Habakkuk 3

The prophet Habakkuk gives this title to his canticle: "A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet for ignorance." For he had spoken in a bold manner to the Lord and had said, "How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and you will not hear? Shall I cry to you 'suffering violence,' and you will not save? Why have you shown me iniquity and grievance, to see rapine and injustice before me? Judgment is done against me and opposition is more powerful. Therefore the law is torn to pieces, and judgment comes not to the end, because the wicked prevails against the just; therefore, wrong judgment goes forth." As a reproof to himself for having spoken these words through ignorance, he writes the Canticle of Penance. If ignorance were no sin, it was a futile effort on his part to compose a book of penance, and his desire to express sorrow over an act that was not a sin was an empty gesture.

A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet for ignorances. LXX: A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet with a song. Aquila and Symmachus and the Fifth Edition translated, as we did, for ignorances; Theodotion alone ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐκουσιασμῶν, that is, for voluntary sins, and for those who sin of their own accord. This is said so that we may understand — the Seventy excepted — that no one translated a prayer with a song. For in the Hebrew too it has al segionoth, which is rendered Ἐπὶ ἀγνοημάτων, and we translated for ignorances. Now the sense is this: earlier he had rashly said: How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and you will not hear? Shall I cry out to you, suffering violence, and you will not save? And then, in the second complaint: Why do you not look upon those who act unjustly, and keep silent, while the wicked devours one more just than himself? To this he had heard: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets. And after other things: Behold, he who is unbelieving, his soul will not be upright in himself; but the just shall live in his faith. And he had learned that either Nebuchadnezzar, or the devil, or the Antichrist had been set for the judgment of sinners, and strong to chastise the nations; now he does penance, and laments that he spoke rashly, and asks pardon, so that he may obtain mercy, because he acted in ignorance. Hence David too says: The sins, he says, of my youth, and my ignorances, do not remember. There are some who think that it is a prayer of the prophet that at the coming of Christ the error of men may be taken away, and that for this reason the name of prophet is set at the head of the title, because by the prophetic spirit he prays that the darkness be removed and the light restored, the image taken away and the truth bestowed. But that it is a prophecy, the whole fabric of the canticle shows, and above all this: In the midst of two living creatures you will be known, and: When the years draw near, you will be known, and, concerning the judgment: When my soul is troubled in wrath, you will remember mercy, and again, concerning the coming of Christ: God will come from Teman, and the Holy One from the shady and thick mountain, and also concerning the future: The tents of the land of Midian will tremble, and you will mount upon your horses, and stretching you will stretch your bow over kingdoms. But if anyone asks why Theodotion alone translated for spontaneous sins, we can say that it shows either the confession of the prophet, that he sinned not under some necessity but of his own accord, judging wrongly of the judgment of God, or certainly the future faith of the nations, in that, voluntarily abandoning their former error, they were going to believe in him who is promised in the canticle. We read in Psalm 16 (17): A prayer of David. And in another likewise. A prayer of David. And in Psalm 89 (90): A prayer of Moses, the man of God. And in Psalm 101 (102): A prayer of the poor man when he was in anguish, and poured out his petition before the Lord. And wherever else the name of prayer is brought in, yet in no place is it read with a song. And I do not know whether it is fitting to pray with a song, unless perhaps, following the Seventy, we say that the prophet prays for the coming of Christ, and prophesies this very thing with delight, and with psalms and song, so that in that it is a prayer he may entreat the Father, and in that it is a song, praise may be spoken of the Father, who sent the Son, and of the Son, who came. So much on the title of the canticle. Let us now see what is said in the canticle.

Lord, I heard Your report and feared. The report of the Lord the Savior is what He heard from the Father, that He would come in the flesh, be born into the world, dwell among the weak as the Almighty, among sinners as the Just, among men as God, perform heavenly works, teach heavenly precepts, promise heavenly gifts, be tempted, scourged, mocked, killed, and by His death destroy our death; rising from the dead, ascend into the heavens, and having sent the Spirit from above, illuminate the world with the grace of truth. Of this report He Himself frequently made mention in the Gospel, saying: "But He that sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him" (John 8:26). And again: "But I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you" (John 15:15). Concerning this, John the Baptist also says: "He that comes from heaven is above all, and what He has seen and heard, that He testifies" (John 3:31). Therefore, the prophet heard this report of the Lord in spirit, and feared because he complained of the oppressions of the righteous in the world, while even the Lord Himself, who makes the prosperous journey for us to salvation and life, met with death's end in the world. He feared because he lamented over the tribulations of the saints, who are not only to be delivered from tribulations by the Lord but also to be crowned eternally with the Lord.

I considered Your works and was afraid: surely those works by which He redeemed the world, becoming obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross: that, as the Apostle again says, through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14). Indeed, the more one diligently considers these works, the more one trembles at the works of one's own frailty.

In the midst of two animals you will be known. It can be understood as in the midst of two animals, in the midst of Moses and Elijah. For there he was known to the three disciples on the holy mountain because he was to die, telling them that he would suffer in Jerusalem. There, he was known because he would rise again and would become immortal, with his countenance made bright like the sun, and his garments shining like snow. There, he was known because he was the Son of God, with a voice from the Father in heaven saying to him: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him (Matthew 17:5). It can also, not unreasonably, be taken as in the midst of two thieves, among whom he was crucified and by dying was known to be a man. However, with the sun darkened, the earth shaken, and the other miracles narrated in the Gospel happening around the cross, he was known to be God. By interceding himself to the Father for his murderers, he was known to be most pious. By this same example, the prophet, who foresaw this in the spirit, was admonished not only to patiently bear the oppressions of the wicked but also to extend the grace of his kindness to those persecuting him.

When the years draw near, you will be known, when the time arrives, you will be revealed. The Apostles refer to this when they say: After the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law (Gal. IV, 4). The prophets foresaw these times and years from afar and greeted them from a distance, saying that when the years drew near and the time arrived, the Lord would be revealed and recognized. For it was also heard above, as the Lord said to him: Though the vision is yet for an appointed time; it will speak at the end and will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not delay (Habak. II, 3). Hearing this, and considering the works of the passion, he feared and was in awe, because he was moved by the transitory happiness of the wicked and the temporal affliction of the good. However, for having made a penance worthy of his unaware wrongdoings, he soon trusted that he could obtain forgiveness for his error. Hence he consequently adds:

In that time when my soul is troubled, in the wrath of mercy you will remember. When my soul is troubled, he said, struck with worthy sorrow of satisfaction and repentance because of the fear of your wrath and judgment, which I dread to have incurred carelessly, I believe that I will more quickly obtain the mercy of the pardon desired from you: where the marvelous swiftness of divine pity should be considered. He said that he was troubled in soul only because of the wrath of God, and immediately added that he was turned to mercy from wrath. To which the Psalmist's saying is similar: I said: I will confess my injustices against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart (Ps. 31:3). But such indulgence can be for the smallest faults. Otherwise, our offenses, the graver they are, the greater and longer repentance, weeping, and alms they require. Up to this point, the prophet briefly encompasses with what fear of mind he was struck, having heard and more carefully considered the event of the Lord's incarnation and passion. Then, more fully, he immediately describes what that hearing, what those works of the Lord were that he was so moved by. It follows:

The third origin of the fear of the Lord is from the consideration of the severity of divine vengeance. Whence in Habakkuk: "Lord, I have heard your report and was afraid." He says: "I have heard your report and was afraid," namely, that report when it shall be said: "Depart, you cursed, into eternal fire." Not only in the day of tribulation or severity of the last judgment, but of any other judgment whatsoever, because the judgments of God are many.

And so Christ is the center of the two animating spirits, as is the heart. Hence Habakkuk: "In the midst of the two animals Thou shalt make it known." And according to a different translation, "in the midst of the years," as is the Sun: for the sum total of time runs on according to the ten steps in the dial of Achaz. According to the Septuagint, Christ was in between the animated beings that preceded Him and those that followed Him.

When the sacred lesson was read just now, we heard that at the time when the twelve spies were sent to view the land of promise, two of them brought back on a lever to the children of Israel a bunch of grapes of wonderful size. Those two men can be understood in many ways, dearly beloved, for they are not unfittingly believed to have signified both the two Testaments and the two precepts whereby God and the neighbor are loved. They can, likewise, be understood both historically and allegorically. That they were a type of the two Testaments we know definitely from the fact that the grapes are read to have been brought between those two men, just as Christ our Lord is clearly recognized in the middle of the two Testaments. According to what is written, "In the middle of the two animals you will be known," that is, between the Old and New Testaments. When we read "in the middle," we are not to understand that Christ was between the New and Old Testaments in such a way that he was contained in neither one. This is not true, beloved brothers, but when it says, "In the middle of the two animals you will be known," we must realize that he is in the midst of the Old and New Testaments, that is, within in an interior and spiritual sense. This is not according to the letter, … but according to the spirit that vivifies all Christians who have spiritual understanding. Therefore "in the middle of the two animals you will be known" means in the inner sense of the New or Old Testaments.

"For mildness will come upon us, and we shall be corrected. Who knows the power of your anger, or can number your wrath for fear?" He now elaborates on his earlier statement: "the greatest number of them are labor and sorrow." He says that we must not go beyond the precepts of the law, for Jesus Christ, who is mildness perfected, comes upon us and corrects and improves us if we wantonly ignore his Testaments. Since he used the word corrected, he prefaced it with "mildness," so that we may realize that all the changes wrought by God in the faithful result from the application of devoted love. Next comes "Who knows the power of your anger or can number your wrath for fear?" Moses, who had experienced the severity of the Lord's response to his errant people when they roused him with incessant grumbling, rightly exclaims that no one's reckoning can measure his vengeance and that the potentialities of angry action open to him cannot be numbered. Observe in both instances that his boundless power is proclaimed, for just as the Lord's rewards cannot be understood in their fullness, likewise the measure of his vengeance cannot be grasped. He did well to add "for fear;" as another prophet remarks: "I have pondered your works and was afraid."

With Him is nothing incomplete or out of due season, just as with the Father there is nothing incongruous. For all these things were foreknown by the Father; but the Son works them out at the proper time in perfect order and sequence. This was the reason why, when Mary was urging [Him] on to [perform] the wonderful miracle of the wine, and was desirous before the time to partake of the cup of emblematic significance, the Lord, checking her untimely haste, said, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come" -waiting for that hour which was foreknown by the Father. This is also the reason why, when men were often desirous to take Him, it is said, "No man laid hands upon Him, for the hour of His being taken was not yet come;" nor the time of His passion, which had been foreknown by the Father; as also says the prophet Habakkuk, "By this Thou shalt be known when the years have drawn nigh; Thou shalt be set forth when the time comes; because my soul is disturbed by anger, Thou shalt remember Thy mercy." Paul also says: "But when the fulness of time came, God sent forth His Son." By which is made manifest, that all things which had been foreknown of the Father, our Lord did accomplish in their order, season, and hour, foreknown and fitting, being indeed one and the same, but rich and great. For He fulfils the bountiful and comprehensive will of His Father, inasmuch as He is Himself the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Lord of those who are under authority, and the God of all those things which have been formed, the only-begotten of the Father, Christ who was announced, and the Word of God, who became incarnate when the fulness of time had come, at which the Son of God had to become the Son of man.

O Lord, I have heard your hearing, and I was afraid. O Lord, your work, in the midst of the years, revive it. LXX: O Lord, I have heard your report, and I was afraid. O Lord, I considered your works, and I was astonished; in the midst of two living creatures you will be known. Where we and Aquila and Theodotion translated revive it, Symmachus rendered revive it again. But what the Seventy said, I considered and I was astonished, is found neither in the Hebrew nor in any of the other translators, so that, when the things not found in the Hebrew are removed, one can read according to the Seventy: O Lord, your works in the midst of two living creatures you will be known; and because this seemed ἀδιανόητον (unintelligible), the preceding words were joined to it. Now we read in the Hebrew adonai, that is, O Lord, phalach, your work, bacereb, in the midst, sanim, of years heieu, revive it. This is said so that we may recognize that what is superfluous in the Seventy has plainly been added. The Hebrews explain this place according to the history thus: O Lord, I have heard your hearing, and I was afraid. I have heard, he says, the punishments which you have prepared for Nebuchadnezzar and for the devil, in which you said to him: Woe to him who multiplies what is not his. And secondly: Woe to him who gathers evil avarice for his house. And thirdly: Woe to him who builds a city in bloodshed, and prepares a town in iniquity. And fourthly: Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, putting in his gall and making him drunk. And fifthly: Woe to him who says to the wood: Awake; arise, to the silent stone. And just as I was terrified with fear that the great dragon is to be pierced with so many wounds, so I pray, O Lord, that you fulfil what you have promised, and, when the time is completed, render your Christ. For you said that the vision is still far off, and will appear at the end, and will not lie. Revive, therefore, what you have promised, that is, fulfil your promise; let your word not die unfulfilled, but be accomplished in deed. This indeed, according to our version, can also be understood of the resurrection of the Savior, that he who died for us may rise from the dead and be brought to life. But according to the Seventy the sense is far different, and we ought also to set down the explanation of the common edition. O Lord, I have heard your word in the Scriptures, and since you gave me an ear, according to what Isaiah says: He gave me in addition an ear to hear, I heard in such a way as you wish your word to be heard. And having contemplated your works more diligently, lest it be said to me: But the works of the Lord they do not regard, and the works of his hands they do not consider, I understood the Creator from the creatures; and at each of the things which you have made, and which you work daily in the whole world, I was wholly astonished, and having lost the sense of human nature, I was turned into a holy madness. Or certainly, troubled with wonder, I break out trembling into your praises, saying: In the midst of two living creatures you will be known. Many think this is to be understood of the Son and the Holy Spirit, because the Father is understood through the Son and the Spirit. These indeed they interpret as both the two Seraphim in Isaiah and the two Cherubim which are written of in Exodus, which look toward each other and have the oracle in the midst; and that in Isaiah, veiling the head and the feet of the Lord, they fly in the present age only, and cry out to one another the mystery of the Trinity, and that one of the Seraphim, which means burning, is sent and comes to the earth and cleanses the prophet's lips, and says: I have come to send fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it may burn. So others judge, and for this interpretation they use many testimonies of the Scriptures. Moreover, the simple interpretation and the opinion of the common people understand it of the Savior, in that he was recognized when crucified between two thieves. But those who interpret better say this: that in the first Church, which was gathered from the circumcision and from the foreskin, with the two peoples surrounding him on this side and on that, the Savior was understood and believed. There are some who understand the two living creatures as the two testaments, the new and the old, which are truly living beings, which are full of life, which breathe, and in whose midst the Lord is known.

In the midst of the years you will make it known. LXX: When the years draw near, you will be known. When the time comes, he says, and you have fulfilled your promises in deed, you will show that what you promised is true. Or else: when the consummation draws near, and at the last hour your Son comes to destroy sins, you will be known more manifestly. There follows:

When the time comes, you will be shown, when my soul is troubled. This, apart from the Seventy, is found neither in the Hebrew nor in any of the other translators. And the sense is: When the time comes of which it is said: In an acceptable time I have heard you, the time of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, then, O God the Father, your name will be known, which before was hidden from men, of which the Lord says in the Gospel: Father, I have revealed your name to men. But what is added: When my soul is troubled, in the edition of the LXX translators is joined with what follows, so that it can be read: When my soul is troubled in wrath, and there the division falls; next is added: You will remember mercy, meaning that for the prophet trouble alone is enough as punishment, and that, his soul being troubled at the wrath of God, no penalty at all is inflicted, but mercy shuts out wrath. Now the wrath of God too has its measures: how much, and for how long, and for what causes, and on whom it is inflicted, according to what is written: You will feed us with the bread of tears, and give us tears to drink in measure. But if the prophet is troubled at the wrath of God, and he who is troubled obtains mercy, what ought we to hope, or rather to fear, all of whose works are worthy of the wrath of God? But as for what follows according to the Hebrew.

When you are angry, you will remember mercy, we must not think that God forgets and after his wrath remembers his mercy, but that we, set in punishment, think he forgets, according to this: How long, O Lord, will you forget me, to the end? For whenever we too are covered by temptations as by waves, and the swift storm of the demons rages against us, we speak as to one asleep: Arise, why do you sleep, O Lord? And at the same time observe the clemency of God: he did not say: When you inflict punishments, you will remember mercy, but: When you are angry. Now he who is angry sometimes does not strike, but only threatens. The Apostle too, perceiving this, says: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and iniquity of men. But where it is revealed, it is not inflicted, it does not strike, but it is revealed to terrify, and so that it may not be inflicted on those who are terrified.

And we think that the expression also which occurs in the hymn of Habakkuk, "In the midst either of the two living things, or of the two lives, you will be known," ought to be understood of Christ and the Holy Spirit. For all knowledge of the Father is obtained by revelation of the Son through the Holy Spirit, so that both of these beings which, according to the prophet, are called either "living things" or "lives" exist as the grounds of the knowledge of God the Father. For it is said of the Son that "no one knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." The same also is said by the apostle of the Holy Spirit, when he declares, "God has revealed them to us by his Holy Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God." And again in the Gospel, when the Savior speaks of the divine and profounder parts of his teaching, which his disciples were not yet able to receive, he thus addresses them: "I cannot bear them now; but when the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is come, he will teach you all things, and will bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." We must understand, therefore, that as the Son, who alone knows the Father, reveals him to whom he will, so the Holy Spirit, who alone searches the deep things of God, reveals God to whom he will: "For the Spirit blows where he lists." We are not, however, to suppose that the Spirit derives his knowledge through revelation from the Son.

The Father gave to the Son new disciples after Moses and Elijah had been exhibited along with him in the honor of his glory and had then been dismissed as having fully discharged their duty and office.… But we have the entire structure of this same vision in Habakkuk also, where the spirit in the person of some of the apostles says, "O Lord, I have heard your speech and was afraid." What speech was this, other than the words of the voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, hear him"? "I considered your works and was astonished." When could this have better happened than when Peter, on seeing his glory, knew not what he was saying? "In the midst of the two you shall be known"—even Moses and Elijah.

But tell us the other thing you were saying you were going to tell us. "The prophet," says he, "says God 'will come from Afric,' and now of course where the Afric is, there is Africa." Well, there's a fine testimony for you! God will come from the Afric, and from Africa God will come. The heretics are announcing another Christ who is born in Africa and goes through the world. I'm asking what it means, God will come from Africa. If you said, "God has only remained in Africa," you would certainly be saying something shameful enough. But now you also say, "He will come from Africa." We know where Christ was born, where he suffered, where he ascended into heaven, where he sent his disciples from, where he filled them with the Holy Spirit, where he instructed them to evangelize the whole world, and they complied, and the world is filled with the gospel. And you say, "God will come from Africa!" …So how does he come from "the shady mountain"? Read the Gospel once more: it was from the Mount of Olives that Christ ascended into heaven. Continue. And what could be clearer? You hear "from the Afric"; you have heard "from the shady mountain." We recite the law, we recite the Gospel; you have heard "beginning from Jerusalem"; now hear "throughout all the nations." In the same prophet continue with those words that you ignored, those words you left out.… "God will come from the Afric, and the Holy One from the shady mountain," that is, from the Mount of Olives, where he ascended into heaven, where he sent his disciples from, where he also said as he was about to ascend, "It is not for you to know the times which the Father has placed in his own power; but you will receive might from on high, and you will be witness to me … in Jerusalem, and in Judea and in Samaria, and as far as the whole earth."

Where we recognize Christ in what is written: "God will come from the south and the holy one from the shady mountain; his strength will cover the heavens," there we recognize the church in what follows: "And the earth is full of his praise." Jerusalem was settled from Africa, as we read in the book of Joshua, son of Nun; from there the name of Christ was spread abroad; there is the shady mountain, the Mount of Olives, from which he ascended into heaven, so that his strength might cover the heavens and the church might be filled through all the earth with his praise.

God will come from Lebanon and the Holy One from the dense and dark mountain. Lebanon is the highest mountain of Phoenicia, notable for its lofty, incorruptible, and aromatic trees, from which the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem was also made, as Scripture testifies; hence in the Scriptures, sometimes even the temple itself is designated by the name of Lebanon. Hence, for instance, Zechariah speaks about the coming of the Chaldean army against it: "Open, O Lebanon, your gates, and let fire consume your cedars" (Zech. XI, 1). Therefore, God comes from Lebanon, because the Lord appearing in the flesh sowed the first seeds of the Gospel in that very temple, and from there filled the entire world with the seed of His faith and truth. Hence, Isaiah says, "For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isaiah II, 3). He sprinkled there the first seeds of faith not only through the apostles, who, filled with the Holy Spirit after His passion and resurrection, laid the first foundations of the Church there by preaching, whose sound then went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Psalm XVIII, 5); but also through Himself, first in that very temple giving testimony of the faith to be had in Him, sitting in the midst of the doctors when He was of tender age, asking them questions as a mere boy, but answering those teaching as God of eternal majesty; where, being sought and found by His parents, He Himself indicated that He was God and God's Son by saying: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke II, 49). However, it should be noted that in the Hebrew truth this verse is as follows: "God will come from Teman," that is, from the South, which has an easy sense according to the letter, because Bethlehem, where the Lord was born, is situated to the south of Jerusalem. And when He was brought to Jerusalem by His parents on the fortieth day of His birth, that an offering might be made for Him according to the law, God indeed came from the South. And he says, "the Holy One from the dense and dark mountain." The Holy One, the same Mediator of God and men, who is plainly called God above, of whom Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mother said: "Therefore, the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke I, 35). The mountain from which the same Holy One is sung to come can be understood to mean the kingdom of the Jews, from which He took His fleshly origin. From which also Daniel saw the stone cut out without hands, that is, Christ begotten without the work of a man, who crushing the kingdoms of the world, would fill the whole world with the glory of His name (Dan. II, 45). This mountain is rightly called dense and dark; for it has many fruitful trees, that is, many holy men laden with the fruits of virtue, who both instruct our hunger with the sweetest taste of their doctrine, and with the shade of their intercession protect our frailty from being dried up by the heat of tribulations from the inner greenness of love. This fits figuratively with what the apostle Peter, certainly a distinguished tree of this mountain, not only refreshes the hungry and thirsty for righteousness with the fruit of doctrine but also saves the sick with the shadow of his body (Acts V, 15). These holy and sublime men can also be designated by the term "South," from whom God is said to come, on account of the fervent love with which they are usually enflamed in the Lord and the doctrine with which they enlighten men, from which South God came because He deigned to be incarnate from such men. From which South God comes daily, when, reading or hearing their words or examples, the love or knowledge of truth is more perfectly generated in our hearts.

His majesty covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise. The dispensation of the Lord's incarnation having been described, he immediately added the mystery of the ascension by which the same humanity was to be glorified, according to the saying of the Psalmist: His going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit reaches to the end thereof (Ps. 18:7). For his majesty covered the heavens, because he who was made a little lower than the angels through the incarnation, was crowned with glory and honor through the resurrection, and established above the works of the Father's hands through the ascension, and all things are placed under his feet (Ps. 8:6), and as the apostles preached, the earth was filled with his praise: this very thing being briefly but very clearly included at both the beginning and end of the same psalm, when it is said: O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth! for your magnificence is elevated above the heavens (Ps. 8:2). But even before the passion and resurrection, when the Word made flesh dwelt among us, his majesty covered the heavens, because the assumed humanity, though still mortal, surpassed the heavenly powers. And the earth is full of his praise, with the same heavenly virtues truly knowing that he was the creator of the earth, as of all creation by divinity, who then dwelled on earth through humanity: from which, at his birth, they sang: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will (Lk. 2:14).

And there are also some of them who say, "The Lord hath spoken in Zion, and uttered His voice from Jerusalem;" and, "In Judah is God known;" -these indicated His advent which took place in Judea. Those, again, who declare that "God comes from the south, and from a mountain thick with foliage," announced His advent at Bethlehem, as I have pointed out in the preceding book. From that place, also, He who rules, and who feeds the people of His Father, has come. Those, again, who declare that at His coming "the lame man shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall [speak] plainly, and the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear," and that "the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, shall be strengthened," and that "the dead which are in the grave shall arise," and that He Himself "shall take [upon Him] our weaknesses, and bear our sorrows," -[all these] proclaimed those works of healing which were accomplished by Him.

God will come from the south, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Always. LXX: God will come from Teman, and the Holy One from the shady and thick mountain. Diapsalma. Aquila and Symmachus and the Fifth Edition set down the Hebrew word itself, Teman; Theodotion alone translated what Teman means, saying: Eloim will come from the south, and the Holy One from Mount Paran, to the end. From this we understand that From the shady and thick mountain was set down by the Seventy alone. But also what the Seventy translated διάψαλμα, and we rendered always, Symmachus translated: For ever; Theodotion: To the end; the Fifth Edition the Hebrew word itself: sela. God, therefore, will come from the south, that is, from the midday, from the clear light, and from those who are called sons of the days. Hence in the Song of Songs too the bridegroom drives away the north wind and calls the south wind, saying: Arise, north wind, and come, south wind, blow through my garden, and let my spices flow. God is always at midday: Where, she says, do you pasture? Where do you lie down? At midday. And to Abraham, when he was under the oak, God came only at midday. And Joseph, who went before as a type of the Savior, makes a banquet for his brothers at midday. The knowledge of God the Father, therefore, comes to those who are worthy in full light. And the knowledge of the Holy One, that is, of the Son of God, comes from the shady and thick mountain. The shady and thick mountain is understood either as the Father himself, full of powers and of all wisdom, protecting all things with his majesty, and stretching out his wings, and cherishing his young; or certainly as paradise and the heavenly places, full of angels, full of powers, full of most fruitful trees. And would that it might befall me too that, at my voice and my exposition, God may come in clear light, and his Son, of whom it is written: Be holy, for I am holy; that from the loftiness of a discourse shady and thick, and woven together on this side and that from the testimonies of the Scriptures, with the Father and the Son coming together, the hearer may become their dwelling, and the Scripture be fulfilled which says: I and my Father will come to him, and will make our abode with him. But since in place of the shady and thick mountain it is written in the Hebrew Mount Paran, and Paran means the mouth of one seeing, then beautifully, according to our interpretation, the knowledge of the Son comes from the discourse of a learned man, and not from any discourse whatever, but from one which is full of light, full of eyes, so that it may be carried, clear and pure, to the ears of the hearers. And as for his saying from the mountain, understand lofty doctrines. I have heard a Hebrew discuss this place thus: that Bethlehem, in which our Lord and Savior was born, lies to the south, and that he is the one of whom it is now said: The Lord will come from the south, that is, he will be born in Bethlehem and will rise up from there. And because he who was born in Bethlehem once gave the law on Mount Sinai, he is the Holy One who comes from Mount Paran. For Paran is a place near Mount Sinai. And what is added, diapsalma, that is, always, has this sense: He who was born in Bethlehem, and who gave the law on Sinai, that is, on Mount Paran, is always, in all benefits, past and present and future, both their author and their giver. Of the diapsalma, which in Hebrew is called sela, there has been fuller discussion on the psalter. And at the same time observe that, according to the Seventy, diapsalma is not set down except in the psalter and in the present place. From this we understand that the song of the prayer was rightly noted in its title by the Seventy.

Moreover, according to the Seventy, in what is said: His power covered the heavens, we ought to know that what is covered is less than what covers it: provided, however, that what is covered is covered wholly and not in part. Since, therefore, the power of God covers the heavens, his power, by which the heavens are covered, is greater than the heavens. And we often read that the heavens are those who bear the image of the one above the heavens, and who tell the glory of God. That the Lord, the Savior, is also the Power of God, the Apostle proves: Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. This power is, as it were, the mother of all the particular virtues; for example, he is called power, wisdom, strength, justice, temperance, truth, holiness, redemption. But Christ was made for us by God wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption. These particular virtues, therefore, in which Christ is shown — according to the progress of those who receive him either as wisdom, or as strength, or as justice, and the other things of this kind —, are contained in the general power of God, that is, in the Lord, the Savior; and in this way we understand it of the earth too: that those who at first, because of the image of the earthly one, were called earth, and to whom it was said: You are earth, and to earth you shall go, are filled at the coming of the Savior with the praise of the Lord.

His glory covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise.

His brightness will be as light, horns in his hands. There his strength is hidden. LXX: His power covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise, and his brightness will be like light; horns in his hands, and he placed a mighty love of his strength. Where the Seventy translated: And he placed a mighty love of his strength, and we said: There his strength is hidden, Aquila translated: And he placed the hiding of his strength; Symmachus: And he placed his strength hidden; Theodotion alone, agreeing with our translation, says: And there is the hiding of his strength. For the word sam, according to the character of the place, is understood both as he placed and as there, and in the present place there should be read rather than he placed, so that the sense and order of the sentence is: Horns in his hands, and let there be understood, there, that is, in the horns his strength is hidden. Now it is manifest according to the Hebrew that at the coming of Christ all things were filled with glory, according to what is said in the Gospel: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. And elsewhere: He made peace in the heavens and on earth through the blood of the cross, and sat at the right hand of the majesty: For his word runs swiftly. And elsewhere: O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth. And again in Psalm 18 (19): Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. His brightness also, as the sun of justice, shone forth with clear light, and horns are in his hands, the standards and trophies of the cross, and in those very horns his strength is hidden: For though he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He became obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross. On the cross, therefore, his strength was for a little while hidden, when he said to the Father: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. And: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. And on the cross itself: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

Habakkuk the prophet says, "God shall come from the south, and the holy one from the dark and dense mountain." Whom would they have come from the south? If they say that God the Father almighty came, then God the Father came from a place; consequently, he is also enclosed by space and contained within the limits of some abode. Thus the sacrilegious heresy of Sabellius, as we said, takes concrete form because of these people who believe that Christ is not the Son but the Father. It is strange how these heretics, while insisting that Christ is a mere man, make an about-face and acknowledge that Christ is the Father, God almighty.

His brightness will be like the light. The brightness of the virtues and the doctrine of the Lord and Savior will enlighten the believers; from which he is called the Sun of Righteousness in the Scriptures; but because the same brightness could not shine perfectly in the world unless he, having tasted death for a time, destroyed the kingdom of death, and rising from the dead granted the hope and faith of rising to the world, it is rightly added:

Horns are in His hands. There the power of His glory was confirmed. He calls the transverse wood of the cross horns, which He held fixed by the hands, so that by overcoming all death in this manner of death, He might thus confirm the power of His glory in the hearts of the chosen, so that they are not retarded from His love by any terrors or blandishments; also promising them the glory of future incorruption, through which the last enemy, death, will be destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26). Finally, on the holy mountain, with Peter, James, and John present, His splendor shone like light; and they were indeed delighted by the sight of this splendor, but nonetheless, it was proven how fragile and weak they still were at the time of His passion: but after He accepted the horns of the cross in His hands, there the power of His glory was confirmed: so that it could not be driven away from the hearts of the faithful by terrors, nor wounds, nor even death itself. The kingdoms of this world can be suggested in the horns, as is the custom of the prophets. (The sublimity of the human mind, whether good or reprobate, can be designated by the term horns). And horns are in the hands of Christ, because He Himself is the King of kings and the Lord of lords (1 Tim. 6:15). Horns are in His hands, to humble one, and exalt another, He breaks all the horns of sinners, which are foolishly exalted, and the horns of the just are exalted, namely desires devoted to God, by which they strive to overcome all contests of the impious and vices.

And He placed the love firm in the strength of His fortitude. The saints indeed loved the fortitude of Christ with intimate love, even before His passion; but this very love was not firm until, having completed His passion and resurrection, He more fully gave them the grace of the Holy Spirit. Then indeed it was made so firm that not even the horns of kings themselves, namely the power of the insolent, could break it.

This fortitude is from God redeeming through the incarnation of the divine Word. By what is the soul redeemed? It is said in Habakkuk: "His splendor shall be as the light; horns are in his hands; there his fortitude is hidden." For "the weakness of God is stronger than men." The Son of God was made weak for our sake.

What does the psalm have to say of the Savior? "As the beloved Son of unicorns." Our beloved Lord and Savior is the Son of the unicorns, the Son of the cross, of whom Habakkuk sings, "Rays shine forth from beside him, where his power is concealed." After this beloved Son was crucified, then, was fulfilled the prophecy of the psalm: "The voice of the Lord strikes fiery flames." For when Christ had been baptized and the entire universe had been purified in his cleansing, the fire of hell was extinguished.

And when both the heavens have been covered by the power of God — that is, protected and clothed on every side —, and the whole earth has been filled with the praise of God, then his brightness will be as light. Now the Apostle is not silent that God the Savior is the image of God and the brightness of his glory. He, after he appeared to us as the brightness of the glory of God, returned to his former majesty. For even if we had known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him according to the flesh, but according to the spirit, because: What was made, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Savior too shows this more manifestly in the Gospel, saying: Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was made, so that after the ascension to the heavens the brightness may be what the light is, that is, that the Son may begin to be what the Father is. And as for what follows: Horns in his hands, it is the custom of the Scriptures always to put horns for kingdoms. For that too which Hannah says in the first book of Kingdoms (1 Samuel): He exalted the horn of his anointed, signifies the magnificence of the kingdom of the Savior. And in Daniel the ten horns show ten kingdoms. And it is now said: Horns in his hands, in the same way as we read written elsewhere: The heart of the king is in the hand of God, meaning that the mind and the ruling part of the heart of a holy man — who is going on to the kingdom of heaven, who while still placed on earth reigns over his body without sins — does not wander outside, but is set in the keeping of God. But since both in the Hebrew and in the other editions it is not written: Horns in his hands, but in his hand, which is said iado, let us understand the strong and mighty hand of God to be his Son. And let us say that in this hand are placed all the kingdoms of heaven, and of those who strive to ascend to heaven, as Isaiah too sounds, saying: A vineyard was made for the beloved on a horn, in a fertile place, meaning in a kingdom. For this reason, I think, no horned animal is placed among the unclean in Leviticus, and the unicorn in the psalms, or ῥινοκερότα (rhinoceros), signifies this same thing, and this too: In you we will toss our enemies with the horn. And as for what we read according to the LXX: And he placed a strong love of his power, this too is to be understood of Christ: that God the Father covered the heavens with his power, and filled the earth with praise, and made his brightness to be as light, and placed the kingdom in the hand of his Son, for this reason, that he might make his beloved be loved by men, and loved not lightly, but vehemently and strongly, so that no one might take out of his hand those who had loved him strongly and clung in his love. On the contrary, the devil makes us love the world, and in place of the love of virtue love vices, and not lightly, but strongly, so that it can be said of us: And the devil placed a strong love of his vices.

The word will go before his face, and it went out into the fields. Before the Lord came in the flesh, the words of the prophets preceded, bearing witness to his coming; and these same words went out into the fields when, as the apostles preached, they were spread throughout the whole world: not only in the prophetic writings did the word of preaching precede the Lord, but also in the apostles, when they evangelized the world about the now accomplished advent of Christ in the flesh, the word went before his face, because obviously the doctrine of truth first reaches the ears of those who are to be taught, and then the faith and understanding of the Word enlightens hearts and makes them worthy for God to inhabit; this is typologically designated in the Gospel, when the Lord himself sent disciples to preach in every city and place to which he himself was about to come: which we see done in the same order even to this day; for the Lord follows his preachers, because the word of the teacher must first be heard, and thus the light of truth is established in the heart of the listener, whence it is aptly added:

Before his face death will go, and the devil will go forth before his feet. LXX: Before his face the word will go, and it will go forth into the field after his feet. Where we translated death, in the Hebrew three letters are set down, daleth, beth, res, without any vowel; if they are read dabar, they signify word; if deber, pestilence, which in Greek is called λοιμός. Accordingly Aquila too translated thus: Before his face pestilence will go; Symmachus: Before his face death will go before; the Fifth Edition: Before his face death will walk; the LXX and Theodotion alone translated word in place of death. So too in the following verse, where we said: The devil will go forth before his feet, and the LXX translated otherwise, following whom we shall discuss it afterwards, Aquila translated, in place of devil, a winged thing; but Symmachus and Theodotion and the Sixth Edition, a bird, which in Hebrew is called Reseph. Now the Hebrews hand down that, just as in the Gospel the prince of demons is said to be Beelzebub, so Reseph is the name of a demon who holds the chief place among the others, and because of his excessive swiftness and his running about in different directions he is called a bird and a winged thing; and that he is the one who in paradise spoke to the woman under the figure of a serpent, and received his name from the curse by which he was condemned by God, since Reseph means creeping on the belly. This, therefore, is what is said: As soon as the Lord has come and has been baptized in the Jordan, and at the descent of the dove the voice of the Father has thundered: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, the devil will meet him as he comes out of the waters, and before his feet will stand death and the ancient serpent, who tempted him for forty days in the wilderness. But if we read according to the LXX: Before his face the word will go, and it will go forth into the fields after his feet, this signifies that the word of God goes before his visitation, which is now allegorically called his face, and prepares the hearts of believers, so that it may make the crooked straight and level the uneven into a plain, and the soul of the hearer, like a ploughed field, may be able to receive the spiritual seed.

His feet stood, and the earth was moved. For when the steps of truth are impressed upon the minds of the listeners through the preaching doctor, soon the mind itself, troubled in its consideration, is moved. However, the feet of the Lord can not inconveniently be understood as the doctors themselves, through whom the word is ministered, for he who is present everywhere by himself is carried into the whole world through them as through his feet. These feet stand, and the earth is moved, because the more the holy doctors persist strongly in preaching and preserving the truth, the sooner the hearts of earthly people are struck to repent of their errors; and because this action of repentance should be attributed not to the human preacher but to illuminating grace, it is rightly added:

He looked, and the nations melted away. Which is to say openly: The Lord had mercy, and the nations repented; by which gaze he looked at Peter when he denied; and he, pricked by the memory of his sin, immediately melted into tears.

The mountains were broken exceedingly. He calls them proud mountains, and about the vanity of this world, or kingship, or wisdom, or wealth, exalting themselves, who, with the Lord watching, were not only broken but exceedingly broken, when, by His mercy, some from such ranks not only descended from empty and proud heights but also opposed the same by living and preaching. Indeed, Saul and Matthew were mountains, the former elevated by the wisdom of carnal letters, the latter by the mammon of iniquity, but when each was converted to the teaching of humility, they were made disciples of Christ, the mountains surely were exceedingly broken.

The everlasting hills flowed down. By the name of hills, as with mountains, proud men are expressed, but perhaps inflated with a lesser arrogance of elation, yet not free from the guilt of swelling pride, and therefore healthily inclined, so that they may deserve to be elevated by the Lord. They are rightly called everlasting hills, because while temporarily humbled, they flow down from the swelling of pride, they are glorified forever by Him who says: And everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled (Luke 14:11). Another translation for everlasting hills plainly has hills of the world, which pertains to the distinction of the hills of the Lord, that is, of holy men, who, because of the loftiness of mind, disregarding all temporal and lowly things, are worthy of such a name, about whom the Psalmist says to the Lord: Let the mountains receive peace for Your people, and the hills righteousness (Psalm 72:3).

I have seen His ways of eternity beyond the labors. The ways are of the temporality of the Lord, by which He came into the world, so that He might appear to men for a time; but His ways of eternity, by which, leaving the world bodily, He returned to the Father, with whom He remained eternally, even while He conversed temporally in the world: indeed, He longed for these ways, when approaching His passion, He said to the Father: I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work which You gave Me to do (John 17:4). These are concerning the ways of assumed temporality, and immediately concerning the ways of eternity He added: And now, Father, glorify Me with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was (John 17:5). The prophet saw these ways of eternity beyond the labors, namely of the incarnation and passion, of which it was said above: God shall come from Lebanon, or from the South, and: Rays are in His hands, and other such things, which are found many in this same song. Of these labors the Apostle says: He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8); and immediately concerning the ways of eternity, which the Mediator of God and men deserved through these labors, he added: Therefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and under the earth; and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:9-10); and because through these same labors of His, and through these same ways of His eternity, when, having completed the labors of His passion, He returned to the Father, not only the people of the Jews but also of the nations were to come to eternal rest, aptly it is added:

He stood and measured the earth; he looked, and dissolved the nations, and the mountains of the age were crushed; the hills of the world were bowed down, by the journeys of his eternity. LXX: He stood, and the earth was shaken; he looked, and the nations wasted away; the mountains were crushed by violence, the hills of the age of his everlasting journey melted away. The Savior, standing and surveying all things, and measuring with his eye the whole of the world, scattered the multitude of the nations; and when these were scattered and dissolved, the mountains of this age were crushed, and the hills of this world were bowed down. For there are also other mountains and hills, which the bridegroom leaps and bounds over in the Song of Songs, of which it is said also in the second Psalm of Ascents: I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help will come to me. But the mountains of the age are the very ones that are also the dark mountains, concerning which Jeremiah commanded that our feet not strike against them. These are the hills on which Saul reigned when he was killing the priests of God: for Gibeah means hill. And elegantly, he says, the hills of the world were bowed down. For before the coming of the Savior they walked with neck erect, and no one could humble their pride. And they were crushed and bowed down by the journeys of his eternity, that is, of God's, because his eternity deigned to come to us; or else because always, from the beginning of the world up to his incarnation, he came to the saints, and the word of God came to be in the hand of each one, and in all who conquered he himself prevailed, and his eternal journey bowed down and crushed the hills and the mountains. Let these things be said by way of metaphor according to the Hebrew. Moreover, according to the LXX, after the word has gone before the face of God and has gone forth into the plains, God the Father comes there, where a region has been prepared for him by his word, and he comes after the feet of his word and stands; never going before, but always waiting for the word to pave the way for him. And where he has stood beside the feet of his word, there at once the earth, that is, the works of the flesh and of bodies, which cannot endure the presence of God, are shaken. And when they have been shaken, the power of the word and the presence of God looks upon all the nations of the soul, which we can understand as the thoughts and the manifold opinions pulling in different directions, which are at once dissolved and waste away. If anything too had exalted itself on the earth against the knowledge of God, and had taken possession of the mind of the hearer, it will be broken and crushed, as the word goes before and God comes. And when the mountains have been broken and crushed at the sight of God, the hills will clearly be consumed and brought to nothing. For they are not the mountains of God, but the mountains of the age. For the everlasting journey of God, looking to the things which his word goes before, and being stronger than the hills of the age, will consume and destroy them. Now the mountains can also be understood as the demons who dwell in the heretics and lift themselves up against the knowledge of God; and the hills as the other powers of the demons, which make men admire the beauty of bodies, ranks, riches, nobility of birth, and the other goods of the world. One may see, after the coming of the word of God and the presence of God the Father, how human souls are shaken, and all that is earthly is dissolved, and former thoughts are brought to nothing. Then the demons are destroyed, then the heights of the age are brought down to nothing, and all the knowledge of the heretics, which at first was swelling, is humbled, crushed and consumed at the coming of the word of God. And what before seemed beautiful and very great is cast away as despised and small. And this happens because of the coming of God and the lodging of Christ, according to what is written elsewhere: I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

In all of what he said he conveyed to us the ineffable power of God: action follows his will, and by merely wishing it (the sense of "he took his position and looked down") he moves the earth, undoes human nature, splits open the mountains and melts the hills like wax. In fact, he has not ceased doing such things for people's benefit (by "passing" referring to his doings). Now in what is said he implies also the cross, which is the source of salvation for all people. On it Christ the Lord "took his position," shook the earth, moved and split open the mountains, struck with fear the hordes of demons, and destroyed their shrines on mountains and hills. While it was from the beginning and before the formation of the world that he so decided, it was in the last days that he accomplished it.

We meanwhile, exposed to the outbreaks of the barbarians and the storms of war, are tossing in the midst of troubles, and from these toils and dangers can only gather that those of our future life will be still more grievous. Wherefore that saying of the Prophet seems to accord with our condition, "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction." For since I have now lived in the body fifty and three years, among the shadows of this world, whereby the truth of future perfection is obscured, and have already endured such heavy afflictions, am I not camping in the tents of Cushan, and having my habitation among the dwellers of Midian? For these, owing to their consciousness of their darksome works, dread being judged even by mortal men, "but he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man."

The tents of the Ethiopians will be terrified, and the tents of the land of Midian. For who does not know that the Ethiopians and Midianites are peoples of the nations? By whose names all the nations of the Gentiles are hinted, who, upon hearing the preaching of the gospel, would be shaken with a healthy fear, so that just as the prophet heard the future report of the Lord and feared, considered the future works of His incarnation, and trembled, so the nations, upon hearing the same report through the apostles, and with His works already accomplished, would begin to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. And appropriately, he first mentioned the Ethiopians, who are at the ends of the world, to mystically indicate that the sound of the preachers would go out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In this mystery, the eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, as it is read in the Acts of the Apostles, the first fruits of the Gentiles, with Philip evangelizing, received the faith and sacraments of Christ. The people of the Midianites, however, descended from one of the sons of Abraham from Keturah, who was called Midian, and is in the desert of the Saracens towards the east of the Red Sea in Arabia. Therefore, let the Ethiopians fear the name of Christ, so that His faith may be signified as reaching the ends of the world. Let the Midianites also fear, thus indicating that the Mediterranean peoples too may be saved through this. But that he did not say: The Ethiopians and Midianites will be terrified, but the tents of the Ethiopians will be terrified, and the tents of the land of Midian, is said in that manner of speech, as it is said in the Gospel: And the whole city went out to meet Jesus; and in the psalm: And your cup intoxicating (Psalm 21:5), while it was not the city itself, but those who were in the city, who went out; nor was it the cup itself, but that which is in the cup that is accustomed to intoxicate: this figure of speech is called metonymy in Greek, that is, transnomination, when through that which contains, that which is contained is shown.

For iniquity I saw the tents of Ethiopia; the skins of the land of Midian will be troubled. LXX: For labors I saw the tabernacles of the Ethiopians; the tabernacles of the land of Midian also will tremble. The Ethiopians, foul and lovers of darkness, and strangers to all light, who feed on the flesh of the dragon, of which it is written: You gave him as food to the peoples of the Ethiopians, are understood as the demons, whose tabernacle becomes whoever in this age has labored for honors and riches; and this is significantly shown under the single word of iniquity: for every rich man is either unjust or the heir of an unjust man. See men cross the seas, keep watch before the doors of the powerful, suffer everything that the condition of slaves scarcely suffers, in order to gather riches, to obtain some rank, and, once they have achieved this, give themselves over to luxury and pleasures and every iniquity, so that what avarice has gathered, luxury may consume. These, therefore, for their labors are made a lodging of demons, and those who ought to have been the temple of God become the tabernacle of the Ethiopians. But also in what follows: The skins of the land of Midian will be troubled, or the tabernacles of the land of Midian also will tremble, understand the same people as the tabernacles of the Ethiopians and the tabernacles of the land of Midian. For after they have grown rich, and by right and wrong have climbed to the highest rank, then, from the consciousness of their sins, they will always dread death, always dread judgment, and at a slight fever, like robbers in prison, so they will sigh over the eternal punishments. Now Midian in our tongue sounds "from judgment", that is, condemnation; and it is shown that through fear of judgment and of eternal penalties they are always in dread, and that the torments which they feel they deserve, they endure in daily terror.

Is your wrath against the rivers, O Lord, or your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea? By the term "rivers" and "sea," the hearts of the unbelievers are signified, which are rightly called rivers because they flow downwards with the whole force of their intention; the sea, because they are darkened within by turbulent and bitter thoughts, and they exalt themselves above others with swollen waves of arrogance. Therefore he asks, did those who sink their minds from heavenly desires into the appetite for lowly things, and those who, unstable with pride in their spirits, raise themselves against their neighbors, sin so grievously that the deserved wrath in such people should never be lifted? Or will you bestow the grace of your mercy on all those around the world sinning in either a lighter or graver manner as it appears in the world? For indeed I see that you are going to send apostles to proclaim your glory to the nations; but who will believe is known by you, not by human knowledge. This is what follows:

For you will ascend riding on your horses, and your cavalry is salvation. That is, you will ascend into the hearts of your chosen ones through the illumination of grace, through which, under your guidance, they will tread the path of virtues, and by preaching you across the whole world, carrying the life of eternal salvation, they will proclaim it to the world. The figure of this cavalry was also shown in the Lord literally when, while heading to Jerusalem, he rode a donkey, with the crowds that went before, and those that followed, and those that came together singing: Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (John 12:13). In this riding, salvation was proclaimed, for surely it signified their spiritual journey, whereby with the Lord leading them through the apostles, they are led to see the kingdoms of the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all (Galatians 4:26).

"Chariots and steeds lay stilled." Let us examine this verse in its tropological significance. At last Pharaoh mounted his steeds, sank into sleep and perished. The Egyptians too had steeds, but they perished. That is the reason for the prescription found in the law that no Hebrew should possess a horse. Solomon, you recall, had no horses from Jerusalem or Judea but bought some from Egypt. Horses are always for sale in Egypt. "Some are strong in chariots; some in horses; but we are strong in the name of the Lord, our God." They, in truth, who mounted horses slumbered and perished. Our Lord has horses too, and he has shining mountains besides, whereas the devil's mountains are full of darkness. Now just as there are bright mountains and dark mountains, there are good horses and again bad horses. We have made a few remarks about bad horses; let us say something about good horses. When horsemen came to Elisha to arrest him and the servant boy went out and saw an army of Assyrians round about the city, Elisha said, "Fear not: for there are more with us than with them." A little further on in Kings it says, "Lord, open the eyes of your servant that he may see." And when his eyes had been opened, he saw chariots and horses. These were helpmates. You notice that it says "chariots and horses." There were no men on the horses, only chariots and horses, in other words a multitude of angels. They were the chariots and they were the horses; the charioteer was the Lord. That is why the prophet Habakkuk sings, "Your chariots are salvation." This is said to God. O, if only we too were God's horses, and God deigned to ride us! But those other horses slept their long sleep and their charioteers with them.

But as for what he says: Were you angry with the rivers, O Lord, or was your fury against the rivers, or your onrush against the sea? He says it ambiguously, and with the speech of one asking rather than of one affirming. For there are both good rivers and bad ones. There is a very evil sea, and there is a very good sea. Of good rivers this is an example: The rush of the river makes glad the city of God. And that whoever drinks of the water of the Lord, from his belly will flow rivers of water springing up into eternal life. Of bad ones, that which Pharaoh says in Ezekiel: The rivers are mine, and I made them, in which the dragon dwells, and many things like these. And that the sea is taken in a good sense, Psalm 23 (24) is witness, in which it is said tropologically of the Church under οἰκουμένη, that is, the world: The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell in it: he founded it upon the sea, and prepared it upon the rivers: that is, the world. And that it is founded by the Lord upon the rivers and prepared upon the sea is certainly taken in a good sense. So also what is said of the vine which was transplanted out of Egypt: You stretched out its shoots as far as the sea, and its branches as far as the rivers; as far as the sea, I think, can be taken in a good sense. And we say that the divine words which are plainer, and offer as it were drink to the thirsty, are called rivers; but those which are full of mysteries and set in the depth, of which the Apostle says: O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and the prophet agrees: Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord, are called the sea in the Scriptures. So much for the fact that the sea too can be understood in the better part. And that it is also taken in the contrary sense, there are many testimonies, among which is this in the psalms: This great and spacious sea; there the ships will pass through, small creatures with great. This dragon which you formed to make sport of it. And from the Gospel, when the Savior rebuked the winds and the sea and said to it: Be silent and be still. For what is rebuked is evil, according to that word of Zechariah: The Lord rebuke you, O devil. And to Timothy: Reprove, console and rebuke. So when the prophet asks: Were you angry with the rivers, O Lord, or was your fury against the rivers, or your onrush against the sea?, let us say: if they are the rivers of Egypt, and the red and bloody sea, the Lord is angry and strikes them, and is borne with all his force against the whirlpools that raise themselves against the sentence of God. Hence the sea saw and fled, not enduring to bear the presence of God. And the Jordan was turned back, yielding to the glory of the people passing over, the Jordan which is parted both by Elijah and by Elisha. But to speak more plainly, understand as the rivers with which the Lord is angry the eloquence of the heretics, which flows against the truth, even the truth of the Church. And the souls of those who are carried about by every wind of doctrine, and always toss with malice, and are overwhelmed by salt whirlpools: regard them as the sea upon which the Lord's onrush comes, so that it may feel his coming, and know by what bounds and barrier it is shut in, and hear: In you your waves will be broken. But if the rivers are good and the sea good, Jesus is washed in them, and he sets his Church upon a sea of this kind. After this follows: You who mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation. I ask what horses the Lord mounts, and I think they are none other than the souls of the saints, upon which the divine Word mounts, to save both them and others through them. Let us set out examples of horses. The Bridegroom speaks in the Song of Songs: To my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh he has likened you, my near one. Not that Christ compares the Church, or the Word of God the soul which he calls his bride, to the chariots of Pharaoh, but that every soul, however holy and perfect it may be, compared with God is as it were a chariot of Pharaoh, and a beast of burden. Hence Moses too says to the Lord: But I am ἄλογος, that is, irrational. And David: I have become like a beast of burden before you. Not that he is a beast of burden absolutely, but that he is a beast of burden before God. Opposed to these horses are those which Pharaoh has, and of which it is said: Horse and rider he has cast into the sea; riding of this kind is not salvation but perdition. Let us seek other horses also, which the Lord mounts. In the fourth book of Kingdoms (2 Kings) we read that Elisha's servant rose early, and going out saw an army surrounding the walls of the city, and horses and chariots. And after his eyes were opened at the prophet's prayers: He looked, it says, and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Attend carefully to this: horses are seen, and chariots, and yet among so many thousands of horses and chariots there is no rider; of these horses he was the charioteer and the driver of whom the psalmist sings: You who sit upon the Cherubim, show yourself. With such horses and such a chariot Elijah too was snatched up to heaven. But if anyone wishes to learn from Zechariah which are the red horses, and which the black, and which the dappled, and which the white, coming out of the myrtle groves and from the mountains set in the depth, or, as is written in the Seventy, the mountains of bronze, we shall try to explain it in that prophet himself, if the Lord grants a span of life. John too saw white horses and their riders, of whom I think the bodies of those who rise in glory are the white horses, and the souls of the saints the riders. But if anyone is a sinner, and like me, he will sit on a black horse, and it will be said of him: All who mounted horses have slumbered. Of such horses it is written: A horse is deceitful for salvation. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and its wisdom is hostile to God. Let this be said of those who love bodies and sit on black horses. But let us prepare our souls as horses and chariots of the Lord, who mounted in Paul, mounted in Peter, and riding in chariots of this kind, went over the whole world.

Were you angry with the rivers, O Lord, or was your fury against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea? For you will mount upon your horses, and your chariots are salvation. Rousing, you will rouse your bow, the oaths to the tribes which you have spoken. Always. LXX: Were you angry with the rivers, O Lord, or was your fury against the rivers, or your onrush against the sea? You who mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation, bending, stretching your bow against the scepters, says the Lord. Diapsalma. Where the Seventy have diapsalma and Aquila always, the others translated likewise as above. And since my discourse hastens on to the tropological interpretation, I shall briefly take in the sense of the passage according to the letter and proceed to the rest. Just as you dried up the Jordan and the Red Sea, fighting for us — for you were not angry with the rivers and the sea, nor could senseless things incur any offense —, so now, mounting your chariots and seizing your bow, you will give salvation to your people, and the oaths which you swore to our fathers and to the tribes you will fulfill forever.

"The horse and the rider he has cast into the sea; he has become for me a helper and protector unto salvation." The men who pursue us are horses, and, so to speak, all who are born in the flesh are figuratively horses. But these have their riders. There are horses which the Lord mounts, and they go about the whole earth, concerning which it is said: "And your cavalry is salvation." But there are horses which have as their riders the devil and his angels. Judas was a horse, but so long as he had the Lord as his rider, he belonged to the cavalry of salvation. For along with the other Apostles he was sent and bestowed salvation on the sick and health on the ailing; but when he laid himself down beneath the devil — for "after the morsel Satan entered into him" — Satan became his rider, and, led by his reins, he began to ride against our Lord and Savior. All, therefore, who persecute the saints are neighing horses, but they have riders by whom they are driven, the evil angels, and for that reason they are fierce. If, therefore, you should ever see your persecutor raging too savagely, know that he is being goaded by his rider the demon, and for that reason he is savage, for that reason he is truculent.

Stretching, you extend your bow over scepters, says the Lord. The bow signifies the sudden coming of the divine judgment, by which he foresaw that even scepters, that is, the kingdoms of the world, should be examined. Therefore, the prophet insinuates what the Lord, ascending on his horses, that is, filling and ruling the apostles and their successors with his grace, does among them: Stretching, he says, you extend your bow over scepters, that is, by threatening through the teachers, you will threaten that your judgment will come suddenly, so that whoever is terrified at the threat of wrath, as at an extended bow, and takes care to supplicate to your piety, will not feel the release of the arrows, that is, the threat of eternal punishments. But when he added, stretching, you extend your bow over scepters, he added: Says the Lord, he signifies God the Father, about whom the Son himself says: The Father, he says, judges no one; but has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22).

The earth will be split by rivers. Rivers here are not the same as those above, from which he feared the anger and fury of the Lord, but rather those about which he himself said in the Gospel: He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And the evangelist explains: This he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive (John 7:38). By these rivers, therefore, the earth will be split, when the hearts of the carnal, irrigated by the word of saving doctrine, humble themselves, breaking the hardness of their disbelief, and open the bosom of their internal thought, which had been badly closed, to receive the words of salutary reproof or exhortation; which is explained more broadly subsequently when it is said:

Bending also his bow or his arrows, he uprooted, destroyed and laid waste the scepters, that is, the kingdoms against which Jeremiah was sent, and brought it about that sin should not reign in our mortal body. And by the scepters, that is, the kingdoms of the devil, which he showed even to the Lord, understand the various sins: avarice, luxury, anger, detraction, thefts, perjuries, against which the Word of God, sitting on his horses and in his chariots, aims the brandished darts of his lightning, and meanwhile does not let them fly, so that whoever has been terrified at the bent bow may not feel the shooting of the arrows. And this he does always, which Aquila translated in place of diapsalma. For he always sits in his saints, he is always armed. And preparing sharp arrows on their tongues he rides, and runs to and fro for the salvation of the world.

You will split the rivers of the earth. LXX: The earth will be split by rivers. Since the Lord has roused his bow to render to the tribes the oaths which he spoke, it is said consequently: You will split the rivers of the earth, that is, the kings of the earth fighting against your people you will divide and scatter. But according to the Seventy, who said: The earth will be split by rivers, let us first set out an example, so that by this as by a step we may come to higher things. We read in those who have composed volumes on marvels, and who have carried the Olympiads of Greece down to our own memory, setting out what new thing happened in the world in each year, that among other things rivers burst forth through an earthquake which had not existed before, and again others were swallowed up and went to the bottom; namely, that all the veins of the earth, as the human body has blood, so have within them hidden waters, which are broken open by the shaking of the earth and burst out into rivers. If we have understood this, let us see that the human soul naturally has waters and rivers within it, and that through our sloth they are hidden and do not flow. But when it has been shaken by the preaching of the Word of God and moved from its former state, then what lay hidden bursts forth and flows for the refreshment of those who drink. I think this same thing is signified also by what is in Genesis, that wells are dug by the servants of Isaac which had been made by Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up with earth. As long as Abraham lives, his wells are not closed; but when he is dead and the wells are stopped up, if servants dig, the Philistines oppose them, and there is strife. But if Isaac himself comes and digs a well and finds water, the Philistines have no power to oppose him. See Peter and Paul, and you will not doubt about the wells and rivers of Christ. Look at all the apostles, and you will understand that not four rivers now, but twelve rivers go out of the paradise of the Scriptures. These rivers, before the earth was moved, lay hidden, and while they were in the veins of the earth they offered no drink to the thirsty. But after the world and all the earth were shaken at the coming of Christ, they suddenly burst forth, and then was fulfilled: He made rivers into a desert, and the outgoings of waters into thirst, a fruitful land into saltness, because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it. He made the desert into pools of water, and the land without water into springs of water, and made the hungry dwell there, and they established a city to dwell in. For after the Lord came into the world, and that was fulfilled which he said in the Gospel: For judgment I came into this world, that those who did not see might see, and those who saw might become blind, then the land of Israel, from which rivers formerly flowed and watered the whole people of Judea, dried up, and its springs were stopped. But the whole world, which was deserted and barren and did not have the waters of the Lord's preaching, was turned into pools of water, and as many teachers as it sent out, so many springs it also had. Nor is it enough for them, that is, for the springs and rivers, to water the peoples of the world; but in each province, gathering into one people those who were hungry and suffered famine of the Word of God, they built up the Church, which is called a city to dwell in, and which the rush of the river makes glad.

The waters shall see you, and the nations shall mourn. Indeed, the hearts of sinners, broken to the acknowledgment and confession of the truth by the frequent exhortation of teachers, as if by the flood of frequent torrents, see God for now through faith, and lament that they have been separated from Him for so long by their guilt; yet when their sorrow of repentance is ended, they see Him more fully in the future by sight, and rejoice forever in the blessed vision of Him. It can also be understood in this way that it is said the earth will be split by rivers, as if it were said that the earth is to be split so that newly formed rivers might arise from it—a phenomenon often recounted in ancient histories, namely, that, when an earthquake occurs, rivers that were not there appear. Whoever understands prudently does not doubt that this can happen, because the earth is as full of countless water veins as the human body is full of blood veins; according to this perception, the earth is split by rivers when a carnal conscience, broken to repentance, progresses so much over time with the help of divine grace that it can also bring forth streams of doctrines to others, watering the parched hearts of others with its example or words to bear the fruits of virtues.

Sprinkling waters on the paths, the abyss gave its voice from the height of its imagination. The same teachers are symbolized by the name abyss, who are also symbolized above by the rivers, but they are called rivers because of the power of stronger reproach, by which they cut through the hardness of the earthly mind to bring it to repentance for its errors. The abyss is rightly called by the depth of knowledge with which they are filled within, attested by Solomon, who says: "Deep waters are the words from the mouth of a man" (Prov. XVIII, 4). Therefore, the abyss gives its voice sprinkling waters on the paths, when the holy preachers, filled inwardly in their hearts with the deep knowledge of truth, outwardly present the ministry of the word to those who listen, gradually and in parts according to the capacity of the weak, bringing forth what they themselves hold inwardly in much and ample measure. However, he says "on the paths" in the works, either of the same teachers or their hearers. For they sprinkle waters on their paths when they show examples of rightly living wherever they walk, with the voice of preaching always showing to those who watch. They sprinkle waters on the paths of those who watch when, by teaching and living, they show in advance by which ways of actions they should enter. If, however, it is read as some manuscripts have: "Disperse waters on the paths," it is clearly said by God, who Himself spread the waters of life from the fountains of Israel far and wide into the nations of the whole world, saying to His disciples: "Go, teach all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Well then, when He had said that the abyss would give its voice, He added "from the height of its imagination," because that which the holy preachers proclaim marvelously outside to us proceeds indeed from that fountain of wisdom by which they, amazed themselves, are illuminated inwardly with contemplation of heavenly joys. Did not the great abyss give its voice from the height of its imagination when the apostle Paul said: "Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged; you are not narrowed in us, but you are narrowed in your own bowels. I speak as to children, be enlarged yourselves also" (II Cor. VI, 11). However, from where or in what order it happened that the world was sprinkled with saving waters, and that the abyss of heavenly wisdom thundered unto the earth, is subsequently shown when it is said:

They saw you, and the mountains grieved; the flood of waters passed; the abyss gave its voice; the height lifted up its hands. The sun and moon stood still in their dwelling; in the light of your arrows they will go, in the splendor of your flashing spear. In roaring you will trample the earth; in fury you will astound the nations. You went forth for the salvation of your people, for salvation with your Christ. You struck the head from the house of the wicked one; you laid bare the foundation up to the neck. Always. We have set down our edition alone, so that, following it, that is, following the Hebrew, we may weave together the sequence of the passage, and afterwards discuss the LXX clause by clause, section by section. They saw you, O God, and the mountains grieved; that is, the lofty kingdoms and the exalted powers of this world, and the four chariots in Zechariah which go out from the mountains of bronze: these saw you and trembled. And the flood of waters passed, that is, all their onrush, and the persecution with which they harassed your people, passed after they saw you. Then the abyss, that is, those below, praised you; then also those above, that is, the angels, clapped their hands in applause, to show forth the victor as it were by a kind of gesture and dance of uplifted hands.

LXX: They will see you, and they will grieve, or, the peoples will be in labor: for ὠδινήσουσι means both. Accordingly, the earth having been split open and the rivers flowing forth, the peoples who had drunk from the rivers of God will see God and will be in labor. For from the very fact that they see God, they at once conceive by the word of God and say: From fear of you, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and have been in labor, and have brought forth; we will make the spirit of your salvation upon the earth. Blessed, he says, are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. These peoples, therefore, washed by the rivers, have not already seen, but are going to see God; and when they have seen, they will conceive, so that they may bring forth the fruits of doctrines. But because they are called peoples, and it does not belong to peoples to see the face of God, although the speech is extended into the future, they will see and they will bring forth, nevertheless, according to tropology, the Hebrew is rather to be followed, where it says: They saw you, and the mountains brought forth; for it belongs to mountains to see God and to bring forth sons, whom they have conceived from the word of God.

LXX: You will scatter the waters of the way. The waters are of different kinds: some are everlasting, others short-lived. Of the everlasting waters, and those which flow from the fountains of Israel, it is said: The earth will be split by rivers. Of the sudden ones, which run for a time: All torrents go into the sea. For the end of such waters is destruction. God, therefore, will scatter all the waters which have been trampled by perverse doctrines, when he has dispersed the counsels of princes and the wisdom of this world. If ever you see some heresy flourish for a short while and afterwards be dispersed by the grace of God, say that this has been fulfilled: You will scatter the waters of the way. Moreover, to what is said, of the way, one may supply of the devil, so that the sense is: The waters which the devil has trampled, and which have afforded a way through themselves to many, that is, have lain open to many errors, the Lord will divide and scatter. Hence the other translators too, wishing to describe the fury of heretics, translated: The dashing, or the rush of waters will pass. For they are borne along headlong on the downhill course of eloquence, so as to drag along with them whomever they find in their path and light-minded.

LXX: The abyss gave its voice, the height of phantasy. The abyss is often taken in a good sense, often in a bad one, sometimes indifferently. In a good sense: Your judgments are a great abyss, and: Abyss calls upon abyss, and the rest. In a bad sense: The waters saw you, O God, and the rest. Moreover the demons too beg not to be sent into the abysses. And in Genesis: The abyss over which there was darkness: I do not know whether it can be taken in a good sense. But it is set down indifferently there: The fountains of the abyss were broken up, and the cataracts of heaven were opened. And that in Psalm 148: Dragons and all abysses, fire and hail and the spirit of storms; unless perhaps, because it is set among dragons and fire and hail, it is to be drawn into a bad sense. Which I do not know whether anyone can say who has seen it sounding together with the rest in the praise of the Lord. If, then, we take the abyss in a good sense, let us say: when the waters of the most wicked way were scattered, your wise ones saw you, and, borrowing from your countenance the height of knowledge which they had — because they saw you and the mountains were in labor —, whatever they had previously thought about you they brought forth in the praises of their voice. And he beautifully calls the opinion of phantasy height, in accordance with Jesus son of Sirach, who says: The abyss and wisdom, who will search them out? Hence also, from the little mountain, that is, the assumption of a human body, which Daniel calls a stone cut from the mountain without hands, that is, without the work of marriage, Christ the abyss calls upon the Father, the other abyss, in the voice of his cataracts, that he may give to those who preach the good news the word with great power. Or certainly the abyss, the New Testament, in testimony of the little mountain by which the prince of Tyre was wounded, calls upon the abyss of the Old Testament, so that through the cataracts of Christ, that is, the apostles, the preaching may become firmer. But if anyone wishes to take what is said, The abyss gave its voice, the height of its phantasy, in a bad sense, he will use this argument: that after the scattered waters of the way, which were certainly taken in a bad sense, this too is rightly understood in the contrary sense. And at the same time observe that he did not say its height, but the height of its phantasy, that is, of shadow and image. For they seem to have height and knowledge of the Scriptures, but all their height, compared with the truth, is phantasy, and they lift up their voice in vain, because the waters of the way have already been scattered. Let us search in the Scriptures whether we can anywhere find phantasy in a good sense; and since it has been found either rarely or never, we shall interpret the abyss and its phantasy in a bad sense with greater firmness.

The sun was raised, and the moon stood in its place. For the sun, the Lord of righteousness, was raised to heaven after his passion and resurrection, and having sent the Spirit from the Father, he illuminated the Church and spread it through the whole world, so that it might stand in its place, that is, after the mystery of the Lord's incarnation was fulfilled, rising from a long languor of infidelity, standing in faith, acting manfully, and being strengthened in his love. And because he had aptly compared Christ to the sun and the Church to the moon, he immediately subjected it to the same sun.

In light, your arrows will go forth, in the brightness of the splendor of arms. The arrows of Christ, however, are his words, by which the hearts of men are pierced, so that with the wound of salvation inflicted, the faithful soul may say: "I am wounded with love." Certainly, these arrows go forth in light, because through the ministry of teachers, the words of truth became known openly to the world, according to what the same Truth commanded them, saying: "What I tell you in darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered, preach on the rooftops" (Matthew 10:27). And since the brightness of miracles followed the words of light, he added: "In the brightness of the splendor of your arms." For warriors strike down their adversaries with arrows, defending themselves from wounds with weapons; hence, appropriately it signifies the words of the preachers, by which they overcome the depravity of unbelievers, and the miracles by which they confirm the truth of their preaching. Therefore, the arrows of Christ go forth in light, they go forth in the brightness of the splendor of his arms, because the great deeds he accomplished, the mysteries he revealed, the commandments he set forth, the rewards he promised, are now known to the whole world more clearly than the sun through the evangelical writings. And the holy teachers, because they are children of light, whatever they do or speak with his gift, naturally shine brightly with light and splendor.

As indeed a cloud rises aloft in order that it may rain down, so does Christ ascend in order that He may grant His gifts. The sun has been lifted up, and the moon remained in its shelter. For at first He had given the Holy Spirit to the world in a secret way, but He did it manifestly after He had ascended on high, for this Holy Spirit was the cleansing, enlightening, and perfecting Hierarch, and the Holy Spirit came down into the heavenly and sub-heavenly hierarchies.

The fourth anagogy is a reference to the Church Triumphant which is also signified by the sun, in a passage from Habacuc: "The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation," that is, when the soul and the body are glorified. "They go about in the brilliance of many arrows," because of the swiftness of what they do by the lightning-fast power of God.

And the prophet Habakkuk proclaims the ascension of Christ and the strength of the ecclesiastical order under the titles of the sun and the moon: "The sun raised high its hands; the moon stood still in its exalted place." So the heart of each of the faithful is not improperly called a spiritual sun terrace, because it is illumined for its salvation by the rays of that sun above. Therefore Rahab the harlot hid those spies of Joshua on the terrace of her house. That is, she kept them in the upper parts because of the deep love of a heart illumined by spiritual knowledge so that she might sing this prophetic word by the truth of her deed: "I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you."

Concerning this glory of His Ascension, Habakkuk also says, "The sun was lifted up, and the moon stood in its order." For who is designated by the name of sun except the Lord, and who by the name of moon except the Church? For until the Lord ascended to heaven, His holy Church utterly feared the adversities of the world; but after it was strengthened by His Ascension, it openly preached what it secretly believed. Therefore the sun was lifted up, and the moon stood in its order, because when the Lord sought heaven, His holy Church grew in the authority of preaching.

Your sun and moon, and all the splendor with which you had formerly shone upon your people, and which afterwards, under the weight of evils, had all been covered with the horror of darkness, recovered their light and had their former brightness. Your arrows and your flashing spear, that is, your blows and your instruction, gave light to your people. Finally, in the light of your arrows and in the splendor of your spear, which chastised them to this end, that it might amend them, your people walked in your roaring.

LXX: The sun was lifted up, and the moon stood in its order. If we follow the simple interpretation, the present words show the advance of the sun and moon, in that, according to Isaiah, in the age to come the sun will shine sevenfold, and the moon will gleam with the brightness of the sun. Because indeed the creation will be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God, the creation which is now subjected to vanity because of him who subjected it in hope of liberty: when, at the consummation of the world, every creature has been set free, the sun and moon too will be set free, and will stand in their order. But if we wish to take Christ as the sun of justice, in whose wings is healing, and the Church as the moon, which is lit by the splendor of this sun, it is not difficult to say that the true light, and the light of men, and the splendor of the glory of God, and the splendor of eternal light illumines her who now, in this age, waxes and wanes according to prosperity and afflictions. But when the sun has been lifted up, and, according to the Apostle, God has exalted him and given him a name above every name, then the Church too, which in the present age cannot keep her order, will return to her due order, and will by no means be changed, but will stand with fixed step, and will hear with Moses: But you, stand here with me.

LXX: In light your darts will go, in the splendor of the flashing of your arms. The darts of God, that is, the arrows going forth and proceeding, are not sent in order to kill, but to illumine. To distinguish these arrows and darts, Christ is called a chosen dart, crying out through Isaiah: He has set me as a chosen dart, and in his quiver he has hidden me; and he said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant. This arrow will have many arrows, to send into the whole world. Hence also the bride, wounded by the chosen dart, says: Wounded by charity am I, in accordance with which we too can say: Wounded by chastity am I, wounded by wisdom am I. Wounded by this dart of wisdom, the queen of the south too was beside herself, and, astounded, had found more in the true Solomon than report had told her. These arrows, then, which are sent into light, also proceed in the splendor of the flashing of his arms, that is, of God's. For whoever is armed so as to stand against the wiles of the devil, and girded with the armor of the Apostle, to him will come the darts of light, so that it may be said to him: You are the light of the world. But if anyone is a sinner, and groans that he dwells in the tents of Kedar, there are sent to him sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals, so that first he may be pricked by the words of God and say: I was turned about in misery while the thorn is fixed in me. And after he has been pricked, then let the desolating coal be sent to him through the Seraphim, that is, the burning word of God, to burn out not only the lips, which alone Isaiah had unclean, but also all the parts of his members, and to bring him back to a solitude of sins.

In your threatening, you will humble the earth, and in your fury, you will bring down nations. By threatening the severity of judgment by which the wicked are condemned, you will healthily humble those who were accustomed to place earthly things before heavenly things, so that, with earthly desires gradually diminished, they might begin to understand and seek what is above; and by inflicting fury, you will condemn forever those who, in their obstinate exaltation, despised being humbled for a time, which the Psalmist prays might not happen to him, saying: "O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath" (Psalm 6:2).

LXX: In threatening you will diminish the earth, and in fury you will drag down the nations. This can be taken of the consummation of the world, when, the multitude having been slain in frequent wars, men will be found few, and those who did not wish to be of the people of God, but remained Gentiles and heathens, will be led down to Tartarus by the fury of the Lord. But it is better that we interpret the earth diminished by threatening as earthly works, and as those who, set in the Church as sinners, do not wait to be chastised by the fury of the Lord, but, hearing in the Scriptures what punishments hang over sinners, do penance, and little by little diminish their earth and advance toward heaven. If any of us dreads the threatening of the Lord, for him the earth is diminished; but he who persists in the number of the Gentiles, and does not want to be among those whose earth decreases, nor of the people of God, of whom it is said: They will see you, and the peoples will be in labor, he will be dragged down with the nations into punishment.

When, therefore, you avenge the wrong done to your people, you will trample the earthly kingdoms and make all the nations marvel, because you went forth for the salvation of your people and came to them with your Christ; although in the Hebrew it is written: You went forth for the salvation of your people with your Jesus Christ, or with your Savior Christ. For Jesus means Savior.

Concerning [his] companions in the anointing, the apostle says, "To each of us grace is given according to the measure of Christ's bestowal." Both the priests and kings are called "christs" in the law, undoubtedly as figures of this king and high priest, our Lord and Savior, and as a type of him they were also anointed with the earthly oil. Not only they, but also the faithful of our own time, as they are called "Christians" from Christ, so also are they rightly called "christs"—from the anointing with the sacred chrism, from the grace of the spirit with which they are consecrated. The prophet testified to this when he said, "You went forth for the salvation of your people, so that you might save your christs." He did indeed go forth for the salvation of his people, so that he might save his christs. "On account of us human beings and on account of our salvation, he descended from heaven and became incarnate" so that he might grant to us who have been thoroughly anointed and healed by spiritual grace to be sharers in his holy name.

You went out for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones. The Mediator between God and men went forth from the Father and came into the world, not to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He calls all the elect anointed ones, who are most rightly named by this title because of the anointing of spiritual grace; hence the Psalmist says about those who, wishing to harm the saints, were restrained by divine prohibition: "He rebuked kings for their sake, saying, 'Do not touch my anointed ones'" (Psalm 105:14). However, he saved his anointed ones, not those he found as anointed, but those he made his own anointed, that is, anointed ones, by going forth from the Father and appearing in the flesh through the Spirit of adoption. Concerning this anointing, admonishing his listeners, the Apostle John says: "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth" (1 John 2:27). This verse is found in some editions as: "You went out to save your people through Jesus Christ your Son," which is understood as said to the Father because he went out to save his people through Jesus Christ his Son. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and because the same going forth, that is, his coming into the world, was to be not only for the resurrection of the faithful but also for the ruin of the faithless, it is aptly added:

You sent death upon the heads of the enemies; you stirred up bonds up to the neck. For indeed, to his chosen ones, whom the prophet had called Christ's, he brought the joy of salvation, but to those who neglected his anointing grace, he sent eternal death. This was fulfilled even corporally in the very Jewish people, who pursued the Lord appearing in flesh unto death, after they crucified him, not many years intervening, when the Roman army fell upon them; excepting only those who withdrew into the faith of evangelical grace, they were condemned with an enormous disaster, and moreover deprived of their kingdom and homeland; and this is what he said: You stirred up bonds up to the neck; namely the neck of the kingdom, which they had raised against the Lord before, about which the most blessed protomartyr Stephen said to them in their fury against him: Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit (Acts VII, 51). But the Lord stirred up bonds up to the neck, when he sent the hostile army for the overthrow of the proud nation, not only of the Jews but of all who refused to accept the humility of the Christian faith. The Lord dashes pride according to what the Psalmist sings about the saints: And the two-edged swords in their hands to execute vengeance on the nations, reproaches on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with iron fetters (Ps. CXLIX, 6); iron, evidently, because eternal, which once taken, can never be loosed. But if anyone were to say it should be read in the plural: You stirred up bonds up to the necks, the sense is the same. For the just Lord will strike down the necks of sinners.

And yet, someone may say, we shall find the name Christ applied not to Emmanuel alone, but also applied to others. For God said somewhere about those chosen and sanctified by the Spirit, "Do not touch my anointed ones, and to my prophets do no harm." The divinely inspired David calls Saul, who had been anointed as king by God through the hand of Samuel: the "Lord's anointed." And why do I mention this when it is possible for those who desire to look at the matter calmly to see that those who have been justified by faith in Christ and have been sanctified in the Spirit are honored by such a name? And therefore the prophet Habakkuk has foretold the mystery of Christ and salvation through him, saying, "You went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed ones." Consequently the name Christ would not be applicable exclusively and properly to Emmanuel, as I said, but also to all the rest who may have been anointed with the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the word is derived from the action and the name anointed from the fact of having been anointed.

But when Jesus Christ your Son came, you struck the Antichrist from the house of the wicked one, that is, in this world, which lies in the evil one; or you struck the devil himself, who is the head of wickedness, and laid bare his foundation up to the neck, that is, you made his hidden things manifest, not for a short time but for ever; for this is what sela means, that is, always.

LXX: You went forth for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed ones. First let us see how many kinds of anointed ones there are, and afterwards we shall treat how the Lord went forth for the salvation of his anointed ones. In the Old Testament the patriarchs too were called anointed ones, of whom it is written in the psalms: He rebuked kings for their sake: Do not touch my anointed ones, and do no evil to my prophets. And in the first book of Chronicles all who went out of Egypt are called anointed ones. Chrism, too, is prepared for the priesthood in Exodus, with which the priests are afterwards reported in Leviticus to have been anointed. There is also another ointment, with which kings are anointed into the kingship, and it is divided in two. For if they are David and Solomon, that is, strong of hand and peaceful, they are anointed from a horn. But if they are Jehu and Hazael, they are anointed from a flask; for so an earthenware vessel is called, that is, φακὸς. Moreover Cyrus too, king of the Persians and Medes, who released the people from captivity — although many err and think it written of the Lord the Savior —, hears through Isaiah: Thus says the Lord to my anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, that the nations might hear before him, and so on. And at the end it is said: But you have not known me, which it is impious to understand of the Savior. There is a prophetic ointment, with which Elijah is commanded to anoint Elisha as prophet. And above all kinds of ointments there is a spiritual ointment, which is called the oil of exultation, with which the Savior is anointed, and it is said to him: Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of exultation above your fellows. And I think his fellows are those to whom John too speaks: And you have an ointment from the Holy One. And a little after: These things I have written to you concerning those who lead you astray; and the chrism which you received from him, let it abide in you; and you have no need that anyone teach you, but the chrism itself will teach you about all things, and it is true and is not a lie, and as it has taught you, abide in it. And lest perhaps those who have lost the chrism of baptism should despair of the chrism being restored, it is written in Leviticus that when the leper cast outside the camp has come to the priest, and his leprosy has been cleansed, the priest shall pour oil into his own left hand, and, having dipped his finger, sprinkle the oil seven times before the Lord, and touch with the same oil the ear of him who had been a leper, and his right hand, and his right foot, and whatever remains of the ointment he shall put entirely on his head. And when he has duly completed all these things, then he shall offer a holocaust for him, and the man himself shall be called the anointed of God. I wish to say something, but I fear lest I give the careless an occasion of ruin: that in the holy Scriptures the same man is often found anointed. Indeed, David was anointed three times; which let us not understand of one who has sinned and is anointed again — for it suffices for the leper that, after the first ointment has been lost, he be anointed a second time —; but of one who advances day by day, and whose anointing is ever increased; and he passes from the oil of the leper to the oil of the people and of the saints, and from the oil of the people he arrives at the oil of the priests, and from the priests he rises to the chrism of the high priest, from the high priest also to the king, from the king to the patriarchs, and from the patriarchs he proceeds to Christ; and he is anointed with the oil of exultation, and whoever has been smeared with it is made one spirit with God, and where the Father and the Son are, there he too will be. But this is rare, and these are the prayers of believers. Besides, I do not know whether the effect follows. For it is said: God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows, that is, with that oil which those who are your fellows will be able to find either rarely or never. For the salvation of these anointed ones, then, God went forth from his place, as Micah too says: And he will go forth from his place to save. For because those who needed salvation were unwilling to come in to him, he himself went forth from his majesty and from his place, to lead those who were outside into the land of the meek and the region of the living, from which Adam had been expelled, from which Cain went out and dwelt in the land of Nod. But it must be known, as we said above, that where the LXX put in the plural number: To save your anointed ones, there in the Hebrew is laiesua eth messiach, which Aquila translated: For salvation with your Christ; not that God went forth to save the people and to save his Christ, but that he came for the salvation of the people with his Christ, according to that saying of the Gospel: The Father is in me, and I in the Father; and the Father abiding in me, he does his works. Moreover the Fifth Edition also translated similarly: You went forth for the salvation of your people, for salvation with your Christ. But Theodotion, truly like a poor man and an Ebionite, and Symmachus too, of the same doctrine, following a poor sense, translated in Jewish fashion: You went forth for the salvation of your people, to save your Christ, and: You went forth to save your people, to save your Christ. I am about to say something incredible, but nevertheless true. These half-Christians translated in Jewish fashion, and Aquila the Jew translated as a Christian. The Sixth Edition, disclosing the mystery most plainly, rendered thus from the Hebrew: You went forth to save your people through Jesus your Christ, which in Greek is ἐξῆλθες τοῦ σῶσαι τὸν λαόν σου διὰ Ἰησοῦν τὸν Χριστόν σου. To this sense can be adapted the fact that the Father went forth with the Son from the temple and from the ceremonies of the Jews, saying: Your house will be left to you desolate, and came for the salvation of the Gentiles, to save believers through Jesus Christ his Son.

LXX: You sent death into the head of the wicked. Let us not think this is said of this common death by which we all die, and Abraham died and was gathered to his fathers, and the prophets, and Christ himself died; but death was sent into the iniquitous, so that those who formerly lived to iniquity, having died to sin, might live to justice. This Hannah too signifies in her prayer: The Lord kills and makes alive. For he kills sinners, sending death into the heads of the wicked, in order to make them alive to justice. I will say something more daring: Christ came into the world for this purpose, to send death into the heads of the iniquitous. And just as he himself died to sin once, so they too might die to iniquity, and those who had been made partakers of this death might also become partakers of life. But according to the Hebrew, where it is written: You struck the head from the house of the wicked one; by the head, as I said, let us understand the prince of this world, and by his house, the world and every soul of a sinner, in which the devil had lodging. And the head is struck in the house of the wicked one for this reason, that, once it has been struck and cast out, it may become the house of God, and justice may dwell there and walk about in it. And this is worthy to be thought of God, who went forth for the salvation of his people with his Christ, so that, once such a head has been struck, he may become head in us who is the head of every man and of his Church. If anyone, therefore, still feels himself to be the house of the wicked one, let him pray for the coming of the Son of God, that the head of the wicked one may be crushed in him.

LXX: You raised up bonds up to the neck, to the end. The Lord raised up the bonds of charity, so that, the former burden having been laid down, and the most heavy yoke by which we were pressed having been thrown off, we might take up the light yoke of Christ, and, set in his chariot, might carry the best of charioteers. Theodotion too, taking this in a good sense, says: You adorned the foundation up to the neck. The Fifth Edition: You laid bare, or, you emptied the foundation up to the neck, sela, that is, always. For because the foreigners had buried with earth the foundation of Christ which was in the soul of each one, the heaped-up soil is carried out, and the most excellent foundation is laid bare and adorned, so that what lay hidden may appear and recover its brightness; and this is done for ever, which in Hebrew is called sela. And at the same time consider that the LXX themselves, compelled by the necessity of the matter, who always translated sela as diapsalma, have here translated, to the end.

You cut off the heads of the mighty in their alienation; the nations will be moved in it. In the Greek, it is written "in ecstasy," which some have interpreted as "in stupor," others "in mental excess." Whether it is called stupor, alienation, or mental excess, it all means the same thing: when someone, astonished and bewildered by a sudden miracle, is rendered alien from their own mind, something the Evangelical history frequently recounts as having happened to the Jews, saying they were astounded and marveled at the teachings and virtues of Jesus, saying: "Where did this man get all these things, whose father and mother we know?" (John 6:42). And in the Acts of the Apostles, when the lame man was healed by Peter and John at the temple gate, it says: "They were filled with astonishment and ecstasy" (Acts 3:10), in which ecstasy, that is, admiration or mental alienation, many people were moved to believe in the Lord; but the heads of the mighty, that is, the chief priests and elders, were cut off by not believing, from the lot of the faithful. Nations were also moved in it, when, hearing or seeing the virtues of the Lord and his apostles, they were so astonished and amazed that, anathemaing and rejecting the gods they had worshipped, they devoutly received the new faith of Christ. Regarding them, aptly it is added:

"They will open their mouths like a pauper eating in secret." Just as a pauper who has remained fasting for some time, if he happens to find food somewhere, hastens to refresh himself with it in secret, and does not want to bring it out in public, lest it be snatched away by another, and he perishes from hunger: similarly, the peoples of the nations, having been offered by the apostles the bread of the word, from which they had long remained fasting, immediately opened the mouths of their hearts and began to taste it with all avidity, dedicating themselves more to hearing or reading the Scriptures, the more they remembered they had long subjected their ears and minds to superfluous, even harmful, teachings in the most miserable kind of poverty. The order in which the poverty of the nations came to perceive the delicacies of the word is hinted at when it is added:

You cursed his scepters, the head of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me. Their exultation was like that of one who devours the poor man in secret. You made a way in the sea for your horses, in the mud of many waters. I heard, and my belly was troubled; at the voice my lips trembled. Let rottenness enter into my bones, and swarm beneath me, that I may rest in the day of my tribulation, that I may go up to our girded people. And now we discuss only the Hebrew, so that we may discuss the edition of the Seventy separately: for it differs greatly from the translation of all the others. You cursed, he says, the scepters, that is, his kingdoms; no doubt those of the wicked one, of whom he had said above: You struck the head from the house of the wicked; you laid bare the foundation up to the neck. Now we understand the wicked one either as Nebuchadnezzar or as every adversary of the people of God. And not only his scepters, but also the head of the warriors whom you had struck, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, that is, to overthrow Israel and lead it captive in different directions. But they exulted in this way, devouring the poor man, Israel made subject to them, as if they were doing it in secret and were devouring us without your knowledge.

LXX: You divided in amazement the heads of the mighty. Just as Christ is the head of the Church and of every man, so of all the demons who rage in this world the head is Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, and each of their troops has its own heads and princes. For example, the spirits of fornications have their own commander, the spirits of avarice have their own ἄρχοντα (ruler), the spirits of vainglory, the spirits of lying, the spirits of unbelief have the presidents of their warfare. Therefore the most merciful God, who had sent death upon the heads of the wicked, who had raised up bonds up to the neck, at the end divides also the heads of the mighty in amazement, so as first to separate the princes from their subjects, and as it were to behead the body from its head, and that where there had been a most evil head, there the best head may be set in its place. Let us give an example, so that what we say may become clearer: whenever a tyrant is cut down, his images and statues are also taken down, and, only the face being changed and the head removed, the face of the one who conquered is set on top, so that, while the body remains and the heads are cut off, another head is substituted. I like to understand this of the conventicles of the heretics: that when the heads of the heresies have been separated from the rest of the peoples, Christ begins to be the head in their place. And at the same time consider the expressiveness of holy Scripture, that it did not say, you cut off, or you cut down the heads of the mighty, but you divided; for what is divided is not so much amputated and destroyed as separated into parts. So that, just as at the building of the tower the tongue which had been wrongly united was separated, and a most evil pact was cut asunder by a useful division, so also these heads, which together with their bodies seemed to have agreement among themselves — for the heads of the heretics are many, and though they have different eyes, they yet bark against the Church with one, so to speak, tongue of blasphemy —, might be divided into parts, and, separated from the deceived bodies, might make room for the good head. We can use this little verse whenever we see their kings and leaders shed Christian blood, and afterward the vengeance of the Lord follow, as we lately saw in Julian, and before him in Maximian, and earlier in Valerian, Decius, Domitian, Nero, and say to the Lord in exultation and prayer with a song: You divided in amazement the heads of the mighty, that is, in the amazement of believers, or in the amazement of all the nations, who did not think they could fall so quickly. While I was still a boy and was being trained in the school of grammar, and all the cities were polluted with the blood of victims, and suddenly, in the very heat of the persecution, the death of Julian was announced, one of the pagans said elegantly: How, he says, do the Christians say that their God is patient and ἀνεξίκακον (forbearing)? Nothing is more wrathful, nothing more prompt than this fury; he could not put off his indignation even for a short space. He may have said this in jest. But the Church of Christ sang with exultation: You divided in amazement the heads of the mighty. I too shall say something like it: Divide, O Lord, in the amazement of all, Ahab and Jezebel. I am not Elijah, but they are an Ahab and a Jezebel: they have killed Naboth, and taken his vineyard, and made it the garden of their luxury. Let some servant of yours, an Obadiah, be found to feed your poor man and beggar; let the harlot's blood be given to the dogs; let wicked and avaricious Ahab be slain by the javelin of the Lord.

LXX: They will be moved in her, they will open their bridles like a poor man eating in secret. When the heads have been divided from their bodies, and divided in no other way than in amazement, which in Greek is called ἐν ἐκστάσει, whence it is declined in agreement with her and is said ἐν αὐτῇ, that is, in her, they will also open their own bridles, or the bridles of those others — for both can be understood —, so that, relaxing that rule by which they formerly held dominion over the bodies subject to them, they may give place to a better rider and a better charioteer. And let them do this as if eating like poor men in secret, having no liberty nor any abundance of food, but scanty fare, eating which in secret they would want no one to see what they are doing. It can also be interpreted otherwise: When the heads have been divided in amazement, as if beheaded from the rest of the body, they will open their mouth, which had been bridled as it were with the bit of condemnation, and in the likeness of those who eat they will clatter with their teeth struck together, wanting to eat again, but not having the power to devour. Understand how after the coming of Christ the heads of the demons, separated from the nations which had formerly been subject to them, wish to exercise their ancient power again. But because they have been cut off from the bodies, they do not have full liberty to eat; they eat like poor men, and not only are they poor, but poor in secret. They are poor, because they have lost their former riches; they eat in secret, because they always sit in ambush, to kill the innocent in hidden places. These heads have teeth that are the very same as their arrows. And although he said before: I will ascend above the stars of heaven, I will set my nest on high, and I will hold the whole world in my hand like eggs, yet they will be dragged down from the heights, and, losing their former furniture and all the substance of their house, they will scarcely attempt, like poor men, to eat and bite in secret. I know that the Hebrew differs much from what has been said; but what can I do, I who have once resolved to translate both the Hebrew itself and the Scriptures current throughout the world?

For a soul that is at peace quickly turns and corrects itself, even if it has sinned before, and Christ ascends to it more fully and deigns to rule it, to which it is said: "Mount your horses, your chariot of health." And elsewhere: "I have sent forth your horses to Tharsis." Behold the horses of Christ. Thus, Christ ascends his horses, the Word of God ascends to holy souls.

You sent your horses into the sea, stirring up many waters. For the sea, indeed, means the world; the horses of God, the holy preachers; the many waters, the peoples of the nations. When the horses of God were sent into the sea, the many waters were stirred up, because when the heralds of the word were scattered into the world, the hearts of the nations were disturbed, some to believe and receive the sacrament of faith, others to contradict or even persecute the heralds of this faith. Hence the Psalmist aptly says: "All who saw them were troubled, and every man feared, and they declared the works of God and understood His deeds" (Ps. 63:9). For although all were troubled, not all feared and declared the works of God, but whosoever remained rational men; and those who were estranged from human reason were compared to senseless animals and became like them. Although such people were disturbed and moved by the virtues of the saints, they neither wanted to fear God nor to declare or understand His deeds. Furthermore, it is aptly said of these horses, namely the holy preachers, earlier: "You will ascend, you will ascend on your horses," and now it is added about the same: "You sent your horses into the sea," so that from both sentences it may be gathered that the Lord sent preachers into the world in such a way that, while they preached, He was never absent, but like a charioteer to horses, He was always present to guide their minds.

By horses the holy preachers are often signified, as the prophet Habakkuk speaks in his song, saying: You made a way in the sea for your horses, in the mud of many waters (Hab. 3:15). God made a way in the sea for his horses, in the mud of many waters, when at the beginning of the faith he granted peace to the world, so that his apostles could run throughout all the nations, which are signified by the sea and the mud, and scatter the seeds of faith.

You came therefore to battle for your people, and, sending your chariots into the waters, that is, into many nations, you made a way for them in the mud of many waters, that is, so that you might trample them and crush them like mud with the hoof and the wheel of your horses and chariots.

LXX: And you brought your horses over into the sea, troubling many waters. After God had sent death upon the heads of the wicked, and had cut down the heads of the mighty in amazement, and had broken them in the sea — for it is written in the psalms: You broke the heads of the dragon —, when the princes have been killed or broken, and the strong man has been conquered, one comes to his house, and all his vessels are plundered. But the vessels, and the house of the strong man, and the furniture of the prince, what else can we interpret them as, except the sea of this world, in which the dragon dwells? God therefore, an excellent rider and an outstanding charioteer, brings his horses, that is, the angels and the lofty powers, over the sea of this world, to trouble the many waters, the demons and the opposing powers. But if we wish to interpret it of the coming of Christ, according to what is written in the Apocalypse, that the Word of God sits on a white horse and the whole army follows him on white horses, we shall see how Christ mounted in his apostles, saying to them: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age, and: Going, go, baptize all nations, and the rest. And afterward he mounted upon one white horse, which I think is none other than the apostle Paul, riding upon whom he went round the whole world. Now the Word of God mounted his horses so that the many waters might be troubled, that is, either the many peoples who were formerly in the sea and were held subject to the dragon — For wide and spacious is the way that leads to death, and so that they might be troubled, first deserting their former error, then, being troubled, might receive the rider as he came —, or certainly, those of whom we spoke above, so that the hosts of demons would no longer rule in the sea as before, but, troubled, would give way and dread the wounds of the fighting rider. And would that the Word of God might mount in me too, and through the lance of my mouth kill him who reigns in many waters, so that at the king's death the waters which had been subject to them, being troubled, might offer their necks to my rider, and that we, brought together into one four-horse chariot, might become the Cherubim of the Lord, which means a multitude of knowledge. For never is a charioteer so well set, and never is he borne so adorned, as in those who are joined to one another by the multitude of knowledge and the reins of wisdom.

I guarded and my stomach was terrified at the voice of the prayer of my lips. He calls his mind his stomach in the manner customary to prophets, because just as the stomach receives food by which the strength and life of the body are replenished; so are holy thoughts received in the mind, by which the life of the inner man is sustained and maintained, lest it should fail. Therefore, I guarded, says the Prophet, carefully attending to the future passions of Christ and the subsequent glories, the reprobation of my people, the faith of the nations, the disturbance of the same nations at the new preaching, the persecution to be stirred up by unbelievers against believers; and my heart was terrified by these things which I, foreseeing, spoke of as coming. Or certainly contemplating the different states of the human race: I guarded, he says, myself, with a trembling mind more diligently, lest I should sin in deed, in word, or in thought, and lest I, while preaching to others, should become a reprobate. And it should be noted that he says he was terrified by the voice of the prayer of his lips, although he seems to have prayed nothing at all in this whole song; but only describing with fear and trembling the future mysteries of Christ and the Church; nor is he mistaken who calls his song a prayer, he who also gave it such a title: The Prayer of Habakkuk the Prophet for Ignorances, because whatever a holy man speaks, indeed the whole of this is a prayer to God; whatever he does, anyone whose sincere intention is to please the Lord, this itself intercedes with God for him, and recommends him to the Lord.

And trembling entered into my bones. Just as Scripture sometimes designates our carnal actions by the name of flesh; so by the name of bones it usually designates strong and spiritual deeds. Therefore, he says, my heart was terrified by the things I foresee coming into the world, and whatever spiritual strength I thought was within me, all of this trembled as if fragile, while I observe the greater virtues and passions of the blessed Christ and His apostles; which is more clearly explained by the following word, when it is said:

And beneath me, my strength was disturbed. However, he rightly says that his strength was disturbed not in himself, but beneath himself, because the prophet, having been taken up to the contemplation of heavenly mysteries, saw himself, as it were, elevated above himself; and the higher he is made by the light of contemplation, the more he sees himself as imperfect by the merit of his actions. For being lifted up to the sight of the highest things, he is rightly disturbed by the things he has done in the lowest. Yet the prophet's strength was disturbed, his bones trembled, his belly shuddered, not only because he knew himself to be less perfect in action, but also because all who wish to live piously in Christ are said to suffer persecutions; and he saw that even Christ Himself, who entered the world without sin, would not leave the world without the punishment of sin, as he had also indicated at the beginning of his song. Nevertheless, the same fear and trembling did not remain devoid of consolation, for the hope diminished the adversity present, and made lighter the rewards of the future. This is what follows:

I will rest in the day of my tribulation, that I may ascend to the people of my transmigration. For he rests not only in the day of retribution, but also of tribulation, who does not doubt that he will obtain eternal joys through temporal afflictions, according to the saying of the Apostle: For we are saved by hope (Rom. VIII, 24). And again: Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation (Rom. XII, 12). And this is the rest of the elect in this life, that, leaving the desire for lowly things, they strive with the whole intention of their mind and with daily steps of good works to ascend and migrate to the fellowship of those who have preceded them in Christ; and, with the struggles of their sufferings finished, they may receive the crown of life in the example of those who, having been once transported to Babylon from Judea, returned again to their homeland under the leaders Zerubbabel and Jesus, whom the scripture calls the sons of the transmigration. It is recorded that with great devotion they restored the sacred things which the enemy had destroyed; which is the clearest figure of our state. For we were transported in our first parent from the heavenly homeland and brought into this world's Babylon, that is, confusion; but by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great King and High Priest, whose type Zerubbabel and Jesus bore, we are rightly recalled again to the homeland and the vision of supreme peace, which the name Jerusalem signifies; provided that, meanwhile, laboring in the Jerusalem of the present Church with pious works, we prepare ourselves in due time for entry to the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all. If it is read indifferently, as it is found in some Codices: I will rest in the day of tribulation, and my is not added, it can be understood according to that which is sung in the Psalm about the just man: In the evil day the Lord will deliver him (Ps. XL, 2), that is, in the day of judgment, when eternal tribulation will seize the reprobates, eternal rest will oppose and receive the just; but even before that final and general judgment, the saints rest in the day of tribulation, ascending to the people of their migration, when through good works transported from the world, they are united to the joys of the just who preceded them in the heavens, while equally their persecutors, taken from this life, undergo the eternal torments of hell, to be punished forever. Moreover, the day of tribulation can also be understood in this life, when, with the scarcity of temporal goods increasing, those who loved such things excessively, as if surrounded by miseries, grieve; but each chosen one, although enduring the same troubles bodily, has rest in the Lord with fixed hope of mind, knowing that the more he is weighed down in the lower things, the higher he will ascend after the pressures to the eternal fellowship of the celestial citizens. And this understanding aptly agrees with what follows:

The third origin of the fear of the Lord is from the consideration of the severity of divine vengeance. Whence in Habakkuk: "Lord, I have heard your report and was afraid. I heard, and my belly was troubled; at the voice my lips trembled. Let rottenness enter into my bones and swarm beneath me, that I may rest in the day of tribulation." He says: "Let rottenness enter into my bones, and let it swarm beneath me, that I may rest in the day of tribulation." Not only in the day of tribulation or severity of the last judgment, but of any other judgment whatsoever, because the judgments of God are many.

He who is cautious and wary can avoid sins for a while, but he who is secure in his own justice opposes God, and deprived of his help, he is subject to the snares of the enemy. "Let rottenness," says Habakkuk, "enter into my bones and swarm under me, that I may rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to my people that are girded." He prays earnestly for tribulations and trials and affliction of soul so that, in the next world, he may join the company of those who are already reigning with Christ. It is clear from all this that here, in this life, there is strife and contention, and, in the next world, there is victory.

But as for what follows: I heard, and my belly was troubled; at the voice — so that 'your' is understood —, my lips trembled, let rottenness enter into my bones, and swarm beneath me, that I may rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to our girded people, this is the sense: Now we all gladly suffer distresses, and at your threatening we tremble with all our inward parts. Now my lips tremble, and the dread of a fearful mind is stamped upon my mouth; and not only this, but of my own accord I also seek and of my own accord I desire something more. Let rottenness enter into my bones, and swarm beneath me, that is, I gladly suffer what Job suffered: I long that not only my flesh but the marrow of my bones too should waste away, and that my bed should swarm with the rottenness of my body and with countless worms, so that after I have endured these things here for my sins, I may rest in the bitter day, in the day of tribulation, in the day of necessity and distress. And I shall go up to our girded people, that is, strong, warlike and combative. And beautifully, I shall go up: for one always goes up to a girded people. And elegantly, our: for he who has been afflicted, and has gladly endured pressures, and has set future rewards against present evils, boldly says our, so that, like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he too may sleep in a good old age, full of days, and be gathered to his fathers. But if anyone should say: Look, in expounding the history you have, without knowing it, been shut up in the nets of allegory, and you have mixed tropology with the history, let him hear that a metaphor in the history does not always amount to allegory, because the history itself is frequently woven metaphorically, and under the image of a woman or of one man something is proclaimed about a whole people. And now therefore we can say in the person of the people: I gladly undergo captivity, I endure distresses with an even mind, and I am pressed by the most heavy yoke of the Babylonians; and whatever belongs to the last and harsh necessity I shall suffer rejoicing, provided only that I may rest at the time when you will curse the scepters of the wicked one, and your horses will trample the mud of many waters, so that afterward, with your holy ones Zerubbabel and Joshua son of Jehozadak, and Ezra the priest, and Nehemiah, I may return to the land of promise. Up to this point, so that we might not seem to pass over the history altogether, we have in some measure done violence to the understanding, and we dragged into the captivity sentences that do not follow; now let us return to the Seventy translators and to the tropological exposition.

LXX: I kept watch, and my belly was afraid at the voice of the prayer of my lips; and trembling entered into my bones, and beneath me my strength was troubled. Or, as we find written elsewhere, ἡ ἕξις μου, which we can call my condition; for differing copies are found. These things can also be said in the person of the prophet, cohering with what precedes: Because you, O Lord, sent death upon the heads of the wicked, and raised up bonds up to the neck, and divided in amazement the heads of the mighty, and brought into the sea your horses troubling many waters, therefore I have kept my heart with all watchfulness, and my inward parts trembled, and my whole strength, or condition, was troubled, lest I should suffer the like. It can also have, as it were, its own beginning, the prophet relating his fear, and how he dreaded lest he had sinned in anything, and, admonished at the voice of the prayer of his lips, feared God so much that trembling entered into his bones, and, placed under the lofty hand of the Lord, he was troubled in all the strength, or condition, of his soul. But what he says: Trembling entered into my bones, is to be taken ἐμφατικώτερον (more emphatically), so that we may see the greatness of the fear of God penetrating the whole of the soul and moving the whole man, lest he should do anything that would displease God. And since Scripture allegorically, following the members of the body, mentions members of the soul as well, let us take the fearful belly as that power of the soul which receives spiritual food, and the lips as those by which the mind speaks with itself, and the bones as the robust and solid doctrines by which the whole framework of the soul is made firm. These things have been said by me briefly. But if anyone has found things shrewder and truer than these, give your assent rather to his explanation.

LXX: I shall rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to the people of my sojourning. Because I have kept my heart with all watchfulness, and my belly was afraid at the voice of the prayer of my lips, and trembling entered into my bones, and beneath me my strength or condition was troubled, and through so great a watchfulness I have been made a stranger to sins, therefore I now say confidently: I shall rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to the people of my sojourning, that is, the people which, just as I, has sojourned as a stranger in this world. And I shall go up, placed below as I am, and, as if striving from the valley toward higher places, I shall press on with all eagerness, so that at the time when the rest are in tribulation and distress, my care may be for the ascent, how I may rest with the people of my sojourning in the higher places. Now the day of tribulation I think is the consummation of the world, of which Isaiah also says: The day of the Lord is incurable, of fury and wrath, to make the whole world a desert, and to destroy sinners.

For the fig tree will not bear fruit, and there will be no generation in the vineyards. The work of the olive will lie and the fields will not yield food. The sheep have failed from their food, and there will be no oxen in the stalls. But I will glory in the Lord, and I will rejoice in God my Savior. For when the opulence of worldly things fails, carnal and lovers of this life are troubled, the righteous do not grieve over the loss of temporal goods but rejoice in the possession of the heavenly kingdom promised to the poor of Christ, mindful of the promised consolation of Him who said: Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom. And what wonderful faith, hope, and love of the prophet! The Son of God had not yet appeared in man receiving the name Jesus from His parents, and he, foreseeing the same name in the Spirit, testifies that he rejoices in Him amidst adversities, who would open the gate of the heavenly homeland for His faithful long after being born in the flesh. If anyone also seeks to expound these verses figuratively, the fig tree, vineyard, and olive were the synagogue of the Jews, which brought forth the sweetness of good works, the fragrance of fervent love, and the richness of a merciful soul devoted to God. Sheep and oxen were typically in the same people; the sheep, namely, in those who humbly heard the voice of the supreme Shepherd; the oxen, on the other hand, were in those who, zealously bearing the yoke of the law, by diligently teaching and correcting the hearts of listeners, as it were plowing the land of the Lord, prepared for the fruits of good works; and for those living spiritually, the fields of the divine Scriptures most widely made spiritual foods, with whose nourishment he who was made like a beast before the Lord delighted, and always adhered to Him, saying: The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want, in a place of pasture, He has placed me there (Ps. 22:1). But this fig tree, to which the Lord came the third time, that is, in the legislation through Moses, in the diligent rebuke and exhortation through the prophets, in the offering of grace through Himself, neglected to bear the fruit of virtue, because of which it was condemned to eternal dryness by His curse. The generation in the vineyards of the Lord once failed, that is, the fruit of charity failed among the crowds of the Jews, because they offered vinegar to Him who thirsted instead of wine, that is, the sweetness of virtues He sought in them, they brought forth the bitterness of vices desiring virtues. The work of the olive lied, when that people anointed the heads of the wretched with the oil of flattery, and echoed the true words of the prophet falsely, saying: But I, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God, have trusted in the mercy of God (Ps. 51:10), wherefore at the time of the final retribution, bringing forth extinguished lamps, with their own darkness, they will be excluded from the entrance to the heavenly homeland. The fields do not yield food when the same people, opening the pages of divine writings, cannot rightly understand and find the pastures of truth. The sheep fail from their food, for those whom the refreshment of internal sweetness is absent, whence the innocence of a simple life may not come forth. Thus it was said: the sheep have failed from their food, that is, because food was lacking, as the Prophet in the Psalms: And my flesh, he says, was changed because of the oil (Ps. 108:24), that is, because the oil with which I might be refreshed or anointed was not there. Indeed, some Codices have it this way: The sheep have failed because they did not eat, and there are no oxen in the stalls. For although there are abundantly in the Jews the stalls of heavenly writings; yet because they do not taste the food of heavenly understanding in them, those who bear the sweet yoke of the Gospel are absent. Considering all these things that are to come upon the perfidious part of his people, the prophet immediately shows what he himself would do with the faithful of the same people, or rather with the society of the Church, which was gathered in Christ from all over the world, or elected: But I, he says, will glory not in my own righteousness, but in faith in the divine protection, I will rejoice in God my Savior, that is my Savior, because I perceive salvation to be not in me, but in Him. And as if we were to ask him why he glories in the Lord and rejoices in God his Savior, whom he called his own with great affection of love, he immediately, as if insinuating the most just cause of the same joy, ended his song thus:

For the fig tree will not blossom, and there will be no bud in the vineyards; the work of the olive will lie, and the fields will not yield food; the flock will be cut off from the fold, and there will be no herd in the stalls. LXX: For the fig tree will not bear fruit, and there will be no buds in the vineyards; the work of the olive will lie, and the plains will not produce food; they have failed, because the sheep were eating, and there are no oxen in the stalls. According to the Hebrew, in which we said above: Let rottenness enter into my bones and swarm beneath me, that I may rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to our girded people, what preceded will be joined in this way to what follows: I wished to endure tribulation for the present, and afterward to go up to the strong people, for this reason, that the day of tribulation and necessity will come, and while the rest are set in distress, I shall rejoice in your majesty: For the fig tree will not blossom, and there will be no bud in the vineyards; the work of the olive will lie, and the fields will not yield food, and the rest. And since these words do not differ much from the LXX, let us discuss them together with their translation. When the day of tribulation has come, and I have gone up to the people which once sojourned with me, or certainly when the day of the overthrow of the Jews and of the former people has come, and the daughter of Zion has been left like a booth in a vineyard, and like a hut in a cucumber field, and like a city which is being besieged, I, who have been chosen out of a perishing people — of which it was said: Unless the Lord had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah —, shall join myself to the disciples of Christ, and because he teaches them on the mountain, leaving the crowds and the weak below, I shall climb up to the mountains. For the fig tree did not give fruit, the one to which the Lord came hungry in the Gospel, and he did not find fruit on it, and he cursed it, saying: You shall not bear fruit even unto the age. And consider diligently what he said: You shall not bear fruit unto the age; he does not say, unto the ages of ages, but when this age has passed away and the fullness of the Gentiles has entered, then this fig tree too will bear its fruits, and all Israel will be saved. This is the fig tree to which the householder came for the third time, and which he wishes to cut down as not producing fruit; for it the farmer, to whom it had been entrusted, pleads, that he may give it time, and he says: Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure, and if indeed it bears fruit; but if not, then you shall cut it down. That farmer is either Gabriel or Michael, to whom the people of the Jews was entrusted, who pleads with the Lord at the passion and says: Lord, give it time for repentance, and do not overthrow them, and if indeed they bear fruit; but if not, then you shall overthrow them. If they bear fruit, he says: he did not say what they would undergo; nor did he say: If they bear fruit, they will remain as they were; but, if they bear fruit: the sentence is left suspended, so that this is understood: you will transfer them into the church of the Gentiles, and transplant them into another vineyard. The Lord came for the third time and did not find fruit in them. First he gave the law through Moses, the second time he spoke through the prophets, the third time he himself came down. And after the passion, when forty-two years had been given for repentance, because they did not bear fruit, the fourth time they were overthrown. This, however, is left to our understanding. For in the parable it is not written what the householder did afterward, but only what the farmer pleaded for. From this we perceive that those of this fig tree who bore fruit were transferred to the people of the Gentiles, to which the prophet too goes up, saying: I shall rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to the people of my sojourning; but that those who did not bear fruit and remained in their hardness were overthrown. The voice of John in the Gospel also signifies this very thing: Behold, the axe is laid to the roots of the trees. Every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire. We have spoken of the fig tree, showing that it is the people of the Jews; let us speak also of the vineyard, which indeed anyone who has read Isaiah will easily understand: A vineyard was made for the beloved on a horn, in a fertile place, and afterward: And I waited for it to bear fruit; but it bore thorns, and not judgment, but a cry, and in Jeremiah: But I planted you a fruitful vineyard, wholly true; how have you been turned into the bitterness of a foreign vine? and more plainly in the psalms: You brought a vineyard out of Egypt, you cast out the nations, and planted it. This vineyard, then, to which the householder had often sent servants to receive from it wine, which gladdens the heart of man, because it was turned into bitterness, and at the last even dared to kill the householder's son, producing not grapes but thorns, and not judgment but a cry: Crucify, crucify him, and: We have no king but Caesar: therefore the boar from the forest has ravaged it, and the solitary wild beast has fed upon it. That the olive too is the people of the synagogue will be clearly proved by anyone who has read in the Apostle of the broken branches of the olive, and of us grafted in from the wild olive, so that in the branches we understand that the Jewish multitude was cut off, and in the roots that the election of the apostles was preserved; grafted into them we shall remain, if we bear fruit, and it will be said of us: Your sons like young shoots of olives around your table. Many think that the fig tree, the vineyard and the olive are taken as the mystery of the Trinity: that the fig tree, because of the sweetness of its fruit, is understood as the Holy Spirit; the vineyard as our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who says in the Gospel: I am the vine; and the olive as God the Father almighty, by whom all things are enlightened, and from whom light goes forth, and to whom we can say: O olive, in your light we shall see light, that is, in the Son we shall see the Holy Spirit. To these fruitful trees and to the most fertile vineyard come the unfruitful trees in the book of Judges and ask them to reign over them. But the olive, the fig tree and the vine never reign over the trees of the forests, which are destined for burning; rather the buckthorn rules over them, full of briars and like the hedgehog, which dwells in Babylon and always lives in pits. This little tree has not only thorns but fire too, wounding and burning whatever it touches. And at last fire went out and consumed the trees of the forests. But so that you may know, according to the higher understanding, in which we have taken it as said of the synagogue: The fig tree will not bear fruit, and there will be no produce in the vineyards, that this is said not of fruits but of good works, in the olive the riddle is plainly opened, and it is said: The work of the olive will lie. For the fruits which they ought to have borne are shown in works; and the work of the olive will lie, as of one who promises one thing and does another: they said to Moses: All things whatsoever the Lord shall say, we will do; and they were unwilling to believe in him who was preached by Moses. The plains also will not bear fruit. Consider that Jerusalem, which was once set on mountains, with the mountains around her, and her foundations on the holy mountains, is now called lowly and flat, a place that nourishes not only no men, that is, no rational animals, but not even flocks and oxen, of which Solomon also speaks in Proverbs: Take care of the regions that are in the plain, and cut the grass, and gather hay, that you may have sheep to eat. Oxen also will not be in the stalls, because where the stalls are full, the strength of the ox is manifest. The ox is a worker; the ox of the Lord bearing the yoke; the ox in whose track he who sows is blessed. All these things will be taken away from the people, because it acted wickedly against God its Creator. But if you wish to take the day of tribulation as the day of the consummation, you will refer everything to those who say they are of the Church and do not have the works of justice. And the fig tree, the vineyard and the olive, namely the mystery of the Trinity, will not bear their fruit in them; and they have not only no grain and food of rational beings, but not even fodder for flocks and beasts of burden in their fields, and their stalls are empty, and instead of lofty mountains they dwell in flat and lowly places.

"And [Joseph] called his name Jesus." "Jesus" in Hebrew means "saving" or "Savior" in Latin. It is clear that the prophets most certainly call upon his name. Hence these things are sung in great desire for a vision of him: "My soul will exult in the Lord and take delight in his salvation." "My soul pines for your salvation." "I, however, will glory in the Lord; I will rejoice in God my Jesus." And especially that [verse]: "God in your name save me!" as if [the prophet] would say, "You who are called Savior; make bright the glory of your name in me by saving."

But I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will exult in God my Jesus. God the Lord is my strength, and he will set my feet like those of harts, and upon my high places he, the victor, will lead me singing in psalms. LXX: But I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in God my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will set my feet unto the consummation, he will set me upon the high places, that I may conquer in his song. When the fig tree and the vineyard and the olive, as I have expounded, do not produce their fruit, and the fields of the Jews do not yield food, when the flocks too have been cut off from the fold and the herds from the stalls, after they heard from the Lord: Your house will be left to you desolate, and when the people too has been handed over to captivity and scattered over the whole world, the prophet, from the people of the Jews, whose name means embrace — because he loved the Lord, and clung to him, and joined himself to him —, speaks in the person of the apostles and of the people believing in Christ: But I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will exult in God my Jesus. For this the LXX translated τῷ Σωτῆρί μου, that is, my Savior. Gabriel too interprets the very same thing: And he will be called Jesus, for he will save his people.

But if we wish to take it of the consummation of the world, it must be expounded thus: Just as in Exodus, when Egypt was struck, and God struck their vineyards and their fig trees, and killed the firstborn of men and of beasts in the hail, and the caterpillar and the locust consumed the Egyptian crops, the fig tree in Egypt did not bear fruit, nor was there produce in their vineyards, the work of the olive, wherever it could be found in Egypt at all, was lying, and their plains did not give food, and they were failing, because their flocks had no food, and there were no oxen in the stalls; but the people of Israel exulted in the Lord and rejoiced in God their salvation: so in the consummation of the world, when, iniquity having been multiplied, charity has grown cold, and the fig tree has not borne fruits, and the vineyards have had no grapes, and the work of the olive has lied, and the plains have not brought forth food, and the rest that follows, then whoever has been found just and worthy of God's election will say, exulting: But I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in God my salvation, the Lord God is my strength. And as one set by God above the consummation of the age, so that he may afterward climb to higher things and be brought out by God to the summit, he will say: And he will set my feet unto the consummation, he will set me upon the high places, as it will be when a prize has been set for the singers by Jesus, the ἀγωνοθέτῃ (the president of the games), who was the first to win in the contest. I shall conquer in his song, and let my hands put together the cithara and the psaltery and every kind of instrument, and I will write a panegyric for him who triumphs. And I, who at the beginning said: How long shall I cry, and you will not hear? Shall I cry out to you, suffering violence, and you will not save? and found fault with his justice and judgment, shall afterward praise his equity, and surpass the other singers with my song.

The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet as sure as deer's, and He will set me on high places, so that I may triumph in His glory. As if He openly says: Indeed, beneath me my strength is troubled, that is, while I contemplate the condition of human frailty, which is below; and while I lift the eyes of my mind to the grace of divine help, I trust that I can make strength in Him. He is able to lead the steps of my works to the completion of a firm end; He can set me on high so that we may utterly despise all the loftiness of worldly power by the contemplation of eternal goods. I shall overcome all temptations which come to me either from the adversities or the blandishments of the world in His love through which I will be, that is, while in all things I do not seek my own glory, but His, from whom I remember that I have received whatever good I do. For deservedly, they are helped by the Lord, that having overcome temptations, they, having been proven, may reach the prize of the heavenly calling, who refer the entire cause of their victory to His praise. Some manuscripts have: And I will triumph in His Song, which looks to the same sense. For whoever knows how to give thanks to Him from the heart in all the tribulations he suffers, he triumphs in the Lord's Song, knowing that all things work together for good to those who love God, and as accustomed with blessed Job: Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). Finally, the apostles Paul and Silas, amid beatings, darkness, and chains of prison, sang a hymn to God; and thus divinely helped, they suddenly emerged as victors, for indeed, although their feet seemed to be tightly bound in stocks, the steps of their works were made complete in virtues. Beautifully, the end of this prophetic song corresponds to its beginning. For he who, having heard and considered the works of the Lord appearing in the flesh, faithfully fears and trembles, is made so that, despising those things which in this life are borne in various states like the waves of the sea, he may glory and rejoice in Him alone whose joys he can perpetually enjoy; helped by Him, so that he is neither broken by the adversities of the present world nor enervated by its allurements; he sings the praises of His grace both in the present, that he may deserve to conquer, and in the future, because he has conquered, he should never cease to sing. It also happens that such a soul overcomes the world in the glory of the Lord, namely, by His same glory, both often recalled to memory in times of struggles, and beheld perpetually in times of rewards, according to what He promised: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). It should be noted, however, that with the prayer or song of Habakkuk explained, his name, which is interpreted as embracing, corresponds to the sense of the same prayer. For it is clear that he embraced the Lord with the inward love of the heart and adhered to Him, who testifies that he glories and rejoices in Him alone. May it happen, dearest sister and virgin of Christ, that also we, loving Him, may be made worthy of such a name. If indeed we strive to embrace Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength, He will deign to embrace us with the arms of His love, mindful of His promise where He says: He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him (John 14:21); and thus we will deserve to be numbered among the members of that bride who is accustomed to joyfully sing to her Creator, her heavenly spouse: His left hand is under my head, and His right hand shall embrace me. Amen (Song of Solomon 2:6).

"Upon the heights he will lead me, the conqueror, singing in psalms." Let us beseech our Lord Jesus Christ, that he through his mercy may deign so to lead and govern us in this mortal life, that we may obtain the gifts of the Holy Spirit and arrive at that ineffable joy.

God the Lord is my strength: for I shall have no other power except in Christ, and I shall count all the righteousnesses of the law as refuse. And he will set my feet like those of harts, that I may tread upon the asp and the basilisk; and like a little child I shall put my hand into the hole, and draw out the serpent, and play with the snake: For my kinsman is like a roe, or a young hart. And because he himself is the hart, he has granted to me too that I should be a hart, lofty in horns, cleaving the hoof, chewing the cud, and putting serpents to flight by my scent, of which it is said in Psalm 17 (18): Who made my feet perfect like those of harts, and will set me upon the high places. And in Psalm 28 (29): The voice of the Lord perfecting the harts. He will therefore set my feet among his other harts, and lead me to heavenly places, that among the angels I may sing the glory of the Lord, and announce upon earth peace to men of good will. And I shall sing his victory and triumph and the trophy of the cross. This is according to the Hebrew and the Fifth Edition, so that we may refer everything to the time of the overthrow of the Jews and to the coming of the Lord.