Hosea 14

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have fallen in your iniquity. Take words with you, and return to the Lord; say to him: Take away all iniquity and receive the good, and we will render the calves of our lips. Assyria will not save us, we will not mount upon a horse; nor will we say any more: Our gods, the works of our hands; for you will have mercy on the orphan who is in you. LXX: Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have been weakened in your iniquities; take words with you and turn back to the Lord, say to him, so that you may not take up iniquity, but may receive good things; and we will render the fruit of our lips. Assyria will not save us, we will not mount upon a horse; by no means will we say any more: Our gods, to the works of our hands; he who is in you will have mercy on the orphan. Now that Samaria and its men are perishing, and its little ones and pregnant women have been slain, dashed down and ripped open, all Israel is called to repentance; so that he who has been weakened, or has fallen in his iniquities, may return to the physician and recover health, or that he who had fallen may begin to stand; and he is taught how he ought to repent.

To every perverse dogma also the prophet speaks daily, and calls its followers to repentance, saying: Return to the Lord your God, you who have fallen, or have grown weak, having lost the health of the Lord; take words with you, the true confession of faith, and say: Take away the iniquity that dwells in our heart, and receive the good of faith. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. The calves and victims, or the fruit of the lips, are to believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and in the passion and resurrection of the Lord; and whoever has offered this to him will by no means hope in the Assyrian king, of whom we have often spoken. Nor will he mount upon the horse which the Lord commands by no means to be multiplied, the horse with which Pharaoh was drowned together with his cavalry. For every heretic, through pride, mounts horses which he himself has bred in his error. And by no means will they any longer say to the works of their hands, which they themselves have fashioned with artful eloquence: our gods. The glutton's god is his belly, the covetous man worships mammon, the heretic, the dogma he has invented. Whoever deserts all these, that is, Assyria and the horse and the works of his hands, will return to the Lord, and will appease his father, by whom he had been cast off.

Take, he says, words with you, that is, prayers and the confession of sins, and return to the Lord as much by words as by works; and say to him: Take away all iniquity, leave in us nothing of our sickness and of our former ruin, lest the revived seedlings of an evil seed sprout again; and receive, he says, the good. For unless you take away our evils, we cannot have a good to offer you, according to what is written elsewhere: Turn away from evil and do good; and we will render, he says, the calves of our lips. For the calves, which in Hebrew are called pharim, the Seventy translated fruit, which is called pheri, through the likeness of a deceptive word. But the calves of the lips are praises to God and thanksgiving: For a sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit. Therefore, fleshly victims being already rejected at that time, the offering acceptable to God is pure confession.

Those who say that they will render the calves of the lips, and will sing the praises of God with unceasing voice, also promise something else: that they will by no means have hope in the Assyrians, nor upon Egyptian horses, because a horse is deceptive for safety, and that they will no longer worship the works of their hands, the golden calves which they cast in Dan and Bethel; and therefore they say: By no means will we say to the work of our hands: our gods, for you will have mercy on the orphan who is in you; that is, on the people of Israel, of whom you had said: Israel is my firstborn son. And: I have begotten sons and exalted them, but they have despised me. And in another place: Foreign sons have lied to me. Now he is called an orphan because he has lost God as his father. A certain writer has explained the orphan as him who has withdrawn from an evil father, the devil, and who is therefore lifted up by the mercy of God.

Do not be surprised that I view the people of the old covenant as pitiable and woeful. When so many blessings from heaven came into their hands, they thrust them aside and were at great pains to reject them. The morning Sun of justice arose for them, but they thrust aside its rays and still sit in darkness. We [the Gentiles], who were nurtured by darkness, drew the light to ourselves and were freed from the gloom of error. They were the branches of that holy root, but those branches were broken. We had no share in the root, but we did reap the fruit of godliness. From their childhood they read the prophets, but they crucified him whom the prophets had foretold. We did not hear the divine prophecies, but we did worship him of whom they prophesied. And so they are pitiful because they rejected the blessings that were sent to them, while others seized hold of these blessings and drew them to themselves. Although they had been called to the adoption of sons, they fell to kinship with dogs; we who were dogs received the strength, through God's grace, to put aside the irrational nature that was ours and to rise to the honor of sons.

I will heal their breaches, I will love them freely, for my fury is turned away from him; I will be like the dew. Israel will spring up like the lily, and his root will break forth like that of Lebanon; his branches will spread, and his glory will be like the olive, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon. Those who sit in his shade will be converted, they will live on wheat and will spring up like the vine. His memorial like the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? I will hear him and direct him; I, like a green fir tree; from me your fruit has been found. LXX: I will heal their dwellings; I will love them openly, for my anger is turned away from them; I will be like the dew. Israel will flower like the lily and will send out his roots like Lebanon; his branches will spread, and he will be like a fruitful olive, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon; they will turn back and sit under his shade; they will drink and be inebriated with grain, and his memorial will blossom like the vine, like the wine of Lebanon, Ephraim. What more has he to do with idols? I have humbled him and I will strengthen him, I am like a dense juniper; from me your fruit has been found. To those who have turned to repentance and, like an orphan, acknowledge the father whom they had left, God answered: I will heal the breaches, or their dwellings, in which they had been wounded, or broken, or in which they had dwelt badly: I will love them freely; which the LXX translated ὁμολόγως, plainly and openly or without any doubt. Now the Lord loves those who love him, of whom he also says in another place: I love those who love me. For I, who before was angry with them because of the sins they had committed, will now have mercy because of my clemency.

Whatever we have interpreted according to ἀναγωγὴν (anagogy) of the coming of the Lord the Savior and of the conversion of the true Israel, this can be referred as much to heretics and Jews as to the Gentiles and to every perverse dogma, so that when they have repented they may obtain pardon. If, therefore, the fullness of the promise was fulfilled at the coming of the Savior, and is fulfilled daily in the Church, we must believe that it will be fulfilled more fully when, perfection having come, what is now in part will be done away. We must note what we have often said: that the salvation of Israel and of the return to God, and the redemption from captivity, are to be taken not carnally, as the Jews think, but spiritually, as is most truly proved.

This is our Faith. Thus did God will that He should be known by all, thus believed the three children, and felt not the fire into the midst whereof they were cast, which destroyed and burnt up unbelievers, whilst it fell harmless as dew upon the faithful, for whom the flames kindled by others became cold, seeing that the torment had justly lost its power in conflict with faith. For with them there was One in the form of an angel, comforting them, to the end that in the number of the Trinity one Supreme Power might be praised. God was praised, the Son of God was seen in God's angel, holy and spiritual grace spake in the children.

And I will be to them like the dew; so that with my dew I may quench the Babylonian furnace and the oven of the blazing fire, I who also through the patriarch Isaac spoke to my servant Jacob: Of the dew of heaven shall your dwelling be. For just as the Lord becomes to believers light, way, truth, bread, vine, fire, shepherd, lamb, door, worm, and the rest; so for us who need his mercy, and burn with the fevers of sins, he is turned into dew, he to whom Isaiah says: For the dew that is from you is their health. And in the song of Deuteronomy Moses speaks: Let my words descend like the dew. And when the Lord has sprinkled us with his dew, and has watered the dryness of our breast with his rains, we will spring up, nay, we will flower like the lily, imitating the Lord the Savior, who says in the Song of Songs: I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys; and he speaks to his bride, who has no wrinkle or spot: As the lily in the midst of thorns, so is my nearest one in the midst of the daughters. And when we have grown in the Lord, we will send out our roots like the trees of Lebanon, which sink their root into the depths as far as they rise with their top into the air, so that they are shaken by no storm, but stand firm in their steady bulk.

The branches of these trees stretch this way and that, so that the birds of heaven may come and dwell in them. And lest perhaps we should think, because he had said: his root will break forth, or: he will send out his roots like Lebanon, that he was speaking of cedars and unfruitful trees, he compares the holy man, converted to the Lord, to the fruit-bearing olive, the man who says in another place: But I am like a fruitful olive in the house of God. Its fruit the five wise virgins prepared for themselves; by it the swelling of wounds is soothed, the limbs of the sick find rest, light is kindled in darkness, those who contend in the contest are anointed. This olive will have a fragrance like that of Lebanon, or of frankincense, which is a kind of incense: ὁμωνύμως (by the same name) among the Greeks and the Hebrews both the mountain and frankincense are so called; or at least like that of Mount Lebanon, which, most fertile and green, is covered with the densest foliage of trees, so that the olive can say: We are the good fragrance of Christ.

But those who have been converted to the Lord will receive the reward of their conversion, that they may sit in his shade and say: Under his shade I rested and sat, and his fruit is sweet in my mouth. And when they have sat in his shade, those who before had been dead will live; or, according to the Seventy, they will drink and be inebriated with wheat, that is, with an abundance of all things. That inebriation here signifies not the overturning of the mind but a plenty of all things, that little verse declares, saying: You have visited the earth and inebriated it. And the banquet of Joseph, at which he is said to have inebriated his brothers. And the Lord, speaking to the apostles: Eat, friends, and drink, and be inebriated, brothers. Or, because the Lord himself is the grain and the vine, whoever believes in him is said to be inebriated. Finally there follows: And it will flower like the vine, his memorial like the wine of Lebanon. Now we can call wine of Lebanon wine mixed and seasoned with incense, so that it has a most sweet fragrance; or the wine of Lebanon is the wine poured out to the Lord in the temple, of which we read in Zechariah under the name of Lebanon: Open your gates, O Lebanon.

Since, therefore, so great an abundance of all things is to come, O Ephraim, everyone who repents and who has begun to be mine, put away idols, despise images; for I am he who humbled you, and I will exalt you; or, I will hear and direct, and I will make him like a green fir tree, so that of him it may be said in the psalm, according to the Hebrews: The fir tree is its house. Or at least, I will be like a dense juniper, so that he may rest under my shade. Of ἀρκεύθοις, that is, of junipers, according to the Seventy translators, Solomon is recorded to have made the doors of the temple, because Christ, through whom we come to the Father, has this nature, that he always flowers, always bears new fruits, and never lays aside his greenness. This juniper, for those who rest under its shade, so that they may not be struck by the burning of this world and the heat may not strike their head, as it once struck Jonah's too, gives fruits, and provides not only rest to those who sleep and sit, but also fullness to those who eat.

Holy people have never testified that they attained by their effort the right path to travel on as they made their way to the increase and perfection of virtue. Rather they would plead to the Lord and say, "Direct me in your truth," and, "Direct my way in your sight." Another one declares that it is not by faith alone but also by experience and, as it were, in the very nature of things that he has seized upon this, [saying], "I have known, O Lord, that a person's way is not in him, nor is it in a man to walk and to direct his own steps." And the Lord himself says to Israel, "I will direct him like a green fir tree; from me your fruit has been found."

It is only by deeply considering the matters in the divinely inspired Scriptures that we shall find the hidden truth. It would be fitting for us when looking into the dark shadows of the law to say what one of the holy prophets rightly said, "Whoever will be wise will understand these things; and whoever will be prudent will know them." "For the law is but a shadow of the good things to come, and not the exact image of the objects," as it is written. Yet the shadows bring forth the truth, even if they do not contain the whole truth in themselves. Because of this, the divinely inspired Moses placed a veil upon his face and spoke thus to the children of Israel, all but shouting by this act that a person might behold the beauty of the utterances made through him, not in outwardly appearing figures but in meditations hidden within us.

Who is wise, and will understand these things? Understanding, and will know these things? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just will walk in them, but transgressors will fall in them. LXX: Who is wise, and will understand these things, or understanding, and will know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just will walk in them; but those who are impious will be weakened in them. When he says: Who is wise, and will understand these things? understanding, and will know them? he shows the obscurity of the book and the difficulty of its explanation. But if he himself who wrote it confesses that it is either difficult or impossible, what can we do, who, with bleary eyes darkened by the filth of sins, cannot gaze upon the brightest radiance of the sun, except say what is written: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and unsearchable his ways! For who, without Christ teaching him, can know what Jezreel signifies, what his sister Not Obtained Mercy, what the third brother Not My People; who the adulteress is, who is to sit for a long time without the law of God; what the covenant with the beasts of the earth and with the birds of heaven is; who the David is to whom the people is to return, whose resurrection is on the third day and whose going forth is compared to the dawn; what the first and the last rain are; who he is whom the prophet says is to come, to show us righteousness, or in whose type Israel is led out of Egypt, and carried in arms, and led with the cords of love; who he is who slays death, and dries up its veins and parches its springs, and plunders the vessels that were kept stored in the treasury, and the rest, which it would take long to go over again? Hence whoever is holy and just will know that the ways of the Lord are right. Now we know that the ways of the Lord are the reading of the Old and New Testament, the understanding of the holy Scriptures. Whoever walks in these ways, unless he is converted to the Lord and the veil which was before the eyes of Moses has been taken away from him, will not be able to find the right road. But if he says with David: Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law, he will walk in them, and will find Christ; and he will perceive that the Jews and the heretics, whom Scripture here names either transgressors or impious, stumble in them, and are weakened and fall; according to what is written: Behold, this one is set for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel.

If any reader is "a spiritual man who judges all things and he is judged by no one," not only will he allegorize the major regions as Judea and Egypt and Babylon but also areas of the earth. And just as in Judea is Jerusalem and Bethlehem and other cities, so in Egypt when he reads, "Diospolis, Bubastis, Taphnis, Memphis, Syene," he will understand the meaning of things figuratively. "Who is wise and understands these things? Or who is understanding and will know them?"

And to such a degree does the gospel desire that there should be wise people among believers, that for the sake of exercising the understanding of its hearers, it has spoken certain truths in enigmas, others in what are called "dark" sayings, others in parables, and others in problems. And one of the prophets—Hosea—says at the end of his prophecy, "Who is wise, and he will understand these things? Or prudent, and he shall know them?"

You could really demonstrate that a wise and understanding person is the one with knowledge of what has been said and with zeal for the things by which it is possible for people who avoid evil and zealously practice good to be established in freedom from lower things and in enjoyment of higher things. This is because everything done by God is marked by great correctness, with which he also applies punishment to the fallen and knows how to achieve their salvation when they repent. You could also demonstrate that the righteous are those of their number who also know how to profit from each category and who develop greater self-control from the punishments, on the one hand, while taking the enjoyment of the good things stemming from repentance as a stimulus to virtue, on the other. You could also demonstrate that the impious are those who deserve troubles in every way and of every kind, gaining nothing from them, stuck fast in a downward direction, and as a result not able to understand anything of their duty.