Hosea 12

God of my heart … I didn't know how to love you, because I did not know how to conceive the existence of anything—however glorious—beyond mere matter. The soul that goes puffing and wheezing after such figments of the imagination [as fortune telling] is one that goes whoring from you and trusts what is phony and feeds on the wind. Yet while I wouldn't have this sorcerer sacrificing to demons on my behalf, I was actually sacrificing to them myself just by being involved in my superstition. For what else is to feed on the wind, if not to feed on error, and so to become the sport and plaything of the demonic?

Ephraim feeds on the wind and follows the burning heat; all day long he multiplies lying and devastation, and he has entered into a covenant with the Assyrians; and he was carrying oil into Egypt. LXX: But Ephraim, a most evil spirit, has pursued the burning heat; all day long he has multiplied vain and empty things, and he has made a covenant with the Assyrians; and he was trading oil in Egypt. Sacred history relates that Menahem, king of Israel, having made peace with Assyria, asked help of the Egyptians; and this is what is now said: that Ephraim feeds on winds, that is, deceives himself with vain hope, and follows καύσωνα, that is, the burning heat, and goes to the south, and does nothing else all day long but mock himself. And while he runs about this way and that, he prepares devastation and overthrow for his own cities. Is it not devastation and lying to have made a covenant with the Assyrians, and to have carried oil into Egypt? Συνεκδοχικῶς, the whole from a part: namely, that he sent gifts to the Egyptians. Although some think that oil is by no means produced in Egypt, and that the most precious oil was sent by Ephraim, whose land, Samaria, is most fertile in oil. Moreover, according to tropology, all heretics are held fast by the most evil spirit of the demons, of which it is written also in the Apostle: Against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places. And the unclean spirit, when it has gone out of a man and has found no rest, joins to itself seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and returns to its former house. With a most evil spirit, therefore, they follow καύσωνα, that is, dryness, or the burning wind, which is hostile to flowers and destroys everything that sprouts; all day long he pursues empty and vain things, nor is he content with his own error, but he multiplies many disciples, nay rather companions of his vanity and error. He also makes a covenant with the Assyrians, whose prince is the great mind, so that whatever he has invented he may seem to have feigned wisely, with that wisdom which is destroyed by God, which the Apostle too commands us to avoid, saying: See that no one catches you through philosophy and empty seduction, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world. But he also carries oil into Egypt, or buys the wisdom of Egypt, desiring to mix with the dogmas of the Church the oil of anointing with which the prophets and priests were anointed, with which kings too were anointed. This oil the saints also have, of whom it is said: Your sons like young olive shoots around your table. And the good olive tree into which our wild olive has been grafted. But although the heretics try to mix lying with the truth, oil cannot be combined with water and the other moist and liquid things. The truth is always on top, and lying below. All other kinds, that is, heresies, which do not have, as we have said, the oil of truth, can be mixed with one another, and from many be made one body. But the oil of these, which is carried down into Egypt and descends from the holy land to the realms of Pharaoh, the prophet detests, saying: Let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head.

Therefore the judgment of God is with Judah, and visitation upon Jacob; according to his ways and according to his devices he will repay him. In the womb he supplanted his brother, and in his strength he was directed with the angel; and he prevailed over the angel and was strengthened; he wept and besought him; in Bethel he found him, and there he spoke with us, and the Lord God of hosts. The Lord is his memorial; and you will turn to your God; keep mercy and judgment, and hope in your God always. LXX: And there is judgment for the Lord with Judah, that he may punish Jacob; according to his ways and according to his devices he will repay him. In the womb he supplanted his brother, and in his labor he prevailed with God, and he was strengthened with the angel, and was able; they wept and entreated me; in the house of ὢν they found me, and there it was spoken to them. But the Lord God almighty will be his memorial, and you will turn in your God; keep mercy and judgment; and draw near to your God always. Since Ephraim once fed on winds and followed lying, and came to such madness that he wavered in doubt between two hostile nations, making peace with the Assyrians and carrying oil into Egypt, now all my judgment is with Judah, and visitation upon Jacob. Now he calls visitation scourges and punishments, so that he who repaid Ephraim what he deserved may repay Judah too, who sprang from the seed of Jacob, according to his ways and according to his devices; for he was not merely deceived by chance error and brought down by human frailty, but sought out and devised the things in which to sin and fall.

We can understand Judah as the churchman, who is rebuked by the Lord because he is not mindful of his former benefits toward him, but daily joins sins to sins; and he sets forth what those benefits are. When the Church, he says, was bringing you to birth in faith, you supplanted your brother, the Jew or the Gentile, and received his birthright; and in your strength you were directed with the angel, either overcoming the adverse powers, or strengthened by the blessings of the angel, who is himself God; and you prevailed in figure against the angel, so that you might prevail against men, and you were strengthened. And when you had won the victory, you wept and besought the angel of the Lord, and, remembering your old sins, you found him in Bethel, that is, in the house of God, which is the Church, or in the house of ὢν, of sorrow and tears and repentance. And that we might know who this Judah was, there, he says, he spoke with us, that is, with us Christians; and from that time to the present day we are reckoned by the name of Christ, and with him directing us we are corrected.

Moreover he sets forth how great benefits Judah, that is, Jacob, received, and the son is named in the father, and he recalls the ancient history, so that both the mercy of God toward Jacob and his hardness against God may be known. While he was still in Rebekah's womb, he supplanted his brother Esau, not indeed by his own strength, since he could not perceive it, but by the mercy of God, who knows and loves those whom he has predestined. And not only did he supplant his brother in the womb, but in his strength also he was directed with the angel, when at the torrent Jacob fought against the angel all night long. And because he was directed with the angel, he therefore received the name εὐθυτάτου, which in Hebrew is called isar, that is, of one directing, or directed.

It happened one day that the enemy of the human race met the wrestler of the eternal King on a journey and challenged him with these words: "If you would like to see what each of us can accomplish with his strength, let us have a contest." Barely finished speaking, he approached the saint and touched him in visible and corporeal reality, and for some time tried his wavering opponent, but the latter pressed Christ with prayers, and the divine aid strengthened his trembling steps and straightway caused the fugitive, apostate spirit to vanish into air. If it seems incredible to anyone that an invisible spirit can become substantial, save in the mystical sense, let it be explained to him how the divine pages narrate the struggle of Jacob with the angel too. I have this to say: that it would require less boldness for Satan to tempt a servant than the Lord, Emilian than Christ, man than God, the creature than the Creator.

Where the Hebrew has: he wept and besought him; in Bethel he found him, and there he spoke with us, we read in the common edition: they wept and besought me, in the house of ὢν they found me, and there it was spoken to them; ὢν is interpreted sorrow. If anyone, therefore, weeps, and repents, and entreats the Lord, he will find him in the sorrow of his heart, and when he has called upon him, he will hear him answering him.

And he prevailed, he says, against the angel; and by the blessing of him whom he had overcome he was strengthened. He also wept and besought him, that is, the angel, saying: I will not let you go unless you bless me. And when, on the advice of his father and mother, he was fleeing to Mesopotamia, he found the same angel in Bethel, who spoke to him; he spoke with us, that is, in the father he spoke to the sons also, and in Jacob he loved Judah too; and from that time down to the present the memory of his name, which was imposed on him by the angel and by God, endures.

There were places in Jerusalem where he taught and other places to which he retired. "In daytime he was teaching in the temple." Just this had been foretold by Hosea: "In my house did they find me, and there did I speak with them."

Combine justice with mercy, spending in mercy what you possess with justice. It is written, "Keep mercy and justice, and draw near to thy God always." Because God loves mercy and justice, he who takes care to do mercy and justice draws near to God. It remains, then, for each to examine himself and for the rich person to take careful inventory of the private resources from which he is to offer gifts to God, to make sure that he has not oppressed a poor person, or used force against one weaker than himself, or cheated one dependent upon him, thus exercising license rather than justice. We are bidden to practice fairness and justice also toward those who serve us. Do not employ force because you are in command, and do not take advantage because it is within your power to do so.

Since these things are so, you too, O Judah, imitate your parent: weep and beseech the Lord of hosts, and turn to him. Keep mercy and judgment, and when you have done both, hope in your God always, advancing by good works to greater things.

Therefore, O churchman, you who are called Judah, and confessing, turn daily through repentance to your Lord; and if perhaps you have sinned, imitate the prophet who says: I have labored in my groaning; every night I will wash my bed, I will water my couch with my tears. And let it not suffice to have said this, but keep the commandments of God, show mercy to others, that you yourself may obtain mercy. Judge true judgment, so that in what you judge, judgment may be passed on you. And hope in your God always, or draw near to your God continually, so that, advancing in virtue at all times, you may draw near to your God.

Canaan: in his hand is a deceitful balance; he has loved calumny; and Ephraim said: Yet I have become rich, I have found an idol for myself; all my labors will not find for me the iniquity which I have sinned. LXX: Canaan: in his hand is a balance of iniquity; he has loved to oppress by power; and Ephraim said: Yet I have become rich, I have found rest for myself; all his labors will not be found for him, because of the iniquities in which he has sinned. He had admonished Judah to turn to the Lord his God, and to keep mercy and judgment, and to hope in the Lord always, or to draw near to him continually. Now the discourse turns to Ephraim, that is, to the ten tribes, whom he calls Canaan, according to what Daniel says to the elder, who was certainly of the seed of Judah: Seed of Canaan and not of Judah, beauty has deceived you. And in Ezekiel we read it said to Jerusalem: Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. And in Isaiah it is said to the tribe of Judah: Hear the word of the Lord, you princes of Sodom; perceive with your ears the law of our Lord, you people of Gomorrah. In the last little verse of Zechariah too we read: And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord. Now he says that Canaan, that is, Ephraim, has in his hand a deceitful balance, or an unjust one, though Scripture commands: Let your weights be just; and that he not only has an unjust and deceitful balance, but loves calumny and oppresses men by power.

Hence this very thing is also referred to the heretics. For Canaan can be interpreted: as if moving. And note that he said: as if moving, not moving. They are moving those whom they have deceived; as if moving, those whom they have tempted. But because these are founded upon the rock, they can be shaken by no whirlwind, nor change the footprint of their feet. In the hand of a Canaan of this sort, that is, in his works, there is a deceitful and unjust balance; for whatever the heretic speaks does not have the justice of God, and is full of deceit and frauds; whence they also love calumny, while they press down the innocent, or oppress them by power.

And lest we should think that some other Canaan is to be understood, he states more plainly who this Canaan is. Ephraim said: Yet I have become rich; and the sense is: it makes no difference whence I possess it, so long as I possess it. Very many suffer from this disease, of whom it is written: Riches gathered unjustly will be vomited up. For the ransom of a man's soul is his own riches. Hence we are commanded to make ourselves friends of the unrighteous mammon, who can receive us into the eternal tabernacles. But Ephraim, who glories and says: Yet I have become rich, I have found an idol for myself, or ἀνωφελὲς, that is, auen, which does not profit its possessor, has sweated with vain labor. Just as the belly is god to the glutton and the luxurious, so the avaricious man too worships the idol of gold, and says in his heart: I have found what I was seeking; but he will hear: Fool, this night your soul will be snatched from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? And when once, I will not say the glitter, but the blindness of riches has seized his eyes, he says: all my labors will not find my iniquity, in which I have sinned. And the sense is: whatever I sin, if I have riches, it cannot be imputed to me by those who need my help, according to what is written: And he who does iniquitous things is blessed. For the rich have many friends.

The poor churchman is oppressed by the wordiness and the subtleties of the heretics, who, after they have deceived some, are accustomed to say: we have become rich, we have a very great multitude; a crowd of disciples follows us; we have found an idol, or refreshment, for ourselves. For heresies are put together chiefly for this reason, that they may devour the houses of widows, who are always learning and never arrive at the knowledge of the truth. And beautifully: I have found, he says, an idol for myself. For all the fictions of the heretics are idols and images of the Gentiles; nor do they differ much in impiety, though they seem to differ in name. And they are accustomed to say: whatever I do, whatever I perform, cannot be imputed to me; for I have my riches, the arguments of the philosophers; I have a multitude of people, and whoever beholds it will not think that I sin.

And I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will yet make you sit in tabernacles as in the days of festivity; and I have spoken upon the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and in the hand of the prophets I have been likened. LXX: But I am the Lord your God, I brought you out of the land of Egypt; I will yet make you dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of solemnity, and I will speak to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and in the hands of the prophets I have been likened. You indeed have sinned so greatly that you rejoiced in crime, and thought the multitude of your sins to be riches, and said: I have become rich, I have found an idol for myself; all my labors will not be able to find my sins. But I, the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt when you were serving Pharaoh and building cities of mud and straw, still grant you room for repentance, and by the greatness of my promises I exhort you to return to me; for I will yet make you sit in tabernacles as in the days of festivity. He calls the day of festivity Tabernacles, in the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, when the sons of Israel went out of Egypt. Just as, he says, at that time I set you free from Egypt, and you dwelt in tabernacles, hastening to the holy land and to the place of the temple, so now also I will bring you out of tribulation and distresses and the impending captivity, if only you do what I have commanded.

To those also who have been led astray by the heretics it is said that they should return to the Lord, who prefers the repentance of the sinner to his death; for he is the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that is, out of the darkness and error of the Gentiles. And lest perhaps, remembering their sin, they should return too slowly: I will yet, he says, make you sit in tabernacles, as in the days of festivity; so that what baptism does, repentance may do, and they may dwell in the tabernacles of the Savior, that is, in the Churches, of which it is said: Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of the house of our God.

For certain of these men used to see the prophetic Spirit and His active influences poured forth for all kinds of gifts; others, again, [beheld] the advent of the Lord, and that dispensation which obtained from the beginning, by which He accomplished the will of the Father with regard to things both celestial and terrestrial; and others [beheld] paternal glories adapted to the times, and to those who saw and who heard them then, and to all who were subsequently to hear them. Thus, therefore, was God revealed; for God the Father is shown forth through all these [operations], the Spirit indeed working, and the Son ministering, while the Father was approving, and man's salvation being accomplished. As He also declares through Hosea the prophet: "I," He says, "have multiplied visions, and have used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets." But the apostle expounded this very passage, when he said, "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of ministrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." But as He who worketh all things in all is God, [as to the points] of what nature and how great He is, [God] is invisible and indescribable to all things which have been made by Him, but He is by no means unknown: for all things learn through His Word that there is one God the Father, who contains all things, and who grants existence to all, as is written in the Gospel: "No man hath seen God at any time, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; He has declared [Him.]"

But that both the apostles and their disciples thus taught as the Church preaches, and thus teaching were perfected, wherefore also they were called away to that which is perfect-Stephen, teaching these truths, when he was yet on earth, saw the glory of God, and Jesus on His right hand, and exclaimed, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." These words he said, and was stoned; and thus did he fulfil the perfect doctrine, copying in every respect the Leader of martyrdom, and praying for those who were slaying him, in these words: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Thus were they perfected who knew one and the same God, who from beginning to end was present with mankind in the various dispensations; as the prophet Hosea declares: "I have filled up visions, and used similitudes by the hands of the prophets."

For it is I who through all the prophets and various kinds of visions have been likened to men, and have called you to repentance. Is it not of human likeness when Moses, raising his hands on high, prays that Joshua may conquer Amalek, and the mysteries of the cross are shown in him? Is not God likened in the hands of the prophets when Jonah is in the deep three days and nights, that he may signify the Lord rising from the underworld on the third day? And we read of visions multiplied in all the prophets, when Ezekiel sees God sitting like a charioteer above the cherubim. And Isaiah: I saw, he says, the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and two seraphim around him crying to one another: holy, holy, holy, Lord God Sabaoth. And Habakkuk stood on his watchtower, to see horns in the hands of the Savior, in which his strength is hidden. Hence the psalmist too cries out: I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me. And that we may know that every prophecy in the holy Scriptures is called a vision: And all the people, he says, saw the voice of the Lord; hence the prophets also were formerly called seers.

And lest they think that the heresiarchs and leaders of their error have spoken by the spirit of God: it is I, he says, who spoke to the prophets, and not to your masters; I multiplied visions, and in the hand of my prophets, who are established in the Church, I have been likened.

How is it, then, that John says, "No one has ever seen God"? He says this so that you may know that he is speaking of a clear knowledge and a perfect comprehension of God. All the cases cited were instances of God's condescension and accommodation. That no one of those prophets saw God's essence in its pure state is clear from the fact that each one saw him in a different way. God is a simple being; he is not composed of parts; he is without form or figure. But all these prophets saw different forms and figures. God proved this very thing through the mouth of another prophet. And he persuaded those other prophets that they did not see his essence in its exact nature when he said, "I have multiplied visions, and by the ministries of the prophets I was represented." What God was saying was, "I did not show my very essence, but I came down in condescension and accommodated myself to the weakness of their eyes." However, John does not say only of humanity that "no one has ever seen God." This was proved by what I have said—I mean by the prophetic utterance that states, "I have multiplied visions, and by the ministries of the prophets I was represented."

If Gilead is an idol, then in vain were they sacrificing to oxen in Gilgal; for their altars too are like heaps upon the furrows of the field. LXX: If Gilead is not, then the princes sacrificing in Gilgala were false, and their altars like tortoises upon the desert of the field. Where we have translated 'to oxen', which in Hebrew are called surim, the LXX translated 'princes', who are called sarim, deceived by the likeness and ambiguity of the word. Again, where we have put 'heaps', which in Hebrew are called gallim and properly signify θῖνας, that is, mounds gathered together out of sand, which, chiefly in the desert and on the shores, are either increased or diminished as the wind blows, the LXX translated 'tortoises', for which Symmachus rendered 'heaps of stones', Theodotion 'hills'. And indeed, if you look at θῖνας, they have the likeness of great tortoises in a desert field, or on banks and shores, rising a little above the ground. What he says, then, is this: if in Gilead, of which it is written: Gilead, a city of those who work an idol, supplanted with blood, the gods are false and the religion perverse, and it is beyond the Jordan where two tribes dwell, Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, then Gilgal too, of which we read in this same prophet: All their wickedness is in Gilgala, which is behind Beth-aven; whoever worship idols do not sacrifice oxen to the gods, but offer sacrifices to oxen, imitating the error of Samaria. For at the time when these things were prophesied, Gilead was in the kingdom of the ten tribes, and Gilgal under the rule of the two tribes, which were called Judah. Therefore both the ten tribes and the two were deceived by an equal error of idolatry, and their altars are like heaps and mounds gathered together of stones, or of sand. And since both these and those will have been led away into captivity, their once-altars, without worshippers, will have the likeness of tortoises or of mounds. But since Gilead is interpreted 'transference of testimony', and Gilgal 'wallowing place', we can say this: that the princes of the heretics transfer the testimonies of the truth into a lie, and whatever they worship is an idol, and their sacrifices have the likeness either of heaps gathered of stones or of tortoises. For just as θίνες and heaps are gathered here and there from stones and sand, so the heretics too compose images out of worldly wisdom and the subtleties of men, by fraud and falsehood. And when they have done this, they move with slow steps in one place, and cannot occupy the whole world. The tortoise, slow-footed and burdened, nay, weighed down by its own weight, does not so much walk as move, signifying the most grievous sins of the heretics, who sacrifice to their own errors in the mire and wallowing place of mud, adoring the works of their own hands, and, like oxen, toiling at everything for earthly crops.

Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept watch. But by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. LXX: And Jacob withdrew into the plain of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded; and by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. It seems that, without reason and without prophetic order, after the idol of Gilead and Gilgal and the altars like heaps of stones, he suddenly chose to narrate the history of Genesis concerning Jacob; which is at once resolved by one who remembers having read above concerning Jacob: In the womb he supplanted his brother, and in his strength he was made upright with the angel; and he prevailed over the angel and was strengthened; he wept and besought him: in Bethel he found him, and there he spoke with us. This Jacob, therefore, was not strengthened by the angel in vain; but because he fought the whole night and overcame his adversary, so that from this he might learn not to fear his brother, for fear of whom he was fleeing into Syria to Laban his mother's brother; and he served seven years for a wife, Rachel; and for Leah he guarded the sheep of his father-in-law Laban for the same span of years.

He will not err who says that Jacob the supplanter, and Israel who sees the Lord, went before as a type of the Lord; and that Rachel, at first barren and beautiful, whom Jacob loved most, signifies the Church; but that Leah, with bleary eyes and fruitful, shows the mysteries of the Synagogue; and that he himself led the people of believers out of the darkness of this world, and came to the sweetest streams of the Jordan, that is, of baptism.

And because he had once said both Jacob and Israel, he joins the father and the sons, and recalls the history that follows, when by the prophet Moses the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and the twelve tribes which were begotten of Israel were preserved, as the prophet led them out.

Ephraim provoked me to anger in his bitternesses, and his blood will come upon him, and his reproach his Lord will restore to him. LXX: likewise. Since, then, I had bestowed such great things on Ephraim that I brought him back rich and a lord, and the parent of many sons, who had been naked and an exile and alone, Ephraim deserted me, nay, provoked me to anger; and by his bitterness he made me bitter, who am sweet. Hence his blood will come upon him, that is: he himself will be the cause of his own death, according to what David says to the man who announced the death of Saul and related that the king of Israel had been slain by him: Your blood be upon your head. Not by my sentence, but by the blood of Saul will your blood be shed. And what follows: And his reproach the Lord will restore to him, agrees with that sense which Nathan speaks to David: You who have made the enemies blaspheme the name of the Lord, on account of this thing, that is, on account of this sin by which you killed Uriah, that very blasphemy and reproach, by which the Lord was blasphemed through you, will be turned upon your head. The heretics always provoke the merciful God to anger, and by the hardness of their heart they compel him who prefers the repentance of the sinner to his death to punish them; and their blood, by which they have shed both their own blood and that of many, will come upon their head; and the reproaches with which they have blasphemed the Lord, their Lord will restore to them, not that he is their Lord, but because he was once their Lord.