Isaiah 5

And through Isaiah the Lord himself spoke, saying: A vineyard has been made for my beloved in a fertile place. And I have enclosed it with a wall, and have dug around the vineyard of Sorech, and have built a tower in its midst. For it has surrounded her like a wall of celestial precepts, and the guardianship of angels. For the angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear Him. He has placed her in the Church like a tower of the apostles and prophets and teachers, who are accustomed to defend the peace of the Church. He has dug around her, when he has relieved her of the burden of worldly anxieties. For nothing burdens the mind more than the solicitude and desire for wealth or power in this world.

And in Isaiah it says, "I will sing to my beloved a song of my beloved touching my vineyard. My beloved has a vineyard." Who is the "Beloved" other than the only-begotten Son?

He invites us to produce fruits in abundance, for fear lest our sterility should condemn us to the fire. He constantly compares our souls to vines. "My well beloved," says He, "hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill," and elsewhere, I have "planted a vineyard and hedged it round about." Evidently He calls human souls His vine, those souls whom He has surrounded with the authority of His precepts and a guard of angels. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him." And further: He has planted for us, so to say, props, in establishing in His Church apostles, prophets, teachers; and raising our thoughts by the example of the blessed in olden times, He has not allowed them to drag on the earth and be crushed under foot. He wishes that the claspings of love, like the tendrils of the vine, should attach us to our neighbours and make us rest on them, so that, in our continual aspirations towards heaven, we may imitate these vines, which raise themselves to the tops of the tallest trees. He also asks us to allow ourselves to be dug about; and that is what the soul does when it disembarrasses itself from the cares of the world, which are a weight on our hearts. He, then, who is freed from carnal affections and from the love of riches, and, far from being dazzled by them, disdains and despises this miserable vain glory, is, so to say, dug about and at length breathes, free from the useless weight of earthly thoughts.

Let the vine give thanks to our Lord, the true vineyard.

I will sing now to my beloved the song of my cousin concerning his vineyard. The prophet sings a lamentable song to the people of Israel, which he composed of whom it is written in the Gospel: But when he had seen it (doubtless Jerusalem) he wept over it, and said: If you too had known the things that are for your peace, for the days will come upon you, and your enemies will throw up ramparts around you, and will hem you in, and will lay you low, and your children (Luke 19:41ff.). And again: How often would I have gathered your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not? Behold, your house will be left to you desolate (Matt 23:37, 38): to which this is like, which is now said in this song: I will abandon my vineyard. And that Christ is called the beloved and dearest one, whom Aquila interpreted πατράδελφον, uncle, or cousin, the title of the forty-fourth psalm teaches us: A song for the beloved. And the voice of God the Father in the Gospel: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt 3:17). And in the sixty-seventh psalm we read: The Lord will give the word to those who preach the good news with great power. The King of powers of the beloved (Ps 67 [68]:12, 13). This beloved, then, made a mournful song for his vineyard, which I will sing to my beloved and pitiable people. Or certainly it is to be understood thus: I will sing to Almighty God the Father the song of Christ, who is my cousin, that is, born of the same nation as I. And that the people of Israel is called the vineyard of God we read also at the end of this song: The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah his praiseworthy shoot. And in the seventy-ninth psalm (Verse 9): You have brought a vine out of Egypt, you have cast out the nations, and planted it. In the Gospel too, in almost the same words in which the Prophet now speaks, the Lord weaves a parable: There was a certain householder who planted a vineyard, and set a wall around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, etc. (Matt 21:33). And in Jeremiah we read: I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true: how have you been turned into bitterness, a strange vine? (Jer 2:21). And so Jerusalem, as we have said, is lamented, and her ruin is sung in prophetic speech. But for the Church, and the people once of the nations, another song has been put forth, of which we read in the psalms: Sing to the Lord, all the earth; announce his salvation from day to day. Announce his glory among the nations, his wonders among all peoples (Ps 95 [96]:2, 3). And again: Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wonders. The Lord has made known his salvation, in the sight of the nations he has revealed his righteousness (Ps 97 [98]:1, 2).

My beloved had a vineyard on a horn, the son of oil. Theodotion and Aquila translated this according to the Hebrew; but Symmachus, in his manner, more plainly: My beloved had a vineyard on a horn in the midst of olive trees. The Seventy, moreover, interpreted the sense rather than the word: My beloved had a vineyard on a horn, in a fat place, or a fertile one, for πίων signifies both. And indeed nothing is fatter than the land of Promise, if you consider not the mountainous and desert parts but its whole breadth, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates toward the East, and on the northern side as far as Mount Taurus and Zephyrium of Cilicia, which overhangs the sea. And we often read that horn signifies kingdom and power, as in that saying in the Gospel: He has raised up a horn of our salvation in the house of David his servant (Luke 1:69). And: In you we will toss our enemies with the horn (Ps 43 [44]:6). And in Zechariah four horns denote four most powerful kingdoms (Zech 1). The Hebrews expound this place thus: A vineyard was planted for Christ on a horn, that is, in a strong and lofty place, which is called the son of oil, either because it stands in need of God's mercy and is sustained by his help, or because it has furnished the clear light of the knowledge of God to all nations.

And truly he was "a horn of salvation in the house of David", because this prophecy is sung in harmony: "For a vineyard was made on a horn". On what horn? On Christ Jesus, on him of whom it is now written: "he raised up a horn of salvation for us, in the house of David his servant, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets".

152. I will sing to my beloved. Here he denounces the third sin of the two tribes, which they committed in abuse of things, under a certain metaphor; and this is divided into two parts:

in the first, the metaphor is set out;

in the second, it is explained: for the vineyard of the Lord (Isa 5:7).

153. Concerning the first, he does two things.

First, he sets out the title, saying, I will sing, that is, I will proclaim loudly and openly, below: lift up your voice with strength (Isa 40:9): to my beloved, that is, to the people of the Jews, the canticle of my cousin, that is, of the son of my uncle, concerning his vineyard, that is, what he did concerning his vineyard. For sometimes the prophets take up similitudes to their prophecies from such deeds, as is evident in Jeremiah 32:7 concerning the sale of the field, behold, Hanameel the son of Sellum your cousin shall come to you, saying: buy you my field, which is in Anathoth, for it is your right to buy it. So also it may have happened that literally some cousin of his had composed a similar song concerning his vineyard.

154. Or it may be understood otherwise: I will sing the canticle in the beloved, namely, in God, that is, in the person of God, I will sing to his vineyard.

Or otherwise, to the beloved, namely, to God, the canticle of my cousin, that is, concerning my cousin, namely the people of the Jews, for we descend from the same ancestors, concerning his vineyard, that is, he who is my cousin is the vineyard of God the beloved.

Or mystically, of my cousin, that is, of Christ, who is from the same people as I am, concerning his vineyard, that is, he laments concerning his vineyard, that is, the Synagogue, which bore bitter fruits to him in his passion.

And note that a canticle is properly a song of exultation. Hence this is improperly called a canticle, since it is a song of mourning; David sang such a canticle concerning the death of Saul: the illustrious of Israel are slain upon your mountains: how are the valiant fallen? . . . You mountains of Gelboe, let neither dew, nor rain come upon you (2 Sam 1:19, 21); sing a mournful song (Ezek 32:18).

155. Second, where it says, a vineyard was made, he sets out the canticle itself, which contains the metaphor; in which three things are set out:

first, the recitation of the cause;

second, the questioning of the court, and now, O you inhabitants of Jerusalem (Isa 5:3);

third, the pronouncement of the sentence: now I will show you what I will do to my vineyard (Isa 5:5).

Concerning the first, he sets out forth two things.

First, on the part of the one who laments, the diligence of his cultivation;

second, on the part of the vineyard, the wickedness of its fruit: and I looked that it should bring forth grapes (Isa 5:4).

And the diligence of his cultivation is shown from three things: in preparation of the location, in choosing of branches, and in costly building.

156. Now the preparation of the location is shown in three ways.

First, as to the richness of the location; hence he says: a vineyard, of which it says in Psalm 79:9[80:8]: you have brought a vineyard out of Egypt: you have cast out the Gentiles and planted it; was made for my beloved, that is, for God, acquisitively, or by God, on a horn, that is, in a prominent location, in which is noted the mountainous nature of land for establishing a good vineyard, because it is shined upon by the sun; a son of oil, that is, land so rich that it would suffice for a multitude of oil. It is an idiom of the Hebrew language that someone is said to be the son of a thing in which he abounds, as is said in 1 Samuel 26:16: as the Lord lives, you are the sons of death. And in this is designated the goodness of the land that was given to the Jews, of which Ezekiel 20:6 says: I lifted up my hand for them to bring them out of the land of Egypt, into a land which I had provided for them, flowing with milk and honey, which excelled amongst all lands.

161. Note on the words, my beloved had a vineyard (Isa 5:1), that the vineyard is manifold.

First, the vineyard of carnal concupiscence: their vines are of the vineyard of Sodom, and of the suburbs of Gomorrah (Deut 32:32):

and the first wine of this vineyard is the wine of wrath: their wine is the gall of dragons (Deut 32:33);

second, the wine of lust: all nations have drunk of the wine . . . of her fornication (Rev 18:3);

third, the wine of unseemly joy: it turns every mind into security and cheerfulness (3 Esdras 3:20).

162. Second is the vineyard of the faithful soul: our vineyard has flourished (Song 2:15):

the first wine in this vineyard is the wine of penance: going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine (Luke 10:34);

second, the wine of bodily purity: for what is the good thing of him, and what is his beautiful thing, but the corn of the elect, and wine springing forth virgins? (Zech 9:17);

third, the wine of spiritual joy: and that wine may cheer the heart of man (Ps 103[104]:15).

163. Third is the vineyard of the Church militant: the peaceable had a vineyard, in that which has people (Song 8:11):

and the first wine of this vineyard is the wine of the holy washing: and wine for libations of the same measure (Num 15:5);

second, the wine of fruitful preaching: by the fruit of their corn, their wine, and oil, they rest (Ps 4:8[7]);

third, the wine of devout confession: your throat like the best wine (Song 7:9).

164. Fourth is the vineyard of heaven: Naboth the Jezrahelite had at that time a vineyard (1 Kgs 21:1):

and the first wine of this vineyard is the wine of divine enjoyment: I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk (Song 5:1);

second, the wine of inner fullness: wine also in abundance and of the best was presented, as was worthy of a king's magnificence (Esth 1:7);

third, the wine of the fellowship of joy of the saints: I will give you a cup of spiced wine (Song 8:2).

So let me warn you, holy seedlings, let me warn you, fresh plants in the field of the Lord, not to have it said of you what was said of the vineyard of the house of Israel: "I expected it to produce grapes, but it produced thorns." Let the Lord find good bunches of grapes on you, seeing that he was himself a bunch of grapes trodden in the winepress for you. Produce grapes, live good lives.

And he fenced it, and chose out the stones from it, and planted the vine Sorec, and built a tower in its midst, and set up a winepress in it. Through the metaphor of the vineyard, as we said before, he describes the people of the Jews, which he fenced with the help of the Angels. And he chose out the stones from it, either idols or all things that could hinder the worship of God. And he planted it with the vine Sorec, which Symmachus alone interpreted as choice, expressing, as it seems to me, not word for word but the sense contained in the word. For the Hebrews say that Sorec is a kind of excellent vine, because it produces abundant and lasting fruit. Lastly, Sorec is interpreted by some as καλλίκαρπος, which we can render as of most beautiful fruit. He also built a tower in its midst, that is, the temple in the midst of the city; and set up a winepress in it, by which some think the altar is signified. For just as all the grapes are carried to the winepress and trodden, so that wine may be pressed out of them, so the altar receives the fruits of all the people and devours the victims offered, according to what we read of Benjamin, in whose tribe the temple and the altar were: Benjamin is a ravening wolf; in the morning he will eat, and at evening he will give food (Gen 49:27). All that is said of the vineyard can also be referred to the state of the human soul, which, planted by God for good, has brought forth not grapes but wild grapes, and has afterwards been handed over to the beasts to be trampled, and has not received the divine rain of teachings, because it despised the former gifts.

And I waited for it to make grapes, and it made wild grapes. For wild grapes, as we have rendered it, in the Hebrew is written BUSIM (באשים), which Aquila interpreted σαπρίας, that is, most worthless fruits; Symmachus ἀτελῆ, that is, imperfect; the Seventy and Theodotion thorns, with which the Jews crowned the Lord. For while he waited for them to bring grapes to the winepresses at vintage time, for which the eighth, the eightieth and the eighty-third psalms have their titles, they, sinking themselves in the cares and vices of the world, which in the Gospel (Mark 4) are interpreted as thorns, offered the goads of blasphemies. But I think it better that Busim be understood as wild grapes rather than thorns, so that the likeness of the metaphor begun may be kept. Hence the Savior too says in the Gospel: Do they gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? (Matt 7:16).

156. Second, the diligence of his preparation is set out as to the fortification of the location; hence he says, and he fenced it in: I will hedge up your way with thorns (Hos 2:6), in which is signified the guardianship of angels and good men.

Third, as to its purification: and picked the stones, that is, collected them diligently, out of it: you have cast out the Gentiles and planted it (Ps 79:9[80:8]).

157. As to choosing of branches is said: and planted it with the choicest, that is, from the choicest branches; hence another translation has, soreth vine, which is the noblest kind of vine, in which the goodness of their fathers is signified: I planted you a chosen vineyard, all true seed (Jer 2:21).

As to the cost of the building, which pertains to defense, he says: and built a tower in the midst thereof; in which is shown royal dignity: you were made exceeding beautiful: and were advanced to be a queen (Ezek 16:13); the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks (Song 4:4). Or the temple, according to others. A tower is used for the preservation of fruit and for looking out to keep guard.

As to the gathering of fruit, he says: and set up a winepress therein: and your barns shall be filled with abundance, and your presses shall run over with wine (Prov 3:10); in which the altar of holocausts is noted because of the outpouring of blood.

158. And he looked that it should bring forth. Here the wickedness of the fruit is set out; hence he says, and he looked, following the order of benefits, that it should bring forth grapes, the fruit of good works, and it brought forth wild grapes (labruscas), so called because in they grow on the lips (labiis) of the roads, namely on fences: in which the bitterness of their vices is noted: how are you turned unto me into that which is good for nothing, O strange vineyard? (Jer 2:21); he that is best among them, is as a brier, and he that is righteous, as the thorn of the hedge (Mic 7:4).

Now therefore, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard: what is there that I ought to have done further for my vineyard and have not done for it? Or is it that I waited for it to make grapes, and it made wild grapes? I have done, he says, all that I ought: I planted the vineyard in a most fertile place, I set a wall around it, I chose out the stones, and I propped up its shoots with stakes and reeds; the vine itself too was not one of many, but choice and καλλίκαρπος. I built a very strong tower, in which to store the crops and from which to watch the beasts that lie in wait for the crops. I set up a winepress, so that the grapes might be pressed above all in that same place and pour out wine. Since, then, I have done the things I ought to have done, let the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of Judah answer me; nay rather, let them judge between me and my vineyard, what is there that I ought to have done and have not done? And as they keep silent, he answers himself: Unless perhaps I erred in this, that for my labor I waited for it to make grapes, not wild grapes, which an untilled and deserted vineyard is wont to bring forth. Something of the kind the Prophet Nathan, sent to David, says too (2 Sam 12), and he questions him through a parable, so that while judging of another he may pronounce sentence on himself. So here too the people is questioned as though about a vineyard, so that it may answer against itself. This place the Savior carries out more fully in the Gospel (Matt 21), and what is passed over here, he puts as a question to the Scribes and Pharisees. For in Isaiah nothing is said of the husbandmen, nor is it indicated what they are to suffer, but the discourse is only of the vineyard; there, however, as though the vineyard were one thing and the husbandmen another, he speaks of the people and of the teachers in such a way that he destroys the wicked wickedly and lets out the vineyard to other husbandmen, signifying the apostles and those who were to succeed the apostles. Nor is there a ταυτολογία, as many think, in his saying: Or is it that I waited for it to make grapes, and it made wild grapes? For above he speaks silently within himself, but here he asks others what he had been thinking.

159. And now, O you inhabitants. Here the questioning of the court is set out, and concerning this, he does two things.

First, he beseeches the judges, saying: therefore, because I did what I ought to have done, now, my reason having been heard, judge between me and my vineyard: judge your mother, judge her: because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband (Hos 2:2). In 2 Samuel 12, a similar judgment is sought by David of himself, as if of another man, upon the sin committed by him, namely, concerning his adultery and murder of Uriah the Hittite.

See then how very bad sinning is, that they may be delivered to Satan, who holds captive the souls of those forsaken by God—though God does not forsake without cause or judgment those whom he has abandoned. For when he sends the rain for the vineyard and the vineyard bears thorns instead of grapes, what else will God do except order the clouds not to sprinkle rain on the vineyard?

160. Second, he seeks judgment; and he asks two things.

First, whether he had sinned from negligence; hence he says: what is there that I ought to do more, beyond what has been said? O my people, what have I done to you, or in what have I molested you? Answer you me (Mic 6:3).

Second, whether he had sinned in the cultivation of the vineyard from excessive care; hence he says: perhaps I seem to have done contrary to what was due in that I looked, tending it well, that it should bring forth grapes, and it has brought forth wild grapes? As if to say: in this I seem rather to be excessive, that I have applied such cultivation to my vineyard, below: O Lord, you have been favorable to the nation: are you glorified? (Isa 26:15); and: I have called you a transgressor from the womb for my name's sake (Isa 48:8-9); at the noise of a word, a great fire was kindled in it, and the branches thereof are burnt (Jer 11:16).

And now I will show you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be for plunder; I will break down its wall, and it shall be for trampling. And I will make it desolate; it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be dug: and briers and thorns shall come up over it. I challenged you above, he says, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of the tribe of Judah, to judge between me and my vineyard, and I asked you to say what I ought to have done that I have not done. And since, according to the Gospel parable, you will not answer what I ask, I myself will answer for you, showing what I am going to do: Since I have done for my vineyard all that I ought, and instead of grapes it has brought forth wild grapes, I will take away all that I had given. I will take away the help of the angels, of whom it is written in the psalms: The Angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear him, and will deliver them (Ps 33 [34]:8); and it will be plundered by its adversaries. I will destroy the walls, and it will lie subject to hostile nations, and it will be desolate and will not be pruned for ever, nor dug, so that it may be reduced to briers; and thorns will come up in it. These things are said, under the metaphor of the vineyard, of the desolation of Jerusalem and Judea, which most of the Jews think took place under the Babylonians: and we cannot deny that this was in part fulfilled. But since there follows, And I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it, this cannot be understood of that captivity. For Jeremiah too prophesied among the people when the city had already been taken; and Ezekiel, Daniel too and the three boys, are related either to have prophesied or to have done wonderful signs even in the captivity; and afterwards Haggai and Zechariah foretold the future for the consolation of the people in servitude. And the help of God is taken away from those who are unworthy, so that, since they had not perceived God through his benefits, they may perceive him through punishments. Or else he threatens certain harsh and rough things for this reason, that, having turned to penitence, they may avoid the impending torments. The Hebrew word SAITH (שית) all have interpreted by a similar word as thorns. If, then, Saith in the present place is called thorns according to Aquila and Theodotion and the Seventy, let them answer how above they translated Busim not as wild grapes but as thorns.

165. And now I will show you. Here the sentence is pronounced.

And first, he calls for attention or a hearing, saying: now, because you do not want to pronounce sentence, I myself will show you what I will do to my vineyard, below: I foretold you of old, before they came to pass I told you, lest you should say: my idols have done these things, and my graven and molten things have commanded these things which you have heard (Isa 48:5-6).

166. Second, he pronounces the just sentence that he should take away from the ungrateful the benefits he has furnished, when he says, I will take away the hedge thereof.

And first, he takes away the benefit which pertains to protection, which is twofold: that of the angels, and as to this he says, I will take away the hedge thereof, that is, the help of the angels, by whom it was protected against enemies, and it shall be wasted, by the gentiles: where there is no hedge, the possession shall be spoiled (Sir 36:37[30]); there is also the protection of superiors, and as to this he says, I will break down the wall thereof, that is, the garrisons of the kingdom, of which it says above: and all loftiness of men shall be bowed down (Isa 2:17): and it shall be trodden down, that is, made base: you have broken down the hedge thereof (Ps 79:13[80:12]).

The noise of the waters is great when sweet psalmody is offered, when guilt is removed by groans and tears, when thanks are rendered for a gift received. The different prayers of people resound in sacred churches like the crashing of the sea. He beautifully appends why the noise of the waters is great: it was because the clouds sent forth a sound. We have often said that clouds signify preachers, of whom Scripture says, "I will command my clouds not to pour rain on that land." They uttered that great sound when they made known the precepts of the Lord throughout the whole world.

Just as clouds when they rumble and clash (so the physicists tell us) send forth darts of lightning, so the words of the prophets shone out as signs of truth. In fact you often find the prophets in the divine Scriptures compared with clouds; for example, "And I will command the clouds not to rain upon it."

It is obvious enough that the prophet is referring to the apostles and to the saints; that they are not to rain his rain upon the Jews but upon the Gentiles.

The clouds are the prophets; the Lord commanded them to rain no rain upon Israel. The word of prophecy has turned to us.

And I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it. These are the clouds which the Lord brought out from the end of the earth, of which we read in the psalm as well: Your truth reaches to the clouds (Ps 35 [36]:6). These clouds, since under Elijah all were idolaters, did not rain upon the land of Israel for three years and six months (1 Kgs 18). This indeed we can understand not only of the prophets but of the apostles: that after the passion of the Lord the Jews had neither prophets nor apostles, lest instead of grapes they should bring forth thorns, but that they might pray, for their barrenness and dryness, to him who can supply the rains of the virtues. Hence in Leviticus too he says to them: I will make the heaven of iron for you, and the earth of bronze (Lev 26:19). And in Deuteronomy: The heaven over your head shall be of bronze, and the earth beneath you of iron (Deut 28:23, 24). And again: The Lord will give rain to your land. And: Ashes shall come down from heaven upon you, until it uproots you and destroys you; because land which receives the rain that often comes upon it, and produces not a crop but thorns and thistles, is reprobate and near to a curse, whose end is burning.

See then how very bad sinning is, that they may be delivered to Satan, who holds captive the souls of those forsaken by God—though God does not forsake without cause or judgment those whom he has abandoned. For when he sends the rain for the vineyard and the vineyard bears thorns instead of grapes, what else will God do except order the clouds not to sprinkle rain on the vineyard?

167. Second, he takes away the benefit which pertains to diligence of cultivation; hence he says: and I will make it desolate, that is, I will leave it uncultivated like a desert; it shall not be pruned, by the lash of admonition or correction when they sin, and it shall not be dug, that occasions of evil might be taken away from them like weeds; but briers and thorns shall come up, that is, major and minor sins; or briers of sins, thorns of tribulations, below: for briers and thorns shall be in all the land (Isa 7:24).

168. Third, he takes away the benefit of fertility, against which he sets out lack of rain; hence he says: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it, literally; or the clouds represent preachers, below: who are these, that fly as clouds, and as doves to their windows? (Isa 60:8); therefore the showers were withholden, and there was no lateward rain (Jer 3:3).

But the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his delightful shoot. That is, of God; or, as the Seventy translated, a most beloved young planting. Israel and Judah differ from each other in this: that the whole people was at first called Israel, and afterwards, when David reigned over the tribe of Judah, and Rehoboam the son of Solomon over two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, those who were in Samaria, that is, the ten tribes, were called Israel; and those over whom men of David's line reigned were called Judah. And since calves were worshiped by Israel in Dan and in Bethel, Samaria was therefore taken first by the Assyrians; and a long time afterwards Judah was led away by the Chaldeans into Babylon, because they had sinned less. Hence in Ezekiel too, for purging the sins of both peoples, there are set on the left side for Israel, according to the Seventy, one hundred and ninety days, or, as is more truly contained in the Hebrew, three hundred and ninety, but for Judah forty days (Ezek 4, according to the Seventy and according to the Hebrew). I say this to show that, in comparison with Israel, that is, the ten tribes, Judah was lovable and beloved, in which were the priests and the Levites, and in which the worship of God was carried on at the time when the prophet Isaiah was speaking to the people. And beautifully Israel, that is, the whole people, is the house; but Judah, which sprang up afterwards when the tribes were separated, is called the delightful young plant. And this too is to be noted, that, according to prophetic custom, what was first said through a metaphor or through a parable is afterwards explained more plainly: that the vineyard and the young planting are Israel and Judah.

And I waited for it to do judgment, and behold, iniquity; and righteousness, and behold, a cry, or, as the Seventy translated, I waited for it to do judgment, and it did iniquity, and not righteousness, but a cry. We wish to convey to Latin ears what we have learned from the Hebrews. Judgment among them is called MESPHAT (משפט); iniquity, or scattering, as Aquila interpreted, MESPHAA (משפה). Again, righteousness is called SADACA (צדקה), and cry is called SAACA (צעקה). So, by either adding or changing one letter, he so tempered the likeness of the words as to set MESPHAA for MESPHAT and SAACA for SADACA, and to render an elegant structure and sound of words according to the Hebrew tongue. Now God waited for the people of the Jews to do judgment, that is, grapes; and it did iniquity, that is, wild grapes. And he waited for righteousness, that it should receive the bestower of such great gifts sent from the Father; and it made a cry, with which it shouted against the Lord, and cried out, saying: Away, away, crucify such a one (John 19:15). Hence the apostle Paul too writes: Let all anger and clamor and blasphemy be taken away from you, with all malice (Eph 4:31). Or else, since they had shed the blood of the righteous one, the blood of the Lord's passion cried out to the Lord; therefore they rendered a cry instead of righteousness, according to what we read in Genesis: The voice of the blood of your brother Abel cries to me (Gen 4:10).

169. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts. Here he explains the metaphor:

and first, as to the vineyard,

second as to the trial of the vineyard, where it says, I looked that he should do judgment.

Concerning the first, he explains the vineyard saying, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, either all of Israel, or as to the ten tribes, which were called Israel after the separation of the kingdom because of their multitude (1 Kgs 12; 2 Chr 10).

Second, as to the plant or branches, men of Judah, that is, the two tribes in which the worship of God was still observed: if you play the harlot, O Israel, at least let not Judah offend (Hos 4:15); or because the princes came from Judah: but of the race of Judah, who was the strongest among his brethren, came the princes (1 Chr 5:2).

170. I looked that he should do judgment. Here he explains the trial of the vineyard, which consists in the fault and the punishment that follows upon the fault. Hence it is divided into three parts:

in the first, the fault in general is set out;

in the second, the punishment and the fault together in particular, where it says, woe to you that join house to house (Isa 5:8);

in the third, the punishment in general, where it says, for after this (Isa 5:25).

He denounces the fault in general as to their superiors, to whom it belongs to do judgment, where he says: I looked, following the order of benefits, that he should do judgment, judging justly; and behold iniquity, as inequality of judgment: I saw under the sun in the place of judgment wickedness, and in the place of justice iniquity (Eccl 3:16).

Second, as to their subjects, to whom it belongs to hold to the justice appointed to them by their superiors: and do justice, which is through comparison to the precepts of the law; and behold a cry, the tumult of quarrelers, or of the lamentation of the poor, below: what ails you also, that you too are wholly gone up to the housetops, full of clamor, a populous city, a joyous city? (Isa 22:1-2).

Attend to yourself, poor one; for your soul is precious: and if mortal flesh, a temporary soul: and if you lack money, grace does not lack: and if there is no spacious house, widespread possession, heaven is open, the earth is free. The elements have been given to all in common, the ornaments of the world are open equally to the rich and the poor. Are not the faces of the heavens, adorned with shining stars, more beautiful than the most precious gold-leaf ceilings of luxurious houses? Are the riches of the rich wider than the expanses of the earth? Whence it was said to those who join house to house and villa to villa: Will you alone dwell upon the earth? You have a larger house: the poor, in which you cry out and are heard. ... The house of God is common to the rich and the poor.

Let him use those tenths and first-fruits, which are given according to the command of God, as a man of God; as also let him dispense in a right manner the free-will offerings which are brought in on account of the poor, to the orphans, the widows, the afflicted, and strangers in distress, as having that God for the examiner of his accounts who has committed the disposition to him. Distribute to all those in want with righteousness, and yourselves use the things which belong to the Lord, but do not abuse them; eating of them, but not eating them all up by yourselves: communicate with those that are in want, and thereby show yourselves unblameable before God. For if you shall consume them by yourselves, you will be reproached by God, who says to such unsatiable people, who alone devour all, "You eat up the milk, and clothe yourselves with the wool;" [Ezekiel 34:3] and in another passage, "Must you alone live upon the earth"? [Isaiah 5:8] Upon which account you are commanded in the law, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." [Leviticus 19:18] Now we say these things, not as if you might not partake of the fruits of your labours; for it is written, "You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox which treads out the grain;" [Deuteronomy 25:4; 1 Corinthians 9:9] but that you should do it with moderation and righteousness. As, therefore, the ox that labours in the threshing-floor without a muzzle eats indeed, but does not eat all up; so do you who labour in the threshing-floor, that is, in the Church of God, eat of the Church: which was also the case of the Levites, who served in the tabernacle of the testimony, which was in all things a type of the Church.

Woe to you who join house to house, and link field to field, as far as the limit of the place: will you alone dwell upon the earth? For what we have said, as far as the limit of the place, the Seventy translated, that you may take something from your neighbor; Symmachus and Theodotion, until place fails, or there is none, so that, though the land fails, greed is by no means sated. This I think is said both generally against all for whom nothing is enough, and specially against the vineyard of the Lord, which instead of grapes made wild grapes, that is, instead of judgment iniquity, and instead of righteousness a cry. For what madness it is, when houses and fields ought to be had to keep off the rains and to sow crops, to desire to have those in all of which you cannot dwell and which you are not able to till, and to make another's need your pleasure! According to tropology some think this said against the heretics, who, moving their feet from the East, come into the plain of Shinar, which means shaking out of teeth, and build the city of confusion and the tower of pride, and hear in other words: Hear these things, leaders of the house of Jacob, and you remnant of the house of Israel, who abhor judgment and pervert all that is right, who build Zion in blood and Jerusalem in iniquity (Mic 3:9, 10). These join houses to houses, that is, doctrines to doctrines; to whom it is said through Micah, Do not build a mockery in the house (Mic 3), lest upon the foundation of Christ, which the apostle Paul laid (1 Cor 3), and on which they ought to have built gold, silver, precious stones, they on the contrary build wood, hay, stubble, whose end is burning. Of such houses the Savior speaks in the Gospel: Everyone who hears my words and does not do them shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell: and great was the ruin of that house (Matt 7:26, 27). And the heretics go on seeking to join new things to old, and to change the same for more recent ones, until both human sense and speech fail.

You see, even if many people do not admit this in so many words but claim to believe in the doctrine of the resurrection and future retribution, nevertheless I take notice not of their words but of what they do day to day. That is to say, if you are looking forward to resurrection and retribution, why go chasing the values of this life to such an extent? Why, tell me, do you put yourself to such trouble day in and day out amassing more possessions than there is sand on the seashore, not to mention property and dwellings, as well as buying baths, often acquiring these things through robbery and greed and thus fulfilling that saying from the inspired author "Woe to those who add house to house, and join field to field so as to steal from their neighbor"? Cannot this sort of thing be seen happening day after day? One person says, "That house casts a terrible shadow on mine," and he invents countless pretexts to get hold of it, while another lays hold of a poor person's property and makes it his own. And what in fact is worse, remarkable and unheard of and quite beyond excuse, is for a person comfortably situated in one locality being able to move elsewhere without any good reason for wanting to, either on account of a change of circumstances or because constrained by physical disability; all over the place, in city after city, he is bent on procuring monuments to his own avarice and having timeless effigies of his own evil for all to see. He heaps all sins of this kind on his own head without feeling his heavy and troublesome burden, whereas enjoyment of them he leaves for others, not only after his departure from this life but even here before his demise. You see, no matter what he wishes, he is stripped of his possessions, they are all squandered, so to say, by his friends and left in tatters without the smallest part of them falling to him to enjoy. Yet why do I say enjoy? Even if he wanted, how could he with one stomach manage to dispose of such an abundance of good things?

171. Woe to you that join house to house. Here he sets out their fault in the abuse of things in particular, going through it part by part. And this is divided into two parts:

in the first, he denounces them as to the fault itself,

in the second, as to their obstinacy in sinning, where it says, woe to you that draw (Isa 5:18).

Concerning the first, he does two things:

first, he denounces them as to the abuse of possessions, which occurs through avarice;

in the second part, as to the abuse of food, which occurs through gluttony, where it says, woe to you that rise up (Isa 5:11).

172. Concerning the first, he sets out three things.

First, their superfluous multiplication of possessions is denounced, whence he says: woe to you that join house to house and lay field to field, even to the end of the place, as to the public road: the princes of Judah are become as they that take up the bound upon them (Hos 5:10); woe to him that builds up his house by injustice, and his chambers not in judgment: that will oppress his friend without cause, and will not pay him his wages. Who says: I will build me a wide house, and large chambers (Jer 22:13-14); and they have coveted fields, and taken them by violence, and houses they have forcibly taken away: and oppressed a man and his house, a man and his inheritance (Mic 2:2).

173. Second, the interpretation of the judge is set out: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth, which is broad and spacious and given in possession to many: increase and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen 1:28).

These things of the Lord of hosts are in my ears: Unless many houses are made desolate, great and beautiful, without an inhabitant. For what we have rendered according to the Hebrew, These things of the Lord of hosts are in my ears, that is, the words which the Lord spoke still resound in my ears, the Seventy translated, These things have been heard in the ears of the Lord Sabaoth: not that the Prophet heard the words of the Lord, but that the things the Prophet was going to say were heard in the ears of the Lord; whereas it is more consistent to understand that the Prophet heard what the Lord spoke. And the Lord spoke this: that after the captivity great and most beautiful houses would be desolate, having no inhabitant.

We ask, according to the anagogy, how the houses of the heretics are great and beautiful, which, when the time of judgment has come, have no inhabitant. For all the pomp and structure of words and the arguments of dialectic will be reduced to nothing. And since, according to the apostle Paul (1 Cor 3), we are not only God's building but also his husbandry, which the heretics imitate and are dug under and rooted up by Jeremiah: therefore where ten acres of vineyards, or where ten yoke of oxen are at work, they will make one bath, and thirty measures of seed will make an ephi (Jer 18), so that from the number ten, which in the holy Scriptures is mystical and perfect, and from thirty, at which Ezekiel prophesied (Ezek 1) and the Lord was baptized (Luke 3), they are reduced to an ephi, which, in comparison with a manifold number, is confined to unity. And that building and husbandry are referred to spiritual understanding the apostle Paul teaches in another place too (Eph 4), testifying that believers are founded and rooted in love. Hence Ecclesiastes too (Eccl 2) not only built himself houses but planted vineyards, and made gardens and orchards, and set out every fruit-bearing tree, and constructed pools to water the woodland. But the heretics, having only the image and shadow of the virtues and not the truth itself, without the fruit of works, promise the leaves of words. Of their trees the Lord says: Every planting which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up (Matt 15:13). For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their offshoot from Gomorrah: their grape is a grape of gall, and theirs is a cluster of bitterness; their wine is the fury of dragons, and the incurable fury of asps (Deut 32:32ff.).

174. Third, the threat of punishment is set out, and concerning this, two things are set out.

First, the authority and power of the one who punishes; hence he says: these words of the Lord of hosts, who is able to punish, are in my ears; these words, which I will speak to you, are still sounding in my ears, within: in which the certitude of the words is noted, below: in the morning he wakens my ear, that I may hear him as a master. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I do not resist (Isa 50:4-5).

175. Second, the severity of the punishment is set out, where it says, unless many great and fair houses.

And first, as to desertion of their houses; hence he says, unless many great and fair houses shall become desolate, as to guardianship, and without inhabitant, as to desertion of their houses, as if to say: unless this happens, my wrath will not rest. And this is an aposiopesis, which is the failing of speech. And he sets out those things in which the riches of houses consist: namely, in multitude, and as to this, he says, many; in beauty, and as to this, he says, fair; in size: great: and their strength shall become a booty, and their houses as a desert (Zeph 1:13).

For ten acres of vineyards shall make one little flask, and thirty measures of seed shall make three measures. For little flask, which the Seventy alone translated, all the others interpreted bath, which in Hebrew is called BETH (בת). And for thirty measures, which we have set down for a cor, which in Hebrew is called OMER (תמר), the Seventy rendered six artabas, which is an Egyptian measure and makes twenty measures. In the excessive barrenness, then, which follows the captivity, ten acres of vineyards will make a bath, that is, three amphorae; and thirty measures of seed, that is, a cor, will make an ephi, which the Seventy interpreted as three measures, that is, three modii. Now bath is said of liquid kinds, and ephi or epha, of the same measure, of dry ones. As we read in Ezekiel according to the Hebrew: You shall have a just ephi, and a just bath. The ephi and the bath shall be equal and of one measure, so that the bath holds the tenth part of a cor, and the ephi the tenth part of a cor: their balance shall be equal according to the measure of the cor (Ezek 45:10, 11).

There are many instances in which the land suffers because of people's sins. Why are you surprised if the people's sin makes the land infertile and unfruitful when we caused it to be corrupt in the first place (and will again make it incorruptible)?… See Noah, for example. When humanity had become utterly perverse, turmoil ensued everywhere. Everything—the seed, the plants, all types of animals, the land, the sea, the air, the mountains, the valleys, the hills, the cities, the ramparts, the houses and the towers—everything was covered by the flood. When the time came for humanity to be replenished, the land was restored to the order and beauty it had before. It is clear that the land was restored in part as an honor to humanity.

175. Second, as to the barrenness of the vineyard, he says: for ten jugera (a jugerum is 120 feet in length) of vineyard shall yield one little measure. Another reading has one bath, which is the same volume in liquids as an ephah is in dry goods.

Third, as to the loss of seed: and thirty bushels of seed shall yield three bushels, because you will harvest less than you sowed: when you went to a heap of twenty bushels, and they became ten (Hag 2:17). Other readings have cors, or ephahs, which is one tenth of a cor: the ephah and the bath shall be equal, and of one measure: that the bath may contain the tenth part of a cor, and the ephah the tenth part of a cor (Ezek 45:11).

Woe to you who rise early in the morning to pursue drunkenness, and to drink until evening, so as to be inflamed with wine. Harp and lyre, timbrel and pipe, and wine are in your feasts; and you do not regard the work of the Lord, nor consider the works of his hands. For drunkenness, as Aquila and Symmachus interpreted it, the Seventy set down the Hebrew word itself, SICERAM (שכר), which signifies every drink that can intoxicate and overturn the settled state of the mind. And, following the sequence of the explanation begun, he rebukes the husbandmen of the vineyard, who, with barrenness impending and the burning near at hand by which the briers and thorns are to be consumed, gave themselves over to luxury and pleasures, not only in eating and drinking but also in the delight of the ears and in the various kinds of the art of music. While they do these things, they do not regard the work of the Lord, nor consider what is to come. Let us turn this testimony against the princes of the Church, who rise in the morning to pursue strong drink, and to drink until evening; of whom it is said in another place: Woe to you, O city, whose king is a youth, and your princes eat in the morning (Eccl 10:16). Occupied with delights, they do not understand the Creator from the creatures, nor consider the works of his hands, of which we read: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the breath of his mouth (Ps 32 [33]:6). According to a higher understanding, every disturbance of the soul can be called drunkenness, which is conceived from the wine of the fury of dragons and from the incurable venom of asps, which some drink from youth to old age, that is, from morning until evening (Deut 32). Others are roused from the banquet at the third, sixth, or ninth, and the eleventh hour, and it is said to them: Awake, you who are drunk with wine. Upon this wine and upon such grapes and vineyards the Lord rains sulfur and fire from the Lord; and whoever drinks of their wine is inflamed and burned up. He seeks the harp and the psaltery, whose inventor is Jubal, born of the stock of Cain (Gen 4), and does not hear the Lord saying to Aaron: You and your sons shall not drink wine and strong drink when you enter into the tabernacle of testimony, or approach the altar (Lev 10:8). These harps and lyres and timbrel and pipes the Babylonian king had, at whose sounding together the peoples of all nations prostrated themselves on the ground and worshiped the golden statue (Dan 3). And that the first time of human wisdom, when we leave childhood and come to the age of reason, is understood as morning in the Scriptures, many testimonies can teach us; of which, by way of example, a few are to be set down: In the morning I sent the Prophets; and: In the morning you will hear my prayer. In the morning I will stand before you, and will see (Ps 5:4, 5); and: From the night my spirit will rise early (Isa 26:9 LXX); and: O God, my God, to you I watch from the dawn (Ps 62 [63]:1); and: In the mornings I put to death all the sinners of the land, to destroy from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity (Ps 100 [101]:8); and in another place: Weeping will tarry until evening, and gladness until the morning, and other things like these. And we rise in the morning when we leave our vices behind in childhood, and can say: Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance (Ps 24 [25]:7). And when the sun of righteousness has risen for us, the darkness is put to flight, and at once we put to death all the thoughts that provoke us to sins, and we destroy from the city of our mind those sinners of whom the Savior speaks: Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies (Matt 15:19), and the rest. But most unhappy are those who, occupied from morning until evening with drunkenness, gluttony and divers pleasures, do not understand the works of the Lord in themselves, nor consider why they were created.

Hear also the words of the prophecy, and the "Woe" which was proclaimed for gluttons, "Woe unto those who rise up early in the morning and pursue strong drink, and who tarry long over it in the evening while wine inflameth them. With harps, and stringed instruments, and drums, and tabrets, they drink wine, and the works of God they understand not." And behold, the Spirit also hath taught thee that the man who ministereth unto his lusts is unable to understand the works of God. For as in our sleep we are not able to speak and to act as living beings who are awake, even so the man who is sunk in the sleep of lusts cannot understand the living works of God, neither doth he know how to contemplate His government, nor to wonder at the various forms of His dispensation; and he knoweth not admiration of the majesty of God, nor is he awake unto the knowledge of Him, nor is he ready to respond unto His wisdom. For whosoever is sunk in the slumber of lust perceiveth not these things, because the remembrance of these things belongeth unto those who are awake and living. And blessedness is ascribed unto the man who understandeth these things. For if unto those who eat, and drink, and who do not understand the works of God "Woe" be given, contrariwise "Blessing" is ascribed unto those who are abstinent and self-denying, and who at all times meditate upon the works of God.

Now this is the first lust which conquered the world, and because of it the first transgression of the law took place. Through it also the Prophet reproached the people, when he proclaimed, "Woe unto those who rise up early in the morning, and follow quickly thereafter."

176. Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow drunkenness. Here he denounces their fault as to the abuse of food.

And first, he denounces the fault,

second, he threatens punishment, where it says, therefore is my people led away captive (Isa 5:13).

Concerning the first, he does two things:

first, he denounces gluttony as to its species,

second as to its effect, where it says, and the work of the Lord you regard not (Isa 5:12).

177. Now the species of gluttony are five, which are contained in the verse: hastily, sumptuously, too much, greedily, daintily.

Therefore, he first says: woe to you that rise up early in the morning, as to "hastily": woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and when the princes eat in the morning (Eccl 10:16); when shall I awake and find wine again? (Prov 23:35).

As to "greedily," he says, to follow.

As to "too much," he says, and to drink until the evening: who has woe? Whose father has woe? Who has contentions? Who falls into pits? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink off their cups (Prov 23:29-30); to be inflamed with wine, with lust, and to all the vices.

177. As to "daintily," he says, the harp and wine, sought out daintily, with great eagerness because they prepare for themselves pleasure in food.

As to "sumptuously," he says, in your feasts, in which there were great pomps and choice foods: you that eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the herd; you that sing to the sound of the psaltery: they have thought themselves to have instruments of music like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best ointments (Amos 6:4-6).

178. The effect is thoughtlessness, and as to this he says, and the work of the Lord you regard not, that which you ought to do, nor the works of his hands, which he himself has done: wine is a luxurious thing, and drunkenness riotous (Prov 20:1).

"Therefore my people are led into captivity, because they did not have knowledge," namely neither in the head nor in the members.

What do servants think of themselves when they dare to despise the Lord's precepts, not even condescending to reread the letters of invitation whereby he asks them to the blessedness of his kingdom? If any one of us sends a letter to his administrator and he in turn not only fails to do what is commanded but even refuses to read over the orders, that person deserves to receive punishment, not pardon; imprisonment, not freedom. Similarly, one who refuses to read the sacred writings that have been transmitted from the eternal country should fear that he perhaps will not receive eternal rewards and even not escape endless punishment. So dangerous is it for us not to read the divine precepts that the prophet mournfully exclaims, "Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge." … Doubtless, if a person fails to seek God in this world through the sacred lessons, God will refuse to recognize him in eternal bliss.

Therefore my people has been led away captive, because it had no knowledge; and its nobles have perished with hunger, and its multitude is dried up with thirst. That these things befell the people of the Jews according to the letter under Vespasian and Titus, the Roman emperors, both Greek and Latin history relates. And this indeed they suffer spiritually today too, enduring not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of God; because they neither regarded the work of the Lord nor considered the works of his hands, nor had knowledge of him who has always spoken through the Prophets (Amos 8). Hence in the Psalms too it is said of them: They shall return at evening, and shall suffer hunger like dogs, and shall go round about the city (Ps 58 [59]:16). And that every word of teaching is called bread and water, that saying of the Gospel teaches: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes forth from the mouth of God (Luke 4:4); and: Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will not thirst for ever (John 4:13). And in the psalm it is said: He has brought me up beside the waters of refreshment (Ps 22 [23]:2). Hence the Lord too will not send away the hungry in the wilderness, lest they grow weary and collapse and be killed by hunger (Matt 15). And of the righteous man it is said: I have been young, and have grown old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread (Ps 36 [37]:25). Some wish to interpret what is said, My people has been led away captive, because it had no knowledge; and its nobles have perished with hunger, and its multitude is dried up with thirst, generally of the underworld and of Gehenna, in which everyone will be punished who has not had knowledge of God.

179. Therefore is my people led away captive. Here he sets out the corresponding punishment:

and first, as to the affection of the will; hence he says, therefore, just as their knowledge was taken captive by drunkenness, so will they themselves be taken captive: my people have been silent, because they had no knowledge (Hos 4:6).

180. But it seems that ignorance does not merit punishment, because it excuses fault.

And to this is to be said that ignorance can mean merely the negation of knowledge; and thus it merits neither punishment nor pardon, like ignorance of geometry among peasants. It can also mean the privation of knowledge, so that it neglects the aptitude one ought to have in the subject; and thus it is evident that it is vicious to not know those things which someone is able and bound to know.

181. Second, he sets out the punishment opposed to the five species of gluttony: and thus he sets out hunger and thirst, which correspond, as to cause, to what is "hastily," for hunger is caused by someone excessively postponing the taking of food; as if he were saying: you used to eat too quickly, but you only postponed your going hungry.

Again he answers the species of gluttony that is "greedily" as to its genus, for hunger is the desire for food. Hence he says: and their nobles; and he sets out thirst in opposition to the multitude of the common people, who at least were accustomed to quench their thirst with water; but against the nobles, who abounded in provisions sometimes weighed down with thirst, he sets out hunger: it was better with them that were slain by the sword, than with them that died with hunger (Lam 4:9).

Therefore the underworld has enlarged its soul and opened its mouth without any limit, and its strong ones and its people, and its exalted and glorious ones, shall go down into it. And man shall be bowed down, and the man of rank shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low. Those who rose in the morning to pursue strong drink, and continued in drunkenness until evening, and, occupied with pleasure and delights, would not regard the work of the Lord nor contemplate the works of his hands, were therefore led into captivity, because they had no knowledge of the Son of God, who himself says to them, You know neither me nor him who sent me (John 8:19); and in the captivity itself they perished with hunger and were dried up with thirst. Hence the underworld and death enlarged its soul and opened its mouth, and without any number or satiety devoured those who are to be punished for ever: so that the princes and the people, and the exalted and glorious ones of the land of Judah, went down into it, and all pride was humbled, and the eyes of the lofty were brought low, as they understood that they were mortal; and all that the Lord had announced through the Prophets as to come was fulfilled in fact. Now the underworld is said to have a soul, not because it is a living creature, according to the error of some, but because in words of human usage we express the condition of insensible things: that it is insatiable and is never filled by the multitude of the dead. Just as death too is said to be in the hand of the tongue (Prov 18), and Almighty God says that his soul hates the Sabbaths and New Moons of the Jews (Isa 1). Whatever we have said of the people of the Jews can be referred tropologically to those who, occupied with the delights of the world and not regarding the works of God, are led captive into sin and have no knowledge of God; and therefore they perish with hunger and thirst for good works and virtues, and will be dragged down into Gehenna, and there, consigned to eternal torments, they will see their power and pride changed into misery and humility.

182. Second, against another species of gluttony which is "too much," he sets out the insatiability of those who take them captive in subjugation; hence he says, therefore has hell, that is, death or the devil, enlarged her soul, as to affection, and opened her mouth, as to effect. And he speaks according to a human manner, for hell does not have a soul: hell and destruction are never filled (Prov 27:20). Or hell may be said to be Nabuchodonosor: who has enlarged his desire like hell: and is himself like death, and he is never satisfied (Hab 2:5).

183. Third, as to dainty preparation of food, which arises from a certain vanity, he sets out the punishment of humiliation, where it says, and shall go down. And he shows that they are going to be humiliated as to three things.

First, as to subjugation; hence he says: their strong ones, as to the powerful, and their high ones, as to the rich and others prominent in wealth, who are prideful about it, glorious ones, as to the noble and famous, shall go down, as if humiliated, into it, namely to the hell of captivity: and the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. He also put out the eyes of Sedecias: and bound him with fetters, to be carried to Babylon (Jer 39:6-7); and below that in the same place: and Nabuzardan the general of the army carried away captive to Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and the fugitives that had gone over to him, and the rest of the people that remained (Jer 39:9).

183. Second, as to the lowering of the captives: and man shall be brought down, being in captivity, as to the high ones, and man shall be humbled, as to the powerful, and the eyes of the lofty, as to the glorious ones: neither shall you be quiet, even in those nations, nor shall there be any rest for the sole of your foot (Deut 28:65).

And the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be sanctified in righteousness. When the people has been led away captive because it had no knowledge, and has perished with hunger and been dried up with thirst, and the underworld has enlarged its soul, and the strong and the exalted and glorious have gone down into the depth, and man has been bowed down and the man of rank humbled, and all have received according to their deserts: then the Lord will be exalted in judgment, whose judgment before seemed to be unjust, and the holy God will be sanctified by all in righteousness, so that what is said in the Gospel may be fulfilled: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name (Matt 6:9); and: Righteous Father, the world has not known you (John 17:25). Hence we must beware lest we anticipate the judgment of God, whose judgments are great and unspeakable, and of which the Apostle speaks: His judgments are inscrutable, and his ways unsearchable (Rom 11:33), until he lights up the hidden things of darkness and lays open the thoughts of hearts (1 Cor 4:5), he who says in the Gospel: Judge not, that you be not judged (Matt 7:1). In agreement with this sentence the apostle Paul commanded: Who are you that judge another's servant? To his own Lord he stands or falls. But he will stand: for God is able to make him stand (Rom 14:4).

183. Third, as to the exaltation of God who punishes them: and the Lord of hosts shall be exalted, he will appear high, who was first despised, in just judgment, and the holy God, holy in himself, shall be sanctified, that is, he will appear holy; above: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day (Isa 2:11).

And the lambs shall feed according to their order, and strangers shall eat the deserts turned into fruitfulness. For the lambs feeding according to their order, which is taken in the good sense, the Seventy, intending I know not what, translated, those that are plundered shall feed like bulls, understanding bulls in place of lambs, and again interpreting lambs in place of strangers. But when the Lord has been exalted in judgment, and the holy one sanctified in his righteousness, so that the wicked husbandmen perish wickedly and the lofty cedar is cut down by the axe of the Lord, then those who are of the number of the lambs, not of the goats, will feed in the meadows of the Church and will say: The Lord feeds me, and I shall lack nothing (Ps 22 [23]:1); and what the Jews have deserted, turned into fruitfulness, the people of the nations will eat. This is according to tropology. But to complete the order of the history, the same thing is said in other words of which we read above: Strangers devour your land in your sight, and it is deserted and overthrown by foreign peoples (Isa 1:7). For a multitude of the nations, gathered from the whole world, dwells in Judea; and, the former peoples having been cast out, blindness has therefore come in part upon the house of Israel, that the fullness of the nations might come in (Rom 11). And beautifully, according to the Seventy, those were plundered and laid waste and led into captivity like bulls of whom the Lord had said, Fat bulls have beset me, so that lambs might occupy the places of the bulls.

184. Fourth, against the species of gluttony which is "sumptuously," he sets out the devouring of their goods by their enemies: and the lambs shall feed, that is, they shall be consumed by your enemies, according to their order, for the better are first, as to animals; and as to products of the soil, strangers shall eat the deserts, that is, the fields deserted by you, turned into fruitfulness, that is, made more fertile: the Lord shall bring you, and your king, whom you shall have appointed over you, into a nation which you and your fathers know not (Deut 28:36); and below this in the same place: the stranger that lives with you in the land, shall rise up over you, and shall be higher (Deut 28:43).

Mystically: the lambs, that is, the saints, shall feed, shall be refreshed by the teaching of God the Father, according to their order, that is, their capacity; strangers, the Gentiles; and deserts, what has been deserted by the Jews, namely the Sacred Scriptures, turned into fruitfulness, of spiritual understanding.

For each and every person braids a rope for himself in his sins.… Who makes the rope long? Who adds sin to sin? How are sins added to sins? When the sins that have been committed are combined with other sins. He committed a theft; that no one may find out that he committed it, he seeks out an astrologer. It would be enough to have committed the theft; why do you want to join a sin to a sin? Look, two sins. When you are prevented from approaching the astrologer, you blaspheme the bishop. Look, three sins. When you hear, "Send him outside the church," you say, "I'm taking myself to Donatus's group." Look, you add a fourth sin.

Our Lord shows what reward awaits hypocritical workers when he made a scourge of cords and drove them all out of the temple. They are cast out as sharers of the inheritance of the saints if, after they are chosen to be among the saints, they either perform good acts deceitfully or evil acts openly. He also drives out the sheep and oxen when he shows the life and teaching of such persons deserve condemnation. The cords with which he expelled the wicked persons from the temple by scourging them are the progressive development of [their] evil actions, which provide material to the strict Judge for condemning those who are to be rejected.… The person who heaps sins upon sins, for which he will be condemned more severely, is like one lengthening the cords with which he can be bound and scourged, adding to them little by little.

Woe to you who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with the rope of a cart. Who say: Let his work make haste and come quickly, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, and we know it. For the rope of a cart the Seventy translated the strap of the yoke of a heifer, or of a cow. That sins are called bonds we read quite often; among them is this: Each one is bound fast with the cords of his own sins (Prov 5:22). And the Lord, rebuking the offending people, which had joined sins to sins, made a scourge of cords, showing them how they had made the house of God a den of robbers (John 2), and had turned the seat of prayer into a house of trade (Matt 21). The guest too at the Lord's supper, not having a wedding garment, is bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness (Matt 22). And the Lord came to say to those who were in bonds, Come out (Isa 49:9); and to those who were in darkness, Be revealed (Ps 145 [146]:8). For he himself looses the fettered and enlightens the blind, whom Jeremiah calls the prisoners of the earth. Nor does he lament over those who have begun to sin and have at once ceased; for there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin at some time (Eccl 7:21); but over those who have drawn out their sins with a long cord. Hence we read in Numbers too (chapter 19) that the red heifer, whose ashes are the expiation of the people, is not sacrificed and offered at the altar of the Lord unless it has done no earthly works and has not drawn the yoke, nor been bound with the bonds of the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar. And in this same prophet, instead of the girdle of truth, the daughters of Zion are girded with a cord. Ahithophel too and Judas [one of whom betrayed David, the other the Lord], drawing their sins with a very long rope, perished by hanging, thinking that the evil of conscience would be ended by present death, and that there is nothing after death. And that according to the Hebrew and all the other translators they are called cords of vanity signifies this: that for those who commit it sin is easily woven, and is as empty and easy as the threads of spiders are woven; but when we wish to get out of it, we are tied with the most solid bonds. And the cart full and laden with sins they understand more easily who remember that it is written in Zechariah that impiety sits upon a talent of lead (Zech 5), and that the Egyptians, who were weighed down by the heavy burden of their sins, were sunk like lead in the Red Sea (Exod 15). And in another place the sinner says: My iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they have weighed upon me (Ps 37 [38]:5). These things are said to the princes of the Jews, who were rebuked above for avarice and luxury: that, called by the Lord to penitence, and afterwards by his Apostles, they persevere to this day in blasphemies, and three times every day in all the synagogues, under the name of the Nazarenes, they anathematize the Christian name.

185. Woe to you that draw. Here he denounces the pertinacity of their sinning:

and first, he denounces their fault,

second, he threatens punishment, where it says, therefore as the tongue of the fire devours the stubble (Isa 5:24).

Concerning the first, he does two things:

first, he denounces the fault in general,

second, he explains it in particular, where it says, that say (Isa 5:19).

Therefore, he first says: woe to you that draw, that is, draw out, iniquity with cords of vanity, that is, with the vain occasions by which man is drawn to sin, while the fault is prolonged by increase: his own iniquities catch the wicked, and he is fast bound with the ropes of his own sins (Prov 5:22). And this is said as to common sins; as to grave sins, however, he adds: and sin as the rope of a cart, that is, the rope by which a cart is bound and drawn, which is larger than a cord. And he designates the weight of the sin in the cart, below: loose the bands of wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress (Isa 58:6).

188. Note on the words above, and sin as the rope of a cart (Isa 5:18), that sin is first called a cord:

and this is because it draws us, first, to the pattern of sin: immediately he follows her as an ox led to be a victim . . . and not knowing that he is drawn like a fool to bonds (Prov 7:22);

second, it draws us to the custom of sinning: a wild ass accustomed to the wilderness in the desire of his heart, snuffed up the wind of his love (Jer 2:24);

third, to the destruction of eternal death: deliver them that are led to death: and those that are drawn to death, forbear not to deliver (Prov 24:11).

189. Second, sin is called vanity: and this is because it falls short

first, of the imitation of divine truth: all men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God (Wis 13:1);

second, of the attainment of the end we hope for: but to the sinner he has given vexation, and superfluous care, to heap up and to gather together, and to give it to him that has pleased God: but these also are vanity, and a fruitless solicitude of the mind (Eccl 2:26);

third, of long length of time: the son of man is not immortal, and they are delighted with the vanity of evil (Sir 17:29); all those things are passed away like a shadow, and like a post that runs on (Wis 5:9).

190. Third, sin is called a bond: and this is because it binds

first, the intellect so that it may not see: for while the wicked thought to be able to have dominion over the holy nation, they themselves being fettered with the bonds of darkness, and a long night, shut up in their houses, exiled, they pleased the eternal providence. And while they thought to lie hid in their obscure sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness (Wis 17:2-3);

second, it binds the hand so that it may not do good;

third, the feet so that they may not advance.

Concerning these two, Matthew 22:13 says: bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness.

191. Fourth, sin is called a cart, and this is because it oppresses

first, with the burden of servitude: and there you shall serve strange gods day and night, which shall not give you any rest (Jer 16:13);

second, with fear of the heart: for whereas wickedness is fearful, it bears witness of its condemnation (Wis 17:10);

third, with uneasiness of conscience, below: but the heart of the wicked is like the raging sea, which cannot rest (Isa 57:20).

And the sense is: Woe to you who think that the day of judgment will not be, or that the captivity which the prophetic discourse foretells will not come; who say to the Prophet: How long will you threaten us with the wrath of God? We wish to know it; let it come now. And they say this in irony, because they think it will not come, but is feigned by the Prophet.

186. That say. Here he shows those vanities in particular, from which they drew sin upon themselves. And this as to three things:

first, as to their contempt of the judge;

second, as to their excusing of sin, where it says, woe to you that call evil good (Isa 5:20);

third, as to the presumption of their sinning, where it says, woe to you that are wise (Isa 5:21).

And this is the threefold cord, which is not easily broken (Eccl 4:12).

187. They have contempt for the threat of the judge because of two things,

namely because of the delay of the sentence; hence he says: let him make haste, and let his work, of captivity, which you threaten, come quickly: for because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil, the children of men commit evils without any fear (Eccl 8:11).

Second, because of the distance of the judge; hence he says, let him come near, as if to say: he is in heaven and cannot see, but let him be near: for they have said: the Lord has forsaken the earth, and the Lord sees not (Ezek 9:9).

"Woe unto them that call evil good." For this text is to be understood to refer not to humans but to those things that make humans evil, and the prophet's accusation is rightly applied to one who calls adultery good. But if someone should call another good whom he believes chaste, not knowing that he is an adulterer, he is deceived not in his understanding of good and evil but through the secrets of human conduct. He is calling a person good whom he believes to possess that which indubitably is good. The adulterer he would call evil, the chaste person good, and he calls the person in question good simply through not knowing that he is an adulterer and not chaste.

Opposing adherence to peace, we have the spirit of malice and cruelty, of hatred and anger, and these two lead to complete perversion: the malicious man turns every good into evil, while the angry man turns every evil into good and considers good the actual rendering of evil. Hence they "change darkness into light, and light into darkness." Such as these are unqualified to listen to God's Law.

Some accept little gifts and presents and endeavor to corrupt just cases, as the prophet says: "Putting darkness for light, and light for darkness: saying what is sweet is bitter, and what is bitter, sweet." Therefore, they hear cases and decide them unjustly. They accept earthly gifts and lose eternal rewards; gaining money, they lose eternity. O miserable fellow, if you have done this or do it or attempt it, you pay attention to what you are acquiring but do not notice what you lose. By acquiring gold, you offend God, for while your money coffer is filled your conscience is weakened. In a few days or years your soul will leave your body; then the gold will remain in the coffer, but your unfortunate soul will descend into hell. However, if you had judged justly, refusing happily to serve avarice or dissipation, your soul would be lifted up to the kingdom full of God and your moneybox would stay in the world without gold. Therefore I beseech you, brothers, and I adjure you by him who redeemed you with his precious blood, observe justice in every case with all your strength, and think more carefully of the salvation of your soul.

All injustice begins in the mind. And anomalies accustom the mind to the idea of unreason and untruth. ... When people have got used to unreason they can no longer be startled at injustice. When people have grown familiar with an anomaly, they are prepared to that extent for a grievance; they may think the grievance grievous, but they can no longer think it strange.

As it is, exactly the reverse is true. Papers are permitted to terrify and darken the fancy of the young with innumerable details, but not permitted to state in clean legal language what the thing is about. They are allowed to give any fact about the thing except the fact that it is a sin.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice. We have had the sophist who defends cruelty, and calls it masculinity. We have had the sophist who defends profligacy, and calls it the liberty of the emotions. We have had the sophist who defends idleness, and calls it art. It will almost certainly happen—it can almost certainly be prophesied—that in this saturnalia of sophistry there will at some time or other arise a sophist who desires to idealise cowardice.

The word "modest" will soon become like the word "honourable," which is said to be employed by the Japanese before any word that occurs in a polite sentence, as "Put honourable umbrella in honourable umbrella-stand;" or "condescend to clean honourable boots." We shall read in the future that the modest King went out in his modest crown, clad from head to foot in modest gold and attended with his ten thousand modest earls, their swords modestly drawn. No! if we have to pay for splendour let us praise it as splendour, not as simplicity.

Men always attempt to avoid condemning a thing upon merely moral grounds. If I beat my grandmother to death to-morrow in the middle of Battersea Park, you may be perfectly certain that people will say everything about it except the simple and fairly obvious fact that it is wrong. Some will call it insane; that is, will accuse it of a deficiency of intelligence. This is not necessarily true at all. You could not tell whether the act was unintelligent or not unless you knew my grandmother. Some will call it vulgar, disgusting, and the rest of it; that is, they will accuse it of a lack of manners. Perhaps it does show a lack of manners; but this is scarcely its most serious disadvantage. Others will talk about the loathsome spectacle and the revolting scene; that is, they will accuse it of a deficiency of art, or æsthetic beauty. This again depends on the circumstances: in order to be quite certain that the appearance of the old lady has definitely deteriorated under the process of being beaten to death, it is necessary for the philosophical critic to be quite certain how ugly she was before. Another school of thinkers will say that the action is lacking in efficiency: that it is an uneconomic waste of a good grandmother. But that could only depend on the value, which is again an individual matter. The only real point that is worth mentioning is that the action is wicked, because your grandmother has a right not to be beaten to death. But of this simple moral explanation modern journalism has, as I say, a standing fear. It will call the action anything else—mad, bestial, vulgar, idiotic, rather than call it sinful.

Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it.

But every now and then men jump up with the new something or other and say that everything can be had without sacrifice, that bad is good if you are only enlightened, and that there is no real difference between being shaved and not being shaved. The difference, they say, is only a difference of degree; everything is evolutionary and relative. Shavedness is immanent in man. Every ten-penny nail is a Potential Razor. The superstitious people of the past (they say) believed that a lot of black bristles standing out at right angles to one's face was a positive affair. But the higher criticism teaches us better. Bristles are merely negative. They are a Shadow where Shaving should be.

"Do you see that fire?" I asked. "If we had a real fighting democracy, some one would burn you in it; like the devil-worshipper that you are."

"Perhaps," he said, in his tired, fair way. "Only what you call evil I call good."

Now things every bit as wild as this are being received in silence every day. All strokes slip on the smoothness of a polished wall. All blows fall soundless on the softness of a padded cell. For madness is a passive as well as an active state: it is a paralysis, a refusal of the nerves to respond to the normal stimuli, as well as an unnatural stimulation. There are commonwealths, plainly to be distinguished here and there in history, which pass from prosperity to squalor, or from glory to insignificance, or from freedom to slavery, not only in silence, but with serenity. The face still smiles while the limbs, literally and loathsomely, are dropping from the body. These are peoples that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions. When they give birth to a fantastic fashion or a foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth. They have grown used to their own unreason; chaos is their cosmos; and the whirlwind is the breath of their nostrils. These nations are really in danger of going off their heads en masse; of becoming one vast vision of imbecility, with toppling cities and crazy country-sides, all dotted with industrious lunatics. One of these countries is modern England.

The clue to all this tangle is as simple as it is terrible. If England is an aristocracy, England is dying. If this system IS the country, as some say, the country is stiffening into more than the pomp and paralysis of China. It is the final sign of imbecility in a people that it calls cats dogs and describes the sun as the moon--and is very particular about the preciseness of these pseudonyms. To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence. The disease called aphasia, in which people begin by saying tea when they mean coffee, commonly ends in their silence. Silence of this stiff sort is the chief mark of the powerful parts of modern society. They all seem straining to keep things in rather than to let things out. For the kings of finance speechlessness is counted a way of being strong, though it should rather be counted a way of being sly. By this time the Parliament does not parley any more than the Speaker speaks. Even the newspaper editors and proprietors are more despotic and dangerous by what they do not utter than by what they do. We have all heard the expression "golden silence." The expression "brazen silence" is the only adequate phrase for our editors. If we wake out of this throttled, gaping, and wordless nightmare, we must awake with a yell. The Revolution that releases England from the fixed falsity of its present position will be not less noisy than other revolutions. It will contain, I fear, a great deal of that rude accomplishment described among little boys as "calling names"; but that will not matter much so long as they are the right names.

Woe to you who call evil good, and good evil, putting darkness for light, and light for darkness, putting bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. It is a crime of the same kind to call good, light and sweet by contrary names as to call evil, darkness and bitter by the names of virtues. This is against those who do not think it a sin if they disparage the good, and do not judge it an offense if they praise the evil. And the Jews put good as evil, and light as darkness, and sweet as bitter, when they took up Barabbas, the author of robbery and sedition, and crucified Jesus, who had come only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to save what had perished. In Barabbas let us understand the devil, who, though he is night and darkness, transforms himself into an Angel of light (Matt 27). Hence the Apostle too says: What participation has righteousness with iniquity? What fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial? (2 Cor 6:14, 15). For neither is the lamp to be taken away and put under the bushel or under the bed, but upon the lampstand, that it may give light to all. Nor is a tree bearing evil fruits to be called by the name of a good tree (Matt 5). Hence in Genesis too it is related in mystical speech that God divided between the light and the darkness, which in the beginning were borne over the abyss (Gen 1). And that the Savior is called good, he himself says in the Gospel: The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11). He says too that he is the light: I am the light of the world (John 8:12); and daily, filled with the heavenly bread, we say: Taste and see how sweet the Lord is (Ps 33 [34]:9). On the contrary, when we say, Deliver us from evil (Matt 6:13), and, The world is set in the evil one (1 John 5:19), we desire to be delivered from the snares of the devil. And that he himself is signified by the names of darkness and bitterness we read quite often. But we can say this too, that all doctrines contrary to the truth are bitter, and the truth alone is sweet. Hence we must beware lest we follow falsehood instead of truth, darkness instead of light. For there are many ways that seem right to men, and their ends reach to the depth of the underworld. There is also the righteous man perishing in his righteousness, to whom it is said: Be not overly righteous (Eccl 7:17). For which reasons Israel promises that he will walk by the king's way and will turn aside neither to the left nor to the right (Deut 5). And to say what I feel: with difficulty can anyone be free of this curse, since we often flatter the wicked for their power and despise the good for their poverty. Hence Aquila interpreted more expressively: Woe to him who says to the evil man, You are good, and to the good man, You are evil (Prov 17:15). And with this sense agrees what Solomon says in Proverbs: He who judges the righteous unrighteous, and the unrighteous righteous, both are abominable with God. The Scribes and Pharisees too, receiving not the words of the Savior but the traditions of men and old wives' fables, made good evil and evil good.

Hence it is said in Isaiah: Woe to those who call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet. This is said by those who in judging consider not the cases but the persons, and turn the fruit of Christ's righteousness, which is most sweet, into bitterness. Whoever, therefore, in judging is led either by kinship or by friendship, or, on the other hand, by hostile hatred or by enmities, perverts the judgment of Christ, who is righteousness, and turns his fruit into bitterness.

Must we be servile to the whim of those who are wicked? If they wish valueless praise conferred upon them, is it becoming that we, too, heap valueless and laughable praise on them? And this especially since they who wish to be ridiculous should not be laughed at by those who are honorable, just as they who desire to be decorated even with the label of false praise should not be praised in a lying manner. Our prime consideration should be not so much what they wish to hear as what it is fitting for us to say, especially since the prophet says, "Woe to them who speak sweet for bitter things and bitter for sweet things."

For, in like manner, they also who oppose martyrdoms, representing salvation to be destruction, transmute sweet into bitter, as well as light into darkness. Thus, by preferring this very wretched life to that most blessed one, they put bitter for sweet, as well as darkness for light.

192. Woe to you that call evil good. Here he sets out vanity as to the excusing of sin.

And first, as to the effect: that call evil good: the evil of their hands they call good (Mic 7:3);

second, as to the intellect: that put darkness for light, truth for error: men loved darkness rather than the light (John 3:19);

third, as to the affections: that put bitter for sweet, thinking the life of sin to be sweet: and it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but whereas they lived in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and so great evils peace (Wis 14:22).

That the Black One may find no means of entrance, let us flee from every vanity, let us utterly hate the works of the way of wickedness. Do not, by retiring apart, live a solitary life, as if you were already [fully] justified; but coming together in one place, make common inquiry concerning what tends to your general welfare. For the Scripture saith, "Woe to them who are wise to themselves, and prudent in their own sight!"

Consider as your superiors one another, especially those who are not committed to your charge, your neighbors, because even those whom you see doing certain wicked things—you do not know what good things may lie hidden in them. Therefore let each one strive to be great, but yet in some way not know that he is, lest while he arrogantly attributes greatness to himself, he lose it. For hence it is said through the prophet: "Woe to you who are wise in your own eyes, and prudent before yourselves." Hence Paul says: "Be not wise in your own eyes." Hence against the proud Saul it is said: "When you were little in your own eyes, you were made head among the tribes of Israel." As if it were openly said: When you saw yourself as little, I made you great above others. But because you now see yourself as great, you are esteemed little by me.

Who is the greatest subverter of the people of God—he who, relying on the power of free choice, despises the help of the Creator and is satisfied with following his own will, or he who dreads to be judged by the details of the Lord's commandments?

Woe to you who are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own sight. You who seem to yourselves, he says, to be wise, who follow the prudence not of God but of men: and though you do not receive the power of God and the wisdom of God, you think yourselves wise (1 Cor 1). Between wisdom and prudence the Stoics say there is this difference: that wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human, but prudence only of mortal things. And these things are said consistently against the Scribes and Pharisees, who, having the key of knowledge, neither enter in to Christ themselves nor allow others to enter (Luke 11).

193. Woe to you that are wise. Here he sets out the third vanity as to the presumption of their sinning, which concerns three things.

First, wisdom of heart, both in speculative things: you that are wise: be not wise in your own conceit (Prov 3:7); and in practical things: prudent: be not prudent in your own conceits (Rom 12:16).

Woe to you who are mighty to drink wine, and strong men to mix strong drink, that is, drunkenness. Of those to whom he had said above, Woe to you who rise early in the morning to pursue drunkenness, and to drink until evening, so as to be inflamed with wine, he speaks now too: who are mighty to drink wine, and strong men to mix strong drink (Deut 32). Drunk with the wine of the dragon and the incurable venom of asps, they slandered the power of the Lord. And being drunk themselves, they made the peoples drunk, so that, raving with a like fury, they cried out together against the Lord. According to tropology we have already said before that the priests who are to enter the Tabernacle of God ought not to drink wine and strong drink (Lev 10). To which we now add that it was commanded the Nazirites too, who sanctify themselves to the Lord, that they should neither drink nor eat wine and strong drink and anything that comes from grapes, not even a raisin, nor vinegar made from wine (Num 6). But in Proverbs too it is commanded: Let the mighty who are wrathful not drink wine, lest when they have drunk they forget wisdom. Between wine and strong drink, according to the anagogy, I judge the difference to be this: that wine is one disturbance out of many, for example, of lust, of avarice, of gluttony, and of envy; but strong drink, that is, drunkenness, contains in itself all the passions of the vices, which in the Latin tongue we can more rightly call disturbances, because they overturn the settled state of the mind and make the drunken not know what they do. Those, then, who are set over others ought above all to be free of vices, and most of all of anger, which is nearest to madness, lest the more they can, the more they harm those subject to them. He mixes strong drink who, though full of drunkenness, pretends, in order to deceive men, to have certain shadows and images of the virtues.

193. Second, as to the power of the body for sinning: you that are mighty to drink; they boast that they are able to drink much and to become drunk, because of the custom of the land in which mixed wine is drunk, below: let the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new strength (Isa 41:1); they are glad when they have done evil, and rejoice in the most wicked things (Prov 2:14).

You who justify the wicked for gifts, and take away from the righteous man his righteousness. This too is part of the vices of the vineyard which instead of grapes made wild grapes, and, when the Lord waited for it to do judgment, did iniquity, justifying the wicked for gifts, and considering not the cases but the presents, which blind even the eyes of the wise. Hence we must beware lest we be drunk with wine, in which is luxury (Deut 16:19; Eph 5), and the thighs of our shame be laid bare (Gen 9), and lest we flatter the wicked for gifts and despise the righteousness of the righteous man for his poverty. This is commanded in the Epistle of James as well: that we not become judges of iniquity by honoring the wicked rich and despising the holy poor.

193. Third, as to authority: that justify, that is, you say that you have such authority that at your will you are able to justify the wicked, so that whatever pleases you may have the force of law, below: woe to them that make wicked laws: and when they write, write injustice (Isa 10:1); he that justifies the wicked, and he that condemns the just (Prov 17:15); and if a man give not something into their mouth, they prepare war against him (Mic 3:5).

Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and the heat of the flame burns it up, so their root shall be as ashes, and their bud shall go up as dust. For they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel. For the causes given above, of pride and drunkenness and avarice, because instead of grapes they brought forth thorns, and hay, wood, stubble, and briers that are to burn, therefore the root of their malice will be reduced to ashes, and every flower and beauty of riches and of the body will be compared to dust (1 Cor 3). For they did not only do these things, but by these steps they came to blasphemy, so that they did not receive the law of the Lord and blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel; of which we read above: Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa 2:3). The root can be taken as evil thoughts, and the fruit and bud as evil works and words, so that what lies hidden in the root is shown in the bud; and both will be devoured by the Lord's burning. Hence the Apostle too (Heb 12:15) speaks of the root of the bitterness of evils springing up.

194. Therefore as the tongue of the fire devours. Here he threatens punishment.

And first, he sets out the punishment of consumption under the metaphor of fire, therefore, because you draw iniquity placing a root for yourself in your sins, as the flame of fire consumes the stubble which it touches, and the heat of the flame consumes that which is at a distance—for persecution slayed the captives and afflicted the others: without, the sword shall lay them waste, and terror within (Deut 32:25), so shall their root be as ashes, as to the things in which they trusted, whether their fathers or their kindred, and their bud, that is, their sons, shall go up as dust. In which is noted the strength coming forth from these causes: and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and it comes shall set them on fire (Mal 4:1).

195. Second, he places the process and order of the punishment.

And first, he sets out the cause of punishment, and especially as to the first vanity; hence he says: for they have cast away the law, having contempt for it in their heart, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel, mocking with their mouth: they obeyed not your voice, and they walked not in your law (Jer 32:32).

"Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people." He wanted them to be a people of his own and to be called as such, but this is not what they wanted. Because of this he gives a sign of approaching war and of a multitude of the slain that would fill the mountains with dead corpses. The whole country would become full of their dead. All this would happen to them at the hands of the enemy invaders. The enemies did not do this on their own; rather, God himself brought them about, drawing and leading their enemies to the siege of the accused Israelites.

Therefore the fury of the Lord is angered against his people, and he has stretched out his hand over it and struck it, and the mountains are troubled, and their carcasses have become like dung in the midst of the streets. For all this his fury is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out. Because they cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, which the Lord promises through Jeremiah that he will give, saying: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will strike a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the pact which I made with your fathers in the day when I took their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt (Jer 31:31, 32). And they blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel, saying: He has a demon, and is a Samaritan (John 8:48); and: Is not this the son of the carpenter? (Matt 13:55). Therefore the fury of the Lord is angered against his people, that fury which before had been angered against the princes and the mighty, who were wise in their own eyes and justified the wicked for gifts, and the tongue of fire had devoured them like stubble, and the heat of the flame had burned them up, so that the mighty might mightily suffer torments. And he stretched out his hand against it, which he calls his people because it was the portion of his inheritance and the cord of his possession (Deut 32). And he stretches out his hand to strike, and his fury is angered, of which we read in another place too: O Lord, rebuke me not in your fury, nor chastise me in your wrath (Ps 6:1). And Jeremiah: Correct us, he says, O Lord, but in judgment, and not in fury (Jer 10:24). And the Lord is said to rage, not because he is subject to human disturbances, but because we who offend do not fear the Lord unless we have heard him angry. Hence the Apostle too writes (Rom 2) that the goodness and patience of God call us to penitence, but we, according to our hardness and impenitent heart, treasure up wrath for ourselves in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. And what the hand is that is stretched out or lifted up over the sinful people Job says more plainly: For the hand of the Lord has touched me (Job 19:21). Hence the devil too, knowing the mighty hand of the Lord and the arm that has been revealed to all the nations, says to the Lord: Put forth your hand and touch all that he has: and see if he will not bless you to your face (Job 2:5). And that what is to come is spoken of as past follows prophetic custom, in which the things foretold as to come are so certain that they are thought to be past. This is sung in the Psalms too: They gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink (Ps 68 [69]:22). And again: They divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast lots (Ps 21 [22]:19). And as for what follows, And he struck it, that is, his people, and the mountains are troubled: some think the mountains are the contrary powers, or those spirits which are in the ministry of God and to whom sinners are handed over to be punished. But we think it is said hyperbolically: that because of the greatness of the impending evils even the mountains are moved, and all the streets of the cities are filled with the corpses of the dead. That this befell the Jews after the passion of the Lord under Vespasian and Hadrian no one doubts. And though these things have been done, his fury is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out, or lifted high, which shows the bearing of one who is angry and strikes. And it is to be noted in all these things that he does not reproach them with idolatry, nor with other sins by which they offended God, but because they cast away the law of the Gospel and blasphemed the word of the Lord.

195. Second, the wrath of the one who punishes: therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled; he speaks after the manner of the process of wrath in men. And the Lord was exceedingly angry (Ps 105[106]:40).

Third, the infliction of the punishment: and he has stretched out his hand, the hand of his power to strike them, which, in sparing them, he had kept folded: and he will stretch out his hand upon the north, and will destroy Assyria: and he will make the beautiful city a wilderness (Zeph 2:13).

Fourth, the effect of the punishment in the massacre of souls: the mountains, that is, the great, were troubled, because of their fear.

196. The Gloss says that this is said hyperbolically.

On the contrary, this implies that the prophet goes beyond the truth.

And to this is to be said that in some writings this is taken to mean going beyond the truth simply, but in Holy Scripture, it is taken for going beyond the truth according to the opinion of men; as if to say: the trouble will be beyond what can be believed. Or otherwise: hyperbole is a certain trope, and in tropological speech, one thing is said and another is understood; hence there is no falsehood in regard to the sense which it intends to make, just as in metaphor; as if to say: the trouble will be so great that the mountains, if such a thing were possible, shall be troubled: the mountains were troubled with his strength (Ps 45:4[46:3]). And, as to baseness of their bodies, their carcasses became as dung: they shall not be gathered, and they shall not be buried: they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth (Jer 8:2); they shall die by the death of grievous illnesses: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be buried, they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth (Jer 16:4).

197. For after this his anger is not turned away. Here he places the common and ultimate punishment, as to their captivity by the Romans. And concerning this, three things are set out:

first, the preparation of the army;

second, the disposition of the army, where it says, and behold they shall come with speed swiftly (Isa 5:26);

third, the infliction of the punishment, where it says, and they shall keep fast hold of it (Isa 5:29).

Concerning the first, three things are set out.

First, the indignation of the one who gathers the army together: for after this, as if to say: just as you add sins to sins, so he will add punishment to punishment, below: no man shall spare his brother. And he shall turn to the right hand, and shall be hungry: and shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be filled (Isa 9:19-20).

I Glorify God, even Jesus Christ, who has given you such wisdom. For I have observed that ye are perfected in an immoveable faith, as if ye were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the spirit, and are established in love through the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded with respect to our Lord, that He was truly of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the will and power of God; that He was truly born of a virgin, was baptized by John, in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him; and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, nailed [to the cross] for us in His flesh. Of this fruit we are by His divinely-blessed passion, that He might set up a standard for all ages, through His resurrection, to all His holy and faithful [followers], whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of His Church.

And he will lift up a signal among the nations far off, and will whistle to him from the ends of the earth; and behold, he will come swiftly in haste. There shall be none faint nor laboring among them; he shall not slumber nor sleep, nor shall the girdle of his loins be loosed, nor the latchet of his shoe be broken. His arrows are sharp, and all his bows bent; the hoofs of his horses are like flint, and his wheels like the rush of a tempest. His roaring is like a lion's; he shall roar like the lion's whelps, and gnash his teeth, and seize the prey, and embrace it, and there shall be none to rescue it. And he shall resound over it in that day like the sound of the sea: we shall look upon the land, and behold, the darkness of tribulation, and the light is darkened by its gloom. The Hebrews understand this place to be prophesied of the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar, that by the will of God he was brought into Judea and Jerusalem and overthrew the temple. But we, following the order and joining what follows to what precedes, say that the signal was lifted up among the nations far off, and that the Lord whistled for them or drew them from the ends of the earth, for this reason: because they cast away the law of the Gospel and blasphemed the holy word. For if the discourse were about the Babylonians, according to prophetic custom he would have said: I will call him who is from the North, because, relative to the position of Judea, the Assyrians and Chaldeans are in the northern region. Or certainly he would have described the Babylonians and Assyrians more openly. But now, by saying, He will lift up a signal among the nations far off, and will whistle to him from the ends of the earth, he signifies nations set far off and dwelling at the ends of the earth: doubtless the Romans and all the peoples of Italy, Gaul and Spain, who under Vespasian and Hadrian lay subject to the Roman empire. Hence Italy too, from the fact that Hesperus sets there, was once called Hesperia. And at his coming it was struck, and all the mountains of Judea were troubled, as Theodotion and Symmachus interpreted, or were moved, as Aquila set down, or were embittered, as the Seventy translated, so that by the onslaught of the enemies all the streets were filled with the corpses of the dead. The divine discourse, then, describes the swiftness of the army that comes, which came not by its own will but by the Lord's, nay rather was drawn and summoned by his whistle: that it did not faint nor grow weary on so long a march, and in its greed for plunder did not admit sleep to its eyes, and its shoes too were not worn out; the multitude of archers, the squadrons of horsemen, the heat of the chariots and four-horse teams; that like a lion it came not so much to fight as to plunder and devour; and the howling of the victorious army is compared to the waves of the sea. From this it is to be noted what the sound of the sea signifies wherever it is named in the Scriptures. When, then, the Roman army has come and seized the prey, and there has been no one to rescue it, the Prophet, with the feeling of one who suffers with them, joins himself to the people and says: We shall look upon the land, and behold, the darkness of tribulation. For we shall not dare to look upon heaven, whose dweller we have offended; and our light, which we always had in God, has been darkened by the gloom of tribulations. I have read in someone's Commentaries that what is said, He will lift up a signal among the nations far off, and will whistle to him from the ends of the earth, ought to be understood of the calling of the nations: that, when the signal of the Cross was lifted up and the burdens of sins laid down, they came swiftly and believed. But I do not know how what follows can agree with this sense.

He [God] says the following about the Gentiles, those he was about to call together from the ends of the earth: "Behold, they shall come swiftly with speed." He says "swiftly" because of the hastening toward end times. He says "with speed" because they will not be weighed down by the weights of the ancient law. He says "they shall be filled" because it is a promise made only to those who hunger and thirst.

197. Second, the raising of the standard, and he will lift up a sign, that is, a standard: set up the sign in Zion. Strengthen yourselves, stay not: for I bring evil from the north, and great destruction (Jer 4:6).

Third, the calling together of the army, and will whistle, that is, he will blow upon, below: and it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall whistle for the fly, that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. And they shall come, and shall all of them rest in the torrents of the valleys (Isa 7:18-19). And to frighten them more, he adds the foreignness of the people, as to cult: to the nations, so that they do not revere your holy things; and as to language, afar off, lest they be appeased by words; and as to customs: from the ends of the earth, lest they make an alliance with them.

198. Behold they shall come with speed swiftly. Here the disposition of the army is set out.

And first, he shows that they are unencumbered for coming;

second, that they are armed for fighting: their arrows (Isa 5:28);

third, that they are cruel for punishing: their roaring (Isa 5:29).

Concerning the first, two things are set out.

First, their swiftness: behold, for certainly, they are swift: our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of the air (Lam 4:19); for their horsemen shall come from afar, they shall fly as an eagle that makes haste to eat (Hab 1:8); behold he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest: his horses are swifter than eagles (Jer 4:13).

199. Second, the cause of their swiftness, following the removal of a threefold impediment:

first, that which may occur from infirmity of nature, against which he says: there is none that shall faint, who would have to stay behind, nor labor among them, who would have to come late, below: but they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isa 40:31).

Second, against that impediment which may arise from the will, he says: they shall not slumber, through laziness, so that, namely, they would go lazily, nor sleep, so that they would recover their senses: slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger (Prov 19:15).

Third, he removes the impediment that arises from the need for things: neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, and he sets out those things by which travelers are usually impeded from their journey; as though all these things will last longer than usual: I have brought you forty years through the desert: your garments are not worn out, neither are the shoes of your feet consumed with age (Deut 29:5).

200. Their arrows are sharp. Here he shows that they are armed for fighting.

And first, as to the goodness of their arms; and he sets out the arms that are customary in those lands: their arrows are sharp, in which the goodness of their arrows is noted; their bows are bent, in which the preparation of their arms is noted, lest they be impeded by preparing: the sharp arrows of the mighty (Ps 119[120]:4).

Second, he places their transport: the hoofs of their horses shall be like the flint, which is not easily broken, and their wheels like the violence of a tempest, making a great noise because of their multitude and great speed: behold he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest (Jer 4:13).

201. Their roaring. Here he shows that they are cruel for punishing.

And first, as to their vehemence: roaring: they shall walk after the Lord, he shall roar as a lion: because he shall roar, and the children of the sea shall fear (Hos 11:10).

Second, as to their rapacity: they shall roar like young lions: the young lions roaring after their prey (Ps 103[104]:21).

Third, as to their cruelty, they shall gnash their teeth, which is characteristic of a boar: they gnashed upon me with their teeth (Ps 34:16[35:15]); the boar out of the wood has laid it waste: and a singular wild beast has devoured it (Ps 79:14).

202. And take hold. Here the infliction of punishment is set out, and, finally, the despair of those who are punished, where it says, we shall look (Isa 5:30).

Concerning the first, he sets out three things.

First, he threatens capture, take hold of the prey, as if to say: they will capture you like prey: the lion caught enough for his whelps, and killed for his lionesses: and he filled his holes with prey, and his den with rapine (Nah 2:12).

Second, careful detention: and they shall keep fast hold of it, lest you escape through their carelessness; and there shall be none to deliver it, through their lack of power: the Lord has delivered me into a hand, out of which I am not able to rise (Lam 1:14).

202. Third, rigid domination, and they shall make a noise, with threats and terrors: behold a people comes from the land of the north, and a great nation shall rise up from the ends of the earth. They shall lay hold on arrow and shield: they are cruel, and will have no mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea (Jer 6:22-23).

203. We shall look towards the land. Here he sets out their despair.

And first, as to help from earth: we shall look towards the land, everywhere, and behold darkness, because everyone persecutes them.

Second, as to help from heaven: and the light, of divine hope, is darkened with the mist thereof: I beheld the earth, and lo it was void, and nothing: and the heavens, and there was no light in them (Jer 4:23). And the prophet numbers himself among them by compassion.