Hosea 13

But when the heretics speak, nay, the princes of the heretics, that is, Ephraim, horror and trembling will seize the unhappy people; and he will sin in the idols which he has fashioned from his own heart, and he dies with the people whom he has seduced.

When Ephraim spoke, horror seized Israel, and he sinned in Baal, and died; and now they have added to sinning, and have made for themselves a molten image of their silver, as it were the likeness of idols; the whole is the work of craftsmen; to these they themselves say: Sacrifice men, adoring calves. LXX: According to the word of Ephraim he himself received justifications in Israel, and placed them for Baal, and died; and now he has added that he might sin, and they made for themselves a molten image of their silver, after the image of idols, molten works of craftsmen; to these they themselves say: Sacrifice men, for the calves have failed. Where the LXX translated: sacrifice men, for the calves have failed, and we rendered: sacrifice men, adoring calves, Symmachus translated: sacrifice; let men adore calves; so that the sense is: Sacrifice, that is, offer sacrifice to idols, and let the pause fall up to this point; then: let men, a rational animal, adore calves, dumb living creatures. When Ephraim spoke, then, that is, Jeroboam son of Nebat of the tribe of Ephraim, horror seized Israel, that is, the ten tribes. For 'horror', which in Hebrew is called rathath, and which Symmachus and Theodotion translated 'trembling', the LXX, intending I know not what, translated δικαιώματα, that is, justifications. And so great a horror seized Israel that he sinned and offended God in Baal, and died, losing him who says: I am the life. The soul, for, that has sinned, it shall die. And the Apostle: The widow, he says, who lives in pleasures is dead while she lives. And not only did he die in Baal, but he added sins to sins, so that from the silver which the Lord had given idols were fashioned, the works of men's hands. To these they themselves say, that is, the priests and princes who ought to have taught the people good things: Sacrifice men, adoring calves; which indeed is also said in the psalms: They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. Where, following Symmachus and Theodotion, we rendered 'adoring', Aquila translated καταφιλοῦντες, that is, kissing. For those who adore are accustomed to kiss their own hand; which Job denies having done, saying: If I have kissed my hand, putting it to my mouth, let this too be reckoned to me as the greatest iniquity. But if, as some would have it, the demons say to the people: Sacrifice men, for the calves have failed, the gluttony of those is shown who are fed on the blood of victims and the smoke of burnt offerings; for, when the victims fail, they desire men to be sacrificed to them, in whose not only death but also gore they delight.

And it is not enough for him to have fallen, unless he turns the tongue which he had received for singing of God into images of idols, and with artful eloquence composes a dogma like the truth, which is nothing else but a contrivance of human depravity. And they instruct their disciples that they too should sacrifice men, that is, steal them from the Church of God and bring them in to the heretics, and kill those whom they have deceived. What follows: For the calves have failed, has this sense: Do not seek those whom you may seduce among the Gentiles, who are called brute animals; but seize those, sacrifice those, who, set within the Church, are reckoned by the name of Christ and are called men, according to that prophetic word: But choice foods.

Such, brethren, is our life, we whose existence is so transitory. Such is the game we play upon earth. We do not exist, and then we are born, and being born we are soon dissolved. We are a fleeting dream, an apparition without substance, the flight of a bird that passes, a ship that leaves no trace upon the sea. We are dust, a vapor, the morning dew, a flower growing but a moment and withering in a moment. "Man's days are as grass: as the flower of the field, so shall he flourish." How beautifully has holy David meditated on our weakness: "Declare unto me the fewness of my days."

Therefore they will be like a morning cloud, and like the morning dew passing away, like dust snatched by the whirlwind from the threshing floor, and like smoke from the chimney. LXX: likewise; changing only this, which is at the end: and like vapor from locusts, or from tears, because in most manuscripts we find ἀκρίδων (of locusts) set down, in others δακρύων (of tears). Because, he says, they sacrificed men in place of calves, and adored calves, therefore they will be like a morning cloud, and like the dew passing away in the morning, like dust snatched by the whirlwind from the threshing floor, and like smoke from the chimney. All these are seen for a time and suddenly vanish, according to what he had said: Samaria has made her king pass away like foam upon the face of the water. And again: As the morning passes, the king of Israel will pass away. And that a cloud or dew passes swiftly, and dust from the threshing floor, and smoke from the chimney, no one doubts, according to what is written: As smoke fails, let them fail. But we ask why the LXX, for 'chimney', which Theodotion translated καπνοδόχην, rendered 'locusts'? Among the Hebrews 'locust' and 'chimney' are written with the same letters, aleph, res, beth, he. If it is read arbe, it means locust; if orobba, chimney; for which Aquila translated καταράκτην, Symmachus 'opening'. Now a cataract is properly the name for an opening made in a wall, through which the smoke goes out. But if someone contentious and unwilling to accept the Hebrew truth should seek the sense of 'locust', let him hear that Ephraim is compared to ἀτμῷ, that is, to a vapor, or a breath and a breathing, which comes out of the mouth of a locust so thin that it is not perceived; but if, on the contrary, he objects, why did he not liken Ephraim, who was to perish, to other things which are smaller, for example to the flea, which has all its members, head, eyes, feet, belly and the rest, which, though we do not see them with our eyes, we nevertheless perceive by sense, so much so that the mouth and teeth of the flea, which we do not see with our eyes, we feel by its bites. He must be answered that he compared the glory of those who were to perish to the vapor of the locust, or to a most thin breath, for this reason: because the locust is harmful, and so hostile to mortals that it causes famine and lays waste the tilled crops, so much so that it strips the bark from trees and vines as well, as we read more fully in the prophet Joel. And to this locust, and to the morning cloud and the dew and the dust, the heretics are compared, of whom it is also said in the catholic epistle: These are clouds without water. For they have the appearance of prophets and of apostolic clouds, to which the truth of God comes; but they do not have waters, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, as the Lord says in the Gospel: He who believes in me, as the scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this, he says, he said of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive. But concerning the tears, which in the Greek tongue have some likeness to the locusts, δακρύων καὶ ἀκρίδων, the error is manifest, since some supposed 'tears' in place of 'locusts'.

For through the Lord Christ all things were created; and therefore it is His proper name that He should be the Creator. Does not both the reality and the title of His creative power belong to Him? Melchisedec is our witness, thus declaring God to be Creator of heaven and earth: "Blessed be Abraham of God most high, Who created heaven and earth." The prophet Hosea also is witness, saying, "I am the Lord thy God, that establish the heavens and create the earth, Whose hands have created all the host of heaven." Peter too is witness, writing thus, "Committing your souls as to a faithful Creator." Why do we apply the name of the work to the Maker of that work? Why do we give the same name to God and to our fellowmen? He is our Creator, He is the Creator of all the heavenly host.

But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. In place of which one reads in the LXX: But I am the Lord your God ÷ who make firm the heaven and create the earth, whose hand created all the host of heaven, and I did not show them to you, that you might walk after them. : And I brought you out of the land of Egypt. Since these words are not found in the Hebrew, and are rendered by none of the translators, and are not read in the ancient edition of the LXX either, they must be marked beforehand with an obelus; especially since their sense is plain. Let us therefore pass on to the rest, joining the preceding section to what follows:

But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God besides me, and there is no savior but me.

I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of solitude, according to their pastures; and they were filled and were satisfied; they lifted up their heart and forgot me. LXX: But I am the Lord your God, and I brought you out of the land of Egypt; and you shall know no God but me, and there is no savior besides me. I was pasturing you in the desert, in an uninhabitable land, according to their pastures; and they were filled to satiety, and their hearts were lifted up; therefore they forgot me. He who had said above: Jacob fled into the region 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 kept, now also recounts what he provided for them: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, who commanded you through Moses: take heed lest perhaps you eat and be satisfied, and forget your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt; for there is no other God besides me, and there is no other who is able to save.

The heretics too the Lord brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and out of the iron furnace, who at first served King Pharaoh and his captains; and he commanded them in the Church to know no other God except him who is the creator of all things and knows how to save those whom he made.

I, who am the founder of all things, knew you, or fed you, in the wilderness and in an uninhabitable land, where there is want of all things, where there are no waters; I gave you manna from heaven, and brought forth springs of water from the hardest rock. And they, according to what is written elsewhere: The beloved grew fat, became thick, grew broad, and kicked, now also have eaten and been satisfied, and have lifted up their heart, and have forgotten him whose benefits they ought to have remembered. For through so great a waste of desert, where not only no crops and trees and vines, but not even grass is produced, and no waters temper the heat of the sun, Israel could not for forty years have reached the land of the Jordan, unless the Lord had provided everything.

He himself knew them and fed them in the land of solitude, so that they could say: The Lord pastures me and I shall lack nothing; in a place of pasture there he has set me, he has brought me up beside the water of refreshment. And he gave them the bread of angels, manna from heaven, which they had never eaten in Egypt, and water from the rock that followed them. Now the rock, according to the Apostle, is Christ; and they ate and were filled, and did not endure the food of the Lord. To them the same Apostle says: Already you are satisfied, already you have become rich; without us you reign, and would that you did reign, so that we too might reign with you. For they ate in the holy Scriptures the bread that came down from heaven, and said with David: The uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made manifest to me. And being filled and satisfied, they lifted up their heart against the Creator, and invented another god for themselves, ascribing whatever they had drunk and eaten to their own merits, not to the mercy of God. Therefore they forgot God, who had commanded them to bind the words of the law between their eyes and on their hands, and on the fringes of their cloaks, so that they might never forget their God.

And I will be to them like a lioness, like a leopard on the way of the Assyrians; I will meet them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and I will tear apart the inner parts of their liver; and I will devour them there like a lion; the beast of the field will rend them. LXX: And I will be to them like a panther and like a leopard on the way of the Assyrians; I will meet them like a bear in want of food, and I will tear apart the inner parts of their heart; and the whelps of the forests will devour them there, the beasts of the field will tear them apart. They were filled and satisfied; they lifted up their hearts and forgot me. But I, he says, will be to them like a lioness, or a panther, of which we spoke more fully above; and like a leopard on the way of the Assyrians, when they are led captive by the Assyrians; and I will meet them like a bear robbed of her cubs, or in want of food; and I will tear apart all their vital organs. Those who have written on the natures of beasts say that among all wild animals nothing is more savage than a bear when she has lost her cubs or is in want of food; and he threatens not only the ferocity of the panther, the leopard and the bear, but also that of the lion and of all the beasts that are bred in the woodland pastures; and he says he will be turned into all these when they go to the Assyrians, so that, when they have suffered hard things there, they may not ascribe their miseries to the strength of their enemies, but to the power and indignation of the Lord. And at the same time let us consider that he who in the Gospel says to believers: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you; for my yoke is sweet and my burden is light, now through the prophet becomes to the unbelieving and to those unwilling to repent a panther, a leopard, a bear and a lion; not only to the Israelites, who because of their idolatry were settled in the cities or mountains of the Medes, but also to the heretics, who because of the pride of their mind and the vanity of their false dogmas have forgotten their God, and have fashioned and followed foreign gods.

In fulfillment of holy Writ, the truth has resounded through the voice of the apostles, for the psalmist has sung, "Their voice has gone forth unto all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." So also "Christ our Passover is sacrificed," for of him the prophet had foretold: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and he was mute as a lamb before its shearer, and he opened not his mouth." Who is this man? He is the man of whom the prophet at once goes on to say, "In humility his judgment was taken away; who shall declare his generation?" I recognize the realization of so much humility in a king of so much power, for he who is as a lamb that opens not its mouth before its shearer is also "the lion of the tribe of Judah." Who is this lamb and lion? He suffered death like a lamb, and he has devoured like a lion. Who is this lamb and lion? Meek yet courageous; lovable yet fearsome; innocent yet powerful; silent under judgment, yet roaring to pronounce judgment. Who is this lamb and lion—suffering like a lamb; rising up like a lion? Rather, is he not at the same time a lamb and lion in his suffering and his resurrection? Let us discern the lamb in the suffering. "He was," as we have just reminded you, "mute as a lamb before its shearer, and he opened not his mouth." Let us discern the lion in the suffering.

You have become a surfeit to me: I will by no means forgive your sins. For which Aquila translated, I have labored in bearing; Symmachus ἐκοπώθην ἱλασκόμενος, that is, I have grown weary of showing mercy; to show that he will by no means have mercy any longer, because it is one thing to kill the servants sent to them, another to kill the Son. This sense we read also in the prophet Hosea: Your destruction, O Israel; only in me is your help (Hos 13:9). Which is understood thus: You would perish, Israel, because you are saved not by your own merit but only by my help.

Your destruction, Israel; only in me is your help. Where is your king? Now above all they save you in all your cities; and your judges, of whom you said: Give me a king and princes; I will give you a king in my fury, and I will take him away in my indignation. LXX: Who will help your corruption, Israel? Where is this king of yours? And let him save you in all your cities; let him judge you, of whom you said: Give me a king and a prince; and I gave you a king and a prince, and I gave you a king in my anger, and I held him in my fury. Where the LXX translated I held, all the others rendered I took away. Unhappy Israel, and worthy of a perpetual curse, which has gone down into so great a depth of impiety that it is saved by the mercy of God alone! But in the Hebrew it can also be read in this sense: May you perish, Israel, because nothing is left to you except to be preserved by my clemency alone. In the LXX, however, the sense is different: Who will help your corruption, Israel? That is, which of those whom you thought your protectors will be able to bring help to your captivity and final servitude?

Every heretic is lost and given over to corruption; for whoever corrupts the temple of God, the Lord will destroy him; and he has help in nothing else but in the mercy of God alone, which he obtains by repentance.

Where is your king, of whom you said to Samuel: Appoint a king over us to judge us, as the other nations also have. And when he spoke against it, you answered: By no means; but there shall be a king over us, and we too shall be like all the nations, and our king will judge us, and go out before us, and fight for us. Let him, then, of whom you had promised yourself that he would fight your wars, now come to your aid in your need, and free all your cities from servitude. Where are your judges? Where are your kings? For you said: Give me a king and princes; and so I gave you Saul as king in my fury, so much so that in the days of harvest I displayed rain, contrary to the nature of the province of Judea. And I took away, he says, the king in my indignation, namely Zedekiah, so that the one I had given with fury I might take away with indignation. Others think that the king given in fury was Jeroboam son of Nebat, and the one taken away in indignation Hoshea, the last king of the ten tribes. This which we have expounded, I gave you a king in my indignation, and I took away the king, the Hebrews refer to the future tense. At that time, he says, when you were saying: Give me a king and princes, I answered you through Samuel that I would give you one in my fury and would take him away in my indignation.

His king and judges are the devil and the demons, or all the princes of perverse dogmas, who will not be able to free them in the time of need and distress, who were given in fury and will be taken away in indignation; not that the Lord wished them to have such kings, otherwise he would not take away those whom he had given of his own accord, but because he let them go after their own wills, so that, eating, and with their flesh grown fat, they might be nauseated and vomit it out through their nostrils, and begin to hate those whom they followed with such zeal.

Praise wicked King Saul, because he also was a punishment for sinners, as the Lord says: "I gave you a king in my wrath." Praise the demon that king suffered, because it also was punishment for a sinner. Praise the blindness of heart that has befallen Israel, and do not be silent about why it is said, "Until the full number of the Gentiles should enter," although you will perhaps deny this is a punishment. If you were a lover of the inner light, you would cry out that it is not merely a punishment but a very great punishment.

But let no one who suffers such a ruler, blame him whom he suffers: because his being subject to the power of a wicked ruler was doubtless of his own desert. Let him therefore rather blame the fault of his own evil doings, than the injustice of his ruler. For it is written, "I will give thee kings in Mine anger." Why then do we scorn their being set over us, whose authority over us we endure from the anger of the Lord? If then we receive rulers, according to our deserts, from the wrath of God, we infer from their conduct, what to think in our estimate of ourselves. Although even the Elect are frequently placed under the reprobate. Whence also David for a long time endured Saul. But it is proved by the subsequent sin of adultery, that he then deserved to be thus heavily oppressed by the cruelty of him who was set over him.

The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hidden; the pains of a woman in labor will come upon him; he is an unwise son; for now he will not stand in the crushing of the children. LXX: A gathering of iniquity is Ephraim; his sin is hidden; pains as of a woman in labor will come upon him; this is your wise son, because now he will not hold out in the crushing of the children. Just as, if something is bound up in a bag, it is kept, and is not lost to him for whom it was tied up, so every iniquity by which Ephraim has sinned against God is bound up for him, and is reserved, hidden as in a purse. Finally, when the day of vengeance has come, and the final captivity, pains as of a woman in labor will come upon him, or will seize him. A woman in labor knows long before she gives birth, from the time she conceived, that she is going to give birth, and daily awaits the extreme torments and agonies that are to come. So too Ephraim, the unwise son, of whom he had said above: Ephraim is a foolish dove, not having a heart in the crushing of his children and his people. When the day of labor and of captivity has come, he will be able neither to stand nor to endure. Instead of the unwise son, in the LXX one reads by irony: This wise son, that is: the one you thought wise, so that by contrast he may be understood as unwise. But for all the heretics their iniquity is bound up, which they have spoken on high; and their sin is hidden, while they think they hide the poisons of their heart and hold secrets, which, when the day of labor has come, will be laid open with pain and wailing. This Ephraim is an unwise son, because he has abandoned the wisdom of God, of whom it is also written in Jeremiah: His end will be foolish; and in the crushing of his children, whom he has killed, whom he has slaughtered, he will not be able to endure the wrath of God.

But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? [Hosea 13:14] The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

No one could know Wisdom; for no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Therefore, He Himself revealed to John with whom Wisdom was; and for this reason, he said, not as his own, but what Wisdom had infused in him: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Wisdom does not know destruction, it does not know wickedness. For destruction could not hold it, who said: Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

What is it the chaste person would like? That no lust at all should stir in the members against chastity. [The chaste person] wants peace but hasn't yet got it. I mean, when we get to the stage where no lusts at all rise up to be opposed, there won't be any more enemy for us to wrestle with; nor is there in that state any expectation of victory, because the triumph is being celebrated over the enemy already conquered. Listen to the apostle telling you about that victory: "The perishable must put on imperishability, and the mortal put on immortality; then will come about the saying that is written: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.' " Now listen to the song of triumph: "Where, O death, is your striving? Where, O death, is your sting?" You have stabbed, you have wounded, you have knocked down; but the one who made me was wounded for me. O death, death! The one who made me was wounded for me, and by his death he conquered you. And that's when those who triumph over you are going to say, "Where, O death, is your striving? Where, O death, is your sting?"

We have been brought to life in Christ through Christ, because Christ triumphed over death: whence death could not swallow him up, but rather the font of life swallowed up death, according to what was said: "I will be your death, O death." In no other way could we be healed and saved.

In spite of these words, we are so deeply affected that we fall into tears and the longing of desire crushes the beliefs of the mind. How miserable is the human lot! How vain is all our life without Christ! O death, that separates those who were joined, cruel and harsh in forcing apart those who were tied by friendship! Now, now your strength is destroyed. Now is that wicked yoke of yours broken by him who sternly threatened you in the words of Hosea: "O death, I will be your bite!" So let us with the apostle voice our taunt: "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" He who conquered you has redeemed us—he who betrayed his beloved soul into the hands of the wicked, that those who were once wicked he might make his beloved.

Yet again the same prophet says: From the power of the grave will I ransom them. Where is thy victory, O death! Where is thy sting, O grave!—a passage which the Apostle has used concerning the resurrection.

But that brazen serpent was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpents, not as a type of him that suffered for us but as a contrast. And [the brazen serpent] saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live but because it was killed, and killed with it were the powers that were subject to it, being destroyed as it deserved. And what is the fitting epitaph for it from us? "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" You are overthrown by the cross; you are slain by him who is the giver of life; you are without breath, dead, without motion, even though you keep the form of a serpent lifted up on a pole.

From this solemnity indeed the example of resurrection was given to us, the hope of the heavenly homeland was opened, and the glory of the supernal kingdom was made something we might already anticipate. Through this, the elect, who although they were in the bosom of tranquility, were nevertheless held in the confines of hell, were led back to the delights of paradise. What the Lord said before His passion, He fulfilled in His resurrection: "If I am lifted up from the earth," He said, "I will draw all things to myself." For He drew all things, He who left none of His elect in the underworld. He took away all things—that is, all the elect. For He did not restore to pardon by rising again any unbelievers or those consigned to eternal punishments for their crimes; but He snatched from the confines of hell those whom He recognized as His own in faith and in deeds. Whence rightly also He says through Hosea: "I will be your death, O death; I will be your sting, O hell." For what we kill, we cause to exist no more entirely. But from what we bite, we take away a part and leave a part behind. Therefore, because in His elect He utterly killed death, He became the death of death. But because He took away a part from hell and left a part behind, He did not utterly kill but bit hell. Therefore He says: "I will be your death, O death." As if He were saying openly: Because in my elect I utterly destroy you, I will be your death; I will be your sting, O hell, because when they have been taken away, I pierce you in part.

Whence rightly also He says through Hosea: "I will be your death, O death; I will be your sting, O hell." For what we kill, we cause to exist no more entirely. But from what we bite, we take away a part and leave a part behind. Therefore, because in His elect He utterly killed death, He became the death of death. But because He took away a part from hell and left a part behind, He did not utterly kill but bit hell. Therefore He says: "I will be your death, O death." As if He were saying openly: Because in my elect I utterly destroy you, I will be your death; I will be your sting, O hell, because when they have been taken away, I pierce you in part. What then is this solemnity which destroyed the confines of hell and opened to us the gates of the heavenly kingdom?

From the hand of death I will free them, from death I will redeem them. I will be your death, O death; I will be your bite, O hell. Consolation is hidden from my eyes, because he divides between brothers. LXX: From the hand of hell I will free them, from death I will redeem them; where is your cause, death? Where is your sting, hell? Consolation is hidden from my eyes, because he will divide between brothers. According to both understandings, both of Ephraim, that is, of the ten tribes, and of the heretics, who could not hold out in the crushing of their children when the pains as of a woman in labor came, the Lord promises that he will free them from the hand of death and redeem them from death. Now he calls the hand of death the works by which it kills, according to what is written: Death and life are in the hand of the tongue. And the Lord freed all and redeemed them in the passion of the cross and the shedding of his blood, when his soul went down into hell and his flesh did not see corruption; and to death itself and to hell he spoke: I will be your death, O death. For this is why I died, that you might die by my death. I will be your bite, O hell, you who devoured all in your jaws.

And seeing the hard necessity of death, and that there is no man who lives and does not see death, the most merciful Father remembers the ancient sentence, that in Adam we all die. Or the prophet, understanding his own frailty and the condition of human flesh: Consolation, he says, is hidden from my eyes; and the sense is: I am not able to be consoled; whatever I conceive in my mind cannot soften my grief, as I see names most dear to one another severed by death; hell itself, he says, divides between brothers. Whatever, then, separates brothers is to be called hell; and above all the harlot woman, who, calling the unwise man to herself, says in the wealth of prudence: Touch gladly the hidden loaves, and the sweetness of stolen water; and the unwise man does not know that the earth-born perish with her and run into the depth of hell. For whatever is not permitted is desired the more, and what is sweet through rarity is turned into bitterness through constancy. And honey drips from the lips of the harlot woman, which for a time makes the jaws of the unwise man fat, but at the last is found more bitter than gall, and sharper even than a two-edged sword. Whoever is earth-born, and is not born from heaven, is killed by her embraces and bound with the bands of her couches; and the feet of folly lead down those who make use of her, with death, to hell. Now between death and hell there is this difference: death is that by which the soul is separated from the body; hell is the place in which souls are shut up, whether in refreshment or in punishments, according to the quality of their merits. We have said this to show that death does what the harlot woman does. For death divides brothers, and the woman does this too. Under brothers understand every bond of love, so that mother also is divided from daughter, and father from son, and brother from brother. That death is one thing and hell another, the psalmist also shows, saying: There is no one in death who is mindful of you; but in hell who will confess to you? And in another place: Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell. Where we have translated: I will be your death, O death; I will be your bite, O hell, the LXX rendered: Where is your cause, O death? where is your goad, O hell? In place of which the Apostle put: Death is swallowed up in strife? Where, O death, is your strife? Where, O death, is your sting? And expounding the force of the testimony he added: Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore what he interpreted of the resurrection of the Lord, we neither can nor dare interpret otherwise. Death and hell can also be taken as the devil, who was slaughtered by the death of Christ, of whom it is also said in Isaiah: Death, growing strong, has devoured. And afterwards there follows: The Lord has taken away every tear from every face. But the two brothers divided from each other by death some understand, according to the history of that time, as Israel and Judah, so that what was then prefigured in part may now be perceived in the whole, and Israel and Judah are to be freed and redeemed together with the whole human race. In the place where the LXX rendered: where is your cause? and we said: I will be your death, Symmachus translated: I will be your stroke. The Fifth edition and Aquila: where are your words?, for in Hebrew it is written dabarach; they read dabar, that is, word, in place of deber, which is interpreted death, according to what we read in Isaiah: The Lord sent death into Jacob, and it came into Israel, that is, deber, in place of which we translated: The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it came into Israel, that is, dabar. For sting also, which we rendered bite, Symmachus translated ἀπάντημα, that is, an encounter, and Theodotion and the Fifth edition a stroke and a shutting-in.

Thus, if the glory of incorruptibility has been hidden from all people in this time, how do you, in this very same age, boast that you are able to be clothed with that very same incorruptibility? For just as sinking into sin has become for humans the beginning of corruption, so not having sin will be the beginning of incorruption. Who, therefore, concealed this prior to the judgment of God or removed it from the bosom of Christ and handed it over to you? Or do you perhaps think that a person would not merit this in the future from the hand of the Lord? That most distinguished man, Paul, teaches this and says, "But when this mortal thing has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying which is written, 'Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?' Now the sting of death is sin." Through this the apostle shows that by no means can anyone so scoff at death and sin, until immortality follows mortality, and incorruption, corruption, and when, with the destruction of weakness, perfect virtue succeeds it; when there will not be male and female, but when all will be similar to the angels of God.

Since it was fitting for Christ to die in order to deliver us from death, so it was fitting for Him to descend into hell in order to deliver us also from going down into hell. Hence it is written (Hosea 13:14): "O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite." Secondly, because it was fitting when the devil was overthrown by the Passion that Christ should deliver the captives detained in hell, according to Zechariah 9:11: "Thou also by the blood of Thy Testament hast sent forth Thy prisoners out of the pit."

Wherefore let us direct our discourse to a second witness. And of what sort is this one? Listen to Hosea, as he speaks thus grandly: "In those days the Lord shall bring on a burning wind from the desert against them, and shall make their veins dry, and shall make their springs desolate; and all their goodly vessels shall be spoiled. Because they rose up against God, they shall fall by the sword, and their pregnant women shall be ripped up." And what else is this burning wind from the east than the antichrist that is to destroy and dry up the veins of the waters and the fruits of the trees in his times, because people set their hearts on his works? For which reason they shall serve him in his pollution.

The Lord will bring a burning wind rising from the desert, and it will dry up its veins, and lay waste its spring, and he will plunder the treasure of every desirable vessel. LXX: The Lord will bring a burning wind from the desert upon them, and will dry up its veins, and lay waste its springs; he will parch its land and all the desirable vessels. I have read in the commentaries of a certain writer that the burning wind which the Lord will bring from the desert is the one that struck the house of Job at its four corners and made it fall upon his sons as they feasted, and that it is one of those winds which we read in the Gospel blow and come with whirlwind, rains and floods to overturn the house that is built upon the rock, or upon the sand. This by no means seems right to me; for it is not written in Job that the Lord brought the wind from the desert; rather, the name of the Lord is passed over in silence, so that the wind from the wilderness, which had come against the holy man of its own will, can be taken as a hostile power; and the winds that overturn the foundations of houses certainly cannot be referred to the good side. It remains that we understand the burning wind, which the Lord will bring rising from the desert, as the one of whom we also read in Habakkuk: God will come from the South, and the Holy One from Mount Paran, which is certainly situated in the wilderness and in the south. And in the Song we read: Where do you pasture, where do you lie down at midday? This burning wind, then, to dry up the veins of death and parch its springs, the Lord will bring rising from the desert; but from the desert of the human race, in which even the devil, seeking rest, could not find it. Or we understand the desert as the virginal womb of holy Mary, because without human seed it sprouted no shoot, but a rod, simple and most pure and fruitful in its oneness, brought forth that flower which says in the Song of Songs: I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. And beautifully, both in Isaiah and in the present place, it is called a flower rising and a wind rising, because from the lowliness of the flesh he climbed to the heights, and led us with himself to the Father, saying in the Gospel: When I have been lifted up, I will draw all things to myself. He himself will rise like a root from an uninhabitable land, and death will by no means come upon him, but he will come upon death; for death found in him no path for its power, and this is what is said in Proverbs: It is impossible to find the tracks of a serpent upon a rock. And the rock itself speaks in the Gospel: Behold, the prince of this world will come, and will find nothing in me. He will dry up the veins of death and lay waste its springs. The veins and springs and sting of death are named sins by the Apostle; and when these have been dried up, death itself also will be dried up. And what follows: He will plunder the treasure of every desirable vessel, is taken in two ways: either because they are desirable to those who dwell in death, or by the desirable vessels that were held in the treasury of hell we understand the saints, whom, bound as they were, the Lord perhaps plundered and carried off from hell, and led with him into paradise like most precious vessels. For treasure the LXX translated land; there is no doubt that the land signifies death. And in the psalms we read: I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. And according to the Gospel: The meek will possess the land. By contrast we must take it that the land of hell is not the land of the living but of the dead, which is plundered and laid waste when, by the death of Christ, the souls bound in hell are set free. According to tropology, in those same commentaries — of which we spoke above — we read that the burning wind is understood as the devil and the individual heresiarchs. This does not please us; for the devil cannot dry up the veins of death and the springs of error, since he himself is the source and beginning of the dead. Therefore the burning wind is to be understood as the word of the Church, which parches all the dogmas of the heretics and brings them to nothing, and plunders and scatters those who had been gathered together in death by the doctrine of the heretics.