Hosea 9

Do not rejoice, Israel, do not exult like the peoples, for you have played the harlot away from your God; you have loved a payment upon all the threshing floors of wheat. The threshing floor and the winepress will not feed them, and the wine will deceive them. LXX: Do not be glad, Israel, and do not rejoice like the peoples, for you have played the harlot away from your God; you have loved gifts upon every threshing floor of wheat. The threshing floor and the winepress did not know them, and the wine has deceived them. Those who have departed from God, when they have come into the depth of sins and have despaired of their salvation, will despise everything. Finally Israel too, departing from the law of God and worshiping idols, says that he is one nation out of many nations, rejoicing and congratulating himself that he has departed from the knowledge of God and is a nation mingled with the rest; and therefore he now rebukes them and says: Do not be glad, do not rejoice, and do not think that you are such as the other nations are. For one who does not know God is punished in one way, one who departs from God in another, because the servant who knows the will of his master and does not do it will be beaten with many stripes.

It is said also to the heretics, that they should not exult and rejoice and think themselves like the other nations. For those did not believe in God; but these, under the name of God, worship idols and play the harlot away from their God; and they multiply for themselves many threshing floors and countless winepresses, and they eat the wheat from which the bread of mourning is made, and drink the wine of Sodom, which is trodden out with the gall of asps. And because they prepare for themselves many winepresses and many threshing floors, therefore they will not eat from the true and only threshing floor, nor drink from the winepress which the Lord Jesus trod; but whatever they think they have will be corrupted by falsehood.

It is not fitting for you to rejoice and exult like the rest of the peoples. For they did not receive any teaching which might lead them to piety, but you, after much instruction and knowledge of God, rebelled against the knowledge which had been given to you because of the depravity of your opinion, and turned to the worship of the idols.

You have reckoned many threshing floors and winepresses as the payment for your fornication, so that you might enjoy an abundance of all things; therefore the threshing floor and the winepress will not produce wheat and wine, and the winepress will deceive them, or will deny its wine, with which they thought they would be made drunk. We read that under Ahab king of Israel, and Elijah the prophet, there was a most severe famine in Samaria, so that mothers fed on the corpses of their own sons. At that time, according to the letter, the threshing floor and the winepress did not feed them, and the wine deceived them, and they wasted away in want.

They will not dwell in the land of the Lord; Ephraim has returned into Egypt, and among the Assyrians he has eaten what is polluted. They will not pour out wine to the Lord, and their sacrifices will not please him; like the bread of mourners, all who eat it will be defiled, because their bread, their own soul, will not enter into the house of the Lord. LXX: They did not dwell in the land of the Lord; Ephraim dwelt in Egypt, and among the Assyrians he ate what is unclean; they did not pour out wine to the Lord, nor did their sacrifices please him, because it is to them the bread of mourning; all who eat them will be defiled; because the loaves of their souls will not enter into the house of the Lord. Not only did the threshing floor and the winepress fail to feed them, and the wine lie in the land of Israel, when for three years and six months everything perished, but the inhabitants themselves also will depart from the land of the Lord; and they will be led into a foreign land, so that they may not dwell in the holy land which they have polluted with their fornications. Ephraim has returned, he says, into Egypt, and among the Assyrians he has eaten what is polluted. From this place some have added above: and among the Assyrians he has eaten what is polluted, which is not found in the Hebrew, and about which we have already spoken.

They will not dwell in the land of the Lord who have departed from the Church, and have returned in mind into Egypt, and eat the sacrifices of the Assyrians, that is, of demons; nor do they pour out to the Lord the wine with which they have been made drunk unto luxury, and neither the things they offer nor they themselves who offer please him. The sacrifices of the heretics are the bread of mourning and of tears; for all that they do will be turned into weeping. Nor will they be able to hear: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted; but on the contrary they will hear: Woe to those who laugh, for they shall mourn. Whatever they offer, they offer not to God but to the dead, namely to those who have contrived wicked heresies; and whoever eats of their victims will be defiled. The blind will be led into the pit by the blind. Whatever they do, they do for the sake of delights, to deceive the people, to devour the houses of widows. We can call the bread of mourning the deadly words with which they speak iniquity against the Lord; and this bread does not enter into the house of God; for the conventicles of the heretics are called not the house of God, but dens of robbers.

Let not the people flatter themselves as if they could be safe from contagion of sin, communicating with a sinful priest and yielding their obedience to the unjust and unlawful episcopacy of their leader, when the divine censure threatens through the prophet Hosea and says, "Their sacrifices shall be like the bread of mourning: all who eat them shall be defiled." [This] teaching obviously [shows] that all are indeed involved in sin who have been contaminated by the sacrifice of a blasphemous and unjust priest.

Having collected the fruit of the vine into the wine-vats, they offered the firstlings as a libation to the demons, and not to the God who gave them. They also offered loaves of bread as firstfruits of the harvest—except that the sacrifice will become for them defiled and impure, he says, and the offerings will be considered as mourning breads (that is, disgusting, impure and odious). For what reason? For the law considered unclean anyone who approached a dead body either by blood relationship or rather by the very touching of the body. Therefore it was easy for the relatives or friends of the dead person to become unclean during mourning, since they handled the dead body and since they were willing to do for him what was customary. And whatever they touched became unclean. Therefore the mourning bread is that bread which was at hand as food for those who were mourning for the dead; for those who strive to avoid contamination with a dead body it is considered terrible even to taste this bread. Wherefore the breads themselves are defiled and rejected, even though they may have been offered as firstfruits of the harvest. "Those who eat them will become unclean." They will be useful only to their souls, that is, as a food for them.

But when they are in Chaldea without a temple and without an altar, they will not pour out wine to the Lord, but to demons; and they will not please him, those who pour out to foreign gods, and who are held in captivity and among the Assyrians eat things sacrificed to idols, and are like the bread of mourners. For it is not lawful to eat of the sacrifices of mourners, and if anyone eats, what was offered becomes unclean. The Greeks call the suppers of mourners περίδειπνα; we can call them parentalia, from the fact that they are offered for dead parents. And not only he who has offered, but also he who has eaten of food of this kind will be unclean; for their bread, that is, the food which they offer, will not enter into the house of the Lord, which has been destroyed, which has been burned with Babylonian fire; but it will be for their own soul. And the sense is: they provide for their own gullet and their own pleasure; but polluted things do not please me.

What will you do on the solemn day, on the day of the festival of the Lord? For behold, they have set out from the devastation; Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them; the nettle will inherit the desirable things of their silver, the bur will be in their tents. LXX: What will you do on the day of assembly and on the day of the solemnity of the Lord? Therefore behold, they will go from the misery of Egypt, and Memphis will receive them, and Michmash will bury them; destruction will possess their silver, thorns will be in their tents. When the day of captivity comes, he says, and the most savage enemy falls upon you, what is my solemnity? What victim do I hold as propitious? That he avenges me on my enemies, and puts a limit to wrong, and scourges the impious sons. What then will you do on the day of the festival of the Lord? Answer. And while they are silent, he answers himself, or rather he beholds with divine eyes what they are going to do.

It is said also to the heretics: When the solemn day comes, what are you going to do? For solemn day Aquila has translated time. From which it is manifest that it does not mean a festal day, but the time of retribution; for at once there follows: The days of vengeance have come, the days of your retribution have come. Behold, you have been laid waste by many enemies: the Assyrians and the Chaldeans have slaughtered you, you have fled to the world, and have been made like the other nations; there Memphis will bury you, which is interpreted from the mouth; and the sense is: you will receive according to your blasphemies, and what you have spoken you will feel in your punishments; the desirable things, that is, the dogmas which you had composed for yourselves with crafty eloquence, which is what silver signifies, the nettle will possess, which will consume you with eternal burning; and the bur or thorn will be in your tents; for thorns spring up in the hands of those who have been made drunk with the Babylonian cup. And in the Gospel we read that shameful thoughts and the cares of this world, and the vices that cling to us, are called thorns, which choke the grain as it rises among the grasses.

Behold, he says, when misery and devastation pressed upon them, and the Assyrian and the Chaldean were eager to bind them as captives, they fled to Egypt. There Memphis will bury them, which at that time was the metropolis of Egypt, before Alexandria, which was formerly called No, received both the greatness of a city and its name from Alexander of Macedon. But what is said in the Seventy: Michmash will bury them, is not found in the Hebrew; but rather mamad, which is called desirable. From which it is clear that they were deceived by the similarity of the letters daleth and chaph, and in place of mamad, which all have translated desirable, they thought it was Michmash, a city of Egypt. We can also take what is said: For behold, they have set out from the devastation; Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them, of the tribe of Judah; when, after Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had set over the land, was killed by Ishmael, the remnant of the people fled over to Egypt with Jeremiah the prophet, and there, when the Chaldeans afterwards pursued them, they were either taken captive or buried. And by the desirable things of their silver, which the nettle possesses, we shall understand country houses and all the adornments of country houses, which are bought at the price of silver. And what follows, the bur will be in their tents, signifies a long devastation, so that where once there were houses, there burs and nettles and thorns spring up.

The days of visitation have come, the days of retribution have come; know, Israel, that you are a foolish prophet, an insane spiritual man; because of the multitude of your iniquity, and the multitude of madness. LXX: The days of vengeance have come, the days of your retribution have come, and Israel will be afflicted like a raving prophet, a man who had the spirit; because of the multitude of your iniquities, your madness has been multiplied. In this place too there is the usual error: for where we have translated: know, Israel, that is, Israelites, and in the Hebrew is read iadau, the Seventy translated: and will be afflicted, taking the letter iod for vau, and reading res for daleth; of which the one means knowledge, the other affliction or malice. Therefore the days of visitation have come, of which he had said above: What will you do on the solemn day, on the day of the festival of the Lord? The days of retribution have come. O Israel, now recognize your own words, you who used to call the prophet who told you true things, and prophesied by the Holy Spirit, a fool and insane, according to what the princes said to Jehu in Ramoth-gilead: Why did this madman come to you? Therefore, because of the multitude of your iniquities, in which you have long run riot in wickedness, recognize that it is not my prophet, but you, who are a madman, you who labored to this end, that you might trample on my words. For madness Aquila rendered ἐγκότησιν, which in Latin we can call either wrath or the memory of a grievance. The day of vengeance and retribution some interpret as the day of judgment, when Israel will be afflicted, who now boasts that he sees God, and is not ruled by the Holy Spirit, but is carried about in various directions by a demonic one, not knowing what he says, and calling the Son of God a creature, denying that the Holy Spirit is God; and again asserting that the good God is one, the creator of the world another; and their madness is manifold, because their iniquities too were very many. Whom we have called a foolish prophet, the Seventy have translated a false prophet. And lest, by often repeating the same things, we seem to distrust the reader's prudence, we briefly advise that whatever is said in this prophet about Israel and about Ephraim is to be referred to the heretics, who, truly raving, speak lies against God.

"Ephraim is a sentinel with my God," that is, Israel was established by God, he says, so that he might receive the truth and watch over honorable feasts, and that he might be, as is the true prophet, with the help of God, the teacher of the others. But Israel, like a false prophet, has dissuaded others from the truth. The Greek [says], "The sentinel of Ephraim was with God, [yet] the prophet has become a deceptive trap in every path." In fact, the prophet was a sentinel with a god in this manner: each of the gods with a false name had his own false diviner, and those, through their heresies, differed from each other in many ways. Some worshiped Baal, some others Chemosh or Baal-Peor; and there was an idol in each temple, and by each of them an appointed false prophet sat. And finally, the ways of worship and divination differed among them.

The watchman of Ephraim with my God, the prophet, has become a snare of ruin over all his ways; madness in the house of his God; they have sinned deeply, as in the days of Gibeah; he will remember their iniquity and will visit their sins. LXX: The watchman of Ephraim with God, a prophet; a crooked snare over all his ways; they contrived madness in the house of God; they have been corrupted according to the days of the hill; he will remember their iniquities; he will take vengeance upon their sins. God gave princes for this purpose, that they might correct the people when it transgressed, and draw it back to the right road. Whence he also says to Ezekiel: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Therefore Jeroboam was given among the people as a watchman, and as a prophet with my God, that is, with God, who speaks these things to Hosea. But he, according to what is written above: You have become a snare to the watch and a net spread out over Tabor; and you have turned aside victims into the depth, is even now called a snare of the people of Israel, because all fall in his snare, especially since he has set up, or contrived, madness in the house of God, that is, made the golden calf in Bethel, for this is interpreted house of God; and has sinned so deeply in wickedness, and has thus been sunk in the abyss of impiety, that he surpasses the crime which was once committed in Gibeah, when they killed the wife of the Levite returning from Bethlehem by unlawful intercourse.

Searching the ancient histories, I cannot find that any have rent the Church and led peoples astray from the house of the Lord, except those who had been appointed by God as priests and prophets, that is, watchmen. These, then, are turned into a crooked snare, placing a stumbling block in all places, so that whoever enters by their ways falls, and cannot stand in Christ, and is drawn away by various errors and carried by crooked paths to the precipice. These are the watchmen of Ephraim, who have contrived madness in the house of the Lord, that is, in the Church, or in the holy Scriptures, interpreting them perversely, or at least in each one of the believers, who is most rightly named the house of God. Therefore they have been corrupted and have perished according to the days of the hill, when they spoke iniquity against the heights and went up on vain roofs. God will remember their iniquity, by which they acted wickedly against their neighbor, leading him out of the Church, and he will visit their sins, by which they have sinned against their own souls. This is what we read in the psalm: Beside the path they have set a stumbling block for me. For unless one has seen the path of God, that is, has heard the name of Christ, he will not enter upon it. Therefore the heretics too, under the name of Christ, have set snares beside the path, so that he who believes that he walks in Christ, of whom we read that he himself is the way, may tread also in the snares of those who have contrived madness in the house of God.

We can also take the days of Gibeah as that time when, in place of God, they chose for themselves a king from the city of Gibeah, that is, Saul. And he says that they have now sinned much more greatly by choosing Jeroboam and worshiping idols than at the time when they chose Saul; for here idolatry too was joined to schism, but there the worship of God remained among the people. Therefore he will remember their iniquity, he who is now thought, because of his patience, to have forgotten, and he will visit their sins, and the wounds which have long festered.

Similarly, the law of the Old Testament, which we said the image of the fig tree represented, threw away the first Jewish people who were useless, that is, sinful and wicked. When these sycophants, to use the Greek word, had been rejected, that is, the conceited and worthless Israelites, there created for Christ through grace as its mother, the rich and fruitful Christian people who were further brought to perfect knowledge of the gospel. Although there is a genus of fig trees that brings its first fruits to maturity, called double bearing, it may signify those of whom it is said, "The Lord loved those figs as his precursors." The patriarchs are the precursors.

Like grapes in the desert I found Israel; like the first fruits of the fig tree at its top I saw their fathers; but they went in to Baal-peor and were estranged unto confusion; and they became abominable like the things they loved. LXX: As a grape in the desert I found Israel, and as an early fig on the fig tree I saw their fathers; but they went in to Baal-peor, and were estranged unto confusion; and they became abominable like the beloved. For which in other copies we read: and the beloved became as abominable, which agrees better with the truth. When the whole world was a desert and did not have the knowledge of God, I found, he says, the people of Israel like a grape in the wilderness; and how he found it, he says: Like the first fruits of the fig tree, at its top I saw their fathers. Therefore the people was found in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And note the exactness of the language: the parents are seen, the people is found; and in both there is the vine and the fig tree, under which he who trusts in the Lord is said to rest. But they, when they had been brought out of Egypt, committed fornication with the Midianites, and went in to Baal-peor, the idol of the Moabites, whom we can call Priapus. Indeed, Baal-peor is interpreted (that is, the idol of lust) as having in its mouth, that is, at its top, a skin, so as to display the shamefulness of the male member. And because they went in to Baal-peor, therefore they were estranged from God, made over as slaves to their confusion, that is, to the idol; so that they worshiped that for whose sake they had departed from God, according to what is written: For by whatever one is overcome, of that he is also the slave; and just as those who serve the gullet have their belly as their God, so those who serve lust have Baal-peor as their God. And they became, he says, abominable, like the things they loved, according to what is written in the psalms: Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them, so that they are called not only idolaters, but idols. Moreover, the Lord says in his passion: I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the nations there was no man with me. And in the psalm: Save me, O Lord, for the holy one has failed. When the whole world was held in sin, the nations did not know God, and Israel had rejected him whom it had known before, the Lord found, first in the apostles and in apostolic men, Israel, the Christian people, and seeing God with the mind; and he was satisfied with their sweetest fruits, the grape and the fig, which, if they are found in the desert and when the time is not yet ripe, are of greater delight because of their rarity. But they, that is, Israel, who take to themselves the Christian name — for it is not to be understood of the fathers — went in to the idol Baal-peor, which has a skin in its mouth. For whatever the heretics speak is deadly, and separated from the living word of God. Or they went in to lust; for it is difficult to find a heretic who loves chastity; not that he ceases to put it forward on his lips, but that he does not keep it in his conscience, saying one thing and doing another; whence they have both been estranged from God, and have glory in their confusion, and have become abominable, they who were formerly loved in their fathers. But if we wish to read: they became abominable like the beloved, which however is not found in the Hebrew, we say that the Gentiles, who are abominable, have become so, in the same way as the heretics also, who were formerly loved in their fathers; that is, so that both the one and the other are equally abominable and guilty of the fault.

Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes, has flown away like a bird into captivity and has departed from its place. And he called it a bird to show its swift passage into Babylon. But if we read, like a bird their glory has flown away, we say this, that the help of God has departed from them and flown away. And what follows, from birth and from the womb and from conception, can be understood in two ways: that the glory which has flown away from Ephraim departs also from their birth and from their womb and from their conception, that is, it deserts their sons and abandons their descendants. Or at least we say that Israel had all his glory in his multitude, and in this he thought himself greater than Judah his brother, because he was set over ten tribes, the other over two.

But let us say according to tropology that Ephraim, that is, the heretics, has departed from the Church like a bird, and has all his glory in birth and in the womb and in conception, if they have begotten many sons, whom the Lord threatens, even if they have been reared, to be punished as well, and not by any other whatever, but by the Lord himself, since they have begotten sons of fornication; and a true woe will be upon them when God has departed from them. And at the same time he unfolds what Ephraim was: when he was in the Church, he says, he was beaten by the temptations of this world as Tyre is by the waves of the sea, and yet he could suffer nothing adverse, because he had the foundation of Christ, upon which a house that is built cannot be overthrown. But now he leads out his sons to the slayer, that is, to the devil. And he said finely: he leads out, that is, he makes them go outside from the Church. We can call the sons of Ephraim the worst thoughts and the dogmas contrary to the truth, which the Lord slays with the spirit of his mouth, and he does not suffer them to have such children, and he abandons them to eternal destruction. But what we read in the Seventy: My flesh is from them, Ephraim, as I saw, has offered his sons for a hunt, we understand thus: If Christ is the head of the body, that is, of the Church, we are all members of Christ and of the Church. He, then, who departs from the Church tears the body of Christ; therefore Ephraim was the flesh and a member of the Lord the Savior. But he offered his sons for a hunt, and for the hunt of those of whom it is written: Our soul has been snatched like a sparrow from the snare of the hunters. And he led out his children from the Church to slaughter, or to be wounded, so that they are wounded by those who shoot burning arrows, so as to strike and burn at the same time.

God is not ashamed to take flesh from such members, for he framed these very members. Who tells us this? The Lord said to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I dedicated you." If in fashioning me, therefore, he touched them and was not ashamed, was he ashamed in forming for himself the holy flesh, the veil of his Godhead? It is God who even now creates the babes in the womb, as it is written in Job, "Did you not pour me out as milk, and thicken me like cheese? With skin and flesh you clothed me, with bones and sinews knit me together." There is nothing corrupt in the human bodily frame unless one defiles it with adulteries and wantonness. He who formed Adam formed Eve also; and male and female were fashioned by the divine hands. None of the members of the body, as fashioned from the beginning, is corrupt. Let all heretics be silent who slander their bodies, or rather him who formed them. But let us be mindful of Paul's words: "Do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you?" Again, the prophet has foretold in the person of Jesus, "my flesh is from them."

Whence the Lord says that even if they rear their sons and gather together a multitude of children, they will be handed over to death; and then a true woe will fall upon them, when God has departed from them.

Ephraim has flown away like a bird; their glory from birth and from the womb and from conception. And even if they rear their sons, I will make them childless among men. But woe to them also when I depart from them. Ephraim, as I saw, was Tyre, founded in beauty; and Ephraim will lead out his sons to the slayer. LXX: Ephraim has flown away like a bird; their glory in birth and in travail and conception; for even if they have reared their sons, they will be without sons among men, for woe to them also; my flesh is from them. Ephraim, as I saw, has offered his sons for a capture; and Ephraim, to lead out his sons to slaughter. In this place the translators greatly disagree among themselves. For in the place where we said: woe to them when I depart from them, the Seventy and Theodotion translated: woe to them, my flesh is from them; and seeking the reason why there is such great variety, I seem to myself to have found this: My flesh is said in the Hebrew tongue basari; again, if we say: my departure, or my turning aside, it is said basori. The Seventy and Theodotion, therefore, in place of what is my departure and my turning aside, rendered: my flesh. Again, where we have put: Ephraim, as I saw, was Tyre, the Seventy translated θήραν, that is, a hunt, or a capture; Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion, the hardest rock, that is, flint, which in the Hebrew tongue is called sur; and if we read Sor, it means Tyre. But the Seventy translators, thinking because of the similarity of the letters res and daleth that it was not res but daleth, read sud, that is, a hunt, or a capture; whence Bethsaida too is called the house of hunters. We have spoken of the diversity of the translators; let us return to the sense.

And consequently he sets forth what Ephraim, who is now deserted, once was: so beautiful, he says, was he, and so walled about with the help of God, as Tyre is girded by the sea, or at least like a very hard crag which, fixed in the earth, scorns all storms and does not care about whirlwinds and winds. But he himself, that is, Ephraim, or Tyre, which was founded in the fullness of the sea, will lead out his sons to captivity. Many refer this section to the times of Hazael, who besieged Samaria and afflicted it with famine for a long time, so that the besieged thought it lighter to perish by the sword than by starvation.

Give them, O Lord; what will you give them? Give them a womb without children and dry breasts. LXX: likewise. If we wrongly abuse the things that God has given as a blessing, and they are turned to the opposite of the purpose for which they were given by him, it is expedient that they be taken away from us. Finally, the tongue was given for praising the Lord God and for speaking the things that are good. If anyone abuses it for blasphemy, against him the psalmist prays to the Lord: Let the deceitful lips be made dumb, which speak iniquity against the righteous in pride and in abuse. And in another place: May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips and the boastful tongue. Since, therefore, Ephraim gloried in the womb, and in conception, and in childbirth, and in the multitude of his peoples, the prophet prays to the Lord and says: Give them, O Lord. And he answers himself: What will you give them? And at once he adds: Give them a barren womb and dry breasts, so that they may have no grounds for pride, so that in the very thing in which they are accustomed to glory, in that they may be confounded. That this can also be understood of the teachers of contrary dogmas is evident, who glory in the multitude of their peoples, and in those children whom they have reared for destruction, in order to lead them out of the Church and lead them in to the murderer. For the devil slaughters as many as the sons the heretics have begotten in error. Of a soul of this kind it is said: Blessed is the barren woman who is undefiled, who has not known the bed in sin. For blessed is the churchman who, in comparison with the heretic, has not begotten children in error. And in another place we read: It is better to have no children, with virtue. For from an unlawful union the seed will perish; and though they be of long life, they will be counted as nothing, and their old age at the last will be without honor; for the fruitful multitude of the ungodly is useful for nothing; nor indeed ought we to think that he prayed for a barren womb and dry breasts in a bodily sense.

All their wickednesses are in Gilgal, for there I held them in hatred. LXX: likewise. In Gilgal Saul was anointed king, while Samuel announced the wrath of God to the people. There, he says, I held them in hatred, and by asking for a man as their king they withdrew from my rule. Or because Gilgal is a place of idolatry: there they committed all their crimes. But since Gilgal is interpreted revelation, or κυλισμοὶ, that is, wallowing-places, he says that all the wickedness of the heretics is to be revealed at that time when God gives them a barren womb and dry breasts, and they see their own shame. And those who boasted through pride that they had climbed to the heights will be rolled down to the earth, or dragged down to hell. Truly the heretics are worthy of God's hatred, who speak a lie against God, of whom he says in what follows:

Because of the malice of their devices I will cast them out of my house. There follows: I will not again love them; all their princes are departing, or disobedient. The Seventy have the same. And of the heretics indeed there is no doubt that they have been cast out of the house of God, and that he will not again love them as long as they remain in error, and that all their princes are departing from God, or disobedient, like Valentinus, Marcion and the rest. We can call the princes of the heretics demons, who truly departed from the Lord and are called princes, according to what the Lord says in the Gospel: The prince of this world will come and will find nothing in me. And the Apostle says that we fight against the powers and principalities and the rulers of this darkness. But it is asked according to the history how he cast them, that is, the ten tribes, out of his house, since they were not in the house of God? But we shall call the house of God either the holy land, into which they were brought, or the false name of Israel, or the fact that prophets were sent to them as to the people of God. But that he does not again love them, and that all the kings of Israel were departing from God, is evident; for to this day they remain in captivity. Others think that what is written, I will cast them out of my house, refers to the kingdom of Judah, because they too were to be led into captivity. But how can I will not again love them be fitted to them, since afterwards they were brought back to Jerusalem; and all their princes are departing, since we read that David, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah were righteous kings? Hence we must pass on to the times of Christ, because at his coming they were cast out of the house of God, and are in no way saved as Israel, but as the Christian people. Hence also the Lord made himself a whip of cords and cast them out of the temple, because they had made his Father's house a house of trade.

While he was still praying, an angel of the Lord, very terrifying, appeared to him, having in his hand a fiery sword unsheathed. He said to our father Pachomius, "Just as God has blotted out his name from the 'Book of Life,' just so do you drive them out from the midst of the brothers, for they are not ignorant. Indeed, even to the ignorant, impurities of this sort seem like abominations before God." When it was morning he put them in worldly clothing and told them, "Go and do as is fitting to the clothes whose practices you have made your own." And he expelled them from among the brothers. The words of the prophet were fulfilled about them, "I will drive them out of my house, and I will love them no longer."

Ephraim is stricken; their root is dried up; they will bear no fruit at all; and even if they beget, I will slay the most beloved of their womb. God will cast them away because they did not hear him; and they will be wanderers among the nations. LXX: Ephraim has suffered pain in his roots; he is withered, he bears no fruit at all; for even if they beget, I will slay the desirable things of their womb. God will reject them because they did not hear him; and they will be wanderers among the nations. He takes a metaphor from a tree, which, if its roots have withered, cannot bear fruit, and if it produces a little, will at once dry up in the very blossom. He speaks, moreover, of Ephraim, whose root has withered because he lost God, in whom he had been founded, or did not deserve to have his fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in whom he had sent down his root; and therefore he does not produce the fruit of righteousness; and even if he should produce it: I will slay, he says, the most beloved of his womb, according to what he had said above: If they rear their sons, I will make them childless among men; hence also God cast them away and made them go as captives. And they will be wanderers among the nations. We can say this same thing also of all the Jews: because their princes departed from God, stirring up the people to demand him for death, therefore he cast them out of his house and will not again love them any more. He struck their root and dried it up, and they will bear fruit no more; and even if they do, and seem to meditate on holy Scripture and the law, and bring forth from their own heart, like most beloved sons, something of knowledge and doctrine, with the Lord opposing, they will be cut down. For the God of all the prophets cast them away, because they did not hear him; and they will be wanderers among the nations, having no altar, no seat, no city of their own. Hence David too says in the psalm: Do not slay them, lest at any time my people forget: scatter them by your power. And in another place: According to the multitude of their impieties cast them out, for they have provoked you, O Lord. Of this tree we also read in the Gospel: Already the axe is laid to the roots of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire. That the heretics cannot bear the fruits of the virtues, because they have lost the Lord, in whom, according to the Apostle, they ought to have been rooted and founded, no one doubts; and even if they do bear them, and beget some by the fruitfulness of their womb, with the Lord opposing, they will die. Or, because their fruits are all the things they invent and beget from their own heart, these will wither and perish; and it will be plain to all that a dry root cannot bring forth crops. These will be cast away, or rather have been cast away, by God, because they did not hear him saying: Do not move the boundaries which your fathers set. And therefore they will be wanderers among the nations, passing over now to these opinions, not to those; since what they have once found does not please them, but they always exchange the old for the new and imitate the errors of the heathen.