him, for coming he will come and will not tarry; if he draws himself back, it will not please my soul in him. But the just shall live by my faith. For tablets and boxwood, which in Hebrew is called alluoth, Symmachus translated pages. And where the Seventy put: But the just shall live by my faith, all alike translated, shall live by his faith. Indeed Symmachus, translating more expressively, says: But the just shall live through his own proper faith, which in Greek is said ὁ δίκαιος τῇ ἑαυτοῦ πίστει ζήσει; for baemunatho, which means in his faith, if it had the letter iod and not uau at the end, as the Seventy thought, and were read Baemunathi, they would rightly have translated in my faith. But as it is, the likeness of the letters uau and iod, which differ from one another only in size, was the cause of the error. Why this was said, the following discussion takes in.

Moreover, as to what we translated for vision: For the vision is still far off, and if he delays, wait for him, that is, the vision (uisum), let no one, deceived by error, think that I put uisus, which is masculine and less usual in Latin, for uisio, which is feminine. For hazon, which Aquila translates ὁραματισμὸν (vision), is called among the Hebrews uisus, in the masculine gender, and to the end, under the same gender of the vision, that is, of uisus, the masculine inflection is kept. But the Seventy, saying: Write the vision, and afterwards: If he fails, wait for him; for coming he will come, and will not tarry; if he withdraws himself, it will not please my soul in him, first translated uisio in the feminine gender, which among the Hebrews, as we have said, is masculine. Then, following the Hebrew gender, where it is inflected in the masculine, wait for him, and it will not please my soul in him, they too inflected it in the masculine gender. Whereas surely they ought, in keeping with their first translating uisio, to have put the feminine gender of the vision in the rest also, so as to say: Wait for her for coming she will come; but if she withdraws herself, it will not please my soul in her, that is, in the vision. This for this reason, that we might not seem to keep silent about what we knew.

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. [Habakkuk 2:3-4] And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. [Habakkuk 2:3-4] But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

And he commands this because the vision is still far off, and set in an appointed time. And when the end of things has come, then he too will come, and the prophecy will be proved true, fulfilled in deed. But if perhaps, through your desire, O reader, and your ardor to see the vision, what has been promised should seem to you to delay a little, do not despair of its coming, but wait patiently: for you have me, who promise you and say: Coming he will come, and will not tarry.

But the vision itself, of which I said to you: Write the vision, and make it plain on boxwood, that he who reads may be able to pursue, is still set in an appointed time, of which the Savior says: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. And it will rise at the consummation of the world, and in the last hour of the day, of which John also speaks: Little children, now it is the last hour, and it will not come in vain; for it will save many, and with the remnant of the Israelite people it will gather a multitude of the nations. But if she withdraws herself a little, and the vision begins to come more slowly than your wishes, O reader, who are commanded to read on the boxwood and on the tablets which the prophet wrote out, wait for her, for coming she will come, and will not tarry.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. [Habakkuk 2:3-4]

How could it be shown from the testimony of the prophets, already received among the Gentiles in the New Testament, that the promise which God made to Abraham has been fulfilled through the coming of Christ? — It is written in the prophet Isaiah: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Isa. 56:7). But perhaps the Jews will say: The house of God, that is, the synagogue, is open to all. Nor do we object; yet in such a way that, as always, the circumcised join themselves to the Law. For their Law is that by which they were commanded, after the manner of Abraham, to be circumcised. Therefore, nothing new can seem to be signified by this example of the prophet; since anyone coming from any nation has never been forbidden from the beginning of Judaism to join himself to the Law. Nothing new spoken by the prophet can be thought, indeed it would be unessential, if the Gentiles have always been admitted to serve the God of Abraham and are never found to have been forbidden. And this is true, because those who submit themselves to the Law are never found not to have been received. If, therefore, these things are so, it seems needless that the prophet admonished about what, once handed down, has always been observed. And could anyone so dull be found as to say that the prophet spoke something unnecessary and empty? I do not know for whom it would be safe even to hear this and not oppose it. For since the Jewish people, on account of the sins which they committed against God, seeking help from idols, were often rebuked by the prophets but refused to enter upon the path of repentance so as to return to God, God, in reproach of them, indicated that He would open His house to all nations to pray, so that, the Jews being cast off, He would show that He would place others in their place. For if the nations have always been admitted to the Law, as was said above, how could the prophet say that this would happen in the future, unless he meant something different from what had been previously commanded? He could not speak of a thing which was done daily as though it were going to come. Therefore it is clear that this tends to the ruin of the Jews, to whom the prophet shows that, with them removed, others were to be called and were to receive the house of God’s grace, which had been promised to the Jews. What that promise is, the prophet Isaiah teaches, saying: “There shall come out of Zion one who shall deliver and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; and this shall be my covenant with them” (Isa. 59:20–21). Therefore this covenant is the removal of sins. This is the New Covenant, which was promised through Jeremiah, who says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will accomplish for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I arranged for their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and I neglected them, says the Lord” (Jer. 31:31–32). This is their transgression, when they made the image of a calf; then they corrupted His covenant. Therefore also the tablets on which the Law had been given were shattered under the mountain (Exod. 32:4, 19), because they deserved to receive more severe precepts. But because God is mild and merciful, He promised through the prophets that He would change the Law, so as to give another Covenant, which would differ from that which He had given before: that not only what was burdensome might be changed, but also those things which were given in figure, that is, the sabbath and circumcision; so that, since they had long been oppressed, being relieved in all things, they might give grateful thanks to God as petitioners. And because, persisting in their fathers’ transgression, they refused to turn their minds away from idols, He testifies that the nations, together with the remnant who kept the faith, will enjoy the Covenant which He had said would come: so that the faithless Jews might be tortured in a twofold way. For they were burdened for a time by the precepts, and in the future they will pay fitting penalties, because they were found faithful neither in the Old nor in the New Covenant. So He said that He would give a New Covenant, so that the Old, which had been given to the Fathers, would cease. And therefore, whoever serves God in this Covenant does not observe the sabbath, nor new moons, nor circumcision, nor distinctions of foods; but has only the fear of God in faith: because he will not be justified by the Law, but by faith, as the prophet Habakkuk says: “For the righteous shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4); so that he no longer uses many precepts to gain favor with God, but few. Isaiah again, speaking with the same meaning, says: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them shall be saved. For the Lord shall accomplish and cut short His word in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short word upon the whole earth” (Isa. 10:22–23). For the remnant who will persevere in the faith of the promise, while the others do not believe, He shows the shortened word of the Law: this is the New Covenant which He promised. It would not otherwise be called a Covenant, unless in a similar way this too were confirmed by the witness of blood, just as the Old Covenant, so that both might have one and the same name: but in the Old, many precepts, in the New, however, few, as He promised. So that, since He had said that Abraham would be the father of many nations (Gen. 17:4–5), in the same way the sons might be justified as the father had been justified: so that, once those things ceased which began after the faith of Abraham, those who receive the faith by which that same Abraham was justified might be sons of Abraham, as was said by the Lord. And this is neither strange nor unheard of, that men should be justified without care for the sabbath and circumcision and the rest of the commandments of this sort. For Enoch did not please God by this, that he might be translated; nor was Noah found righteous in the flood by observing this alone; nor was Abraham himself justified after he was circumcised: “Abraham,” it says, “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Heb. 11:5, 7, 8; Rom. 4:3). Then he was circumcised, so that there might be in him a sign that, though he was old, he believed that he would have a son. Therefore it is not circumcision that commends Abraham, but faith. And so, for those who believe, faith is sufficient for justification, that they may be sons of Abraham in faith, not in circumcision, because they have no need of circumcision. For what Abraham believed is not what is believed in their case. But the Jews were therefore ordered to be circumcised, so that they might have the sign of Abraham’s faith, not of their own faith, but so that they might be known as his sons according to the flesh. Yet if they believe, they will be his sons also in justification. For what advantage is it to be called the son of a powerful man if one is powerless, except that it is even more harmful? For it is a disgrace to be the son of a noble and glorious man without honor. Indeed, bodily circumcision is so far from being a merit that God says through the prophet Jeremiah that He will take vengeance on all the circumcised in foreskin, if they are not circumcised in heart (Jer. 4:4). Yet He is not angry with those who are circumcised in heart but uncircumcised in flesh, because no one has ever pleased God without the circumcision of the heart. Whoever, therefore, are circumcised in the flesh signify the lineage of Abraham according to the flesh; but those who are circumcised in heart signify the lineage of God according to faith, because, being circumcised from all worldly error, they confess God as their Father. What then does the circumcision of the flesh profit, if, when faith is lacking in the Jew, he cannot attain to the merit of Abraham? Or what harm is there in foreskin, when no one attains to his righteousness except the one who has followed the faith of Abraham? They therefore glory in the circumcision of the flesh in vain, since they see that it has no merit before God. And since, as has been shown, it is better to have faith than circumcision, the Gentiles are better than the Jews; for the Gentiles have faith, the Jews have circumcision. And whom do you think He recognizes more as sons of Abraham: those who are like him according to the flesh, or those who are like him in faith? But the faith of Abraham bears witness. And therefore he glories not in the flesh but in faith. For this reason he has received as sons those whom he sees to be imitators of his glory. For how can he call those sons from whom he sees a shrinking back from that by which he pleased God and was justified? He will therefore be able to judge them not as his sons, but as his enemies. For they appear to be envious of him, despising the faith through which he was glorified. Nor is it surprising if the Jews are found untrusting, not at all accepting the New Testament, when we know that they were not faithful even in the Old. They were always rebellious and disrespectful against God, and therefore they received such commandments by which their necks, which were unbending, might be pressed down. For they never wished to hope for good things from God, whose such great benefits and such wondrous powers they had come to know. Therefore it is that, among other things, the prophet Ezekiel says: “I lifted up my hand to them in the desert, that they should be scattered among the nations and dispersed in the lands, because they did not perform my ordinances and rejected my commandments.” And in what follows: “I gave them laws that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live in them” (Ezek. 20:23–25). He shows for what reason such great and so harsh commandments were given to them: because they proved ungrateful for such great benefits, and, justice dictating, they were to be pressed by more severe precepts. Therefore He called them “not good,” although they are just: because they did not lead them to justification, but to destruction; and although a punishment rightly inflicted, yet for the one who suffers it, it is not a good. After these things, however, because God is merciful, He promised that He would give the New Testament, in which the shortening of the Law would justify believers, just as Abraham was justified: so that, with new moons and the sabbath and circumcision and the other precepts ceasing, not those that belong to the natural law, that is, murder, adultery, and such things, they might be justified as Abraham was. For, with the faith of Abraham renewed, He willed that all things should cease, so that the time might be such as it was when Abraham believed. But perhaps the Jews say: “If those things that were given by Moses are said to cease through the shortening of the Law, was circumcision given by Moses so that it should cease? And therefore we have the sign of our father, because we are the sons of Abraham, a sign which, for the sake of the testimony of our lineage, ought not to cease.” Circumcision indeed had to be observed in its time, that is, before the New Testament which had been promised was given. But when, by the grace of God, the burdens of the Law were ordered to cease, what need is there of circumcision? Therefore a new Law was given, that is, a spiritual one, so that carnal things might cease, and those who received it might accept its sign: so that just as in the Old Testament they had the sign of Abraham, from whom the Old Testament began, so also in the New they might have the sign of the Savior, who is the institutor of the New Testament. For just as from Abraham they were called Hebrews, so from Christ they are called Christians. Whoever, therefore, are still called Hebrews have not received the New Testament which God promised, bringing to nothing the kindness and mercy of God: for He no longer wished His people to be designated by the name of a man, but agreed to establish them under the name of His Son. With what courage, then, do the Jews say that we do not use our Law but theirs, when David says, “I will give thanks to you among the nations” (Ps. 17:50), and again, “Rejoice, O nations, with his people”? And to the prophet Jeremiah the Lord says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; and before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you; and I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). Judaism certainly has its own particular signs: for this people is signified either in Jacob, or in Samaria, or in Jerusalem, or in Judea, or in Israel. As for the nations, however, it is clear that He signifies them in a different way than He does the Jews. Therefore Jeremiah is our prophet. For although in all the Prophets God showed that the nations would share in His gift, yet to Jeremiah in particular He says that He has given him to us as a prophet. For he signified that the New Testament would come, which would profit the Gentiles more than the Jews, as now appears clearly. For since the preaching of the New Testament is spread over the whole earth, a faithful Jew is so rarely and with such difficulty found that all the Churches of the New Testament are called “of the nations,” as it was said in the prophet Hosea: “I will call that which is not my people, my people; and her that was not beloved, beloved” (Hosea 2:24; Rom. 9:25). Therefore, the Jews having been rejected, He calls the nations with the same mercy and grace with which He agreed to call Abraham. For Abraham did not come to know the Lord without being called. Therefore, He who agreed to call Abraham likewise agreed to call the nations. Why then do they say, “The Law is ours,” when it is clear that the gift of God is for all who are willing? Let this careless violation cease, since the grace of God is common to all. With what shame do they deny that our Christ was promised in the Law, when they see in Him all the signs which the Law foretold as to come? For both according to the promise made to Abraham all nations are justified by believing in Him (Gen. 22:18); and according to the prophet Isaiah He was born of a Virgin (Isa. 7:14) in Bethlehem from the tribe of Judah, as was promised, from the seed of David (Micah 5:2); and in accordance with what Jeremiah prophesied (Jer. 31:31–32), He proclaimed the New Testament which God then promised would come; and after all the signs of power had been shown, He humbled Himself, according to the words of the Prophets; and having suffered all that had been foretold, He rose on the third day, as it is written in the prophet. And if they inquire about the time of the promise, as it is shown in the prophet Daniel (Dan. 9:24 ff.), they will find it fulfilled in the time when Christ was born and suffered: for from the first year of Darius, king of the Persians, down to the birth and passion of the Lord and the destruction of Jerusalem, which was carried out by Vespasian, chief of the Roman Empire, the seventy weeks were completed, which are four hundred and ninety years, a reckoning made clear through the kingdoms and the successors of the empire. Therefore also it is found calculated by Tertullian in the book which he wrote against the Jews; but, lest this should backfire to his disadvantage, although he calculated correctly, we have passed it over in silence. And who can doubt this number, when now about three hundred years are found in addition to that number? It is therefore shameless, after so many years have been added beyond the time of the coming of the Saviour, to say, “He has not come.” Under the Apostles, or at the time when the Lord was living among men, hatred opposing the truth could still hide itself; so that, although it saw all the signs of the Christ who had been promised in the Savior, it could say that it doubted about the time, to conceal its unbelief. But afterwards, when many years began to exceed the promised number, what shamelessness it is to deny that He has come, whose coming is known to have been fulfilled both by signs and by times! For when something is full and does not overflow, a combative person may say that it is not full; but overflow closes the mouth of the argumentative. So the Jews, in the time of the Saviour, could say, though deceitfully, that the calculation from the time of Darius to the Lord Christ was not correctly made, so that He might not be acknowledged as the one who had been promised. We are mistaken, they might say, in the years and in the months and in the days of the emperors, and we do not make an exact reckoning. But when the times have extended beyond the prescribed number of years of the promised Christ, no excuse can be put forward to deny that He who has come is the Christ, unless, which God forbid, the one who promised is said to have lied. For when the time of the promise has elapsed, and it is denied that the one who was promised has come, what else is charged against the promiser but falsehood? Yet that He who made the promise is truthful, all the signs teach which were foretold in Christ and are known to have been found in Christ. The Jews, however, while they are ashamed to change themselves, do not consider that there will be a judgment to come. For nothing is worse than for someone to deny that a thing is true when he understands that it is not a lie.

Therefore pride is contrary to this justice of God, because it puts its trust in its own works. Thus the psalm continues, "Let not the foot of pride come to me." This justice is the grace of the New Testament, by which the faithful are just, while they live by faith, until, by the perfection of justice, they are brought to the face-to-face vision, as they are also equally brought to immortality of the body itself, by the perfection of salvation.

Those just people also were saved by their salutary faith in him as man and God who, before he came in the flesh, believed that he was to come in the flesh. Our faith is the same as theirs, since they believed that this would be, while we believe that it has come to pass. Hence the apostle Paul says, "But having the same spirit of faith, as it is written: 'I believed for which cause I have spoken,' we also believe for which cause we speak also." If, then, those who foretold that Christ would come in the flesh had the same faith as those who have recorded his coming, these religious mysteries could vary according to the diversity of times, yet all refer most harmoniously to the unity of the same faith. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles that the apostle Peter said, "Now therefore why do you make trial of your God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus just as they will." If, therefore, they, that is, the fathers, being unable to bear the yoke of the old law, believed that they were saved through grace of the Lord Jesus, it is clear that this grace saved even the just people of old through faith, for "the just man lives by faith."

But "Mary," the other sister of Lazarus, "took a pound of perfume made from costly, pistic, aromatic nard. She anointed Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the ointment fragrance." We have heard what happened; let us search out the hidden meaning. You, whoever wishes to be a faithful soul, together with Mary anoint the Lord's feet with costly perfume. That perfume was justice, and so it was a full pound. However, it was perfume made from costly, pistic, aromatic nard. What does "pistic" mean? We might believe it to be some place in which this was costly perfume; and yet this is not an idle phrase and is quite well consonant with the mystery. The Greek word means "faith." You were seeking to work justice: "the just man lives by faith." Anoint Jesus' feet by living well. Follow the Lord's footsteps. Wipe with your hair. If you have more than enough, give to the poor, and you have wiped the Lord's feet. For hairs seem to be the body's superfluity. For you they are superfluous, but for the Lord's feet they are necessary. Perhaps on earth the Lord's feet are in need. For about whom except about his members will he say in the end, "When you did it for one of the least of mine, you did it for me"? You spent your superfluity, but you gave service to my feet.

For it is not simply the enduring of such things that is advantageous, but the bearing of such things for the name of Christ not only with a tranquil mind, even with exultation. For many heretics, deceiving souls under the Christian name, endure many such things; but they are excluded from that reward on this account, that it is not said merely, "Blessed are they which endure persecution," but it is added, "for righteousness' sake." Now, where there is not sound faith, there can be no righteousness, for the just man lives by faith. Neither let schismatics promise themselves anything of that reward; for similarly, where there is no love there cannot be righteousness, for "love works no ill to his neighbor." And if they had it, they would not tear in pieces Christ's body, which is the church.

It should be noted that the Church was placed in paradise, like the first man, "to till it," in such a way that no one would say "that anything he possessed" was "his own." For it began in a state of great perfection that is observed today in the religious life, for the love of Christ was still recent, and in those days "a large number also of the priests accepted the faith." This Church, meaning the one that began with the Jews, because they were converted at one time by the three thousand, and at another, by the five thousand, possessed the "tree of life," that is, faith, because "My just one lives by faith." It also had the "tree of knowledge," that is, the Law, which remained with them for seeing and reading, and not for eating. Much more: for "the day you eat of it, you must die." And so you may see the tree of knowledge, but not eat of it, or else you would destroy what Christ had done; and death would necessarily come in, for "the letter kills." Hence Paul says: "I, Paul, tell you that if you be circumcised, Christ will be of no advantage to you."

"And if you will not believe, neither will you understand." Also the Lord in the Gospel: "For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins." Moreover, righteousness should subsist by faith. In it was life, as predicted in Habakkuk: "Now the just shall live by faith in me." Hence Abraham, the father of the nations, believed. In Genesis "Abraham believed in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." In like manner Paul wrote to the Galatians: "Abraham 'believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.' So you see, those of faith are the descendants of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.' So then, those who are people of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith."

But since in the Law no one is justified before God, it is manifest that the righteous lives by faith. But the Law is not of faith, but he who has done these things shall live in them.

The example by which it is proved that the righteous lives by faith, and not by works, he took from Habakkuk, which the Seventy translators rendered thus: "But the righteous lives by my faith" (Hab. 2:4). Aquila and Theodotion: "But the righteous lives by his faith", that is, God's. It must therefore be considered that he did not say "a human being" or "a man lives by faith", lest he should give occasion for despising the works of the virtues; but the righteous lives by faith: so that whoever was faithful and was to live through faith could not otherwise come to faith, or live in it, unless he had first been righteous, and had ascended by purity of life as by certain steps to faith. It can therefore happen that someone is righteous, and yet does not live, being without faith in Christ. If a scruple is stirred in the reader, let him take up the words of Paul, in which he says of himself: "As to the righteousness which is in the Law, without reproach" (Phil. 3:6). Paul therefore was at that time righteous in the Law, but could not yet live, because he did not have within himself Christ, who says: "I am the life" (John 11:25). Believing in him afterwards, he began also to live. Let us too make something similar to what is said, the righteous lives by faith; and let us say: the chaste lives by faith, the wise lives by faith, the brave lives by faith, and from the remaining parts of the virtues let us bring forward a like sentence against those who, not believing in Christ, think themselves brave and wise, temperate or righteous: so that they may know that no one lives without Christ, without whom every virtue is in vice. The present testimony can also be read thus: that the righteous by faith, so that there is then added, lives.

But if anyone is unbelieving of this pledge of mine, and while I say: Coming he will come, and will not tarry, begins to doubt and to waver silently within himself, thinking that what delays for a time will not come, this man will displease my soul, according to that saying: Your new moons and sabbaths my soul hates. But that God spoke of his soul, we ought to take for mind and thought, so that the meaning is: he will displease my sense. And just as he will displease who, when I promise, doubts that what I pledge will come, so the just man who believes my promise will live in his faith. With these lines, as it were, the picture of this chapter has been sketched.

But if your faith doubts, and you think that what I pledge will not come to pass, you will have it as a great punishment that you will displease my soul. But the just man, who believes my words and does not doubt the things I promise, will have as reward life everlasting. Nor ought you at once to charge, either in my slaying you or in my giving life to him, that there is respect of persons with me; for he himself is the cause of his own giving of life, who lives by his faith, just as you, by having withdrawn yourself and refused to believe, have displeased my soul. And in these words there is plainly a prophecy of the coming of Christ. Hence the question that was put forward is also solved: that until he comes, iniquity rules in the world, and judgment does not come to its end, and the true Nebuchadnezzar catches men with his net and dragnet like little fish, and the rational animal like a creeping thing that has no prince.

Moreover, why the Apostle, writing to the Romans, made use rather of the testimony of the LXX, But the just shall live by my faith, and not of what is found in the Hebrew, the reason is plain. For he was writing to Romans, who did not know the Hebrew Scriptures; nor was he concerned about the words, since the sense was safe, and the present argument suffered no harm from it. Otherwise, wherever the sense is different, and it is written one way in the Hebrew and another in the LXX, note that he uses those testimonies which he had learned from Gamaliel, the teacher of the law.

And hence Tobias also, while instructing his son in the precepts of godliness, says, "Give alms of your substance, and turn not your face from any poor man. So shall it come to pass that the face of God shall not be turned from you." This virtue makes all virtues profitable, for by its precepts it gives life to that very faith by which "the just lives" and which is said to be "dead without works." As the reason for works consists in faith, so the strength of faith consists in works.

"But the righteous one will live from my faith." So even if someone should be uncertain in their trust in the future and doubt if it will really happen, such a one is very much the object of dislike to me, because I define a righteous person as one who trusts in the promises and gets benefit from them.

Since, therefore, the Lord thus threatens such shepherds through whom the sheep of the Lord are neglected and perish, what else ought we to do, dearly beloved brother, but to show full diligence in collecting and restoring the sheep of Christ and to apply the medicine of paternal piety to care for the wounds of the lapsed? The Lord also in the Gospel warns and says, "It is not the healthy who need a physician, but they who are sick." For although we shepherds are many, yet we feed one flock. All of the sheep whom Christ sought by his blood and passion we ought to embrace and to cherish, and not to allow our suppliant and grieving brothers to be cruelly despised and to be trodden under foot by the proud presumption of certain ones, since it is written, "The man, however, who is stiff-necked, boastful of himself, will accomplish nothing at all. His greed is as wide as Sheol."

And as wine deceives the one who drinks it, so will the proud man be, and he will not be adorned; who has enlarged his soul like hell, and he himself is like death, and is not filled. And he will gather to himself all nations, and will heap up to himself all peoples. Will not all these take up a parable against him, and the speech of his riddles, and it will be said: Woe to him who multiplies what is not his own, how long does he also weigh down thick clay against himself? Will not those suddenly rise up who bite you, and those who tear you be stirred up, and you will be for a plunder to them? Because you have despoiled many nations, all who are left of the peoples will despoil you, because of the blood of man, and the iniquity of the land, of the city and of all who dwell in it. LXX: But he who is arrogant and a despiser, a proud man, brings nothing to completion; who has enlarged his soul like hell, and he is like death, he is not filled. And he will gather to himself all nations, and will receive to himself all peoples; will not all these take up a parable against him, and a proposition for his narration, and they will say: Woe to him who multiplies for himself the things that are not his own, how long does he weigh down his collar heavily, for suddenly those biting him will rise up, and your ambushers will keep watch, and you will be for a plunder to them? Because you have despoiled many nations, all the remaining peoples will despoil you, because of the blood of men and the impieties of the land, and of the city, and of all its inhabitants. Since these things have been promised concerning the coming of Christ, or, as some prefer, concerning the end of the vision and the fulfillment of God's help, which whoever believes is to come will live by his faith; but whoever is unbelieving will displease the soul of the Lord: Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, will be deceived by his pride. And as wine works against the one who drinks it, and after he has risen neither foot nor mind keeps its proper office, and all gladness and cheerfulness of mind is turned into ruin, so the proud man will not be adorned, nor will he bring his will to completion, and, according to Symmachus, οὐκ εὐπορήσει, that is, he will be in want of all things. He, like death and hell, is not sated with the slain, and, subjugating all nations and all peoples to his rule, conceived no end to his avarice.

Let us examine the Seventy as well. All that we have said of Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar can be referred to this world and to the devil, who, truly arrogant and proud, and believing himself to be something, will bring nothing to completion. For indeed his endeavor and all his labor will come to destruction, he who, in the likeness of hell and of death, is not sated with the slain, and rejoices in the deception of all nations, and gathers peoples to himself.

This same thing can also be interpreted of the Antichrist, who will be so arrogant and proud that he will sit in the temple of God, making himself God. And like hell and death he will slay so many, and gather so many to himself, that, if it were possible, he would deceive even the elect of God. He will also gather to himself all nations, so as to lead all peoples into his error.

We can also, according to the apostle John — who writes: As you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, but now there are many antichrists; whence we also know that it is the last hour —, call arrogant and proud all heretics and every perverse doctrine of those who claim knowledge for themselves and despise the simplicity of the Church, who bring nothing to completion but take delight in the deaths of very many; and adapt the whole content of the chapter to an understanding concerning them, who truly multiply for themselves what is not their own, and, gathering to themselves as it were very heavy clay and a weighty collar by which they may be dragged to punishment, despoil many nations, and shed the blood of men, and exercise impiety against the Church and against all its inhabitants. But the remaining peoples, namely churchmen, who have not been deceived by their error, will suddenly rise up and awake as from a heavy sleep, and will bite them, and will lay snares for them, and will have them as a prey.

Let your people not desire many things, for the reason that few things are many to them. Poverty and riches are names that imply want and satiety. He is not rich who wants anything, nor poor who does not want. Let no one spurn a widow or cheat an orphan or defraud his neighbor. Woe to him who has a fortune amassed by deceit and builds in blood a city, in other words, his soul. For it is this that is built like a city. Greed does not build it but sets it on fire and burns it. Do you wish to build your city well? "Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasures without fear." The riches of a person ought to work for the redemption of his soul, not to its destruction. Wealth is redemption if one uses it well; so too it is a snare if one does not know how to use it. For what is a person's money if not provision for the journey?

As for the inventors of impure heresies, those profaners and apostates who have opened their mouths wide against the divine glory, "those who have uttered perverted things," we could accuse them of having slipped in their madness as low as the foolish pagans. [They have slipped] perhaps even lower, for it would have been better never to have known it than to have turned away from the sacred commandment which was handed on to them. What the book of Proverbs so rightly speaks of has indeed come about: "that the dog has returned to its vomit, and no sooner has it washed than the pig returns to wallow in the slime." They have circulated among themselves blasphemous accusations against Christ and like wild, ferocious wolves ravage the flock for which Christ died. They pillage what is his very own, "bloating themselves on what is not theirs," as it is written, and "stuffing their gorge to the full." How aptly does that saying apply to them, that "they came out from us but were not part of us."

When he has been made drunk with the cup of the Lord and lulled to sleep by the undiluted chalice, will not all speak over him by way of comparison, a πρόβλημα (a riddle)? Woe to him who, laying waste the whole world, is not sated with plunder, and does not cease to despoil those already stripped, and rages only to this end, that he may devour, and presses himself down with the burden of iniquity and of spoils as with a very heavy collar. And at the same time consider how elegantly he has called multiplied riches thick clay.

When they see him sent into the abyss and handed over to Tartarus, seeing fulfilled the things which they had read in the prophets in parables and αἰνιγματωδῶς (in riddles), and interpreting them concerning him, they will recount with one harmonious voice: Woe to the devil, who has multiplied for himself what is not his own. Woe to the partridge, which has gathered what it did not bring forth. How long? This is either the voice of those who rebuke, or of those who point to the day of judgment. And weighing down his collar with infinite weight. And beautifully: since he is arrogant and proud — and pride is properly shown in the stretching out of the neck and the raising of the nape —, the collar is very heavy, so as to bend what had been raised up.

Some think that what is said: Woe to those who multiply for themselves the things that are not their own, and the rest, can be taken of rich men, who extend the boundaries of their possessions and, thinking that the things which are not man's are man's, gather to themselves things by which they will suddenly be left. But that earthly possession is not man's, that is, not the rational animal's, the Lord too shows, saying: If you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own? And they expound the whole tenor of the chapter of this person. But I do not know whether they can keep the order of the prophetic question and solution.

When afterwards they see him slain by the breath of Christ's mouth, they will understand that the things foretold of him beforehand are true, and they will say all that follows, with the same understanding with which we have expounded it concerning the devil. As for what he says, all the remaining peoples will despoil you because of the blood of men and the impiety of the land, and of the city and of all who dwell in it, let us understand the remaining peoples as the holy ones who did not serve the Antichrist; by whom the impious one will be despoiled because of the impiety which he exercised against the whole earth, and the laying waste of the city of the Church, and the persecution of all who have dwelt in it. For so great a devastation and so great an impiety will stalk through the churches at the end of things, while the Antichrist rages, and, as the iniquity of many is multiplied, charity will grow so cold, that the Lord, who knows the secrets of the heart and is not ignorant of what is to come, said: Do you think the Son of man, when he comes, will find faith on the earth?

And this will come about because suddenly those will rise up who bite him: either the angels with whom the devil will be handed over to punishment, or those who had been tempted by him and afterwards do penance; and, turned to the standards of Christ, they will bite him, according to what is said elsewhere: Your men of peace have laid snares for you. Then follows: And your ambushers will awake, that is, you will lie exposed to the snares of those whom you had earlier lulled to sleep, whom you had made drunk, as they lay waste your kingdom and bring back those who were captives into the troops of Christ.

Will not the Medes and Persians suddenly rise up, who, destroying the empire of the Babylonians, will bite him first and afterwards tear him; and will not Nebuchadnezzar become a plunder for them, and the ravager of the whole world be despoiled by the remaining peoples, who were able to escape his hand and his cruelty? But this will happen to him because of the blood of man, that is, of Judah, and the iniquity of the land, namely of Israel, and of the city, doubtless Jerusalem, and of all who dwell in it, signifying the people in general.

For you have plundered many nations, and have stripped the Jewish people of the adornment and the garments which I had given it; therefore all the remaining peoples, who have not bowed their neck to your rule, will despoil you and make you naked. For you too have slain very many nations and have shed their blood. But also the impiety of the land, that is, of the land of the Jews, and of the city of Jerusalem, and of all its inhabitants, who said against their Creator: Crucify, crucify him; his blood be upon us and upon our children, will return upon your head and will be the causes of your despoiling.

You shall not speak evil; for he says, "Love not to speak evil, lest you be taken away." You shall not be mindful of injuries, for "the ways of those that remember injuries are unto death."? You shall not be double-minded or double-tongued, for "a man's own lips are a strong snare to him," and "a talkative person shall not be prospered upon the earth." Your words shall not be vain, for "you shall give an account of every idle word." You shall not tell lies, for he says, "You shall destroy all those that speak lies." You shall not be covetous or rapacious, for he says, "Woe to him that is covetous toward his neighbor with an evil covetousness."

Woe to him who gathers an evil avarice for his house, so that his nest may be on high, and who thinks he is freed from the hand of evil. You have devised confusion for your house, you have cut down many peoples, and your soul has sinned. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the timber that is between the joints of the buildings will answer. LXX: O he who multiplies an evil avarice for his house, so as to set his nest on high, and to be rescued from the hand of evils. You have devised confusion for your house, you have consumed many peoples; and your soul has sinned, for which reason the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beetle from the wood will speak these things. The discourse is still addressed to him who heaps up evils for himself and does not understand that the multitude of his riches is the cause of the ruin of his house; and at the same time, through a metaphor, he is accused of pride, because, like the birds, he has set his nest on high, and has thought that he would be rescued from the hand of evil, that is, that he would never come into the power of his enemies; a counsel of pride and an arrogant thought which had ignominy as its end.

What their translation means we shall say in the exposition of the Seventy translators, in whom O is put for woe, and the discourse is directed either to the devil or to the Antichrist, or to the heretics, who multiply an evil avarice for themselves. Now avarice is called evil to distinguish it from good avarice, so that there is a good avarice of the churchly teacher, who is never sated with the multitude of his followers, and the more disciples he has, the more he is roused to zeal for teaching. Woe, therefore, to him who multiplies for himself a most wicked avarice, so as to gather perverse conventicles for his house, and to set his nest on high, so as to be rescued from the hand of evils. For the devil and the Antichrist and the heretics promise that those who accept their doctrine will be in the heavenly places and will possess the kingdoms of heaven, and will not feel the fires of Gehenna.

And though they have promised these things, their counsel will not be able to come to completion; but it will be a counsel of confusion and ignominy for their house, after the very end of things has shown to be false what had been promised, when it is proved to be a counsel of confusion, not of salvation. This teacher of perversity, as we have said, has consumed many peoples, and the more he had in his company, the more he sinned against his own soul.

You have slain many peoples, and in killing others you have raged against your own soul, and you have run riot in such cruelty that, if it can be said, the stones of the city and the timbers of the walls which you have overthrown cry out your ferocity. Something of this kind the Lord too said in the Gospel against the Pharisees, who reproached him for not rebuking the children who acclaimed him: Hosanna in the highest to the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. Have you not read, he says, that it is written: Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise? And if these are silent, the stones will cry out. For although very many think it is to be understood thus, if the Jews are silent, the multitude of the nations will confess me, yet this is the more expressive and truer understanding: even if men were silent, and the envious tongue would not speak of the multitude of my signs, yet the stones themselves, and the foundations of the walls, and the structure of the walls will be able to proclaim aloud my greatness. And to make this more significant, let us set down examples from secular literature too. Crispus says in his Histories: "The Saguntines, renowned for loyalty and sufferings beyond mortals, with greater zeal than resources; for among them even then the half-ruined walls, the unroofed houses, and the scorched walls of the temples displayed the Punic hands". Something similar Tullius too says to Caesar for Marcellus: "The walls, so help me heaven — as it seems to me — of this senate house long to give you thanks, because in a short time that authority will be in these seats of its ancestors and its own". Moreover, where we have translated: And the timber that is between the joints of the buildings will answer, for which the Seventy put: And the beetle from the wood will speak these things, Symmachus, after his manner, translated more plainly, καὶ συνδεσμὸς οἰκοδομῆς ξύλινος ἀποφθέγξεται αὐτὰ, that is: And the wooden joint of the building will speak these things. Theodotion too, καὶ συνδεσμὸς ξύλου φθέγξεται αὐτά, and also the Fifth Edition, καὶ συνδεσμὸς ξύλου φθέγξεται αὐτά, and these translations also agree with that of Symmachus and with ours. For what is called chaphis in the Hebrew language signifies the timber that is set in the middle of a structure to hold the walls together, and among the Greeks it is commonly called ἱμάντωσις (a tie-beam). This, therefore, is what the prophetic discourse signifies according to the history: the stones of the walls which were destroyed by you, and their burnt timbers, will sound forth your cruelty. Besides the five editions, namely of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, Theodotion, and the Fifth, I found in the twelve prophets two other editions as well, in one of which is written: For the stone will cry out from the wall like a worm speaking in the wood, and in the other: For the stone will shout from the wall, and the σκώληξ from the wood will speak these things. But Aquila too put something other than we said, καὶ μάζα, that is, and a lump from the wood will answer.

Helena adored the king, not the wood [of the cross], indeed, because this is an error of the Gentiles and a vanity of the wicked. But she adored him who hung on the tree, whose name was inscribed in the title; him, I say, as a scarab, cried out to his Father to forgive the sins of his persecutors. The woman eagerly hastened to touch the remedy of immortality, but she feared to trample under the foot the mystery of salvation. Joyful at heart, yet with anxious step, she knew not what she should do. She proceeded, however, to the resting place of truth. The wood shone, and grace flashed forth. And, as before, Christ had visited as woman Mary, so the spirit visited a woman in Helena. He taught her what as a woman she did not know and led her upon a way that no mortal could know.

Then the stones of his church, and the κάνθαρος, that is, the beetle from the wood, will cry out against the avarice of the proud one, because he has deceived all nations by his persuasion. By the stones we can understand the dull hearts of those who believe the doctrines of the heretics, and by the beetle from the wood, all perverse masters who, taking up the preaching of the cross for the sake of shameful gain, speak from the belly. For their god is their belly, and they do all things for the sake of food, which is turned into dung — for the beetle or cantharus is a dung worm —, and they take up the cross only for this, that with viperous mouth they may teach the avarice and pride of their master the devil. If ever you see one of the heretics speaking against the Church as if of hidden and secret mysteries, and preferring the house of the devil to the house of Christ, say: The stone cries out from the wall, and the cantharus speaks from the wood. I have read in someone's volume that the cantharus is understood of the heretics for this reason, that they hold doctrines to be compared with dung. Hence the Apostle too says that he counted the error of the old teaching as scybala, that is, as dung. Not that the old law, as the Manichaeans think, is reckoned as scybala in comparison with the Gospel — which it is impious to say, since both Testaments belong to the one God —, but that the teachings of the Pharisees, and the precepts of men, and the Deuterosis of the Jews are called dung by the Apostle. I know that one of the brethren understood the stone that cried out from the wall as the Lord Savior, and the beetle speaking from the wood as the thief who blasphemed the Lord; and although this can be understood piously, yet I do not find how it can be fitted to the whole context of the prophecy. There are some who think that the cantharus speaking from the wood can also be referred to the person of the Savior, which is shown to be impious by the very order of the discourse. For the cantharus from the wood will speak these things is understood not in a good but in a bad sense, that is, it will speak of the most wicked avarice of him who multiplies against his own house, and of the confusion of the devil, and the rest that went before concerning his iniquity and crime. As for what Aquila says, and a lump from the wood will answer, we refer the lump to that sense which the Lord set down in the Gospel: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And when the apostles were in doubt and could not know what it was, the evangelist interpreted it, saying: Now he had spoken to them of the teaching of the Pharisees. Rightly, therefore, does the teaching of the heretics speak from the wood; for they cannot persuade otherwise unless they hold out the glory of the wood in front of their perversity. And also concerning what we had said: For the stone will cry out from the wall like a worm speaking in the wood, or the stone will shout from the wall, and the σκώληξ from the wood will speak these things, some of our people say that the worm speaking in the wood is he who says in the psalm: But I am a worm and no man; and they refer the singing bird to the person of the same one, who says: I have become like a sparrow alone on the housetop, and other things like these.

Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed, and prepares a town in iniquity. Are not these things from the Lord of hosts? For peoples will labor in much fire, and nations in vain, and they will fail; for the earth will be filled, so that they may know the glory of the Lord, like waters covering the sea. LXX: Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed, and prepares a town in iniquities. Are not these things from the Lord Almighty? And many peoples have failed in fire, and many nations have been straitened, for the earth will be filled so that it may know the glory of the Lord, like water to cover the seas. No one doubts that according to the letter the prophetic discourse is still speaking against Nebuchadnezzar, and lamenting him because he builds Babylon with bloodshed, and constructs its walls with the ruin and death of very many.

But it is clear that the devil, and the Antichrist, and the perverse doctrine of the heretics build a city with bloodshed, that is, their own church on the destruction of those whom they have deceived, and prepare a town in iniquities, speaking iniquity against God and setting their mouth on high. And when they have done this, it is plainly shown that they build the city of themselves with bloodshed, and prepare it in iniquities.

It can also be understood — although it does not suit the order of the reading, nor fit the present text of Scripture — of Jerusalem, the city full of the blood of the prophets, of which Scripture records that the blood of the saints overflowed in it from gate to gate. And which says at the Lord's passion: His blood be upon us and upon our children. And to which God speaks in Isaiah: When you lift up your hands to me, I will not hear you; for your hands are full of blood. This city was built in iniquities, in which, according to the same prophet, justice slept.

And because he did this to the city which he had built with bloodshed, he afterwards hears what is brought upon him by the Lord. For there follows: Are not these things from the Lord of hosts? That is, the things that are said: Peoples will labor in much fire, and nations in vain; that is, when Babylon has been burned, the peoples will labor in vain and strive for nothing, and the peoples of the Chaldean nation will fail.

For there follows: Are not these things from the Lord Almighty? That is, such a building is not from the Lord Sabaoth, whom the LXX have here translated Almighty. For many peoples will fail, and although countless nations are led into their error, yet either they will grow weary, which ὠλιγοψύχησαν (they lost heart) rather signifies, or at any rate they will be pressed into a narrow space, and will not be able to be compared with the multitude of the Church. For while they fail in the fire, — which is understood either as their being consumed by the fire of the devil, their prince, or as their being kindled by the fire of the Lord, of which he says: I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it may burn, and drawn back from their former course, and doing penance, and abandoning the journey they had begun, which is what ὀλιγοψυχία (faintheartedness) means —; the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord, when, at the preaching of the apostles, their sound has gone out into the whole world, like waters covering the sea, that is, so that the waters of the Lord may cover all the saltness and bitterness of the world, which the earth had drunk as the devil rained it down from above, and may cause the place of the sea and of the former bitterness not to appear. Hence it is also said in the psalm: Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

Nor is its building from the Lord Sabaoth. Hence also many peoples failed in fire, and many nations grew weary at the time when it was surrounded by the armies of Vespasian and Titus, and those who came for the solemn day of the Passover were shut up in the city as in a prison, and failed through famine and want, and the siege of Hadrian brought them to the final ruins. And when the city of bloodshed and the town of iniquities had been overthrown, and the peoples consumed by fire, and the nations which had come to their help scattered this way and that and letting fall their weary hands, the whole earth was filled with the glory of Christ, and as with waters, so with his words and teaching the whole world was covered.

For the earth will be filled so that it may know the glory of the Lord, that is, when Babylon has been overthrown, the might of God's power will become manifest to all; like waters covering the sea, so the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord, just as the waters cover the bed and the bottom of the sea. These things, as we have said, are according to the letter.

Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, putting in his gall and making him drunk, that he may look upon his nakedness. He is filled with shame instead of glory; drink, you also, and fall into a stupor. The cup of the right hand of the Lord will surround you, and the vomit of shame will be upon your glory, for the iniquity of Lebanon will cover you, and the devastation of the cattle will terrify them, because of the blood of men and the iniquity of the land, and of the city and of all who dwell in it. LXX: Woe to him who offers drink to his neighbor with a turbid overturning, and makes him drunk, that he may look into their caves; a fill of shame from glory drink, you also, and be shaken. The cup of the right hand of the Lord has surrounded you, and shame has been gathered upon your glory, for the impiety of Lebanon will cover you, and the misery of the beasts will terrify you, because of the blood of men, and the impieties of the land and of the city, and of all who dwell in it. For "with a turbid overturning", Symmachus translated: Καὶ ἀφιὼν ἀκρίτως τὸν θυμὸν ἑαυτοῦ, that is: And sending forth his fury without judgment. Theodotion: Ἀπὸ χύσεώς σου, which means: From your pouring out. The Fifth Edition: Ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου ἀνατροπῆς τῆς ὀργῆς σου, which signifies: From the unexpected overturning of your wrath. Aquila: Ἐξ ἐπιτρίψεως χόλου σου, which we can render: From the sending forth of your fury. In another edition I found: Ὀυαὶ τῷ ποτίζοντι τὸν ἐταῖρον αὐτοῦ ἀέλλην πετομένην, which in our language sounds: Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, a flying whirlwind. But I have also read it translated elsewhere: Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor ἔκστασιν ὀχλουμένην, that is, turbid madness. I give this so that it may be known with how great a variety the Hebrew word maspha, which the LXX translated overturning, disagrees among all the editions. Therefore the invective is still against Nebuchadnezzar, because, forgetful of his condition, and as if not knowing that he was a man, he offered gall and bitterness to drink to another man. But we can understand him either as the king of Judea, or, generally, as all men, in that he made them drunk with evils, so that he might see the nakedness of Zedekiah and of all the captives. For this Symmachus and the Fifth Edition translated: That he might see their shames.

But let us come to the spiritual understanding. Woe to you, devil, or Antichrist, or perverse doctrine of the heretics, who with your teachings and your turbid potion make drunk the peoples of the deceived, and overturn their former faith, giving them a potion not from Siloam, not from the Jordan, not from the springs of Israel, but from the brook Kidron, and from the river of Egypt, of which Jeremiah says: What have you to do with the way of Egypt, that you should drink the water of Gihon? For this in the Hebrew is written sior, that is, turbid and muddy; for although the rivers of Egypt are believed to go out from the paradise of the Scriptures, yet because they are trampled by the feet of Pharaoh, they have lost their splendor, and, defiled by the Egyptian mud, have been turned into torrents, at having escaped which the holy one rejoices, saying: Our soul has passed through the torrent. But if anyone should object the brook Cherith, from which Elijah drank, and another torrent, from which the Lord drank on the way, for so it is written: He will drink from the torrent on the way, this must be said: that whoever is in Egypt and on the way of this age, though he be Moses and Aaron, though he be Jeremiah and Elijah, must nevertheless drink of the temptations of Egypt and of the wilderness; hence also the Word of the Lord, who had assumed flesh for this, that he might drink from the torrent, considering his majesty, said: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Again, seeing that he was in Egypt, and that the waters could not be cleansed unless he himself had drunk, he says: Nevertheless not as I will, but as you will. All this is said because the devil, with overturning and a turbid cup and every perverse doctrine, makes his neighbors drunk, that is, the rational animal, and makes those whom he has deceived look to his caves. For the doctrines of the Church are free; they rejoice in the day and the light. But those who are drunk are drunk at night; and those who make them drunk do not lead them into the courts of the Lord, which are weighed down by no shadow of roofs, but into caves. For they have made the house of the Father, which had been a house of prayer, caves of robbers, promising certain initiations and mysteries, and hidden secrets known only to heretics, of which Isaiah too speaks: And they will hide all things made by hand, bringing them into caves and into the clefts of the rocks and the holes of the earth. Let us not, then, enter the caves of the heretics, nor hide ourselves there, where the impious Saul was accustomed to void the excrement of his doctrines, but rather let us go up to the lofty cave of Mount Sinai, where Elijah saw the Lord, and Moses before him beheld his back parts. And Isaiah, crying out concerning the Lord: This one will dwell, he says, in a lofty cave. But if anyone does not have the turbid cup and heretical doctrine, and is a teacher of the Church, and does all things for the sake of shameful gain, and sells doves in the temple, that is, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and in the priestly chair strangles the free birds, such a one does not indeed make the house of prayer a cave of robbers, but he makes the house of the Father a house of trade.

Now these things are said through the metaphor of a drunken man, disgraced by nakedness, because Nebuchadnezzar made all men drunk with the cup of his fury, and saw them all stripped and captive, and those who had once been glorious were reduced to the utmost slavery; for this is what he says: He is filled with shame instead of glory, so that we supply "the friend" and "the neighbor", or the partner in the kingdom, who drank your cup, O Nebuchadnezzar. Hence, because you have made very many drunk, you also drink from the cup of the Lord and fall into a stupor; you will be surrounded by the punishments of the right hand of the Lord, and with the shame of your vomit you will discharge all that you had swallowed, and from lofty glory you will be brought down to the utmost evils.

I heard at Lydda one of the Hebrews, who was called a wise man among them and a δευτερώτης (a teacher of the traditions), telling a tale of this sort: Zedekiah, he said, blinded by King Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, that is, Antioch, and mocked in various ways, was led to Babylon. There, when one day Nebuchadnezzar was celebrating the festivities of a banquet, he ordered a potion to be given to him which, once drained, would loosen the drinker's belly into a flux; and Zedekiah, suddenly brought in before the faces of the banqueters and compelled by the force of his belly, was befouled with excrement; and this, he said, is what Scripture now says here: Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, putting in his gall and making him drunk, that he may look upon his nakedness, and shame instead of glory; namely, that he who had been a most powerful king was brought by him to such disgrace. Hence God also threatens him that he himself will drink a potion of this sort, and suffer everything that Zedekiah suffered. How ridiculous this is, you know without my saying it. For if what follows: Drink, you also, and fall into a stupor, and the cup of the right hand of the Lord will surround you, and the vomit of shame will be upon your glory, they understand not of a cup but of the evils which Nebuchadnezzar is to drink, then that cup too with which drink was offered to Zedekiah must be understood as evils, and not, as they will have it, as a καθαρτικὸν (a purgative). But if they say that it really happened, and that a potion of this sort was mixed, as I related above, then this cup too which Nebuchadnezzar is to drink must be reckoned full of a καθαρτικῷ, so that God Sabaoth and the Lord Almighty, for a great vengeance, offers Nebuchadnezzar a καθαρτικὸν to drink, and makes him befouled with his own excrement. So much against the Jewish tradition.

But if we wish to understand it of the Antichrist, or of the devil who will work in the Antichrist, he too, with his cup, with which he will desire to overturn the discipline of Christ, will make very many drunk, so that, drunk, they enter his caves; but after the end has come, instead of that glory with which he had magnified himself, he will be filled with shame. And he will be filled, because he will drink the cup of punishments, and he will be shaken, in no way firm in his malice, but trembling, and repenting too late. For the cup of the right hand of the Lord will surround him, the Lord who is also the Savior, when he slays him with the spirit of his mouth and destroys him with the illumination of his coming. Then all the shame which he gathered for himself by thoughts, deeds and words will come upon his glory, so that as renowned as he was formerly thought, so full of shame he will afterward be. For he blasphemed against God, and the impiety which he exercised in Lebanon will cover him, and the fury of many men who raged against the Church of God will be imputed to him, nor will he be able to lift his neck, but he will be pressed down to the earth by terror. For he slew many men, and laid waste with his impiety the whole world, that is, the Church of Christ and its inhabitants. It must be known, therefore, that this chapter too, which we have now expounded, that is: Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor with a turbid overturning, and the three before it, in which it was said: Woe to him who multiplies for himself what is not his, and: Woe to him who gathers evil covetousness for his house, and: Woe to him who builds a city in blood, can be taken equally both according to the history and according to anagogy, either against Nebuchadnezzar or against the devil and the Antichrist and the heretics.

What, then, must we do, who have received from Paul, the teacher of the Church, institutions of understanding of this kind? Does it not seem just that we should keep the rule of this kind handed down to us by a like example in the rest? Or shall we, as certain people wish, forsaking these things which so great and such an Apostle handed down, turn back again to "Jewish fables"? For my part, if I should expound these things otherwise than as they seem to Paul, I think this is to give a hand to the enemies of Christ, and this is what the prophet says: "Woe to him who gives his neighbor to drink with turbulent overthrow!" Having therefore received from the blessed Apostle Paul the seeds of spiritual understanding, let us cultivate them, insofar as the Lord shall deign to enlighten us through your prayers.

After this follows: A fill of shame instead of glory drink, you, and be shaken, that is: O devil, O perverse doctrine, O heretic, who thought yourself a golden cup with which all the nations are made drunk, so that they might see your caves and your secrets, instead of the greatness of your glory be filled with a fill of shame, and be reckoned as an earthen vessel, the works of the potter's hands; drink, you also, from the cup of the Lord, of which it is said in the psalm: A cup is in the hand of the Lord, full of pure wine mixed, and he has tilted it from this into that; yet its dregs have not been emptied out. And be shaken from your former opinion, and do not think firm and stable the things in which you at first desired to stand, because the cup of the right hand of the Lord has surrounded you.

Moreover, because you offered drink to your neighbor with a turbid overturning, shame will be gathered upon you, and upon your glory, which you at first believed you had; and this you will suffer because the impiety of Lebanon will cover you, according to what is said: And let his prayer become sin. For Lebanon, in the Greek language, is ὀμώνυμος (of the same name) with frankincense; and frankincense is a σύμβολον (a symbol) of the spiritual incense, which is the worship of God. Therefore the perverse prayer of the heretics, not directed by the simplicity of the Gospel, will be turned for them into sin, and the impiety of their worship of God will cover them. Hence there follows: And the misery of the beasts will terrify you because of the blood of men, and the impieties of the land, and of the city and of all who dwell in it. And the sense is: When you see those whom you deceived by your frauds, and from sheep of Christ made into your beasts, in misery and enduring punishments for their error, then you will be terrified, then you will lie prostrate. And lest you think, because I have named Lebanon and its beasts, that I am speaking of brute animals and not of men, I tell you more plainly: You will endure these things because you shed the blood of many men, whom you caused to perish to God. And you exercised impiety in the land of the living, in the land of the meek, and your impiety raged also in the city of the Lord, that is, in his Church, and you made many who dwelt in it partakers of your impiety. Let this be said in the person of the heretics.

For the iniquity of Lebanon will cover you: your pride, he says, and the overthrow of the temple, and the plundering of the sanctuary will lay you waste and devastate you. And because he had once named Mount Lebanon, under the metaphor of the same mountain he compares the victims and the sacrifices, or certainly the multitude of the peoples which was slain in Jerusalem, to animals or beasts, saying: And the devastation of the animals will crush you. But all this you will suffer because you laid waste Judah, overturned the land of promise, and the city of Jerusalem and all its inhabitants.

What does the graven image profit, since its maker has graven it, a molten thing and a false image? Since its maker has hoped in his own fashioning, so as to make dumb idols. LXX: What does the graven image profit, since they have graven it; they have formed it a molten thing, a false image? Since the maker trusts in his own fashioning, so as to make dumb idols. In sequence with what precedes, it is said of Nebuchadnezzar that he fashioned a statue of the idol Bel and set it up in the plain of Dura, or, as it is written in the Hebrew, Dora, about which we read more fully in Daniel. And so Scripture marvels at the madness and folly of the king, in that he himself ordered a golden statue to be made, and the maker trusts in the image that he has fashioned; and this we can indeed also take generally against all the worshipers of idols. Nor let us think that what is graven and what is molten are one and the same. For carving we can take as done in stones and in marbles, while casting is understood of those metals which can be melted and cast: for example, gold, silver, bronze, lead and tin. Let this be said so that, according to tropology, we may know what the difference is between a graven thing and a molten thing. We read in Deuteronomy: Cursed is everyone who makes a graven and a molten thing, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it in a hidden place. The graven and the molten thing, I think, are perverse doctrines, which are adored by those by whom they were made. See how Arius carved for himself the idol of a creature, and adored what he carved. Behold how Eunomius cast a false image, and bows his neck to his own casting. And Scripture says pointedly: And he will set it, he says, in a hidden place. For they too have their orgies, and to certain disciples, as if to the perfect, they hand on hidden mysteries, which, if they come forth to the light, are at once convicted of being fictions. Their carving and their casting, therefore, will profit them nothing. Carving, which refers to stones, is understood of those doctrines which display their folly at first sight. Casting is found where there seems to be some reasoning of secular wisdom, and, as if with a kind of gold, so with the disciplines of the philosophers and the splendor of eloquence, the idol has been cast. The fashioned thing, then, will profit its maker nothing. And the dumb and deaf image will not be able to hear its worshiper. If ever you see someone unwilling to believe the truth, and, though the falsity of his doctrines has been shown, persevering in the pursuit he has begun, you will fittingly be able to say: He hopes in his own fashioning, and makes dumb or deaf images; for κωφά among the Greeks signifies both, although Symmachus, translating ἄλαλα, seems to have understood dumb rather than deaf. Nor let anyone be troubled by that ἰδίωμα (idiom) of the Scriptures, of which we have often spoken: Who, do you think, is the faithful and wise steward? And in another place: Who is wise, and will understand these things? In that "who" or "what" is taken for "rare", since we can also take this very expression from another place for "impossible": Who will separate us from the love of Christ: tribulation, or distress, and so on? And from the present chapter: What does the graven image profit, since its maker has graven it? For in both, impossibility is shown: that neither can any tribulation and distress separate the apostle's love from Christ, nor is there any profit in idols.

Woe to him who says to the wood: Wake up; arise, to the silent stone; can it teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and no spirit at all is in its inward parts. But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before his face. LXX: Woe to him who says to the wood: Awake and rise up, and to the stone: Be lifted up. And it is an image, and it is a beaten work of gold and silver, and no spirit at all is in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth revere him before his face. This too can likewise be taken either against Nebuchadnezzar or against all who venerate idols. And human error is described, in that men think the silver, gold, gems and silk with which the idols are either wrapped or covered to be gods, because of the brilliance of the material, although the craftsman could indeed give them form, but could not give the soul by which limbs are quickened.

But if anyone should object, how can it be said that there is no spirit in idols, when unclean spirits attend all images, let him learn the custom of holy Scripture: that a perverse spirit is never called spirit absolutely, but always with some addition, as there: They were led astray by a spirit of fornication. And in the Gospel: But when an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, and other things like these. But wherever spirit is read alone and absolutely, without any addition, it always refers to the good side, that is, to the Holy Spirit, as in that saying of the Apostle: He who sows in the Spirit will reap from the Spirit eternal life, and elsewhere: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and in another place: Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. Nor do we say this as though the Holy Spirit too were not set down with an addition: for he is called both the Holy Spirit, and the princely spirit, and the right spirit, and the spirit of God, and other things like these; but we say that the Holy Spirit is often set down both with an addition and alone, whereas a perverse spirit has nowhere been read except with an addition. But this too can be said, if anyone contentiously wishes to take a perverse spirit in this place: that it is one thing to say: No spirit at all is in it, and another if he had said: No spirit at all is around it; for a spirit can attend images, but it cannot be within them. Hence Aquila too rendered the Hebrew more expressively, saying: And its spirit is not in its inward parts, or in its midst. Moreover, it should be known that in certain Hebrew volumes "all" is not added, but spirit is read absolutely. But if anyone, overcome by reason, takes spirit in the good sense, and asks why, if it is said of the Holy Spirit, it is read with an addition: And no spirit at all is in it, let him know that by "every spirit" the various graces of the Holy Spirit are understood; so that the sense is: It will be able to have in itself nothing of grace, nothing of power. And this indeed is better understood according to tropology: that in all the idols of the heretics and the fashionings of the devil there is no grace of the Holy Spirit, but they seem to display an image of divinity and a beauty of doctrines, while in them there is nothing breathing and living. Let us say this too, lest we seem to have hidden from the reader what we know: that spirit and wind are called among the Hebrews by the same word, that is, rua, and that according to the sense of the passage it is customarily taken either as spirit or as wind. Therefore in this place too we can take spirit either for wind, in that nothing breathes in idols, or for the soul, in that the images are animated. And that spirit is taken for the soul the Savior's prayer clearly signifies: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. For Jesus could not commend to the Father either a perverse spirit, which it is impious even to think, or the Holy Spirit, who is himself also God, rather than his own soul, of which he had said: My soul is sorrowful even to death, and: No one can take my soul from me, but by my will I lay down my soul, and of my own accord I take it up again.

And on the contrary the Lord is said to be in his holy temple; not in a temple made by hands, but either in the heavens, or in each of the saints, according to the Apostle, who says: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwells in you? And elsewhere: Your bodies are the temple of God; or in the Son, as he himself says: The Father who abides in me, he does the works. Or certainly according to that saying, that the heavens and the lands, the seas and the whole world:

A spirit within sustains them, and mind, poured through all the limbs,

moves the whole mass, and mingles itself with the great body.

The whole world, which consists of heaven and earth and is enclosed by the circles of the heavens, is said to be the house of God. Hence the Apostle too says confidently: For in him, he says, we live, and move, and are.

And then, as to that which is subjoined, "When the time is come, Thou shalt be shown forth," what exposition doth this require, if a man diligently direct the eye of his mind to the festival which we are now celebrating? "For then shalt Thou be shown forth," He says, "as upon a kingly charger, by Thy pure and chaste mother, in the temple, and that in the grace and beauty of the flesh assumed by Thee." All these things the prophet, summing up for the sake of greater clearness, exclaims in brief: "The Lord is in His holy temple;" "Fear before Him all the earth."